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My Big Fat Greek Wedding with George Civeris · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the beck dol Cast. The questions asked if movies
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and husbands, or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: in best start changing it with the Beckdel Cast. Hello,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: my name is Caitlin Darante. Sorry I just throwing my
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: last name. Oh should we start over. I don't appreciate
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a power move at you. I've had a long day.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I realized today that I I cugged myself real bad today.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I like fully admit I look like shit. I've been
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: sitting in a room that listen. I know, I know.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I was sitting in a room full of old men.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: It smelled like Panera bread all day. And I realized
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I was wearing my own merch out in the world again,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: which is truly sinful and and tacky and gross. And
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't care who says it's not it is. Well,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I think you're brave for doing it. What I meant
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to say was loftest is my last name. This is
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: our podcast. This is our podcast. We use the Bechtel test,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: which is a test that was created by cartoonist Alison
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Bechtel in the comic Dikes to Watch Out For And
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: it's getting into the history right now. I just had
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: to really give a history lesson Um. It's a media test.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: It's a media test that requires that a movie, usually
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: is what it's applied to, has too female identifying characters
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: with names who speak to each other about something other
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: than a man. And our version, our bar is only
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that it is at least a two line exchange. Yes,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: did you see that? This is not an example of
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: something that would pass the Bechtel test? But I just
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: had a quick question, Oh please, do you see the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: m R A who was tweeting at us today? But
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: he was like it was I thought he was actually
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: kind of funny because it was incoherent. Did you see
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: he was like, I couldn't understand a word that happened
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: in this audio file. More male voices are needed. And
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: then he sent us a link to like women of
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: America demand larger mirrors, Like, I don't know what that
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: link he sent one don't know. He also made fun
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: of us for saying like too much yeah, which is
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: a fun criticis of that? I adore? Right? I love it.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: It's I don't know what, What the funk do you
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: want for me? I don't I almost I want a
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: larger mirror. That's what all women went. Um you know
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: that movie. What women want, it's just about larger mirrors,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: gives them large to second theories of large mirrors. Oh god, alright,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: so we talked about the portrayal and representation of women
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: in cinema. Yeah, we use the Betel test to initiate
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: a larger conversation about that. Today we have. This is
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: a special time in Bactel caast history because if you
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: perhaps were aware or may have noticed, we have an
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: embargo on mail guests until until we lifted it just
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: for this very special much consideration. There were meetings, there
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: were outrage. Was I was going to say, this is
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: our Brexit. I don't know why it's not good but anyways,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: but rest a, we've lifted it today, back down, putting
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: back down. But we are very excited for today's guest
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and for today's movie. So help us in welcoming. He's
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: straightened up. He's a comedian. He's been featured in the
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Just for Last Festival. He's visiting from New York City.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Ever heard of it. It's George Sabars Sabas the only
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: good man. Welcome After you repeated them, Well, I repeat,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: women say to me, and that's how I learned. How
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: else would I know anything? Yeah, as we learned from
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the movie. Um, there was one line where he's like,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: this is why women shouldn't learn. It was literally, this
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: is why women shouldn't get an education. After thirty years,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: he let her take one computer class, which I whatever
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: we can get, we'll get into it. We'll get into it.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: It's like, what did she learn at that computer class?
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Do you mean the computers and tourism seminar? She's a hacker.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: If she needs computers, it's pretty sure you're just calling
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: American airlines. It's actually a prequel to Hackers, a favorite. Yeah, God,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: let's check out our Bonus Matron episode on Hacker. This movie, well,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: it does have Joey Fatone, which I forgot and I
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: squee I was watching it at work. So we're talking
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: about my big fat Greek wedding. Yes, so George tell
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: us your history your relationship with this movie. Okay, Well,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: just like very quick background on my ethnic identity. Um,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: my parents are fully Greek and they grew up in
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Greece and then they moved here for grad school. Then
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I was born specifically to get American citizenship, and then
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I was like shipped back to Greece. Um. And then
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: throughout my life, I moved back and forth between Greece
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: in America. So I was in Greece in my early childhood.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Then I lived in New Jersey from like second grade
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: to eighth grade, and then I moved back to Greece
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: for high school. So and this movie came out when
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I was living in New Jersey. So it was like
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: at the point where I was very much like a
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Greek American and like had not gotten back in touch
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: with my Greek character after moving back for high school,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: so it was very like relatable to me. Um. So
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I guess it came out when I was in I
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: was like twelve, and then I watched it enough times
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: where I'm not exaggerating, I could recite the movie every
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: single word of it from beginning to end with my
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: best friend at the time in middle school, who then
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: turned out what happened and then turned out to also
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: be getting No. No No, we're still friends, but it's just
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: it was are the two things we really liked were
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: my big Factorek wedding and making the band too um.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: And then the other thing was that at the time
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of our family friends were Indian and that
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: was the year that Bennett like Beckham came out. So
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I remember distinctly like having a double feature that was
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: like big Factreek wedding and Bendett like Beckham, and then
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: our parents just being like, you know, at the end
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: of the day, the immigrant experience is like so universal,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and I was like, we agree, that's beautiful. It was
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: very beautiful. I was thinking about Bennett like Beckham at
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: a few different points, and I mean it just because
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: of it revolves around a wedding, like it's a good
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: double feature. Yeah, solid double feature. Indeed, Jamie, what's your
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: history with my big fat Greek wedding? Love It Love
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: The first grown up movie I was allowed to see
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: in theaters. I remember, I don't remember. I don't remember
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: what my mom said that we were going to see,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: but it was I was like whatever, I'm you know,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I'm nine, I'm grown up and this is stupid. And
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: then we got to the movie theater. She was like, twist,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: we're seeing a kissing movie. And she brought me to
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: see My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and I loved it
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: so much, and I used to be able to recite
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it where it was like I hadn't seen this movie
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: and at least five years, but there were still like
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: scenes that like triggered my brain of like, oh, I
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: know exactly what's happening word by word, even though I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: still know it as a nine or ten year old would. Yeah,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I loved it. I used to My favorite use of
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: this movie, like when I was like young and then
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: like going into early teenager, was whenever I watched a
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: scary movie, because I was really not good with them
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: when I was young, I would be like, well, I'll
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: watch a scary movie, but we have to watch My
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Big Greek Wedding afterwards, because I could never be afraid.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: After watching that, it got to cleanse the palette. It
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: makes me feel very safe. That's a beautiful story, a
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: lot of beautiful stories around and then comes that it's not.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: But a sure way to get me to have no
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: interest in a movie is to put either wedding or
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: bride or princess or something along those lines in the title.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I did see this movie. I don't think I saw
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: in the theater, but I saw it within I think
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: a year of it coming out, but it was only
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: that one time, and I didn't rewatch it again until
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: like yesterday. The one thing I remembered from it was
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the wind X because my my mom had the same thing.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: She didn't like, spray your injuries with windex. But the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: only cleaning product that she would use on anything ever
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: all the time, whether it was like a glass surface,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: which is what it's supposed to be for, if it
