Amena Brown:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to a new episode of HER with Amena Brown and last episode I was talking to y'all about one of my favorite books turned to a movie The Godfather, and another book turned to movie that is a favorite of mine is Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale. So let us dive in. How did I discover Waiting to Exhale? I feel I discovered this as many Black women of my same age in the early 40s discovered this. Because our mothers or aunts or some woman older than us who was an adult at the time was reading these books. I feel like there are women of a certain age that really, really loved and felt so seen by Terry McMillan's books. There was a time in the 90s where it was like you go to a Black woman's house, it's an Essence, it's an Ebony, it's a Jet. It's one or two copies of various sundry books that Terry McMillan has written.
So I encountered the story of Waiting to Exhale through the book first because my mom as I have said here on this podcast, my mom is a person who loves to read. We always had different books just laying around the house or books on her wall unit, I think it was called. It wasn't a bookshelf, it was a wall unit made of bamboo actually. If somebody had that wall unit today, people would pay a lot of money probably for something that happened to feel like anyone in the 80s or 90s could have had this thing in their house. But now you would pay a lot of money for that thing, right? So there were certain books that had always been on my mom's bookshelves, right? My mom had copies of Toni Morrison's earlier books. She had copies of Tar Baby and copies of Beloved, she also had copies of some of Alice Walker's earlier books, The Temple of My Familiar and maybe The Color Purple. I'm trying to remember, I don't think my mom had a copy of The Color Purple.
I think it was the Temple of My Familiar that I remember, I read The Color Purple young but I don't remember. I think the first Alice Walker book I remember seeing was the Temple of My Familiar. So there were some books that I just remember seeing on my mom's bookshelf all the time as a child and then there were the new books that sort of entered the house and that is how I encountered Waiting to Exhale. I really can't remember if it was a book that I was sneaking to read or if my mom let me read it. I don't remember those parts. Either way I remember reading it and thinking to myself ooh. I just remember thinking this sound like this is some grown people stuff. But it was so fascinating because a lot of the earlier books that I was reading written by black authors were either written in a different time. They weren't written in what would've been considered like contemporary or modern times, or the writer may have been writing this book in the 80s or 90s but the book wasn't set in the present day or in current times.
So Waiting to Exhale was also probably one of the first adult novels that I read that was set in the present day and that was really, really interesting to see the perspectives of these adult Black women especially as a teenager reading this. But I feel like I fall in the category of a lot of Black people of a certain age that encountered this book. If this was your first time being like, "Ooh, she writing about sex scenes, it's nasty but I'm going to keep reading it." Those vibes. That was my first encounter with Waiting to Exhale. Then some years later Waiting to Exhale came out as a movie and I knew that I wanted to discuss this with y'all and then I thought to myself, I haven't actually watched this movie all the way through in a while. So my sister came over, shout out to my sister Makeda that you have met here on the podcast before for my longtime listeners and I text her, it was Friday night and I was like, "Hey, are you busy?"
And she was like, "No, why? What are you doing?" I was like, "Was just going to see if you wanted to come over and maybe watch Waiting to Exhale with me and we could eat some snacks." And she was like, "Yes, definitely want to do that." So I went and ran my little errands, got our little snacks as we do in HER living room. I did that in my living room at home as well and sort of built myself what I have to say is probably something like a charcuterie board. I felt very proud of it. I mean it was blackberries and I've also gained some additional dishes that seem to be important to a charcuterie board. So I have a couple of boards, one that's wooden and another one that is made of some other material that I can't remember now. But it's very heavy, right? Charcuterie boards tend to be heavy like that, and I have also acquired some white little small square shaped containers and that turned out to be a perfect place to put some mixed nuts or to put a jam. Right? I had my little crackers out.
I will tell you, I didn't quite go all the way to where I could have regarding the charcuterie meats. I was standing there, I went to Whole Foods and I was standing there looking at some amazing prosciutto and I don't know if I've talked about prosciutto on here. I really love prosciutto y'all, I also love my husband and it would be difficult for me if prosciutto were a man. You know what I mean? It would be difficult. I feel like maybe Matt and I would have to have some sort of a conversation about my additional love for prosciutto. I did not go all the way there, I just really got into some deli meats. It was sort of an upgraded Lunchable situation because some people who are charcuterie haters and yes this is a thing. Some people who are charcuterie haters are like, "Oh, a lot of people eat charcuterie, it's just a Lunchable." That's actually not true because I feel an upgraded charcuterie board. You're not just talking about the type of ham and cheese that you would just put on your basic sandwich, you are talking about some prosciutto.
