Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / FMF: Thelma and Louise

Transcript

FMF: Thelma and Louise · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm not come to Stephane.
0:08
Speaker 1: Never told your production of iHeart Radio. And it's time
0:19
Speaker 1: for another feminist movie Friday. I think it could be
0:22
Speaker 1: a feminist movie Wednesday. The schedule is shifting, lowsome things happening.
0:28
Speaker 1: I think it's a Friday. Hey, either way, they may
0:30
Speaker 1: not be listening on a Friday. So just a feminist
0:33
Speaker 1: movie day, a feminist movie day, which should be every day,
0:37
Speaker 1: should be every day true story. Yes, quick sugar, warning
0:41
Speaker 1: before we get into this, they're going to be discussions
0:44
Speaker 1: of sexual assault, abuse, and suicidal ideation. Nothing to in
0:47
Speaker 1: depth because we're talking about Salmon Louis. So if you've
0:50
Speaker 1: seen the movie, that's about the extent of it. But
0:53
Speaker 1: just in case, also, I feel like I didn't give
0:56
Speaker 1: enough emphasis to we're talking about the Alma and Louise. Yeah,
1:02
Speaker 1: Thelma and Louise, an iconic duo that we all pretty
1:06
Speaker 1: much know, I would hope, unless maybe you were born
1:09
Speaker 1: in the last twenty years and you've never seen this movie.
1:11
Speaker 1: That maybe not I never heard of this movie, Go
1:15
Speaker 1: watch it. Yes, So we are talking about Elma and
1:18
Speaker 1: Louise and I actually I just came out very strong.
1:23
Speaker 1: But I only saw this for the first time, I
1:27
Speaker 1: think last year when we did our episodes episodes because
1:31
Speaker 1: it was a two parter on Women in Revenge and
1:34
Speaker 1: I really really enjoyed it. I definitely knew what it
1:39
Speaker 1: was and had seen like parodies of the ending, but
1:42
Speaker 1: I had never seen it. And Samantha, you were saying
1:45
Speaker 1: before we recorded this, before we started recording, that you're
1:48
Speaker 1: not sure you've ever seen it in full. I know,
1:52
Speaker 1: and I say this to the people who are like,
1:53
Speaker 1: you know what this is. But of course, again, like
1:56
Speaker 1: I said, we know what this is. I have seen
1:58
Speaker 1: pieces of this movie to the point that I had
2:01
Speaker 1: thought i'd seen all of it, but then when I
2:03
Speaker 1: rewatched and I was like, wait, I think I've never
2:05
Speaker 1: really seen the complete movie in one sitting. So it
2:10
Speaker 1: could have been that I watched half of it one time,
2:12
Speaker 1: and then three months down the road, I was like, oh,
2:13
Speaker 1: here it is. It's not because it used to be
2:15
Speaker 1: on like cable network all the time. Yeah, I don't
2:18
Speaker 1: know if it's still happening because I don't have cable anymore.
2:20
Speaker 1: We just stream everything. So but when I did have
2:24
Speaker 1: cable network, T n T would often have it on
2:26
Speaker 1: and so, and it doesn't have it on just once.
2:29
Speaker 1: It's typically runs three or four times within the span
2:32
Speaker 1: of periods like a month, because I guess they bought
2:34
Speaker 1: the right, so they're gonna use it to the full extent.
2:36
Speaker 1: So I would see pieces of it and I knew
2:38
Speaker 1: each piece, But when I sat down and watched it
2:41
Speaker 1: in order, I was like, wait, I don't know if
2:43
Speaker 1: I've ever fully watched this entire movie in one setting,
2:48
Speaker 1: even to the fact that yes, I remember the Brad
2:51
Speaker 1: Pitts scene, but I don't remember the fact that he
2:54
Speaker 1: got caught, which yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like this
2:59
Speaker 1: movie is so iconic that even though I hadn't seen it,
3:03
Speaker 1: I felt like I had. And there were just certain
3:05
Speaker 1: scenes that I just like Brad pitt jumping on the
3:08
Speaker 1: bed shirt lists or you know, the car you're going
3:11
Speaker 1: over this side, I just new. Yeah. And by the way,
3:15
Speaker 1: for those who have hurt him today, except for like
3:18
Speaker 1: if you've seen Burn after reading where he plays the
3:20
Speaker 1: dizzy Jim guy, his voice is completely different from other movies,
3:26
Speaker 1: like if you watch like fight Club, if you've watched
3:28
Speaker 1: a river runs through it, which is, by the way,
3:30
Speaker 1: is the first movie I ever saw him and beautiful man.
3:33
Speaker 1: His voice is high pitched and very country accident to
3:36
Speaker 1: play the con artists he plays in this movie, so
3:39
Speaker 1: it may throw you off from what you know in
3:42
Speaker 1: his young days. Yeah, and I guess a bit of
3:45
Speaker 1: a spoiler before we get into this spoiler into what
3:48
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about. Not about the movie because
3:49
Speaker 1: it's old enough that I'm sorry your time because a classic. Now,
3:53
Speaker 1: it was interesting in very sweet casting story between Gina
4:00
Speaker 1: Davis and him, where he was the one that flustered
4:03
Speaker 1: or so much she kept messing up and at the
4:05
Speaker 1: end they asked her like, who should be cast and
4:07
Speaker 1: she was like, obviously the one I could not keep
4:11
Speaker 1: straight around because he was flustering me so much. And also,
4:14
Speaker 1: as we're going to get into in depth, um, when
4:17
Speaker 1: this movie came out, there was a lot of discussion
4:19
Speaker 1: around it's man hating essentially, and a lot of people
4:24
Speaker 1: have pointed out, well, what star came out of this movie?
4:28
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt did right? So how much started his role
4:32
Speaker 1: as being yeah, a babe, the ultimate movie star. Oh
4:38
Speaker 1: my god, he's the one again? To me, it was
4:41
Speaker 1: a river runs through it and I will die and
4:45
Speaker 1: fight anyone who says differently, because that was the first
4:48
Speaker 1: time I ever saw Brad Pitt, and I remember thinking,
4:50
Speaker 1: holy crap, who is that dude? And if he smiles
4:54
Speaker 1: like that at me, ever, I will think, of course,
4:57
Speaker 1: he's also the tortured boy in that movie Unattainable Tortured Boy. Yeah,
5:02
Speaker 1: but okay, I know all about that. I know all
5:05
Speaker 1: about that. Uh well, I haven't future future movie day
5:10
Speaker 1: turn you and I uh yeah, so we actually happened
5:15
Speaker 1: to be accidentally timely because this is the thirtieth anniversary
5:20
Speaker 1: of this movie and a lot of articles are coming
5:22
Speaker 1: out right now about it, so that's cool. We do
5:27
Speaker 1: this a lot. We do this a lot where we're
5:29
Speaker 1: right around like the big numbers of like, oh, look
5:32
Speaker 1: at this classic. It's been a classic for this long.
5:34
Speaker 1: And yes, again, like I said, for those who you know,
5:37
Speaker 1: born twenty years ago, twenty five years ago, you probably
5:39
Speaker 1: have no idea or we have vague idea of what
5:41
Speaker 1: we're talking about because it is thirty years old and Annie,
5:47
Speaker 1: it is definitely one of those that a lot of
5:49
Speaker 1: women will be like, we're going to Delma and Louise this. Yeah,
5:53
Speaker 1: and I've used that reference before. What do you know,
5:56
Speaker 1: not with you, yeah, because we haven't gotten into any trouble,
5:58
Speaker 1: but definitely with co host and lady like Airline, we
6:00
Speaker 1: talked about stuff like that, just because I could see
6:03
Speaker 1: us being the ones getting in trouble. I feel like
6:06
Speaker 1: you and I got in trouble that one time at
6:08
Speaker 1: that food festival. We didn't caught, So yes, we were
6:12
Speaker 1: mischievous without getting caught and ran away very quickly. I'm
6:15
Speaker 1: not going to tell that story though it's not. It's
6:18
Speaker 1: really innocent everyone, please really, but it makes me feel
6:22
Speaker 1: good that I was kind of mischievous because it's kind
6:24
Speaker 1: of this whole idea of this movie, a little bit
6:27
Speaker 1: being free, but you know, ethically not so much good things.
