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Louis Virtel is joined by Nina Parker to discuss the surprising return of Kanye West and the even more surprising amount of concert posts from people they thought knew better. They unpack revelations from Brandy’s new memoir “Phases” as well as debate whether the drama in A24’s “The Drama” is all that dramatic after all.

TRANSCRIPT

 

Louis Virtel And we’re back with an all new episode of Keep It. I’m Louis Virtel. I had this brilliant idea. What if we had Nina Parker back? Hi, Nina Parker.

 

Nina Parker Oh my goodness, the best idea is I get to see you. Because I get to see you.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, likewise. Oh my god, you’re glistening today. You’re a glow, pure show business. Now, I noticed you’re here and not at the Wireless Festival in the UK. Something went wrong.

 

Nina Parker Oh my goodness, there goes my moral compass getting in the way again. Shit!

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, oh you’re gonna have such a good time

 

Nina Parker Oh my goodness, I’m so sad it’s not happening. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, Kanye West was, he’s actually known by a number of different names. Now you can look them up.

 

Nina Parker And that was sarcasm, by the way, for people who can’t hear the sarcasm.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, I did hear it. I did here. I’m glad I’m a tune

 

Nina Parker You’ve got to say these days.

 

Louis Virtel The wireless festival was canceled because Konya couldn’t get into the country since I guess he has said, I’m checking here, seven million anti-Semitic things and I don’t know what people were thinking. I don’t know why people booked him and I’m of course ashamed of LA where he has performed sold out shows to people who enjoy him.

 

Nina Parker So, I mean, not only did he perform, sold it out.

 

Louis Virtel Oh yeah, you know, people are sure they want to see

 

Nina Parker I just, I’ve been thinking about this a lot because I was really upset when I just… I was more upset, I’m not surprised that they did the show because we’re in such a different time right now. I feel like we’re the most selfish of errs. Like people really only care about themselves. I think I had an epiphany about how little people really care about other people right now, like I feel consideration and just caring about someone. Who is different from you is at an all-time low. And also people, how easy people are willing to dismiss things based on proximity to fame. And this is an infamous man, you know? I would say it’s ongoing, yeah. Yes, but I think when I saw the 92% there, because that kind of was like, I expect to see some Gen Z kids in like But when I started to see people I knew, who I respect, who are advocates for Black women and Black people, who have championed for children, I was like, we have lost the plot. And also, it started to make me think that people are really good at grifting because maybe you don’t care about this organization. It’s just a way for you to be prominent and get people to come and support your event. Because you can’t say you care about these things and then go in support because this is what it is, it’s support. You’re paying money. You are supporting, you’re posting. I think Aubrey O’Day posted and I’m so confused at this because we just actually got this whole new level of respect for how she dealt with the Diddy trial and getting on the stand and testifying and talking about years of abuse and this man who is aligned with Kanye. Correct, yes. So what are we, she’s posting at the concert, she posted on threads and said, well I can do both, I’m just supporting the artist. But when people were just supporting Diddy as an artist, she had an issue with it, now all of a sudden it’s just supporting art. And by the way, that’s not a thing.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Nina Parker This is not a thing.

 

Louis Virtel I also just want to say I think it’s a golden era for don’t tell me what to think. Right. So these people who, you know, were, I guess, fans at one time and are sick of not being fans, it feels a little bit to them like they have to keep something up if they have a moral stand against him and it’s just like, ah, fuck it to them. Right. And I think this is a huge part of why cancelation, a huge part of cancelation that we don’t discuss is to cancel someone is an ongoing process. You have to, you have to be diligent and vigilant.

 

Nina Parker It’s a boycott, right? It’s the boycott of the person. And also, we know that cancel culture really doesn’t work anymore. It’s not even a thing. I think it was maybe a thing for a year. But you know who works on black women. I mean, no, precisely. Chris Shett, Michelle hasn’t seen the stage. Right. You know, we talk about all of this criticism for Chile. And then I’m seeing people who were criticizing Chile at the Kanye concert. Sure. So I’m wondering, like, who does this apply to? Because You’re diligent and loud about one person in a group and we’re not supporting Chile. We’re not going to go to her concert. And then I don’t believe a lot of the people who were critical of Chile were at the Kanye concert. You know, I was one of them and I wasn’t at Kanye, but I I’m shocked to see the double standard. And it’s specifically for men like the cancelation. This doesn’t exist. We see Mel Gibson outside, you know what I mean? Like we, the cancelation for women is way longer and stronger than it ever is for Men. I don’t really know what you can do anymore because even when people accuse you of sexual assault, people don’t believe you. It wasn’t until the video of Cassie came out that people finally publicly started shifting as a mass to Diddy, right? Because even up until then it was speculation. And I think people love the speculation because then it allows them to kind of stay in the middle.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. By the way, and that video, in my opinion, still doesn’t come up enough. You know, like it had a brief moment where we all knew what that was. And I still feel like since then, it sort of waned a little bit. Yeah. Well, I think the huge problem is, and this is something I think about in regards to Trump, is that people are not annoyed by men, right? You know? So it’s like, and in that way, you don’t have that sort of ick based anger. At these people, whereas if a woman runs afoul, there’s a sense of like, oh, fuck her. You know, just like, again, there is something bodily that happens, namely with men. That happens mainly with men.

 

Nina Parker I also feel like people are used to, because I believe like women are taught to kind of give men grace from childhood. You know, you’re kind of taught like, okay, well, he didn’t mean it. Boys will be boys. They’re big dumb animals, we love it. Right, but as soon as there’s a woman that kind of steps outside the bounds, it’s like, oh, whoa, wait a minute, because you’re not falling in line.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. And they’re supposed to be the moral compass for everybody, too.

 

Nina Parker Right, so you’re held to this higher standard. And when you can’t keep it, you know, everything falls apart. And so, and we see it all the time in Hollywood where, I mean, women are being canceled because of their age. You know, things that we see that they didn’t even really do anything wrong, but they’re, you hear about people getting blacklisted all the times. Men keep getting, we see men, 60 year old men with 21 year old wives in movies, right, like, it’s just, there’s always this double standard. But now what I’m finding also is that Moral compass really doesn’t exist anymore. But also I find that when we were talking about people’s character, right? When I’m looking at these people who went to this concert that I’m disappointed in. I mean, it doesn’t matter that I am disappointed. They don’t give a shit. But I’m starting to believe that like somebody being a good person isn’t like because they donate to charity and they adopt a dog. And you know, they call out racism when it’s blatant but it’s the little things to me that showed the character of someone, right.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right.

 

Nina Parker It’s the smaller little daily things that to me make up what really makes a person not necessarily good or bad, because I think we all can be good and bad, but if there’s someone who says they’re going to do what they’re going to and stand for what they say they’re gonna stand for, if you have positioned yourself as someone that doesn’t accept racism, but then you’re at a Kanye West concert where this man has literally said slavery was a choice, He’s selling swastikas, like, he- Have people seen the alternative art for his album? Like it’s a swastika.

 

Louis Virtel Right now you used to be able to go to his website that was just as well

 

Nina Parker And there are things that you just can’t walk back that this man issued an apology. Yes, because he had a tour coming, because you had an album coming out.

 

Louis Virtel And by the way though, if you go to these live shows, do you think you’re not gonna get any version of that? I mean, like, what are you expecting? Like he’s just gonna do the hits and be lovely and, you know, conciliatory or whatever?

 

Nina Parker I also expect by the time this podcast is released, he will have gone on a rant.

 

Louis Virtel Precisely, yes.

 

Nina Parker Yes. And then people will be, you know, oh my gosh, I didn’t know. And it’s like there’s nothing you can say you didn’t know about this man. He has showed us everything. And, you, know, listen, bipolar disorder doesn’t make you an asshole. Right. Yes. No, the medical.

 

Louis Virtel He doesn’t have to be doing what he’s doing

 

Nina Parker and what he’s doing, yes. I’m just like, this is not, people are like, well, you know, and I’m like, you what’s so interesting is everybody’s talking about forgiveness. You’re still mad at your 12th grade bully. You’re holding a grudge against the lady who rings up your groceries in the line. You’re pissed off at your neighbor. Nobody else, this the same thing when people are fat phobic and they’re like, I just care about their weight, I just about their health. And then they go smoke cigarettes and do coke in the bathroom. You don’t give a shit about health. You’re just fat phobic and you’re using it as a guise. And it’s the same with forgiveness. People are using it like oh you’re supposed to forgive no you just want an excuse to be able to deal with bad behavior and say well somebody issued an apology and if that wasn’t the bet the most like here, take it, apology that you’ve ever seen. Like this was not a real apology because it’s behavior, not a state.

 

Louis Virtel I also, I really wish I could inflict a gene on society that would make people able to be embarrassed by men. I just don’t think they are. I don’t people are embarrassed by Donald Trump, honestly. It’s like, and I mean, mostly men who are, but it’s like women, I think they are embarrassed men, but they object based on like, all men to a certain degree have the power to be this heinous. So we recognize how horrible he is.

 

Nina Parker I feel like a minority at this point. And when I saw that full concert, I said, oh, okay. Sometimes when you’re on social media and your algorithm is algorithm, algorithming, you’re like, okay, people believe like me. People agree with me. This is great. Everyone sees the craziness. And then you go outside and you’re, oh they don’t get it or they do get it and they don’t give a shit. And now I’m kind of operating in a different way where I’m probably just gonna be in the house by myself because I don’t. You know, I told you I’m listening to, I’m in the car in silence because there’s a lot of artists I can’t listen to anymore. And I really do live by that. Like I just, it’s really difficult for me to separate the artist from the person. I’m not able to do that. I’m an artist either. So maybe there’s different function in your brain that works. But I have to say, I think if someone is praising Hitler, maybe that’s a line you draw.

 

Louis Virtel Also, by the way, I mean, among all artists, he’s said the worst things. I mean like who, I’ve been like Roman Polanski, like how much worse can it possibly get?

 

Nina Parker And also, just stand up. You have people have no backbone. You’re not your proximity to fame is more important. These are people who are parents that like are supposed to be setting an example of what is acceptable to their kids. And yet you’re going and supporting and going to this concert and supporting a person who has said the most heinous things. And you’re like, well, it’s it’s not that big of a deal because I like his music. If you want to put something and get people to agree with you, just be a good artist. Because apparently there’s nothing you can say that will get people to go against you. I think that it’s reprehensible that people are doing this and I really want them to stand up, stand for something.

