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May 27, 2019 - Minion Death Cult
01:35:34
Loqueesha feat. Leslie Lee III of Struggle Session

This week the Cult discovers and nurtures our inner Loqueesha as we cover the modern Mrs. Doubtfire, a bafflingly earnest film about a white man who pretends to be a sassy black woman to get hired as a self-help radio personality. Listen to weekly bonus content at www.Patreon.com/miniondeathcult all the proceeds this month will be going to www.abortionfunds.org 

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The liberals are destroying California, and conservative humor gone awry... Conservative humor gone awry is going to fascistphonia today, so stay tuned.
We're going to take a few pictures of the desert and how their policies are actually messing it up.
It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
Stay tuned guys, we'll show you exactly what it looks like when people go to school in the desert.
All their environment, all stuff.
Stay tuned.
I'm Alexander Edward.
And I'm Tony Boswell.
And we are Minion Death Cult.
The world is ending.
Your uncle's racist IMDB is responsible.
We're documenting it.
So we have a super fun episode for everybody today.
First of all, I would like to plug the Patreon once again.
Patreon.com slash MinionDeathCult.
We are donating all the proceeds from this month's Patreon to the Abortion Funds Network at abortionfunds.org.
If you want to donate to a good cause and get extra content, including the bonus episode we released last week, sort of as a palate cleanser to our all-abortion episode on the main feed, We talked about Alabama, various other states losing their shit over a cartoon gay rat wedding, and also we talked about a
anti-feminist college essay that got a bad grade and the guy who wrote it was so convinced that this bad grade was unjustified that he decided to post it on the internet for for all of us to see.
So we got to look at those two things and sort of reinforce the idea that the people trying to legislate uteruses have absolutely no fucking clue what they're talking about.
Just in any sense of the word.
So, go to patreon.com slash MinionDeathCult, donate to a good cause, cancel your account after the first of the month, after your charge gets card, after your card gets charged if you feel like, or you could just continue to support the show.
We'd appreciate it.
Okay, let's get into this episode.
Today we are talking about the modern-day Miss Doubtfire, the liberal version of Sorry to Bother You, loquicia.
And here with us today to talk about this amazing movie is Leslie from Struggle Session.
How you doing, Leslie?
I am doing awful.
Why did you make me watch this movie is what I thought I would say about halfway through this film.
But by the time I got to the end, it was just such a journey.
I am just so excited to get into this.
So much going on.
Thank you for inflicting this upon me.
I appreciate it.
Hey, thanks for doing the show.
We love inflicting this sort of stuff on our guests and our audiences.
If you have Amazon Prime, this movie is available for free.
I don't know for how long.
I was...
Keen to watch it as soon as it came out because I was just convinced that it was going to be taken down from Amazon Prime at any moment.
So get it while it's good.
Probably don't pay for it.
If you can steal it or watch it on Amazon Prime because you've already paid for it if you have a subscription there, do that.
It's amazing, Alex, after recording for this long, for doing this for as long as we've been doing this, you're still optimistic enough to think they're going to take it down.
You still believe in humanity enough that they're going to take this down.
It's funny because, yeah, if you go on the IMDB, this movie has a 1.3 rating out of 10.
Fair.
Fair.
It has a higher rating on Amazon Prime at like 2 out of 5 stars.
In the defense of this movie, I think that black women between 35 and 65 is like the lowest rating, like the lowest denomination for people voting on IMDb, so the representation for who this movie is for is not here.
Yeah, we should give a brief synopsis of what this movie's about, in case you haven't seen the trailer, in case you haven't been online.
Loquisha tells the story of a white man who couldn't make it in radio until he pretended to be a black woman.
And the movie is just about him surpassing all expectations, just killing it on radio as the most incredible black female stereotype while trying to keep his anonymity and his sanity intact.
Yeah, that's a pretty good synopsis because it's not just about keeping a job.
Laquisha has a mind of her own.
That's the name of his alter ego and Laquisha starts coming out of him even when he doesn't want it.
It's just this movie if people heard of it because the trailer came out and Everyone is kind of lost their shit like they couldn't believe that this movie was made of this white guy His name's Jeremy Seville Jimmy Seville, actually Jimmy's revealed.
Oh, not the he's actually the Seville.
That's not the pedophile I Yeah.
Jeremy Seville.
Allegedly.
Allegedly not a pedophile.
Allegedly not a pedophile.
For legal purposes, we have to say he's allegedly not a pedophile.
We can't be sure.
We can't be sure.
But he's a comedian who, like, somehow gets this money to, like, put himself in movies.
And this is like a passion project for him.
Like, this is what he does.
He makes these kind of crappy, very extremely, extremely low budget movie.
But it is, and it's important to know, a passion project.
This is not something made to upset people, to piss people off.
It is made to inspire people and make people laugh and be positive.
Like, this is why this guy made it.
He thinks he's doing a good thing for the world by making this cheap, sad, crappy movie.
And I have to say, at certain points, you know, I wasn't sure if he was 100% wrong.
At certain points, he got to almost only like 95% wrong about this being a good thing.
Yeah, this movie was made by a baby.
It's just like, it's the most naive, sort of innocent take on a blackface movie you could possibly imagine.
Did you want to say anything up top, Tony?
Yeah, I feel kind of bad for him because I heard an interview with him, but he was inspired to make this movie after watching the movie, the film Tangerine.
He was like, I also need to speak for those who don't have a voice.
And I'm also going to do it on a low budget and really, you know, make people think with my art.
Wasn't Tangerine shot on an iPhone or something?
Yeah.
Yeah, iPhones.
It was an awesome movie.
Awesome movie.
Unlike Tangerine, Jimmy Savile, what's his name?
Jeremy Savile?
Yes.
Not only did he not shoot this movie on an iPhone, he was not legally allowed to say the word iPhone in the movie.
Did you guys catch this?
Yes, yes.
There's one scene where they're clearly saying iPhone and they switch it to smartphone in the most awkward, awful way.
It's a man and woman talking, but they overdub both their voices with the same smartphone.
Yeah.
Glad to see you're working so hard, Joe.
I got a smartphone.
But you said you hated smartphones.
I was wrong.
I got about 100,000 Facebook friends now.
But they forget to do it later in the film.
There's another scene where a character actually says iPhone, and they missed that one.
So that's still in there.
In the script, it was written E-Y-E phone, and then the second part.
But then Futurama called them and said they couldn't use that either.
There's another like really glaring, I don't know if you would even call it an editing mistake because I don't know what it is, but in like the last 10 minutes of the movie there's an error message on screen for the whole movie.
Did you guys catch this?
No, I didn't see it.
Maybe it's just for my Amazon Prime account on my Apple TV, but the screen goes black for half a second and there's a little window in the center that has an error code message on it and then it goes back to normal.
And I rewound it and watched it over and over again, and I paused it on the error message.
So it's in my version of the playback, and I don't know if that's just my, uh, whatever it was sending to my Apple TV, but I've never had that error message before.
You know, I think that it might have happened, but I just didn't notice it because my computer sucks.
Maybe your Apple TV just wasn't able to handle the very powerful message of this film, which this film does have a really big power, I wouldn't say power, galaxy brain message to it.
Because, you know, when I saw the trailer, I thought what everybody else thought that this is just like a really sad, very, very racist film.
But when you watch it like, There is not, it's not meant to be mean-spirited.
No.
It's not meant to be mean.
And even more weird, every single objection people made when they saw the trailer is addressed in the film.
They actually talk about how it is racist for him to be loquacious in the film.
Yeah.
He says, when he's caught, like, I don't know how, and people are like, maybe you should still do it.
He's like, I don't know how black women will feel about that.
There is a scene, a very long scene, where he lectures an angry white man because he's mad at the success of LaQuisha, who he thinks is a black woman, and he lectures him about how you should listen to black women, you shouldn't judge people by that.
It's so bizarre, like, it's not what you would expect coming in.
Like, this could have been a nasty, cheap sort of thing, but it actually tries to have a heart and a message that is meant to unite people in a very dumb way.
Let me be clear, the politics of this film are not good, but they're coming from the same place that, say, the Hillary Clinton campaign might come from.
Or Barack Obama.
You were wondering where the money came from this.
This would be the movie that Cory Booker and Alyssa Milano finance.
Yes, yes.
It's my favorite kind of racism.
It's that soft racism, you know?
It's like having dreadlocks for solidarity, but you're a white guy.
I just want to shout out Tyler Briggins for sharing the trailer of this very early on, before it went viral online, sharing it into the Minion Death Cult Facebook group, which you can join at Minion Death Commandos is what it's called.
