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Female Trouble with Roz Hernandez · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On The Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn bast
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Caitlyn, Yes, Jamie. If there's one thing I've always said,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: it's this. Here's a list of things there's no need
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: to know anything about. There's no need to know to
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: know anything about the president's war numbers, science or intersectional feminism.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: And I've always said.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: That, Yeah, I'll just listen to you and I'll know
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: everything I need to know.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: This is this is the most quotable movie of all time.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Caitlin, you little bitch, Let me out of this bird cage.
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: Look look, my favorite line is we rarely eat any
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: type of noodle, but I'll have a small portion to
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: be polite.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I'm a Steven a ship kicker, and I'd like to
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: have a podcast called the Bechdel Cast. Name what's your
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: favorite line? Listener, Pretend we opened the episode with it.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: This is one of the only movies where every line
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: is quotable and every.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Line is screamed.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: It is the Female Trouble episode of the Bechdel Cast.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I am a shit kicker and I would also like
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: to be famous.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: My name is Caitlin Durante. I am a little bitch
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: and I would also like to be famous. Yea, this
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: off point to get a conversation going. But Jamie, what
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: in the hell? I'm gonna scream the entire episode just
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: like divine? What in the hell is the Bechdel Test?
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: Jamie love, keep bitch?
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Oops, all screamed? Okay.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: The Bechdel Test is a media metric created by cartoonist
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Alison Bechdel, friend of the show, originally made in her
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: comic collection Likes to Watch Out For as a one off,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: a joke to sort of draw attention to the fact
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: that there were never lesbian romances in movies. It hasn't
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: been adapted to a more mainstream way. There's a million
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: versions of it. The version of the test we use
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: as this to characters with names of a marginalized gender
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: speak to each other about something other than a man
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: for two lines of dollog or more. That is somehow,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: you know, plot relevant, really not something we're going to
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: have to split hairs with on the movie we're discussing today.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: It's maybe the least.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Interesting thing about the movie we're discussing today, because the
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: movie we're discussing today is Female Trouble from John Waters
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: and Divine not necessarily in that order, from nineteen seventy four.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: And we have an incredible guest to discuss this wonderful
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: movie with.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: We certainly do. She's a comedian and host of the
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: podcasts Ghosted and Tickled to Death, a horror movie game
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: show podcast from Paramount. It's Roz Hernandez Female givel hi Hi,
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: thanks for being here.
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: Oh my god, I'm so excited to be here. When
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: I got the list of potential movies and I saw
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: this one, I had to I had.
• 3:14
  Speaker 6: To go with this one.
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: It's it's it's it's a fave of mine. I'm a
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: John Waters lady.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: Well tell yeah, tell us all about your relationship to
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: John Waters. Ouvra to this movie specifically.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: So my life changed in two thousand and three. I
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: was right at a good age where I was very
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: impressionable and trying to trying to find my tribe and
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: trying to find what I was really interested in. I
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: just I was preteen at the time, and I was
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: just sort of, I don't know. I wanted to find
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: my people. I wanted to find my thing. And I
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly and they released a
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: entire issue that was ranking the best I think it
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: was fifty cult movies of all time. And I didn't
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: have that word meant or anything, but I was just
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: looking at all the movies and just based on the
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: pictures and the descriptions, I was like, I gotta see
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: all these and it was like Faster pussycag Kill Kill,
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: and Rocky Horror and just so many of these movies
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: that just completely shaped me and showed me really strong
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: women and gender variant people and drag queens and just
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: all of these things. I didn't know about it. I
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: learned so much from that. And Pink Flamingos was on
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: the list, and that movie was technically unrated, like the
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: DVD of it was unrated, so I could to the
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: movie rental plays and rent technically because.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: As Apprett, that's genius.
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I love that. So I watched that movie when
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: my parents were out of town because I wasn't I
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: honestly wasn't sure if it was like a porn or
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: what it was. But I was just like, I can't
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: have my parents though I'm watching them. And I was
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: so fascinated by it. And then that led me to
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: exploring John Waters and Female Trouble, which I think Female
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: Trouble is his best movie. It's definitely like his most
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: John Waters the It's definitely a big divine Uh.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: God, this is I know that this is. This is
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: his movie, but it's divines movie. It is just like
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: one of the most performances I've ever witnessed. It's so good.
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Jimmie, what's your history with John Waters and this movie?
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: So I'm embarrassed to say this is.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: I was worried this was going to happen. I thought
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I had seen this movie. I had, in fact seen
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Pink Flamingos. Yeah, what can I say? I got it wrong.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: I hadn't seen this movie before.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Weirdly, my relationship with John Waters, I'm like very slowly
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: making my way through his filmography at my advanced age.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: But when I was a kid, I really liked reading
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: his memoirs because he's written a lot of books too,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: and I remember really enjoying it, Like I would get
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: his memoirs from the library and they're so funny, and
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: I like felt I had like a similar experience with
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: David Lynch, where I like fell in love with like
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: watching interviews and like reading their stuff. But I like
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: was very slow to watch the movies, no real accounting
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: for it, but I'm slowly making my way through his work.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: I saw Pink Flamingos in college and really loved it,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: and it has, you know, shares a lot of similarities
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: with Female Trouble, but I don't know, Female Trouble is
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: so special, it's just like its own thing. So this
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: was my first time seeing Female Trouble. But I really
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: liked the Academy Museum John Waters exhibit that I think
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: was last year.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: That was amazing.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that like inspired me to go back and
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: watch stuff that I hadn't watched, which is how we
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: recently covered Serial Mom, which is one of my eavorites.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Kathleen Turner John Water together is such a powerful combo.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: But yeah, this was this was one of the few
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: that I for some reason hadn't gotten around to you,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: probably because I thought I'd seen it already. And holy shit,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: I just I just can't wait.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: To talk about it.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: And I'm very excited to go back and reread some
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: of his books because I just have such nice memories
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: of reading them.
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: They're amazing. I yes, I have all of his books.
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: And one really fun thing is Provincetown in Massachusetts is
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: one of my favorite plays in the world.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: It's great.
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: And he lives there, and there's a bookstore there that
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: sells all of his books and he just goes in
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: when he has the time and signs them and they're
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: all no markup or anything like, there's the same price.
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: And so I rebought all of his books autographed, because
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: why god, yeah, why not.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I'm from Massachusetts and my family or my cousin's family
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: goes every year.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: And I don't know if I brought this up. In
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: the serial one.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Episode, my niece, who's like five, has this awesome picture
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: with John Patters.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: It's so cute.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: I was like, Oh God, she's gonna be so thrilled
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: when she knows what this picture means when she's older.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: I just it was but for her it was like
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: a nice man who she saw after.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: A drag brunch or whatever.
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: Sure, but my cousin was.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Like, you're not going to believe what we did today. God,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: that's so nice.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: He's such a community person too. I love hearing stories
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: about his like how you know how great he is
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: at keeping up with friends and like sending out the
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Christmas cards and.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: The and the book collections.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: And then I just he's just such a good vibe.
