Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Pleasantville with Jessie and Leonard Maltin

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Pleasantville with Jessie and Leonard Maltin · The Bechdel Cast

0:00
Speaker 1: On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
0:03
Speaker 1: have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
0:07
Speaker 1: and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef
0:11
Speaker 1: in best start changing it with the beck Del Cast.
0:15
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the beck Del Cast. My name
0:18
Speaker 1: is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Dronte, and this
0:21
Speaker 1: is our podcast about the representation of women in movies.
0:25
Speaker 1: Is that correct? That's correct, Jamie. Would you say that
0:27
Speaker 1: the representation of women in movies is like generally like
0:30
Speaker 1: pretty good? I would or would interesting? In general? Very
0:37
Speaker 1: very bad. How many episodes have we been going for? Now?
0:39
Speaker 1: Five million? Yeah? I think the general consensus in surprise
0:44
Speaker 1: to me, but I'm interested to hear more. Okay, I
0:47
Speaker 1: have to fifty first dates you every morning? Mind you
0:51
Speaker 1: that the why don't we done that movie? Oh God,
0:55
Speaker 1: that mood. I've never seen it. It's very funked up.
0:59
Speaker 1: But what I really loved it when it came out.
1:02
Speaker 1: I thought it was the most romantic thing ever. It's
1:05
Speaker 1: spoiler alert. Adam Sandler has to show Drew Barrymore this
1:09
Speaker 1: like weird DVD he made to like tell her it's
1:13
Speaker 1: two thousand and six or something every morning, and he's like,
1:16
Speaker 1: so all this stuff happened. The Clinton administration is over.
1:21
Speaker 1: Also nine eleven happened. Also, Arnold Schwartzenegger is in office,
1:25
Speaker 1: like it's the the events he chooses to cover and
1:28
Speaker 1: the order is So it's an insane movie. But I
1:33
Speaker 1: really liked it when it came out, but almost I
1:35
Speaker 1: almost never want to see it again just so I can. Well,
1:38
Speaker 1: you gotta cover it, So sorry, but you gotta see
1:41
Speaker 1: it again. Oh no, shout out to all my fifty
1:44
Speaker 1: first dates and for you, it'll be exactly two laps
1:50
Speaker 1: of first dates. So we used the Bectel test as
1:55
Speaker 1: as a as a way to initiate a larger conversation
1:58
Speaker 1: about women in film and the to test if You're
2:00
Speaker 1: not Familiar, is a media test created by Alison Bechdel.
2:04
Speaker 1: It requires that a piece of media has two female
2:07
Speaker 1: identifying characters. They have to have names, they must speak
2:11
Speaker 1: to each other, and their conversation couldnot be about men.
2:14
Speaker 1: And for our standard, it's a just a two line exchange,
2:18
Speaker 1: very low bar, and yet it still does not happen
2:21
Speaker 1: nearly enough. So that's what we're working with here. I'm
2:25
Speaker 1: excited for the movie we're talking about today. It's one
2:28
Speaker 1: of your favorites, and I yeah, I would say that
2:30
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorites. Although upon this rewatch I
2:33
Speaker 1: was like, oh boy, oh something's happened. But before we
2:37
Speaker 1: get into it, let's introduce our guests. We've got today
2:41
Speaker 1: very exciting the host of Malton on Movies podcast. It's
2:45
Speaker 1: Jesse and Leonard Malton. Hello. Can I tell you when
2:49
Speaker 1: I first became aware of this? Yeah, it was as
2:52
Speaker 1: apparent when I started taking Jesse to movies when she
2:56
Speaker 1: was a little girl, and I became alarmed at the
3:00
Speaker 1: lack of role models for her. I don't know how
3:04
Speaker 1: enlightened you would rate me as being. I like to
3:07
Speaker 1: think I am. And so when Jesse was growing up,
3:11
Speaker 1: we go to these Saturday morning or Sunday morning screenings
3:15
Speaker 1: that they have here in l A for family friendly movies.
3:18
Speaker 1: That's how they have their media screenings. One time we
3:21
Speaker 1: went to see the Karate Kid Part three, classic film
3:26
Speaker 1: that no one would call a classic, and they got
3:31
Speaker 1: generally poor reviews. But Hilary Swank is a key character
3:36
Speaker 1: in that along with Mr Miagi, and I came out
3:41
Speaker 1: with a different point of view about that movie than
3:45
Speaker 1: almost any of my critic colleagues, because I was watching
3:49
Speaker 1: it through her eyes, and I said, well, it's not
3:53
Speaker 1: a very good movie, but it has a nice lesson,
3:56
Speaker 1: a nice moral for her. I like to take away
4:00
Speaker 1: from that movie. That was my first kind of I
4:03
Speaker 1: don't know if you call it an antiphany, but it
4:05
Speaker 1: was a realization that if you're trying to be a
4:09
Speaker 1: responsible parent, an enlightened parent, and especially in this case,
4:14
Speaker 1: the parent of a daughter, there are other considerations besides
4:19
Speaker 1: is a great writing, is it outstanding cinema? It's the
4:23
Speaker 1: takeaway And and I refer to that all the time
4:27
Speaker 1: because it made such an impression on both of us
4:30
Speaker 1: cretic at three, who knew a monumental film. But it's
4:35
Speaker 1: so funny because it's like, yeah, as recently as you know,
4:37
Speaker 1: when we were growing up, there were still like relatively
4:41
Speaker 1: slim pickings for positive role models for girls outside of
4:46
Speaker 1: you know, the Disney princesses that we've talked to death
4:48
Speaker 1: on this show, but you know, finding active young girl roles,
4:53
Speaker 1: Like I think almost everyone I grew up with was like,
4:56
Speaker 1: oh yeah, Harry at the Spy and Matilda, like those
4:59
Speaker 1: were the Two Little Girls. Okay, so pleasant. What are
5:03
Speaker 1: each of your history in relationship with this movie? It's
5:08
Speaker 1: one of my favorite movies ever. I loved it ever
5:11
Speaker 1: since the first time I saw it. I remember seeing
5:14
Speaker 1: it and obsessing with it, you know, over it. But yes,
5:17
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorites. I know, damn near every word.
5:21
Speaker 1: I love it. My parents, though I had not seen it,
5:24
Speaker 1: I think since it's since it came out. And so
5:28
Speaker 1: I said to my dad, do you remember it? I said,
5:30
Speaker 1: I do, but not not as well. And my mom
5:33
Speaker 1: was the same thing. She couldn't remember exactly. So we
5:35
Speaker 1: sat down, the three of us one evening and watched
5:38
Speaker 1: the film. And the best part for me was watching
5:41
Speaker 1: the two of them and they were really enjoying it
5:45
Speaker 1: because I didn't need to watch it again. I know it,
5:47
Speaker 1: but but I liked watching them watch it. So you
5:50
Speaker 1: as a family watch each other watch movies because you're
5:53
Speaker 1: watching a karate kid. That's true, but it is true.
5:58
Speaker 1: It's it's I'm I'm very much I'm a people watcher anyway.
6:01
Speaker 1: I'm an only child, so I'm very much like the
6:04
Speaker 1: I sit in corners and stare at people. So with this,
6:07
Speaker 1: for me, I kept watching the two of them, and
6:09
Speaker 1: when it ended, my mom said, I can't believe I
6:12
Speaker 1: don't remember this movie. I love this, this is so good.
6:15
Speaker 1: She was really really pleased with it. I think you
6:17
Speaker 1: and you had a similar reaction. I did really pleasant
6:21
Speaker 1: rediscovery for me because I had not seen it since
6:24
Speaker 1: it came out. I come to it from a slightly
6:27
Speaker 1: different perspective than any of you, just kind of the
6:31
Speaker 1: fact I'm older. I grew up watching Leave It to
6:34
Speaker 1: Beaver and Father Knows Best At, Ozzie and Harriet and
6:38
Speaker 1: all of those TV shows that didn't take place in
6:41
Speaker 1: the past. That was my present, that was my present day.
6:47
Speaker 1: So I lived my life and absorbed what they were
6:51
Speaker 1: telling me was the ideal, the ideal of American life.
