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Gone Girl with Princess Weekes · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zephynvest start
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Hi, Gone Girl, Hi, Gone Girl.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: We're just two gone girls living in gone girl worlds
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: where feminism has been solves for now. That is, Oh yeah,
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: gone girls rule the gone world and all of the
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Nicks live to serve them.
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: Right, And then he has to sing a song about.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: I'm just nick, you know, exactly exactly I honestly maybe
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: there are parallels. We can't talk about it today. Welcome
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: to the Gone Girl episode of the Bechdel Cast. My
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: name is Jamie Loftus.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: My name is Caitlin Dernte, and this is our show
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: initiate larger conversations. But Jamie, what is the Bechdel test?
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Wow?
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: Is it?
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: When two Gone Girls?
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: Oh? No?
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: How like?
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: What bottomized are we that? That is what I was
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: about to say, We're sick. It was like when two
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: gone girls talk about girls being gone. For two gone
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: girls with god names talk to each other about being
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: gone outside of the context of a man for more
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: than two lines of dialogue. If you want to know
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: the actual definition, you could listen to any of our
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: five hundred other episodes. But I think that for today's episode,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: that should be the new the new rule. Two gone
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: girls talking about being gone. I agree, And there's sort
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: of plenty. There's a couple of gone Girl discussions throughout
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: the course of this movie, and I feel like also
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Amy is in discussion with herself for so much of
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: the movie.
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: I just.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: This is going to be an episode. The Bechdel Test,
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: if you're not aware, was originally created by queer cartoonist
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Alice at Bechdel with Liz Wallace, which is why it's
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: often called the Bechdel Wallace Test. Originally created as a
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: bit a one off in her common collection likes to
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: watch out for about how not just women, but queer
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: people rarely spoke to each other in movies, and it's
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: since taken on a life of its own and been
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: through three thousand discourse cycles. Much like the movie we're
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: talking about today, Gone Girl.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: And we have a wonderful returning guest here to join
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: us in that discussion.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Alzheimer.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: She's a writer and video essayist in one of our faves.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: You remember her from our episodes on Space Jam and
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: Wild Things. It's Princess Weeks.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: Hi, Got Girls, Hi, Girls Girls.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, we're all together, Gone and the three
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: of us. It's like girls gone Wild like that.
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Girls Gone Wild Things Jam. I love it.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: So tell us about your history, your relationship with Gone Girl.
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: Oh my god, Well, like I guess, over a decade ago,
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: I read all of Gillian Flynn's books, Shop Objects, I
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: forget what the middle one is called, and then Gone Girl,
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: and I ate them all up. I loved it. And
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: then the movie came out. I saw the movie in
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: theaters with my ex boyfriend. Well that's not why we
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: broke up, but I loved the movie, and I, you know,
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: woke up one day and saw everyone was discoursing it,
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: and I'm just like, but I like it. But I
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: also understand it this course, But I feel like as
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: things have evolved, especially the way this film intersects with
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: like race and gender and like the true crime bubble,
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: I feel like part of what makes it such a
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: fun texted to discussed from like a multitude of different lenses.
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: Is that there is what Gillian Flynn as Word of
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: God says about her work. There is how people feel
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: about the work itself, and there's people who are responding
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: to jillians Flynn's work through anxiety about what men think
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: about Gillian Flynn's work. And I think in all of
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: that you get this really interesting storyteller who really wants
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: to talk about like white female villainy looks like unafraid
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: of caring about what men necessarily think. But it's hard
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: to do that because they're always watching. The Knicks are
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: always watching.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: It's true, Yeah, Jamie, what about you.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: I read the book when it first came out, and
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: this was again over ten years ago. I was not
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: really thinking about feminist theory as much at this time.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: The feminist theory I was thinking about is no longer,
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: I don't know whatever. It's been a while to years
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: for discussions like this. I really enjoyed it. I thought
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: it was very different from what I had sort of
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: come to expect from that genre. And then when I
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: saw the movie, I feel like I secretly liked this
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: movie for a long time. Because I do love to
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: throw myself into a pit of discourse snakes, but the
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: Gone Girl discourse was one that I always shied away
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: from because I was sort of afraid to be like.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: I like this movie a lot, and I think that
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: it has aged in a really interesting way. I sort
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: of like it for completely different reasons that I liked
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: it when I first saw it, which was more just like,
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: this is an incredibly well written and well performed thriller.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, yeah, I wrote this down
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: get ready, I'm here woman for Gone Girl. I like,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: I'm the here woman saying that Gone Girl. Good movie,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: A lot of stuff to talk about, and it was
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: like an interesting trip down twenty fourteen essay Lane to
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: prepare for this episode. And I think that there are
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: a lot of there's a lot of criticism of this
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: movie that is still really prescient and makes a lot
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: of sense. And then I think that there's some criticism
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: that has sort of not held up as well over time.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: And I do feel like there is a cathartic element
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: to watching Gone Girl and seeing a woman in a
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: fairly quote unquote I mean, and again, this is with
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: an enormous amount of privilege, but in a fairly ordinary
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: marriage that we see in movies all the time, and
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: she's going to kill Neil Patrick Harris about it. And
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: then other things I love in this movie. Tyler Perry
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: dramatic role, jump scare. I always love that.
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: So good.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: He's so good in this and that's always like, wow,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: you range.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: He's Billy Flynn in this Essentially, I was like I
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: would have accepted a song from that character.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: More like Gilly Flynn.
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: That's screenwriter Caitlin those Hot far Wait who Billy Flynn
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: is from Chicago?
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: Richard Gear of Chicago. Yes, okay he is.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: I feel like Tyler Perry is the Billy Flynn of
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: this movie anyways. Yes, am Rada dramatic role totally. I
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: feel like there's little elements of this movie. When I
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: watch it every couple of years, you're like, oh, yeah,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: em Rada, and then you have like cool Tereu.
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: I always forget the carry coons in this movie. This
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: movie is like cast so absurdly well except for the
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: fact that I will never believe that a Ben Affleck
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: character is from Missouri. Unfortunately, you just have to change
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: the location if you're going to cast him in the
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Leaf Austen. Yeah, yeah, they should have moved to Southee
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: and that's just unfortunately true. Anyways, I like the book,
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: I like the movie, and I'm ready to be read
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: for filth.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: But it's true. Caitlin, what's your history with God Girl?
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm about to say two potentially shocking things here
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: to twists. Wow, maybe twist number one. I had never
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: seen this movie until.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Ye shock. I love that for you. This is shocking news.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you saw every movie that came out in the
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: last thirty years.
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: I thought so too, but somehow, Well, I'll tell you why,
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: which connects to the second twist, which is I did
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: read the book in twenty fourteen, even though we famously
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: don't read books on this show.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: What brought you to the book?
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: My roommate who I was bunking with when I did
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: the like Be You in LA, because I of course
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: would never mention that I got a master's degree in
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: screenwriting from Boston Universe City. And something I probably actually
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: never mentioned is that I did like an optional extra
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: semester in LA, which is like what prompted my move
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: here in twenty fourteen, and the roommate I had during
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: that semester, was like, I just finished this amazing book. Here,
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: you can borrow it. So she let me Gone Girl,
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: and I read it within the course of like a
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: pretty short amount of time. Usually takes me forever to
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: read books, because I read three pages and then I
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: fall asleep for two weeks, and then I read another
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: three pages. Anyway, but I read it within a couple weeks,
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: I think, and the book rubbed me the wrong way,
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: in a way that I still can't put my finger
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: on exactly. I have some kind of vague ideas of
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: why it didn't really work for me, and I feel
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: like I still have those sensations. But yeah, I think
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: reading the book bok made me not want to watch
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: the movie, even though I just love a David Fincher
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: thriller or David Fincher movie in general. I mean, seven
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: haven't seen it in a number of years, but like
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: it was one of my favorite movies in my teens
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: and early twenties. I love the Social Network. I really
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: liked Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, Like I'm a fan
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: of his thrillers. But I was like, this new movie
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: is really good too, The Killer. Yeah, whatever, I heard
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: that yeah, I miss I didn't see that one yeh
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: is on Netflix, but uh yeah, I was like not
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: really thrilled about seeing this movie after reading the book,
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: so I just never got around to it until now.
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: I think it's so funny Kylene, because I've always said it.
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: I think of her three books, I think Gone Girl
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: is the weakest. I love sharp Objects, the most dark
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: places of the second one, and I felt like the
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: third one is the most funny enough. It's the most
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: normy of all of her works, and it's the most
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: that gives you the twist half way, so that I
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: think with the rest of the books, you fund it
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: out later and it's much more of like a psychological
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: examination for like the female character, and it's the first
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: time she's like, it's this dual narrative where a man
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: is present, and I will get into it. I think,
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: I think I'm picking up what your vibe was off.
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: But we'll get there. Yeah, yeah, Princess, when did you?
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: Because I definitely I just got the audiobook from the
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: library because rewatching the movie made me want to re
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: listen to the book because I definitely read it over
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: ten years ago, and all I remember, I mean and
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: it's cool that we have an adaptation here that's actually
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: adapted by the author. But like, I just remember the
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: book being even harsher and like, yeah, the language, that's
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: because half of it is from Nick's perspective, which I mean,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: you do get Nick's perspective a lot in the movie,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: but you don't get the like his inner monologue, which
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: I remembered and then I had to go back and
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: confirm this, but his inner monologue is like every woman
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: he encountered. He is like this bitch, like yeah, everything,
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: which I want to revisit it. I haven't read the
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: other books me either.
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I really love Sharp Objects and Dark Places. I
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: think they're both really good. I think you're so right.
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: In the book, Nick is much less of a victim of,
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: like clearly domestic violence as he is in the movie.
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: It's definitely more of They're both pretty narcissistic. But still,
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: you know, just because he cheats, only you technically can't
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: frame him for murder, though I do understand the inclination.
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: I think my one big note I had about the
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: fincherm movie versus the book is that in the book
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: they all show that Amy was this kind of way
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: towards women, and like there's a theme there's a woman
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: in the book whose life she also destroyed, which I
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: thought was better because then she isn't just someone who's
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: like finding men to fix them. It's like, no, the
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: people around her in her little inner circle, she like
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: absorbs them and then like destroys them. And I felt
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: like that was a little bit more balanced. But I
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: think for the sake of the film, it was more
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: streamlined to be the more like Hitchcockian blonde, you know,
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: vamp sociopaths quote unquote character versus that other bit of it.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not like I wish that the movie was
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: more of like I didn't like I didn't really want
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: to hear Nick's inner monologue, and the way the movie
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: is presented, I think that was a really smart choice
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: and like worked better for the format. But yeah, the
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: whole thing of the book, and then at this point
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: I don't specifically remember this, I had to like go
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: back and cross check that the book like more clearly
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: contextualizes Nick's own misogyny through the lens of his dad
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: and how his dad treated the women in Nick's life,
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: and like, and that's I think that you only get
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: like one reference to that. It's well placed, but it's
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: like Marco has like you're acting just like dad by right,
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: you know, like being a horrible husband. But that's sort
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: of all we get. But it is more contextualizing the book. Again,
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: I feel like in most adaptations, we're talking about a
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: screenwriter deciding what stays and goes in an author's work,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: and we don't have that here. And so I was
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: I think it's interesting what she keeps in what she leaves,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: and also is sort of relieved to read that David
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: Fincher kind of like deferred to her a great deal,
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: because you never know, you never know.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: I also don't remember the book very well, having read
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: it about ten years ago, but either this was placed
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: more emphasis on in the book or this just stuck
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: with me, maybe a little bit of both, but I
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: remember there being discussion of like the concept of the
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: cool girl, like that really stuck out to me from.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: The difference there.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it's like now or later, but like,
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: I want to talk about what is in the book
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: that didn't make it to the movie, because I'm like,
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: why why Tay got this awesome whe.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: Well, how about this we take a break, we come
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: back and do the recap, and then we start our
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: discussion with those like adaptation changes. Wow, we'll be right back.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: And we're gone girl.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: We were gone, we're girls. We're back, but now we're
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: here women. That should just become a facet of the
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: show that we never explained.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: We're like and we're here women.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: Okay, So here is the recap of Gone a Girl.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: It is one of the longer recaps I've written. It
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: is a very complicated story and I left out a
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: bunch of stuff, but it's still quite long, so bear
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: with me. And then we'll all will place a content
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: warning at the top because.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: The content warning for it everything.
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: There's a lot.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: There will be discussion of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse,
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: as well as false accusations of those things. So that's
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: what we're working with.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: Also, murder and murder of Neil Patrick Harris tragic.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: And that's its own subgenre.
