Welcome to “What’s Good,” a column where we break down what’s soothing, distracting, or just plain good in the streaming world with a “rooting for everybody Black” energy.

What’s Good? Halle Berry’s directorial debut Bruised on Netflix plays out as a predictable inspirational sports drama packed with all the clichés we’re used to — a washed up fighter down on her luck; sweaty training montages; a complicated home life riddled with addiction —  culminating in a big, punishing, career-on-the-line fight. The formulaic drama falters consistently, but Halle Berry’s gutting performance as former MMA star Jackie Justice and British actress Sheila Atim’s revelatory supporting turn as her trainer, Buddhakan, save the film from itself. It’s not a knockout, but under Berry’s direction, the two actresses deliver formidable punches throughout. 

Who It’s Good For: If you’ve ever pretended to be Rocky Balboa or Adonis Creed while running up a flight of stairs with “Eye Of The Tiger” ringing in your ears, you’re probably familiar with boxing movies and their tropes. Bruised doesn’t deliver anything new to the genre but if you love watching a character dig deep to overcome their emotional demons for a physical triumph, the film succeeds at that, at the very least. It’s clear that an Academy-Award winning actor is at the helm because Bruised’s strongest emotional blows come from its cast. 

Berry says she had to fight to get Bruised made, and especially to direct it herself, because she was struggling to find roles worthy of her talent. She is a 55-year-old Black woman in Hollywood afterall. And you can tell onscreen the work Berry put in offscreen. It’s not just that the physicality of the role leaves you in awe, it’s also that if you are a fan of the actress who feels like she has been a staple in Black Hollywood forever, it’s exhilarating to see her in such a formidable role. And because she’s HALLE BERRY, she elevates a weak script and uneven cinematography (also a testament to Berry still attempting to find her footing as a new director) to something watchable, and at times, riveting. The latter can be equally attributed to an enigmatic Atim, who plays the wise trainer archetype with impressive depth, finding layers in a character who could have easily been a prop used only to propel Justice’s story. 

If you’ve been rooting for Berry since Boomerang, or if you love watching a breakthrough performance that we’ll look back on with the same reverence when Atim becomes an award-winning legend (yes, she’s that good) in her own right, Bruised is worth your time.

How Good Is It? If we’re grading Bruised on the scale of one to “it could have starred Blake Lively,” it probably deserves an Oscar. It’s not good enough for any awards love this year, but it is a very good at-home-and-bored Netflix watch. In a lesser actor’s hands, the movie’s flaws would have been overpowering, but with Berry and Atim playing off of each other with skill and subtlety, Bruised’s earnesty and oversentimentality hits you in the feels, and takes Bruised from another cliched sports movie to an actors’ showcase. Aside from Jackie Justice’s (Berry) abusive boyfriend and bad manager (Adan Canto) who is an insufferable character with no redeeming qualities and it doesn’t help that Canto overplays him in every scene, the rest of the cast is stellar. 

Shamier Anderson is pitch perfect as a gaudily-dressed gym owner/ fight manager who wants to capitalize on Justice’s underdog story for money. Danny Boyd Jr. plays Justice’s estranged 6-year-old son Manny who comes back into her life unexpectedly when his father dies with heartbreaking restraint rare in a child actor. Adriane Lenox is magnetic and infuriating as Justice’s mess of a mother. And legendary stage and screen actor Stephen McKinley Henderson is underused as cornerman Pops but he steals every scene he’s in, as usual. 

Bruised’s biggest scene-stealer is still Atim’s Buddhakan, who brings a quiet strength to her moments with Justice, and it’s in the silence where their relationship goes from trainer/ fighter or mentor/mentee to something more. Sure, a fighter falling in love with her trainer is another cliché (have I mentioned the movie has a lot of those?) but the way Atim and Berry lock into each other with palpable chemistry, and the way Atim elevates every familiar line that in another fighting film could fall flat (example: “You grew up with damage and survived on rage. And that rage carried you into the ring.”) make their relationship the heart of Bruised. As they both try to move past their devastating backstories (Buddhakan’s wife left her and took her son, Justice was sexually abused as a child and abandoned her own son), their healing is unfolding as vigourously as their training sequences, and as Justice gets her fight back, they each find solace in each other’s trauma. It’s a really grounded, beautiful love story between two Black women in the midst of a sloppy and chaotic film that doesn’t treat the rest of its plot with the same intention.

Ultimately, Bruised is good enough to remind everyone why Halle Berry is one of the best in the game, and she should have her pick of roles that challenge her and showcase her imitable talent. And despite its shaky direction, the film shows enough promise in Berry as a filmmaker that this shouldn’t be the last time we see her behind the lens. And Shelia Atim is a STAR — it’s time everyone across the pond recognized it.

What Else Is Good?

•  ICYMI: our Black Love package is very, very good.
• I know only me and the Aunties are watching, but New Amsterdam is still the best medical drama on network TV — thanks in large part to Freema Agyeman as Dr. Helen Sharpe.
• This clip of Andrew Garfield talking about grief that broke me in half and put me back together again.
• The Grammy nominations are surprisingly pretty damn good (for the most part), and as usual, we’re rooting for everybody Black.
• As always, defunding the police.

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Kathleen Newman-Bremang, DMT.NEWS, DMT BeautySpot,

It’s become a running Twitter joke since Christina Elmore first showed up in Season 3 as Condola, the “other woman” in Issa and Lawrence’s will-they-won’t-they mess, and the Insecure character viewers love to hate, that fans think so little of the character they refuse to learn her name. They call her a various spattering of words that start with “C” as a token of their disdain for the person who, allegedly, is the reason Issa and Lawrence aren’t together. After Sunday’s episode, the third in the series’ fifth and final season, the conversation surrounding Canola Oil has shifted. (OK, that was the last time — promise.) No matter what you call Condola Hayes, it’s time to put respect on her name. 

“Her name is CONDOLA. Not Convenience. Not Corona. Not Controlla. Not Cottage Cheese-a. Not Cornucopia. Not Convection Oven. Not Casita. Not Confusion…” Insecure executive producer Amy Aniobi tweeted during the episode. With showrunner Prentice Penny chiming in with, “I hope this may chill out some of the ‘Condolonces’ energy and show her as a real person.” It’s clear that the minds behind the show (this week’s episode “Pressure, Okay?!” was written by Jason Lew) thought that after viewers watched Condola and Lawrence’s disputes over co-parenting duties play out, they’d suddenly be Team Condola. That’s not exactly how it’s going down. People are still hating. No, you don’t have to like Condola, but at this point, you have to admit that Lawrence is trash and that she’s just a new mom doing her best. The hate is unwarranted. 

“Pressure, Okay?!” opens with Lawrence (Jay Ellis) still reeling from his heartbreak after being dumped by Issa, who presumably decided she didn’t want to stick around while he parented a child with another woman — a correct decision. Lawrence also started his job in San Francisco — and he’s kinda killing it — while his ex Condola is back in LA pregnant and ready to give birth any day. Condola chose to have Lawrence’s baby, which is her right, and he chose to take a job in a whole different city than his son and his son’s mother, which makes him an irresponsible and absent father. When his son, Elijah Mustafa Walker (Lawrence hates the name; I like it!), is born, Lawrence is on a date, a whole plane ride away from his newborn. Tell me again how Condola is the one we’re supposed to hate? Sure, some of the criticism of Condola has pointed out that she shouldn’t have told Lawrence about the baby’s birth over text, but it’s clear that leading up to that point, Lawrence hadn’t shown a lot of interest in being that present or involved. Again, the man was living in a whole different city.

“I think I heard Prentice Penny, our showrunner, say this episode is sort of vindication for Condola,” Elmore said in an interview with the Insider. “But honestly I hope it’s just validation for moms who are out there doing it.” Vindication isn’t the word I would use to describe Condola’s journey either, but validation is definitely accurate. My friends who are mothers saw themselves in Condola as she juggled making plans, sacrificing her own self-care (she has to cancel a massage when Lawrence is too tired to fly home to spent time with his son), and dealing with the ego of a man who hides behind “meaning well” instead of actually doing well. 

