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SMNTY Classics: The Fem-Pire Strikes Back · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't go to Stephane.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Never told your protection to I Heart Radio. Samantha. Did
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: you have a favorite toy growing up or one that
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: comes to mind that was really important in your childhood? Yeah,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: so I actually still have it today. It's my blue
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: teddy bear named Blooper. Because I have no imagination. I
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: like it and I loved it because it was reminiscent
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: of a toy that was sent to me by my
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: adoptive parents when I was in the orphanage and Korea,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and before I traveled to the U S. Someone stole
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: it and so I wasn't able to bring it back
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: with me. But when I was here, someone gifted me
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: similar doll that was blue, so that one day sent
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: me was yellow. I did not have a name for that,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: but then came here and so that became the one
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: toy that I actually really really liked. And I will
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: say I didn't have a lot of toys, and I
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't forced myself to like dolls into natty bears like that.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I tried to really get into that because that's what
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: children are supposed to do. But yeah, this is one
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: of the ones that that is most sentimental to me. Yeah,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I had something kind of similar is a really important
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: stepped animal because of it. When I went away to
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: college and I started traveling a lot and I wasn't
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: home that much of my dad gave me this little
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: bear that said someone uh and the Wanaga loves you.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: And it got destroyed by one of our dogs. And
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: it happened to coincide with when my dad and my
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: relationship really fell apart, and I was like really vindictive
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: about it, and now it just makes me sad. Oh wow, Yeah,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: but I was really into I loved my little ponies,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: which I know I've talked about here before and I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: still have them, and there's I have some guilt about
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: that because it's not like I play with them anymore.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: But I'm just like, I love them, so must right, right.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: But I also I love Star Wars. But it was
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: assumed that I was a girl and I didn't want
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Star Wars toys, and so my brothers got all the
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Star Wars toys and I slowly stole them from them,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: and I'll admit it openly, especially Return of the Jedi,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: because it it became uncool to like Return of the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Jedi once you reached a certain age, and so I
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: was able to steal those Return of the Jedi toys.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: And I still have the Battle of Indoor. Oh, I
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: would re enact it. It was so epic, So you're
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: re enacting it now. The walk pretty fantastic, the logs,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: that's pretty fantastic. Not that I approve of stealing, but
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I approve of the fact that, yeah, you know what,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: if they're not gonna give it to you, might as
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: well take it, don't do it. I think this is
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: normal sibling rivalry. I'm sure yeah, they would have so.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: And Plus, my brother played this really men prank ones
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: where he put this voice recorder of my doll and
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: it's said's like I was sleeping within night and it
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: said something like I'm gonna murder you in your state.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: So I think it was fair play. There you go.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Then okay, that's that's a whole new level. Anyway, the
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: reason I'm bringing this up is because we have talked
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: a lot about Star Wars on this show, and we've
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: mentioned this past episode that I did with Bridget several
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: several times about the feminism and Star Wars, and one
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: of the things we talked about a lot in this
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: episode is costuming, but also toys, the importance of toys,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: and when the first movie of the new sequel, Child
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: He came out The Force Awakens, I mean Ray was
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the main character. There were several other characters I would
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: say are very close, but she was like the character
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and you couldn't get toys made of her. It was ridiculous.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And in fact, people would call toy stores and they'd
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: be like, why don't you have this Ray doll? And
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: they'd be like, we have a lot of Kylo Wren
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: and everyone was like, we don't want to with your
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Get out of here. But that is important, and that
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: is a conversation that's still ongoing of like all of
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: these toys kind of trying to be more inclusive with
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: what they offer and be more equal with what they offer.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: So ongoing conversation for sure, but for now, please enjoy
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: this classic episode. Hello, I'm Annie and I'm Bridget and
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: this is stuff Moll never told you. And today is
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: May four, otherwise known as Star Wars Day. May the
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: fourth be with your Bridgets, May the fourth be with
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: you as well, and thank you, thank you um. As
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: you might have guessed from other past episodes, especially action figures.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I'm a bit of a nerd adweve a dork a geek.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I'm a very big Star Wars fan. You seem to
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: like all things science fiction and fantasy. Yes, this is true.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I I even like I write science fiction, which is
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I hear very rare for like joy writing. I don't know,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: because I never intend to publish anything. Um, Luke Skywalker
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: was my first fictional crush. This four year old Annie
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: looking at the screen, and I gave him a kiss
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: on the cheek. Why were you so drawn test Star
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Wars so early? It's funny because I actually didn't like
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Star Wars at first, because I didn't buy The Force
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: as a young kid. I was like no, But um,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: everyone in my family liked it, and I did have
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: a crush on Luke Skywalker, even if I had my
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: problems with the Force. I think it was just kind
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: of a thing where I kept getting watched in my house,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: and slowly but surely I got over my my issues
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: and fell in love with all the characters. And for
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: a while I was watching all of the original trilogy
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: every at least once a year, and I wore out
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: the tape. When you watch it there's like parts are
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: funny because you watched it so many times you'd be
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: wound it. Yes, and specifically certain parts that I would like.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: This one section I would watch. What section was that
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: It was the end of a new hope, the big
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: battle with the Death Star. Yeah, yeah, I liked a
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: good space battle. Like so here in the studio y'all
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: can't see. But in classic antie style, she came dressed
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: to impressed. You do this, only I get to see it,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: and it's amazing. She's wearing her Star Wars shirt the
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Empire Strikes Back and space leggings. Yeah, I got like
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the galaxies on them. Yeah, it's cooler than it sounds. Everybody.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: The Empire Strikes Back is my favorite. It is not
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the most feminist Star Wars movie, because we are talking
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: about feminism and Star Wars today. Yes, when Virget she
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: sent me an email was like, can you come up
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: with an angle on Star Wars and feminism? I had
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: like two seconds later, I've got a million ideas well.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: This is actually probably a good time to confess something,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: which is I just from knowing you personally, I know
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: you love Star Wars, but I I've never seen Star Wars.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen any of them, not a single. Actually,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: when I was that's not true. I was on a
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: plane to l a h two weeks ago and the
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: movie they were playing with Star Wars, but I didn't
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: have headphones, so I watched part of it. I was
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: very confused. It seems like a good movie. I wish
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I had gotten the headphone. Which one was it? Do
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: you know? It was the Oh god, it was the