But yeah, so our purview for this show, we're normally dealing with reactionary boomers and occasionally the alt-right, genocidal maniacs, etc.
We touch on sort of brainwormed liberals here and there.
This was not the movie I was expecting.
Like you're saying, Leslie, a movie about a guy who has to pretend to be a black woman in order to succeed in an industry that is specifically looking to uplift black voices...
Seems like it would be a shitpost of a movie.
It seems like it would be a movie designed to trigger the libs, designed to highlight reverse racism, etc.
But, like you said, it's just... It's not that movie.
It's very different.
We should, uh... Go ahead.
Yeah early on when you know he gets he because all right so to explain the plot so what we should probably get into it uh so the first 10 minutes are kind of this feel kind of like the bullshit boomer thing because he's uh the main character is this bartender who just tells it like it is you know He's mean to people and he tells them the truth about themselves and everybody responds like, oh, you're so fucking wise.
I'm going to go and quit my job.
I'm going to go break up with my boyfriend just because you're like a mean, angry, like white man who tells people what to do.
Let's go over those first two scenes because I have some amazing quotes from just those two scenes that you're talking about.
So he's he's tending bar at his establishment.
I don't think it's his establishment.
He just works there.
But there's like a guy in there in a suit who seems, you know, obviously like down on his luck.
And he's like, you know, I've been wearing this monkey suit going to work and like, I hate it or whatever.
And the bartender, Joe, main character, Joe, who also wrote and directed and starred in this movie, Says, I may just, this is his advice for the guy who has like a shitty job that he hates.
He says, I may just be a humble barkeep, but I always say I gotta be me.
Otherwise, who else is gonna do it?
And this is, like, so revelatory for the patron, for this customer.
He's just awestruck.
He downs the rest of his whiskey in a daze, gets up from the bar, points a finger at Joe like, my God, you're right, and leaves the bar to quit his job.
Like, I'm surprised he didn't, like, look down at his glass of whiskey in shock and then pour the rest of it out, like, because he thought an angel was giving him advice.
Yeah, it's just, you know, you're supposed to be just awestruck by all this great advice that Joe gives and later the loquicia.
All of it is just mostly garbage.
Yeah.
Because, like, Jared, the writer, has no idea what advice is, what good advice is.
He probably just learns it from Facebook memes and Instagram memes.
But, like, you're supposed to be awestruck by it.
So that's the first sign that this movie is awful and you kind of start to feel like, Okay, I know what this is.
This is gonna be him turning into a black woman and giving a bunch of boomer bullshit to people and to prove that the boomer bullshit is correct.
And you just need a what you just can't say it anymore because of the PC police blah blah blah.
But that's not it at all.
It's just that you're supposed to think that Joe has a particular gift at therapy.
They say this repeatedly.
He is literally supposed to be good, just good at therapy.
So it's not really about what he says.
You're supposed to perceive him as like, you know, this very wise, you know, homespun wisdom sort of guy.
That's not about, you know, being angry and white and all that stuff.
He's just supposed to be like a good listener who can help people with their problems.
It's every character, like you see it throughout the movie, like you said, every character is just constantly telling him how amazing he is.
Like this movie literally looks like an audition reel for the character Joe trying to get a job in radio broadcasting or whatever.
Like after he tells the guy, hey, I just gotta be me, and this guy's like, holy shit, I need a new career.
The other customer says, this is a quote, I've been coming to this bar for 10 years now and it never ceases to amaze me that you always seem to say just the right thing to just the right person.
What's your secret?
And it's like Joe's just like, oh I just wait until people stop talking and then I repeat something I heard Van Wilder say.
Like someone tells me about their painful debilitating illness and I just say something like, hey, don't take life so seriously.
You'll never make it out alive.
It's just this little turn of phrase that puts the onus back on whoever he's giving advice to.
I do want to make clear that Jeremy Joe is an awful actor as himself.
He is awful as himself.
Very good as Marquesha though.
Yeah, very good.
It's amazing the difference between those two characters.
He does not seem to be having fun.
He doesn't seem charismatic.
He has a love interest named Rachel, played by a beautiful black actress who's pretty good.
Decent in this film.
I really wish she had a black hair and makeup team to help her look as good as she Really does look but her eyeshadows interesting yeah, but as she comes into the bar next and you know her boyfriend's a Cheating dog or something or another and Joe tells her exactly the right thing to do Which is to call her a fucking idiot?
Yes.
He literally just calls her.
She comes in.
She's like, give me your strongest drink.
And then he's like, oh, what's on your mind?
And she's like, spare me the psychology.
She drinks.
She downs the drink and goes, men.
So we know we have like an angry feminazi on our hands, pretty much.
Are you think?
Are you think?
Real quick.
So as a bartender, I have to address the secondary customer.
Like, this nosy motherfucker.
Like, I'm having conversations all day with people and you've been listening for 10 years?
Like, mind your fucking business, man.
Like, what is wrong with you?
Those customers are the worst.
He's not worthy of even getting advice from Joe.
He just has to hang on and then compliment Joe in the hopes that maybe Joe will one day tell him to just be himself.
Yeah, yeah.
So she's like pissed off at men.
She's like, what is it with all you men?
You're all liars.
You're all like bad people or whatever.
And then in response to this, Joe does a 30 second impression of Gandhi because she was disrespecting men.
She was disrespecting men so badly that he had to come back with a reference to Gandhi, one of the best men we all know.
Oh, you think men are bad?
You think Gandhi's awful?
That's exactly what he says.
Kinda was.
He kinda was, actually.
Yeah, like specifically to his wife, right?
Yeah.
And with women, yeah.
He's saying, like, oh, you think Gandhi's a liar?
What did he do?
Lie about fasting?
And the whole bit is that he has to lie to his wife and tell her he ate something because she's worried about his health.
But he does it in the Gandhi voice.
And it's so long.
It goes on so long.
Yeah, it's really long.
As many bits in this film do, they did not have an editor.
And then he calls her a fucking idiot because she lets her boyfriend lie to her.
So, what's your problem?
I can't trust him.
But you keep doing it anyway.
What else can I do?
I mean, he says, give me another chance, so I give it.
And then he lies again.
And then he lies about the lies.
You know, it would be so refreshing if you guys would just tell the truth.
Well, I'll give you some truth.
Thank you!
You're welcome.
Now, first of all, you're a fucking idiot.
What?
See, I knew you couldn't handle the truth.
I can handle it.
No.
I don't think you can.
I think you want me to sign off on this victim act and find it charming and tell you you've been wrong.
And then you want me to indict half a species based on the actions of a couple of unevolved members of said species.
Okay, a whole lot of unevolved and unaccountable members, but that doesn't get you off the hook.
You want your guy to tame the truthless tongue?
Stop indulging him.
If you're gonna play a enabler, you're just as guilty as he is.
Actually, you're worse, because you're lying to yourself.
So, who's got the problem?
Wow.
Game set and matched.
Like, he tells her that she's worse than her boyfriend because she allows him to lie to her.
Like, this is, it's very Jeff Newsroom.
It's very, it's like Jeff Newsroom mixed with Tucker Max from, like, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.
Like, you're...
It's like, listen up, you stupid bitch.
This is what your problem is, and you need to solve it by yourself.
You need to figure out your own shit.
Like, all of his advice is just individualistic, clean your room type shit.
Like, that's the only advice he can give, is be yourself.
Oh, you think your boyfriend's the problem?
Well, it sounds like your boyfriend has a you problem.
Like, that's all the advice.
He's big on accountability, too, and taking responsibility for yourself.
In the first five minutes, in this conversation actually with Rachel, he does a not-all-men piece, and then he goes on to do this gnarly racist Indian impression, which is kind of a buffer to get us ready for the impression he does later on the movie, to prepare us for the quisha.
And then he goes on victim-blaming the entire time.
And then he rips off her idea for the entire film.
And then once he's done calling her a fucking idiot, she says, you know what?
You're right here.
And she gives him money and he's all, it's on the house.
And she's like, Oh, it's not for the drink.
He's like, I don't charge for my advice.
And then she says, well, you should, because it was amazing.
And yeah, this all happens in the, in the first five minutes, we've had two characters tell us how amazing the main character is.
Which, real quick, this is one of those things where, hey, listen bartender, um, if she insists on paying for a drink, let her pay for a drink.
Like, fuck you.
So, and the next, very next scene is, you know, his wife, like, hitting him up for money for, uh, to get his kid and the gift to school, you know that bullshit, right?
That he's supposed to be so down on his luck because his wife wants him to help pay for his kid to get into a good school.
Well, it's not even presented like that.
