Latest / The Bechdel Cast / What Ever Happened to Baby Jane with Angelica Jade Bastién

Transcript

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane with Angelica Jade Bastién · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: husbands or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy. Zeph
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and bast start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Whatever happened to baby Jamie?
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever happened to you Jamie?
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Well, here's what I did. I locked you in a
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: room and started feeding your rats. That's what That's what happened.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: It's it's we're sort of two sister coded people who
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: live in Los Angeles. Maybe this could be maybe we
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: are you know, it's not aspirational, no, but it's nice
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: to have options. It's just nice to have options.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: You know. We might have to move in together. Someday.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: I could see. I think more likely I could see
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: like us, you know, doing more of a Gray Gardens situation. Yeah,
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: I would really enjoy it. I know we have never
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: really covered well, I guess we've covered a few documentaries
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: on the show over the years, but that would be
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: that would be an interesting one to talk about.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Indeed, isn't that a mother daughter pairing? It is mommy?
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: No, I guess I don't know which Edy I more
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: identify with. I'm sure it changes as you as you age.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: I've got to revisit it. Anyways, speaking of two women
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: in a house having a difficult time, we are we
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: are doing a long awaited episode of the bechel Cast today,
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: another movie that I'm like, I can't believe it took
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: us nine years to get to it, but I'm so
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: glad that we're here. But first, what the hell is
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: this show? Caitlin?
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: What is this?
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: What are we doing here?
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you well, first of all, my name is Caitlin,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: my name is Jamie, Baby Jamie, you're baby Jamie, and I'm.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Old, old Kaitlyn brutal.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: This is the Bechdel Cast, our podcast where we examine
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: movies through an intersectional feminist lens. Using the Bechdel test
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: simply is a jumping off point, just a way to
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: get the conversation going, a conversation among women, perhaps.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And this movie really is a great example of
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: how women can talk about so many things. The Bechdel test,
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: of course, created by now friend of the show, Alison Bechdel,
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: originally as a one off joke in her comic strip
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Likes to Watch Out For that has since become a
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: mainstreamified media metric. The version of the test we use
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: requires that two characters of a marginalized gender speak to
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: each other about something other than a man, which, as
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: becomes clear in this movie immediately, is.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Not a problem that this movie has not at all.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: But let's get our wonderful returning guests into the mix.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. She is a pop culture critic for New York
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Magazine's site Vulture. You can find her at her substack
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Mad Women and Muses. And you remember her from our
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: episode on Miss Juneteenth. It's Angelica Jade Basti.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: Hey, go bye, Hey. I am so happy to be
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: here talking about some of my favorite dames. You know,
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: I love the classic Hollywood brads, what fascinating fascinating women actually, Like,
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: just watched Marty Supreme a screener of it the other day,
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: and so I've been thinking a little bit about like
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: the idea of a classic Hollywood star and the actual
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: reality of a classic Hollywood star, because obviously, in the movie,
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: which takes place in nineteen fifty two and stars everybody's
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: favorite young, very online man, Timothy Shallowy, Gwyneth Paltrow plays
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: a former Hollywood star who was really big in the thirties,
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: and it's like really interesting because it's like I was, like, Howl,
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: who would she be? Who would be like sort of
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: a reflection of the character she's playing, but like was
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: an actual star in the thirties, and I couldn't pinpoint
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: anyone it would make sense to compare her to. But
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: it sort of made me think that, like, Hollywood really
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: loves to terror form its own past and history in
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: a way that's very dishonest about it and like sort
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: of softens a lot of things and makes a lot
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: of the narratives around these people like simple and also
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: mythic in a way that doesn't recognize the complexity of
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: their humanity. And you know, a lot can be said
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: about whatever happened to Baby Jane, But I really do
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: feel both performers, Joan Crawford and Betty Davis are really
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: really keeping in mind the humanity of their characters and
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: the humanity underneath this like very arch, brutal, violent circumstance.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm well, I'm curious what your history with this
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: movie is as well, because it does feel like so
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: directly in conversation with the history and obviously with the
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: careers of its stars, and as we were talking about
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: before we started recording, there is a lot of misinformation
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: around this movie, around this production specifically, And I also
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: feel like the more I was sitting with it and
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: doing some reading, like with this genre in general, which
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: we've talked about on the show before. But I'm I'm
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: excited to hear your thoughts about it. Yeah, what's your
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: history with this movie?
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: So I would say in high school, I went to
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: an art high school. They called it a strand, but
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: basically it's like a major, and my major was film.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: And so in that time period, as I'm really starting
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: to get into feminism, like I remember reading Belle Hooks's
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: you know, book on Black feminism from like Margin to Center.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: And I was also getting into Betty Davis at the time,
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: like she you know, because we're watching like a lot
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: of different films in film class, and so I got
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: into classic Holleywood that way. But the first time I
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: watched this movie was thanks to my college class star
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: a tour on Betty Davis. So it was a whole
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: class just on Betty Davis.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: That's really cool.
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like those I really credit my college professor, Jeffrey
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: john Smith with sparking criticism as something that actually really
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: interests me because I never really thought about it. I
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: was going to college for screenwriting. It was a few
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: years after college I like genuinely gave criticism a shot.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: And I think the classes I took with him, which
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: were year as a tour on Betty Davis, star as
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: a tour on Carrie Grant, and a whole class on
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: Gone with the Wind, which is crazy to do.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: I still have never seen that movie. It's like one
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: of my big.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: You know, I'm it's very complicated that movie where because
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: on one hand, I'm like, this is one of the
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: most racist movies to ever exist, that has really fueled
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: the Lost Cause, the mythology that exists in the South
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: about itself that's like very inaccurate and glorify. But also
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: Scarlett O'Hara is like you can draw a clear line
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: from Scarlett O'Hara and Vivian les Lee's performance of her
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: to like Rosamund Pike playing Amy Dunn and Gone Girl,
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: like I really think I see you kind of.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: She's Gone with the Wind girl.
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: Kind I mean, Scarlett O'Hara is a crazy woman, like
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: very intense, fascinating fucked up character. And if you look
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: at the movie Gone with the Wind as a movie
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: about white people telling on themselves, it becomes like very
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: interesting of a thing of a work to study. But yeah,
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: I got introduced to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane in college,
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: and I was so struck by it and got really
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: into the exploitation or sometimes called psycho biddy genre that
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: really started or coalesced with this movie and then became
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: a thing where classic Hollywood actresses who had gotten a
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: little older, which is like really just their forties and fifties,
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: were now called to play these like very intense archetypal
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: like sometimes violent, deranged, usually completely mad women and horror
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: thrillers or like just intense psychological dramas, and like the
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: genre starts to form and like really coalesces with Whatever
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: Happened to Baby Jane, which was released in nineteen sixty two.
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: My own mother wasn't even born yet.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Its kind crazy, that's yeah, there's I mean, I was
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: really struck by how I mean, obviously, especially the Betty
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Davis character is played to look much older, but yeah,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: they're in their fifties.
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: They're in their like fifties. Yeah, it's kind of crazy
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: because you like, on one hand, we also have to
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: keep in mind, like people were drinking and smoking in
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: ways that people don't drink and smoke now. So I
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: also think people get way too obsessed with the idea
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: of what does it mean to like look your age,
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: what does it mean to look younger? We should value
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: looking younger and remaining forever youthful, which I think has
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: led to some weird phases in Hollywood where like now
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: everybody's face they can't move in the movies that they're
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: supposed to be emoting in, and it's like, I'm like,
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: I don't believe in like talking shit about individual people's
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: classic surgery. I do not think that's the move. But
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: there is like a very We're in a very interesting
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: place with the face of women in Hollywood, and it's
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: like nobody knows how to really talk about it because
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: it is a very sensitive thing to talk about and
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: like hardline to tread, where you're like, hey, this is
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: a thing that's just kind of like happening overall, and
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: it's also affecting the art, like for all of classic
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: Hollywood's BS, which I mean racist, sexist in ways that
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: are like violent and astounding. Yeah, and even with like
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: Arita Hayworth having such a transformation because of you know,
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: the studio system wanting to make her into a more
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: accessible star, you know, all those sort of and that's
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: also very racialized. They weren't doing the kind of work
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: we see today because that kind of work didn't wasn't refined,
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: didn't exist in the same way.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: They would have if they could have, but they couldn't.
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: Probably, But like what that means is that there is
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: an individuality to the beauty you see in classic college
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: or I think in Hollywood and just in general, before
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: like the you know, two thousand and twenty tens, people
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: look even the beautiful stars, they still look like people.
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: They still had some touching imperfections that in a way
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: kind of heightens oh, like the beauty elsewhere. Like I
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: always think of, like how Elizabeth Taylor's so gorgeous, but
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: she has such a high pitch like range voice when
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: you like listen to her. And I always thought that
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: like contradiction was so interesting. Now stars don't have contradictions.
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: They're very smooth and algorithmically perfect, and it's like that
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: really takes something away from the performances, you know, Betty
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: Davis would say, you need your characters to be larger
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: than life. But also she was very very keen on
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: like the psychology of her characters and adjusting how they
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: look to reflect that, which is why she She's the
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: one who decided upon the makeup for Baby Jane, which
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: is like really fascinating to me.
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: She is I love with Betty Davis specifically. I know
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: that this has been said about her a lot, but
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: it's just like, I just love especially in that time
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: that she wasn't like she insisted on looking like shit
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: if that is what the character required, Like I think
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: of I think it's that like that scene that I
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: think it's dark Victory, where like starting you know, very
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: early her career, she's like, you know, no, I'm not
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: going to like make a performance pretty if that is
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: not what the performance requires, and you know, it's like
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: that's the job. But also even at the time like
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: that that was unusual to be doing and I just yeah,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: it is not something that has improved with time, and
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: and I agree, I mean I don't I don't know
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: how to properly have the conversation around it, but it
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: but we've got to figure it out because it does,
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: I mean whatever. I mean even seeing period pieces, watching
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: period pieces is different now because you whatever, the expectations
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: in Hollywood require you have a face that could not
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: have existed past a certain year.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: Right exactly exactly. It just makes me like sad because
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: I think, like, honestly, expectations for women's looks have always
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: been bad, Like it's just always been bad, right, But
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: this is like a new level of like like self
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: optimizing to the point that you're almost superhuman, like you
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: look like modeled after a cyborg rather than like it's
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: like they made cyborg versions of these stars, And I'm like,
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: what's what's going on? I just find it. I think
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: I'm also feeling very affected because it's like I'm noticing
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: actresses who are like my age, you know, the Lindsay
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: Lohans and you know, well, Anne Hathaway's like a couple
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: of years she's in her early forties, but like in
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: my age range, doing very specific work like facelifts and
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: stuff like that. And I'm like, wait a minute, this
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: is way is this really what's expected of women at
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: like in their mid thirties early forties. That's like, also,
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: how are people's faces going to look in ten years,
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: I like really wonder that too, because it's like there's
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: trends in the plastic surgery too, And that's what I
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: find like most interesting is like people are getting like
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: work done that makes them all sort of blend in
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: more with each other, which I think is more like
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: it's the more like, well, I don't really know how
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: to take this and how am I you know, like
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: and you'll notice with like you know, when people get
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: like botox in their upper lip, it causes them to
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: kind of purse their lip in a certain way. And
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: Emma Stone was doing it so much in Begonia. I
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: was like, this is so this is so fascinating to me,
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: But how do we actually talk about this without like
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: putting a new expectation onto these actresses? Like and I don't.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: I don't think we're there yet.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: It's complicated, it is.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: It is very complicated, particularly like the I think what
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: now that like I now that there's like working actors
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: ten fifteen years younger who are also like it just
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: concerns me. I think the first time I knew of
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: someone who is like a friend of mine, who is
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: not even an actor, getting like preventative botox beginning when
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: she was I think like twenty six or something like that.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Like I mean that is like unbelievably common now, is
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: like preventive work being marketed and sold.
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: And it just feels like the age where that is
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: expected keeps getting younger and younger and younger, and uh
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: and it I think, yeah, like echo your sentiment, Angilicay,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: it makes me sad, like it makes me sad for everyone,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: and that it even extends beyond entertainment now because of
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: like the culture of self surveillance exactly, we.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: See our faces so damn much now, like we're yeah,
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: like do I need to see my face that much?
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: My grandmother wasn't seeing her face that much.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at my face right now or it's like
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: zoom call.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: And I just like it. Yeah, like the culture that
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: we live in. It just like there are pictures I've
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: seen of myself that I didn't know I was being photographed,
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: And then I think those are the moments that I
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, should I should I think about it?
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Should I? Because our moments where I wasn't even able
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: to like participate in you know, consenting or like whatever
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: it is. It's just I feel for especially you know,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: like younger people whose brains are still developing and like having.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: That be locked in.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: All that to say, I mean, like I guess getting
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: back to this movie specifically, this movie feels I mean
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: in this genre, I like it interacts with these ideas
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: directly and with mixed results. So there's some shit in
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: this genre.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: I think a problem with the genre is one a
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: lot of male directors, and not all of them were
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: the kind of male directors that you know, like a
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: George Kukor who had like genuine intimate friendships with women
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: and saw them as people worthy of study and like care,
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: keyword study and care, because I think the exploitation genre
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: can really fall into gawking at these women. Yeah, and
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: even the performances by the actresses can sometimes seem like
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: brittle and ostentatious in a way that you can feel
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: they're remove from the character, like they look down upon
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: that character and her desires of being wanted and like Yeah,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: and so it can be a really rough genre to
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: watch sometimes, but it's also it can be really really
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: interesting and I think says a lot about how we
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: think of women aging, and like I think a lot
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: of representations of womanhood in Hollywood believe that as a
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: woman ages, her life becomes less interesting and she has
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: less to live for, and that I think is very galling.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, This to me is like the ultimate example
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: of or one of the more interesting examples of whatever.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: The thing that we're still told now, which is that
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: it is too risky to have a movie centered on
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: older women be released, and that is almost never true.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: There's I mean, I think of it like spanning genres
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: of like what a surprise hit The First Wives Club was,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: like all of these movies that feature older women that
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: you're told are you know, not supposed to be successful?
