Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Perfect Blue with Giana and Chika of Shoujo Sundae

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Perfect Blue with Giana and Chika of Shoujo Sundae · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: best start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: my name is Caitlin Dorante. This is our show where
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Bechdel Test as a jump of goof point. The Bechtel Test,
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: of course, being something invented by our best friend, Alison Bechdel.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and she'll tell you more about it at her
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: house later where we're going to hang out.
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just kidding.
• 0:40
  Speaker 4: I mean this is actually kind of interesting because we're
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: talking about, you know, super fans and parasocial distance.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Today.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: We are not going to perfect blue, Alison Bechdel. That's
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Promise. We promise.
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: If you are not familiar with the Bechtel Test, we'll
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: tell you what it is. There's many versions of the test.
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: It was originally in Alison Bechdel's incredible comic collection Dice
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: to Watch out For. She has of course gone on
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: to have an incredible career in graphic memoir. But the
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: version of the test that we use require that two
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: characters of a marginalized gender speak to each other about
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: something other than a man for more than two lines
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: of dialogue, and that exchange should be meaningful, not a
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: high high. But what does count is women in conflict,
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: and that's what we're gonna get into today.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we didn't know how to start this. It's hard
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: when it's just like, what is a funny way to
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: start a conversation about perfect Blue? We'll figure it out.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: But I did. I panicked. I didn't.
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: I was like, there, any joke would feel very insensitive.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: It's a heavy film.
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: Although I think that we could be in that group.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: I think we could do it.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: I think we could be in the in the group,
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Oh in the problem you mean cham exclamation point Cham.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm a huge I'm part of the Chamfam.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Oh my Chamfam.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, casual not scary, Yeah of course.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, we're all pop girlies here. It's true. And
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: I'm the Sea and Cham.
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: I'm the Ham. You're the Sea, I'm the Ham and
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: uh huh's kind of how our band works.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, amazing.
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: Maybe you've heard of us. I'm excited to talk about it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: And the star of the movie for me is explaining
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: how the internet works, which makes sense because it's nineteen
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: ninety seven. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it made me giggle. I
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: was like, look at this, it's called a computer. There's
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: something on the internet.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: Is it good?
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: And then the movie posits no, yeah, I think it
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: take this age quite well.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I mean truly, yes. Yeah, she explains what computers are,
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: she explains what the Internet is. The recipient of this
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: information does not understand, and kind of to this day,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: I also do not understand.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a whole Well, we'll talk about internet culture.
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: I feel like this movie's really ahead of its time
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: in that regard. Yeah, but let's get our guests in here,
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: because this movie needs to be discussed, and now.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: It really does. The movie, of course, is perfect Blue.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: The guests are the hosts of the podcast show Jo Sunday.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: It's Jianna and Chica. Welcome.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, hi, Hello, thank you so much for having us.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: We're so excited to be here.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Thank you for being here. Tell us more about your podcast. Well.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Showjo Sunday is a delectable podcast we like to say,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: covering show, show and jose media, anime films, sometimes manga,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: dissecting it through our segments that are all ice cream
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: pun names. So we go through all of our feelings,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: taking apart each and everything we have felt watching it
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: and looking into the symbolism and the story writing, and
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: just digging in if you will, to every bite we can.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: Yummy, tell us about your relationship with this movie, Perfect Blue, Chico.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: Why don't you go first.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So, once upon a time, when I was a
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: young warthog, I was very much so into anime. I
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: didn't know what it was. I just thought it was cartoons.
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: I mean it is, but then it's Japanese animation, and
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: so I couldn't really tell the difference. So in the beginning,
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: or at least in the nineties, I was watching like
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z and stuff like that,
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: and I would go to Blockbuster and I would just
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: be like, I'm going to find the type of shows
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: that I like. I can tell because it's drawn differently.
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: And so I picked up Perfect.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Blue, Oh as a child.
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: As a child, Oh, I really shouldn't have watched that movie.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: You couldn't have known you couldn't have known.
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: No, I couldn't have because it's just like, because we've
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: seen Mima and like the cute outfit and everything, and
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: I was just like, oh, like this seems great. Uh
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: so my relationship with it, it's like it's nostalgic. But
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: then it's also like a little bit flabbergasting, just because
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: I really had no business watching it.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, I feel like we all have that piece
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: of media that really you're just like and that changed
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: the course of my life in a way I wasn't
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: prepared for because I shouldn't have been looking at it fascinating. Wow, Yeah,
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: what about eu Gianna?
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: My history with this film is far less interesting. So honestly,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I kept hearing about it from Chica because you know,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: we've talked to some people about our history with anime,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and she would always bring up how she watched Perfect
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Blue Too Young, and I was like, what is this movie? Like,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: what is it about this movie? I'm like, we're gonna
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: watch it eventually, so like, I guess I'll find out.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: And we had previously covered Millennium actress on show Show Sunday,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and I wasn't a huge fan. I know it's a
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: hot take, but it was like a personal thing. So
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, I'm like, I don't know
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: how I'm gonna feel about Perfect Blue. And then we
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: watched it to talk about it with you guys, and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: it definitely exceeded my expectations. For sure.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Oh cool.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I liked it much more than Millennium Actress. But it
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: certainly certainly left an imprint.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: It'll do that.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, Caitlin, had you seen this before?
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: I had, because when we covered Black Swan on the podcast, Yeah,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: this movie comes up in the research quite a bit,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: and we'll get into it later. But I wanted to
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: watch it and just sort of like compare it to
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: Black Swan, because I mean, the short story here is
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: that Darren Aronofsky was like rumored to have acquired the
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: rights to do an American remake of Perfect Blue. But
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: then he's like, never mind, I didn't get those rights
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: and I didn't do that. And then years later Black
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: Swan comes out and a bunch of people are like,
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: hang on, this movie is very similar to Perfect Blue.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Are you sure you didn't And then he's like, no, no, no,
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: it's not even inspired by Perfect Blue, And I just
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: made up this identical story all by myself.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of deep lore about this that we
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: can get into.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: But I didn't realize.
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: Because I haven't seen Requiem for a Dream. But I
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: think that that movie has even more direct connection also
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: from Perfect Blue, where it's like Aronofsky is a serial
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: offender and like he had actually met Satoshi Khan before
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: and they had this Like I would love to watch
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: a dramatization of this lunch we had that Darren Aronofsky
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: seems to have thought went very well, and Satashi Khan
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: was like he's kind of a clown and had some
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: I think understandable resentments that Aronofsky was this big shot
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: director ripping off his work quite a bit, and Satoshi
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: Khan was struggling as a director. And also just like
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: the I don't know the poetic irony that he passed
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: away the week before Black Swan even came out, so
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: he didn't even get to see it. Like it's very
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: like it's not all about Eve, but it's not not
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: all about you.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: It's wild. Yeah.
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: I haven't seen Requiem for a Dream though, and I
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: don't think I want to.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: I have seen it many times. I am intimately familiar
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: with that I'm not sure why, because it's not the
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: type of thing that I tend to gravitate toward. But
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: I've seen it a bunch, and the similarities between Perfect
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Blue and Requiem for a Dream are far more esthetic. Yeah,
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: he's like pulling direct shots slash like animation, the way
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: that a shot is framed.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: It's just pulling for the storyboards directly, right, pretty much.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so he's replicating those for different shots in
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: Requiem for a Dream. The similarities between Perfect Blue and
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: Black Swan are far more like narrative and thematic. So
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: he's just, like, you know, stealing different components of Perfect
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: Blue for various of his movies. I have thought.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: I don't because I'm not an Aronofsky defender by any means,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: but I am kind of a Black Swan defender. Yeah,
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: that's okay, and I do feel like it was meaningfully
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: different enough for me. But I also it's clearly he's
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: pulling from it, and I just wish he had just
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: said that, like the I think the problem was he
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: didn't admit it.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: I know that's the annoying thing.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: Because if you admitted it, I think the stories are
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: different enough that, especially if you're a big shot director,
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: why not shout out right someone who you are clearly
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: very influenced by. It almost is it's like an Aronofsky
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: problem versus a black Swan problem.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: Does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, no, it's again, it's
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: like this happens all the time, where like a later
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: movie will pay homage to an earlier movie or be
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: influenced by an earlier movie, and it's just a matter
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: of like the creative mind behind the later movie admitting, like, yep,
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: I drew influence from this earlier thing, and then the
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: fact that he refuses to do that Aeronovsky does just don't.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: Be a white Harvard guy about it, which Aeronofsky struggles with,
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: right right, Yeah.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: No.
