Ira and Louis discuss the Super Bowl, Usher’s halftime show, and Beyoncé’s surprise Act II drop. Lashana Lynch joins to discuss playing Rita Marley in her new film One Love and why she’d love to do comedy. Plus, the new Oscars category and Jon Stewart’s return to the Daily Show.

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TRANSCRIPT

 

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Ira Madison III And we are back, with an all new Keep It. I’m Ira Madison, the third.

 

Louis Virtel And I’m Louis Virtel. And we are simply drowning in hee haws, you won’t believe the varieties we’re getting. First of all, we had the Kacey Musgraves yeehaw, which is the classic one. And then we were trying to enjoy the Super Bowl, and Knowles-Carter got up and said, I have a white hat and I would like to celebrate that. And that means we’re getting, I guess, a country era from Beyonce, which it was about time and everybody guessed it, but we’re getting it.

 

Ira Madison III Well, first of all, I’m going to say I was not enjoying the Super Bowl. I was attempting to. It was, it was a boring game until I feel like the last two quarters.

 

Louis Virtel Right. No, in which and then it wouldn’t stop being entertaining, which was so.

 

Ira Madison III Weird. Yeah. Beyonce put some pep to everyone’s step. Maybe south. But when it comes to the yee-haw of it all, I do want to say about Beyonce and a legit transition into country music. What I’ve loved about this is that one Beyonce has always been country. You know, she’s he’s Texas. You know she’s third ward, trill, as it were if you know what those words mean.

 

Louis Virtel Oh I’m always saying them. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III She’s always had that that Creole influence because I always used her twang.

 

Louis Virtel That Texas Bama. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. You know, there’s always been that like that Texas influence. She’s always leans heavily on that. I think that we’ve seen that influence definitely in some of our other work before. But what is so exciting about this is like, she’s giving you the full country fantasy. She’s giving you the for what America sees country as what the gatekeepers of country see as country, which is blond wig and so blond it’s platinum. Okay. And white hat. And I’m not talking about Olivia Pope, okay? She is, standing in the sun, but the sun is in Texas.

 

Louis Virtel Correct.

 

Ira Madison III Not Vermont.

 

Louis Virtel Also getting words like hoedown, which, like, so we’re getting a throwback, rollicking country music as opposed to, you know, this, like whiskey on the back of a pickup truck. Country music that I feel like is dominating everything right now. So it’s it’s rootin tootin, if you will. You’re actually listening to Texas Hold Em. One of the two new singles she dropped. I mean, this is sort of an obvious, thought that came to mind because they’ve worked together before, but I could picture Natalie Maines singing it because I feel like what Beyonce is bringing to country music is what Natalie Maines does, which is both vulnerability and a sense of defiance, which you don’t always get with country music. A lot of people are very content to just give you. I’m a country artist. I belong in country. Here’s what it sounds like. But you’re getting something like there’s something fierce about engaging your country roads here.

 

Ira Madison III She’s pissing off white people.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Precisely. By the way.

 

Ira Madison III Just like Natalie.

 

Louis Virtel Can we just can we revisit when they fucking sang, first of all, daddy Lessons at that Country Music Awards, which was fabulous. They all looked amazing. Actually. Beyoncé to say Beyonce I looked amazing is the understatement of the century at that award show. But then they broke into a few bars of long, Long Time Gone, that song that basically makes fun of everybody in country music and says, you know, they’ve got junior, but they don’t have Hank. And so like to their faces, an unusually, strident moment for Beyonce and a typically strident moment for Natalie Maines and the girls.

 

Ira Madison III Absolutely. At a, you know, I mean, we know that the girls were mad about that. By the girls, I mean the boys. I mean the Toby Keith’s R.I.P., my brother, was those kind of people were upset about the chicks being on that stage because they had excommunicated the chicks, right? You know, because the chicks were like George Bush. We don’t like you. And we’ll get it. We’ll get it to that a little bit later. Yeah, I Keep It. That’s a little tease for you on my Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I hope it’s Toby Keith centric I hope. I hope this Keep It as courtesy of the red, white and blue.

 

Ira Madison III It is political centric. But it is not about, Mr. Keith. Oh, no. I don’t know that much about him, to be honest.

 

Louis Virtel Other than in retrospect. Okay, I understand all of country music was mad at the Dixie chicks for whatever speaking and being female or whatever it may be. So to be that mad and for that long and to have shirts that say fuck you Dixie chicks on your shirt, what an asshole. There’s not.

 

Ira Madison III I mean.

 

Louis Virtel It’s there’s not one justification for what a Dixie was.

 

Ira Madison III Do we not realize how annoying conservatives are when they’re mad about anything? It’s almost as annoying as liberals are when they’re mad. Anything.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, you both sizing this one? Oh, exciting. I love when people do that.

 

Ira Madison III One thing about those sides.

 

Louis Virtel They’re the same.

 

Ira Madison III They’re, they’re similar. There’s a lot more to say about BRCA and her blond ambition, as it were. And, you know, I definitely would recommend that people read, search for Tressie McMillan. Cotton’s, writing on Dolly Parton, which I brought up here before, and also her recent thoughts about Beyonce. A her two new singles. Texas Hold’em and 16 carats. It basically just talks about how Dolly Parton, too, is just this personification of, blond ness and, you know, whiteness, within country music, but also within Americana, you know, and I think that Beyoncé is always, like I said, played within Americana. And now you get to see her playing within actual country music. And it’s gonna be interesting to see how people are receiving this because, yeah, this isn’t influences like this is country, you know, but it’s country in the sense that like, it’s giving you. That old style of country. You know, I think she even mentioned, you know, you know, the late 70s, early 80s, you know, when Al Green was sort of making music, too. Like when the divide between country, and, you know, soul music was not that big, you know, I mean, so some people were listening to this when it came out and they were like, well, this just sounds, you know, R&B. She’s doing R&B over little country. B I’m like, it’s it’s not really that. It’s going back to the roots of what country music used to be.

 

Louis Virtel And also speaking of which, apparently she may be covering Jolene on this album too. And not that Jolene is exactly what you’re talking about, but there’s enough of a rhythm and a drive to that that it would make sense for her to cover. So songs like that.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, I do wonder what a Jolene cover by Beyonce would sound like, if only because we already have that song. Resentment, right? And resentment is resentment has a bit of spitfire to it, you know, she’s angry she took that Victoria Beckham demo and she said, here’s a song. Jolene, as much as I love it, it’s it’s a bit too simping for me.

 

Louis Virtel As we’ve said several times, I mean, if you’re gay and you listen to the song Jolene at the end of that song, you want to be friends with Jolene, you’re like, what does she have?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I mean, you.

 

Louis Virtel No, she’s got the hookup.

 

Ira Madison III But that’s some good acting, okay, from Dolly Parton, because you know where. Does she seem like a jolynn to take her man? Okay, right now she has guns under the mattress. Yeah. Okay. Right next to the unwashed bills. Okay. She has pistols. She’s got rifles. Okay, but when she’s taking Joey like you believe her, you believe her as much as you believed io. Deborah’s apology to J. Lo.

 

Louis Virtel What an interesting situation. I’m still on my mind. And, this dovetails with the conversation Tina Fey had on those cultures does about, telling people, you know, there’s quiet luxury and not saying your every honest opinion about a piece of pop culture. Namely, if you’re trying to make a name for yourself in the industry. And I just want to respond to that by saying, yeah, but you only live once. But he’s supposed to do not talk about what you think about movies. I’m sorry.

 

Ira Madison III As far as I’m concerned, you only live twice, or so they say.

 

Louis Virtel I’m going to say one of my least favorite James Bond movies. Interesting.

 

Ira Madison III That was such a fun conversation, by the way.

 

Louis Virtel I thought it was hilarious the entire time.

 

Ira Madison III She was hilarious. I love how they were 16 different backlashes to that interview, which tells you that she was doing something right.

 

Louis Virtel Right, right, right. No, people were saying things like, why can’t we critique our blank, blank, blank? Why can’t we be honest about these things if we’re all, you know, obsessed with pop music?

 

Ira Madison III And she wasn’t talking to you.

 

Louis Virtel Right? No. Precisely. And also, it’s like, well, she’s just right that, like, if you express an honest opinion, there are people that might not want to work with you because, you know, they know the person you are being honest about or whatever. It was just like a frank thing to say to somebody. It was a helpful thing to.

 

Ira Madison III Say, yeah, we’re fucked. But, you know, but I think that I thought a lot of the responses were very egotistical because this is a podcast where Tina Fey is talking to essentially a colleague. Yes. Bowen Yang, who is on SNL like she used to be on SNL, and she is giving him advice that is relevant to his future career, which is probably advice that she was she and he did. I think she was very much hinting at the, entire situation that happened when she critiqued Taylor Swift.

 

Louis Virtel Right? Precisely, yeah. Oh my god. And the Katie Couric of it all when she said, like, there’s a place in hell for women who don’t support women or whatever the fuck that was, right? Not supporting women.

 

Ira Madison III Exactly.

 

Louis Virtel I hate the verbiage of that.

 

Ira Madison III But it’s very egotistical to be mad at that and say, Tina Fey is saying that you can’t critique, someone. So you you have to be dishonest. She’s not talking to you. Twitter user with 2000 followers like she is talking to someone who was on SNL. Like she was right. What was it about you? You were able to peek in on the conversation, but she was not directing it towards you.

 

Louis Virtel And of course, Tina Fey herself has landed some incredible barbs about other celebrities when she’s hosted award shows and stuff. It’s not like she’s saying there’s no, time to be a little cutting, you know? It’s just like, if you’re popping off and you’re just, like, releasing all your opinions about potential coworkers, you know, there’s there’s some danger there. There’s some peril.

