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Transcript

Blue Crush with Melody Kamali · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women and them are all their discussions just boyfriends and
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zeph and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: bast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Hey Caitlin, Yeah, oh not much.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Hey Jamie, do you wanna do you want to catch
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: some perfect waves? Air waves that is to release our
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: podcast on.
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: I would love that, And that's how surfer's talk. I think, honestly,
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: so much of what I know about surfer culture does
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: not come from Blue crosh It comes from the cartoon
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: Rocket Power. That was what I was just going for,
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: is I know, I don't think you would have grown
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: with you, and it is my life's mission to catch
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: you up on cartoons you've missed. Rocket Power was a
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: nicktoon and I think the late nineties early two thousands
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: that was about a bunch of surf kids on Venice Beach.
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: I think it was Venice Beach. They're definitely in California,
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: and they had this like kind of burnout dad named Ray,
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: who I think probably wouldn't have taken the vaccine, like
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: that sort of surfer dad vibe. It was like a
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: very weird, funny, diverse cartoon about surfer kids. And the
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: best part was anytime there were like tourists on the beach,
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: they would call them shoe bees. I don't know that.
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: I can't explain, but they'd be like shoe bees and
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: they all talked like that because it was a cartoon. Okay, anyways,
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name's Jamie Loftus.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: My name is Caitlin Dorante. This is our podcast where
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Bechdel Test as a jumping off point. But Jamie, what
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: is that?
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: Well? The Bechdel Test is a metric created by queer
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: cartoonist slash our best friend, Alison Bechdel back in the
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: eighties in her iconic comic on a Comic Likes to
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: Watch out For. Originally written as a joke, often called
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: the Bechdel Wallace Test because it was co created with
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: her friend Liz Wallace, but it has since been sort
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: of adapted to be a mainstream media metric. The version
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: of the test that we use requires that two characters
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: with names of a marginalized gender talk to each other
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: about something other than a man, and it should be
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: a meaningful exchange of dialogue.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: And it's especially relevant for today's episode because again, the
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: origins of the test, as we mentioned from time to time,
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: is that it was presented in Dikes to watch out
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: for as this way for characters in the comic to
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: be like, Wow, anytime I see women on screen in
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: a movie talking to each other about something other than
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: a man, I can pretend like they're in love with
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: each other.
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: Because boy, does that happen with this movie?
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Yes, hey, yes, so that is our show. Today's movie
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: is Blue Crush.
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: Long time request, long, long time requests. This has been
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: a long time coming.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, and we have a wonderful guest joining us today.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Let's get her in the mix. She is a writer,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: comedian host. You've seen her at the New York Comedy
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: Festival and shows. It's Stonewall, It's Melody Kmalie Hei.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Hello, welcome, Helloha, even what yeah, how are you? Thanks
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: for blue crashing with us today?
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me. I think I talked to Caitlin
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: about this movie years ago, asking if it had been done,
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: and I'm so excited that she reached out knowing that
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: I'm this is the movie that did launch like a
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: thousand trips to pacsun of course, like in the early aughts,
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: but also my queer awakening. But I'm also kind of
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: mad at you guys for having me rewatch this like
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: with a critical eye, because it's just.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, well get it kind of ruins it. It
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: kind of ruins it. Sorry for asking you to think
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: too hard about blue Crush. That is sometimes that's a
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: very common experience on this show. You've been buckdle casted. Sorry.
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't want to think. I just want to
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: vibe like girls. But yeah, this is gonna be fun.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: There's so much to talk about. The highs or high,
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: the lows are low with this one.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: I think just like waves, just like tides.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: Have any have either of you ever attempted to serve
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: I have not?
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: No, yes, because of this movie.
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: Excellent? How did it go?
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: No? No, I didn't have the core strength. It was
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: a chubby little teenager sixteen. I had this DVD. I
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: got it as a gift. My friends all knew. I
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: was like really into surf culture, not like gay culture,
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: like my friends were like Melody's weirdly obsessed with this movie.
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: I was gifted the DVD freshman or sophomore year of
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: high school, and then we had a family vacation to Hawaii.
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: I grew up in central Connecticut. I was so yeah,
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: I signed I made a point to sign up for
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: a lesson. It was humiliating, I got up once, I think,
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: But it was really for the pictures, Like I have
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: a bunch of disposable, underwater water proof pictures of me
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: like with my arms, my hands on my hips, just
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: posing in front of like a display of all these surfboards.
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: I'm wearing a hurly tank top, I believe, and just
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: you know, like decked out, just so phony about it.
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: But it's fun.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: I can like picture the very specific digital camera grain
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: that is almost certainly on these pitches. So great, So
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: what a what a moment?
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: And then herly like like Roxy Quicksilver Billabong owe that
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: I was buying and wearing as a teen, even though
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what they were full.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: Like I didn't know, yeah, landlocked teenagers like walking around
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: in board shorts for at all.
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: This really this is a long form ad for Billabong,
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: and you know it works. It worked well, it.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: Did, it did. There's so there's so much to get
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: into the thing that I this is silly objectively, but
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: I did not realize that this movie was based on
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: a Susan Orlean article, and my like inner dork was
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: really I was like, Wow, Susan Orlean really had like
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: a grip on culture at this specific time, because this
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: is also the same year that adaptation comes out. Yes,
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: she's literally a character in that. You wouldn't guess by
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: watching this movie that it was originally based on reporting.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: I guess I would say, but I just thought that
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: was fascinating. What is Wait, there's like one other thing
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: that she wrote that got adapted, and then she wrote
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: on John Wilson's show a couple of years ago, which
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: is really Yeah, she's cool. If anyone hasn't read Susan
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: Orlean's stuff, my favorite book of hers is well, they're
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: all good. But her first book is called Saturday Night
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: and it was written in the nineties and it was
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: just about her following a bunch of real people's stories
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: in New York on a Saturday night in like nineteen
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: ninety six, and it's just this beautiful long form like
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: every different kind of person you could meet in New
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: York and what they did on this specific night. It's
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: such a vibe. I recommend it.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: So melody your relationship with the movie. You saw it
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: as a teen and it was part of your queer awakening.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: Any other notable Well.
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: Just you know, my DVD player broke a long time ago,
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: and I hadn't seen it for a really long time.
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: I do always like quote it when I'm at the beach.
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: I realized, like it is when you and I go
• 8:11
  Speaker 5: to the queer beach here in New York, Reace Beach,
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: the People's beach they call it. It's like a super
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: great queer beach. And I was like splashing around in
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: the water last summer and said to my friend, like,
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: we grew here, you flew here like because we saw
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: straight people, like a straight couple walking along the shoreline,
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: and we're like, oh my god, this was a lesbian.
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: Of course I said this too, and then I just
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: heard like other lesbians in the water cheer and point
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: at me like ocarage, like it is such like touchstone
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: in the community. And we went home and we watched it.
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: But again, we had some nutcrackers at the beach. If
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: we know what these are, and I don't know if
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: it's happens outside of New York nutcrackers. It's like people
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: selling like juice with like rail liquor. They just like
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: walk around like the parks and the beaches here in
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: the city. So all that to say, like when I
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: did rewatch it for the first time in like a
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: decade last summer, I was a little drunk. So now
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: I'm rewatching it and you're sober.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: You've got a critical lens.
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, thinking cap on. Yeah, it is an adaptation. I
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: remember it had a lot of buzz. What was it
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: like summer two thousand and twenty two or three, because
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: it was the twenty year anniversary.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: Summer twenty two, so.
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: There were a lot of like articles going around and
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: interviews with Kate Bosworth and like Vulture. So around that
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: time I read those interviews and was just so bummed
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: about the movie it could have been. It is wildly
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: different from the It's like an adaptation of an adaptation.
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: The director came on and like completely changed the script.
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: It was originally supposed to be a lot closer to
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: the article. It was supposed to be all about, you know,
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: female friendship. I think the Anne Marie character was supposed
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: to go to the Mainland for college. They said it
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: was inspired by Mystic Pizza, the original script and about
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: those female friendship dynamics and well the friendship's last and
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: all of that, and I'm just like so upset that
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: I not upset. I still love the movie, but it's
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: crazy reading about the original script. But they did also
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: say there's they are all on board for a sequel
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: every time there's an interview with any of those girls,
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: So Kate Bosward has made a point to be like,
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: I really wanted to be more about the girls and
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: their friendship, So like, maybe that'll happen and everyone will
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: be happy.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: One can helpe. Yeah, there's a guy named Matt in
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: the movie for some reason, and we're like, just mattre.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: At a waste.
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, legally blonde villain.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the boyfriend the ex boyfriend from Legally Blonde.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's not I get it. He's
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: got to work, but get him out of the movie.
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: He's got to get out.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: I know. They're a surf instructor in the actual article
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: that the surfer girls learned from is named Matt. So
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: it's like, thanks, they named the orderback man.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: Thanks. Why is he a quarterback that at Yeah there,
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: Well we'll talk about this was this is an egregious offense. Yeah,
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: because also having read and there's also I mean, there's
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: so much to talk about of like centering a white
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: character in a movie about Hawaii, Oh my god, which
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: is like name a more two thousand and two choice there. Yeah,
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: but the fact that like if you read the original
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: Susan Orlean piece, which does center white girls, unfortunately, like
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: you're saying, like the original piece is so much about
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: like friendship and ambition, and it sounds like way closer
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: to the original script and way closer to the movie
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: that we actually wanted in two thousand and two and now, Yeah,
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: it sucks a.