 

Louis Virtel Now, I hate the word unproblematic because I don’t think it’s like something to shoot for as an artist, like it’s not the most important thing to me. That said, who has been one of your favorite artists just to support since you’ve been alive? Like, who do you, who are you still kind of ride or die for?

 

Nina Parker Right. I mean, it’s seasonal, right? Because I think, like, there are people I loved when I was younger. I’m trying to think like, you know, like a Janet Jackson, right. Which, I mean the thing is, is I think with social media, I think people have gotten problematic. We didn’t think we’re problematic for decades. And now you’re like, well, wait a minute. You know, because of the lab during the election, yet became a little problem. Oh, no. Right. Oh no, right.

 

Louis Virtel No, again, it’s like, oh wait, the gift of you not doing interviews is turning its head.

 

Nina Parker Right. So obviously, like, Beyonce is someone that I support, all of Destiny’s Child I love. And so I think like, you know, I was a big Whitney Houston fan. So those, these are artists that I’ve loved. And it’s just kind of, it kind of goes in grooves. But I’ve never actually loved someone enough to accept bad behavior. There’s no artist that I love if they post a swastika that I’m going to support.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, that’s true.

 

Nina Parker I don’t care how good your music is. I don’t care if angels come around and have harps and sing around you. Like, if you say certain things, I don’t care how big of a fan I am.

 

Louis Virtel No, so by the way, he said them several times. It’s not just like, oh, they slipped out one time during a drunken award show appearance or something. I’m trying to think of the time Beyonce ran the most of all of us, and I’m not kidding, it might be adding too many words to the song, Jolene. Wouldn’t it just been a few fewer words?

 

Nina Parker Yes!

 

Louis Virtel Too many syllables, yeah.

 

Nina Parker Of course, it was the veganism for me!

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah, that’s right. Nevermind, nevermind. You’re still hot on her trail. There was crossing the picket line for that 2022 Oscar party with Jaycee. Right. Okay, so maybe that’s beyond.

 

Nina Parker There was I guess that was yeah, but nobody I feel like it was controversy for 24 hours

 

Louis Virtel Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then she went back to, you know, she’s like, ah, get up the cowboy hats.

 

Nina Parker I think a song came out or something. Everybody forgot.

 

Louis Virtel She sounds great. She can really move.

 

Nina Parker They’re like, wait, the visuals dropped? Also, she keeps, you know, Beyoncé is one of the few celebrities that still has mystery, an air of mystery, right, because you know people say she has burner pages, but she’s not like a huge poster on her Instagram. She posts when she has something to promote, so there’s an air mystery about her, which is probably why. I mean, if we heard from her more, who knows what we’d be talking about.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, no kidding. I mean, like there’s not many, like, I’m thinking actors are actresses, who are like, like Daniel Day Lewis a little bit, but even he like just did a movie his son did. Like he’s, he doesn’t have a ton of mystique anymore either.

 

Nina Parker Do you think Leo has Mystique, Leonardo DiCaprio?

 

Louis Virtel Kind of, yeah, because you don’t know when you’re gonna get him, really. And it’s always like, he has his main collaborators who work when they work. So there is some mystique there. And again, as you know, he’s suddenly hotter than ever too. I was gonna say. How did he do that? And by that, I mean, I know how he did that. What do you think he did? Yeah, it was a little OZ.

 

Nina Parker A little OZ.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, the Ozempic, yeah.

 

Nina Parker Oh, you think?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the way last. I wasn’t sure what it was. There’s a svelteness to him now. Yeah, yes. Like now he should play the great Gatsby.

 

Nina Parker Yes. So it’s just, you know, look, I mean, I do kind of love, I think we know too much about each other in general. Oh, please. On social media. And by the way,

 

Louis Virtel And by the way, I have a disease where I’ll never forget.

 

Nina Parker Yes, I do too, you know, and I is that a thing like do is that

 

Louis Virtel Oh, I remember every opinion everybody has. Every movie critic ever, like any movie. Yeah, I don’t know what it is about my brain, but I didn’t choose this. It’s a chip somebody put in me.

 

Nina Parker I’m in the same way where I remember, I’ll remember a headline or I’ll remember a conversation or I remember something that John Mayer said in 1996. Like I just have this thing. So I’m, and I’m always just kind of like, maybe, I don’t know, maybe I’m not as a forgiving person. I don’t know what it is, but when I’m offended, I usually stay offended, to be honest. Like I’m a person that’s easily like won over after.

 

Louis Virtel Well, by the way, you can also address, if you say something terrible, you could address it. So I remember if somebody addresses it too. I remember.

 

Nina Parker I remember accountability, there usually isn’t.

 

Louis Virtel There’s that.

 

Nina Parker Which, by the way, I’m pretty big with someone just being up front about their accountability when it feels authentic, but I think it’s pretty clear these days when something is a business play and when it’s authentic.

 

Louis Virtel You’re right. When they have contempt for the idea of apologizing and they’re still doing it.

 

Nina Parker And also by the way like no one has to forgive Kanye. No, like there are so many people like he said, sorry, okay

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right, that’s it.

 

Nina Parker I don’t give a shit. I don’t have to accept, by the way, I don’t have to except anyone’s apology ever because that’s the risk you take when you offend somebody, especially when you do it purposefully. When you purposefully offend people, there are some people who don’t have to accept your apology ever, ever again. So like this thought that I’m supposed to forgive Kanye because he released an apology, fuck him and fuck you too.

 

Louis Virtel And also, by the way, he thought he was so amusing during the entire thing, too. So it’s not, I mean, it’d be one thing if he was just like throwing down the propaganda, but he thought there was like a sort of ne’er do well persona about him the entire time, too,

 

Nina Parker And also, it’s also the one thing I want to say too, is that there are so many people who don’t speak up for themselves when they hear someone that they feel is fearless with their voice. They like that because it’s something in them that they can’t do. I don’t look to Kanye to speak my mind. I don’t need other people to be my voice to say what the fuck I feel. So I don’t need him to be a spokesperson for me. I don´t find that admirable that somebody can yell into an empty room and say some offensive shit. Cause by the way, anybody can do that. Any grifter that you see does that. Instead I pull that shit from myself and I say what I need to say so I’m not walking around idolizing fools

 

Louis Virtel Okay, so you’re not going to the concert. Okay, all right. I’m sorry, I’m pissed. No, no, it’s upsetting. No, it just a name I don’t wanna hear brought up, one.

 

Nina Parker Well, congrats to the UK for doing what we could not do and saying, you can’t come in here with that shit.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, unfortunately Kanye may come up again during one of our conversations today because he collaborated on one of my favorite songs with Brandy, whose new memoir, Phases, is out. Imagine not loving Brandy. It’ll be exciting to talk to you about her. That Brandy when The Boy’s Mind came out with Monica, that was the exact moment in pop culture I started paying attention to music. So I saw that video 10,000 times. And that’s exactly 1998. And it was either that and Natalie and Brulia’s torn, which I’m gonna say.

 

Nina Parker A time raised me.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. So we’ll get into that. And then also something I’m kind of grateful for just happened, which is we have a new movie to talk about that is not really awards bait and is not a superhero franchise, but is discussable. It’s like an old fashioned pseudo rom-com, pseudo. Pseudo. Called The Drama with Robert Pattinson and Zendaya. We will have a conversation about this movie that hinges on a major spoiler. So I’m telling you at home, we’re gonna start the conversation. Without spilling what the secret is of the movie. So we’ll get into it in the abstract and then at the end of the conversation, hopefully with only a few minutes left.

 

Nina Parker I can’t spoil!

 

Louis Virtel We will be spoiling it. Feelings will be hurt. Because I know people will be like, I didn’t know you were gonna spoil it. It’s like, you have to actually listen to the podcast while you’re listening to the podcasts. While you’re listening to the podcast.

 

Nina Parker Listen, don’t do that. Don’t skip no 10 seconds.

 

Louis Virtel And you have to do all the ads too, I’m sorry, just to be safe. Exactly. You have no idea what I’m going to do.

 

Nina Parker But sometimes people like a spoiler. They want it. Some people love a spoiler

 

Louis Virtel I know, by the way, don’t relate to them at all. Who are these people? My friend Jared, every time he’s like, tell me what happened, and then tell me what happened after that. It’s so crazy. Tell me what happened after that.

 

Nina Parker I used to have friends who would skip to the end of the book. I thought that was so insane. But there are some people who it just gives them too much anxiety. They just want to know.

 

Louis Virtel That’s just it. They feel unsafe or something.

 

Nina Parker They’re like, I just need to know.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, so so okay, we will get into that and the spoilers eventually on this and all new episode of keep it we’ll be right back.

 

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel Brandy Norwood’s new memoir Phases is out now and there are more than a few revelations, including her account of relationship with Boys to Men’s Wanya Morris while she was underage. There’s so much to get into. Nina, what jumped out to you about Brandy’s story?

 

Nina Parker Well, I mean, first of all, I’m so glad that she did this. Like, I haven’t thought about who I would want to write a memoir, but like Brandy has been through so many different generations, right, at this point of her career. I mean I’m happy to hear about especially like these celebs where social media wasn’t around when, you know, it’s so good to hear. Like their perspective and like she’s communicating on a landline for most of her, you know, like people are just giving her a call and very old school, I got your number through your agent type of thing. So, I mean, all of it jumped out. Obviously this Wanyay information has been- Tough. Well, it was always, I remember like being a teenager and the rumors, which is so crazy how things spread. There was no social media, but there were still rumors, right? Yeah. And it wasn’t like Brandy was being covered heavily in the tabloids. So I don’t know how as a teen, like I found out this information. But you know, it was rumored that she was dating Wanyay from Boyz II Men, and we would talk about it. And I didn’t find it odd at the time when I was younger, because it was just like, oh, it’s this famous guy. And then as you grow and you get older, you’re like, wait a minute, he was, he’s 22? And she was six? And she said…

 

Louis Virtel And she was 16, yeah. Wanda, by the way, has denied this several times and told several versions of this story.