 

Ira Madison III And it is also disingenuous to pretend that Tina Fey does not come from the school of critiquing other artists because so much of 30 Rock or even Kimmy Schmidt, or just the jokes that she puts into her show are critiques. Yes, of of of of celebrities, of art. I think, you know, it’s easy to. It’s easy to ignore that. It kind of easy to easier to get away with it when it’s within the confines of, you know, a fictional show or something, or even comedians doing stand up, you know? I think that people are are sort of less, willing to let people just be funny off the cuff when it comes to a podcast because it’s supposed to be giving, your real raw thoughts. You know, it’s not mixed in a comedy, but I think you know that what we do, Louis, is, is comedy, you know?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I have a tear in my eye. This is so touching. No, I want to say also to that point, no, I think also all the time about Siskel and Ebert, who are, you know, I mean, they were critics, of course, so it was expected that they would be critic critical and also, you know, dastardly from time to time. But at the same time, those two remained Chicago newspapermen their entire lives. They were not determined to be a part of pop culture as it stands in Hollywood. They were not Terman to, like, become great screenwriters or actors or whatever. They picked a lane that was specifically outside of all of that, and they wanted to stay in it. And I, you know.

 

Ira Madison III Well, maybe if Roger hadn’t written such an awful movie, he might have written.

 

Louis Virtel That’s true. Right Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Actually, there was nothing beyond. We stayed right there.

 

Ira Madison III Have you ever seen that moment of him? Speaking of being basically on the red carpet with David Leitch.

 

Louis Virtel No.

 

Ira Madison III It’s talking about how much, he kind of likes Mulholland Drive, but he still had no idea what the fuck was happening in it because he had famously, just like Lynch’s other film.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, like he didn’t like Blue Velvet, etc.. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III And David Lynch’s like. All right, Roger. But it’s truly him on a red carpet here. And I believe like the Golden Globes or something. But it is, it’s a very funny, exchange.

 

Louis Virtel I need to look that up. Yeah. You also, you just got me thinking about Joan Rivers on a red carpet when she would literally interview people and then tell them to their face, they look terrible anyway. It’s just it’s a bygone era of of candor and.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Hilarity.

 

Ira Madison III Anyway, final thoughts I would say about, beyond say is, you know what I’m sensing from this era? It’s interesting that people are already getting upset. And I feel like it’s largely people, who think that she is, trying to tap into whiteness and sort of to sell more records. And, like, Beyonce has already sold enough records.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III So, I don’t think that she is scheming to try and, you know, get into the country genre. So then she can also get a Grammy and then CMAs as well. I mean, I’m sure she does really want a Grammy. To be honest, the way Jay-Z was up there, that was given, kitchen conversations. Yes, if you know what I mean.

 

Louis Virtel Because she was not really reacting as if she had heard this all before. You know what I’m saying, right?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But I would say that. This era, it’s already being received positively. And if you’ve seen the white girls already covering Texas Hold’em on their TikToks, this might be another. I am Sasha Fierce for her. Interesting, but do you remember how beloved that album was by the white folks? Yes.

 

Louis Virtel I will say I feel like a country and it is a departure. A country departure is rarely the thing people love most about an artist. I’m just thinking about Joanne right now. I think in retrospect, that now feels like something kind of cool she did for herself. And to me, listening to this album, even though I love the song Texas Hold Them, it feels to me like Beyonce almost doing an album for herself, and I feel like it might feel like a valley, but I mean, like Renaissance was so monumental. This to me feels a little bit more timid.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, well, I will say that Joe wasn’t good.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, there was that. Yeah. I can’t speak for Ayo before a Deborah the original. I was, we weren’t so supportive.

 

Ira Madison III But I don’t know, I just, I feel like maybe people are already responding to this, and the lyrics get a like, get down on the flow now. I mean, they’re they’re very basic TikTok leading lyrics.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, no, it’s very. I’m doing square dancing in gym class. Let’s go. You know, I mean, the gym, the gym is looking at me and is saying you’re gay.

 

Ira Madison III I’m interested to see where it goes, but I think that this is more of a I don’t know, it doesn’t feel. Like Jo Ann, if only.

 

Louis Virtel Because no.

 

Ira Madison III One up to that point has largely had a queer fan base and was largely just very like in your face and, you know, ballsy and a lot of, outlandish, like, looks and, sound bites and, like, her attitude was just very like punk rock, you know? And I think that Beyonce has been historically more mainstream than Gaga ever was. And particularly if you’re speaking of SNL again, you remember the whole, joke about what she was doing, formation. That was a joke, that Beyonce is black. You know, I think that she had she had had such a comfortability with white America circa the Single Ladies era. Yeah, yeah, that I think that this in a way, it doesn’t feel like Gaga playing with, country music and Joanne, this feels like, oh, I’m going back to, just classic American sounds, but country music is pop music, too. You know, it’s sort of like, it’s the music genre that gave Taylor her first burst before she was able to go into pop. Right. And I feel like maybe that fan base has been starved for something that sounds a little like that. Not to say that she’s Taylor Swift, but starved for something that sounds like that because even Texas Hold’em at 16 carats I mean, no shade to my sister Kacey Musgraves, but it sounds more interesting than this Kacey song. Maggie Rogers is dabbling in country ish sounds now on her new single, and it just doesn’t really appeal to me. There’s not really a woman making. Pop country that I feel like I want to listen to, or millennials really want to listen to. That harkens back to so much of the female pop country vibes that we had growing up and thinking Carrie Underwood, even Kelly Clarkson in her earlier roots. You know, like, there’s really none of that happening.

 

Louis Virtel Kacey Musgraves I would say the lyrics to her new song are just a little bit too literal. Again, I’m missing when she was like, clever, funnier about snarky or.

 

Ira Madison III It’s not fun to me.

 

Louis Virtel No it’s not. One thing I will say about the new Beyonce singles, though I have to say I shouldn’t find this discouraging. But there’s the lyric that says something about I’ve lived 38 summers or something, which Beyonce is like 43 or 42 now. So this music is truly recorded five years ago. And I’m just saying, well.

 

Ira Madison III She’s 42, was 42 last year. What she did, she turned 42 when she did her birthday show.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III And I would say that that’s not shocking because if you recall her interviews before Renaissance dropped, she said that Renaissance was the first part of a three act problem.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III She recorded during Covid.

 

Louis Virtel But the fact that it’s so it is delayed at this point, I think.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Just speaks to the fact that she was willing to hold that back. And I don’t know that that means she’s as excited about this material as she is. The other Renaissance material. I mean, especially since the thing with country is it’s never in style or out of style. So you can kind of just release this stuff at any time.

 

Ira Madison III True. But I think that she’s had this whole sort of plan of after one album tour the next year, add to this album, probably tour the next year for that one, and then at three.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. What do we think act three is going to be?

 

Ira Madison III I mean, if it’s now that this was country and the rumors were true at it is her playing within, traditional black music genres that have sort of, been reclaimed by whiteness and white people.

 

Louis Virtel Come on.

 

Ira Madison III Do. I’m seeing rock and roll.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay, I got, I got I got it like. You mean like in the, like a Chuck Berry sort of throwback.

 

Ira Madison III Like Chuck Berry Tina Turner vein. You know, I’m thinking we’re harkening back to, like I said, these are all genres that she’s played in before, obviously. So I think this is a harkening back to, beat a, to be honest, songs like Sugar Mama like that stiff like, I think that this is like, that’s going to be like the rock era also.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, speaking of that album, Deja Vu remains one of her great underrated singles to me, and I don’t know who did five lines before they wrote that song, but I want that energy base.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. A perfect opening to a song.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Great song, great song.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Well, you know, I made a joke about James Bond earlier, and that was a tease of the fact that our guest this week is Lashana Lynch, A007 herself. And the star, the one love the new Bob Marley biopic where she plays Rita Marley, Bob’s wife.

 

Louis Virtel Lashana Lynch. Some people come on the zoom and immediately you just are aware you’re in the presence of somebody who is smart, rad, and also fucking chill, which is a surprise given the roles she has played. Like. Like her personality does not match what she is routinely cast as other than Miss Honey, I guess. But she’s, like, funnier than Miss Honey.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I ask her about that too, because she is very imposing onscreen, you know? But you love imposing women on screen.

 

Louis Virtel It’s arguably the only thing I love. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Do you have a Glenda Jackson shirt?

 

Coming soon. I wouldn’t. You’re right. She is the most imposing woman in history. We talked to Allison Doll about her one time, and she literally said, I’m afraid of her. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III So yes, we have Lashana Lynch with us this week. And then, of course, we have the rest of the Super Bowl. To discuss. I put that Super Bowl on mute as soon as the Beyoncé commercial came out. Okay. And I’m sure you can attest to say, because I thought, I thought I saw Instagram. You were at a gay viewing party.

 

Louis Virtel Yes.

 

Ira Madison III In LA for the Super Bowl.

 

Louis Virtel I was explaining to my dad the nature of this party I went to, which is this guy in the hills throws this gigantic party, like, donate money, and then you come in and then they have TVs all over the place. And I was like, yeah, it’s just gay guys. And and my dad was like, so is nobody, like, facing the TVs? I’m like, no, nobody is.

 

Ira Madison III That is. Do you remember that clip from Law and Order?

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God, no. And then I explained that to my dad. I was like, you have to watch this because I could take clip where she completely drags my community and how we watch sports or don’t watch sports.