Condola juggled making plans, sacrificing her own self-care, and dealing with the ego of a man who hides behind “meaning well” instead of actually doing well. 

Yes, Condola made some poor communication choices, and said some shit to Lawrence that maybe she shouldn’t have, but her actions were the result of the frustrations of new motherhood coming to a head. She’s basically a single mom since Lawrence only feels like being a father on weekends, and she’s lashing out against an impossibly hard situation. It’s hard not to have sympathy for a woman who is struggling with all the emotions that come with postpartum, and with an incessant man child who wants cookies for not being a deadbeat dad. Someone should tell Lawrence that showing up is literally the bare minimum a parent can do, and he’s not even doing that! “Monday through Friday he gets to go to sleep, he gets to sleep all night, he can grab dinner… He can do whatever he wants. He just pops in on a weekend, while she’s doing it day-to-day,” Ellis said to TVLine about why his character ain’t shit.  

There are a few moments in the episode where Condola is painted as unreasonable and hysterical, while Lawrence plays the victim. He’s trying, he repeats over and over. But is he really “trying” if he’s missing trips back to LA and continues to live in a different city? Condola is “controlling,” Lawrence says to Derek, Tiffany’s husband, after he and Condola get into a fight at their daughter’s birthday party. The argument ensues because Lawrence decides to introduce solids to their baby without consulting Condola, and if you know anything about babies, that could have gone really sideways. Elijah was fine, but that’s not the point. The entire episode is shown from Lawrence’s point of view, and in this moment, we’re supposed to be siding with him. “Why is mommy being so dramatic?” Lawrence passive aggressively asks his baby while Condola is visibly upset. The condescension escalates from there. Now, Condola is a better woman than me because my child wouldn’t have a father anymore if I was in this situation. 

Writer Jason Lew said he brought his personal experience as a new father to the script and while he did a good job of digging into the complexities of parenthood, he also skewed the narrative in favor of Lawrence. Thanks to the patriarchy, we’re conditioned to think dads deserve a gold star for doing the least, and we’re predisposed to perceive a woman trying to protect her child as doing the most. I’m glad that Derek pulled aside his boy to check his behavior, but the writers didn’t do Condola any favors by failing to unpack why she was so agitated. Instead, she’s left looking like the crazy ex who won’t let Lawrence be the chill dad he’s decided he is when he graces them with his presence. 

Aside from a few key scenes with Condola and her sister Kira (played by our good sis, the always electrifying Keke Palmer) where they get into Lawrence’s absent “uncle” energy, we don’t get to see her side. The episode’s best, and most revealing, scene was when we get a split screen glimpse into both of their lives, while Lawrence is working, f*cking strangers, and living his best life, Condola is up feeding the baby, exhausted and wrestling with all the things that come with keeping a baby alive. “I gave birth to my second child eight weeks before shooting that scene where Condola falls asleep on the toilet, so Condola and I were one. We were right here,” Elmore told TVLine. “I care less about Condola becoming more sympathetic as a character and more about all moms deserving to be seen with grace, because it’s hard work.”

Jay Ellis’s pretty face shouldn’t give this character a pass to be a noted wasteman, a whole trash bag of a human being, without any repercussions.

The thing is that Condola doesn’t have to be sympathetic or be likeable even — hell, look at all the mistakes Issa and Molly have made throughout the seasons  — but I think it’s important to dissect why this specific character is the one who is subjected to so much vitriol, when Lawrence has done way worse. Neither one of them come out looking great after the episode’s climax, a heated argument where they both throw insolent shots at each other, but based on the online reaction, it seems like it’s Condola who is still the one bearing the brunt of the audience’s anger. 

What are we really mad at Condola for? Keeping the baby? Breaking up Issa and Lawrence? Both reasons are unfair to put solely on Condola. She didn’t knock herself up. And Issa and Lawrence had mad issues, and were even broken up, long before Condola entered the picture. Jay Ellis’s pretty face shouldn’t give this character a pass to be a noted wasteman, a whole trash bag of a human being, without any repercussions. I am attracted to his face too, but I can also admit that pretty people can do some ugly ass shit. And that “nice guys” sometimes aren’t as nice as they say they are. 

“If you want to sit in your feelings and hate Lawrence and be mad at Lawrence, you should… You’re going to cuss the TV out [and] you’re going to cuss me out,” Ellis said in a recent interview. “Expect that it’s going to happen, but live in it and be present with it, because I think it’s worth the journey.” 

It’s time the journey leads us to say condolences to the Condola hate, and move on to directing our anger to the real villain of the season: Lawrence Walker. Lawrence Hive, let’s fight like Condola and Lawrence over some mushy carrots. 

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Kathleen Newman-Bremang, DMT.NEWS, DMT BeautySpot,

It doesn’t take much for two extremely attractive, very famous people to go from individual objects of thirst to a certified Celebrity Couple. Some strategic hand-holding in well-timed paparazzi shots, a few coy quotes and boom, iconic portmanteaus are born (see: Bennifer, Brangelina, KimYe, and, well, Bennifer again). If these celebrity pairs stay together for awhile, or if they wind up — wait for it — getting married, they graduate to the hallowed halls of famous coupledom: the coveted #RelationshipGoals. We’re all familiar with the hashtag.  We also know which couples fit the bill: Gabrielle and Dwyane. Will and Jada. Beyoncé and Jay-Z. Couples who have stayed together through it all. Women who have stood by their men. The Ride or Dies. The longer a couple has endured a “perfectly imperfect” union, the more we scream, “GOALS!” 

Influencers chase the honor to be revered by single people as the gold standard of partnership while certain celebs seem to fall into the distinction by doing the bare minimum: seeming to treat their romantic partner with love and respect or, you know, just by being hot and there. For Black celebrity couples, “relationship goals” come with added expectation — and adoration. Hollywood marriages are notoriously short-lived. And the stereotype is that Black marriages also don’t last (yes, the divorce rate is slightly higher in Black marriages, but not by much, and Black women are actually getting married less, if at all). Hollywood unions are also great for business. Studios have been coupling up their leads to sell movies since Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. So when Black couples simply stay together, they’re not only beating the imaginary odds, they’re also gaming a system designed for them to fail. And for the “representation matters” set, #RelationshipGoals is another way to see Black people shine in an industry that attempts to dim their light every chance it gets. These Black couples become everything to project hopes, dreams and unrealistic aspirations onto because they are the exceptions, the chosen few representing Black love when seeing two Black people in love is still so rare onscreen.  

Those are all the reasons why celebrity couple goals exist. Here’s why they shouldn’t. Not only do #RelationshipGoals, especially when it comes to the three couples mentioned above (Union and Wade, Pinkett Smith and Smith, and the Carters), fetishize an image that’s curated and not real, they also glorify a type of Black love that prioritizes staying together (aka building a brand) over anything else. We shouldn’t set standards for our own lives on the unattainable facade of celebrity ever, but especially not when we’re basing them on couples who have access to endless therapy, money (which is the leading cause of romantic splits), and help with their kids (division of domestic duties is also a thing that causes regular folks to fight). 

 Not only do #RelationshipGoals fetishize an image that’s curated and not real, they also glorify a type of Black love that prioritizes staying together (aka building a brand) over anything else.

Outlets used to praise celeb couples as #RelationshipGoals for the most rudimentary behavior like “working out together,” being “inseparable,” and going on “vacations [that] are always epic.” The veneer of these marriages was shiny and perfect, like a Bey and Jay music video, a viral selfie of The Wades or a red carpet moment with the Smiths. Now, the tone has shifted to hail these couples for their candor about their marital strife. Last year, Women’s Health Mag proclaimed Union and Wade as the most “swoon-worthy couple on the planet” in part because “it hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the actress and NBA player.” 