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: So we open with ominous voiceover from Nick Dunn. That's
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: Ben Affleck's character, that suggests that he has like violent
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: thoughts towards his wife. Then we see him on the
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: morning of July fifth, Nick goes to a bar called
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: The Bar that.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: So early twenty tens to do that kind of cutey
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: little wink wink, nod nod. Although I will say it
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: kind of looks like I don't know if we're supposed
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: to hate the bar.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: But I'm like, hmmm, kind of looks like a fun dive.
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: I go, it's a place where I would go.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: I would go to Carrie Kuhon's bar where you can
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: play the game of life with Carrie Coon.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm going, yes, absolutely so. He and his sister,
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: his twin sister Margo played by Carrie Kuhon, co own
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: the bar together and today is also the five year
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: anniversary of Nick and his wife Amy's marriage, and every
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: year for their anniversary, Amy comes up with a scavenger
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: hunt with riddles that he has to solve to get
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: his gift Amy.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Amy ex.
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: Her.
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: I know, God, that is a little exhausting. Also, like
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: there was one year I think it was like the
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: previous year that he never solved one of the clues.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: So did he just not get a gift.
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: That year, which would be hilarious. My first note was that,
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: like when I talk about their second years, he was like,
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: she got me a beautiful notebook. I got her a kite,
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: and I was like, electric chair, I sent him under
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: the prison.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if someone got me a kite, I don't care
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: if it's a symbolic kite.
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, thank you.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Come back with a gift.
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: I'm planning, like, we will be planning your murder if
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: we receive a kite for any gift, for any occasion.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: In general, the number one gift giving advice is do
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: not gift someone a metaphor gift them a gift.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: Come on, ideally, just give me money anyway. Okay, So
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: we get this flashback that's accompanied by Amy reading a
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: diary entry. We will get many of these throughout the movie.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: This flashback, we see Amy played by Rosamund Pike, and
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: Nick meet for the first time at a party in
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: two thousand and five, and they hit it off.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: They have and her our bantering.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: I was like, I felt so bad because I was
• 19:04
  Speaker 5: watching it. I was like, man, I would have got
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: caught because I was like, I was so it was
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: so smooth and corny. But I was like, damn they
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: tried into men. Is really a curse because I really
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: would have been like, wow, he is so cool, he's
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: so funny.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: He's not like the other boys.
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh my god, he actually cares what
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: I think. We like, we hit up and the next
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: thing you know, he goes to me and then I'm like,
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: what happened?
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: And I feel like ben Affleck can really channel that
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: for a guy that doesn't Oh wait, no, we can't
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: go there.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Wait, Caitlyn, do.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: You remember do you remember the Ben Affleck Rayah video
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: that we used to really be into, where he would.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Go, hey, it's me, oh for Riah's briefly obviously before
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: he reunited with the love of his life.
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: And I think this is.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Also pre Anna to Armis, who we also talked about
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: in a recent episode, because she was and she had
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: the cardboard cutout of herself in ben Affleck's yard.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: He's really lived.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: But he was on Riah for a bit or some
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: dating app and a woman he matched with was like,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: I don't believe you're Ben Affleck, and he sent her
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: back this horrific front facing video where he said.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Like, Sophie, it's me.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: You're just like whoa, I'm really on the Okay, continue,
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: I am going to drop that video in the chat.
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: Okay, So back in the present, Nick returns home to
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: discover that his home has been vandalized and that Amy
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: is missing. So two cops show up, Detective Bony, which
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: what a silly name?
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: What for a character?
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: Okay, I did, I did, just it's at the very beginning, guys.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: Okay, yes, Detective Bonie and Officer Gilpin played by Patrick
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: Fugut aka the kid from Almost Famous. So they start
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: to Sam in the house and Detective Boney sees a
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: poster for something called Amazing Amy and she's like, wait
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: a minute, your wife is Amazing Amy. And then we
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: get a flashback where Amy's mom and dad made their
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: living by writing children's books about Amy, where they embellished
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: her life and made her seem more impressive than she
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: actually was.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: They like passive aggressively attacked her to the tune of
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: millions of dollars.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Yea, yeah, it's like proto like you two family vloggers.
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: I was like, wow, really trailblazers in their field, but
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: traumatizing their child.
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: I liked thinking about how that would look with like
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: other iconic children's characters where they're like, wait, are you
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: married to Amelia Bedelia? And Ben Affleck's like, yeah, you
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: can say that.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm married to my wife, Madeline. She grew up
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: in Friends.
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: Yea wife, Hippi Longstocking. Okay, so her parents got very
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: rich off these books, and now Amy has a trust fund.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: And then also the night where we get this flashback,
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: there's this I think book release party and Nick proposes
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: to Amy. Then we cut back to the present. Nick
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: is at the police station. The cops are already treating
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: this as a missing person's case, so they ask him
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: some questions. They learn that she doesn't have any friends,
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: that she doesn't have a job or have anything to
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: do all day, and so the cops are starting to
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: get suspicious. That night, Nick goes home to his sister
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: Margo's place because forensics is like collecting evidence at his house,
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: so he's staying there for a little while. We get
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: another flashback where Nick and Amy are two years into
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: their marriage and it's still perfect and amazing and they
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: never fight or have any problems.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: That's the scariest That's one of the scariest ideas that
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: the movie posits that a relationship could be.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Like so great for two years, yeah.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: And they're still horny for each other still, that they're
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: like having sex in the middle of a bookstore offensive.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: I was off, like, She's like, don't you know who
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: I am? I'm Amelia Badelia. I get to fucking the store.
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: Now I keep thinking about this is my husband?
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Do you know?
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: Little critter? Big critter? Now adult critter?
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Okay. So then there's a press conference where Nick and
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: Amy's parents, who have arrived, address just like kind of
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: various things about this case. And then Amy's parents tell
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: the police about various stalkers that she has had over
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: the years wonder why, including a guy named Desi Collings. Also,
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: forensics finds an envelope at Nick and Amy's house labeled
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Clue one, and it's one of the clues that Amy
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: left for Nick for her anniversary scavenger hunt, and Detective
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: Bony tells Nick that if he can solve these clues,
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: it'll help her track Amy's recent movements and it might
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: provide some clarity on the case. So he finds the
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: next clue in his office where he teaches at a
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: community college. There's also a pair of red panties that
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: get discovered there and we're like, hm, whose are these?
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: And then that leads him to the third clue. I mean,
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: and now we're getting into national treasure territory where it's
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: like this clue leads to another clue, and it leads
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: to another clue.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: Would it make this story better or worse if Amy
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: left a clue that was contingent on daylight savings times?
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: I will never know. Yeah.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and it makes you wonder if this case maybe
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: would have been solved faster if they could have just
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: stolen the Declaration of Independence.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Truly, I do believe that she is calculating enough to
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: successfully kidnap the precedent. Yes, this is a case of
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: like Amy has incredible skills and we just need to
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: like give.
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: Her a better place for them. Yeah, exactly, put her
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: in the White House. I mean, just the patience she has.
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: It's like, honestly, if I've lead anything from being a
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: true crime voyeur, it's that if you don't have patients,
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: don't even try to attempt like a long crime, because
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: you'll get exhausted. That's why I just read, Yeah, she
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: reads a whole diary, basically three hundred entries of make
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: Believe Girl.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: It's why, Like, and then I cross checked in the
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: book she's doing it even longer. It's like over a
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: year of planning that goes into they just.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Get a divorce that I honestly think that's what kind
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: of rubbed me the wrong way about this story, Like
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: the lengths that she goes to to like ruin his
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: life and frame him for murder. I'm like, just like
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: use your words, just say hey, I want a divorce
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: by I have a.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Theory about well not a theory, but like I feel
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: Amy has this like real fixation on controlling a narrative
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: because her life was defined by a narrative about her
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: that was untrue and that she had no control over. Yeah,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: that she like will do anything to control a narrative.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: That makes sense in any case. Uh, Nick not really fit,
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: discovers the third clue at his father's house, but he
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: doesn't tell Detective Bony about this third clue. We get
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: another flashback. Some time has passed and Nick and Amy's
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: perfect quote unquot marriage isn't quite so perfect anymore because
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: the recession of like eighth nine has hit and they
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: both lose their jobs. Amy's parents borrow most of the
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: money out of her trust fund, so their financial situation
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: is very unstable. They're arguing it becomes a gamer, right.
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: Truly set again. I was like, I get it, Like
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: it's like, like sick, She's really right this diary for
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: the girls.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Like yeah, she's really pushing every and like yeah she's
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: she's pushing a lot of buttons where he's like, what
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: do you mean I'm a gamer?
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: Because you don't trust me?
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: No, no, we don't. So back to the present, Amy's
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: parents have set up this like find Amy headquarters and
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: this find Amy hotline and Nick shows up and he's
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: kind of like schmoozing with people, and everyone's starting to
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: feel like Nick doesn't seem upset enough that his wife
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: is miss his wife is missing, so he's like seeming
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: more and more suspicious. Then we get another flashback, another
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: diary entry from Amy describing how they moved to Missouri,
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: where Nick is from, to take care of his sick mother,
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: but Amy feels that Nick is not thrilled that she
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: is there with him. Back in the present, we get
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: a big reveal that Nick has been having an affair
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: with a young woman named Andy played by Emily Radikowski.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: So the plot thickens. Oh and you thought that was thick, Well,
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: wait for this another flashback slash diary entry where Nick
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: and Amy get into an argument and he pushes her,
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: so she is now terrified of him, and she tries
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: to procure a gun for protection. So we're like, oh
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: my god, Nick is violent, he's scary. He did kill her.
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: I gotta say, being married to a woman named Amy
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: and then having an affair with a near teenager named
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: Andy is also a red flag. I was like, that's
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: very You're not that smart. You're gonna slip up. It's
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: gonna be bad. You gotta go a different, totally different
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: first name.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Like it's just like interesting that Nick seems so devastated
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: by the loss of his job, but like doesn't really
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: try to write again. Meanwhile, Amy's written one of the
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: greatest novels of all time. It's called Gone Girl. Yeah,
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: she certainly is keeping her skills sharp. But Nick, yeah,
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Nick kind of for all of what is awful about him.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: He's going through a lot. He lost his mama and
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: I mean all this stuff. But I was just like Nick,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: instead of having a teenage girlfriend, like right, do your
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: morning pages king, Like, come.
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: On, the artist waster No, And it's so funny. The
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: entire time I was watching the film, I was trying
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: to tell myself because we know that the this is
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: an unreliable narration, but it feels so close to like
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: Nick's own douchary that it's like, well, how much of
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: this is really what was kind of happening? Because the
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: affair is real, the distance is real. And I think
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: that one of the things that's interesting is that Nick
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: never does enough to make me not think that he
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: wouldn't push her, you know, like it's like he never
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: does enough in his own you know, space to make
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: me think that. So it is interesting how we're being
• 30:31
  Speaker 5: coaxed to still believe at the end that he is
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: capable of being violent in mind because we see him
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: shows her at the very end of the movie. Yeah,
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: so I'm like, well, if you weren't before, you are now.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: You are right, And it's like they're both. I think
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: it's amazing that, like Gilliam Flynn manages to get this
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: across even though you don't get the internal monologue of
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: Nick where it's like they're I mean, obviously Amy is
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: like like a generational, unreliable narrator, but Nick also like
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: you see him constantly distant himself from his own actions
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: and constantly justify his own bullshit. Yeah, to the point
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: where you're like, I have no idea, who is right here?
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: She really is amazing.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: She's amazing Amy, Jamie.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Amazing James.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: I kind of want to get an amazing Amy poster
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: for my house cut for the girls.