6:33
Speaker 1: We know this. So let's begin with the plot with
6:36
Speaker 1: Thelma and Louise, which was made in nine and is
6:39
Speaker 1: a Ridley Scott film. We've talked about him before, we
6:42
Speaker 1: mentioned him before in our series obviously, and it does
6:47
Speaker 1: start the wonderful iconic Gina Davis, which we have talked
6:50
Speaker 1: about before with the League of their Own, who plays Filma,
6:54
Speaker 1: as well as Susan Surrandon, who plays Louise, because we
6:58
Speaker 1: talked about her from the Witches of Eastwick episodes, another
7:04
Speaker 1: iconic actress obviously still today, And of course there's a
7:09
Speaker 1: shirtless Brad Pitt in one of his first big roles
7:12
Speaker 1: in Yes. He became a heartthrob thanks to this. I
7:15
Speaker 1: think he was on many teen magazines with that cowboy
7:18
Speaker 1: hat shirtless. I remember this. Did I buy it? Know?
7:22
Speaker 1: But yes I did because I didn't have the money.
7:27
Speaker 1: But I did stare at it at the grocery store
7:29
Speaker 1: lines while standing with my mother to buy groceries. It
7:32
Speaker 1: was written by Calie Curry and is often described as Yes,
7:36
Speaker 1: a female buddy road trip film, a comedy, a drama,
7:40
Speaker 1: a feminist odyssey. I like that. Curry said she got
7:45
Speaker 1: the idea in sort of a lightbulb moment where she
7:48
Speaker 1: was thinking about women on a crime spree, and that
7:51
Speaker 1: quote I saw in a flash where those women started
7:54
Speaker 1: and where they ended up through a series of accidents.
7:57
Speaker 1: They would go from being invisible to being too big
7:59
Speaker 1: for the world to contain because they stopped cooperating with
8:03
Speaker 1: things that were absolutely preposterous and just became themselves. Yeah.
8:07
Speaker 1: So apparently, okay, a couple of things. So Corey. This
8:12
Speaker 1: was her first screenplay and she allegedly based it on
8:17
Speaker 1: a friendship she had with a country music singer and
8:21
Speaker 1: also just a bunch of women really connected to these
8:24
Speaker 1: sort of in quote smaller instances of women being harassed
8:31
Speaker 1: throughout the film, and they were like, yes, yes, I
8:35
Speaker 1: connect with this. This needs to be made. And this
8:39
Speaker 1: was after a history of sexism in Hollywood because apparently
8:45
Speaker 1: in a casting session not for this movie, Corey was
8:49
Speaker 1: asked to choose women with bigger breast and less close
8:54
Speaker 1: and she, along with producers she often worked with Amanda Temple,
8:58
Speaker 1: who was instrumental in this movie as well, would often
9:01
Speaker 1: say you get what you set off for, which is
9:03
Speaker 1: a line in the movie. So Temple was able to
9:08
Speaker 1: contact really Scott to her friend then named Mimi Paul
9:11
Speaker 1: who's now Mimi Geitlin or Mimi Holt Gitlin, who ran
9:16
Speaker 1: Scott's production company, and they handed Getland the script more
9:20
Speaker 1: to check that they weren't way off on it. After
9:23
Speaker 1: several rejections, they were like, is this any good because
9:25
Speaker 1: we think it's good, but people keep rejecting us, and
9:28
Speaker 1: Getland connected again, yeah, a lot of the things in
9:32
Speaker 1: the script. She was like, yes, I've been through this,
9:34
Speaker 1: Yes this is good, and she convinced them they needed
9:37
Speaker 1: to show it to Ridley Scott, with the idea that
9:40
Speaker 1: he might produce it. However, when he read it, he
9:44
Speaker 1: later said quote, I saw what was unique about it immediately.
9:47
Speaker 1: Women tended to get parts of somebody's girlfriend. This was
9:50
Speaker 1: about no one else but them. It had substance, It
9:53
Speaker 1: had a voice, and had a great outcome which you
9:55
Speaker 1: could never change. Their decision was courageous to carry on
9:58
Speaker 1: the journey and not give right. And he also later
10:01
Speaker 1: said I'd never had trouble letting women tell me what
10:04
Speaker 1: to do. All the years I'd run my company, I'd
10:07
Speaker 1: find that women were the best men for the job.
10:10
Speaker 1: Scott Free l A was run by a woman. Scott
10:13
Speaker 1: Free London was run by a woman. I could sit
10:15
Speaker 1: around and analyze the foolishness of men, since men are
10:18
Speaker 1: fundamentally the children in any relationship. So on, as kind
10:24
Speaker 1: of it is shown in this movie. Oh yes, I
10:27
Speaker 1: feel like we can talk about that forever. Oh yeah, yeah,
10:33
Speaker 1: And I know we mentioned in our Alien episode, but really,
10:35
Speaker 1: Scott has said he is a stout feminist because of
10:37
Speaker 1: his mother. I do think that's a whole separate issue
10:40
Speaker 1: of like, you know, lauding male feminists, great allies, advocates always,
10:45
Speaker 1: but you know, like the levels I think are different,
10:47
Speaker 1: in the judgments I think are different and the standards,
10:50
Speaker 1: yes exactly, but I do think you know that that's interesting.
10:55
Speaker 1: Scott did press Corey to add more humor to to
10:59
Speaker 1: the script to a appealed to everyone in the audience,
11:01
Speaker 1: including men, to quote make them eat crow. Under the
11:06
Speaker 1: understanding they get name actresses and five thousand dollars for Corey.
11:10
Speaker 1: They sold their rights to Scott and Gitlin also like
11:12
Speaker 1: Jodie Foster and Michelle Phifer were the original names. Jodie
11:17
Speaker 1: Foster did Sounds of the Las, Michelle Phifer did the
11:20
Speaker 1: independent film, and she now says she cannot bear to
11:23
Speaker 1: watch this movie because of the opportunity. But to be fair,
11:29
Speaker 1: and I know we say this often, I just don't
11:32
Speaker 1: know if if without Gina Davis, I mean her character,
11:38
Speaker 1: because in overall, when we see Gina Davis's character, she
11:41
Speaker 1: is the powerful, powerful one or the powerhouse one, and
11:44
Speaker 1: typically all the movies that she's in, even in Beetlejuice,
11:48
Speaker 1: even though she's kind of meek and mild, she's still
11:50
Speaker 1: a powerhouse and trying to maintain her home obviously, so
11:55
Speaker 1: I just I mean not that Michelle Phiffer's not, but
11:57
Speaker 1: they also love bringing in Michelle Phiffer to be the demure,
12:00
Speaker 1: giggly woman, which she is beyond that, and we know
12:03
Speaker 1: that her acting skills are superb, but you do typically
12:07
Speaker 1: see that for her role, which, by the way, it
12:10
Speaker 1: would have been hilarious if it had been Michelle Peiffer
12:12
Speaker 1: because she and the dude that plays Dna Davis's character
12:15
Speaker 1: were in Greece too, which is the movie that she
12:18
Speaker 1: hated the most. Yes, I still remember those movies. Well,
12:24
Speaker 1: oh god, let's I've never seen Greece. Okay, Well, you
12:30
Speaker 1: don't like musicals, I forget that, because you're like, I'm
12:34
Speaker 1: willing well, musicals, I've told you I don't like so
12:39
Speaker 1: Hamilton's is almost all music, there's no talking. My problem
12:43
Speaker 1: is the surprise solemn. So I think I think, sorry,
12:47
Speaker 1: that's Greece and these two is the I love it
12:52
Speaker 1: because of this. I think, to me, it's like a
12:53
Speaker 1: cult classic of how bad it is, but I love
12:56
Speaker 1: it and it's worse. Well, I'm into it. I'm I
12:59
Speaker 1: want to do it. I will get over this fear
13:02
Speaker 1: of mine but also ce our past feminist movie Friday
13:06
Speaker 1: on Batman returns about Michelle Peiffer's Catwoman, but also interesting
13:14
Speaker 1: that Eugena Davis she wanted the role of Louise, and
13:18
Speaker 1: she wanted it badly, and her agent was calling like
13:22
Speaker 1: Realley Scott daily, like get her in and if the
13:27
Speaker 1: timing just kept shifting because of director issues, they were
13:31
Speaker 1: trying to find a director that was not really Scott,
13:34
Speaker 1: and eventually there was like a timeline and Gina Davis
13:38
Speaker 1: wrote this essay on like why should be Louise? And
13:41
Speaker 1: then really Scott was like, so you wouldn't be Thelma,
13:44
Speaker 1: and then Tina Davis like went in to hole essay
13:47
Speaker 1: and she was like, no, actually I think I would
13:48
Speaker 1: be a Felma doing the whole thing, and that she
13:52
Speaker 1: signed an open ended contract and said I would do either.