6:56
Speaker 1: I was a baby boomer and these were baby boomer
6:59
Speaker 1: shows the post World War two era, and they were
7:03
Speaker 1: hugely popular and it all had long runs those three
7:08
Speaker 1: shows I just named, and then endless reruns, so they
7:12
Speaker 1: were always there. They were part of the fabric of
7:15
Speaker 1: American life. Jamie, what's your history? Um, I think that
7:20
Speaker 1: this was a movie that I feel like it was
7:22
Speaker 1: on i f C or the Sundance Channel, like constantly
7:26
Speaker 1: when I was in high school. So I saw this
7:29
Speaker 1: movie a bunch of times in high school, aided by
7:32
Speaker 1: my Toby McGuire crush, which really maybe, uh, you know,
7:37
Speaker 1: very likely to watch this movie more than once. Um,
7:40
Speaker 1: and I always really liked it. I hadn't seen it
7:43
Speaker 1: in I think four or five years, and there were
7:47
Speaker 1: some things that stood out to me at this point
7:49
Speaker 1: that I feel I feel almost a little silly for
7:51
Speaker 1: not registering for me sooner. But I mean, in general,
7:56
Speaker 1: I still think it's a really fun movie. I've forgot
8:00
Speaker 1: how emotionally affected I was by it, and um, yeah,
8:05
Speaker 1: I really like it. Yeah, it is a movie that
8:08
Speaker 1: I really love as well. Although as you said, Jamie,
8:13
Speaker 1: there are some beats that happened, especially like towards the
8:17
Speaker 1: end of Act two where I'm like, oh, you're introducing
8:19
Speaker 1: this metaphor, oh and then okay, we'll talk about Then
8:24
Speaker 1: Miles Grady is upstairs and we're like, oh, yeah, we'recovering
8:27
Speaker 1: Pleasantville today. He's like, oh, yeah, the movie about racism
8:30
Speaker 1: with only white people in it. And we're like yes,
8:33
Speaker 1: and he was like, oh cool, yeah, so we'll we'll
8:37
Speaker 1: dig into that in a bit. But um, yeah, I
8:40
Speaker 1: I first saw this, I think, and probably I mean
8:43
Speaker 1: it came out in ninety eight. I think I saw
8:44
Speaker 1: it in like two thousand and have been watching it
8:46
Speaker 1: pretty subtily since then. But yeah, I'm excited to dive in. Yeah,
8:52
Speaker 1: I'll run through the recap and then uh, and then
8:55
Speaker 1: we'll go from there. So we meet David. That is
8:58
Speaker 1: Toby McGuire's character. He is a teenager, he's in high school.
9:03
Speaker 1: He's a I think they're seniors I had imagine in
9:07
Speaker 1: high school. Um, he's he's a bit of a nerdy type,
9:11
Speaker 1: and he's obsessed with a show called Pleasantville, which is
9:14
Speaker 1: this old timey black and white, very wholesome. And in
9:21
Speaker 1: this show pleasant Ville, it's about a family with a
9:24
Speaker 1: mom and a dad and a teenage son named Bud
9:27
Speaker 1: and his sister Mary Sue. Very nuclear, very nuclear family unit. Um.
9:33
Speaker 1: And then we meet David's twin sister, Jennifer. She's played
9:36
Speaker 1: by Reese Witherspoon. She is this popular girl in school.
9:41
Speaker 1: She likes this bad boy, and she has made plans
9:46
Speaker 1: with him to watch this concert on MTV that night,
9:50
Speaker 1: but it's at the same exact time as this pleasant
9:53
Speaker 1: Ville marathon is happening. That David wants to watch. This
9:58
Speaker 1: is a great problem. There's a lot of problems at
10:02
Speaker 1: the beginning of this movie that I very much enjoyed.
10:05
Speaker 1: So they're fighting over the remote and it flings against
10:08
Speaker 1: the wall accidentally and shatters. So this TV repair man
10:13
Speaker 1: shows up magically right then, and he sees how big
10:18
Speaker 1: of a fan David is of the show Pleasantville, and
10:21
Speaker 1: he gives him this special remote control. You just said
10:25
Speaker 1: Don Knots. I would say Donna Barney Fife from that show,
10:35
Speaker 1: The Nervous Man, from the Steve Allen Show. I grew
10:38
Speaker 1: up with Don. Gary Ross. The filmmaker very candily and
10:44
Speaker 1: deliberately cast Don not Sure in that role because he
10:47
Speaker 1: knew it would get the kind of reaction I just
10:50
Speaker 1: heard from aging boomers. All the knots heads are coming out. Yeah,
10:58
Speaker 1: that's what but I interrupted, Oh, that's that's what the
11:01
Speaker 1: recaps all about. So they've got this special remote control now,
11:06
Speaker 1: and David and Jennifer continue to fight over it, and
11:10
Speaker 1: they accidentally hit this button that sucks them into the
11:13
Speaker 1: world of pleasant Fills. I like to wonder what happened
11:18
Speaker 1: to the two actors in pleasant Right, Like, where did
11:21
Speaker 1: they go to the nineties nineties, that would be fun,
11:24
Speaker 1: but we do know what happened to unpleasant film. They're
11:31
Speaker 1: just horrified by nineties culture the all time right, because
11:36
Speaker 1: David becomes Bud and Jennifer becomes Mary Sue. So they're like,
11:42
Speaker 1: what the frick? What get us out of here? Like
11:45
Speaker 1: what's happening? And the don Knots character is like, no,
11:48
Speaker 1: you're staying. It begs the question why this man is
11:52
Speaker 1: going around looking for teenagers to replace the current cast
11:56
Speaker 1: of pleasant Ville, Like he's just like I've been looking
12:00
Speaker 1: for people to do this for years. You're like, why,
12:02
Speaker 1: don Knots, Why wouldn't that ruin the show, which as
12:05
Speaker 1: we see it does. Why would he do that? I
12:08
Speaker 1: kind of I'm like, you know, I don't have to know,
12:11
Speaker 1: but I am curious why that was his I never
12:13
Speaker 1: really questioned the logic of it until this recent rewatch,
12:16
Speaker 1: but I was like, why does he do that? I
12:18
Speaker 1: just don't question them. Yeah, that's the whole meeting on
12:21
Speaker 1: meeting on the movie's terms. It's like, if you're saying
12:24
Speaker 1: that you want to send them back there, then that's
12:25
Speaker 1: where they go. I trust to move the plot forward,
12:30
Speaker 1: that's right. So they realize that they have to play
12:33
Speaker 1: along existing in the world of Pleasantville until don Knots
12:37
Speaker 1: shows up again and is willing to like discuss sending
12:40
Speaker 1: them back to their actual time. And so then they
12:44
Speaker 1: meet their mom and dad, Betty and George Parker that's
12:47
Speaker 1: played by Joan Allen and William H. Macy. So David
12:50
Speaker 1: has an easy time fitting into Pleasantville because he knows
12:54
Speaker 1: the show so well. But Jennifer is like, this place
12:57
Speaker 1: fucking sucks because it's like this utopia of like wholesome purness.
13:02
Speaker 1: No one has sex, like books or blank nothing burns,
13:05
Speaker 1: like all this eating meat and cheese and gigantic stacks. Right.
13:12
Speaker 1: But then this character, Skip Martin played by Paul Walker,
13:17
Speaker 1: is like, hey, Mary Sue, I like you, Let's go
13:20
Speaker 1: on a date. Palmer is great in this movie. He
13:24
Speaker 1: is such a little cutie pie. Watching him be all
13:27
Speaker 1: bamboozled and what was the part where he's just like,
13:30
Speaker 1: I don't know what's happening to my body. I was like,
13:31
Speaker 1: oh my god, Paul Walker has a boner and he
13:34
Speaker 1: doesn't know what's going on. It's a great scene. So
13:38
Speaker 1: she takes him to Lover's Lane and they get into
13:42
Speaker 1: some heavy petting, and I know, I'm so sorry. Oh
13:46
Speaker 1: my god, I'm so sorry. The family chew, which is
13:49
Speaker 1: all new to Skip, as you just hinted at Jamie
13:53
Speaker 1: Um because like again, everyone in Peasantville is basically a sexual.
13:58
Speaker 1: So at the end of the night, Skip drives past
14:01
Speaker 1: this like rose Bush and one of the roses. It's
14:04
Speaker 1: no longer in black and white, it's red, and we're
14:07
Speaker 1: like the color sin, are this new? Bud and Mary
14:12
Speaker 1: Sue perhaps changing things in Pleasantville. So now this sort
14:18
Speaker 1: of incites these changes where teens are making out, they're
14:21
Speaker 1: listening to rock mu there's that great scene where Paul
14:24
Speaker 1: Walker tells all the other teenage boys about sex, and
14:29
Speaker 1: then no one can shoot a basketball anymore. It's great.
14:33
Speaker 1: And then more things are showing up in color. And
14:35
Speaker 1: then Bud's boss at the diner, Mr Johnson. That's Jeff
14:38
Speaker 1: Daniels character. He is like learning to be more independent
14:43
Speaker 1: and he's enjoying the changes, and he's like, I love painting,
14:45
Speaker 1: I want to paint more. But Bud is sort of
14:48
Speaker 1: like resistant to things changing. He's like, let's maintain the
14:51
Speaker 1: status quo here, h And all this Bud's family life
14:55
Speaker 1: is terrible. His parents are divorced, they fight all the time,
14:58
Speaker 1: so for him, pleasant Ville is the escape exgreens of
15:01
Speaker 1: So the reason he doesn't want things to change because
15:04
Speaker 1: he says, I love the idea of having my mom
15:05
Speaker 1: and dad home and loving each other and dinner on
15:07
Speaker 1: the table every night, whereas Rie Swedishman's character is saying,
15:12
Speaker 1: why the hell am I in this horrible bra and
15:15
Speaker 1: I'm not allowed to talk to boys? There are no
15:17
Speaker 1: toilets here there you know, all those sorts of things,
15:20
Speaker 1: all of which were true in Father Knows Best and
15:23
Speaker 1: leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet. There are
15:25
Speaker 1: no toilets. No, you never saw a bathroom. Well, to
15:28
Speaker 1: see a bathroom, you see a mirror, man of the
15:31
Speaker 1: sink in a mirror, but there was. It was kind
15:34
Speaker 1: of a joke. You never saw a toilet and the
15:37
Speaker 1: beds like marys. I don't think that is the same era,
15:46
Speaker 1: in the same ground rules. Yeah, you may know that
15:49
Speaker 1: when Lucille Ball became pregnant in real life, they wrote
15:53
Speaker 1: it into the show, so Lucy Ricardo was they couldn't
15:57
Speaker 1: use the word pregnant. Yeah, I didn't know whoa what
16:00
Speaker 1: did they say? Gnant's expecting. Those shows were even at
16:09
Speaker 1: the time, but we didn't criticize them for that. They
16:14
Speaker 1: were not just idealistic, they were antiseptically idealists. And there
16:19
Speaker 1: were no four letter words, there were no double entendres,
16:23
Speaker 1: there was no violence, there's no irony, no iron It
16:26
Speaker 1: was all straight faced and sincere and America loved. America
16:32
Speaker 1: embraced these shows. America of that time embraced these shows
16:37
Speaker 1: fully and wholeheartedly because they represented what was considered the ideal.
