The Prince of Egypt w. Maya Williams and Max Wolpert

Hello, you welcome to You Are Good, a feelings podcast about movies. Today we are talking about the Prince of Egypt, we're talking about it with Maya Williams, and we have a special appearance by Max Wolper. I am your host, Alex Steed. Welcome, welcome, welcome. You Are Good, a feelings podcast about movies is exactly what it sounds like. This is a show where we talk about movies, we talk about the feelings they evoke. We are not film critics, we are not here to do that thing. We are here to talk about movies and talk about the ways they make us feel. So hello, I'm so glad you're here. The Prince of Egypt is a 1998 American animated musical drama film directed by Brenda Chapman, Steve Higner, and Simon Wells, written by Philip Luzemnick. The film stars the voices of Val Kilmer, Ray Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Clever, Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, Steve Martin, and Martin Short. Maya Williams is a religious black multiracial, non-binary suicide survivor who is currently an Ashley Bryant fellow and was selected as the 17th poet laureate of Portland, Maine. I really love Maya. Maya is great. I've been planning this appearance for quite a while and immediately after, you'll hear it on the show, immediately after we recorded it, I was like, let's do this again. Immediately, really, really love Maya. Max Wolpert, who we will hear from in the extended intro interview. Let me say who Max is first and then we'll get into it. Fiddler, composer, storyteller, professor. Max is great. I love Max. I wanted to add this great conversation with Maya and then I wanted to talk with somebody about the musical background of this movie specifically. It turns out that Max has a really fascinating history with this movie in particular. We started to have a conversation that was going to be just like a little bitty intro and then it got bigger. You have two distinct conversations in this episode. One with Max and one with Maya. I'm so happy to bring that to you because I really, really enjoyed these two. Just a quick note, Maya uses several pronouns, AM, they, them, and she, her, and is non-binary. As I said, in conversation with Max, I end up using she, her, to refer to Maya, but I just wanted to make clear the AM and they, them pronouns as well. How are you doing? What's going on in your world? How are you feeling? Let me know what's happening in your life. I'd love to hear how things are going. I know shit is wild out there. No, it's, I know, I know. I was just on a call with a bunch of people and we were all like, how are you doing? I know it's going on. I know, I know it's all happening. Remember to stave off that dread. We participate, we get involved, we get more involved with our communities. We get more involved with action. We are not alone in this and it's really nice to be reminded of that by showing up with the other folks who are doing the same. But it's, you know, I'm not unaware as it were. However you end up showing up, however you end up staving off that dread, whatever you end up doing, don't forget that you, my friend, are good. Hey, are you supporting the show on Patreon and Apple Podcast subscriptions? If so, thank you so much. And if you're not yet, just know that you can get bonus episodes, you can get extended cuts over there. That's what we are offering in exchange for your support. I'm also posting main feed episodes up on Patreon because it lets people be able to comment if they want to be able to comment and do all that. Yeah, there's a lot going on over there. We appreciate your support. We can't make this show without you and without that support. So thank you, thank you, thank you for everything you are doing over there. We can make this show because of you. And it's just as simple as that. Hey, dear Johnny Snoring, hold on. Please join me in supporting our friends in Gaza and in Palestine at large. Palestine Children's Really Fun is a great way to start doing so. If you're not already, there's a link in the show notes. There are all sorts of ways to contribute. There's all sorts of campaigns and stuff to support. But Palestine Children's Really Fun is a great place to begin. You can find a link to them and their work in the show notes. All right, let's get into this. Let's talk about the Prince of Egypt with Max first and then Maya second. Oh, and just so you know, there's going to be some overlap in the stuff that we talk about. That's, you know, these are two separate conversations, but we'll touch on some of the same things. But I think you can, you can handle that sort of thing. Just wanted to give you a heads up before you run into it and let me know. Hey, there was overlap. I know. But now you know, I know. All right, let's do this. Max, hello. How are you? Hello, I am very happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Oh my God, I'm so happy that you are here. I am so grateful to have a life where I can go. Who do I know who I imagine has strong feelings about the Prince of Egypt and also is like deeply knowledgeable and probably accredited in that knowledge. And guess what? And here I am. You're my professional Prince of Egypt enthusiast. Yes. What's your relationship with this? I have seen the Prince of Egypt probably close to 100 times. If not, maybe more. There is a period of my life where during the summer, I would watch it literally every day. Wow. And it's a movie that has sort of grown in my esteem and admiration for it as I, you know, have grown up and learned a little bit more about storytelling, especially the structure of musical theater and all of the things that go into making that movie what it is. But yeah, there was a there was a good chunk of time where this movie was not not my soul source of entertainment, but one of the big streams. I love that. Why? Why? Well, first, first, first, first, first, first, first, not by the way, I saw this in the theater and I was blown away as a teen watching this for the first time. But I'm curious to know first, who are you and what is your deal? So my name is Max Wolpert. I am a composer of music, fiddle player, musical theater, orchestrator, writer and an academic. I teach music composition at university. I am here just talking for myself, obviously. None of this should reflect badly on my institution for any weird stuff I say. But yeah, so I did not see this in a movie theater. I was a little too young. I think it was four or five when it came out. It was what, 97, 98, something like this. That sounds right. And so I guess part of my sort of odd relationship to this movie is I have a let's maybe say idiosyncratic, but I think not totally unique relationship to American Judaism as regards my family, which is that my whole family is Jewish. My parents converted to Christianity before my brother and I were born and for a big chunk of my childhood, my dad worked as a as a Presbyterian minister. So this sort of point in time was when I was, I think a little too young to be left around unsupervised, wasn't doing a lot of parks and rec sports or other activities during the summer. So I had a bunch of this sort of extra time to go. And so a lot of times I would go with my dad to work and just sort of hang out in the church while he was in his office doing work. And one of the along with, you know, legions of veggie tails and various other things, one of the handful of VHS tapes that the church had that was just sitting in the basement was Prince of Egypt. And so every day in the summer, when I would go with him to work, you know, I would hang out and read and color and do other things. But one of the main things that I would do would be to watch Prince of Egypt. The family Judaism to Presbyterian minister pipeline is so fascinating. Like, did you what faith tradition did you connect this with eventually? Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of what makes this movie so interesting to me. And so, you know, there there is. And, you know, I didn't really think about this until a lot later, obviously, but there is this same sort of you were thinking of your faith traditions and it. Yeah, I'm sitting there at the base, but. I'm not. Adding it to my to my daily meditation. No, but I mean, I think there is obviously it's not the same as what happens in the movie where he, you know, goes to sort of literally doesn't know that there's this whole extra people and religious tradition that he sort of comes out of that he doesn't have a childhood connection to. You know, it wasn't a sort of mystery or secret to me, but I think there is something to that. And I think, you know, as I get older, I've become more interested in, you know, connecting to the Jewish aspects of my of my lineage that weren't. I mean, they were sort of a part of my childhood. But later, you know, my my brother is the the oldest of my sort of cousin group. Right. So later, I would, you know, go to my cousins bar in Bob Mitzvah's and was sort of connected to the Jewish tradition in that way. But that wasn't until, you know, I was a I was a teenager, really. And so at this point, when I was watching this movie, I didn't really have a connection to that beyond that. I sort of knew it was out there in a certain kind of a way. And so I think I always found that, you know, resonant and interesting kind of way of the way that in the movie, you know, Moses sort of moves through these various cultural groups and cultural identities, and they're all both home and foreign to him. And he fits in and doesn't fit in any of them in a very compelling way. Yeah, totally. And like a new convert, he's probably really annoying for a little while. 