Hollywood Remixed

In honor of Dear White People, whose fourth and final season is now available on Netflix, star Logan Browning joins the show (35:05) to talk about how the series has represented a diverse range of perspectives and backgrounds among its student body, and also to share a little bit about her own college journey. THR culture writer Evan Nicole Brown also joins to add more dimension to the discussion about college experiences for Black students and to accompany host Rebecca Sun on a campus tour through Hollywood's history of Black-centered college movies and TV shows. ”Hollywood Remixed” is a topical, diversity-focused podcast from The Hollywood Reporter, hosted by Rebecca Sun. Each episode will be dedicated to a single theme – a type of character or story that has been traditionally underrepresented or misrepresented in pop culture – and feature an expert co-host as well as a special guest whose latest work exemplifies a new breakthrough in representation. We’ll revisit groundbreaking classics and introduce listeners to hidden gems, in order to better understand how film and television in the past has shaped progress in the present. Hosted by: Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we're discussing undocumented immigrant narratives with two very special guests. Pulitzer-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, the founder of the media advocacy nonprofit Define American, joins us as the ideal expert who can speak both to the experience of living in this country without documentation as well as to the significance of media representation on this issue. Then, Blue Bayou director and star Justin Chon (41:30) comes on the show to talk about his new film, which tells the story of a Louisiana man who discovers that when he was adopted from as an infant, his new family never filed the proper paperwork to get him naturalized. Now married with a baby on the way, he faces deportation to a country that is foreign to him – and more importantly, away from the only home he has ever known. ”Hollywood Remixed” is a topical, diversity-focused podcast from The Hollywood Reporter, hosted by Rebecca Sun. Each episode will be dedicated to a single theme – a type of character or story that has been traditionally underrepresented or misrepresented in pop culture – and feature an expert co-host as well as a special guest whose latest work exemplifies a new breakthrough in representation. We’ll revisit groundbreaking classics and introduce listeners to hidden gems, in order to better understand how film and television in the past has shaped progress in the present. Hosted by: Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we'll be learning about non-binary gender identity and exploring how film and TV represent characters that are neither exclusively male or female. This episode is inspired by Billions star Asia Kate Dillon, who will join us in the latter half of the show (57:23) to talk about their groundbreaking character, how they approach their roles and why acting awards categories should be gender-neutral. THR associate editor Abbey White serves as this week's guest expert to share what non-binary representation has meant to their own identity formation and to teach us about the genres that – perhaps surprisingly – have done pretty well with gender non-conforming inclusion. ”Hollywood Remixed” is a topical, diversity-focused podcast from The Hollywood Reporter, hosted by Rebecca Sun. Each episode will be dedicated to a single theme – a type of character or story that has been traditionally underrepresented or misrepresented in pop culture – and feature an expert co-host as well as a special guest whose latest work exemplifies a new breakthrough in representation. We’ll revisit groundbreaking classics and introduce listeners to hidden gems, in order to better understand how film and television in the past has shaped progress in the present. Hosted by: Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's theme is a special twofer: We're tackling the martial artist stereotype, and its close relationship to portrayals of Asian masculinity in Western pop culture. Our special guest is none other than Simu Liu (48:33), star of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, out exclusively in theaters on Sept. 3. To kick off this episode, I've invited my friend Keith Chow, editor-in-chief of the pop culture blog The Nerds of Color, to talk about how the pervasive martial artist trope has affected Asians growing up in America in real life, and also to discuss how Hollywood's martial arts projects have employed Asian and Asian American performers from narratives inspired by their own cultures of origin. ”Hollywood Remixed” is a topical, diversity-focused podcast from The Hollywood Reporter, hosted by Rebecca Sun. Each episode will be dedicated to a single theme – a type of character or story that has been traditionally underrepresented or misrepresented in pop culture – and feature an expert co-host as well as a special guest whose latest work exemplifies a new breakthrough in representation. We’ll revisit groundbreaking classics and introduce listeners to hidden gems, in order to better understand how film and television in the past has shaped progress in the present. Hosted by: Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Candyman star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II joins the show (47:34) to discuss how the franchise’s first all-Black creative team updated the horror classic to tell stories about how American society makes