13:55
Speaker 1: So that's how she got the role, which I find
13:58
Speaker 1: really interesting because she does amazing at it. And I
14:01
Speaker 1: will say this is a very personal note. Gina Davis
14:04
Speaker 1: has a really deep voice, and when I was young,
14:06
Speaker 1: I was really ashamed of my voice because I thought
14:08
Speaker 1: it was really masculine, really deep um. But she's an
14:11
Speaker 1: actor that I always connected with because her voice is
14:14
Speaker 1: so deep. Right, yeah, I'm the same way. I didn't
14:17
Speaker 1: connect with her that way. I connected with her because
14:20
Speaker 1: she wasn't feminine like she wasn't She wasn't like, she
14:22
Speaker 1: wasn't dripping with being very girly. And I mean that
14:27
Speaker 1: by like she was athletic. She was. She moved in
14:31
Speaker 1: a different way, and she was tall and like had
14:33
Speaker 1: a different manner of being without being seen overtly feminine.
14:37
Speaker 1: And as much as I wanted to be feminine, I
14:38
Speaker 1: really wasn't. I was not necessarily like the tomboy. I
14:43
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily the tomboy. But I definitely didn't hit the
14:45
Speaker 1: like princess either, So it made me feel really awkward.
14:48
Speaker 1: And she does that in a way like of being
14:50
Speaker 1: the awkward girl without being either way, and it's kind
14:53
Speaker 1: of like, ah, she is the middle groul that I've
14:56
Speaker 1: been looking for, because you know, when you especially when
14:59
Speaker 1: you see glamorized movies, you see that glamorise and or
15:02
Speaker 1: the opposite where they're complete tomboys, and I was like,
15:05
Speaker 1: I'm not either one of these. Who am I? Right? Yeah, Yeah,
15:10
Speaker 1: that's that's a good point. She kind of did that
15:12
Speaker 1: in league of our own as well. So Ridley Scott
15:16
Speaker 1: did approach several directors about this movie, and he later
15:19
Speaker 1: accounted the story of like this guy saying listen, dude,
15:23
Speaker 1: it's two bitches in a car. Uh, and Ridley Scott said,
15:27
Speaker 1: why are they bitches? Because they have a voice, And
15:30
Speaker 1: another guy said, oh, it's small, to which I said, no,
15:33
Speaker 1: it's epic, I being Ridley Scott, and he started talking
15:37
Speaker 1: about the prescenium, the landscape was the third big character
15:41
Speaker 1: in the movie, and that the film is an odyssey,
15:44
Speaker 1: and then he went on to say, like, I didn't
15:45
Speaker 1: realize when I was interviewing these guys and I was
15:48
Speaker 1: talking myself into it, so that being he talked himself
15:51
Speaker 1: into directing. And this was after like Gitlin had said
15:54
Speaker 1: you should do it, and a couple of people had
15:56
Speaker 1: said you should do it. Corey was nervous about it
15:59
Speaker 1: because she was like, oh, then it will become a
16:01
Speaker 1: big film, and I don't know what that will mean.
16:05
Speaker 1: But eventually they reached a point where they're both comfortable
16:08
Speaker 1: and they were both like, Okay, let's do this right
16:11
Speaker 1: because obviously it's not just he is known for the
16:14
Speaker 1: big action films. At that point, in time, and so
16:17
Speaker 1: this was a lot about heart um and typically I
16:20
Speaker 1: wouldn't have imagined at Lee Scott. Honestly, I forgot that
16:23
Speaker 1: it was him would have directed this film either. So
16:40
Speaker 1: the film follows best friends Delma and Louise, who decided
16:43
Speaker 1: to take a weekend trip to a mountain cabin to
16:45
Speaker 1: get away from their lives in small town Arkansas, where
16:50
Speaker 1: Thelma is a housewife married to a controlling and a
16:53
Speaker 1: loudly verbally abusive husband, and Louise is a waitress dating
16:57
Speaker 1: a musician who is never around. Also the actor who
17:00
Speaker 1: plays uh husband, her ex from all of the Quentin
17:09
Speaker 1: Tarantino movies. She recommended him. She was like, I mean,
17:12
Speaker 1: I say that as if it's a positive, but I mean,
17:17
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about this a little more. But
17:18
Speaker 1: his character wasn't like dislikable, like he seemed like the
17:21
Speaker 1: typical you, but at the same time he was still
17:24
Speaker 1: one of the more loyal of the Yeah, it's interesting.
17:27
Speaker 1: I have a lot of thoughts about that, and we're
17:29
Speaker 1: definitely gonna get into it. Okay. So Thelma and Louise
17:32
Speaker 1: stop at a bar on their way to their destination,
17:35
Speaker 1: where Thelma, who's like so into this idea and like,
17:38
Speaker 1: I need a vacation, I want to have fun. She
17:40
Speaker 1: dances with a very flirtish, strange journeyed Harlan, and later
17:45
Speaker 1: in the parking lot, Harlan kisses her and tries to
17:47
Speaker 1: take off her clothes without her consent, and when she resists,
17:50
Speaker 1: he gets violent and attempts to rape her. Louise arrives
17:54
Speaker 1: with a gun and turns to shoot him, and he
17:57
Speaker 1: he reluctantly releases Thelma, but as they're walking away, he
18:00
Speaker 1: salts both of them says he should have raped Filma. Furious,
18:05
Speaker 1: Luise shoots and kills Harlan, and the pair flee the scene. Yes. Also,
18:13
Speaker 1: I feel like I have a lot of behind the
18:14
Speaker 1: scenes factory this one and like it. Yeah, So Susan's
18:18
Speaker 1: ran in made it clear, and it was clear in
18:20
Speaker 1: the script as well that it was a very split
18:22
Speaker 1: second decision on her character's part, that it was like
18:26
Speaker 1: not premeditated, but he just called her this and it
18:30
Speaker 1: was like the last thing and it was just like
18:33
Speaker 1: final straw snapped, which I find really interested. And the
18:37
Speaker 1: acting is amazing in this movie, of course. Yeah. Okay,
18:41
Speaker 1: So the pair go to a motel and they discussed
18:43
Speaker 1: what they should do about the situation um and they
18:46
Speaker 1: discussed it on the car ride. On the way, Filma
18:49
Speaker 1: wants to go to police, but Louise disagrees, thinking no
18:52
Speaker 1: one will believe that the man tried to rape Thelma.
18:54
Speaker 1: No one will believe them, especially after bar patrons saw
18:58
Speaker 1: Filma dancing and drinking with Harlan with this man, and
19:02
Speaker 1: that they would be charged with murder. Eventually, they decided
19:06
Speaker 1: to go to Mexico, or at least to Louise decides
19:09
Speaker 1: to go to Mexico, but she insists they do it
19:13
Speaker 1: without passing through Texas, So while on their way, they
19:17
Speaker 1: meet handsome and often chirtless drifter j D played by
19:22
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt, and Thelma quickly becomes smitten with him and
19:26
Speaker 1: persuades and begs Louise to allow him to ride with
19:29
Speaker 1: them for a little while. Louise contacts her boyfriend to
19:32
Speaker 1: get them to transfer her life savings to her, but
19:35
Speaker 1: he surprises her by showing up and he proposes, which
19:39
Speaker 1: she refuses because it's obvious that he's just scared that
19:41
Speaker 1: he's going to lose her right so therefore this is
19:44
Speaker 1: what he's doing. The Alma sleeps with j D and
19:47
Speaker 1: finds out he's a thief who is breaking parole. When
19:51
Speaker 1: the pair awake the following morning, oh yeah, they realized
19:54
Speaker 1: that j D, who went to a whole thing about
19:57
Speaker 1: how he liked to raw people, has stolen all of
19:59
Speaker 1: Louise his savings and is nowhere to be found, leaving
20:02
Speaker 1: Louise devastated and Thelma incredibly guilty. So she robs a
20:07
Speaker 1: convenient store. With what she learned from j D. She
20:10
Speaker 1: had to get out play by play on what he did,
20:13
Speaker 1: and she decided I'm going to do this. Yeah, I
20:16
Speaker 1: mean that's so it's such a sweet and sad scene,
20:19
Speaker 1: especially if you know what happens, because she's so happy
20:21
Speaker 1: because she got like good sex for the first time.
