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Transcript

The Apartment with Emily Heller · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Burn attention Beck to cast listeners.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: We're going on tour.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: We really are. And it's not just any tour. It's
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: a tour in the UK and it's a tour where
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: we are covering Titanic and.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Shrek brilliantly titled the Shrek Tannic Tour. Yes, Shrek Tornic.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: We're working on it. There's a couple there's a couple
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: months before the tour, but yes, we're really excited. We're
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: currently doing five shows in the UK, with more shows
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: to be added. Stay tuned at the end of May.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Yes, starting with two shows in London on May twenty second,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: once at six point thirty that's a Shrek show, one
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: at nine pm that is a Titanic show. Then we
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: are scooting over to Oxford on May twenty fourth we
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: are covering Titanic. Okay, Then we're scooting up to Edinburgh
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: on May twenty sixth and doing Strek.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: If you're a Scottish Titanic fan, you are going to
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: have to commute. And I know that that's not but listen, Yeah,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: you live in Edinburgh recovering Shrek.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but also you're welcome. And then
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: if you do want to see Titanic, you can head
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: down to Manchester. We're doing a show on May twenty eighth,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and that's a Titanic show.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: So as your Bechdel Cast allies in the US can
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: attest to. Our live shows are super fun. It is
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: like a live episode plus a bunch of fun stuff.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: We dress up, we bring audience members on stage sometimes
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: we do. It's just it's big and goofy and silly.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: And we're covering two of our favorite movies that are
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Bechtel Cast canon, so we want to have a good time.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: We'll be bringing exclusive merch and we will be doing
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: meet and greets before and after the show. We want
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: to meet everybody and we're really really excited. So if
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: you if you live in those areas, get those dang
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: tickets because these shows will sell.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Out, Yes they will, So head over to our link
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Tree link Tree slash Bechdel Cast. All the tickets are
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: posted there. And like we said, we're working on at
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: least one more show in a different city, so stay tuned.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: We're hoping to announce that soon. And otherwise, grab your
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: tickets for the Shrektanic.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: And enjoy the episode on the Bechdel cast.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: The questions asked if movies have.
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: husbands or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephi
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: bast start changing with the Bechdel cast.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Hey, mister Jamie, Yes, mister Caitlyn, I'm mister Caitlin to you,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, mister Kaitlin, I'm gonna.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Need you to give me the key to your apartment
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: so I can fu a bunch of people there, and
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: then I'll give you a promotion.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Maybe Okay, Well, here's the thing. You'll never see me
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: change the sheets. It's maybe implied that I did, but
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: it's not really implied that I did. So if you're
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: cool with me getting promoted and maybe sleeping on your com,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: that's okay with me, mister Caitlin. Is Jack Lemon sleeping
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: on his boss has come the whole mooks? So he
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: comes home and he's so tired, and I like his
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: posture isn't that of someone who has the energy to
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: change their sheets?
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah? No, yeah, so he's sleeping and come and I
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: don't care about that. I just care that you buy
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: me a bunch of alcohol.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: I'm assuming you're not paying me enough to keep the
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: var stocked. But like you know, fingers crossed for a promotion,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to boy boss my way to the top
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: of insurance.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I don't understand the logistics of the sex apartment economy,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: but what I.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: I love it. It's so movie where who knows why
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: they need to fucket his apartment but he's sleeping, got
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: his bosses come that. Really, I couldn't stop thinking about
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: that the whole time because then Shirley McClain, I'm like,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: now she's in the cum sheets on the worst day
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: of her life. Come on, I know, I hope he
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: changed the sheets for her. Doubt it, Jesus doesn't seem
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: like it, because the scenes moved so quickly. I hope
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: the doctor insisted. I feel like he, of anyone in
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: the movie, would be like, hold on, maybe we should
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: change the sheets. Anyways. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: name's Jamie Loftis.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Derante. This is our show where
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point to initiate
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: larger conversations but the Bechdel Test, Yes, what is it?
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Well, Caitlyn, I can tell you, as I've said close
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: to five hundred times before. Isn't that scared? Anyways, They're Bechdel.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Now I'm going to fuck it up. The bechel Test
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: is a media metric created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, often
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: called the Bechdel Wallace Test because she co created it
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: with her friend Liz Wallace. Originally appeared in Alison Bechdel's
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: iconic comic collection Dykes to Watch out For and was
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: originally about a more intersectional test than it tends to
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: be used, as it was pointing out that women rarely
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: speak to each other in movies as a way of
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: talking about how queer women are never in movies and
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: never have relationships with each other. In any case, it
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: was written as a bit and then became a metric
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: that people used to this day. The version we used
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: to start the discussion is or end the discussion, really
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: is we require that there be two characters of a
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: marginalized gender with names who talk to each other about
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: something other than a man for more than two lines
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: of dialogue, and it should be meaningful dialogue. For example,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: if you are the doctor's his wife and you're talking
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: about chicken soup with Charlie McClain.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: That may be a.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Pass wow, but today we are continuing. It's been a
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Billy Wilder year for us. It really is.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: It's true because we just covered Sunset Boulevard not long ago.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Looks like we will be covering if we haven't already
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: by the time this episode gets released. But it's a
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: classic movie march on our Matreon and it appears as
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: though the two movies that are going to win the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: poll are Singing in the Rain and Billy Wilder's Some
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Like It Hot.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: And today we're covering the Apartment with an incredible guest.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Let's get her in the mix.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Let's do it. She's a comedian, TV writer, and host
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: of the upcoming Jeopardy podcast entitled What Is a Jeopardy Podcast.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: You can also check out her Comedy Central special Ice
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Thickeners and her album Pasta. It's Emily Hiller. Welcome back.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Thank you for having me so excited
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: to be talking about this, especially as someone who I think,
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: prior to this past year, had seen zero Billy Wilder
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: movies and now I think I've seen like five wow.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: So it's like it's been a Billy Wilder year for
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: me too nice.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: What brought it out? It feels like he's back. He's
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: with us again.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: What he's not?
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Like he's Jesus, He's back. What threw you into the
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Billy Wilder expanded universe?
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: So I'm like, famously not a movie person.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, thank you for having me.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: I should not be here.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: I so it like it kind of takes a lot
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: for me to like get into watching movies, but I
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: recently sort of decided I want to learn how to
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: write a farce movie, and so I just have been
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: watching a ton and so I've been getting recommendations for
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: people and like working my way through lists, and it
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: just so happens that Billy Wilder is like a master
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: of that genre also, and so we watch some like
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: it hot, we watch Midnight.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, I haven't seen that.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: It's so good and so farcy and so wild is
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: it Wilder?
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Though? Thank you for taking that. I was like, are
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: we going to leave it on the floor?
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: No, I'm going to pick it up and put it
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: where it belongs.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: They're professional.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: It's like the most complicated farst plot ever, where it's
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: like this like woman gambler drifter comes into town and
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: sneaks into this high society event and she gets sniffed
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: out by this guy who then hires her to seduce
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: away the man who is culding him. Whoa, And she's
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: pretending to be like a duchess the whole time. And
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: meanwhile there is this like taxi driver who has fallen
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: in love with her, who's like hunting her down, and
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: it's just the it culminates in this like incredible ballroom scene.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: It's just it's really it's really great. But then yeah,
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: we also watched Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment was one
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: of the ones where it had been kind of recommended
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: for the farce list. But it's not a farce. It's
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: absolutely not a farce.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: No, it's like, I love how like ambiguous it is
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: in genre too, because it like switches a couple of
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: different times.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: Yes, there are some like real hard cuts between like
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: genre scenes too, where you're like it'll go from the
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: most dramatic moment of the movie to like one of
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: the funniest visuals of the whole thing. But it does
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: have like a lot in common with his other like
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: farce films or just it's just like the very tight
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: writing and the very efficient character intros and stuff like
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: he's just so good at that for sure.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so excited that you've done so many I
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: want to much Midnight now, right.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: It's so good. Yeah, it's kind of a b side
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: of his Yeah, it was really. It was like one
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: of those ones where it was like a bunch of
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: the movies on the list, like something like it Hot.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: It was very easy to find where to stream that,
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: but Midnight I feel like we ended up watching it
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: like streaming on some like weird Russian like YouTube or something,
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: so it's harder to track down because I mean the
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: ending I don't I think is like maybe not that good.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: But yeah, it's not like a classic. But yeah, there
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: are some others on the list that I can recommend
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: as well. But yeah, I'm still watching farce as. I'm
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: still enjoying them. But it has gotten me to watch
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: more movies, which like, for some reason it needs to
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: be part of a series like TV's really easy for
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: me because I'm like, I understand where this fits in
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: with everything else I'm watching, you know what I mean?