monsters of Black men and other truths about the structural violence of gentrification. THR contributor Richard Newby also joins Hollywood Remixed to walk us through the history and tropes pertaining to Black representation in the horror genre. ”Hollywood Remixed” is a topical, diversity-focused podcast from The Hollywood Reporter, hosted by Rebecca Sun. Each episode will be dedicated to a single theme – a type of character or story that has been traditionally underrepresented or misrepresented in pop culture – and feature an expert co-host as well as a special guest whose latest work exemplifies a new breakthrough in representation. We’ll revisit groundbreaking classics and introduce listeners to hidden gems, in order to better understand how film and television in the past has shaped progress in the present. Hosted by: Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the second season premiere, “Amplifying Deaf Representation,” Marlee Matlin joins the show (1:01:13) to share about her unparalleled career as a deaf actor, from her Oscar-winning screen debut in 1986’s Children of a Lesser God to her latest performance as the mother of a hearing daughter in writer-director Sian Heder’s family drama CODA, which was released on Apple TV+ on Aug. 13. Deaf producer and film executive Delbert Whetter also joins Hollywood Remixed to explain how authentic portrayals of deaf characters enhance storytelling and simplify the filmmaking process, as well as to shed some light on some of the cultural nuances and differences among people who are deaf. ”Hollywood Remixed” is a topical, diversity-focused podcast from The Hollywood Reporter, hosted by Rebecca Sun. Each episode will be dedicated to a single theme – a type of character or story that has been traditionally underrepresented or misrepresented in pop culture – and feature an expert co-host as well as a special guest whose latest work exemplifies a new breakthrough in representation. We’ll revisit groundbreaking classics and introduce listeners to hidden gems, in order to better understand how film and television in the past has shaped progress in the present. Hosted by: Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the first season finale of Hollywood Remixed, the Rebeccas turn the spotlight on the most disproportionately underrepresented onscreen demographic: Latinas. While they constitute about 20 percent of American women in real life, on television they represent 7 percent of women with dialogue (and just 2.8 percent of speaking characters overall). Film hasn't fared much better – two-thirds of the 1,200 highest-grossing movies from the past dozen years were entirely devoid of Latina characters. Fortunately, peak TV has yielded not just more Latinas on the small screen, but a more heterogenous array of them. In honor of our episode guest, Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Stephanie Beatriz, we run down the growing group of queer Latinas on television, and Beatriz discusses the responsibility she feels to represent the intersection of two communities. Hosted by: Rebecca Ford and Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst and Joshua Farnham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Onscreen, outer space is often packed with imaginative characters that come in literally all colors – but how does real-life racial diversity factor into these stories? In the seventh episode of Hollywood Remixed, the Rebeccas explore the way sci-fi has dealt with race, from actors of color being caricatured or tokenized in supporting roles to the genre's frequent use of allegories to depict racial intolerance. They'll also discuss the two biggest space franchises - Star Trek and Star Wars - and their inclusion of characters of color before sitting down with The Rise of Skywalker's John Boyega to talk about his journey to playing the ex-stormtrooper Finn and how he's handled social media as one of the major characters of color in Hollywood's biggest and most enduring franchise. Disclaimer: We apologize for the bad audio during the Boyega interview, but we had some technical difficulties that resulted in unfavorable audio. Hosted by: Rebecca Ford and Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst and Joshua Farnham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a year that has seen critical acclaim for the coming-of-age film The Peanut Butter Falcon, starring former Special Olympics athlete Zack Gottsagen, Hollywood is learning that there is a place in the industry for people living with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This hasn't always been the case – although the CDC estimates that more than 250,000 Americans have Down Syndrome, only 1.6 percent of all speaking characters in 2018's top 100 movies evinced any sort of disability. Tropic Thunder parodied the practice of actors "going full R-word," an unfortunate Hollywood tradition that has included several Oscar winners. The Rebeccas trace the industry's history of portraying characters with IDD (which, to be fair, does include highlights such as Chris Burke's authentic Golden Globe-nominated performance in the early '90s family drama Life Goes On) and sit down with Rachel Osterbach and her mother Laurie, two of the stars of A&E's Emmy-winning docuseries Born This Way, which follows seven adults with Down Syndrome, and the show's executive producer Jon Murray. Hosted by: Rebecca Ford and Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst and Joshua Farnham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lesbian representation