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Showgirls with Crystal · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have women and them all
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism?
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: It's the patriarchy, Zeph and bast start changing it with
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Hey Jamie Darlin, Hey Caitlin Darlin, will you paint my
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: nails for me?
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Do you like looking like cheap trash?
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Because if so, I guess I'll do it. Me and
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: my awesome boobs that everyone loves.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Well, my boobs are awesome too.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Mavie, take me body dysmorphia again again? Oh my gosh,
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: it's not fair. How do boobs look like that? Anyways?
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: I think my brain. I think my takeaway from watching
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: show Girls is wow, I think my boobs are weird?
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, Jamie or boobs? That's not true?
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Is that the lesson of the movie.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's it's a brilliant to attire about. Boom.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Welcome to the back Deellcast. Look we've got we've got
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Gina gersha on and yes, she's kissing ladies again. It's
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: a time honored Gina gershon observation on this show, but
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: this time in a very different movie.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, because today is our Showgirls episode often requested. Hello,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm Showgirls number one. Caitlin Toronte, I'm show Girls
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: number two.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I work at the Cheetah. My name's Jamie Loftus.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes, this is a highly
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: requested episode. We've been getting requests for this since the
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: show began.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for some reason, we did Starship Troopers and Basic
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Instinct before this. This is our third. This is kind
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: of wild because I don't think that we often. I'm
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: trying to think of a director that has appeared on
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: the show three different times. I feel like for Hoven,
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: for some reason, he pops up on this show quite
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: a bit.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there have been a few, but Paul is really
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: showing up.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: You will about Paul. He really generates a discussion he does,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: and I love that about Paul.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: All right, all that didn't pass the Bechdel tests, But no,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: what even is that, Jamie?
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Well. The Bechdel Test is a media metric created by
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: Many versions of this test. It was originally created as
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: a bit for a comic strip that Alison Bechdel wrote,
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: but now it's sort of used as a metric for
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: us specifically to use. Here's the one we use. Our
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: version of the Bechdel test requires that there be two characters.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Uh of, oh my god, all right, there would be
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: two characters. Yeah, two characters of a marginalized gender with
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: names that speak to each other about something other than
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: a man, for two lines of dialogue or more. Not
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: a perfect metric, which you know because it Showgirls passes
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: it almost.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Immediately, And so many of the conversations that pass during
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: this movie are about fingernails. It's like, yes, it's almost
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: as well chips.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: I love the chips.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Oh sure, dog food, doggy chow dog food.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Okay, that was relatable for me. I used to eat
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: dog food on stage all the time.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: That's right. Wow, you really are a showgirl.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: I am the showiest girl. I really loved the chip car.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's so many iconic exchanges in this movie.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: But yeah, the like giggling and being like did you
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: eat the chips? I was like, Wow, I should do
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: that more.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you want to come over and replicate that
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: exact conversation with me? Yeah?
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Wake you up and be like where's the chips?
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Anyway? So we use the Bechdel test as a jumping
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: off point for a large conversation because we hear on
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the Bechdel Cast examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: and today is no different, and the movie is Showgirls.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: And the guest, oh have today a legend? You've seen
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: them on Rue Paul's Drag Race UK season one. They
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: host the podcast The Things That Made Me Queer? It's
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Crystal Hello, Hi.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: Oh my god. I really enjoyed that intro. So many
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: things to say. Already we're already all completely flam mixed
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: about how we're going to manage talking about this movie.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: I can tell.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: It's so hard. It's interesting. I feel like there's certain
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: movies where depending on like you just have to like
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: take the temp on how everyone else feels about it
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: before you can speak your mind.
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: Well, people feel a lot of ways about this movie,
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: so they really do many opinions to choose from.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Well, let's not to put you on the spot, but
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: let's start with yours. What's your perfect great, what's your
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: history with show Girls?
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: Okay, I have to be honest and say I think
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: this is this has at one point in my life
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: been my favorite movie. So it is it has occupied
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: that place for me, and it's probably the movie I've
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: spent I've watched the most times in my life. Yeah,
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: which is a lot to say.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So this is your Titanic for us, basically, uh.
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: Huh, Yeah, Titanic, which I've seen one time.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: What Yeah, blasphemy shocking.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And you guys always reference Titanic. I'm like, who
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: are they talking about. I don't even know who these
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: characters are, Crystal, I know, Well, now I've prepared to
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: hear me reference chips and nails a lot because I
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: could probably quote this entire movie from start to finish,
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: which I don't think is like healthy for me, but
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: it is where we're at. I saw this movie probably
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: when I was like twelve or thirteen with like when
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: I was still in the claw and had like a
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: straight best friend, and he would he probably was like
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: showing me it on his parents' TV after midnight, like
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: it was that kind of vibe. I don't really remember
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: it from that period, but I know I knew I
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: saw it in that kind of era. And then I
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: watched it again in my early twenties with my then
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: boyfriend who was like, you need to watch show Girls.
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: It's a camp masterpiece. And from then it's basically been
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: in my life in multiple different ways up until the
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: point where I'm now a drag artist called Crystal who
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: dresses like a slot on stage. So it's really taken
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: me places.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: So is you a show girl?
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Is your stage name based on or inspired by Crystal
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: from this movie?
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: It's definitely partially responsible, I would say. The other reason
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: is when I started doing drag, I was working for Swarovsky.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: I ever heard of it, so it just felt like
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: it felt like a meeting of worlds because yeah, it
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: was a bizarre job selling crystals to people, and uh,
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: it just felt like the right the right name for
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: me at the time that I personally want.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: To come Crystal, okay, hang on.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: Unlike Nomi, I do want people to think I'm a whrror.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: So I felt like the name Crystal was really gonna
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: help them get to that point a lot faster.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: I just love Gina Gershan so much.
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: I know incredible She's in.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: I feel like she's in on it and not like
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: not everyone is. She may be the only person who
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: appears to be in on it absolutely, which is wild
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: because Kyle McLachlan is in this movie and I feel
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: like he's always in on it, But by his own account,
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: he was not in.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: He didn't know.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: Did he look at them? Did he see how they
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: did his hair? But his hair was wild?
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: Yes, incredible. The only other thing I would say about
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: it is that since it being my favorite movie in
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: my twenties and me thinking it was the greatest thing
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: that it ever been made, I have since reevaluated things
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: and I'll see it as a very problematic movie, which
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: I have a complicated relationship with, sure, and that's I
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: think probably what we're gonna spend the next hour talking about.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Wow, Oh you think it's only going to be an hour,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I think again, Jamie, what is your history slash relationship
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: with Showgirls?
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Shockingly sparse? I had never seen this movie all the
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: way through. I do. I feel like I've mentioned a
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: few different movies on most memorably Requiem movies I caught
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: my dad watching at night. Requiem was the most memorable
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: of them, because that movie is horrific. But I do
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: remember counting and watching show Girls once and being like
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: ding Dong daughter alert and he was like, actually, I
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: think he tried to do the the now very popular
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: reclaiming argument to justify why he was watching it. He's like,
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: you know, people came down pretty hard on this movie
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: when it came out, myself included. But now that I'm
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: sitting with it, I think it makes some interesting points.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: I was like, all right, all right, might say you're
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: not technically wrong, but I have never really sat and
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: like watched the whole thing. And then I ended up
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: watching it twice all the way through it because I
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: feel like, for this movie especially, you need a fun
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: watch and then you need a critical watch because you
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: just need to let it wash over you. And I
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: totally like watching it. Now, I don't know. I mean,
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: I liked it a lot. I want to go to
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: rowdy screening of this, Like it is so problematic in
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: so many ways. We're going to talk about it. It's
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: just but it's so like the camp levels are just
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: like off the chart. There's so much And this is
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: true of this writer always, But the guy who wrote
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: this movie, I'm just like, what does he think? Women
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: talk like it?
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: Ships?
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: Ships, the chips, dog food.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: So weird, and every other conversation is you're a whore. No,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I'm not, you're a whore.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: I used to play a drinking game with this movie,
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: where you would drink every time someone mentioned nails being
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: pushed down the stairs or accused Nomi of being a hooker,
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: and you were drunk within the first five minutes of
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: the movie.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: It was it's really it's it's like, it's so the
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: water is so hot that it's cold again. There's just
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: like everything that happens is problematic, and you're just like
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: and it's so like sincerely done, and I just I
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: don't know. I am baffled by it. I'm fascinated by it.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: I would like to see a rowdy screening of it.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: And I also like, don't really I was reading through
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: the God so much has been written about this movie.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: I was reading through a fraction of it, and I
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: don't necessarily came down on the like which this is.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: I think we encountered this with Starship Troops as well,
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: which is which is obviously trying to be satire. But
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: there's like this big argument that, like, this movie is
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: actually good and it's playing six D chess and I
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: don't believe that. But I think that's all right. I
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: think Gina Gershon somehow is the only person in the
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: entire production who knows what's going on. I don't even
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: think Paul Verhoven knows what movie he's making, But for
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: some reason, Gina Gershon bes and I cele it.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Rate that she reads a script and she knows what's up.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: I know, just unbelievable and yeah, there's done stuff and
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: this is it that's horrific and reading the that I
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: mean this, it's so unfair that this tanked Elizabeth Berkeley's career.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: I think that was like one of my big takeaways.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: And I mean, the way that this movie handles raised
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: holy shit. But we'll get there. Yes, Caitlin, what's your
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: history with show Girls?
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I similarly have a very sparse history. I think about
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: it wrong with us, I don't know. Oh about a
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: year ago, I was like, I can't believe I've never
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: seen Showgirls. I am going to watch it. And I
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: thought that I in that sitting watched the first half
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: of the movie and then got sidetracked and then forgot
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: to go back to it. And then when I started
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: prepping for this episode, and I was like, oh, I've
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: already seen the first half, so you know, it's I
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: know what it's about. Turns out I had only watched
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the first ten minutes, but so much happens in that
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: first ten minutes that it felt like an hour's worth
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: of cinema.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: Nomi is living. Yeah, she's living on turbo mode all
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: the time.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I would describe her performance in every scene as thrashing.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: She's just doing a lot of thrashing about I.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: Want to have sex in a pool like that. She
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: hates cars.
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: She will if there's a car in a scene with her,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: she's gonna hit it.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, ooh, that didn't occur to me.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: She does a lot of storming out. The way she
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: enters and exits scenes is just like it's something to behold.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: She kind of reminds me of her entrances. Do you
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: remember that scene in I Frankenstein where I Frankenstein like
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: there's a door available, but he crashes through the window
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: instead because he's just dramatic.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: Me Malone as kool aid Man exactly.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: It's so great and I really enjoyed, like I don't know,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: I really enjoyed reading about how reclaimed and revered know
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: me is and that there's literally I didn't have time
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: to watch it, but there's a whole documentary called You
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Don't Know Me.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: It's great, really yeah, the best really great. This is
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: also sadly like I knew how conflicted I felt about
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: this movie, so I consumed so much additional media in
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: the past week about this movie, and it hasn't helped.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: But I now know far more than anyone needs to
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: know about Showgirls.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So well, any fun facts I want to share, by
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: all means.
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: I'll try and keep them to like a minimum, because
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: otherwise we'll be here a while.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Bring it, baby, Well, shall I do the recap and
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: please we'll go from there. Let's actually take a quick
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: break first and then come back for the recap twist. Okay,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the recap of show Girls. And before I begin, I
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: will place a trigger warning for something that happens at
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the end of the movie. Trigger warning for rape and
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: sexual assault. Okay, we meet Nomi. That's Elizabeth Berkeley. Also
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: apologies in advance if I call her Elizabeth her. I
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: feel like I'm going to and it's on accident.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: I oh, I do want I want that alternate Universe movie,
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: though I too want to see that one.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I just the names are too similar and I do
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: think I will mix them up. But Elizabeth Berkley plays
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: no Me Malone. We see her as she's hitchhiking to
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Las Vegas. Ever heard of it?
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: She gets a ride from this guy, Jeff. She's like,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to Vegas to be a dancer. He
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: is very sleazy. He says he's going to help her
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: get a job, but he ends up taking off with
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: her suitcase, so now she only has the clothes on
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: her back. She's obviously very upset, and this is when
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: she meets Molly played by Gina Rivera, who sees no
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Me in distress and offers her adopt her.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Question her, Yeah, pretty wild.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: When you see a girl in a leopard print to
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: throw up and almost get hit by a car, you
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: think she should move in with me?
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Yes, sat mom, truly I never in a million years
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: thought that Jeff would return.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Jeff comes back.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, bow unbowed with this movie. Things you
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: didn't want to resolve, you didn't know you wanted resolved
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: are resolved.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Oh you thought there was going to be a loose
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: end with Jeff.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah right, No, we're gonna cut back to Jeff. Jeff's
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: getting his.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I really hope the sequel, had there been one,
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: would have opened with them driving into La and the
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: car is still swerving all over the road.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, Crystal, I've got news for you. There is a
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: sequel to this movie.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: Oh I know, okay, but but it's a different story
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: that sequel.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't follow know me. It follows Penny.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: What it follows Penny?
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, and the actor who plays Penny in the first
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: movie reprises her role and wrote, directed, and edited the movie.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: I believe my god, it's like that Selene Dion biopic.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: I really want to watch.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: Oh, oh, I do you recommend that? Actually?
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Have you seen it?
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: I want to see it so bad.
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: It made me cry twice.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: What's that movie that, at the time of this recording
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: is in theaters. It probably will have left by the
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: time this episode comes out. But it's the movie that
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Selene Dion plays herself in, and it's about Oh, I
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: think a woman loses her boyfriend, Like, her boyfriend dies
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: but she still has his or someone something. There's a
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: phone number and another guy she texts killing her boyfriend
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: talking phone number. There's a movie. Okay, it's a woman
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: who her boyfriend dies and she texts his phone number
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: to be like I miss you, and another guy ends
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: up with that phone number like a year or so later,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: and so he's getting all these text messages being like
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: she's saying like I miss you, I'm gonna go to
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: our special spot. And so then he shows up and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: then they meet and then they fall in love, and
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Celine Dion plays his like his mom, I don't know,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I'm filling in the blanks. This is a real dream
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: you had, This is a real movie. I swear it,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and I think we should cover it on the show.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: I think we should too. Selite, I don't know why
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: why are we talking about selenein Oh because I derailed.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: He was in Montreal the other day.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Uh huh brag.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: So we were like, for every year wrong about Torrisha,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: we would like try to put like a local hero
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: over the like interes slide, and so we're like, let's
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: put on Celine Dion And I was like, oh, probably
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: that's the most obvious Canadian to pick. Everyone's probably sick
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: of like it's like, you know, doing a show and
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: bosson and putting Mark Wahlberg on the screen. Boy was
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: I wrong?
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sick of Celen.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: No, they love her. They were like, we they love her.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: I was also in Montreal last week and I went
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: to a karaoke bar and it was a very Francophone
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: karaoke bar and it was just back to back Celine
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: Dion songs.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: I love that. They love her so much. I thought
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: it was going to be a hack, but I was like, no,
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: they one person stood a like wow, what a wild
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: well shout out to Selene Dion. For some reason, she
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: wouldn't be out of place in this movie.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: No, no, I mean it's Vegas.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I mean she's had a residency.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Anyway, So back to Showgirls, I guess. Okay, so we've
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: met Nomi. She meets Mollie, who offers her a place
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: to crash. We cut to six weeks later, Nomi is
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: still living with Mollie. Nomi goes with Molly to work.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Mollie works in the wardrobe department for a show called Goddess,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: which is a I guess Broadway style show. There's a
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: lot of dance, there's also a lot of nudity, and
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Nomi is watching it and she loves it, and she
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: feels inspired because of all the dancing, and she wants
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to be a dancer in this type of show.
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: Have you ever been to one of these shows in Vegas?
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: No, I have tell us.
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: It was called Bite and it was vampire themed.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Oh oh my god.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: Otherwise it was essentially the same. There were a lot
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: of sexy, topless ladies and there was problematic scenes. They
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: used a lot of like eighties hair rock. It was
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: a lot of like, you know, middle aged Midwestern couples
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: there to like feel a little bit sexy with each
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: other while they were watching like a vampire lady without
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: a top. One called Ice doing Foreigner cold as Ice got.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: You gotta mix you gotta mix things up. Marriage is
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: a long.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: So all that is to say is these shows are real,
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: and it's confusing to me that someone would aspire to
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: like the lead in one like that that could be
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: the goal of your career because I feel like it's
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: I feel like we should all have a little bit
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: higher aspirations than that.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: That was My next question was, like, is like headlining
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: a show like this a huge, gigantic, like best thing
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: in Vegas the way that it's presented.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: No, I don't think so, But I guess maybe in
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: this world, yes, Like maybe I guess they're big circ
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: Desilay shows, right.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, yeah.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: Maybe in this world it's like a circ Deslay level show.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: But even that doesn't have a headliner right.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Now, so I'm not sure.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Anyway, I you know, Nomi wants to be the star
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: of a show like this, and good for her.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: True, true, that's what I say.
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: Ramon baby exactly.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: The current star of the Goddess show is Crystal Connors
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: played by Gina Gershaan, who Meetsnmi and immediately insults her
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: when she tells Crystal that she works at Cheetah's and
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Crystal is like, that's not real dancing, and Nomi is like,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: you don't know shit, and she storms off as she
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: is wont to do.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: I love her. She's so dramatic.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: Your friend has nice nails.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Oh, there's like a look that comes over Elizabeth Berkeley's
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: face whenever she's about to storm away. I think it's
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: genuinely very good where you can just tell them like, oh, oh,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Nomi's about to blo out, like.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's great it is. Then Nomi and Molly
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: go to a club and one of the bouncers goes
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: up to know me and starts dancing with her. The
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: dance moves they're doing they're erratic, there, peculiar, and he's like,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: you're not very good at dancing, but you've got potential
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: and I could teach you. And she doesn't like this,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: so she kicks him in the nuts.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Oh right, which god, so much happens in this movie.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Right, And this instigates a big brawl at the club
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: and Nomi gets arrested, but then gets bailed out the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: next day by the bouncer and he continues on this
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: like I could train you, I could teach you, but
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: she rejects him again. Also, we will eventually learn his
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: name is James. He's played by Glenn Plummer, but you
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: don't learn his name for a while. And I think
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: you only hear it on screen like once or twice,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: maybe so, but that's James. Then we finally see Nomi
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: at work. She is a dancer at a strip club
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: called Cheetahs. We meet some of her colleagues like this woman,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Henrietta and Penny. We also meet her boss, Al he's
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: a very sleazy guy. He is also played by one
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: of the Fortelli brothers from the Goonies.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, Yeah, Wow, twist.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: That night, Crystal Connors comes into the club with her
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: boyfriend Slash. Their relationship is maybe unclear, but his name
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: is Zach Carrey. That's Kyle McLaughlin. He is the entertainment
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: director of the hotel where the Goddess show is at.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: The hotel is called I think the Stardust.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: And he has bangs. I feel that Banks should be
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: a separate cast member. Yeah, it's weird that they're not
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: credited as.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Such, and so he's got like a side part and
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: the bangs are like swooped over. Sometimes they're in his eyes,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: sometimes not proto Bieber kind of thing.
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: I have to admit that one of the few things
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: I remember about watching this as a preteen was finding
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: colmagloughlin hot. I mean, it's Colmagloughlin's still, but even with
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: the hair, and essentially because of the hair.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the hair has angles. I will say, the
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: hair does have angles.
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: It looks so clean constantly as well, it's really shiny's.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: He's being groomed. He it's also hair that's quite similar
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: to Jack Dawson.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: It's true.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Think about that.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: It's true. It's a it's it's a haircut that takes
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: place out of time.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So they so, Zach and Crystal go to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Cheetahs to watch No Me dance or I don't know
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: if they go specifically because she's there, but they show
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: up in Know Me as there dancing, and then they
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: hire her to give Zach a private lap dance while
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Crystal watches, and.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: They basically invented the phrase, hey, we saw you from
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: across the bar, and we really like your vibe.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: The vibe flailing.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: Around, loved it when you licked that pole.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: We love it when you thrash, and please thrash on me,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: And that's exactly what she does, and Zach and Crystal
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: they love it. Question Mark not really sure, but Zach comes,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: he does come.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: Yes, who wouldn't.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: Who wouldn't had to have been a painful scene for him, right,
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Hard to say, but James the bouncer is also at
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the club because he is perpetually stalking No Me and
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: leering at her and things like that. Then James shows
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: up at Nomi's house on his bullshit again, being like,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: you have so much natural talent as a dancer, let
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: me teach you, and then he also implies that she
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be wasting her talent quote unquote by being a stripper,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and she rightfully tells him to fuck off.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: Right, she's very morally I mean, then this movie is
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: like attempt at a morality tale gets very very mercanti
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: sex work and confusing, Yes, for sure, and our girl
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Nomi seems to change her mind about what her version
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: of morality is every twenty five seconds, which doesn't help.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: It's true. Yeah, That's the big discussion point for me
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: later on is the movie's attitude towards sex work. But
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: will get there.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: It really is just like two guys feeling their way around.
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: In the dark, and you're just like yeah.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: And then every interview there like, no, we went to
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Vegas and we talked to like twenty people.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: We went to Vegas and hired hookers.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: As research, and they thought the script was great. I
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: was like, I don't know, Like I none of these
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: real life sex workers they allegedly talked to ever seemed
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: to come out of the woodwork, almost like they're making
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: it up.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah right, I guess what. The thing to remember the
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: whole way through is whenever Nomi's upset that someone's just
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: called her a whore or a hooker or whatever they've
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: called her. It's because she's trying to leave that life behind,
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: and which is the reveal at the end of the
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: movie right right, spoiler alert. But so it kind of
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: makes sense a bit for that character. But it's almost
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: like the movie is no me deciding whether or not
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: she like how much she's willing to sell. I think
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: that is kind of an interesting idea. Sooner or later,
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: you're gonna have to sell it, which is like one
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: of the first lines in and I think that rings
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: true for all of us.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're selling it right now.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Right now speaking, but subscribe to our Patreon. It's really
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: fun over there.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, by some merch Alfred Molina feminist icon merch. You
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: need it.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Our selling is so embarrassing, that's my morality.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Tell okay. So, at work at Cheetahs, a guy shows
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: up to Tellnmi that they are holding auditions for the
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: show Goddess the following morning and that she should come
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: and audition. So she goes, but the producer, Tony Moss,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: is an asshole, and it seems like she blows the audition.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: So she confronts Crystal, being like, you got me this audition,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: didn't you like? This was your doing? And Crystal is
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: like yeah, I like the way you dance, and Noomi
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: is like, well, I hate you, and then she storms
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: off again. Then she bumps into James and he brings
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: her to his house to show her some choreography that
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: he's working on. He's like, I wrote this for you
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: because I'm trying to put a show together with you
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: and some other dancers. So he starts teaching her the choreography,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: which immediately leads to them making out and they almost
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: have sex. The scene is so wild. She's like, we
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: can't I have my period and then he's like yeah, right,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I don't believe you. And then she's like check and
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: so he puts his hands down her pants and confirms
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: that she does have her period, and then she's like okay, bye, and.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: She's like I'm out of here. It's like, wow, that's
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's so many ways to have the last word,
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: and this is one of them. I kind of liked
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: that scene. She's so wild, And there's the way that
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: this reader writes about periods. It's so bizarre.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: It never occurred to me the connection between this and
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: Romey and Michelle where she says, sorry, I cut my
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: foot earlier and my shoe is filling up with blood.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: It's not a dissimilar way to end a conversation. If
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: you say you're bleeding, you might get out of that
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: awkward conversation.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: She does something similar with her boss, I think maybe
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: in a scene that happens before this, but Al is like,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: where were you last night? And she was like, I
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: was having my period and then he's like, oh, well, okay.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: He goes full like male gym teacher about it, and
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: which is great, but then it's I don't know, there's
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: just like lines in this movie. It's delightful. They just
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: keep going and you're like, why is this line still going?
