Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Us with Korama Danquah
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: On the Dog Cast, the questions asked if movies have
- 0:04Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
- 0:08Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
- 0:12Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bell Cast. Hey, hey, Jamie, Sorry,
- 0:21Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting that, But could you look? Did you
- 0:25Speaker 1: look out the window? It's it's us out there. There's
- 0:29Speaker 1: evil doppelgang er Caitlin and Jamie outside. Oh no, but
- 0:34Speaker 1: they're cute. But I like computer than us. What if
- 0:38Speaker 1: they're nicer than us? What if they're actually not evil?
- 0:42Speaker 1: What if we're the evil ones? It's open to interpretation. Well,
- 0:47Speaker 1: guess what. Here's the twist. I am the other. I
- 0:50Speaker 1: am the one outside is the one that you thought
- 0:52Speaker 1: was me? Oh my goodness. That was an effective opening.
- 0:59Speaker 1: That was our best on ye yet I think. Welcome
- 1:03Speaker 1: to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante, names
- 1:05Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast about the representation
- 1:11Speaker 1: of of of of a lot of things in movies.
- 1:14Speaker 1: We we come to some of your favorite movies using
- 1:17Speaker 1: an intersectional lend, using the Bechtel test as a jumping
- 1:22Speaker 1: off point for a discussion, and the Bechtel Test, of course,
- 1:26Speaker 1: being if you're not familiar, if this is your first
- 1:28Speaker 1: episode ever and you've never heard I think this will
- 1:31Speaker 1: be a fun point of entry this. This would be
- 1:33Speaker 1: a fun first episode. Yeah, so welcome. The Bechtel Test
- 1:38Speaker 1: is a media metric uh sometimes known as the Bechtel
- 1:42Speaker 1: Wallace Test, was created by cartoonist Allison Bechtel, and it
- 1:47Speaker 1: requires for our purposes, this is our rendition of it,
- 1:50Speaker 1: because there are various versions of the test, but ours
- 1:54Speaker 1: is that two people of any marginalized gender, they have
- 2:00Speaker 1: to have names. They have to speak to each other
- 2:03Speaker 1: about something other than a man for at least two
- 2:06Speaker 1: lines of dialogue. That's our bar, my favorite, and I
- 2:10Speaker 1: suppose so this is just a jumping out point for discussion.
- 2:12Speaker 1: So I can already say this movie passes the Bechtel test.
- 2:14Speaker 1: But one of my favorite passes is when it's Lupete
- 2:17Speaker 1: and Younga and Elizabeth Moss talking to each other about
- 2:21Speaker 1: how Lupide doesn't really want to talk to her, and
- 2:23Speaker 1: Elizabeth pass is like, oh okay, totally, like that's a past.
- 2:28Speaker 1: She's like, are you okay, Lupeta, and She's just like,
- 2:32Speaker 1: I'm not good at talk I don't really want to
- 2:34Speaker 1: talk to you right It was one of my favorite
- 2:39Speaker 1: passes of this movie, or really of the cast at all. Like,
- 2:43Speaker 1: you know, two women agreeing that they don't really want
- 2:45Speaker 1: to talk right now, that's a pass um. And we're
- 2:49Speaker 1: so excited to bring back a a much beloved guest
- 2:54Speaker 1: for a movie that she was really excited to talk
- 2:56Speaker 1: about that is a much requested movie on the cast.
- 3:00Speaker 1: The movie, of course being US Jordan peels us from
- 3:05Speaker 1: and the guest, of course being writer, actor, co host
- 3:09Speaker 1: of the podcast Popcorn Book Club and recent guest on
- 3:12Speaker 1: our Cheetah Girls episode It's Karamadonqua. Hello and welcome back.
- 3:18Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you so much for having me back. Um,
- 3:21Speaker 1: I am so excited. Like Jamie said, I was very
- 3:24Speaker 1: excited to talk about this movie. I think I sent
- 3:26Speaker 1: you an email with seven different us is on it.
- 3:30Speaker 1: I was like, I can talk about any of these movies,
- 3:32Speaker 1: also US and this movie and also US and I know,
- 3:36Speaker 1: I don't know US. Maybe it's and it's been a
- 3:40Speaker 1: movie that has been requested by listeners since before it
- 3:45Speaker 1: came out. So we are we are so excited that
- 3:48Speaker 1: you're back. Welcome back. How are you I am good.
- 3:52Speaker 1: I am you know here, which is more than a
- 3:56Speaker 1: lot of people can say. And I'm very happy for
- 3:58Speaker 1: that have not been killed by an evil doubelganger or
- 4:01Speaker 1: a coronavirus yet, So knock on wood, knock on wood.
- 4:05Speaker 1: That keeps being true. So tell us what is your
- 4:10Speaker 1: relationship with the film US? Why of the list that
- 4:14Speaker 1: you provided was it on their seven times? Um? Well,
- 4:18Speaker 1: I saw US. I would just like to shout out
- 4:21Speaker 1: my friend Mike. He took me with him to an
- 4:23Speaker 1: advanced screening of US, so I got to see it
- 4:26Speaker 1: before it was officially released to the public. He works
- 4:30Speaker 1: at BuzzFeed, so they had like a little screening thing
- 4:33Speaker 1: for BuzzFeed people and he was like, do you want
- 4:34Speaker 1: to be my plus one? And I'm like, good because
- 4:36Speaker 1: if you would ask one of your white friends, I
- 4:38Speaker 1: would have felt funny. So I got to see I
- 4:41Speaker 1: think it was like a couple of weeks before it
- 4:43Speaker 1: was released to the public, and I was just struck
- 4:46Speaker 1: by And I love horror and growing up as a
- 4:50Speaker 1: black person not seeing myself in a ton of horror
- 4:53Speaker 1: or seeing myself as like definitely never a final girl
- 4:56Speaker 1: in horror. Uh sucked? Um Like I think Screen. I
- 5:02Speaker 1: love Scream. That's one of my favorite horror franchises. I'm
- 5:04Speaker 1: so excited they're making a new one because I've seen
- 5:06Speaker 1: all four Screen movies, all three seasons of the television show,
- 5:10Speaker 1: which no one watched. I was like, I totally forgot
- 5:12Speaker 1: that was the thing, yeah, for multiple seasons. So um.
- 5:17Speaker 1: I think Scream Too was the movie that was the
- 5:21Speaker 1: only Screen movie that had any black characters in it.
- 5:24Speaker 1: And they killed Jada Pinkett Smith in the cold open
- 5:28Speaker 1: in the movie theater. It was a beautiful scene, love her.
- 5:31Speaker 1: Like after acknowledging, they're like, wow, horror movies always killed
- 5:35Speaker 1: the black characters right away, and then the black characters
- 5:38Speaker 1: get killed right away immediately, like four seconds after they're
- 5:41Speaker 1: done saying that sentence. So just Jordan Peele bringing black
- 5:45Speaker 1: horror sort of to the forefront of the horror conversation
- 5:48Speaker 1: is exciting and like, I feel like this much more
- 5:51Speaker 1: than Get Out, leans into horror more than comedy, though
- 5:55Speaker 1: he is sort of on the line of both, which
- 5:58Speaker 1: I think is great, and I love that tradition, which
- 5:59Speaker 1: is one of the reasons I like the Scream franchise
- 6:01Speaker 1: so much. So I'm excited about talking about black horror
- 6:05Speaker 1: and I love Lupe Tonyongo just always forever, and so yeah,
- 6:10Speaker 1: I just love everything about this movie. And it's there
- 6:13Speaker 1: they have matching jumpsuits. I mean, it's fashioned forward, it's
- 6:19Speaker 1: got everything. Yeah, the I mean the tethered I think.
- 6:22Speaker 1: I mean from a well we'll talk about all the complexities,
- 6:25Speaker 1: but from a fashion perspective, I mean, hands down, you
- 6:29Speaker 1: gotta admire it. We deserve to die for not coordinating
- 6:32Speaker 1: our outfits, just like on that basis alone, it's like, yeah,
- 6:36Speaker 1: you guys underground and they got it together? Yeah, how
- 6:41Speaker 1: how did they do that? Where they get them? That
- 6:43Speaker 1: is my main question, Like, I have a lot of questions.
- 6:45Speaker 1: I do think that it's hard to talk about this
- 6:48Speaker 1: movie without talking about get Out because it was like
- 6:51Speaker 1: everybody's comparing it to get Out and get Out with
- 6:53Speaker 1: so critically acclaimed, and I think that it is not
- 6:56Speaker 1: as good of a movie as get Out in terms
- 6:59Speaker 1: of it's not as tight, but I like it better. Interesting. Yeah,
- 7:02Speaker 1: I'm I'm really excited. It's it's weird because it's like
- 7:05Speaker 1: because especially when it's like a director's second movie, it's
- 7:08Speaker 1: impossible to not be tempted to compare it to the first,
- 7:11Speaker 1: but in terms I mean the conversation surrounding the two
- 7:14Speaker 1: movies were also very, very different in ways that I
- 7:16Speaker 1: think are really interesting and excited to get into it. Kimmy,
- 7:20Speaker 1: what's your Wow, We're us, It's us. I saw this
- 7:27Speaker 1: movie shortly after I came out. I saw it in
- 7:30Speaker 1: theaters twice because I was really confused the first time,
- 7:35Speaker 1: and then did a little bit of reading, a little
- 7:38Speaker 1: bit of research, and then was really excited to go
- 7:40Speaker 1: back and see it again. And then when it hits streaming,
- 7:43Speaker 1: I think I've seen I think this was the fourth
- 7:45Speaker 1: or fifth time I've watched this movie. It is a
- 7:48Speaker 1: very rewarding movie on the rewatch. I think, like it
- 7:52Speaker 1: really is watched in theaters three times, I think, and
- 7:55Speaker 1: then I've watched it again like four or five times since,
- 7:57Speaker 1: so I've seen it almost ten and it's like free time.
- 8:00Speaker 1: It is. So I don't know, like I I really respect,
- 8:04Speaker 1: especially like a director that can put a lot of
- 8:07Speaker 1: references in their work without like feeling like they're being
- 8:11Speaker 1: like thrown at you and you're being back show Like
- 8:13Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like a Gilmore Girls episode kind of
- 8:17Speaker 1: level of we're just like, Okay, I love the Chudd
- 8:20Speaker 1: reference right right, Like but they're but they're so subtle,
- 8:23Speaker 1: and like there's a Goonies reference, but if you haven't
- 8:25Speaker 1: seen the Goonies, you don't really lose anything, Like I
- 8:29Speaker 1: just I don't know. I think his style of writing
- 8:31Speaker 1: in this movie in particular is really layered and cool,
- 8:34Speaker 1: and I like saw stuff on this viewing I didn't
- 8:36Speaker 1: realize on the first and yeah, I'm a big fan.
- 8:40Speaker 1: What about you, Caitlin. I also saw it numerous times
- 8:43Speaker 1: in theaters. The first time was with Jamie, our mutual
- 8:47Speaker 1: friend Bryant. We had to go to one of my
- 8:51Speaker 1: favorite bars that I haven't been to in what feels
- 8:54Speaker 1: like years now for obvious reasons. But afterwards we were like,
- 8:58Speaker 1: there's so much to talk about. So we went to
- 9:00Speaker 1: this bar and uh talked about the movie for like
- 9:04Speaker 1: three hours and we were just like, what did we
- 9:05Speaker 1: just watch? What did it all mean? No? No, I
- 9:08Speaker 1: missed doing that, I know. And then I saw it
- 9:12Speaker 1: again in theaters with my friend Nolan, and you know,
- 9:15Speaker 1: we had a similar like hours long discussion afterward and
- 9:20Speaker 1: both times, and I've also seen it about I think
- 9:23Speaker 1: four times. Now Here's the thing. I'll be completely honest
- 9:27Speaker 1: about this. I really really liked this movie for the
- 9:30Speaker 1: first of it, and then the last ten fifteen minutes
- 9:36Speaker 1: or so. And this is completely from a screenwriting standpoint,
- 9:40Speaker 1: it loses me. I think some choices were made in
- 9:44Speaker 1: the writing. I think this is a movie that you
- 9:46Speaker 1: didn't need to explain where the tethered come from or
- 9:49Speaker 1: what the origins are in like different like like. I
- 9:52Speaker 1: think it would have served the story a little bit
- 9:55Speaker 1: better if we had just not been given any explanation
- 9:59Speaker 1: of the origin. And and maybe that actually does something
- 10:02Speaker 1: to mess up the intent of the allegory and stuff
- 10:04Speaker 1: like that. I'm not totally sure, because I also don't
- 10:06Speaker 1: really know what the allegory is supposed to be entirely
- 10:09Speaker 1: not don't exactly because there's so many interpretations. Um. But
- 10:14Speaker 1: from a strictly screenwriting point of view, I was like,
- 10:17Speaker 1: oh man, I don't like that they tried to explain
- 10:20Speaker 1: some of the stuff that I felt could have just
- 10:22Speaker 1: been left unexplained. But for the first again, ninety percent
- 10:26Speaker 1: of the movie, I'm like, this is awesome. I love
- 10:28Speaker 1: this family, I love their journey. I've come I've come
- 10:33Speaker 1: around on the ending, This was the first viewing where
- 10:36Speaker 1: I'm like, I think the because I felt the same
- 10:39Speaker 1: way that you did. But then I like, weirdly turned
- 10:41Speaker 1: a corner at some point where maybe I was reading.
- 10:44Speaker 1: I read a lot of new analysis that had come
- 10:46Speaker 1: out since I last was seeking out analysis on this movie,
- 10:51Speaker 1: and I don't know, I'm excited to talk about it
- 10:53Speaker 1: because I've turned a corner on the ending of the
- 10:55Speaker 1: movie and now I'm pro, Wow, I'm fifty fifty. I
- 10:59Speaker 1: think it's depends on the day. I'm like, on a Tuesday,
- 11:02Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, this is a great ending, but catch
- 11:05Speaker 1: me on a Thursday. Who knows, who know exactly. This
- 11:09Speaker 1: was also the first viewing of the movie too where
- 11:11Speaker 1: I like, I had never really sought out any information
- 11:15Speaker 1: on the music of this movie, but the story of
- 11:19Speaker 1: like how the music was composed as really interesting as well.
- 11:21Speaker 1: Michael Abels is an incredible composer. I loved him. I
- 11:25Speaker 1: think he's great. One of my friends actually wrote a
- 11:27Speaker 1: movie that Michael Labels did the music for that came
- 11:30Speaker 1: out in April. Yeah, it's called Bad Education. It's on HBO.
- 11:33Speaker 1: I've seen that movie. Yeah, Yeah, my movie is awesome. Yeah,
- 11:36Speaker 1: my friend Mike different Mike than took me to this
- 11:38Speaker 1: movie though, I did he get out with the mic
- 11:40Speaker 1: who wrote Bad Education? Uh? Yeah, my friend Mic wrote it.
- 11:43Speaker 1: He's incredible. Love him to death. Oh that's so everyone
- 11:46Speaker 1: should watch Bad Education. I really enjoyed it. That's so cool. Nice.
- 11:50Speaker 1: But yeah, Michael Abels is just like a genius. Yeah,
- 11:54Speaker 1: it's amazing. Like where I don't know, Like I we
- 11:58Speaker 1: don't talk about scoring very often on our feminist movie podcast,
- 12:03Speaker 1: which I guess fair enough, but there is like there's
- 12:05Speaker 1: just so much to talk about about. How where he
- 12:07Speaker 1: was pulling from And like I was, I was like, oh,
- 12:11Speaker 1: what are they saying in the in the theme and
- 12:14Speaker 1: it's nonsense, it's nothing. He made he made it up.
- 12:17Speaker 1: Like I don't know, there's so much cool stuff. Well
- 12:21Speaker 1: shall we dive in with the recap? It? All right?
- 12:25Speaker 1: So we open with text on the screen saying that
- 12:29Speaker 1: there are thousands of miles of underground tunnels in the US.