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: Lot of community too, is about community the article, and
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: they just feel so isolated, like everyone's mean to them.
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: It's them versus everyone, and it's supposed to be like
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: the tight knit surf community on the island.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but I ever, yeah, you know, many such cases
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: for sure.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: But you know, Fast and Furious had come out, so
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: they needed to use Michelle, and I think that's why
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: it got such a shift in the rewrite.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, So a lot of people when Fast and
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Furious came out, they were like this is just point break,
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: but with cars instead of surfing.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: So so just a little and.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: That's fine actually, But to do like movie release math equations,
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: I guess it would be point Break minus Fast and
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: the Furious equals blue Crush. Does that resonate with anyone anyway, Jamie, I.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: See what you're saying. I see what you're I see
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: the vision. Thank you, thank you. I'll work on it.
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: I'm riding that wave.
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: I'm right, okay, Jamie.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: What is your history with this movie?
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: My history with this movie is, of course I saw
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: it at a sleepover. I saw it at a sleepover,
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: which is how to best consume this movie. See at
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: a sleepover in two thousand and four. Yeah, I I
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: think like a similar like they're They're definitely was. This
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: isn't like a seminal awakening movie for me, but it's
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: definitely there. And rewatching it now, I'm like, I'm surprised
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: it didn't play a bigger part. I I don't know,
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: I don't know what it is, but either way, yes,
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: I was. I was very into this movie. I'd seen
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: it many times, but I hadn't seen it in easily
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: ten fifteen years, I think, before getting ready for this record,
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: and I did remember, even as a kid being like Matt,
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: who cares? You know, like Matt, we're not interested, like
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: you are. I sort of forgot that he was in
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: it much less the fact that they like really bend
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: over backwards.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: To be like, and he's a quarterback from out of town,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: because I feel like the internal logic there is very
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: studio notes of like, well, we don't want Kate Bosworth
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: to end up with someone in her own community.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: God forbid, it's got to be a white guy with
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: a lot of money from out of town. And it's like, no,
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: it doesn't. But I digress. We got plenty of time
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: to talk about it. Yeah, no, I this was just
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: like in the Sleepover rotation. I was a fan, and
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: I had never thought about it critically for a second
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: in my life untill now. And boy, oh boy, is
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: there a lot to talk about. I didn't quite go.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: I think it was maybe because I never quite got
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: like the surfer culture. Bug I definitely, you know, I
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: feel like in the early to mid two thousands, two
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: roads diverged in a wood and you either went the
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: goth route or the surfer route. And I walked down
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: the hot topic path, sure, and so this was a
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: part of my life, but it wasn't my lived experience.
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: I wasn't a billow bong girly. That's okay, what's your
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: experience with Crush, Kaitlin. I saw it pretty close to
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: it coming out. I don't think in theaters. I might
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: have also seen it at a sleepover. I was in
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: high school when it came out, So I feel like
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: it's a teen movie that the rare teen movie about
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: teenagers that teenagers actually watched. Where yeah, most movies about
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: teenagers are actually intended for nine year.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Olds, right, So I saw it, and I have not
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: seen it since until prepping for this episode, but I
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: did vividly remember, and this will be like seered into
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: my brain for all of time, the scene where they
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: walk into the disgusting hotel room that has been like
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: trashed and vomited all over, and then the condom gets
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: stuck to one of their feet and they have to
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: pull it off, and then they go to the beach
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: and be like, sir, here's how you throw away a condom.
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: For some reason, that scene really stuck with me. I
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: will never forget it, to the point where, like I
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: just it was just sort of floating around my memory.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: And I don't even know if I remembered that it
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: was in this movie. I just like had that scene
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: in my brain. So when I was watching this to prep,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, this movie is where that scene
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: is from.
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: He took the one badass feminist point of the movie
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: with you and that right.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, So that I remembered vividly, But the rest
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: of the movie I didn't remember anything about except for
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: it's about surfing. So so watching it again was interesting.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: Lots to talk about. We will get into it shortly,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: but in the meantime, let's take a quick break and
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: then we'll come back for the recap. Okay, so here's
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: the recap. We are in Hawaii. We meet a young woman,
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Anne Marie Chadwick played by Kate Bosworth, who aspires to
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: be the best surfer in the world. There is a
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: surfing tournament called the Pipemasters in seven days, which Anne
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: Marie hopes to win. She has a dream about an
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: accident she had while surfing a few years prior, so
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: that's sort of like weighing on her.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: And already we're off to such a strong start. We've
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: got a girl with a dream but given twenty minutes.
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: But I can't believe we didn't mention the accident of
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: it all yet her her injury, because it feels like
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: this is sort of a movie about PTSD and true
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: how simply being with a man could help you overcome it.
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: I think right here to PTSD Matt a quarterback named
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: Matt from Minnesota, Oh my god. Yeah, and the fact,
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: I mean, no offense to our Minnesota listeners, but like,
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: why Minnesota, why can't this movie?
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, I just it just feels so studio Notese
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: that they're like we, I don't know, just like the
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: lack of faith that a movie that centers Hawaiian culture
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: actually has the reach that A very obviously does not
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: for nothing, this is the same year that Lelo and
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: Stitch came out.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Like I don't know, yeah, absolutely so, Anne Marie wakes
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: up and gathers her surf crew, which is her friends
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Lena played by snow Lake and Eden played by Michelle Rodriguez,
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: and Anne Marie's little sister Penny played by Mika Borum,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: and they all head to the beach to catch the
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: perfect waves that are happening today. Perfect pipe, as they
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: call it also there is a group of guys who
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: are like kind of frenemies with the women. One of
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: them is Anne Marie's ex boyfriend, Drew played by Chris Taaloa,
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: and those guys are like, girls can't surf, and that
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: is a consistent through line throughout the movie, which we
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: will talk about. But anyway, Anne Marie, Penny, and Lena
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: are like, yeah, we can surf, and then they start surfing,
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: but it's at a spot where the waves aren't super intense.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: So Drew come and he's like, you're not gonna win
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: the pipe masters surfing, these little baby waves come over
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: to the real pipe. So they head to another area
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: with these more intense waves where all the other surfers
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: are men, and Anne Marie tries to catch a wave,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: but she has a memory slash flashback of hitting her
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: head on a rock, that injury that we were just
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: talking about, and it freaks her out and she bails
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: on the wave. And we'll find out eventually that this injury,
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: this accident happened during a competition a few years prior
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: where she was like making waves surf pun in the competition,
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: but this accident put her out of the competition. She
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: nearly drowned. She has PTSD about it, and because she's hesitating,
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: the men are giving her a hard time again being like.
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: Girls surf, which a very common theme of movies of
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: this time of girls can't blank. But also people still
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: say that, people do still that, people still do that.
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: Oh my god, with this renaissance in women's sports right now,
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: like it is every comment section.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I really want movies to rise to the reality
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: of women's sports right now, because I feel like the
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: last round of it, I mean, I guess it would
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: have been kind of around this time where we grew
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: up with so many movies. I feel like, especially if
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: you're a d comm person, there are a lot of
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: movies about women's sports, and this was like the age
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: of like Lisa Leslie and Mia Hamm and like all
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: of these turn of the century women's sports stars, and
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: now we have them again.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: So where are the movies right Yeah? And then also
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: the big conversation I feel like around women's sports right
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: now is trans women in sports and everyone who's pissing
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: their pants and bursting into tears about trans women participating
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: in sports, And where's the movie that would be an
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: interesting movie? Yes, Okay, so again the men are giving
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: Anne Marie a hard time, and another big wave comes
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: and she stands up on her board for a second,
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: but then she falls off into the water. And her friends,
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: especially Eden, who parentheses might have a little crush on
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Anne Loue.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she's like, come on, you had that one. You
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: just have to commit. Yeah, there's I feel like so
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: much of Michelle Rodriguez's character is just being.
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: Like harder, like yeah, like friend or coach trainer.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Slash covert love interest. Okay, so later that morning, Anne
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: Marie and her friends drive Anne Marie's teen sister Penny
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: to school. It's clear that Anne Marie is her caregiver.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: Their parents aren't around. We'll find out that their mother
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: moved to Vegas to be with a man and left
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: them as teenagers behind.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: We get one line, Yeah, it's like they're just throwing
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: shit out there really with character details.
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: This is why they're orphans anyways.
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: So but also it is interesting I this movie is
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: obviously dissimilar from Lulo and Stitch in most ways, and
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: that there's no Little Blue Alien. However, the sister dynamic
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: is not dissimilar, where as true the older sisters raising
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: the younger sister, and the younger sister is like lashing
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: out in all of these ways.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: True, and in both movies, the sisters are living in poverty.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: They're scraping by. By contrast, they see another surfer woman
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: who has come to town for this upcoming competition, who
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: makes a bunch of money from her various brand sponsorships, endorsements,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: magazine appearing, etc. A life that Anne Marie dreams of,
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: but instead she and Eden and Lena had to work
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: as cleaning staff at a resort where Anne Marie makes
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: eyes with one of the hotel guests. This is Matt
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: He's an NFL player there with some of his teammates
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: and they're all VIP guests. That night, Anne Marie comes
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: home to discover her sister isn't there. That Penny drank
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: all of their beer and smoked marijuana and went to
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: a party. So Anne Marie goes to collect Penny, but
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: they get in an argument and Anne Marie storms out.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: The next day, at work, the women have to clean
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: a particularly gross hotel room. This is the one that
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: I vividly remember, with vomit and used condoms on the floor.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Anne Marie go down to the beach, she finds the
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: football player guy who's staying in that room. His name's Leslie,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: and she teaches him how to throw away a condom,
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: which gets Anne Marie fired.
