Latest / Pop Culture Junkie® / Womansploitation: Violence Against Women as Entertainment – Live at Phoenix Fan Fusion

Transcript

Womansploitation: Violence Against Women as Entertainment – Live at Phoenix Fan Fusion · Pop Culture Junkie®

• 0:00
  ♪ Entertain me, Entertain me right now ♪
• 0:04
  - Well, hello, and welcome to our Fan Fusion friends.
• 0:07
  We're so excited to be back at Fan Fusion.
• 0:10
  I'm Olivia here with my spooky twin.
• 0:13
  - I'm Shauna, and we are Pop Culture Junkie Podcast.
• 0:18
  - And we want you to cheer loud enough
• 0:20
  so that you can actually hear yourself
• 0:21
  when this episode comes out.
• 0:23
  So give yourself a round of applause.
• 0:25
  (audience cheering)
• 0:29
  - And we're so excited to have you here today.
• 0:32
  Shauna and I are both raging feminists.
• 0:34
  We would say-- - Yes.
• 0:35
  - And have a seat. - So get ready
• 0:37
  for some woke feminist agenda.
• 0:39
  - Yeah. (audience cheering)
• 0:42
  - Through a Pop Culture lens, of course.
• 0:44
  - Yeah, absolutely.
• 0:45
  And so this panel in both podcast episode
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  is about women's exploitation.
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  So using violence against women in entertainment,
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  this spans in movies, in television shows,
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  in books, in true crime, documentaries,
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  and ultimately podcasts as well.
• 1:01
  There is money to be made in victimizing women.
• 1:04
  And we've seen it throughout time,
• 1:06
  over and over and over again.
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  And we do typically see that it's at the enjoyment
• 1:11
  of the audience, right?
• 1:12
  For these movies and these themes
• 1:14
  to be made continuously over time,
• 1:17
  there is a true hunger for it in a way.
• 1:21
  And so we want to look into both the history
• 1:23
  of this phenomenon as well as dive into some
• 1:27
  of the most prolific directors, movie examples,
• 1:32
  TV shows, yeah, why is this something that makes money?
• 1:34
  Why is it something that perseveres to the day?
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  And is it changing?
• 1:39
  Are we getting any progress?
• 1:40
  Is anything getting better?
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  - Yeah, and ultimately, like what effects does this have
• 1:43
  on society?
• 1:45
  We are both women here.
• 1:47
  And ultimately, like what impact has that had on us
• 1:50
  personally?
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  If anyone feels comfortable, we will also ask
• 1:53
  for audience participation throughout this.
• 1:56
  Just examples, things that come to mind
• 1:59
  within your consumption of pop culture.
• 2:02
  - Yeah, and I guess trigger warning,
• 2:03
  we are going to be talking about violence against women.
• 2:06
  So just--
• 2:07
  - And psychocomfort zones, but that first.
• 2:10
  - Yeah, and ultimately today, we're asking the question
• 2:14
  in this panel of when does depicting violence
• 2:16
  against women become critique?
• 2:18
  And when does it become consumption?
• 2:21
  - Yeah, and is the violence a narrative necessity
• 2:24
  or is it exploitation and what is the line there?
• 2:27
  A major recurring argument is whether violence
• 2:30
  against women is essential to the story,
• 2:32
  but does it just put forth a male storyline?
• 2:35
  This is so necessary, but it's to further the plot of a man.
• 2:39
  - Yeah, like why do we frequently see rape as a plot device?
• 2:43
  Critics increasingly argue that both TV and film
• 2:47
  historically have used sexual violence against women
• 2:51
  to motivate male revenge arcs,
• 2:55
  or their wife dies in the first 10 minutes of a movie,
• 2:59
  and it ultimately propels that character forward.
• 3:03
  How does rape ultimately like tough in these female characters
• 3:08
  are quickly a signal like a sense of evil within a character?
• 3:12
  - Yeah, is the audience meant to experience the woman's pain
• 3:15
  or consume it?
• 3:17
  That single question opens discussions
• 3:18
  about the cinematography, where is our gaze supposed to be
• 3:22
  editing the amount of nudity, the point of view shots,
• 3:26
  revenge narratives like you mentioned, prestige TV,
• 3:30
  horror, true crime, consumption,
• 3:32
  and whether some media mistakes, trauma for depth of storytelling.
• 3:37
  - Yeah, and I think that throughout time,
• 3:40
  we're gonna talk a little bit about what film critics
• 3:42
  and other sociologists think on this topic as well,
• 3:47
  but we've tried finding ways to talk about women representation
• 3:51
  throughout film, right?
• 3:53
  We have the Bechtel test, which we were discussing earlier,
• 3:56
  of like, do these women have value outside of like
• 3:59
  propelling a male forward?
• 4:01
  We have these things like the manic pixie dream girl,
• 4:05
  where less violence within that,
• 4:07
  but they're only purposes to like move the lens forward
• 4:10
  for a man or what that looks like.
• 4:12
  And we've all seen the trope, right?
• 4:14
  We have innocent young girls, stocked by killers,
• 4:18
  in slasher movies, the male's journey,
• 4:21
  beginning with the death of his wife or girlfriend,
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  or a beautiful young white woman is murdered,
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  leading to endless true crime shows about her case,
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  it happens over and over, and we're wondering why.
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  And what does that really say about us?
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  And so, you were discussing this actually
• 4:38
  when we were driving in about the woman in refrigeration.
• 4:42
  - Yes, so I'm sure as we're all nerds here,
• 4:44
  first of all, let's all take a deep breath.
• 4:47
  (sighs)
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  We're gonna talk about some deep stuff,
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  but we're also just kind of nerdy weirdo,
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  so we're gonna try to keep it a little entertaining
• 4:57
  as much as we can in such a heavy topic.
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  So the term fridging, so it originates from
• 5:03
  Green Lantern Volume 3, number 44, forced entry.
• 5:08
  Has anyone, yeah, absolutely.
• 5:10
  Has anyone read this before, like actually read this issue?
• 5:13
  - Okay, we got one in the back.
• 5:14
  - Yeah, I love it. - I love it.
• 5:16
  - So it was published in 1994,
• 5:18
  and in this issue, the main villain,
• 5:21
  kills Green Lantern's girlfriend,
• 5:23
  I don't know if it's Hal Jordan,
• 5:25
  and this, I don't know which Green Lantern it is.
• 5:27
  No, no, it's not.
• 5:28
  Who is it, do you know?
• 5:30
  - He's probably an intern.
• 5:32
  - Perfect.
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  Kills his girlfriend, puts her body in a refrigerator
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  for the Green Lantern to come home and find,
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  thus propelling his story forward,
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  and his revenge, and his emotional arc,
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  at the expense of this woman who is literally murdered
• 5:49
  and stepped into a refrigerator.
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  So we use that term fridging a woman in order to,
• 5:55
  she is murdered to move forward a man's plotline.
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  The most recent example we were talking about
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  in the car on the way here that I could think of
• 6:06
  was the second Deadpool movie.
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  I was shocked that they fritched her in the first 15 minutes
• 6:14
  of this movie.
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  And what that movie came about,
• 6:17
  what, like, six years ago or something,
• 6:19
  and I was literally like, are we fridging this woman
• 6:22
  in the year of our Lord 2020 movie,
• 6:24
  or whatever it was, like, what?
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  And I think that that movie would have been perfectly fine,
• 6:30
  and we could have moved forward deadpool storyline
• 6:33
  without murdering his girlfriend.
• 6:35
  And like, sorry if that's a spoiler for anyone.
• 6:37
  (laughing)
• 6:38
  Spoiler alert.
• 6:40
  I mean, she comes back to life through
• 6:42
  zany circumstances that happened in comic books,
• 6:45
  but it's still like a woman had to die to set bad forward.
• 6:49
  - Yeah, and I think it's interesting.
• 6:51
  Like, we're gonna talk a little bit about how, over time,
• 6:55
  we started to make moves for women having their own
• 6:58
  sense of identity, even a full picture.
• 7:00
  - Imagine that.
• 7:01
  - Yeah, a flipping of the script as well,
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  where it's, you know, they have some personality
• 7:07
  but they have some of their own characteristics.
