Rebroadcast - Love & Hollywood | 24
Show Notes:
This episode originally aired on May 27, 2021. Host Julia Washington and Guest Nicky discuss Love and Hollywood and how Hollywood can do better.
Transcript:
Julia: Hey friends. Welcome back to pop culture makes me jealous. Last week we had my friend Nikki on the show, and while we discussed Malcolm, Jamal Warner, we had another conversation, but I thought I'd like to share with you love and
Hollywood,
Mickey and
I are both single women who come at love from two different angles. Even though sometimes our angles overlap, you're going to want to do. On this episode, because we talk about a lot of different movies.
Hey friends, I just wanted to pop in real quick and say, thanks for listening and sticking with. I really appreciate it. And you taking the time to listen really means a lot. If you are listening to us on apple podcasts, I would love it. If you could drop us a review, I know it's not always an easy task or sometimes we think we'll do it real quick.
And then we get distracted. Heavens knows I'm the queen of getting distracted. It would really mean a lot to me. If you just drop a couple of notes on what you think of the show, I'd love it. If. Five stars, but you know, you tell you, I understand you have to be true to what your, your belief system is about this program with that said, and now here we
go
to the show.
What would you like to see Hollywood? Now in terms of love, what kind of movies are we missing? What kind of love are we missing? Cause I feel like we get a lot, again, we get a lot of that trauma. We get a lot of traumatic love and that's why Sylvie's love was so powerful because it was raw and beautiful and pure and not centered around some sort of black
trauma.
Nicky: Yeah. The love that I realized that I've enjoyed or that I've, um, Keep coming back to is, and it's probably really specifically character and watershed shared a little bit too much, but living single if Kyle and Maxine. Their love of two dynamic personalities. People who are really good at what they do, they don't need each other, but you see consistently that they want each other.
I love seeing that. And I think because that's reflective of me not to say that I'm on top of my game, but to be so comfortable and centered in yourself and knowing who you are. Maxine never changes who she is. She the thing person throughout the entire series of the show, right. Trial does a little bit of growing Maxine to the a little bit later on, but they are who they are.
They're in great place. With themselves and they want love and they actually want each other. I like seeing that, I don't like seeing where people are reliant or needing each other, the conversations that I've had with family members, where people get to, you know, the aisles and they're getting married and, you know, the nutshells and all, and they say I've never felt complete until I met you.
I'm like, yo, that's a fucking red flag. Cause I've every Phoenix don't go down that road. Don't do that because I think people need to feel complete within themselves because when you're not, then you're looking for people to fill in those gaps for you. Right. And you should ever do that
to anyone. And that's setting up an expectation that they may or may not be able to meet.
And that's not fair because you know, you weren't supposed to do that. And we're. Evolved enough to have that conversation of like, here's my deficits that I'm expecting you to fill. Like, we don't talk like that. We, we internalize those expectations. We talk about them with our friend group, but we never blatantly say in pop culture.
And we see this a lot where there's this, we confer with our friends about our dating lives, but we never openly directly have conversations with the person we're dating. And I will be
honest with you. That is something that I have made. Um, And mental point to change a couple of years back where I've openly talked about triggers.
What you're doing is triggering. And this is why in a calmly fashion, because they don't drink. Right. Or saying things like, Hey, just, you know, I'm not good at taking the trash to the curb. It's problematic. I worked on the deal
Julia: is my warning sign is I don't do dishes.
Nicky: Right? Exactly. Exactly. I'll take the trash to the container, but taking it to, and from the curb out of the.
I just never seem to do it. Just a heads up. I think people need to have those honest and real conversations, but if you don't have those honest, real conversations with yourself, how would you ever be able to have it with someone else? Cause you have to have those conversations with yourself. Understand that you're at that place, how you got there, why you got there and B.
So cognizant and aware of it that you can
Julia: openly discuss it. That's why Beth and Randall. And this is us is such a beautiful couple because Beth has no qualms. Like Randall's still learning how to have conversations because he's never really been in a position where he can, which it breaks my heart because he's never really been in a position where he can fully and wholly be himself because he's never really been in a black community.
So he. Sort of like, that's a whole separate conversation. Um, he, but Beth forces him into being open and direct with her because she's open and direct with him. And I really appreciate that because it's showing us, it's showing couples. You can have. Uh, hardship in your relationship and still navigate with conversation.