16:43
Speaker 1: And yes, they were all white, they were whiter than white.
16:48
Speaker 1: And this black and white TV show presents a world
16:52
Speaker 1: that he would be very comfortable living in. Yeah, it
16:56
Speaker 1: would bring him happiness, he feels. So the next major
17:00
Speaker 1: thing that happens in the story is that Mary Sue
17:03
Speaker 1: teaches her mom about sex and masturbation, and then her
17:09
Speaker 1: mom gets into the bathtub has a little fun, little
17:12
Speaker 1: time with theirselves. That's what I call masturbation. I know,
17:16
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. And she has an orgasm that causes
17:20
Speaker 1: a tree to spontaneously combust outside, which is what happens
17:24
Speaker 1: every time a woman comes how you know she is
17:28
Speaker 1: not more people should be talking about that. I know,
17:30
Speaker 1: I know, I know, that's why there are so many
17:32
Speaker 1: forest fires. So then Bud goes to the fire department
17:37
Speaker 1: and then how has to teach them how to put
17:40
Speaker 1: out fires. But this uh incites a curiosity in people
17:45
Speaker 1: where they're like, well, uh, fires and all, but also
17:49
Speaker 1: what's outside of Pleasantville and what are these books about?
17:52
Speaker 1: And this girl named Margaret shows an interest in Bud
17:57
Speaker 1: and they end up going out and then starts to
18:00
Speaker 1: like open up to things changing. Meanwhile, Betty is vibing
18:05
Speaker 1: with Mr Johnson, Mary Sue is turning down sex with
18:09
Speaker 1: Skip to read instead um, and then the first time
18:14
Speaker 1: for the first time in her life pretty much yeah.
18:17
Speaker 1: And then George, their dad, is freaking out about his
18:20
Speaker 1: dinner not being ready on the table for him. Yeah.
18:23
Speaker 1: He's freaking on about change, as is the mayor and
18:26
Speaker 1: a bunch of other like old men in the community,
18:30
Speaker 1: and they are very resistant to all this change. Meanwhile,
18:34
Speaker 1: like the TV repair man is like, what do you
18:36
Speaker 1: guys doing to Pleasantville, and Buds like, screw you, this
18:40
Speaker 1: is what you wanted, don knots You've made your bed.
18:44
Speaker 1: So basically, the mayor is like, make pleasant Ville grade
18:47
Speaker 1: again and tries to enforce like segregation because all these
18:52
Speaker 1: people are turning to color and there. Yeah, they they
18:56
Speaker 1: hit you over the head with with what they're metaphor. Yeah,
19:00
Speaker 1: well they're they're afraid of the other, the others, and
19:04
Speaker 1: they I mean they go so far as to say
19:05
Speaker 1: like coloreds, like they write and will unpack that. There's
19:12
Speaker 1: like proud boys who are like burning books and vandalizing
19:17
Speaker 1: storefronts and stuff like that. Also Betty and um Mr
19:22
Speaker 1: Johnson and Mr Johnson fall in love. They're they're beautiful
19:26
Speaker 1: out there freaking, and the mayor creates this code of
19:30
Speaker 1: conduct that prohibits all the stuff that has been changing
19:33
Speaker 1: about Pleasantville. And then, in an act of defiance, it's
19:38
Speaker 1: like no more dancing and fun music only John Phillips
19:42
Speaker 1: Susan marches for are you kids? Um? So, in an
19:45
Speaker 1: act of defiance, Bud and Mr Johnson paint a mural,
19:52
Speaker 1: depictively ugly mural, but because I like the message. It's
19:56
Speaker 1: depicting all the everything that's been happening, Like, yes, there's
20:03
Speaker 1: a copy of my favorite part that I thought was
20:05
Speaker 1: silly on the mural was a copy of Catcher in
20:08
Speaker 1: the Rye flying to Heaven. It's like, oh my god,
20:12
Speaker 1: but sure, why not. So the two of them are
20:15
Speaker 1: put on trial, but is defending them against the mayor,
20:19
Speaker 1: and he's trying to prove the point of like, well,
20:23
Speaker 1: maybe some things are better than pleasant, like stuff like
20:26
Speaker 1: being silly or being sexy. And then he gets his
20:29
Speaker 1: dad to turn to color, and then the mayor gets
20:32
Speaker 1: so piste off that he turns to color. And then
20:35
Speaker 1: everyone goes outside and the whole town is in color,
20:38
Speaker 1: and everything's changed for the better is the message of
20:42
Speaker 1: the movie. And then Toby McGuire goes back to the
20:46
Speaker 1: nineties nineties to spread the message of I like to
20:52
Speaker 1: picture him going to his friend after me because I've
20:54
Speaker 1: been stuck in a TV. They're like, oh my god,
20:57
Speaker 1: he's on d MT. But and then Reese Weatherspoon decides
21:01
Speaker 1: to stay yes, and that is she starts to stay
21:06
Speaker 1: in Pleasantville and pursue her studies. Yes, she says, I've
21:10
Speaker 1: done this slet thing. Yeah, and now she wants to
21:13
Speaker 1: try something different. It is also worth unpackaged. She's done. Yeah.
21:16
Speaker 1: One word you haven't used in your in your description repressed. Yeah. Yeah.
21:22
Speaker 1: That may be the ultimate adjective to describe all the
21:26
Speaker 1: people and the society in which they live. It is
21:30
Speaker 1: holy and resolutely repressed, not just sexually repressed, but repressed
21:36
Speaker 1: in other other ways, to which seems to be what
21:39
Speaker 1: makes it so appealing to David in the first place,
21:42
Speaker 1: where there's that scene that I mostly liked, where when
21:47
Speaker 1: they're still in the nineties and his mom is on
21:48
Speaker 1: the phone and she's having an argument about custody and
21:51
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and he's just watching Plauseanville and totally
21:54
Speaker 1: ignoring it and repressing any of that, and you're like, oh,
21:58
Speaker 1: it makes sense that of very repressed environment would be
22:03
Speaker 1: appealing to him. It's like, oh, no, one has problems,
22:05
Speaker 1: and if they do, it's not discussed. It sounds like
22:08
Speaker 1: the kind of place I wanted. And he goes there, um,
22:12
Speaker 1: where we know from the beginning that that's not Jennifer's
22:15
Speaker 1: deal at all. She's very forward about what she wants
22:17
Speaker 1: to do, and so of course you would hate it there. Right. Um,
22:20
Speaker 1: we got to take a quick break, but then we'll
22:22
Speaker 1: come right back after these messages and we're back, Okay,
22:32
Speaker 1: So the big thing about this movie, my big issue
22:34
Speaker 1: with it, and then we can talk about some of
22:37
Speaker 1: the other stuff. And we've already touched on this a
22:38
Speaker 1: little bit, but the movie attempts to become this metaphor
22:44
Speaker 1: for because it's borrowing like language and imagery and other
22:48
Speaker 1: socially relevant things from civil rights Sarah. The race subplot
22:54
Speaker 1: on this viewing didn't didn't do much for me, even
22:58
Speaker 1: though I I understand and you know, contextually what they
23:01
Speaker 1: were trying to do. I just didn't feel like this
23:05
Speaker 1: set up lend itself particularly well to making the point
23:08
Speaker 1: that they were trying to make um. And also that's
23:10
Speaker 1: introduced so late into the movie, where it's like the
23:13
Speaker 1: movie is almost over and they're like, no, now it's
23:15
Speaker 1: about race, and you're like why, Like what what? Because
23:20
Speaker 1: it's that's been established, which makes sense for the context
23:24
Speaker 1: of what the show Pleasantville would be, which would be
23:27
Speaker 1: an entirely white cast. But then that means that the
23:30
Speaker 1: world that everyone's existing in is made up entirely of
23:34
Speaker 1: white people. And then to introduce this race metaphor using
23:38
Speaker 1: only white people just doesn't work when we're watching it
23:42
Speaker 1: through the lens of two thousand nineteen. Yeah, that that
23:45
Speaker 1: part of the movie did not age well for me. Well,
23:50
Speaker 1: I see, it's it's all it's all a matter of
23:54
Speaker 1: perspective having grown up then there were no black people
23:58
Speaker 1: on TV in those sitcoms that I can recall, certainly
24:02
Speaker 1: not in recurring roles if at all, and being pre
24:07
Speaker 1: civil rights, which all those shows were, although some of
24:10
Speaker 1: them drifted into the era that was for many people
24:16
Speaker 1: a definition and an absolute snapshot of American life. Remember,
24:20
Speaker 1: they did throw in its un silly, but they threw
24:22
Speaker 1: in a couple of black people into the like when
24:25
Speaker 1: you go to Pleasantville there, that's like two. But they're
24:28
Speaker 1: they're really don't minimal that I sometimes, but I think
24:35
Speaker 1: they did that. First of all, we we are not
24:39
Speaker 1: big analyzers in general because we watched so many movies.