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: Can I just say, though, you said their VIP guests right,
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: And there's a scene where they're having their morning meeting
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: all of the maids at the hotel and their bosses like,
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: remember their VIP they are like number one, why are
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: they in room to fourteen? Because in that scene she
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: goes down to find Leslie and is going room fourteen,
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: two fourteen or two fifteen something the second level.
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: I don't know I even thought about that.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: That would be like be in like the penthouse. I
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: guess she didn't think about that either. I don't know
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: where the luxury hotel rooms are. I've never stayed are.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but no, that's actually that actually makes sense because
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: Caitlin and I stayed in those places all the time.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I forget.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: They should be on the thirtieth floor where we stay.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: Okay, thank you, good point, good point.
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: Oh inconsequential please sorry, we can continue.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: Okay, So Anne Marie gets fired. Later, they head to
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: the beach for more training and surfing. Drew and his
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: friends are there, and then something happens where a guy
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: I think it's Drue. It's kind of like a wide
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: shot so it's hard to see, but he interferes with
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: Anne Marie's surfing and she falls and her board breaks.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: And then that guy, Matt pops up to be like, Hi,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: I was just vaguely stalking you anyway, can you teach
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: me how to surf? And she's like pass, But then
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: her friends are like, well, maybe he'll pay you and
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: you need the money, so they chase him down and
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: he's like, yeah, I'll pay you one hundred and fifty
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: dollars a day, and they're like a wooga. And then
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: three of his teammates want to learn how to surf
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: two so Anne Marie, Eden, Lena, and Penny each take
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: on a student. We get a little montage. Everyone's having fun,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: they're goofing around, they're surfing, and Anne Marie and Matt
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: stay out later than everyone else and they're vibing. Then
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: he invites her to his hotel room pays her one
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars because he wants a lesson every day for
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: the next week.
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: The days leading up to the competition, mind you.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Yes, So perhaps Anne Marie doesn't to quote is this
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: high school musical. She doesn't have her head in the game.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: She needs to get her.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: Head yet in the game. Yeah, if only zac Efron,
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: we're there.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: So then they smooth on the lips also until he
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: gets a phone call, which he answers and he's like, hey, sweetheart,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: miss you. So Anne Marie thinks that he's married or
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: has a girlfriend and he's like, no, no, no, no, no,
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: it's my niece, which honestly seems fake, but we're supposed
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: to believe it. And they carry on because he takes a.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: Picture out of his wallet, right, and don't worry. This
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: never becomes relevant. I think it literally is just like,
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: oh he's a great guy. Yeah he has a niece,
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: he took a call from her, or even clearing a
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: very low bar our friend Matt.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: Also, another thing that doesn't make sense is that he
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: makes the excuse of like oh, no, no, yeah, they're
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: calling me right now. Because of the time difference. They
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: say that it's two am in Hawaii, which would mean,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: assuming they're on the mainland, maybe in Minnesota it would
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: be like six am or some other like ungodly hour.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Weird time to be calling your uncle. So it's like, no, no, no,
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: that doesn't make sense.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: You don't understand their relationship.
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: No, he's like a really good uncle.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, as an adolescent, I was always calling my uncle
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: in the middle of the night talking about.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Okay. So the next day, Anne Marie takes Matt to
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: a more private beach away from all the tourists. But
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: then Drew and his minions show up and they're like,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: this beach is for locals only. What's this outsider doing here?
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: And a fight breaks out. Matt and Drew throw some punches.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Anne Marie breaks it up and they leave and they
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: go back to Matt's hotel, which means that she blows
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: off Eden because they were supposed to hang out and
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: train and go jets skiing together or something, and so
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: Eden thinks that Anne Marie is screwing up. She's distracted
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: by this guy, Matt, who she keeps smooching, and she's
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: staying in his hotel room where she used to work
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: and clean up puke off the floor. But now she's
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: getting a taste of what it's like to be on
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: the other side of this. She's ordering room service and whatnot.
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, is this one.
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: She's making like a mayonnaise sandwich in the kitchen this scene.
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I just can't the way they eat. Obviously
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: they don't have much money. They're scrounging coins to get
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: like twinkies and send mayonnaise. But it's like, if Eden
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: is so on her about her training, let's get a
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: vegetable in the mix.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: I did appreciate that. I mean there, we've talked about
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: this in the show a million times and again, like
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: the rigid body standards don't like I think even when
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: we do see women eating, it's still like they still
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: are held to this very high, rigid, early two thousands
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: body standard, which to this movie is no exception too sure,
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: but I did appreciate even as a kid, because I
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: love gross food. I love it. I used to make
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: when I would go to my friend Lois's house, we
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: make frosting sandwiches, and I just felt I just felt
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: very seen by this where you're like, yeah, that's absolutely gross,
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: but she's still hot and that's something to aspire to.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: She does eventually put baloney on these manonnaise sandwiches, but
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: she's slathering mayo on the bread for a long time.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: Good honor.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Also, we see them buy some food and make some food,
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: but we never see them eat food.
• 31:26
  Speaker 5: I don't think, oh interesting, I guess I didn't notice
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: that you need fuel.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: Still, I mean, I've never seen a mayonnaise sandwich of
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: that caliber assembled in media true visibility.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: You know, representation matters. Okay, So Eden is getting on
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: Anne Marie's case about this guy distracting her, but Anne
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Marie sits. The contest comes first, and the next day
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Anne Marie trains with Eden and it's going well at first,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: but then a gnarly wave knocks them around and they
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: get into an argument where Anne Marie is like, quit
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: trying to live vicariously through me, get your own dreams,
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: and Eden is like, oh yeah, well you're scared and
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: you're just trying to run away like your mom. And
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: then they part ways. Anne Marie goes to Matt again.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: Not her friends, because that would make too much sense. Yeah, yeah,
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: not someone who actually knows her family dynamics. Just some guy,
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: just a guy who she.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: Met three days ago. He also has bought her a
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: nice dress, and there's like this big fancy dinner that
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: his teammates and their girlfriends are all going to so
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: she accompanies them, and in the bathroom, Anne Marie overhears
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: the women saying all these mean, classest things about her,
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: talking about other women who Matt has done this with,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: of like finding a local working class woman, treating her
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: and buying stuff for her, including a server at Denny's,
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: our favorite restaurant, an American institution. So Anne Marie is like, Matt,
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: what the fuck? And He's like, no, no, no, You're
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: not like those girls. And Anne Marie once again believes
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: him for some reason, and they have a heart to
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: heart and she talks about what she wants in life,
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: asks him what she should do, and he's like, go
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: for it.
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: This is in the water, by the way. She gets
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: such a she walks into the night ocean.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: Okay, the water. The ocean cinematography in this movie is clutch. Yeah,
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: pretty good, the cgi with the surfing.
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: Even yes, sometimes I'm like, her body's there and her
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: face is there, but.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: I don't think I would have noticed it in two
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: thousand and two.
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: I notice it now, No, but yeah, of course.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: But also yeah, there the water. Because Anne Marie goes
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: in the water in her expensive dress, Matt chases after her.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: He's also fully clothed, and it's like, who do you
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: think you are? Leonardo DiCaprio in all of his movies?
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: Uh?
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, anyway, so she's like, what should I do? He's like,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: the girl who I met would never ask a guy
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: what to do, and we're like, whoo two thousand and
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: two feminism.
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, even he is like, why am I supposed why me?
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: Don't fucking know I met you three days ago?
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: Where's your lesbian friend? Get it together?
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: Then we cut to the Pipemaster's contest the next day.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: We learn in a throwaway line that is barely audible,
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: that this is the first time women have been allowed
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: to compete in this contest.
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: I feel like that was also eighty yard and labably yeah,
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: because it's so I was like, I think they maybe
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: forgot to mention what the movie was supposed to originally
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: be about. And they're like, shout out to that. But
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: ultimately this movie is about the power of Matt's penis
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: to change lives.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: Yes, unfortunately, Yes. So Anne Marie is competing among the
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: best surfers who are women in the world, so the
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: competition is stiff. She goes and tries to catch her
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: first wave and flubs it up. But then one of
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: her competitors, Kate Scarrett, who is a real surfer, real athlete,
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: playing herself, she also wipes out and gets injured, and
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: this is like Anne Marie's chance. She keeps hesitating, but
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: she manages to do a good surf. I don't know
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: how to talk about surfing.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: No, that's good. You could be a commentator, Thank you
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: so much.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: She does a good surf, although she gets caught on
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: a coral reef and nearly drowns again. But she's okay
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: and she advances to the next round, though she seems
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: unsure if she should continue with the competition because of
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: this mishap.
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: But is this one?
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: He gives her the pep talk exactly and inspires her
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: with his own injury story, like, yeah, see my pinky,
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: it's broken. But because of that, I got this sick
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: little spin.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: When I throw the banging my head against the table.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: You're like, who cares?
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: Why are you here?
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: Stop trying to connect with her?
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: Leave?
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: Leave? How long is this fucking vacation? Ages?