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: was would if it was tile, if it was carpet,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: any like brick, she wouldn't use wind X. So that
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: was my main connection to the movie. But yeah, I
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: remember thinking, oh, this is cool, and I remember at
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the time there was all this kind of publicity and
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: news around it about it being this indie film that
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: made so much money at the box office budget five million,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: box office three hundred sixty eight million. I think it's
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the highest grossing romantic comedy of all time, or at
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: least it was it had been. Yeah, I don't know
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: if I was trying to read up about it. I'm
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: still not clear if anything has beat it since then,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it was a huge box office hit and
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: everyone was like, hey, you can make an indie movie
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and it'll be a great hit. And I was like,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to apply this to my film career
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: in a few years. But anyway, so I didn't have
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: any sort of attachment to it growing up. So there's
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: my history I forgot. I also saw this movie the
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: year before I made my first friend who had Greek parents,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: and she was like, she loved this movie and she
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: was just thrilled to have like a benchmark of like,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: you know, lie, my big fat Greek wedding. I was like, oh,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: because otherwise I wouldn't have. I just knew about Irish
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: people screaming at each other. Yeah, it was. There were
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: so many things that like then I would get asked,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: like the spitting, for example, like do people really spit
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: on each other or like it's like it's The answer
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: is that it's not. It's like a symbolic No one
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: is actually spitting saliva. It's just like you make the
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: sound of like to like and then it's like a
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: symbolic thing. Wait, I want to say one more thing,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: which is that the first time I saw this movie
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: was when we were visiting my family in Greece. For
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the summer, and I saw it in an outdoor movie
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: theater in Greece like during the summer, so it was
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: like but what was funny about it was that because
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: like the audience was I mean, it's kind of like
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: how crazy rich Asians bombed in China. Like Greek people
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: don't relate to like the Greek American story, Like it's not.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: So people were like very lukewarm about it around me
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: when I saw it in the movie theater, and then
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: people were also kind of like this is offensive. I
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, okay, it is my favorite movie. Even
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: did you have like relatives or people you knew that
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that found it offensive towards Greek people. I mean, the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: thing is like, okay, even like my family is not
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: really like the family that's were traded in the movie.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: And it's mostly because like we had this weird childhood
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: or we kind of moved back and forth and actually
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: like maintained a lot of contact with Greece the country,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: and we like spoke Greek at home, and I think
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: that also made us less prone to like kind of
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: bring Greece with us to America because we were like
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: we we have a connection to it, like we go
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: there like twice a year, so we were we never
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: had like, you know, Greek statues like in our home,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: or like we we didn't like your garage door wasn't
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: the Greek right exactly, or like or like, for instance,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: they go to Greek school in the movie, but like
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: we spoke Greek at home, and so that was never
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: like the thing that we did. But at the same time,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I was in spaces, like when we would go to
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: church and stuff where I would absolutely recognize like the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: types of people that were portrayed in the movie. So
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I would say related to it on a more superficial
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: level than maybe someone else who was like a second
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: generation Greek American that was like you know, born and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: raised in Chicago or New York or something. Um, But
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I still very much recognize all the characters, And I
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: think what Greek people maybe responded poorly to was just that,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: like it was kind of exaggerating all the most funny
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: parts of Greek culture. And I do think that like
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: if Greek people faced more discrimination, then yes, I could
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: be convinced that it's like problematic, but I feel like
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: ultimately they don't, so like it's okay for me to
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: laugh at these things because it's not like they're perpetuating
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: some like extremely harmful stereotype. It's like affecting Greek people
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: in like sure right the world. That's what's tricky with
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: this was like I just truly I wasn't familiar with
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: any Greek stereotypes and this was my first encounter with
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: anything Greek. And then after this movie came out, we
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: went to the Greek Festival in Brockton, Massachusetts every single
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: year because we're like, love that movie, let's go, let's
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: get greatly. I don't know, like we would just do
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: it afterwards. But it was like, unlike a lot of
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: movies that turn up stereotypes, I wasn't even familiar with
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the stereotypes. It was like tricky even watching this, I
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: was like, I don't I don't know. I'm assuming it's
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: probably a little offensive and over the top, but like,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like what is kind of
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: stereotypically known about Jewish families and Italian families also sort
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: of applies to Greek families, and that there's a lot
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: of focus on food and like family gatherings and that
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. That's yeah, I think about the sod
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: because so many people. Obviously that's like such a common
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: comparison of like Jewish families, the town family, and Greek families.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: But then there's also like more broadly speaking, like immigrant families,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: like sometimes you know whatever, and then there's like you know,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I mean I was mentioning before, like Indian families. There's
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: you can make comparisons there, and I feel like ultimately
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: what the Separation Act is between literally wasps and everyone else,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Like I actually think that there's more of a difference
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: between wasps and non wasps than there is between like
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: and I'm not saying this in terms of like systemic discrimination.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I'm saying this in terms of just like family culture.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I genuinely think there's more of a difference there than
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: between like a Greek family and an Italian family and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: a Jewish family, And so right for me, and what
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, wasps in this movie do not come up
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: too well, nor should they. But it was like there
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: was what but that scene where Ian's mom is like
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: screaming in someone's face like it's a bunt cake. I
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: was like, what is wrong with you? That whole scene
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: to me was very weird because it's like you have
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: that overreaction and then you cut to the aunt and
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: she's like, I consumed my twin in the womb, Like
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: why is this coming up? I used to be my
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: favorite part, but I was like, this is fucking totally
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: very strange. Yeah, love this movie. Well shall I do
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the recap? Okay? So we meet Tula to be in
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: love with a woman named Tula. My mom's name is
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: not Tula. So Tula played by nia is It Vardalos,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: who also wrote the movie. We get to know her
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: a little bit as a young child, growing up as
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: like a second generation Greek woman in a suburb of Chicago,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: has a huge Greek family and they put a lot
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: of pressure on her to get married to specifically a
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Greek man as soon as possible. She works in the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: family restaurant, and um, you know, she's really happy with
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: her life. She feels kind of stuck. She's and it's
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: like the whole thing is like she's third, she's well,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: she's on her like she's way past her expiration date.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: She's sweat. It's just like, oh no, yeah, she's wearing glasses,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: which is code for I'm not fuck. I didn't I
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: forgot how over the top Tula one point, oh was
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, she is just headed
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: toe neutral, she's wild. So she works at the family
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: restaurant and one day a relative, Joey for Tone, is
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: her cousin. We meet her mom and her dad, her
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: sister brother, a couple of her cousins, a couple of
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: her aunts and uncles. Is Joey fatone Greek. He's Italian
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: because he's doing an Italian accent. I mean a lot
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: of a lot of people in the cast are Italian.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I was just like, hold on joy for as thrilled
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: as I am to see him anywhere. He's doing a
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: pasta meat box. What is he doing anyways? Yeah, so
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: we meet different members of her family. You know, she's
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: just like, everyone wants me to get married. And then
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: this guy comes into the restaurant one day. Is he hot?