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: Well, he stays busier than ever, which I think personally
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: it's like another thing I learned from Joan Rivers. Just
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: I completely understand retiring and just sort of relaxing and whatever,
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: but also these people with these creative ideas and they
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: have to keep making and I'm sure there's that that
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: can be its own hell of trying to constantly top
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: yourself and whatever. But they keep going. And John Waters,
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: who's in his eighties, is sharper than ever. Yeah, and
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: he is doing events all the time, just like a
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: couple of weeks ago he was doing is screening here
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: in la. He has his camp that he does where
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: adults come and do John Waters themed events. So he's
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: always traveling around doing different I actually saw the screening
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: of serial Mom during that Academy show that they had
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: and he was there doing a Q and A. Like
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: he's just he's all.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: Over the place.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: He loves to yap.
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: Yes, and he keeps his ideas going. He's got a
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: lot to say.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: I really I this is like unrelated, but it's something
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: I've been on my mind recently where it's like retirement
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: is a good thing because of labor laws. But I
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: do think there's certain people, there's a certain personality of
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: profile where retirement like quickens your death.
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: I just believe that.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: I think about I've been thinking about that, and he's
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: one of those people. Like some people just need to
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: keep making stuff, and I like that, Like John Waters
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: specifically is a great person to keep making stuff because
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: he's not precious about everything like some creatives are. Like
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: he's still steems down to experiment and try new stuff
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: and like be open to failure, which after a career
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: like the career he's had.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: I think that's so amazing. I don't know if I
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: would be able to do that.
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: Like it's it's just awesome.
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: Well, I think from from the start he had a
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: lot of failure and he was just sort of like, well, Yeah,
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: there's gonna be people that are gonna hate everything I do,
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: but there's also gonna be people that really love it. Yeah,
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: I think I think it's all people LISTA. I think
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: we all need to have purpose or we have to
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: contribute to the universe in some way, and if we're
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: not doing that, Like I do think that if you
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: retire and then you just sit and watch TV, you're
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: gonna die and it's gonna be bad. Like you you
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: just have to even if it's like take up knitting
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: and make things that you can give to people. Like
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: it doesn't have to be financial or whatever, but it's
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: like you just have to keep those you have to
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: keep the juices flouid.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's I volunteer with a lot of retirees who
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: are like, they're like, this is my new job, and
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: you're like, yeah, like it's just purpose.
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah yeah.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Well also for artists, yea. You know, it's like it's
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: one thing to work as a CPA for whatever forty
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: years and then retire, But if you're inherently a creative
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: person or you've always been an artist, you're not gonna
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: just like stop making art because you're sixty five.
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: Now I have to keep going.
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: You got to keep going, Caitlin.
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: What's your relationship with John Waters?
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, thank you so much for asking. I
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: like John Waters as a persona, as a public figure,
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: and I like the campiness and the subversive nature of
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: his work more than the actual work itself.
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: Fair, I get it.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: I saw Pink Flamingos in college. Also is during the
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: Great Caitlin movie binge of two thousand and five.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: I feel like Pink Flamingos is on every list, regardless
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: of what the list issue.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: On every single list.
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: If you're a film student, you have to see Pink Flamingos.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: You're gonna see this damn movie.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: And I did it, and I was like, M, this
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: is not for me. I understand why it's a cult classic.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: I understand why it has like it has such a
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: huge cult following. I'm just not I think I'm too straight.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: I'm just not the audience for it. It's not for me,
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: and that's okay. But I do love John Waters again
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: as a public figure and as an artist. I just
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: every movie of his that I've seen, for the most part,
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: I'm like, M, this is not the one for me.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: Exactly did you feel that way.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: With Serial Mom not as much, because that, as we
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: discussed on that episode, is probably the closest thing he
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: has to a mainstream Hollywood movie, right. And then I
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: like the hair Spray, like the two thousand and seven
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: hair Spray musical that's an adaptation of his original Hairspray
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: from the eighties, but he didn't direct the two thousand
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: and seven to one, so it's not that's not a
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: John Waters movie. I did see Crybaby also in college.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: I haven't seen Crybaby.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: It's also main's like more mainstream, but maybe that's just
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: because like Johnny Depp is in it. But I don't
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: remember that one very well. And there's several other of
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: his movies that I haven't watched, so I don't have
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: like the full idea of every single one of his films,
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: but what I have seen, I'm like, yeah, I'm not
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: sure that one was for me, and that includes Female Trouble,
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: but I'm excited to talk about it. Oh my god,
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: it's a rich text. Yeah, there's lots to discuss.
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: I completely understand that I don't think that it's for everyone,
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: and there's I have known gay people that I do
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: not like John Waters, so it's you don't necessarily have
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: to be gay or straight to enjoy it. It's a type.
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: It's a type that I think by humor and deviancy,
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: and it's it's definitely something that outsiders are attracted to.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: It's a lot of taking down. Taking down the man
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: vibe can be a thing sometimes.
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: Which a theory I like, yeah, yeah, And it's like
• 15:37
  Speaker 6: at the end of the day, John Waters is he's
• 15:40
  Speaker 6: an edgelrd, Like that's his whole thing, and like, in
• 15:44
  Speaker 6: some ways it ages in this really fascinating way and
• 15:47
  Speaker 6: then another way is maybe not as much, but another
• 15:50
  Speaker 6: thing I appreciate about him, or like just watching him
• 15:54
  Speaker 6: do because he's done, like you're saying, ro he's done
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: like a million Q and as about most of his
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: movies now watch a recent one, and he's also pretty
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: open to being like.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I wish I hadn't.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: You know, I understand why I was so wanting to
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: engage with the Mansons, but I regret it, you know,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: like he's not above you know, doubling down on stuff.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: Reflecting.
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, sure, but like when you put it into context,
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: like when you put a movie like Female Trouble, it's
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: a context to think this is nineteen seventy four, Like
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: that is these people were. It's not just like a
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: drag queen, which at the time would have been more
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: female impersonator, more of like a classy thing, I think
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: is more what they were going for a lot of times,
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: at least when it comes to straight audiences seeing these
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: kinds of performers, it would be going to a female
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: impersonator cabaret and the's like, wow, I can't believe that's
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: really a man. But then you have like Divine with
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: prosthetics on her face and injecting liquid eyeliner, Like it
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: is so punk. And by the way, punk rock wasn't
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: really even a term or a subculture the way we
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: know it until later. Yeah, she's Copers after this.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: And she's got a mohawk in this movie.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, a trailblazer.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: So to think like where would those where does that
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: come from? And to find a group of people that
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: are on the same page to just make these things,
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: not to make money. They're just like making these things
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: and it's just with their friends. They are all people
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: that knew each other in Baltimore and not it's not
• 17:51
  Speaker 5: brilliant filmmaking per se in a technical sense, but they
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: just wanted to put these together and make people laugh
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: and it's wild. I don't know that they would have
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: ever thought people would be talking about it years and
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: years later.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I also I didn't I didn't do enough research into
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: this side of it, but I thought it was like
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: so sweet and cool that, like it seems like there
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: was a lot of like Baltimore community support from like
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: Normy's where, like he was, they were able to shoot
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: in all these different places. They were able to like
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: shoot in a church, in a jail, and like all
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: of these places that you would expect to maybe not
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: be open to a John Waters movie filming.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: True, but you know, I don't know.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: I was like that.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: It's just it's so cool that like all especially like
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: all of his early movies are just like full on
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: community projects where you're like, oh yeah, who is this
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: random person and it's like someone's mom or whatever.
