Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Aliens with Andrew Ti

Transcript

Aliens with Andrew Ti · The Bechdel Cast

0:00
Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
0:03
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
0:07
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef and best
0:12
Speaker 1: start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hello, and
0:16
Speaker 1: welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante.
0:18
Speaker 1: My name is Jamie Loftus, and we talk about the
0:21
Speaker 1: portrayal of women in movies on our podcast. Yeah, we
0:24
Speaker 1: do every week, every freaking week. How many weeks? Now?
0:27
Speaker 1: So many? I'm like coming into this episode worried, how come?
0:32
Speaker 1: Because we're in a genre that I hate, and so
0:36
Speaker 1: I'm skewed. I see, we're in my least favorite genre.
0:41
Speaker 1: I'm I'm sorry, real negat Well, um, we're in I
0:45
Speaker 1: would say, my favorite genre. So can we even be friends? No?
0:49
Speaker 1: After this? No? No, But but we should be because
0:53
Speaker 1: this is our I mean, I think, our our our
0:55
Speaker 1: best director and have one very big Jim Cameron joint
1:02
Speaker 1: that we love and appreciate very much. Um that being,
1:06
Speaker 1: of course Ghosts of the Abyss. Honestly, James Cameron. The
1:12
Speaker 1: thing with James Cameron, he should have just been an
1:15
Speaker 1: oceanographer and saved us all sometime I disagree because he's
1:18
Speaker 1: directed a lot of movies that I deeply love. What
1:22
Speaker 1: movie is he not submerged in? Is he submerged? Terminator? Terminator? Two?
1:27
Speaker 1: Does a terminator not swim? I do not believe he
1:30
Speaker 1: would short. Oh wait, because he's a robot. Yeah, he's
1:35
Speaker 1: one zeros. I like robots right now, Well that you
1:38
Speaker 1: got one in the movie we're talking about today. I
1:40
Speaker 1: know he is a man, though, and that means this
1:43
Speaker 1: conversation did not pass the Bechtel test. Hey wow, that
1:47
Speaker 1: was actually a very great transition. Thank you so much so.
1:51
Speaker 1: On the Bechtel Cast we discuss, as I said, the
1:53
Speaker 1: portrayal of women in movies. We use the Bectel test
1:56
Speaker 1: as a jumping off point to initiate a larger versation
2:01
Speaker 1: about the portrayal of women. The Becto test being for
2:04
Speaker 1: us to female identifying characters have to have names, they
2:09
Speaker 1: have to speak to each other, and their conversation cannot
2:12
Speaker 1: be about a man. Right, Can we beta test it
2:15
Speaker 1: really quick? I have I have a thought I'd like
2:17
Speaker 1: to express, and I think it passes the Bechdel test.
2:19
Speaker 1: But you know, it's sort of it gets a little
2:21
Speaker 1: murky at Hey, Caitlin, Hey Jamie, I think the Deadpool
2:26
Speaker 1: too is for losers. You know what, Jamie, And I
2:29
Speaker 1: won't go I see what you're saying, and I think
2:31
Speaker 1: this already does not pass the Bechdel tests because Deadpool
2:34
Speaker 1: is But I'm not talking I'm talking about the movie.
2:37
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about the guy. Well. I mean, you
2:39
Speaker 1: can't talk about Deadpool the movie without recognizing that it's
2:42
Speaker 1: about Deadpool, the character who is male identifying Deadpool two
2:46
Speaker 1: is for losers. And I'm not going to go. Well, Um,
2:49
Speaker 1: t J. Miller, isn't it? And he can fuck right off,
2:52
Speaker 1: He can funk right off, but he won't. He will not.
2:55
Speaker 1: He never will anyway. So um, that was not necessarily
2:58
Speaker 1: the best example of a conversation passing the back door
3:01
Speaker 1: test example of discourse, It sure was. I agree. Hey,
3:05
Speaker 1: let's introduce our guests. He is the host of the
3:10
Speaker 1: great podcast. Yo? Is this racist? Ander? T O? Hi? Hi,
3:15
Speaker 1: thanks for being here, Thanks for having me. So you
3:17
Speaker 1: brought us aliens. Wow, I feel like it got brought
3:22
Speaker 1: to all of us. Let's not. It got hatched for us,
3:27
Speaker 1: got hatched from an egg and then implanted into our
3:30
Speaker 1: chest cavities for business for Yeah, for capitalism for business,
3:35
Speaker 1: business bads as this movie. So that's cool. We have
3:39
Speaker 1: done the movie Alien on this podcast already with guests
3:43
Speaker 1: Eliza Skinner. I went back and re listened to that episode.
3:45
Speaker 1: It is one of our grosser episodes, and that we
3:49
Speaker 1: spend almost the entire time talking about either jizz or jizz,
3:54
Speaker 1: blood or vaginal flaps. Can we can we unpack that
3:58
Speaker 1: a little bit? Why do you think just just blood
4:00
Speaker 1: and vaginal flaps are gross? I think that's actually like
4:03
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing. Well, is a good point in part
4:05
Speaker 1: of the human experience? My bad? Um? I just I
4:09
Speaker 1: guess I suppose the language we were using was invoking
4:12
Speaker 1: some imagery that might flaps be considered unpleasant flaps. Yeah,
4:18
Speaker 1: I would like to talk about I wasn't going to
4:20
Speaker 1: talk about I didn't have any flaps in my notes.
4:22
Speaker 1: But maybe that's because we've just grown over the next year. Well,
4:26
Speaker 1: that's the other thing about that episode is that there
4:28
Speaker 1: wasn't a whole lot of discourse that we had necessarily right.
4:32
Speaker 1: But I think this episode is going to be different.
4:34
Speaker 1: It's going to be so discourse heavy that are our
4:38
Speaker 1: flaps will come on? Our flaps will start kidding. There's
4:42
Speaker 1: a there's a lot more direct flap imagery in this
4:45
Speaker 1: movie than in Alien, I believe. I think this was like, well,
4:49
Speaker 1: I guess that's more of everything. There's more of every
4:52
Speaker 1: every gross thing. That's the plural. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
4:56
Speaker 1: it's it's it's all of them. Um. So, Andrew, what's
5:00
Speaker 1: your history your relationship to Aliens? Just aliens in general,
5:04
Speaker 1: not the movie? Oh good, well, I guess I had
5:08
Speaker 1: my first encounter. Aliens is probably a movie that I
5:12
Speaker 1: mostly saw in pieces in edited on TNT. Probably did
5:21
Speaker 1: they edit out the flaps? They must have, you know,
5:26
Speaker 1: But I think I think the thing, I think if
5:29
Speaker 1: you edit out any of the like over alien vagina imagery,
5:33
Speaker 1: you have to edit it like like it is actually
5:36
Speaker 1: really hard to draw the line. It's like, oh this
5:39
Speaker 1: is too much. Well then how come the last thing
5:41
Speaker 1: wasn't too much? And then I don't think you could
5:44
Speaker 1: have a movie, because the whole point is Dixon Vagina's right.
5:47
Speaker 1: I mean, the vagina monster is a is a tale
5:51
Speaker 1: as old as time, of course, but you see, you
5:55
Speaker 1: can't help but look at the vagina monsters and all
5:58
Speaker 1: these James Cameer movies and be like poorcast from Bigelow.
6:03
Speaker 1: Wait all these Yeah, I think this might be the
6:06
Speaker 1: only one. There's no two the well, both alien movies
6:09
Speaker 1: are flat heavy. But he had nothing to do with
6:12
Speaker 1: the first one. He didn't know. I have to go
6:15
Speaker 1: or the third one? Right, and that's also the most
6:20
Speaker 1: underwater one. So are just all our narratives? No? The
6:23
Speaker 1: fourth one is, yeah, they swim through a big room
6:28
Speaker 1: full of watered Winona writers. There. That's right, Oh, you're right,
6:31
Speaker 1: it is for Yeah. I have since seen all of
6:34
Speaker 1: the except minus any of the Alien Versus Predator. I
6:40
Speaker 1: have not seen those, but those are to be totally honest,
6:44
Speaker 1: as far as these movies go, probably the best ones.
6:47
Speaker 1: They're the ones that absolutely know what they are. They
6:51
Speaker 1: do exactly what they promise. They do not think they're
6:54
Speaker 1: smarter than they are. I'm deadly serious. Any of the
6:57
Speaker 1: Alien Versus Predators are better than any of the Alien
7:00
Speaker 1: in movies or any of the product or movies. Wow,
7:03
Speaker 1: well you know what, I'm gonna argue with you a
7:05
Speaker 1: little bit on that one. I have not seen any
7:07
Speaker 1: of the A B movies, but um, I mean I
7:10
Speaker 1: really like alien and I really like aliens and that's
7:13
Speaker 1: where it stops from. So, Jamie, you said that you
7:16
Speaker 1: don't like this genre. I like this genre a lot,
7:19
Speaker 1: and I especially like aliens. And I didn't really grow
7:22
Speaker 1: up with this movie. I don't think it's not until
7:24
Speaker 1: somewhere in my twenties. Yeah, yeah, same, sorry to finish
7:27
Speaker 1: my history. Yeah no, no, that's it. You just reminded me.
7:30
Speaker 1: It's like I watched parts of it a lot as
7:32
Speaker 1: a kid, and then I think I must have watched
7:34
Speaker 1: the whole thing. I don't know, hungover in my twenties
7:36
Speaker 1: at some point. I don't know, it is kind of
7:38
Speaker 1: a hangover movie. Yeah, And that it's a little to
7:42
Speaker 1: twenty minutes long, and that Bradi Cooper and Zachal in
7:47
Speaker 1: it carrying around a baby. I might as well. I mean,
7:52
Speaker 1: new is sort of baby that they're carrying. Yeah. There
7:56
Speaker 1: were three different points where I was like, oh that
7:58
Speaker 1: I like. In my notes, I wrote the climax to
8:00
Speaker 1: the movie, and for three days I was like, when
8:02
Speaker 1: is it going to Then there's just more of vagina
8:05
Speaker 1: monsters in the next scene, and it's like, yes, Queen,
8:08
Speaker 1: go off, or I want to go home, Like I
8:10
Speaker 1: just I just I don't know, do you think it
8:13
Speaker 1: was too long, or do you think we could have sorry,
8:16
Speaker 1: like kept on going too long, or do you think
8:18
Speaker 1: they just took way too much exposition at the top,
8:22
Speaker 1: because that's where I was like the exposition was. It's
8:25
Speaker 1: so slow. It's very slow. There's a lot of like
8:28
Speaker 1: and fake outs. There's like a boring scene that is
8:31
Speaker 1: a fake out where you're like the like the opening scene,
8:34
Speaker 1: where're like, it's boring, and then briefly horror, and then
8:37
Speaker 1: it was a what why? Who cares? Who cares? It's
8:42
Speaker 1: establishing her mindset, the horror that she experienced. I think
8:47
Speaker 1: it's there for a reason. It's just eighteen. You would
8:51
Speaker 1: do that in literally under one second. She would look
8:54
Speaker 1: at one photograph and then we'd be like, we get it. Yes,
8:58
Speaker 1: this movie did come out in nineteen eighty six, which
9:00
Speaker 1: is also the year I was born, so much so Jamie,
9:05
Speaker 1: you saw it for the first time Saturday Saturday night,
9:08
Speaker 1: did not like it. But it's like one of those
9:11
Speaker 1: things where it's like I can recognize that this movie
9:14
Speaker 1: succeeds on a lot of levels and also never want
9:17
Speaker 1: to see it again. Sure, yeah, Well should I get
9:20
Speaker 1: into the recap? Yeah? Recap Okay, let's recap. So the
9:24
Speaker 1: story basically picks up where Alien leaves off, which is
9:27
Speaker 1: where I forget what happens in the first one. At
9:29
Speaker 1: the end of Alien, the alien has infiltrated the ship,
9:34
Speaker 1: killed everyone. The main frame, killed everyone on board except
9:38
Speaker 1: for Ripley. She's the only survivor. She gets into and
9:41
Speaker 1: Jonesy the cat queer icon I would say eight nippled icon.
