Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Matilda with Jess Murwin

Transcript

Matilda with Jess Murwin · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy Zef and best
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bell Cast. Jamie, Caitlin, eat
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: this chocolate cake right now. I noticed that you stole
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: my cake from earlier, and now you have to eat
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: this whole giant chocolate cake. Because I'm mean, honestly, I
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: would gladly eat the chocolate cake. And in fact, I
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: wish you thought through this punishment more because it seems
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: like I win. Yeah. Well, now I'm rethinking it, and
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like I should just invite you over to
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: eat some cake with me and like have a nice
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: time together. Yeah, should we just like hang out? Yeah,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: let's do that. See, this is how the conflict should
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: have resolved in that scene. That's that's good screen writing. Absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: my name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our show
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: in which we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: using the Bechtel test as a jumping off point. It
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: just is there to initiate a larger conversation we have.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: But Jamie, tell me, yeah, what is it? What is
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: the Bechtel test? I get you? Keep eating your cake.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I'll let you know what it is, Okay, the back
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Del disgusting. The Chel test is a media metric created
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: by queer cartoonist Alice and Bechdels, sometimes called the Bechdel
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Wallace test. There's many versions of it. Here's the one
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: that we use. We require that therapy two characters of
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a marginalized gender with names who speak to each other
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: about something other than a man for two lines of dialog,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and the exchange should be meaningful in some way. Ideally Yeah,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: so so no, Hey, can I take your order? Yes?
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I will have the cake unless it's important plot cake,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: in which case, so you know it's complicated. Every plot
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: cake it counts. If it's just cake, it doesn't count.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Every exchange is worth a close examination, which is why
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: we talk about the movies for longer than the movies
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: run time almost every time. True, ye, should we bring
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: on our returning guest? Yes, we have a much requested
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: episode today. We've been getting requests for this movie for years,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: and we were simply waiting for the right time, the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: right place, the right guest, and here they are and
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the time is now our guests. They are a non binary,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: mixed race magma artist, curator, and educator. Their work focuses
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: on reclaiming narrative space and fusing genre with social justice
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: and holding space collaboration. And you know them from our
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: episode on Rhymes for Young Ghouls. It's just Merwin. Hello,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Let's get sticky. This movie is very sticky. So many textures,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: so many gooey, gooey textures. Um, I forgot that John
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Lovett's has like a cameo as the Let's Get Sticky
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: guy from the TV show they watch. Also, like there's
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a magazine at one point that Zinny is holding with
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: like like Let's get Sticky and John Lovett's on the cover.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, is this game show in world like
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: a big thing, like a big deal, And like, I
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: bet interesting, you know, interesting choice. I kind of want
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to what I would I like, I know that there's
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of telegraphing of like television is the root
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: of all evil in this movie, which you know, I
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: agree to disagree. But but as I was as that
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: show was playing, I was like honestly, I would watch
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: that show. That's I watched The Masked Singer, Like, I
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: would watch that show for sure. Um, have you heard
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: about this new reality television competition program that's called The Activist?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, Yeah, that is a show I will
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: not watch and how it's a fucking horrendous disaster piece
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of ship. Yeah, but I kind of want to watch
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: it for similar reasons of being like, oh, this is
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a bad idea, but like it, Like I can't not watch.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: I cannot watch. I like reality TV always has its
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: finger on the pulse of late stage capitalism. Uh that
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: is like the most late stage capitalism. I was like,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: oh wow, okay, so we're just doing this that Yeah,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that's that's going to be a bleak one. Who is
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: like I I forget who was like on the feel
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: like sure as a judge, Yeah, I wonder if he's
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: going to be like, Okay, here's I can only contribute
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: ushbucks to Uh interesting? Oh my goodness. Yeah, you know,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: famous famous philanthropist and singing sensation philanthropist. Yeah, I don't know.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Like I you know, I saw a post.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I think it was a friend of the show Jamison,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: meaning who was like posting about it, and I was
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: just like this, this is such this is like a
