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Secretary with Ashley Ray · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi everyone. Before the episode starts, we just wanted to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: do some quick content warnings. We want to be better
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: about doing those moving forward, so just to let you know.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: In the discussion we talk about self harm as well
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: as physical and sexual assault. And now here's the episode.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: women and um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: start changing it with the beck Del cast. Jamie, do
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you want to start this one? No? I don't know
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: what to say. Okay, me either. Oh here's something okay right?
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Oh oh Jamie, I hate the way you're you sniffle.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: You're always sniffling. Okay, let's have sex. Wow. Welcome to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the bed Time and iconic intro that passed the vessels
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: it did, um well, but welcome anyways. That's literally just
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: something that happens in the movie. That was a that
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: was just that was This is a re enacting a
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: dramatic reenactment. Sniff, Um, so today's movie. Okay, wait where
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: are we? This is the backtel cast. Welcome, Um, my
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: name is Caitlin Darante. My name is Jamie Loftus and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: this is a podcast about the representation of women in
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: movies as well as just an overall examination of film
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: through an intersectional feminist lens. We use the Backtel test
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: as a jumping off point for a discussion, that being
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: a media matric invented by queer cartoonist Allison back Dol,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: sometimes called the back Doll Wallace test that requires that
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: to female identifying or or non male genders, characters with
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: names talk to each other about something other than a man,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: such as just now when you heard uh, the I sniffed,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: and then Caitlin and I mutually decided to have sex.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: That actually is more than we did, more than with them.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: We actually gave consent. There was Yes, there was consent
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: discussed almost instinctually, like that's just like what one would
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: do it right, not to tune our real consent heads.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I love consent. So today's movie is Secretary, and we
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: have a guest who we are very excited about. She
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: is amazing writer comedian Ashley Ray. I'm so happy to
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: be here. I'm so excited to talk about this movie specifically. Yeah, yeah,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I gosh, there's so much to talk about, so much,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: uh This movie has meant so much to me, and
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I haven't watched it in a long time, but watching
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: it again it just reaffirmed how much it it just
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: imprinted on me as a child. Did you see it
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: when it first came out, like what's your full hit? Yeah? Yeah,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: it came out in two thousand, that is when I
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: was like ten years old. But I got a laptop
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: when I was like twelve. I went to this school
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: where they gave everyone a laptop in sixth grade, which
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: is a stupid thing to do. And I would just
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: like make live journal accounts and download movies, like there
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: were live journal account where people would just like share
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: indie movies and that's how I would like watch like
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: French lesbian films. And then someone put up Secretary and
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: I remember the day being like that poster it's like
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: iconic with like the stockings and her bent over, and
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I was like, this is something I've got to see,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: and I downloaded it on my laptop and I I
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: just remember watching it with headphones and being like I
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: cannot let my mom know this is happening. So that's like,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: that's that age when you're like figuring out weird inks.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I feel like or at least like you know. Yeah,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and I now realized probably percent of my canks were
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: inspired by this movie, which is bad, probably horrible. The
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: point is that it happened exactly. I wonder. I mean,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I feel like I would be such a different person
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: if I had access to a laptop at twelve years old. Yeah.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know why anyone thought that was a good idea.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: My school still does it to this day. All sixth graders,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: you get a laptop, you get to keep it until
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: you graduate. I watched so I watched like Pink, Flamingos
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: and just horrible movies at a really young age. Oh
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: my god. And this is this is probably why I
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: came out as like Queer and Polly. By the time
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I was seventeen, I was like, been there, done it.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I've seen it. James Spader showed me how Uh Now,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: it's just unlearning. It's a lot of unlearning, all the damage,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: all the movies due to us as young people. Wow,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I didn't own a laptop until I was well into
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: my twenties, so I didn't get one to college. That
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: seems like a healthy age. Those seems those are healthy ages. Yeah. Yeah,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: like by then you're just like, oh, porn is such
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: an exciting luxury. It becomes a luxury thing because you
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: don't have to watch it on a desktop anymore. But
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: then that kind of comes all the way around, and
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: then later in your life you're like, I can watch
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: you know, once you live on your own, you can
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: watch porn on a desktop again, big screen, and then
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: it's a different kind of luxury. Yeah, exactly, Jamie. What
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: about you? What's your relationship with this movie. I've never
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: seen this movie. I've known about it for a long time,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: and I have a feeling that if I had seen
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: it when I was in like middle school, high school,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: I would have really really loved it and it would
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: have had like a real effect on me. But I didn't.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I just missed it, and I started
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: hearing more about it. I think it was like when
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the fifty shape Its movies were coming up, this movie
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: was coming up over and over and over. It is like,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: this is the alternative. If you think fifties shade sucks,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: you just gotta go back and watch Secretary. So that
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: was kind of like where I would That was like
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: my point of entry because we've covered fifty shades on
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: this show, and in retrospect, I'm not I'm not totally.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I'm like the I see what people are saying, but like,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: maybe they should have. Really, it's definitely a better written movie.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Well so every movie is a better written movie. And
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: it's definitely very a very well acted movie too. But
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: then but on the relationship level, I was like, I don't,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I don't quite see it. I'm excited to talk about it.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: He's like the original Mr Gray, like they even have
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the same name. Yeah, this was the watch where I
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: was like, oh my mind blown, wow, wow, connecting the pieces.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: It embarrassingly took me until sevent into the movie to
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: be like, oh my gosh, a Mr. Pray for an
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: hour and a half. I've heard this before. I've seen
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: this before, but this time it's with Maggie Jellenhall, and
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I mean, I also like dakode to Johnson,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: but it's just she wasn't set up for success in
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: that franchise. She was not anyways, Okay, what's your what's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: your heads story with this movie? Um, I didn't see
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: it right away because it came out in two To write, um,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I probably didn't see it until I I think I
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: saw it when I was working as an assistant. I've
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: talked about this job before on the podcast because it
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: traumatized me. I was working as an assistant to a
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: literary manager in New York who was extremely verbally and
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: emotionally abusive to me and I I guess I was
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: just like watching media in which other people are verbally
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and emotionally abused by their boss. I guess, just to
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: relate or have something to relate to. I'm not sure exactly. UM.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't connect very much with the movie at that point,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: and then UM rewatching it. There's a lot I struggled with. UM.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: I tried to because I worked as a secretary every
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: summer for like four summers at the Comptroller's office, and
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I was like the assistant comptroller secretary, and it was
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: it was I couldn't I mean, just based on my
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: own experience, I couldn't plug myself in because I was
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: like I just me and Scott. This just didn't exist
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: with us. I was a church secretary from like eighth
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: grade throughout high school. I wasn't like religious, but they
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: paid me ten dollars an hour. It was just a
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: really good gig and it was Yeah, it was hard,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: you know, as it was hard to to see myself
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: in that role necessarily, but I did understand a lot
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: of her duties as as a secretary. I did have
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: to use a typewriter. I related to that too. Well,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: you got the full typewriter treatment. Yeah. They it was
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a pretty old church and they were just like, this
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: is how we do baptism certificates. Get used to it,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: classy like. Um, So anyway, yeah, I, um, I don't
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: like this movie. I'll just come out and say it.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: But but I yeah, I don't. I don't have any
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of the attachment to it or any of like the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: nostalgia or anything. So I was coming in it with
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: pretty fresh eyes. Um. But there's a lot to discuss. Yeah,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: there is, so there's so much to talk. I mean,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: it's I I guess like I was kind of assuming.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this is like probably one of
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: those like cut and dry deals where it's like, well
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: it was like written by men about women, and so
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: you know, there's just gonna be uh, it's kind of
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: a nonstarter to an extent in most cases, but this
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: is not the case for this movie. It's there's so
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: many there's so many layers. It was really interesting researching
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: like the two female writers that like shaped this story
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: very differently, including the screenwriter who's like really fixated on
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: like women with mental illness and punishing them but being like,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: but it was good for her, Like she's she's got
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: a whole it's such a hyper specific vibe. But when
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I was looking at her list of works, I'm like, whoa,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: that is really the theme. Yeah, it's it's this weird
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: thing where the character she is she's dealing with mental illness.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: She's she's fresh out of an institution in a hospital,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: but they also treat her like this newborn baby like
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: in a pool, who like knows nothing and it's so
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: naive and it's just like, oh my god, what is
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: a man? And then she's just like a perfect baby
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: for James Spader to just like imprint on. But at
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the same time they're like, well, no, see, she's just
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: like so brilliant and complex because she has mental illness
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and she could just like understand him, and it just
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: like wants to have it both ways. And it's like, way,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: does she this like innocent child who knows nothing or
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: is she this like super genius like person who can
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: read his mind? Like what what is she supposed to be?
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: They pick and choose, and I feel like that actually,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: when I was younger, that those types of characters were
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: so appealing to me because they were like parts of me,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Like when you're a twelve or thirteen, like you want
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: to be perceived kind of in both of those ways, like,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: and so making an adult character that way is a
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: choice that is going to appeal to that Is she
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: an adult? Because look at her? Is she an adult?