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, I mean that's where Edith Massey, for example,
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: who's who's in the film as aunt Ida, She was
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: a bartender at a local place that they went to,
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: and he was just like, she's this woman needs to
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: be on films, This woman needs to be in a
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: bird cage yelling and he was not wrong.
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: come back for the recap. So I'm gonna place a
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: content warning here at the top for you name it,
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: it happened, assault, rape, incest, child sex abuse, like it.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: It sort of is all there. But we meet Don
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: Davenport played by Divine when she's a teenager in nineteen sixty.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: She's at school. She's chatting with a couple of her girlfriends,
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: chick Lit and Consetta about shoes that she wants for Christmas,
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: a pair of chaw chaw heels. And I think it's
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: so funny that this is basically the catalyst of the
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: entire rest of the movie. But she wants these chaw
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: chaw heels as a Christmas kids.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: We never hear from her loving, doting parents again after
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: the chaw chaw heels incident.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: Well, this sets her on a life of crime.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: It was a very simple ass She wanted chaw chaw heels,
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: and this is why you get your kids chaw chaw
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: heels if that's what they asked for.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: That was my favorite letterbox review of this. It was
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: like a haunting reminder that you should always get your
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: daughter chaw chaw heels.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, It's true. So she and her friends they're very
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: disruptive at school. Then it's Christmas morning and she still
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: desperately is hoping for this pair of chaw chaw heels
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: from her parents. But she opens her presence and discovers
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: that she did not get the shoes she wanted. She
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: got a pair of shoes, just not the black chasha
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: heels that she asked for, so she lashes out. She
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: throws her mother around.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Her mom not on christmassess.
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: Her mom's like lifeless body under the Christmas tree is
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: something that I think about every day.
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: I feel bad for laughing, but it's a very funny
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: image what you're.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Supposed to laugh She she I thought she had killed her,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: but then it's funny when she's just moaning not on Christmas.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: So don she attacks her parents and then she runs
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: away from home. She hitches a ride from a man
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: named Earl Peterson, also played by Divine Shocking. They pull
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: over on this side of the road and go into
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: the woods and have sex, during which steals his wallet.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: This sex scene is wild. First of all, I was like,
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: is this It's hard to tell if it's consensual or not.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: It right, it's very murky, and then the a d
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: R and the slurping sounds during this I got.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: The slurping sound reminded me of what you like your
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: noise every time people.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: You make the scary slurp.
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: But what is so wild is that it's Divine as
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: a male playing the man who is impregnating Divine.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: It's just like a level of camp here heretofore an unknown.
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: And they're doing it on a just random mattress out
• 22:45
  Speaker 5: in the woods. And you know, because it is like,
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: is this consensual? She said to it.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I think I came down on the because I was
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: also like unclear on that.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: Because at one point she's like, yeah, eat me, eat it,
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: give it to me and she but I think at
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: first you can't tell because it just randomly starts happening
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: to fucking yeah in the woods. Then it becomes clearer
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: that they're both into it.
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: So they're making taffy, yes, which sounds like a term.
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: They're making taffy.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: It cracked me up, the like I don't know.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: One of the one of the many great anecdotes on
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: the Divine Wikipedia page is that like later when she
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: was like primarily performing music. There was like an audience
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: member told her to go fuck herself, and.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: Divine was like, I have. It's in Female Trouble.
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: There's a great documentary about Divine by the documentarian Jeffrey Schwarz.
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: I think it's just called I Am Divine.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: Oh yes, I haven't seen it.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: It's very well done and it gives you a lot
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: of insight on who Divine was.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: I need to check that out.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's streaming on Roku TV. I just didn't
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: have Oh hell yeah.
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: I think it's not to be too.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: I was gonna say it's to be.
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: We love a to be is everyone obsessed with to be?
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: Because I think to b is like one of the
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: best things that's happening right now.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: I think to be genuinely is like preserving movies in
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: a way most people, like most places are not preserving.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know how they make money, but I hope
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: they stay.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: I like to be.
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: I know, I'm like, there has to be some kind
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: of dark thing going on here, but for the time being,
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: I'm enjoying the fact that every time I go to
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: tub I'm like, what the fuck is this? I'm like Anana,
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: it's free.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: My my dad was really into uh two B. I
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: know I've talked about this on the show before, but
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: like I loved visiting home and seeing what my dad's
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: recently watched on tub's were, because I was.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Like, you're a freak man.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Where it was like he would watch all these B
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: movies from like the sixties and seventies, and I was.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Like, all right, what are you watching?
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: And he's like, I saw this movie called Pregnant by
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Mistake and it's from nineteen seventy two and it was terrible.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: And I was like, great, I can't.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Only on TWOV, only on TOOV, can you find a
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: movie that everyone hated fifty years ago?
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: I love it?
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: That sounds like what I watch. It's very similar.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: It's great.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Or like every famous actor's worst movie is on Twodays.
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, oh absolutely.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Okay. So we have the sex scene and then we
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: cut to several months later, Don is living on her
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: own and she is gregnant as hell, and she gives
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: birth on her couch to a girl who she names Taffy.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, her severing her own chord with her teeth.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: It's just it's just disgusting.
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she bites the umbilical cord. I read that that
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: was I think a condom filled with chopped liver.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Oh god, I really.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of because Pink Flamingos is the one
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: where Divine is the filthiest person on earth and everyone
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: is like competing to also be the filthiest person on earth,
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: and I just love, I just love how gross these
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: movies are, Like, people.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: Are not making gross.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: It's not actually safe to do what they're doing at
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: any point.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: It's awesome.
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: And Pink Flamingos, Divine eats dog shit. Yes correct, yes, okay,
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: she do look And it was at that point when
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: I was watching that movie, I was like, yeah, this,
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure this is for me.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: I support I think by by comparison, Female Trouble is
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: tamer on like the grossometer.
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: It is, I mean, Pink Flamingos. I love Pink Flamingos.
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: But there's also like there's a scene with a live
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: chicken that is hard. Yeah, there's a couple of things
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: in there that are I mean there's a singing anus,
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: a person's anus is shown up clothes.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: I did not remember that one.
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it gets wild.
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: I guess, well, Okay, well, well, I don't know if
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: I'll revisit Pink Flaming Goes. Maybe someday, but either way,
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: Don is now a single parent to Taffy, and we
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: see her at a series of jobs. She works at
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: a diner, she does sex work. She robs men like
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: she's like mugging them on the street, with the help
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: of her friends chick Lit and Consetta. Then we flash
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: forward to nineteen sixty eight. Her daughter, Taffy is eight
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: years old. I guess, and Don is not a good parent.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: She refuses to let Taffy have friends or go to school.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: She's very physically abusive.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: She's my favorite line, there is no need to know
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: about the president's war numbers or science.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: It's just so good there. I also think, and we'll.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Get her to the This movie's fast and loose approach
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: to child abuse. But the way that like I don't know,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: like John Waters has seen every movie on the planet,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: it seems like and I was, I think that the
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: way the dot that Taffy is dressed is supposed to
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: be a reference to The Bad Seed, which is like
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: one of my favorite scary movies when I was a kid.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: She's supposed to look like Roda WHOA.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: The big movie reference that I think I picked up
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: on was Sunset Boulevard. They like, I'm ready for my
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: close up?
