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Mother! with Anna Akana · The Bechdel Cast

0:00
Speaker 1: On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have
0:03
Speaker 1: women and are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
0:07
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism the patriarchy zef in best
0:12
Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hi, and welcome
0:16
Speaker 1: to the Backtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Drante, my
0:18
Speaker 1: name is Jamie Lofton, and we are your hosts of
0:21
Speaker 1: this podcast about the portrayal of women in movie. You're
0:23
Speaker 1: damn right, we are. Hell yeah, I'm coming from Chuck
0:26
Speaker 1: E Cheese. You come from Chucky Cheese. I'm not coming
0:30
Speaker 1: from there. That's on you. I know it's on my bad. Um. Sorry,
0:34
Speaker 1: it's Thursday afternoon. Where the why am I not at
0:38
Speaker 1: Chuck e Cheese? You're right, Well, we have a podcast
0:43
Speaker 1: we talk about how women are represented and treated in
0:47
Speaker 1: a film cinema cinema. We use the Bechtel test as
0:52
Speaker 1: just sort of a jumping off point yard stick, a yardstick,
0:56
Speaker 1: if you will, And our version of the Becktel test
0:58
Speaker 1: requires that movie has two female characters who speak to
1:02
Speaker 1: each other. They also have names, and the conversation has
1:06
Speaker 1: to be about something other than a man. It's really
1:08
Speaker 1: only a two line exchange. That's all we need here
1:11
Speaker 1: at the Bechtel Cast. Hey, we're not We're not putting
1:14
Speaker 1: you out now, h Wood. Not that difficult. Oh Hollywood,
1:18
Speaker 1: I see Okay, I was like, h Wood, who's that?
1:21
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm coming from Chucky cheese. I'm like full
1:23
Speaker 1: of hubris and like just have a wild energy at
1:27
Speaker 1: this time. I ate pancakes like an hour ago. So
1:31
Speaker 1: I'm actually very tired. Nice. That's like a nap food. Yeah. Well,
1:36
Speaker 1: we've really established that we have pretty leisurely chill lives.
1:42
Speaker 1: That's great, good for us. Yeah. Wow. Anyways, I'm excited
1:46
Speaker 1: for to talk about the movie we're talking about today
1:48
Speaker 1: because it is a polarizing film. Yes, in every conceivable.
1:54
Speaker 1: I was reading have you seen the Rotten Tomatoes page
1:56
Speaker 1: for this movie? No? But I know that it got
1:58
Speaker 1: an F on Cinema score. The I mean the reviews
2:01
Speaker 1: between like the positive and the negative. I mean it's
2:04
Speaker 1: like both. Some people loved this movie, other people like
2:08
Speaker 1: it truly made them want to walk into the sea,
2:11
Speaker 1: which is we'll get to it. Yeah. Well that's how
2:14
Speaker 1: I felt, and I believe that's also how our guest felt.
2:16
Speaker 1: But I will let her for herself. And let us
2:19
Speaker 1: introduce her. She's an actress. You've seen her on Comedy
2:22
Speaker 1: Central's Corporate and she's starring in a show on YouTube
2:25
Speaker 1: Red called Youth and Consequences and a Conna. Hi, thanks
2:31
Speaker 1: for being here, Thanks for having me guys. So you
2:33
Speaker 1: brought us the movie Mother Mother exclamation point. I hated
2:37
Speaker 1: it so much that I was like, I want to
2:40
Speaker 1: talk about how much I fucking hate this. That's just
2:43
Speaker 1: like my favorite kind of episode, just like pull out
2:47
Speaker 1: the bloodied corns and then just whack it. Yeah, so
2:50
Speaker 1: you did you see it in the theater? I did
2:52
Speaker 1: see it in theater. I was also nega high, so
2:55
Speaker 1: I do. I thought I would enjoy it from that
2:57
Speaker 1: perspective at the very least, because I heard about the
2:59
Speaker 1: polarizing review is before going in. So it's like, you know,
3:01
Speaker 1: go in with really low expectations and it's still managed
3:05
Speaker 1: to shatter those low expectations and have a whole new
3:08
Speaker 1: bar of just terrible movie. But yeah, it was six
3:12
Speaker 1: in the movie felt like it was just a close
3:13
Speaker 1: up on Jennifer Lawrence. That is that is I I
3:16
Speaker 1: think it was very deliberately shot that way. And then
3:18
Speaker 1: like the last half hour is straight up biblical torture
3:21
Speaker 1: porn and it's just God of can't like. As the
3:24
Speaker 1: movie goes on, I hate it more and more, like
3:28
Speaker 1: there's no I saw this movie very high as well,
3:30
Speaker 1: higher than I was expecting to be, and so the
3:34
Speaker 1: first time, I'm like, I don't know if I just
3:36
Speaker 1: really hated that movie or if I thought I could
3:39
Speaker 1: hear everyone's skin and that was the problem because it
3:43
Speaker 1: was that kind of high. I'm like, oh, there's a
3:45
Speaker 1: bald man in front of me, and I can hear
3:46
Speaker 1: his scalp. That was like drug you want? No, it
3:54
Speaker 1: was like I think it was like a really strong
3:56
Speaker 1: because I don't drug that much. So when I do,
4:00
Speaker 1: how many units of drug did you do? A couple
4:06
Speaker 1: too many? I don't know. But the people I was
4:09
Speaker 1: with were better at drugs than me, and so they
4:12
Speaker 1: were like having a great time hating the movie, and
4:14
Speaker 1: I was like, I can hear this man scalp, and
4:16
Speaker 1: I cannot tell anyone, least of all him, although I
4:20
Speaker 1: want to tell him so bad that his skull can
4:23
Speaker 1: speak and it's speaking and wants to get out. But yeah,
4:29
Speaker 1: the sound, I would for what it's worth. The sound
4:32
Speaker 1: editing in this movie is a lot. Well it's there,
4:37
Speaker 1: so yeah, seeing it. Seeing it in theaters was definitely.
4:41
Speaker 1: I mean it's like, did you feel trapped? Yes, yes, okay, yeah,
4:45
Speaker 1: it's like it feels like you can leave, but I
4:48
Speaker 1: don't know. It's I mean, it's very grating and it's okay.
4:52
Speaker 1: It felt like it would never end to It almost
4:54
Speaker 1: felt like the movie was like, you think it's going
4:56
Speaker 1: to end here, because I would have been I wouldn't
4:59
Speaker 1: have been shocked at any runtime on that movie. It
5:01
Speaker 1: could have been an hour, fifteen or three hours, and
5:04
Speaker 1: it just felt like forever because no real narrative is
5:09
Speaker 1: set up. It's just an extended metaphor. It will get
5:11
Speaker 1: into it, but like there's no goal that any characters
5:15
Speaker 1: trying to achieve necessarily that we know about, so we
5:18
Speaker 1: don't know anything that's going to happen, Like any event
5:22
Speaker 1: that happens, we're just like, oh wait, what, oh this
5:25
Speaker 1: is happening now? Okay? Like and were you a fan
5:28
Speaker 1: of Darren Aronovski going into it? I was. I loved
5:32
Speaker 1: Black Swan, I loved Reccoman for a dream. Um, I
5:34
Speaker 1: was excited to hear this, especially because I'd read some
5:37
Speaker 1: interviews with Jennifer Lawrence, and she was like, I thought
5:39
Speaker 1: this was a masterpiece. I loved this script. I loved
5:42
Speaker 1: his idea, and so I went in knowing like, okay, well,
5:46
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of his work, Like I'm I want
5:47
Speaker 1: to be open at least to what's going to happen.