on television has come a long way since TV’s first same-sex kiss between two women, on a 1991 episode of NBC’s L.A. Law. Just look at Ellen DeGeneres in 1997, whose simultaneous sitcom and real-life coming-out made headlines around the globe (including the cover of Time magazine), and Ellen in 2019, TV’s ruling daytime queen and go-to host for feel-good, family-friendly programming. In the intervening decades, depictions of female-female attraction and intimacy ranged from coy (Friends’ Carol and Susan have a wedding -- but don’t kiss) to ratings stunts (“The One with Rachel’s Big Kiss” is an actual episode title). In 2004, Showtime premiered the first television series centering on an ensemble of gay women. It was a landmark show but like any trailblazer, an imperfect one that often cracked under the burden of authentically representing a diverse and marginalized community. Fifteen years later, the L Word is back, and the Rebeccas chat with its new showrunner, Marja-Lewis Ryan, on how the Generation Q revival builds upon (and in some cases, rectifies) the legacy of its predecessor. Hosted by: Rebecca Ford and Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst and Joshua Farnham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Strippers and exotic dancers have been a rite of passage on many a major actress' filmography, from Joanne Woodward (in 1963's The Stripper) to Jennifer Aniston (in 2013's We're the Millers). But most of these portrayals tend to depict the profession as a last resort for desperate women – or simply an excuse to ogle a movie star in compromising positions. Films centered on the world of female strippers tend to fall more in the camp rather than the awards crowd (unless you're talking about Showgirls and Striptease vying for the Razzies' Worst Picture of the Decade), with the exception of the latest entry in the canon – STX's true-crime pic Hustlers. The Rebeccas talk to its director, Lorene Scafaria – incidentally, one of the few women to helm a movie in the genre – about her research into the industry and how she filmed awards-contender Jennifer Lopez through the female gaze. Hosted by: Rebecca Ford and Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst and Joshua Farnham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pop culture has traditionally not been kind to nerds in general – they're usually the butt of the joke, considered romantically undesirable and portrayed as social misfits. And black nerds – both onscreen and in real life – often contend with an additional misperception: the insinuation or accusation that, by dint of their interests, hobbies or academic achievements, they are "acting white" and not being true to their race (see: Fresh Prince's Carlton vs. Will, Andre's fears about his son Junior in Black-ish's premise). The Rebeccas explore the history of Hollywood's most famous blerds and then talk to The Good Place star William Jackson Harper about what it means to be authentically black, authentically nerdy – and also authentically a romantic lead – all at once. Hosted by: Rebecca Ford and Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst and Joshua Farnham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While the news media has created a narrative that often characterizes black men as absentee or deadbeat from the household (statistics dispute this narrative), film and television have, over the years, created many memorable — and very present — father figures. In this week's episode, The Rebeccas will revisit some of the best African American fathers onscreen, from those brought to life as part of the Norman Lear universe (James Evans Sr, George Jefferson) to protective, street-smart pops like Furious Styles to the '90s TV dads like Carl Winslow and (father figure) Uncle Phil. Then, Sterling K. Brown, known for playing Randall Pearson on This is Us, will join the Rebeccas to talk about how being a father himself has influenced his work, his priorities when bringing Randall to life and his new film, Waves, in which he plays a very different type of father figure. ”Hollywood Remixed” is a topical, diversity-focused podcast from The Hollywood Reporter, hosted by Rebecca Sun and Rebecca Ford. Each episode will be dedicated to a single theme – a type of character or story that has been traditionally underrepresented or misrepresented in pop culture – and feature a special guest whose latest work exemplifies a new breakthrough in representation. We’ll revisit groundbreaking classics and introduce listeners to hidden gems, in order to better understand how film and television in the past has shaped progress in the present. Hosted by: Rebecca Ford and Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst and Joshua Farnham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Although Asian men have existed in Western cinema since Sessue Hayakawa in the silent era, they have often been maligned as geeks, Fu Manchus – and sometimes annoying neighbors in yellowface. The Rebeccas trace the lineage of Asian male actors in Hollywood, from Bruce Lee’s enduring (and even posthumous) struggle to be taken seriously as a leading man to the long-awaited present era, where Asian men are finally breaking through as romantic leads and even superheroes. “Last Christmas” star Henry Golding joins us to share his own journey of becoming an Asian leading man and the responsibilities that entails. Hosted by: Rebecca Ford and Rebecca Sun Produced by: Matthew Whitehurst and Joshua Farnham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices