Culture Gabfest - Say Their Names
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Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2021
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Steve and Dana are joined by Slate senior editor, Allegra Frank. First, the panel discusses the divisive parables within Candyman. Next, they talk about the Netflix series, The Chair. Finally, the panel is joined by Slate pop critic Jack Hamilton to discuss the legacy of the late, great Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts.
In Slate Plus, the panel discusses things they’re looking forward to in the rest of 2021.
Email us at culturefest@slate.com.
Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Nadira Goffe.
Outro music is "If Only I Was a Poet" but Steffan Carlen.
Endorsements
Dana: This eight-minute montage of Charlie Watts’s signature warm-up dance before live shows.
Jack: The work and legacy of the inimitable Jamaican reggae producer, Lee “Scratch” Perry, who recently passed. Specifically: the 1977 landmark roots reggae album Heart of the Congos by reggae group The Congos—which Perry produced. A highlight: the track “Sodom and Gomorrow.”
Allegra: The long-running daily web comic steeped in the culture of “shit posting,” Mr. Boop by Alec Robbins.
Steve: This destination pizza evangelizer endorses the pizza at Hearth & Harbor in Southwest Harbor, Maine. Also, the sitcom Arrested Development
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Stephen McAffe, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, Say Their Names Edition. |
| 0:14.7 | It's Wednesday, September 1st, 2021. |
| 0:17.6 | On today's show, Candyman is a wild reimagining of the 90s horror movie into an allegory |
| 0:23.1 | of collective racial trauma and guilt. It's directed by Nia De Costa, co-written with producer Jordan Peel |
| 0:29.3 | and Dana. Winne Rosenfeld, formerly of slate, yes? And in fact, I'm so, I don't know if |
| 0:36.1 | Wynn listens to our show or not, but I'm so happy to see him doing well in the world. He's been working with Jordan Peele for a while |
| 0:40.6 | as a producer and I think co-writer. And then Netflix has of all things, an English department dromedy. The chair stars Sandra O. as a professor whose deepest loyalties are tested when she's made the head of her department. It also stars Jay Duplas of transparent fame. And finally, |
| 0:55.9 | rest in peace, the great laconic. when she's made the head of her department. It also stars Jay Duplas of transparent fame. |
| 0:55.4 | And finally, rest in peace, the great laconic genius behind, literally behind the Rolling Stones. |
| 1:01.8 | The drummer Charlie Watts has died. We'll discuss with Slate's own Jack Hamilton. |
| 1:06.9 | Joining me now is Allegra Frank, senior editor of Slate Allegra. Hey, how's it going? Hi, it's good to be back. |
| 1:14.0 | It's great to have you back. And of course, Dana Stevens is the film critic for Slate. Hey, Dana. |
| 1:18.6 | Hey, it's good to be back. I missed you guys. Yeah, yeah, missed you guys too. It's three things I'm |
| 1:24.7 | eager, eager, eager to talk about. So let's dig in, shall we? |
| 1:29.1 | Please. |
| 1:30.3 | Anthony is played by Yaya Abdul Mateen II. |
| 1:33.6 | He's a black artist living in the neighborhood, formerly occupied by the infamous |
| 1:38.2 | Cabrini Green Housing Project. |
| 1:40.0 | It's since been torn down to make way for air quotes development, a euphemism, as the movie argues, for state-aided gentrification itself often a euphemism for the colonization of formerly black neighborhoods by middle-class whites. |
| 1:53.3 | Okay, now for the plot. Anthony is stalled out in his career. He's a black artist trying to satisfy a largely white art establishment, whose twin, but often quite conflicting |
| 2:02.3 | demands on him to be authentic to the black experience, whatever that means, and to produce |
| 2:06.9 | work that is gimmicky and new, these have led him to a creative dead end. Then he hears about |
... |
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