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: And she's like, I had my period. You wouldn't want
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: me to get blood all over everything, would you.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: You're like, know me, why is a woman bleeding so scary?
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: Men? I well, I mean to the stocky guys credit
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: question mark, He's like, I've got towels. I'm like, yeah,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: that really is all that you need?
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Fair anyway, So No Me gets a call from
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: the producer Tony Moss saying that she has been cast
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: in the Goddess show so she quits her job at Cheetah's.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: She goes to tell James the good news because I
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: guess they're friends now, but he has another woman over Penny,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: who would go on to star in the sequel, and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: he's telling her like, oh, I want you and my
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: show now and know me's I guess jealous, and she
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: basically storms off again. Then she goes to give her
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: like name and background info to the production for like
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: employment records, but she's vague and she doesn't seem to
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: know her Social Security number, and it's possible that she's
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: hiding something about her past.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Terrific Yeah.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Then she starts training and learning the choreography for the show.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: She bumps into Zach aka Kyle McLaughlin and he's like, wow,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: you look beautiful, and so there's like some flirtation brewing there,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: and then her first show is that night because she
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: somehow learned all the choreography in a single day, and.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: She's dancing her ass off. I love the dance scenes
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: in this movie. Even when they're confusing, they're very impressive.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: What do you think is the narrative of the show? Goddess?
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Question number one? Question number two? Does it pass? The
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Bechdel Test.
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: I have always imagined that Goddess is like topless Fantasia,
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: where they're just little vignettes.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: I like it.
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: About different goddesses and but like sexy.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a motorcycle goddess.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: You've got them. Yeah, the motorcycle rape dance scene doesn't
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: really fit for the title of the show.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was not getting Goddess energy from that particular selection.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: I'm wondering. So I know that there's like rocky horror
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: style performances of this show, and now I really want
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: to see them, because this is a show I would
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: like to see live. I feel like it's almost like,
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: why isn't there in Vegas like the show Girl's Experience,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Like there's an actual coyote ugly barn. Oh you know,
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: I feel like you should have access to Goddess.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: You're so right, absolutely, it would destroy Well, yeah, let's
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: get to work on it together.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: Okay, Okay.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: So then so Nomi has her first show, it goes well,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Zach sends her flowers, and then James shows up after
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: the show and he's like, I still want you to
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: be in my show. Who cares if I'm having sex
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: with other people? And she's likeugh, bye again and.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: He'll be back again again.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Then Crystal takes Nomi to lunch. This is where they
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: talk about eating doggy chow. The conversation is, I don't
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: know if any point of this movie is actually horny.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: It the level of horniness, I guess is open to
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: interpretation in this movie. But there's like sexual tension between them. Yes,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: they're having a conversation that's quite Again, the issue with
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: this whole movie is swarfy getting into like swarf territory,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: and one example this conversation, the point is like we're
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: establishing a lot of tension between them. They almost make out,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: but then they don't, and Crystal is like, we're all
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: whores and so are you, and Noami's like fuck you
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: and she storms off again. And then Nomi gets offered
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: this gig to dance on a yacht at a boat convention,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: and Mollie, who has kind of dropped out of the movie,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: reappears and she's like, don't do it, and Nomi realizes
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: why because she discovers that she is expected to have
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: sex with like one of the casino's high rollers. So
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: she says fuck you and she storms off as she
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: always does, and then she tells Zach about this. Zach
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: pretends to be appalled, but the guy who sort of
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: orchestrated this whole thing, this guy Phil, does not actually
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: get in trouble. It seems like this is very par
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: for the course for like them, for lack of a
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: better term, like pimping out the performers of this show.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and like one of the many times where Kyle
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: McLaughlin's character acts like shocked by something that he obviously
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: knows exactly what's going on and is like actively working
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: to uphold it. It's one of the parts of the
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: movie that actually like works pretty well.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because this happens. This happens in a different capacity
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: later on, which we'll get to.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: This is also the first time we hear the reference
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: to Caesar singing, which right becomes a stand in for
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: are you willing to sell your body? Which I also
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: really like as a euphemism because Kyle says it later.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: Kyle magloughlin says it later We're Gonna Take You, and
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: hear Caesar sing, And then at the end of the
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: movie she does hear Caesar sing and it's like, oh,
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: this is this is it? It's happening.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's parts that are good. There's no they really
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: close every loop, whether you like it or not.
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: They do anyway, that's what I call sex.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Now Caesar singing, Yeah, do you want to?
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: Do you want to hear Caesar sing tonight? Or yeah?
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Okay. So then Nomi goes home with Zach and they
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: have sex in his pool, which is once again mostly
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: just know me thrashing and flailing around.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Also, at some point, Gnmi has gone to James's show
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: that he originally wanted her to be a part of
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: the audience hates it, even though it seems like it's
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: a fine show when people are doing a fine job,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: but like the audience is like, boo, you suck.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: It's so there's it was like, what happened right before
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: she got here? Like yeah, right, yeah, did he throw
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: things at them?
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: It's confusing how this show is different to Goddess.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Right, I don't know. And then James is like, by
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: the way, Penny is gregnant and.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: Go get me a beer, bitch, And then is like, anyways,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: she's pregnant and I gave up on my dreams and
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: that's fine.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: You're just like dances like a truck.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: That's a good insult. And also she was dancing fine,
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: It's just.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Every choice in this movie is so bizarre. Okay, So
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: then Crystal's understudy gets injured during the show because of
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: this rivalry between two of the performers, which we don't
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: really know why that's happening, but this one performer causes
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: another one to get injured. So they hold auditions to
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: cast a new understudy for Crystal, and Nomi gets the part,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: but Crystal figures out that me and Zach had sex
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: slash they heard Caesar sing, because that's again a brilliant euphemism,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and Crystal does not like this. She seems jealous or
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: you know, there's unclear. But the next thing, Nomi knows
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: she does not have the understudy part anymore. But Nomi
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: is still performing in the show and her like rivalry
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: frenemie thing with Crystal continues to escalate to the point
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: where Nomi pushes Crystal down the stairs and she's badly injured,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and the producers are freaking out because Crystal is the
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: star and what if people don't come to the show
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: because Crystal isn't there, But they take a gamble and
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: put Nomi in.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: The leading role big Phantom of the Opera energy to this.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Oh that's right.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: Except well, there's so I can't wait to talk about,
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: like the dynamic between those two characters, because we've seen
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: this exact dynamic and so many cautionary shows his tails,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: and I just want to lay them all out. It's
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: so such a thing anyways. But yes, now she is
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: the star, yep.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: But Mollie is like, no me, you pushed her, didn't you?
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: And know Me is like tee no. And Molly is
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: very suspicious until she's not anymore for reason what reasons?
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: Because Mollie is a kind and trusting person.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I mean he bends over backwards so many times to
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: accommodate No Me.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: Also at this point, like me, I think we're too
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: assume as making pretty good money and still has not
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: moved out right, get a life, know me? Seriously, you're
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: imposing mm hmmm.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: There's only one bed in that trailer.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a single and there aren't enough chips
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: to go around between the two of them. Okay, So
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: well they end up at the same party, Molly and
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: No Me, and Nomi introduces Molly to this musician guy
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: named Andrew Carver, whose name has like come up throughout
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the movie prior to this, but now he's in Vegas
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: to perform, and Molly is a big fan of Andrew Carver.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: But then, and I'll place another trigger warning here for
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: sexual violence and rape. But Andrew Carver and his cronies
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: gang rape Mollie and she is hospitalized. Nomi goes to
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: call the police, but Zach is like, don't do it, Polly. Yeah,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: I know that your real name is Pollyann Costello, and
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: that your father killed your mother and then killed himself,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: and you ran away from foster care, and then you've
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: been arrested several times for soliciting sex, in possession of
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: crack cocaine and assault with a deadly weapon. So much,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: and I have all this on you, Polly, And Gnomi
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: is like, who cares about all that? What about my friend?
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: But Zach is more concerned about protecting Andrew Carver's reputation.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Sonmi takes matters into her own hands. She goes and
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: beats the shit out of Andrew Carver.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: It's showtime.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Then she pays Molly a visit in the hospital to
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: like tell her what she did for her. Uh, and
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: then she also pays Crystal a visit, and Crystal is like,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: I know why you pushed me. I did the same
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: thing to get where I'm at now, So there's no
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: hard feelings between them, and then they make out for
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: Such an intense kiss, Yes.
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: So intense. I like, I know that the kiss is legendary.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: But Crystal is so fine when pushed down a flight
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: of stairs. She's like, it's it happens to every performer.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: So I'm like, does it though?
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: You reach a certain age and you get pushed down
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: the stairs and don't even worry about it because I
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: got a huge settlement.
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: There's this thing where basically any character that Nomi interacts
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: with becomes completely obsessed with her. And yeah, you can.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: You can get pushed down the stairs by her, and
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: you're still on team Nomi in this world so wild,
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: it doesn't matter what she does.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: Yes, you just threw up on my car. Time to
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: move in, You push me down the stairs, have about
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: a big kiss.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: She can do no wrong.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Oh you need me in the nuts, let me bail
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: you out of jail.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, I forgot about that one.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Wow, it's wild. Okay, So then Nomi has you know,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: tied up her loose ends, and then she hitchhikes out
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: of Vegas and she gets a ride from the same
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: guy that she got a ride from at the beginning,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: this guy Jeff, who doesn't recognize her at first because
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: she's incognito mode, but then.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: She's moon mode.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: Must be a different hot, tall, blonde lady and a
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: leopard print talk, right, but her leopard print top from
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: from the beginning, it's become like sheeny, so it's like
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: she's got money now, so he couldn't have recognized her sunglasses.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Too, sunglasses. She takes off her sunglasses and he's like,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: oh my god, it's you. And she's like, give me
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: my fucking suitcase. And then it's implied that she's headed
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: to Los Angeles. Ever heard of it?
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: Who? In the end, incredible who?
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: we'll come back to discuss.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: And we're back.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, where to start, Crystal?
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: What jumps out to you? Where would you like to start?
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: Wow? Wow, that is a big question.