24:43
Speaker 1: If we sat and went through absolutely everything, I think
24:46
Speaker 1: we'd all lose our minds but also come to life
24:49
Speaker 1: our life. But also it's it's the kind of thing
24:52
Speaker 1: where I don't necessarily think that everything has to be
24:54
Speaker 1: analyzed deeply. And so for me watching the movie, it
24:58
Speaker 1: would be weird if suddenly, instead of turning the color,
25:01
Speaker 1: they turned black, Like that's not what you want to
25:04
Speaker 1: have happened. That's even stranger, you know, but racial. I'm
25:09
Speaker 1: just saying it's to work that in since they do
25:12
Speaker 1: choose to go down a race road. Um it would
25:16
Speaker 1: have been stranger to suddenly have a black person pop up.
25:20
Speaker 1: So I think the problem with this movie is that
25:23
Speaker 1: they are introducing this like civil rights metaphor into a
25:27
Speaker 1: sort when they didn't need to do that. If it
25:29
Speaker 1: was just about sort of like the enlightenment of people
25:32
Speaker 1: in terms of like women's sexuality, which is a thing
25:35
Speaker 1: that gets established, and then they leave the race thing
25:39
Speaker 1: alone because they're only they only have white people with
25:42
Speaker 1: which to carry out whatever metaphor they're trying to carry out. Um, yeah,
25:47
Speaker 1: it just felt like wouldn't they were taking a big
25:49
Speaker 1: hit if they hadn't addressed it at all. I mean,
25:52
Speaker 1: that's kind of the just that there may have been
25:55
Speaker 1: a better way to do it. I don't. I don't know,
25:58
Speaker 1: and I don't how an idea as to what that
26:01
Speaker 1: may be. But I don't know. I just felt like
26:04
Speaker 1: the movie bit off a little more than it could chew,
26:06
Speaker 1: and in terms of like addressing all the evils of
26:10
Speaker 1: this era, it didn't seem equipped to address civil rights.
26:15
Speaker 1: If one of the particular things about the movie is
26:19
Speaker 1: because it takes place in this all white sitcom. How
26:23
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just like it almost seems like
26:25
Speaker 1: it's for me. It attacks the women's sexuality and women's
26:30
Speaker 1: liberations so effectively that that seems like it was very
26:34
Speaker 1: well equipped to do that and not so well equipped
26:36
Speaker 1: to do you feeling any of those things then the
26:39
Speaker 1: first time I sat because that's the other part of it.
26:43
Speaker 1: And that's what is so tricky about looking back at
26:45
Speaker 1: movies is that movie is now twenty years old, which
26:50
Speaker 1: is crazy. First of all, that's crazy, but it's twenty
26:53
Speaker 1: years old, and it's really hard. And I think I
26:57
Speaker 1: think the reason that my dad and I are sort
27:00
Speaker 1: of used to turning certain parts off is because we
27:04
Speaker 1: watch old movies. I was, you know, my dad raised
27:06
Speaker 1: me on certain things, and there's definitely stuff that will
27:09
Speaker 1: watch sometimes that that I can't the step and fetch it.
27:13
Speaker 1: Characters I have a really hard time with. Do you
27:16
Speaker 1: know these are? I mean, like, so what we saw
27:20
Speaker 1: Charlie Chan. There were stereotypes, common stereotypes in movies for
27:27
Speaker 1: many decades. Every irishman was a cop, Every Chinese person
27:33
Speaker 1: was a laundryman or woman. Every Italian was a grocer
27:38
Speaker 1: or a fruit vendor or an organ grinder. If you
27:41
Speaker 1: can believe that every Greek person owned a diner, and
27:46
Speaker 1: every black person was a pullman porter on railroad cars
27:51
Speaker 1: or or a personal maid to a fancy white woman.
27:55
Speaker 1: So step and fetch it. Step and fetch it was
27:57
Speaker 1: the name of a performer. Stay name of a Performer's
28:01
Speaker 1: name was Lincoln Perry, who played the laziest person on
28:06
Speaker 1: the planet. So because that was that was his his
28:09
Speaker 1: stage name, that became sort of a name used for
28:12
Speaker 1: that kind of a character. So step and fetch it,
28:15
Speaker 1: and you know Heckel and Jekyl and Dumbo. Yeah, that's
28:18
Speaker 1: sort of a thing. But watching those today, I sometimes
28:22
Speaker 1: will watch something and I'll say to my dad, this
28:24
Speaker 1: is too much, like I can't it hurts me to
28:27
Speaker 1: watch this. At the same time, we watch so many
28:30
Speaker 1: things where I mean, you name it happens, and so
28:34
Speaker 1: I think that we are used to turning parts off
28:37
Speaker 1: because you can't look at a movie with today's eyes.
28:41
Speaker 1: You just kind of can't. Yeah, yeah, I see what
28:46
Speaker 1: you're saying. And I've had to, like, I mean, when
28:48
Speaker 1: I even when I go to watch movies at the theater,
28:51
Speaker 1: I often have to, like, you know, take off my
28:53
Speaker 1: bactel cast goggles. Just to enjoy anything. But what we
28:58
Speaker 1: so often find when we do analyze movies for this
29:01
Speaker 1: podcast is that the movies that we've seen, you know,
29:05
Speaker 1: pre two thousand eighteen, you know, like I mean, and
29:09
Speaker 1: and also they send messages or they have they erase
29:15
Speaker 1: certain things, or they portray certain people in certain ways
29:18
Speaker 1: that have negatively impacted society at large. And on this podcast,
29:24
Speaker 1: you know, we have to be like, oh, you know,
29:26
Speaker 1: when I watched you know, Indiana Jones growing up, like
29:30
Speaker 1: that fucked me up. There's all these characters, white characters
29:35
Speaker 1: in brown face. There's all these you know, not good
29:39
Speaker 1: portrayals of women, uh, you know, stuff like that. So like, yeah,
29:43
Speaker 1: I know, we have to in order to enjoy any
29:46
Speaker 1: entertainment kind of have to shut off our analytical brains sometimes,
29:50
Speaker 1: but specifically go to me when it's older that that.
29:54
Speaker 1: I don't mean now, because if you walk in and
29:56
Speaker 1: see something like that now, you go really, guys, really guys.
30:00
Speaker 1: But if you're even just twenty years ago, even there,
30:03
Speaker 1: you start to hit these kind of roadblocks. I think
30:06
Speaker 1: there is a way to have it both ways a
30:08
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, where it's it's like I when I
30:11
Speaker 1: when I watch I totally agree with you where I
30:13
Speaker 1: when I watched movies for this show, I watch it
30:15
Speaker 1: differently than if I'm just enjoying it um because otherwise,
30:20
Speaker 1: you know, it's just harder to enjoy things. But it does,
30:23
Speaker 1: I don't know it. It's it's been helpful for me,
30:26
Speaker 1: and it hasn't really Like with some egregious exceptions, most
30:30
Speaker 1: of my favorite movies haven't necessarily changed as a result
30:34
Speaker 1: of turning off my compartmentalization to watch it. It's just,
30:38
Speaker 1: I don't know, just creates a more aware picture of
30:41
Speaker 1: something that I know I like. And it was I
30:43
Speaker 1: mean with this movie, which I still think is a
30:46
Speaker 1: good movie, and you know it's still one of your favorites,
30:49
Speaker 1: and it's just I don't know. It's it is interesting
30:52
Speaker 1: and I think it's very yeah, entertaining movie that I
30:58
Speaker 1: wouldn't call it a message movie, but it's a movie
31:01
Speaker 1: that makes a point or two. Yeah, So with the
31:04
Speaker 1: entertainment and the enjoyment and the past and production design
31:12
Speaker 1: too beautiful, stunning, gene Apple walls, brilliant, and it leaves
31:22
Speaker 1: you with something to chew on, right, how hard you
31:24
Speaker 1: want to chew, It's up to you. What I mean
31:28
Speaker 1: when I say that sort of the turning certain parts off,
31:31
Speaker 1: it's that we won't notice something, and then if you
31:34
Speaker 1: say this made no sense or I don't like how
31:37
Speaker 1: that worked out for both of us will sort of
31:39
Speaker 1: go yeah, but when we watch something initially, we're pretty
31:45
Speaker 1: good at sort of not doing it. So how does
31:47
Speaker 1: this movie fair on the Bechtel scale? Well, well we'll
31:50
Speaker 1: find that out. There's there's still a bunch to talk
31:53
Speaker 1: about for me. The Yeah, So basically, the I think
31:57
Speaker 1: the biggest issue I have with this movie, and then
31:59
Speaker 1: we can get into some other stuff that I think
32:02
Speaker 1: we think the movie does effectively is just again to
32:05
Speaker 1: radio reiterate the fact that it's equating white people who
32:09
Speaker 1: have turned from being in like black and white to color,
32:13
Speaker 1: equating them to actual people of color, and then trying
32:16
Speaker 1: to make this metaphor just doesn't work when we're looking
32:19
Speaker 1: at it through today's lens. So yeah, it's just a
32:23
Speaker 1: case of false equivalence. And then sort of a weird
32:26
Speaker 1: victory lap at the end of like we saw racism
32:29
Speaker 1: in pleasant Ville, It's like, well, that would be pretty
32:32
Speaker 1: easy to do if there are no people of color,
32:34
Speaker 1: it's only white people. Um, but with that we're going
32:38
Speaker 1: to take a quick break and then talk about the
32:40
Speaker 1: betrayal of women. They we're back. So in terms of
32:50
Speaker 1: the female characters in the movie, one of the first
32:54
Speaker 1: things that I noticed upon this rewatch that I, I
32:57
Speaker 1: guess was like kind of subconsciously but like hadn't given
33:01
Speaker 1: it much thought until watching the movie for the podcast,
33:03
Speaker 1: but I was like, Oh, a woman's sexuality is what
33:08
Speaker 1: incites all the changes in pleasant Ville. Like that's the
33:11
Speaker 1: catalyst that gets things to start happening. That's the catalyst.