5:50
Speaker 1: But the moment they ate the baby, I was just like,
5:54
Speaker 1: they really bad, really bad. And and even Jennifer Lawrence
5:59
Speaker 1: later turns on this movie because when during the I
6:03
Speaker 1: don't know like at what point it started. But I
6:05
Speaker 1: didn't realize until after I saw the movie the first
6:07
Speaker 1: time and was less high and able to google things. Uh,
6:11
Speaker 1: that she and Darren Aronovski were like hot and heavy
6:15
Speaker 1: while this movie was being made through when it came out,
6:19
Speaker 1: and then from and I'm sure it's not this simple,
6:22
Speaker 1: but they broke up shortly after the movie came out,
6:25
Speaker 1: partially because uh, and Jennifer Lawrence sort of said this.
6:28
Speaker 1: She was just like, yeah, he couldn't handle how much
6:30
Speaker 1: people hated Mother, and he wouldn't shut up about it.
6:33
Speaker 1: So I was like, actually, I have to be going.
6:36
Speaker 1: I thought was pretty badass, like um, calm down, which
6:40
Speaker 1: there was an interesting parallel of in the movie where
6:43
Speaker 1: our Barden is like my writing and she's like, well
6:46
Speaker 1: what about me, Except unlike her character Jennifer Lawrence dipped immediately,
6:53
Speaker 1: which you've got to hand at her that pretty Yeah,
6:55
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't offer someone your weird glass heard
6:58
Speaker 1: at the end of a relationship become dusted. Every time
7:06
Speaker 1: I see that on screen, I want to call it
7:08
Speaker 1: the heart of the ocean references. It doesn't deserve it,
7:12
Speaker 1: You're right, yeah, so I don't feel right calling it that. Yeah,
7:16
Speaker 1: the only metaphor, like I've read like some fan conspiracy
7:19
Speaker 1: theories after seeing it, because for those of you who
7:21
Speaker 1: haven't seen the movie, it's so heavy handed in biblical
7:25
Speaker 1: references and literally just the whole message of the movie
7:28
Speaker 1: is humans are bad, We're killing Mother Earth. Were so
7:30
Speaker 1: self centered and God is this like self absorbed asshole?
7:34
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr Aronofski. I really love your your classic
7:37
Speaker 1: original viewpoint take. But the one that I did like
7:42
Speaker 1: is someone said, if you look at this movie through
7:44
Speaker 1: the lens of being with an abusive narcissist, it actually
7:48
Speaker 1: is good, and so like they kind of ran through
7:50
Speaker 1: the movie of like, you know, like your love is
7:52
Speaker 1: never enough for somebody and they absolutely have to have
7:54
Speaker 1: the adoration of others, and they're going to put the
7:57
Speaker 1: family second. They don't even care how much you're family
8:00
Speaker 1: life is completely destroyed by your art um. And so
8:03
Speaker 1: through that, Lens I was like, Oh, that would be
8:05
Speaker 1: a much better metaphor movie than this, right, which I mean,
8:10
Speaker 1: I guess I can work on that level. I don't
8:12
Speaker 1: think that that had anything to do with the intent,
8:14
Speaker 1: which just speaks to how fucking clueless Darren Aronowski must
8:19
Speaker 1: be where that he's like, hum, your partym not so bad,
8:23
Speaker 1: pretty smart guy, seems cool, seems kind of hot, has
8:27
Speaker 1: a stone right, they're god, I mean, the one good
8:31
Speaker 1: takeaway and then you get into the recap. But the
8:35
Speaker 1: one takeaway for me is you do get to see
8:38
Speaker 1: Ed Harris and Michelle Phifer essentially raw dogging on more
8:43
Speaker 1: than one occasion, which you never see coming, and there's
8:46
Speaker 1: always like a little weird It's kind of like in
8:48
Speaker 1: the Shape of Water where they're like no ay, or
8:49
Speaker 1: they're gonna let us watch the fish funk and then
8:52
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I guess they're gonna gonna let us
8:53
Speaker 1: watch the fish fun. Like there they linger on Ed
8:57
Speaker 1: Harris and Michelle Phip for raw dogging and so you know,
9:00
Speaker 1: not that not worth the price of admission, but one
9:03
Speaker 1: of the more interesting parts of them sure to be,
9:07
Speaker 1: and shockingly one of the least graphic yeah right of
9:11
Speaker 1: the movie. At least, I do enjoy the representation of
9:13
Speaker 1: like people over fifty canoodling very sensuously. Yeah, but it's like, yeah,
9:20
Speaker 1: I guess representation. I did not need to see it.
9:24
Speaker 1: I did not need to see and maybe this will
9:27
Speaker 1: not age well because I'm really I'm really giving it
9:30
Speaker 1: to bald people today. But I didn't need to see
9:33
Speaker 1: Ed Harris's bald head in coitas I didn't I'll say
9:37
Speaker 1: I didn't mean it. Well, it's I mean, this is
9:39
Speaker 1: that scene is one of many that does not serve
9:42
Speaker 1: the story. What story? There isn't one? Okay, well tell yeah,
9:45
Speaker 1: let me do the recap of Mother exclamation Point, and
9:48
Speaker 1: I feel free to interrupt anytime. The recap is the
9:51
Speaker 1: most plant Yeah. So Mother exclamation Point is about a
9:57
Speaker 1: woman who's we don't know. Jennifer Lawrence is character's name,
10:01
Speaker 1: although I am dB lists her as mother. She is married.
10:05
Speaker 1: She goes I am his mother. At that one point,
10:08
Speaker 1: you're like, all the title. That's the name of the movie.
10:12
Speaker 1: So she is married to a character played by Heavier Bardem,
10:17
Speaker 1: whose name we also don't know. I am dB lists
10:20
Speaker 1: him as him I think, right, mother and him Yeah, okay,
10:25
Speaker 1: him capital h like that Powerpuff Girl's character. I do
10:30
Speaker 1: not know what you're referring to. Oh wait, yeah, yeah,
10:34
Speaker 1: the gay devil. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, I'm a board. Yeah.
10:40
Speaker 1: So they are married and they live in a house,
10:42
Speaker 1: and the entire movie takes place within this house. At first,
10:46
Speaker 1: you don't really know what's going on, and then in
10:47
Speaker 1: the rest of the movie you don't know what's going on.
10:49
Speaker 1: But so Caitlin, so mother, they live in a house.
10:55
Speaker 1: Heavier is a poet, she is a homemakers far as
11:00
Speaker 1: we know. She's fixing up this house because there was
11:02
Speaker 1: a fire, and we see a glimpse of this fire
11:05
Speaker 1: in the very beginning. And then she wakes up and
11:06
Speaker 1: she's like, better go downstairs and put some ship on
11:08
Speaker 1: the wall. How did they meet? Doesn't serve the metaphor,
11:11
Speaker 1: we're not Yeah, And then there's a visitor at the
11:15
Speaker 1: house played by Ed Harris. He's like, hey, can I
11:17
Speaker 1: stay here? And she's like, you're a stranger, but Heavier
11:20
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, stay, you're it's fine. That puts me
11:24
Speaker 1: so much. Is like, almost immediately the second the movie starts,
11:27
Speaker 1: people start behaving nothing like people exactly, to the point
11:31
Speaker 1: where it's just like, well, then what are we supposed
11:33
Speaker 1: to be like holding onto here? Because that would never happen, right,
11:35
Speaker 1: Only a relatable factor was Jennifer Lawrence badly wanting a
11:38
Speaker 1: baby and Javier every time the conversation came up, pushing
11:41
Speaker 1: it off, and so you're like, okay, like they're kind
11:45
Speaker 1: of this is a stereotype, but I at least understand it. Yeah.
11:49
Speaker 1: So Ed Harris shows up, and then his wife played
11:52
Speaker 1: by Michelle Peiffer, shows up and turns out they're kind
11:55
Speaker 1: of metaphors for Adam and Eve, and then they too,
12:00
Speaker 1: uns that show up, who may or may not be
12:02
Speaker 1: cane and able. I will say that it took me
12:04
Speaker 1: into the first viewing, it took me a little while
12:06
Speaker 1: to figure out exactly what the metaphor because I did
12:08
Speaker 1: no reading on it. And then someone in the movie
12:11
Speaker 1: theater I was in was like, oh, the Bible, and
12:14
Speaker 1: everyone was like oh, like genuinely for me was helpful, Yeah,
12:19
Speaker 1: because I didn't get it in the first well, the
12:21
Speaker 1: moment when the brother killed the other brother, I was like, okay,
12:25
Speaker 1: all right now. For me, it was the rib when
12:29
Speaker 1: Ed Harris is getting sick and his rib is bleeding.
