Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Dazed and Confused with Maris Kreizman

Transcript

Dazed and Confused with Maris Kreizman · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism the patriarchy zeph and best
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Dinner, We're going on tour. That was supposed to be
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: the intro to the Star Wars theme song. Did you
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: get that? Oh it sounded like I was going Donna, Okay,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Jamie and Caitlin. Here, we're going on tour and we're
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: not going on tour just anywhere. We're going on tour
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: in the Midwest and soon. Why did I make the
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Star Wars noise? Well, it's because we're covering the Star
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Wars prequels. If you haven't seen them, we're gonna just
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: cover all three at once. You know it's gonna be fine.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: If you have seen them, you're gonna be so mad
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: at us. There's been so much talk about the prequels
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: over the years, often on podcasts we really like, often
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: by writers we really like, but never from an intersectional
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: feminist perspective. And so we're going on this tour to
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: quickly realize why that is so true.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: And also some people love these movies. I know, I
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: don't quite get it, but we'll explore why. At the shows.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: They're so soapy. I kinda like it.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you can see us discuss all three prequels
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: in one show, in fabulous outfits, in wonderful coseplay. You
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: don't want to miss this, among many other things that
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: you will see because we pull out all the stops.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: For our live shows.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Oh we it's embarrassing what we do.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: We do fanfic, we do, I edit little videos that
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: I insist on screening. We do trivia.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: I usually do some piece of performance art that no
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: one asked for.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: It's a spectacle. Let me tell you.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: It's all happening.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: So we will be doing all of that and more
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: at the following cities. We will be in Indianapolis for
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Let's Fest on Saturday, August thirtieth for a matinee show,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: and then Jamie, you have a solo show that evening
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: that can't be missed.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Also at the Fountain Square Theater called Jamie Laftus and
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: her Pet Rock Solve the World's Problems, in which that
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: will happen.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I can't wait.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Then the next day, the very next day, we are
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: going to Chicago. You asked, we listened. We will be
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: at the Den Theater on August thirty. First, that show
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: is going to start around seven, seven to fifteen pm.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: It's an evening show, a sexy little evening show. We're
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: so excited to go to Chicago and the Den Theater
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: is so beautiful, so Chicagoans do not miss it.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: And then then we will be in Madison, Wisconsin on Thursday,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: September fourth. I believe that's a seven thirty show and oh,
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: we're so excited to be in Madison.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: And then finally we will be ending the tour in Minneapolis,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Minnesota at the Dudley Riggs Theater on Sunday, September seventh.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: That is another evening show. It starts at seven o'clock
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: and that is where we're ending our grand tour of
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: the Midwest. So if you have been one of the
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: many people asking us to come to your town for
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: the last ten years we're doing it, we would love
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: to see you. The shows are super fun. As we've said,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: if you're a Matron, specifically, if you're a member of
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: our Patroon aka Matreon, you get a free little gift
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: at the merch table when you come to say hi
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: after the show. It's a blast. It's going to be
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: a super good time. We love Siena. You can get
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: all tickets on our link tree at link Tree slash
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Bectel Cast. Exqueeze me, We'll see you there.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Oh was that a jar jar impression?
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: I did? Yeah? I went there.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Wow. Enjoy the episode cast?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: All right, all right, all right, yeah, I mean, I
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: guess that's the line.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: I guess.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: I guess that's the line.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: I'd rather say that than some of the other choice
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: words from this movie.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: What do you mean?
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: No, Welcome to the Bechdel Cast, as we say, where
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: you're disgusting older friends.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: No, where your cool older friends.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: We are mature friends who don't show up at parties.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: We don't belong at. My name's Jamie Loftus.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: My name is Caitlin Dronte. This is our show where
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: Bechdel test as a jumping off point. And Jamie tell
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: me what that is.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Well, we're gonna actually need the Bechdel test today. There's
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: certain movies where you're like, yeah, we gotta glaze over it.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: I think the Bechel test was actually created for this
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: exact kind of movie. M So, the Bechdel Test is
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: a media matter created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel with
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: her friend Liz Wallace, which is why it's often correctly
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: called Bechdel Wallace Test. I can't stop thinking about. We
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: recently had Alson Bechtel on the show and we're like,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: where is Liz Wallace And she's like, I don't know.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I met her at a karate class and we lost touch,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: and you're like, okay, wow, wow, I love that. Anyways,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: they co created this test together originally as a way
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: of commenting on how there was no queer representation for
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: primarily women in movies, but it has since become a larger,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: more mainstream media metric, which means it's been heteroonormative affied.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Here's the version of the test we use. Our version
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: of the test requires that two characters with names who
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: are of a marginalized gender speak to each other about
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: something that isn't a man. And this movie is really
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: gonna stretch this test to its very limits. Yes, like
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: many nineties movies, I feel like most of the arguably
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Bechtels fasting things are women being horrible to each other,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: which technically counts, but spiritually it doesn't. We'll get into it. Yeah,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: it's the Dazed and Confused episode. I don't know how
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: it took us nine I mean, one could even say avoidance.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: We might have been avoiding it for this whole time.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: I feel like pre Pandemic, we scheduled a live show
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: in Austin, and I think we were considering covering this movie.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: I think we ultimately were like, we should do whip
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: it instead. And then it doesn't matter. The whole show
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: got canceled because of COVID, But yeah, we were we
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: were like, hm, days and confused. Maybe this is the time,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: and then you know, five years past. So now we're
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: doing it.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: It's five years. We don't talk about that. We have
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: an incredible guest here today. Let's get her in here.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Let's do it. She's the author of the book I
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: want to burn this place down. Great title. It's Mary's Chrisman.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Hello, Hi, what an honor to be here.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, thanks for coming.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Before we get into the Dazed and Confused of it all,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: tell us more about your book.
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's an essay collection about all of the things
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: I want to burn down basically, and if you take
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: a look at the world right now, you might have
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: a few items on.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: Your list too, certainly.
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: So it's basically about all of the institutions and ideas
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: that I used to revere that I just no longer
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: do because they have not worked.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: It is a great book, Thank you, And speaking of things.
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: That you might want to burn down, Yeah, dazed and confused,
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: I don't want to put words in your mouth.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't know how you feel about this movie. Yeah, yeah,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: So to start, what is your history with this movie?
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: What's your relationship with this movie?
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: So I'm a little bit older than you, and this
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: is important because I had just started high school when
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: this movie came out. Okay, so for the longest time
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: I was like, well, that's what high school's supposed to be. Like,
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: you know, if that's not an accurate depiction of high school,
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: then what's going on? I guess I should say too
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: that at that time, yes, I had a strong desire
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: to fit in sure, so I absolutely understood why hazing
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: is so exciting to some people.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Let's say that, yeah, I mean, characteristic of so many
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: movies from this era about teens, is like, yeah, this
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: is how high school is, and isn't that awesome? Actually?