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Is like black Swan's like she's like stickers everywhere? Like
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: what age is she? If someone told me she was
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: like eighteen, I'd be like I could see it, Like
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: what what age is she? It's really confusing. I wasn't
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: sure if it was supposed to be like she is
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: maybe like yeah, like a really young adult and maybe
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: she just has her like kid room and she's fresh
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: out of high school, or if they were like going
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: for a Black Swan kind of thing where they're like, no,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: she's definitely too old for this, but we're just going
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: to trap her here to send to say something. But
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what idea The closest thing to any
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: kind of indication is when she's talking to Peter, who
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: she knew in high school, who she like ends up
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: dating for a little while and then being engaged to.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: But she's like, you're so different from how you were
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: in high school, and it seems like about how long
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: ago was that? But how long a you don't know.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Also she has she's in the bathtub at one point
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: and she like has this very like childlike snow globe
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: that apparently is like part of her like and then
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: she's like, no, I'm over this snow glob and then
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: she throws it away. I'm pretty sure there's like a
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: rubber ducky in there. Like just so much of that
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: made it uncomfortable. And it's like if they had just
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: firmly kind of like aged her up, like have her
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: just once referred to dropping out of college or something,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I feel like it would have the dynamic a little better.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: But this whole first part of the movie, you're like, Okay,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: so she she is a child who's jealous of her
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: sister's wedding, Like right there was like there, I feel
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: like they wanted you to look at her as a
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: baby to some But but if that's true, then it
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: kind of makes the whole thing a little more sinister.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: There were a few of those moments that where it
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: was like, again, I was like, if I saw this
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: when I was thirteen, I would have been like, holy
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: sh it, Like just like symbolism moments when she takes
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the snow globe and she's like the snow glow. Yeah,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that that one got me. That was the moment when
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I was I was like, yeah, that girl, when she
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: threw that snow globe, I was like, I'm in, I'm in,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: this is me, this is my lifestyle now. It's I mean,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and and I will say watching it now, I did
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: hate it. I saw every problem, but I also did
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: see this way where I was like thirteen or you
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: know whatever, and I was like, oh my god, of
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: course I thought this was the sexiest thing in the world,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: like him just telling her what to eat for dinner
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and how of course I'd be like, oh my god,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that's so hot that that someone would like take the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: time and care to do that. You know. I I
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: was a latch key kid. I had to feed myself,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: so that obviously super hot to me. And it's just
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: you know, the I feel like it just sexualizes things
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: in this kind of non sexy way where you're like, Okay,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I guess I can work with this, even though I'm
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: still really not clear on who this woman is or
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: what exactly she wants or why she has decided this
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: lifestyle speaks to her. There's a lot to latch onto
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: with Lee, which is like part of I don't know
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: it was. I was so in and out because it's like, yeah,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: that not watching it now, the problems are very clear.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: But it also it's like it's very like of its
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: time in a lot of ways, and I don't know
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: what about that yet. That masturbation scene very early two thousands.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: This like this like just visually trippy, like as all
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: girls know, the way we masturbate as we like vision
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: of flower opening and we're sitting in the middle of it,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: and then the boy that we have a crush on
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: appears and like washes our hair. Of course that's how
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: girls masterbace. It's very MTV two visuals, just like fireworks,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: weird like green screen stuff happening. But then again I
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: was just like, okay, so she's like fourteen years old.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Like that was another thing where you're like, okay, she's
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: a baby. She's I think she's probably legally an adult,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: but either way, the the age gap between her and
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Mr Gray is pretty substantial. And that's the other. That's another.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: This is a I hate James Spader. I hate him
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: so much that words cannot describe how much I think
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: he is the worst. Yeah. I don't know how he gets.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I just I hate him so much. But anyway, that's
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: neither here nor there. If it was, I've heard he
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: is a very like, not nice person. Yeah, oh, I thought,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: do you just dislike him as a performer. I just
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: hate him because I hate him as an actor. I
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: think I just the roles he tends, at least of
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: the ones I've seen that he's in. I find him
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: loaths some like he's in that movie Crash, like the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: horny car Crash movie. I found him really creepy in
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that movie. I found him really creepy and sex lives
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and videotape like everything he's in. And then this movie,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: like everything he's in that I've seen, I just I
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: find him really I feel like this is his last
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: like hot movie. This is the last time we saw
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: like a hot James Spader, So maybe so maybe we
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: celebrate it for that sure, and only that that's so long.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: He's like, I gotta go be an Avengers age of Ultron.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Now the black List. He had a show called like
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the Blacklist, right, it ran for like ten years or
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: something like, He's been on so many things for ten
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: years that I didn't know existed. He well, he was
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: on the Office to right like after people Stop California.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Oh that's a good name. Yeah, he was on Boston Legal.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: My mom watched the hat the My mom love Boston Legal.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: He gets a lot of work, and I just don't
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: know why I don't. I don't get it. Not here
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: for James Spader. I think he's still kind of like
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: writing that like his first wave of success because he
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: was in so many like he was the sexy guy
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: in so many movies and now he's just kind of
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: set for life or that that's my guess, Secretary. Yeah,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: it's an ode to sexiness. Yeah, Like I feel like
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: you're it enriches the experience if you knew, like because
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: if I just saw James Spader, I'm like, that's the guy. Like,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: but because you know, like he has this icon like
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: sex icon status, which I don't get it just to
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: be Mr Gray, Like, at no point in the movie
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: is he an interesting or charismatic character. Like She's just like,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: he's so complex, I can see why he's hurting. And
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: then James, it just looks like constipated and he's then
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: he's just like I gotta go just knock out some
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: push ups. And that's him the entire movie. It's just
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: like he's running on a treadmill. Yeah, I gotta take
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: care of my or kids. So like, where's your personality, bro? Yeah,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, he's like vagina symbol in his office and
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: then you have to watch. You know, he's a good
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: guy because he can handle the vagina flowers and not
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: everybody can do that feminist icon. Yes, they like kind
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: of set this thing up in the beginning where like
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: it seems like he has a domp. There's like this
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: ex woman who comes in and like stomps all over
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: his stuff and I was like, oh good, I'm gonna
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: love it if like he gets it handed to him.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: But then in the end she's like, no, he is
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: a genius and he slipped through my fingers and I
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: just wish I had been as smart as you Lee
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: to capture him. And it's like wait, so wait, you
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: were like so angry and came into his office because
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: this guy, who we've literally never heard say anything smart,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: is just so brilliant that you, like you just had
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: to storm down there to yell at him to sign
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: divorce papers. What. Yeah, because it's a he's like he's
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: a genius at what at lawyer? He doesn't even seem
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: like a good lawyer by the way, ever, all the
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: case notes we heard, Yeah, there's like one time where
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: he's just like, I told you to send the notes
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: on the case house and it just sounds like something
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: like like a writer was like, this is how lawyers talk.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: We'll just have him say it through the door. Just
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: he can add live Spader will phill it in. Don't
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: even worry. He knows he was on Boston Legal. There.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: The thing I will say about I mean, there's a
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: lot of things to say about James Spader, but I
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: was stroke. Maybe it's like my TV, but I had
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to turn up the volume and turn down the volume
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: so much watching this movie because he speaks like in
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: a whisper of the whole kept like cranking my Roku
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to eighty and then like slamming it back down. It
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: was so hard to hear him. That was a question
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: I actually was going to ask, does it count as
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: passing the backdel test if you can't hear the man
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: just if you if he's just whispering, technically doesn't count.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Is Maggie John Hall just talking towards herself? Like right,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: because he'll be like piss all the way step into
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: my office. It's so quiet. There are pivotal scenes I
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: had to watch like three or four times because like,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I just I can't hear him, my rocos at a hundred,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I can't hear him. There's so just I think, all
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: the scenes where he's supposed to be. And it's interesting
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: because you know, I think it would be better if
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: we saw Lee actually consent to a lot of this
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: or like approach it with any sort of like passion
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: or excitement, like oh you know, but we really just
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: see her like headphones on, like listening to one tape
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: about being a sub, like being a dom. But most
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: of it is just James Spader's character being like you
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: do this, you sniffle too much, and I think you
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: need to stop touching your hair. And he's just projecting
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: all of these things onto her and it's just so uncomfortable,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and it's like, if you would have just given some
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: of that agency to Lee's character, it would have been
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: a little better, because his character just isn't interesting enough
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: to carry it. And the whole time he's just like,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I think you'd be happier if you just kept your
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: shoes on under your desk, and then we're supposed to
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: be like, holy sh it. He totally gets this girl's
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: self esteem and what she needs. Yeah, she broke the
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: snug glow. Well, before we get too far into it,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: let's do the recap and then we'll and then we'll
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: really just let loose. Well, we'll loosen up as she
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: is told she needs to do by Mr Gray. Listen up,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: we'll we'll drink a hot chocolate because she's not old
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: enough to have an adult beverage. Okay, Um, Actually, let's
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we'll come right back
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: and do the recap. So the movie is we open
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: on Lee Holloway. That's Maggie Gyllenhall's character. We see her
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: doing you know, some office assistant type work. You know,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: there's there's papers, they're stapling, she's getting coffee. But while
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: she's doing all this, she's wearing this kind of bondage
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: device that suspends and outstretches her arms to either side.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: This is an iconic intro scene. I feel like it'll
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: be remembered throughout her career. It is really cool as
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: a scene visually. Yeah, Like really put looks you into
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: the world because it does it. I mean, it's not
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: until the midpoint of the movie, hello screenwriting degree that
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: they enter into any sort of like dom sub relationships,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: so it takes a while to get there. But this
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: gives you a nice little, um, you know, foreshadowing of
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: what's to come. Yeah, and she's also like smiling while
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: she's doing it, so you're in on it. Like there's
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: these two moments in the beginning when she kind of
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: smirks and at the very end when she looks right
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: at the camera where she's like just so you know,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: I'm into this, and I think that's what we're supposed
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: to take from it, but I wasn't exactly sure. Yeah,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I also had a discussion about that. I was like, oh, okay,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: she's breaking the fourth wall to be like, hey, I
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: know I never said it. Don't ask me. I'm the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: one who needs to approve these activities like don't look
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: at us like. She also stares at the camera and
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: breaks the fourth wall at the very end Allah Judy
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Dench and cats, Like I really thought she was like
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: about to start singing about cats are not dogs at
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the end of this movie. And uh yeah. She also
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: just looks kind of angry like at the end when
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: she stares at us, Like at the beginning, it's it's
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: like this kind of like funny knowing smirk, like, oh,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: you're judging me, but I'm enjoying this, And at the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: end it's like she's she's angry at us. I don't know.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know what assumption she thinks I'm making, But
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: at the end, I was mostly just like, so you
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: went through all of that so that you could just
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: be like a housewife? Is that was that the goal here?
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Wasn't that the not what you wanted? I'm confused. But
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: you're different from your sister in her marriage because you
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: guys are into roaches in your bed. That is so
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: like early two thousand movie though, I feel like it
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, I'm not like the other girls,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: but I want all the exact things of the other girls.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: But I want my wedding goes to be black, and
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: we're gonna have sex. We're gonna have sex against tree.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Would a really hit for me when I was twelve,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I was like, what honestly, I was gonna say. When
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I was a kid, I watched that scene and I
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: was not at an age where I fully understood how
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: sex worked. But I just remember being like, the tree
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: is a big part of this, Like the trees and
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: sex go together. I do love having sex on camping
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: trips now all the time. And I didn't realize like, oh,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the tree is hurting hurting her back, like that's what
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: it is. But I was just like, no, I think
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: you need a tree involved in this sex act. That's
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: how it goes. Yeah, she just wanted to get her
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: back fucked up against some tree bark because because she
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: fell in love with the world's most complicated man. Oh
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: he's so interesting. Ah, he's not like the others. Okay,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: So we see this opening scene and then we cut
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: to six months earlier. Lee has just been released after
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: having been institutionalized. Um, she's back home. Things are difficult.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Her parents are fighting, her dad is abusive towards her mother.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: He's also an alcoholic, and we see her inflicting self harm,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and then we learned that she has a history of
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: doing this. Then one day she sees an ad in
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the paper advertising for a secretary job at a lawyer's office.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: So we just say how how she finds it? Though,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: because I feel like it's not like she's just going
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: through the paper looking for a job. She's like throwing
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: out her kit of like cell of like tools she
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: used to to harm herself. She goes to the trash can,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: throws it out, turns around, and then she's like, I
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: can't do it, and she goes to get it back out,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: and then she sees this add in the trash like
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: this like it's supposed to be some sort of like
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: divine intervention, like she's meant to be this guy's like
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: sub slave. Because also she does eventually throw them out,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: but only after, like James Spader says, it's okay, And
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: it's like, why couldn't that moment have come earlier for her?