 

Ira Madison III I’m sure to play on the Keep It YouTube channel after we break that up, but it’s truly this man trying to claim that he is not gay. He was just in a gay bar because hockey was on Everest, he says. Was anybody watching?

 

Louis Virtel It’s it’s so damning. She was like, you idiot. Of course it was fagots.

 

Ira Madison III But I have to imagine at this Super Bowl party that as soon as the Beyonce commercial dropped, it was just people on their phones.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, certainly. Certainly. Yes. Though you know what? I actually made friends based on who properly bopped to Usher because you needed to not discard that moment either. So we’ll get into that.

 

Ira Madison III All right. So coming up next we have Lashana Lynch and after that more Super Bowl chat.

 

Louis Virtel [AD]

 

Ira Madison III Our guest today has had a truly staggering journey on the screen. She’s been a spy, a warrior, a superhero, everyone’s favorite teacher, and now the matriarch of the Marley family in the new biopic One Love. We are honored to welcome to Keep It the incredible Lashana Lynch.

 

Lashana Lynch Hi.

 

Ira Madison III Hi.

 

Lashana Lynch Intro. No interest.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, you deserve it. I really can’t think of an actress who has graced our screens so recently in so many films where it’s just like, yeah, she’s great in this film. And we expect it at this point. So congrats on being great.

 

Lashana Lynch But thank you. I’ll let my parents know. Cheers.

 

Louis Virtel Now, before we get into the specifics of this movie, this is the first time I think you’ve ever played a real person or somebody that you can actually verify with. They’re real. Like, go talk to the person before you go and play them. Is that right?

 

Lashana Lynch Yeah, I actually played about two real people in drama school my last year, drama school, which is a throwback to my mind. But, you know, that was in the confines of, you know, teachers and education and protection resistance. Yeah. The first time in my career that I’ve been able to dive into this, and it’s very new. It’s a very new, different experience for sure.

 

Louis Virtel So when you’re reading the script and you know, it’s a real person, I mean, and you haven’t done this before, is your first instinct to panic? What goes through your head?

 

Lashana Lynch A big, loud, straight. No. I, when I first well, actually, before I read the script, I knew that the project was happening. And I met up with, now director Ronaldo, Marcus Green. And I was like, look, I know that’s a load of women that you can see for this role. I know that you probably have your plan. I just want to say from an artist perspective and a Jamaican artist perspective, like, what’s your plan?

 

Louis Virtel You got in there?

 

Lashana Lynch What’s the deal? Like tell me the lay of the land now so I can, like, prepare myself because, like, I was like the whole of Jamaica, of watching. I’m watching and like, it has to be right. And I for some reason, I just this, like Tiger came out in me, which is like, what do you plan for this woman like, Mrs. Marley is such a legend. And I just want to make sure that she’s protected and everything. And he was like, well, no, no, no, she’s going to it’s going to be great. Like we have all the plans and like, whoever comes on board is going to, you know, it’s going to be a collaboration and, and all of that. So my kind of, my fears and worries were kind of put at ease before I’d even read the script, to be honest. So then when I met with Kingsley and then we did our chemistry read and and I eventually got the script, I, I knew that it was going to be kind of like a family run set that was going to be, into different types of information and opinions and memories from the children who were on set. And, you know, our advisors and our dialect coaches who had so much knowledge of the time and knowledge of the family and Bob and some of whom had even met Bob outside of the family. So I, I knew that there was a lot of work to do. It wasn’t a big scream, like I just said. It was more like, okay, let’s, let’s we all have a job to do. We have a responsibility. Let’s just make sure that this is done in the most sensitive, calm and intricate, detailed way possible.

 

Ira Madison III And this is Reinaldo Marcus Green, who directed this. And he had just come off of King Richard. Had he already made that film by the time that you were making this? Like, what was the timeline like of making this film? How much time did it take to shoot it and get it in front of us? Now?

 

Lashana Lynch I think I’d watched King Richard the previous year. So that was already in the can and, and released and, and all that good stuff. And this process from me gets from me sitting down with Renaldo to getting the role was maybe seven, eight months. Okay. So I had like a whole summer to read and, you know, absorb and to ask all the questions and to sit down with Mrs. Marley as well and go around and, you know, chill and hang out casually with this legend. And really, like, get immersed in the world and revisit my culture in a different way because my parents are Jamaican and, you know, I have a Jamaican upbringing, but I was there in the 70s, so it was like a different thing for me to explore and dive into. And that was a that was a good amount of time, actually eight months to sit with it. Maybe sometimes too much time. I feel like I needed years, but also if I had more time, I would have, I don’t know, just go into my head a little bit more in the like the responsibility, like as parents who were born around the corner from where, you know, some of the sets we shot, on in Jamaica and just people having more opinions on what it could be. I was able to throw a lot of weight in that time, which is helpful for anxiety.

 

Louis Virtel No, I was just going to say I was watching an interview with Kingsley Ben-adir where he talked about meeting tons and tons of people who knew Bob and like kind of getting little scraps of anecdotes from all of them. And I was wondering, you obviously talked to Rita herself, but is it ever actually too much to get all of these personal anecdotes like, you can’t possibly, you know, work with all of these, you know, really, I’m sure amazing stories while you’re doing this work on the screen.

 

Lashana Lynch Yeah. Sometimes it’s overload. And sometimes, you know, as an artist playing a real person, you just wanna absorb everything, like everything’s important. What someone’s opinion was of this person when they were 16 to their opinion of them. Now, to like how she spoke to, how she didn’t speak, how she conducted herself an interview, what she was like in in house, what was she like in this private moment that this person had with them that no one knew about? Like it was really, it was just a melting pot of just stuff. So after a while, you do have to kind of put it all aside and think about what’s going to be helpful for your process. And what was helpful was having Ziggy Cedella and Neville Garrick, who is Bob Marley’s best friend and art director on set, who were able to correct things and like ensure that all the costumes were like, immaculate and like everything was as, as as they remember it as possible. And also that the backdrops of the shows were as detailed as possible and that, you know, little moments that you might want to find in a scene on a regular set. Maybe we’d be like, let’s just do this. Let’s just like, see what happens. But actually, no, we can’t just see what happens in this. Did they actually do that? Would this have happened? Is this how Bob and Rita communicated? What’s realistic? So then we’d look to the side and say, Ziggy, is that is that within what your understanding of your mom is? And you’d be like, no, I think it’d be. I think she’d kind of respond like this. Actually, no, I actually think she would swear in this moment so I can swear she’s. She swore. Well, okay, so I would say, like.

 

Ira Madison III This is great.

 

Lashana Lynch So, you know, you take the rough with the smooth and and whatever’s helpful in any given moment, you kind of, I dunno, it helps you add more sauce to each scene.

 

Ira Madison III That must be such a 180 from some of the other roles that you’ve done. Because I feel like even something that is a historical film like The Woman King, which I absolutely loved, I love Gina Prince by the woods worked so much. The Agos in that film historically. Was there much detail to go on for picking specific individual characters within that film, or was it a lot of guesswork? I guess had to be done for a film like this?

 

Lashana Lynch Interestingly, when you initially researched this person, you see all sorts of things that are like public. You see interviews, you see things that are written about this person, things that kind of make sense from like an outside perspective, that are helpful at the beginning just to create a, a general picture. But, you know me, when I’m talking publicly, there’s nerves and there’s excitement and there’s, you know, oh, should I mention that that might be too embarrassing to say, let me hold back, let me do too much and make every day changes. So whenever I was watching interviews with Missus Marley, I was like, this is an interview. I have to remember my experiences, interviews, like, how do I feel? How does she feel that day? Did she give everything she holding back? And then when I saw some like clips of her just roaming around town, like some videos of her in Ghana, I was like, this is a different this is a shift of a person. She’s walking around free with her friends, smiling, joking. You can get to hear her laugh, her sense of humor, how chill she is. You kind of got to grasp the spirit of the person. So then when I met her, I was like, oh, that’s more in line with those videos I’ve watched. So the information on Bob is wide and vast, but on her, not so much. So I guess, like in comparison to Kingsley, it was nice, just like with the with the Woman King. These are real people, but you also have creative license because it’s so much that we don’t know, unfortunately in the world about her that I’ve got to create with the children. So I’d ask Cedella her daughter, ask some questions about what she was like as a mother, like she had disciplinarian. Did she kind of, you know, do she speak quicker with you? Did you speak slower? More considered. And I was just painting these pictures with the children that helped me to, I don’t know, form her in-house personality, which is what was most important for me because a lot of her scenes are with, intimate scenes with Bob. And you know that when, like when you two were talking outside of the podcast, you talk about something that your life might be different. But here maybe you have, like a really set list that is like, that is going to like, I don’t know, make you come across in a different way. So, yeah. I. I was grateful for what I had, but I was really grateful that that almost wasn’t enough, because now I get to educate the world on this woman who is incredible in so many ways. And I guess this may be the example of who she is. If you’ve never met her before, never heard of music, never even knew that Bob was married to this woman. You get to learn her in this way, which I think is a pretty strong one.

 

Louis Virtel Actually. When I look back at your movies in the past four years, almost all of them to me seem to be vast undertakings. First of all, you have Rita Marley, which learning her story and learning how she is, that’s already like a task enough. But then I look at the Woman King, which has this current of intensity running through it, and the direction is so specific and so breakneck that I feel like that must have been incredibly strenuous. Even Matilda has so many musical sequences that are mind boggling. Is making a movie for you just pure stress? I mean, as any of this like a good time? Like it feels all extremely, extremely taxing.

