Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) with Jasmine Johnson
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have
- 0:04Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
- 0:08Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef and best
- 0:12Speaker 1: start changing it with the bec Del Cast. Hey, Caitlin,
- 0:17Speaker 1: Hey Jamie. So we're about to graduate from high school, right,
- 0:21Speaker 1: and I'm trying to trying to like plan the next phase.
- 0:24Speaker 1: Can I just like pitch you what my ideas and
- 0:26Speaker 1: then let me know what your plans are? Please? Okay?
- 0:29Speaker 1: My plans are to graduate from high school, moved to Europe,
- 0:34Speaker 1: Mary Alfred Molina, and then die. What are your plans? Oh? Um?
- 0:42Speaker 1: I was thinking I would just like accept my fate
- 0:45Speaker 1: as a vampire slayer and kill a bunch of vampires.
- 0:50Speaker 1: Because you're not like other girls? I know? Are you?
- 0:54Speaker 1: I am? I am exactly like other girls. Isn't that wild?
- 0:58Speaker 1: That that's that becomes the truck question of the movie? Um,
- 1:03Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
- 1:06Speaker 1: my name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our show
- 1:10Speaker 1: in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens,
- 1:15Speaker 1: using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point now, Jamie, Yes,
- 1:22Speaker 1: whatever is the Bechtel test, Well, i'll tell you it's
- 1:28Speaker 1: and and I we told Alfred Molina this, so it's
- 1:31Speaker 1: good that we're all like my future husband, Alfred Molina,
- 1:35Speaker 1: who famously hates men's rights activists, as he said on
- 1:39Speaker 1: our show. Absolutely he's got to come back, okay the
- 1:43Speaker 1: Bechdel test, we're and we're okay. So that's an example
- 1:46Speaker 1: of something that does not pass the Vitel test because
- 1:50Speaker 1: the version that we use, uh, it's a media metric
- 1:53Speaker 1: created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel
- 1:57Speaker 1: Wallace Test. Lots of different versions of it. The version
- 2:00Speaker 1: that we use requires that two people of a marginalized
- 2:05Speaker 1: gender with names speak to each other about something other
- 2:09Speaker 1: than a man for more than two lines of dialogue,
- 2:11Speaker 1: and the dialogue exchange should have some sort of meaning
- 2:16Speaker 1: and not just an offhand like would you like spaghetti? No,
- 2:21Speaker 1: although unless it's very plot spaghetti, and it's very important,
- 2:25Speaker 1: sometimes there's plot spaghetti. What's an example of plot spaghetti?
- 2:29Speaker 1: Huh oh? Actually maybe in another vampire movie, which the
- 2:35Speaker 1: name of it is Escaping Me right now, but it's
- 2:38Speaker 1: the one that key for Sutherland is in not Donald Sutherland.
- 2:41Speaker 1: What the hell movie am I thinking of The Lost Boys?
- 2:44Speaker 1: The Lost Boy? Yes? Sorry, I was like The Lost Boys.
- 2:53Speaker 1: There's plot spaghetti in that movie. I've never seen it. Well,
- 2:55Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it plots spaghetti necessarily, or it might
- 2:58Speaker 1: not even be spaghetti. But there's a scene where there's
- 3:00Speaker 1: like some noodle dish and then they're like feeding it
- 3:04Speaker 1: to humans and then they're like just kidding, its worms
- 3:07Speaker 1: or something iconic, and then they're like they use their
- 3:10Speaker 1: vampire powers to turn the spaghetti into worms. I might
- 3:13Speaker 1: be completely remember that the name of the movie. I have, Look,
- 3:20Speaker 1: it's been a minute. My brain works in mysterious ways.
- 3:27Speaker 1: Move over, Mom's spaghetti plot. Spaghetti has entered the chat. Well,
- 3:32Speaker 1: I'm glad that we got that. I think that that
- 3:34Speaker 1: was a very perfect way to introduce our Absolutely, yes,
- 3:39Speaker 1: let's get her in the mix. She is the senior
- 3:42Speaker 1: vice president of Development at Crypt TV. She is a
- 3:46Speaker 1: co executive producer on Peacock's The Girl in the Woods.
- 3:50Speaker 1: It's Jasmine Johnson. Thank you guys for having me, Thanks
- 3:56Speaker 1: for being here. I'm always like to talk about Buffy,
- 3:59Speaker 1: the Vampires, are the movie in particular, Yes, So what
- 4:05Speaker 1: is your relationship and history with the movie the franchise
- 4:09Speaker 1: in general? Tell us everything? Yeah, you know, Um, it's
- 4:13Speaker 1: really interesting because in my line of work, my line
- 4:18Speaker 1: of work being like being a producer and a development executive,
- 4:21Speaker 1: where I have to meet with a lot of writers
- 4:23Speaker 1: and a lot of directors, specifically those who like genre
- 4:26Speaker 1: because that's what I produce. I would say, like a
- 4:30Speaker 1: third of the time, I always have people who will
- 4:34Speaker 1: cite Buffy as such a big inspiration to them, and
- 4:37Speaker 1: when they cite it, they're talking about the TV show, always, always,
- 4:41Speaker 1: always talking about the TV show. And I think I
- 4:44Speaker 1: might be maybe the rare person who when I say
- 4:47Speaker 1: I was obsessed with Buffy as a kid, I'm talking
- 4:51Speaker 1: about the movie, not the show. I've seen like a
- 4:54Speaker 1: season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the TV show, but
- 4:57Speaker 1: the movie was what I watched Pete as a kid
- 5:01Speaker 1: over and over and over, so much so that I
- 5:05Speaker 1: was convinced, And do not laugh at me, because it
- 5:08Speaker 1: still may be true, but I was convinced that I
- 5:10Speaker 1: was in line to be the Slayer because I have
- 5:14Speaker 1: a similar birthmark to the one that it tells Buffy
- 5:19Speaker 1: that she has uh and I just knew. I just
- 5:22Speaker 1: knew that I was supposed to be one of the
- 5:24Speaker 1: slayers of the vampires. I hate to tell you guys,
- 5:27Speaker 1: it didn't happen. But yet this was so short, you
- 5:32Speaker 1: know yet maybe maybe yet. I feel like my my
- 5:37Speaker 1: hey day is sort of behind me at this point
- 5:40Speaker 1: as far as being able to like fight and kill
- 5:43Speaker 1: and I don't know, takedown vampires. But you never know,
- 5:47Speaker 1: you never know. It's very like sixteenth birthday. Like I
- 5:50Speaker 1: remember the pilot episode of Sabrina the Teenage which she
- 5:54Speaker 1: I think she woke up on her sixteenth birthday levitating
- 5:57Speaker 1: above the bed, and that was the thing that I
- 5:58Speaker 1: was like, absly, that's going to happen the morning of
- 6:01Speaker 1: my sixteenth birthday. I will be floating. I just really
- 6:06Speaker 1: want the show or movie that's about like you turn
- 6:11Speaker 1: forty and then realize you have magical monster slaying powers me.
- 6:16Speaker 1: I guess I could. Yeah, that's the next thing that
- 6:18Speaker 1: I want to be responsible for making. Oh that is
- 6:21Speaker 1: such a good idea. That would actually be amazing because
- 6:24Speaker 1: everything is like sixteen, seventeen eighteen, But like what happens
- 6:29Speaker 1: when you're like me and I'm thirty three, and I
- 6:31Speaker 1: have no powers to look forward to coming into its
- 6:34Speaker 1: kind of kind of sex a little bit. It's pretty
- 6:37Speaker 1: agest the fact that, Yeah, like so much media I
- 6:40Speaker 1: mean in general revolves around young people like thirty and younger,
- 6:46Speaker 1: and it's like, what about the people I feel like
- 6:48Speaker 1: I come of age every five years, Like I have
- 6:51Speaker 1: another coming of age like every few years, and I'm like,
- 6:54Speaker 1: what what coming of age thing am I going to
- 6:56Speaker 1: have when I'm fifty? Like that should be a story
- 6:59Speaker 1: for that. I mean, that's so true. I mean, I
- 7:02Speaker 1: I always use the term I say that I love
- 7:05Speaker 1: coming of age content, and people always equate that with
- 7:08Speaker 1: like y A meaning you're in your teens or like
- 7:11Speaker 1: your young adults, and I always have to correct them
- 7:13Speaker 1: and say, when I see coming of age, I'm not
- 7:15Speaker 1: necessarily talking about like teenagers. Obviously you do come of
- 7:18Speaker 1: age at that age, but you never like truly stopped
- 7:21Speaker 1: coming of age. And I think, um, you know, having
- 7:25Speaker 1: more things that explore what that looks like when you're
- 7:29Speaker 1: past whatever the ages that media has deemed as the
- 7:32Speaker 1: one that is the most important, I think should be
- 7:35Speaker 1: done more, you know, Like it's it's just as important. Totally. Yeah,
- 7:41Speaker 1: I think we just got a pitch together in a space. Yeah,
- 7:45Speaker 1: and hey, I heard that you're a development executive, so
- 7:50Speaker 1: I am. I am anyway, that's all. That's all to say.
- 7:53Speaker 1: I was convinced I was going to be the next Layer.
- 7:56Speaker 1: It didn't happen. But maybe in the real world you
- 7:59Speaker 1: can be four and be a Slayer. So or maybe
- 8:02Speaker 1: the slayer before me killed all the vampires one of them.
- 8:06Speaker 1: That could be possible. Hard to say, Jamie. What's your
- 8:10Speaker 1: relationship with the Buffy franchise? Extremely limited? I think I've
- 8:15Speaker 1: said this this might have been on Maiturion episode. But
- 8:19Speaker 1: I had like a very bizarre experience with the Buffy
- 8:23Speaker 1: series where like my first day of college, there was
- 8:26Speaker 1: a girl who like locked me in her dorm room
- 8:30Speaker 1: and made me watch ten episodes in a row, and
- 8:32Speaker 1: it was like, I think, well intentioned, but felt like
- 8:35Speaker 1: a hostage situation, and I just the whole experience left
- 8:39Speaker 1: a bad taste of my mouth towards Buffy culture. So
- 8:44Speaker 1: because it was just like I was like, God, what
- 8:46Speaker 1: a stressful thing to happen on your first day of anyways,
- 8:49Speaker 1: So I have very limited experience with it. I knew
- 8:53Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting going into preparing for this
- 8:55Speaker 1: episode only knowing like the impression I had was that
- 8:59Speaker 1: fans of Feed the TV series hate this movie, and
- 9:03Speaker 1: I was curious. I was like, I wonder why, Like,
- 9:06Speaker 1: I've definitely seen ten episodes of Buffy under Duress, so
- 9:10Speaker 1: I get that the tone of the shell um, but I,
- 9:14Speaker 1: you know, it's it's dated in a lot of aspects.
- 9:17Speaker 1: But I really thought the movie was perfectly fine and
- 9:20Speaker 1: everyone was being a baby about it, like it's very
- 9:23Speaker 1: different from the show. But if there's anything that that
- 9:26Speaker 1: Caitlin and I were texting about this before we started recording, uh,
- 9:30Speaker 1: there's anything that we've learned on this show in the
- 9:32Speaker 1: past month, because we also covered Alien Resurrection another Weeden script,
- 9:37Speaker 1: it's that Josh Weeden loves to have a tantrum when
- 9:40Speaker 1: he doesn't have complete creative control over something, and he'll
- 9:44Speaker 1: like shit talk anything that he didn't have a million,
- 9:48Speaker 1: which is like whatever that bears out in his personal
- 9:51Speaker 1: behavior too, but like any time he doesn't have complete
- 9:54Speaker 1: creative control, he's like, that was the worst thing that
- 9:56Speaker 1: ever happened, and pee pee poo poo, and it's like, dude,
- 10:00Speaker 1: the movie is like pretty good. I really enjoyed it
- 10:03Speaker 1: so good. It's fun. Uh, Caitlyn, what's your history with Buffy?
- 10:09Speaker 1: So I am admittedly a fan of the show, although
- 10:15Speaker 1: I would I have not engaged with it in many years.
- 10:18Speaker 1: I binged, all is it seven seasons? Somewhere around like
- 10:23Speaker 1: twenty twelve. I want to say, I watched it with
- 10:27Speaker 1: my best friend j T, who was always a big
- 10:29Speaker 1: fan of the show. Then I watched a little bit
- 10:32Speaker 1: of the spinoff show Angel, I read some of the comics.
