Latest / The Bechdel Cast / One Battle After Another with Jess, the PrideBrarian

Transcript

One Battle After Another with Jess, the PrideBrarian · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: changing it with the Bechdelcast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Attention Bechtelcast listeners, we are going on tour.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: And we know we've been on tour many times over
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: the years, but guess what? This is a very, very,
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: very special tour that can only happen one time because
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: it is our 10 year anniversary. Oh my God.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: We are doing a 10 year, whoops, we didn't dismantle
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: the patriarchy tour.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Anniversary tour. We're so excited. Yeah, we want to really
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: ring this anniversary in, in style. So throughout the next year,
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: we will be traveling around the U.S. and Canada doing
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: our 10-year anniversary celebration show. And we are starting. We
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: are kicking it off in the Northeast this October.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: With shows in New York City. Ever heard of it?
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: On October 12th. Baltimore, October 15th. Philadelphia, October 17th. State College,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: October 18th. Pittsburgh, October 19th. And Boston, October 21st.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: We are really going to go big. And because it's
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: so close to Halloween, we would highly encourage you to
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: dress up as your favorite movie character. We certainly will
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: be doing so. And it's just going to be a
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: big celebration. I'm so damn excited.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: You can buy tickets at Linktree slash Bechtelcast. All of
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: our ticket links are listed there.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: We will see you there, Northeast, and see you rest
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: of the U.S. and also Canada very soon. See you there.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: The Bechtelcast.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: Jamie, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Caitlin, I've been drinking Mike's Heart Lemonade for 4,000 years.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: You cannot expect me to remember a sequence of three things.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Well, then how do I know that you are who
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: you say you are?
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God. Well, maybe let's make a little misogynist.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Isn't it wild in that moment that it's a little
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: misogynist comment that ends up getting him out of the jam? Right?
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: You know, I kind of forgot about that. I remembered...
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: having a giggle of my first watch at him not
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: remembering but anyways uh yeah we actually we should have
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: a secret password for the podcast.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah what if yeah what if one of us
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: is an imposter that's.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: True what i mean i guess yeah we we could
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: answer so many embarrassing questions about the other though that
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: i feel like we would be able to figure it
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: out pretty quickly for sure for sure yeah yeah Well,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Durante. This is our show where
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point. And Jamie,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: what on earth is that?
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Well, the Bechdel test is a media metric created by
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: friend of the show, friend of the pod. We've met
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: her two whole times, Alison Bechdel, who originally made the
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Bechdel test as just a one-off joke in her wonderful
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: comics collection, Dykes to Watch Out For, that was at
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: the time about how specifically the queer community did not
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: have explicit representation on screen and would look to sort
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: of shipping characters in order to create representation in And
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: has since sort of been adapted into a far more
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: mainstream media metric. The version that we use, there's many
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: versions of the test. The version we use requires that
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: two characters with names of a marginalized gender speak to
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: each other about something other than a man for more
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: than two meaningful lines of dialogue. It is our favorite
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: way to figure out if people actually listen to the
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: show or not, because we only really talk about it
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: for about 30 seconds at the end of every episode.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: But it's a good North Star. It's a good North
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Star to talk about representation and intersectionality. Absolutely.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: And today we have an episode on One Battle After Another,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: the movie that was the talk of the town last year.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: And we have an incredible guest joining us. She analyzes
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: representation in media. She is a three-time Emmy-nominated TV producer.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: It's Jess, a.k.a.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: The Pribrarian.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Hello. Hello and welcome.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: Hi, guys. Thanks for having me.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much for being here.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: I'm so nervous and excited to be here. Oh my gosh.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Well, truly like your work is so incredible and so
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: thorough and so succinct. Like as we were talking about
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: you coming in the show, it was like, wow, uh,
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: you know, she can put into four sentences, but it
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: takes us three hours to articulate. So we're very happy
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: to have you.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: I appreciate that. I will admit though, it takes me
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: a while to write down everything and then edit it
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: into those few sentences, but you know, we'll see how
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: this goes. Like I am pretty, pretty, what is the word?
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: I talk a lot. We'll say that.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Then this is going to be perfect.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: Yes, indeed.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about your history. I mean,
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: I know it just came out last year, but what
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: is your history with One Battle? Yeah.
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: So last year I was obsessed with Sinners and I
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: saw it maybe three or four times in the movies.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: And I was like, this movie is going to win
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: Best Picture. And then I started to hear about one
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: battle after another. And I was like, okay, well, you know,
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: maybe I should, I should check this out. It had
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: prominent black female characters. And I was like, okay, you know,
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: I can watch this. Let's see, let's see how this goes.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: And I was with my boyfriend and he's like, I
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: don't want to see this movie. I was like, oh,
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: you know, let's, let's, let's give it a shot. Let's,
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: let's see, let's see if it has any substance to it.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: And I guess I wish I would have listened to
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: him because it's, it's just not, it's not my favorite.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: And I rewatched it for this podcast and I tried
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: to go in with an objective lens, you know, to,
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: to just analyze it and see if there was, you know,
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: anything there and, and nope. Again, it was just not,
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: not a great watch. So I hope I'm not, you know,
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: putting down any of your, if it was one of
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: your favorite movies, but you know.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: No i mean we are here we are here to
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: set aside any enjoyment of the movie we might have
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: had and we're we're here to to really have some
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: discourse about.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: It we come to this place for discourse.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: For discourse fighting words uh jamie what about you what's
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: your relationship with it.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: I guess I'm assuming we all have like a similar
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: like we all we all saw it last year when
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: it came out. Yeah, I was looking I was sort
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: of reflecting on I remember this is like one of
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: many movies I have left with my partner and immediately
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: gotten into an argument because he was like, I don't know,
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: I liked it. And I was like, well, but what
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: about this? And I like. A number of PTA's movies.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: I think probably my favorite is Phantom Thread, which we
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: still haven't covered on the show. I really love that movie.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: I was curious what the story was going to be,
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: how he's going to tackle it. And I left feeling
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: pretty frustrated, even though craftsmanship-wise, it's a very thrilling movie.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: It's very well made. It's very well acted. I'm not
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: arguing that part of it. But just in terms of like,
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: you know, who he chooses to focus on and the
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: tropes that he utilizes to continue to focus on the
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: DiCaprio character was frustrating when I first saw it. And
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: especially when you're watching it not to be thrilled or
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: to get through a plane ride or whatever the case
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: may be. it gets more frustrating. I mean, my, my
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: real like thing I was clenching my fists about when
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: we left that first viewing was the Regina Hall's character, Deandra,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: just like he gives her nothing. And it makes me
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: so like, I, we're, we're big Regina.
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: Hall wasted opportunity.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, like truly, I'm very excited to get into
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: it because this for me kind of boils down to like,
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: who is making movies about revolutionaries and who they're going
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: to be inclined to focus on. Because I feel like,
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: for me, with the exception of Chase Infinity's character, there's
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: so many supporting characters that are 20 times more interesting
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: than the two white guys that end up sort of
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: pushing the narrative. Or don't even end up pushing the narrative,
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: but are at the center of the story. But I
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: think the Regina Hall character was just so egregious to me.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: I was like, she... He didn't let her do anything. No.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: And do we even know how things turn out for her?
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: I feel like she's just kind of written out of
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: the story.
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: And we don't know anything. And it's like, how do
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: you not end that arc? We had, you know, perfidia.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: We know how she betrays the revolution. You never get
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: to see, I think her name's Deidre. Yeah. In the movie,
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: you don't get to see her make that choice and
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: it's left up to interpretation. And I'm like, that's not,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: If you're going to have one character kind of betray,
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: you need that character, the other one to kind of
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: show the other side of it, the one that is actually,
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: because Deidre definitely felt like the actual revolutionary.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: Yes, the only one. one who sees it through.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Who wouldn't rat out her friend.
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: Yes, thank you. So it's like, it would have been
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: great to see that on screen, but we're robbed of it.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Totally. Yeah, so I found it frustrating. This was my
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: first time returning to it since... that first viewing, I have, yeah,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: I have a lot of thoughts, but I think for me, like,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: especially doing some deep dive into what the feminist community's
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: reception of this movie was, what the leftist community's reception
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: of this movie was, and specifically what the black feminist
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: community's reception of this movie was, there's like so, there's
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: so much to take in. And I feel like the
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: question that I was trying to like get to the
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: core of on this last viewing was like, what does
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: the French 75 stand for? And I am frustratingly unable
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: to answer that question. It's really vague, yeah. And I
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: think intentionally so, and I'm very excited to talk about it. Yeah, Caitlin,
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: what's your history with this movie? Same thing.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: I saw it in theaters the one time, and I
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: will admit that Because I was not watching it through
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: any sort of critical or analytical lens, I enjoyed it.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: But I was also aware of and participating in the criticism,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: especially of the movie's treatment of the black women characters.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: That was present from the very onset of the movie's release.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: So I was aware.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Of that going in. And to your point, Jamie, like
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: you said, it's it's well acted. It looks good. It
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: was filmed in Vista vision. I don't really even know
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: what that means, but I guess that's significant.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: But and the performance, I mean, like especially the the
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: women's performances in this movie are are amazing. It's just
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: like I just wish that they had characters, thoughtful material
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: to go off.
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. It feels like everybody was on their A-game
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: with the craftsmanship of moviemaking and the moving image, but
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: the writing and messaging is where it fell off. And
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: just because you have... you know, nice cinematography and, and
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: great acting that does not make a good story.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: That does not a good movie make.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: Yes. Right.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: But it gives us a lot to talk about and
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: I'm excited to dive in. Shall we take a quick
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: break and then come back for the recap?
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Let's do it.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And here is the recap of One Battle After Another.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: We meet Perfidia Beverly Hills, played by Tiana Taylor, and Pat,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: played by Leonardo DiCaprio. They are a couple, and they
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: are both members of an anti-fascist militant resistance group called
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: the French 75. Other members include D'Andra, played by Regina Hall,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: a character named Jungle Pussy, played by the rapper of
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: the same name.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: Jungle Pussy, yeah. Again, wish she had had more to do.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: And the fact that we learn that she's dead via
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: a joke later in the movie doesn't sit well with me.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: It's so gross.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: I was also very happy to see her in the movie.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: I remember that was like that got a huge pop
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: in my theater because we're like, wait, wait.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: So the group breaks into an immigration detention center at
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: the U.S.-Mexico border to liberate the 300 or so people
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: who have been detained there. One of the military officials
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: stationed there is Captain Steven Lockjaw played by Sean Penn,
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: who perfidia approaches gun pointed at him. She's berating him.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: And then she tells him to get it up, AKA
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: get a boner.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: And he does.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Then the group gets away after successfully completing their mission.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Profitia and Bob are all horny about it. So basically
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: everyone is aroused in some capacity.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Not us, though.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Not us. No, we're just like, wow, so many gross
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: looking men in a row.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: And this is like the first five to ten minutes
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: of the movie and it just already is making you cringe.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: I was not expecting to see Sean Penn's boner, like,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: close-up of his boner within the first few minutes.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: You're just like, we paid to see that, is the
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: alarming thing. Yeah, and again, as we'll be talking about
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: throughout the episode, I'm sure, like, if you're looking for
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: some insight into perfidia here, don't hold your breath.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: Mm-mm. Yeah, this is definitely where my red flags were
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: going up. And again, like five minutes into the movie,
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: it's like, okay, please, please don't make her this stereotype.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: What's called the Jezebel stereotype. I was like, it's 2025.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: Have we not moved past these things?