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: nightmare that I would have, you know, like right, so
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like I feel the same way about
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: let's get sticky. Let's get sticky. Yeah, well should we
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: get sticky by diving into Jess? What is your relationship
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: with this movie? Um? Oh boy? So you know, Matilda
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: was like a very treasured film like when I was
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: growing up. It was one of the ones that we
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: had on VHS definitely, and that in like the Lindsay
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Lohan parent trap. We're on like constant rotation in my
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: hand like house with like my little sister, and you know,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: it was really funny because I hadn't seen it in
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: a really long time. And then we were talking about
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: like coming back on the show and I was like
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: trying to think of movies and I saw that like
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Matilda was now on Canadian Netflix. I was like, oh
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: my god, we should do Matilda. And it was literally
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: the first time that I'd watched it probably in like
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: twenty years, and all of a sudden had this like
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: a piphany moment, was like, oh my god, I think
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: this movie is why I'm gay, Like like, oh, this
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: is my route, um because and we'll get I'm sure
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: we'll talk more about that. But like, rediscovering this film
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: as an adult in the last you know, month or
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: so has been a real trip. It's not me really
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: reevaluate do a lot of things about myself in a
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: positive way. Like I'm like, I say, I hope in
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: a good way. Yeah, yeah, you know. And I'm like, oh,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: maybe this is where I learned things because like, again,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: you know, there is a lot of like messaging in
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: this film about how television is bad. But I also
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: feel like, at least for our generation, I was really
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: raised by TV, like you know, so I'm like, maybe
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I was also a bookish kid who didn't really have friends.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I was also a kid who had you know, abusive
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: parents who didn't understand me. I was like, maybe maybe
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: this is Matilda is the reason Matilda's like why I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: became an educator or like yeah, I don't know. Yeah,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: so I so it's very near and dear to my
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: heart in in a lot of ways. Um yeah, that's
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that's sort of my history with it. Was like I
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: loved as a kid, didn't see it for a real
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: long time, watched it again and was like, no, I'm
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: reformulating my personality around this movie and so much as
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: coming into focus. Indeed, indeed, Jamie, what's your relationship with Matilda?
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm saying this, but I have never
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: seen this movie before, which is so bizarre to me
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: because it's like I'm in the right age range to
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: have seen it, Like I think everyone I know is
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: seen it. I think that it had to do with
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: my mom didn't like Rolled. I don't know. I feel
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: like there's over the years on the show, I've just
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: discovered all of these bizarre rules that my mom imposed
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: on our media diets, just based on her personal preferences,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: where she's like, I don't like Rolled Doll adaptations, they're gross,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: and therefore I think it was just she was like,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: these movies are too sticky and you can't watch them.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, let's get sticky. I wasn't allowed to watch
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Um Charlie and the Chocolate Factory either, so and I
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: don't even think it was allowed. It's just like it
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't around, it wasn't available because my mom thought it
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: was gross. So I've never seen this movie before, and
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I wish I had seen it because
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: it would have, um, it would have made me so happy.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I really, I really really loved I mean, there's plenty
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: to talk about, but there's also so much joy in
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: this movie, and like you can just tell in the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: production of the movie as well. It was just such
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: a great I watched the movie three times to prepare,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: which was not necessary, but I just was enjoying it
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: so much. And then I was like having a tough
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks, and I kept coming back to it
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: because it made me feel good about the world. And
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: so yeah, and also I feel like we should, I mean,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: we at the betele cast have an extreme Maura Wilson
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: bias because yes, Maura Wilson is a friend of the cast.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: So also you know, we're we're always tipping the scales
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: in Mara's favor. That's true. Check out the episode we
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: recorded on ELF couple of years ago featuring Mara. So yeah,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: this was my first time seeing it and seeing it