12:32
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, got it, got it, but was
12:36
Speaker 1: hoping it would take a sci fi turn and the like, no,
12:38
Speaker 1: it's just the Bible. Yeah, I don't know what turn
12:41
Speaker 1: I thought it was going to take. I thought it
12:42
Speaker 1: was just like a straight up horror movie, and like
12:45
Speaker 1: the trailers made it seem like, oh, maybe there's going
12:46
Speaker 1: to be like a visitor they like comes and Fox
12:49
Speaker 1: shut up and they have to like fight off this intruder.
12:52
Speaker 1: But think it must be so hard to have made
12:54
Speaker 1: a trailer for it too. It was all whispering over black. Yeah,
12:59
Speaker 1: like what else are you gonna do? Like just get
13:01
Speaker 1: people in with the injury, because no one's going to
13:03
Speaker 1: want to see this, right, So the Sun's show up
13:08
Speaker 1: and one of the murders the other one. So then
13:10
Speaker 1: like this is kind of when all hell breaks loose
13:13
Speaker 1: and more people start showing up and Jennifer Lawrence is like, hey, wait,
13:16
Speaker 1: you can't be here, this is my house. Hey, hey,
13:22
Speaker 1: do that I can't sit there stop. The sink isn't
13:26
Speaker 1: brave down from there so much. She's like, that's like
13:32
Speaker 1: the lowest level act of you can possibly be. It's
13:35
Speaker 1: like she's saying it and she knows no one's going
13:37
Speaker 1: to listen to her, but she's like, well, hey, so
13:42
Speaker 1: things come down because she's like get out of here.
13:44
Speaker 1: There's like a funeral sort of thing that happens for
13:48
Speaker 1: the day, which one is, Oh God, I'm going to
13:51
Speaker 1: say his name around the cute one yeah, and then
13:57
Speaker 1: the other Gleason plays his brother, Oh really yeah? And
14:00
Speaker 1: you know there's more than one Gleason. There's two Gleasons.
14:02
Speaker 1: I'm learning and is their dad the other Gleason who
14:07
Speaker 1: is in Paddington too. Don't even tell me there's a
14:10
Speaker 1: third Gleason. I'll pass out, Okay anyway, Okay, So things
14:15
Speaker 1: calm down, and she's like, oh, I want a baby,
14:19
Speaker 1: but you won't even fuck me, and he's like, yeah,
14:21
Speaker 1: I will, and then they have sex and then we'll
14:26
Speaker 1: get to that and then suddenly she wakes up and
14:28
Speaker 1: she's like, I'm pregnant. I just know that I am.
14:30
Speaker 1: And then this inspires him a k god a testament
14:37
Speaker 1: I get started. So he get started, and it's like
14:39
Speaker 1: this beautiful masterpiece. And then his publisher calls and she's like,
14:43
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's great. The twist is it's Kristin
14:45
Speaker 1: wigg for some reason, who is like wigging out in
14:50
Speaker 1: this movie. So then a whole new horde of people
14:54
Speaker 1: show up and they're like, oh my god, God, you
14:57
Speaker 1: did such a great thing. We love you. More. Chaos
15:01
Speaker 1: breaks loose, and Jennifer Lawrence says, hey, hey, you being
15:06
Speaker 1: here up and then all comes to a head. Gives
15:11
Speaker 1: birth in public. She gives birth, well, she's in a room,
15:13
Speaker 1: but then her baby immediately gets stolen and eaten, passed around, passed,
15:20
Speaker 1: ripped limb from limb, and eaten by now the fans
15:23
Speaker 1: who are in robes. Yeah, but there's also a rave
15:27
Speaker 1: happening in the corner. A rave. There's like execution, people
15:32
Speaker 1: have guns. Yeah, it's like and God's like, it's fine
15:36
Speaker 1: that they ate our baby like they love me. It's fine. Also,
15:42
Speaker 1: so I think most people agree that Jennifer Lawrence's character
15:47
Speaker 1: is a metaphor for Mother Earth, right, so like all
15:50
Speaker 1: these people showing up is ruining no resper and her
15:55
Speaker 1: mother room. Yeah, they're breaking her sink breaks one of
16:01
Speaker 1: my favorite lines in that movie. Excuse me, that's not brains,
16:05
Speaker 1: like Jeffcose most the movie trying to fix up this
16:09
Speaker 1: house and then people come and funk it all up.
16:12
Speaker 1: So there's the metaphor where humans are just fucking up
16:15
Speaker 1: Mother Earth. So at the very very end, she goes
16:18
Speaker 1: from being all like hey to hey, and she like
16:23
Speaker 1: basically lights the whole house on fire. She's all burnt
16:26
Speaker 1: up and she's all funked up and everyone's like dead.
16:28
Speaker 1: And then God carries her and he's like, oh no,
16:31
Speaker 1: what have I done? And she's like I have nothing
16:35
Speaker 1: left to give, and then he reaches into her abdomen
16:39
Speaker 1: and pulls out Allah the fifth element. When Bruce Willis's
16:44
Speaker 1: character takes some stones out of the opera singer, you
16:47
Speaker 1: guys know what I'm talking about, right, No? No, he
16:51
Speaker 1: takes out the heart of the ocean, the like this
16:53
Speaker 1: weird this like crystal from her and then I guess
16:57
Speaker 1: it resets time. It fixes the house, and then there's
17:00
Speaker 1: a new woman and baby baby. So God, this movie
17:08
Speaker 1: is so annoying. That's the story, if you can call
17:11
Speaker 1: it that. Yeah, yeah, And so it's a. It's an
17:15
Speaker 1: extended metaphor, it's allegorical. It's the laziest screenwriting I've ever seen.
17:20
Speaker 1: Well he wrote, so yeah, like the best left in
17:22
Speaker 1: the ever note is my review of this movie. Like,
17:25
Speaker 1: I was reading an interview with their in Aronowski and
17:28
Speaker 1: he said that he wrote the I know, did he
17:30
Speaker 1: read the draft in like a day? He said, five days?
17:33
Speaker 1: And it shows Yeah. I feel like every time someone
17:38
Speaker 1: is bragging about how quickly they wrote something and then
17:40
Speaker 1: you see it, you're just like, yeah, maybe do a
17:43
Speaker 1: second draft, take a little time. Yeah, Like what was
17:47
Speaker 1: the rush to make Mother Like? It's not an urgent
17:50
Speaker 1: piece of anything? Five days? Wow? Wow. So as far
17:57
Speaker 1: as the treatment of the female character goes, I don't
18:02
Speaker 1: even know where to start, because this movie is such
18:05
Speaker 1: a heavy allegory. You could say, well, like she's personifying
18:10
Speaker 1: mother Earth and mother Earth is you know, just a
18:14
Speaker 1: place she can't be that active, But then why bother
18:18
Speaker 1: making a movie where your main character can't be active
18:21
Speaker 1: Because the whole movie is her reacting to stuff. She
18:24
Speaker 1: does not play an active role, and pretty much anything
18:27
Speaker 1: decisions are made heavier. Bardem is always like calling the shots,
18:31
Speaker 1: inviting people in not running anything by her, and then
18:34
Speaker 1: she just has to keep being like, wait a minute, Hey,
18:38
Speaker 1: you can't do that, you can't be here. So it's
18:41
Speaker 1: her being completely reactionary. So even though she's the protagonist,
18:46
Speaker 1: she has no specific goal in the story, and she
18:48
Speaker 1: had except to, I guess, be a mother, and that's
18:51
Speaker 1: sort of hinted at every now and then. She wants children,
18:54
Speaker 1: and she wants to be fixing up this house, but
18:57
Speaker 1: it's nothing that specific and then and she's not active
19:00
Speaker 1: in the pursuit of any goal, so she's just reacting
19:03
Speaker 1: to all the things that are happening, which is one
19:05
Speaker 1: of the reasons this movie might not be very good. Yeah,
19:08
Speaker 1: so you have a very passive protagonist until like literally
19:11
Speaker 1: the last five minutes in the movie, right, and at
19:13
Speaker 1: which point her goal just changes to like either survive
19:18
Speaker 1: and then failing that to like, you know, wipe everybody out.