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: As you said, Jamie, there's not much there, and it's very,
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: very frustrating and very, very, for me watching it, degrading
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: to see a black woman just be treated in this way.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: And she's such a good actress. So to see not
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: only that play out on screen, but then to get
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: awarded as such just tells me, as someone in the industry, that, again,
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: our stories are just... not what matters. Our stories are,
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: it feels like our story, Black women's stories are always
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: there to be a side character in someone else's story.
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: And a lot of the times stereotypes are used as
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: shorthand because we are not made to be a full
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: human being in stories. We're there to be the MacGuffin.
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: Like in this, both Profitia and her daughter are just
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: there to be fought over by these two white main characters.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: And I really, I know that we're only just starting
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: the movie, but like, I really, really hoped that that
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: wouldn't be the case. And again, this is just another
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: form of disappointment from, from this industry for me.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And so much of, I don't know, I mean,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: there was so much discourse around this movie, which we
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: are continuing the grand tradition of here. And I'm very
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: happy we are. But I think what I found so
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: consistently frustrating in, like, the stereotypes being presented are so unchallenged.
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: that I don't think that I've, I've seen some kind
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: of attempts to argue that it's like an attempt to subvert,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: but it's, but I think the fact that we have
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: no insight into perfidia, I mean, that, that is kind
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: of like all you need to know about where this
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: movie's priorities lie. I don't have an issue with the
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: fact that, you know, whatever, it's like, I'm not going
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: to police the morality of a person who doesn't exist
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: and be like, why did she rat? Was this blah, blah, blah.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: What does, I mean, I think how that relates to,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Who that character seems to be referencing is worth discussing
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: because people have... And Teyana Taylor said that she pulled
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: from Assata Shakur, who is not a rat, even remotely.
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: That was her whole... The point of her fleeing.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: She was... famously not around.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: I don't have issues with like perfidia, you know, ratting
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: people out. I have issues with having no idea why
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: that is. Like it's, if you're, if you're going to
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: write a character that makes the choices that perfidia does, like,
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: I feel like it is like your responsibility as a
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: writer to give us some insight or you're just perpetuating
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: the stereotype, which is what he's doing.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: I don't think he had in his mind to make
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: her a character. Like the, That wasn't even a thought
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: in his head. He's like, this is what she is.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: She's hot. They want her and that's it. But that
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: thought process is what we should be trying to flip
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: around in this industry. My whole thing is representation. And
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: I think that if we had better representation for marginalized
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: characters on screen, it's a tool in order to help
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: us be seen as more human in our society. But roles,
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: movies like this continue to perpetuate that we are not human,
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: that our stories don't matter. And like you were saying,
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: you wanted to know her story, but the stopping of
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: that is just a very, very old practice within Hollywood.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: And not to go too media theory, but like there's
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: a name for it called symbolic annihilation in which- Either
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: you don't show marginalized characters or you show them in
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: a stereotypical way. And the point is to reduce their
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: power within society. And so the more you don't show
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: us as human, the more our quote unquote power is reduced.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: And that's what that felt like. And that's where that
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: degrading feeling that I was like, here we go again.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: I don't understand.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: Why you couldn't just, she's in the movie, Profitia's in
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: the movie for like less than 15 minutes of a
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: three hour movie.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And she is the catalyst for the entire story.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: And we know nothing about her.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: How does that happen?
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Truly.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: The one little glimpse of backstory we get for her
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: is something her mother says, which is that she comes
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: from three generations of revolutionaries, which also even more begs
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: the question, why does she rat if she comes from
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: a long lineage of revolutionaries and she should know better?
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: But yeah, to your point, Jess, this is a conversation
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: we've had on the podcast over the years of either, yeah,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: movies pretending that marginalized people simply just don't exist. This
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: comes up whenever we talk about like the versions of
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: New York City where only white people live. Or, yeah,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: or it's the. inclusion of marginalized people but they are
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: there to be a stereotype they are there to be
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: the butt of a.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Joke or in the case of this movie pretty consistently
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: they're set dressing there's so many extended sequences where people
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: of color are just meant to set a scene for
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: like dicaprio to walk through essentially yeah.
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: Like the entire uh I know we've kind of gone
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: off of the recap, but like the entire... Classic us.
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: Sequence of him going with the sensei.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Yes, the whole del Toro sequence.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: And that could have been such, honestly, like, I would
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: have loved to just see a movie about his character. Yes, yes.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: The real revolutionary, like, it almost is like a movie
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: within a movie. It's like, And we're watching Leonardo flop
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: around on screen and it's like, no, I want the
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: actual revolutionary movie that's over there.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: He has built this whole sanctuary for undocumented migrants in
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: his community that he's offering safe.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Cool as a cucumber the whole time. And I know
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: that I'm sure, or I guess I want to believe
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: that That is intentional where we can't see DiCaprio complete
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: a phone call. He can't do fucking anything. And then
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: you are watching Benicio Del Toro's character just hyper-competently, cool
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: as a cucumber, knows exactly what to do. But again,
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: it's like, who is our focus with? Who are our
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: priorities with? And whose community do we get to know?
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: And it's certainly not the sensei's.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: Exactly. Yeah.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: In any case, we've met the French 75. We also
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: see them do a series of other acts of revolutionary violence.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: You might even call them one battle after another, which
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: they say out loud in the movie.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Always fun. And we're cheering.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: And Lockjaw observes Perfidia from afar and starts masturbating. It
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: seems that his previous interaction with perfidia has either unlocked
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: a fetish for him, or maybe he already had it
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: in the sense that he fetishizes black women, but he
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: has his attention on perfidia. And then one day he
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: approaches her and tells her that he will let her
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: keep doing what she's doing. as a member of this
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: resistance group, if she meets up with him so that
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: he can basically indulge his fetish. And she does. They
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: have some sort of sexual encounter. It's not totally clear
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: everything they get up to. But we cut to several
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: months later and Perfidia is pregnant.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: She's pregnant. She is. Sorry.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. She is pregnant. The baby is born.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Her name is Charlene. And Prophidia seems to be experiencing
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: postpartum depression, which is also something that barely gets explored.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: Very glazed over.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Although that was something that, because another very valid critique
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: of this movie was how... unwilling PTA was to acknowledge
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: it as a political film in interviews, which we can
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: talk about.
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: Makes no sense.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: I'm like, then why fucking do it, man? Whatever, we'll
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: get there. But yeah, he does explicitly say that perfidia
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: is struggling with postpartum Which is an interesting thing to
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: confirm for, again, just like a script that has no
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: curiosity about how that experience, like it's so invested in
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: portraying Pat slash Bob's confusion and the fact that he
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: is a good father, capital G, capital F, that like
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: it's completely disinterested in her experience with what he says
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: himself is postpartum depression. Yeah, it's very frustrating. Yeah.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: So she's dealing with that. And she also insists on
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: continuing her work with the French 75, even though Pat
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: is like, um, we have a baby to take care of.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: And she's like, I don't care about all that. And
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: then she participates in a bank robbery that goes wrong
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: and she is arrested. And while she's in custody, Lockjaw
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: pays her a visit and says that he can help
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: her avoid prison.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: If she names names.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: While that's happening, Pat has to flee. He has to
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: take the baby somewhere and lay low. A fellow comrade
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: named Howard Somerville gives Pat an envelope full of information
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: that he needs to memorize and then destroy, as well
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: as a set of trust devices, which they're hard to explain,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: but Basically, if your device is near another person's device,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: they will kind of activate each other. And it's a
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: sign that you can trust whoever other person has that device.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: I forgot to look into if these things are real
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: or if it's deus ex. It's like a little plot machine.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: I genuinely don't know. I forgot to look it up.
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: Same.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know either.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: It's a fun idea. I mean, I guess the movie
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: does bear out that it is ill-advised and maybe just
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: sounds cool versus is helpful.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Anyway, Pat and Charlene are given new identities. They are
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: now Bob and Willa Ferguson, and they drive off into
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: the night. Meanwhile, Perfidia has ratted out her friends, some
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: of whom are hunted down and killed. And in exchange
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: for this, she is put in witness protection.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: A little, I guess, PTA Easter egg that I thought
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: was fun, and I think maybe all directors should do
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: this is in that perfidia rats out her friends montage
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: where we see a lot of the french 75 agents
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: or members i guess get killed he kills off the
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: protagonist of his last movie alana heim which maybe directors
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: should just do that at the beginning they should just
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: kill off the protagonist of the previous.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Movie which i i fucking hated licorice pizza.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: I also did not like licorice pizza, but I just
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: think as a rule of practice, I thought that was
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: kind of funny that he was like, oh, you liked her? Well,
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: she's not in this one.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Especially because that actor is a Zionist. Oh, I did
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: not know that.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: The Heim sisters were.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know about all of them, but at least
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Alana has been vocally supportive of Israel.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Well, and that won't be the last mention of Zionism
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: in this episode, unfortunately.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: Nope.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, so Lockjaw goes to visit Perfidia in witness protection
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: and like rekindle whatever they had going on. But she
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: has fled to Mexico. And this really hurts Lockjaw's little feelings.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: And then we cut to 16 years later. We meet
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: a teenage Willa, played by Chase Infinity.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Is that really her name?
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Chase Infinity?
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's her.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: Sounds like a bank.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: I know, but it is her government name.
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: Wow, interesting.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: Sorry.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: But yeah, she's studying some type of martial art with
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Sergio San Carlos, a.k.a. Sensei, played by Benicio Del Toro. Meanwhile,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Lockjaw has been invited to be considered for membership in
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: something called the Christmas Adventurers Club, which made me burst
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: out laughing in the theater. And I was like, oh, wait,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: that's that is what it's called.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: I will say that's the only thing that I took
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: from this movie. I now call all white supremacists Christmas Avengers.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's fitting because, yes, they are
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: this like alt-right white supremacy hate group that's like super
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: secretive and exclusive.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: And the members of the group ask Lockjaw several questions, including,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: has he ever engaged in an interracial relationship? And he says, no,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: no way. And then they tell him that they're going
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: to investigate his past to make sure he meets their
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: standards for membership. But obviously, Lockjaw did engage in an
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: interracial relationship with Perfidia. And he also knows that she
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: got pregnant and had a baby right around the time
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: that they were engaging in this relationship. And uh-oh, what
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: if he's the father?
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: So he has some of his military buddies abduct Howard Somerville,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: the guy who helped Bob and Willa get away all
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: of those years ago. And also he's abducted while he's
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: basically recording a podcast.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: He is independently podcasting when abducted by the feds.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: I thought he was broadcasting to the network or whatever.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: It might have been a live broadcast.
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: And I was like, why is he saying all this?
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: And that makes more sense now that it's a podcast.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: It might be a live broadcast. I'm not entirely sure.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: But I like to think he was podcasting. A fellow podcaster.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Podcasters have their place in the road. I'm just kidding.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: We don't.