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: I saw a YouTube video somebody had translated Satoshi Khan
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: having like sort of mini lectures about Perfect Blue, and
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: he directly talks about Darren Aronofsky and talks about how
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: he pulled like the bath scene, like yes, yeah, it's
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: very specifically pulled the bath scene, the bird's eye view
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: underwater view from Perfect Blue. And he was just sort
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: of laughing at the homage because he said that he
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: asked him about it, and then Darren was like, oh,
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: it's an homage and he's like, oh, I guess I
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: should also do homages to other people like that in
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: my films too, Like.
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: It's so trick. I Yeah, there's a great piece on
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: a substack called animation Obsessive that like broke down the exact.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Like, I don't know.
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: The beautiful part of the Internet is someone has always
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: done the work for you. And yeah, the conflicting quotes
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: about because it also seems like Satoshi Khan felt different
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: about it at different points in his life, and that
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: towards the end of his life in particular, he was like, nah,
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: fuck this ooh. Also, I mean as early as the
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: two thousands after he first met Ronowski, he said, I'm
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: feeling pathetic. It's a pitiful tale when the person being
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: paid homage too has less name recognition, less social credibility,
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: and less budget to spend. So it seems like Satoshi
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: Khan's issue was at its core, like why not give
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: me credit? Like if you're so influenced by my work,
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: why can't I get my projects funded? Yeah, and there's
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: culture vulture stuff to be examined there too, we'll.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Get back to.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: Sorry, So we got into the Aeronoski stuff immediately were.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: So all this to say, I did watch this movie.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: I think we covered Black Swan back in like twenty nineteen,
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: so that's when I first saw Perfect Blue, and we
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: you know, talk about it a bit on that episode
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: as well, for any listeners who want to go back and.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: Live at the Bellhouse if I'm remembering right.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, yeah, so yeah, but that was my first
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: and kind of only exposure to Perfect Blue, and then
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: rewatched it a couple times to prep for this episode Jamie,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: what about you? What's your relationship?
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: I hadn't seen it before. Yeah, I think that's the
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: whole story. I have seen Satoshi Khan's last movie, Paprika,
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: because it recently. It must be having like some kind
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: of anniversary or something like that, because it like re
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: released at AMC's recently. I didn't see it there, but
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: it's I don't know, I've just been seeing it around
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: a lot, and so I didn't do a particularly like
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: intense careful view of it.
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: But I saw his last.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: Movie and I had conflicted feelings about it, and then
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: this is his I believe, his first feature.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: That I like a lot.
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, especially from just like an animation perspective. It's
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: so engrossing in a way that, like, I don't know
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: how many movies I've seen at all like that, especially
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: ones that are so short, and the way that he
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: animates the crisis that Memama is having. It, I just
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: have like, never seen anything quite like it. It's amazing
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: story wise. I got some questions that I'm excited to
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: talk to you about.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Yes, let's take a quick break and then we'll jump
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: back into the recap and we're back. Oh, we're back.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: Let's talk about the events of Perfect Blue. Shall wait,
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: It's not complicated at all, Caitlan, I'm sure this was
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: a breeze to put together.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna have a very easy time.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: Although very short movie. I will say it's like eighty
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: less than I think if you take the credits out,
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: less than eighty minutes long. We're talking space jambling.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's awesome. I love it. I'm delighted. Yeah that
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: it's socior More movies should be seventy seven minutes long. Yes,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: content warning at the very top for things like sexual violence, rape, stalking, coercion.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: The story takes place in Tokyo. I believe we open
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: on a performance by a pop girl group called Cham
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: exclamation Point, which has three members, one of whom Mina
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: seems to be the star of the group. She's idolized
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: by the fans. Also at this concert is a security
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: guard man who is leering very creepily at Mima, as
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: well as a group of young troublemaker men, and there's
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: an altercation between them and the creepy security guard.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: I am curious what you think about, like what level
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: of famous are they because it seems like they're kind
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: of famous, but I can't tell. They're performing at the mall,
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: Like I'm not like, are they maltor famous, which does
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: feel like a very nineties, ye two thousands convention of
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: like they're maltor famous, they're gonna go big time or not?
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I did Britney Spears do a mall tour before.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah, so like they could be on the
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: way up, because later we're hearing about them charting in
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the top one hundred. But it's like in the eighties,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: so I think they're like working their way up the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: pop ranks.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: They're paying their damn dues. Yeah, yes, have any of
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: you ever been to a maltar?
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: I mean they don't really happen anymore as far as
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: I know. But like I didn't know that was a thing.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: So no, I mean neither. Yeah, I feel like I
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: missed out on something. I caught the tail end of it.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: And in middle school I got to go to a
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: degrassy malteur. Whoa wow, and that was so amazing, and
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: Drake was supposed to be there, but then he did
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: not show up.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: So it was just like one of the objectively kind
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: of flop cast members of De Grassy. But my cousin
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: and I were really excited.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I would have been thrilled.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: That's amazing. Oh it's great, Jamie. You and I should
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: do a Bechdel cast mal tour.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: I honestly, it still does. I feel it's more like
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: outdoor malls, Like sometimes you'll catch like younger musician performing
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: at an outdoor mall. Indoor mall tours are washed though
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: it's a convention of the past.
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Sure fine, anyway, they're doing a mall tour and intercut
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: with this concert at the mall are I think these
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: are flashback scenes of Mema with her like talent manager
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: team discussing Mima's career. So there's a woman named Rumy
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: who wants Mima to stay in the pop group CHAM,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: while mister Tatacoro wants Mima to pivot to acting and
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: is trying to land her a part in a TV
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: drama series. So back to the concert, Mima announces that
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: this is her last show with CHAM. The audience is like, no,
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: we love you, don't go, and then someone in the
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: crowd hands her an envelope. It's like fan mail kind
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: of thing. So Mima goes home to her small apartment,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: she feeds her fish, and she opens the envelope and
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: inside is a letter saying I'm always looking at Mima's room.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Here's a link to it. But she doesn't know what
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: that means, and she doesn't know what the internet is,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: so she just kind of brushes it off.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: Incredible imagine, I wish, I wish Yeah.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: And then she receives a fax remember fax machines, she
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: has one, and the facts is just like this print
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: out of sort of like ransom note style lettering. It
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: seems that just has the word trader written over and
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: over again. So clearly someone is upset that she left
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: the pop group and they're being very creepy about it.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: Then we cut to the set of Double Bind, which
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: is the drama sere that Mima has landed a very
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: small role in.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: Which reminded me of Twin Peaks a little bit. There's
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: like a similar thing that happens in Twin Peaks. There's
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: a I had to look it up, but there's a
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: show within a show called Invitation to Love in Twin Peaks.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: I forgot about that.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: I don't know why it clicked for me, but it did.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: And Twin Peaks was big in Japan.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of cultural exchange going on.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: Sure, sure, for sure. Yeah. So Mima is playing the
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: younger sister of a woman who was murdered in the show,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: so that's her character. She's nervous about her performance. She
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: sees that creepy security guard on the set of the show,
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: and then Mima's manager, Guy Tadakoro, opens an envelope that
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: turns out to contain a small explosive and he's injured,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: and it seems like the envelope was intended for Mima.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: So things are ramping up and he's kind of like.
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: Ha ha, don't worry about it, right, if that happened
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: in my head, I would not be like, hah, don't
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: worry about it.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how is it just a prank? That's a straight
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: up threat.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: He's bleeding.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: I was like, wow, he really is dedicated to the game.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: He's like, don't worry about it. It's just a scratch.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: I'm good tis but a scratch.
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: So much blood on the floor and everything. It's just like, oh,
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: no worries, Yeah, okay.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Everyone downplays it.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: Guess him self esteem man, when you text ha ha.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: No worries. But there's lots of worries. There's only worries.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, I guess.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: That's a lot of this movie.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: It's just like, yeah right. Roomy also is like, no,
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: don't even worry about it. We definitely shouldn't have called
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: the police. And yeah, Mima's the only one being like,
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: unlikely thing for Ruby to do. Interesting anyway. So a
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: few days later, Rumy comes over to Mima's apartment and
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: sets up a computer with the Internet ever heard of it?