He goes over to pick up his son and his wife is like, oh look, I don't remember his kid's name, but he's like, Johnny, the piece of shit is here.
She's like you we need to put Johnny into a gifted school and you have to pay for it and it's $13,000 like just you know this gifted school this straw man of a bitch ex-wife or whatever and this is like the uh inciting incident I assume of the movie although they don't connect the uh the need for tuition to him doing blackface or black uh Black audio face, I think.
No, it's really weird because so he needs the money so he's made friends with the black woman who he calls a dumb bitch for being with her boyfriend and they record and they hear that she comes up with the idea that, oh yeah, they need a new host for the radio.
Why don't you record?
demo tape and he's like oh yeah that would be a great way to make some more money to get my son into this gifted school and so they record the demo and again he's awful as himself like it's so it's like not good it's boring to hear him try to do like a call-in radio show aside from the fact that he kind of has a conversation with himself where he makes voices right
Yeah, this scene where she's like, oh, here's this slip of paper.
The radio wants a new host.
He's at first reluctant, but then she convinces him by telling him he's great five more times.
And so they stage and they set up an audition type thing, like a spec script, but for a call-in show.
And she's posing as a caller.
Because I'm just focused on being a conduit of truth.
it, you know, because he's like he is embarrassed or he's self-conscious or whatever.
So then she tries the demo reel again, but asking him for advice about his own problem.
And she's like, I have this friend who's just so great and so amazing, but he's self-conscious because I'm just focused on being a conduit of truth.
So you don't take credit for the wisdom that you procure?
No, not stupid.
I'm just saying I keep my ego in check.
Because before I was a famous person that everybody pays attention to and celebrates in sometimes idiotic ways.
I was just a lowly bartender in some obscure neighborhood corner bar dispensing my folksy version of life as I see it.
And I am well aware that at any point I could wind up back there, once again, sentenced to relative irrelevancy.
So that's your secret.
Not much of a secret if everybody knows it, right?
Bravo, Joe.
Let's send it.
And so then the actual demo that they send in is Joe talking about himself, giving himself his own advice.
What's it right here?
Joe, as the host, talks about how he has to maintain constant vigilance in order to be authentic.
And like expounds on how he stays grounded despite being such a famous radio host.
Literally hero worshipped.
And it's like hard to explain, but this isn't a joke.
Like this is him really giving advice from the perspective of a world famous radio host to himself.
And it's played sincerely.
Like, when he finishes talking, she turns it off and she's like, bravo.
And she claps for him.
And that's what they send in.
When any producer would be listening to this would be like, this guy just talked about himself for 20 seconds on an advice show.
Like, what?
It's just, like, navel-gazing bullshit.
And then he doesn't get the job.
Yeah, he doesn't get the job.
And here's where the movie turns, right?
Because he doesn't get the job and he's just like, oh well, I guess that's it.
I guess nobody wants to hear a white guy tell them about how to live their lives or whatever.
And he doesn't say it in a mean-spirited way.
Yeah, he takes it pretty well.
Yeah he takes it pretty well like he's a little sad about it but he's like not mad at the world and so the turn when he comes for Laquisha is not him like trying to get back at those PC bastards.
It's just that well this didn't work out but maybe this will because I do need that job.
But you're saying that, you're giving him a lot of credit by saying that, but the tuition isn't brought up until like halfway through the movie when the job that he already has is threatened.
So you as the viewer are just supposed to be like, I guess he's doing this for money, but really all he's talking about is how he like wants to do this.
He just wants to do it and he's good at it.
All right.
And so, of course, there is a pretty racist scene in this.
Oh, there is?
Where we've been generous so far, but there is one unambiguously racist scene where they have like a fake Jerry Springer scene playing on the TV where two black women are, you know, snapping their fingers, rolling their necks at each other.
And it's really offensive because they didn't even give them like a real set.
Photoshop background sound.
It's Tim and Eric shit.
It's a green screen with like two women in the same shot together yelling at each other and saying, uh-uh.
It's awful, and that's where he gets the loquicia thing from.
He starts making that voice, but I do want to be fair to him.
He doesn't do it like in a mocking way.
Like he does it like, oh, I actually, you know, enjoy this.
It's just so bizarre.
He's so racist but not racist.
He's too stupid to be racist.
What I love about this is this guy lives in a world where he sees this scene and thinks to himself, you know what America wants?
America wants more black women telling him what to do.
America wants to uplift black women.
Man, I wish I lived in that world.
What the fuck?
You know?
Like he sees Jerry Springer and is like, ah Yes, this is this is on TV because people love and want to listen to black women Well, it was either that or a scene where he's making pancakes in the morning and looking at the bottle, the maple syrup bottle, and it's just like, this is what the people need.
And the turn in here is just so amazing.
Because then he starts, you know, he actually has that Eureka moment.
It's like, ah, maybe I should try to be a black woman.
And when he starts doing LaQuisha, My god, does Jeremy Seville come alive as an actor.
Holy shit.
This is something he's been working on for his entire career, I am sure.
Because he has it fucking down as a character.
Laquisha is not just a voice.
This is not just something he's put on.
This is a It's painful, like his throat actually sounds like it's being shredded apart.
They want women and minorities.
They don't want white guys like me telling them what to do.
from my god does he get into it and it's fucking amazing to watch.
It's painful like his throat actually sounds like it's being shredded apart.
They want women and minorities they don't want white guys like me telling them what to do.
If I was a black woman I'd be perfect.
Hey, Loqueesha.
My name's Ted.
Ted Rymel is dead.
You sound dead inside.
Damn, Loqueesha.
You got no spunk, no spark, no sizzle.
Yes, yes, and double yes.
When was the last time you felt alive, Ted?
I can't remember, Loqueesha.
Well, you better.
Otherwise, on your gravestone, it gonna read, Here Lies Ted.
Who cares?
Next column.
You know, LaQuisha, I think you're a sensation.
And I think you're a Sagittarius.
Well, I started out as a Sagittarius, but I ended up as a Libra.
Hey, LaQuisha!
My name's Katia.
I think my boyfriend's cheating on me.
Well, there's a good reason for that, girl.
What?
Oh, don't act shocked with me.
LaQuisha don't play that.
This ain't no pretend time.
This ain't no Narnia.
But I am the lion.
You are the witch.
And it's time for you to come out of the wardrobe.
This could actually work!
It's kind of gnarly.
It's like a really, like... I've never actually heard this type of voice ever.
I don't know where he got that, like, black women also have, like, gravelly voices.
Yeah, it's like gravelly, too.
He's like, it's half sass, half grovel.
It's like... It's, you know, it's a mix.
It's unique!
It's unique to loquicia.
Yeah, for sure.
It's funny because the whole premise of this movie is that this guy has just such an innate talent for advice and it's just his personality, his methodology, his way of being is just so
He's so well-suited for a profession like this, but when he becomes LaQuisha, all of his advice just becomes, like, stereotypical, like, Southern black woman advice, or, like, clapback shit, you know?
And, like, one of them, and he makes his own audition, I don't know if you guys discussed this, he makes his own audition talking to himself, you know, one is LaQuisha, one is the other caller, And, like, one of the pieces of advice he gives is, like, you need to get your head out of Narnia.
You need to stop lying, ditch the witch, and come out of the wardrobe.
Yes!
Like, that's what he decides Loquisha's advice is.
It's just, like, utter nonsense that, you know, sounds like a joke or sounds like a clever turn of phrase.
Well, you might not know this being as that you are who you are, but the Kong Cenardia is actually very huge in the diaspora of black women in America.
It's kind of a big deal.
Yeah, he makes these weird pop culture references that, like, not even are, like, black or white.
They're, like, a guy who's, you know, a 55-year-old guy who keeps making awful movies references.
Only like he's a he's a weird guy and it that comes out through the voice a little loquacious But I have to say it sounds better coming from loquacious There's also a super funky track playing behind his new audition tape.
The music is so bad.
The person who picked the music, which of course was Jeremy, he may have spent maybe 15 minutes listening to pre-recorded stuff for this.
He did not put any thought into the music at all.
It's all, like, awful and, like, so obvious what it's trying to convey but does it in a really lazy and awful way.
It does not help the film at all.
One of my favorite parts in the movie is right here because it shows him editing his demo tape on the iPhone.
It shows him, like, dragging clips labeled LaQuisha into separate tracks.
Like, with his thumbs, it's so fucking good.
And it's, of course, on a smartphone, not an iPhone.
He's dragging it to sector tracks in case, like, they ask to see the file, I guess, to make sure they don't know that it's both him.
Well, he wants to pan it.
He wants to do a hard pan in the left and the right.
