Latest / Cozy Quilt Cinema / Chicago (2002): Every Spotlight Is Another Cage

Transcript

Chicago (2002): Every Spotlight Is Another Cage · Cozy Quilt Cinema

0:00
Music.
0:16
Hey, friends. It's time once again for Once More With Feelings. I'm Michelle.
0:21
And I'm Beth. And we are a podcast that talks about our feelings and watches
0:27
movies and then talks about them some more. Yes. All the feelings.
0:32
So, Michelle. Yes. At the time of recording, it is your birthday weekend.
0:37
Oh, God. How do you feel about that?
0:39
Old. You feel old? Yes.
0:41
One year older or like much older than last year? I don't like odd numbers,
0:45
and I'm turning an odd number, and I don't like odd numbers.
0:48
I'm with you on that. I kind of don't like it either. I like to have even numbers. Yeah.
0:53
I don't know why it makes things just a little bit off for me for a whole year,
0:58
because I don't like odd numbers.
1:00
Yeah, well, 23 isn't a bad age, so you'll be fine.
1:04
23 with, let's see, 27 years experience.
1:11
We call that level 27 thing. Or 28 years experience, something like that. I don't freaking know.
1:17
Again, when you go from like one classroom where you're working with people
1:22
who are a little bit older than you or just about your age and you all get each
1:25
other's jokes to now I'm working with people who I could have birthed.
1:30
Yeah, well, that's how it works. Yeah, it's a little off-putting.
1:34
I mean, some of my bosses are half my age.
1:38
It's just off-putting. And like I said, I make references and nobody gets them.
1:42
Yeah well they were not going to I know and I hate that we didn't get the references
1:47
our parents I make jokes all day long and I feel like I'm just you know.
1:54
I'm no longer the cool kid I mean to be honest though they're a different nerd
2:00
if they're a nerd everybody's got a different nerddom they're still young enough to not,
2:06
want to admit that they're nerdy. Maybe one of them.
2:09
I mean, I was nerdy all my life, and I enjoyed it. I never even thought about
2:13
the fact that nerds were a pejorative. I know.
2:16
I mean, I did. I knew it was something people were definitely bullied for being.
2:22
But also, it took me growing up to realize I didn't give a shit. I like what I like.
2:32
No, I get that. And, you know, I got tired of hiding it, because I did.
2:35
I would get embarrassed of things.
2:36
I mean, the fact that, and it's funny because we were just talking about this
2:40
today because we're talking about Barbie dolls at work, weirdly,
2:42
that I had so many Barbie dolls that were in practically mint condition growing up.
2:50
And then I had my She-Ra castle and my She-Ra dolls.
2:53
And when I turned 12, I had a big sleepover.
2:58
And the girls at my sleepover made fun of me for having them.
3:01
So I gave them all to my sister, who is seven years younger than me.
3:05
And my sister, I say within the year, destroyed them all.
3:10
Yes, again. I'm pretty sure she still has that Barbie head on a keychain that
3:16
she painted purple and cut the hair off of.
3:19
I'm pretty sure she still has that. That was my favorite Barbie.
3:21
Sounds a bit spiteful. That's her.
3:26
So how do you feel about that? About the Barbies? I'm still pissed.
3:32
About getting older. I mean, it's... About your birthday, how do you feel about
3:36
your birthday? How do I feel about my birthday? I mean, it's my birthday.
3:38
We had a big to-do last year. Yeah, but I turned 50 last year,
3:41
so I wanted a big to-do. It was a good big to-do.
3:44
To-do, yeah. We did an escape room, and that was fun.
3:47
And we escaped, by the way. We did escape. We did make it out. No one died. We're here.
3:51
It was Clue-themed, and that made me happy because, you know, I love Clue.
3:55
And we spent it with the kids. Yeah. It was nice. Mexican restaurant.
4:01
We should have done Clue. So it would have been funny doing Clue on my birthday.
4:05
Oh yeah, that would have been a good tie in. That would have been funny, but we did not do Clue.
4:09
We can't because you locked us in. I locked us in with the trivia that nobody
4:13
answers. Y'all need to start answering these questions.
4:16
Y'all, I give them out. So I want you guys to answer. I want you guys to try
4:20
to figure it out. It makes it fun for me.
4:23
So what is it that we're going to be talking about today?
4:28
Well, if you could guess from our clues last week that it was Richard Gere who
4:34
spent three months learning how to tap dance for a scene that he filmed in a
4:39
very short period of time,
4:41
like half a day, then you would be right if you guessed Chicago,
4:47
the 2002 Rob Marshall directed film.
4:52
Yeah, so Chicago is a 2002 American musical black comedy film based on the 1975
5:00
stage Jazz Age Musical, which in turn originated in the 1926 play.
5:08
Aha. Aha. That's where your thing came from. I didn't want to spoil it for you. Oh, yeah.
5:14
Well, I mean, because they made a film in 1927 from it, and that was the one
5:18
that we were just looking at because I did not know it.
5:20
It explores the themes of celebrity, scandal, and corruption in Chicago during the Jazz Age. Yes.
5:27
Hasn't changed much since the Jazz Age. The film stars an ensemble cast led
5:33
by Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere.
5:39
Chicago centers on Roxy Hart and Velma Kelly, two murderers who find themselves
5:45
in jail together awaiting trial in 1920s Chicago.
5:50
Roxy, a housewife, and Velma, a vaudevillian, fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows.
5:57
The film marks the feature directorial debut of Rob Marshall,
6:02
who also choreographed the film. I did not know that.
6:05
I didn't know that either because he did other films.
6:09
Yeah. And was adapted by screenwriter Bill Condon with music by John Kander or John Kander?
6:17
I think it's Kander. I think Kander, I think. And lyrics by Fred Ebb.
6:21
Yeah, Rob Marshall, he also did Into the Woods, The Second Mary Poppins.
6:25
That makes total sense then.
6:27
Of course he did. He did The New Little Mermaid, and he did Memoirs of a Geisha.
6:31
He did a few other things, but those were the— So, he is musical theater,
6:35
then. Yeah, he does a lot of musical theater.
6:37
Now, the movie is—or the play was written by Maureen Dallas-Watkins,
6:44
and she was a journalist in Chicago. ago.
6:48
And she was inspired by the trials of Beulah Annan, Annan, Annan?
6:55
I'm not sure how to say that. A-N-N-A-N.
6:58
And Belva Gartner and these two women were accused of murder in the 1920s.
7:03
I believe that, so Belva is the Velma Kelly character.
7:08
She was a cabaret singer who, Belva was a cabaret singer, and she is the Velma Kelly of the situation.
7:17
And Beulah was the inspiration for Roxy Hart.
7:22
And when Watkins, she was just like trying to satirize the sensational newspaper
7:29
slash court hearings of the time because it did get a bit crazy.
7:36
And I know that IMDB had a little excerpt about it as well.
7:41
And I'm going to read that to you really quick. I know y'all can look it up
7:44
yourselves, but you know, why do that when someone's going to read it to you?
7:47
So it says, the play Chicago was Maureen Dallas Watkins' retelling of two very
7:51
public murder trials that occurred in Chicago in 1924, those of Beulah Sharif
7:56
Annan and Belva Gartner.
7:59
Watkins covers these trials for the Chicago Tribune and wrote the character
8:03
of Mary Sunshine as a self portrait.
8:06
There's something about Mary Sunshine I will get into in a little bit, too. I'm,
8:11
Belva, she had a really less glitzy fate than Velma Kelly, but she was acquitted
8:19
and went on to have a few other run-ins with the law, but ended up living a semi-normal life.
8:24
She died of natural causes in California in 1965 at the age of 80,
8:30
but Beulah, which is the Roxy Hart character, she had a not-so-good ending.
8:36
It's true that she was acquitted of murdering her lover, and she did have a
8:42
really good high-paid lawyer to get her out of it.
8:45
She did repay her debt by publicly divorcing her husband, even though,
8:50
you know, because he's the one who paid for all of this stuff for her.
8:53
But she was married like two more times after her death and from tuberculosis, four years later.
9:00
Two more times in four years and then died of tuberculosis. So yeah, Yeah.
9:05
The thing I thought was interesting is I've actually I love plays.
9:10
It is like one of my my things. And I used to live closer to New York.
9:14
So I got to see a few Broadway plays. But Chicago was never one I got to see.
9:19
So I never I don't know what the actual play is and the differences between
9:23
the movie and the play. And apparently there are a few.