- 10:36Speaker 1: I at some point, I think after I saw the series,
- 10:40Speaker 1: I went and watched the movie. I don't remember if
- 10:43Speaker 1: I watched the movie before or after. I think it
- 10:45Speaker 1: was after the series, which probably explained why I didn't
- 10:48Speaker 1: like it as much as the series, because I was like, oh,
- 10:50Speaker 1: this is different and blah blah blah, and then going
- 10:53Speaker 1: back and rewatching the movie for this episode, I was like, oh,
- 10:57Speaker 1: I was hard on the movie back then. It's not
- 11:00Speaker 1: as bad as I thought, or it's not even like
- 11:03Speaker 1: bad at all, although I would say the third act
- 11:05Speaker 1: gets a little it's kind of messy at the edge. Yeah,
- 11:08Speaker 1: it gets a little flimsy. I could have stood to
- 11:11Speaker 1: have maybe like a more epic, less weirdly sexually charged.
- 11:17Speaker 1: I was just like, dude, pee wee is a vampire
- 11:21Speaker 1: who like jumps on the hood of a car. I
- 11:24Speaker 1: was like, Yeah, how can you feel dislike this movie?
- 11:28Speaker 1: That's so um Yeah, I was. I was too hard
- 11:35Speaker 1: on the movie the first time I saw it. I
- 11:37Speaker 1: generally enjoyed it watching it back this time to prep
- 11:40Speaker 1: for the episode. And that's my general history with Buffy.
- 11:49Speaker 1: Should we dive into the recap of the movie, let's
- 11:54Speaker 1: do it, and Jasmine feel free to jump in whatever. Yes, okay, okay.
- 12:00Speaker 1: So we open on a quick scene in the dark Ages.
- 12:04Speaker 1: We see a young woman fighting some vampires and we
- 12:08Speaker 1: get some voice over about vampires and vampire slayers. Then
- 12:13Speaker 1: we cut to nineteen nineties southern California. The light ages
- 12:20Speaker 1: very funny. Um. We meet Buffy played by Christy Swanson,
- 12:25Speaker 1: who is doing a cheer routine with her fellow cheerleaders.
- 12:29Speaker 1: Then she goes to the mall with three of her
- 12:32Speaker 1: friends who I do not know what those characters names are,
- 12:36Speaker 1: because we did they happy, we don't really love. I
- 12:39Speaker 1: think I know one's name is Jenny. I remember that
- 12:43Speaker 1: because I think I don't know which I think it
- 12:45Speaker 1: was the one with the curly here because I remember
- 12:46Speaker 1: Jenny not to spoil the end, but the dance. But
- 12:52Speaker 1: outside of that, I'm not sure. Did they even give
- 12:55Speaker 1: those characters names barely? I think so. Hillary Swank is
- 12:59Speaker 1: one of the friends, and she I think it's Kimberly. Yes, okay, yes, yes, yes.
- 13:05Speaker 1: But then there's a third one who in fact, like
- 13:08Speaker 1: the one black friend. What's her name? What's her name?
- 13:11Speaker 1: I don't know. We don't know anything about her, Okay,
- 13:14Speaker 1: we because I kept like waiting for waiting to find
- 13:17Speaker 1: out what her name is. I kept waiting for those
- 13:19Speaker 1: characters in general to become important relevant to the story,
- 13:23Speaker 1: and they never like, uh that was That was one
- 13:26Speaker 1: of the things where I'm like, Buffy needs like and
- 13:29Speaker 1: I know that that's a huge part of this show,
- 13:30Speaker 1: is like Buffy is like connection with her like crew
- 13:34Speaker 1: or other women and yeah, movie Buffy, no dice in
- 13:39Speaker 1: that department. Yeah, it's kind of a bummer. Um. It's
- 13:42Speaker 1: one of the things that I also I didn't realize
- 13:45Speaker 1: like in watching it as a kid, but it had
- 13:47Speaker 1: been maybe like fifteen years since I saw the movie
- 13:49Speaker 1: and then rewatched, and I sort of hate the idea
- 13:53Speaker 1: that like Buffy has to be such a lone fighter,
- 13:58Speaker 1: Like I think that that messaging that you know your
- 14:02Speaker 1: friends are not going to support you and you have
- 14:04Speaker 1: to sort of give up everything in order to save
- 14:07Speaker 1: the world is not quite right. And I understand that
- 14:11Speaker 1: the show didn't go that route. And if I was
- 14:12Speaker 1: going to remake this movie in the day and age,
- 14:16Speaker 1: I wouldn't do that. Like I wouldn't her friends can, like,
- 14:19Speaker 1: they can all start that way, and you can have
- 14:21Speaker 1: some who maybe don't believe in vampires or don't support Buffy,
- 14:25Speaker 1: But I don't think that every single person in her
- 14:28Speaker 1: friends group needed to be so terrible all the way
- 14:32Speaker 1: through the way. It almost felt like another way of
- 14:36Speaker 1: like because it's like kind of goofy and funny to
- 14:40Speaker 1: be but it's you know, definitely a thing where it
- 14:43Speaker 1: becomes a big part of the movie as it goes
- 14:44Speaker 1: on to telegraph that Buffy is not like other girls,
- 14:47Speaker 1: and it seems like that's how they demonstrate it by
- 14:50Speaker 1: making other girls mean and vapid and awful, which is
- 14:54Speaker 1: like that that's not the move, right, Yeah, we can
- 14:58Speaker 1: talk about that more because there's a lot to cover
- 15:01Speaker 1: their Okay, So Buffy has friends and they go shopping
- 15:05Speaker 1: and they do cheerleading together, and at the mall, they
- 15:09Speaker 1: have a brief encounter with Donald Sutherland, who is giving
- 15:14Speaker 1: off some weird vibes. He's wearing a trench coat, like
- 15:22Speaker 1: he's just staring at them, not saying anything. So they
- 15:27Speaker 1: briefly encounter him, but then they go about their day
- 15:30Speaker 1: and head to the movies. A couple of their classmates
- 15:34Speaker 1: are there. Pike played by Luke Perry and Benny played
- 15:39Speaker 1: by David Arquette are there at the movie theater and
- 15:42Speaker 1: they're like these like burnout quote unquote loser types. And
- 15:47Speaker 1: then that night Buffy links up with her basketball star
- 15:50Speaker 1: boyfriend Jeffrey. Meanwhile, one of Jeffrey's friends is walking through
- 15:56Speaker 1: a park and crosses paths with Paul ol Rubens, who
- 16:02Speaker 1: is looking very creepy and it seems like he is
- 16:04Speaker 1: probably a vampire. I love he's having so much fun
- 16:09Speaker 1: in this movie. I love him in this movie. He's great,
- 16:14Speaker 1: I think because would have like overlapped with pee weee
- 16:17Speaker 1: to like I don't know, not to whatever. This is
- 16:20Speaker 1: a feminist podcast, so I'm not going to just hand
- 16:23Speaker 1: it to Paul Rubens for an hour. But it is like,
- 16:28Speaker 1: I feel like he's like underrated in like how versatile
- 16:32Speaker 1: he is because he's so associated with Pee wee. He's
- 16:35Speaker 1: got range. He certainly I'm a scene stealer in this movie.
- 16:40Speaker 1: I can't wait till we get to his death scene.
- 16:43Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, hot five best deaths. It's so good.
- 16:49Speaker 1: Oh gosh. Then we cut to a news report about
- 16:53Speaker 1: a bunch of people having been attacked and dying from
- 16:58Speaker 1: severe neck wounds. Then Buffy has a dream about the
- 17:03Speaker 1: vampire slayer who we saw briefly at the beginning of
- 17:06Speaker 1: the movie, who I think is also played by Christie Swanson. Yeah,
- 17:11Speaker 1: it's like her in a wig. That was a confusing
- 17:15Speaker 1: part of the Lord to Be. It was like the
- 17:17Speaker 1: lure is kind of messy when I thought about it,
- 17:20Speaker 1: where I was like, okay, so there's always been slayers,
- 17:23Speaker 1: but they all seemed to be Christie Swanson reincarnated over
- 17:27Speaker 1: and over. Question marks. See that I've gotten in debates
- 17:32Speaker 1: about this as a child, because hit it, you know,
- 17:37Speaker 1: it's kind of it kind of sucks a little bit
- 17:39Speaker 1: because as a kid, you want to play like as
- 17:43Speaker 1: your favorite characters, Like we want to play power Rangers.
- 17:45Speaker 1: You want to play whatever, and so playing Buffy is
- 17:48Speaker 1: not a game. But if I wanted to play Buffy,
- 17:51Speaker 1: I wanted to be Buffy. But it's the early nineties
- 17:54Speaker 1: and kids would tell me like, you can't be Buffy
- 17:56Speaker 1: because you don't like Buffy. Or even if if I
- 17:58Speaker 1: was playing Power Rangers, you can't be the pink Ranger.
- 18:00Speaker 1: You have to be the yellow one because the yellow
- 18:01Speaker 1: one is black. And I'm like, shut up, I will
- 18:04Speaker 1: be who I want to be. But in diving into
- 18:07Speaker 1: the lore, as I was watching this movie, I had
- 18:10Speaker 1: flashbacks to being a kid and being told I couldn't
- 18:13Speaker 1: be Buffy because this is how Buffy looks, and I
- 18:16Speaker 1: was listening to what Buffy was saying. Um. And this
- 18:20Speaker 1: comes a little bit later when Mark says like, have
- 18:22Speaker 1: you been having these dreams? And she's like, yeah, you know,
- 18:26Speaker 1: I was a handmading maiden or something. And she's also
- 18:30Speaker 1: like I was a slave in Virginia And I picked
- 18:32Speaker 1: up on that like so quickly. And again this may
- 18:35Speaker 1: just be my own personal history with Buffy and just
- 18:40Speaker 1: growing up in a society that I wanted to marginalize
- 18:43Speaker 1: me and tell me I could only be but a
- 18:45Speaker 1: certain character. But I was like, there's no way that
- 18:47Speaker 1: like Buffy. If she looked like Buffy would have been
- 18:53Speaker 1: a slave girl in Virginia. So I believe, and I'm
- 18:56Speaker 1: sorry to go on such a deep tante point, but
- 19:01Speaker 1: this is important to me, only me, maybe, but it's important.
- 19:05Speaker 1: I believe that Buffy was just when she was dreaming,
- 19:08Speaker 1: she was putting herself in the situations of these girls.
- 19:11Speaker 1: I don't think it was actually the slayer looked exactly
- 19:14Speaker 1: like Buffy every single time. I just think that she
- 19:18Speaker 1: was dreaming and putting herself in the shoes of all
- 19:21Speaker 1: of these I'm not even sure if it was only
- 19:24Speaker 1: um women, who knows, anyone could be a Slayer, but
- 19:28Speaker 1: so I think any one of us could have been
- 19:30Speaker 1: a Slayer, including me. Know. That's a very good point though. Yeah,
- 19:35Speaker 1: and that makes sense that like she would just insert
- 19:37Speaker 1: herself into her own dreams. But yeah, no, that's a
- 19:40Speaker 1: really good point. I hadn't thought about that sequence in
- 19:44Speaker 1: context of because the other the only other one you
- 19:48Speaker 1: see as her in a wig. That totally makes sense. Yeah, yeah,
- 19:51Speaker 1: because in the show you see like slayers of by
- 19:56Speaker 1: gone days, and I if I'm remembering correct, there's one
- 20:00Speaker 1: who is like a Slayer in the nineteen seventies, who
- 20:03Speaker 1: is a black woman in the show who like pops
- 20:06Speaker 1: up now and then throughout the series. So the Slayer
- 20:10Speaker 1: is not just Christie Swanson or Sarah Michelle Geller. Um. Okay.
- 20:17Speaker 1: So during this dream though, we see this vampire Loathos
- 20:22Speaker 1: played by Rutger Howard, and he seems to be like
- 20:25Speaker 1: the big bad vampire in charge. Then we cut back
- 20:28Speaker 1: to the present where Paul Rubens vampire tells his master,
- 20:33Speaker 1: presumably Loathos, that he is building an army. Uh. Then
- 20:38Speaker 1: the next night, Buffy and her friends go out to
- 20:42Speaker 1: plan their upcoming senior dance. A drunk Pike and Benny
- 20:47Speaker 1: are there. They all give each other a hard time.
- 20:52Speaker 1: Then the guys leave and then Benny gets bitten by
- 20:55Speaker 1: Paul Rubens. Pike doesn't notice because he's passed out for
- 21:00Speaker 1: being so drunk. And then Donald Sutherland shows up and
- 21:03Speaker 1: takes Pike with him. Then Donald Sutherland ak Merrick. It
- 21:09Speaker 1: takes him a while for us to know what his
- 21:11Speaker 1: name and his name and this is like Donald Sutherland,
- 21:15Speaker 1: They're not great with names. Donald Sutherland in a trench
- 21:19Speaker 1: cut three. Donald Sutherlands in a trench cat so he
- 21:25Speaker 1: is Merrick. He pays a visit to Buffy and tells
- 21:29Speaker 1: her that her birthright, her like destiny, is to be
- 21:34Speaker 1: a vampire slayer and that he is her watcher, and
- 21:38Speaker 1: she's like, what are you even talking about? So then
- 21:41Speaker 1: he takes her to a graveyard to show her and
- 21:45Speaker 1: prove to her you know that she is in fact
- 21:47Speaker 1: the slayer. A couple of vampires come out of the
- 21:50Speaker 1: graves and Buffy is able to kill them with relative ease.