20:25
Speaker 1: But then you're like, wait, he definitely robbed you. So
20:30
Speaker 1: the FBI closes in on them, following eyewitness accounts of
20:34
Speaker 1: their vehicle. Uh. They questioned the newly apprehended j D.
20:38
Speaker 1: They questioned Louise's boyfriend. They tapped the line of Thelma's husband, who,
20:41
Speaker 1: hilariously and sadly enough to me, he's like, oh, she
20:46
Speaker 1: hangs up, and it's like, now there'd be a tap
20:48
Speaker 1: because she knows right, he wouldn't mean that. Nister, the
20:52
Speaker 1: head investigator played by Harvey Keitel, seems to understand their actions,
20:57
Speaker 1: especially given Louise's past um and it's kind kind of implied.
21:01
Speaker 1: I guess the story shifts, but it's kind of implied
21:03
Speaker 1: at first that like Louise was the mastermind buying the
21:06
Speaker 1: whole thing, and then it's like, wait, Thelma is the
21:10
Speaker 1: one that stood up this place, which is important to
21:14
Speaker 1: to the alternate ending we're gonna discuss later, but he is.
21:18
Speaker 1: Harvey kite Tail's character is unsuccessful and condensing them to
21:23
Speaker 1: turn themselves in. So Thelma tells Louise that she can
21:27
Speaker 1: turn herself in if if Louise wants to go back,
21:32
Speaker 1: since she has Jimmy, her boyfriend, waiting for her. But
21:36
Speaker 1: that Thelma herself refuses to go back to her husband.
21:40
Speaker 1: She refuses to go back to her old life. Louise
21:42
Speaker 1: argues that they are in this together. They're gonna do
21:44
Speaker 1: this together. Later, Thelma discusses what happened at the bar
21:47
Speaker 1: that set off the whole thing and asked if Louise's
21:50
Speaker 1: response to it had to do with what happened in
21:53
Speaker 1: Texas and Louisa was angry and demands that Thelma never
21:56
Speaker 1: talked about again what she had kind of already done previously.
21:59
Speaker 1: She's just been very close, close lipped about this whole thing, right,
22:04
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about with the one scene
22:06
Speaker 1: when the waitress is giving her statement and just absolutely like, no,
22:10
Speaker 1: those ladies had nothing to do with it, and they're
22:13
Speaker 1: too sweet, they're too nice. One top me really well,
22:15
Speaker 1: there's no way that they were responsible, and just about
22:19
Speaker 1: how this man's reputation was that he was sort of
22:22
Speaker 1: an and deserved to die essentially, which puts up a
22:25
Speaker 1: hole like, okay, this is kind of telling to Harvey
22:27
Speaker 1: Citeil's characters, like Okay, yeah, there's something amiss, something had
22:31
Speaker 1: to have happened. Here we go. And then of course
22:35
Speaker 1: when the hair pulled over for speeding, which is one
22:38
Speaker 1: of the funnier things. I don't know what you thought,
22:41
Speaker 1: they quickly realized they'll be caught. So Thelma, after the
22:45
Speaker 1: police officer tries to get Louise and identify her, pulls
22:50
Speaker 1: a gun on the trooper and forces him into the
22:52
Speaker 1: trunk of the police car, which again she is doing
22:56
Speaker 1: some things like you're like, well, they am she's gotten
22:59
Speaker 1: into into our own demanding and anything like turn off
23:03
Speaker 1: the radio, shoot the radio, making little air holes for
23:07
Speaker 1: the police officers. She just being nice. I stuck him
23:10
Speaker 1: in the dawn trunk. There you go, And as they
23:14
Speaker 1: continue their drive to Mexico, hilarious, a truck driver makes
23:18
Speaker 1: rude sexual gestures of them, and they forced him to
23:21
Speaker 1: pull over after many interact yeah and him being a dick,
23:27
Speaker 1: demanding an apology from him at gunpoint, which he decides
23:30
Speaker 1: that he's going to be a real dick and just
23:32
Speaker 1: continue on, even though they start asking which, by the way,
23:35
Speaker 1: we've done this recently, just for people to get empathy about,
23:38
Speaker 1: like think about your mother, think about your your wife,
23:41
Speaker 1: would you want this to happen to the people you love?
23:45
Speaker 1: And the fact that we have to even or anyone
23:47
Speaker 1: has to even suggest that for them to think about
23:50
Speaker 1: another woman as a human right. But of course he didn't.
23:54
Speaker 1: So they used the guy to blow up his entire
23:56
Speaker 1: rig and leave him stranded and take us at which
24:00
Speaker 1: is hilarious, yes, right there, but funny, it's satisfying. So
24:09
Speaker 1: the police soon catch up with them as they're passing
24:12
Speaker 1: near the edge of the Grand Canyon and Thelma and
24:15
Speaker 1: Louise decide that, in the face of spending their lives
24:18
Speaker 1: in prison, that they keep going. They almost suggests they
24:21
Speaker 1: keep going. Louise make sure that you know she's totally
24:26
Speaker 1: sure of this decision, and it kiss whole hands. Louise
24:30
Speaker 1: pushes down the accelerator and they fly over the edge,
24:33
Speaker 1: and the image freeze frames their car hovering in the
24:36
Speaker 1: air over the cliff. It's one of the most famous,
24:39
Speaker 1: iconic and parodied endings of all time. Yes, yes, but
24:45
Speaker 1: apparently in the original ending, at the last minute, Louise
24:49
Speaker 1: pushed Thelma out of the car, but Surrandon and uh
24:54
Speaker 1: Davis fought against it, and ultimately they got their way.
24:58
Speaker 1: Gina Davis would later say, I earn to my death,
25:01
Speaker 1: which is interesting, and also, um, I read right before
25:06
Speaker 1: coming in to record this that the scene where Thelma
25:10
Speaker 1: has sex with Brad Pitt j D. She was supposed
25:14
Speaker 1: to be naked and they were supposed to be like,
25:17
Speaker 1: you know, boobs, and and Geene Davis was like, I
25:20
Speaker 1: don't see the point, and she went to Susan Surrandon
25:23
Speaker 1: about it, and Susan Surrandon like marched in toward Lee
25:26
Speaker 1: Scott and said no, and so they didn't put it
25:29
Speaker 1: in its women supporting women, right, But I wanted to
25:33
Speaker 1: because as I was researching this, I just found so
25:36
Speaker 1: many really funny summaries of this movie. So I wanted
25:41
Speaker 1: to know, Samantha, if you had to t LDR this,
25:44
Speaker 1: if you had to summarize this movie, how would you
25:47
Speaker 1: describe it? Oh, two best friends pushed over the edge,
25:50
Speaker 1: get the revenge, and have their happy ending. Clumb blank.
25:55
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. Thank you love that. I don't think I
26:01
Speaker 1: can do better than that. It's essentially, Yeah, two best
26:03
Speaker 1: friends discover the beauty of their friendship overall else and
26:08
Speaker 1: choose it overall else and write or die, Write or Die.
26:14
Speaker 1: This is the epitome of Ride or Die. This is
26:17
Speaker 1: the beginning of Ride or Die. I feel like, you know,
26:22
Speaker 1: I need to look into it. But yeah, I think
26:24
Speaker 1: this might be But Okay, As we mentioned, there was
26:30
Speaker 1: a lot of controversy when this movie first came out,
26:33
Speaker 1: and especially around people saying that it portrayed men in
26:41
Speaker 1: a negative light. Yeah, there were all kinds of headlines
26:45
Speaker 1: like is violence what feminism is all about? This is
26:49
Speaker 1: toxic feminism, people calling it a violent, disturbing movie that
26:54
Speaker 1: it was degrading to men, all kinds of things like that.