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: So, now it has been three days since Amy went
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: missing and Margo finds out about Nick's affair with Andy.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: She's furious. We see throughout the movie, you know, Nick
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: is confiding in her and like consulting her, and she's
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: kind of helping him through this, but he had been
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: lying to her about this affair. So she discovers it
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: and now she's furious and she doesn't really know what
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: to believe anymore. And then that night there is a
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: vigil for Amy and Nick gives a speech, which is
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: interrupted by a neighbor woman named Noel, who had claimed
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: to the police to be Amy's best friend.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: And also the twist, it's Casey Wilson.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: Yes, you're like, whoa, And so she's yelling saying, what
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: did you do to your pregnant wife, or rather your
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: gregnant wife. It's true she she fakes a greg and everything. Yeah,
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: So the cops are like, okay, Nick, the evidence is
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: stacking up against you, because they had also found a
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: ton of blood that had been cleaned up in the kitchen.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: The vandalism from this like alleged home invasion seemed fake.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: Nick is in a ton of debt, and it seems
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: like he has made all these like big ticket purchases
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: that he denies. He had also recently bumped up Amy's
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: life insurance to one point two million dollars amateur seriously.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: And on top of that, the medical reports have just
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: come back confirming that Amy was indeed with greg So
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: it now really seems like Nick murdered his gregnant wife. Meanwhile,
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: Detective Bony goes to Nick's dad's house in search of
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: Amy's body, because she's like, I can't really make a
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: murder case without a body. I gotta find this body.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: What she finds instead is Amy's diary a body of work.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, it's been partially burned, but it's mostly
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: still intact. And so she discovers, you know, all of
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: this writing from Amy saying I'm scared of my husband.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: At the same time, Nick solves the third clue that
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: Amy left behind and he comes upon a wrapped gift box.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: It's also like in the wood shed where she had
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: stored all of those like big item purchases that Nick
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: had allegedly made, and so we're like, what's going on here?
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: And then smash cut to Amy on the morning of
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: July fifth. She is alive and well, she's driving away.
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: Her voiceover is explaining how she faked her own disappearance
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: slash death because she wants her lying, cheating husband to
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: go to prison for murder. And we're like, wow, twist alert.
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: Legends only.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: I like a car It's like a Carrie Underwood song. Dude,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: It's just like yeah.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: And I told my fiend too. I was like, yeah,
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: do it.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, It's it's a great David Fincher assignment because he
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: will show you every single detail, whether you like it
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: or not. Because I feel like it's very easy to
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: be like, how is she even or organizing this?
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: There's so many X factors.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: And then you see her scary calendar with the color
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: coded post its and you're like Amy, Yeah, yeah, I
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: mean so unfortunately, you gotta love Amy.
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: I mean, you know, we love we love a villain
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: dotagonist and like it's so funny. Well, then the post
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: is where she's like, kill self question mark.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: I was like, she has a bunch of them on
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: a bunch of different dates. Which month will it be?
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: I was just like, you're so amazing.
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: It's like.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Wrong, Yeah, it's true what they say about Amy, She's amazing.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Oh God, she's a planner and I respect that.
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: I love them.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: You're great, Yeah, such a planner.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: I just found it so satisfied when she like rips
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: the last kill self question mark posted off the calendar,
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: I'm like, ah, it's so great, so good.
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: So we get a series of flashbacks showing how she
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: did this, how she accomplished this, like framing where she
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: befriended Noel, that neighbor woman, so that she could tell
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: her stories about her husband's violent temper. She also stole
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: her pregnant pee so that she could fake her own pregnancy.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: She also purposely racked up credit card debt. She put
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: her own blood on the floor and then cleaned it
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: up and did it very poorly on purpose, and wrote
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: this diary where part of it is true, like the
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: early stories about them, like getting together and falling in
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: love are true, But then she just started making things
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: up about his violent tendencies and things like that. Then
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: she's says something like Nick fell in love with a
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: version of me that I was pretending to be. I
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: was pretending to be cool girl. I was not like
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: the other girl's girl. And that's something I want to
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: talk about more because I wish we had gotten more
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: of that in the movie and we don't really but.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: Anyway, God, yeah, and then we'll have an adaptation to
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: talk about that too, because there's just I mean, it
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: doesn't change the story meaningfully, but they just she cut
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: out a lot of her own, like banger lines.
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: Anyways.
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: So then Amy changes her appearance. She dyes her hair,
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: she puts on glasses, she gives herself a black eye,
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: and then she rents a little house somewhere in this
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: like kind of small housing community place. She meets her neighbor, Greta. Meanwhile,
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: we cut back to Nick. He opens the anniversary gift
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: and letter that Amy left him, where she implies that
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: she's framing him for murder, but it's also like vague
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: and cryptic enough that the cops would never like interpret
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: the letter as evidence for that. So then he goes
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: to defense attorney Tyler Perry.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: Legend, what was the last time we had a Tyler
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: Perry dramatic jump scare. I feel like it wasn't too
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: long ago.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: I know, we talked about this recently. What was the movie?
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: It's the year of the Tyler Perry drama roll. I
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: don't know. I know he's in Vice. What was the movie?
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: The first? But my first Tyler Perry jump scare was
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: Star Trek, like the yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I was right.
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: I was sorry because I was like that was I
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: was like, what are you doing here? Like, you're not
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: in a dress, You're.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: You're not the director of this movie. Why are you here?
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gone girl. And then what else does he
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, it happens like once every five years, just
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: to keep you on your toes.
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's like, I'm not always medea. Yeah, sometimes I'm
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: in Star Trek.
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: When he rescued Megan and Harry from the British that
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: was also one of his dramas, I know.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: And then you're just like, well, it's a shame that
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: his labor practices are so abysmal, because I like being
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: jump scared. I remember when he played Colon Powell and
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: you're like, huh, oh my god, you know, this is
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: my favorite Tyler Perry dramatic role jump scare by doing
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: a good job. Yeah, everyone in this movie is doing
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: a great job.
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So Tyler Perry's character's name is Tanner Bolt and
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: he agrees to defend Nick, and Tanner tells Nick to
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: find this guy named Tommy O'Hara, who Amy had pressed
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: charges against eight years ago. So Nick talks to Tommy O'Hara,
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: who says that Amy had framed him for rape. Nick
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: then also pays a visit to Dosy Collings played by
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: Neil Patrick Harris, and according to Amy, they had dated
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: in high school, she broke up with him, he harassed
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: and stalked her, and then attempted suicide. But when Nick
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: talks to Desi about that, Desi denies it and shuts
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: the door in Neix's face. He was doing the Rose
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: from Titanic line where he's.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: Just like, you're being very rude.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: You shouldn't be asking me this, and he slams the door.
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Wow, he doesn't deserve it, but you're right.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: Then Nick and his sister Margo get to work with
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: Tanner to figure out Amy's game plan and how to
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: unravel it and how to get people to like and
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: sympathize and empathize with Nick. Meanwhile, Amy is still staying
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: in this little housing complex somewhere in the Ozarks. She's
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: pretending to be a woman named Nancy from New Orleans,
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: and she's becoming friends with her neighbor Greta and this
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: other guy, except that they see her drop a bundle
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: of money, so they become suspicious and then they gang
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: up on her and steal her cash. So now she's
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: like completely fucked and desperate. So Amy arranges to meet
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: up with Desi Collings. She tells him a whole story
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: about how Nick threatened to kill her if she left
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: she lost the baby, and so he sets her up
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: in his secluded lake house. It's well stocked and very luxurious,
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: but he seems very controlling, and it seems like he
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: kind of intends to kind of trap her there and
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: keep her there.
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: Right and again it's like it calls I don't know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: like what this movie does so many times. So well
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: is like Amy is lying to an extent, but by
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: how much because based on the behavior we see him display,
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: like it seems like, you know, hit, his whole thing
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: is my protection of you is contingent on my.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, yeah, So basically everyone in this movie is
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: an awful person. Yeah, okay. So back in Missouri, Tanner
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: Bolt is encouraging Nick to go public with the fact
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: that he was having an affair with Andy and acknowledge
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: that he was a cheating jerk, so that they can
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: get ahead of the story before Andy goes to the
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: cops or the press.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Because Tyler Perry knows what Emily Radakowski's gonna do. He's
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: got her number.
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: Dramatic timing.
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so they're trying to get ahead of the story,
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: but it's too late because right as Nick is about
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: to appear on this kind of like Dateline twenty twenty
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: type of show with a journalist named Sharon, Andy goes
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: public with the affair. But nonetheless, Nick gives an amazing
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: interview with Sharon and it seems like he's going to
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: be redeemed and it works. People see the interview and
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: they're like, Wow, that was so raw and honest, and like,
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: maybe he's not such a bad guy after all. But
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: then the police find what they think is the murder
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: weapon with Amy's blood on it, which she obviously planted
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: there to make him seem guilty, and so he's arrested. Meanwhile,
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: Amy is still at Desi Collings is feeling trapped, so
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: she stages a scene to make it look like he
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: raped her, and that night she coerces him into sex
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: and then slits his throat and kills him. Then Tanner
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: bails Nick out of jail. Some time passes as they
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: await trial, until one day, about a month later, Amy
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: shows up at their house. She's all covered in blood,
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: presumably right after she killed Desi. She tells the police
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: about how Desi kidnapped her, trapped her at his lake house,
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: raped her repeatedly, but she was finally able to kill
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: him and get away and return home. And so now
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: Nick and Amy are like back at their house and
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: Nick is like, you're a liar and a scary person
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: and I'm leaving you. And Amy is like, well, you
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: can't do that. That's not gonna look good. Yeah, And
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: then they do these various TV interviews and things where
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: they're both pretending to be in love in public and
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: then in their private lives. The dynamic is so weird
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: and just bizarre. And then one day she's like, by
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: the way, I actually am pregnant. Now I'm pregnant now sorry,
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: and then Nick realizes he's even more stuck there, and
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: he feels like he has no choice but to stay
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: and raise the baby with her, even though she's a lying, manipulative,
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: so seopath the end, and that's.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: What we call marriage.
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: There's a line where he's like, why are we trying
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: to make this work? We just resent each other and
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: try to control each other, and she's like, well, that's
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: just marriage, baby, and it's like, yikes.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: That's very, very scary. And I also just like I
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: don't know. I was like, what is Gillian Flynn's writing process?
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: And she's like, I work in a basement. I was
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: like that tracks, that tracks. It feels like you wrote.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: This in a basement. Good for you.
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, let's take another quick break and then we'll come
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: back to discuss. And we're back.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: Boy, oh boy, gone girl, Oh gone girl, And.
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: Again we are we are not gone girls anymore. We
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: are back.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: We're back women, We're back friends were shooting start. Can
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: I just share the lines from the cool girl dialogue
• 46:03
  Speaker 3: that didn't.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Make it in the fun?
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I can't. Okay, I have it pulled up.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: Okay, there's first of all, uh it's a little heavy
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: on the hot dog slander for years, truly whoa. But
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: I found that the hot dog slander was removed for
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: the film, So I have to imagine that Gillian learned
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: from her mistake, got a lot of feedback from the
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: hot dog girl lobby, and was like, I admit I
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: was wrong to say that, let's keep hot dogs out
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: of it. So things that are added. So this is
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: an extension of what's there. Being the cool girl means
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker,
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: dirty jokes and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap bear,
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: loves threesomes and anal sex and jam's hot dogs and
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: hamburgers into her mouth like she's hosting the world's biggest
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: culinary gang bang, while somehow maintaining a size too, because
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: cool girls are above all hot. Okay, here's another one.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: You are not dating a woman. You were dating a
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: woman who has watched too many movies written by social
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: awkward men who'd like to believe that this kind of
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: woman exists and might kiss them. I think this line
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: is awesome and belongs in the movie, But I mean
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: the meeting comes through and then it ends there are
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: fucking thing he likes and doesn't ever complain. How do
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: you know you're not cool girl? Because he says things
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: like I like strong women. If he says that to you,
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: he will at some point flock someone else because I
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: like strong women as code for I hate strong women.
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: Bars.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: So there's there's a lot going on in this.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, and this this has been you know, analyzed
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: and talked about and quoted at nauseum for well over
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: ten years. Now, what I feel like is changed, and
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: I saw like some criticism or just like commentary.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: I guess to this. To this effect is that in
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: the movie.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: It mainly and I think princess it speaks to your
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: point of like how Amy mistreated and manipulated woman is
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: taken out. Most of the stuff that stays in is
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: what's critical of men. What is kind of taken out
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: is Amy's internal criticism of women, because the full cool
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: girl speech in the book seems to be coming down
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: pretty hard on women who quote unquote cater to this fantasy,
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: just as hard to the men.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: That kind of slurp it up. Yeah, they're both misogynists.