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: He is handsome. He's not for me. I don't know.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not whatever he means exactly right. I
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: couldn't do it anyway. So he's fine. Um, but she
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: his hair is too long in this that's my problem. Well,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: the important thing is she finds him attract she does,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: so she has glasses. What's she going to do and
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: she sees him and she's just like smitten. She's hiding
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: behind stuff, crouching down, whether she's hot or not, she's
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: hiding behind the large objets. So then she starts to
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: get her life together and she enrolls in computer classes
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: at a local college because she wants to help the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: restaurant run more efficiently. Um. She gives herself a little makeover,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and then she starts working at her aunt's travel agency. Yes,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: after that scene where she advocates for herself, says, Hi,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I can turn on the computer. I would like to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: work here, and her aunt says okay. And then the
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: aunt the mom in Tula have to all convince the
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: data was his idea. You have to incept him yes,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: which was fun to watch, and that's how Christopher Nolan
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: got the idea for inception. He wants that scene yes. Um.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: So then a short time later, she crosses paths with
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: this guy again who she thought was so handsome and
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: his name is Ian and he asks her out on
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: a date. Hens like it's punched by an old lady
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the ship because he's goofing around. I see that scene.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I'm laughing, sorry, um. And then Tula and Ian start
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: dating and for the first time in a long time,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: she's happy. But her family doesn't know about this relationship,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and he's not great because he's not Greek. And when
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: her mom and dad find out that she has been
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: dating this non Greek man, they throw of it and
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: they want her to stop seeing him, but they're all like, no,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: we're in love. We're not going to stop seeing each other.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: And then and then you see him at the school,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: and then I was like, Okay, he is handsome for
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: some reason. Once I saw him teaching that maybe that's
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: what it was, even though we've already been told that
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: glasses equals not fuckable, but that role doesn't apply to
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: men forgot. Meanwhile, her family is trying to set her
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: up with a Greek man, and all of those candidates
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: are not appealing to Tula. Then she meets Ian's parents
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and they are very bland and very waspy and pretty racist.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: And then Ian asks her to marry him, and she's like, yes,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: please sign me up. And Tula's dad is distraught by
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: this because he's like, I thought she would get married
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: in a Greek Orthodox church and she can't do that
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: if she marries an on Greek. So then he converts
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: bcically like it's baptized. Get him to the green and
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: it's like when his family is in the church and
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: like it's all Greek to me, and like, oh my god,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: stop it. You're wild for this one. So he's getting
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: his head dunked in an inflatable Katie pool fun, very
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: fun seeing and m lavin and then the family starts
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: to accept Ian for who he is. They like his hair,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: they like his hair, They celebrate Easter with him, they
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: play some language barrier goofs on him, and they start
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: planning the wedding. There's some scenes with some invitations and
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: some bridesmaids gown. The brother also starts going to night
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: school to he wants to be an artist. We love that, yeah,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: because and Tula inspired him. Um. Then they invite Ian's
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: parents over so that the families can meet each other.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: And that's the whole like buntcake scene. It Eventually it's
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the day of the wedding, and it's the wedding. It
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: just happens. Yeah, when it happens, and which goes wrong
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: at the wedding? No, And I just get to watch
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: a nice wedding at the end. Yeah, and then uh,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: they're at the reception and there's dancing and everyone's having
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: a good time, and then we flash forward. She gets
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: pregnant right away, right away. Well, also her parents get
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: her a gift by her. But the twist is it's
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: right next door. Also Dad accepts Ian, sure, sure, and
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: it's one big, happy family. And then she's like, hey, daughter,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: who's six years old. You can marry anyone you want,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: the end long as you get married. And she has
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: to go to Greek school, so they are keeping the
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: traditional Yes, indeed, so that is the movie. Let's take
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: a quick break and then we'll come right back. Okay,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and we're back. Oh what a what a time we've had.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: We do. We're dunking each other, we're baptizing each other.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: My big thing with this movie is that the movie
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: feels like it's being set up where Tula seems like
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: she's being somewhat critical of her culture, where it's like, oh,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: all these expectations are being foisted upon me that are
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: fairly archaic and sexist, where it's like, oh, you, as
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: a woman, there's three things that are expected of you.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Marry a man, have babies, and then make food for
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: all of those people, and it feels like this is
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: gonna be because I didn't really remember what the story
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: was about, although wedding is entitled, so I did to
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: sort of remember that there was a wedding, but I
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: like couldn't totally remember how much she like challenged the
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: status quo kind of thing and it and it sets
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: it up in the beginning where it's she seems like
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: she's being critical of these standards, and you know, she
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel that it's fair that all these family members
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: are expecting her to get married and all this stuff.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: But then she meets a guy, and the whole rest
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: of the movie is focused on her relationship to this
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: man and her ultimately fulfilling these expectations that were voisted
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: upon her, so that I feel like, so how do
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: we feel? I I don't there this movie, Okay, I
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: remembered lots of scenes by heart, I didn't remember the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: exact arc of the movie, like as it pertains to
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: how we're watching it this time, I don't know. I mean,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: there was a good five minutes in this movie where
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I'm like, this is good, this is We're going in
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the right direction. Where there I thought that there was
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: for making a horrible noise in my mouth. Just on.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I thought that the makeover scene was gonna bug me
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: more than it did. The reason it did not bother
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: me that much, even though you know it is whatever
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: we can dig into, like, oh, the more conventionally attractive
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: you appear, the happier you must be sure. But at
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: least I didn't remember that the makeover was motivated by
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: her and her wanting to do something for herself, which
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I appreciated, and it was like a part of a
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: package deal of stuff. She did not to impress a guy,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: even though we see that they met before. But from
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: what my understanding of it is, she does it because
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: she wants to. And she's like, I want to learn
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: how to turn on a computer, and her dad's like,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: this is the women have gone too far. They're turning
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: on computers. My favorite line, it's downtown. And then she,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, she does take her glasses off. We have
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: what I think is an egregiously long scene trying to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: get a contact, like literally, how do contact? I need
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: to take the computers and contact seminar. We see here
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: at the seminar, and and so at very least it's
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: not a Princess Diaries thing. It's not a she's all
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: that thing, it's you know, she does Tula does glow
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: up that spans across all areas of her life that's
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: motivated for her to make her feel more comfortable at
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: where she's at, so that I appreciate I had the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: same read on it, although part of me was like, Oh,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: this all happens after she sees this guy for the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: first time, So it made me wonder, like, was that
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: the cattle us that gets her to be like, I've
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: got to get my life together so that he might
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: be interested in me if I ever see him again.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: But the movie doesn't necessarily do anything specific to suggest
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: that's what's happening. Maybe that's just that was the chronological
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: order of the events of the story. But I couldn't
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: help but think, Okay, it's not until she sees him
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: that she starts to like whip her life into shape
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. But I did agree that like the makeover,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: it seems to be more that she gives herself a
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: makeover because she just wants to look different, or you know,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: to give her look a little boost to make herself
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: more confident, right, because usually makeovers and movies like this,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: like the ones you mentioned, it's something that's thrust upon
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: a woman by other people, and it's usually so that
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: she can be They're usually like you need to look better,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: usually to be more attractive to men. And it's also
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: not so extreme of a makeover that you're like, WHOA Like,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: she definitely looks different, but it's not like a Anne
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Hathaway whipping around and it looks like a different person, right,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and she doesn't act that differently after it happens. I
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: don't know. This was like one of the movies that
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: we've talked about that there's a makeover sort of that
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: didn't super bother me, say, George would say, I feel
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: like it's it's there's almost like a narrative of like