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: one I hate. I almost said something that I feel
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: like people would try to get fired, and I said it, Uh,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the one with the girl, the most recent one. Well,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the most of the recent ones have ladies, and that
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the one with Ray. She's in more than one. Okay,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: but I don't know. It's okay, we we forgive you,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: bridget Well. This is why I think this episode is
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: good because in my experience, people either love Star Wars
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and they have they had a encyclopedic knowledge of it
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: and what it means, and it means it means something
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: very personal to them, or they have a super cash
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: relationship with it, or haven't seen it. So this isn't
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: This is maybe representing that balance a little bit, the
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: balance of the floors. Oh my gosh, I get that reference. Yes, yes,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And speaking of um, I've tasked Bridget with making sure
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: that I don't go too deep into Star Wars nurgery
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: where no one can understand what I'm saying. I'm sure
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be fine. I hope, so, I hope so
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: UM and I used to be a much bigger are
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: not bigger, but I was maybe a more obsessed fan
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I was. I. I would read all the books, and
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I had the mix, and I add the video games,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: and now I kind of just see the movies and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: enjoy them. So I'm not the same level of encyclopedic
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: knowledge that I once was, but for a period, well,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I almost feel a little bit jealous of people who
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: are into Star Wars because there's there's so much lore,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: there's so many ways to be into it, and so
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: you know, if you like other kinds of films, you know,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: let's say that you really like Richard link Later films
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, there's not like you can't get action
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: figures and memorabilia and do fan fixure. There's there's so
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: much to the universe, I guess, and that being being
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: fans of other kinds of film does not lend itself
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: easily to that kind of being able to dive in
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: into this like very vast, rich universe. And that's something
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: I've always really liked about Star Wars, even though I'm not,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: you know, a big fan myself, that it allows for
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: that kind of expansion of a fandom. That you can
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: be a fan and express that through writing, and there's
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: a community for that, express that through cosplay. There's a
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: community for that. Like whatever way that that interest manifests
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: for you, there's a community out there doing that, which
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: is quite interesting, and not a lot of things are
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, it's cool that you can enter kind
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: of at various points and are from various angles, like
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: say you like costuming and then you get into Star
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Wars that way. That it's it's interesting that there's just
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: all of these sorts of fans co mingling. Well, that's
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: actually the if I had to say the way that
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I appreciate Star Wars, it's through Carrie Fisher because I'm
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a huge but I know her more as like a
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: writer and humorist and so I'm a huge fan of
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: saucy sassy ladies, and she is a saucy, sassy lady.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: And so even though my connection with her is is
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: not through that particular film series, I I definitely think
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: like that, like that is my thread for appreciating the genre.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: You know, she was in Scream three, she wasn't. I'm
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: so glad. I know you can't get me a Carrie Fisher.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: What was she in? Excellent? I was thinking that, like
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: back to our horror movie episode Carrie Fisher, it all
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: comes you should have talked about her, Well, we had
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: other things to discuss. Well, well, well we'll we have
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: to do a whole episode on her. Yes, and one
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: day we need to do an episode on something that
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: you're a total fan for. Oh, there's so many things excellent, excellent.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: But today we're looking at Star Wars and feminism in
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Star Wars because there are so many angles to look
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: at it. But I thought we'd do kind of an
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: overview of where we are, because right now we're in
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: prime Star Wars time, Like there's a new movie coming
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: out every year, and it is changing a lot as
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the audience kind of expects that and demands that and
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: as times have changed, So there is a lot to
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: talk about. Um, if we look at when Star Wars
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: first came out. It had what I think is typically
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: has been the aastic trio of two white men and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: one white lady. So you have Han Solo, Luke Skywalker,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Princess Leiah, who was of course a princess. But I
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: would say she was still a pretty strong character. She
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: was a rebel, she was a fighter. Later she was
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: a general um and there is that element of damsel
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: in distress, the whole help me will be one kenobe
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: 're my only hope um, the whole slave bikini thing
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and return of the Jedi, which was totally to make
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: her more palatable to the male gaze. Yeah, and she
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: like kills Jab of the Hut with her change, and
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: she kind of became a bit of a a resistance
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: icon for a little bit. She did that like a
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: people use that as a kind of feminist expression of
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: rage killing killing your captor with the chains that he
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: that he locked you up with, which is so much
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: is rad like that's it is it is um. Yeah,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: And she was a feminist icon for the time, and
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I would say pretty progressive for the time, which was
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: around nineteen evan. And because of that, she did ruffle
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: some some feathers. Review of a New Hope which was
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the first one. The fourth one it gets very confusing,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: but the first one to come out. UM Critic John
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Simon wrote that Princess Leah was played wretchedly by Carrie Fisher,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: who is not even appealing as Princess Leiah organa parentheses
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: in organic l what this is a review like a
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: critical This is critic. I want to look about the
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: angry letter like thirty years later, Bridget Justice. Hey, revenge
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: is a dish best serve cold. This is true, not
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: from Star Wars, from Star Trek Boom. Oh yeah, you
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: nailed it, Bridget. Yes, I have like very loose ideas
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: for a Revenge bakery that I want to open. Um,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: so maybe we'll he'll be one of our first customers. Okay,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: we definitely need a table and come. Return to the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: concept of Revenge Bakery. Yes, I would love to talk
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: about that more in depth. But um, speaking of Carrie
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Fisher and I love for Carrie Fisher. Um. One of
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: my favorite facts about her is that a friend, a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: friend of her, screenwriter Heather Robinson, had to fight off
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: a predatory Hollywood producer, and Fisher delivered to him by
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: hand a tiffany box containing a cow tongue inside with
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the added touch of a threatening note just to really
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: get the message home. And according to Robinson, the note read,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: if you ever touch my darling, Heather or any other
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: woman again, the next delivery will be something of yours
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and a much smaller box. Damn right. So this is
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: why I love her like even if that's First of all,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: if that works on two levels. One, if that story
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: is true. Wow, to that story is not true. Just
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: imagine the lore has to surround you for that to
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: be the rumor about you and for it to be believable. Yeah,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the fact that we don't know if it's true or not.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Just show us what a badass she was. Yes, you were,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Like I can see her doing that. I totally can
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: see her hearing that. Um. Both the original trilogy and
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: the prequels had a strong female character, but once that