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: And then are this is another example of that, like there,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: and I feel like the reason that we're told that
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: is because you're just being told how you know, Hollywood
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: as an industry feels about the target audience, which is
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: other women and queer people generally. So I was I
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: didn't actually know much about how successful this movie was
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: and it's time, but it makes total sense that it was.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was pretty successful, Like it was made for
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: a little less than a million because like Robert Aldridge,
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: who it actually let let me give a little paint
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: a little picture because the getting this movie made was
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: very hard for people because no studio wanted to fund
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: this and they were like, these women are just some
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: old bras. No one cares about these women, and it
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: was actually surprisingly Joan Crawford came to Betty Davis with
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: the book Yes, and was like, I think you would
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: be really fireing this, and I think we need to
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: do it to get and that's why this movie has
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: so many meta layers, and it's very like if you
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: know the actual history of these women, there's like a
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: humor about playing with the image you expect of them
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: as stars. So it was really hard for Robert Aldrich
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: to get it made, but it eventually was picked up
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: for distribution by Betty Davis's former studio, Warner Brothers, and
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: it made back its entire budget the first weekend over
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: that so like it was in the black very quickly,
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: and both Joan Crawford and Betty Davis had points on
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: the back end. They got paid very little for the
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: actual movie, like fifty thousand dollars or something. I was
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: rereading Betty Davis's This and That, her second memoir, but
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: the points on the back end many meant they actually
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: ended up making a nice coin from the movie, but
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: it shows how much they had faith in the project,
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: even though these women did not get along, but were
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: very professional in a lot of on the set, even
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: though and that's sort of nice nasty, like I'm being cordial,
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: but I actually don't like you. But we both know
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: this is a good project, so let's like not let's
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: not rock the boat. Let's try to like make this
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: work as much as possible.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: It's like the end of Chicago when the women approach
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: each other and they're like, we don't like each other,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: but what if we work together and people will love
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: it exactly?
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: That's yeah.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: It really is just a powerful link up between two
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: women who probably hate each other. I liked, I mean,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: I really enjoyed going back through history and that. There
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: is also a great two part series that be kind
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Rewinded on YouTube that sort of like recaps this whole
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: story that I think she released in response to how
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: much misinformation was in the Ryan Murphy feud show. That's
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: good a show that, yeah, like we were talking about
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: before we started recording, has a ton of misinformation but
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: does have Alfred Molina. So it's challenging for me.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: It is I think he's really good in that role,
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: and like I think the you know, Jessica Lang as
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Betty Davis is like
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: good casting. But it's like, I think the show has
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: such a limited imagination about these women, and I have
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: like kind of a really big rant that have gotten
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: me a lot of heat when I like published a
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: piece on this, like in twenty sixteen or so like
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: a while ago on Vulture, where I like, I get
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: really angry when like actresses like Joan Crawford and Betty
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Davis are looked at as primarily camp figures, because I
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: think in some ways, looking at women as these sort
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: of like glorious divas with all these like specific like
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: vocal and physical tics who are just so arched they're
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: meant to be parodied by or beloved by a drag
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: queen figure is so limiting to their artistry and story,
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: and it like can sometimes be backhanded praise. And I
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: think it's very important to like keep in mind, like
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: they weren't always looked at like this. This is something
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: very late, like late in their career they started being
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: looked at like this, especially Betty in the eighties, like
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: has like, you know, she has a huge gay following.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: Joan did too. But I sometimes worry about the way
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: we talk about the legacy of women like this through camp.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true. I mean I think John Crawford is
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: a particularly interesting example. And like we'll do a separate
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: episode on Mommy Dearest, another movie you think we would
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: have covered by now, but we haven't.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: But you know how you know.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Mommy dearist is a camp movie versus what the subject
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: matter is. I don't know, I've only seen the movie once,
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: but I feel like, yeah, particularly kind of the further
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: you go back in Hollywood history. It's in one sense,
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: like with one hand, I'm like, yeah, like, you know,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: the drag performances are great, and they are intended to
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: honor them. But in the other sense, it's like, well,
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: there's more to these women that isn't really discussed or
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: thought about. And both, I mean Joan and Betty were
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: both and I know that the Mommy Dearest conversation is
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: a very, very very complex one, but they were sort
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: of accused of similar behavior by their respective daughters. And
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Betty Davis's daughter is in Baby Jane.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she plays the neighbor woman's daughter, I believe. Yeah,
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: And speaking of Mommy Dearest. To get into my history
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: with this movie, with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, I
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: had never seen it before prepping for this episode, but
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I knew some imagery from it, particularly the image of
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Betty Davis in her like vaudeville makeup that just looks
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: kind of weird in the context of nineteen sixty two.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Had that image in my head, and I associated that
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: image with Mommy Dearest because there's an image from that
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: movie where the Joan Crawford character, because it's a movie
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: about Joan Crawford, who is in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: But there's that image of her with like the colon. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: And so I just associated these two movies together. But
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: point is, I had never seen Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: and there's so much to talk about. I liked it
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: as much as my brain allows me to enjoy a
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: very stressful movie. But yeah, I can't wait to dive
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: in further. Jamie, what is your history with this movie?
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: It had been a few years since I've seen this,
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: but I've seen it many times over the years. I
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: was as as many of us were. It was TMC child.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: I was a child of the or TCM TCM. I
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: was a child of the TCM channel. I was later
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: to appreciate Betty and Joan. They weren't my favorite those
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: kids I was. I was a Judy Garland girl. That
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: was where my bread was buttered at the time. But
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: I do remember seeing this as a kid and enjoying it,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: maybe closer to the way it was intended to be
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: enjoyed at the time, in a gawky like scary kind
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: of way, and so then returning to it years later,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: and just like how frequently this movie comes up in
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: feminist circles and how it you know, inspired a very
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: trouble genre. It feels like such a I'm trying to
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: think of, Like I've been struggling all morning to connect
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: like what I want to compare this to. But for
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: a movie that has sort of set off this genre
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: that is still with us, the Substance came out last year.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: I thought your piece about it was very, very interesting,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: but like, this is a genre that's been with us
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: for you know, over half a cent now, But it
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: feels like a case of like when you watch the
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: movie that inspired it. You're like, oh, and then, as
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: happens so frequently, all of the wrong lessons were learned
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: from What makes this movie work? Because I really like
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: this movie. I think that the you know, it doesn't
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: work without the two leads, like there is a very
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: bad version of this movie that could have existed. But I, yeah,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: I have a lot of love for this movie. The
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: performances are just like unreal and it was.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: I hadn't watched it in a few years, and I
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: feel like every time I rewatch it, I remember the
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: importance of how how many side characters there are. I
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: think I think of this as like two women in
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: a house, which it mostly is, but I don't know,
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: like every performance and every new character that's introduced is important.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: So I'm excited to get into it.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: for the recap. Cool, and we're back, and we'll place
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: a content warning here for all of it domestic and
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: familial abuse and violence. This is not a tonally light movie.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: We'll say, Okay. The story opens in nineteen seventeen. We
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: meet Baby Jane Hudson, a child vaudeville performer who is
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: a big star, she's doing sold out shows.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: She's singing in a damn earworm that I also remembered
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: every time. I'm like, great letter to Daddy's gonna be
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: stuck in my head.
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: For this song.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: It's creepy.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: So I just this is like not a great association.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: But I just like watched the Demi film Donkey Skin,
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: which of course made me think more about the fairy
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: tale because the movie doesn't really deal with the center
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: of that fairy tale, which is like basically a king
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: who is married to a wonderful queen. She gets sick
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: before she dies. She's like, yeah, you can only marry
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: someone who's more beautiful than me. Then he's like distraught
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: and terrible, and then he looks at his daughter and
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: is like, hmm, what if I marry It's yeah, So
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: it's that, And so I kept thinking, like, does she
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: want to screw her dad? Like like Betty Davis, Like,
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: especially when you see her older singing it, You're like,
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: this is some weird psycho sexual, obsessive weirdness.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: But I think that that is what we're supposed to
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: because feel like that's almost like mirrored with Edwin Flagg
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: and his mom, where it's like dacine and what's going
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: on here? Who? Also, I always kind of forget about
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Evan Flagg and not to be slept on such a
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: weird performance. But yeah, anyways, Letter to Daddy two thousand
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: down but made very catchy, very catchy. I like that,
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: you know whatever. She sings it much later in the movie,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: and we're supposed to be like, oh my gosh, she's
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: such a bad siggert. I'll say that the kid didn't
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: have the sauce either. No, that kid couldn't.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: Sing at all, And like, yeah, we'll obviously get into
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: the sequence of her singing it as an adult, because
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: I think there's multiple ways we're supposed to like take
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: her singing this and like her obsession with that damn
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: doll she gets in the nineteen seventeen her my.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Sized Barbie very yep, yeah, yeah, because the venue that
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: she performs at sells these lifelike they're so large, two
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: big dolls of baby Jane. And because of all this,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: because of her child's stardom and the doting that she receives,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: she's quite spoiled and entitled, because children do not know
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: how to navigate this type of fame and child stardom
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: should be not allowed. But anyway, we get all this
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: information established. We meet her father as well. He is
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: her manager and fellow performer sometimes. And then we meet
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Baby Jane's sister Blanche, who is not in the spotlight
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: and perhaps resents this or at least resents that her sister,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Baby Jane is a spoiled brat. We cut to I
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: think like eighteen years later. It's nineteen thirty five. The
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: tables have turned. Blanche is now the successful movie star,
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: and Jane is also an actor. But the Hollywood big
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: wigs think that she stinks and she only gets cast
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: in movies because Blanche's contract states that for every film
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: she stars in, her sister Jane also gets a film role.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: I forgot to look this up. This is like actual
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: older footage of the actresses. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, because
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: I recognized the John Crawford when I didn't recognize the Betty.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was trying to figure it out. Let me
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: bring up.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: They pull footage from So for Betty Davis's younger roles,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: they're from a movie called Parachute Jumper and Ex Lady
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: they're both from nineteen thirty three.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: Ex Lady, I have seen, Yeah, and.
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Then the Joan Crawford footage they pull from a movie
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: called Sadie McKee from nineteen thirty four.
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: I love that dress she wears in that, but that's
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: how I always recognize it. Yeah, it's interesting thinking about
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: where their careers were actually at at the time, because
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: like Betty Davis was in her blonde phase in the
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: thirties where like nobody really knew exactly what to do
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: with her yet. But as you get like deeper into
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: the decade, especially with like of human bondage, she's like
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: the thing about Betty is she was known as being
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: an actor's actor versus Joan Crawford was considered like the
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: glamour girl who's very beautiful and has a loure, but
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: she's not. You don't go to her movies for acting.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Right sure?
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And John, I mean I feel like
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: speaking to and be kind every one, like sort of
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: makes this point repeatedly in her video essay about it.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Like Joan played the game, yeah, and played it well,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: And Betty Davis was more known for resisting the game
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: and suing the studio and like pushing forward in a
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: very different way. But like Joan Crawford for her many faults,
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: she was really good at being famous, and like I
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: mean the fact that she she's a good producer for
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: getting this movie made in the first place and seeing
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: that there was both an advantage for both of these
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: actors and that people wanted it in a way that like,
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: of course every man around them would not believe.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Right. So yeah, so it's the nineteen thirties, Blanche is
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: now the famous star and Jane is kind of like
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: riding her coattails. One night, we see someone driving Blanche's car,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: we see another woman in a driveway of a house,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: and the woman driving the car seems to deliberately speed
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: toward the woman in the driveway and mow her down.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: But we never see anyone's face, so we don't know
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: who has done what, but we can assume that it
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: was Jane who drove into Blanche because we cut too
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: many years later. Blanche, played by Joan Crawford, is disabled
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: and uses a wheelchair. She and Jane played by Buddy
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Davis live together in a house and Jane takes care
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: of Blanche. However, they're really relationship is very contentious, and
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: they seem to deeply resent each other. We meet a
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: woman named Elvira played by Madie Norman, who comes to
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: the house a couple times a week to help with
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: housekeeping and caring for Blanche, and Elvira shows Blanche fan
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: mail that she's received that Jane apparently intercepted, opened, and
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: then threw away, and this is only the beginning of
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Jane's bad deeds.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Well, it also felt like, just like with the parallels
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: between these two women and their characters, my understanding is
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: this was also something that was happening for about these
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: actors at the time because movies were televised now, and
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: like older movies were being televised, and so there was
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: sort of this researched interest in both of these actors
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: and just I don't know, I I generally really like
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: the kind of mirror images that are introduced between them,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: because that would have been happening for, you know, a
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: new generation of John Crawford fans at the time.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Right, Because I think when we cut to years later,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: it's like contemporary for the time, like the movies shot
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty two, and I think it's also taking
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: place in the early sixties.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: Right, Yeah.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So we start to get a sense that Jane
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: is maybe not behaving well, especially because the next thing
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: she does is let Blanche's pet bird escape from its cage.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: She like does this on purpose. Alvirah senses this. Alvira
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: does not trust Jane at all. Then Jane calls a
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: liquor store to place an order and they refuse to
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: fill the order at first, So Jane pretends to be Blanche,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: and we find out that Jane is able to do
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: a spot on impression of her sister, and we'll put
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: a pin in that because that's basically like Chekhov's vocal impression.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: I also forgot to I kept I like wrote down
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: look this up, and then didn't. Was that Betty Davis
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: doing that? Or was she lip syncing Crawford?