9:47
Speaker 1: Cat facts with Caitlin. Also, hey, wait, just real quick,
9:51
Speaker 1: I I have learned another cat factor to what that's
9:55
Speaker 1: not part of the bit. People have been really upset
9:58
Speaker 1: that I only know the one cat. So here I
10:01
Speaker 1: am proving to you all that I know that a
10:04
Speaker 1: group of cats is called a clouder. That's fun rights
10:09
Speaker 1: fun d cloud clouder. Oh that's pleasant. How did we
10:14
Speaker 1: not know that? I don't know, but now you know.
10:17
Speaker 1: And this is cat facts with Caitlin. Also, a cat
10:19
Speaker 1: can jump up to six times its own length, and
10:24
Speaker 1: cat owners are seventeen percent more likely to have a
10:26
Speaker 1: graduate degree, which I think is a great transition into
10:30
Speaker 1: my graduate degree, which I do have, a screenwriting Masters
10:34
Speaker 1: from Boston University. I don't like to bring it up,
10:36
Speaker 1: but the cat, uh not at this time, not right now,
10:41
Speaker 1: but I have in the past and I will in
10:43
Speaker 1: the future anyway. Okay, So the end of Alien is
10:47
Speaker 1: Ripley is the only survivor. She gets into an escape pod,
10:50
Speaker 1: objects the alien out into space, and then goes into hypersleep,
10:54
Speaker 1: which is where this movie picks up. She has found
10:57
Speaker 1: kind of just like floating around the universe, like, hey,
11:00
Speaker 1: who are you? When what And she's like, oh, no,
11:03
Speaker 1: I've been asleep for fifty seven years. That her daughter
11:08
Speaker 1: that we didn't know she had in the first one.
11:09
Speaker 1: I don't think. I think grew old and passed away,
11:12
Speaker 1: which I will say, she does react to this. This
11:16
Speaker 1: is part of the Ripley character that I find very interesting.
11:19
Speaker 1: She's able to compartmentalize that devastating fact pretty efficiently, like
11:25
Speaker 1: which I mean, we'll get into the more when we
11:27
Speaker 1: discussed the character in depth. But she whip saws trauma
11:31
Speaker 1: around a lot in these movies because a lot of
11:34
Speaker 1: terrible ship happens to her, like incessantly. Nothing good ever
11:39
Speaker 1: happens to her ever once she's cursed. But I was like,
11:44
Speaker 1: amazing that, Like, you do see her react to it.
11:46
Speaker 1: It's not like the movie ignores it, but then it
11:48
Speaker 1: kind of In the next scene, she's like at a meeting,
11:50
Speaker 1: I was like, whoa, Yes, she's like having bedridden for years,
11:56
Speaker 1: she did have she had a dead daughter. Yes. In
12:03
Speaker 1: the next scene, she's like giving a deposition of sorts
12:06
Speaker 1: about this alien attack, basically recapping and doing a Ripley's
12:11
Speaker 1: famous recap of the first Believe it or Not recap right,
12:17
Speaker 1: believe that's the big No one believes her because they're not.
12:21
Speaker 1: They're they're mad that she destroyed their expensive ship and
12:25
Speaker 1: they demote her. She did. They made a big deal
12:29
Speaker 1: about how that ship was a total ship hole in
12:31
Speaker 1: the first who cares? And also what company fifty years
12:35
Speaker 1: later would be like, We're really like, that's if some
12:37
Speaker 1: if now someone was like that thing that happened in
12:39
Speaker 1: the late sixties were still extremely salty about, like when
12:43
Speaker 1: you crash my car. Fifty years when I quit my
12:46
Speaker 1: last day job, I made sure to walk away with
12:48
Speaker 1: an extremely powerful fan that I'd stolen from my office
12:51
Speaker 1: from a set where I'm going to make fan out
12:56
Speaker 1: of you carrying a large fan out of a fan
12:59
Speaker 1: are a fan of fan? But then also, wow, I'm
13:03
Speaker 1: holding a fan. I'm a big I'm a big I'm
13:07
Speaker 1: a fan of fan, I'm a fan of the fan,
13:09
Speaker 1: so it's really a triple fan kind of thing. Yeah,
13:12
Speaker 1: I'm personally a fan of fan fan art. So nanis
13:18
Speaker 1: anyway tidy coming out of yours. So they Ripley's believe
13:24
Speaker 1: it or not. They do not believe it. They do
13:26
Speaker 1: not until they learn of an alien attack on the
13:30
Speaker 1: same planet that they had like honed in on the
13:33
Speaker 1: beacon in the first movie and found the alien ship
13:36
Speaker 1: and all of that. Since then, people have been colonizing
13:39
Speaker 1: it and trying to like terraform it and all this stuff.
13:42
Speaker 1: And she's like, we'll check out that planet, and they're like,
13:44
Speaker 1: we have, and nothing's there except there is something there.
13:47
Speaker 1: That ship is still there and the alien there's also
13:56
Speaker 1: in that whole meeting scene because we're supposed to be
13:59
Speaker 1: in the distant future at this point, because the because
14:02
Speaker 1: alien is in the distant future, and then Aliens is
14:06
Speaker 1: fifty seven years after the distant future, but everyone still
14:09
Speaker 1: has the same terrible haircut from and using computers from
14:14
Speaker 1: that era as well. They're using big fat, thick computers. Yeah. Look,
14:20
Speaker 1: I don't know why you're criticizing this perfect movie. All right, anyway,
14:23
Speaker 1: I have a double collar situation going on, Like I
14:25
Speaker 1: don't think he actually does, but his vibe feels like
14:28
Speaker 1: he does. Like two shirts. He feels like two shirts,
14:31
Speaker 1: two shirts. You good name? Yeah, a good white rapper names.
14:38
Speaker 1: Also Bill Paxson's in this movie. Yes, I'm almost almost there.
14:43
Speaker 1: He's not doing a good job. So the company and
14:45
Speaker 1: all these people don't believe her and her alien attack
14:48
Speaker 1: story until these aliens attack the people on this planet.
14:51
Speaker 1: So Ripley is called in to help, and she eventually
14:54
Speaker 1: agrees and she's like fine, and then all these marines
14:58
Speaker 1: are also the kind of black her. They're like, you're
15:01
Speaker 1: a dock worker, but you can go all the way
15:03
Speaker 1: from being a dock worker to like fifth in charge
15:06
Speaker 1: of like a shitty shitty ship. Right. They basically give
15:09
Speaker 1: her title back, which they took away for not believing
15:14
Speaker 1: the thing that happened to her. Um, they this movie
15:17
Speaker 1: starts with someone not believing what a woman says in
15:19
Speaker 1: spite of ample evidence. Right now, timely m hm. So
15:23
Speaker 1: this whole crew of marines joined her on this sort
15:26
Speaker 1: of like recon rescue mission. So there's Gorman, he's like
15:30
Speaker 1: the commanding officer type of dude. Burke is Paul Riser,
15:33
Speaker 1: the guy who like speaks on behalf of the company. Yeah,
15:36
Speaker 1: he's Mr Bear's. Yeah, there's Bill Paxton playing Hudson. There's
15:40
Speaker 1: a Charter named Drake. There's Hicks, there's a Poem, there's Frost,
15:43
Speaker 1: There's Bishop, he's the artificial person. Those are the dudes
15:46
Speaker 1: of the women. There's Vesquez, Pharaoh and Dietrich and then
15:50
Speaker 1: I think I'm probably leaving some people out, but those
15:52
Speaker 1: are kind of the main players. I feel like they
15:54
Speaker 1: take they do take pains to kind of integrate the military,
15:58
Speaker 1: Like there's women and they are doing all of the
16:02
Speaker 1: available jobs, like Akas is the big guns. Yes, yeah,
16:07
Speaker 1: well oh yeah, well we'll talk about this, but yeah,
16:10
Speaker 1: dare you Okay. So they arrive on the planet, they
16:13
Speaker 1: scope the place out. They find Newt, who is like
16:17
Speaker 1: the sole survivor of the alien attack on this colony
16:21
Speaker 1: of somewhere around a hundred or more people. Um, Newt
16:24
Speaker 1: is an eleven year old girl. She's dirty, she's dirty,
16:28
Speaker 1: and Riley is like, I used to have an eleven
16:31
Speaker 1: year old girl, and this one's here now, so I'm
16:34
Speaker 1: going to treat her like she's my new daughter. Adorable.
16:38
Speaker 1: It's cute, adorable. I love it. Just grimy, weird acting
16:45
Speaker 1: little child. Okay. So then the crew goes in. They
16:48
Speaker 1: find the big alien nest. Some aliens attack them, a
16:51
Speaker 1: few people die. They try to leave the planet, but
16:55
Speaker 1: an alien has gotten into their like spacecraft and kills
16:58
Speaker 1: all the flight crew and then the space crashes and
17:02
Speaker 1: they can't leave the planet now, so they're stuck. They
17:04
Speaker 1: go back inside the facility. They set up some gun traps.
17:08
Speaker 1: Bishops like, hey, I'm gonna go find another ship and
17:11
Speaker 1: like do a manual override and saying, oh gosh. So
17:18
Speaker 1: the aliens come back. They're like closing in on them.
17:20
Speaker 1: Burke is like I'm a capitalist, and everyone's like you motherfucker. Oh,
17:25
Speaker 1: And he tries to have Ripley and New impregnated to
17:28
Speaker 1: get past quarantine. It's a whole thing. It doesn't work,
17:31
Speaker 1: and then it gets captured. So Ripley's like, I gotta
17:34
Speaker 1: go back in for she's still alive, and she is
17:36
Speaker 1: like the planets about to fall apart, planets covered and flap,
17:40
Speaker 1: it's just very flapping. It's flat planet. So yeah, Ripley
17:45
Speaker 1: like she ties some guns together. She goes in and
17:47
Speaker 1: gets newt and then she stumbles across the Queen Alien
17:51
Speaker 1: and her like whole nest of eggs and she's like, oh,
17:55
Speaker 1: ship and then they managed to escape, but the queen
17:58
Speaker 1: gets on the ship and then there's this big battle
18:00
Speaker 1: at the end and Ripley puts her forklift suit on
18:04
Speaker 1: and kills the queen being delivers a line and it's
18:07
Speaker 1: like God, away from her, you bitch, and then slap
18:11
Speaker 1: clap and we clap, and then the flap when the
18:16
Speaker 1: flaps are squirting in a man is torn in half,
18:19
Speaker 1: but he's fine, and and then the little kid is
18:24
Speaker 1: released and she delivers a line and then it ends.