 

Nina Parker So I love that she dived into this and finally, honestly took her power back because this is something that she hasn’t really publicly acknowledged. I think she acknowledged dating him, but didn’t really acknowledge anything. Everyone thought she was a virgin forever until she got married. No one really knew like what was going on with them. So she put

 

Louis Virtel The obsession with celebrity virginity, by the way. That does feel like a bygone era, like the whole Jonas Brothers nonsense. Miley Cyrus. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Nina Parker Miley Cyrus, like all of them, like Jordan Sparks getting promise rings, like they were…

 

Louis Virtel Right. Maybe we evolved past that. I don’t want to give us credit for anything anymore, but it feels like we did earn that a little bit.

 

Nina Parker Pop Star Virginity Watch was crazy.

 

Louis Virtel Oh yeah, also the Olsen twins and all that stuff. Yeah. We were disgusting.

 

Nina Parker Yes! It was a crazy time, a thousand percent. I mean, they were doing it in interviews. Yeah. But so I am happy to hear just her side of things in general because Brandy is a private person. Quite. We heard most of her business from Ray J.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. He himself had called himself an embarrassment to Brandon.

 

Nina Parker Yes, Brandy was out here running his mouth, but Brandy would be like, oh my gosh, which she says in the book or not in the books, but she talks about like right now, their relationship is strange.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. But they routinely consider each other each other’s best friend, which is funny, because otherwise they have nothing in common besides familial ties.

 

Nina Parker Just the parents, that’s what they got in common, the parents.

 

Louis Virtel That’s it. Yes.

 

Nina Parker So yeah, I was really excited that she, I wouldn’t say I’ve ever looked at Brandy as a pushover, but always the girl who was the polite one. Yeah, approachable. Approachable, didn’t want to make waves, just not meek, but like over, just really, really embedded with the industry. Really trained to just stay in her lane and not make waves. And I feel like with this, section about Wanyay, she really, she still doesn’t go as hard as I think she should have gone. But she dives into saying like, this man has been speaking on our situation for years and I’ve really never said anything. And he got to the point where he was retelling the story so much, he would start to say, and this is according to her in the memoir, that Brandy will, Brandy, will tell you we didn’t do anything till she, we were 18. And she tells us in the book that this was a story, they concocted together, but that they were definitely sleeping together when she was 16 years old.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right, right. Yes, that is very much tough. You know what’s interesting is I watched an interview with her on The View recently, and there’s a lyric on the Aphrodisiac album, which we all love, of course, from 2004, that reflects this. And I’m surprised to hear it in a way, but you actually just described a quality about her that backs this up. She said in The View interview that she is actually worried about disappointing people with this, by talking this much, by being this candid. And she says the same sentiment in the song I just referenced, and it’s like. The fear of disappointing people is something I associate with maybe like a student athlete. And I feel like that’s sort of the life she led. You know, it wasn’t like, as much as she was an artist, it was really about stamina. It was about, I’m a TV star, you know, I am Cinderella, I’m putting out all this music, I have a phenomenon, even though I’m this like nice person. And it really, the energy of that, of doing all that at once is, God, I hope I don’t fuck this up for other people. And it’s just, I think to me, it kind of casts a pall over her career, Cause I’m like, how? Much joy actually is there here, even as she talks, you know, euphorically about having met Whitney Houston and all of her idols actually in this book. But it made me sad and still makes me sad.

 

Nina Parker Yeah and especially listen we’re talking about her she was a young black pop star yeah at a time where you know in the book she was saying hey there was all these other shows like Saved by the Bell the all these other show that really didn’t center blackness yeah her show was the black girl in south central yeah her black friend

 

Louis Virtel And by the way, a rare L.A. Show.

 

Nina Parker Right. And so it followed the black teens. And for me, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing, because maybe we had Lisa on Saved by the Bell. You’d have one character, but you never had like a group of people that represented you, especially as like a teen. So it was such an important show. And with that, especially being black, I feel like you’re always a spokesperson because there’s all these kids from 90210. There are all these kids from Saved By the Bell and they were never the representations for a group of people, right? They were just themselves. Zach Morris could just be Mark Paul, you know what I mean? Like he could just be himself. And even if he made mistakes, that was what it was. If Brandy made a mistake, it was like the weight of her community was on her shoulders. So disappointing people was something. And I think that’s something being black that you’re taught, especially if you start to get some type of shine or public accolades. It’s like, represent us, don’t embarrass us, fall in line, like do what you’re supposed to do. There’s not a freedom in like being able to do, especially back then, there wasn’t a freedom and able to just be able to float how you want to float. Like, no, you got to fall in line. You got to, you have to be the best person that you can be to represent us. You can’t make any mistakes. And I think that’s something that rarely goes away once it’s ingrained to you at a young age.

 

Louis Virtel Truly, yes. I was listening through her catalog recently. I find it interesting that at the beginning of her career, I think I would have maybe kind of paired her up with Aaliyah in terms of like, if I had to consider people competitors in terms what kind of style they brought. And of course they were both like approachable, nice girls, but Aaliya really had that like, I can ride with anyone vibe. Whereas like Brandy is like, oh, she’s in high school.

 

Nina Parker And also, Aliyah had the scandal with R. Kelly, you know?

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, oh, we can compare them on that front too, which is also

 

Nina Parker So that kind of changed it with Aliyah because it was like, okay, there’s this really huge scandal, this marriage thing that came out. So that, you know, which is crazy because if you think about it, I think Aliyyah was 15 at the time. So it’s just like all these men in the industry preying on these young, naive girls, new, separating them, you know, kind of making them lie to their families and get involved.

 

Louis Virtel And people who need mentors, by the way, they’re so fucking young, what are they supposed to do?

 

Nina Parker And these are their idols. And in Brandy’s memoir, she talks about how she was a huge Boyz II Men fan. The reason that they even talked was because she ended up knocking them off of the charts. And he called her as a joke to say, oh, you knocked me off the charts, now you can at least hang out with me and be my friend because of this whole thing. You know, it just started out very, very strange. So I know Garrett Kennedy who co-wrote the memoir. Oh yeah. And I reached out to him just to ask him, you know, about it. And when you mention that. Brandy’s interview, she’s purposely not doing a lot. He said that, first of all, it took them six years to write this, which six years is a long time.

 

Louis Virtel Not surprised by the way, it’s like a very detailed book.

 

Nina Parker It’s very detailed and I can imagine, we’re talking about decades of information. So they had to vet through six years and what to include, what not to include. And he also said that one of the reasons she’s not doing a ton of interviews right now is because she really wants people to sit with the information for a little bit. Because I think when you come on and there’s these sound bites of one thing from the memoir that people kind of take the headlines and they run, but they’re not really sitting with the the information and she really wants people to read it and hear her story without having to hear a ton of soundbites and get distracted. So she’s very selective with the interviews that she’s doing right now. And just kind of letting this marinate with people. It just dropped March 31st. So she just kind of letting people read it and sift through it before just going on a huge book tour, which I think is smart.

 

Louis Virtel I’ve enjoyed her interviews that she has given, by the way, she’s been on NPR, as I said, she was on The View. What do you feel about the Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella? Did you grow up with it at all?

 

Nina Parker I mean, I watched it. I will say there was a moment in my teens where I started to not be a Brandy fan anymore because I felt like she was too goody goody. And for me, I was just like, I wasn’t.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, Cinderella is one of the goody goodiest, I have to say.

 

Nina Parker I have to say it was if I started to feel as a teenager that she wasn’t appealing to Girls like me anymore. Like it was I was just kind of I mean I was listening to like NWA But you know, I was kind of like more

 

Louis Virtel Did you ever feel yourself avidly rooting for Monica over Brandy? Yes. Okay.

 

Nina Parker Yes, I probably was more team Monica. I just feel like Monica-

 

Louis Virtel Angel is mine, by the way, all-timer. Yes! All-timer!

 

Nina Parker I just felt like she was edgy. I felt like Brandy was too goody-goody, and it wasn’t that I didn’t like her, but I just started to feel like, I was like, I don’t really relate to the, it felt like the machine was pushing that. And so I did watch Cinderella, I watched it obviously, but it didn’t make, it wasn’t a huge staple for me, like it was to everybody else. I appreciate it now more now that I’m older, because when you’re a kid, you’re just like, this isn’t cool. And now I’m like, we got a, you know, Prince Charming was Asian, Cinderella was black, it was like, you now, it was every, we had the whole brand.

 

Louis Virtel No, Hamilton took all the cues. We all know that. Yeah.

 

Nina Parker I mean, it’s always been a cultural staple, but I don’t think I loved it until I got old.

 

Louis Virtel Well, you’ve also just put your finger on something, which is that, by the way, like I have, even though I was, for example, in denial about being gay growing up, I was never in denial about my gay taste. And yet, and yet, I, as a teenager, could not sit through anything with songs in it. I just, it was true, it’s true. What we now call cringe, I literally was like, I have to leave the room. I can’t listen to a show tune. I don’t understand it. That said, having watched that in recent years. Relationship between Brandy and Whitney is so fabulous. And honestly, what makes me mad about that showcase is that Whitney didn’t just do more formal comedy. What, you know what I mean? Why was she a drama star mainly? That’s so annoying.

 

Nina Parker And she was good at it, but she was so, Whitney was such a character that I think people didn’t realize how funny she was.

 

Louis Virtel Right. And now it’s like every interview. We were like blind. She’s like hilarious all the time. There’s certain people like Betty Davis. It’s like you’re not a writer. Right. And yet everything out of your mouth is like Bartlett’s familiar quotations level fucking funny.

 

Nina Parker Yeah. And I love their, their link up, you know, because Brandy had never stopped talking about Whitney in every interview. Like she was, she was bigging up Whitney and everything. So them together, I think Whitney was probably more of the draw for me back then than anything else, you know? So then, you, then Ray J started dating Whitney and that was a really Like what the fuck was that?

 

Louis Virtel There are a few like this.

 

Nina Parker Like this, that was a little sick.

 

Louis Virtel No, every once in a while there are a couple of relationships where I’m like, we just never figured out what that was. And we don’t want to say it. It’s like when Jeff Goldblum was with Elizabeth Taylor, it just doesn’t work for my brand.

 

Nina Parker I genuinely feel like my brain itches when I think about it. No. Like it was, it’s so strange. And honestly, I thought it was just bullshit until I saw pictures and was like, oh wait, they was hanging out.