33:15
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that there are some other things
33:18
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, women seem to prompt most of
33:21
Speaker 1: the changes inside and and there. It was pretty sexually
33:27
Speaker 1: heavy at the beginning, where Jennifer is the one who
33:32
Speaker 1: I thought pretty effectively, you know, meet Skip and is
33:36
Speaker 1: forward and like this is what I want to do
33:38
Speaker 1: and oh you don't know how to do this. Here's
33:40
Speaker 1: how you do it? Want to do it? Great? Uh?
33:42
Speaker 1: And they do it. I should say, do it more?
33:45
Speaker 1: Yeah uh. And then the same with Betty's character, who
33:50
Speaker 1: literally sets the town on fire by masturbating once. But
33:55
Speaker 1: but then that that word repression, Yeah, I mean, that's
33:59
Speaker 1: how repressed she was. It's it's it's almost like a
34:04
Speaker 1: cartoon exaggeration, right, But that's why it's such a funny moment, right,
34:08
Speaker 1: It's a great I mean, I love that I forgot
34:10
Speaker 1: that moment happened because I just hadn't seen it in
34:12
Speaker 1: a few years and I was like, Oh, my god,
34:14
Speaker 1: I guess what that is, like the scene I remember
34:18
Speaker 1: from this movie because it is I think the first
34:22
Speaker 1: movie I've ever seen where you see the suggestion of
34:26
Speaker 1: a woman masturbating. Incredible suggestion of a woman having having
34:31
Speaker 1: an orgasm in a movie like that was the first
34:33
Speaker 1: time I had ever seen that, and I was like, Oh,
34:35
Speaker 1: what a difference can make. H Yeah, I mean, and
34:40
Speaker 1: it's still I mean, it's still not super common, but
34:43
Speaker 1: that this was definitely one of the first movies where
34:45
Speaker 1: female masturbation was suggested and visually implied as well, in
34:50
Speaker 1: a way that didn't see him like talking down to
34:54
Speaker 1: it of like it literally is a catalyst. Yeah, hich
34:59
Speaker 1: I love I love the way that the thing that
35:01
Speaker 1: will drive us both nuts is anything gratuitous, and that
35:04
Speaker 1: is whether it's foul language where someone saying fun every
35:07
Speaker 1: five seconds and somehow that's supposed to be let you
35:10
Speaker 1: know the script, it's lazy, same kind of thing nudity.
35:15
Speaker 1: When nudity fits and makes sense, none of us react
35:19
Speaker 1: to it, not in a big way. When someone is
35:21
Speaker 1: standing there naked and you understand that it's because they
35:24
Speaker 1: want them to stand there naked, that's when I say
35:27
Speaker 1: I don't like this. So what I appreciate about that
35:30
Speaker 1: scene especially is we all understand no one needs to
35:34
Speaker 1: see what she's doing. We all get it. And whether
35:37
Speaker 1: it's you know, whether it's just that she's pampering herself.
35:41
Speaker 1: That's the other part. Two is that if someone didn't
35:43
Speaker 1: know what she was doing, let's just say someone younger
35:46
Speaker 1: watching it didn't know what she was doing, they may
35:48
Speaker 1: just think that that she's pampering herself. And she's never
35:51
Speaker 1: does that. She's drawn a bubble back, which narratively doing
35:56
Speaker 1: something for herself. She handles, she like candles. There, she's
36:00
Speaker 1: she's in that bathtub having her time. So it could
36:04
Speaker 1: work either way. I wouldn't have minded that. But I
36:07
Speaker 1: think the good thing about the I mean I think
36:10
Speaker 1: it fits with the story to or like in what
36:12
Speaker 1: world of pleasant Ville the TV show are you going
36:15
Speaker 1: to see? Like Titti's not uh, and also it just
36:20
Speaker 1: allows it to be PG. Thirteen and so, I mean,
36:23
Speaker 1: I think this is like a cool movie for young
36:26
Speaker 1: women to see. I mean, and like, gratuitous female nudity
36:31
Speaker 1: is something that we come up against a lot on
36:33
Speaker 1: this podcast where we're like, and the other thing is
36:37
Speaker 1: that oftentimes female sexuality is something that's villainized in a
36:41
Speaker 1: movie where a villain, a female villain will be like
36:44
Speaker 1: overly sexual, and that's something where we use the audience
36:46
Speaker 1: are meant to think like, oh no, she's like loose
36:49
Speaker 1: and that's that's part of what makes her evil or whatever.
36:51
Speaker 1: But in this movie, the female sexuality change, it's what
36:56
Speaker 1: leads to an increased curiosity from like different people in
36:59
Speaker 1: the know to be like basically like, what's a fire
37:03
Speaker 1: and why does it? What's the word? My favorite thing,
37:07
Speaker 1: honestly is fire. Yeah, fire, fire cat every time. It
37:15
Speaker 1: makes me laugh every single time. Cats do have eight nipples.
37:18
Speaker 1: This is kind and I think it would have been
37:22
Speaker 1: such an easy, lazy choice for the men to become
37:26
Speaker 1: sexually aware of first and sort of gone in a
37:29
Speaker 1: more fratty direction with it. And the fact that Jennifer's
37:33
Speaker 1: character is basically the sex said teacher for this entire
37:37
Speaker 1: world was really cool. And and the fact that I mean,
37:41
Speaker 1: and they were like little moments where I thought Jennifer
37:44
Speaker 1: was it was maybe the character was sort of talked
37:48
Speaker 1: down to and made to be like, oh, she's like
37:50
Speaker 1: a high school slut like that was sort of, but
37:54
Speaker 1: she's so in charge of her own sexuality and so
37:58
Speaker 1: calling the shots at every point in the narrative. And
38:02
Speaker 1: then where her character goes where it seems like, I mean,
38:06
Speaker 1: the rules for what makes you technical or aren't caught it.
38:08
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just like some emotional response or something
38:11
Speaker 1: new that is fulfilling to you. Because at first it
38:14
Speaker 1: seems like, oh, if you have sex, now you're in technicolor.
38:17
Speaker 1: But then that doesn't happen for Jennifer because she's been
38:21
Speaker 1: having sex, so it's like not new and exciting, And
38:24
Speaker 1: what is new and exciting is education and learning stuff,
38:29
Speaker 1: which was the one thing I was waiting to happen
38:31
Speaker 1: because I had never watched this movie with this lens
38:34
Speaker 1: before of like, oh, it would be a bummer if
38:37
Speaker 1: it was only sex that you know, activated women, But
38:42
Speaker 1: but then you do see a few different things, and
38:45
Speaker 1: Jennifer's story was really I don't know. I forgot that
38:48
Speaker 1: that was her. The Mayor turning color is that he
38:51
Speaker 1: gets angry, but angry in such a serious way. He
38:55
Speaker 1: becomes unpleasant. But that's it each person, did you say,
39:01
Speaker 1: it's it's something within them. So it depends on what
39:04
Speaker 1: you need. It depends on yeh who they had been
39:07
Speaker 1: established previously, and then there once they undergo their character arc,
39:12
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. That's sort of what is the
39:15
Speaker 1: catalyst for their changing of colors. And then for David,
39:19
Speaker 1: he changes colors when I'm just I keep whenever say
39:23
Speaker 1: it changes colors. I think of the horse from the
39:24
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz. But he changes colors when he has
39:29
Speaker 1: to defend his TV mom from the Pleasantville Proud Boys
39:34
Speaker 1: who are lunging at her because there was a nude
39:36
Speaker 1: painting done of her by Jeff Daniels, which I don't
39:40
Speaker 1: Does he ask her if that's cool? Or does he
39:42
Speaker 1: just do that? We don't That all happen happens off screen,
39:46
Speaker 1: and I have to she's consenting to it. Yeah, it
39:50
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like he's done something terrible, clear because she's
39:53
Speaker 1: not wanted. And then she's there with him painting, which
39:57
Speaker 1: is true, going off of like, um, the Mary Sue
40:01
Speaker 1: character like having all of her agency and being sex
40:06
Speaker 1: positive essentially and like spreading the gift of sex to people.