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and seeing it and it makes me so happy to watch.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: So I'm so glad we got to talk about it.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: What about you, Kitalin, Yeah, um, my relationship is fairly limited. Actually,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: I had seen it as a kid. I remember there
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: was some VHS that we owned that had remember when,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: like VHS has had trailers for other movies that were
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: coming out around the time. I forget what one it was,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: but I've seen the like teaser or whatever for this
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: movie hundreds of times for whatever VHS that teaser was on.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I don't remember which movie it was, so I've seen
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: the trailer a million times. But um, I had only
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: seen this movie probably once or twice as a kid,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: so and it was so long ago that I might
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: as well not have really seen it. But then I
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: did kind of take it upon myself to watch it
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: as an adult within the past year because I figured
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: we'd cover it at some point soon, and I was like, oh,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I should like reacquaint myself with this movie. And I did,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: and I was, yeah, like pleasantly surprised by how sweet
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and compelling it is, and how there's a lot to
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: talk about, as per always with every movie, absolutely, and
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: it's like it's one of those things that like Jamie
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: you mentioned too, like there's a lot to talk about
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: just in the film itself, but like also behind the
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: scenes as well, like and a lot of like contexty
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: sort of stuff that, like, you know, on the surface,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, this is like a beloved children's film,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: but there's actually there's so much there and there was
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: so much going on to even like bring it into existence,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: like have it exist as a film. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I was really surprised you guys hadn't done it yet.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: So I'm super happy that, like we get a chance
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: to chat about it because it's one of the few
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: or I don't I don't have like the best. I'd
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: have to like do a thorough study on this, but
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I feel like so many movies, like kids movies, like
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: family oriented movies from this era and like a little earlier,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: like the eighties and nineties, we're focused on little boys. Um,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: and it feels like this is one of the few
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: from that era that features a little girl. So and
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: they still, I mean they still skew very heavily on
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: like when they do focus on little girls, it's usually
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: little white girls. But I'm like the movies that come
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: to mind from this era, I feel, let me know
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: if I'm missing anything. But it's like Matilda, Harriet the Spy,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: a Little Princess, uh Lindsay Low and parent Trap is
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: that it is there. Yeah, definitely. I Mean if you
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: could include all the amazing Mary Kayton Ashley movies, that's
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: true there, and then there's five hundred movies about girlhood
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: that's very true. That's very true. Like, but it's it's
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: really interesting in terms of that because I still feel
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: like to a certain degree that's still the case. Like
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: I think it's changing, but like I think about like
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the young people in my life, nieces and nephews and
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: like friends of kids and things like that, and like
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: if I'm looking to like give them any kind of media,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: whether it's a book or a movie or something that
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: like a lot of times it's really like I don't know,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: I feel really hard pressed to find like stories that
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: are about like little girls that aren't like princesses or
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: aren't white, or aren't sort of you know, like upper
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: middle class. And so you know, there's like certain ways
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: that that that like, you know, we'll get into it,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Like there's certain ways that like I think there's you know,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: playing to criticize with Matilda, but like I also think
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: that there's like certain ways that it sticks out as
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: like being so unique just out sticky, sticky. Sorry, it's
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: stickies in your memory. Um, whoever like listens to this
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: episode and tallies up how many time we say stick
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: or sticky or make reference to like it's get sticky,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: like should have been some kind of prise, a big
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: bottle of goo. Yeah you're welcome. Yeah. Um, but like yeah,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: like I think we've until this sort of like still
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: sticks out like in the landscape of children's media because
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: of that, like she's not a princess, and like there's
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: like some good values that are still sort of like
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: in the film that like make it really repiled a
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: still show to young people. Yeah. Yeah, I think for
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the most part it holds up in in way more
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: ways than I was expecting it to. I mean, just
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: even the core message that there's a little girl who