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Why couldn't she It's like, couldn't she have just thrown
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: it out then and then been like, oh, an ad
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: to be a secretary? Okay? Yeah, I felt that that
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: whole I mean once it gets to like that James
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Spader scene, which I like, No, it's weird because it's like,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I know that that scene is kind of like iconic
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: in its own right, but it's like he's just like,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: don't do that ever again, and she's like, oh, that's
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: why I didn't not do it. I just need to stop.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I was doing it again, and then I was like
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I never thought don't don't do do it the hospital
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: and my family were like, maybe do it. Like it's
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: like it's just so my mom was like locking the
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: knives away, like but you know, if you want to,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: just come get me and I'll and I'll get it
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: out for you. Like I feel so I felt. I
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: felt for Lee's mom. I felt like the movie really
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: was not very nice to her at every turn, and
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: like if I mean, the first time you see her,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: she is being abused by her husband, and then really
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: every other time she crops up like she's made to
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: look kind of dumb and overbearing and like you never
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: really get any closure with her or the family. And
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: it's it's kind of interesting because the first half of
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the film to me, felt so kind of surreal and comedic,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: like all the stuff with the sister's wedding. It feels
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: like a joke, all the stuff, honestly, with like her
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: dad being an alcoholic, it feels like this caricature of
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: an alcoholic where he's like stumbling around downtown, wandering into
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: phone booths, and it's just like, Okay, is is this
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: supposed to be like kind of a funny any like
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: over the top? Yeah, like like play like we're making
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: fun of suburbia and like the drunk alcoholic parents who
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: like you know, and is is are we supposed to be? Like, Oh,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: they're in on it. This is kind of like a
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: pro prozac nation moment. But then it makes you feel
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: bad for the mom because you're like, oh, no, she's
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: dealing with this abuse and wait, can we take these
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: characters seriously? But then they're like no, no, this is
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: James Spader is way more interesting. Like what we're we're
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: all here for Spader, We're not here for these for
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: this family. Very confused by this movie tonally, like I
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: don't really it's a comedy dress It's like it's marketed
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: as a comedy and I don't I'm not seeing that
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: much humor in it, or maybe it's just so subtle
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that I'm not picking up on it. I don't And
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: then at the and then at the end, it's like
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: few like you're just like what is happening? Once once
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the like the wedding dresses on, You're like, this movie
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: has switched right. It's like an S and M Julia
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Roberts moment. You have, Like the press, apparently with nothing
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: else to report, is just like outside of his office
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: for days, like reporting on this woman who you would think,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: like like a doctor would just come in. I don't
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: know why. The press was like, no, we need to
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: publish her and saying love letter right now like running liked.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: And also that's the thing. Did he tip them off?
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Because he did tip by he tips off the boyfriend.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Was he like, let's let's get Peter in here, Let's
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: get the family, let's get impressed in here, Like I
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: I honestly think he's just standing at his creepy masturbation window,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: and I think he was just like, I'm just gonna
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: see where this goes. I'm just gonna sleep on the
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: floor till this all blows down, Like I guess is
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: how he like punishes himself, like oh no, the most
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: privileged punishment of all time. He's like, I'm gonna sleep
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: on the floor of my lawyer man while he is
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: like sitting in her piss for like five days in
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: a row because he doesn't want to use his words
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: and say, yeah, I like you too. Remember that's what
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: starts all of it, is that he cannot stay back
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I like you too. Yeah. She's like a herd out
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and then he's just like, stay there until I come back,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: until I And then he just stands outside the window
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and he's like, I like you do, missus all the way.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I have done what Maggie Gillenhall does in that like
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: extended scene emotionally a lot. I've sat in my piss
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: emotionally waiting for someone to say they like me back
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: for many times. Physically it would be a first. I
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: also think she would have pooped herself to if she's
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: there for like three days. It was also her wedding
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: day when he picks her up. We're getting so hard
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: of ourselves. But when he picks her up and like
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: sweeps her off her feet and carries her out of
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: the office like that wedding dress should be like brown
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: and yellow from all her why is he touching it.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: It's like kind of a break in his character, this
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: guy who doesn't want to touch worms. He's all all
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, he's all over this like Pisch dressed right.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's part of his king. I watched that with
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: my boyfriend and we were just like openly laughing. Once
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: it hit the end row, it was like, oh, that's
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: so and then we're just like, she's rewarded with a bath,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: and then she's locked in a room and she's like
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: and that's when I felt so beautiful, And you're like, also,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: is that that like weird grass table, which to me
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: seems like a place where you kill animals. I don't
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: know why someone would just have this like fake grassbed,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: uh thing? Why does he have that? And then she's
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: like laying there and she's like, she's like, no, this
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: is the first time I ever felt whole. And I
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: was like, oh, I didn't know you didn't feel whole.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: This is the first time. I'm like hearing this was
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: an issue for you throughout the film. Gosh, it's good.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Would have been nice to know how you were feeling
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: about anything. Unfortunately, we never learned that much about her character. Oops. No, Maggie. Okay,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: So she sees the ad in the paper for the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: lawyer's secretary job. She goes in to apply to the office,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: and then we meet the lawyer, Mr. E Edward Gray,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: that's James Spader's character. He interviews her on the spot.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: It's a very inappropriate and weird interview. We can talk
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: about that. He immediately it is just like, let me
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: just make sure this girl does not know boundaries. He's
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: just straight off the bat, like, let me just make
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: sure I can manipulate this girl who does not know
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: what is appropriate or is inappropriate, right, yes, And he
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: gives her the job, so she starts working for him.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: He's mostly a bastard and he makes her do inappropriate
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: things like go through the dumpster, he throws away donuts
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: that she gave him as a gift. He leers at
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: her body inappropriately. I was having some real like fraud
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: complex moments, uh during me like her early times in
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: that job, where it's like it is so clear to
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: the viewer that he is not hiring her because she's
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: going to be good at the job. He's kind of
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: hiring her because she's going to be bad at the job.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: And then when she's bad at the job, which he
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: knew she would be. He like punishes her relentlessly, which
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: feels like every early job I ever had exactly. It
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: reminded me of just every abusive boss who's just like
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: this has too much sugar, not enough sugar, Like, oh
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: my gosh, I don't like the way that you type this.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Oh actually I wanted like this much space on the left,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: and you're just like, oh, you're just a jerk. But
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: she's supposed to be She's supposed to be this naive child,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: and that's why she falls for it. Like any I
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: think any adult woman would have been like, no, you
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: can't ask me if I'm pregnant, would have just stormed
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: out of there. But she's like, oh my gosh, yeah,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I guess, like this is cool and just you know,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: and I think he knows that. And that's why the
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: entire dynamic just feels like it's set up so gross,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: because she doesn't even come into the job with any
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: sort of like equal footing totally, which is the main
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: reason I have a real problem with this movie is
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: that we are meant to be rooting for this relationship
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: in which a man is exploiting this imbalance of power
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: that he has in this relationship with this woman. So
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: what follows that is one day at work, her dad
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: calls her and he had left Lee and her mother.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: He seems to be hitting rock bottom and this upsets
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Lee and she self harms again at the office and
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Mr Gracie's her doing this because she does it in
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the middle of the waiting room, by the way, just
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: like at her desk, in the middle of the waiting room,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: where anyone could have walked into the office, right. Just yeah,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: there was a few. I mean, I don't know, as
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: like a former self harmer myself. It's like we go
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: to the bathroom. Yeah, it's like it was, And that
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: was one of the tonal moments where it was weird
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: because we also see like the weird moments where he's
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: like popping around the corner and just like peeking at her.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: It's like weird. But then there's this moment where she's like,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: I have to self harm, and obviously she would go
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: to the bathroom like we saw her like do this
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: privately before, but we know he's going to be peeking,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: and they set it up just to make it so obvious,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: and it's like like it just felt kind of comical.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: The way that he just immediately is just like and
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: then she sees and it's like, oh my gosh, I
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: didn't even consider that he could have been standing there.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: And she seems so shocked, and it's like, yeah, girlier
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: in the middle of your office, like they make her
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: so baby. Yeah. Yeah, it's just frustrating. So after he
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: sees this um, he starts to really lay into her um,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: yelling at her for typing errors, telling her that the
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: way she dresses is disgusting, like she's sniffling, she's fiddling
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: with her hair, she does this weird thing with her tongue,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: and she seems to make an active attempt to fix
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: these things. And then he asks her about a recent
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: date that we saw her on with this guy Peter,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: who she knew from high school, which is a date
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: that takes place out a laundromat where they're drinking wine.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know if this is a thing or not,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: but that's what I know. I thought that was cool.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I don't know if this is just
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: a Midwest thing, but in the Midwest, all my white
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: friends loved going on dates to the laundromat, So I
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: just I was like, yeah, I was like, I guess
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: this is a thing I never heard. There are lots
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: of white people where they also have like bars too,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: but I was like, I would be into this, And
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: also like, it's just creepy that he also uses that
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: laundromat because he's supposed to be this like big time lawyer,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, you don't have like a really fancy
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: dry cleaner. Are also using like the dating laundromat, and
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: at least in a home he'd haven't. Wouldn't he have
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: like an in home or like pick up or something.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: But no, he's also just like go into this town
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: laundromat and dinner night place, and then he sees them
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and gets like super creepy. He's like peeking behind the
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: washers again. So if you don't find James Spader attractive
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: in this movie, which I don't, really, those shots are
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: so alarming. They're just like, yeah, I don't know where
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: what are you doing? I don't know how the Steve
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the Bouschemy test applies here exactly, but it's like, to me,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: I feel like he's sort of for some he's for
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: me for sure, on account of how much I hate
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: James Spader. But um, so anyway, he's like, hey, that
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: date that you wrong? What was that all about? Did
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: you have sex? You know you can? You can tell
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: me about your problems. Also, don't ever hurt yourself again.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Don't cut yourself again. And she says, okay, yes, I won't. Um,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and then she makes another typing error and he calls
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: her into his office instructs her to bend over on
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: his desk and read the letter. And while she does this,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: he slaps her, but repeatedly, And we'll talk all about this,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: but this is the This kind of initiates the beginning
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: of a dom sub relationship between them. Um. He starts
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: to tell her what to eat. He has her crawl
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: around the office on all fours. We see him strapping
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: a saddle to her. Yeah, can we do that? Where
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: where did that come from? Is that why he has
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: the fake grass bed? I needed more answers there. Oh sure,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, this is kind of awesome, but also, like,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: where does he keep that? It's a really small office.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: It's a huge it's for like not a pony. He also,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: I believe there was also Hey, like this was a
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: very it was a platform with Hey. Yeah, there was
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: hey and carrots. This was like not just your you know,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I have this saddle hanging around. This was like a
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: well thought out like a photo shoot almost. He's very
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: inconsistent with like sometimes he's like, oh, I just I
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: just want it right now, but then other times it's like, no,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: this would have taken a lot of planning. You would
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: have had to decide this a couple of days ago
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: in advance. Yeah, And so for him to be so
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: wishy washy had points when it's like, no, the the
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: amount of probably just preparation involved in this relationship so far,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Like I'm sorry for you to now say that you
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: never had feelings for this girl, Like, I'm sorry, but
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: you're in a relationship. It made a bet of hay
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: for if you're making a bet of hey, you're in
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: a relationship, Okay, go ahead and put a term on it,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: because that's your girlfriend. That's a commitment. That's a commitment.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: After this, though, something kind of changes and he loses
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: He seems to lose interest and he stops engaging in
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: their B DSM relationship, much to her disappointment. Meanwhile, she
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: has been dating Peter. She wants him to spank her.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: He doesn't get it. They have boring sex. She's very
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: dissatisfied for Peter. He does that thing with this hand.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Peter he has this claw hand that he does and
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: he has sex to there where he doesn't touch her.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: He just like the like hovering or he's just like
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: and then he just she like she like turns around
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: like and does the like spank me move and he's
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: just like get a cond Like he's just like he's
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: just a character you feel so bad for. And she
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: does like briefly date some like other people in a montage,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: which I feel like the movie would have been better
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: if we'd actually seen her go on these like bad
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: s and M dates and like scene that X varience,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: but like very quickly they're just like, yeah, she tried
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: like throwing tomatoes at somebody and she did this in
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: any way that didn't work, So she must be in
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: love with James Bader, so let's move on, right. It's
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: like they look like the lamest like s and M
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: days you could go on, like, I think she just
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: probably picked the wrong people off of Craigslist. In two thousands,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the newspaper, I guess if you're putting your snm ads
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: in the newspaper. You're gonna get some some misses, right.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: So then at work, Lee puts a worm in a
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: letter to Mr Gray to try to reinitiate their b
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: DSM relationship, and it works sort of in that there's
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: like another encounter. But Mr Gray feels guilty about his
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: behavior and he thinks there's something wrong with him and
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: he wants to severtise with Lee, so he fires her
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: and she is devastated. That's when she tries these other
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: dom sub relationships with other men. None of them work out.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: She gets engaged to Peter because she doesn't know what
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: else to do, but on their wedding day, she runs
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: away Allah Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride to Mr Gray
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: and she's like, I love you, I want to be
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: with you, I want to make love and he's like,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: put your hands on the desk, plant both feet on
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: the floor, and don't move until I come back. She
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: takes that note very serious. She does not move. She
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't move. He does different things to test her. I guess,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: like we said what He tells Peter where she is?