• 7:09
  And ultimately, it's still small steps forward,
• 7:14
  and what you see in today, but we'll talk quite a bit
• 7:17
  about what that really looks like.
• 7:19
  - And it's so funny, like, even when we see
• 7:22
  woman-centered movies in media, there's that backlash
• 7:26
  and that weird fandom pushback sometimes.
• 7:28
  And it is really that toxic kind of like,
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  male internet personality, where I saw when, like,
• 7:34
  Captain Marvel had her own movie,
• 7:36
  and people were calling it the "im-she-you"
• 7:39
  in these toxic chatboards.
• 7:41
  I'm like, "Oh, God forbid a woman lead a movie
• 7:44
  "and be a superhero."
• 7:45
  - That's their thing, Shanna.
• 7:47
  - Listen, only men get the spandex and the superpowers.
• 7:50
  We just need to be the side characters
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  who show up and be Black Widow.
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  And I'm sexy, and sometimes I can punch you.
• 7:58
  But like, God forbid a woman lead a film,
• 8:00
  and then all of the, like, that toxic subset,
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  I won't say, "Oh, man, obviously,"
• 8:07
  started review bombing these movies, right?
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  Anything that was female lead,
• 8:12
  and they would have worse reviews,
• 8:14
  but these movies that I thought were delightful,
• 8:16
  like the, "Oh gosh, what was it, birds of prey?"
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  Like the Harley Quinn.
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  What? - The Harley Quinn.
• 8:22
  - It was a delightful movie, right?
• 8:24
  But because it has the audacity to be female lead,
• 8:27
  then it would not review bombed, honestly.
• 8:29
  - Yeah, and this term of, like, fridging women
• 8:32
  is now widely applied beyond comics, right?
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  We have, like, Christopher Nolan movies,
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  in "Memento, Prestige, Inception,"
• 8:41
  other examples are John Wick, right?
• 8:43
  - Yeah. - No, his wife wasn't--
• 8:45
  - We first did "Dog and the Woman."
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  (laughing)
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  We're applying it to two little animals now, too.
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  Braveheart, Gladiator, characters,
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  and TV shows, like, supernatural Game of Thrones.
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  Really, it is a persistent plot device
• 9:02
  where, you know, we don't see these women as characters.
• 9:07
  In 1990, we actually conducted a study, not we--
• 9:12
  - No, we did, the science.
• 9:13
  - I was a year old.
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  She wasn't alive yet.
• 9:16
  - I was a concert in my mother's mind.
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  - In your father's ball sack.
• 9:20
  - Yeah.
• 9:20
  (laughing)
• 9:21
  - Sorry, sorry.
• 9:22
  - You're not a digital dream.
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  - There are children.
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  So, in this study, 71% of slasheres were male
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  while 29% were female.
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  This trend is often attributed to the association
• 9:39
  of masculine traits, like aggression, violence,
• 9:42
  with the horror, genres, monstrous figures.
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  So powerful, unstoppable killers,
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  whose masculine quest for dominance
• 9:50
  endangers a vulnerable female victim.
• 9:53
  - Especially she has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 9:57
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:00
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:03
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:06
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:08
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:10
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:11
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:12
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:13
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:14
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:15
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:16
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:17
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:18
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:19
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:20
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:34
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:35
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:36
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:37
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:38
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:39
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:40
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:41
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:42
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:43
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:44
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:45
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:46
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:47
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:48
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:49
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:50
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:51
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:52
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:53
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:54
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:55
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:56
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:57
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:58
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 10:59
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:00
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:01
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:02
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:03
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:21
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:22
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:23
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:25
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:26
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:27
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:28
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:29
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:30
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:31
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:32
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:33
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:34
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:35
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:36
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:37
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:38
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:39
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:40
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:41
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:42
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:43
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:44
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:45
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:46
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 11:47
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 12:02
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 12:12
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 12:13
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 12:14
  - She has the audacity to lose her virginity.
• 12:15
  - I remember correctly that film her best friend had been raped and killed herself.
• 12:22
  - She is seeking revenge, but it starts with violence against a woman.
• 12:28
  - Something else that is interesting that we noted is the use of the female body itself as horror.
• 12:36
  - Seeing motherhood, reproduction, pregnant bodies.
• 12:43
  - Yes, a menstruation as horror, an aging female body.
• 12:48
  There's a lot of uses like an old, crotchety, scary woman.
• 12:53
  - The woman.
• 12:56
  - Yeah, the crown.
• 12:57
  - We see the mother, the maiden, the crown.
• 13:00
  - The maiden is that virginal, pure.
• 13:03
  She's probably going to be the final girl who survives because she deserves it.
• 13:07
  But the crown is going to be the creepy one who's stalking everybody with her breasts hanging.
• 13:14
  - Like an axe.
• 13:15
  - What was that movie that just came out recently where there's a naked woman in the walls of the house?
• 13:21
  - Barbarian.
• 13:22
  - Yes, Barbarian.
• 13:23
  - Barbarian.
• 13:24
  - I really did love that movie, but the main horror is a naked aging woman with her breasts swinging.
• 13:32
  - I know what that happens.
• 13:34
  - And I'm like, I'm sorry, they're gonna swing.
• 13:38
  Listen, have breast, will swing.
• 13:42
  - I don't think there's anything inherently scary about big of women who ages, but we see that through.
• 13:52
  I mean, social media right now, just like this inherent obsession for us, none of us to age.
• 13:58
  We're not allowed to age.
• 13:59
  We're covering our grays and getting our Botox and getting our Instagram and TikTok faces, right?
• 14:05
  Because the thought of being a chrome with your breasts swinging and chasing someone down a hallway, then you're a horror villain.
• 14:13
  - Gravity is the real violence here.
• 14:16
  (laughter)
• 14:18
  - But no, I think you see that even in like alien, right?
• 14:23
  Horror is the man that has to experience like what women do in pregnancy, right?
• 14:30
  And ultimately, the kind of modern struggle that most women feel today as well.
• 14:37
  I think movies that have done a really interesting examination are like the substance, how society within itself inflicted this different kind of like overt violence into really an examination.
• 14:52
  Of how women see themselves, the value that they put within them as well.
• 14:57
  - Yeah, like the violence against women in that film is like the pressure that society puts on us that we have to feel like we have to fit into these perfect.
• 15:04
  I can't age, I have to fit into this perfect body.
• 15:07
  Otherwise, I will become that crone, which spoiler again, she does in the end.
• 15:13
  - I mean, kind of.
• 15:14
  - Yes, spoiler, you will age, everybody.
• 15:17
  (laughter)
• 15:20
  - Yes, spoiler in the substance she turns into a something.
• 15:24
  - A sexy lady.
• 15:25
  - A very attractive woman.
• 15:27
  - A very sexy lady.
• 15:29
  - Hear me out, hear me out.
• 15:31
  (laughter)
• 15:33
  - Sue, I'm into it.
• 15:35
  - And I'm curious from the audience, like what horror movies stick out in your mind most as like the most overt violence to women?
• 15:46
  - Yeah.
• 15:48
  - I still get great.
• 15:50
  - Okay, I see it on her bed.
• 15:51
  - Can you go a little bit and like why you think that?
• 15:54
  - It's just the almost photographic shots of the rape scene.
• 16:01
  - Yeah.
• 16:02
  - So it's like the film wants you to identify with her attackers.
• 16:10
  - Mm-hmm.
• 16:15
  - And then it's sexualizing this tremendous invasion of her.
• 16:22
  And it's just, it feels like it's glorifying what's happening instead of critiquing what's happening.
• 16:26
  - Yeah, was everyone able to hear that?
• 16:28
  - Yeah.
• 16:29
  - Yeah.
• 16:30
  - What was your name?
• 16:31
  - Lee.
• 16:32
  - Lee, and pronouns?
• 16:33
  - Lee.
• 16:34
  - He, so what he said was like, we're going to talk about this too with like cinematography.
• 16:37
  The rape and the sexual assault in this movie is really kind of like almost sexualized, right?
• 16:42
  Or like sensationalized.
• 16:45
  - Yeah.