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, right, that's what is like one of the many
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: tricky elements of this movie where it's like, to some extent,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: like there is some scary, realistic stuff that does happen
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: in high schools and like dynamics that I recognize, but
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: they're just kind of presented without comment. And that's being
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: generous because because there's almost like aspirational to be like,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: you're gonna if Parker Posey. I mean it's a bad
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: example because I would let Parker Posey scream at me
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: in a parking lot and cover me and ketchup. I
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: mean absolutely, and like that would kind of be like
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: a kinky day for me.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: But but theore, you know, it's just like and this
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: is what and isn't that cool? It's like, I don't know,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: there's like fun nostalgia vibes because it's clearly based on
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Richard Linklater's childhood, to the point where there was a
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: lawsuit about it, which I'm excited to talk about. Wow,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: oh I don't know that part basically he used the
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was a bunk lawsuit and probably more
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: embarrassing that they even filed it, but there were three
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: of his former classmates. Their last names are water Send, Slater,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: and Floyd, and they filed a defamation lawsuit against Richard linklater,
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: and I was like, guys, you just pretend to say
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen it.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, But then also, Dick Link, don't use real people's names,
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: like have some creative Yeah, that's weird.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: Well unless he actually did base them on those guys.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: And there's a guy named Woderson who should feel like
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: a piece of shit.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, true, Yeah, I'm kind of on the fence. Sure, sure, Jamie.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: What's your relationship with this movie?
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Not very much. I saw this movie once in college
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: and I did this is just like not my kind
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: of movie. I feel the same way about what's the
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: George Lucas version of this movie American Graffiti. Yes, where
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: it's like a director in his thirties making a movie
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: about like high school was so fucking cool. Man, it's
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: just like never been my bag at all. Also has
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: to do with that I was a total fucking dork.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: So I'm sure that there's like an internal like I
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: didn't find it aspirational to like watch party movies. I
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: think it just reminded me of parties I was not
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: invited to. So I don't have a lot of history
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: in this movie. I do have a lot of history
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: with Richard link Later. Yes, he directed my favorite movie
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: of all time, School of Rock. But the thing with
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Richard Linklater is that he has such like range that
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: you can also really hate some of his movies. I
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: wouldn't say I hate this movie. I definitely don't like it.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't know Ben Affleck was in it, and I
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: guess that's that's a pertinent thought.
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: I mean, there are a lot of cameos to talk about.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I kept feeling like there's no way, but
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: then by the third time, you're like, no, that is
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: that is him, Ben aff Preveneers.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: That's why you didn't recognize him.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: It's hard to recognize him with his original teeth. You
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: had to like go back to the nineties. But yeah,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: mister duncan himself in Texas. Maybe he's doing a better
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: job at acting because we talked about this in our
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Gone Girl episode. But like having to suspend my disbelief
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: to be like, yeah, Ben Affleck lives in Missouri, Sure
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: it wouldn't happen. All I don't really care for this movie,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: but I am excited to talk about it, and I
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: also get why people like it.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think if I had seen this like at
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: the right time, it would have hit better for me.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Kaitlyn, WIT's your history with this movie.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: Pretty similar to yours, Jamie. I saw it during the
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Great Caitlin movie binge of two thousand and five when
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: I was a freshman in college that is, watching just
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: like a Bazilian movies, and I never returned to it
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: since until prepping for this episode, because it clearly did
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: not appeal to me enough to revisit it. I think
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: it's an interesting concept in theory. I mean, I don't
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: I like a day in the life of an ensemble
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: cast of characters. It kind of reminded me of what's
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: that other teen movie where they go to a party
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: for the whole time and we covered it recently.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: Can hardly wait?
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly what is that movie? Tower Records? Empire Records,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Empire Records with some of the cast, in fact, some
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: of the same cast. Yes, a similar kind of like
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Hang nineties movie. I don't know, I never I can't
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: gelll the nineties Hang, even though this is the seventies,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: it's the nineties.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna be your normy friend.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: No, this is good.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: I want I mean, like I wanna. I don't know. Yeah,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: I like a lot of movies that aren't. I mean,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: people love this movie though. That's the other thing, is like,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: this is a good movie.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: I'm told it's like well crafted. It's just that most
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: of the characters are absolutely despicable and very hard to
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: root for sure looking at it through a twenty twenty
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: five lens.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: Which is true of a lot of high schoolers to
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: this day.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, But I even feel like the hazing stuff felt
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: like in the nineties, okay, question mark.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and now it's just.
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: So loaded with Trump and ice and all of these
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: terrible things that like, I can't it's hard to go
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: back and be like, oh, yeah, that was cool, right.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: So anyway, I saw it for the first time back
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: in the day about twenty years ago, and I too
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: find Dick Link aka Richard Link later a versatile director
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: in that sometimes I love his movies aka The Before Trilogy,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: and sometimes I don't love his movies aka Dazed and Confused.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: But we'll talk more in the meantime. Let's take a
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: quick break and then we'll come back for the recap.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: And we're back. Okay, So preface for the recap. There's
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: like eight thousand characters in this movie. A lot of
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: stuff happens. I'm gonna kind of like skip over some stuff,
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: but i feel like I've got the core beats.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: So this movie is basically a day in the life
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: of a bunch of teams on their last day of
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: school in Austin, Texas in nineteen seventy six. It is
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: mostly teens who are about to be seniors and then
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: a few kids who are about to be freshmen. We
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: meet a character named Pink. He's the quarterback of the
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: football team, but he's also hanging out with stoner kids
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: like Slater played by Rory Cochrane, which is one of
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: the actors in Empire Records, as well as a kid
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: named Pickford who is throwing an end of school party
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: that night. Pink is also friends with a group of
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: like I guess, kind of bookish teens who play poker together.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Featuring another recent actor on the Pod, Anthony Rap. Anthony
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Rap's jawline in the nineties was like hard to wrap
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: your head around, like it's in a good way, but
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: you're like, whoa, how is this physically possible?
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: Sure? Yeah, we talked about him on our recent episode
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: on Adventures and Babysitting. He plays a character named Tony.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: And then we also have Mike played by Adam Goldberg,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: as well as Cynthia played by Marissa Rabisi, who is
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Giovanni Ribisi's twin sister.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, missus scientology herself exactly, Ohn, Are they scientologists?
• 16:29
  Speaker 6: Oh?
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, they are lifelong good grief well shit anyway,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: So we have those trio of characters, we meet some more.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Football players like Don Benny, question Mark name.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: A generic white guy named It's someone in the movie.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: And then we'll eventually meet O'Banion, which is Ben Affleck's character.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: And the two things with the football players are that
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: they're debating on whether or not to sign this pledge
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: from their coach that they won't drink or do drugs
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: over the summer. And the other thing is that they're
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: obsessed with beating the shit out of freshmen. Those are
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: the two things.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Like above anything else in their lives. Yeah, I knew
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: older kids that really thrived when bullying others and not
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: to handage to them, but they usually did have like
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: a second thing they did, but obeyed. Like it's no
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: wonder he was held back. He treats it like a job.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Full time job.