19:22
Speaker 1: It's just, yeah, it's not fun to watch. And it's like,
19:24
Speaker 1: there's almost every point when we were watching this movie together,
19:27
Speaker 1: there's no real moment with with this character that you
19:31
Speaker 1: can't counterpoint with like, oh, but how would the metaphor
19:34
Speaker 1: work if that didn't? But I feel like that just
19:36
Speaker 1: speaks to the fact that then don't tell that story.
19:40
Speaker 1: It should have been a short film. It would have
19:41
Speaker 1: been a beautiful short film. But also like the running
19:44
Speaker 1: time of this movie was like what two and a
19:45
Speaker 1: half hours. It did not need to be that fucking long.
19:50
Speaker 1: It was very long. I mean the closest I think that,
19:54
Speaker 1: like the gas lighting between Javier Burdham and Jennifer Launce,
19:58
Speaker 1: there are parts of that that are very interesting and
20:01
Speaker 1: and like his avoidance is interesting, and there's i mean
20:05
Speaker 1: a number of scenes where she's like, hey, this is
20:07
Speaker 1: wrong and he's like, what are you talking about? No,
20:09
Speaker 1: it's not. Everything's great anyways, make toast goodbye, and you're
20:13
Speaker 1: just like, okay that there's some sort of but even
20:16
Speaker 1: that is like barely paid off and paid off on
20:19
Speaker 1: isn't even the word. I think my favorite scene in
20:22
Speaker 1: this movie, even though it happens as the movie is
20:25
Speaker 1: getting exceptionally bad, but like the scene that worked for
20:28
Speaker 1: me was the scene where Javier Burden steals the baby.
20:33
Speaker 1: That was like the part of the movie where I
20:34
Speaker 1: felt like the most like my blood pressure was extremely high,
20:40
Speaker 1: and that was like, I don't know, that was like
20:42
Speaker 1: the moment for me where Jennifer Lawrence's character felt most
20:47
Speaker 1: motivated and most threatened and like most able to control
20:52
Speaker 1: the situation, and you have such anxiety of like he's
20:55
Speaker 1: going to take the baby. He's going to take the
20:56
Speaker 1: baby the second she falls asleep, and then she fall asleep,
20:59
Speaker 1: and then he takes the baby, and then things get
21:00
Speaker 1: really bad. They eat the baby, the baby, like the yeah,
21:07
Speaker 1: the worst thing you can do to all fucking baby,
21:09
Speaker 1: and they're very bad, very bad. It's one of those
21:14
Speaker 1: weird things where I don't regret watching the movie, but
21:18
Speaker 1: I never want to see it again. I saw it
21:21
Speaker 1: twice now, and it was even more painful the second time.
21:24
Speaker 1: So okay. So there's things about it that I'm like, Okay,
21:27
Speaker 1: Like you said, if you sort of look at it
21:29
Speaker 1: through the lens of it being an abusive relationship, there's
21:33
Speaker 1: maybe some things to take away from it. I think
21:35
Speaker 1: there's also some things to take away if you sort
21:37
Speaker 1: of examine it from He's supposed to be God, she
21:41
Speaker 1: is Mother Earth. But I think you also make an
21:44
Speaker 1: argument for her being just sort of like a metaphor
21:47
Speaker 1: for just like womanhood in general, Like if he's the
21:51
Speaker 1: patriarchy ish sort of thing, like her whole world is
21:55
Speaker 1: strictly domestic. It is, and I guess if you look
21:59
Speaker 1: at it like that, you could argue that the movie
22:01
Speaker 1: kind of makes a comment on how no one takes
22:03
Speaker 1: her seriously, no one listens to her. She's mistreated and
22:08
Speaker 1: it's bad, and and then she retaliates and sort of
22:12
Speaker 1: like there's like some sort of catharsis there. I don't know.
22:15
Speaker 1: I was thinking that too, but then reaching maybe because
22:18
Speaker 1: then in the end she still offers up the very
22:21
Speaker 1: last thing she has, which is weird crystal heart, and
22:24
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, she never takes something for herself. I
22:29
Speaker 1: don't know. I I was thinking that too before I
22:32
Speaker 1: had figured out the Bible thing when I was seeing
22:35
Speaker 1: it the first time, and I was like listening to
22:36
Speaker 1: this man's head. Um. But but at the beginning, I
22:41
Speaker 1: was like, okay, there, maybe there's some sort of gender
22:43
Speaker 1: commentary happening. But then Michelle Peiffer's character comes in and
22:47
Speaker 1: it's just as awful, that's true, if not worse, to
22:50
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lawrence's character, and I was like, Okay, so maybe
22:53
Speaker 1: that's not what is trying to be said here, because
22:56
Speaker 1: the second woman we see on screen is just as
23:00
Speaker 1: dismissive and means in a way that feels if you
23:04
Speaker 1: don't recognize the stupid fucking metaphor, Like most of what
23:09
Speaker 1: Michelle Peiffer does, especially feels crazy, unmotivated of just like
23:15
Speaker 1: why are you being mean? Why are you asking this
23:18
Speaker 1: woman about her sex life, like her home right right?
23:23
Speaker 1: Like why are you getting drunk? Like what I drinking
23:27
Speaker 1: a mich Hard lemonade? Though she is drinking a mice
23:30
Speaker 1: Hard lemonade. But it's Michelle's Hard lemonade. It's yeah, that's true.
23:34
Speaker 1: If we found it up, it's weird. I I really
23:41
Speaker 1: enjoyed Michelle Peiffer's performance in this movie because I feel
23:45
Speaker 1: like she was possibly one of the only actors who
23:48
Speaker 1: knew that she was kind of in a campy movie,
23:51
Speaker 1: because I like she gives a kind of campy performance
23:53
Speaker 1: because she's like always like draping herself over a piza
23:56
Speaker 1: furniture and it's like, so tell me everything, okay, relax,
24:01
Speaker 1: but I don't know, like it's and also like this
24:04
Speaker 1: movie could have been more fun if it was if
24:07
Speaker 1: it had a more campy tone, but there's no fun.
24:11
Speaker 1: It takes itself extremely seriously, yes, and it makes it
24:15
Speaker 1: for not a fun watch, Like it is nothing entertaining
24:18
Speaker 1: about this movie, And I think like the whole message
24:22
Speaker 1: of the movie is almost so immature and juvenile, like
24:25
Speaker 1: a thought that we all have when we're like thirteen
24:27
Speaker 1: of like oh we're bacteria, man, we're ruining the first
24:31
Speaker 1: Like like so it's like, what exactly motivated you to
24:35
Speaker 1: make something that's saying something that everybody has already thought
24:39
Speaker 1: and like kind of dismissed, right, And it's like, yeah,
24:43
Speaker 1: who who is the intended audience for this? Who's supposed
24:46
Speaker 1: to be learning? Right? And what are we what are
24:48
Speaker 1: we even supposed to take away apart from the very
24:51
Speaker 1: obvious like yeah, we're fucking up the ears, but then
24:53
Speaker 1: like because it's a metaphor for Old Testament and then
24:57
Speaker 1: New Testament. But then also like Odd is married to
25:00
Speaker 1: mother Earth, Like her character doesn't really fit into that
25:04
Speaker 1: allegory because almost is mother Earth because that's what they're destroying,
25:10
Speaker 1: Like you're trying he's like doing metaphor hats on metaphor hats. Yeah,
25:14
Speaker 1: it's like too many layers and none of it really
25:17
Speaker 1: works out, especially because so many of the characters in
25:19
Speaker 1: this movie behave in ways that people do not behave.
