Latest / The Bechdel Cast / The Graduate

Transcript

The Graduate · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, listeners. Just a quick content warning for this episode
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: for rape allegations, because in the movie we're discussing today,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: a character falsely accuses another character of rape, and we
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: discussed that pretty extensively toward the middle of the episode,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: just so you were aware of that ahead of time.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Enjoy the episode. On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: if movies have women in um, are all their discussions
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism the patriarchy?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Zef invest start changing it with the Bechdel Cast. Hello Jamie,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: my old friend. I've come to talk with you again
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: so that we can pass the Bechdel test. And here's
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: to you, Mrs Becktel Cast. The fans love us more
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: than we can know. Whoa Mrs Becktel hast thoughts. I
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: love it? I have like I can't stop smiling. Yeah,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Mrs pectel Cast, that's new name of our show. Who
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: she married to herself? Wow? Oh my god, I love
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: that for her. Wow. That literally put like butterflies in
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: my stomach for some reason. I don't I don't know
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: what that wow? What would art? We would be? We
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: would be? Would it be Durante and Loft? Funkele or
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Loftus and Durrant Funcle. Durrant Funcle is a mouthful I'm
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: happy with. I would happily accept Loft Funcle jam Loft Funcle. Whoa,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Okay, that means you get two very
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: carry Fisher God, you're so lucky. Wait did Paul sign Wow?
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know about that. Yeah, it was a
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: well spoiler alert didn't end well because they got divorced.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know that much about it. I just know
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: that I am a Carrie Fisher's stand for life and
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Paul Simon horror feelings so him. Yeah, I think I'm
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: going to have to kill him. Nope, that's kidding anyway. Hello,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: my name is Kate Lynn drunk Funkle. Let's just both
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: be our guard Funcle. I think that that's Honestly, I'm
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: pretty and again like classic rockheads, please correct us, because
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I don't have a ton of my Honestly, I'm at
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: my dad's house right now and he was trying to
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: tell me about Simon and Garlf uncle and I just
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: could not be bothered. I was like, I'm busy, So
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: he probably could have supplemented this conversation, but Um, I'm
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: pretty sure Art Garl Funkele was like good vibes, less
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: talented maybe, and Paul Simon was like almost like Paul McCartney,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: like I'm this, I'm I'm very talented, and he was right,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: but he was an asshole one of those situations. So
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I feel like being of the Funkle variety, and I'm
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: sure our girlf uncle is super talented, but he just
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: had a good personality and people are like men are assholes,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: which brings us to at the time. Also, my name
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: is jam Loft Funkle and this is the battle cast,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: so I guess I'm Kate Kate Kate dr Funkele, I
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: like der Funkelen. Do you remember the guy Okay, this
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: is not passing the battle cast? Do remember that guy,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Brian Dunkelman. No, who's that? Okay, this is the worst
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: story ever. I'm falling asleep already. But he was like
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the original host of American Idol pre Ryan Seacrest. He
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: was like a host of maybe I don't remember like,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: but his name was Brian Dunkleman, and I just remember
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: him really well because he had a comedy album he
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: released and it was called American Dunkleman and that made
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: me laugh. I don't know what he was like, I
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: can't picture him, but I was like American Dunkleman. That's
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: hilarious as Kate dr Funkele or Jam Funcle. So what
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: the podcast about? So? This is the Bechtel Cast, in
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: we use a little something called the Bechtel Test, which
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: we simply use as a jumping off point. But that,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: of course, is a media metric created by queer cartoonist
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Alison Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test. There are
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: different versions of the test. The one that we use
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: is this two characters of a marginalized gender have to
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: have names, they have to speak to each other, and
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that conversation has to be about something other than a man.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: And ideally it's a sub stantial conversation. You know, it's
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: two or more lines of dialogue, and it is plot relevant.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Plot relevant. You say, yeah, okay, well a spoiler alert
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: not here, not in this one, Oh my god, aggressively
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: not so. But but that said, I think that this
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: is going to be a fascinating conversation. We've been getting
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: requests for this movie for some time, because I'm pretty
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: sure this podcast has been going on for as long
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: as this movie has been out, is that correct? Yeah?
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Decade decades, fifty five years correct? Um, Today we're covering
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: feminist masterpiece The Graduate. Oh my goodness, so much to
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: talk about. What is your history with The Graduate? The Graduate?
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: And I, Um, I definitely didn't see it before college.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I feel like I had to watch this as a
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: part of a film class or something. I will say
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I've never been a particular fan of this movie. I
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: mean I haven't seen it, and at least at least
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: since before we've been doing this show. I've never watched
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: it critically before. I just always have kind of been
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: like my recollection of my reaction to it was like,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: I really like and Bancroft, but this movie is boring
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: to me. Like I just didn't. I just thought it
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: was boring. And I thought that and and and in
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: my defense, I was right. I thought the lead character
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: was really boring. And then looking when you look at
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: it critically, you're like, well, he's a lot of things,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: but um, but I was just like, this is so
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: boring to me. I just didn't like it. But I
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: will say I am a big Mike Nichols fan. I
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: absolutely love Mike Nichols. He directed two of my favorite
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: movies ever, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf and Um The
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Bird Cage, and he's an icon. I really admire his
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: work Rest in Power. I know this is one of
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: his most famous movies, but it's just not one of
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: my favorite. And then rewatching it for this, I was like, what,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: this is kind of like a mine field for us,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: because obviously it's like you can't like leverage two values
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: against a movie like this. But I feel like it
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: really does open a lot of doors for discussion with
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: like how like young boomers were perceived when they were
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: coming of age, and like because we know how that
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: story ends, it's like it's it's just it's just it's interesting.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Much like Carrie Fisher and Paul Simon's marriage, it doesn't
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: end well, right, and so so looking back on it,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I think this will be a fun discussion. But yeah,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I will say still kind of just like even criticisms
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: aside of which I have, you know, plenty, I just
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: think it's kind of a boring movie. Caitlyn, what's your
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: history with this movie? I don't disagree. I saw it
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: in college, probably for the same reason. Either I had
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: to watch it for a film class or it was
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: just one of those things it's where it was like,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: it's a great American class, It's like I need to
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: have seen it. So I watched it probably when I
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: was like a freshman or sophomore, and I only watched
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: it that once. And I finally understood the reference that
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Wayne's World two makes at the end of that movie,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: because it's spoofs. You're talking high salutant brain stuff. Yeah exactly.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I now understand what Wayne's World
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: two had been spoofing all along, and so that was
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: my main connection to it, isn't it but heavily referenced
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: in American Pie as well, like Stiffler's Mom. Like I
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: feel like there's like Mrs Robinson references in regards to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Stiffler's Mom an American Pie another feminist classic. Obviously, I
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: don't remember if it right. I don't remember if it
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: is like directly referencing it or if it's just like
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: homage kind of thing. Couldn't I can't say, but um, yeah,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I mean this movie certainly has a major cultural influenced
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the whole like plastics thing, Like I kind of forgot
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: about that that. Yeah, like it's I mean, this movie
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: is super influential. I had a good time reading about
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: the production history and like sort of how because there's
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: just there's a lot of interesting production stuff going on
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: as well. Ultimately, yeah, this movie, uh is well, we'll
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: get into it in just a second. It's not my
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: fav really at all. I do feel like there's like interest.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of nice things to say at
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the beginning. I love Anne Bancroft, I love Katherine Ross,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I love Mike Nichols. I think the cinematography is interesting
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: at times and other times maybe not so much. So
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: maybe that wasn't nice. I think there's some interesting editing choices.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I think, yes, some of the montage. The montages are fun.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: You know what one thing I was thinking and I
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: was like, maybe is this ground zero for this trope.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Do you remember when we were like, for whatever reason,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: we did a couple of coming of age movies. They
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: were like me of age movies about young women swimming
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: pooling the swimming pool. At Yes, I had the same
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: thought that was this where the swimming pool like rich
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: kid goes into a swimming pool to really think about
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the fact that they're an adult. Now vibe is that?
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Do think maybe this movie pioneered that trope? Perhaps Wow,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: because it happens in what happens in eighth grade, it
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: happens in anything, It happens in Ladybird, it happens in
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: something else, not necessarily a rich it's not always a
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: rich person, but it happens that a person with a
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: pool's house. It's a white person going underwater to reflect
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: about their past, present in future. Now, what the hell
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: is that all about? I get I get it. It's
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: a metaphor. It's a metaphor um. But I was like,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: maybe this is the where it started. Could be question mark.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I don't we don't really know about many years that
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: came before this because we're just really young, so kind
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: of hard to say, um, what was happening? Yeah, but yeah,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I think this is like this is wild too, because
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it was like putting me in my my caffy act
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: cast bag of just like wanting to talk about second
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: wave feminism and like the you know, complicated politics of
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: second wave feminism and also this movie coming out before
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Roe V. Wade another. Just lots of things to discuss,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: so shall we get into it. Let's do it. Here's
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: the recap. We meet Ben Braddock played by Dustin Hoffman.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: He is returning to Los Angeles. Ever heard of it?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: He's twenty years old? Question mark, he's thirty years old. Okay.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I learned about this from at the time of scholarly
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: journal Wikipedia. That yeah, Dustin Hoffman was just shy of
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: his thirtieth birthday when filming this movie. There's six years apart,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and Bancroft was thirty five when this movie was shot.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: And Bancraft absolute fucking legend. The casting for this was
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: weird because it was like they clearly I feel the
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: makeup choices were to make her look older, But when
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Mike Nichols was given the opportunity to cast older actresses,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: he said no, And You're just like, but what I mean?