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: And I think, you know, I think one of the
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: hardest things about like discourse about books nowadays is that,
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: like there's this assumption that the narrator is supposed to
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: always be the voice of reason, which I don't know
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: where that has come from, because it is as a
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: creative of the Lilita podcast, you are aware that like
• 48:41
  Speaker 5: that is just not how fiction works often. And I
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: think that the thing about Gone Girl is that it
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: became so ubiquitous that the very worst kind of people
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: absorbed it and use it to play into their own
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: sexist narratives while ignoring that like the book is critical
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: of sexism in its own ways. Especially, I think that
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: what's difficult about Gone Girl is that there are women
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: who really connect with Amy because of the valid things
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: that she deals with in her relationship with Nick. And
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: I think because women enjoy Amy, there became this desire
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: to be like, but do you understand that she's a
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: bad person. It's like, yes, we do understand that she's
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: a bad person. We're not having a fight club situation
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: where we don't understand the text. It is just sometimes
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: nice to see an examination of that with a character
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: who is bad enough to be like, okay, he did
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: a and I want to destroy his life and I'm like, yeah,
• 49:47
  Speaker 5: that's not a reasonable reaction. But it was nice to watch.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: And there's a lot of valid criticism of this movie
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: as well. But I feel like it's like a lot
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: of the stuff I was sing was like, why do
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: women connect with it? You're like, it's just like cathartic,
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: and like it's cathartic to see someone who is completely
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: like I don't know, And I think to some extent
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: acting out of her own privilege, because the character that
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Amy writes for herself is not judgmental. She writes herself
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: as the cool girl, but you know, when we see
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: how she reacts in actual situations that we are certain
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: are happening, she is judgmental of Missouri in general, even
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: though she writes like, I'm a Missourian and I'm totally
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: okay with that. I just wish he had asked me.
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: That part feels true. What doesn't feel true is like
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: she clearly hates being in Missouri. When we hear her
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: talk about the Casey Wilson character, she thinks everyone there
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: is like not as good.
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: As her and not as smart as her. So it's
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: like this dual reality of like Nick is a.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: Terrible husband who is making who like expects her to
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: move there because he needs to move there. It's not
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: a discussion. And then when they get there, he makes
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: no effort to include her or make her feel like
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: she belongs there. And then on the other hand, it
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: seems like Amy genuinely doesn't like or respect anyone who
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: lives there.
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: Or his own family because he's not close to Go.
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: And I feel like, if there's any character who you
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: trust is probably Margo Go, because she's the one who's
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: like when she sees Emma rad Cassie, she's like, what
• 51:29
  Speaker 5: are you doing? You eat? Like everything that. I love
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: how much she shades about that relationship at every regard
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: because it's like it's so not okay, and I love
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: that the text points it out all the time. But
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: like she's not even close to Amy, like she has
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: no roots in that community except these artificial ones. And
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: I think to your point, the moment that I always
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: think is when she's talking to Gretta about how when
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: she saw Nick with Andy for the first time and
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: how he does the lip thing on both of them,
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: and Greta's like, that's the most discussing thing I've ever heard,
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: and I'm like yeah, I was like yeah, because everyone
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: has a story of like that realization of like not
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: only being cheated on, but like having him do the
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: exact same thing with another person. And I think that
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: those very like n universal gut punches of like betrayal
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: and expectation of like gender performance are just so there
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: and clear that I feel like a lot of people
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: connect with it. And I think the other thing that
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: I think has been made clearer more recently as we've
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: seen just like true crime really pop off, is that
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: there are a lot of women who think these things,
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: and like it's not because of Gone Girl. It is
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: like a part of the way in which misogyny it
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: becomes internalized and gets turned on each other because that's
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: what it wants to happen. Because it's like, she hates Nick,
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: but the way she talks about Andy is like so dehumanizing.
• 52:59
  Speaker 5: She's like she's just like a men and night when
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: she's got the huge cam on me tits, and I'm
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: just like okay, okay, okay. She hates women right like
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: you hate women? We get a girl, you're the coolest
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: girl in the world.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: She hates and it's wild that I don't know like
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: she It's why she's so frustrating, and I always just
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: get I don't know, I get annoyed that a lot
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: of the criticism around this seem to assume that, like
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: the women who are enjoying this story can't cut through
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: that and understand that, Like, particularly in the book, it's
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: obvious that she doesn't like women.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Or poor people like she does not she gets.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's she's in a bed situation obviously when
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: she is robbed, because she's, you know, carrying around a
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: stack of one hundred dollars bills.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: With her baddye job.
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: I read it.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: But like you know, Amy set herself up for that one.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: The plot point itself, like does it look great that
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: we have like very few poor people who appear in
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: the story and then two of the only poor people
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: we meet aggressively her. That plot point kind of sat
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: a little flat with me, and it felt like that
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: was an under examined point. But I feel like Amy.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: Part of why Amy is upset is like her money
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: has gone. And also I think that like she does
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: think she's better than people, and she's like, I can't
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: believe I got outsmarted by poor people. Yeah, Like there's
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: an element to that, and.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: I think to build off of that.
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: The reason why I enjoyed that moment, and I think
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: it's I think it's more present in the film than
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: the book, is how Greta is able to realize the manipulation.
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: And I think the thing that's really interesting is like
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: you have like the class element and the racial element
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: with Amy because she's like this new elite white woman
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: who as soon as she's kidnapp it's instantly like we
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: have to find her, which is like, you know, everything's
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: being a reality around and she's so used to everyone
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: believing her and trusting her and just taking her word
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: for it. And when she meets the first person who's
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: actually been a victim of domestic violence because from like
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: an actual work and environment, that character is able to
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: clock her instantly is like, oh, you're not from here.
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: Your accent doesn't work, like you know, you don't respond
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: to the name, Like for the first time, no one's
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: buying her a bullshit because she's with someone who doesn't
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: care about all the class and gender signifiers. That she
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: usually uses to get away with things. And I think
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: one of the issues with Gone Girl that people talk
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: about is like the false rape allegations, which is very
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: true to bring up because it is rare, less than
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: one percent, and that's really important. And I also think
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: it's important to recognize that like white women have had
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: notorious cases of not lying about rape, but lying about murder.
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: You know. I think of in like nineteen eighty three,
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: there's a woman named Diane Downs who lied about a
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: stranger shooting her three children and it was really her.
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: There's Susan Smith, the infamous woman who lied about her
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: kids being kidnapped by a black man, but it was
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: really her who killed her children. You have the most
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: recent like the Sherry Papani kidnapping hopes for this woman
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: lying about being kidnapped by some Latino people. So I
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: think one of the most the things about Gone Girl
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: that is interesting is that it does call out the
• 56:12
  Speaker 5: white privilege of women who think they can manipulate the
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: system using their whiteness to do so.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: And I think that is very.
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: Key to that conversation now that we can't also critique
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: the use of sexual violence and how she manipulates that.
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: But I think she's able to do that because people
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: will believe her because she is a rich white woman.
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: And it's not that she's lying about it out of
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: a gender thing. It's part of her own narcissism of
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: knowing that, oh, I can get away with it, and
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: that's what's more important.
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she weaponizes her white womanness, knowing that there's so
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: much you know, media frenzy around oh when a white woman,
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: especially one who is wealthy and classically beautiful, is missing murdered,
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: the response of the police when a wealthy, beautiful white
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: woman goes missing or murdered is far more like, yes,
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: we must solve this case, versus any time a black
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: or indigenous woman, for example, is missing or murdered, you know.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: And so she's like kind of weaponizing that and taking
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: full advantage of it, knowing that she can probably get
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: away with it if she plays her cards right. And
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: I thought the movies not that the movie like necessarily
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: explicitly examining that, but it's definitely a component of.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: The story, right, I mean, and Princess, I feel like
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: you have I want to link to your true crime
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: video in the description because it's like one of the
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: clearest breakdowns.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: Of this unless you don't want us to. It's just
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: like that's so sweet of me to say, but like, yeah,
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: it is really good.
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: It's really good, and it's I revisit it every couple
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: months since it came out because it covered it's so
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: comprehensive and it addresses all of these like really really
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: messy intersections that I think that this, you know, and
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: it's imperfect because it's one person trying to do it,
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: but I think that, yeah, it's a slippery slope to
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: set up a character who is bold enough to lie
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: about rape and assault and murder. It's like you're setting
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: yourself up to go through a thousand rounds of discourse
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: if anyone ever reads your work. And I feel like
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: that was something that was a huge point of contention
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: when this movie first came out. That makes total sense,
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: and most writers seem to sort of fall where we're
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: talking right now of like, well, women across the board
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: are often sexually abused and mistreated, but Amy is the
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: person who is well placed to get away with something
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: like this. They're like, without her whiteness and privilege, this
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: falls apart.
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: It doesn't work, And like Amy for all of My
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: girl Boss and I you know, hashtag relatable queen. You
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: know she's an abuser. She's an abusive person like this
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: isn't someone who is just like plucked from an environment.
• 59:14
  Speaker 5: She is a narcissistic abuser who in the same way
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: that like you know, Tyler Dirdon, or like any other
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: male villain that we in pulp culture enjoy despite knowing
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: that they're a villain, she occupies that same space. But
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: because she is a woman and the subject matter of
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: the work, and especially I think because the writer of
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: the books is a woman, I think if the right
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: of the book was a man, we'd have a totally
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: different totalation. Because Flynn calls herself a feminist, she and
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: I think she knows and she understands the discourse that
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: is around her work. But I think also as a writer,
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: it's a thing of like, well, I also want to
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: write villainous women and what that would look like. And
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: I think we can discuss the pros and cons of that,
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: but I would much rather discuss it with someone who
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: has like the intellect as a writer to know what
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 5: she's like, how she's putting that live wire together, than
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 5: someone who was just doing it passively, right.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: So I think something that I found got like lost
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: in this infinity discourse that took place in twenty fourteen
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: and when the book originally came out in twenty twelve,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: is that, Yes, it is a risky thing to set
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: up a story that is narrated by a woman who
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: is lying about all these things, but Gillian Flynn does
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: take care to put many other women in the story
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: who feel many other ways, and in the character of Grete,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: like you're saying Princess has actually experienced this, And I
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: don't know, I feel like there were sort of like
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: alarm bells set off of like this book thinks that
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: this happens all the time, But I feel like there
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: is enough in the way that other women act and
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: react within the story to indicate that, Like, even without
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: reading Gillian Flynn's being questioned about this, it feels clear
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: that Gillian Flynn understand and there is a full on gradient,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: you know, whether you like her work or not.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And just to share some quotes from her on
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: that topic. So she identifies as a feminist, and she
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: said this in response to people accusing her of writing
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: misogynist caricatures of women, and of having a deep animosity
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: toward women. She said, quote to me, that puts a
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: very very small window on what feminism is. Is it
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: really only girl power, and you go girl and empower
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: yourself and be the best you can be. For me,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: it's also the ability to have women who are bad characters.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: The one thing that really frustrates me is this idea
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: that women are innately good, innately nurturing. In literature. They
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: can be dismissively bad, trampy, vampy, bitchy types. But there's
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: still a big pushback against the idea that women can
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: just be pragmatically evil, bad, and selfish. I don't write
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: psycho bitches. The psycho bitch is just crazy. She has
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: no motive, and so she's a dismissable person because of
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: her psycho bitchiness unquote. And then she wrote on her
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: website she like kind of admits that her female characters
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: are quote not a particularly flattering portrait of women. Fine
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: by me. Isn't it time to acknowledge the ugly side?