- 21:54Speaker 1: She seems to be a natural at this. Then we
- 21:58Speaker 1: cut back to Pike and Ben Benny shows up and
- 22:02Speaker 1: he is a vampire. Now he wants Pike to invite
- 22:05Speaker 1: him in he's floating. Pike is like, what the hell, dude,
- 22:12Speaker 1: get away from me. I don't want any part of
- 22:15Speaker 1: whatever you're doing. Yeah. Meanwhile, Lothos, the big bad vampire,
- 22:22Speaker 1: is getting more and more powerful. Buffy, on the other hand,
- 22:26Speaker 1: is not too sure about this whole being a vampire
- 22:29Speaker 1: slayer thing. She just wants to be a normal teenager
- 22:33Speaker 1: and go to cheerleading practice. But Marek shows up again
- 22:37Speaker 1: and he proves that she is the true slayer by
- 22:41Speaker 1: throwing a knife at her head, big swing, really really
- 22:47Speaker 1: a risk, but she catches it. What would he have
- 22:50Speaker 1: done if that went straight through her forehead? Right? Like, congratulations,
- 22:56Speaker 1: you just killed the child. I wonder how many like
- 23:01Speaker 1: teen girls he has accidentally killed because he's like, you're
- 23:05Speaker 1: probably the Slayer. Let me just test this out, and
- 23:07Speaker 1: then a knife through her skull. You know, I never
- 23:12Speaker 1: thought about that. That's pretty dark. I actually don't feel
- 23:17Speaker 1: like Marek is a great trainer. We can talk about
- 23:21Speaker 1: that anymore, maybe later. So I do now that you
- 23:23Speaker 1: say that, I feel like he probably went through like
- 23:26Speaker 1: at least three or four girls before he finally got
- 23:30Speaker 1: to the right one with Buffy. Dark because his gauge
- 23:34Speaker 1: also isn't that great. Because he sees Buffy doing some
- 23:37Speaker 1: gymnastics and he's like, wow, you're a gymnast. You must
- 23:41Speaker 1: be the Slayer. And it's like the pretty basic gymnastics too.
- 23:45Speaker 1: I mean, I can't do any gymnastics, so none of
- 23:47Speaker 1: it is like super basic. But she's doing a couple
- 23:50Speaker 1: of cart wheels and like a backhand spring or something.
- 23:52Speaker 1: It's not like she's doing Olympic levels of gymnastics, but
- 23:56Speaker 1: still she's I guess that makes her quality find to
- 24:00Speaker 1: be the best slayer, right, like, uh, dude, your criteria
- 24:05Speaker 1: seems to be a bit off. Um. But he was right.
- 24:10Speaker 1: She is the slayer because she catches the knife and
- 24:14Speaker 1: he's like, only the true slayer could have done that,
- 24:16Speaker 1: and she's like, okay, I guess I am the slayer.
- 24:18Speaker 1: So then she starts training so that she can be
- 24:21Speaker 1: fully prepared to take on vampires, and then we get
- 24:25Speaker 1: a fun training montage. We see Buffy slay her first vampire.
- 24:30Speaker 1: I guess not her first because she slayed some in
- 24:32Speaker 1: the graveyard, but like her first one is like the
- 24:34Speaker 1: official slayer. Meanwhile, other vampires, including Paul Rubens vampire, attack
- 24:43Speaker 1: Pike in his van, but Buffy and Marek show up
- 24:47Speaker 1: and save him, and then Buffy and Pike have a
- 24:50Speaker 1: conversation about like, oh wow, he's so surprised that she
- 24:54Speaker 1: kills vampires. He thought that she was like just like
- 24:59Speaker 1: the other girl, Arles or whatever. Um, And there's also
- 25:03Speaker 1: some romantic tension in the air between them. Buffy again
- 25:09Speaker 1: wants to continue to keep up her normal life with
- 25:12Speaker 1: her friends and cheerleading, so one night, when she's cheering
- 25:16Speaker 1: at a basketball game, one of the players Grueler is
- 25:20Speaker 1: now a vampire, so she chases him out of the
- 25:24Speaker 1: game and fights him. Pike shows up to help, and
- 25:28Speaker 1: then Lothos shows up, and there's a weird interaction between
- 25:33Speaker 1: him and Buffy where he's like, I'm waiting for you
- 25:37Speaker 1: to ripen. Yeah, and so we'll talk all about that,
- 25:43Speaker 1: because yeah, the last thing you want to hear someone
- 25:46Speaker 1: say to a young woman is exactly that. So or
- 25:53Speaker 1: a young person at all, Like, yes, it's just like getaway,
- 25:59Speaker 1: get away, And then Lothos kills Merrick very easily, barely tries.
- 26:08Speaker 1: It is every time Lothos is on screen, I'm just like,
- 26:12Speaker 1: what is happening? What is he doing? How? Why is
- 26:17Speaker 1: anyone reacting the way they're reacting. I find it all
- 26:20Speaker 1: very confusing. But he so he kills Mark and then
- 26:24Speaker 1: just leaves, so Buffy is still safe. She's sad over
- 26:29Speaker 1: the death of Merrick. She also just feels in way
- 26:32Speaker 1: over her head, and then she and Pike have an
- 26:35Speaker 1: argument because she's like, I can't handle this. I just
- 26:38Speaker 1: want to go to the senior dance and he's like, oh, well,
- 26:41Speaker 1: I thought you wanted to do important things like kill vampires,
- 26:45Speaker 1: and then he drives off on his motorcycle. Um So,
- 26:50Speaker 1: then Buffy goes to the senior dance. Her boyfriend Jeffrey
- 26:54Speaker 1: dumps her there, which is like who cares, right, We're
- 26:58Speaker 1: lucky cares because she's like, oh, yeah, here's the other
- 27:01Speaker 1: guy that I'm a sort of already dating. Yes, because
- 27:05Speaker 1: Pike shows up after all, and then he and Buffy kiss,
- 27:09Speaker 1: but then a bunch of vampires invade the dance and
- 27:14Speaker 1: Buffy fights them. Then she heads off to face Lothos.
- 27:19Speaker 1: She gets there, she kills Paul Rubens, where again, his
- 27:22Speaker 1: death scene is just, I would say, totally inconsistent with
- 27:28Speaker 1: the other things that are happening in this moment in
- 27:30Speaker 1: the movie, very long and drawn out, extremely campy. But
- 27:35Speaker 1: I wouldn't want it any other way. You can't have
- 27:39Speaker 1: it any other way. Um So, then Lothos is about
- 27:45Speaker 1: to bite Buffy, but then she fights back, she gets away.
- 27:51Speaker 1: She returns to the dance where her classmates have killed
- 27:54Speaker 1: a bunch of vampires, and then Lothos bursts in again
- 27:58Speaker 1: and Buffy finally kills him, and then she and Pike
- 28:03Speaker 1: ride off on his motorcycle. That's the end of the movie.
- 28:07Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come right
- 28:09Speaker 1: back and we are back, all right. Where shall we begin, Jasmine,
- 28:22Speaker 1: is there anywhere in particular that, like, was there anything
- 28:25Speaker 1: that stood out to you on this rewatch that you
- 28:27Speaker 1: want to talk about in particular? Um uh? Maybe too
- 28:33Speaker 1: much for me to be able to like center my
- 28:35Speaker 1: brain where to start. So why don't you guys pick something?
- 28:39Speaker 1: And I'm sure I will have a lot to say. Sure,
- 28:43Speaker 1: I just wanted to start with a little bit of
- 28:45Speaker 1: like context on the movie and get through kind of
- 28:49Speaker 1: the jos Sweden of it all because I'm always trying
- 28:52Speaker 1: to get in and out there because I feel like
- 28:54Speaker 1: we've been talking about him too much on the show
- 28:56Speaker 1: recently and I'm I'm sick of it. Um Okay, So
- 29:00Speaker 1: this movie was written by Josh Weeden. The characters are
- 29:06Speaker 1: his creation, and then he goes on to do the
- 29:08Speaker 1: TV show later. It's also directed. I feel like it's
- 29:11Speaker 1: not discussed enough. This movie is directed by a woman,
- 29:14Speaker 1: fran Rubel kuzy Uh and she's I don't know she
- 29:18Speaker 1: she's been a director of various romps over the course
- 29:23Speaker 1: of her career. I think that it's interesting, Like the
- 29:27Speaker 1: main takeaway, I don't know like listeners of the show
- 29:30Speaker 1: will know jos Sweden bothers me. I don't like him,
- 29:34Speaker 1: and I think it is so interesting how he has
- 29:37Speaker 1: kind of managed to shape the entire narrative around this
- 29:41Speaker 1: movie and in the process whatever a writer who was
- 29:45Speaker 1: really tooting his own horn for being Mr Feminist for
- 29:47Speaker 1: a while, like repeatedly dumped on the woman who directed
- 29:52Speaker 1: this movie and kind of blamed her and Donald Sutherland
- 29:55Speaker 1: for the reason that it didn't turn out the exact
- 29:58Speaker 1: way that he wanted it, as if like whatever, he's
- 30:02Speaker 1: like screenwriting nepotism. He should know that when you've write
- 30:06Speaker 1: a script, it's not going to appear word for word
- 30:09Speaker 1: on the fucking screen, you baby. Anyways, So, but but
- 30:14Speaker 1: he's such a feminist. Yeah google google that, Um whatever, Okay, So, uh,
- 30:20Speaker 1: I'm like having a hot flash now. It's upsetting. I mean,
- 30:24Speaker 1: it's really upsetting because for a long time, like you said,
- 30:27Speaker 1: he was sort of like the voice of I don't know,
- 30:31Speaker 1: but you're right, women, like kind of like women in
- 30:34Speaker 1: genre like badass women. I don't It just is kind
- 30:38Speaker 1: of a bit. Uh. It's so rough when you think
- 30:44Speaker 1: about it, it just it makes you there's so many
- 30:48Speaker 1: things that we did wrong in the past. Um, but
- 30:52Speaker 1: allowing that to sort of be the voice of of
- 30:55Speaker 1: badass women is maybe one of them. But it shows
- 31:00Speaker 1: inspire a lot of writers. But now we do have
- 31:02Speaker 1: to sort of contend with what does that mean to
- 31:05Speaker 1: have someone like that have shaped such an influential female character.
- 31:11Speaker 1: It's a it's a messy topic, um, and it seems
- 31:14Speaker 1: like you guys are sick of talking about it. So
- 31:18Speaker 1: just in the context of him specifically, he's just been
- 31:21Speaker 1: coming up a bunch um. But yeah, I mean, I
- 31:24Speaker 1: guess the long and short of it there is that
- 31:26Speaker 1: he in multiple interviews, has said that Donald Sutherland was
- 31:31Speaker 1: very difficult than the set he was writing rewriting his
- 31:33Speaker 1: own lines, which I do fully believe. It's there's like
- 31:37Speaker 1: so many stories about Donald Sutherland being a pain in
- 31:40Speaker 1: the as to work with. Fine, I'll concede at that point.
- 31:43Speaker 1: But he he also was like, oh and this director
- 31:45Speaker 1: was so like weak willed and she would let Donald
- 31:48Speaker 1: Sutherland kind of walk all over her. And I'm just like,
- 31:51Speaker 1: do you hear yourself? In any case, I think it
- 31:55Speaker 1: is interesting that you know, in retrospect, Josh Weeden kind
- 31:58Speaker 1: of actively turned his own fan base against this movie,
- 32:02Speaker 1: and I think that's why people don't really critically engage
- 32:05Speaker 1: with it. But there's, uh, there's quite a bit going on. Yeah, yeah, Um,
- 32:10Speaker 1: starting with I mean, just the kind of basic idea
- 32:14Speaker 1: of this being a movie that centers a a woman
- 32:19Speaker 1: is like the hero, like the ass kicking like action
- 32:23Speaker 1: star of the movie, which like a lot of movies
- 32:28Speaker 1: of this genre or this type don't do. This is
- 32:31Speaker 1: a pretty male heavy thing, as is the idea of
- 32:35Speaker 1: like kind of the hero's journey chosen one narrative that
- 32:40Speaker 1: is something that women and girls like usually don't get
- 32:43Speaker 1: to be the chosen one in most stories. This is
- 32:46Speaker 1: like a pretty male centric idea, and so it's just
- 32:51Speaker 1: like very cool to have this movie that, as simple
- 32:56Speaker 1: as it might seem, and like, like you mentioned, Jasmine
- 33:00Speaker 1: was like a very empowering thing for you to watch,
- 33:03Speaker 1: Like to be able to like see this woman and
- 33:05Speaker 1: watch her kicking ass and have this like chosen one
- 33:09Speaker 1: narrative be about a teen girl, Like that's an empowering
- 33:15Speaker 1: thing for you know, the target audience of this movie
- 33:18Speaker 1: being like teens and you know, young people generally, I imagine.