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah. At the end of the movie.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: Other than that, I was like, I'm not sure what
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: if anything is being referenced throughout this movie, but.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Well, I think probably a lot of what he's referencing
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: are like horrible movies that no one wanted to revisit
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: to so who knows.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: But anyway, Don is again not a good parent. She
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: shackles Taffy to her bed, et cetera, and then Don
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: laments to chick Lit and Concetta about how difficult it
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: is to be a mother, and her friends are like,
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: don't worry, you'll feel better if you get your hair
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: done at Lipstick Salon by a man named Gator. We
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: cut to Gator and his aunt Ida, who we'll talk
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: about the weird incestual through line of this movie as well,
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: but she's acting wildly inappropriate and Gator has to reassure
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: her that he's straight and he likes women. Then we
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: cut to Lipstick Salon, which is owned by Donald and
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: Donna Dasher, So we have Don Davenport, Donald and Donna. Yeah, hilarious.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: So Donald and Donna dash sure put their like potential
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: customers of their salon through this like interview process because
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: they only choose like the coolest people to be clients.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: And Don makes it through and chooses Gaytor to be
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: the stylist that she wants. Then they go out and
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: a short time later they get married, and at the wedding,
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: Dawn is wearing an iconic see through wedding dress. But
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: married life for them isn't great. They are abusive to
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: each other. Gaytor cheats on Don with other women, and
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: aunt Ida and Don don't get along and they're constantly
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: taunting each other. We flash forward again to five years,
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: so it's nineteen seventy four. There's a a Don Gator
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: sex scene where it appears as though they have a
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: toolbox kink Yeah yeah.
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Hammer and Meanle knows flyers.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: And they're having sex and then Taffy, who is a
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: teenager now comes in.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: For fourteen you don't look so good? Is such a
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: good line.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah. There's a lot to unpack in this scene as well,
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: regarding child abuse, incest ableism.
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: I don't know that they were thinking about any of that.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: Thinking about it, but we on the podcast have to,
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: so we'll talk about that later. But shortly after this,
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: Don and Gaiter get in a huge fight after Gator
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: shoves a carrot in Don's mouth. Seems to be the
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: catalyst for their divorce because Don starts divorce proceedings and
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: gets him fired from his job at lipstick Salon, which
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: forces Gator to leave town, which devastates aunt Ida, and
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: she's going to retaliate, so we'll put a pin in that.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: But she's just screaming at her house for what is
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: an unclear amount of time.
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right, rolling around on the floor.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: Meanwhile, the owners of the salon, Donald and Donna, ask
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: Don if she will be their model for a photography
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: project they're working on. The theme for which is crime
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: and beauty. Basically, they want to photograph Don robbing people
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: and doing other crime and Don agrees, but before they
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: can start, aunt Ida comes in and throws acid on
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: Don's face for like revenge for forcing Gaiter to leave.
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: So Don is hospitalized. Her friends gather to see the
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: unveiling of her new face, which has been disfigured from
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: the acid. But they're like, oh my gosh, you're even
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: more beautiful than you were before. They put makeup on her.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: Donald and Donna still want her to be the model
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: for their project. This is where they inject liquid eyeliner
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: in her veins. They give her a makeover a bunch
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: of other presents, including aunt Ida in a cage. Yeah,
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: and they're like, here, chop off the hand that threw
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: acid on you. So Don picks up an axe and
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: chops off aunt Ida's hand, and.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: It's very convincing. It's really good effect.
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Then Taffy comes in to be like, mom, what
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: the fuck are you doing? Also, why have you never
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: told me who my real father is? So Don finally
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: tells Taffy the name and address of her father, and
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: Taffy goes to the home of Earl Peterson, who is
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: drunk and horrible, and he tries to rape Taffy, so
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: she stabs him with a knife and goes back home. Also,
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: I will say like, when this movie started, I was like, yeah,
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: I think I might have an idea of where the
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: plot might go, And I was so wrong. It's just like,
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: every five minutes the plot takes a wildly different turn
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: that you simply cannot see coming.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it becomes a different movie genre
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: every like fifteen minutes or so.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, so anyway, Taffy has stabbed her biological father
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: and she returns home and she's completely distraught, and she's
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: kind of hanging out with aunt Ida like while she's
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: still in the cage. But then Don comes in and
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: she and Taffy are screaming at each other, and Taffy
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: announces that she's leaving to go live with the Heart
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: heart Ry Krishna of People, which she does, and this
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: makes Don furious. So Don kills her own daughter, which
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: seems to make Don feel absolutely elated and invigorated. And
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: she goes on stage to perform this show at a nightclub.
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: She does a trampoline act, she.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Does her own stunts.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, well, we have to.
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: Keep in mind she has the liquid eyeliner going through
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: her vedes and this is it's really given her a high.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Kill your dangerous, it's bad.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: So she yeah, she's she's performing in this show. She's
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: rolling around in dead Fish. The audience is loving it,
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: and then Don pulls out a gun and starts shooting
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: into the crowd and several people are killed. So Don
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: flees into the woods. Wait, there is consent there to well, yes,
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: she's like, who wants to be killed? Like, I'll make
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: you famous?
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: Somebody does, yes, they does volunteer to take a both.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: They volunteers tribute.
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: She's not evil, guys. She doesn't just kill people.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: She asks for.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Consent before she murders.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: This is true, but it does cause a frenzy, like
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: you know, people are scared.
• 36:26
  Speaker 6: Now she does keep shooting after and then she keeps going, yes,
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: you are right.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: Look but like you were saying the liquid eyelander, I
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: just think she's innocent of all charges at the end
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: of the day.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well the jury doesn't think so. But anyway, the
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: cops catch her and she's tried in court for many crimes,
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: and several people testify against her, including Ida, who that's
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: a given. But then her friends or who she thought
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: were her friends, Donald and Donna Dasher also testify against
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: Don and so they betray her. Then Don is called
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: to the stand. She's ranting and raving and saying that
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: she's famous and she's the most beautiful woman alive.
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: Look at my legs.
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: The people who died actually loved being killed by her,
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: and the jury's like, I don't get it. So they
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: find Don guilty and she's sentenced to the death penalty.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: She spends some time in prison before being executed, where
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: she meets some friends and lovers. Seems like everyone adores her,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: and she's excited about being executed. She's treating it like
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: it's another big show that's giving her fame and notoriety.
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: And she gives a monologue akin to an awards show
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: acceptance speech. She's like, I'd like to thank so and so,
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: and then she's put in the electric chair and killed.
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: And that's the end of the movie.
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: Well, in her line of work, that is the highest honor.
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: Yes, as a crime and beauty advocate slash perpetrator.
• 38:18
  Speaker 7: And that's the movie.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: We'll take a quick break and we'll be right back.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: I ros, where would.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: You like to start where there's there's no there's no end.
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: To where we could start here?