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: is smart and the fact that she's smart makes her
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: more compassionate instead of less. I feel like you see
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the opposite message telegraphed a lot and there I just
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: love her, and and all the messages are of about
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: like chosen family. Um, you know, all the messages to
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: around like having like a strong sense of justice. Um,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I think are like really really interesting because like even
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: before Matilda really gets like a hold of her powers,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you know, she's like telling her dad, you know, like
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: you're a crook, You're doing the wrong thing. The cops
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: are like watching that, Like Paul Rubens is outside, is
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: outside dad, and he's being a camera bro like he's
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: like but like yeah, so so like you know, there's
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: like there's things like that that I think are really cool,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: you know, to like teach kids. It's like, yeah, if
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: you feel like something is wrong, it's probably wrong, you know,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: like and you have a right to sort of say that.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: And with Miss Honey's storyline is like so much of
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: her story progressing is dependent on her believing Matilda and
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: taking her seriously, like we'reking for a little while she
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't believe Matilda, she's sort of like, okay, pass around
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the head, and it's like, you know, sends her on
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: her way, much like the song sends her on her way. Uh.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: But then when she believes Matilda and does realize you know,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that she's right, she does have these powers, and that
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: ends upsetting Miss Honey free as well. I like the
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: damn movie. It's nice. Yeah, let's take a quick break
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: and then come right back to recap it and we're back. Okay,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: So here is the story of Matilda. We open on
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: a newborn baby, as well as voiceover from Danny DeVito.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: But this is Danny DeVitto the narrator, not Danny DeVito
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the character. They're two different things. But Danny DeVito is
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: talking about how everyone is born, but some people are
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: born special. Then we meet Danny DeVito the character a
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: k a. Harry Wormwood. Not confusing at all, not confusing
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: at all, but iconic. Like opening show, like, the introduction
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: to Harry Wormwood is like kids make grimacing at a
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: bunch of babies, you know, like you do, totally normal
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: for an adult man just to like be making that
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: face out a bunch of newborns. Yeah yeah. And then
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: he sees his daughter and he's like, I guess I
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: also love like the whole sort of like there are
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: two genders, pink babies and blue babies. I mean, unfortunately,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: something that so many people still subscribe to. There's a store,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: there's a store for babies down the street for me
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: that's literally called the Pink in the Blue. How embarrassing
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: for them? Yeah, okay, So we meet Harry Wormwood and
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: his wife, Zinnia played by Ria Pearlman. They take home
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: their newborn daughter Matilda, who they barely pay attention to
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: because they're selfish and they're not nice people. And also
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Ria Pearlman's outfits are really good. Oh, I mean actually
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: all like the everyone's outfit in this movie. I feel
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: like the like the Wormwoodes, even though you know their mean,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: mean mean, their outfits are the ones that I want
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the most. I don't want the good guy's outfits. No,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: like Miss Honey for all of her virtues, essentially just
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: wear his beige the whole movie. Yeah, I'm just like,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: oh the virtuous must wear beige. No, let the virtuous
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: wear Pearlman's outfit. Yes, like her bingo jacket, her jacket
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: bingos and rhind stones on the back, And I'm like,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I want that jacket, that jacket. I hope that someone's
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: taking good care of that jacket. I hope Rea Pearlman
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: still wears it. I hope she does do. Apparently she
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: went to like when her and Danny Vido, you know,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: we're starting to work in the movie. Apparently she went
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: to Las Vegas to buy all these clothes and it
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: was like part of her personal wardrobe that she wore
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: on set. So I was so I really do hope
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: that like she does have that jacket and breaks it
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: out for special occasions because it is so perfect. I
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: forgot that she and Danny DeVito got divorced, and then
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I remembered, and then it made me for around. But
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know they were married until I was
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: like reading about this movie they're iconically married. I guess
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: I had no idea about Danny DeVito's personal life, nor
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: did I really know who Rea Perlman was. My bad
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I stand for one as like as as a comedy,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: as a fashion icon. Um. But yeah, apparently they're still
