Mutha Needs To Arrive and Set the Table
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Here we are in what finally feels like the start of this new year. It finally feels like the new year has started. The last two or three weeks, I don't know what that was. It was 2023, the prequel. Yeah. The origin story of 2023. The warm-up, the prelude. You're right, though. I'm always shocked by that kind of weird in-between zone at the beginning of January because I forget MLK is a federal holiday every year. Oh, yeah. And it's like, oh, we can't actually start this year until after MLK. There you go. But...

Did you guys see what was unveiled over the weekend regarding MLK? Let's talk about Boston because they be playing games. A monument was unveiled in Boston, Massachusetts to honor Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife and activist Coretta Scott King. What is this? The intention of the statue was essentially to show them holding hands, like embracing each other.

But it looks... It looks Kama Sutra-ish. It looks like the Snickers bar. Okay. If anyone knows what we're talking about. No, it doesn't even look like the Snickers bar because the Snickers bar is a close-up. It looks like two hands holding a penis. The issue is monument statues are three-dimensional objects. I don't understand how... Think about all the planning and the reviews and everything. Everyone signed off on this. I was like, yeah, go ahead. You would think about how something would look from different angles.

angles at the right ankle if you're standing like directly in front of it it looks like like a beautiful well kind of cheesy but yeah at least nice image of like two black people holding each other but the moment you step to the wrong angle it just

It gets very phallic. It looks vulgar. It's giving Twitter after dark. It's giving, you know. It's very Twitter after dark. And the sculpture is done by the great Hank Willis Thomas, who is one of the most preeminent black artists in the world right now. Bless it. He's a conceptual artist. But like there's nothing conceptual about the statue. It looks like a penis. My favorite headline that I'm seeing about this statue. Yeah.

Woke MLK penis statue insults Black community. I'm dying. Help me, somebody. Okay, so this week, we are going to talk about the rise in the frequency of Americans being shot and killed by police.

by cops you might think this kind of violence has gone down in the last few years given media attention protests an entire movement but no it's only happening more frequently and we're going to talk about a recent incident in los angeles that is really upsetting and then to lighten things up we're going to talk about hollywood's

Maybe this is recent. Maybe it's age old and that will be part of the conversation. But Hollywood is definitely obsessed at the moment with celebrity death and using biopics to sensationalize the death. And I'm sure you've heard about the recent Whitney Houston film, but also maybe over the weekend you heard about the new Amy Winehouse biopic that's filming as of this week. We're going to get into all of that, honey, all of that death, darling. But to start, how are we feeling? What's the vibe? Sam, how are you?

I, so as I was saying earlier, it feels like the new year is actually just beginning this week.

It is 2023 finally now. And as the year officially kicks off, I'm just feeling nervous, trepidatious, and worried about the two divas I love most. 2023 is supposed to be the year of Rihanna and Beyonce. Oh, I thought it was going to be Saeed and Zach. Yeah, I was like, what's wrong with you? You're my two favorite divas, for sure. I was like, we're fine. But besides that...

I can't help thinking that like Rihanna and Beyonce might let me down this year. Beyonce might never give us those videos. And I'm worried about this Rihanna halftime show. I hear she's been like showing up late to rehearsals if showing up at all. Yeah.

She just released a new clothing line that's football themed ahead of the halftime show. But I'm like, learn the steps. Yeah. And the clothes look awful. I've got to tell you. Oh, really? I haven't seen it. I'm just worried about that. Like, even if Beyonce does everything according to plan, I still might not get tour tickets for her, given what Taylor Swift went through. I'm just worried about my divas this year.

I would like to say, I agree. I also woke up this morning to news that Madonna is going on a world tour, which has me worried about her. I'm not sure if it's going to be good. I'm like, why? And she's doing four generations of her music. Bob the Drag Queen is a special guest. We love Bob. Bob is wonderful. I did a lot with Bob on A Strange Loop and I'm really proud of him. But, um,

Madonna, World Tour, that many cities. Madonna has, this last year in particular, been holding on to drag queens and young social media influencers for dear life. She's holding on to you. It's really frustrating because ageism is real, you know? And I want to always acknowledge its pervasiveness. However, like, let's be real. It's uncomfortable. Like, what's going on? The jump scares on TikTok and now a world tour? Who needs this? You were rich before.

An icon, like untouchably so. Chill, relax. You know what she should do? She should be Tina Turner. Tina Turner said, girl, I'm going to my castle. And I'm done. I'm going to my castle and I'm done. I'm married rich. I am rich. I'm an icon. I have nothing to prove. I'm done. Goodbye. I just pray a hedge of protection over all the divas this year. And I hope they don't let me down. That's all. That's my vibe right now. What's your vibe, Zach?

I'm good. I don't know. I'm feeling, I mean, as some of you know, because I got a lot of tweets and a lot of messages from people, a strange loop closed on Sunday after a nine-month run. An iconic, an incredible, award-winning, critical.