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: For mema fully branded, fully branded, like, here's a Macintosh computer.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: I think they're using an actual browser that once existed too.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: I was like, did mac pay to be the scary
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: computer for perfect.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Blue maybe maybe interest Anyway, So Mima goes to that
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: link that she saw in the letter for that thing
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: called Mima's Room, and it turns out to be this
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: like blog slash diary thing where someone is writing about
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: Mima's life as if they are her and describing intimate
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: details about her life that you would only know if
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: you were a Mima or if you were stalking her.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: So she's freaked out.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: For anyone that's ever had a scary paraspoxual experience, I
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: feel like that it's done really well here where she's like, oh,
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: this is so cool.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Oh oh wait, there's.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: Like yeah, that's that's how that goes.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yes. So then we cut to the set of
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: the show Double Bind again, Rumy and Tatakoro have another
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: conversation about Mima and her career. They learn that cham
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: is doing quite well without her, and they now have
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: a song on like the top one hundred list, which
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: they never had when Mima was a part of the group.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: So they're sort of like this, Oh, did Mima do
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: the right thing? She's maybe having some hashtag ragretes kind
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: of thing. Though Mima is given a few more lines
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: on another episode of this show, so she returns to set.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: The security guard seems to continue to be stalking her.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: He's coming to set, he's videotaping her. Then the writer
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: of the show, mister Shibuya, writes a scene in which
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Mima's character will be raped on the TV show. Rumy
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: doesn't want her to do the rape scene, but Tata
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Quorro says it's important that Mima do this, so Mima
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: agrees to it. That night, on the Metro, Mima gets
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: a quick glimpse of her reflection, but it's not her reflection,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: it's a different version of her in her like pop
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: girl outfit.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is like one of the more obvious black
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: swan obviously ripped off, like this exact sequence.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Yes. Then Mima is back on the set of Double
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Bind shooting this rape scene and it is brutal. We
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: will talk more about it later, but it's very traumatic
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: for Mima, and the security guard is there watching the
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: whole thing. Mima goes home and has a breakdown. She
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: also discovers that her fish are dead, and it's like,
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: did someone kill them or did she just forget to
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: feed them again, We're not sure. She sees another vision
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: of this kind of like alternate version of herself, like
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: pop Idol Mima, and she's kind of real and kind
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: not because she's like floating and bouncing around not really
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: obeying the laws of gravity. So you're just like, is
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: this a hallucination? Is it a real person? We don't
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: really know. It also becomes clear that the security guard
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: is the one posting to Mima's room website and like
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: writing this diary under the alias Memania and similar to
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: the like pop Idle Vision Mima. He thinks it was
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: a mistake for Mima to leave the music group and
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: pursue acting. He's furious about it, and he maybe murders
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: the screenwriter about it, because that guy is brutally killed
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: one night, but we don't see who the assailant is.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but we hear cham yes, yes, cham on the
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: boombox haunting.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Again.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: It's just like it is so incredible, how seamless it
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: all kind of comes together of how many different sources
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: are literally put in words in Mima's mouth, whether it's
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: her fans or the screenwriter.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, at least for him.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: It's kind of hard to be like, oh no, the screenwriter,
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: like he's awful. Yeah, yeah, And who will mourn him.
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: But there are movies that try to say something simpler
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: that really bonk you over the head with it.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: But it just is so seamless here for sure. So
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: then Mima reluctantly participates in a nude photo shoot. Her
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: photos end up in magazine. The Stocker security guard buys
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: like all the copies of the magazine so that no
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: one else can see this version of Mima. He thinks
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: that she is an impostor, and the real Mima is
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: this like floating ethereal pop idol Mima. Cut back to
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: Mima filming scenes of Double Bind, where what's happening in
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: the show to Mima's character seems to be mimicking what's
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: happening to Mima in real life, where her character is
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: seeing things that aren't there and is confused about what's
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: real and what's not. And then real Mima sees pop
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: idle vision Mima again and starts chasing her, almost gets
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: hit by a bus or a truck or something.
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: It should be said. At this point, pop Idle Mima
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: is wearing the outfit.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Of the movie. Yes, red dress, not quite yet, She's
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: still We're not at red dress. We're not yet yeah,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: there's so many sequels.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: Okay, well, buckle in, because I was really dazzled by
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: the Red Dress. It's so far beyond the point that
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: I'm like, let's take a moment for.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: The red dress. Yeah, it's currently still the like pink
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: and white dress. Yeah, still iconic, but for sure, but
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: not quite not the red dress. Right anyway, So there's
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: this whole chase sequence. But wait a minute, was it
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: just a dream? I don't know. Then Mima has a
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: conversation with Rumy about her distorted perception of reality. Then
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: that scene abruptly transitions to Mima back on set shooting
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: the same scene we just saw her shoot or was
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: that a dream? And then Mima's having another conversation with
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Rumy and was that a dream? So basically, Mima's grasp
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: on reality is really falling apart. Cut to the psychiatrist's
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: character in Double bind saying that the murderer character in
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: the show is just an illusion that Mima's character fabricated.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: But maybe that illusion found someone to possess and that's
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: who's killing all of the models in the show. Or
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: maybe Mima's character has dissociative identity disorder and it was
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: her committing the crimes when she's a different persona, and
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: that one such persona is a former pop idol turned
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: actor working in a drama series, and we're like, wait,
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: is that what's happening to Mima in real life?
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: I had to rewatch that secuence like four times and
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: I'm still at the end. Was like, huh, we don't know,
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: and we're not supposed to know. Yeah, I know, but
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: I was like, I'll figure it out.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: No, no, no no. Then another man is brutally murdered,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: I think the photographer who did the nude photo shoot.
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, with the iconic lass line, you're a weird pizza guy,
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: pizza boy, You're a weird pizza boy.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: And then curtainstead.
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, stab ice pick wow, yes, god you brutal death.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very basic instinct murder weapon. Anyway, so it seems
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: like maybe Mima is the weird pizza boy murderer, or
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: maybe that was just a delusion because she wakes up
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: from a nightmare. But then she also finds bloody clothes
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: in her closet, so maybe she is murdering. We don't know.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: They finish shooting double bind and at this point Mima
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: like truly has no idea what's real and what is not.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: Then the security guard abducts Mima. There's another brutal assault
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: scene the so Mima is able to fight him off
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: and get away. But wait, was that real or was
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: that a scene that they were shooting for Doublebind? We
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: don't know. And then we get a reveal that the
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: floating pop Idol vision version of Mima was maybe roomy
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: this whole time. And this is the Red Dress sequence
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: right now, we're there, Yeah, a moment for the Red Dress. Yes, yes,
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: it seems like maybe Rumy is trying to live vicariously
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: through Mima because Rumy is also a former pop idol
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: something that I didn't really pick up on from watching
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: the movie, but it's something I kept reading when I
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: was doing research for this movie. So it's one quick exchange.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's like one line, like when they're initially talking
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: about Mema pivoting into becoming an actress. I because I
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: think mister Tatacuorro says something about like, oh just because
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: like it didn't work out for you or something. It's
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: like something along those lines.
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, yeah, got it, Like apparently she didn't fit
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: the beauty standards, and so that's why she ended up
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: having to quit or stop being an idol.
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: I see, and that seems and it's like the I
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: don't know, I'm excited to talk about Roomy. Yes, same,
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: but this is like super common in entertainment, Like how
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: painful it has to be to be facilitating this for
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: other people and knowing all of the shortcomings and still
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: having to be like, nope, this is great. Great is
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: business in the world, Like you might find yourself putting
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: the red dress onto.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Oh yeah. So Roomy attacks Mima. They
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: start fighting. There's a chase sequence, but also like pop idol,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Mima is sometimes roomy and she's floating around again, and
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: we're like, wait, is this real? And it all culminates
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: in Roomy impaling herself on shards of glass and then
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: nearly being hit by a truck, but Mima pushes her
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: out of the way and saves her, and then we
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: cut to some time later. Both Mima and Rumy have
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: survived their multiple stab wounds. Mima visits Roumy, who is
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: a patient at a psychiatric hospital, fully convinced that she
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: is a pop idol. Mima, on the other hand, is
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: now a famous actor, and the movie ends with her
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: looking at herself in the rear view mirror of her
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: car being like, I'm real because she had overheard like
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: nurses at the hospital being like, is that the real Mima?
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: There's no way she would be here, and she's like, no,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: I am real.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: Wink the end cue amazing credits music. So good.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, So that's the movie. Let's take another
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: quick break and we'll come back to discuss, and we're back.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: We're back, chi kid, Jana, I will'll let you take
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: the reins here. Where would you like to start? There's
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: so much to talk about. Where does one begin with?