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, besides everything out Yeah cool, Well, I think I'm
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: going to throw it to that documentary you mentioned earlier,
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: which is you don't know me, which says that there
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: are three different ways to watch this movie, which is
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: it's a piece of shit, it's a masterpiece, or it's
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: a masterpiece of shit.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: And I think that third category is where I've also landed,
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: where there is so much to love about it, so
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: much that is completely baffling, and there's so much that's deeply,
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: deeply wrong, And to enjoy this movie you have to
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: accept kind of all of those things at once and
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: like cherry pick the parts you love and like be
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: critical of the parts you don't. You mentioned wanting to
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: see this live, and as a gay man and a
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: drag artist, I've had the pleasure of seeing this live
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: many many times. What I would say is, for an example,
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: often when drag productions of this movie are done, they'll
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: cut out the rape scene because it's so incongruous with
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: the camp ness of the rest of the movie.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: I very much prefer.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: That, yeah, that happens, or I've seen it where they've
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: cut it and then brought out a great stripper to
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: like give a great stripperroutine. We're like, we're gonna spend
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: this next three minutes just being like, look, how great
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: live sex work is awesome, Like, there's lots of fun
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: ways to do it, but that isn't. It's almost like
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: it feels a bit like cheating to pretend that that
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: scene isn't in the movie, because it was alviously very
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: intentional and it's part of the of the narrative that
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: they're really trying to tell about this movie, which is like,
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: you know, how far are you willing to go for
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: success and for fame and like what is the cost
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: of the American dream?
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: You almost have to decide if you're gonna watch if
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: you're going to watch the fun version of Showgirls or
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: a you're going to watch the serious version of Showgirls.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: So, at the time when this movie came out, it
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: was horribly received, tanked at the box office, it was
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: poorly reviewed. Kyle McLaughlin saw the movie and he's like,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: this absolutely sucks.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Ruined Elizabeth Barkley's career completely.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Yes. Joe Estrahouse, who wrote the screenplay, was like, mistakes
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: were made. Paul Verhoven was like, damn, I guess I
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: made a bad movie. But he also like embraced that.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: People started appreciating it as like camp trash and he
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: like went to the Razzies Awards and accepted his Razzie
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: for Worst Director.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: Which is like, sure, I guess, sure, yeah, might as
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: well also camp because.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't know exactly the kind of trajectory of
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: like critics being like this sucks, but then a bunch
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: of audiences being like, but it's so bad, it's good
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: and it's fun and the dancing and you know that
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Because at some point it achieved, you know,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: the cult status that it still has. And then also
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: at some point there were a lot of people who
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: kind of re evaluated this movie and said it's actually
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: brilliant satire and that satire was intentional obviously, and then.
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: Right, there's Paul Verhoeven movies. You can make that argument
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: for it, just not this one.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: Just not this one. But I also, like, I see
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: that to some extent, because this is a movie about
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: how a place like Vegas and an industry like the
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: entertainment industry commodifies people, and it commodifies sexuality and particularly
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: women's sexuality and women's bodies, and it sells it as
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: a product. And there's also like a hierarchical element to
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: that where some people are quote unquote more valuable as
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: a commodity than others because you have these stars like
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Crystal and like that guy Andrew Carver who make the
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: venues a lot of money and the producers a lot
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: of money, and so they have to be protected, but
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: they can also be replaceable to some extent because they
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: are treated as a commodity, which is like I think
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: best demonstrated. There's a few different scenes that really clearly
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: demonstrate this. I'll cite to in particular. It's like parallel scenes. Basically,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: there's one scene at the beginning of the movie with
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Crystal and then another scene toward the end of the
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: movie with Nom where I don't know if he's like
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: the owner of the Star Dust Hotel or what this
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: guy's job is, but he's kind of like interviewing both
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: of them, and he's giving this like speech verbatim saying like,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: we could have gotten anyone for the show.
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: Paula Abdul, huge.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: For Paula Abdul.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: He's like, but we needed this star and she's perfect
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: and talented and so sexy and blah blah blah. And
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: it's the same speech about two different people who occupy
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: this starring role at different parts of the movie, because
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: again they're selling these women as a commodity and as
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: long as they have certain traits and certain talents, it
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter who it is according to this industry that
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: they're working within, right, And it's this type of you know,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: commodification that makes people feel like they have to be
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: very competitive of each other. And again, whether that's intentional
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: in this movie or not, like intentional commentary or not,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: that is what's happening where you see all these different rivalries,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: the main one of course being between Gnomi and Crystal.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: This movie has been like cited as being like pretty
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: much a ripoff for a remake or whatever of All
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: About Eve.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Which it's like definitely, I don't know. I was thinking
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: about this specific dynamic, which is like so complicated for
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: a lot of reasons of a lot of which you
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: just said, of like the inherent competition. I feel this
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: movie kind of does an above average job. It's not doing,
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: you know, all about Eve numbers of making this dynamic
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: a little clearer for the kind of because I feel like,
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: you know, in we've seen this dynamic a lot of
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: times all about Eve, I feel like you also see
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: a version of it in Black Swan, you see it
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: in Chicago, you see it in the Favorite, and it's
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: like there's a new girl in town, and you better
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: watch your back because there can only be like this
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: industry institution, whatever it is. It's often show business. There's
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: often a like Kyle McLaughlin type character where it's like,
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: now he's my boyfriend because I'm new and young and cool,
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: and like the tacit implication there is like there is
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: only room for one of you, so you will have
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: to tear each other down in order to be that
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: one because there's only one spot. And it's very fleeting
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: and like it's a story we've seen so many times,
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: and it's so clearly based in how I think especially
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: women are and also just perform in general, although I
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: feel like we see it most frequently between women are
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: like conditioned to see each other and like how institutions
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: like this and like the City of Chicago question work
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: uh and ballet and like how you're conditioned to turn
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: against each other and conditioned to be competitive over supportive
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: and that's the only way you can survive. And it's
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: like it's so tricky because I think that when those
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: stories are written poorly it makes it seem like this,
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: which this movie kind of is, but I feel like
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: it does well. We should talk about it, like how
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: I think when it's poorly written, it makes it seem
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: like an inherent quality of like because there are two
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: women and one is ten years older, they have to
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: hate each other and this is just like the natural
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: order of things, and it is not an institutional symptom
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: of like how they and conditioned to view each other
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: and how they've been conditioned to view themselves. And I
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: feel like this movie actually does above average at that.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: We've definitely seen it done much worse, which I guess
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: is a bar on the floor kind of thing.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: Right. It's weird because the movie, the movie feels like
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: a movie that.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: Like go to the theater type film for sure.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: It's a movie written and directed by men who again
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: don't seem to know how women interact, but.
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: Which is really funny. Just like, no one tell him.
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: Goofy, let him keep making these movies.
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: Can you imagine being that guy's like partner and being like,
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: you think I'm doing what when I'm with my friends?
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: You think we're talking about what exactly?
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Dog food? Right, doc?
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Dog food? And you go shopping at first Saces Together,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: et cetera.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: Okay, I I thought the versafespit was good class commentary. Yeah,
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: I've done shit like that. Oh with The last thing
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: I want to say is, yeah, I think this movie
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: doesn't above average job. And every time I see this dynamic,
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: it does like it really sucks. How I think that
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: this is still something very very present in a lot
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: of industries, and it reminds me of how I was
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: sort of spoken to and like encouraged to feel and
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: kind of like came in with this attitude when I
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: started doing stand up of like, well, there's not a
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: lot of space for you, and you're gonna have to like,
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: you know, don't bother making friends. And in a way
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: that quickly was like, oh fuck this, you know, like
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: I'm losing money every time I walk out the door.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna make a friend.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: But I feel like there were like I had early
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: experiences in comedy where you know, it's like either you're
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: like a threat because you're new and and there's only
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: so many spots and it's I don't know, I think
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: that that has certainly lessened as in the last you know,
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: in the ten years I've been performing, but it still
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: felt like I was like, oh god, yeah, like the
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: early to mid twenty tens, it felt very very present
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: in a culture.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I had a lot of similar experiences in my
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: early stand up career where I couldn't tell you how
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: many shows I did where I was the only woman
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: or fem on the lineup, and I was kind of
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: conditioned because this was like twenty ten ish. I was
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: at the time conditioned to think that that's something I
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: should be proud of, where it's like, well, we have
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: one spot for a woman, and you got it, and
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: you got it, and we filled our quota because that's
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: all the more any booker wanted to put on the
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: show is one woman. And I would be like, Wow,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: I got it. I got the spot on this show.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: I get to talk to all these guys that scussers
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: like verbally assaulted me throughout the entire fucking show.
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: I got so I think I've talked about this on
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: the show before. I got so not so many, but
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: like a couple and one very memorable one, like when
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: the me Too movement first started. I think just like
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: men in Boston that were like oh fuck, and like
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: a guy that I mean he remember, yeah, yeah, he
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: sent me this long message to that was like, sorry,
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: I talked about you disgustingly every time I was around you,
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: and I was like, wow, I actually didn't know that
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: was happening a lot of the time, and now I do,
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: so thank you for telling me that you're horrible. I
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: didn't really know. Yeah, But I mean that that goes
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: both ways. Where it's like when I started performing, there
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: was like a show I did where there were two women,
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: very thrilling, but it was like the middle of summer.
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: It was like one hundred fucking degrees, and I was
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: wearing shorts on stage, and the only other women on
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: the lineup was like, you can't dress like that on stage.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: Like take it from me, I'm thirty and you can't
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: wear shorts.
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: And it's like and so you pushed her down the stairs.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: I did, but she was fine with it and then
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: we kissed.
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: I think what you were saying about this like antagonistic
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: relationship between two women, though. I think it's one of
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: the things that I've struggled with with loving this movie
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: because it's something that typically gay men have loved to
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: watch in movies, you know, from Mean Girls to This,
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: to Black Swan to All About Eve, like these camp
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: movies have a place in gay culture. Death Becomes Her, Yeah,
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: and it's it's definitely, it's definitely problematic, and it's definitely
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: something to do with and a you know, misogyny within
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: the gay scene where it's fun to watch women be
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: shitty to each other. And it's something that I find
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: less and less appealing now, but it's you can still
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: go on Twitter today and watch you know, men pit
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: Gaga against Taylor Swift or Beyonce, and you know, it's
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: not something that's gone away. I think what you say
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: about this movie doing a better job of it than
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: most is actually true because there is nuance and it's
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: not just two women involved. There's what I like about
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: this movie is that there's so many different women and
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: none of them are saying things that really make any sense.
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: But they all have distinct and different motivations and goals
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: and like, some of them suck and some of them don't,
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: and some of them are trying to figure out where
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: they fit. And I like that for this movie.
