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ALISON BECHDEL IS ON THE BECHDEL CAST!!! · The Bechdel Cast

0:00
Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
0:02
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have.
0:04
Speaker 3: Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
0:08
Speaker 3: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
0:12
Speaker 3: best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
0:17
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. It's not April Fools. Maybe
0:22
Speaker 2: you looked at the title of this episode and thought, no, there's.
0:25
Speaker 4: No way that's real. But well, guess what.
0:28
Speaker 2: Look at the month. It's not April, it's real.
0:32
Speaker 4: It's May. And when we were joking on the April
0:35
Speaker 4: Fool's episode on Snakes on a Plane where we were like,
0:38
Speaker 4: it's been all leading up to this, that actually applies
0:44
Speaker 4: to today's episode.
0:45
Speaker 2: It's kind of true. I mean, I cannot believe that
0:49
Speaker 2: this happened. We recorded this interview yesterday and I can't
0:51
Speaker 2: believe it. If this is your first episode of the
0:54
Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast and you're coming here because of our guest,
0:58
Speaker 2: my name's Jamie.
0:59
Speaker 4: Loft It, my name is Caitlin Durante.
1:02
Speaker 2: And this is our podcast where we talk about in
1:06
Speaker 2: a normal episode. This is a very special episode. It
1:08
Speaker 2: is just an interview, and not just an interview. It
1:11
Speaker 2: is the interview, but we're not talking about a movie.
1:14
Speaker 2: We're talking about living, laughing, loving with you know, she
1:17
Speaker 2: who shall be named in just a moment. Every week
1:21
Speaker 2: for almost nine years now, we have talked about your
1:24
Speaker 2: favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens, using the and
1:29
Speaker 2: here's where it gets interesting Bechdel test as a jumping off,
1:35
Speaker 2: like for a discussion. And normally we would tell you
1:38
Speaker 2: and the Bechdel test is this thing, and we tell
1:42
Speaker 2: and someone invented it, and she's our guest today we've
1:45
Speaker 2: been using her name. I truly have been I've like,
1:49
Speaker 2: not quite lostly, but I've for years wondered, is she
1:54
Speaker 2: mad at us? My favorite looping thought to have this
1:57
Speaker 2: person I've never met who doesn't know I exist, are
1:59
Speaker 2: they at him? And we can answer definitively, it does.
2:04
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem it doesn't seem like it. It doesn't
2:05
Speaker 2: seem like we can't be sure. Maybe she was just
2:07
Speaker 2: being nice, but it doesn't seem like it. We're so
2:11
Speaker 2: thrilled to have Alison Bechdel on the show today. We
2:14
Speaker 2: are talking about a couple of things. We're talking obviously
2:17
Speaker 2: about the Bechdel Test, but we are also talking about
2:20
Speaker 2: her new book Spent, which we've both gotten a chance
2:24
Speaker 2: to read. It will be out right around the time
2:26
Speaker 2: you're hearing this episode, and it's terrific. So yeah, I
2:31
Speaker 2: guess what I wanted to say before we start is that,
2:35
Speaker 2: you know, if you're listening to this, I'm assuming you're
2:37
Speaker 2: familiar with the Bechdel Test, but if you're not familiar
2:41
Speaker 2: with the work of Alison Bechdel, that really is where
2:45
Speaker 2: the good shit is. And the more that we like
2:49
Speaker 2: revisit her work because, as we've discussed, the Bechdel Test
2:53
Speaker 2: was a one off joke she made in the eighties
2:56
Speaker 2: that has become a serious media metric. But so much
3:00
Speaker 2: of what we actually talk about on this show, intersectional
3:03
Speaker 2: feminist issues and just trying to survive in a capitalist hellscape.
3:07
Speaker 2: That is literally what she's been writing about for forty
3:10
Speaker 2: years in a very funny, thoughtful way. And so you know,
3:15
Speaker 2: we'll have all the links in the description to her work,
3:17
Speaker 2: but you know, let this be a reminder if you
3:20
Speaker 2: haven't picked up in Alison Bechdel book, You simply must,
3:24
Speaker 2: You simply must.
3:25
Speaker 4: You simply must. And also she is touring with her
3:31
Speaker 4: I think the tour has already kicked off by the
3:33
Speaker 4: time you are hearing this episode, but she's on a
3:37
Speaker 4: book tour in possibly a city near you, and so
3:41
Speaker 4: check out her website her Instagram for tour dates and
3:47
Speaker 4: be sure to go out and support Are now best
3:52
Speaker 4: friend Alison Bechtel URBFF and I think, without much further ado,
3:59
Speaker 4: here's our interview with our best friend, Alison Bechdel Enjoycast.
4:05
Speaker 4: I'm going to say the very cliche thing that our
4:09
Speaker 4: guest today needs no introduction, but it's true, and we're
4:14
Speaker 4: going to introduce her anyway. She is an author and cartoonist.
4:19
Speaker 4: Her works include Dikes to Watch Out For, Are You
4:22
Speaker 4: My Mother? Fun Home, and her new comic novel Spent,
4:27
Speaker 4: which everyone should buy right now. And our podcast is
4:31
Speaker 4: named after her. It's Alison Bechdel, Hello and well welcome.
4:37
Speaker 1: Hi Caitlin, Hi Jamie. I'm very happy to be here.
4:40
Speaker 4: Oh We're so happy to have you. It's a dream
4:42
Speaker 4: come true.
4:43
Speaker 1: Thank you for naming your podcast after the Bechdel Test.
4:46
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
4:47
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
4:48
Speaker 2: Thank you for we were talking about this off Mike. Thank
4:51
Speaker 2: you for not being mad at us about it. This
4:55
Speaker 2: is like, this is so surreal. We're so excited to
4:57
Speaker 2: have you.
4:58
Speaker 1: I was just listening to some episodes. I I listened
5:00
Speaker 1: to the Groundhog Day episode because that's one of my
5:03
Speaker 1: favorite movies. Though of course it doesn't pass.
5:04
Speaker 4: The test, and that's one of our very old episodes,
5:09
Speaker 4: which we are I'm sure humiliated by in the year
5:12
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five.
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Speaker 1: But well, Caitlin, I learned that you are also a
5:16
Speaker 1: Pennsylvanian like me.
5:17
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I'm originally from rural western Pennsylvania and now
5:22
Speaker 4: my family lives around the State College area.
5:25
Speaker 1: So yeah, you were just in State College? I was, yeah, yeah,
5:28
Speaker 1: and you went to penn State.
5:29
Speaker 4: I did. I been doing a little research for my
5:32
Speaker 4: first degree, which I would never mention, but but yeah,
5:35
Speaker 4: so we have Pennsylvania roots.
