- Ska is a stain on our culture, a memory.
- I'll leave the room when it's playing in a movie
and just like, I'll be back when actual music is playing.
(laughing)
- Hey, welcome to Black Film School, a video series
where we talk about Hollywood classics
and then offer up lesser known films for the cannon.
(soft bouncy music)
- Hey guys, today, we're gonna be talking
about coming of age films.
So first things first
if you have not seen Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.
or Clueless, you need to stop the video now, go watch it,
come back, we'll still be here.
(soft bouncy music)
- Clueless.
It's just a classic 90s coming of age film.
It starts Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz,
who is a very well off white 16 year old
who is just navigating adolescence
and also helping a new student played by Brittany Murphy,
RIP, to kind of fit in and find their place in the world.
- Tai, - [Tai] What's up?
- Did you get your report card?
- [Tai] Yeah, on a toast.
How'd you do?
- I totally choked.
My father's going to go ballistic on me.
- Clueless is maybe one of
the most important American teen films we have.
And I think part of it is that it really captured
the zeitgeists at that time.
It's quintessential 90s, the fashion,
the way that everybody's talking, even the music.
And there's also the fact that Clueless was in a time where
teen movies were fun.
Then somewhere around like the mid 2000s
they got like very dark and very serious.
So it's just a good time.
Do you miss movies like this?
The kind of poppy and fun coming of age films?
- Well, not just poppy and fun, but I like this specific
combination of poppy, fun and just smart.
And it's not looking down at its characters
which are all mainly girls?
And I think the thing, especially with it's fashion
it's like when I watch Clueless, it doesn't actually
bring me back to the 90s.
It brings me back to me in the 90s watching Clueless
because it was like just over the top, like Dion's hats.
Like no one was wearing Dion's hats.
You know what I mean?
It was just like a little bit extra.
And I think, especially now, when we look back at things
with a kind of nostalgic worldview,
we liked that little bit of extra.
(upbeat music)
- As a Jamaican person, I find Ska personally offensive.
I'll leave the room when it's playing in a movie
and just like, I'll be back when actual music is playing.
(laughing)
So if you like the fashion and the parties
and all of the cool teen speak in Clueless
then you might also like Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.
which is a film from 1992 directed by Leslie Harris.
- Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. is a beautifully
made debut feature film based in Brooklyn, New York.
It's about a young teenager who is navigating high school
with plants graduating early and to go
off to medical school to become a doctor
until a wrench is thrown into her plants.
And it's a fantastic, fantastic coming of age.
- Yeah. People to date blog.
The other day, I was
on the number two trail with my friends.
Just bugging out, having a good time.
I'm able to start staring at us
like some sort of street girls with no future.
Yeah. When I love my friends
I act like it don't matter because it's don't
- I love this movie.
It'll say every scene has a pulse
and there's like a very specific pulse whenever
she's breaking the fourth wall.
So real and so raw.
I love it.
- All of her clothes, her clothes, like every scene
I'm just obsessed with her clothes.
I was pausing from scene
to scene watching it just like, what is that?
Where did she get it?
Can I wear that now?
- I always get A's and B's in all my classes.
I'm the best student in my calc class.
- I also love how like really just at the outset
she's subverting those tropes of what it means to
be intelligent or what it means to, you know, be a part
of pop culture.
You can do both.
Like when I was growing, I was like, either you dress
like this, or you're a book nerd and she's clearly both
you know what I mean?
She's very popular, charismatic, and she's very smart.
And I, and I feel like just
at the outset setting, that tone was like really strong.
- One of my favorite things that it does
especially at the time that it came out was
like positioning her as the center of the story world
and like enacting the store world when it's like
when you look at other movies
and you look for black girls or women who are like
not just aligned in terms of race and gender
but just like class and respectability, like they're always
like the villains or at least the foils, you know
like I'm thinking of like save the last dance has
both a villain and a foil that are like, kind
of unrespectable and live at that kind of class positioning.
And it's like, well, now we get, it's just about her.
She's a star, you know
- We've been talking, this map is geographically, correct.
Well...
(shakes head)
It's not.
Now you see this map over here on my left.
This map is a geographically correct map.
- Where did you get your information?
I mean, your information can't possibly be correct.
- I wrote to a Dr. Margaret Scott.
She has a PhD in geographical research. She's willing
to come to the class if you want.
- Continue Chantel.
- Thank you.
(clapping)
- You know what?
Yeah, that was, that was dope.
- I love this scene.
I love it so much.
I love that the teacher has to concede to her.
So scrumptious so satisfying.
I love the way that she says people of color.
I love how she says people of color.
I love, I like that's how I want to say it from now.
Sometimes it feels
like such a corny thing to say people of color.
And it's like, no, she made it cool.
- These are definitely more in line
with the experiences that I had.
Like, I went to a predominantly black high school
and our teachers were using textbooks
as tools to then point out hypocrisy in the
in the textbooks and then relate them to what the truth was.
And so movies like these
I instantly connected to those moments.
You know what I mean?