18:28
Speaker 1: That's it. So that's the story of Aliens. I just
18:36
Speaker 1: call Alien too. Yeah, well we've been so easy. It's
18:38
Speaker 1: I feel like this is so confusing. Yeah, and then
18:41
Speaker 1: the next one they call Alien three three, but it's like, cue,
18:46
Speaker 1: what so stupid? And now when they sell all of
18:50
Speaker 1: the movies together they call it a quadrilogy, which is like,
18:53
Speaker 1: I just want to say, it's tetralogy or would be
18:58
Speaker 1: if it's four, oh, like tetrahedron for I think, don't
19:04
Speaker 1: correct me. Quatrilogy sound yes, it sounds okay. I have
19:11
Speaker 1: a lot of thoughts on this movie because, unlike most
19:15
Speaker 1: action movies of this era and then all of the
19:18
Speaker 1: ones to date, I think it does a fairly good
19:23
Speaker 1: job portraying not just one female character, but a at
19:27
Speaker 1: least sizeable bullish cast of them. Yes, between Ripley and Vasquez,
19:34
Speaker 1: which there's plenty to talk about with that character. Um,
19:39
Speaker 1: But then also Newt. I think in a lot of
19:42
Speaker 1: movies like this, a small child, especially a female one,
19:46
Speaker 1: would be treated like a huge burden and be the
19:48
Speaker 1: source of a lot of like obstacles and like we
19:52
Speaker 1: have to rescue you and protect you the whole time.
19:55
Speaker 1: But like new it's actually doing a lot to sort
19:56
Speaker 1: of contribute to. Well, yeah, there's a few different moments
19:59
Speaker 1: where her knowledge is like key to moving the plat forward,
20:02
Speaker 1: Like when they go into the too be things where
20:06
Speaker 1: you grew up and she knows how to navigate them,
20:08
Speaker 1: And yeah, you need a greasy tunnel child to fight
20:12
Speaker 1: greasy rat, the greasy bugs. She's a she's a street rat,
20:16
Speaker 1: and they need that. They need that, and just a
20:20
Speaker 1: bunch of marines can solve it. But no, you need
20:23
Speaker 1: just fucking filthy child. Well, there's there, we're outsourcing it.
20:29
Speaker 1: We've got a third party client. There's a dirty kid
20:32
Speaker 1: we found. There's a great conversation between Bill Paxson's character
20:36
Speaker 1: and Ripley where Bill Patson's like, we won't let seen
20:40
Speaker 1: out here and Ripley's like, this little girl lasted longer
20:44
Speaker 1: than that without any weapons or training, and he's like,
20:47
Speaker 1: let's put her in charge then, and it's like, honestly,
20:50
Speaker 1: let's like, okay, let's not take it to the place
20:53
Speaker 1: where we're putting a dirty child in charge of the ship. Lastly,
20:57
Speaker 1: I think that would be very progressive. And I want
20:59
Speaker 1: to see that movie. It's called Jimmy Neutron. The kids
21:03
Speaker 1: are in charge and it's a nightmare. I think, Oh,
21:08
Speaker 1: here's as a retroctor theory about Jimmy Neutron. It was
21:11
Speaker 1: a really fun movie designed to keep kids in their
21:13
Speaker 1: place and they're like, you need parents, see or you'll
21:17
Speaker 1: end up like Jimmy Neutron. Yeah, usaid have a crush
21:22
Speaker 1: and the one who peed in the shower. Anyways, Yeah,
21:26
Speaker 1: the character of new there's also a few different moments,
21:29
Speaker 1: like the scenes between her and Ripley are generally very nice.
21:33
Speaker 1: Um and aren't too heavy handed with like that I
21:37
Speaker 1: am your mommy now, which I feel like a less
21:41
Speaker 1: good movie would have really played those moments up to
21:44
Speaker 1: be like obnoxious kind of this movie doesn't. And then
21:48
Speaker 1: there's also that kind of like fun little subversion where
21:51
Speaker 1: Ripley patronizes New a little bit by being like, your
21:55
Speaker 1: doll would be brave, and she's like, it's a doll's plastic.
21:59
Speaker 1: It's not feel shit, Sigourney Weaver, don't patronize me. And
22:04
Speaker 1: then Sigourney Weaver apologize this, and I was like, I'm sorry,
22:08
Speaker 1: You're right, that was weird. I was like, Wow, what
22:10
Speaker 1: a pleasant discussion this was. It would be fine if
22:13
Speaker 1: that little girl was smoking a cigarette that entire movie, like,
22:17
Speaker 1: it would not be out of place if she was
22:19
Speaker 1: just like, you don't know the ship I've seen lady.
22:21
Speaker 1: She is wise beyond her years, and the fact that
22:23
Speaker 1: she's the only survivor of what seems like mostly adults
22:27
Speaker 1: is like, I think, pretty remarkable. She's a slippery little
22:30
Speaker 1: tunnel kid. Don't funk with this little sh I wasn't
22:34
Speaker 1: paying close enough attention because I got real bored in
22:36
Speaker 1: the first acts. It's she the kid from the family
22:41
Speaker 1: that finds that that gets sent Okay, so right, Yeah,
22:43
Speaker 1: So I'm honestly I'm pretty impressed with the movie's depiction
22:48
Speaker 1: of that child character because I think a lot of
22:51
Speaker 1: movies will be like, oh, well, here's this extra burden
22:54
Speaker 1: that you have to deal with that like really just
22:56
Speaker 1: has to be dragged along. But in this movie, she's
22:59
Speaker 1: like given a purpose and like actually contributes to the
23:01
Speaker 1: progression of the plot at some points, and like the
23:04
Speaker 1: connection she makes with Ripley makes a lot of sense
23:07
Speaker 1: for both of them. Uh and um, like you said it,
23:10
Speaker 1: it's like not too heavy handed. I think the movie
23:12
Speaker 1: shows a lot of restraint in that relationship, which I appreciate. Yeah,
23:16
Speaker 1: like a lesser movie would have had like a lot
23:18
Speaker 1: of embraces and music swelling where this movie actra and
23:23
Speaker 1: that does happen. In Alien four, we're Succourinea. We were
23:25
Speaker 1: talking to Winona writer and basically it's like you're my
23:28
Speaker 1: daughter now, and then they hug and and and smooch
23:32
Speaker 1: and are pretty much it's like on that vector of like, Okay,
23:37
Speaker 1: I gotta say that's also a bad movie. Well that's
23:40
Speaker 1: the one where she makes that backwards basketball shot. Though
23:43
Speaker 1: it makes it for real and everyone freaks out and
23:45
Speaker 1: they can't cut it in time before I think it's
23:48
Speaker 1: Ron Perlman is like literally you can see him saying
23:50
Speaker 1: holy shit in the back of the frame because she
23:53
Speaker 1: was supposed just toss a basketball over her head and
23:55
Speaker 1: then there was supposed to cut it, but it actually
23:57
Speaker 1: goes in the basket. Yeah, from like the three point line.
24:00
Speaker 1: It's hilarious. She's amazing. Man. There's not a lot of
24:04
Speaker 1: movies in general, regardless of the genre, that treats like
24:08
Speaker 1: you know, in a movie where the cast is largely adults,
24:10
Speaker 1: child characters are not usually treated with any respect or agencies.
24:14
Speaker 1: So for younger kids who saw this movie, I'm sure
24:16
Speaker 1: that was like cool. Yeah, wait, how young It would
24:19
Speaker 1: be real fucked up to show this to any kids.
24:21
Speaker 1: Don't show this to your kids. That's slippery. Little tunnel kid.
24:29
Speaker 1: If I died, here's your here's your bucket of old
24:32
Speaker 1: motor oil, here's a shovel, go have fun in the backyard.
24:37
Speaker 1: They said, Okay, but the evolution because Alien is alien,
24:40
Speaker 1: like Sigourney Weaver is the star of Alien because of
24:44
Speaker 1: the final girl tropes of horror movies. But now she
24:48
Speaker 1: gets in an action movie, and they do a good
24:51
Speaker 1: job of like not And I guess she's not very
24:54
Speaker 1: final girly in Alien because it's it's just that narrative structure.
24:58
Speaker 1: But then otherwise it's very like it doesn't follow a
25:02
Speaker 1: lot of the tropes that the final girl that the
25:05
Speaker 1: movie movies who do have like a final girl trope
25:07
Speaker 1: do because it's like it's all like she survived because
25:09
Speaker 1: she's the virgin. Yeah, so it doesn't adhere to a
25:12
Speaker 1: lot of those the whiff of that, Yeah, I think
25:16
Speaker 1: like on paper it would look more similar than actually
25:19
Speaker 1: what it actually is because she, I mean an alien
25:22
Speaker 1: to she has like so much like college and age,
25:24
Speaker 1: Like how you're just gonna you're insisting on calling an
25:26
Speaker 1: alien to alien? Oh and and oh no, I was
25:29
Speaker 1: calling it an alien sorry t o O in Alien
25:33
Speaker 1: the first one, she's Yeah, she is kind of like
25:37
Speaker 1: I didn't even thought of that. She is kind of
25:38
Speaker 1: like a final female because it's a horror movie. It's
25:42
Speaker 1: a slasher movie, yeah, just set in a garbage space.
25:45
Speaker 1: But it's like the twist there is that she actually
25:48
Speaker 1: has skills and abilities and that's why she survives, or
25:52
Speaker 1: a big part of why she survives, right, and then
25:54
Speaker 1: that carries over into Aliens where she isn't given a
25:58
Speaker 1: whole lot to do in the first I would say
26:00
Speaker 1: maybe hour of the movie, because she's really just called
26:03
Speaker 1: in as a sort of consultant because they recognize, oh wait,
26:07
Speaker 1: actually you have gone through this. Um. So I think
26:10
Speaker 1: that was at least cool that, Like in a lot
26:11
Speaker 1: of times, if there's a movie where like an expert
26:13
Speaker 1: needs to be called in, it's a man. So the
26:16
Speaker 1: fact that like she is called onto the scene because
26:19
Speaker 1: of her expertise in her experience and also given a
26:23
Speaker 1: role of like authority and power because I think she
26:26
Speaker 1: resumes her position is is it lieutenant or something like?
26:29
Speaker 1: I think they do that shitty action movie thing where
26:34
Speaker 1: they have the scene where Sigourney Weaver she has to
26:39
Speaker 1: prove her abilities and all the guys have like unchanged
26:42
Speaker 1: their draws. They're like, well, the girl can do a
26:45
Speaker 1: thing like that. My my least favorite thing that happens
26:48
Speaker 1: in actually movie superhero movies in a lot of different
26:51
Speaker 1: genres of like we see the main female character demonstrate
26:56
Speaker 1: even a monica with something like robotics or like whatever,
27:03
Speaker 1: and they should not be shocked because they know, like
27:06
Speaker 1: that was like part of her job. But they're like,
27:09
Speaker 1: oh my freaking god, this chick in a robot suit.
27:15
Speaker 1: Everyone's a half mass. But they're also like, wow, she
27:17
Speaker 1: can do it. I guess we'd better like give her
27:19
Speaker 1: an entry level job, you know, And I okay, So
27:23
Speaker 1: that is a bad tripe. I didn't bother me so
27:25
Speaker 1: much in this movie as it does in other movies,
27:28
Speaker 1: because one usually when that happens, usually when that female
27:32
Speaker 1: character like has to prove herself for like, as we
27:34
Speaker 1: always talk about that McSweeney's article where she's like, I'm
27:37
Speaker 1: the token female and this action Blackbuster and I usually
27:42
Speaker 1: when that happens, the female character is sexualized in some
27:46
Speaker 1: way or like what she's doing is presented as like
27:49
Speaker 1: this very sexy thing, but also like, look how competent
27:52
Speaker 1: she is, but she's also extremely sexy while doing it.