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I've never seen a class of almost seniors pay
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: so much attention to freshmen ever in my entire life.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Right, well, actually this is a good point to ask,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: like what was what were your respective high school experiences,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: because I my high school was really big and so
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: like this might have happened, but it would have been
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: like with a specific social group, like no one knew
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: who each other was. And I am grateful for that
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: because I think I would have been bullied worse if
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I was in a small school and people could keep
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: track of you. But like there were five thousand kids,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: so who oh my god. If someone was giving you
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: a hard time, you just sort of had to wait.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: You'd lose them eventually.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: My high school experience was kind of bizarre. We had
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: grades seven through twelve all in the same building.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: Oh that's a lot.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Oh whow so we had like twelve year olds going
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: to school alongside eighteen year olds. That doesn't sound smart.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: It was bizarre, And yeah, it was very small. I
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: would say it was probably only about it was like
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: usually one hundred or one hundred and twenty students per
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: graduating class. So what's that like eight hundred seven hundred kids?
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: And I was a weird mix of like I was
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: kind of a jock honestly, but not like a toxic
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: bullying kind. I just like played a lot of sports.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: But then I was also like a mathlete, and I
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: don't know, I like ran in a few different circles.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: That's the key. If you're a t if you're a teenager,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: that's the Yeah. Because I did like dorky stuff, all
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: of it possible. But I also was on the dance team,
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: and I feel like that was my saving grace. Sure
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, where there was one
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: thing that was quote unquote socially acceptable, right, I just
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: have one socially acceptable skill.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Maris, how about you?
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: I was a theater kid. Nice, but I also I
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: felt like a lot of high school for sure passed
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: me by, probably for the best.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: I think that's probably for the best.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was about to say, it's like I enjoyed
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: high school more than I enjoyed college, which I think
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: is unusual. Yeah, but I do feel like really thriving
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: in either of those faces is like dream bigger.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which is like sort of the ethos at the
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: end of the movie where yeah, what's his face? Pink
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: is like if I ever say that these are the
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: best years of my life, like that fucking sucks. And
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: then the other kid is like, well, yeah, but I'm
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: gonna make the best of my time here while I'm
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: stuck here, and it's like, yeah, but also your idea
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: of like making the best of it is beating the
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: shit out of children, so we're not too sure about that. Yeah,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: I have some notes, Okay, So yeah, that's the whole
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: thing with these like senior football players is that they
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: relentlessly bully and physically abuse children. And there's one kid
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: in particular who they're after, Mitch, and then he has
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: a few like freshman boy pals who are also targets,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: and the seniors chase these freshmen to one of the boys' houses,
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: but the kid's mom pulls a shotgun on Ben Afflex character.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: One of my favorite moments of the movie.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: I think, yeah, one of the only moments when there's
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: an adult who does something, which so that's fine, I know.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Right, And the thing with Obanyon ben afflex character is
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: that he's like particularly thirsty for the blood of children. Anyway,
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: make no mistake, the boys aren't the only ones terrorizing
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: younger people, because meanwhile, the senior girls, such as characters
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: played by Parker Posey and Mila Djovovich, is there, among
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: others wilds. They are also bullying, slash hazing freshman girls
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: by squirting. I would say hot dog condiments, yes, onto them.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about it. I was like, ultimately it's
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: corn dog coated because of the flower Ah. I see, yes,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: they're frying in the sun.
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: Oh.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I saw the vision for this vicious bullying. Yeah, I
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: saw the vision. I think they're at least creative about it. Yeah.
• 22:10
  Speaker 5: But then they get put on leashes towards the end
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: of the frying yeah, and that seems to have nothing
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: to do with corn dogs no, and.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Then they just kind of start free wheeling it. So,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: like I was reading about just like general production stuff,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: especially when it's like earlier in a director's career, I'm like,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: I think that they just had to do that, and
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: that is in fact what happened. They like were in
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: a hot parking lot, not wearing sunscreen, having ketchup poured
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: all over them, and you're just like, Dick, Dick, come on,
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: come on, you can't actually turn your young actors into
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: hot dogs. It's a bad look.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Anyway, so we meet some of these girls and
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: if you're wondering if we will really get to know
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: any of them, well the answer is no, aside from
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: kind of Parker posey, but not really. And then also
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: this freshman girl, Sabrina, who ends up linking up with
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: a senior boy, Tony, the Anthony Rapp character, and we
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: can talk more about that, but basically Sabrina ends up
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: kind of befriending this senior girl, Jodie, where it's that
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: idea that if the younger teens can withstand the hazing
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: from the older kids, then they're cool enough to hang
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: around the seniors. So then Slater and Pink head to
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Pickford's house. He's the one who's throwing the party that
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: night because his parents are heading out of town. But
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: then the beer keg delivery guy shows up early and
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Pickford's dad realizes what's going on, so his parents decide
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: to stay home and Pickford has to cancel the party.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I guess that's the second responsible parent he's scary. Yes, yeah,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: but that is I guess responsible parrot number two, right,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: maybe the final one.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: Right? And now this means that all of the other
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: teens have to figure out something else to do that night.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: Some of them just kind of drive around for a while.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: The football players head to the freshman's baseball game to
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: go after Mitch. They capture him and beat him with
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: a paddle. Then Pink, who goes easy on Mitch, invites
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: him to hang There's like a similar dynamic between Jody
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: and Sabrina where Pink kind of befriends Mitch, and then
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: he and Wooterson, the Matthew McConaughey character, who is famously
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: a lot older than the high school kids that he
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: hangs out with. They take mitche to this like pool
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: hall place where Mitch meets a sophomore girl, Julie, who
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: he thinks is cute. Meanwhile, the freshman boy's minus Mitch,
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: so like just Mitch's friends are leaving a junior high
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: dance ready to become men, aka, they're ready to objectify
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: women even harder.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is another movie where it's not the worst
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: offender of this by far. And I'm curious what you
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: both think about it, because I'm like, I feel like
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: it's maybe a teeny bit aware of it, but then
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: later not as much. But how like all of the
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: boys treat girls horrible at one point or another. I
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: think that ultimately, unfortunately, Richard Linkliner's allegiance is still with
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: the nerdy guys even though they do say and do
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: many of the same things that the jocks are doing.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: They're just more aware of it. Yeah, which kind of
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: makes it worse. Which is the thing that we talk
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: about all the time with like these like eighties, nineties,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Stock two thousands stock geek characters that like get the girl.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Because and this is a generalization, but it is true,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: dorks are the ones that end up directing movies, and
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: so that's why you see that so often. There's an
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: element of wish fulfillment. I can say that because I'm
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: one of them, but that they are kind of behaving similar,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: if not identically, to the like antagonist jocks.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: It's almost like the logic is, yeah, the nerds are
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: similarly toxic and horrible toward girls and women, but they
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: do it a little differently than the jocks, so it's
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: actually fine.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: They put a little intellectual twist on misogyny, and we
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: love that.
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna give them one credit, which is that they
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: do hang out with the Marissa Rabisi character.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: Yes, and she is an ee ish character.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she is one of the women or the you know,
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: teen girls who gets more characterized than the others.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I wish that Richard linklater had more of an interest
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: in that character because I feel like there's a lot
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: going on with her that I felt like in a
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: good and bad way, kind of not seen but like,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: well we'll get to. Specifically, when the McConaughey character starts
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: to hit on her, like, it's not dealt with well
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: in the movie, but I was like, that's like a
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: dynamic that happened for sure. Is like dorky girl or
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: like art girl feeling recognized and like attractive to an
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: older person who is ultimately taking advantage of her. That
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: happens all the time. If only he had interest in
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: exploring how complicated and toxic those dynamics are, right.