So he has to negotiate not only for his pay scale, but he has to negotiate for how he's going to do the job because he can't let these radio producers, the owners, the managers of the station know that he is not in fact a black woman.
So he has to negotiate a scenario where everybody leaves the studio and he goes into the studio wearing a paper bag over his face.
Yes.
But he also needs his own producer.
He also needs his own engineer, somebody who's going to field the calls, and so he asks one of the black guys at his club who has, like, producing experience to do the job.
And I don't know how much you guys want to talk about this scene.
All I'm saying is the guy does agree to do the job, but I noticed that he was also wearing a Fred Perry polo shirt, so the only reason he agreed to do the job is probably because he's a proud boy.
It's funny that he is wearing a... but he is a black guy and he raises some of the objections that people would make upon hearing this movie.
Yeah.
But he kind of, you know, kind of goes along with it just because he... I don't know.
It's not really clear why he wants to do it because he's not getting paid that much money.
They're like friends, I guess.
Yeah, they're kind of friends or something or another, but he's the black friend.
He seems like a real peripheral friend at first.
Yeah.
They just kind of barely know each other.
He's like, hey, you produce stuff, right?
He makes beats, I think.
And now he wants to work the board at the radio station.
So the thing about him being black kind of interests me.
So what do we have so far?
The female lead is a black woman.
The best friend is a black guy.
We may meet later on that the villain of the woman he hires to be Laquisha is also black.
That's three black characters.
Now, when I initially saw this movie, I think most people did, like, we thought, oh yes, this is very racist, but this definitely could have been like a major studio movie back between, you know, 1950 to Probably around 2005, right?
Like, up until, like, very recently, this could have been a major, major studio motion picture, would have starred Adam Sandler.
The female lead would have been Halle Berry.
The best friend would have been Maren Lawrence.
The female, the real, the LaQuisha actor would have been Queen Latifah.
And what do you have when you put all those characters, when you put all those actors and actresses in that film?
We have a hit.
No, you have a black movie.
Because if you have that many characters, black characters in a film, it is a black film then.
Yeah, it's wild.
So, Loquisha, ultimately, it's hard to tell, you can't tell because of the budget and all this other stuff and how much Jeremy is in it, but ultimately this is a movie that would have been produced By like the Wayans Brothers and this little bit of black movie and a hit with black people if this came out 15 years ago.
It's wild.
It's wild to think about.
If he would have just pitched it to the Wayans brothers, it would have been amazing.
Like, I was blown away when I saw the premise of this movie, and I'm like, oh shit, they got actual black folk in this movie.
How did they swing that?
And I was like, oh, because it does seem genuine.
And then also, I think his, I'm going to put this out there, I think in real life, his son's mixed.
I think the kid that plays his son is mixed.
Way too handsome.
His hair is way too good.
I think that he is a mixed child.
Maybe showing my bias there, but the casting is pretty thorough.
Yeah it's it's so like people pan it as a modern-day minstrel comedy but I don't really know if that's quite fair or unless we apply minstrel to a lot of movies that we you know laughed at and enjoyed up until very very recently because this film
Could have been like huge huge and and we kind of see Where like this could have been like a Spike Lee movie too, right?
Yeah specifically for the scene that you know happens pretty quickly During his stint at LaQuisha.
So he comes to the radio station.
He's doing LaQuisha.
Everybody loves LaQuisha They're calling in she's giving great advice about I don't know something It's just she kind of just talks at people in her voice and he kind of just talks at people in LaQuisha's voice.
Even I'm getting confused.
I'm thinking of LaQuisha as a real person.
Yeah, I think it's easier if we just call that voice LaQuisha and him Joe.
Yeah, and so we get the angry white man calls up and he looks like a white nationalist quite deliberately.
He has the tats, the shaved head.
Yeah, he looks like a white nationalist and he's like, you know... He has that weird like thick white nationalist neck.
Yes.
You get when you're like over 40 and a racist.
Yeah, it's like a thick neck.
He's wearing all white and he's dressed like Andrew at WK.
And he immediately says, like, who are you?
Where do you get off?
You're just a black woman.
Why are you talking about white men so much?
Why are you telling white men how to live?
You don't know anything about me.
You don't know what we've been through.
Like, he gives the whole thing.
He calls her a racist.
Yes.
Which is very in our lane.
Like this is why it's such a weird movie for us to cover because we cover the whole like reverse racism or blacks are the real racist thing all the time and here in this movie we have a minor villain doing Facebook voice.
Yeah.
And you're supposed to think, oh, this guy's a piece of shit.
Like, you're supposed to not agree with this guy.
It's, uh... He says, you know, um...
Yeah, he says, you're racist, etc.
And then she, like, diagnoses him, he, Joe, as LaQuisha, diagnoses this character as unemployed within, like, the first, I don't know, 30 seconds of the phone call.
And that's the, that's how she cures his racism, by just calling him unemployed.
It's wild!
It's like super classist, but it's like... No, remember, that's why Trump happens, because there's also poor white people.
Like, he's addressing the real issues in this movie.
Yeah, like, he's trying... At least he's trying to, like, he's trying to say, like, yeah, you're a piece of shit, but you're taking your anger out on the wrong person.
It's like, you're the one that's the problem, it's not... He literally says, it's not black women's fault.
Like, he literally says this in the film, like, you need to stop blaming black women for your problems, you know, you need to work on you, you need to deal...
With you.
Now, she doesn't say how, I don't think.
But it's a very like Oprah kind of advice, which comes up later on.
It's like all the problems of the world that everybody has, they're not any kind of collective problems with collective solutions.
It's all about working on yourself and being more true to yourself and being a better you.
And so you as an individual have to work on it.
It's never a group thing.
Yeah, nobody who calls LaQueisha for advice is, like, a victim of a larger system or a victim of, like, the institutional racism or the institutional sexism or whatever.
They all just need to get their own house in order, you know?
It's very, like, Jordan B. Peterson advice.
But it's also Oprah advice, too.
It's all the self-help people.
It's not even just, like, Jordan Peezer.
It's the libs and the conservatives.
They all pitch this shit.
Well, Jordan Peterson, I think, describes himself as, like, a centrist liberal anyway.
He's kind of like if, like, Tim Ferriss and Oprah fucked.
Then, you know, remember that old way of comparing things?
Yep.
But then also, like, you know, didn't become Oprah and became, like, oh, and also listened to Cardi B a lot.
That is LaQuisha.
She's a little bit Cardi, a little bit Oprah.
Who's the guy, who's that like giant, like I mean physically giant self-help guy?
Oh, that one dude who, like, made that woman break up with her partner, like, in front of everybody on the phone?
Yeah, that sounds like him.
What the fuck is his name?
The guy, he, like, appeared in Shallow Howl.
Like, he's that big, like... Is it Tony Robbins?
Yeah.
Yeah, Tony Robbins, yeah!
It's very, the advice is very, like, Tony Robbins.
It's very, like, bring a woman up on stage and then humiliate her, break her down, and then tell her what her problem is, what her actual problem is.
Yeah.
And then, like, gaslight her into taking your advice.
Like, that's how he was before he was LaQuisha, and that's kind of how he is while he's LaQuisha, but bringing a different energy to it.
Yeah.
I want to go through, like, him succeeding as LaQuisha before the white nationalist guy calls in, because it's pretty amazing.
We get, like, a montage of calls with him.
And he's just, like, yeah, telling people, like, their own lives.
Like, a caller calls in, and they're like, hi, I'm Dan, and look, she's like, no, you aren't.
He's like, what?
She's like, what's your real name?
And he's all, Dan.
And she's like, no, it's not.
He's all, okay, it's Steve.
Like, she's able, she's not only, like, a stellar giver of advice, she's also a telepath.
Yeah, she's psychically empathetic is a thing that she's got going on.
That scene is so crazy because, first of all, when you call into an advice show you get to use an alias.
That's something you get to do, it's totally normal.
No, only the host gets to use an alias, not the callers.
Yeah, she totally doxxes him and then she goes on to shame him for being a virgin.
She's like, Oh, you sound weak.
You sound like a virgin or something like that.
And it's like fucking crazy.
It's like, you, you don't get to do that.
And then she goes on to use the word poochie, which I've never heard referred to like, like, I guess, you know, sex is like getting some sex was poochie.
And then it goes back to coochie and then goes back to poochie, which I first, again, I've never, you know.
Been black my whole life, been around black people my whole life, never heard the word poochie.
Only time I've heard the word poochie is when someone's dog named poochie.
Okay, well, you're black, but you're not LaQuisha black.
LaQuisha got her own type of black going on.
Yeah, I'm the only jealous LaQuisha Black.