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: I think she's lip synching Crawford because it just sounds
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: so the first time she does it, it looks like,
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: straight up like she's just doing I mean, maybe she's
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: just the best lip syncer, which could be the truth,
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: because it does sound like it just sounds like Crawford's
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: manner of speaking is very light. But I'm also like
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: it's Betty Davis. Maybe she just has practiced making fun.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: Of John Crawford was like, yeah, she might have had
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: a lot of know thy enemy sort of reps before.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: I okay, yeah, I was curious either way.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: I couldn't tell one way or the other. But yeah,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: but we the audience are to understand that Jane can
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: do a spot on impression of Blanche. Meanwhile, we learn
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: that Blanche intends to call a doctor about Jane because
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: because Jane has been a bit mentally unstable recently. And
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: we learned that Blanche intends to sell the house they
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: live in and Blanche will move out and live with Elvira,
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: seemingly to distance herself from Jane. And Blanche tries to
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: talk to Jane about this about you know, like selling
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: the house, but she's not honest about why, and she
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: like kind of puts the blame on their business manager.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: But Jane sees right through this, and she realizes that
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Blanche is trying to get rid of her, So things
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: like kind of escalate from here. Jane retaliates by taking
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: away the phone that Blanche has access to. So Blanche
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: lives in the like second story of the house, and
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: her limited mobility means that she can't go downstairs. There's
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: no sort of like elevator or anything that gives her
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: access to the first floor, So she's kind of trapped
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: on the second floor.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: Which does appear to be by design, ye, Jane, so
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: that Jane remains in control exactly.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so Jane takes away Blanche's phone, and then
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: Jane serves Blanche the dead bird that she let escape
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: and then apparently killed for lunch.
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she just killed that bird and was like, she
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: killed that bird. Oh, this is gonna be perfect for
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: her lunch.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: It's like so so she's like, here's a dead bird,
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: and we're like, uh oh.
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: I mean she has it on a silver tray. She
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: like serves tea and she hides it, so like she
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: doesn't know immediately that her lunch is her dead pet bird,
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: which also means like it cues you in early on, like, oh,
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: Jane isn't just a little kookie. She's actually violent and
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: diaball with dangerous and she has the capability to kill
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: a bird just to get under her sister's skin.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Then Jane leaves the house for a bit to place
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: an advertisement in the newspaper looking for a musical accompanist.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: I can never say this word. A companies melt it
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: for performances that she wants to put on, and while
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: Jane is running this errand Blanche takes this opportunity to
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: try to ask her neighbor, missus Bates, for help. So
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Blanche writes a note instructing the neighbor to call the doctor.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: And Blanche throws this note out the window, but before
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: missus Bates can pick it up and see it, Jane
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: comes back home and sees the note, reads it, and
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: then taunts Blanche about it, being like, oh, you want
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: me to see a doctor? Huh, well, screwed.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: You get it.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: I think something that is done. I again like I
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: because I sort of I don't think about the side
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: characters in this movie as much is whatever in a
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: movie that can be very over the top. I thought that,
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: like in this abusive, clearly abusive relationship, the ways in
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: which everyone around them is sort of aware of it,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: but no one knows, either doesn't know what to do,
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: or worries about seeming impolite or like socially inappropriate by
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: drawing attention to it. I thought was like, because we
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: see that in certainly in Elvira's character, but also in
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: the neighbors repeatedly, like everyone knows something is off, and
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: they're also like unsure or unwilling to do something about it,
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: and that that I don't know just like rang very true.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're like, I can't disrupt social etiquette even
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: if someone is trapped in their house and being abused
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: by a family member.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: And to some extent Blanche as well. I mean, like
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: one of the scenes that really broke my heart this
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: time that's coming up in a bit is that when
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: there is another person in the house with Jane, when
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: Edwin is in the house, like a part of you
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: is like scream Blanche, Like, but I think she's so
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: afraid of her sister, and I also think, I don't know.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: I guess this was just my read of it this time,
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: the social fear of like not being believed or looking vulnerable,
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: and that would you know, she values how she's perceived
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: by others, and I don't know it just like it
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: broke my heart on this view of like definitely, because
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: she's holding herself back from getting the help that she
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: needs as well.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: For sure. So now Blanche is horrified, she's afraid to
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: eat the food Jane brings her, especially because the ars
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: to meal has a dead rat in it, and it's uge.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: It is so funny because it's like, okay, So she
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: gets a pepper for lunch and then Jane like, you
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: know something's up, because Jane was like.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Do you know we have rat rats in the basement.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: You know we're dealing with rats, and you know, I
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: remember when I first watched it, I was like, oh, laurd,
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: how's a rat gonna pop up?
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: And it popped up for dinner, it popped up. I
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: do love how Betty Davis's Din Din very funny.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: He didn't eat to Din Din. Okay, So Blanche again,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: she's trapped upstairs with no way of calling for help,
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: no way of leaving the house. Meanwhile, we meet Edwin
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: Flagg played by Victor Rubuano, who is a musician who
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: sees Jane's ad in the paper, so he and his
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: mother contact Jane to set up an audition of sorts,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: kind of like a meeting in interview, and he shows
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: up at the house. He's desperate for work and income,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: so he flatters Jane and pretends to know who she
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: is and does all this stuff to kind of patronize
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: and humor her, and she gladly accepts it and she
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: really likes Edwin as a result, and she's super excited
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: about working with him. So we find out that she's
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: hoping to revive her vaudeville act, and she's dressed in
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: a similar outfit and hairdoo as when she was a
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: little girl performing in nineteen seventeen. And while they're meeting,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Blanche rings her buzzer to alert Jane that she needs something,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: and Jane is furious that Blanche is interrupting this meeting.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: She strikes Blanche and accuses her of preventing Jane from
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: ever having any friends. Blanche is desperately pleading with Jane,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: but Jane storms out and the two of them. Jane
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: and Edwin leave a short time later, so Blanche once
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: again takes this opportunity to try to get help. She
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: climbs out of her wheelchair and slowly makes her way
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: down the stairs and to the telephone that's down there,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: where she manages to call doctor Shelby, saying that Jane
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: is very unwell and he needs to come over right
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: away to tend to the situation. But Jane walks in
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: on this phone conversation. She starts beating Blanche and then
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: calls doctor shelby back, imitating Blanche's voice saying never mind,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: we don't need you after all. Jane actually went to
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: another doctor, so Blanche's plans are thwarted. Then Elvira shows
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: up and Jane is like, we don't need you today
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: or ever again. Actually you're fired. Then Jane leaves again,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: but Elvira is very skeptical of this situation, so she
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: sneaks into the house and discovers that Jane has locked
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: Blanche in her room and Blanche is not responsive on
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: the other side. So when Jane returns home, Elvira is like,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: what have you done, you monster? Give me the key
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: to the door, and she does so. Elvira unlocks the
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: door and sees that Jane has tied Blanche up in
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: her bed, so Elvira goes to help, but then Jane strikes,
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: and I believe kills Elvira.
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: She kicks a hammer hammer to the head. It's also
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: pretty clear when you see Blanche is like, oh, she's
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: probably not getting any food or water. This woman is
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: literally starving to death. And there's actually something very very
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: interesting to me about the exchange between Elvira and Jane.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: When Elvira confronts her because you're like, okay, so how
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: is this going to go? Because Jane is obviously unwell,
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: there's going to be some sort of violence, but like
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: how quick are they going to go to the violence?
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: And I thought it was interesting because Elvira is a
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: black woman and like this you know maid who comes
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: in and cleans and all this stuff. But what happens
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: in their argument is that Jane revers to being very
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: girlishly immature and child like and kind of cowering, while
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: Elvira says something that I thought was super fascinating, which is,
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: you've got to be a grown woman like everyone else.
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: And there was something about that that I don't think
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: the movie's like aware, but on a racial level, there's
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: something very interesting about a black woman telling this white
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: woman so lost in her own past you have to
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: grow the fuck up.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: There's something just so rich and meaty in that moment.
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: And I think the Elvira character like really stood out
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: to me on this watch.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she also has so much more discernment than any
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: other character, where she's the one who's like, hey, Blanche,
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: your sister's acting really weird, and don't you think it's
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: weird that you've never seen this fan mail. She's throwing
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: it away. She's the one to realize that. When Jane's like, oops,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: the bird flew out of its cage, sorry about it,
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Elvira is like she let that bird go on purpose,
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Like that was no accident. Like she's able to read
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: Jane for exactly who she is and what she's doing.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: The Madie Norman performance is really cool. I mean, just
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: like how this movie. I mean, it's good on its
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: own terms, but like the performances really make it where
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: you know, there are sometimes where Elvira is sent away
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: basically for plot reasons. Yeah, but you can see, like
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: I believe it because of Madie Norman's performance where you
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: can see her thinking in a way that actually like
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: does make sense, where she's like, ooh, is this do
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: I want to get involved with this right now? Is
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: this something that I okay, I'll come back next week,
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: Like she keeps coming back. She is concerned, but it
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: takes a little bit of time, as I feel like
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: it very often does in these situations, and that there
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: is I mean, I hate that she dies via Betty
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: Davis Hammer, but that the again just like the we
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: you know, the reason that Jane is caught is because
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: Elvira's family is looking for her, which in movies that
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: I expect loose ends. This movie doesn't really have very many.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: And yeah, Elvia is such a great character, and to.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Your point, Jamie about Elvira's family looking for her. A
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: short time after this, Jane gets a call from the
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: police about Alvira because her cousin had reported her missing.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: So Jane freaks out. She runs into Blanche's room. She's crying,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: She's saying that everything is falling apart and no, she
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: didn't mean to hurt anyone. Yeah, she can't believe that
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: she ran her own sister over with the car all
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: those years ago, and Blanche is like, hmmm, actually I
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: have something to tell you about that accident, but Jane
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: is like, shut up, I don't want to talk about it,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: and then they're interrupted when Edwin shows up. He has
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: found out from his mother that his new employer, baby
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Jane Hudson, had tried to murder her sister many years prior.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Or so people say, or so people say. Uh.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: Then he comes into the house and he discovers Blanche upstairs,
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: tied up and trapped by Jane. So he's like, oh
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: my god, my mom was right, So he runs out
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: looking for help. Presumably.
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the second Edwin sequence this movie does very much
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: stick to the fact that men don't know anything and
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: can into it absolutely nothing for the entire runtime, because
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: Edwin has to be told by his mother like, hey,
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: maybe this is not a safe environment, even though she
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: has bad info.
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: You know, he's not I don't know.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, I guess he is picking up red flags.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: But Edwin carrying himself through the world like I can
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: fuck anyone I want. I walk into room and she's mine,
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: Like he fully intends to go and do the same
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: exact thing to Blanche.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: And well, there's also a class thing happening where he's
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: desperate for income, so he's just willing to kind of
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: look the other way when it comes to red flags
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: he might be picking up on. But he's just like this,
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: you know, these rich women, this rich woman or this
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: woman I perceived to be rich, is going to pay me,
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: and I desperately need income. But anyway, that whole.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: Scene between him and Jane, where for very different reasons,
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: they are just lying to each other.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: The entire scene, Yeah.
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: Is so good. It's so good.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: They're lying to each other, they're also interrupting each other
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: because they just are not literally want to talk about themselves.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: They're not listening to each other's I that was another
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: scene that really stuck out to me on this on
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: this watch, because I feel like that the whatever cultural
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: takeaway is her performing you know, Daddy again, which is
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: an important part of the scene, but like not even
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: in kind of like the top parts of what I
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: think is interesting about it.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Okay, So now the jig is up, basically,
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: and Jane is like, I need to flee from the law.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: So she puts Blanche in the car and they drive
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: to the beach because that's their hiding spot, I guess,
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: and they just think hang out there for a while.
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: I think it's a safe place for Jane because there's
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: like a little exchange where she's like, Oh, we'll just
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: go away and then we can get ice cream and
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: then we can be in the suchon row. Oh, and
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: then the sun is gonna come up and it's gonna
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: be so nice. And I was like, oh, she's like
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: degrading into being pure child like yeah, and so it's
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: like she it's very interesting her crackup is drifting further
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: further into childhood and like making these very rash, like
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: nonsensical decisions that you can see is like her reaching
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: for some sort of comfort, but she doesn't really know
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: how to get it properly.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: Right, record, right, So they're hanging out on the beach,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: Blanche is baking in the sun and lightly dying.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: It's dire. Yeah, yeah, that's how I feel at the
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: beach though. I was like, I called grant of her.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: I was like, this is what we look like when
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: we go to the beach in the trenches.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So Blanche confesses to Jane that during that fateful
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: night with the car and the collision, it was actually
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: Blanche who was driving. She was the one who tried
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: to hit Jane with the car, but Jane dove out
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: of the way and instead Blanche hit a gate and
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: that's what caused the injury that disabled her. And then
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Blanche crawled out of the car and framed Jane for
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: running Blanche over. And Jane was very drunk that night,
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: so she apparently had no recollection of what actually happened,
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: so she believed that it must have been her who
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: was driving and caused the collision, and so after hearing
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: this this like confession of what actually happened, Jane fully dissociates.
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: Well. Right before then, though, she says like the most
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: banger line of the ending, which is, you mean all
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: this time we could have because been in France. Like
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: She's like like this dawning realization, like oh, like there
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: was a moment where like we could have gone in
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: an actually different direction as sisters and like had a
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: much more stable relationship. And I thought it was interesting
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: that Blanche said I made you waste your whole life
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: thinking you know, you did this to me and like that, Yeah,
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: was like the first step into her becoming so childlike
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: and like reverting to a past self that she felt
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: had some control and happiness.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: Right, it's yeah that that conversation is so loaded, Betty
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: Davi is so good. It's like it's ridiculous.
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: A good it's a good to I almost I almost
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: like that moment as an ending more than the actual ending,
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: which felt very similar to Sunset Boulevard to me in
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: a way that I feel like undercut what we just saw.