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: very good friends. They have stayed very close, so that
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: like makes me happy. That kind of makes up for
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: the fact that they separated. Yeah, I just want them
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: to be happy. They seem like such I've not heard.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I hope that I haven't missed something, but I've I've
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: never heard a bad word about either of them. They
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: both seem so lovely. No, and that's something maybe like
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I don't know what we should like Caitlin maybe finished
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the recap, but that's something we should definitely talk about
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: because I feel like Danny DeVito, shall we say, almost
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: like unproblematic king Like I feel like, I don't know,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: I'm problematic King, short King. The list goes on. Hopefully
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: this episode age as well in that regard, because as
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: of for this recording, unproblematic King who seems to be
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: beloved by a But we've been fooled before. Yes that's true,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: that's true. But he just like got banned from Twitter
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: like two weeks ago for supporting like Nibisco workers being
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: on strike. So like him, Oh my god, I didn't
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: know that, I know, right, like Danny, and he was
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: like openly calling likely being like, yeah, America is pretty racist.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Like before it was like okay to be woke. He
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, this is a pretty racist country. So
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you know, loke King added to the list. We'll see
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: if he's a sticky king. Oh we get to the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: end of the I'm gonna hazard a guest and say
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: he is a sticky king. Okay. So Matilda gets a
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: bit older. She developed a lot of exceptional skills. She's
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: very independent, she can cook for herself at a very
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: young age. She's very good at reading by age like four,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and then she starts going to the library every day
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and reads tons and tons of books. Then she gets
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: a little older six and a half and becomes Marl Wilson.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: She wants to go to school, but her parents refused
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: to send her to school, which I'm pretty sure is illegal.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: She then starts to retaliate against her dad. She pulls
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of hair based pranks. Basically switches some bottles
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: around so that he accidentally bleaches his hair. Then she
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: superglues his hat to his head. I didn't realize that
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: they were all hair based pranks. Yeah, good hair pranks. Yeah,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: good hair pranks. But like, I don't think she really
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: like pranks her mom, Like, I don't think she really
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: pranks in it's mostly directed at her dad, which that
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: is maybe something worth discussing later on. But as far
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: as like the child abuse that Matilda is the survivor of,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: it does mostly seem to be at the hand of
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: her dad, where even though her mom is extremely neglectful
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: and you know, not a great parent and not nice
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: or affectionate towards Matilda and like certainly turning her head
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the other way, I mean, because she's aware that abuse
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: is happening. Yes, for sure, she's enabling that situation to
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: go on, you know. But there were a few there
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: were several scenes where like she's like, Okay, I'm leaving
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the house six year old Matilda to go play bingo
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: if you want some chicken nuggets there in the microwave.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Like she seems a bit more pleasant at least, so yeah,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I guess Matilda spares her from hair based pranks. Hair
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: based pranks. Then one night Harry rips up Matilda's library
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: book and forces her to watch TV, and then the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: TV explodes, and it seems like maybe it was just
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a coincidence or maybe she made the TV explode with
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: her mind. We don't know, you think, is it a
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: carry situation? Wow? This is I didn't even think of that,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: But this is kind of like the family friendly comedy
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: version of carry. Yeah yeah, But like fire Starter, there's
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of like abused kids developed tell the Connecticut
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: stories out there, you know, like it's a popular drop
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: like if only Carrie had a stronger inherent sense of
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: justice things, maybe things would have gone a little different,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: or at least there was like more sort of like
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: hamming it up. You know, there's just more hamming it
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: up and carry pratfalls. You know, we've always said about
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Carrie here at the balls not sticky enough. I was
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: just gonna say the main problem with Carrie not enough stickiness.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it gets pretty sticky. It sounds like
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: it's not not a sticky movie, but just not quite
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: where we needed to be. I mean, she gets blood
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: dumped on her. That's that's pretty sticky. That's pretty stick
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Could be stickier though, could be? Could be That's my