9:26
But Mary Sunshine is actually in
9:30
the play according to what I had read supposed to be
9:32
portrayed by a man in drag where you don't know that they are in drag until
9:37
the end when Mary Sunshine makes a reference about things aren't always what
9:41
they seem and then somebody rips the wig off and it becomes a thing the choice
9:47
of Christine Baranski I think it's just because Christine Baranski can sing?
9:51
And she couldn't do that kind of, you know, that characterization of Mary Sunshine
9:55
is just, you know, and I always thought the name was funny because, you know,
10:02
the Mary Sunshine of everything is always like the person who's always seeing
10:06
the brighter side of things.
10:07
And now seeing like this characterization of, quote unquote,
10:12
Mary Sunshine, you do see she does see the brighter side of it,
10:15
regardless of what's going on.
10:17
She's always looking for, you know, oh, you poor dear.
10:21
You know, she's trying to find like the angle of positivity in this horrendous
10:28
murder and regardless of who it is.
10:32
So I don't know. I just think that it's fascinating where the stories come from.
10:36
And I'd love to do some more research on these two women.
10:39
I didn't because, again, this isn't a history.
10:42
As much as I love the trivia and the history, it's not that type of a podcast, folks.
10:48
Maybe another time we'll do a historical murderess type of thing.
10:53
So how do you feel? How did you feel when you first saw Chicago?
10:58
I'm not sure if you saw it when it first came out. So I didn't get to see it
11:02
in the theaters because of circumstances in my life at the time.
11:07
2002, I had just had my third baby. I was not going anywhere in life.
11:12
I mean, it was a big, weird situation in time for me.
11:17
But I was excited. I was excited about getting to see this because I hadn't
11:21
been able to go see a play in a while.
11:26
And it was like, oh, my God, they're doing Chicago. I remember wanting to go see Chicago.
11:34
I don't know. Because you didn't grow up in the same area I grew up in. Not at all.
11:39
You didn't happen to get commercials for Broadway plays then?
11:43
No, we still got commercials for them. You did? Okay, so do you remember the
11:47
commercial with B.B. Neuwirth doing all that jazz?
11:51
No. I saw that all the time, you know, and I'm like, I know her.
11:55
She's from Cheers and Frasier, you know, like I knew B.B. Neuwirth and she was Velma Kelly.
12:02
And she's singing all that jazz in the ads and I just wanted to see it so bad.
12:07
So when this came out, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about those actresses.
12:13
I didn't know if any of them could really sing. You know, I didn't know Richard Gere can sing.
12:17
And I mean, he's not like the best singer, but he's not the worst.
12:21
No, actually, he's got a pretty extensive listing of singing.
12:25
I think it's because his the affectations that they give Billy Flynn. It's that Chicago.
12:33
But that's what he's keeping with. Yeah. He keeps to it pretty, pretty well.
12:37
He really does, because it's even with his talking voice. It's there.
12:40
They almost hit that transatlantic accent. Yeah, but not quite,
12:44
because it isn't exactly that area, and it's not a New York accent that he's singing with.
12:49
It is a Chicago accent, which is very different. A lot of people thought it was a New York accent.
12:56
Despite the name Chicago. It says it on the label, folks. It says it on the label.
13:00
But so I was very, very excited to see this movie.
13:06
And I didn't know all the songs. I knew all that jazz.
13:12
And I think I knew Mr. Cellophane.
13:16
And I fell in love with that whole entire soundtrack.
13:24
I listened to it all the time.
13:29
It was my go-to for house cleaning. It was my go-to for just getting my brain
13:34
to reset I would put on Chicago.
13:37
Again, I was going through a lot of
13:40
shit in my life at that time and it
13:45
was definitely something that
13:49
pulled me through so as we were watching this I was remembering a lot of like
13:58
moments in my head good and bad that I could relate to these songs because of
14:04
how often I played the CD.
14:09
But it was definitely, I was very excited when I first found out about it.
14:14
So how did it make you feel when you first learned about this or got to see it?
14:18
I mean, it may surprise you to know I was completely indifferent.
14:24
So my taste in musicals runs differently than yours, I think. I am less jazz.
14:31
I am more of the, and this is going to be right in the makeup of where I grew
14:37
up and everything else, is Music Man.
14:40
And if you say Oklahoma, I'm leaving right now.
14:43
Oh, I mean, you can leave if you want. No, not really Oklahoma.
14:47
I actually have never seen it. I know the songs.
14:51
But it was The Music Man. It was Little Shop of Horrors.
14:56
You know, it's the kitschy films. Those are the ones that pulled me in.
15:02
Yeah. Those are the ones that the music really, like, meant something to me.
15:06
The Music Man, because he is a con, but he has a heart of gold.
15:09
I mean, I love that, you know, idea. Yeah.
15:13
Whereas in Chicago, it is a black comedy.
15:16
And when they when they're saying that black comedy is not it's dark in the
15:21
way that, you know, death is associated with it.
15:24
And in many ways, and it's really cavalier about it.
15:28
But it really is, though. When I saw it, I was like, oh, this is,
15:33
for one, very surprised Catherine Zeta-Jones could sing and dance. Yeah. Had no idea.
15:41
Yeah, because everybody, yeah, like you were saying, everybody did their own
15:43
singing, own dancing. Right.
15:45
I was struck, because the first time I saw her was in Mask of Zorro.
15:51
Mm-hmm. Excellent film. Loved it. Except very sexist, but still loved it. Oh, yeah, definitely.
15:56
But she is so dainty there. Mm-hmm. And in this, she is built like a shit brick house.
16:01
Her and Renee Zellweger. Did you see those muscles on her arms?
16:05
Well, yeah, but she's still very petite.
16:08
Oh, she's very tiny. Catherine Zeta-Jones is like built like very,
16:11
like I was like, she is very broad here.
16:13
And I don't know if it's because Renee Zellweger is so small in stature and in girth. Probably.
16:21
She's so lithe that Catherine Zeta-Jones just looks, in comparison, much stockier.
16:29
But she looks, not saying she's not attractive at all.
16:32
She is built, I mean, they obviously put a lot of time and effort into sculpting their bodies to be.
16:40
Also, all the dancing, that's going to do it. The hours of practice.
16:44
So, her hair was, you know, we know Catherine Zeta-Jones always had long hair.
16:48
And then you see the Velma Kelly hair, which is that bob, that 20s bob.
16:51
And I had always thought it was a wig because, you know, why not a wig?
16:56
But she actually cut her hair. They wanted her to keep the long hair,
17:00
but she didn't want it getting in the way during the dance scenes because she
17:04
knew she was going to dance.
17:06
So part of why she's a little bit thick, though, is because she was pregnant.
17:11
Okay. Yeah, she was pregnant. No, I was just struck by, like,
17:13
how stout she was. Oh, no, no, no.
17:15
She's not thick. Definitely not like a judgment of her body,
17:19
but I'm just saying I noticed that she was so, like, I was like, is she bodybuilding?
17:25
Is she, like, you know, really built?
17:29
And Renee is so...
17:31
Lie yeah she is her musculature really
17:35
aims towards compactness you
17:38
know and honestly i have to give her a lot of credit because i know that at
17:42
the time and i do remember this she got a lot of shit because of she had just
17:47
had she was heavy for bridget jones in 2001 right and then she lost like 30
17:52
something pounds to do roxy heart and then shortly thereafter gained the weight back for.
17:59
Bridget jones that's gonna kill your body but just
18:02
murder your but she did it with she
18:05
did it very smartly she was doing aerobic exercise she was eating very specific
18:10
foods she wasn't like eating just to gain the weight she was eating specific
18:15
foods to help her healthy gain weight i just remember like all of the the fat
18:20
shaming assholes out there talking about you know the weight gain the weight loss, the weight gain,
18:25
when now looking back and actually doing my research and learning about it,
18:29
she did it very healthy, very controlled.
18:33
She didn't make herself unhealthy for it. So I have to give her credit because
18:37
I know that that's a problem with a lot of actresses.
18:40
It's just very hard to do that to your body no matter how you do it.
18:43
So it's a dedication to your craft or to your art. Oh, definitely.
18:47
And she's always been. I would love to see the movie she did for Judy Garland.
18:53
Judy. Oh, yeah. Because, I mean, every ad I've seen for that,
18:58
she looks just like Judy Garland.