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I love a Bancraft. I feel like she is so
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: amazing in this role. But then like he could have
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: cast Ava Gardner and you're just like, so why not
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: do that? It boggles the mind. We can't ask. Oh,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: maybe it's because you know, there's a huge bias in
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Hollywood against older actors who are women. Maybe I totally yes,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: and I feel like it does. But it like speaks
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: to that moment specifically too, because I feel like now
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like a bit more of a reverse
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: where it's like I cannot think of many modern examples
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: of a younger actor, especially a woman being aged up.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like it happens in the reverse all the time,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and like your whole thing with like every woman needs
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: to look about thirty seven years old rule. Yeah, I
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: feel like Sandra Bullock, who is sixty or nearsick like
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: she's some age an icon, a legend, I mean, an
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: absolute icon. She's older than you would probably think she
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: might be, but I feel like she's still playing roles
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: for like forty year old women early four. Yeah, it
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: does feel like and this certainly wasn't, as far as
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I know, a thing in the sixties. I just thought
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: it was interesting that, like, there's obviously, I mean, in
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: the casting process, the writing process, a ton of sexism
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: at play here. But I just it was like it
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: was a it was a flavor of sexism I hadn't
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: seen in a while. I was like, wow, aging like
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: it almost feels like and I don't have I don't
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: this is my working through this in real time, but
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: like it feels like, Okay, well I I literally refused
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: to have an actor over forty on screen, but I
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: need a forty ish year old character, So let me
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: age up a woman in her mid thirties. And you're
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: just like so much work for what? Like it's just
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's all a lot of work. And to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: be clear, we're not saying that, like, you know, any
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: actor over forties should you know, like if if as
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: far as like cosmetic surgery goes orything is still look younger,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: like live your life. But I do feel like there
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: you can't ignore the fact that there is that pressure
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: now for anyways women aging. We can't have it. It's
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: against the law. It's immoral and illegal. Yeah it's not right.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Uh okay. So Ben Braddock is Dustin Hoffman. He is
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: returning to Los Angeles after finishing college. His parents are
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: throwing him a like welcome back party with all of
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: their family friends and none of his friends that are
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: his age. Anyway, I don't think he has any friends,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, which is well, we'll talk about that, but like, yeah,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't think I think that's one of
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: benjam means problems he doesn't have friends could be so
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: despite him doing very well in college, he expresses all
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: these anxieties and doubts. Shout out to the movie doubt
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: about thank you for that. Of course, he expresses all
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: these anxieties about his future. And that's when a family
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: friend is like plastics and Ben is like okay. Ben
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: gets away from the party and goes into his room
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: where Mrs Robinson played by and Bancroft. I've heard of her,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I've heard of her another family friend. She comes in
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: thinking it's the bathroom. They chat for a moment, and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: then she asks Ben to drive her home, which he
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: reluctantly does. She then invites him in to her house
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: under the pretense that she's scared to go in alone
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: in the dark. He reluctantly goes in. She's offering him
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: a drink. She's really trying to keep him there. We're
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: in a danger zone. Oh yeah, what is this top gun?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Because danger zone alert the way that I do pretty
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: clearly remember how I didn't remember the specifics, but I
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: remember like what happens towards the beginning of the movie, obviously,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: because that's where all the famous lines of the movie
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: are kind of in the first ten minutes, but it
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: does make the rest of the movie extremely difficult to
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: talk about because it starts with, well, let's let's get
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: to it, I suppose. So she's not taking no for
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: an answer. He's trying to leave, and then he's like,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Mrs Robinson, you're trying to seduce me, aren't you? And
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: she's like, no, I'm not. I mean I'll go hey,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: and then there's the shot of him like framed around
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: her leg and it's it's iconic but headless woman of
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Hollywood Hannon right exactly. So she denies trying to seduce him.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: But then and then she shows him a portrait of
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: her daughter, Elaine, who is close to his age. Is
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that a rich person thing? Or is this movie like
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Weirdo where they're like, yeah, I have a had a
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: painting commission of my daughter. It's in her bedroom. They're like,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: why don't I have a painting of myself in my
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: for It's it's interesting, I don't know what rich people
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: are are doing, Like, is that a sixties thing? Is
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that a rich people thing? Is that a pervert thing?
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: We don't know. We simply don't know. So Mrs Robinson
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: is all like, no, I'm not trying to seduce you,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: and then she does get naked in front of him.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Ben continues to be very uncomfortable and he runs out,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: but on his way out of the house, he runs
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: into Mr Robinson. Mrs Robinson's her husband, and he's like, Ben,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: you should relax, take go, load off, have a few flings.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Even you're young, get out there and fuck. Every adult
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: in this movie thinks Ben is so interesting, amazing, irresistible,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: and you're just like, I'm lost, I'm lost, what are
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: you talking about. It's so funny because I do think that, like,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: as I was watching this movie, it his character, which
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about, you know, but like his character scans
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: to me the way that like back in the day,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: boomers would talk about millennials, where it was like you're
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: just moving back in with your parents, you're so entitled,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: you're mooching off the blah blah blah, which was like
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: a fallacy. We were just um, you know, excluded from
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: ever being able to own property, but and suffocating under
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: our student loan debt. But sure we were lazy, came
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: of age during a recession, but that the boomers caused. Sure,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: but fine, but it just is funny because Ben is
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: doing the big that they would go on to say
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: that we were doing. But he's actually doing the thing.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: He's like just hanging out by the pool every day
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and doing anything. He's living this like I would say
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: it's hedonistic, but he's so boring that it's like, I
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: can't even call it that in good his life seems
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: creepy and boring. True. Well, yeah, I suppose let's continue.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Let's um. So Ben considers this and then jumps in
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the swimming pool and has one of those swimming pool
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: coming of age moments, which I guess causes him to
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: change his mind. Has in a scoopa suit, which is interesting. Yeah, right,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: I think the first Usually it's just a bathing suit,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: but for him, there's some equipment involved. He's rich. He
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: needed a whole breathing apparatus. Kind of funny. He needed
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: to sit down at the bottom at the bottom of
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: the pool for a long time and have a long
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: think about whether or not he was going to have
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: sex with Mrs Robinson. Yeah, that's how you that's how
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: you know he had to think about it. Sco Okay,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: this movie has its moments. I didn't hate Dustin Hoffman
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: falling into a pool in a scuba suit. There are
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: some funny satirical moments that I appreciated, I mean, Mike
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Nichols Man, but those were only very small punctuation marks
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: in an otherwise pretty insufferable movie. Anyway, Okay, So he
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: changes his mind and calls up Mrs Robinson and invites
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: her to the Taft Hotel where he is currently just
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: hanging out at. They get a room. He's nervous and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: she's like, is this your first time? And he's like,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: um no, oh my god. He has this like I mean,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: and I do feel like there's at least some self
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: awareness and commentary this. I want to believe that. Sometimes
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: it's very unclear, but like whenever he's like his masculinity
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: is questioned, he like like gets very angry, gets very angry,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: very upset, and I don't I don't like him. I
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: don't like him. I think he's so he's like, no,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I've fucked before. And then the lights go off and
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: this is the start of a secret affair that they have.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: We get a montage of mostly just him being boring,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: which I know is like I think the movie knows
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: he's like just kind of hanging out and being boring,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: but it's like it's just boring. But I think the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: movie is telegraphing to us, oh my gosh, look at
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: this poor, rich white kid with his college degree and
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: look how aimless he is. Don't you feel bad for him?
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, of course I don't, right, But
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: it's like, but that's all that's like in retrospect, to
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: like it is such a weird thing because I feel
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: like there's similar vibes that at least I've gotten from
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: like some Gen X teen movies, where it's like the
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: underlying messages like my parents like give me anything I want,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and I feel so suffocated when it's like when I
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: when you like fast forward to generations that like, well
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: that wouldn't be so bad, really what it? You know?
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Like it like rings super hollow and shitty in retros,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's like I know that we're he's I
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: just am like this character is unbelievably boring, to the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: point where when he gets to Berkeley and they're like,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: are you a like a rabble rouser? And You're like,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: are you kidding me? For the most boring man alive.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: He wishes he's literally just a garden variety stalker. Like, sorry, okay,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: so we get this montage. Also, meanwhile, his parents are
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: on his case about what he's doing with his life
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and how do you spend your time, Ben, But they're
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: also like, we get it. You should have a beer.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: You deserve it. You're awesome, you're amazing, But like, have
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: you thought about going to school? No? Okay, And it's
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: like these parents are absurdly chill, like everyone is rooting
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: for him so hard. Yeah, and I'm sort of like
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: kick him out. Truly. There's a moment where his dad
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: is like, get off your ass and go to grad school.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And then I'm over here like it is not worth
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the money right where it's like it's he's super privileged
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: that like that is and it's it's like heavily applied that,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: like he's not going to pay for grad school and
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: in the sixties, if mom, like why doesn't he just
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: what is he even doing? Do you whatever? I just
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: feel like it's it's fine to be, you know, I
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: get like twenty one aimless, don't know what you want
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: to do with your life? Fine, relatable, but you know,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: you gotta do something, you gotta do something like something
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: and just you have every privilege and the just do something.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Get into pottery, Ben, I don't know why I said pottery. Hey,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you know that's that's something. It's something. Okay. So he's
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: again just like lying in a in the pool most
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: of the time, and then Mr Robinson comes over at
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: some point and he's like, hey, my daughter Elaine will
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: be home from Berkeley soon. You should take her out. Ben.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Then I think a few months pass. The affair between
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Ben and Mrs Robinson is still going on. It's still secret.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: At one point Ben is like, hey, Mrs Robinson, can
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: we have a conversation for once, and then she tells
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: him about her unhappy marriage and how they only got
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: married because she got gregnant with their daughter Elaine. I
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: do kind of appreciate that she, I mean, the dynamics
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: of this relationship there's a lot to discuss, but like
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I do kind of she does seem to know that.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Intellectually he has a flop and and she's like, I
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: don't want to have conversations with you. I don't need
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: to know what's going on in your mind. D And
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, based on my appraisal of this character.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I know, I think that we're supposed to, like in
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: that moment, find her like a little cold. But I
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, what does he have to what does
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: he bringing to the table really, you know nothing? Yeah. Yeah.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: So then Ben jokes about taking a Lane out on
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: a date, but and then Mrs Robinson is like, don't
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: you freaking dare do that? And he's like, Okay, I
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: promise I'll never take her out on a date, not
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: after calling her a string of very mean things. And
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: then also he like does this weird little gaslighting, like uh,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: a little a little swoop, it's a little swoop of
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: gas where he does bring up he's like, oh what
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: why why don't I go out with your daughter? Like
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: and he's working with her. But then like two minutes
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: later he's like, I didn't even bring this up. I
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: was like, you fully brought it up. You sorry, that
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: like triggered my like bad relationship brain where I'm just
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: like you can't tell yes you did. He did, he
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: did bring it up. Both of these characters are so manipulative. Okay,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: So Ben is like, I promise I won't take your
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: daughter Elaine on a date, but then Ben's parents are
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: pressuring him to ask Elaine out, and he has no choice,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: so he takes Elane, who we finally meet on screen,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: played by Katherine Ross. We were like, oh my god,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Catherine, I love Stepford, I love Butch
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. So he takes her out
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: on a date, but he's an asshole about it, and
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: he takes her to this like kind of strip club
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: type place and she's like, what the funk, dude, and
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, I see your point. He makes her
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: cry and he assaulted dancer, and then he and then
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: he surprised kiss. I wouldn't even call that. I feel
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: like it was worse than a surprise kids, because she
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: was actively in the middle of being like I It
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't even just like, oh, there's a vibe and someone
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: kisses without checking in. It was like she was just crying,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Get me the funk out of here. I will not
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: stop crying. She just literally was like, I'm not going
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: to stop crying, right, and then he lunges at her.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that. I feel like it's it's
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: more severe than a surprise kiss, though, because you're just like,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: she's in the middle of telling you how what a
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: horrible time she's having with you. What if okay, maybe
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: there's a spectrum here. What if it's like an attack
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: kiss it kind of it? Like yeah, And it fully
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: works because Elaine's character, as we'll talk about, needs a
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: good therapist, and she makes no sense. Her choice is
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: to me, I just I worry about her character is
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: written in such a way that you're like, what, Elaine,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: what is going on in that head of yours? Oh?