25:23
Speaker 1: So fine, if you want to make a movie that's
25:25
Speaker 1: an allegory for something, For example, Paddington One, it's an
25:28
Speaker 1: allegory for immigration and racism, and it's done very well.
25:32
Speaker 1: But mother exclamation point is like all these metaphors mashed
25:37
Speaker 1: up together in a way that like none of it
25:39
Speaker 1: makes sense, none of it works. Yeah, it's letters are
25:43
Speaker 1: like doing things that no one would do ever in
25:45
Speaker 1: behaving in ways that no one would ever behave. It's
25:48
Speaker 1: literally like UCB one oh one ship of like you
25:52
Speaker 1: have to map something on something else that makes sense,
25:57
Speaker 1: and if it doesn't make sense, find something different to
26:01
Speaker 1: you know, fit it into. You can't just make something
26:04
Speaker 1: like it's just so forced. The whole thing is so
26:06
Speaker 1: forth And I think that he tried to possibly I'm curious,
26:11
Speaker 1: what do you think that Jennifer Lawrence was a metaphor
26:14
Speaker 1: for Earth, but so was the house and they both
26:17
Speaker 1: sort of had a weird pulsing something where the house
26:21
Speaker 1: had a womb in the basement. But then also you
26:24
Speaker 1: like you would touch the walls and then there would
26:26
Speaker 1: be like a heartbeat. They were connected somehow. I was like,
26:30
Speaker 1: it just didn't quite make it. I think that, but
26:33
Speaker 1: I'm like, what is the takeaway from that? She is
26:35
Speaker 1: the house. Also, the movie seems to be saying that
26:39
Speaker 1: religion destroyed Mother Earth, which like, what was Kristen Wigs
26:43
Speaker 1: supposed to represent? I don't know what? Was she a metaphor?
26:47
Speaker 1: For see? I so like popular religion or something. Maybe
26:51
Speaker 1: I've never read the Bible brag so I did not
26:55
Speaker 1: pick up on the Bible. I can't stop reading the Bible.
26:59
Speaker 1: I didn't pick up on other time I saw it.
27:01
Speaker 1: I watched the whole thing, and I was like, what
27:02
Speaker 1: the funk? I was like, I know there's a metaphor here,
27:04
Speaker 1: I just don't know what it is. I started reading
27:07
Speaker 1: about it, and I was like, oh, it's a Bible thing.
27:10
Speaker 1: And then I was like, because I was I'm not
27:13
Speaker 1: super familiar with the various stories of the Bible. I
27:16
Speaker 1: didn't pick up on it. They're not great. But I
27:17
Speaker 1: also like, but now that I know it, I was like, oh, yes,
27:22
Speaker 1: this movie does bash you over the head with all
27:23
Speaker 1: these metaphors. But also, I don't know, well, that's that's
27:28
Speaker 1: something that we were talking about. Two it was like,
27:30
Speaker 1: it really bothers me, and this is part of why,
27:33
Speaker 1: Like some David Lynch movies don't do it for me
27:37
Speaker 1: at all. Of just like I don't like when you
27:40
Speaker 1: go into a movie and it's like, whoever made this
27:42
Speaker 1: wants me to feel dumb as rocks for at least
27:45
Speaker 1: part of it, and I don't like that, Like it's
27:48
Speaker 1: not a good feeling. It's a very pretentious movie as well,
27:53
Speaker 1: which really it was like it felt like I was
27:55
Speaker 1: being condescended to the whole time, Like the same thing
27:59
Speaker 1: happen to me when I watched like I've watched eraser Head,
28:02
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, what am I supposed to be
28:04
Speaker 1: getting from this? What does this mean? I just I
28:07
Speaker 1: don't like doing stupid. It's kind of interesting how a
28:10
Speaker 1: director and his script can just be so condescending and
28:15
Speaker 1: dumb at the same time you're like, wow, this is
28:17
Speaker 1: a feat. You should getting a word for this. His
28:19
Speaker 1: mother also reads is like a short story that someone
28:22
Speaker 1: in ninth grade was like a little subversive would have written. Right,
28:26
Speaker 1: it takes but also it's a metaphor and they eat
28:31
Speaker 1: the baby. Yeah, this for my life. I'm just like, oh,
28:34
Speaker 1: I'm sure my brother's film school friends are roughing over this.
28:39
Speaker 1: They're like oh my god, he's a genius. It's interesting
28:42
Speaker 1: because I feel like, you know, Aroonowski is like, whatever
28:44
Speaker 1: this male outour ever heard of a male tour? They
28:49
Speaker 1: exist on this exclusively. Who chose to have a female
28:53
Speaker 1: protagonist and chose to do nothing with her? That really
28:58
Speaker 1: bothers me, and I feel like sets a fall precedent
29:01
Speaker 1: of you know, I'm sure you know. And unless he's
29:05
Speaker 1: more woke than I give him credit for that, Aroonowski
29:08
Speaker 1: would look at this and be like, female protagonist, So
29:12
Speaker 1: I'm a feminist icon. I did it. I did it
29:14
Speaker 1: because she's there, and I don't photograph her like she's
29:17
Speaker 1: porn and I did it. You see her face, I
29:20
Speaker 1: did like And that just that bugs me so much
29:22
Speaker 1: because I feel like that just lets future directors get
29:26
Speaker 1: away with a being like a man can have a
29:29
Speaker 1: female protagonist, wh stress woman direct all the movies. And
29:33
Speaker 1: and also it's like that that character Jennifer lawng as
29:36
Speaker 1: the character, that person doesn't exist. That person is never mean,
29:39
Speaker 1: none of these characters have ever. It's just I mean,
29:43
Speaker 1: that bugs me. And then it's just bad writing. As
29:47
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, she's reacting to things that happen. But
29:50
Speaker 1: she's not driving the story forward. Things are happening around her,
29:52
Speaker 1: and she's reacting to them, and she's putting up She's
29:55
Speaker 1: protesting sometimes, but almost never in a way that it
29:58
Speaker 1: actually gets results or or anything happens because of a
30:01
Speaker 1: choice she makes. Like she's just reacting to the things
30:04
Speaker 1: that are happening around her. She never alters her approach. No,
30:07
Speaker 1: that either approaches universally, Hey stop stop that. Which, like again,
30:13
Speaker 1: because she's personifying Mother Earth, you could maybe argue, well,
30:17
Speaker 1: the Earth doesn't fight back, but actually it doesn't, like deliberately,
30:21
Speaker 1: the Earth is never like making a conscious choice to
30:24
Speaker 1: be like, oh, well you did this thing to me,
30:26
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fucking have a hurricane. But it's just so
30:30
Speaker 1: weird to make the choice to personify something like that.
30:35
Speaker 1: But also like that character, just rendering her so passive
30:39
Speaker 1: is like, what's the point why you even tell a story?