Yes. And, and they do it so beautifully Beth and Randall do, and it makes me happy to see that. And, and I'd love to see more of that. Not necessarily with Beth and Randall, but in general. Right? Like having relationships. Conquer hurdles that are universal themes and just pulling scenarios from this as us, like mom has mentioned, the daughter comes out is I think she comes out as BI, you know, different things like that, where it's like these themes are.
Isolated to one culture. No, they're not at
Nicky: all, but it also stems back to being honest with yourself, because if you're honest with yourself, you can communicate how you feel. Yeah. Right. And that, that is something that I have learned the hard way, because I understood who I was, but I don't think I understood why.
And more importantly, I can always communicate, um, Like with precision, this is what the deal is. And that is something that I've working on. And not to say that this isn't problematic myself, but I have specifically been in situation shifts where I've told myself, okay, in this you're going to work on doing XYZ.
Right. And basically having like personal exercises to push my. To be the person that I know that I fundamentally need to be my flaws are I need to know them. I need to identify them. I know my demon, hell I named my demon. I say, hello to them in the mirror sometimes because I know exactly where they are and where they're showing up and why.
Right? Yeah. But when you're in a relationship and you know that much about yourself, you can communicate why things bother you. You can communicate how things bother you. You can comfortably say, Hey. That bothers me, but I want to work on it with you so we can move past this. If you, I feel like if people can't fundamentally really do that within themselves, they're going to have a hell of a time finding real love or true love the way that people always say they weren't.
Julia: Right, right, right. Because if I can't like it goes back to the conversation we had some time ago. Coming home and, you know, helping shoulder, those burdens that we experience out in the real world, you know, if I can't share that with you, then I'm not really, truly comfortable. And then I'm never going to be in a position where I don't feel tension or anxious or, you know, some other negative emotion.
And being able to be a partner is so important and that's the key, it's a partnership. And I think that for me was the biggest hurdle because I was never ready to be a partner now at this phase in my life. And I think I've been ready for awhile. I think that guy dated in 2015, I think when school ended now, when I reflect back on that, I think once school ended, I think.
Gearing myself up to channel all the energy that I put into school, into being his partner, but then it ended before that could happen. And so now the last handful of years it's been, I have this energy that I'm willing to give in a partnership. And I don't know where to put it because I haven't met anybody that I feel I haven't met anybody.
I feel like my family won't rip to shreds. I mean, I think
Nicky: the word here. Right. Someone who's worthy of that. And because someone, you need to be able to bring someone home. Your family attempt to read them to shreds, and then they still stand there. And the way I look at it with my family is I feel like WhatsApp, WhatsApp, and your family should have your back and questioned them.
And double check that there might've been repeats in queue,
Julia: which is a huge, can be a huge hurdle because it is really hard. It can take a couple months or right away. Well, some families do that Nicky and I just don't understand like, Bye. Like you just showed up. We're going to need six months before we get comfortable with you.
Like don't even expect any more, any time, less than that. If you get less than that, then you're really fucking special. My
Nicky: brother, I was like, listen, whoever you bring home, I'm going to have to deal with, I will give you better pick accordingly because I love you. And don't bring someone in up into our relationship.
It's going to cause me to not want to communicate with
Julia: you. Right. When I see that represented in TV and movies for the partner, kind of gets in the way of the family that breaks my heart because like, no, that's not love, not bordering emotional abuse. You should not be getting in the way of me having a relationship with my parents.
Do I have an unhealthy relationship with my parents? Maybe. So, instead of being like stop, having a relationship, like getting in the way of that, help me in a healthy way, detach. Like we are a celebratory family. Like my mom, we celebrate everything. You got a promotion. We celebrate you sneezed. We celebrate, like we celebrate everything.
Everyone's vaccinated. Let's celebrate. So if you're, if you're coming from a family that doesn't do celebrating and then you don't sort of get comfortable with our culture of celebrating, it's not going to
Nicky: work. Yeah, no, that that's absolutely real. I know. I can't tell him if he remembered to think of me when you're dating them, but I tell them, think of me when you're dating them.
Am I going to like them? Because you know, I will or won't, but my family and I are so close knit, we can talk about things like that. I've got a cousin who acts like, you know, a big brother to me, and there's always like double checking any of the men that I'm even considering. It would be very difficult to fall in love with someone who you knew would not get along with your family.