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: Oh my god, I think it's just brilliant. I don't know,
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: I don't know. Lead me in a direction. What do
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: you want? Where do you want me to what do
• 38:50
  Speaker 5: you want me to analyze?
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Well, let's I guess. I mean Don is the obvious place.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: But like, if someone doesn't like this movie because it
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: is like upsetting to them in some way. There's like
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: truly every single possible content warning like you had to
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: do at the top of the episode, exists for this movie,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: so you know, there are so many ways in which
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: it's not going to be for everybody.
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: But I feel like I like it.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Even though there's like individual lines or plot lines I
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: don't love like. I just feel like Don and Divine
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: are so perfect to me because it's just I like
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: the kind of character that is, like she's behaving so
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: absurdly badly that you're like, you know, this is not
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: a there's no world where people see this and they're like,
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: this is my role model, Like you know, it's it's
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: it feels like someone acting out in the most horrible
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: way possible in a way that is like cathartic, right,
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: where like she's just like a walking intrusive thought and
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: like every intrusive thought anyone's had in history, Don does
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: with like pride and no scruples. And I watched this
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: past guest of the show, Matt Bom did a really
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: good video about the like John Waters trash trilogy, which
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: includes Pink Flamingos and oh my gosh, what is the
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: third one, the movie that came.
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: After this, Multiple Maniacs or Desperate Living. Oh, Desperate Living, Okay, I.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: Guess that that that is the Trash trilogy.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: So this is the second one.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: And he sort of analyzes all of Divine's characters and
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: also counters it by being like, there's a lot of ableism,
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Like it's you know, it is not it is not
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: a politically correct movie in any way, shape or form.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: But like the core of a Divine character is that
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: she like lives for pleasure, is quick to anger, and
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: is never dishonest about it, Like.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: She always says like yeah I did it and I don't.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Care, And that the villains of these movies tend to
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: be people who do horrible things and then lie about it.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: So like that was something that I think really like
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: pulled the movie into focus in an interesting way that like,
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: while I have like individual scruples or whatever, you're like, oh, yeah,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: like Donald and Donna, they suck for so many reasons, right,
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Like they're like these rich people exploiting others for no reason.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: But like Don is just like in for all she
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: can get and is not shy about saying that. But
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: Donald and Donna the second, it doesn't become convenient for
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: them to exploit people anymore. They're the victims and they're
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: crying in court and all this shit. Like I don't know,
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: I just I really liked looking at it from that,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Like just Don is like the ultimate in like unapologetic
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: and like ways that are really beautiful and ways that
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: are quite evil, and I don't know, there's just like
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: not a lot like it.
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think when you hit play on one of
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: these movies, you very quickly learn what the rules are
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: in this universe, or at what right and wrong is
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: to these people, Like it's it's different than normal everyday life.
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: And you're also going in with it the understanding Okay,
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: that is a man that's playing a teenage girl right now,
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: Like we know that, and it's it's absurd, it's all absurd.
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: And then like her twelve year old daughter is really
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: played by a grown woman, and like we kind of
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: get that going into it. So I think that's where
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: they get away with a lot of things that are
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: not PC because you're kind of like, Okay, these aren't
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: these characters. Yes, that this was a child, it would
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: be more realistic and we would look at it in
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: a different lens I think is the goal maybe.
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: Right, because, like I mean, I was kind of coming
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: into this episode being like, I don't really know how
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: to talk about this movie, or probably any early John
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: Waters movies, at least through the lens of this podcast,
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: exactly because they're so campy and so intentionally trashy, which
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: I do think separates separates a movie like this from
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: other movies that we've covered on the show that have
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: similar problematic elements of you know, fat phobia and ableism
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: and playing abuse for a laugh, that kind of thing.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: But other movies that do that tend to be more like, well,
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: this is just a movie that's coming out in the nineties,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: and it's a reflection of what society thought was funny
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: or thought was tolerable or whatever. Versus John Waters. When
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: he's doing it, it's almost like he's kind of making
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: a mockery of those things. I mean, I don't think
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: a lot of the things in this movie are above criticism,
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: but his movies are transgressive in a way that sometimes
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: at least thoughtfully comments on the status quo of you know, heteronormative, patriarchal,
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: white supremacist society. Although I will say that this movie
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: is aggressively white, but there's so much being subverted and
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: like mocked. Yeah, but also it's including triggering and problematic things,
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: so it's complicated, right.
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: I think it's definitely commenting on mainstream society as anything.
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: Drag typically is where you have to give in mind.
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: These are all gay men, there's one trans woman, and
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: cis women that are all a part of this, and
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: I think that this women queer on the queer spectrum
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: in some way. But these are not people with children.
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: These are not people that are participating in mainstream culture
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: of nineteen seventy three when they were filming it. These
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: are people that are just like that world is not
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: something that we are a part of, and so here's
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: our take on it exactly.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah. John Waters is the group of actors he consistently
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: worked with, the Dreamlanders, right, Yeah, totally. I think it's
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: best summarized in kind of a monologue that aunt Ida
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: gives when she's talking to Gator and she wants him
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: to be queer, and he insists that he's straight and
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: he's only attracted to women, and aunt Ida is like, ough,
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: I worry that you're going to end up working in
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: an office, and you'll have children, and you'll celebrate wedding anniversaries.
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: The world of heterosexual is a sick and boring life.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: Like it's that's kind of the thesis of John Water's work. Overall,
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: it just feels like.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: Like for the most part and like, again, not completely.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: There are a few I think, especially like the ablest jokes.
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: In this like really just like did not.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't really see any excuse for it other
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: than like, I mean, like John Waters has admitted like
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: kind of just being an edge lord, right, But I
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: think more often than not, this movie and like this
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: sort of trilogy appears to be like not punching down
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: very frequently.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: It's like usually.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Punching up or sometimes across question mark or like poking
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: fun at their own community in a way that is
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: like I don't know, I think like part of the
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: reason that it holds up is because because of that,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: and like that makes the moments where it does feel
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: like they're punching down to feel not great. But in
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: the context of like also I mean not that this
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: is an excuse, but like they're so young relatively when
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: they're making these movies. They're in their like twenties, and
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: who among us was not edge lordy in a way
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: that they are embarrassed about and regret at different points
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: in their twenties.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: I certainly was.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there are definitely things to talk about, but
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: I think like, by and large, especially when it comes
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: to the portrayal of fatness and queerness, like it all
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: is so tongue in cheek and also like I don't know,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: I feel like you can you can feel that it
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: comes from a place of like subversiveness. But also just
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: like this movie is like stars Divine, who like embodies
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: herself in every single frame and every single choice she makes.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: Are there fat phobic.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: Lines, yes, but like they're delivered from Divine to Divine,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: and it's so funny, like you're that distant.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: It's like that weird sex seed is between Divine and Divine.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: The child abuse, while like I understand what that's going
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: to be like a stopping point for some viewers, I
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: think that like John Water's intentionally casting a visibly twenty
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: seven year old woman to play a child helps you
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: create that distance and it feels more like yeah, like
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: elevated in Drag World.
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, also Divine, on the topic of her size,
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: she's never not owning it and feeling so proud of
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: her body. I mean the scene where she's stripping and
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: she's fully like in a g string and just dancing
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: around and you can't tell her anything like she is.