26:57
Speaker 1: That being said, plenty of people praised it, a lot
27:00
Speaker 1: of these people and women, but some men. Some have
27:02
Speaker 1: rightly pointed out that there were plenty of good male
27:06
Speaker 1: characters in their film, but that they weren't the main characters,
27:10
Speaker 1: and we're defined through their relationships with Delma and Luise,
27:13
Speaker 1: with women, like how most women are defined by men
27:19
Speaker 1: and almost all movies ever. Yeah, or in the words
27:24
Speaker 1: of critic Janet Maslin after the film's release, many detractors
27:28
Speaker 1: were annoyed by quote something as simple as it is powerful,
27:31
Speaker 1: the fact that the men in this story don't really matter,
27:35
Speaker 1: which again is how women characters are it almost you know,
27:40
Speaker 1: a majority of our movies, right, And I found this
27:44
Speaker 1: quote interesting. Corey said in two thousand one, bad guys
27:47
Speaker 1: get killed in every damn movie that gets made. That
27:50
Speaker 1: guy was the bad guy and he got killed. It
27:53
Speaker 1: was only because a woman did it that there was
27:56
Speaker 1: any controversy at all. And I thought that was really
27:58
Speaker 1: interesting because I think she's onto thing there. I was
28:00
Speaker 1: thinking about how many movies we have about men getting
28:02
Speaker 1: revenge and how we're like, yeah, I get it, And
28:06
Speaker 1: then in this movie, apparently a huge backlash of like,
28:10
Speaker 1: look at these violent women, they hate men. Oh my god,
28:14
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be dainty and kind and just walk away,
28:32
Speaker 1: So from Rebecca Nicholson over at The Guardian. In May
28:37
Speaker 1: this year, when the film was released, in unleashed a
28:41
Speaker 1: wave of controversy that seemed to take its cast and
28:44
Speaker 1: crew by surprise. Gina Davis and Susan Sarandon appeared on
28:48
Speaker 1: the cover of Time magazine under the cover line quote,
28:51
Speaker 1: why Filma and Louise strikes a nerve. The particular nerve
28:55
Speaker 1: that it struck was much debated. Was it, as some
28:58
Speaker 1: critics felt, a thoughtlessly violent movie that saw two women
29:02
Speaker 1: committing terrible crimes in the name of empowerment. And by
29:05
Speaker 1: the way, where are these terrible crimes? Because they didn't
29:07
Speaker 1: murder one person. They did put a person in a trunk.
29:11
Speaker 1: Everything else even like good yeah, okay, yeah, oh. I
29:16
Speaker 1: got a lot of thoughts about this. I got a
29:18
Speaker 1: lot of thoughts about it. Keeping on with the article,
29:21
Speaker 1: were they quote acting like men under the cover of
29:24
Speaker 1: feminism or was it, in fact mss andry unfair to
29:27
Speaker 1: men because it portrayed all of its male characters as awful.
29:31
Speaker 1: Never mind that they're not all awful. Is, by the way,
29:34
Speaker 1: a pre hashtag not all men? Yes, we know that
29:37
Speaker 1: one so well. Were they role models? Was it a
29:41
Speaker 1: feminist parable? Was that ending one of the few that
29:44
Speaker 1: has truly earned the overused adjective iconic perfect or a
29:48
Speaker 1: cop out? In the Last Journey at two thousand, documentary
29:51
Speaker 1: about the making of Filma, and Louise Surrandon addressed all
29:55
Speaker 1: the noise and said, films at their best, that should
29:58
Speaker 1: challenge your perspective. This is film at its best. Yeah,
30:03
Speaker 1: and that's that's a great quote. And interestingly, because a
30:07
Speaker 1: lot of people are writing about this movie right now,
30:09
Speaker 1: because it's the thirtieth anniversary, and some people who have
30:12
Speaker 1: said this film wouldn't even get made today, and that
30:15
Speaker 1: women in fact have been losing ground when it comes
30:18
Speaker 1: to representation and entertainment, and we've got over those numbers
30:21
Speaker 1: on this show. So a lot of articles use those
30:25
Speaker 1: numbers to be like, yeah, look at how we've lost
30:29
Speaker 1: ground in fact, or how they're going down. But despite
30:33
Speaker 1: the controversy, the film was successful both commercially and critically.
30:37
Speaker 1: It was nominated for six Academy Awards. I believe it's
30:42
Speaker 1: the last movie to have to actresses nominated for the
30:50
Speaker 1: Best Actress Role like the main actress role from One
30:53
Speaker 1: Movie with Gina Davis and Susan Strandon, and it won
30:58
Speaker 1: for Best Original Screenplay. And when it won, when Corey
31:01
Speaker 1: accepted the Oscar, she said, for everybody that wanted to
31:04
Speaker 1: see a happy ending for Thelma and Louise, this is it.
31:07
Speaker 1: And yeah, just as her reminder, she used, one of
31:10
Speaker 1: the only few women who has won this award. Right,
31:14
Speaker 1: and the film had obviously a huge cultural impact, influencing
31:18
Speaker 1: feminist thought and other media from recent movies to Taylor
31:22
Speaker 1: Swift to even The Simpsons. In twenty sixteen, the U. S.
31:26
Speaker 1: Library of Congress chose to preserve it in the National
31:29
Speaker 1: Film Registry. Yes, and Yes. After this movie came out,
31:34
Speaker 1: there were all these predictions that it was the catalyst
31:37
Speaker 1: for so many great movies about women, And don't forget,
31:42
Speaker 1: which was the year after this movie came out was
31:43
Speaker 1: predicted to be the Year of the Woman, but that
31:46
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Um for the movies twentieth anniversary in Rainow Lifts,
31:51
Speaker 1: it's called it the quote last great film about women
31:54
Speaker 1: and for the thirtieth anniversary, Gina Davis said, I'm thinking,
31:58
Speaker 1: hot dog, let's sit back and wait for all this
32:00
Speaker 1: magic change to happen. We're still waiting. It really did
32:03
Speaker 1: not happen. It seems like every five years or so,
32:06
Speaker 1: there's another movie starting women that's a huge hit. People say, well, now,
32:10
Speaker 1: certainly everything is going to change, and it really hasn't.
32:14
Speaker 1: And Gina Davis started an organization called the Gina Davis
32:17
Speaker 1: Institute on Gender and Media, all about representation and media
32:21
Speaker 1: in part because of this, and she's spoken about how
32:23
Speaker 1: she felt about this after this movie came out, where like, oh,
32:26
Speaker 1: I really need to think about how this role is
32:29
Speaker 1: perceived and what roles I'm taking. Susan Sarandon said, I
32:33
Speaker 1: completely underestimated that we were backing into territory held by white,
32:37
Speaker 1: heterosexual males. They got offended and accused us of glorifying
32:41
Speaker 1: murder and suicide and all kinds of things. It didn't
32:43
Speaker 1: seem like a big deal. It seems like it was
32:45
Speaker 1: unusual that there would be a woman that you could
32:48
Speaker 1: be friends with in a film, which we've talked about
32:51
Speaker 1: a lot, right, right, and even for a split second,
32:56
Speaker 1: you still had the stereotype of women pinned against women,
32:59
Speaker 1: and it could have taken a really bad turn, Like
33:01
Speaker 1: you could take the script and made this horribly done.
33:04
Speaker 1: And I think part of that would have been having
33:06
Speaker 1: even though it's sweet, like having one being the innocent
33:09
Speaker 1: one and the other one being, you know, the bad one,
33:12
Speaker 1: as it kind of was trying to go down that route,
33:14
Speaker 1: and they did a better job. No, we're in this
33:16
Speaker 1: together and the stories and of course we don't want
33:18
Speaker 1: to highlight violence, nor do we want to highlight suicide
33:22
Speaker 1: in any way. But what this movie did is a
33:24
Speaker 1: completely different conversation about how these women were pushed over
33:28
Speaker 1: the edge by everyday occurrences that are so familiar by
33:32
Speaker 1: all of us, any person who has grown up female.
33:35
Speaker 1: We know these experiences. The truck driver, Yeah, I remember,
33:38
Speaker 1: I had those experiences. Are trying to drive away real
33:40
Speaker 1: quickly because of those things they were insinuating towards me
33:43
Speaker 1: on the freaking road, versus a man thinking buying you
33:47
Speaker 1: a drink gives me entitlement to do this and that
33:50
Speaker 1: and this, and like, we know these people, we've seen
33:52
Speaker 1: these people. Yeah, oh absolutely, And and that's one of
33:56
Speaker 1: the interesting things I find about this movie. Which a
34:00
Speaker 1: lot of people have written about is like you know
34:02
Speaker 1: it's from and how can we be watching it in
34:06
Speaker 1: and we're still like, oh gosh, he has I connect
34:09
Speaker 1: to all of this. But also there is a really
34:12
Speaker 1: interesting dynamic in my opinion, and we're going to talk
34:16
Speaker 1: about this in a minute more, but where there's kind
34:20
Speaker 1: of this ditzy Thelma who is not as world wise
34:25
Speaker 1: and kind of like, yeah, I just want to have fun.
34:27
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go do what I want to do.