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah right, this is very much a women's rights and
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: women's wrongs type of movie.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so I guess. The bottom line is women
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: have historically sometimes had rivalries and tension among them or
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: between them, but there's almost always context for it, and
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: it's like institutional patriarchal context. And it's a matter of
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: does the story recognize that context and comment on it,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: or is it you know, men who have just seen
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: women be petty toward each other and not understand why
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: and just assume, oh, well, this is just how women are.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Women are petty with each other, and so I'm going
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: to put that in the movie. And it seems like, yeah,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: this movie does understand the context because it examines, like,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: you know, the way that like the entertainment industry doesn't
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: value aging women.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's actually the whole point of the movie. It's like,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: the basically the whole message of this film is the
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: show business industry choose women up.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: I would say, if it has one point of view,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: it's that I remember, I think, I remember you talking
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: about this on Your Death becomes Her episode where the
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: motivation for their animosity is you thought I was cheap, Yeah,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: and you stole my man? Are you still motivation? Those
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: are weak motivations to kill each other and push someone
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: down the stairs. Which also happens in that movie.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Wow, Gina Gershan's head should have twisted all the way
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: around like it does, because.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: Wouldn't have felt out of place in this city there.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: It's so And then I also had like a whole
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: and then I was like Jamie too much, too much.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: But I was like, how connected is this too? Like
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: this movie comes out like a couple of years after
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: like Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, and like I was like, oh,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: I wonder if that was on the writer's mind or
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: if he really was just like no no brain for
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: this one. Just women be pushing each other down the stairs,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: but there is it's always contextualized, and I like that.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: It's like I think that this is even though it's
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: like bizarre, it makes no sense that Crystal is like,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: it's all good. This was gonna happen to me anyways,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: So I'm glad it was someone I had a crush
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: on who pushed me down on the stairs. Whatever. But
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 3: I feel like it. I like that the movie makes
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: a very deliberate decision to end things well between them.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, like, really, well you get that'll kiss in
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: a way that I think the only version of that
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: ending that I like better is Chicago. But I'm such
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: a Chicago head where it's like, well, we don't really
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: like each other, but we got to take this show
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: on the road because it's the only way we could
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: retain our value to society.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: And they're showgirls too, they are.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: That's another show I would love to see live. Anyways. Yeah,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: I like that. The movie wants, however, bizarrely wants Crystal
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: and No Mean to end in a good place. That
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: feels rare true.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: I think another thing the movie does that it's interesting
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: and accurate is that it presents every male character working
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: within this, you know, very despicable industry that again commodifies
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: people and women and women's bodies and all this stuff.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Shows the men as being manipulative, sleazy, gross, very aggressive,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: like all of these things, predatory, all this stuff, rapists, stalkers,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: rape apologists, just horrible people. Again not hashtag not all men. Wow,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: I said it.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: But someone's going to clip this out and be like
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: they've changed.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: It's so common, especially the people who have any power
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: in an industry like this, to treat women as commodities
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: and to exploit them and exploit their labor and all
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: this stuff so we see that in this movie.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: What do you think the movie's point of view is
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: about James?
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: So confusing?
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: I don't like them movie thinks James is a good guy.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, I agree. I think that he's presented as the
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: least bad of them, even though he's continually stalking her.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah he's awful. He's awful, yeah to.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: Her, Yeah he's the and yeah. I felt like, especially
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: in the last scene, I wonder how this felt to
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: watch in nineteen ninety five, because I'm like, oh, are
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: we supposed to think he's like the one that got away?
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: I think so, right, But he just.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: Called his pregnant girlfriend a bitch in front of us,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: and we're like, wow, she should have ended up with him.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: Question mark.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: He also does a thing where he's like, I bailed
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: you out, so you owe me, Like I did something
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: for you and now you owe me sex and right,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: He's very awful, But yeah, the movie does not frame
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: him as being the same type of like bad as
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: all the other men.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: It's confusing.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we've talked about this. It's some way
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: I forget in what context on the show before, But like,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: I think he's definitely like the best, worst guy, or
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: that's what they want us to think, is like he's
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: the best man we meet in the story, but everyone
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: is awful. So the fact that like he and I
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: don't even know if this is true, like he's the
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I think we are supposed to think
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: he's good in comparison to how all the men around
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: him behave, but like he's still awful. I can't believe
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: that we're supposed to be like he's the one that
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 3: got away when he's like, go get me a beer, bitch,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: you dance like a truck, right, yes.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, while we're on his character. Something that the movie
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: does that I found a bit nefarious is the movie
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: tricks you into thinking it's going to be more diverse
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: than it actually is, because Molly and James are introduced
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: early on and are presented as being important characters or
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: characters who you think are going to be in the
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: story as important characters throughout. But the movie, to quote
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: our favorite song from a Star is Born, they fall
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: by the wayside as the story progresses.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: As like by the wayside iconic song from a Star
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: is Born twenty eighteen and what.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: Is Showgirls but a story about a star who is
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: born you know, from a volcano. Wow, it's true, Goddess,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: there is an interracial relationship, which is not something you
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: would commonly see on screened for like a major motion
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: picture in ninety five, And if an interracial relationship was
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: in a movie in that era, there was a lot
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: of attention called to it, like called to the fact
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: that a black man is kissing a white woman. How scandalous,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: how you know whatever. But this movie very normalizes it.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's very matter of fact.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: The relationship is awful, and he's manipulative in a stalker,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: but at least it normalizes people of different races kissing
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: each other and checking if they have their period. That
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: should be normalized.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, kind of amazing. But well, and then I think
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: it also is very I don't know, like telling of
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: the movie sort of, I don't know, Like I mean, obviously,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: there are two white women at the center of this story,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: and the fact that Mollie, who's the only black woman
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: who gets any meaningful space in the story, is chosen
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: as the one to be violently assaulted feels very pointed.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: And I don't know, I was reading about how like
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: the experience for Gina rivera of filming that scene, it
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: sounds like it was really traumatic, especially for such an
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: unnuw necessary exploitative scene that she's only seen the movie
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: one time because and left during the premiere during that
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: scene because she's like, I don't need to see that again,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: and like, your body doesn't you know, you can know
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: your acting, but your body doesn't really know the difference
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: when that is done. And I wonder I wasn't able
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: to find out, maybe, you know, Crystal, like if there
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: was any sort of intimacy coaching or any sort of anything.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: I'm assuming there wasn't.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: I'm assuming there wasn't as well.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: And that's so, I mean, it feels very pointed in
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: how comfortable people are just exploiting black women in movies.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: And also it's only done to advance Nome's story of
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: like to present her with the big problem, and the
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: fact that a writer couldn't conceive of another way for
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: that to happen is just like gross. I mean, yeah,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: by far the worst part, and.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: It happens at the eleventh hour.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: It's like, why, yeah, this really comes out of nowhere? Yeah,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: like they could have well, Paul Verhoven loves shocking graphic violence,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: Like every one of his movies has like vomit, people
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: getting blown up disgustingly, and there's seems to be a
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: rape scene in every one of his movies. As my
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: husband said, I think I think Paul Overhoven's a pervert.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: And it's kind of hard to argue with that. It's like,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: why does this need to happen in every one? Paul
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: like we can we can experience the horrors of rape
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: and rape culture without actually needing to visually experience the
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: horrors of it. Absolutely, and I think his point of
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 4: view is people should be confronted with how awful this is.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: We've been kind of dancing around this whole movie, what
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: this industry is all about, and I'm going to make
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: sure you understand what it's really about. Here at the
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: very end, I can see what he was trying to do, but.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: The way the scene is framed and just shot and
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: it's just extremely triggering for the and for the actor.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: I want to share some quotes from Gina Rivera. The
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: scene took nine hours to film and it seems like
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: it was just pure torture for her the entire time.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: She says, quote, when you do a scene like that
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: your body doesn't know it's not real. Jimmy, you already
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: alluded to that. I don't know if I would have
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: taken the movie if I had understood that. She then adds,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: I took the rape scene very seriously because when you
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: see rape on film, you know you're representing people who
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: have lived through it. I thought, I'm going to do
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: this scene so the girl who goes to that party
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: and gets asked to that room doesn't go into it.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: I was willing to do the scene for that person
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: because this is a real moment in the world. Unfortunately,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: women are victims of this violence unquote, which I appreciate
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: that she seems to have taken that moment of the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: story with like, you know, she handled it with as
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: much care as she could. But again, the way that
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: it unfolds unscreen, and the fact that it unfolds unscreen
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: at all is completely unnecessary, which is something that Joe
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: Esterhouse later admits. He says that rape scene was a
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: god awful mistake in retrospect, A terrible mistake.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, truly the least he can do, right given there, Yeah,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, and then yeah, even from like a narrative
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: perspective it happening that late in the movie is like,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: what the fuck are you doing? Like truly, Yeah, I.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: Think it's one of the worst and the biggest crimes
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: of this movie is the effect that that scene had
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: on the actress who did it, And I think that's
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: it's probably the most unforgivable thing about this movie. The
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 4: other thing I would say is what it did to
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: Elizabeth Berkeley's career, Like those are the two like real
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: world impacts that this movie's had. And despite it trying
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: to make a movie about how show business destroys women,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 4: being a vehicle to destroy women, yeah, which is really
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: really troubling and strange and ironic. I guess I also
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: read something you Know to just kind of further dig
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: that hole that Gina Rivera was meant to have a
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: topless scene in the trailer as well, which for no reason,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: but she was going to just be coming out of
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: the shower in one of the scenes and she said,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: I don't want to I don't see how this is
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: necessary for my character, or you've already got a movie
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: that's full of breasts, Like why do you need mine?