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: a delayed or a prolonged adolescence kind of and like
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: her makeover is is almost like just the experience that
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: anyone would go through when they're like going to college
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: kind of like it's like she's been stuck in this
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: almost like prolonged I don't want to say prolonged high
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: school experience. It's very condescending, but but like she's been
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: kind of like in the orbit of her family and
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: no one else. She still lives, still lives at home,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: you know, she still works with her family whatever, and
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: you know, she has kind of put off like trying
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: anything outside of comfort zone. So I think it, I mean,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the physical makeover is just kind of like the easiest
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: way it to denote the fact that she is like
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: taking risks and like putting herself out there. And I
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: don't know, there's kind of like a really interesting tug
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: of war in the movie where she's kind of figuring
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: out how much of her past and her culture she
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: wants to hang onto and how much of it she's
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: like okay, you know, straying from And I think it
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: towes that line pretty well. I mean there's like the scene,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: for example, where she's like finally eating like a bland
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: sandwich with the blonde girls, but then it's so she's
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: like trying that out. But then it's like at the end,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: she still decides she wants to be a part of
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the you know, Greek community. So it's which I think
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: is like there's no correct way to portray that journey, um,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: and I think she does a very good job in
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: my opinion, and the fact that her little like makeover
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: confidence boost that she's giving herself coincides with the fact
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: that she's also furthering her education and like wanting to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: learn a new and still her job. And yeah, she's
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: like changing her life. That's why it wasn't like take
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: off the glasses, you're a new person. Yeah, this was like, oh,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: she's like just doing some work on herself. I admire
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: that also just in terms of like the representation of
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the women in the film, Like that entire part of
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the movie where it's basically like the three women like her,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: her mom, and her aunt kind of like devising this plan.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I thought was like, really well done. I want to
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: talk about that same because we mentioned this in the recap.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: But the whole thing is that Tula wants to work
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: at her aunt's travel agency, but she knows that her dad,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: being like the patriarch and the head of the household,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: won't go for it unless he thinks he's come up
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: with the idea. So the three of them get together
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: like okay, we need to accept him. First of all.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: It's really funny the way that like the aunt especially
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: is acting. She's like so rehearsed and like a robot.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: She does not know how to improvise. She needs to
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: take a UCB class or something, but so that that
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: seems really funny. And then we as the audience, we're
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: let in on the secret it where the dad kind
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: of looks like an idiot because he's like, yes, it's
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: my idea, and you needed a man all along for
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: me to figure out this really smart thing that I
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: came up with. And then we are like, t he
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: he's actually an idiot because they already came up with
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: this idea. Um that I enjoyed that too, and that
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: came after I believe you see Tula's mom and dad
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: have They have several scenes together and then most of
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: them tol his mom ends up taking the dad down
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to I don't know what what what phraseing my searching
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: for takes him down a notch. I'm sorry, Hi, I'm
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: a fucking idiot. Women shouldn't be educated. But their first
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: scene when Tula, a thirty year old woman, wants to
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: take a computer class and her dad's like, she'll die
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: if she leaves the house, and uh, you know it
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: makes the comment about this is why women should get
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: an education is out of control and the mom immediately
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: snaps at him and says, what you don't think that
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: that I'm as smart as you. I run the restaurant
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: for you, I raised kids for you, I ran the
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: house for you, and I teach Sunday school. I was
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: like the mic drop on the Sunday lucky, I have
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: you to tie my shoes so good and so and
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: and then later she and Tula have that scene where
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: was the lame the mom said, where she's like, oh, well,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: sure the man's the head of she can turn the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: head anyway, and we here do that a bunch of times.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: You're like, which I do enjoy. But then also part
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: of me, especially with the scene where they're accepting the dad,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I came away from the sort of frustrated. In addition
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: to I don't know, I had conflicting feelings about it,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: because I was like, well, he thinks he's smart, but
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: actually you know, they've tricked him. But I was frustrated
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: because there's sort of like encouraging and still upholding this
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: status quo of allowing him to think he has control
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: over everything. And there's a part of me that like
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: a scene like that to play out where Toola just
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: marches up to her dad and she's like, yeah, hey,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna like work at this travel agency because that's
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: what I want to do. Because I know computers, I
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: can do whatever the funk I want. That's not the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: dynamic of their family. But also I don't know, like
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: I feel like more could have been done by her
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: to like challenge these norms. But I feel like they
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: do a really good job of showing how kind of
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: like regressive views can coexist with people being empowered within
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: those structures kind of. And I mean, as much as
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: it is very much kind of like a formulaic romantic
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: comedy and its plot, I think they avoid a lot
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: of kind of like empowerment cliches while also like effectively
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: telling an empowering narrative. I mean, to some extent we
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: can discuss like what the details are. But like I
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: feel like she's like with every conflict that happened, she
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: slowly becomes more empowered in her own in like advocating
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: for herself, so that at the end, it's like when he,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: for instance, asks her to marry him, she doesn't hesitate.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: She's like, I will do this no matter if my
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: family likes it or not. Yeah, I don't know that
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: scene did work for me, and obviously like I would
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: have loved for Toola to to go to her dad
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: and say this is what I want to do. But
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: in terms of, you know, portraying how this specific family works,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I found that scene helpful because we had already sort
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: of gotten that indication about the comment about the head
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and the neck from the mom, and then we got
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: to see it in action of like, oh, the women
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: are in charge, but because of how the men and
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: this family were raised and how they behave they need
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: to feel like they're in charge. How can you get
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: something done and thrive and exist within that structure. So
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: it's not challenging the structure, but it was helpful for
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: me to see how that worked. Also, the idea of
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: someone like making that kind of speech to their dad
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: and then like storming out is kind of like a
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: very American idea and it's a very like kind of Hollywood,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: and I think it's actually more tricky and more interesting
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: to watch people like navigate those waters without you know,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: like fully alienating their family, because like the structure of
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the family and Greek culture is much stronger than like
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: individual you know will or ambition often and I mean,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: you know, we can debate the merits of that, but
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: but but I think it's like it shows the specificity
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: of those family dynamics. Is there for a reason, and
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: they I'm sure that like she thought of doing a
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: scene like that, but like didn't specifically to show like
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: how the family is anyway, right, Yeah, I mean I'm
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: frustrated because I see a scene like that and I'm like,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: just why can't you just say what you want and
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: then like tell your family to sunk off? But that's
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: just because I come from a family where I'm like,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: if I don't like you, fuck off and see it
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: never again. But I understand that that doesn't work for everything.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: But I will say, I mean something that I found
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: to be something that I had mixed feelings about was
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: like the families and the father specifically views on education,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: because I actually think, you know, in my experience, Greek
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: people do value education, and it's a little difficult for
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: me to imagine, you know, a father trying to prevent
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: his daughter from going to college. I feel like that
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: was maybe exaggerated a little bit to to make the
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: conflict more intense. Although oh, I'm sure I can think
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: of counterexample. The people I know um. But that was
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the only thing where I was like, of all the
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: kind of like exaggerated stereotypes, that was the one thing
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: that like slightly bothered me because I was like, oh,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't want people to think Greek people
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: are like like don't want women to be educated. Right,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: He's like and he's pretty overboard on his sexism, where
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: he's like, he's like, it's a mistake to educate women,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: and then in a separate scene he says, Oh, she's