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: She urinates in the wedding dress. He sends like everyone
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: he sends the entire castle a movie. Basically everyone we've
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: seen up until this point like comes in to have
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: like a little monologue with her where they all talk
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: about him. It's never like, hey, Lee, are you like hungry?
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: No one brings her a snack. Her mom brings her
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: four pas, but that brings her some peas, but most
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: of them are just like, he is brilliant, isn't he?
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, the worm trick was so smart? And
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: it's just like, is anyone like a therapist kind of
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: talks to her? And then the only person who really
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: gets through to her is her dad, who's like reading
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: the Bible right. I was honestly kind of confused. I
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: was like, is she hallucinating these because she's so hungry
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: and tired? But then it's like, no, these people are
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: really here. I think where I got confused, And like,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: how did Mr Gray get his ex wife to participate
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: in this like she and compliment to him? And and
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: did he call his ex wife before he called the
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: press or did he call the press first? Which I
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: guess that least I guess their divorce has since has
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: been settled off screen, So you seem very upset in
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: the beginning, and now she's gone full circle to yes,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: he's a genius, and somehow he slipped through my hands.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: She's like, yeah, I was just showing too much agency, personality, etcetera.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: I was just you know, an actual person a few
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: times and that didn't click for him. But you were
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: just a perfect, just blank tablet of a human for
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: him to imprint on. So those so those people were
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: actually there. She gets like five copies of codependency no more,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: she reads none of them. And then and then he
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: finally comes back after I believe three days of her
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: not sleeping, not eating or drinking water, presumably pissing, and
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: shooting herself, and then he comes back. He sweeps her
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: off her feet, he takes her home, he gives her
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: a bath, um and then they become a couple. They
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: get married, They on a tree, goes off to work,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: they fuck on a tree. He you know, he keeps
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: being a lawyer. She we're not sure what she does
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: with I guess she's not a secretary anymore because she's
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: not going to the office, right, did she just stay
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: at home? We don't really know. Actually, by the end
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: of the movie, the one thing we know about her
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: that she is a secretary. We don't even know that anymore, right,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: We actually and the movie knowing less about her than
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: we started with. True, we don't even know her job.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: She like like this is yeah, this is pretty disempowering
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: in a way, equally angless as when she began. But well, yeah,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: like this was supposed to be a very happy ending. Yeah,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: well that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: then we'll come right back for more discussion. And we're back.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Um okay, so I really quickly, I think I wanted
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: to start with talking about the material for the book. Um, Caitlin,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: you read the story. Yes, I did, bravely. I did
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: as well. I don't make a habit of reading. But
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: it was only liked read this. So I once I
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: saw that it was very short, I was like, alright,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I'll do I can manage this. So this movie is
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: adapted from a short story that is, I mean, the
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: framework is similar, but it plays out really really differently.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: It's by Mary gate Skill, who I think I had
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: read stuff of hers before, maybe in high school or college.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: She's like a famous mostly short story writer. Um. And
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: this was from a collection she wrote back in nineteen
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: idiot called bad behavior, and it is different. It is
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: so the I think most notable ways in which the
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: source material is different from the film is that there's
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: no mention of any of her self harm behavior in
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: the story. There's only a brief mention that her mom
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: had taken her to a psychiatrist one time. But aside
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: from that, the self harm aspect of her character seems
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: to be specific to the movie. In the scene in
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: which which the movie would have you believe is the
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: beginning of their dom sub relationship, we will talk about
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: how how it's just an assault with no prior understanding
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: on her part of what was going to happen, no
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: consent given on her part. Right during that scene in
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: the short story, the character whose name is not Lee,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: I think her name is Debbie in the short story. Um.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: But anyway, that character, that character is crying the whole time,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: and she just seems much more traumatized by the events
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: of that in the short story. Uh. The story ends
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: with the lead character deciding not to show up to
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: work anymore, and she's the one who effectively ends their relationship.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: They don't get together. At the end. He runs for
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: mayor of their town and she judges. She's like, this
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: town is so shitty. What kind of idiot would run
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: for mayor of such a shitty town? And then that's
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: pretty much how the story ends. That's very different. It's
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: so different. I thought it was like a good story.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: I I felt like it was. I mean it was
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: it's very like like late eighties. But it felt like, oh,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: this was like kind of this like slice of this
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: young woman's life. She had like a traumatic work experience,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: and there wasn't really any like infrastructure for her to
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: like process or report it, so she just took herself
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: out of the situation and then looked back on it
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: thinking that he sucked and was a loser, which which
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: is like a relatable experience. I didn't dislike the story. Yeah,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know Mary gets call. I mean, I guess
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: that there's not too much worth discussing about her here
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: because the movie has kind of very little to do
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: with what she read. I feel like the story sounds
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: so much better, like the whole aspect of the self
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: harm and the mental illness. Just the way it's used here,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: it's only used to take away her agency, it's only
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: used to make her seem so childish, uh, And it's
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: it's kind of used to make it like, oh, this
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: is the reason that she is this way. They use
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: it as an excuse, like, oh, the only reason that
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: she would be into like subdom stuff is because she's
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: the kind of person whose self harms, which obviously is
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: a really like dangerous stereotype for the b D s
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: M community. But also it's just like, like, no, she
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: could just like I love this type of stuff and
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: want to be in this relationship, but instead you want
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: to tie it to her mental illness, and that makes
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: me go a looks that he's taking advantage of that, Like, like,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: you guys should have just listened to Mary here, because
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: obviously she accounted for that way back in come on, yeah,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: in the way her mental health issues are depicted. And
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: this isn't to say the people who have or have
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: had self harm tendencies can't get into b D s
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: M and use that as a coping strategy in a
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: healthy way. I read some anecdotes from people who took
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: that approach and it seemed to work out great for them,
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: So I don't have a problem with the movie showing
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: that as a general thing. What I do find troublesome
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: is this character Mr Gray, who is an abuser, seems
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: to somehow curely of her mental illness by simply telling
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: her not to have a mental illness anymore. I was
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: I was bummed from Mary, and I like, on reading this,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I was like kind of even more confused with some
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: of the choices that the movie made because I assumed
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, well, okay, I knew going in
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: at the ending was very different in the movie than
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: it is in the book. But I'm like, maybe they
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: just chose, you know, a bad in for a happy ending.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Like if she I would almost be a little more like, oh,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: this was done with good intent. Uh if it was like, oh,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: it just didn't adapt well and then the studio made
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: us change the ending and so it comes off not
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: very well. But that's not even the case. And I
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: have a quote from Mary gate Skill who is like,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: she's really interesting. She's got you can look up her
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: takes on me too. They're all over the place because
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: she's she's all about the gray area of sexual interactions,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: which doesn't translate well to that conversation. Uh, even if
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: it turns out, you know, often well in her work,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: But Anyways, she was asked about this movie because it's
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: so different, and she was like, pretty I don't know,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: very chill about it. She said that the film was
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: quote the Pretty Woman version, very heavy on the charm
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: and a little too nice. But the bottom line is
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: that if if a film adaptation is made, you get
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: some money and exposure and people can make up their
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: minds from there. So she very much like it's kind
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: of like I gotta check check, and then distanced herself
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: from yeah, I like that. She says the movie is
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: charming because like, where where is that charm? I didn't
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: Her takes are all over the places like this is
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: Pretty Woman? Like where like where where is Lee coming
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: back to be like I own this? There's never that
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: moment she comes back and she's like yeah, she comes
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: and she's like I love you and I'm going to
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: sit here and do this. But it's only after she
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: bears her soul to the press and they like put
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: out her statement about how she's the only person who
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: understands him and he's so complicated that he like reads
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: it and it's like you know what, Okay, fine, I'll
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: go back in there and get her Like I was
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: gonna just like see how long she do this and
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: have fun with it. But now I guess I'll take
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: it seriously Like that that was It's not like Mr
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Gray has like such a trust of the local press.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: He trusted more than women. He's allegedly in love with Um.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: So Mary Gaskill writes the story, it eventually gets um
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: picked up by this direct or, Stephen Shaneberg, I was
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: not aware of. I had never heard of him, and
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: I looked up his other stuff and I had not
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: heard of any of it. I don't know who this
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: man is. For some reason, I thought it was Steven
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Soderberg who directed this, and then I was and then
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh wait, no, I read that wrong.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: That doesn't say Soderberg. That said something else. It's like
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: it's like one of the You're like Steve Stephenburg, like
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Steve Soderberg, like he had a he had another. I
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: think he only made one other movie after Secretary, and
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: it also had like pretty mixed reviews. But like some
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: big names attached to it, it seems like he just
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: he just kind of makes these like boring middle of
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: the lane like white like artsy movies with with couples
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: that fight. Yeah, it's like I couldn't quite figure out
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: what his deal was other than I believe he Oh no,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: he wasn't nepotism. I really can't make heads or tails
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: of his life in that case. But the the I
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: think the screenwriter of this movie is pretty interesting and
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: she has like a lot of pretty well known work.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: She was like originally a playwright named Aaron Crisita Wilson.
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: Other stuff she's written include the I think The Girl
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: on the Train is probably her most famous other adaptation.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: And then there was a movie named Chloe that I
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: definitely saw. It is not It's not good. It's Julianne
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Morriley of Neeson and Amanda sy Free. I totally forgot
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: about that movie. I like cut it out of my memory.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: It's a mess. She is interesting to me because I
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: feel like I haven't rewatched Chloe in a long time.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: But I feel like this particular writer is drawn to
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: a very particular type of female protagonist that we've talked
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: about before. But it's or we we're talking about earlier,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: but it's like she is drawn to like upwardly mobile
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: white lady with mental illness, but then kind of uses
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: that framing device to just punish the character relentlessly throughout
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the work. And I'm sure I'm oversimplifying the girl on
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: the train a little bit um. But I did not
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: like that movie. Uh wasn't a fan, and it's it's
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: like brutal. She's interesting, and so I was looking up.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: This was her first screenplay and she's written I guess
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: like twenty plays. I'm not. I don't know. It's like
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: good for her, all power to her, but she didn't
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: interview when she first wrote this movie where they were
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: basically asking her like, oh, have you ever been as
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: secretary or have you ever been um in a B
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: D S M situation? And her answer is so weird,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: it's okay, So here it is. She says, I have
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: had many instances of sexual harassment and jobs I've had
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: in the past, but I was young and didn't know
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: what I was being sexually harassed in these instances. I
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: had absolutely no sexual attraction to the harassers, so it
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: was confusing to me. I thought I had been hired
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: because these men liked my work, not my ass. You see,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: I went to girls schools for much of my education,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: so I came from a very sheltered and also wonderful
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: environment where I was seen for my personality, my intelligence,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: and my talent. When it came to work, I was
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: not accustomed to being seen as a sexual object. It
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: took me years after college to finally understand that I
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: was being harassed. I never thought of myself as particularly hot,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: so I was always ACKed when I realized that was
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: going on. I've worked with men I was attracted to,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: and this can be very invigorating and exciting, especially if
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: it is never consummated. But that is a consensual and
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: more adult situation. This film situation borders on sexual harassment definitely,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: but I think it ceases to be harassment when the
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: submissive starts to like it and actually ask for it.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: So it's like, I'm like really with her at the
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: beginning of this, and that took some turns, and then
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: at the end you're just like, wait, why didn't know?
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Why didn't attractive people can sexually harass in the workplace?
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: That's oh, there were so many I was like, I'm
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: with you, I'm with you, and then I was just
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: like no. And also, there is like a moment in
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: the movie where they like kind of joke about sexual harassment.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: Her sisters when they're by the pool, Like one of
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: them is like, oh, I'm you should like sue your
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: boss for sexual harassment, and then like Lee is just like,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: at least my boss is sexy. He's the best in
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: the world. Okay, So that I feel like that is there.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's the movie attempting to show the
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: distinction between like actual abuse and b D s M,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: the movie saying these are two different things. I feel
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: like this is also why we see Lee's father being
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: physically abusive to the mother. That's saying like, that's what abuses.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: What we're seeing in this relationship between Lee and Mr Gray,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: this is different. This is a consensual b D s
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: M relationship. However, this is my whole thing with this movie,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: and we already hinted at it, But like, the relationship
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: between the two characters starts as him being verbally and
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: emotionally abusive towards her in the workplace. This is followed
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: by the scene in which he has her bend over
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: the desk and repeatedly spank her. Um, she did not
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: know this was going to happen. She did not give
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: consent to this. In addition, there's also a major you're
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: in balance of power in that he is her boss
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: and she is his subordinate. There's also seemingly no one
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: else there. Yeah. Also, let's I don't think we mentioned
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: that the very first time she goes in for the interview,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: there's a woman, his old secretary who's leaving and crying.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: They also like cut to that clip at the end,
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: which is a little like, yeah, yeah, we get it,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: we get she got fired and she's also crying. We
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: know the reference, we get it. But it's like they
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: clearly established like he is an abusive boss, Like even
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: outside of b D s M, he's not a good boss. Right,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: Like the thing with this movie, and Jamie you had
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: mentioned this at the top of the episode, but like
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: this movie is widely considered within the b D s
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: M community to be more like accurate and responsible in
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: its depiction of b D s M relationships, more so
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: than like fifty Shades of Gray at least five years ago. Right,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Because the thing with fifty Shades of Gray is that
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: it and we talked about this on that episode, but
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: it conflates very concerning behavior like a man stalking a
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: woman as like being part of the kink aspect of
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: their relationship, and it's just like, no, this is romantic.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: What he's doing, him stalking her is actually very romantic.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: And it's also just like poorly written, so no one
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: likes it. But with Secretary, I'm just like what, but
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: there's an assault. He assaults her because, like the whole
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: thing with B. D. S M, if done right and
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: portrayed accurately, it's all about consent, it's all about negotiation,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: it's all about knowing each other's boundaries and limits. It's
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: all about safety, and none of that gets established in
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: this movie. They don't talk about the relationship he there's
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: no safe words established. In fact, he never uses the terms.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: We don't actually even know if he is well versed
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: in like B D. S M. Like the woman in
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: the beginning comes in and she looks at Lee and
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: says sub which is like okay, so she knows about it.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: And then we see like Lee, you know, she's at
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: the diner like listening to a book on tape or
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: whatever about subdom relationships. But all we ever hear from
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: him is that he's like ashamed of this inherent nature
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: that he has, Like is this just is he an
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: inherently bad guy who likes to harm people, whether they're
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: just his secretary or they're his partner, because he's he's
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: engaging in it without any consent or without at least conversation.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: There's never a moment where he's like, hey, I'm into
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: this lifestyle or hey, you know, he just is full
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: of shame about it. So it's very much like I
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: don't even know if we can consider him someone who
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: is into b D s M because they never even
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: say that about his character, Like we don't even know
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: that he that he like uses those ideas of consent
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: that are in the b D s M community, because
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: he just seems like a creep who would probably be
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: a jerk to anyone who worked in his office. Right,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: It's I felt like there there was a moment when
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: like he experiences the shame about like the kind of
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: sex he likes to have, where you're like, oh, like
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: maybe the movie is going to make a like an
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: interesting point about that, because that's something that happens, and
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: like you know it. There are cases of people who
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: are so ashamed of what they want and sex that
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: they won't educate themselves because they don't want to acknowledge
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: that part of themselves. But that but it but that
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: you know, that does not happen. It just kind of drops.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: He doesn't learn a thing. Yeah he could. I mean,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: if he has money for a horse saddle. I have
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: to imagine he could pick up a book on B
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: D s M or safe Words or just like a
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: book on tape on like you know, just being like, so,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: can I spank you? I feel like library cards are free. Yeah,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: I feel like he definitely has access to those resources.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: So just they're afraid to ever like just jump into
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: the B D s M conversation and in the end,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: that makes it so much more sinister and just so
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: much more confusing about what Lee is actually signing up for.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, actually, maybe you will have some insight into
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: this of because it's and I've read like a number
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: of like pieces that are sort of like, oh, I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: recognize that uh Secretary has equal, if not worse issues
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: and fifty shades of great. I just like it more
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: and I'm like more attached to it. And my guess
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: is because it was the only even semi mainstream movie
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: that dealt with this at the time. Okay, I think
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: that's it it's like, I mean, even watching it now,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: I was a little like, wow, this came out so
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: long ago, like twenty years now, and I mean at
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: the time, it was like so shocking that poster is
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: so shocking. You're like, wow, I've never seen a film
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: just kind of talk about even just self harm. I
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: think for me that was such a shocking thing, like
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: mental health and that just being something that like a
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: woman can have those issues and you can talk about
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: it in a movie. Uh. You know. I feel like
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: this was that time period of like really like quirky, cute,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: manic pixie dream girls who were all like you know,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: plan ukuleles, and then there was this like dark girl
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: who was like hurting herself and dealing with mental health
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: issues and like issues of self esteem. And obviously that
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: resonated for someone like me who listened to Torrey Amos.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: So I was like in a prime position to love
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: this movie. And you know, I still think it it
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: does deserve some credit for doing a lot before anyone
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: else did it, but I mean it also still does
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: so much wrong. Like it, you know, and I think
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: we can say like, yeah, it's great, and I I
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: can you know, proudly proudly say, like, yeah, I tried
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: to spank myself with a hairbrush because I saw it
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: in this movie, and you know, I'm into that, Like, okay,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: think I I owe that to secretary. But at the
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: same time, James Spader is creepy and this movie could
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: be better written. Sure, two things can be true. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: I like I think that it is like definitely good
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: that people are able to like discover stuff or feel
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: even somewhat seen in a movie like this. I just
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: was really I don't know because and I also think
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: that the other thing is that it's like it is
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: just a better crafted movie the fifty Shades of Great.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: No one wants to watch fifty Great Shades of Gray
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: because it's like a shitty movie, even though it is
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: you know, we've talked about it in another episode, and
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: there's just not the bandwidth the handle it now. But
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: there are at least some basic B D s M
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: dynamics introduced in fifty Shades of Gray. Whether they are
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: actually abided by by the couple, uh doesn't always happen.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: But you are introduced to the just consent and uh,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: you know, what's her name whatever, and so embarrassing and
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: as Stasia get an opportunity, and I guess opportunities like
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: an overstatement, but like she gets to say, here are
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: my boundaries, here's what I won't do, and they do
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: that little negotiation and they have some aftercare with each
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: other and they cuddle after stuff, and it's just like
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: it's very like one oh one, but at least it's
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: it's there with yeah, because with Lee there is nothing.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, she doesn't even read, she doesn't listen to
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: that book on tape until after he has ended their relationship.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: She she doesn't go out with other people who are
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: into this lifestyle until after the relationship. So she gets
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: into it not even knowing what it is. Apparently like
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: she's doing these things, she's like happy to crawl on
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: the floor and all this stuff, but she actually has
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: no idea what she's engaging with until later, and she's
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: just being like physically and emotionally abused by this guy.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: Because it seems like for Mr Gray that it is
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: just as much of a twenty four seven emotional consumption
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: as it's like they're just are no lines. She's given
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: no information and because we're introduced to her as kind
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: of this childlike character. You kind of assume, well, she
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: is not going to be given the agency to figure
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: out she doesn't really have anyone else to talk to
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: in her life because her family is framed as being
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: so I think they're like a joke. Yeah, the family,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: her sister is a character. I don't know why the
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: sister is not like a friend or someone she can
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: relate to. I don't know why she doesn't have friends
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: or just any sort of female character where she can
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: be like, I have these feelings about this situation or
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: this boy that never happens. We only relate her mom. Yeah,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: all we really know is that Mr Gray is better
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: than this other guy who is boring. So that is
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: why Mr Gray is good, which poor poor Peter. Peter
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: is nice. He cares about you spec her. Maybe he's
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: he's really bad at sex, but at least he treats
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: her well. He could learn, and maybe you know, he
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: just wants to get married and have kids. You know,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: you can teach someone to spank, you can, It's really
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: easy to do. Yeah, I feel like he would have
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: been game if she'd been like, hey, so I realized
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: I'm into b D s M and I want to
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: explore this and if she had used the language with him, okay,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: but instead he was just like tape. I feel like