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: So she decides to move forward, and then it's time
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: for the next round. Anne Marie is up against a
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: new competitor, Kila Kennelly, who is also a real surfer
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: playing herself, who is crushing it and Anne Marie keeps hesitating. Again,
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: she goes for it eventually wipes out, but then she
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: goes again and catches an awesome wave and gets a
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: great score. She does not advance to the next round,
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: but she has redeemed herself and the crowd loves her.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: People from Billabong and other brands approach her to be like,
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: join our team. And then the movie ends with Anne
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Marie and Matt sharing a heterosexual kiss on the lips. Plus,
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: Anne Marie is featured on the cover of the magazine Surfing,
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: so she got.
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: One of the things she wanted, which should be the
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: big win.
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: But yeah, but no, Ultimately she has a rich boyfriend. Now, yeah,
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: so that's the movie.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: discuss and we're back.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, where would we like to start? So so much
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: to pull from.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: There is I kind of want to start with something
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: that was alluded to earlier, but just the idea that
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: this is a story set in Hawaii that centers a
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: white woman and her white tourist boyfriend. Yes where you know.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: Many scenes take place at a resort. We see little
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: to nothing as far as Native Hawaiian communities or neighborhoods
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: or anything like that. The characters who are Native Hawaiian
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: or implied to be Native Hawaiian, such as Drew and
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: his friends, are presented as antagonistic characters. They're always giving
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: Anne Marie a hard time.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: Which is something that we see quite a bit in
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: stories like this. I forget what episode we recently encountered
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: a similar thing. It was actually Perfect Blue, where you know,
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: any character that wasn't being presented as the like quote
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: unquote beauty ideal or even just had a darker skin
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: tone was made out to be a side character and
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: a bully. Which, yeah, and the fact that I mean again,
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: taking Matt out of this story improves it tenfold. I
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: don't I don't know. I don't know how realistic it
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: is in a teen movie that came out in two
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: thousand and two for there to not be a forced
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: romantic hetero interest. I want to believe better. But even
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: like in Leelo and Stitch, to talk about the other
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: big movie set in Hawaii that came that was mostly
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: made by white people that came out the same year, yeah,
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: Nanni has a love interest, but he's a person in
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: her community, and they take time to have the romantic
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: interest makes sense in a way that doesn't, you know,
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: overshadow what the story is actually about, which is very
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: rooted in Native culture. However flawed, but this movie just
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: has an aggressive disinterest in Native why and culture, and
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: the way that it's shown is very I mean, obviously
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: the movie is interested in surfing, but it's more interested
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: in the corporate side of surfing, which I think inherently
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: when you're talking about the capitalist side of it, it's
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: like tied to well, of course we're going to gravitate
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: to white characters. And I don't know reading I was
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: rereading the Susan Orlean piece this morning. I didn't quite
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: get through it. I've read it two weeks ago as well.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: But there is a lot of you know, in the
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: moment that this is set in, there were a lot
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: of racial tensions in small surfing communities that are not
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: I mean that I feel like if they are attempted
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: to be acknowledged in this, they make out Native communities
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: to be resentful bullies who are pushing around. We're told
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: by the music, we're told by the amount of screen time.
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: Whose quote unquote side we're supposed to be on, and
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: it's Matt And with Anne Marie, we have like, first
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: of all, she does not need to be the main character.
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: If anything, it would be interesting to have her there
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: as a way to illustrate actual racial dynamics in this
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: community at the time, but like this movie is not
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: capable of doing that. But it was just interesting reading about,
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: you know, what was actually happening in these communities at
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: the time, because there are dynamics that are just very
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: much surface acknowledged or just left on the table completely, right,
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: Like the one Native woman.
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: In the movie, the cashier at the store when at
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: their gas station when they're trying to buy their twinkies,
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: I think is the only person in the movie who
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: is nice to them. It's just so fleeting. And even
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: in that one exchange, she like puts herself down and
• 41:46
  Speaker 5: references her weight yeah right, right yeah, and compares herself
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: to Kate Bosworth's character, and You're like, no, come on.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: So I did want to say we that Senna Lake,
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: I hope I'm saying her name. Who plays She is
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: born and raised in Hawaii. She's of Hawaiian, Japanese and
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: English descent, but she is very connected to native Hawaiian
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: culture and a Hawaiian herself, and I think it's frustrating
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: that she's there. But she's, like, of the three girls,
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: the character we get to know the least well for sure,
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: and like, again, there's a huge opportunity to you know,
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: and I know, I'm sure that part of it had
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: to do with the fact that this was her first
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: movie and like she was not a very experienced actor,
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: but like, then find an experienced Hawaiian actor and center
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: the story around them. And I'm not even adverse to
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: having Anne Marie be one of the girls in the background. Right,
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: But yeah, of the three girls, we do have a
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: native Hawaiian character played by a native Hawaiian actor, but
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: we don't get to know her at all at all.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, yeah, and then the native characters that group
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: of men Drew in his his Minions are There's that
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: scene where Anne Marie takes Matt to the private beach
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: and Drew and his friends show up to be like,
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: you know, only locals are allowed here. They call Matt Howley,
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: which is a Native Hawaiian term meaning a person, especially
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: a white person who is not a native Hawaiian. I'm
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: not quite sure how derogatory it is in different contexts,
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: but they're using it derogatorily in this scene. But Native
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: characters being protective of their land is presented in the
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: movie as them being assholes and being like aggressively territorial.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: There's no acknowledgment of colonialism or land theft or anything
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: No, which they're only about forty years removed from at
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: the time that this has happened. I don't it's again
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: not to keep bringing up lie Lowed Stitch. I guess
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: that the remake just came out, so it's on my
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: mind anyway. But you know, and that movie does the
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: bare minimum. It's a fucking Disney movie, but it still
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: does more than Blue Crush to acknowledge the history of
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: oppression and the tour like this movie is very weirdly
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: pro tourism. Well not weirdly because they are. You know,
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: the Tourism Board was very involved in the making of
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: this movie, which we can talk about. Yeah, so it
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: is very like intentional that taurists are not being criticized
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: in this context, but it's I don't like it. I
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: don't it's and it's weird because again you're given this,
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: like the three girls work at a hotel, and that's
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: the closest you get to it being critical of tourist culture.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: But you know, it's whatever. It's a it's a it's
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: a movie. So tourist culture can be resolved by the
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: main white girl telling off the rich guys one time
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: and it's like boom solved, great, and then she herself
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: sort of gets to benefit for in the way that
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: the tourists do, which I feel like there is like
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: a pretty woman appeal to that switch. I remember liking
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: that as a kid of like, oh look who gets
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: to hang out in the fancy hotel. Now, Like that's satisfying.
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: I get it.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: But it's just like I think, because of the way
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: it was made, and we can talk about that too,
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: like it's just fundamentally unwilling to deal with necessary, uncomfortable
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: parts of Hawaiian history, because I think that part of
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: the purpose of this movie is to convince people to
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: go on vacation.
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right and get surf lessons from white surfers.
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: There's a scene where Anne, Marie and Matt are relaxing
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: in the hot tub in his hotel room, and Matt
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: says something like, oh, I can see why the tourists
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: never leave their hotels, and then Anne Marie starts to
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: be critical of that. She's like, oh, don't say that,
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: that's not real Hawaii. But then she pivots and is
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: talking about the native community and says they're so protective
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: of their land, their waves, and she's saying it like
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: they it's so annoying that the people who are indigenous
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: to this land are protective of their land from colonizers
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: like me. Ugh, and it's like, do you hear yourself?
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there are a bunch of drus honestly, like they're just.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: Hate that scene. So this movie was indeed made with
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau. That was the group
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: that and again it's like it's a very very I
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: would be curious what our Hawaiian listeners think about this
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: because that is the main source of income in the
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: state of Hawaii. Because of all of these issues with
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: colonialism and so it's a very, very complicated topic. We
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: also talked about it during our Lee, Low and Stitch episode,
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: but that yeah, it seems like a lot of the
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: reasons that these issues don't come up are because it
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: was made to basically convince people to vacation. It was
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: made so the idea is to cross promote the film
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: and the state of Hawaii. And it was brokeer and
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: buckle in here by a woman named April Missini, who
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: had also previously brokened similar deals with the Hawaii Visitors
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: and Convention Bureau on productions like Baywatch Hawaii and Pacific
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: Blue and also the Miss Universe pageant. And you're like, hm,
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: Miss Universe, and is she terrifying Trump Republican? Well, yes
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: she is, and she has since sort of pivoted to
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: be full time Trump booster. So that's who brokeer the
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: deal with the State of Hawaii here. So knowing that,
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: I was like, okay, of course, this is a very
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: uncritical look at you know, like basically colonialism never happened
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: in the version of Hawaii that is presented here. And
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: I think, like, yeah, part of the purpose of having
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: the boys or the Native boys be cruel to the
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: random football guys is to make it seem as if
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: Native Hawaiians are resentful of them or like territorial in
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: a way that it's like, well, fucking yeah, of course,
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: but this movie takes the side of this of the
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: football players, because they want the football players to come
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: on vacation. Yes, And this is why we can't think
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: too hard about the movie Blue Crush just unraffled.
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: Scott Bechel casted so hard just now.
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: And the fact that like somehow the NFL ends up
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: getting some free publicity in this too.