You're talking about things that you buy from the deli that say jamon, you're talking about this type of vibe. I didn't go there y'all. I didn't go there, I decided to stick to the rivers and lakes that I was used to. So I already had some very nice smoked turkey meat from the deli. So I decided to just get a little bit of ham, because I like to eat swine for special occasions and I had some blackberries. I had the mixed nuts, I had the whole grain crackers, the stone ground wheat crackers. Then just because I'm making my own charcuterie board and no one can tell me what to do, I also purchased some guacamole because why wouldn't I do that? And purchased some pepper jack cheese because that is one of my favorite types of cheese. So my sister and I had a wonderful little snacky time while we were watching this film. Let us discuss the movie, Waiting to Exhale. Now, a part of what was interesting about rewatching this.
But even before rewatching, my nostalgic feelings about this movie are very much still connected to my mom, who was the gateway for me to have read Terry McMillan's books. Then that gave me the interest to want to watch this film, which is one of three movies that are based on Terry McMillan's books. We also have Stella Got Her Groove Back, as well as Disappearing Acts were also made into film. One of the things that I remember thinking about my mom when I was a little girl and I think I've talked about this when we did the Behind the Poetry episode on Girlfriends Poem. When I was growing up my mom always had just a small number of women friends that she really loved and was close to them. There was always a moment of them coming over where they would kind of hang out with me or play little games with me or whatever. But at a certain time at night, mom put me to bed and it was like...
I talked about this in The Godfather, the scene at the end of Godfather 1 where Kay is surely realizing that her husband is a crime boss. There's that scene where the door is closing and she's like watching them kiss the ring, right? Well, I had not quite that experience. But a different kind of moment where I sort of felt like I was watching my mom sort of close the door to my bedroom and I'm getting this little bit of window into her and her girlfriends now gathering for coffee or whatever they were going to drink. That they weren't drinking when I was out eating cauliflower and whatever with them. I just remember thinking when I get to be grown, when I get to be a grown lady I want to also do this with my women friends and so that has totally become a part of my life. Right? I think there was something really beautiful about the way Waiting to Exhale expressed the friendships of Black women.
Also, it really was interesting re watching the movie and thinking that this was probably the first modern contemporary piece of art that I watched where there were young, modern, Black women admitting that they enjoyed sex. Admitting that they sometimes would have these sexual experiences with men that they had no intention of having a relationship with and there were a lot of ways that Terry McMillan's work that I can now look back on and say. I wasn't a grown lady when Terry McMillan was releasing these books originally. But those books influenced a lot of what the Black women who were older than me at the time found to be true about their dating lives and how they expressed that and the freedom that they began to feel to say. Maybe I am not the traditional woman that my mother was or that my aunts were and my family, maybe I am older now than they were and I haven't gotten married yet or maybe I'm older now than they were and I'm divorced and trying to figure out that.
There were a lot of those types of dynamics to this story that I found really, really interesting to re watch at this age of life and to also reflect on what my teenage thoughts and young high school going into college thoughts were about the movie. Okay, let's talk about this film. Whitney Houston was a gorgeous human being, those early scenes that are just locked in on Whitney Houston's eyes and nose and mouth. I mean, even my sister and I were talking a lot about even the sound of her speaking voice. It's like you are watching this whole movie and her character doesn't sing in the movie ever, but there's some sort of really intriguing lilt to Whitney Houston's voice. What a beautiful woman she was, wow. We have Whitney Houston playing Savannah. Lela Rochon is playing Robin in this film, and Lela Rochon is that girl okay? During this era, Lela Rochon was that girl. She's still that girl, but she was that girl back then. The way she was dressed in this movie, the hair choices that were made, the amount of black films that Lela Rochon was in at this time.