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Perfectly, Caitlin, I.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: Wanted to That was a really good summary given the
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: challenge you were up against.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: Yes, I really worked hard on it. It could not
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: have been easy.
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: Chef's Kiss, especially the dream part where it was like,
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: oh wait, is she waking up? Did this happen? And
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: then again and.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: Then every two lines you have to be like or
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: is it right?
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: Or is it It was definitely hard to summarize. But
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: there are different scenes in the movie where either like
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Rumy or Tadakoro or like I can tell how hard
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: you tried Mima, and I feel like that. I'm like,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: I tried so hard with this recap, so I'm glad
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: it went well.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: We could start by finishing the conversation we apparently were
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: very eager to have, which is the Aronofsky. Sure thing, Yeah,
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: I guess is there anything else that we wanted to
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: say to that? And I think the thing that stuck
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: out to me that like I hadn't read about but
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: it clicks very fast, is like this period of time.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: This movie comes out in nineteen ninety seven.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Same year as Titanic and my brother Wow, and so
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: a lot of incredible debuts this year, but that this
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: is a period of time that again I'm referring to
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: this animation obsessive post that we can link in the
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: description where there was a lot of movies and film
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: in the US and Japan about reality fuckery and double
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: images in a way that I mean, I think this
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: is like a really strong example that it's someone usually
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: a white American, borrowing too heavily from another artist.
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: The example that I didn't know because I just I
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: am not a huge matrix head, but was how heavily
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: the witch House Keys were pulling from ghosts in the
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: Shell when pitching the Matrix, and that the Matrix, while
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: Ghost in the Shell, I think, did well, but like
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: the Matrix became this global phenomenon, and there is this
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: pattern of white American directors I think, really blurring the
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: line between homage and.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: Just lifting stealing.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean everyone's mileage is going to vary their
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: I don't even know how to feel about it in
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: certain places, I think narratively, I don't know.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: I hope that.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: I feel like Black Swan is different enough from Perfect Blue,
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: there are obvious similarities. I think that Aronofsky definitely needed
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: to acknowledge this influence and even better credit and compensate
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: Satoshi Khan in some way. Yeah, I think these are
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: two great movies that I don't know. I can see
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: that Aernofsky is also pulling from stuff that is not
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: Perfect Blue and Black Swan.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: For example, Swan Lake, he.
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: Is pulling from pretty heavily that also features dueling images
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: and personas. Like I think Perfect Blue is a very
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: very clear, heavy influence, and it was insecure and gross
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: and disrespectful that he did not properly credit Satoshi Khan
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: for the influence he had in the work. But I
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: also don't fully buy that Black Swan's fully ripped off
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: of Perfect Blue due to the Swan like of it all.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Fair Yeah, he basically just like swapped
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: out this drama series Double Bind, and he's like, instead
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: of that, what if Swan Lake?
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: Well, I don't know, because Perfect Blue is about a
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: forced career pivot. Yeah, Black Swan is more of a
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: promotion within a system, true true, which again does feel
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: like the dynamics of that are pretty different.
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: I want to talk about the dynamics in Perfect.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: Blue of like this pivot. Yeah, that seems to be
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: happening basically against her will. I know that she's not
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: technically a child star. They say that she's twenty one, right,
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: but I feel like the dynamics of child stardom are
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: really present here.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, because it says that she was in She
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: started in Cham two and a half years ago, so
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: she would have been you know, like eighteen nineteen, so
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: she kind of started as like a teen star at
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: the very least, so very young. Yeah yeah, yeah, just
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: to provide a little bit more context on the development
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: of this movie, and then yeah, we can get into
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: more theme stuff. So this source material was originally supposed
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: to be adapted to a live action film. Sotoshi Khan
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: was approached and he agreed to do it, but there
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: were funding issues, so the project kept getting like quote
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: unquote downgraded to animated film, and the idea was that
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: Satoshi Kan basically had to make it as a straight
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: to video animated film. He took the source material and
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: the first version of the script, which was written by
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Sadyuka Marai, and made quite a few changes to it,
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: but then he and the screenwriter worked together to write
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: a new script that introduces different things that Satoshi Kan
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: wanted to play around with, such as the like play
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: within a play component, the blurred lines between reality and dream.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: He wanted to focus more on the main character, Mima's
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: inner struggle, things like that, and part of it was
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: that psychological thrillers were not a mainstream genre in anime
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: at the time, so there was like no real precedent
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: for this story to be adapted to an animated film.
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: Which is how perhaps a young Chica ends up watching
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: it by accident.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: It's not what you would expect, it's right, and it
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: wasn't expected to do well at all. Everyone thought that
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: this movie would be immediately forgotten.
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: Well, and it kind of didn't do well when it
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: first came out.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: No, but then it ended up like screening at various
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: festivals around the world and it gained a following. There's
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: some other like interesting distribution stuff, but it's not so
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: super relevant to our discussion. But yeah, so that's kind
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: of the context. As we hinted at, there's all these
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: themes that get explored. There's like things around the pressures
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: of becoming a celebrity, the pressure to acquiesce to the
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: demands of powerful entertainment industry people, the idea of like
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: becoming a commodity to be bought and sold, and.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: The idea that like there's like this repeated idea that
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: Mima should be grateful that this is happening, which is
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: obviously something we still see all the time, particularly with
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: young women, like it is critical that she does not acknowledge.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: The parts of this that are difficult or.
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: You're ungrateful, and like again, it's from all of these
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: different angles. She needs to appease her agents because she should,
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: Like she says it explicitly at one point, like, well,
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: they've done so much for me, Like who am I
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: to push back?
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: On what they want. Mm hmm.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: Same thing with her fans, where they're you know, it's
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: hard to cross a line more severely than her fans are,
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: but she has to be grateful for them. And then
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: there's like a line again that's explicitly like the fans
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: know what is best for you and we are going
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: to which is such a fan mentality. Oh like name
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: of fandom Where this is not present somewhere, it feels
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: like it really clearly understands contemporary internet culture, which is wild.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah for how old it is.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. There's another scene also where it's before the
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: photo shoot where Memon knows that she'll be photographed nude.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: She has locked herself in her dressing room. She seems
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: very apprehensive about it, and Tadakoro is like pounding on
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: the door, being like, I thought you decided to go
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: through with this. Everyone's waiting for you. So just like
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: the pressure she feels, people are coercing her, not letting
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: her change her mind. It's all stuff that again like
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: still happens to this day. There's a long history of
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: people in the entertainment industry, particularly people of marginalized genders
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: and marginalized people in general. Being taken advantage of and
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: heavily exploited.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: And then asked to say thank you.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Basically yeah, yeah.
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: I think they even have like after she has to
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: do the rape scene, they essentially have her go on
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: this press tour talking about how she wants to be
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: a serious actress, and they had I think, just prior
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: to it even happening, Tadakuro is talking about Jodie Foster,
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: which I was just like, oh yes, oh okay, which
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: I was just like, I know more of her later work,
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: but I was like, let me go look back at
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: like in and around the time Perfect Blue was being made,
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: and I guess she had won an Oscar for the
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: Acquired where she was playing a character that ended up
• 43:15
  Speaker 5: getting raped.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: Oh wow, okay, and.
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: Like the movies about like the legal case behind that
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: and her like trying to win that, and so it's
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: just like, oh, okay, there are more cultural ties within
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: this than I had originally thought of.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: I didn't know that specific I thought that was like
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: referencing the fact that she'd been a child start, but
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: like that totally makes oh my god, that's brutal.
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: I thought it was referencing specifically her character in Taxi
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: driver where she plays like an underage sex worker.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: Right, But yeah, I think I can really only speak
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: to American culture with any sort of detail. But this
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: career phase that we're seeing Mima in we see all
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: the time. We still see now. It's like, what we
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: see with Mima is how something like this can go
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: when you don't have proper support. Yeah, you could really
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: kind of name any Disney or Nickelodeon pipeline child star
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: to go in quote unquote legit as a young adult
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: as an example of this. And sometimes it seems like,
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: again we just don't know. It seems like the young
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: actor has the support. Familiarly, we don't really see Mima's family.