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: Rather than just being like she won right right.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: That is where they leave it, like and she's going
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: to the Aerosmith concert because he's like he's fifty five
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: years It's so wild because it's like they have to
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: keep calling Matthew McConaughey old because he is basically everyone
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: else's age. I didn't realize that Joey Lauren Adams is
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: older than him.
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah by a year, and Parker Posey too, and yeah,
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: so it's like Matthew McConaughey, I think they like they
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: make him up.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Well, but he is twenty four in this movie. You
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: shouldn't be hanging out with high schoolers. But they talk
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: about him like he's like he's like their parents. Yeah,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: because they're like, he graduated high school when we were three.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: I was like brutal, I know. I was like, was
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: that hyperbole or not? Hard to say? Probably, But in
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: any case, we're with the freshman boys for a moment,
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: and then Obanion and some of the other football players
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: start chasing them down and they catch and flog a
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: kid named Hirschfelder who had just been making out at
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: the junior high dance with.
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: A with a girl who clearly stuffs her bra with
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: two pairs of socks.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, good for her. Then we cut to I
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: think the pool hall again, where a bunch of teens
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: are it's hard to keep track of who everyone is
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: and where they are.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a vibes movie. Es. Yeah, you're just like, Hey,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: at some point the characters started blurring together, and I'm like,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I have to be okay with this.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Well, so many of them look alike. They all have
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: a very similar hairstyle, well, bottoms, yeah, same clothes. Yeah,
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: way too many of them are white people. So yeah,
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: but this is the part of the movie where Woodterson
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: aka Matthew McConaughey's character says the infamous line of I
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: get older, but high school girls stay the same age.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: The line that launched a thousand products at Spencer's Gifts.
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: Oh god, yikes. Okay, So then the football boys and
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Mitch drive around. They smash some mailboxes and car windows
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: for fun. Then a man whose mailbox was smashed comes
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: after them with a gun he's shooting at them. They
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: speed away, and they head back to the pool hall,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: where this guy named Melvin has Mitch by him a
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: six pack of beer, and Mitch is able to convince
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: the store clerk that he's eighteen, even though he's visibly fourteen.
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: So, yuh, I feel like the seniors look like grown
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: adults and the freshmen are children. Yeah, and yet somehow
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: was the legal age eighteen drinking ages back.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Then in the seven Yeah, it was.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: I had to look this up.
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: Okay, that makes it a little bit better.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: What is the year that changed?
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Nineteen eighty four? I think?
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, because I think, but yeah, I'm pretty sure that
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: my dad was cool in high school, which is like
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: so weird to think about because I would say he's
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: a very uncool adult. But this is like literally exactly
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: when my parents were in high school. M like, my
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: dad used to throw a house party. He was famous
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: for throwing like house party ragers, and I was.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: Like, whoa, I know he was the Pickford of the group.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: I guess none of this trickled down in the bloodline.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: The wanting to be at a party really did not
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: get down to be in my brother. But I do
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: remember that they used to be like we just got
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: in under the wire. We could drink when we were
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: eighteen and rem because my aunt was like younger than
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: him and she was able to drink. And then she wasn't.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: She was like this cusp and she took that personally right.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: So Mitch was able to buy this beer. His friends
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: approached him outside the liquor store to be like, hey,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: let's get back at ben Affleck for kicking our asses,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: and they pour a bucket of paint on him on
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: the Obanian carear and he's humiliated. He freaks out and
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: storms off, and then at some point Woodson announces that
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: there's a party later on at the Moon Tower. Then
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: he bumps into Cynthia and Mike and Tony while they're
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: driving around, and Wooderson takes a liking to Cynthia and
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: she's into it, though her friends Mike and TONI are like, ooh,
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: that guy's a creep. He's way older than you, and
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: she's like ha ha.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: So what I actually thought that scene was again like
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: a missed opportunity because it did feel like, again like
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: a real life dynamic of the guys are like, that's
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: so fucked up you would, And then ultimately they're going
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: to go with where the social capital is, so of
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: course they're always gonna do it right, which is a
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: very unfortunately teenaged thing.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: Right because that scene ends with well are we still
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: going to go to the party, and they're like yeah,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: let's go. Yeah, but is there commentary?
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: No? I mean, that's that's the whole problem. Is and
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: here's this thing you probably recognize. I don't have anything
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: to say about it, but there it is. It is okay, cool.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Then we cut to everyone arriving at the party
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: at the Moon Tower. Mike gets in a little tiff
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: with some agro dude named Clint.
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: I am sorry to announce that I looked him up
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: because he's in a lot of Dick's movies and he
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: he died by suicide last year.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Oh oh, that's horrible.
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: Sorry that brought it down.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: No, I mean his character will later beat the shit
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: out of Mike in a scene that again, like there
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: could have been more commentary on the Mike character, because
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: he starts out kind of one way and then he
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: almost like Arcs so for the course of this one
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: day where he's like, you know what, I'm gonna lean
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: into being toxic and shitty, and then he incites this
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: this fight with this guy. So that that happened. Other
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: things are happening, such as Tony and Sabrina link up.
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: This is the like kind of bookish Anthony Rapp character
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: who is a senior and Sabrina is a freshman. Then
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: we've got Pink having to decide if he's gonna quit
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: football or not. And then he also cheats on his
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: girlfriend Simone with Jody, and we're sort of like, who
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: are either of those people?
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: I know, I wouldn't have known. I wouldn't have known
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: a thing. I was like, I think they both had
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: brown hair.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: No one of them is blonde.
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: Didn't know Joey Lauren Adams has a higher voice.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: That's how you know.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she has a soft voice. I wrote down because
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: I had to, literally, like, I hate doing this, but
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: to differentiate the teen girls in this movie, I was like, yeah,
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: she's the one with longish blonde hair, and then this
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: other one is the one with shorter blonde hair, and
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: then this one is the redheaded one. Because we know
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: so a little about each one that you sort of
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: have no choice but to identify them by their hair color. Anyway,
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: that's happening. Mitch is flirting with Julie, that sophomore girl.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: Then the party winds down and a few of the
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: teens head to the football field to smoke weed. The
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: cops bust them. I think I'm pretty checked out at
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: this point, honestly. The next morning, the coach b rates
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: Pink for hanging out with his stoner friends, and Pink
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: is like, you know what, screw you man, And I
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: think that's the climax of the movie.
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: A thing that I realized I misremembered about the film
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: was watching it this time. I thought that Pink had
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: like a kind of the graduate moment at the end,
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: like makes a decision and then has a moment of doubt.
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: But there's nothing on his face at all. Nope, he's
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: just not reflecting I think at all.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: I feel like you could definitely see it both ways.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: I didn't feel strongly about it either way. I could
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: see that, like I don't know, it feels like we're
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: pink Lands, is that he probably still wants to play football,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: but he doesn't want to like have the terms dictated
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: to him.
• 36:22
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: I mean, you could look at it like this is
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: a story about a kid who is like trying to
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: defy the sort of authoritarian control of the older generation
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: and like push society or at least his football team's
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: dynamic in a more progressive way. But on the other hand,
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: it's like the big arc of this movie is the
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: star quarterback of the football team deciding to like say
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: fuck you to his coach, and it's sort of like
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: cool story, bro.