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 4: And she apparently had to have a real fight with
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: Paul Verhoven about not doing a topless scene. It's just
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: and again it's like, what point would that have served
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: other than if you're a woman in this movie, we
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: should we should be able to see your brains.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: You have to see titties.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, and it sucks that. I mean, like Gina Gershon,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: I'm really glad she spoke up for herself. And also
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: I'm sure that not every actor in the movie felt
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: like they could advocate for themselves like that because they're
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: viewed as replaceable, which like is what the movie is about, right,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: But I felt, I mean, yeah, I feel especially because
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: of where Elizabeth Berkeley was in her career. I think
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: she was like twenty when this movie was filmed. She's
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: very young. She had been on Saved by the Bell
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: and I think we, I mean, this is like opens
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: a huge can of worms that we probably don't have
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: time to get into today. But this was like her
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: role of like I am an adult now, which I
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: think is something a pressure that's put most often on
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: young women in Hollywood. We saw, I mean, we've seen
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: it a million different versions of it. I feel like,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: you know, Zendea doing Euphoria is like now I'm doing
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: the adult thing, and it's not just like I'm going
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: from being a child's entertainer, which I have a ton
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: of thoughts about anyways, to like now I am a
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: sexual creature, and like, I don't know, like it's it
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: really depends on how the actor actually feels about it,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: and if you want to like take a part like that,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: fucking go for it. But I feel like there's also
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: just like an implied pressure to take a part like that,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: to declare like I am no longer a child, I
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: am super no longer a child. I will be you know.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: And Elizabeth Berkeley taking a huge swing by taking this
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: part and then being like mocked for it is just
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: so ugly. She it is a very flaiy performance. But
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: Paul her Hooften says years later, I don't know why
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: he doesn't say it at the time that that was
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: like a result of his direction, Like he was like,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: go big in every scene, so it like it was
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: just made out to be like, oh, she's a terrible actor,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: how embarrassing that she was in this exploitative movie, and
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: like who does she think she is? Blah blah blah.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: Was like the framing of the framing of her and like,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: obviously that has a huge effect on you when you're
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: twenty one years old, and like it's I don't know.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, She's been really consistent as well about how she
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: loved making it. She loved making the movie. Like if
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 4: you watch the clips of her doing the interviews during
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 4: the filming, she's having the best time. And even twenty
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: years later, she attends a screening and she talks about
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: how she felt like when she was making this movie
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: that she was living her dreams, she was having the
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 4: no Me moment, she was making something that was, you know,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 4: going to be career changing for her, but she also
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: loved doing and so I think in a way, if
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 4: if it hadn't tanked, and if it hadn't ruined her
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 4: acting career, it would really solve a lot of a
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 4: lot of the problems around this movie. But the fact
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: that it did cheer her up and spit her out
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 4: is is really sad. I want you to go back
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: to what you were saying about race as well, though,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 4: because yeah, there's I think three black characters in the movie.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: There's Crystal's understudy, there's no Mean's love interest, and then
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: there's Molly and all three of them are again destroyed
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: essentially in one way or another. What I would say
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 4: that this movie is trying to do. I think it
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 4: is trying to make that point. And I have read
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 4: that Paul Verhoven said explicitly that, yeah, the portrayal of
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: these characters is representative of the way black people are
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: treated in America. And so again, I think it's interesting
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: that then the spinout effect was actually again to traumatize
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: a black actress through a rape scene, right again, kind
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 4: of doing what he said he's trying to highlight. And
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: if you want to advocate against right, if you.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Want to make commentary on that, you can't do the
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: exact same thing that you're making commentary on. That's the
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: whole that's this whole movie's just I don't even know
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: the word ethos no, but like it's also like a
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: movie about how women and his bodies are commodified and
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: exploit and then every single scene and not to say
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: that like nudity is inherently explodedive, but there's so much unnecessary.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: You know, you could argue nudity in this movie and
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: it and there's for example, there's full frontal female nudity,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: no nudity really at all for men.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: That's what I was like, I I because this is
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, and this is like a very fraught conversation
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: that I feel like that like we've sort of changed
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: over the years, and I think I used to view
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: sexy movies a little like prudishly perhaps, and it's like
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: I'm pro erotic movie, but I I yeah, it's like
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: when it's not equal opportunity, it feels very glaring where
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: I'm like, why you know, Kyle mcgloughlin, we see but
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: torso up, we see we do see his butt.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: But for like a few seconds, and then he goes
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: into a swimming pool and butts.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of chances to see his butt because
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 3: you see his button. Sex in the City quite a
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: bit as well.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: Oh wow yeah, twin Peaks, twin twin cheeks.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: Oh wow, yeah, twin cheeks.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: I don't think he's see his twin cheeks in Twin Peaks.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: But the reason it feels exploitative in this movie is
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: that it's such a heavy focus on female nudity and
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: none whatsoever. And again, you could they would probably like
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: the filmmakers would probably argue, well, men's bodies aren't as
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: exploited as women. So where So that's actually commentary, that's
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: why we're showing so much female nudity. But it just.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 4: Feels definitely not to make a movie for fourteen year
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 4: old boys to have a to jerk off to after
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: their parents have gone to bed. That movie. Surely this
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 4: is a this is a hard hitting look at the
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 4: exploitation of women.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: Right, we only traumatized most of the women in the
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: movie to do it, and what a noble sacrifice like
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 3: lah Lah Right, So Culverhoven is just chaos.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: What I want to make clear is that I have
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: no problem with nudity in movies. I as long as
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: it's happening on the terms of the actor, and the
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: actor is comfortable with it, and it's not gratuitous and exploitative.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: But this movie often feels as though at least some
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: of the nudity is gratuitous and exploitative, which again goes
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: against what doing the movie says it's trying to Yeah.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: And I think that's what I was trying to say,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: is that Elizabeth Berkeley says she didn't feel exploited and
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: she had a great time, which wonderful, and she's like
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: she looks super hot. Oh my god, Like how fun
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: to like if you're feeling really hot and you're twenty
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 4: one and you've got that body, like if you want
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: to show it up, like great, yeah, fun right.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: But while we're talking about bodies, I mean this, there's
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: very little body diversity in this absolutely movie. You do
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: have one character who is fat in Henrietta. She's one
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: of the performers at Cheetah's Comedian, Right. She doesn't do
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: the same like strip teas act as the other performers.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: She does more of a and there is nudity in
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: her act, but it's more like comedy vaudeville. Is that
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: what vaudeville is? Turns out, I don't know.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but with boobs, with boobs.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: So her body and like I understand that a venue
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: like that, a strip club like that, would treat a
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: body like that differently than they would treat the other
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: performers who have these like you know, victorious secret model
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: type bodies. But again, the movie is not really commenting
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: on that very much. I don't know what are your thoughts.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: I also felt, I mean, that poor actor who had
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: to play that part, I mean, she did a great
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: job with what she's given like it. I don't know
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: what is her weirdest line where she's like, you're the
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: only one that knows how to what is that line?
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah know me, You're the only one who get my
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 4: tips popping, right.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: That's an iconic moment in cinema. But yeah, the fact that,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's not surprising to me that and I'm
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 3: sure is like reflective of that scene that there's not
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: a lot of body diversity. But I don't I think
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: that on some topics this movie goes out of its
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: way to make a point. It didn't feel like it
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: quite got there at all. I think the closest were
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 3: like comments made at the beginning of the movie or
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 3: the beginning of Nomi's career about what she's allowed to
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 3: eat and what she's not allowed to eat. That was
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 3: as close to like any sort of attempt at commentary.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 3: Is like, not only is there no body diversity, and
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: if you are fat or just not a victorious secret model,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: your act will be different, you will be treated differently,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 3: and you are your body is the joke, But also
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 3: that the victorious secret model dancers are like starving and
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: are not allowed to eat normally except for Nomi who
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 3: eats subsists strictly on chips and champagne and cheeseburgers, which
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 3: is another Oh gosh, this is something that it's tricky,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: but like it feels very like Gilmore Girl's syndrome you
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 3: to me, where it's like this girl can eat whatever
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 3: she wants, but she still has a victorious secret body,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: you know, like you do, and it's like you. It
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: feels like a very weird half step. I mean, yes,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: she's twenty one, so maybe, but you know, it just
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: feels I don't know.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: There's certainly a media trope where the only women who
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: are allowed to stay or allowed to be seen eating
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: something like a hamburger on screen are women who are
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: extremely thin, right, because if a woman who is not
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: extremely thin is seen eating a hamburger, that immediately becomes
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: either a joke or a judgment call is being made
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: on her choices.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: Exactly. Yeah, it felt like it was something that you
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: would think this movie would attempt to make more commentary on.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: It doesn't. I don't know if I'm like, I don't
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: know how to feel about it, because I'm like, well,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: if they'd tried it, they probably wouldn't have gone great,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: But I don't know. I guess I would be interested
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: in what the attempt would have been similar.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: Well, again, they.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 4: Would have really traumatized people. Yeah, a whole other group
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 4: of people. They would have figured it a way to
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 4: traumatize someone else by trying to make a comment on
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 4: something else they weren't really equipped to talk about.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: They would have fumbled it the way they've fumbled sex work.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: Which can we get into that, yes, yes, So several
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: characters and the movie as a whole seem to have
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: an attitude that sex work is not legitimate work. If
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: you are a stripper, that's not real dancing, you're wasting
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: your talents. So it completely delegitimate, delegitimizes wow words, they're hard.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: Delegitimizes sex work as work, but in different ways with
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: different characters, where for example, James, he's like, oh, no, me,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: you want to be a showgirl. Ooh why? Like what
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: you're doing at Cheetahs is at least honest, because he
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: says something like people want tits and ass and you
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: give them tits and ass. It goddess, they pretend it's
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: something else, but you still show them tits and ass.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: So he seems to be again like legitimizing sex work
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: more than other people in the movie are. But then
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: he'll turn around and say, like, you're wasting your talents
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: by being a stripper and giving lap dances and you.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: Know, fucking him without fucking him.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, he's all over the place there. Then you
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: have Crystal's attitude, which is like if you work at Cheetahs,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: like if you work at a strip club, that's not
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: real dancing, which really upsets and offends, know me. But
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: then later Crystal will be like, you're a whore and
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: I'm a ho and I don't love the word horror,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: but they say it so often in this movie that unaviidable, right,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: So she's like, I'm a whore, You're a whore. We're
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: exactly alike. Just acknowledge what you're doing. And know me
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: gets very defensive anytime a conversation like this is happening
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: and she's saying, ah, no, I'm not. Maybe you are,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: I know you are, but what am I kind of thing?
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, very pee wee herman energy and sometimes in her
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 3: physical choices. Yeah, but I do think Crystal, you made
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 3: this point earlier. We're like, in the context of what
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: we later learned about me. I think it is like
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 3: an interesting and like ultimately somewhat fumbled attempt for, like, know,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 3: me processing the stigma of having been a sex worker.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: I don't think that these guys have the juice to
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: make any like clear. Uh they don't. They definitely don't
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: stick the landing. But I thought it was I don't know.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 3: I would be curious to know what our listeners think
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 3: as well, but I felt like it was what they
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 3: were trying to do, which only makes sense if you
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 3: watch it back. I do feel like we should have
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 3: known that a little sooner to really appreciate like the
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: struggle that she's having, because it's like, I'm sure that,
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, everyone around her is telling her that sex
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 3: work not legitimate work, which is, you know, certainly not
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: an unpopular take in the nineties. She has been a
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 3: sex worker in the past, and it seems like has
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: you know, absorbed a lot of the stigma that comes
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: with that and doesn't want It's It's interesting because it's
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 3: like she does, I mean, she enjoys being a strippers,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 3: and she like she likes it, and she's defensive of
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 3: the fact that she likes it, and I don't know
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 3: I think it's interesting theoretically to watch a character of
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 3: this era like struggle with stigma and like say, no,
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: I'm not like I'm doing something legitimate, and like what
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 3: does legitimate mean? What has she been told in the
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: past is and isn't legitimate? And that's an interesting journey
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: to take. It's just like this movie is not is
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 3: ill equipped to take you on that journey.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 4: But I think I think the movie is trying to
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 4: say that essentially, there isn't anything legitimate within the American dream. Yeah,
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: and if you're going to participate in that as a concept,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 4: you are selling out and you are selling yourself to
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 4: one degree or another. And I do kind of like
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 4: that because and it's often a foreign filmmaker who's gonna
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 4: make that point, who can come into America and be like, wow,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 4: this is a really weird like concept you all have
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 4: that there's this like you can somehow attain all of
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 4: the success without it costing you something. And I like
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 4: that point of view. I think it's I think it's interesting,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 4: but I don't think it particularly Yeah, like you say,
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 4: Nails the Landing, where it's like you're all selling out
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 4: and that is sometimes okay or not okay or whatever.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 4: Like sex work can be good, it's unclear what it
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 4: actually thinks about that. It's point of view is you're
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 4: all selling out and right, you should be honest with
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 4: yourself about that, which.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: I feel like is so much of Paul Verhoven's work
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: for me, where it's like he definitely has he's always
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: onto something, but I feel like he never, at least
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 3: for me, Like I haven't seen all this movies. I
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 3: still haven't seen Robotcop. My boyfriend saw a RoboCop recently
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 3: and he was like, wow, he really I guess he
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: maybe stuck the landing on that one. But in general,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 3: I feel like he definitely is always onto something. He's
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 3: nibbling at something, but never quite sticks the landing in
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: a way that's always interesting to watch.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: The execution might not be quite there, but the attempt
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: is watchable.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: He does, he gives it one hundred percent.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But the other thing is like, so often sex
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: work is framed as something that people are trying to,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: like desperately escape from, or are only engaging in out
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: of desperation, And while that might be true for some
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: sex workers, it's rarely presented as something that is happening
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: on the person's terms. It's rarely presented as something that
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: the character or you know, the person is proud of.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: And again, this movie kind of does a little bit
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: of both, where Nomi gets very defensive when Crystal insults
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: her and says like, if you're working at Cheetahs, that's
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: not real dancing, and you know, Nomi says, you don't
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: know shit. But she also anytime someone suggests that Gnomi
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: is a whore, she's like, yeah, I'm not. And like, again,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: there's this trauma that she's probably working through. There's you know,
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: there's all kinds of stuff that the movie doesn't quite
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: know how to handle. So it ultimately it comes down
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: on the side to me at least, and you know,
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: other people might have different interpretations. But where the movie lands,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: it feels like sex work is something that you might
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: do on the path of like something more legitimate, and
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: it's treating sex work as though it's not legitimate work
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: and it's something that you might do as like a
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: stepping stone to get to the stardom that you want
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: to get to by doing.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 4: But I would say that Crystal's character also knows that
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 4: she's realistic she's saying, I've chosen sex work, right, but
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 4: she's presented as a bit of a cautionary tale in
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 4: her own way. You don't necessarily want to end up
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 4: like her because she chose to sell out. She chose
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 4: to sell herself. She made that deal with the devil,
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 4: and look where it's ended her up. She's bitter and alone.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, it's so I feel like at least Crystal's character,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: at least for me, was more open to interpretation than
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: that stock character usually is.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because it is.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is interesting watching how thoroughly jaded most
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: of the women in this story are, except for no MEI,
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 3: who is just like I don't know who knows what's
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 3: going on with me a lot of the time. But
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: there there does seem to be this like understanding that
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: most people are very frank about to the point where
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's tragic in itself. The Crystal is like,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 3: it makes sense that you would push me down the stairs.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: I'm like, Crystal, I find you to be a confident character.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 3: Why would you say that? But but like that or
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 3: a line that stuck with me was that I thought
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 3: was like interesting that they added in was the costume
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 3: designer and how she's presented, and she's like, well, you know,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: like I it's like implied she used to be a
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 3: show girl but then she like quote unquote past her
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 3: prime and she had to have a plan and a
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 3: man in place.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: And oh the choreographer, Yes, Oh the character is gay
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: who's okay, which is incredible, but like she she like,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: it's also implied that it's like you're very naive if
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: you don't have an exit plan, because you will be
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: chewed up and spit out.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 3: And yeah, like you don't want to be Crystal. You
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 3: want to have a plan and a man of what
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: you're going to do, like when you're inevitably discarded, and
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 3: the way it's like the way the game presents that
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 3: very frankly I thought was an interesting choice. Again, it's
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 3: like hard to tell exactly how the movie feels about it,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 3: but I think it's just presented as like, if you
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 3: want to survive in this very patriarchal, fucked up space,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: you have to be protecting yourself years in advance. It's like,
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I've been talking about this a lot
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: lately on the tour I've been on, but like the
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 3: idea that you know, if you're marginalized in any way
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 3: really that you need to be exceptional in order to
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 3: deserve to survive, And like that whole concept is so
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 3: normalized where it's like, for for the most part, like
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 3: you know, like the Kyle maclochins of the world are
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 3: always going to be fine and they don't need to
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 3: be really exceptional to have power and holder and maintain it.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 3: But if you are, I mean, in this case, mostly
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 3: if you are a woman, you need to be constantly
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 3: like gold Star on patrol or something horrible might happen
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 3: to you and it will be implied by the world
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 3: that you brought it on yourself somehow.
