[00:00:04] Speaker A: This Film Is lit, the podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: And I'm Katie. I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen the or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in, and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit.
A hundred years ago, they used to put on white sheets and stick bloodhounds on us. Well, nowadays they traded in the sheets. Well, some of them have traded in the sheets. They traded in those white sheets for police uniforms. They traded in the bloodhounds for police dogs. It's Malcolm X and this film is Lit.
Hello and welcome back to this Film Is lit, the podcast. We're talking about movies that are based on books. We got plenty to talk about in this episode discussing Malcolm X, so we're going to jump right in. You have not read or watched the film Malcolm X. We're going to give you a brief summary right now. Let me explain.
No, there is too much. Let me sum up. This is a summary of the film sourced from Wikipedia. One night, shortly before Malcolm Little is born, a party of Klansmen surround the Little family home in Omaha, Nebraska, break all the windows, and ride off into the night. Malcolm has a Grenadian mother and African American father. His father, an activist for black rights, is killed. His death is registered as a suicide, and the family receives no compensation. Malcolm and his siblings are put into protective care. Malcolm performs well in school and dreams of being a lawyer, but his teacher discourages it due to his skin color. During World War II, Malcolm lives in Boston. One night at a dance, he catches the attention of the white Sophia, and the two begin having sex. Malcolm travels to New York City's Harlem with Sophia, where he meets West Indian Archie, a gangster who runs a local numbers game at a bar.
The two become friends and start cooperating in a legal numbers racket. One night at a club, Malcolm claims to have bet on a winning number. Archie disputes this, denying him a large sum of money. A conflict ensues between the two, and Malcolm returns to Boston. After an attempt on his life, Malcolm, Sophia and Malcolm's friend Shorty and a woman named Peg decide to perform burglaries to earn money. By 1946, the group has accrued a large amount of money from their crimes. However, they are arrested. The two women are sentenced to two years as first offenders, while Malcolm and Shorty are sentenced to eight to 10 years. While incarcerated, Malcolm meets Baines, a member of the Nation of Islam, who directs him to the teachings of the group's leader, Elijah Muhammad.
Malcolm grows interested in the Muslim religion and lifestyle promoted by the group and begins to resent white people for mistreating his race. Malcolm is paroled from prison in 1952 after serving six years and travels to the Nation of Islam's headquarters in Chicago. There he meets Muhammad, who instructs Malcolm to replace his surname Little with X, which symbolizes his lost African surname that was taken from his ancestors by white slave masters. He is rechristened as Malcolm X.
Malcolm returns to New York City's Harlem and begins to preach the Nation's message. Over time, his speeches draw large crowds of onlookers.
Malcolm proposes ideas such as African American separation from white Americans. In 1958, Malcolm meets Nurse Betty Sanders. The two begin dating, quickly marry and become the parents of four daughters. Several years later, Malcolm is now in high position as the spokesperson of the Nation of Islam. During this time, Malcolm learns that Muhammad had fathered numerous children out of wedlock, contradicting his teachings and Islamic. After President John F. Kennedy is assassinated In November of 1963, Malcolm comments that the assassination was the product of the white violence that had been prevalent in America since its founding, saying that the killing is an example of the devil's chickens coming home to roost. This statement damages Malcolm's reputation and Muhammad suspends him from speaking to the press or at temples for 90 days. Malcolm announces that he has been forced out of the Nation of Islam and will start his own mosque in New York. In early 1964, Malcolm goes on a pilgrimage to Mecca where he meets Muslims from all races, including white. His house is firebombed in early 1965. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm speaks before a crowd at the Audubon Ballroom, but assassins shoot him several times. One of Malcolm's bodyguards shoots one of the shooters in the leg before a furious crowd beats him. Malcolm is transported to a hospital where his death is announced to the crowd. The film concludes with a series of clips showing the aftermath of Malcolm's death. Martin Luther King Jr. Delivers a eulogy to Malcolm and Ossie Davis recites a speech at Malcolm's funeral. Nelson Mandela delivers a speech to a school, quoting an excerpt from one of Malcolm's speeches.
That is a brief summary of the film.
I got a lot of questions. We're going to jump right into them in. Was that in the book, Gaston?
[00:04:57] Speaker B: May I have my book, please?
[00:04:59] Speaker A: How can you read this?
[00:05:00] Speaker B: There's no pictures. Well, some people use their imagination.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: So film opens in Boston and it says the War Years, I believe, or something like that is the. I think it's the only on screen title we get is like the very, very, very beginning of the film. I think it says, like, the war years takes place during World War II. Malcolm X goes by Red at this time, living in Boston. And we see a little bit of his life here as he's. He's kind of a.
A young, stylish man.
Like, he's part of a very distinct subculture within the black culture in Boston that is. I don't. I don't actually know the right word for it, but very, like extravagant, like suits and. Yeah, zoot suits and all that sort of thing. Yeah.
And one of the opening scenes we see is him going to a barber shop to get his hair straightened. And he goes in and Shorty, played by Spike Lee, is his friend who is also a barber who straightens his hair for him. And during this scene, again, it's like one of the first moments in the movie, we see Malcolm X getting his hair straightened and they put this chemical straightener on his hair that after a while starts to burn. And in this opening scene, as it is burning, Malcolm X starts, like, freaking out. Like, his whole body is, like, writhing around and he's like flying out of the chair because it is so painful.
And I wanted to know if that was something that came from the book because I thought it was a very interesting depiction of kind of the. The way I interpreted the scene is basically as Malcolm X's body is kind of physically objecting to the process of straightening his hair. Like, obviously in the moment, in the context of the story, it's, well, it burns and it hurts or whatever. But his reaction is so over the top that I definitely think it's also meant to be figurative and metaphorical in that this idea of straightening his hair in order to have white hair. He even says at the end of the scene, looks white, don't it? Like, after they reveal his hair. And I wanted to know if that came from the book. And in particular that idea of this as being something unnatural that his body is kind of rejecting.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: So this scene is from the book and it's pretty close to how it's depicted in the movie.
I did feel like the movie maybe like bumped up the physicality of it a little bit based on what's described in the book, but it's pretty close. Okay, I don't believe that specific line. Looks white, don't it? Yeah, I don't believe that's in the book though.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Okay, so then we get a quick flashback. And this movie really does an interesting thing with flashbacks where it intersperses flashbacks to Malcolm's childhood kind of sporadically at relevant moments, but never like.
It never like lingers on. The flashbacks, they're kind of very quickly intercut in. In places where they are relevant. And we never get like a subtitle or anything saying like, you know, Malcolm's childhood or whatever. Like other than that very first one.
And I. Which I thought was interesting, but I wanted to know. We get this flashback where we see that before Malcolm was born, his father, his family was dealing with obviously being a black family living in America and their house is attacked by the Klan.
And I think it gets burned down in this scene. Right.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: Like they thought that's a later scene.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: I couldn't remember. There's multiple. Yeah, that's right. But the clan attacks their home and I wanted to know if that. Yes, because it's just his mom in this scene. I wanted to know if that came from the book.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Yes, it does this move. The book starts with that scene. Yeah, the book is more of a linear kind of mode of storytelling. But I did appreciate the way that the movie made it non linear. I thought that worked really well.
[00:08:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the movie does a really good job. And I had a note about it, but I was kind of amazed at how like parsable the film is despite the fact that it never tells you when any of these events are occurring.
And it does jump around a little bit. It mainly the main story does flow like the current. Like the Malcolm X's adult storyline flows pretty much like linearly in time. But we do flashback to different periods throughout his childhood at different times in a way that is incorporated that you would think would be jarring, but actually for me just completely worked and also helps with the pacing of the film.
Yeah, I really like the way that the movie incorporates the flashbacks to his childhood. I think it keeps the movie moving, but it also is able to tie in relevant portions of his childhood to his later life in a way that worked really well.
We also find out during some of these flashbacks that Malcolm's father was a kind of like a black liberation preacher, but specifically one that was like a black people should return To Africa, Like, Africa essentially, as the leader of whatever his. I don't know if they ever say exactly what he was a Christian preacher of some sort, but I don't know if they ever said.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: I don't know if it ever says in the book. The book does say that his father was a follower of Marcus Garvey, I believe. Yeah, but I don't know if it ever says what, like, religion specifically. He was preaching.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah, but so that is. That's his father's thing. He has this lineage of like. Like I said, his father was also a kind of a civil rights advocate of a specific angle. And I wanted to know. But eventually we find out that his father was killed, murdered and left for dead, or left in front of a. Like a streetcar or something like that, and. And is killed, but that at that time, the insurance company ends up ruling it a suicide, despite the fact that it, like, he had his head, like, beaten in by a hammer and then was laid in front on these train tracks or whatever. Very odd way to commit suicide.
And so his family ends up getting no money from his life insurance policy. And I wanted to know if that was true to what actually happened.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's described exactly the same way in the book. His head is bashed in and they lay his body on the streetcar tracks and then it gets ruled a suicide and they get nothing.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought it was interesting that in the film they depict him as being alive and pretty conscious while he's on the tracks, which I think is just to kind of amplify the horror of that. The horror of that scene. Whereas I think the way it's described at other times to me feels like it's implied that he was dead when they put him on the track. You know what I mean? Or at least mostly dead, but he seems like mostly fine, except. Yeah, I thought that was interesting.
But, yeah, I agree. It's definitely there to kind of amplify the horrific nature of what happened to him, which it effectively does. Then we move forward and we get again, some more flashbacks to Malcolm's childhood. And he's recounting how his mother raised all of these, like, six. I don't know, multiple children, quite a
[00:11:58] Speaker B: few children, quite a few siblings.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: By herself after his father passed away with no money, again, because they didn't get any insurance payout. And so she had trouble, you know, raising all of these children. They were getting into trouble and stuff like that. So the state took them away from her, or at least some of them. I don't know if it applied all of the children, but I think.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: I think eventually all of them.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: Because eventually she gets placed in, like, a mental institution.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: Yeah, we see that later in the film. Yeah. And it is explained that he ended up going to this, like, boarding school and went to, like, a public school, and he was the only black kid in the class and in this, like, public boarding, kind of orphanage or whatever. I don't know exact system that he was in, but something like that.
And he explains during this time period in his life that he got called the N word so much. The exact line in the movie is, I got called the N word so much that it didn't even bother me. I thought it was my name, which I thought was interesting. And I wanted to know if that came from the book or if that's a movie invention.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: That line is not verbatim from the book, but there is a very similar, very close line in the book that I'm not even really sure how to
[00:13:03] Speaker A: read because it's got a lot of slurs in it.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Yeah, they called us N word and D word and R word. Yeah, not the R word you're thinking
[00:13:11] Speaker A: I was gonna say. I don't even know what this is.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Looking at it here, I had to look it up. I had never heard it before.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: We're reaching levels of slurs heretofore.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: It's spelled R A, S, T, U, S. Yeah, I had never heard that before, but they called us all those things so much that we thought they were our natural names.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: There you go. So, yeah, clearly it comes from the book.
So then we jump back forward in time to Malcolm's adulthood, and he's. He's moving kind of through his life in Boston, and he ends up meeting this guy named Archie, played by Delroy Lindo, currently nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Sinners. But he's in this movie playing West Indian Archie.
[00:13:48] Speaker B: And also he looks the same.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: He looks exactly.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: He has not aged.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: It is wild. Yeah, it's kind of like the Patrick Stewart thing where, like, he must have hit when he hit, like, 30 or
[00:13:58] Speaker B: whatever and just never changed.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: Stayed the same. Yeah. Because, yes, he does look almost identical to how he ducks in Sinners this year. And this movie came out 33 years ago, so, yeah, yeah, it is wild. But he meets Archie again, played by Delroy Lindo.
And Archie is kind of a local gangster who runs a numbers game, among other things. But he's just kind of one of the big wig local gangsters in this area of Boston.
And Malcolm Gets in with him, and they start running a numbers game together. Because he sees Malcolm, like, beat up a guy for insulting his mother and is like, that guy's got gumption.
He can be a gangster. And so they start running this numbers game. But he's kind of like. He transforms Malcolm a little bit. This movie is really a kind of a.
An exploration of all of the people and the interactions and the moments in Malcolm's life that shaped his philosophy and who he was as a person. Obviously, it's an autobiography that makes sense, but it is very much. It's kind of an.
I don't know if there's a.
An adjective version of this, but, like, it's kind of like an Odyssey style. Like, you know, it's not vignettes necessarily, or, like the same kind of thing, but it is very much.
You're seeing the path that created the person that became the Malcolm X that we have all heard about.
And some of the stuff you haven't heard about, which, again, is what makes the movie kind of compelling. But Archie ends up giving Malcolm his first gun in the film. He hands him a gun and says, like, hey, here, take this. You know, blah, blah, blah. And I wanted to know if that came. If Archie is even a character, I guess, or a real person and if he gave Malcolm X his first gun.
[00:15:39] Speaker B: So West Indian Archie is a real person in the book, but he does not give Malcolm his first gun. The book mentions that he started carrying a gun when he's selling marijuana, which is before he starts running the numbers.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: The movie doesn't really go into that too much, but, yeah, I knew that was like. He was. He was. He was like a drug dealer for a while.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: And, yeah, he says in the book, I got it for some reefers from an addict who I knew had stolen it somewhere.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: There you go. Because I mentioned that the producer of this film, who worked forever to get this movie made. I can't remember his name now, had met. According to him, had met Malcolm X when he was known as Red and in Boston and was, like, selling marijuana or whatever. That's like, when he first met him.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: Yeah, the criminal history part of the story is way more of the book than it is of the movie.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Yeah, which makes sense because, yeah, it's obviously a big part of his life, because we see, you know, from when he became Malcolm X to the end of his life is actually a relatively short time period. Life.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: I mean, he.
He died only a few months short of his 40th birthday. He did not live a long Life?
[00:16:47] Speaker A: No. And he got out of prison when he was like 30, some 30s, maybe like early 30s.
[00:16:52] Speaker B: So the book says that he goes into prison.
He had just turned 21 and he
[00:16:58] Speaker A: was in for six years. So he gets out when he's 27.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: So he's almost 30 when he gets out.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So 13 years of his life is, you know, kind of.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: And then he's with the Nation of Islam for 12 years, I think it says.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Which would have been right out of prison. And then. Yeah.
So then Archie and Malcolm end up having a falling out. They're running this numbers game together. And there's this scene, and I think I realized what was going on here. There's a scene where they're partying the night before. And there was a lot going on in that scene to where I missed. Malcolm says some numbers at one point. And I think the implication is that he. He says these numbers.
And at least I think I was interpreting that right. He says those numbers. And like, Archie either doesn't hear him or doesn't think he's being serious or something like that. And then.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: So I think I can provide at least a little bit of clarity.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Point being, Malcolm claims that he hit the numbers. For people who don't know, a numbers game is just like a lottery, essentially, like an illegal lottery that is being run where you pick some numbers and if they hit, you get paid out or whatever.
And Malcolm claims that he hit the numbers and that Archie owes him like $6,000. And Archie is like, no, you didn't. I don't forget numbers. You didn't give me the right numbers or whatever. I don't owe you anything. Ends up giving him like a couple hundred dollars or something instead.
And this causes the kind of falling out between them because Malcolm, Archie then goes on and like, says he somehow confirms that he didn't have the right numbers and that he was correct in that.
Ultimately tries to kill him after that because he thought he lied to him and tried to take advantage of him or whatever. Anyways, does all that come from the book? And then. Yeah, if you have any. Like what. What the disagreement was, if you have any context for that.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: So this does come from the book. The movie, like, condenses it a little bit, but it plays out pretty similarly. The specific partying scene that's in the movie I don't believe is in the book.
But so essentially what happens, I think, because this part of the book, it was also a little confusing in the book, like, exactly what the description.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Well. Cause it also requires A little bit of knowledge of how that all operates. Probably like a numbers game.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: So the book actually contains quite a bit of description of how the numbers game works. And one thing that the movie doesn't go into details on is that during that partying scene, Malcolm gives a number, and it's like, 8, 2, 1. It's some combination of 8, 2 and 1. And then he says, combinator, and he lists off a couple other iterations of those same.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: 2, 2, 1, 8, whatever. Yeah.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: So that's what combinate means. It basically means, like, give me the variations of those three of this combination of numbers. The movie, I don't think, explained what that meant.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: No. And I don't even know if I caught what he said there in that moment, because I just wasn't sure what that would mean.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So I would have to watch it again.