27:54
Speaker 1: And in this movie, it's her like clamoring into a
27:59
Speaker 1: forklift basically and then like lifting up a thing, and
28:03
Speaker 1: they're like and yeah, the guys are like t he
28:05
Speaker 1: he Wow, I didn't expect she could do that. Yeah,
28:09
Speaker 1: I don't know. It just it didn't bother me as
28:10
Speaker 1: much as it does another It's not the worst example
28:13
Speaker 1: of it. When I do, I always do want to
28:15
Speaker 1: make sure that I point that out because in that scene,
28:19
Speaker 1: I think that the guys are supposed to sort of
28:21
Speaker 1: represent the audience to an extent of like, Wow, look,
28:24
Speaker 1: she really can do it. You can trust this character
28:27
Speaker 1: moving forward, you know, like just reassuring the audience that
28:30
Speaker 1: she is competent, which isn't necessarily a thing that you'd
28:34
Speaker 1: have to happen given what we know about this character. Sure,
28:36
Speaker 1: and she's from the past, so that's true. She's like
28:39
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty to them. She's their grandma. There's
28:44
Speaker 1: not enough like unfrozen caveman jokes in that, like like
28:47
Speaker 1: there's a lot of opportunities for her to like so
28:49
Speaker 1: what do you what music do you guys listen to it?
28:51
Speaker 1: They're like, what what is this? Yeah, that's a good point.
28:55
Speaker 1: Those are the jokes of the Alien franchise. We need, Yeah,
28:58
Speaker 1: we gotta, we gotta make a power sheet of some
29:00
Speaker 1: unfrozen Sigourney. We should. Yeah, when's like the comedy heist
29:05
Speaker 1: alien movie coming out, I want to see that credits
29:11
Speaker 1: and robot parts. But in that scene, whenever the guys
29:17
Speaker 1: were like whoa I couldn't believe she could operate a forklift.
29:22
Speaker 1: That almost certainly would not have happened if she were
29:25
Speaker 1: a man. They would not have had that reaction. And
29:28
Speaker 1: I don't think that there would have been such like
29:30
Speaker 1: a narrative dragon in the first act of the movie
29:33
Speaker 1: of if. I mean, let's just go there. If if,
29:37
Speaker 1: like there was a male character who was frozen in
29:39
Speaker 1: the past who came back, I feel like it would
29:41
Speaker 1: be a more likely narrative choice for this era to
29:45
Speaker 1: you know, like treat him as a returning hero and
29:48
Speaker 1: just be like, hey, you're probably lying and you're probably
29:51
Speaker 1: traumatized because of what happened with your kid, you know
29:54
Speaker 1: where they assume and and part of the reason that
29:57
Speaker 1: she's kind of discredited in that first scene is because
30:00
Speaker 1: it's like, well, you've been through a lot, and we
30:03
Speaker 1: don't really believe what you're saying. Basically, it's like she's hysterical,
30:07
Speaker 1: is the h and that's what they Yeah, that's what
30:10
Speaker 1: they say. They say something like I don't remember the
30:12
Speaker 1: exact quote, but they suspend her license because of it.
30:15
Speaker 1: They remove all of her credentials, which is a very
30:18
Speaker 1: frustrating scene to watch because it's basically her talking to
30:22
Speaker 1: a room full of mostly men and being like, here's
30:24
Speaker 1: this horrible thing that happened to me, and they're like,
30:26
Speaker 1: but I don't believe you, and it's kind of your
30:29
Speaker 1: fault when you think, yeah, is her fault, right, and
30:33
Speaker 1: then she gets very angry for not being believed as
30:37
Speaker 1: one would and then they're like, oh, actually it seems
30:40
Speaker 1: like you're crazy, so bye. Right. It's very frustrating. Yes,
30:44
Speaker 1: but that's not like the movie doing a bad job.
30:46
Speaker 1: It's just the being by a corporation exactly. This movie
30:51
Speaker 1: is anti corporation. It is which if you look at
30:55
Speaker 1: movies that came out, and I mean this is like
30:57
Speaker 1: Pete Reagan kind of unusual for I mean where I
31:00
Speaker 1: said it before I say it again. Ghostbusters is the
31:02
Speaker 1: most pro corporation movie of all fucking time. And it
31:06
Speaker 1: is like the same. Yeah, it's like they're just like
31:08
Speaker 1: a fucking start up, their startup bros, start up gros
31:11
Speaker 1: who get a bad loan. Yeah, those guys they're bad
31:15
Speaker 1: and they hate the e p as is the worst
31:17
Speaker 1: startup of all time. That's true. I genuinely prefer the
31:22
Speaker 1: new Ghostbusters because I'm just like, it's just I hate
31:25
Speaker 1: it turns out I hate anything made before, like everything
31:30
Speaker 1: is so slow. Thankfully Jimmy Netron came on, so it
31:35
Speaker 1: qualifies to be your new favorite. So in a lot
31:38
Speaker 1: of action movies where the protagonist is a woman, I
31:42
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of them still don't do a
31:45
Speaker 1: very good job because they don't spend that much time
31:48
Speaker 1: developing that female protagonist, or they're just like sort of
31:52
Speaker 1: the vehicle to propel this story but aren't given that
31:55
Speaker 1: much characterization. I'm thinking of movies like Laura Kraft tomb
31:59
Speaker 1: Raader and we did an episode on or in movies
32:03
Speaker 1: where like there's like a female action star among other characters,
32:07
Speaker 1: like Black Widow in like the Avengers Marvel Universe had
32:11
Speaker 1: a question about that um that my friend who watched
32:14
Speaker 1: Avengers with brought this up. Well, no, okay, this is
32:17
Speaker 1: stealing this question from Todd Levin, but it is, you
32:20
Speaker 1: know relevant, we're ever going to get away from the
32:23
Speaker 1: like Avengers part where they can only fight other women
32:27
Speaker 1: in a big battle scene. It's like, who brought this up? Oh,
32:31
Speaker 1: it was um Ify on our Black Panther episode where
32:34
Speaker 1: that yeah, that is that is a huge trope where
32:36
Speaker 1: if there's a big battle scene where a group of
32:38
Speaker 1: people are fighting each other and there are like women
32:41
Speaker 1: on either side there. It's like they always have women.
32:44
Speaker 1: Spond movies always do that. Fast and Furious movies always
32:47
Speaker 1: do like they have to bring in women on the
32:51
Speaker 1: not they have to, they should. I guess you can
32:53
Speaker 1: have criminal women, it's great, um, but we can do anything.
32:57
Speaker 1: They specifically clearly cast the men on the other to
33:01
Speaker 1: literally be the equal or the foil for the woman only.
33:05
Speaker 1: And I think in like this is who you get
33:07
Speaker 1: to beat up. And there's a few examples where women
33:10
Speaker 1: are I mean, I thought of Killed Bill right away,
33:12
Speaker 1: where the main female action protucitist is fighting men. But
33:15
Speaker 1: the offset of that is that character is sexualized pretty
33:18
Speaker 1: intensely throughout that entire movie. So I don't know, I
33:22
Speaker 1: can't think of or I guess maybe it's it's and
33:24
Speaker 1: you can have female like heroes beating up like faceless dudes.
33:30
Speaker 1: But and I guess I'm about to answer my own question,
33:32
Speaker 1: which is like, you can't have like Captain America, like
33:35
Speaker 1: beating up the poor thanos because that is a bad look.
33:40
Speaker 1: I guess hits a lady. My instinct is not good. Sure, yeah,
33:46
Speaker 1: but woman's been killing people and blah blah blah. You
33:49
Speaker 1: know that's the argument. It's sexist not to beat her
33:52
Speaker 1: ass you know what I'm saying, Right, that's like, that's
33:54
Speaker 1: an interesting I bet that there's stuff written on that too.
33:57
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it depends on the kind of character.
34:00
Speaker 1: Like obviously Captain America can't hit any woman he wants. Yeah,
34:05
Speaker 1: that's bad, right of course, But it's like it's such
34:09
Speaker 1: a start. You're just like you knew when there was
34:13
Speaker 1: like a bad fo woman that she would have to fight.
34:17
Speaker 1: Well in terms of villain parity, well, but if we
34:20
Speaker 1: if we go into like Disney lore, I think that
34:23
Speaker 1: there's some examples of male heroes killing female villains. Oh
34:29
Speaker 1: little Mermaid, Little Mermaid, also sleeping Beauty. Um, he slays
34:34
Speaker 1: the dragon who is maleficent. I think that there are
34:37
Speaker 1: some examples of that. But yeah, it's always that's an
34:41
Speaker 1: interesting Yeah. I mean, obviously we don't you know, violence
34:44
Speaker 1: against women is bad, but they're definitely that trope exists
34:49
Speaker 1: of like if there's a bad woman, only a woman
34:52
Speaker 1: on the good side can fight her. Although I thought
34:54
Speaker 1: what you were where you were going, and that's why
34:56
Speaker 1: I brought up the like black Panther discussion is like
35:00
Speaker 1: to Challa's army is all women. You see them fighting then,
35:04
Speaker 1: so it's not like they're yeah so yeah, I mean
35:07
Speaker 1: I like seeing that. I would watch women beating men's asses.
35:12
Speaker 1: That's the only time it was real gross. In a
35:15
Speaker 1: recent movie that I remember was I think john Wick
35:18
Speaker 1: two where Keanu Reeves like just beats up Ruby Rose
35:22
Speaker 1: and it's like, this is fucking terrible. No, it's really unpleasant.
35:26
Speaker 1: I didn't see John Wick or John Wick to John Wicks,
35:31
Speaker 1: but he just beats up Ruby Rose and she is
35:34
Speaker 1: a teeny tiny, skinny lady and like whatever. Of course
35:37
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter, but the optics of it are
35:40
Speaker 1: so fucked up that I'm just like, why would you
35:43
Speaker 1: agree to I don't know where I land on. That's like, yeah,
35:47
Speaker 1: that just see that's a murky area because you want
35:49
Speaker 1: to have parody in every and everything, right, but also
35:54
Speaker 1: what it because media is so like effective, like if
35:57
Speaker 1: you if you're a teenage boy and you see that,
36:00
Speaker 1: you use that to justify bad behavior. I don't know.
36:02
Speaker 1: I don't think we have an audience and we probably
36:04
Speaker 1: never will have an audience. That's sophisticated enough. It's like
36:07
Speaker 1: it's like having the N word and huck fan. Everyone's like, oh,
36:11
Speaker 1: you know, this is a good like teachable moment, and like, yeah,
36:14
Speaker 1: it's also a moment for a bunch of white fourteen
36:16
Speaker 1: year old to yell the N word. To use it
36:19
Speaker 1: is permission to do something that wasn't the intent, or
36:22
Speaker 1: maybe it was the intent, who knows. Anyway, it's quite
36:28
Speaker 1: all right, no, no, no, I I think that that's
36:30
Speaker 1: like an interesting Well, if you're listening, we would love
36:33
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts or if there's any like pieces
36:36
Speaker 1: or anything that's been written on this that you could
36:38
Speaker 1: direct you to share, please, And if you're not listening,
36:41
Speaker 1: then especially if you're not listening, that's a yeah, I'm
36:46
Speaker 1: in the fence about it. It's one of those that's
36:48
Speaker 1: like it's easy. Yeah, you kind of you feel like
36:50
Speaker 1: you have an idea of it in theory, but almost
36:53
Speaker 1: every time you see in practice you're like nope, I
36:55
Speaker 1: think yeah, it's like I want to say, as of
36:58
Speaker 1: right now, I want to be like, hey, no that
37:01
Speaker 1: you know, there can be parody in fight scenes, but
37:04
Speaker 1: I also can so easily see the wrong type of
37:08
Speaker 1: person seeing that and using it as an excuse of like, well,
37:11
Speaker 1: this must be okay to do to anyone I want,
37:14
Speaker 1: because people who see movies are stupid. Excuse me especially well,
37:21
Speaker 1: because I mean, feminism is all about equality among the
37:25
Speaker 1: genders and like women being equal to men. So in
37:30
Speaker 1: theory you could be like, well, yeah, like if men
37:33
Speaker 1: and women are equal, then women can be beat up
37:36
Speaker 1: by men and it'll be fine. But I think too soon,
37:40
Speaker 1: too soon, too soon, And that's also just so weird
37:43
Speaker 1: having your cake and eating it too, of like the
37:45
Speaker 1: patriarchy has had the cake and now eating it too
37:48
Speaker 1: means that you can hit us on screen now, right
37:51
Speaker 1: because women have been the victim of so much violence
37:54
Speaker 1: at the hand of men. Yeah, we're not anywhere near.