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: straddled being badass with being that demsel damsel that needs rescuing,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: empowered and objectified at the same time, and in a
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: way it reflects where we were with women as a
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: society and feminism at the time. The prequel's main character,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: pad May, got the unfortunate ranking of four out of
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: five worst Hollywood attempts at feminism. As judged by cracked
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: dot com, the unfortunate thing with her storyline is she
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: was strong and then she just kind of became a
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: whole plot point of she had to die, and she
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: just died a broken heart, like she existed only to
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: further this story of the male character. See that just
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: reminds me of so many times in movies that are
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: trying to be progressive, and so they add a female
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: character or a gay character, but that character is not
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: allowed to sort of exist where the other characters exist.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: They have to die a tragic death or they have
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to you know, I love someone who doesn't love them back,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: and get their heartbroken and kill themselves. Right Like, they're
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: not allowed to exist as these characters who want them
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: to be. They have to be sort of tragic or
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: something bad has to happen. That does kind of strike
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: me as a weak attempt at feminism. Yeah, it was unfortunate,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: and it's one of those things where it's like the Titanic,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: we all knew she was going to die. That's because
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: it was prequels, right, Oh, so you already know. It
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: just wasn't handled in the best way. Perhaps, man I
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: I would love to get a look at that writer's room,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: because I I would be willing to bet that that
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: kind of stab at making a feminist, you know, plotline
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: for a female character was handled by male writers, and
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: that like, that's why it was kind of narrow or
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: fell flat and why she didn't strike you as an authentic,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: you know, multidimensional character. Yeah, there's also a really embarrassing
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: scene from the second one attacking the clothes or she's
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: like getting a pit and she's fighting. She's tough, but
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: she's wearing this like it's almost a crop top, but
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: just got it back to it. But then the beast
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: like that she's fighting, slashes the back of it, so
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: it becomes a full crop top, and it's like that
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: what you would wear if you were in hand to
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: hand combat. You're like, I need my crop top. That's
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: what I wear for combat. My my tactical crop top.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: You right, who among us doesn't have a tactical crop top?
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm basically wearing one right now. Your battle
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: in any minute, So I gotta I got a street
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: fight planned later, So I'm okay, Yeah, we were we
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: were going to meet in the parking lot and fight
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: some other podcast crew. Yeah, we have beef with another podcast.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: We'll drop some hits to who it is. Yeah, yeah,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: but we're meeting them in the parking lot later. Anyway,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: back to Star Wars hwnism. If we skip ahead to
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the first of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, The Force Awakens,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: and the announcement that one of the main characters was
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Ray a lady, Oh my goodness, a disturbance in the Force,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I remember the inevitable. Oh no, the dark side a
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: k a. Feminism has ruined Star Wars. Um it's two
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: PC comments, which is kind of funny because she was
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: still the only female in the cast. Like women are
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: taking over, and by taking over, I mean they've added
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: like one, right, I mean it was one. I mean,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know the ratio, isn't That doesn't even throw
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: off the ratio that you mentioned before, right, She's just
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: she was like the main one. I guess. Princess Leia
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: was kind of if you had to list them of
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: importance in the in an order of importance, she would
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: be at the bottom, but Ray was at the top.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: We think, I mean, this was all speculation. We weren't sure,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I remember this pretty clearly. Um. And the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: good thing about Ray is she she pretty much ditched
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: that damsel and distress things she can handle herself, she
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: told Han Solo, so Um. But she's not that one
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: dimensional strong female character that annoys the hell out of
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: me either. Um. She protects b B eight, so she's
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: got that kind of like nurturing protective side. She's goofy,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: she makes mistakes, she's a survivor, and the fact that
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: some people might doubt her abilities, possibly because of her gender,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: is poked out throughout the movie. When Um male character
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Finn rushes to her aid she's being attacked earlier in
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the movie, he finds she's already taken care of her
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: would be assailants, and later when he takes her hand
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: as they're running away from their pursuers, she snaps, I
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: know how to run without you holding my hand. So
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: they're kind of always sort of bringing it up. Um.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: And she's as a character, she's had to learn to
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: survive on her own alongside aliens, droids, men, women, all
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: of them struggling together. And she's not making a feminine
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: feminist statement or representing a movement. She's just doing what
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: she has to do and that's the point. She's a
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: woman who's doing these things, but it's kind of secondary, right,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and so they don't make a big deal about the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: fact that you know, a woman is doing so like
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: in in in films, I hate it when they beat
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: you over the head with the fact that this is
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: a one like when it's supposed to be a quote
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: strong female character to the point where it's very aware
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: that a strong female character. It's hard to explain, but yeah,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: when it keeps strong attention to it, it's like, so
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: you're saying, because she's a woman, this is astounding that
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: she's able to do this right exactly exactly that that
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: just always it almost makes me cringe because I'm happy
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: that this was just authentically. You know, I am capable,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: and I have many you know, I have many sides
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: to myself. I can be goofy, and I can make mistakes,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and I can be you know, nurturing, and I can
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: be badass and I can take care of the bad guy,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: and I can do all those things because women can
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: do all of those things. And it's not a big
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: deal because within our you know, multi fascinated humans just
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: like everyone else. I know, we've really we've really stumbled
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: up on something here. Um. Yeah, and she basically she
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: was a character. I feel like if you can just
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: write a good character, then they should. It should work
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: for male or female. That's my opinion. Her look was
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: important too, because there was no slave bikinis here. In fact,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I believe Carrie Fisher told the actress who plays her,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: plays right, Daisy Ridley, keep fighting against that slave bikini. Um.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: She wore a very Luke Skywark skywalkery tunic. No discernible
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: makeup though I'm sure it was that. No makeup makeup
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: look um, hair tightly pulled back, almost like her gender
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: was secondary. And that's the point. It didn't define her.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: It was her. In the words of the actress who
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: played her, she doesn't have to be one thing to
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: embody a woman in a film. It just so happens.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: She's a woman, but she just transcends gender. She's going
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: to speak to men and women. I love that. That
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: actually under scores a point that I love making about gender,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: is that good representations of gender in media is good
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: for everyone, not just women, not just men, but everyone