30:41
Speaker 1: If you want to make a movie about people and
30:43
Speaker 1: how they've fucked up the earth Watch Koyana Scotsy. It's
30:48
Speaker 1: a weird experimental movie from the early eighties, but it
30:51
Speaker 1: does a better job getting this message across anyway. Shout
30:55
Speaker 1: out to all my Koyana Scots heads out there. Wow, really,
30:59
Speaker 1: flero that man master's degree today, Jesus Christ. I think
31:04
Speaker 1: the problem was a he wrote it way too quickly,
31:06
Speaker 1: and is soul was so passionate about it and had
31:09
Speaker 1: the resources to make a film immediately that he probably
31:14
Speaker 1: spent no time actually thinking about it or putting it
31:18
Speaker 1: in the drawer and waiting on it for a couple
31:19
Speaker 1: of months. I mean, in a a lot of the interviews,
31:22
Speaker 1: I know you haven't read them, but he's so fucking
31:24
Speaker 1: psyched on this. He's like, you know, because we ruined
31:26
Speaker 1: Mother Earth with climate change, and we we do all
31:29
Speaker 1: these and we're drilling into her and then and then
31:31
Speaker 1: all the an overpopulation, and you're like, oh, wow, like
31:34
Speaker 1: you this is a little passion project for you. You
31:36
Speaker 1: think you're being so hashtag deep. Yeah. I think he
31:39
Speaker 1: didn't take the time that he should have to really
31:41
Speaker 1: evaluate this movie. Yeah, I mean, just in general, like
31:45
Speaker 1: the more famous filmmakers and writers get, the more they
31:48
Speaker 1: should like make sure the people around them are being
31:51
Speaker 1: honest with them before they start something. Because I'm sure
31:55
Speaker 1: that you know, most famous people have enough yes men
31:58
Speaker 1: around them to be like, yeah, real hack biblical metaphor
32:03
Speaker 1: love it amazing great, But yeah, I mean, that's that
32:07
Speaker 1: sucks if you genuinely I mean, and it sounds like
32:09
Speaker 1: he genuinely didn't know how like juvenile and silly it
32:13
Speaker 1: was because perhaps no one said, um, hi, excuse me,
32:17
Speaker 1: this is dumb. Hey, you stop that, Darren kiss it
32:20
Speaker 1: a race, Darren stopped writing that scrab your dad needs
32:26
Speaker 1: another dross. Hey that he's like, too late, I'm print again.
32:33
Speaker 1: And then they eat the baby. Can we talk about
32:38
Speaker 1: the scene where so it starts with Ed Harris and
32:43
Speaker 1: all those people have left, and she's like, my life
32:46
Speaker 1: didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. You
32:49
Speaker 1: talk about wanting to have kids, but you won't even
32:51
Speaker 1: fuck me. And then he like lunges at her and
32:55
Speaker 1: is like grabbing her and kissing her, and she is
32:58
Speaker 1: very vocally physically resisting. She's saying no nos, and she's
33:03
Speaker 1: fighting back, She's trying to push him off, and he
33:05
Speaker 1: keeps doing it. He continues, and then it changes from
33:08
Speaker 1: her resisting to her being into it suddenly, which I
33:13
Speaker 1: think sends a very dangerous message. And I think this
33:16
Speaker 1: is another hint that this is a movie with a
33:19
Speaker 1: female protagonist but directed by a man. It sends a
33:22
Speaker 1: dangerous message. You see this all the time, all the time.
33:25
Speaker 1: There's a really good lade Runners, the one I always
33:27
Speaker 1: go straight to resist, Resist, Resist, and now she loves you.
33:32
Speaker 1: Like it happens in like Empire Strikes back to with
33:35
Speaker 1: Han Solo trying to come on to lay Um. Pop
33:39
Speaker 1: Culture Detective has a really great video essay about this,
33:41
Speaker 1: about how a lot of movies will paint this scene
33:45
Speaker 1: of a man kind of aggressively coming on to a woman.
33:49
Speaker 1: She is resisting, but then something happens all of a
33:54
Speaker 1: sudden because he keeps trying and then suddenly she's into
33:57
Speaker 1: it and she thinks it's hot. And what you or
34:00
Speaker 1: not mentioning is that every single character that this video,
34:04
Speaker 1: I say explores is a Harrison Fords and Fordson Ford
34:09
Speaker 1: You're fired your own notice, predatory icon. He did not
34:15
Speaker 1: write those scenes, but he accepted every sele and check. Yeah, yeah,
34:20
Speaker 1: I feel like it was more acceptable back in the day,
34:22
Speaker 1: Like say anything was this huge romantic and it's like
34:25
Speaker 1: if a fucker was outside of your house blasting music,
34:28
Speaker 1: you would be like, leave me alone. I'm getting a
34:30
Speaker 1: restraining on the ya. I was thinking of that recently
34:33
Speaker 1: because I live on the first floor, so if someone
34:35
Speaker 1: did that to me would be extra crazy because I'd
34:37
Speaker 1: just be like making direct eye contact. But yeah, so
34:42
Speaker 1: many movies have done this and continue to do this,
34:45
Speaker 1: where it's basically what starts out as a rape scene
34:48
Speaker 1: and then it turns into this romantic thing where all
34:51
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, she's very hot because he just
34:53
Speaker 1: kept persisting and suddenly she's into it. So it obasually
34:56
Speaker 1: sends a message is like, men, if a woman is
34:59
Speaker 1: resisting at first, just keep trying, try a little harder,
35:02
Speaker 1: and then she'll be into it. I mean, granted, at
35:04
Speaker 1: this point in the movie, if any man is watching
35:06
Speaker 1: Javier bar dem and is like, wow, it seems like
35:08
Speaker 1: a good example to be following they're already lost. But
35:13
Speaker 1: but the way this scene, this movie's attitude towards sex
35:15
Speaker 1: in general is very bizarro of like this is this movie.
35:19
Speaker 1: This movie seems like anti sex in a lot of ways,
35:23
Speaker 1: because anytime that Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer going at
35:27
Speaker 1: it there like like the movie I felt was like, right,
35:32
Speaker 1: that's a weird thing they're doing, right, And then there's
35:34
Speaker 1: this weirdly violent sex scene and then them having sex
35:39
Speaker 1: whatever God and Earth, Like God sucks the planet such
35:49
Speaker 1: a bad metaphor, but so and then when they have sex,
35:53
Speaker 1: it results in disaster because it results in the baby
35:58
Speaker 1: and the baby getting fucked up. Well, it's it's a
36:01
Speaker 1: disaster because of like God's hubris and like wanting to
36:06
Speaker 1: be loved by his followers, basically sacrificing the baby because
36:11
Speaker 1: of that. And right, this movie is stupid. It's just like,
36:20
Speaker 1: sometimes I have a bunch of bullet point I'm like,
36:22
Speaker 1: do we even tackle it? My notes are also so just.
36:27
Speaker 1: I mean the narratives like that was straight up distracting
36:34
Speaker 1: of like every time she because she would show up
36:35
Speaker 1: every once in a while, he'd be like, oh yeah,
36:37
Speaker 1: wait what and then she magically turns into like a
36:39
Speaker 1: military person in the basement and they're all all at
36:43
Speaker 1: war and bombs are going off, and you're like, what
36:45
Speaker 1: the fuck this is? Yeah, this is a bad thesis film.
36:49
Speaker 1: It's not great. Can we talk about I guess the
36:52
Speaker 1: relationship between Jennifer Lawrence's character and Michelle Peiffer a little bit,
36:55
Speaker 1: because that's relevant to hard discussion. I mean it does
36:59
Speaker 1: you know, well, we'll get into does anyone have names?