 

Lashana Lynch I’m so glad you asked me that, because when I first started on the industry, I was like, this is great fun and games. We get to play around and, you know, learn just a few lines because I didn’t have many early on in my career and, it felt like playing. It really felt like kind of going into a, in a child a lot. Now, it’s funny you mentioned stress because, you know, more responsibility, more problems. You know, you have more to think about, more to peruse. You want to dive into the what deeper. So you there’s kind of like a, a semi removal of self that happens if you’re on a six month shoot. There’s no way that you can just mess around for six months. You’ve got to be all in for those six months. And actually then there’s a prep which maybe three months prior, and then there’s a coming out of the role. There may also be three months or six or even a year, depending on, I guess, the emotional levels of, of the film. And every single time I take on a role like as Loki or Miss Honey or Rita Marley, it feels like. I have to find a deeper process that’s going to protect me more as a person, so that when I wrap the shoe, I’m coming back to the self. I know, not this other person that has been kind of got lost on the way with me diving so deeply into my actors process. And also having, you know, kind of the soldiers beside your friends and family that are reminding you to take a break and drink water and have a weekend where possible, and all those things you don’t always listen to, to be honest. Like, should I drink a glass of water? But like, how am I really going to finish it because I’m so hyper focused on it? But you know, it gets a little wild sometimes, but, it has at times been really stressful. And I think that as an artist, it’s really important to to discuss that and interrogate it for younger audiences and younger people who want to get into the industry thinking that it’s all fun and games. It’s tiring. It’s really taxing on on your body, on your spirit, because it’s just so your mind is just on overdrive all the time. And striking the healthy balance is not something that you just taught early on. It’s not something that they kind of gift you in drama school. You’re just so excited that by the time you’ve gone through a few years, you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m really tired. How did I get here? Okay. What do I do about it? Let me ask questions. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Well, even the question, I guess, going back to what you said about Rita Marley in interviews and how she’s different in person. What I think about a long shot alleged role, that’s usually a character who’s very imposing, very no nonsense. And then there’s bits of humor that we get in there and you get like a full three dimensional character, obviously. But what your friends, what people say that you give off imposing, or is this a sort of trait that you feel like you’ve had to build up for some of the roles that just sort of come to you?

 

Lashana Lynch So firstly, it’s funny that you mention the humor. I’ve literally tried to make every single role that I’ve had a comedy for, but like.

 

Ira Madison III Well, you’re British, so I feel like it, Louis, that I have said that for some reason British actors are just funny, naturally, more so that American actors have to be.

 

Louis Virtel No, you guys feel obligated to have a personality in a way American actors don’t. It’s just the truth. I’m sorry. It’s just.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah.

 

Lashana Lynch Wow. I hadn’t even thought about that. I just selfishly wanted to just make everything, like, bouncy, even when there’s, like, distress and trauma happening at the scene. I’m like, I think this is time that she, like, winks at the other character. Don’t you think? It’s like no, this is a historical drama. Stop it. But, I, I so I’m very chill. Like, I’m maybe too chill sometimes. I throw a lot of things away. Like a little boring. People might not want to hear that, but I am. I don’t really, like, do much. I’m not really outside, so to speak. I like to be really chill in my house or in somebody else’s house, sipping tea, having some food and like, just discussing, like, hot stuff because it’s not, you know, you don’t always get with being busy. You don’t always have the opportunity to talk about how we feel about things. And it’s really important to me, to you when someone says, how you doing for me to not be like, yeah, yeah, that’s good. Yeah. I’m great. How are you? I like I really want to consider the question. So, I really like as much as I dive deep into my career, I like to dive deep into my self as well. So my friends, I guess, know me to be dry. Is that the word maybe dry, sarcastic and, carefree? I’d say cut to my friends, cut right into the show, and then, like, she’s not that way. It’s not funny when she lies.

 

Louis Virtel Uh. I want to say something else about the fact that just your role in The Woman King, but in, No Time to Die. In both of these cases, I feel like you’re playing a character who is not just exciting to watch, but, like, honestly, like, kind of a breakthrough. Like somebody we’re waiting to see on the screen like this. Like powerful black woman inhabiting this authoritative role that we are so used to seeing people like Sean Connery play, or Steve McQueen or, you know, just like classic characters of lore who all happen to be white when you go and play these roles as a part of you thinking, I’ve not seen a role like this before, and I have to play it now.

 

Lashana Lynch Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh. When I, when I went into audition and then do a screen test with Daniel for No Time to Die. I was like, this is going to be really cool. You know, Daniel’s cool. Bob is amazing. Like, I, I’m really, like, ready to just take on something new and fresh and chill. And then they were like, by the way, A77. And I was like, stop, wait, wait.

 

Ira Madison III Okay.

 

Lashana Lynch Okay. Oh. So responsibility. Okay, cool. So this is a role that you could have got a man for and you haven’t. So now I really want to make it my business to turn this into something revolutionary. And that doesn’t come with ease. Obviously, it comes with, like you said, a lot of stress. And a lot of. When I say stress, I mean, not that the whole shoot was stressful just in that, like, you know, that very low humming stress, like a duck with the, like, the quick legs under the water. What you should I, I know that this has to be something that can stand the test of time. I know that, you know, I watched Matilda growing up and that there’s a new generation who are going to get a whole different Miss Honey, that I have to make sure that they love this. Miss honey, I have to make sure that Isaac and the Woman King really does sit with people’s hearts and that they remember her. So it’s not something that I feel deeply, like, crazy stressed about. It’s more that I want this moment in cinema with these big roles that, like, mean so much to people and mean a lot to the franchise that they can, they can be characters that you can refer to. Do you know, I mean, in terms of what’s my example of a, a strong black woman, what’s my example of being vulnerable and not being ashamed to be vulnerable was my example of being an incredible artist, just like in my love. I just want to make sure that genuinely, if I were to put this to the side for a second and just say, I’m going to write poetry today, or maybe I’ll just make chat, like, this is going to be a role that will make me proud in my in the span of my career, but also it’s going to maybe inspire someone to go on a set one day and push this character to be all that they can be off the page, because it’s really important to mention that some of these characters that you see on screen, they don’t start like that on the page. It really is a collaboration to create someone that is going to be, as fierce as she can be or as vulnerable she can be, or as like nervous as she can be, whilst being strong, whilst being complicated, whilst being like a real woman. And that comes with you actually having to tap into your artist brain and think what, what, why? I’m the only one defending this character. I’m the only one playing her. And again, it could have got man. They could have got someone more experienced, but they got me. So now it’s time to use my voice and create someone special.

 

Ira Madison III Are there sort of films that you hope that you’ll be able to make at some point in the future, or roles that don’t? Usually I feel like you haven’t done yet.

 

Lashana Lynch Bridesmaids.

 

Ira Madison III Right. Okay. Okay, let’s get you. What a comedy. I feel like this is the thrust of what we’re hearing today. I’m a.

 

Lashana Lynch Comedy guy. Oh, I think I’m pretty funny sometimes. I could get away with it. I could make people laugh. Like I genuinely. Between animation and something like a bridesmaids, I feel like there’s this, I don’t know, there’s this, like, opening for black women that hasn’t really, like, had its chance to, thing really. And something like a bridesmaids or like, soul, Disney soul or, a, or something. Do you not mean that, like, you’re telling meaningful stories, but also it is light and feel good. I really enjoy that. That’s the kind of stuff that I like to watch at home. And in terms of me and I guess what I’ve cultivated in my career, listen, I was just happy to get in the room at the beginning. Yeah, I was happy to even be there. I was happy to be considered and that people could finally see that I had something to contribute to the project, rather than, you’re to this or you’re to that. So we’re going to go with someone more experienced or more, I guess, palatable. I do think that the more that you discuss who you are and your opinions and, and how much you stand by projects and the meaning of the project and the meaning of this character, then filmmakers and producers and studios really start to understand how how deeply you tap in to contribute to the to the franchise or to the studio’s work. Because they’re not just coming in and being like, I’m just going to play this role. And, you know, if it’s good, let me know. If it’s not, let me know. I, I just like to have. Have an impact. And I think that the roles that I’ve chosen have been really strong and deep and, and fascinating to me. In the future, though, I’d, I’d like less stress. I would like I might show up to work and just be, like, laughing all day for months. And I think that, that also might shift something in me as an artist. It might give me more of an understanding of how to, I don’t know, approach text and just continue to be on my quest to make everyone funny. From Maria Rambo to Rita Marley, I want everyone to have that that humor moment, because that’s what I connect with most, and I hope that’s what kind of audiences can connect with, too.

 

Louis Virtel Before we let you go, which character in bridesmaids speaks most to you spiritually?

 

Lashana Lynch Why are you doing this to me? Okay, I’m a massive my reader fan. Massive. So I just offhand I would choose tiger character. Oh my gosh, Melissa McCarthy that that is such a brilliant role for her. What she did with that role is a brilliant, I’d say a mash up of those two characters. Okay. Could make someone special.

 

Louis Virtel Good hybrid. Good hybrid.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Thank you so much for being here.

 

Lashana Lynch Thank you for having me. This has been a pleasure.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God. Whenever you want, just come back. Just pop out of the zoom, if you could. Thanks.

 

Lashana Lynch Yeah. Okay. oh. I don’t know, so just be chill. Yes. Okay.

 

Speaker 2 <AD>

 

Ira Madison III If you can believe it, this is the 58th Super Bowl that Louis and I have covered on Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel I am waiting to die of old age. Please God, date me.

 

Ira Madison III Remember our first Keep It guest Vince Lombardi.

 

Louis Virtel I said that Bart Starr has potential.