- 12:32Speaker 1: They're abandoned subways, service routes, mine shafts, and then others
- 12:36Speaker 1: that have no known purpose at all to be where
- 12:40Speaker 1: the tethered live. Every time I watched the movie, I
- 12:42Speaker 1: forget that that's the beginning, because my brain has to
- 12:46Speaker 1: forget that so that I can walk around on top
- 12:49Speaker 1: of these times. Yeah. Uh, now, it's like that. Every
- 12:54Speaker 1: time you watch it. It's like you think about that
- 12:56Speaker 1: non stuff for a week and then it just kind
- 12:58Speaker 1: of leaves you until the next time and you're like, oh, no,
- 13:01Speaker 1: the tunnels, because is that true? Yes, Oh my gosh, yeah,
- 13:07Speaker 1: there are a lot. I actually did some reading on tunnels,
- 13:09Speaker 1: and right around the time the movie came out, there
- 13:11Speaker 1: was a book that was released. I can't remember the author.
- 13:15Speaker 1: I didn't write it down because I was like, i'll remember, sure,
- 13:19Speaker 1: but it's called Underground and then it has a subtitle
- 13:22Speaker 1: and it talks about all of the various tunnels that
- 13:25Speaker 1: exist under major cities that are not being used and
- 13:29Speaker 1: I shouldn't say are not being used. A lot of
- 13:31Speaker 1: them are actually being occupied by people who are experiencing homelessness,
- 13:36Speaker 1: and some some of them are in New York City,
- 13:38Speaker 1: some of them are in Chicago. There's some in Los Angeles,
- 13:41Speaker 1: and I was like, no, oh, don't tell me that,
- 13:43Speaker 1: Like in downtown Los Angeles there are tunnels that were
- 13:46Speaker 1: possibly used by bootleggers, but were the original subway in
- 13:50Speaker 1: Los Angeles before it shut down, and then they made
- 13:51Speaker 1: a new subway, so the original Redline tunnels are just
- 13:54Speaker 1: abandoned and I didn't know that. I'm so curious how
- 13:59Speaker 1: one would even to one of these tunnels and figure
- 14:02Speaker 1: that out. Right, right, you go down an escalator that
- 14:06Speaker 1: is on the other side of the door at a
- 14:09Speaker 1: fun house of mirrors, well maintained escalator. I love the
- 14:13Speaker 1: escalator shot so much goodness. That's the opening. Then we
- 14:20Speaker 1: cut to a close up on like an eighties style TV.
- 14:24Speaker 1: We see an ad for hands across America, and then
- 14:28Speaker 1: we meet a little girl, adelaide A k Addie, the
- 14:31Speaker 1: cutest child. Shout out to all the child actors in
- 14:36Speaker 1: this movie because they all do a terrific job. Incredible,
- 14:40Speaker 1: so good and and it also made me just appreciate
- 14:44Speaker 1: Jordan Peel's directing again, where I know that he pulls
- 14:47Speaker 1: a lot from Kubrick, who is like so notoriously a
- 14:50Speaker 1: shitty person towards actors. But you can just tell, like
- 14:52Speaker 1: there were even certain shots because I think I've just
- 14:55Speaker 1: seen this movie enough times to notice the shot changes
- 14:58Speaker 1: and stuff where you're like, oh, if that was Kubrick,
- 15:01Speaker 1: he would have just let that kid walk into a mirror.
- 15:04Speaker 1: But Jordan Peel cuts to another shot and it's like,
- 15:07Speaker 1: don't hurt yourself. It's okay, Like, I don't know that
- 15:10Speaker 1: was I don't know why I'm an extra notice that
- 15:12Speaker 1: this time. Yeah, so we meet Addie. It's nineteen six,
- 15:17Speaker 1: which is the year I was born. Thank you so
- 15:20Speaker 1: much everybody. Um. Yes, actually hands across America happened like
- 15:25Speaker 1: a week after I was born. Um, I've just remembered
- 15:28Speaker 1: how close you were born to Robert Pattinson as well.
- 15:31Speaker 1: When I was just googling Robert Pattinson last night. Wait,
- 15:34Speaker 1: is he my age? Yeah? I think he's born like
- 15:36Speaker 1: the week the same week as you. Oh my god. Robert. Also,
- 15:43Speaker 1: Winston Duke is like, is my age? He's actually a
- 15:46Speaker 1: few months younger than me, So you should hang out.
- 15:48Speaker 1: I will say that was the one thing for me
- 15:51Speaker 1: where Winston Duke and Lupete and Youngo do not seem
- 15:53Speaker 1: old enough to have a teenage daughter. Yet I agree
- 15:57Speaker 1: on the first like four watches, I didn't think about it,
- 16:00Speaker 1: and then afterwards I was like, wait a Seger, Yeah,
- 16:03Speaker 1: we Robert Pattinson, Ma, whoa, he's like four days older
- 16:09Speaker 1: than me. Then oh my gosh, Robert, let's get married,
- 16:14Speaker 1: because that's how you know if you're compatible someone you
- 16:17Speaker 1: have similar birthdays. Okay, So Addie is with her parents
- 16:23Speaker 1: at like the boardwalk like carnivali area in Santa Cruz, California.
- 16:28Speaker 1: She wanders off and goes into this creepy house of
- 16:32Speaker 1: mirrors where she encounters another little girl who appears to
- 16:37Speaker 1: look exactly like her, and we're like, and then smash
- 16:42Speaker 1: cut to a close up of a rabbit and there's
- 16:44Speaker 1: like this creepy chanting uh, and then we pull out
- 16:48Speaker 1: to show hundreds of rabbits. That was the coolest scene
- 16:50Speaker 1: to see in the theater ever, because you do you're
- 16:53Speaker 1: not expecting it, and you're just like, oh my god,
- 16:55Speaker 1: there's there's more rabbits, and then there's even more rabbits,
- 16:57Speaker 1: and then it's and then so long and yeah, it's
- 17:00Speaker 1: like they're telling you you're going to go down a
- 17:01Speaker 1: rabbit hole. Wow. I had a lot of fun looking
- 17:06Speaker 1: for like this really deep layered symbolism of the rabbits,
- 17:09Speaker 1: which I did find. There's been a lot of writing
- 17:11Speaker 1: about it, but all I've been able to find from
- 17:13Speaker 1: Jordan Peelee is He's just like, I am personally afraid
- 17:16Speaker 1: of rabbits, and you're like, oh cool. It doesn't always
- 17:20Speaker 1: have to mean something sometimes sometimes Alfonso Korn is like,
- 17:26Speaker 1: the reason that green is a prominent color in The
- 17:29Speaker 1: Little Princess is because I like the color green. At
- 17:32Speaker 1: the end, you're like, oh yeah, it's dear a movie.
- 17:34Speaker 1: I guess you could do whatever you want. Um okay,
- 17:37Speaker 1: the rabbits and then we cut to adult Adelaide who's
- 17:41Speaker 1: played by Lupida and Yongo, and she has a husband
- 17:45Speaker 1: Gabe that's Winston Duke, a teenage daughter, Zora, and a
- 17:49Speaker 1: younger son, Jason. This family, the Wilsons, arrive at their
- 17:55Speaker 1: summer home that is not far from Santa Cruz, California.
- 17:59Speaker 1: Then we flashed to Addie as a child. Her parents
- 18:03Speaker 1: have brought her to a child psychologist because she hasn't
- 18:06Speaker 1: spoken since she went into this House of mirrors, but
- 18:11Speaker 1: we don't know why. We assume she's been traumatized by
- 18:14Speaker 1: this interaction with this other doppelgang or girl. Then we
- 18:18Speaker 1: cut back to the present um the family goes to
- 18:21Speaker 1: the beach in Santa Cruz against the same one where
- 18:24Speaker 1: this incident happened. They meet their friends Kitty and Josh,
- 18:29Speaker 1: played by Elizabeth Moss and Tim Hidecker, who you don't
- 18:33Speaker 1: think are going to work as a couple until they do.
- 18:37Speaker 1: Until they do, it just does it, just does work.
- 18:39Speaker 1: But also I'm like, they have teen Elizabeth Moss can't
- 18:43Speaker 1: have a seventeen year old daughter. I don't huh whatever,
- 18:46Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I guess I don't know how old. I
- 18:48Speaker 1: mean she has, she's had work done, so I guess
- 18:51Speaker 1: maybe we're supposed to think that she's older than she looks.
- 18:53Speaker 1: That's true, not the character Kitty has had work done.
- 18:56Speaker 1: I am not. No one sued me for accusings of
- 19:01Speaker 1: having worked on because she's thirty eight. I mean, I
- 19:03Speaker 1: guess if she and which means she would have been
- 19:05Speaker 1: like thirties six or seven. It doesn't matter. They have
- 19:08Speaker 1: teenage twins, is true. Becca and Lindsay are their names.
- 19:13Speaker 1: So they're on the beach. Jason sees this scary guy
- 19:16Speaker 1: on the beach is like hand is dripping with blood.
- 19:20Speaker 1: Adelaide freaks out because she thinks Jason has gone missing.
- 19:23Speaker 1: And there's all these other like weird coincidences that are
- 19:26Speaker 1: happening with like spiders and frisbees, and eleven eleven make
- 19:30Speaker 1: a wish, and I know eleven eleven is bad, and
- 19:34Speaker 1: this I was like, wait, it's not a junior high
- 19:36Speaker 1: school student making a wish. I can't relate because it's
- 19:40Speaker 1: a biblical reference that I don't remember the exact Jeremiah
- 19:46Speaker 1: eleven eleven, and I believe it was Jeremiah. Again. I
- 19:50Speaker 1: was like, I'll remember that. I don't need to write
- 19:52Speaker 1: that one down. I'm I'm over to I've got a
- 19:57Speaker 1: little analysis section on the on the bable versus because
- 20:01Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not very Bible literate myself. That someone was, um,
- 20:06Speaker 1: someone on the Great White Internet was kind enough to
- 20:08Speaker 1: break it down. Well, yeah, I think that I'm not
- 20:12Speaker 1: super vible literate. I will say my favorite translation is
- 20:14Speaker 1: definitely King James because I think it slaps and like
- 20:17Speaker 1: the new International version, I'm just like, this is boring.
- 20:20Speaker 1: Where's the poetry? Where's the moving? King James keeps it
- 20:25Speaker 1: moving and I appreciate that. But I think the gist
- 20:28Speaker 1: of the Jeremiah eleven eleven passage is y'all are going
- 20:32Speaker 1: to cry out and I'm not gonna do ship. Love
- 20:34Speaker 1: you God. That is yeah, that the cliffs notes and
- 20:39Speaker 1: then if you go back averse to Jeremiah eleven ten,
- 20:42Speaker 1: there it's all like sins of the ancestors, sins of
- 20:45Speaker 1: the Father, and it's like for certain reads of this movie,
- 20:49Speaker 1: like if you're like, oh, I think Jordan Peele may
- 20:53Speaker 1: have read back a verse or two. Who knows Jeordan
- 20:58Speaker 1: Jordan Okay. So that night they're back at home and
- 21:05Speaker 1: Adelaide tells Gabe about the night that she saw a
- 21:09Speaker 1: little girl who looked just like her when she was
- 21:11Speaker 1: a child, and that how her whole life. She felt
- 21:14Speaker 1: that she's been coming for her, and that all these
- 21:17Speaker 1: little coincidences that have been happening to her, it feels
- 21:21Speaker 1: like this person is getting closer and closer, and then
- 21:25Speaker 1: suddenly they lose power. And then Jason is like, by
- 21:29Speaker 1: the way, there's a family in our driveway, And sure enough,
- 21:33Speaker 1: there's a family in their driveway, and this family invades
- 21:37Speaker 1: the Wilson home and they realize that it's them. It's Adelaide, Gabe, Zora,
- 21:44Speaker 1: and Jason. But it's like scary doppel ganger versions of
- 21:48Speaker 1: them who are wearing red jumpsuits and carrying scissors. Now,
- 21:52Speaker 1: scary doppelganger Adelaide ak Red explains that Adelaide and Red
- 21:58Speaker 1: are tethered together. Every thing that Adelaide did in her life,
- 22:01Speaker 1: Read also did, but like a horrible version of it.
- 22:06Speaker 1: So instead of eating warm meals and playing with nice toys,
- 22:10Speaker 1: she ate rabbits and had sharp toys. Instead of falling
- 22:14Speaker 1: in love and getting married and starting a family, Read
- 22:17Speaker 1: was forced to do these things. And now she wants
- 22:21Speaker 1: to become untethered, and the way to do that is
- 22:25Speaker 1: by killing Adelaide and her family. The pairs of the
- 22:29Speaker 1: Doppelgangers kind of break off. There's fighting, there's chasing their injuries.
- 22:34Speaker 1: There's the boat scene. I love them. I'm obsessed with
- 22:38Speaker 1: the boat. I love that the boat is called the Crawdaddy.
- 22:41Speaker 1: All the boats have great names in this um. Josh's
- 22:44Speaker 1: boat is called the b Yacht but with ch in
- 22:48Speaker 1: the middle. Um. And then I love how Winston Duke's
- 22:53Speaker 1: character gave when he's like, oh, this is a home invasion, Okay,
- 22:57Speaker 1: just give them what they want, protector bodily stuff, and
- 23:00Speaker 1: then just give them whatever they want, Like you can
- 23:02Speaker 1: have the boat and the daughters like dad, no one wants.
- 23:10Speaker 1: It's so good. Yeah, She's like, like, tears are streaming
- 23:13Speaker 1: down her face and she's like, shut up, dad, no
- 23:15Speaker 1: one wants your boat. Okay. So there's all these altercations,
- 23:22Speaker 1: but the Wilson's eventually managed to get away in the
- 23:25Speaker 1: boat and they head over to Josh and Kitties, who
- 23:29Speaker 1: surprise also have scary doppelgangers who have killed that whole family.
- 23:36Speaker 1: So when Adelaide and her family show up to Josh
- 23:39Speaker 1: and Kitties, they have to fight scary Tim Hidecker and
- 23:44Speaker 1: scary Elizabeth Moss. But do they think are the character names? Yes,
- 23:49Speaker 1: they do. They have been given names like on I
- 23:52Speaker 1: AMDB and like in the script, but I don't think
- 23:55Speaker 1: we ever hear those ones. It's like texts and Dahlia
- 24:00Speaker 1: and something else. So the Wilson's managed to kill them
- 24:04Speaker 1: and the twin daughters and stuff, and then they turn
- 24:06Speaker 1: on the TV and they learn that there are many,
- 24:09Speaker 1: many more of these doppelgangers. Basically, everyone alive on Earth,
- 24:15Speaker 1: or at least in the US, seems to have a
- 24:18Speaker 1: doppelganger in the US or the US. Think about it.
- 24:24Speaker 1: It makes you think. And so the doppelgangers have been
- 24:29Speaker 1: killing there above ground counterparts and then gathering and holding
- 24:33Speaker 1: hands not on like hands across America. So the Wilson
- 24:38Speaker 1: family takes off. They head to back to the boardwalk
- 24:42Speaker 1: area because they're going to like drive. The plan is
- 24:44Speaker 1: to drive to Mexico along the coast, but they get
- 24:47Speaker 1: interrupted because Jason scary. Jason is their a k a. Pluto,
- 24:53Speaker 1: But it's a trap that enables Read to kidnap Jason.
- 24:57Speaker 1: She takes him underground via the House of Mirror, so
- 25:00Speaker 1: Adelaide goes in after him and she ends up deep underground.
- 25:04Speaker 1: We see the dwelling, you know, these tunnels where the
- 25:07Speaker 1: tethered have been living. She finds Red, who explains that
- 25:12Speaker 1: the tethered are like clones or copies of people, but
- 25:19Speaker 1: they don't have souls. They were created. There's like the
- 25:22Speaker 1: illusions of this sort of like science experiment gone wrong,
- 25:27Speaker 1: but it was failed and the clones or the copies
- 25:31Speaker 1: were abandoned, but they kind of just had to live on,
- 25:35Speaker 1: remaining tethered to their above ground counterparts. As this is happening,
- 25:39Speaker 1: we get flashbacks where we see getting into the twist
- 25:45Speaker 1: is moment. But yes, yes, we're seeing like Addie as
- 25:49Speaker 1: a kid and Red as a kid, and the carnival
- 25:53Speaker 1: and how they sort of came together and met up,
- 25:56Speaker 1: but the tethered were like, oh, look at the little girl.
- 26:00Speaker 1: She's going to be the one to save us from
- 26:03Speaker 1: this misery. And Red explains how, you know, she had
- 26:07Speaker 1: orchestrated this whole movement where they would rise above and
- 26:11Speaker 1: kill their above ground counterparts, the untethering, she calls it
- 26:14Speaker 1: the untethering. And then you see this cool montage where
- 26:17Speaker 1: they get their suits, and you're like, where they get
- 26:19Speaker 1: the suits? Where they where they get the scissors? Where
- 26:21Speaker 1: did they get where they get the shoes? There might
- 26:24Speaker 1: be manufacturing down there. We don't we don't really know
- 26:27Speaker 1: what the what the system is like could be. And
- 26:30Speaker 1: then Adelaide and Red fight most of the time Red
- 26:34Speaker 1: has the upper hand. The score really shines here, and
- 26:38Speaker 1: then Adelaide finally kills Red and rescues Jason. Their back
- 26:43Speaker 1: above ground, the Wilson family reunites, and then we get
- 26:48Speaker 1: a flashback where the big twist is revealed. We see
- 26:53Speaker 1: Adelaide and Red when they have met in the House
- 26:56Speaker 1: of Mirrors as children, and we see that Red caps
- 27:00Speaker 1: Adelaide switched places with her, so that Addie has actually
- 27:04Speaker 1: been a tethered this whole time. And Red was actually
- 27:09Speaker 1: little Addie the whole time. And then we zoom out
- 27:13Speaker 1: and we see that the Tethered are holding hands across America.
- 27:18Speaker 1: And then that is the end of their helet afters
- 27:22Speaker 1: what are they doing? Who? Pilot? Who? Who is it? Tethereds?
- 27:26Speaker 1: I don't know, they don't know all that and more
- 27:32Speaker 1: will discuss, but first we're going to take a break,
- 27:36Speaker 1: and then we'll come right back and we're back. Where
- 27:44Speaker 1: to begin? Where to begin? Here's here's here's a fact
- 27:49Speaker 1: that's just pure fun. Sure, I get you know, you
- 27:52Speaker 1: know how at the beginning, Um, they're talking when they're
- 27:55Speaker 1: on the boardwalk in the eighties, they're like, oh, I
- 27:57Speaker 1: think a movie is shooting around here. It's the Law
- 28:00Speaker 1: Lost Boys. Yes, it's The Lost Boy That is fun.
- 28:07Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, that's it. That's Jordan Peel hides
- 28:10Speaker 1: so much cool stuff in here that I was like, wait,
- 28:13Speaker 1: that's the Last Boys. His little Easter eggs, which the
- 28:17Speaker 1: little rabbits. What if? What if those are just a
- 28:18Speaker 1: bunch of little Easter bunnies hiding all the Easter eggs
- 28:21Speaker 1: around his movies to find them. So that's that, Um,
- 28:26Speaker 1: anything else we want to discuss or Nope. At the end,
- 28:31Speaker 1: I find it interesting this time rewatching it. I rewatched
- 28:35Speaker 1: it twice before we talked, because why not. And I
- 28:39Speaker 1: realized on the second rewatch for this discussion that it
- 28:44Speaker 1: was ADDIE's birthday when they were at the board walk,
- 28:47Speaker 1: which was not something I had picked up on any
- 28:49Speaker 1: other viewing. Yes, because he wins her, her dad wins
- 28:54Speaker 1: her the Thriller shirt right, or she's like having to
- 28:57Speaker 1: pick what prize and then her mom's like, it's your birthday,
- 29:00Speaker 1: you do whatever you want. Yeah, it was like what
- 29:03Speaker 1: a day? What an intense birthday? Bad birthday? They made
- 29:07Speaker 1: me wonder do the tether to have any concept of birthdays?
- 29:11Speaker 1: Like they have to understand what they are because there's
- 29:14Speaker 1: it's a mirror, So whatever we're doing above ground, they're
- 29:17Speaker 1: doing underground. So it's like they're just doing the like
- 29:21Speaker 1: worst case scenario version. So I guess that they would
- 29:23Speaker 1: have worst case scenario birthdays. Yeah, I guess. So I
- 29:27Speaker 1: mean red mentions Christmas. She's like, on Christmas, I opened
- 29:30Speaker 1: my toys and they were sharp and cold and cut
- 29:33Speaker 1: my fingers when I played with them. So I think
- 29:35Speaker 1: they get the concept of holidays. Yeah, but Red also
- 29:37Speaker 1: wasn't above ground person before, so that also who knows.
- 29:42Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. I don't know anything,
- 29:45Speaker 1: And I love that I don't know anything. It's so
- 29:47Speaker 1: much to explore. It's like tunnels of movie reference and
- 29:51Speaker 1: so many tunnels. Also in that um that sequence on
- 29:56Speaker 1: the boardwalk, there's so I'll just go back and hit
- 30:00Speaker 1: the Bible verse really quick, well, because we were just
- 30:02Speaker 1: talking about it anyways. So you see an unhoused man
- 30:07Speaker 1: on the pier holding a sign that says Jeremiah eleven eleven,
- 30:10Speaker 1: which says, I mean charma. I think you honestly, uh,
- 30:16Speaker 1: summarize it pretty well, says Therefore, thus say it the Lord.
- 30:19Speaker 1: I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape,
- 30:21Speaker 1: although they will cry out to me, I will not
- 30:23Speaker 1: listen to them. Then, if you go back a verse,
- 30:26Speaker 1: it says in Jeremiah one ten, they have returned to
- 30:29Speaker 1: the sins of their ancestors, who refused to listen to
- 30:32Speaker 1: MY words. They have followed other gods to serve them.
- 30:35Speaker 1: Both Israel and Judah have broken the covenant I made
- 30:38Speaker 1: with their ancestors. Don't know what the last sentence is,
- 30:42Speaker 1: but the read that I feel closest to on this view,
- 30:48Speaker 1: and again it's like changed over time, but the view
- 30:51Speaker 1: I've the read of the movie that I feel closest
- 30:54Speaker 1: to on this day, I felt like finding out that
- 30:57Speaker 1: verse was really helpful and kind of solidifying that interesting. Yeah, well,
- 31:05Speaker 1: I think before we maybe dive into the nitty gritty
- 31:09Speaker 1: of all the readings and the symbolism and allegories and things,
- 31:13Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to touch on the way that
- 31:17Speaker 1: horror movies have historically treated black people and black characters
- 31:22Speaker 1: because you wouldn't believe it, but it's been terrible. Um
- 31:28Speaker 1: there's a really good documentary called Horror Noir, A History
- 31:33Speaker 1: of Black Horror. That's a Shutter original documentary. UM So
- 31:37Speaker 1: I would recommend watching that to the listeners, but it
- 31:41Speaker 1: does a deep dive of this, but basically a very
- 31:44Speaker 1: brief overview of the representation of black characters in cinema historically,
- 31:50Speaker 1: again has been terrible. There's a long history of black
- 31:55Speaker 1: men in particular being shown as villains who brutal lies
- 32:00Speaker 1: white women. A lot of that was white actors in
- 32:03Speaker 1: black face. There is a long history of the magical
- 32:08Speaker 1: negro trope being used in horror films. There's the widely
- 32:12Speaker 1: known trope that we referenced earlier that gets called out
- 32:15Speaker 1: in screamed too and then acted out anyway, and then
- 32:19Speaker 1: and then and then followed through on where in an
- 32:23Speaker 1: ensemble horror movie where there's a bunch of people who
- 32:26Speaker 1: die throughout this story, there's often one black person in
- 32:29Speaker 1: the cast, and they are often the first to die.
- 32:32Speaker 1: So there's different things like that. That's only kind of
- 32:34Speaker 1: the tip of the iceberg. So a movie like Us,
- 32:39Speaker 1: a movie like get Out, a movie like the upcoming
- 32:42Speaker 1: Candy Man, I'm very excited for. While they're not that
- 32:45Speaker 1: I know, I'm so excited for it. While they are
- 32:47Speaker 1: not the first movies to subvert all of these problems,
- 32:53Speaker 1: they are pretty unique and that they don't fall into
- 32:56Speaker 1: all these tropes, and you'll never guess why. It's because
- 32:59Speaker 1: they are made by black filmmakers. So I just wanted
- 33:02Speaker 1: to again just acknowledge the really reprehensible history in terms
- 33:08Speaker 1: of representation of black characters in horror films, because it's
- 33:12Speaker 1: been real bad. Uh. Not that non white filmmakers have
- 33:16Speaker 1: been forced to enact these tropes, they have just continued
- 33:21Speaker 1: to make the choice. And I think it's also marketing.
- 33:25Speaker 1: It's like, I don't know, are people gonna go for
- 33:27Speaker 1: a black final girl. Who's to say it's like I would? Yeah,
- 33:32Speaker 1: I like those movies. I mean yeah, it's like Us
- 33:36Speaker 1: and get Out where enormous box office successes. Yeah, I
- 33:40Speaker 1: mean it's and Karama, you probably have more thoughts than
- 33:45Speaker 1: we do because we every year when we do our
- 33:48Speaker 1: Month of Horror, where like we don't know enough about horror.
- 33:53Speaker 1: I don't want to say I'm like a horror expert.
- 33:55Speaker 1: I am, and I'm an enjoyer of horror and I've
- 33:59Speaker 1: loved it since I as a kid. Uh. It is
- 34:01Speaker 1: not something that was handed down to me. Neither of
- 34:03Speaker 1: my parents enjoy horror films. I was like, Mom, will
- 34:06Speaker 1: you watch Us with me? And she was like no,
- 34:08Speaker 1: I'm good because she saw she saw get Out and
- 34:10Speaker 1: that was scary for her. She was like, I heard
- 34:12Speaker 1: this one scarier and I'm like, oh much, and she
- 34:15Speaker 1: said no, thanks. So it's interesting that I just sort
- 34:19Speaker 1: of adopted that on my own and was like, yeah,
- 34:21Speaker 1: this is cool. I love the creepy Crawley's and the
- 34:24Speaker 1: killing and the monsters. I think the horror as a
- 34:28Speaker 1: genre is great because it allows and I think that
- 34:33Speaker 1: there's a really big love of horror in a lot
- 34:36Speaker 1: of black communities, despite the treatment of black people on
- 34:39Speaker 1: screen in horror, because it is a safe space to
- 34:43Speaker 1: be afraid and you know two hours this is what's
- 34:47Speaker 1: going to happen. And it's very it's almost like law
- 34:49Speaker 1: and order and procedural television where you know what the
- 34:52Speaker 1: beats are going to be and it's like very safe
- 34:55Speaker 1: and formulaic, but still good and still fresh and interesting
- 34:59Speaker 1: in various ways. Is and like the different monsters that
- 35:02Speaker 1: are going to come and kill you, like, oh, this
- 35:04Speaker 1: one's a haunted lake man, and this one is a
- 35:06Speaker 1: child molester that's been burned, and this one the one
- 35:10Speaker 1: that we see all the time, something that has a
- 35:12Speaker 1: vagina for a head. Uh, always has a lovely little
- 35:18Speaker 1: little vul the head. And it's like, I'm coming for you.
- 35:21Speaker 1: Women are scarier. It's like, oh my god, take movies
- 35:25Speaker 1: away from men today. Um, no vulva heads in this movie.
- 35:29Speaker 1: And so you do have to you do have to
- 35:32Speaker 1: hand it to the restraint of Jordan Peel. That's true. Um,
- 35:37Speaker 1: but I mean, but what is going down into underground
- 35:40Speaker 1: into tunnels, but going into a vagina going into the
- 35:43Speaker 1: Earth's womb. The makes you think what I liked because
- 35:49Speaker 1: this is the way that this movie plays out does
- 35:53Speaker 1: inspire so much conversation, and I feel like it is
- 35:56Speaker 1: almost one of those movies that and it seems like
- 35:59Speaker 1: an interview is that and people kind of wanted it
- 36:01Speaker 1: to be like this, that how you read the ending
- 36:05Speaker 1: kind of like says more about you than it says
- 36:07Speaker 1: about the movie, which is always kind of fun and
- 36:09Speaker 1: terrifying to engage with. But in terms of like flipping
- 36:15Speaker 1: horror tropes here where horror, like you're saying, chroma is
- 36:19Speaker 1: so built around I don't know what what scares the filmmaker,
- 36:24Speaker 1: and in theory for horror movies to do well, what
- 36:27Speaker 1: scare the audience at a certain point in time and
- 36:29Speaker 1: taking the idea of the other. And I watched a
- 36:33Speaker 1: there's a really good analysis of this movie from the take,
- 36:37Speaker 1: which is just like an analysis YouTube channel where it
- 36:40Speaker 1: basically they make the point that the general horror UH
- 36:44Speaker 1: formula is to take the other and reoppressed them by
- 36:49Speaker 1: the end of the movie. So with the example of
- 36:52Speaker 1: like Michael Myers, he is the other villain of this movie.
- 36:56Speaker 1: And then the victory at the end is to oppress
- 36:59Speaker 1: him further than he was at the beginning of the
- 37:02Speaker 1: movie because he's bad and so what's cool and like
- 37:08Speaker 1: also like scrambles your brain about this movie is that
- 37:12Speaker 1: you it's unclear who, like who deserves what in this
- 37:18Speaker 1: where it's like the surface read of the movie is, Oh,
- 37:20Speaker 1: we love this family. They're not doing anything wrong that
- 37:25Speaker 1: we're seeing that is like they're not outwardly bad people,
- 37:29Speaker 1: but their existence is like it's just it it fox
- 37:35Speaker 1: with your head. But I do like messing around with
- 37:37Speaker 1: that there is not a clear cut hero or villain
- 37:40Speaker 1: to these families. Yeah, I find the more I watch it,
- 37:45Speaker 1: the less I'm sure. In that scene, um, which I love.
- 37:50Speaker 1: I love the sort of dance read of it because
- 37:53Speaker 1: as I've told you too, I love dance movies. I
- 37:55Speaker 1: love them so much. And it's like, look at a
- 37:58Speaker 1: little mini dance movie and the and my little scary movie.
- 38:01Speaker 1: It's beautiful too. Yeah, it is gorgeous. And the orchestration
- 38:05Speaker 1: of this sort of classical version of I Got five
- 38:08Speaker 1: on it is just Chef's kiss. But I don't know
- 38:12Speaker 1: who should win. And at the end, I'm like the
- 38:15Speaker 1: first time watching it, I was like, Yes, amazing, we
- 38:19Speaker 1: beat the bad person. And then I was like, oh no,
- 38:23Speaker 1: because you get that reveal at the end, and then
- 38:25Speaker 1: watching it every subsequent time and like, I don't is
- 38:29Speaker 1: this good? Who's good? I never know how to feel
- 38:34Speaker 1: I at this point, I'm like, I'm like team Tether.
- 38:38Speaker 1: I love the family, But I'm like, if this is
- 38:41Speaker 1: so like the read of the movie that I feel
- 38:44Speaker 1: closest to right now, is the story being like this
- 38:47Speaker 1: allegory for basically like the unacknowledged guilt of living in
- 38:53Speaker 1: a colonial society and in America specifically, which the more
- 38:58Speaker 1: I watched this movie and the more I read said
- 39:00Speaker 1: the hints of that are everywhere, not just in interviews
- 39:04Speaker 1: Jordan Peele has done about it, where he says, literally quote,
- 39:07Speaker 1: one of the central themes in Us is that we
- 39:09Speaker 1: can do a good job collectively of ignoring the ramifications
- 39:12Speaker 1: of privilege, and he's referencing the privilege of being a
- 39:16Speaker 1: modern American. But even from like really early in the
- 39:21Speaker 1: movie when she walks into the Hall of mirrors, that
- 39:24Speaker 1: hall of mirrors, when you look at and listen to
- 39:27Speaker 1: what's happening in there is the basically Cowboy American presentation
- 39:32Speaker 1: of false history that we all learn um as it
- 39:35Speaker 1: pertains to indigenous people in America, where it's like every lazy,
- 39:41Speaker 1: harmful stereotype is being laid out just in the background
- 39:45Speaker 1: of this scene. Yeah, it's called like Shaman's Vision Quest
- 39:49Speaker 1: and its imagery of like a native and you'll you'll
- 39:54Speaker 1: if you're fine intentional. Also at the end of the
- 39:56Speaker 1: movie that has been changed. It's now Merlin's Forest or
- 40:01Speaker 1: something like that, but it's still the same thing and
- 40:04Speaker 1: you can. Yeah. And when you when we see Adelaide
- 40:11Speaker 1: walk in, we hear this audio. And I always watch
- 40:14Speaker 1: everything with subtitles. Drag me. I love subtitles, um And
- 40:20Speaker 1: I don't understand why people hate subtitles so much. Like,
- 40:23Speaker 1: if you don't want them, that's fine, but don't hate
- 40:25Speaker 1: on me for using them, because I get extra layers.