Yes, love to see her. Angela Bassett is playing Bernadine and Loretta Devine is playing Gloria. I mean, what a cast. These four women, yes. Damn and yes. Okay, what are my favorite scenes of this movie? Favorite scene hands down is between Gloria and Marvin. Gloria played by Loretta Devine and Marvin who's played by Gregory Hines and if you're familiar with this movie. If I'm talking right now and you're not familiar with this movie, you need to get you some popcorn, plan a time in the evening or on the weekends and watch this movie because it is just wonderful. Lots of things about it are wonderful. It's a little bit of a time capsule, I'll admit. My sister and I were watching it, and there are... Obviously when you watch things that are from the 90s or from the 80s or even before then. Right? There's certain eras of time that when you watch the movie back then some of those things didn't hit you. But you're watching the movie now and you're like, that's a little... You have different commentary about what's happening.
So of course there are those elements of this movie that reflect the times in certain ways that if that movie were being made now. Some of those things would not be commentary or some of those phrases or terms would not be said, right? So it's always interesting to watch that and it was very interesting for my sister and I to watch it because my sister was just a baby really when the movie came out and I was only barely a teenager myself, really. So it's interesting to think about all of that now. Okay, let us go back to Gloria and Marvin. Let's talk about this. Okay, this is one of my favorite scenes because first of all just Loretta Devine. Just Loretta Devine is everything that is everything that is all the things, she is just so wonderful. I want to give her an award. It's interesting, especially to think about her as an actor and to think about Angela Bassett as an actor also, and just feeling like these are two actors that really have not gotten enough of their things.
I feel like they have not received the flowers for the amount of like oomph they bring to so many roles. If I can think of all the roles I've watched Loretta Devine play and seeing this one, which is a really important role in her filmography and also Angela Bassett. I think this role is very important in her filmography as well. But y'all, this scene where here we have Gloria... I guess I should give a little brief for those of you that have not seen this film or read the book. So we have four Black women who seem to be somewhere between maybe mid to late 20s and maybe the oldest woman is probably, maybe she's mid to late 30s. Right? So we probably have what could be at largest, a 10 ish year span among them right? We have Whitney Houston playing Savannah. Savannah is single as far as I am gathering from the context clues that Savannah has not been married. Savannah is wanting to be in a relationship and kind of keeps finding herself in various states of being with men who cannot commit to her.
Okay. We have Lela Rochon. Lela Rochon, if Waiting to Exhale as a cast was like the Golden Girls Lela Rochon is somehow the Betty White of the clique. She is not the sharpest person of them, she sometimes is missing the clues of what is going on in her life. But she is also single and it's interesting because she and Savannah both are having moments where they have men in their lives that are really no good for them. But kind of come in and out of their lives and are in various states of being in a separate relationship while also still trying to have a relationship with these two characters, which is very interesting. Angela Bassett's character Bernadine, she is married when we begin this movie and we watch her experience a great life adjustment. In the sense of her husband announcing to her that the marriage is over as he has decided to be in a relationship with someone else and then we have Loretta Devine playing Gloria. Gloria is a single mom, she has a son who is approaching his last year of high school.
Her ex-husband is still I want to say quasi, trying to be in her son's life and also is sort of a remedy for times that she feels lonely. Okay? So here's a bit of where each of these characters are. So we are meeting them just very full circle of the film. We are meeting each of them on a New Year's Eve and we sort of follow them for a year of their lives because the film also closes at where their lives are at the following New Year's Eve. My favorite scene involving Gloria and Marvin, Marvin is played by Gregory Hines and I need to speak to this for a moment. Gregory Hines is not an actor that until Waiting to Exhale I would've ever viewed as someone who is sexy or is a sex symbol of any kind. I just never thought about him like that. It's like the main thing I have in my mind is Gregory Hines mostly as a dancer. But here we have Gregory Hines moving in as across the street neighbor to Gloria.