And it's also like, it reminds me a lot of, I don't know, this is a very niche reference, but it reminded me so much of it, I had to like search my memory for it.
It reminds me of the scene in Be Cool, which is the sequel to Get Shorty, where John Travolta moves on to like the music industry, and he tells Steven Tyler what the song Sweet Emotion is about.
He's like, he's like, what is, he asked Steven Tyler, he's like, what is it about?
What is Sweet Emotion about?
And Steven Tyler's like, I don't know, it's about like, you know, having fun or whatever.
And John Travolta's like, no, it's not.
It's about your daughters.
And Steven Tyler's like, you know what, man?
You're right.
It is about my daughters.
And that's like the same, that's this movie.
That's exactly this movie.
It's funny you mention it because be cool is like just as awful as this movie just in like it just has like real stars in it and like a budget and like but everything else about it is like very very similar like this movie like as bad as it is there is almost like if he needed to like remake it as a big budget film there's very little he would need to change Totally.
Besides having a time machine, as I said, 2005, which is when Be Cool came out, it would be perfect for that time period.
So after this montage of successful calls where LaQuisha just fucking stunts all over the airwaves, the engineer producer, his friend that we were talking about before, says to him, I don't know what I'm more impressed by, you as a black woman or your therapy techniques.
Yes.
Which is, and again, his therapy techniques are literally just, you need to get laid, or you need to lose the zero and get with a hero.
That's like all his advice.
There's also like a little shot of a black woman driving a car listening to the radio and yelling, you go girl!
There's a lot of those moments in this movie.
There's so many moments in the film where he talks about what a great black woman he is.
It starts with him saying, like, I would be perfect if I was a black woman.
Yep.
Like again, what type of America are you living in where the only way you would get more head is if you were also a black woman?
There's a piece of advice where he's talking to somebody and it doesn't show what the caller asked.
It's like a part of the montage and he says, you white people are so afraid to speak your minds.
You're like slaves to what other people think.
After all these years, white people are the slaves.
How do you like that?
Which I found extremely offensive because white people weren't slaves, just the Irish.
Stealing green valor.
But yeah, a white guy in blackface telling other white people not to suppress their own thoughts about other races or something.
Well, it's more than that.
It could have been that, but it's a little bit more than that.
Because I don't know exactly where, like, the general thesis of the movie, like, comes in.
I forget which point.
But at a certain point, he lays it all out and he says, you know, all of, like, loquicia is a part of me.
I have a woman inside of me.
And we all do.
We have male and female inside of us.
He literally says the divine entity is not male or female, we just separated because it was more entertaining.
And so, you know, inside of us is male and female, black and white.
Chinese and Mexican, I think he says.
Homeless.
Homeless and rich.
He lists off a string of identities that in any other context would seem like targets for potential genocides.
Like, he's like, the quote you're talking about starts off with, like, everyone just needs to come together, which means embracing your inner Chinese, your inner homeless person, your inner billionaire, and that's the theme of the movie.
That was my favorite one.
It's like, yeah, we can all just be Chinese, we can all just be a little bit homeless, you know, and that's how we come together.
Yeah, so the point is to like, like he, Loquisha is a genuine part of him that he's letting out and so that's why it's not racist and why it actually isn't that mean-spirited is because he's letting a part of him out that's a part that is a part of, that is a real part of himself he's letting out with Loquisha and
And what we can learn from his escapades as LaQuisha is that all of us have these parts in themselves and if we let them out we could all realize that we're all really the same and in it together and we all be happy.
He actually does say Democrat and Republican too at one point.
So his idea is that like all of us you know are you know contain multitudes all of us contain all this stuff and And it's not, um, so he's not trying to mimic black women or mock black women.
He is, in some parts, a black woman because he is a human and black women are human and he, yeah, and all, everybody in humanity has all these parts within them.
We just need to let down our barriers, let down our guards, and realize that.
But I think what he's saying, sorry Tony real quick, I think what he's saying is that, like, what's implied is that white people aren't allowed to do that, or white people are too afraid to do that.
I think it's not not allowed.
I think it's too uptight, too chicken shit.
Too afraid of, like, PC culture.
Yeah.
It's implied.
That's, but I believe that's what he's saying.
Yeah, so it's less about like you're being oppressed and it's more like you are fucking- you're uptight.
You need to let go like LaQuisha.
And then you'll be happier and better.
Like it- like it's a very weird way to frame something that's usually like meant to be, you know, racist and bullshit.
It's like- but it's more like, oh, you're just doing it to yourselves basically.
It's like you're, you know, holding yourselves back.
You need to be truthful and honest with yourselves and then and like nobody else will judge you That's we that's we kind of implies like it'll be okay I wish there was more of like there is a kind of this message of fluidity and spectrum throughout the whole thing except Except for when he clarifies over and over and over again that he is in fact not gay.
Not trans.
Definitely not gay.
Like a million times.
He tells everyone, listen I'm not gay though.
Yes.
Yeah, so it's so amazing.
Or trans, or everything.
He's definitely not gay, definitely not trans, has a woman stuck inside of him, but he was no way ever would ever be anything close to trans.
So the local news does an entire piece... Oh, and it's one kind of meme scene where they have a man, well, someone in drag audition to be Loquisha, too.
Yeah, there's a lot of trans jokes in here.
That's a low point in the scene, Jeremy.
I'm really disappointed in that.
Yeah, he also makes a joke on the audition where somebody calls in, somebody whose voice he's also doing calls in saying that they used to be a Pisces but now I'm a Sagittarius and that's like a trans joke or whatever.
Yeah, yeah.
But, uh, so the local news, like, LaQuisha is such a hit that, like, the local news has to cover her, you know?
And this, this is, like, something that harkens back to the 80s and 90s where you just get these movies, uh, about, like, some sort of niche profession or some sort of character who's, uh, just so fucking great at their job that they become a legendary, like, Roadhouse.
Like, Roadhouse is about a guy who's so good at bouncing bars that he's world famous.
You know, it's that sort of thing.
There's like a talk radio— Be careful, man.
Roadhouse changed my life.
I made a lot of decisions as a bouncer because of the movie Roadhouse.
That's why you do the naked tai chi.
And that's exactly why there's so many people out there whose throats are ripped out because I saw the whole movie and I saw his regret.
But yeah, so the local news does a segment on the Loquisha, this mystery woman, whatever, has like testimonials from people on the street looking directly into the camera saying how cool Loquisha is.
and uh this segues into a shot at the bar where uh Joe is still working and they're watching this newsreel uh on the tv and the customer uh says something to the equivalence of uh you've got all like the customer knows that Joe auditioned for the radio show and didn't get it and so the customer this is that nosy mother
Yes, so Barfly number two says, you've got all this talent, but she's a major success.
Where's the justice in that?
And so this is also kind of a theme of the movie.
This is like where it gets as close to reverse racism as it ever really does.
But Joe says, well, I got a feeling everything's working out perfectly.
So, like, if Joe weren't pretending to be LaQuisha, this would be a very different movie, where Joe would possibly be more aggrieved at this woman who is ostensibly doing a great job at her profession, but because he, who has no experience in doing a radio show, didn't get the job, it's some sort of injustice or whatever.
What's great, too, is that the customer's like, you have all this talent, thinking that he's just as charismatic as she is?
Like, LaQuisha, the character, is very charismatic.
I wouldn't mind hanging out around LaQuisha.
It'd be fun.
But Joe, I have no desire to hang out with at all.
So it's like, no, you don't have a lot of talent, Joe.
You're boring as fuck.
You're a middle-aged white dude who's a bartender.
You're basic as fuck.
No one cares.
You're like a divorced middle-aged white dude.
No one wants to hang out with you.
We need to get moving on this plot here.
We've still got a little bit to go.
So the plot of this movie gets even more abstracted.
When Joe and his producer hold tryouts for the face of Loquisha because there's a lot of media around the radio host and they want... They're going to primetime.
They're going to primetime and they want her to do appearances and such.
So they hold tryouts for a, quote, Loquisha type.
So they're auditioning black women to fill the role of a totally fictional black character made up by a white man.
Which is just a really interesting dynamic in this show.
In this movie, rather.
And the one they settle on, who I don't think has a name.
Like, Rachel didn't even have a name for a long time.
I don't know if this character has a name or not.
It's just LaQuisha with quotes.
It's Renee.
Renee.
Renee.
It is Renee, yeah.
Renee says, LaQuisha is a role model for every African American woman on the planet.
She gushes about how amazing LaQuisha is.
Oh yeah, she introduces herself as Renee Michelle.
That's right.
Because she says, Renee Michelle, like Obama.