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: But he decides to do drugs and drink instead, which.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: Is yeah, and cheat and his girlfriend, so you know,
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: could have been slightly more meaningful, but here we are.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: And then the movie basically ends with Pink and his girlfriend,
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: Simone and Woodson and Slater just driving around and smoking doobies.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Going to the Aerosmith concert.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: Woo the end. So let's take a quick break and
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: we'll come back to discuss Where shall we start, Maris,
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: Is there anything that jumps out to you?
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: I want to always start with Parker Posey in this
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: because another thing I misremembered was how much of the
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: movies she's in. She's like a very secondary character, third
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: character tertiary, Yeah, tertiary.
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: And yet I just she is so memorable.
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: When I think of the movie, I think of her first,
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: and then to realize that, aside from the one scene
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: with the hazing, she doesn't really get to do anything.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which is sort of all of the women in
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: the movie, as we were already hinting at.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: I found it was almost a ten year old article,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: but I thought it was interesting. It was a bitch
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: media article about sort of how women are portrayed throughout
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Richard Linkletter's catalog. Obviously there's a lot of variants because
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: his movies are so like he also did the Before trilogy,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: but men are definitely at the center of his movies,
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: especially his comedies. And it's especially because it's like, there
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: are women in this movie, but when you bounce back
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: and forth constantly like we do from like cars full
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: of boys and cars full of girls, it's just so
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: obvious who he's interested in. Because one of the most
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: bummer things because it was a scene that I was like, ugh,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: I wish that there was more the scene you get
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: where Parker Posy and Joey Adams are in the car
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: and they're like, what did they call me? Well, he
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: called you a bitch and he called she called you
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: a slut or whatever like, and it's just like the
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: most it feels improvised, And it turns out it's because
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: it was improvised. Oh, Parker Posy asked if they could
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: just film something because so much of the scenes with
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: the girls had been cut out of the movie that
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: I think, kind of in an act of desperation, she's like, here,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: just let's do this, and they like improvised that whole seed,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: which is why it's kind of like half baked and
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: sloppy for her, right, I was like, in retrospect, I'm like,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: I guess I am glad that's there because it was
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: almost replaced with nothing, and it seems like, yeah, the
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: citation was a book that I don't have, but they
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: just cite a book that references the production of this
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: movie where Richard linklater basically admits that he cut out
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: because they shot a lot for this movie because it
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: was so loose. The actors had a lot of say
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: and what their characters said and did, like most of
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: his movies, and then he just ended up cutting into
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: the scenes with the women pretty intensely.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: And you can tell.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: You can tell, cause where are they.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there are a lot of them, but none of
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: them necessarily aside from Parker Posey. And that might just
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: be because we already, like with this hindsight, we know
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: who Parker Posey is, and we know how dynamic of
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: an actor she is and how memorable of a presence
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: she can have on screen. But like again, her character
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: is given basically nothing. All the other teen girl characters
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: are given less basically nothing. We might learn some of
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: their names, other names, we don't know. The Mili Joviovic
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: character doesn't even say a single word.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Again. Richard linklater said she didn't really gel with the group,
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: and so he cut all of her scenes. She had
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: an arc and he just cut it. I was like,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: it's Milijovivich, it's your fault if she'd you know, yeah,
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: write a better character.
• 41:13
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: And you know, she ended up marrying the guy who
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: played her boyfriend in real life. Oh, I didn't know
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: that when she was like still a teenager, you know,
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: because she was I think sixteen when the movie was shot.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: So she obviously vibed well with someone somewhere.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: You know, right, Is it Pickford who she's dating, the
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: kid who was supposed to throw the party?
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: Yes?
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: I think that's who she's like with. But it's also hard.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: It took me forever to figure that out because when
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: she's on screen, she's not saying anything or doing she
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: does paint those like kiss statues. Yeah, but that's sort
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: of it. And then yeah, the other characters, like there
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: will be like an interesting moment here or there, but
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: they're so fleeting, especially compared to how the men are
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: character that you kind of forget who was that girl
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: again and what's her thing. There's a part where one
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: of the girls, which one I don't remember her name,
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: if she even has a name, but she's talking about
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: how Gilligan's Island, Oh yeah, is this like pornographic fantasy
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: for men? Because she's like, yeah, it's you know, these
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: male characters being stranded on an island with a sexy
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: lady and then like an approachable girl next door type.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: So you got the Madonna horror complex. And that's like
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: an interesting start to examining media.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Right, we don't need high school girls to be operating
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: at PhD analysis levels.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: They're talking right, and then but her friends are just
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: like whatever I thought the captain was sexy, and then
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: like end of scene, we never see her again. Maybe
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: I don't even know.
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: I think she shows up at the party, but because
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: I remember pink pan that's.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, okay, that's that was my that's the north Star.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: Pink pants, short, dark brown bob, I think is how
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: we know her.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Basically, there were these scenes that felt I mean, I
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: think the reason that this movie is tricky to cover
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: on this show specifically is because I don't think that
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: this movie, Like part of the approach to this movie
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: is that it isn't trying to comment on anything really,
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: and like reading about how Richards lank Later was making this,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: it seems like that is very tied into what the
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: movie is supposed to be. But even so, it's like
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: the men have stories that start an end, Like even
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: though there the stories are relatively low stakes, like whatever,
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: that's great, but like how Pink is supposed to sign
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: the piece of paper and at the end he says,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: fuck the piece of paper, I don't want to sign it. Mitch,
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: he has a whole arc of like this is his
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: first party, and it's like if there are women who
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: have arcs, it's generally like it ends with them kissing
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Anthony rap Like is there any other girl besides Sabrina
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: And she's the only technically the only woman or girl
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: in the movie that has like an arc that starts
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: an ends.
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: I think, so I would argue that maybe Cynthia, she
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: is the redhead.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, oh, I guess I guess she'd But also
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: it is just tied to like and then I met
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: a guy, a guy.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: Who is this is the one of the like very
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: obvious things for us to talk about on this show.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: As far as his famous line of Oh, that's what
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: I love about high school girls. I get older, they
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: stay the same age. And that is something that you know,
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: a statutory rapist might say, right.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Which is the joke.
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: Unfortunately it's the joke, and the girls are interchangeable to
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: him and to the film like that that is part
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: of it too, And then I always get caught up
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: in the what is he saying that?
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: I think part of the reason that that character has
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: the legacy that it does is because of the approach
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: that Richard Linklader takes is he's just presenting this guy
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: and not commenting on this type of guy at all,
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: which makes it really easy for like Spencer's gift stores
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: for decades to come to just be like, this guy's awesome.
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: That must have been what he was saying. I was
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: like looking into the cast, because they cast mostly locally
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: for this movie, and I was like, I haven't. I
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: don't think I've seen the actress who plays Sabrina and
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: anything else. And it's because she quit acting in the
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: late nineties and became an anti war activist.