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: But for movies, it just feels like, I don't know
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: why it's so hard for me to like get hard
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: for a movie.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love it. I'm like, give me just a
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: single isolated story that I don't have to keep watching
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: these characters again.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: The things Caitlin has seen in theaters who would turn
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: your head around three hundred and sixty years it's awesome.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I saw stump the yard and theaters twice hell yea wow,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: you know, and others. But anyway, well, before we talk
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: much more about Billy Wilder and the Apartment, tell us
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: about your podcast.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm very excited. I'm starting a new podcast with
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: my friend John Colin called What Is a Jeopardy Podcast,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: which was sort of born out of the fact that
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: like John and I became friends because we are Jeopardy.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Fans, Oh my gosh.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: And yeah, it was like I was just like on
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: Twitter looking for someone to say something about something that
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: was like grinding my gears about a certain Jeopardy contestant,
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: and I found John tweeting about it. And we also
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: realized that there are no Jeopardy podcasts. There's just the
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: official one and that's it.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Really.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: There are no like good I mean there have been
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: like a few that have like no listeners. Wow, burn
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: I listened to like one or two of them, and
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: they sound like they're being done at gunpoint.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: That is always I'm always, like really delighted to find
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: that there are podcasts that still do not exist, and
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: especially because now I get to listen to you talking
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: about Jeopardy.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's no comedy podcast about Jeopardy. Forgive me.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: I'm sure I'll get corrected if I'm wrong, but work
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: on your pr if that's the case, because I didn't
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: find you.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Come on the show.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm very excited, especially just because weirdly, Jeopardy
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: has gone through a few changes in the last few years,
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: aside from just like the death of Alex Trebek, which
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: led to that like very tumultuous search for a new host,
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: but they also have new executive producers who have been
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: developing this like sort of more tournament forward culture there
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: I guess where they're really sort of fostering more like
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Jeopardy celebs, like personalities who they keep bringing back for
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: various tournaments and stuff, so you get more familiar with
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: the people who are on the show, and it just
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: feels like, there is a lot to talk about, and
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: we're launching with the start of the Tournament of Champions,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: which was delayed because of the writers strike and is
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: the biggest pool of contestants that they've ever had in
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: the Tournament of Champions. Also, for the first time in
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Jeopardy history, the winner of Celebrity Jeopardy is competing in
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: the regular Tournament of Champions.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Wait, they're throwing a celebrity out into yeah, among the normies.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: The winner of Celebrity Jeopardy for season thirty nine was
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Ike Barenholtz, and they invited him to compete in the
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: Tournament of Champions.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Wow, Ike Barenholtz, that skins. Oh yeah, he has the
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: vibe of someone who would excel at Jeopardy. I'm calling
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: him a dork.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Well, he had auditioned for Jeopardy before he
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: was famous.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: H that's cool.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: So he was like, he trained, he was excited, he
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: was ready and yeah. So he's competing and like he's
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: matched up against one of like the top five seeds
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: of the season, so he's gonna get his ass handed
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: to him. And it's very exciting, amazing. But it's like
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: the guy who's probably gonna beat him is like one
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: of clearly the nicest people who you will ever see
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: on Jeopardy. And he's also the guy who helped not
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: scab for the TOC.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: He's like, oh, okay, I was curious because I know
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: that that was a huge thing with Jeopardy.
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Yes, it was a huge thing this year where they
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: were going to proceed with the Tournament of Champions even
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: as the Jeopardy writers were on strike, and they were
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: going to do it using reused clues, so they were
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: going to do it without the writers. And ray La Land,
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: who is a professional set decorator from Canada, went online
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: and was like, as a union man, I cannot in
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: good conscience compete in the Tournament of Champions if it's
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: going to happen without the participation of the Guild writers.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: And all of the other top seeds of the tournament
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: were like, we're with you, ray I love that, and
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: so yeah, it was like a beautiful nerdy snowball that
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: really warmed my heart. And that's the guy who's probably
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: gonna kick Ike's ass in the first round.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Good for him. I hope that, you know. I Barenholtz
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: is like, you know, I mean if you got to
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: get your ass handed to you by someone. It might
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: as well be a good person.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: Might as well be ray La Land, the sweetest man
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: in Jeopardy history. But yeah, so I'm I'm very excited.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Our first episode is going to air the week after
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: the first full week of the Tournament of Champions, so
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: we're going to get right into it. Two very big
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: Jeopardy fans who are not smart enough to be on
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Jeopardy just talking shit about everyone's favorite game show.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Hell, yes, Oh, I'm so excited to listen. I also
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: like it's always like when I'm listening to a podcast
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: about a show, I'm always fifty thousand times more likely
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: to actually engage with the show and like have a
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: ritual and oh, I'm so excited.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: Oh good. Yeah, we're hoping that it will still be
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: like appealing to people who haven't watched every episode from
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: the week before. Like it's gonna be fast moving, it's
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: gonna be basically covering the games from the week before,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: but there's always stuff that John catches that I missed,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: and like hopefully there are things that I catch that
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: John missed, And then there's just like general Jeopardy chat
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: and like we end every episode with some like deep
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: dive on one of the topics from Final Jeopardy, just
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: so we can learn more about it and hopefully be
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: better at trivia in the future. So hopefully there's enough
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: in there even if you aren't like a diehard Jeopardy fan.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Loveully, I'm excited.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: Well, back to the Apartment, I guess seamless seamless?
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, wonderful dismount.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: What is a nineteen sixty movie that was marketed as
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: a comedy but also takes a hard turn in the
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: second act?
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: What is the Apartment? Anyway? So, Emily, you had not
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: seen it until pretty recently, is that right?
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I watched it on Monday, Okay, well there you go.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: Or Tuesday, Yeah, I watched it very recently. Yes, I
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: watched it this week. I'm very excited to talk about it.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the folds.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: And weirdly, I watched it on Tuesday night and Tuesday
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: in the morning, I was like talking to one of
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: my coworkers and I was like, how's it going, what
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: did you get up to last night? And he was like,
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: I watched The Apartment was so good, And I was
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: like Oh my gosh, I'm about to watch it.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: What a coincidence.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, something's in the air. Billy Wilder is like, I've
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: been seeing that a lot of my friends are watching
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: his stuff on letterbox. I'm like, I don't know what
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: it is, but he's back. He's back, He's.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Back his ghost.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: I hope the farce is back. I feel like it's
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: been a slow push and return to farce appreciation.
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: I have a lot of reason to think that Farce
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: is coming back.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: God that would fucking rock.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope. So, not to brag or anything, but
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Jamie and I moderated a Q and a panel for
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: bottoms and bottoms feels very farcy to me.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, I've got to see it. I still haven't seen it,
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: but that is a good argument for me to see
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: it now.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's aesome.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: One of the things that my you know, not to
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: defer to what a man says, but one of the
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: things that my that my husband said that as we've
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: been talking about Farce just sort of incessantly for the
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: last year and a half, is he was like, I
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: feel like the fact that maximalism is so big now
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: means that it is the right time for first to
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: come back, because fars movies are about like just so
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: many plots coming in and coming together, like it's things
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: piled on things. But again, this movie is not a farce.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Right, But we'll cover more farces in the future on
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the podcasts. We will, Jamie, what is your history with
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: The Apartment?
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, I have a pretty extensive history with this movie.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: I know that because we just covered Sunset Boulevard. I
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: will glaze over it quickly. But I took a class
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: in college bravely called Wilder, Allen and Kaufman, a concept
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: that has aged really well across the board. But where,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: oh my cat's here? Where everyone Casper is present? Casper? Okay, listeners.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Casper's newer to the mix, so you might be on
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: a first name basis with him, as you are with Flea. However,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Casper's superpower is that he can watch whole movies with me.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: He can sit motionless for two hours, eyes locked like Casp.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: I made him a letterboxed account because he is watching it.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: His system is five stars if he did fall asleep,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: one star if he did And that's his system. But
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: we watched The Apartment.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: But yeah, no, I took a class where there was
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: a whole sort of like section. We talked about Billy
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Wilder movies for a month and I really really loved it.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: The Alan portion of the class I got in trouble
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: a couple of times, but the Wilder part was my favorite.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: I really kind of fell in love with Sunset Boulevard.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: I really loved the Apartment. I mean we were sort
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: of covering the hits. I wish we had been encouraged
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: to watch the b sides. Maybe we were and I
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: was drunk, I don't know, like I was twenty, I
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but the.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Apartment was one of my favorites that we covered. I
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: really loved it. I had never seen a movie quite
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: like it at the time, And yeah, I have watched
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: it a couple of times over the years since then,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: and it very least cemented my permanent and enduring love
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: of Shirley maclain. Just such a rare, wonderful like every
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: era of her career is unbelievable.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, especially for me, who, like, for the first
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: thirty years of my life, the only thing I knew
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: about Shirley McLain I knew from the Animaniacs opening theme
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: songs that she maybe uses a crystal ball that was
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: all about her that for many years, it's still the
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: first thing I think about when I hear her name,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: because I was just the exact right age for the
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: animaniacs to imprint on me that same Shirley McLain was
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: like a woo woo psychic god bless.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: I remember that now, but I haven't thought about that
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: in like twenty years. That's so before college. I wasn't
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: familiar with anything she had done when she was younger.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: And she's incredible in this movie. I really love. I
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: feel like, for its time, it's doing so many things
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: that no movies are doing, which is how I feel
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: about most Billy Wilder movies. And yeah, I really enjoyed
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: this movie. I was really excited that you wanted to
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: revisit it with us, And there's so much to talk about.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's stuff that this movie does that feels
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: very dated, but there's a lot of stuff this movie
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: does that I feel like rarely shows up in movies.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Now it's wild It's Wilder, we have to do that.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: Every time we do.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Or or Billy Wilder's ghost who is just haunting the
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: world and compelling us to watch all of his movies
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: will kill us.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: He's so back. Yeah, it's true. We are being haunted
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: by Billy Wilder's ghost. That's just like a new marketing
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: thing we're trying. Long story short, I really love and
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: appreciate this movie. Can't Live was your history with The Apartment?
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: I had only seen it once before in my span
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of the two or three years where I was in
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: undergrad getting my first of many degrees in film. I
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: don't talk about it as much because it's not nearly
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: as impressive as my master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: It is exceptional, thank you so much.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Never done anything like it.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: In any case. When I was in undergrad, I took
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: it upon myself to just try to watch basically every
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: movie that was ever referenced in any of my textbooks
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: or just that had any historical significance. So I would
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: watch like three movies a day. I don't know how
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: I managed it, because these days it takes me three
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: days to watch a movie. And so I watched The Apartment,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: and it's not my favorite among Billy Wilder's OOVRA. I
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: think it's because I find Jack Lemon's character to be
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: a spineless pooh poo head wow, get his ass, I will.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I just he rubbed me the wrong way. And I
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: love Shirley McLay, but her character, I just wish she
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: was more active or just was given the opportunity to
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: be more active in this movie. There were things about
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: it that didn't appeal to my sensibilities very much. So
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's a good movie, and I think it's
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: well written in everything. But if I have to choose
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: a movie that I want that I'm gonna have a
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: fun time watching, it's probably not going to be The Apartment. Sorry.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Well, to be fair, I don't think anyone's coming to
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: this movie for a fun time necessarily.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Yeah.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: It's chocolate Block with characters where you're like you want
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: be like what are you doing?
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, CC In particular, you're just like, oh my god,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: we are still caping for like mister Pep at this
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: late hour in the movie, we're still like, well, maybe
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: mister Pep is a good guy.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, CC Baxter more like Pep Baxter.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: See, I wouldn't go that far. I don't hate CEC.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: I like CC. I feel like he grows a lot.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: I don't think that the end line of the movie
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: is good. The ending of the movie is very movie.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: We'll talk about it.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's sort of like it belongs in the sort
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: of like historical canon of the like nice guy protagonists
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: like nice Guy are slash nice guys.