But I think in the movie, at least, the idea might have been that Malcolm said to combinate them, but didn't say the specific combination that ended up
[00:20:08] Speaker A: winning, I think, or something like that. Yeah.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: And Archie's whole thing is that he remembers the numbers really well. Like, he can keep the numbers in his head. He's like a mathematical genius or something.
[00:20:21] Speaker A: Because the movie alludes to that, but doesn't. Like, there's a line about that after the whole falling out, he's like, I never forget a number or whatever during that whole scene. But I wasn't sure. Yeah.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: So a big part of it in both the book and the movie is that Malcolm has then challenged Archie's reputation.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: Which is unacceptable.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: Yeah. That's the big thing. Like, when he leaves, he's like, no. I am like, yeah, you can tell. That's the big thing is, like, he's like, yeah. Challenging the fact that he's. He's basically saying, no, you did mess up. You forgot the numbers. Cause his buddy or whatever comes over and is like, he never forgets a number. And he's like, oh, yeah, okay, that makes sense.
But it does come from the book. Do they try to kill him? And does he, like, get away or.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a very tense chapter where they're like.
He's, like, trying to avoid Archie for a couple days, and then he ends up just leaving town.
I don't think there's an actual, like, direct chase scene where they show up
[00:21:19] Speaker A: to, like, kill him in the alley or whatever. Okay. Yeah.
So then we move forward. He is. Now they get out of Boston, he's on the run because he can't be around, you know, Archie's like, you gotta. It's gonna kill him if he goes back to Boston. So they end up back in Harlem, I think, at this point. Right? Or in Harlem.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: No, they were, they were in Harlem when he was working with Archie. They go back to Boston.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: They go back to Boston backwards. Yes. And then now they're gonna. Him and Shorty and Sophia and Peg, who are their girlfriends.
Sofia, who's been his girlfriend for most of this. He met her, we were introduced to her at a club early on. White woman, who he's been dating this whole time through the stuff with Archie and everything.
They are now decide they are gonna run a racket of and break into homes and steal stuff. Basically, they meet this guy named Rudy who works for some rich families or something like that. And so he has the end and I don't know exactly. It almost implied that he was like,
[00:22:18] Speaker B: I don't know, I'll talk about it later.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Okay. I wasn't entirely sure if I was understanding correctly in that scene what he was saying, but I was like, z, okay, but this Rudy guy has an in with these families, with this rich families and stuff, so they can like rob people or whatever. So they're discussing their plans and Rudy, who's new to this whole situation, kind of like bumps up against Malcolm X and is like not Malcolm X at this point, Malcolm Little at this point. But who made you, you know, who put you in charge of this whole thing? And he says, like, what if I want to run the show or whatever. And we get this incredibly tense scene where Malcolm, in order to prove that he's crazy and should be the one running this whole thing. And don't come at the king. If you come at the king, you better not miss.
He plays Russian Roulette. He puts a bullet in his revolver, his five shot revolver. And he plays Russian Roulette twice with himself. And then he pulls the gun and is aiming it at Rudy's nose, threatening to blow his nose off. And ultimately Rudy is like, okay, man, you're in charge, whatever.
And that. It's a very tense scene again, kind of explaining like what's going on with Malcolm and his state of mind at this point. But then is revealed later. We get a scene right after that where Shorty comes up to him after that moment and goes, hey man, what did you do with the bullet? Did you actually. Were you actually. Did you actually have the bullet in the gun or did you like palm it or something? And Malcolm pulls up a bullet and holds it and they both kind of laugh. And it's implied that, yes, he did palm the bullet.
But the thing that was really interesting to me is that if you watch the scene in the movie where he's playing Russian roulette, you can see a bullet in the gun because the revolver there is, you know, like you can see through the back of the cylinder or whatever. And you can see that there is a bullet in there during that scene in the movie. And so I was like, wait, so what happened there? And I was very interested to know if any of that scene came from the book and if any of the thing with the bullet was explained.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: Okay. So this scene was really interesting to me as well. At first I had it under better in the book and I think I would still put it there. But I'm pretty sure I know what the movie is attempting to do and I think it's an interesting reimagining of what the book does.
So a version of this scene does happen in the book, but it's a little different.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: In the book, he doesn't threaten Rudy. He grabs the gun and ostensibly puts a bullet in it. The text says that he puts a single bullet in it and then he holds it up to his own head and clicks through while everyone screams at him to stop. And then he's like, don't mess with somebody who's willing to die. Da, da, da.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: And this happens on page 165 of a 527 page book.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Then in Alex Haley's epilogue in which he reflects on the process of writing the book and interviewing Malcolm X, we get this reveal.
He got up from his chair and walked back and forth, stroking his chin. Then he looked at me. You know this place here in this chapter where I told you I put the pistol up to my head and kept pulling the trigger and scared them. So when I started the burglary ring, well, he paused.
I don't know if I ought to tell you this or not, but I want to tell the truth.
He eyed me speculatively. I palmed the bullet.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: So I think what the movie is trying to do is replicate that same retcon experience that you get from reading the book.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Because, yeah, I guess the book does say he puts the bullet in the chamber.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: And so when we read that initial scene in the book, there's absolutely no reason to believe that there is not a bullet in there.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: And so I guess the movie is doing maybe a similar thing. It's a little bit different in a movie that I don't know. That's Interesting, because in the movie, it makes it complicated because it's the only moment, at least that I can.
That I can place that has like an unreliable narrator aspect to it.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: Because like I said, you can see the bullet in the chamber or in the gun during that scene.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: Yeah, you see it and then he clicks it closed.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Yes. And like I said, when he's holding it to his head, you can even tell he's not going to shoot himself during that one, if you know the story of Malcolm X. But two, you can see where the bullet is in, like, if you look closely, you can literally see where the bullet is in the gun. And that when he clicks it, it's not gonna fire because there's no bullet there. But then again, that scene afterwards where Shorty comes up to him and he's like. Implies that he palmed it and you're like, okay. But then you're left wondering, okay, did he actually palm it or is he just saying that to Shorty now? Like, to mess with, like, to, you know, like. And so, yeah, I could see it either way that, like, it is the movie kind of doing a similar thing of like, oh, he did palm it and he was.
That was all like an act in that moment.
But in order for that scene to feel as tense as it should in that moment, you needed to see a bullet in the gun.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: You need to believe that there's a
[00:27:15] Speaker A: bullet in the gun. Yeah, you needed to believe there's a bullet in the gun. But then, yeah, it is interesting. But I still think you could probably get away with it by seeming it look like he put the bullet in the gun. But then just because you. I don't know, it's interesting. I feel like if you shot it where, if you never saw a bullet in the cylinder, you could just assume it was some, like, on the backside where you couldn't see it. Maybe.
And that still might work, but maybe not. I don't know. It is interesting. It's very. Yeah, it's very interesting. And definitely, I think you're right that it's definitely an allusion to.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's a reference to that. And I do still think I prefer the book's version.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it might work better in the medium of a book because it doesn't introduce this kind of like, well, is what the movie's showing me real or not, like, accurate? Like, is the movie lying to me? Whereas in the book, like, I guess then it is a similar thing because it says he puts a bullet in the. In the chamber and that is ostensibly from the perspective of Malcolm X. So, like, he would have.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: So, like, you. Would you believe.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: You believe it? Yeah, that's true.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: It's like, literally, I read that first scene and I was like, oh, he's crazy. Crazy. And then I got to the epilogue and I was like, oh, you.
You didn't actually put that bullet in there.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, it's also. I could also believe.
I. This is a whole. This is complete speculation. I could also almost believe the idea that he did put the bullet in it at that time. But then later on, as his kind of perspective on everything changed, he was maybe not so proud of that specific moment of his life of doing that.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Right.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: And then told.
I'm not inclined to believe. I'm inclined to believe that he was telling the truth and that he palmed the bullet. But I could imagine the idea that he told Alex Haley, oh, I actually palmed the bullet. I never put it in there. Because he didn't want to maybe glorify what, you know, that kind of. I don't know. I could almost imagine that potentially. Again, I'm purely speculating and I think the most likely explanation is that, yeah,
[00:29:12] Speaker B: I would be inclined to not go that route just based on having read the book.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd say you have a better view.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: I feel like.
Like one of his. I feel like one of his core tenets was integrity.
[00:29:30] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, definitely.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: And like, even though he did later on come to regret that some of the things that he did and said, he still, like in every other example was always like, I did do that. I did say that.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: I just regret it about what he did. He just. And that makes. Okay, that's fair. Yeah, that makes sense. And in that, yeah, he. It's not that he would lie about it. He would just say he did do that and he regrets doing it. So. Yeah. Yeah. It was very interesting, though. And I remember it's one of the few scenes. So we talked about how we'd both seen this movie before. We both watched it in high school. Our wokest high school teachers showed us this film.
And that was one of the scenes. I didn't remember a ton of the scenes in this movie. I remembered a lot of it kind of nebulously, but that scene in particular was like seared into my brain because it was so tense like it is. Ugh, God, that whole. The whole Russian roulette scene is just.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny because literally the only thing I remembered about this movie from having watched it, I remembered vaguely the experience of watching it and how I felt while watching it and some of the discussions that we had in that class. But literally the only specific thing I remembered from the movie was actually your next question.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Interesting. Well, my next question is they get to.
I don't remember who. Oh, he has this exchange with Baines. He gets sent to prison. So skipping forward here a little bit, they do rob some houses. They end up getting busted with all of the stolen goods and they get thrown in jail for eight to 10 years, both him and Shorty.
And they end up in different prisons eventually.
But while in prison, Malcolm X, or Malcolm Little at the time meets this guy named Baines who is a member of the Nation of Islam.
And in the movie, we find out later is he ends up being, like, kind of one of the main people underneath Elijah Muhammad who is the leader of the Nation of Islam at that time. He seems to be relatively high up and important in the. I didn't realize that at first when we meet him in prison that. And I don't know if he's supposed to have been at that time or if he was just, like, a member who then.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: With Malcolm kind of rose up in the. I don't. I don't know. But he ends up ultimately being kind of very close to Elijah Muhammad once later on in the story.
But he meets this Baines guy and they're having discussions kind of about philosophy and stuff and racism and all that kind of thing. And at one point, Baines tells him God is black. And Malcolm X responds to him, God is black.
Everyone knows God is white.
And I wanted to know if that line is referenced in the book, if it comes from the book or that exchange comes from the book. But then more generally, if Banes, this guy he meets in prison who introduces the Nation of Islam and Islam generally to him was a real guy or
[00:32:20] Speaker B: not much to discuss here.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: So that specific exchange is not in the book, but the prison chapters include quite a bit of Malcolm's process of breaking down what has been sold to him by white Christianity. That's one of the main things that he does when he's in prison.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Start to break that down.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: That is one of the main things the movie presents. The movie. Yeah. His time in prison is absolutely. Like when he becomes kind of radicalized and maybe not radicalized at the right time. Yeah, I would say radicalized, but specifically where he becomes educated on kind of like, the history of colonialism and all this sort of stuff and really, really starts to understand again through Baines and through his research, the nature of colonialism and oppression and all that sort of stuff.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: There is also a similar ish scene in the book where he debates someone else. In the book it's another prisoner who's, like, serving as a Bible teacher. And in the movie it's the prison chaplain.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: Where he, like, debates that person.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: Yeah, we see that in the movie, too. It's right before he gets out of prison. Yeah. Jesus. Specifically in the movie, but. Yeah.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Which was the thing that I remembered.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: Oh, so that in particular, like, where he's arguing with the. The priest or whatever.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: About Jesus being white. Yeah.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: No, it was one of those ideas that I don't think I had ever encountered at that point in my life because I. I have a note about this later, but, like, I was raised in a very white, like, conservative area.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
I grew up having grown up both as an atheist and in a not super white area. Again, my high school was, I think about 50. 50 black and white, roughly. And so I grew up in. Around a very diverse kind of neighborhood relative. I say diverse. It was mostly black and white people broadly. But, you know, it wasn't just all
[00:34:22] Speaker B: a more diverse place than I grew up.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
And so that kind of concept wasn't something new to me at that time because I think, again, related to a lot of things, but I. That kind of thing I've definitely been introduced to. A lot of the other aspects of this movie were definitely new to me. And we'll talk more about that later because I had a similar experience to you. We'll get to later.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: Yeah. But anyways, so Banes himself is kind of an amalgamation of two figures from the book and also kind of his own character. In the book, there's a prisoner named Bimby who introduces Malcolm to the idea that he can fight with words and also encourages him to educate himself in the prison library.
But he is not the one who introduces Malcolm to the Nation of Islam. That is actually his brother Reginald via letters that he writes.
[00:35:19] Speaker A: Interesting. Okay.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: And then Banes becomes more.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: We don't see any of his siblings.
[00:35:25] Speaker B: No, his siblings. We see, like. We see them as children.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: Sorry. Yes, we see them as children, but
[00:35:30] Speaker B: they're not like characters in his adult life. They're basically completely nixed from the story.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: Yeah, they're not in the story, which
[00:35:36] Speaker B: is not the case in the book.
So Banes becomes more of his own character once they're out of prison. The movie kind of uses him as a direct figure for Malcolm's eventual Betrayal by the Nation.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: He ends up being the person who is kind of somewhat. The movie implies somewhat behind.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: Souring Elijah Muhammad.
[00:35:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Like the puppet master.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Orchestrating that.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Which. Which I definitely felt I could tell was just even watching the movie, not knowing any of the history. I could tell it was shorthanding a lot of stuff and, like, very much.
[00:36:12] Speaker B: Absolutely shorthanding it in the book. That doesn't really come from any specific person.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:19] Speaker B: Until it gets to the point that it's coming directly from Elijah Muhammad.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:24] Speaker B: And I totally understand why the movie would want to use, like, a specific person to kind of channel that through.
It is, again, it's shorthand.
It's very, like, understandable shorthand.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: It's also, like. It creates a very tidy narrative in terms of, like, kind of a.
In the tragedy that is kind of the story a little bit. It's not. I don't want to call it necessarily a tragedy, but there are elements of it feel somewhat like a tragedy. And this character who ends up. We know he's going to die and he eventually knows he's going to die and kind of the events that lead to his death and all that sort of stuff. But I think one of the things that the Banes character does is it kind of tidies up that whole narrative in a way, which I think you could criticize. But the idea that Baines is both simultaneously the person that introduces him to the idea of the Nation of Islam and this whole concept, and is also the person who seemingly, potentially is somewhat responsible for, at the very least, his expulsion from the Nation of Islam and the falling out between him and the Nation of Islam and then potentially his death. Like, I think you could. You could infer that. Because we find out later that that guy Baines son, Sidney is his name. I'm pretty sure he's a member of the Fruit of Islam. He's Baines son, and he's assigned to protect Malcolm.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: And I'm pretty sure it's that guy who, when they go in the house at one time, who's like, hey, they asked me to blow up your car, but I can't do that. And that's why he's like, Malcolm says something about his father or what.
I'm pretty sure that's Baines son.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: Another thing that I think you could potentially say the movie is doing with Baines. And also now that I know that that was Baines son.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Yeah. At least I'm like, 90% sure.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: I think you could say that that's like having that betrayal come directly from a character that.
And trust.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: Is maybe a serviceable stand in for how Malcolm X felt betrayed by Elijah Muhammad. Because they were very close in real life.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: And you see that in the movie, too.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: You see that in the movie. But I also think that it would be a challenge for the movie to depict that as much. As much.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Because they don't have as much time together.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: So I think potentially the movie is using Banes as a kind of fill in for that, like, more personal level of betrayal.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: Yes, I would agree with that. Yeah.
[00:38:59] Speaker B: And there's also. And I don't remember exactly how this plays out in the book, but one Elijah Muhammad's son at one point sides with Malcolm X and then ends up going back to the Nation of Islam.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Okay, I. Then it's possible that that guy is. I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that was Baines's son. I'm pretty sure. Anyways, I'm pretty.
