Hids up, there'll be some film spoilers this episode. But come on, y'all. This movie came out last spring. Come on. Well, I'm being respectful. Hey, everyone. You're listening to Code Switch, the show about race and identity from NPR. I'm Bea Parker. And I'm Gene Dumbie. Gene, what are you doing for the Oscars this Sunday? What do you mean, Parker?

I will absolutely not be watching them. Come on now. No watch party? I'm going to a watch party. Oh, yeah, but you're like a film headhead, yeah. You know what I mean? Do I know who won the Oscar in 1989? Sure. Yes. But I mean, I love the Oscars, even though, like, I know that they're a bit of a racket.

They are a racket.

They are a racket.

And every year, you know what I mean, we have to, like, do this thing. We act like they matter. But they don't. Like, look at the list of best picture winners over the years. Y'all just heard Parker references. Like Parker can name literally all the Best Picture Winners going back like 60 years,

which is actually very impressive.

I will admit that. Like, Parker can name literally all the Best Picture Winters going back like 60 years, which is actually, it's very impressive.

I will admit that.

But, like, nobody's favorite movie is, I don't know, Shakespeare in Love or Driving Miss Davy, oh my God, or Crash.

But you've also got Moonlight, Parasite, Spotlight, All the Ites. Broken clocks.

And you know what.

But there is one movie that I do think we need to talk about, which is sinners.

The film has been the center of discourse around blackness and Hollywood and representation for more than a year now.

Right, right, right, absolutely. And Sanders is going to have a lot of bites at the Apple to win something on Sunday.

Yep. I mean, it's got 16 Oscar nominations, the most in Oscar history. And, like, that's a big deal for a black-focused movie, but also for horror films in particular. Yeah, like horror films, John Films, they don't tend to get a lot of love at these things, you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, the last one was Silence of the Lambs. Oh, yeah. Ooh, that was like 35 years ago, yeah. Yeah, but it's not coming out of nowhere, right? I meaners was buzzing when it came out last spring. And in the award show Blitzed the past few weeks, there's been a grounds full of love for the film. It won Best Ensemble at the Actors Awards, where Michael B. Jordan also won Best Actor. Mm-hmm. There was, of course, the BAFTAs a week before that, where Womimusaku won for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Cinners. Ryan Coogler won a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay. But all anybody was talking about after that show was that infamous moment when an audience member who had Tourette syndrome, shouted the N-word at Michael B. Jordan and Del Ward Lindo of centers while they were on the stage presenting an award.

But yeah, who had Tourette syndrome, shout at the N-word at Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo of sinners while they were on a stage presenting an award.

But yeah, there's so much discourse around sinners.

And that's probably not surprising, Parker, because, you know, films that are focused on black people tend to carry all this weight with them.

And people invest all this sort of feeling and, like, hope in their success in ways that are probably not the healthy. We're going to get into that. We're going to get to that. But yeah, like the way people talked about, say, like, one battle after another and sinners, it almost felt like partisan. Like, these two movies were pitted against each other. And the way people sort of conceptualized them them. Like it almost felt like zero something, you know?

I mean, and you can all live in a happy medium, but Gene, we're going to get into all of that on today's show ahead of the Oscars.

Cinnors, but more so how we talk about sinners.

We talk to pop culture happy hour host Aisha Harris and New York Magazine's film critic Angelica Jade Bastien about what sinners gets right and wrong and what to make of the award show love for black films.

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