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: he would have been like, I'm game to try this
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: and figure it out for you. He seems so in
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: love with her, and then instead he's just like I
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: didn't actually like how they have him confront her in
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: that situation, because they tried to kind of paint him
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: as the abuser, like he's the only person who manages
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: to push her out of that chair and he's like,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: I don't care if you want to stay here, I'm
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: going to push you and like physically violate you. And
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: that's like a clear moment when they have a man
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: like to fire her physical agency and she yells like
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: no and like runs to the chair, and I'm just like, wait, no,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: that's so out of character for him. Yeah, Like like
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: first of all, like that's out of character. He's never
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: been this aggressive person, Like why would he all of
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: a sudden just like grab her and do this. But
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: also he's the good guy, Like come on, Like, how
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: are you going to paint him as the one who's
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: like actually now abusive and going against her wishes when
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: all he has done has just been like I will
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: only touch you with my pinky and you can keep
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: all your clothes on and whatever you would like, we
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: do this the way that you want to do it,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: like come on. There was also like I felt like
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: a kind of subtle like dumping on Peter class wise
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: as well, Like I think that they were first of
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: all being like Peter isn't something enough for her, and
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: I think that, like, you know, sexually masculine is a
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: part of that. And then they're also like subtly dumping
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: on him for working at j C. Penny all the time.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: They like anytime he comes up there, like and he
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: proposed to me in the basement of like they're just
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: which is a good line, but that was a good moment.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: I love that scene when they're just sitting there and
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: she's like, yeah, I guess I'll marry you. Okay, okay.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: But they're also kind of being like, oh, this guy
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: is like he doesn't funk hard enough and he's poor,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: Like he's the nicest person in the movie. He just
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: is so sweet and nice. He gives a rides when
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: they like when she's like, oh, this wedding sucks, he's
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: there to be like hey, yeah, do you need anything,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: Like he just is so sweet and the movie is like, yeah,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: but no, Mr Gray is the is this just really
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: complex guy? And she gets him, and I just I
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: still don't know what we're supposed to like about the
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: guy truly, and contrasting that with like, I mean, like
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: I said this a little earlier too, but like how
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: her turning point as like a character is when he
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: just suggests that she should no longer self harm. So
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: it's also like, oh, if you have a crush, that
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: will cure your mental illness. Like there's just all sorts
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: of bizarre messages being bandied about. He has a polaroid camera,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: she has. She has no more problems, okay, the polar
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: and camera thing. I watched this movie with a person
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: that I am dating, which was interesting because I forced
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: them to watch it, and the whole time I was
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: just like, keep in mind, this is like the most
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: informative movie to my sexual awakening in my life, so
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: just keep that in mind the whole time. And we
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: like got into a fight over the polaroid scene because
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: I swore there were pictures of multiple girls in that
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: book and he had polaroids of like his ex and
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: like other secretary he does, and then he burns it.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, And I was like, this shows us this
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: is a history of abuse, is a pattern, Like this
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: has nothing to do with Lee, this is just this
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: guy doing this. But my partner was like, no, those
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: were all photos of Lee, so just on the record,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: let's all tell the definitely different people. And then yeah,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: that also is more of and again just like demonizing.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: I mean everyone is kind of demonized in this movie,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: but like it demonizes the b d s M community
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: by being like, yeah, they keep things like serial killers,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: like he's has this like serial killer scrapple, like women,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: he's upset, like it's just he keeps their their photos
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: and his beautiful orchid garden, and like like b DSM
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: people are just inherent monsters who can't control themselves except
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: through push ups and treadmills. He is so sweaty in
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: that treadmill scene. Oh my gosh. Like they voluntarily flashback
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: to that shot a second time. I was like, I
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: didn't want to see that again. Also, they also they
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: have her flashback to it, but it's not the part
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: when she was there, and I was like, how did
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: how did she know? He was running that hard? Then
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: how did she see it? That is such a heartbreaking
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: scene too, and that like when she her so her
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: father is sick, she's really upset about it. She's like
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: not able to communicate with her mother and her siblings,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: and so she goes to him for like emotional support.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: She kind of has no reason, being as romantically naive
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: as she is and also as like manipulous, like she
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: has no reason to believe that he won't you be
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: nice to her? But then he makes it clear right away,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: like I don't you know that? Like I don't do emotions,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: and it's the hot and the cold. It's that classic
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: just like you know. He he made her feel so special,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: made her feel so like, oh, I'm going to fix you,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: and I see everything that's wrong with you. And then
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: the second she's like, oh, I actually need your emotional support,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: he's like, I'll read the files in the morning, get
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: out of here, right, And then he just sits on
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: his bed and like looks out a window, like how
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: dare she expect me to show the emotions that I
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: promised her i'd show, right, especially when he's like, you
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: can talk to me about out your problems. Yeah, he
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: like that's the whole opening of their relationships and being like, yeah,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: we can be intimate and you can talk to me.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: And then when she's actually like my dad, which I
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: don't I like that they never in the end like
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: give us closure on the family thing in terms of
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: the dad's like sickness. Like, for all we know, she's
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: like fucking on this tree and her dad is just
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: dead in a ditch somewhere. We have no idea like
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: he yeah, we don't find out if her mom ever
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: like gets out of that relationship. And also and then
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: it kind of like I just think that that like
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: shot of abuse at the beginning ends up being so
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: gratuitous because it is never revisited other than like her
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: like possibly I could see being like, oh, I don't
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: you know, like you were saying, Caitlin, like this is abuse.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: This is an abuse. But then don't bring the dad
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: back at the end when she's pissing herself as like
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: a good like the best guy. Yeah, the one who
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: like understands her like this dad who's abusive is the
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: one who's like, I have the Bible Verse you need
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: and she's like thank you, daddy, which felt gross. That
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: felt like an illegal use of Daddy in that scene.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: I think they should cut it from the film in
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: the future, strike it from the record. I also like
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: with with her mom, I can't help but feel because
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: her mom is painted as being very submissive. Also in
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: the fact that she seems to have nothing better to
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: do than wait outside of Lee's work for hours on end,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: like we're just waiting for her to be done, to
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: pick her up, and I mean, we don't really know
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: anything about her except that again she's she just seems
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: to be depicted as this very submissive person, and I
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: feel like the movie is like wanting you to think
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: this is the way not to be submissive, because Lee
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: is doing it right. And I think there's like there's
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: like I can see a read of this movie and
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: all of the defenses of this movie that I've read
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: of because people love to write about how Secretary is
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: better than Fifty Shades of Gray. So I was reading
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: several of those pieces, and a lot of them were
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: making the argument that Lee she's given agency. She eventually
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: starts consenting and initiating some of these dom sub interactions
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: with Mr. Gray. People have written about how she as
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: she's becoming more submissive to him. She's actually becoming more
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: dominant in her own life and that she's empowered, and
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: I can see parts of that. I think her mother
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: character is like written the way she is so that
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: there's like this stark contrast of like here's the bad
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: way to be submissive and here's the good way to
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: be submissive. I don't really don't like that. I feel
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: about that necessarily, but I don't like it. That does
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: make sense to me that I mean, especially I guess that,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: like I mean, every movie you have to take the
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: time it came out as context by like maybe especially
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: with the movie like this, where this was the option
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: for a semi mainstream BDSM movie. And then also there
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: are just so few movies about women being remotely sexually empowered,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: even if if you look at the text carefully, like
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: are they really? But I feel like this movie was
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: very much framed and you were supposed to think that
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: she was very sexually empowered, and sometimes that is enough
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: if there's not you know, other options. So I mean
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: the fact that you see female masturbation, you see female orgasm,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: female pleasure. I feel like she only reaches orgasm when
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: she is masturbating and not in anything that she's doing
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: with Mr. Gray. No, No, that's true. I mean we
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: really only see them have sex, like when they are
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: on against the tree. That's the only time. The other
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: time is just like him for like going over every
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: scar one by one and because she's finally found someone
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: so smart that he can understand her scars. That is
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: such a I remember that, like not not as sexualized,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: but like I remember a very similar scene on Degrassi
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: which was like, oh, like in two thousand two, I
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: was very on the Degrassy train and there was there
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: was a girl like a character who self harmed, and
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: then it was it was Ellie Stacy Farber currently on
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: Grayce and Frankie. We love her. She's great, a star,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: she's great. She was the hot topic girl too, but
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: she there was like you know that. I feel like
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: it is like almost a trophy moment where it's like
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: when the person who's self harming finds someone who accepts them.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: They touch your scars and you're like, wow, I finally
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: have found love and I am beautiful. And it's corny
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: but it's also potent in a way. Like in this movie.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: It didn't really hit for me because I don't value
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: like their relationship is so dark and fucked up. But
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: in other situations I've been like, that's nice. It worked.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: It worked for me in Degrassi anyways. Yeah, Degrassi definitely
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: pulled it off better than this movie did. They could
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: have taken some notes, I think, because I don't in
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: this scene. I mean, even when he first notices her scars,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: because he notices them before he even tells her the
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: whole like stop doing that or catches her trying it.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: She's like setting a rat trap and he's being mean
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: about it. And then like her her like dress comes
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: up and he sees it. So to me, it's like
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: already he is. It's not something where he's like, oh,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: I want to understand this about her. It's like he's
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: going to use it against her. It's something that he's like, oh,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: this is another way where I can control her and
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: change her and fix her, versus like, oh, I want
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: to understand what causes her to do this. I mean,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think he ever asked. I don't think he
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: ever was like, so, what's what's the whole? You know
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: nothing about each other. In that scene where they're finally
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: like having a tender like kissing moment after he has
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: bathed her, She's like, who are you? Where did you
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: grow up? Where were you bored? What are your interests?
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: They don't know anything about each other. Gives the most
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: boring answer. He's like, Moine Iowa, I mean, shout out
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: to des Moines and our de Moin listeners, But who
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: knew that demo des Moines Iowa was like making the
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: most complicated men of all time, Like somewhere in a
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: corn field, they're just cranking out these just complex beings
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: who cannot be understood with our our simple female brains.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: He has no story, like it's they know I feel
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: I feel for for Lee, So I am very curious
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: of like what does this relationship look like for Lee?
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: Down the line a little bit like when she genuinely
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: does come into her own a little more and like
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: mature's more like, I don't know. I don't see this
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: relationship maybe lasting forever. What have ends? When Lee wants kids, like,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: he's like, I've got orchids. I'm I'm good. I don't
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: need children. I have orchids them my creepy album, like
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: and maybe a horse. He might have a horse, or
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: at least the parts to have one. Yeah, he's got
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: the accessory everything but the horse. Yeah. I mean, ultimately,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: like with with this character, especially like it's very romantic,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: and I feel like where this movie very suddenly pivots
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: into like romcomp territory at the end, like you're supposed
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: to believe I guess that she changed him, which is
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: just like never an idea that serves anybody is like, yeah,
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: he treated every other person he's ever been in a
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: relationship with like absolute garbage, deeply hurt them, ruin their
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: lives in some cases. But he was just waiting for
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: the girl that would for a whole week at his
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: desk on TV for the media, and that made him
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: fall in love with her. Like it's just so many
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: levels of it. You're just like come on, like who God?