And then she says, Michelle Obama is another one of her idols, but LaQuisha just feels more real to her.
Then Michelle Obama.
Then Michelle Obama.
This is a very Facebook part of the movie, too.
Because this is a possible- And that's when we really knew this was a movie.
Because no one's realer than Michelle.
This is a possible allusion to, like, the various conspiracy theories surrounding Michelle, such as that she's, uh, you know, a trans woman or whatever?
Like, I don't know, like, it's amazing that this character, I mean, this guy wrote in a black female character who calls his fictional loquacious stereotype more real than the first black, uh, first lady.
There are so many moments in this movie where I'm like, oh fuck, I forgot that a white guy wrote this for a minute.
Like this is bad.
Yeah.
He wrote it about himself and didn't even write about himself.
He wrote about a character that he no doubt, no doubt has been playing for many years.
He thinks he has created the ultimate black woman in LaQuisha and he is gifting us by doing, you know, this film where we get to see LaQuisha.
And so we have the, you know, fake, air quotes, LaQuisha, start to take over the public appearances and become the public face while he keeps doing the radio show.
But in this, this is where the film takes one of its turns where, you know, the black woman who, Rachel, who is the romantic lead, she contacts him because she's, she calls LaQuisha first, right?
Yeah.
And to get some advice because she secretly feels like she's falling for Joe and she doesn't know what to tell him because she thinks Joe is just gonna call her idiot again.
And then Joe, as loquacious, says, no, baby, you just go ahead and, you know, do all that shit and did all that shit.
And so when she calls in, sorry, when she calls in, she says, God, you remind me.
So much of my friend.
And when he hears her voice as Rachel, he just smiles.
There's no moment of panic.
There's no moment of, oh my god, she's going to find me out.
She's going to know who I am or whatever.
So he just smiles.
So I'm like, OK, so she knows he's doing the show.
And he's just happy to get a call from her.
But no, she doesn't know.
She just says, gosh, you just remind me so much of my white friend Joe that I'm in love with.
And yeah, he tells her to pursue it.
He didn't get nervous at all.
He was like, you know what I can do?
I can like gaslight these pants off.
Let me do that.
She calls him and he's like really, you know, smooth.
She calls him as Joe later on and he's just like really smooth.
Says all the right quippy things to get her over or to get himself over to her place.
And when he answers the door was one of, you know, it's probably my 10th laugh out loud scenes because she opens the door In like this pink satin type of dress, very flattering on her.
And just the look on her face, like she's already super horny from hearing her doorbell ring.
And so we get this shot of her and then it cuts to a shot of him standing there with, I swear to God, like his Burlington Coat Factory leather jacket tucked into his jeans.
And she just grabs him and starts making out with him.
It's the funniest juxtaposition of a very attractive woman and the dorkiest guy in the bleachers at a little league game.
This is that ultimate white man fantasy though.
It's just like, you know...
Be Cool or Swordfish, where this amazing, exceptional-looking black woman is obviously attracted to this average-as-fuck, mediocre-as-fuck, frumpy-as-fuck.
You know wearing monsters described as like dad jeans.
Yeah, exactly.
It's that whole monsters ball Yeah, it's like it's that whole white man fancy where it's like listen these like these these bad black chicks They're also attracted to very average white dudes Very very mediocre average white dudes.
Oh, they don't just like rappers.
They also like contractors So they're sitting down, they're having a glass of wine, they start to make out.
Before they start to make out, this is something that I noticed, I was so excited to notice, is that this motherfucker digitally altered his eye color in post-production to make them glowing bright blue irises in this scene.
It looks like David Lynch's Dune.
And they're going back and forth with these shots and his eyes change color in this scene.
They go from just like a drab brown to a bright piercing gunslinger blue.
It's crazy.
It might be colored contacts, but I think, I believe I saw like a blue haze around his eyeball as well.
So I don't know what I'm watching it on mute right now and that's exactly what that is.
It's exactly a wild edit.
It looks insane.
It makes him look cross-eyed because it's so edited.
It's wild.
The eye color change is like one of the most amazing continuity errors since the wine drinking scene in the room where Lisa just continues to grab the same glass of wine throughout the conversation.
It's on that level.
Um, so this whole eye color thing is totally overshadowed by the very next thing that happens in this scene, which is when he starts making out with, uh, Rachel.
He does uncontrollable loquicia outbursts.
Yes.
Yeah, it's wild.
Like, they'll be making out and he's like, ooh, that feels good, child!
This whole thing is wild because it's like, this is where it kind of...
goes into Nutty Professor territory.
Yes!
The whole movie is pretty like, oh this guy's just being a bigot without knowing it.
But then at this point, it's like, no this is more than that.
At one point, I wish there was a scene where he got bit by a radioactive black woman.
Because that would have made this scene make way more sense.
Where he can't handle it.
I wish there was a scene where he went on to cook really good.
Just also do other things that, you know, are stereotypically a black woman.
Like, I wish he just became really nourishing to all his friends.
Like, that would have been really great.
I'm surprised it's not like a dance scene.
So, LaQuisha gets a mind of her own, as I said earlier.
She, at this point in the film, you realize that LaQuisha is a character separate from Joe and he's not necessarily in control of her or what she does or what she says and that is tying into the larger thesis of the film that these these we possess within us all these multiple identities.
It's very bizarre in this film because like At the end of the day, if you're not thinking of the theme of this film, you have to just assume that Joe has a mental illness of some sort that he's working through, and Loquesha is the result of that.
And it's the best thing that's ever happened to him as well.
Well, it's funny because if he were, like, giving himself advice right here, LaQuisha would just tell him, hey, stop being fucking racist.
But the movie takes a different tack, which is like, no, you need to embrace this, what we, the audience, you know, any sane member of the audience would think, hey, this is bad.
You should stop doing this stereotype of a black person.
Instead, the theme of the movie is no, embrace that flaw.
Because it's just part of you.
It's just who you are.
And stop trying to suppress that part of yourself.
And this is how we combat racism.
If we all act like black stereotypes, then there are no black stereotypes.
That's never going to happen because you guys are never going to learn how to dance.
He has to leave in a rush because he has done three separate outbursts as Loquisha while he's trying to make out with her.
And so he leaves and then he gets pulled over by a cop, a black cop.
A black cop, very important.
Yeah, and he's like telling on himself as Loquisha that he has been drinking.
It's a very like Robin Williams-esque performance.
The cop is visibly confused but also very patient with him.
Because he's a Loquisha fan as well.
Right, he explains his outbursts away by saying, oh, I just, I can't stop listening to Loquisha.
It's like she's infiltrated my brain.
And the cop says, yeah, it's like the whole city has Loquisha mania.
And then in his loquicia voice, Joe says, Long live loquicia!
And then the cop replies, Okay, I'm gonna let you go with a warning.
And that's it.
After he admitted to the cop that he had been drinking.
I'm gonna try this exact tactic against the cop next time.
And next time I get pulled over, I'm just gonna yell, Long live loquicia, and just see what happens to me.
Good luck, man.
Yeah.
It's probably going to end in violence.
He talks to his mom because he's conflicted.
Sorry to brush past that.
He talks to his mom because he's conflicted about these outbursts.
He can't control LaQuisha.
It's interfering with his personal life, obviously.
So he talks to his mom, who, womp womp, recommends that he call up LaQuisha for advice.
Because the mom also has LaQuisha mania.
And, uh, when he protests, she accuses him of being racist and sexist for refusing to take the advice of Loquisha.
Yes.
Which, again, is played for laughs because how could our main character possibly be racist when he's the one pretending to be Loquisha?
Yeah.
It's like such a weird joke.
It's very hard to follow, but he's supposed to be given the benefit of the doubt for embracing his inner black woman.
That's like his credit for the anti-racist argument.
I didn't really have that interpretation.
I think we were supposed to think that his mom was being, you know, fair, and it's just like a dramatic irony that he doesn't know.
But Doctor, I am Pagliacci, you know?
But that irony only works if we know that the character isn't racist.
um well we we know well i i think the racist stuff doesn't come into it it's just more like she's accusing him of being racist because if he were if he weren't loquisha he would be racist for not wanting to listen to her so we're supposed to think like the mom is not being wrong or over the top with this but it just so happens he's in the one situation where he happens to not be racist you see what i'm saying like the
Yeah, but it's explained by him being a very racist caricature of a black woman.
So what the movie is trying to tell us is very different from what's actually happening.
But I can't imagine, because all those white dudes out there that are like, no, I have a black friend.
Can you imagine being like, no, I am the black friend?
It's the ultimate.
That's a different struggle.