37:58
Speaker 1: There should be a solid only five years of just
38:01
Speaker 1: when kicking men's asses in movies, and then we can
38:04
Speaker 1: bring this question up, yes, right now, and maybe maybe
38:07
Speaker 1: too soon. Not impossible, but too soon, I think. So
38:11
Speaker 1: all that discussion, yeah, I agree, And to conclude, the
38:15
Speaker 1: original point I was making is that like the female
38:19
Speaker 1: characters in action movies, if they are participating in the action,
38:22
Speaker 1: they're usually not characterized very well. They're underdeveloped. We don't
38:26
Speaker 1: know much about them. Yeah, they just don't have any
38:28
Speaker 1: real traits beyond being kind of like badass. Whereas with Ripley,
38:34
Speaker 1: I think a pretty I mean a lot of characterization
38:37
Speaker 1: goes into her. We know that she's very smart, she's
38:40
Speaker 1: very capable, she's highly rational, um, but she also has
38:43
Speaker 1: like a nurturing side with where we see with Newt,
38:46
Speaker 1: and I think she's a much more developed in multidimensional
38:50
Speaker 1: character than we are used to seeing, especially in women
38:54
Speaker 1: characters in action movies. I think it's also like a
38:56
Speaker 1: very of the moment at that time statement, like a
39:01
Speaker 1: female character being a very capable mother figure at least,
39:05
Speaker 1: and also being very good and very capable and self
39:08
Speaker 1: sustaining at her job, because at this time it was
39:10
Speaker 1: still relatively new for women to be in the workplace
39:15
Speaker 1: and also be viewed as, you know, able to be
39:18
Speaker 1: a good mother. Right. Oh man. I feel like when
39:21
Speaker 1: this came out like the same way any time anything
39:23
Speaker 1: happens in pop culture now, like right wing people are like, well,
39:26
Speaker 1: this is actually like a conservative movie. You can just
39:29
Speaker 1: see like all the fucking like Daily Mail, like this
39:32
Speaker 1: is actually about Margaret Thatcher, and like this is you
39:36
Speaker 1: know this is really about how conservative women can do everything.
39:40
Speaker 1: Doesn't just feel like that definitely happens. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
39:45
Speaker 1: I kind of hate when movie they're co opted for
39:47
Speaker 1: a bizarro cause, like, yeah, it's it ruins it, but
39:50
Speaker 1: they I think that it just means that this movie
39:53
Speaker 1: is a well written movie too, which by and large,
39:57
Speaker 1: James Cameron movies do pretty well. Uh, in in its
40:01
Speaker 1: treatment of female characters, weren't good. Oh, I don't know Titan,
40:04
Speaker 1: I've ever heard of it. Some great, like almost all
40:07
Speaker 1: great female characters, and in The Terminator at least the
40:10
Speaker 1: first two movies, I don't I'm not super familiar with
40:13
Speaker 1: the ones after that. But um, Sarah Connor is a
40:17
Speaker 1: huge badass, and I know, like his movies have been criticized,
40:20
Speaker 1: his treatment of women has been criticized to some degree.
40:22
Speaker 1: He's also come out and said pretty stupid things in
40:25
Speaker 1: recent years, Like he had a quote about Wonder Woman
40:29
Speaker 1: which was kind of dumb, where he's basically like being
40:30
Speaker 1: very self congratulatory, was like, well, look at how I
40:33
Speaker 1: treat my women in my movies. I'm done like that,
40:35
Speaker 1: And it's just like you're missing the point. Yeah, at
40:39
Speaker 1: the end of the day, he is uh, straight white
40:41
Speaker 1: man born before and therefore is wrong about most things.
40:48
Speaker 1: But it's also like dog, keep your mouth shot, and
40:50
Speaker 1: you can still be like actions Paul Feig, like you
40:53
Speaker 1: just be quiet, like everyone will grudgingly be like, ah, well,
40:57
Speaker 1: at least the movies are more or less on point
41:00
Speaker 1: if you just fucking shut your mouth when people ask
41:03
Speaker 1: you about the state of feminism, Yeah, why say anything?
41:07
Speaker 1: It would Yeah, it would have been so easy to
41:09
Speaker 1: just be like seems pretty good. Liked the movie, liked
41:13
Speaker 1: them that I needed to say, super easy, jam What
41:15
Speaker 1: are you doing? Do you all ever call him jam Cam? Jack? No?
41:19
Speaker 1: I love that. That sounds like a good reality shows
41:21
Speaker 1: throwing it out there, Cam James Cameron prank show Jack. Well, so, Jamie,
41:30
Speaker 1: you mentioned Titanic, and I think this serves as a
41:33
Speaker 1: transition into my next talking point because Vasquez, the character
41:38
Speaker 1: in Aliens, is in Titanic as the Irish Mummy. Oh
41:43
Speaker 1: my God her, which means which is a good transition
41:46
Speaker 1: into I didn't notice that because in Titanic she is white.
41:50
Speaker 1: She is as a person, she is white. Vasquez, who
41:56
Speaker 1: is a Latina character. The actor is Janette Goldstein, who
42:02
Speaker 1: is she is Jewish, Jewish. She is of Russian's, Moroccan
42:07
Speaker 1: and Brazilian. She's Jewish from Beverly Hill, but she's a
42:11
Speaker 1: white lady. She's Jewish from a can say. I found
42:17
Speaker 1: a little excerpt that says that Goldstein was outfitted with
42:21
Speaker 1: dark contact lenses to hide her blue eyes, and even
42:24
Speaker 1: covered in full face and body makeup to cover up
42:27
Speaker 1: her white skin. She is literally in brown face. There's
42:32
Speaker 1: poll quotes from her talking about at the time complaining
42:35
Speaker 1: about how the makeup made it hard for her to
42:38
Speaker 1: do the part. But because she's like sweaty and wet
42:40
Speaker 1: the whole time, maybe you should have just cast a
42:44
Speaker 1: Latina actress in that role and you wouldn't have had
42:47
Speaker 1: to do that. Yeah, that's troubling. Yeah, it's just I mean,
42:54
Speaker 1: and I guess I don't know the state of brown
42:58
Speaker 1: face in movie is in specifically, I have to imagine
43:04
Speaker 1: if you know, is on the I don't know. I mean,
43:08
Speaker 1: I genuinely don't know. But it's obviously unacceptable and I
43:13
Speaker 1: don't understand. Yeah, I just don't understand. Yeah, it's kind
43:17
Speaker 1: of a bummer all around, where you're like, why he
43:20
Speaker 1: is so unnecessary? It's such a weird choice. I think
43:25
Speaker 1: it's because she she's a pretty beloved character, and it
43:28
Speaker 1: would have been greater. It is great to have a
43:31
Speaker 1: woman of color character be such a beloved character, but
43:34
Speaker 1: the fact that the actress playing that character is not
43:37
Speaker 1: actually a woman of color just feels like a hollow victory. Right.
43:41
Speaker 1: But there are a few things I do want to
43:43
Speaker 1: say about this character that I think are worth noting,
43:47
Speaker 1: aside from setting aside that actresses in brown face, and
43:53
Speaker 1: if there's a silver lining, it's not played for laughs
43:57
Speaker 1: at all. I mean, they even attempt to make like
43:59
Speaker 1: a like an anti Latino a joke about illegal immigrants,
44:03
Speaker 1: and she tells him to go fuck himself basically, which
44:05
Speaker 1: makes it all the more baffling that they didn't just
44:07
Speaker 1: hire the right actor for Bartley. It just doesn't. Yeah, yeah,
44:10
Speaker 1: because the character is treated with respect pretty consistently, and
44:14
Speaker 1: it's like proves herself again and again, and he's a
44:17
Speaker 1: well written character. There's nothing wrong with the character. It's
44:20
Speaker 1: all the execution that's wrong. Right, Because so Vasquez is
44:25
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that we see on the screen
44:27
Speaker 1: a fairly mask presenting woman. You don't see a lot
44:31
Speaker 1: of representation of that on screen in like mainstream Hollywood movies,
44:36
Speaker 1: she's a spaceman unless yeah, I mean unless it's like
44:39
Speaker 1: that type of character is the butt of a joke,
44:41
Speaker 1: which there's a brief moment where Bill Paxton says something
44:46
Speaker 1: like fascas, have you've been mistaken for a man? And
44:49
Speaker 1: she comes back with no, have you and then she
44:52
Speaker 1: slaps high five and goes off, Yeah got me, God,
44:58
Speaker 1: I got packed at jam Cam. Aside from that, though,
45:03
Speaker 1: like her sort of mask presentation isn't like the butt
45:07
Speaker 1: of a joke, and by and large she's very respected
45:09
Speaker 1: and seen as an equal among her male colleague. That's
45:12
Speaker 1: accomplished very quickly, Like in that scene Paxiston comes out
45:17
Speaker 1: or with that she shuts him down, and then her
45:20
Speaker 1: other friend is sort of like, yeah, that's good, as
45:23
Speaker 1: you rule, and then she slaps him in the face
45:25
Speaker 1: and I was like, whoa, She's coming in hot in
45:28
Speaker 1: every regard it was exciting. Well, she just woke up.
45:32
Speaker 1: She was also doing she's doing a pull up. Someone
45:35
Speaker 1: does another pull up. Someone's pretty good scene. Yeah, I
45:41
Speaker 1: was like, what a space marine. Holy sh it. So
45:44
Speaker 1: through the rest of the movie she is one of
45:46
Speaker 1: the people who survives pretty close to the very end.
45:49
Speaker 1: Oftentimes she is like leading the way. If they're like
45:52
Speaker 1: going into a new area that they're unfamiliar with, She's
45:55
Speaker 1: like going in first, holding the biggest gun. She's charge,
45:59
Speaker 1: Like who's in charge on the ship? Like, who is
46:01
Speaker 1: the person who's in charge? Well, it's the gormless new
46:04
Speaker 1: guy is technically in charge, and then the older black dude.
46:08
Speaker 1: And then yeah, opone dies pretty quickly, so he was
46:13
Speaker 1: like sort of the highest ranking. So Gorman is like
46:16
Speaker 1: delivering orders from behind the scenes. Oppone dies, So then
46:20
Speaker 1: the next in command ends up being Hicks at some point.