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: She references them once and she's like, they probably won't
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: like seeing me get sexually assaulted on TV, but whatever,
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: Like her family is not engaged.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seemed like when she was originally doing the pivot,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: the career pivot, it seems like she was excited about acting,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: like this new prospect of it, and she has that
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: phone call with her mother, and her mom's essentially like
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: putting all of that down, like guilting her about not
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: being a singer, saying how the whole family was waiting
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: on the next single and saying that's singing is what
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: you do best. So it almost feels like even if
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: she wanted to lean on her family for support, like
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: maybe she wouldn't get it because it's like, oh, well,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: you made this choice. Now these are the consequences. You know.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: It feels like she might get that kind of response.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, like her just trying to I feel like her
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: becoming an idol was an uphill battle, and so now
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: her wanting to do something else, it's just like, but
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: we're used to you being an idol. Now we actually
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: like it now, like why would you change? And you know,
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: it's good to want to change, but then it's also
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: just as good to have people be able to accept
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: different versions of you.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: I also want to just note really quickly before any
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: of the listeners like read me the Riot Act the
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: Jodie Foster film is the accused. It's not the acquired.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: My bad. Okay, Okay, you're fine, you're fine. We didn't
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: know what existed, you're goodding, Yeah, didn't know the difference.
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: I think this was like what struck me?
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: Well, what do you think?
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: Like it seems like Mima prefers to be a pop
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: idol to being a serious actress. But the more the
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: movie went on, I'm like, we never really hear her
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: explicitly state what she wants exactly. Yeah, we hear that
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: her family and obviously her fans and Roomy want her
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: to be a pop idol, and they have their reasons,
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: and that her agent and the director it's they want
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: her to be an actress. We don't really know, like
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: we can guess what Mima wants, but she's very young.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: She's so like understandably sort of like pulling her hair
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: out over wanting to please everyone in an industry where
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: that's completely impossible. And I just it made me so
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: sad because like, I don't who knows what she wants.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: She probably doesn't know she exactly. Like she's still young
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: enough to be quite impressionable and not that young people
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: and you know, early twenties people can't have autonomy, but
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: like she is in a juncture in her life and
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: career where she thinks she needs to be listening to
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: the people who have more power and experience than her.
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: Right, Like her entire adult life has been defined by
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: trying to please everyone, which is like obviously like a
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: super common experience, just rarely at this level. I do
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: like that they don't make her super super famous though,
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: because I do think that that makes her uniquely vulnerable, right,
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: because she does have these fans that she feels still
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: kind of accessible to, because she's still performing at the mall,
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: she still has her own shopping, she's still like she
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: lives in like a pretty normal looking apartment.
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a studio apartment question Mark.
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, I mean, but that's I can see that
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: being true. There's I mean, pop groups of the nineties
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: didn't make money at first. It was usually like their
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: managers that made money. Yeah, So it's like she's kind
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: of living a normal life, but also she's not and
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: there's no one protecting her. It's like a very kind
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: of scary level of notoriety to be at.
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: It seems like, Yeah, it made me feel more critical
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: of like that kind of pop star to sex symbol
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: transition that a lot of musicians like go through all
• 48:34
  Speaker 5: of the time. I know, especially like the Disney Stars.
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: It's like, Okay, they did Disney and then it's like, Okay,
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: I'm breaking out. I'm grown now, so I'm either going
• 48:47
  Speaker 5: to put out like more sexually charged music or maybe
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: they will pivot into acting and doing very serious roles.
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: But I never thought that. I think I was just
• 48:59
  Speaker 5: under the impression that was something that they wanted. I
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: never thought that maybe that transition itself could be manufactured
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: for the benefit of other people.
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: Well, I got the impression, and maybe this is just
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: kind of like my head canon, but that it wasn't
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: Mima's idea at all to leave the group and pivot
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: to acting. It's what her managers and specifically mister Tadakoro
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: thought it was best because there's different conversations about how,
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: you know, pop idols are not taken seriously. And then
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: like the gap that my mind filled in is, oh,
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: probably because it's a medium of entertainment that tends to
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: appeal to people of marginalized genders and sexualities girls, so
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: she has to become a quote unquote serious actress doing
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: dramatic roles.
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it seems like he's just trying to like flesh
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: out his like roster. And also it's so bizarre how
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: many times he's like, well, girl groups aren't serious, one
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: of the two remaining members of.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: The girl group. Yeah, yeah, right, But the idea is
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: that also that pop stars at least at the level
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: that they're at, and as we see evidenced by the
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: studio apartment that Mima lives in, like, they don't make
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: much money, but actors make more money. So it seems
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: like part of Tadacoro's motivation for wanting Mema to pivot
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: to acting is so that he can exploit her more
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: and make more money off of her. And it goes
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: back to the whole like commodifying human beings thing. And
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: there's all these scenes where they are talking about Mema
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: as if she is a commodity. Sometimes Mima will be
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: in the room, sometimes she's not there, but either way,
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: they're never treating her like a person. They're never considering
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: her feelings and her comfort level and what she wants.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: They're just like, and then we're doing this for you,
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: and then we landed you this role and you are
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: quitting the group and did it. All this stuff it's
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: just again very endble of what happens a lot in
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: real life.
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: And Mima, like, I think of like a scene that
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: the towards the very beginning with Rumy and Tatacuoro, where
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: you know, I think that we are sort of led
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: to believe I mean intentionally by the movie that Rumy
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: has more what's in Mima's best interest? She you know,
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: a broken clock is right twice a day, where you know,
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: I agree with Rumy. When Rumy is like, you shouldn't
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: have to be in this really exploitive rape scene if
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: you are not completely comfortable with it, which Mima is not,
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: but she is afraid to say so. Rumy tries to
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: give her the opportunity to bow out of it. But
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: the reason she does that has to do with her.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: It doesn't have to do with Mema and so. But
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: just anyways, that scene at the beginning where Mima is
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: just sitting there and like passively listening to them argue
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: over her future, like that's normal for her, That's It's like,
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: clearly that is just the dynamic that she has been
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: conditioned to feel like she should be grateful to have
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: in the first place.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: I just I love her.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: I want to talk more about the rape scene, and
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: again we'll place another content warning here because it is long,
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: it's brutal. It being animated does not make it any
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: less hard to watch. I'm interested in everyone's thoughts on this,
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: but to me, there was a troubling kind of visual
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: juxtaposition of on one hand, it's clear how horrific this
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: is for Mima, and as you're watching it, you're often
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: forgetting it's a staged scene that they're filming for TV.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Oftentimes you're just like, oh, this feels like an actual
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: rape that I'm watching, So it's it's really traumatic and brutal.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: But on the other hand, the way it's like quote
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: unquote shot slash animated is in a way that is
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: similar to how a lot of porn is shot. Like
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: it seems to be reveling in the in the sexual violence,
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: but like this emphasis on the sexual the like you know,
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: it's almost presented in a way that it's like this
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: is sexy, right, Like the way it's framed Again, is
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: this weird juxtaposition between like this is horrific, but also
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: like look at how like I don't know, I don't
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: know if I'm making sense. Yeah, no, it's it's I
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: don't like it. I don't like it.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, me neither.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: It feels very exploitative to me.
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: It was the case of like attempting to comment on
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: the thing, but then just kind of doing it right. Yeah,
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: I didn't think that there was the commentary around that
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: was not meaningful enough. I don't know if there is
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: any Maybe that's my hot take.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: It's like, I don't know if.
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: There's really any explanation of staging a sequence like that,
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: even an animation where it is making meaningful commentary enough
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: to justify it happening.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: I just don't think that's true.
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: And I always especially side eye it when it's like
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: men men, men at the top, I'm like, yeah.
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: Well, where the fuck do you get off?
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, I just didn't.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: I didn't like it. I didn't think it said anything.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm very much with you on that. I think
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: something that, at least for me, made it. We know
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: it's fake, we know it's staged and it's acting. I'm
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: doing air quotes for people who can't see. Yeah, but
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: I think the reason why it feels so real is
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: because we know that she's uncomfortable filming it, so it
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: may as well be real. The fact that it goes
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: on for so long and it's like, you know, she's
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: just so she eating to cope like that is that
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: is real. That is real trauma happening to this person,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: and we're experiencing it too, And also, like Jamie was saying,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: just knowing like men made this scene is also I like,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: I feel violated a little bit watching that as a woman,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: you know, mm hmm.
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: I was also very uncomfortable, and I was just kind
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: of like, when is it in?
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: Like okay, yeah, yeah, when does it? It's so long?
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: Once the light went out of her eye, I'm just like,
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: I think it's done.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: We get it.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, the point was made. The point was made.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: Like I I literally had tears in my eyes watching
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: that scene, and it took me off guard to be like,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: oh I'm crying like that. It really affected me.
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: The one thing that I will say is that that
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: sequence made me at least grateful that this was not
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: adapted into live action.