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: I've grown quite weary of the spunky heroines, brave rape victims,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: soul searching fashionistas that stock so many books. I particularly
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: mourn the lack of female villains unquote, so you can
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: think about what you'd like, but you know, she has
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: a firm point of view on that, And I tend
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: to agree that, you know, this idea that just because
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: women are like socialized to be polite and sweet and nurturing,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: doesn't mean that all of our personalities manifest that way,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: and that we don't have the full capacity for like
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: any type of behavior or any type of personality and
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: any type of context that would lead you to be
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: the type of person who would do all the things
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: that Amy ends up doing so.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 5: And I also think, you know, as a society, but
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 5: you know, we so often want nuance in engaging roles
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 5: for women, and then when they happen, we kind of
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: discourse them to death for better or for worse. Like
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: I definitely I'm pro discourse. You know, I love reading
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: all the salt Burn takes because I'm yeah, we're a
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: part of it, you know, like, yeah, it just it
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: Sometimes it goes to a point where it's like, rather
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: than just discussing like the finer points, it becomes a
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: indictment on Jillian Flynn as like a woman writer and
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: like she's secretly a misogynist, and I'm just like, why
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: because her books contain bad female characters. That's an un
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: that's an unrealistic standard to hold to somebody, especially when
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 5: like they write mystery thrillers. It's not like they write
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: like it's not Colleen Hoover, you know what I mean,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 5: Like it's nothing. They're writing like her novels imbued with
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 5: like abusive behavior. It's very much like these dark gothic
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 5: stories with women at the center of it. Whether we
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 5: like it or not, I think that's more of what
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 5: we need. And you know, I think when it comes
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 5: to like this isn't a feminist movie, and that's okay.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: It is literally about privileged people fighting over each other
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: when they should have just gotten a divorce. It's fun,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 5: it's engaging, and I and I also resent that because
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: of movies like Fight Club and all the other like
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 5: movies and books that CIS men largely misunderstand. There is
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: this idea that we as CIS women are all so
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: misinterpreting our like nihilistic text. It's like no, no, no,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 5: no Amy deserves to go to jail, but we're gonna
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: enjoy the ride while it's happening.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: Like Yeah, I think it's so clear she'll never like
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: because she's protected by so much privileged, she'll never go
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: to jail and she's chosen or she's you know, ended
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: up with a guy who is like just like thick
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: and like is not able to outsmart her, like isn't
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: and that's bad. He's in an abusive relationship.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 5: But I don't know, Yeah, it's good storytelling, you know,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: it's not necessarily about having the perfect moral ending. I think,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 5: to me, what I enjoy critiquing is like the response
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 5: to it. Because I don't know if you guys are
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: familiar with the gone Girl hoax Valeo incident in California.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: What Okay, So let's see about six or seven years
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 5: ago at this point, there was a couple that was
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: suffered a home invasion in kidnapping. They were a couple
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: in Valeo and they talked about how these men broke
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: in wearing wet suits, tied them up, blindfolded them, kidnapped
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 5: the FEMA member the couple and the police did not
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 5: believe them. They thought that this was a gone girl hook,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: that's what they called it. They mocked them publicly. Found
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: out she was telling the truth. They were telling the
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: truth and it was a you scandal. They sued the
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 5: department for like thousands of dollars because they maligned them
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 5: all over by calling it a hoax, not even bothering
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: to investigate it. They called her a bitch. The police
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: department called her a bitch. Yeah, I'll leave a link
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: to it in the chat and then you guys can
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 5: share that with people. And I think about that all
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: the time because I think to myself, like, if you
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: live in a society that already believes that women are liars,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 5: then it doesn't matter that Gone Girl exists or not.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 5: That's just giving them a little bit, like did you
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: see that movie? And I think that's the catch twenty
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: two is like we live in a sexist, misogynistic, patriarchal society,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: and even when you have someone like Flynn making really
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 5: engaging art about this subject, this is also part of
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: their result and I despise it, but it is part
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 5: of why the discourse happens, because like they called it
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 5: the Gone Girl hoax, and I just remember reading about
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 5: it and thinking, you know, it sucks that when we
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 5: have these texts that choose to be dark with us
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 5: at the focus. If we are bad that becomes part
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: of the public miasma of how they already view us
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: as people, which.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: Is something that happens with men, and it's very upsetting.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it reminds me of when Fatal Attraction came out
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: and everyone hated Glenn Close, not just her character, but
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: like hated her as a person because people saw that
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: movie and they were like, well, she, I'm not used
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: to seeing women this way. She's so scary and evil
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: and what if a woman does that to me? And
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: oh my gosh, And just like the reaction to this
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: portrayal of a woman that was kind of I guess
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: probably more common in like film noir era of like
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: the forties, but then you know, we got it away
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: from that in a lot of mainstream entertainment for several decades,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: and then when like, yeah, these like nineties thrillers kind
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: of like erotic thrillers resurfaced, then everyone was like, oh
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: my god, women can be bad, yi.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: Right, and like that, I sort of would to revisit
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: Fatal Attraction, but there's like a whole you know, like
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: conversation about but I feel like that's part of like
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: even contrasting it with Gone Girl. It's like yes, you're
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: getting a lot of discussion. But it's like so few
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: of those thrillers were actually written by women and like
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: meaningfully include them in the process, And it makes Gone
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: Girl stand out because it totally changes the nature of
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: the conversation that they're having. Also, I'm looking at this
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: Vallejo piece, and the cop who basically perpetrated this hoax
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: was they Detective Matt Mustard. So I'm just throwing that
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: out there. I guess that we got a detective Bonie,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: we got a detective Detective Mustard. Are these clue characters
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: wherever he is, I hope he's doing poorly?
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: Yes? Yeah, But Caitlin, your point is so poignant because
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 5: I recently rewatched Fayla Trashing because I was doing something
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: about Don't Worry Darling like a year or so ago,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: and I ended up rereading Backlash, and just the way
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 5: that Fayla traction went from being like a man being
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: introspected about how he like ruined his own marriage became
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 5: like this bitch is crazy. And when you read what
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: fail attraction, I gotta tell you I'm with her until
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: the body boiling, Like until that point, I was like,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: I see I see yeah, I'm not going to be
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 5: ignored dad. I was like, that's right close, because how
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 5: dare he mess with you like this? It's very much
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 5: like that, and I think it ties into the cool
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 5: girl monologue as well, because what it really is because
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 5: you notice that these women are usually blonde, very traditionally
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 5: attractive white women, and really what it is is that
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 5: men being confronted with the anxiety that their sex toy
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: object woman could kill them because they love to call
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 5: women crazy, they let to say, oh my crazy is
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: blah blah blah, but like they did that she could
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 5: actually be quote unquote crazy is their biggest nightmare to
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: be in the reverse side of having to worry about
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 5: violence being done to them by a person or a
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 5: body that they usually see as not a threat. It's like,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: all of a sudden, the thing that you just want
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: to use as a come dispensary is like, no, actually
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: I want things from you, Like I think that's kind
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 5: of the thing about even with Gone Girl, where she
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: was like he stopped trying and then I had he
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 5: had to go, and I was just like, man, you
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 5: really do stay around for a long time that he
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: stopped trying. You're like, maybe they'll try again tomorrow.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: Right, And it's like, I don't know. That's like part
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: of what's so cathartic about it. It is just seeing
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: someone being.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: Like I mean and again it's like and none of
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: that makes her loss of an abuser, but it's the
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: two things. Anytime two things need to be true, it's
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: gonna result in a lot of difficult conversation. I have
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: a quote on because I was interested in it, Like
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: Rosamund Pike is so incredible and love her. Oh my gosh,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: she was nominated for an Oscar, I think very rightly so,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: so I just wanted to see, like what her take
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: on Amy was when she was prepping for the role,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: and she had a really interesting quote, Yeah this is
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: back in twenty fourteen, in like how she was contextualizing
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: how Amy gets to where she's at. She says, quote,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: I always think that people who have the hardest time
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: in the spotlight are the people who have unearned fame,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: like the girlfriends of people who are famous, or people
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: who become figures of attention not through their own merit.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: And that's what Amy has. Because she's the subject of
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: these books. She's not only the subject, but it's like
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: she's been given a fictional twin who's better than her,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: more accomplished than her, more popular than her, and more
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: loved than her by her own parents. That's a recipe
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: for narcissism right there. Because you're entitled and you feel inadequate.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: Then that makes a very insecure adult who simultaneously has
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: very high expectations of themselves and others. That for me
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: was my end to the character. And I think, like
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: that makes a lot of sense. And even I don't
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: know until I read that quote, I was like, oh, yeah,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: Like Nick has an actual twin, Amy has this like
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: sort of phantom limb of this fictional Amy that doesn't
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: actually exist. She's always had difficulty connecting with people. And
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: again just going back to the idea of like Amy
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: has never controlled a narrative in her very privileged life,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: but you know everything that sort of happened to her,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: her life has been guided by other people. And with Nick,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: you know understandably, like if you're parent are sick and
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: you need to move home, okay, but you have to
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: have a discussion with your spouse about that. You can't
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: just tell them we're going and then leave them to rot.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: In this ugly assmic mansion. Sorry yeah, uh so, uh Meryl,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: Well that's great, But yeah, I mean I think that
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: like Amy is very well set up for who she is.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: I also feel like there is this stereotype, but I
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: also have met people who have this experience of like
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: just being raised by psychologists and therapist. You always end
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: up with just an interesting person who maybe you wouldn't
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: guess was raised by mental health professionals. And I say
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: that with love, But yeah, I mean, I think like
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: criticism of Amy sometimes feels like it's taking place in
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: a vacuum, as if you're not given a lot of
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: context on not just how she gets from A to
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: B in a very extreme way, but how the world
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: enables it. And again, I know that that starts as
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: slippery slope, where like I know that having it suggested
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: that like a woman can use a fundamentally misogynist world
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: to bend to their will is not true. But I
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: think in the context of this story, Gilliam Flynn does
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: a good job of setting up how for this story
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: it works. Prinstance, I'm really interested in your feelings on
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: how this movie interacts with like true crime media and
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: how these stories are reported.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 5: Okay, So I got into true crime mostly because I
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 5: used to watch twenty twenty in my room by myself,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 5: because I was that kid. And I remember watching the
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: Amanda Knox twenty twenty docs and just being like.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: What do you mean there's no DNA?
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 5: Why is she in jail? And that only happened to
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 5: black people. And I think Amanda Knox being convened did
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 5: for being awkward in the public eye of Italy has
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 5: always stuck with me because I think that's so indicative
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 5: of how true crime works. I think with Nick, even
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 5: though he definitely has some shady aspects to him, the
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 5: panopticon level of attention that he got for just doing
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 5: like smiling too much, and I think about too like
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 5: when that picture happens, someone says smile at him and
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 5: he just responds.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: Like a doberman, and I'm like, what even his idea?
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 5: And just like you know, the people coming towards him
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 5: and trying to be like, hey, like how can we
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 5: help you, and him trying to be polite, but that
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 5: sees people going as like, well, he doesn't seem sad enough,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 5: and that happens so often, usually with women. And I
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 5: think what's interesting as well, is that like Nick on
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 5: paper and especially how Amy writes him in the journal
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 5: has all the makings of a family annihilator. Girl. It's
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 5: like the debt, the loss of a job, the income
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 5: being only in the woman's name, like a baby on
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 5: the way. Those are all like classic family annihilator like tropes,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 5: which you know she probably write in one of those
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 5: books she was reading.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: And so it interests out, Oh my god, her little Skelter,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: her little library.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: I also, oh my gosh, how much that people in
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: the movie interact with media to craft this narrative, Like
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: Amy knows what's going to work.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Also that she shows no one checked out her
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 5: library card or whatever, because like he didn't see that
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 5: she was ordering Helter Skelter and all these other books,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 5: like what's that clicking, Missouria? Okay.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: Also I have another little plot hole where Okay, we
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: learn that there's a neighbor whose name is Watchful Wally,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: implying that he's like very snoopy and like always kind
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: of like watching them and watching their house. He's the
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: guy who calls Nick and is like, your door is
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: open and your cat's outside. You might want to check
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: on that. And that's how like Nick ends up discovering
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: that this like Home and Asian happened anyway, watchful Wally,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: where were you when Amy was leaving the house on
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: July fifteenth? It seems like you were right there having
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: a watchful eye. How did she seek a watch undering
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: a watchful.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 5: I bet she had him under surveillance. I bet she
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 5: had like a secret camera. I just gee her too
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 5: much credit. I'm just like, he's just that good.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: She did kind of think of everything, so she really
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: I also like the fact that Nick, again Nick a
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: victim of abuse and objectively a bad husband. Yeah, which
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: you know, I trust our listeners to be able to
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: understand that. But the fact that he all he like
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: from the beginning, when he's first asked by the detective like, well,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: what is she into? He's like, she's a big reader.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, yeah, of her murder library.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 4: She's like.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: Reading to plan to ruin your life. You just didn't
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: notice the genre she was heavily trafficking in.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: Sure just signed that.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 5: I cannot explain to you the ways in which that, Like,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 5: if anyone asked me this sign, oh do you want
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 5: to like up your insurance?
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: No?
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 5: Who are you I would ask like as like absolutely,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 5: I don't care about insurance. I want everything to be
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 5: given to the government when I die. But that's the
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 5: true crime angle, is like the fan fare, and also
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 5: that there's so many women around because there has been
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 5: like everyone's in a true crime, but definitely women especially
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 5: get put the forefront of those situations, and like Noel
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 5: constantly like putting herself into conversation, the Nancy Grace XP,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 5: who is just hitting here, like what is this man doing?