In her latest memoir, You Got Anything Stronger?, Union details the choppy waters the article is referring to. Dwyane Wade fathered a child while they were “on a break” from their relationship in 2013. It was also while she was experiencing her own heartbreaking fertility issues. “To say I was devastated is to pick a word on a low shelf for convenience,” she writes. “There are people — strangers I will never meet — who have been upset that I have not previously talked about that trauma. I have not had words, and even after untold amounts of therapy I am not sure I have them now. But truth matters.” The truth, according to Union, is that while “strangers” were envying her relationship, she was “shattered into fine dust scattering in the wind.” But she chose to forgive Wade. And looking back, she’s not sure she would make the same choice. “The advice I would give myself now is to leave,” she continues in her memoir. “The me of today would not have stayed with him, but would I be who I am now without that pain?” I wish relationships for Black women that aren’t painful, period, and softness so we don’t have to be strong. 

Union’s transparency is now purposefully and intrinsically linked to her public personae, and it is admirable, albeit gut wrenching. Her being so open about her fertility journey is going to make a lot of women feel less alone. But everything she says in her book just proves that putting celebrity relationships on a pedestal is futile. And I think she would agree with me that she and Wade are not #RelationshipGoals, whatever that means. The truth is that we never really know what’s going on behind the scenes. And even now, when Union has supposedly shared it all (not that she should’ve had to), we’re getting a carefully packaged version of the truth — in a bestselling book on her part and in Wade’s revealing documentary — and one that can be interpreted as a woman sticking by her man through excruciating circumstances. Should that really be the goal?

The fact that Beyoncé and Jay-Z are still held up as “goals” in a post-Lemonade world is a testament to how skilled they are at selling a specific image of their marriage. Before releasing her scorned woman opus where she revealed Jay’s serial cheating ways and defiantly told her husband to remember that he “ain’t married to no average bitch, boy,” and warned, “If you try this shit again/ You gon’ lose your wife,” Bey was playing the role of the doting wife. They were Bey and Jay, The Carters, hip-hop royalty, the picture-perfect display of monogamy and domesticity in a genre that stood in stark contrast to both. Beyoncé (by way of Jay’s cheating) burned that public perception to the ground with Lemonade. 

But a couple with a brand and networth of a billion dollars can’t just end so easily. Beyoncé ends her album with the reconciliation anthems “Sandcastles,” and “All Night Long,” with a humbled Jay-Z appearing at her feet in the film companion of both tracks. Together, they rebuilt the exact portrait she torched. And after Jay further profited from his cheating scandal by releasing his side of the story on the album 4:44, the two went on another joint tour: On The Run II, released an album, Everything Is Love, as The Carters, and are currently starring in loved-up ads for Tiffany. We’re left with the same story: The brand is strong. They’re Bey and Jay, The Carters, hip-hop royalty, and the couple who represents wealth, excess, stability and overcoming infidelity to achieve something we’re still supposed to aspire to — the difference is that now they admit to being in therapy. 

You could argue that it’s healthy that our #RelationshipGoals have evolved from silent suffering partners to couples who are open about their challenges — especially when Black people are destigmatizing therapy — and who are less tied to the rigidity of monogamy (looking at you, Will and Jada), but it can still be misguided to look at celebrity couples as role models, instead of just pretty people who may be going through some shit, but who do so with a lot of privilege. 

The Smiths’ version of “goals” is probably the one most rooted in reality, and aimed at being relatable. If Gwyneth Paltrow built her post-acting brand off of “consciously uncoupling” and her specific flavor of white wellness, Pinkett-Smith has constructed hers on the real-talk, no bullshit approach to discussing her marriage. She has admitted to the struggle of keeping up a spicy sex life when you’ve been married since the ‘90s and her husband recently owned up to the longstanding rumours they aren’t monogamous. These two are out here sharing. Still, we can’t forget that their marriage, and their candor surrounding it, is a massive part of their brand. 

This is a couple who sat down at the infamous red table (during Pinkett-Smith’s Facebook Watch series, Red Table Talk, which don’t forget, is a family business) to hash out details of her romantic “entanglement” with August Alsina. I don’t know about you, but I’m not aiming for any sort of relationship that includes sleeping with my child’s friend who is decades my junior (we really don’t talk about how predatory and messed up this story is enough). After that admission, the Smiths — during an episode that  say they got to a “place of unconditional love.” That is really nice for them, but I think I like my love with some conditions. During the Red Table Talk episode, Will Smith said that it was “critical” to be able to “make mistakes without the fear of losing your family.” Again, I am happy for them but I think actions should have consequences, and “losing your family” if you f*ck up maybe should be one of them! But I’m not a multi-millionaire whose uber successful talk show is due in part to a marriage that both parties have deemed inescapable so what do I know? 

The goal should never be to copy someone else’s love, especially not two people who are bound together through business, as well as romance.

If we can learn anything from the Smiths, it’s that they don’t let anyone else define their relationship. What I do appreciate about them is that they model a Black marriage that seems individual and catered specifically to them — and them only. It’s not a blueprint anyone else can follow. Every time Pinkett Smith or Smith make another admission about the inner workings of their union (keep in mind that each revelation is made in public, and for profit), we should take it as a nice — or weird, you never know with these two — anecdote and keep it moving. The goal should never be to copy someone else’s love, especially not two people who are bound together through business, as well as romance. 

And if the prototype is the image of a Black woman standing by her man no matter what I think it’s time we let go of that as an idealized fantasy. Too often Black women in relationships are depicted as the ones sacrificing themselves for the sake of their marriage. We know that historically, Black women have single handedly held together Black communities, with little support, and glorifying that kind of “struggle love” is just romanticizing a burden Black women shouldn’t have to bear. It’s also a burden that these celebrities don’t face in the same way as other people do, so it doesn’t make sense to exalt them as the standard. 

The thing is, I am a fan of all of these couples (I am begging Queen Bey to leave her husband at home just once though) and I will continue to incessantly follow everything they do. But the key is to never forget the thing that binds them all: Strategy. And if you don’t trust me when I say we need to divest from celebrity #RelationshipGoals, maybe you’ll listen to Gabrielle Union herself: “My ‘perfect’ relationship isn’t the next person’s,” she told Ebony in 2018. “Stop comparing your life, your love and your marriage… Don’t try to have a relationship for the sake of other people because you’re going to be empty inside.

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Kathleen Newman-Bremang, DMT.NEWS, DMT BeautySpot,

Welcome to Love Like This?, a romance column where we, Kathleen Newman-Bremang and Ineye Komonibo, revisit some of the most romantic — or not, in hindsight — scenes in Black film and TV history.

Brown Sugar is a film that, like a good hip-hop song, hits differently depending on what age you are when you experience it. The classic 2002 romantic comedy came out in October almost 20 years ago, and what was once a comforting antidote to a rom-com genre saturated in whiteness with a side of hip-hop nostalgia has now held up as a smart, sexy, exploration of the friends-turned-lovers trope while remaining a sharp meditation on rap music’s mainstream dominance. As kids, watching music journalist turned XXL editor-in-chief Sydney Shaw (Sanaa Lathan) slowly realize when she really fell in love with hip-hop aka her best friend, A&R executive Andre “Dre” Ellis (Taye Diggs) felt like an awakening; a glimpse into the grown up world we only dreamed of and a blueprint of a romance to aspire to. If it wasn’t a love like Syd and Dre’s, we didn’t want it. 

Now, watching Brown Sugar as adults, the film is a reclamation of that youthful connection to these characters (and a testament to Diggs and Lathan’s electric chemistry), but also it’s so much more than just “When Harry Met Sally, in the world of hip-hop,” which is how it was pitched to director Rick Famuyiwa (Dope, The Wood). “I loved films like When Harry Met Sally and Annie Hall, but these were very specific, white Manhattan experiences,” he told Vice in 2017. “You don’t see a single person of color anywhere, but somehow these films are universal. As a filmmaker and creator, I was frustrated with that idea.” 

It is frustrating to think that back then, studios didn’t think a Brooklyn-based love story about Black professionals fumbling their way through friendship lows and career highs — all while hip-hop is their soundtrack — could be universal, but that’s exactly what Famuyiwa and co-writer Michael Elliot accomplished. Syd and Dre shine because they’re fully formed, flawed (something their onscreen sidekicks, Queen Latifah as Francine and the artist formerly known as Mos Def as Cavi respectively, remind them constantly), and selfish in the best way; they’re never trying to cater to a gaze that isn’t their own, which is why it felt like they were always talking to us. Find a millennial Black woman who grew up to be a writer who didn’t want to be just like Sydney Shaw. We dare you. 