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: Oh wow, oh that's cool.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: And she is to this day. Hmm, so good for Kristin,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Hina Jessa nice. But in any case, it's almost hard.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: It's like it's hard to think of something to say
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: about the Matthew McConaughey character that probably hasn't been said already,
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: but like I tend to agree.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: Well, there's like a quick moment as he's gearing up
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: to spew his rapie rhetoric that one of the characters
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: I think it's down maybe or someone says to the
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: Waterson character like, oh, you're gonna end up in jail
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: sometime soon because of his interest in minors. But that's
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: such a throwaway line, it's not what anyone remembers. It's
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: not like challenging his behavior nearly enough. Similar there's a
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: part where the senior girls are hazing the freshman girls
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: and making them like propose to senior boys and being
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: like I'll do anything, spit or swallow whatever, and then
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: Slater says, oh, it's so degrading, But he's also like
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: laughing as he's saying this, and again not challenging any
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: one of his friends. And then later that same character says,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: the girls in our class are all prudes, worthless, little bitches, right.
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: So you know, there's one thing I want to go
• 47:26
  Speaker 5: back to with Waterson m hm. And maybe this is
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: me just try like being generous. But I thought that
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: when he walks into the pool hall and the song
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: that's playing is Dylan's Hurricane m and he's walking in
• 47:47
  Speaker 5: there so seriously that you are meant to be laughing
• 47:51
  Speaker 5: at him there.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: I could see that, I get to yeah, but also
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: that is possibly a generous read.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm trying to think of other characters that meet
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: this if like this isn't a good comparison Good Fellas
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: go with, be here of like characters that the director
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily respect or be like, look at this awesome guy.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: But that's the cultural takeaway. I think there's an argument
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: for that here. But I also feel like Richard Linklater
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: is saying like, because a good fella is Scarsese is
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: like these guys are bad, these guys are sucking their lives. Yeah, right,
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: and Richard Linklater sort of yeah, again, it's tricky because
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: he's just like, here's this guy, what do you think
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: of him? Which is an approach.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: But I did keep waffling back and forth on this
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: where I was like Okay, is this commentary in the
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: sense that it is presenting very obviously shitty and abusive behavior,
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: and then we're just sort of meant to like take
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: this in as the audience and be like, yes, that's
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: super shitty, or is it simply just presenting it and
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: being like pretty wild teenagers in the seventies. Huh. But
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: I ultimately concluded that it's sort of like a history
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: was written by the victors, where like the ruling class
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: of a typical American high school is the characters who
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: are the most focused on in this movie. You know,
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: the football playing jocks, the pretty popular people who tend
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: to abuse their high social status. Not all of them.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: You know, that's a sweeping generalization, but it's pretty common
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: and there's reason a lot of movies are about it.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: But again, yeah, it just feels to me ultimately like
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: the movie is presenting this just being like, yeah, kids
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: got into some bad stuff, and maybe even some of
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: them deserve to be punished, such as Obanion, Like he
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: gets his come upance by having the paint dumped on
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: him and he's humiliated. But also it feels like the
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: movie treats him almost like, well, yeah, he's the one
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: bad apple, but the other jock bullies are nice. Actually,
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: maybe because they befriend the kids who they beat the
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: shit out of.
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: So here's a question.
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like when I first saw this movie,
• 50:18
  Speaker 5: I thought like, is there like a high school fraternity
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: and sorority system?
• 50:23
  Speaker 4: Like is there a Greek system?
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: Like what are they being hazed for?
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: And if they're being hazed, how do they choose which
• 50:33
  Speaker 5: people get haste? Like with the with the guys, it's
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: a little easier because you see sports and like you
• 50:39
  Speaker 5: can imagine that they then grow up to play on
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: the same teams and right, but like, how is Parker
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: posey yelling at a random thirteen year.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Old She literally just goes up to Sabrina, who is
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: not yet participating in the being hazed. She's chosen, Yeah,
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: basically because she's like, she's attractive. Yeah, if she wants
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: to be popular, if she wants to have all this
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: social capital, then she has to be hazed because that
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: means we'll take her under our wing and haes her,
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: but then ultimately befriend her. I guess I was.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: Also kind of puzzled by that to the point where
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: I was like, is it a small town thing. Is
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: it a seventies thing? Is it completely made up? Any
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: of these answers could be true. I don't, yeah, because
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: it is like the girls are being hazed for something
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: way more general. Yes, yeah, this behavior like it's horrible
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: wherever it is, but it would make more sense in
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: college to me.
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and even just the paddles. The paddles are very Greek.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I didn't get it. And then there's like
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: that scene where Anthony Rapp is like, they're selling concessions.
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: I'm like, they're selling concessions at the hazing ritual. I
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: guess I was like, if that's a thing, my school
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: was different. I don't know, Like kiss got beat up,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: there was bullying, but there weren't concessions. That's wild.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure, but those are some of the
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: few characters who do challenge the behavior of the kids
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: with higher social status around them, and it's predominantly Mike,
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: the Adam Goldberg character, who's like, it's so wild that
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: our school and the entire community seems to just support
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: these hazing rituals. He and Tony ask Sabrina why she
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: would subject herself to this. She kind of has no answer.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: We can presume she wants to fit in and make friends,
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: but there are some of the few characters who are
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: actually challenging this. But then that culminates in Tony kissing
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: a girl who's four years younger than her and in
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: high school, when those four years of development emotionally and
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: like psychologically make a huge difference. Like that is an
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: age gap that I am not okay with. But this
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: happens in like three or four different dynamics throughout the
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: movie where a much older person gets with a much
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: younger person.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean that's the like whattersin and YEAHBC sorry KILLERBC.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Right, but that's presented with like no commentary, just like, yeah,
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: this is how.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: It is, right, I mean it's like and do I
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: believe that happened in the seventies. Yes, But again, like
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: that's the I guess that's the risk of just showing
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: without comment It feels like a tacit or like over
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: kind of endorsement of like nothing nothing wrong with this.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: And again it's like there are interesting dynamics, not with
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: the age gap relationships. I'm talking more about like with
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: the Mic character. Again, it's it wouldn't have been unusual
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: to see that dynamic that we saw of like, this
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: is so fucked up, but I'm too scared to personally
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: do anything about it. Right, that is definitely a relatable thing,
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: But again it's just like it doesn't go anywhere. It
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: just sort of like, I guess, I just don't really
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: like this approach to filmmaking.
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: Like I also wonder though, like I mean, and this
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: might be true for so many different nineties films, like
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: the age I was when I first saw this movie,
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: I didn't have the vocabulary to express why this made
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: me feel weird.
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, anti.
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: Bullying wasn't a thing like that, right, or like it
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: wasn't bullying was just something that happened. And I wonder
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: if there was just so much less demand for him
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: to be the self aware back then.
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: That's what I kept coming back to.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: I would guess so because he does become, like to
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: his credit, way more self aware in future movies.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: He makes way many more thoughtful movies after this.
• 55:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, he.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: Can't do it, which almost makes this movie more frustrating.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: He's choosing not to.