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: My god, we simply cannot understand. Okay, So they start
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: having a nice time after he attacked kisses her. They
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: you know, have a little meal together, they're chatting, they're bonding,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: although we don't really hear their dialogue, so we don't
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: know what they're talking about, or what they have in common,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: or why they like each other, which is another huge
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: problem I have with this movie anyway, But we we
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: do hear Ben tell Elaine about an affair that he's
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: been having with an older, married woman, although he obviously
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: does not say that it's with her mother, you know,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: he says that she has a son. He just you know, lies, right,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: He also says, but don't worry it's over with this woman.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: And then he tells Elane that he really likes her
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: and they make plans to see each other again. But
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Mrs Robinson does not like this, and she tells Ben
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: to never see Elaine again, or else she will tell
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Elaine everything about her relationship with Ben. So Ben tells
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Elane first so that it comes out of his mouth,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: which upsets Elane and she screams at him to get
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: out no ship. One of the things that I find
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: just like absolutely mind boggling about this movie is that
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: you never get a scene. You never get a feel
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: for what Mrs Robinson and Elaine's relationship was like before
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Ben comes into the picture, and you even more mind bogglingly,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: don't get a good idea of what happens after instead
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: of getting any idea of like what which would even
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: if you're like in like sexist brain, like we need
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: to be focused on Ben at all times. That would
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: enrich his story to understand what's going on between the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: two of them, even if you're obsessed with him, it
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: makes more sense to instead of having these long shots
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: of him leering from the bushes, I just yeah, yeah,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: he literally just like inside of a plant to being
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: like what's going on over there? And it's like, God, God,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you boring criminal, you right, So he tells Elane the truth,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: but again she is very upset and she's like get out.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: And now he has lost both Mrs Robinson and Elaine.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: And then Elaine goes back to college at Berkeley Slash.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Ben watches her leave because this is the point of
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the story where he starts heavily stalking her. He drives
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: to Berkeley, he follows her around campus. He then moves
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: there so he can continue stalking her. He stalks her
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: all the way to the zoo, where Elaine meets up
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: with this guy Carl, who she's seeing boyfriend like. And
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: then Elaine comes over to Ben's place to confront him
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: about why he's there, and then she says, by the way,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: my mom told me that you raped her, and he's like, no,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: that's not what happened, and then they're kind of they're
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: arguing and things escalate and she screams, but then she
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: calms down and then she's like, I don't want you
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: to leave, and then she's also like I'm sorry I yelled,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: and like don't be there. Yeah, I mean the implications
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: of around like false rape allegations that that you're just
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: like very troubling. We'll circle back that. So then Elaine
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: shows back up to Ben's place in the middle of
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the night and she's like kiss me, and then he's like,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: will you marry me parentheses tomorrow and she's like, I might,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: but I'm confused. First of all, not not that she
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: should be breaking into his house, although at this point
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: you're like, I'm just completely lock Like at this point,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: who knows what's going on? She you know, she's she's
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: in his room. He rolls out of bed looking like
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: his breath is foul. I felt that kiss in my mouth.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, You're just like it's three in the morning,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: and this man's gonna taste like what yucky? Not good
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: is the answer? Not good? Whiskey and garbage bad. Yes,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: he does drink a lot of bourbon throughout the movie.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: So she's like, I mean it's a type of whiskey
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: and he so she's like, I might marry you, but
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: I'm confused, and he's like, don't be confused. We're getting married,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and then he continues to try to coerce her into
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: agreeing to marry him. But then Mr Robinson shows up
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and he is furious and he tells Ben to stay
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: away from his family. And then Ben finds out that
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Elaine left school to run off and marry Carl. So
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: then Ben goes on a wild good chase to find
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: her a k a. He continues to stock her up
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: the coast of California. He finds out the church that
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: they're getting married at, because she's getting married that day.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: The timeline also of this movie is absurd. Hard to say. Oh,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: we don't know they've only been on one date, for sure,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: that's what we know. That's the other thing. I'm like,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: how many dates have they been on? Because I think
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: it's no more than two. I couldn't. I couldn't tell
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: you what the second one was, unless her breaking into
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: his house or him stalking her at the zoo counts
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: as a second date. I just they go on the
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: first date to the like burlesque strip show type thing,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: and then I think maybe he's just about to pick
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: her up for a second date. Yeah, Mrs Robinson gets
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: in the car before he can even go on the
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: second date. Oh my gosh. And then he also charges
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: into her room while she's not wearing clothes and she's like, stop,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not dressed. And then he's like, I need to
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: tell you that I'm having sex with your mom. And
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: she's like but then she's like, oh no, you're like,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: oh my goodness, goodness, Elane Oka lane. So he out
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: of here. Elane. Yes. So he's driving to the church,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: but oh no, his car runs out of gas. So
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: he takes his like track and cross country skills and
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: runs the rest of the way. He burst into the church,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: he disrupts the wedding, and he in a lane, run
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: out and then get on a bus and then they
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: sit together on the bus. Wait, was this a big mistake?