- 33:24Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean I think that's just like a
- 33:27Speaker 1: a cool thing in general. Yeah, the movie has things
- 33:32Speaker 1: to discuss, but the but the I mean, like the
- 33:37Speaker 1: action scenes are fucking cool and like funny and dynamic,
- 33:41Speaker 1: and she's in control, like I was really worried about
- 33:45Speaker 1: at the end. I was like, oh, no, please don't
- 33:47Speaker 1: say that, you know. I feel like it's so we
- 33:50Speaker 1: very often see in this kind of this specific era
- 33:53Speaker 1: of when women are fighting or even when they're the hero,
- 33:57Speaker 1: they're kind of like tossed out of the climax scene
- 34:00Speaker 1: and it's like, no, now you will be saved. And
- 34:04Speaker 1: this happens in another vampire movie with Twilight, where Bella
- 34:08Speaker 1: Swan is the protagonist of that franchise, and yet in
- 34:13Speaker 1: the first movie she's just like rendered unconscious almost immediately
- 34:18Speaker 1: during the climax and then like doesn't get to do anything. Yeah,
- 34:21Speaker 1: and then like the other example, I always go to
- 34:24Speaker 1: his like Kristen Kirsten, Sorry, it was getting like the
- 34:29Speaker 1: oh the Christians and the Kirsten movie stars Kirsten Dunce
- 34:33Speaker 1: like caught in a just like held on the side
- 34:35Speaker 1: of the scene in a spider web for the entire
- 34:37Speaker 1: climax of Spiderman too. Um, you're just like, okay, so
- 34:42Speaker 1: you're not invited to proticit like, but Buffy remains in
- 34:45Speaker 1: control of basically all of the action. And it's really
- 34:49Speaker 1: I thought Christie Swanton did a really good job. She's
- 34:52Speaker 1: I thought so too. I also really loved like, at
- 34:55Speaker 1: the very end, you have you have Pike, and I
- 34:58Speaker 1: appreciated the Pike was the damsel here. You know, Pike
- 35:03Speaker 1: always fainted. There was even one time I think where
- 35:06Speaker 1: I heard him saying like, at least I did faint
- 35:08Speaker 1: this time. And you get to the very end and
- 35:12Speaker 1: Buffy has saved the day. I mean, Pike didn't really
- 35:15Speaker 1: do much. I don't really know what he did, uh,
- 35:18Speaker 1: But he looks up and he's like, oh, did I
- 35:20Speaker 1: do all this? And she's like, no, no, you absolutely
- 35:24Speaker 1: did not. And he's like, yeah, yeah, he did all this,
- 35:28Speaker 1: and it's it is totally fine with that. I don't
- 35:30Speaker 1: I never felt like he felt like his masculinity was
- 35:33Speaker 1: threatened in any way, not that it should have been,
- 35:35Speaker 1: but this is the early nineties we're talking about, um,
- 35:38Speaker 1: and I just really think that, like, as a young
- 35:41Speaker 1: girl watching this, I didn't realize this obviously at the time,
- 35:45Speaker 1: but I internalized a lot of the good There's there's
- 35:49Speaker 1: some rough stuff we'll talk about that, but a lot
- 35:51Speaker 1: of the good things. The main thing being watching this
- 35:54Speaker 1: woman like really like you said, take over, take ownership,
- 35:57Speaker 1: kick butt, and like come out and on top, and
- 36:00Speaker 1: she is She's the one. No one else does this
- 36:03Speaker 1: but her. She saves the world basically. Um. I think
- 36:06Speaker 1: it was really informative, especially now as I'm getting into making,
- 36:11Speaker 1: you know, being able to help make my own content,
- 36:14Speaker 1: the kind of things that I value and the kinds
- 36:16Speaker 1: of stuff that I want to make. I really do
- 36:19Speaker 1: think that if I think about it, I can trace
- 36:21Speaker 1: it back to very early on, like watching and loving
- 36:25Speaker 1: Buffy as a kid. You just never know like what
- 36:28Speaker 1: someone's going to watch and how it's going to influence them,
- 36:30Speaker 1: which is why I think that it's really important like
- 36:33Speaker 1: what we put out there, what we put on on
- 36:36Speaker 1: our screens, um, because you just you just don't know that.
- 36:41Speaker 1: And with that romantic subplot with Pike, as you said,
- 36:47Speaker 1: there's like I mean, it starts out it's it's like
- 36:50Speaker 1: one of those enemies to lovers dynamics, which is like,
- 36:54Speaker 1: which I kind of I do. I'm a sucker for that. Um.
- 36:59Speaker 1: But like we mentioned, like their dynamic is mostly this
- 37:03Speaker 1: like almost like gender flipped, because we're so used to
- 37:06Speaker 1: seeing it the other way, where you know, we're used
- 37:09Speaker 1: to seeing a man be the fighter, the protector, the
- 37:13Speaker 1: action hero and his love interest a woman because everything
- 37:17Speaker 1: is hetero in movies. Um that she's the damsel. She's
- 37:22Speaker 1: the one who has to be saved. She's the one
- 37:24Speaker 1: who's not really participating in any of the action in
- 37:27Speaker 1: this movie, though, it's like completely flipped where he does
- 37:31Speaker 1: help out sometimes and almost he he assumes this role
- 37:35Speaker 1: is almost like her sidekick. I would say, I think
- 37:38Speaker 1: he kind of gets in the way a little bit more,
- 37:42Speaker 1: which like is funny and like, yeah, I don't know,
- 37:45Speaker 1: I just I appreciated that where there's yeah, various scenes
- 37:49Speaker 1: where he like he doesn't fight at all and then
- 37:53Speaker 1: he instead fates or he does like help out a
- 37:56Speaker 1: little bit, but it's still buffy like taking the reins
- 37:59Speaker 1: and like getting ship mostly done. And then like you said,
- 38:02Speaker 1: like at the end, like he acknowledges that he hasn't
- 38:05Speaker 1: contributed much. This is not a blow to his ego.
- 38:11Speaker 1: He's just like, wow, you're And I also think that
- 38:14Speaker 1: there's something to be said for him kind of encouraging
- 38:18Speaker 1: her to like continue to be the slayer because there's
- 38:21Speaker 1: like a moment where she's like, I'm in over my head,
- 38:23Speaker 1: like I just want to be a normal teenager, Like
- 38:25Speaker 1: this was sprung on me and I never asked for
- 38:28Speaker 1: this and blah blah blah. And he was just like, well, like,
- 38:31Speaker 1: you have this opportunity, now, don't you want to like
- 38:33Speaker 1: make something of it and like do this important stuff.
- 38:37Speaker 1: And you know, the way he handles it is like
- 38:40Speaker 1: maybe a little I don't know, I feel like he
- 38:42Speaker 1: could have handled that better. But the fact that he's
- 38:44Speaker 1: like cheering her, he's her cheerleader. Wow. I also love
- 38:51Speaker 1: that he even though he felt like it was beneath
- 38:56Speaker 1: Buffy and definitely beneath himself, he still showed up the dance.
- 39:00Speaker 1: He still came to the dance, and he came prepared.
- 39:04Speaker 1: I think you bought a bunch of spikes, a bunch
- 39:09Speaker 1: of wood and it came in. Yeah. I was I'm
- 39:13Speaker 1: glad for having this this talk because I was back
- 39:16Speaker 1: and forth it on like Okay, what function does this
- 39:20Speaker 1: love story serve? And like, as I was watching it
- 39:24Speaker 1: to to prepare, I do think that like there is,
- 39:29Speaker 1: I don't know. We're always arguing that it's like, is
- 39:31Speaker 1: this head of real love story necessary to the story,
- 39:34Speaker 1: and well, and I you know, we'll get to this,
- 39:37Speaker 1: and we've sort of already started talking about this, but um,
- 39:40Speaker 1: how I do wish that one of just like the
- 39:42Speaker 1: glaring things about this movie is that there are no
- 39:45Speaker 1: women in Buffy's life that provide any support or like
- 39:48Speaker 1: real narrative importance for her, And so I wish that
- 39:52Speaker 1: she also had like a friendship. But I did feel like, yeah,
- 39:55Speaker 1: the dynamic with her Pike, especially as the movie goes on,
- 39:58Speaker 1: does serve a function like you're describing Jasmine of like
- 40:04Speaker 1: you know, it's still extremely heteronormative and and stuff that
- 40:07Speaker 1: it's like movies from to be, but it's he's not
- 40:13Speaker 1: threatened by her, because I feel like even when you
- 40:15Speaker 1: do have these like very active female action stars the
- 40:22Speaker 1: guy that they'll partner with, even if they're very in love,
- 40:25Speaker 1: sometimes it's like he's not totally okay with the dynamic
- 40:30Speaker 1: or like he's threatened by it. Almost feels like a competition. Yeah,
- 40:35Speaker 1: and this doesn't feel that way at all, And it's
- 40:37Speaker 1: like it sounds like that that does have like a
- 40:40Speaker 1: real positive application of like Pike is still this like
- 40:44Speaker 1: traditionally cool like outsider motorcycle like like he's so he's cool, right,
- 40:52Speaker 1: but also is very secure in himself and is like
- 40:56Speaker 1: okay with his girlfriend being the one who saves the
- 40:59Speaker 1: world and was rooting for them by the end. I
- 41:02Speaker 1: just wish that she had some friendships. Um, some friends
- 41:08Speaker 1: she can have that and friends right, like her best
- 41:11Speaker 1: friend ended up being Donald Sutherland in a trench coat.
- 41:15Speaker 1: I needed a I needed a little more than that. Yeah. Uh.
- 41:19Speaker 1: The one thing about the romantic subplot that was all
- 41:23Speaker 1: for me was like really this again, where at the
- 41:28Speaker 1: dance he's like, Puffy, you're not like other girls, but
- 41:33Speaker 1: she's like, yes, I am. I liked that. I liked that.
- 41:37Speaker 1: I was glad because when I heard that, I like, groan,
- 41:40Speaker 1: why what what was your What problem did you have
- 41:42Speaker 1: with it? I mean mostly just that like the idea
- 41:45Speaker 1: of like Heateroman especially will use the you're not like
- 41:50Speaker 1: other girls as a compliment when it's really just like
- 41:53Speaker 1: that's just a way to tear down other women or
- 41:56Speaker 1: to like paint femininity or just like womanhood or girlhood,
- 42:00Speaker 1: and these broad strokes and as like bad, right, but like, oh,
- 42:06Speaker 1: but if you're not like the other girls, you're different
- 42:08Speaker 1: in like X y Z ways, Like that's awesome. So
- 42:11Speaker 1: it just like is a way to kind of demonize
- 42:14Speaker 1: femininity and like girlhood and womanhood and things like that.
- 42:17Speaker 1: So it's like always like it always pings for us
- 42:20Speaker 1: when we hear like, oh, you're not like the other girls.
- 42:23Speaker 1: But then she's just like So what I liked about
- 42:25Speaker 1: it is that she immediately challenges him and it's just like, yeah,
- 42:29Speaker 1: I am because there's nothing wrong with other girls. Who
- 42:33Speaker 1: doesn't say that, but like that's the implication I just
- 42:36Speaker 1: wish to. The script also followed through on that and
- 42:38Speaker 1: gave us some likable women in the script that weren't Buffy,
- 42:44Speaker 1: which which we know that like Jos Sueden is capable
- 42:47Speaker 1: of doing. So I'm assuming that that had to do
- 42:49Speaker 1: with studio stuff, because it like we do know that he,
- 42:53Speaker 1: you know, for all his faults, does right women who
- 42:56Speaker 1: are friends with each other and important to each other.