 

Louis Virtel Now that you’ve said it, you know one that this is not related to this conversation. One that’s on my mind. Tell me. That no one ever talks about. Go with me. You know the actress Ellen Barkan. Yeah. Who debuted in the movie, Diner. Yes. Barry Levinson, 1982. Great performance. She’s an awesome actress. Yes. Tony winner. I wish I had seen her on stage. Years and years later, she meets Sam Levinson his son and starts dating him. And like after being in a movie with him that he directed in 2011, of course he’s the guy who created Euphoria. Why, God? It was so random. It’s fine, enjoy your life. Yeah. I just don’t get it. And then no one said anything, so they want me to be alone with it.

 

Nina Parker Or like Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, no, well, that we have at least the footage of. Which I don’t think we’ve like shoveled that all up. We don’t understand what’s happening there.

 

Nina Parker You know, I still am like, OK, I guess that happened. Yeah, right. Because some of it I was too young to process. Yeah. I think as a kid I was like, oh, OK. Yeah. You know. But even as a child.

 

Louis Virtel As a kid actually going okay

 

Nina Parker Even as a child you like.

 

Louis Virtel This is some weird shit. Yeah, right.

 

Nina Parker You know, it’s just a little weird.

 

Louis Virtel And that was also a blip because right after that, Ted Danson was with Mary Steenburgen. So I was like, haha, okay, great.

 

Nina Parker And you’re so, you, I think we’ve been so ingrained in seeing him with Mary, but like, you know, I’m like, there was this whole other era. Yeah, right.

 

Louis Virtel DURING CHEERS!

 

Nina Parker YES!

 

Louis Virtel You know, so it was like a halcyon day.

 

Nina Parker It’s not that they shouldn’t have been together, but it was just very random.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. Right, right, right.

 

Nina Parker But now that I think about it, maybe I love a random linkup.

 

Louis Virtel I know that’s the thing, it’s sort of the flavor of what I like, where it’s like who would have guessed? Who would have known? But then in retrospect it’s, like, who would have guess?

 

Nina Parker I want to become a detective. Ray J and Whitney of it all.

 

Louis Virtel That’s that’s still like a level. Yeah.

 

Nina Parker It’s still, I will say, at least Ray J has respected Whitney after her passing because I don’t have a lot of hope for him respecting much. Yeah, but he has respected her. I feel like no crazy stories have come out about him and Whitney and their relationship, which is which is great.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. To go back to the boy’s mind for a second, you know what I love about this song? Which by the way, is the chronic achievement of Brandy’s catalog to me. Sure. It’s the rare song where it amps up in the verses and then the chorus is chilled out. Yeah. Like they kind of come back in together and it’s sort of, what happens? It’s like, I can’t think of another song like that where they go off in the versus.

 

Nina Parker And it’s still telling a story, which I think doesn’t happen anymore. We don’t get a lot of storytelling in songs.

 

Louis Virtel Also, do we believe that Brandy’s telling of it, which is that she was really obsessed with Jerry Springer at the time, and there was maybe even an episode called The Boys Mind. She said we should do a song about that. I don’t believe it.

 

Nina Parker You don’t believe it? I don’t know. Oh, I believe it.

 

Louis Virtel Well, it’s just, it sort of that one of those things where it’s like Britney Spears in retrospect to be like, oh, I decided to tie my shirt up like this and that became baby one more time. It’s like, why do I have to believe you’re an innovator? See you later. I just don’t believe that’s true.

 

Nina Parker But if you do remember, though, that Jerry Spring era, I remember coming home and with friends and watch, like, it was such a cultural shift.

 

Louis Virtel Oh please, I remember having bad babysitters who let me watch Ricky Lake, and that I would, you know, act like the people in the audience, you know what I’m saying?

 

Nina Parker Uh, same.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, yeah

 

Nina Parker By the way, I think that’s… Listen, Ricky Lake, Jenny Jones. Please. Remember Jenny Jones?

 

Louis Virtel Jenny Jones is of course tainted by the scandal of Jenny Jones, but otherwise, oh, I watched every episode.

 

Nina Parker Every episode for a long time. And then also, who else?

 

Louis Virtel Search winner, Jenny Jones, yes.

 

Nina Parker Yes, Montell and Maury, who by the way has a podcast now that’s fabulous.

 

Louis Virtel With Connie Chung? Yes! Yeah.

 

Nina Parker He talked about her hooking up with Warren Beatty, like, a week ago? Yeah. He was like, well, not all of us. He was, like, some of us hooked up with Warren Beaty. Also, stirring it up like an old queen? Yes! What is happening? Let’s talk about it in j-

 

Louis Virtel Interesting link up.

 

Nina Parker That’s why the link up, they’re still together and feisty.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right.

 

Nina Parker And he’s telling all her business.

 

Louis Virtel No, and they’re like in love with each other.

 

Nina Parker They really, not only that, they just genuinely enjoy each other. You can tell they genuinely enjoy this company. I love when couples are still amused by each other- Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, that’s a huge part of it. It’s such a thing to like your part. And then kind of get each other’s goat.

 

Nina Parker They like each other, but they also aren’t sensitive enough where they can’t rib on each other. And it’s fun. It’s like a fun watch. So I’ve been watching these clips of them, and I’m actually fascinated with Maury and like the conversation. You don’t really know that he’s a good conversationalist because all he’s yelling at is like, you are not the baby daddy.

 

Louis Virtel And also, by the way, and then walking off the stage.

 

Nina Parker And then people running around.

 

Louis Virtel No, people are like doing the worm during that part. It’s not really about Maury.

 

Nina Parker Right, or people who were scared of pickles and tin foil.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, please. By the way, nobody talks about the best episodes of Maury, which are send my wild team to boot camp. The way the way I was 10 years old being like, I hope they shaped the fuck up in that boot camp

 

Nina Parker We should have sent more people to boot camp, maybe they wouldn’t have been in cognac.

 

Louis Virtel That’s right. Right.

 

Nina Parker Yeah, a lot of y’all needed to go to that boot camp on Maury.

 

Louis Virtel Wait, final question. Any brandy underrated songs you’d like to bring up before we move on to the drama?

 

Nina Parker Um, I mean, you know, I was, I love full moon.

 

Louis Virtel Me too. By the way that whole album. Yes. What about us is one of the few songs I can think of when it came out I hated it because the robo vocals whatever and now since then everything kind of sounds like that

 

Nina Parker And now I think it sounds great. You thought it was, I think Full Moon was ahead of its time. I think there was a different Brandy sound. And so people couldn’t, you know, Brandy has a very authentic sound. And a sweet-

 

Louis Virtel And a sweetness. I think the sweetness sort of dissipated at that time, even though it’s like still lovely music.

 

Nina Parker And I think at the time, look, she had a lot of competition because now you have all these girl groups and, you know, who she mentioned in the book, Faith Evans, and you know things like that. So now I think because of that, it was a lot more competition.

 

Louis Virtel And also like that’s after like, she sort of started before the TRL era. And then by the time she did Full Moon, it’s like 2002. So everybody else has taken off, everybody from Britney Spears to Christina to NSYNC to whatever. So it’s just a completely different playing field.

 

Nina Parker I don’t want to stay going back to the Wanyay part of it all because I don’t want to let this guy off the hook. Like he needs to apologize to her.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah. Oh, no, no. I mean, like she wrote a whole book. I mean it clearly was gutting to her to write this, you know.

 

Nina Parker And for decades, this man has held a story that she has talked about where she says, like, he’s told this story and changed it so many times, I don’t even know if he knows what the truth is anymore. And that, to me, is letting him off the hook, because he was 20, 21, 22. She said that she was actually 15 when they first met, they started dating at 16. But this man took her virginity, and also, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. She talks about how it was not a pleasant experienced. And he’s just kind of skated by, you know? And he really has it. Had to have any type of accountability about what he played in this woman’s life. For her, she felt like she just was someone to be conquered. Like she’s felt like that then and now.

 

Louis Virtel And also by the way part of the accountability here is not just what happened but like with Louis CK It’s like well you specifically lied about it and expected the the women in this story to not to not correct you

 

Nina Parker Yes, a thousand percent. You just didn’t want any correction. And even though I don’t accept, well, I just didn’t t know any better at the time everybody was doing it, it still would be beneficial to say, like, I was wrong. Like, I’m wrong for something that I did, or, you know, have some type of accountability because he looks awful. But also, like we’ve been talking about, I do feel like men are kind of uncancellable. And so I think he thinks, well, just be quiet. And once the buzz over her book is done, I’ll just go back to being on the stage. He’s probably on the state now, you know, performing on some cruise ship.

 

Louis Virtel Very good, nice note to end on. But we’ll check in next week and see if anything has shifted on this front. Anyway, lovely to talk about Brandy, how therapeutic. I had missed her. Anyway, we’ll be right back with more Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel A24’s The Drama, starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, premiered last weekend. It’s about a couple whose engagement is thrown into chaos following a shocking revelation. As we mentioned, that revelation will be revealed by the end of this segment. So without further ado, Nina, what’d you think of the movie?

 

Nina Parker I liked it. That being said, I got a spoiler as I was doing research about the movie beforehand.

 

Louis Virtel Oh god

 

Nina Parker I wasn’t even doing a ton of research, like, I just think…

 

Louis Virtel You ran into it. Yeah.

 

Nina Parker It wasn’t even that. I actually clicked on trending topics on threads and the spoiler was in the trending topics.

 

Louis Virtel Excuse me.

 

Nina Parker Yeah, and I and people kept saying there was a twist. So I thought maybe there was another twist because this was so prominent on their trending topics, but they totally put a spoiler in their trending topics. So it was a little

 

Louis Virtel Did it put a dent in your experience a little bit?

 

Nina Parker Only because I wasn’t shocked by the revelation of the twist.

 

Louis Virtel And I’ll say it was not spoiled for me. And I wanna thank the internet for somehow figuring out a way not to spoil it for me, I was shocked. You were shocked.

 

Nina Parker I’m glad to hear it. I don’t know how I would have responded. I’m bummed that it was spoiled for me because my reaction was a lot more subdued than I think it should have been. My friends were shocked that I went with.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, we’ll start with the performances in this. Robert Pattinson, Zendaya. Robert Pattison is one of these people who routinely gets to star in movies and I keep forgetting if he’s a draw. Like I’m like, I remember Twilight. I was like, did we care about Mickey 17? Do people remember that Batman, which was mostly about the music of Nirvana?