Sure, this column is supposed to be a deeper look at the scenes in the best onscreen Black love stories — the good and the bad — to see if all these years later, they still live up to the hype, but in this case, it’s simple. So, let’s get this out of the way: Brown Sugar is still, as Dre says to Syd, “the perfect verse over a tight beat.” The movie as a whole holds up beautifully, but do Syd and Dre as a couple? They both trample on a few hearts (Reese and Kelby, played by real-life married couple Nicole Ari Parker and Boris Kodjoe) to get to their happily ever after, but do we think they’re still happy? Is Dre’s final, hail-mary grand gesture as romantic as our adolescent memories made it out to be? And most importantly, would we really want a love like this? 

This week is all about celebrating Black love in all its forms here at R29Unbothered, so it’s the perfect time to look back on one of the best Black rom-coms of all time. 

The Scene: You could make a solid case that the best scene in Brown Sugar is when Taye Diggs as Dre (who just found out his wife was cheating on him) clinks his glass and delivers in a high-pitched octave the line: “We finna celebrate! What? My divooorce!” with comedic timing only a former Broadway star could nail. But for the purposes of our dissection of the most romantic scene in the film, we’re going with the final moments. At this point, Syd has finished her book titled I Used To Love Him (a nod to the Common song) and is giving an interview on Hot 97 with Angie Martinez to promote it and her magazine. Dre is about to hear the first artist signed to his new label debut his single on the same station. He calls in during Syd’s interview (while he races to her in person) to get her to finally confess that she’s been in love with him since they were kids. By now, they’ve both been engaged to other people, they’ve been friends, lovers, and friends again, and through it all, they kept singing the same song — they just needed to finish the lyrics. In a Hot 97 studio, Dre finds the words to lock down the love of his life. The line that gets her: “You’re my air.” Swoon. 

Does The Grand Gesture Hold Up? 

Kathleen Newman-Bremang: This is my favorite rom-com of all time. I had my best friend Kayla read a passage from it during my wedding ceremony last month. I’m obsessed with it. My only worry with us doing this movie for the column was that I would just be like, “It’s perfect. No notes!” because that’s pretty much how I feel. However, my general rule about grand gestures is that they can’t happen while someone is doing their job. If they’re an athlete, it can’t be in the middle of their game. I hate those stories of proposals in the middle of a marathon. Sir, the woman has a race to finish! And I hated when Offset interrupted Cardi B during her Rolling Loud 2018 set to say, “Take me back, baby.” Nope! Sis had a bag to secure! So, Syd is working during this grand gesture. She is promoting her book during a radio interview. That is my only beef. Otherwise, it is perfect, no notes. 

Ineye Komonibo: Yeah, it holds up for me too. You know I love bird behavior like this. I really liked when Syd said, “I’ve been in love with you since the moment I laid eyes on you.” I thought, Oh, is it that simple? If Syd would’ve said something, Dre would’ve just been like, ‘Yeah, same. What’s up?’ I thought that was so cute, because it’s not about people who are falling in love with each other. They’ve always loved each other, and it’s just that no one said anything. But then Syd decided how she felt about Dre, he immediately went, “Say less, I’m coming over!” I thought it was so precious.

KNB: It’s so nice! To go back to Syd being at work, I’m actually going to go against my rule because this was also a moment when both of their career dreams are coming true, which I love for them. They grew up together and bonded through dreaming together. So, in this moment, Cavi, Mos Def’s character, is about to get his single played on Hot 97, which is a big moment for Dre and his record label. And Syd is obviously doing an interview where she gets to plug her book, which is a big accomplishment. She’s the editor of XXL, which was always her dream. It just felt like such a full circle moment for both of them individually, independently of each other, which made it an even more beautiful moment for them together. They truly are each other’s air. 

Abolish soulmates, except for Syd and Dre. I truly think these two characters are soulmates, and were destined to be together. 

KATHLEEN NEWMAN-BREMANG

Could It Be Me? 

KNB: I was in love with my best friend all through elementary and high school, so yes, this would absolutely be me. This movie came out right around when I was crushing on him; I wanted to be a magazine editor, and he wanted to be a music producer (he is now a DJ), and we both loved hip-hop so much. He performed his music at our high school talent show. I did a spoken-word poem about hip-hop. Seriously. We were those corny Black kids. We were basically Syd and Dre — except he only dated white girls [laughs]. Anyway, it would be me! That said, as an adult watching this movie, I don’t know if I would’ve gone as far with Kelby as Syd does. She did Kelby dirty. I don’t know if I would’ve let my best friend marry someone the next day after we made out. That stuff could not be me. But, I’m corny as hell and I love Taye Diggs so when he broke out the “yes box, no box, maybe box,” that 100% would’ve worked on me.

IK: If it was me, I think the story would’ve ended when Dre got married, just because of the way I think about marriage. I know that it doesn’t always last forever, but that’s the goal. He made that decision to legally bind himself to another woman for life despite what happened the night before his wedding, so I’d have to take my L. You got married to a whole other person after all that? Yeah, I would probably feel embarrassed, like I overestimated my importance in his life, so I would step back and respect his situation. Respectfully, we’re not going to be best friends anymore. I probably would’ve shut off that part of myself, because I don’t believe in soulmates… Dre wouldn’t have been able to come back after that. 

KNB: I don’t believe in soulmates either, even though I’m married [laughs]. Abolish soulmates, except for Syd and Dre. I truly think these two characters are soulmates, and were destined to be together. 

Can Lovers Really Be Friends? 

IK: Not for me personally, but I do think it’s generally possible. Let’s say you have a guy who’s your dorky friend. At one point, you’re going to say, “Hold on. Wait a minute. Is he cute? Is he giving something that he wasn’t giving before?” You already know each other so well, and you’re already so close, so why wouldn’t he be the perfect partner for you? I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but I do understand why it would happen.

KNB: Oh, I understand why it happens for sure. And I think that relationships that are based on friendship, where you were friends first, provides a really solid foundation; it’s only going to strengthen your romantic bond. But I don’t think there’s a way to go from a romantic relationship back to being friends.

Rate The Kiss: 

KNB: For me, the end-of-the-movie kiss isn’t actually their best kiss. 

IK: It’s the bookshelf!

KNB: Yes! It’s the kiss in Syd’s house by the bookshelf. 

I’m still pressed about his whole marriage and then her engagement to someone else. I wouldn’t want a love like Syd and Dre’s because, at some point, he looked at her and said, ‘No, not you.’

ineye komonibo

IK: Let me just say something about Taye Diggs: the man can kiss! When Sanaa was talking to him during the bookshelf scene, he looked down at her mouth, and his mouth did a thing — a twitch or something. It was in anticipation, as in “I’m going to swallow you whole.” And I literally sat up in my bed and turned the fan on because I was sweating suddenly. I couldn’t tell if it was an involuntary action on Taye’s part, or if he’s just a master thespian because something very carnal happened in that split second.

KNB: Sanaa is so good in that scene, because you could tell she’s trying so hard to not be shook by this man. Her mind is trying to talk her out of it, but her body is saying otherwise. That is a thespian. The bookshelf is my fave, but if I had to rate the final kiss, I’d give it a solid eight. It’s good. It’s a more comfortable kiss. They hug first, and it goes on forever; They cut to Mos Def and Queen Latifah, and it’s still going. At that moment, Syd and Dre are like, “We’re done. We’re good. We’re together.” It’s not as hot and passionate as their other kiss, but it’s solidifying what they have.

IK: It’s the unprofessionalism of it for me. Let’s not forget we’re still at a place of work, people. The interview ended early, so it’s like, “Hey guys, at some point, we’ve got to leave.” But I’ll give it a 7/10 because it looked great! I’m happy that it ended that way. You gotta end with a kiss every time. 