[00:39:23] Speaker B: I think his name was Wallace.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: In the book.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: I mean.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: I think you mean Elijah Muhammad's son. Yeah.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: I could tell you by looking up, because it's a real.
[00:39:32] Speaker B: Look that. Yeah, it is a real guy. Look that up real quick.
[00:39:35] Speaker A: Oh, it is Wallace. Wallace, yes.
[00:39:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:39:37] Speaker A: Sorry. I knew he was born Wallace Mohammed. Where is Dean Muhammad?
[00:39:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And then, because I believe he took over the Nation of Islam.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: Yes, he did.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: And then it, like split into factions.
[00:39:49] Speaker A: It said, preceded by Elijah Muhammad seceded by Louis Farrakhan.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:53] Speaker A: Okay. While in prison, Malcolm X Bain starts teaching him again about kind of the history of oppression and all this stuff. And one of the things he does to kind of showcase this idea of the way that systemic oppression and. And racism is kind of hard coded into everything in Western society is he has him read the dictionary and he reads the entries for black and white and what those words mean and like, kind of the descriptions and stuff like that, and the way that white is pure and innocent and blah, blah, blah, and black is evil and corrupt and, you know, all this sort of stuff and kind of the how.
Again, his point there being that this is all baked into the very fabric of society.
And I wanted to know if that specific scene of him reading the two definitions of black and white, but then on top of that, Malcolm goes on to read the entire dictionary.
And this is inferred to be or implied to be part of the reason he becomes so eloquent and verbose later in life is that he spent all this time in prison studying the language and all that Sort of stuff. And I wanted to know if that was mentioned in the book.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: So the scenes with the definitions of black and white are not from the book.
But Malcolm does say that he started off his education by copying the dictionary word for word.
[00:41:11] Speaker A: Okay. So that. Yeah, that is accurate.
[00:41:14] Speaker B: Which is a hell of a way to.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it is very funny. After they do the black and the white, he's like, all right, start at the beginning. The first word is aardvark. Yes.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: And. Which is also from the book. The first word is aardvark. Yeah.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: So eventually we cut forward. Malcolm gets out of prison and gets paroled after six years in prison, which I thought was very interesting choice in the movie to not show him getting out of prison. We just cut from.
He's in prison one day, and then the next he's at, like, the Nation of Islam headquarters.
[00:41:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: There's, like, no scene of him, like, in a parole hearing or getting. Which, again, that's just. The movie is paced so interestingly, and I think it's. It works for, like, 99, 90% of it. I think the last, like, 30 minutes of the movie are paced a little awkwardly compared to the rest of it, in my opinion. Doesn't hurt the film overall that much. I just think the pacing at the end slows down in a way that maybe works for what the movie is doing. But the rest of the movie moves so well for that. Yeah. Anyways, after he gets out of prison, he reunites with Archie. He hears that Archie is in. I think he's in Harlem at this, or. No, they're in Chicago. I can't remember where he's at. He goes in so many different cities. And he travels so much throughout the movie, especially in the second half. He's all over the place that I can't remember where he's at at this point. But he. He re. Meets up with Archie, who he finds out has had a stroke, and he goes and meets him, and they have kind of a reconciliation. And he kind of helps Archie in this very, very brief scene.
I don't know if it's ever. And I'd be interested to know if they maintained a relationship or what happened there. But I wanted to know if any of that came from the book.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: He does eventually have a reunion with Archie in the book, and Archie is sick, although I didn't feel like the book implied that it was the result of a stroke.
They have a moment of, like, understanding and forgiveness for what happened all those years before. And I thought that scene was really nice in the book possibly nicer in the movie.
The book didn't detail him, like, helping Archie as he was visiting him.
[00:43:13] Speaker A: Is it implied that. Does it mention if they maintain a relationship after that?
[00:43:16] Speaker B: Or does it not feel like that was implied? No.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Because it is kind of just that one off scene in the film and then we don't see him again after that. But. Okay.
So then we get to kind of Malcolm's deep kind of indoctrination into the Nation of Islam and their tenants. And specifically, he becomes very close with Elijah Muhammad, who is the leader of Nation of Islam at that time.
And he's. We get kind of his whole scene of where he's talking about a big proponent of the Nation of Islam is around, like, protecting their women and kind of holding up their women. And there's a lot of rules, obviously, around all of the. A lot of rules, period. Because it is a very.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: It is. It's a very strict lifestyle.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: It's based around some form version of Islamic kind of codes of, like, Sharia law and stuff like that. I know it's not the same. It's different, but. Yeah. And I don't know all this, the nuances and subtleties of the differences and all sort of stuff, but it is at least somewhat.
It's at least inspired by.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: Somewhat inspired by.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
Some of the tenets of Islam.
They have this whole thing talking about, like, finding partners and mates because a big thing is, like, producing offspring and continuing the bloodlines and all this sort of stuff.
And Elijah Muhammad explains that he has a rule that one of the rules for dating is that you can date women that are half the man's age plus seven. And I was like, wait, did.
I don't know. I guess I don't know when that, like. Because I've heard that, like, quote unquote rule mentioned in media and stuff before and never really thought about, like, how old it was or where it came from. And I thought it was really interesting. And I looked it up and apparently this is a thing that Elijah Muhammad. That was, like a part of his teachings or whatever. And I was like, oh, really? So, yeah. Is that in the book?
[00:45:03] Speaker B: Oh, it is. It is half the man's age, plus seven. Yeah.
Also the parts about a husband and wife needing to match according to height and compulsion.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, they talk about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Nation of Islam. And we'll get to this. I have a whole note about this. But, yeah, it's this whole part. I. I think the movie, from my view, does a really Interesting job of how it presents all of this.
We'll talk more about it here in a bit.
There's another. I had a point later where we actually can discuss all of that. But then we get to this kind of one of the more memorable scenes in the film, which is where Brother Johnson, who I don't know if we. I'm sure we've seen before, but I don't name, didn't ring a bell when they mentioned it, is assaulted by the police, brutalized by the police, ends up getting taken to jail with a horrible head wound. And all the people on the street who saw this are kind of imploring Malcolm and specifically the Nation of Islam to do something about this. And so Malcolm marches down to the police station with some of his people and demands that they're able to see and make sure that Brother Johnson is getting medical treatment. Eventually gets in and then sees that he needs a hospital. They call the ambulance, they go to the hospital. But then Malcolm takes the entire group of people with him and they march down to the hospital to ensure that. Because he is not satisfied, as he says, to ensure that, like, everything is, you know, gonna play out the way it should.
And the doctor comes out and explains, yeah, he's gonna be okay, blah, blah, blah. And then they leave.
But I wanted to know if that whole scene came from. It was a real thing happened in the book. And specifically, one of the things that I think is most memorable about this scene is the movie is that Malcolm. You see that Malcolm can control kind of this group of people.
He has earned their respect.
And not only that, has this group, specifically the men who are part of the Nation of Islam in this scene kind of present almost like a military group. They're, like, standing in formation and they're kind of marching and stuff like that in a way that is, you know, clearly there to intimidate the people. The cops and that are being assholes. And I wanted to know if any of that came from the book.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: All of this is from the book.
It's a little hard to say just from reading the description of it. I think the movie may have slightly exaggerated, like, slightly exaggerated the military, like, precision for dramatic effect, but maybe not.
[00:47:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: Because the fruit of Islam is what this.
This sect of section of people is referred to as. And it is basically their, like, military branch.
Like, it's all of their young men and they trained them in, like, self defense.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: And it's the whatchamacallit. What's the leftist term for the.
Oh, my gosh, I Can't my. I'm gimme two seconds. The vanguard. Holy shit. The vanguard party. Oh my God. So the term I was trying to think of was vanguard. Vanguard party. The vanguard. That is like within for mine.
I don't know, it took me so long to find that term. But within like leftist organizing usually, like often the. From my understanding, the kind of more militant like armed portion of the broader leftist coalition will often be called like the vanguard. Vanguard party, Vanguardism, whatever. And so that's kind of what it feels like.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: Yeah, that's essentially what they are, the fruit of Islam.
[00:48:41] Speaker A: Okay. Oh my God. That was inferior. You guys had no. I cut all this out, but I sat there for like 10 minutes googling. I could not.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: It was a pretty long.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: We were.
No matter what I googled, it wouldn't come up until it took for. Oh goodness. Okay.
Wow. All right.
We then see Malcolm and Betty. We get introduced to Betty Shabazz is her later name. I don't remember what her maiden name.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: I think Shabazz was her maiden name.
[00:49:08] Speaker A: Oh, was it not? No, I thought it was something different.
Betty Sanders.
[00:49:12] Speaker B: Betty Sanders.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: Because I'm like, I'm pretty sure Betty Shabazz was her Nation of Islam name. Like I believe that, right? Yeah.
[00:49:19] Speaker B: Betty Sanders, also known as Betty X.
[00:49:21] Speaker A: Yes, we're introduced to Betty Sanders later. Betty X, the. The future wife of Malcolm X.
And they're introduced and she's very kind of introduced as a, you know, she's very smart, self possessed woman who is kind of leading like some of the, the classes for women within the Nation of Islam.
And they end up pairing off because they're the appropriate heights, among other things.
But he does propose to her in the film and in the film we see he proposes to her over the phone and I wanted to know if that was accurate and came from the book.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: Yes, he does propose to her over the phone.
And I have some additional thoughts on how the book and the movie portrayed their relationship in Lost in Adaptation.
[00:50:08] Speaker A: Okay, we will get to that.
So now Malcolm X's popularity is starting to grow and grow as he's out on the speaker circuit. He's traveling the country speaking, forming mosques in different. I think they're called mosques, correct? Yeah, in different cities around and expanding the footprint of the Nation of Islam and kind of preaching their whole message and this kind of radical black liberation movement and all that sort of stuff. And his popularity is growing and growing and one of them is he ends up going to I don't know what university this is. I assume this is in the book. He seems to get invited to speak at some sort of university.
[00:50:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, he does that multiple times.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: Sorry, the one we see in the movie. I don't know what university that's implied to be in. Yeah, I don't think they say. But he's on this college campus to go give this speech at a university. And as he's walking to the building where he's gonna give the speech, this young white college girl runs up to him wearing a beret. Very clearly, she's the woke white college kid, which I thought was very funny. But she runs up to him and she's like, hey, love what you're doing.
You're incredible.
What can. And she asked specifically, what can a white person like me who isn't prejudice do to further your cause? And he just looks at her and says nothing, and then keeps on walking. And I thought that was very funny, but I wanted to know if it came from the book.
[00:51:28] Speaker B: Yes, that is directly from the book.
And that was also something that he later in the book expressed regret about multiple times.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: It definitely does not jive with when we see later his change after his pilgrimage and all of that. And perspective on race relations post Nation of Islam, definitely different.
And so, yeah, I could see him regretting that. It is funny in that moment because there is some truth again. And that's one of the things I love about this movie, is there is. And that's actually my next question here. But there is some truth to.
Well, let's just get into it with the next question before I get into that. But what he says in that moment, while, again, I understand why he regrets it and I don't agree entirely with it, I think there is some truth to that. And in a way that I think the movie understands and is intentionally kind of pointing out a little bit of the performative nature of what she's doing. But that's also better than not being a performative white person. Anyways, one of the things I think the movie does a really compelling job of, at least from my perspective as a white guy, is that it does a really interesting job of kind of presenting different versions of black liberation philosophy without a lot of judgment on any of them.
I obviously don't think that Spike Lee agrees with everything that, like Banes and the Nation of Islam, specifically throughout that whole period where Malcolm X is part of the Nation of Islam. I do not think that Spike Lee agrees with, like, everything that the Nation of Islam preaches by any stretch. He was not. He's Not a member of the Nation of Islam doesn't, you know, But I think he also absolutely sees. And I think that's what this movie does really compellingly and is what I think stuck out to me so much watching this when I was younger is that the Nation of Islam is wrong about a lot of things. Like, a lot of things, but they are right about some things. And specifically some of the nature of what Malcolm X says about kind of the.
The. The. The.
The. The atrocities committed by white people and the. The nature of, like, who's gonna fix that and how it can be fixed is I think, gets at a truth that is very, like, understandable and accurate, but also is not a complete picture of the best way to fix things, if that makes sense. Like, I. I think the movie goes, like, hey, a lot. I think the movie shows us, like, all of what Malcolm X is saying during his time with Nation of Islam and goes like, you know, a lot of this stuff, not great. Like, again, I don't think this movie. I think, you know, some people will watch this movie and say, like, this movie hates white people. This movie, whatever. Not remotely the point at all. And I think the movie does a pretty compelling job of presenting radical, like, black liberation ideology, warts and all, and lets you go, okay, yeah, some of that is not, like, correct. Like, Some of that is not a correct assessment of, like, the problems, or maybe not necessarily a correct. It's a correct assessment of the problem, not a correct assessment of the best way to solve these problems, but it does call out a very real problems, and it comes from a very understandable place and motivation.
And I think the movie has a lot of empathy for what, like, the Nation of Islam, why it existed and what it was trying to do, while also being critical of some of the kind of methods and philosophies that the Nation of Islam held, which were bad, including, like, a lot of misogyny and stuff like that, but also just anti Semitism. And the movie kind of touches on that a little bit. But, like. And that's actually maybe one place where that movie kind of hand waves away, like, the anti Semiticism a little bit. Like, because it's. The Nation of Islam is very anti Semitic, but again, it also. Some of that comes from a place of, you know, of truth, of, like, there is a.
I think part of that is that they see Semitic people, Jewish people, as part of kind of broader white culture.
[00:55:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: And then so there's this weird mixture of like. But then also it gets focused in on Jewish people in A way where it does become anti Semitic, where it's like.
[00:55:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And there was a. Specifically a point as I was reading the book that I wrote a note about, like, at one point, Malcolm X goes on a tangent about, like, Jewish business owners and about how they, like, will say that they support black people, but then they're running these businesses in black communities and, like, taking their money and not really being, like, good stewards of the community.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:21] Speaker B: And I would like. I was like, okay, some of that stuff. Maybe all of that might be true.
[00:56:28] Speaker A: Yeah, it is definitely true to some extent.
[00:56:29] Speaker B: But it's like, yeah, to some extent. But also, like, the way you keep saying the Jews is at least a little suspect, my man.
[00:56:37] Speaker A: Like, yeah, it is. You hit this weird intersect. It's why intersectionality is so complicated, because there are all these intersecting, you know, all of these intersecting systems of oppression that are complicated and messy. And in some regards, Jewish people fit into broader white society and can become part of the hegemonic society that does perpetrate oppression against black people while also being victims of oppression themselves in a different way. And that, you know, the correct response to the oppression that the Jewish people are part of as part of white hegemony is not to single them out for being Jewish. And, like, you know, there's this complicated Miata miasma of, like, it is. And that's what makes it tough. And that's why it's. That's why leftist organizing and politics is so complicated, because you. You have to take all of those intersecting systems of oppression into account in order to figure out how to make all of this work. And that is incredibly difficult. It's way easier to go, what if we just have white people and all the rest of you. That's a very easy answer. You know what I mean? It's. It's a horrible, bad answer, but it's an easy answ.
[00:57:48] Speaker B: Yeah, what if we just steamroll everyone? Is an easy answer.
[00:57:51] Speaker A: Easy answer. And it does. And as a result, you do get movements that push up in the opposite. And Nation of Islam is kind of one of those movements that rises in opposition to that and is. Is kind of a mirror of that in some ways, where it does also prop up different systems of oppression. And it's. Again, it's. And I think the thing that is very compelling to me about this movie is that that while sanitizing some of that stuff, it does also present a lot of that messiness and just go here, like, kind of like, figure out what you think about all of this. And. And it does kind of present all of that intersecting again, that intersecting messiness as like part of what makes this whole story and what in part makes kind of figuring out Malcolm X as a. As a figure so complicated. It's because he was part of all of these intersecting kind of systems of oppression and. Yeah, very interesting.