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: And I know, because I was such an impressionable like
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: twelve year old, I would have been like, wow, so
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: so that's what we're gonna do. Okay, Like I can't
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: say that, I can't say that's not how I've dated
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: my entire life. I can't say that this movie didn't
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: have that impact where I just want someone who's going
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: to tell me what to eat for dinner and carry
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: me and feed me carrots. I think that's just like
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: what I want, and that is because of Secretary, But
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just I think it's a little
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: dangerous now when I look back, Like, yes, it was
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: like one of the first movies to do that. But
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: for that same reason, like I as like a young queer,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: I put so much into it, Like I was so like, oh,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: this is this is what you know my experience should
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: be like, and oh I need to find So it's
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: gonna be tough to find someone who gets me because
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: as a woman who's into this lifestyle, I'm just hard
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: to understand and I have to deal with someone who's
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: hard to understand, and that is something that takes so
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: long to unlearn. Like, no, you you don't have to
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: deal with men like this. You don't have to deal
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: with anyone like this. Actually, you can find people who
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: know about consent and use their words and speak at
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: a reasonable valume like life can be easy. It's audibly
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: like office. Oh god, he says so many like pivotal
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: lines of the movie so quietly. That makes a lot
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: of sense though, like and and again, if if this
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: is the only movie of its kind, like where else
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: do you really have to turn for media to like
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: it was like this and the L word. That's like
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: I think all we had which I had to read
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: with the deal word. Well, I like what I find.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: I think there's some pretty problematic ship in that show.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: That's why I rewatched it once a year. It not
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: aged well, it's it's just as problematic as Secretary in
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: terms of just I don't know. I guess it was
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: like the sex sexy period of time when everyone was
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: just like, oh, we're hot, sex positivity. You don't need
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: to say yes verbally because we just see it in
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: your eyes. And now we're at a point where like, no, no,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: you could, you should use the words, you should actually
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: have the character because if if I mean if like
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: the and this kind of we've kind of been saying
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: this for the whole episode, but like if you switched
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: the dynamic even two percent so that it's not this
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: perfectly calibrated, like these two people meeting each other, meeting
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: each other at the exact right time, and this like
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: it would be like like a Hollywood Reporter article about
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: workplace abuse, like it just I don't know. It's such
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: a bummer because you you do have to imagine for
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: every person who saw themselves in Lee in a very
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: like genuinely felt way, you had some fun and creepy.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: Did that felt like validated by Mr Gray? Of like, yeah,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: you know what, actually, probably when I treat people that way,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: I'm changing their life and making their life way better. Yeah.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: And also I think it shows those men kind of
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: who to target. I mean, I think this movie is
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: mostly about how Mr Gray selects his victims. It's like
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: how he puts his secretaries through this test, like very
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: quickly find someone who doesn't understand boundaries by asking them
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: inappropriate questions in an interview, look and see if they
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: self harm, because that's something you can use. Is there
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: anything else where they play with their hair or their
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: insecure that you can use against them? I mean, it's
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: it's kind of dangerous in this way where I kind
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: of think, mostly we know nothing about Lee, but we
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: know a lot about how he chooses victims and why
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: he chosely. Yeah, and then and then it's supposed to
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: by the end you're like, no, but she's changed, and
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: now he is changed. Change. But then but actually it's
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: like you were saying, we know less about them at
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: the end than we did at the beginning, and it's
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: just kind of confusing. I will say, though I love
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: Maggie Gillan Hall in this movie, I just generally love
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: her so much. She can make uh not great movie
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: much better. And this was kind of like a turning
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: point in her career in a way that I always
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: find kind of like interesting slash frustrating of like this
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: was her I don't know. I feel like there is
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: like this very trackable trend of mostly prior to this,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: like Maggie Gillan Hall has been in a lot, but
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: she would mostly play like somebody's daughter or like she
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: was like a very side character. She was not a
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: leading lady. And I feel like there this happens a
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: lot where you have to do like the sex role,
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: and once you do the sex role, well you have
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: become a legitimized actor, like as a as a woman,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: you mean, like as a Yeah, I think, I mean,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: I think we've seen a million times in like Sunny
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: play stops, Funny, you gotta stop, sorry, Sunny Stop. I
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: don't I can't speak to what just happened. Sonny at
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: it again, bat Sonny doesn't like when women speak for
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: too long, but I'll have to say, like I feel like,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: you know, like it's very trackable, and and and and
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: Maggie Jillen Hall is like twenty three four when she
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: films this, so it's not quite disagregious. But you know,
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: it's like when a Disney star or Nickelodeon star graduates
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: out of playing kid roles and does an adult role,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: it's always like a zero to one hundred, like the
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: most adult role that could possibly play. And this is
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: kind of that moment for Maggie Jillen Hall. And she's
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: a great I mean, she's a she's so talented, and
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: it like, in spite of everything, I still think she
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: gives a really good performance. I just wish that didn't
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: necessarily have to happen to for her to be another stuff.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: And at least she does sell that that look at
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: the end, that that breaking the fourth wall, like that
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: is entirely just Maggie being like, I did what I
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: could to save this movie. Don't put it on me.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: And then she says a cat is not a dog.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: I yeah, yeah, maybe that's like the best read of
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: that end moment is that's Maggie Jillen Hall talking to
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: the audience being like, listen, there's only so many ways
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: to get ahead, and I promised to be subversive in
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: the future. Please just give me a chance. I'll do
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: the deuce someday. It'll be great. Yes, she will do
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: the deuce, at least for me. Now, I see this
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: movie as like her movie. I see it as like
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: a thing that made her. It helped her career, and
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: it's great when you look at sort of what she's
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: done and as an actress. But if I were to
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: like teach a class on sexuality and good representations of
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: b D s M, I would not include it. No, No,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: I mean I appreciate media that attempts to normalize things
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: that are widely misunderstood by you know, the general population,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: as like b D s M still is, I think,
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: but like with Secretary, we weren't there with it being
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: represented responsibly on the grounds. Especially again that like, there
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: is a full on assault that happens, and it is
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: framed by the movie as no, this is just the
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: start of this dom sub relationship, and it's like, no,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: that is not what happens. That's just a girl who
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: got spanked and did not know what a subdom relationship
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: even was yet right right, and did not consent to
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: it again, like nothing about what he was going to
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: do had been previously discussed or agreed upon. And the
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: power dynamic of like, I mean, you know, it's not
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: like a manufactured B D s M power dynamic. It
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: is a real power dynamic. He controls her income and
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: takes it away, and like there's just so much actually
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: fucked up stuff happening. Oh my god, I forgot about.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: The most annoying part is like her mom take like
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: picks her up and waits outside the office for her
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: to get off work all the time, and then finally
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: one day, James Spader's character is like, you're gonna walk
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: home from now on by yourself, and she does it,
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: and she's like, I felt like I was walking for
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: the first time, and I was like, like, you know,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: you needed a man to tell you you could go
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: on a walk. Yes, she needed this man to tell
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: her to do so many things, and it's like not that,
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, like you know, it just doesn't work.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't work, and it never and just like
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: the very specific detail of she has just gotten out
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: of like an extended stay in the hospital for self harm,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: like that is never really referenced again. It's just kind
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: of used as a convenient like there's a whole other
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: set of like you're going through a lot when you
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: get out of a situation like that. But she doesn't
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: seem to really yeah, at least on screen, doesn't seem
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: to process it at all. It never seems to click.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: It's never like her parents are like and then her
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: parents seemed cool that the newspapers are there when she's
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: having what could be described as a mental breakdown, but
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: they don't call it her old therapist. They're not like
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: we should like call her old hospital and see if
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: they can get someone over here. Right. It's very confusing
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: because at the beginning, he's seen as saying he like
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: says to her like, if you ever need help with anything,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: like call me, I'll do my best to help you,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: Like where do you go? Yeah, and then he doesn't
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: and then we don't see Yeah, they just like bring
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: in all these people who are like maybe you should
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: read about feminism, dummy, which like a weird way for
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: the book to be, like, I that feminists have a
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: problem with this movie. And it's like I thought that
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: was a very kind of like funny two two passive aggressive, like, ah,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: this woman without middle part and like is giving a
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: lot of books. She doesn't get it. She's just angry.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: She's so mad and we don't know why. And there
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, and she's in it for all of two
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: I mean literally to see and she's in the scene
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: where she stomps on the jacket and then she shows
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: up at the end to say he was actually a
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: genius the whole time. Um, And what her name is, Trisha?
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: Is that right? Um? Sounds about right? But even she,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is such a quickly written like shrew,
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: shrew shrew. Seeing that she is there to sort of
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: in part. Maybe she's the only person to use b
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: DSM like vocabulary in the entire movie. And then we're like,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: but we hate her, but she also thinks he's a genius,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: but who even is she? And I think it would
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: have been cool if she had, like if she had
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: been his dumb if we'd actually seen like that's like
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: why they got divorced or like that, like he at
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: least had been in a b DSM relationship before, and
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: maybe some of his difficulties with Lee, Yeah, with Lee
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: is like now that he's in the dom position, he
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: feels bad about torturings. Like if there was any sort
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: of context like that, we could have maybe felt bad
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: for Mr Gray or like seen where he was coming from.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: But instead it's just like, why why are you so
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: upset with this thing that you have done before? Wait?
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: Why are you upset that you're into B D S M?
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: Like why do you have all of these Why did
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: you have you invested so much money? Though? Then why
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: are you putting their saddles cost so much money? There
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: are a lot of money and it looks like a
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: nice one and he has a whole grass bed table
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: that in like also that bathtub was very nice. And
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: I guess above his office he did home. I don't know.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: He just carries her upstairs, that's truely does just pick her? Yeah,
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: that makes me laugh. It's I mean that dress should
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: be covered in poop and it should just be a
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: more to do. They start framing her letters with like
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: spelling mistakes and like put him along the wall like
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: a sexy bank wallers and homage. Yeah, which I was
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: just like, people not come into your office often that
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: you two can just like hang your kinks on the wall.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: Does he have any clients. Um, yeah, well, I mean
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: I'm pulling from again our favorite scholarly journal Wikipedia here.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: But the director, Steven Shaneberg, has had said that he
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: wanted to make this movie because he wanted to show
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: that b D s M relationships can be normal, and
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: that he was inspired by the film My Beautiful Launderette,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: which he felt normalized gay relationships for audiences in the eighties.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: So he made this movie with the intention of normalizing
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: b D s M relationships and culture. Um did he
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: do it? Well? Um, not necessarily failed. I at least
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: appreciate knowing that he that is what he wanted to do,
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: because there's also a read of this movie where I
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: could be like, maybe that's not what he wanted to do.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: So I guess, of the options, I'm glad he at
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: least was trying, but he did fail. I mean, I
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: guess like that final shot where it like pans out
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: and it's like, look at that these b D s
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: M freaks could just be any couple in your neighborhood.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't know, like they just they blend in. I
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: guess is like, yeah, anybody could be into this, sure,
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: but they wouldn't be like these people probably because they
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: they misrepresented the whole community. But you know that you're
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: probably just like a like a normal woman in your
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: mid twenties who likes to get spanked, and you're okay,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: just claiming that for yourself, right right, right, Well doesn't
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: even have Is there anything else that we haven't hit
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: on yet? I think that's all I had. That's all
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: I wanted to touch on. That's all my points. We
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: got into all of it. I feel like, yeah, we
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: really once again and as an episode the length of
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: the movie as all of ours. Um, well, does this
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: movie pass the Bechdel test? Oh? I forgot to check.