- 42:59Speaker 1: But yeah, that I don't know. I'd like I And
- 43:02Speaker 1: I also another like little moment that I appreciated from
- 43:05Speaker 1: Buffy was also at the end where I think Pike
- 43:10Speaker 1: says something like he asked her to dance after she's
- 43:13Speaker 1: killed every vampire ever, and he's like, I'm assuming you
- 43:18Speaker 1: want to lead, and she's like, no, I don't. And
- 43:22Speaker 1: I liked that. I was like, that's I didn't think
- 43:25Speaker 1: it until she said that. I was like, oh, yeah,
- 43:27Speaker 1: like action girl protagonists, I feel like we're so like
- 43:32Speaker 1: painted with a broad stroke of like and she's in
- 43:34Speaker 1: charge of fucking everything and she's the boss of blah
- 43:37Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah, where it's like people are complicated,
- 43:39Speaker 1: and she's like, nope, I don't want to be you
- 43:43Speaker 1: can do this. It's all good and it's fine. Like
- 43:46Speaker 1: I thought that was a very sweet exchange. Yeah, it's
- 43:49Speaker 1: it's kind of like you guys said, I guess a
- 43:51Speaker 1: little bit unfortunate that in the whole if you look
- 43:55Speaker 1: at the way that they paint that they be particularly
- 43:59Speaker 1: teen age girls. But I guess you could say, um,
- 44:02Speaker 1: women in general, since there are no like adult figures
- 44:05Speaker 1: in her life because her mom is awful as well. Uh,
- 44:09Speaker 1: it's a very very negative view of them and even
- 44:14Speaker 1: like take like Buffy herself. I don't know if you
- 44:17Speaker 1: guys tracked this, but I happen to. I love, love,
- 44:21Speaker 1: love like outfits in fashion, and I particularly love the
- 44:25Speaker 1: stuff in this movie. Um, but Buffy goes from wearing
- 44:31Speaker 1: the sun dresses and like her hair down and all
- 44:34Speaker 1: that to wearing cut off shorts with like a flannel
- 44:38Speaker 1: and boots. Like the implications sort of being that if
- 44:42Speaker 1: you are into this stuff, you're into Even at the
- 44:45Speaker 1: end when she's going to look for like a dress
- 44:46Speaker 1: and she's shopping, she's not like super into it anymore
- 44:49Speaker 1: because now she's evolved. She's better than that. She's like
- 44:52Speaker 1: the next level of woman, which I have a huge
- 44:55Speaker 1: problem with. I think, like you said, Jamie, people are multifaceted,
- 45:00Speaker 1: and I don't love this idea that it doesn't only
- 45:03Speaker 1: come up in Buffy. That comes up quite a bit
- 45:06Speaker 1: that if you happen to be quote unquote girl or
- 45:09Speaker 1: into fashion or whatever it is, um that is deemed
- 45:13Speaker 1: to be like I said, uh, feminine activity, that it's
- 45:17Speaker 1: less than and it makes you less than. And in
- 45:19Speaker 1: order to ascend, you have to put that behind you
- 45:22Speaker 1: and realize that that is not something that you need
- 45:24Speaker 1: to care about. And once you do that, you will
- 45:27Speaker 1: become the person that you should be. And I think
- 45:29Speaker 1: the two things can completely and totally exist together, which
- 45:33Speaker 1: is why I wish that at least one of her
- 45:35Speaker 1: friends had like stood by her in addition to Pike
- 45:39Speaker 1: and didn't have to. I mean, they were pretty awful
- 45:42Speaker 1: in the beginning, but I don't think that like some
- 45:44Speaker 1: of the stuff that they loved needed to have changed
- 45:47Speaker 1: to still support their friend and take down vampires together. Yeah,
- 45:53Speaker 1: I totally agree. Yeah, where it's like and again, it's
- 45:57Speaker 1: like I don't even know who would have been the
- 45:59Speaker 1: purpose trader of that stuff, because Josh Weeden has like
- 46:02Speaker 1: distanced himself so much from this script, so who knows.
- 46:05Speaker 1: But but yeah, it does seem to like in a
- 46:08Speaker 1: way that feels very nineties, but I feel it does
- 46:11Speaker 1: still happen sometimes in media like demonize whatever a more
- 46:16Speaker 1: traditional form of femininity and make it seem like, oh,
- 46:21Speaker 1: this is an inherently weak and vapid way to live
- 46:26Speaker 1: and feel. Where it's like that is so like there's
- 46:31Speaker 1: no gray area there, and there needs to be gray area,
- 46:34Speaker 1: especially because I don't know even like style Lize, I
- 46:37Speaker 1: was like, I want Buffy's costumes from the beginning, not
- 46:41Speaker 1: the end, or like some modification because I know It's like,
- 46:45Speaker 1: you know, I want her to be able to fight comfortably,
- 46:48Speaker 1: but I'm like, you could modify your style at the
- 46:50Speaker 1: beginning to make it like vampire killing friendly. I liked
- 46:54Speaker 1: all of the outfits. I like Buffy in the beginning
- 46:57Speaker 1: and the end, then all of her outfits for the
- 47:01Speaker 1: training montage too. I really liked that training montage me too, right,
- 47:06Speaker 1: But the movie does like subscribe to this idea that
- 47:10Speaker 1: like Buffy is the one good female character in this story,
- 47:14Speaker 1: and all the other women because they like, quote unquote
- 47:18Speaker 1: like feminine things that the movie deems to be like vapid,
- 47:22Speaker 1: like shopping and like wearing dresses and caring about going
- 47:27Speaker 1: to a dance and like all that stuff all the
- 47:31Speaker 1: other women in the movie equals bad to the point where,
- 47:35Speaker 1: like to bring up the costuming thing again, when Buffy
- 47:39Speaker 1: goes leaves the dance to go fight this like Horde
- 47:41Speaker 1: of Vampires, she's wearing a dress, but Luke Perry throws
- 47:45Speaker 1: her his leather jacket as if to say, like, you'll
- 47:49Speaker 1: need this to fight vampires. I said that exact thing
- 47:54Speaker 1: when I was watching it. I was like, what's the point,
- 47:56Speaker 1: what is that gonna do? I feel like it's going
- 47:59Speaker 1: to like encumber her arms, it's going to make it
- 48:01Speaker 1: harder for but cool. I gotta LEVI jacket great, but
- 48:06Speaker 1: it looks cool. I guess I don't know, but yeah,
- 48:09Speaker 1: I think. In addition, so not only are all the
- 48:12Speaker 1: all the other female characters in this story, you know,
- 48:15Speaker 1: painted with these broad strokes of just like portrayed as
- 48:19Speaker 1: being too hyper feminine equals vapid equals bad kind of logic. Um,
- 48:26Speaker 1: it means that all of Buffy's most significant relationships in
- 48:31Speaker 1: the movie are with men. And you know, we talked
- 48:34Speaker 1: about her and the love interest Pike already, but then
- 48:36Speaker 1: there's also like Buffy and her mentor Merrick, Buffy and
- 48:40Speaker 1: the villain Loathos, So like we can have separate discussions
- 48:44Speaker 1: about that. But yeah, the movie does subscribe to this
- 48:48Speaker 1: idea that like, Buffy is kind of not like the
- 48:51Speaker 1: other girls and that's a good thing, right, And it's
- 48:54Speaker 1: like that's not the message that we should be putting
- 48:57Speaker 1: out into the world, which is wild, yeah, because it's
- 48:59Speaker 1: like the character pushes against that, but then the movie
- 49:04Speaker 1: doesn't quite follow through on effectively commenting on it. It's
- 49:08Speaker 1: a little bit messie. Yeah, let's take another quick break,
- 49:13Speaker 1: and then we will come right back and we're back.
- 49:22Speaker 1: Should we talk about Buffy and Merrick? Which why not?
- 49:33Speaker 1: I mean he he like also starts out being like, Wow,
- 49:37Speaker 1: I've never met such a like vacuous and vapid slayer.
- 49:42Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm stuck with you right now. And
- 49:47Speaker 1: but then she's constantly challenging him, and it gets to
- 49:51Speaker 1: a point where they actually develop a bond and mutual trust,
- 49:57Speaker 1: and at one point she's like, what do you even do, sir?
- 50:00Speaker 1: Like I'm out here putting my neck on the line.
- 50:04Speaker 1: What are you doing? Like? Oh, I'm kind of like
- 50:07Speaker 1: a trainer kind of guy, a very bad one because
- 50:10Speaker 1: it's been centuries and he has not defeated the vampires.
- 50:15Speaker 1: I'm like, how do you still have this job? In
- 50:17Speaker 1: any other line of work? If you consistently do not
- 50:20Speaker 1: deliver the results, you are replaced. Yeah, here you are
- 50:23Speaker 1: to lead another girl to the slaughter. Men get a
- 50:27Speaker 1: million chances, don't they? They a million chance to do
- 50:31Speaker 1: one thing? He also like he admits he's like, oh,
- 50:35Speaker 1: I should have found you so like so many years ago.
- 50:39Speaker 1: We should have started your training a long time ago.
- 50:41Speaker 1: But I don't I don't know. I just it was like, well,
- 50:45Speaker 1: what do you what were you doing? Like, isn't it
- 50:47Speaker 1: your job to find her and then like early on
- 50:50Speaker 1: and train her. So it's also such a like a
- 50:53Speaker 1: blase sort of thing to say, considering this is Buffy's
- 50:57Speaker 1: life her, like she's putting her life on the line,
- 51:01Speaker 1: and Mary's just like, oh, sorry, you probably should have
- 51:04Speaker 1: years of training under your belt, but you're still going
- 51:06Speaker 1: to have to sort of condense everything into a four
- 51:09Speaker 1: week timeline. I think at one point Buffy says, it's
- 51:12Speaker 1: been like three weeks or four weeks or something years
- 51:14Speaker 1: and training condensed four weeks. Marek is awful, trash, He's
- 51:20Speaker 1: bad at his job, like I felt like, and I
- 51:23Speaker 1: feel like Buffy. Buffy did so much of the like
- 51:26Speaker 1: emotional lifting in that like she like whatever, She's like, oh,
- 51:30Speaker 1: he made a joke, like she kind of like brings
- 51:32Speaker 1: out a lighter side of him. But it's like, yeah,
- 51:35Speaker 1: he put her in an impossible situation that was like
- 51:38Speaker 1: for sure, and she pulls it off like she's I
- 51:41Speaker 1: don't know, I thought that that that montage cracked me
- 51:44Speaker 1: up because she's wearing the same outfit at the beginning
- 51:47Speaker 1: and end of the montage, So I guess that she
- 51:50Speaker 1: just happened to be wearing the same outfit exactly three
- 51:52Speaker 1: weeks later, which is like true to like clothes, but
- 51:57Speaker 1: was confusing movie wise, like what it seems like no
- 52:00Speaker 1: time has past because he's always wearing the same trench coat,
- 52:03Speaker 1: so you're like, what day is it? Whatever? Gosh, Yeah,
- 52:09Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean, I guess I don't totally know
- 52:12Speaker 1: how to feel about this relationship because he also like
- 52:15Speaker 1: dies like and then there's like forty more minutes of
- 52:19Speaker 1: the movie. But I guess I appreciate that that dynamic
- 52:24Speaker 1: grows and that they come to respect each other, and
- 52:27Speaker 1: then he's even like, wow, you're you were the right
- 52:30Speaker 1: person for the job after all. And then I think
- 52:33Speaker 1: as he's dying, she's like, sorry, I keep doing this wrong,
- 52:37Speaker 1: and he's like, no, don't do that. Yeah, do what
- 52:42Speaker 1: you're doing. Don't play our game. Don't play by our rules,
- 52:45Speaker 1: because clearly it never works because there's still vampires around,
- 52:50Speaker 1: So do it your way, Buffy. And so he respects
- 52:54Speaker 1: her and admires her, and yeah, So I don't know.
- 52:58Speaker 1: I guess I was like fine all of that. Yeah,
- 53:01Speaker 1: I think the relationship you know, it ended up being
- 53:03Speaker 1: kind of sweet. My issues specifically come with Mark as
- 53:07Speaker 1: the trainer of the Slayers, and I've said my piece
- 53:10Speaker 1: about that, like story was like I didn't hate Mark.
- 53:17Speaker 1: I just felt like their connection Like again, I just
- 53:20Speaker 1: feel like there were stronger options for a character for
- 53:23Speaker 1: Buffy to connect with because they truly had nothing in common.
- 53:25Speaker 1: He wasn't doing a good job. And then when he died,
- 53:29Speaker 1: like she was, she was sad, but it was also like,
- 53:32Speaker 1: I don't know, I feel like the movie wanted you
- 53:34Speaker 1: to really feel his death and I was like, oh wow,
- 53:37Speaker 1: Donald Sutherland died pretty early in the movie. That's that's interesting, right.
- 53:42Speaker 1: I was like, well that was kind of easy. That
- 53:45Speaker 1: was simple. I thought it would have lasted the whole time,
- 53:48Speaker 1: all right. There was like no fight, Like suddenly he
- 53:52Speaker 1: was just stabbed. There was like no fighting leading up
- 53:56Speaker 1: to that. I was like, what how? Who was all back? Um? Also, okay,
- 54:06Speaker 1: so Marek is like, hey, how about those menstrual cramps
- 54:11Speaker 1: you're feeling? Oh my god? Yes, okay, Josh, is that
- 54:16Speaker 1: a thing on the TV show? Please say it's not. No,
- 54:19Speaker 1: I do not think so. I was like, what are
- 54:21Speaker 1: you doing? So what is happening here is that basically,
- 54:27Speaker 1: when vampires are nearby, Buffy feels menstrual cramps. It's like
- 54:33Speaker 1: a warning sign to let her know that vampires are afoot.