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: And then yeah, the expressions on their face are kind
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: of like, oh what now I mean? And then that's
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: the end of the movie. For for all this movie's fault,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: that last shot is still kind of cool if you
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: forget everything else that happened, everything that happened before it true,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: but it's a cool it's a cool shot. Anyways. Uh,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: let's take a break, let's get out of here, and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: then we'll be back. Let's do it and we're back
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: all right. Before we get into this movie, let's talk
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: a little bit about the production. Let's talk a little
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: bit about the context of this movie. So this is
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: I feel like we're we're kind of in a very
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: different way. But in terms of like the structure of
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: this we're in kind of we're in a bit of
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: a carey situation, I would say, because this is a
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: movie that was adapted from a white male author by
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: two other white guys and also a white guy director,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: which is why perhaps the women are not are not
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: maybe making a lot of sense. No justice was done
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: for their characters, particularly with and like, I don't like
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: where Mrs Robinson's character goes, but she at least I
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: can sort of track where she's for like half of
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: the movie. Though for half of the movie, I understand
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: where her head is at. By the end, I'm just
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: like beats me. But anyways, Mike Nichols makes this movie
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: called Her Willingham and Buck Henry adapted. They have comedy backgrounds,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: so we're the funniest names I've ever heard called or
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Willingham and Buck Henry. Buck Henry is kind of an
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: icon in and also Mike Nichols and Buck Henry and
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Dustin Hoffman are all Jewish men, and this was like
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: a time where Jewish comedians were along with like mel
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Brooks who gets married to Anne Bancroft. It's all this,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: this whole whatever thing. It's a big moment for Jewish comedy.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: It's just not a big moment for writing women. But anyways,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I wanted to, you know, acknowledge that Dustin Hoffman and
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: fuck him. But he pointed out that he was surprised
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: that he was cast in the movie because he's Jewish,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and then he pointed out that the negative reviews of
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: this movie were often veiled and semitic. Yes, and like
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: commenting on the size of his nose and his kind
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: of like manner of speaking. So yeah, Worth acknowledging absolutely,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: and also that like this is just kind of you know,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know where she was, but Catherine Ross was like, yeah,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's hot enough to be my boyfriend,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: and you're like, okay, kind of iconic in a way.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: She does say that she's like, I think this love
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: scene will be disgusting, but maybe she's just anticipating how
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: disgusting and creepy Dustin Hoffmann is in real life an individual. Yeah,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: we don't know. Um So anyways, that's the background I
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: think what is more interesting to discuss is, and we've
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: sort of hinted at this already, the casting of Mrs
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: row Benson and Ben they are only six years apart
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: in age. There were a lot of actors who turned
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: down the role of Mrs Robinson and Elaine because of
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: kind of the nature of the story. This was like
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: considered to be a pretty risky material at the time,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Edgy and I guess whatever, just for acknowledgement, I guess
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: I don't really feel here nor there about it. But
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: like the concept of an older woman and a younger
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: man having a relationship in movies and having it be
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: explicitly sexual not really uh, something that was popularly discussed
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: and not a dynamic that was seen in movies very often.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Even today still you don't often see that absolutely And
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: it's like, I don't think that this movie is a
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: very good blueprint for it, but even like as a
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: topic of discussion was not one that was being had.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: And there was also like generationally like this movie you
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: like toward colleges, and that's like part of how it
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: became really popular was they were specifically targeting young coming
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: of age boomers basically, and you know, this movie is
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: like coming out right around the time of the sexual Revolution,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: is taking place in California, around the sexual Revolution. Setting
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: stuff in Berkeley is like very telling, and it's just
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: like a very interesting time to be said. And then
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: everyone said it was the greatest movie ever when it
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: came out, and then later even our our buddy Roger
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Ebert reflected on the movie. I think it was like
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: twenty years later and in the eighties and was like,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: you know what, maybe not my favorite after all. But
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: at the time it was supposed to be like, oh,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: this is like the boomer movie, the peak of cinema.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: It was the highest grossing movie of nineteen sixty seven,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: with a hundred and four point nine million dollars worldwide
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: at the box office, which adjusted for inflation, and these
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: are numbers, um it grossed eight hundred and fifty seven
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: million dollars. Okay, joker joker money, let's joker money. Yikes, Sorry,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: sorry for saying joker money. He's busy made more money
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: than I don't know, not number money, than millions, not
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: millions money, not millions money, kind of joker money, not
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: millions money, but unfair yardstick, because that's that's real. Comedy.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Um okay, jokey um so so okay, that's the history
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: of this film. Obviously very telling that the two main actors,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: like the movie treats them as what would you guess,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: like twenty years apart in age, when in reality they
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: were six years apart in age. The character Mrs Robinson says,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: I'm twice your age, and we know that he is
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: twenty about to turn twenty one, so she's she's supposed
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: to be as a character in her early forties. But again,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Dustin Hoffman, the actor was almost there and and Bancraft
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: was thirty five at the time of shooting. So yeah,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: not the age difference of the characters certainly doesn't happen,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: you know, is given kind of u Ben Platt and
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: dear Evan Hanson vibes where you're like, no, you are
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: not twenty years old. Give it a rest, okay, dook,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the movie. Yeah, so I will say
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: that again because I saw this for the first time
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: as someone I was around the age that Ben is
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: supposed to be when I saw this. This was in
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: like two thousand five or so when I watched this movie,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and I don't know if it's just that, uh, culturally,
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: I wasn't conditioned to notice very troubling coercive in stokersh behavior,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: or if I had just forgotten about it. But I
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: did not remember how much coercion and stalking and just
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: general creepiness there is in this movie because it's nearly NonStop.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: No one was talking about that in two thousand five.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: And I also think that, like it was still, like,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: you know, fifty plus years after this movie came out,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: like that was still like considered not completely inappropriate behavior
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: by a lot of people. Right, this is how you
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: romance someone. You exact gaslight them. You don't take note
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: for an answer, You push, push, push, you stock stock stock.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I mean that still happens in movies from the last
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: ten years, Like you know, it's not two Kaul because
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I definitely didn't clock this movie as anything but boring
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: when I first But I also feel like people still
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: when they talk about this movie are just like, Hey,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: isn't it kind of wild that this movie is about
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: a younger man and an older woman And isn't that
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: kind of like a little weird but also hot? And
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: that's the conversation about this movie. I kind of wonder
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: when the last time they watched it is because I
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: feel like when you do watch it, it's kind of
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: like undeniable that a lot of it is like I
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: don't know, but yeah, the the takeaway from this, I
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: feel like it almost and this is like kind of
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: thankfully not a popular term anymore, but like the cougar
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: relationship like this was I feel like a real big
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: like whatever pop culture like milestone for that. So okay,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: So just to start, like just to kind of track
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: their relationship, I kind of want to go chronologically because
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: going chronologically it's a disaster because from the beginning I
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: do as I do think that like I mean, Mrs
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Robinson's unquestionably like manipulative and coercive with him, whereas she
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: like knows that he is, you know, inexperienced, seems to
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: sort of pick him out as like Okay, I want
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: to have sex with this young man. It's not illegal.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Like it's not even the age gap that the issue.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: It's the power dynamics where and her approach she like
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: very again it's so she like calls out what's happening,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: and she is like, that's not what's happening right right,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: and then she literally traps him in her daughter's room,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: which we're also like, okay, Freudian nightmare, Um truly traps
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: him in her daughter's room and like takes her clothes.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, and even I mean not to have any
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: faith in the year nineteen seven. But if you reverse
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: those dynamics, I feel like it is clearly wrong even then.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: But it's framed here as like kind of funny and
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: kind of hot, which is like we've talked about that.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember what episode it was, but we're like,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: and now we're getting media that like challenges that idea
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: that like, men cannot possibly be the victims of assault
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: from from any agenda, but particularly from women because of
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: how women are perceived as less powerful. And it doesn't
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: matter what the power dynamics are, a man can't be
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: assaulted because that would be emasculating and all that stuff.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: It just feels like this movie, you know, it is
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: not inventing this concept, but certainly abiding by it. Yeah,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: she is like again just pushing, pushing, pushing, won't take
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: no for an answer. He is very visibly uncomfortable, But
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: like you said, I think his discomfort is more framed
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: as like a well this isn't no means yes thing
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: that and like it's not so much like you're exploiting
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: your power over me to manipulate me. It's more like
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I can't be doing this because you're a family friend
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: and what would my parents think? And that is like
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: more it seems where his discomfort is coming from. And
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: then a few scenes later he's like, well, your husband
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: told me I should go out there and fuck so
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: and you're available because you three yourself and me, Mrs Robinson,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: so let's do this, which like, okay, I get that,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: that's like supposed to be part of the like jokey
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: nous of the movie. Is like, oh, you know, because whatever, sure,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: but yeah, like yeah, the the way that And again
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: it's like I get that it's been fifty years, but
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: it's been to and I still struggle with that scene there.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: It's just like it is jarring to watch in a
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: modern context. And then what's what's interesting is like throughout
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: the movie, the power dynamics between them do shift pretty considerably,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't start there. Definitely, like Mrs Robinson has
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: the power of experience over him. She has the power
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: of you know, she's a friend of the family and
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: he doesn't want to be impolite to her sort of thing,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: like she does have the power during this first encounter,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: and she abuses that power during their first encounter. But
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: then pretty quickly it's almost like implied that like once
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: he's having sex, the power dynamic totally shifts in some way.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: It's not in every scene. It's complicated, and that scene
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: where they're you know, sharing and arguing with each other,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: like that's where I feel like it is like genuinely
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: murky and kind of like more of an interesting dynamic
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: to explore. But like he just gets so so cocky
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: right away. Is like he's having sex. The coerciveness of
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the first encounter like has no effect on him, and
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: he's just like immediately like I'm Mr Funck now blah
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: blah blah, like Mr fun it becomes and I'm just
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: having sex one time and then being like I'm never
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: going to get a job. You're like, what are you
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: talking about? I don't need to work. I'm Mr Fuck,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: I'm Mr funk. I have a job. It's being Mr
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: fuck And you're just like this is whatever he's he's
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: he's going through something and he's a he's a disaster,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: but the power dynamic does shift between them in a
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: way that it's like, I don't know, like truly some
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: moments in this movie, I was like, I know how
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I am interpreting this, but I'm not sure how audiences
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: at the time we're like there were certain because I
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: felt like, maybe I'm giving the movie too much credit
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: that the movie does seem aware in some moments. I
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: thought maybe, but then countering with Mrs Robinson's behavior later,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: maybe not that the movie does seem somewhat aware that
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Mrs Robinson is ultimately more trapped than Ben is, where
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: it's like, even though she has the power at the
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: beginning of the relationship, unquestionably, as time goes on, you
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: sort of learn more about like her background. She was
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: essentially like culturally forced into a marriage she didn't want.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: She was called truly forced out of her education, and
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: so she's already like four. I mean, she's a wealthy
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: white woman, and it seems like she came from privilege
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: if she was going to college in the sixties or