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: She is owning her body size and very proud about it.
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: And I think I think that's especially at a time
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: like the seventies where you know, being fat was so bad,
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: you know, like in in media. She's just like, I
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: don't give a fuck, like I feel great, And I
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: love that about Divide totally.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Also in that scene, the audience that she's dancing
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: for is loving it. Yeah, they are whooping and cheering,
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: And it would have been easy to well because you
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: do see in the scenes where she's in high school,
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: like at the beginning of the movie, her classmates are
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: bullying her for being fat, and teacher and.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: Teach, but it's like that everyone who bully is divine
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: for being fat. Are characters that we're supposed to hate
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: for sure, So I'm kind of I mean, I don't know,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: that's my perspective on it anyways, is like, you know,
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: and especially when it's fat phobic bullying from the other
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: divine character earl to down. You're just like, yeah, we
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: hate this guy. We hate this guy so much, and
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: even though Dawn is despicable, we don't hate Well, I
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: don't know, I don't know how we're supposed to feel
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: about Don, but like she's iconic, Yeah, no doubt about it.
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: She's an anti hero.
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: She's a Don Draper type, a despicable me if you will, she's.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: A little despicable me.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: She's opinion.
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think the one thing that there's really
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: no excuse for, and we already touched on this, but
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: is the ableism a child Because for listeners who aren't
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: familiar with this movie, Don keeps talking to her daughter
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: Taffy in a very ablest disparaging way, calling her the
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: R word, saying that she was diagnosed by mental like
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: medical professionals, as you know, having some sort of intellectual disability.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: And it's clear that she has never brought this.
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: She's this girl has like never been to the doctor.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: She's never been to a doctor and has been abused
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: her whole life, which is like the movie does not
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: shy away from, you know, it's obvious that that's the case.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Even in context, that just felt more like edgy for
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: the sake of being edgy versus like other choices that
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: the script makes that have like a point of view
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: or like.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: A tongue in cheek that just didn't feel as much.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: I think that again, the portrayal of like child abuse.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: It's the movie isn't portraying it as like right or
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: anything like that or justified. But I feel and guessing
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: and like, let me know what you both think that,
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: like that was sort of an attempt on the on
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: the movie's part to you know, like one of the
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: very you know, stereotypical parts of like hetero society at
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: this time and still is like raising children and raising
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: them right and blah blah blah. And like the whole
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: point of Dawn is she does everything contrary to what
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: typical society does and so she is a terrible, neglectful parent.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: What are we supposed to make of that?
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: I don't really know, but like I'm guessing that was
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: sort of the energy behind it. It's like she is
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: the anti you know, missus Claver or whatever.
• 52:10
  Speaker 5: Hmm, Yeah, I think so. I think it would be
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: shocking if she was this amazing mother, But it's still
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: robbing men.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: Kind of funny because like, there are various I guess
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: representations of incest or suggested incest also that I didn't
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: know quite what to make of, because part of.
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: It is sort of like there's a scene I don't
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: even want to describe it, really, but there's a scene
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: where Don suggests that her daughter commit an active incest
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: with Gaitor. And even though Taffy and Gaiter aren't biologically related,
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: like Gaitor is in Taffy's life theoretically as a stepfather,
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: we don't really see any.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: We it's safe to assume he doesn't.
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: He's not good at it.
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: He's not really doing much right.
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: It's a bad vibe that gives I think, a very
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: funny line if you're not thinking about it in the
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: context of the scene, which is I wouldn't suck your
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: lousy dick if I was suffocating and there was oxygen
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: in your balls. That is that's a good line, a
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: good line.
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: And I mean, does it help the case at all
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: that the little girl says things like that and is like,
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: fuck you, you're not doing it, you know, I think
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: that maybe I.
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: Think it does help.
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: I think I help Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: It's like she's saying stuff that like probably for I
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: don't know. I wish I could strig a sentence like
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: that together when I was fourteen.
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: But yeah, and then when her father tries it, she
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: kills them. I mean, yeah, there's something there, right, that's something.
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: There's something. Yeah, she stabs him with a knife covered
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: in mannise. Question mark.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: We don't think about it too hard, uh, Taffy, You know,
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: I think maybe the tragic because Don is not a
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: tragic hero.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: She goes out on top according.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: To her, so she's not she's not heroic, and she
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: doesn't find her death tragic, so I guess she's doing
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: something else. I feel like Taffy is kind of the
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: tragic hero of the movie because she does her damnedest
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: to get out of that situation. She finds Inner Piece
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: and then dies immediately rip right.
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, She joins the Hari Krishnas and is murdered by
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: her own mother about it.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: She's tried to like kill and punish her oppressive upbringing,
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: and eventually, you know, unfortunately you can't get one over
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: on Don Davenport.
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: That's just kind of the.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Rules of this world.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: So she was always doomed.
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: Certainly, not when she's high on liquid I eyeliner.
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's like what we're saying since is like this,
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: it is very it's very hard to I don't know,
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: this is a movie designed to break our show, but.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna keep trying. Yeah, I agree that.
• 55:07
  Speaker 8: Like I think for me, it was like primarily the
• 55:11
  Speaker 8: ablest stuff that it just felt like it was doing
• 55:13
  Speaker 8: something to just because you're not supposed to say this,
• 55:16
  Speaker 8: and not because the movie really has any sort of
• 55:20
  Speaker 8: perspective or like alternate representation.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: To it, So it's like it's not really saying very much.
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I definitely think that there was a shock element
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: that they were going for. I mean, this is after
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: Pink Flamingos, right, yeah, two years after and that was
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: such a huge smash hit in the midnight movie Underground
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: and became something that everyone talked about. So this is
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: following that and that movie of course, like the thing
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: that everyone really took away from that was she ate
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: poop that came out of a dot, but we see
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: it on camera come out of the butt into her
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: mouth and it's like, how.
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: How do you heighten from there?
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and people are coming expecting shock and this movie
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: doesn't really have a lot of those moments that are
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: like that in teds with there's not a singing anus,
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: there's not you know, there's not any of that stuff.
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: But then you know, knowing your audience of people that
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: are coming to see your follow up movie, there's gonna
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: be some moments that are just for the sake of
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: taking it, taking it someplace.
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: One of the things I liked about this movie is
• 56:42
  Speaker 7: it's I do think it's like saying some like fun
• 56:46
  Speaker 7: interesting stuff about class, because.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: There is a read of it where it's like these
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: characters are with the exception.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: Of the what are their names, the rich.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: Couple, Don and Donald and Donna, the Dashers, most everyone
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: in this movie is like working class or poor, and
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: you know, like there's a read of it where you're like, okay,
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: leaning hard into stereotypes around poor people that we were
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: talking about in recent what was the episode recently we
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: were talking about sort of like just stereotypes around ale
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: that are just sort of presented of whatever, that they're
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: bad parents, that they're criminals.
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: Blah blah blah.
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: Oh overboard, overboard. Yeah.