We find him in a muscle shirt moving his things, Gloria does not even peep game that he is the neighbor based on how he's dressed and I feel the context clues based on him being a Black man in Phoenix. Because the story is set in Phoenix Arizona, I feel her assumption was he is helping these people move into the neighborhood. So Gloria sashays her beautiful curvy self over across the street, sits down and does a little tea outreach. She's trying to find out from this man who she thinks is moving the neighbor in, where for a pray tell who is the family moving into this house. Of course, it becomes this funny exchange because he is the family, he is the neighbor. Right? So when she discovers that he's actually the neighbor, she does what a good southern woman would do and we're not really given in the film. We're not given where all of these characters are from before they arrived in Phoenix. But based on Loretta Devine's accent, it always gives something southern and she is showing me some very southern things in her way of being. Right?
She has this moment where as you would, you would offer food to someone who has just moved because they don't have their kitchen unpacked and all those things. It is my dream as a southern woman myself, who comes from up to at least four generations of southern women. There is something about the readiness of either having food made if someone were to need food or come by and need something to eat or you end up with a last minute house guest or something. There was something about the preparedness of a southern woman that just feels the need to potentially have enough of a little something to eat and I'm going to give y'all an example. My husband's aunt, his aunt Sarah, I think they actually say aunt, I think it's Aunt Sarah on his side. But on my side of the family, we say aunt, you know the vibes. You know how you have different families, say aunt, aunt, auntie, all those things? Okay. So on my side of the family, we say aunt but on Matt's side of the family we say aunt.
So Matt's aunt Sarah his dad's sister, when Matt and I were dating I ended up with a college gig not far from where she lived and those of you that don't know about how college gigs work. It is not a glamorous life, it can be well paid sometimes, but it's never glamorous because a part of it is typically you get paid a flat rate. So at first the amount of money feels like a lot, but then when you start subtracting how much it's going to cost you to travel there, how much it's going to cost you to get lodging there. You really end up having to really think about your budget. So you may get what you feel initially is a good amount of money, but then you have to decide can I afford to pay for a plane ticket or do I need to really be on my budget and drive? And at that time I needed to drive. So I drove so far and then I was like, okay where she lives would be a perfect place to stop and she's very sweet.
I reached out to her and was like, "Hey, can I stay with you even though I just started dating your nephew?" I think Matt and I had only been dating maybe a few months at the time. But we had gotten serious enough by then that we'd met each other's families and it was pretty clear with us and with our families that our intention was to get married. Right? So she says, "Yes, you can totally stay with me, message me or call me or something. Let me know when you're getting close by." So I did that. So y'all I probably get to her house, this is 11:00, I'm going to get to her house and basically crash and then have to get up still pretty early. I have to get up several hours later and then drive a little bit more ways to actually get to the gig. Right? I pull up to her house and these are dream southern woman things. I pull up there and she's like, "Are you hungry? I've got hummus, I've got salad. I can make a sandwich."
She listed what felt like 1000 things and I was like, oh my gosh I love southern women to no end. I love it so much. Because same thing would happen if we went to my grandma's house, we would go to my grandma's house and drive to her house. Sometimes you get there 11:00, midnight, Grandma's like, "Y'all hungry? Y'all thirsty? I got some Kool-Aid, I got some sweet tea, I made some tuna fish salad." I can also list all these things and this is the kind of southern woman I long to be. I want people to somehow end up at my house at the last minute and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, y'all are hungry? Forget DoorDash, I just got a little bit of fried chicken, some candied yams and ham hog, a little broccoli, rice casserole, little collard greens, little Swiss chard."
This is Gloria talking to Marvin when she was like, "I'd love to bring you some dinner, have my son bring over a plate." She was like, "It's not much, it's just some biscuits, some collard greens, some candied yams, maybe a little bit of sweet potato pie and some collard greens, some sliced tomatoes." I mean, I'm making up stuff. But she listed what you would typically have for a holiday dinner as something she just happened to be cooking one time and this is the kind of southern woman I strive to be. Okay? Loved to see that in this scene. But the best part of the scene is this, after Gloria offers Marvin dinner and Marvin's like, "I don't know, I got so much to unpack." She's like, "That's okay. I'll send my son by with a plate. Nice to meet you Marvin." She sashays herself back across the street and she has this moment where she's like is he watching me? And of course he was watching and she looks over her shoulder.