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: smart enough, she doesn't need to go to more school.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: And it's just like I do think it's played for
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: humor in a way that works in the context of
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the movie. And I also think that like as much
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: as you know you want to see like the person
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: who's prejudiced be like defeated, every family has people who
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: you know are going to say things like that, and
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: everyone kind of agrees that you're going to roll your
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: eyes and like you know, ultimately they're harmless, like and
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: you know, yes, it's not a perfect world, but like
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: that just is the case, and like when you're depicting
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: a family, there are going to be people like that.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: That was the dad character threw me a few different
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: times where it reminded me a little bit of Royal
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Tennan bomb. Ever, well, where get ready to Jamie's about
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: to draw a little parallel, but in terms of a
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: father figure character who says and does a lot of
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: things that are you know, shipped outwardly shitty to his family.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: But the way he's presented, it's like, ah, but this
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: is just it's silly. It's it's presented like this is funny, right,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: and and at times it's like presented to make him
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: look dumb because his wife can manipulate him whenever she wants,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: and she's smarter than him and we know that. But
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: my thing was like how that arc ends for royal
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: time momb and for this character is like there's never
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: really quite a moment of reckoning for him where he
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: has to say like, oh, maybe the way I was
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: viewing this was incorrect, Like as far as he'll go
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: as to accept a man and to his family, there's
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: no real and and then we're sort of led to believe, well,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: the conflict between him and his daughter is resolved now,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: and it's like, well, he was calling her ugly and
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: old and like that she would should like we don't
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: really I would. I think it could have been useful
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: and interesting to have a scene with with them by
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: the end where he even if it's like, you know,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: it doesn't need to be in an overwritten like you've
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: learned I he has queen like, it doesn't have to
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: be taught me so much daughter. Yeah, But I mean,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: does he even like some acknowledgement of you know, how
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: over that that would be written. I was like, because
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: because most of the family, I feel like you do
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: get that journey with with the mom and the aunt
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: and we get to know them and we see them
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: kind of in action and they change. But then I
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: don't know that I felt like the Dead could have
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that character could especially because, like I mean, the first
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: line that's spoken in the movie is him saying, you
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: better get married soon, you're starting to look old, and
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: then her voiceover comes in. He says that several times,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: and then her voiceover comes in and she says, my
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: dad has been saying that to me since I was fifteen.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Because nice Greek girls are supposed to do three things
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: in life, Mary, Greek boys, make Greek babies, and feed
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: everyone until the day we die. So this is like
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: where I you know, I heard this, I'm like, oh,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: this is gonna be a movie where she's like challenging
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: the status quo. And then that like doesn't happen as
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: much to my liking. But this is also a movie
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: from two thou too, so you know, you can't have
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: everything you want. And then there's also there's other moments
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: that I feel I could have been challenged more, where
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: like her brother, Nico is I think one year younger
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: than Tula, and Nico's all like, oh, dad, I'm going
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: to marry someone soon. And then the dad's like, you've
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: got plenty of time. And then meanwhile, Tula, who's only
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: a year older than her brother, They're like, you look
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: old as hell and you're going to die alone if
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: you don't get married fucking yesterday. And I mean, well,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: that's that's attentional, that's right. Yeah, I'm sorry, sorry, but
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: like I just mean that like sounds like you need
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: to I just feel like that. I think I just
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: want to see things challenged more than is realistic for
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: me to expect of movies. But um, you know, maybe
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: I'm just like being overly. Um I'm giving it a
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: very generous reading. I do feel like in every scene
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: there is that tension, like there are certain things that
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: are under challenge, but they are like explored in a
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: way where like the audience can come to those conclusions
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: if that makes like without there being like confrontation after confrontation.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: But then again, you know that's just like from me,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: you know, being a generous viewer of the of the movie.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: But I don't know, the Nico characters actually interesting to
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: me because I think you could read it as him
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: being coded semi queer, because there was like him wanting
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: to be an art like there are certain like trigger
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: words where I was like, obviously, this is like me
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: reading too much into it, but I was like, this
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: is like an interesting mini arc to add to this
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: movie from And I know that Nei ever Dallas is
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: like like a huge kind of like being a queer
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: ally is like a very big part of her identity
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: as a celebrity. And like after she made this movie,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: like when she finally got a chance to make a
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: big budget movie, she literally made a drag queen movie
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: with Tony Collett, which like ended up it's not I mean,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: it ended up not doing great, but but anyway, there
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: there were and they were like I feel like there
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: were many kind of things like that were cold in
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: a way that maybe I didn't stand at the TI
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: when I was watching the movie, But now I'm like,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: just like the way the female characters are written are
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: very kind of like larger than life, like almost like
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Diva characters. Um. And even just like the casting, it's
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: like they're like made to be kind of like worse.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know, and Andrea Martin and Lena becausean are
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: just so good in it. Um, Where was I going
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: with this? Oh? Yeah, Nico, I do feel like there
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: are many ways to read his his arc. Sure, And
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: then I mean he didn't need that like tiny little
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: subplot like that didn't need to be in the movie,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: but the fact that it was put there, I loved it. Yeah,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: it was interesting, just like the going through the trouble
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: to really flesh out this family that as as much
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: as it seems like it's you know, like turned up
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: to an eleven the existing stereotypes, it's like going back
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: and having like, no, he's not just like a meathead,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and we plant the seed of like, look, Dad, I
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: drained the menu. I was like, oh, I don't care,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and he's like, get back to work. Son, and then
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: later he's like, I ain't going to art school, and
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know that I liked those mini drink.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I feel like Andrea Martin character had a bit of
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: a journey herself where by the end she can accept
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: vegetarians into her life. Maybe there's everyone had a little
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm I know, I'm gonna give this
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: movie a break in every I'm here to be the
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: one to be like. But I do think that the
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: central like the central problem of this movie. I've really
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: love of, like just the question of like how can
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I live my life as I want to? How far
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: can I push that and still be able to have
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: my family in my life? That's so yeah, that's like
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: my culture. It's like a cultural like can it can
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: it be both ways? I think where the movie lands
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: on that question is kind of ambiguous and maybe not
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: enough of what Toula wants. But right, well, that like
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: it's an ambiguous thing what you were saying before, George
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: about there being a balance between like the movies presenting
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: things and it's not like slapping us in the face
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: with them, and it's kind of like letting the audience
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: like make our own kind of judgment calls on these things,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I feel like would have worked better if it had
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: ended slightly differently, because the end of the movie feels
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: like the thesis statement about the whole thing, which is
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: when she's talking to her six year old daughter and
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: her daughter's like, Mom, do I have to go to
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Greek school? And she's like, yes, but I'll promise you this,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: you can marry anyone you want, Like that's the thesis
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: statement of the movie. But I feel like because it's
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: so much emphasis of what she's saying right then and
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: throughout the whole movie being about her marrying this like
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: non Greek guy, I don't know, I just I guess
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to see more of like her burgeoning
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: career or her something. I think that, like the the
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: what it came down to at the end, I was like, WHOA,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: how did that movie end that way so easily? And
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I think what it is as we at the beginning besides,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: like we don't really know outside of wanting a life
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: of her own outside of her family, we don't really
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: know what Tula wants out of her life, and that
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: is never made super clear to us before she meets
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: the guy, and so then I think from there because