19:03
So, my thing is, I was so surprised that anyone in this cast could sing.
19:08
The only one I wasn't surprised was Queen Latifah. Yeah.
19:11
You're not surprised by that. Mama Morton. Although, I was surprised by her...
19:17
Comportment in the role i mean
19:20
she usually like does her thing yeah her thing not
19:23
the roles thing she kind of acts outside the
19:26
role yeah but she played mama she played you know this to you know to the the
19:32
role itself instead of playing against it or outside of it this cast is actually
19:38
not saying anything she did was bad in any other role she's had but she does
19:42
often just play herself Oh, no, definitely.
19:46
I mean. And in this, she really didn't. She did play against that and into the
19:51
role itself. And I was pleasantly surprised with that. But this isn't a review.
19:57
No, no, no. I don't have an attachment to Chicago. I like the music. Don't get me wrong.
20:03
I enjoy the jazz part more than I enjoy the other parts of it.
20:08
Yeah. And I don't care for jazz that much.
20:11
I mean, I'm not a huge fan of jazz. I wouldn't listen to it independently,
20:15
but there's something about that 20s, that rag, the feel.
20:22
It wouldn't be the same without the time period.
20:27
Yeah, and I think it's very easy for white cis het people to really fall into the 1920s are great.
20:35
Because their whole projection is like the famous white people of the time and stuff.
20:44
But all I could think about when I was watching this is that the musicians,
20:51
the black folk that were there, that were musicians, the one gentleman,
20:56
I don't remember his name, he's in everything. The man is in everything.
21:01
The band leader? That was Taye Diggs. Yeah, Taye Diggs. he is in everything,
21:05
and he's really good at everything he does.
21:08
I'm actually surprised, I mean, he didn't have a part here, but he is a good
21:11
singer, so obviously he could have done anything. But.
21:16
You know, the thing is, you know, I'm looking at it dissecting the movie.
21:21
In my head, all the injustices. I'm labeling them out.
21:26
I'm parsing them in this scenario because I'm not, it is not my movie.
21:32
Yeah, and I get that, you know, because you're looking at it with a historical lens.
21:37
I'm looking at it with an analytical view. I'm not looking at it to enjoy the story.
21:43
That's the problem is it just doesn't grab me. mine
21:47
is about whenever the story comes up it's the injustice of
21:50
it and not for the men who died no i'm talking
21:53
about when for me the the injustice in chicago is the women the sexuality that
22:02
you'd referenced when we were watching it the reason why i said you're seeing
22:07
sexuality here is because Because I honestly didn't see it.
22:13
It's the mechanism. Sexuality is like a doorknob.
22:17
A doorknob is a mechanism to a portal. It is how you get through a door.
22:22
It is not the door. It is not the means by which you go through the door.
22:27
It's just the thing that opens the door. so so
22:31
sexuality there for me defines
22:34
that breakdown or that parsing of the injustices
22:37
that women face and then we're just talking about cis women here because if
22:42
we get into the transness of it all we'll never get through this because 1920s
22:47
was horrible for almost everyone except white men so i get i get where you're
22:53
coming from and and i'll i want to touch back on that in a second.
22:58
I was literally going to say, though, that the, I know I do that all the time,
23:02
but I do get back to it eventually.
23:04
No, I'm saying I threw a lot at you. No, no, no.
23:07
It's fine because I do have so many thoughts right now. I was going to say that
23:11
I thought it was a very diverse cast and I thought it was a very diverse movie.
23:16
Now, I get what you're saying that, yes, they had all of the people of color
23:20
doing these menial jobs,
23:21
but the role of like mama morton they wanted
23:24
kathy bates for it but kathy bates was doing something else it's from
23:28
what i have seen and what i do know of the play it's not always a person of
23:34
color playing mama morton she's the matron and even if you look back historically
23:38
would the likelihood of the matron in the women's prison of being a black woman
23:43
probably highly like not improbable You know,
23:48
it's not most likely going to happen. It's going to be a white woman.
23:51
And so seeing that and then like the heiress as Lucy Liu, that,
23:59
you know, throwing Lucy Liu in there.
24:01
Yes, she has a very tiny little part with, I think, like three words.
24:05
And a kick to the balls. And a kick to the balls in a triple murder.
24:10
But it still, you know, it diversified the cast in a way, even though...
24:16
Yeah, this isn't about the casting of the film. Oh, no, no, no,
24:18
no. I know you're looking at it historically.
24:20
And like I said, I was going to say, I thought it was very diverse.
24:23
But again, yes, historically, 1927, Chicago, this would have been the whitest of whitest whites.
24:31
And then, yes, the people who were of color would be the people who ran the theater,
24:38
the people who were behind the scenes yeah so
24:41
if they were in the orchestra and if they worked in the prison
24:45
they were either going to be people who were either either
24:48
in the prison or working behind the scenes in the prison so
24:51
because they weren't going to be the people of any power in
24:54
that prison it and and what you were saying about the sexuality of it my point
25:03
with that was yes there is sexuality but it is definitely more on the sexist
25:08
side but the sexuality in it is more.
25:13
So the differences between like when you watch velma kelly dancing in the beginning,
25:18
and even when she's doing her dance which she's trying to convince roxy to be her partner,
25:25
there is a sexuality to the dance in the sense of the out the clothing there's
25:32
a sexualization is what I'm looking for. That's the word.
25:35
The movements, the dance, the dances themselves, all that jazz,
25:40
there's writhing, there's bodies touching, there's skimpy clothes.
25:44
Even though it's the 20s, it's still very, very risque in the ideas of it.
25:49
I would say especially because it's in the 20s. Because it's,
25:53
yes. Even if it is burlesque, it's still above.
25:56
But then you look at the dances and the performances the the the ones that are
26:02
i would say pre burlesque yeah you know that's vaudevillian so it's pre burlesque
26:07
but yeah but when you look at the the the.
26:10
Billy Flynn performances, his songs,
26:14
they are, we're not going to talk about, not the, they both reach for the gun,
26:18
but when you look at the Billy song, Billy Flynn song, and the Razzle Dazzle
26:24
song, they are very sexualized.
26:27
But from a man's point of view, it is definitely the male gaze at that point.
26:32
You are looking at these women.
26:33
The one scene is him leaning on a staircase and it's all the women's asses at
26:37
the screen. He's literally riding in a car made of women. Yes.
26:41
So he is, this is his fantasy.
26:45
So he's the, to me, of all the characters in the play or the movie,
26:51
he's the villain in a way because, yes, he's getting them off.
26:55
But these are people who actually, I mean, nothing against Kelly and,
26:59
I mean, Velma Kelly and Roxy Hart, but they murdered people.
27:02
They deserve to be in jail. They murdered people. Yeah, I'm talking,
27:05
you know, there's this overview of the movie, okay?
27:09
So if you take the movie and you break it down into these little parts,
27:11
and we're talking about parts of the movie, the storyline itself.
27:16
But then I'm going, you know, also above that going the justice within that time period.
27:23
And how when I see that sexuality, it's like a double-edged sword.
27:28
It is used against them, but it's also something that works for them. Oh, yes.
27:35
So that's what I'm saying. Like, they got to use their sexuality,
27:37
like I said, the empoweringness.
27:42
Is that a word? Empoweringness? The very thing that empowers them is also the
27:46
thing that marginalizes them. Exactly.
27:49
That is the issue I have.
27:52
I'm never going to get past this need for justice.
27:56
Now, whether or not that's social justice or whatever, it's really dependent
28:00
on what I'm thinking about, I guess. I don't really know.
28:03
I haven't really seen how far it goes.
28:06
I mean, I've never really put that much deep thought into the movie Chicago
28:09
until now. That's what I'm thinking the entire time.
28:12
It's very hard to enjoy a movie where I'm so worried about the injustice of things.
28:18
And it's— And me, I'm just bopping along to the tunes. And see,
28:22
because they don't necessarily grab me.
28:25
Now, I'm not saying they're not earworms, because they are.
28:28
I literally have Billy Flynn in my head right now. just the beginning of it. Right.
28:33
But for me, it's about the system itself because even in the film,
28:39
you see these huge, like,
28:42
movements okay and and like the
28:46
women in the prison they start competing against each
28:49
other out of sheer desperation for
28:52
their plight yeah for where they're at now whether they're there there's only
28:56
one innocent woman in that prison and she is the one who dies right yeah it's
29:01
so everyone but she is not competing with anyone she doesn't try to compete
29:06
she asked for his help He ignores her and walks away.