5:37
Speaker 1: Did you have fun in State College on this recent visit.
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Speaker 4: I did. I did a comedy show there at a
5:44
Speaker 4: theater called the Blue Brick Theater. Everyone checked that out
5:46
Speaker 4: if you're ever in the State College area. But yeah,
5:48
Speaker 4: I did a stand up show and it was a
5:50
Speaker 4: lot of fun.
5:51
Speaker 1: Wow.
5:52
Speaker 4: Yeah. But anyway, again, thank you so much for being here.
5:56
Speaker 4: We want to start by just chatting a bit about
5:59
Speaker 4: your new book, Book Spent, So just to start us off,
6:03
Speaker 4: tell us a little bit about it, give us an overview,
6:06
Speaker 4: and we'll go from there.
6:08
Speaker 1: Spent is a subtitle is a comic novel, because of
6:14
Speaker 1: course it's told in comics, and it's also hopefully funny.
6:20
Speaker 4: It can confirm.
6:23
Speaker 1: It's a kind of funny mashup of my memoirs that
6:27
Speaker 1: I've written about me and my life and my comic
6:30
Speaker 1: strip Likes to Watch out for from back in the
6:32
Speaker 1: olden days in the eighties and nineties and early aughts,
6:36
Speaker 1: where I wrote about a whole little community of friends.
6:40
Speaker 1: In this new book, this new book, Spent, it's funny.
6:44
Speaker 1: It was. My plan was that it was just going
6:46
Speaker 1: to be another memoir. It was going to be like
6:48
Speaker 1: fun Home or Are You My Mother? This book where
6:50
Speaker 1: I looked at my own life, in this case, looked
6:53
Speaker 1: at my own life, my financial life, and my relationship
6:56
Speaker 1: to money and privilege and living in capitalism and everything.
7:01
Speaker 1: But when I sat down to start working on that,
7:03
Speaker 1: I just felt like I wanted to go to sleep.
7:05
Speaker 1: It was just like, oh my God, I can't do that.
7:09
Speaker 1: And then I got this almost immediately. I had this
7:11
Speaker 1: great idea, Well, what if I'm writing about a cartoonist
7:15
Speaker 1: named Alison Bechtel who's trying to write a memoir about
7:18
Speaker 1: money and just constantly getting distracted by other things. And
7:22
Speaker 1: so that's what I ended up doing, and it was
7:23
Speaker 1: much more fun. And one of the directions that it
7:27
Speaker 1: went off in was my friends in this new book,
7:31
Speaker 1: my friends who lived down the hill for me in
7:34
Speaker 1: Vermont are actually some of the old Dikes to watch
7:36
Speaker 1: out for characters Oh cool, Lois and Ginger and Sparrow
7:41
Speaker 1: who used to live together in this group house one
7:44
Speaker 1: hundred years ago and they're still living there and they're
7:47
Speaker 1: still now, but now they're in their sixties. And it
7:50
Speaker 1: was really fun to rediscover those people and to start
7:53
Speaker 1: writing about them again. And I just felt like, oh
7:55
Speaker 1: my god, I missed you guys. So it's about It's
7:59
Speaker 1: kind of about me and my real life with my
8:01
Speaker 1: partner Holly, even though it's also filled with all kinds
8:05
Speaker 1: of purely fictional scenarios like in the book, Holly and
8:10
Speaker 1: I live on a pygmy goat sanctuary, which in real
8:13
Speaker 1: life we do not do. But I just let myself
8:17
Speaker 1: do whatever I wanted and it was so fun.
8:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I kept as I was reading it, I
8:22
Speaker 2: was like, Oh, this is like Alison Buchdel Avengers Endgame.
8:25
Speaker 2: It's all of your world's like colliding in this super
8:28
Speaker 2: cool way.
8:30
Speaker 1: I don't know that reference, but yes, that's exactly what
8:33
Speaker 1: I'm going for.
8:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, because how long had it been since you had
8:38
Speaker 2: worked with the Dykes to watch up for characters?
8:40
Speaker 1: A really long time. I wrote my last Dyke's episode
8:43
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, so I can't do that
8:46
Speaker 1: math anymore. A long time.
8:47
Speaker 4: Ago, almost twenty years, seventeen years something.
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Speaker 2: It was so cool. Yeah, we're both big fans of
8:54
Speaker 2: the original comics, so it was really cool kind of
8:58
Speaker 2: catching up with the character.
9:00
Speaker 4: It was really nice. Definitely.
9:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're in the process of writing this book. How
9:06
Speaker 2: long did it take to write? And Yeah, A lot
9:08
Speaker 2: of what you're talking about in the book has to
9:10
Speaker 2: do with I mean, it takes place during the pandemic era,
9:13
Speaker 2: I think mostly in twenty twenty two. How much were
9:16
Speaker 2: you pulling from your feelings and anxieties of that time?
9:21
Speaker 1: A lot? I mean that was the saving grace of it, Like,
9:25
Speaker 1: you know, everything is just so fucking crazy. Yeah, life
9:29
Speaker 1: is insane, and it was an outlet for that, and
9:34
Speaker 1: you know, like a constructive outlet to take all my
9:37
Speaker 1: anxieties and fears and put them into these characters and
9:42
Speaker 1: you know, keep them somewhat at arm's length, but also
9:45
Speaker 1: just to process it all. So I was living through
9:47
Speaker 1: the news. This is something I missed from the old
9:49
Speaker 1: days with the comic strip, was it was a way
9:51
Speaker 1: to respond and figure out what was happening in the
9:55
Speaker 1: world as it unspooled, because the comic strip was not
9:59
Speaker 1: just about the carearacter's lives but about the news. So
10:03
Speaker 1: this was a way to kind of get back to
10:04
Speaker 1: that modality to you know, keeping track of what like this,
10:10
Speaker 1: the story was happening in real time. You know, certain
10:13
Speaker 1: things happen in the news, the characters would respond to them,
10:15
Speaker 1: and yeah, it happens like between twenty twenty two and
10:19
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. I finished it just before the election,
10:24
Speaker 1: so I had to I didn't know what was going
10:25
Speaker 1: to happen, so I had to sort of leave things
10:27
Speaker 1: somewhat open. Oh God, I can't even think about it.
10:32
Speaker 1: Are we all just having some kind of collective bad dream?
10:35
Speaker 1: Could that be?
10:36
Speaker 4: I hope?
10:37
Speaker 2: So that being the best case scenario is scary, I mean,
10:42
Speaker 2: but there's so much of the anxiety is that you're
10:44
Speaker 2: having that we talk about on the show all the
10:47
Speaker 2: time now of like trying to make art and connect
10:50
Speaker 2: with people during a time where it feels like you
10:53
Speaker 2: have to sort of dissociate in order to even try
10:56
Speaker 2: to do that, and it's impossible to do without ending
10:59
Speaker 2: on I mean, like we work for iHeartRadio. That's probably
11:03
Speaker 2: not good to all of these like you know, constant compromises.
11:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:11
Speaker 1: Alison is definitely struggling with those kind of choices in
11:15
Speaker 1: the book and those decisions, Like it starts with her
11:18
Speaker 1: getting a very high offer to have her book published
11:23
Speaker 1: by megalipub, this big evil empire publishing company that you know,
11:29
Speaker 1: she accepts their offer, but then she's tortured by it.
11:33
Speaker 1: Just the challenge of creating, of doing anything constructive and
11:38
Speaker 1: creative in this atmosphere. That's also kind of what the
11:42
Speaker 1: book is about. And Alison in the book is just
11:45
Speaker 1: like can't concentrate on anything. She's so upset about the news.
11:50
Speaker 1: She's flitting from one project to another, which is very
11:53
Speaker 1: much like my actual creative process.
11:57
Speaker 4: Same. Yeah, to the point where I never get anything done.
12:02
Speaker 4: But I also love an aspect of the book is
12:06
Speaker 4: commentary on the state of Hollywood, basically because they're not
12:11
Speaker 4: to you know, I'm going to try to avoid spoilers,
12:13
Speaker 4: but there's a part where the Alison character goes to
12:17
Speaker 4: La and pitches a show and also visits the set
12:22
Speaker 4: of a different show. And the way that the creator
12:28
Speaker 4: of this show has adapted your work or your character's work,
12:33
Speaker 4: and just the hollywoodification of it all. It's all. It's very,
12:37
Speaker 4: very funny.
12:38
Speaker 2: And the detail, one of my favorite details or jokes
12:42
Speaker 2: in the book is Alison googling how expensive someone's stove is,
12:49
Speaker 2: because I've definitely done that where I was like, I
12:52
Speaker 2: don't like that person. Let me find out how much
12:54
Speaker 2: there's stove costs. And the answer you never like to
12:57
Speaker 2: hear it.
12:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's Allison is having a zoom session with the
13:00
Speaker 1: showrunner of the television show that's based on a memoir
13:06
Speaker 1: that Allison wrote in her youth. It's kind of it's
13:09
Speaker 1: a way to play with my book fun Home that
13:12
Speaker 1: got turned into a Broadway musical, and in this book,
13:15
Speaker 1: Allison's has written a memoir about her father, the taxidermist,
13:21
Speaker 1: death and Taxidermy. It gets turned into a Prestige TV
13:25
Speaker 1: series and this woman.
13:27
Speaker 2: Sadilla cast in the Fake Oh yeah.
13:31
Speaker 1: It's starring Benedette Cumberbatch and Sarah Paulson and Aubrey Plaza
13:35
Speaker 1: as Alison. It's funny. I was talking to someone the
13:38
Speaker 1: other day doing an interview and they were like, I
13:40
Speaker 1: googled that show, but I couldn't find anything.
13:44
Speaker 4: Thought it was real. I'm tue it would be. I mean,
13:48
Speaker 4: I know that the Alison character is a little resentful
13:53
Speaker 4: of different creative embellishments that are made, but might have
13:58
Speaker 4: been a fun show.
13:59
Speaker 1: It does sound fun. Yeah, Sadilla is just kicking all
14:02
Speaker 1: kinds of liberties with Alison's manuscript, and she has this
14:05
Speaker 1: very fancy wolf stove with red knobs that Alison is
14:08
Speaker 1: mesmerized by when they have their Zoom meetings.
14:12
Speaker 2: That was another I mean, that was another thing that
14:14
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's just like we've been again, we've
14:18
Speaker 2: been fans of your work for so long, and seeing
14:19
Speaker 2: all of these themes and seeing you sort of interface
14:22
Speaker 2: with work you've done in the past in this book,
14:25
Speaker 2: especially with the adaptation, I'm so curious, Like, yeah, reflecting
14:29
Speaker 2: on I mean, I guess we kind of want to
14:31
Speaker 2: talk about this with the Bechdel Test as well, you know,
14:34
Speaker 2: creating this tremendously successful work and fun home and then
14:37
Speaker 2: having it adapted, and then having this version of yourself
14:40
Speaker 2: in the world that is kind of outside of your control. Yeah,
14:45
Speaker 2: I mean in your own life. How do you manage that?
14:49
Speaker 1: It's weird and crazy? And I managed it in this
14:53
Speaker 1: case by like writing about it and playing with it
14:56
Speaker 1: in this book form. It was really fun to get
14:59
Speaker 1: to just sort of free associate about I don't know,
15:03
Speaker 1: I feel very lucky that Phone Home turned out as well,
15:06
Speaker 1: that the musical that was made from Phone Home was
15:10
Speaker 1: so good, but it could have gone the other way,
15:12
Speaker 1: and so this was kind of a way of exploring
15:14
Speaker 1: that possibility.
15:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. Well, I mean, speaking of the Bechdel test,
15:20
Speaker 4: I ever heard of it? We we always say in
15:26
Speaker 4: the show, like at the beginning of every episode, like
15:28
Speaker 4: we use this as a jumping off point, and you know,
15:31
Speaker 4: it's it's to initiate larger conversations. But we're just we're
15:34
Speaker 4: you know, we're curious about a lot of different things.
15:37
Speaker 4: As far as I guess, like, when did you first
15:41
Speaker 4: realize that the Bechdel test that people were using and
15:45
Speaker 4: applying to media as a metric was becoming like a thing.
15:51
Speaker 1: It was sometime in the early two thousands. I should
15:55
Speaker 1: probably try and like, well, I have tried to write
15:58
Speaker 1: about it somewhere, like on my blogger or something, my blog.
16:05
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I just can't keep up.
16:07
Speaker 2: Like substocks are basically blogs, They just go by a
16:11
Speaker 2: vigilian substacks.
16:12
Speaker 1: I mean, how many substacks do you guys subscribe to?
16:15
Speaker 3: You?
16:15
Speaker 1: How are you supposed to keep up with all these people?
16:17
Speaker 1: Isn't that what newspapers were used to be for?
16:19
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I feel that I have most of
16:23
Speaker 2: my inboxes on red substacks.
16:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know what to do with them anyhow. Wait,
16:28
Speaker 1: we're digressing. What were we? Oh? Oh the Bechdel Test.
16:31
Speaker 1: Like yeah, it was like in the early two thousands.