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: Right, But that's about all I can say for it,
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: I think.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and to your point, Jamie, I did consider, like, well,
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: this is a show within a movie, so perhaps it
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: is the movie perfect Blue commenting on the way that
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: other media tends to, you know, like glamorize, slash, pornografy rape,
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: or if it's just the movie also doing that. And
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: I did read that Satashi Khan made the like, you know,
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: show within the movie Double Bind as a sort of
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: like parody, like his intention was to criticize Japanese TV
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: dramas that tend to like imitate Hollywood fads and tropes,
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: and that he was aware of movies like Basic Instinct
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: and Silence of the Lambs and things like that. Well sure,
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: but again it's also the movie still showing this very exploitative,
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: very again pornografied rape scene. And I'm not saying this
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: to like disporn inherently, but just the way that like,
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: again I'm not articulating myself. Well, but you're watching the
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: scene and you're just like, oh, why are her like
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: titties bouncing so pornographically? Yeah? Right, and why does the
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: murder sound like sex? Yeah? Sorry, you know what I mean.
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: It's just, yeah, I don't think that he because we.
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: All know what he's referencing. Mm hmm.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: But at some point it's just like, I don't really
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: care what men think of that scene in general. Yeah, yes,
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: I'm not saying that men. Obviously, I have people of
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: all genders are affected by this, but in general, I'm
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: not really interested in what straight men think about that scene.
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: I do hope that it would make them uncomfortable, and
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: I wonder if that is like more what Stashi Kam
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: was going for is to take who would normally be
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: the intended audience for stuff like that and really make
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: them sit and consider, well, what if the actor performing
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: this didn't want to do it? And maybe that was
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: more where his head is at. But as someone who
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: like that content is not made for me and I
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: don't like it, I felt like punished and really made
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: uncomfortable by it.
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I'll say that in the lecture series that
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: I like saw about it, which it's like, I'm glad
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: I watched it just because it provided me with more
• 58:34
  Speaker 5: context on this, and I think that's the thing, like
• 58:38
  Speaker 5: I had to watch this on streaming essentially, but we
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: don't get access to like, you know, those DVD extras
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: of like people talking about the scenes or talking about
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: stuff like that. But when he was talking about the
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: rape scene, he said, he said he went too far,
• 58:56
  Speaker 5: and that when he was making Perfect Blue, he was
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: not under the impression that it was going to be
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: like widely released. He thought it was going to be
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: like a home released type of thing, and so when
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: he saw the scene and it's like on a theater
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: side screen, he was like uncomfortable with it. Yeah, And
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: he essentially was saying that the rape scene itself was
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: like the death of her pop idol persona, which is
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: why like when she ends up being in like the
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: dressing room and she's wearing all black and stuff, because
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: she's mourning that version of herself like before it happened.
• 59:44
  Speaker 5: And so I was just like, oh, okay, well, I'm
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: glad you were uncomfortable because so was that right?
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: We appreciate a self aware king.
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: I do appreciate that he I mean, I wish more
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: directors were willing to like interact because it's like, you know,
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: it doesn't excuse it.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: But the nineties, I mean, that's.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: A lot of what he's referencing, Like erotic thrillers in
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: the eighties and nineties were.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: Full of shit like this.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: I am interested that about because I hadn't I hadn't
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: seen that quote, and I guess something that I don't
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: quite know. I'm just curious what you all think, because
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: I was like, eh, am, I okay. There feels like
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: there's sort of this more conservative idea than most of
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: this movie holds up, that her being sexually assaulted in
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: reality or on screen means that she is permanently damaged.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: Good the idea that once something horrific has happened to
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: you that was completely out of your control, you can
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: no longer sing pop music, question work. I just find
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: that to be a very weirdly patriarchal idea that it
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: doesn't feel like the movie's really pushing back on. I
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: don't know, because it's obviously like I'm a survivor of
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: it myself. It certainly changes your life in many many ways,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: but I don't really like the implication that it means
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: that you cannot return to your passions or and you
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: have a total and permanent loss of self, because I
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: just don't think that's true. I was sort of like,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: maybe I'm overly projecting, but it didn't feel like that
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: idea was pushed back on very much.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we've talked about this on different episodes,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: and it's almost always media written and directed by men,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: where there will be someone, usually a woman, who is
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: a survivor of sexual assault, and that is her defining
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: trait as a character. That's kind of the only thing
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: we know about her, that's what's motivating her every choice,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: and that is obviously not true for survivors of sexual
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: assault in real life. But there's just this tendency to
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: like revel in sexual violence, and that manifests in different ways.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: It manifests how a rape seem will be framed, It
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: manifests how a survivor will be characterized. But it's just, yeah,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: it's a lot of men not knowing how this actually
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: manifests for real survivors.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 5: Definitely. I think there's just also this overall idea of
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: Mema trying to find out who she is, but it's like,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: who is Mima without the male gaze. At one point,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: she's this pop idol and she's put on this pedestal
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: by her fans, which are mostly like men. Then she's
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 5: doing this TV series Double Bind, and she is now
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: following this script by this man where if she's leading
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 5: her pop girl image, if she wants to be taken seriously,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: then I'll add a rape scene and she has to
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: access out and then even when the scene was happening,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 5: So so she kind of had mentioned the fact that
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: it's also a commentary sort of on like the amount
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: of spectators that come, because I guess this was I mean,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 5: since it's in the nineties, I don't know if intimacy
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: coordinators existed in the nineties, Nah, I did not, But
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: it's like pre intimacy coordinators, pre security because who are
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: all of these random people that are not normally there?
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: That's not like Crewe and.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: The one security guard is is her number one stalker?
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, And that part felt like intentional commentary, But
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: again it's like, if that's his intentional commentary, that still
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: doesn't justify showing a long exploitative rape.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, scene.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: Okay, I'm glad we're all on the same page about
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: that because I was, like I was, but it's such
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: a good movie, and also that happens in it, right,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: This kind of switches focus to Roomy a little bit.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: I'm curious what everyone thinks about Roomy, because again, I
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: think it was kind of a mixed bag for me,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: where I think that there is some interesting commentary going
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: on with Rumy, but I also feel like there are
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: some tropes at play because.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: We don't really know her well enough.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: We get like that little information that she had briefly
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: been a pop idol or she was aspiring to be bigger,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: and then Tadakuoro just basically says it didn't work out
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: for you, But it's implied that it has to do
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: with her looks and her body type, and that she's
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 4: almost trying to like live out this dream she couldn't
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: have through Mima.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know, how do we feel?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: I was confused about the direction they took Roomy because like,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: it's an interesting twist for sure to be like, oh,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: like Rumy's jealous of her. I think the hardest left
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: for me is I think they heavily implied, because you
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: know they're doing the double bind, has this plot an
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: idea going on, and it's also being mimicked by real life.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: Is it determined at the end when Rumy is in
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: the mental hospital that she has the ID. I don't
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: because I think that's heavily implied. I think it's implied, Okay,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: because that really bothers me. Yes, I like that's something
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: we talk about on the show a lot.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: Is like, Yeah, obviously you don't want to say mental
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: illness in film is off limits, but if you're doing
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: something like this, do not attribute it to a specific
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: mental illness.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: I think the ultimate example of that for me is
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: the opening sequence of Midsommar, and at the end they're
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: like bipolar and you're.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: Like, no, all right, No.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: I wasn't sure if that was suggested in I mean,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: I was confused.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: It's a confusing movie.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: I didn't know if that was happening in the text
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: of the TV show because TV shows do that all
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: the time and it was commentary, or if they were
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: just saying that this is how did manifests.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: Or if this scene where Mima is going to visit
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: Roomy at this hospital, if that's just another figment of
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: Mima's imagination and this is her kind of compartmentalizing that
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: persona or like, we don't know, especially with the little
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: like wink and nod at the end where Mima looks
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: in the mirror and she's like I'm real and it's like.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 5: But are you?