34:30
Speaker 1: And then there's Theuise who is much more like I've
34:33
Speaker 1: seen seen something and trying to guide them through this
34:41
Speaker 1: journey of you know, getting away from prison. But then
34:44
Speaker 1: like they make a switch, They make a really interesting
34:47
Speaker 1: I don't know switch is the right word, but they
34:49
Speaker 1: take care of each other, Like Belma realizes that she
34:52
Speaker 1: needs to do something because Louise is so upset, so
34:56
Speaker 1: she is like, Okay, I will take control of the situation,
34:59
Speaker 1: whereas Louisa they control up until that point, which to
35:03
Speaker 1: your point, I think it could have very much been
35:06
Speaker 1: a kind of Caddy women against each other movie, but
35:12
Speaker 1: it is very much like they fight, but then they
35:16
Speaker 1: help each other, like they support each other and they
35:18
Speaker 1: stick with each other. H Yeah. And one of the
35:22
Speaker 1: interesting quotes I read, and I think we've talked about
35:24
Speaker 1: this a lot, is I just read this quote where
35:30
Speaker 1: together they become a quote third thing where there's Thelma,
35:34
Speaker 1: there's Louise, but together they become something else where they're
35:40
Speaker 1: kind of transcending. They're you know, like Filmo's life being
35:46
Speaker 1: knowing her husband's cheating on her and it's so disrespectful
35:49
Speaker 1: to her and Louise's life of like, you know, I'm
35:54
Speaker 1: in this waitress mode, but I could be doing all
35:57
Speaker 1: these other things and they come together, and I mean
36:01
Speaker 1: the Almos says it all all kinds of times in
36:03
Speaker 1: the movie where she's like, I think I'm cut out
36:05
Speaker 1: for the right I made for this, And I just
36:09
Speaker 1: connected with that so much because I felt that with people.
36:12
Speaker 1: I felt that with you, where I was like right
36:15
Speaker 1: together with this woman, with this friend, I feel like
36:20
Speaker 1: I'm coming into my own Like they're helping me realize
36:23
Speaker 1: my potential and what I can do right. I mean,
36:26
Speaker 1: there's definitely where the hype woman, the hype person behind
36:30
Speaker 1: you who encourages you to be the better. Of course
36:33
Speaker 1: this is not the better per se, but hopefully like
36:37
Speaker 1: you have those people in your background being able to
36:40
Speaker 1: encourage you to know that you can stand on your
36:42
Speaker 1: own and or you can step forward into this world
36:45
Speaker 1: that's so uncertain to you, and or standing up for
36:48
Speaker 1: yourself in general. Like that's that whole level of having
36:52
Speaker 1: that person in your life that sees when you need
36:55
Speaker 1: to be pushed, and that sees when you need to
36:56
Speaker 1: be supported, like there's those those things, or just when
36:59
Speaker 1: you need to be there. And yeah, I don't think
37:02
Speaker 1: that's talked about enough because for the longest time, especially
37:04
Speaker 1: in the nineties, when we looked at like the Heathers,
37:06
Speaker 1: and that was not the context of the movies. It
37:09
Speaker 1: was all like all on your own, get what you can,
37:12
Speaker 1: move on, and you know, and this was not it.
37:14
Speaker 1: This is not that. This was a I was protecting you,
37:18
Speaker 1: I was defending you. Now we've gone to this point
37:21
Speaker 1: and the truth of the matter is, like we know
37:23
Speaker 1: women are not believed, and in the nineties even less so.
37:26
Speaker 1: And just for the mere sake of saying I took
37:28
Speaker 1: a drink and went outside with him voluntarily meant enough
37:31
Speaker 1: that you're slutt and you're guilty, and which is exactly
37:33
Speaker 1: that indication and understanding that you can't trust the system
37:37
Speaker 1: because they don't believe women, so in itself, like, yeah,
37:41
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happens. And then when you push someone
37:45
Speaker 1: to the edge, what happens? And then if you have
37:48
Speaker 1: someone hopefully they will have your back. And what does
37:51
Speaker 1: that look like? Yeah, it's hard. You're like, this is
37:56
Speaker 1: you know, the outcome ultimate outcome, mind have not been
38:00
Speaker 1: great thing, but you feel like the big connected so
38:03
Speaker 1: strongly with each other and they stuff with each other.
38:06
Speaker 1: Something about it is very moving. I mean, Jane David's
38:09
Speaker 1: character Elma does say I've had the best time, and
38:12
Speaker 1: I feel like, for the first time I'm living. Yeah,
38:16
Speaker 1: and I think this is I thought about talking about
38:18
Speaker 1: this in this episode. I think it's too big of
38:19
Speaker 1: a topic for now, but it kind of goes back
38:21
Speaker 1: to our platonic marriage thing. But I was just kind
38:24
Speaker 1: of thinking about, why is this idea in my friend
38:26
Speaker 1: group at least of a compound of women essentially resonates
38:31
Speaker 1: so much, And it feels like when I'm watching that
38:34
Speaker 1: movie this is kind of it is like, you know,
38:39
Speaker 1: hashtag not all men, but essentially we're still living in
38:42
Speaker 1: a patriarchal system where I know if I were to marry,
38:48
Speaker 1: even if it was someone I loved, I don't trust
38:50
Speaker 1: myself because I've been raised in this system not to
38:54
Speaker 1: not grow resentful and take on more burden than I
38:58
Speaker 1: should take on, because I feel like that's what's expected
39:01
Speaker 1: of me and the dude and relationship has been raised
39:04
Speaker 1: in the same patriarchal system and has different expectations. And
39:08
Speaker 1: that's not saying like it's either of our faults necessarily,
39:13
Speaker 1: but that's what we were raised in, right. And communication
39:16
Speaker 1: is great, but I do think at a certain point
39:19
Speaker 1: it's hard to communicate your own experience somebody who hasn't
39:24
Speaker 1: experienced it. Um So when I watched it, I was like,
39:30
Speaker 1: this is the vibe I'm talking about the compound, And yeah,
39:38
Speaker 1: I do think I like that there's moments where they're
39:42
Speaker 1: angry with each other and frustrated with each other, but
39:45
Speaker 1: they kind of give each other's space and they don't
39:50
Speaker 1: even if there are moments where they kind of like
39:52
Speaker 1: have barbs at each other, they don't really blame each
39:54
Speaker 1: other ultimately, like they stick with each other. And I
39:59
Speaker 1: think that's a that's a really beautiful representation of it,
40:01
Speaker 1: because it's hard not to even if you're the victim
40:05
Speaker 1: or the survivor not to have those thoughts of like
40:08
Speaker 1: blame and I like that they have those, but then
40:13
Speaker 1: kind of give space and then or like no, but
40:17
Speaker 1: I was wrong, wasn't you. We're sticking together, and then
40:22
Speaker 1: I do like that the Yeah, there's this real shift
40:24
Speaker 1: in their characters, especially Thelma, I think, who goes from
40:29
Speaker 1: being what she calls like sedate or Louise calls to
40:32
Speaker 1: date kind of what you settled for. Just the quote
40:35
Speaker 1: to really be right, I'm gonna rob this place. I'm
40:40
Speaker 1: gonna stick this cup in the back of the trunk.