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I I agree like the twirling just completely.
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: I'm fully mad, like I think what Betty is doing
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: is interesting. But the flip side is it, like you
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: have the ending between the sisters, you know, and Blanche
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: also says you weren't ugly, then I made you that
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: way and it's just so, and then like you know,
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: she's obviously dead. But then it's like, oh if you
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: end there like and you could end just like on
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: Betty's face and we could like read like both the confusion,
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: the sorrow and the eventual just I'm going to retreat
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: into myself so far that I'm just completely I think
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: that sort of ending would have been more intelligent and
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: more caring towards the characters. By having the like twirling
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: while the police and everyone is looking at her and
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: she's holding these ice cream cones and thinking like people
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: are really interested in her, it turns her into a
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: spectacle again. So it undercuts the emotional resonance of that
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: exchange between the sisters in a way totally. Yeah.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: So basically what happens is she's like, I'm gonna go
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: get us ice cream. As she's doing that, a couple
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: of cops find her because I guess Edwin had reported
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: what was happening to the police.
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because it's on. It's on like the ratio. Yeah,
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: And they're like looking for her specific car, and that's
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: what like cues the cops in because someone mentions, oh,
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: like there's like this car that's like kind of in
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: the way. Yeah exactly.
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: I also, like, I think it's really like another just
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: little thing that I never noticed before. That Jane would
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: have maybe ben happier to be arrested if at least
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: someone recognized her. But they recognize her car, it's not her.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, right right, So the cops approach Jane and
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: this causes a crowd to gather. In the crowd thrills Jane.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: You know, she's finally back in the spotlight. So she
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: starts twirling and dancing around, you know, very child like.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: And then the movie ends with the cops seeing Blanche
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: and running over to her, unclear if she's alive or not.
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: But that is the end of the movie. So let's
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: take another break and we'll come back to discuss.
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: And we're back where to begin?
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: Where, Angelica? Do you have any place you want to
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: We've already I mean we've already started the discussion.
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah no, no, no, and demands discussion. I guess I mean,
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: just to sort of close the loop on, and I
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: would love to hear other thoughts. And I know you
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: very likely know far more about it than we do,
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: with the whole idea of the feud and how these
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: characters were very intentionally meant to mirror the careers of
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: the lead actors. Just speaking to like, if you're a
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: listener that's like not super familiar with the actual history
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: behind it, or like maybe watch the Ryan Murphy series,
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: like you know in twenty seventeen, and I don't know,
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: I think it is very funny objectively that you know,
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: now in twenty twenty five we know for a fact
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: we are not to trust Ryan Murphy with history, but
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen people were still like, I don't know,
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: should we let him do it again? And now he
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: you know, is doing something completely different, But that there
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: were it's from what I was able to gather, these
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: two actors didn't like each other, but it like yours
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: saying Angelica, it wasn't she. She may not have even
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: cracked Betty Davis's top five of actors that actors or
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: institutions like. Betty Davis was famously in conflict with institutions
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: and I always think it's interesting when the feud with
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: the institution is like, well, we don't talk about that
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: because we want to celebrate and monetize Betty Davis's image,
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: So we shouldn't say that she really had an ax
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: to grind with Warner Brothers for years, but that like, yeah,
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: these women didn't like each other. There are false narratives
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: that date back to production that have been mostly debunked,
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: but are persistent about them, you know, getting into physical
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: altercations on set, them had like steal, like fucking the direct,
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: like doing all like seducing to get back at the other,
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: and you know all this stuff that like you know,
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: plays into a lot of you know, negative tropes around
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: women in general. And also was I think intended to
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: some extent to sell the movie. Selling the feud also
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: sold the movie. So I don't know, I mean, I
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: would be curious. I know that certainly Betty Davis commented
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: on this repeatedly throughout her career, and she's like a
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: famously very dynamic interview subject who kind of sometimes will
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: repeat rumors as fact. And but yeah, there by by
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: all accounts, including the director and other people close to
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: the production, there was you know that over the top
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: thing wasn't happening. It seems like it was a psychological
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: or I love the I was just like, ooh, that
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: is that is diabolical, the oscars it is.
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: It is so fucked up what Joan did, and it's
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: like really dark. Okay, just for some interesting context, if
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: you've watched Feud, you would think that like Betty and
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: Joan like were really competing as actors in a way,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: they weren't at the height of their career. At the
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: height of their career, you know, first of all, Joan
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: Crawford came to the industry before Betty. She was established
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: before Betty came to the scene. And Joan was like
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: the queen of MGM, while Betty was considered like the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: like another Warner Brother That's how important she was to
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: Warner Brothers bottom line. And she you know, she was
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: a performer who liked to play old. She like played
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: you know, characters that most people would find unsympathetic. She
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: like really pushed limits of female representation on screen. While
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: Joan really craved a sense of glamour, beauty and admiration.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: Betty almost liked people to not like her character in
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: a way that's like she's she was a very abrasive woman.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: But what's like interesting about also them coming into the
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: making of this movie, Like I said earlier, like Joan
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: Crawford brought her the project, and I think like they
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: you know, eventually Joan Crawford did go to Warner Brothers
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: and like did like Mildred Peers, which she won, like
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: her Oscar Force. So like there there's like professional issues,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: But there's something Betty Davis says and her memoir This
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: and That that I think kind of exemplifies the differences
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: between these women. And like I think issues they had
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: on set were as much these women come to acting
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: in a very different way as it was oh this,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: Oh she's so much better than me, or actually I'm
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: better than I think. It was like like a professional
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: mismatch in a way, they like create in a very
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: different way. And like one issue Betty had with Joan
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: was like why is she making her character look so
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: pretty like and and her and Robert Aldrich were like
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: telling Joan, like, hey, don't wear this beautiful red nail polish,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: but obviously it's in black and white, which, by the way,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: they were originally going to shoot in color. Betty convinced
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: the producers to shoot it in black and white. Queen auteur,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: I would say, anyway.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna say that is the right choice for this.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: So the right choice. But Betty and Joan just had
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: like just a very different approach to things, and like
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: Joan really wanted to still look glamorous because that's like
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: very important to her to look good. So they had
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: to like really encourage her to, like, hey, like let's
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: pare down the glamour and play up the vulnerability. And
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: I do think Joan eventually did that well. But there's
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: this passage that I'm gonna read from this and that
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: Betty Davis the second memoir that I think is really
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: useful for how she sees herself and how she sees Joan,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: which she's actually like she admits, like, yeah, there are
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: things about this woman I didn't like. Like Joan tends
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: to give gifts to like win people, and she was
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: giving gifts to Betty and Betty Kip like sending them back,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: and like Betty was like, I don't want to be
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: friends with you, Like what we?
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: What do?
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: Are we? Is this a joke? But Davis writes in
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: her memoir quote where the producers were uneasy about how
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: outrageous I wanted Jane to look. They had a problem
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: of another kind with Joan. It was a constant battle
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: to get her not to look gorgeous. She wanted her
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: hair well dressed, her gowns beautiful, and her fingernails with
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: red nail polish. For the part of an invalid who
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: had been cooped up in a room for almost twenty years.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: She wanted to look attractive. She was wrong, like Betty,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: and she continues, I understood why she did not want
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 4: to look unattractive. She had been famous for her glamour
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: all through the years, and there's no question that the
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: glamour actresses made Hollywood the famous place it is today.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 4: The glamour's actresses at that time were Geene Harlow, Rita Hayworth,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: Joan Crawford, Lona Turner, Hetty Lamar, and of course, eventually
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: Marilyn Monroe. The non glamorous types in which I group
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: myself were Hepburn, Tracy Cagney, Fonda Bogart. The non glamorous
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: group were all from theater and had been brought to
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 4: Hollywood at the beginning of talking pictures. At present Hollywood
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: made lament the lack of stars as glamorous as those
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: I have just listed, So it's like sort of backhanded,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: but also like she's like, no, I admit, it's the
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: women like Joan who built the image of Hollywood that
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: we continue to kind of chase. And she talks about
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: throughout the chapter that she finds Joan like very professional,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: She's always on time, she knows her lines, like she
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: cares about the picture like very very much. But a
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: big problem was the Oscar thing. So Betty gets nominated
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: for Best Actress for her role and whatever happened to
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: baby Jane, Joan ain't having that, so this.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: Was all her idea.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: I was like, I, you know, yes, which is cuckoo bananas. So,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: like Joan decided to base basically okay, I'm just gonna
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: read it. She reached out to all the other Oscar
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: nominees and offered, if you can't come to the ceremony,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: I will gladly pick up your Oscar for you, dampholic.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: I will accept on your behalf, and then Betty kind
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: of sets the scene. That year, each nominee sat in
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: a separate dressing room backstage, equipped with a TV monitor.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: I was with my publicity man and Michael and b
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: d her children were out front. When Anne Bancroft's name
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: was announced. I am sure I turned white. Moments later,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: Crawford floated down the hole past my door. I will
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: never forget the look she gave me. It was triumphant.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: The look clearly said you didn't win. And I am elated.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: And like, you know, Betty like really valued the Oscar.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: She's one of the most nominated actors in Oscar history
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: U ten nominations.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so she's like she would have been the first to.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: Three can Yeah okay, And so she really wanted that,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: And like I firmly believe she should have won for
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 4: all about Eve or whatever happened to Baby Jane, and
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 4: that caused like genuine animosity between them. So I find
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: it interesting that so much a feud and the reputation
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: of their like animosity is born from like Betty wasn't
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: glamorous and no one wanted to fuck her, but everyone
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: wanted to fuck Joan. But Joan was jealous of this
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: and did it, and they like rooted in like the
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: male relationships they had sometimes like them trying to curry
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: favor with men. But I really think a lot of
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: their issues were like these are very different women and
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: professional things, where it's like now they are in a
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: more of a competitive thing they previously were, because now
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 4: they're like this woman is actually affecting her Oscar chances,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: and like Joan was like actively helping other people's campaigns,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: so she really really did not want Betty to win,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: and like Betty says in her memoir, like, hey, I
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: actually think this was really dumb because it's like we
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: have points on the back end if I won the Oscar,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: that would have like raised the profile of the movie exactly.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: But she so petty and so like venomous towards Betty
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: that like she old Trump what would actually be useful
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 4: for her in the long run, which is really sad.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: I think what's very interesting about reading about women in
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: classic Hollywood is like how they had to navigate other
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: women because the world around you is putting you in
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: competition with other women. And like Betty was always told
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: you're not attractive, you don't have sex appeal, Da da
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: da da da, And of course that would affect any
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: woman hearing that like consistently, and like Betty was sometimes
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: like she had, you know, friendships with people like Olivia
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: de Haviland, who ends up taking on Joan Crawford's role
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: in Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, another Hackstation movie that Robert
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 4: Aldridge directed that was supposed to re teem her and Joan,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: but Joan pretended to be sick to get out.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: Of her contract. Oh wow.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: Like they started filming and Joan was like, I can't
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: be and Betty was like, you can't be around me.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: You cost me the Oscar and I was getting over
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: it to do this movie and you can't even do
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: the movie. And so Betty reached out to Olivia to
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: havelind and like convinced her to take on like this
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: very villainous role that isn't typical for Olivia to havelin.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: Actually like Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte because it is very
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: Southern Gothic, so it has a very different energy to
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: Baby Jane, which feels like such a Hollywood movie steeped
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: in Hollywood ideas and Hollywood as a sort of landscape.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: But yeah, that's a big reason why Joan and Betty
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: don't get along. And like Betty, just like I think,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: also was tired of people always associating them together, because like,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: if you read about both of their lives, there's like
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: far more important figures that were like instrumental to them
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: or they had feuds with. Like Betty Davis was like
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 4: a lot of the directors in classic Hollywood feared her
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: because she would take control over projects and was like,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: this line is bad, your shot setup sucks. I can
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: direct this better than you. The thing is she was
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: typically right, So like our instincts as an artist are
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: really really sharp and fascinating, Betty was also far more
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: politically engaged. Like one of the most interesting things I
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: like to tell people about her is that she was
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: the first woman president of the Academy of Motion Picture
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: Arts and Sciences, and that was all the way back
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: in nineteen forty one. But they just wanted her to
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: be a figurehead. She wanted to make actual changes for
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: the industry, and she ended up leaving because the men
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: did not want to listen to her. And the next
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: person who who took up that position implemented the same
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: thing she was trying to implement, So it was like, Oh,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 4: you don't have a problem with what she was trying
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: to do to make this industry better. You had a
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: problem with her actually saying anything, because she's a woman
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: who's very abrasive. Someone like There was an interesting article
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: that's quoted in sam Stad's book All About Eve, which
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 4: at the end says Betty's bluntness and impatience, her refusal
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 4: to compromise surely helped alienate many whom she might later
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: have persuaded. She's kind of like a force to be
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 4: reckoned with. I think she's very interesting. Both her and
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: Joan Crawford are also aries women's so I don't know
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: why I find that. So I think, like, you know,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: in a lot of ways, like Betty did it her way,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: which some people saw is the hard way, But I
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: actually like, for all her faults, I actually think she
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: was a really really fascinating, dynamic woman who holds a
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: lot of very interesting contradictions because this on one hand,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: you hear some of her relationships with women were like
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: good and she had respect for them. But then on
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: the other hand, you hear how she treated like Marilyn
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: Monroe on the set of All About Eve, and you're like, oh,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: but Marilyn Monroe was treated like shit by so many
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: women in the industry, like Joan Crawford was like notably
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: nasty towards Marilyn and was publicly saying some really horrid
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: things about her. And so that's something Betty and Joan share,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: like a sort of discomfort with the industry moving past them,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: and so they turned towards animosity that like builds towards
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: younger women who actually are just as brutalized as they are.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: An interesting contrast would be Lana Turner, who, while Joan Crawford,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: you know, had this whole to give you advice, Marylyn
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: come over my place, but then she just sort of
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: read her to filth like and like was completely disrespectful