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: like men can benefit from seeing multifaceted, strong women on screen.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: In the episode, that I did on Black Panther. We
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: talked to General Wortham about this UM from the podcast
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Still Processing, and she made this great point that I
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: hadn't considered, which is that when men see strong characters
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: who are women, who are multifaceted on screen, it actually
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: helps them in their lives because then they're like, oh,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: this is a representation of how men work on teams
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: with women or how you know, women control up in
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: my life and I should respect them. It's not just
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: for women, and to speak to everybody, it's a good everybody. Yeah,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: good representation. Good characters benefits all of us. Well, we
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: have so much more Star Wars and feminism to talk about,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: but first a quick break for a word from our sponsor,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: and we're back. Thank you sponsor. One of the big
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: arguments I remember seeing about Ray when it when she
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: first debuted UM was that she was a Mary Sue UM.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: And if you're not familiar with that terminology, one you've
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: clearly never read fan fiction and too here's here's the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: general definition. But it's difficult to pin down a fictional
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: female character who is perfect in every way, usually usually
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: an idealized wish fulfillment of the author. Can you give
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: us some examples of other mary sus. My mind immediately
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: went to I have written some Van Victor in my day. Yes,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: it's from this book, this unpublished manuscript by myself forthcoming,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: don't you worry. I wrote a Star Wars dand fiction
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that had a Mary Sue and her name was Tera Polaris.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: And that is a sign of a Mary you right,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: there is when they have a weird like Ariadney, like
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: some some weeks, I'm like, oh this this girl's complicated, Yeah,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: mysterious past. Her name is Hella, hard to pronounce. Yes,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: we've got Mary Sue. Um, well, let's look at the
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: definition a bit more. She's got mad skill, she's hilarious,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: she's wicked smart, everyone wants to date her probably, Um.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Depending on what circle you're in, this definition can vary
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: wildly because what is perfect anyway, It is usually reserved
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: for fan fiction, but it has expanded to more pop culture.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: For another nerd reference, I have heard, um, Lily Potter
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: from Harry Potter referred to as a Mary Sue. Yeah. Well,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I've also heard that the main character from the Fifty
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Shades of Gray movies, she's a bit of a Merry
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Sue because she like if you've ever seen I don't
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: know if you've seen those movies, but she is super talented,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Like she excels at her job in this way that
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense where it's likely you went from
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: an intern to running this company. What everybody wants to
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: date her like she's always fending off that that, you know,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: affections of people who all want to be in her world.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: And it must be nice. But you know, not a
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: probably a fun facts. Probably all of you know this,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: but fifty Shades of Great is based on a Twilight
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: fan fiction. I didn't know that. I'm all about fan fiction.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I really want to do an episode on fan fiction
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: one day, one day. UM. The term Mary Suit traces
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: back to a Chrecky's Tale, a Star Trek fan fic
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy four, which itself was a parody of
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: another fan fix trope, the self insert, which is when
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: a bridget finds herself in the middle of stars, she
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: doesn't know how she got there. What is she gonna
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: do that? Yeah, that's another one I might have written
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: one for UM. TV tropes do work as a good
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: breakdown of a Merry Sue and the common traits all
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: appropriately ending in sue like anti suit, black hole sue,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: god mode sue, sympathetic sue, thirty soup pile up. What's
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the thirty soup Pilop. I think that's when they're like,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: you have clones, so I thought of Resident Evil and
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Alice has all of those. Yeah, I think that's the
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: thirty soup piet. I love the terminology UM, and also
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: would be clear we're not talking about the Mary Sue,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: which is a website media thing different um. In the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: context of raise supposed Mary suoness, the fans point to
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: her skills like piloting, how quick she was picking up
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the force and a lightsaber as evidence. And this criticism
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: has come up enough that Daisy Ridley, the actress again
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: was asked about it in an interview and she called
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: it sexist. She said, there's no such thing as a
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Ryan Craig, which there is a Gary stew or a
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Marty Sue depending um. But this is derived from Mary Sue,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: and probably most people don't know that term. You might
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you know Mary Sue, but you probably don't know. And
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, Mary Sue, even if you're someone
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: who was a casual consumer of this kind of kind
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: of media. If if, even if you hadn't heard that term,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: if I described it, you'd be like, oh, exactly, I've
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: seen that a million times. Gary Stue, I feel like,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: is much less ubiquitous, right, And that's kind of the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: point she was making. Um, it doesn't come up in
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: interviews with male actors. Are you a Gary stew Um,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: They're not criticized in the same gendered way. Their characters
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: are underdeveloped, are poorly written, they're not Gary Stew's. And
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: another thing is Luke from the Originals did pretty much
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the same thing. Um, I've read nitpicky accounts of Yeah,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: but he had more time. He's changed with it. But
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: that's not really the point. We didn't even ask these
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: questions about him. We didn't even ask in the before
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: he went away to train in my favorite one of
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the Empire strikes Back. He picked up those things pretty
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: quick in a New Hope. And we didn't ask those
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: questions about Haun either. And she's not a perfect character,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and by no means should all characters be like Ray.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: But we need all types of good female characters as
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: diverse as we all are, and some of us are
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: good at a lot of stuff, and I read a
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: good point I believe it was from the Mary to
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Um about how, like we don't want all male characters
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: to be like Captain America. You know, like Ray is
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: one type of character, and because they're so rare, I
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: guess we're over analyzing everything about it. But she doesn't
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: have to be this perfect written character. You know. Well,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that's a great argument for why we need more female
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: representation because if there's not that many, the one who
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: we the ones who we have, they're gonna be picked apart,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: and so it's going to be you know, are they
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: this or they that? And if we had more, characters
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: could just sort of exist and you wouldn't have to
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: sort of be asked in every interview you know what
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: about this? You know, tell me about your character, what
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: do you think about gender? All of that, Like like
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: you said earlier, it would just be something that exists
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and not something that has to be sort of picked apart.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Even though I recognize the irony that we're doing a
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: podcast basically doing that, whatever, I think we're picking apart
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: more of like the reaction, yeah, I mean, I'm yeah. Um. Also,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: I'll pick up part any media that I love. I'm
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: that type of person, but I A good exercise I
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: found is to imagine her as a white male character
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and to see if you'd have the same issues cropping
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: up with him, this white male character being too good,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: it's something or too many things. That's a good exercise
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: is that the any did you come up with that?