• 16:46
  - And it's, I mean, I've never seen the movie, but it's a revenge movie, right?
• 16:51
  - Yeah.
• 16:52
  - For a man.
• 16:53
  - No, for her.
• 16:54
  - Oh, it's for her.
• 16:55
  Oh, just she survived.
• 16:56
  - She survived.
• 16:57
  - Oh, damn.
• 16:58
  - And she comes from that.
• 16:59
  - I mean, but she has to go through all of that first, right?
• 17:01
  - Yeah.
• 17:02
  - I admit that the remake centered themselves on a little bit, but the original 1970 version is
• 17:12
  like, it's something that's like very, very dramatic for a lot of people.
• 17:18
  - Yeah.
• 17:19
  Interesting.
• 17:20
  Yeah.
• 17:21
  I think that, you know, you see that a lot where, you know, is a reclaiming of power just equal
• 17:27
  violence.
• 17:28
  And I think it's an interesting question of, as we start to grapple with it, I think film
• 17:33
  and movies have really started to embrace that overall, but like, is that really just kind
• 17:39
  of the same side of a coin?
• 17:42
  - Yeah.
• 17:43
  - Like, what is that level of empowerment through equal violence with women?
• 17:46
  It's a really interesting question.
• 17:48
  - Yeah.
• 17:49
  Like, what do you, I mean, a rape revenge movie, I mean, you watch this and you're like,
• 17:53
  okay, I hope she gets her revenge.
• 17:55
  I hope she's able to murder whoever did this to her.
• 17:58
  But what is the film, like, did we need to see that in the first place?
• 18:01
  What was the point of making this movie in the beginning?
• 18:04
  Like, did we have to, it's something that, you know, a lot of women, men, people, in general
• 18:09
  experience, like, did we need to see that?
• 18:12
  - Yeah.
• 18:13
  - Did it was this a necessary statement in film?
• 18:15
  Very good.
• 18:16
  - And then I think you had one behind.
• 18:18
  - Yeah.
• 18:19
  Irreversible is one that comes to mind.
• 18:21
  - Irreversible.
• 18:22
  - What's that one about?
• 18:23
  - Well, it is also rape revenge, but it's male-focused.
• 18:29
  - Okay.
• 18:30
  - The rape scene is nine minutes long.
• 18:31
  - Wow.
• 18:32
  - The rape scene is almost desensitizing.
• 18:33
  - Yeah.
• 18:34
  - Just goes on for so long.
• 18:37
  - That's actually crazy.
• 18:38
  - And it's essential.
• 18:39
  - In your fourth, like, his plot line?
• 18:42
  - Yeah.
• 18:43
  So the movie is sort of a time, I believe it's fully like backwards.
• 18:49
  - Okay.
• 18:50
  Interesting.
• 18:51
  - Where you start with him getting his revenge?
• 18:54
  - And then you start to see what led him to that point.
• 18:58
  - Interesting.
• 18:59
  - Like, that is the driver for the movie.
• 19:03
  - That's so interesting.
• 19:04
  This reminds me, actually, I just talked about this on one of our recent episodes, The
• 19:08
  Anime Berserk and The Manga.
• 19:11
  Yeah.
• 19:12
  And, uh, let's see who got all of us to this.
• 19:17
  - Elective.
• 19:18
  - Uh.
• 19:19
  - And I thought I really enjoyed, I haven't read all of the manga, but I watched the original
• 19:24
  90s anime.
• 19:25
  And it starts with him, with guts in the future, and he's all disgruntled and missing a
• 19:32
  nine.
• 19:33
  You're like, what the hell happened to this man?
• 19:35
  And then it jumps back to show, like, what happened and what led up to it and spoiler.
• 19:41
  His, like, girlfriend is horrifically raped by somebody who he thought was his friend,
• 19:46
  right?
• 19:47
  And that kind of, like, sets him on his, I mean, you know, the things that happened to him
• 19:51
  that his friend betrayed him and stuff, but he also had to watch his girlfriend get raped
• 19:55
  right in front of him.
• 19:56
  - I have another one as well, since we're on the topic of manga.
• 20:00
  I actually just recently started reading Goblin Slayer, and I'm reading the side story.
• 20:06
  - Okay.
• 20:07
  - And it is the origin story of the actual Goblin Slayer.
• 20:11
  And, well, what do you know? His village is pillaged by a bunch of Goblins, so not only is his
• 20:20
  entire village just completely decimated, he has to watch his sister get raped by a monster.
• 20:27
  - Oh, wow.
• 20:28
  - So she gets killed and his whole village is wiped out, and from there he goes on to, you
• 20:34
  know, say that he has to kill all Goblins.
• 20:36
  And he goes into the village that gives out the jobs and only goes after Goblins because
• 20:43
  he has to, you know, avenge his sister, but it is quite graphic.
• 20:49
  - Yeah.
• 20:50
  - You know, manga novels, like, that's going to it.
• 20:52
  - So pertinent and like, in manga.
• 20:55
  It's so pervasive in manga and in anime and stuff, and we could go on about that.
• 20:58
  - That's really interesting.
• 20:59
  - Yeah, like, even in a demon Slayer and in attack on Titan, right?
• 21:03
  Like, they watch their mothers or their sisters get murdered and that kind of sets them
• 21:07
  on, like, I need to go and kill all the blah, blah, blah, right?
• 21:11
  Is like, watching a woman in their life experience traumatic violence.
• 21:15
  - I am telling there's a little bit different.
• 21:17
  If anybody has seen Angel Heart, it's not really a horror movie.
• 21:21
  I mean, I guess it is.
• 21:22
  It's like a detective thriller, but in that movie, I mean, none of y'all have seen it,
• 21:29
  but spoilers.
• 21:30
  We spoil so much on this podcast.
• 21:34
  She's always calling me out.
• 21:35
  She's like, stop it.
• 21:36
  - Yeah.
• 21:37
  - That came out like 20 minutes ago, Sean.
• 21:39
  - Sure, it's going to be.
• 21:40
  The detective is hired to do this job, but it turns out that the job is actually just, like,
• 21:44
  basically, him being tortured, finding out he lost all his memories because he sold his
• 21:48
  soul and he is having to discover that it's him.
• 21:52
  Like, he's on the case hunting down this missing person.
• 21:54
  It's him.
• 21:55
  He's being tortured by the devil.
• 21:56
  - Oh, wow.
• 21:57
  - And then he meets the person's young daughter and then ends up having sex with her.
• 22:06
  But then the scene becomes super uncomfortable because he starts choking her.
• 22:12
  - Oh, my God.
• 22:13
  - Herding her during it.
• 22:14
  And then it's revealed that it's his daughter.
• 22:16
  - Oh.
• 22:17
  - The entire thing becomes gross.
• 22:19
  - It was a huge controversy because the actor at the time was only 19.
• 22:23
  - Oh, my God.
• 22:24
  - Wow.
• 22:25
  - I love the movie up until that point and the reveal happens and the sex scene have everything.
• 22:34
  - And it's after you watched the sex scene, right?
• 22:37
  - Yeah.
• 22:38
  - Only in it, like, for that, to fight that, the sex scene and then you find out, and the
• 22:44
  whole thing is just, like, her getting abused and then you find out that it's the whole
• 22:49
  time.
• 22:50
  - Does she even have a dialogue or personality in this movie?
• 22:52
  - I really, it's this movie.
• 22:54
  - Yeah.
• 22:55
  - That's terrible.
• 22:56
  Thank you for sharing.
• 22:57
  - Yes.
• 22:58
  - I will avoid that.
• 22:59
  - I won't be missing out on that.
• 23:03
  - We'll take maybe one more and then keep going.
• 23:06
  - Yeah.
• 23:07
  - Yeah.
• 23:08
  - Go ahead.
• 23:09
  - Red.
• 23:10
  - Blue, you can be next.
• 23:11
  - The TV show Veronica Mars.
• 23:13
  - Yes.
• 23:14
  - Yeah.
• 23:15
  - Both of us have many darks with Veronica Mars played by Christopher Bell and trying to figure
• 23:20
  out who named her, uh, drugged and raped her, uh, already in high school and it's an ultra,
• 23:27
  but again, spoilers.