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Right, I guess he learns by the mid to late nineties. Well,
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: that's something I kept coming back to where this movie
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: was released in nineteen ninety three, but it's set in
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: nineteen seventy six, so it has the benefit of over
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: fifteen years of hindsight to make commentary if it wanted
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: to on things like, you know, casual sexism, casual racism,
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: casual homophobia, et cetera. But because it's still the early
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: nineties when this is being written and made, and those
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: were such culturally pervasive attitudes still at that time that, yeah,
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: I think Dick Link just didn't have the where withal.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: No one was asking for it, yeah, right, and I
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: guess he was like, Okay, great, I guess like yeah,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: and even within this like style of filmmaking, there if
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: he had written characters, like if he had written women
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: that had and it's like, who knows, like if those
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: scenes possibly do exist, of is there a scene where
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: we get more context for Parker Posey's character, Maybe, but
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: it was all cut, and like, is there a scene
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: where we get context for Bilee Jova Vicious character? It
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: sounds like we did, but it was all gone. And
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: so it's like if this movie was primarily made in
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: the editing room, that's on him.
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I would say also in the nineties,
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: the idea of a very long music video felt kind
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: of okay and cool. And if you just show a
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: lot of fun images and have a lot of good songs,
• 56:56
  Speaker 5: who cared about the words.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: Right, that's a great way to put it.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: This movie does mostly just feel like a like a
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: best of compilation, like best Songs of the seventies. Yeah, yeah,
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: and there's teenagers there too.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: It's best stock characters of the seventies, scored to what
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: had to have been a soundtrack that took up most
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: of the budget.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: It did, Yeah, Oh it did.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Yep. That's really funny. Sure, I mean, I guess. But
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: also this is just like I love a movie with
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: a lot of great needle drops, but when there's too many, yeah,
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: it was a lot. I'm like insecure, insecure filmmaking. If
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: you need that many needle drops to be like it's
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, it's like, I could I could see that.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: I could see that, we get it.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: Other there were characters that I like to disappeared, I thought,
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: I mean again, she's introduced in very what is this way?
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: They have a teacher who is we are introduced to
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: her by she's getting hit on by a student, and
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think she appropriately pushes back. She kind of
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: rolls her eyes.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: And is like she gives them like a pat on
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: the head.
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but then she does have one of the better
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: lines of the movie before we never see her again,
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: where she's pushing back on celebrating the bisentennial because it
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: was like white slave owners who didn't want to pay
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: their taxes. Good line, which we saw her again, Yeah,
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: but we didn't because again, just like the way that
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: he wrote this is like and people could just disappear
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: at any time.
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: Speaking of which, there's again and I need help finding
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: out what his name was. There's exactly one black character,
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Melvin Melvin. Okay, where again, this is an extremely white movie,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: and Austin in the seventies it was majority white, but
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: there was way more diversity than we see in this movie.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: It seems like they're atam public high school. It doesn't
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: seem like Amy. It's like a middle class public high school.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: It's unrealistic that it's as white as it is, and
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: that the one black character we get to meet is
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: so vague. He's just like another bully, Like we don't
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: know anything about him except here's another bully.
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: He's almost treated the way the teen girls are in
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: the sense that he'll be around, we might recognize him,
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: but he won't really say much. He won't be there
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: super consistently, he won't have his own story arc, nothing
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: No, And again it's like you wonder, like, is there
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: a version of this movie where he had more screen time? Maybe,
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: but we'll never know. But it really like that choice
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: sticks out like a sore thumb here. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: It seems like the storylines that the movie is most
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: interested in are Pink with his like should I succumb
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: to tyranny from my football coach? And Mitch, who is
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: the freshman boy who like shows that he's cool actually
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: because he was willing to be abused by older kids,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: and not that I'm blaming him for that, because again
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: that's this is a familiar dynamic. Younger people and people
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: with lower like social status in high school will generally
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: do things to be accepted and to make friends and
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: things like that. But the story is mostly interested in
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: those two characters and not really anyone else.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: I mean, I could see the case that Sabrina is
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: also meant to be like.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: The Mitch of ladies, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. And
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: it's again it's like, I like Sabrina in the performance,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: like she seems like a sweet kid. Yeah, and I
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: feel like you could feel her predicament where especially in
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: the scenes where she's being torn between it. It sucks
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: that she ends up with the Anthony rap character because
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: again you're presented with an interesting scenario of like, who
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: does she think it's more important to impress boys or
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: the girls who are like exerting this hazing control over her.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: It's an interesting setup.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: Ginger a Marian slutterbitch right right.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: It's like it would be interesting if it went anywhere interesting,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: which it doesn't, and so then it just sort of
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: ends up coming off kind of not as good, I don't.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: Know, pretty flat. I feel like Cynthia also had potential.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: She's the like quote unquote guys gal who only hangs
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: out with other boys, it seems, and again, that was
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: a familiar situation many such cases. You know, that would
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: have been easy to explore a bit further. It would
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: have been easy for her to not end up with
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: a creep, but again the movie didn't really have any
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: interest in doing that. But uh, yeah, she was kind
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: of the one character who I latched onto as far
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: as like, can we know more about her, can we
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: get a little bit more of her insight into the world,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: Because there's a scene where she and Mike and Tony
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: are driving around and they're sort of realizing, Oh, everything
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: that we're doing is in service of the future, But like,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: why don't we live in the now? And maybe that's
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: what compels her to say yes to Waterson's advances. Maybe
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I'm maybe not.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: Giving her enough credit.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: He was a cool guy.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: That's a cool guy.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: Right, what else do you need? If a cool guy
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: is interested in you, you show interests back, because why
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: be introspective about it?
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: I mean right, exactly, Like we are conditioned to think
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: that older, cool dudes are worthy of our attention, and
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: if they pay attention to us, then, oh my gosh,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: that's going to elevate our social capital. That's that like
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: reinforces the worth of a woman quote unquote. So yeah,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: the movie again it presents that without commenting on it.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: But again, it was nineteen ninety three, So still.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: It's just so weird that like his movie after this
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: is the first before movie. Yeah, I always guess it wrong.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: Before Sunrise, Before Sunrise, Yeah, which I guess it also
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: should be reminded that he co wrote that movie with
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: a woman, so it wasn't like he suddenly true he
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: had a deep understanding of women in not in nineteen
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: ninety three, but then suddenly did in nineteen ninety five.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: But still, yeah, I just this movie ends up. It's
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: just I found it very frustrating because it's not trying
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: to say very much.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: For me, it's take an edible turn on this movie.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, watch the.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: Pretty People Go By.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 5: It's a screensaver, Listen to some songs that are now
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: classic rock, and.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: Have an okay night. Yeah.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're a nostalgic for the seventies, this is
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: the movie for you.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: Then you're Richard Lakeletter and here's this.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: And here's this.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: No, not a thought. It's so hard to develop a
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: cochin thought about this movie because like, nothing really happens
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: in the Yeah.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: Well, originally it was supposed to be a movie that
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: took place entirely in a car. It was only going
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: to be a couple shots, but like a full feature still,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: I think, And it was just gonna be characters driving
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: around listening to an entire Zzy Top album, I think
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: is what I read, right, And then link later was like, hmm,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: what if I expand this to represent other points of view?