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: we never found a like whatever ambiguous goal. We see
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: her do things that seems like she's taking steps towards something,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: but we don't know what that is, and so once
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: she meets the guy, then it's like, oh, well, the
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: relationship is the central thing now, and we kind of
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: lose seeing her at the job, we sort of lose
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: like everything else sort of falls away, and then the
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: movie lands Unlike, but she can do exactly what her
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: parents wanted to, but with a wasp instead, right, so
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: she can marry a man and make half Greek babies
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: and make food for those, which is an act of
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: rebellion on her part, sure, But the fact that it
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: still focuses on her relationship to a man so much
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: is where I feel like the movie could have gone
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: and that and it's like if that had been one
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: of her many journeys where she's if she's if the
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: movie is about her sort of kind of reinventing herself
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: and figuring out who she wants to be as this
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: person in this family, within this culture, but also in
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: the US, and like you know, in the modern times
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: of two thousand two, like it could have been. Yeah,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I wanna this is my lifelong dream, because she even
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: says in the movie, yeah, she goes to that seminar
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: of tourism plus computers, but she says before that, she's like,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to pretend like I've always wanted to
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: work in a travel agency, but please hire me. So like, yeah,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: we don't know what she wants to do, and what
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: if we don't know, I don't know, Yeah, she says something,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: She's like, I'm not going to pretend like I've always
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: wanted to work in tourism, but like she's trying to
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: get out of the restaurant, right. I don't know like
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: the right way to say this, but I feel like
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I would push back a little bit on like kind
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: of like desiring a traditional self empowerment narrative, just because
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I do feel like that's kind of a very American thing.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: And the only thing I mean by that is that, like, essentially,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: if you accept the fact that like when you are
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: living within a family that's like very tight knit and
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: very kind of like its own world, then in fact,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: going from being a seating hostess at the restaurant to
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: going to being basically the manager of the travel agency
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: within the various like within this network of family businesses
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: that actually that is like and I don't know if
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: that's settling. I think it's like finding your place in
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: the family community and a place that works for you
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: rather than a place that has been determined by your parents.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: And I totally get that and and that works for me.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: My point is more like from a narrative point of view,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: where like her moving over, like going to the classes
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: and then moving to the job at the travel agency,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: that kind of tapers off story wise after a while,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: and then the focus of the story is all about
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: the man. So yeah, I feel the same way. I
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: don't know. It's tricky because it's like my favorite part
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: of that character is watching her be like, no, fuck it,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna you know, I'm going to continue to be
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: on good terms with my family. I'll be mostly honest
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: with them. But I'm doing this, this and this, and
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: you know, this is what I'm doing. And but kind
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: of narratively, that serves to get her to the relationship
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: and then it kind of goes away. Right, Um, let's
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: take a quick break and we'll come back to discuss
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: more stuff, and we're back. Hi. Hi, how's everyone feeling
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: always sounds so good. It's my big frit Greek. Oh
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: did everyone watch the TV show My Big Factor Life?
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Not good? I like try to watch the first episode,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: and I haven't watched. Like the sequel to the movie,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: which came out a couple of years ago. My mom
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and my sister watched it and did not enjoy it.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: It was like not on my radar at all when
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: it came out like two years ago. My mom. I remember,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: my mom made a big deal of My Big Fat
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Greek Life coming out on TV and then she she
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: was so upset, she was like, decision the movie. Yeah,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: And they also recast some of the main roles. I
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: can't remember who it was recast that. Yeah, it wasn't
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: John Corbett. Yeah, so so that was I actually just
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: think they remember watching that and being supremely disappointed. Although
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: I was telling Jamie that I recently watched the ever
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Dallas is adaptation of Cheryl Strade's book of Deer Sugar
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Columns at the Public in New York, which she like adapted.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: And then she plays dear Sugar in the play and
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: it's basically like her in her living room wearing like pajamas,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: and then like she'll get like an email ding and
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: then someone will come in and read a question and
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: then she will basically like act out as though she's
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: like thinking of the answer in real time, so she'd
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: be like dear unlucky in love. Was it good? Um?
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: It was no. No, it was like a critics pick
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: in the New York Times. Was it like did well?
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: And yeah it's not. It's not like I feel like
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: it could have been such a disaster based on my
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: description of it. Um, I do think that, like, of course,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: it's gonna fall into some cliches because it's literally like
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: acting out an advice Callum. But she did a good
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: job with it, and I did cry. I'm glad he
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: is thriving. Yeah, it was like cool, I mean, and
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: it's like I feel like she had creative control over it.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: It was at the public, which is really cool. It
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: was like I feel like it was a great thing
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: for him. No. No, this is like maybe like a
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: year ago. Oh no, okay, well maybe she'll tour with it. Um.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: There's this scene I wanted to talk about. It's right
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: after Tula's family has found out about her relationship with Ian,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: and Ian is at her house and talking to her
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: dad and saying like, you want me to ask if
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: I can date your daughter? She's thirty years old, And
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: then the dad's like yes, I'm the head of this house.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: And he's like, okay, can I date your daughter? And
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: the dad's like no, and then Ian walks away says
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: to Tula, I'll see you tomorrow, and she's like, see
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: you tomorrow, and it's just like that was like a
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: nice act of defiance on like both of their parts,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: where they're like, yeah, I'm not going to listen to
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: the dad and still keep sucking. I like Ian's character,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Whilst I would not personally fuck him, I sort of forgot.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I don't you know, because with
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: brown coms, it's so dicey in terms of who you're
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: getting and how they treat you. But I thought that
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: Ian character does pretty spectacularly well throughout the movie, where
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: you know, it would have been so easy to to
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: make it be like when he finds out that she
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: was his waitress at the Great Restaurant from him to
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: be like or like that was you right? Like that
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: would be so trophy and silly. But but the way
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: that plays out is she's embarrassed of her culture in
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: her past at the beginning, and she calls herself like
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: from from Girl, which is like my heart, and he's like,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: I don't remember from Girl, but I remember you, and
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: you're like he has kind of like just does the
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: right thing at every turn. And he also like there
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: isn't any scene where he's he doesn't like in any
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: way fetishizes the wrong world. But there's no scene where
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: he's like, your family is like spicy, Like there's nothing
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: like that. Like he like whatever his family does that
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: his parents are like. But his parents are interesting too,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: because again it obviously they're such exaggerated, like well are they,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know, we've all met right like that, but
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: I do feel like at the end of the day,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: they are written with compassion, mean well Ian, I mean,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: compare him to like Benjamin Bratt's character from Miss Congeniality.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: She's just like megging Sandra Bullock the whole time, and
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: then like we've got this like he's an intellectual, he's
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: an educator, you know, he's like this just like sweet
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: nice guy who is maybe a little like too perfect.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: But although I mean, but for the purposes of this
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: movie and fulfillment. He's great. And it's so often that
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: we see in movies that it's a woman having to
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: change everything about herself to please a man and to
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: be accepted by a man. But in this movie, it's
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: him who's making like compromise after compromise. At the point
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: where he's like getting baptized and like all this stuff,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: and it's never tool that being like you have to
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: do this, he's like, I'm willing to do this. On
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: his turn, yeah, yeah, I think a line that he
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: says is like I'll do whatever it takes to get
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: your family to accept me. And then his friend played
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: by real life husband that was now now they're divorced,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: but unbelievable. But his friend Mike is all like her
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: family has you by the short ones, which I guess
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: means balls, Like she's got you by the balls, and
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: AND's just like shrug, like I'm fine with it. So yeah,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: I really like that. He's a sweetie pie. Yeah. I