16:33
Speaker 1: I was like, what, that's crazy. Like I had written
16:36
Speaker 1: this comic strip, the comic strip from which it got
16:40
Speaker 1: adapted in nineteen eighty five, like a thousand years ago,
16:45
Speaker 1: and I didn't really think much about it after that,
16:48
Speaker 1: you know, I wrote this cartoon. It was the kind
16:50
Speaker 1: of humor me and my lesbian feminist pals would bandy
16:54
Speaker 1: about in those days, something that we never thought anyone
16:58
Speaker 1: outside of that little sub culture would get and so
17:01
Speaker 1: it was very surprising and gratifying to me to see
17:03
Speaker 1: it entering this larger realm. I think it was feminist
17:08
Speaker 1: film students who somehow stumbled on it and felt like
17:12
Speaker 1: it expressed a useful concept and just started circulating it.
17:16
Speaker 1: But at first I was a little like, I didn't
17:19
Speaker 1: mean for it to be real. Way, this is my name?
17:22
Speaker 1: What are you doing? Right? I mean I never objected
17:25
Speaker 1: because it was always fine, but it was weird.
17:28
Speaker 4: I can only imagine.
17:29
Speaker 1: And some people, you know, mostly people think I made
17:32
Speaker 1: this declaration, which I never did.
17:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, just how I kind
17:38
Speaker 2: of forget how. Yeah, there's two full decades between the
17:42
Speaker 2: strip and then it becoming this like very commonly cited
17:46
Speaker 2: media test. That's really bizarre.
17:49
Speaker 1: Well, I learned about something called Stigler's law of eponymy
17:54
Speaker 1: oooh okay, same more, anything that has gotten named after
17:59
Speaker 1: a person that's eponymous is never named after the actual
18:04
Speaker 1: person who invented it, but someone sort of obliquely related
18:08
Speaker 1: to it, like Murphy's Law was not really invented by Murphy,
18:13
Speaker 1: and in fact, Stiegler's law of economy was not invented
18:17
Speaker 1: by Stiegler but someone.
18:19
Speaker 4: Adjacent.
18:22
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of the name of the test every so often,
18:25
Speaker 2: really it is technically called the Bechdel Wallace test. We
18:28
Speaker 2: try every so often to remind people of the original
18:32
Speaker 2: context of the town.
18:33
Speaker 1: That's very good of you.
18:35
Speaker 2: We try our best, thank you, But we'd be curious
18:38
Speaker 2: just to share with our listeners why it's called the
18:41
Speaker 2: Bechdel Wallace test. And a little more about Liz Wallace.
18:45
Speaker 1: I feel quite sheepish about this because I honestly have
18:48
Speaker 1: not been in touch with Liz Wallace since nineteen eighty five.
18:52
Speaker 1: She was someone in my karate class.
18:54
Speaker 2: What that's so cool?
18:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did karate and she was talking about this
19:00
Speaker 1: one day as we were all changing our clothes, and
19:02
Speaker 1: I just worked it into my comic stare. I mean
19:04
Speaker 1: at the time I told her I was doing it,
19:06
Speaker 1: and she knew that. But in this later iteration, now
19:08
Speaker 1: that it's become a thing, I've I have had no
19:11
Speaker 1: contact with her. I don't even know how to find her.
19:12
Speaker 1: And how can you find someone with a name like that,
19:14
Speaker 1: It's like very common.
19:16
Speaker 2: Maybe she's still haunting the karate studio to this day.
19:20
Speaker 4: We don't know.
19:20
Speaker 1: Maybe she is.
19:22
Speaker 4: That's so cool. But like you said, Allison, I think
19:26
Speaker 4: that people think that you set out to create this
19:30
Speaker 4: test that would be used with like those intentions.
19:33
Speaker 2: In like a very academic way, which.
19:36
Speaker 4: People have done since then because they were inspired by
19:39
Speaker 4: your test.
19:39
Speaker 1: If I had done that, it wouldn't have caught on.
19:42
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of it.
19:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it just has to happen organically. Yes,
19:46
Speaker 4: But as Jamie was alluding to the origins of the
19:50
Speaker 4: test that appear in Dykes to Watch Out For, the
19:53
Speaker 4: implication in the scene is characters discussing basically having to
19:59
Speaker 4: ship two women together in movies that they watch, because
20:03
Speaker 4: representation of lesbians in mainstream movies was like virtually non
20:07
Speaker 4: existent back then. But wait a.
20:10
Speaker 1: Second, what is this word ship? I am like an
20:13
Speaker 1: old person. I have no idea what you're talking about.
20:15
Speaker 2: That's what we're here for.
20:16
Speaker 4: Shivving is Jamie, take it away?
20:19
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, now I'm gonna whiff it. Shipping is basically
20:24
Speaker 2: fan fiction in your head of like, oh, these I'm
20:27
Speaker 2: just imagining these two characters together because mainstream movies are
20:31
Speaker 2: so aggressively heteronormative that they would never put a queer
20:36
Speaker 2: couple on screen. So I'm trying to think of, like,
20:37
Speaker 2: what is a classic example, Caitlin of Oh, it happens
20:41
Speaker 2: in TV all the time.
20:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's it called shipping? Like what does that imply.
20:46
Speaker 2: That I wish I do? I'm not quite online enough
20:50
Speaker 2: to know.
20:51
Speaker 4: Me either, And I'm gonna take a guess and it
20:54
Speaker 4: might be so wrong, but I wonder if ship comes
20:57
Speaker 4: from like relationship and they're hoping that these two characters
21:00
Speaker 4: enter a relationship that I don't know. Actually I maybe
21:03
Speaker 4: made that up.
21:04
Speaker 2: Let's go with that.
21:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, But all this to say, the test has queer
21:10
Speaker 4: roots that are often erased in this sort of like
21:13
Speaker 4: more mainstream application of the Bechdel Test. And curious about
21:19
Speaker 4: your thoughts on that, and also we're curious about how
21:23
Speaker 4: you feel representation of queer characters in media has evolved
21:28
Speaker 4: since the test first appears in Dick's To Watch Out
21:32
Speaker 4: For in the eighties, because there has been some progress
21:35
Speaker 4: since then where people don't have to ship, you know,
21:40
Speaker 4: two women together for example, because that does happen on
21:43
Speaker 4: screen now. So yeah, that's on all that.
21:46
Speaker 1: Right, Well, yeah, there's been a huge amount of progress.
21:50
Speaker 1: I'll put that in quotes, because yeah, there's tons of
21:53
Speaker 1: representation now, but not all of it is great, you
21:58
Speaker 1: know for sure. And also I just at a certain point,
22:03
Speaker 1: I just started feeling like, man, I missed the battle
22:07
Speaker 1: days when like we were in the shadows and no
22:09
Speaker 1: one knew what we were up to and like we
22:11
Speaker 1: were just free, you know, it didn't have to be
22:14
Speaker 1: representing or performing. I don't really want to go back
22:19
Speaker 1: to that those days, although I don't really have much
22:21
Speaker 1: say in it since that's whoever're all headed on a
22:24
Speaker 1: grease pole. But yeah, things improved somewhat.