- 40:28Speaker 1: But you get information about these hopie like mythological characters,
- 40:33Speaker 1: and so they're like, oh, we're gonna roote this and this,
- 40:37Speaker 1: and yeah, if we use these names that we barely researched,
- 40:41Speaker 1: it'll be fine. And while I was doing research because
- 40:45Speaker 1: I was like, oh, who are these names and where
- 40:47Speaker 1: did they come from? I read something that said that
- 40:50Speaker 1: all Hopie mythology that has been shared with non Hopie
- 40:53Speaker 1: people might just be big stuff that they tell us,
- 40:56Speaker 1: which I love. They're just like, yeah, this is what
- 41:00Speaker 1: we believe, um, and that there is a sort of
- 41:04Speaker 1: layered level of mythology where there's what's shared with outsiders
- 41:06Speaker 1: and then there's stuff that's never shared with outsiders. So
- 41:09Speaker 1: I find it interesting that these characters are from the
- 41:13Speaker 1: like foreigner friendly version of Hope mythology. That's incredible. Yeah,
- 41:18Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't know. I mean, and I honestly
- 41:20Speaker 1: on my first I think like at least on my
- 41:23Speaker 1: first two viewings of this, I didn't really pick up
- 41:26Speaker 1: on that. But this time it's like another one of
- 41:29Speaker 1: those things where like the subtext is there and if
- 41:32Speaker 1: you engage with it, it's like a more a better
- 41:34Speaker 1: way to engage with the movie. Yeah. So yeah, if
- 41:37Speaker 1: we're if we're reading it, so I guess coming at
- 41:39Speaker 1: it from the idea of it being from this entrenched
- 41:45Speaker 1: basically like they're being more than one America and what
- 41:48Speaker 1: we're presented with the at the beginning of the movie
- 41:51Speaker 1: is a very comfortable middle class life. Um. And then
- 41:54Speaker 1: what is happening, and so I'm trying to think of
- 41:58Speaker 1: the way to like articular late this correctly, but essentially
- 42:02Speaker 1: it seems like this movie is playing on for every
- 42:05Speaker 1: person that has it that comes with a cost. You
- 42:09Speaker 1: don't just get that. And the direct allegory happening here
- 42:13Speaker 1: is like for us to have what we have, someone
- 42:16Speaker 1: that we don't know and very possibly are willfully ignoring
- 42:20Speaker 1: the existence of entirely are suffering for us to have
- 42:25Speaker 1: the lifestyle that we have, which is true and horrifying
- 42:30Speaker 1: to consider. And I really like that Jordan Peel wrights
- 42:35Speaker 1: likable characters so that it's not like, oh, well, like
- 42:39Speaker 1: these characters are like awful and suck and it's like, no,
- 42:42Speaker 1: they're good people. They love their family, They're like living
- 42:47Speaker 1: their lives, but just like us a lot of the time,
- 42:51Speaker 1: just in complete ignorance too. Well, how do you have
- 42:55Speaker 1: this lifestyle and who upholds it and whose labor um
- 43:00Speaker 1: affords you to have what you have? Yes, I too,
- 43:04Speaker 1: That is my read of the film, because there's a
- 43:08Speaker 1: few different ones that have been posited. You know, people
- 43:12Speaker 1: are like, okay, is it about you know, the socio
- 43:14Speaker 1: economic class and privilege divide, which is like what we're
- 43:18Speaker 1: talking about. There's the is it about, like the duality
- 43:22Speaker 1: of one's self as an individual? Is it about you
- 43:26Speaker 1: know how Americans are so polarized politically at this moment
- 43:30Speaker 1: during like the Trump presidency. There's a plenty of reads,
- 43:33Speaker 1: and I see like merit and all of them. But yeah,
- 43:36Speaker 1: as far as the one that I am closest to,
- 43:40Speaker 1: like you said, Jamie, is the one that we've just described,
- 43:45Speaker 1: I am also on board that. I I think that
- 43:48Speaker 1: it's the same thing. I feel like you have to
- 43:51Speaker 1: look at what Peel is giving us, and it's there's
- 43:54Speaker 1: so much stuff about that native imagery. Like even when
- 43:57Speaker 1: they're on the beach and kiddies and looking at a magazine,
- 44:00Speaker 1: there's an ad with a native headdress and she's like, oh,
- 44:03Speaker 1: that's so pretty and just moves on from it really quickly.
- 44:07Speaker 1: But I just like that stuck out to me the
- 44:09Speaker 1: first time I watched it. I was like, wait, you
- 44:11Speaker 1: can't ignore that it has to be about that, especially
- 44:15Speaker 1: knowing that The Shining is a movie that Jordan Peele
- 44:19Speaker 1: just absolutely adores, draws a lot of influence from, And
- 44:22Speaker 1: the whole thing about that was this sort of haunted
- 44:25Speaker 1: Indian burial ground trope, and this feels like a reversal
- 44:27Speaker 1: of that, where instead of being cursed because you're living
- 44:29Speaker 1: on top of dead Indigenous people, the bad luck comes
- 44:32Speaker 1: from living on top of alive people who are just
- 44:35Speaker 1: like you but speak another language that you can't understand.
- 44:38Speaker 1: And we are tethered to these Indigenous people whose land
- 44:41Speaker 1: we've built on top of. Right, Jordan Peele, I'm realizing
- 44:45Speaker 1: everything I just said. Jordanville has obviously said a much
- 44:48Speaker 1: more intelligent version of so I just wanted to read
- 44:52Speaker 1: a quote from him that there's a few different reads.
- 44:56Speaker 1: It's kind of funny because it's I wonder if you
- 44:59Speaker 1: both feel same way. I felt like when the movie
- 45:01Speaker 1: first came out, it was a little harder to find
- 45:05Speaker 1: quotes where Jordan's Peel was explicitly saying like, well, this
- 45:08Speaker 1: is what I was trying to do, because he seemed
- 45:10Speaker 1: to want the audience to have the discussion. And then
- 45:14Speaker 1: but there are like, in the year since I have
- 45:18Speaker 1: read about it, he's talked about it pretty extensively, and
- 45:20Speaker 1: now it feels like his um his thesis statement is
- 45:23Speaker 1: out there where it kind of wasn't at the beginning.
- 45:26Speaker 1: But to continue the quote I was reading from earlier,
- 45:29Speaker 1: which is from UH the Like DVD of Us. So
- 45:35Speaker 1: he says, one of the central themes in US is
- 45:37Speaker 1: that we can do a good job collectively of ignoring
- 45:39Speaker 1: the ramifications of privilege. I think it's the idea that
- 45:42Speaker 1: we that what we feel like we deserve comes, you know,
- 45:45Speaker 1: at the expense of someone else's freedom or joy. You know,
- 45:48Speaker 1: the biggest disservice we can do as a faction with
- 45:50Speaker 1: a collective privilege like the United States is to presume
- 45:53Speaker 1: that we deserve it and that it isn't luck that
- 45:55Speaker 1: has us born where we're born. For us to have
- 45:58Speaker 1: our privilege, someone suffers. That's where the tethered connection I
- 46:01Speaker 1: think resonates the most is that those who suffer and
- 46:04Speaker 1: those who prosper are two sides of the same coin.
- 46:07Speaker 1: You can never forget that we need to fight for
- 46:09Speaker 1: the less fortunate. So that is kind of his thesis statement,
- 46:14Speaker 1: which also makes the doppelganger even more resonant and cool,
- 46:19Speaker 1: and it like really hits on that point of like
- 46:22Speaker 1: we are no different. It's like what made uh Lupete
- 46:27Speaker 1: who lives above ground and Lupeta who lives below ground different?
- 46:32Speaker 1: Not much, to the point where when they swapped, no
- 46:35Speaker 1: one knew, like, no one noticed, and it was like
- 46:37Speaker 1: the circumstance that they were born into that shaped who
- 46:42Speaker 1: they became in so many ways. Right, you get the
- 46:44Speaker 1: sense that it it just took red after emerging back
- 46:49Speaker 1: above ground. And sorry, yeah, I keep saying upstairs, lupetea downstairs.
- 46:54Speaker 1: I get what you mean. Um, she basically it seems
- 46:58Speaker 1: like it takes her maybe a few weeks or months
- 47:01Speaker 1: to assimilate, but she starts dancing, and she starts like
- 47:05Speaker 1: I suppose, learning to speak, and and then she is
- 47:10Speaker 1: indistinguishable from all the other upstairs people, the nontethered you know. So, yeah,
- 47:18Speaker 1: it's just commentary and like if you were in a
- 47:20Speaker 1: position of privilege, if you have access to things that
- 47:25Speaker 1: you need to be a boat called the bet the
- 47:29Speaker 1: what is it? The crowd beyond? Yeah, I always forget.
- 47:36Speaker 1: That's another thing that I just like always forget. And
- 47:38Speaker 1: then I see it again. I was like, oh, right,
- 47:40Speaker 1: that's the name of Tim Hidecker's boat. I love the
- 47:44Speaker 1: competition that sort of happens between Winston Duke and Tim
- 47:48Speaker 1: Hidecker and these two families, and just even above ground,
- 47:52Speaker 1: before we really get to the underground people the levels
- 47:55Speaker 1: of privilege between them, and they're both these middle class families,
- 47:58Speaker 1: Like there's no no one can argue that the Wilsons
- 48:01Speaker 1: are not doing well. They have a summer home, their kids,
- 48:03Speaker 1: they drug the Mercedes, their their kids are doing after
- 48:06Speaker 1: school activities and magic tricks and fun things like they're okay.
- 48:11Speaker 1: They have I love the sticker that they have on
- 48:14Speaker 1: the back of the car. That's like their little family sticker,
- 48:17Speaker 1: which I don't understand what anybody has those, because then
- 48:19Speaker 1: people know they can follow you and then murder your children.
- 48:22Speaker 1: That's how I think that's how the Tethered found them.
- 48:26Speaker 1: They're like that this this is the family. They have
- 48:29Speaker 1: the sticker, and this is how we know that they
- 48:30Speaker 1: live here. They shouldn't have been giving away their coordinates
- 48:33Speaker 1: like that. I think about that every time I post,
- 48:36Speaker 1: Like back in the before times when you would post
- 48:39Speaker 1: as like a comic, you would just post your location
- 48:42Speaker 1: every single night. I'm just like, this would be a
- 48:45Speaker 1: great way to get killed, like just thinking out out
- 48:49Speaker 1: or like the blame ring. That's how the blame ring
- 48:52Speaker 1: happened in real life because celebrities would be like going
- 48:55Speaker 1: on vacation, and then those teenage kids from the valley
- 48:58Speaker 1: were like, what if we robbed Paris, they'll to him anyway.
- 49:02Speaker 1: I digress um. I think that I love, though, the
- 49:07Speaker 1: difference between this white family and this black family that
- 49:10Speaker 1: are ostensibly the same in that they're both living these privileged,
- 49:14Speaker 1: middle class American lives, but we see the sort of
- 49:18Speaker 1: slight disparities and the jealousy and like the nicer boat
- 49:21Speaker 1: and the newer car and stuff like that, and how
- 49:24Speaker 1: Winston Duke is just like, well, I really wanna one
- 49:28Speaker 1: hup him and get to him. It's like I got
- 49:30Speaker 1: a boat that he has flares on his boat and
- 49:32Speaker 1: I don't have flares on my boat. And I thought
- 49:34Speaker 1: it was kind of also a fun touch that it's
- 49:36Speaker 1: like the families get along, but they don't seem to
- 49:38Speaker 1: actually like each other that much, Like, yeah, they don't.
- 49:44Speaker 1: They're not close that you get the sense that they
- 49:46Speaker 1: see each other once a year when they're both vacationing
- 49:49Speaker 1: together and that's it. And also, Okay, so I was
- 49:55Speaker 1: thinking about this where the Wilsons seem to own their
- 49:58Speaker 1: family home, but I think the other family of Kitty
- 50:01Speaker 1: and Josh, they're like air being being or like they
- 50:04Speaker 1: have a time share something because he says like, we
- 50:07Speaker 1: need to get out of here. So even though it's
- 50:09Speaker 1: a nicer house, it's like it's almost like the illusion
- 50:13Speaker 1: of them doing better because they have their only renting
- 50:16Speaker 1: this nicer house for a short amount of time because
- 50:19Speaker 1: he's like, oh, we have to be out of here
- 50:20Speaker 1: by ten am tomorrow, as if it's a rental versus
- 50:25Speaker 1: the Wilson's owning that. So it's like, I don't know,
- 50:27Speaker 1: it's like there's a there's this illusion that they're doing better,
- 50:29Speaker 1: but maybe they aren't even interesting. I didn't read that
- 50:33Speaker 1: as an Airbnb rental. I read that as a kids
- 50:36Speaker 1: take too long, I have a meeting I need to
- 50:41Speaker 1: so less is a checkout time, and more as a alright,
- 50:44Speaker 1: Gremlins could be that, but I didn't think about it
- 50:47Speaker 1: that way, and I think that could be true. Yeah, yeah,
- 50:51Speaker 1: that's I suppose open to interpretation. Like much of the movie, Yeah,
- 50:55Speaker 1: I like the kind of like subtle freak shin that
- 51:00Speaker 1: you see between these families where especially between the two
- 51:05Speaker 1: uh fathers, where I don't know, I mean, I feel
- 51:09Speaker 1: like it's something you see, but especially because it's between
- 51:12Speaker 1: a white middle class family and a black middle class family.
- 51:15Speaker 1: That friction there's like kind of another dimension to it
- 51:18Speaker 1: as well, and it's not one I've ever you really
- 51:21Speaker 1: see in movies that much at all. That's to me.
- 51:25Speaker 1: Gabe is a very interesting character because, like was mentioned,
- 51:30Speaker 1: when the Tethered first show up and invade their home,
- 51:35Speaker 1: Gabe he's like trying to reason with them and saying like,
- 51:40Speaker 1: we don't have much here. This is our summer home.
- 51:42Speaker 1: But you can have my wallet, you can have my money,
- 51:43Speaker 1: we can go to an a t m. You can
- 51:45Speaker 1: have the car, you can have the boat. You know.
- 51:47Speaker 1: He's trying to like his values are these like material possessions,
- 51:51Speaker 1: and that's what he thinks is going to be valuable
- 51:53Speaker 1: to the Tethers, and they're just like, I don't give
- 51:55Speaker 1: a ship about your money, Like we're here to kill
- 51:58Speaker 1: you know. We want to end this connection that's been happening.
- 52:02Speaker 1: That you've been bullissfully unaware of the friction between these
- 52:07Speaker 1: two families. Makes me wonder how they know each other
- 52:10Speaker 1: because I don't think it's from college, which is kind
- 52:13Speaker 1: of the generic assumption, because Winston Duke's character gave he
- 52:17Speaker 1: has a Howard university sweatshirt on, and something about Tim
- 52:23Speaker 1: Heidecker's character just doesn't read to me as white person
- 52:26Speaker 1: who went to Howard. It just I'm not getting that vibe.