37:03
Speaker 1: And therefore can it ever pass the back? Right? Yeah? So,
37:06
Speaker 1: but there is a there's a sequence where gen Law
37:09
Speaker 1: and Michelle talk, and it's usually Michelle Pfiffer like prying
37:14
Speaker 1: about her sex life or sort of judging her for
37:17
Speaker 1: other choices she's making, and everything she does is wrong,
37:21
Speaker 1: it's the thing. Yeah, yeah, She like makes all these
37:24
Speaker 1: bad hand of remarks like yeah, no, he probably still
37:27
Speaker 1: loves you, like yeah, your husband, I guess maybe likes you,
37:30
Speaker 1: and and uh, do you want some of my Michelle's
37:33
Speaker 1: hard lemonade family recipe? And later on when she returns
37:38
Speaker 1: after like the random murder that happens in the how,
37:41
Speaker 1: like oh yeah, which leads to feminist icon floor vagina
37:46
Speaker 1: right when the floor of the house just has a
37:49
Speaker 1: vagina all of a sudden, Yeah, and it's bleeding. It's
37:53
Speaker 1: free bleeding all over the place floor vagina, also feminist
37:59
Speaker 1: icon ed Harris whenever he at one point is like,
38:02
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lawrence, do you redid this whole house? And she's
38:05
Speaker 1: like yeah, and he's like every detail and she's like
38:07
Speaker 1: m m and he's like, so you're not just a
38:10
Speaker 1: pretty face feminist icon head hair just kidding. So the relationship. Yeah,
38:16
Speaker 1: Michelle Phifer and Jennifer Lawrence are just like a very
38:20
Speaker 1: bizarre situation where no strangers would talk like that. And
38:25
Speaker 1: I means mostly a Michelle Fiber's part where she's just like,
38:28
Speaker 1: why do you do your laundry so fucked up? What
38:30
Speaker 1: is this? What is this? I'm drunk bol and you're
38:32
Speaker 1: just like whoa, Like where what do you want? Like
38:36
Speaker 1: it's unclear to me outside of the metaphor what Michelle Phifer,
38:42
Speaker 1: why she's being so antagonistic and what kind of reaction
38:46
Speaker 1: she's hoping to get out of Jennifer Lawrence, Like it
38:48
Speaker 1: doesn't Well, they're all just yeah, they're all props for
38:51
Speaker 1: the metaphor. They literally don't make sense or don't exist
38:54
Speaker 1: outside of it. Well, like, I mean again, I have
38:56
Speaker 1: a very limited understanding of the Bible. But it's Eve
38:59
Speaker 1: who takes the flight of the Apple. That's like the
39:02
Speaker 1: original sin thing, and that's basically the fall of man.
39:05
Speaker 1: She's temptation, she's belligerent, she didn't listen. It's like the
39:10
Speaker 1: whole why why emulate that in a fucking current movie?
39:15
Speaker 1: Like that's not how it's just stupid. They're one of
39:22
Speaker 1: the things about Jennifer Lawrence's character, and it's like this
39:26
Speaker 1: whole time, we're like like, we're really really reaching for
39:29
Speaker 1: things here. But the the idea of the female protagonists
39:34
Speaker 1: trying to be polite and like a good hostess and
39:37
Speaker 1: respectful to all at all costs was something that was like, Okay,
39:41
Speaker 1: there was another moment during Kristen Wiggs press conference, you know,
39:46
Speaker 1: when Kristin Wick just starts having a press conference during
39:49
Speaker 1: this terrible movie, when there's like a mom and her
39:52
Speaker 1: son and she Jennifer Lawrence is like trying to be like,
39:55
Speaker 1: you cannot come in. She's like, but my son's pissing,
39:59
Speaker 1: and she's okay, fine, you can come in, but you
40:02
Speaker 1: have to leave. And then it turns out everyone's pissing
40:04
Speaker 1: for some reason. I was like paining and understank. Anyways,
40:07
Speaker 1: I thought I had a point, but it turns out
40:09
Speaker 1: I didn't. Well, I mean, maybe it's kind of what
40:12
Speaker 1: I was touching on earlier, where if this maybe this
40:15
Speaker 1: character is a metaphor for like the way women have
40:18
Speaker 1: historically been treated, where you know, we're conditioned to be
40:22
Speaker 1: accommodating and we have to be helpful and and and
40:25
Speaker 1: and delicate and all of this stuff and and how
40:28
Speaker 1: that's not really serving anybody, and like that's not good
40:31
Speaker 1: and that's not how it should be. But like, I
40:33
Speaker 1: don't think that Dannia Rondowski was necessarily thinking that, Like
40:37
Speaker 1: I think that's all, but it is, like it is
40:42
Speaker 1: so infuriating to see the only things you see Jennifer
40:46
Speaker 1: Lawrence's character doing is either cleaning stuff up or making
40:49
Speaker 1: breakfast or fixing up the house or just like endless
40:54
Speaker 1: domestic chores, doing laundry, you know, Jennifer and cleaning up
40:58
Speaker 1: a mess. Um. We touched on this a little earlier,
41:01
Speaker 1: but I did want to mention like how the female
41:05
Speaker 1: protagonist is framed in this movie, and that like almost
41:09
Speaker 1: every shot is either a close up of her face
41:12
Speaker 1: or a shot from her, like an over the shoulder
41:15
Speaker 1: or just a straight up point of view shot from
41:17
Speaker 1: her perspective, which I think is I guess you could
41:20
Speaker 1: call it interesting. It's unusual. It's not what we usually
41:24
Speaker 1: see in most movies, especially because most movies are not
41:28
Speaker 1: told from a woman's point of view, like and this
41:31
Speaker 1: this one is yeah, literally her point of view. It's
41:34
Speaker 1: like a point of view shot from I mean, it's
41:37
Speaker 1: kind of I guess kind of an even split of
41:38
Speaker 1: looking at her and looking from her point of view, right,
41:41
Speaker 1: So I mean maybe something I can take away from
41:44
Speaker 1: this movie is Okay, that's interesting that that choice was made,
41:49
Speaker 1: because often if it's a male director framing a female character,
41:54
Speaker 1: it's usually sexualized in some way or like, and I
41:57
Speaker 1: never find you get to see her share night gaw
42:00
Speaker 1: in a couple of times, you do. I mean, they
42:02
Speaker 1: do have that scene where all the people are attacking
42:04
Speaker 1: her on the floor and like her boob comes out
42:07
Speaker 1: and they're like grab which like why what what? What
42:10
Speaker 1: is that serving? Why is that scene? And being in
42:13
Speaker 1: a room with your boyfriend and he's like, yeah, yeah,
42:16
Speaker 1: hit her And I was like, ah no, no, how
42:23
Speaker 1: did he know that scarf? He's like, hey, Jennifer, just
42:26
Speaker 1: um lie here on the floor and get your face beaten.
42:29
Speaker 1: In all of these extras for my awesome, freaking you're
42:33
Speaker 1: gonna love it mother, I felt like I could see
42:39
Speaker 1: the male gaze on Jennifer Lawrence the whole movie, because
42:42
Speaker 1: she was completely perfect the entire time, Like she never
42:47
Speaker 1: got more in disarray as the movie went on until
42:50
Speaker 1: that very very ending section. But even then, like when
42:52
Speaker 1: she was running around. Her hair was perfectly in place,
42:54
Speaker 1: Like all the shots were like so close and intimate
42:57
Speaker 1: and like this gorgeous lighting, so it didn't were like sexualized,
43:01
Speaker 1: but it felt like Darren's way of viewing her almost.
43:05
Speaker 1: That's a really good point. Yeah, I hadn't thought of
43:07
Speaker 1: it that way. It's too bad because I I don't
43:09
Speaker 1: think this movie got nominated for every Razzie pretty much.
43:13
Speaker 1: I think he got the most nomination. And it's too
43:18
Speaker 1: bad because I don't think Jennifer Lawrence does a bad
43:21
Speaker 1: job in this movie with what she's given, which is
43:24
Speaker 1: not a lot. If seventy percent of the dialogue you're
43:27
Speaker 1: given is hey, like there's only so much you can do,
43:30
Speaker 1: and and given the fact that the camera is focused
43:33
Speaker 1: on her for so much of the movie, I feel
43:35
Speaker 1: like she and like Michelle Peiffer, felt like that at
43:39
Speaker 1: least an interesting job with what they were given. However,
43:42
Speaker 1: your burden, I don't know. I was like not loving
43:45
Speaker 1: him in this movie, Kristen Wig, what are you doing here?
43:49
Speaker 1: Ed Harris? I'm maybe like afraid of bald men's time,
43:56
Speaker 1: so like I don't have a good game fan of
43:57
Speaker 1: bald women test, but bald women are in charge every
44:03
Speaker 1: single time they appear on screen. Bald men, their scalps
44:07
Speaker 1: can talk, and they have really scary secrets to tell you.
44:11
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the huge problems is this movie
44:14
Speaker 1: boils down to because the director was like, we gotta
44:17
Speaker 1: have this metaphor. It's at the expense of characterization. So
44:21
Speaker 1: none of these characters feel like real people and therefore
44:25
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's kind of hard to talk about them.