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: in the whatever fifties in the first place. But even
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: coming from considerable privilege, she's still very like trapped in
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: the American housewife experience, and it seems like there's very
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: little opportunity for her to get out of it, whereas
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: Ben will flop his way through life no problem, like
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: I have no doubt blopping his way around as Mr.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: Fuck I yea, But Okay, So I totally agree with you,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: and I think that that isn't a very that could
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: have been explored way more thoughtfully with her as someone
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: who is like trapped in this relationship, in this marriage
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: and is like looking for an out and maybe finds
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: one in this younger I that could be a very
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: interesting story and an interesting dynamic to explore. But the
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: movie frames her the way, because I want to examine
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: how the movie thinks of her and actually treats her
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: versus like how we want to talk about that too,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: because sometimes I'm like, there's a part in the middle
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: where I was like, Okay, the movie understands that, like
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: she's not a good person, but you can see, but
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: then by the end, she's like a fucking cartoon villain
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: and so you're just like right right, So it first
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: it feels like, and maybe this is just my interpretation,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: but when we first meet her, I think the movie
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: wants you to think that she's kind of this like
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: lonely desperate woman, and she's desperate because she's older and
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: her husband won't have sex with her, and that's why
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: she's an alcoholic. You're literally and bankropt, like what do
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: you what? And like and that we're supposed to like
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: not even empathize with her, but like sympathize with her.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: We're like, oh, this poor pathetic right, even though she
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: is like actively manipulating and coercing, we're supposed to be like, oh, well,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: that's just what pathetic people do, especially if you're like
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: an older woman. Um. Then when she finds out about
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: this blossoming relationship between Ben and her daughter, she pivots
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: and becomes well not even I don't know if it's
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: a pivot, but she basically just becomes this like jealous,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: shrewd type and then gets like scarier and scarier, and
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: the movie wants you to be like and the movie
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: frames her that way because it's like, I feel like,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: if you didn't stuff, like, you wouldn't put that scene
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: in Torrential Rain, if you didn't want her to come
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: off manic and like on the edge, like mascara dripping on,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: like making her look like scary, I mean, and that's
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's like truly for her character, like
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: the shark jump moment that like could have And again
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: you're like, it's the sixties. There's no fucking chance this
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: would have happened. And there's this whole argument for it's
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: so like whatever. The late sixties has this reputation of
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: being a sexual revolution, but if you look into it,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: it's a sexual revolution that generally benefited men, not to
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: say that women weren't having a good time, and we
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: love that for them, and they were like making huge
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: games that would lead to rev way and all this stuff,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: but net benefit mostly men um which classic outcome. Anyways,
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: there's a point where I wanted to believe because it's I.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: I also did not retain a lot of the specifics
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: of this movie. I remember like the main points. But
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: when she says like, don't date my daughter, you know,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: because of the time it came out, it's like, oh,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: I'm supposed to think that she's jealous of her own daughter,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: when that same reaction would have laid way more realistically
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: for me if she was like, don't date my daughter
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: because you're fucking weird, Because you're like Cepo, right, and
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: then you could have the movie play out not exactly
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: the same way, but like kind of similarly with her
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: feeling that way of like stay a funk away from
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: my daughter, stayed the funk away from my family, You
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: are stalking my daughter, right, But instead the movie is like, no,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: she's jealous, and she's jealous of her own daughter. And
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: sure she claims that she doesn't want Ben dating her
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: daughter because she thinks that he's not good enough for her,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: but that's clearly not how she's characterized as as being.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: She's like just this jealous woman who went from pathetic
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: to now she's scary and evil. It sucks. It's like
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: such lost potential in uh strong set up for a character,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Like there's so many issues you could have explored, but
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: it was like for you know, guys feeling around in
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: the dark for something they couldn't possibly understand, and then
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: it's really frustrating. And then the nail in the coffin
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: is when you find out that when Elaine goes to
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: Ben at the apartment that he's renting, because he's renting
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: that apartment so that he can more easily stalk Elaine
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: and she's like, by the way, my mom told me
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: that you raped her, and he sets the record straight because,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: to be fair, that is not what happened. But then
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: you have this situation now where Mrs Robinson lied about
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: having been assaulted, which statistically rarely does not happen, happen
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: that often at all in real life, but because of
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: this culture we live in and this perception that oh,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: when a woman or any survivor of rape or any
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: kind of sexual assault comes forward and and says that
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: this has happened, she's lying, and that's just popularly believed
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: to be true. So yeah, let's let's unpack that because
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: that I did not remember that at all either, and
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: it is barely called Like okay, So first of all,
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: the baseline is horrific because it's that she lies about assault, which,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: as you said, and as there's been a bitillion studies
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: like that barely happens, and this is presenting it very
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: matter of factly as like, well, yeah, she's a liar,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: and and in this case that is canonically true. So
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: that's like again, just like you're like, okay, this movie
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: has a very low opinion of Mrs Robinson, which is
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: wild because there are more like it was just driving
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: me up a wall, because it's like, there are moments
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: where it feels like you start with like you should
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: feel bad for this woman. Then there's a moment in
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: like the middle where it's like, oh, you could actually
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: empathize with this character, and then she turned while the evil.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: It's impossible to track, and I feel like I get
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: so attached to those moments where you can really empathize
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: with her, and it makes the back half of the
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: movie just impossible. I mean, the whole movie is impossible.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: For the back half of the movie in particular, they're
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: just like what is happening? Um? But on top of that, like,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: so she tells her family, does she tell her her
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: husband that he also assaulted her, or because her husband
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: says that he's divorcing her. I'm like, is he divorcing
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: her because he thinks she was raped? Or was she
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: honest with him and lied to her daughter. I couldn't tell.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think we know for sure, which is a
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: very weird thing to not tell. These things need to
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: be clear, Yeah, I feel like those conversations should have
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: happened on screen or something that like, yeah, we need
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: more clarity. There. We should see the Robinson's outside of
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Ben at any time, and I don't think it takes
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: away from like and you're just walking around, Like I
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: don't need to watch Ben's stock someone for five minutes.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: I can safely assume that's probably what he's doing. It's
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: all I've seen him do. And but yeah, it's like
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what she had told her husband, which
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: feels like really important information to not know. I don't
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: really see the like narrative upside of not knowing. And
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: then with I know, we haven't even finished the Mrs
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: Robinson conversation. But with Elaine it gets even more confusing
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: because she understandably like her mother told her I was
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: raped by Ben. Elaine has no reason to disbelieve, like
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: she has no reason to disbelieve her mother. So she
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: goes to see Ben very upset and confused. Also, I
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: don't know why she's going to see him, but she does. Well,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: she goes to confront him, like why are you here?
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Is it because I'm here? And then he's like yep,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: He's like yeah, I love you. And then she's like, well,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: you know, my mom told me that you assaulted her.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: And then he doesn't even like offend himself, really, he
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: just she screams because she's I mean understood, she's fucking
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: confused and upset. And then the landlord shows up and
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: it's like, Ben, you have to leave, which like fair, yeah,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: get he's he's like, something's not right about you, and
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, you're You're right the landlord. And I
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: can't believe I'm about to say this, but the landlord
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: is the hero of this movie. It's just that that's muddled.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: It's it's that messy. But like so the landlord kicks about,
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: but like I really can't trace what's going through her head,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: Like she sees him get kicked out, does perceive it
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: as like, oh, it's my fault. He's getting evicted because
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: I screamed because I fully believed two minutes ago that
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: he assaulted my mother. But then by the time the
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: door closes, she apologizes. And it's never explicitly stated that
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: she no longer believes her mom, but all of her
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: actions indicate that, for some reason, watching him get a
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: did made her no longer believe her mother's rape allegations.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, he does kind of lay out the events
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: of what we saw happen on screen, which I guess
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: we are to believe that that is what happened. So
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: he's like, no, I she came on to me and
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah. But then yeah, Elaine just automatically believes
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: him and then feels bad that his landlord is yelling
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: at him. And then she's like, well, I guess we
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: can get married now, I'll consider it. And that's married.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: It's like it's again, and this is like I don't
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: even like having to entertain this situation, but this is
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: a moment where like, if that is what the story
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: wants to happen, you have to know what her relationship
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: with her mom is like, like has her mom behaved
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: deceptively towards her before? Is there any reason that she
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: would be inclined to believe ben like a vague acquaintance
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: over her own mom? Right, does her mom have a
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: habit of lying and manipulating her? Does she know that
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: her mom is cheated on her dad in the past,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: Like is there a certain either way you're The message
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven is like, don't believe women with
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: rape allegations, and and like that's just like a flop
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: from the start like it's a nonstarter, but you you're
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: given no information on like why her own daughter would
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: believe this, Like and I and I do think that
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: that like speaks to the I don't even know. It's
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: it's so confusing because whatever we weren't there. It's like
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: that could I guess I'll say it's like that could
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: speak to the cultural moment of like how prevalent believing
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: men over women was at that time. That's not hard
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: to believe. But even so, we're in fucking Berkeley, California
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven. She is a college student. You know,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: it's like she's in the middle of second wave feminism,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: and I'm supposed to believe that in the space of
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: a scene she believes some guy she barely knows over
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: her mom when she's like kind of in this like
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: hotbed of second wave feminism, Like, I just don't buy it.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know some guy who she has been on
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: one point one dates with, Like that was bad and
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: most of it was her crying. It's just so I mean,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: it's like the fact that rape allegations were brought into this,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: it was just like so unnecessary truly complicates things. Immensely
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: makes Mrs Robinson even more of a villain than we
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: already were to believe she was, and then makes a
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Lane just seem like a character without two brain cells
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: to rub together, like right, which I mean, let's take
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: a break and then come back and try to make
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: sense of this, and we're back one more thing about this,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: because yeah, I mean, I hope we're not coming off
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: as like sounding like overly dismissive. It's just like it's
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: really hard to talk about this plot point because it's
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: like it's just so absurd in the way it's presented
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: that it's hard to take seriously. It's because the character's
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: behavior are just making no sense, and ultimately, I just
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: I feel like my takeaway from that and the absurdity
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: of how it's presented and the absurdity of how all
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: the characters evolved react is it's almost presented like it's
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: a throwaway thing, Like it's a throwaway plot point, which
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: is something that for the most part, like I've no
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: longer happens in media because rape is not a throwaway
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: plat point. But we you know, this is the sixties
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: and this is a time where you could show rape
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: on screen and presented as romantic. This is a time
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: that you know, culturally in the US marital rape was legal.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Like there there's just there's a lot, there's a lot.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: But this movie is just like I think it's interesting
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: for a movie that was presented as like cutting edge,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: progressive to introduce a plot point like this and unintroduced
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: so abruptly, really speaks to like how how glad I am?
