Ep 1 – Green Book and Kids Baking Championships

Lin talks about how much she loved Green Book, winner of TIFF’s People’s Choice Awards, and its realistically diverse supporting cast surrounding the main story.

Margrit tries to learn about North-American middle-graders from Kids Baking Championships, but comes out with questions about why the onus is always on the minority to conform to dominant cultures. Plus, what the heck are bar cookies?

Question of the episode: What stories have you seen that actually walks the talk of diversity? That shows marginalized people in everyday real ways.

Join the conversation on Twitter at @World_ofStories or email us at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com. 

Transcript

Margrit 0:00
Welcome to world of stories. I’m Margrit and my pronoun is they.

Lin 0:04
I’m Lin and my pronoun is she and we’re here to talk about diversity in storytelling.

Margrit 0:09
There’s so much awful stuff going on in the world around this. And I thought we could counteract that a bit. So what are you loving this week, Lin?

Lin 0:17
So the annual Toronto International Film Festival ended this past weekend. And on the last day of the festival, they always have a free screening of the film that won the People’s Choice Award. And this year, the film that won is called Green Book directed by Peter Farrelly and it was so good.

Margrit 0:34
I’ve heard about this movie and then quickly read up about it. And I’m so happy to hear you’ve seen it, what’d you think of it?

Lin 0:40
It is based on a true story. It’s set in the 1960s about a Black pianist, played by Mahershala Ali, the guy from Moonlight, and the pianist is about to go on tour to play a series of concerts across the American deep south. And because being a Black guy in the deep south in the 1960s isn’t necessarily the safest thing, he hires a driver played by Viggo Mortensen, who is an Italian American from the Bronx, who has a reputation for being a little rough around the edges and being able to take care of business, so to speak. Yeah, he’s like, that kind of–the bouncer at the club type of character. Which actually, he is a bouncer at a club. And so it’s this contrast in different personalities where the pianist is very highly educated, very cultured, very well spoken. He’s a little eccentric, you know, he lives in an apartment above Carnegie Hall. He sits on a throne. He has like elephant tusks in his apartment. It’s a little wacky. And then the driver’s from this working class family, like I said, rough around the edges. Not very well educated.

Margrit 2:01
It’s a little bit like Driving Miss Daisy, but race and gender swapped?

Lin 2:06
I think so yeah, I haven’t actually seen Driving Miss Daisy, but it sounds like it could be a good comparison. So the movie starts with the driver being a little bit racist. I mean, he doesn’t outright hate Black people or other minorities, but it’s part of the society that he’s from, and there’s a lot of systemic racism that he’s bought into. But as they’re traveling across the country, especially in the southern US, where segregation was still a thing at the time, his eyes are open to both the subtle racism that has been ingrained in him and then also the very overt racism in the society that they’re traveling through.

Margrit 2:52
So stuff like microaggressions that we still have to this day.

Lin 2:56
Yeah, totally. And you know, in the movie, at the beginning of the movie, he uses racial slurs quite easily not just for Black people but for East Asians and for all sorts of people. But I think he uses them without realizing they’re offensive. And that’s part of what he’s learning as he goes is that these little things, you know, they might not seem a lot to him but they do add up and they do make a big impact. And then, again as they’re traveling through these different communities, there’s a lot of racism toward the pianist that is blatant outright racism, you know. So he’s on stage and he’s entertaining these people and this white audience just loves him. All these shows are sold out, but the minute he steps off stage, he’s not allowed to use the same washroom as them and he’s not allowed to eat in the dining room with the rest of them. So it’s a really interesting–

Margrit 4:01
Illustration. Yeah, yeah, the segregation.

Lin 4:05
Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, throughout the story, the pianist also, he starts off very hoity toity and sort of hides behind his culture and education. But through his interactions with the driver, he realizes that, you know, he needs to relax a little, he’s led a very lonely life. Because he’s isolated, he’s not really accepted by any of the social groups. You know, he’s not accepted by the white community. He’s not really accepted by the Black community either. So, you know, the way I just have described this movie makes it sound really heavy, but it’s actually very, very funny. And the dialogue between the driver and the pianist is really witty, really sharp and they trade barbs back and forth. And so it’s able to bring a degree of humour to the story without diminishing any of the seriousness that the movie’s dealing with.

Margrit 4:58
Right and it sounds like it’s trying to illustrate the sort of intersections and the way that we might have relative privilege compared to other people and how that pans out in interactions and what that implication has in real life. I love that kind of storytelling when we’re dealing with the political issues that are embedded in a narrative that allows for a character–for like, realistic characters and a good plot and sort of real interactions between humans. And it seems to me like Mahershala Ali specializes in starring in these kinds of movies where, like, really important political issues of the day are told from an emotional, human scale viewpoint and like in Moonlight–like he does in Moonlight in such a brilliant way.

Lin 5:49
Yeah, definitely. So I think that Green Book is very similar to Moonlight in that way. And one other thing I wanted to highlight about Green Book is that at the beginning of the movie, when the story is still in New York, they’ve cast people of colour as extras and in small roles that really reflects the diversity of the city. And I don’t think we see that very often. It’s usually people of colour show up when they need to have a person of colour in a particular role. But it’s less often that we see them just being people on the street or, you know, in this case, there is an East Asian actor who was one of the drivers that was interviewing for that role. And there’s a bartender who’s also an East Asian actor. And I remember when the bartender came up on the screen, I was surprised, like I actually was taken aback that “Oh my goodness, there is an East Asian person playing a bartender in this story.” When it would have made more sense or not made more sense, but I would have expected just having a white guy there but–

Margrit 6:50
It just shows you the way in which we’ve been inured to certain kind of typecasting in terms of race and ethnicity.