40:11
Speaker 1: That then inspires the Betty character to also like have
40:16
Speaker 1: her agency when it comes to her sexuality, because she's
40:18
Speaker 1: the one who keeps approaching Bill Johnson. That's his name, right,
40:24
Speaker 1: and she keeps like going to him and saying, like,
40:27
Speaker 1: let's let's experiment. I mean, we can presume a lot
40:31
Speaker 1: of this kind of happens off screen, but we do
40:33
Speaker 1: see her approaching him kind of with the intent of, like,
40:37
Speaker 1: let's get naked. The women in this movie are forward
40:41
Speaker 1: and state what they want, and usually the men are like,
40:44
Speaker 1: oh sick. But then, but that would be a great
40:48
Speaker 1: line of the film. Daniels just goes, someone says cool
40:54
Speaker 1: in this movie and it's a big But then where
41:00
Speaker 1: the Mary Sue character leaves off, I don't know quite
41:04
Speaker 1: how to feel about this. Well, even before that, where
41:08
Speaker 1: first she's the one whose sexuality like sets the wheels
41:12
Speaker 1: in motion for the whole town of Pleasantville, but then
41:15
Speaker 1: later when she chooses like reading and studying over sex,
41:18
Speaker 1: and then she says later on like I've tried the
41:21
Speaker 1: slept thing. It got kind of old. It's great that
41:23
Speaker 1: she's like trying to enrich her life intellectually, but then
41:28
Speaker 1: that means she ends up sacrificing her sexuality, which kind
41:34
Speaker 1: of a mixed message. I don't think that. I think
41:36
Speaker 1: I think that her saying I've done the slept thing
41:39
Speaker 1: is her sort of saying that I've tried different parts
41:42
Speaker 1: of myself. I've looked at different parts of myself. So
41:45
Speaker 1: now it's the sort of thing where you feel like
41:47
Speaker 1: she'll do it when she wants to. I think that's
41:50
Speaker 1: the difference, is as opposed to doing something because she
41:54
Speaker 1: has a reputation or she wants trying to be more popular,
41:57
Speaker 1: you know, she wants she she has that she's leading
41:59
Speaker 1: the women in and stuff like that. It's it's in
42:02
Speaker 1: this case, she's sort of saying, this is what I
42:04
Speaker 1: want to do right now, in the same way that
42:06
Speaker 1: when Skip comes to her window is like hey, hey,
42:10
Speaker 1: and she's I'm studying, so I thought we could go
42:13
Speaker 1: and I'm studying and she closes it. So that's sort
42:16
Speaker 1: of to me. It's more so that that it's her saying,
42:19
Speaker 1: I've made the decision that this is my focus now.
42:21
Speaker 1: I don't think she's saying and I'll never have and
42:25
Speaker 1: the Nunnery is now because we do see a shot
42:28
Speaker 1: of her at the very end at university and she's
42:32
Speaker 1: like flirting with a man and she's got a book
42:35
Speaker 1: open in her lap in front of her, So she's
42:37
Speaker 1: having that she's having at all at all. Another thing
42:41
Speaker 1: that kind of not necessarily rubbed me the wrong way,
42:44
Speaker 1: but it is at least worth mentioning, is that the
42:47
Speaker 1: thing that gets Jennifer to want to play along in
42:51
Speaker 1: Pleasantville is a man so like and that makes sense
42:56
Speaker 1: for her character, like she had been established as this
42:58
Speaker 1: kind of like boy crazy teen. But the fact remains
43:02
Speaker 1: that a woman is motivated in a movie to engage
43:06
Speaker 1: with what's happening in the story by a man. Oh,
43:09
Speaker 1: I think you could say the same thing as the
43:10
Speaker 1: Betty character if if that's they are stuper using because
43:14
Speaker 1: she I yeah, I mean Betty gets It's interesting because
43:18
Speaker 1: I love the relationship between Jennifer and Betty, and I
43:21
Speaker 1: almost wish we saw a little more of that because
43:23
Speaker 1: the scene that we the scenes we see them together
43:25
Speaker 1: in are so like they're great and they're talking to
43:30
Speaker 1: each other about stuff that women were not supposed to
43:32
Speaker 1: talk to each other about and learning and educating each other.
43:35
Speaker 1: But then I mean, I guess this would probably be
43:37
Speaker 1: realistic for that time. But Betty, you know, goes from
43:41
Speaker 1: one man to another man, and so it's a combination
43:45
Speaker 1: of you know, she gets some of the motivation from
43:48
Speaker 1: what she learned from Jennifer. But would she have left
43:50
Speaker 1: her husband if there weren't a Jeff Daniel's waiting in
43:53
Speaker 1: the wings? We don't know. But see, we don't know
43:55
Speaker 1: that they get together. They were talking about this interesting
43:59
Speaker 1: because you see that she goes to him, but we
44:02
Speaker 1: don't see her with him, and at no point do
44:06
Speaker 1: we see her because I say that we were just
44:09
Speaker 1: talking about this in the car. She does what she
44:12
Speaker 1: wants to do, and if she did, what I feel
44:15
Speaker 1: like is if she did just go straight to Jeff Daniels,
44:17
Speaker 1: everything would sort of be lost because then you go
44:20
Speaker 1: all the stuff you just did, you just went from
44:22
Speaker 1: one man to the other. We don't know that, and
44:25
Speaker 1: that's why the very end where you see the three
44:27
Speaker 1: of them sitting on the mark, and it's sort of like, yeah,
44:29
Speaker 1: she can do whatever she wants. So we don't really
44:31
Speaker 1: see anything. But that's you don't really see anything that
44:35
Speaker 1: tells you that now she's with him. We understand that
44:38
Speaker 1: they sort of had a romantic night, but we don't
44:40
Speaker 1: know what they're going to do from there. He really
44:42
Speaker 1: Jack Dawson's her, right, he does a Jack Dawson glass
44:47
Speaker 1: to paint Hello. That's that is a relief, I guess. Yeah.
44:55
Speaker 1: I sort of was like projecting that foregone conclusion. I hope, yeah,
44:59
Speaker 1: that these character. You know, she explores her options. If
45:03
Speaker 1: she wants to get together with Bill, she can do that,
45:07
Speaker 1: but the difference is wanting, right, she wants to choose
45:10
Speaker 1: this person, and that is a big difference to everything else. Yeah. Right,
45:16
Speaker 1: Because her arc basically goes from her starting out as
45:20
Speaker 1: this like cheery housewife who's making the meal she's eat up, yeah,
45:28
Speaker 1: subscribing holy to the to the status quo of Pleasantville.
45:33
Speaker 1: And then she learns about sexuality and she knows her
45:36
Speaker 1: husband won't go for it, so she masturbates and pleasures
45:40
Speaker 1: herself or William when they cut back to him when
45:42
Speaker 1: she's in the bathroom and he's trying to get comfortable
45:45
Speaker 1: and in his twin sized bed, like and then shortly
45:50
Speaker 1: after that she turns to color, but she's too ashamed
45:53
Speaker 1: and she's not really ready to embrace this. Another repression moment, right,
45:57
Speaker 1: So she covers herself all up with makeup. That's a
46:00
Speaker 1: very sweet moment though, Yeah, with her in turn McGuire,
46:03
Speaker 1: that's a very sweet It's a very tender because on
46:06
Speaker 1: the one hand, obviously she's trying to hide that she's
46:08
Speaker 1: turned color. But at the same time, that's a really
46:12
Speaker 1: sweet moment with them. And then of course later on
46:15
Speaker 1: when they when Jeff Daniels ropes off the makeup, that's
46:18
Speaker 1: the other weeping right, Yeah, I can't beautiful just the
46:22
Speaker 1: way you are, which she's like. I loved, I loved
46:24
Speaker 1: that scene with her and Toby McGuire, especially because it
46:27
Speaker 1: was I mean, she you could see the repression in
46:30
Speaker 1: the shame of like I've changed and I'm not ready
46:34
Speaker 1: for people to know that. And he, you know, even
46:38
Speaker 1: though he knows, you know, she'll probably she may be
46:41
Speaker 1: happier if she, you know, it's just herself in the world.
46:43
Speaker 1: He like accepts that she's not ready and that's not appropriate.
46:48
Speaker 1: She will be she knows she will be ostracized. Yeah,
46:51
Speaker 1: if not burned at the steak Yeah, right by the pleasant,
46:54
Speaker 1: feel proud boy yeah um, and then where her are
47:00
Speaker 1: ends is well before the kind of conclusion of her
47:04
Speaker 1: character arc, we see William H. Macy's character being like,
47:08
Speaker 1: where's Mari dinner, like, still expecting her to be like
47:11
Speaker 1: the homemaker caregiver role, and then whenever he confronts her
47:15
Speaker 1: about it, she's just like, no, I'm not going to
47:18
Speaker 1: do that anymore. Because he's like, he lays down some
47:20
Speaker 1: like terms and conditions, like you're going to go to
47:22
Speaker 1: this tom meeting you every day. Yeah. I like that.