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I feel like probably a lot of people have had
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: this thought, but I had. I did have the thought
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: my brain a Star Wars test. You know, you feel weird,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: ask or something. See what it tells you. An tests
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: should coin that. Yes, can we make any money off
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: of it? We're all about making the money. And as
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: reported by the Mary Suit about this whole Mary su thing,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: a group called down with Disney's treatment of franchises and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: It's and boys raised an army of bots to tank
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: The last jedis the which is the sequel to The
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Force Awakens Um Rotten Tomato score why according to them,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: quote introducing more female characters into the franchises universe, making
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: one of the male characters quote a victim of anti
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Man's planning movement. The two main male characters might quote
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: turn gay. Oh my god, oh my god. Okay, this
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: is something that I mean, I the the amount of
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: vitriol I have for people that do this kind of
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: thing is vast, and you see it so often. They
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: did the same thing with The Black Panther, where people
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: wanted to not people I guess white men who were
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: who were annoying. How dare this one movie have black characters?
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: And oh god, I know the worst. But I mean,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: this is a level of protectiveness I think you see
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: in a lot of sort of fan cultures where you know,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: it's it's cool to have something that you like and
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: you protective of it, but it can really easily spit
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: out into something that's super toxic. And it's it's super
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: toxic too, have a coordinated campaign to tank the reviews
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: and the scores of this film, Like that's if you
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: find yourself doing that, take a step back and look
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: at yourself. I mean, come on, yeah, it's not yours.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: That what's always gotten to me, Like, it's not yours,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: not yours, everybody, it's everybody's. And the more people, I
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: would hope and think, the more people that enjoy it,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: that enjoy something you like, even if it is in
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: a different way that maybe it's not the same as yours,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: but they still like it, and can't we all share
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: in this enjoyment of the thing and instead of trying
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: to exclude people or I could do a whole feel
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: about fan entitlement um, especially as since I am a
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: nerd and a woman, I get s so many times
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: to prove. Like, see you wearing a Star Wars shirt?
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: You like Star Wars? So tell me where was? What
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: planet is? How old is you? What? What was the
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: name of the production assistant? And what high school did
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: he go to? In the empire strikes back, Oh, you
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: don't know. I got you were a fan. That's I mean,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I I get that too, Like you know, being a
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: music fan. That's like if you're wearing like, uh, you know,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: a short of any band? Dudes love to test you.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: But what's funny is that I guarantee that nine of
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: ten dudes out there and I welcome the challenge. So
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: you see me in a bar, feel free to challenge me.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: I know more about music than them, and I love
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: luring the men like oh yeah, Like, ask me some
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: questions so that I can dance circles around you with
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: my knowledge, and I bet you do the same thing.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: You're like Oh yeah, please please challenge me, sir, so
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I can show you how much more I know about
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: this than you and embarrass you and make you rue
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: the day you ever came up and talk to me. Yeah.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I feel like you're a hustler like instead of a
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: pool hustler. Hustler, I love when you do. You win
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: those battles and then they kind of are like, well,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you know some things, but I
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: probably know more. They just kind of walk away. Okay, Cool,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: that was a fun interaction. Um, and we'll we'll come
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: back to the last Jedi in a second, and we'll
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: come back to even more fun angry response to it.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: But there's another movie we need to touch on, and chronologically,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Star Wars can get very confusing, and I think bridget
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: you and I should have a like Star Wars night.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna you're gonna have to let me nerd
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: out for like twenty minutes and then I'll leave you alone. Um. So,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: you get The Fource Awakens, you get Rogue one, which
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: is actually a prequel to a New Hope anyway. Um.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Felicity Jones plays the main character Jin er So, who
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: is tough. She's a fighter. She's a leader. And what's
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: interesting about her is that if you look at the
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Star Wars films preceding her, there's always kind of a
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: pair thing happening. Um, but this is not really the
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: case in Rogue one. There are pairs, but she's the
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: main character. The story revolves around her, and um, there
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: is kind of a romance, but I would argue it's
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: like not even really a romance. It's just not the
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: main point. And it's pretty much her story and not um,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: not even partner pairs like Han and Luke or Leah
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and Han or like it was her and that was
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: the first time that's happened in the Star Wars universe. Um.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: And she wears practical combat stuff and she's very successful
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: in combat. You keep mentioning the costuming, and that's a
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: small thing, but it isn't really a small thing when
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: you think about it, Like when you when if you
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: grew up watching movies or women fight and they're always
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: in bikinis or outfits that make no sense. Even that small,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the detail like the costuming does signal we understand that
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: that we have been treating with female care actors in
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: this weird, gross way. With this weird, gross gaze and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: we're stepping away from that. Like even a small detail
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: like that does seem to show some sort of progress. Yeah,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: and I will say from a personal level, I wasn't
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: until I got to college that I realized how much
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: like seeing those images of women sexualized but in kind
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: of like a weird it's okay way because they're also
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: strong had impacted me because it still is telling you like, ultimately,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: it's your body and your looks is where your value
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: is and that's why you're here. You might be able
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: to do this stuff and that's cool, but it's your body.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: Even if you're Laura Cross and you're super talented and
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: super you know, tactical, you gotta be wearing like a
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: sexy outfit. Yeah, and again I'm all about wearing a
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: sexy outfit. But it's just like in fighting, situations are
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: all the time, constant when it doesn't make sense. That's
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: why it's refreshing to see, Oh, she's in practical clothes
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: for the situation she is in. It always reminds me
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: of this idea of suspension of disbelief. Right when you
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: watch a movie, you're supposed to be sort of immersed