Just because this is what education was like
for myself and other black people that I grew up around.
- Where did you get them tanks, bro?
- Ty gave 'em to me.
- Oh my god, girl.
(girls screaming)
- Here's your receipt, Miss.
Thank you very much and have a nice day.
- Damn.
We spent $500 already?
- Get out of here.
I thought we'd have got more stuff than this now.
- Word. But that's all right girl.
We're gonna be looking fierce tomorrow.
- It's girls having fun.
Like you never see black teenage girls having fun
on the screen.
I mean maybe now, but not really.
In 92, you know, it's like, it kind of stops
at like little black girls where it's
like a modicum of innocence could be bestowed
upon them by like a white audience
but you never see black teenage girls
especially black teenage girls from the hood.
Just having fun.
It's so cute.
So this scene is like very anxiety inducing
like uncut gems level.
Oh no.
Because her boyfriend gives her this $500 for an abortion.
And then she takes the money.
And instead of getting the abortion
she goes on a shopping spree with her friends.
And I was thinking the entire time.
But what if she decides later
that she wants the abortion and she doesn't have the money?
I like that.
They're having a good time.
I'm still anxious though.
Like the montage is trying to call me you
but deep down, you're like
- Yeah, I was just going to say that.
I thought this was a masterclass intention building
and juxtaposing tone.
Ms. Harris did a beautiful job of establishing some really
really strong steaks and then showing and the next scene
two young women having a great time.
But as they're doing that, man, I'm really stressed
out because I know, you know, once this good time is
over what price that you're going to pay for them.
No. The first thing I thought about when I saw the scene was
that she made this movie for a hundred thousand dollars.
How in the world does she make shoot?
This it's incredible.
What she's able to pull off with such a small budget.
- It's so good.
Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. is very
very unique in how stylish it is and how black it is.
And the only thing that I can really compare it to is
like Mary J Blige videos and stuff like that.
Yes. I also love the scene
especially because it's like as okay.
And watching that, there's just a lot
of straight energy that I don't like in this film
but I love the scene
because finally all the men are leaving her alone
and there's like the one on the side
like just trying to get a glimpse.
Like, you'd be lucky
if he saw what was happening in this dance circle right now.
- Chantel. - You in trouble now.
- What?
- Don't you ever do that again.
- It was so interesting because most of the coming
of age films I watched growing up were about wait boys.
And I always felt like they would always like get
away with these things that I would never get away with.
So watching, coming of age films
about black girls is just completely different.
And even like watching a black girl deal with her body
like that was my big thing.
When I was a teen, I didn't know how to dress myself.
I didn't know that I was like cute
because I kept on wearing these clothes that like I saw
like the preppy kids wear or whatever.
And it just like didn't feel right.
And I didn't know what to wear.
I was just like confused.
And like, I feel like if I had seen Justin IRT
I'd be like, okay, I could dress like this.
I could do this.
I could play around with this.
And I think when you're young and you're a black girl
it's important to know what your options are
and the kind of different person that you can be.
Totally, totally, totally.
Kevin, do you think that Cher
and Shantelle would be friends?
- Absolutely not.
I don't, I don't think
that Shantelle would give her the time of day
- Which I think is kind of funny because even
though they're like in terms of identity, they're completely
different in terms of how the world treats them
and enact harm on them and an, or an ex privilege on them.
It's completely different, but they do have
some similarities.
Like they love the pushing back at the teachers being
charismatic almost to the point of like putting on a show
just because that's, you know, what you do for your friends
things like that.
There are some like similarities I can see between them
but it certainly wouldn't lead me to think
that they would be compatible.
And yeah, I was thinking about that when I was watching just
another girl on the IRT, how they like share, I don't
it's not like a huge plot point, but share actually
makes really good grades.
So they do have that in common where they're
like high achievers, but the bar is different for both
of them.
And the way they're treated, it's like when Cher pushes back
at her teacher, it's like, but then when Shantelle
pushes back, they're like, well, you're going to
get suspended or expelled.
It's like comparing the two movies just shows you
like being a black girl and being a white girl
obviously just completely different experiences
no matter the similarities
in terms of like action or personality or whatever
It is absolutely cannon
not just in like black women cinema
which is where we so often see this film in terms
of like programming, but just black cinema in general.
It's so it's so, so important.
It's so important.
- No, I agree.
Just from like purely a filmmaking perspective
here's a woman who scraped together a hundred
thousand dollars and made an incredible movie.
And it's not regarded in the same way that, well
let's say clerks, or she's got to have it, or, you know
any other film that came out in the early nineties
or late eighties from filmmakers who scraped together money
and made an indie film.
And this was a brilliant example
because it was not as confined as those other films are.
The world was much bigger, a much more expensive
and she pulled it off in a really brilliant way.
And I think people really need to use this
as a masterclass of how to, you know
make a very good debut feature film that's reflective
of your voice and your world with limited resources.
So 100% everybody put this film and your Canon, please.
- Thank you for watching black film school.
Join us next time.
We'll be talking about more Hollywood classics
and different films to add to the Canon.