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: Revolutionary to podcast pipeline.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're really doing the good work here.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: So Somerville gives up information about Bob and Willa and
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: where they live. which is a sanctuary city called Bacton Cross,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: which I believe is in California or it's not a
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: real place, but it's like set in, I think like
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Northern California question mark.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure like every Paul Thomas
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Anderson movie basically is somewhere in the San Fernando Valley.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: So, so Lockjaw heads to Bacton Cross with an army of,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: basically ICE agents, because he is using the deportation of
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: undocumented immigrants who are living and working in Bacton Cross
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: as a cover for this personal mission of his to
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: track down Bob and Willa. Meanwhile, Willa goes to a
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: high school dance, and Lockjaw is on his way to
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: kidnap her, but D'Andra, the Regina Hall character, gets to
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: her first to help her get away. And Deandra's trust
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: device activates Willa's device. So even though Willa doesn't know Deandra,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: she knows to trust her and she agrees to go
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: with her. Meanwhile, a member of the resistance calls Bob
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: to alert him of what's going on. And she's speaking
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: in code and he needs to speak in code back
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: to confirm that he is who he says he is.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: But he's high and it's been 84 years since he
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: memorized all of that information. So he has trouble remembering.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: And he definitely doesn't remember at all where the rendezvous
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: point is. And they refuse to tell him unless... he
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: can remember a particular line of code.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: He's just so incompetent.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: I did laugh at the part where he says he
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: has fried his brain from abusing drugs and alcohol. But yeah,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: he is very incompetent. And he goes to Sensei for help.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: they're running around, they're trying to dodge this ice raid
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: that's happening slash the military presence that's all over the city.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: And again, this is like essentially used by the movie
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: and very like, I mean, it, the, the way that
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: the scene is set is definitely convincing, but it's, it's like,
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: so as we're watching the sensei take Bob through this sequence,
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: it is like, unquestionably set dressing of an act of
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: horrific state violence to get us from point A to
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: point B for Bob. And I was also, I mean,
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: I think the first time I saw it in the theater,
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: I didn't think too much about it because it is,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: it is very like propulsive and exciting to like watch
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: these like long shots. But I was also, I'm curious
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: what you both think, or like if there's something I'm
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: missing of like, I know that like Bob is, I
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: wrote it in my notes. He's like the Ringo of
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: the French 75. He was there as well, but he's
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: no one's favorite member. So I understand why the sensei
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: would know who he is and have some reverence for that.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: But I was in the middle of what the sensei
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: is doing, which seems consequential to hundreds of people. Why
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: is he prioritizing Bob?
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Bob.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: Why is he getting arrested for Bob?
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: Cause Bob's the main character. Exactly.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: Exactly. It's like, and I felt silly for not like
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: thinking harder about that the first time, because you're like, well, yeah,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: I guess this is what's happening. But on, on the rewatch,
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: you're like, he's, he is like protecting so many people
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: and he's going to take the fall for Bob. Come on.
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: He should have been like, sorry, Bob, I've got bigger
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: fish to fry.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: Or even just say like, this is as far as
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: I can take you or something.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: But that's kind of the sacrifice of marginalized characters. Their
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: lives are on the line, but we got to help Bob.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: But they're there to serve the white protagonist.
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: So who cares about if they're going to die or
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: get deported or if children are going to be separated
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: from their families? Don't think about that. Think about Bob
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: getting his cell phone thing to work. You know, that's
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: what's important.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: And I think that's the tricky thing about this movie
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: being a well-made and well-performed movie is that like, I
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: didn't think about that until my second viewing. Like that's,
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: I don't know. That's also perhaps a skill issue on
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: my end.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. You know, you're watching a movie
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: for the first time. Everything is coming at you. It's
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: all new information that, you know, it's hard to process
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: super thoroughly on the first watch.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: And there's so much going on that like there were
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: things that I miss, like the layers of, I guess,
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: the audacity of this movie, just like how much it
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: pushes people to the side for these two men to just,
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: Like it's almost like we're watching people's lives get disrupted
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: and ruined for their own narrative. And that's frustrating to me. Yes.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: Which is, I, and I love, I love a 40
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: hour recap, but it's like, there's just so much going
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: on here where I feel as if, and I think like, sure,
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: fair enough. But I was thinking about it in the
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: context of this movie of like how it is like,
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: to me, at least like clearly like, Part of what
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: PTA is trying to say here is that the white
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: protagonists of this movie, including DiCaprio, are ineffectual. They're constantly
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: in the way and they're acting selfishly. Obviously, Sean Penn
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: is like the most egregious example of that. He's literally Mr.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: White supremacy. But that, you know, DiCaprio is like cannot
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: get out of his own way, can't do anything, can't
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: really be of assistance to anyone and has to stumble
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: his way to the finish line. And it's like, okay,
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: that is like, I guess, a true and valid point
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: that so many white men, even in these contexts, are
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: not helpful. And they're not helpful to the cause. They're
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: not helpful to themselves. But I feel like he accomplishes
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: making that point by ignoring so many other perspectives and
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: underwriting so many other characters and to be like, look
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: at this character. He's such a, like, he's such a fool.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: It's like, well, sure. But what else do you got?
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: And I feel like the answer is maybe not very much. I, I,
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: I thought it was like a, um, it's an interesting perspective.
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: Cause I didn't, I didn't think of it that way.
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: Like I thought it was more like, this is his
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: self insert character. And like, this is what I would
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: be doing during the revolution. Uh, and yes, Paul may
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: not be helpful, but he's still the, the main character
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: of it. And it felt like this, his name is Paul,
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: Paul Thomas Anderson.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: Knowing that he does have like a black wife and
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff. It felt like his like,
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: I don't want to say manifesto, but like, his kind
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: of gift to the revolution. Like, this is my art.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: I'm going to make it about the revolution, quote unquote.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: And this is what I have to say about it. Like,
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: that's what I thought it was. But I guess that
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: is a valid point that he may have been trying
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: to say that these white dudes are getting in the way.
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: But if he is saying that, then I don't think
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: he did a great job of displaying that. Like if
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: that was his intent, totally because still in the end,
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: you know, Sean Penn's character does die, but like Leonardo is,
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: he continues to be the hero, even though his daughter
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: does help out and stuff like that. It is solely
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: from his perspective of winning the day.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: So I agree. And I also feel like, and like the,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: ending of this movie frustrated me the first time I
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: saw it and really frustrated me this time, because like
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: you're saying, Jess, like it is, it does seem like
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: a movie that he, I mean, he has enough in
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: common with the DiCaprio character that you have to wonder
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: there's references to Maya Rudolph's family and, that I didn't
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: pick up on in the first viewing where he, he
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: calls like perfidious mother is called grandma Minnie. And Maya
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Rudolph's mother was like the iconic singer, Minnie Riperton. Like
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: there's references like scattered throughout. And he is the white
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: father to a biracial child, you know? So it's like,
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: clearly these things were on his mind. And also I
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: didn't realize in the like inspiration, it's not an adaptation.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know what it is, but like in the
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: Thomas Pynchon novel, this movie is like pulling from perfidia
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: is not a black character. She's a white woman. So
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: like these are choices that he's intentionally making. But I
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: totally agree, Jess, like that, you know, the DiCaprio character,
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: especially doesn't really end up having to take a lot
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: of consequence or even questioning about his, You would think
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: at the end that Chase Infinity's character would have a
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: lot of reason to be very upset with him. But
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: the thing that bothers me about the ending is that
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: it seems like PTA being like, maybe the kids will
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: figure it out. And you're like, no man, your generation
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: still holds all the institutional power. You can't just be like,
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: best of luck to my kids. Like, I don't know.
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: Fascinating. I did not know that about the original novel.
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: I do wonder like how different perfidious characters from the novel.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: And maybe you two might have that answer, but like,
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: were the, the traits of like just being hyper-sexualized the
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: same as in a novel as they were in the
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: movie or, Or were those traits given to Prophidia in
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: the movie? And I don't know which is worse, because
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: if it is the same as in the novel, then
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: you put a black woman into that and made her
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: that stereotype. Or Thomas, Thomas Anderson? What's his name?
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Paul Thomas Anderson.
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: Oh, Paul Thomas.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: Oh, yes. Okay, because it's also Thomas Pynchon. There's too
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: much Thomas going on.
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: Love Thomas. Or it's that there weren't those traits in
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: the novel. And I'm going to forget his name. Paul
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: Thomas Anderson then gave her those traits willingly. And that's
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: scary because that means that you did that consciously. And
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: I really don't know which is worse.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: I can't speak to how the Perfidia counterpart character in
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: the book is characterized. I haven't read the book, although
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: I did a little bit of reading on the differences
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: between the book and the movie. And like you said, Jamie,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: you can barely call it an adaptation because there's so
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: much of it that paul thomas anderson invented on his
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: own he pulls different things from the book but there's
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: a lot that he either omits or changes.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: So it seems like most of the like the skeleton
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: of the story is similar but most of the character
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: specifics are very much paul thomas anderson's gotcha okay so
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: that's not great yeah i was like there's not a
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: good answer.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: And and i guess yeah like either way you're right
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: like Either way, the outcome is the same. You get
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: a very, very hyper-sexualized black woman that plays into a
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: stereotype that we have just seen... You know what? I'm
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: going to go into it. That is a story that
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: has just been passed down since slavery. And it is
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: so ingrained in our society that he just might not
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: even know that that is a stereotype that he was
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: playing into. if he put her into that situation, or
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: if he didn't, then he was doing it. I don't
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: know if malicious is the word, but it felt malicious.
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: But that Jezebel stereotype, which is the hyper-sexualized Black woman,
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: she is promiscuous to a fault. And it was a
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: story that slave masters kind of told themselves that Black
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: people had, sorry, that Black people had larger sex organs
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: and that made them more promiscuous so that when selling men,
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: they could say, look at his large sex organ. He
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: can produce a lot more slaves for you going forward.
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: And for women, we got, I can't even say the
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: short end of the stick because we're talking about slavery,
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: but like for women, it was more, it gave slave
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: masters an excuse to use sexual violence against us. We
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: were the temptresses that were seducing them and they had
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: no power over us. And so they just had to
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: lie with us. But it was that psychological story that
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: allowed them to have the excuse to feel like they
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: were constantly in the right. I feel like that's a,
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: I always bring it up, but like Ta-Nehisi Coates has
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: a great like passage in his book, The Message that
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: says that like, if you're going to do such plunders
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: against other human beings, you have to tell yourself a
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: story in order to coax your own guilt. And that
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: is what that Jezebel stereotype is. And look how it
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: is 400 years later, and we are still using it.
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: And so that is the, again, going back to symbolic annihilation,
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: that is the harm that we have been enduring for
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: 400 years in that that is the, the narrative violence
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: we have been enduring based on that stereotype. And that's, that's,
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: I have to express, like, I think people don't understand
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: like how powerful the media is and how powerful representation
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: is because it's not just what we're seeing on screen.
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: We don't just intake a movie and then that's it.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: It stays with us. And if we're perpetuating these things
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: over and over again, it gets ingrained in us. And,
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: these stereotypes just cause real world harm. And in this
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: case for this specific stereotype, it like, there's no correlation
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: between watching something and then someone doing violence, but there
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: is correlation. I read a study on it. When people
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: see these over sexualized images, then we do have a
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: psychological tolerance for them. Like when it happens to women
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: in our real lives. And I just want to express
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: that when I saw this movie, that is what I
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: got from it. I know that it is beautifully shot.
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: I know that it is like a lot of artistry
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: went into it, but a cherry on top of a
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: shit cake is still a shit cake. You know what
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: I mean?