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: like he's so sweet. He's almost boring. But I think
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: in the story like it works. He's nice. If he
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: was an asshole on top of it, the story would
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: have been way harder to accomplish it because you know,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: both of them have to compromise so much, and and
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: and she makes him laugh. I think like one of
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: the reasons he likes her is that he like enjoys
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: her sense of humor, because in the beginning, whenever her
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: like brain stops, whenever she's like first like at their table, yeah,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: she says, I'm like, oh, look at me doing here
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: like your own private statue. And he's like, yeah, there's
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: no I feel like there was a way to write
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: the script where like he actually ignores her when she's
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: like frumpy, and then is into her and then realizes like,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: oh she was beautiful along, but actually he was nice
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: from the get go. Yeah, he's like, you're caught up.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: This restaurant is well run, so isn't it funny? I
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: was just thinking about this, like, Okay, so this movie
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: is written by a woman. Originally they wanted to replace her,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: Like I read on Wikipedia that one of the actors
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: they were considering was Merissa to May, who's like, you know,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: let's say like whatever, like more conventional Hollywood beauty or whatever.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: She ended up playing the role and then replacing her
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: husband with someone hotter, so she like like nia replaced
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: the male character with someone hotter in the movie that
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: you wrote, which I feel like is so completely the
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: polar opposite of what would normally happen in like any
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: rom com. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean the fact that she
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: got to star in her own script is like huge.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: And she was also I mean this was like filmed
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: when she was in her late thirties and it came
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: that when she was forty, and like this was her
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: big debut, which is also like very unusual. I mean,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: if you think about it, it really is kind I mean,
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite things about the movie is like
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: it's placed in the culture, like the fact that literally
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: a movie written by an unknown woman in her late
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: thirties who was like normal looking then literally became like
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: the highest grossing like romantic comedy of all times. Like
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: to have your debut be like in your late thirties. Anyway,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: it was just like I remember like the year after
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: when she hosted US Now and I was like, wow,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: this is like the biggest, Like you knows. I love it.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: It's almost as if sometimes movies about relatable people can
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: relate to a large audience. Also, thank you Tom Hanks
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: and Rita Wilson made the movie. I forgot that they
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: made it happen. But kind of on that point of
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: you know, her not being she's beautiful, but like not
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: your typical hall you would, you know, like super wayfish
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: standard of beauty. Um. We see a bunch of different
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: body types represented in this movie, where like if you
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: look at the scene where all the bridesmaids are in
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: their gowns, you see a pretty wide spectrum of women.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: A lot of the female characters are middle aged. You know,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: there's better representation of women's ages and body types then
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: you're seeing in this movie. Do you never get to
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: see a woman need a normal sized meal? That makes
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: sense and that happens a lot in this movie. Always
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: looking for women eating food and movies. It gets me
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: so excited, like, oh, look at them go. One last
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: quick thing I wanted to say was that in this movie,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of the women you do see on screen,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: and this is commented on, but many of them are
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: kind of portrayed as being nagging. Um, which is a
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: common trophy thing that you see female characters do a
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: lot nagging someone they die. That is a line that
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: is spoken out. But then I got to thinking, well,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: are women ever actually nagging or they just annoyed by
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: all the emotional labor that they have to do to
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: maintain a marriage and a household and like run a
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: business and all of that stuff. So and I also
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: feel like, getting back to George your point earlier, it's
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: made clear through the narrative that the guys who were
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: saying that are in the wrong, and they come off
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: looking silly having said it. Yeah. So yeah, I feel
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: like the thing with like a story about like a
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Greek American immigrant families that I really do think it
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: would have been so much different if it was from
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: a male perspective. And I don't think I personally, like
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: as a preteen would have responded as well too. I like,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, what if it was like
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: John Stamos is the main character and then like he
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: like meets Megan Fox and like that's the like that
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: literally would have been the equivalent. Uh, But I feel
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: like it was it was a realistic portrayal of a
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Greek family while providing enough commentary at any given time
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: to kind of like give you just enough context for
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: you to like understand what's happening, right, Yeah, held up
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: for me being so I'm like reacting so poorly to
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: like any criticism. Oh my god, no, that's why we're
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: doing this. I was personally really impressed and thrilled and
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: happy that this movie I've seen five hundred times, but
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: I was watching it for this reason for the first time.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: I was pleasantly surprised and pleased that it holds up.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: I feel like as well as it does. I still
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: don't love the ending. I'm never going to love the ending,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: but having a rom com for all the reasons we
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: discussed that doesn't end. I mean, there's gonna be a wedding.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: You show up, there's gonna be a wedding, and the
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: fact that she doesn't end up in a toxic relationship
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: at the end of a rom com is better than
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: them do uh And and so I don't know, it
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: held up for me. I'm going to continue to watch
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: it After horror movies, I recommend that Halloween you will
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: be unscared. Ben Um, Does anyone have any other final
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: thoughts there? Oh, there was one more scene with Mom
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: and Tula. I just wanted to mention they have This
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: movie passes back Toel test Doy, but there's a few
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: different scenes with Tula and Mom and there's one where
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: this scene. The scene starts with Tula saying, is my
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: marriage killing dad? And you're like, I don't love where
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: this is starting. But then they have this great talk
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: that I think again gives context for Greek culture that
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't have and is great for their relationship, where
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: the mom is describing how she grew up and why
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: she and Tula's dad immigrated to America and then comes
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: out with the banger of a line, I gave you
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: life so you could live it. And then I was crying.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: I was crying and I couldn't explain why I was
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: at work, and then feminist icon, Yeah, yeah, comes in.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: She's got a crowd of flowers. How is she not
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: coming up? I love her? I mean that, yeah, And
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: of course you could argue that, like I mean that
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: character is it's literally like old woman funny, like that
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: is like character until that point. But it's like she
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: seems to have dementia and like maybe you should look
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: after her more family, but but it is she gets
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: a moment. She gets a moment, And ultimately every character
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: is essentially like that. I mean, every character is a
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: cartoon until they're not, except for you know, maybe the
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: Mom probably is honestly the most complex character in the
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: whole movie. Um, but every other character is like a
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: cartoon until they have like a moment of being like humanized.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: And I also feel like I was kind of paying
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: more attention to it for the first time on just
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: like a structural level, and I feel like it is
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: like all these issues aside just narratively, it like hits
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: the right notes and it's kind of like, if you
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: want to write like a conventional rom com, I feel
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: like it should be taught in like that class, Like
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: it does that make sense? Like rom com? Yeah, I think.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is like an example of rom com
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: that doesn't for the most part, reinforce harmful things and
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: avoids a lot of the tropes of most rom coms.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: But still it's like, I don't know, Calyn, it's going
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: to be hard to talk me out of loving this movie,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: and every I just it's I love it. I think
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: you're you're absolutely allowed, because I don't have quite the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: same attachment as the two of you have. I came
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: out of with this more kind of critical like, I mean,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: look at the voice over at the end where she
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: says something like, oh, sometimes I'm afraid that it didn't happen,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: it being her getting married, and she's like, I'm scared
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: that I'll wake up and still be buttering garlic and
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: waiting for my life to start. But it did happen,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: and you know, I figured some stuff. So she's all like,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: oh that thing that you know, it didn't seem like
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: she was that concerned about doing in the beginning, and
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: it seemed like she was annoyed that her family was
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: constantly pressuring her about it. That becomes the crux of
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: what she apparently wanted all along on her own term