 

Nina Parker I actually thought about him in Batman when I was watching it. Like, do I like this guy? Yeah. And I do, I liked him in this movie. Not his character.

 

Louis Virtel Not his character. Yeah, he has sort of a rakish appeal. Like he’ll say something like weird and droll at a moment’s notice, and it won’t be too annoying.

 

Nina Parker I was just happy for him. I’m like, you know, good for him for getting out of the Twilight phase.

 

Louis Virtel And he’s, I think he’s really good in this movie. Yeah.

 

Nina Parker Yeah, I mean, he’s one of the few people from that franchise, I mean aside from Kristen Stewart, that like, branched out and you’re able to see them as something. There are some people who do such iconic roles, you only see them at that, as that character. Yeah, right. Like, for so long, I think he was only seen as Edward. So I’m just, I was like, you know what? Good for you for working. Oh, he was in a…

 

Louis Virtel Oh, he was he was in like the lighthouse like he said a number of interesting. Yes.

 

Nina Parker Yes. He’s been really selective since to pick great projects, probably because he doesn’t want this typecast as like teen heartthrob, you know, or as a heartthrobs at all. 40 years old now. Yes. I’m like, this is a grown man with who’s he’s married now, I believe.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, and also, by the way, couldn’t be Paler. I need these people in pop culture. There’s like three of us. You need it. It’s like him, and Elle Fanning, and me, and we’re just trying to make it.

 

Nina Parker I didn’t like his character, but I did like him. And I thought he did a great, I think, I was like, okay, he’s going toe for toe isn’t he? Like he’s a good actor and he’s funny, which I think this might be the first time where I felt like he was funny. I think.

 

Louis Virtel The saving grace of certain parts of this movie is that he is very funny. He’s like, there’s like a physical recoiling. He does certain parts. That’s like very surprising. Like he uses his body in a way that I think I’ve not seen him do before.

 

Nina Parker Me either. I think he let his inner goofy out, but I also think that is an attribute to Zendaya because their relationship, I don’t know if you’ve been seeing the interviews and there’s also been some backstage banter that’s been posted on social media of them in between takes. They have a friendship that really is like, it rivals her with Tom. It’s not a romantic but it’s like funny. And like, I see goofiness in the both of them. Like they seem like very safe spaces for each other. And I think that just produces like a really great product.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, we must talk about Zendaya now. I assume, were you a challenger, Stan, or no?

 

Nina Parker Yeah, I mean, I don’t know about Stan. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, I really loved it. I think what surprised me about that movie is she ultimately had the least interesting character. So in a way, other than a euphoria, where, by the way, she won two Emmys for that show. And I feel like the first time she won it, I don’t know if we were surprised, but it was like, oh my God, Zendaya has an Emmy. She completely deserved that Emmy. A brilliant dramatic performance.

 

Nina Parker Thousand percent.

 

Louis Virtel So in the movies, I’ve been sort of waiting for her to have a performance that’s really adult Zendaya. And I feel like maybe this is the first one of those you get. I will say, I don’t think it’s really her fault. When the thing is revealed that breaks up the relationship, I just don’t believe she did it. I feel the personality of, not that there’s a type of person who does this kind of thing, wouldn’t be Zenday. I just can’t picture it. You can’t picture it.

 

Nina Parker I think I can only get into this when we spoil it. Yes, right. Because there’s so many specifics and layers to this that I have to say as a black woman. I was like, please. Yes. Please. Did y’all have a black consultant on this show? On this movie? I hope wherever you watch it.

 

Louis Virtel Wherever you watch a movie, you actually are just saying please at the screen. I was. Okay, yeah.

 

Nina Parker The only time I talked to the movie was when I said, please, a chow. Chow.

 

Louis Virtel Please.

 

Nina Parker It definitely came out a couple of times. So I’m like, okay, this is not something black women do.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. The director of this movie, Christopher Borglie, is a bit of an enfant terrible on social media. This movie has the feeling of, well, this is going to stir shit up. A part of you almost feels like, God damn it, this bastard who loves to provoke is being provocative, and here I am provoked.

 

Nina Parker Yes, and and what I saw something did you laugh during the movie?

 

Louis Virtel Well, I’ll tell you this.

 

Nina Parker But we gotta talk about this.

 

Louis Virtel When the thing is revealed, I personally would say the air was taken out of the room. Okay. Because by the way, the vibe of the PR for this movie is, oh, Zendaya, you know, had sex with a bunch of guys or like had sex somebody’s, I don’t know.

 

Nina Parker I mean, I think it was positioned as a rom-com. Yes. Like a dramedy.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. And also it just, it reminds you of sort of like classic, don’t tell your friends what actually happened movies like Psycho, where it’s like, oh, Janet Lee will be dead in the first 40 minutes or like, this is the killer in scream or something. The revelation in this movie is not fun at all. No. And when people are like, you’ll want to discuss it afterwards. I have to say, I almost don’t.

 

Nina Parker Yeah, I discussed it with my friends. It was so funny because when we left, we all just sat in the parking garage and talked about it because we needed to just like, I’m still kind of processing it to be honest, which I think is good. Yeah. And then I thought, and when I saw it on Sunday and thought, oh, I liked it. And then, then I though, well, maybe I, today I said, maybe, I don’t like it.

 

Louis Virtel I think this movie, what’s interesting about this movie is I feel like everybody has this experience where you don’t actually know what you think of it.

 

Nina Parker And yeah, I think it’s wavered, where I’m like, I liked it, and then I’m, like, maybe I didn’t like it. And then I saw a TikTok where someone goes, if you laughed, they said, if you laugh during the drama, you’re a sicko. And I, well- Present. I guess I’m sick. Because there were moments where, I mean, there were moments of comedy in this thing. I mean come on, there clearly moments of comedy during this movie. Oh.

 

Louis Virtel God, yes, eventually. First, after the revelation, there are a couple of quick moments of comedy where he has, I won’t call them fantasy sequence, but he has these visions in his head. And I would personally say those are the least funny parts of the movie and unsuccessful.

 

Nina Parker And also I, it started to make me, I felt a little high because I was like, well, what’s reality and what’s not. Because, you know, sometimes there’s, you know, there’s an unstable narrator where you’re like, is this actually real or is this a fantasy? So there were a couple of moments where I was like, I don’t, I dunno if this is actually real, or if this is in his head or her head. So there was a couple of those moments where i was just trying to get a little grounded, but I think they want you to feel a little bit like-

 

Louis Virtel Unbored, yeah

 

Nina Parker They wanted to feel like they shook up a snow globe and your head is swirling a little bit.

 

Louis Virtel Right, I also like how the way the dominoes fall from this precipitating event is interesting. Like they have friends, one of them’s played by Alana Heim and she is immediately livid. And I like that. I thought her performance was great in this movie, which is interesting because on social media, I’ve seen people be like little brats about her. They’re like, Oh, I’m one of em. Oh yeah, you didn’t like her in the movie? Oh, hey.

 

Nina Parker In the movie? You hate her in the movie? As the character or the performance? Love the performance because she if I hate her, she’s doing a good job. Yes, because I think they want us to hate her. Yeah, right. And congratulations.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, she has a sort of holier-than-thou response.

 

Nina Parker I mean, I think it’s just I was just there were a lot of things that triggered me in this movie And I think that’s the only criticism I would have is that I know that this twist is um You’re supposed to be surprised. Yeah, but it’s such a triggering twist What I think there are some people who do need to know what they’re walking into like this is the time where I almost would advocate Looking at a spoiler before you walk in, which I actually am thankful that I saw the spoiler before I went in. Even though it kind of took away a little bit of the zest for the twist, I felt grounded. I didn’t feel like, oh my goodness, like I didn’t know how to process it. It’s not a salacious twist. But back to Alana who plays a character named Rachel. Rachel, the character, hate, hated her. Hated, wanted to pull my eyeballs out. I was like, it just reminded me of so many people that I’ve interacted with in my life, I was like, let’s body slam this lady.

 

Louis Virtel And also she really bombs when she gives the like, she has to give a speech at their wedding later, which still goes on as planned. And obviously disasters ensue, but like she gives this drunken sort of Rachel getting married type bluster filled speech that is like so annoying. Sure.

 

Nina Parker There are some people…

 

Louis Virtel The supporting performances in this, I think, are all really good.

 

Nina Parker I-I-I agree a thousand percent. Mamadou I-

 

Louis Virtel Mamadou Achi, fabulous. Yeah.

 

Nina Parker Who also could have, we could have seen more.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. You know, I think afterwards with this movie, you’re left with, I don’t know if this is satisfying, even though in a way I think it does successfully tell a story that could happen. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Like it is based in, I can’t fault the movie for what it tries to do with these four characters, the main characters.

 

Nina Parker Could it happen? I don’t, I don, I, okay, I actually disagree with that. Yeah. Cause I, I don’t think it could happen with somebody likes and desks.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, in terms of what the actual secret is, which we’re about to get into, I agree. But in terms like how everybody else reacts, there was a time after she says what it is, I felt like in my case, I would just be like, well, this is all over, let’s quit. Like there’s no movie to be had. But in a way, I kind of did believe that those people would stick around and try to figure out what they felt about this. Okay, are we ready for the spoiler? Let’s do it.

 

Nina Parker Let’s do it. So it’s a spoiler. Yeah, if you haven’t seen and you don’t like spoilers, you have to come back, right?

 

Louis Virtel Nina and I are nice people, and we’re about to spoil the movie!

 

Nina Parker Yeah, I don’t like to do spoilers, but we have to talk. There’s no way to talk about this film. You heard us trying to talk, it was pathetic. It felt like we were playing a game of Twister, trying not to step on Yellow Circle. I got to talk a bout it.

 

Louis Virtel One of the best spinners in the history of games. Who, you? No, on Twister, because you were like, yeah. Oh, yes, yes. So naughty. Okay, anyway, the spoiler is these four friends, but specifically Robert Pattinson and Zendaya are sitting around and they’re all talking about the worst thing they ever did. Eventually Zendaya says, oh, I almost committed a mass shooting. Her words, mass shooting, so when she was in high school, she was a troubled teen and her dad had a rifle and she prepared, as in tried to, come up with like a suicide note or like a manifesto before like going into her school. And one of the main things that prevents her from doing it is that there’s another mass shooting somewhat nearby at a mall. Shooting somewhat nearby at a mall.

 

Nina Parker And her computer kept shutting down. Yeah, so she couldn’t actually record her manifesto. She would be so intense and cussing people out and then they would cut off and she would, and you saw how that personality dropped as soon as the camera was off, which lets you know she was being performative. Yes. Which I think a lot of people weren’t paying attention to the fact that she was been performative in a group chat because they were giving her attention.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right.

 

Nina Parker Which she wasn’t getting in real life.

 

Louis Virtel Aha, aha, anyway, so you’re not getting a zesty fun vibe from this revelation. It is literally people processing the fact that they know a potential mass killer. And the entire, I have to say, props to the movie. It does not shy away from being in the horror of that vibe for the rest of the time. Up until that moment, you’re in what feels like, I don’t know, the early scenes in the movie, the materialists or something, where it’s like chill and like lots of jokes. And after that, it becomes the most drab, like Christopher Nolan colored movie, with like no release from it. Eventually they kind of stumble into some laughs, but for the most part, it’s meant to feel extremely.

 

Nina Parker They want you to feel uncomfortable.

 

Louis Virtel And also, I’m sure you’re thinking at home, well, this is interesting, Zendaya is famously a black woman. So if she committed a mass shooting, that would be somewhat memorable. But they do at the beginning of this revolution talk about how, while obviously most shooters are white men, I guess overseas there are women who have done it or something like they try to acknowledge the anomaly of it.

 

Nina Parker Every now and then it’s been a woman. I don’t think any of them have been black women though. No, right. Cause it’s just not, it’s not a thing. This is just not like I was, I was with two black women we watched this and we all looked at each other like, please. It was very pleased. It wasn’t, we didn’t give a reaction like, oh, we were like girl, please.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Nina Parker Then that’s when we sat down my friend was like what white man wrote this yeah you know because it was just an initial like it’s just like this is not black women don’t do this yeah this is just

 

Louis Virtel I almost, it reminds me a little bit of the movie Tar in that way, where it’s like the world of toxicity that she engenders or whatever. It’s like, well, this is a completely new type of woman in classical music.

 

Nina Parker And you know, I found out in the research of it that this wasn’t written for Zendaya, right? It wasn’t with her in mind. They ended up eventually casting her in this, but it wasn’t like he thought, let me put Zendaya and I’m thinking of her when I write this. And I feel like that’s pretty apparent. And also, you know there are a lot of people who are, like Zendya is often the only black woman in the cast. It was just a lot of her being surrounded by white people. And being the only black person in the cast when we see her a lot of times. And so it starts to be like, you do kind of call to that when you watch it. I think when you’re like, what is going on here? You know, like what is this centeredness happening with all of these roles that she’s being involved in that didn’t necessarily unpack enough for me to figure, to like tell a story about how this character could have got there. Because as a black woman, I’m like, This, no, this is like, you got to tell me more about how she got to this place. Cause if it was just a girl pushing her in a puddle, that’s not enough.

 

Louis Virtel Also, let’s be clear about that. The bullying she receives is like pretty standard.

 

Nina Parker And I was like, girl, this is a Friday night. Like, this was not a…

 

Louis Virtel I’ll just say reading the memoir, Brandy had it worse.

 

Nina Parker Right. I was like, where, where was the bullying? Yeah. Cause it’s not like, cause it wasn’t like she wasn’t talking shit back. So I was, like, it’s like, y’all just didn’t like each other. Yeah. So I kind of like, okay, this should have, if they wanted it to be more severe, but you know, I just, that part I just couldn’t, I could not get on board with. It was really difficult for me to make the connection between the character’s motives, because I was like, this just isn’t a thing.

 

Louis Virtel And also, I will say, even though, again, I like that the movie just leans into how horrific the vibe is, and shifts from what you think the movie is going to be, I do think the minute the revelation comes out, me as a writer, I’m thinking of what the fuck else they could have given her that would have made this movie sing a little bit more, even though again, I guess that’s not the point. I guess they want the movie to feel like a complete, like wilted, you know, death husk of a film.

 

Nina Parker You know something else black people don’t do? We don’t tell our business like that.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. I have to say, the way it came out in that conversation felt zany.

 

Nina Parker I was like, wait a minute, this is actually the reason why I really didn’t like Rachel, because the first time I disliked this character was her kind of outing her husband for the worst thing he’s ever done in front of, because this is what I say, you doing this in front a mixed company. Meaning, why are you telling our business something we’ve agreed upon, what’s she doing? So the first betrayal to her husband, I thought, the first thing I thought before she did anything to Zendaya, I was, oh, she’s gonna do this to her husbands, and she don’t give a fuck about us and that. She don’t care about this character because she doesn’t even care about her own husband. So if you don’t about him, I don’t expect you to treat this black woman with any kind of care, which she did not.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, correct. Yes, yes, yes.

 

Nina Parker I mean, she was a raging Karen, raging.

 

Louis Virtel Horns on. You know.

 

Nina Parker You know, to her husband, to Zendaya, which by the way, her husband was a weak link. Yeah, yes. Both of the husbands. Yes, right, right. You know? And I’m like, you know, beyond like what Zendaya intended to do, her character was really the only character who didn’t do anything horrible.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, well, especially eventually as the movie goes on too. Yes, right. Goes on too, yes, right.

 

Nina Parker I mean, she had a thought of something, but she didn’t actually do it, right? So I always, I’m like, Rachel, the character Rachel was the worst person in the movie. Yeah, interesting. Next to Charlie, in my opinion. This woman went on a trip into the woods and locked a disabled child into a closet and left him for dead.

 

Louis Virtel You have over- overnight.

 

Nina Parker Girl, and then when Charlie tried to bring it up and say, well, you were horrible, she goes, what, because this is the thing, Zendaya’s character, right?

 

Louis Virtel That was a good scene by the way, yeah.

 

Nina Parker Great scenes, and Deah’s character recognized what she was thinking and thinking about doing was awful, kind of repented, threw the gun in the water, joined this advocacy group, and changed behavior, right, acknowledged that this was a horrible thing. No one else in this group has taken any accountability for the horrible things they did. They all the husband that. Used his girlfriend as a shield for a dog, Charlie cyberbullied somebody until they moved, and Rachel locked a child in a van or a U-Haul or some shit and ran away. And then when the daddy came and said, where’s my baby? She didn’t know. And they said, well, what if he died? She went, I would have said some adventure, would you have? Yeah, it sounds like it wouldn’t have, yeah. So they all have these really horrible actions, but for whatever reason. Zendaya’s character was the one who got, I mean, they were all saying, like, leave her. And it also reminds me of how, like black girls are treated like adults. They’re not given the grace of, this is a child, this a minor. We even talk about Brandy, right? People are like, well, she was adult enough to sing at the Grammy stage, so she, it’s okay that she was with this 22-year-old. I often feel like young black girls aren’t given the greats, young black boys either, given the graces of just being children. They’re often regarded as adults in situations where…

 

Louis Virtel We don’t need to be traitors to the rest of us. Exactly!

 

Nina Parker Yes, exactly, and it’s like people are always kind of waiting for a gotcha. People are always waiting for the gotcha to be like, see, this is who you are. And that’s how I felt the character Rachel.

 

Louis Virtel Like them endearing us is a trick.

 

Nina Parker Yes, and I’ve dealt with Rachel, so for me, there were two things that triggered me, obviously. I realize I have a lot of PTSD with movie theaters because of shootings.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, sure, sure. Yeah.

 

Nina Parker So when I, I forget when I get into theaters, I have a little, a slight tinge, it’s not a lot, but a slight tinge of anxiety. Let somebody come in there with a backpack.

 

Louis Virtel Right, right.

 

Nina Parker Let me change the movie. Like, I still get, so I was like, oh, this theme, while I’m watching this movie, I felt really uncomfortable for real. And then I’m like, what’s happened to me before, especially like in workplaces, when I’ve been the only black woman in a workplace and had people like expect the worst out of me and have like these microaggressions thrown without seeing me as a human being and giving me the type of grace that they want for themselves. Those were very triggering things to watch on screen because I think me and my friends. We’re sitting there and we have all dealt with someone like Rachel, and it felt like a horror film at one point. I was like, this is a horror fell.

 

Louis Virtel You know, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eventually, I also think like, it’s important to say, after the revelation comes out that she was potentially a school shooter or whatever. Robert Pattinson has these visions of like, of like people fleeing the wedding, like it’s a school shooting, and there’s like blood everywhere and stuff. Okay, I do not want to see that.

 

Nina Parker It was, it was dark and then he’s like triggered at a coffee mug. Like everything was triggering him.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right, right. Which by the way. And then he eventually has an affair with a girl, who’s that actress? She was really good. She was great. Yes.

 

Nina Parker He has an affair with his coworker in the movie. And so then I’m like, so finally Charlie can relate to her only because now he has done the worst thing he’s ever done, which is cheat on his fiance. Because this game of what’s the worst thing you ever done. First of all, horrible game. Yeah. Yeah. Why would you start that? Horrible, horrible, horrible. Horrible game. Literally only.

 

Louis Virtel Literally only do it with maybe you’re unabused.

 

Nina Parker I like, there are things I probably won’t tell my husband. You know what I mean? Like I think the thought of sitting at this, this little banquet, tasting food for my wedding. And this is the game you want to play. You hate an ass bitch. Like you’re a hater. Cause you’re at, we’re planning my wedding and I’m sitting with my fiance and your husband. And you think as my girlfriend, this is a time that I need to talk about the worst thing that I’ve ever done. No girl, you don’t like me. Rachel hated her. And she hated everything about her and she couldn’t wait to make Zendaya pay for the resentment that she had for her.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Yes. Well, also, as a critic of socializing well, and my dream is to host a reality show about socializing well, that’s a game you play because you’re bored with whatever’s being said, and you would rather stir shit up and play 52 card pickup with people’s lives, then actually enjoy them.

 

Nina Parker And also she just likes to play moral police. This is someone who couldn’t wait to have it edge over because seemingly at when we meet Zendaya’s character, she’s a pretty great person.