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's one of the many insidious things about
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: media tropes is that tropes beget more tropes. So, you know,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: the filmmakers who perpetuate tropes watched it happen in the
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: media that they consumed as a younger person. And then
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: they're like, oh, well, that's just what, that's what black
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: people are like. That's what black women are like. So
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: I'll put it in my movie as well.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: It's all so frustrating to me because First of all, Jess,
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: thank you for that analysis of the Jezebel character, which
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: is so clearly where perfidy is coming from. And it
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: just gets back to, I feel like, who gets to
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: tell stories about revolution? Because PTA seems to sort of
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: want to, but also very much not want to in
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: this story, where as you were describing all of the
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: tropes that come with the Jezebel trope and how extremely
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: harmful it is, Shades of that appear in what Sean
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: Penn's character says at the end of the movie when
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: he's describing his relationship with Perfidia and basically saying that
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: she assaulted him and that he has no choice but
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: to have sex with her. He also calls her a
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: witch and a warrior and talks about her in these
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: very mystical terms when he is in the car, when
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: he's kidnapped, Chase Infinity. And so it's like... Again, I
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: feel like the shortest version of saying it is like
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: PTA is not the person to be making a cogent
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: film about. black revolutionaries.
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: Um, who would have thought?
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Who could have said, and like, we'll get back
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: to this, but like all of this happening in the
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: same year that sinners came out and getting some awards
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: that sinners, uh, you know, I think we agree probably
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: deserve more, um, is so frustrating, but that like, he
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: knows enough about the way he's characterizing perfidia to put
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: those words into the mouth of the worst guy in
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: the movie, but he doesn't know or care enough i
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: don't mean to just let him off like doesn't care
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: enough to actually give us insight into perfidia and not
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: play into those tropes so that's what is like like
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: he's i do think that the fact that he puts
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: this jezebel trope language into the mouth of the villain
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: means he does know what he's doing so why the
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: fuck didn't he write a character Like, it's just, it's
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: so infuriating.
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: And I do, I think that's a really good point. And,
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: you know, I don't want to take away us writing
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: stories about people from different groups and stuff like that. Like,
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: you totally can write a story about others but you
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: need to do your due diligence and it feels like
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: he stayed very much on the surface i don't know
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: if it's out of fear or like you said out
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: of a lack of caring but like not diving deeper
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: was a bigger disservice to the people you were supposedly
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: trying to tell the story about right right super super frustrating.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah The example I always go back to is Sofia
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: Coppola directing The Beguiled. And there is a black enslaved
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: character that she just completely omits because she's like, well,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know how to write that. So that character
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: just isn't in my movie anymore.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: See, but then that sounds ridiculous to me because it's like,
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: so because you... felt yourself incompetent, which, okay, that's a
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: cell phone, but, like, because you felt not up to
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: the task, then we've lost that representation for good then. Like, so,
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: what did that accomplish other than making yourself feel feel
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: better about.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: It right right and if you have to omit characters
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: because you don't feel equipped to tell their story then
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: maybe you shouldn't be the one making that movie.
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: Exactly sophia or just getting back to your point because
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: we've been talking about this for for 10 years and
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: can you believe no one's ever listened to us but
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: um but like that you know what that also says
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: is that you haven't done your due diligence. It doesn't
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: mean to erase the parts of a story and the
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: people that populate that story that make you uncomfortable or
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: you feel like you don't fully understand. That means that
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: maybe this is not something you should be taking on
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: all by yourself. And I do think that there is
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: value in the fact that PTA can get a massive
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: budget and eyes on his stories. So it then becomes
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: kind of like your responsibility as a filmmaker and as
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: a writer to, to do right by the story you're telling.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: And it's not, it's, I guess I shouldn't say it
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: like that, but like I was going to say, it's
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: not that hard because we have Google. You could just
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: literally look up what stereotypes are for each marginalized group
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: and then just avoid them. I don't know why. And,
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: and maybe it comes back to him trying to subvert things,
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: but then you didn't do a good job subverting it
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: because it's, And subversion is very, very difficult when it
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: comes to stereotypes because you first have to perpetuate that stereotype.
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: So you're already feeding back into it and then subvert it.
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: But you're still showing it. So I'm not really for
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: the subversion of stereotypes anymore as we're feeding the machine
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: that we're trying to get rid of, you know.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it reminds me of like when like a satirical
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: film will. be like see look at this trope but
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: then they just still do it because they're presenting it
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: but they're.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: Like we know it's a trope but here it is
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: and you're like okay so what are you so what's
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: what's the point yeah this is also i i'm worried
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: i'm gonna forget to mention it later but this was
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: like one of the i think because i didn't know
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: anything about this movie going into it except this is
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: like a filming detail but i think it's worth mentioning
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: because i find it So, especially in a movie that
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: it's just like absurd that anyone would be like, well,
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: I don't want to talk about the politics of it.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: It's like, well, then make a different movie. Make Licorice
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: Pizza 2 or whatever. But like, but that in the
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: shooting of this movie, there was a sequence. I don't
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: know what sequence. was shot in Sacramento on location. And
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: there were unhoused encampments that were fully swept to make
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: room for the filming of certain sequences in one battle
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: after another.
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: Are you kidding me?
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: I'm not. Because I remember, shout out to We The Unhoused,
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: that we talked about that on that show. Like, that...
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: Hollywood productions, especially in California and New York, will very
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: frequently have no issue with not just presenting really insidious
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: stereotypes around unhoused people, but also literally displace unhoused people
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: to tell those stories. And so in a movie that
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: is so clearly... at least in a surface way, touching
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: on displacement to displace people in service of doing that.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: Like that, that was just like one of the things
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: that I remember that was like what I took into
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: the theater being like, cause I just, I, that's so
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: vile and, to me. And that's, you know, that's the
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: film industry and city governments working like that. It takes
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: more than Warner Brothers wanting a sweep to happen to
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: make it happen. But I just, it's still just very,
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: especially with what this movie appears to want you to
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: think it's doing is very gross.
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: It's like performative activism. Like the movie wants you to
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: make it feel like it's for revolution while literally feeding
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: into the establishment that stops us from progressing as a society.
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: I did not know that. That makes me hate this more.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: It really pisses me off. Yeah.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: No, it's infuriating.
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I guess back to the recap.
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: We're still recapping.
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God. We're in like minute four of the movie.
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: We're about halfway through, I think.
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: We're at the part where Sensei is helping Bob... get
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: to the rendezvous point, except that Bob still doesn't know
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: where that is. So he keeps calling the like resistance hotline.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: And after several conversations, he is finally able to get
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: the rendezvous point, which is a place called Sisters of
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: the Brave Beaver. So Bob sets off toward that place.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: He's like following a group of skateboarding parkour guys who
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: are like jumping from rooftop to rooftop. And Bob falls
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: off a roof and gets caught and arrested by the police.
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: He gets tased. I did like the taste moment, the
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: DiCaprio getting tased moment.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was for it. Meanwhile, Willa and D'Andra are
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: also making their way to the rendezvous point. Willa has
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: a secret cell phone, which her father didn't know about.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: He doesn't let her have a phone because it can
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: be traced.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: I also did love that. I think that was my
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: favorite detail in the movie where it's like, I know
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: that he's updating the story from, I think like the
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: sixties and seventies into the modern era. And like, I
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: think that the way this movie, I don't know, I, I,
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: I really like paying attention to how a movie works
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: its way around the existence of phones. And I think
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: this movie threads that needle well, because of course she
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: has a secret phone. What the hell do you mean?
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: She's a teenager.
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: She's a teen girl.
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: The original, the, the book, Like the present of the
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: story takes place in like Reagan era 80s and then
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: like the flashbacks or whatever.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: It's like washed up hippies.
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the 60s and 70s. Got it. Anyway, so she
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: has a secret cell phone, which the military does trace
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: because one of her friends gives up her number. So
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of rats among them.
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: And can we talk about that really quick? Like the
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: only LGBT character or outwardly LGBT character rats their friend out.
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: And it's like, this is kind of a problem with tokenism,
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: like where you only have one character representing an entire
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: group of people. That's the only image that people who
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: don't interact with the LGBT community get of our community. And,
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: and because I am, I am bisexual and all that
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: kind of stuff. But like that also pissed me off
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: because it's like, really, it could have been, there were
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: three friend characters and you picked the only one, the
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: only representation that we had and gave it to and
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: made them a, again, which does play into another stereotype
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: that LGBT people in media are usually villains and stuff
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: like that. That's an old stereotype that we're kind of
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: getting out of these days. But here again, this movie
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: just loves its stereotypes that, of course, that would happen.
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: And I feel like Paul Thomas Anderson, I feel like
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: we've been bouncing back and forth in whether he knows
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: or not. And I'm getting into the camp that he knows.
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: Because it's too many times that he uses very, very
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: specific stereotypes for marginalized characters. He knows they exist. And
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: I don't know if he cares. And so to me,
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: this movie then doesn't become... Well, it was never going
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: to be. I mean, a movie is not going to
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: be a revolutionary catalyst or anything like that. But it
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: felt like that's what it was trying to be.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: It cannot.
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: It cannot throw so many marginalized people under the bus
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: and expect us to then want to go out.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: And incite revolution.
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: Thank you. Yes.
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that that was a wild one uh to to
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: to me where it's like i i i guess in
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: that specific case i like could not discern i'm like
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: just because there's like outside of chase infinity so few
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: young people get any sort of meaningful screen time that
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: i'm like even if it wasn't necessarily explicitly intended, it
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: looks really bad. It looks quite bad for the movie
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: because just the perspectives. For a movie that at its
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: end says the kids have got this probably, hopefully, I'm
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: going to stay home and smoke weed and wait for
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: my daughter to get home. For a movie to end
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: on that note and have really only interest in a
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: single character that is sort of being presented as the
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: next generation is... is a choice. For sure.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: Also, to go back to the queer character who rats
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: out Willa, the way they are talked about by the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: protagonist of this movie, Bob, where it seems like Bob, like, sure,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: I might be an anti-fascist revolutionary, but Things are too
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: woke these days.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: And I can't catch up.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: I can't understand. What does non-binary mean? Oh, you're triggered,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: you little snowflake.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: I will say there are some aging leftists that have
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: that behind.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: Fair, fair.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: But I feel like in this movie, that characteristic of
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: Bob is presented as it's definitely framed as a joke
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: like we're meant to like ha ha ha he's that's funny.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: Well yeah there's like the moment where the guy who
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: needs to know like what the password is or whatever
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: is like getting like it felt like a very kind
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: of cheap shot of like i'm triggered by the tone
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: of your voice.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: You're violating my safe space yeah right and that and
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: that he's bob is calling that person an ableist slur
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: he's saying you're you're ridiculous you snowflake and i think
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: that I think that we're supposed to like be endeared
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: to Bob with the way that he's responding to that stuff.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. And I also think that he's like
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: in the form of that character on the phone who
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: is kind of being annoying. I think he's kind of
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: like creating a straw man because I'm like, I was
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: sort of frustrated with how organized leftists were presented in
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: certain moments where, I don't know. I mean, there's like
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: a lot of ways to look at it, but I
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: felt like, yeah, that phone operator in particular was sort
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: of like a snowflake straw man who I don't really
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: think exists in the world in quite that way. Right. Yeah.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: We should hope.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: Okay. So Willa's phone is tracked. And so the military
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: have a sense of where she's headed.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Willa and D'Andra arrive at Sisters of the Brave Beaver,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: which turns out to be a convent full of nuns
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: who grow weed.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: Fun.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: Fun.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: And is that name like a euphemism?