KNB: Another thing that I love about this movie is that they didn’t save the kiss until the freaking end. All of these Netflix rom-coms, like everything Christina Milian is in, do a peck at the very end of the movie. Nah, I want kisses throughout, and I want to end on a great kiss.

IK: Don’t be stingy with the kisses either! I want to see kissing in every other scene. In a romance movie, the leads should kiss at least four times. At least.

Would You Want A Love Like This?

KNB: After all these years, yes, I absolutely would want to love like Syd and Dre’s. I love how deeply rooted in friendship it is. I love how much they support each other. I love that they know each other inside and out, and there will be no surprises. They really just had to get over their shit and be together. It’s a very solid love, so yeah, of course I would want a solid love. However, I think in real life, it’s very rare that your high school sweetheart, or the kid you grew up with and had a crush on, turns into someone whose values and everything are aligned with yours, and you’re on this same path professionally. It’s so, so rare. Yes, I would want to love like this. Do I think a love like this exists in real life? Maybe not.

I think their love holds up mainly because of Taye and Sanaa’s chemistry, and how palpable it is. And then also there’s this mutual respect between Syd and Dre, and the way they talk to each other. The movie is very ahead of its time considering Syd’s a professional. She’s very much an equal in this relationship. She gives him money to start his label. That shit holds up because it’s progressive and feminist.

IK: I also really like that the desire and the longing are mutual. It doesn’t always occur at the same time, but I think Syd cared about Dre just as much as he cared about her, even if their timing was off. I don’t mind if a guy’s longing for the woman, because that’s how it should be. But I really hate to see a woman in a one-sided relationship, where she’s the only one that cares about him, and one day he wakes up like, “Oh I care about you all of a sudden. Let’s get married.” I appreciated that the sentiment was more, “We’ve always felt this way about each other, and we just didn’t have the words or the courage to say that thing, and so we’re meeting in the middle” as opposed to “I’m catching up to your feelings that you had for 20 years.”

I like the idea of being with someone that you’ve known so well who knows everything about you, but I’m still pressed about his whole marriage and then her engagement to someone else. I wouldn’t want a love like Syd and Dre’s because, at some point, he looked at her and said, “No, not you.” It’s not like he got married without them kissing or having a spark. I could not want to be with a person who I felt didn’t choose me when the opportunity presented itself. I would take it extremely personally and probably would’ve already talked myself out of it thinking that I was wrong about his feelings. He just wouldn’t have been able to come back from that. 

Is This Couple Still Together? 

IK: Yes. 

KNB: Yes — there’s no other answer. I will fight anyone who tries to say they aren’t.

IK: They’re together, but they’re not married. I think they’re a power couple that doesn’t need to have their situation explained or defined. They probably refer to each other their “partner.”

KNB: Okay, I can actually see them fighting about this, and then Syd caving. I could see Syd not wanting to get married but Dre really wanting to, and her saying , “Let’s just be partners,” and him being like, “Nah Syd. I want to put a ring on it.” And then they fight about it, and then eventually Syd caves, and they get married. They don’t have kids. Hip-hop and their careers are their children.

IK: They have a dog. I see them as dog people. I see them running a startup, becoming weed entrepreneurs. There’s something about Dre that screams Silicon Valley. I see him as a dude who says “pivot” a lot and wears sneakers to conferences.

KNB: They definitely have a podcast. You know who has a bunch of kids, though? Cavi and Francine.

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My baby cousin will always be just that to me: a baby. Even though she’s grown, a whole woman in her 20s, I will always see her as a toddler following me and my big brothers, and hers, around my childhood house, with a cheeky smile and the sweetest laugh. She’s a few years younger than me (we don’t need to get into how many exactly) and yet, she’s always been more mature and self-assured than I ever was at her age — at every age. Her mom, my first cousin, was always like a cool auntie to me. She introduced me to SWV and big hoop earrings, and was my fashion icon before any celebrity. They have been staples in my life, in all of its iterations, and I love them more than I ever expressed enough — that is, before we stopped speaking. 

There wasn’t a big blowup. It just came down to a simple event: I got married earlier this month and in order to attend my intimate wedding, my friends and family had to be double vaccinated, no exceptions. Aside from elderly family members attending, including my parents, the venue required proof of vaccination to enter. My cousins are refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, and so, through my mother, they declined my wedding invitation. My mom, a retired nurse, has been fielding most of the conversations about their vaccine status so I’ve been spared from the uncomfortable and frustrating talks in which a woman who devoted her career to medicine and saving people’s lives has had to try to convince her sister’s offspring to believe in science. Aside from a brief appearance at my wedding, where my baby cousin stood outside the venue and said a quick congratulations, I haven’t seen my cousins at all, or spoken to them. But I know that my older cousin may lose her job because of her refusal to get the vaccine, and that their decision has fractured our relationship, and put a permanent splinter in our family. 

And I know my family isn’t the only one navigating this. I know this because of the stats: Black people (in Canada and America alike, where most of my family resides) are more likely to be vaccine hesitant than other groups and their warranted distrust in the healthcare system is one of the reasons. And because when I was looking for stories from other vaccinated Black women going through the same thing, my DMs were flooded with frustrated family members. As the holidays approach, and as vaccine hesitancy remains steady, there are a lot of families dealing with the divisiveness that has come with this pandemic. 

Imani*, a 29-year-old from Mississippi, lives with her mother, a cancer survivor in her 60s who is not yet vaccinated. She says her mother believes a doctor on YouTube who is spreading misinformation that anyone who has taken the Pfizer vaccine will have five years to live, and that it makes women infertile. “My mother is at risk, and she is one of the closest people to me. I have watched many people around me lose their parents in this pandemic, and would not forgive myself if I harmed my mother,” Imani says over email. She is afraid of bringing the virus home so she doesn’t go out, and she is keeping her son home from daycare. “My life is at a standstill until [my mom] decides these vaccines aren’t going to kill us.”

My life is at a standstill until [my mom] decides these vaccines aren’t going to kill us.

*IMANI, A 29-YEAR-OLD WHOSE MOTHER IS REFUSING TO GET VACCINATED

The onslaught of misinformation spread over social media is what caused Saira*, a 34-year-old from Toronto, to unsubscribe from her family’s WhatsApp group since she is the only person in her family who is vaccinated. She says that her dad has so much of a “staunch anti-vax stance” that he is now a broken record of conspiracy theories and is threatening to quit his job if they make the vaccine mandatory. Their discussions got so anxiety-inducing for Saira that she stopped having them. 

Natasha* did the same. She stopped talking to her anti-vax cousins after they called her and her sister “idiots” and “paranoid” for asking them not to visit their 70-year-old parents. One cousin is convinced that COVID-19 was made up by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. That same cousin contracted the virus which put him in a coma for a month. He and his wife and kids are still refusing to get the vaccine. “They said they have antibodies and the blood of Jesus. I couldn’t make this up,” Natasha says exasperated. “I just walked in the door from a viewing for a close family friend who also refused the vaccine and died within three days of being admitted to the hospital. He said he didn’t want  ‘government injections.’ We are dying and I don’t know how to stop it.” Saira is just as fed up, and says there’s no reasoning with her family members who have already made up their minds. “It felt like none of these conversations were based in fact, and I can’t have a conversation with someone who is detached from reality,” she says.  

The reality is that vaccine hesitancy is tearing Black families apart. But with most of the women I spoke to, aside from the wild conspiracies and confounding misinformation, there is nuance in their family members’ decisions to abstain from getting vaccinated from COVID-19, which makes getting through to them even more difficult. We know that Black communities are wary (rightfully) of governments who have historically and systemically disenfranchised them, and of healthcare systems that have upheld racism in horrific ways, like forced sterilization and involuntary eugenics. Look no further than the story of Henrietta Lacks for proof of the history of the U.S. medical industry’s exploitation of Black bodies. Once you take all of this into consideration, you’re left not with an image of ignorant, uneducated anti-vaxxers spitting on public officials, but with people who are faced with trusting a system that has historically spat in their faces. 