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and your only other option, I guess, is to
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 4: do what Nomi does at the end, which is just
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 4: opt out entirely.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but then go to La I feel like the
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: implication is like, well, I conquered Vegas, so now it's
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: time to go to Hollywood.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 4: Do you think so?
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 3: I didn't feel that way.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's maybe I'm just reading between the lines.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: But there's a sign that says like Los Angeles two
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty miles.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think if there had been a sequel, which
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 4: they obviously like put that sign there as like a potential,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 4: like we could revisit this idea, and then Nomi would
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 4: go do La in the exact same way that she'd
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 4: done Vegas. For sure. But I think that line that
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 4: they say at the end, which is she gets back
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 4: in the truck and he says to her, did you gamble?
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 4: And she says yes, and he says what did you win?
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 4: And she says, n me, yeah, And that's her saying
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 4: like I've decided that, you know, I can't I can't
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 4: be bought or sold. I'm you know, I had everything
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 4: offered to me and I'm walking away from it because
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 4: the cost was too high.
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I thought I thought it was very I mean,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 3: and maybe she does go to La, and like that's
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 3: a whole that feels very like pul Verhoviny of like
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 3: the Big At least it felt like in some ways.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 3: I don't know, Maybe I just feel this way about
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 3: Vegas in general, where it's like, yes, the entertainment industry
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 3: in Vegas is extremely seed and exploitative, but there is
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 3: kind of this element of it where it's like, but
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 3: it knows what it is and it's not pretending to
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 3: be like, I think that that's why, like the LA
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 3: industry is so frustrating sometimes, because it's like everyone is
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 3: pretending that we're not doing the thing that we're doing.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 3: But in Vegas they're like, no, we're doing obviously it's
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 3: happening to you right now and I don't care. And
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 3: you're like, well, at least I know here they're like, no,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: nothing is happening, like ignore the man behind the curtain
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: fucking you over, like smile better or I don't know
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 3: what am I saying.
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 4: It must be weird not having it, but anybody come
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 4: on you, Oh.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 3: My god, my god. And that character also, I mean,
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 3: we don't even have time like that guy sucks oh
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 3: so much. But that line, I mean, there's no denying
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 3: that line. Yeah, iconic.
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: Could we talk about the queer overtones, Yes, between I
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: mean more obviously between know Me and Crystal, but also
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: I was reading between Know Me and Molly as well
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: possibly others thoughts. I guess I'm just like, is this
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: I've I feel like you could make the argument that
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: it's queer baiting. I think that you could make the
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: argument that these are queer characters who are into each other,
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: but you only ever see heterosex happening on screen.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very confusing. I don't know what is it.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 4: I think what we have here is a predatory bisexual
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 4: woman and a naive young straight woman. That's what I
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 4: get from these.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 3: Characters, which is also Paul Verhoven Cannon. I mean that's like, yeah,
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 3: basic instinct all.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 4: Over it, exactly, And I don't think that's necessarily great. No,
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 4: but it's been done worse. It's been done worse by
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 4: Paul Verhoven.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 3: So yes, in a much better received movie. Right, it's
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 3: very Yeah, he definitely has a playbook and refuses to
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 3: learn a lesson, which is we love that for him? Yeah,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 3: I guess it's really I don't know it is because
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 3: I do think that, like the other predatory bisexual woman
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 3: is on display here. And I also like the kiss,
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 3: so it's Heart's girl in that way. It's a great kiss,
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 3: and I do it does seem like this movie is
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 3: trying to do the like every like quote unquote, everything
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 3: that's scandalous in nineteen ninety five has to happen in
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: this movie, and so them saving like a really sexy
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 3: kiss between women for the very end. I'm like, yeah,
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 3: I guess that's the last thing on the list. You
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 3: already had a brutal, horrific, exploitative rape scene, a ton
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 3: of nudity, a ton of sex, and it's like now
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 3: the cherry on top a gay kiss, and it's like, yep,
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 3: that's everything that people would have yelled at you for,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 3: but without like any I mean, it's not obviously anywhere
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 3: near as bad as the way that the rape scene
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 3: is handled, but just like it just seems like they're
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 3: checking boxes of like scanned list thing and not thinking
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 3: through anything, which at this point in the episode, could
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 3: you be shocked?
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 4: Basically it doesn't seem like any bisexual person I know, right, same,
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 4: it's very clearly a bisexual woman written by a straight man. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 4: so it's not great representation what but I'm not as
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 4: a queer person, I'm also not offended by it. I
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 4: guess that's where I land on queer issues in this movie.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 4: Same with the dancer who asks for a punch anally
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 4: like okay, yeah, that.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: Honestly maybe my favorite exchange of dialogue in the movie.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 4: There's too many good lines.
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: Someone's like, you want a knuckle sandwich and he's like, yeah,
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: can I have mine anally.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 4: I literally paused the movie I was watching with my husband.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 4: I'm like, do we feel okay about this? And we
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 4: were like, yeah, yeah, we're fine.
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 3: It is so campy that you're just like, sure, you're
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 3: just really watching a straight and feel his way around
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 3: in the dark entirely. He's like, oh, what a gay
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 3: man replied to this, I know.
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: Oh wait, no, real, Okay. Here's my actual favorite line
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: of the movie. Zach aka Kayle MacLaughlin is talking about
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: how he's like, I got an MBA for this, and
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: Noomi's like, what's an MBA? And he responds with, an
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: MBA is a degree you pick up in college. That's
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: not quite if we're like college being like a four
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: year undergrad thing. NBA is a master's I should know.
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: I have a master's degree in screenwriting. I would never
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: mention it. But he's acting like it's something like you
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: go to undergrad and you get an MBA. No, and
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: then he says and it's mostly worthless in the real world. Also, No,
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: he's what he means is a master's degree in screenwriting.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: That's the thing that's worthless in the real world.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 3: That's I mean, I thought I thought that was like
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 3: somewhat intentional, but I love because they're just like because
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 3: he's like sucks like he says, and he's also being
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 3: especially after the verses debacle, he's also being just like
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 3: condescending to her. He's like, Ah, why bother explaining it
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 3: to you? You wouldn't get it. I don't think you're smart.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 4: Right, Absolutely, if we're doing favorite lines, please mine is
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 4: when Henrietta says she says to this sleazy guy about
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 4: know me that she looks better than a ten inch dick.
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 4: Oh, and for all of the problems with this movie,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 4: the fact that we got this line really really does
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 4: go a long way to make me feel a lot
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 4: better about it.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, very mine. I'm going with the classic must
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 3: be weird not having anybody come on you, I mean, yeah,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 3: just perfectly delivered. And then the cut to Elizabeth Berkeley's
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 3: reaction is what it's so confusing, but.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 4: Also the sentiment mental music while he says it, it's delivered.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 3: So since it's that poor actor where I'm just like
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 3: they could he couldn't have known how they were going
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 3: to edit that feel so aggressive. Loved it, loved it,
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 3: loved it. Yeah, this I mean, this is just like,
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 3: it's it's so interesting talking about camp movies on this show,
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 3: because it's like, in some ways our show is simply
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 3: not built for it. But I feel like over the
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 3: years we've we've developed a way to talk about camp movies. Yeah,
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 3: I don't, I don't know. I mean, is there anything
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 3: else that y'all wanted to touch on?
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: I'll just share a couple fun facts. These are pulled
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: from scholarly journal Wikipedia. For the most part, I hope
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: I think they're still true, although these might be a
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: bit outdated. But as far as I know, this is
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: the highest grossing NC seventeen production of all time. So
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: even though it was a flop at the box office
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: because it got a wide theatrical release, its budget was
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: also forty five million dollars and it only ended up
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: grossing I think like thirty seven thirty eight worldwide. But
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: even though it was a flop because of the size
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: of its budget theatrically, it was still a high grossing
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: NC seventeen movie. It went on to gross over one
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: hundred million dollar WARS in home video sales, and wonder
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: why that could be?
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 3: People wanted to watch this movie privately shocking.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: It was nominated for thirteen Golden Raspberry Awards AK thirteen Razzies.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 3: I was like, wow, what so formal of you?
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, which was a record at the time and might
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: still be the record number of nominations.
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 4: I think it's been tied by that Lindsay Lohan movie
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 4: where she also plays a stripper.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: Right, are you referring to I Know Who Killed.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 4: That movie is really really.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: Fab I haven't seen it come back, okay in that movie.