40:44
Speaker 1: I made it, I mad ite to win it. I'm
40:47
Speaker 1: sticking with you. And she says a lot of lines
40:51
Speaker 1: that are really interesting like um, I can't go back,
40:55
Speaker 1: and I feel awake all these things and in this
41:02
Speaker 1: was filmed in Utah, which I just say because I
41:04
Speaker 1: did a similar road trip with my friend through Utah
41:07
Speaker 1: and it was it was equally like really rewarding. I
41:10
Speaker 1: wasn't on the run from the wall that we did
41:12
Speaker 1: get speeding. Um, but yeah, it's just like a really
41:21
Speaker 1: beautiful experienced to be in in that that space with
41:29
Speaker 1: for me another just really close female friends and then
41:37
Speaker 1: I did want to point out there are those moments
41:39
Speaker 1: like the Louise throwing away her lipstick, trading her jewelry
41:42
Speaker 1: for a straw hat, like these items of femininity that
41:48
Speaker 1: are if you're living a life on the run or
41:51
Speaker 1: ultimately worthless or kind of like what good does this
41:55
Speaker 1: do me? Right? Yeah? And also interestingly the two mains
42:00
Speaker 1: with thirty five and forty five when they are cast, which,
42:03
Speaker 1: as we know in Hollywood, you know, thirty two is
42:06
Speaker 1: like the end of your career as a woman that
42:09
Speaker 1: is changing, but still pretty amazing that this happened. And
42:28
Speaker 1: about the ending, Corey said to me, the ending was symbolic,
42:32
Speaker 1: not literal. We did everything possible to make sure you
42:35
Speaker 1: didn't see a literal death. That you didn't see the
42:38
Speaker 1: car land, you didn't see a big puff of smoke
42:40
Speaker 1: come up out of the canyon. You were left with
42:43
Speaker 1: the image of them flying. They flew away out of
42:45
Speaker 1: this world and into the mass unconscious women who are
42:48
Speaker 1: completely free from all the shackles that restrained them have
42:51
Speaker 1: no place in this world. The world is not big
42:53
Speaker 1: enough to support them. I loved that ending, and I
42:56
Speaker 1: loved the imagery. After all they went through I didn't
42:59
Speaker 1: want anybody to be able to touch them. This could
43:02
Speaker 1: be like the Grease ending which they just flew off
43:04
Speaker 1: in the car for no damn reason. It was like,
43:06
Speaker 1: what's happening really? Which came first Greece? That was in
43:15
Speaker 1: the eighties, right, No seventies? Oh no, you got me
43:18
Speaker 1: thinking it was seventies. I think you're thin, you're it's
43:21
Speaker 1: before this. Yeah, but it has nothing to do I
43:24
Speaker 1: don't have no doubt. This has nothing anything to do
43:27
Speaker 1: with Greece. I like that Grease keeps coming up. It
43:30
Speaker 1: was in my head. I was like, because, well, forever
43:32
Speaker 1: confused as you can tell as to why at an
43:35
Speaker 1: ending of a musical which they were just supposed to
43:37
Speaker 1: drive off that they had to fly the car had
43:40
Speaker 1: to fly to fly, gotta fly. Oh yeah, that's a
43:46
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting I thought we're gonna talk about
43:50
Speaker 1: that more in a minute of like this kind of
43:51
Speaker 1: symbolic ending, But we definitely have to talk about trauma,
43:55
Speaker 1: because trauma is throughout this movie. And one thing I
43:59
Speaker 1: found ound interesting is that generally, not always, but the
44:06
Speaker 1: men are continuously screwing the women over in this movie.
44:10
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons I found This really interesting
44:13
Speaker 1: is because there were a lot of male critics who said,
44:17
Speaker 1: especially when it came out, um, that the women pretty
44:19
Speaker 1: much deserved what happened to them because of the terrible
44:22
Speaker 1: decisions they made throughout the movie, which is kind of
44:26
Speaker 1: the point. It's like they missed the point, which is, yeah,
44:30
Speaker 1: just more evidence of blaming women, of turning around like, oh,
44:33
Speaker 1: she was almost raped, it was her fault because what
44:36
Speaker 1: she was doing. Oh she was drobbed, it was her
44:39
Speaker 1: fault because of what she was doing. And some of
44:42
Speaker 1: even pointed out, you know, even good guy Harvey Keitel
44:46
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to realize the world we live in, Like
44:48
Speaker 1: he's very I want to help you, and that's great
44:52
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. But Susan Surrandon has been through it,
44:56
Speaker 1: like it's implied she's been through this and she knows
44:59
Speaker 1: what it looks like and she realizes what's going to
45:05
Speaker 1: happen to them if they get caught, And he doesn't,
45:07
Speaker 1: right right, I think he's very much aware, but he
45:11
Speaker 1: thinks the awful ending is death like that, he thinks
45:13
Speaker 1: that's the worst ending, And so I get that, like
45:17
Speaker 1: that maybe the endpoint, but I think into that tell
45:20
Speaker 1: like to him, death is the ultimate bad ending. He
45:24
Speaker 1: wants to save any of that because even in the
45:27
Speaker 1: movie he actually does say as like they bring out
45:30
Speaker 1: all the guns and hunt them down and have like
45:33
Speaker 1: all like ready to go. He was like, stop, They've
45:35
Speaker 1: been screwed over so many times. And he actually says
45:39
Speaker 1: that as in like, this is one more thing. You're
45:42
Speaker 1: implying that their hard and criminals are like, well, they're
45:44
Speaker 1: armed and dangerous, and that there's the armed dangerous that
45:46
Speaker 1: actually only hurt one person in this entire time, which
45:50
Speaker 1: one person is bad enough, But in the actuality of
45:54
Speaker 1: it all, it's like they're not on a killing spring
45:56
Speaker 1: as so many would think. Um as in fact, yes,
46:00
Speaker 1: the cop is crying, but they keep apologizing to him,
46:03
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry again.
46:05
Speaker 1: Doesn't make it right. But to put them as dangerous
46:08
Speaker 1: hard and criminals is not the same implications as what
46:12
Speaker 1: is happening. And I think he does understand that level,
46:15
Speaker 1: and I think he was put in that character as
46:18
Speaker 1: being like, hey, here's one guy who kind of gets
46:22
Speaker 1: it but still truly cannot get it even though he's
46:25
Speaker 1: got some of the puzzle pieces. Yeah, I think so
46:29
Speaker 1: I think he's the what is that looks like the
46:33
Speaker 1: Star Wars difference of the episode, the po damn roon
46:36
Speaker 1: of this where it's like a good guy that doesn't
46:40
Speaker 1: get that. He's like, he doesn't get it. So one
46:45
Speaker 1: producer said when they were shopping around this script, the
46:48
Speaker 1: main characters were quote basically detestable and unsympathetic. Will never
46:52
Speaker 1: get the audience to support. And I wanted to use
46:54
Speaker 1: this quote because I've actually heard a producer tell me
46:56
Speaker 1: something similar about what I wrote once. And then I've
46:59
Speaker 1: been thinking about this a lot, and we've been kind
47:01
Speaker 1: of talking about it or around it a lot. In
47:03
Speaker 1: this because the new Marvel show What If people have
47:07
Speaker 1: been saying like this is sort of showcasing white male mediocrity.
47:12
Speaker 1: Because I feel like if this was a story about
47:14
Speaker 1: two men, we'd be cheering, oh yeah, they like that
47:19
Speaker 1: cop up at the chunk, like we would be, well,
47:23
Speaker 1: we would be, especially if they were defending a woman,
47:27
Speaker 1: like even more so, there's nothing higher. A woman can't
47:30
Speaker 1: defend herself, but a man defending a woman, it gets
47:33
Speaker 1: all the high praises. Yes, yeah, And it just got
47:37
Speaker 1: me thinking, and I want to come back into an
47:38
Speaker 1: episode on this, but because I kind of talked about
47:40
Speaker 1: it and like the glorification of the awl man. But
47:46
Speaker 1: I just feel like, again, we're saying these women who
47:52
Speaker 1: generally are pretty funny, pretty likable, and are not like
47:56
Speaker 1: outright hurting anybody other than what we will say is
47:59
Speaker 1: pretty villainous and in self defense, and yet we are
48:04
Speaker 1: critics at this time. We're saying, like, oh my god,
48:06
Speaker 1: they're so detestable, we can't like them, Whereas now I
48:09
Speaker 1: feel like a good chunk of our kind of heroes
48:11
Speaker 1: or anti heroes and are big blockbuster movies, are men
48:15
Speaker 1: that are doing the same thing right. Yeah. And then
48:21
Speaker 1: another another idea that came up to me is kind
48:24
Speaker 1: of this whole like one prison for another. So especially
48:29
Speaker 1: when you look at Thelma's character, who is like slowly
48:33
Speaker 1: realizing I cannot go back to my husband, I cannot
48:35
Speaker 1: go back to this life that she was living in
48:38
Speaker 1: this prison, and now that she's free from it, she's
48:40
Speaker 1: she's like found uh talent or something as she says
48:45
Speaker 1: for it, and that she's like blossoming outside of it.
48:48
Speaker 1: And I know I brought this up in Our Women
48:51
Speaker 1: in a Revenge episode, but it made me think of
48:53
Speaker 1: the Awakening again, because the Awakening of my Kate Chopin,
48:56
Speaker 1: if you haven't read it, it's very similar to this.