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: I wasn't alive then I don't, right, because this moment
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: in the movie is basically just presented as an obstacle
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: to keep Ben and Elaine apart, because now Ben's desire
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: is to be with Elaine, so now the movie has
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: to present obstacles for them not to be able to
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: be together. And one of these obstacles is this false
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: allegation that I think we're meant to believe Mrs Robinson
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: makes because she again is so jealous that he has
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: chosen her daughter over her, that she's gonna do whatever
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: it takes to keep them apart, because that's just how
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: jealous and shrewdy she is. Like that's what we're supposed
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: to believe, is an audience, Yeah, And I's like it's like, well,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: let me know if figure with this. It feels like
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of the time like his stocking behavior is
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: presented as like, well, they're forcing his hand. What is
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: he supposed to do? They won't let him be with her,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: they won't let him see her, so he has to stalk.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: He has no Yeah, what choices he left with? And
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: he's like, she doesn't want to be with you like
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: she had, She's been in another relationship for months. It's
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: implied like Carl of God, Ultimately, what happens to Carl,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Probably he does a lot of damage on Wall Street
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: is my guess. But Carl, I mean, you do feel
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: for Car for a single for a single second, because
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: he doesn't get whacked with a cross and he thinks
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: he's at his wedding. Horrible day for horrible day for Car,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: just left at the altar, but kind of like assaulted
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: by the altar. I haven't seen it before. Uh, just
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: like the injury for Carl. But also he sucks. Yeah,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: I don't feel bad for Carl. Just Elaine needs to
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: get out. Okay, So let's talk about Elanes choices, yes,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: and how they simply do not track at all. We've
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: already touched on some of them. But she is written
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: in such a way that she just makes whatever decision
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: needs to be made so that Ben can get what
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: he wants. No choices she makes. No her changing her
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: mind about something is ever prompted by anything that makes sense,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: like after months of stalking her, which she calls out
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: and it's like, why are you here? Is it because
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: of me? And he admits to it, and then that
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: is something that she's like, well, okay, it is not
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: like now that I know you, you must be in
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: love with me. If you're if you went through all
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: the lengths to come here and stalk me, like, that
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: must mean you really like me and and and that's
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: cool and I like that and and so now I'm
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: going to consider marrying you. And then when they go
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: from like being on bad terms to her coming around
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: for again reasons that make no sense, he starts coercing
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: her into marriage and he's like, let's go get our
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: blood test, let's do this tomorrow. But but like what
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: you've been on one date and to the point where
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: it but at this point it's interest because it's like
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: originally again it is very like the classic I'm going
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: to wear her down thing, because at first it seems
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: like she explicitly does not want to be stalked. She's
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: very upset about it. She believes that he has assaulted
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: her mother, Like yeah, he's the last person she wants around.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: But then because she believes him over her mom for
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: reasons we don't understand, and reasons that are not we're
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: not meant to understand. It's supposed to be like implicit
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: for some reason, because oh well, Ben's a lead character
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: and Mrs Robinson is a woman of her forties, so
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: she's evil, like that's why. But by the end of
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: the Stocking behavior, the behavior hasn't changed. She just likes
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: it now and it's like funny to her now and
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: she's like, oh I could I could marry someone else
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And but it's weird because it's like
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: she still seems annoyed with him, but it's like, but
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: now it's like it's flirty stock You're like she jokes
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: about it, she says, so he's like following her around
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: everywhere she's going on campus, saying marry me, marry me,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: marry me. It's like the part of the arrest of development,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: marry me, Like can you just like can you, Like, literally,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: I feel like I sound like such a boomer. We'rene
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: but I'm like, get a josh, like, what are you doing? So,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: oh my god. He's trying to coerce her into agreeing
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: to marry him tomorrow. And it's not just like can
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: we get married some days, He's like, let's do this tomorrow.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: And then she says, as a kind of a joke,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: why don't you drag me off if you want to
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: marry me so bad? And he says maybe I will.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: Like now they're joking about right there, he's been stalking her,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: and and then she's like, well, okay, I might marry you,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: but I have to talk to Carl first, because I
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: also told him that I might marry him. So this
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: is just a female character written by men who has
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: written in such a way that she will just agree
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: to marry any guy that enters her life. So I
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: have questions about that again, and I think that I'm
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, okay, that's oversimplification. But again I was going
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: into like Jamie Headcannon world of like what if a
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: woman had been involved in a second of the writing process,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: and and what what what mysteries could have been unlocked?
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: I am curious how aware the movie is. I mean,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna operate from a baseline of note based
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: on this entire discussion. But I do think it is
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: interesting and kind of telling that it doesn't appear that
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: anyone in the movie recognizes that the daughter is making
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: her fate is similar to her mom's to the point where, like,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, she's not she's she's not forced out of
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: her education because she's gregnant. She almost opts out of
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: her education to get married, which was a very real
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: pressure then. And I also feel like you do get
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: a little bit of class commentary. Point of university is
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: to find a suitable husband. Rose already has that, and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: that was fifty years five years before this, And but like,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: and I do think that there is, like, whether it's
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: like superintended or not, some class commentary there of like,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: you know, rich women only go to college so that
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: they can find a suit, you know, they can marry
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: a rich man. There is a level. And I think
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: that that's why the parents are so invested in, Like
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: it seems creepy because it is, but like the parents
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: are very invested in these two rich kids marrying each
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: other to like maintain class and like that's a very
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: real thing. This movie might be sort of aware of that.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: But I just wondered because it's like, it does seem
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: like Elaine is like her fate will be similar to
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: Mrs Robinson's, Like, and I do think the movie acknowledges that,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: especially based on how very at the very end, yeah, exactly,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: where like after that initial excitement wears off where they're like,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: t he I just ran away from a wedding and
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: we got on a bus and she's like, wait a second,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: who are you there? Their faces drop and yeah, I
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: think they're both realizing like this horrible mistake that they've made.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: And I would hope especially Elaine is like, what did
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: I do? It was not a mistake for her to
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: run away from her wedding with Carl, because also she
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: definitely should have done that anyway. But I just hope
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: she's like, can you drop you off at Berkeley? Please?
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: I have to finish my bachelor's degree right what a
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: wild weekend? Um, please bring me back to school. Um. Yeah,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: Because it's like I do I totally agree. Where it's
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: like it's one of the most famous parts of this
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: movie is that they clearly realized that they've made a
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: mistake at the end, But I guess I'm more questioning
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: the specific of like does she realize it is similar
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: to what happened to her mother specifically, I'm here, you
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: know that one interaction, the one interaction you see these
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: two women have is Mrs Robinson yelling like she's fucking Jaffar.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: Like she's like, it's too late, like you know, oh yeah,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: like Ursula, name any sissy renaissance villain. The sun has set,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: and she's like reas into a big gass octopus, like
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: it's very villainous. It's too late, it's not a loving
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: it's too late. And then Elaine says not for me,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, but your but you're you're tacitly agreeing
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: to marry the biggest loser you've ever met, which is
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: what Mrs Robinson had to do. But she but I mean,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: she had fewer choices than Elane, and it's like, a Lane,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: what are you doing? Like Mrs Robinson. It's heavily implied
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: in the scene that I think she's presented most empathetically
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: and has the most self awareness around women's issues for
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: her generation. Was like she got pregnant, and the options
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: are sorry, what word did you say? She was heavy
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: with greg? Thank you? She got she got grant it
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: in the car, so she gets gregnit in the car.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: And her options societally are Mary big greg or you know,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: live in shame, and like, there are very few options
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: available to her that she can't have an abortion, certainly
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: at that time, she can't not legally, not legally, and
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: and even if she were able to access abortion as
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: a fairly privileged woman there, you know, you would carry
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: that stigma throughout your life. And like, I do feel
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: like the movie presents how she was given no choice
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: and kind of like pushed into this loveless marriage, which
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: does make you more empathetic for like, she wants to
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: feel seen and validated physically because she and her husband
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: are not a good sexual match, but she's stuck with him,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: and like, that is a really interesting story to present,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: and like a really interesting generational conflict to present. But
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: then it just totally dropped, Like I just drop That
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: scene is so interesting to me because it completely drops
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: to the point where I don't even know why they bothered,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: you know, like and then and then it's it's as
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: if the movie says, well, yeah, of course this wasn't
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: going to be sustainable. And when a more age appropriate
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: woman comes along in a lane, well obviously that's going
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: to be a better match. But because we barely see
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: Ben and Eline interact, we don't know why they're into
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: each other. Most of their interactions are wholly negative, right,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: and like what do they have in come? There's that
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: scene where there's like a car full of loud people
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: next to them and they're like shut up, and then
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: so they like I kind of thought that was like
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: funny that they did that, but that I was also like,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: just like I guess then like Ben puts the convertible
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: top on his car, it's the sound of silence, Caitlins.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: But rather than us hearing the conversation between Ben and
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: Elane then and give the audience a chance to be
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: informed about, you know, what they might have in common
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: or what why they're into each other, we don't hear
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: their dialogue and we just continue to hear the loud
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: teena angers in the car next to them, and it's
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: like it's because and also like it's I'm not even
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: you know whatever. We're not asking that these women be perfect, no,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: absolutely not, and it's not even you know, it's by
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: no means off the table to have a child make
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: the same mistake that their parents made and not realize
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: that's something that happens pretty frequently. It is like a
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: topic that's worth exploring. But it just like seems like
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: the movie like it doesn't even really register that that's
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: what they know, that Elaine is making a mistake and
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: that being with Ben is a mistake, and that Ben
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: is my interpretation of Ben's behaviors. He basically asks her
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: like he does get like forced into taking her on
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: a date, but then I feel like he keeps pushing
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: it almost as revenge against Mrs Robinson more than out
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: of a genuine love for Elaine, which you would think
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: would outrage Mrs Robinson on the basis of her daughter's
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: life is going be fucked up. But no, it's out
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: of you know, strikeful revenge, you know, over for what
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: for Mr? Fuck From I don't think so. Yeah, the
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: satire is present, but it's not clear enough, And it
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: would be more clear if we got more interaction or
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: really any interactions between Elaine and her mother right in,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: like some kind of awareness around like the amount of
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: stuff that could have been cleared up in the space
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: of a few scenes with them will never know because
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: it's like it is, right. It would be interesting to
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: see this movie from Elaine's perspective because it's really hard
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: to connect the dots. Here's a joke that I've been
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to wedge into the story
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: that isn't going to land. But don't be so sure.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: What if that's what Swiss Family Robinson is about. We
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: get the perspective, and I don't know what that is.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: Thought's just fairly know what it is. Either it's it
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: was a show maybe, or maybe it was a movie.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It was some media. I was thinking
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: of Little Debbie Swiss rolls Swiss Robinson. I want to
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: say it was a show in some decade about this
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: family who like Swiss. I think they got shipwrecked. I
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: want to say they were probably Swiss, but I don't remember.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: They got shipwrecked on an island and then they like
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: built this whole like jungle gym and like out of treehouses.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: It's just like a treehouse situation. I might not be
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: remembering this correctly. Let me just do a quick google.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: What you're saying kind of reminds me of something different.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: But the box Car Children remember them? Yeah, yeah, sure.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: Swiss family Robinson is in nineteen sixty film okay about
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: oh yeah. When their ship gets damaged on route to
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: New Guinea, they take refuge on a deserted island, and
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: the Robinson's lived to learn in the wild, and they
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: have various adventures and build an impressive house in a tree. Okay,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: that sounds kind of fun. However, while island life is
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: full excitement, the question of whether to return to civilization
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: looms interesting. Okay, let's that. Did you ever read Box
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: Car Children? Um, I don't know that I ever did.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: I feel like those books were on my shelf as
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: a kid, but I don't know if I ever picked
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: them up and read them. I liked them, but I
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: do remember if I'm bars Car Children had sound off.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: If you remember, my memory was I was disappointed because
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: the first they're like orphans, and through some sort of
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: series of unfortunate events, let's say, they do have to
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: live in a box car temporarily. But I went into
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: the series because there's like a million of them, the books,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: not children. I went into them being like, oh, this
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: is gonna they're gonna always they're at the box car children.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: They're gonna keep living in the box car. They're gonna
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: travel from place to place. They only live in the
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: box car for the first book. Oh well, I mean
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: that's good for them. I think it's good for them.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: But you were like, I want to know about these
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: box car children living in these in this box car
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: for the rest of their dayn lives. I was just
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: more interested in where the box car was going to go.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: I thought it was gonna be sort of like a
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: little travel kind of adventure. They'd go from place to
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: place in the box car. It's just not how this
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: that's not The series went in a different direction, and
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: I can I can respect that sure that that happens anyway.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: The female characters in this movie are written in a
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: way that's very frustrating, pretty inscrutable. Their choices make no
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: sense in the case of a Lane or they go
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: from athetic to evil in the case of Mrs Robinson.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: And with Ben, I feel like we've called we've addressed
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: most of his behavior. I think the thing that we
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: have not gotten around too that I was truly I
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: did not remember it at all, and I was struck
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: was when he told his parents that he was getting
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: married to Elaine and then slowly was like, but I
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: haven't asked her and doesn't know, and she doesn't like me,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: by the way, and it's tomorrow and now I'm taking
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: your car to stock her in Berkeley, and you're just like,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: oh my god, to the point where I was like, well,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: at least the parents also seem completely confused as to
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: what the funk is going on. But the parents are
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: also like so so supportive of whatever their weirdo son
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: wants to do that they don't whatever. I just it does.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: It does give me gen x, Like you understand, Mom. Meanwhile,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: Mom is like in love with you, would do anything
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: for you, would die for you, and You're just like
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: you're stifling me. I'm like, oh my god, she literally
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: just bought you a car, but you a car. She
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: didn't make you get a job, Like what what are you? God?