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: Like.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: I was.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: Curious about that. I think for sure, right? Beaver, come on.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: Everything in this movie is very on the nose.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that feels like in the same camp as the
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: white supremacist Christmas club or whatever. You're just like, sure,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: I guess that's what we're calling it.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: And we also learn at some point that Willa thinks
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: her mom was a hero and that she is dead
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: and Lockjaw killed her. She doesn't know that her mom
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: ratted out her friends and then ditched everyone. And soon
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: Willa learns the truth and then has to grapple with
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: that information, another thread that gets mostly dropped.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: I would say.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Her relationship to her mom in general. I also
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: like with Willa, I feel like there are certain Mary
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: Sue tropes that are avoided with her. I agree. That
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: I appreciated. But I think especially like, I mean, it
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: just goes to the fact that every opportunity that Willa
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: has to develop a bond with another woman or even
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: just like her conception of her mom, it's kind of
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: interrupted by either her father or adoptive or biological in
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: every single possible opportunity. Because I was wondering, because we
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: don't really get a ton of time with her and
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: Bob at the top of the movie, she seems to
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: have very strong feelings about ratting out revolutionaries. And I
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: was like, was she raised with an idea around revolutionaries
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: and that ratting is bad? Like, what is her, I
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: thought she was, I guess, being kept at arm's length
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: from revolutionary activity altogether for her own safety like i
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: just had a lot of questions around it that again
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: like you're saying caitlin are kind of not are just
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: like not under explored yeah because i was like wow
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: she really was like betrayed to find out that her
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: mother had ratted her friends out which is like of
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: course there's plenty of people that feel that but i
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: just was like i i wanted more into her conception
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: of her mother but it also like emphasizes the fact
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: that what we know about perfidia is only shaped by
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: lockjaw and Bob. And she never really gets the chance
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: to talk to talk to Deandra long enough.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 4: And I would say that, like, I think again, that's
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 4: by design because I don't think Willa is supposed to be,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: I don't think she's supposed to be a character. I'll
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: say like, I think kind of like I was saying
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: earlier on, I think both she and her mom are,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: are just MacGuffins for what the two white protagonists want.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: And other than that, like I do appreciate that they
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: gave her, you know, some things to do, but her
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: character as a whole is kind of what each scene,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: kind of what each scene needs. Like, and that's why
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 4: it's inconsistent. And, and I'm not sure who said it,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: but like by the end of it, because she is
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: our only teen next generation character, And because we don't
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: know anything about her upbringing, we don't know what she
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: feels about the revolution, it being random for her to
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: be mad that her mom's a rat. We don't know
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: why she wants to pick up the baton and move
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: forward for the next generation. There's just nothing there. We
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: have to assume everything about this character rather than it
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: being fleshed out in the story. Which is, again, a
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: lot of narrative baggage is put onto Profitia and Willa.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: Instead of them being a part of the story, they
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: are just cogs. And it's like, okay, we need you
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: to be this right now type of thing. I hope
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: that makes sense.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: No, definitely. I think I was impressed after the first
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: watch that Willa is presented as more than just like
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: a typical damsel in distress who can't do anything and
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: has to wait until the white man protagonist saves her.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: But that's not enough. You also have to characterize that character.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: It's just more than we're used to. It's just so unfortunate. Yes.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I swear the movie is... It's also a
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: long movie. It is very long.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: It's three hours.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: But we're nearing the end. So we cut back to
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: the Christmas Adventurers Club, who, after digging into Lockjaw's past,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: have discovered a claim that he is the father of
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: a mixed race child. And they know that he is
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: currently in Bacton Cross attempting to find this child, a.k.a.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: Willa Ferguson. So they send one of their members, this
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: guy named Tim, to go after Lockjaw and eliminate him
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: since he lied and betrayed the Christmas club and is
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: making a fool of them or whatever. Then we cut
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: back to Bob who.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: Is being processed after his arrest, but one of the
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: people who is interacting with him seems to be an
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: associate of Sensei's, and she helps him escape. Actually, two
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: people end up helping him escape, and then Sensei picks
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: Bob up, and they continue on toward the rendezvous point.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: Sensei's mission to help the undocumented migrants that he is
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: like providing safety for be damned. Who cares about them?
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: He's got Bob to help.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: But, but Benicio Contreras, del toro is cooking so hard
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: in this sequence that i neglected to question why he
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: was doing what he was doing.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: Oh he's like i've had a few small beers and
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: we're like ha ha ha.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: Exactly such a great character.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: So good so so good i uh really quick uh
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: i this was just like something that i remembered thinking
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: and then forgot to look up when i saw it
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: in theaters The Christmas Club guy, I was like, he
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: looks so familiar. Who is this? Who is this? Who
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: is this man?
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: Oh, the guy from Scandal?
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: It's literally the president from Scandal.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: Tony Goldwyn.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I, like, shouted in the middle of watching. I
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: was like, Scandal guy. Right. Anyways, yeah.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: Talking about that sequence, the fact that Del Toro, Guillermo
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: Del Toro?
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: Benicio Del Toro.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: Benicio Del Toro. Like his network goes into hospitals and
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: I i just found that so much more fascinating than
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: the underground railroad where he has so many people moving
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: and so many different intricacies within we talked about the
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 4: skateboarders and now the hospital like it how much work
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: that how much work how much trust that he has
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: to have in the community is so very interesting to
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: get around the system that is that is oppressing them yeah.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: Which like again when you think about it more because
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: i kind of forgot how i hate that i have
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: like madam web brain where i'm like his web connects
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: them all we're so sick uh we got sick but
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: um but I forgot how much his web connects them all,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: but like how, how robust this, I mean, because I
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: think as it's presented in the movie, it's almost like
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: his web extends to whatever the narrative needs to get
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: him out of a jam. But, but again, it's so impressive.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: And like, you just want a whole movie with him
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: because why would this character go down for the Ringo
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: of the French 75? It doesn't make sense.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: Truly.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: Um, Okay, so meanwhile, Lockjaw has figured out where Willa is.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: He raids the coven. Sorry, not the coven.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: The coven. He raids the convent.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: I always mix those two words up. He raids the
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: convent and abducts Willa. He has a paternity test kit
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: briefcase with him to determine whether or not she is
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: his biological child. And it turns out she is. So
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: Lockjaw basically needs to get rid of her. He turns
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: her over to a bounty hunter that he has hired
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: to murder her. But this bounty hunter refuses to kill
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: children or minors.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: I think trafficking in some pretty insidious native stereotypes in
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: pursuit of doing that.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, so Lockjaw pays him to take Willa
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: to someone who will kill her. Meanwhile, Bob has stolen
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: a car and he's tracking Lockjaw around, chasing everyone. Then Tim,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: the Christmas adventurer guy, pulls up beside Lockjaw and shoots
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: him in the head. His car careens off the road.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: Bob.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: approaches and finds the vehicle, freaks out because he thinks
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: Willa is inside, but discovers that she's not there. So
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: he keeps looking for her. Meanwhile, the bounty hunter takes
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: Willa to some house where she will be killed, but
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: then he has a change of heart and decides to
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: set Willa free. There's a shootout and all of the
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: men are killed. Willa escapes in the bounty hunter's car,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: but oh no, she's being followed by Tim, Mr. Christmas,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: who I think intends to kill her as well. And
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: then Bob is following both of them. Willa outsmarts Tim
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: and shoots and kills him. Bob arrives on the scene
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: and his and Willa's trust devices are activated. And so
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: Father and son. Sorry, father and son. This is not
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: a movie about.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: No, this is actually, for once, a movie about fathers
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: and daughters.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: I'm so used to saying fathers and sons. So father
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: and daughter reunite and drive off. But wait, somehow Lockjaw
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: survived both being shot in the head and.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: What appeared to be a fatal car crash. And so
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: we cut to, I think one of the most unnecessary
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: scenes in any movie ever, because let him just die.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: When he gets shot. Oh, I guess I'll, I'll be, I'll,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: I'll have the dissenting opinion here. I really loved to
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: watch him think he got what he wanted and then
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: die in the most embarrassing way possible. He deserved a
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: more violent death than that. But I liked that they
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: hit the nail on like, And even the white supremacists
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: don't fuck with this guy. I don't know. I guess
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: I do like that.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: That is kind of satisfying. But I'm like, the movie's.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: Already two and a half hours long.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: Wrap it up. Anyway, but he's being interviewed again by
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: the Christmas Adventurers who ask him if he had a
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: romantic relationship with Perfidia Beverly Hills. He tells them something
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: that we alluded to earlier, which is that she drugged
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: and raped him. And he's accepted into the club, or
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: so he thinks, because he's escorted to his new office.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: But it's a trap and he's locked inside and a
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: poisonous gas is released into the room, killing him.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: It reminded me of that scene in Goodfellas. Do you
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: know the one I'm talking about? Oh, the Joe Pesci? Yes,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: where Joe Pesci walks into the room and they're immediately,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: because he also, I think he was a rat, right?
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: I forget why they off him. It reminded me of that,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: where he's like, hee hee, yay, best day ever. And
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: then he's killed immediately. Right.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh. I don't remember if Joe Pesci is
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: a rat. Ray Liotta's character is definitely a rat.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: That's the whole thing.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: Oh, maybe that's what I was confusing. But either way,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: they off Joe Pesci, I think, in a similar fashion.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know why I'm a sucker for, like,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: a bad character going in and being like, do-do-do-do-do, and
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: then just immediately getting whacked. I guess I love to
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: see it. I don't know why.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: That is fun. Anyway, we cut back to Bob and Willa.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: He gives her a heartfelt letter from her mom expressing
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: a desire to possibly reconnect one day. And then the
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: movie ends with Willa heading to a protest in Oakland for,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: I think, the like ice equivalent of this movie doing
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: another mass abduction of migrant people. And she's going to
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: protest that.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: Alone.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: Alone.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 4: Why is he not going with her? Truly.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: But that's, oh, that's like the whole thesis issue where
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: it's like, best of luck kids. And it reminded me,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: I know we have to go to a break, but
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: it reminded me so much. And maybe this, I hope
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: that this is like not too out of pocket and
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: random feeling, but just, I get so frustrated by that
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: message because and that kind of messaging in general, it
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: feels so like a refusal to engage with your generation's
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: contribution to the problem. And it reminds me a lot of,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: I feel like I first, the first time it really
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: connected for me was in the early 2010s when gun
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: violence in schools had such a sharp uptick and that
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: it seemed like a lot of the press messaging at
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: that time was like very, understandably behind student groups that
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: wanted gun law to be reformed and to be fixed
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: and to make it impossible for this to happen. But
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: it was more like, Oh, the kids have got it.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: Like Gen Z is going to save us all. And
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: that kind of messaging versus anyone with actual institutional power
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: or even proximity to it, putting something on the line
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: to do it. And it seems like in the closing
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: shot of this movie, we are literally told, uh, well,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: DiCaprio's done his part and now he can just chill
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: and watch his Roku while his daughter puts her body
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: on the line. It just feels like a very evasive
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: way to end this story.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 4: Very much so. And I think that's a problem with
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 4: kind of what we're going through right now in the
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: world and protests and stuff like that. I feel like
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 4: a lot of, we don't learn from the generation before us. Like,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: Perfidia says in her letter, she's like, we failed. And
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 4: it's like, okay, but how did you fail? How did
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: you succeed? History can be very much a roadmap to
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: how things could either progress or regress now. And like,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: looking back at the civil rights movement, they weren't just
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: out in the streets. They were protesting in all kinds
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 4: of different ways. And I feel like it can't just
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: be the performative.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: Um, going to like a no Kings March.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: Exactly. And like, and I, I went to that and
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 4: I'm like, Oh, we're not doing anything. The, the, the, the,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 4: like the March on Washington, uh, the, the famous one, um, uh,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 4: wasn't just the March on Washington. It was the March
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 4: on Washington for jobs and freedom. There was a specific goal.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: And I feel like every time we go out now,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 4: it's just, well, I don't like this thing. And it's like, okay, sure.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: We have to be more specific, though.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: What are we going to do about it?