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: We don't know.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: But either way, there is certainly, I think a demonization
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: of mental illness and specifically of dissociative identity disorder, and
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: it's implying that if you have this, you're going to murder.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think like they had said something about like
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: sometimes the regular Roomy comes back and then like sometimes
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: she's someone else. I thought that they had said something
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: like that towards the end which it really implies the
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: DD thing. Yeah right, I know, like back then there
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: was more of a misunderstanding on the disorder and so
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: people were using it as like plot points.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: Oh but it's I mean, I'm not.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: At all excusing that because it's equally frustrating, but yeah,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: I didn't like the usage of that at all.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 5: It made me think of because I think that was
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: also just before the film came out, like when Selena
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: was murdered.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I thought that as well.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 5: Like I haven't seen any quotes from him, being like
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: I saw that and then I decided Rumy is going
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 5: to partially be inspired by.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: I like Yolanda Salzavar, I thought that too.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but yeah, I don't like how they kind of
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: demonize mental illness and stuff, and like, of course we
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 5: don't get to see a trial or anything like that.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: But then it's just like, okay, well there was mister Shibuya,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: there was Tata Korro, there was the me Mania guy, Like.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: Right, what was going on there? I also think in
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: regards to Rumy's character, that there is fat phobia in
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: that she is a little thicker than your typical, you know,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: beauty standard super thin woman.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: And it's implied that that's part of why she wasn't successful, right, yeah,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: which is a.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: Thing that happens, but that this has led to this
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: deep murderous resentment and the fact that she's the only
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: you know, female character who has a bigger body, and
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: that she's this delusional, resentful killer.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: I didn't like that trace at all. And also just
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: that her stalker, who's the security guard, is physically othered
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: in a way that feels like it's telegraphing, like well,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: because he is not conventionally like western beauty standards handsome,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: of course he would do this Like there is just
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: that you know that hmm. Some we've seen in villains
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 4: from time immemorial of physically uthering someone as a shorthand
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: to say like, don't trust this person, and they're trying
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: to hurt the beautiful, virginal young woman.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: It's like hundreds of thousands of movies.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: But it's again, there's just like these really basic othering
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: tropes that this movie is not above including.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: So the young men who are causing trouble at the
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: concert at the very beginning, the main instigator of this
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: trouble making is a darker skinned person has hair that
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: looks kind of like dreadlocks. It seems like it might
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: be a black character. And I don't know a lot
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: about anti black racism in Japan specifically, but I do
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: know that it exists everywhere around the world, and it
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: just feels like a very racist choice for the one
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: or at least dark skinned character to be this like violent. Yeah,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: he's you know, punching people, he's threatening people in the crowd.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: It feels like it's just playing into very racist tropes.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and throwing things on stage two. Yeah, which people
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 5: are doing that came back. I don't know why they
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 5: are doing that again now.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like we whipping bottles at puffsters.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: Or cell phones. Yeah.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 5: But yeah, and then he was the he was Memnia's
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: first victim too, I believe.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so subtle, but there's just like a little
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: like poster somewhere and it's implying that that young man
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: is like missing or maybe has been murdered. But yeah,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: that happens off screen, but we do see this like
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: image of that young guy as if he has been
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: abducted or murdered. Yeah. Another thing was and again not
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: clear if this is the movie. Commenting on media tropes,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: or if it's just the movie doing the trope or
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: a little bit of both. But the TV drama series
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: that Mima gets cast in, Mima plays a character whose
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: older sister has been murdered, and in one of the
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: episodes we learn that the sister was murdered by this
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it was a serial killer or what,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: but someone who kills women and peels off their skin
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: because he wants to wear it in order to become
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: a woman, or at least that's what the psychiatrist's character speculates.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: And it's the whole, you know, transphobic silence of the
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: Lambs storyline, where a person who was assigned male at
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: birth murders cis women to wear their skin and become
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: a woman. Again, we don't know if it's just like
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: that's almost satire in the movies, like commenting on this trope,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: or it's just doing the trope, but it's certainly there.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is maybe too hard of a line,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: but like I feel like if you cannot discern that answer,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: then it's you're just doing the trope.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: It's not effective.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yep, that's exactly what I was thinking. I'm like,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: if we have to think that hard and look into
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: the tiniest crack to figure out if it's satire or not.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's really effective satire.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: Right sure, Like effective satire can be surprising and like
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: horrifying and clear like all at once.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: Again, It's like this movie is in conversation with so
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: much that happens before and after in media, where it's
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: hard not to think about Silence of the Lambs when
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: that idea is introduced, right, because that was like the
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: not that it was the only that was the movie,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: the Prestige movie that came out just a couple of
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: years earlier that used that same plot point. But if
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: it's a reference, it's not being subverted or commented on,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: So it's just almost being like, there, remember Silence of
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: the Lambs.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Did you like it?
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 4: Like I don't know what the yeah, which just feels
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: covertly transphobic.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: And just like, yeah, nasty stuff. Yeah, for sure. Does
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about?
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 5: I would say, well, this has definitely happened after the fact.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 5: But like when it comes to idols either being harmed
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 5: by their fans or killed by their fans, I could
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 5: say that one case is like Christina Grimmy. She was
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 5: a singer that got big because of the voice, and
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 5: then one of her fans killed her at one of
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 5: her autograph signings, and that was in June twenty sixteen.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 5: But then the month prior in Japan, there was a
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 5: jay idol I guess singer actress. Her name's Mayutomita, and
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 5: her stalker found out where she lived and then ended
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 5: up stabbing her multiple times because she had returned gifts
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 5: I guess expensive gifts that he had.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: Bought for her.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 5: And because of that particular case, Japan had to revise
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 5: their anti stocking laws to include online threats, which I thought, I.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: Thought that a woman has to die to get laws
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: like this changed, almost without fail.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I know Christina did.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: But Mayu.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 5: I think Mayo is still alive and she was able
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 5: to I think she also sued the government as well.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 5: So it's like, but the fact that online threats only
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 5: just got added to their anti stocking laws in May
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 5: twenty sixteen is a lot.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: It's absurd.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like I also think about the attack at
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: the Ariana Grande concert around that same sort of period
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: of time as well, Like, yeah, I think like, ultimately
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: this movie needs to be called out for parts of
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 4: it that are dated, unclear, and more it seems like
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 4: shock than commentary. But what I do think this movie
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 4: encapsulates well, although it is still clearly I don't know,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 4: at no point was I like, was this written by
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 4: a woman? Like it obviously isn't, But I do think
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: it kind of encapsulates the feeling of not belonging to
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: yourself very clearly in a way that is like very.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: Rooted in pop culture globally.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: Of like there's just no part of Mima that belongs
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: to herself, and it seems like at least, at very
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 4: least all of the creatives for all of these missteps
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: is very aware of that and presenting that as a
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: horror scenario. That's what really works about this movie, totally
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 4: showing this experience of her just not even having a
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 4: moment to be like who am I? What do I want?