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 5: And I'm just like all of it kind of just
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 5: shows the farce of thank you. It all just kind
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 5: of shows the farcical nature of it and how it's
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 5: never based on facts or a total inventory of information,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 5: but just the play by play moments of like intense
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: emotion of like this innocent young white woman. They don't
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 5: say that, but that is the path of it is
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 5: missing and we all just need to galvanize and protect her.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 5: And her husband is being very suspicious because he's not sad.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 5: And I think all of those things are stuff that
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: you saw in the dep Herd case of like who's
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 5: more charismatic, who looks like they're being their their most
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 5: authentic self, And how Nick is able to convince everyone
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 5: that he's genuine by giving a highly curated, highly you know,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 5: feedback looped interview that he's prepped for for a significant
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 5: amount of time, and everyone's like, Wow, he's he's a
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 5: good man, Savannah. The media really manipulates and warps the
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 5: way that we via that kind of information, and it
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 5: wants us to view it at the most surfaced level thing.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 5: And that's why people go to jail when they should
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 5: most of the time. And that's why we had, you know,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 5: with the Gabby Poto incident, what that play by play
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 5: wait it happened online did, besides being super toxic, was
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 5: it left a lot of evidence of people who assumed,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 5: based off of nothing, that she was an abusive person,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 5: only to find out that she had been murdered by
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 5: her partner.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: Which is typically what happens in these situations.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 5: But even amongst other women, there is this internalized misogyny
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 5: that is so quick to say that it is feminist
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 5: to say that women can also be bad people, and
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 5: it's like, yes, However, we live in a society and like,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 5: when a situation like this happens, typically it's these ways
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 5: until proven otherwise. And I think it was River Kwan
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 5: who wrote a very good article about this during the
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 5: deb Per trial, which is like assummation of it is
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 5: basically saying that, like, we are at a place where
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 5: people want to believe that we've moved past the point
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 5: of needing to believe women because the default is believe women,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 5: But the reality is we've never even started to believe women.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: Oh god, yeah, well, because that's like what's so difficult
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: about having this conversation. And I know that our listeners
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 3: are like media literate and competent, and it's like, I
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: don't know, there did feel like an element of like,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: if you enjoy and want to interact with this, you
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: are endorsing the reality in full that's presented, where it's
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: like you're total like we all know on this gorgeous
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: zoom call that women by and large do not lie
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: about this, and that the way that media is presented
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 3: is interesting to me. In this movie, I feel like
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: there are moments that are sort of editorialized to a
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: point where I don't know. I mean, I think that
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: Amy anticipates media and the world underestimating her, and she
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: studies the narratives that have worked and perpetuated in the past.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: I think this movie really smartly avoids social media because
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 3: that's another whole, you know, wormhole that you would have
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: to narratively unpack. But in terms of like the Nancy
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 3: graces of the world and the exploitation with which these
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: stories are handled, like Amy studies the narratives that are
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: true and have happened and take advantage of them in
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 3: order to sort of pull this off. And it's like,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 3: I also think that if you leave Gone Girl being
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: like all women are doing this, that's an incredibly poor
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: read of the movie. That happens all the time, and
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: often with David Fincher movies specifically. There's absolutely people that
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: leave this movie thinking like women are bitches, women are liars,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: just as they let Fatal Attraction feeling that way, and
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 3: to some extent, I mean, I don't know, I feel
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 3: like we've sort of been through the ringer of having
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: this discussion over the years of like well as a writer,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: especially Gilliam Flynn, as a woman writing this, how much
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: can you hold her accountable for someone watching this movie
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: and leaving with.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: A brain dead take about it.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I think we recently had this conversation
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: about Goodfellas where you're like a million people leave Goodfellas
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: with the wrong idea about what the movie was about.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: But if you're watching it, it's clear what it's about.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know, it's true, it's true.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 5: It's a large or problem, and like I just started
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 5: recently watching Breaking Bad to prepare for hashtag content, and
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 5: I'd always heard about like, oh, yeah, Skyle's a bitch,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 5: but that I've also been a live long enough as
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 5: I have seen like, but people just don't know how
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 5: to read her and she's technically good. Later within the
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 5: first season, I'm like, of course Skyler is right. He's
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 5: being like egotistical and insecure about like his balls and
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 5: his money because of the cancer. What's not clicking, and
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 5: what's not clicking is just a resentment towards how do
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 5: I put this? I think when it comes to that
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 5: intercession of like race and gender, I feel like, post
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 5: to the twenty sixteen election, once it was released that
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 5: a number of white women voted for Trump, it became
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 5: this thing to be able to say, you see, how
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 5: they're really the problem, and all of a sudden it
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 5: became an easy way to not talk about race and
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 5: power and gender and how it intersects, but to make
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 5: somehow white women the seventh season big bad of culture
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 5: to pivot away from white men. And I feel like
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 5: things like Gone Girl, even though it came out before then,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 5: are used to uplift that idea. There is this desire
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 5: to do woke misogyny by attacking white women de facto
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 5: for their like white feminity and like historical indictments, while
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 5: ignoring that it was against people of.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: Color and not against white men.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 5: You know, it's like if we stop using black and
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 5: brown experiences to justify your hatred of white women. But
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 5: I think that's a part of it is that, like
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 5: a lot of people dislike white women because of their
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 5: own power, and they become a symbolic way to attack
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 5: all women by putting them at the top of the
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 5: at the totem pole and then having them be the
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 5: ones in which she put all that harm towards. Because
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 5: you look at any wife in any of these shows,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 5: their biggest crime is being a hypocrite or being slightly nagging.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 5: They're like, they're worse and the murderers. I'm like, that's
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 5: not true, right, Camilla Soprano is not as bad as
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 5: tell you. A soprano. You cannot tell me that because
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 5: she makes ZD and wanted to have sex with a
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 5: priest one time, that that means that.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: She's among us who.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah. So I think it's all connected to just a
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 5: way in which that we're still trying to process talking
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 5: about all these things, but the loudest, most un intellectual
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 5: conversations will always rise to the surface. And I think
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 5: also with women, this ties to Barbie and something like
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 5: and Ley Wonder Woman. There is this need to critique
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 5: white women from misogynistic framework that has really trickled into film,
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 5: and it's frustrating because it's useless and not helpful, and
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 5: it just feels like a way of just having men
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 5: use the language of diversity to be horrible sexist. And yeah,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 5: Gone Girl is like one of those texts that they
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 5: used to to embody that.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 4: And I have to kind of assume that one of
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 4: the reasons that this movie and the book faced the
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 4: backlash that it did. As far as Gillian Flynn being
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 4: accused of how dare you write a bad character because
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 4: women are good in a way that like completely erases
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 4: and disregards the idea that women and fems again are
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 4: full human beings capable of the full range of human emotions, behaviors, experiences, etc.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 4: Kind of ignoring that. I wonder if the reaction was
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 4: the way that it was because we're just so used
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 4: to as far as like you know, pop culture movies, TV, books,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 4: et cetera, the most popular depictions of women have just
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 4: been so flat, so one dimensional, so underdeveloped, you know,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 4: the love interest, the damsel blah blah blah. That when
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 4: you do see a woman that is a departure of
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 4: those types of like stock characters, and especially one that
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 4: behaves badly and is abusive and is a liar and
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 4: manipulative and all that kind of stuff, no one knows
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 4: how to handle it or interpret it. Or you know,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 4: we're so used to seeing women this way on screen
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 4: and then assuming that women are just probably that way
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 4: in real life. And again, we live in a society, right,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: and our perceptions are in misogyny external and internal, really
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 4: warp perceptions of of the behavior of women.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it feels ongoing still this and again a
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 3: lot of the criticism of centering a woman abuser makes
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: sense to me in the context of when the movie
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 3: was released, But there is sort of this feeling of
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 3: like I think sometimes it's positioned as like, but women
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: just got to be characters.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: You can't make them evil right away, you have to, like,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 2: and I think it.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: Does sort of mistakenly like I feel like there's a
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 3: way where you could see it as this like still
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: patriarchal thinking of like, well, we just got allowed, we
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 3: just became considered marketable, like you know, less than twenty
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: years ago, so we should spend a couple of decades
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 3: making movies about how awesome women are and how But again,
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: it's like sort of catering to patriarchal thinking because theoretically
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 3: every kind of women, with every kind of character, that's
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 3: the equity standpoint, because men have been behaving horrifically in
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 3: movies since the beginning of time and are always praised
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: for it, and a lot of those movies are amazing.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: But it's like, yeah, centering a woman who is objectively
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 3: a bad person and we have a lot of information
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: about her, it felt like to some extent people were like, well,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 3: this is gonna set us back actually, because there is
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 3: not a redemptive arc for her. So in like the
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: movie sense, it feels it's kind of frustrating and that's
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: complicated because you have to layer it with how many
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: men go to see Gone Girl and leave with the
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: wrong message. I don't think that that's Gillian Flint's problem necessarily,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: and so I don't know. Ye also watch more movies
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 3: if you think that.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 5: I mean not to say that there isn't say that
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 5: there isn't like definitely a gender issues, but like you
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 5: think Betty Davis would just playing likable women her entire career,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 5: right because she was not and she got two oscars. Baby. Yeah,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 5: I totally get what you're saying. And I think that's
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 5: been a that's always a narrative of like, well, we
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 5: just got this, so let's try and wait, you know,
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 5: ten or so five years. And I get why that happens.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 5: It's just cycimical because like one bad person doing a
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 5: bad thing does not completely flip the script, you know,
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 5: like one notable case of like a false assault allegation
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 5: does not erase the countless others of how statistics work.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 5: And yet we're like when The Joker came out, you know,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 5: there was so much whinging about like what it would
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 5: do to like society and culture and what did it do?
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 5: Absolutely nothing except Get Walk finally Get Jaquim in Oscar
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 5: that you should have gotten ten years ago. That was
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 5: the extent of its impact, Like we don't need to
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 5: like enough, let women be bad, let women plan their
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 5: man's demise in peace?
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, cop, are you a detective Mustard?
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: Like it's so yeah, And I think it reinforces the
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 3: idea that every movie that centers a woman has to
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: be about feminism, and that is also an extremely limiting idea,
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 3: or every movie that centers a woman has to be
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: an overtly feminist movie in order to be considered successful.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 4: Even just this like subgenre of women seeking revenge, Like
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 4: I'm fascinated by the like hell hath no fury like
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 4: a woman scorned premise and the many many movies that
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 4: we get kind of based on that premise, many of
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 4: which we've covered.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: Just did Revenge, bur we did.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 4: Our second revenge, per I don't even what did we
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 4: cover on the first revenge? So many I don't even
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 4: know anyway, Yeah, we've examined a lot of them on
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 4: the show, and there it stands to reason that they
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 4: would all be pretty different movies coming at that topic
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: with different angles and and this is just an entry
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 4: in that subgenre that is quite different from many of
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 4: the other ones. It's nothing like kill Bill or do
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 4: Revenge or you know other ones that I can't remember.
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: And that's a good thing, Like yeah, for sure.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 5: And also Revenge is like it's like one of the
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 5: best things to watch and me, like Shakespeare did it
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 5: and like everyone said it was okay when he did it,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 5: So like, what's the big deal. Why can't Jillian do it?
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 5: Why can't Jillian have a toxic person ruin their loved ones' lives,
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 5: you know?