29:12
So she doesn't try to form up teams with anybody, but the rest of the women
29:17
in there, the one that dies, is the one that does not compete.
29:21
That, to me, says a lot about a patriarchal society in which this type of thing
29:27
is expected and a component of that society.
29:31
Women competing against other women, despite the fact that none of them are
29:35
the ones that are marginalizing each other.
29:38
No, I completely, completely agree with that.
29:42
And it has nothing to do with jazz. I'm just, I can't.
29:47
It's really hard to get past that. I'm sorry. I'm just. No, it has.
29:52
The jazz is the background, hon. It has nothing to do with action.
29:56
No, no, I'm saying like the storyline, the, you know, the Roxy Hart doing her thing.
30:01
Because she wants to be famous. And she's overly ambitious where,
30:06
honestly, I can't blame Velma Kelly killing her sister and her husband because,
30:12
I mean, that would put me over the edge, too. Oh, yeah, no.
30:14
I don't blame her. Now, Roxy went about things wrong because Amos was too good for her.
30:22
My heart goes to Roxy at the start. At the start. Because, well—,
30:28
There are a couple of reasons why. One, Amos, the only reason she's with Amos
30:35
is because that society dictates you need a man.
30:37
If you don't have a man, you don't have any worth to society.
30:43
So my heart doesn't go out to Amos. He is expected to have a wife.
30:49
She is expected to be a wife.
30:52
Therefore, he has the power in all of this. Even if he doesn't play that,
30:57
even if he doesn't realize he has that privilege.
31:00
Roxy is a prisoner. She is in a gilded cage. It's a very, it's a,
31:04
it's a dingy ass gilded cage, but it's still gilded.
31:08
She is trapped within the device of her own sexuality, her own feminism, her, her own body.
31:15
Yeah. She has dreams. You see those dreams coming out.
31:18
Yes. That's part of the sequence, which that is one of the things I loved about
31:22
this movie. I loved how they interspersed the scenes within the reality.
31:31
So you start to question, at what point is Roxy daydreaming?
31:37
And at what point is she actually on the stage? Because even though you firmly
31:42
know she is standing there in a prison cell,
31:47
or she's standing there in her apartment, or she's in all the different places,
31:53
You still think, but maybe she's thinking of past her.
31:58
So, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I was going to actually. Sorry.
32:01
No, no, I was literally going to say that.
32:02
I always felt that those scenes where she's on stage.
32:07
So, you know how at the end of the play, it's her and Velma getting together
32:13
and they're on this big stage and they're performing.
32:15
That's how I saw those scenes are like the she's reliving her story on stage.
32:23
And she's telling the audience so when it would flash to her being on stage that was her,
32:29
telling that scene yeah and i don't know
32:32
that that's true at all i don't know if that's true at all but i love that
32:35
because for me it makes the movie so much more interesting to think that these
32:40
are the flashbacks are the reality because she talks to the audience even as
32:45
she's singing so you're getting that like my favorite is when she's singing
32:50
the roxy heart song and she's like Like, you know,
32:53
and, you know, I love you and you love me and I love you for loving me.
32:57
And that's because we never got enough love in our childhood.
33:00
And that's showbiz. You know, I just love it.
33:03
It's just such a give and take. And I love it. So.
33:07
I agree. I think that if I get past the upper level stuff where I go the society
33:14
or societal issues with being in the past or even now being here now, we all have our issues.
33:22
Some are worse than others.
33:25
But I think that when you get to the storyline itself and then how it extrapolates
33:31
off into societal issues and stuff,
33:33
but just the story itself where Roxy gets in trouble because she kills a man who screwed her over.
33:41
And this is why I feel for her, because she's already trapped in a marriage.
33:45
Believed he was going to help her. Yeah.
33:47
She thought he was going to at least get her on stage. So at least she'd be
33:51
doing something with her life. Because the ultimate thing is surviving,
33:56
surviving is not enough in life.
33:59
You can only survive for so long. You have to actually thrive in some way.
34:04
You have to find the things that make you want to live.
34:09
Surviving isn't living. Surviving is a mode in life. It is not living.
34:15
So when Roxy is starting out here, she is in survival mode. And she progresses
34:22
through survival mode all through the prison time.
34:26
The one time she starts to get power is when you see her change her attitude.
34:31
She starts changing about the time she gets arrested.
34:37
And you notice that when she starts actually speaking to Amos,
34:43
like another person would speak to another person without a gender definition or gender role.
34:50
Being assigned she's mad at him she's
34:53
pissed at him for being a stool pigeon because he
34:56
could have gotten her off yeah but he got mad well
35:00
maybe rightfully so but let's face it again they weren't in love she married
35:04
him because it was expected yeah and because society said this is what you do
35:09
she wanted a life on stage how did he not know that how did amos not know that
35:16
Either he never listened to her say it,
35:19
or he ignored her when she did say it.
35:22
There's no way she just never said anything and just went out on him.
35:26
So, you know, this has to be a progression of some kind.
35:30
And I really think that when we look at both sides, okay, Velma and Roxy were
35:39
They are not two sides of the same coin. They are the same coin. They're the same side.
35:44
They both are still fighting against this whole expectations that are laid upon them.
35:51
Velma is expected to just play her part.
35:55
Yes. And not to react to something that they know damn well she's going to react to.
36:01
If your sister's sleeping with your husband, it's going to cause a reaction.
36:07
Yeah. I mean, and you're right about the societal expectations.
36:11
One of the lines that she says in All That Jazz is, no, I'm no one's wife, but I love my life.
36:19
And that always hit me, too, because that expectation of being a wife,
36:25
being some, you know, belonging to somebody, because that's what it was.
36:28
It was belonging to somebody, not in a good way.
36:31
But she's saying that in the song like fuck you i am part of this hot mess jazz culture,
36:40
and you know i don't care this is
36:43
my life and i'm so happy to be here but there's one
36:46
thing she says later or early on that she that that
36:49
was why i kind of giggled in the beginning because it wasn't even a funny line
36:52
but i giggled in the beginning of the movie is when she's
36:55
arriving at the club to perform
36:59
and they're like you know where's your sister and she's like
37:03
I can do it alone and I laughed because
37:06
I knew that later on when she
37:09
sings the song to Roxy to get her to come and be a part her partner the line
37:14
in the song is but I can't do it alone and it's like that throwback that I never
37:20
caught all those times I watched it and this was my comfort movie weirdly a comfort movie for me.
37:27
But I think when we watch comfort movies.
37:31
Unless something changes in your life, when you watch a comfort movie,
37:36
that movie has a definition for you.
37:40
It has the parts you pay attention to.
37:43
And then when you change your life in some way and you watch a comfort movie
37:48
again, the definition changes again.
37:51
True. I can see that. I've definitely done that.
37:54
You know how I am about watching and re-watching things over and over again.
37:59
And I can tell you my comfort movies like Bye Bye Birdie, say again,
38:06
another musical that is not on your wheelhouse. No, I used to love Bye Bye Birdie.
38:12
I mean, I was like so close to being in a performance of Bye Bye Birdie in my intermediate school.
38:19
It was because when the kids were little and we didn't have cable and all we
38:24
had was a DVD player, our youngest would play it on a fucking loop.
38:30
And I can't even begin to listen to those songs because I will throw up.
38:35
That in Enchanted I can't even
38:39
watch Enchanted and I loved Enchanted can't watch
38:42
it well you know that was our movie you know our daughter and I share that movie
38:48
that's something we always had but she would literally it would end and she'd
38:52
start it right back up oh yeah and I and yeah that was when she was little and she's 23 now and I still.
39:00
Want to throw the movie across the building so the things in that movie Not
39:06
to segue into Bye Bye Birdie.
39:08
I mean, it's all about Dick Van Dyke anyway.
39:11
Yeah. But...
39:15
The things I found in that movie for comfort changed during different parts
39:21
of my life because I've always loved that movie. Oh, yeah.
39:24
And when I was young, it meant something vastly different than it does now.
39:29
The last time I saw By My Birdie, I haven't watched it since.
39:33
I know it's different for me now if I were to watch it, but I'd just come out.
39:39
True. And there are those parts of the movie where I love being a girl,
39:47
you know, things like that, that spoke directly to me my whole life, but in different ways.
39:55
They sometimes, earlier in my life, it was shouting at me. Yeah.
40:00
And then when I came out, it was consoling me.
