Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Classics: The 'Crazy Psycho Bitch Girl' Trope

Transcript

SMNTY Classics: The 'Crazy Psycho Bitch Girl' Trope · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: And Samantha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: And welcome to Stuff Never Told You, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: And today we have another classic kind.
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: Of Halloween-type episode that we did on the crazy psycho
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: bitch girl. Mm-mm-mm. Yes.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: Which I do think we should come back and revisit
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: because I feel like there's been sort of a shift
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: on depictions of a character like this. Maybe people citing
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: more would be like, I see where they're coming from.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: Not in the older examples, but in newer examples. And
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: I just think it's really interesting that this has inspired...
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: Just a whole genre of horror movies and TV shows
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: and what have you. And as we talk about in there,
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: the history of why that is and dismissing women and
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: calling them crazy.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting. Please enjoy this classic episode. Hey,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: this is Annie.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: And Samantha.
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: And welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You, a production
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: of iHeartRadio. I'm going to mix things up today.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: All right, all right. And I'm not going to ask
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a question.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: Or I could, but it would be a very, we
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: would be having to act because we actually already discussed
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: this in depth.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: But we recently learned, Samantha and I, Both lovers of
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: horror movies. We love very different types of horror movies.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: It's true. It's true.
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: So today we're talking about a specific genre. Would you say,
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: what is your favorite genre of horror movie? So I
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: guess it is a question after all.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: So I think my favorite, and I've told you this,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: I do love haunting movies and possession movies. So things
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: like Insidious is up in my likes and one of
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: my favorite ones, I guess. I like... See, I just
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: recently watched Paranormal Activity. Those are newer to me. Those
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: are newer to me. I love those. I watched the
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: trilogy and I did not realize they were all interconnected
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: because I think I watched one of the really newer
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: ones that aren't.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like 15. Yeah.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: So.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I like those. I do like the pop scares and
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, things are happening. What's happening? Kind of unknown.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: But it's also kind of silly to me. So I
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: do love like the Insidious. I do like when John
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Woo's stuff typically, except he also expands to like 10,000
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: different movies. But I don't love slasher movies. That's probably
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: one of my least favorites. And I do love the
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: psychological thrillers like The Strangers. That stuff freaks me out,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: but I do love it. What about you?
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I definitely, I love supernatural horror movies. And I love,
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, my favorite horror movie of all time is
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: The Exorcist, which I find interesting because I'm not religious
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: at all. But I think those tropes, like we can
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: all connect with those things. And then I do like
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: found footage. And I actually have a list. I made
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: a list during quarantine of when people ask me like,
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: what movie should I watch? And I have This list
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: I've just been sending out, and there's a section on horror,
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: and I was looking through it, and I apparently also
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: like just weird, like really strange, like time travel horror movies.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: I like trying to figure out the puzzle of like, ooh, well, oh,
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: how did this happen?
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: And when did this happen?
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: And it might not even make sense, and I just
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: like it. Yeah, I like a strange time travel horror
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: movie or just something really visually interesting that I haven't seen.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: But what we're talking about today, I haven't seen a
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: lot of what you have, Samantha, when it comes to
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: psychological thrillers or what we're talking about today, which is
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: a whole trope that I didn't even know existed. I
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: certainly realized it was a thing. I just didn't know
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: it had a name to it.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Right. I think when I discovered the name, I sent
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: you a text and you were like, oh, God. We
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: both were like, this is the name of the trope.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Knowing that it existed, but we didn't know what the
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: title was.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: Right. Right. So yeah, to keep up with our love
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: of Halloween in this month of October, we wanted to
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: talk about the horror movie trope of Halloween.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Psycho bitch girl.
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Psycho bitch girl, crazy bitch girl, crazy woman, like any
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: of those.
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: But specifically, psycho bitch girl. And trigger warning, this is
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: definitely just a look at the trope and the stereotypes.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: And a lot of the conversation is going to be
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: around dated movies that have not aged well. So we'll
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: go ahead and put that as a big caveat. A
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: lot of those, if you look back on, you're like,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: holy crap, what were they thinking?
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: We will mention, but don't get into it too much,
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: about assault, death, and mental health issues. So I know
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: you and I actually talked about that fact that possibly
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: you don't watch any of these because it is heavily
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: reliant on those types of tropes and those types of stereotypes.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And it can be triggering for a lot of people. Especially,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: I know when we talked about, and we'll talk a
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: little more about revenge films, it has to have some
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: kind of big traumatic beginning in order to push the
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: story forward. So it kind of does that same thing.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: And it's, yeah, it gets in there. So we're going
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: to talk a little bit about those movies, just a
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: heads up.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and also just a heads up, like, as the
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: trope's name should tell you, a lot of this is
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: offensive in multiple ways. Right, right.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but we're definitely going to talk about that more.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: But I want to go ahead and say it right
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: at the beginning.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Don't get mad at us for the title. We're not
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: saying we approve of it. It's just, it is what
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: it is.
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: No, no.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: It was, you would say.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: As I say, so.
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: If we look at movies like Fatal Attraction, Gone Girl,
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: or The Audition, there is a perpetual idea that women,
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: especially exes, are crazy, of course. And again, like we know,
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: I know it's not PC to use that word, but
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: this is like the trope. And yeah, so yeah, I
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: broke up with her because they are crazy, that sort
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: of idea.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: And yeah.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we see this all the time and it's upsetting
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: how accepted it is.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Like, it's okay to say that.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Still today. People use that today and everybody's just kind
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: of like, really?