46:23
Speaker 1: The reason I ask is I don't know how to
46:25
Speaker 1: at the loftest rule of factors into this movie. I
46:28
Speaker 1: think it might not succeed in this movie because I
46:30
Speaker 1: would say Ripley is ultimately the woman most in charge
46:33
Speaker 1: and she has the most hair. Yeah she is not,
46:35
Speaker 1: but in Alien three she shaves her head and she
46:39
Speaker 1: does become the baldest woman in charge. So Alien three
46:42
Speaker 1: passes the longest games, the franchise passes this maybe specific movie,
46:48
Speaker 1: and she doesn't have a lot of hair. I mean,
46:50
Speaker 1: you could argue that the Alien queen is bald, that
46:55
Speaker 1: she's all flaps, hairless flaps. But she in charge, which
46:59
Speaker 1: is an unfair press, is in charge of her alien,
47:02
Speaker 1: of her organized family. It was really an empowering movie.
47:06
Speaker 1: The flaps would have hair. Yeah, you're right, don't wax
47:11
Speaker 1: my flaps. That's what my shirt in any case, don't
47:16
Speaker 1: try about me a little flat Vasquez though, Yeah, I
47:23
Speaker 1: mean she like the men are never like, oh, we
47:26
Speaker 1: have to protect her. She might be one of the
47:28
Speaker 1: crazier ones. Yeah, she's kind of unhinged, right in a
47:32
Speaker 1: way that you would normally see like a male character
47:35
Speaker 1: like Yippy caying around a little bit. Right. If anyone
47:38
Speaker 1: has rode rage on that crew, it's maybe her, Yeah,
47:43
Speaker 1: which I guess she could have rid rage steroids too.
47:46
Speaker 1: That's right. Women can do it. If we can be criminals,
47:48
Speaker 1: we can abuse steroids, you name it, we can do it.
47:52
Speaker 1: Pharaoh is a little bit chiller, and another woman with
47:55
Speaker 1: part hair. Yeah, she's the pilot. And then there's another
47:58
Speaker 1: woman on the team. Her name is Dietrich and she
48:01
Speaker 1: seems to be like a medic technician of some kind.
48:06
Speaker 1: She is one of the first people to die, though,
48:08
Speaker 1: so we don't see a ton of her on screen,
48:10
Speaker 1: But you were mentioning this earlier is that the movie
48:14
Speaker 1: kind of goes out of its way to be pretty
48:15
Speaker 1: inclusive in terms of having women be a part of
48:19
Speaker 1: the marine team, which compared this movie to write compared
48:28
Speaker 1: this movie to The Rock exactly where it's kind of
48:32
Speaker 1: similar and that like there's just like someone who has
48:35
Speaker 1: a certain specialty that gets called in to advise on
48:38
Speaker 1: this rescue mission and aliens. It's Ripley. In The Rocket's
48:42
Speaker 1: Sean Connery his wife my favorite shots. But in The
48:52
Speaker 1: Rock there are hardly any women seen on screen at all.
48:55
Speaker 1: In this movie, women have a ton of screen time,
48:58
Speaker 1: which makes sense and not insight. Unlike The Rock, it's
49:03
Speaker 1: only allowed on screen during The Rock if they're wearing
49:05
Speaker 1: a feather boa and proposing and gregnant anyway. So yeah,
49:12
Speaker 1: I think it's really cool to see so many women
49:17
Speaker 1: in like military positions in this movie. Yeah, more progressive
49:22
Speaker 1: than our current military and our current like movies about military,
49:27
Speaker 1: Like there's I would say, if there is a movie
49:29
Speaker 1: being made about marines right now, I can't imagine it
49:32
Speaker 1: even having the parody of this movie. Yeah, or it's
49:35
Speaker 1: like a big deal, like a G I. Jane where
49:37
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, can you believe it? This is such
49:41
Speaker 1: a struggle, what a noble struggle. I mean, no one's
49:46
Speaker 1: gender really gets aside from that one joke that Bill
49:48
Speaker 1: Paxton says in the beginning, like there's gender isn't Oh
49:52
Speaker 1: there's one other scene. Uh there. It was a part
49:54
Speaker 1: of the movie where I said where I shouted locker
49:57
Speaker 1: room talk. Oh. Yes, because there's a scene where they're
50:01
Speaker 1: all at lunch and this is like right after Ripley
50:03
Speaker 1: gets there and she's like, oh, I wonder if people
50:06
Speaker 1: respect women in the future, and it's like nope. Uh
50:11
Speaker 1: where Oh I have I have the quote one of
50:14
Speaker 1: the marines says, Oh, we're going on this mission because
50:19
Speaker 1: the juicy colonists daughters need rescuing from their virginity. Yeah,
50:26
Speaker 1: they say the phrase juicy colonists daughters. Now that's a
50:30
Speaker 1: fundamentally flawed phrase as well, because are they saying that
50:33
Speaker 1: the fathers are juicy or that's a misplaced qualifier. They're like, oh,
50:40
Speaker 1: the juicy colonists thin daughters. Like we don't know. I
50:45
Speaker 1: simply don't know. Jim really camped himself on that one. Yeah,
50:51
Speaker 1: that is I don't know why that line is in
50:53
Speaker 1: the movie. It feels kind of out of place, and
50:55
Speaker 1: then they're okay. There is also later on they all
50:58
Speaker 1: did suffer at the hands of the many juicy daughters
51:00
Speaker 1: on the planet. So that's true. I mean there were
51:03
Speaker 1: a bunch of juicy daughters, meaning the aliens, the slap Monster.
51:07
Speaker 1: I would say that they did. Yeah, it was a
51:13
Speaker 1: wet plane, slippery as hell. Please come see my new
51:18
Speaker 1: student film, wet Planets, just Clammy Planets planet. Um. Okay, So,
51:26
Speaker 1: aside from a few quick moments, gender isn't really addressed
51:30
Speaker 1: in this movie. No one's like, oh, you can't do
51:33
Speaker 1: that because you're a woman, or I'm not going to
51:35
Speaker 1: listen to a woman. Right Yeah, So, um, I think
51:39
Speaker 1: that's that's very well. I do feel like the whole
51:42
Speaker 1: meta plot of Paul Riser faking presumably now that I'm
51:47
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how it's you're supposed to read it,
51:49
Speaker 1: but I kind of thought the beginning was supposed to
51:51
Speaker 1: be revealed to be like a setup and part of
51:53
Speaker 1: the manipulation, Like so he got her fired, believed her
51:57
Speaker 1: the whole time, but was like this only way I
52:00
Speaker 1: can get her on the planet. Maybe, I think so? Maybe? Okay,
52:03
Speaker 1: So given that like it is a little bit like gender.
52:06
Speaker 1: The way that all went down, it felt like, I
52:10
Speaker 1: don't know how I can see that just kind of
52:12
Speaker 1: manipulate a woman in that way, whereas I assume that
52:15
Speaker 1: you could. You wouldn't, Yeah, you wouldn't do that to
52:18
Speaker 1: a man like a corporate right, that's probably not And
52:21
Speaker 1: especially because he targets Ripley and Newt as being the
52:25
Speaker 1: ones that he's going to try to get the face
52:27
Speaker 1: huggers to impregnate, essentially so that he can carry the
52:31
Speaker 1: yeah exactly, so he can carry the yeah. We didn't
52:33
Speaker 1: even get to the fact that he's raping for business
52:37
Speaker 1: in this movie, but the one other I mean, this
52:40
Speaker 1: movie calls less attention to gender, I think to its
52:44
Speaker 1: strength a lot of the time and shows again it's
52:46
Speaker 1: like an element of restraint. This movie shows that most
52:50
Speaker 1: movies today would not because every male dominated art form
52:54
Speaker 1: right now is dying to tell you how much they
52:56
Speaker 1: respect women simply gushing. But I will say that this movie,
53:02
Speaker 1: like and And if it is true that the conservative
53:05
Speaker 1: values like we're felt represented by this movie, I think
53:09
Speaker 1: it is because we have this very strong, capable female protagonist.
53:14
Speaker 1: But you do have and it works in this story,
53:17
Speaker 1: but it is a deliberate choice to have the maternal
53:21
Speaker 1: b plot added of like, oh, but also she can
53:24
Speaker 1: be maternal and gentle and she longs for motherhood and like,
53:27
Speaker 1: this is an element of her that cannot be denied,
53:31
Speaker 1: which is not the case and not representative of every woman.
53:35
Speaker 1: So you can't just save a child because you don't
53:37
Speaker 1: want to see a kid die, Like, come on you, mmy, Yeah,
53:42
Speaker 1: I can see that happening and being justified more if
53:45
Speaker 1: in the first movie it's set up that she has
53:47
Speaker 1: a daughter that she left behind, but they deliberately add
53:51
Speaker 1: that detail into this movie that hadn't previously been established,
53:55
Speaker 1: so that means that that did not need to be established.
53:57
Speaker 1: And if they do just find a kid, yeah, she
54:00
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily need to be extremely maternal about it. She
54:03
Speaker 1: can just be like, Hey, I'm going to help make
54:05
Speaker 1: sure this kid doesn't die. This greasy little Girls your boss,
54:08
Speaker 1: which could have another option, greasy little boss. Yeah. I
54:13
Speaker 1: guess the Jim really intentionally shoehorns that in and and
54:18
Speaker 1: again I think for this movie, it does work, and
54:22
Speaker 1: it helps build out the backstory and interior life of
54:26
Speaker 1: Ripley in a way that the first movie kind of doesn't.
54:29
Speaker 1: But also the fact that he defaults to, like, oh,
54:32
Speaker 1: how is a way I can give this female character
54:34
Speaker 1: some depth? Mommy, Yeah, that's all I can think of?
54:38
Speaker 1: Is right, Like, it's effective, but it's also kind of
54:41
Speaker 1: a default. But that's also a trump that is usually
54:44
Speaker 1: given to men. So I think it's at least interesting that,
54:47
Speaker 1: like the dead daughter Trumpe being used to characteristic characterized characters.
54:51
Speaker 1: Usually it's not mad Tom Hardy and mad Max Fury,
54:55
Speaker 1: Max my daughter, I miss her. I'm quiet. My movie
54:59
Speaker 1: is bad, that's my Max is so good. I'm I'm
55:06
Speaker 1: I'm completely alone in that opinion, and that just has
55:08
Speaker 1: to be fine. I've been alone in that opinion for
55:11
Speaker 1: years and I'm fine. Yeah. You just don't like difficult,
55:14
Speaker 1: spiky places. I don't like steampunk imagery. I don't like
55:18
Speaker 1: that's what this is too. I don't like the Orange
55:21
Speaker 1: and Blue movies. I guess this is Yeah, bio punk
55:24
Speaker 1: is another triggering phrase. There any any movie where it's
55:28
Speaker 1: like the Orange Blue movie posters? Yeah, that's all. Yeah,
55:33
Speaker 1: I love I'm here for it. Here. Let me talk
55:37
Speaker 1: about some of my favorite moments that demonstrate Ripley as
55:41
Speaker 1: being a smart person, as being a smart smart smart,
55:45
Speaker 1: a good, a big smart. She's the one who figures
55:48
Speaker 1: out that the soldiers can't fire their weapons in a
55:50
Speaker 1: certain place because it'll basically cause a nuclear reaction. So
55:54
Speaker 1: after the first alien attack, a bunch of people die.
55:58
Speaker 1: Gorman is like, who don't know what to do? And
56:01
Speaker 1: she grabs him, shakes him and screams do something. He
56:06
Speaker 1: doesn't do anything, So then she basically takes over and
56:10
Speaker 1: starts giving orders and takes the wheel, drives whatever vehicle
56:15
Speaker 1: they're in, and goes and saves the survivors. There's a
56:18
Speaker 1: point where Bill Paxston is throwing a fit and screaming, screaming.