- 52:32Speaker 1: Can you imagine that wasn't the case. I would be
- 52:36Speaker 1: fascinated to see that first semester, just that one. I
- 52:39Speaker 1: don't want to see anything beyond that, And I hope
- 52:41Speaker 1: there's a transfer after that, not because of white people,
- 52:45Speaker 1: because of that particular white person. Um So, I was
- 52:51Speaker 1: curious because, like you said, it seemed like they see
- 52:53Speaker 1: each other annually, because there's that line that Addie has
- 52:57Speaker 1: where she says, you look the same as you did
- 52:59Speaker 1: last year when the plastic surgery is discussed. So it's like,
- 53:03Speaker 1: who are these people to each other and what is
- 53:07Speaker 1: the positive of their relationship because it just seems like
- 53:10Speaker 1: they're there to compete. That is Yeah, like it, I
- 53:15Speaker 1: really I never really, like thought about their relationships to
- 53:19Speaker 1: each other too too much before preparing for this episode.
- 53:23Speaker 1: And even it's like the kids, clearly they have no
- 53:26Speaker 1: interest in each other, Like the twins only talk to
- 53:29Speaker 1: each other. They're like Jason's weird. Yeah, they're they're clearly
- 53:35Speaker 1: not even like Summertime friends. And Zora like has her
- 53:40Speaker 1: headphones and she has no interest in the chaotic high
- 53:43Speaker 1: Decker twins or whatever. Uh so it is like it is.
- 53:49Speaker 1: And also it's kind of she does not hesitate to
- 53:52Speaker 1: kill the ship out of them when they're She definitely
- 53:58Speaker 1: was like getting some Catharsis from killing these twins. Yeah,
- 54:04Speaker 1: I mean, based on what we see of those twins,
- 54:07Speaker 1: I get it. Yeah. Yeah. And and the relationship between Um,
- 54:14Speaker 1: Adelaide and Kitty I also think is pretty interesting where
- 54:20Speaker 1: I mean again, it's like they don't have I think
- 54:22Speaker 1: Kitty is like kind of doing a fakey attempt to
- 54:26Speaker 1: connect with Adelaide Um, and I kind of appreciate Adelaide's like, yeah,
- 54:30Speaker 1: I don't Yeah, we don't have to be chatting right now.
- 54:35Speaker 1: But I like, I thought it was kind of cool
- 54:37Speaker 1: that there was some commentary into how particularly Kitty story
- 54:42Speaker 1: plays out. I feel like, more so than anyone else
- 54:45Speaker 1: than anyone else in the Tyler family, I feel like
- 54:47Speaker 1: Kitty is the one character that you kind of see
- 54:50Speaker 1: something in her tether that is like reflective of like, oh,
- 54:54Speaker 1: if we're seeing this as like the haves and the
- 54:57Speaker 1: have nots on which America is built, the scene where
- 55:03Speaker 1: Kitty's tether whose name is Dahlia, pretty name. Uh so
- 55:10Speaker 1: Dahlia has this moment where we heard earlier that Kitty
- 55:14Speaker 1: has had like some work done. Whatever judgment isn't passed
- 55:18Speaker 1: either way, but it just is a fact um. But
- 55:21Speaker 1: then um, Dahlia, who has been playing out the actions
- 55:26Speaker 1: of Kitty her entire existence were assuming like, finally has
- 55:30Speaker 1: that moment of like holding that lip gloss and it
- 55:33Speaker 1: looks really scary, and like Elizabeth Moss is scary as
- 55:36Speaker 1: hell in this role, and I just I love her.
- 55:39Speaker 1: She I really like her in this movie as well.
- 55:42Speaker 1: But you get that moment of like, oh, this is
- 55:46Speaker 1: what I have been suffering for, is for this other
- 55:49Speaker 1: woman to look like this, And then you see her
- 55:52Speaker 1: cut her face open, which I'm pretty sure it's a
- 55:54Speaker 1: reference to Kitty's procedures, and like it all every time
- 55:59Speaker 1: I look at that seeing I'm like, okay, girl Joker,
- 56:02Speaker 1: we get it, but like, uh, do you want to
- 56:05Speaker 1: know how I got these guys? But it is a
- 56:07Speaker 1: little bit girl Joker the way it plays out, yea, oh,
- 56:10Speaker 1: it is very girl Joker, like very dark knight girl Joker.
- 56:13Speaker 1: But I yeah, noticing the scars on her face. The
- 56:17Speaker 1: second time I watched the movie, I was like, Oh,
- 56:19Speaker 1: she had to do her own plastic surgery underground. That's terrifying, right,
- 56:24Speaker 1: And I always get a little like if he around
- 56:28Speaker 1: uh male filmmakers making comments on women getting plastic surgery.
- 56:35Speaker 1: But it didn't feel I don't know, I certainly I
- 56:37Speaker 1: don't know. I didn't end up being really bothered by it.
- 56:39Speaker 1: In this particular movie. It didn't feel to me like
- 56:42Speaker 1: a judgment of plastic surgery. It felt more of a
- 56:45Speaker 1: judgment on these layers and how if you choose to
- 56:49Speaker 1: do this to yourself, do you think about the consequence
- 56:52Speaker 1: to the other person. So it was less about like
- 56:55Speaker 1: objective surgery bad surgery good, and more um consequences that
- 57:01Speaker 1: thinking and conscientiousness good. Good. Right, let's take another quick
- 57:08Speaker 1: break and then we'll come right back. I wanted to
- 57:16Speaker 1: talk a bit about just kind of like the characters
- 57:20Speaker 1: as individuals, starting with Addie, coming at it just from
- 57:25Speaker 1: a what do the characters do in the story as
- 57:30Speaker 1: it pertains to like their actions in the context of
- 57:33Speaker 1: being in this horror movie, because and we've talked about
- 57:37Speaker 1: this on various episodes in the past, where women in
- 57:40Speaker 1: horror movies will kind of be stripped of agency a
- 57:44Speaker 1: lot of the time, or they'll be and again I'm
- 57:48Speaker 1: always like worried about sounding victim blaming when I talk
- 57:53Speaker 1: about this, but they'll they'll be like kind of flailing
- 57:55Speaker 1: around and there's a killer right there, and they seem
- 57:58Speaker 1: completely oblivious of their impending doom and just like different
- 58:02Speaker 1: things like that where female characters were often just written
- 58:05Speaker 1: to seem oblivious of their surroundings for whatever reason, and
- 58:10Speaker 1: then they get killed about it. So this is sort
- 58:13Speaker 1: of here what we're used to seeing as horror going audiences.
- 58:20Speaker 1: So that you have Addie taking charge and making active
- 58:27Speaker 1: choices and knowing what danger she's in and knowing anticipating
- 58:32Speaker 1: what's going to happen, and we see her fighting and
- 58:36Speaker 1: we see her, you know, knowing that there there's this
- 58:40Speaker 1: scary family outside, let's call the cops immediately. Meanwhile, Gabe
- 58:44Speaker 1: is like, no, I'm gonna go out there. I'm gonna
- 58:47Speaker 1: exert my you know, masculinity at them and maybe scare
- 58:51Speaker 1: them off. And then that doesn't work, so then he
- 58:53Speaker 1: goes out again, this time with a weg Bin breaks
- 58:56Speaker 1: his leg and gets his knee broken, right, So like meanwhile,
- 59:00Speaker 1: like ADDIE's like I've already called the cops and we
- 59:04Speaker 1: know that that's not going to do anything, of course,
- 59:06Speaker 1: and then of course that they cops never show up
- 59:08Speaker 1: in this movie. Well, I think they all got stabbed
- 59:11Speaker 1: by Tether's in the cops defense, Like there was a
- 59:14Speaker 1: lot happening. I think that all if it had just
- 59:17Speaker 1: been one family that had Tethers to come, and I
- 59:20Speaker 1: think the cops maybe would have come eventually eventually, like
- 59:23Speaker 1: two later perhaps, But I do think it is cool,
- 59:28Speaker 1: and especially the dynamic between Gabe and Adelaide, where I
- 59:34Speaker 1: think that he has and we were kind of talking
- 59:36Speaker 1: about it with how he relates to Tim Heidecker's character,
- 59:39Speaker 1: but he definitely has like this need to appear to
- 59:42Speaker 1: be the dominant figure in the family, when if you know,
- 59:47Speaker 1: the second you want to the family interact, you know
- 59:50Speaker 1: that Adelaide is the one that makes the decisions, and
- 59:53Speaker 1: the way their relationship is is like she doesn't necessarily
- 59:55Speaker 1: need the credit for making the decisions, but she's making them,
- 1:00:00Speaker 1: and that is like how how the story plays out
- 1:00:04Speaker 1: down to like those subtle moments that happened between Gabe
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: and Adelaide, and then also happens right before the Tethers
- 1:00:12Speaker 1: arrived at the other house, at the Tyler House, where
- 1:00:16Speaker 1: wife goes to her husband and says, something isn't right.
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: I know, something isn't right. Something is going to go wrong,
- 1:00:23Speaker 1: and then the husband is like, baby, baby, baby, relax,
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: everything's fine, everything's great, it's good. Let's listen to the
- 1:00:29Speaker 1: beach boys, and or let's just go to sleep or
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: whatever it is. And which is I mean, I guess
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: kind of like a horror classic of like don't believe
- 1:00:38Speaker 1: women and then immediately get killed or injured, which I
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: think there's a converse of that between Adelaide and Gabe,
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: which I found was I thought was really interesting and thoughtless,
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: handled better than what we see in most movies where so,
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: you know, a lot of movies will have something that
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: happens out of this world and that would be difficult
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: to believe, probably by most people. It happens to the character,
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: the character tells someone else about it, and then because
- 1:01:08Speaker 1: it is difficult to believe, the other character is always
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: like I don't believe you, and I and classic yep,
- 1:01:16Speaker 1: amazing performance by me, Thank you so much. This happens
- 1:01:20Speaker 1: with Adelaide where she's like, Gabe, I, as a kid,
- 1:01:24Speaker 1: I had this experience. I feel like this person is
- 1:01:27Speaker 1: coming after me. She's I feel like she's getting closer,
- 1:01:31Speaker 1: and he's a little dismissive where he's like, well, you
- 1:01:34Speaker 1: know you were in a house of mirrors. Are you
- 1:01:35Speaker 1: sure it wasn't your reflection? And she's like, no, it
- 1:01:38Speaker 1: was real. She's explaining all this stuff and then she realized.
- 1:01:42Speaker 1: She's like, you don't believe me, and he's like I do.
- 1:01:45Speaker 1: I'm just processing and I can't believe you kept this
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: inside for so long. And then he makes a really
- 1:01:52Speaker 1: joke in bad taste about it, like a domestic violence joke,
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: and then he's like, oh, that was a bad joke. Sorry,
- 1:02:01Speaker 1: just trying to lighten the mood. And I feel like that.
- 1:02:04Speaker 1: I just liked that exchange because in most cases you
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: just get like you'd be like, I don't believe you.
- 1:02:09Speaker 1: You're being hysterical or whatever, and then there's no possible
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: way that happened. What are you crazy? Should I call
- 1:02:18Speaker 1: the doctor? Yeah? But then Gabe, Gabe comes at it.
- 1:02:24Speaker 1: I feel like kiss. Caitlin and I have talked about
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: this a bunch of like how sometimes when male character
- 1:02:32Speaker 1: is being dismissive towards a woman or being kind of cruel,
- 1:02:36Speaker 1: whether they mean to or not, that it's presented in
- 1:02:38Speaker 1: a very broadway that male viewer could not really see
- 1:02:43Speaker 1: themselves in. But in this it's like, I mean, I've
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: been in that type of situation recently of just like
- 1:02:50Speaker 1: someone being like that's okay, No, it's like what, I
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: don't know what it's a soft nag. I don't know
- 1:02:56Speaker 1: what I would call this situation, sure, but but something
- 1:02:59Speaker 1: that is certain the recognizable behavior. So he's not dismissive,
- 1:03:04Speaker 1: but he is. He's like he says, he's processing, he's
- 1:03:07Speaker 1: trying to figure out what this could have been. And
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: then two seconds later he would have to realize that
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: she is was telling the truth and this did happen
- 1:03:16Speaker 1: to her because who shows up on their doorstep but
- 1:03:19Speaker 1: a family that looks exactly like them. So yeah, I
- 1:03:22Speaker 1: just I thought that was interesting that way that was handled.
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: It felt like it was handled with a lot more
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: nuanced than it normally is. So I appreciated that. And
- 1:03:31Speaker 1: Vincent Duke just is great. He's so he's like the
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: funniest perform Like it just he's great, he's amazing. But
- 1:03:39Speaker 1: in terms of Adelaide making decisions and not needing credit
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: for them, I thought that was spot on. And we
- 1:03:46Speaker 1: see sort of a reversal from that when they're in
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: Josh and Kitty's house and he's like, we should stay here.
- 1:03:53Speaker 1: We've got the backup generator, we've got food, We're safe,
- 1:03:57Speaker 1: and she's like, really, are we safe? You don't get
- 1:04:00Speaker 1: to make the decisions anymore. And she's like, I've been
- 1:04:03Speaker 1: making decisions, and I've been fine with letting you think
- 1:04:06Speaker 1: that it's happening. But she's just like, this is enough.
- 1:04:08Speaker 1: I'm not going to die for your masculinity. We're going
- 1:04:12Speaker 1: to take my advice and we're going to Mexico. Because
- 1:04:15Speaker 1: his pitch was like, let's do home alone. Let's set
- 1:04:19Speaker 1: some traps, do home alone thing. And she's like, really,
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: did you just really reference home alone right now? And
- 1:04:25Speaker 1: then of course the kids are like, what's home alone?
- 1:04:27Speaker 1: What are micro machines? The kids are like, we are young,
- 1:04:30Speaker 1: that is old. What is reference? It's like, really, you
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: don't know what home alone is? Everyone knows what home alone.
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: I was working with the kid once who was in
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: I think ninth grade, last year. So he's like sixteen,
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: had never seen The Little Mermaid, had never heard of
- 1:04:46Speaker 1: the Little Mermaid. So yeah, and I was astonished. Yeah,
- 1:04:52Speaker 1: I was like, one, this is a classic, but it's
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: also very old. At this point, it's stated, yeah it's generating. Damn,
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: we are simply old. So I believe they didn't know
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: what Hamelan was there there is. And then I on
- 1:05:07Speaker 1: the inverse of that, I like how I mean. I
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: I think the child actors in this movie are really
- 1:05:14Speaker 1: really talented and well directed. But even the way those
- 1:05:18Speaker 1: characters are written, I felt like was unusual in a way.
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: I really liked where I feel because you sort of
- 1:05:26Speaker 1: get to know who Adelaide and Gabe are pretty quickly.
- 1:05:29Speaker 1: I liked that it seemed like their daughter kind of
- 1:05:32Speaker 1: took after Gabe a little more, and that Jason took
- 1:05:36Speaker 1: a little more after Adelaide. I feel like that is
- 1:05:38Speaker 1: not something you see in movies a lot. It's usually
- 1:05:40Speaker 1: like daughter is like mother, son is like father, because
- 1:05:44Speaker 1: gender binary where you can see I think, especially in Zora,
- 1:05:48Speaker 1: you can see like both of her parents um, and
- 1:05:52Speaker 1: then in in Jason, to have a younger son character
- 1:05:57Speaker 1: who is like very sensitive and seems like resembles a lot.
- 1:06:02Speaker 1: I think it's just kind of very much like how
- 1:06:06Speaker 1: Addie was when she was a kid. I thought was
- 1:06:08Speaker 1: really cool. You don't usually get to see a mother's
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: son relationship that is like a mirror in in that way.
- 1:06:15Speaker 1: Usually I feel like it's a little more gender like
- 1:06:18Speaker 1: normative and strict about who resembles who in their actions.
- 1:06:22Speaker 1: For sure, I think the fact that Jason is sensitive
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: and different in many ways is one of the reasons
- 1:06:28Speaker 1: that this big theory has come about where Jason is
- 1:06:32Speaker 1: secretly it's heathered and um, I'm wondering if you were
- 1:06:36Speaker 1: familiar with that theory and what you two thought about that.
- 1:06:40Speaker 1: I read a little bit about it, but as soon
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: I was reading in it in the same moment that
- 1:06:45Speaker 1: I was also reading that Jordan Peel had completely dismissed
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: that as a possibility, so I like, didn't even I'm like, yeah,
- 1:06:52Speaker 1: I don't think so. I remember that was one of
- 1:06:55Speaker 1: the first, I think one of the first popular theories
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: I encounter after see in the movie the first time
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: and was like, wait, what what there? It's interesting. I think, like,
- 1:07:07Speaker 1: if you like draw that out, it is kind of interesting.