Anyways, I forgot where I was gonna wrap that up, but we can get to my next question, which is, did Malcolm's falling out with the Nation of Islam feel accurately represented in the film? In the film, it's kind of a summation of things, including one, Nation of Islam kind of fears, his growing popularity and the fact that he is going to overtake the spotlight from Elijah Muhammad.
2 Elijah Muhammad, we, Malcolm finds out, is fathering children with a bunch of the young women in the Nation of Islam outside of wedlock, going against everything, everything he preaches.
And then on top of that, the movie implies that the. The Malcolm X and his family are kept in like, relative poverty. I wouldn't say poverty, but they are.
They're talking about how they have like an old crappy car and like, don't have a lot in the way of clothes and stuff like that. Despite the fact that Elijah Muhammad is living in extravagant wealth seemingly. And the Nation of Islam has all of this money and Malcolm X, while being a super important part of their organization, is maybe not receiving commensurate financial compensation for how important he is to the movement and all that sort of stuff. And then ultimately, after JFK is assassinated, Malcolm X makes some comments about how in his opinion, JFK's assassination was just a result of chickens coming home to roost. This is the result of kind of white hegemonic power doing horrible things forever. I'm not going to cry about the white president of the country being assassinated when they've been killing us. Essentially, I'm boiling it down a whole lot. But that is broadly kind of the point he's making there.
And Elijah Muhammad is not on board with this, this kind of comments about jfk because they don't want to ruffle feathers in that way. And I think apart from. And that causes a falling out because Elijah Muhammad, like, is like silences him. It's like you can't speak for 90 days. You can't do any of this stuff. But I think. And which obviously that really upsets and feels like a betrayal to Malcolm X. But I think on top of that, in that moment, I think what you're supposed to get out of is that you realize that Malcolm X Realizes Elijah Muhammad is not committed to maybe the ideals. In the same way that.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:00:59] Speaker A: Because that very much feels like Elijah Muhammad is kind of appeasing.
Yeah. The white sensibilities of the country in order to like. And Malcolm X is like, wait a second.
Why are we, like, bending down to make sure everybody feels good about JFK when that, you know, like, that is not kind of. Our whole point is. Is breaking down the fact that these hegemonic white power structures are oppressive and horrible. And yes, I'm not going to be upset when the President gets like. I'm just not.
However you feel about that aside. Like, I can understand from his perspective. And then seeing Elijah Muhammad be like, well, we can't offend them. You know, we can't say something offensive about jfk. He's like, wait a second. What? That's not what we're doing here. Like, do you even believe any of the stuff we're actually doing? I think it's part of what's going on there anyways.
Does that feel like a proper or an accurate kind of summation of what happened between Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam?
[01:01:50] Speaker B: So the only thing here in this list of things that I felt like was a little not untrue, but maybe like, the teensiest bit exaggerated was the poverty thing.
[01:02:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:02:05] Speaker B: So when I was reading this part of the book, I got the vibe that Malcolm X and his family lived, like, simply and sparsely, but, like, in a relatively nice house, which they look
[01:02:18] Speaker A: like they have an okay house in the movie. It's not like an awful place.
[01:02:21] Speaker B: And I don't recall it ever being mentioned that he drove, like, an old jalopy.
[01:02:26] Speaker A: Yeah. That is specifically mentioned at the movie. She's like, we have this old crappy car or whatever. Yeah.
[01:02:30] Speaker B: Now, the epilogue did clarify that Malcolm X died with nothing to his name because he took a vow of poverty as a Muslim and the house and everything actually belonged to the Nation of Islam.
[01:02:42] Speaker A: Yeah. Which they do say in the movie. It's not his house.
[01:02:45] Speaker B: But when I was reading the actual text of his autobiography, we're living in relative poverty. Was not an impression that I got.
[01:02:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't think it's definitely not one of the main motivators in the film. It's just one of the additional little things that kind of is causing. Yeah, yeah.
[01:03:03] Speaker B: One of the pebbles in the avalanche, so to speak.
But everything else that you listed, their jealousy over his popularity, Elijah Muhammad being a hypocrite, and then ultimately them using his comments on JFK's assassination as an excuse to like, oust him. Yeah, absolutely.
[01:03:21] Speaker A: Does the book. Does the book. Because I was interested to see that the movie didn't do this. And I was wondering if it was related to potential fear of legal reprisal.
Is that from my understanding, one of the reasons that Malcolm X had a falling out with the Nation of Islam wasn't just that Elijah Muhammad was fathering children out of wedlock. It was that he was fathering children out of wedlock and having sexual relations with underage women. Is that mentioned in the book?
[01:03:49] Speaker B: So the book says. I don't recall them books saying that
[01:03:53] Speaker A: they're underage because that is a thing that is mentioned.
[01:03:57] Speaker B: The book says that they're very young.
[01:03:59] Speaker A: Okay. Yes. The movie specifically says, like 20s. Like young. Yeah, but not like he says they're young. But so there is. It is. I believe I read on the Wikipedia page about Malcolm X that part of the falling out was that he specifically called out Elijah Muhammad for having relationship. Being a pedophile, basically. And that was another big part of it. And the movie does not touch on that aspect of it at all. And I was wondering if that.
[01:04:27] Speaker B: I mean. Yeah, they probably didn't want to get like sued for defamation or something.
[01:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah. This is just from Wikipedia, from the falling out, like the section about the falling out with the Nation of Islam. Rumors were circulating that Muhammad was conducting extramarital affairs with young Nation secretaries, which is kind of what the movie touches on, which would constitute a serious violation of Nation teachings. After discounting the rumors, Malcolm X came to believe them after he spoke with Muhammad's son Wallace and the girls who were making the accusations.
Muhammad confirmed the rumors the same year, attempting to justify his behavior by referring to precedents set by the biblical prophets which we see in the movie.
Over a of national TV interviews from 1964 to 1965, Malcolm X provided testimony of his investigation corroboration and confirmed by Elijah Muhammad himself of multiple counts of child rape. During the investigation, he learned that seven of the eight girls had become pregnant as a result of this.
He also revealed an assassination attempt made on his life through a discovered explosive device in his car, which I guess is what's referenced in the movie, as well as the death threats he was receiving. So this implies that it.
[01:05:29] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[01:05:30] Speaker A: Which again, I thought was interesting that the movie doesn't touch on that at all. And I wondered if there was a reason for that because that seems like a very. Like if you really want to make people go, oh, he's very justified for you know, like, give even more kind of ammunition to his side for why this split happened. Pointing out that Elijah Muhammad was a pedophile, I think would be, like, a pretty compelling way to do that. And the fact that the movie didn't do that made me think, like, there may have been.
Maybe that is, like.
Is not a Jew. Maybe it wasn't. They were worried about maybe legal kind of repercussions if they were to make those specific allegations in the film. Maybe. I don't know.
[01:06:06] Speaker B: Maybe. Yeah.
[01:06:07] Speaker A: I just thought that was interesting because I knew I had read that, but that the movie does not mention that at all.
So as we. He splits with.
He splits with the Nation of Islam. He goes to Mecca, goes on his own pilgrimage where he kind of changes his perspective as he breaks bread, as he says, with Muslims of all colors, including white people. And it softens his kind of perspective on his kind of radical black isolationism and decides that, actually, okay, working with white people and there is a way to kind of be more for us to be integrated. There's a line earlier in the film where he says, the only kind of integration I want is in my coffee or something like that.
Which I think is a real line that Malcolm sits in the book. Yeah. And as a real thing, he said. But that is later in his life, he changes his perspective on that and he comes back to America and starts this new organization kind of running counter to Nation of Islam. Still kind of pushing a lot of the same ideas but just separate from what the Nation of Islam is doing.
And the final act of this movie or the final kind of end of this movie is a lot of him dealing with the fallout of the issues with the Nation of Islam and their attempts on his life and the paranoia surrounding all of that.
And we see him preparing for this speech he's gonna give which we know, if you know anything about history is when he is killed.
When he is assassinated at the Audubon Theater or whatever it's called. And the movie, I feel like it is heavy, heavily implied that in the lead up to this speech at the Audubon Theater that he is aware that he is going to be killed. That he. That he is or likely to be killed. He even said there's even a line of, like, now is the time for martyrs or something like that, among other things. And I wanted to know if that felt accurate to the book. If it felt like Malcolm X knew my days are numbered, I am going to be killed. And kind of was.
I don't know if okay with that is the right term. But he doesn't. You know, he's not fighting against it at this point. He's not, like, desperately struggling to make sure that he is not killed. And I wanted. Like I said, I want to know if that came from the book.
[01:08:18] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. The last chapter of the book, the last thing that he dictated to Alex Haley, absolutely reads like a man reflecting on his life from his deathbed.
[01:08:29] Speaker A: Interesting.
[01:08:30] Speaker B: It was a very difficult read.
[01:08:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:08:34] Speaker B: There's also a mention in the book that he had in his pocket when he was killed, a list of names.
[01:08:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember hearing about that.
[01:08:43] Speaker B: Of, like, the men that he knew were going to assassinate him. And I don't think the book ever clarified if they were all the correct names, but, yeah, he knew.
[01:08:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
As he's heading to the. The Audubon Theater that day to give his speech, he parks out front and he's walking into the building. And as he's walking in, he encounters this woman on the sidewalk. And they have a brief interaction, but at the end of their interaction, she says to him, jesus will protect you.
Which is very clearly a very intentional moment of, like, obviously he's about to die. And kind of a big part of his radicalizing journey is his rejection of Christianity and his kind of coming to terms and realizing that it is doing nothing for black people in America, in his opinion, that it is kind of its own form of enslavement and all that sort of stuff. And we see him, like, outside of churches, trying to, like, convert people away from Christianity because he, you know, it's. In his opinion, it's kind of.
And this is also a big theme in sinners. It is a.
Is something that white people.
[01:09:45] Speaker B: It is a colonizing force.
[01:09:46] Speaker A: It is a colonizing force. Yes.
And so the kind of grand irony in that moment of the lady saying, jesus will protect you, or something along those lines. I wanted to know if there was any reference to an exchange like that in the book before his death, because I thought that was.
[01:10:01] Speaker B: Yeah, this exchange is not from the book, but it was no less appreciated by me.
[01:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
And then as he's preparing to go out on stage. This is my final question here.
And I was just kinda. This is almost a lost in adaptation, but as he's getting ready to go out on stage, he asks Brother Earl, who's there with him, as he's preparing. And this is right after he says the line, like, now is a time for martyrs or something like that. He asks Brother Earl to go out to the payphone on the street and call the reverend. And he just says, the reverend. And I don't know if we're supposed to know who he's referencing here.
And I was like, are we supposed to. And he goes, call the reverend and have him come over or whatever. And you could read that a couple different ways, which I thought was really fascinating. Like, you can read it as, like, the idea of, like, he knows he's gonna die, like, call. But it doesn't make sense because he's a Muslim. But there is, like, some.
[01:10:51] Speaker B: But there's. That's like a cultural.
[01:10:53] Speaker A: Like a cultural kind of, like, ominous thing of like, call the reverend kind of. Yeah. Again, wouldn't make sense for him to. He's not a Christian.
[01:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah. It doesn't make sense for him personally, but it is something that an audience could key into.
[01:11:05] Speaker A: Yes. Or another way is that I was wondering, because we. He's at this point, has talked about how he is. Wants to work with other civil rights leaders even once he has previously maybe not gotten along great with. With including famously, Martin Luther King Jr. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. And I was wondering if that was supposed to be like, is he saying, like, go call the reverend so that we can, like, talk and, like, work together or something? You know what I mean? I wasn't sure.
And so I was wondering if that came from the book or if there's any extrapolation on what's going on there.
[01:11:36] Speaker B: In the book, a Reverend Gallimycin Gallimiesen. I'm not sure how it's pronounced, is supposed to speak ahead of him at this point, engagement. But doesn't. He doesn't show up. And they, like, try to get a hold of him before the speech.
So that's the answer.
[01:11:53] Speaker A: That is what it's actually.
[01:11:54] Speaker B: Yes. That's what it's actually about.
I do kind of feel like maybe the movie framed it like that on purpose.
[01:12:00] Speaker A: Like, vaguely, by not saying his name
[01:12:02] Speaker B: to, like, reference MLK or like, maybe, I don't know, think about mlk.
[01:12:06] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know, because maybe not. I may just be reading into that just because, like I said, they don't say his name. At least I don't remember them saying the name of the reverend. I thought they just said the reverend. And obviously, in this context, your brain goes, who is the reverend? Like, there's, you know, Martin Luther Jr. There's one reverend I can think of as.
[01:12:22] Speaker B: You said the reverend.
[01:12:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And so I. Yeah, I thought that was interesting.
Okay. But, yeah, an actual thing that did happen. And he's referencing this other guy who was supposed to be there to speak.
But it's also implied that him having brother Earl go do this is part of what leads to him being killed. Because brother Earl says, well, I'm supposed to be on stage protecting you. And he goes, no, go make that call Again, kind of implying that maybe. Were brother Earl there, maybe he could have shot the attacker or something like that. But anyways. All right. Those are all my questions for. Was that in the book? But we got quite a bit more to get into, and we're gonna start with Lost, an adaptation.
[01:13:02] Speaker B: Just show me the way to get out of here, and I'll be on my way.
[01:13:05] Speaker A: Word was a learning.
Yes.
[01:13:08] Speaker B: Yes. And I want to get unlost as soon as possible.
Okay. So I put quite a few things into Lost in Adaptation this week because I still wanted to talk about the different ways that they were handled in the book and the movie, but I didn't really feel comfortable saying that these things were better.
[01:13:31] Speaker A: This is. With an autobiography.
[01:13:33] Speaker B: It's very tough to be very complicated.
[01:13:35] Speaker A: This is better in the movie. It's like. Well, it's not.
[01:13:38] Speaker B: Yeah. It's better that we changed your personal history.
[01:13:41] Speaker A: Malcolm X. Yeah.
[01:13:42] Speaker B: Like, that feels weird to me.
[01:13:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So we talked about that with other stuff, like where we've done autobiographies or whatever.
[01:13:48] Speaker B: So I stuck some things in here, and the first thing that I want to talk about is the portrayal of his relationship with Betty.
[01:13:56] Speaker A: I was wondering about this.
[01:13:58] Speaker B: So here. That is.
[01:13:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:14:00] Speaker B: Just comparing what is in the literal text of the book to what is portrayed in the movie, I feel like the movie actually kind of romanticizes their relationship.
[01:14:13] Speaker A: That I will say, just as watching the movie, I got the vibe, because when you see kind of the broader political landscape that Malcolm X and, like, specifically the sexual political landscape that Malcolm X is existing in in this time and especially within the Nation of Islam, I had a feeling that maybe the nature of their relationship as depicted in the film was kind of a sanitized, glossy version of maybe how that would go. But. Yes.
[01:14:41] Speaker B: Yeah. He does not come across as particularly romantic or loving in the book.
[01:14:47] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:14:47] Speaker B: When he decides to marry Betty, he frames it as a very practical decision because he needs to get married, to have children, to propagate the fruit.
And Betty fit all of the qualifications.
[01:15:01] Speaker A: Right.
[01:15:02] Speaker B: She's the right agency.
[01:15:06] Speaker A: They reference some of that stuff. Yeah.
[01:15:08] Speaker B: Now, I think it's obvious that he likes her.
[01:15:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:15:11] Speaker B: But he. And then he, like, goes on to barely mention her throughout the remainder of the book, except to occasionally say that she's a faithful and hard working wife.
He also hits us with this line.
I guess by now I will say I love that. I love Betty. She's the only woman I ever thought about loving.
[01:15:31] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:15:32] Speaker B: Now I think, I think if you kind of read between the lines, they probably did love each other.
[01:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. Yeah.
[01:15:41] Speaker B: They were very faithful to each other and they had six kids.
[01:15:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:15:45] Speaker B: You know.
[01:15:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And I, I haven't. Yeah. I have an epic.
[01:15:47] Speaker B: I think there wasn't, there wasn't nothing there.
[01:15:50] Speaker A: And she, we mentioned she was a, she was a consultant on the film. Yeah. So there was at least some degree that she was involved in what is depicted of their relationship.