56:24
Speaker 1: She yells diamond um. She says, I'm stickier bullshit, because
56:33
Speaker 1: while he is freaking out, she is level headed and
56:37
Speaker 1: knows what needs to happen. She's like, give me the
56:39
Speaker 1: fucking plans so that we can find the air vent.
56:41
Speaker 1: Since ship do you think it's? Sigourney Weaver and Bill Paxston.
56:44
Speaker 1: We're friends, I hope, so that would be so nice.
56:50
Speaker 1: Oh I'm gonna look it up. Okay, say yeah? And
56:53
Speaker 1: then oh Ripley screams at Burke for being a capitalist. Also,
56:57
Speaker 1: this movie I feel like is anti colonialism as well,
57:02
Speaker 1: for sure, because all the colonists die the end. Also,
57:08
Speaker 1: I think this movie is a pro choice because Sigourney
57:11
Speaker 1: Weaver kills the alien flat babies with a flamethrower, which, okay,
57:17
Speaker 1: leads me to one of many climactic sequences in this
57:21
Speaker 1: movie where she does like the last big rescue at
57:26
Speaker 1: the end, she goes in and rescues Newts, and that
57:30
Speaker 1: whole sequence is all female characters because it's Ripley Newt,
57:36
Speaker 1: the alien queen, and the automated female voice, which I
57:40
Speaker 1: don't know if we ever learned her name or not,
57:42
Speaker 1: but like basically the like and the tone of the
57:46
Speaker 1: automated female voice is kind of actually, she's got a
57:50
Speaker 1: little tuned and that voice. At first, what's that phrase
57:53
Speaker 1: she kept saying. It was something to like get out.
57:56
Speaker 1: She's like, yeah, you only have like fifty minutes. Excuse
58:00
Speaker 1: doing here? Excuse me, just a quick update. Sigourney Weaver
58:06
Speaker 1: was sad Bill Packson died. Okay, she looks like, I'm
58:10
Speaker 1: go good finally. But so in this sequence, all these
58:16
Speaker 1: surviving male characters, which is only Bishop and Hicks, are
58:20
Speaker 1: treated the way that a lot of female characters are
58:22
Speaker 1: in action movies, which is that they are completely sidelined
58:25
Speaker 1: and not given anything to do. Ripley saves herself, She
58:30
Speaker 1: saves Newt. She does not need to be saved by
58:33
Speaker 1: a man a little earlier there. Yeah, she is saved,
58:38
Speaker 1: but only because, like, she tries very hard to save herself,
58:42
Speaker 1: and these things have proven to be nearly impossible to
58:45
Speaker 1: fight off and it takes like three or four men
58:48
Speaker 1: to pull the thing off of her. So I didn't
58:51
Speaker 1: hate that, especially because then she does go on to
58:54
Speaker 1: save herself and have all the agency at the end
58:56
Speaker 1: of the movie. I agree. So I was. I was
58:59
Speaker 1: worried because that was the point of the in the
59:01
Speaker 1: movie where I was like, this could be the climactic scene,
59:04
Speaker 1: because this movie could be over soon because it's pretty
59:07
Speaker 1: much done, but because it's actually sixty five scenes before
59:11
Speaker 1: the movie actually answered so long, Well, we need that
59:15
Speaker 1: scene where she's just got away from her you rich, Yeah,
59:18
Speaker 1: but let's just go to that scene. Did we need
59:21
Speaker 1: the scorpion scene? Although I did really like when she
59:23
Speaker 1: and Knut were banging on the glass and they're like,
59:25
Speaker 1: is can anyone hear us? I was like, I feel you. Um,
59:32
Speaker 1: I feel like one of the reasons I brought this
59:34
Speaker 1: up it was because when like shitty film guys talk
59:38
Speaker 1: about the backdel test, specifically the like well technically like
59:42
Speaker 1: the queen aliens like a woman. That's That's kind of
59:46
Speaker 1: why I thought it would be funny to bring this
59:47
Speaker 1: to the podcast. But then I forgot that at least
59:50
Speaker 1: and aliens probably an alien. There's like enough other stuff.
59:55
Speaker 1: I actually thought this whole podcast was going to be
59:58
Speaker 1: a debate about whether, like screeching violently constitutes dialogue. What
1:00:04
Speaker 1: is the queen saying? We don't know, is she talking
1:00:06
Speaker 1: about a man? She might be like, you killed my son?
1:00:09
Speaker 1: You killed my son? Should be like I think Bill
1:00:11
Speaker 1: Paxton's doing a great job in this movie. Fine, he's fine.
1:00:16
Speaker 1: Big Love is a good show. He's a capable character actor,
1:00:21
Speaker 1: but no one calls him a character actor because he's hot.
1:00:24
Speaker 1: Rest Paradise, Rest in past in Paradise, Rest in Paxiston.
1:00:29
Speaker 1: Oh Paxton, my Packiston. Oh there's another quick scene I
1:00:34
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about, where it's wearing. They first find
1:00:37
Speaker 1: Newt and Ripley is like cleaning off nuts face and
1:00:42
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, hard to believe there's a little girl
1:00:44
Speaker 1: under this, because again she is covered in just slime
1:00:48
Speaker 1: and goop and dirt. She's a slippery little girl because slippery.
1:00:52
Speaker 1: So yeah, she's like hard to believe there's a little
1:00:54
Speaker 1: girl under this dot dot dot and a pretty one too,
1:00:58
Speaker 1: which is not a line that Ripley needs to say.
1:01:02
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. Maybe she's trying to lift
1:01:04
Speaker 1: her spirits because granted, her parents were murdered by aliens
1:01:09
Speaker 1: and she's the only one left alive on this planet.
1:01:12
Speaker 1: But I think it's just goes to show that girls
1:01:15
Speaker 1: and women are often only appreciated for the way they
1:01:19
Speaker 1: look and only talked about in the context of the
1:01:21
Speaker 1: way they look, whereas little boys are complimented about being
1:01:25
Speaker 1: smart and being athletic and being all kinds of other things.
1:01:29
Speaker 1: I think, and and that's like one of those interesting
1:01:32
Speaker 1: little uncanny moments where you're like, oh, this movie was
1:01:34
Speaker 1: written by a guy, like it's just one of the yeah,
1:01:38
Speaker 1: but then a movie that large, because how else would
1:01:41
Speaker 1: a guy imagine you comfort a little girl exactly exactly
1:01:45
Speaker 1: like how would a mom comfort a young girl call
1:01:48
Speaker 1: her pretty? But then there's several scenes later where Ripley's
1:01:53
Speaker 1: like she survived without any training or weapons, Like, she's
1:01:57
Speaker 1: clearly very competent. There are those who seems where she
1:02:00
Speaker 1: kind of condescends to her and new It is like,
1:02:03
Speaker 1: I'm not an idiot, I know that plastic dollheads can't
1:02:07
Speaker 1: have bad dreams. And she's like, oh yeah, like I
1:02:09
Speaker 1: mean that's I like that moment. Yeah, exactly. So it
1:02:12
Speaker 1: would have been awesome in that like training our weapons
1:02:14
Speaker 1: monologue if she then was like, and that's why I'm
1:02:16
Speaker 1: giving this four year old girl a plasma rifle. Here
1:02:20
Speaker 1: you go, she's eleven whatever? Sorry, yeah, I think so
1:02:26
Speaker 1: that's crazy. I was seven, I said for because my
1:02:29
Speaker 1: brain shut off. She might not be. Maybe I'm just
1:02:31
Speaker 1: thinking she's eleven because that's how old Ripley's daughter was whenever.
1:02:35
Speaker 1: She's probably eleven. I don't know how old any kid ever. Anyway,
1:02:38
Speaker 1: Look I'm saying, is preteen with a plasma rifle. I'm
1:02:42
Speaker 1: for it. I would see it, Yeah, I would see it.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: I'm mostly for it. Mostly. Oh my god, you're making
1:02:48
Speaker 1: so many of those jobs for the child. Actor who
1:02:53
Speaker 1: played Newt is a teacher. Now, Oh cool, isn't that
1:02:57
Speaker 1: what happens in the beginning of Alien three, they're just
1:02:59
Speaker 1: like title hard style, like, oh Newt died spaceship crash. Yeah,
1:03:03
Speaker 1: they do kill her. They do kill her. They're like,
1:03:07
Speaker 1: she had the call to pursue the most noble profession.
1:03:12
Speaker 1: There's actually a couple of things I did want to
1:03:14
Speaker 1: say about Alien three, because it feels like the first
1:03:17
Speaker 1: of the Alien movies where gender is largely commented on,
1:03:22
Speaker 1: because it's generally pretty ignored in the first two Alien movies.
1:03:27
Speaker 1: Ripley crash lands on to a planet where there's like
1:03:30
Speaker 1: a penal quality full of men with why y chromosomes,
1:03:35
Speaker 1: which is not a real thing. I don't but I
1:03:39
Speaker 1: guess they're implying that these men are so masculine that
1:03:42
Speaker 1: they have many white chromosomes. And the whole time everyone's like, oh, no,
1:03:47
Speaker 1: you're a woman, and we're going to be horny because
1:03:50
Speaker 1: we're murderers and rapists of women, and she's going to
1:03:53
Speaker 1: cause trouble. Real come fueled decision. Also, in Alien three,
1:03:59
Speaker 1: Ripley is given a love interest, So there's some interesting things,
1:04:03
Speaker 1: and by interesting I mean things I don't I don't
1:04:05
Speaker 1: like about Alien three. Do they kind of try to
1:04:08
Speaker 1: give her and Hicks a moment and it seems like,
1:04:12
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I did actually want to talk about where
1:04:14
Speaker 1: there's that scene where she's trying to learn how to
1:04:16
Speaker 1: use his plasma rifle. He's like standing behind her and
1:04:21
Speaker 1: like has his arms kind of around her, showing her
1:04:24
Speaker 1: how to do different stuff, and that's played in a
1:04:26
Speaker 1: lot of movies. Were like, look at this flirtatious moment
1:04:29
Speaker 1: where like a man's trying to teach a woman how
1:04:31
Speaker 1: to swing a tennis racket, and it's like all hot
1:04:35
Speaker 1: and flirtatious, like what Jim Cameron does on his dates
1:04:38
Speaker 1: with like how to use the personal submarine. Oh my god,
1:04:42
Speaker 1: it's like I've actually got some pretty cool summers. You
1:04:46
Speaker 1: want if you want to drive it, you want to
1:04:48
Speaker 1: try didn't hold the wheel. But in this movie, I
1:04:52
Speaker 1: think it's handled better. And yet I think there's like
1:04:54
Speaker 1: a hint of like maybe they're in each other. Right.
1:04:59
Speaker 1: It's very weird and very unnecessary. But in the scene
1:05:02
Speaker 1: where she's like learning to use that gun, at first,
1:05:05
Speaker 1: I was like a scene where a man's teaching a
1:05:07
Speaker 1: woman how to use a thing. But I'm like, gosh,
1:05:08
Speaker 1: she is from the past, so she probably wouldn't know
1:05:11
Speaker 1: how to use it. Well, she also asked him how
1:05:12
Speaker 1: to use it, So yeah, he wasn't telling you something
1:05:15
Speaker 1: she knew right right, So he was not man splanning
1:05:18
Speaker 1: to her. He was just explaining. Sometimes man can't explain
1:05:21
Speaker 1: without man splaining. Sometimes, don't tell them that, mostly don't.
