(upbeat music)
- Hallo hallo.
I'm Elamin Abdelmahmoud.
And this is the first official episode of Pop Chat.
And on today's show,
the Kardashians are finally pulling the plug
on their reality show.
And you know what,
love them or hate them,
they've left a permanent mark on pop culture.
Plus, the Oscars have announced these new diversity rules
and also the Emmy's are this weekend.
And we are asking,
Do you care?
Do award shows still matter?
Also we unpack the controversy around Netflix's new movie,
Cuties.
Okay if you'll talk a little bit about
the controversy surrounding the new Netflix movie
Cuties.
Everyone from US Senator Ted Cruz
to the new leader of the opposition here in Canada,
Erin O'Toole.
They've been tweeting about it.
So what is going on?
Is it exploitation?
Amil I'm gonna start with you.
Why are people upset about this movie?
- Yeah, God and they really are.
The ones that are upset are very upset.
So basically back in August,
Netflix started putting out some promotional material
for a new film that they'd acquired,
a French film called Cuties.
And in the traditional kind of Netflix style
it was quite without context
and it was a pretty provocative photo of very young girls.
And it set people crazy.
In this kind of like climate that we're in
where QAnon has really infiltrated
corners of the mainstream.
It was like,
it was like bait.
And so people have been calling to cancel Netflix.
The movie hadn't even premiered yet,
no one had any idea what it was about.
But it turns out that the movie is exactly
what people are really against.
It is about the dangers of hypersexualizing young girls.
So the film is about
an 11 year old Senegalese girl in Paris who
is sort of trying to escape the oppression of her home life
by joining a dance crew.
And the movie sets out to portray
some of the things that young girls experience now.
- Elamin it's such an easy target to
drum up favor from these French groups
that have such a loud voice.
The controversy noted that the film.
The controversy speaks so directly to these QAnon extremists
to this sort of pedophilia panic
that is not actually rooted in
the reality of this horrible thing that's happening,
everywhere pedophilia is a real issue
but these sort of false controversies
aren't addressing that.
They're addressing these ridiculous hoaxes
and making a mountain out of this molehill which is,
just a small international film
was actually commenting on it.
- 14 years and 20 seasons after
Keeping Up With The Kardashians first aired,
the show is now coming to an end.
And boy what a ride it's been the Kardashians
you could reasonably say are
leaving behind the landscape that is changed
because of them.
There's a lot to dig into here.
So Shireen,
be real with me.
How did you feel when you first heard
that the show was ending?
- I was very interested in what they're gonna do next.
Like this isn't the end of us seeing the Kardashians?
I mean, I think business model wise,
influencer wise.
I think Kim Kardashian was one of the first huge influencers
in that celebrity sphere,
who wasn't necessarily an actress or an athlete
or didn't have this celebrity around her
but she was just famous for being famous as it went.
And the porn,
obviously the tape that was released.
However, I have like maybe not a popular opinion about this.
I mean I think Chris Kardashian is a brilliant
business strategist.
She should be teaching at like Harvard Business School.
I was thinking about this.
I have children that I could exploit also.
And like if I could get a model for how to do that
and like live that money and I mean yes,
there's a lot of things we can talk about.
Anti blackness,
cultural appropriation,
theft from new small designers and whatnot
and exploitation of labor in different places
to make their products.
This list goes on and on but
I think my biggest thing is they've made me think.
This family as a whole
made me think about the levels of criticism
and why we focused on women as opposed to men.
Like I think there's an unfair treatment here.
So there's a lot going through my head.
I have a lot of thoughts on this family.
Weirdly.
- No I love that.
So with all these big changes afoot,
we thought we should talk about award shows
and if anybody still cares.
But first,
Kevin can you explain to me
the new diversity inclusion rules that the Oscars announced?
- I can try because they're so odd and confusing that,
that they're giving themselves four years
to put them in place.
But basically broadly speaking they created
four buckets of standards
that in order to be qualified for best picture,
a film will have to meet.
And they include
the diversity in the actors who are on camera,
diversity in character and storylines,
diversity of the people behind the camera.
On the one hand when you look at every measure,
just down the whole list you're like,
Oh my God.
This is such a wild push towards diversity
and a major,
major major important hoop
that they're making these people jump through
in order to make the academy more inclusive.
But then there are people who
have gone back over the last two decades at least.
And seeing that,
every Best Picture nominee that there has been,
already meets these standards.
So it's basically just the academy saying,
hey everyone,
we're thinking about diversity
and we want you to think about it too.
However, as long as business keeps operating as usual
nothing is really gonna change.
- I'll tell you which movie for sure
meets those qualifications is Green Book Amil.
- Haha, I knew it.
I said is he gonna bring up Green Book?
- Oh yeah I'm.
Yeah, Best Picture winner and delight to crowds everywhere.
Green Book.
Here is the thing.
I'm curious if you think these rules
will actually end up achieving anything?
- I don't think so not certainly not in the short term
because you could conceivably like you just said Green Book.
You can have a film that meets two of the criteria
but still have a completely all white crew.
You can have all,
still have white directors white producers.
I just don't think that they go far enough.
- Will Carole Baskin add Emmy nominated actress
to her profile?
- She's on Dancing With The Stars
which is I think a rite of passage for like anyone
according to Amil's list.
Like Lisa Rena was also there.
So I think there's Amil way to get through
and it gets reality TV even Dancing With The Stars
and maybe.
My only focus.
And I don't usually go hard line
cause I appreciate television a lot.
Is if Schitt's Creek doesn't win everything,
I want the US-Canada border permanently closed.
But I loved that show
and I am just Scott will better sleep.
Otherwise we don't wanna have another war vetting for
on our hands.
- So that's it for the show.
Make sure you follow us on Twitter
@popchatcbc.
Thank you so much for the panelists,
Kevin Fallon,
Amil Niazi,
Shireen Ahmed.
Thank you so much for joining today.
I'm your host Elamin Abdelmahmoud.
See you back here next week.