 

Ira Madison III No. This is the 58th Super Bowl, which is always funny in terms of, thinking about American culture and TV culture. You know, our whole, Roman Colosseum culture. Yes. Cetera. Because where are we in terms of, Grammys and Oscars ceremonies?

 

Louis Virtel What do you mean?

 

Ira Madison III How many have there been.

 

Louis Virtel Just in general? Oh, the Oscars, we’re coming up on 96, and then the Grammys started in 1959. So there’s been. And then the Super Bowl started in 1967, I believe.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. So the Hollywood Fagots were having their whole thing long before real Americans got together to watch the Super Bowl.

 

Louis Virtel No. Right. They co-opted our culture. Yes. This is an appropriation. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III And said, what if we could have that? But without Celeste Holm?

 

Louis Virtel Keep her name out your mouth, first of all.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. First off, I’m going to say there was some hot people playing the game, and this time I have their names correct.

 

Louis Virtel I don’t care that you do. I don’t want to hear who these people are. I don’t want to talk about the football. I don’t want to I it’s it’s a confusing game. It’s a strange game. It’s also a very staccato, like starts and stops. Let’s just Keep It going.

 

Ira Madison III I mean, I do want to say that what I love about football players and obviously basketball players are I like the openings of the game where they are strutting, to the locker room in their cars, and it’s like a fashion show, right?

 

Louis Virtel That’s kind of newish. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Where? And they pretend the camera’s not there and they’re truly giving you like, a George Michael like, walk.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, well, I mean, there’s Christian McCaffrey this bad who you don’t know is dead, but he was the one carrying a, like, $60,000 Birkin bag cause he was walking. And I’m like, that is the kind of con I want to see in a sports game, right?

 

Louis Virtel Audrey Hepburn? Yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I want to say that Page Six described it as. Oh, Christian McCaffrey carries edgy $68,000. Irma’s bag to 2024 Super Bowl. All right. So edgy.

 

Louis Virtel Very controversial.

 

Ira Madison III Yes he held the purse.

 

Louis Virtel Right I do it all the time. Come on.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. If anyone knows where I can get a knock off of that $68,000 Birkin bag, though, I would love to own it. Okay, so.

 

Louis Virtel I think that’s going to happen.

 

Ira Madison III For you. Yeah. If you have a shop on Canal Street, I will. I will meet you there.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Just dive roll out of your car and into it. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. But the real draw of the Super Bowl this year for me was Usher.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, quite. I will say this about the, Usher performance. Not that other Super Bowl performances are pretentious, but this is about as unpretentious as it gets. Like pure entertainment. Dance moves down to roller skating. I mean, by the way, that might have been the best choreographed part of the entire thing, even though his dance moves were, of course, flawless. And he’s giving you Juilliard birthday stripper. You know, when he was on the roller skates during. OMG and the way they were moving all together on a grid back and forth that I had never seen before on any type of performance before. I mean, I’m literally thinking of when Gwen did that. Gwen Stefani did that live music video at the I believe, Grammys of Make Me Love You. There was some roller skating there, and I believe people also fell to the ground in that performance. So this was sort of a, a more polished version of that.

 

Ira Madison III Well, that so she could switch out.

 

Louis Virtel Right?

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Because there was a stunt double at one point. What a weird Gwen Stefani era, even though I like that song and a couple of other songs on that particular album. It was so low energy and adult contemporary compared to Sweet Escape. Gwen.

 

Louis Virtel Right, right. And also, I think that live filming was makes it one of the most expensive music videos of all time or something like it’s up there with Scream by Janet Jackson and Michael Jackson.

 

Ira Madison III I loved the roller skates part of Usher’s performance. There were a lot of gays tweeting that that was giving Starlight Express. Let me tell you something. No one knows that fucking musical. Yeah, right. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel It didn’t remind me of that at all. Other than there are roller skates. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III All right, so you and your friends from Barnard College who used to listen to, Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, flat ones at that, on Friday nights instead of gala parties. I guess you saw the Starlight Express reference, but nobody else did.

 

Louis Virtel Right, right, right or Xanadu, right? Could have been that.

 

Ira Madison III Oh well you know what? I didn’t see that many Xanadu references. But Xanadu is the superior roller skate musical or.

 

Louis Virtel Sorry, superior roller skate scene. Nothing else about that musical. Oh, no. Maybe the musical. The stage musical. I’m talking about the movie, but yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, the movie is ostensibly set in a roller rink right now.

 

Louis Virtel But you don’t get to Xanadu until the end. Truly, they’re drawing up the plans for Xanadu, and they’re like, one day there’s going to be an amazing roller disco party here. We’ll wait until they’re in an hour and a half. Maybe we’ll see it. Gene Kelly’s like. I’ll do a little soft show until then. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III But I think you’re right about Usher in the sense that this was very much just him giving showmanship.

 

Louis Virtel Totally. You could underestimate how much he was working, actually, until you got to, I believe, burn. Where? I have never seen a human being more covered in sweat. I mean, it was like National Geographic level, how sweaty he was. And I was it was cool to see in a way, because he was working really hard and it looked so that effortless. You know, he’s just, like, smoothly moonwalking back and forth for like 15 minutes up until that point.

 

Ira Madison III And the theatricality, too, of him even moving when the camera’s not firmly placed on him. Yeah, that was great. I loved how he really just gave, like, a love letter to Atlanta.

 

Louis Virtel He took us to the A.

 

Ira Madison III I love visiting the A.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, as I call it. And everybody there wants me to call it that, too.

 

Ira Madison III It really is just a love letter to Atlanta and also his millennial and older fans. To be honest, there was no there wasn’t even a new single. No, that was debut there. But I will say that Usher has a new album out and I love it. It’s called Coming Home, right?

 

Louis Virtel It has nothing to do with the Jon Voight Jane Fonda film of the same name. Right. Okay. Go ahead.

 

Ira Madison III No. Absolutely not. No.

 

Louis Virtel Burst Aaron in this. Okay.

 

Ira Madison III There’s a song called Cold Blooded featuring The Dream. And I think we know that one thing is The Dream does is make great R&B beats.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, okay. I did have to laugh. I did have to laugh when somebody pops out and said, it’s the 20th anniversary of the confessions album. Okay? It’s not like Sergeant Pepper girl. I’m not going.

 

Ira Madison III To like.

 

Louis Virtel Put that I it just it’s not that level, you know what I mean.

 

Ira Madison III Maybe not in your household.

 

Louis Virtel It’s, I mean, just it’s the 20th anniversary of a lot of things on the 20th anniversary of the Raising Holiday soundtrack. I don’t need to see that at the Super Bowl either.

 

Ira Madison III Bitch, are you comparing Confessions to Raising Helen’s Confessions? Confessions is one of the best R&B albums ever created.

 

Louis Virtel I don’t know about that. Best it was. I mean, it’s from the 2000, so it can’t be that good. First of all, second of all, I liked the singles, and I mean, you don’t have to call, which, by the way, he only did a snippet of. Actually, that’s a critique I have of this, Super Bowl performance. It felt like until you got to. Yeah. Which they really devoted some time to and let the song build until it was that climactic, thumping party music we got. It felt like everything was like it was always between songs. And you never just, like, settled into a sound. Like burn kind of had a moment caught up, had about 20s. It felt like you don’t have to call. Had about 15 seconds.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I mean, I will say that one. He did sort of lean into the, the penny, drop his songs a bit too early. And, and not to compare it to Beyonce, I but you know, if you you’re starting it out with a big major song and then you slide into the slower jams and then you pick it back up again at the end, that is what we sort of maybe should have seen. So it felt like it was more cohesive, you know, I mean, starting with Caught Up. Was good, but I think that, you know, starting with. Yeah, might have been even better. We also didn’t get a lot of pop Usher. We didn’t get a lot of his EDM. You know, white America Jam, which was shocking to me.

 

Louis Virtel We also didn’t get really early Usher a lot. You know, we had like, really was like the 87 or 1 era Usher. I thought mostly, which was fine. And of course, that’s like the music most people know of him. But, we must talk about the issue of Alicia Keys. This is what’s going to happen here. So you see her up here, and she has, like, a dress behind her. It’s fluttering in the wind. It’s like she’s in the opening credits of PBS mystery. And we’re, like, waiting for the note. We hear the song happening, and the first thing that came out of her mouth. It’s just so funny to watch. Like we just had an earthquake recently in LA. It’s. You could see a ripple hit the crowd when the wonky note came out of her mouth. And I am actually grateful for it because it was such a gag that it was so like, immediately.

 

Ira Madison III While I’m hosting, SNL with Alicia Keys in two weeks.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, you better watch.

 

Ira Madison III I thought she was perfect.

 

Louis Virtel And if you watch the YouTube video now, she was.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. They say they edited the hell out of that YouTube video, by the way, and fix the note. I will say that it was funny. Yes. Everyone visibly reacted. There was a very funny tweet that I saw that said Alicia Keys her body PT because she looked fucking great. Oh yes. Lovely costume that suit her body. T her voice needs t.

 

Louis Virtel My friend Chase Mitchell tweeted. It sounded like that was the first time she spoke today for.

 

Ira Madison III Me recording Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Get the ginseng going. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III This wasn’t shocking to me, by the way, because it sort of confirmed a thing that people, specifically black people, have always said about Alicia Keys. The girl is not really a singer.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, she’s.

 

Ira Madison III She’s a great songwriter.

 

Louis Virtel Musician. Fabulous musician.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Musician. Like all around, songwriter. She she can play the hell out of the piano. She can construct beautiful songs. Million dollar Bill, for instance. An amazing song. Yes. So many of her songs are beautiful. Fallen. You don’t know my name? If you ask me. I’m ready. These songs sound beautiful in Hell’s Kitchen, the, upcoming Broadway musical featuring music from Alicia Keys. Because it has, you know, singers singing them.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, rude. I mean, of course, the song she did do a piece of if I Ain’t Got You, I’m just not a fan of that song. To me, it’s written around wanting to belt and the sentiment is too basic. Honestly, the only Alicia Keys song I fucking love is Gangsta Luvin’ with Eve, I think. And I love the sample in that song of, Yarbrough and People’s Don’t Stop the Music. Love that.

 

Ira Madison III What song?

 

Louis Virtel Gangsta Luvin. L U V I N.

 

Louis Virtel Can you say it one more time. You know what you’re reminding me of? There was an episode of jeopardy! Where somebody had to say Gangsta’s Paradise, and he said, Gangsta’s Paradise. He was white, and they marked him wrong. I was like, you go on jeopardy!

 

Ira Madison III I wasn’t trying to be British. Anyway, I will. I just want to point out that I love Alicia Keys. This music. I think it’s beautiful.

 

Louis Virtel I just know her voice box as a bit of a concrete jungle where dreams aren’t made of sometimes. You know what I’m saying?

 

Ira Madison III You know, and it’s. I think Hell’s Kitchen is a fun show, particularly because hearing show shot of being sing Fallin’ was revelatory.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I’m glad to hear that. Because usually when I think of covers of Fallin’, I think of bad American Idol auditions, and I am driven to violence when I hear that song sometimes.

 

Ira Madison III So yeah, I will say that I had sort of forgotten about their joint song My Boo, which.

 

Louis Virtel Was a big hit at the time, but you don’t really hear it anymore.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, mostly because I hate the word boo now.

 

Louis Virtel It does feel tough to say the word boo. It just doesn’t belong in 2002. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III I feel like the only people saying my boo are millennial. Okay, but I specifically have about three friends who still use the phrase boo when texting me, and I do get a chill.

 

Louis Virtel Again, a good way.

 

Ira Madison III No. Not in a good way.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III Not a good way.

 

Louis Virtel You’re chilled. Got it. Okay. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. The word has lost all sort of meaning to me. Which is why when they played the song, I was, I’d sort of forgotten about it. Which I guess sort of goes against me saying that confessions is such a legendary album, but I think it is a legendary album to women.

 

Louis Virtel You think so? Name the name the women you think. You think people are coming at this the way they are? Like, Jagged Little Pill?

 

Ira Madison III The sisters.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. All right, all right.

 

Ira Madison III Well, the sisters are listening to Jagged Little Pill, Louis or Sergeant Pepper.

 

Louis Virtel My sisters are. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Maybe Sergeant Salt & Peppa.

 

Louis Virtel oh. But I will say so when we got to. Yeah. And then, you know, Ludacris did his famous rap. I think besides Jay-Z doing heartbreaker, I can’t picture another male rapper that a bunch of gay guys would sing along to. And that’s exactly what we got at my party. So I actually have to applaud Ludacris for, bridging Communities.

 

Ira Madison III I think there’s something about a Ludacris rap, particularly from the early mid 2000, that everyone knows most of those lyrics.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, definitely. Also, I mean, his gossip folks with Missy Elliott, one of the great features of all time.

 

Ira Madison III Right? I mean, and when you compare Ludacris in that era to Missy Elliott, they were the funniest people. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Rapping around.

 

Ira Madison III But whenever I think about whatever I think about Megan Thee Stallion now, I think a better comparison for her is Ludacris. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Yes yes yes.

 

Ira Madison III Yes, she’s very funny. They have a similar flow and I think that I’m always going to be laughing. When I listen to a Megan Thee Stallion song.

 

Louis Virtel There’s something kind of light hearted about the both of them generally too. Even when she’s touching on heavier topics.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, topics like snakes.

 

Louis Virtel And her. But not. But not her. But not that her who was also there.

 

Ira Madison III Our favorite award show? Phantom. Yeah. So at the Super Bowl, which was shocking, I thought she was trapped at the Grammys. No.

 

Louis Virtel Under the stage again with Diane Warren, who is the warden at the Oscars? Yes.

 

Ira Madison III She looked great and she sounded great playing guitar. And I think there was a beautiful story sort of attached to it, because the first time she had ever been at the Super Bowl was showed. She was about 9 or 10 and she sang the national anthem.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, amazing. Which, by the way, we have forgotten to acknowledge that Reba sang the national anthem. And by the way, apparently we’re getting a reboot of the show, Reba. Or there’s a they’re filming a pilot for it. And I just want to say, okay, I can’t believe we haven’t done that ten more times. Like, Reba is just an institution. She’s, by the way, any age possible, she could still be 36. I have no idea. Or she’s 77. I have no idea. We gave her that show, Malibu Country with Lily Tomlin. But anyway, Reba is just one of these things that she really is a good emblem for country music itself because it was never in style or out of style. As I’ve said before.

 

Ira Madison III I think it says a lot about the state of the economy as well, as she’s still a single mom who works too hard. Our. Those kids, haven’t they found the coop already? She should be retired.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my God, is fancy a fine song? It is, I find song.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Last thing I wanna say about Usher is it was nice that will.i.am. Was basically shrouded in a costume. Right? And will.i.am was muted. Let’s just put that out there. Right? Just a little will.i.am goes far enough, right?

 

Louis Virtel Well, it’s like, you know, a radioactive element. You know what I mean? Like you, if exposed too much, you know. Now you’re Marie Curie, you have the Nobel Prize, but you’re dead.

 

Ira Madison III And I think Lil John was also great as well. So it was nice to see these people pop up.

 

Louis Virtel I mean, even when they did that, like, quick hit of turned down for what? And then just people freaking out like it needed that energy boost.

 

Ira Madison III So other than that, I think that Usher’s halftime performance was really good. I don’t think it’s going to crack the top ten list that we made. If you haven’t heard Louis and his top ten ranked Super Bowl halftime performances, it is on the Keep It YouTube channel. But I would put this somewhere in maybe the top 20.

 

Louis Virtel No, I mean, it would be in the top 15. I think for me, honestly, there are just a couple too many glitches that made it not as streamlined as it could be. Like the camera seem to be pointed at the wrong things from time to time. You know, again, I kept saying like it felt like we were segueing between hits, as opposed to just landing on the hit that we all love. Yeah, just it wasn’t flawless. And also just I think the the catalog is not as iconic as the other people who have who are on the list. I mean, just like even if even Rihanna, who is not in our top ten, I think those songs are all stronger.

 

Ira Madison III I want to say about Usher and maybe ask you this question. Do you think that a lot of Usher’s popularity, and maybe less of the familiarity with millennials and younger people who are about to be watching the Super Bowl wasn’t really there, because there is the sentiment that Justin Timberlake, when he came onto the music scene, sort of swallowed up Usher’s career.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, interesting. Yeah, I think that’s kind of fair. It does feel like one sexy back hit. Maybe Usher took a back seat. You know, he did pop up again with OMG. But you know, you’re right. It does feel like, Justin Timberlake was like, I’m going to do the sweaty, the gap changing room music and, take that Usher.

 

Ira Madison III And the O.M.G scream climax era of Usher was really something that he could have done a bit earlier. And it’s interesting. I feel that era of Usher comes much later than you would have expected. It’s that around like 2007.

 

Louis Virtel OMG is after that it’s like 2010 or 11.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. Yeah, I feel like it could have come much earlier for Usher, that sort of pop era. I think he would have done great doing Sexy Back or songs like that, to be honest, but he did sort of take a step back to the large popularity of Justin Timberlake at the time, which is common. He slapped some blond wig on somebody and it Justin was Toros from Bring It On.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, okay. They are finally a reference I understand. Yes. Gabrielle Union by the way at the game.

 

Ira Madison III Everybody was at the fucking game. I was sort of with gays who kept wondering why is Gaga at the game? Why is Ariana Grande at the game? What’s happening here? And I kept reminding them now the Super Bowl, it’s just a big party and event where celebrities show up to every.

 

Louis Virtel No. It’s like the Kentucky Derby or something. Yeah, just scores and scores of people show up, actually. So Jimmy Kimmel, my boss, was there in a booth of of Las Vegas people, and I was shocked to see this group of people. It was like Guy Fieri, Wayne Newton, Carrot Top popping out of nowhere in his Reba wig. And it just like Vegas show it up. I was hoping Kylie would be there too, but I guess she’s been out of Vegas for a little while.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, there was a lot of suspicion that Gaga was there because of some Telephone thing with Beyonce. And I think we all need to let that go. They’ve forgotten about it.

 

Louis Virtel She. Because she doesn’t even like the song Telephone, right? Didn’t she say something like.

 

Ira Madison III She doesn’t?

 

Louis Virtel Uh, Gaga doesn’t.

 

Ira Madison III That wouldn’t shock me. Does she like anything anymore? The funniest thing about Miss Gaga we always talk about Beyonce being withholding. Do you remember when Gaga made her Zyrtec commercial earlier this year?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah.

 

Ira Madison III She got dragged for it. So she posted an Instagram of her allegedly working on the Chromatica Tour. DB member tour was three years ago.

 

Louis Virtel Chromatica is a condemned planet. We aren’t even allowed back there anymore. It’s overly.

 

Ira Madison III Polluted. It’s right over there on Pluto. Yeah, right. The government has actually said Chromatica doesn’t exist anymore.