Tony Award winning. Yes. Look at us. We're like, bitch. As Michael Jackson said in the New York Times, we were a supernova. And it makes sense that our supernova would burn really bright and fast and kind of like change the sky and then, you know, go away. And it just, I mean, it's a very complicated time on Broadway. And just with Black art in general is, you know, there's all this expectation that we as Black people have to change the culture, move it forward, and also operate under structures that have always been.

pushed us out or not given us a chance. So it's hard and it's very nuanced and complicated, but I am very grateful for the past year of the show and how it touched people and you all got to see it. And it's just really very exciting. And I'm just excited for everything else going on in people's lives after this. And this week I'm at Sundance. So next week I'll talk about Sundance and some of the people involved in the show will be at Sundance. So it's just great. We're going to keep making things and keep doing things. Just to jump in and to praise our sister, Zach,

watching Zach become a part of this show and flex his muscles in a brand new way was truly a sight to behold. Oh, thank you. Zach Stafford was not a Broadway producer before A Strange Loop. No. But then he said, I'm going to do this. It's going to work. Then baby got a Tony.

So it has just been an honor to watch you flourish in this new space. And I know there's more of that greatness from you in that realm and others. So it's bittersweet to see it close, but I have truly marveled at the way that you have taken that world by the throat. Yeah.

I love to see it. I love to see it. Congrats to you, Zach. Thank you. You know, white supremacy knows, you know, no genre, no medium. You see it in every industry, every lane, and it just manifests pretty consistently. But I've got to say, when you work in an industry that describes its regional vanguard as the great white way. T, T, T.

Like what you and the team between A Strange Loop accomplished is really incredible, but it should never be on any one show, any one writer, any one actor to change an entire industry. It's never going to be just on you. And so I hope you don't feel, wait, that was never your do. You know what I mean? No, I don't. And I think it's just,

What you just said, Saeed, connects a lot to MLK's legacy and the work that we're going to talk about today around activists and police brutality is that we can't just look to singular moments, singular shows to solve these huge problems. It takes movements. It takes capacity building. It takes more than one person. So when you lose at this game called life is when you think you can save everything by doing one thing. And that's the way to lose. Can't do that. No.

No. So anyway, I'm glad we're onto a new chapter, but it does feel like a chapter closed. And that's a very weird feeling when you go through that. I'm sure everyone has that moment where you're like, today is a very different day. And today is the first day of the show doesn't exist anymore. So here we go. Saeed, how are you doing? I got a terrible day.

I gotta tell you, I'm feeling cute. Let me tell you about our good sis, Climate Change. I don't know if she's a good sis. But she's a familiar sis and you better welcome her to your table. She'll eat your food whether you want her to or not. It is 56 degrees. Wow. Columbus, Ohio. The sun is shining. Wow.

And I'm just going to embrace that. But I think so much of what you both said. Yeah. And I guess I was like, not embarrassed, just a little confused. I was like, say, come on, get back to work, get moving. You know, that kind of, I'm a very internally motivated person. You know, I really do think that the things that I do well come from like this fire inside me and girl, the fire has been not

ashes, but a little, you know, maybe a little bit more smoke than flame these first couple of weeks of January. But I'm feeling it. I'm starting to feel that momentum and joy. And I think, you know, to Zach, the thing about when a chapter closes, you have to look to the love and to the hope of

of what can come next. Michael R. Jackson, for example, worked on A Strange Loop for over a decade. So for the majority of that show's life, it's actually been challenge, challenge, challenge, challenge. So I'm just starting to wake up to the possibility of what could be. And I'm feeling cute. Just hearing you say that the fire has been dimmed a bit, I always like to remind myself during the winter months, during the holiday slowdown, during that post-Christmas trying to wake back up again, lots of other mammals hibernate.

In the winter. You know, our bodies are connected to the rhythms of the earth's spin. And like, it is okay to just like feel down around this time of year. Like it's physical, it's biological. We were kind of hibernating. That's allowed. Yeah.

All right, listeners, before we get into the episode, we want to thank all of you who sent us fan mail and reached out on social media. We love hearing from you. Keep the notes coming at vibecheckatstitcher.com. Vibecheckatstitcher.com. All right, let's get started. Let's do it. Let's do it.

2023 is already off to a really rocky start, but we will argue it's actually not that different than years before, but we're all feeling it different. And that's what I kind of want to talk about is the feelings of all this. And what we're talking about today is police brutality. So in the first week of January, several police killings were reported in Los Angeles, which is where Sam and I live.

All of which were in response to clear mental health crises. And if you live in LA, you are overwhelmed every day by the real mental health crisis that is LA. It is everywhere, it's very visible, and yet the police here still do not change anything. They're just getting more brutal, which is really not the way to deal with mental health crisis. According to the LA Times, at least a third of all fatal police shootings in the city are due to mental health crisis or impaired by substance use.

And in the case of one of the three, Takar Smith, the officers even had advance notice that he was going through a mental health crisis. And I will say through my decade of police reporting, this is so, so common that police get a call from someone that say, my loved one, my neighbor, someone's going through something and the police show up and they start firing people.