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: in this world and details like that that are like
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: make no sense. It's almost like a continuity issue. But
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: it just goes to show that her looking sexy is
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: more important than the movie making sense in a kind
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: of way, right, Like this would never happen in reality,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: but the filmmakers care less about that, about maintaining the
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: integrity of the universe they have belt than they do
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: about you know, sexy ladies. Yeah, but it also goes
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: to show how um commonplace it is that we don't
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: really question it so much, like, well, yeah, of course
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: she's going to be no sexy thing. She's a hot
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: lady and she's the lady in this group. So that's
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: just how it goes. So I'm I'm glad that we're
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: moving away from that. And I gotta say I love
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: the costuming of like Jenner. So she looks badass. You
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: can you can have you can look good and still
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: be practical. Yeah. Okay, so we have even more, even
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: more um. But first, one last quick break for a
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsor. Okay.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Now we arrive at the last Jedi, and as that
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: terrified fanboy group decried um, this one did introduce more
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: female characters. You've got Rose who took nobis, Admiral Holdo
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: who took no bis, especially from quote trigger happy fly Boys. Yeah,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: it bought Bacalaia now a commander who takes no bs,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: and right of course, who took no bs. Um. And
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: that's the most in the main cast of any Star
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Wars film to date. I love that. So I love
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: that they put Leia and Ray kind of in conversation. Yeah, yeah,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: that's cool. Yeah, and um, Admiral holder and Leiah are friends.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: And then it was like the first female stars friendship
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: and they just have conversations where they're both leaders trying
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: to accomplish this thing, but they're friendly with each other.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: And it's wild that that is. So it's wild that
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: that's wild. Yeah exactly. I was watching it like whoa, whoa,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: what's happening? Um. It has been called the most feminist
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Star Wars yet. Anna Smith of The Guardian wrote, both
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: in terms of women and non white characters, there's a
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: celebratory inclusiveness that seems entirely in the Jedi spirit. Documentarian
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: analees A. Fillion wrote The Last Jedi depicts women as
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: multifaceted multigenerational, multiracial. There are women in strong leadership leadership
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: positions and women who occupy student learner positions. Yeah. So
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I love how she's broken this down because again, it
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: sort of reflects how women work in teams where you
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: have you know. That's why I love the fact that
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: they brought Carrie Fisher back to you know, be in
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: conversation with another strong female leader. It really seems to
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: reflect the dynamic that women have in workplaces and sort
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: of mentorship and peers and you know, getting along or
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: like maybe you don't get along, but you're still you
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: still respect for each other. I love that it's a
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: really multifaceted illustration of women on teams together and women
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: leading together. Yeah. I love it too, And I hadn't
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: really considered, Um, I was telling you yesterday, Rig that
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: doing the research for this episode made me appreciate this
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: movie even more because when I first saw it, Um,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: it's all about failure and it's a very difficult movie
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: to watch in my opinion, it was. And plus Luke
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Skywalker my crush. Well, anyway, I gotta I gotta tell y'all,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I ran into Annie in the bathroom here at the
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: studio yesterday and we were talking about this in the
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: bathroom and you were like, I almost can't watch it again.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I can't. It's tough because it's all about it is
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: about failure, and Um, I didn't realize until I was
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: doing this research said, a lot of it is about
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: shutting down man's planing. Um. The fanboy group pulls right
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: about that. So much of it is like after after
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: me and my friends saw it. One of the characters Po,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: who's very likable, UM, and that that's important is that
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: he's likable. We all like him. But he keeps making
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: these mistakes and he's not listening to Leo when she
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: gives him orders. He's not listening to Holdo and she
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: gives him orders. He does all these things and kind
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: of ruins everything, kind of keeps messing up plan after
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: plan after plan. Sounds familiar, Like I know some of
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: these types. But see, it's great because we like him.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: It's better to see it because if it's a villain,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: you can just dismiss it. Yeah, exactly. So if he
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: because he's likable and he seems like a nice enough guy.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: When there's somebody in your life who was being toxic
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: and sexist and racist or whatever. Sometimes it is, or
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: I would say probably more often than not, it's someone
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: who you you know, maybe like or do you feel like, Oh,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: he's not a bad person, not a bad guy. So
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: it's it's good to have the character who keeps, you know,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: up for lack of a better word, and not listening
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: to women, be sort of someone who seems nice enough,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: not like this scary, awful villain, because that that author
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: rises those those sentiments like those are sentiments that we
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: associate with someone who's a bad guy. I'm not a
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: bad guy, therefore I'm fine, you know. Yeah, And um,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: he has a character arc and he kind of sees
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: I have made all of these mistakes and now I
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: really need to shut up and listen. Um. But after
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: I left, like, but your minds a buzz with what
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: we've just seen. And my friend turned to me and
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: I dropped a bucket of popcorn, and she turned to
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: me and she said, you really powed it up, which
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: is the name of the character. And I didn't realize
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: until we're doing this, like, oh, my gosh, man's planning
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: oh powing it up. Um. As you can imagine, there
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: was so much fanboy backlash tweets like the movie was garbage.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: They're making movies now for feminists in mainland China. The
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: rest of us don't matter, I guess for exclamation points
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: or too much comedy and social justice warrior references, especially
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: by Vice Admiral Purple Hair on the resistance in quotes
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: in all calves and quote this of all, if you're
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: trying to emphasize the word in a tweet, you don't
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: need both. You can or you can do all caps.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: You do not need both. That's egregious. Yeah. Now I'm
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: like questioning, what if this is a joke tweet. I
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, look at it. I mean, that's
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: really it's too much. It's too much. It was clearly
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: aimed at at real Donald Trump and his supporters. Thanks
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: for ruining the Star Wars franchise, Disney, And has anyone
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: noticed that the new Star Wars series is all feminist propaganda?