So there's a lot, at least for me, because like you family is very important. Um, I communicate with my family regularly, like you said, I don't know it is what it is
Julia: all the time. I don't really care, but we have a family group chat. We texted every single day. I have a couple of different family
Nicky: group chats, but someone who is going to be a part of my life, there are certain things that they have to understand when you are in a relationship with me.
I know. With me there, things are going to get, I don't do well taking the trash to the curb. It's just a thing. My grandmother yelling about my poor habits with taking the trash out to the side of the child. I'm trying to do better, but I'm not quite there yet. So, but it, because I know of my flaws, I am open to understanding my partner's flaws as well.
Right. Family is everything to
Julia: me. Because how can you even create your own unit of the family tree? If, if the person you're bringing in doesn't appreciate the roots that you came from. Exactly
Nicky: you don't because you can't. Right. Some people who they don't have as close knit relationships with their family, as I do with my, or like your thing that you do with yours and that's okay.
But if you aren't, at least you kind of respect and eventually kind of get comfortable in the fold of this, of my dynamic. Right. Okay, that sounds good. And you might not love it, but you'll work with it because you love me and you know what comes with me? You can do that for me. I promise to do something like that for you, like who I'm willing to casually date versus who I would consider an actual relationship are two different things.
Um, you know what
Julia: you're right. And honestly, I didn't have the language to say it that way because I haven't. Truly dated in six years, it's been a lot of casual dating that
Nicky: the casualness I don't, I don't have a real, I don't have like a start and a stop. I'm not going like crazy deep on the older end or like super deep on the younger end either.
But I don't know. I'm just gonna open to it if the chemistry is right. Um, you know, if the chemistry is right, if you're good to me and a couple of other things that parched and talk about, cause your mom's on here.
Sorry, mom, um, you know, a couple other things. Um, and as long as those things match up and act, right. Okay, cool. I'm okay to casually date you, but if I'm looking for someone realistic, like someone that actually wants to stick around, because every relationship you enter, you already know what it's going to be.
Right. I'm entering this for the short-term or entering it for the longterm. For the most part, we switch it up on you and you get surprised. Um, But usually know what the game is when you walk into a situation. So for men that I casually date, I have a very wide range of what I am open to, but I will say that I tend to casually date.
I don't know, like I'm not gonna feel like a younger age, but younger versus. Yeah. I tend to casually date younger versus older.
Julia: I feel like sometimes with the younger, they're not really into wanting something more either they're not ready for it. And I think that's fair. So it makes it easier. I'm generalizing here.
Um, so it feels like it's a little bit easier to date casually with the younger audience. Yeah. I'm just
Nicky: going out to have a good time and we're going to go out together and have a good time and make a weekend out of it or whatever.
Julia: When my son was little and we were doing baseball little league and you know, some of the dads would be like, you're a man-hater.
And I'm like, I don't understand how you got there, because I was like, I'm one, I'm a hopeless romantic, which doesn't always come across. But I, I want my life to be a romcom or, you know, an eight part mini series about love. Like, I don't care, like give me the buttoned up 30 minutes mini series or an hour and a half movie for my life.
Yeah. And so I was having a conversation with somebody who, you know, a friend out of town about this experience, where I was expressing my frustrations. And, you know, I was just feeling a little overwhelmed by the situation at work and the dah. And it was like, oh, you're a man hater. And she was like, you are a threat.
You are. Capable of handling your own business. You take care of yourself, like from the surface, it doesn't look like you need anyone. You don't need to be cared for which really, if you pull back the layers, I am very emotionally needy, but I mean, I'm not emotionally needy. I have, I come home and I want. I have the weight of the world and I want somebody to be there to sort of hug me and like share the weight of the world.
Right. Like I don't, I want to know that when I come home and I have a hurdle at work or like the news is really hard right now. And it's, you know, I want somebody to like, just kinda like, do like the, like the little shoulder squeeze and be like, You know, I understand how can I support you? And I want to do the same in return.
And I haven't found that. So if I can't express concern and feel what I feel in front of you about those things, and you're going to minimize it. We can't be together because I don't want to come out of a tension world into my house and still feel like I have to be on guard.
Nicky: I need someone. You want someone.