• 48:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, iconic, unproblematic institution, the National Football League, because they're
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: name checking stuff. There's saying he's an NF He's not
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: just a football player. He's an NFL quarterback. And he's
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl, which is so Again,
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: it's like this April Messini, diabolical evil person is getting
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: you know, every bad, gigantic business in the US is
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: getting a bite at the Blue Crush apple. Also this
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: is separate, but in the Susan Arlene article there is
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: a guy named Matt who features prominently, but he is not,
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: shockingly not an NFL quarterback. He is instead a coach
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: slash I think father figure to the girls that the
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: peace centers around. I guess that he's in his late twenties,
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: he's got his own family, and the piece deals a
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: lot more with the fact that many of the girls
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: it's following are poor right or have a single parent household,
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: and that this coach has been a part of sort
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: of plugging the holes in like what they need. They
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: stay with him, sometimes, he gives them food, he helps
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: their parent rents out, and it's like a very community
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: based idea around this guy. But instead they're like, what
• 50:07
  Speaker 4: if we just did not have anyone like that? Because
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: weirdly all of those traits end up sort of being
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: attributed to Eden's character of the pseudo coach. But I
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: was like, I would much rather have that version of
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: Matt where it's like he was a guy who had
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: resources and was connecting the girls with sponsorships so they
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: could afford to continue surfing. But they're kind of left
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: in the lurch in the Blue Crush averse.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: And the movie does examine class, but in a very
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: weird way where on one hand, and I'm not saying
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: that there are not poor white people in Hawaii, but
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: poverty disproportionately affects the Native community in Hawaii because of
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: all the usual suspects colonialism, land theft, displacement, white supremacy,
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: capitalist some labor exploitation, the movie doesn't acknowledge that, and again, like, I.
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: Don't think that it's a bad thing necessarily to show
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: poverty at all, but sure it's not presented as a
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: community problem. It's presented as a cake Bossworth problem, right,
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: which doesn't make sense, right, And.
• 51:19
  Speaker 5: The reason behind it is colonialism. So if you're trying
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: to sell hotel packages, you can't include that. So we're
• 51:30
  Speaker 5: gonna keep it colonial gaze, right, And.
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: They're like, it's the fault of their deadbeat mom, that
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: this is all happening, not the fault of American colonialism, right,
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: And again that's I think, or I would I guess
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: hazard I guess that that's part of why we don't
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: really know more about Lena's character, and we don't, I mean,
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: we don't know that much about Michelle Rodriguez's character either,
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: Like it we don't know anything about the home life
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: of really anybody Kate Bosworth. And then the the quote
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: unquote solution is a rich boyfriend exactly from the National
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: Football League for the Pro Bowl. And it's not that
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: you should unionize the workers at your hotel, and'd say
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: fuck you. It's it's that you should be staying at
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: the hotel. You should be at the hotel. It's just, yeah,
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: it's very like, I don't know. I did appreciate, I
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: did appreciate the sister dynamic. I thought that a lot
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: of beats between the two of them worked. And I
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: wish that that level of care and nuance was applied
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: to literally any non white character in the movie. And
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: that's just not what happens.
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: And you have to really pay attention to catch that arc. Yeah,
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: because they're at odds with each other at the beginning,
• 52:50
  Speaker 5: that's clear. Side note. Taking her from that party she
• 52:54
  Speaker 5: snuck off to and she was like, Hi, she looks
• 52:57
  Speaker 5: like twelve years old and in the arms of much
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: older men, and that just was disturbing to watch as
• 53:05
  Speaker 5: an adult. But when they finally come together, it's just
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: like one little moment when they're teaching the football players
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: how to surf, and you could see Pennies getting really
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: into her linebacker's development and he finally catches a wave
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: and she's so excited about it, and Anne Marie's watching
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: her the entire time get more and more excited and
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: just gives her this like big hug, and you could
• 53:30
  Speaker 5: see she's just so proud of her but like that,
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: I don't know that's it. It cut to her hugging
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: her at the end when they're all celebrating her not winning,
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: but being celebrated by the man and getting the sponsorship.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: And I mean, like you said, Melody, Penny is constantly
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: surrounded by and she's fourteen, She's surrounded by men who
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: were presumably in their early twenties. No one is saying
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: anything about this predatory behavior of the men.
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: Well, I do think that there is a one off
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: line that this does not resolve the issue at all.
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: It maybe even makes the whole thing kind of sadder,
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: where it is acknowledged like she's being you know, sort
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: of pursued and harassed and eventually assaulted by these older men.
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: But then I think it's Eden who is just like, well,
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: what do you care, Ane, Marie, Like we did the
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: same thing at the same age. Like it's almost presented
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: as this cyclical thing of like, well, this is just
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: how men treat us, which is not the way to
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: address that issue at all. If anything, that should make
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: you angrier. But I think that like the way that
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: they talk that away and even the fact that like
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: when the little sister is going to these parties. It's
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: made out as like she's making these choices, like this
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: is her fault, and the way EDID presents it's like, well,
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: you did the same thing at the same time, as
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: if to say, you know, not in a way that's
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: like and that shouldn't be happening. It's more of I
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: think that in their group, this is quote unquote to
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: be expected in terms of how you're conditioned to accept
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: treatment from men, and unfortunately, I mean, I don't think
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: that this movie is intending to make commentary on really
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: anything maybe, but that's definitely something that I remember from
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: being younger and having like older cousins that are like, oh, well,
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: this is just what happens, Like this is you know,
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: and then it's not till you're older or you have
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: someone in your life who can you know, pull that
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: into focus of like this is not acceptable for this
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: to be happening to you, and like that you're able
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: to I don't know, I just found I found that
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: seemed to be very sad for for literally everyone, because
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: it's like they don't intervene because they were taught that
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: it's okay to happen to them too.
• 55:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, they're just watching her in the water. Look at her,
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: just look at it, like right, and.
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: They're like shaming her the way that they would shame
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: themselves and each other. Like it's just a very vicious cycle.
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we need the fervor from the condom scene applied
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: to so many more systemic issues than this movie.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: Right, the selective go girl feminism moments. Yeah, yeah, but
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: it's like, but if your twelve year old or fourteen
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: year old sister is being hit on by grown men,
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: she's a slot.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: You're like, Anne Marie literally says something like, oh, she's
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: just doing this for the attention and to piss me off,
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: you know, putting the blame on Penny rather than the
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: adult men who are hanging out with a fourteen year
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: old girl. Yeah, and it's a very like two thousand
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: and two attitude. But it's atrocious.
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: And I just wish that there were a character in
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: this movie that was even able to like course correct
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: Anne Maria on that, because it's not like unbelievable to
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: me that another teenager would have a warped view of
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: these dynamics. But it's like, you need a grown up
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: in the room, like where And also just going back
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: to the season Orlean piece. Again, they wrote out the
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: like the girl who Anne Marie is ostensibly based on
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: is a teenage surfer named Teresa McGregor who does have
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: a mom. She simply does. She's from a single parent household,
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: her dad's side in the picture, but she does have
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: a mom and she has this coach named Matt. And again,
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: I just feel like it's very Disney Princess vibes to
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: write out the mom for reasons that exist in a
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: vacuum that aren't the reasons that we get in the
• 57:39
  Speaker 4: nuanced masterpiece. Lee lowd Stitch, I have to rewatch this
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: seen it since it came out. I'm kind of joking,
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: but it is doing more than this movie is.
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: Oh absolutely, I'm sure.
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yes.
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: Also, Penny is a white girl with corn Rose. Speaking
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: of appropriation, I wanted to talk a little bit about
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: the sport of surfing. So, you know, on top of
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: everything we've talked about as far as this movie centering
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: a white woman and her white love interest in Hawaii
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: and the villainization of Native Hawaiian characters, on top of
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: all that, this is a movie about a white woman
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: doing a sport that Native Hawaiians originated. I don't know
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: a lot about surfing, but I did a little research
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: on the history of the sport, and you know, there's
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: evidence of it existing as long ago as three to
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: five thousand years. It popped up in different regions of
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: the world, such as Peru, various regions in West Africa,
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: various areas of Polynesia, including pre colonized Hawaii, where surfing
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: or hey nlu which translates in English to wave sliding,
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: it was part of religious and spiritual traditions. The crafting
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: of surfboards was an important cultural practice. Then colonizers and
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: Christian missionaries invaded the islands banned surfing, and yeah.
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: I didn't realize for a long time until surfing was
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: so popular that they couldn't continue to ban it, and
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: then so instead they commercialized.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: Exactly like it was banned in an attempt to erase
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: indigenous culture and assimilate Native Hawaiian people into Western culture,
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: which is what always happens during colonialism. But then when
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: the colonizers realized they could capitalize off of surfing, they
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: brought it back and turned it into a whole industry.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: So I just wanted to touch on that.