Another case that happened in LA in the past few weeks is one involving Kenan Anderson, who is the cousin of BLM co-founder Patrice Cullors, who is a friend of the show. And that incident involves police tasing Kenan. And during his tasing, he did say out loud, the police are trying to George Floyd me. And hours later, he died while in the hospital. And that stop came about because of a traffic accident, right? Where he was asking for help from the officers, right? He flagged them down.

Yeah, he was flagging them down. He did, you know, the police have already reported that there was cocaine and marijuana in his system, all these things. This always happens. But at the end of the day, he was flagging the police down for help, and he died. And that is the consistent threat, is that Black people are always told, you know, just call the police, ask for help. But why we don't many times is because of incidents like this, because the police will just shoot and kill you. Yeah.

And what we've seen over the past few years is a movement around defund the police, which people always assume means, you know, the police are gone, you have no one to help you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the point of that movement has everything to do with moving resources to mental health, to housing, to all these other things to make the police more brutal. And what I would argue is that these three killings just already this year are really great proof of why maybe we don't need to defund the police, but we need to change the funding of police to places that actually help.

And that's the end of my diatribe for right now. - You know, you see news of these shootings and it just makes me think about what was actually accomplished in the last 10 years of protests against police violence, against black and brown bodies.

I covered Trayvon. I covered Eric Garner. I covered George Floyd. We've all been on this beat for a decade. But when you look at the numbers, a lot of things haven't changed. And we can finesse the convo around what these numbers mean and how you measure them. But big picture, it doesn't seem like there has been a substantive decrease in police violence towards citizens yet.

since we've been protesting this stuff. According to the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence, at least 1,176 people were killed by police in 2022.

By their counting, that is the deadliest year on record for police violence in the U.S. ever. And then when you think about the other ask from the Black Lives Matter movement, it was for cities to start to defund their police forces or move funds to other services that could better speak to people's needs, like mental health care. But from Bloomberg, the numbers were even crazier. The 50 largest cities in the U.S.,

did reduce their fiscal 2021 police budgets by 5.2% from the year before, but police funding as a whole comprised a slightly higher percentage of overall budgets since these protests have begun. And the starkest case comes from Austin, Texas. Austin, this liberal progressive bastion in South Texas, promised to basically defund their police force, move money towards other services,

But there was a total about face. So Austin, Texas, cut its police budget by about 30 percent in 2021 to instead spend that money on programs like family violence prevention, mental health, police oversight. That lasted one year. Then the Texas ledge voted to bar cities from doing that. And now Austin's police force has boosted spending by 50 percent.

It's just crazy. And so, like, I see each of these new cases, each of these new deaths, and I have to ask, like, what has really changed since we began to see cell phone footage of black people being killed by police? What has really changed? And it's disheartening to me. Yeah, I'm going to...

I'm going to take the posture of student here. I certainly have thoughts. And the reason I say that is because, I mean, I guess I just want to ask you, particularly Zach, like as someone who reported on crime, you've interacted with police departments in a more face-to-face way than I ever have and hopefully ever will have to. I want to ask what's going on because here's the thing. If I were a literal student, let's say 50 years in the future, and

And I just went over everything that you and Sam just explained. And then I went back to, okay, so why are more people being shot and killed in the United States by police now? I think it's a fairly common sense framing or analysis to go, it's pushback, it's revenge. The police department's got a lot of public criticism, there were uprisings and all this kind of things. And in response, there was a clamor.

You see this throughout world history, right? Like every time that people kind of push back against whoever's in power, if that pushback doesn't succeed, however you want to define that, the next era is pretty brutal. It's often pretty bloody in response, right? Is that what's happening? Like I understand that might be common sense. That might be how I feel. Is that what's going on, though?

I would argue, and I'm definitely of the mind, especially as a journalist, that what we're seeing is actually not a rise of police shootings, but more of a great kind of revelation around police shootings. You know, due to technology, we can film them, we have better access to them. People know what FOIA means, the Freedom of Information Act, which is what we all have access to, to get recordings from police officers. That's very widely used by citizen journalists, by Twitter, et cetera. We now have more access to it, but...

But, you know, the rates, similar to hate crimes, everything else in the world, we're just tracking it better because we never asked the question before. It wasn't until when I was at The Guardian and my colleagues at The Washington Post launched our tracking systems in 2015 that there was even a public record every time there was a shooting. And that's only been, what,

seven, eight years of the whole history of America that we've been tracking. And then when you think about the origin of police, police come from, you know, post-slavery. It was slave patrols. Yeah, slave patrols. So it's like, and you cannot tell me that during slave patrols, Black people weren't getting killed on the streets at the same or higher rates than now. This has just been a constant hum of America forever. We just now see it more. What also has been really interesting to me to see is the way

in which how journalists cover police has changed what gets reported and what we know.

I remember when I began as a journalist over a decade ago, the usual practice was if the police said it, you believe it. It's fact. And you would run with their police reports and quote them directly, and that was it. It wasn't until five to seven years ago that most mainstream newsrooms decided to, as a practice, begin to question what the police were saying about things like officer-involved shootings. Right.