44:27
Speaker 1: So like before we started recording, I was like, what
44:30
Speaker 1: am I even going to say about this movie? Like
44:32
Speaker 1: how can I even talk about the female characters because
44:34
Speaker 1: they're like, they're not real people. They don't resemble human
44:38
Speaker 1: behavior at all. So it's just like, how do you
44:40
Speaker 1: even talk about the portrayal of women when these female
44:44
Speaker 1: characters they're just like metaphors and allegories and personifications of
44:49
Speaker 1: the ship. And no one's relationship makes sense. We don't know.
44:53
Speaker 1: There's very little evident about like why have your Bret
44:57
Speaker 1: m and Jennifer Lawrence would love each other in this
44:59
Speaker 1: for relationship? What keeps their relationship together other than her
45:03
Speaker 1: constant service. One of the more baffling character connections was
45:07
Speaker 1: like Ed Harris showing up in Javier Bardim just being
45:10
Speaker 1: like I love this guy, and that that goes through
45:13
Speaker 1: every single time. Ed Harris is like, I've been lying,
45:16
Speaker 1: and how your bards like you're so fucking real like
45:20
Speaker 1: and they're they're weirdly. I guess it is because like,
45:23
Speaker 1: because God loved those were his creations, so he loved
45:27
Speaker 1: he had, he loved them, and he's like, Wow, look
45:30
Speaker 1: what a good job I did with all this stuff.
45:31
Speaker 1: And I guess the movie is saying, oh no, God
45:34
Speaker 1: didn't maybe do a good job because everything got fucked
45:37
Speaker 1: up by the end Aronowski second draft. Come on, come on,
45:41
Speaker 1: it have been great to see the third, fourth, fifty
45:44
Speaker 1: second draft or I think that that would have ended
45:47
Speaker 1: in the trash if anyone had taken a good, long,
45:50
Speaker 1: hard look at what this movie is like, maybe skip it.
45:53
Speaker 1: He should have sent his script to me for notes.
45:55
Speaker 1: I would have given him great notes. Doesn't even have
45:58
Speaker 1: any other thoughts about the portrayal of women in all Right, Well,
46:07
Speaker 1: how about we talk about whether or not the movie
46:09
Speaker 1: passes the Bechdel test. I say no. I would say
46:12
Speaker 1: no to because the characters aren't named. Yes, if they
46:17
Speaker 1: had names, it would have to pass. I'm pretty sure
46:21
Speaker 1: because of the scenes with Jennifer Lawrence and Michelle Peiffer,
46:26
Speaker 1: but they don't have names, no matter whether I AMDB
46:30
Speaker 1: Page says sometimes I AMDDB Page says, Hey, the twist
46:33
Speaker 1: is they did have a name, but we'd never find
46:36
Speaker 1: out what it is. We never find out in the movie. Yeah,
46:38
Speaker 1: and we never and it's you know, I'd be more
46:40
Speaker 1: inclined to give it a benefit of the doubt if
46:42
Speaker 1: we knew, like, well, at least we knew a lot
46:44
Speaker 1: about the characters, but we didn't know anything about the
46:46
Speaker 1: characters either. So so I'm gonna not to come to
46:50
Speaker 1: this movie's defense at all, but I'm gonna argue that
46:53
Speaker 1: the caveat of the characters having to have names implies that, oh,
46:58
Speaker 1: these characters have to be important enough that we would
47:01
Speaker 1: know their names. So it can't just be like a
47:02
Speaker 1: random person we see and one scene that has one line,
47:06
Speaker 1: and if that character talks to another woman with a name, like,
47:09
Speaker 1: I think that's what that that caveat of the backdo
47:12
Speaker 1: test is saying. So it's like it has to be
47:14
Speaker 1: two main characters speaking to each other. So these are
47:18
Speaker 1: two main characters in the movie. So the fact that
47:19
Speaker 1: they don't have names, I think is just like whatever,
47:22
Speaker 1: and the artistic choice and the fact that they don't
47:25
Speaker 1: have names is an a gender decision because no one
47:28
Speaker 1: has names, correct. But but test is extremely flawed and
47:32
Speaker 1: I don't write so it doesn't. Yeah, I mean, I'm
47:37
Speaker 1: fine with saying it doesn't because of the name caveat,
47:40
Speaker 1: because otherwise, I mean, let's say they do have names.
47:42
Speaker 1: And then those two characters, Yeah, they talk about Mike's
47:45
Speaker 1: hard lemonade. They talk about like you suck just like sorry,
47:50
Speaker 1: and a lot of what they talk about are like
47:52
Speaker 1: domestic chores. And again that's a lot of what you
47:55
Speaker 1: see Jennifer Lawrence's character doing in the movie. But they
47:58
Speaker 1: are talking about saying they do mention man. But there
48:00
Speaker 1: are plenty of two line exchanges between those two characters
48:03
Speaker 1: that would pass the test if we knew their names.
48:06
Speaker 1: I don't want to give anyone a reason to be like, yeah,
48:08
Speaker 1: maybe I'll give this movie a chance. Yeah I'm not.
48:10
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna. I think I won't give it a
48:12
Speaker 1: pass just because they don't have names in this movie
48:14
Speaker 1: sucks really bad and it yeah, fuck it. In conclusion,
48:21
Speaker 1: let's write the movie on our nipple scale zero to five.
48:24
Speaker 1: Nipples where we rate the movie based on its portrayal
48:29
Speaker 1: of women go negative to nipples. Uh yeah, I'm gonna
48:35
Speaker 1: have to give it a zero just because of how
48:38
Speaker 1: inactive the protagonist is, how the relationship with the one
48:43
Speaker 1: other main female character is just like bonkers and doesn't
48:47
Speaker 1: make any sense. But the movie isn't like pro man either.
48:51
Speaker 1: That's the thing. It's not like, Wow, look how good
48:53
Speaker 1: a job men are doing. Isn't even like it's not
48:56
Speaker 1: specifically insensitive to women in a point a way. It's
49:00
Speaker 1: just insensitive to filmmaking and things that are good, a
49:05
Speaker 1: slab in the face to anything that's ever been good. Yeah.
49:08
Speaker 1: And then even at the end when she sort of
49:10
Speaker 1: has her like, oh, actually I do have a little
49:14
Speaker 1: tiny bit of agency and I'm going to blow the
49:16
Speaker 1: whole house up, and then she dies and then gets
49:19
Speaker 1: reborn into this other woman, so she doesn't even get
49:22
Speaker 1: to like have a cathartic moment that she actually gets
49:26
Speaker 1: to like enjoy and like reap the benefits of, because
49:29
Speaker 1: when she just dies, and then it's the whole thing
49:31
Speaker 1: of like, oh, well, God gets to start over because
49:34
Speaker 1: he's God. I give this movie zero nipples, but I
49:37
Speaker 1: give it one floor of Va China. There's no way
49:41
Speaker 1: around it. Great. Um, well that'll do it for our
49:47
Speaker 1: discussion about Mother, and I thank you so much for
49:51
Speaker 1: being here, thanks for having Where can people follow you online?
49:55
Speaker 1: It's just my name Anna Ancona great a right, Twitter, Instagram,
49:59
Speaker 1: check it out. All the stuff you can go to
50:02
Speaker 1: our website back tocast dot com. You can follow us
50:04
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram, and all the places you can
50:06
Speaker 1: buy our merch merch now hot merch or where you can.
50:12
Speaker 1: You can make those purchases on our website. You can
50:16
Speaker 1: subscribe to our Patreon. It's five dollars a month to
50:19
Speaker 1: get to bonus episodes. It helps us out, helps you out.
50:23
Speaker 1: It's a win win, you can't lose. All right, Well,
50:26
Speaker 1: what a rousing discussion about Mother as we did not
50:30
Speaker 1: like this movie, all right, well bye bye