- 54:38Speaker 1: And she's like, what is this all about? And Mark
- 54:41Speaker 1: explains it's a natural reaction to their unnatural nous to
- 54:47Speaker 1: vampires unnatural nous. So basically I know that, like Josh
- 54:52Speaker 1: Weeden does not consider this movie to be cannon, but
- 54:55Speaker 1: if you're looking at like this movie and the show,
- 54:59Speaker 1: the lore seems to be that the vampire slayer is
- 55:03Speaker 1: always a cis woman. So at least with this movie,
- 55:08Speaker 1: with this like world building thing of menstrual cramps equals
- 55:14Speaker 1: vampires are nearby, the logic is that like if you're
- 55:19Speaker 1: a slayer, you're a woman, and being a woman means
- 55:21Speaker 1: you have a womb and that you're a menstruating person
- 55:25Speaker 1: and that's natural. So it's like this very sis normative idea.
- 55:30Speaker 1: And I think it's also supposed to be kind of
- 55:32Speaker 1: like a joke to like I don't know what it was.
- 55:35Speaker 1: It was so random. Yeah, that didn't work for me
- 55:39Speaker 1: at all. It's like and it doesn't really come back
- 55:41Speaker 1: either where. Yeah, it's like very and it's like sis
- 55:45Speaker 1: normativity and also just and it's like, oh, well, I'm
- 55:49Speaker 1: writing a character that menstruates. I better bring that up
- 55:53Speaker 1: like that. You don't need to bring that up like if,
- 55:57Speaker 1: like if the Slayer was written to be a SIS man,
- 56:01Speaker 1: I feel like there would not be anything like that
- 56:04Speaker 1: attributed to his character. It wouldn't be like, oh, your
- 56:06Speaker 1: scrotum is gonna hurt when vampires are around? Like did
- 56:11Speaker 1: that happen to the last Boys? Kaylin remembers the movie
- 56:17Speaker 1: better than both of us. Yeah, like, what are you what?
- 56:25Speaker 1: It was so weird? Yeah? I found that to be
- 56:28Speaker 1: very very bizarre. It was two? Really? Uh was what
- 56:35Speaker 1: two ing there? It was really having a two? Um? Okay,
- 56:40Speaker 1: So the other like major relationship or like whatever dynamic
- 56:46Speaker 1: there is between Buffy and another character in this movie
- 56:49Speaker 1: is with her and Loathos And I'm gonna need some
- 56:53Speaker 1: help understanding what. I don't know if we can help
- 56:57Speaker 1: you there. I had talked, there's any help? That was?
- 57:04Speaker 1: I have no words, Yeah I have, here's my spiel
- 57:09Speaker 1: about it. So what appears to be happening is what
- 57:13Speaker 1: feels like a very sexually charged hero slash villain dynamic
- 57:19Speaker 1: that feels extremely gendered, because again, I don't think it
- 57:22Speaker 1: would be written that way if the hero was a man.
- 57:26Speaker 1: But because it's a teen girl, this weird like heterosexual
- 57:30Speaker 1: dynamic gets introduced, which is especially creepy because she's a
- 57:33Speaker 1: teenager and Lothos is played by a much older actor
- 57:37Speaker 1: and also the characters hundreds of years old. Right, Yeah,
- 57:42Speaker 1: I feel like this happens in other movies where the
- 57:45Speaker 1: protagonist is a girl or a woman and the villain
- 57:49Speaker 1: is a man. I thought immediately of Labyrinth with like
- 57:53Speaker 1: Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie and like that weird like
- 57:56Speaker 1: dance they have together. Um, But there are all these
- 58:00Speaker 1: scenes where like Buffy has a dream where she gets
- 58:03Speaker 1: into bed with Lothos and he embraces her. There's that
- 58:07Speaker 1: scene where like the first time they come in in
- 58:09Speaker 1: face to face contact, Lothus is like, oh, I'm ready,
- 58:12Speaker 1: I'm ready for you to ripen because like it seems
- 58:17Speaker 1: like he doesn't want to fight her so much as
- 58:19Speaker 1: like have this weird like seduction sex, Like he's like
- 58:25Speaker 1: fetishizing the idea that she's a slayer, which feels very
- 58:29Speaker 1: like vampire culture as well of like this old creepy
- 58:34Speaker 1: guy trying to like engage with a teenage girl, and
- 58:38Speaker 1: that's kind of like cannon to this genre in a
- 58:42Speaker 1: way that I was kind of hoping that the movie
- 58:45Speaker 1: was going to comment on, because this movie does a
- 58:48Speaker 1: lot of things that vampire movies don't usually do. But
- 58:51Speaker 1: that was something that felt kind of bizarrely very much
- 58:55Speaker 1: in place. Yeah, I just and I didn't understand logistically
- 59:01Speaker 1: what the heck was going on. Like the first time
- 59:03Speaker 1: that Buffy has an actual showdown with Lothos and she
- 59:10Speaker 1: sees him and is mesmerized. Is that? Is that what's happening? Right?
- 59:15Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm like, stab him and she can't.
- 59:19Speaker 1: She's not really moving, she's looking at him, she's coming closer,
- 59:21Speaker 1: and like you said, there's this weird sexually charged energy.
- 59:24Speaker 1: I didn't quite understand what was happening. All I kept
- 59:26Speaker 1: shouting was what are you doing? Stab him with your
- 59:29Speaker 1: wooden staately um and some he kept saying like we're
- 59:34Speaker 1: drawn to each other, and it was just like all
- 59:36Speaker 1: very weird and the movie could very much so exist
- 59:40Speaker 1: and should have existed without that. And I don't know,
- 59:43Speaker 1: even from a story perspective, I actually think it undermines
- 59:47Speaker 1: the logic of what was going on because I have
- 59:49Speaker 1: no clue like why that was happening exactly, and if
- 59:53Speaker 1: like they insist on that happening in the movie because
- 59:57Speaker 1: like vampires, I mean, like vampire lore is very much that,
- 1:00:00Speaker 1: like they're seducers. They like draw people in with the
- 1:00:04Speaker 1: you know, they glamour people. So like if that's a
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: thing that needs to be established just part of like
- 1:00:11Speaker 1: the world building, and it just isn't. So it gets
- 1:00:13Speaker 1: really confusing to the point where we're wondering, Yeah, Buffy,
- 1:00:17Speaker 1: why aren't you killing him? Why aren't you trying to
- 1:00:20Speaker 1: fight him? Because it seems like in in her character
- 1:00:23Speaker 1: because she is so like one of the things I
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: like about her is she's so self assured against people that,
- 1:00:29Speaker 1: you know, whatever, against people who are giving her ship.
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: Like she rejects Donald Sutherland in a trench coat several times,
- 1:00:37Speaker 1: is like fuck off. Like she's she's like very confidently
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: rejecting the call to adventure, and she's like, fuck you,
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: Like I maybe you don't like that. I want to
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: like graduate high school, moved to Europe, married Christian Slater,
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: and die iconic line. She's like, but that's what I
- 1:00:54Speaker 1: want so like leave me at like alone. And then
- 1:00:56Speaker 1: there's that amazing thing where her like shitty boyfriend's friend
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: slaps her button then she like slams him to the ground.
- 1:01:04Speaker 1: It's like this is a girl who like is not
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: afraid to fight back when someone's fucking with her, and
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: so it does feel like out of like I don't know, Yeah,
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: that didn't feel fully realized because it's like we've seen
- 1:01:17Speaker 1: her give so many people ships. Yeah, it's not consistent. Yeah,
- 1:01:21Speaker 1: So I was just so confused by that. But then
- 1:01:24Speaker 1: like based on some weird thing that Mark had said
- 1:01:27Speaker 1: where he's like, listen to the music and when the
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: music stops and then he like boh dies. But then
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: like the music has stopped in that scene with her
- 1:01:37Speaker 1: and Lothos, and she's like, oh my god, it was
- 1:01:39Speaker 1: I knew it all along music and we're like what
- 1:01:42Speaker 1: are you. I'm like, did you forget to have a
- 1:01:44Speaker 1: scene here? I never quite understood like what she realized.
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: I never got it. I was like, Okay, confused she
- 1:01:54Speaker 1: understood what it was that was her next move, because
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: I certainly didn't understand. I mean, I think it is
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: important for the audience to make it clear to the
- 1:02:04Speaker 1: audience what that's all about, but whatever, whatever, it is
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: fair enough. She then kind of like snaps out of it,
- 1:02:11Speaker 1: and then she finally starts to fight back and then
- 1:02:16Speaker 1: you know, lands the killing blow in in the next
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: scene and you know, defeats him finally. But there's so
- 1:02:22Speaker 1: much of like that dynamic where he's like being uber
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: creepy and like uber predatory, which again, this is what
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: vampires do, but there's nothing to establish why what is
- 1:02:35Speaker 1: exactly happening, what Lothos wants, why he wants to seduce
- 1:02:40Speaker 1: the player rather than kill her since she is an
- 1:02:42Speaker 1: immediate threat to him, or why why she's responding to it,
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: and the way that she is that it's just like
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: just feels like very weirdly like gendered and sexualized in
- 1:02:53Speaker 1: a way that like just made no sense to me.
- 1:02:56Speaker 1: Absolutely none. Okay, I'm glad we're all in agreement. Say,
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: have any any other stuff they wanted to to talk
- 1:03:05Speaker 1: about for this one? Just a couple quick things. One,
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: this is another teen movie that ends with a big dance.
- 1:03:14Speaker 1: I don't think here that's a stable. Yeah, it was
- 1:03:19Speaker 1: a staple. I'm just pointing it out. I'm not saying
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: I gender, you know, I love a dance. You hate
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: that detail, he said, am I just more notice it
- 1:03:29Speaker 1: as a as a very consistent trope. I love it.
- 1:03:33Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes I'm just I'm annoyed by it, depending on
- 1:03:37Speaker 1: kind of what happens or what the implications of the dance,
- 1:03:39Speaker 1: because sometimes it's like, well, a movie starring a teen
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: girl has to end in some big romantic thing because
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: girls like romance and love stories and glamourus balls where
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: she hetero kisses her one true love. And then other
- 1:03:57Speaker 1: times I'm like, uh, you know, the high schools have dances,
- 1:04:01Speaker 1: so it makes sense that like you'd have the big
- 1:04:05Speaker 1: third act it like a significant social event kind of thing.
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: It didn't bother me because I felt like that like
- 1:04:11Speaker 1: brought together Buffy's two worlds so cleanly, whereas like she
- 1:04:15Speaker 1: was on the dance planning committee, those are where her
- 1:04:18Speaker 1: previous friends were. I felt like in this, like this
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: movie kind of uniquely because sometimes you're just truly at
- 1:04:24Speaker 1: a dance because it just feels like, well, this is
- 1:04:26Speaker 1: where teen movies end. But in this movie, I did
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: feel like it was justified in like bringing her worlds together,
- 1:04:31Speaker 1: that is fair, right. It was also like, like you said, Jamie,
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: we've throughout. Um you start at the beginning where she's like, fully,
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: you know, they're one of the second or third scenes
- 1:04:41Speaker 1: we see with Buffy and her friends. They're planning, they're
- 1:04:43Speaker 1: trying to figure out what the theme should be, and
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: they settle on environmentalism, and that was kind of funny.
- 1:04:49Speaker 1: Bugs or something. Yeah, they're like, we hate bugs, bugs,
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: let's get rid of the ozone there. So it was
- 1:05:01Speaker 1: like weaved in and like Jamie said, it was I
- 1:05:04Speaker 1: felt like it was a nice little having the two
- 1:05:07Speaker 1: worlds come together. And maybe I just I don't know,
- 1:05:12Speaker 1: maybe I'm a sheep that just likes everything that everybody
- 1:05:14Speaker 1: else likes. But I loved that in Dance with her
- 1:05:17Speaker 1: and Pike, I thought it was very sweet and I
- 1:05:19Speaker 1: was off for their romance. Um, I was okay with
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: it in this instance. I will say I did not
- 1:05:25Speaker 1: mind the hetero teen romantic subplot in this movie, because
- 1:05:30Speaker 1: which is saying something because it's vile, right, but I think, like, yeah,
- 1:05:37Speaker 1: the way that you know, we already talked about it,
- 1:05:40Speaker 1: but it's um the way it was handled I appreciated.
- 1:05:44Speaker 1: Another thing I appreciated was the fight choreography. Um where
- 1:05:48Speaker 1: we've talked about this a lot, where a lot of
- 1:05:50Speaker 1: movies with a woman as the action hero doing fighting
- 1:05:56Speaker 1: often has like very gendered and sexual fight choreography. We
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: talked about that vagina slam slam. I wasn't getting any
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: of that really in this movie. It was just like
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: what you'd expect as far as just like non gendered combat.