Oh my God, he's still watching. Y'all, the best scene in the movie for me. My second favorite scene is when Angela Bassett's character Bernadine burns all of her ex-husband's shit. I don't even think at the time she's burning it he's her ex husband. He is still her husband at this time and this is a man who after she got dressed for their usual New Year's Eve activities, having to go to some event related to his job or whatever. She's there sitting at her Clair Huxtable vanity, this is the vanity that little girl Amena just really thought she was going to have when she became a grown woman. Those of you that watched the Cosby Show growing up, when Clair would sit at that vanity and brush her hair every night. I was like this is some grown woman shit, Ima do too, this sounds great. Narrator, she does not have a vanity. I do not have a vanity. Also, I do not have the kind of hair that can be brushed the way that Clair Huxtable and Bernadine were brushing their hair.
But I will just put a pin right here and tell y'all that I did get my hair straightened earlier this year in the spring, and that was the first time that I really had that experience of whipping that hair around and hearing that sound the brush makes when you brush it. So I'm going to get my hair straightened a couple of times a year, and I will reenact having these vanity moments. Where somehow you have a brush that matches a comb, that matches some kind of big powder puff thing you put on your face. This is all the stuff that I'm assuming is at the vanity that Bernadine had that was very similar to Clair Huxtable. So we find her dressed beautiful, makeup is done, jewelry, her husband's like, "I think we should have a change of plan tonight type of thing." And she's smiling thinking like, yes I don't want to go to this party anyways. Maybe we could watch a movie together, we could hang out.
No, this man is telling her that he's been having an affair with his secretary and he want to take his secretary to his work event and flaunt her around the place. There is a lot about Angela Bassett's character in this film that really touched me. As a person who unfortunately understands more levels of grief than I wish I did, the way she sort of entered a depression first. Where this man that she been married to all these years, she helped him build up his company and his career. This man just all of a sudden decided this shit is inconvenient now. He just doesn't want to be with her anymore after she had the two kids, everything. You watch her really get into this very deep level of sadness and she is in this bath robe, sends her kids off to school and decides that she needs to burn his shit down to the ground. A girl has been in therapy talking to my therapist about my anger, and I actually thought to myself I don't have this type of relationship with my own husband so I have no reason to burn my husband's things.
But you know how they have these places where you can go... Smash rooms, where you can go and bang TVs and break glass and stuff. They should also have some type of a Waiting to Exhale Bernadine themed room where you somehow can go up in somebody's... It's like no one's closet. They just put some random clothes there and you could take them off the rack, tear them off the rack and then there's a lot of layers to how she burned up his shit. Okay? She takes his stuff down off the rack, she stuffs it through the sunroof of his car, puts the garage door up, pulls his car out to the driveway, lights her cigarette and then burns everything. Dress shoes, sneakers, suits and his car. Wow, I really would love a smash room themed on Bernadette where you could just go in and basically do this whole thing she did. That sounds great, I feel like that would be some great anger expressions. Whoa.
Also, last scene that was kind of tender for me and my sister and I were watching the movie thinking this was such an interesting plot choice in the novel as well as the movie itself. Where once Bernadine's divorce is final, she is in the bar at the hotel where she has just sat in whatever the closing room or whatever they did to sign all their documents and stuff, whatever boardroom they had there. She's sitting in the hotel bar just reflecting on life as I'm assuming one does when you're like, wow this really wild thing just happened to me and now that's over. Here we meet a young Wesley Snipes playing this character that Bernadine meets and they kind of have this interesting kinship, right? Wesley Snipes character is married, but his wife is dying. So she's been sick so long that he and his wife do not have a physical relationship anymore and there's this interesting moment where they end up going up to his hotel room and here they are both contemplating, am I ready to do this?
She's there like am I ready to have sex with someone else like this that's not this now ex husband? Am I ready to do this now that the divorce is final all the things? Then he's there like am I ready to do this even though my wife is dying, even though I know that she wants for me to be happy and wants for me to move on at some point. Can I have sex with someone that's not my wife while my wife still lives, even though she's not the wife that I knew from when she was healthy? All these things. It was very tender that the plot choice was not for these two characters to actually have sex. But these two characters kind of just lay in bed and cuddle together, which is a very intimate thing to do and the way the sun came up on them. Just so many things. So there's a lot about that, when I saw that scene I turned to my sister and said, "I wonder if this book were being written today would this be the scene?