[01:16:01] Speaker B: I mean, just like removing how he felt about her from the equation. I think she did love him.
[01:16:07] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:16:08] Speaker B: There's a very heartbreaking description in the epilogue of the book. At his like funeral of her, they had like a glass topped coffin because his body was on display.
[01:16:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:16:22] Speaker B: And people like came to see it of her kissing the glass and bursting into tears.
[01:16:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I would never doubt that she loved him or that.
Yeah. Any of that. That all. I totally believe it's more so just kind of the. I don't know the movie. That being said, the movie does a fairly good job, I think, of also depicting the fact that he does have some pretty sexist views. And he tells her, he's yelling at her like, don't you raise your voice, voice in my house. And stuff like that. Like there are like the movie doesn't completely shy away from showing. Hey, man, I have more thoughts. Okay.
Yeah.
[01:16:58] Speaker B: So obviously I don't know anything about their relationship outside of what's portrayed in these two pieces of media, but I did feel like I would be remiss not to at least mention that it seems like the movie is something. Is depicting something different than what the book, AKA Malcolm X's own words describes.
[01:17:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:17:21] Speaker B: I do appreciate that the movie gave Betty some agency in having her be the one who confronts Malcolm about his kind of trying to ignore the hypocrisy of Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. But that wasn't something that I saw depicted in the book.
[01:17:39] Speaker A: Yeah. I wonder. That's something where I do wonder if because she consulted on the film, she could have like Alex Haley didn't interview Betty Shabazz for the.
[01:17:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:17:49] Speaker A: For his book. For the autobiography.
[01:17:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:17:51] Speaker A: If.
[01:17:51] Speaker B: I mean, for all we know, maybe that is, maybe that is a thing
[01:17:54] Speaker A: that happened and it's Just not.
[01:17:55] Speaker B: It's just not in this book.
[01:17:56] Speaker A: Book. But we don't know. I mean. And I'm sure that is outlined. Again, no shortage of ink has been written about all of these people. So I'm sure that is outlined somewhere in terms of, like, what was going on there.
But. Yeah. Including a crazy. I just found this out. One of Malcolm X kids got arrested for trying to assassinate Louis Farrakhan, which I thought was crazy. Or for planning to assassinate Louis Farrakhan.
[01:18:20] Speaker B: Who?
[01:18:21] Speaker A: One of Malcolm X's children.
[01:18:23] Speaker B: Who's the other person?
[01:18:25] Speaker A: What do you mean, who's the other person?
[01:18:26] Speaker B: The person they tried to assassinate.
[01:18:28] Speaker A: Louis Farrakhan.
[01:18:31] Speaker B: I don't think I know who that is.
[01:18:32] Speaker A: Oh, is he not in the book at all? He's one of the prominent members of the Nation of Islam. So he's not in the movie.
[01:18:37] Speaker B: I don't remember that name.
[01:18:38] Speaker A: So I mentioned. Okay, so I mentioned this in. Been. Remember I said in the prequel that they removed all mention of Louis Farrakhan from the film because they. Death threats and stuff. He was a big prominent. He. He was after Elijah Muhammad's son.
Waleed Muhammad took over after him. Louis Farrakhan took over the Nation. Big prominent member of Nation of Islam.
[01:19:00] Speaker B: I don't think that's talked about in the book.
[01:19:01] Speaker A: Interesting, because I saw that and I had no idea.
[01:19:04] Speaker B: The book kind of stops with, like. Obviously it stops. His narration stops before he's assassinated. And then the epilogue is mostly about, like, the. It's about. It's Alex Haley reflecting on the process of writing it. And then also, like, some of the fallout after he's assassinated.
[01:19:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yes. Malcolm X's daughter. Second daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz. Kabila Shabazz. I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce that. There's no pronunciation on Wikipedia here. Q U B I L A H.
She was there in 1965 when Malcolm X was assassinated. She was arrested in 1995 in connection with an alleged plot to kill Louis Farrakhan, by then the leader of the Nation of Islam, whom she believed was responsible for the assassination of her father. Which is, again, is part of the reason he's not in the movie at all. It's because there's a lot of people suspect that he was involved in the planning and the execution of assassinating Malcolm X, including, apparently, his daughter. And so she got arrested for that.
She maintained her innocence. She has maintained her innocence. She accepted a plea agreement under which she was required to undergo psychological counseling and treatment for substance abuse disorders to avoid a prison sentence. But, yeah, very fat. I didn't. I had no idea about that. I thought that.
[01:20:19] Speaker B: Did not know that.
[01:20:20] Speaker A: Yeah. But anyways. Yeah.
[01:20:24] Speaker B: Okay.
So the next thing I wanted to talk about, the Mecca pilgrimage section of the book because it gave me quite a bit of pause.
[01:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:20:38] Speaker B: So the movie doesn't depict this, but he spends the majority of that trip being whisked around by very powerful people.
[01:20:46] Speaker A: Yeah. In the movie, it's implied. It's just some kind of random guys that he finds.
[01:20:49] Speaker B: And he gives a glowing review of his trip around the Middle east and Africa. And he talks about. He's like, it's so great. And everybody is so lovely and all of these places are so incredible and just like, on and on and on. And I was reading it and I was just kind of like, you're being chauffeured through this trip by the literal Saudi Arabian monarchy, and you don't think that maybe you're getting the highlight reel.
[01:21:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, it's funny you say that the movie doesn't depict that because. I agree, it doesn't. Like we said, we see him, like, he meets these two guys.
[01:21:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:21:25] Speaker A: Just seemingly random guys who. He's like, hey, can you take me to the pyramids? Or whatever. And then they do.
But I thought this was really interesting. Then I had a note that I was dying when he goes to Egypt and he visits the pyramid. How much the footage in the film looks like cheesy vacation footage that they, like, shot.
Which actually kind of does imply what you're talking about there. A little bit of this very idealized.
[01:21:51] Speaker B: And, yeah, I feel like he got. I feel like he got the tourist
[01:21:55] Speaker A: experience, the Minister of Propaganda version of
[01:21:59] Speaker B: things, and, like, didn't realize that that's what he was getting.
[01:22:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That is interesting.
[01:22:06] Speaker B: I don't know. I. I found that to be like a very interesting kind of.
It almost felt like a big blind spot.
[01:22:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:22:15] Speaker B: In his perspective. I don't know.
[01:22:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:22:19] Speaker B: I mean, I'm pretty inclined to not trust monarchies, so that's.
[01:22:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that seems fair. But also, though, gotta remember this is the 60s a lot. There's a different.
[01:22:33] Speaker B: Well, I know. I know that this is pre. Like, a lot of political. Up.
[01:22:37] Speaker A: A lot of political in that area. This is back when like. Like American hippies would. Like. There was literally the hippie trail that ran from, like, England all the way to India and, like, through there where people would just, like, backpack through Afghanistan, Pakistan, like, all of those Countries through there. And it was just a completely different. Again, this is before, like, the. The. All the. A bunch of political upheaval that happened later on, so.
[01:23:00] Speaker B: Yeah, well, no, and I know that. And I, like, I know that, but I'm also kind. I'm just like, you're literally the personal guest of a Saudi Arabian monarch.
[01:23:10] Speaker A: Right. Maybe think about it.
[01:23:11] Speaker B: Maybe think about that a little bit.
[01:23:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:23:15] Speaker B: Okay, so my last thing here, we gotta talk about the misogyny, because it is quite rampant.
[01:23:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[01:23:23] Speaker B: Throughout the book.
[01:23:24] Speaker A: I will say, like I said earlier, I don't think the movie shies away from it entirely. I think the movie depicts it at least a fair amount.
Maybe not as. I'm not saying as much as it is in the book. I'm just saying it is not like the movie glosses over all of that.
[01:23:38] Speaker B: No, it doesn't gloss over all of it.
I just want to read a couple of quotes from the book that particularly stood out to me.
I knew I had in Betty a wife who would sacrifice her life for me if such an occasion ever presented itself to her. But I still told her that too many organizations had been destroyed by leaders who tried to benefit personally, often goaded into it by their wives. And I'm like, okay, Macbeth.
Next. Then I went walking, fresh from weeks in the Holy Land. Immediately my attention was struck by the mannerisms and attire of the Lebanese women. In the Holy Land, there had been very modest, very feminine Arabian women. And there was this sudden contrast of the half French, half Arab Lebanese women who projected in their dress and street manners more liberty, more boldness. I saw clearly the obvious European influence upon the Lebanese culture. It showed me how any country's moral strength or its moral weakness is quickly measurable by the street attire and attitude of its women, especially its young women.
[01:24:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:24:55] Speaker B: And then from the epilogue. So this is Alex Haley's, like, perspective.
It was through a clue from one of the scribblings that finally I cast a bait that Malcolm X took.
Women who cries all the time is only because she knows she can get away with it, he had scribbled.
I somehow raised the subject of women.
Suddenly, between sips of coffee and further scribbling and doodling, he vented his criticisms and skepticisms of women. You could never fully trust any woman, he said. I've got the only one I ever met whom I could trust 75%.
So I felt like the movie touched on that misogyny. But I also felt like the movie implied that it came directly from Elijah Muhammad. And I don't that to be the case?
[01:25:48] Speaker A: It definitely implies, because I had a note about that, that there's this scene that I thought was very cleverly cut where we see Malcolm kind of talking about explaining the issues with, like, women and like, kind of the black women specifically and about, like, dating and all of this sort of stuff to Betty. And it is intercut with Elijah explaining the same thing to him.
[01:26:09] Speaker B: Right.
[01:26:10] Speaker A: Implying that he is parroting the talking point. Talking points of Elijah Muhammad.
[01:26:13] Speaker B: Muhammad, which I do think is true.
[01:26:15] Speaker A: Yes.
I did not get the vibe that we are meant to feel that all of Malcolm X's, which, again, there isn't the movie definitely softens a lot of it. But I don't think we're. I don't think we were meant to feel that all of. Kind of the misogyny that you see from him is a direct result of Elijah Muhammad. I think all the very specific, like, Nation of Islam stuff it says, like, that is coming from. Because it is part of their story, you know, structure and, like the scriptures and all that sort of stuff. I think it implies that all of that stuff is directly coming from Elijah Muhammad. But I did not get the vibe. I just get the vibe in the movie that that Malcolm X, one of his blind spots was sexual kind of sexual politics. And that was not something that he particularly was super woke on. Yeah, yeah. You know, and that he is a product of that time period he's from and that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:27:11] Speaker B: Based on what I read, I think he had plenty of misogynistic beliefs both influenced by Elijah Muhammad and Nation of Islam and also independent of those influences.
[01:27:25] Speaker A: Yeah, well. And beyond the misogyny, I think a big part of, like, it's. You know, I do not agree with a lot of what Islam has to say about anything and, you know, any religion, for that matter. But in this specific instance, we're discussing Islam and their views on women. In this particular instance, the way Nation of Islam views women and other things on top of that, things like, you know, drugs or whatever. There is a very strong sense of, like, moral purity that the Nation of Islam specifically here and Malcolm X extols throughout the film about kind of keeping yourself morally pure, morally clean, abstaining. And again, it's all motivated by understandable things of, like, we must abstain from the white man's poison, which is like. Like, you know, we have been kind of like beaten into submission by hegemonic white power. And part of that is the fact that, you know, it is true that getting a population hooked on drugs and alcohol and all of these other things make them easier to control. There is truth to that. But also, at the same time, moralizing it in the way that Nation of Islam and this. This group does is also not good. And so you get this weird mixture of, like, it is. It is one of those things where it's like Malcolm X was incredibly adept at identifying and calling out problematic racial structures and hierarchies and dismantling why
[01:28:40] Speaker B: the
[01:28:41] Speaker A: power structures exist and what the problem with them are and why kind of capitulating and all of that sort of stuff is not as effective as other means. And incredibly interesting and compelling things to say about race. But also had a ton of horrible views about other stuff, in my opinion, which, again, I appreciate that the movie doesn't completely gloss all of that over. That is still there. And you do get to see kind of the complete picture again, while it does seem to maybe soften some of that a little bit, it doesn't completely shy away from being like, hey, yeah, maybe not all this stuff is great.
[01:29:14] Speaker B: And I do wonder, you know, if had he not been assassinated and had gone on to live, you know, through the 70s and the sexual revolution, because particularly later in his life, he seemed very, very open to, like, taking in new information and changing his viewpoints, which is a thing that most people are not open to.
[01:29:34] Speaker A: That's the thing. It's like he's, in clearly was an incredibly intelligent and. And voracious, like, learner.
[01:29:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:29:40] Speaker A: And was somebody who, like you said, we see. We saw. You could see the fact that his perspectives on things change. And he was very vocal about how he regretted things he did in the past or said in the past about race relations in certain ways. And so I think it's very. I mean, you obviously never know.
[01:29:54] Speaker B: You never know. But I. I do think it's very likely that had he lived through the next decade, he probably would have changed at least some of his views.
[01:30:02] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You would like to think. Because it does. He does strike you, having, you know, the knowledge we have of him and from books and this stuff. It does seem like the type of person, like you said, who reflects on all of that stuff and thinks deeply about those kind of things. And you would like to think he would understand the problematic power structures that exist within, like, sexual politics in the same way that he could identify.
[01:30:26] Speaker B: Come to understand that.
[01:30:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
It is interesting, though, because. Yeah, that is definitely a big part of it is like. Yeah, it's. And it's why it's he's such a. I think it is another reason why he's such a compelling figure in history is because he is complicated in that way. That was all we had for Lost in Adaptation.
Let's go ahead and find out what Katie thought was better in the book.
[01:30:48] Speaker B: You like to read?
Oh, yes, I love to read.
What do you like to read?
Everything.
I just have a couple things, largely things that the movie left out.
So we see a lot more of his childhood in the book. We do see some of it. I thought the movie was going to skip over all of it when we started in the war years, but we did see a little bit of his childhood via flashback.
But we obviously get a lot more in the book.
I mentioned that his siblings, for the most part, are completely cut out of the movie.
We see them when they're kids, but not after that. Particularly his half sister Ella isn't even mentioned anywhere in the movie. And she was a very important figure throughout his life.
[01:31:41] Speaker A: In what way?
[01:31:43] Speaker B: So he initially, when he left, like, the foster care situation that he was in, he goes to Boston and lives with Ella for a while, and then they kind of have a falling out when he gets more into, like, his. His life of crime.
[01:31:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:31:59] Speaker B: But then they, like, come back around later and she. She converts to Islam and actually funds his trip to Mecca. Like, she gives him the money to do that.
And then also she also ends up leaving Nation of Islam and, like, two. To do what he's doing. Yeah, but I. Yeah, she's not in the movie at all. Yeah, the movie also really condensed his.
The life. The life of crime portion of his life.
It. Mostly what we get is his involvement in the numbers game with Archie. But there's way more in the book. He sells drugs for a long time.
There's a portion where he is.
I think they called it being a runner for, like, very specific type of prostitution where he would take black men into white neighborhoods so that they could sleep with white women.
[01:33:00] Speaker A: Oh, interesting.
[01:33:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
The way that after they have the burglary ring, the way that they get caught in the movie is not what happens in the book.
Cause in the movie, they're just, like, at home.
[01:33:14] Speaker A: They're just, like, hanging out home.
Well, I have a note about it. Later we'll get to. Yeah.
[01:33:18] Speaker B: And the cops just show up. But what happens in the book is that he steals a watch that has a very specific thing wrong with it, and the person that he stole it from tells the cops this. And then they notify all of the local jewelers.
[01:33:36] Speaker A: So when they go to fence it.
[01:33:37] Speaker B: So when he goes to try to get the watch repaired, the jeweler calls the police in, and then they set up a sting to catch him.
[01:33:46] Speaker A: There you go. Yeah. The movie just decided, like, we don't need that. Let's just get to the point where we can get.
[01:33:50] Speaker B: Which I totally get.
But also, I thought it was kind of interesting.
And my last note here, something that struck me as so unexpectedly funny when I was reading the first part of the book again, this is when he's deep in his life of crime in Harlem, is that this was one of the most name dropping est things that I've ever read. Oh, really? Yes.