And to me, I think that is where you should be when it comes to being in a relationship. I have openly told men, I don't mean. I have been in relationship, not relationship situationship with men where they have
Julia: situation ships. Can we coin that? I love that I've been in situations not to digress.
Nicky: Yeah.
Where I've just been. They're like, well, I know, you know, if you, if we don't work out, you're just going to go to that net duties on your phone. And I'm like, pause. I'm not because I don't need a man in my life. And that is very real. I'm very comfortable with myself when I'm cool with just me and me alone.
I don't need from one. I don't ever want to need anyone.
Julia: I
Nicky: want someone and that is different because piggybacking to what your thing, when I step out into this world, I put on my armor. Yeah. I want to be able to walk in the door and shut the door, lock it and take my
Julia: armor up
Nicky: and to have someone there for that is very important.
Like you said, the offer want to be there for someone in that same manner, I think is beautiful. You can't be mad at someone. Because they understand that wrong is wrong, right? You can't be mad that they're trying to shout from the rooftop. I see you're wrong and you need to change you're wrong because the more voices that lend to the cause the better, not the leaf.
Julia: Right. I understand this better now than I did 20 years ago, but I understand that I haven't, I need to be better about helping elevate voices that do have. That do get the blatant racial prejudice because I'm, I'm fetish sized. I'm a fetish for people, even if they don't want to say it's a fetish at 100% is a fetish because they can't figure out what I am.
I look exotic or I look different or I look beautiful or whatever. So, so I'm, there's a level of protection I have because for the longest time of my life, I was the most beautiful person. Yeah. So there's a level of protection there. I get that. So now I under, I better understand that I needed to use my power that I have in helping elevate my sisters who don't have that same level of protection.
Yeah. Did you see this movie? It's called something new. So this movie is something new. It came out in 2006. It stars. How do you Senali Liethen I don't know if that is okay. I apologize for a huge person in. Yeah. Like, I apologize for not saying her name. I've never actually had to say her name. I've only ever read her name.
So that's part of the problem. And then. Simon Simon baker plays is the love interest. And you know, she's black. He's like, what is interesting to me about that movie movie? So they do a whole lot of the whole like cultural differences. Like her parents, like her, dad's very understanding, but there's this whole like, and her brothers played by, um, Donald Faison.
Oh yeah. Yeah. And so there's this whole thing about like, you know, Very successful in her industry. She's works at a math, whatever. So Simon's character, they get set up on a blind date and she's like clearly uncomfortable because like he's white, she's black, whatever. Yeah. Then we meet Blair Underwood's character and you're just like, yeah.
Yeah. But then he's kind of icky. So she wears a hairpiece. Right? She's got extensions. They're silky smooth and straight. And she's at the hair salon. She's like taking. Just take them out, do it. Cause she's going through this life change because Simon, this hippie. Garden architect guy is like getting in her head, so it takes them out.
And then she's got this beautiful hair that is just like, oh girl, you're way prettier with your hair like this. And so Simon's at her house cause he, she hires him to be as landscape. And he's like, oh my God. And she's like, what? Cause she's insecure. Cause she's been wearing a fucking weave for like probably her whole life.
And so he's like, I knew it. I knew he would be more beautiful then I was like, firstly, yeah, she is more beautiful. And thank you for appreciating her and her natural. Hair state because we don't, we're not allowed to be that. And to, so at the time I was like, oh, it's so romantic. I love it. And then as I'm like getting older, I'm like, I need a black man to say that to her Hollywood.
Give us, give us that please. I can't, I'm not going to judge an interracial relationship situation in Hollywood. That's my parents. Yeah. At the same time, it was like, I need. To see this type of love and appreciation and like every form. Yeah, absolutely not just a blonde guy. I need it. I need Blair Underwood to say it.
We
Nicky: have like a podcast episode on black love and Hollywood. I just had a conversation last night with a friend of mine who is white. And I told him, I said to her. A black man in the room and Hispanic men in the room and a white woman in the room. And we were watching that stupid movie that like none of us got through, but we were watching it for the sake of watching the ridiculousness.
I fell asleep. I don't know, probably 30 minutes then for sure. And then there's, the rock is beautiful, man. And I said, and he has a white wife too. Yeah. And it's not even an issue. Cause then the black man, the room was like, well, love is love. Right? And I was like, is it, is it because my issue with not that love is love my issue with that.