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: to her. Lana Turner when she like when Marilyn was
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: coming up, she invited her to her house and gave
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: her genuinely, really good and caring professional advice both about
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: how you should carry yourself, how you should dress, how
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: you need to move, how you need to navigate a
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: lot of these men in the industry. And it's like
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: Lana Turner was someone who dealt with a lot of
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: shit that Marilyn also dealt with. There's an interesting story
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: a friend of mine was talking about about, like Lana
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: Turner on the set of a movie and she had
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: just dealt with a miscarriage and was back on set
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: like two weeks later, and she was having trouble working
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: up emotions for a scene when the director got so
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: angry with her he decided keep the camera just on
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: her face and I'm gonna be twisting her arm till
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: it almost breaks to force her to cry. This is
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: the kind of shit that women were dealing with in
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: classic Hollywood. Things have never been like great for actors,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: but like now, it's like you can't imagine like someone
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: treating a star of like Lana Turner's stature, who was
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: like a huge important start at MGM, Like you can't
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: imagine like her like contemporary being treated in that same
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: way because that's like a labor violate. This is happening
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 4: on you know what I mean. So it's like these
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: women were like so unprotected. And what makes me sad
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 4: with how we talk about the feud between Betty and
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: Joan is we totally miss out on the more structural
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: issues around them that would lead women to kind of
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: feel uneasy with each other.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, I mean, from what I understand about
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: this feud, this alleged.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: You know it exists.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: It exists, but it was blown so out of proportion
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: exactly by the media, and it's.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: Less of feud and more like, oh, I just don't
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 4: really care for you, and we're just professionally different, Like
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 4: you cannot like somebody and it not be a few.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: There are people I don't like and I just don't
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 4: think about them.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: Right, But like journalists would grasp at straws and then
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: like print stuff about, oh, this big feud between these
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: two actors just to pit women against each other basically.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: And of course that that's something that the studio is
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: never gonna fight with because it sells tickets, it sells
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: the movie if it like all plays into it. I feel, yeah,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: I thank you for that background, Angelica, because I just
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: I everything I've learned about Betty Davis as a labor figure, specifically,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: like that area of her life, it just feels very
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: intentionally removed from how we talk about her and talk
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: about her as a political figure, which you know, on
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: the Joan Crawford side, Joan Crawford is is playing the
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: game and the game involves not getting very political, and I, yeah,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: I just I wish that there were elements, especially because
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Yeah, Feud a show that is well
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: casted but ultimately just pisses me off, where it's it's also.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 4: Not fun to watch, Like it's not like a fun
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: interesting watch. It's more like you get frustrated, like this
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: is the story you're telling about these like titans of
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 4: the industry. Can you imagine like a similar work about
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: like a Laurence Olivier, you know, like he you know
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: Betty Davis, she used to say, I was Brando before Brando,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 4: Like she's an actor's actor. Why are we forgetting about
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 4: that or forgetting about like really interesting political things like
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 4: her starting the Hollywood Canteen with people like John Garfield
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: during World War Two that allowed white and black servicemen
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 4: to hang out with each other, like black people were welcome.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 4: That's like very interesting how cool she was with like
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: certain racial things that you would expect her not to be,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: but she was. She was very liberal Democrat, but like
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 4: she really had like a genuine care for the world
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: that I find interesting and politically was like it doesn't
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: make sense to like be entertaining only white servicemen. They're
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: not the only people who are dying for this country
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: right now, and I'm like, I start doing that in
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: the nineteen forties is pretty notable.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, I wish that that was I mean,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: going back to your earlier point, Angelica like elements of
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: her legacy that were, you know, talked about. I get
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: her persona was huge. I don't think she would be
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: upset to know people are still discussing her persona, but like,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: but that there, she was such a complex person who
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: I didn't know about the circumstances of her leaving as
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: president of the Academy. It's like, Yeah, having that sort
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: of recontextualized how much there was to push against and
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: how impossible it generally was, even for someone as influential
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: and persistent as Betty Davis. And I mean, to some extent,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: it's because of how those narratives are shaped, which gets
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: us back into the content of the movie of Yeah,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: I'm curious how you both feel about how aging women
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: and specifically aging women performers are framed, because I feel
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: like there's so many different ways to look at it
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: that I was trying to. I don't know. I've my
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: feelings on how Jane and Blanche their dynamic has definitely
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: changed over the years and I'm sure we'll continue to change,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: but in terms of like the exploitation genre developing and
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: taking I think a lot of bad lessons away from
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: this movie. There are certain things that I've seen framed
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: in the past, and I probably would have myself framed
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: in the past as like just full on misogynist slop
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: that I have a slightly easier time with now because
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: we are looking at siblings, which I think sometimes women,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: I mean women are very very often pitted against each
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: other in this absolute void where the assumption is like
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 3: women hate each other because they're in competition for men,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: But that is very much not what's happening here, and
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: I do feel like the table is set for why
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: this dynamic exists, And on this viewing, it really sat
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: with me at the end that the twist at the
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: end that Blanche was angry and resentful enough of Jane
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: to want to kill her, and also that that being
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: true and that lie being at the center of their
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: relationship doesn't excuse how horrifically Blanche was treated by her sister,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: regardless of what she believed. It's just like it's it.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I think a far more complex dynamic
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: than its cultural legacy would lead you to believe.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: I guess I agree. I also like kind of touching
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: on that and building upon that. One thing I thought
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 4: was like interesting with the idea of the story and
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 4: like Betty's approach to playing Jane was that in Haxploitation
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: a lot like that follows a lot of times it's
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 4: women trying desperately to like reclaim or latch onto being young,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 4: beautiful and sexually desired, like that's the thing they fear.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 4: But Betty and her character Jane is instead like going
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: into childhood and like before any sort of sexual identity
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: would arise. And I find that like really really interesting,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: as if to say, this is the only time I
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: felt like some sort of control over my life. And
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: that's like, I don't know. Something about that on a
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 4: gender level really interests me. Like the lie or the
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: belief that innocent childhood is the safest place a girl,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 4: a woman could be. It's sort of like, which isn't
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 4: true because we know how heinously young girls are treated
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 4: in and out of their families, right, So it's an
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: interesting delusion to have a character play and it's also
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 4: I don't know, it sort of made me think weirdly
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 4: of how people talk about like womanhood as being hard
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 4: and difficult and unruly, but girlhood is what we want
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 4: to be, the state we want to be in. And
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: I think about how many people talk about girlhood and
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 4: like refer to themselves as girls, this sort of int
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 4: you know, like infertilization of themselves even though you know,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: like I'm a thirty seven year old baby, or I
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 4: was twenty nine yesterday, but I just turned thirty two
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 4: or what, you know what I mean. And it's it's
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: sort of it sort of interests me how we render
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 4: like womanhood and like what kinds of womanhood is rendered,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 4: especially in a visual medium like film. You know, I'm
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 4: thirty six now. And if there's anything I've noticed recently,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 4: it's like we do not have a really dynamic range
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 4: of movies being made about women's midlife, the movies we
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: get made that are getting made about women's mid life
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 4: at this point, which US millennials are pretty much in,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 4: like we are in you know, late thirties into our forties.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: On the cusp of forty, yeah, exactly.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 4: And it's like I've noticed, oh, the movies we're kind
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 4: of getting that are in that range are all about
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 4: women as mothers or women and they're like not great
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: relationship with their husband and kind of realizing that midlife.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 4: And I think there is totally a place for those stories.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 4: But like I've been talking to other friends, like, is
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 4: it weird that we're actually seeing like that's the vision
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: of a woman's mid Like the millennial woman's mid life
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 4: is only through motherhood or her relatetionationship to men. Because
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 4: that's a little weird considering we're the generation that has
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 4: now like really staved off marriage or we're like many
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: of us are just not having kids, Like I don't
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 4: want kids and will not be having them, but we
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 4: don't see that represented. So it ends up adding to
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 4: this history of like what makes a woman most important
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 4: is like her either her fertility or her youth, or
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: her beauty or how she cares for others. But I like,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: I don't know. It's very frustrating. So when I watch
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 4: a movie like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, even though
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 4: it's so sad and rough emotionally to watch, I find
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: it like really interesting on a level that I think
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: other exploitation doesn't touch, which is so layered and it's
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: understanding of who these women are and like how they
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 4: fit in the world and certain structural things that are
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 4: shaping them. Especially structural for Blanche is her disability. And
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: I just want more prickly observations of like what it
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: means to be a woman today, and I don't think
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: we're getting it, and I feel like I'm losing my
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 4: mind over it.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: I totally agree where there even when it's movies that
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 3: I like, often movies directed by women. Yeah, it feels
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: like we're very often interfacing with women who are around
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: our age, who we have so little in common with.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: And I also don't know a lot of women going
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: through the same things. And then sometimes I'm like, I
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: think the way that I like go like coping mode.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: I'm like, well, uh, it's because I live in a
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: city and it's less but it's like it is less
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: common everywhere, and I feel like.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 5: It is just like a what is it that we
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 5: see that when we do see movies about women in
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 5: their late forties into like early fifties, a lot of
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 5: it is surrounding like I want to have a kid.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: I actually I change my mind, I want to have
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: or like it's like rooted in this anxiety. Yeah, and
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: not just people living and doing stuff.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like women do things, Yeah, we do things like
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 4: what Yeah? Like I saw some like podcast clip I
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 4: hate when like someone someone was doing some little real
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 4: on Instagram and they were responding to some stupid podcasts
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 4: where this woman said like, like what do women do
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 4: in once they're in their mid to late thirties but
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 4: they don't have kids? Like what are they doing?
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: What are they all too? I'm like, oh, you.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 4: People like really think women who don't have kids.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: Are just like we just shrivel up and die.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 4: Sh Yeah. Either we're literally just in a dark room
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 4: staring at something because there's nothing to do and we
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 4: don't have any friends or hobbies, or like we're perpetually
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 4: on vacation and life is just so easy because you
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: don't have kids. And I'm like, do you see the economy?
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 4: Do you see how for our generation, our parents are
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 4: now fragile and dealing with health issues, Like the caretaking
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 4: stuff is something very much on my mind at you know,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 4: at this point in my life. And I just feel
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 4: like I love films so much as a medium, but
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: I feel very disappointed in certain aspects of like American
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: film history like how much is not seen on screen,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 4: which leads people to think like a very limited idea
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 4: of how human beings are based on pop culture, you
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 4: know what I mean, Like feels very limited, and it's
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: understanding of how contradictory and weird and wonderful being alive is.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 4: I don't feel life in a lot of movies I
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 4: watched that are contemporary American movies these days.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: Totally yeah, same, yeah. And then I mean, going going
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: back to the women in this movie, I have very
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: complicated feelings about it because, on one hand, I think
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: you could argue that tropes about older women are present
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: in the sense that both of these women, for sure,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: are clinging on to their quote unquote glory days, and
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: for both of them, their glory days are different eras
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: of their life. Again, for the Jane character, it's when
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: she was seven years old or something. For Blanche it's
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: when she's.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 3: Skin her early twenties. It seems like twenties or thirties.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And then, and this is affecting Jane in a
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: different way than Blanche, where Jane is like losing touch
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: with reality versus Blanche who seems to be just like
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: you know, watching her old movies that are now, like
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: in television syndication, kind of reminiscing about these days and
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: doesn't seem that interested in her life in the present.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: There's also some ableism I think surrounding her character, which
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: we can get into.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that she is, she's all part of the
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: era that she's romanticizing. Is the last time that she
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: was able bodied exactly.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: Right, right, and we you know, we have these older
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: women who, by the way, the studio originally did not
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: want Joan Crawford and Betty Davis to play these characters
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: in this movie because the studio felt that those actors
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: were too old quote unquote They were both in their
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: mid fifties I believe at the time. But director Robert
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: Aldrich was like, this is what the story calls for,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: Like I'm casting these actors, and then the studio relented.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's these older women clinging on to their youth,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: which is a very kind of trophy and stereotypical thing.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: But this is also not happening in a vacuum. There's
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: context for this where society values youth in women, and
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: so if these women have been conditioned to think that
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: youth is important and that's what's important about them, then
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: it stands to reason that they would try to cling
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: to that.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: I also feel like with their father coming up a lot,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 3: including in the World's Most Annoying Song, like it is
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: telegraphed to us, And again it's like, I think that
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: if I also understand how I totally believe that when
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 3: this movie came out, and still now, if you're watching
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: this movie with your brain turned off, it's just tropes
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 3: all the way down if you're not looking for more.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that like we're told kind of right away
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 3: and then get a little more information as the movie
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 3: goes on of like, oh, I guess the dad passed
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 3: away when they were very young, Like we don't really
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: get a ton of information there. But but that, especially
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: with Jane, that not only is it the world telling
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: her this, it's like her father manager telling her that
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: this is where your value comes from. And and then
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: it sounds like he dies while she's young and never
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 3: really like that validation comes from him and the world,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 3: and so when he and the world are no longer
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 3: you know, either present or interested, like that, they're I mean,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: these women are like.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: Left behind for sure. I mean, I think the other
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: surface level trope that maybe permeates deeper, maybe it doesn't.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: But the jealousy between the two sisters and the two women,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: where Jane is jealous of Blanche seemingly because Blanche was
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: able to have success as an adult and Jane didn't.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: Jane got this taste of fame as a child but
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: couldn't cross over into being a star as an adult,
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: and she resents Blanche for being able to do that,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: and we're to believe that Jane was so jealous of
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: that that that's why she runs over Blanche with the
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 2: car allegedly. Then we find out that that's not what happened.