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 4: You know, that's not a possibility for her, And at
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 4: the end, like it could be scene as like kind
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: of eerie ending, But I find it very sad because
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 4: if she is real, this is someone who's just like
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: all she's done is fulfilled.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: What Tadakora wanted for her.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: We still don't know that she's doing something that she
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: feels fulfilled by.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: We just note the victory is supposed.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 4: To be surviving the experience, right, and that's really depressing.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is bleak, but no, it's very astute commentary.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: Any other final thoughts.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 4: We made it, We did it. We made it.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we made it. I'm just like we can all
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: take a deep breath.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 4: This movie does pass the Vactel class. Not in particularly
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 4: pleasant ways, but it does.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it is you know, Mima talking to her
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: mom about Mima's career, Mima talking to the actress that
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: she's in Double Bind with, and their scenes in the
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: show Double Bind also pass the Bechdel test. So it's
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: a pass within a pass.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 4: So in a way it was a feminist no yea, yeah,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: it does pass quite a bit.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: And then obviously Mima and Rumy talk. But does the
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: whole sequence where Rumy is trying to stab Mima at
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: the end, does that pass the Bechdel test? You could
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: argue yes, because stabbing attempts are a form of communication.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: It counts.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: It's feminists, no notes, it counts to rate the movie
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: on the Bechdel cast nipple scale, where we rate it
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: zero to five nipples. Examining the movie through an intersectional
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: feminist lens, Well, now we're in a pickle. We are
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: in a pickle. Yeah, because again, there there's a lot
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: of themes that this movie explores very effectively, as far
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: as the commodification of celebrities and especially the way that
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: young women are heavily exploited. Of course, this extends to
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: marginalize people in general, and of course there are like Cis,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: white men who are deeply exploited by the entertainment industry.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: But it seems as though the like primary survivors of
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: this tend to be marginalized people.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: I mean, it is. It doesn't seem it is.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. It is. So the commentary and examination
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: of that and just again the pressure. I just kept
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: thinking about, how like there's this through line of against
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 3: something we see in real life all the time, of
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: women and other marginalized talent agreeing to something they don't
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: want to do because they don't want to be labeled
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: as being difficult and then.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: Being tried to and I think Chica you mentioned this earlier,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 4: but like and then being trotted out to perform can
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 4: retroactively basically as a way of making people feel comfortable.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 3: Watching the exploitation. Yeah yeah, it's a very quick, kind
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: of almost throwaway moment in the movie. But there's a
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: quick scene where Mima is on her way into her
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: manager's office, and this is after things have started to
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: get pretty weird for her, and there's like a group
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: of like fanboy men standing outside being like hi, Mima,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: and she walks past them and ignores them, and then
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: one of them says like, Oh, why do they become
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: so unfriendly when they become actresses? And it just like
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: makes you think of all of the you know, like
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: celebrities and actors who are women who have been labeled
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: as like, Oh I heard so and so is such
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: a bitch, And it's just like, is it that or
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: is it a woman responding to constantly being harassed and
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: exploited and mistreated.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: We can't retrudge the Chapel Roone discourse, but it comes
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: to mind, right, yeah, like requesting personal space makes.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: You it a bitch a bitch, right right? Establishing boundaries
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: makes you a bitch that kind of thing. So all
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: of these components and this commentary are really I think
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: effectively done in the movie, but then you have all
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: of these other moments of like, is it satire or
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: is it just playing into the trope? Not clear enough,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: so it's probably just the trope. Again. The way in
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: which the brutal rape scene is framed and animated was
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 3: just again so exploitative and unnecessary and horrid. So I
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: don't know. I split down the middle two and a
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: half nipples. I'll give all of my nipples to the
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: red dress.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 4: At the end, I'm gonna go to baby. I almost
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 4: kind of want to go a little lower, which is tricky, big.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 4: I mean whatever, This is just the intersectional feminist ranking
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: of it, because I do like this movie, and I
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 4: think that there's animation wise, as an animation head.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: It's fucking incredible.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 4: I feel like it captures one dynamic really well and
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 4: then a lot of other dynamics not well at all.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 4: But I'll go too, because I do think that this
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 4: movie is acutely aware of the hyper exploitation, the hyper vigilance,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: and was really early to call how internet culture was
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: going to factor into fans feeling even more entitled to
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: someone's time and body and future. I feel like that
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: is you know it's been attempted a lot of times
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 4: and rarely this well, and that that's really special. And
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: then there's, like we've talked about for the last hour
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 4: and a half, a lot of things, that this movie
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 4: just really needed more women at the top of the
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 4: creative chain, and that the mistakes this movie made, even
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety seven were largely avoidable because if this
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 4: creative team could captures so many ideas so clearly, so
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 4: far ahead of everyone else, it's like, almost without fail,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 4: if you have a couple of women, just more than
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 4: one so they can talk to each other, a lot
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 4: of these things could have potentially been avoided. But I'm
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 4: gonna give it two. I'm going to give one to
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 4: Mima and I'm going to give one to her fish.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 4: Her support system, I think that was her support system,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: was unfortunately.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: A jar offish. Oh, and who died? Who died? Yeah,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: leak you hate to see it? How about you, Chica
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: and Gianna?
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's hard to find something to say that hasn't
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: already been said. To be honest, I'm so very much
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: on the same page as you both, because it did
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: accomplish things like commenting on the tropes, but at the
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: same time, it was like, are some of it satire?
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: But it was also so aware of the toxicity within
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: fan culture and portraying that in like an expert way.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: But then there's the mental health aspect that's concerned. And again,
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: can't reiterate enough that more women at the top of
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: this really could have benefited the beats of those more
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: difficult to swallow parts of the movie. So I think
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: I'm going to agree with a two and a half.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: But the question is where to give them.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: That's always the question.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: Oh the remaining members of cham Oh my God, of.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: Course, best of luck to them. Honestly, I kept thinking
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 4: of them as Kelly and Michelle I say three girls,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: I'm like, that's Destiny's child.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I kept as I was watching this movie, being like, hmm,
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: this is what would happen if Josie and the Pussycats
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: went way more wrong than it does. Yeah, as far
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: as the dynamics of the band go.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, I think I would give it three nipples.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 5: I feel the same way as you all. I think
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 5: it would have been way higher if a woman had
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 5: been because then it's like, okay, certain things, it's like,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 5: this is too long what do you mean by this? Like,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 5: I think if there had been at least a woman
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 5: on the team, or multiple women on the team that
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 5: could like push back at certain stuff, then this would
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 5: have been higher for me. But as to who I'd
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 5: give it to, think I'd also give it to Champ,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 5: So it's like Cham. I think Yu, Kiko and y
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 5: are their names. But if I'm wrong, don't quote me.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 5: I would also the mom in the beginning, because even
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 5: though she was kind of pushing back and stuff, she
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 5: was still like, Hey, I'm sort of invested in your career.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 3: I don't really know that.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 5: I like where you're going with it.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: But classic mom behavior.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, classic mom behavior. So it's like mom and I
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 5: guess the third one is just Mima being able to
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 5: survive at all, or like get out of all of that,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 5: because I was just like, oh, especially when the truck
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 5: was coming, I was like, oh, it's over, she's done
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 5: for truck Cunn has got her.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 3: Oh okay, never mind.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So her being able to move out of it,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 5: Although I think I would have liked it if that
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 5: story was kind of discussed a bit more of like
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 5: how was she able to get a stronger sense of
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 5: self to then even decide to visit Roomy in the
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 5: first place to see like how she was doing and
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 5: stuff like yeah, because I don't know if I would
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 5: visit somebody that was trying to stab me.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, side note, I know we're on final thoughts,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: but like, why did she push her out of the
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: way truck? If I'm so honest, it would have been
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: by for me, Like right, she.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 5: Put her hands up in the air, and I was
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 5: just like, I guess you know.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: This is your choice.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 4: She was ready to go, right, Yeah, okay, yeah, I
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 4: did wonder. I was like, were we supposed to that?
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 4: Like there was a mother daughter thing between them, and
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 4: that was why she was protective of her, because I
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 4: if that was what the aim was, it didn't come across.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, that didn't even occur to me.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe that's just me coping and trying to figure
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: out what he's going for. But like, I don't get
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 4: why Mima would be like, no, we've got to I mean,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 4: it is tragic that Rumy was not able to have
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 4: the career that she probably deserved to have. But if
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 4: someone stabbed me, I would let.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 3: Them get hit by a truck.
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 4: Especially if they just stabbed me, like just yeah, that's
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 4: divine intervention.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that feels like instant karma.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like I wonder if it was the whole
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 5: because then the wig part happened where she took the
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 5: wig off and suddenly she was Roomy again, and then
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 5: she put it back on and then she was Mima.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 5: Then maybe real Mima was still kind of like, who
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 5: is the real Mima?
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: So then she pushed is that me?
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: Oh right?
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah right, so is she pushing herself out? And then
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 5: it's like, oh, that was actually Roomy? Who stabbed me?
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 5: Why did I do that? But well we will never know.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we truly won't.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 4: But it has been wonderful trying to figure it out
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 4: with you. But thank you so much for coming on
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 4: the show truly. Where can we find your work?
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: So you can find us across socials at show show
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: Sunday on Blue Sky. We're at Showsuresunday dot com. We're
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: also on threads. Yeah, we're available to be heard on
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: podcast platforms, whatever preferred podcast platform you listen. We are
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: on there, yay.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah. And that show Joe with a You and Sunday
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 5: like ice Cream Sunday, and it is our anniversary month,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 5: and we're nearing our one hundredth episode. So if y'all
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 5: are big, big fans of show Joe Anime or Jose Anime,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 5: you can check out our catalog. We might have talked
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 5: about one of your favorite films or TV series.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah amazing. You can follow us on mostly Instagram at Bechdelcast.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: You can subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon, where we
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 3: have a whole back catalog of bonus episodes, plus two
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: new bonus episodes every month, all for five dollars a month.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: What a bargain, I think, What a treat, What a dream.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: It's sort of like a little Sunday of our own,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 3: you know, with sprinkles and a cherry on top with that.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 4: Oh gosh, how do we dismount for perfectly?
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: Let's go feed our fish to make sure they don't die.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 4: Remember to feature fish, do.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 3: Remember to feturefish for crying out loud, Ye bye bye.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: Caitlin Derante and Jamie loftis produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 3: by mo La Boord. Our theme song was composed by
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskresenski. Our logo in
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: Merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 3: to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 3: visit Linktree slash Bechdel Cast