Lin 6:57
Right. Yeah, exactly. And then the other person of colour I want to mention is the pianist has a butler slash valet assistant person and it’s played by South Asian actor named Iqbal Theba who’s been in tons and tons of things, actually. He’s a very–I think he has a very successful career, even though he might not be a household name. And I know him from Glee. He plays the president of the–sorry, not the president–the principal of the high school in Glee. So, yeah, and so it’s great to see these these minority people of colour, just being everyday people who, like they do in real life.

Margrit 7:39
Oh, indeed, I cannot wait to see this movie.

Lin 7:41
It’s coming out in November 2018. So be sure to check it out.

Margrit 7:45
I will for sure.

Lin 7:46
So Margrit, what have you been loving this week?

Margrit 7:49
Well, I’ve been trying to immerse myself in the world of middle graders because I’m revising my middle grade manuscript and I did not have a childhood here. So I can’t really relate to Canadian-US, you know, Western kids going through middle school here. You know, you hear all the stories and I just–on the one hand I want to veer away from, you know, painting it in very cliched ways. And so I’ve been watching kids baking championships, on Food Network. It is so lovely. It is just–the kids’ are enthusiastic and they’re so adorable. And they help one another and care for one another and they’re so incredibly creative.

Lin 8:32
I love baking shows and I watch a lot of Great British Baking Show. Is it something like that?

Margrit 8:38
Yeah, I love cooking shows. I think they’re really relaxing. And I especially like this one. And I appreciated that the producers have taken care to cast a diverse group of kids and one of the things that’s been a little bit irking me as I was watching this, was the assumption that people from dominant culture have about the things everyone should know. So maybe it’s because I’m an immigrant myself, and so I don’t have a lot of in-culture knowledge or anything like that. But you know, in one of the episodes, the kids were asked to make desserts that evoke a day at the ballgame and incorporate popcorn. And the white kids had no problem with it. But some of the kids of colour were at a total loss about what a day at the ballgame entails. And I am too, I have to say, and maybe that’s why I noticed it.

Lin 9:26
Yeah, that sounds really awkward. And I can totally relate to that. Because even though I did grow up in Canada, I never went to baseball games as a kid. You know, my family didn’t have a lot of money when we first came here. And so live games were completely out of our budget. So if I had been on that show, even though I may have watched plenty of baseball games on TV, I wouldn’t have known what happens at a live game.

Margrit 9:49
So one of the girls was like, I’m not really sure what happens at the ballgame, and she was totally feeling bad. And she was trying to rationalize why this was her problem, you know, and it was heartbreaking. Because it was not her problem, she should not have been put in that position. But again, it naturalizes the idea that the onus is always on marginalized people to act in the dominant culture and to know everything about the dominant culture. And whereas the reverse is not true, right. And in another episode, a kid of East Asian descent had no idea what bar cookies were, do you know what bar cookies are?

Lin 10:28
No, is it a cookie that looks like–

Margrit 10:32
Quiz time. This is what I thought and this is what this kid thought. And so he found a really clever workaround. He pre cut his base cookies to look like bars. And then he built this amazing cookie with various textures and really, really awesome. But the presenters were kind of elbowing each other, you know, the adult presenters who should have been adult and they’re both white. Right? And I know when they were chuckling at the kid’s ignorance, which totally irked me, because, you know, like, it just shows that just going through the motions and merely casting a diverse group of people is not doing enough for diversity if you don’t do the hard work of checking your assumptions, right? Why would an East Asian kid have to know what bar cookies are? Do you know how to make mochi off the top of your head? Or do you know how to make mooncake even if you’re a pastry chef? I’m sorry, I might just get a little bit riled up by that.

Lin 11:25
No, I totally get that because you know pro forma efforts at diversity, I think, can be more harmful than no efforts at all, right? Like, if you’re going to say, “Oh, we’re being diverse,” but you’re not actually diverse than it just shows people how disingenuous you are, which is more hurtful in a lot of ways, I think.

Margrit 11:45
It is more harmful, especially–especially for this girl, Natasha, who felt so bad and she was trying to make excuses like she was caught not knowing her lesson, right? So she will internalize this feeling that she’s not good enough because she doesn’t know absolutely everything about the dominant culture, right? Anyway.

Lin 12:02
But I’m gonna have to go what bar cookies are now.

Margrit 12:06
Yeah, right. Learn up because if you’re going to end up on some sort of baking championship. But kids baking championships is a pleasure to watch. And it’s all thanks to the kids who are really amazing and lovely.

Lin 12:21
Oh, that’s good. That’s great. Okay, so we have, we’re gonna have a question for every episode. And this week’s question is going to be for our listeners. What have you been watching that actually walks the talk of diversity. Is there a show or a book or anything else you’ve come across that shows marginalized people in real everyday ways?

Margrit 12:42
Yeah. So we will look forward to your comments. And the way that you can voice those comments is either on Twitter at @World_ofStories and we’d love to hear what you think about this.

Lin 13:01
Yeah, we really do. And thank you so much for listening and stay tuned for our next episode.