It's the ultimate.
You don't even have to make a phone call to prove you're not racist.
Also, right before he talks to his mom, he argues with Laquisha in the mirror.
And it's totally like this... Any of those movies where you have an alter ego that's taking over?
It's like the scene in Spider-Man with the Green Goblin, but it's Laquisha instead.
He literally can't control her.
It's also very Gollum.
Oh, very Gollum, yeah.
But that does put into perspective.
So maybe we are supposed to think that Joe is racist because he's not taking Loquisha's advice.
He is.
So, yeah, if we're playing this as what the film is telling us that they're at this point in the movie, they're two separate entities.
If he's not listening to Loquisha, then we do have to question whether that's because of some racial bias against himself, a.k.a.
Loquisha.
I think that is a fair point that the film is making at this point.
Yeah, this is definitely a case of internalized racism, for sure.
If you're not racist, you would not want the black woman who's doing nothing but good things to leave.
So this all comes to a head, and an even better demonstration of this conversation we're having is when Joe decides to air this drama on Loquisha's program.
Are we skipping over the jumper?
No, we're not there yet.
Oh.
It's right after.
It's a fuckin' one-two punch right here.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So weird, because these are two very big scenes and big moments for Loquisha.
Come back to back.
Weird movie.
So he decides he's going to fix this like sort of schizophrenic split personality problem by setting up a call between Joe and Loquisha.
Because he's like at the end of his rope.
He's either got to figure this out or quit the show.
And so he sets up two mics in front of him, one with a like a phone call-esque vocal filter, which doesn't actually come through in the audio at all.
It's just him turning his head back and forth from the Loquisha mic to the phone call mic.
And it's possibly the best scene in the movie.
I'll put a clip of it up on the Twitter.
You can also see a clip of the eye color change on our Twitter at MinionDeathCole.
He's arguing with Laquisha.
Laquisha's like, He's basically giving the gist of what's happening as Joe, the phone call person.
He's saying somebody else is getting all the credit.
It's like I'm a ventriloquist and people aren't paying attention to me and the ventriloquist dummy is starting to take over.
And LaQuisha says, it sounds like you're envious.
And Joe even says that this alternate personality is a woman.
And LaQuisha says something like, you just got envy.
You're just envious of this person.
And Joe says, fine.
I want people to know I'm smart.
And of course she's like, no.
You want you to know you're smart.
Brilliant, LaQuisha.
You want you to know how smart you are.
Don't get lost in her.
You can do everything she can.
She your little creation.
Have fun with her.
She your Frankenstein.
You know what they say, behind every successful woman is a man who wishes he could do it.
That's not funny.
Yes, it is.
And if you was in your right mind, you know it was.
You are that woman.
Love her.
Kiss her.
Hug her.
Embrace her.
Bring her back into you.
Carl Jung calls it the process of integration.
And as a black woman, I think I know a little something about integration.
Just cause you got a penis don't mean you ain't got a little woman in you.
I got a little man in me and I wish the hell he get the hell out.
Seriously, it's normal.
When people talk about God, they usually say he, but there's clearly no gender in the divine nature.
It just divided itself up into two for reproductive purposes because we get tired of the same old thing.
My advice to you is don't be afraid of any part of you.
The man, the woman, the black, the white, the Chinese, the Mexican, the Christian, the Jew, the Muslim, the vegetarian, the carnivore, the Republican, the Democrat, the homeless bum, the billionaire.
We need all of them to be whole.
And then so Loquisha tells Joe to embrace this other creation who is obviously Loquisha to anybody listening to this fucking radio station.
She says, this is a quote here, this woman is your creation.
Love her.
Kiss her.
Bring her back into you.
Carl Young calls this the process of integration.
And as a black woman, I think I know something about integration.
Oh, God.
Do you?
Or are you not paying attention to what's actually happening?
I just want to say that this, for the record, this is the only kind of integration that Joe Biden would support.
So, equal rights, right?
No, no, no, no, no.
But white people get to act like they're black now.
That's pretty cool.
You need to let your inner loquicia off the PC plantation.
All the white kids are going to get do-rags in the mail?
You too can attempt to get waves.
And then Loquisha delivers the theme of the movie like we talked about earlier.
No, we're all Chinese.
No, we're all Jewish.
No, we're all homeless.
So his producer also says, hey, I know you just talked yourself off a ledge.
You think you can do it for real this time?
Because right after this scene is a fucking scene where a suicidal jumper on a bridge calls into Loquisha.
And LaQuisha does the whole, like, uh, sort of, tough love, hey, if you don't care about yourself, why should anybody else?
Go ahead and jump.
Yeah, she calls and he says, LaQuisha, call again, I'm gonna kill myself.
And she's like, well, thank you for calling, bye.
It's so crazy, like, this scene should be taken off the air for the safety of people out there.
Totally.
Like, this scene, like, this is the thing where, This really clarifies that he is in fact a radio personality and not a psychologist at all.
Because this scene is fucked.
I was trying- And like, in real life, it would have at least ended in a hang-up.
There's no fucking way it would have gone through.
I was trying to think of- There's a reference I'm thinking of that is just this same thing.
A person says they're suicidal and our protagonist, who's just an alpha, you know, take-no-shit kind of person, is like, okay, go ahead, do it.
Do it if you want to do it.
Like in order to prove that the suicidal person isn't actually suicidal or whatever.
Just wants attention.
Yeah, the closest reference I could come up with is that scene in Lethal Weapon where, uh, what's-his-face Mel Gibson handcuffs himself to the jumper and is like, Like, Lou, you wanna jump?
You're taking me with you.
Let's go, man, let's go!
Like, it's very, like, edgy, you know, faux tough love type of thing.
We should also mention... Only without the handcuffs, by the way.
We should also mention that the jumper is on a bridge with a green screen background.
I don't even think the bridge is there.
No, none of it's real.
It's all green screen.
She's actually, though, the jumper is actually the best actress in the movie.
This is the best performance in the movie.
Yeah, once again, it's just an individual, sort of like, you need to care about you before anybody else can, sort of thing.
And the caller is taking this, you know, this statement, this advice, like, pretty hard and doesn't say anything, and there's an awkward pause, and then Loquisha says, You ever been to France?
And this is how she saves the jumper's life is literally by telling her to go to France.
Yeah.
This would be like if some guy called in saying he was going to slit his wrists and you were like, hey, why don't you buy a new car instead?
Yep, exactly.
Why would you kill yourself?
You're obviously of means and rich.
Why would you do that?
Yeah, she literally just says, hey, go to Paris.
And then the funky backtrack comes up again.
Yep.
LaQuisha nails it.
Go ahead.
Also, like, if this wasn't radio and they were face-to-face, LaQuisha would see that this woman is actually pretty, like, disheveled and, like, wearing, like, a pretty beat hoodie and, like, a t-shirt, hair's kind of a mess.
Like, maybe you shouldn't suggest to this person that they, like, you know, can just go to France because they have the money for it.
Yeah, pay your way out of suicide.
Are you assuming because they have a cell phone that you can travel the world?
So, he kills it, LaQuisha kills it, makes news again, which... LaQuisha does not kill it.
LaQuisha actually does the opposite and saves it.
She makes national news, which prompts a response from Oprah, who sends... What?
Wants to give... Remember when LaQuisha's like, go ahead and jump.
It's gonna boost my ratings.
Like, go ahead and jump.
It's gonna make me famous.
Like, go ahead.
Could you, like, what kind of, what is that logic?
Yeah, I'm the advice column that didn't work and someone died from.
Please call me.
But it does work, and yeah, so LaQuisha gets an offer from Oprah to get her own show on the Oprah Network.
And Joe turns it down, obviously, but he tells his producer about how he's going to turn it down.
The producer's kind of like, no, we should do this.
And then Joe talks him out of it.
But the producer makes the mistake of telling the fake Loquisha about this this offer so the fake loquisha uh what is it comes to his apartment uh demands that joe take this offer or else she is going to blackmail him or in her words black female him with the truth best line in the fucking movie i'm not blackmailing you
i'm black femaling you so So she says that she gets 70% of the profits, he's basically beholden to her, he says no, refuses, but then he has a playdate with his son where his son is enjoying all the stuff that the money is buying him, so he sends a text message to the fake localesha like, alright, you have a deal or whatever.
The story that his fucking son tells him about being yourself?
It sounds like no man like you should be yourself because one time I pretend like tuna This guy brought me a tuna sandwich And I ate the tuna sandwich and then I threw up and then I realized I shouldn't lie about who I am I should tell me why I don't like tuna That was like an epiphany to Joe It's an amazing scene, but that's actually the whole point of the whole film its entirety is actually that
This only happened because his son was supposed to go to a private or charter school, it sounds like.