As Kanye said, basically paraphrase, but you know, when black and brown men in Hollywood get to particularly level their girl who has usually been there ride or die or seen them go through all their tumultuousness to go from nothing to something usually gets swapped out. For someone Hollywood would more
Julia: appreciate.
Yeah. And that is hard too, because when, you know, coming from a mixed relationship, being the product of a mixed marriage and a mixed relationship, how can we achieve the portrayal of love is love and it not be complicated. I mean, love is complicated anyway, so, so the movie. Other appreciations as well.
This man acknowledging a woman's beauty in her true form is just so wonderful because we don't get a lot of that. Um, or at least we didn't back then. Yeah. Ouch. Back then 2006, if you really want to like, get crazy analytical about it, you know, the fact that you ha it's like that, it's like white validation.
And so, like, I struggle a lot between the two worlds because, um, That's the
Nicky: life of a mixed person. Yeah. I, cause
Julia: I want to believe love is love and I want to see like all kinds of mixed representation, but on the other hand of that, like our entire lives, we've seen white narratives. They're not bad, but like that's the majority of what we're seeing.
So now I'd like to see more and that's, what's great about type back to the resident. And that's, what's great about the resident is that they do have sort of this robust representation. Of the different loves that are out there, whether it's racial or age. So when I say I want a black man to say that to a black woman, it's not rooted in racial prejudice, it's rooted in, we've spent so many years here.
Y actors say that to other white actors that I want a mainstream black love. That's. What's great about the photograph. Have you seen the photograph? Okay. Okay.
Nicky: Yes, but I honestly was thinking about this as us. Oh, this is Fandel and his wife are exactly what you're talking about, where Beth keeps their hair natural and whatever style she feels like for that week.
Right. She does that. And it's always, it's never, ever, and here's the thing with what you're talking about. There's that validation of it's okay for you to have your hair natural, because there's so much history behind it, right?
Julia: We're told from the jump that we're not allowed to have natural hair. Find me a movie that looks literally the first movie where a curly hair girl gets a make-over and she gets to keep her curly.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank
Nicky: you. Okay. I can't even get into that because that's just, but yeah, we'll do a whole
Julia: other episode on that.
Nicky: And this is us back. We're here natural all the time, right in various styles. And what I love about it is it's never a brown. Yeah. Why? Because it's normal. It's the hair that come out of her head and she's doing whatever the hell she wants with it.
It's a normal style. It doesn't need to be brought up. It doesn't need to be validated to an extent, because this is just regular schmegular right. But now we are at a point where we can expect natural hair to be regular schmegular. That was not the case. Selena wait, did a Gary movie on black women's hair and Hollywood.
And I haven't watched it for that same thing because it's triggering, it's triggering. You are told to straighten your hair. You're not allowed to have your natural state out. No one even knows how, what to call your hair.
Julia: And then the shit they put on our hair. I didn't experience it as much as you have, but I do have a handful of experiences where like some of the stuff that is put on our hair is not okay.
Like that shit is bad for you. And you're willingly marketing it to children to give them this silky smooth hair that every girl desires.
Nicky: No. But I, I want to see it because it's laid awake and she always fishing. And what she does. And so I really want to feel, and I want to support her. I think
Julia: maybe I'll watch everything that she's behind she's.
So for helping people who may be not have access to the opportunities, she's about creating those opportunities. And I think that's amazing. Like she's, she literally kicked the door open and then is now being like, all right, who else can I get in between her
Nicky: and ISA Ray? Yeah. Thank you guys.
Julia: How about when ISA Ray announced her HBO deal?
I was like, yes, girl, give us more like insecure is amazing. And I, what I love about ISA is that, so tying it back to the photograph in dating and black love. There's this beautiful. Movie about this woman who has a complicated relationship with her mother on her journey of discovering more about her mom.
She meets this guy who just, oh my God, this woman is amazing and beautiful. And like just the connection that they had on screen. And it was just so beautiful to watch. I don't know if you saw this, but somebody posted a tic talk. I think he reshared it where he was. Stop telling us that our lives started with slavery.