• 23:28
  And then he ended this series.
• 23:33
  She adds up dating, not the rapist, but the person who drugged her at the point.
• 23:37
  And there in a lot, there in a relationship.
• 23:40
  - And they, they're love.
• 23:41
  He's learned the error of his words.
• 23:43
  - Yeah, he's, I can change him.
• 23:45
  - Yeah.
• 23:46
  - That's horrifying.
• 23:47
  - What's, what's scary about that, right?
• 23:49
  - Well, you, um, think about Veronica Mars.
• 23:52
  I was, I think it started as a WB show, as now as CW by the end of it.
• 23:57
  - UPN.
• 23:58
  - UPN.
• 23:59
  - Okay, yes, thank you.
• 24:00
  - Even on the same journey as Bubby, the UPN.
• 24:01
  - Yeah, yeah.
• 24:02
  - CW.
• 24:03
  - The frog.
• 24:04
  - There was a frog with Jell-Made.
• 24:05
  - Yeah.
• 24:06
  - Frog was jumping around.
• 24:07
  Um, but ultimately, that is a show that was for a teen audience and grew up with a lot
• 24:13
  of their audience as well.
• 24:14
  So it got more mature.
• 24:15
  But when you think about how pervasive that is even as a teenager, like you've seen these
• 24:21
  things throughout time, like I think one of the most graphic ones that I can remember
• 24:26
  and is like the Hills have Eyes.
• 24:28
  Like it was already scary enough.
• 24:30
  I didn't need that moment.
• 24:31
  It was truly just like a gratuitous example.
• 24:34
  - We're already scared, yeah, we already scared.
• 24:37
  - We already don't like you.
• 24:39
  - Yeah.
• 24:40
  And so, we wanted to talk a little bit about directors that have frequently been mentioned
• 24:47
  as having these themes within their movies.
• 24:52
  - A common trope throughout their films.
• 24:54
  - Yeah, and I think to start Alfred Hitchcock, right?
• 24:59
  Very much the creator of horror movies and things like that.
• 25:05
  We look at his popular movies like Psycho, The Birds, Vertigo, and Marney.
• 25:11
  But even what's so interesting about a lot of these directors is it's not just their works
• 25:17
  that are accused of exploiting women.
• 25:21
  They themselves as directors are accused of violence against women, right?
• 25:27
  To be headdrun in The Birds, Dakota Johnson's grandmother, truly has detailed what Alfred Hitchcock
• 25:36
  did to her less psychological abuse throughout the filming of Birds.
• 25:41
  Actually had her be attacked by Birds during the filming of This Be Beek.
• 25:45
  - For The Sake of Art.
• 25:46
  - Yes, for The Sake of Art.
• 25:48
  But also he kept her within this contract, ultimately, like really blackmailed her and kept
• 25:55
  her within this.
• 25:56
  It's really just an interesting look at it.
• 25:59
  It's not just translating into the films that they make, but the women that are in part
• 26:05
  of these creations as well.
• 26:08
  - Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:10
  We mentioned this before.
• 26:12
  We started recording.
• 26:13
  But before we decided to be The Shining Twins, we almost dressed up as characters from Kill
• 26:18
  Bill Volume One.
• 26:20
  And then we were getting deeper into like researching this and we're like, I don't know if this
• 26:25
  is the right...
• 26:26
  - We're about to talk a lot about this.
• 26:27
  - Yeah, right.
• 26:28
  - Yeah.
• 26:29
  - So, Quentin Terence, you know, definitely stylizes violence against women.
• 26:36
  Revenge fantasy versus exploitation is something we can talk about a lot when it comes to his
• 26:41
  movies.
• 26:42
  Death Proof is, I mean...
• 26:45
  - Great movie.
• 26:46
  - Listen, I do like Quentin Terence, you know, films I do.
• 26:50
  You just need to, like, you sit back and really think about them.
• 26:54
  Like, we were talking about Kill Bill on the way here and I just rewatched it maybe like
• 26:58
  a week ago.
• 26:59
  - Yeah.
• 27:00
  - And the first shot in that movie is on a brutalized woman's face.
• 27:02
  - Yeah.
• 27:03
  - Like, that's how the movie opens is on the bride's face, just bloody and beaten about
• 27:07
  to be shot in the head, right?
• 27:09
  And she goes on this journey of revenge and she is the badass in that film.
• 27:15
  And a lot of the badasses in this film are women, but it's in order to get to that point of
• 27:21
  badassery.
• 27:22
  - They had to go through extreme trauma.
• 27:24
  - So extreme trauma.
• 27:26
  And there is a scene in the movie where the bride is in a hospital in a coma for a number
• 27:30
  of years.
• 27:31
  Yeah, and like, there's a nurse who comes in and is like letting people go in and assault
• 27:37
  her, but like, was that necessary in the movie?
• 27:40
  What did that add to the movie?
• 27:43
  Like, she's been in a coma all these years.
• 27:45
  She already is going to go get revenge against Bill and all of like his crew, right?
• 27:51
  Did we really need the subplot that a male nurse is coming in and letting people pay to rape
• 27:55
  her?
• 27:56
  Or was, I don't understand why that was even needed in the plot, you know?
• 28:00
  - Yeah, and I think that, Terrent, you know, is, you know, like, it's complicated because
• 28:05
  he has such a unique style and brings in like a great cinematography.
• 28:09
  - That's right.
• 28:10
  - Is a really unique way of telling stories.
• 28:12
  - Yeah, and a deep foot fetish, for sure.
• 28:15
  - Lots of feet.
• 28:16
  - Lots of feet.
• 28:17
  - You know, and if he just left it at the foot foot fetish.
• 28:19
  - Did you met Thurmond's feet were up in that movie when she's like, wiggle your toe?
• 28:24
  Or wiggle your big toe?
• 28:25
  And I did say out loud, she does have nice feet.
• 28:28
  Like, those are some nice tussies.
• 28:31
  - I get it.
• 28:32
  - You like?
• 28:33
  - Yeah.
• 28:34
  - I have, I have really ugly feet.
• 28:36
  I have terrible, I really do.
• 28:38
  - Well, you know.
• 28:39
  - There's stubby and strange, like Terrent, you know, be like, nope.
• 28:42
  - Nope.
• 28:43
  - Nope, nope.
• 28:44
  But I think that it's interesting, right?
• 28:46
  Like, I think Terrentino is a very unique creator as well.
• 28:51
  But it does, it warrants taking a step back and asking herself, like, is this needed?
• 28:57
  Are we enjoying this and looking at this from a lens of gratuitous against women just
• 29:03
  to be there?
• 29:04
  Or does it actually like propel this story forward?
• 29:13
  - Asperno has movies like Irreversible, Climax, Love, we have Lars von Trier and the Antichrist
• 29:21
  breaking up the way.
• 29:22
  - I read the plot of Antichrist on Wikipedia.
• 29:25
  Has anyone actually seen that movie?
• 29:28
  - Oh!
• 29:29
  - Is it just like stuck in your head for the rest of your life now?
• 29:31
  - Once he wants to vote a vote with...
• 29:34
  - Yep.
• 29:35
  - Yep, yep, yep.
• 29:36
  - If you were worse when you think to say that was done, no, because his was...
• 29:40
  - Waddenly...
• 29:41
  - Yeah, I think we see a series of things.
• 29:45
  - Okay, yeah.
• 29:46
  Oh god.
• 29:47
  - Yeah, and you know, we...
• 29:48
  - Oh, and, yeah, Nymphomania.
• 29:49
  - Yeah, ultimately, I mean, there's too many examples where, you know, it's...
• 29:55
  - We gotta talk about Stanley Kubrick.
• 29:57
  - Yes, yeah, that's my event too.
• 29:59
  - We have to talk about our, you know, favorite man here.
• 30:05
  - So yeah, Kubrick, ultimately, he has been known for violence against women both in his
• 30:12
  movies and his treatment, right?
• 30:15
  The most common that we all know where it dressed as the shining, but his absolute torture
• 30:21
  of Shelley Duval.
• 30:24
  Shelley Duval has done interviews over the last 20, 30 years saying that that led to prolonged
• 30:30
  mental health issues throughout her career.