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: Uh.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: But I felt like it was weirdly like a better
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: take on that than like even more modern films like
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: you root for him more than you do for like
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Ducky from.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Like Yes, I was thinking about Pretty in Pink a
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: lot during this movie. Okay, I mean, I guess partially
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: just because this movie is now my dad's age, dosing
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: him much like CC docs and stocks fran Oh god. Yeah,
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: So I mean it's like old and it's hard to
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: not watch this movie by like not comparing it to
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: other movies. But yeah, I feel like CC is at
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: least a more well. He is deeply imperfect, and I
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: feel like let off the hook for things that a
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: modern good movie would not let him off the hook for.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: I still think he's like doing laps around the quote
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: unquote underdog loser characters of the eighties who are like,
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: you know, Revenge of the nerds, like murdering and assaulting
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: women and still coming out on top where it's a
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: bad yardstick.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you get the feeling that he doesn't feel as
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: entitled to anything like Yeah, he still wants it to
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: go a different way, but it feels like he takes
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: no for an answer a little bit better than other
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: movie characters. Still not as well as he should but better. Yeah.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Better.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: We'll get into CC.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's so much to talk I mean, this movie
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: has shades of gray that are like challenging in ways
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: that I'm like, I don't know if they were intended
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: to be challenging at the time, but I'm excited to
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: talk about it.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So let's take a quick break and then we'll
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: come back for the recap. And we're back, okay, So
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: here is the recap for the Apartment. I will place
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: a content warning at the top here for suicide. So
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: we are in New York City. Ever heard of it?
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: And it's about the same time that the movie came out.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: The movie came out in nineteen sixty I think the
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: movie takes place in late nineteen fifty nine. We are
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: getting voiceover from C. C. Baxter play by Jack Lemon.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: He works at a large insurance company, and he often
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: stays late at the office until it's all right for
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: him to go home because he rents out his apartment
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the titular apartment too, and then from his company who
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: are having extramarital affairs and who need a discreete place
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: to fuck.
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: But he's kind of like renting for aspirational cloud, Like
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: he is not charging for this service, right while he
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: is fully stocking, like he's providing the services of the Marriotte,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: but he is not being paid. It seems like he's
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: working ahead a loss. It's like doing stand up comedy, right.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's sort of the rotisserie chicken at Costco where
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: you're like, it's a lost leader, but it gets people
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: in the door, exactly same with the hot dogs.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I was curious if he was charging or what. But
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: I'm also like, I don't think so. These men are
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: all higher above him in this like hierarchy at the office.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: They presumably get paid better. They're like, you know, middle
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: or up or management. Why don't they just like go
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: split se on an apartment that they would have more
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: easy access to. I don't know. I had some logistical questions.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: I was thinking about that the whole movie, and I
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: think it really it ultimately boils down to the fact that, like,
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: it probably just started with one guy and then it snowballed. Yeah,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: So I think at if the movie took place over
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: a longer period of time, we'd eventually get to the
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: point where it's like, you guys, just get your own place,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: you know, seriously, But we're at a moment in this
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: guy's life where it has just sort of gotten a
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: little out of control, and it was maybe a more
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: manageable number of people before.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: I was wondering about that, and I was also like,
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think probably ultimately the apartment thing is
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: just a you know, a movie thing to keep you
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: in the story. But logistically, yeah, logistically it's troubling, and
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: I'm like, are we.
• 29:52
  Speaker 6: To believe, which I do believe that all of these
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: upper executives are like not firing enough sign aps to
• 30:00
  Speaker 6: understand that they should all share a spot if this
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: is the case, And.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Also that CC probably wouldn't point that out to them
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: because he wants to be promoted, and that's like his
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: whole journey is that it takes him so deep in
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: the movie to give up this idea of professional advancement
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: regardless of like who gets hurt or deceived along the way.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: They should just all rent an apartment, Like it seems
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: like they can afford it.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: That's what I kept thinking.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I guess I was like location is everything
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: or something?
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Right, the apartment is one of the characters.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Well, I do think that they are also probably I
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: don't know if it was explicit or not, but like
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: some of these men do sort of pretend like like
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: it's their apartment. Yes, that too, Like there is an
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: amount of deception there are, Like I think some of
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: the women who end up there are people for whom,
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: like going to a hotel would maybe raise alarm bells
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: that these guys don't want to raise.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: True, right, I was wondering.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I was like credit card statements? Was that a thing
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: in nineteen sixteen? Credit cards?
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Their wives would not get to see what they were
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: spending their money on, like that part of it where
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: I was like, no, that would they would very easily
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: be able to do that.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: But in any case, so we've got the sex apartment
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: that CC Baxter is like borrowing out, not even renting
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: out his neighbors, including a doctor. Dreyfus are always like, hey, Baxter,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: what's going on in there? It sounds like you're constantly
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: fucking you sneaky little slut.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: And he's also like that's me. He's like, yep, mister
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: fuck I thought that was a really funny runner. I
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: mean it is. It ties into like the greater thieves
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: of masculinity that surround this movie, but the fact that
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: he at every opportunity even when it gets you know,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: in sometime he's being valiant about it, but other times
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: it's like he doesn't mind being thought of as mister
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: fuck right.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay. So then Baxter arrives home after one
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: such night where he has let a guy use his apartment.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: In this case, it's Al Kirkby, someone from upper management
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: at his company, and Kirkaby is like, yeah, I'll put
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: in a good word for you for this possible promotion.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Later that night, another guy who Baxter works with this
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: is mister Dobish, calls and he's like, hey, I met
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: this woman who looks like Marilyn Monroe and I need
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: to fuck her immediately, get out of bed, even though
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: it's eleven o'clock, and let me use your apartment.
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Right, which is like a winky nod to the fact
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: that Billy Wildser just worked with Marilyn Monroe the previous
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: year and some like get hot and also seven year itch.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know when the seven year itch came out.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I think it was before this could be anything.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: I think it was the fifties. Anyways, like it would
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: seem more misogynousts than it is if you didn't know
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: that they had this working relationship.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: True in any case, Baxter gets out of bed, he
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: goes and waits outside, but mister Dobish leaves the wrong
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: key after he leaves, so Baxter can't get back into
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: his apartment, and he catches a cold. So the next
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: day at work, he's like all sniffily and he chats
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: to the elevator operator fran Kubilick played by Shirley maclain,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: and they're talking about colds, and it's like kind of flirty,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: or at least he's trying to be flirty with her.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: It's flirty, it's friendy. I feel like he is like
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: many men before him, and people of all genders, but
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: I will single out men in this regard, interpreting friendly behavior.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: As romantic interest.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: She's obsessed with me.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, that does tend to happen, doesn't it. And
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: then Al Kirkaby, the guy from the night before, is like, oh, Baxter,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: I saw you talking to miss Kouba. Look, I'd like
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: to take her out, but she always refuses my advances
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: for some reason. And it's like, yeah, maybe because you
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: regularly assault her.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: We just saw you assault her. Yeah.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: So then Baxter cancels the sex appointment that night for
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: this other guy because he wents to stay home and
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: rest because of his cold. So he has to make
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: all these adjustments with the sex apartment schedule to shift
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: people around, and then he gets called to the office
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: of mister Sheldrake played by Fred McMurray, who we talked
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: about in the Double Indemnity episode. Oh yes, yes, in
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: any case. So he's the head of personnel at the
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: insurance company, and Baxter's like, Hm, is this about my
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: promotion that's been floated? And then mister Sheldrake is like,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I know all about your little arrangement with your sex apartment,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: and I want in on it too.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: He's a dog. I think that one of the great
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: bait and switches this movie does is like, really, expose
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: mister Sheldrike for how slick he thinks he is versus
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: how slick he actually is, where he's like, I'm not
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: like the other men that have no respect for my wife.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: I'm built different and like he isn't And the movie
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: knows that. And I think the way that that rolls
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: out is really smart.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they really misdirect what his feelings are going to
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: be about the apartment, Like you feel like he's in
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: trouble at first for what he's doing, which sets him
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: up as a person with like integrity even though he's
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: immediately about to be like I also want it right,
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah right.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: I mean it's clear that he thinks he's better than
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: the other men, who are also like deceiving both. I
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: feel like this movie does a good job of the
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: twohander like deceiving their their wives and also deceiving the
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: women that they are with by just lying out their
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: asses all the time. True, but shell Drake kind of
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: the worst of all because he thinks he's smart. At
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: least the other guys don't seem to be suffering that delution.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard to tell. We don't get to know them.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Very well, but their comic relief.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right. So then Baxter catches on and he gives
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: shell Drake the key for that night in exchange for
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: two tickets to see The Music Man. So Baxter is like, hey,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: miss Kuberlic, do you want to go with me to
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: the play? And she agrees to meet him there, but
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: first she's like, I have to go meet an old
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: boyfriend for a drink. And it turns out to be
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: mister shell Drake, who she had had an affair with
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: over this summer. But again, he's married, and it seems
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: pretty clear that that relationship was never going to go
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: anywhere between Fran and shell Drake, but he's also trying
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: to rekindle things and he's like, no, I am gonna
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: divorce my wife actually, And Fran still loves him and
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: she wants to spend time with him, so she bails
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: on the date with Baxter to see the Music Man,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: and she goes off with shell Drake two Baxter's apartment,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: not knowing it's Baxter's apartment. We cut to Baxter being
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: stood up at the theater and he's all sad and
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: he doesn't know either that you know, Fran is at
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: his apartment with another man.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: You know it's the worst. I had this sort of
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: instinct like when have you ever been watching TV? And
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: then you do the very like annoying modern thing where
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: you like swipe at something that cannot be swiped at,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: be like next thing. I was like, she should have
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: texted him, And I was like, now, hold on, my
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: father is an infant, Like there is no way for
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: her to reach out. Never mind.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: It's true. So then at work, Baxter has gotten his
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: promotion that he's been promised, and he moves into his
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: own office, but he also starts kind of withholding access
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: to the sex apartment for those like four men who
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: helped him get the promotion, and he's withholding this access
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: to everyone except for mister Sheldrake. There's this scene where
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Baxter's like, hey, Sheldrake, I think your lady friend left
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: this broken compact mirror at my apartment.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: And Chekhov's broken compact mirror. That is exactly and also
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: it doubles as a little metaphor for the state of
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: the human condition. Hello what I'm cheering, and that.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: She probably considers herself permanently damaged by this relationship in
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: a way that cannot be repaired.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Wow, I was like, Wow, that's the moment Billy Wilder
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: won his oscar for this one broken mirror to represent
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: damaged character. Boom, what what critics are calling it subtle?