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: We find out that Blanche was the one who tried
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: to kill Jane with the car because Blanche was upset
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: that Jane was making fun of her at a party.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 4: I look at that as like a breaking point because
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 4: there's an interesting like after you see the footage of
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 4: thirties Betty Davis, and like the studio head is like,
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 4: oh god, she so sucks. We need to get Blanche
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 4: to take this clause out of her contract. I think
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 4: it's like him with like an agent or some representative
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: for Blanche, and there's just something very interesting about how
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 4: they're like describing Jane and Blanche's relationship, which Blanche feels
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 4: like she owes something to Jane to some degree, but
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 4: she like it's clearly resentful that her sister is like
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 4: so wedded to her. And then also the studio head
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 4: makes a mention that one day that like Jane is
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 4: gonna be committed or something, so actually that actually kind
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 4: of subverts Blanche's thoughts on things. Jane has had problems
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 4: for a very very long time, but Blanche has like
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 4: almost like adopted a parental role of feeling responsible for
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 4: his sister, so that like really weirdly complicates things in
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 4: a way. And then also, like the studio ahead was
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 4: talking about Jane's drinking, like this woman's an I've been
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 4: an alcoholic for a long time. So there's like the
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 4: tropes are all like very there, but then like there's
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 4: set a skew in these certain ways that at like
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 4: a certain texture, and I think the performances are doing
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 4: enough to kind of sometimes almost contradict the gaze of
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 4: the movie, which is really interesting to me.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think with like we were talking about earlier,
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 3: like the in less capable actors' hands, I think that
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: the tropes would just read me pretty one to one, yeah,
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 3: because I mean this is also a movie, you know,
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: And then it seems like, you know, Robert Aldrich I've
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: like wanted to do right by his actors in this,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: but but it's a movie that's written in direct by men,
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: and like whenever there's a story about women that is
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 3: told in that way, you know, you have to enter
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: it with the like les let's see, and more often
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 3: than not we do. But but yeah, it feels like
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: certainly Betty and Joan is what like they're really thinking
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 3: about this because to some extent, that's like what makes
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 3: the movie interesting is that they have either lived versions
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 3: of these experiences or seen it happen to other people.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 3: I think that this movie also has something to say.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 3: It is not the most nuanced thing. I think it
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: is like it has its own tropes as well, but
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 3: about child stardom and like child's stardom out of vaudeville
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: into it, like a vaudeville child who sort of fails
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 3: to make the transition to film, and how that would
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: affect you if that is where your you know, like
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 3: where your entire sense of self is derived from. I
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 3: think we like we still see examples of that now.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 3: It is still a huge issue, but certainly more so
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 3: in the era where you know, the kids that did
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 3: make it into the studio system were abused horrifically. So
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 3: it's I think what's I guess what's tricky about it
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 3: for me is like I think the performances, like you're saying,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: Angelica do enough to not make it seem that they've
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 3: brought this fate on themselves, but I understand that there
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: is a very clear way to read it that way.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, totally, I totally agree. I think it's the actresses
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 4: that saved this movie from feeling.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 3: Cruel to its characters, because.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 4: In a I think it could read as very like
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 4: mean and nasty, and like, I also think the movie,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 4: and like how Betty plays things is smart enough to
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 4: let Jane be very nasty and unsympathetic and like the endnotes,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 4: you can be like, this is a very broken person,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 4: but they're also a very monstrous in their actions. Like
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 4: I don't think you're meant to like ever forgive her
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 4: so much as like take a peek behind the curtain
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 4: and understand the roots of things a little more clearly.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, because there's that scene toward the very beginning
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: of the movie, when I think it's the only moment
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: when we hear Blanche and Jane's mother speak. But their
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: mother pulls aside little Blanche and says, she says something like,
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: I hope you are able to forgive your father and
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: your sister, baby Jane, for you know, being so cruel
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: to you, and that you won't treat them with the
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: same cruelness that they have shown you. And then little
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: Blanche says something like, I won't forget as if like
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: she's going to harbor this resentment for the rest of
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: her life and perhaps that's what motivates her to, you know,
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: try to mow down her sister with the car. Am
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 2: I remembering that correctly? Is that how that?
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And maybe I'm misregatt but I don't Their
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 3: mother really doesn't come up.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 4: Again, No, I thought, I don't care, very bizarre.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know that their father had this very
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 3: specific role in their life because he was running the
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 3: child's star farm, you know. And and and that slept
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 3: on conversation between Edwin Flagg and Jane. Later on, we
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 3: get a little bit more into like what what motivates
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 3: a lot of parents of child stars is that he
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 3: wanted to be on stage. He was a musician, and
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 3: Jane kind of repeats the story he told her of
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 3: like I was misunderstood my artistry. People didn't get it,
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 3: and like, you know, it is certainly reflective of things
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 3: that happen of like stage parents. I thought I was
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: kind of curious that the mom doesn't come up again.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 4: Because that's a very male written mistake, you know what
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 4: I mean, Like, because because I feel like the mother
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 4: should be some they have, should have some sort of
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 4: feelings for her, whether it's like they feel betrayed or
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 4: angry or like.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: Is there a contrast between the way their father treated
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: them pertectly the way their mother treated them, Like there's
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: there would have been something.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 4: There would have been something, And I think, like, you know,
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 4: I like love this movie for the performances and so
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 4: like for me, I feel like, yeah, if like a
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 4: woman wrote this, that mother character would also cast a
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 4: shadow over their lives for one reason or another, but
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 4: she doesn't. What's also interesting about these women is you
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 4: don't hear anything about however their romantic lives were.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: I noticed that too, Yes.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 4: And their romantic lives like for Joan Crawford, like hers
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 4: in life were very important to people's understanding of her,
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 4: and like what men she was with and with Betty.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 4: Betty was mostly marrying men not in the industry, except
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 4: for her last husband, Gary Merrill, who was a co
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 4: star of hers in All About Eve. That's how they met.
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 4: But it's so interesting because if you read anything written
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 4: about these women, they do think they were thinking a
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 4: lot about their relationships to men and romance in general,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 4: and like really craving romance. And I wondered that with
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 4: both Jane and Blanche, have they craved affection? Because if
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 4: you watch Blanche, the only sort of awe and affection
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 4: and care she wants is to just watch herself on screen.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 3: And I wonder how much that plays into the ablest
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 3: tropes that are present in this movie, if like, well,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 3: she's disabled, so we're not even going to have love
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 3: and romance on the table for this character as like
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 3: a prejudice of the writer. I wasn't really clear on.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: That.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 3: And yes, in general, why doesn't Blanche want more? Is
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 3: it because of her own internalized ableism? Is it?
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 4: Like what you know?
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 3: I think that there's a lot of different ways that
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 3: could go, I'd be curious what other people think, but
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I guess going back to the mom
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 3: for a second, I was trying to like see her
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: in the performances because she's not there in the text,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: and it does feel like as close as she gets
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 3: to going through this is me really playing head canon.
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 3: But like I think my theory is Joan Crawford was
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: thinking about that mother character and that exchange at the
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 3: beginning of the movie, because for whatever this first half
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 3: or this beginning of Blanche's career, she continues to resent
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 3: Jane in that same way, but things change after this accident,
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 3: and it almost feels like that like thing her mother
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 3: said of like be kinder to Jane than she was
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 3: to you, only takes whole after she has failed to
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 3: kill her, basically, And I think that that like a
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 3: lot of Blanche's passivity comes from, you know, protracted abuse
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 3: and fear. But I also I also sort of feel
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 3: like there's a part of it that is also coming
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 3: from that line at the beginning from her mother.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 4: I agree. I think it's almost like she's been raised
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 4: to accept poor treatment and like in a way that
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of young girls are called to
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 4: just kind of take abuse and not call it that.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 4: I do think they need they it's just really the
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 4: thing is with exploitation movies is they can be really
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 4: fascinating and really over the top, but a lot of
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 4: times I don't think the script and story itself understands
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 4: women and how like women relate to each other, and
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 4: so you have like a lot of actresses have to
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 4: almost like offset and contra predict or add in performance
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 4: like layers that aren't there in the story, you know. Yeah,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 4: I think like they're both adding like layers to the
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 4: character that's not on the page for them. And I
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 4: definitely think the mother being such a void despite what
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 4: she said to Blanche being so integral in her psyche
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 4: kind of speaks to the fact that like the men
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 4: who made this weren't interested in women period. They were
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 4: just interested in like gawking at these like older women
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 4: who no longer had you know, people sexually desiring them
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 4: or desiring them for any reason. And so isn't that
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 4: sad because what's a woman without an audience? Right?
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: I find it interesting that, at least as far as
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: my interpretation goes, a component of the exploitation element of
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: this movie is the way that the James Hudson character looks,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: particularly her makeup, because her makeup makes her look pretty
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 2: ghoulish because it's this you know, vodvillion, very old fashion.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 3: She's like taking on the yeah, so much.
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: Like eyeliner and mascaring and kind of stuff. But I
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: think that there's context for that that at least Betty
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: Davis as an actor brings out in her character in
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 2: the sense that she I mean, we hear this thing,
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 2: and it might be an over generalization, but we've heard
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: this thing right that a child star who becomes famous
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 2: tends to kind of like like their development gets a
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: bit arrested at the moment that they become famous. They
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 2: have difficulties sort of like maturing beyond that, And again
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 2: not true for all child stars. I'm not trying to
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: make a blanket statement here, but like see examples of this.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 3: I feel like, especially to the extent of like it,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 3: what matters is your support system and how careful is
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 3: your support system being about allowing you to develop as
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 3: a person, And even a good support system doesn't necessarily
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 3: guarantee an outcome one way or another.
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 2: For sure, And then also considering the context of this
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 2: era where like mental health support was like barely becoming
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: a thing at this point. So we have all these
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 2: all this context for why Jane seems to constantly regress
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 2: into this child like immaturity with her esthetic, with her behavior,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: like all this stuff, so it's contextualized. So even though
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: her like ghoulish appearance like contributes to this like hag aesthetic,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 2: we know the context for it in a way that
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: I think other exploitation movies would just ignore or like
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: not pay that much attention to or not give that
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: much care to.
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I'm going to actually read another past
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 4: Betty Davis like writes and this and that about like
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 4: how she came up with this makeup quote. I decided
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 4: to do my own makeup for baby Jane what I
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 4: had in mind. No professional makeup man would have dared
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 4: to put on me. One told me he was afraid
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 4: that if he did what I wanted, he might never
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 4: work again. Jane looked like many women one sees on
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 4: Hollywood Boulevard. In fact, author Henry Ferrell, who wrote the
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 4: book is based on, patterned the character of Jane after
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 4: these women. One would presume by the way they looked
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 4: that they were once actresses and were now unemployed. I
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 4: felt Jane never washed her face, just added another layer
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 4: of makeup each day, And I think that's interesting because
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 4: it also like just skirts past a sort of class
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 4: thinking of like these are women who are also doing
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 4: the same routines because that was their way of like
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 4: literally gaining money for their labor and that sort of
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 4: look they're now associated it so much, but not just
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 4: their like personal worth as a woman, but they're economic
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 4: worth as an act So there's like interesting like thinking
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 4: behind it. And I agree, like you're not seeing that
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 4: in other exploitation films, by and large, there there are
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 4: some interesting ones, but in a lot of ways they
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 4: don't do that. And I think that exploitation directly leads
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 4: into the moment in horror we're in now, which instead
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 4: of like the baby if Baby Jane being a central figure,
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 4: the baby Jane is like a villainous monster in a
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 4: lot of ways, like there's nothing more scary to modern
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 4: male horror directors than an elderly naked woman Gladys.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 3: I have dissenting opinions on Aunt Gladys. It's a cultural
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 3: figure that people aren't ready to hear.
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 2: Oh from Weapons.
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or at least everyone I've tried to talk to
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 3: about it, they're like, hut up, we like her. I
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 3: was like, all right, I.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 4: Had her in mind when I said that, because I
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 4: was like once, I like, you know, you actually watched
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 4: the movie. You're like, oh, we're doing this.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, we're doing this, and we also did it in
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 3: the first one. We did it in Barbarian as well,
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 3: and then we're like, let's do it again. Then let's
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 3: get her an oscar which is nothing against Amy Madigan,
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 3: but it's great. It's an incredible performer, an incredible performance,
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 3: but these are the parts that are available.
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's something we need to and I don't
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 4: think anyone has like unpacked in a really good recent piece.
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 4: What the fuck is up with that? Like ye, cause
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 4: it's like this is all happening with these like look,
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 4: how terrible an elderly it's not a man an elderly
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 4: man's body. Typically it's an elderly woman's body. Why is
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 4: the figure of the crone so frightening to people? And
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 4: this is happening at the same time, we're watching celebrities
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 4: who are not even that old, like really working on
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 4: their face and then there's no zemp so it's like
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 4: this very weird miasma of not a fun shit that
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 4: we're kind of in. And it's like every time I
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 4: see a horror movie do this, I'm like, I don't
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 4: think you guys realize what thematically you open the door
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 4: to by by having an elderly woman's body be the
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 4: such a figure of fear and revulsion. It's also like,
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 4: we're disgusting because that's not what a woman is supposed
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 4: to do and look.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 3: Like yeah, and it's not. And it's it's not a
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 3: question to me of the caliber of performance, because again,
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 3: agree it's a great performance, but to my mind, the
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 3: substance getting the critical push that it did thematically immediately
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 3: followed by the huge push for we've got to award
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 3: the end Gladys like back to Beck, I have questions.
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 4: It's also like I've, you know, bitch about the substance.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 4: I like wrote a piece comparing the Substance to the
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 4: film A Different Man and how they both deal with
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 4: like dopel gangers and like how we see ourselves and
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 4: like identity found in the aesthetic and stuff like that.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 4: I like when I watched them, like pretty almost back
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 4: to back. I was like, oh, like there's a lot
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 4: going on here, and like the thing that upsets me
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 4: about the substance and part is like once we get
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 4: to me more and Margaret Qualley are actually both awakened
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 4: in the same room. They don't talk to each other.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 4: They like scream and then it becomes violent and then
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 4: murder happens. But something about that was so cowardly to me.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 4: I was like, no, two characters have more to say
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 4: to each other than these women, Like why don't they say.