“Whether it’s the medical experiments on enslaved Africans, forced sterilization policies in the US, or the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, throughout history, Black people have not always been granted the freedom to make autonomous decisions about their bodies,” says Tiana*, a 27-year-old from New York, whose cousins, aunts, and uncles are refusing to get vaccinated. “I think that some Black people are hesitant to trust that doctors and our government are telling the truth about the vaccines. They’re fearful that they’re being lied to (once again).” Fear is what’s driving her family’s decision, Tiana says, and even though they usually get together on holidays, most of her immediate family is unvaccinated so those moments of communion are now a thing of the past. 

When I do [rarely] enter these conversations, I try to do so from a place of understanding and validation, as opposed to ridicule… I think it’s really hard for people to change their minds and to say ‘I was wrong about this.’

*SAIRA, A 34-YEAR-OLD WHO IS THE ONLY VACCINATED MEMBER OF HER FAMILY

“People of color, along with immigrants and differently-abled men and women have endured centuries of having their trust violated,” Sherita Hill Golden, vice president and chief diversity officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine, writes in resources provided to R29Unbothered by John Hopkins. “We need to give people the facts about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, and renew their trust toward health care in general… It’s incumbent on health care organizations and leaders to help repair and restore that relationship.” Thanks to the past actions of governments and healthcare organizations, that’s not the only relationship that needs restoration. 

Family members who were once best friends are now estranged, like Garcelle*, a 30-year-old from London, ON., and her sister (that said, she says her sister has promised to take the vaccine in order to attend her wedding next year and I try not to be jealous that my cousin didn’t make me the same promise.) Garcelle says that while she disagrees with her sister’s decision not to get the vaccine, she understands it. “I do understand her hesitancy, because as a Black woman, I’m not going to lie, I was hesitant myself. But I’ve done my research and when I made the decision to take it, I felt safe,” she says over the phone. “Also, when my sister and I went to school, I remember having a vaccine booklet. We grew up on vaccines. I don’t understand why this is so different.” 

It’s true that “vaccine passports” have long existed, especially in schools and for travel, and debates that divide families are also as old as polio. So how do we move forward? The best thing we can all do for our communities is to get vaccinated, period. But when it comes to approaching these conversations, it’s important to move with empathy and patience. 

“When I do [rarely] enter these conversations, I try to do so from a place of understanding and validation, as opposed to ridicule,” Saira says. “I think it’s really hard for people to change their minds and to say ‘I was wrong about this’ so it’s important to come at it from a place of ‘we’re all confused, and we’re all taking risks, but it’s a calculated risk.’ And then you let them know that it’s not that you’re smarter or better than them. Taking it doesn’t mean that they were dumb for not taking it, because that approach will backfire and they will just dig their heels in.” 

It’s OK to want to educate your family, but it’s also OK to tap out of frustrating conversations.

I understand how hard it is not to let the insults fly when you’re trying to have a debate with someone over science when our literal lives are on the line (I may not be talking about vaccines with my cousins but I’ve gone off in a few former friends’ IG comments), but at the end of the day, we’re still talking about our family. “Be empathetic please,” Imani pleads over email. “Fight their misinformation with facts and correct information. Teach them how to fact-check fake news, and listen. [Our family members] need our support and they’re navigating a terrifying time through fear, and their fear is valid.” 

Despite what our social media feeds may suggest, we are still in the midst of a global pandemic and it is a scary time. Black Americans are among the groups experiencing the highest death tolls from the COVID-19 pandemic (including Indigenous and Pacific Islanders). During a time of so much loss and uncertainty, it’s natural to want to lean on our family members. And it’s heartbreaking when those same people we used to seek comfort in are the ones causing even more stress. It’s OK to want to educate your family, but it’s also OK to tap out of frustrating conversations. It’s OK to be pissed off at the systems that have failed us for so long, there’s no restoring faith in them. And it’s OK if the reason your family member does end up getting the vaccine is because of government mandates, not out of pure love for you and respect for the safety of society and the sanctity of science. It’s also OK if, along with everything else we’ve lost over the past 18 months, we lose some family connections if they refuse to respect us and our boundaries — at least that’s what I keep telling myself. 

There may be a few less faces around holiday dinner tables this year, and considering we’re still in a pandemic, that’s OK too. 

*Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

COVID-19 has been declared a global pandemic. Go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website for the latest information on symptoms, prevention, and other resources.

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Update: Netflix has fired the employee who was organizing an upcoming walkout (set to happen Wednesday, October 20) of trans staffers and allies in protest of Chappelle’s comedy special and the company’s defense of it. Verge reports that Netflix says it fired the former employee, who is Black and pregnant, “on suspicion of leaking metrics to the press related to the Dave Chappelle special.” Another former employee expressed their frustration over the situation to Verge: “All these white people are going around talking to the press and speaking publicly on Twitter and the only person who gets fired is the Black person who was quiet the entire time… That’s absurd, and just further shows that Black trans people are the ones being targeted in this conversation.” While trans and Black employees are being suspended or fired at Netflix, Dave Chappelle’s special is still streaming and being promoted on its homepage.

Previously:

If you are extremely online, you know the internet has been dominated by take after take — some thoughtful, some ignorant — on Dave Chappelle’s recent Netflix comedy special, The Closer. In the special, the once-nuanced comedian goes on bizarre rants about LGBTQ+ communities, specifically trans women, and repeatedly spews rhetoric that denies trans women are women, ignores the existence of Black gay people, and defends noted homophobic rapper, DaBaby. None of these abhorrent comments can be brushed off as mere “jokes,” — mainly because they aren’t funny, but also because they perpetuate hate-speech used to justify the marginalization of the groups Chappelle targets in his special — groups that he is not a part of or seems to know anything about. 

As the backlash to the special came swiftly, so did the defenses from Netflix, a platform which continuously prides itself on diversity and inclusion. Despite reported complaints about The Closer from Netflix staffers, the platform went ahead with its release, and promotional push. According to Bloomberg, staff raised concerns that “a series of jokes about gender-neutral pronouns and the genitalia of transgender people was potentially inflammatory and damaging.” 

In response, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos sent a laughable (truly funnier than anything Chappelle has done in years) and out of touch memo on Friday defending the special. “Several of you have also asked where we draw the line on hate….We don’t allow titles on Netflix that are designed to incite hate or violence, and we don’t believe The Closer crosses that line,” he wrote. Sarandos also noted that stand-up comedy “exists to push boundaries.” I’m not sure what’s boundary-pushing about calling feminists “frumpy dyke[s]” or going on age-old bigoted tirades against trans people, but sure, go off, Ted.

After days of people and even Netflix staffers pointing out how awful this defense was, and after Netflix suspended a trans employee who protested the special, Sarandos doubled down. Variety reports that in an email sent to staff on Monday, Sarandos wrote, “We know that a number of you have been left angry, disappointed and hurt by our decision to put Dave Chappelle’s latest special on Netflix.” The Netflix chief then went on to make confusing equivalences between Chappelle’s special, other Netflix shows, and crime rates around the world. Trans staffers and allies are now planning a walkout for October 20 where they will do no work for the streamer. 

“With ‘The Closer,’ we understand that the concern is not about offensive-to-some content but titles which could increase real world harm (such as further marginalizing already marginalized groups, hate, violence etc.),” Sarandos wrote in his latest email to staff. “Last year, we heard similar concerns about 365 Days and violence against women. While some employees disagree, we have a strong belief that content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm.” 

“The strongest evidence to support this is that violence on screens has grown hugely over the last thirty years, especially with first party shooter games, and yet violent crime has fallen significantly in many countries,” he wrote. “Adults can watch violence, assault and abuse – or enjoy shocking stand-up comedy – without it causing them to harm others.” 

Whew, there’s a lot to unpack here.  Nevermind the condescending tone of Sarandos trying to mansplain violence on screen to his staff, there’s also the issue of Sarandos completely ignoring the fact that violent crimes against trans people have actually risen, especially in America. This is a point that Disclosure — the NETFLIX documentary about how harmful trans representation has been on screen — makes so astutely. 