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 4: What is your goal? A protest is just like acting
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: if it does not have a goal. And I feel
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 4: like that's... that's this movie. It's goal is to feel
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 4: like it's doing something without doing it at all.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: Definitely.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: You know, it would have been for, I just had
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: this thought, but I was like, just to give this
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: movie a little more, because I feel like a movie
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: that presents this many massive topics and really only touches
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: many of them on the surface, like needs a less, like,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: The ending to this movie, just like based on the
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: conversation we've had so far feels too like concise and
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: too like literally i mean even the choice of like
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: the tom petty like she was an american girl just
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: feels so like i i this i feel like we
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: needed something more ambiguous here i'm like even a scene
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: where not to argue to make the movie longer, but
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 3: a scene that I really wanted that the script seemed
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: to not want us to have was a longer period
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: of time, a chance for Willa to talk to Deandra.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: And it's like, have Willa visit Deandra in jail or
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: give us some insight into what happened to Deandra because
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: Deandra is, from what I can tell, the character who
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: can actually help Willa become an effective revolutionary. But for
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: whatever reason, like, it has to be vague and optimistic
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: and unspecific when it's like, I think that the character
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: who has these answers for her and they're difficult answers,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: but like she was just kind of written out of
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: the movie 45 minutes ago.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: And talk about like another, another movie that I would
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: have loved to see. I would have loved to see
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: it from Deandra's perspective because you know, All revolutions, I mean,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 4: they're circles. That's what a revolution is. So it's like
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: they have their time when they start and they come back. And,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 4: you know, it's like a merry-go-round. That's when the next
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 4: generation kind of hops on and takes over. But like,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 4: it would have been nice to see... because it seemed
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: like she was at least one of the leaders within
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 4: the group, see this leader in their heyday and to
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 4: see it fall and to hopefully see it pick back up.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 4: It feels like that is a whole other movie within
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 4: this that could have been just so very interesting, but
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: because the movie that we got was not interested in
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 4: delving into what real revolutionary practices are. Right. we got
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: the surface level. We can't have D'Andra come back because
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: then we'd have to talk about those things. And I
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 4: don't want to talk about those things. I want the
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: happy ending and all that jazz.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: On that note, let's take another quick break and then
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: we'll come back.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 3: To keep discussing. And we're back.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: We've already been discussing a lot of things throughout the recap.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: What else would you like to either touch on or
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: expand on?
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we went through a lot.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: I think it's just like, I just feel like stories,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 4: they are how we communicate with each other and how
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 4: we express ourselves. how we feel about the world around
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: us and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how we make sense of the world.
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 4: Yes. And it feels like when we keep telling the
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 4: same stories, if they're going to be a tool in
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: helping us progress, if we keep telling the same stories,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 4: then we're going to stay in the same place. It's
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 4: like we're running in place. And seeing Sinners and then
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 4: seeing this movie in the same category for Best Picture
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: just tells me that and maybe this, I hope this
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 4: is not too pessimistic, but it feels like we don't
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: want to move forward, at least with storytelling and stuff.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: And I would love to hear what you guys think.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 4: I just think stories are so powerful, and that's why
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: I do what I do and break them down so
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: much and obsess over them. But it's like going back
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 4: to slavery. Look how that one story has traveled over
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 4: four centuries for us to be here talking about it
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: in this movie. Like that's a great power and we
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: just have to be more responsible with it. So that's, that's,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: that's what I got to say. Sorry.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: No, no. Um, it, it, it seems especially Hollywood financed
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: and distributed movies are going to typically uphold the the
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: status quo, the status quo being patriarchy, white supremacy, et cetera,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: because it's, it's a capitalist industry. And so there can't
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: be anything, there can't be any stories that are too
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: radical or revolutionary within the Hollywood system.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: Right. Or they don't get the financing. I mean, I
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: feel like the only outlier or not the only, but
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: one of the outliers that I feel like we or
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: that I think about who is also constantly undermined by
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: that exact same system is Boots Riley, right? Like who
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 3: makes explicitly political films that, I mean, I think even
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: we haven't covered, we haven't covered his most recent film
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: yet because we usually will give it a year or
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: so before covering a recent movie. But I Love Boosters
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: was not given the same promotional push that other movies
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 3: around that time were made. And I think that, again,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: it's like clearly Boots Riley's audience is there, but filmmakers
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: who want to make explicitly... political movies and want a
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: budget it's always going to be a huge complication because
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 3: like who's holding the purse strings and where do their
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: interests lie i guess yeah especially with a production that
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: is willing to again like sweep unhoused encampments in order
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 3: to make this very kind of surface level political story.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: Right to that point and we touched on this a
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: little bit already but During the awards cycle that this
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: movie was very present in, the Oscars, the BAFTAs, the
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: AFI Awards, all of these prestigious awards, Paul Thomas Anderson
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: insisted on staying neutral slash apolitical slash silent, despite having
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: made a film that... for all its shortcomings, does have
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: a noticeable political undercurrent and maybe even an overcurrent. But like,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: and we have and we'll talk more about the ways
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: in which this, again, falls short. But there's no doubt
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: that there's a political stance to some degree in this movie.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: But he's just like, no, no, no, I can't even
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 2: talk about that.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 3: What?
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: I'm not political. He complied with the president of the
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: Berlin Film Festival who told the participants to stay out
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: of politics. And then at the BAFTAs, he dodged a
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: question about whether or not high profile filmmakers should speak
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: on politics. He's just, he's like, I can't talk about that.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 3: And also because I think that would introduce questions about
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: his collaborators and him that would probably be very difficult
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: for him to answer with any honesty because we have
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 3: Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead who is famously holds pro-Israel Zionist standpoints.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: He is working with Leonardo DiCaprio who wants to seem
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 3: to look more progressive than he is by taking this
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 3: part because he has a massive stake in Israeli hotels
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: and You know, we could get into the Sean Penn
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 3: of it all, where Sean Penn has been extensively, incredibly
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 3: accused of abusing women and other people. Like, there is
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 3: just kind of no end to it. I was like disappointed,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 3: but not surprised that he didn't open himself up to
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: that kind of criticism because the work will not hold
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: if he opens himself up to that kind of criticism
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 3: at a time where that kind of political bravery is
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 3: like so needed. This was like the same. I mean,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: as we're recording this, there's like a big conversation around
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: Mark Ruffalo right now, who has been very politically courageous. And,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 3: but around the time of this same award cycle, Javier
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 3: Bardem was extremely outspoken about Palestine in like the same
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: award ceremonies that Paul Thomas Anderson is just sitting there
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 3: with his hands folded. Yeah. I don't know. I wasn't
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: surprised to see it, but it is so frustrating. I'm like,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: why did you make... I do want more political... blockbuster
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: movies to be coming out, but I just don't, I
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 3: don't understand why you would make this movie and then
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 3: refuse to acknowledge that it is obviously political.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 4: Well, it's almost like, you know, he has that privilege
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 4: to do so, you know, when, sorry that I keep
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: bringing up sinners, but like also an inherently political film. Unfortunately,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 4: Ryan Coogler can't avoid those questions. Thomas Anderson can and
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 4: like we were saying how it's because where the bag
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 4: comes from where the money comes from and all that
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: kind of stuff and I appreciate that Ryan Coogler is
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 4: building his own you know within this industry like his
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 4: own path and his own production company and stuff like
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 4: that where he can fund his own movies so that
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 4: he doesn't have to be beholden to those same I
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 4: hate to say it but like Zionist where it's like,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 4: you have to say what we want you to say,
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 4: or you have to ignore what we want you to
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: ignore so that we can keep the status quo. And
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 4: I feel like art is inherently, like, it has always
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 4: been political independence. has always been like the voice of
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 4: you know i don't want to say it like it's
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 4: it has been like a catalyst for like revolution and
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 4: stuff but it has most definitely been a.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: It's a tool. A tool. Yes.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Because like, you know, if we go back to
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 4: the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 4: learned from James Baldwin. James Baldwin was not like the
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 4: big activist out in the street. He was just an
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 4: author and had the mind. And you learn from his art,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 4: you learn from his books, and then the revolutionaries can
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 4: go out there and take that with them when they're
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 4: out in the streets. I see that in Sinner's When
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 4: you have a story like One Battle After Another, which
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 4: refuses both to engage with its political messaging within the story,
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 4: and then Paul Thomas Anderson not engaging with it outside
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 4: of the story, well, then what is this? It doesn't
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 4: feel like a piece of art. It feels like... someone
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 4: trying to sell me something, excuse the, the SpongeBob reference,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 4: but like, that's.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: What I feel. Welcome.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: This is a, this is a safe space for SpongeBob fans. No, I, I, I,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: I totally see what you're saying. It's so, I think
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 3: that like the Oscars and the, the award conversation with
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: these two films in the same year is very relevant.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 3: And I, I, and I saw other people sort of
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: speculating similarly, that this movie getting more just in terms
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: of like awards hardware at the Oscars than Sinners is
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 3: not going to be something that ages particularly well. It
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 3: just isn't. And that like with, as you were talking
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: about Ryan Coogler building up his own ability to finance
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 3: his own work on this scale, it reminds me a
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 3: lot of how we've seen Historically, but I think specifically
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 3: in the last couple of years, how that seems that
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 3: is sort of one of the things that enables artists,
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 3: entertainers in general to speak in a politically liberated way.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 3: I think a lot about like. feel like I'm constantly
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 3: citing Miss Rachel in this conversation, but it's true.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 4: She's awesome.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 3: She's amazing. And she is very politically concise and clear
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: about where she stands. And I think that a lot
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 3: of the reason she's able to do that, that I
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: wish people talked about more, is because she owns her work.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: She licenses it out to Netflix. Netflix can't tell her
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 3: to shut up. No one can tell her to shut
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 3: up because she owns it. And as artists and as entertainers,
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: I think that that's like something that is really difficult
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: to achieve but important to like support and empower when
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: someone does achieve it because otherwise you kind of end
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 3: up you know there's certain filmmakers that I think end
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: up kind of making stuff that feels pretty muzzled and
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: you're like and who fucking knows what they actually think
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 3: you know like it's like what we know for sure
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 3: is they've agreed to play ball and then that that
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 3: work that comes out is what's going to have the
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: cultural impact and I feel like every that one battle
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: after another is a an example of that where I
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 3: think it's, you know, based on who PTA works with
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: and comments he's made in the past. And I mean, it,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 3: it seems clear that he is, has no issue taking
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 3: money from Zionist institutions, but yeah, they're like that. I
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 3: don't know. I really admire and I worry about like
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 3: us culturally putting so much on Ryan Kugler's shoulders because
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 3: he is doing so much right too. And it's, that's
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 3: a lot of pressure.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 4: And I appreciate you saying that because it shouldn't just
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 4: be on and a lot of times with marginalized groups
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 4: it all is on just like one person to like
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 4: get us through everything but I wholeheartedly agree with like
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 4: the age of the internet you can find your audience
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 4: you can and if you have a big enough audience
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 4: they can back your projects and it's like when I
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 4: first started, not when I first started, but like Hollywood
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 4: has always been gay kept and that's just how the
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 4: industry was. And for a long time, it was just
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 4: like straight white dudes who could make the movie, star
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 4: in the movies and have their stories told and all
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 4: that kind of stuff. But now it's, I won't say
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 4: it's perfect, but like at least, you know, sometimes we
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 4: harp on technology, but the great thing about the internet
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 4: is that the gate is open and, and we only
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 4: have to step through it to just, to continue to
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 4: tell our stories. And like you said, Miss Rachel, nobody
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 4: can tell her what the fuck to say. And, and
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 4: they want, they want so hard to shut her up
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 4: and she just keeps standing with Palestine. She keeps standing
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 4: with black children, any, all of, of all colors. And I,
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 4: I like wholeheartedly, like, I'm just like, do your thing
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 4: girls because i i sorry i'm i'm kind of like
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 4: just fangirling over miss rachel but like because no she's
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 4: not beholden to anyone she can do and say what
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 4: she wants and she is putting out good into the
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 4: world for our kids and uh kids media and i
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 4: wholeheartedly think that you know, a lot of our, this
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 4: has nothing to do with one battle, but like a
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 4: lot of our children's media is getting like infantilized and
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 4: that we no longer, like in the days of like Mr.