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: It's wild it's wilder, It's really wilder.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, So Baxter doesn't know that shel Drake's lady love
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: is Fran still until the holiday party a few weeks later,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: where Fran lends Baxter the same broken mirror so that
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: he can look at his ugly bowler hat. Got sorry
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: about it.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: That bowler hat really cracked me up. He's like, I'm
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: a big shot. Now check out my new hat. And
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: it's like, you look like Charlie Chaplin.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: Now, yeah, yeah, I wrote down red flag there when
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: a guy gets really drunk, He's like, check out this
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: cool hat I bought.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Should we go out run away?
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah? No, is like a sign of hubris to be
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: like I'm trying a new kind of hat. It's a
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: sign that the character is like on a decline morally.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's gotta like let someone else fix him and
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: you know, circle back in a couple of years see
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: how he's doing.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. But Baxter sees the broken mirror that
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Fran has and he puts two and two together. Meanwhile,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Fran is very sad because mister Sheldrake's secretary just told
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Fran about the several other women who he has had
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: affairs with over the years and who he has lied
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: to about how he's going to divorce his wife for them,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: so Fran is really upset. Baxter is really upset because
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: his crush is sleeping with his boss, so he leaves
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the party and he goes to a bar and gets
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: super drunk. Meanwhile, at Baxter's apartment, Fran is there with
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: shel Drake and she's crying because of his shitty behavior.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: He has to leave to catch a train to be
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: with his wife, and Fran stays behind. We kind of
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: cut back to Baxter, who's coming back to his apartment
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: with a woman he met at the bar. He discovers
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: Fran in bed. She has taken a lot of sleeping
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: pills and she's not waking up, so Baxter panics. He
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: goes and calls the doctor neighbor over to his apartment.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: The doctor saves Fran's life, and Baxter calls shell Drake
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: and tells him about the incident, but shell Drake doesn't
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: really want to be bothered with it, especially it's Christmas Day,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: spending the day with his family, And finally Fran wakes
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: up and Baxter tends to her. He gets her fed,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: they play cards together, but she still feels awful, both
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: physically and emotionally, and she's still in love with and
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: heartbroken over shell Drake. Meanwhile, Fran's family is worried because
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: they haven't seen or heard from her in a couple days.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Which I'm like, that's one of the things with me.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: For Baxter, I'm just like, you gotta like I understand.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: He's like, well, you know, don't call people while you
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: are like before you kind of get your head back
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: on straight sort of. But then at some point it's
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: starting to like before her brother in law arrives and
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: he sucks as well, but like before her brother in
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: law rise, it's starting to feel somewhat hostile. Yes, where
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: it feels like like a baby it's cold outside style hostage. Yeah,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: where he's like, well, you know, you're not quite ready.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: I mean he's covering Sheldrake's ass, like exactly.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: He knows that the discretion of the situation will affect
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: his relationship with Sheldrake, so it's not purely like him
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: taking care of her. It's him being like, I have
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: to keep her quiet about this.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I kind of On this watch it was like, Wow,
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Baxter is like a cad deeper into this movie than
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: I remembered.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: That's why I don't like him very much anyway, So
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: her family's worried about her. Her brother in law, Carl,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: finds out where Fran is and he shows up at
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Baxter's apartment assumes that Baxter is a sleazy guy who's
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: taking advantage of Fran, which isn't exactly right, but you know,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Baxter is no saint in this situation and any case,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Carl punches Baxter and takes Fran home, and Baxter is
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: all like, damn, I'm in love with Fran. So the
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: next day he goes to work prepared to confront shell
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Drake and tell him that he should forget about Fran
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: because Baxter wants to be with her. But shell Drake
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: is like, actually, my wife left me because she found
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: out about all my affairs, So I'm going to be
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: with Fran. By the way, here's another big promotion for
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: all your trouble.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: This scene is so fucked in, so many different directions
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: that it's wild but like it's wilder, wilder. I'm sorry, sorry,
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: it's wilder, but yeah, I mean particularly, I was like
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: sort of surprised by the sort of like nakedness that
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: mister Sheldrake presents, like, well, obviously, if I'm alone, I
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: will die, so because I've been rejected by someone rightfully,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: I must enter this new relationship under false pretenses, and
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: like he just presents it like of course, of course said.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: It's gonna happen.
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: What I really appreciated about this scene too, is that,
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: like you get into it with watching CC practicing the
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: speech she's gonna give to Sheldrake of like, I'll take
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: her off your hands for you. And whenever you see
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: someone practicing a speech they're about to give, you know
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: that they're not going to successfully give the speech, right,
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: good trope, and so you kind of watch that being like, Okay,
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: I get it, we're not going to hear this, like,
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: but then you do hear the speech, it's just that
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: shell Drake says the exact same words. He's like, I'll
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: take her off your hands, And I thought that that
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: was like an impressive way of like subverting that trope
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: to make it feel new, and I was just like, wow,
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: that's really skillful, because I was kind of rolling my eyes.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and no, I'm not anymore.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Totally, I mean, and I feel like it gets at
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: something that I think this movie's doing really well, which
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: is like drawing your attention to the fact that they
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: both view her as meat. But yeah, they view themselves
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: somewhat differently. They both think that they're ultimately good people,
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: and neither of them are consulting with the woman that
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: they are laying claim to, like she is property in
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: both of their eyes, and both of them think, well,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: the way that I view her as property is good.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, which is obviously a major reflection of the
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: mentality of the time and how women were viewed by
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: most men. Totally, but it's frustrating to watch. Nonetheless. Anyway,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Baxter takes the promotion that shell Drake offers, but sometime later,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Baxter bumps into Fran at work. She's gotten back together
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: with shell Drake, who is making arrangements to divorce his
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: wife and to marry Fran allegedly, and Baxter's like, oh, yeah,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: I was just using shell Drake this whole time to
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: get a promotion, I don't even care about you being
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: with shell Drake, and also I have a big date tonight.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: We find out he's lying about all of this. Then
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: there's a conversation between Baxter and shell Drake where shell
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Drake wants to borrow the key to Baxter's apartment again
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: so he can take Fran there. But Baxter has finally
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: had enough so he quits. He goes home and packs
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: up the apartment. He doesn't know what he's gonna do,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: but he just knows he has to get out of
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: this place. Meanwhile, Fran is at a New Year's Eve
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: celebration with shell Drake, and he's all like, we're gonna
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: go to Atlantic City to go to a hotel tonight
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: because Baxter won't even give me the key to his
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: apartment anymore, especially if I'm taking you there the apartment
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: his the apartment. And she's like, wait a minute, does
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: that mean that Baxter loves me? So she runs through
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: the streets as everyone is ringing in the New Year,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay. When Harry met Sally certain saw
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: this movie and has some homage to pay. And Fran
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: goes to Baxter's apartment and he's like, Wow, I'm so
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: glad you're here. I love you, and she's like uh huh.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: And then they finished their card game from earlier, and
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: then I guess they're gonna be together the end.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: Woooooooo see.
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: I actually interpreted her hearing that Baxter had quit his
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: job less as like, oh, my god, he loves me.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: I feel like she knows he loves her throughout. I
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: took this to me and her being like, oh, he
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: decided to stop being complicit in this horrible scheme.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: Maybe it's giving the movie too much credit, but to me,
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: I sort of felt like the movie was not like
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: sympathetic to Baxter's complicity in it. It's like, only once
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: he decides to stop being complicit in it does he
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: get what he wants.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: True. I think that interpretation works well. I was interpreted
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: interpretating wow, okay, awesome job, Caitlin with your brain interpret well, Now,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the word is interpreting likes okay.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: So I thought that because because you see her face
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: like lighten up as he's like, yeah, he won't even
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: give me the key anymore, especially if I'm taking you there.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: So maybe it's like a combination of both because she's like,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: oh wait, he doesn't want me to be with another man.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: He wants to be with me. But I might just
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: be having too simple of an interpretation.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: Yeay, Kaitlyn. I feel like both reads, if it makes sense.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: And I also think that it feels kind of intended
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: that it's left a little bit open ended, because if
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: it it wasn't intended to be open ended, I feel
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: like you would have gotten, you know, like a kiss
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: or something. All we really know is that she is
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: like willing to I think the most generous read I
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: was able to get to on the ending, which I
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: didn't love, but the ending shot is such a banger,
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Like it's hard to not love the ending shot, but yeah,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: the most generous read I was able to get to
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: is that at very least Shirley McLean's character is really
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: happy that he did not sell her out. Further, I
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: think like, I think that it could be seen as like, Wow,
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: this is the first time in at least the course
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: of this movie and possibly her adult life, that she
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: has not been put out as property and as an
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: opportunity versus a person. And I feel like that connects
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: back to like the be men, sh be a human
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: being theme that the movie seems to want to do.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: But I also think you're supposed to think they get
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: together at the end of As with many movies, I
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: sort of hope that the ending to this movie is
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: that they hook up for a month and then break
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: up and remain friends. That's my wish for most couples
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: in most movies, is that they fucked for a month
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: and stay friends for their whole lives.
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean to me, I'm like, the happy ending
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: of this movie is not that they get together. It's
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: that she is allowed to consider that there is something
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: else that's possible outside of the system that she has
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: been sort of ground down to accept.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: True. Yeah, I agree. Let's discuss further after this break.
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: Woo and we're back where back Emily, where would you
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: like to start the discussion?
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: What's jumping out to you?
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Oh?