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Oh my god. First of all, I love this idea
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: that feminists are this underground sleeper cell network that's very powerful,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: that we're churning out propaganda to make more feminists and
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: we have meetings underground Disney. I mean, I love this
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: reality where we have all this power, you know, you
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: know we have that we have a you know, a
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: bug in the year of big time executives at Disney.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: I wish that was the case, or maybe it is
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: the case. Let's not say too much. Yeah, I don't wanna,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: I don't wanna. Don't give too much away. Um, And
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: this is something I did want to know, is um
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: and most likely unnecessarily, but in all cases, you cannot
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: like the movie. Um. There are problems with all of them,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: legitimate critiques. I had problems with um most of them,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: and especially some of the new ones. But we're looking
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: here specifically at people who found the problem with it
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: because it was feminist, or because they were looking at
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: the female characters in this way that we do not
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: look at male characters, are judging them through that way.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Totally cool to not like a movie for like legitimate,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: non non sexist reason. Yeah, yeah, I think that's an
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: important point to make, because you don't make anyone is
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: saying you have to like this movie, but not liking
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: it specifically because it has too many women is really yeah. Yeah,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: And again, like going back to that Mary Sue argument,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: if you're saying you think the character of Ray is
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: underdeveloped or poorly written. Yeah, yeah, that's that's different than
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: she's a Mary Sue, and I a man would never
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: Oh I did read? Oh wait, I have it right here.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Here's a quote. Here's a quote from American Greatness. For
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Ray to truly struggle, to encounter an internal crisis that
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: would develop her as a character would be to make
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: her vulnerable and thus more of a woman, but less
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: of a feminist hero. So screenwriter and director Ryan Johnson
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: perchure of weakness and dependency, and the filmmakers desire to
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: paint her as a feminist badass and girl power boss
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: bitch who can take care of herself, Thank you very much.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Johnson leaves with a lonely and utterly rootless woman crammed
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: into a hyper masculine role. This portrayal doesn't work because
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: men and women are not interchangeable. Neither are the masculine
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: and feminine hero miss. The feminist effort to chevret and
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: to the masculine journey results in an essentially transgendered, unnatural,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: and corrupt character, but beyond her in authenticity as a
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: masculine hero raised perfection and are cross dressing deprived. The
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: film of another crucial element. Wow, I could have quoted
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: that whole argument. There was so much there that I
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: was reading, like, he cannot be as serious. He's totally serious.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: I was laughing aloud at some of it because I thought,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: no way can someone right this seriously? Yeah, I mean
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: that's that's the most intense thing I've ever read. I mean,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Star Wars brings out the intensity, but that's essentially what
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. If you if you got problems with it
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: because you think it's poorly written, okay, but if you've
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: got problems with it because of something like this, that
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: you think that you know she's a I mean, he
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: just he describes her as transgendered. He says, essentially transgendered.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: A wild thing to say that is that is such
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: a wild thing to say. And he even points out
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: her her clothes. I don't know if it was in
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: that quote, but he does, he pointed it out. He says, yeah,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: he says that her quote cross dressing by the film
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: of Romance. Like, I just think that even the language
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: that he uses to break this up down is almost
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I almost find it shocking. Yeah, I really want to
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: know what woman hurt this guy, Like what strong feminist
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: character who wasn't vulnerable and I was dressed like a man.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: This guy I don't know, Bridget will never know. Um
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Holda was a She was a character. She's played by
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Laura Dern. I love Laura um And she had purple
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: hair and jewelry and kind of a nice dress, and
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: she drew a lot of criticism. And I think the
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: reason a lot of the fanboys really had a problem
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: with her, it's because she was feminized, but also because
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: she kind of came in and then told Poe that
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: the male character that's pretty likable. I'm in I'm in
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: charge now and you're gonna do what I say, And
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: nobody none of these angry fan boys liked that. I
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: also think it's interesting, going back to one of the
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: angry fanboy tweets that you shared earlier in the episode,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: that he specifically says, oh with her purple hair. I
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: almost wonder if it's something about her presentation, because when
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't as someone who has been screamed at by
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: white dudes on the internet for being a quote social
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: justice warrior or a feminist or whatever. Um, they definitely
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: do have a stereotype of you know, oh, you're a shrill,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: angry feminist. Purple hair, you know, septim piercing, you know,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: you dress a certain way. And I almost wonder if
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: because she has purple hair and wears jewelry, if that
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: that sort of there's a connection there where the kind
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: of dudes who shout at feminists on Twitter like oh
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: you and your purple hair and and jewelry and knows piercing.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: You see that and they're like, Ah, it's that girl
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: from Twitter. And now she's lecturing me about man's bleeding
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: and tell this guy what to do. My worst nightmare
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: realized on screen is happening now. It's playing out before
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: my very eyes. Um. I read from Laura Dern. She
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: kind of discussed this because it was a pretty visceral backlash,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: um from a small like it's actually a very small contingent.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: They just have a loud voice, as I'm sure you're
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: familiar with. But she she spoke to that and she
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: said it was very important to her and also the
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: director and screenwriter Ryan Johnson that she be not I
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: mean necessarily feminized, but that she'd be kind of there's
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: feminine hints to her costume, that she had purple hair,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: that she had jewelry, she had a welfinning dress. She
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: like we kind of discussed in the Final Girl episode,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: there was this need to make the Final Girl more masculine,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: but they made a deliberate choice here she's feminine. She's
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: a good leader song in this episode. We've talked a
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: lot about costuming choices and how it is cool in
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: movies when women are dressed appropriately for what they're doing.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: So if they're in battle, you know, they're wearing clothes
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: that make sense that you would actually wear into battle.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: But I also think it's cool to have female characters
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: who are strong leaders who dressed feminine. I don't know,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: I just think that there's not You can be a
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: strong leader and still wear jewelry and get your hair
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: dyed and enjoy makeup or where heels or whatever. I
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: think that that's sort of my my larger point that
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: our media should be representative of all of that. So
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: whether you're you know, Laura Dern and you're in the
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: salon every two weeks to get your roots done there
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: and it's important to you or your ray who just
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: wears your hair pulled back and you don't have time
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: for that nonsense both of those are are strong women
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: leaders and both both of those should be represented right.