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's very much another example of like what
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: we see here is almost completely forced from Native Hawaiian culture.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: What we're seeing is like the commercialization of this sport
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: and you know, selling people on its authenticity by manufacturing
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: a poor white girl to like, it's just it's it's
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: a fucking mess. And and again it's like the purpose
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: of this movie is to sell stuff. It's to sell
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: surfing garments that I didn't I meant to look into,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: you know, where the big surfing brands originated to see
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: if any are potentially Native owned. I didn't have time.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: Oh interesting, But you know, basically it's trying to sell
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: you on an idea of embracing another culture while completely
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: not doing that, which is what we see all the time.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: I mean we were it worked, and it worked, and
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: it was It's just like another way in which American
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: colonizers sell the idea of honoring native cultures that they've
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: completely decimated and taken and then sold back to tours.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and the white protagonist is never going to be
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 5: the vessel to even mention once like any of the
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: deep cultural or spiritual meanings with surfing. But no, it's
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 5: just like the waves are strictly like gnarly are sick
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: and like never sacred. We're never going to get that
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: from Anne Marie, you know right now.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what the movie does instead in regards to surfing
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: is the through line of surfing being a boys club,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: like it is in you know, most sports, where again
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: it's always you know, Drew and his friends being like,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: girls can't surf, and they're undermining her skills. They're making
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: various sexist remarks, which, yes, like this type of sexism
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: is very pervasive in sports and of course the world
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: in general. Anne Marie tries to push back against that.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: She but it just still feels pretty hollow. It does
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: where it's like that's as radical as the movies will
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: like to get for sure.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, feels very white feminism.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and not even a lick of an exploration to queerness.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: Obviously I'm expecting too much, but there is an inherent
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: sapphic energy let's talk about it within that culture.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: I mean, now let's get into the good stuff.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: I think the actual professional surfer we see at the
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: gas station that they point out and like, oh she's
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: on the cover. She sponsored he or she gets to
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: surf indo, like she reads very gay, that surfer and
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: there's just like this moment where she notices them and
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 5: their boards on the top of the car and goes, ooh,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: surfer girls, local girls, and like, just the way she
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: says it may maybe the only time we get like
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: a peek into any queerness in the culture of surfing.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 5: Obviously it's all whatever we took from it and ran
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 5: with the undertones I guess may have been there, but
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: obviously it left us swatting a lot more.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's nothing explicit or overt, but as you can
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: speak to Melody, there is a lot of shipping that
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: has been done. Yes, between Anne Marie and Eden.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: There's got to be fan fiction out there, Oh.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: I'd imagine so. But yeah, it's a lot of like
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: Eden not liking that Anne Marie has started dating a
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: man named Matt, And yeah, they're just different scenes where
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: Eden will be like, oh, what some guy thinks you
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: look hot in a bikini and you forget all about
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: the contest. Yeah, She's like, I'm not mad, I'm I
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: just happen to know you kick ass out there. It's
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: just you and one other girl out there.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: It works it like but also inadvertently reinforces the angry
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: lesbian stereotype, regardless of whether or not this was an
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: intentionally gay character. She's just so angry she is.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: And there's no context, and so it just is I
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: I it's it's just there's so many lost opportunities here.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: It's just it's it's such a bummer watching it through.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: Although I mean, speaking to your point earlier, Caitlin, this
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: is literally why the Bechdel test originally existed, is to
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: address dynamics like this where you're like, it's right there,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: but is it? And that's what the movie, you know,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: is fucking you, fucking with you, But just the idea
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: that there is this group of young women who are
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: probably probably still they're teenagers, they're probably still figuring out
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: who they are, and like a lot of whatever sixteen
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: to eighteen year olds are not fully out or even
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: no or anything like that, and you have them all together,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: I don't know. Again, just like going back to the piece,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: there's all of these descriptions of like the girls having
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: these like sleepovers out of necessity so they can wake
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: up early together and having these like bonding exercises literally
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: braiding each other's hair, and like talking about like strength
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: training and eating a shitload that was. Something that's brought
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: up constantly is that surfers burned calories like no one's
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: business and have to refuel constantly, which is something that
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: like Kitler, you're saying, we see, but we don't. And
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: even though we see the girls together, they don't like
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: really share a lot of like intimacy that you would
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: think that they would like it's just I don't know,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: kill Matt, hit Matt with a meteor.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. The original article is about mostly teens.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: I feel like the movie aged them up to like
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: definitely twenty year old's twenty two, early twenties. I think
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: they all live together. They share the cost of rent
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: and bills and all that, right, but.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 5: Like they're in the prime of their lives and it's
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 5: like now or never, right, and it's not even to succeed.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: It's like, so you can escape this, but we don't.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: Address what this is is it because it's like it's
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: one thing if it's poverty, but they're not explicit about it.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 4: So it seems also anti Hawaiian culture.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the camaraderie that you
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: think would be shared among them you see a little
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: bit of in the movie, but yeah, like you said, Jimmie,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: there's not as much. And Eden's crush on Anne Marie
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: is just too too covert because like you you watch
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: the scene where they're on the back of a jet
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: ski and Anne Marie is behind Eden clutching Eden's waist
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: and we are we are then is playing and you're
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: just like, again, like watching that from a like Bechdel
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: test point of view, you're just like, yeah, they're in love,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: but the movie doesn't let them, but they.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: Don't be let us. Yeah, I mean, and so that's
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: a good time to look at, well, who made this,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: And well, I have revealed myself to be a Susan
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: orlean Stan. She is a white woman from Ohio. So
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: that is the original reporting, which and I would say
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: it's more of a gondo like she's she's not doing
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: a deep dive into Hawaiian culture. She's writing about this
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: like series of a couple of weeks she spent with
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: the specific surfers. So it's not a piece that's invested
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: in the history or appropriation of Hawaiian culture at all,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: which makes it a convenient piece to adapt here. So
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: I think that like why this is happening is it's
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: adapted from a piece of light reporting from a white
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 4: woman from Ohio who I love, but there it is.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: The screenplay is by white woman from Los Angeles, Lizzie Weiss,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: who I've read a couple of interviews with. She had
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: no connection to Hawaiian culture, and in fact, her family
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: used to go on vacation there as when she was
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: a child, so she is coming from the perspective of
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 4: this is a vacation destination. Is directed by a white
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: guy from Texas named John Stockwell. And so you know,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: where is the Native Hawaiian representation at any point in
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: this production? I think the only place that there might
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: be native perspective is the representatives for the Hawaiian Visitors
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: and Convention Bureau. But listen to the name of that,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: what is the goal? It doesn't From what I was
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: able to gather, there wasn't really any indigenous or just
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: Hawaiian in general contribution to this that was critical of
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: tourism or colonialism. And there was also this I wasn't
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 4: able to fully wrap my head around this, but this
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: movie does have a connection to a law that happened
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: pully here from scholarly journal Wikipedia. But I did read
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: the few articles that came out about it at the time.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: Blue Crush is the first film to use Hawaii's Act
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: two twenty one, a progressive local tax incentive that called
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: for a one hundred percent state tax credit for high
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: tech investments meeting the requirements for qualified high tech business
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: while also allowing local investors to receive tax credits for
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: investments in film or television products. Universal Studios use a
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: legislation for the Blue Crush production, receiving approximately sixteen million
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 4: dollars in a deal with local investors, who in exchange,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: received of the film's high tech tax credits. So I've
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: this is not my area of expertise. What I can
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: gather and what I gathered by reading into this law
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: a little bit. And this happens all over the place,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: but I think it particularly in a colonized recently colonized
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: land like Hawaii. It's relevant is that filming this movie
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: on location, there was a law that made it more
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: affordable and put money back into the Hawaiian economy. What
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: my guess is is this is part of the reason
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: why this movie was able to be as commercial as
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 4: it was and as uncritical as colonialism as it was.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: Right because you have this law that's like, Okay, we're
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: going to put money back into the local economy as
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: long as we can make the movie the way that
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 4: we want to make it and have it ultimately be
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: about a white girl and selling board shorts at the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 4: mall in Ohio. And so I don't know if any
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: listeners have a better understanding of the law than I do.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: And it's not hard let me know if I'm on
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 4: on the mark there. But I just think it was
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: interesting that this movie was sort of the one that
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 4: set that precedent and engaging with the local Hawaiian economy
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: while not engaging with their culture or people outside of
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: a few casting like casting native actors mostly as bullies. Yeah,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 4: it seems like that was the extent.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: Definitely.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, if only Leilo and Stitch unpacked that law. Yeah,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 5: not only. I did read an interview with Lizzie. Not
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: only is she not a surfer, but she talks about
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 5: how afraid of the ocean she is.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: Like, maybe this isn't yours.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: She said, I'm more of a river in lake person.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 5: I'm actually terrified of the ocean.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: I honestly, I am also terrified of the ocean. But
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: maybe that's a reason for maybe I shouldn't write a
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: movie about surfing, Like maybe this just isn't your I
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: don't know, it's it's just it's disappointing, especially when it's
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: like you know it. Unfortunately, still is rare for women
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: to be writing movies about women, even if they are
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: privileged white women. Unfortunately.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 5: But uh, yeah, Lizzie, I don't know, Lizzy, she was
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 5: sent by the studio to Hawaiian Maybe it is so,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 5: I mean, we know it had to be commercial to
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 5: a degree, but that's all she knew.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: It's all out there, so all she saw was the hotel.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 5: That's why we got that line about now I get
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 5: why no one leaves the hotel, right right?
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: You can just really trace the direct line of having
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: this story completely told by outsiders. And I think Susan
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: Orlean told the best version of this story. But even
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: she's basing it on a very small community and very
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: little outside knowledge or experience. Like there, if this story
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: was to be adapted into this movie, then why would
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: you not then bring in Hawaiian people to consult on it? Yeah?