• 30:34
  And I've heard arguments of like, "Well, look at the performance he got out of her."
• 30:37
  Like, I'm sorry, she's an actress.
• 30:40
  Like, her job is to give an incredible performance.
• 30:44
  Did you torture Jack Nicholson for his performance?
• 30:47
  - Right.
• 30:48
  - No, like, I don't...
• 30:49
  We can never...
• 30:51
  No woman's safety or dignity, no person's safety or dignity needs to be exploited for the
• 30:56
  sake of creating great art or authenticity, right?
• 31:00
  - Yeah, and, you know, he really had...
• 31:03
  - He's been acclaimed as an amazing director and amazing storyteller.
• 31:09
  He has moments of emotional cruelty, abjectification, psychological symbols, rap...
• 31:17
  Like women are psychological symbols.
• 31:19
  They are things that happen to men.
• 31:22
  You know, Jack Nicholson goes crazy because, of course, he did.
• 31:26
  Shelley Duval was annoying.
• 31:27
  His child was annoying, right?
• 31:29
  And so, of course, he would, you know, try to murder her.
• 31:33
  I think, you know, Stanley Kubrick, even in Eyes Wide Shut.
• 31:37
  Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman have been...
• 31:39
  - I thought she never seen Eyes Wide Shut.
• 31:40
  - Oh, it's very worth seeing.
• 31:41
  And I think it's an interesting movie to really see Stanley Kubrick's view of women and
• 31:48
  marriage and ultimately...
• 31:50
  Nicole Kidman has said very little about this, but that it was...
• 31:54
  I mean, it's a movie that led to their divorce.
• 31:57
  I think that, you know...
• 31:58
  - For divorce to Tom Cruise, you know, Stanley Kubrick.
• 32:01
  - And it was a very dark time working with him.
• 32:06
  It was the last film that Kubrick made.
• 32:08
  - That's right.
• 32:09
  - And, you know, he, I think, oftentimes, even with Tarantino and Hitchcock, we've given
• 32:16
  these men like their tortured geniuses, right?
• 32:20
  We've given them this past to say, "Well, yeah, they can be horrible to women and talk
• 32:27
  like they're talking about me."
• 32:28
  - But it's so good, right?
• 32:30
  - I do think it's interesting, too, to think about directors that we used to think or that
• 32:35
  we've known as, like, feminists.
• 32:39
  Like, Joss Whedon, right?
• 32:40
  - Okay.
• 32:41
  - So, my biggest fandom is Buffy the Vampires.
• 32:44
  - That's how we became best friends.
• 32:45
  - Yes.
• 32:46
  Oh my God.
• 32:47
  We are both huge Buffy the Vampires, Slayer fans.
• 32:50
  And that is an inherently, like, known as a feminist television show, right?
• 32:53
  It's a product of its time and there's a lot to be said for it and, like, diversity and,
• 32:58
  you know, white feminism and such.
• 32:59
  Like, Joss Whedon was known so much as this feminist creator for so long.
• 33:04
  And then come to find out behind the scenes.
• 33:07
  He's awful.
• 33:08
  - Yeah.
• 33:09
  - He's, like, psychologically torturing charisma carpenter.
• 33:13
  He was racist to, oh gosh.
• 33:16
  What was his name?
• 33:17
  He was in...
• 33:18
  - I don't care.
• 33:19
  - In Angel.
• 33:20
  - Oh.
• 33:21
  - He was a black guy.
• 33:22
  - No, he was in the Zack Snyder, the Snyder verse.
• 33:28
  - I can't remember.
• 33:29
  - Oh gosh.
• 33:30
  He's just been terrible, right?
• 33:32
  He's awful all in general.
• 33:34
  But, like, he's known for so long as this feminist creator.
• 33:38
  - Yeah, he was the first person to put a lesbian kiss on that television.
• 33:42
  - Yes, yes.
• 33:43
  - You know, he was herald as progressive and ultimately we see, like, you know, even these
• 33:50
  people that we do think are moving our times forward.
• 33:54
  Often we circle back around and we hear, you know, "Oh, they were abusing women on set."
• 34:00
  Right?
• 34:01
  Like, we didn't even mention this with Tarantino.
• 34:04
  He was brought up in Miramax.
• 34:05
  He was very close to Harvey Weinstein.
• 34:07
  - Yeah.
• 34:08
  - And so we see this theme a lot throughout creators where if it's showing up in their art
• 34:15
  a lot, it's often frequently within reality and real life as well.
• 34:20
  - Yeah.
• 34:21
  - And we've got a couple of these Rob Zombie, the Devil's Rejects and Halloween movies.
• 34:25
  Right?
• 34:26
  Eli Roth is very known for torture porn or hostile knock knock.
• 34:31
  David Fincher.
• 34:34
  Stylistically brutalized.
• 34:35
  Miss Sojini satire.
• 34:37
  Kind of a fascination with that damaged woman, right?
• 34:40
  The girl, the dragon tattoos.
• 34:42
  - Gone girl.
• 34:43
  - Gone girl.
• 34:44
  - Gone girls.
• 34:45
  - Yes.
• 34:46
  - So we cannot leave the section of horrible directors without talking about Roman Polanski.
• 34:53
  - Oh man, I love Rosemary's Baby too.
• 34:57
  - Oh yeah.
• 34:58
  - I thought you were going to say, "Oh, I love Rosemary."
• 35:00
  - Oh yeah.
• 35:01
  - And now, please.
• 35:02
  We're in the wrong panel.
• 35:04
  - Rosemary's Baby.
• 35:05
  - And Stephen Addie's pregnancy as horror, right?
• 35:09
  - Yes.
• 35:10
  - Yeah.
• 35:11
  Ultimately, you know, Rosemary's Baby is an allegory for pregnancy, abortion, things like
• 35:16
  that.
• 35:17
  And, you know, when you talk about Roman Polanski today, his criminal history as a rapist
• 35:24
  and a pedophile, themes of female violence and control, what does that look like?
• 35:31
  Obviously, "sharentate" as well, like things around him, he did not commit "sharentate."
• 35:37
  But really looking at how does the art become the reality for a lot of these people, and
• 35:43
  it's worth looking at.
• 35:44
  I think, you know, how can you create that kind of art and media without liking it, right?
• 35:55
  - So we're going to talk, we've already talked a lot about some of these examples.
• 35:58
  The first one on the list is irreversible.
• 36:00
  That's the one that you mentioned, right?
• 36:02
  Yeah, notorious extended assault scene sparked walkouts and debates over the gratuitous
• 36:07
  violence.
• 36:08
  The second one's spit on your grave.
• 36:09
  - Love it.
• 36:10
  - Right, absolutely.
• 36:11
  - I know that you know that.
• 36:12
  - Yeah, Megan is missing.
• 36:13
  I heard, I'd ever watched that one, but graphic violence towards teenage girls.
• 36:19
  Go ahead.
• 36:20
  - Actually, I've watched it, but I just watched a video essay talking about this sort of thing
• 36:25
  with part of the reason that that movie was so controversial and a lot of people felt
• 36:30
  so disgusting with it, is because you aren't really given a chance to empathize with the
• 36:36
  girls fully.
• 36:37
  The movie is like, a lot of it is like, "bound footage," recorded from the point of view
• 36:42
  of the assault her.
• 36:43
  So it's all like videotaped by the guy who kidnapped them and kills the girls.
• 36:51
  So you're seeing it all from his point of view and it's all romanticized and shot.
• 36:56
  Like it was pinched as a P.S.A. and I'm like, "This is a bad thing."
• 37:01
  But the way it's filmed tells you the opposite.
• 37:04
  - Yes.
• 37:05
  - With the cinematography.
• 37:06
  - I want to talk, let's just jump into this cinematography portion, honestly.
• 37:10
  I think that is so important is like, who is being highlighted in these scenes?
• 37:16
  Whose point of view are we focusing on?
• 37:19
  Is it eight minutes long for no reason?
• 37:21
  I think a really recent example that comes to mind is in Game of Thrones when Sansa is
• 37:28
  assaulted.
• 37:30
  Right?
• 37:31
  And that, it doesn't even happen in the books if I'm like, right?