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: And I think one of the key points to is
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: that um people just dismissed her, even Um dismissed Holdo.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: Even Poe the character he sees here and he's like,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: that's Admiral Holdo and it says it kind of derisively.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: So just to see someone, in this case a woman,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: just a certain way and that's it, Like, I'm not
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: going to take orders from you, or I think this
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: character is the lesbian, or you know, just to write
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: someone off immediately or to put these whatever you think
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: that means, what the how they're dressing on them immediately.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I think that was a good Um, it was a
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I like that they made this decision to do that
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: purposefully for her. And it's it goes back to the
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: context thing to write, because Ray is surviving in the desert,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: so she's gonna have to like be in a tunic,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: and pretty much a tunic which I did read was
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: slightly it had a belt to accentuate her waist. Nice.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: It sounds comfortable, right, a belted tunic. If I see
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: you walking around the office of the belted tunic, I'm
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: gonna go get one too. I'm just saying I'm gonna
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: hop on the train, but I need someone else to
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: take the first. Yes, but first you know, I'll be
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: the Rosa Parks and belted tunic perfect perfect. Um. Yeah. So,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: like we said, uh, Poe dismisses her. But if you
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: look at Leia Um Leia to she she's somebody who's
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: lost most of her family at this point in one
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: way or another. UM, and she's still being a strong
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: leader in a mentor um. And if you're looking for
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: a good female villain, you have Captain FAsMA who menaces
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: Hollywood Studios in Disney World. Right now, Ray, you've got her.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Of course, she grows more powerful and takes on Kyler
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Ren in a fight scene that felt never felt um
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: man versus woman, but instead powerful character versus powerful character.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: UM And most of the heroic things done in this
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: movie are done by women, from the self sacrifice in
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: the very beginning to Ray lifting hell or Rocks with
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: her mind at the end, and um. By and large,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: women hold the most powerful positions, ones that they earned.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Leia might have been born a princess, but she worked
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: a way up to the command rank. And I love.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: A comparison I found between Holdo and Leiah Calm collected,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: reasoned and two of the male characters, Kylo Wren and
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: General Hucks, who don't have one scene together where they
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: aren't fighting um. As the author suggested, it could be
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: because both are occupying a position neither earned, yet they
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: both feel deserve more. Yeah, yeah, I like that all.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh yeah, um. And that's another funny
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: thing um about this is a couple of people mentioned
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: that Adam Driver plays Kyler Wren and he has a
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: shirtless scene in this movie and it's very surprising, like
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: you do not see it coming, or at least I did.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, and he's ripped but there's
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: no It was like kind of like a usually women
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: are getting there was he was he chained to someone? No, no,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: but it was a a girl can dream. No, I'm kidding.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's still one more left bridget um. Oh
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: and when Ray turns down Kylo Read's offer to the
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: galaxy together, he becomes very angry and violent. And I
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: bet that sounds familiar to a lot of us, um
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: who have turned down a dude, Oh, a dude who
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: seems fine later revealing himself to be toxic and violent.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: I don't say I've never heard of that before. So yeah,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: the last Jedi was I. I should watch it again.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: I should get over my hang up about it. What
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: we're doing our Star Wars movie night. Yeah, we are,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: we are. It's gonna be so fun. I mean, it's
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: gonna be fun for me. I hope, I I hope
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: it'll be fun for you. I'm sure we'll be if
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: we're If we're looking at the future and there's a
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: long Star Wars future ahead of a. UM. If you
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: want to find some Star Wars happiness and signs of
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: why this whole thing matters? Why do we have a
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: whole episode about Star Wars, you can look up hashtag
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: star Wars rep matters UM. And I gotta say, like
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: I said, the research on all of this helps me
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: appreciate the importance of it even more. It's easy to
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: kind of just dismiss things as media, but you forget
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: when you're especially when you're a child that's seeing those things.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: It's important and it does matter. UM. So I'm happy
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: that there moving they're moving forward, they're progressing well. I'm
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: happy they're progressing too. Because one of my favorite actors
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: flash musicians is going to be a young Lando Calorussian
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: Donald Lover, who I love. And I again, I'm happy
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: that this representation does not just count for women, that
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: it's also for race. It's it's nice to see folks
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: of all colors and genders represented. And when they announced
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: that Donald Glover was going to be in solo coming out,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: I was super stoked. Yeah, I mean too, I was
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: so excited. Um, and uh it has to I am
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: assuming pretty lead type female roles both from HBO Amelia
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Clark and Sandy Newton um and the last year I
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: get Rose was the first um Asian American lead in
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Star Wars ever. Yeah, so definitely it's good to move forward,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: um with representing all all people, all of us. Well.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: The counter argument that I think is so funny about
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: that when people get bent out of shape of you know,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: people of color being in these movies and they're like, oh,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: well there weren't Asian women and black people and blah
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: blah blah. It's like a fantasy. And second of all,
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: it's like they have it is. Why is it that
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: you know your mind can expand to include like oh yeah,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: they're aliens. There's robots, there's that, but Asian women. No, no,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: my mind cannot on that. There's no space. And money wise,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: the Star Wars sequels now with more ladies are they're
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: doing just fine. They're not going away. If we look
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: at data from box office Mojo from two thousand six
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: to um and if we look at the money made
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: by movies with a female lead versus a male lead
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: and nothing else like cutting out ensembles or robot alien
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: not human leads, the data shows that domestically in the US,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: female lead movies made on average one point six million
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: dollars as compared to eighty point six million a year
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: um made by movies with male leads. So that's a
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: pretty that's a pretty sizeable profit margin chunk right there.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: So these those are making money. Yeah, And um, I
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: forgot to mend in this fact at the top, but
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: I do want to bring it up. Is in the
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: first the original trilogy, there were four female roles in
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: all three of them, and Princess Lea is one. The
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: other three each had less than a minute of screen time.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: Logistically it seems difficult to believe, but damn yeah. Yeah,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: So now we have four women in lead roles in
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: the last Jedi. So I'm I'm that just goes to
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: show how far we've come. Yeah, I mean that is something.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: It is so things are improving slowly but surely. And
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: here's hoping on this this Star Wars day that it continues. Um.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: A good next step that I saw from a lot
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: of people would be a female director or one of color.
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: Are both, um and yes, oh I got so excited. Yes,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: that would be a Star Wars first So I think
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: that would be great. Get getting more women or people
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: of color, all of the above in writing the writing
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: process to just yeah, it's a it should be an
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: inclusive universe because yeah, this guy's aliens and it's this
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: whole wide galaxy, galaxy, galaxy. I mean, it's a galaxy
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: far far away it is. But yet I think we can.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: I think we can attain it here. That's beautiful, Annie,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I gotta see these movies. We're gonna do
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: like the craziest movie night. It's gonna be ex I
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: literally can't wait. Awesome. Well, thank you for indulging me,
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Bridget and listeners. Um, and have you may the fourth
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: if you've got Star Wars stories Oh. If you've done
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: any kind of Star Wars crafting, our art fan fiction,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: please send them to us. You can find us on
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and Instagram stuff Mom Never
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: Told You, and our email is mom Stuff at how
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. May the Force be with you,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Annie and YouTube bridget two per