Stop giving us movies where we're experienced re-experiencing trauma, stop, you know, all these things. And I was like, yeah, I'm actually here for that because I want like, like 10 things I hate about you is one of my favorite movies from adolescence. Like. What would it mean if we had movies like that, but with a more diverse cast or, you know, predominantly black cast or just whatever, you know, so it's not solely just a white narrative.
And like, I want, I can't, I can't do the trauma movies anymore. It's too much. It's too much. I don't need to be reminded that my, you know, that my people are brutal. And have been in war. I don't need that reminder. I want, I want Sylvie's love, right? Like when that movie came out, like give us more of that.
Nicky: They're there, the big push for, like you're saying like no more black trauma films. And that is one of the reasons. Okay. There's two thoughts. There's one of the reasons why I love, um, living single, right. Which apparently was the footprint for friends, which makes perfect sense. Yeah. On the show, Blackish, the.
Yeah, her Grown-ish. Yeah, no, no, no, no. The younger one. Oh, Diane. Yeah. The one who plays Diane, her name starts with an M and I can't
Julia: remember what it is right now. Say Martin. So she
Nicky: produced a movie already, right? With Etha Ray in it, and a few other people, uh, Regina hall and Esra. Yes, that did gangbusters.
And now she's working on other deals and she's specifically came out. This was like in the last two weeks, he said, I am not doing. And don't ever ask me to do any black trauma film. Good for her. And she, she, she's not even
15.
Julia: I don't think it's not fair and same with like trauma for other cultures too.
Like I saw a movie, a guy who took me on a date to go see the house of sand and fog, which is an intense movie. It's based on a book, interesting date. It doesn't end well for the minority family that moves into this neighborhood. I just need to
Nicky: see
Julia: reason why it was only one date,
but I want, I want a robust representation like, and that, you know, that's, there's an conversation about blind casting happens. A lot lately. And I don't know if blind casting is the, um, solution. It
Nicky: was always, I'll just say understood by the higher ups that be in Hollywood, which manifests the representation that we see on our TV screens and in the magazine.
That if you have it ever, it's passive, it's not going to do numbers. Black Panther blew that up. Exactly. That was one of the big pulls and appreciation for black Panther because not only would the black Panther, but Ryan Coogler was the director for it. And it was majority black. As in all of the things and it killed any, any other adventure movie that had come up previously.
So there have been a lot of movies that I've looked up to that moment. And there are a lot of movies that have now been able to be created and have the proper funding since that movie, right. Then, um, a launching pad for so many other. Moments and so many other, uh, creative TVs, movies, and ideas that I'm appreciative for it because a lot of people, we are more than our trauma.
Julia: Yeah. And I feel like allow us to share the stories that aren't traumatic. There's so many platforms now where we can control our own. Yeah. So it's almost as if big Hollywood you have to get onboard. Sure. You're always going to outpace the platforms where you can be your own content creator. Like that's always that at this point sound seems like it'll always be true.
However, you can now become a person who is incredibly successful by creating your own content and having millions of whatever, because of these platforms that allow us to produce our own content and put it out there. Netflix noticed Netflix was like, oh, okay. So.
Nicky: Yeah,
Julia: we'll get, we'll give, we'll give Kenya burst and multi-million dollar deal.
Like we'll give all these people, like we'll produce these things. And then it was really interesting because a couple of years ago, Steven Spielberg sort of spoke out and criticized all these like Netflix movies being nominated for the academy awards. And one of the people, I forget specifically who it was that clapped back and was like, Well big.
Hollywood's not giving us the opportunity. Netflix's thank you. Yeah. So like, yeah. And I thought Steven Spielberg, come on. You should know better you're course correcting west side story for crying out loud. Yeah. But it's true. You know, Netflix and Hulu and Hulu's owned by Disney. They redid high fidelity with Zoe Kravitz.
Nicky: It's so good. Have you watched. Yes. Yes, I enjoyed it. I definitely
Julia: enjoyed it. Problem with never leaving where you lived. If I had left. That whole thing totally could have been my life. I feel like owning a music shop, you know, living off of my cigarettes and whiskey, like
having these tortured relationships like, oh man, I actually had a friend text me. He was like, have you seen this? And I was like, oh yeah, I totally binged it. The first day it came out and they were like, oh, cause it totally reminded. Like something that you would like, and I'm thinking to myself,
Nicky: Yeah.
Yeah.