• 37:36
  It's just in its two set forth Theon's narrative and to redeem him as a character, right?
• 37:43
  But it's like we are watching this and supposed to be horrified, but it was just, I don't know,
• 37:49
  so strangely filmed and so unnecessary and something that was added outside of the original
• 37:55
  content.
• 37:56
  - Well, even the original books are quite intense.
• 37:59
  - Yes, true.
• 38:01
  - You know, to the Tupacranos saying, there's a film theorist called Laura Mulvey.
• 38:06
  She actually introduced the term, the male gaze, in 1975, which I'm sure we're all very
• 38:14
  familiar with in today's day and age.
• 38:17
  And she wrote in an essay called Visual, Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.
• 38:22
  And her argument within this was that mainstream cinema is often constructed by men for presumed
• 38:31
  heterosexual male viewers and through a camera language that positions women as objects
• 38:38
  to be looked at.
• 38:40
  And so she really talks about these three gazes that we see within film and media.
• 38:45
  The first is the camera's gaze.
• 38:47
  So how the film visually frames a woman's body throughout that.
• 38:53
  Lingering body shots, little footsies.
• 38:56
  In the case of Tarantino, fragmented, close-ups, spasies.
• 39:01
  - You know, if you recently watched the most recent, a couple episodes of Euphoria, you
• 39:07
  just have Sydney Sweeney's brush jumping up and down and just, yeah, ultimately.
• 39:15
  And the nudity is disconnected from a narrative need.
• 39:19
  - That always pisses me off so much.
• 39:22
  - Listen, I am a big fan of ladies.
• 39:25
  - I love titties.
• 39:27
  Listen, a pride month.
• 39:30
  I love it when there's consensual sex scenes.
• 39:35
  We have a running joke in the podcast where I'm talking about it, and I'm like, did they
• 39:38
  do it?
• 39:39
  - Yeah.
• 39:40
  - Are they going to do it?
• 39:41
  But if somebody just gets randomly naked or takes their clothes off for no need to the
• 39:47
  film, oh gosh, one of the most recent star trek films that came out in the last 10 years,
• 39:52
  I remember the characters were just getting undressed and the woman just takes off her
• 39:55
  top and it's just Sarah and her bra.
• 39:57
  And I remember in the theater being like, who does that?
• 40:00
  - This is a star trek movie.
• 40:03
  Why did we really need to see this woman and her bra in order for us to think?
• 40:07
  - They're space horny.
• 40:08
  - Like, and listen.
• 40:10
  - There's no gravity up there.
• 40:12
  - I get space horny too.
• 40:14
  - There's no saggy boobs.
• 40:16
  There's no gravity.
• 40:17
  - There's no gravity.
• 40:18
  - The woman from Barbarians boobs.
• 40:21
  Maybe like, out of gear.
• 40:25
  - No, the whole movie, no longer scary.
• 40:28
  - That would honestly scare me if I breastread the love.
• 40:32
  That's the real horror.
• 40:34
  - SpongeBob.
• 40:35
  SpongeBob and the jelly means.
• 40:37
  - Yeah.
• 40:38
  - Like, why is this woman taking her top off?
• 40:41
  I think it's so interesting too.
• 40:43
  I saw something on social media that was like, when you look at magazine ads, but even
• 40:49
  like movie boxes and posters and it's literally just a woman's ass or there's so many where
• 40:56
  it's from behind and it's her butt between her and it's her legs are spread.
• 41:01
  And then like, the male characters in the middle like, "Aha, aha, aha, aha, aha, aha, let's
• 41:06
  get high."
• 41:07
  - Like, and but her butt is just right there and always in her little high heels to let
• 41:11
  us, right?
• 41:12
  But we don't need to see her head.
• 41:14
  We don't need to see her personality or her voice, right?
• 41:18
  She's not a person.
• 41:19
  She's an object.
• 41:20
  She's an accessory.
• 41:21
  - I'm curious if you guys have given any thought to how this goes even farther for marginalized
• 41:29
  women.
• 41:30
  - Yes.
• 41:31
  - The violence against women that we use in most of our media is very targeting us.
• 41:38
  - Yes.
• 41:39
  - It's a type of woman.
• 41:40
  - Yes.
• 41:41
  And it's often women of color.
• 41:42
  So the question was, how does this even go a step further?
• 41:46
  And we have, you know, like bell hooks actually really criticized Mollivies work as well.
• 41:53
  And she talks about how often within these discussions we are centering white women too
• 41:59
  much.
• 42:01
  And she explores how black women engage critically with their media, their exclusion
• 42:05
  from beauty ideals, racialized violence.
• 42:08
  I mean, like, you look at even within the horror example, right?
• 42:12
  Like it's like black people always die first.
• 42:15
  And then you look on it where women are already within that and then you add race into that
• 42:20
  step further.
• 42:21
  - And the women we're supposed to feel the most bad for is the innocent white woman, right?
• 42:27
  And she's thin and she's straight.
• 42:29
  And I think also in that discussion of like women's bodies as horror, we need to talk about
• 42:34
  like size diversity, right?
• 42:36
  Like there's this idea that being plus size is part of horror becoming larger, having
• 42:42
  like existing in a larger body as part of horror, like something we can't experience, right?
• 42:47
  So it's like the violence that, you know, trans women and women of color experience, you
• 42:52
  know, high numbers in real life, in horror movies, it's, we're fetishizing, oh, that white
• 42:58
  lady deserves to live because she's sweet and innocent and white and thin.
• 43:02
  - I have two comments.
• 43:03
  One of them is first recommendation for a revenge somewhat really important about the
• 43:09
  race.
• 43:10
  It's got is about two less.
• 43:12
  - I love that, yeah.
• 43:13
  - So good.
• 43:14
  I cannot have that fear cry.
• 43:15
  - I haven't watched it yet, but the trailer looks amazing.
• 43:19
  - It's phenomenal.
• 43:20
  - Okay.
• 43:21
  - Is God is, is a good representation of race and, you know, revenge horror.
• 43:26
  So interesting.
• 43:27
  Awesome, thank you.
• 43:28
  - The second comment just on racialized minorities, especially black women, is my friend recently
• 43:33
  happy to start watching American Mar history with her.
• 43:36
  - Yes.
• 43:37
  - And the next season I believe is the sideline, kids story line, annoying me so much.
• 43:42
  - Yep.
• 43:43
  - The interracially started sticking place in 1964 and kid is a white man and he's in an interracial
• 43:48
  marriage with this woman, all men who's a lesbian black woman.
• 43:52
  And she dies to promote kids story.
• 43:56
  - Yeah.
• 43:57
  - Except there's aliens.
• 43:58
  - Yeah.
• 43:59
  - Because of course there is.
• 44:00
  - Yeah.
• 44:01
  - So there's a little bit of she's not quite that.
• 44:03
  But in the asylum that kid goes to, he falls in love with this other white woman, Grace,
• 44:09
  which I thought, oh, it could be crazy, it could be friends or even Grace to pull him up
• 44:14
  with the lesbian.
• 44:15
  - Mm-hmm.
• 44:16
  - Because that would be the thought of the other woman.
• 44:18
  - Yeah.
• 44:19
  - But then they're suddenly kissing.
• 44:20
  - Yep.
• 44:21
  - And then Grace and Kate, I go, when all of it comes back, they're like, oh, let's actually
• 44:28
  be a threat.
• 44:29
  - Oh my gosh.
• 44:30
  - That's fine.
• 44:31
  But how do you think all of you will stay in 1964 where she's a black woman who can't say
• 44:40
  no.
• 44:41
  - Yeah.
• 44:42
  - Already live in a state where you have to go out of state to get married.
• 44:45
  - And it sounds like she's already experienced the trauma of what dying or almost dying or
• 44:50
  alien.
• 44:51
  - Yeah.
• 44:52
  - Like, so trauma on top of trauma for this woman.
• 44:55
  - Yeah.
• 44:56
  And I think it's interesting, right?
• 44:57
  Ryan Murphy is a gay man, right?
• 45:00
  But even he falls into this violence against women, right?
• 45:05
  Even though he is a part of a different group outside of heterosexuality and these male directors,
• 45:13
  like, he still falls victim to that.