 

Louis Virtel Unobjectionable, yeah.

 

Nina Parker And also just like easy going. She hooked Rachel up with a job.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right.

 

Nina Parker Like, she’s looking out for everybody, she-

 

Louis Virtel You’re remembering plot points I didn’t even clock, yes.

 

Nina Parker Like she’s, even when Charlie’s uncomfortable, let me play him music. So she’s giving to everybody. If you watch this whole movie, she’s given to everyone. No one’s giving anything to her. They’re taking away from her. And when the moment she needs grace, nobody gives it to her, including her fiance. And the only time that he actually feels bad is when he does something horrible. He still never really saw the grace that she was supposed to be given even in the moment. And she’s kind of like, when she did the scene where she kind of has the knife and Recoil

 

Louis Virtel Oh, yeah.

 

Nina Parker It’s like, I wouldn’t be so out the door.

 

Louis Virtel Walking into the room with a knife like this, like real Michael Myers shit.

 

Nina Parker I think because in her mind, she’s not this person. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right.

 

Nina Parker She’s like why wouldn’t I come in here to ask you a question? I’m making a smoothie

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right.

 

Nina Parker Of course, like if I was chopping up fruit and I come to ask you a question, that’s a normal thing to do is to have a knife in your hand and be like, hey, mom grabbing this. So that wasn’t unusual. It’s unusual because in your mind, you see her with an egg, hey.

 

Louis Virtel I do think their relationship is revealed to be pathetic though, because the idea that he has no clue about her troubles as a teen is pretty bizarre.

 

Nina Parker Yeah, there’s just clear, like, which is why, you know, when we see this thing that she does, which is, let’s start over, she’s, that’s still more grace, like let’s, let’ start over here. And she gives that to him twice in the movie, you’re like, hey, let start over even at the end. I was like, he does not deserve this.

 

Louis Virtel No, right. They have they eventually have these meet cute conversations, let the sort of literally starting their relationship over again. I would also say the movie ends a little bit dubiously and weakly for me. I thought it was a weak ending too. Because it gives them both or him now. That’s like a little annoying. Yeah. Yeah. I also want to say, by the way, you remember that movie after the hunt. It’s about there’s a scandal in academia and this guy gets fired and I would debris accuses him of something. And originally that was supposed to be Zendaya. And a part of me thought, oh, is this maybe that role is like too kind of crazy. In the next session. Uh… Unhinged for zendaya like you know she’s that she’s had a pretty like put together career up this point pardon me for underestimating her because this role it truly blows past that it’s a pretty provocative role for her so i was safe for her to take out

 

Nina Parker Yeah, I mean, I think, like, the underlying tones, it’s, she has to play this character that’s dealing with, and I think this is a real, this is how I feel like, initially I think you can watch this and think she played a safe character, right? Because it’s like, this a polite girl, this is someone who feels like she maybe has been betrayed by her fiance. But then you realize there’s so much, like nuance to this character and layers to where, how this character got there. And also you see, like all the people that she’s dealing with and she’s trying to take that and still be pleasant with these people. And then you’re like, oh, she’s acting, she’s really acting her ass off now. Truly. Truly.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, not a false note. I really believe the entire performance too, so good for her. Okay, now it’s your turn. What do you think of the drama and the twist therein? Was it worth it? Did it ruin your day, et cetera?

 

Nina Parker I will say it’s definitely starting, there’s more conversations after the fact for sure, which I think.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, which I and not the ones you expect to have

 

Nina Parker No, I think people, I don’t know if there’s a middle with this movie, by the way, I think you’re going to either really like it or hate it. I actually expected to not like it.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Nina Parker So I was surprised when I came out and I was like, okay, I think I like it, but ask me tomorrow.

 

Louis Virtel And also, I just want to say, when you’re criticizing this movie, think to yourself, are you actually criticizing the movie or what you thought it was based on the PR? Because I think that is two different things.

 

Nina Parker And do you think that they should have revealed some part, I mean, I guess you can’t really reveal the twist, but I will say because of the tone of the twist are people supposed to be more forewarned before they go in because it is such a sensitive subject. And I do want to say this, there have been shooting victims, parents from the Parkland shooting and that have come out and they are saying that they felt like this twist was something that people need to be, you know, warned about before they are there. This is something that they are saying. Is irresponsible to do. And I do want to say, like, you know, with this being a comedy as well, listen, I’ve had family members who have been shot, but I haven’t had family members killed in school shootings. And I think that when you’re walking in and you don’t know that, it could be really, really triggering to someone who, you know, like Rachel had somebody end up in a wheelchair. You know what I mean? Like there are things where it’s like, maybe people do need to know about this. And I that that’s something that maybe needs to be thought about in the future. But I think like right now we’re in an age where everybody’s getting triggered about a lot of things that are really real life heavy. So, you would kind of ruin the movie, but also like you might be damaging people to tell them.

 

Louis Virtel No, we live in a spoilerific universe. If you’re going to spoil anything, this is a good candidate.

 

Nina Parker Yeah, and I would know like I would tell friends, you know, like hey, there’s something there’s a tone that you kind of need to know before walking in

 

Louis Virtel That’s that. We will be right back with our favorite section of the episode. It’s Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel And we’re back with the saltiest part of the episode. It’s Keep It. Nina, what are you saying Keep It to today?

 

Nina Parker Well, initially it was going to be Kanye, but we tore that thing up.

 

Louis Virtel He doesn’t exist anymore.

 

Nina Parker We turned him every way but loose.

 

Louis Virtel He does that one song with Brent, honestly, listening to Aphrodisiac again, the thing that really took me back, the only dated thing about the album, is that Kanye West sounds like someone you might wanna hang out with.

 

Nina Parker Right, I mean, all his old music does, you know? So I had to think, you now? And I thought, you, what has been healing me has been the art-mas, too.

 

Louis Virtel Sure.

 

Nina Parker But keep Trump out of space, unless we’re leaving him.

 

Louis Virtel Oh right, which doesn’t seem to be on the table.

 

Nina Parker But I don’t think that’s an option. So keep him away from our astronauts. Keep him away them, protect them. There was like a moment when he calls, first of all, he calls them, which is like, I know when they saw that on the caller ID they wanted to just, you know, screen it so bad, but cameras were on them. Cause it’s just like, obviously they have to talk to the president. And it was such an awkward couple of minutes where they were just. You know, the Nutella’s floating by. Yeah, we don’t know, you know, we don’t what’s going on. And there’s just this awkward silence. And it’s like, all right, guess, guess I got to go. He’s bringing up Space Force, like, which I don’t even know if that’s a real thing anymore. Like, he’s talking about that’s his baby. So it was just it was very strange. Very he obviously wants to take credit for something. He had absolutely no hand in other than maybe saying, go ahead and continue it and don’t take funding away, which I think they have taken funding away from NASA. Yes. But it’s a very it was just a very strange dark shadow on otherwise very pleasant moments. I have been loving these shots of the moon and even seeing like the changes from the, have you seen the shots from 1972 of earth to what it looks like now and the changes from the atmosphere, also the backside of earth, kind of bald. Yeah, oh, quite. I have this saying where I’m like- Earth is unashamed. It’s unashame, I have the saying where the back of my head is none of my business. Whatever my hair looks back behind here, it’s not my business, that’s like earth. It was none but water.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah.

 

Nina Parker Did you see this?

 

Louis Virtel But like smooth in a cute way, like Nigel on NTM.

 

Nina Parker Yeah, I think you saw one little island and that was it. I’m like, we really are majority water in this thing, aren’t we? There’s been some beautiful shots of just the moon and then, oh my gosh, and they named a crater after the late wife. I can’t remember the actual name. Yeah, Carol. Yes, they named the crater Carol. And it was just, there’s been really great moments that I feel like we as humanity needed. And also it just makes you look at Earth kind of a different way. Like we’re really around here, like worried about who cut us off in traffic. We’re just this little blip in this otherwise massive universe that has a million other things going on. And it does really humble you to what part we play in this universe.

 

Louis Virtel It’s like, yeah, I’m stupid. What am I doing? I will say this. I will add to your keep it by saying, I don’t like when people make it feel like I have to learn about space because I’m so bad at it. I don t get it. It’s too much to know. Oh, I love it. I know the planets. Yes. Don’t talk to me about stars. Right. Don t talk about why is part of the moon. The black hole. Yeah. Yeah, that s it. You don t want to get into that. And then it turns into math, which is a trick. But then secondly, talking to Trump, can we just talk about how he s basically knows nothing, and is terrible at improv. One of them mentions being from Canada on the Artemis, and then he’s like, immediately mentions knowing Wayne Gretzky. Sad.

 

Nina Parker It’s, it’s, he is the person who’s like, I have a black friend.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right.

 

Nina Parker He’s literally that guy. Yeah. I mean, he’s such a name dropper. You would think he would stop name dropping. You name dropping in space.

 

Louis Virtel No, he has not changed at all since like the Trump Tower days, the Trump Taj Mahal days.

 

Nina Parker Like literally these people have other things to worry about than if you know Wayne Gretzky.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah. Please. And then by the way, there was literally a minute of silence where nobody spoke on the call because he couldn’t fill the time with talk, which by the, way is all he is good at. So how did he not even figure that out?

 

Nina Parker I don’t even think he knew the call was coming until a couple of minutes before. No, right. He probably thought he was going to a bathroom break and they sat him down to do something. Yeah. I mean, I feel like he’s like a cat where you got to dangle something in front of him. Yeah, right Some catnip, a ball of yarn, and he’s the same way. I mean I’m sure his attention span is very short.

 

Louis Virtel My apologies to the astronauts. I mean, among all the indignities. You’re swinging around the dark side of the moon. You don’t want to deal with.

 

Nina Parker And we’re breaking records here. It was the first woman, I believe, to ever go around the moon. And right now, they’re just doing a drive-by. They’re just doin’ a drive by on the moon, we gon’ come back. Right now, it’s just a cute little drive-bye, we just testin’ out some equipment.

 

Louis Virtel Pointing at the moon, yeah.

 

Nina Parker Point, we’re gonna, you know, get some cute photos. I mean, honestly, was this trip just for Instagram? Yeah, because y’all just went up there and took some photos.