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: I wonder if we all read the same interview it
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: was in something called Monster Children, did we shared the
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: interview the interview with the Anniversary right the twentieth Anniversary
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: with screenwriter Lezzlie Weiss, seems like her main objective with
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: this movie was like girl power. Apparently she had a
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: women's studies degree and so she wanted to showcase women
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: in sports. And you know, she talks about how it
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: was important that she showed women on screen supporting each other.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: Because there's that scene towards the end where Kayala Kennelly
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: is saying like you got this, go for it to
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: Anne Marie, and then there's that part where Anne Marie
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: says something like she's listening off everything she wants and
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: she's like, I want a girl to be on the
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: cover of Surf magazine. It would be great if that
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: girl were me, but any girl will do. And we're like, yay,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: once again two thousand and two feminism.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, and I don't want to come down too
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: too hard on Lizzywise here, because it's like, yes, it's
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: two thousand and two feminism, but also it is two
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: thousand and two, Like this is this is not uniquely
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: a Lizzy Weiss problem. Sure sure yeaheah.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 5: The first draft is wildly different than the movie.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: We all see wait, can can you speak more to it?
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: Because I failed to do adequate research on that.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 5: Well. I read she co wrote the first version, and
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 5: I think I said at the beginning, like she had
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 5: mentioned in a couple interviews, that it was inspired by
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 5: Mystic Pizza, and it was really about female friendship and
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 5: community and they're a lot younger. It was like that
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 5: after high school, in between college time, one of the
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 5: girls was set to leave to the mainland, and it
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 5: was just exploring all their relationships and those feelings of
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 5: like endings and things way more female centered. Of course,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 5: I read that the director came on board and wanted
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 5: instead to make an action movie.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: It's like we got Michelle Rodriguez.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 5: And I also read that Lena and Eden had more
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 5: developed roles. It was more about their like collective effort
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 5: to support Anne Marie and her surfing. Yeah. I just
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 5: I remember reading it was just like very different, and
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 5: I just I want to copy. I really did.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 4: I would love yeah, because I just I see this
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 4: a lot in I mean, in like criticism of movies
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: that happen now where I And again this is also
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 4: just me being a defensive writer, but so much of
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: what comes up short in a finished product is often
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: blamed on the writer explicitly when often you don't know,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: like your name is sometimes on something that like these
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: are not your words, it's not your original attention. And
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: that's just like how the industry works. And I would imagine,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 4: I mean, based on your description, we had a movie
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 4: that would have been imperfect, still would have centered sure,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: this white character, but was a stronger attempt at telling
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 4: a grounded story. And I mean, you know, having Lena's
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: character rounded out more, seeing what her home life is like,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: getting her connection to her culture. Like we can't say
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 4: that didn't happen at some point. I don't know.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 5: But what we do know is there was no NFL
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 5: quarterback romance in the first version, right, definitely wasn't. The
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 5: studio wanted it to have a broader appeal and had
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 5: them add that in.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: And then you look at the number of players that
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: are involved in like you have to get the Tourist
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 4: Board to sign off on this script, you have to
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 4: get Universal to sign off on this script. You have
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: to have this director that wants an action movie and
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: doesn't think that a story about women can be meaningfully
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 4: incorporated to sign off on this script and it's a
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: system wide failure.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 5: It apparently also like really centered on like the grit
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 5: of the working class women, and that's obviously not going
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: to fly with the tourism board, of course, But I
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 5: would have loved to see Hawaii as more than a backdrop,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 5: right like and just interact with it a little.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 4: Not to continue piling on, but another thing I did
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: notice about this movie is the two other football players
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: we meet are black characters who are presented as comic
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: relief and really don't bring much more to the table
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 4: in that, which also feels like an extremely of the
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 4: time choice and just a different way in which non
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 4: white characters are put to the side in this because
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: the only romantically viable NFL player and again, why are
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: there NFL players in this movie is the white guy
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 4: from Legally Blonde.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 5: And yes, no black women at all, even in the
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 5: girlfriend group.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 4: I think, yeah, oh was there?
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: I don't remember.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 4: I think they're they're women of color, yeah, but we
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: literally see.
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: Them on screen for all of three seconds.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 5: So yeah, and they're what mean everyone's and they're very
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 5: like there are there are like Hawaiian people in this movie.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 4: I mean they do talk like I was able to,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: you know, find that there was a fair amount of
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 4: local casting, although I wonder how connected that is to
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 4: this tax break versus like an actual good faith attempt
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 4: to meaningfully include Hawaiian actors because they are mainly cast
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 4: as background characters and bullies. So I would hazard a
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: guess that that probably had more to do with getting
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: this massive tax credit. Yeah, the world is so fucking depressing.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 4: There's here's here's a good thing, here's a here's a
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: smiling thing. Maybe yeah, let's smile, or maybe I'm wrong.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 4: Let's see you do get to see I think you're
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: you were both talking about this off mic before we
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: started Melodia as well, that you do see real life
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: women athletes in this movie, and they're celebrated and presented
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: as like aren't they awesome? And they do I think
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 4: classic athlete cameos where they can't act to save their lives.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 4: They're like, hello, I am It's one of my favorite
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: kinds of cameos is athlete reading from a piece of
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 4: paper off screen. And I liked it. And you actually
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 4: get to see them.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you see them on screen. They have cameos. The
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: two that we see surfing pretty significant chunks of time
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: in the movie are Kate Scarett and Kayla Kennelly. There
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: are others who are mentioned or seen on screen. I
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: kind of I didn't write down enough stuff as I
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: was watching, so I'm leaving people out.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 5: I know that.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 3: But yeah, the point is it's real athletes playing themselves
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: and also doing a lot of the like stunt work
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: and like body double work for the lead actors, and
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: they are credited as such. They're properly credited. I'm reminded
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: of the discussion we had in the Black Swan episode
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: where ballet dancers did a lot of body double work
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 3: for the lead actors but were not properly credited. The
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: production acted like Natalie Portman and Mila Kunez did all
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: of their.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 4: Own professional ballerinas, which, like, upon reflection, I was like
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 4: wild that they thought we would buy that. But I
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: do think that that is such a like Hollywood commercialism
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 4: thing to like not to shit on actors, right, I'm
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 4: an ally to actors, brave, I'm even marrying when someone's
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: got I know, controversial. You live in La long enough
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, but yeah, that the I
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: was reading some of the in Kate Bosworth in because she,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 4: of course did a retrospective interview about this. It's the law,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 4: I think, especially during Lockdown, there were a lot of
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 4: these pieces coming out. But Kate Bosworth did an interview
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 4: for the twentieth anniversary with Alana Caplan a Vulture and
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 4: talks about how she was like, I was not an
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 4: experienced surfer. I did everything I could to prepare for
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 4: the role, to convincingly do some stuff, but absolutely needed
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 4: like was very forward about the fact that she needed
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: body doubles. And that's unfortunately unusual.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 3: And yeah, because so many productions will be like, no,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 3: we didn't use any body doubles. There weren't any stunt performers.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: Actors can do everything.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 4: But now that the like concept of a movie star
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 4: to like no longer exists outside of like five people,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: I think that it's easier to acknowledge it. Although this
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: is a here's here's another thing that gets stuck in
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: my I'm getting attacked. Here's another thing that gets stuck
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: in my crawl. Casper loves to weigh in, here's another
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 4: thing that gets stuck in my damn crawl. The time
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: is there still not an oscar for stunt work? And so,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 4: you know, even to this day, I think it's like
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 4: important for actors, especially high profile actors, to acknowledge their
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: stunt counterparts, because the industry is still you know, systemically
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 4: undervalues them. Yeah.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 5: I learned, or I've been thinking about that a lot,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 5: because a contestant on the last season of Survivor was
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 5: a stunt actor and he talked a lot about how
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 5: broke he was and he was living in his car, So,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 5: oh my god, more for them.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there is not enough talk about how many like
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 4: critical people in the industry are living in active poverty, right,
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 4: But yeah, the least that actors can do is is
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 4: what Kate Bosworth is doing, which is acknowledging that she
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 4: did not magically become a professional surfer overnight. It's not
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 4: a lot to ask for. Also, I this is so
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: beside the point, but I didn't know that Kate Bosworth
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: and Justin Long were married. And I'm like, what, that's
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 4: so cute. That's so cute. I kind of love that.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 5: It's something I always forget. They're just under the radar.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 4: Like two. I love when two icons that you would
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 4: not expect have even met before are low key married.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 4: It's nice they're smooching. Yeah, does anyone have anything else
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: they'd like to discuss.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 5: I just want to know if either of you know
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 5: anything about Blue Crush too.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 4: No, wait, I don't.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 5: Oh, I don't know anything, Like I refuse.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 4: I know it was like a straight to TV movie.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 4: See who's in that's it?