You know, I think like even though the numbers seem to have not changed, I am glad that there seems to be a general skepticism of policing in this country at this point, at least in certain parts of the country, because that was not always happening. There'd be times where there would be clearly some foul play and journalists in that same city wouldn't even question it because, well, the police said that is hopefully changing. I do think it's changing. I do think in terms of

know newsroom policy certainly around language like that term officer involved shooting i mean gosh you know and that took real agitation even to get that kind of language change i still find that it's inconsistent in reporting you know newsroom to newsroom but for example this morning as i was like getting ready for recording i'm making my coffee i'm listening to npr and i heard a story that sounds consistent with what happens more frequently now which is the skepticism is selectively applied

I find that a lot of newsrooms make editorial decisions in terms of engaging that skepticism if it's about a shooting, if it's about police brutality. And if it's a perfect victim. If it's a perfect victim, they love it. They take it a little bit more seriously. I feel like still too often cops, or more importantly, like the police chief and the officer responsible for communications, like are still treated as like objective sources. Well, because they parade themselves as such. You know, when I was covering, you know, breaking news-

Some of the best media departments in the country are in police forces. They know what they're doing. They're stacked. Those PIOs, they run stuff. And like they make it a point to control messaging and narrative. Zach, you know this more than I do. Yeah, I mean, what Sam just said, PIO means public information officer. But a PIO, their careers are really incredible.

Like the public information officer from Chicago under Laquan McDonald, the young man that was shot 17 times and the officer involved is currently serving prison time. He now is, if I'm correct, the PR person for the Secret Service. So it's like they go up. They have incredible power. Yeah. And it's like they are able to decide who has access to who doesn't. You know, I famously remember with Laquan McDonald, I was being barred from a press conference. I think the New York Times wrote about this.

at the time. And they barred me and a bunch of other journalists from entering a press conference. They only invited friendlies from the local media to come and see the video. And we had gotten the video through a lawsuit involved with something else. And, you know, it was like this rush to like release information. And these officers and these public information officers are probably

paid by citizens. It is your constitutional right to have access to all the information. And I can tell you thousands of stories almost of where I was barred, blocked, coerced out of using things by these people because they want to protect the state. It's kind of like an HR department. HR departments are never there to protect you as the employee. They're there to protect the company itself. In this case, the company is the state. Yeah, the company is the state. Yeah.

I do want to ask, what can we do to help? Seeing these numbers either get worse or not change, seeing police violence still be a constant in our culture. Zach, this is really to you. You've covered this stuff as a listener for the two of us, just concerned citizens. What are some action items we can do? Because I will say as the concerned citizen, I don't want to say it feels easy. It's understandable how it can feel

a bit hopeless at times, you know, to feel defeated where it's like, God, we've done so much, but it's only getting worse. So what would you tell, not to tell people how to feel, but what's the posture? I mean, it is a big structure that we all can't solve, but little things you can do to really support this is, and I'm taking this from, I think like Josie Duffy Rice, who hosts What A Day. She is a lawyer who talks a lot about,

voting in the sheriff is a really big thing that you can engage with in your city council. These people, you have a direct line to one of the most powerful cops in your city, county, etc., which is the sheriff. And so those are things you can elect and really hone in on that people do not even think about. An example of why sheriffs are important is if you look to Illinois this past week.

the governor passed legislation banning assault rifles, and the sheriffs have all released a letter saying, actually, that's unconstitutional. We're not going to hold up this new law. So you can look to sheriffs, your police heads, which are people that can be fired by mayors, and you put pressures on mayors. So that's like the political side of it. The personal side of it, but...

Maybe not always call 911. There are other numbers out there depending on your city. Like LA, I believe the phone number is 988 for mental health resources. But research other resources that aren't the police in your city because while we do harp on the cops and say we need to defund them, we need to do all the stuff,

that doesn't mean there isn't resources already there. There are lots of people out there that are willing to engage. Even on like the street level in Chicago, there are little organizations that go into gang territories to interact with gang members instead of you calling the police. So I would say, depending on your area, look at what's available and work with community over police first and foremost. That's where you can begin. And I think that's the place where you feel more connected to it. Because 911 is sometimes a trigger. Yeah.

And one thing I do now as practice, and it might get me in trouble one day, but I don't care. Where I live now in South LA, there's just a large police presence. And usually every few weeks, I will see police interacting with people. A traffic stop, talk to people.

talking kind of rude to a young man. My practice now is like if I'm out walking the dog or jogging and I see that, I stop. I pull my phone out. I make eye contact and I say, are you okay? Are you okay? And like I do it when I feel safe to do it. But being eyes on the ground when you see a potential for some mess, that can always help. And sometimes just being there will stop police from cutting up.