• 45:16
  - I can't watch American Horror Story.
• 45:17
  - Yeah.
• 45:18
  - I stopped after halfway through asylum.
• 45:22
  And it was because of the just so much rape.
• 45:26
  There's so much rape in American Horror Story.
• 45:29
  And even in the first season, sexual assault, and there's like a horrific pregnancy at some
• 45:35
  point, right?
• 45:36
  I remember a late ex-pregnant body.
• 45:39
  - Yes, she could break it by a ghost.
• 45:41
  - Oh, good.
• 45:42
  - As one does.
• 45:43
  As one does, man.
• 45:44
  - Like, that's just, it's so, I feel like every single season of that show, somebody is
• 45:50
  being sexually assaulted.
• 45:51
  - Yeah, I was like--
• 45:52
  - A three-thirds rape in season one, season two, so far, and in season three, I think that's
• 45:57
  something to wear something.
• 45:58
  - Yeah, yeah, there's so much.
• 45:59
  - And it's always just like, it's, and I love your cosplay by the way.
• 46:04
  I just finished that entire manga.
• 46:06
  - On the topic of American Horror Story, actually, one of the most recent seasons is literally
• 46:11
  centering the idea of pregnancy and, like, all the more.
• 46:14
  - Yes, that's right.
• 46:15
  - We have Kim Kardashian being like, oh my god, you can't get pregnant.
• 46:20
  Like, you're gonna ruin your career.
• 46:22
  - This whole time, she's just being tormented by this idea of being pregnant.
• 46:25
  And it's like, oh my gosh, what about a woman's right to do what if she's trying to get
• 46:29
  pregnant in third of May?
• 46:30
  - Yeah, I think that--
• 46:31
  - We watched that at your PO, sort of.
• 46:33
  - Yeah, and I think that, you know, Ryan Murphy is a great example of how even if someone
• 46:41
  isn't in that stereotypical mold of, you know, heterosexual male director, like, they
• 46:47
  still fall victim to the same concept of, you know, like, the second, or the second part
• 46:55
  of Gaze that Laura Mulvey talked about.
• 46:57
  - Gaze, not like--
• 46:58
  - Yeah.
• 46:59
  - Gaze.
• 47:00
  (laughter)
• 47:02
  - Is where male characters, inside the story, see women as possessions, fantasies, prizes,
• 47:09
  or threats, think voyeur scenes of, like, watching women without their knowledge or women
• 47:15
  introduce, high-drawn, thin from stranger things.
• 47:18
  - Yeah.
• 47:19
  (laughter)
• 47:20
  - Introduce through male reaction shots.
• 47:23
  And then ultimately, the third lens that she asks us to look at is through the audience
• 47:29
  gaze, right?
• 47:30
  The viewer's suddenly encouraged to identify with the male perspective.
• 47:35
  And this is why critics ask, who is the camera asking us to identify with?
• 47:40
  - I think so often, like, male is seen as, like, the default just human or person.
• 47:46
  - Yeah.
• 47:47
  - Right?
• 47:48
  So, it's in that kind of, like, with the MCU and things when you're like, "Oh my God, there's
• 47:52
  so many female characters all of a sudden."
• 47:54
  And I'm like, "Why didn't you feel that way when there was so many male characters?"
• 47:58
  And it's because people see a white, straight man as just the default just human being.
• 48:05
  - So on that, I think there are ways that that can be done very, very well.
• 48:10
  And you can almost trick people into watching something feminist.
• 48:13
  - Yes, I love it.
• 48:14
  - I love it.
• 48:15
  - For example, and I know I could get pushed back for this.
• 48:17
  I think Creeps by Mark DuPlas is the most feminist movies that's come out.
• 48:21
  - Okay, yeah.
• 48:22
  - Especially whenever you have someone who looks like me, going through the slowly increasing
• 48:29
  temperature of domestic violence.
• 48:32
  And you don't know when the level of violence is actually going to become violence.
• 48:37
  - Yeah.
• 48:38
  - And it's there in weights and weights and weights and television.
• 48:42
  And no one really looks at that as a feminist film because it's presented through someone
• 48:48
  who looks at it.
• 48:49
  - Through the interesting.
• 48:50
  - Man, but it is a really good representation of what women go through.
• 48:54
  - Yeah.
• 48:55
  - What was that movie called?
• 48:56
  Creep, Creep, interesting.
• 48:57
  Thank you.
• 48:58
  - And then the other thing I wanted to say is talking about how men feel like there's too
• 49:06
  many women almost.
• 49:07
  I want to say I don't know the study offhand, but there was like a survey conducted at a
• 49:12
  study published that a lot of men went surveyed when women were equal with men in the room.
• 49:20
  They thought that women outnumbered the men.
• 49:22
  When they were about like 20 or 40 percent of men in the room, they thought that men and
• 49:26
  women were equally represented in the room.
• 49:29
  So there's been studies done that men like genuinely do think that women talk over
• 49:34
  them more of the time and are overrepresented when they aren't even people.
• 49:39
  - That's fascinating.
• 49:40
  - Yeah.
• 49:41
  - I saw hand over here.
• 49:42
  - Yeah.
• 49:43
  So one of the things you mentioned earlier is that a lot of revenge stories are the idea
• 49:47
  that the mothers, the sisters, the daughters, we are also asked day to day when we talk about
• 49:54
  I want you to empathize with the flight of a woman.
• 49:57
  We are hot.
• 49:58
  - I have a cheese, someone's dog.
• 50:00
  - Yes.
• 50:01
  - It's like, yeah.
• 50:02
  - Yeah, or like what?
• 50:05
  - Yes.
• 50:06
  - What a male politician is like, as a son of a mother.
• 50:10
  - Yeah.
• 50:11
  - As a husband to a woman.
• 50:15
  - Yeah.
• 50:16
  - That is a good point.
• 50:19
  Yeah, wait, yeah, go ahead.
• 50:20
  - She was talking about how like there will be less women in the male film.
• 50:26
  So I think that there's like, oh, it's actually 50/50.
• 50:29
  They kind of made me think of like some of the games that I played.
• 50:32
  Hey, so they're free to like, got you games and you get some of the characters.
• 50:37
  And of course, like 80% of the characters are women.
• 50:40
  And then it's like, the women are like, obviously, overpowering them in.
• 50:44
  It's like way more, you know, characters than male characters, but you know, they're not
• 50:48
  going to miss games at all.
• 50:49
  So like the, the, you know, characters, if they're just like, I can be.
• 50:56
  - I say, what are they wearing?
• 50:57
  - Yeah.
• 50:58
  - Yeah.
• 50:59
  - Fun to be murdered.
• 51:00
  - Yeah.
• 51:01
  - Yeah.
• 51:02
  - It's like, cause I know the players, the, their target audience, let's just say, they're
• 51:09
  the type of guys that will want to play as women, so they can see the women parts juggling
• 51:14
  and stuff.
• 51:15
  - Yeah.
• 51:16
  - No, I see that a lot with the Marvel rival's game.
• 51:18
  - Yeah.
• 51:19
  - Like when they release a new skin for the female characters, I'm like, that is not how
• 51:23
  breasts work.
• 51:24
  - That's not how breasts work.
• 51:25
  - That's not how breasts work.
• 51:26
  - This whole panel is actually.
• 51:27
  - This whole panel is actually about breast aerodynamic.
• 51:30
  - Yeah.
• 51:31
  - And like an anime, which she's just walking.
• 51:35
  And they just announced a new, um, thought of war game.
• 51:40
  - Oh my.
• 51:41
  - And somebody tell me, Luffy, Luffy, the new main character, yeah, Luffy, and she is Kratos
• 51:47
  his wife.
• 51:49
  And she is going to be the new main character of this, this game.
• 51:53
  And you would think, you lost their goddamn minds online, that this video game is led by a woman.
• 52:01
  They've had how many video games with Kratos as the main character.
• 52:04
  - Oh, seven.
• 52:05
  - And God forbid she gets one.
• 52:10
  And people were losing their minds.
• 52:11
  And the creator would come up and be like, don't worry, we're going to have more games
• 52:14
  where he's back.