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: impression of a Hollywood executive justifying their presence. I don't know.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: So we think it's sticky enough, maybe we should reshoot it.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: That's me working at Marvel. Sticky enough, I don't know anyways.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: That would be one million dollars please, Yeah, I think
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I think this ending is really touching, but it would
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: be better if she could get gacked, you know, just slime.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: What if everyone got just climbed at the end of
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the Venger's endgame. I'm just spitballing here. Would be one
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: million dollars. Oh goodness, I might actually go see those movies, right.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I feel like I would be way more engaged in
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the lore if they just slimbed characters at moments that
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: I was supposed to be paying attention, and then I'm like, oh,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I'm back, you know, yeah, I'm in I mean, Spider
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Man is is pretty sticky, so Spider Man also sticky.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: It works for me, that's why. Maybe that's why we're
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: drawn to the Spider Man movies over the other ones.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Or is it because of Alfred Molina? Is dot com
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: something to Alfred Molina could have been Harry Wormwood. He
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: could have been Harry Wormwood. Dan Indvida doesn't a fantastic job,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: but I could also picture Alfred Billion in that role.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: At the very least, Alfred should be doing the voice her.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: So it's a separate voice, then it's less confusing. Yeah, absolutely, Okay.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: So the next day, Agatha trunch Bowl played by Pam Ferris.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: She's the principle of Cruncham Hall Elementary School. She buys
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: a car from Harry Wormwood and she also tells him
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: about all the disciplinary actions she takes against children at
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: her school. So, based on this, Harry decides to send
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Matilda to this school that looks like a prison for children. Yes, exactly.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: So Matilda goes to her first day of school, where
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: she meets a new friend, Lavender, and where she watches
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Principal trunch Bowl terrorize the small children, including flinging a
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: tiny adorable little girl around by her pigtails and then
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: tossing her over a fence. The practical effects in this
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: movie are very impressive and make me miss practical effects.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Although it sounds like the actor who played Miss trunch
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Bull got extremely injured. She got injured the climactic scene. Yes,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and I think that little girl not as badly injured
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: as you might know. She got injured she like cut
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: her finger on something, so it was not good, but
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: that was like white. She got flug over it. Apparently
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: it required stitches, so it wasn't like it wasn't a
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: huge deal, but it wasn't like a no big deal
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. Okay, so maybe maybe I'll think on that.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Apparently too, it was like the little girl who actually
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: did all ended up doing all the stunts because they
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: had somebody there to do stunts for her. And one
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: thing I was reading was talking about how she loved
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: like she was nine and like being in that harness
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and getting like flung around was so much fun that
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: she was like, no, I'll do I'll I'll do my
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: own stunts. That's a regular tom cruise. Absolutely Okay. So
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: then Matilda meets her teacher, Miss Honey played by Mbeth David's,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: who is basically wearing a burlap sack because she's one
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: of the good guys and she is very sweet and nice.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Huge juxtaposition against trunch Bowl. Miss Honey sees how brilliant
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Matilda is. For example, Matilda can multiply big numbers in
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: her head and she's like, Wow, this student is brilliant.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: She goes to principal trunch Bowl and to Matilda's family
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: to advocate for her education, but they don't want to
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: hear about it. Then we get the cake scene where
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: trunch Bowl makes a student named Bruce bog Trotter eat
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: an entire chocolate cake while the whole school watches and uh,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about that my nightmare night. And I was like, God, yeah,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: well we'll We'll just have to unpack that later, Team Brucie,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I know. Then trunch Bowl comes into Matilda's class, terrorizes
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the students as usual, and then Matilda seems to use
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: telekinesis to fling a newt onto her then tries to
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: demonstrate these telekinetic powers to Miss Honey, but they don't
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: work when she's put on the spot. Then Miss Honey
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: invites Matilda over to her house and tells this story
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: about how her parents died when she was young and
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: she was raised by her aunt, who is big twist,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: trunch bowl. I didn't see that coming, I treatly did it. Really,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: that's so interesting, I think because I had seen this
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: movie so much as a kid, I'm like, oh, the
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: big reveal, um, But like, that's pretty interesting that you