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: My gosh, I don't even know where to start. I mean,
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: the first thing that I want to say about this
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: movie is that I just I really appreciated how everything
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: was paying something off, Like there was nothing new introduced
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: that was like important that we didn't already know about,
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: Like even the sleeping pills, where it's like they're introduced
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: when he's like, I can't give you the Apartment tonight.
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: I'm sick. I already took a sleeping pill, like, and
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: it doesn't feel clunky. It feels like, oh, it's serving
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: a purpose there. You don't expect it to come back.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: But then when it does come back, when she takes
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: the full bottle, You're like, oh, that was just so efficient,
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: so well done, very good writing. Yeah, and the mirror
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: coming back.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: This wilder, he's got a big future ahead. Yeah.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: And I also love the like that's how it crumbles
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: cookie wise, Oh my.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Gosh, I was thinking, was anyone anyone in the chat
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: a big fan of Bruce Almighty?
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't call myself a big fan.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: I've seen it, Okay, for all my brust almighty heads.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: That's how the cookie crumbles is very much the Jim
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: Carrey character's slogan throughout the movie. And I believe that
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: it is a clear reference to The Apartment.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: Oh it could be the end.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: Brussel Mighty heads shout out wow. But I was feeling
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: the Brusse Almighty the movie. Had seen Apartment the movie.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: I mean a lot of movies have seen the movie
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: The Apartment when Harry met Sally.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: Movies are people, and that's how we engage with them.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: One thing that I appreciate about this movie is that
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: I think it's a good example of how men fail
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: upwards and get promotions that they don't deserve, and how
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: women are often overlooked for promotions and opportunities in general,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: because men are obsessed with looking out for each other
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: when they engage in bad behavior. And I think that's
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: one of the many reasons that the patriarchy has perpetuated
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: itself for centuries. I don't think the movie is commenting
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: on that, but it is presenting it.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: I think it is like presenting it pretty effectively. I
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: don't know how I would suggest it be shifted, but
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, you're given many elements of this
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: like workplace patriarchy, and as a viewer, like you're sort
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: of expected to put it together yourself. The movie doesn't
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: really do that, and then at moments I think it
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: kind of fails its characters. But it's weird because I
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: feel like there is like all these shades of gray
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: where it's based on what we see of CC Baxter,
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: Like it's not that he is bad at his job,
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: it's that he recognizes that the only way to get
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: ahead is to cater to everyone around him's basest, worst,
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: most manipulative instincts to the people around them, and he's
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: fine with that. So it's like a lot of male
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: characters we've talked about over the years, he is both
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: subject to the patriarchy because he's so in the middle,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: and he's also being uplifted by it at the same
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: time and is okay with that.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: Right, And you see the alternative. He has that coworker
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: who works at the next desk over, who's been there
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: longer than him, who has done probably more better work
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: than him, because he's so distracted taking care of the
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: apartment anyway, we.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Don't see him work ever.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that guy is never going to get a promotion,
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: and he begrudgingly congratulates Ceci when he gets the promotion
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: that he earned through dubious means. And you recognize that, like,
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: the alternative to participating in the sort of corrupt hierarchy
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: of this institution is just languishing in the position that
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: you're in. And so it both like lets Baxter off
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: the hook for his choices in some way, but it
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: also indicts the institution.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, and then I feel like, on Frand's side,
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: I'm curious what everyone thinks about it, because I didn't
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: remember that they tell you that she did have higher
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: career aspirations but was held back, which it seems like
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: she I mean, I would guess that she and Baxter
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: are like they're intellectually matched, but Baxter has the credentials
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: the fact that he is a white man and the
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: fact that he because he's a white man, he has
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: the opportunities to advance. And they were like, well, sorry,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: you like can't spell well enough, so you're stuck in
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: this very feminized working class position of this time indefinitely,
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: which seems to be I mean, among other things. But
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: it does seem that like part of her depression comes
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: from the fact that the world that she's in does
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: not offer her opportunities for advancement, like nefarious or otherwise.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, I also wonder what the implication was supposed
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: to be of the fact that, like, Baxter's neighbors are Jews,
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: and there was like a class implication there that like,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: even though that guy is a doctor, they live in
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: this like kind of shitty apartment building with this bachelor
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: and there is like for him and for why can't
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: I remember her name, Shirley McLean's character, Why can't I
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: go for Fran Yeah, that they both don't have the
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: same privileges that other people around them do, and so
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: they are kind of like scraping to get by. Yeah.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: I was curious about that too. I mean, I know
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: that Billy Wilder was a Jewish writer and included other
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: Jewish characters in his films. I don't know. I mean
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: that sort of brings me into like some of the
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: context for the way that this movie was produced. There's
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: not a ton of it that I think is super
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: relevant to talk about. But the things that I guess
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: I would want to talk about is the fact that
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: like Billy Wilder had like started in noir and you know,
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: like did Double Indemnity in the fifties. He does all
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: of these wacky comedies, and then in the sixties. It
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: seems like this is the first example of him getting
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: two ideas he wanted to produce in the forties but
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: wasn't allowed to because of the Hayes Code until the sixties.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: So this was like an idea he'd been noodling around
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: with since the forties, but this was the first time
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: he actually got clearance to do it, and I don't know,
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: I wasn't able to find a lot about the writing
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: of the movie itself. It was co written with a
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: common collaborator, Il Diamond. This movie takes place in nineteen
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: fifty nine, but it also feels like a little bit
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: out of time.
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it feels really modern in a lot
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: of ways, and it's sort of like cynicism about sex
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: and everything, which I think is a little bit of
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: like a Billy Wilder homemark, Like his movies are a
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: lot about like cynical people finding joy in spite of
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: themselves and in spite of like them feeling sort of
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: above the morays of the time. But I also kept
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: thinking about, like what it would be like to watch
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: this movie if I hadn't already seen mad Men. Ooh, right,
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: because I feel like mad Men was so like, oh
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: my god, this was so normalized and we're blowing your
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: mind with that, and it feels like this must have
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: felt a bit more radical to see before that was
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: like the common understanding of what these types of businessmen
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: were up.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: To, especially because the production code was still in effect
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: when this movie was being developed and released, the kind
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: of parameters of it were getting more lax as time
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: went on, and I think it was in nineteen sixty
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: that the Hayes production code was like officially dissolved and
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: replaced with the rating system, but it was still enforced
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: to some degree when this movie came out. And so
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I was surprised that there were things that this movie
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: got away with that I wouldn't have expected. Did it
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: to be able to talk about and like pretty directly
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: and explicitly addressed, such as suicide and suicidal ideation and infidelity, slash,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: sex out of wedlock and abortion? Oh wait, what's the
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: abortion component?
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: So I mean, it's not as explicit as talking about
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: the suicide, but there's a moment when her brother in
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: law comes to the apartment to retrieve her and he
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: introduces Dreyfus. He's like, this is her doctor, and the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: guy like almost punches him and he's like, not that
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: kind of doctor.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: Oh my god. Okay, I did not connect that.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the implication being that like she's recovering from an
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: abortion versus and obviously they don't say it, but it
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: is strongly implied that like, oh yeah, that would be
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: the other thing that the doctor would be there treating
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: her for at home.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that totally makes sense. God, that did not register
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: for me at all.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I barely caught it.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: This Vivie is really good, folks. But getting back to
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: your original point, Emily, Yeah, I thought it was interesting
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: that the only character that I think, like we know
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: is Jewish is also the moral center of the movie.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: And also yeah, like of a higher class and profession
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: than our protagonist. Yeah, but I really liked I don't know,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: I like doctor Dryfus.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: And his wife.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: His wife, I hate that, like we have his her
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: name is Mildred, we do hear her name, so for
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: Bechdel test purposes, she just skates through, although she is
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: mostly referred to as his wife. But I also was
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: like pleasantly surprised that Jack Krushian, who played doctor Dryfus,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: was nominated for an Oscar for that part. Jack Lemon,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: Charley McLain, and Jack krushn are all nominated for Oscars.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: This movie was nominated for a million Oscars and won
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: a bunch, not for acting. But in any case, I
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: felt like doctor Dryfus, I don't know, he was interesting
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: to be because in some ways he and certainly Mildred
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: are allies to Fran based on what they know about
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: the situation, but they also have very like nineteen sixties
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: views of sex and promiscuity in general, which I feel
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: like this movie is sort of playing around with and
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: referencing how older generations versus younger generations view sex and
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: promiscuity at this time.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean they're not as disgusted with him
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: as they could be, I suppose because they were like,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: not in a position to be, but you are like, oh,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: they have sympathy for her, even if they don't have
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: sympathy for Baxter, right, which I.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Was surprised about because so much of slut shaming and
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: like promiscuity shaming is directed toward women. And there's of
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: course the famous double standard of oh, if you're a
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: man who's fucking all the time, you're awesome, and if
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: you're a woman who's doing that, you're a horrible, dirty,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: disgusting person.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: Or it's just like fundamentally assumed that you're being deceived
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: versus participating, right.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Right, that too, and so for like doctor Dreyfuss's his
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: wife Mildred, She's like, yes, I'll fix some breakfast for her.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't do anything for you, CEC Baxter, because you're
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: a dirty, rotten scoundrel.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: He's a dog.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: But for her because I think she almost views Fran
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: as a victim, almost of like CC Baxter's constant parade.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: What they perceive is like a constant parade of like
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: women coming and going out of his apartment.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because she's assuming that Fran has overdosed as a
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: result of CC. She is going off of right.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: She knows right, Yes, who knows where her sympathies would
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: be if there wasn't a suicide attun true exactly.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was something that was on my mind because
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: this is the first time and I let like doctor
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: Dreyfus does not hesitate to intervene. It's not like he's
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: unwilling to help someone who he has moral questions about,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: which is what doctor should do, not necessarily what they
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: always do. But I wondered how Mildred's opinion of Frian
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: would change if she was not in this position. Right,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: But I also think it's fair to assume that Ceci's
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: a liar because he is, So that's something to keep
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: in mind.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Can we explore the romance between Baxter and Fran a bit.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we should.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: Because I find it fascinating. So she's introduced in the elevator.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: You know, he's trying to be flirty with her. He
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: asks her for lunch. She like smiles but doesn't express
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: any interest and like kind of shoes him out of
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: the elevator.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: I would say it's friendly, but it's not. Yes, mortatious
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: as he interprets it right.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: As fire as my interpretation, Wow, I did it without
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: even trying. I said the word. She is being cordial
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: and professional, and maybe that's why she's like not being
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: flirtatious in return, because she's like, we're colleagues, you know
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: that would be inappropriate. But in any case, she's showing
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: no romantic interest. Not long after that, he asks her
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: to go to the theater. She declines, saying that she
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: has another date with another man, but Baxter kind of
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: like wears her down a little bit, and she's like, Okay, fine,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: I'll go with you. It's right here. When we get
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: the I Know where you live conversation.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the part of the movie that for
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: Vah is the worst, real bad, it's bad.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: One of their earlier conversations in the movie is Baxter
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: being like, yeah, you know, we're gonna go to this play,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: then we'll go out dancing. I know this great spot