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: H Yeah, And she also recently started her own book,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 3: Imprint to to to spread the good words, so I'm.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: Excited about that. Yeah.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: I feel like in terms of like how because I did,
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: I have a distinct, like Twitter memory of Gillian Flynn's
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: quotes about being a feminist and being the author of
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 3: Gone Girl. I remember that and how heavily discussed that
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: was and I think it's aged pretty well she is. Yeah,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 3: And also I think like again, there should be and
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 3: have been more stories about women and women who are
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 3: unreliable narrators. I feel like you can't just let men
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 3: be unreliable narrators. It's so limiting and that's no fun.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: It's just no good for real.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 5: And I will say on a shallow note, like you know,
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 5: as a millennial in the situationship era, this movie really
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 5: does hit different.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: It's like, wow, uh, it really do be like that sometimes.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 5: And I think that's the thing as well as like
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 5: a lot of like female revenge movies do live at this,
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 5: Like I think of like do revenge what you just
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 5: mentioned live with this indition of like the frustration it
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 5: is to like be a woman who has to be
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 5: nice in the face of like bullshit because you can't
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 5: because like if Amy could just like cancel him on Twitter,
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 5: I think she would have just done that. Like if
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 5: she could have just done that, she would have just
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 5: wroughte a long, expensive tweet thread. But she would be
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 5: a bad person if she did that, because then people
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 5: would pull up her own tweet history and then she'd
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 5: have to be canceled. It's like, no, I have to
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 5: plan my death so that I can always win. I love,
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 5: I understand Nick Dunn is a bad person. One of
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 5: two hundred and fifty. Yeah, like like a notes app.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I guess my.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 3: Like on this because it's like it's so funny we've
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 3: put taking for almost two hours, and we've really only
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 3: talked about the like controversy around Gone Girl and how
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 3: it's like received. But like, I think that this movie's
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 3: success does not mean that we shouldn't continue to get
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 3: movies about more diverse women doing bad stuff. I want
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 3: to see a movie about it, every kind of woman
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 3: doing something horrible. And this movie is good, and we
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 3: have a lot of other women in the story to
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 3: bounce what's going on with Amy and Nick around. One
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 3: thing that I thought didn't work as well for me
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 3: in the context of the movie versus the book, because
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: when we hear Nick and Amy talking about Andy in
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 3: the book, they're talking about her, they're describing her to
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 3: sound like kind of a I think that like she's
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 3: she comes off in the movie as bimbo who is
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 3: really naive because of her youth, because of all of
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 3: this stuff. And I think that Emily Radakowski, who has
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 3: gone on to have a whole career, including a book
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 3: that I have not yet read, but that sort of
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 3: addresses her personal history, being heavily objectified and thought of
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 3: as a brainless bimbo. So if we have people who
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 3: have read that, please let us know, but that is
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 3: like who she's cast us here, She's in a prestige movie.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 3: I think that it's like the signifier of Emily Radikowski
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 3: in twenty fourteen. We're not supposed to think she's smart.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 3: It's almost like a cultural signifier of how she was
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: viewed at this time. And I don't think the movie
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 3: does very much to challenge that. It just sort of
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: does present to the point where Tyler Perry can anticipate
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: what she is going to do.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 2: She is fully upon.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 3: She doesn't seem to have any sort of like I
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 3: don't know. I think she was sort of uncritically presented
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 3: as a brainless bimbo. And you do get moments where
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 3: it's like, well, Nick is lying to her and that's
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 3: obvious and we know that that's bad. And you know,
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 3: Amy is outwardly misogynistic towards her when she's watching her
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 3: on TV. But it also feels like there could have
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 3: been a few small things done to make her more
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 3: of a person.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 3: I don't think she came off very sympathetic when she
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 3: is like in a terrible situation, she fortunately, I mean,
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 3: the only good thing is that she is an adult
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 3: at the time of the relationship. But it's like she's right,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 3: she's like twenty if that, I don't think Margo even
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: believes that she like you know, is still completely connected
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 3: to her family. She's I like the detail that she's
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 3: like godspell rehearsal. I was like, go with Godspell, Like
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 3: go with that, get out of this relationship, go vi
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 3: a godspell, forget this ever happened. But like it's another
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 3: way that Nick is a shitty person. He's abusing this
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 3: power dynamic. And I feel like the story she like
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 3: symbolizes is like, oh, Nick wants to be with someone
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 3: who's like being replaced by a younger woman and being
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 3: replaced by someone who's quote unquote unchallenging. And it just
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 3: felt like the movie kind of went with that logic
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 3: in a way that it felt like there could have
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 3: been little things done to push back on mm hmmm agree.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 4: I think the way that also it goes pretty unchallenged
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 4: where Nick suggests that maybe the perpetrator of this kidnapping
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 4: and violence toward his wife was an unhoused person because
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 4: there's a quote unquote serious homeless problem that you cops
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 4: should check out, and is just like shrug.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 3: Well, but also I saw that as well, and then
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 3: I also was like, well, everyone he's surrounded by would
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 3: not push back on that, Like that's true. He's surrounded
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 3: by cops who certainly like wealthy white suburbanites, so right,
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 3: he's like he's surrounded by Nimbi's It makes sense that, Yeah,
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 3: no one is saying anything, but yeah, I didn't think
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: that was the worst choice. But again, it's like there's
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: stuff with privilege that is like it's all put out
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 3: before you, but the viewer is very much left to
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 3: their own devices to tease out when people are acting
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: with their own bullshit privilege.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 4: Right, No characters around him, you know, push back on
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 4: him saying that, But then the unhoused people you see
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 4: on screen are like drug dealer.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 4: It's just like the same way that it doesn't challenge
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 4: the movie. Yes, frames Andy.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 5: It's giving three billboards.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 3: And that yes, right, and have Margo who princess You
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 3: alluded to this earlier. I think like Margo is the
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 3: closest thing we have to someone with their head on
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 3: and like connected to their brain, and it's working.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: Well for the whole.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 5: Movie, which was nice.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not I feel like you.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 3: Need Margo to like justify how you, as an audience
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 3: member are feeling. And also like I thought it was
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 3: she was well written in that, like she wants to
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 3: believe her brother. It is reference that they are both
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 3: still actively grieving at their mom. She doesn't like Amy,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 3: but also her not like she says it at one point,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 3: She's like, just because I didn't like spending time with
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 3: Amy doesn't mean I wish you were dead, Like I
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 3: think she has like a pretty reasoned take on stuff
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 3: and is the one crucially I think princess you said earlier,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 3: like who is constantly like this relationship with Emily Radakowski
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 3: is fucked up. This is fucked up what you were doing.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 3: It's creepy, It grows, it echoes things that your father
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 3: did that hurt you, Like what the fuck is wrong
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 3: with you? And you're having sex with her when the
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 3: eyes of the world are on you, like you are
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 3: out of your fucking mind? And yeah, yeah, I just
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 3: like Margo. I guess that that's what I have to say.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 4: Same, I love her too, Same, I'm rooting for her.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 3: And the very like cynical ending where Tyler Perry, you know,
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 3: like Billy Flynn he's like, well, I'm catching a playing
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 3: out of here. Uh, and you know the cars pull away,
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 3: which echoes Chicago to be it echoes Ititanya where it's
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 3: like the caravan moves on. Your moment is over and
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 3: now you have to live the rest of your life.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 3: And you know, Nick is like, well, what am I
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 3: supposed to do? And he's like, I don't know, like
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 3: get a book deal, do a lifetime movie and call
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 3: it a day, which, unfortunately, I think is something we
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 3: are watching play out in real time again right now
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 3: with Gypsy Rose Blanchard. It's like, I think that it's
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 3: important that movies like this exist, and I think it
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 3: also shows that it doesn't change very much, Like there's
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 3: very very little. I mean, the mediums change. This movie
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 3: doesn't touch social media at all, but the grind and
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 3: churning of like, well, capitalize on your moment and the spotlight,
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 3: no matter how creepy or horrific it is, because people.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: Are going to move on and you're to be left behind.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I don't know, that's sort of That's the
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 3: only thing in Amy's logic that I don't understand because
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 3: I'm like Amy, the caravan moves on, and then he
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 3: could probably quietly leave you at some point, right, But whatever, I.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 5: Think she's trusting that he's I think because again, we
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 5: don't believe that ben Affleck is from the gray state
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 5: of Missouri. But it's supposed to be this idea that
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 5: he's so salt of the earthman that he'll just never
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 5: leave his sheill that he'll be caught in. It's like
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 5: very heteronormative, toxic bullshit, which is like, you know, the
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 5: strengths are not okay, so it's possible. Doesn't think. There's
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 5: so many things working in Amy's favor that are fucked up,
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 5: and it's like the straight stop being okay is one
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 5: of them. Why privilege is the other one. But Nick
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 5: is one Reddit thread away from freedom, you know, just
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 5: got to get the details together.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he has to make his own escape plan, which
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 4: he's not nearly as capable of as Amy is. To
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 4: go back to Margo really quick. I also really liked
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 4: her and the fact that she was presented as this
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 4: very you know, like observant, level headed person with a
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 4: good brain. That worked, although there were a few times
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 4: where I wish she actually pushed back against Nick a
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 4: little more, where there's a scene where he's just been
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 4: interrogated by Detective Bonie. Again the character's name is Detective Bonie.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 4: You know, he got an earfull from I think his
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 4: mother in law. There's this like different He says something like,
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 4: I'm so sick of being picked apart by women. Oh
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 4: also because god, yeah, because Missy Pyle is in the yeah,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 4: as missus Nancy Grace.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 4: Right, And then she's you know, like accusing him of
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 4: murdering his wife on national television. So he's just like,
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 4: I'm so tired of being picked apart by women. And
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 4: he's like, I just need you to like listen to
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 4: me and not judge me, Margo, and she's like, Okay,
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 4: I will, And it's like, I don't know, Marco, you
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 4: should keep questioning everything your brother does.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I know.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 3: I feel like the way that I was able to
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 3: get into, like, as a clearly smart person, why is
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 3: Margo sticky around? I feel like I'm defending Gilliam Flynn
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 3: way more than I anticipated. But like the fact that
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 3: Margo does not seem to have a lot of people
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 3: in her life outside of her family. She's recently lost
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 3: her mom, her dad is fading, and she quote unquote
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 3: just got her brother back after he was in New
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 3: York for years. I feel like she's doing a lot
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 3: of mental gymnastics to preserve this relationship because she doesn't
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 3: have many, But I don't know.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: That was just how I read it.
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I see that interpretation.
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 3: Because he's also like he's being such an asshole. And
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 3: it's interesting which moments she chooses and which she doesn't,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 3: because it also feels like her anger with the Emorta
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 3: relationship is also motivated by the parallels that that shows
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 3: with their parents, So that does feel like an attack
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 3: on her as well in some ways, but other times
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 3: she kind of rolls over for him, and heways bold
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 3: of Missy Pyle to be like, I think the twins
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 3: are having sex.
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 5: Really, I know whoa whoa, And someone said sol recent
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 5: like twin sess and then I was like, oh my
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 5: god's and.
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 3: Adding the little detail that I feel like is reflective
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 3: of reality based on the Gone Girl in Vallejo incident,
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 3: is that like one.
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 2: Of the cops, which was who he was?
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 3: Who and what almost famous kid?
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 4: Oh fugit?
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Officer almost Famous is watching Nancy Grace consistently and
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 3: his investigation is informed by what she's peddling, and so
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 3: it's like this horrible circle.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: That it just felt like that was like a little detail.
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 3: That was a really smart comment on how you know,
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 3: media and oppressive police forces are often just working.
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 2: Hand in hand to get it wrong.
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 4: True.
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I loved how the female officer always had
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 5: something to drink in her hand. I love a hydrated woman.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, I had a list of this MOVIEE had really
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 3: good product placement. We saw diet coke, we saw aspirin
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 3: from CBS. We saw a king sized KitKat as a
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 3: sign of liberation. She's when she's doing the cool girl speech,
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 3: she's eating a king sized kit cat.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 4: And the implication that she's deliberately trying to like gain
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 4: weight to make her more unrecognizable because you see her
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 4: eat like a burger and a bunch of like drink
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 4: soda and eat the yell like candy bars and stuff
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 4: like that.
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 5: I think it's I think it's supposed to be like,
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 5: doesn't care about her weight anywere, because she talks about
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 5: like you're supposed to like eat hot dogs, but say
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 5: a size too. So I think she's like, He's like,
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 5: and now I'm gonna eat every single kit cat that
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 5: I didn't eat for five years of my marriage.
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 3: Right, it was like straights for not a and and
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 3: that like that's commented on later where I mean, if
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 3: we haven't really talked about it very much. But the
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 3: Neil Patrick Harris character, you know, did he deserve to
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 3: be murdered? No? What is true about what we've been
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 3: told about him when we meet him? I'm not sure
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 3: what we know about him is that he is a
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 3: very controlling person. Because when he meets her again and
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 3: you know, sort of takes her back, like quote unquote,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 3: he thinks he's taking her back when she's asking for
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 3: help and he says to her like, I need you
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 3: to be you again, And he's like I need you
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 3: to be cool girl again, because he's like, there's gym upstairs, lady.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 4: He buys your hairy yeah yeah clothes. And then yeah,
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 4: when you see her a couple of weeks later, she's
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 4: you know, blonde makeup on, you know, slim figure, et cetera.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 3: You know, I can't say I was sorry to see
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 3: him go, and like and then and Neil Patrick Carris
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 3: is really good. But I just want to quickly shout
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 3: out there is Duncan Spawn, which I feel like Ben
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 3: Affleck probably insisted on. It's it's Officer Bone or Detective
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 3: Bonie who's drinking a large She's holding out a large
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 3: styrophone dunks cup at the beginning of the movie, which
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 3: I think, again, I'm like, you're not in Missouri, You're
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 3: just not. You are in the suburbs of Boston, admitted.
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 3: Is this the movie that Ben Affleck refused to wear a.
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 2: Hat for? Okay, it is.
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 5: I love that everyone makes fun of him for that,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 5: But as a New Yorker, I would never wear a
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 5: Boston Red Sox hat. I would insist on it being
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 5: something else.