- 1:07:10Speaker 1: But I think that yeah, it holds very little water.
- 1:07:12Speaker 1: Jordan Peele was like, what, no, stop it. But I
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: think it's interesting that this sensitivity and difference instead of
- 1:07:20Speaker 1: just being like a sensitive boy was like, no, he
- 1:07:23Speaker 1: must be a nightmare person from underground who has been replaced.
- 1:07:27Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't like the applications of the theory. Yeah,
- 1:07:32Speaker 1: that's how little leeway we're willing to give young boys
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: in our society to be sort of soft, right, like
- 1:07:38Speaker 1: it has to be has to be a conspiracy. Well,
- 1:07:42Speaker 1: speaking of some other gender normative stuff, here's like one
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: of the few things that bumped me a little bit
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: was so they the family has decided after killing like
- 1:07:54Speaker 1: evil Josh and Kitty in that family, add he's like,
- 1:07:57Speaker 1: we have to be on the move again. We have
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: to leave, we have to run. And they realized they
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: don't have the car keys that they need. So Addie
- 1:08:05Speaker 1: goes back inside and she realizes that one of the
- 1:08:08Speaker 1: twins is still alive. Now Addie is holding a fireplace
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: poker tool that we have seen her used before as
- 1:08:19Speaker 1: a weapon. She's right by the sink and she so
- 1:08:22Speaker 1: she was realizing that one of the twins is about
- 1:08:24Speaker 1: to pounce on her, so she grabs a frying pan
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: even though she's already holding holding the poker, and then
- 1:08:32Speaker 1: uses the frying pan to hit the twin with. And
- 1:08:36Speaker 1: we've talked countless times on the podcast about how oftentimes women,
- 1:08:42Speaker 1: if they are allowed to fight back or use a
- 1:08:44Speaker 1: weapon at all, it is often some sort of domestic item,
- 1:08:49Speaker 1: often specifically a frying pan. I will argue that it's
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: like I thought that too, But then I'm like, but
- 1:08:55Speaker 1: then I was like, wait a second fire poker. I
- 1:08:58Speaker 1: mean it's not it's not like as over the top
- 1:09:01Speaker 1: as a frying pan, But I'm like, that's kind of
- 1:09:03Speaker 1: a household object as well, Like it is, but it
- 1:09:07Speaker 1: doesn't have necessarily like the same it's not the gender
- 1:09:13Speaker 1: right to me, it felt a little bit more neutral.
- 1:09:16Speaker 1: So but then I was like, why was she grab
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: a frying pan? She's already holding this weapon, which she
- 1:09:21Speaker 1: continues to hold and fight like that's how she kills
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: that's what she uses to fight red with at the
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: end and stuff. So I think that it's interesting because yes,
- 1:09:33Speaker 1: they are both household items, and one could argue like
- 1:09:36Speaker 1: in terms of like Goddess of the hearth and like
- 1:09:39Speaker 1: fires are also historically in some cultures very feminine and
- 1:09:43Speaker 1: like keeping your house warm. But the fire poker was
- 1:09:49Speaker 1: an item of necessity that she was able to grab
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: while she was tethered to the coffee table, and so
- 1:09:56Speaker 1: like that she used that to extract herself from danger
- 1:10:00Speaker 1: and then continue to use that. So I was like
- 1:10:03Speaker 1: fine with that. I was like, this is what you
- 1:10:04Speaker 1: were able to grab. But then having that already, then
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: grabbing the frying pan definitely read is weird because it's like,
- 1:10:12Speaker 1: you have a thing in your hand, why another weapon?
- 1:10:15Speaker 1: And it's like her signature weapon too. Yeah, so it
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: was just like why what a weird choice, especially because again,
- 1:10:23Speaker 1: I mean we could ratle off several movies right now
- 1:10:27Speaker 1: where a woman uses a frying pan specifically, we see
- 1:10:30Speaker 1: it and Tangled, we see it in Roger Rabbit, we
- 1:10:33Speaker 1: see it in Raiders of the Last Dark, we see
- 1:10:35Speaker 1: it in Shako La, you know, like it's always and
- 1:10:40Speaker 1: Alfred Molina's shock. Okay, I got my little alf now
- 1:10:44Speaker 1: in my recording area. I have my little Alfred Molina
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: at already. I love Alfred Molina. I saw him in
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: a play when plays were still a thing, the last
- 1:10:54Speaker 1: the last play I ever saw a start. Alfred Molina
- 1:10:56Speaker 1: in it. He's great. Wait the last play? Did you
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: see the one in passive? I did, Yeah, the Father
- 1:11:02Speaker 1: I saw it too. He was so good. He was good.
- 1:11:05Speaker 1: Everyone else was okay, everyone else was okay. I don't
- 1:11:10Speaker 1: see I don't see a lot of like live like plays,
- 1:11:13Speaker 1: but I was so glad I got to see that.
- 1:11:16Speaker 1: It was a weird play. I don't know if I
- 1:11:18Speaker 1: liked the play. It was weird and sad, and ultimately
- 1:11:22Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I could have not seen this
- 1:11:25Speaker 1: and felt better, but it was. It was well acted.
- 1:11:29Speaker 1: But anyway, back to the movie, Um, I wanted to
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: just really quickly say something that was a reference to
- 1:11:36Speaker 1: something I said earlier. So and I because I just
- 1:11:38Speaker 1: figured it out in real time. I was like, why
- 1:11:40Speaker 1: does this bother me so much? And it's the my
- 1:11:43Speaker 1: my criticism of female characters being written in a certain
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: way in horror movies where they do seem unaware of
- 1:11:51Speaker 1: their surroundings, or that they make questionable choices things like that.
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: And this is almost always a male writer director presenting
- 1:12:02Speaker 1: female characters this way. And I'll use one of the
- 1:12:06Speaker 1: worst horror movies I've ever seen as an example. A
- 1:12:09Speaker 1: movie called The Terror Fire, which is about a killer
- 1:12:12Speaker 1: clown who reaks havoc around the city and is specifically
- 1:12:18Speaker 1: trying to kill this young woman and her friend. I
- 1:12:21Speaker 1: would watch it. I will say it would get a
- 1:12:24Speaker 1: negative one zillion nipples on the Bechtel cast, so stopped us.
- 1:12:31Speaker 1: In that movie, you see the protagonist, who as a woman,
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: making countless choice after choice after choice of just you
- 1:12:38Speaker 1: as the audience would be like, why would you do that?
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: Why would you go back into the scary warehouse where
- 1:12:43Speaker 1: you know a killer is Why would you do any
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: of what you're doing besides running away and trying to
- 1:12:47Speaker 1: find safety? And that is the thing that I take
- 1:12:51Speaker 1: issue with because it's like, as women, we are constantly
- 1:12:55Speaker 1: on high alert for our safety, right, we know the
- 1:12:58Speaker 1: dangers lurking out there, and we're not just like obliviously
- 1:13:03Speaker 1: making horrible choices all the time to go into scary
- 1:13:07Speaker 1: warehouses where we just almost got murdered. Right. So yeah,
- 1:13:11Speaker 1: Like I I just said I wouldn't put one of
- 1:13:13Speaker 1: those family stickers on my car because somebody might come
- 1:13:15Speaker 1: and murder my family, right, Yeah, we're all on the
- 1:13:21Speaker 1: defensive now. I'm like, damn, I hadn't thought about that
- 1:13:24Speaker 1: about the stickers, but now I'm off them for life,
- 1:13:27Speaker 1: or I'll put a different sticker to throw them off
- 1:13:29Speaker 1: my track, right right, Like we have eighteen kids and
- 1:13:34Speaker 1: we all have guns, stay away. So yeah, So the
- 1:13:38Speaker 1: point is, like I just I get so annoyed when
- 1:13:40Speaker 1: like against specifically men who are making horror movies don't
- 1:13:45Speaker 1: even know to take into consideration the high alert that
- 1:13:50Speaker 1: women have to be on just in everyday life, especially
- 1:13:54Speaker 1: at night, you know, and then make the assumption that
- 1:13:57Speaker 1: it's irrational at its core. So that's I just wanted
- 1:14:02Speaker 1: to clarify because I'm always like I sound so like
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: victim blamey no. And I think that's one of the
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: reasons that I like the Scream franchise so much, because
- 1:14:10Speaker 1: Sidney Prescott is always very aware and hyper aware, and
- 1:14:14Speaker 1: she's had multiple killers come after her. So as each
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: movie gets on and she becomes smarter and more creative.
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: But it's like basically about a woman who continues to
- 1:14:23Speaker 1: be stalked and like how she fights against that as
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: opposed to like, oh, Ladi da, I'm finding myself in
- 1:14:30Speaker 1: this situation, like she becomes a target for these people
- 1:14:32Speaker 1: who become obsessed with her, especially after a film about
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: her life is made, So I think that that's really intriguing. Also,
- 1:14:39Speaker 1: I love the movie Stab, which is the screen movies
- 1:14:42Speaker 1: inside the screen movies, um, and I love that inside
- 1:14:47Speaker 1: the movie in the fourth screen they have like a
- 1:14:49Speaker 1: stab fest. But anyway back to us, I love screen
- 1:14:53Speaker 1: and going off what you're saying, Caitlin, I am encouraged
- 1:14:56Speaker 1: by seeing movies like us, and even because it's like,
- 1:15:01Speaker 1: you know, we can't necessarily stop men from writing movies, right,
- 1:15:07Speaker 1: so if we're going off of that, it is nice
- 1:15:09Speaker 1: that they seem to be getting a little bit better
- 1:15:13Speaker 1: about at least recognizing the tropes of the genre that
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: are irrational and harmful and have everything to do with
- 1:15:19Speaker 1: their writing versus what the reality is. I feel like
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: another example you could point to is the new Halloween movie,
- 1:15:25Speaker 1: where you know Laurie Laurie strode Um in the original franchise,
- 1:15:31Speaker 1: like her actions are made to seem somewhat irrational, very
- 1:15:35Speaker 1: like final girly, and then in the new one you
- 1:15:38Speaker 1: see that she's been like living this life of fear
- 1:15:41Speaker 1: and like what are the ramifications of that and examining
- 1:15:45Speaker 1: at least and it's I will say that horror movies.
- 1:15:48Speaker 1: Recent horror movies have done it with mixed results, but
- 1:15:52Speaker 1: examining the PTSD aspect of being pursued by something terrifying
- 1:15:59Speaker 1: and how that affects you psychologically, I will say that
- 1:16:03Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't. There's not a lot of
- 1:16:07Speaker 1: horror movies that do it extremely well. The Babba Dick
- 1:16:11Speaker 1: comes to mind of like one horror movie that deals
- 1:16:13Speaker 1: with PTSD and and just like a fear really really well.
- 1:16:20Speaker 1: I thought, or at least when we did the episode,
- 1:16:22Speaker 1: wasn't I thought it was postpartum. Yeah, but I mean
- 1:16:26Speaker 1: like a form of psychological stress and trauma here in
- 1:16:31Speaker 1: in US. I it's kind of muddled for me. Where
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: So we see young Addie, who actually is young Red,
- 1:16:44Speaker 1: come up to the service and then she's put into
- 1:16:48Speaker 1: therapy because she's not speaking. This is perceived to be
- 1:16:51Speaker 1: a result of PTSD. It also appears to be a
- 1:16:55Speaker 1: stressor on her parents marriage, which is every child of
- 1:17:00Speaker 1: divorce is worst fear, although they seemed to have some
- 1:17:04Speaker 1: issues before. Also, Oh yeah, because there's like it sounds
- 1:17:08Speaker 1: like he you know, like there's there's some drinking going
- 1:17:11Speaker 1: on and other other stresses on the relationship. Um, but
- 1:17:17Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm curious of like what you both
- 1:17:19Speaker 1: made of that plot point. I felt I felt like
- 1:17:24Speaker 1: it was less about developing PTSD and more about setting
- 1:17:29Speaker 1: up for the reveal. And also I do like that
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: it was she was gone for fifteen minutes. What can
- 1:17:35Speaker 1: happen in fifteen minutes? And when we are in real
- 1:17:39Speaker 1: time and the invasion is happening, Uh, they call the
- 1:17:43Speaker 1: police and the police say they will be there in
- 1:17:44Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, and we already know what is going to
- 1:17:48Speaker 1: happen or what can happen in fifteen minutes. If you're
- 1:17:51Speaker 1: rewatching it, you're like, fifteen minutes is not good. You
- 1:17:54Speaker 1: need to be there sooner. Bad things can happen. And
- 1:17:57Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that it was the dad
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: who was like, what could have happened? It was only
- 1:18:01Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, and the mom was like, a lot can
- 1:18:05Speaker 1: happen in fifteen minutes, Like ADDIE's mom like knows, and
- 1:18:09Speaker 1: that's why she's so concerned for her daughter. Yeah, because
- 1:18:13Speaker 1: they have no clue what's happened to her, and it's
- 1:18:15Speaker 1: far worse than they could have even imagined, Like they
- 1:18:19Speaker 1: don't they never see their daughter again actually, and the
- 1:18:22Speaker 1: other the other read that I was and this isn't.
- 1:18:25Speaker 1: I don't have this backed up by anywhere. So maybe
- 1:18:27Speaker 1: I'm just my brain is just turning into putting over time. Um,
- 1:18:35Speaker 1: But I was. I was thinking, um just in terms
- 1:18:37Speaker 1: of how it seems like ADDIE's parents want to get
- 1:18:42Speaker 1: her help from a therapist. But the pts D, while
- 1:18:47Speaker 1: it it's made I feel I feel like it sort
- 1:18:50Speaker 1: of ties into what the message of the movie is,
- 1:18:52Speaker 1: where it's they're ascribing PTSD to an individual when it
- 1:18:56Speaker 1: actually represents something that is far larger, where it's like
- 1:19:01Speaker 1: read is representative of this whole unseen population that is
- 1:19:05Speaker 1: being actively oppressed and that is where this like stress
- 1:19:10Speaker 1: and trauma is coming from. And also she can't communicate
- 1:19:14Speaker 1: with her parents and she cannot describe what the problem is.
- 1:19:17Speaker 1: And for self preservation issues, even when she has the
- 1:19:20Speaker 1: tools to communicate, she doesn't because she wants to thrive
- 1:19:23Speaker 1: in ADDIE's place. And I don't know, it's dense. Yeah,
- 1:19:28Speaker 1: here's a question. Do we think that Addie when she
- 1:19:34Speaker 1: is newly Addie, when she's come from underground, do we
- 1:19:37Speaker 1: think that she has repressed the fact that she was
- 1:19:40Speaker 1: originally a tethered because I felt like that was supposed
- 1:19:44Speaker 1: to be something we were believing. Yeah, I thought that
- 1:19:47Speaker 1: was how That's how I thought we were supposed to
- 1:19:49Speaker 1: see it. I don't know. I was focused far more
- 1:19:52Speaker 1: on and again, maybe this is just me trying to
- 1:19:55Speaker 1: make sense of something too hard, but I was focused
- 1:19:59Speaker 1: more on, well, why doesn't real Addie, who has now
- 1:20:03Speaker 1: been trapped underground and made to live among the tethereds,
- 1:20:07Speaker 1: even though she is not a tethered why does she
- 1:20:10Speaker 1: never try to escape and just go all? It seems
- 1:20:13Speaker 1: like all she would have had to do is like
- 1:20:15Speaker 1: run up an escalator that is going in the downward motion,
- 1:20:19Speaker 1: But it seems I was like, why doesn't she she
- 1:20:21Speaker 1: knows where she comes from, why doesn't she ever try
- 1:20:24Speaker 1: to leave this terrifying place? I that was curious for
- 1:20:29Speaker 1: me too, because so the tethered are mirrors of what's
- 1:20:34Speaker 1: going on above ground. They're doing all the things that
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: they're above ground people are doing, and then they switch places.