Julia: There is a beautiful moment that just gives us pure moment of love. And we don't see a lot of that when it's a non-white cast and that's really hard. And I think that's why the internet blew up about Sylvie's love. I think that's why so many people got behind that movie because there wasn't really any trauma.
They lightly touched on the racial prejudice in there. Nobody really bad. My last one, this woman gave up her entire career for a guy to live in Detroit. Yeah, because we got to see them actually be in love and not be like brutalized in their love.
Nicky: That movie was done really well. I just love, love. Um, you know, what's funny.
I will tell you that I, I grew up in such a, a skeptic
Julia: of love, really? It wasn't that like, I didn't believe in
Nicky: love. It was that I didn't want to believe in love because I had never seen it really worked out. Oh, interesting. I wanted to believe in love and I wanted to be. And what it could be and RGS quoting more music in the power of love or, um, that's a throwback.
I always wanted to believe in it, but the reality around me with that. Love isn't like anything that I was actually thinking. So Disney and I were not friends at the young age because I was like, that's not real life.
Julia: I'm like, where's my friends. I didn't care for
Nicky: romcom. I was cynical. I was cynical about love from probably too young of an age.
Love does it look like this? So the hell with the Disney, the hell with Barbie, how would romcoms? I, I was just, it's unrealistic and no one's life looks like this. So I was so anti and then one day, you know, cause you get older and you realize what your own problems are. And I realized, oh, I've always wanted to be alone.
And I I've always wanted to just feel the fuzzy and the warmth and the comfort. Uh, being in love. I want to be, I want to be the little spoon of love, but I just, I never thought it was possible. So for the longest of time, I just kind of checked out. Yeah. Yeah. I,
Julia: the feeling of being unconditionally loved, even if it only lasted six months, which that's.
Yeah life, but I love that feeling and I think I'm constantly chasing that. So when there is that glimmer of like, oh, you're being critical of me in a way that makes me uncomfortable. We're done so opposite of you. The reason why I love romcoms is because you get that. You have that in
Nicky: there. That's the element.
Julia: And for me, I'm just like, that's,
Nicky: that's
Julia: what I want. I want somebody to unconditionally love me and think that my quirks are adorable. And then also do the dishes because I fucking hate doing the
Nicky: dishes. I love it. On your ID
Julia: stories. You like
Nicky: adding on this is what my dishes look like. And then you're like 4:00 PM.
My dishes.
Julia: I came in this morning from walking the dog and I was like, that's not teenage boys.
Nicky: That's the dishes
you don't have, like some women want men who cook. Like, I just want a man who's done to do the dishes.
Julia: I dated a guy one time, a handful of years ago, where like when he would come to pick me up for. And if there were dishes in the sink, he would just like line and like do the dishes and then be like, okay, let's go.
And
Nicky: I'm like, is it too soon to say, I love you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. You, you don't, you don't know what you did, but you just got yourself some Nikki tonight, but then
Julia: yeah, it's little things like that. Like I dated a guy once who I, I don't really care for Valentine's day in the romantic. Yeah, because I love just people.
I love, I love showering them with love anyway, but I do love still kind of doing some sort of ceremony of Valentine's day. I just think it's like for my family, right. For my kid, for my parents, whatever. And so I was dating this guy one time and it was he's like, should we do something for Valentine's day?
And I said, well, it actually falls on family film night. So you're more than welcome to join us for that. I'll have. And we'll have snacks and we're going to watch a movie and it's just gonna, cause it fell on a weekend that year. He was like, oh, okay. Yeah. Like no big deal about Valentine's day. I was like, no big deal about Valentine's day.
Like I'm not really a fan. He's like cool. Cause I'm not really either,
Nicky: but he showed up with a dozen.
Julia: Pink roses, which are my favorite anyway. And I showed up and I still got him something like, so we were like, it's not, we have zero expectations other than like, let's spend time together and create this family time with my parents and my kid.
He's still, he's still. You made an effort. And I didn't blatantly say I love pink roses. This was something that I had said in a conversation kind of in passing it wasn't like a, you know what my favorite flower is, and Valentine's day is coming. It was like in a conversation I had said, oh, pink roses are so beautiful.
They're my favorite. I love blah, blah. So I like, I didn't even realize it's one of those things that you don't catalog. Cause you don't. You know, you just have conversation and it goes, so he, the fact that he remembered that
Nicky: double points, double points, five months later,
Julia: we broke up
Nicky: and it happened. It happens, love, takes work. And I think people don't talk about that.