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 4: Rogers and Arthur and all those kinds of things that
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 4: kids learned and kids learn to be emotionally intelligent and
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 4: all those kinds of things that can take that with
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 4: them into the world. Kids media is just not, at
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 4: least mainstream media is getting Dumber and dumber on purpose
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 4: so that they're less equipped to go out into the world.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 4: And she's combating that. And I appreciate that. That's my
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 4: soapbox for Miss Rachel.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: No, and it's well-deserved. And I mean, and then you
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: have someone like Paul Thomas Anderson, who is beholden to
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: the Hollywood system and seems perfectly fine with that.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 3: It seems comfortable with that. That's the other thing.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: Because as we also already touched on, he has presented
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: this group of, you know, the French 75, they are
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: doing revolutionary violence. And I do think there is value
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: in presenting revolutionary violence as a legitimate approach to toppling fascism.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 3: And that's pretty rare to see in a movie of
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 3: this scale. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: So I think there is value in that. However, as
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 2: we already talked about, it is, it's almost there to
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: serve more as like world building and backdrop and set
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: dressing than actual showing anything meaningful about how revolutionary violence works,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: what it can achieve, anything like that.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 3: And like what that community looks like. Cause I think
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 3: we get a lot of, and again, like through underdeveloped characters,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 3: because I think about like all of the women and,
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 3: most often black women who are introduced, who we don't
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 3: really get to know throughout. I'm thinking of all of
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: the nuns. I'm thinking of in the flashback sequences, jungle
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 3: pussy seems to be perfidious best friend, but we only
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 3: get a couple of lines of dialogue from her. And
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 3: then we find out she's dead from the Christmas club later.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 3: Like there's all of these revolutionary characters and we see,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 3: you know, something that is, basically true, which is that
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 3: when there are revolutionary groups, that there is always an
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 3: interest from a white supremacist state to undermine them, to
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 3: infiltrate them, to turn them against each other by any
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 3: means necessary. I think that that's a valid point to make,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 3: but I don't think that we got really a chance
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 3: to see the value of what they had. I think
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 3: you need to see the value of the community and
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 3: the organizing that they had in order to understand what's
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 3: really lost. We're told that this revolutionary movement was lost
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 3: and that it ultimately was undermined by a fascist state
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 3: and failed. But I don't think that we spent enough
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 3: time seeing what they were doing and why they were
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 3: doing it. Although I agree with you, Caitlin, I think
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 3: that like showing revolutionary tactics as valid and effective is
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 3: very important. And I wish we had just for so
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 3: many reasons, I wish we had spent more time there.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 3: Because it felt like the interest of the movie was
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 3: with the system which undermined them rather than the revolution itself. Right.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: I was going to recommend a movie with the caveat
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: that I haven't seen it since it came out a
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: few years ago. But I remember being quite affected by it.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: And it actually does focus on characters who are doing
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: revolutionary violence. And that is what the story is about.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 2: is the movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, yes. By a friend of the cast, Isa Mazzei. Oh,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 3: my gosh. Who was a producer on that movie. No kidding.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 3: Shout out, Isa.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: I want to re-watch the movie, but I remember, again,
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: I was like, whoa, this is the type of art
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: that could inspire people to do revolution.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 3: And How to Blow Up a Pipeline isn't getting the
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 3: budget or push that movies like one battle is.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: I feel like it probably flew under most people's radar.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 4: I got to check that out. I would say another is, uh,
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 4: which this movie actually shows both the activism and also
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 4: the infiltration and how dismantling our communities, how that happens,
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 4: is Judas and the Black Messiah.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 4: About Fred Hampton.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 4: Like I remember watching the, yeah. Oh gosh. If you guys,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 4: if I didn't want to come back, I would love to.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 4: Cause I, I just remember watching that and being like,
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 4: there it is. That is what we are missing right now. As,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 4: as we make our movements, like we're all in our
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 4: corners and Fred Hampton just did a great job of
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 4: showing us that we, We have so much more in
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 4: common than we have differences. And our real enemy is
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 4: those people at the top that are continually trying to
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 4: divide us. I'm trying to remember, there's this one scene
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 4: from it where he goes into, I think it's, he
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 4: goes into a white supremacist bar and it just brings
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 4: everyone together. And I think that's, I know I'm, not
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 4: painting it as great as it is in the movie,
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 4: but I would really hope that if that movie is seen,
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 4: that that's what we could take away from what we
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 4: need to do today. And it also shows how easy
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 4: it is and how fragile everything is and how quickly
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 4: that hope could be snuffed out.
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 3: No, absolutely. Yeah. That's, I'm like, that's a good reminder
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 3: for us to cover that movie. Cause I feel like
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 3: it's not talked about enough and is like, I remember
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 3: the director of that movie. I think his name, let
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 3: me just double check. Yes. Shaka King is, was a
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 3: student of Spike Lee's. And so it's like another kind
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 3: of like, okay, so in order to have these stories
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 3: told effectively, it's not out of the question that a
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 3: director of any race could tell a story like this effectively,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 3: but we should be having more generationally, more black directors
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 3: telling these stories. I mean, one battle after another is
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 3: unfortunately a great example of how a white director can
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 3: whiff it out of, it seems like at least in
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 3: some part due to a lack of curiosity. Or thought
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 3: outside of his own experience.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 4: And just a total lack of understanding and empathy for
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 4: the people of color and women within the story. Because
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 4: if you had that empathy, then Profitia would not be
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 4: a cartoon character as she turned out to be.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: Like so cartoonishly horny that she wants to have sex
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: next to a bomb that's about to go off like
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: what are you talking about.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 4: It's so cringeworthy like just that whole 15 minute sequence
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 4: i'm just like i know you can't see my face
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 4: but i'm giving the most disgusted look.
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 3: And I also don't think that that takes away from
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 3: how impressive Tiana Taylor's performance is with what she's given, too.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 3: Because it's like she commits.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: I found a great piece about this movie on the
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: sub stack of Brooke Obie, a.k.a. Black Girl Watching, entitled
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 2: One Fetish After Another, PTA Exploits Black Women and Averts Revolution.
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 3: Ooh.
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: It's behind a paywall, but I think it's well worth
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 2: the subscription fee to read her work. But I wanted
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: to pull a few quotes from it. Brooke writes, quote,
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: Anderson isn't commenting on the white male fetishization of black women.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 2: He's directly participating in it. His camera leers on Taylor's
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 2: body just as Lockjaw does because the audience only sees
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: her through the lens of the white men who fetishize her.
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: Celebrating their successful liberation of the camp, Perfidia makes out
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: with Pat in the backseat of the getaway car. She
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 2: breaks away from the kiss only to ask Jungle Pussy
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: and D'Andra, do you think he likes black girls? They
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: laugh as he yells, of course I like black girls.
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: That's why I'm here. One can assume his attraction to
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: black girls is what earns him the moniker Ghetto Pat.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: Like most insufferable swirl couples you know, the French 75
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: insists that interracial relationships with white people are the revolution.
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 2: Race is imperative to the lust all of the characters
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 2: portrayed in sexual relationships feel for each other. The piece
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: goes on to say, Perfidia seems to feel the same
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: about whiteness, naming herself after a city, parentheses Beverly Hills,
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 2: famous for all the promise that white American-ness can hold, fame, wealth, power.
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 2: But mutually lusting across racial lines doesn't make perfidia and
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: her fetishizers equal. There is a huge power imbalance along
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: racial and gender lines that perfidia seems to ignore because
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: Anderson ignores it in the writing of the script, let
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: alone the character. And then skipping ahead a little bit,
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 2: just this last quote here. Perfidia's mother appears briefly to
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: lecture Pat about being wrong for her daughter, who comes
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: from a whole line of revolutionaries. What does that legacy
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: mean to Perfidia? How does she reconcile the ancestral tradition
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 2: with her own fetishizing of whiteness? Why is she trying
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: to feel like fictional white male drug lord Tony Montana
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 2: if she's got a revolutionary lineage to draw from? When
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: all of her fucking leads to pregnancy, she chooses to
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: have the baby at the height of her activism.
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 2: We'll never know because Anderson isn't interested in perfidia as
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 2: a character, but black women revolutionaries as caricature.
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 3: Unquote. Not to poke a tiny, tiny, tiny hole in that,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 3: which I think is very valid and also speaks to
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 3: how to the side the politics of this movie are.
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 3: I think the reason that she has the baby and
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 3: this is like in an aside that I didn't notice
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 3: in my first viewing and I don't think is made clear.
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 3: It seems like part of what the French 75 is
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 3: fighting against in that opening sequence is the fact that
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 3: abortion has been made illegal again. So I think that
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 3: there's a possibility that she has the child theoretically because.
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 3: She doesn't have the option to not have the child.
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, I very much agree with the majority of that.
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 3: But I wanted to mention that because I had it
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 3: in my notes as well of like, this is, again,
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 3: another massive issue that is referenced but completely unexplored. So
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 3: I think that it's very possible, you know, in this
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 3: movie is under exploration and kind of in curiosity about postpartum.
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 3: that she never wanted to be a mother and that
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 3: this was something that was essentially forced upon her in
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 3: so many ways because of the political reality that this
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 3: story has, but also doesn't engage with to the point
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 3: where like, I fully missed that until this movie.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, either way, her relationship to motherhood and
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: whether or not she wanted to be a mother and
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: Is still something that the movie doesn't touch on at all.
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 4: No idea. Yeah. Because it just doesn't seem to care
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 4: to find out.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 3: Definitely not.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 4: I have to read that. That was very, very well said.