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: And by that I mean teen boys who are white,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: so it could have been whatever the Zezy Top thing was.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that's that's pretty much all I had. I
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: feel like we were so efficient and I got the
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: discussion out in record time with this one.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, I was like, I feel like, are we
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: missing something I don't. There's not really a lot of
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: Most of the behind the scenes stuff is kind of
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: a bummer, yeah, but mostly anecdotal. The whichever characters. The
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: characters who were getting paddled, their parents called Richard link
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: later and they were like, you have to tell Ben
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: Affleck to paddle soft dar on my son. Wow, Ben
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: Affleck confirmed bully in real life. You have the stories
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: about the like budget nightmare fuel of like, nope, we
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: actually made teenage girls flop around in a hot parking
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: lad in the sun and we forgot to give them sunscreen,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: very indie filmmaker horror story. And then you have I think,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: to me, the biggest bummer is just hearing from Parker
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Posey that there was a lot of stuff shot with
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: their characters. Yeah, it just didn't end up in the movie.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: Can we talk about one moment with Parker Posey that, yes,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 5: I think is the most The only instance of women
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 5: helping women in this film is Renee Zelweger was in
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: this movie.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, what I didn't catch her, blink and you miss her.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: Renee zell Wigger was holding up the funnel wild Parker Posey, chuck.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 5: And that is women helping women.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: And that's that means this movie is a feminist masterpiece.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: It is two time oscar in our humble beginning.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: We all have to start somewhere. I guess you could
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: make the argument that Jody, who befriends Sabrina, now, does
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: that friendship really have any bearing on the story. Do
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: we see that develop in any meaningful way? Do we
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: really see them talk beyond like the one or two
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: scenes they have together that are pretty quick. No, but
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: she does say like, hey, little freshman girl, you're cute,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: so you should be haze And then also you're my
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: friend now, so come to the party later. So maybe
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: that's women helping women.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: And if so, I mean going back to your comment
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: Caitlin about like this big kind of a history written
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: by the victor's kind of vibe is there is this
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: feeling and again, we weren't there for the seventies, so
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: maybe it's true, but there is this feeling that like, oh,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: don't worry if you're being like it's almost feels like
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: this kind of gaslighting of like if if the boy
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: is mean to you, that means he likes you. That's
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: how the bullies are treated in this movie. They're like
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: the bullies. It's not treated like I think most bully
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: characters are now, which is that they are fundamentally insecure
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: and might have other stuff going on in their life
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: that causes them to lash out at other kids like this.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: They're just like they probably like you. They just have
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: to do this. It's their job. The city pays them
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: to hit you with a paddle like and.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: That again reminds me more fraternities than any high school bully.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like high school bullying to me was
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: it was a psychological game.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: It was like, you know, dumping a kid's books as
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: they were walking down the hall sort of thing. But
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: to that point, Jamie, there are a couple scenes where
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: the older boys are talking to Mitch and giving advice
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: on oh, here's how to handle women, and of course
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: it's the worst advice you've ever heard, because things like, oh,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: you want her, well, you got to play it cool,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: and you can't let her know that you like her
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: because if she knows, she'll dump you, which is, you know,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: basically telling a young teen to be really aloof and
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: dismissive about girl's feelings. And then later when he has
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: started to hang out with Julie, Mitch has the older
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: boys are like, oh, you're gonna have sex with her tonight,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: in a way that is very like them encouraging Mitch
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: to be predatory and be like, if you want it,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: take it, it's yours. You deserve it. Oh, you're like,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: it's just horrifying. Does the movie pass the Bechdel test? Though?
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: I think technically it does, which is kind of hilarious.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: Really let me double check, because this we always forget
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: to check this because ultimately it's not what the showsph
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: it's deceptive. I do believe that there's a few sort
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: of passes, but none of it's tricky to like identify
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: what a meaningful conversation in this movie means, I don't
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: know if it passes our version of the Bechtel test,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: where it has to be a meaningful exchange, right, yeah, okay,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: oh this is fun. On Bechdel Test dot com.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: Mm scholarly journal, frequent.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: Resource for this show, there is hot debate the page
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: as it technically passes, but Caroline disagrees with this rating.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: I love Caroline. I think that certainly, even if there's
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: like little two line exchanges that pass, spiritually it doesn't.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 6: NA.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: There's no like relationship between women in this movie that
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: is meaningful, I would say. And there are relationships between men,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: including very toxic relationships, including like pretty positively framed relationships
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: between bullies and their victims yep, as like meaningful young
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: Like I'm not saying that this movie does a lot
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: for men, and it also doesn't do anything for men,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: but like, yeah, with relationships between not men, name a
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: dynamic where that like sticks with you, there just isn't one,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: So spiritually I say, no.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: Pest agree. And that brings us to our nipple scale,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: where we rate the movie on a scale of zero
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: to five nipples, examining it through an intersectional feminist lens
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: and based on everything we've talked about regarding the way
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: the movie treats women in that it's not interested in
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: them at all, the way women and girls are talked
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: about by the characters they you know, mostly men, characters
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: in a horribly dehumanizing and objectifying manner. The utter disinterest
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: in the one character of color, all of that. Uh, honestly,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: I have to give this zero nipples. I don't. I
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: don't think it deserves any more than that.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: The end, I kind of want to give it maybe
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: a half nipple, because there were little things that I like,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: I felt promised in certain scenes and performances. Sure, but
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: the half nipple goes more to the actors who created
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: those moments versus the script or the direction.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: The Parker Posy of it all. For example, Yeah.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna give half nipple because Yeah, Parker Posey put
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: her whole ass into that Parking Loss scene. She is amazing.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: I one of the other movies that I really I
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: saw for the first time recently that I really want
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: to cover his party girl Oh the best because luckily
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: shortly after this, Parker Posy was allowed to fully Parker
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: Posy and was like in the Indie Darling of the century.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think like for moments like that. I
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: really thought that, like Sabrina's performance was very like sweet
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: and understated, and then she became an anti war activist.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: Hard to, hard to. I'm giving it a half nipple,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: and I'm just giving it to the girls. I'm just
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: giving it to the girls.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: All those bitches and sluts.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: All those bitches and sluts can have a little slice
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: of my half nipple.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: Marius, how about you.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm going to go one nipple, partly because I
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 6: don't want to betray child me who saw this and
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 6: really enjoyed it fair, but also yeah, I think it
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 6: all goes back to Renees Alwigger helping Parker posy funnel.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 4: There there's a little.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: Something there, feminist moment. Yeah.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 5: The intersectional part of it, no, not at all abysmal.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: No, there's no intersection. There's just section.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: There's just section there.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and barely even any of that to one. Yes. Nice. Well, Maris,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: thank you so much for joining us in this discussion.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: This was so fun.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: Tell us where people can follow you on social media,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: where people can buy your book, etc.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 5: My book is available wherever books are sold, and you
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 5: can find me at Mariscrisman dot com. That's where you
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 5: can sign up from my newsletter called the Maris Review.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 5: And I'm also on Blue Sky at Maris And yeah,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: please buy my book.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: Kay, please do please, it's amazing great. Well, I think
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: we thoroughly eviscerated this movie. So why don't we get
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: into a beat up old car and go buy Aerosmith tickets?
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: All right, all right, all right, bye bye. The Bechdel
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: Our theme song was composed by Mike capp Ln with
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: vocals by Katherine Voskresenski. Our logo in merch is designed
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: by Jamie Loftus and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: Bechdelcast