It’s absolutely bewildering that Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos can say “we have a strong belief that content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm” when last year they released the Netflix Original @Disclosure_Doc, which included salient scenes like this. pic.twitter.com/a8A3FW6fxs

— Out Magazine (@outmagazine) October 14, 2021

This year is set to be the deadliest year on record in America as killings of trans and gender-noncomforming people reach an all-time high, according to the Human Rights Campaign. There is a war against Black trans women raging, and those women are losing their lives as a result. As writer Akilah Hughes wrote for Medium, Dave Chappelle’s special is the portrait of a comedian rapidly losing his relevance while railing against people who dare to critique his jokes. “So your joke didn’t land. Did you die? ’Cause a lot of trans women did….” she writes. 

You absolutely can make a direct line from content that dehumanizes trans people and emboldens homophobia to “real world harm.” The stats are right there. People are dying over the exact same ignorant ideologies that Chappelle regurgitates in his special. I’m not sure what the goal of comparing trans women to blackface was from Chappelle other than to “incite hate,” which is something Sarandos claims Netflix is against. The same company that pats itself on the back for the good its doing with authentic LGBTQ representation (Sarandos shouted out Sex Education in his first memo) can’t then dispel that same logic to defend content that reverses any good the streaming service is doing onscreen. 

As GLAAD told Variety, “Authentic media stories about LGBTQ lives have been cited as directly responsible for increasing public support for issues like marriage equality. But film and TV have also been filled with stereotypes and misinformation about us for decades, leading to real world harm, especially for trans people and LGBTQ people of color. Ironically, the documentary ‘Disclosure’ on Netflix demonstrates this quite clearly.”

“We’ve been around since there was footage, you just have to look for us.”@Disclosure_Doc — a new documentary from director Sam Feder and producer Laverne Cox about the history of trans representation on screen — is now on Netflix globally. pic.twitter.com/6WQ2TUlheQ

— Most (@Most) June 19, 2020

It’s baffling that Sarandos can continually defend Chappelle and his special, in the face of real trans people telling him what harm the comedian has caused to them and their community, when his platform has repeatedly proven that they do believe on screen content can “translate to real world harm.” If they didn’t believe harm could come from content, why would they have provided resources and public service announcements ahead of 13 Reasons Why, a show that was criticized for glamourizing suicide? They issued warnings ahead of episodes and directed viewers to sites that provided support for the very subjects tackled in the show. But by Sarandos’s logic, none of that was necessary since “content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm,” right? 

By supporting, promoting and enabling Chappelle’s strange vendetta against trans people, and anyone who dares criticize him for these horrible views, Netflix is telling us exactly where they stand. The clear hypocrisy in Sarandos’s statements aren’t just causing real-world harm to his employees, but also to the members of the LGBTQ+ communities Chappelle relentlessly ridiculed in his special. Sarandos doesn’t really care about them, or about protecting free-speech, or about the sanctity of the content on Netflix. He cares about money. And it would have been easier for him to just say that instead of pretending to care about trans lives. 

R29Unbothered has reached out to Netflix for official comment. 

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This story contains spoilers for Netflix’s You Season 3. 

When we first meet Shalita Grant’s character Sherry Conrad on Netflix’s hit series You, she feels familiar. She’s a classic mean girl turned mommy blogger. She’s Regina George meets Bree Van de Kamp. Her cutting remarks hidden behind a perfect smile and thinly-veiled judgement bolstered by a cookie-cutter suburban existence and an Instagram-worthy marriage stands in stark contrast to the show’s central characters, Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) and Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), two serial killers running from their murderous past towards some semblance of normalcy. 

At first, Sherry seems like she’s just there to be a one-note foe whose sole purpose is to make Love’s suburban life the hell she fears it is, and to act an archetype of the kind of people Love and Joe pretend they’re nothing like. When Sherry shows up, you kind of hate her and her meathead husband Cary (Travis Van Winkle). But as the 10-episode season races towards its thrilling conclusion, Sherry and Cary slowly become fan favorites, and on a show with precisely zero heroes, you can’t help but root for them. 

This progression is why Grant did something most actors don’t have “the balls” for (her words, not mine): she went straight to social media as soon as the season dropped to scour for fan reactions. “I woke up this morning like, ‘Oh my God. I got to go to Twitter,’” she tells R29Unbothered over Zoom from her girlfriend’s mom’s house in Houston, TX. “I was cracking up this morning because the [tweets were] like, “I fucking hate Sherry. Sherry’s so annoying.” But then, she says, as fans finished bingeing the series, they changed their minds. “The comments now are like, “I’m so glad that they survived,” she laughs. That progression, from hating Sherry to sort of loving her, is due in large part to Grant’s stunning capabilities as an actor. 

She’s a Julliard-educated, Shakespeare-proficient, Tony-nominated performer who is nothing like her character: she’s gay, makes an incredible first impression, and pole dances in her spare time instead of attending PTA meetings. Grant has become known for stealing scenes in buzzy shows (see: NCIS: New Orleans, Search Party and now, You) and has one guiding light in her career: she doesn’t take roles on shows she wouldn’t watch. “This was the first time that I was [already] a fan of the show and then got the call. I feel like a You Netflixer. I’m just on Twitter like, “What y’all saying?”

Not only are people loving Sherry and Cary as the #couplegoals of the fictional town of Madre Linda, California, they’re pointing out the significance of seeing a Black woman at the center of petty suburban drama, especially on a show full of horrible, very problematic, white people who rarely get their comeuppance. Here, Grant breaks down the “politics of pretty” that comes with playing Sherry Conrad, how much her hair informed the character, and that wild foursome scene. 

R29Unbothered: With Sherry in You, and with the character you played on Search Party, you’ve taken these stereotypes — the ditzy lawyer, the self-obsessed mommy blogger — and given them nuance. How do you approach characters that may seem superficial on the page and give them depth? 

​​Shalita Grant: At Julliard, part of the training first year for character development was “never assume you know anything.” So you look up everything and you’d be surprised what gems you get. So case in point with Cassidy [on Search Party], when I got that audition they were like, “She has a vocal fry.” Now I never watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians... That’s not my vibe. So I had a judgment already. Because of that, it was important to push through and learn. I looked up the psychology behind the vocal fry and what I learned was these women are not actually trying to make their voices higher, they’re actually trying to make their voices lower and a byproduct is that you press down on your vocal folds. Boys have vocal fry too, but because we have a very patriarchal lens on our ears, we only hear it with the women. So the psychology behind it is trying to sound more professional by bringing your voice down. So with that, I was like, “Oh my God, that gives me a whole in into this character.” She’s actually trying really hard to be good at her job. It’s just society that takes it the wrong way.

Because of the research I do and because of the heart that I [approach] work with, it really grounds characters that come off as really surface level, or as an easy joke. I like complex jokes. So with Sherry, it was the same thing, “Oh, she’s a momfluencer?” “Oh she’s perfect?” “Okay. Let me just drill down deeper into that.” I’m not going to lie though. I had a really good time being horrible because I’m not like that in my life. Women are not allowed to be mean. So I was like, “Thank you so much.”

As Black women, we don’t have a lot of those examples of, “Actually I am the queen of this fucking community. And these are the reasons why.”

shalita grant

So the thing about Sherry is that I hated her… until I didn’t. And I loved that for her, and for you as a performer. Even though we’ve seen so many amazing, nuanced Black women characters with flaws, there’s still something to be said about Black women having to be “likeable” on screen. Is Sherry refreshing because she gets to be an unlikeable mean girl, who also happens to be Black? 

SG: Yes. What I love about this current season of You is a lot of suburbs are not integrated, but this one really is and it takes you into what it takes to be the queen bee. So I got into the politics of pretty, and everything that it takes to make you the queen bee. To be able to be unimpeachable, and say, “there’s nothing you can say about me.” That’s really what makes Sherry that bitch. That’s what’s so annoying about Sherry too. As Black women, we don’t have a lot of those examples of, “Actually I am the queen of this fucking community. And these are the reasons why.”

Let’s talk about Sherry and Cary’s marriage. There’s just a lot to unpack. How would you describe their union and is it real love there or just for show?