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 2: We will include the link in the show notes. But yeah,
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: it's an excellent read. I recommend it. Shelling out eight
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 2: dollars and reading it.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 3: I wanted to touch on really quickly. We talked about
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 3: this with this movie. A lot of key players who
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 3: are pretty. undeniably Zionist. There's also the Sean Penn of
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 3: it all. We've talked about it in other episodes, so
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 3: we don't need to get too much into it, but
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 3: he has been credibly accused in the past of domestic abuse,
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 3: of assaulting people, of just general anger issues that has
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 3: made him a difficult sell for me to wanna, I'm
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 3: not showing up for his movies. And I found relevant
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 3: to our show something I hadn't seen before. But I
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 3: guess in 2022, for whatever reason, he decided I'm going
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 3: to make some annoying comments about masculinity.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 3: I saw this, too. Let's all get mad together about
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 3: whatever the hell people are talking about here. So he
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 3: makes two sets of comments, but they're basically the same thing.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 3: He says, I am in the club that believes that
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 3: men in American culture have become wildly feminized. I don't
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 3: think that being a brute or having insensitivity or disrespect
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 3: for women is anything to do with masculinity or ever did.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 3: But I don't think that in order to be fair
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 3: to women, we should become them. Which doesn't just have
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 3: a strong whiff of transphobia attached to it. It also
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 3: is just so, I don't know, maybe he's well used
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 3: in this character, who I'm sure would agree with what
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 3: Sean Penn is saying here.
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 4: It doesn't seem like he was acting at all.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 3: It doesn't seem like he was acting. And if, if,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 3: if you, if you also needed a reminder that Sean
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 3: Penn's a fucking, like at best a fucking asshole, there's,
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 3: there's your reminder for sure.
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 2: Does anyone have anything else they want to talk about?
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 3: Hmm. I think we've at least touched on everything. that I,
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, I could talk about this movie for another
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 3: two hours, but, um, it's a rich text. Yeah.
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 4: Yes. I will say like, uh, I do think there
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 4: is a pattern that we're kind of missing when it
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 4: comes to what is awarded and what is not. since
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 4: it was such a big story with the Oscars and
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 4: stuff like that.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: 13 nominations, as many as Titanic got, right?
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so. I think 12 or 13 was Titanic. Yeah,
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 4: something like that. It feels like, always coming back to
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 4: the two juggernauts that were there, it was one battle
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 4: after another and Sinners. And I think that the reason
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 4: why Sinners, as fantastic as that movie was... it did
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 4: not take home the big prize because of its lack
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 4: of whiteness within the movie. And it's something that I
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 4: call like the white anchor. Like if a movie is
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 4: about people of color, then it is usually pushed to
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 4: the side and called like a black movie or a
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 4: Latino movie or an Asian movie. And it's not for
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 4: the quote unquote mainstream though. unless it has that one
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 4: character that white people can kind of latch on to.
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 4: Sinners only had the white supremacists, and nobody wants to
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 4: feel like they're a white supremacist, even though, you know,
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 4: we've got a few in this country. But one battle
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 4: after another, though it should be, it really, really should
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 4: have been a black movie. It should have been about
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 4: these black female revolutionaries who, They had to slot in
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 4: Leonardo DiCaprio's character. They had to slot in Sean Penn's
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 4: character so that, okay, now this movie has mainstream appeal
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 4: in the eyes of Hollywood. But if you look at
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 4: its competitor with the all-black cast, how far that movie reached,
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 4: it shows that you don't need that, that our stories
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 4: can be universal, that it shouldn't matter much. who the
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 4: protagonist is on screen, you should be able to relate
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 4: to them just as, as, you know, growing up, I
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 4: didn't see a lot of black main characters on screen,
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 4: but I was able to relate to them and it should,
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 4: it should go the other direction. I hope that makes sense.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean, I think that so like basically Ryan
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 3: Coogler's entire filmography and many other movies kind of bear
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 3: this out is that when there's Hollywood conversations around, um,
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 3: like you're saying Jess how it it's like in any
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 3: like I feel like cogent telling of one battle after
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 3: another at best the two people who are the protagonists
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 3: of this story are side characters fully and that the
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 3: story should be around the black revolutionary women who are
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 3: sort of very much intentionally kept at arm's length but
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 3: all of Ryan Coogler's movies including especially Sinner's is proof
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 3: that when people say that, like, oh, well, you need
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 3: a famous white actor in your movie, they're talking about
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 3: in order to get money, not in order to get
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 3: an audience. Because the audience... was there for sinners a
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 3: hundred trillion percent i'm pretty sure it made a lot
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 3: more money than one battle at the box office it.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: Did it outperformed one battle by about 150 million dollars
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 2: at the box office and sinners had a lower budget
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 2: which means it it made even more of a profit than.
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 3: So battle after another yeah so it's like i i
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 3: very much encourage our listeners and i'm sure we're preaching
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 3: to the choir but like you know when those narratives
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 3: show up of like I feel like it almost always
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 3: has more to do with who's financing the movies versus
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 3: then who's actually seeing them.
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 4: We're just dying for, for new stories to be told.
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 4: It feels like, and that, that very much proves it.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 4: There are so many unique and fascinating artists out there
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 4: and who deserve to, to have their stories, you know,
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 4: up on the big screen or, or in books or
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 4: wherever they would like to, you know, tell their story. But,
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 4: it just shows that when those stories are out there,
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 4: they are universal. For sure.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: Well, the movie does pass the Bechdel test.
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 3: It does. It certainly could pass more. It certainly, as
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 3: we've spent the last two hours extrapolating on, it should
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 3: have passed a lot more than it did, but it
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 3: does technically pass the Bechdel test at various points in
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 3: the movie. Imperfect metric.
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 2: But the perfect metric, of course, is the Bechtelcast Nipple Scale.
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 3: Iconic.
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, where we rate the movie on a scale of
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 2: 0 to 5 nipples based on examining the movie through
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 2: an intersectional feminist lens. For this, I'm going to give it....
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 4: I'll give it 1.5.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 2: For a couple things. Again, I do think that there
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: is value in a mainstream studio movie to show revolutionary
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 2: violence and not demonize it. And I do appreciate that
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 2: Willa is not a typical damsel in distress. She more
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 2: or less saves herself. Which kind of renders... Bob's whole
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 2: story kind of pointless.
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 3: Like she would have been fine without him.
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 2: So why are we following him the entire time?
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 3: The world may never know.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 4: You know what?
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 2: I'm going to, I'm going to go down to one
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: nipple because of that. Um, there are a few small
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: things that are lightly interesting about it to me, but
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 2: by and large, it like whiffs on so many opportunities.
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 2: It's representation of black women particularly is, um, appalling so
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 2: one nipple I'll give it to chase infinity.
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 3: I'll go I'll go one and a half I think
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 3: because I agree with what you're saying Caitlin I think
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 3: that I'm going at the extra half because the perform
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 3: like any revolutionary anything even though I think we've been
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 3: talking about for a while now how this movie's conception
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 3: of revolution is I think intentionally quite vague yeah and
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 3: like PTA's refusal to expand on any of the topics
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 3: that the movie lightly touches on sort of bears that
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 3: out that this movie is not trying to be revolutionary
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 3: and that its creators are not really willing to put
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 3: anything on the line to defend what they may or
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 3: may not have been trying to say with it So
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 3: it feels like there's just all kinds of stolen valor
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 3: going on there.
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 3: But I do think that the, and there's a piece
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 3: I really enjoyed from friend of the cast, Angelica Jade Bastien,
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 3: that kind of makes this point more. I mean, she's
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 3: just like an amazing writer, so she's going to make
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 3: it better than I ever could, but that the performances
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 3: from specifically the black actresses in this movie are so
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 3: strong and give dimension to characters that are not written
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 3: to have the dimension that, You feel when you're watching
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 3: the performances and and that that should not be a
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 3: position that three incredible black actresses should be put into.
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 3: And again, I will harp on Regina Hall because I'm
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 3: just I'm still I will never get over how underutilized
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 3: she is in this movie. So the rest I think
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 3: we've discussed.
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 3: So I'll go one and a half. I'm going to
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 3: give one to Regina Hall and then I'll give the
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 3: other half to Chase Infinity because, you know, if nothing else,
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 3: this movie will hopefully launch a cool career for her.
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 3: She seems great.
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 2: Jess, how about you?
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And just to piggyback off of what you just said, Jamie,
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 4: like I realize, you know, because there's so little representation of,
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 4: in Hollywood for, you know, black actresses, they have to take,
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 4: you know, these roles. There's how else are they going
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 4: to build their career and how else are they going to,
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 4: you know, get that bag and be seen, you know,
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 4: like these are the roles provided. So there is no,
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 4: no guilt on their part. So my half of a
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 4: nipple goes to the actresses, the actors, the, the grips,
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 4: the lighting director, all those people that worked on the film, uh,
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 4: that did their very best to give it a nice
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 4: wrapping on the outside. But, uh, I can't give it
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 4: more than half a nipple for the just blatant uses
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 4: of very, very dangerous stereotypes and that were not only
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 4: like harmful, but awarded and, They have enough awards. They
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 4: don't get any nipples.
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 2: Totally fair. Well, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 2: This has been such a wonderful conversation.
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 3: Please come back anytime.
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 2: Come back anytime.
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 3: With a movie you love next time, too. We won't
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 3: torture you again.
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 4: I promise. I love films, so I don't like shitting
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 4: on it so very much. But this one was wow.
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 4: This one deserves the shit. And I really appreciate you
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 4: guys and the work that you guys are doing. So
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 4: I appreciate you having me.
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 3: Likewise. Thank you so much for all of your work
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 3: and for hanging with us. This was so much fun.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 4: It was.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 3: And speaking of.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 2: Your work, tell us more about it. Plug anything you
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 2: want to plug.
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 4: Oh, thank you. You know, I talk representation in media
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 4: on my YouTube channel called Prybrary. And it's different social
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 4: media handles, all Prybrary. So you can You can find
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 4: me on there, and we just love breaking down how
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 4: important representation is and how it connects to the world
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 4: around us, as you saw, kind of like what we
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 4: just did in this episode. So come check me out.
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 2: Please do. And check us out on... Instagram at Bechtelcast,
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 2: as well as our Patreon, aka Matreon. That's the best
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 2: way to support the show. We do two bonus episodes
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 2: every month on a genius theme that Jamie and I
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 2: cook up.
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 3: And often our listeners help. So yes, if you want
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 3: to directly support the show, that is truly the way
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 3: to do it. And you get access to a backlog
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 3: of I think going on 300 episodes. You can also
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 3: check us out on tour. We are in the midst
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 3: right now of our 10-year anniversary tour. You can check
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 3: us out in October across the East Coast. So if
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 3: you live basically anywhere in Pennsylvania, as well as Baltimore, Boston,
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 3: or New York, come check us out. And we will
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 3: be continuing that tour throughout the year. So if you're
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 3: in another region, patience, patience. We're working on it.
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: Indeed. You can get tickets online. Two of those shows
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 2: at linktree.com. And with that, I don't know, should we
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 2: all go and have a few small beers?
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 3: Let's do it.
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 4: I need a drink.
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 3: Bye.
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 4: Bye. See you.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 3: The Bechdelcast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 3: by me, Jamie Loftus. And me, Caitlin Durante.
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 2: The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichterman.
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 3: And edited by Caitlin Durante. Ever heard of them? That's me.
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 2: And our logo and merch and all of our artwork,
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 2: in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftus.
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 3: Ever heard of her? Oh, my God. And our theme song,
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 3: by the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan.
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 2: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 3: Iconic. And a special thanks to the one and only
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 3: Aristotle Acevedo.
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 2: For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.com.