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: didn't see it coming, Jamie, We'll have to like talk.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: We're about sort of untrench double well not much as foreshadowed.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: There is like some voice over where Danny DeVito is like,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Miss Honey Harbor's this dark secret, but she doesn't let
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: it affect her love of teaching or something like that.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I just thought that she had been a student of
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Miss trench Bulls, Like I thought that they was clear
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: that they knew each other, but I didn't. I didn't
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: pick up on the family connection. So that was a
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: very effective whist for me. That makes a lot of
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: sense because there is that one moment where I think
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Miss Honey goes to like trench Bull's office when she's like,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I think Matilda might be happier in an older class,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: and like they're talking at that point and like trench
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Poles being like creepily familiar calling her like yeah, like
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: gen and yeah, right, so that was like that was
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: always what I thought kind of gave it away, but again,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: like I can't put myself in the position of like
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: just seeing it for the first time. Now, so that's
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: really interesting, Like yeah cool. So yeah, so we get
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: that reveal, and then we also learn that like trunch
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Bull now lives in Miss Honey's childhood home and Miss
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Honey lives in this little cottage now, and then they
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: go to trunch Bull's house when she's not there to
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: take back Miss Honey's childhood treasures, particularly a doll of
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: hers Lissie doll Um, which I learned is the first
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: name of Roll Doll's widow. Let's see is her name. Yeah,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: we also have to talk about Roll Doll because he's
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: got there's there's a ton of shift on there, semitic yea.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: His his friends, even the way his friends described him
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: made me think he was like a man baby edge lord.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Like you read things that people, Yeah, they're like, oh yeah,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Roll was like my best friend for forty years, but
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: he was terrible. You know, you're like, what like listening
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: to it, or like reading accounts of people who knew him,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: you're just like, Wow, I'm so glad that he wasn't
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: alive when the Internet existed, like he would have been
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: at Nightmare. Imagine the would have sent god, Oh my God.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: The opposite of Danny Devita's Twitter presence would be World
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Doll's Twitter presence. So then Trench Bowl comes back home
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: when Miss Honey and Matilda are still there, and then
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: there's this big there's this big game of like cat
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: and mouse where she's chasing them around, and then Matilda
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: and Miss Honey finally escape. Matilda starts to then practice
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: her telekinesis powers, and she gets really good at them,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: So one night she goes back to Trench Bull's house
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: and uses her powers to rescue Miss Honey's doll and
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: to terrorize trench Bowl. But then trench Bull figures out
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: that it was Matilda who did this because she finds
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: her hair ribbon that she left behind. So then the
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: next day at school, trench Bull tries to punish Matilda,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: but she again uses her powers to make Trench both
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: think that Miss Honey's dead dad's go is haunting her
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: dead dad, who Trunch bowl. Might have murdered, yes, might
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: have murdered, almost certainly murdered. Probably did murder. Or it
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: was an owl? Maybe? Okay, the staircase. We're back, We're back. Wow,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Kaylin and I used to talk about
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: the staircase on Matrian episodes for I forget why we
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: originally started doing it. But the owl theory not the
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: first time the owl theory has been explored on this show.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: And absolutely, absolutely, you know, miss trunch Ball deserves a
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: fair trial. We shouldn't use her queerness against her. Yeah,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: exactly could have been an owl? Could have been an owl,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: would have been okay. So Matilda is terrorizing her, and
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: then Matilda and the other students run trunch Bull out
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: of the school, out of the town. She's never seen
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: or heard from again, and so Miss Honey moves back
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: into her childhood home, Matilda visits her often, and then
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Miss Honey adopts Matilda when her parents announced that they're
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: moving to Guam, and Matilda's like, well, I don't want
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: to go. I want to stay here with Miss Honey here.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: I already have the adoption papers. All you have to
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: do is sign them. So her parents are like sounds
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: good to me. And then they leave and then Matilda
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: and Miss Honey live happily ever after together as a
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: loving family, and that is the end of the movie.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Let's take another quick break and then we'll come back
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: to discuss and we're back. Wo where shall we start?