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: A movie that genuinely sucks, which I don't think this
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: movie does even remotely. This movie rocks uh So, I
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: like the inclusion of the Dashers because you see that
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: these like these rich characters are also completely depraved in
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: a way that is different, where like there's this like
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: it's not harped upon, because nothing is really harped upon
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: in this movie, but like that these rich characters are
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: sort of out to like exploit, exploit the poor people
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: who come to their business and present them as art,
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: and like that that is something that still happens and
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: certainly happened then, and you know, there is an element
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: to like they're encouraging Dawn to do all this horrible
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: stuff or just encouraging, you know, bad behavior. They're witnessing
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: child abuse and taking pictures of it and being like
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: you're a diva, You're incredible, Like it's so over the top,
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: and they're encouraging it almost as like a social experiment,
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: like they're they're detached from it. They're like, this is
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: my little art project, when it's like other people's lives.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: And and that is like thought, I thought, like a
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: really cool way of framing how a lot of like
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: wealthy benefactors view art and view outsider art. And I'm
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: like wondering if John Waters had experiences like that, we're
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: like rich weirdos are like, hey, John, we really like
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: what you're doing. Keep doing all that gross shit. I
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: totally get it, like that.
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: Kind of vibe.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: And then at the end that the Dashers, I know
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: we talked about it earlier, but that like the Dashers
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: turn on Don once they're like, oh no, we're going
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: to get in trouble for this. Actually we're the victims
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: of this thing that we funded and encouraged one thousand percent.
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: Like I just I liked that.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Element of the movie that was really good.
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I feel like you come away going, oh yeah,
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: they're they're the slimy ones, like they're the whole time.
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: It's like Dog's doing horrible shit. But you know, ain't
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: her defense. She didn't start out poor. I think that
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: she is. She is not a criminal because she's poor.
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: I think she's poor because she's a criminal. And she's
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: a criminal.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: It's a criminal because she didn't get those chachachacha exactly.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: That's true. That's true. They do go.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: She is like a firmly middle class girl who chooses
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: a life of crime, and in a way that is
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: on her parents.
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: I blame the parents.
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: Ultimately must she was she was a teenager, she was
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: a she needed guidance.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: It was a child. Yeah.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: I also think it's really funny that the Dashers put
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: their potential clients through an audition process, and a group
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: of women like waiting for their audition, and one of
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: them is dismissed, I think, based on her appearance alone.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: And then another one is like, I'm a stripper and
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: this is I heard, this is where all the strippers go.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: And they're like, yeah, that's fine, you're in. And then
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: another woman is like, I work at the post office,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: getting the fuck out and get the fuck out of here. Hilarious.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: And then Dawn, who I think is the only one
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: who ends up making it through, She's like, I'm a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: thief and a shit kicker, and they're like, that's exactly
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: what we're looking for.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: Uh huh, she's great.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: Hilarious.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: I let My other favorite thing that happens at the
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: hair salon is when one of the women thinks her
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: haircuts too extensive and they take the hairdew back.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: They just threw it everything they just did. It's so funny.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm like I'm trying.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: I surely I have more to say about us.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean to your original point, Jamie again, John
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: Waters set out to make the trashiest movies that have
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: ever existed. He wanted to make these very subversive, transgressive,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: campy trash films. And when you're doing that in the
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: nineteen seventies, you're bound to, you know, make some mistakes.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: Things that seem subversive at the time are actually just
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: like punching down or being edged lordie or stuff that
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: we can very easily look at in twenty twenty five
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: and be like, yeah, shouldn't have done that. Yeah, but
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: it's fifty years ago, Like it's right, and even us like,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: as you said, like, there are jokes that I used
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: to tell as a comic in my twenties where I
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: was like, I I should have never said that, And
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: it's because at the time I was like, oh, oh,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: this is subversive, this is fun, you know, I'm being edgy,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: And that's not what that was. That was just whatever
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: shitty joke I was making. But yeah, so there's there's
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: an element of leeway that we can extend to people. Obviously,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: context is important and the severity of what they do
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: is important to consider, but so much of you know
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: John waters work again when he is commenting on the
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: status quo and making fun of it and being like,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: straight people are so fucking boring. The line where on
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: Ida This happens a little bit later in the movie,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: where she's now trying to set Gator up with a
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: man because she's so hell bent on Gator being gay,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: and this random man is like, well, well, how do
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: you know that Gator likes men? And Ida says, I
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: just use common sense. If they're smart, they're queer. If
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: they're stupid, they're right. I'm laughing.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: Or she's like, if you ever decide to like leave
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: the Hari Krishna and come be a lesbian, you can
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: live with me. She is a one issue voter, Ida,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: and everyone needs to be gay.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: And I don't even know. I mean, is aunt Eida?
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: Do we know her sexuality or she just really just
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: wants to be around gay unclear?
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: She really seems like she her Yeah, her sexuality is
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: being around gay people.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: We actually don't know.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: She could be a self hating straight We don't.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: Know which relatable for me. But yeah. The point is
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: like this movie and other of John Waters' works are
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: doing a lot. As we've talked about to examine the boring,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: the ridiculous, the very rigid gender roles and heteronormativity of
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: mainstream America in society, and he's just like, ooh, let
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: me do the exact opposite of that. And sometimes it
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: ends up being this hilarious, subversive, awesome thing. Sometimes it
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 4: is punching down, but overall it's why we're able to
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: like still love John Waters and his body of work
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: despite some of the stuff that doesn't age very well. Yeah,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: but yeah, I don't think I have much else to say.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: Which feels wild.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, like this movie, it's like you like it
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: or you don't. I will be returning to this movie.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: I'm like, this is the kind of movie I've like.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: I don't know why. Then like I can't wait to
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: be sick and watch this movie and eat soup.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: Well, you need to eat spaghetti and then throw it
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: at the wall.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we're Taffy, I'll have two chicken breasths.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: Well we're not having chicken breast, we're having spaghetti.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: And then I'll have a small portion to be polite.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: And then Don is like, Taffy, there's not enough for you.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: I didn't make enough for you. I Meanwhile, she brings
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: out this huge bowl of so much spaghetti that could
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: have easily fed like eight people.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very curious what our listeners think of this movie.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: I really like it.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: There are elements of it that don't age well, but
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: I feel like it's heart is so like it's just
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: like you can tell where this movie is coming from.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: It's fifty years old, so there are issues with it.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: And also just like the divine Divine's performance in this
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: movie is like wild. It is just like how much
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: we were saying this at the beginning, but like every
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: line in this movie is screamed.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: Like it's just it's awesome.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: It's a lat Also, there aren't a lot of cuts,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: so there'll be like a pretty wide shot that'll last
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: for a few minutes, and the actors are just exchanging
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: dialogue back and forth for minutes at a time, So
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: the memorization you have to do, yeah, when you're shooting
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: like that is no And they're just like, I don't
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: know how much improv or if any was involved on
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: any of these sets, but if it is all like
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: very meticulously written and then performed as written, it is
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: then like those exchanges of dialogue and monologues that had
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 4: to be memorized and without like cutaways. Yeah, very impressive.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: No, he I in the Q and A I watched,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: he said it was all like he is like I
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: am anti improv, which I saw it bright.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: I love that for him.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: He was like, I'm anti improv and so like people