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling like a real auntie right now. Okay, um,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: but that scene just absolutely blew my mind. And I
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: know that that scene is supposed to be funny, which
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: I did laugh, but it was because I was nervous
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: because I'm afraid of him. I'm afraid of the character
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: Ben Pp or whatever his name is. Did he freaks
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: me out. He makes me really uncomfortable. Um yeah, okay tookey.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: A scene that I did genuinely laugh at was one
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: of the many times Ben is floating in the pool
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: at his house. He can't stop, he can't stop, won't stop.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: His dad, Kendall, comes up and he's like, you can't
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: just be floating in the pool all the time, son,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: you gotta go out there and make something of yourself.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: And then he's like, I want to bet. And his
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: dad's like, are you gonna go to graduate school or what?
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: And Ben says either like no or I don't know.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: And then his dad is like, well, then would you
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: mind telling me what those four years of college, what
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: all that hard work was for? And then Ben's like
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: you got me, And I'm like, ha ha. That is
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: funny because it's like college is a scam, and there
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: are moments where you're like this movie feed like is
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: not completely unself aware like they. It does make a
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: couple of points about like whatever, like the aimlessness of
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: rich kids. I feel like is at some point in
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: the movie feels pretty cogent. But then it, you know
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: under I mean I don't know. I mean maybe that
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: does sort of come through throughout because by the end,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: you're just like, oh, Ben has made yet another selfish,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: reckless rich boy decision by like doing this, but we
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: are supposed to be rooting for him, but I do that,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: Like I feel like that got like a percentage of
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: the way there, because he is a privileged, aimless fuco
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: who doesn't know what he wants and will flop his
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: way through life. And like again, which is like they
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: start to explore it, but like things don't make enough
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: sense for you to really be able to explore that
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: topic with any sort of thoroughness or effectiveness. But I
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: guess you do, you do. I guess to the movie's credit,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: you do get the vibe that it's like this person
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: has so much privilege that they literally don't know what
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: to do with it, and they're just making reckless decisions
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: that are hurting other people. Um, he has no understanding
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: of other people. He has really no interest in other people.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: And I do feel like the movie is at least
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: aware of that. Um, he's a very very selfish person.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: And it's like, I don't even think this movie is bad.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: But I just I just I just think it's like
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: so up its own butt in a weird way, Like
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: I just don't it's so of its time that I
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: get it's really hard to interact with. Right, there were
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of things where I'm like, yeah, Lane is
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: just agreeing to marry any guy who goes on one
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: date with her. But I'm like, is that just how
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: it was in the sixties, Like maybe there I feel
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: like there is a way that you could acknowledge that,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: Like there's a way that if that is a because
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: I do like that definitely was a pressure that existed
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: in the sixties. And maybe if that's asking too much
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: of a movie, because it's like, if you were watching
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: it in the time it came out, you would have
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: just known that, so that is completely possible. But I
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: just I don't know. Maybe I have this complete misunderstanding
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: of Central California in the nine but it was like
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: not making sense to me. If this happened in like Idaho,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: it would make more sense to me than if it
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: was happening in like this hotbed of activism. It just
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: like wasn't. But also it's like I think that you
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: very well may be right it's like if you were
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: if you were there, you would know like people. I mean,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: I know people like I know that my mom had
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: friends who dropped out of college to get married. Like there.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: You know, It's definitely was a thing throughout most of
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: the twentieth century. I just don't understand why. I just
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: don't think we know Elaine well enough to have the
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: context for why it's happening for her slash at all.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: We don't know her really at all. No, do we
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: know what she's we don't mean, to be fair, we
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: also don't know what Ben majored in. That is true,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. Maybe and maybe the message there
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: is like your education is pointless, which not completely wrong.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: Um So, I mean I'm pro education, to be clear,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: I'm just anti why does it cost sixty dollars a
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: year to go to school? And I'm also uh anti
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: I'm against yeah, overpriced education for things that you could
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: just learn for free or something. Well, it's just I mean,
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: I'm god whatever, Like my Alma matter offers a comedy major,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: which I think is straight up the financial exploitation. You
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: do not need to pay two dollars to go to
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: an open mic. Famously you have to pay like, you know,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: twelve dollars at the beginning, because they do make you,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: you know, have two narrow ganthets or whatever. But like
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: get a fun whatever that's not but you know, get
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: a degree for things you need degrees for, certainly not
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University, though I was,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: you know, most of the arts you could probably skip
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: it um or you know, go to in affordable university. Okay,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a little bit the I think that,
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: like the last topic I wanted to discuss was Mrs
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: Robinson's sexuality and how it is presented and the ups
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: the downs, the in betweens because we we've sort of,
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: I mean we we had no choice but to really
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: get into the weeds as to like what the characters
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: are thinking, and I do. I will fully acknowledge to
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: any of our listeners who are older than us that
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: there might be generational things that we are missing here. Absolutely,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: But I also think that there's just a lot of
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: stuff in this A lot of the women's specifically motivations
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: don't make a ton of sense, even if the realities
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: of the era are true, Like there's no need to
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: vilify Mrs Robinson with no context whatsoever. There's no reason
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: to not show the mother and the daughter's relationship. There's
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: no reason that we don't know what Mrs Robinson told
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: her husband. Like the movie just doesn't really have interest
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: in many facets of its women. But I do want
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: to discuss it because for a character, not an actor,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: that for a character that's over forty and a woman,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: I feel like it was edgy at the time to
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: even present her as sexually viable. Certainly, and again that's
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: going to be a double edged situation because her sexuality
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: is it is like presented as like it's clear that
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: like Ben desires her. There's no doubt that, like they
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: are attracted to each other physically. He's like like he says,
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: I find you the most attractive of all of my parents,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: parents friends. So he has to like put a little
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: kind of a funny line, like you know, terms and
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: conditions on it. I do think that is kind of
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: a funny line. But like, yeah, I I feel like
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: we've talked about so many movies where women past whatever
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: age it is for the era it's coming out, and
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: their bodies past a certain age are grotesque and scary,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: often used for horror and all and all this stuff
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: that is not how Mrs Robinson's body is you. She
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: is presented as a very viable, desirable woman, but then
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: there also are these moments where we're supposed to feel
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: badly for her. But it's weird. I feel like I
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: do like the core idea of like a movie in
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: the late sixties presenting a woman over the age of
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: like thirty who's like married and like cheating on her
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: husband and like all the stuff you didn't see very often,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: and still presenting her as like this sexy, complicated person
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of the movie. But but again, it
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: like is kind of a zero sum game because of
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: how coercive she is at the top, and then how
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: villain is she is, And so there's just like there's
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: twenty minutes where I'm like really rooting for her, right
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: and and if you're if you're able to see pasted
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: the way the movie wants you to look at her
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: and just kind of in which I think you can
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: totally and you know, that's how I'm reading the movie,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: but right it's it's so limited. And then she turns
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: into like a sea witch. She literally it's it's too late.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: I think that is what Earth said. It is literally
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: it's too and then yeah, and then Elaine turns back
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: into a mermaid. It's a whole thing. But no, I
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: I agree that it's it's you know, not nothing. That
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: this is a movie, at least in part, about a relationship,
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: a sexual relationship between an older woman and a younger man,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: and one that is not because we've examined many relationships
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: in movies on the podcast where it's like illegal or like,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: don't even get me started about liquorice, pizza, you know,
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: but um, this one, it's certainly I think society would
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: consider it taboo because she's like old enough to be
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: his mom. But he is a full adult, a young adult.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: You know, he's only twenty or twenty one, but you
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: know he's he's able to make his own choices as
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: a legal adult. So yeah, it's not even it's not
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: the age gap that troubles me. It's it's all about
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: her approach to entering this relationship with him. And but
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: so if if the movie eliminated that, which I wish
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: it would have, if it was just about a woman
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: who yeah, like I'm trapped in this marriage, in this
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: sexless marriage with a man who doesn't desire me, or
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: appreciate me, or love me, or you know, any of
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: the things that you want out of a relationship. I
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: am seeking love and affection and validation elsewhere like this
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: is a very relatable thing for a lot of people,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: or even like I am seeking a no strength attached
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: sexual relationship. Also fine, right, right? Could have been. Then
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: it's like, I feel like there's an alternate version of
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: this movie where they're like, I just feel like they're