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: I think it does. Between her and her mother, although
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: her mother isn't specifically given a first name, I think
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: her mother is a present enough character in this story
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: that I would count that. I wasn't sure about that
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: because I was like, technically, is the scene about the
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: abusive dad? But then I guess they don't really say
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: anything really. There's a couple of scenes where like they're
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: in the car together and her mom says something like,
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: I'm so proud of you for like putting yourself out
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: in the world and going out and getting a job
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So there's a there's a couple
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: of scenes like that. She also Lee also talks to
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: the paralegal woman who I believe is not named. We
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: never learned her name, but she says, what even is
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: a paralegal? And then the paralegal says and then leaves.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: Also the paralegal here's her masturbating in the bathroom later. Yes, yep.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: The paralegal is used to even to like disempower Lee
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: even more or like not the character, but the fact
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: that he's like, Oh, I hire someone to actually do
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: the work I need, and then I have like the
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: person that I'm emotionally abusing on my parents. Yeah, just
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: so he doesn't do anywhere. Also a quick shout at
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: Lee's mom is played by Lesliean Warren a k a.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: Miss Scarlett and Clue. So, oh, she's kind of she's
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: she's blond in this movie, so it's hard to write.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have made that that connection. But you know,
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: she's got range. She's got range true well as far
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: as our nipple. Our nipple scale, in which we examine
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: how the movie fares looking at it through an intersectional
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: feminist lens. Again, the movie shows abuse and assault, but
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: it does not frame what happens in the movie as
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: abuse or assault. Instead, it conflates it with what b
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: D s M is, and the movie fails to acknowledge
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: all the important things about a healthy b D s
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: M relationship, like consent, communication, safety, establishing boundaries, establishing trust
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: after care. She would have learned this in the book
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: on tape, right, yeah, and then she would have looked
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: back and been like, oh, oh my gosh, there wasn't
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: any of that. I this was actually very harmful. I
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: should run away and not ever talk to This movie
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: is just like her listening to book and on tape
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: and being like, oh, oh my gosh, this guy has
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: horrible dynamics, just horrible. Wow. She meets a nice guy
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: on Craigslist and then they're happy. Yeah, right, and then
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: and then she can go and enter into a respectful
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: and mutually consensual b D s M relationship if that's
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: what she's into. But the movie really does. I think
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: it does a huge disservice to b D s M
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: and it's community. I think that even though at least
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: perhaps not so much any more now that we is
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: a just like our cultural climate of having a better
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: understanding of consent. Even in within the past few years
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: that has lifted, and I would be curious to know
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: how people who would originally defended this movie if they
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: would feel still feel the same way about it. Um.
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: But in any case, I think that because uh, I
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: just I think this movie does a huge disservice to
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: B D s M relationships because of the of all
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: the stuff it completely overlooks. There is very easily a
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: way in which you can show an empowered female character
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: with agency who is a sub in a dom sub relationship,
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: because if you understand anything about dom sub relationships, you
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: know that it's actually the sub who holds much of
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: the power in the relationship because it's the sub who
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: sets all the boundaries and parameters. It's the subs needs
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: and wants and curiosities that are being fulfilled by the dom.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't get explored really at all in the
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: movie because we never see Mr Gray listening to what
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: Lee wants or needs. We don't see really any communication
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: between them at all except him being verbally and emotionally
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: abusive toward her. For sure, I think that their relationship
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: makes no sense, so they don't know anything about each
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: other it's just the whole thing is very, very ichy
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: to me. I'm going to give it one nipple just
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: for the fact that it does attempt to normalize B
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: D s M culture. But again again, like I don't
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: it doesn't even do better than then fifty Shades of Great.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: At least fifty Shades of Gray talks about consent, even
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: if it is horribly written. This did make me want
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: to try to watch fifty Shades of Gray again, and
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: I just really wanted to. Quickly, I googled the cursed phrase,
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: whereas fifty Shades of Gray streaming, and I found this
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: incredible click bait piece that someone had really put artistry
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: into because it said it was basically all it needed
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: to say was fifty Shades of Great is not currently
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: streaming in the US, but it was somehow fourteen paragraphs
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: long because I'm sure that like I've had those jobs,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: like you're kind of being paid by the word, and
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: so she really just like made or I don't know
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: what with the gent, but like they just made a
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: meal of it, and so they said, like yours in
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: the UK may be able to watch the first installment
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: of this titilating saga on Netflix. However, if you live
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: in the US of A, you may need to go
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: somewhere else to find your SNM. And then it said
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: in parentheses streaming and movies like that the news and
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: you know everyone's got there there and in parentheses streaming
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: in movies. I was like, Ah, Pulitzer, incredible. Yeah, I
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: just I guess I just long for the movie and
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it's out there. So listeners, if you have
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: any suggestions on movies that tackle b D s um
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: that are actually responsible and not centered around abuse and assault,
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: let us know. But it's it's not here with secretary.
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: So yeah, one nipple, um, and I guess I'll give
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: it to I'll give it to her mom, who I
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: feel I was robbed by the story. Um, I'll arbitrarily
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: give it one and a half. I don't really know why.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I appreciate that in its time, this
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: movie was the only of its kind at least uh
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: that was semi ish mainstream indie Darling like I, I
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: do appreciate that element of its history. I am glad
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: that you know there was at least a somewhat honest attempt,
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: even though it is so messy like the thing that
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: is most frustrating to me, and also it is I mean,
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: we haven't even it's like the whitest movie of all time.
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know that we ever. Yeah, that wasn't even
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: worth bringing up to me. I was just like, this
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: is just not a movie that black people even want
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: to be involved with. I think I even I feel
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: like there may have been a background character and they
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: probably were like I'm gonna opt out. No, thank you, guys,
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: got just it's good. This is all you. This is
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: all But it's like even on top of that, I
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: feel like in Lee's life and in in her orbit,
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: there were so many opportunities for her to like speak
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: to and like advance her own story of maturity. If
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: she had just been comfortable talking to women that were
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: already around her instead of like putting all her eggs
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: in the James Spader basket where they're like, it could
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: be a totally different movie if she talks to Tricia
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: and like seeks out Tricia's guidance or advice, which apparently
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: she was very willing to give the whole movie, which
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: we didn't know. Um, there's this whole, there's this whole
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: like catalog of resources and people that she could track
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: down and talk to, which I think would have been
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: kind of more interesting to me. Is like if she
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: realizes at the midpoint, like, oh, this is not good,
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: this is not what I thought it was. How do
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: I fix this? And then she can like find other
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: people who have had this experience and figure out how
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: to get ship on track or like get some sort
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: of revenge, And then like, there's so many ways I
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: can see it going if she or if she had
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: just been you know, able to talk with her mom
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: or her sister and they hadn't been painted as like
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: these like don't be this person. This person is bad
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: and submissive in the wrong way, like you're saying, Caitlin.
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: So it feels like there's a lot of missed opportunities.
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: The relationship is like just generally really bad. It's not
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: fair to the b D s M community. If fifty
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: Shades of Gray is doing better, that's just really bleak.
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: But I appreciate its place in history, and I'm glad
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: that movies have continued to do better. I hope that
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: they I mean, I hope that you know, don't stop
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: at fifty shades please, uh, probably give it a nipple
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: and a half, which might be too much, but I'll
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: give one to Maggie Gillenhall and then I will give
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: the other half to Tricia. Okay, but in the first
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: scene we see her, and not the second when she's
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: trampling the coach, I found her confusing in the second scene. Yeah, actually,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: what about you? Uh, you know what I'm gonna I'm
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: gonna give it to what nipples I am because it's
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: the reason why I like being spanked, and I like
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: when people tell me what to eat for dinner. So
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: I owe it that. That's probably the only two good
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: things that came out of this movie in history. Um.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I do think it tries to get people
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: comfortable with an idea they hadn't been comfortable with. And
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: I do think that it came at this time when
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: every mainstream kind of woman in a in a movie
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: was so quirky and like carefree and like romantic and sweet,
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: and it crushed that idea, which I really appreciate. So
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it to and you know what, I'm
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: gonna give them both to Peter. Peter, he just deserves it.
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: I hope. Peter went on to like really find someone
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: who could give him the love he deserved. Yeah, just
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: in super vanilla, just like the most vanilla missionary person,
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: just like maybe the most boring life of all time,
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: and loved every second of it. Yeah. I'd rather watch
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: that movie than watch any like moment of like James
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: Spader and Lee trying to like have a life together. Yeah,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh god, it just makes me depressed to
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: think about. Yeah. Oh well, Peter always asks for consent
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: and they're like, what a loser. You're like, no, but
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: Peter's ahead of his time. Oh stupid Peter. He's like
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: asking if it's okay to get a condom and like
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: spank you first, Like, oh man, Peter's only one in
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: the twenty one century. They don't even know it. I did.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: I did laugh at the joke after Peter and Lee
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: have had sex and he's like I didn't hurt you,
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: did I? And she's like no, she's very upset, did
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: not hurt her? But you don't even Ashuley, thank you
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: so much for being here. This is so much fun.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: This is my favorite movie to talk about. It was
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: everything I wanted it to be. Hell, yeah, um, where
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: can people follow your stuff? What would you like, Yeah,
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: just at the Ashley Ray on Twitter, Instagram everything. I
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: write reviews for The ninety Day Fiance and I may
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: destroy you on the A B Club and Vulture go
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: check those out. Just follow me on Twitter. That's where
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: I post everything at the Ashley Ray awesome. You can
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: check us out on Twitter and Instagram. At betel Cast,
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: you can go to our Patreon a k a. Matreon,
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: which gets you to bonus episodes a month plus access
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: to the whole back catalog of bonus episodes and it's
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: only five dollars a month. And that's at patreon dot com,
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: slash backtel Cast. We've got our t Public stored t
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: public dot com, slash the pectel Cast and us where
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: you can get all your merchandizing needs. I think we
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: have masks now, there are masks, masks and everything, so
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: go over there and get one of those. Otherwise, Miss Halloway,
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: please step into my office. What are you are you
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: calling me? Said? Spick up? Miss Halloway, please step into
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: my office. Okay, bye,