Yeah. And you have to know your own safety. Yeah. It's like in that instance, it's like, I'm still a black queer person. Exactly. But, but I absolutely, I've been walking Caesar and my thing is like, I stop moving and I observe sometimes if, you know, if I feel comfortable recording and stuff, because cops sometimes get really antagonistic at the moment, you know, but it's like, I'm here. There's a witness. This is, this is not going to be meaningless, unobserved where you are the only reliable voice on what happens. If something happens,

I'm a witness. And I would say, you know, in this case where you yourself, you feel an easy run police, uncomfortable, feel like you're not safe to report or pay witness to a situation, write down what you have and keep it on you. Keep it in a file, keep it somewhere safe, and then follow the news story. Like, look

up Google afterwards, call the police department, do whatever you need to do. Because even you being a witness and keeping record of something is really valuable because a lot of times people don't want to come forward as witnesses to these incidents with police. So I think just having a written record that you can send off is great. So just, you know, pay, I guess at the end of the day, just witness it. Pay attention. And when you read these news stories about officer-involved violence and death,

Pay attention to what these police forces are saying and don't believe every word they say. They can be unreliable narrators. Yep. All right. Well, with that, we need to take a quick break. But when we come back, we're talking about culture and death and our obsession with making movies out of people who are gone too soon. So stay tuned for more of that.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are Black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging Black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands.

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, WeAreGolden.

Here's an HIV pill dilemma for you. Picture the scene. There's a rooftop sunset with fairy lights and you're vibing with friends. You remember you've got to take your HIV pill. Important, yes, but the fun moment is gone. Did you know there's a long-acting treatment option available? So catch the sunset and keep the party going. Visit pillfreehiv.com today to learn more. Brought to you by Veve Healthcare.

Okay, ladies, let's talk about biopics. This week, a film about the musician Amy Winehouse has gone into production, starring actor Marissa Abela. You might know her from one of Zach's favorite HBO shows, Industry. My thing with Industry is I can only understand half of what they're saying. And I want to try harder. Well,

Okay, okay. So starring her as Amy Winehouse, directed by Sam Taylor Johnson, best known for her film Fifty Shades of Grey, written by someone named Matt Greenhall. I looked up his IMDb, and there's a reason I'm not naming any other notable projects. What I'm trying to say...

What I'm trying to say, friends and listeners, is not only is there a new biopic about Amy Winehouse going into production, it seems to be that the team making the film is also maybe not. This is not giving Cate Blanchett. This is not giving Angela Bassett. This is not giving, you know, the Coen brothers. This is not the best team.

They have not sent their best for this film back to black. This would be the fourth film, but apparently there have been three other documentaries about Amy Winehouse. This will be, I believe, the first feature film that was made. Amy Winehouse died tragically in 2011. I don't think that's a long time ago. Just a few months before Whitney Houston. And Whitney Houston, of course, there was a recent biopic about her. And that was the first...

fifth film, I believe, that was made about Whitney Houston. And I just... I don't like it. I don't like it. This show is called Vibe Check, and I'm going to say the vibes are off. The vibes don't pass the smell test. I'm going to tell you why I don't like it.

I like it. Especially when you think about the way Whitney has been covered since her death. Whitney in particular. Yes. You know, we have these artists who are luminaries and some of the greatest talents of our time. And the only way that we choose to see them after they die is in their tragic demise, through their tragic ends. I would love to have a culture in which we can honor artists like Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston by not just doing the whole look how they died schtick thing,

but honoring their work and their lives. I guarantee you, Amy Winehouse does not want to be remembered forever for how she died. Right. Remember the music, right? And this is what bothers me with the documentary industrial complex around artists, particularly female artists who have died.

We can never highlight the good. We can only see the bad and people are never just the bad. Yeah. Or the bad and the sensational is what makes the good worthy of attention. Exactly. If everything worked fine, if they had like a good life and they retired happily, suddenly it's like not as interesting. It's like we can't honor their gifts without believing that like they had to be cursed to be gifted. And that is a horrible, horrible framework for,

for creatives to live in or be held to. I just don't like it. It makes me icky. But to shake the tables a bit, because I agree that Amy Winehouse, it doesn't look good. And I love Marissa. Back to black. Amy Winehouse is great. Yeah, she was great. I mean, she's- Sorry, I'm just very protective of my girl. Really am I. And it feels weird because her death was so tragic. Similar to Whitney Houston, you know, her death was so tragic and so sad. And we watched it in public. That's the thing with Whitney Houston. There were TV shows with her starring in it. And we watched it happen.

But can we talk about, are there ever good movies that are biopics? Because I think a lot about like Ray. Ray was good. Yes. Jamie Foxx became a superstar. What's Love Got to Do With It was amazing. Because that covered her return, her rise, not just getting beat by Ike Turner. Yeah. That's where I'm like going through this is like, when is it good and when is it bad?

