Hello, Lovelies! With Winter Olympic prep and coverage taking over my work week, this week is a great time to drop a free look at Required Reading, our Patreon-exclusive series all about conversations in media, particularly pro wrestling and cinema. Every episode, I pick a wrestling match and my close friend and collaborator Hollis picks a film for discussion with one another, with both fitting our personal definition of the show's title.

This one is an all Brian selection special as they present a media relationship that has been bouncing around their head for years: historic pro wrestler Sandy Parker and Cheryl Dunye's groundbreaking feature film debut, The Watermelon Woman. We discuss Sandy Parker & Paulla Kaye vs. Chiyo Obata & Terumi Sakura from 1974 and Parker's trailblazing career as a Black lesbian in pro wrestling alongside Dunye's 1996 film focused on discovering Black lesbian history in film, preservation of culture and how the power structures that have been historically in charge of said preservation forget about marginalized people and their stories.

As always, spoliers aplenty in our discussion.

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Thank you to Irving West for our "Required Reading" logo and Reverend Rabies for the show's theme song.