100 percent. 100 percent. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. When he when, you know, when he first comes back from Midian and is like, by the way, I'm now the best Jew. I have a magic stick. And you know, Jeff Goldblum is what are you talking about? No way. I couldn't throw money. Jeff Goldblum's response is totally rational. So when you were a kid, was this your first like musical that you fell in love with? Is this the what do they call typhoid Mary? Is this patient zero? No, it's not actually. I had we had cassette tapes of a bunch of different musical soundtracks. So I don't actually know. I mean, I think there's an argument to be made that the first one is, you know, something like Tubby the Tuber, one of these sort of kid cartoons that are, you know, not sort of full length musicals, but sort of adjacent to that. But no, I was definitely I was listening to the music man. I was listening to I think West Side Story was probably in there. A number of the sort of soundtracks that I was familiar with. And also the music man is so good. Holy shit. It's so great. Just it was. It's really, really good. Also, my my Xana gave me a VHS tape of the original Broadway pro shot of Into the Woods when I was really probably way too young. Sure. And then subsequently, the same of Sweetie Todd, when I was definitely way too young. So, you know, those were after I saw Prince of Egypt, but it was I mean, it was all kind of kicking around in there. What and so what spoke to you about this where you kept coming back to it? And I guess maybe what speaks to you now? I mean, there's there's so much, right? I mean, obviously, the music is great. The animation is gorgeous. I, you know, you could talk to anybody who's seen this movie, I think, to sort of get into why Prince of Egypt just rules. It's an amazing movie. It is so special and that there hasn't really been anything like it. But I think that, you know, I always had sort of a bug for mythology and folklore and was sort of reading a number of stories from different to eat. I had the what are the eat of Hampton mythology? That's the sort of illustrated kids, Greek myths and things like that. So I was always sort of interested in just this kind of story. But I think that what Prince of Egypt does so well and that I think connects to the theatrical tradition that it's sort of drawing out of is that it takes these sort of impersonal, archetypical divine narratives of here are big things that happen to peoples at a cosmic scale, at a national scale and turns it into this very human tragedy. And it becomes, you know, there are these stories about kingdoms and genocides and big massive events, but that Prince of Egypt manages to distill that down into, you know, that this is a story about brothers and their relationship with their father and how they want their legacy to be perceived and how they want their families to run. You know, it's a very human scale story. And I think that translation is it's really hard to do. I think Prince of Egypt has honestly done it better than almost any other adaptation of this kind of story in making these humans. And we completely understand why they do everything that they do. And we understand how their emotions drive their actions and how their goals fight with each other in heartbreaking ways. Yeah, I love when Moses before maybe it's like the beginning of the third act, he comes to talk with Ramses about whatever is going on. And Ramses is sulking and Moses comes in and is just trying to be like, things are complicated. Remember when we were kids and it was fun and we used to get in all sorts of trouble and his brother's like, you were getting me into just like that conversation that they have or like one is trying to connect in the other one is like, you have always kind of been the band of my existence. Yeah, well, right. The different ways that they remember that experience. But I think also that goes into the fact that that was real, right? But they have that real shared experience. And I think it's easy to read this story as, you know, Moses's discovery of his heritage and this sort of great destiny that's being placed upon him as, well, you were always one of the Hebrews. You were always meant to do this. And this is who you really were. And the rest of it was fake. And I think the great thing about that scene and this whole movie in general is that, yeah, for all that they have this this sort of conflicting memory of how that all went down in their relationship to each other. It also reaffirms that that part of his identity is also real, right? He actually was Prince of Egypt. He was an Egyptian and that is a real part of his identity. And they really are brothers. And none of that is fake or invalidated by the fact that they're now sort of placed at odds with each other in this way. What are the songs that stand out to you when you know you're about to go down the Prince of Egypt rabbit hole? I mean, I listen to the album straight. I mean, yeah, you can't you can't listen to one song off of this score. This score is unbelievable from a dramatic point of view. Actually, I'm OK. One of the songs that I think is overlooked most on this soundtrack is the song All I Ever Wanted Moses's You Know, I Want Song, right? I think was especially criticized because it's a little on the nose to, you know, the Howard Ashman classification of this being the I Want song literally being called All I Ever Wanted. You know, I think they took a little flack for that. People were people were being a little snarky at Schwartz on that front. But the thing I love about that song from from a structural point of view is one of the sort of old saws that's thrown around in musical theater lyric writing is all good lyrics and lies. And one of the one of the dramatically juiciest things you can do is have a character sing lyrics that on the surface are at odds with the subtext that's within them. So I think that's a song that I love for for that reason. I think that that structurally it's such a great way to illustrate, you know, this is a character sort of trying and failing to convince themselves of something and that we hear that happen in real time. I mean, I think the song of the plagues is just unreal. I mean, that that that the rules and the animation that goes along with it is is really, really spectacular. And it's for kids, for kids. You know, fire raining from the sky. Is he singing the plague song again? Hey, man. It just makes sense to it makes me chuckle knowing that this was the shape to you in some way, because like now our relationship is like once a month, you'll send me you'll be like, hey, have you seen this like 15 minute Yugoslav horror short that somebody just over for a while? And then, and then, you know, duplicated the drone over and over. And I'm like, this makes sense that you like the plague song when you're OK. Was another plague song a hundred times as a seven year old in a basement? I mean, just sitting in Northwest Minnesota church basement being like, I think I understand these people in ancient Egypt who are having, you know, flaming meteors rain down on their crops. Like I get it. This shows about understanding how we became who we are, you know, and that's what we're doing. But even then, right? I mean, I think again, from a obviously, yeah, there's the song itself is, you know, exciting and grim and scary and all of the juicy things and the animation is beautiful. But the thing about that that I love is that dramatically, that is not just a song about, oh, isn't it scary that, you know, the wrath of God is on full display? Isn't it sad that Egypt is getting wrecked? It's still actually about the relationship between these two characters and about their goals being in conflict with each other. And that that ultimately we see in that song, right, that the goals are fundamentally incompatible, that Moses wants to free the Hebrew people and also wants to reconcile with Ramses. He wants for them to be brothers and have a nice time. And Ramses is so caught up with not being the weak link in the chain that he can't deal with that and he can't do it. Also, by the way, I mean, I think, you know, this was just as true when the movie came out. But I think certainly now, right? I mean, I think there is something especially resonant about seeing, you know, the leader of a nation that's more willing to see his entire country burn to the ground, then stop trying to prove to his father that he's not a loser. Huh, you know, you know, you know, you don't say. I just some of these things kind of stick around in some way or the other. Trying to keep happy the ghost of his father and Roy Cohn at the same time. Somehow, yeah, yeah, yeah, father and daddy, as if you will. Yeah, we get to Steve Martin and Martin Short to do a Roy Cohn song and do some do some magic. I would love if someone out there, I know we have a musical theater forward audience and if someone could write the Roy Cohn song, but it's missing from this movie, that would make me very happy. That'd be good. Oh, my God. Yeah, there's a lot. And I had a conversation with the great poet, Maya Williams, about this movie. Hey, I just wanted to note, just in case you skipped the intro, Maya uses the pronouns A.M. They, them and she, her and I am referring to Maya as she, her here. Just in case you're like, Hey, what about the other pronouns? That's that's the deal. There's a there's a handful of pronouns available for use. You hear this story? And for her, her her view was watching this through sort of like a young Christian kid and like coming from like black liberation theology. And so there's like, obviously a lot in this story that informs a lot there, informed a lot with regard to the American Civil Rights Movement and the imagery there. And the thing that stood out to me with having a conversation with her is this idea that eventually becomes like Christian universalism, where it's like, yes, you have a people and you are looking up for your people and I am your people and I have a people and I'm looking out for those people and all of those concentric circles sort of make up the universalist humanist nature of humanity. And so I really liked that that was part of the struggle here is that it's like, I know you think that they're slaves, but they are my people. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think the brother's relationship sort of placing Moses in the middle of that Venn diagram is is why that's such a fascinating dramatic choice. And I think also, you know, makes it impossible to read this movie in the way that I think the the exit of story is unfortunately being read by many today, which is that the message of this is well, but now it's our turn to be the Egyptians. And I think that this story is structured in a way that you you can't take that message away from that, right? That that we are all a family if we choose to be and that the ultimate tragedy of the of the movie is that that's a choice that Ramses cannot make. But that's because of who he is as a character and who he is as a person and the opportunity to make that choice is there, right? Unlike in the exit of the story where, you know, Pharaoh's heart is hardened by God and he cannot choose to let the Hebrews go. In Prince of Egypt, Ramses has opportunity after opportunity to make that choice. And we almost think he's going to do it a couple of times, which is, I think, why? That why the he's edging. He's like, it's kind of like a good idea. Maybe I will. You know, that seems kind of fun. And then he's like, I will never let your people go. You're like, OK, we're so close. Right there. I mean, that's why. Again, it like it really it's ancient Greek theater, right? I mean, it's classic tragedy stuff that everything is right there. But this character makes one tragic mistake and they just they can't do it. Yeah, it works. It's it's great. And I don't know exactly why outside of the fact that I grew up going to church and going to youth group, but in mainline churches. So like, I think people of I think I'll meet people who are younger than me, who never lived in a time when the like liberal American Christian church was was not uncommon. Yeah. You know, or like or the idea that it was just like maybe not even liberal, but not ideologically right wing. Like that was a that was a very concerted thing that happened from the 70s into the 90s. It was like a movement. It there was a time when that wasn't sort of the predominant. You go into a church and not be one hundred percent worried that if you had certain forclivities, you'd be in trouble. Sure. And so that was really the place where my intellectual interests were first peaked. That was the place where like being really into like stories and storytelling was first peak. That was the place where like my ideas for mythology were peaked was for social justice, like all of that stuff. And so I think when I saw this in the theater, it was beautiful to see all of these stories that were told to me as sort of, you know, guideposts was taken as seriously as it was in animation. And as as human as well, right? Right. I think the Old Testament is especially the case with this. But I think in a lot of cases, you know, when you're reading any mythological or religious texts, there is this kind of sense that, you know, these are sort of aliens, right? Like these are not people that have motivations that we can recognize and resonate with in the same way that that we're used to from a character in a book. Yeah. This guy's a hundred and fifty. Yeah. Right. He's got horns, you know, like this. Devosus with horns thing is one of my favorite bizarre mistranslations of history. And you're like, no, print it. That was real. That's that's got to be right. That makes sense, actually. But no, you're right. The humanity, the humanity is so is so essential and stuff that felt, it felt especially out of reach in sort of a lot of retellings of, you know, like the mythical stories that work best. And I'm just repeating something that you have already said several times are ones where you see you see yourself and you see your own humanity on them. And I think that's probably why so many of us that were, you know, mythology dorks as kids gravitated to the Greek myths. I mean, maybe for one thing, because they're the sort of most available English translations of them. But I think also because in those characters, right, the gods are they're human. They're just they're, you know, big, dumb, obnoxious people. And we recognize them. They're not sort of abstract forces. Yeah, they're horny assholes. They're often just and you're like, all right. Yeah. OK, so this is a honing in on winding down. If someone likes the Prince of Egypt and they were like, oh, I might like musicals or I might like this is really musical. This is a musical, technically. Yeah. So there there is. They have now done a stage adaptation of Prince of Egypt, which I will say, unfortunately, I'm not a huge fan of. I think it's it's very, you know, actually, I think this is one of the other things to this movie's credit that not only is that this is an amazing musical, it's an amazing movie musical in a way that we don't often see. And it's especially an amazing animated movie musical. I think it uses the potential of its medium so fully in a way that is relatively rare. And I think it honestly, in a lot of ways, I think the movie musical has become something of a lost art in terms of making something that that really plays to the strengths of its medium in the way that Prince of Egypt does. So, you know, it was very it was very difficult to adapt in that way. You need budget. You need a lot of money. So and you also like need your characters to be made of ink so that they can do things that would destroy the human body. Like, I don't know. I mean, it'd be a great, you know, the super high end version of this, that, you know, the pillar of fire actually just burns the theater down. Yeah. Very Shakespearean, you know, one production of this and then it's gone. Just burn it to the ground. It's the eyes. You're really you're really tempting for you. And then it would be hard not to read into that. But if someone does watch it and they're like, oh, maybe I like musicals and didn't know, do you have any directions to point them in? So I think for for movie musicals in the same zone and Stephen Schwartz, who did music and lyrics for this did lyrics also for Hunchback and Notre Dame. If it's something that you've managed to miss and have never seen, I think it's the animated musical that does this kind of thing in a similar sort of way. What is Stephen Schwartz's like reputation in this world and realm? Well, so I mean, Schwartz came from from the stage, you know, by the time that this and Hunchback were made, you know, I think he'd already done Pippin, he'd already done God's Bell. He was around and sort of known as, you know, one of the the young guns of Broadway at this point. This is before Wicked. But interesting fact about this, that Schwartz is fond of saying that he got the unlimited riff from Wicked because it's somewhere with the rainbow slowed down, which is true. But he's also plagiarizing himself because he wrote it in Prince of Egypt first. The same exact octave leap with the arpeggio to send the unlimited run from from Wicked. This is why you're here. It's a good thing it's worth using twice. Yeah, absolutely. And there are people who didn't see the Prince of Egypt. So you can. Yeah, you can surprise them for the first time. Yeah, there you go. It's it's right there. So I mean, I think in terms of sort of stage musical recommendations in the same kind of way, I mean, there's nothing that's quite like this. But I think that if you're new to musical theatre and are in any way sort of intimidated by it or think of it as the sort of, you know, whatever negative stereotypes are around, you know, your sort of hella Dolly type of music, if that's not your bag. Yeah, there's stuff out there that's grim and weird and about family dynamics and challenging and tough. So I think, you know, Sweeney Todd is a show that I'm always going to send people towards because I think it's a good entry point into if you thought musical theatre was one thing, here's a really different thing, both musically and structurally. Another show that I will recommend to people, it's it's harder to find and it's hard to get a hold of. There are a couple of different cast albums of it, but it's it's just one of my favorite musicals of all time that I think should be