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: It's 2020.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Stop it.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: And it is very difficult to talk about the horror
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: genre without talking about thriller, psychological genre, or erotic thriller,
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: which does include like Stalker Girl, overzealous fangirls, and even
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: overly obsessive mothers.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, just brace yourself. All of that's coming.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: And we did, hey, I'm holding to some of our
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: older traditions, want to define what some say is, psycho
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: bitch girl means. And according to one Urban Dictionary definition,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: it is a woman who's hormal. It's not a typo.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: I'm not mispronouncing it. Apparently, this means normal for whore behaviors. Again,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: according to Urban Dictionary. Yeah, I was like, what? And
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: this is an imbalanced, troublesome upbringing or a current brain
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: chemistry renders her irrational, angry, and prone to acts of violence.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: For example, this dude, I'm going to say this dude
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: because the way they wrote it was very specific. In
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: this example of like throwing my $ 3, 400 widescreen HDTV through
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: the window. I don't know why that was the example,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: but apparently that is the example of psycho bitch girl.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: And when I was thinking about this, I keep thinking about...
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: And we're going to talk about this, but like how
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: a lot of times these movies... don't get me wrong,
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: the woman in them is doing violent things or whatever,
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: but the man still has usually done something pretty badly
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: as well. But, you know, it's, oh, she threw my
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: TV out the window because she found out I actually
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: have a wife.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: And I've been lying to her or whatever.
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: You know, we sort of forget that part. And also,
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: and I want to revisit this maybe towards the end,
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: I would just keep in mind as we're talking about these,
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: like imagine the roles are flipped or imagine, Like, man
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: is the stalker. I feel like that has such a
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: different vibe. It's much more threatening in a physical way,
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: as opposed to, I feel like, with a lot of
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: these we're talking about today with women, it's much more
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: threatening in a sexual, she's imbalanced, in quotes, way.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: And if you actually look at, and we will look
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: at it deeper, a majority of these psycho bitch tropes,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: the anger is pointed to another woman.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Which could be, again, a whole other thing.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I was trying to remember... I was trying to remember
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the Beyonce one. Wasn't she in one?
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Obsession. Yes, with Ali Lama.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: We don't talk about that movie, but that definitely came
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: up as an example as well.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes.
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: So I would just keep all those things in mind
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: as we go over some of these examples.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: All right, so the first movie we wanted to talk about,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: we mentioned above, is Fatal Attraction. I feel like this
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: is the iconic standard when it comes to erotic thrillers
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: and psycho bitch trope, which, by the way, every single
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: article mentions Fatal Attraction that I looked at.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I'm sure.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Probably, again, one of the best-known movies for this. In
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: this 1987 film, we have main character Dan Gallagher, played
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: by Michael Douglas, who was in several of these types
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: of movies, by the way, who has an illicit affair
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: with Alex Forrester, played by Glenn Close. So if you're
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: like Annie and haven't seen this film, a quick rundown.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: They have an affair. He pretty much drops her. She
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: starts doing things like stalking, faking a pregnancy, boiling a rabbit, kidnapping,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: and trying to kill the wife because all that she
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: wants is to have a baby with Dan. And of course,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: the family. Cue ace of bass music, which Annie also
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: doesn't know.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: Nope.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I sang this to her not too long ago. I
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: was like, you've never heard this movie? I mean, this song?
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: You've never heard this song? That was very sad. So,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: after trying to kill the wife, she gets shot by
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: the wife and everything is hunky-dory. Though, according to reports
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: and interviews with Glenn Close, the original intent was to
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: show the callousness of Dan's dismissal of his mistress and
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: the breakdown of Alex's life in psychopathy, but it later
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: was dwindled down to showing how, quote, crazy and over-the-top
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Alex was and made Dan more of the victim.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I Yeah, I haven't seen this movie. I
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: didn't know that his wife killed him. And you're right,
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: that is a very... He didn't even take responsibility, in
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: heavy quotes.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even their whole time together, at the very beginning,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: the premise of the movie is that he understands it
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: as a one-night stand. She obviously understands it as a
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: one-night stand, but she refused to let it go.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, oh, oh.
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: That always annoys me when it's like, It can't be
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: that you miscommunicated or whatever.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: You didn't know my intention. But like Tim might change
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: her mind and now she wants kids. Oh my God,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: I've got to get out of here.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: This is a crazy bitch. All I want to do
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: is sleep with you and leave you. I don't understand.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, throwing around that crazy bitch as just to dismiss
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: that a woman could have legitimate emotions or change her
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: mind or want something that you don't want and maybe misrepresented.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: All that to say, I don't think Glenn Close.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen this movie. I'm not justifying her actions.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: I'm just saying it's interesting the way that comes up
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: a lot in non-murderous situations. Right, right.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: So, back to another... We've.
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: Been talking about Stephen King a lot lately.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: He's got a lot of things. Hmm.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: So, Misery.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: We're talking about Misery, which I've never seen, but I
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: have read the book. And this is, yeah, a Stephen
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: King classic. Apparently, Stephen King proclaimed it to be one
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: of his favorite adaptions of his books for film. And
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: right now, it's the only one to win an Oscar,
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: thanks to the incredible performance by Kathy Bates. So, for
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: a quick rundown of this one, we have romance author
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: Paul Sheldon, played by James Caan, and Annie Wilkes.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Played by Kathy Bates, a seemingly kind nurse.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: Who finds Paul after a car accident in which he
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: has broken his legs and dislocated his shoulders. She brings
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: him to her home under the guise that she is
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: a good Samaritan. She's going to nurse him back to health.
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: She then proceeds to let him know that she is his, quote,
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: number one fan. And due to her kindness, he allows
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: her to read the newest manuscript for his popular series
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: based on his character, Misery Chastain. Unfortunately, though, for him,
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: she hates the ending, and all this bad stuff ensues.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: And I know I've said this before, but I feel
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: like every Stephen King book is about Stephen King in
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: one way or another. This is a fear that he has.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Well, he said that when he wrote this, he got
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: the inspiration when he fell asleep on the plane. I
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: think he had been met by someone about how much
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: they liked the book or something, and he fell asleep
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: on the plane, and this is his dream of what
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: could have happened. Yeah.
