I’m not much of a podcast person, and I’ve never listened to a narrative podcast, but when I heard about Red for Revolution, I was intrigued. The podcast was created, written, and directed by Jana Naomi Smith and tells “intergenerational stories of Black women, queer love, and liberation.”
Jordan Hull plays Jazmine, an 18-year-old girl who has recently accepted her queerness. As a way to make sense of herself and the role she plays in the world, she turns to her grandmother Ella Ali, who tells the teen the story of her greatest love in 1971. The story is told in two timelines — as we hear present day Ella and her former love tell Jazmine their story, we are taken back in time as well. In the present day, we also get glimpses of Jazmine’s first crush, and her tense relationship with her mother Suzanne.
Conceptually, Red for Revolution is spot-on. Intergenerational relationships between queer elders and baby queers is so important. Especially for a generation that largely does not understand all the struggles that had to be overcome for them to live as freely as they do.
As Jazmine is discovering her own queerness, she decides to sit down and talk to her grandma Ella about her queerness. We don’t get a lot of context about Ella’s sexuality in the present and how it’s impacted Jazmine’s understanding of her own. But we’re led to believe that Ella’s only ever had one great love in her life: entertainer Lorraine Giovanni. She and Ella had an on-off relationship in the early 70s. Unfortunately, their ambitions got in the way of them having a successful relationship. After one final betrayal, the women become estranged, and in the present day, it’s been at least 50 years since they’ve last spoken.
In a sneaky, very 18-year-old move, Jazmine reaches out to Lorraine to get her side of the story without ever mentioning that Ella just happens to be her grandmother. Through these “interviews” with the teen, each woman recounts her side of the relationship and what went wrong. It’s a really clever storytelling device, especially in audio format.
However, I wanted desperately to know more about Jazmine and her motivations for undertaking this project. Wanting to learn more about your lesbian grandmother’s lost love is great. But what did she already know about Ella’s past? Had Ella been in any relationships after Lorraine? How did Ella being a lesbian affect Jazmine’s life growing up? They focused so much on the story in the past and the present, but nothing in between those two times in history. I didn’t need a whole episode. Just sentences here and there to fill in the gaps.
Additionally, historical context is greatly lacking in this story, and it is sorely needed. Based on the way the characters talk to each other, especially in the flashbacks, it’s hard to believe the story is taking place in 1971. The way they talk about their queerness, it actually feels like the 1950s, not two years post Stonewall and deep into the early days of the LGBTQ fight for equality. Of course, many people were still afraid to be out publicly, but it would have been interesting to engage with what was happening in the world and how this impacted Ella and Lorraine.
This was also true when it came to the way they portrayed Black revolution. A lot had happened in the fight for Black freedom by 1971, and there was no mention of any of it, not even as a jumping off point for why they are continuing the fight. Black revolutionaries in 1971 were fighting different fights than those a decade prior. I found myself wanting to know more about their fight and organization within the context of what had come before. By the way they spoke, I could have seen the story taking place in the mid-1960s just as easily. There wasn’t even mention of women’s lib! All of these things impact the story, and leaving them out causes the story to fall a bit flat.
The absence of this context assumes that people listening already know it all, and that feels disingenuous for a story being made in 2025. More context would have helped to illustrate what exactly about the women and their stories was revolutionary.
That said, I absolutely loved the voice performances in Red for Revolution. Jordan Hull was perfectly cast as Jazmine; I’ve missed her so much since Gen Q ended. It was nice to hear her voice again, and there were a lot of things about Jaz that reminded me of Angie. Hull was also the Associate Producer of the project, and it made me feel like a proud auntie. I’m glad she’s doing things! S. Epatha Merkerson and Loretta Devine were awesome as the present day incarnations of Ella and Lorraine respectively. They’re both legends, and it was really nice to hear them doing something like this. Loretta Devine gets to sing as Lorraine, and I love her voice so much. Rutina Wesley and Renée Wilson were their 1971 counterparts, and Wilson’s singing voice was also lovely.
Openly queer actress Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is featured in a small role as Ella’s mother Delores. And another Gen Q alum, Vanessa E. Williams is featured as an abused woman Ella is trying to help. (Justice for Pippa Pascal forever!)
The most delightful surprise was hearing Jennifer Beals. And for once, she’s not playing a lesbian! She goes the full 180 and instead plays Jazmine’s homophobic mother. Or maybe it’s not fair to call Suzanne homophobic. Suzanne is Ella’s adopted daughter; her mother was a comrade (and maybe more) of Ella’s who was killed. Her birth mother’s queerness was presented to Suzanne as a factor in her death, which has given the older woman a lot of complex trauma around queerness. She has a lot to unpack before she can fully accept her daughter or either of her mothers.
Beals and Hull obviously have chemistry, and it was maybe a little too familiar. As they were arguing, I half expected to hear Suzanne yell “Tina!” Maybe that’s just me! It wasn’t a distraction; just an observation. I don’t know if they recorded it together in the same place, but I hope they did, because they just work so well off each other. And after years of seeing Beals be gay for pay, it was nice to see her on the other side of the table.
Music is a major part of the story, and they did a really good job blending original pieces with existing songs like “Stormy Weather” and “Send in the Clowns.”
Altogether, Red for Revolution is a powerful testament to the power of Black sapphic love. It beautifully exhibits the importance of intergenerational relationships and why we need to desperately cling to our elders while they’re still here. There’s radical love and the way women are forced to choose between romance and ambition. But at its heart, it’s a story of Black women: mothers and daughters, friends and lovers, and all the ways our relationships with other women shape us.
Red for Revolution is now available from Radiotopia wherever you get your podcasts.
“Well explained, made the topic much easier to understand!”