47:28
Speaker 1: He's made out to be like the du fust idiot
47:30
Speaker 1: who were not supposed to like in that stand and
47:32
Speaker 1: she's just like, no, I'm going to do whatever I
47:35
Speaker 1: want and you can't do anything about it, right, and
47:37
Speaker 1: I mean, and then you get the like sincere growth
47:40
Speaker 1: of his character too, where he I mean, we see
47:43
Speaker 1: him be like I don't know how to I'm eating olives,
47:47
Speaker 1: which relatable as someone who can't cook and lots of
47:54
Speaker 1: lots of them. The scene went in the courthouse where
47:56
Speaker 1: Toby Guyer's talking to William H. Macy and in that
47:59
Speaker 1: moment saying doesn't she look beautiful? Don't you love her?
48:03
Speaker 1: And he's crying and you're just like, oh my god,
48:07
Speaker 1: so beautiful because there too, it's a nice thing they
48:11
Speaker 1: don't make Will you make Macy's character evil? No, he's
48:14
Speaker 1: not a bad man. Where the mayor is sort of seen,
48:17
Speaker 1: is this, oh fish, I think he's as close to
48:19
Speaker 1: a villain. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah, but will you
48:22
Speaker 1: h Macy? If he was terrible, then you would have no, yeah,
48:27
Speaker 1: leave him? Why would you want to be with that guy?
48:29
Speaker 1: But he's not that. Yeah, but this is also what
48:33
Speaker 1: he knows well. It's like the in the courtroom scene
48:37
Speaker 1: where Toby McGuire is trying to basically get Macy to
48:43
Speaker 1: turn to color. He's saying, like, it's not just the
48:46
Speaker 1: cooking and the cleaning that you enjoy. Maybe it's because
48:50
Speaker 1: you actually like her for her personality, and it's like
48:54
Speaker 1: and it never occurred to it, which like is a
48:57
Speaker 1: very cartoonish thing. But also these are cartoonish characters. Yeah.
49:03
Speaker 1: I really ended up appreciated, like the William Macy character.
49:07
Speaker 1: Something that I don't think is super common in movies
49:10
Speaker 1: even now is to see a male character who has
49:15
Speaker 1: entirely the wrong idea about women, who is you know,
49:20
Speaker 1: spoken to directly and then is made to seem capable
49:25
Speaker 1: of change. I feel like that is something I'd like
49:28
Speaker 1: to see more of in movies because it is like
49:30
Speaker 1: cathartic and exciting for me to see a guy be
49:34
Speaker 1: you know, punished for being an asshole. And I'm all
49:38
Speaker 1: for seeing that. But also I think for like male
49:41
Speaker 1: movie cars, especially like young male movie cars, that can
49:44
Speaker 1: be a positive thing to see some someone who is
49:48
Speaker 1: not treating women the way they should be and then
49:51
Speaker 1: seeing them be called out and then begin to change
49:55
Speaker 1: and making that seem like a viable course of action
49:59
Speaker 1: is thing that like younger boys should see more of.
50:03
Speaker 1: As much as I was concerned for Jesse growing up
50:06
Speaker 1: not having a good female role models, I was also
50:12
Speaker 1: just as a person aware that there weren't very many
50:15
Speaker 1: good male role models. Yeah almost none. Yeah, which is
50:19
Speaker 1: crazy because there's so many you know where were again nuance, Uh,
50:25
Speaker 1: three dimensional characters something to pattern yourself, pattern your life after.
50:31
Speaker 1: Oh that that guy really has his act together, you know,
50:34
Speaker 1: and he is he's smart, he's capable, he's I don't
50:39
Speaker 1: want to keep using the word enlightened, but that's the
50:41
Speaker 1: one that seems to come to mind. And uh, and
50:44
Speaker 1: there are a damn few of those. Yeah then or now? Yeah,
50:48
Speaker 1: absolutely something I love And I thought about this then
50:51
Speaker 1: and I think about it now. But the whole thing
50:54
Speaker 1: of both Jeff Daniels and William H. Macy being good
50:58
Speaker 1: people means that it's not an easy decision. And the
51:02
Speaker 1: film that I always relate that to is The Notebook. Now,
51:05
Speaker 1: I'm not a die hard Notebook person. I like the
51:07
Speaker 1: movie fine, but I do know it. But I've always
51:13
Speaker 1: really appreciated that the two men she had to choose
51:15
Speaker 1: from from We're Good Men, Ryan Casson and James Mars
51:19
Speaker 1: James margin. But the whole thing is, you know, normally
51:24
Speaker 1: there's the there's like the Jack Dawson and you know
51:27
Speaker 1: and Rose where she's with a terrible man. So there's
51:31
Speaker 1: no question, you know, she should go to to the
51:34
Speaker 1: other guy. It's much more complex to say both of
51:40
Speaker 1: these are good options, and so with Joan Allen. But
51:44
Speaker 1: that's if Joan Allen. You know, if William and Macy's
51:46
Speaker 1: character was one dimensional and just like I don't care
51:50
Speaker 1: about you, I just want my food, then there's no
51:53
Speaker 1: question go go to go to the other guy. But
51:56
Speaker 1: when you layer it and you say no, it's not
51:59
Speaker 1: cut and dry like that. It's not that simple. I
52:02
Speaker 1: appreciate that. I appreciate doing something different absolutely. And then
52:07
Speaker 1: I think with like the Toby Maguire character in his
52:11
Speaker 1: different like whether he's being David or whether he's being Bud,
52:15
Speaker 1: Like he's a sensitive guy who is like there's a
52:20
Speaker 1: whole scene where he puts makeup on his mom, like
52:23
Speaker 1: how many But then the last scene with him and
52:26
Speaker 1: jenekas Merrick right exactly where where he's comforting her because
52:32
Speaker 1: you know, she's having romantic problems with her boyfriend or whatever,
52:36
Speaker 1: please clean up her makeup. So that's it's obviously a
52:40
Speaker 1: callback that you see, you know, you see with Joan
52:42
Speaker 1: Allen doing it now he's doing with his real mom.
52:43
Speaker 1: But that makes that moment so much more tender because
52:48
Speaker 1: you believe, I feel like and his character doesn't go
52:52
Speaker 1: from like bad too good. He just goes from repressed
52:55
Speaker 1: to less repressed, which is like a cool, a cool
53:00
Speaker 1: arc to see someone got through. Um. Any other final
53:04
Speaker 1: thoughts about the movie. I think it holds up really
53:09
Speaker 1: well in general. I think it holds up really well.
53:13
Speaker 1: The performances still all feel real. Um, that's the thing.
53:18
Speaker 1: The pieces even if the whole is not perfect. To me,
53:21
Speaker 1: the pieces are absolutely worth it, and if you can
53:25
Speaker 1: sort of deal with the other stuff, of course, someone
53:27
Speaker 1: watching it for the first time going to have a
53:28
Speaker 1: completely different experience. And that's true all movies. If you
53:31
Speaker 1: love something, you love it. And so I can't look
53:35
Speaker 1: at it now and say, we'll let me be completely objective.
53:37
Speaker 1: I can. I love the movie. I've seen it a
53:39
Speaker 1: million times, but I do think compared to some especially
53:43
Speaker 1: it holds up well. Yeah. I think aside from like
53:47
Speaker 1: the very like late nineties idea of like progressive ism
53:50
Speaker 1: of like white people who turned to technicolor is the
53:55
Speaker 1: same thing as a civil rights movement. But aside aside
53:58
Speaker 1: from that, like, yeah, I do genuinely think this movie
54:01
Speaker 1: holds up pretty well. I still enjoy it. I'll still
54:03
Speaker 1: watch it. Um. I just have to point out that
54:07
Speaker 1: there's like trivia in the beginning where David's like practicing
54:11
Speaker 1: for the marathon, and one of the questions is what
54:14
Speaker 1: did Bud and Mary soon na the cat that they
54:17
Speaker 1: found in the gutter. The answer is marmalade, which I
54:21
Speaker 1: have to pay for that. You know, Paddington is his
54:25
Speaker 1: favorite food, so just have to mention just shout out
54:27
Speaker 1: to Paddington. Is there a part you feel like Alfred
54:30
Speaker 1: Molina would have played well in this movie? Oh? I
54:33
Speaker 1: think he would have been a good mayor because he's,
54:35
Speaker 1: oh you know what, he plays basically well, he plays
54:38
Speaker 1: basically that same character in Chako La. I know I'd
54:43
Speaker 1: like to see with Mr Johnson. I was gonna say,
54:44
Speaker 1: I was as I love I love Jeff Daniels, but
54:47
Speaker 1: I love Alfred Molina in a romantic role. Sure, yeah,
54:50
Speaker 1: that would be my pick. Okay, Yeah, that's great. That's
54:54
Speaker 1: that's my final thought. Does this movie pass the Bechdel tests? Yes,
54:59
Speaker 1: it does does a couple of times. A few of
55:02
Speaker 1: them are just like very throwaway moments where Joan Allen
55:06
Speaker 1: is like, I just love that sweater on you, Mary Sue.
55:08
Speaker 1: It's so flattering. He says, thanks, thanks um, And then
55:12
Speaker 1: there's a couple other like have breakfast now, or like
55:15
Speaker 1: get off to school okay, and she's like, I'm not hungry.
55:19
Speaker 1: But the big scene is the one where Jennifer as
55:24
Speaker 1: Mary Sue is teaching Joan Allen's character about sex. And yeah,
55:29
Speaker 1: they're they're doing household chores, but they're talking about masturbation,
55:35
Speaker 1: which begs the question where did Mary, Sue and Bud
55:38
Speaker 1: come from? If Joan Allen's character has never had sex,
55:42
Speaker 1: they did, Well, they live in in a universe where
55:46
Speaker 1: uh story started. They started with two people going into
55:50
Speaker 1: a TV show where why are they having sex? Yeah?