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 5: Okay, But I do remember in that Vulture article they
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 5: do touch on it when they're asking if Kate Bosworth
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 5: wants to if she would do a sequel, and she
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 5: says that she's on board. She knows the other girls
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 5: are on board. She would want it to be way
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 5: more about their friendship and surfing, but she they make
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 5: a point to say she would want it to jump
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 5: off of Blue Crush, and in so many words, it
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 5: seems like she wants to completely ignore Blue Crush. It
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 5: doesn't exist in this universe.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 4: This is hilarious, Okay. So I don't even know if
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 4: Blue Crush two had permission to associate itself with Blue Crush,
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 4: because this is okay. Blue Crush two is a twenty
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 4: eleven so weird amount of time twenty eleven film starring
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: Blah Blah Blah. Despite the title, it is not a
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: plot continuation of the two thousand and two film and
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 4: critic reviews were generally negative, so it's we're not dealing
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: with the same character. It seems like they may have
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 4: just released a movie called Blue Crush two because it's
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: not technically illegal. I'm looking at the DVD cover. It
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 4: says from the filmmakers that bought you Blue Crush. Unclear
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 4: what they mean by that. I think it was maybe
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 4: distributed by Universal Direct to DVD. Interesting, but it's about
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 4: a totally different person. It's about someone named Dana and
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 4: her friend Jaybay.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 4: Oh no, Jbay is a place, not a person. I
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 4: don't know. It's totally different. It's totally different.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 3: Yes, you know what other movie does this is Titanic two,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: which is not about the characters nor even the ship Titanic.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: It's about the ship called Titanic two. Yeah, all right,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: other people and Shane van Dyke directed in stars in it.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 3: That of course is Dick Van Dyke's grandson. And it's
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 3: a great movie. We should cover it someday, Jamie, Oh, okay, fine.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 5: I do also remember, like Deadline articles from mid twenty
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 5: ten's about there was going to be a TV show.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 5: They sold it like Lizzie Weiss was they were developing
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 5: the TV show for I think NBC with like Universal
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 5: and everything. But that's all I know about that. I
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 5: don't know what happened, but that would have been interesting.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm ready for it if it ever comes. The
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 3: last thing I wanted to mention this is going back
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 3: to the the sapphik undertones of the movie. In that
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: same interview that we've referenced before with screenwriter Lizzie Weiss
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 3: from Monster children dot Com, the interviewer asks, by the way,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 3: many of my queer friends wanted me to tell you
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: that you caused their gay awakening, and Lizzie responds with,
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: that's so funny. I guess that's something. If I were
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 3: to do it again today, that would be more in
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: the conversation. Maybe i'd make eat and buy. I think
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: it'd probably feel more real and honest to that world
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 3: and our world and every world to mention that unquote Okay.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 5: Lizzie, Okay, maybe I'm glad she didn't take it on.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 4: I know it's like, let's get a new writer in
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 4: the mix's done her part. Yeah, yeah, I think that's
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 4: everything I have. Yeah, I would. I would be really
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 4: interested If we have any native Hawaiian listeners that would
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 4: like to weigh in, We would love to hear your
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: thoughts on the legacy of this movie because it is uh,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 4: there's a lot going on. We've done our best to
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: get into it.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: Yes, the movie does pass the Bechdel tests yea technically.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 3: Where Anne Marie talks to Eden and Lena and her
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 3: sister Penny about surfing, she talks to different other the
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 3: like pro surfer character slash real life athletes about surfing.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: There's just a lot of talk about waves and pipe
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 3: and surfboards. Eden makes her own surfboards. I don't know
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: if she sells them, but we see her like crafting
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: aboard at the beginning, which.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 4: Is another thing lifted from the original piece that their
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 4: coach does, which maybe does make more sense.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 4: I wasn't mad about it, but I did like that
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 4: she is an all purpose surfer. She could do anything.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 3: She's crafty.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 4: But it was like, let's give her an ambition. Does
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 4: she want to open her own company? As that why
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 4: she's so like it. It's not that I don't know, guys,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 4: We'll never know. We'll never know.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 3: We have to spend too much time on Matt.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 4: Matt, Bring back Matt. That would be so funny if
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 4: they opened a like continuation of the story being like,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 4: Matt was hit by a meteor unfortunately moments after the
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 4: ending of Blue Crush one. But don't worry, we're all
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 4: over it. Put an outrun.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 5: It not that great.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 4: I know, it turns out he was that good after all.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: But that meteor created huge waves for them to surf.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that was how we became surfing champions.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it does pass the Bechdel test and then our
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: of zero to five nipples based on examining it through
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 3: an intersectional feminist lens. You know, there's some stuff this
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 3: movie does about end of sentence. There's you know, there
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: is this acknowledgment of sexism in sports and how like
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: surfing is this boys club and all of these sexist
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: men who are telling women that girls can't surf, and
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: it's you know, the women pushing back against that, and
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: you know, it's there's not a whole lot of commentary
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 3: specifically on the pressure and the burden that is put
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: on marginalized people to prove that they are just as
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 3: competent as their privileged counterparts. But we do see that
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: happening in the movie, and we see Anne Marie being
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 3: a good surfer and other women being good surfers, but
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: the erasure and the villainization of Native Hawaiian culture throughout
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 3: the story and things of that nature.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 4: I think I'm.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: Gonna give it two nipples. I'd say, let Eden be
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: gay on screen.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 4: Come on, come ont kill men.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 3: I'll give one nipple to know Lake who plays Lena,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 3: and I'll give my other nipple too. That close shot
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 3: on Kate Bosworth's eyes where you see that she has
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: one blue eye and one brown eye.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like, oh, I remember that was like her whole
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 4: That was how she was sold to the world, which
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 4: is unfair to her because she's talented, But I remember
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 4: that being like a huge like, oh my god, she's
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 4: not like other girls. She's a hot blonde with two
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 4: different colored eyes.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 5: Even the DVD commentary, they took a moment to really.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 4: Get it to be like get sink like, let it
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 4: sink in, Let it sink in. Girls. This is diversity, people.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 4: I think that that is two thousand and two diversity. Yeah,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna give this what was your ranking name.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: I give it two nipples.
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna meet either. I think I'm like tempted to
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 4: go lower because I hate Natt's so much. I might
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 4: go on it. I don't know, but I know that
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: this is a seminal movie for a lot of people.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 4: I'll give it to you because of the potential, because
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 4: there was a script that didn't suck. Because technically this
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 4: is a story about women that was adapted by women,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 4: but they were white women who had no experience in
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 4: the communities they were writing about, and so you sort
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 4: of lose. So it just it's a very two thousand
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 4: and two predicament we find ourselves in. We've talked about
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 4: this a lot still, I still feel like there was
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 4: so much research to do for this episode that I
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 4: didn't get to everything that I would have liked to.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 4: I feel the same, But this is the same movie
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 4: is like a third wave feminist girl power commercial movie.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 4: It's and while there is you know, I think a
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 4: lot nostalgically to love it is so disconnected from the
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 4: culture it pretends to be partaking in and appropriating that
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 4: and just let eat and be gay. I'm going to
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 4: give it two nipples and I'm going to give I
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 4: mean to give them to the young queer people of
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 4: the early two thousands who had to really fight for
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 4: their lives to see themselves in this movie. Thank yous
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 4: are for you?
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah or just I want to give this movie snaps
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 5: for the opportunities that it ultimately like presented but missed
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 5: some feeling.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 4: Right now, it's a moment of silence.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, do you have a nipple rating?
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 4: Melody?
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you have to give it like something the two
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 5: yeah two average sure women are if like two is
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 5: are ready for?
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 4: Women are in it.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 5: Women are technically evolved in the production for passing the
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 5: test on a technicality.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 4: But that's about all we can say. I just even
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 4: just killing Matt with a meteor at the very end,
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 4: hitting them in with a bus Regina Jarge style, come on,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 4: come on something something.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 5: I thought of Regina, I thought of mean girls when
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 5: she is in that fight with Lena and she basically
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 5: does that line where she's like, I'm sorry, you're so
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 5: obsessed with me and like Genesee and another queer coded character,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 5: the femme more acceptable conventional girls like ah god, like
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 5: get off, like the one who's just trying to get
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 5: her to see what's real and important pushed to the side.
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Melodie, thank you so much for joining us,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: for this, for having me.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 5: This has been impactful. Rewatch this discussion.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 4: We're sorry for processing for a while.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry for Bechtel casting you.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 4: It's our job. It's our job to ruin your favorite movie.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 5: I'm not going to be quoting it. I'm not going
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 5: to be quoting it every speech this summer. No, I'm
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 5: gonna actually rep man to anyone who does.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you can, you can actually innocent people at the beach.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah sure? Where can people follow you? On social media?
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: Plug away, take.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 5: A little break from it. I'm there, I'll be I'm
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 5: gonna make a comeback. It's gonna be so good. There's
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 5: stuff there at Melody Kamalie on all social media. I
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 5: also did host a podcast called Dyking Out and there's
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 5: some good feminist discussion there. And congrats to the Alison
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 5: Bechdel interview. We had her on and I feel like
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 5: she liked you guys so much more as we were
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 5: just trying desperately, I think, to get her to laugh
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 5: or to like us because we're stand up comedians like that.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, anyway, she's very low key.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but we we deem ourselves with Rosi o'donald. That's
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 5: a good episode to check out if you'd like. But otherwise, yeah,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 5: happy to hear any criticisms of my criticism in my
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 5: dms there if you'd like.
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: You can follow us on social media at Bechtel Cast,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 3: mostly on Instagram, as well as our Patreon aka Matreon,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 3: where we release two bonus episodes every month centering a
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 3: brilliant genius theme, plus access to the back catalog of
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 3: nearing two hundred bonus episodes and that's all for five
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 3: dollars a month over at patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 4: And with that, anyone want to go kill a professional
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 4: football player?
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 5: Anyone want to go listen to pod right now?
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 4: To you the Nation?
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 3: Oh Iconic, Yes, b B by bye. The Bechdelcast is
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 3: a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 3: produced by Sophie Lichtermann, edited by mo La Boord. Our
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 3: theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 3: Katherine Voskresenski. Our logo in merch is designed by Jamie
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 3: Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Assevedo. For more
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 3: information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash Bechdel Cast