 

Louis Virtel It’s been downgraded. Yeah, along with Gag City.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Gag City. You know, she’s supposed to be going on tour soon.

 

Louis Virtel Supposed to be. Right.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. Yeah. So we’re going to be reporting live from the Nicki Minaj asteroids. The Super Bowl. I guess there were other things that happened there. It was the Taylor Swift Bowl, according to Swifties and much of the media, which still won’t shut up about them kissing on the field at the end of the game. But it is funny that Taylor Swift was barely. Present, at least in terms of the actual game that you saw on TV.

 

Louis Virtel Right? No, I mean, like, she she obviously came out into the field and kissed him afterwards or whatever, but I was not. It didn’t feel like the people who came to tune in for her would have come away with like a major fix or anything like that, even though she was there with Ice Spice and Blake Lively. Yes.

 

Ira Madison III And Lana Del Rey, I believe. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Correct. Who I got who when I got really raucous in the booth. Do you like, walked away again? If, if somebody is going to walk away from Taylor. That’s that’s my that’s Lana Del Rey. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Lana has been tried to escape Taylor Swift for quite some time.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III And I don’t think she’s going to escape.

 

Louis Virtel No no no no no, she’s exactly where she belongs, unfortunately. I will say though, it’s like the most watched non-news broadcast in television history that I have to say is a little depressing for me as somebody who every year, the story about the Oscars, as we lost a little bit of, momentum from last year, like, you know, there’s way more people on streaming than on cable right now. So, like, the numbers keep dwindling, and I kept being comforted by the fact that the decline in viewership for, like, major award shows is just because fewer people have cable. And now I see the ratings for this fucking thing, and I’m like, oh no, people really just like football.

 

Ira Madison III I just always assume in my mind, the highest rated show ever is still the series finale of M*A*S*H.

 

Louis Virtel Which an amazing television series if you haven’t watched the entire thing. Gary Burghoff, quite underrated. Loretta Swit we miss you.

 

Ira Madison III But people really do love football. And I feel like each year the Super Bowl gets higher ratings anyway. So, there’s something in the fact that the Super Bowl is still the one thing that Americans tune in for every year in droves.

 

Louis Virtel Right? I’m just. Can’t we just. Can we take this energy and put it into, like, women’s volleyball? Is it that hard? I just want to see people on high ponies slapping things.

 

Ira Madison III I don’t really have any other thoughts about the Super Bowl. The commercials were there, but even the commercials sort of got drowned out by the whole Beyoncé of it.

 

Louis Virtel All right. Right, right. And also, it’s just they were pretty conventional commercials, just starring really huge people, you know, it’s like, oh, there’s like a kind of funny commercial, but it does have Jennifer Aniston in it. You know, it just I also, I have to say, I know we are here celebrating pop culture. I know this is basically just completely in line with what we talk about on a weekly basis. Loving commercials that much is just depressing. I don’t like getting into it. Like something about the Super Bowl is kind of gruesome to me. You know, just it’s like a big car show or something.

 

Ira Madison III Okay. So do you mean commercials in the sense of the Super Bowl of it all? We’re paying millions of dollars for 30s of airtime. Or do you mean commercials in general?

 

Louis Virtel No, I mean like this. It’s just like the bonanza about who spends the most money to get a celebrity in a vaguely funny ad, you know, it just seems like we’re way out from the heyday of amazing commercials and everything’s been done, and everything feels repetitive to me. I don’t mean to be a Scrooge about it, but it’s just not an exciting American event for me.

 

Ira Madison III Now I feel like there is something to be said in seeing a nerds cluster commercial, and it’s mostly animated nerds buffoonery. And then at the end, you cut to Addison Rae Bareli, popping a nerds cluster into her mouth, which is far and away from Cindy Crawford arriving at a truck stop and going to get a, Coca Cola.

 

Louis Virtel Right. Yes. Iconography. And also, it’s like there’s way too much like homages to things we remember from some other time ago. Like we have no ability to make new mainstream iconography now we can only reference.

 

Ira Madison III While it’s the RuPaul’s Drag Race of commercials.

 

Louis Virtel Let’s blame her.

 

Ira Madison III Just referencing itself.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, yeah. The Hora Boras. Yeah. The Hora Boras.

 

Ira Madison III I think the commercial that really sort of bums me out the most was the Dunkin Donuts commercial. I’m sorry, but the one with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, and then they’re going into the studio to see J.Lo and singing a bad rap song. And then Tom Brady is there, and they’re also wearing dunking track jackets. The whole thing seemed very unfunny. It seemed lame. Yeah, sorry. And it also had nothing to do with why we have found Ben Affleck’s association with Dunkin Donuts funny for the past few years.

 

Louis Virtel And I think additionally, too, it’s like these are all people who kind of make sporadic pop cultural appearances. Like you can’t really expect to get like a big Matt Damon moment, you know, like he, he, he does movies like air and stuff, but he’s not like out and about. So when these people actually do show up for these, you know, like mediocre commercials, it’s like more depressing, you know what I mean? Like, you came out for that, like, we got that from you, I don’t know.

 

Ira Madison III It also just feels like we’re now in an era where wherever ad execs are clicking up, those commercials have lost the creative source that they used to have. Which doesn’t shock me when you consider the state of Hollywood in general. This just sort of replacement of actual creators with people who are just thinking about numbers and thinking about how many celebrities can we get into this one commercial that will have different sort of groups talking about it? It feels very algorithm created, right? Because if I’m thinking about creating a Super Bowl commercial and you’re thinking about. Iconography. Something like Cindy Crawford with the Diet Coke or thinking about was it was it? Was it Cindy Crawford again, or was it Carmen Electra with the Doritos? Inside the, the dryer that were popping into her mouth. Where was a commercial with Jeremy Allen White?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Like actually tapping into this current moment as opposed to, like, this. Like this version of monoculture with an oldish set of celebrities. No offense to them.

 

Ira Madison III And when you think about Super Bowl commercials of that era, they were sexy. And maybe they were a little bit misogynistic because they were all just very sexy women. But now that we’re in an era where people are lusting over. A Jeremy Allen because of his Calvin Klein ad, then maybe you should have a commercial where he is sexy in one of them. Or where was Jacob Elordi or any of these people that I feel like culture has been lusting over for the past year?

 

Louis Virtel And this leads us to our new segment on Keep It. Where is Jacob Elordi? Well, I just ask it every week and I’m upset that he’s not here like his mother. And my kerchief waiting for him to come.

 

Ira Madison III Home is either Carbon San Diego of our time.

 

Louis Virtel And no, because he’s eminently findable. He’s just not here, which is what’s concerning. But.

 

Ira Madison III Well, I guess if we are going to wrap up with the Super Bowl commercials that everyone was talking about, there is a little movie that could. Oh, right, called Wicked.

 

Louis Virtel I, my friends who love Wicked and saw the trailer and were super into it. I was not getting full of life from the trailer. The first of all, the CGI level was fully Annie Leibovitz doing a Disney Princess Vanity Fair share, which is like my least favorite look in all of cinema. And then secondly, I have high hopes for Cynthia Erivo. We got a little blast of her vocals, which of course were lovely.

 

Ira Madison III Ariana, I’m gonna I don’t.

 

Louis Virtel Know about the comic chops there. When she said, you’re green, did we laugh?

 

Ira Madison III I laughed at the memes later.

 

Louis Virtel Okay. Not the same thing. Not the same thing.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I love Wicked, and I think that a thing that would shock you also. Or maybe we’ve talked about it on the show before. You know, Jon Lovett loves Wicked.

 

Louis Virtel Oh that’s interesting. This is how he decided to dip into homosexuality. Fine.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. But Wicked is a musical that I have long loved. I listen to maybe that cast recording more than I listen to most.

 

Louis Virtel I love for God.

 

Ira Madison III Yes. Broadway cast recordings. I hate the I mean, there are a couple snakes on that album, Sentimental Man. Is a very horrible song. I’m not looking forward to it in the movie, but I liked the trailer. I was very excited that the movie is finally coming out. It feels like it’s been long gestating, and it was like, are we ever going to get this movie? Remember when we were supposed to be getting this movie years ago with Amanda Seyfried? But. My main problem with this is what you said. The CGI and the lighting in Wicked. It’s just. Every musical looks the same now, right?

 

Louis Virtel It just looks like those Disney live action movies, you know, which all had that particular gloss to them that I’ll feel. It’s it’s like, I guess extremely current, but to me looks like a 90s CD-Rom game.

 

Ira Madison III So I would describe it as actually looking like an SNL sketch about Wicked, right?

 

Louis Virtel That’s, I think, pretty accurate. That’s what it looks like.

 

Ira Madison III The the lighting in it, the the bright colors. I know that that is very Wicked, but. I don’t know. It’s just it. It feels very flat. It feels like every movie looks exactly the same now. And I think it’s just really starting to bum me out.

 

Louis Virtel It’s that green screen stuff, you know what I mean? It can only look a certain way, you know? It’s never going to look, I think way more fabulous than any other green screen movie.

 

Ira Madison III Even the Deadpool trailer looked very much like that, and many of the scenes that are in the trailer were actually shot on location, but somehow the on location stuff even looks flat on screen too. It’s just everything has this glossy sheen now.

 

Louis Virtel And it makes me upset because for years I worked as Madame Webb’s assistant, and I hate to see her. The bad press she’s getting, she’s a really good person.

 

Ira Madison III With that being said, I think that we can take a little break and when we’re back, it’s time for Keep It Up. And we are back with our favorite segment of the episode. It’s Keep It, Louis.

 

Louis Virtel Me?