It reminded me of Tahani from the Good Place. Like, he would be relating some story, and then he'd just be like, my close personal friend Billie Holiday.
And this was like, every. Every name that came up, he's like, oh, yeah, I'm really good friends with them.
And I'm not doubting that he was friends with or at least knew all of those people.
But it was so funny to read because he just kept doing it, and I was completely blindsided by it.
You would. Gun to my head. I never would have guessed that Malcolm X would care about that kind of thing.
[01:34:54] Speaker A: I would be like, oh, I knew this person. Yeah. The movie kind of references that specifically with Billie Holiday.
[01:34:59] Speaker B: Yes. We see Billy Holiday.
[01:35:00] Speaker A: We see Billie Holiday in the movie. It's the scene where Archie, like, comes in and is gonna kill him or whatever, and they're watching Billie Holiday perform and he says, like, can we wait for Billy to finish? Or something like that. Yeah.
All right, let's go ahead and talk about what Katie thought was better in the movie. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would.
Happy endings only happen in the movies I mentioned.
[01:35:26] Speaker B: I thought that mixing parts of his childhood into the narrative to make it non linear was a good choice. I thought that was a good way to kind of keep things moving and grooving.
[01:35:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:35:37] Speaker B: I liked that Sofia is depicted as clearly, like, much older when we meet her.
[01:35:44] Speaker A: She's definitely noticeably older than him.
[01:35:45] Speaker B: Yeah, she has, like, little crows feet.
[01:35:47] Speaker A: Yeah. She has older features. Like, you can tell she's older than him. Yeah.
[01:35:50] Speaker B: I thought that it helped her read as a predator.
[01:35:53] Speaker A: Interesting.
[01:35:54] Speaker B: Particularly I think, for white audiences who might not automatically read her as such.
[01:35:59] Speaker A: I mean, I didn't read her that way even in the film because I don't know how old he was supposed to be at that time.
[01:36:03] Speaker B: He's very Young.
[01:36:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:36:04] Speaker B: Now to be fair, he is, he's
[01:36:05] Speaker A: played by Denzel Washington who's lying about
[01:36:08] Speaker B: his age in that section of the book. But when he meets Safiya, he's like 16.
[01:36:12] Speaker A: Okay. In the movie you would never know because he's played by denzel who's like 20 something or 30 or whatever.
[01:36:18] Speaker B: But she is also a predator in the sense of like racially having power over him as a white woman who could like get him killed at any
[01:36:28] Speaker A: moment, which the movie does examine a little bit. They have that interaction and it's, it's some, it's super compelling stuff. And again, where the movie I think is at some of its strongest, where it doesn't really give you a clean answer of like what you're supposed to feel about this. Like that exchange they have where he's like, they're laying in bed and he's like, they're kind of arguing a little bit and he's like, you know, one day you could just like say rape or whatever, like cry rape and kind of alluding to the fact that that was a thing that happened a lot but that there was this tension between them that kind of cannot be resolved by the nature of race relations in the 60s or whatever, the 40s, I guess, at this point. And, and then like he has her like feed him and stuff and like kind of this weird power exchange and the fact that they have this very complicated dynamic because of him being black man and her being a white woman, I, I think that is, again, it's super compelling and I, I don't think the movie really gives you any clean. Like you're not supposed to like feel great about what Malcolm is doing in that scene, but you're also not supposed to be on Sophia's side. You're supposed to be like, oh, this
[01:37:28] Speaker B: is, is, this is weird.
[01:37:29] Speaker A: This is tough. Yeah.
[01:37:31] Speaker B: I liked the addition of the little brief fantasy sequence when he's selling food on the train where he thinks about like smushing the pie into the guy's face.
[01:37:41] Speaker A: I thought that was good.
[01:37:42] Speaker B: And he did sell food on a train like that for a while. Yeah, I appreciated the contrasting hair straightening scenes because we talked about the first one where he like freaks out about it burning him and then later on when we see him do it and he's like, cool. Kind of cool as a cucumber. At least initially until the water doesn't work.
[01:38:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I had that. So I had that noted in my Odds and Ends. I wanted to talk about that. I love that because I thought it's.
It goes even beyond that. Is that.
That scene. So at the beginning, like you said, we see the scene where he's freaking out. And again, I was kind of relating that. I think you could interpret that metaphorically as kind of like. Like physically, his body rejecting this whitening process or whatever, like, altering himself to appear more white.
But as you mentioned later on, we see him straighten his hair again and he sits there cool as a cucumber. But right before that.
The shot right before that is this big, long panning shot around the room of all of the stuff they've stolen.
He has acquired all of this wealth.
He is slowly turning. He has acquired some of the privilege, some of the wealth that a white person during this time period might have. And so I think it's very important that when he had, like. As. I think the movie is kind of outlining this idea that his wealth is allowing him to attain this level of kind of privilege in that regard.
And that.
That it's. It's the. The wealth is tied to the whiteness. And so him having this wealth is tied to the fact that in that scene. And obviously, just beyond that, he's gotten used to it at this point. Like, literally, what. What's going on is he's just used to it at this point. So he doesn't freak out like he did when he was younger. But I think metaphorically and visually, like, what the film is doing there is by showing us all this wealth, it's being like as he acquiring this wealth is. Is kind of. As he has this wealth, it's tied to the fact that as he. He's straightening his hair and dyeing doesn't affect him in the same way because his body is not rejecting the quote, unquote, whiteness in the same way it did previously. Because he is going further and further down that route and he is acquiring this wealth.
He's in a relationship with a white woman at this time. He is doing all of these things that are sort of bumping up against whiteness in society.
[01:40:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Placing him in closer proximity to whiteness.
[01:40:10] Speaker A: And thus, as a result of that, that dyeing his hair does not have the same. And straightening his hair does not have the same physical toll. Does not take the same physical toll on him because he is getting further and away. Further away from his blackness, quote, unquote. And I think that was really. I like that scene. I was, like, really compelling in that regard. But then.
And then. Yeah. And then. But then the idea on top of that, that. That it's all fake. And it can get taken away in an instant because I love that too. The scene just immediately goes. They're rushing around. There's no water. And so like, then it start. He starts freaking out and they're immediately. When he gets the water and gets it out of his hair, the cops are there and he's arrested immediately. You flew to. It's the. It's the. Who's the flight? Too close to the sun, actually. Oh, is that.
[01:40:54] Speaker B: That's the name of the chapter.
[01:40:56] Speaker A: Oh, is it? There you go.
Icarus. Yes, that's his Icarus moment. Yeah. He flew too close to the sun.
[01:41:05] Speaker B: That's the name of one of the chapters.
[01:41:07] Speaker A: It's not that chapter, but that's. I think that's the idea there is that he flew too close to the sun. The sun being whiteness.
Can't do that. They're gonna get you. And you know, you. Yes. You think you can. You can kind of steal your way to the power and the. The. The privilege that a white person has. You think you can.
[01:41:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:41:23] Speaker A: You think.
[01:41:24] Speaker B: But they're never gonna. Actually.
[01:41:25] Speaker A: They're never gonna let you have that. That way.
And I thought that the. All of the way that played out was brilliant. I just. I was. Yeah. I thought that was incredible.
[01:41:33] Speaker B: When he's talking to Banes in prison and Bane says to him, did you ever look up black in the dictionary? And he just looks at him and is like, for what?
That delivery killed me.
[01:41:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:41:47] Speaker B: And my last note here, another thing that killed me, when he writes to Shorty about Nation of Islam and we see him reading the letter and he just goes, he's gone nuts.
[01:41:58] Speaker A: Yes. I had the same note that cracked me the bug up.
Yeah. Especially because it was Spike Lee. Made it even funnier to me. But like, yeah. Shorty's sitting there reading his letter extolling the virtues of Nation of Islam and he's like, he's gone nuts. That was great. All right, let's go ahead and talk about what the movie nailed.
As I expected.
[01:42:21] Speaker B: Practically perfect in every way. All right, I got a bunch of little details here that we didn't talk about.
First off, they make the hair straightening lye mixture with potatoes.
The starch from the potatoes thickens it.
[01:42:36] Speaker A: There you go.
[01:42:37] Speaker B: Also, he wears a powder blue zoot suit in that opening sequence, which is described in the book.
[01:42:43] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:42:45] Speaker B: His father did preach on the, like, Return to Africa movement.
Also, his mother was very fair skinned.
[01:42:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:42:53] Speaker B: Like, she was like white passing.
[01:42:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And he does kind of comment on that and about the nature of. Of colorism a little bit.
[01:43:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:43:03] Speaker A: Kind of a misogynistic way, actually.
[01:43:04] Speaker B: But yeah, when we see them at the dance, you can see some of the. The girls in that scene are wearing white sneakers, which is a thing that's mentioned in the book, that the serious dancers wear sneakers so that they can move more. Yeah.
His nickname was Red.
[01:43:24] Speaker A: Was it his hair? Because he kind of like.
[01:43:26] Speaker B: Yeah, because his hair has like a reddish tint to it.
[01:43:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:43:29] Speaker B: He does get sent to live in like a boy's home after his mother is strong armed into a menstrual. A mental institution.
His teacher does tell him that being a lawyer is aiming too high and that he should be more realistic.
[01:43:44] Speaker A: Jesus was a carpenter after all.
[01:43:46] Speaker B: Yes.
Everybody had a nickname during the. The crime years.
[01:43:53] Speaker A: Yeah. That's classic.
[01:43:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:43:54] Speaker A: Like literally like that period.
[01:43:56] Speaker B: Every character we meet in that section has like a nickname.
[01:44:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Which I think was. This is the thing. Like you. At least you always see it depicted in like crime movies from that era. Like everybody just has a nickname.
[01:44:10] Speaker B: Rudy. You mentioned his little story about the old man that he sprinkles with talcum powder.
[01:44:16] Speaker A: Yeah. I was wondering what was going on.
[01:44:17] Speaker B: That is from the book. So Rudy.
The book never confirms that Rudy actually like sleeps with anyone.
[01:44:26] Speaker A: So that's, that's what I was like. Is the movie implying that he's kind of like a male prostitute?
[01:44:30] Speaker B: Yeah, but Rudy. Rudy makes fantasies happen for people who are willing to pay enough.
[01:44:37] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:44:39] Speaker B: I was wondering, but I. I don't believe that the, the book ever confirms that he actually like, has physical sex with anyone.
[01:44:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the movie doesn't say that. But he does say something about like
[01:44:51] Speaker B: he provides very specific fantasy scenarios.
[01:44:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And one of them I was like. I think that's what they're implying in this scene. But I wasn't 100%. One of the.
[01:45:01] Speaker B: One of them that is described that he visits this old man and strips them both down and bathes him and then tucks him into bed and sprinkles him with talcum powder. And the old man gets off on this.
[01:45:15] Speaker A: Yep. Okay.
[01:45:18] Speaker B: The story about. We see in the movie him rinsing the lie out in the toilet right before the cops show up. That is a story that's in the book. But it's like a random, random anecdote.
[01:45:29] Speaker A: Not tied to that.
[01:45:29] Speaker B: It's not tied to that. No.
[01:45:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:45:33] Speaker B: The line, our crime wasn't burglary, it was sleeping with white women.
Also, Shorty not knowing what concurrently means. Is from the book also the part about Malcolm struggling with kneeling to pray.
He doesn't want to kneel. That bothers him a lot.
[01:45:54] Speaker A: I thought it was interesting that that comes up in the movie, but I felt like there wasn't really a moment early on that kind of set that up or you know what I mean? Like, he gets to that point. Like, I understood it still, and it made sense, but it felt like a detail that you would have seen a moment like in the flashbacks to his childhood or something where, like, we see him, like, being forced to kneel and pray by, like, the white church. Like, by, like, when he's in, like, the care home or whatever. Something like that. Where they, like, force him to kneel to pray or something like that. Yeah, I could imagine. I assume that is basically what it's tied to, like, in the movie. But they never, like, explicitly.
[01:46:30] Speaker B: I don't think the book explicitly gives it like a backstory like that either. He just doesn't want to do it.
[01:46:36] Speaker A: Yeah, but I mean. Yeah, again, the. The implication there, at least that I get from the movie is just that idea of, like, being forced to supplicate himself. Doesn't somebody who's been a victim of oppression his entire life, he just is like that.
[01:46:48] Speaker B: Exactly.
Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad do exchange letters while he's in prison.
The line the only thing I like integrated is my coffee is. We mentioned that earlier there's a specific scene in the movie where he's, like, doing an interview on tv. Like, it looks like a late night talk show style.
And a lot of what he says during that is from the book. It's from, like, different moments in the book. But.
[01:47:13] Speaker A: Oh, so. But that. They're from different moments, but they're not from, like, that. Tell it like, did he like a specific television interview?
[01:47:20] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, but also. But still, like, actual things that he relates happening in the book.
One of the other members of the Nation of Islam does confess to Malcolm that he was instructed to kill him.
He does grow a beard while he's on his pilgrimage to Mecca.
His home does get firebombed.
[01:47:40] Speaker A: I was trying to see, and I couldn't find it because in the movie we see him being, like, interviewed out in front of his house, like, on the news, like, as his house is burning behind him. And I. Most of what you see in the movie that is like news footage is recreations of actual speeches or whatever. And so I was wondering if that was. And I did some quick googling and couldn't find it because I was like that would be really compelling video to see him giving an interview while his house is burning behind him. But I didn't see that anywhere. And at least again, at a very quick. While we were watching the movie, a quick Google search didn't turn anything up. But if somebody is aware if that's real or. My guess is that maybe the movie just created that moment of him doing that interview. But a lot of the other ones are real. So I was curious.
[01:48:23] Speaker B: He did not want anyone to be searched before they entered his events. Yeah, bad idea. Not a great idea.
And then the last thing I wanted to mention is that the end of the movie plays some of his eulogy.
[01:48:39] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:48:40] Speaker B: And that all is like also outlined in the epilogue.
[01:48:44] Speaker A: Yep. All right. We got a handful of odds and ends before we get to the final verdict.
I thought the opening of this film, I forgot how it opened, which is. Opens on this full screen shot of the American flag, which I initially was like, I wonder if this is a intentional kind of visual reference to Patton, like the very famous. Now obviously in Patton he like walks out and is standing in front of this giant American flag. But that is. Is kind of a classic visual iconography of. Again, it's just. Also just the American flag, but that full screen American flag. In filmic language. My brain immediately goes, Patton. Which again is kind of a. I've actually never seen. I have not.
[01:49:31] Speaker B: I know, I know, but. I know, but I've never seen.
[01:49:33] Speaker A: I know that I've seen that scene, but I've never actually watched the whole movie. Patton.
But I was wondering if that was a direct reference to it because then. And that moment where it goes, it's that visual. And then we. We get Malcolm. Malcolm X is one of his speeches or excerpts from different speeches, I'm not exactly sure over that flag. And then we start cutting to footage of Rodney King. Footage of Rodney King being beaten, which happened a year before this movie came out. Obviously not directly relevant to anything specific with Malcolm X because it all happened long after he died. Yes.
[01:50:04] Speaker B: But obviously very relevant, Very relevant to racism.
[01:50:09] Speaker A: And then the flag starts burning and I forgot about that. That it burns down to the X. And. And all of that together is such a powerful, like just incredible opening. I was. Yeah, I'd forgotten about it.
[01:50:21] Speaker B: That intro, the opening of this movie transported me straight back into my sophomore year history classroom because I had completely forgotten about that opening, like you said. And I. So I mentioned earlier I grew up in an area pretty rural, very conservative, very white, very Republican.
And I genuinely think that this movie was the first time, specifically the voiceover from his speech in the opening. The first time that I had ever been exposed to that type and style of rhetoric. And I remember feeling very electrified by it.
[01:51:06] Speaker A: I. It's funny you say that, because I had the exact same experience. I remember.
And now I had. I had a little bit of experience with it, but even still, like, again, I.
Yeah, I've talked earlier about, like, my situation growing up. My neighborhood was largely white, but again, my high school and a lot of my schools growing up, lots of black kids. We, again, largely black area around our neighborhoods, around us, huge black populations, very integrated kind of area of northern North county in St. Louis.