more known is Genie and Disories, Musical Violet, which is entirely about fathers and daughters and our relationship to our parents' legacy and our relationship to each other and our relationship to divine and and how that moves us through the world. It's got some really remarkable music. It's a show that I love very dearly and not enough people know it. So go listen to Violet. Amazing. Thank you for that, by the way, because I wouldn't. I don't know where to start. I never know where to start. There's a lot of really good musicals out there. I mean, that's in some ways, it's kind of a nice thing. You can just kind of pick something and listen to it. And then if you like that, see what else that composer's written and go from there. Do you have any rapping thoughts or things that have been unsaid about about the Prince of Egypt? One thing that I actually will say that and this maybe has already been said, but but in terms of sort of the movie making the most of its medium, you know, obviously, this was sort of a point where CGI I think was still relatively new in terms of being integrated into a hand drawn animated movie in this way. And I think it's one of my favorite things that the movie does to sort of lean into. Maybe this is still slightly weird looking and not sort of, quote, unquote, realistic in the way that the rest of it is. So let's use it for all of the acts of God that are supposed to be kind of uncanny and bizarre and scary looking. And I also just love that dramatically, even though it's never said, that gives us an immediate structural difference between the actual miracles and the stage magic that Hojepin Hoi are doing that is not CGI that we can see. Oh, yeah, they're they're faking it because their stuff doesn't look like a weird computer snake. It looks like the rest of the movie. And that's never talked about or addressed directly. I don't think anybody ever actually accuses them in the movie of, you know, that they're that they're frauds, but it's there and you can catch it. And I love that as a structural device and I love that it's it's just sort of trusting the audience to pick up on that. Yeah, that's great. I love that they cast Val Kilmer as Moses. It's a quiet Val Kilmer performance. And I think it's like every Val Kilmer performance, just staggeringly good. He's amazing. Just truly amazing. Quiet. It's it's really funny because you are totally right. It is a quiet Val Kilmer performance and he also plays God. Yeah, which is fantastic. I mean, technically, everyone plays God. All of the whispers underneath Val Kilmer are all of the other the other cast members. That's fantastic. I didn't know that. Yeah, that's fantastic. And apparently, originally, I remember reading this of some trivia thing, I guess I should fact check if this is true. But I read that at one point, the plan was to just have everybody whispering without a sort of regular voice. And it was the entire main cast and that they played it for a test audience and everyone thought it was too scary. So they brought that back into to sort of do it normal over time. Yeah, that's too uncanny. You need a little a little structure there. Yeah. Well, Max, thank you so much for doing this. Thanks for having me. And please come back for a proper episode so that we can talk longer. Absolutely. We'd love to. Thank you. Hello, my alias. Hello, Alex Stede. How are you doing this fine weekend morning? I'm doing so well. Thanks. How are you? I'm doing all right. Tell me a bit about you. A bit about me. I'm currently based in Portland, Maine. I am a poet. I'm an actor. I had served as the city of Portland, Maine's poet laureate from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty four. Alex and I met through a little studio company in Maine called NAC factory, where I was paid to play a social worker for like an educational video, which is funny enough because I do have a social work degree, but that's how we had first met. And then then stayed connected over the years after Alex moved away. So that's a very funny way to put the social work degree to use. Yeah, there you go. Exactly. To fake being one on a commercial video. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So if someone is a poet laureate of a city, I'm sure you get asked this often. But what does that mean? Like, what is the function? Yeah, every city and every state program is different. But for the city of Portland's program, you essentially collaborate with the Portland Public Library and do poetry programs within that city for three years. You can do whatever you want, as long as you're engaging in poetry with that community. So beautiful. Did you foresee as a younger person one day being the poet laureate of the city of Portland, Maine? No, no. As a young person, I thought I was going to move to California to be an artist, but I ended up moving to Maine to be an artist as one does. That was not part of the plan. I love this. I love this new plan, though. Yeah. It is. It is a good plan. Tell me, when we first started talking about you coming onto the show, we've been talking about you coming on to talk about Prince of Egypt for, I think, two years. Yes. Which is I want to be clear is not a rare path for the show, because I feel like one could look at that and go, why is this taking so long? I am such a tourist. I am such a tourist that the second something goes from idea to reality. I joke and people think, well, I say it and people think I'm joking. It takes a full year at least to come into fruition. We're here now. We're here now. It's excellent. What is your relationship with this movie? Oh, my gosh, my relationship with this movie, The Prince of Egypt. I've seen it for the first time when I was like five or six years old, but it wasn't until I was 12 years old. We had spent vacation at my uncle's house in North Carolina, my siblings and I. And we just kept rewatching the DVD over and over again, or just singing along to the songs over and over again. So I oh, I love this movie so much. This is a good comfort movie for me. I understand it's not a comfort movie for everyone. For me growing up in a black religious household, this was a comfort movie for me. And I still I still love this movie. It just speaks a lot to the complexities that come with religion or come with the stories with the religion I grew up in, that religion being Christianity. I specifically identify as a non-denominational Christian these days and just how art can hold space for that complexity. Because oftentimes growing up in church, you see these plays put on, you see these like sermons put on and everyone's like, oh, look at all that beautiful effort. And I'm like, OK, but the art can still be good, right? Like I just grew up with very binary bad art in church. And granted, when it comes to kids, kids are allowed to make bad art. They need that space to make bad art. But when it comes to grown adults presenting reductive stories at the pulpit, that was strange. So then watching movies like The Prince of Egypt or The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Les Mis growing up, I'm like, oh, art can be good. And we can sit with the complexities of these humans who are religious or within conversation of religion, if they're not religious. Whoa. Yeah. I grew up very in sort of a what we now call a main line New England Christian church. So like I was describing this to someone yesterday who didn't have the contact like their whole life is imagining evangelical American hegemony. And I'm like, I'm like, I got some news for you. Like there were some interesting times in American Christianity in the 1900s. But, you know, I went to a church where it was like, you know, some people took it literally, some people took it as metaphor. I think we all were sort of in the yeah, we were all like community run that or whatever. So I grew up very in that. And then my parents got divorced and I didn't have to go anymore. And then I became like a teenage, a very annoying teenage atheist. Like just so it just insufferable. And then I had much of it was because of the trauma of the divorce versus like trying to rebel or like was it a mix of everything? It was that for sure. It was like it was also just like at the time it felt like the religious community didn't act as Christlike as I expected them to. You know, and so I think that was a big part of it. But in my later teens, when I started working at like, you know, hipster shops in Portland, I remember I had this friend who is very cool. Lawrence, very cool, very also an atheist, whatever. But he would listen to a lot of music. Like he'd listen to he was like he's how I heard about like Gillian Welch or like sort of like I started listening to Bonnie Principally and all these people who had religious iconography in their songs. Yeah. And I was like, why do you listen to like this seems antithetical to what you're into? And he was like, it's like part of our culture. Yeah, exactly. And then I and then like similar to where you were at, I was like, oh, yeah, there's good art here. Like there's good art here. I just didn't get exposed to any of it when I was growing up. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So let's try to talk about what Prince of Egypt is about. Yes. There will be people who are steeped in the actual biblical stories who are going to be frustrated, I'm sure, by my retelling. And I don't blame them. And like I did reread the book of Exodus in preparation for this. Of course you did. Of course I did. I'm a huge reader when I prep for these things. I love it. And it is very fascinating, the biblical version versus this film version. And it's also fascinating how like because Katzenberg was like, I want to remake the Ten Commandments and like how it's starkly different and similar from the Ten Commandments even. And like, yeah. What is the Exodus story? OK, the Exodus story from my perspective as a Christian rereading Exodus in preparation for this podcast tells the story. This is after the assistant of the Pharaoh, Joseph, welcomes his Hebrew family in Egypt for them to have the resources that they need. They leave Canaan, they arrive in Egypt, and then the Hebrew demographic continues to grow and continues to thrive. And then the Pharaoh of Egypt, who did not remember the things that Joseph had done. He goes, hmm, you might rise against us, huh? Sound sound sound familiar with every story of genocide. And he's like, you know what? Every firstborn son is going to is going to be killed so that you don't rise against us. So a lot of the firstborn Hebrew sons are killed, except this woman who hides her baby in a basket named Moses or rather not firstborn. Because yet there were there were newborn sons at the time because Moses has an older brother named Aaron and an older sister named Miriam. Miriam is following the basket along the river, making sure the baby's OK. Pharaoh's daughter picks up the baby out of the basket. It was like, oh, how cute. Where'd you come from? And Miriam was like, hey, I know a lady who could take care of this baby for you. That lady being her mother, Moses's mother. So Moses grows up not only as the adoptive son of Pharaoh's daughter, but also grows still grows up with his Hebrew family as he becomes an adult. He makes the decision to kill one of the Egyptian overseers that was beating on a Hebrew enslaved person. And there are also two Hebrews fighting and he's like, stop it. That's your brother. You're hurting each other. And they're like, I don't know what you're talking about. You killed an overseer the other day. He's like, why? Everyone, everyone knows that it's fine. And then Pharaoh's like, I didn't know that we're exiling you to the desert. Moses spends a lot of his adult life in the desert, gets married. And then as he's tending to a flock of sheep, he sees a burning bush. And God is like, I've heard the people's cry of Egypt. You're going to be the one to lead them out of Egypt, lead them to freedom, lead them to the Promised Land, the Promised Land essentially being back to Canaan at the time. And there are some interpretations that interpret Moses having a speech impediment as a why he's like, I don't want to do this. I can't talk. And he and then God is like, I will literally tell you and show you what to say. It's not that hard. Just do it. I love God saying it's not that hard. It's not that hard. I love I love God's sass in your retelling. Thank you so much. I would pay for a Patreon of you just recounting Bible stories. I would be like, I'm in. OK, my partner has said something similar. My partner has been like, can you please do a drug history of Bible story? Oh, my God, amazing. That sounds like a really good idea. And also, there are so many implications with substance use and Bible stories. Let's unpack that later. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I'm always looking for things that would work as non spicy only fan stuff. And I think someone just straight face giving Bible stories with a little sass in God's voice. That would do. Thank you so much. Yes. And also, the sass is really coming from also God being like, listen, these are your people. So of course, they're going to trust you to bring them out. And like, because I'm God and I know the best people to select for these things. Do it. Yeah. So then Moses goes through a whole journey where he's showing the power of God and the wonders of God. And that's where you see the plagues take place, harming the Egyptian community. Then a new Pharaoh says, OK, fine, after all this harm. And after you decided to murder Egyptian newborn male babies, you can now go. And also in the Christian retelling, Moses does not get to see the Promised Land. Something happens where Moses and Aaron makes God mad. And they're like, no, you don't get to see the Promised Land. And the Muslim retelling, they do see the Promised Land, but they don't end up there. They die before they get there. Yeah. With the exception of Val Kilmer playing a very strong and important role, how does the how does the movie differ from the like what sort of differences did you see there from the original? So we also with the exception of Jeff Goldblum and a couple of people, not a Jew to be found and the cash. Yeah, exactly. I remember talking to a friend about this, too. I was I was like, there's only one or two people of color in the casting. And then a friend of mine goes, well, there's a lot of Jewish people. Then I was like, Sandra Bullock is Jewish. OK, fine. There aren't there aren't any Jewish people. Yeah, I think the voice of Yoshavid, the singing voice. Oh, yeah, she is Israeli and she died of AIDS in the early 2000s. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Again, you came with history in pocket and I appreciate it. You're welcome. Yeah. So what were the what did you notice as the differences between the text and what we were doing for Katzenberg? So in the Prince of Egypt, what's so interesting and what makes it a more compelling story, they hide Moses's Hebrew heritage from him. They actively do not tell Moses that he's Hebrew. In the film, it's Miriam, his older biological sister, who ends up saying, like, listen, I know who you are. You are not the Prince of Egypt. You were born of my mother in the Hebrew community. Like she literally saved your life from the man you call father. Referring to the Pharaoh. So it becomes a thing where Moses is like, oh, my God, everything I've been told was a lie. And that's what makes it compelling. And they make it a connection to the Ten Commandments film where in the Ten Commandments film, it's more like a brotherly bond between these two people, but in the Prince of Egypt, his adoptive brother is like, no, that's my brother. Ramesses is my big brother, which also makes it very compelling. They frame the murder of the overseer more so as an accident. Like even though like Moses is like, hey, stop, leave, leave that man alone. And this is after the scene where Miriam is like, you are Hebrew. And because of this realization, he's seeing all of his community being tortured by the Egyptians. And that leads him to like push the overseer to stop hurting him. But then he ends up killing them. Yeah. Yeah, it's a tough sell in like a kids animated kids feature to have your protagonist like willfully murder someone. Like I think that we're we're done there, but. Exactly. It's hard to be like, you know, we're gonna take some liberties because things were different. And and Ramesses becomes Pharaoh by the time he comes back. And this is so interesting too, because in the Bible, Moses is like, listen, there might be people who are still mad at me for killing the overseer. So it'll be unsafe for me to go and God is like, well, good news. All the people during that time, including the old Pharaoh, are dead. So again, just do it. Whereas like in the in the Prince of Egypt film, it's like, oh, shucks. Like this would have been so much easier if I got to talk to Sadi, my adoptive dad, who I've just stopped having a relationship with. But no, I got to talk to this brother that I love Ramesses, who is now Pharaoh literally getting into his father's footsteps because he was told to. Yeah. And granted, a lot of people are told to commit acts of genocide. That does not make it OK. But that's what makes Ramesses such a complex character. I love Ref Fiennes' voice. Oh, my God. I love it so much. And granted, yes, I don't agree with white people being casted as Middle Eastern, North African people, African people of the continent voicing those characters. I don't like that. So with that being said, LeVar Burton would have been a great choice during that time, too. Like I've thought this very thoroughly, like LeVar Burton would be a great Ramesses. I love that you're thinking of casting. Also, were there other potential perspective cast members that you thought about that weren't, let's say, Steve Martin and Martin Short. Oh, my God. I was like, yes, I love these two together. But I did love their comedy and I love their ad lipping during their voice acting. Like Steve Martin going, oh, my new thing. Like as one of the like, I keep calling them the Timon and Pumba of Prince of Egypt. Of course. They're they're ageless. They're the villain version of them. I thought of Dennis Haysbert for Moses. And honestly, like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey could have voiced Mariam and Sephora as well. Like they could they contributed to the soundtrack and it's a beautiful soundtrack. Babyface produced the different version of the song on the soundtrack when you believe. Just truly a different era when you can say Babyface produced in ellipsis. Like we're just in a different time. Like we are in kids movies where Babyface produced some shit. Like that is the best. I saw this in the theater and was