• 52:15
  - Yeah.
• 52:16
  - And we have one.
• 52:17
  - Absolutely not.
• 52:18
  - And the main character was designed after Debra and Wolf.
• 52:23
  From the, um, from Daredevil and, uh, Troublad.
• 52:28
  And she's beautiful.
• 52:29
  And the character in the game, spoiler, I don't know.
• 52:33
  Dies and wakes up in the afterlife, right?
• 52:36
  In the trailer.
• 52:37
  So she's like in the afterlife.
• 52:38
  So she's a little beat up.
• 52:40
  She, you know, passed away.
• 52:41
  And people are like, how dare she not look perfectly beautiful.
• 52:46
  Why is she dressed like that?
• 52:48
  Why is she dirty?
• 52:49
  Why does she have lines on her face?
• 52:50
  I've seen, she's supposed to be a person.
• 52:55
  - Yeah.
• 52:56
  - Oh, man.
• 52:57
  - Yeah.
• 52:58
  - So one more and then you're like, yeah.
• 53:00
  - There's a quote, uh, somebody asked Joseph Kappel, the one who did the hero's journey.
• 53:06
  So what is the women's place in this, you know, a kid and woman do the hero's journey?
• 53:10
  - Yes.
• 53:11
  - Oh, no, no.
• 53:12
  The woman just needs to realize that she's the place where people are trying to get to.
• 53:15
  - Ah, yeah.
• 53:16
  - You know what I mean?
• 53:17
  - That's kind of the odd, no evolution.
• 53:18
  - That's the honesty, right?
• 53:19
  - The honesty, right?
• 53:20
  His whole story is him just trying to make it back to his wife, I guess.
• 53:24
  - Yeah, and I think that's a really good point, right?
• 53:26
  Like even before, you know, modern media, modern film, we've really had this idea in our
• 53:33
  minds all the way back to Greek mythology, Roman mythology, and we're kind of pervasively
• 53:40
  retelling these stories over and over in so many ways.
• 53:44
  And you know, I am so unbelievably happy to see how many men are in this room.
• 53:48
  - Yes, yes!
• 53:49
  - That's fun, guys!
• 53:50
  - Yes, that's fun.
• 53:51
  - Yes, that's fun.
• 53:52
  You know, I really do love that.
• 53:55
  And I think that, you know, a lot of this comes from, you know, just having an awareness,
• 54:02
  really looking at, okay, what does this say about us?
• 54:06
  We are all products of the media that we consume and look at and really bringing that into
• 54:12
  the forefront.
• 54:13
  - And we're not saying don't ever watch another Dorentino movie again, don't watch another
• 54:17
  anime again, like I'm gonna watch a big booby anime.
• 54:20
  - Yeah.
• 54:21
  - I've listened.
• 54:22
  It's gonna happen.
• 54:23
  - Maybe right after this.
• 54:25
  - I might go watch some pale service after this.
• 54:28
  - We've just been talking about it a lot.
• 54:30
  - But it's just, you know, like you said, you are a product of the things that you watch.
• 54:35
  And I mean, it's even while we scroll all day, right?
• 54:39
  We're endlessly like this and just comparing ourselves to other people and other people's
• 54:44
  lives and just you become what you watch all day.
• 54:49
  And I think it's just kind of step back and think, I don't know, critically into the media
• 54:54
  that you consume.
• 54:55
  - Yeah.
• 54:56
  - Yeah.
• 54:57
  - So just to point out for that, I think like a big, at least from, I agree.
• 55:00
  So like a big surge of like dark romance.
• 55:04
  - Yes.
• 55:05
  - Yes.
• 55:06
  - I'm not knocking out.
• 55:08
  - Not knocking out.
• 55:09
  Me too.
• 55:10
  - Yeah.
• 55:11
  - Yeah.
• 55:12
  - And that has your place.
• 55:13
  - It's fun, but like you're saying like look at it and the lens of like these men, the
• 55:17
  modern dark romance and they're not good.
• 55:19
  - They're not good people.
• 55:20
  - Yeah.
• 55:21
  - Oh my gosh.
• 55:22
  We just watch or read lights out.
• 55:24
  - Oh my gosh.
• 55:25
  - Yeah.
• 55:26
  - Which if you're unaware of what lights out is, it's like she's got like a mask kink and
• 55:32
  a like innapping.
• 55:33
  - So she's like watching these social media like accounts of like big buff guys, but they
• 55:39
  have like masks on and she like things that's really hot, which cool.
• 55:42
  - Yeah.
• 55:43
  - Yeah.
• 55:44
  - Not gonna yuck your yam.
• 55:45
  - Yeah.
• 55:46
  - But this guy, she's like commenting on his account a lot.
• 55:48
  So he thinks she must like me.
• 55:50
  So he breaks into her house.
• 55:52
  - And then she has like a whole fantasy that's their whole relationship and it is really kind
• 55:58
  of like.
• 55:59
  - And they do it.
• 56:00
  - Yeah.
• 56:01
  Well, I keep that.
• 56:02
  So there's kind of like two.
• 56:03
  - So they do it.
• 56:04
  - And you modern, you know, answers to this question.
• 56:09
  It's, okay, should women become as violent as these men and then in like, you know, promising
• 56:16
  young women, we have this within other movies, Gone Girl.
• 56:20
  I may destroy you the nightingale.
• 56:23
  Should these women just meet the men where they are or should we become in love with men
• 56:28
  who become violent and think it's a tragedy?
• 56:31
  - Which is like a lights out.
• 56:32
  - And romantic.
• 56:33
  And it really is like a interesting psychological question of like, if you can't be them join
• 56:40
  them or should I find them ultimately attractive and then move into it.
• 56:46
  I do want to just kind of wrap this up here and say like, we have seen this shift over
• 56:51
  time, right?
• 56:52
  We started with Hitchcock all the way into the movies that we see today.
• 56:57
  And so really looking at it, I think that we have such a beautiful moment in time where
• 57:02
  we can ask more of our directors.
• 57:04
  We can have this commentary.
• 57:06
  We can have, you know, people, - Panel walks of life.
• 57:10
  - A big reason.
• 57:11
  - Really talking and asking this question of should we demand more, should we allow these
• 57:17
  directors and writers to use lazy storytellers?
• 57:20
  - Yeah, for the sake of their very creative edge-lord art.
• 57:25
  And, you know, I appreciate you guys coming to this panel.
• 57:30
  Again, we're the Pop Culture Junkie podcast.
• 57:32
  You can find us at popculturaljunkie.com.
• 57:36
  As we mentioned in the beginning, we do have a Patreon as well.
• 57:40
  Really helps us.
• 57:41
  It's patreon.com/popculturejunkie.
• 57:44
  And Shauna, where can the listeners find you?
• 57:47
  - You can find me, Shauna Trinidad on Instagram and Threads @shaunatrinidad S-H-A-U-N_A-T-R-I-N-I-D-A-D
• 57:52
  And you can find me, Olivia, on Instagram @livimariez L-I-V-I-M-A-R-I-E-Z.
• 58:05
  And then we're just the Pop Culture Junkie podcast on Instagram as well.
• 58:10
  And yeah, we appreciate you guys so much for coming.
• 58:12
  - Thank you so much.
• 58:13
  This was so fun.
• 58:14
  I love how much everyone's talked.
• 58:17
  I love that.
• 58:18
  - Yeah.
• 58:19
  - Have fun.
• 58:20
  - Yes.
• 58:21
  - Be critical of your media.
• 58:23
  Vote.
• 58:24
  - Yes.
• 58:25
  - Get your pens and buttons.
• 58:29
  - Yes.
• 58:30
  - Free buttons.
• 58:31
  - Listen to Black Women Happy Pride Month.
• 58:32
  - Happy Pride.
• 58:33
  - Yeah.
• 58:34
  - Happy Pride.
• 58:35
  - Yeah.
• 58:36
  (upbeat music)
• 58:39
  The Pop Culture Junkie podcast is for these by Jeff Markin and Cheryl Lightfoot for the
• 58:45
  Pop Culture Entertainment Network.
• 58:46
  (upbeat music)
• 58:56
  (upbeat music)
• 58:58
  [MUSIC]