And what this really means is that private and charter schools cause racism, which is actually true.
But this is how this movie is actually, this is the whole point of the entire movie, is that charter schools and private schools are the reason that racism exists, so we need to get rid of those.
Agreed!
Agreed!
Yeah, right?
So he quits the show on air after that talk with his son, leaves the studio, but the fake LaQuisha is also in the studio with him.
She leaves after him.
And the station manager intercepts her thinking that she's the real LaQuisha and is like, oh, what are you doing?
How could you quit or whatever?
And she spends it to ask for more money and sort of take over as the actual LaQuisha.
Of course, the radio station manager doesn't know that she hasn't been LaQuisha this whole time, but she sort of sees an opportunity.
She becomes the new Laquisha and she is bad at the show.
Yes, because she doesn't have the empathy that the real Laquisha does.
And people don't like her.
They fast forward a few weeks and somebody calls up and says, you know, for the past few weeks you haven't been sounding like Laquisha.
You don't even literally sound like Laquisha anymore.
We think you're a fake Laquisha.
There's apparently a fake Laquisha movement going on.
Um that her bosses are aware of like they think they replaced Laquisha with somebody else because she's not good at the show she wants the fame and the fortune but she just is like mean too mean and too dismissive of people but now Laquisha is mean but in a loving way and like that psychic ability she has she knows the exact shitty thing to say to you to get you to do right but the fake Laquisha does not have that
she's just she's just a real sassy black woman so she's a piece of shit yeah yeah and it's uh it's kind of subtle you know You know, they do a good job of showing how she's bad at her job, because she makes a couple mistakes, like, I don't know, literally saying that she is God on there.
Yeah, that was the best.
She accuses a caller of being like the people who nailed Jesus to a cross, and then calls herself God, and then growls into the microphone.
I just evolved.
I'm an evolved soul, and you can't handle it because you're ignorant, so you're hatin' on me.
You like the Romans who nailed up our Lord and Savior.
You a murderous cretin, and I'm God-like, so that's what I'm talkin'— Kiddin'.
Hello?
Hello?
Did you just hang up on me?
Oh, no, no, no.
I'm Loquisha.
Don't nobody hang up on me.
I'm due to hanging up, goddammit.
Hello?
Hello?
I am the greater power for Loquisha!
Nobody hangs up on me!
So she's bad at the job, like we've said.
The station managers are mad at her, so she decides to take a two-week vacation where she's gonna, you know, get her head straight, you know, supposedly, and then she'll try again, but really what she's gonna do is she goes to Joe's apartment, not the MTV one, to tell him to come back to the station because, quote, You were a better black woman than I am.
Oh god.
There I said it.
Deadline.
And then he says, that's not the point.
He does!
He does say that's not the point!
Acknowledging that it's correct, but it's just not the point.
Well, it's not a contest.
The point is that it was never about race.
Yeah, it's not a contest.
It was never about race, blah blah blah.
It's about expressing yourself, being authentic, you know, these things that Joe definitely wasn't doing.
And she fucked it all up, etc.
She still demands that he start doing the show again, she'll take a pay cut, etc.
But he decides to put a stop to it and go confess to the station managers, who are just sort of like, you know, awestruck or bemused by this story.
And in order to decide how they're going to go forward, they set up a Facebook poll.
To test the audience, to ask the audience whether they want a Joe show, a Loquisha show, or for him to be fired.
Yeah.
Rachel confronts him.
She's real pissed.
Rachel confronts him, calls him racist and sexist.
She says everything to him that people said about the trailer.
This is the part of the film that really just like It blew my mind because everything you could say about this film about how it's you know the cultural appropriation like how you're making a caricature of black women unfair caricature of black women all the stuff we were saying online when we saw this trailer it is in the fucking movie voiced by the romantic lead character.
Right.
Which makes it okay, right?
Right.
He dismisses this criticism by saying, I might be a fake and a phony, but I am the most authentic one you will ever meet.
And then she replies with, I know, Joe, and I love you.
Hold on.
We totally skimmed over the greatest line of the entire show when Rene comes and talks to him about giving up the show and about how he was right.
The show can't exist without him.
And Renee says, you're a better black woman than I am.
Oh, we talked about that.
Did you miss it?
Oh yeah, I was peeing.
God damn it.
Well, what are your thoughts on that?
Do you agree with her?
That he was a better black woman than she could ever be?
I mean, obviously not.
I think that's not the point.
We both agreed with it while you were gone.
We both agreed with what she said.
I just think that if he were to be like, if he were to just mysteriously die in a jail cell, they might look into it more.
Yeah.
So she goes to say, I love you, but he says it first.
She goes, I, and then he says, love you.
And then she says, that's what I was going to say.
And then he says, so there's nothing left to talk about.
And they kiss.
Just shutting women up, just shutting black women up one more time.
Let me mansplain to you how you feel.
And they have sex.
And that's the end of the movie.
Yeah, they have sex, he wakes up to the good news of the poll, and then we see the tail end of the first episode of the Joe Show, and then he announces that the Joe Show will be back tomorrow, but now it's time for Live with Loquisha.
What's your problem?
What's your problem?
Okay, that's the end of the movie.
This was, yeah, an amazing movie.
I highly recommend watching it if you can watch it for free.
It's one of my favorite new bad movies.
This is like, auteur-level bad.
Like, you can only achieve this level of bad movie if you write, direct, and star in it yourself.
And you believe in it.
And you believe in his message.
And he said, like, after all this controversy, when the trailer came out and everybody was mad, he was like, look, we just made a movie to make, you know, people laugh.
And that's why we're going to release it early.
That's why it's on Amazon Prime, because he wanted to release it early to get out there ahead of all this controversy.
so that people can see that actually it's not what they think and it actually isn't this is a movie made by a very weird and very sick man but not a extremely not significantly racist man not significantly Yes, a soft racist.
Like a non-significantly racist film.
This could have been all those things.
It could have been a hard, hard right movie.
Very easily, instead, it's a soft, squishy, centrist, everybody come together and love one another movie.
Right now, yeah.
And even more than that, this could have been, in an alternate universe, one of the biggest films of fall.
Absolutely.
I really like that take.
1998.
Yeah, I like that take.
I would go to the double feature of LaQuisha and White Chicks.
Yes.
Okay, that's it for the show.
Thank you so much, Leslie, for joining us today.
We really appreciate it.
Thank you for having me.
Everybody, patreon.com slash struggle session.
Check us out.
Yeah, please listen to Struggle Session wherever you can find it, patreon.com.
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Thanks for listening, everybody.
Bye.
Thanks a lot.
Bye. Bye. Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
It's coming through.
Took me a century.
To get next to you.
Plus Mace and NMA.
Invested in you.
So I feel the energy.
Invested for soon.
I never read the 48 lines.
The power of the duxie makes a grown man cry.
The day I came apart, my mama, I saw a grown man cry.
They say it has magic powers, even magic ain't God.
Wake you about to sleep and take a 3M car ride.
He said the booty, only thing between him and God.
They love the booty, sacrifice their family and job.
That's make police feel powerful in the hood.
Guns make us feel powerful, but they don't do no good.
I know my blackness powerful, and they don't like that.
I know some niggas so dead, sit back and watch them tap dance.
Bombs over Baghdad, they have a flag to brag bout.
Don't make you a big boy, cause you got a knife stack.
Carolina homeboy, you know we keep a stack house.
It's power when you know the game, I'm feeling like a champ now.
I went to rap rap, homie get out the trap house.
I want the power to be able to rap bout what I rap bout.
Black child, God-loving textiles.
Point-blank death smiles.
Steph Curry projectiles.
I saw the gold from 8 Mile.
Every stone you threw, I picked it up and built a powerhouse.
Caught a case.
I got murder in my profile.
Niggas still billing me.
See, that's just the appeal in me.
Respect on my name.
Why y'all niggas so emotional?
Power.
I feel your energy.
It's coming.
Took me.
I sent your reign.
You're getting next to you.
Plus Mace and NMAs.
Invested in you.
So I feel your energy.
Invested pursuit.
Power up with the word.
I got it from my God.
He said a good shepherd don't trip over what they heard.
Let them talk the talk until the night you choose to go and purge.
I came up when the rest of you struggled and failed to flourish.
Conversations with the flirts.
She said I'm good as herbs.
Get them high, get them high from the hood to the suburbs.
No one can take your power even if a storm occurred.
It ain't man-made but whether or not you pay don't help or hurt.
It's a perk.
Jam the squad written on my shirt.
I got
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