22:29
Speaker 4: Do you have any favorite movies in particular?
22:32
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing. I am not like a really
22:34
Speaker 1: a movie person, so I get really embarrassed when people
22:37
Speaker 1: ask me, like, what films passed the Bechdel Test? I
22:39
Speaker 1: don't fucking know.
22:41
Speaker 4: And really do the math yourself. Yeah, that's our job.
22:45
Speaker 4: That's literally our job.
22:46
Speaker 1: So yeah, no, I'm so glad you guys are on it.
22:49
Speaker 1: And in fact, I always laugh because literally Groundhog Day
22:53
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite movies of all time and
22:55
Speaker 1: it totally doesn't pass the test. And I was just
22:57
Speaker 1: listening to your episode on it.
22:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so many of our favorite movies. That's
23:02
Speaker 2: like sort of what, I don't know. It's interesting like
23:05
Speaker 2: having guests on the show over the years and having
23:07
Speaker 2: the discussion of like it's okay, like your favorite movie
23:11
Speaker 2: is your favorite movie. We're not here to yell at
23:14
Speaker 2: you about it.
23:15
Speaker 1: And also sometimes you just want to check out. I
23:17
Speaker 1: don't want to watch something totally relevant to my life
23:20
Speaker 1: when I'm trying to relax. That would just not be soothing.
23:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love escapist media.
23:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we to continue the spiral of weirdness. We
23:32
Speaker 2: call that taking off our Bechdel goggles, when we just
23:37
Speaker 2: watch a movie and don't think about Yes, yeah.
23:42
Speaker 1: It was actually you know, that strip came out of
23:45
Speaker 1: the weird cognitive dissonance that I started to experience as
23:49
Speaker 1: a young woman when I was getting woke, when I
23:52
Speaker 1: was suddenly realizing, oh my god, the world is like
23:56
Speaker 1: this huge power play and this half is oppressing this half.
24:00
Speaker 1: I realized that I couldn't just watch a movie and
24:02
Speaker 1: enjoy it, that everything was like really racist and oppressive
24:06
Speaker 1: and rape and you know, you couldn't just you couldn't
24:09
Speaker 1: check out and watch a movie. So I understand why
24:12
Speaker 1: you would want to take off your Bechdel goggles.
24:15
Speaker 4: I do it every time I go to the movies, and.
24:18
Speaker 2: You gotta watch Indiana Jones.
24:19
Speaker 4: Somehow that's there. It must, Yeah, And then I put
24:23
Speaker 4: them on when we record episodes of our podcast.
24:26
Speaker 2: So that another question we're curious about. Have you heard
24:31
Speaker 2: we've over the years learned more about sort of other
24:34
Speaker 2: media metrics inspired by the Bechdel Test. Have you encountered
24:39
Speaker 2: any of these ye over the years?
24:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I don't know if if they have
24:44
Speaker 1: names and stuff, but I know there's ones like are
24:47
Speaker 1: there two people of color in the movie? Do they
24:49
Speaker 1: talk to each other about something besides racism or a
24:52
Speaker 1: white person? But my favorite one is this new climate
24:57
Speaker 1: one have you heard about that?
24:58
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
25:00
Speaker 4: Tell us.
25:00
Speaker 1: It's called the climate reality check, and a movie passes
25:04
Speaker 1: if in a movie that's set in the present or
25:08
Speaker 1: remotely around the present, climate change has to be acknowledged
25:11
Speaker 1: and the main character has to be like cognizant of that,
25:16
Speaker 1: which I think is awesome for sure. Hacks Hacks is
25:19
Speaker 1: a great example of a show that passes that test
25:21
Speaker 1: with flying colors, because they're constantly definitely talking about that awesome.
25:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does feel like, there's like it has to
25:28
Speaker 2: be escapist media to happen now and not feature climate
25:32
Speaker 2: anxiety to some extent.
25:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's yeah, it's it's just you can't
25:37
Speaker 1: not mention it or it's just really bad.
25:42
Speaker 2: I mean, but you've been writing about it for literally decades.
25:45
Speaker 2: I mean I was going back and reading some old stuff.
25:47
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, this is she's been on this.
25:50
Speaker 1: Lesbians were on the cutting edge. We knew everything back
25:54
Speaker 1: in the day.
25:55
Speaker 2: Always well, you're talking about about sort of how dicks
25:59
Speaker 2: to watch out. There was a lot of things you
26:01
Speaker 2: were writing and as you were, you know, getting woke
26:04
Speaker 2: in your early twenties and throughout your twenties. Yeah, and now,
26:08
Speaker 2: I mean there is a huge fan base for you
26:11
Speaker 2: that are you know, queer people of the next generation
26:14
Speaker 2: and what is it? What is it like sort of
26:16
Speaker 2: I guess this is a big question. But having those
26:19
Speaker 2: that role kind of reversed and watching new generation of
26:23
Speaker 2: people awakened to these issues that you've been talking about
26:26
Speaker 2: since eighties.
26:29
Speaker 1: I love that young people are still reading my work.
26:32
Speaker 1: I think that's so cool and it doesn't always happen,
26:36
Speaker 1: but of course it's for a tragic reason. Which is
26:39
Speaker 1: that they're still dealing with the same shit my generation
26:43
Speaker 1: was dealing with. But I hear from a lot of
26:46
Speaker 1: young people that they find it heartening and helpful to
26:49
Speaker 1: see these people, you know, trying to do what they're
26:52
Speaker 1: trying to do. So I love that. I've recently learned
26:57
Speaker 1: something funny, which is that I had this whole bunch
27:00
Speaker 1: of unintended readers of my comic strip when I was
27:04
Speaker 1: doing it, which was the children of lesbians. I hear
27:08
Speaker 1: from so many young or not even so young adults
27:12
Speaker 1: these days, like people in their thirties who say, you know,
27:15
Speaker 1: and they're just totally straight, regular people who know my
27:18
Speaker 1: work intimately because they read it as small children stealing
27:21
Speaker 1: it from their mother's shelves.
27:24
Speaker 4: I love.
27:25
Speaker 1: So that's really cool too, that I had no idea
27:28
Speaker 1: those kids were doing that. You never know who's gonna
27:31
Speaker 1: read your stuff.
27:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, you truly never do. I love the characters and
27:37
Speaker 4: spent Jr. And Badger who are I guess it would
27:43
Speaker 4: be gen Z. Yeah they're gen Z and they come
27:47
Speaker 4: to less track of all.
27:48
Speaker 2: Those gens yeah blurs.
27:50
Speaker 1: But I love these kids. God, I love JR. And Badger. Jr.
27:54
Speaker 1: Is the daughter or the child. They're non binary. Jr.
27:59
Speaker 1: Is the daughter of my characters Sparrow and Stuart, and
28:03
Speaker 1: back in the day they were just a little kid
28:06
Speaker 1: like I think there were five when I last had
28:09
Speaker 1: sight of them. So I had to imagine, how is
28:11
Speaker 1: j are going to grow up? And what are they
28:13
Speaker 1: doing now? And she's there at Oberlin, which is where
28:16
Speaker 1: I went to college. They're they're in a non binary
28:21
Speaker 1: asexual polycule with a bunch of people, and they are
28:26
Speaker 1: especially close with Badger this other friend, and the two
28:31
Speaker 1: of them drop out and come home and move into
28:34
Speaker 1: Alison's yurt. And it's just my fantasy of wanting to
28:38
Speaker 1: have children because I never had kids, and I'm always
28:42
Speaker 1: envious of my friends with children, not really not so
28:44
Speaker 1: envious that I'm they're going to wish I haven't done anything, Yeah,
28:49
Speaker 1: but it would be like it. It'd be kind of
28:51
Speaker 1: cool to have some like grown up kids hanging around.
28:53
Speaker 1: So I got to play with that idea. And they
28:55
Speaker 1: come live in the yurt and do their podcast.
28:58
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, that way we are, yeah, podcasting from I
29:04
Speaker 2: guess what we're asking is can we move in?
29:06
Speaker 4: Can we move into your at your definitely real goat sanctuary.
29:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I definitely don't have a yurt, so you
29:13
Speaker 1: just got to like live in my office.
29:16
Speaker 2: Right, that won't be disruptive at all. I am curious
29:21
Speaker 2: about the character Sheila. I had a lot of fun
29:27
Speaker 2: sort of because I had just recently reread Fun Home
29:31
Speaker 2: and then as I as you know, you're sort of
29:33
Speaker 2: eased into the some Israel some is not of spent,
29:37
Speaker 2: I was like, wait, did I miss a sister? I
29:41
Speaker 2: did not miss a sister. I had to check Wikipedia
29:44
Speaker 2: and I felt at ease. But yeah, there's there's this
29:47
Speaker 2: conservative sister character. Where did that come from?
29:51
Speaker 1: Uh? Kind of an amalgamation of you know, I do
29:55
Speaker 1: have some trump bites in my some consent circles of
30:00
Speaker 1: my family, and it was a way to write about
30:02
Speaker 1: that without pinning it on anyone in particular, since it's
30:05
Speaker 1: about my imaginary sister. But that was very cathartic. You know,
30:09
Speaker 1: she's trying to get my book banned. She joins this group,
30:14
Speaker 1: like what's that group called? In real life, they're called
30:18
Speaker 1: Moms for Liberty, but in my strip, I call them
30:21
Speaker 1: Liberty Mothers. And she's very envious of Alison, and she's
30:27
Speaker 1: also writing a counter memoir, because when Alison wrote her
30:31
Speaker 1: memoir about growing up with their father, the taxidermist, she
30:35
Speaker 1: totally left her sister out of it, thinking that, well,
30:38
Speaker 1: you know, it's all just exploring all these different aspects
30:42
Speaker 1: of the kind of work I've done. And yes, writing
30:44
Speaker 1: a memoir is a very one sided kind of thing
30:46
Speaker 1: to do. I thought when I was writing Phone Home
30:48
Speaker 1: that I was telling like the truth of my family,
30:52
Speaker 1: but I was just telling my version, And so Allison
30:56
Speaker 1: is having to grapple with that, like Sheila had a
30:58
Speaker 1: whole experience that Alice and knew nothing about when they
31:01
Speaker 1: were young.
31:03
Speaker 4: I mean, that's the beauty of this book and your
31:06
Speaker 4: work in general. There's there's there's so rich, there's such
31:10
Speaker 4: rich texts. They explore so many things. There's so many
31:14
Speaker 4: also just relatable and comfortingly familiar moments, Like there's a
31:19
Speaker 4: scene where the Alison character and her partner go to
31:23
Speaker 4: their friend's place and they like it's during the pandemic
31:26
Speaker 4: and they test they do those like by next yeah, yeah,
31:30
Speaker 4: COVID tests before anyone can enter. And I was just like, exactly,
31:34
Speaker 4: I did that. Yeah, that was like the first time
31:36
Speaker 4: I'd seen each other's stoops, right, and I was like,
31:40
Speaker 4: I haven't seen that in all the you know, post
31:43
Speaker 4: pandemic media that's come out. I was like, I haven't
31:45
Speaker 4: actually really seen anyone do that or acknowledge the Well,
31:50
Speaker 4: it's just that simple, very familiar thing. Yeah, that's the thing.
31:53
Speaker 1: About drawing stuff. You know about comics, you can and
31:58
Speaker 1: and must show things, show the details of things. And
32:02
Speaker 1: I just find that also interesting. It was, how do
32:05
Speaker 1: you do a COVID test? And I would, you know,
32:07
Speaker 1: got the things out and unwrap stuff and took pictures
32:10
Speaker 1: and like, it's important to document these things even though
32:13
Speaker 1: we all don't want to think about it.
32:16
Speaker 2: It's nice having it between covers. But but but it's
32:21
Speaker 2: it is really cool. I love your memoir work. But
32:24
Speaker 2: it is really it was like such a fun way
32:27
Speaker 2: to like return to your work by saying you comment
32:30
Speaker 2: on things basically as they're happening, like you used to
32:33
Speaker 2: do in a weekly strip.
32:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I miss that. It's just fun.
32:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's incredible. The thing that I really appreciate about
32:46
Speaker 2: Spent that I also loved about Digs to Watch out
32:49
Speaker 2: For is like Kaitlyn was just saying, the details of
32:52
Speaker 2: the world are so specific to when you're writing it,
32:57
Speaker 2: and the fact that you know a media trend that
32:59
Speaker 2: we talk about a lot that I think comes from
33:01
Speaker 2: a good place. But it's like, you know, this is
33:04
Speaker 2: the book that will solve late capitalism or there are
33:07
Speaker 2: these you know, broad solutions, and it's like, if everyone
33:11
Speaker 2: did everything right, then this wouldn't have happened to us.
33:14
Speaker 2: And what I love about your work is you don't
33:17
Speaker 2: shy away from any of the problems that are plaguing
33:21
Speaker 2: everybody to different degrees. But you also are like and
33:25
Speaker 2: it's very stressful to be a person, and you know
33:28
Speaker 2: you're not always going to be totally successful and you're
33:31
Speaker 2: not going to be a perfect anti capitalist every day
33:34
Speaker 2: because it's hard.
33:36
Speaker 4: I don't know.
33:37
Speaker 1: Well, one thing I feel very grateful to young people
33:40
Speaker 1: for teaching me is that it's not on us. My god.
33:44
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, Mike generation grew up thinking, Okay, if
33:47
Speaker 1: I stop eating meat, my one tiny gesture is going
33:50
Speaker 1: to change the world. And yes, that's good and useful
33:53
Speaker 1: to do, but it got turned against us, you know,
33:55
Speaker 1: the fossil fuel industry, the meat industry, they would love
33:59
Speaker 1: for us all to be torn up with guilt and
34:01
Speaker 1: anxiety about our personal behavior and that's just ridiculous. They're
34:06
Speaker 1: the bad guys, not us.
34:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I god, I'm I could go on an
34:12
Speaker 2: infinity tangent, but I was just reading about how like
34:15
Speaker 2: mobile gas created the idea of carbon footprints to make
34:19
Speaker 2: people feel bad and adjust them to the planet's dying.
34:22
Speaker 2: I'm like, you're sick. Oh yeah, because there are, I mean,
34:27
Speaker 2: and you're you're the world of your books are populated
34:30
Speaker 2: with them, like people who want to do right by
34:33
Speaker 2: the people around them, but feeling so futile in those
34:37
Speaker 2: individual gestures.
34:39
Speaker 1: I just love those people. I love how earnest and
34:41
Speaker 1: good they are, you know, And I want to I
34:42
Speaker 1: want to. I feel like leftists, progressives in general get
34:46
Speaker 1: such a fucking bad rap, Like what what is everyone
34:50
Speaker 1: so exercised about? All we want to do is make
34:54
Speaker 1: the world a better place? What is the problem? And
34:59
Speaker 1: so I just wanted to try and really show them
35:01
Speaker 1: some love.
35:03
Speaker 4: You nailed it, thank you, and.
35:06
Speaker 2: Then sort of to start wrapping stuff up. I mean,
35:09
Speaker 2: you've in the last ten years your work has been
35:12
Speaker 2: adapted in all of these different ways. I know that
35:14
Speaker 2: there was a podcast, there's obviously the musical, and the
35:18
Speaker 2: book is to some extent about your character navigating TV.
35:22
Speaker 2: Are there other mediums that you're interested in working in?
35:26
Speaker 2: Are there like stories you've had on the back burner
35:28
Speaker 2: that you want to come back to. What are you
35:30
Speaker 2: excited about right now?
35:31
Speaker 1: I guess well, I'm perpetually trying to get an animated
35:36
Speaker 1: version of Dikes to watch out for happening. But this
35:39
Speaker 1: hasn't happened yet. But I'm really excited right now. I'm
35:42
Speaker 1: in the middle of making the audiobook Have Spent Yeah,
35:46
Speaker 1: which is such a funny project. Like it's all visual
35:50
Speaker 1: humor and jokes. How do you translate that to something
35:54
Speaker 1: where people can't see anything, it's just all sound. So
35:57
Speaker 1: that's been a really fun project, like thinking up sound
35:59
Speaker 1: effects to tell the story sound. Yeah.
36:03
Speaker 4: Yeah. And I mean, speaking of those visual jokes, they're
36:06
Speaker 4: one of my favorites. Was they're gearing up for they're
36:09
Speaker 4: like anti colonial, anti Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner.
36:14
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was like, oh, yeah, we did that.
36:17
Speaker 4: We do that. And they're not sure how many toe
36:20
Speaker 4: Ferky's to get, and so they get one to Furky
36:23
Speaker 4: and that's on the like cashier conveyor belt, and then
36:26
Speaker 4: they get another one that's faux Turkey. So it's toe fergyho.
36:31
Speaker 4: I'm like, genius, perfect, amazing.
36:34
Speaker 1: Oh good, thank you for noticing.
36:38
Speaker 4: But there's so many of those similar jokes that populate
36:42
Speaker 4: the book, and it's awesome. Yeah, is there any anything
36:48
Speaker 4: else you want to talk about? Tell us share?
36:51
Speaker 1: I don't know. I always go blank when people ask
36:54
Speaker 1: me that question because I I don't know why, but
36:57
Speaker 1: I just do. It's like, at this point it's a
36:59
Speaker 1: Pavlovian response. My mind was completely blank. But feel free
37:03
Speaker 1: to ask me anything, Ask me anything, anything you've been
37:05
Speaker 1: wanting to know.
37:06
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. I'm like, I feel like when we
37:09
Speaker 2: found out we were going to talk to you, we
37:10
Speaker 2: had a million questions and then we were going through
37:12
Speaker 2: them and they were like, this is stupid.
37:14
Speaker 1: No, what's the stupidest one? Ask me the stupidest one?
37:19
Speaker 2: Oh man, that's Caitlyn.
37:22
Speaker 4: What do you what do you think? I don't know
37:25
Speaker 4: if this is stupid necessarily, but what I am, let's
37:28
Speaker 4: say curious about is and we've already kind of touched
37:32
Speaker 4: on this, but maybe to sum it all up, like
37:35
Speaker 4: I really want to know about your feelings about like
37:39
Speaker 4: the legacy of the Bechdel Test, especially just considering that
37:44
Speaker 4: it wasn't originally conceived to be used the way it's
37:48
Speaker 4: used now, and how there are often, I would say,
37:53
Speaker 4: kind of misinterpretations of the test where people will say
37:57
Speaker 4: this movie passes the Bechdel Test for it's a feminist masterpiece,
38:02
Speaker 4: or sort of the opposite of that, of like, this
38:04
Speaker 4: movie doesn't pass, and that means it's misogynist trash, you
38:09
Speaker 4: know that kind of thing. So yeah, I mean, I'm
38:12
Speaker 4: just curious about your thoughts on its function in culture
38:17
Speaker 4: and its overall legacy.
38:20
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I got over my ambivalence about it because
38:24
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a great thing to have be
38:28
Speaker 1: my legacy. It sums up in a way what my
38:31
Speaker 1: work is all about, which is whose stories count, whose
38:35
Speaker 1: subjectivity matters? And this I feel like our real fundamental
38:40
Speaker 1: issue as humans is our inability to see outside of
38:43
Speaker 1: our own little, diminished, puny self and to understand that
38:48
Speaker 1: other people have their own agency and motivations and drives,
38:53
Speaker 1: and we don't. Even even in our intimate relationships, we
38:56
Speaker 1: want to like neutralize that other person so that they're
38:59
Speaker 1: not in pinging on us. We have to learn to
39:03
Speaker 1: live with others, to see other people, to actually have
39:07
Speaker 1: mutual recognition with other people, and to me, that's kind
39:10
Speaker 1: of what the test is about.
39:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, And what I love about it is, Yeah,
39:16
Speaker 2: for those kinds of conversations that we've had over the
39:19
Speaker 2: years where it's like it's a jumping off point and
39:22
Speaker 2: your work is uniquely like sending people to your work.
39:25
Speaker 2: You're talking about all of that and have been and
39:28
Speaker 2: it's just Yeah, it's it's like such an honor to
39:32
Speaker 2: be able to talk to you well.
39:34
Speaker 1: Back at Yeah, and thank you so much for doing
39:36
Speaker 1: this whole project. I love that you're doing it.
39:39
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
39:40
Speaker 3: Yeah.
39:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, eight years strong.
39:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing.
39:45
Speaker 2: It's longer than any relationship I've ever had. We're podcast
39:49
Speaker 2: common law.
39:50
Speaker 4: Married, love you Jamie.
39:52
Speaker 1: Let me where are you in the same city where.
39:55
Speaker 4: We're both based in La Yeah?
39:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh cool.
39:57
Speaker 4: So if you ever come out to pitch a ta
40:00
Speaker 4: as your character does and spend look us.
40:04
Speaker 1: Up, that would be awesome.
40:06
Speaker 4: I will do that and we'll speaking of cities and
40:09
Speaker 4: going places. You are about to do a book tour, Yes,
40:14
Speaker 4: I am tell us about that.
40:16
Speaker 1: Am I coming to La? I gotta look at my thing?
40:18
Speaker 2: No, I checked, we checked if you're going to San Francisco.
40:22
Speaker 1: Yes, I am going to San Francisco and Santa Cruz
40:24
Speaker 1: and a bunch of other places. So check my check
40:27
Speaker 1: my website and you can find them all. My my blog, sorry,
40:31
Speaker 1: my blog.
40:34
Speaker 4: And we'll speaking of that. Where can people find your blog?
40:37
Speaker 4: What's oh?
40:38
Speaker 1: My blog? You guys. I'm like, so, I can't get
40:42
Speaker 1: into this social media groove. I have I stopped doing
40:46
Speaker 1: it now. I'm all rusty and I just hate it.
40:49
Speaker 1: I just hate Facebook, I hate Twitter. But I have
40:52
Speaker 1: to do it to get the word out about this book.
40:55
Speaker 1: If you go to Alisonbechdel dot com, that's easy enough,
40:59
Speaker 1: and then and hit the blog tab and then you'll
41:02
Speaker 1: be in the in the Bloggi sphere. I love it,
41:05
Speaker 1: and you'll see my latest posts.
41:07
Speaker 2: Yeah that was not to keep going back to the book,
41:09
Speaker 2: but I also loved the like for promoting a book
41:14
Speaker 2: or promoting whatever else. They're like, Okay, you actually need
41:16
Speaker 2: to post fifty tiktoks a day and become famous in
41:20
Speaker 2: a totally different way.
41:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, my editor is constantly haranguing me about having to
41:24
Speaker 1: do this. And now in real life, my editors and
41:27
Speaker 1: the publicity people are saying Allison, have you posted that
41:31
Speaker 1: post we gave you. I don't know where to put
41:34
Speaker 1: it or what to do with it.
41:36
Speaker 2: It always finds the right people.
41:37
Speaker 4: The good news is that approximately five billion people listen
41:41
Speaker 4: to the Bechdel Cast. So let's go with that word.
41:45
Speaker 4: The word is getting out.
41:47
Speaker 1: This is all I need to do.
41:48
Speaker 4: Then, Yeah, yeah, pretty much? Yeah no, but truly, thank
41:52
Speaker 4: you so much for joining us. This has been such delightful.
41:56
Speaker 1: Caitlin and Jamie, thank you. It has indeed been a
41:58
Speaker 1: delight for me as well.
42:00
Speaker 2: Thank you for just like being you. You're so cool.
42:05
Speaker 4: Thanks there you have at everybody. Our interview with Alison Bechdel,
42:12
Speaker 4: isn't she great? She's so great and we were so
42:17
Speaker 4: delighted to be able to chat with her and again,
42:23
Speaker 4: grab her book Spent, grab her other books.
42:26
Speaker 2: Grab fun Home, Grab are You my Mother? Grabbed Dykes
42:29
Speaker 2: to Watch Out For? Go see the musical Fun Home.
42:31
Speaker 2: There's so many options. Also, Deux to Watch Out For
42:34
Speaker 2: was adapted into a podcast last year. You've got options, yes,
42:40
Speaker 2: but start with Spent. It's a really, really terrific book.
42:42
Speaker 4: It's awesome.
42:43
Speaker 2: I feel like it's I was afraid to keep making comparisons.
42:47
Speaker 2: To things, but it also felt kind of like Adaptation Me,
42:50
Speaker 2: which is a movie I really love.
42:51
Speaker 4: Oh yeah no, because it's it's very like meta and.
42:55
Speaker 2: It's about writer's block a lot, and like it's if
42:59
Speaker 2: you enjoy the movie Adaptation, and you should, you will
43:02
Speaker 2: really enjoy this book as well. Yes, yeah, so we'll
43:06
Speaker 2: link to everything that. All the relevant links will be
43:09
Speaker 2: in the description as well as the link to her
43:11
Speaker 2: book tour. And again, thanks so much to Alison Bechdel
43:15
Speaker 2: for her work and for being cool enough to come
43:19
Speaker 2: on this show. Yeah, we're obviously big fans.
43:23
Speaker 4: We were so grateful, and we'll post the links on
43:28
Speaker 4: our link tree as well. So go to link tree
43:31
Speaker 4: slash Bechdel Cast and then you can also follow us
43:34
Speaker 4: on Instagram and our Patreon aka Matreon and all the
43:41
Speaker 4: good stuff. But I'm just so grateful to have been
43:44
Speaker 4: able to talk to her.
43:46
Speaker 2: I know it's it was truly. I still I believe
43:49
Speaker 2: it happened. I know it was worth waiting nine years for.
43:52
Speaker 2: And thank you to our listeners for supporting the show
43:55
Speaker 2: so that it exists for this episode to have happened.
43:58
Speaker 2: We're very grateful to you, and yeah, we will see
44:02
Speaker 2: you next week, we will return to your normal programming,
44:05
Speaker 2: but savor this moment. It probably won't happen again.
44:09
Speaker 4: Uh lovey bye, bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a
44:16
Speaker 4: production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis,
44:21
Speaker 4: produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme
44:25
Speaker 4: song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrosenski.
44:29
Speaker 4: Our logo in merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and
44:33
Speaker 4: a special thanks to Aristotle Assevedo. For more information about
44:37
Speaker 4: the podcast, please visit linktree slash Bechdel Cast