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, wow. Well, lucky for him, it didn't because apparently,
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: you know, Annie and Kathy Bates' character demands a new
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: book in which he brings misery back to life.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: This is what fan fiction is for. You can do
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: it yourself.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: But anyway, we see the overall levels she's willing to
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: go to save her favorite character. Everything from drugging him,
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: breaking his ankles, killing a police officer. After complying and
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: writing a new book, he tricks her into a celebration
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: where a violent struggle occurs and he bashes her head
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: in and makes an escape. This movie does show a
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: little struggle of the overall trauma he has gone through
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: with the post-scene of him being triggered. So that does
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: add a bit of depth to his character.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought it was really interesting. I'm like, he
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: wanted to put this... again, kind of like himself about, oh,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: you know, these are the traumas that these people, when
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: they do this, when they go beyond this, when they
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: demand this. And it could be this whole story of
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: ownership once you give to the audience who now owns
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: this book or who now owns this content. And that's
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: a whole other conversation we've had. But yes, of course,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: this homely, sweet nurse ends up losing it and has
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: to die for it in the end.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: Well, that's interesting, too, because I was imagining if it
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: was a female writer, a woman writer, writer and a
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: man tormentor, it just becomes, it's less about breaking gender norms,
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: which is troubling in itself. Because it's still scary and
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: it's still bad, but it doesn't feel as weird. And
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: that's part of the reason authors do this intentionally, I
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: would imagine, a lot of the time, is you don't
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: suspect that an older woman will do this, a kind
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: nursewoman will. Which, yeah, is kind of troubling that I
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: guess we've sort of held up.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Our hands and said, yeah, men can be aggressive.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And that's not so out of the norm of reality.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: But for women, they're crazy.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: They're crazy bitches. And please know I keep saying this,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: but it's the whole again.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: It's a trope, yes.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: And we are going to talk about parts of that
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: for sure.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: And another movie, which I actually forgot about until I
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: started researching this, is The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: which was released in 1992 and plays on so many
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: tropes and had a lot of mixed reviews. In one article,
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: the critic stated this movie was a movie that asked
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: the audience, quote, not to think but to react, which
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: the critic said was difficult even for the current time frame.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: in the 90s. So the plot, it all begins with
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: the main character, Claire Bartell, who was pregnant with her
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: second child, going to a new obstetrician where she's molested
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: by the doctor, Dr. Mott. After she reports him to
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: the police, several other women come forward alleging the same
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: type of abuse. He then shoots himself rather than getting arrested,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: leaving behind his wife, Mrs. Mott, played by Rebecca De Mornay.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: who was pregnant at the time. After losing everything due
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: to the incident, Mrs. Moth loses the baby as well.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: She then proceeds to plan her revenge against the main accuser,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Claire Bartell. At this point, she gets hired by Claire
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: as a nanny under a pseudonym, of course. in which
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: she then tries to ruin Claire's family and her life
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: by manipulating the older daughter and turning her against her family,
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: breastfeeding the newborn, causing it to imprint, is that how
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: they said it, on her, and trying to seduce the husband,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: which doesn't work because, you know, he's a great guy.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And then by killing her best friend, who, by the way,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: is Julianna Moore. Yeah, I was like, oh, I didn't
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: realize she was in this movie because she was figuring
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: it out. So if you haven't already guessed it, yes, dear, Mrs.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Mott gets killed accidentally by the wife who figures everything out.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: And that's the end of that. And that's the end
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: of the movie. And then the family lives happily ever after.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: So it just has this whole level of victim blaming,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: sexual assault, this whole fear of losing babies and having
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: babies and taking families. It's got a lot in there.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: And you kind of like sit there. It's been a
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: very long time since I've seen it. But they have
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: this whole like plague of like, these are the things
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: you should be afraid of. And this is what happens
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: in motherhood and lots of things. And you need to
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: be careful what you say. It's a very weird kind
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: of mixed ideas. And like I said, There was a
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: lot of mixed reviews of like.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Is this a good movie?
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Is this a bad movie? What's happening? But Rebecca De
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Mornay's performance was actually amazing and very frightening. So she
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: did a good job on that one.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't seen that, but intriguing.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: I haven't, okay, we're about to talk about what I
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: haven't seen, but I feel like I've seen, and that
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: is single white female.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: I think everybody feels that way.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: Yes. So this one is a bit of a flip
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: because it's more of an erotic thriller with homoerotic overtones.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: So we have Hedy. I'm going to go with Hedy.
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: Played by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Allie played by Bridget Fonda.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: And yes, there are a lot of pop cultural references
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: made in regards to this 1992 film. So it's definitely
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: worth talking about. Here we see a different take as
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: where it's not just a look at the fears women
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: have and the harringtales of marital transgression, but a possible
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: cautionary tale of female independence, as well as sisterhood, or
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: as one article says, also a story that has a
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: lesbian-phobic layer. And I would definitely, definitely agree with that,
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: even not having seen it. I've seen clips of it.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: And I remember when I was in college, I was
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: telling Samantha, like, I just have this really funny story
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: where my, one of my best friends, because this was
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: my first year of college, right?
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: And you're making a bunch of new friends.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: And it so happened that she ended up in a
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: dorm where she, I was best friends with like all
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: of her roommates and I ended up in a dorm
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: where she was best friend of.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: All, all my roommates. And there was just sort of
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: this tension.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: There was this weird thing there because we both understood it,
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: but we never really talked about it. And when we
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: used to joke about like, don't single white female, don't try.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: To replace me. But okay, back to the movie.