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: short which I appreciate it, of course, but like again,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: I just I was thinking it was going to go
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: in a different direction based on the way it was
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: set up, where she's like, Oh, my family won't stop
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: pestering me about getting married, and how dare they like
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: inflict all these double standards on me that they're not
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: putting on my brother, and like all this stuff. But
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: then she's like, but I got married and now my
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: life is awesome. Yeah. I would say the voiceover bothered
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: me more than like the actual ending that bothered you. Like,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: I feel like the voiceover was unnecessary, But I also
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: think that like it's almost like paying homage to like
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: bad romantic comment. It's like, and we're ending with a
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: voiceover wres like, well, guys, now we're here and here
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: we are. And I feel like that. I feel like
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: there is an element of that. I think in like
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Nia Vardalos has a writer, I mean, even the fact
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: that she wanted to adapt advice columns into a stage
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: like I think she has a little bit of that
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: where she kind of like likes, I feel good. She's
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: a little basic. There's nothing there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: I oh the last thing. So if And I do
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: think it's like interesting that this movie, for for me
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: as well, was paired with Bend It like Beckham. Often
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: I think that Bend It like Becka. I mean, it's
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: it's completely its own story. It's about soccer. But I
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: understand why they're paired together because there are some common
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: themes in them. I mean, I don't want to compare
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: them because they're different, but you know, Jesse's story and
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Bend It, like Beckham, does involve more direct defiance and
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: a lot more direct conflict. But that's not a rom com, right,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: that's uh more of a Heen movie because she's, you know,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: in high school, and also the romance in that movie
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: is very sucked up, and she said, there's a lot
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: of things in that movie. Do you remember the line
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: where he was like, I understand where you're going through.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: I'm Irish. Yes, we talked about that, but then we
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: got a bunch of people being like, well, at that
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: time in history, like Irish people in the UK were
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: heavily discriminated against and all this stuff. And I was like, well,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: should I learn more about history? But in America it
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: sounded I'm surtain. So the tone of those two movies
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: is so different, Like Bennett, like Beckham is whatever, the
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: tone is different and the genre is different. Yah. I
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: understand why they get paired together because their stories involving, uh,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: you know, first generation Americans trying to reckon with their
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: culture versus what they want to do with their lives similar.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you're right, but you know what is first
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: generation Americans reckoning with their culture is the Big Sick,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: which has literally identified Yes, the dinner scenes trying to
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: get up. Yeah, but in any case, I it's a
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: rom com, yes, so there's only so many places for
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: it to land. M Um, well as we hinted at
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: Slash overtly said the movie does pass the Bechtel test.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: Tula talks to her mom, to her aunt Vola, to
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: her sister Um. A lot of the scenes where women
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: are interacting are about either her dat Tula's dad, or
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: about Ian. But there are a few, like to line
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: exchanges or more here and there that pass the Bechtel test. Um,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Shall we write the movie on our nipple scale? Let's
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: do it. I am gonna go what's probably a little
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: low on the spectrum of of all of us takes, takes, takes,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: and I know that this is a rom com and
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: I know that it then it's going to be about
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: a romantic relationship. And because of of I'm getting there,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: because of headroon hormativity, it's going to be about a
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: relationship with a man. And I understand all of that.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: I understand that's how rom comms work in mainstream American cinema.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: But because I feel like there were opportunities to do
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: a little bit more kind of challenging and commentary on
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: what is, at least by today's standards, pretty sexist double
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: standards and sexist takes on what a women's role is
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: in society and family and stuff like that, and the
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: movie ends with her marrying a man and doing what
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: her family wanted all along. I'm going to give it
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: two nipples. Wow, I know, I know, but you guys,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: you guys can give it fives and you know, car,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: but they will listen to this in the car, you
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: know that. Being said, I really really enjoyed toulas character.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: I liked that she was defiant in many ways. I
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: liked her as like a lead in a romantic comedy movie.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: But the fact that the whole crux of the thing
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: is like, yeah, my family wants me to get married,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: so I will okay it Just I feel like there
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: could have been a little bit more, like more subplots
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: revolving around other endeavors of her that she could have pursued,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: and a little bit more challenging of the status quo
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: that was her pretty patriarchal family structure. So I'm gonna
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: give it two nipples? Are you giving the nipple? And
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give one two? Ian Miller, after all
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: of that, always do see both of his nipples, and
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: we do a few times. He's been baptized, engaged. When
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: I was most attracted to him because I was not
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: paying attuch in his hair, right, right? And then I'm
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: going to give my other nipple to her brother Nico,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: whose nipples we also see because he walks in with
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: his shirt off and at least one scene. So those
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: barren nipples, that's who I give them to. George. Wait,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: how long have you been doing the nipples thing? Oh? Forever?
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: Do I just not listen to? You would alone there,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: you would not be alone. Wait, so what is the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: how do you decide who you give? Um? Yeah, you
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: can get them to anyone you want. It's just like
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: arbitrary whoever. And it's a based on a scale of
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: zero to five nipples based on its portrayal of women. Right, Okay,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: I would say because of the scenes with Aunt Volah
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: and the mom and Tula, I can't I'm going to
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: give it five nipples because I can't not give it
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: five nipples, um, and I'm going to give to to
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: the mom, Maria, to to the ever Dallas, and one
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: to I love it. I'm gonna split the diff I'm
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: gonna go three and a half. For many of the
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: reasons stated I just the ending. I feel like even
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: in a mom com there's a more interesting ending to
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: this story, and I wanted a little more of a
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: resolution between Nia or not Nia between um also, isn't
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: in the series? Isn't her name Nia? Don't they change
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: her name? But you could? So The thing with the
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: series that I feel like you can so tell that
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: it like she wrote something and then they gave her
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: notes and the notes were all the wrong notes, and
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: then they just like did it, and it I'm like
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: regretting my five nipples because I feel like it's like
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: I fully understand the issues you guys are raising. We know, No,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: it's fine, it's it's your your brain, your choice. So yeah,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: I'll go for three and a half. I think that
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: it is great to see, even though I mean, I
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: don't know. I I liked how we understood the way
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Nia Burdalas presented how women operate within this very specific
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: setting and also how they're able to, even if they're
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: not toppling the patriot our keeper se how they're able
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: to empower themselves and get what they need while navigating
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: a very patriarchal system. Yeah, I just wish that I
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: knew what Tula wanted to do with her life. It
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: was never totally clear. Um, so it very well could
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: be what she ended up with, but we didn't know that,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: and it was kind of like you're saying, Caitlin of like, well,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: she ends up with a guy doing what her parents wanted,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: and maybe that is what she wanted just on her
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: own terms, but we just never find that out. So
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: that's the one place that this falls short for me.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna go three and a half given to
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: to Tula, I'm going to give one to Maria, and
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: then I'll give a halfe to Joey fatone. That's perfect. Actually,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: he really fell out of this conversation and it wasn't
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: fair because he has like three lines in the entire
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: movies like Pasta, like this is not the movie. Joy. Well, George,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here. Thank you so
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: much for having me. This was lovely. Where can people
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: find you online? What would you follow me on Twitter
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: at George Savaris and then go on my website and
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: all my shows are there in the New York area.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: You gotta was incredible. And now our embargo on men
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: is back on. Baby, I actually can't speak anywhere. Yeah,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: he just actually faded away. It was kind of beautiful.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: Um so now Jamie, you and I can just shoot
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: shoot the ship, which includes plugging our stuff. Follow us
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: on social media at becktel Cast. Go to our Patreon
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: a matron at patreon dot com. Slash becktel Cast gets
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: you to extra episode Ta Public. Go to our t
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: Public store. If you want March you can have. You
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: can get it it Coross money them and otherwise. Um,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: you know, I have a great day.