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 3: Well, and he also, I mean, Ben Affleck knows his audience.
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 3: But okay, I'm sorry, I just wanted to revisit this
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 3: because it's such a weird anecdote about this very serious movie.
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 3: Ben afflex refusal. Okay, I'm pulling this from the Things
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 3: dot com. Ben Afflex refusals to wear the Yankees hat
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 3: for the film Gone Girl did shut down the production
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 3: for four days.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 2: What that's obscene.
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 4: That's ridiculous.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 3: Wait, okay, I know why he refused.
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 2: Why did it?
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 3: Okay, Ben Affleck says in an interview with The Times,
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 3: I said, David, I love you, I would do anything
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 3: for you, but I will not wear a Yankees hat.
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 2: I just can't.
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 3: I can't wear it because it's going to become a thing. David,
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 3: I will never hear the end of it. I can't
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 3: do it.
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: And I couldn't put that hat on my head.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 3: And it's down production for four days. So okay, So
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 3: Ben and David are in an argument. Now they stop
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 3: talking to each other. So it's because the boys were fighting.
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 5: Man, no straw, no wonder they run the country are
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 5: the most broken.
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 3: I can't believe that, because I was like, did they
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 3: shoot it with the Yankees cat on that they had
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 3: to reshoot it? No, the boys were just fighting, and
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 3: so no one could work for four days because you
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 3: were like rare. Men are amazing leaders of the free world.
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 4: They're awesome. Millions of dollars while we're sharing a few
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 4: fun little tidbits like that shout out to the orange
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 4: cat that is the chillist cat in the world should
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 4: have been the star of the movie. As far as
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 4: I'm concerned, I think that's good. They were clearly not
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 4: dog people. They were cat people through and through Yeah,
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 4: I say that would love.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: One of Amy's.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 4: Anniversary clues that we see in a flashback is a
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 4: Pride and Prejudice reference, specifically a reference to Jane Bennett
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 4: guess who played Jane in Pride Prejudice two thousand and five.
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 3: That that's wonderful.
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 4: I love, and then a big barf peepe pooh pooh
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 4: to the line where Nick tells Amy that she has
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 4: a quote unquote world class vagina.
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 3: In front of the press, in front of a bunch
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 3: of journalists like seventh journalists.
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh god, I know.
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 3: I kept going back and forth with like, because that
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 3: proposal was also invented for the movie.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: And I was like, because I was like, would I
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 2: like that? Would No? I would not like that.
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 3: But look, I'm open to being told I have a
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 3: world class vagina, but like in private.
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, or in a good roast, you know, like
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 5: where it's where it's fitting.
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: No, I agree with you.
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 5: Jab. It was one of those moments where like I
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 5: am so weak that I was like, oh yes, and
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh wait, no, I forgot how the
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 5: rest of this movie.
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 3: Because again that's like Nick taking control of the narrative
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 3: and like Amy is left to I mean, and she's
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 3: happy about it, But I don't know. It's interesting. I
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 3: was like, did Rasamund Pike, who narrated the Gone Girl
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 3: audiobook this is for on my own time? Does anyone
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 3: else have anything else they would like to discuss about.
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: The movie Gone Girl? No, I'm good, I'm tapped out.
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 5: I think I'm so, I'm Gone Girl.
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 3: I'm I was here a woman now I'm Gone Girl.
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 3: So does this movie pass the Bechdel test?
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 3: He does a couple different ways. I'd be I honestly
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 3: wasn't keeping super close tabs on it, which just shows
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 3: how little that has to do with what the show
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 3: is about at this point. But Marco and the detective
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 3: speak many times we have what are we having?
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 4: Amy and Greta?
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think those are probably the primary two dynamics
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 3: that we have, Amy and Missy Pyle Nancy Grace, Like
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 3: there's there are I don't. I just don't care about
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 3: it for this one. Yeah, it doesn't seem very pro
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 3: But what about our metric, Well, you mean the nipple scale,
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 3: our scale where we rate the movie zero to five
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 3: nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 4: Wow, this is a tricky one because, as we've said,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 4: it's not like a feminist movie or like a movie
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 4: that feels especially empowering for women. But it is I
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 4: guess feminist in the sense that it shows a female
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 4: character that is a bad person, and it presents that unapologetically.
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 4: And as Gillian Flynn has said, like, feminism isn't just
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 4: girl power girl boss like woo, who you go girl?
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 4: It is acknowledging women and fems as fully formed people
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 4: who are capable of everything. And so that's the big
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 4: thing to appreciate about this movie for me, and I
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 4: also appreciate and not to hand it to a male filmmaker,
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 4: but I do appreciate that, you know, Gillian Flynn was
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 4: brought on to write the first draft of the script,
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 4: and generally, when that happens, it's understood that a professional
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 4: screenwriter will then come on and rewrite the script and
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 4: the you know, person who's the major creative voice behind
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 4: the story won't have much creative autonomy after that kind
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 4: of first draft.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 3: But which we've seen, I think the ones that hit
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 3: for me on the off the top of my head
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 3: where it's like stories allegedly about women that are swept
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 3: out from under a woman showrunners. Two HBO shows it
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 3: was like Big Little I Season two and The Idol
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 3: were both iragially like written and run by women. And
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 3: then at some point in the production the big man
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 3: in charge came in and was like, allow me, I've
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 3: got this, And what did those two things produce? Two
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 3: horrible seasons of television? That's total craps.
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so but Gillen Flynn stayed on board the
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 4: whole time. You know, Fincher was like, you've done a
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 4: great job, and he, by her account, seemed like he
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 4: respected her vision and was very encouraging of her writing
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 4: and her writing process and the various drafts that she wrote.
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 3: So I just don't cross him about the hat. Don't
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 3: cross this.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 4: He won't talk to you for four days. Yeah, mad, absurd,
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I don't know. I appreciate that it examines,
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 4: not super explicitly or closely sort of the like it
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 4: does examine like the media frenzy, uh when white woman
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 4: goes missing and is presumed dead and murdered. But you know,
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 4: I guess there are just there are other movies who
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 4: actually examined that more closely. From a like, Hey, why
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 4: is the though? Why are we so obsessed as a
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 4: society when a beautiful, rich white woman goes missing and
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 4: we care so little when pretty much anyone else is
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 4: presumed to be murdered? Kind of thing? But you know,
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 4: it does present that to some extent.
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 2: And I don't know.
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 4: I don't know what to give this as far as
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 4: the nipple rating goes, though, I know so it almost
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 4: doesn't feel I.
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 3: Must want to abstain.
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I know, I don't know. I don't know.
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 4: Can I pass? I'll give it look the cat, Yes,
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 4: I'll give it one cat, one orange cat.
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't really know. Uh, I feel like we
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 2: should try.
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 3: I don't know, Princess, do you have a rating in mind?
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna roll this D six and see what I
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 5: can and see what it says. What do the gods
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 5: think we should give this movie? Three nipples?
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: Okay?
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 5: I would say three and a half nipples sounds fair
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 5: because I think that if I had a critique it
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 5: as a film, I do think that it goes on
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 5: a wee bit longer. I feel like after she arrives
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 5: and I'm like, there's thirty more? Oh?
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 4: Was it thirty more minutes.
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 5: What are we doing here?
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 2: I was like, Yeah, it did drag a little bit.
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 5: And I do think that even though I understand it's
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 5: use of it, the aggressive use of fade to black,
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 5: it reminded me of in The Phantom Monace, where literally
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 5: Lucas uses every transition in Windows Media Maker, like swipe
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 5: this way, swipe that way. So for those two things,
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 5: and I also think that while it's a very very
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 5: good adaptation, I do agree with what Jamie said, it's
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 5: a little extra missing that I think adds a little
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 5: bit more nuanced to it, beyond the male anxiety. And
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 5: for that, I will say three and a half nipples
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 5: closed for but not quite Okay, Yeah, I was like
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 5: three three and a half.
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 3: I understand, like, and this doesn't account against the movie,
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 3: but a lot of people go to see this movie
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 3: and they take away the wrong message. That is not
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 3: a fault of the movie, but it feels so present
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 3: to the ugh twenty fourteen was a fucking time.
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 2: But I think that this movie does.
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 3: I mean, we shouldn't be afraid to acknowledge that women
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 3: abusers exist in the world, and Amy is an incredibly
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 3: cathartic character to watch, but she's still an abuse it.
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 3: There's all of these like two to five things need
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 3: to be true for you to engage with this movie,
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 3: and that's also true.
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 2: Of the world. I think it's well done.
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 3: I love that it's written and adapted by the same person,
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 3: and there's a very singular vision. The performances are amazing.
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 3: It is obviously it takes place in a very myopic,
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 3: white privileged world.
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 2: I don't fucking know.
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 3: I'm going three three. I give it one to Gilliam Flynn,
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 3: I give it one to Rosamund Pike, and give it
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 3: one to.
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 4: The cat Nice.
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 2: No, the Yankees hat?
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 4: Oh what hat? Does he end up wearing it with
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 4: some other Oh? Oh a Mets? Oh?
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 2: Still a New York team though, Yeah, it's because it's
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 2: the Yankees and the Red House have.
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 4: A more okay, yeah, oh my god sports rivalry.
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, he wasn't wrong.
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 3: I feel like David Fincher's being the weird one for
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 3: having a hissy fit about it for four days. I
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 3: think that that's the weirder thing.
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 2: Just they are like twelve New York teams. You don't
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 2: need it to be the.
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 3: Yankee if it was any other actor saying I can't
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 3: wear a Yankees hat, but like Ben Affleck is the
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 3: one that could. That's like, I think sophisticated dvaing on
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 3: his part, or just put him in a Missouri team hat.
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 3: Saint Louis. There's gotta be teams Cardinals.
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 5: I think.
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm a sporty.
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they're cool girls sports.
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 3: I et hot dogs and I know I drink beer,
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 3: and I watched the game I did Kitly you saw
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 3: me drink a beer last night.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 5: It's true.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not like Wow, I'm not like them whatever.
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 5: You wrote the book on hot dogs, so you really
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 5: are like the apex cool girl. Die?
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 2: What does that mean?
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 3: Give me five years, I'm gonna kill somebody.
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 4: Oh right, well, I guess if for anyone who's counting
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 4: or updating our Wikipedia, I'll also give it three nipples
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 4: and they're all going to the cat Princess. Thank you
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 4: so much for thank you so much. Where can people
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 4: check out your work, follow you online?
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 5: Etc? Oh my gosh. Well, first of all, thank you
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 5: so much for having me. Is always a pleasure to
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 5: talk to you, beautiful, beautiful humans. You can find me
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 5: on YouTube at Princess Weeks. I do YouTube videos about
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 5: all kinds of pop culture stuff. By the time this
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 5: podcast goes up, there'll be a video about how South
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 5: Park accidentally had a really good case study about what
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 5: mutual abuse is and is not, and I was just like, Wow,
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 5: why watch the lat of south Park for that? You
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 5: can find me there. I'm also on TikTok under I
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 5: think it's just my same name, Princess Weeks, where I
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 5: just talk about all the shows I'm watching and all
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 5: the people that I think are attractive. Very simple, elegant.
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 5: It work, yes, hashtag content, hashtag content.
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna quickly plug my letterboxed account, which I made
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 3: two days ago. It's My username is Jamie Alert and
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 3: you can follow me there.
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 5: I've been.
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 3: I was avoiding it because I was like, I don't
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 3: want another thing to check, But in a moment of weakness,
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 3: I decided I do want another thing to check. So
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 3: follow me on the thing and I'll check it, you know.
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 4: While you're at it. Follow me on letterbox. I think
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 4: my username is just Caitlin Durante.
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 5: And letter box you can follow the Bechdel Cast.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 3: The Damn Bechdel Cast.
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 4: We got all kinds of lists of the box there
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 4: and you can also follow us on mostly Instagram, kind
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 4: of Twitter, at Bechdel Cast and our Matreon.
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 2: The most important.
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 4: Place to go it is our Patreon where you get
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 4: two bonus episodes every month plus access to the back catalog.
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 4: It's five dollars a month and it's at patreon dot
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 4: com slash Bechtel Cast.
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 3: And with that you can get our merch at tebow
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 3: dot com slash the Bechdel Cast. And it's time for
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 3: these guns to get.
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 2: To girl, Girl, Bye Gone Bye.
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 4: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 4: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 4: by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 4: Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Volskrosenski. Our logo and merch
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 4: is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 4: Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 4: link tree slash Bechdel Cast