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: Here, we see a very traumatized woman Hedy whose twin
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: sister drowned at the age of nine coming into Ali's
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: life who after finding out her fiance had cheated on
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: her and then being professionally and sexually taken advantage of
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: by a rich man needed to find a new roommate
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: and Single white female. Enter Hedy, who slowly changes her
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: physical appearance to mimic Allie's, as well as impersonating her
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: at different locations and overall trying to become her. We
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: quickly see things unravel, and Hedy is trying to control
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: and manipulate Allie by hiding things from her, as well
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: as impersonating her. which eventually leads to Hedy killing several
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: people and trying to get Allie to take her own
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: life as well. The boyfriend's death scene includes a stiletto. Oh, yeah.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: This is kind of... I remember because it became an
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: iconic thing where people were like, oh, my God, how
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: do you kill someone with that? Yeah, she used a
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: stiletto to kill the boyfriend.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: If you're going to wear stilettos, then always make it
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: a weapon. After the death of Hedy, we see a
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: little more with Allie sympathizing with Hedy and stating that
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: part of Hedy, whose real name we find out is Ellen,
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: of her issues, that she had survivor's guilt from the
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: death of her twin.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Which caused that type of trauma.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Right. And the more we talked, like the more I
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: researched it, the more I looked at it, yeah, there
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: was this whole overall, this is why this movie is
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: very problematic. They love gay men, but really were afraid
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: of lesbians and here are these things. And it does
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: have this whole thing. And we're going to talk about
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: that a little deeper, the sexualization within these movies. But
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: it's interesting to get really into like, yeah, what is
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: wrong with people?
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, during this time period, I feel like there was
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: a lot, and this still happens for sure, but I
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: feel like there was a glut of, like, lesbian-phobic, biphobic messaging, or,
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's still phobic, but, like, I can turn her, like, there's, like,
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: chasing Amy type things.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but definitely, and it was a comedy as well
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: as horror. So it's one or the other that is
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: made fun of or being afraid of. And we're going
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: to talk about that a little more, but it is
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: interesting to note this is one of those movies that
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: they talk about. And then another movie, which I don't
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: think I've ever actually watched. I just remember hearing a
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: lot of it. Oh, you've actually seen this one, which
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: is Gone Girl. It's not necessarily a horror, but it
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: is a psychological thriller and trying to like piece together
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: what's happening. But again, I didn't want to mention it
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: because this also reversed the trope a little bit from
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: wife being the victim to wife being the mastermind and
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: being the psycho bitch character instead of the innocent that's
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: just walking and watching it or being victimized by the
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: psycho bitch. For the plot, we see the picture-perfect couple,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: which comes crumbling down as Amy, played by Rosamund Pike,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: appears missing and a case is opened due to her
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: disappearance and possible death. All the while, Nick, played by
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Ben Affleck, is trying to prove his innocence as evidence
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: starts to mount against him and he's suspected of foul play. Here,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: we see things unravel from flashbacks of the relationship to
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: his eventual cheating, of course. And then we are clued
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: in as Nick tries to get answers that Amy has
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: been plotting against him in order to punish him for
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: his misdeeds, including framing him for her own murder and
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: accusing him of assault and abuse. It eventually falls apart
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: and she returns home blaming an ex-boyfriend for all of
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: the events. Also, they remain together as she has artificially
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: inseminated herself with Nick's sperm and is now pregnant with
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: his baby. And they remain together unhappily ever after.
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: Well, it is interesting because she, yeah, she goes from, oh,
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: she's the victim and we're trying to figure out this
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: mystery to, no, she did it because he was a
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: terrible husband, essentially.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: But it does show, it's one of the few examples
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: on here, I think, where it's like, you don't ever, they're.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Both almost equally guilty.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: I know some people would be mad at me for
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: saying that because clearly she did kill somebody. But I
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: mean that in terms of how the viewer is like,
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: it's not like they're like, look, Nick is so perfect
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: and she's clearly crazy. And then in the end, he's
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: sort of complicit. It's hard to describe, I guess. But
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: this also, this movie is one of the funniest meetings
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: I've ever had in my life was when this just
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: came out and we were talking about... Because, you know,
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: it was like, you can see Ben Affleck's penis if
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: you pause.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: It at the right spot.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: And we were talking.
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: About this and one of our co-workers, Matt, who some
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: of you might know from other podcasts we do, but
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: is like the sweetest, literal sweetest person I know... He
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: was looking around at us kind of confusedly. And then
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: he said, wait, are we talking about his dong right now?
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, Matt.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Like, yep. Oh, it was so funny. And then we
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: had somebody on the phone and he was like, everybody
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: shut up. And he was like, hey, hey, Tyler on
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the phone. They're talking about Ben Affleck's dong.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Wonderful. But anyway, so.
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: Here in this example, we see the psycho bitch trope
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: being used as a payback revenge con that makes the
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: adulterer pay not by the jilted lover, but by the
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: angry wife. There is a lot of debate of whether
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: or not this character is another stereotype of an angry
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: bitch who lies about being assaulted and manipulative, and the
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: poor husband is the victim once again. This also comes up.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: This was one of the first times I heard cool girl. Yes.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: Because she has a whole monologue about being the cool girl.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: It does seem to be portrayed differently in the book.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: I read the book, but I can't recall. But anyway,
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: in which you see the male character being a lot
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: more misogynistic than in the movie, I do think I.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Did like him better in the movie. But anyway.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: But her overall callousness and evil does seem to ask
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: for sympathy for the.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Poor fool.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: You're calling my word dope?
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Dope. Don't call me husband. So, go ahead. Portrayed by
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Ben Affleck.
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, he does seem to have that clueless face.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I do remember seeing the scenes, and he just has
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: a clueless face the entirety of the movie.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: So.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: That's pretty much... Is that correct?