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 2: I wish I could talk to my own self all
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: the time?
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God, like some I wish I could like
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 4: talk to like like my inner child, or like the
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 4: part of me that, like you know, is very mean
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 4: to myself sometimes, Like imagine like actually physically be able
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 4: to interact with yourself like that. I thought it was
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 4: very telling that Coralie Fargiott could not imagine what these
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 4: women would say to each other, only like it's dovetails
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 4: directly into violence. And something about that always caught me.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 4: And it's also not a coincidence that all these elder
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 4: like women figures and horror are not really talking to
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 4: anybody too too much. They're They're almost like these weird
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 4: little objects of spectacle that you're supposed to like always
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 4: regard at some sort of remove. You're not supposed to
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 4: like really know about who they are underneath things. They're
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 4: meant to be gawned at. They're meant to be a spectacle.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 4: They're meant to be feared. But I'm sorry, if you're
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 4: a woman, you keep living, you're going to age. There's
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 4: no way around that. That's the thing about being a
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 4: human being in alive. I know, these whack ass tech
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 4: bros believing like uploading your freaking brain to whatever bullshit
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 4: that they hope will have singularity. Yes, I'm like, go
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 4: to Mars and die. Can you just live us alone?
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 4: But like it's just something about like that is so
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 4: fascinating to me right now, and like people just kind
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 4: of accept like, yeah, that's just the thing we're doing
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 4: in horror right now. But I'm like, no, I think
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 4: we need to unpack the misogyny of this, because it's
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 4: I think horror is in like a very interesting place
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 4: in terms of gender right now.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you, And I mean, yeah, I'm
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 3: so glad that I was like, oh, she's talking about it.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 3: I'm glad as I know it because yeah, like I
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 3: end whatever, I like, it's a good movie all that stuff. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 3: but I think that it's it is interesting that a
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 3: movie like Whatever Happened to Baby Jade has the legacy
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 3: it did, had a lot of very persistent and also
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 3: understandable like this is a fundamentally misogynist movie, while in
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 3: the future glad a character that physically resembles this, Like
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 3: I would be absolutely shocked if Baby Jane wasn't on
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 3: the vision board for this character in just presentation, in
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 3: the makeup and all of that stuff in the like
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 3: you know, fake aunt form at least. But a huge
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 3: critical difference is we know something about Baby Jane, we like,
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 3: even though it is laden in tropes in certain areas,
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 3: we know her personal history. We at least are given
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 3: information to understand why she's presenting this way and not
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 3: just like a kind of voidless plot, which that is
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 3: playing on your assumed negative opinions and fear of older women,
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 3: which is that that's just like a kick back to
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 3: something that is I think we pretend we like we
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 3: like to say, has gone away because we're giving it
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 3: an award, But I don't think that that that element
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 3: of horror, it hasn't gone away, it's like changed and
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 3: gotten as technology develops. So that's that's my final word
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 3: on Aunt Gladys God damn it.
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: Can we talk a little bit about Alvira Oh.
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, stealth the one of the most fascinating like
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 4: thorns and Jane's side, And just like again I said
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 4: this a little earlier, but there's like a racial commentary
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 4: thing the movie doesn't realize it's at all doing, because
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 4: of course they would cast a black woman in this
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 4: role and like Da Da da da, but having her
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 4: be the one who can see through Jane so clearly
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 4: speaks to something that I think I'm very aware of
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 4: as a black woman, which is you have to study
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 4: white women in order to survive, so you tend to
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 4: know them and how they're going to react better than
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 4: they do. And so that's also I think her trepidation
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 4: with saying anything is like being very aware, this is
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 4: my white employer. Yeah, like what would be the repercussions
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 4: for me professionally if I like do this. I think
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 4: she's a really really fascinating character in that way. And yeah,
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 4: that line she says to Jane about you've got to
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 4: be a grown woman like everyone else. Just like it's
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 4: kind of haunting.
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I yeah, I agree. I again like the performance
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 3: from Madie Norman, who I was not familiar with, like
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 3: her sort of body of work, but she was also
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 3: a longtime professor at UCLA. She taught black theater history
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 3: at UCLA for decades and decades and like had this
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 3: very fascinating career in a longer sense as well. But
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 3: I just she's a really I feel like she brings
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 3: a lot of that subtext that you're describing out of,
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 3: Like you see her having to think about like in
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 3: the moment where it's it's so clear from she knows
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 3: things are wrong at the beginning of the movie, and
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 3: you can tell that she wants to push Jane Moore
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 3: the first time she's told actually go home, here's here's
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 3: your money. By go you could tell that like she
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 3: wants to stay but has to do the calculus of
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 3: like you know, this is my white irrational boss, and
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 3: like do I is this a battle I'm good to
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 3: choose right now?
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 2: Is it not?
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 3: And like it I don't know. I just I feel
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 3: like you can see her thinking so much in a
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 3: way that sells I think on the on the page
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 3: something that's just like we just need this character to
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 3: go away.
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 2: And then I mean there's also just the she's only
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 2: there to serve the white characters. Yeah, she's the only
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 2: on screen death we see, I believe, Yeah, the first
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 2: and only. So you know, there's those very racialized and
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 2: racist tropes present that were which were super common for
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: this time, especially as far as a black woman being
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 2: in a service role. Yeah, we do get characterization from her,
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: and you know what we were just talking about as
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 2: far as her being discerning and then having to you
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: know navigate like this is also her at least a
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 2: source of income. It's I couldn't tell like how frequently
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 2: she comes by or like how much.
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 4: Seems like a like a few times a week, and
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 4: this is probably and I just inferred, oh, she must
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 4: be doing this for moret house families.
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I assumed as well. But this is
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 2: at least a source of income for her, so she
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 2: has to you know, navigate that. And but yeah, I
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: found her to be a fascinating character that tropes that
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 2: were very present at the time also very much apply
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 2: to her as far as her sort of significance in
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 2: the story.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the just the lack of the complete dearth
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 3: of things we know about her outside of her relationship
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 3: to these sisters who are her employers.
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 2: We know that she has a cousin.
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 4: I know. I was like, she has a cousin. That's
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 4: that's it, That's all there is to her.
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 3: She has a cousin who's heard a lot about these sisters. Oh,
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 3: I would see, I would see if she's fifteen minutes
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 3: late coming home, I'm calling someone exactly.
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 4: Like there's a whole I would never say remake this movie,
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 4: Like there's no way to remake it in today's But
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 4: there's something very interesting about like the thought experiment of
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 4: what if I, as a woman, wrote a story like this,
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 4: How would I change the perspective of things? How would
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 4: I make like the Elvira character alive in a way. Yeah,
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 4: maybe I'll just write a novel sort of inspired by
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 4: Baby Jane.
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know, Oh my god, you should the world
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 3: is ready or I mean, we'll find out that the
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 3: world should be.
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 4: But it's like sort of fat, Like, you know, I
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 4: had an interesting conversation with a friend, uh, like maybe
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 4: like months ago, and she's more a literal she's like
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 4: a literary critic primarily. And she said something and we
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 4: had like it was a conversation about Jennifer Lawrence and
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 4: and like I was mentioning Die my Love and and
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 4: Giatolantino's like profile on Lawrence and talking to her about
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 4: her as like she's like the biggest millennial star who's
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 4: an actress, right, Like she's such a fixture. But all
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 4: I kept thinking was like, oh, that makes me sad
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 4: because it mean it like speaks to how limited portrayals
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 4: are of like women in film, that this is like
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 4: this is like the main chick. And she, you know,
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 4: my friend said something that sort of upset me, where
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 4: she was like, well, you know, like I don't have
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 4: that problem with literature because like anyone can pick up
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 4: a pen and start writing a novel, making a film
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 4: requires so much capital that just by the nature of
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 4: the industry, you're just going to have less representations of things.
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 4: And it's so dictated by capital that that fext things.
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 4: So I don't know, I've been thinking a lot about
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 4: what storytelling excites me and like what I want to
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 4: do with my own career going forward. So that's also
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 4: why I'm like, what if I write a book that's
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 4: inspired by Baby Jane and like, actually really give a
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 4: shit about these women as women, And yeah, the mother
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 4: is gonna be major in it. Because one of my
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 4: biggest rants is there's too many movies about daddy issues
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 4: and there's not enough movies about mommy issues. Because I'm like,
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 4: I see y'all in the streets, y'all have mommy issues.
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 4: Y'all need to come correct. We need more mommy issues movies.
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 4: Mommy Dearest, Mommy dearis is a major Bomby issues movie.
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 3: That is. Yeah, that's I guess I want to repeat
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 3: for our listeners that like those elements to Joan Crawford
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 3: and to Betty Davis and there are I mean, I
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 3: almost want to save that for the Mommy Dearest episode
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 3: And yeah, because I honestly am not like well researched
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 3: enough in that area of their personal history to speak
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 3: to it intelligence today, But no, we are well aware.
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's very interesting with both Joan and Betty
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 4: where it's like the daughter had complaints, you know, especially
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 4: Jones's daughter, like yes, b d Betty's daughter, like her
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 4: issues with her mother are not to the level if
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 4: she was literally beating me kind of things. But it's interesting,
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 4: like in both families, there's some children who were like
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 4: they were great to me, and then there's the one
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 4: child who was like, actually, I was like the vessel
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 4: for all their issues with things that were out of
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 4: my control because I'm a child, And I feel like
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 4: that's very accurate to the rest of life, where a
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 4: lot of times you'll see within families that there's like
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 4: a sibling who has like genuine issues with their parents.
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 4: Well then there's the other siblings who like didn't have
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 4: the same experience as they were growing up and how
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 4: it's such sensitive territory and a lot of it is
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 4: like kind of murked up by a movie like Mommy
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 4: Dearist and like making like turning what is a really harrowing,
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 4: sad experience of like parental abuse into this almost like
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 4: over the top camp extravaganza which sort of like you know,
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 4: makes the moments of abuse into like pop culture memes
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 4: like no more wire hangers and.
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 2: Stuff like that.
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that this might this might be the
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 3: this this year ten, we are finally maybe going to
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 3: have to tackle Mommy Dearist, because it is a meer
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 3: that I've been avoiding for for some time. I wanted
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 3: to go back really quickly to the disability conversation in SBV,
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 3: where I mean it's I think that there's a lot
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 3: of ablest tropes that, while frustrating, we're not unsurprising to
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 3: see in a movie from nineteen sixty two. Obviously, you know,
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 3: John Crawford does not have this unnamed disability.
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 2: She is not a.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 3: Wheeled here a user. I think that there are certain
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 3: moments that, uh, I mean, there's the diablest trips we've
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 3: talked about, and there's the fact that the movie really
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 3: delights and lingers on seeing Joan Crawford being violently abused
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 3: by her sister at length to the point where it's
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 3: it is both ablest and you can almost be like
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 3: they're doing this for the trailer. They're doing this to
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 3: emphasize that Betty Davis wishes she was kicking Joan Crawford,
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 3: doesn't she, you know, playing into that aspect of it.
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 3: But of course it reads as extremely able as I
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 3: did find I found from a blog called When the
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 3: Woman Screams by an unnamed author unfortunately, who reflects on
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 3: how specifically their present day dynamic did have at least
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 3: her mind something to say about how disabled people were
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 3: treated in the sixties, So I sort to read something
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 3: from their quote. In the nineteen sixties, people with disabilities
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 3: had limited protections to ensure their safety. There was no
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 3: Americans with Disabilities Act, Disabled children still did not have
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 3: the right to a public education, and the Center for
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 3: Independent Living was just getting ready to open its doors.
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 3: While the decade did see a move away from institutionalizing
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 3: people with disabilities, support services for caregivers were sporadic at best.
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 3: Like Blanche, a person with the disability that limited independent
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 3: movement had to hope that their caregiver was competent because
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 3: there was simply no oversight to ensure care standards unquote.
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 3: And it continues from there. But I think that that
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 3: is again I highly does something the movie was setting
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 3: out to do explicitly, but does speak to I think
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 3: something that we've talked about in other representations of disabled characters.
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 3: The further you go back in history, there are no
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 3: protections in place, protections that remain very flawed to this day.
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 3: And just to protect I mean, this is a separate conversation,
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 3: but when I was one of my dad's primary caregivers
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 3: leading up to when he passed. I was shocked at
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 3: how little you are like and that's in the present day,
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 3: how much it it was dependent on me to know
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 3: what I was doing and to get with the program
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 3: because the support just mostly doesn't exist and so whatever.
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 3: There's a lot going on there, but that because of
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 3: Blanche's unnamed disability for because of this accident that has
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 3: left her in as a wheelchair user, she is completely
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 3: having to because there is no law that says her
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 3: house needs to be able to be accessible for her.
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 3: It enables Jane's abuse because there were even fewer protections
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 3: and consideration of disabled people at the time. So yeah,
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 3: I appreciated that point, even though I don't think it
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 3: is when the movie is trying to draw attention to right.
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. I think the
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 4: movie does kind of like trip into accidentally more interesting
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 4: ideas than what they set out to do. You can
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 4: definitely feel like, oh, they they didn't realize they're actually
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 4: like tapping into something worth really saying about disability. It's also, like,
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 4: you know, important to keep in mind, like there's not
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 4: like many actors in Hollywood history who have dealt with
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 4: like notable physical disabilities that have had like careers, like
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 4: at the time, the only woman I can think of
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 4: who like she started as an actress and then had
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 4: an accident that eventually paralyzed her, and then she went
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 4: actually back to acting. I don't know if you've ever
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 4: heard of her, but her name was Susan Peters and
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 4: she did this really interesting noir called The Sign of
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 4: the Ram in nineteen forty eight that's legitimately about her
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 4: characters like struggle with accepting her own accident and disability
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 4: does not end well for the character, but there's something
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 4: really interesting about watching a movie dealing with that with
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 4: an actual woman who was paralyzed and like in real life,
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 4: really struggling with who am I now that this has
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 4: happened to me, and it's happened like so early in
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 4: my career. And this was like her last movie because
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 4: she just kind of was in a space where she
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 4: was like, I'm not going to get interesting roles after this.