And like I said, my high school was like 50 black, roughly. And so I had had a little bit more exposure to some of this kind of stuff, but not. Not a ton. Still, it's still, you know, a white kid living in suburban America. So if not, you know, all that being said, I do vividly remember that opening scene and this movie in general.
Just. Yeah. I think electrifying is a good way to put it of just like, I don't. Yeah. I don't know if I had heard rhetoric like that that had the energy and the vitriol, but in like, a positive way that just.
It absolutely is something that. I think you understand why he was so popular, because he is an incredibly charismatic speaker.
[01:52:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:52:20] Speaker A: And on top of that, just the ideas being voiced are kind of, again, to your point, for you are so, I guess, revolutionary, but it's not even the exact word I'm looking for. But transgressive, I think is the word I'm looking for.
[01:52:36] Speaker B: Well, yeah, And I think, like, up to that point, my exposure to particularly like, the civil rights movement and like, any type of, like, race relation topic.
[01:52:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:52:50] Speaker B: Had largely been like, you know, we
[01:52:54] Speaker A: talked about the most sanitized version.
[01:52:56] Speaker B: The most sanitized version of Martin Luther King Jr.
You know, the extent of it is, like, pretty much boiled down to the I have a dream speech.
[01:53:04] Speaker A: I have a dream speech.
[01:53:05] Speaker B: But not even the whole speech.
[01:53:06] Speaker A: Not even the whole. Not even the. Yeah. Just the parts that white people are, like, chilling.
[01:53:10] Speaker B: Just the parts that white people really like. Yeah. And I. I just remember, like, hearing that opening where he's talking about, like, specifically calling out, like, the white man and the white man's crimes. And I remember it. It feeling like
[01:53:31] Speaker A: good. Yeah. No, I. I cannot agree more.
[01:53:35] Speaker B: Feeling like finally somebody is telling me the truth.
[01:53:39] Speaker A: Yes, I felt the exact same way. So I had this note and at the end here I, we talked about in the prequel that the.
There were some criticisms of this film by prominent black scholars and academics at the time. It was largely appreciated and appreciated by black culture broadly, like I said, as a very shorthand way of that. I talked about how it was nominated and won quite a few NAACP Image Awards in the year it came out. So it was not like, you know, it wasn't like black culture was like that this movie's bad or not representative or anything. But there were at the same time very specific criticisms from people. And one of the people was bell hooks who had a criticism for the film and hers that I read in the prequel was the film does not compel viewers to confront, challenge and change. It embraces and rewards passive response in action. It encourages us to weep but not to fight.
And I can definitely understand where she's coming from. But that was not true for 16 year old me sitting in the, in a, in, in a history class watching this movie. Yeah, it did not, it did not spur me to like, I don't know how to describe it because I completely agree that it, it, it, I don't want to say it revel that it was my revolution, like my radicalizing moment. But it was absolutely something that being exposed to that kind of rhetoric for the first time felt like I was hearing something deeply true that nobody had ever told me before.
[01:55:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:55:05] Speaker A: That I was aware of but didn't have a way to. I had never heard expressed in that way. You know what I mean? That I was like again, having grown up in a neighborhood or in a area that had a lot of black people in it. And again, a lot of my friends were black and it was, and so I was, I was maybe more kind of cognizant of black experience in America than some people would be or than you probably grew up as. But it was very different but hearing. So I had, I had an idea of like kind of that the systems of oppression and stuff. And obviously again we had the same milk toast, white liberal like education about MLK and stuff that everybody gets in America or at least used to.
It's wild that that is even like, like too woke now. But, but again to your point that, that hearing that in that way, I, I, I remember the same thing. Just feeling completely in awe of like holy. Like that's, yeah, this is, it's, there's something. And again it goes back to what I was saying earlier. It's like, you know, despite all the other issues with a lot of the stuff, some of the Other views that Malcolm X espoused and stuff throughout the years.
His criticisms of, of race racism in America are so valid, poignant and like full of venom in a way that it feels so justified that you're just like, yeah, I again as a high schooler I was like, holy, this is, this is important. I just knew it was important. Like, I just knew this meant something. It was important. And it, I, I think is a big part of, of what, you know, made sure that I ended up being a very left leaning person today was, I do think it was honestly part of. And so maybe this movie was, was something that kind of, you know, embraces and rewards passive response for some people who maybe knew all this stuff already. But I think maybe this movie is for young white kids. I don't know, maybe like, maybe Spike Lee made a movie that, that, that really works for young white kids who don't really know any better. But like, like it, it definitely was something that I found deeply important and led to, led me to do a lot more looking into like this kind of thought in a way that I don't think I would have had I never watched this movie.
[01:57:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I completely agree. Like, I definitely would not say that watching this movie was something that like radicalized me.
[01:57:37] Speaker A: Yeah. But no, I wouldn't say that either.
[01:57:39] Speaker B: But I think it was, I was exaggerating.
Yeah, yeah, I think it was kind of, you know, like you said, like an important milestone. And I think that I watched it at like the exact right time because I, you know, I entered high school, I went to, I had gone to a very small private Catholic school, kindergarten through eighth grade, and I entered high school, I went to our local public high school which even though I was in a very a not diverse area, that public high school was still a lot bigger and more diverse than what I had been exposed to previously.
So I was kind of already on this path of feeling like, like I was kind of starting to key into the idea that I was being lied to.
[01:58:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:58:31] Speaker B: About how the world worked.
[01:58:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:58:33] Speaker B: And sitting in that classroom and hearing that rhetoric to me was like refreshing.
[01:58:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:58:43] Speaker B: It was like, okay, finally someone is being honest with me.
[01:58:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
I had a similar experience, but also a little bit different angle that I think is really interesting. And this is gonna take a little bit, but I think it's interesting to talk about. I don't think I've ever talked about this on the show. I don't know if I ever talked about this at all really.
In high school there was this thing I Remember probably the year before I watched this movie. I think we watched this movie junior year, and I think sophomore year of high school, my school was 50% black, 50% white, and everybody got along for the most part. There was not a whole lot of racial issues to my memory, but there were not none. And I do remember one thing that was a big issue that came up, or I remember this thing, and I know it's so long ago that the details of it are very. And everybody's reactions to it are very, very muddy in my mind. But I have this memory that there was this event, I believe it was during Black History Month my sophomore year that was put on, that was like a talent show that was specifically performed by black students. That was like a showcase of black art and black literature, poetry, music, dance.
And a lot of it was very kind of heady, philosophical, like, revolutionary style, like, stuff. And I remember going to that in sophomore year with a bunch of other people because everybody had to go and watch it. Like, it was like a. In our little theater or whatever. And I remember sitting there sophomore year and feeling horrible.
I remember feeling, like, bad and feeling. And I remember genuinely feeling like.
And I.
How to say this? Feeling like there was a moment, and I remember it was echoed by a lot of people, a lot of young idiot kids at the time of white kids at the time of, like, this is racist against white people. Like, what is being said in this thing is, like, racist. And now I don't think I've ever said that or felt that necessarily, but I remember. I did feel that. I remember feeling like, well, this feels like reverse racism. I didn't have that term or that whatever. But, like, some of the. The ideas being presented during that were very. Like, I had never heard anything like that before. And I rejected it in kind of a reactionary. Like, what do you mean, white people suck? What are you. I'm just. I didn't choose to be a white person. I remember, like, having that thought, like, I didn't choose to be white. What do you mean? Like, we're responsible for all of your suffering. And, like, all that. Like, I remember having that experience, like, sophomore year, and that was a whole big thing. There was this whole big kind of like, discussion around that. And, like, there was a lot of students who had really weird reactions to it. And it did kind of cause, like, this tension.
And then I remember watching this movie the year after that and having a lot of discussions about it, and it completely changed my perspective on that event.
And, like, I think it kind of, and I don't want to say it's just this movie. Like it was not remotely just this movie, but a lot of the conversations around that time period and with the people I knew and like teachers, I think very much did save me from becoming an horrible person. Like, I, I think I, I was teetering on the edge and I, I say teetering on the edge, it's not true. But like, I think there's a, there is a 1 in 100 reality where I am radicalized into a horrible place because I ended up talking to the wrong people who said the wrong things about what was happening in that moment. You know what I mean? Like, I think there's a situation where I started. If I had started hanging out with some of the other white kids who were really, really mad about what had happened and were saying really weird awful shit about like that like black talent show thing.
I think there's a universe where my life is completely different in a horrible way. And I do think that this movie and, and the, specifically the, the, the, the teacher that I had for this class and some of the other teachers from that time period who saw all of that happening and decided to kind of do something about it completely changed my perspective on all of it. And I, I don't want to say turned me into a leftist, but kind of did like in a way that I am incredibly like, glad happened. And, and it is something that does give me a lot of sympathy for and maybe sympathy is not the right word, but does make me more understanding of like kind of the, the weird ways that people get radicalized and like, and in bad ways and like people fall into weird, like bad worldviews and it's, it can be weird little things like that. And it's, it is a reminder, I think to me that it's important that there are people, smart people who can explain and can walk you through those feelings in a way that allows you to come out of it and realize why and how you're wrong without feeling like horrible about it.
And yeah, I don't remember, like I said, I don't remember all the details of that, but I do remember it was like a very, yeah, that like two year period in high school was like a very interesting time where I learned a lot about systemic racism. And it, yeah. And this movie, like I said, I think was, was a big part of kind of opening my eyes to.
And it's funny because it's, it's a movie. Like it's, you know, it's fictionalized but I think that it did. Like, I. I also was like, I knew it was about a real guy and was like, ostensibly mostly based on real events that happened. So I like, trusted most of what we were seeing in the movie was at least relatively accurate, if not obviously completely accurate.
And that, among many other things, I think definitely did help, you know?
Yeah. I don't know. It was interesting.
[02:04:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
I mean, maybe you're right. Maybe this movie is.
It works really well for white kids on the edge of figuring out who they are.
[02:04:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do, like I said, I do want to stress that when I say on the edge, it's not like I was like, I'm so close to becoming a racist. It wasn't that. It was because I was never like again. I was never like. I always grew up very progressive, very left leaning. But there was that period in high school where it was. And it was a very emotional reaction to feeling othered. Yeah, that's what it was. I do.
[02:05:10] Speaker B: I also want to point. Just add an addendum here for anybody listening to us who doesn't know how old we are. Oh, yeah, we both went to high school in the 2000s.
[02:05:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:05:20] Speaker B: So I was in high school from 04 to 08.
[02:05:23] Speaker A: I was 03. 07.
[02:05:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So we're like, kind of squarely in the.
The Internet is picking up steam.
[02:05:31] Speaker A: Yes.
[02:05:31] Speaker B: But social media is not what it is today.
[02:05:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, yeah. Every. There. There was no. I mean, Facebook and MySpace, but. But nobody did anything on it. You would go on it and listen to somebody's. The music on their page and like, look at pictures and that was it.
[02:05:46] Speaker B: I just want to clarify, like, the. The time period relevancy part of this conversation.
[02:05:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[02:05:53] Speaker B: Yes.
[02:05:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was. Yeah. Like 2005, 2006 or whatever. Yeah. I do want to stress it was not like a thing where I was like, oh, I'm so close to being racist. It wasn't that. It was just I was in a vulnerable emotional spot that. And I didn't. I think every high schooler is where you just don't understand the world or who you are or what. And I just remember feeling very othered and I think a lot of people in that time felt othered, but. And didn't. Didn't have a good way to kind of express how they felt that way and why they felt that way or to understand why it was okay to feel that way way and why. And that, in fact, feeling other than that moment is actually kind of like the Point. Like a little bit of, like, hey, yeah. Oh, you feel other person who's part of the hegemonic power structures. That's interesting. I wonder if you should examine that feeling at all. And that was. That was a lot of what, like, the. The kind of breakdown of that was. Or, like, from my memory, that was a lot of, like, the discussions after that is like. It's interesting that you feel that way. What do you. What do you think it feels like to be a black person in America? And I was like, oh. Like, you know, and. Yeah. And so, yeah, it is.
[02:06:50] Speaker B: Is.
[02:06:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:06:51] Speaker B: All right. Well, that got unexpectedly deep.
[02:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I. Yeah. Yeah.
[02:06:58] Speaker B: I didn't realize Ruthie Carter did the costumes.
[02:07:00] Speaker A: I didn't either. Yeah.
[02:07:02] Speaker B: She just got nominated for Sinners.
[02:07:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I thought that was cool.
[02:07:05] Speaker B: And I believe she won for both Black Panther movies.
[02:07:09] Speaker A: I think so.
[02:07:10] Speaker B: I think.
[02:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Speaking of Sinners, I kind of look well, and we'll get to it, but the sinner's part. But I kind of love the choice. In the very beginning of this movie, we get this shot where Shorty is, like, on one side of the street. He's under, like, the train tracks in the shade on one side of the street. And then he walks across over to the barber shop, and it's this big, long tracking shop following him. But as the moment he walks out from under the train tracks and then over into the sunlight before he gets over to the barbershop, they made the choice, I assume, intentionally and not just like, a technical limitation, to not adjust the exposure. Like, as he walks into the sun, it, like, over, like, blows out the whole shot, basically. And I. I don't know what it was about it, but I thought it worked really well and was, like, this really cool visual moment, something about it. But then he gets back to the other side to the barbershop, and it. We go back into, like, the shadow again, and it. The exposure is correct again. And I don't know, I just. I found it really, like, kind of visually compelling. But it also reminded me a little bit of the shot from Sinners where the daughter of the Chinese family that runs the store walks from the white side of the street to the black side of the street. We get the long tracking shot following her over there. It reminded me a little bit of that.
[02:08:27] Speaker B: I also really liked, in this opening shot, the kind of vaguely golden sepia tone that they used. I thought was really cool.
[02:08:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
I thought that when we see the scene where the clan shows up and it's either the time where they.
[02:08:45] Speaker B: This is when they're threatened his mom.
[02:08:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it's when they threaten his mom and then they ride away. And we get this very impressive shot of them, like, riding into the horizon
[02:08:55] Speaker B: with the gigantic moon.
[02:08:56] Speaker A: With the gigantic moon. And I think I haven't watched this since film school, but I think that might be a reference to Birth of a Nation.
[02:09:04] Speaker B: I think you're right. I've never seen Birth of a Nation.
[02:09:06] Speaker A: I watched it in and I don't really want to. No, I mean, it's one of those movies that is like, oh, yeah, it's an impressive piece of filmmaking for the time period. But, yeah, it's a movie glamorizing the kkk.
[02:09:17] Speaker B: I think you're right that it might be referenced.
[02:09:19] Speaker A: I believe it is a reference to that.
There's a really cool scene or shot in the movie that I really appreciated is that at the nightclub where they're dancing.
He's there with Laura, who's a character who we see later ends up going into a life of prostitution later on in the film. Film.
But the.
He's dating her at this time and he's dancing with her at this club. But then he sees this white woman, Sophia, and he goes to dance with her, and he walks over to her to, like, bring her onto the dance floor. And Laura had, like, left to go do something. Go to the bathroom or something like that. And we get this shot where he. He gets Sophia and he's walking to the dance floor. And the camera is, like, tracking with them as they walk to the dance floor. And in the very far background behind them. Them, but framed right between them, staring at them as they walk, is Laura.
[02:10:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:10:06] Speaker A: Like, watching them and walking through the crowd and. So cool.
[02:10:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a really cool shot.
[02:10:13] Speaker A: Also, didn't realize this. The social worker lady who comes to take the kids away from Malcolm X's mother is played by. And now I'm blanking on her name. But the actress who plays Marion and Raiders of the Lost Ark, like the love interest in Raiders of the. I was like, that's her. Or I thought that was funny.
[02:10:29] Speaker B: Here's a little thing that I didn't understand because this is in the book. And they show this in the movie as well. But in the book, he specifically says that he hides his gun, like, tucked into his belt in the small of his back.
And specifically says that he does this because cops don't think to check there. Yeah, but am I crazy that I feel like that's a really common spot to Put a gun.
[02:10:54] Speaker A: It definitely is depicted as a common spot in media.
I do, I will say. But it's also very common in media to depict a pat down as one where you go like armpits, sides, and then like hips. Basically.