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: His whole role in that is just looking confused and
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: realizing he's screwed.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: And yes, there are so many other examples, especially in
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: the 90s. Maybe that's why I know so much about them.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: This is my era. And because it's just such a
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: big theme at that point, which includes Basic Instinct, which
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: has that big seduction scene we know of with Sharon
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Stone and Michael Douglas. And of course, the icicles. So
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you've... Well, that's how she murdered people. Oh.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: It was an ice pick. I think it was an
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: ice pick. I think I got that one wrong. I
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: was like, icicle would have been so much smarter. It
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: just melts away. I'm trying to remember.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Is that right?
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Y'all, listeners, tell me. I know I can look this up,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: but I'd rather you tell me if you actually saw
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: this movie. I can't quite remember. Either it's the ice
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: pick or an icicle. And then The Crush, which is
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: a movie about a teenage crush going wrong with Alicia
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Silverstone and Carrie Elwes. Someone had actually written a whole
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: article about it and how much they loved her character
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: just because they were talking about how, as a 14-year-old,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: how much do you have to love and how much
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: confidence do you have in yourself that you would just
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: go after.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: People like that?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And I was like, Okay.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: But kind of a turn. And man, just seems women
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: wanting sex makes them crazy. That seems like that's the
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: theme here. If women want sex or if women have sex,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: it makes them crazy.
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: According to all these movies. And of course, we're going
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: to talk a little more about that. But yeah, definitely
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: is this theme that goes throughout.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: And speaking of themes, we are not done with this.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, no.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: But first, we have a quick break for a word
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: from our sponsor. And we're back. Thank you, sponsor.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: So yeah, while we were researching, we did find a
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: few honorable mentions, I guess. Not necessarily the main characters
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: who were seen as the psychopathic girl or girlfriend. So
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: we wanted to go over a handful of those. Right.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And honestly, this one shocked me and I wanted to
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: talk about it with you a little bit. But in
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Harry Potter, they actually named Bellatrix. Yes, you could consider
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: definitely a psychopathic evil. But because it's fantasy... you know,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: like children's fantasy on top of that. I didn't see
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: that as much. It's not what you typically think. Also,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: she wasn't anybody's partner necessarily. Like she was a doting
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: like servant more so than anything else.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: What do you think? Well, I'm assuming that this all
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: comes from the Cursed Child.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, is that what it is?
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: Spoiler alerts. Anybody who doesn't want to know. Yeah, she
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: is with Voldemort in Cursed Child. And she's like... so
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: desperate to be with him and to serve him and
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: give him whatever he wants, that she sires his child.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: So that he can have an heir. Even though I
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: was like, but doesn't he think he's never going to die?
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I thought he was dead. He is.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: There's flashbacks. There's like a whole time travel thing in this.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: All right. Yeah.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: So that would make a lot more sense because I
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: was like, what? They did such a great job in
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: the movies and the books before. Yes, I'm very sad
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: about talking about this. So put a little, you know,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: asterisk on this one.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: This has been tainted for me. But that to put
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: them in such a, not like, it's not, sexual yeah
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: that I didn't think of it that way I guess.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah I mean there's certainly and I might be ruined
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: by all of my reading of fan fiction but if
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: all of my reading of fan fiction is correct and
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: you all know I don't look for romance a lot
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: of people did interpret her relationship as borderline at least
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: borderline I guess it's almost like worshiping someone so much
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: that if he had said we're together, she would have
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: been like, okay.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I feel like anybody would have said that. Like anybody
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: who serves him, they would never have said no. Like
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: if it was a man, woman, whomever.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: But she would have been proud of it. She would
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: have been honored.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: That's fair.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: That's fair.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: She doesn't want to be chosen by him and does
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: stick to him. And I do remember the scene where,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: you know, Molly calls him, calls her a bitch. So
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: fair enough. And then another mention is Wedding Crashers, Amy
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Fisher's character, who is more of the comedic take and
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: to me seems to fit into the pixie manic girl,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: but definitely does fit the whole, what is it, guy
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: getting in trouble genre movies where they have to have
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: that one girl who's stalking them, you know, and oh
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: my God, look at this crazy girl. So yeah, she
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: definitely was one of the big mentions.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: Well, that's an interesting aspect of it too is When
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: you talk about something like that, which is more comedic,
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: the idea that there's almost an air of, I am
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: so attractive or I'm so worth having that, of course.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I have almost groupies.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: That you've got to have one following you around. And
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: it's funny. Like, it's a marker of, I don't know,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: being a virile, attractive man. Yes. The women can't resist you.
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: Right. Yeah. And then there's Girl Interrupted, Angelina Jolie. Oh,
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: I read that book, but it was a long time ago.
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: I did a project on it in high school. Oh, wow. Yeah.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: And this whole thing, and we're going to come back
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: and talk about this a little bit more, I know,
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: but you can debate it was trivializing or romanticizing mental
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: health needs.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the reasons I chose it.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: When you're in that sort of melancholy.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: Poetic, or I'm not going to say everyone goes through
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: this stage, but a lot of people do when you're
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: in high school and you're kind of being all sad.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: And that this, I thought, was like, oh, look how
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: beautiful sadness can be, which I know is very problematic.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: And I've grown listeners.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's the thing. It's what gets fed to
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: us and believing what this is.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Right, right. But yes, definitely Angelina Jolie's character I could
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: see fitting that trope.
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: And then Friday the 13th, which, spoiler alert, the mom
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: is actually the serial killer in this one. And I
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: knew this before I even saw Friday the 13th because
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: it's the question that trips up Drew Barrymore in Scream
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: when the.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Serial killer was asking her, like, who's the killer?
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: And she got the answer wrong because everyone assumes it's Jason.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Right. Because the rest of the series it is.
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: But it's actually Jason's mom who wants revenge for these
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: camp counselors who were having sex and not watching her child.