Or would the two characters have just gone ahead and had sex? Then they would've had to deal with whatever the results or possible fallout for them emotionally or whatever would've been from that choice." There's just certain choices that Terry McMillan made in her writing as well as Forest Whitaker made in directing this film as well, plus the actors. So it was very tender. It was a very tender scene and I love any opportunity where you get a chance to see these two Black characters be so tender and soft with each other in this moment. That was wonderful to see for me. I love a little tender thing, that's just me in my 40s now. Also, we need to talk about this soundtrack. Keda and I, we're watching the movie also listening to the music and I was like this soundtrack is really... It's extraordinarily banging, wow. It feels a bit more rare today that I watch a movie and also love the soundtrack.
I have quite a few movies that I love the soundtrack of but I have to say most of them were made in the mid to late 90s and some early 2000s maybe. But I haven't loved a soundtrack like that from a movie in the last 10, 15 years that I can think of right now that I'm like, oh my gosh yes. Waiting to Exhale had some bangers, obviously we have Whitney Houston's Exhale (Shoop Shoop). We also have Tony Braxton's Let It Flow. We have Brandy's Sittin' Up In My Room and we have a quintessential tune from this movie Mary J. Blige on the Not Gon' Cry. This is one of those songs that I remember singing my guts out too in the car or in my room listening to my little clock radio that I had in my room. That sounded old as hell, sorry y'all. Anyways I remember singing my guts out, when I haven't lived through any of these things that Bernadine went through because Mary J. Blige is really singing from Bernadine's perspective.
I mean, she opened up that, "I was your lover and your secretary working every day of the week." When Mary J. Blige got to that hook right there, said, "I'm not gon' cry." Okay? Because you're not worth my tears, Mary J. Blige made a hit right there. I just somehow at however old I was, my teenage self somehow became a brokenhearted grown lady just belting this song out. Shout out to Mary J. Blige And Not Gon' Cry. I also want to give a special shout out to Chaka Khan's cover of My Funny Valentine. I love me some Chaka Khan, okay? But my favorite Chaka Khan is typically fast song Chaka Khan, this is, Do you love What You Feel? That version of Chaka Khan, them fast songs. That Tell Me Something Good Chaka Khan, that's the type of Chaka I normally like. But Kita and I were watching the movie and Kita was like, "Who is this? Who is this singing this?" It's almost like sometimes, because Chaka Khan has so many dance hits you forget how melodious and jazz filled that vocal is.
So if you are a person who loves jazz standards, you should definitely listen to this soundtrack to get Chaka Khan's version of My Funny Valentine. Yes. Okay. Other thing that needs to be discussed on this soundtrack is Count On Me. I mean that song just... Whitney Houston and CeCe Winans on this song right here. First of all, the vocals were just unmatched, unparalleled and I love a good friendship song and there is just something about Count On Me that it just touches my heart every time. Because I think most of us, a lot of us would be able to think of very specific people that when you are singing that please believe me when I say you can count on me and then at the end when Whitney and CeCe would trade the vocals. Man, this soundtrack is bringing us so many gifts. I myself am going to have to revisit it, yes. What can we say about Waiting to Exhale? Even re-watching the movie, it's just wonderful and I love a time capsule of Black culture and Black history and Black herstory and I don't just mean that in the cliche way.
I mean in the way that this book and this subsequent movie became this time capsule of what were Black women concerned about? Worried about? What were Black women wanting out of their lives? How were our friendships impacting that at the time? This was a little capsule of these fictional characters that really were this great reflection of what those relationships are like for so many of us as Black women today. So shout out to Terry McMillan for writing something that has really affected many generations of Black women now and shout out to the cast of this film. We really got a chance to see even more so these characters come to life and I really am missing Whitney Houston and that we do not have her here with us any longer. Also glad that we have this moment to view her in this film, to see this beautiful work that she and the other actors here did. So shout out to the cast and crew of Waiting to Exhale. If you have never watched this movie, watch it.
If you have watched the movie, re-watch it. If you have not read the book, go read it and if you already read it could be a good re-read as well. Love to see it, hope to talk to y'all soon.