1:05:26
Speaker 1: Mostly they can do that mostly anyway. Um, does anyone
1:05:31
Speaker 1: have any final thoughts about Aliens? Alpha Molina could have
1:05:36
Speaker 1: been in this movie? Um as newt Oh, he's a chameleon.
1:05:43
Speaker 1: He could have played a slippery kid like do it
1:05:45
Speaker 1: with forced perspective, like standing in really far away a
1:05:49
Speaker 1: very expensive process. Or he could have played any of
1:05:52
Speaker 1: the aliens in a Little Green. He could have gone
1:05:55
Speaker 1: full Andy Sirkus, sure you played the aliens, or he
1:05:59
Speaker 1: could of play well he could, you know, he could
1:06:01
Speaker 1: play Jones the cat. He also could have played the
1:06:06
Speaker 1: queen mother. You know, he's that versatile. One last thing
1:06:10
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about was all of the vaginal
1:06:14
Speaker 1: birth straight up upskirt of an egg laying. Yes, so
1:06:22
Speaker 1: the Queen Aliens for that was in there. She has
1:06:26
Speaker 1: what seems to be an external vagina, which I think
1:06:29
Speaker 1: is extremely sex positive if you ask me, and very
1:06:33
Speaker 1: perfectly detachable because she literally rips herself off of it.
1:06:38
Speaker 1: It looks painful. I don't need this right now, and
1:06:42
Speaker 1: I feel like one of the scariest things about like
1:06:45
Speaker 1: this movie and the first Alien movie is like the
1:06:49
Speaker 1: way the aliens jest state and like like the queen
1:06:54
Speaker 1: lazy eggs and then inside those eggs like face thing
1:06:58
Speaker 1: and that attaches to your face and pregnant your chest,
1:07:01
Speaker 1: and then that dies, and then an infant alien bursts
1:07:04
Speaker 1: out of your chest and then it takes what seems
1:07:07
Speaker 1: like only an hour to grow to adulthood, and then
1:07:10
Speaker 1: and then it becomes this terrifying thing. So I don't
1:07:12
Speaker 1: know if like, is that like the writers and filmmakers
1:07:16
Speaker 1: who are largely men uh in these movies, is that
1:07:19
Speaker 1: a way for them to be like, look how gross
1:07:22
Speaker 1: and scary childbirth is and how little we understand. The
1:07:28
Speaker 1: movie monsters in general, right are just like manifestations of anxieties,
1:07:33
Speaker 1: and men are scared of vagina is a lot because
1:07:36
Speaker 1: they don't understand it. Some movie monsters represent communism, other
1:07:39
Speaker 1: movie monsters represent women because it's something that the author
1:07:43
Speaker 1: is uh afraid of and doesn't understand. For for this movie,
1:07:49
Speaker 1: it works because when we see like male protagonists slaying
1:07:54
Speaker 1: the vagina and conquering the vagina monster, that is net negative.
1:08:02
Speaker 1: Having a female protagonist confront and defeat the vagina monster.
1:08:06
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is. It's more interesting. I
1:08:10
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, I think it's it's definitely a
1:08:12
Speaker 1: trope being recycled here, but it didn't bother me in
1:08:15
Speaker 1: this movie. Yeah, I don't think any real commentary is
1:08:18
Speaker 1: being made. I don't think so either, But I don't
1:08:20
Speaker 1: think it's setting things back either. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
1:08:24
Speaker 1: would agree with it's not regressive, But it's also like
1:08:26
Speaker 1: it's all just just like, well, here's you haven't seen this.
1:08:30
Speaker 1: I think you seen a giant queen bee alien rip
1:08:34
Speaker 1: her own external vagina off of her to a woman
1:08:38
Speaker 1: to fight a woman. Yet until nine, right, isn't that
1:08:44
Speaker 1: the whole thing with the hr Geiger. It's like all
1:08:45
Speaker 1: those drawings are like, you know, everything is infused with
1:08:49
Speaker 1: like sex organs from everything, and it's like the idea
1:08:52
Speaker 1: is like the horror of that. So, quoting a paraphrasing
1:08:56
Speaker 1: what I would imagine they would say, it's like the
1:08:58
Speaker 1: horror of that confus fusion is what some Swedish dude,
1:09:04
Speaker 1: w h think something like some white dude thinks it's
1:09:08
Speaker 1: the scariest thing in the world. Yeah. Um, let's talk
1:09:12
Speaker 1: about whether or not this movie passes the Bechtel test
1:09:17
Speaker 1: a few times. There is a moment where Ripley and
1:09:20
Speaker 1: Basquez are talking and she's talking about what happened in
1:09:24
Speaker 1: the first alien movie, and then Basquez like the first Yeah,
1:09:30
Speaker 1: what happens um. Vasquez is like, look, man, I only
1:09:34
Speaker 1: need to know one thing where they are? But she
1:09:37
Speaker 1: does say, look, man, so interesting and they they is ambiguous.
1:09:43
Speaker 1: Well do we know the sex of the aliens? I think, well,
1:09:49
Speaker 1: I think a caveat for the Bechtel test is that
1:09:52
Speaker 1: are they talking about human men? And if it's an
1:09:55
Speaker 1: animal or a xeno more for whatever, it doesn't matter.
1:09:59
Speaker 1: I don't think yeah, so I would say that passes. Uh.
1:10:04
Speaker 1: And then Ripley and Newt talk a lot um. Sometimes
1:10:08
Speaker 1: they mentioned nuts little brother or like her dad, but
1:10:13
Speaker 1: several of those scenes to pass the Backtel test. The
1:10:15
Speaker 1: scene where Newts says we should go back inside because
1:10:18
Speaker 1: they mostly come out at night. Mostly that passes the
1:10:24
Speaker 1: Bechtel tests, Thank you so much. And then there's the
1:10:27
Speaker 1: scene at the end where Ripley says, get away from her,
1:10:29
Speaker 1: are you bitch? And then I think all the scenes
1:10:34
Speaker 1: between Sigourney Weaver and the Jack Vagina's past, whether there's
1:10:37
Speaker 1: dialogue being spoken or not. Yeah, it's a massive asterisk scene. Yeah.
1:10:42
Speaker 1: So the movie passes the beachdel test. Let's gotta go, right,
1:10:49
Speaker 1: oh ship, Yes, I very much have to go. Guys, sorry,
1:10:53
Speaker 1: this was so fun than you. Yeah, thanks for I
1:10:56
Speaker 1: didn't want you to be too late. Oh no, thank you.
1:10:58
Speaker 1: I spy. Okay, So let's write the movie on our
1:11:03
Speaker 1: nipple scale zero to five nipples based on portrayal of women. Um,
1:11:07
Speaker 1: I would give it. I'm gonna give it a four.
1:11:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take nipples off for the character of Vesquez
1:11:15
Speaker 1: being a Latina character but not being played by a
1:11:18
Speaker 1: Latina actress. Dog, and one for brown face. Yeah, yep.
1:11:22
Speaker 1: There's a few other, you know, small gripes where, yeah,
1:11:25
Speaker 1: like Ripley does have to do this thing where she
1:11:27
Speaker 1: has to prove herself to a man. She's like, hey,
1:11:29
Speaker 1: look I can drive a forklift that you didn't think
1:11:31
Speaker 1: I could do, and they're like, oh he he wow wow.
1:11:35
Speaker 1: But I would say, by and large apart from a
1:11:38
Speaker 1: few like lines of dialogue here and there that are
1:11:40
Speaker 1: just like that could have been cut and the movie
1:11:43
Speaker 1: would be better. This movie does. I would even go
1:11:46
Speaker 1: so far as to say an excellent job depicting women
1:11:49
Speaker 1: in an action blockbuster, especially considering the error that it
1:11:53
Speaker 1: came out in the mid eighties. Ripley is in the
1:11:57
Speaker 1: movie because they need her. She's the only one who
1:12:00
Speaker 1: can provide the information that they need to get their
1:12:04
Speaker 1: mission accomplished. Right. Without her, the movie cannot take place right. Also, yeah,
1:12:08
Speaker 1: she's level headed, she's smart, she's a good, strong leader.
1:12:12
Speaker 1: And the other female characters, the fact that they're in
1:12:16
Speaker 1: the movie at all is shouldn't be surprising, but it
1:12:20
Speaker 1: was considering, right, But I do like that it attempted
1:12:24
Speaker 1: to be more inclusive than most action movies, especially of
1:12:29
Speaker 1: this era, and that those female characters are generally pretty
1:12:33
Speaker 1: well developed and interesting. Yes, so I'm gonna give it
1:12:36
Speaker 1: four nipples, and all four of my nipples go to
1:12:39
Speaker 1: the Queen Alien Cool. I'll give it for as well. Obviously,
1:12:45
Speaker 1: we don't need to tell our audience that actors of
1:12:47
Speaker 1: any gender in brown phase is absolutely unacceptable, and it
1:12:50
Speaker 1: just it sucks because that casting choice to some extent,
1:12:54
Speaker 1: like lessons the impact of what is a very well
1:12:57
Speaker 1: written character that pisces me off. But for all the
1:13:01
Speaker 1: reasons you said, the fact that this movie cannot the
1:13:03
Speaker 1: plot can't move forward without its female characters, which even
1:13:07
Speaker 1: in action movies where there are capable women present, the
1:13:12
Speaker 1: presence of those women isn't necessarily critical to the core
1:13:16
Speaker 1: action of the movie taking place. That's not the case
1:13:19
Speaker 1: for this and that is amazing and also shouldn't be
1:13:22
Speaker 1: amazing obvious. Yeah, I think that jim cam to this
1:13:25
Speaker 1: one pretty pretty damn well. Yes, I think it was
1:13:28
Speaker 1: a solid Jim Cam. I still think it's so fucking boring.
1:13:32
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It was very long and vaginal imagery will
1:13:37
Speaker 1: get me in the seat. But the fact that it's
1:13:40
Speaker 1: a it's a real blue and orange, and that's that's
1:13:43
Speaker 1: when I'm calling every movie I don't like from now on. Yeah,
1:13:46
Speaker 1: it was never gonna be for me, but the way
1:13:48
Speaker 1: it treats this female characters is by and large pretty exceptional.
1:13:52
Speaker 1: So four nippies, I'm gonna toss two to slippery Little
1:13:57
Speaker 1: newt Uh, and then I'll give the other two to
1:14:01
Speaker 1: Paxxton Cool. Sorry, Sigourney from me. Yeah. Wow, that was
1:14:05
Speaker 1: a surprising turn of events. Just now listen rest In Paxton.
1:14:10
Speaker 1: Andrew had to leave before we could get his social media.
1:14:14
Speaker 1: I'll plug it. Yeah. You can find Andrew T online
1:14:18
Speaker 1: at andrew T I believe across all platforms. It is
1:14:22
Speaker 1: just his name. The last name is spelled T. I
1:14:25
Speaker 1: like the rapper um and you can also listen to
1:14:29
Speaker 1: his wonderful podcast he is this racist. Highly recommend yes, indeed,
1:14:34
Speaker 1: so thank you Andrew T for being here. Hey, thanks
1:14:37
Speaker 1: you wow, thank you. Thanks for and you can follow
1:14:45
Speaker 1: us on social media as well at bectol cast on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.
1:14:51
Speaker 1: You can subscribe to our Matreon. You will get to
1:14:56
Speaker 1: bonus episodes every single month, and we appreciate all of
1:15:01
Speaker 1: our matrons so much. Shout out to our matrons. Everything.
1:15:04
Speaker 1: In conclusion, don't see Deadpool two. Mostly mostly okay. Bye,