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: have like criticized the skill level of actors I've worked
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: with over the years, but like they're memorizing twenty pages
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: of dialogue, so your move. Yeah, So it's great these
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: like I love characters that are like I live for
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: pleasure and anything that is not pleasure I reject and
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: will react with violence. It's cathartic. It makes me want
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: to like stomp around.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: Totally like it. There's something very refreshing about seeing a
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: female character do whatever the fuck she wants. Yeah, and
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 4: you know it's not awesome when that includes child abuse
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: and chaining your daughter to a bed and.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: No, but it's like this movie isn't pro child abuse.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: You know, it's just a keeps place.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: On a different planet as far as I can say, right, yeah,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: this is a movie where if your parents don't get you,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: chatcha he'll the floodgates are open.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: And now you're allowed to just kill people.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: You're allogic, generate, generational trauma, a perceived slight.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I love to see women behaving badly in movies,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: so it's great.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: And honestly, like for me when I watch Divine, like
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 5: I kind of do forget that that is a male
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 5: drag queen character, Like I'm kind of just like this
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 5: is just she's a shit kicker lady, Like she's a
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 5: bad girl.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Divine is just like it's so good that I
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: because I also I had to like refresh myself on
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: like Divine as a drag performer and like I really
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: want to watch that documentary.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 5: And the most unlikely movie star of yeah, that time,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: Like let's think about it. Ever, if you think about
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: like just the seventies again, her size, the fact that
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 5: she's this feminine man that dresses in drag, like that's
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 5: not someone that was leading movies in certain that time.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 5: So it's this whole universe that they created for themselves
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 5: where they're already going into this breaking all the rules.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: Right, and it's a universe where every time Down says
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: I'm the most beautiful woman in the world, everyone around
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: her agrees. Yeah, and that's just the reality of the
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: society that it rocks of this alternate Baltimore.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: And this is we've like this is like maybe the
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: most boring thing to point out, and everybody knows it.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: But for what it's worth, fifteen years after this movie,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: a Disney like an iconic Disney villain is like she
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: becomes such a cultural touchstone and it's such a cultural
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: force that she's like cartoon.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: Character by the late eighties.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: It's like it's incredible, like the amount that I don't know,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: like I love I love when a group of friends
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: makes it, Like they made a group of friends from
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: Baltimore made a movie and guess.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: What it changed the world. So think about that.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 5: It's cool.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this movie has its issues, but I feel
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: like it's just so there's nothing really like it totally,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: and it's kind of incredible that it's remotely good, Like
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: given the resources and like how they had to make these.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: Movies a budget of twenty five thousand dollars, yeah, which
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: I did.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: I put into a little thing, so that would be
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: about one hundred fifty thousand.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: Dollars today, still super low budget.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: Still very very low. Yeah, and that yeah, it's like
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: through the goodwill of their own community, were they able
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: to like pull.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: This off time and time again. It's just it's awesome.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: It's beautiful. Ross. Do you have anything else? Do you
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: want to talk about?
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: No?
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 5: I love it.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: It's great.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 8: Uh.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: It passes the Bachfel test a whole lot, usually about
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: something horrible, but like, that's fine.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: That it counts.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: Women are talking about crime, money, fame, beauty, liquid, eyeliner,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: jump ropes, spaghetti, chicken, breasts, all manner of things.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 3: The list goes on. Yeah, so that no issues there?
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: And then what about the the ultimate metric, the Bechdel.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: Cast nipples scale.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so the scale where we rate the movie from
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: zero two five nipples based on examining it through an
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: intersectional feminist lens. I might defer rating on this episode.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: I feel like this, Yeah, I feel like the nipple
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 4: scale doesn't apply to a movie like Female Trouble, So
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: I kind of don't even want to rate it.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: I give it five mmmm five plates of spaghetti for me.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: Yes, I'll give it five human sized cages.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: Incredible. Where the hell did they get that so good?
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: That would be a great Halloween cost Him? Very cumbersome,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: but really good.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, Ross, what do you think.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd give it five trampoline.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: I love the anecdote that like John Waters and Divine
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: went to the YMCA together for her to train.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: I'm just like, it's so good. It's so good because.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: She had to do all those flips with her wig,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: like staying on true and that's no easy task.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: True show girl. All right, Well that is our female trouble.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: So to thank you to everyone who's been requesting this
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: movie for nine years.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 5: We did it. We did it.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: It is and thank you so much, Raz for coming
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: on the show.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: This was so fun.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 5: Oh my god, I'm so happy that you invited me,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 5: and I'm I'm happy to talk about John Waters. I
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 5: think it's I think again, it's like not certainly not
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 5: what they were planning up when they were doing this stuff,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 5: but at this point it's like it serves as a
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 5: historical record I think of queer culture, and not even
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 5: just queer culture, like very subversive, transgressive, very a different,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 5: a world of outsiders and showing what a world of
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 5: outsiders was like and what they were doing at that time.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 5: And this is only a few years after Stonewall, which
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 5: was also those were outsider queer people. Those were gender
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: non conforming trans people, and they were angry and fighting back,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: and I think that in a sense, that's where the
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 5: culture was at. This is very early gay rights movement,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 5: and it's fun to see them letting their hair down
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 5: and making each other laugh. And I think everyone should
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 5: check it out totally.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: It's on the internet archive for free. If you haven't
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: watched it already, can It's very easy to access.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: Indeed, thank you again for joining us for this discussion
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: and tell us roz where people can follow you online,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 4: check out your work, listen to your podcasts, etc. Plug away.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 5: Thank you well. Roshrdad does on Instagrams where you can
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 5: find everything. I'm so excited about this new podcast that
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 5: I'm doing, which is a horror movie trivia game show
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 5: type thing. It's fun. It is a podcast, but it's
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 5: a game show, so we're I'm the host of it,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 5: and it's produced by Paramounts and it's all about horror
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: movies and I really hope that you can listen to
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 5: it and not necessarily be a horror movie fan. I
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 5: think that we make it still fun and funny because
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 5: there's all different kinds of improvised challenges that we put
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 5: our guests through and it's just a good time. So
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 5: that's called Tickled to Death. Go listen to that. And
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 5: then Ghosted my podcast where I talk to people about
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 5: their experiences with ghosts and aliens and bigfoots and psychics
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 5: and stuff. That's my other podcast. And I have a
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: YouTube channel where I go ghost hunting with guys I
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 5: meet on Grinder and we go ghost hunting in haunted
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 5: hotel rooms.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, that's awesome.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 5: And it's comedic and it's fabulous.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: I love it.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 5: Rosser Dad is the Haunts. It's all that's called hell.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you so much for training us.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm so excited for the new podcast.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 3: Congratulations.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 5: Thank you of course.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: And you can find us in all the regular places
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: we're on the Instagram. You can join our Patreon aka Matreon,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: where every month for five dollars a month you get
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: two bonus episodes and access to our back catalog of
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: over one hundred episodes. I think almost two hundred at
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: this point. So get on there, get into it, and
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: we will see you next week.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: Yes, thank bye.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: produced by me, Jamie Loftus and.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: Me Caitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 4: Lichtermann and edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them?
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: That's Me and our logo and merch and all of
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: heard of her? Oh My God?
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: And our theme song, by the way, was composed by
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: Mike Kaplan.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: Aristotle Ascevedo.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 4: Spectel Cast