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: And he drowned in Crystal Lake, which, by the way,
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: is in Portal to Hell. And the FBI comes in
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: and sends Jason to space because obviously... What? I've seen
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: all of these now.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're not talking about this.
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: But anyway, this is also kind of a play on the...
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: always blame the mother trope because.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: She turned out to be the serial killer.
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: Usually you're blaming the mother for this male serial killer's actions,
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: but in this case she actually was the serial killer.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: And actually in Scream 2.
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: The, spoiler alert, the killer in that one, Billy Loomis'
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: mom from the first one, Billy Loomis from the first one, she,
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure they purposefully cast someone who looks like
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: the mother in Friday the 13th to kind of pay
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: an homage to that.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Scream definitely likes to do tongue-in-cheek homages to other
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: horror movies, which is fair. Which, by the way, I
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: watched Urban Legend talk about homages, and the main guy
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: who plays Freddy is in it to teach us Urban Legends,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: and I forgot that. I was like, oh, my God.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen Urban Legends, and it's bad.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: It's really bad.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: But I watched it again last night, but I was
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: just like, what is this? Anyway, another comedy version of
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: the psycho bitch trope is My Super Ex-Girlfriend, which which
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: is not really a popular movie, but I just remember thinking,
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: what is this? And here we have Uma Thurman being
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: a superhero who is heartbroken and becomes vengeful. And as
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: it says in one article, becomes more neurotic as her
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: relationship with Luke Wilson's character ends. And this one is
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: supposed to be a comedy again, like I said, and
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: does have a flip at the end where the women
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: are the heroes making a difference and, you know, stopping
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: crime while the male partners are, you know, sitting back,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: holding their purses, waiting for them to come back. So
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: it does have that little flip, and it's definitely tongue-in-cheek.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: But it starts with, what if your ex-girlfriend, who you
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: see as crazy and clingy, which is what they describe
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: her as, has superpowers? And then it goes into that.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: So it's like, take what you know is already a
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: bad trope and add a lot more power and danger
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: because she is so strong now. Which could be said, yeah,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: that's what happens when we talk about men having too
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: much power and being a lot more stronger than you.
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: Maybe.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: That's what it looks like.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: And then we did want to mention Carrie, which we
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: already talked about in our episode on.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Why our period's so terrifying.
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: But I wanted to add here both the mother and
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: daughter were on the list. We had kind of two
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: different quotes, two different types of, quote, psycho. You got
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: religious and tortured. And I suppose while we're at it,
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: we could mention psycho.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Right. The mom and psycho who also... Well, I guess
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: she's not the serial killer.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: She's not the serial killer. He has a dual personality
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: because of the abuse that he suffered, but it's not her.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: That's right. It's not her. I forgot about that.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: But if you want to talk about the fear of
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: women and sex, the main female character is running away,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: I believe, because of an affair. And so she kind
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: of has to pay in the end for her sexuality.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: Punish.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: And guilt. And then one last one we wanted to
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: mention and we spoke about a little bit earlier is
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: The Audition. And oh my God, this one haunts me.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: And I blame Annie and my partner for not telling
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: me what kind of movie this was. But yes, it
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: would play on the traumatized and victimized with unresolved mental
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: health issues that turns someone violent and irrational. And yeah,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: I was not expecting this. And it is a Japanese film.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: It's a lot about torture. And I didn't know this.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: And even the trauma was like, oh my God, why?
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: So I wasn't ready because I don't love slasher films.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: I think I already mentioned that. I don't like torture films.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: I hate it. I've never seen any of the Saw.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I've never seen Hostel. I don't like it. I think
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: it's disgusting. And nothing about this... Like, yes, people love
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: like the horror aspect of being like, oh my God,
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: what if this happens to you? I don't need to
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: see it. So I wasn't expecting it. So when I
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: came across, I was like, I think the first question
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: when I had met Annie a couple of years ago
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: was like, hey, what are your favorite horror films? Because
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: you know, she's a horror movie buff. Of course I
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: need to know. And she put this at the top
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: of her list. I was like, cool, cool, cool. I'll
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: watch it. She's like, yeah, yeah, you should watch it.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: And I watched it. I think I started texting you.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what the hell is wrong with you? What
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: have you done to me?
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Well, okay.
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: To be fair to me, I don't think I bought
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: it up. I think your partner bought it up and
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: I was like, that's a really good movie. But I
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: hadn't seen it in so long and I totally forgot
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: about what it's all about.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: And I rewatched it after your horrified text. I was like,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: oh yeah. This is pretty messed up.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: And for me, for me watching horror movies like this,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: I have to finish it or it lingers with me.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Like something about not finishing it just causes more nightmares
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: for me. So I had to finish it and I
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: was so unhappy.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: And you know, like this movie is probably one of
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: the ultimate examples of what we're talking about because it's
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: got the like, she's an ex, she's got this abuse
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: and then there's torture. And again, he kind of, he
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: played her. He totally, the main male character totally played
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: her and used her But she got her some revenge
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: for sure. I guess you could include the American version
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: of the grudge too. Right.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Because she was sort of a That's.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Kind of when we were talking about the mother or
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: even like the supernatural level of what's going on, of
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: who's blaming what and what comes out.
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: Right. Yeah.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: And this is kind of what we were talking about.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: You like the pre, no, I like the pre hauntings
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: and you like the aftermath. So these are the things
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: that would have happened. But the beginning part is awful.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Like seeing them, how they got murdered, how they got stalked,
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: how they got that. And then, but instead, like, so
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: it was definitely, I think that's how we kind of,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Put the line. The line, yeah. Yeah, or the metric,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I guess. But yeah, but for sure, this is definitely
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: one of those movies that plays on every single one
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: of the strokes. Not only do you play on the innocent,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: sweet girl who he has to have because she seems
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: so innocent and pure, but then turns out she's not
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: so innocent and pure, and she wreaks havoc.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Yes. Oh, yes, she does.