- 1:20:39Speaker 1: So when they switch places, is now underground Addie and
- 1:20:43Speaker 1: tethered to above ground Addie. Because there is also the
- 1:20:46Speaker 1: speculation that they're sharing one soul, so it's not even
- 1:20:48Speaker 1: that they are soulless. It's that they're like everybody's got
- 1:20:52Speaker 1: half a soul sort of split between them, So like,
- 1:20:55Speaker 1: is the soul stationary and it lives above ground? Like
- 1:20:58Speaker 1: what is what the deal? Well, that's what Red seems
- 1:21:01Speaker 1: to explain in the when they first invade the home,
- 1:21:05Speaker 1: and she's like, I was tethered to you, and that's
- 1:21:07Speaker 1: why I'm trying to become untethered, so I I think,
- 1:21:11Speaker 1: but yeah, I guess that that's why I don't really
- 1:21:14Speaker 1: like the ending. There's so many story logic issues that
- 1:21:17Speaker 1: come up for me, and I'm just like, oh, what well,
- 1:21:21Speaker 1: And the dance is the big lynchpin. When she's like
- 1:21:24Speaker 1: fourteen years old and she has this dance recital where
- 1:21:27Speaker 1: she ends up getting injured, and my understanding of that
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: was that Red underground version read was able to take
- 1:21:35Speaker 1: control during that dance and that's how she was ultimately injured,
- 1:21:39Speaker 1: because she has that line where she's like, oh, I
- 1:21:40Speaker 1: piked at fourteen with her leg as a dancer, and
- 1:21:44Speaker 1: that's when they realized she was special because she could
- 1:21:47Speaker 1: control her above ground or she could break from the tethering.
- 1:21:50Speaker 1: And I don't understand what that was because they would
- 1:21:53Speaker 1: all have to have eventually broken from the tethering to
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: be able to even plan this and put on these
- 1:21:58Speaker 1: fashionable jumpsuits, so that the moment where everything switches, the
- 1:22:03Speaker 1: ending worked for me on this viewing, going with the
- 1:22:09Speaker 1: read of the movie that I'm currently going with, um
- 1:22:13Speaker 1: in that way, I feel like it really works. Where
- 1:22:16Speaker 1: if you're going off of Jordan's Peel's kind of thesis
- 1:22:21Speaker 1: that this is a movie about, like you, you know,
- 1:22:25Speaker 1: American exceptionalism, like I deserve this lifestyle, this is I'm
- 1:22:29Speaker 1: entitled to this, and just kind of I don't know,
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: like exploring that fallacy of like, oh there's enough, there's
- 1:22:37Speaker 1: enough prosperity to go around, where the reality of what
- 1:22:42Speaker 1: I mean, I we've gotten this far without saying capitalism,
- 1:22:46Speaker 1: so sorry, but like the reality of like American capitalism
- 1:22:50Speaker 1: is that it's designed so that there's not enough room
- 1:22:53Speaker 1: for everybody, and so for one person to prosper by
- 1:22:56Speaker 1: this movie's logic and buy a lot of reality, another
- 1:22:59Speaker 1: person has to be oppressed and suffer. So in that way,
- 1:23:02Speaker 1: I felt like the swap ending works if that is
- 1:23:06Speaker 1: supposed to be the message of the core, But like
- 1:23:09Speaker 1: logistically there's for sure, I'm like, huh what And also
- 1:23:14Speaker 1: there every time I do have to say it's an
- 1:23:16Speaker 1: incredible line read from Lupete and Youngo. But every time
- 1:23:21Speaker 1: reds like we are Americans, I'm like, okay, all right,
- 1:23:27Speaker 1: Hitn't it real hard? There? Jordan's Well, that transitions into
- 1:23:32Speaker 1: talking point that I wanted to hit on, which is, um,
- 1:23:37Speaker 1: the use of disability equals evil in a horror movie.
- 1:23:43Speaker 1: This is an enormous, widespread trope because what happened here
- 1:23:49Speaker 1: is that Lupeta revealed at some point that as inspiration
- 1:23:53Speaker 1: for the way she made Red's voice sound, she used
- 1:23:59Speaker 1: the symptoms of spasmodic dysphonia, which is a neurological disorder
- 1:24:04Speaker 1: that causes involuntary spasms of the larynx um. And her
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: revealing this received understandably backlash. And uh, I'm pulling from
- 1:24:15Speaker 1: an article in The Guardian entitled Lupida Nyongo's under fire
- 1:24:19Speaker 1: from disability groups for quote evil voice in us SO.
- 1:24:25Speaker 1: Respectability is a nonprofit organization that works to fight stigmas
- 1:24:30Speaker 1: against people with disabilities. The president of Respectability, Jennifer Laslow
- 1:24:35Speaker 1: ms Rahi, said, quote connecting disabilities to characters who are evil.
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: Even further marginalizes people with disabilities who also have significant
- 1:24:47Speaker 1: abilities and want to contribute to their communities just like
- 1:24:51Speaker 1: anyone else dot dot dot. What is difficult for us
- 1:24:54Speaker 1: and for the thousands of people living with spasmodic dysphonia
- 1:24:57Speaker 1: is this association to their voice with what might be
- 1:25:01Speaker 1: considered haunting end quote. So again, this is just another
- 1:25:06Speaker 1: movie that describes a disability or a characteristic of a
- 1:25:10Speaker 1: disability to a character who is evil, who is violent,
- 1:25:14Speaker 1: who murders people. And this isn't just a horror movie thing.
- 1:25:18Speaker 1: This happens in action movies. This happens in sci fi movies.
- 1:25:22Speaker 1: This happens fantasy a lot ton basically across film in general,
- 1:25:26Speaker 1: where disability could be demonize. Yeah, fiction across the world,
- 1:25:32Speaker 1: in every aspect, disability will be demonized. I will say
- 1:25:37Speaker 1: I love How To Train Your Dragon Too, because I
- 1:25:40Speaker 1: feel like it's sort of goes against that where in
- 1:25:43Speaker 1: How to Train Your Dragon Too? What's his face? I
- 1:25:45Speaker 1: just forgot his name? Hiccup the main character. He has
- 1:25:49Speaker 1: lost the leg and he modifies his dragon so that
- 1:25:53Speaker 1: he can ride his dragon even with the missing leg.
- 1:25:56Speaker 1: And he has like a prosthesis, and the villain of
- 1:25:59Speaker 1: How To In Your Dragon Too also has a disability,
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: but refuses to accept that their disability is a part
- 1:26:04Speaker 1: of who they are, and like that's why they're bad,
- 1:26:06Speaker 1: not because of disability. I like, I literally wept when
- 1:26:10Speaker 1: I saw How To Train Your Dragon Too. It's like,
- 1:26:12Speaker 1: this is beautiful, that they're pretty good, but I mean
- 1:26:17Speaker 1: even speaking to how disability is portrayed, and then and
- 1:26:22Speaker 1: the fact that it's it's like the demonization of disabled
- 1:26:27Speaker 1: people is so normalized that Lupete and Youngo didn't think
- 1:26:30Speaker 1: twice about saying that is I mean, it goes I'm
- 1:26:35Speaker 1: glad she was called out for that, but it speaks
- 1:26:37Speaker 1: to something that is much larger, where it's like, this
- 1:26:40Speaker 1: is a horror movie that subverts so many common pitfalls,
- 1:26:45Speaker 1: but there still wasn't really thought of or discussion about
- 1:26:50Speaker 1: how disability is presented by by the filmmakers or by
- 1:26:54Speaker 1: the actors or kind of on any level, which I
- 1:26:57Speaker 1: feel like speaks to just how cooked in it is,
- 1:27:00Speaker 1: to what is quote unquote okay to do for movie.
- 1:27:04Speaker 1: And Lupida apologized, and I have this quote here as well.
- 1:27:09Speaker 1: She said, quote it's a very marginal group of people
- 1:27:12Speaker 1: who suffer from this, which sidebar. It's like, well, that
- 1:27:15Speaker 1: doesn't make it okay. It's almost like, are you saying
- 1:27:17Speaker 1: that that makes it okay? That it's only or offended,
- 1:27:21Speaker 1: like who are this affected? But it's like I was
- 1:27:23Speaker 1: only going to hurt seventeen people to continue the quote.
- 1:27:29Speaker 1: The thought that I would in a way offend them
- 1:27:32Speaker 1: was not my intention. In my mind, I wasn't interested
- 1:27:35Speaker 1: in vilifying or demonizing the condition. I crafted read with
- 1:27:39Speaker 1: love and care. As much as it was a genre
- 1:27:43Speaker 1: specific world, I really wanted to ground her in something
- 1:27:45Speaker 1: that felt real. For all that I say sorry to
- 1:27:49Speaker 1: anyone I may have offended. End quote. So I don't
- 1:27:54Speaker 1: love this apology. I feel like she's it's kind of
- 1:27:58Speaker 1: like well in my the ends, but also I'm sorry, yeah,
- 1:28:03Speaker 1: but it's like love and care for how like that's
- 1:28:06Speaker 1: such a weird thing to add that the aircrafted red
- 1:28:09Speaker 1: with love and care, Like ah that Lupeta. I mean,
- 1:28:15Speaker 1: I mean it's like if we're giving I don't know.
- 1:28:18Speaker 1: That was like not a great apology, But I do
- 1:28:22Speaker 1: hope that, like she's, she is going to carry this forward,
- 1:28:26Speaker 1: and I hope that, you know, other actors saw this
- 1:28:28Speaker 1: almost we're you know, we'll think twice. It's it's an
- 1:28:32Speaker 1: easy It's just again, it's like it's so easy to
- 1:28:34Speaker 1: just not do this and be respectful of other people. Um,
- 1:28:39Speaker 1: and yeah, it's not like it's usually people's intention to
- 1:28:42Speaker 1: demonize things like this, but because, like you said, Jamie,
- 1:28:46Speaker 1: it's become so normalized that people just do it without
- 1:28:49Speaker 1: even giving it a second thought about who would be
- 1:28:52Speaker 1: negatively affected by these kinds of misrepresentations, which is kind
- 1:28:56Speaker 1: of fascinating because that's like what the movie is about
- 1:29:00Speaker 1: that she's in is like how the whatever upstairs Lupeta
- 1:29:05Speaker 1: has nothing but good intentions and is trying to do
- 1:29:07Speaker 1: well but is ignoring what is going on elsewhere and
- 1:29:12Speaker 1: is willfully ignorant of what's going on elsewhere. And this
- 1:29:14Speaker 1: is like, I guess, not a one to one example,
- 1:29:16Speaker 1: but a microcosm, but he is not even willfully ignorant.
- 1:29:19Speaker 1: I mean maybe, but it's is it comes down to
- 1:29:21Speaker 1: the question of is she has she repressed all of
- 1:29:24Speaker 1: those memories of when she did live among the tethers
- 1:29:28Speaker 1: underground or I guess I'm guess more just like those
- 1:29:32Speaker 1: characters in general, not not the swaps well, And the
- 1:29:36Speaker 1: frustrating thing for me is that there's also a plot
- 1:29:38Speaker 1: based reason for Red to have a voice like that.
- 1:29:42Speaker 1: She gets choked, she gets choked out and dragged down there.
- 1:29:47Speaker 1: And she also has not spoken English in presumably many
- 1:29:51Speaker 1: many years, so she's been using this other language that
- 1:29:55Speaker 1: is very throat based, and she has throat injuries. And like,
- 1:30:01Speaker 1: I don't understand why it had to be, Oh, there's
- 1:30:04Speaker 1: this disease that looks interesting for me to copy. It
- 1:30:08Speaker 1: just doesn't make sense because there's so many things that
- 1:30:10Speaker 1: are based in the character and in the text that
- 1:30:13Speaker 1: would make crafting that more sense. Like I don't could
- 1:30:17Speaker 1: have just done an Andy Circus Golemn voice or something.
- 1:30:23Speaker 1: I love Andy Circus, Yeah, okay, Circus hive over here.
- 1:30:30Speaker 1: It feels like he'd be so much fun to like
- 1:30:32Speaker 1: go to a party with and just hang out with
- 1:30:34Speaker 1: him the whole time and talk to no one else
- 1:30:37Speaker 1: at the party. I got to interview him a couple
- 1:30:39Speaker 1: of years ago, and it was I think my favorite
- 1:30:42Speaker 1: interview I've ever done with anyone. Just such a pleasant, smart,
- 1:30:47Speaker 1: thoughtful I could go on. I spent one hour with him,
- 1:30:51Speaker 1: and I just have carried it for like I don't
- 1:30:52Speaker 1: even know how long it was. It could have been
- 1:30:54Speaker 1: like four years ago. But I was just like he
- 1:30:57Speaker 1: was so nice, so my taller than him, exciting. The
- 1:31:03Speaker 1: other things I had to mention were kind of I mean,
- 1:31:05Speaker 1: I wanted to touch on the music, not really for
- 1:31:10Speaker 1: uh intersectional feminism, but just because I think it's really
- 1:31:13Speaker 1: fascinating the use of music and um karama, like you
- 1:31:17Speaker 1: were saying this composer Michael Ables, I have no idea
- 1:31:22Speaker 1: how it's pronounced. I just made a choice and went
- 1:31:25Speaker 1: with it. Sorry, Michael, I don't know how to pronounce
- 1:31:28Speaker 1: his last name Ables or abouts uh. I mean, his
- 1:31:32Speaker 1: composition is incredible. He pulls from just like learning even
- 1:31:36Speaker 1: about the music, he pulls from Tchaikovsky for that ending,
- 1:31:41Speaker 1: he's like blending. I got five on it with Tchaikovsky,
- 1:31:46Speaker 1: and it's like a section of Tchaikovsky from The Nutcracker
- 1:31:49Speaker 1: where Clara is being pulled into a mirror world. So
- 1:31:52Speaker 1: there's like that whole thing. It's so smart and so cool.
- 1:31:57Speaker 1: And I also really liked um that there is a
- 1:32:01Speaker 1: black ballerina like a motif in this movie. You like,
- 1:32:05Speaker 1: that's like such a rare thing you never get to
- 1:32:07Speaker 1: see in movies and especially in professional ballet. That's like
- 1:32:11Speaker 1: a huge discussion that is ongoing in the ballet community.
- 1:32:15Speaker 1: And I just love ballet in general. The dancing in
- 1:32:19Speaker 1: this movie, it's upstairs, downstairs, it's all beautiful. I loved it. Okay,
- 1:32:26Speaker 1: I think that that was That was just a small
- 1:32:27Speaker 1: rant I saved for the end at least. Thank you, Karma.
- 1:32:31Speaker 1: Do you have anything else you wanted to discuss. I
- 1:32:34Speaker 1: wanted to just discuss how I think Jordan Peel does
- 1:32:37Speaker 1: a really great job of integrating visual clues and like
- 1:32:42Speaker 1: just a lot of visual symbols and elevens coming up
- 1:32:46Speaker 1: a lot, Like it's the first scene, the first scene
- 1:32:50Speaker 1: on the boardwalk. Yes, we have the eleven eleven. We
- 1:32:53Speaker 1: have the people playing rock paper scissors who keep doing scissors,
- 1:32:56Speaker 1: which is also like a two. There are a lot
- 1:32:58Speaker 1: of twos and elevens throughout the movie. Yeah, and uh,
- 1:33:03Speaker 1: it's her birthday. She gets number eleven, which is the
- 1:33:07Speaker 1: thriller one, which is sort of about the like real
- 1:33:11Speaker 1: the like good Michael Jackson turning into the bad Michael Jackson. Uh,
- 1:33:14Speaker 1: there's just like a lot that's happening there. When she's
- 1:33:17Speaker 1: watching the news, it's like Channel eleven news. You see
- 1:33:20Speaker 1: the little elevens um, although they say channel seven I think,
- 1:33:24Speaker 1: or they say channel four channel seven instead, but it
- 1:33:27Speaker 1: says eleven on the screen, which was like I was like, huh,
- 1:33:30Speaker 1: somebody missed that or I'm missing something. Um. And just
- 1:33:35Speaker 1: like the ambulance, the ambulance that gets the Jeremiah eleven
- 1:33:40Speaker 1: eleven guy at the beginning of like the current day stuff,
- 1:33:45Speaker 1: it's ambulance number two, which is the same ambulance that
- 1:33:47Speaker 1: they end up getting in and driving away in in
- 1:33:49Speaker 1: the end. Um, there's there's so much just with elevens
- 1:33:54Speaker 1: and twos that happens there. And like I said, the
- 1:33:58Speaker 1: fifteen minutes thing that I mentioned earlier, how that became
- 1:34:01Speaker 1: a mirror of what can happen in fifteen minutes with
- 1:34:04Speaker 1: the disappearance at the beginning and then with the police
- 1:34:06Speaker 1: coming in fifteen minutes. Just I think that it's really
- 1:34:10Speaker 1: cool to see him sneak all that stuff in there,
- 1:34:13Speaker 1: and I just think it's a pretty it's pretty tight,
- 1:34:16Speaker 1: except for like you said, Caitlin, that last like ten
- 1:34:19Speaker 1: fifteen minutes where it's like you explained too much, right right, Yeah,
- 1:34:25Speaker 1: Just like Jordan's do another rewrite of the end. Um
- 1:34:29Speaker 1: they're just going off of because I think we like
- 1:34:33Speaker 1: vaguely referenced it at the very beginning of the episode.