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: right around the corner from where you live. And she's like,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: oh sounds great. Wait a minute, how do you know
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: where I live? And then rather than him being like, oh, yeah,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: she's right, is creepy that I know where she lives
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: and that I just told her that and acted like
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: it was no big deal that I told her that.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Instead he's like, not only do I know where you live,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: I know who you live with. I know where and
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: when you were born. I know your height, your weight,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: your Social Security number, and your entire medical history because
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: I looked up your file at the office. And she's like,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: uh huh.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: She's like, hah okay, this, yes, I remember this for
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: the first time I watched it, being like, well, that's
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: certainly disqualifying, yes, you would think, and yet well that's it.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: I feel like, well, I think that there is so
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: much to love about this character and will continue talking
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: about her. I feel like there are moments of inconsistency
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: where there is like naivete I think like ascribed to
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: her character that feels wildly unreasonable, where it's like, yes,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: she is young, she's in her early twenties, but like
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: people in their early twenties know, it's scary to do that.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: Like that's maybe not the guy, particularly if you are
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: already famously not attracted to them. Like it sort of
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: lends itself to the wearing one down thing.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he's benefiting here from comparison to the
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: men who are physically assaulting her in the workplace. Right, Yes,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: he's the least bad guy. Yes, And like I think
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: also like in that first scene where she gets spanked
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: by that guy and she's sort of like tells him
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: off a little bit, you are kind of like, oh, well,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: she's someone who will like stand up for herself if
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: you're doing something wrong to her kind of. And then
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: so when she doesn't do it to him, you're like, well,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: she's not just placating him. Maybe she's okay with it.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he must be the guy.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, But at the same time, I'm like, as creepy
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: as that is and as not okay as it is
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: that he does that, I do think that the film
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: is sort of like not necessarily like judging him or
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: holding him accountable for it, but it is sort of
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: presenting the fact that he is an observer of the
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: lives of others and not a participant even in his
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: own life, Like he doesn't even occupy his own apartment, right,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: and that is like the main problem that he needs
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: to sort of rectify throughout the movie. So it is like, yeah,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: this is like kind of a messed up way to
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: like see what life.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: Is all about.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, by like reading people's insurance files. But yeah, that's
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: giving him a lot of credit.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, but yeah, that was a tricky
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: one for me. I do like feel like that moment
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: has potential to be I was like sort of hoping
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: it would be called back on in a more meaningful
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: way later, because it's like, if this guy is our
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: the guy we're rooting for, and that's the way that
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: he understands how to interface with people where people are
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: kind of numbers and obstacles to be overcome to get
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: to where he wants to be. I just wish that
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: that specific PLoP boy was called back to because it's
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: just like age is bad.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: I mean they did call back to it, they do,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: but not in a super meaningful way.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: Not No, way that felt critical of him.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: Really, yes, they call back to it when she's like,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: you know, she calls back like, oh, you don't want
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: people to get the wrong idea about how I know
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: about that?
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: Like right, It just felt like a flirtatious callback versus like, Hey,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: that thing you did earlier was fucking weird. Like yeah,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: which is weird because she does selectively call him out
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: on certain things, but it's everything that you know, we
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: have to keep him our lead, So yeah, right.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: I think it boils down to I just wish that
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: she had been afforded more agency and perspective throughout the movie,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: because I mean, I also want to talk about how
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: she's presented in comparison to the other women who are
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: in the movie, mainly the women who the men are
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: having the affairs with, because she's like the one respectable
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: woman quote unquote. It's like the nineteen sixty version of like,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: she is not like the other girls. But I still
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: find the way their romance plays out to be, you know,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: not great, because it's a lot of her politely declining
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: or not showing any interest him kind of barreling past
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: that and wearing her down. And then there's the scene
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: where he has put the two and two together about oh,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: the person who my boss is taking to my apartment
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: is fran He finds this out at the holiday party,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: and he gets so upset about it. And I feel
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: like it's maybe some combination of like, oh, well, I'm
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: jealous that the woman who I want to belong to
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: me can't belong to me because another man has claimed
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: ownership of her, and this is maybe me reaching a
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: little bit, but I'm also just like pulling from the
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: context of this era of like, oh, she's like a
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: tainted one. She's damaged goods. You know, she's not this like.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, I see, I didn't read it that. Okay, I
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: read it as it's still not a super charitable interpretation
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: of Baxter. But I read that as like, oh, now
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: I care that people's lives are being affected because I
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: like this person, and I like that was how I
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: read that seen, where it was like people are just
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: numbers and bimbos and this is just how the world
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: works until suddenly someone that you like is involved, and
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden it matters, and yeah, well
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: that's not a negative thing inherently to realize that if
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: someone is being emotionally, like deceived or harmed is an
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: important thing. It does sort of reveal him to be
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: like someone who is kind of selfish, and that is
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: who he is, Like, he's like, well, I only care
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: if someone I like is affected, which is part of
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: what he has to get over that. I feel like,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: you know, you could argue whether he actually makes that
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: journey fully but yeah.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: Right, but yeah, it's left a little ambiguous, like what
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: it is about.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: That that affects him, right, Yeah, yeah, it's hard to say.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: But he gets so upset about it that he goes
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: to a bar and gets drunk and picks up another woman.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: Which I'm not casting any judgment on any of that
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: because it sounds like something I would do.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: No, they're lonely and hanging out. I always remember just
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: the image of them, like soul loosely dancing cheeksh to cheek,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: Like it's so funny.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: It's so funny, And it is that hard cut from
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: her making her suicide attempt to them dancing cheek to cheek,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: and you're like, the darkest moment and the funniest moment
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: in this movie is just like back to back.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that stark image of like loneliness and like,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: I feel like it could have been way more. I
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: think that in general, women who are not Shirley maclain
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: are made out to be kind of well a few
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: are made out to be kind of like bimbos that
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: are like, what do you mean You're not gonna blah
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: blah blah. But I think the exception to that sort
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: of trope is Shell Drake's secretary. I feel like we
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: do get some interiority for her, and I liked that
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: in the scene at the holiday party, we have Shell
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: Drake's I forget what her name is, we do get
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: a name for her, Miss Olsen, miss Olsen. I was
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: calling her Elizabeth Olsen in my mind because that is
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: a famous person I've heard of. But miss Olsen, I
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: thought the way that she presented that information to Fran
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: while it was like drunk and like not super well,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: presented the way you wouldn't when you're drunk. I thought
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: that that was like more than I expected, because I
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: feel like it would have been very easy in this setting,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: in this time to have it turned into a rivalry
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: and a shameful thing, where I think like miss Olsen's
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: anger is well placed. It's at shell Drake. She knows
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: he's a piece of shit, and she literally says to
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: Fran like, there's nothing to be ashamed of. He is
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: we've seen him do this, like you are not. And
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: as someone who has been young, naive and in that
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: position being told by someone like hey, this guy you're with,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: he's a piece of shit. I've been in your position too,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: it never feels good. And seeing it written by two
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: men is never quite on. But those like hey, just
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: so you know, I see what you're going through, and
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: this guy's a piece of shit.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: You're part of a pattern. You're not special. This is
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: like he's going to do this again. Yes, totally, it
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: is a true warning. She's not saying it to be
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: like fuck you, like yeah, she is saying it to
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: be like I am the ghost of Christmas past.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: And totally yeah, Having now been on both sides of
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: that equation, that is a very meaningful interaction that we're
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: seeing there. And the fact that that is what puts
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: her over the edge and sends her into suicidal ideation
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: is like, we should talk about that also, something that
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: certainly happens. I don't know. I was surprised by that
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: moment watching it this time, because I feel like in
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: a movie in nineteen sixty I would assume that it
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: be like a woman shaming another woman of like, how
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: could you be so naive? How could you blah blah
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: blah blah blah, But instead it was like a callous,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: imperfect moment of recognition.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I tend to agree that her intention is, you know,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: looking out for her fellow woman who is going through
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: something that she already went through. But that character is
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: also established to be someone who seems like kind of
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: devious in the sense that she's like always sneaking around.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: She's very nosy, she's trying to like stir things up.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Because we also see her call mister Sheldrake's his wife
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: and you know, arranged to get together for lunch to
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: tell her about all of shell Drake's affairs.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: I don't think the movie judges her for that.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: Though now I felt like that was it was like
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: a twist to reveal that she had had a relationship
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: with Shell Drake, because at first you are like, oh, yeah,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: she's one of those nosy people and that's why they
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: need to hide it, and then it sort of is
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: like a reveal of like, oh, he's talking about her
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: like she's nosy, but really she's scorned, and like it
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: is a situation that he created, not a situation that
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: she created.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: Was just because so many of the other women were
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: presented as being like ditzy, fluozy or like naggy in
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: some way that I just sort of carried some of
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: that into that character, because I do feel like a
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: lot of those other I think.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: The women who are brought into the apartment are right, yeah,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: there is.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: It seems a lot of judgment cast on them by
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: the movie. And maybe I was just carrying some of
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: that and projecting it onto the Miss Sulsen character.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: I will wave a flag for miss Olsen. I think Missulsen,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: you know, she she did it imperfectly, but all of
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: her motivations to be made sense, Like it wasn't just
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: like she was a spiteful, nosy person, like she was
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: fucked over by her bot, like she was presumably harassed
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: at work, ended up in this relationship, and then for
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: her own livelihood, forced to stay and watch him do
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: this to other women. And then we see her make
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: a drunken attempt to acknowledge one of those other women to.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: Break the cycle.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which, unfortunately, what happens like that I don't think
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: can be pinned on miss Olsen. Again, this is all
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: traced back to Sheldrake and him thinking that he is untouchable,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: which I feel like made it hit even harder and
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: more frustrating that at the end, you know, he's always
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: going to be fine even though he doesn't end up
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: with Fran and Fran escapes his fucking evil spiral. You know,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: like he will continue to be fine indefinitely, which is
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: true of the time and true basically still now.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: Well, it's like anyone who decides like I have a
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: moral conscience about what's happening and I'm going to tap
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: out is lost from the company. Yeah, like they are
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 3: all exiled, and she's one of those people who's like,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: I'm out. I guess because I exposed what's happening.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: Right, which tracks because men are obsessed with getting rid
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: of anyone who will not comply with their horrible behavior.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: I had a little bit about because like we've sort
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: of been talking about for a while now, like how
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: this movie was marketed successfully as a comedy and also
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: prominently features a suicide attempt. I think, I mean that
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: was certainly like hinted at in many movies. I think
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: this is one of the more famous examples of a
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: suicide attempt being a major plot point. There was a
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: really good retrospective piece that came out in twenty twenty,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: remember that in The av Club Bike Caroline Seed that
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: touches on sort of how the theme of suicide is
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: touched upon. I think that in some ways, fran makes
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: what appears to be like an unplanned attempt on her
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: life after mister Sheldrake leaves in truly the most horrific
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: way possible, like he's a He's just like such a