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: Oh, yes. Okay, so we've covered a lot of ground,
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: but we did want to talk about some themes in
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: these movies. But before we do that, we're going to
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: pause for one more quick break for a word from
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: our sponsor. and we're back thank you sponsor so one
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: of the big themes in these movies is revenge yes
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: In almost every single one we talked about, in fact,
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: we see this theme of revenge. And we've talked about
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: women before, women in revenge films. And we've talked about
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: the ins and outs of revenge films and how women
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: are portrayed in these films. I know I've talked about before,
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: I generally don't like revenge movies, even though it seems
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: that I play a lot of revenge video games. And
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: when I write, I write a lot of revenge. So
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: I don't know what that's all about. But I watched
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: a lot of them for this research. And I have
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: to say, like, two or three of them haunt me.
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: And not in a bad way, necessarily.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: They're the ones written and directed by women.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: Right. And I think that's why. It felt more true.
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: And in that way, more, like, painful. Like, my heart hurts.
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: Because when you're talking about, like, rape and revenge, there's
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: just this awful traumatic thing.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: And look at the outcome of it.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: Right. Yeah.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: But, I.
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: Mean, as is the case in a lot of these things,
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: the revenge doesn't often match the ensuing actions these women take.
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: One article said that if Skorner mistreated, quote, she then
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: ends up trying to exact revenge, becoming obsessed, sometimes even murderous.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: No matter what direction a film takes, it is clear
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: the woman is meant to be seen as, in quotes, crazy.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: The use of this trope has been heavily critiqued, not
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: only because of its portrayal of women, but how it
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: connects to stereotypes about mental health. It invalidates women's behavior
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: and real mental health struggles by simply reducing the person
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: to being crazy. When a woman is deemed crazy, she
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: is dismissible and irrelevant. And yeah, that is a really
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: big discussion within these movies.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Like, the very trope, it's right there.
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: Why does over-dramatizing and stereotyping of mental health make the
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: plot of these films... And continue to cause damage in
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: open conversation of these mental health issues. And I actually
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: think this is a problem in horror at large because
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: a lot of times the twist is somebody has a
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: mental health issue.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: Or that's why they're doing whatever it is that they're doing,
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: whatever nefarious thing they're doing, which is problematic.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to talk a little more in depth
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: about it later at the end of this, because it's
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: definitely something we need to cover and have a continued conversation.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Because as much as we enjoy being scared, as much
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: as we see this plot as something that brings along
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: the movie, it is problematic. And we have to be
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: able to confront that. Yeah. On top of that, we
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: also wanted to talk about motherhood as a theme. And
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: if you couldn't tell, many of the films and characters
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: have some type of criticism of either being a mother,
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: not being a mother, or wanting to be a mother.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: Specific to the movie Fatal Attraction, one article written by
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Amanda Hess, she writes, when Glenn Close's 36-year-old book editor
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: has a one-night fling with Michael Douglas' happily married attorney,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Dan Gallagher, Dan expects the cool girl, which we talked
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: about with Gone Girl, independent Alex to remain discreet. Instead,
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: her biological clock goes berserk and she cuts her wrist,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: incessantly calls his home, announces she's pregnant, throws acid on
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: his car, boils his kid's perfect bunny, abducts his perfect child,
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: and attempts to stab his perfect housewife. And at the
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: film's end, the perfect wife shoots the psycho bitch in
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: the heart by killing Alex and... in parentheses, her gestating fetus,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: the film restores the sanctity of the perfect family. Or
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: as Susan Fowley wrote of the message in her 1991 book, Backlash,
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: the best single woman is a dead one. So we
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: see over and over again, whether we look at the
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: protective mothers, like comedies in Monster-in-Law, which is a Jennifer Lopez,
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Jane Fonda movie, or grieving mothers like The Hen That
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: Rocks the Cradle or Friday the 13th, Or even manipulative mothers,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: we see the same theme over and over again about
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: how this causes them to be, or the lack of,
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: or any of this is why they're psycho, as they
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: like to say it.
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: Right, and existing outside of being independent and not needing
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: a man.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Right. And then that making you, quote, crazy. Right. Yeah,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: because it's threatening the patriarchal system we all live in.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: We also wanted to talk about sex and sexiness, which
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: is a very broad theme that, yeah, we could talk
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: about pretty much in anything we talk about in media.
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: But we couldn't ignore the obvious trip of femme fatales
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: and their use of sex and sexiness to gain entry
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: to someone's life, into someone's life, or just as a
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: way of meeting. In fact, a majority of films with
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: psychopathic women seem to fall under the exotic thriller genre
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: as well. which allows for the movie to talk about
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: the horror of women having or enjoying sex without giving
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: too much credit or sexual identity for women. Movies like
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: Basic Instinct, and though we didn't talk about it earlier,
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: Swimfan and Jennifer's Body, which is a really wonderful movie.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: I actually really like that one, continue to exploit female
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: bodies and the idea of their usefulness. And for the
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: world of femme fatales, Abby Bender writes, in the world
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: of erotic thrillers, sex is a tool and revenge is
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: always an option.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: And many articles have been written about the biphobic and
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: overall lesbian-phobic representations of the characters within this trope and genre. Again,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: using basic instinct as the example, the relationship between character
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Catherine and Roxy, we see the relationship through the male
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: gaze and is often portrayed as merely objects to, quote,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: arouse the male viewer, as an article from the Bitch
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Flicks states. The author continues and writes, though many directors...