like, cried the entire time. Tell me more about that. Tell me more about you crying in the theater, watching this. I think this was like in my this was in the atheist part. But like I had all of these stories just like fully in my brain and body from growing up. And I was like a very like, I think because like sort of Sunday school and eventually youth group were places where like deep reading and nerdy were acceptable, like it was like a place where I sort of took all of this stuff in in a very big way. And then I was just, yeah, I was so I was moved by the song. Like this was right around when DreamWorks came around. This might be the reason DreamWorks came around. Exactly. I can't quite remember. Like how many revenge projects has Katzenberg decided? And we love him for it. But doing this thing where it was like, you know, taking the Disney format and it's like a little grittier, you know, it's like not quite like extreme in any ways. But like there's a level of seriousness that doesn't exist in sort of like a lot of like modern animated Disney projects. Yeah. And so to like see this like history I knew and related to and then sort of as conveyed via all of this beautiful song and this that is like that, you know, has at least some elements and tradition. And then finally, just like the last scenes, like I remember being, you know, do you see the whale through the water, the water of wall? And I watched it. I mean, it's like incredibly resonant, beautiful imagery. And then now obviously there's a concept about being like the whole exclusively let my people go, right? Like in the context of how this is being shaped in response to the Ten Commendments as well as a film. But the conflict here being we have the Egyptians who it's like, these are my people and it's OK to be bad to those people. But then they have someone in their ranks, right? Who that's their people, too. Yeah. And what it illustrates is like through the chain link of humanity, we are all each other's people. Exactly. You know what I mean? And so it's like, I know that those people are more resonant to you, but like I'm resonant to you and these are my so we are all it's all of us, you know. And so I think that that is a thing that probably very initially started to speak to me then and has never not spoken to me. That's so beautiful. Thanks. As a kid, were you like, oh, these are my stories? Or are you just like these songs are bangers? Like I want to listen to this over and over. Yeah, like because this film was in theaters when I was like three or four years old. And again, I didn't watch it until I was like five. But yeah, when I was 12. Yeah, some of it was because of like me and my siblings going like, ooh, these songs slap. And at the same time, though, it's like such again, the complexity of those themes of the film, like the song through Heaven's eyes, like look at your life through Heaven's eyes. This is the life that you could live for yourself if like when it comes to life with people that you love and life within your community and how to be like even when it comes to the smallest contribution in a community, you're still making an impact. God is still making each person give their own form of impact. Look at your life through through the fact that God has placed you here for a reason sort of thing. I just find I've just always found so beautiful. That's my favorite song of the whole film. I love that song so much. And Brian Stokes Mitchell is one of my favorite singers ever, ever. He's incredible. He does the singing voice while Donald Glover does the voice of Jethro High Precinct Median. And I just love how I carry that perspective with me a lot over the years. And yeah, the images are so good and the song slap. And I love reading about what made them decide on the voice of God for the burning bush. Being deep voice. Well, Kimmer. Yes, exactly. Exactly. No, exactly. What was the thought process? Yeah, their thought process was like so at first they're going through old films on what they heard God sound like. But then they got into the nitty gritty about like, well, listen, this burning bush is an interaction with God. God is often a reflection of ourselves. What's going to make Moses most comfortable to hear this message himself. And so I just found that very beautiful. And yes, it is a deeper version of Elkimer's voice. Recipes, buddy. But yeah, it's yeah, I just find the again, the process of this film so beautiful, even if I don't agree with all of their decision makings throughout the process. Yeah. And what is I mean, like if you describe sort of the emotional arc of the movie, if you were to describe that, like, what are the conflicts that you see sort of unfolding across the movie? Yeah, I love how in the beginning it's like, oh, look at Moses and Ramesses tearing it up in the kingdom and Patrick Stewart being amazing. Patrick Stewart with why do the gods torment me with such reckless sons? Classic put upon dad. No, wait, what's the line? I wrote I wait, I wrote down the exact line. Oh, he also played Bambi's dad and Bambi, too, didn't know that until Patrick Stewart did. Patrick Stewart did. That is trivia I'm going to carry with me. I found it. Why do the gods torment me with such reckless, destructive, blasphemous sons? And so there's that there's that conflict. There's that brotherly love conflict. There's the conflict amongst how how sexism works when when we're introduced to Sapporo, which because Moses is a future wife, the conflict of Moses having to reckon with not only his privilege of being a Prince of Egypt, but also having to reckon with like you are part of an oppressed people. What are you going to do about it when it comes to Miriam bringing that to his attention? And at first. And it's also interesting how in this film version, Aaron takes more of a backseat role because in the Bible, Aaron is sort of Moses's right hand man throughout. But in this version, Aaron is like, I'm not looking to get whipped tonight. Like you shut the fuck up Miriam. Yeah. Aaron's doing everything he can to keep the conflict minimal. Yeah. In the Ten Commandments, he's exiled to the desert in the Bible. He's exiled to the desert in the Prince of Egypt. He's like, no, I'm running away to the desert willingly. And that moment in the desert when like when I was younger, watching when like the standstorm buries him and he's all like, like for folks listening, I'm doing a movement where like Moses is like, yep, I take this in like as a kid. And I thought it was him being like, OK, I surrender to the elements. But then as an adult, I'm like, hold on. Suicide question mark. Yeah. Passive suicidal ideation question mark, which is something I love to explore. And my personal work as a poet and a prose writer, I have a my debut poetry collection, Judas and Suicide, analyzes a lot of instances where suicide took place in the Bible, whether it was a suicidal ideation, a suicide attempt or a completed suicide. So as an adult watching that, I'm like, huh? And then he's living his life in the desert, living a beautiful life. And then God for the burning bushes, you can't just stay in this beautiful life. That's selfish. You need to get your people out. And then thinking he's going to have to talk to his adoptive father. He's like, oh, I got to talk to my brother about this. No. Like I can't let my people suffer under your hands, buddy. Every embassy is like, oh, dang, you didn't come to say hi. You didn't come to say hi to me. You just came to free your people with the heck. Yeah, you didn't come just to talk about good times. Right. When we switched the heads. Dang. Ramses is like, look at the beautiful kingdom I built. And then Moses is like, no, no kingdom should be built on the back of slaves. Homie, what are you doing? And then plagues happen because Ramses refuses to listen, which God did warn Moses about Ramses is not going to listen. And then Moses does this speech that reminds me of the Lego movie where he's like, he could take away your food, your home. He could end your very life. It makes me think of the Lego movie during the where Chris Pratt's characters say like, this could be bad. And they're like, I don't want no part of this, but because it's an encouraging 90s movie, like we wait for Moses to say the good part about like, he can't take away your faith, though. And then we get that magnificent song and magnificent graphics that's so bombastic and heart wrenching. And then there's the final plague where all the first four in Egyptians died. There's that conflict. So again, I like the similarity of Moses was always going to destroy the kingdom in some ways, whether it's due to playful actions and God being like, oh, that's nice versus like Moses is like, no, seriously, your kingdom has to come to an end, though. And being an adult about it and like being spiritually called to actually destroy it. So I love that. I love filmmaking. But yeah, one of those sons includes Ramesses sons, his only son. And Ramses goes, OK, you can go. And then there's the parting of the Red Sea. Again, another beautiful part of the movie. And in the Bible, there's a lot of interpretations that say God has hardened Pharaoh's heart. So Pharaoh tries to go after the Hebrews in the film. There's no mention of that. There's just like, oh, I changed my mind. I just want to kill you all because there are some interpretations that don't phrase it specifically like that. But when they say like, oh, God has hardened Pharaoh's heart, there are some interpretations where they're like, well, God is being very punitive and God is being very determinous in order to determine the fate of what happens to the Hebrew community. And some of that has to do with hardening Pharaoh's heart. Some people interpret it as, well, Pharaoh's heart was hardened anyway. God just happened to emphasize it. So there's just various readings of that that makes things so complicated. And it's important to interrogate those complications in the ways of faith. And I understand what tends to turn people off from faith is the fact that there's no room for interrogating those things, no room for asking questions like that. I want to revisit that momentarily with regard to like movement stuff. So that's this is great. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, the Hebrews are safe. All the Egyptian soldiers drown. In the movie, they have Ramesses live in the Bible. He does not live. And also I have such mixed feelings. I even as a kid, as much as I love this movie, I have such mixed feelings about the ending itself, OK, because in the end, Moses is coming down with the Ten Commandments and looking upon his people and their tents and stuff being free. And from my Christian mindset, I'm like, well, that's an act of erasure because it's like when Moses went to Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments, the people were getting unsettled. And Aaron was like, here's a gold earring. Let's make a gold cow since God's taken a little while. And Moses comes back down with the Ten Commandments is angrily seeing what's happening, smashes the Ten Commandments. And he's like, Aaron, what the fuck? And Aaron was like, y'all were taking too long. I didn't get the people settled. But then they end up destroying the gold knocks that was built. But yeah, there are so many instances where and what I again, what I appreciate about the biblical story of this is like, it's so nonlinear how the community feels. Because on one end they're like, yay, we're free. But then on another end, having to care for themselves and having to be like, well, at least we got fed when we were slaves in Egypt and like, who's who's going to feed us now? Like sort of thing and like having to deal with that a lot of the time until there's something that God gets mad at when it comes to Moses and Aaron's leadership. And even though God and a young man named Joshua ends up leading them to the Promised Land, Aaron and Moses do not get there. But again, in the Muslim retelling, God exonerates them from their behavior. They get to witness them entering the Promised Land, but they die and they don't get there. So I'd love specifically also to with regard to what you were saying, like talk about where the role of like religion and religious iconography comes into sort of movement, liberationists stuff in particular. But like in particular, because I think like maybe like some time in the 70s and up through, especially after sort of like the global 68 stuff. And once Marxist thought really entered the new left, there has been a long tension between what is the role of religion and movement? Like despite the fact that religion was very strong and present in the prior, you know, thousands of years immediately before that. But then also sort of in American movement, in particular for the prior several decades, but then the conversation comes up where it's like, you know, is religion the opiate of the masses that stops people from doing what is like really good for them or sort of separates them into tribes? Or are these stories as we had seen play out again, especially in the 50s and 60s, are these stories helpful in reminding people that these struggles are universal and eternal? And we are called to sit outside of our comfort zones as long as people are not free. Oh, my God, I have so many things to say. And I'm going to like I'm going to ask by the time I'm done talking, I'm going to ask you to be like, can you please ask any of the questions within that beautiful long question that I did not address? Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, we'll do. We'll do. So all the things that are coming to mind right now upon first hearing your words, it's like there's so much that comes from just not wanting to hurt people when it comes to the reason to like distance one's selves from religion to distance one's selves when it comes to religious iconography, especially when it comes to religious iconography that tends to be culturally appropriated or co-opted in order to perpetuate harm. So there's that intention of like, please keep this away. We don't want to hurt anybody. We don't want to cause harm. And at the same time, when it comes to the significance of how there is liberation theology and a wide variety of worldviews, it's like you can't distance from it, even though one can try, you can't distance from it. You're always going to be in conversation with it because it's a conversation with the divine about how to make people better and how to not cause harm, even though people have weaponized it to cause harm. Like that's always going to be ongoing conversation and it's always going to be complex. And when it comes to black liberation theology being tied to the Abrahamic religions, that's also very important. That's why you have babyface and boys to men on the soundtrack of the Prince of Egypt. And it's another thing too about like, oh, you can have black people on the soundtrack, but you can't have too many black people as voice actors. Come on. Especially when it comes to how often they're a conversation in liberation theology and they're a conversation with the Exodus story, especially when white slave owners of black enslaved people would purposefully rip out the pages of Exodus so that they wouldn't get any ideas. And I'm using, and I'm using air quotes because I'm quoting them. I'm seeing the air quotes, everybody. But yeah, how often so many black people are moved by the story of Exodus, like in how Harriet Tubman was framed as the Moses of her community. How often in black spiritual hymnals, you hear the phrase, let my people go. That Moses says, I'm really excited to hear the conversation you have with Max. I'm very excited to hear about it because I really want to hear more about the Jewish lens of liberation theology and the story of Moses, especially when it comes to genocide, the Holocaust and things of that nature. So I'm really excited to hear that conversation. But yeah, like you can't or rather it's not that you can't because a lot of people can and and a lot of people like need this need the space to process religious related trauma and they need the space to have that distance in order to heal from religious related trauma. But to say that religion has no value in liberation, has no value in conversation with Marx, even though Marx is like gross, like when it comes to religion, gross. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't come don't come for my. This is a reasonable take. Thank you so much. Y'all are a little religious about Marx. And let's just like it is like it is very important to have religion involved in the in the conversation when it comes to how to be a good community member and how to be good people and how different religious folks, especially religious folks of marginalized religions, let's start there, have really great things to offer when it comes to community building. And I do try to do my best to balance those conversations as well, because even though I am a black and multiracial person of color, I'm also still a Christian, which is still a worldview that is still heavily privileged and still very much in our legislation in America that causes so much harm. And I'm non binary. What we're having so many fun conversations about this, but it's a necessary one. And hopefully more people are willing to have it. And like when it comes to healing from religious trauma, after having enough distance and healing to process that, then reengaging the conversation when you're ready. Yeah, I think I mean, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head by bringing up religious trauma in particular is like you were asking this earlier about sort of what word does my atheist face come from? And it was religious trauma. It was not faith. And in fact, I remember when I realized that like Johnny Cash was a Christian and like I love Johnny Cash. Yeah. Then I realized just like about him and his overall disposition and the stuff he believed in and was like against the Vietnam War and like elevated incarcerated people incarcerated people and I was like, oh, it can be like this. And I was like, oh, it can be like this because this is what Jesus was like. Yeah. That opened my eyes. I did. I did a lot of what worked for the youth, not a lot of a couple of years of work for the youth chapter of the Portland NAACP. Back when I was a young person, you know, I read sort of an exceptional amount of texts about like where it all fit into, you know, liberation theory, et cetera. And then it was like my issue isn't with the stories, the imagery, the seeing ourselves in sort of a larger overall context, seeing ourselves in a larger struggle. Like my issue is that like the people at my church were assholes. Exactly. Yeah. You know, and like often people are assholes first and then launder it through their little invented monopoly on what faith should look like and manifest as. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I don't know. I think you I think you answered the question overall that I was looking for. I do think that this is a thing that people get tripped up on. They're like, you know, I see a group of people who are like, like, like, there's a there's a person who's running for mayor in LA right now, Ray Hwang, who is a Presbyterian minister and a community organizer has been an organizer for years and years. And I love all of raised politics. It's all sort of good stuff that I'm excited about. Always love a candidate. We'll see how I feel about an elected official. Of course. Yeah. But I know there are people who I'm friendly with who are like, I don't love the minister thing. And it's like we have a rich history that is long and deep. Yes. Of people of faith being the most radical and proactive people in the room. Yes, exactly. You know, and I also understand that someone at your church was an asshole. Of course. Exactly. Both things can be true at once. For sure. Yeah. The civil rights movement exists because of interfaith collaboration and solidarity. And you don't need to go to church anymore. But one of the most helpful things my therapist has said to me has, you do not need to attend a house of worship that does not love you. Yeah, that's beautiful. And yeah, it's important to remember, like, stay away from houses that don't love you. Exactly. What else stands out in here that you feel like we have not covered yet? What else in this movie tickles you? Going through my notes in the order of the plot. I'm so excited. Beautiful. Oh, yeah, just like it's also fascinating how Moses as a person is just held more accountable through this artistic portrayal of him rather than the biblical portrayal of him. Because on one hand, I love how the Bible portrays so many flawed humans because we are all flawed humans, right? And at the same time, basically post-desert Moses is really good at being like, hey, please don't try to praise me too much for this thing. I do come from a privileged life or like when Aaron is like, oh, did you only start caring because you found out you were one of us? And Moses was like, you damn right. Yeah, I refuse to see because I didn't wish to see. Thank you, Aaron, for calling me out on that. I do want to point out, speaking of lefty mismanagement, that's a big one. When people are like, do you only care what it's you? It's like, yeah, a lot of people only care when it's a thing they recognize. So work with that. Like, don't use that to be like, you only came in. Man, it's like, hey, actually, go fuck yourself. People take things that they recognize to get them to care and use that as an opportunity to build the universalism. Don't expect the universalism that was never taught because our systems are designed to crush people's ideas of that. Over all, exactly. Yes. I'm going to keep searching through my notes about anything else. Yeah, please. If there's anything that we missed. Sorry, we did. We went about this in like a nonlinear way, but I'm glad because you were you were bringing in greater context, which I feel like is more important than a linear journey. Yeah, again, just also very interesting to talk about art as a way to portray religion when also there are certain ways in certain religious theology where they're like, hey, actually, can you not draw the profits or like, hey, can you actually not do this? And so that's and that's a beautiful conversation that we don't have time for. But I did want to bring it up. So you're saying that they were they were responsive, like the production was responsive to protocol. What's that? Yeah, because yeah, the prediction for its time did a good job of including as many people of the Abrahamic worldviews as possible when making this film. And I think this film was banned in Egypt for a bit because of the images of Moses and the theology of like, we don't draw any likenesses of any of the prophets in the Quran. And also any Muslim friends feel free to expand on that and all that good stuff. I'm only speaking from my lived experience as a Christian. And I also know Muslim friends who adore this movie, too. So again, feel free to talk more about that as you will. I mean, there you know, there are some people who at the end of the day, it's musical first and then everything then everything underneath and bless a lot of those people listen to the show. Oh, OK, I do have one more quick tidbit to say, and then we'll talk about Daddy's beautiful. There is a film credit listed as ethnic arrangements. OK, OK, fuck that. Oh, God, gross. Again, I don't agree with all the decisions in the film production of this. I occasionally try to describe the nineties to people like as a person who was there in real time and sort of had my attention. And I'm like, it used to not feel a long time ago. And now it feels like a hundred years ago. Like when you run into stuff like that, you're like, it was a hundred years ago. It was a full century ago. Well, I'm going to ask you this question that we ask everybody. And here is the question. The Pharaoh set is set. He is that how? Yes. Yes. The Pharaoh set is Moses and Remesies father in the movie. Technically, we can quibble. Who at your view, Maya, and it seems like you might have a list of folks. And so I'm I'm gay. Who are the daddies of the Prince of Egypt? Top daddy, Jethro High Priest of Midian, voiced by Danny Glover and singing voice by Brian Stokes Mitchell. We love Jethro's eyebrow game in this. They're animated. Yeah. Oh, my God. Follow up daddy's burning bush. Yeah. Out of all the Abrahamic religions, I do find it fascinating that Christians view God as a parental figure. That's still very, very fascinating to me. And yeah, I view in my relationship with the divine God as a parental figure. But yeah, burning bush. Follow up, daddy. Honorable mentions for daddy. Hans Zimmer. Love that. Stephen Schwartz. Love it. Moses, voiced by Val Kimmer, RIP and singing voice. A Mick Baram, who is also sung for a lot of Disney movies, which makes sense. Have you so good. And of course, Remesies, voiced by Raph Fiennes, who did the speaking voice and the singing voice, double work, double duty. Yeah, those are my daddies. That's a great. That is a great collection of daddies. Thank you. I'm just going to go with Patrick Stewart generally. Yes. Love. Anytime Patrick Stewart shows up in anything, I do hear that the second season of Picard is in shambles. But that's not for me. That's not a property I follow. Gotcha. But I am just happy anytime that we get Patrick Stewart in any form. So I'm going to I'm going to say Patrick Stewart. Why? Why? This is a delight. When are you coming back? Less than a year, I hope. Whenever you want me back, please. I'll take you back. Please take me back. This is it. I'll take you back. This is a delight. Thank you so much. I'm excited for the next time. Remind me of the episode I heard you. Was not what I'm going to say not long ago. What I mean by that is within the past five years. Yeah, you were on Bec Del Cast. No. I was on Bec Del Cast three times. Once for perks of being a wallflower, a second time for Beyond the Lights. And a third time for the Secret Life of Bees. I heard the Secret Life of Bees one. I have to listen to the perks one because I have so many feelings about that book and movie. Please send me all your thoughts and feelings as you're listening to it live. I love it when people do that. Absolutely. Yeah, I do it to Jamie's poor Jamie sometimes gets just like seven texts in a row from me responding to a conversation she had seven years ago. Oh, my God, I was I was messaging live the Jesus Christ superstar episode. Because they purposefully did not have a guess because it was Jamie's birthday. Oh, sweet. So it was Jamie's birthday pick. And I was having a good time just live messaging, even though I knew I knew they weren't going to respond to it. Yeah, I mean, I'm like, you know, you probably what I don't know what you're going to do. And I often I'm just like, don't worry about this. Like, this is a me thing. Like, don't don't be concerned. Anyway, thank you so much. It's it's so lovely having you and really truly just send me your next picks and we'll get you on soon. Oh, thank you. I will. Awesome. All right, everybody, that's it for this week's episode of You Are Good of Fillings Podcasts about Movies. Thanks so much from Miranda Zichler for producing and editing this episode. Thanks so much to Maya Williams. Thanks so much to Max Wolpert, both for being here and sharing such great insights on this great movie. The Prince of Egypt. I'm your host, Alex Steed. Of course. Who else do we need to thank? Fresh Lash, of course. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for providing the beats to make our episode sound so sweet. Thanks to y'all for supporting us on Patreon and Apple Podcast subscriptions where you get bonus episodes and extended cuts. Don't forget to check out our bonus episode about reality bites that we covered with Courtney Kosak. We have Courtney coming out for an episode about the grease soon. Thanks to y'all for being great. Don't forget that you, my friend, are good. I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so glad we get to do this together. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.