[02:11:06] Speaker B: That's fair.
[02:11:06] Speaker A: And they don't generally do, like. And so I wonder if it's just that. Is that like the kind of general pat down?
Yeah, it doesn't tend to go there. So that maybe it did work for a while, like, you know what I mean? And then I'm sure eventually they started figuring out and started checking there. But. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did notice that, and I kind of mentioned it earlier, but this movie just has so much kinetic energy. It moves. Especially early on. It moves so frenetically. But it's also very easy to follow. Like, I never felt lost, especially even jumping around between time periods.
And just the way it. Like the. The Spike Lee's always done this. He's. He's a big fan of, like, audio, like, kind of match cuts and like, loud audio transitions and cuts from, like, that. That jump forward in time significantly on, like, a lot of sound effect and stuff like that. And then the result of it is just a movie that I. For so much of it, moves at such a compelling pace that three and a half hours does not feel like. Yeah, and a half hours, in my opinion. I, like, we were sitting down and watching like, oh, yeah, this movie is like 3:25 or something like that.
[02:12:08] Speaker B: And it was. It was long.
[02:12:10] Speaker A: It's long. But it does not feel like real good. It does not feel like three and a half hours, in my opinion.
There we get this shot in the film of after Joe Lewis wins, like, the boxing match. He's from Harlem. And so everybody in Harlem is like, out on the street streets celebrating.
[02:12:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:12:25] Speaker A: And we get this huge crane shot pullback of, like, hundreds of people celebrating in the streets of Harlem. And I assume it's a studio lot or something. Like, at least it kind of looks like a studio backlot. But I was like, man, imagine that same shot today. Like, because they. In the movie, they literally just got hundreds of people out on this street with signs and, like, whatever, yelling. And I'm like, you'll never, ever see that. You just will never see that shot in a movie barring, you know, somebody with really.
[02:12:51] Speaker B: Somebody.
[02:12:52] Speaker A: Yeah, somebody with enough Chris Nolan or whatever, you know, somebody like that can. Can make that happen.
But it. It. But even then, they just won't, because they don't.
[02:13:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:13:00] Speaker A: You know, like, so it's Just. But it. It has such a tactile. Like, you're like, yeah, that's a bunch of actual people in the street.
[02:13:07] Speaker B: The energy of a shot like that is undeniable.
[02:13:10] Speaker A: It's undeniable. And it's. And it's just. Yeah, it's so disappointing that that just, like, will never happen anymore because. Because of. It's just significantly cheaper, which I'm not even necessarily decrying that. Like, I think you can do a pretty effective shot with CG that does a similar thing. But something about that moment in the movie, like, it just. It's not even an important moment, but there's just so much energy to it, and it's just so tactile in a way that is.
Yeah, it's great.
[02:13:38] Speaker B: I was taken aback in this film by how Elijah Muhammad talked.
[02:13:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:13:46] Speaker B: I was like, is that how he talked? And I looked up some archival footage, and, yes, it was.
And I was trying to tread, like, a careful line here, because I didn't really want to imply that he was just faking an accent. But I was also a little perplexed because to me, it sounds like a mock Indian accent in the movie. And the man was born in Georgia. Yeah. In the United States.
[02:14:12] Speaker A: Yes. So I was also wondering that, and I did a little bit of digging, and one thing I read is that there was speculation that he may have been imitating the accent of Wallace Fard Muhammad, who is the founder of the Nation of Islam.
[02:14:26] Speaker B: Yes.
[02:14:26] Speaker A: That guy. His origins are uncertain. He is a kind of a mysterious figure.
[02:14:31] Speaker B: Like his early years, he also, like, vanished.
[02:14:33] Speaker A: Yes. A lot about him is mysterious, but his origins are kind of unknown. But the Nation of Islam tradition is that he's an Arab from Mecca, which I think scholars pretty much do not think is accurate. Is not true. But according to the Wikipedia article, many scholars argue that he may have been from South Asia, India, Pakistan, or Afghanistan, like that region.
Some other scholars claim he was a white guy, maybe from New Zealand. Others speculate that he was maybe a Turk. And then it says less popular theories of origin suggest he may have been Syrian, Moroccan, Greek, Bosnian, Albanian, African, American, Jewish.
Regardless of where he's from, I think it's very likely that he was presenting himself. And based on the fact that the Nation of Islam holds that he is an Arab from Mecca. Right. That he was at least presenting himself as somebody who would have an accent that, again, to represent the fact that he is this prophet from this region
[02:15:27] Speaker B: presenting himself as somebody who could be an authority on Islam.
[02:15:31] Speaker A: Yes. And I think the idea might be that in order to kind of keep that. That mystique that. That. That image of power going, that Elijah Muhammad may have been mimicking that in order, like, his acts.
[02:15:44] Speaker B: That makes sense.
[02:15:45] Speaker A: In order to kind of maintain that. That sense of, like. I don't know if mysticism is the right word, but, like, authority based on.
[02:15:51] Speaker B: Right.
[02:15:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, where they're from or whatever. Also possible. Maybe. I don't know, because it does. You're right, it does.
It kind of sounds like Indian or some, like, from that area.
I. I also wondered sometimes, because it's hard to parse in the movie exactly what kind of accent he's doing. I would have to go back and listen to Elijah Muhammad himself. But being from Georgia, there also could be some maybe, like, influences like Cajun culture or something that's adding like an. I don't know. I'm purely. Like. There could be some element of that. Because there are also. When you get into the south, there are dialects of different little regions that have influences of, like, different, like, ethnicities that settled in those regions and stuff
[02:16:27] Speaker B: like that sometimes influences. You wouldn't necessarily.
[02:16:29] Speaker A: Yeah, you wouldn't expect. You're like, oh, that guy's from Georgia. It's like, okay, but maybe he's from Georgia in a town where there was a huge population of Indian people. I don't know. I'm just, you know, like, it's. It's not impossible. But again, from what I have found, I think the most likely idea is that he was kind of doing this in order to mimic what. How Wallace fard Muhammad sounded. So the whole montage where Malcolm X is giving his speech about black intelligence and decrying kind of like the. The pacifist black leaders of that time period as he watches footage of MLK and his movement being brut by police, I thought was just kind of master. Masterful filmmaking. It is incredibly evocative that the shot where he's just sitting there on, like, the. The, like, edge of his couch, like, staring at the tv, and we're just, like, watching, like, police dogs. Like, you know, and it's. And then meanwhile, it just. That whole. Again, it has so much energy, and it is. Again, it's electrifying in a way that is. Again, even though I disagree with some of the stuff he's saying in those speech in that moment about, like. Because he's saying a lot of very, like, black isolationist stuff that I think is not ideal. Not the ideal way to approach race relations is understandable in context and stuff. Like that and definitely within, I think, the movie. The reason that scene is so powerful is that you understand exactly why he's saying those things in that moment. As you're seeing him watch what is happening in the country, you're like, okay, I can understand where you're coming from, even if I don't necessarily agree with you.
[02:17:57] Speaker B: A random line that. That kind of cracked me up when Betty says, I want to have lots of babies with you. And I was like, great news.
[02:18:06] Speaker A: Yep, good news.
[02:18:07] Speaker B: You in fact do that.
[02:18:09] Speaker A: Speaking of Betty, I thought Angela Bassett was absolutely snubbed in this film. Yeah, she's not in a ton of it.
[02:18:16] Speaker B: Yeah, she's great.
[02:18:17] Speaker A: But her performance is incredible. In particular, the scene where she confronts Malcolm about Elijah Muhammad's adultery. That whole scene where they have that argument in the house I thought was just like, he's good. And Denzel is incredible in the whole film. He's. I didn't even have a note about it because it kind of goes without saying. But his performance is captivating. You cannot take your eyes off him the entire time he's on the screen. And like. And it's part of the reason the movie works as a three and a half hour movie. If his performance was any less enthralling than it is, I think it would be like. But he has so much.
The subtleties in his performance and there's so much behind the eyes going on that you're just constantly want to know, like, what is going on in his head. Head. In a way that just pulls you in and makes every second of this movie, like I said, just kind of riveting. He's incredible. But I thought in that scene in particular, the work she's doing and playing off of him and the emotion she's.
Especially the context of her role in their relationship and the power dynamics at play and everything going on. The way she handles that I thought was just so well done that I was like, holy shit. Yeah, she. Again, she wasn't even nominated for like, best Supporting Actress and I don't know, maybe there were a bunch of other really good performances that you're sure. I don't know. But I feel like she may have been snubbed for like best Supporting Actress role because she was incredible.
[02:19:40] Speaker B: The part of the movie where he's in the Middle east, we were kind of laughing about the two guys who are like very obvious, the most obvious
[02:19:51] Speaker A: CIA agents ever existed.
[02:19:53] Speaker B: But we. We were laughing about it as we were watching this. And you said like a CIA or FBI or whatever, probably CIA. And then I had gone onto the IMDb page to see if the cast list specified that they were CIA agents. And it does. But for some reason this really tickled me. Both of the actors are named Terry.
[02:20:16] Speaker A: The two Terry.
[02:20:17] Speaker B: The two Terry's. They're both Terry.
[02:20:19] Speaker A: That's great.
There's one shot in particular, and I assume this is at some mosque or something in Mecca, maybe, I don't know. I'm not sure. We talked about in the prequel how they had to use a second unit film crew in order to film in Mecca because they all had to be Muslim in order to film there. But I was wondering how much if Denzel was there, because Denzel is not Muslim and I don't think he ever. I checked his Wikipedia to see if maybe he was at some point, but he's Christian and. And according to, there was nothing about him ever being Muslim in his thing. And so I was wondering, like, was he allowed it? I don't know. I was like, yeah, I don't know. We don't see him like circling the Kaaba, like in any of those points. We get footage of like the Kaaba and stuff and like, and all of that. We don't see him there, but we do see him doing some other stuff that I was wondering, well, maybe they filmed that other places.
[02:21:08] Speaker B: I would imagine so.
[02:21:10] Speaker A: You would imagine. But there are some specific moments that felt like he was in places where he maybe wouldn't be allowed. Were he not Muslim. I don't know. I was. I was interested to find out, like, the details of that because I thought it was interesting. But there's one shot in particular where we get this huge wide angle shot that starts on the ceiling of this mosque, I assume of the. It has all these circular lights on the ceiling and then it tilts down, revealing him as the lone person in this room. It has like, its bright red floor and he's like, praying or whatever. But the light. This, the light fixture on the ceiling of that mosque and the way it's framed over him is so fucking cool. It's such a great shot.
I also completely forgot I knew Giancarlo Esposito was in this movie. Did not realize he played one of the assassins. I thought that was interesting. I was like, holy shit. Yeah, he's one of the people who kills him. All right, that was it for odds and ends. We wanted to remind you, as always, that you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads. I'm Almost said blue reads good. Sky, blue sky, Goodreads. Any of those places interact? We'd love to hear what you have to say about Malcolm X. Do it very quickly. We're gonna have to turn this around quick because this episode's out late.
So as you're listening to this, if you have feelings and thoughts on this, get over to social media immediately because you're gonna have only a couple days, unfortunately, to get to get those thoughts in. We might delay the prequel.
[02:22:31] Speaker B: I was gonna say we could, we could delay the prequel.
[02:22:33] Speaker A: We probably delay the prequel a day or two just to just give us
[02:22:37] Speaker B: a little extra time. But try to get your thoughts in as quickly as you can.
[02:22:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So yeah, do that. Also, you can help us out by heading over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to our show. Drop us a five star rating, write us a nice little review. We would appreciate that. And you could Support
[email protected] thisfilmislit where you can support us get access to bonus content. What was our bonus episode this month? We did it right already.
[02:23:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it was Megamind.
[02:23:00] Speaker A: Megamind, that's right. If you want to hear us talk about Megamind, very apt for this episode.
Yeah, it's funny, it's just very different kind of subject matter. I was like, that's right, it was Megamind.
[02:23:16] Speaker B: That's, that's the charm of our show.
[02:23:17] Speaker A: We're always, we're always on something different, always doing something different. So if you want to hear us talk about Megamind, that's the bonus episode this month.
But every month we put out a bonus episode that you get access to at the five dollar level and at the fifteen a month level you get access to priority recommendations. If there's something you would really love to, for us to talk about, you can recommend it and we will add it to our queue as soon as possible. And this in fact was a patron request.
[02:23:39] Speaker B: This was a request from Harpo Rat.
[02:23:43] Speaker A: There you go. Thank you, Harpo Rat. Katie, it's time for the final verdict.
[02:23:47] Speaker B: Sentence fast.
[02:23:49] Speaker A: Verdict after.
[02:23:51] Speaker B: That's stupid. This is a difficult final verdict. The cherry on top of what has been a difficult episode to produce use.
I struggled my way through this book.
It is 527 pages of dense material that required a lot of thought, reflection and closing out of my notes app to go look things up.
Malcolm X was a complex, multifaceted man who lived a fascinating life.
To quote my friend Jasmine, he was a man of many words and many ways of saying those words that he Certainly was.
I recalled enjoying the movie when I watched it in high school and I enjoyed re watching it for this episode. It is an electric piece of filmmaking with enough energy and artistic power to keep you riveted even through a 3 hour and 22 minute runtime.
The film is certainly more palatable and digestible than the book, book and all things considered, it is a pretty faithful adaptation. However, if my reason for preferring the movie is that it was more entertaining, more digestible, more palatable, I'm not sure that's a fair or good call for me to make. As a white person, I didn't enjoy the experience of reading the book.
I found parts of it to be incredibly dry.
And because I am a person who is very suspicious of organized religion, I found the parts where he gets deep into Islam to be particularly difficult to get through. And while I agree with most, if not all of what Malcolm X had to say about white people and Christianity, I absolutely cannot co sign his views on women.
Arguably, I enjoyed the experience of watching the movie more.
But I have to ask, does my opinion on what's more enjoyable matter?
I'm inclined to say no.
And while I didn't really like the book, it was an educational read and I do feel enriched for having read it.
So I'm going to give this one to the book on the grounds that I think it presents a more full picture of who Malcolm X was.
But as always, I'm happy to hear rebuttals if you have them.
[02:26:22] Speaker A: Katie, what's next?
[02:26:23] Speaker B: Up next, we are going to be talking about Predestination, a 2014 film that I had never heard of.
[02:26:31] Speaker A: I don't think I've heard of this.
[02:26:33] Speaker B: It's based on a short story called all you Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein.
And I think it's a. I think it's a time travel thing. I think. Yeah. No, this is also a patron request and I had never heard of either the movie nor the story. So we're going to be talking about that.
[02:26:55] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's by. Did you say the name of the book? All your Zombies by Robin.
[02:26:58] Speaker B: It's a short story called all you
[02:27:00] Speaker A: Zombies by Robert Heinlein.
[02:27:02] Speaker B: Heinlein.
[02:27:02] Speaker A: Heinlein, yeah. I don't know if we've done Heinlein before.
[02:27:05] Speaker B: Didn't he write
[02:27:08] Speaker A: Slapstick of another kind?
[02:27:10] Speaker B: No, that was Bonnet.
[02:27:12] Speaker A: I know.
[02:27:13] Speaker B: No, he wrote the. The one where the. Oh my God, no. The one where there are. Where there are giant bugs and the. I'm doing my part.
[02:27:27] Speaker A: Oh, no, that's not Highline.
[02:27:29] Speaker B: Are you sure?
[02:27:30] Speaker A: Starship Troopers. It is Starship Troopers. Yeah, you're correct.
[02:27:33] Speaker B: I see.
[02:27:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:27:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember.
[02:27:37] Speaker A: There you go.
[02:27:37] Speaker B: Pepper Drop Farm remembers.
[02:27:39] Speaker A: Yeah, he did. Starship Troopers. The fascist version.
[02:27:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:27:43] Speaker A: Interesting to see what this is because, like you said, I've never heard of either. So that's gonna be our next episode, so look out for that. But before that, next week, again, maybe a couple days late to give people some extra time to get their thoughts in. We'll be discussing what you all had to say about Malcolm X until that time. Guys, gals, not minor pals. And everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies and keep being awesome.