 

Ira Madison III In a shocking turn of events, there is Oscars news yet to discuss. I’m shocked.

 

Louis Virtel Lo and behold, after, I guess, years of asking and and of gay men clamoring online because casting people for fun is what we just want to do. I have long called casting the gay men super power. Casting is going to have an Academy Award. There’s going to be a best casting, Oscar next year. And that, I think, is exciting. I also think it is, I don’t want to say dubious, but just the rules of the casting need to be articulated to me, because I just don’t feel like at any given movie, casting is entirely responsible for who gets chosen in the movie. You know what I mean? Like, some people work with producers, directors again and again, etc. so I’m interested in how that will shake out ultimately. But my Keep It is not to that. I’m excited about that. My Keep It is to the fact that sound is still only one category. How do people think sound on a movie works? Like we just listen to the actors and then we go into a booth, hit some knobs on a boombox, and then it all turns out it is such a complicated art form. It’s something that’s been condensed to one category, I think, just for the palatability of viewing audiences who don’t know what goes, what goes into sound design. And I think we have really minimized an incredible art form by doing that. I’m I’m the best sound is so generic, it doesn’t mean anything to me when I see that category name. It’s too it’s too sprawling an idea. I like this year. I would say there should be a best sound design for that. I would give to the zone of Interest and then best Sound mixing what I think be a more musical movie like maestro. There’s just there’s two different art forms at play there, and I just continue to be upset when I see that there isn’t more recognition for what goes into sound. So this is basically I dated quite a bit since we’ve had these categories conveyed this way for a little while now, but just bothers me. It really bothers me.

 

Ira Madison III Well, what category do we need to make sure that whoever put the cover of 50 Cent’s P.I.M.P. into Anatomy of a Fall, what category do we need to make sure that they get an Oscar?

 

Louis Virtel Also, not only do they play that song in the movie, they play it 70 times. They’re like, you will be walking out thinking of the steel drum cover of pimp.

 

Ira Madison III I remember watching anatomy of a fall. I watched it at home, actually, and when I first heard pimp playing, now I’m in the midst of a Fifty-sance, if you will.

 

Louis Virtel Okay.

 

Ira Madison III I’ve been listening to a lot of 50 Cent. I’ve been re listening to, his first album a lot. I’ve been listening to the song Ayo Technology a lot. Part of me thought that I had accidentally somehow turned on PMP on my Amazon Echo or something.

 

Louis Virtel Left the tab open or something. Yeah, right.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, I guess it was got so very loud and aggressive. And then it wasn’t until Cedric Hill, acknowledged the song. I was like, oh, okay. But then the very intense courtroom scenes in the movie being interspersed with that song again, that is just stellar work. And people have come away from that movie talking about her amazing performance. Yes, but they’ve come away talking about that 50 cent song, and they also come away talking about that dog. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel So who was just at the Oscars luncheon yesterday and was like the star of the whole show.

 

Ira Madison III And Marc Malkin had a great interview with the dog.

 

Louis Virtel Asking if it’s queer, et cetera, right? Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Ask him why he’s taking parts away from gay dog. Yeah. All right.

 

Louis Virtel Ira, what is your Keep It?

 

Ira Madison III My Keep It is a bit of a throwback. Keep It as well. Okay. Louis, I don’t know if you knew this, but Jon Stewart is back on television, but not in The Problem with Jon Stewart, his canceled Apple TV series. He’s back on the Daily Show.

 

Louis Virtel Well, as you know, I’m spicy with him anyway. Because he beat me for a glad award and I just want to see the buff fucking he has done, because I just I just don’t think, you know, like, it’s really competitive with the my work over here.

 

Ira Madison III Asked Tucker Carlson about it. Okay.

 

Louis Virtel All right. Oh, God. What does that mean?

 

Ira Madison III I mean, it’s he’s fucked him and his bow tie quite a bit.

 

Louis Virtel Oh. That’s true. Yeah. I saw that episode of crossfire or whatever that show was.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah, but anyway, we have Jon Stewart back at the Daily Show desk because they have somehow been unable to find someone to replace Trevor Noah since he left 15 years ago. It seems like at this point, and he is only there on Monday nights, however, and he’s talking about indecision 2024 because that’s a throwback to, you know, how he used to discuss the race before when we had a presidential race, he had a bit where he talked about Biden and he talked about Trump, and he referenced the fact that Biden is old. He’s an old man. And he talked about how basically Democrats weren’t doing a very good job of fighting the complaints that Biden is too old to be running for president again, while also pointing out that Trump is also a very old man and that Republicans are also being disingenuous about his age. Here’s a problem I have with the response to this, where a lot of people on the internet started saying that he was both sides eyeing the election and saying that any criticism of Biden is support for Trump, I guess. And. I don’t know why I’m shocked that we are in this era of political idiocy, but I know that things are dire when it comes to the election. You know, we did 2020. We had the whole shit with Trump, trying to steal an election after we had four awful years of him. But. If you are going to tell me that I am unable to make a single joke about Biden, who is an old man, or unable to make any sort of criticism about him just because the election is at stake. That feels a little bit very not something I want to be a part of.

 

Louis Virtel It’s I think what people are maybe reacting to is like, yeah, go ahead and make jokes about that. Well, again, Donald Trump is a little like Taylor Swift, where he has so outlasted these joke areas about him that it feels very trite to even go back and, like, talk about how horrible he is, like to make legitimate criticisms about him because you’re repeating yourself for the 90th time, whereas Joe Biden going for his, you know, second, run of four years in his 80s, that just feels a little bit more novel. Like we have more to say about that at the moment, when obviously that’s not as pressing a concern as this, you know, idiot coming back to to the dais.

 

Ira Madison III Right and listen as some of the jokes were a little trite and some of them felt like jokes that we had heard before. But a lot of the response to it was people saying, well. We need to go out and vote for Biden so you can’t make fun of him. And I think that that when we get into that place of telling people that they can’t sort of be mad at the Democratic establishment is what sort of annoys me, because, first of all, black people are always criticizing the Democratic establishment, and we go out to vote.

 

Louis Virtel Right.

 

Ira Madison III So, you know, I don’t think it’s going to be the liberals watching Jon Stewart on The Daily Show who will be deciding the election in November. Let’s just put it that way.

 

Louis Virtel I’m actually sort of interested to look back at what kind of jokes Jon Stewart made about people like Obama or John Kerry or Democrats up the 2000, because they’re actually not shooting to mind, like, I don’t I what I remember Jon Stewart, I mainly remember him talking about the rise of wacky politicians, wacky conservative politicians who weren’t even running for president. Like, I think of him criticizing Fox News and things like that. So, I would be curious to look back at that stuff.

 

Ira Madison III I also think that people have become a bit more comfortable with criticizing, like Obama and Biden post him leaving The Daily Show.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III You know, I don’t think that there was a lot of immediate criticism of Obama specifically, especially from millennials, that we get now. There’s a lot of people who are more willing to make fun of Obama or make fun of Biden now. And I get it. I think that politically, a lot of people feel disappointed with the past few years, and they want to express their anger in a way that is more fruitful than a couple jokes at the Daily Show desk.

 

Louis Virtel Right. No, it’s it’s it’s weird that we apparently need Jon Stewart to come back like that. A lot of people are like, Thank God he’s finally here. Like, why are we like, we are awash in not just commentary, but really good commentary. It’s strange to think we need Jon Stewart as like a fulcrum for everybody else to pay attention and engage properly. Again, I’m, I’m I’m a little bit mystified by it.

 

Ira Madison III Yeah. I mean, I just personally feel that the, the jokes were very softball jokes. And I feel like if you think that jokes about this is something that’s going to decide the election, then I think that we’re living in some other alternate alternate universe here.

 

Louis Virtel At any rate, go and vote.

 

Ira Madison III Don’t o vote. Don’t tweet. I don’t watch the Daily Show vote. That’s our show this week.

 

Louis Virtel We’re finally at the end of our long string of things like award shows and Super Bowl halftime performances, so we’ll have a little bit of ordinariness to come back to. I hope we can come down from this high.

 

Ira Madison III Well, how long do we have, Toby? We’ve got a month still till the Oscar, which is wild to me.

 

Louis Virtel It’s very crazy. We we still haven’t really recovered from the pandemic, which pushed the Oscars back a few weeks, like it used to be, mainly in February. But. Yeah, the Oscars promo just, dropped where Jimmy and, weird Barbie. Kate McKinnon.

 

Ira Madison III I thought it was very.

 

Louis Virtel Is it a very cute? Yes. Yeah. But I’ll tell you afterwards which jokes I wrote.

 

Ira Madison III And tell me which one’s Jo Koy wrote.

 

Louis Virtel The secret head writer of the Oscars.

 

Ira Madison III Honestly, I would gag if Jo Koy walked out at the beginning of the Oscars and he was like, I’m just kidding, y’all. Here’s Jimmy Kimmel.

 

Louis Virtel And the way that Stacey Dash popped out that one year. Yeah.

 

Ira Madison III Yes.

 

Louis Virtel That really was an unbelievably shocking moment. Okay. Anyway, yes, we’ll see you next week.

 

Ira Madison III Don’t forget to follow Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. You can also subscribe to Keep It on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. And if you’re as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review.

 

Louis Virtel Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Chris Lord. Our executive producers are Ira Madison, the Third, Louis Virtel, and Kendra James. Our digital team is Megan Patsel, Claudia Shang, and Rachel Gaewski. This episode was recorded and mixed by Evan Sutton. Thank you to Matt DeGroot, David Toles, Kyle Seglin, and Charlotte Landes for production support every week.

 

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