- 1:06:15Speaker 1: And I also really liked the fight choreography, like wove
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: in what Buffy was already really good at, Like she's
- 1:06:22Speaker 1: a very gymnastic fighter, Like it's cool, I don't know, Yeah,
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: like her being a cheerleader as part of why she's
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: a good fighter, which I feel like that's that on
- 1:06:33Speaker 1: top of it, Like I mean, I guess we we
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: don't really talk about this very much because we've probably
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: talked about this and they bring it on episode, but
- 1:06:41Speaker 1: like cheerleaders are so athletic and strong and it is
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: like so physically taxing to do, and so to see
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: that like applied to combat was really cool. Yeah. Yeah,
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: Bubby was already starting out, uh like at a hive
- 1:06:57Speaker 1: in the beginning of the training montage. This isn't fighting,
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: but I remember watching her climb do the rope climb
- 1:07:05Speaker 1: and she just like sails up that rope. And I
- 1:07:07Speaker 1: don't know if you guys have tried to climb a rope,
- 1:07:10Speaker 1: but that is not easy. She was tried and not succeeded,
- 1:07:18Speaker 1: so she was already starting like at a high And
- 1:07:20Speaker 1: I do love that they incorporated the gymnastics um in
- 1:07:23Speaker 1: the show that I have coming out this month. We
- 1:07:27Speaker 1: also have a main character, much like Queen Buffy, who
- 1:07:32Speaker 1: was a monster fighter, and we had a lot of
- 1:07:34Speaker 1: conversations about like what does it look like, what do
- 1:07:37Speaker 1: those fight scenes look like? Because you mentioned this being
- 1:07:41Speaker 1: um non gendered fighting style, But I do think that
- 1:07:45Speaker 1: when we were talking about our own character, there are
- 1:07:48Speaker 1: differences between the ways that people fight, especially depending on
- 1:07:53Speaker 1: who your opponent is going to be, and you want
- 1:07:55Speaker 1: to make sure that you're utilizing what you would actually
- 1:07:58Speaker 1: as the person how you would actually fight, and so
- 1:08:00Speaker 1: a lot of times you'll see that people don't take
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: that into consideration, especially when it comes to female characters,
- 1:08:07Speaker 1: like what are the ways that they are going to
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: approach a fight UM versus like a male character. And
- 1:08:12Speaker 1: one of the things that I love about Buffy, like
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: you said, is they were using what she would already
- 1:08:17Speaker 1: have considered as her strength, which is her gymnastics. So
- 1:08:20Speaker 1: it's nice that they took the time to think about
- 1:08:22Speaker 1: that and really incorporate that into the style. Uh. And
- 1:08:26Speaker 1: it's cool to watch, you know, I love watching her
- 1:08:29Speaker 1: flip around and stuff. Yeah. I guess the better way
- 1:08:32Speaker 1: to frame it is that her fight choreography didn't seem
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: sexualized in the way that a lot of women's fight
- 1:08:39Speaker 1: choreography tends to be. Right. So yeah, um, this is
- 1:08:44Speaker 1: also a very white movie. Yeah. The cast is very white.
- 1:08:50Speaker 1: Any people of color, which I think is hardly there's
- 1:08:57Speaker 1: her one friend, her one friend who we might not
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: even know the name of. I think she has two lines,
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: hardly says anything. Yeah, so any people of color are
- 1:09:10Speaker 1: relegated to like secondary or tertiary like background characters who
- 1:09:15Speaker 1: we learned nothing about. You know, every major character is white. Yeah,
- 1:09:21Speaker 1: which is um uh. You know I already went in
- 1:09:27Speaker 1: a whole speel about how, you know, growing up like
- 1:09:31Speaker 1: wanting to play certain characters and not having any that
- 1:09:35Speaker 1: there certainly were black characters, but like you said, they
- 1:09:38Speaker 1: oftentimes had no lines or just were very much in
- 1:09:43Speaker 1: the background. And this wasn't just the early nineties, like
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: I want to say, like even still sometimes still now,
- 1:09:51Speaker 1: but especially in my formative years as a child and
- 1:09:54Speaker 1: a teenager, even watching some of the shows that I
- 1:09:56Speaker 1: love to watch, like I was a huge Small Bill
- 1:10:01Speaker 1: fan for a while, um and that show I Love,
- 1:10:05Speaker 1: Love Love, but like they had a character who was
- 1:10:10Speaker 1: Superman's best friend who was black, and over the course
- 1:10:13Speaker 1: of like literally I want to say, the first season
- 1:10:15Speaker 1: was pushed to the background and was very much just
- 1:10:18Speaker 1: showed up to expose it some stuff and then leave.
- 1:10:21Speaker 1: And that's kind of what I felt like most how
- 1:10:24Speaker 1: most black characters were treated um and still are sometimes
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: where they never have their own storylines, they never have
- 1:10:31Speaker 1: their own agency. They are just there to either be
- 1:10:35Speaker 1: uh like the voice of wisdom or come in and
- 1:10:39Speaker 1: relay just enough information so that the producers and the
- 1:10:43Speaker 1: network executives can say, oh, but we have a character
- 1:10:46Speaker 1: of color. But they're never given like the meat and potatoes,
- 1:10:50Speaker 1: which is unfortunate because people want to see themselves on screen,
- 1:10:54Speaker 1: which is why I would get into fights about how
- 1:10:56Speaker 1: I want to be Buffy even though I don't look
- 1:10:58Speaker 1: like Buffy. Um And it's just you know, I'm glad
- 1:11:02Speaker 1: that we're sort of talking about these things and and
- 1:11:05Speaker 1: changing it. I think the changes are coming slowly, but
- 1:11:08Speaker 1: it really is important that people are able to see
- 1:11:10Speaker 1: themselves and like, yeah, like you're saying, not just in
- 1:11:14Speaker 1: a surface way and like an impactful, fully realized character way.
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: And also it's a it's a very straight movie as well,
- 1:11:23Speaker 1: which is always like I don't understand why vampire. I understand,
- 1:11:29Speaker 1: but it's like I understand because society, but also I'm
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: just like vampires being repeatedly coded as strictly hetero. I'm like,
- 1:11:39Speaker 1: it just doesn't track for me. It doesn't like, never has,
- 1:11:44Speaker 1: never will. Vampires I feel like, are queer cannon, like
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: what very hetero movie vampires are pan sexual, all of them?
- 1:11:54Speaker 1: For sure. I think that's true for sure. For sure,
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: there's no way that you can live hundreds of lives.
- 1:12:02Speaker 1: I couldn't even live this life that I'm in without
- 1:12:06Speaker 1: exploring my sexuality and figuring out that straight. So you're
- 1:12:13Speaker 1: trying to tell me that hundreds of years like no
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: one explored outside of just you know, And I don't
- 1:12:22Speaker 1: buy it. I don't buy it at all, not not
- 1:12:23Speaker 1: a chance. And again, tell me if I'm misremembering Caitlin.
- 1:12:27Speaker 1: But the TV show isn't quite as hetero uh normative, right,
- 1:12:31Speaker 1: there are queer there is at least a queer character, correct,
- 1:12:35Speaker 1: there's several queer characters or queer relationships like you actually
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: see in fact that might I think that was one
- 1:12:42Speaker 1: of the first shows on network television or not, I
- 1:12:46Speaker 1: guess cable television that had um or what that word?
- 1:12:50Speaker 1: I don't my television bub for a while, wasn't it,
- 1:12:53Speaker 1: and like you can if you remember that, maybe I'm
- 1:12:57Speaker 1: arranging myself like with UPN But it was not one
- 1:13:01Speaker 1: of those I don't know cab or what it was.
- 1:13:04Speaker 1: In any case, it featured one of the first lesbian
- 1:13:08Speaker 1: kisses on on screen on television. Yeah, so yeah, there
- 1:13:13Speaker 1: was not quite so much heteronormativity as there is in
- 1:13:19Speaker 1: this movie and most movies. Feels worth mentioning that, especially
- 1:13:24Speaker 1: toward the beginning of the movie, Buffy and her friends
- 1:13:27Speaker 1: make different jokes that are like at the expense of
- 1:13:31Speaker 1: the unhoused population or they don't um. There's some like
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: xenophobic remarks that are made and things like that, But
- 1:13:41Speaker 1: I think that's done to show who Buffy used to
- 1:13:45Speaker 1: be or like who like who what her friend group
- 1:13:48Speaker 1: is like these again kind of like self centered, sort
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: of like rich elitist types. Um. But you know there's
- 1:13:57Speaker 1: there's still like jokes made at the expensive on housed
- 1:14:00Speaker 1: people and stuff. So you know, feels pretty nineties. Does
- 1:14:06Speaker 1: feel very nineties. Ben Affleck is in this movie. I know,
- 1:14:11Speaker 1: like five seconds, like two seconds, And I actually read somewhere, um,
- 1:14:17Speaker 1: just in casual googling of this movie, which one does,
- 1:14:22Speaker 1: I read that his line, the one line he had,
- 1:14:25Speaker 1: was actually dubbed because the director hated his delivery, like
- 1:14:29Speaker 1: to be to have one line in a movie in
- 1:14:32Speaker 1: that line be completely dubbed over. Couldn't even get that.
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: I couldn't even get that right. But yes, Ben Affleck
- 1:14:40Speaker 1: is in this movie. So is Thomas Jane, who was
- 1:14:44Speaker 1: not as bigger an athlete. I did not catch. I
- 1:14:47Speaker 1: did not catch that either. But I was watching this
- 1:14:49Speaker 1: with my girlfriend over the weekend and she was like,
- 1:14:52Speaker 1: that's Thomas Jane and I was like, no, only Ben
- 1:14:55Speaker 1: Affleck is the that the only star that just like
- 1:15:00Speaker 1: briefly appeared. Uh, Thomas Jane plays Oh you know that
- 1:15:05Speaker 1: character had a name. They are horrible with the names.
- 1:15:08Speaker 1: And when Pike goes to get I guess his van
- 1:15:13Speaker 1: service because he's trying to leave because he knows vampires
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: are out and about and he's like, I want no
- 1:15:17Speaker 1: part of this. The mechanic and I have no idea
- 1:15:20Speaker 1: how my girlfriend was able to spot that this was
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: Thomas Jane. I don't like to even still, like I
- 1:15:26Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to pick that up. Um, but yeah,
- 1:15:28Speaker 1: Thomas Jane appearance. Even Ben Affleck have ran random appearances.
- 1:15:34Speaker 1: And uh, this movie also Stephen Root, who is one
- 1:15:38Speaker 1: of my favorite character actors, plays like the school principal
- 1:15:41Speaker 1: in this movie. Yes, there's a lot of people this
- 1:15:45Speaker 1: movie is apparently kind of stacked with with the cast here. Yeah,
- 1:15:51Speaker 1: and then I kind of assumed. I was like, oh, like,
- 1:15:53Speaker 1: whatever happened to Christy Swanson. I've never seen her in
- 1:15:55Speaker 1: anything else. She has been consistently working this entire time.
- 1:15:59Speaker 1: But she's She's in a lot of like TV movies
- 1:16:02Speaker 1: and stuff that I tend not to watch. But yeah,
- 1:16:05Speaker 1: she's she's still around working. Shouts out to her. I
- 1:16:08Speaker 1: thought she was awesome as Buffy. She's great, like just
- 1:16:13Speaker 1: just a quality quality super heroine. And then Paul Rubens
- 1:16:18Speaker 1: giving the performance of a lifetime stealing every scene is
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: so wonderful. Yeah, it's a fun movie. Like if you
- 1:16:28Speaker 1: if you have been on the fence about giving this
- 1:16:30Speaker 1: movie a chance just because of kind of the bizarro
- 1:16:33Speaker 1: cultural reputation it has, watched the movie. It's fun, You'll
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: have a good time. Yeah, But does it pass the
- 1:16:41Speaker 1: Bechtel test? I feel like it does. Even though the
- 1:16:45Speaker 1: Buffy's friends barely have names and we barely learn them
- 1:16:50Speaker 1: and they mostly talk about a yellow leather jacket and um,
- 1:16:56Speaker 1: but they talk about like planning the upcoming dance and
- 1:16:58Speaker 1: stuff like that. So yeah, and they have that whole
- 1:17:01Speaker 1: scene that's about like that. I mean, they do talk
- 1:17:04Speaker 1: about men for a part of the scene, but about
- 1:17:07Speaker 1: the conflict of like Buffy, you've changed, Like why do
- 1:17:11Speaker 1: you think what we like it is not cool anymore?
- 1:17:14Speaker 1: Like that was a meaning Like yeah, I'll always be
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: bummed out that there were not stronger friendships. But I
- 1:17:21Speaker 1: feel like that's a lot of that scene pretty firmly passed.