Setting aside Back to Black, the Amy Winehouse project for a moment, I realized part of the reason I don't like biopics

is I think Hollywood has this tendency not to believe in the validity or worthiness of Black people's stories unless it's like a famous Black musician or actor that everyone knows, right? Like instead of like greenlighting a project about a mom of two kids who happens to be named Whitney and is from New Jersey, it's like unless it's like, oh, it's Whitney Houston, you know? It's almost like it feels like, and I've been thinking about this a lot, Sam,

as you've been railing against the Marvel industrial complex. I don't always agree. I don't always agree. But I think what we're seeing here with these, and when I say cheap documentaries, I mean documentaries about news stories that are like, in this case, I mean like a decade old, but sometimes you see documentaries about stuff and you're like, that happened

six to eight months ago or now like biopics where again biopics have been going on for a long time right what's love got to do with it came out in the early 90s ray came out in the early 2000s they're great examples i'm sure i'm sure but lately it feels like we're seeing biopics where it's like the timeline's been moved up really quickly and i think it it is actually a fallout

of the Marvel industrial complex which is to say if there's not existing IP in this case being the scandal the person's life and they don't exist in recent public memory it's hard to get that work supported obviously we know there are movies out there like tar 3 000 years of longing everything everywhere all at once very imaginative original but we're seeing more and more that

Outside of that, it's like the fallout of the sequel reboot, reboot, reboot is even when it's an original film, it still kind of needs to have. In the same way that like the series Dahmer on Netflix was made about a man that everyone already knew everything about. You know, so like there's a few things happening at once that I think we can see in five movies about Whitney and about to be four about Amy Winehouse.

The timeline has shrunk, right? Like there's just more stuff being made than ever. And the gap of time between when a thing happens and when there's some doc about it has just shrunk.

But there's also a lack of creativity on these executives' part. We live in a media landscape where there's more content than ever, but increasingly more and more of it feels like it's all about the same thing. I love Amy Winehouse. I love Whitney Houston. But dare I say, we don't need any more content about them for the next few years. But when you exist in this media landscape that is fully saturated and there's too much stuff to watch –

What do you bet on as the executive? Well, everyone knows Amy Winehouse. Everyone knows Whitney Houston. We're in this like just weird landscape media-wise. There's more shit than ever to watch, but it all feels like the same thing. And let's hone in too because it doesn't feel like it's a coincidence that the films we're talking about are women as tragic figures.

figures. I mean, even like, you know, and I think, you know, Renee Zellweger's performance as Judy Garland was good. But, you know, but I mean, there's also just like a long tradition, and I mean well over a century long, of being like, oh, we are going to make a movie about a woman. It needs to be a tragic, messy kind of diva who falls apart. Even look at

the black women who win Oscars, what do they win for? Tragedy. We saw Halle Berry in Monster's Ball. She didn't just have to suffer. She had to sleep with Billy Bob Thornton. Yeah, Monique for Precious. Yes, I think about Lupita in 12 Years a Slave. The industry also rewards and values black trauma, black pain, black suffering, especially when it's a black woman suffering. Damn, I was about to be like, well, you know, Angela Bassett is seeming increasingly likely based on all the awards leading up to the Oscar. I feel like she's pretty heavily favorited

for playing a queen. But she dies. A queen who suffers. For best actor. But yeah, but then she dies and she's suffering just like great weight. Yeah. Damn. Yeah. And I agree with y'all so much, but I want to like also like be devil's advocate on the what do these biopics do for us as audience members? Because why studios do them is that they do record-breaking numbers when done well. So Rocketman, Elton John is still alive. Thank you, God. Yeah.

Huge movie. Bohemian Rhapsody. That was a good example. Huge. The Elvis. Elvis. Huge movie. Currently going after an Oscar with Austin Butler. So they do, you know, on an economic level, do really well. But those economics tie into a nostalgia, a feeling, a fandom of people.

who have never been able to get over the grief. And I think it does tie to this recent trend on TikTok, which we've all seen, where people fake that celebrities are dying to see how their parents react to it. Oh my God, speaking of Angela Bassett. I'm still mad at that young man. Tell folks who haven't seen that. Tell folks who haven't seen that what happened. So there was a TikTok, I guess it's still happening, which yikes. There's a TikTok trend

of young people going up to their parents, holding their phone, acting as if the kid has just gotten news that one of their parents' favorite celebrities has died. Which like-

Where's the joke? That's not funny. But Angela Bassett's teenage son recently, I mean, look, I don't know. I feel like Angela and her beautiful husband, Courtney B. Vance, are very reasonable parents. But I know they read that child into the grave and maybe worse because he did a TikTok where he walks up.

to his mom, Angela Bassett, who of course is still grieving the loss of Chadwick Boseman and pretends to have got news that Michael B Jordan has died.

And like his mom knows Michael B. It's not funny. It wouldn't be funny if it was a random, but it was just like so bad. And I think he like made like later recorded like a tearful apology. Death is a reality. I have a complicated relationship with grief, but I feel like, you know, sometimes you do need to laugh at these, but not this. This is it. I think it speaks to this larger thing that I've been thinking about a lot, especially in the not even yet aftermath of the pandemic. Right.

As a nation, we don't know how to grieve. No, we don't. We never grieve functionally. We only grieve dysfunctionally. We have not mourned the loss that we've experienced through the pandemic.