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: specifically male directors, don't necessarily mean to objectify their characters. Quote,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: their female characters are shown to have some charming qualities,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: but in the end, they're promiscuous and manipulative and never
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: to be trusted.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: And this reminded me of something I totally forgot about.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: So there was this thing at work back when Kristen,
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: past host and creator Kristen, when I did the video,
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: she did one, a parody of this thing called The
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: Crazy Hot Matrix. which many of you probably have heard
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: of from, I believe it was on How I Met
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: Your Mother. But this was a video that a man
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: made and legitimately believed that the more beautiful a woman is,
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: the hotter she is, the more crazy she is. And
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: he had this graph. And when we made the parody
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: of it, this was.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: The one that got me doxxed.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: People, they were so mad about it.
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: And I was like, clearly we're joking, but also this
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: video is a real thing that exists. But the fact
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: that that was the one that got me, Docs, I
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: think is very telling when it comes to this trope
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: and how we do view women still as like, yeah,
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: you can have sex with this crazy hot woman, but
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: don't forget she's crazy and you don't want to marry her.
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: Because that was the point. Like you wanted to marry
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: a five and have sex with a ten.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Right. And all of this is offensive. I don't agree
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: with any of it. I hope that's clear.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. This is definitely like pickup artists' charts, too.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: They really saw the character Barney as being an icon
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: for them. So I could absolutely see you being raked
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: over the coals by them, for sure.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: It was wild. We had to get security guards.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: Oh, my God. Yeah.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: So we did want to talk.
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: About this stigma with mental health and women.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: So we've given... some examples.
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: There are so many, but we've given some of the
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: psycho bitch trope in the horror thriller genre and how
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: it has slowly been changing throughout the years, but not
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: necessarily as fast as you might expect with the growing
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: feminist movements and just discussions around mental health. However, we
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: did want to talk about the overall ableist idea behind
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: the genre and usage of the term crazy and psycho bitch.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: And though we won't go into the history of the
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: language because we have done that before, um, We did
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: want to look at the continued stigma tropes like these
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: perpetuate and the damage they cause.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: As one article said, In.
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: It, writer Joanne Chu talks about the dangers of how
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: these tropes not only maintain the negative stereotypes, but continue
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: to negate the legitimacy of violence against women with disabilities.
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: She writes, When they experience violence because they are seen
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: as crazy or because they are not able to understand
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: or communicate what happened to them, their attackers are rarely
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: brought to justice. And this is a big conversation for us,
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: as we recently discussed in our Violence Against Women episode
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: on how vulnerable we make people in the disabled community
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: feel when we allow such ableist representation to be mainstream.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Right, and I think it was legitimately calling out the
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: fact that When we have these things saying it's their
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: fault that people no longer believe them. So they have
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: all of these hurdles. already just being able to say
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: whether they're not able to communicate with people or whether
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: they're not able to prove something, all of these things,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: but to have this other part of, yeah, but what
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: did you do? But you're crazy. You can't even talk
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: about it because whatever, whatnot. And she even gave an
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: example of a client she had who stated that she
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: did not want to report rape because she would have
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: to name off the medication she has and the side effects,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: and that alone could discredit her. So... You have all
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: of these things already happening, and then you have movies
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: like this that perpetuate and literally uses their trauma as
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: a blurb. Right. And then blame them for all the things.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: And don't get me wrong, all these things are bad,
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: but it's also unrealistic.
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: Violence that these women supposedly portray, but at the same time,
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: how that term, crazy psycho bitch, uses that connotation, that's
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: what lingers over them about a person. So no matter
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: what this crazy may be, and it's not okay to
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: say that at all, but it just refers to the
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: worst idea of the psycho bitch trope. But yeah, and
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: beyond that, we look at the other side of that coin,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: you're welcome, as it portrays people diagnosed with mental health
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: issues as violent and unhinged and dangerous, which again places
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: a mistrust and an ugly, shameful stereotype for those diagnosed,
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: which is... As another article from Bitch Flake talks about,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: which films continue to use as shock factor portions of
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: this fictional entertainment that, again, leads to misconceived stereotypes and, again,
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: silences people who have these issues and who are living
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: with this and are able to maintain. These are things
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: that are being completely dismissed. And again, it's kind of
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: that same level when we talk about mass shootings, when
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: we talk about the dangers that have happened and people
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: who have, where we have had incidents and just being
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: saying it's a mental health thing and just categorizing it
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: like that. And it's so dangerous because that's not what
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: pushed them to this volatile state. Just because they have
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: a diagnosis does not mean they're going to do this.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: And to label it like that and to put a
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: headline like that once again leads to this awful stereotype
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: and an awful misconception, which is being popularized by a
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: lot of films like this.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: And it's really brazen, too, to say that and then
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: offer no mental health funding. Not even to do that.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the U.S. thinks so little of actually treatment. Yeah.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: But yeah, we're going to say it like that. Right.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: And I mean, this whole trope has especially been weaponized
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: against women. I mean, every word in it, I feel
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: like crazy, psycho, bitch to dismiss women. And I was
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: thinking about that song, that recent song, like, yeah, she's sweet,
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: but she's psycho.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Like, it's everywhere.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of that whole term for pixie manic girl.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: It's that same level of the cute, Manic girl. It's
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: kind of that whole level of like, okay, why are
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: you celebrating? And also, this is not a thing. Stop it.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: That is our message.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: Stop it.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, that's an overview of this trope that we see.
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: There's a lot to unravel here, clearly. And just years
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: and years and years of how women are perceived in
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: our entertainment and in our culture.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: As usual, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: So if there's something you want us to focus in on,
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: let us know, please. Or if there's an example we
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: missed you think we should talk about, send it our way.
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: And you can do that at our email, which is
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: stuffmediamomstuff at iheartmedia.com. You can also find us on Twitter
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: at momstuffpodcast or on Instagram at stuffmomnevertoldyou. Thanks as always
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: to our super producer, Andrew Howard.
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Andrew.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: And thanks to you for listening. Stuff Mom Never Told
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: You is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: to your favorite shows.