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: So Showgirls got thirteen nominations and won seven of the awards,
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: which at the time was a record. It was beaten
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: by I Know Who Killed Me, which won eight, and
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: then History Jack and Jill from twenty twelve, which I
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: think is an Adam Sandler movie.
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, that movie is genuinely horrible.
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: It won ten Razzies.
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah wow. So those are just my fun facts.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 3: Does this movie past the Bechdel test, Well, folks, it does.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: It does passes a lot. They're talking about chips, they're
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: talking about nail polish, dog food, dog food food.
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 3: The three the four things talk about. Oh, it is
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 3: just such a treat watching this this writer try to
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 3: it's so weird like and also that he was. I mean,
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 3: it talk about the way that straight men are permitted
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 3: to flop around for their entire careers. The fact that,
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 3: like he was like one of the most high highest
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 3: paid writers in Hollywood at the time. Yeah, God, this
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 3: always infuriates me. It's like learning about why Wes Anderson's
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 3: career took off, where he just sort of came in
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 3: and he was like, I have this idea, what do
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 3: you think And they're like, here's five million dollars, best
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 3: of luck, and you're like, wow, absolutely kill me. But
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 3: the same deal. I mean, at this point, Joe Esther
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 3: has had like had hits under his belt. It makes
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 3: sense that he was able to sell a movie, but
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 3: the fact that he like wrote this down on a
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 3: napkin where he's like women Vegas and they're like, we'll
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 3: give you two million dollars to figure it out, and
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 3: you're like, are you joking? Like unbelievable TSK. But anyway,
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's what I can only be so mad
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 3: because I'm happy that this movie exists. He also wrote
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 3: Flash Dance, and he also wrote Basic Instinct, and his
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 3: career did actually take a hit for having written this movie.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 3: So even men suffered consequences. This movie was considered such
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 3: a failure if you can imagine whoops. Oh but no,
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 3: but this was he was in his prime because he
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 3: got three million dollars to write Basic Instinct. Then he
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 3: got two million dollars for writing down a vague idea
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 3: that sounded sort of like show Girls on a napkin
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 3: in Hawaii. Yes, and then they were like, figure it out.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 3: And then the movie he made he wrote after this
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 3: was called Jade, another erotic thriller. I mean, that's his wheelhouse,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 3: which is bizarre for someone who seems to struggle with
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 3: basic mechanics of sex whatever. For Jade, he is paid
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 3: one point five million dollars for a two page outline. Wow,
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 3: and then in ninety seven they make him work for it.
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 3: He's paid two point five million dollars for a four
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 3: page outline.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 4: So but it's like, oh wow, wow, Wow, imagine people
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 4: having that much faith in you. I really cannot relate.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 3: No, I like, I cannot can't wrap my head around
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 3: it probably feels great, And he's like, why would you
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 3: learn how sex works if you were just like paid
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 3: two point five million dollars to be like, I'm flailing.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 4: Around, dangerous hot lady.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 6: Yes, wow, Wellpet, it really does onto our nipple scale
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 6: where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 6: on examining the film through an intersectional feminist lens, and
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 6: I would.
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: Say based on the movies really murky framing of sex
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: work based on the way it treats characters of color,
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: which I wanted to include. Just one last quote from
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: Gina Rivera, who has spoken about her role being cast
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: as the black best friend trope character. Yeah, she said, quote,
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: it's the Hattie McDaniel role where you take care of
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: the needs of the white woman and you don't have
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: a storyline of your own. It was a difficult decision
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: for me, but it was also one of the first
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: movies I was ever going to do. A lot of
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: black girls have to do that job, and I had
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: to start somewhere, which is just like so common for
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: black actors to have to take roles like this because
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: it's all that's available, It's all that anyone cares to write,
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: especially in an era where Hollywood and this is still
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: a very true, but like the industry is run by
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: white people who don't care to tell the stories of
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: people of color, and things are slowly changing and improving,
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: But in the mid nineties especially, like it was just
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: so bleak and the opportunities and roles available to black
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: actors were so frequently this type of.
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 3: Role where you're the.
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: Best friend of the lead, you're catering to their storyline,
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: you are kind of disappeared from the story for large swaths,
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: you're assaulted. It's just all these horrible things that tend
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: to happen to characters like this and that.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 3: On top of that, she was brutalized at length in
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 3: the movie and had lasting I mean, and the effects
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 3: that that had, Like it's just yeah, which kind of like,
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, for me, it's like if Paul Verhoven was
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 3: attempting to comment on race at all, like he failed.
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 3: If that is how his leading black actor feels about
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 3: her experience like working on this movie.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 4: Right, Also, even in the world of the movie, poor Mollie,
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 4: her friend's just left town. She's still in the hospital.
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 4: She's fucking unconscious, right, I.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: Don't even think she's fully conscious when Gnomi visits her
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: in the hospital.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 4: No, exactly, she's just gonna wake up and be like,
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 4: what happened? Yeah, it's awful.
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: I guess my friend abandoned me.
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 3: I didn't even think of that. Yeah, then she just leaves.
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 4: She beat up that guy for me. I guess, so
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 4: I'm fine.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: Right, Like It's just so, there's a lot of things
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: the movie isn't handling well, as we've discussed. I think
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: it does do a better job than most movies do
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: when they're when examining the reasons why women might be
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: in conflict, and it contextualizes it and provides this commentary
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: on the often exploitative nature of the entertainment industry. The
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: movie has a still a pretty narrow scope of that,
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: and it could dig a little bit deeper. But it
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: is kind of the one thing that I think the
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: movie is doing more successfully as far as like commentary goes,
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: would I say that it's brilliant satire, not necessarily for
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: me at least. I think it's gonna be like one
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: and a half or two nipples, because I do like
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: no me, and I do like that she's very she
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't take shit from anyone. She stands up for herself constantly.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: I like to see this in a female character. But
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: the movie's a.
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 3: Mess, so a mess, A glorious mess.
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: A glorious mess. Two nipples. I will give one to
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: no me's fingernails, and I'll give I thought she's good,
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: the other to her constant thrashing.
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 3: About yes, I'll meet you at two. I think that
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 3: there is a series of failures to launch commentary in
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 3: this movie. There are definitely attempts. I want to like
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 3: honor those attempts. And also, I mean, particularly the rape
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 3: scene and the treatment of Molly's character in particular just
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 3: is so glaringly wrong, and like even in nineteen ninety
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 3: five was glaringly wrong. I think it's so fascinating what
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 3: you're saying, Crystal about how you need to like circumnavigate
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 3: that scene and that plot point in order to feel
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 3: like you are celebrating this movie in a way that
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 3: feels okay. And so the presence of that is just like, well,
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 3: that's an indefensible thing, and especially that it had such
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 3: a real life impact, it's so bizarre. I mean, I
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 3: guess I'm also taking into account the history of the
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 3: movie where it's like they're trying to do the thing,
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 3: but then they're also like doing the thing that they
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 3: claim to be commenting on, which is always kind of messy,
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 3: and any I feel like That's true of many movies
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 3: that are attempting to comment on showbiz where they're like, Wow,
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 3: the world's greatest showbiz commentary and they didn't pay their editors,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 3: and you're like, well, what's the point of this then,
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 3: So there is like a little bit of that syndrome
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 3: going on. But yeah, I am pretty into know Me,
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 3: I love Know Me, I love Crystal, I love the dancing,
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 3: and I love I Mean. It's problematic in every way
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 3: you can imagine. And I also like, it's so easy
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 3: to understand why people love this movie and want to
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 3: continue to celebrate it, and there are things that make
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 3: it hard to do. And these these things are are
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 3: both very true. So I'm going to go to nipples
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 3: and I'm going to give them both to cars that
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 3: know Me kicks his slaps, Those poor cars, Those poor cars,
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 3: non binary icon, those cars. Crystal.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: How about you? What do you say?
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 4: I think that there is an alternate universe, as you've
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 4: both described, where this movie did not destroy a bunch
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 4: of women's careers and it doesn't have a brutal rape scene,
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 4: and we could give it three or four nipples. That
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 4: is not the world that we live in. And I
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 4: think I'm gonna be harsher just because I have my
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 4: own residual guilt about how much I have previously, unquestioningly
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 4: loved this movie. And I'm going to give it one nipple?
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 4: And where am I going to give it? Different places?
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: Where are you from, Nomi? Different places?
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 4: Different places?
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: Well, Crystal, thank you so much for joining us. This
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: has been an absolute treat. Come back any time.
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 4: I've really really loved it. Thank you so much for
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 4: having me. Oh, you've both become my strange parasocial friends,
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 4: so that's quite weird for me.
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: Now we're real friends.
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 4: Now we're real friends. Yay. True?
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: Where can people check out your work? Follow you on
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: social media?
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 3: Etc?
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 4: Is it too soon to do another different places joke?
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: Or no? Keep going.
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 4: You can listen to my podcasts The Things That Made
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 4: Me Queer wherever those podcasts can be found. But it's
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 4: a I interview different special guests about pop culture things
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 4: that help them understand their queer identities. So things like
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 4: show Girls come up a lot. If you want to
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 4: hear us talk about Catwoman or Jean Claude van Dam
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 4: doing the Splits, all these kinds of things. It's the
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 4: podcast for you and other than that. Yeah, go check
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 4: out my Instagram or my Twitter wherever else I'm sharing nonsense,
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 4: it's Crystal will see you now on all those platforms.
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: Wonderful.
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for coming on again. This was
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 3: so much fun. Where is the where's the coming joke?
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 3: What is it against? Yeah?
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: Is it weird to it was?
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was weird not having anyone come on, but
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 4: I'm glad I was here.
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: If we could promise one thing on the Bechel Cast,
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: we will not come on people.
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 3: We've just never. We've just it's just never. It's it
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 3: would be unprecedented right on the show.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Bechtel Cast. Also,
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: we always forget to plug this, but our link tree
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: has things such as our letterbox to count Oh.
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 3: I was like, do we plug link tree? Is that
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 3: a thing? You know?
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: But it's an avenue by which you can find other
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: things of ours, such as our Patreon Yeah, where you
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: can get two bonus episodes every single month, plus access
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: to the back catalog. We do fun themes, or I
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: think they're fun. Hopefully other people do too.
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 3: I was like, is that an attack on me? No?
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: No, no, I I'm maybe being too confident. I'm not
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: sure not this.
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 3: I think they're fun unlike this bitch.
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: Go get me a beer.
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 3: No, I won't say that's how that was triggering for me,
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 3: because that's how Caitlin talks to me.
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: You have no idea what happens off Mike listeners.
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 3: It's shocking.
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: Anyway. Patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast five dollars a month,
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: do it?
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 3: Well, how do we end this? Let's get in out,
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 3: Let's get in a car merch also, oh yeah, get
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 3: get merch Teapublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast. Honestly,
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 3: we don't get a lot of money from that, so
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 3: you do whatever you want.
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: True, we're not good at selling ourselves.
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 3: If you want it, you should get it. If you
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 3: don't want it, you're basically just handing money to iHeartRadio,
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 3: which is interesting. And on that note.
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get in the car and that we've hit
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: and then hitchhike with Jeff to different places.
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 4: Different place.
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 3: That is a very cursed I mean, there's a cursed
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 3: nineties rom common. They're somewhere of like they keep passing
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 3: this this suitcase back and forth. When are these two
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 3: kids gonna figure it out.
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 4: The only thing they have in common is they both
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 4: don't like Garth Brooks.
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 3: And yet we're gonna spend the next two hours telling
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 3: you that they were made for each other.
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, Bye,