We do not know how to properly mourn the passing of celebrities like Amy Winehouse or Whitney Houston. We don't know how to talk about grief with our friends and loved ones, hence that TikTok trend. There's a larger thing here. Western culture, particularly America, we don't know how to grieve. And so every manifestation of our grief –

is twisted and not fair and kind to us as people. That is so beautiful. Yeah. We don't know how to do it. Yeah, and it's kind of... You would think that, you know, Amy Winehouse's catalog, which she had consent in, got to choose what to write when she was alive, would be enough for us as fans. But, you know...

her, Whitney, et cetera, I think we as a culture don't know how to let people go and grieve them and move on. We're demanding content where we relive the worst moment of their life over and over to make us feel this emotional connection to them. And that's, I don't think, very healthy. It's not a very good thing to do. And then we're constantly looking for an outlet for grief and a way in which to process it, which is why, going back to last week's conversation, horror always does well.

Because horror is this space that allows us to grapple with these really complex issues through entertainment.

But it's like, how do we take that energy, the beauty of horror films, the smartness of horror films, and say, how can we reflect holistically on grief in our own lives? Because we just don't do it. Also, look, it's rare that I try to get on a high horse about morals and etiquette. But clearly, look, mother needs to arrive and set the table. A lot of you Hollywood girlies wouldn't know what taste was if it was in your mouth. What happened to taste?

thinking that just because you can doesn't mean you should. Just because you can make a lot of money sensationalizing the tragic death of yet another woman that was killed by the very industry that is now trying to revive her corpse to make more doesn't mean you should. And I'm like, again, looking at the team behind this film, I'm like, it's

clear y'all don't have the range. And I'm sorry, this actor probably has a lot of potential, but it's clearly kind of in over her head. It's going to be a lose-lose taste. I just think whether it's like the TikToks, just because you can get attention, just because you can get money, just because there will be a spark of

Whatever you're trying to get, it will be fleeting. And in the long run, I think you will have caused a lot more harm. A lot more harm. Also, I mean, for me, it always just goes back to the way we handled funerals growing up in the black church. It's a home-going celebration, so you celebrate.

I would hope that when I pass, that when my friends and loved ones pass, we celebrate the good, the beautiful, the honorable, and don't just focus on someone's demise. I think it's also just like a common act of decency and kindness, not just to our friends and loved ones, but also to celebrities.

Well, you better hope your family's not like Whitney Houston's family's having it. Because this is the thing also. The families in the estates play a role in this because life rights are a thing. And it's like Whitney Houston's family agreed to have her hologram up. You know what I mean? So it's messy. Why don't we just let these artists...

shine through the work that they created and let it be enough? And why are we trying to still take from them even if they're dead? Because so many people, like Whitney Houston, it killed her. Why is it we demand so much from the dead? I think the moral of the story is...

We need a come to Jesus moment collectively around grief and how to grieve because, baby, we're not processing this stuff, right? It's not healthy. It's not healthy. And may I direct listeners to a lovely book all about grief. It's written by my dear friend, Saeed Jones. I'm going to plug your book right now because it deals with grief. Plug it. Plug it. Yes.

How We Fight For Our Lives by Saeed Jones, available wherever books are sold. And Alive at the End of the World. And Alive at the End of the World, also by Saeed Jones, available wherever books are sold. No, I just... There's something so pointed...

where we as a society are given these opportunities when tragedy comes. Shouldn't that be a wake-up call? It's like Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Over and over again, we see how destructive fame and all of this can be. And of course, we are complicit in it. And it's just really frustrating that

We, and more importantly, the gatekeepers who continue to greenline these projects, aren't getting the message. We aren't learning the lesson. Here we are. Amy, we love you. Whitney, we love you. Listeners, if you haven't heard it yet, before her breakthrough album, Back to Black, Amy Winehouse had a much less well-known album called Frank.

And the vocals on that one, baby, she was scat singing. She was a jazz. She was Ella. She was all of that. Billie, she was giving it. So check that out and honor the beauty of her art and not just her demise. Well, we'll leave it there for now. We know Hollywood won't, but we're going to leave it there for now because we have what children? Taste. We have that. We're going to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with our recommendations.

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We are back. And before we end the show, we'd like to share a thing that's helping us keep our vibes right. Y'all know we do this every week. We have recommendations for you all. Zach, I'm going to let you go first. Okay, I'm ready. So this week, I'm recommending something you can eat and make and bake and

engage with in a real way, not just marijuana. Marijuana. No, I'm not. I love that. I love her. No, no, no. So every year or for the past few years, I do like a whole 30 sugar cleanse. I'm one of those people that begins the year doing something. So I'm dry this January, but I've been focused mostly on going sugar free for like at least a month a year, which is a great practice to understand that like everything has sugar in it. Sugar's in everything.

free thing has sugar. So anyway, I'm in the midst of the sugar cleanse. So my mood is up and down, but there's something that is helping me get through it. And they are called Lakanto cookies. They are fantastic. And I'm a big eater of, I've tried every diet food in the world. I've had every Atkins bar, every other thing that you've tried. And these cookies are gluten-free. They are sugar-free. They come in sugar cookie or chocolate chip. You make them with coconut oil. And they're like, I think if you eat the whole bag of

We're looking at the road to see our friends. I don't know. They are so good. The LA jumped out. They are so good. So I don't think this is for you two. I think this is for listeners who are on their own journey. Lead us into the grave. Because if you are gluten-free specifically, which a lot of people are, these cookies are wonderful and you make them within 10 minutes. Lakanto cookies, they're L-A-K-A-N-T-O and they're made out of monk fruit, which monk fruit is a natural fruit. Who is that?