- 1:17:24Speaker 1: And then I think maybe a few exchanges with Buffy
- 1:17:26Speaker 1: and her mom as well, like when she's like what
- 1:17:28Speaker 1: time is it? And then Buffy lies and she's like
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: my watch is so slow? Like yeah, I guess that that,
- 1:17:36Speaker 1: Oh Buffy's Mom, where's that spin off? Yea, So it
- 1:17:43Speaker 1: does pass the Bechdel test as far as our nipple scale,
- 1:17:47Speaker 1: in which we assign zero to five nipples to the
- 1:17:52Speaker 1: movie based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens,
- 1:17:58Speaker 1: I feel like I would give it like a three,
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: maybe even like a three and a half, so we
- 1:18:03Speaker 1: can get half a nipple. Yeah, we give quarter nipples sometimes, Yeah,
- 1:18:09Speaker 1: decimal to your heart's content. I think we've given pie
- 1:18:13Speaker 1: nipples before three point one four, it's given negative nipples
- 1:18:18Speaker 1: before inverted. Yeah. Yeah, the nipple score spectrum is fluid. Um.
- 1:18:27Speaker 1: I think I'll give it three and uh half. Maybe
- 1:18:31Speaker 1: that's too generous, but especially for like an early nineties movie,
- 1:18:35Speaker 1: because oh my gosh, comparing this to other early nineties
- 1:18:39Speaker 1: movies in any genre really like things were not great.
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: So kind of maybe like adjusted for time inflation almost,
- 1:18:47Speaker 1: but inflation. The fact that you have the fact that
- 1:18:51Speaker 1: you have this female centered story about a woman chosen
- 1:18:55Speaker 1: one narrative about a woman who like kicks ass and
- 1:19:00Speaker 1: doesn't really need help from men because Marek, as she
- 1:19:04Speaker 1: points out, is not really doing anything. Pike is her
- 1:19:09Speaker 1: sidekick who barely does anything, who gets like damseled, and
- 1:19:12Speaker 1: that she has to save several times, like she never
- 1:19:16Speaker 1: really has to be saved. She's doing all of the work.
- 1:19:22Speaker 1: She has all of the agency in the movie. Although
- 1:19:26Speaker 1: I guess you could argue like being a chosen one
- 1:19:28Speaker 1: kind of like inherently takes agency away from you because
- 1:19:32Speaker 1: she's just sort of like your voice a gendered way, though, right, right, right,
- 1:19:36Speaker 1: right exactly. Um, So, as far as the circumstances go,
- 1:19:40Speaker 1: like she's got agency, she's doing things. She's a very
- 1:19:43Speaker 1: active character. I didn't hate the hetero romantic subplot. I
- 1:19:47Speaker 1: did hate the weird dynamic between her and Loathos that
- 1:19:51Speaker 1: did feel oddly gendered. Yeah, yeah that that. I don't
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: know what's happening to the weird men's oh cramps thing.
- 1:20:01Speaker 1: We should have just been absolutely deleted from the movie. Um,
- 1:20:05Speaker 1: the fact that there's no racial diversity, there's no like
- 1:20:09Speaker 1: body type diversity, it's all very heteronormative. But yeah, I
- 1:20:16Speaker 1: think there's enough like cool stuff going on. I think
- 1:20:19Speaker 1: I'll land on a three three and a quarter nipple
- 1:20:24Speaker 1: and I'll give one to Buffy. I will give one
- 1:20:29Speaker 1: to Paul Ruben's death scene. I'll give one to Buffy's
- 1:20:36Speaker 1: black friend, who we who the movie doesn't even care
- 1:20:39Speaker 1: to give her a name. And I'll give a quarter
- 1:20:45Speaker 1: nipple to the little baby kitty that Lothos is about
- 1:20:49Speaker 1: to go snack on in that one scene, because I
- 1:20:52Speaker 1: feel really bad for the cat. I'll meet you there.
- 1:20:57Speaker 1: I'll go three and a half as well. I think
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: the issues this movie has with a glaring lack of
- 1:21:05Speaker 1: diversity across the board is both very obvious and extremely
- 1:21:10Speaker 1: of its time. Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of just
- 1:21:13Speaker 1: co signing our discussion and what you just said, Caitlin
- 1:21:16Speaker 1: Um because I like Buffy a lot. I like how
- 1:21:21Speaker 1: much she subverts I wish that the villain subverted more
- 1:21:26Speaker 1: about this genre. Yeah. I wasn't actively rooting against the
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: central relationship, but I do wish that she had women
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: in her life to talk to and it was like extra,
- 1:21:36Speaker 1: like they were right there. Give her a connection with
- 1:21:40Speaker 1: her mom of some sort, even if it's not positive,
- 1:21:43Speaker 1: Like give us something like give us some friendship. Give
- 1:21:46Speaker 1: you know there there are opportunities, or like why are
- 1:21:49Speaker 1: all the vampire villains men? Like what you know? There's
- 1:21:52Speaker 1: like so many opportunities for her to not just have
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: the pivotal figures in her life be a bunch of
- 1:22:00Speaker 1: white guys and but that's not how it went. However,
- 1:22:03Speaker 1: I love buttfy. I really loved the performances in this movie.
- 1:22:08Speaker 1: And I'm gonna give it three and a half. So
- 1:22:10Speaker 1: I'm gonna give one to Christie Swanson. I'm gonna give
- 1:22:13Speaker 1: one to the director of the movie, fran Rubel Kuzooe,
- 1:22:20Speaker 1: I will give one to the Motorcycle, and I'll give
- 1:22:24Speaker 1: my half to Paul Rubbin's nice Jasmine. What about you? Um,
- 1:22:31Speaker 1: I will give this three and three quarter nipples, so
- 1:22:37Speaker 1: I'm slightly higher than you guys. Three point seven five nipples.
- 1:22:42Speaker 1: Three quarters of those nipples goes exclusively to the scene
- 1:22:46Speaker 1: where the friend grabs buffies but and she flips them
- 1:22:49Speaker 1: over and slams them against the locker, because that is
- 1:22:52Speaker 1: the proper response to when that happens. So good, UM,
- 1:22:57Speaker 1: I mean, you guys have already touched on. Um, you
- 1:23:00Speaker 1: guys already touched on the things here. I agree with
- 1:23:03Speaker 1: everything that you said. I I will focus mostly on
- 1:23:08Speaker 1: the positive here because, like I said, this had like
- 1:23:10Speaker 1: such a positive influence on me and seeing a character
- 1:23:15Speaker 1: like Buffy, especially growing up as a child of the
- 1:23:19Speaker 1: nineties and a teen of the early thousands, you just
- 1:23:22Speaker 1: never saw I shouldn't say never, but mostly did not
- 1:23:26Speaker 1: see women portrayed in this way. So I already gave
- 1:23:29Speaker 1: my three quarters of a nipple to that one scene.
- 1:23:31Speaker 1: Obviously one goes to Buffy. I gotta give one to
- 1:23:35Speaker 1: my man Pike. I'm a big Pike fan. I appreciated
- 1:23:39Speaker 1: what they did with that romance and with that character,
- 1:23:42Speaker 1: and I guess what do I have? One more? One
- 1:23:44Speaker 1: more nipple. I will give one more nipple to just
- 1:23:48Speaker 1: the influence that that movie had on me and how
- 1:23:51Speaker 1: it continues to have influence on me, and the stuff
- 1:23:54Speaker 1: that I want to champion developing now that I am
- 1:23:58Speaker 1: an adult, over thirty woman who gets to help put
- 1:24:04Speaker 1: content out into the world. Yes, which, speaking of tell
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: us about your show, Yes, yes, I would love to um.
- 1:24:14Speaker 1: So the show is called The Girl in the Woods
- 1:24:18Speaker 1: and it premieres October one, which I believe is in
- 1:24:22Speaker 1: Thursday very soon on Peacock um and the show, much
- 1:24:27Speaker 1: like Buffy, the show revolves around our main character, whose
- 1:24:30Speaker 1: name is Carrie Ecker, and she is a monster slayer.
- 1:24:35Speaker 1: She lives in this colony on the outskirts in the
- 1:24:39Speaker 1: woods of this mining town, and this colony soul job
- 1:24:44Speaker 1: is to protect a door, a very mysterious dore that
- 1:24:47Speaker 1: stands in the woods. Um. The door is a door
- 1:24:50Speaker 1: to a monster dimension and it is the number one
- 1:24:54Speaker 1: priority that that door does not open and the monsters
- 1:24:57Speaker 1: do not come out. But this is a TV show,
- 1:24:59Speaker 1: so you can guess what is going to happen. If
- 1:25:04Speaker 1: you can't guess, the girl's gonna open and monsters are
- 1:25:06Speaker 1: going to come out. Um. And so Carrie uh is
- 1:25:10Speaker 1: going to eventually find herself in this mining town and
- 1:25:14Speaker 1: she's going to come across two new friends whose name
- 1:25:17Speaker 1: names are Tasha and Nolan, and together they are going
- 1:25:20Speaker 1: to have to uh fight the monsters that have been
- 1:25:23Speaker 1: released and try and say this town. It is a
- 1:25:27Speaker 1: very fun show. It has a lot of great themes
- 1:25:32Speaker 1: that I think are very relevant today. It is a
- 1:25:35Speaker 1: very queer show. Um. I say that with so much
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: pride being a queer woman myself. Um and Uh, I
- 1:25:43Speaker 1: just think much like Buffy, it is very fun. It
- 1:25:48Speaker 1: is very fun, um and uh. We have three main
- 1:25:52Speaker 1: characters and I think they all sort of you get
- 1:25:56Speaker 1: to see the three mains play characters that you don't
- 1:26:00Speaker 1: really see very much even today. Um. And I'm just
- 1:26:05Speaker 1: really excited for for everyone to to check it out.
- 1:26:08Speaker 1: At the very least. If you love watching teens fight monsters,
- 1:26:15Speaker 1: check out the show. But if you also like character development,
- 1:26:19Speaker 1: you like scary content that has uh social and very
- 1:26:24Speaker 1: like human themes at the heart of it. Uh and
- 1:26:28Speaker 1: you love teen romance, especially with a little dash of
- 1:26:33Speaker 1: queer inserted into it. All of the things that I love, um,
- 1:26:39Speaker 1: you'll love. Hell yeah, everyone check out The Girl in
- 1:26:43Speaker 1: the Woods on Peacock. Is there anything else you want
- 1:26:47Speaker 1: to plug? Social media? If you want to find me
- 1:26:51Speaker 1: on Instagram? UM or Twitter at the same handle, it's
- 1:26:57Speaker 1: jazz face Killer. It's jazz with twosy ease killer with
- 1:27:00Speaker 1: two els, jazz face Killer. UM and please him me up.
- 1:27:05Speaker 1: Let me know what you think about the show. Let
- 1:27:07Speaker 1: me know what you think about Buffy the movie. Um,
- 1:27:09Speaker 1: spread the word about Buffy the movie. So many people
- 1:27:13Speaker 1: talk about the show and that's fine, but like, let's
- 1:27:16Speaker 1: bring up you know, the movie's profile because I think
- 1:27:19Speaker 1: you're right, Jamie and that Joss Wheden did some damage
- 1:27:22Speaker 1: out there. And it's not fair because this movie is
- 1:27:24Speaker 1: very fun. Yeah it is. It is. Let the Buffy
- 1:27:28Speaker 1: Movie Live totally. Thank you so much for this was
- 1:27:37Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Thanks for inviting me to be
- 1:27:40Speaker 1: on the show. I loved talking about all this stuff
- 1:27:43Speaker 1: with you, guys. Our pleasure. Come back anytime. Thank you.
- 1:27:48Speaker 1: And then you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram
- 1:27:51Speaker 1: at Bechtel Cast. We've got our Patreon ak Matreon that
- 1:27:57Speaker 1: gives you two bonus episodes every single month, plus access
- 1:28:00Speaker 1: to the back catalog. It's five dollars a month at
- 1:28:03Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash bechtel Cast. You can also get
- 1:28:09Speaker 1: our march at t public dot com slash v bechtel Cast.
- 1:28:13Speaker 1: It'll be there if you need it. If you don't
- 1:28:15Speaker 1: need it, that's okay too. And with that, do you
- 1:28:20Speaker 1: both want to get on my motorcycle and let's get
- 1:28:23Speaker 1: out of here? Oh my gosh, yeah, let's blow this joint.
- 1:28:27Speaker 1: Can I wear a leather jacket? Oh yeah, you can, sorrow,
- 1:28:31Speaker 1: you can borrow my yellow leather jacket, Jasmine, so five
- 1:28:37Speaker 1: minutes ago? Okay, win, No, it's retro alright, Bye bye
- 1:28:45Speaker 1: bye