Julia: I'm in a position now where I'm actually, I think I'm willing to do the work five years ago. I don't think I was, but I was also finishing up undergrad and that took a lot of time, but now I've got undergrad under my belt.
I've got grad school under my belt. My career is in a place where I can live with it for the next, at least until my child's out of college. That I think that I have, I, I I'm choosing to believe I have the bandwidth now to actually do the work for a relationship. And I still live here so that shit's not going to happen.
Nicky: It's possible because, um, you could still look
Julia: outside of Modesto. So my joke is when and Teeka girl come on. So I have this joke. I'm going to realize my lifelong dream. Losing 75 pounds and becoming a trophy wife to a guy in LA who just wants a trophy wife. Yeah. You have an understanding, you, you sustain my lifestyle, which is pretty, pretty simple at this point.
Like I'm pretty low maintenance and unless I'm released in a bookstore and then, and then you can do whatever you. I just tired of paying my own bills, doing it for so long now I'm tired of it. Like help me.
Nicky: Don't worry. Me. And I just kind of live my life.
Julia: It's so like, I'm just, I'm exhausted. Some days I had to put everything on auto pay because it was getting to the point where it's like, fuck, I forgot to pay that again.
Like not really my dream for anybody who's listening out there. I don't want. I believe that I don't believe that I really truly want to become a trophy wife. It's just a fun joke to like get through the days that are hard. Yeah. To think
Nicky: about just, you know, having a little bit of that primary responsibility taken
Julia: off your shoulders.
In all truth, though, I, I, it would be nice to like, have that be a shared responsibility because when you're the only one, especially at that point when I was unemployed, that was really scary. If I hadn't had a good relationship with my parents and we didn't live so close to each other, I don't know if we would have made it.
And I've never been in a position where I could actually have savings. It's always been survival. And I think that's the root of my joke about being a trophy wife and having someone pay for everything. So what I'm understanding about us and love and Hollywood is that. Hollywood needs to do better.
Nicky: That's an understatement. Yes ma'am
Julia: but I think they're on their way, but I appreciate having these conversations with you about love, because I think sometimes it's hard to talk about love when you're not a white person. You know what I mean? Like when you're, when all of your friends are white and you talk about love, there's like a different lens that hits
your terrible tokenize. You, oh my God. It's a
Nicky: lens. Yeah, that isn't typically used. And, um, I can't lie. I use that lens when I'm looking for love. There's a basic level of understanding that I'm looking for in my partner. And as we mentioned earlier, I already have to put on a whole lot of armor. When I walk outside the door, I basically have to.
There's a lot as a black woman, we have to faith in the world. Your armor comes on before you leave the house. And when you come home, you want to be able to take it off and someone that understand your honor, and the depth of that armor is just really fundamental to me.
Julia: When you find that person. When, when that's something that's important to you to look for in a partner, it's makes the journey a little bit harder because not a lot of people understand what it's like.
To live in the margins when we have movies and television that talk about it, I think it helps people understand and it gives us better language to be able to say, look, Hollywood is trying to catch up, but they're going a little slow. You look at love differently
Nicky: depending on your life experiences and the age of your fellow, right?
And the realities in your world, around you. I'm at a point where. I have reflected upon the type of men that I've been with and I've reflected upon the type of man that I actually want, because it has not always been the same. Yeah. That's a powerful statement. And so I understand who I am. I kind of always understood, but I haven't always allowed me to be me.
And I'm in a place where I allowed me to be me. And, um, um, there's a lot of people in my life who I've seen. The change of what that looks like. And so having a man for me in an actual relationship, they need to be able to be okay with the full gamut of who I am, because I am multifaceted, but I also retrospectively will understand that in that.
Because I am that person as well. So I look forward to love, encompassing that I look forward to finding love with someone who understand that love is work and not together. We will work on love with each other because you fall in love. Does it mean that the end of it and you don't ever have to do anything out?
The
Julia: happily ever after is just the beginning.
I hope you take the chance on the titles we talked about today. If you didn't catch them all, don't worry. I will do my best to get it up on the website for you. Thanks for tuning in. Y'all
Nicky: talk to you next time.
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