It's a fruit from China that has no calories in it. So it's used as like a base for a lot of sugar-free sweeteners. So it's delicious. And I suggest eating them while watching Chippendales on Hulu, which I finished. And it's fantastic as a show. So there you go. Bless your heart. Bless your heart was too bitchy. I love that for you. I love that for you.

Saeed, what is your recommendation this week? Well, you know, I had a nice little winter pop culture week. I finished playing God of War Ragnarok for the second time. And it was even more emotional and just wonderful. Loved the menu. Finally watched that. That was great. Honestly, the menu was the most fun I've had watching a new movie.

Really? Yeah, yeah. But my recommendation this week is a television show. You can watch it on HBO Max, whatever the executives are. You know, WB is being weird. The show is called Sort Of by Bilal Baig. It is about a non-binary queer Pakistani person in their 20s and their lives and their friend group. They work as a nanny for a family and really care about the kids and kind of get pulled into a lot of drama as a result of that.

It's heartfelt without being cheesy. It's smart without being cynical. It's actually funny, which I feel like there are far too many comedies out there. And I'm like, where are the jokes? I have not laughed at this entire episode. But also it has this quality I've come to appreciate.

Sometimes you just want a chill show. You know, chill. I can't explain it. Not boring. But just like, I just feel like a lot of shows or a lot of entertainment for television marketed toward queer people is like weirdly intense, propulsive. Jam-packed a lot. Even if a scene's not at the club, it kind of feels like we're at the club. I don't know. I can't explain it. It's just too much because I think they're trying to distract us from the bad writing. But sort of. Yeah.

Oh my god.

Sort of. The writing is excellent. And I believe Bilal, who stars in the show, wrote it, you know, created it. It's just incredible. It's set in Toronto. I don't know. There's something going on sometimes where like these shows from like other countries are just kind of kind of popping off. Schitt's Creek was Canadian too. It was the same in the same CBC. It was like backed by the government. So public media is so critical to shows like sort of Schitt's Creek. Please like me out of Australia. But

it's a framework for us seeing like a really interesting dynamic queer episodic television. Thank you for that. It's please like me without the racism. Yep. It's please like me. That's what it is. If you enjoy, please like me. I didn't watch please like me. Is it racist? Likely like it's a weirdly reoccurring joke. That's never funny and unnecessary, but there's like, there are starving children in Africa comes up like every three episodes for no reason. If you, if you wanted to like, please like me more, what sort of, yeah.

Well, Sam, what's your recommendation? My recommendation is the heartbreaking, devastating, brilliant

wondrous FX show called Fleischman is in trouble based on the book of the same name. I was watching this weekend. I say Fleischman stays in trouble. Y'all any who I watch Fleischman stays in. I've watched Fleischman is in trouble this weekend. And this show rocked me to my core. It's all about a group of elder millennials experiencing divorce and the loss of love and facing middle age and what you do when faced with that.

The acting is top-notch, but the writing is so good. And it's based on a novel, right? Yeah. So the show was written by the same woman who wrote the novel. Taffy brought us her actor, and she's just brilliant. There are some one-liners that appear in the show and the book that just stop you in your tracks. At one point, this woman is talking to some man about being divorced now, and the man says to her, being divorced doesn't make you any less married.

And you're just like, oh my God. Elsewhere in the show, someone says, I'm worried the only way that I can feel anything is when things are very bad. And then this one just blew me away. There's a scene in which two of the people are having an affair and you see them in the bed together. And the narrator says, I used to blow smoke on him so his wife would know where he'd been. Yeah.

Like, it's like devastatingly brilliant. Okay, I was going to drag you for using the term elder millennial with a straight face, but then you're reading all these quotes and I'm like, fuck, it is resonating. You know, it is hitting. Yes. This show twists the knife in the best way. Watch it, watch it, watch it. Fleischman is in trouble. Or as I say, Fleischman stays in trouble. The title, this nigga Fleischman? Yeah.

Oh, my God. Not this. This nigga Fleischman be fucking up. Fleischman is going through it, y'all. So good. So good. Listeners, tell us what you're feeling, what you're vibing with, what you recommend. Let us know at any point. Just email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com. Vibecheckatstitcher.com.

We did it, Joe. We are here at the end of our show. Joe ain't got shit to do with this. We did it ourselves. Yes, we did. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast listening platform. Like hit the follow button. That helps.

And also tell a friend about the show. Testify. Tell your neighbor. Huge thank you to our long-suffering producer, Chantel Holder, engineer Brendan Burns, and Marcus Holm for our theme music, which we love, and sound design. Sound design's important too. Special thanks to our executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda Management and Production. And last but not least, thank you to Jared O'Connell and Imelda Skender for all of their help.

Stitcher.

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