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: fucking piece of shit. And as she is recovered from that,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: I felt like the movie didn't judge her in the
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: way that I would expect a movie of this time
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: to judge her. I think that where I get a
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: little trick is like she is portrayed as so naive
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: during her recovery. I want to be generous with her there,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: because she is recovering from something extremely traumatic and extremely
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: horrific and she's still sort of coming back to who
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: she is. The moment that really sticks with me is
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: that she's not judged by Baxter and I'm not like
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: Team back, but I think the way that he handled
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: the immediate aftermath was thoughtful, especially in the scene where
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: he I think that up until this point in the
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: movie that I don't know how to correctly phrase this,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: but that you wouldn't see this scenario with a man
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: because of how we have been trained by this movie
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: and by society at the time to think that men
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: are knowingly dogs and women are unknowingly deceived, and that
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: is like the binary we've been presented with. And so
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: when Baxter comes to her very honestly and is like,
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: I once almost made an attempt on my life, also
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: over a relationship, and I'm so glad I didn't, and
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: here's why, and all of this, and having that be
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: like a moment of healing and recognition, even though you know,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 2: I think realistically she's still not out of the woods
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: with navigating her feelings on this. I thought that scene
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: is really beautiful and nice.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: I agree, and I also found it surprising, again based
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: on the context of the time and the just sort
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: of cultural mentality toward suicide and it's misunderstanding of mental
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: health and all of that. So yeah, I found the
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: movie to be like very generous with its handling of that,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: especially for the time.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: I love friend, and I also think that someone showing
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: up for you in that moment does not mean that
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: you have to be their girlfriend. That's where I have
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: a hard time.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, to be fair, she does go back to
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: shell Drake for reasons. I mean, who among us hasn't
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: gone back to a bad relationship, even though we you know,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: logically you know better, but emotionally at that exact moment,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: maybe you don't. So we won't blame her for that.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: But the very jarring thing to me about the recovery
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: of the suicide attempt is the scene where the doctor
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: is like treating her and then like I think, giving
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: her smelling salts or something to help her getting consciousness,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: and then he slaps her across the face multiple times
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: to try to wake her up. I'm sure that was
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: standard medical practice four the time, a little.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, necessary to show, I would say.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: No, it was not necessary to see a man slapping
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: a woman across the face like six times in a.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: Row, especially as he was about to become the moral
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: compass of the movie not two minutes later.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know. Nineteen sixty Although when I had
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: my gallbladder surgery in twenty nineteen, and I was like,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: coming out of the anesthesia, I was woken up to
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: a doctor slapping me across the face. What so maybe
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: it is Yeah, it was like traumatizing and I was like,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: excuse me, is that necessary? But a doctor was slapping
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: me in the face to wake me up because they
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: thought I was dying because my heart rate was low.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: And then they're like.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: Went vampire mode.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: They were like, they're like, are you a runner? Like
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: do you exercise? I was like yes, and they're like, well,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: your heart rate is alarmingly low. But if you're a runner,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: that's actually kind of normal. But if you're not, we
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: thought you were dying. So they slapped me just in case.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: And medical slap sometimes I mean like, and we know
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: the medical system is so fucked is sobody ways.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: But sometimes I don't know, Like there were times over
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: the summer where I was with a doctor. I'm like,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: you're describing like witchcraft. You're just being like, ultimately, we
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: don't know, we're gonna throw some leaves at it, and
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: guy knows what happens. I'm like, I don't feel secure
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: in your abilities. I don't trust you live off love.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: I think, Okay, the last thing I have to say
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: about Baxter, yeah, is that again I think that this
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: is done unevenly throughout the movie. But I appreciated where
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: we talk so much on this freaking show about patriarchy
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: the guy, and there's one guy who represents all the patriarchy,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: and if we vanquished this one guy, the world will
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 2: be solved, and we will. We've also seen racism the guy,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: and you vanquished racism the guy or it racism the
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: lady Brave, and then racism is helved, you know. So
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: it's like very clean movie solutions. I like that this
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: movie does not subscribe to that. I think that the
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: tricky thing is that in the guys who aren't Shell
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: Drake who go to the apartment, as well as the
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: women who go with them, are made to be comic
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: relief in a way that is funny but kind of
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: ultimately a little dissonant. But with Baxter, I really like
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: that he is I think the movie knows he is
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: like an agent of the patriarchy because he's quite literally
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: an agent of the patriarchy. He is like sharing his
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: bed sheets with them for advancement. He is knowingly benefiting
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: from this and doesn't give a shit about anyone in
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: the equation until it's someone who he cares about who
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: is being negatively affected by it. I feel like we
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: don't really see characters like that very frequently in a
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: knowing way. I think where that gets tricky is the
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: ending implication that possibly like it almost like positions Shirley
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: mcclan as the reward for realizing he was an agent
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: of the patriarchy, where he's like, now that he has
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: abandoned the toxic workplace, that he has walked away from it,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: he can have girlfriend and at the end of the day,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: isn't that what it was all for? Blah blah blah.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: So that that's a little you know, and again that's
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: open to interpretation. We've talked about different interpretations of that,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: but I just appreciated that, like normally, when we see
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: characters like that, the movie completely absolves them of everything,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: and it's like, at the end, he does get the
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: promotion and he's gonna solve insurance from the inside, and
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: this movie is smarter than that, right, And I love
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: it for that.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it still does reward him with at least
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: like a woman's tension for that night, unclear if they'll
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: like get together romantically. But again it begs the question
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: to me, what does she like about him? Besides the
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: fact that he's respectful enough to take off his hat
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: in the elevator, like, she's given no indication that she's
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: romantically interested in him. And I don't know. Maybe you
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: can make the argument that through this journey of her
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: relationship with shell Drake and she finally comes to realize, Oh,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: this man doesn't respect me or care for me the
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: way a person should. And it seems like Baxter, based
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: on the way he took care of me after my
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: suicide attempt, he's the better option. I don't know exactly
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: what the implications all are.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: I like that it doesn't tell you what it is, too,
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: because then it makes it easier to love this movie
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: on a longer timeline, which I want to.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: That is fair, I because I don't have as much
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: of an attachment to it, and I don't feel like
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: at this point, or at least at the point where
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: the movie ends, that Cec Baxter earned the redemption that
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: he appears to get by being able to hang out
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: with friend.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 3: I mean, he he did give up everything he had,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: He did this is jet including the apartment, and he
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: did get punched really hard and gave up his apartment
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: and his job and his career and like literally has nothing.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: I guess I just think that, yeah, I'm like, men
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: should give up that and more to deserve any redemption.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: So I think that again, it is very connected to
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: that moment of human connection between the two of them
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: when they are sharing this experience of like they have
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: both been at an extremely low point and like, please
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: let me share my experience with you, that you might
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: take something from it to get through this difficult experience
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: for me. Honestly, I think the movie is heightened if
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 2: they don't end up, or even it being implied that
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: they end up together. But the generous interpretation at the
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: ending for me is that again he says I love you,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: I love you so much, and she says, okay, let's
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: play cards. I feel like it is like weird thinking
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: they are going to get together. But I just what
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: I would have loved is just yeah, like another moment
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: of like the moments of human connection between the two
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: of them. I like, I've had moments of human connections
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: with guys who kind of sucked that have been impactful.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: And you know, I don't think that his life should
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: be totally but his life even he's like also not
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: for nothing. He is fucked and like that that's not
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: what movies are interested in, nor should they be. But like,
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: you know, he's fucked, Like he what is he gonna
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: you know, he's he's a guy. He'll bounce bounce back though,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: and I do believe that she will as well. Something
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: I like about her character as we're not led to
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: believe that like I'm just doing this job until I
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: find a husband, Like it seems like she wants to
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 2: have a career like it that's never brought up as
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: something that is like a temporary thing for her, and
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: judgment isn't passed on her for it. I don't know
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: I'm becoming defensive of this movie, but I think that
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: like C. C. Baxter, I'm friends with people like C. C. Baxter,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: and the trick is never fuck them. M that's the yeah.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, I do think that this movie is more
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: critical of the sort of social understandings of the time
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 3: than it has to be, yeah, to tell the story,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 3: and I think that it is like it doesn't let
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: this guy off the hook, even though he's not the
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 3: one cheating on his wife, you know what I mean,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 3: Like he gets all of the consequences that are coming
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 3: to those guys that they never experience because he's standing
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: in and saying like, yes, I'm fucking all these women,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: Like he doesn't get to, you know, correct the record
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 3: about like I wasn't actually fucking all those women. Other
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: men were doing that in my bed, you know what
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 3: I mean. And he still pays the price for it,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 3: and it is still like, well he does owe something, but.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Anyway, I think that the one hundred dollars
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: that Shell Drake gives to Fran that she should have
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: kept it because uh men, oh women money you read
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 2: I would have. I mean, if if I were a friend,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 2: I would not have made a statement by not keeping
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: the money. I'd be like, thank you and goodbye forever.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: This is mine. I deserve this one hundred dollars in
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixties money that is one thousand dollars roughly in
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: today's money.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: Buddy, let's freaking go to be fair.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 3: She thought she was going to be dead, that's true,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 3: so when she left the money, she had no use
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 3: for it. The only use for the money was to
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: say I don't forgive you feel bad that I'm dead,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 3: which I'm like, Yeah, if she knew she was going
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 3: to live, yeah keep the money. But she didn't, and
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: so she got to use it as a fuck you,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: which is cool.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: Another example of Baxter big pro shell Drake where he's like,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: I got one hundred dollars for you, where it's like, well,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: just let her have, you know, like.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: When she survived. It seems like the money gets returned
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: to chldreake again, but it's like, no, like, you're alive,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: keep it, use it. It's one thousand dollars in twenty
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: twenty four men.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well he didn't really know what the money was
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 3: at that point.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: Uh, this movie passes the Bechdel test, folks.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: It does good for it.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: It passes primarily between Mildred and Fran when they are
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: talking about her recovery, which I feel like is very
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: you know, plat relevant, So it passes. I do think
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: that Fran again, like most women we see in movies
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: to this day, like it would be really cool if
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: she had a female friend. Yes, there's no shortage of
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: women in this workplace who are marginalized in much the
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: same way she is for her to talk to, And
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: I feel like that is the way in which it
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: sort of plays into a very like sparse story character
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: wise but also just how I think. So often, like
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: iconic women characters in older movies are often in a
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: bubble where they are the woman, where we know that
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: she lives with her sister, We assume that she has
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 2: some sort of close relationship with her sister, even though
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 2: it's like the only thing we know is like, your
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: sister thinks you're a lady. So it's like, well, maybe
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 2: her sister would slut shame her for being a person
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: who knows, But we're surrounded by all of these potential
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: women for her to be allied with. We don't really
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: see those conversations, and when we do, like with ms
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: Olsen and Friend, it's strictly, you know, centered on the
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 2: shell Drake issue, right, but it does pass. So there
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: you go.