40:04
Yeah. And now I think I would find it just a comforting thing and not actually
40:12
speaking to me directly, but maybe speaking to a past me.
40:17
So when you're watching Chicago as a comfort movie, what about that comfort?
40:23
What is it now as opposed to before?
40:27
What is that that brings you comfort? so before and and this is we're gonna
40:34
get deep into my psychology right here like i said before i was going through
40:39
a lot of shit and the relationship i was in was not very good and.
40:45
So not only did the songs hit me in a way like they were empowering and and
40:55
in billy flynn i I was kind of,
40:58
you know, I wanted the Billy Flynn to come in and save me because I didn't see what a creeper he was.
41:03
I was young. But I wanted the Billy Flynn to come and find me and save me from the prison.
41:09
I wanted that because it's my mind was that was my life.
41:13
And I wanted the power that those women were finding in themselves.
41:22
And I didn't know how to tap into that power for myself. So I would watch this
41:26
movie almost like it was unlocking some type of secret, even though I never got very deep into it.
41:31
It was all about the music and all about the songs.
41:34
I would dance and sing in my house by myself. I would clean the house and put
41:42
the kids down for naps and I would sing and dance. And, you know,
41:45
that was there was nobody there to watch me. So I had the whole house to be stupid in.
41:49
And so that was that was my other my other part.
41:53
And also that part of me that this is before I had ever done ever got a chance
41:58
to actually do musical theater outside of school.
42:03
So I wanted to do it. I wanted to play Velma Kelly. If I ever...
42:10
Obviously, I'm way too old now, but there were always two roles I always wanted
42:16
to play. I never wanted to be a lead in any play.
42:21
Whenever I would audition for plays, there's only one lead I've ever auditioned
42:25
for, even though I knew I wasn't going to get the part, and that was for Snow White.
42:28
I was in my 30s. It was just because I knew that was the only time I was going
42:31
to get to play Snow White.
42:33
And there's reasons why she's my favorite princess. Don't come at me. They are legit.
42:38
Yes, there's problems with Snow White but don't at me I'm talking
42:41
to yeah but if I
42:44
had ever like in my wildest dreams I looked
42:47
in and was the age I needed to be there's only
42:51
two major roles I would love to be and
42:53
one of them is Velma Kelly and the other one is Princess Fred from
42:57
Once Upon a Mattress because Princess Fred
43:00
is the shit but that's it
43:03
and I so I would like I was in
43:06
my head i was velma kelly and i could sing those songs and i would and also
43:10
i have this thing about trying to work my vocal cords because even though i
43:13
don't think i'm that great of a singer i like to sing a lot and those notes
43:18
are a fuck to hit that that yeah so you know how like in the movie.
43:26
They switched over to roxy doing that high note yeah i've that they do that
43:34
in the movie i don't know if they do that in the play, but again,
43:38
I've only ever heard the song being sung by one person,
43:43
as the main, and that note is not a fun note to hit. I would imagine, yeah.
43:49
But it's fun to try, you know, and I would like, my voice would crack, and I'd be loud.
43:55
It's like trying to sing Take On Me.
43:57
Yeah. It's not about hitting the note. It's about the fun of trying to hit the
44:00
note. And I have that type of voice where for me to hit higher notes, I have to get louder.
44:06
So it's, yeah, low notes and high notes, I have to get very loud to do them.
44:11
So, yeah, that was it for me.
44:14
It was me hiding behind the story to build this fantasy world because I live
44:22
in this make-believe world.
44:23
And even now, I'm not going to lie, I still live in my little make-believe worlds.
44:27
But it's not as an escape like it had been.
44:31
But that's actually kind of apropos, because in the movie, they are daydreaming about performing.
44:40
That's part of their feelings, and that's what you just described,
44:45
is doing the same thing they did.
44:47
If I could not play Velma Kelly, do you know who else I would want to play in Chicago?
44:52
Amos?
44:55
I would want to play Mama Morton. Okay.
45:00
And a few years back when I was still going on my associate's degree and I was
45:06
nowhere near where I am right now, I had to take an elective and I took chorus
45:10
and I got to sing When You're Good to Mama,
45:13
which was actually kind of funny.
45:17
The performances online, if you can find it, bless your heart,
45:19
you get to deal with that.
45:21
But the piano player
45:24
for the our performance he had not been with
45:27
us for any of our other rehearsals and he
45:30
came in because our other piano player i don't remember what happened to
45:33
him he couldn't seem to get the music right and so i he was screwing up all
45:38
my cues so i ended up just ignoring the piano player and singing the song and
45:42
i don't even know if it sounded good like i refused to watch that video they
45:46
got the one piano player who couldn't play piano exactly it was i I mean,
45:50
he could play, but he seemed to not be able to play my song.
45:53
Do you have the sheet upside down? I don't know, hon. It was weird.
45:57
Like, I had no cues coming in, and then I couldn't hear his notes.
46:01
The best thing about that performance was when the other two ladies and I did
46:05
the song from Oh Brother Where Art Thou.
46:07
That was like— That is definitely another movie I want to do.
46:10
Yes, I do love that movie, too. Now, that is a movie— There's so much in that
46:14
movie. I love the music in it.
46:16
See, like, that would be a two-parter, because it's the music,
46:18
it's the history, it's the— Oh, yeah.
46:20
Oh, yeah, The Odyssey. We're talking about, like, there's so much. Yeah, but.
46:26
We're bringing up all these other movies. Yes, but I did perform both of those
46:29
songs. But that's the thing is they bring, you know, this is something,
46:33
you know, if you get into one musical, you're probably into a lot of musicals. Yeah.
46:37
It's the same with the movies about the musicals or a filmography of the music itself.
46:45
It's again this this play has always been uh
46:49
well the movie has since i've seen it since 2002 when i saw it it's always been
46:54
just a huge part and you can like ask the kids to you know what's your mom's
47:00
favorite yeah i'm just saying i don't mean you specifically i'm just saying
47:04
you could ask my children and they would be like yeah my mom is listening to
47:07
that soundtrack all the time,
47:09
So, yeah, it's definitely, it means a lot to me.
47:14
You know who I thought I was really surprised by their performance, though, was Amos.
47:21
I didn't know John C. Reilly could sing.
47:24
Oh, you haven't seen some of his Will Ferrell movies?
47:27
Well, I mean, no, I was not a, you know, I saw, this is older than him and Will
47:33
Ferrell being in movies together. So I had not seen him.
47:37
I'd seen his face in many, many movies, not knowing really who he was. And...
47:42
Him singing Mr. Cellophane. Do you want to know why I know Mr.
47:47
Cellophane? Because we've already established that all that jazz is from the
47:51
commercials. I'm going to guess it's because he was introduced to you by Rubber Band Man.
47:55
You are so close, but no.
47:59
Ben Vereen did it on The Muppet Show. Oh, okay.
48:05
That's how old I am, y'all. That's it. Just right then and there.
48:09
Muppet Show, Ben Vereen. And if you know who those two things are and put them
48:14
together, yeah, you got it.
48:16
So, yeah, that's how I knew that song was Ben Vereen performing that on The
48:19
Muppet Show. I did not know he did that.
48:21
You know, I have the first, I think, the first season of The Muppet Show,
48:26
and I believe it's in one of those episodes. Wow.
48:29
So, I've already said everything I can say about this movie.
48:33
No, I'm saying that because I've got all these notes, and they all center around
48:37
what I've talked about, which is we're talking about, you know, justice.
48:40
And we're not even talking about the justice system.
48:43
No, because we know that that was a load of shit in that whole entire situation.
48:47
Yeah, I mean, it was obviously satirized. But also, you can take into consideration
48:52
the corruption of the time.
48:54
The 20s were notorious for corruption when it came to the justice system.
48:58
And Chicago, New York, these are the big cities that had the highest of corruptions.
49:03
Chicago you know when you think Chicago you think of the gangs and you think of Al Capone and
49:11
the corruption Prohibition yeah you think
49:14
of that so that's why I don't think I ever really blinked about this movie being
49:20
so far from the actual judicial system because I knew at that time period it
49:28
was just shit I think that when we're talking about.
49:32
Billy flynn as a lawyer yes being
49:36
a smarmy he was only interested in
49:38
the money he doesn't care about the law this is about him winning the cases
49:43
so he can get more money when we're talking about that it is easy to see that
49:50
as something that was clear in the 20s it was okay yeah they didn't,
49:57
sure they had their ethics and
49:59
everything but you know there were a lot of loggers just playing it loose.