55:55
Speaker 1: I guess it's just like the story the Baby. They
55:59
Speaker 1: all show that when season one started, and they were
56:02
Speaker 1: the way they were. So but yeah, there's there's a
56:05
Speaker 1: fairly long scene where she's like, yeah, again, what they're
56:08
Speaker 1: talking about hetero sex. So whether or not that passes
56:13
Speaker 1: the Bechtel test is up for debate because you're talking
56:17
Speaker 1: about like having sex with a man, but then but
56:21
Speaker 1: then it turns to masturbation. I would give that scene
56:24
Speaker 1: a pass for that reason. Yeah, so like it. The
56:28
Speaker 1: context for me is like sex for pleasure and like
56:33
Speaker 1: sex for female pleasure. Yeah, it's not about minutes about them. Yeah,
56:38
Speaker 1: the man is the tool literally, but he's the vessel. Yeah,
56:43
Speaker 1: but yeah, I'll give us a pass for sure. Yeah,
56:46
Speaker 1: so that I mean that. I just loved that scene
56:49
Speaker 1: in general. Same shall we shall we write the movie?
56:52
Speaker 1: Let's write it on our nipple scale zero to five
56:55
Speaker 1: nipples based on its portrayal of women. Um, I think
57:02
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with a three. Um, I'm gonna take
57:06
Speaker 1: some nipples off because of the the whole discussion we've
57:10
Speaker 1: already had regarding like, oh, white people solving racism. That's
57:16
Speaker 1: my big problem with the movie. But then, um, looking
57:19
Speaker 1: at Yeah, I mean the female characters who have agency,
57:23
Speaker 1: especially in terms of their own sexuality. The Margaret character
57:26
Speaker 1: we didn't really talk about a lot or at all,
57:29
Speaker 1: but that's the teen woman who Bud ends up, yeah,
57:34
Speaker 1: ends up dating. She kind of really only exists in
57:38
Speaker 1: the story to kind of like further developed Bud's character,
57:42
Speaker 1: and she doesn't really have any bearing on this story,
57:46
Speaker 1: so she's just kind of like one of these sort
57:48
Speaker 1: of flat, one dimensional characters. But yeah, of the characters
57:52
Speaker 1: we do get to know, Betty and Mary Sue slash Jennifer, Yeah,
57:58
Speaker 1: I really like the the message that they help perpetuate
58:02
Speaker 1: in the story. And yes, so I'll give it three nipples,
58:07
Speaker 1: and um, I'll give all of them to the cat
58:11
Speaker 1: named Marmalade who we never meet on screen, although maybe
58:13
Speaker 1: that's the cat that gets saved by the fireman in
58:16
Speaker 1: the very beginning. Marmalade visibility is high. I'm gonna go
58:22
Speaker 1: I'm gonna strictly do this writing based on how this
58:25
Speaker 1: movie treats women, because I mean, I also did not
58:30
Speaker 1: care for the way that this movie tried to throw
58:32
Speaker 1: in civil rights, uh in the kind of this bizarro way,
58:36
Speaker 1: but strictly based on how the movie treats women, I'm
58:38
Speaker 1: gonna give it a four, only docking it really for
58:42
Speaker 1: the b characters that are kind of a little bit tropy,
58:46
Speaker 1: like the the you know, the friends in the nineties
58:49
Speaker 1: and the fifties are kind of you know, like reductive
58:53
Speaker 1: bimboie characters. Uh. And then I sort of agree with
58:57
Speaker 1: you about Margaret's character. It seemed like there was more there,
59:01
Speaker 1: but there just wasn't time or real estate given. But
59:03
Speaker 1: they were very sweet together. Yeah, they were definitely sweet.
59:06
Speaker 1: I just I don't know anything about that character outside
59:09
Speaker 1: of she's sort of you know, there to his his star.
59:14
Speaker 1: Is there also like a Garden of Eden reference where
59:17
Speaker 1: she's like here takes yeah, biblical milical imagery. I mean,
59:24
Speaker 1: the Bible is, of course if feminist text, but yeah,
59:29
Speaker 1: in general, I really like that women becoming less repressed
59:34
Speaker 1: and challenging norms is the catalyst for really most of
59:38
Speaker 1: the change in the movie, and I thought it was
59:42
Speaker 1: really well done. I still I still enjoy it. So
59:44
Speaker 1: I'll do four. I'll give Wonder Race two to Joan
59:50
Speaker 1: and one to Paul Walker because why not? Why not?
59:54
Speaker 1: R I p Yeah, four nipples, Yeah, cool, solid, Yeah,
59:59
Speaker 1: I'm good to sell Forward two on that basis. Yes,
1:00:02
Speaker 1: it sounds great. Well, thanks so much for coming on
1:00:05
Speaker 1: the podcast. I appreciate it. I'm having you. Is there
1:00:08
Speaker 1: anything you would like to plug? Where can people follow
1:00:10
Speaker 1: you online? He is at Leonard Walton. I'm at Jesse
1:00:13
Speaker 1: Malton on Twitter and Instagram, and he has a Facebook page,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: and there's Leonard Walton dot com and he writes movie
1:00:19
Speaker 1: reviews there and does book ground ups in that type
1:00:21
Speaker 1: of stuff. And then May ten eleven twelve is Malton
1:00:25
Speaker 1: Fest first film festival. It's a hidden gem film festival,
1:00:31
Speaker 1: so we're not showing new stuff. We're showing recent movies
1:00:34
Speaker 1: that flew under the radar, recent but also some older
1:00:37
Speaker 1: ones just to keep things interesting. But yeah, it's it's
1:00:41
Speaker 1: the idea of just it's it's film appreciation and our
1:00:45
Speaker 1: our goal always in kind of everything we do is community. Um,
1:00:49
Speaker 1: the internet does not treat people, don't treat each other
1:00:52
Speaker 1: very nicely. Uh, and I think that it's really important
1:00:56
Speaker 1: to continually get them away from the computer into real
1:01:00
Speaker 1: We want to we want to bring people together. You
1:01:02
Speaker 1: want to take them out of Pleasantville the show. They're
1:01:05
Speaker 1: stuck in the world. We want to bring people together.
1:01:09
Speaker 1: We're gonna do it in the heart of Hollywood Egyptian Theater.
1:01:13
Speaker 1: So we're very exciting. And it's over Mother's Day weekend.
1:01:17
Speaker 1: So on the Sunday, my mom we're having like a
1:01:20
Speaker 1: Mother's Day thing for her and bring your mom's cool
1:01:26
Speaker 1: check that out and listen to Mountain Lawn movies and
1:01:30
Speaker 1: uh yeah, thanks again for being here. You can follow
1:01:34
Speaker 1: us on social media at Bectelcast. You can go to
1:01:37
Speaker 1: our website bactelcast dot com. We've got our episodes there,
1:01:40
Speaker 1: We've got our merch store there. Merch Yeah, what's on
1:01:44
Speaker 1: what you're wearing? Jecame correct. I thought this right after
1:01:51
Speaker 1: we first met No no Dave meltdown when we had
1:01:54
Speaker 1: Alfred Molina on our show, which now the day we
1:01:56
Speaker 1: met you guys that that is actually necessary. Gunt for
1:02:00
Speaker 1: this episode was, Yeah, Aristotle the world's best engineer. The
1:02:04
Speaker 1: World's Best Engineer a shared engineer as a table found
1:02:08
Speaker 1: out through Jesse that Alfred Molina was going to be
1:02:11
Speaker 1: on Moltena Movies. So I took the day off. Caitlyn
1:02:14
Speaker 1: and I went to meltdown and I was I totally
1:02:17
Speaker 1: whipped out and I was too afraid to talk to him.
1:02:20
Speaker 1: Fast forward a year and a half he was on
1:02:22
Speaker 1: the show and our best being he's probably adore him.
1:02:28
Speaker 1: I absolutely adore him and of course an astonishing act
1:02:33
Speaker 1: one of the greatest actors honestly living. He's incredible, totally
1:02:37
Speaker 1: a friend of the show, and it was speaking of
1:02:43
Speaker 1: You can get feminist icon Alfred Molina merch, which he
1:02:47
Speaker 1: was low key horrifying. I think he loved it. You
1:02:53
Speaker 1: can get other merch designs like queer icon, feminist icon,
1:02:58
Speaker 1: um Strong Female protagonistist, as well as a few newer ones.
1:03:01
Speaker 1: The whole bit. Yeah, so check out our Tea Public
1:03:04
Speaker 1: story as well. We have merched on Tea Public. Grab
1:03:08
Speaker 1: some of that up. And also don't forget about our
1:03:12
Speaker 1: Patreon aka Matreon. You can go to patreon dot com
1:03:15
Speaker 1: slash spectel cast. It's five dollars a month and you
1:03:17
Speaker 1: get to bonus episodes every month, including all of the
1:03:20
Speaker 1: backlog of all of our past Matreon episodes. We'reted to
1:03:25
Speaker 1: creating content we simply can't st addicted, So check that
1:03:28
Speaker 1: out and we'll be here next week. Bye bye,