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: Well, because this movie's only interested in Fran to the
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: extent that she has a blossoming relationship with C. C. Baxter,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: and outside of that, the movie doesn't really have any interests.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: And I disagree, I disagree.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 3: I disagree that's not true at all.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: Then why don't we see her at home, having an
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: interior life, having friendships, Like what.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: I don't think that she's the protagonist, but I don't
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: think that means the movie is disinterested in her.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think it's interested in her outside of
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 3: her relationship with Baxter, because I think that it's like
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 3: it understands that there's things about her that Baxter doesn't
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 3: understand because of his preoccupation with a relationship with her,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 3: that she has all these other dimensions that he's not
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 3: seeing even though he has access to her insurance file,
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 3: Like he gets surprised with information about her that we
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 3: as the audience know, And I think that it's like
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 3: that shows that the movie has more of an interest
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 3: than he does in her.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I wish we just saw more of
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: her life outside of what we see in the movie.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: I very much would have liked to see her and
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: I don't think it would even take away from where
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: the focus of the movie seems to want to be.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: To see her interact with other people at work and again,
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: like have a friendship. That seems like a fault of
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 2: the movie, especially because it's Billy Wilder movie. It should
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: be operating at a higher level, we are introduced to
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 2: a lot of women, So for the interactions between women
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: to be so sparse feels telling about like where his
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: interests lie. But I don't think that that means that
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: the story is disinterested in her.
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 3: And I also think that thematically the movie is like
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 3: it's about this collection of some people who are who
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 3: when Christmas comes around, they're not needed anywhere, Like that's
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 3: part of why, Like he is an observer of other
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 3: people's lives who just like is doing like the insurance
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 3: information about like people who actually have families and things
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 3: going on, but he doesn't have that for himself. And
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 3: she is literally an elevator operator who's like she takes
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 3: people who have somewhere to go to the places that
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 3: they need to go, and she herself doesn't have those things.
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 3: And so I think even the fact that she has
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 3: a family the reason, Like it would be great to
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: see her with her family. But I feel like what's
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 3: important about her character in this movie is that like
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 3: she is being kept on the outside of life in
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 3: the same way that he is, and that like she
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 3: is unable to develop those relationships that you're asking to
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 3: see because of being held in this limbo with this
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 3: relationship with Sheldrake and just like being sort of an
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 3: intermediary in other people's lives, Like that's part of what
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 3: she's struggling with in the movie.
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: So yeah, well, with that mind, let's get to our metric,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: the nipple scale. Yes, how you feel about the movie
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: on a scale of one to five nipples based on how.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: Zero if sorry, wow, Jamie, we've had five hundred.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: I'm so tired. You don't understand. So based on how
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: it deals with intersexual feminist themes.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: Ooh, this is going to be a tricky one for me. Again,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: of the women we do see on screen, it feels
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: like they're is like one or two respectable women, and
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: everyone else can't be taken seriously because they're the flings
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: of the men who are having these extra marital affairs.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: And I just feel like a lot of kind of
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: tropes that were popular of women of the time are
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: present with a lot of these characters. I do like
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: fran as a character a lot. I just wish we
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: knew more about her, and maybe I think I also
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: just like don't have the language to understand what movies
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: from this era are trying to telegraph. To audiences as
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: much as I should, because there's a lot of stuff
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: that I just don't really pick up on and that
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: I don't interpret correctly. This happens every time I watch
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: an older movie. I'm just like, what are they even
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: trying to say? What are they telling me? Because I
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: just like my brain doesn't operate that way, I think. So,
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel about this movie. I
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: do want to say that, as is very typical of
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: movies of this era, which is a major reflection of
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: the rampant racism of the time. This is an entirely
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: white cast. There, I think, is one black man you
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: see on screen in the entire movie that's like the
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: only person of color that you would clock throughout the
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: entire movie. And again, as is typical of the movies
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: of this era, he's in a service role. He's shining
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: the shoes of mister Sheldrake. Aside from that, it's an
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: entirely white movie.
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 3: So, and there's the guy playing piano oh at the
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 3: Chinese restaurant who they do have a like his record
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 3: which is called Rickshaw Boy.
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: Uh not great, not good, not good.
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: There's a number of scenes at a Chinese restaurant. That right,
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: you do see some other people of color in the
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: background of those scenes. Again, no one really has any
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: significant speaking roles or anything like that unless you're a
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: white character in this movie. So I'll give the movie.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: I honestly have no idea. I'll give it three nipples,
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: question Mark, two nipples, one nipple, four nipples. I have
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: no idea. I don't know how to watch movies from
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: before nineteen eighty the end.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go three Okay, nice, Yeah,
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 2: who would you like to give your nipples to.
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: I'll give one to Shirley McLain, I will give one
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: to missus Dreyfus, and I'll give my final nipple to
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: miss Olsen because again I feel like I projected some
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: stuff onto her and that was not fair of me
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 3: It's good to be honest.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll settle on three nipples, and I have no
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: idea if that's actually how I feel or not, because
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: again I don't know how to watch old movies.
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 3: I think you're overthinking it. I think you're like wondering
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 3: what this movie is trying to telegraph, and it's not
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 3: trying to say something like it's trying to make you
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 3: think about questions. I think it's like it feels like
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 3: it's trying to challenge, like who's getting left behind? Yeah,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 3: and make you think about that, you know what I mean.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 3: Like it's talking about what's happening at the margins, you
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 3: know what I mean.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: Which I enjoy stories the center, those characters and that
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: type of narrative. But I don't know, like, at the
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: end of the day, while I do think the movie
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: is well written, I just it's just not really for
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: me and I have nothing else to say about it.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: I'm going for a nipples. Yeah, I have nothing else
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: to say because I have to pee and leave, so
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: I and I'm going to give one to you Fran,
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: one to miss Olsen, and I'm gonna give one to
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: missus Sheldrake while I'm at it, because I hope she
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 2: was on to bigger, better, less piece of shit flop
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: husband type activities hell yeah, following this movie, and those
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 2: are where my nipples are gonna go.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 3: Nice Emily, I'm gonna give it three nipples. I'm gonna
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 3: give one to Fran and then I'm going to give
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 3: the other two to that woman whose jockey husband was
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 3: being held hostage in Cuba because she was supposed to
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 3: have sex that night and she didn't get to have sex.
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: And she was appropriately pissed off about it, where she
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: was like, we made the lonely person's packed.
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 3: How could you? What the hell is going on here?
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and she was so excited that she was gonna
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: fuck the guy who's like, I'm a sex pot. She's like,
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: you're a sex pot.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: Woo. Yeah, which I feel like the movie's and on
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 2: the joke, like the number one indication that someone is
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: not actually a sex pot is if they cannot stop
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: saying that. Yeah, it's always who you least suspect. Yeah,
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: all right, well that's the apartment Everily, thank.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 3: You so much for joining us, my gosh, thank you
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 3: for having me, and thank you for getting me to
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 3: watch this movie that I probably wouldn't have watched us
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 3: quickly because I loved it.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: Any time? Where can people check out your podcast? Follow
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: you on social media, et cetera.
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 3: I'm at mister Emily Heller on all social media, and
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 3: you can subscribe to what is a Jeopardy Podcast wherever
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 3: you get your podcasts oooh.
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: You can follow us on social media as while at
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: Bechdel Cast. You can go to our link tree link
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: tree slash Bechtel Cast and grab tickets to our upcoming
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: tour in the UK at the end of May. And
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: you can go to our Patreon Patreon dot com slash
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: Bechdel Cast, where you get two bonus episodes every month
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: plus access to the Beck catalog for five dollars a month.
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: Wow, And you can get our merch over at tipublic
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: dot com slash v Bechdel Cast. Get our tickets to
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: our upcoming tour in the UK if you haven't already
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 2: on our link tree. And with that, let's give up
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 2: our apartment and wander into the unknown.
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: Woo Hi Hi. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia,
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman,
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: edited by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Volskrosensky. Our logo in
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: visit linktree slash Bechdel Cast