50:02
And let's face it, the judges and the prosecutors are playing it pretty damn loose, too. Oh, yeah.
50:09
And now when we look at it, you try to get a defense lawyer to lie for you,
50:14
not going to happen. Oh, no.
50:16
Unless, you know, they're the worst defense lawyer ever, because they have,
50:21
you know, a real board, a judicial board that could take their license away.
50:26
And, yeah, meanwhile, you know, he knew the doctor was lying about her being pregnant.
50:31
And he was like, will you testify that? And he's like, yeah.
50:35
And he's like, good, your fly's down.
50:37
You know, because, you know, she was giving him some, I'll give you head if
50:42
you tell my lawyer I'm knocked up.
50:44
And then he knew that that's what she did.
50:47
And so he was willing to go along with the lie if the doctor was going to support that lie.
50:53
And that's, again, you're seeing the corruption right then and there. Well, yeah.
50:57
I mean, the corruption, again, do you think? Give him the old razzle-dazzle. Do you think that...
51:04
Roxy would have just blown a random doctor if there wasn't a power that she had to bow to.
51:12
Oh, yeah. But that was her power. No, it wasn't her power. She's trapped within a system.
51:18
Billy is saying, you need to get his, you know, he needs to give you that approval.
51:24
But see, I don't think that, see, I didn't see it as Billy Flynn saying,
51:30
you need to do whatever you have to to get this doctor to.
51:32
I saw it as her not telling billy that that's what she that as far as she knows
51:40
and as far as billy knows billy thinks she's pregnant and she believes that
51:45
billy thinks that she's pregnant.
51:47
I saw that as her getting the doctor on her side to convince billy that that's
51:53
what it was i didn't see it as billy telling her get the doctor to just to be
51:58
on our side i think it's going to be subjective.
52:01
I think so. But I don't, I don't. But see, that's how I saw it.
52:04
I saw it as her taking her power going, I'll do this because this is my choice
52:10
to convince you to be on my side.
52:12
But I think that's what a lot of women tell themselves is my choice to do it.
52:17
But really, if you're in a patriarchal society, then it isn't your choice to do it.
52:23
It is something that you're forced
52:25
to by society as a coping or survival mechanism to say it's my choice.
52:32
Oh, no. It's convincing you. It's like women's segregation in sports is completely accepted.
52:41
It is entirely accepted. I do not understand because men have convinced women
52:47
that they are weaker. Yeah.
52:49
Which is not the case at all. It's just if you aren't competing at the same
52:53
levels, you're never going to develop beyond that.
52:57
So to say that, you know, that all men are stronger than women is crazy.
53:01
Women beat men in sports all the time. And if they were all competing in the
53:07
same sports, men would lose to women. Yeah.
53:10
And they see women as weak, so therefore they would be seen as weak.
53:14
So men cannot compete with women in sports, so they segregate them.
53:19
And somehow, societally, that was accepted as the norm, as okay.
53:25
Not one person, I would think, that had any shredded decency in them would think,
53:32
segregating black folk from sports is a good idea.
53:39
Yet it's okay to do it to women and i i see what you're saying and i i see that you're you know,
53:46
that if society wasn't set up the
53:49
way it was then she wouldn't need to do
53:52
that to get him to be convinced
53:55
to to side with her right but as i i just i i may be taking it too far but that's
54:05
what i'm saying that you're taking it too far i mean again i it is you're right
54:08
it's subjective we don't know what billy flynn knows at that moment we just
54:13
know what he thinks he knows,
54:17
and but i saw what i saw was
54:20
you don't know what happened in that room until
54:23
you put two and two together you see her in
54:25
the background getting dressed again she had a a
54:28
checkup not to say
54:31
that that's something unheard of you know she's putting her clothes
54:34
back on it's his comment about the zipper and that's when you go oh shit oh
54:40
shit but i don't think it was billy telling her to do it and i do think that
54:47
it was her idea to do it because she has realized that
54:53
her sexuality is her power.
54:57
She had Amos. She had Fred. Fred fucked her over.
55:04
She killed him. He's out of the picture. She can still keep,
55:08
she gets Amos to pay for so many things.
55:11
He pays for the lawyer $5,000, which would be like over $60,000 nowadays.
55:20
She uses that, power
55:24
to convince by changing
55:27
it from being overly sexual to being completely demure
55:30
and convinces all the journalists and everything else that she is so innocent
55:36
and she's so sweet she knows how to use her femininity she gets to use all of
55:43
that for her benefit and she's using it on both extremes,
55:48
whether it is in sexual favors or just pretending to be this doe-eyed.
55:56
I think that Roxy just has all the power. She knows how to use that power.
56:01
And I also think that that's part of why Velma gets so like testy with her when
56:07
she starts to become popular is because Velma doesn't know how to pull off the
56:11
innocence. She's a vamp.
56:13
Velma has that sultry sexuality just
56:16
as a natural because that's Catherine Zeta-Jones is
56:19
just naturally that deep sultry you
56:22
know there's a depth to her and she
56:26
doesn't have i can't see katherine zeta jones
56:29
pulling off innocence katherine zeta jones is morticia adams she has that that
56:35
that gravitas yeah she's more of a siren than yeah so to play something as innocent
56:42
and and pure and not to say that that's a bad thing. She just doesn't have that ability.
56:49
I can play vapid really well, but not everybody can play vapid.
56:53
I don't always play smart well, but I can play vapid really good.
56:57
I've been faking smart for years. Oh, me too. Me too, yeah.
57:03
So, that's it. Yeah, no, I see what you're saying.
57:07
I understand that. I see it differently, But I think that's okay,
57:11
because, again, this is supposed to, I think it's deliberate.
57:15
Oh, yeah, and I'm not trying to convince you of my perspective of it.
57:17
I think it's deliberate in its subjectiveness.
57:20
Oh, definitely. You're allowed to come to the conclusion you come to based upon who you are watching it.
57:27
And I think in a lot of ways, a lot of this movie, like even Billy Flynn's true
57:33
motivations, like you're left kind of wondering, is it truly all he cares about is money?
57:40
Does he care about the women and by that i mean like having sex with them hanging out with them,
57:46
does he care about the actual law what does he cares about and it's money he's
57:52
more of a he's more of a svengali yeah he cares about the money that's the that's
57:57
the irony in in the billy flynn song is you know he's talking about how all
58:03
he really cares is love uh you know cares about his love and yet.
58:07
He's immediately, well, I'm not going to help. I think her name is,
58:12
oh God, I can't remember the name of the girl, the Hungarian girl.
58:15
The one innocent woman. Because I don't want to call her by the name that they
58:19
give her because the name that they give her, so she has a name,
58:22
which again, I can't remember, but the name that they call her is actually a
58:26
slang term for Hungarians at that time.
58:30
And it's the other, you know, they do that.
58:33
At one point, I can't remember if it's velma or if it's roxy
58:36
but they use a slang term for billy flynn
58:39
being irish so they do use a lot
58:42
of of that that derogatory speech but
58:45
again 1920s it's just yeah i i don't know but that's what's weird about it too
58:52
is that you're one minute you're calling people names based on their backgrounds
58:57
or their ethnicity but you've got mama morton who is black woman with blonde hair.
59:03
I love that how she jumps on the Roxy bandwagon and bleaches her hair blonde.
59:09
I think that also speaks, and when we're talking about Mama Morton,
59:14
it speaks to the fact that she is always there to profit, but she never gets
59:22
to get out of that prison.
59:24
True. She doesn't. And she does try to make a profit, but she knows how to shift
59:31
power too. Yeah, but we're talking about someone who is just as trapped as the other girls are.
59:37
Oh, yeah. She's just as trapped as they are.
59:39
She can profit off them, but she never gets to grow or to go anywhere. She is trapped there.
59:48
When you look at it that way, you understand, like—,
59:53
The people that are in the band, I think they're almost, I think they're all black. I think they are.
1:00:01
And they never get to go anywhere. They're literally.
1:00:07
At the bar. There. Yeah. That's where they are.
1:00:11
You don't see their existence outside of that. No.
1:00:15
Say for Tay Diggs, who shows up whenever they need something.
1:00:19
Like, they need him to play piano in a scene.
1:00:23
He's the one that plays it. He's the announcer.
1:00:27
Almost like the narrator, unofficial narrator of the play. Right.