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: sexual experience, even in like the traditional like tropes of
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: sexual experience doesn't track where it's like you would I think,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: and it does. I mean, we don't have proof that
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: Mrs Robinson has done this before, but I feel like
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: we're supposed to believe that she's been cheating on her
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: husband for sometime with certainly within the realm of possibilities. Yeah,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: she's more she's way more experienced than he is. So
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: the fact that she's the one that ends up getting
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: jealous and it's not like him. And again, this is
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: not a universal experience, but if like it's often portrayed,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: and I don't know it was, it was my experience.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: I know, it's some people's experience that like the first
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: person that you have sex with sometimes like you have
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: you developed a attachment to that you want a relationship
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: with them. It would like the dynamics like don't even
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: makes sense a track very well, right, and now it's
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: just so this could have been a story that is
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: just far more empathetic to the women in the narrative
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: and just like more thoughtful and interesting. But instead it
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: just like leans into the trope of older women are
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: desperate and pathetic and if they want sex, then look,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: that's scary and evil beware, which the movie feels differently
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: about at different times. It's very confusing. By the end,
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: it's like she's evil to have ever wanted sex. But
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: then oh, pp like even can I can I unfortunately
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: share a Roger Eber quote? But I do think it's
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: an interesting one. Yeah please? So he I referenced this earlier.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: I have the quote now, So he like praised the
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: hell out of this movie when it came out in
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties seven, then he covered it again in nineteen
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: nine seven, what the year Titanic came out. I know,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: don't you have anything better to do? Watch Titanic? Watch Titanic,
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: but but I thought his reflection was interesting. So here
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: it is, um quote. It comes out at a specific
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: time in the late nineteen sixties when parents stood for
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: stodgy middle class values and the kids were joyous rebels
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: at the cutting edge of the sexual and political revolutions. Today,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: looking at the graduate, I see Benjamin not as an
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: admirable rebel, but as a self centered creep who's put
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: downs of adults are tiresome. To know that the movie
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: once spoke strongly to a generation is to understand how
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: deep the generation gap ran during that extraordinary time in
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: the late nineteen sixties. Unquote, So you know, a moment
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: of clarity from our old friend Roger. I think that
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: was a pretty thoughtful reflection. And also the the other
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: thing that's like left out of this movie that you
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: would think would be but like just historically, you're like,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: why is like the war not being discussed at all,
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: like all this stuff that like it it was such
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: a politically charged time, and it does give the movie
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: like the illusion of timelessness, but it does feel like
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: there's these huge context holes that aren't there that you
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: would think would be on a twenty one year old mind,
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: Like I just for a movie that's supposed to be
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: about like this radical generation, it is like pretty outside
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: of the class commentary, pretty like a political and its
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: views like it's not really saying when people thought it was.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know, or maybe it was saying
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: something at the time and it no longer scans for
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: modern audiences. I don't really know. I just know that
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a baffling watch for me same. I
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: just can't be asked to sympathize with an extremely privileged
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: like white man who is a stalker and a creep.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: But again, it's like unfortunately not the last, not the
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: first or the last character that we've been asked to
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: make that leap of faith with it, and then people
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: at the time we're happy to do it. It's just
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: fucking Joker money els. I mean, I don't want to
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: talk about Joker, not today. Um. Look, I love Catherine Ross.
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't know. Did you know that she's
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: married to Sam Elliott? I did know that, But that's
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: one of those things I learned and then I forget,
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: and then I learned it again like a year later,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: and I really like her. Um, okay, joke. Do you
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: have anything else you wanted to touch on? I don't
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: believe so, okay, So this movie does not pass the
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: bucketle test. I don't think, um, that one interaction between
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: the two of them, But I think that Ben is
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: so heavily the subtext of that, and marriage to a
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: man is so heavily the subtext of the ursula aerial
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: interaction that I don't count it. Can you refer to
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: that scene that you're talking about, because I don't even
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: remember an interaction between them. I know there's a scene
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: where they're like in the same house. It's at the wedding.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's the last interaction before Elaine
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: and Ben run away. It's um, Mrs Robinson grabs Elaine's arm,
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: says it's too late, Elaine says, not for me, and
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: then Mrs Robinson starts hitting her. Do you remember now? Yeah?
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: Very cool? Um, So that definitely, And the only other
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: time women are in the same room is at the parties.
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: And then I don't even think we know, like what
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: Ben's mom's name, and we don't know who those people are.
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: We never see them again, and they are all talking
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: about Ben yeah, Like, do we even know what Mrs
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: Robinson's first name is? Like I want to just check
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: to see it. We know you don't. You never find
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: out what her first name is. It's it's all Mr
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: and miss it. Yeah, I'm I mean, I'm not inclined
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: to give this movie any leeway or benefit of the doubt.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: It doesn't it doesn't pass. Everyone's talking about Benjamin all
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: the time, and it's exhausting. And with that in mind,
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: let's let's pivot over to our metric. The nipples scales
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: zero to five nipples based on looking at the movie
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: through an intersectional feminist lens. Um gonna give this movie.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: I will give it a half nipple, Okay, And I'll
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: give it that instead of zero nipples, because I do
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: think it was a cool choice to tell a story
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: and you know, adapt a major motion picture which would
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: become the highest grossing movie of that year, a story
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: about a kind of like taboo subject in an older
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: woman and a younger man. And you can make an
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: argument that it is not appropriate or like the age
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: gap is too big, you can make an argument that
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: it is not. It's it's fine because they're both legal,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: consenting adults. I understand kind of both sides, not to
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: be a centrist over here, but um ok, Mr Biden,
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: thanks for your insight. But I appreciate any any story
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: that is willing to explore kind of like a cultural
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: taboo around that, especially when older women's sexuality is so
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: often demonized and made to seem grotesque and horrific and scary,
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: which this movie ultimately does to some extent. But there's
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: that interesting twenty minutes where where I think maybe it
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: and then it's right. But but the president had been
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: set of her being so pushy and coercive that you
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: kind of did see that going in that direction. But
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: I so I appreciate this movie, you know, exploring that topic.
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: It mishandles it, and it mishandles everything else, and it
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: asks us to, you know, root for a character who
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: spends the back half of the movie doing nothing but
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: stalking his love interest, the front half of the movie
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: being the most boring man alive, like sitting around in
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: a pool all day, just lapping up his luxurious life.
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: But I agree with you. I do agree with you
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: that it's like this movie is tackling a topic that
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: no one else was tackling in a major movie, especially successfully.
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: So it's a real bumber then it bumb Yeah, so
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: I'll give it half interesting that an attempt was made, right,
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: So I'll give it a half to bolt for that.
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: It's also an extraordinarily white movie. Um, we're in fu
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: California during Like, it's just it's it's absurd that it's
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: as what it so, Yeah, one half nipple and I'll
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: give it. I'll split it between and Bancroft and Catherine Ross.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: I'll meet you there. I think half a nipple. Uh,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: you know, an attempt was made, and I do like
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: that the movie gives you more information about Mrs Robinson's
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: backstory than anyone else in the movie, including Ben, but
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: then leverages that against her for the remainder of the
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: movie for reasons that are absolutely baffling to me. Um,
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: I yeah, I mean we we've we've talked about it
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: quite a bit. I feel like there's just like there's
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of interesting potential in this movie that I
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: didn't just go nowhere, just completely undercut where it could
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: have gone. So I yeah, ultimately very bummed out by
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: most of the creative choices in this movie. I love
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: and Bancroft I love Katherine Ross. Their characters deserved better,
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: Their characters deserved to talk to each other, and maybe
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: even makes sense, so I'll split it between them as well.
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: I don't see myself watching this movie again. Nope. Well
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: to you, Mrs loft Funcle. Here's to you, Mrs der
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: Funkele Jesus loves you more you will know. Oh my goodness,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: thank you so much. Um yeah, so that's the graduate. Um. Sorry, sorry,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: if you're mad again, argue with the wall. We're right kid,
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: yea hey, give us a little follow on Twitter and Instagram.
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: At Bachtelcast, you can scoot on over to our Patreon
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: on a k a Matreon at patreon dot com slash
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: becktel Cast, where you'll get to bonus episodes every single month,
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: plus the entire back catalog of well over one hundred
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: bonus episodes that you can't find anywhere else. And right
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: now it's Jamie's birthday. Months and what are we gonna do?
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: None of your business, I guess I always have to
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: tune in and find out we're gonna have some fun.
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: We're gonna have some fun. I can't wait. And you
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: can check out our merch of few, so please at
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: t public dot com, slash the Bechtel cast and with that, Kaitlin,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: do you want to get on a municipal bus with
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: me and have some regrets? I would love to, Jamie,
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do Do Do? Hello? Darkness movie a
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: dir Funcle classic. Love it alright, Bye bye bye