SG: I think what we learn is that they do have real love between them. When the rubber hits the road, when they’re at rock bottom [with] no indoor plumbing, and stuck in a box, they’re doing everything they can to have clear communication, to love each other through it. They make mistakes like shooting each other [Laughs]. But what gets them out is their love for each other. And they’re two different sides of the same coin, the same way that Joe and Love are two sides of the same coin.

What we learn about Joe and Love’s relationship is that the reason that love doesn’t work is because we all want to love and be loved. But because our society hasn’t taught us how to love ourselves, unfortunately, you can only love people with the love that you have for yourself. And so unless you heal certain patterns with how you are with yourself, then you’re going to continue to vibe with the same people, the same situations and reenact those same habits in your relationship. With Joe and Love, Joe doesn’t accept himself. And so he has a wife that’s just like him and he calls her a monster when they’re the exact same. So that love doesn’t work. But for Cary and Sherry, they’re two people who are dedicated to optimization, to living their best life, to success. And regardless of how you feel about that, that’s real for them. That’s the glue that holds them together.

I need to ask about this one scene that the whole time I was watching it, I was like, “This is hilarious and horrifying and awkward and weird.” It was the swinging sex scene, or the orgy between Love, Joe, Cary and Sherry. What was it like filming that? Was it hilarious, weird, funny, confusing? What was happening?

SG: No. I mean, I think for certain people, yeah maybe. Not for this one! I’m buck wild, Kathleen. I have a lot of life experience, okay! So, for me, I was like, “Alright, cool.” And I’m also gay, but I went through a straight phase, so I just faked it like I did back then. It was no problem for me [Laughs].

I’ll say this, especially in the climate of Me Too, the producers [were really supportive]. I know from other actresses that have done these kinds of scenes who have had scene partners that were super horrible and took advantage of it and were not professional. And [they] worked with production companies that were very lax about their male stars and how far they can go with other actresses. But that wasn’t the case. And because of that, I felt even more free to just play and give them everything they want. [We’d go] “What do you want? Okay. We can do that too.” We had intimacy coordinators. It was a super safe set to do something really — for some people — buck wild.

It’s buck wild but also brilliant. Some criticism of the show has been about how we shouldn’t be rooting for a serial killing stalker, who is the protagonist. And I know that Penn Badgley has said, “well, that’s the point.” The show reveals what white men get away with, or what society is willing to forgive. When I’m watching it, I’m always reckoning with who I’m rooting for. So who are you rooting for in You?

SG: It’s me. In Season 3, I’m rooting for me. I had issues too in Season 1. It’s super abject to make the central character someone so deplorable, someone doing things like stalking — especially in our climate. But I would have to agree with Penn. My girlfriend Jess and I are now watching The Jinx, [the story of] Robert Durst. 

In the first episode, the cop says, “I couldn’t believe that this guy was capable of disfiguring a body because he looks like a librarian.” And we looked at each other. She was like, “Is You based on [Durst]?” I was like, “No, girl it’s not based on that.” But it’s so true that white men, because we live in a patriarchal, capitalist, [racist] society, white men are able to blend into society in a way that other people can’t. And they’re given a lot, a lot of leeway and a lot of projection of innocence. It’s super weird to me that people are like, “Oh my God, [Joe] is so hot.” I’m gay so I guess I don’t get to participate in that conversation, but I’m also like, “Gross. Are you kidding me, is that what you want? No, girl, no.”

Y’all got issues.

SG: You got serious issues! 

It’s super weird to me that people are like, ‘Oh my God, [Joe] is so hot.’ I’m gay so I guess I don’t get to participate in that conversation, but I’m also like, ‘Gross.’

shalita grant

This season brings up a lot about marriage and domesticity — the way in which women feel in marriage. It comes at it from a straight perspective of course, but you’ve been open about your divorce. Is there anything this season you relate to or feel strongly about when it comes to its commentary on marriage? 

SG: My marriage was a gay marriage that fell apart for different reasons [Laughs]. But I think in the show, for women, it fucking sucks. There’s so much labor that you take on that is not appreciated. The expectations of men emotionally and physically at home are way lower. And when women complain about the experience of heterosexual relationships, there is no space that is truly understanding. Even other women are damning of other women because they’re living the same hell. And what Sherry does is what I see [in real life] and I get quite frankly a lot. I look super young so people always assume that I’m much younger than I am and also straight passing. So there is a lot of projection people do on me and what I’ve witnessed and experienced from other married women is that marriage is the prize. Well, you’re fucking miserable. And when they see other women living freely it’s, “I want you to experience the same misery that I’m experiencing. So it validates my choice to stay here.” 

That’s what Sherry does to Love. When Love is like, “I’m having problems.” Sherry [responds], “It’s your problem, be sexier, change who you are.” And it’s like, “I have to feed my kid, bathe my kid, wash my kid, clean that house, and I have to remain fuckable?” What is Joe doing? He literally doesn’t even have a job. As far as I was concerned, he was volunteering. So what is he doing? It’s terrible. I think Season 3 is a beautiful microscopic push into those norms that a lot of gay relationships often try to replicate. For me, I don’t want to be the provider because I make the most money. I want a partner. I want someone who is as capable and sees themself as capable as I am.

To go back to what you mentioned about the “politics of pretty,” there’s  a lot that goes into a character’s look. You’ve talked about how you started your line Four Natural Hair Care after having your hair ruined on the set of NCIS: New Orleans. When creating Sherry, how much did your hair inform her? 

SG: I’ve always had this question: when I’m in a place or a space with someone who pisses me off, why is it that the next time I go back, I make a point to put on all my shit — throw on some mascara and let my hair down? What is that about? It’s about that feminine power and the subtle ways that we weaponize our femininity. When you arm yourself with the makeup, the clothes, the hair and all of that, it is armor in our society. Because for women to be safe, we have to be fuckable or pretty. And so when a new woman comes into the group, how do women find ways to pick and prod [at her]? That’s Sherry. 

So for me as a Black woman, I used to have to wear wigs and extensions, because my hair was really, really fragile. I have Type 4 hair and when I was on [NCIS: New Orleans], they were committed to me hiding my natural hair, even though a curlier texture would have made a lot more sense in New Orleans. The powers that be had decided that for a Black woman to wear her natural hair, it would be considered vanity. We were literally spending hours in the trailer to try to make my hair something that it wasn’t, which is literally the definition of vanity. Anyway, when I left that show, I had a bald spot in the center of my head. By the end of Season 3, I was losing [so much] hair. So I put on my little cosmetic chemistry hat, and I did some digging, and created the Four Naturals Treatment, which is now patent pending and dermatologically tested. 

On You, my hair was heat straightened every day for six months. And I left that show with more hair than I had when I showed up. It was powerful to hand my white hair stylist my products and give her the instructions and have her do something that we know is a damaging thing to do. And I didn’t experience that damage. For Sherry, I know that I would not have been able to get that role had I not had my natural hair. Going back to the politics of pretty, Sherry’s whole thing is about being “perfectly imperfect” and that she’s natural, that she’s down to earth. [She can’t] have someone be able to call out her wigs, or call out her extensions, or call out the nails. PS. Those are mine in the show. I have a great nail hardener! 

Hollywood has been failing Black actresses and their hair for so long, especially when it is something that informs so much of a character and our lives. As a Black woman watching TV, there are so many times when I’m looking at a character like, “That hair don’t make no sense.”

SG: Exactly! I did a show and I told the producers, “Listen, your body tells a story. So if you hire someone that looks a certain way, their body tells a story. So there are certain things that you can and cannot do based on the body that you chose.” If you look at my reel, no character is the same. So as an actress who prides herself on being a character actress, part of that is the physical transformation. But I did realize in 2018 that I was limited by my hair because there are certain characters who won’t wear a wig or extensions. So I thought, How can I heal myself so that I can go the furthest that I can go with any character, regardless of my hair? Everything about my body is in service to whatever character that I’m playing.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. 

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Kathleen Newman-Bremang, DMT.NEWS, DMT BeautySpot,