1:00:31
But they are all in concert acting only in the interest of the people that are white.
1:00:40
And we're talking about the same for Mama Morton. Despite her saying she's in charge.
1:00:45
Oh, yeah. She's still just as much a prisoner as everyone else.
1:00:50
So when they do introduce her and she's doing her song, she's performing for white people. Right.
1:00:56
I mean, she is on stage and she is playing up to white men and women.
1:01:02
And her song has a lot of innuendo, which is pretty straightforward innuendo, but it is innuendo.
1:01:10
It's also self-effacing. And it is self-effacing innuendo.
1:01:15
But you can see that she's doing it to appease the mass in front of her.
1:01:21
And that would, again, you're right about, you know, she's in her own cage and
1:01:25
she's got to perform for these people.
1:01:28
And yes, there were air quotes I used that you could not see.
1:01:34
Sorry, I tend to forget. I'm a little rusty with my people skills.
1:01:43
Sorry. You can actually feel the hand quotes. And if I don't make a reference
1:01:47
to Supernatural, at least once an episode, I'm a miss.
1:01:51
So how do you feel now about Chicago, now that I've dissected it down to make
1:02:00
it really horrifying for you?
1:02:01
And I'm very sorry about that. No, no, no, no, no. How do you feel about it?
1:02:05
So what's funny is, is my note, when I do my feelings before,
1:02:09
I usually like to do three or four things. And usually they're one word statements
1:02:13
or they're like little, little phrases.
1:02:15
So like my before was excited, loved story, my go to comfort movie because I
1:02:25
can read my own handwriting, y'all.
1:02:28
But for my current feelings, I wrote Perspective Change because,
1:02:32
again, I'm not a 20-something needing rescue.
1:02:36
Right. Feminism slash sexism is what I wrote.
1:02:41
And songs with three underlines because the songs always make me happy.
1:02:47
Even when they are just, I can't even explain it.
1:02:54
Because, again, Billy Flynn pisses me off now where he'd never pissed me off before.
1:02:58
But I'll still sing his songs.
1:03:01
You know, I'll still sing the Billy Flynn songs. I'll still sing.
1:03:05
I mean, you guys are lucky because now Beth has got to listen to me sing Chicago
1:03:10
for the next month because it's in my head now. I'm going to want to keep listening to these songs.
1:03:14
They are comforting songs for me because, again, I know the words, I know the keys.
1:03:21
They are fun. And I like to sing them. Again, not like I think I'm good. I just like to sing.
1:03:27
So, yeah. So, what's changed for you? I guess nothing has changed for you?
1:03:32
No, things have changed.
1:03:34
But when I saw it before, again, it's not my movie, really. I was disinterested.
1:03:42
I noticed something.
1:03:44
You know, the things I just talked about, you know, the injustice of things.
1:03:50
But the feminism in it was a little bit lost on me because I didn't know how
1:03:54
to place it. I was still in that area of trying to place.
1:03:58
Well, I didn't, even then, I didn't see feminism the way I understand feminism
1:04:02
now as empowering that, you know, that they went through.
1:04:06
So I had to come to that. And in this, it definitely defined it down for me.
1:04:12
Hold on, there's a cat here on my mic and it's bothering me.
1:04:16
Our Grieche cat, he gets hairy.
1:04:19
So, now, when we watched it this time, I was still fairly disinterested because,
1:04:25
again, just not my movie.
1:04:28
I was a little bit more interested, but I really went into this thing of,
1:04:32
you know, dissecting down the layers of the different issues.
1:04:37
And, you know, I've got, I listed out a whole bunch of stuff about,
1:04:41
you know, celebrity and fame, which is also part of that trap.
1:04:45
Yeah. You know, to get celebrity and to get fame, you know, you have to do these
1:04:50
things. And once you do those things, you get this thing.
1:04:52
But now that thing is the cage you're in.
1:04:55
So you get out of a cage of being in this loveless marriage for her loveless.
1:05:01
Yeah. And then she gets fame, which is also its own cage, which they don't really get into.
1:05:08
No. In her imaginings, though, that fame and celebrity starts to play a part,
1:05:13
and it starts to build that cage for her, as you can see it happening.
1:05:19
Yes, definitely. She is trapped. And one instance of this is very poignant,
1:05:24
I believe, is when Billy and her argue about the dress. She doesn't want to wear the dress.
1:05:31
And the knitting. And the knitting.
1:05:34
And she wants to not wear that and not knit while she's on the stand.
1:05:40
And he says, you need to do it. I'm the lawyer. And I said, you know,
1:05:44
I never lose a case. Yeah. And she fires him.
1:05:48
Yep. Because she's mad because she wants her way.
1:05:53
And this is that part where she thinks she has the power because she's getting celebrity.
1:06:01
She thinks she has the power to get away with that. She realizes very quickly
1:06:05
at the hanging of the one innocent woman in prison, which is also its own injustice.
1:06:13
And she realizes very quickly she
1:06:17
has no power because the actual
1:06:20
power is in how you
1:06:23
can affect yourself in society celebrity only
1:06:27
gets you so far you have to have that fame to go with it
1:06:30
and once you have that you can
1:06:33
write that for a while but it never lasts yes
1:06:37
and we don't see that because we get the end which
1:06:40
just cuts off and that's actually a nice
1:06:43
thing of you don't know what happens you
1:06:46
don't know how their lives turn out because it doesn't matter oh
1:06:49
yeah they're at the peak of their ability they're at the peak of their performance
1:06:54
they're at the peak of their celebrity yes and fame anything beyond that returns
1:07:00
them to the other cages yes so they're just hamsters in different parts of this tunnel system.
1:07:08
And that is what we are in life. We all have our cages that we are put into.
1:07:15
Some have less bars, but we all have those cages. And,
1:07:21
I know that I'm going on about this, but to me, that's what I see.
1:07:27
That's what I'm seeing in the movie.
1:07:29
That is what drives me in Chicago to finish the film is because I'm not,
1:07:35
I know there's a story here, but honestly, I didn't pay attention to it.
1:07:39
I was paying attention to the story above that.
1:07:43
The the the other layer of
1:07:46
the film which is all about these tides and
1:07:49
ebbs of justice and sexuality and your place
1:07:52
within society that's what moves me
1:07:55
in this film and the music
1:07:59
is almost secondary to me because
1:08:02
it doesn't hold the appeal it does to you
1:08:05
yeah or that you hold you know that you have
1:08:08
for it i appreciate the
1:08:11
film i appreciate the the music i appreciate
1:08:15
the dancing more than anything else oh yeah dances dancing
1:08:18
is had to work their asses off
1:08:21
all of them acrobatic dances every one of them had to work their asses off to
1:08:26
be able to do the things they did i mean when you're saying richard gear did
1:08:30
you know the tap dancing he took three months of tap dancing just to learn like
1:08:34
a 20-second segue or a 20-second vignette.
1:08:38
Yeah. I didn't say segue, but a vignette that lasts hardly any time.
1:08:44
There is a marker of the— Him, his— His rhythm change.
1:08:50
His tap dancing, you know, the way he's manipulating the— Right.
1:08:54
That's him changing his rhythm from the smarmy to—.
1:09:00
The sharp legal mind that he is, when he starts tap dancing,
1:09:07
is when he actually starts going in for the kill.
1:09:09
You know, it's funny because we talked about the Hungarian woman and her innocence.
1:09:14
Did you look at the translation of what she's saying?
1:09:17
No. So basically what it was saying— I know it said, I am innocent. Oh, yeah.
1:09:24
You don't know if she is innocent.
1:09:27
What it was is basically that they found her with her lover,
1:09:32
but also it could have been the word neighbor, that they cut off the head of this other person.
1:09:39
And that when she came, you know, she told the police that she was innocent,
1:09:45
but they didn't listen to her. They didn't understand her.
1:09:48
So you don't know if she truly is innocent. Did she help cut this dude's head off? I don't know.
1:09:56
For me, thematically, it makes sense that she is the one innocent person.
1:10:02
Oh, yeah, because nobody can understand her.
1:10:03
In this entire film, she is the one innocent person, not just because she's
1:10:09
not understood, but because no one cares to find out.
1:10:13
Nobody's trying to get an interpreter or something.
1:10:17
Funnily enough, the actress, Ekaterina—I'm going to butcher this, y'all. I'm so sorry.