- 1:34:35Speaker 1: But um, something that has been coming up a lot
- 1:34:37Speaker 1: in this year's month of Horror movies is the fact
- 1:34:40Speaker 1: that there is an unhoused person that is dead at
- 1:34:43Speaker 1: the or really injured at the beginning of the movie
- 1:34:45Speaker 1: as like a warning. UM. I think is something that
- 1:34:49Speaker 1: we have been seeing pop up in a lot of
- 1:34:52Speaker 1: horror movies, or at least two out of the four
- 1:34:54Speaker 1: we're covering this month UM feature a story beat where
- 1:34:59Speaker 1: an unhoused person and as UM brutalized or killed as
- 1:35:04Speaker 1: a vague plot point to keep the protagonist story moving.
- 1:35:07Speaker 1: We also saw this in A Girl Walks home alone
- 1:35:09Speaker 1: at night and Uh, just right, better, you don't have
- 1:35:15Speaker 1: to do that. Yeah, I agree. I think. The last
- 1:35:19Speaker 1: thing I wanted to say was that I don't know
- 1:35:21Speaker 1: if anyone noticed ADDIE's dad at the very beginning of
- 1:35:26Speaker 1: the movie playing whack a mole and how bad he
- 1:35:29Speaker 1: was at it. He really sucked. He didn't he wasn't
- 1:35:32Speaker 1: moving the mallet around, he was just hitting the same
- 1:35:35Speaker 1: empty hole over the mole hole over and over again,
- 1:35:38Speaker 1: and nothing was popping out of it. I'm just like sir.
- 1:35:41Speaker 1: He also stopped playing in the middle, where I don't
- 1:35:44Speaker 1: know why I got so, but I was just like,
- 1:35:46Speaker 1: you just gave them two tickets to play, and you're
- 1:35:49Speaker 1: stopping in the middle. You waste You're wasting time. And
- 1:35:53Speaker 1: oh it was too tickets. Like my inner Chucky cheese stand,
- 1:35:56Speaker 1: it was two tickets. Also to play the game, two ticket.
- 1:36:00Speaker 1: It was two tickets a lot of Jordan Peele is
- 1:36:04Speaker 1: a terrific writer. I love get Out. I wish the
- 1:36:09Speaker 1: ending of US was as solid as the ending of
- 1:36:12Speaker 1: get Out, but most again, most of the much discussion. Yes,
- 1:36:18Speaker 1: for sure, I just yeah, I can't wait to see
- 1:36:21Speaker 1: more of his work. I also, I feel like US
- 1:36:25Speaker 1: has more rewatch value than get Out. I feel like
- 1:36:29Speaker 1: because there's so much that you notice different times. In
- 1:36:32Speaker 1: a way, I feel like get Out is almost because
- 1:36:35Speaker 1: it's so tight, you're like, oh, I see everything, it's there, Yep, yep, good, okay,
- 1:36:39Speaker 1: got it, And with US it's sort of like, oh,
- 1:36:42Speaker 1: there's so much that I don't understand, and maybe if
- 1:36:44Speaker 1: I watch it again, i'll understand it a little bit
- 1:36:46Speaker 1: more like I feel like there's a secret message and
- 1:36:48Speaker 1: I don't quite have it yet, but if I watch
- 1:36:50Speaker 1: it eighteen times, maybe i'll get it right. Yeah, it's fun,
- 1:36:54Speaker 1: it's cool. It's weird because it's like it's the same
- 1:36:56Speaker 1: genre as his first movie, but it's like completely different,
- 1:37:00Speaker 1: Like it's yeah, you love to see range, Yes, you
- 1:37:04Speaker 1: love to see the range. Uh does this movie pass
- 1:37:08Speaker 1: the Bechdel test? We already said yes it does. Between
- 1:37:11Speaker 1: um Addie and her daughter Zora between well, my question
- 1:37:19Speaker 1: about that with Red? They never say Red's name on camera,
- 1:37:22Speaker 1: So does she count as a named character if they
- 1:37:25Speaker 1: don't say the character's name? That's my question. Well, my
- 1:37:29Speaker 1: take on that is always like, even if the character
- 1:37:31Speaker 1: isn't given a name, are they narratively significant enough that
- 1:37:35Speaker 1: they matter to the story because the name the naming
- 1:37:39Speaker 1: caveats always like, oh, are they like a barista who
- 1:37:42Speaker 1: who you see for five seconds in the movie? Uh,
- 1:37:45Speaker 1: and they don't have a name because they are not
- 1:37:47Speaker 1: an important character? I think it's yeah, So I yeah,
- 1:37:51Speaker 1: I count any interactions between Addie and Red as passing.
- 1:37:55Speaker 1: And as far as our nipple scale goes, the zero
- 1:37:57Speaker 1: to five nipples based on its based on an examination
- 1:38:01Speaker 1: of intersectional feminism. UM. For this one, I think I
- 1:38:06Speaker 1: would go like a three and a half. I do
- 1:38:10Speaker 1: appreciate its exploration of class, uh and privilege and kind
- 1:38:17Speaker 1: of the the what is the word that I'm trying
- 1:38:21Speaker 1: to think of, the fallacy? I think of the American
- 1:38:25Speaker 1: dream and and things like that as sort of like
- 1:38:28Speaker 1: an allegorical presence in the story. I do really appreciate
- 1:38:32Speaker 1: the way that Adelaide's character is the protagonist and the
- 1:38:39Speaker 1: most active character. Uh. We see her do things uh
- 1:38:45Speaker 1: that are my brain is also putting. UM. I also
- 1:38:52Speaker 1: love how active Red is. I mean, both of Lapida's
- 1:38:55Speaker 1: characters are like the people in charge of their respective situations,
- 1:38:59Speaker 1: which makes sense because they're tethered together, you know, they
- 1:39:02Speaker 1: share the same soul. But they are the ones who
- 1:39:06Speaker 1: are making the most active choices. They're the ones who
- 1:39:09Speaker 1: are calling the shots in whatever it is they're trying
- 1:39:12Speaker 1: to do. Zora also we see doing a lot of fighting.
- 1:39:18Speaker 1: She attacks three different characters there. There's at one point
- 1:39:21Speaker 1: they're talk about like their kill counts, and they're almost
- 1:39:23Speaker 1: like kind of being like, well, I get to drive
- 1:39:26Speaker 1: because I've killed the most people and she kills two, uh,
- 1:39:30Speaker 1: and then she thought she killed three, but then yeah,
- 1:39:33Speaker 1: she thought she had three, but she actually had too.
- 1:39:35Speaker 1: That seems really funny. Yeah. I like that you see
- 1:39:38Speaker 1: female characters in a horror movie, like knowing the danger
- 1:39:42Speaker 1: they're in, immediately responding appropriately to that, making active choices,
- 1:39:49Speaker 1: doing fighting that feels appropriate to what they would be
- 1:39:52Speaker 1: capable of doing. Um. Nothing felt like how did how
- 1:39:56Speaker 1: does she suddenly like a martial arts master with this
- 1:40:01Speaker 1: uh fire poker? Like, we don't say anything like the
- 1:40:03Speaker 1: Mary sus stuff. It's all it's all pretty grounded. So yeah,
- 1:40:08Speaker 1: I I just wish the ending was a little bit different. Um.
- 1:40:13Speaker 1: But other than that, I do really enjoy this movie.
- 1:40:15Speaker 1: I'd give it three and a half nipples. I will
- 1:40:19Speaker 1: give two of them to Lapita on the condition that
- 1:40:25Speaker 1: she learns from her mistake of demonizing a characteristic of
- 1:40:30Speaker 1: a disability. Uh. And I'll give one to the actor
- 1:40:35Speaker 1: who played Zora, whose name is Hattie write Joseph, I think,
- 1:40:41Speaker 1: yes exactly. And I'll give my remaining half nipple to
- 1:40:46Speaker 1: the actor who played young Red slash Addie and her
- 1:40:52Speaker 1: name I also wrote it down is Madison Curry. So
- 1:40:56Speaker 1: those are my distributions. I think I'm gonna go for
- 1:41:02Speaker 1: on this movie. Um, I yeah, I mean there's there's
- 1:41:07Speaker 1: definitely some small things and a lot of it were
- 1:41:10Speaker 1: had a little more to do with the production than
- 1:41:12Speaker 1: the movie itself. But I mean Lupida marginalizing disabled people
- 1:41:17Speaker 1: in that way, that's, uh, you gotta docket. Um and there.
- 1:41:22Speaker 1: I mean we discussed a few things, but I think
- 1:41:24Speaker 1: by and large, I mean, this movie does so many
- 1:41:27Speaker 1: things that your average horror movie isn't doing in terms
- 1:41:31Speaker 1: of like, you could not have a more complicated dual
- 1:41:36Speaker 1: shared soul character than Red and Adelaide. There's so much
- 1:41:41Speaker 1: being examined just within these two characters and how they
- 1:41:45Speaker 1: interact with each other. Like it's, uh, it's slightly confusing
- 1:41:51Speaker 1: at the end, but it's still it's I mean, show me,
- 1:41:54Speaker 1: show me more layers. I don't think it's possible. I
- 1:41:58Speaker 1: I I don't know. I like how I guess kind
- 1:42:02Speaker 1: of like the reflection of a lot of family dynamics,
- 1:42:06Speaker 1: of like Adelaide is very much in charge of her family,
- 1:42:09Speaker 1: but has I mean, even the reflections on masculinity that
- 1:42:12Speaker 1: this movie has I thought were pretty effective. Of Um,
- 1:42:16Speaker 1: you know, you understand why Gabe is kind of in
- 1:42:19Speaker 1: this standoff with Tim Hidecker whose name I never remember,
- 1:42:23Speaker 1: uh Josh, but it is an impediment to the family ultimately.
- 1:42:30Speaker 1: And I like the showing of masculinity in um Jason,
- 1:42:34Speaker 1: whereby being more sensitive and more receptive to things, he
- 1:42:39Speaker 1: sees things that other characters just don't. Uh. Zora is
- 1:42:44Speaker 1: super active, I choose like one of the funniest characters,
- 1:42:48Speaker 1: very able to call her dad out on his book
- 1:42:50Speaker 1: bullshit and like, I don't know, I just like that
- 1:42:54Speaker 1: and and I and I enjoyed most of the commentary
- 1:42:58Speaker 1: being made with Pittie Tyler as well. I didn't really
- 1:43:03Speaker 1: I was touch and go on the face the girl
- 1:43:07Speaker 1: Joker moment wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but
- 1:43:10Speaker 1: I I think, I mean, for especially for a movie
- 1:43:15Speaker 1: that's written and directed by a man, that it's largely
- 1:43:19Speaker 1: I mean, the portrayal of femininity and masculinity I thought
- 1:43:22Speaker 1: was really effective and cool and used to examine a
- 1:43:26Speaker 1: larger thing of pretty effectively. So I'm gonna go four.
- 1:43:30Speaker 1: I'll give one to Adelaide, one to Red, one to Zorah,
- 1:43:36Speaker 1: and then half of one to Kitty, and then the
- 1:43:41Speaker 1: last half the little adelaide sorry for cutting a nipple
- 1:43:44Speaker 1: and half, so it must be done. I am going
- 1:43:48Speaker 1: to like two to others standing together, give four nipples,
- 1:43:53Speaker 1: um two and two. They two twos everywhere nipple nipple
- 1:43:58Speaker 1: nipple npples. Also eleven eleven is one one, which adds
- 1:44:01Speaker 1: up to four. Yep, the number of nipples I'm giving.
- 1:44:06Speaker 1: I like the commentary and how there's an acknowledgement of
- 1:44:11Speaker 1: the fact that we are all living on stolen land
- 1:44:14Speaker 1: and how that is going to bite us in the
- 1:44:16Speaker 1: butt if we do not acknowledge it. And UH should
- 1:44:20Speaker 1: be acknowledged because of the way that people are treating
- 1:44:24Speaker 1: each other. And I would like to see less of
- 1:44:28Speaker 1: the issues with the unhoused people and the the issue
- 1:44:34Speaker 1: with the demonization of this disability. So that's automatically a
- 1:44:40Speaker 1: nipple off in terms of not hitting the five nipples.
- 1:44:44Speaker 1: But I will give a nipple to the shared nipple
- 1:44:48Speaker 1: between the lupidas UH. Two nipples for Shahari, right, Joseph,
- 1:44:53Speaker 1: because I honestly, every time I watch it, I have
- 1:44:56Speaker 1: to remind myself that she is one person playing two
- 1:44:58Speaker 1: characters and not two different actors. I feel like she
- 1:45:01Speaker 1: and her were the most different for me. So she
- 1:45:05Speaker 1: gets two nipples and then I'm going to give the
- 1:45:08Speaker 1: last nipple to uh to Jason for the line kiss
- 1:45:12Speaker 1: my anus, which is beautiful line or like, where did
- 1:45:18Speaker 1: you even learn that word? He doesn't want to get
- 1:45:22Speaker 1: in trouble for swearing, so he goes to the anatomically
- 1:45:25Speaker 1: correct terms and I love it. So those are my
- 1:45:33Speaker 1: four nipples. Um. Great exploration of privileged disparities, uh, and
- 1:45:39Speaker 1: not great exploration of privilege disparities between people with disabilities
- 1:45:44Speaker 1: and able bodied people. But you know, overall, good stuff,
- 1:45:48Speaker 1: good story, good characters, fun time. Thank you for being here, Gramos,
- 1:45:54Speaker 1: thank you for having me. Yes, I'm so glad. Tell
- 1:45:58Speaker 1: us Swear Bowl can check out your stuff online. You
- 1:46:04Speaker 1: can check me out at Karama Drama k O r
- 1:46:07Speaker 1: A m A d r A m A it rhymes
- 1:46:10Speaker 1: for your pleasure. And I'm on Twitter and Instagram that
- 1:46:13Speaker 1: I do not frequently post on Instagram because it makes
- 1:46:16Speaker 1: me sad, but Twitter is great. Follow me on Twitter.
- 1:46:20Speaker 1: I make jokes about Batman stick. It's fun. Oh yes, good,
- 1:46:24Speaker 1: hell yeah yeah uh. You can follow us as well
- 1:46:30Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram. At becktel Cast you can subscribe
- 1:46:35Speaker 1: to our Patreon aka Matreon. It's five dollars a month.
- 1:46:38Speaker 1: It is UH to to wow to bonus episodes every month,
- 1:46:46Speaker 1: including access to the entire back catalog. You can do.
- 1:46:50Speaker 1: You can get our merge at public dot com slash
- 1:46:53Speaker 1: the back del cast UH and we also have a
- 1:46:57Speaker 1: face masks there. So if you're looking for a fun
- 1:47:00Speaker 1: and fashionable way to UH live in the scariest timeline,
- 1:47:05Speaker 1: that's a way to do it. Yes, indeed, and now
- 1:47:11Speaker 1: we go, we scuttle back underground and stay tethered. I
- 1:47:17Speaker 1: don't know my brain, it's tired. Fine,