 

Louis Virtel Are you getting back at like an ex? You know what I mean?

 

Nina Parker I saw someone. Watch me up here. Right, exactly. They just want to show what we can do. Yeah. Because we have been seeing these SpaceX rocket into, you know, they’re testing, doing a ton of testing. Yeah. You see it in LA sometimes, in the sky.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, yeah.

 

Nina Parker You know, and so I think NASA just had to let them know who the big brother was. Let me just stretch my legs. Let them know. Elon been a little quiet over there. Yeah, in his Phyllis, honey. Because all he had was Gail and Katy Perry throwing up a daisy. Yeah, right. Oh, that’s right. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now it’s a little bit different game. But I I will say the photos from this, the people, the astronauts that they picked are amazing people. The stories are amazing. They’re breaking records. And it feels like where so many branches of government are falling apart. We have something with that’s still holding up and succeeding. And I’m like, OK, at least like this one thing I can root for.

 

Louis Virtel I hope they’re like, you know, when they got the phone call from Trump, I hope at least their ringtone, if they have one, is the sound of Katy Perry and Gayle King screaming on that last craft where you hear them absolutely freak the fuck out.

 

Nina Parker I hope they block the number. Right. Don’t do that again. I would do that subtly. I’d take the…

 

Louis Virtel Well, there’s clearly nothing else to say.

 

Nina Parker Or take it to the bathroom. I want to say also, to Victor Glover, the black astronaut, I will say, this is something I’ve never seen. Okay. He was lotioning his ankles in space. Oh yeah. Let me tell you something. If this man can go to the moon and put lotion on, so can you. He was like, I know I’m in space, I will not have ashy ankles. And it’s something about being extra black, about being moisturized in space that I really aspire. I have to find it and print it and put it in my house.

 

Louis Virtel I think I have to say, I think this is a bar raising moment.

 

Nina Parker I mean, first of all, he had on no shirt either. I mean this is a married man, but he looked quite good. And he had just had on some little shorts. I was like, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an astronaut with pecs and like.

 

Louis Virtel P.S., by the way, we didn’t get any of that in Project Hail Mary. Oh, right. I can’t, we just got, we got to meet a rock crab thing, not an areola to be seen.

 

Nina Parker No, I was like, wait a minute now, we got moisture and space. I’m here for it. So I just, I just had to love that. I don’t know if it was Vaseline or whatever, but there’s a lot of sponsorships that can come out of this whole thing. I hope they know. He is the vector. Nutella, Vaseline.

 

Louis Virtel Shoot. Get going. Okay, my Keep It is far less jolly than this. Oh no. My Keep It, is to a person who, I don’t know if you know this, continues to exist, Azealia Banks. Now we have a theory here on Keep It. It’s long standing, which is that every time she is remotely funny, Rumpelstiltskin has a deal with her, where then she has to be so fucking horrible. Okay, and it has to be almost within 24 hours every single time. First of all, her Twitter is so ongoing, there’s no use getting it to most of it. Oh, she’s still using it. Right, yeah. She keeps typing and then hitting enter. I don’t know if that’s using it, but it’s happening. Right, right. Anyway, she recently tweeted this, that Doxypep shit the gays are taking is a PsiOp to create super gonorrhea, super syphilis, and super chlamydia. I didn’t know. I need to bring back Cheapie Exo because y’all really fall for every single FDA experiment. There’s a new super strain of gonorrhea going around that causes rapid onset septic shock. Here’s the thing, this person acts so familiar with gay men, and I think actually does have gay friends mind-blowingly, that you could mistake the dismissive humor as just like fruit fly behavior, Josh and Ron with the Queens. This is a homophobe. Let me just be clear. Don’t get too close. I know that the queens love saying that she’s funny. And by the way, problematic people are often funny. In fact, that’s often the reason they are funny. That said, first of all, misinformation, period. This is somebody talking about gay men’s health and health in a way that feels like she’s ever read anything about the subject before. This is straight up medical homophobia, classic medical homophobia. So one, I hate when people are just talking out their asses about something they’ll never have to deal with. And then secondly, that it’s still her. Like, can’t you just be cool for what? Why am I asking anything? No, stop talking to it like it responds.

 

Nina Parker Well, she’s a bully, you know, she is a bully and she’s also a troll, like she is. No, what is she doing with her time? Right. Well, she’s not performing. You know what I mean? And I mean, that’s the quintessential like, you don’t have nothing to do. I think it’s also like, I do think like people who don’t really have a lot of people around them don’t, you don t, you’re not getting attention in your everyday life. When she gets up, goes to the store, whatever, like, she s not super recognizable. And the little bit of celebrity that she got, she threw away. And now I think the only way that she gets attention is this. Like, even like being anti-black and fat phobic, stop working. Like people just, you know what I mean? Like she, there’s tears to this, right? And like she’s in her full Kanye right now. And this is something else I want to say, like when we talk about the cancelation, right, like she, theoretically, nobody really books her. Nobody really deals with her. Like people don’t talk to her. And I think she thinks maybe one day she can make the transition. And if she won’t be able to, cause she’s not Kanye, she’s a man. You know what I mean? And I almost think she’s resentful of that. So then in turn, I’m gonna say all of these things because I hate the circumstance I’m in. I’m just gonna keep driving the nail into the coffin. But I now I’m like, when people spout onto the world, like if Kanye, if they were just spouting on Twitter, I’d be like, whatever, I am blocking them. These people are ignorant. But it’s when they start to book things and they’re working with things and people have tickets to buy, that’s to me when it’s like, okay, we have to speak out about this. Because right now-

 

Louis Virtel The money has to be a part of the cancelation. Right, you’ve got to-

 

Nina Parker Right, you’ve got to stop the checks. These commas can’t keep coming in. And you know, she’s just, I think she, I think this woman is deranged. Like I genuinely think she’s a mental patient. Yeah, right, right. There’s just nothing I’m like, I think said one thing and I was done years ago. So I was, I can’t believe people keep giving her chances. I can believe she has friends.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right.

 

Nina Parker And then she’ll apologize. Then she’ll say, and she’ll go directly to the person and she will say, like her and Nicki Minaj, which now they’re both crazy. But then, you know, they had a beef and she said all these horrible things. She went and she apologized and they had this thing. And then the next week she was saying things again. Like, this is an unserious person and also unwell. Like this is, and I don’t want to hang it on her.

 

Louis Virtel Specifically two of those. Yeah, both of those

 

Nina Parker both of those things, but also she knows what she’s doing. Like she’s not done well enough.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, yeah, it’s provocative, nonsensy, yeah yeah.

 

Nina Parker Like a person who clearly was not mentally well come up to you aggressively and start just talking and saying things like aggressive and you get aggressive back and they back off.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, interesting.

 

Nina Parker And I say, you’re not that crazy. Oh yeah, right, right. You know not to play this game.

 

Louis Virtel Well, interesting, because I think I can think of a lot of people who socially, um, they begin with nagging. That’s their way into a conversation. And I will never take that bait. It’s just so boring. I don’t want to do it.

 

Nina Parker It’s just so, you know, I always say like when someone, like there actually last week, there was someone who like came in my DMs and he was like, yeah, you called me the N-word. And you know Matt, that I said something about Nick Cannon. So he called me to N-Word. And I thought, this is so unoriginal.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, no.

 

Nina Parker First of all, I’ve been black 46 years.

 

Louis Virtel Right, this is the angle you picked?

 

Nina Parker You already think I ain’t heard that before, baby. Come with something more original. I actually said that. And he, and then he called me fat. He was like, you’re fat B. And I said- Did you not hear me? And then I said, you mean that B. And then he blocked me. Because I mean, it’s like, these are people who think like, I think when they don’t get the, like you don’t offend you, then it’s like they lose all their sale, the sale, the win in their sales because it’s like.

 

Louis Virtel Just like any bully, by the way.

 

Nina Parker Right they just want the shock value and when you don’t give it to them but i do think like the best thing you can do is pay these people dust but i think there is a irkable part of the things that they say that want the reaction and it is a fight not to give it to them yeah and that’s why i’ve decided i’m no longer reacting to no i can’t say that

 

Louis Virtel I’ll be cussing somebody out next week. I love approaching a moment of Gandhi-like dignity and things like, I’ll back out there.

 

Nina Parker I’ll cut somebody out by tonight, so I’m not even going to say that, no, I’m getting irritated. But I will say I won’t do it online. Like if I’m-

 

Louis Virtel If I’m frustrated. Oh, sure. Online is like the Wild Wild West. Why mix it up? I’m blown away by the amount of people I know who go in like the deep realms of like TikTok comments and respond to people. Yeah. You can’t.

 

Nina Parker Respond to people. Yeah, you can’t you can get into the weeds. They’re four years old. Four years old, I am always like, I on a platform, I’ll talk about it and discuss it and debate on in person. I’m happy to do that. But I’m not getting into a back and forth with somebody with no profile picture.

 

Louis Virtel Oh no.

 

Nina Parker Who, you know what I mean? It’s typing from their grandmama’s basement, and you know, eating her casserole. And there’s like nine numbers in there. Yeah, yeah, or you know and I check the profile and it’s like you’ve changed your username 13 times. Yeah. Like, I’m the first person you talk to today, babes.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah

 

Nina Parker Like, you know, a lot of these people, you exist in their world, they don’t exist in yours.

 

Louis Virtel Certainly, yeah.

 

Nina Parker And that’s how I start to look at things when it’s somebody like Azalea Banks, where you’re just like, she just wants to exist in everybody’s world and she’s pissed that she can’t.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right. Well, beautifully said. Nina, let’s say I’m looking for you on social media, but I’m confused. Where would I go?

 

Nina Parker Go to atnickcantner.com. Yeah. You better not.

 

Louis Virtel You better not.

 

Nina Parker The Nina Parker on all platforms.

 

Louis Virtel I have followed all of them. They are all equally lovely. That is our show. Thank you again to Nina for being here as always, and we’ll see you next week on Keep It. And 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. Keep It is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Bill McGrath, and our executive producers are Louis Virtel, Ira Madison III, and Kendra James. Our digital team is Delon Villanueva, Claudia Sheng, Rachel Gaewski, and Jay Banks. Thank you to David Toles and Charlotte Landes for production support every week. Our head of production is Matt DeGroot. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.