1:10:24
Chichel kov canova chichel
1:10:28
canova sure okay she's actually
1:10:30
russian so her hungarian had a
1:10:33
thick russian accent to it and even hungarians from
1:10:37
what i was reading had a hard time understanding
1:10:40
her and then like when she sees billy and
1:10:43
she's trying to get him she's saying help please help she
1:10:46
says that in russian not in hungarian that's
1:10:49
adorable so i have a ton of trivia before
1:10:52
we move on because I have to get it out of my system because I take these notes
1:10:55
and I don't use them and it's really been frustrating me because I don't like
1:10:58
to write stuff down and then not use it okay so right before they introduce
1:11:03
mama morton roxy's sitting in a holding area I guess,
1:11:09
and they the guard yells to no smoking in here and they show the woman who's
1:11:15
smoking and it's an older woman.
1:11:17
And it is Chita Rivera. And Chita Rivera originated the role on Broadway. Okay.
1:11:24
And so that's the little nod there. John C. Reilly had a real love of.
1:11:30
Of of clowns i couldn't get the word out why couldn't i
1:11:33
think of the word clowns he designed his clown makeup he wanted
1:11:36
he really want that that was his design for mr
1:11:39
cellophane so that was very special for him john travolta
1:11:44
was originally asked to play billy flynn and
1:11:47
he turned it down so that this would make
1:11:50
the fourth movie that john travolta turns
1:11:53
down and richard gear picked up the other three
1:11:56
are american gigolo days of
1:11:59
heaven which i don't know that movie and officer
1:12:02
and a gentleman which i didn't know wow i know
1:12:05
so many so many he should have picked up i know and
1:12:08
so my last little trivia thing is that the rights of the play were bought by
1:12:15
rich martin richards in the 70s he was going to make the movie i guess in 87
1:12:22
and they were going to cast Goldie Hawn,
1:12:26
Liza Minnelli, and Frank Sinatra.
1:12:28
But when Fosse died in 87, the whole project was junked.
1:12:35
I'm not sure why they couldn't do it without Fosse.
1:12:38
They still use his, you know, those are his dance moves and everything.
1:12:42
So Fosse, Fosse, Fosse. We got to do Birdcage too.
1:12:46
Because that's one of the lines in the Birdcage when they're doing the dances. Twyla, Twyla.
1:12:53
So those that's my trivia there are a lot of actors in this movie that i thought
1:12:59
needed to be mentioned we did mention most of them but we didn't mention maya
1:13:05
which she sings in the cell block tango and i don't know what happened to maya but i used to love her,
1:13:14
She did the song for the Rugrats movie, too. I don't know what... She was also in...
1:13:22
She did the compilation... Not compilation. That's not the word I'm looking for.
1:13:27
The Moulin Rouge song, the Lady Marmalade. She did that with Pink and Christina Aguilera. Okay.
1:13:35
So, yeah. Maya is... I know who you're talking about now.
1:13:40
Yeah, yeah. It took forever for that to hit, but yeah. So, yeah.
1:13:44
I mean, we mentioned Taye Diggs. We mentioned Christine Baranski.
1:13:47
Yeah, that's a thing. There were a lot of people in this film. A lot of people.
1:13:51
A lot of people I didn't even name, but those were the big heavy hitters that
1:13:54
I could think of that people might recognize the names of. Okay. Yep.
1:13:59
So let's see if this passes the Castellini test. My guess is it will.
1:14:05
So the cast-leading test is to kind of gauge, using probably some logic as well,
1:14:14
whether or not there's quality or equity in the film. Okay.
1:14:19
There's a lot of different ways it could go.
1:14:21
Some are shooting for equality or you're shooting for equity because they're two different things.
1:14:27
But... Diversity and inclusion as well. Yeah. Sometimes you hit one thing and
1:14:31
sometimes you miss another. So, but let's see if it hits feminism at all.
1:14:37
There have to be at least two named women characters with at least five lines of dialogue each.
1:14:44
Roxy Hart and Velma Kelly. I mean, I think we have that. Mama Morton, Mary Sunshine.
1:14:51
Those characters must have a conversation, not necessarily with the other woman,
1:14:55
either not about their partner or with their partner, future or current,
1:14:58
and not about their relationship. So while they murdered people they were in relationships with...
1:15:07
Roxy and Velma, they talk about showbiz. Hardly any of them talk about their partners in any way.
1:15:14
No, not unless they're talking about the people that they actually murdered.
1:15:16
Not unless it's like case-driven. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:15:19
But, you know, Mama Murphy talks about— Morton. Morton, sorry.
1:15:23
Mama Morton talks about the case. Oh, yeah, yeah. Or she talks about wanting
1:15:29
money. They're not talking about relationships.
1:15:31
Nope. And Mary Sunshine talks about the cases.
1:15:34
This is going to be an easy one. This is the layup.
1:15:37
At least one of the women has to be integral to the plot, meaning that if she
1:15:40
were written out of the film, it wouldn't reach the same ending.
1:15:44
Pretty much. I mean, I'm not going to say they all are, because even if you
1:15:47
take Mary Sunshine and you take Mama Morton out, the plot can still continue.
1:15:51
But if you take Roxy Hart and Velma Kelly out of the equation, oh, heck no.
1:15:58
What's the point? It's the Billy Flynn Show. It'd just be a smarmy lawyer.
1:16:01
It's the Billy Flynn Show.
1:16:04
Which is not great. Not great at all. No.
1:16:08
But if you ever want to see the best performance of Billy Flynn,
1:16:12
it is Jerry Orbach doing it. And you can look that up on YouTube.
1:16:16
And more sexual. A lot more sexual. It was very sexual.
1:16:20
Yes. It was very weird. All those panties. It was like watching Cabaret.
1:16:25
I can link that in the show notes. Oh, okay. Yeah, that would be funny.
1:16:28
I'll link that in the show. Send me that link. I will. I will.
1:16:31
But yeah, I mean. We just watched it last week. Yeah, a couple weeks ago.
1:16:35
Yeah. I mean, it's literally like they were dressed for cabaret. Yeah.
1:16:40
And yet they were singing Billy Flynn. It was quite crazy.
1:16:45
So, it passes the Castellini test. It passes Castellini. It is a feminist movie.
1:16:50
Feminist movie, believe it or not.
1:16:53
So, if you would like to watch Chicago, you can watch it on Amazon Prime,
1:17:00
YouTube, Google Play, Apple TV, Fandango.
1:17:04
And it's going to run you about $379 to $399 as per usual if you would like to rent it.
1:17:11
Our next next week this movie
1:17:14
here's our clues there are three one's very
1:17:18
short this movie was chosen
1:17:21
to honor who's we'll use the word honor a departed actor the second clue is
1:17:29
it is possibly the first openly gay lead in an action movie and the third clue is when the leads kiss,
1:17:41
One of them said that they had to think of Kevin Bacon to get in the mood.
1:17:46
And I'm going to throw this one in here. I've never seen this movie.
1:17:50
So this one will be interesting because I have no pre. That is not a clue for anyone.
1:17:55
No clue, but I have no preconceived thoughts other than what I've read to find my clues.
1:18:02
And now my curiosity is piqued because, you know, gay was the best word there.
1:18:10
I think you'll like it i really enjoyed it well i'm
1:18:13
looking for we'll see we'll we'll see later this week i guess somebody try to
1:18:17
guess please somebody try to guess let us know are my are my clues too hard
1:18:22
or are they too easy maybe too vague in some ways maybe i'm trying i don't know
1:18:26
i couldn't tell you unless we have feedback yes i'm looking at you peoples,
1:18:33
so until next time keep feeling things deeply keep living life don't trap yourself
1:18:43
in a cage try to understand the perspective of others treat each other well be human beings,
1:18:54
and all that chance this has been once more with feelings with beth and michelle
1:19:00
You can find us wherever you listen to podcasts.
1:19:03
Be sure to follow us on Instagram and Blue Sky at omwfpod.
1:19:08
Visit our page at oncemorewithfeelings.podbean.com. Or you can send us an email
1:19:15
at omwfpod at gmail.com.
1:19:19
Take a moment to subscribe and rate us on iTunes and YouTube.
1:19:25
Until next time, folks. And all that jazz.
1:19:33
How is it to you? Well, you wanted my advice, right?
1:19:36
Well, here it is. But don't forget, Billy Flynn's number one client is Billy Flynn. Meaning what?
1:19:46
Meaning... Don't let him have the same time.
1:19:48
Music.