48:59
Speaker 1: It's about one in who kind of you know, breaks
49:03
Speaker 1: gender norms and gender conformities and experiences freedom in a
49:06
Speaker 1: way she had before. And then at the end she
49:09
Speaker 1: goes swimming, and it's implied you're you're left to decide
49:14
Speaker 1: whether she intentionally killed herself or she just died because
49:19
Speaker 1: she didn't realize she was going too far out and
49:21
Speaker 1: then she couldn't come back. And it's like she was
49:24
Speaker 1: going out into freedom and then once she got a
49:26
Speaker 1: taste of it, she couldn't go back. And so that
49:29
Speaker 1: it reminds me of this. It felt the same of like,
49:31
Speaker 1: oh I got this taste for this, I cannot go
49:33
Speaker 1: back to what it was before. I was to say,
49:36
Speaker 1: that's a lot of plot points for women, especially during
49:40
Speaker 1: like times of suppression and oppression, but they are seen
49:45
Speaker 1: as eccentric and so once they become something different, that
49:49
Speaker 1: there's no other way to handle this woman than to
49:51
Speaker 1: have her own demise, or create her own demise, and
49:54
Speaker 1: or lock her away, which is constantly you see that
49:57
Speaker 1: with fitz Generald. Some fis old novels. You see that
50:01
Speaker 1: with him and Away's novels, like either she dies or
50:04
Speaker 1: she's in prison forever like this this kind of one
50:07
Speaker 1: or the other, and it does seem like a carrying
50:08
Speaker 1: thing that we should come back to now that we're
50:10
Speaker 1: talking about it, we should. That's definitely a good point
50:12
Speaker 1: of like to get out of this, you have to die.
50:17
Speaker 1: If you found freedom, you realize how miserable your life is,
50:20
Speaker 1: that there's no other option. Um And speaking specifically for women, yes,
50:25
Speaker 1: exactly exactly we did want to talk about because we
50:30
Speaker 1: always talk about trauma in here, and Louis's past trauma
50:34
Speaker 1: is throughout this film, her PTSD over it. You can
50:38
Speaker 1: just see the report effects. That's kind of what caused
50:41
Speaker 1: her to shoot this guy Harlan who was attempting to
50:45
Speaker 1: rape her friend in the beginning, Like it was just
50:49
Speaker 1: built up and she didn't want her friend to go
50:50
Speaker 1: through it. But she was also dealing with what she
50:52
Speaker 1: had been through. That's why they couldn't go through Texas.
50:55
Speaker 1: That's why she couldn't get caught or allow herself to
50:59
Speaker 1: get caught. She wanted to go on this whole idea
51:01
Speaker 1: of not believing women Louise is a you know, very
51:04
Speaker 1: impactful line where she's like, we don't live in that
51:06
Speaker 1: world Filma, like we can't just turn ourselves in, right,
51:12
Speaker 1: And we don't know the exact situation. But obviously with
51:15
Speaker 1: the Harvey Kitael's characters say, I know what happened in Texas,
51:18
Speaker 1: she probably went down that route of trying to get
51:21
Speaker 1: justice the right way, but she wasn't believed. So it
51:24
Speaker 1: was one more trigger in which he learned I'm not
51:26
Speaker 1: ever gonna get helped and they don't believe women. So
51:29
Speaker 1: that was kind of that whole level of like, yeah,
51:31
Speaker 1: there's no justice, and yeah, everything's as bad as I
51:35
Speaker 1: remember it being. And it still follows me as it
51:38
Speaker 1: doesn't follow the guy who the actual perpetrator, right, Yeah,
51:42
Speaker 1: And and I do find it interesting that throughout there
51:47
Speaker 1: are these you know, there's this huge, terrible incident at
51:51
Speaker 1: the beginning, but then there were all these like minor
51:54
Speaker 1: kind of things that we as women are used to
51:56
Speaker 1: throughout and so like one is you know, people calling
51:59
Speaker 1: the we's especially a bit even though you know she's like,
52:03
Speaker 1: don't rape my friend, like oh you bitch, okay, or
52:08
Speaker 1: the truck drivers continuously gesturing at them or calling rudely
52:13
Speaker 1: at them. Also, he says Stormtrooper of Love, which I
52:18
Speaker 1: looked up to make sure I didn't miss here. That
52:20
Speaker 1: is what he says, and it is I feel weird
52:27
Speaker 1: saying this because I do have I personally have a
52:30
Speaker 1: lot of hang ups around revenge. I I guess that
52:33
Speaker 1: they're really compelling stories. But it is satisfying as a
52:36
Speaker 1: woman to watch that guy get his come up. It's like, honestly, right,
52:40
Speaker 1: he didn't get killed in the end, like he was
52:44
Speaker 1: fine and yes, and he will be compensated for the livelihood.
52:49
Speaker 1: Maybe he will think twice before cat calling women again.
52:53
Speaker 1: And how many movies have we seen, especially superhero movies,
52:57
Speaker 1: are like James Bomb movies or the movies starts the
53:00
Speaker 1: woman gets killed, James Bond kills everybody that had anything
53:04
Speaker 1: to do with it, and we're go James Bond, Right,
53:08
Speaker 1: that's every show almost too dramatic, police crime? Any of
53:12
Speaker 1: those shows are Alombo's lines. Yes, yes, so, I just
53:17
Speaker 1: I find it interesting that when it's based towards women
53:21
Speaker 1: and women's experiences and lived experiences, and that clearly a
53:24
Speaker 1: lot of women can connect to based on how this
53:27
Speaker 1: got made, that men were really comfortable around it, and
53:31
Speaker 1: that they didn't like that. Women were happy that this
53:35
Speaker 1: cat callar gotta come up, and they they did their
53:41
Speaker 1: own vengeance instead of a man, right, you know, defending
53:46
Speaker 1: their honor, which is acceptable, exactly exactly. I find that
53:51
Speaker 1: really interesting that we can't let women have this like
53:53
Speaker 1: cathartic vengeance moment, but men kill all kill all the
53:57
Speaker 1: people you want in the name of this woman. And
54:00
Speaker 1: it's a huge blockbuster hit and we're not gonna have
54:02
Speaker 1: a controversy about it, and that's just defending your whole yes. Um.
54:08
Speaker 1: And then very briefly, I just want to mention that
54:10
Speaker 1: I found in this movie very beautiful, this aspect of
54:14
Speaker 1: telling friends about trauma, um and opening up to friends
54:17
Speaker 1: about trauma and just having that even though you know
54:21
Speaker 1: you never hear Louise's story and full, and you never
54:24
Speaker 1: really hear Thelma's story and full, but you kind of
54:27
Speaker 1: have this acceptance between them and this understanding between them.
54:30
Speaker 1: I'm here for what you need. If you don't want
54:34
Speaker 1: to talk about it, you don't have to talk about it,
54:36
Speaker 1: but I understand that this thing happened to you, and
54:39
Speaker 1: I'm here for you. The check fine, really beautiful. And
54:43
Speaker 1: I think that's a big part of it is because
54:44
Speaker 1: a lot of times you and I totally understand that
54:48
Speaker 1: the drive but you want to push somebody to tell
54:50
Speaker 1: you their experience. But that's not always the healthiest thing
54:53
Speaker 1: or the best thing. But to have kind of that like, Okay,
54:56
Speaker 1: I'm here for you. I will, you know, occasionally check
54:59
Speaker 1: in to you and ask about it, but I'm not
55:01
Speaker 1: gonna push you about it, like just find it very
55:04
Speaker 1: beautiful as it should be, as it should be. Well,
55:10
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen this movie, go check it out.
55:13
Speaker 1: It's great. I found it still held up. I had
55:16
Speaker 1: a lot of funny moments. To be honest, I know
55:18
Speaker 1: it sounds kind of great. They had a lot of funny,
55:22
Speaker 1: relatable moments that you're like, oh, that's fun and just
55:26
Speaker 1: kind of that whole Even two towards the end, as
55:30
Speaker 1: she's talking about I found my neck, I found I
55:33
Speaker 1: can do this. You know, that in itself was a
55:37
Speaker 1: funny line in it, and it kind of brought that
55:40
Speaker 1: joy of like, well, okay, yeah, again, it's pretty satisfying
55:45
Speaker 1: to see why they're coming into their own and coming
55:48
Speaker 1: into their friendship and really just like yeah, right, or
55:51
Speaker 1: day went all in. They went all in. Well, go
55:56
Speaker 1: check it out if you haven't. And in the meantime,
55:58
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for whatever next movie you
56:00
Speaker 1: should be please email us. Our email is Stuff Media
56:04
Speaker 1: mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com. You can bind
56:06
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or inst grammed
56:08
Speaker 1: stuff We Never Told You thinks. It's always to our
56:10
Speaker 1: super producer Christina. I think she'd be a writer. Di
56:13
Speaker 1: She's awesome. I think so, I think you And thanks
56:17
Speaker 1: to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told You's the
56:19
Speaker 1: production of Ihier Radio for More podcast from IR Radio,
56:21
Speaker 1: BUSR Radio, app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
56:24
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.