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 4: This is like probably it, this industry is not going
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 4: to support me. And she ended up committing suicide pretty young,
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 4: very sad story, but The Sign of the Ram is
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 4: like actually a very interesting noir and speaking of aries,
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 4: that title is obviously alluding to aries people. This is
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 4: a whole podcast episode about aries women apparently.
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 3: I Oh, I'm a Leah. We've got a lot of
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 3: a lot of fire in the chat.
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 4: There a lot of fire in the chat. I love
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 4: I'm a Leo rising.
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 2: Earth signs over here, I'm a Taurus and then double virgo.
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 4: Oh I like that. Oh, I'm yeah, let's all talk
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 4: our signs. I'm an Harry's Sun, Leo rising, Virgo moon.
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 3: Okay, Oh my gosh, I think I'm Leo's sun, Ari's moon,
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 3: Pisces rising.
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's an interesting that's a really interesting man. Yeah,
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know what any of that means.
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 4: I don't. I don't actually, but I'm like, all the
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 4: good things about Aris and Leo's and virgos are right
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 4: about me. All the bad things I don't believe astrology
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 4: is bullshit.
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 3: It doesn't make sense, that doesn't resonate with me.
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 2: The bad things they don't apply to me exactly.
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 3: The closing on, I just wanted to shout this book
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 3: out and we should have her back on the show.
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 3: The past guest of the show, Kristin Lopez, just released
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 3: a really good book about the history of disability in
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 3: Hollywood called Popcorn Disabilities. I just started reading it the
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 3: other night, and it's terrific.
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 2: Nice. Yes, does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 4: Let female actresses be confident in an interesting way? Again,
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 4: because Betty Davis very I think we're weirdly very uncomfortable
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 4: as a culture with confident women. That's a whole other
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 4: like line of discussion. But I've started to get annoyed
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 4: because I keep coming across like people saying insert the
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 4: blank woman character is not relatable because she's too confident
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 4: and too good at what she does. I like, this
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 4: is so nerdy. But I saw this, like said about
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 4: the character jad Zia Dax from Star Trek Deep Space nine,
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 4: and it literally pissed me off so much, Like why
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 4: do I care this much about a character who existed
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 4: in the nineties? But watching you know Betty and Joan
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 4: and like knowing about their careers, and you know they
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 4: were very dynamic women who had insecurities in some areas
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 4: and not in others. But I like, I miss seeing
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 4: a like body broad who really has confidence in herself
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 4: as an artist and truly believe she has something to
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 4: bring to the world and something to say that may
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 4: not be pretty, but it is worthwhile. That is very
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 4: true to a Betty Davis for sure.
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 2: Hell yeah, well the movie does pass the Bechdel test.
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 4: In the most cruel, nasty way possible, because yes it is.
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 3: It passes the Bechtel I want to I I, outside
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 3: of like mentions of Daddy, we're really not talking about men, yeah,
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 3: very much. We're talking about mostly negative stuff. We're talking
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 3: about two women who have a very complicated and deeply
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 3: twisted history together. And that's what we're talking about, or
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 3: I think most of, if not in the entire conversations
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 3: between Blanche and Elvira Pass. I think the only other
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 3: characters that we haven't talked about that we don't need to,
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 3: like belabor because they're not huge characters is the mother
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 3: and daughter who live next door, including b D Betty
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 3: Davis's daughter, which is very I just like, I.
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 2: Love is her name be D because those are Betty
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 2: Davis's initials.
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 3: HERD is Barbara I see, But but I did like
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 3: that dynamic of I think that all of those conversations
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 3: past the Bexel test, there was like one exchange between
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 3: them that I really liked. Where the daughter, I know
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 3: I did this to my mom at some point where
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 3: you know, they're watching the Joan Crawford movie and you know,
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 3: the daughter's like, oh, she's she's our neighbor. She must
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 3: be so old, she must be like a hundred and
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 3: her mom is like, actually, she's my age.
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: And then.
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 3: I know I did that to my mom, like when
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 3: I was a kid, I just that. But they're talking about,
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, whatever their plot function is that they're failing
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 3: to act on what is a clearly abusive dynamic next door.
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 3: But I like that their side conversations have to do
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 3: with how does the average person perceive, you know, perceives
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 3: these women, And I thought that was kind of cool too.
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I think it mostly passes the Bechdel test,
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 3: but you know, flawed metrics we discussed many times.
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 2: There's basically conversations that are like here's Din Din, and
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 2: it's like, is it a dead bird again? You know, yeah,
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 2: stuff like that.
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 3: People aren't doing this anyway, feeding.
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 2: Me dead animals again, Well, there's a lot of meals
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 2: two dead animals. That was why I feel like my
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 2: one note about this movie is like it should have
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 2: just been one, one or three?
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 4: What is this rule of two? Yeah? It is interesting
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 4: the two and then and then Jane is like, you
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 4: know what, You're just not going to eat anymore, So
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 4: you don't want the dead rat. You don't get any food.
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 4: And it's like, yeah, I.
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 3: Was you kind of want the horse head situation. You're like,
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 3: because the animals got a little bit bigger each time. Yeah,
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 3: you do need the rule of threes. Where's the third?
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 2: Anyway? Our nipple scale where we rate the movie zero
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 2: to five nipples based on examining the movie through an
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 2: intersectional feminist lens. Oh, oh, that's a tricky one. This
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 2: is a tricky one.
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 2: I almost want to differ. I almost want to not.
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 3: Doing that more and more reasonly. I mean, there's just like,
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 3: there's so much going on in this movie, and I
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 3: think it is like a particularly tricky one because I
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 3: feel like if we were, if we were rating it
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 3: based on intent, that's a different number than from what
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 3: I think we are generally getting out of it.
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 2: So rather than nipples, I'm gonna rate it on a
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 2: scale of life size baby Jane dolls.
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 3: It's so big, it's huge.
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 4: It looks heavy too.
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 2: And I'm gonna give the movie four out of five
• 2:11:01
  Speaker 2: creepy Baby Jane dolls.
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm giving it. I'm giving it five. Big bad
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 3: Baby Jane's I what a scary doll. I know that, Like,
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 3: but you know this this was just as the Barbie
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 3: was taking off, so we didn't have those smaller dolls,
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 3: and I'm glad that we decided to make the doll smaller.
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 3: That's simply too big.
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really it's too much. It's scary. Imagine just
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 4: like you know, you wake up one day in your
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 4: bedroom and you don't like you know, your eyes are adjusting,
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 4: and that looks like something that's going to kill you.
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 4: Like that. I would be like that, you know, whenever
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 4: I would see her, I'm like, that's the kind of
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 4: doll that you know, there are goosebumps, chucky, you know, like, yeah,
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 4: we've seen these dolls are bad.
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 3: I love a killer doll. I like the last the
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 3: last silly the thing that I was interested. I don't
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 3: know the moments where Jane shows I'm like, what an
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 3: interesting choice there where, Like in that scene where she's
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 3: you know, telling, oh my gosh, I keep forgetting his name.
• 2:12:09
  Speaker 3: Edwin She's telling Edwin like, oh, yeah, like I want
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 3: to do the same songs. I know that my songs
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 3: are a little dated. We'll have to update them. I
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 3: was like, what would we have updated that too? How
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 3: are we going to I would I would have loved
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 3: to hear them bring.
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 2: The rock and roll remix to Daddy?
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 3: Letters to Daddy? What's the nineteen sixty two interpolation of
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 3: Letters to Daddy? Someone someone figured that out for me? Please?
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 4: Disturbing?
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I just love that. She was like, I know,
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 3: we have to update it. I was like, of all
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 3: the things for you to know this is this is
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 3: very shrewd. It's true.
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is kind of surprising. We didn't talk about
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 2: Edwin very much, and honestly, I don't even know what
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 2: there is to say about him. We'll be like dynamic,
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 2: a dynamic with him and his mom. But you know
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 2: with that.
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess that that is the mommy issue representation
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 3: in this movie is whatever's going on there?
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he slet shames his mom. At one point, he
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 2: says something like, why do you care about a woman
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 2: shacking up with a man in a hotel room, a
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 2: strange man who she's never seen before? Isn't that how
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 2: I was conceived, like.
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 4: Oh oh why why is she?
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 3: And she's and she was nothing but nice to him.
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 3: But I think it's it's implied that like he's I mean,
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 3: it is like explicitly implied that he's under her thumb,
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 3: or like she doesn't want to let go or that
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 3: like I mean again, it's like we don't. It's not
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 3: that I necessarily wanted to spend more time with that character,
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 3: but it does feel like there is at least an
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 3: attempt to have the weird parent child dynamic sort of
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 3: mirror Jane's weird parent dynamic. So it's like, I don't know,
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 3: see seeing those two in that scene, especially with that
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 3: like Devis, I don't know. Victor Wrotto was nominated for
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 3: an Oscar for this, which.
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 4: They were nominating a lot. They just they still be
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 4: nominating some things, and I'm like, okay, yeah, sure, it's
• 2:14:07
  Speaker 4: not a bad performance, but it's just like, oh, okay,
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 4: maybe that one.
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 3: Oh sure, it's a fine perferre. I honestly wasn't. I
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 3: hadn't seen him outside of this movie, but he was.
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 3: He died very young. He died in his early forties,
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 3: but like had a very successful career, was closeted for
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 3: most of his career. But I guess there's a chapter
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 3: about him in a book about queer Hollywood history, but
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 3: I I don't know very much about him.
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 2: I wondered if his character was meant to be queer
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 2: coded in some way, in like a very nineteen sixties way,
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 2: partly because like he still lives with his mother, He still.
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 4: Lives with his mom. Musician, the way he interacts with
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 4: like Jane is to like he like clearly recognizes she's delusional,
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 4: but is still willing to use her and like probably
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 4: thinks that she wants some level of effect from him.
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 4: So there's there's something there. I don't think it's like
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 4: full blown queer coded, but like knowing the actor, I
• 2:15:06
  Speaker 4: can see like that reading existing on some level.
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, And and and that I think we
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 3: mentioned this once earlier.
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 2: This movie is so dense, So back into the discussion.
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 3: That, like with his character with Edwin, he is, you know,
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 3: acting dishonestly every second we see him on screen basically,
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 3: but we also do get the understanding why it's like
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 3: that he is broke, and I think that he views
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 3: these wealthy women as like well, who cares how I
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 3: treat them?
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 2: They're rich?
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 3: Like I think that that appears to be his emo
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 3: where he's he's like getting one over on the rich
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 3: in his estimation. But the reality is far you know,
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 3: is far more complicated. But it's like in a movie
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 3: that doesn't really deal with class very much, if like
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 3: Edwin is the little point of entry to that.
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 2: Anyway, Five Baby Jane Dolls.
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 4: I love it, five out of five most definitely.
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for returning to get into
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 3: this incredible, wonderful, weird movie with us.
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, this was a lot of fun. I like,
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 4: you know, brought my pile of books out that are
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 4: related to Betty Davis and Joan and that's not even
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 4: all of them. I was like, wow, I have a
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 4: lot of books on these women.
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 3: Incredible, this was great. Oh, thank you so much. Where As,
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 3: as usual, where can we find Worri your work?
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 4: As always, you can find me at New York Magazine's
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 4: site Vulture or in the pages of New York Magazine.
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 4: That is my job, and on my substack Mad Women
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 4: and Muses. I sometimes post on Blue Sky. I am
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 4: pretty active on Letterbox. It's just my name. If you're
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 4: a little nerd who wants to see what I'm watching.
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 4: You can check that out there. But yeah, that's how
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 4: you can find me. I've got a lot of work
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 4: coming out that I'm really excited about, and I've kind
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 4: of you know, I think this conversation was really wonderful
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 4: because it's really got me thinking about, you know, how
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 4: I create, what I want to do as an artist,
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 4: and like how inspired I am by like women like
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 4: this who really had gusto when it came to their
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 4: professionalism and their artistic desires.
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 2: You got to write that book, I got to write.
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 4: I got to move back into fiction.
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 2: I miss fiction.
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 4: I really do.
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 2: Well. Thank you again for coming back on and please
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 2: come back anytime. Oh I'd love to truly.
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I get parasocial sometimes because I was like, I
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 3: just love.
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 2: Your work so much.
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 3: It's so thank you.
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 4: No, that means a lot. Sometimes it can be like
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 4: easy to forget that people actually like my work because
• 2:17:52
  Speaker 4: I get such weird blowback sometimes. So it just means
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 4: a lot to connect, you know, with people through the writing.
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're big fans. We cite your work on the
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 2: show often, truly all the time.
• 2:18:03
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• 2:18:32
  Speaker 3: We've been doing since twenty seventeen. And with that, Oh man,
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 3: how do we dismount from this episode?
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 2: I wrote a letter to Daddy is.
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 5: Address it.
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 3: Spot on impression? That is perfect? Bye, fine bye. The
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 3: Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and Pretty
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 3: Me Jamie Loftus.
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 2: And Me Caitlyn Drante. The podcast is also produced by
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtermann.
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 6: And edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them? That's
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  Speaker 6: me and our logo and merch and all of our
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 6: artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftis, Ever heard
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 6: of her?
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 3: Oh My God? And our theme song, by the way,
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 3: was composed by Mike Kaplan.
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 2: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 3: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 3: Aristotle Acevedo.
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