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: There are so many places. Well, I kind of wanted
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: to just I like to look at the film as like,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: what's what are his intentions? What is it doing? Since
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: so many children's movies have some sort of like moral
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: moral at the end of the story kind of thing.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: For me, I think as far as like execution, there's
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: things to be discussed, but as far as intention, it
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: seems to me that the message of this movie is
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: like the celebration of a little girl reading and learning
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: and getting an education and how important that is, and
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: how I think that's generally a really positive thing to
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: have in a children's movie. It's a really great thing
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: for little girls to see watching this movie, for little
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: kids of all genders to see. I bet a lot
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: of children saw themselves in Matilda and like appreciated her
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: thirst for learning. So that is obviously something that's largely
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: at play in this movie. There's some I guess baggage
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: that comes with that, where there's like weird like kind
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: of classism and elitisms stuff tied to this, which we
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: can get into. But as far as like what the
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: movie I think is trying to do, I appreciated the efforts.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: And I almost wish that I had grown up more
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: with this movie and did watch it more as a kid,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: because I think I would have benefited from the message of, like,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: it's really important for little girls to learn and have
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: a thirst for knowledge and a curiosity about the world.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I totally agree. I feel like Matilda and Harriet the
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Spy kind of go together in my head of like
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: movies that have this inherent message that encouraged young kids
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: in the nineties, uh, particularly girls, to trust their instincts
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: to be curious too, and and that there is a
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: purpose and meaning to like seeking knowledge and not taking
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: you know, adults at their word, and and just a lot.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I I totally agree that this movie seems to come
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: from a very good place. And in the process, I
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: mean like we're going to inevitably talk about uses, tropes
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and stereotyping to get to the good place it's trying
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: to get to. I feel we have. It's kind of
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: a rare movie in that regard where I don't feel
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: completely like as confident in most children's media that it
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: has such a strong core message, which makes it like,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: uh interesting and frustrating that it uses the tropes that
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: it does to accomplish a good message, because it ends up,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of weighing it down in this interesting way.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: But I still like, I can't in good faith like
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: write this movie off entirely, and don't think I ever could,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: because it's so uh it is coming from this this
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: very beautiful, encouraging place that I think, you know, Jesse,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: you are alluding to this earlier like that there's still
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: not a out of movies that have core messages like
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: this that are that are this popular in this memorable
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: although apparently not in that I didn't realize this movie
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: like flopped at the box office. I always assumed it
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: was a huge hit, but it I guess it's like
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: it was in its VHS era that it like became
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: huge because I viewed this as like a ridiculously successful movie,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: which I guess it wasn't. Yeah, that's what was really surprising. Um,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: you know, I think that it was much more successful
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: on a critical level perhaps and like at a box
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: office level. Um, but but just you know, coming into it,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: what you're both are saying like uh, and I think
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Harriet the Spy is and also a really good example
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: of this. It's also it's not just like you don't
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: like trust your instincts and things like that, but it's
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: also like you are the author, like you you have
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: control in your world, you have autonomy, Like I think
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: they're there. I mean, I don't think that even for
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: stories that you know, are geared towards like older women
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: or older like people of like that aren't just male,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: like I don't think there are a lot of stories
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: that sort of give that same sort of message of autonomy,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: like both in Harry the Spy in and Matilda. You know,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like these young girls who are in
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: this position that you know, things are going on that
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: affect them that they don't have control over, but we
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: still see them taking steps and taking measures and like
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: being active. And that's a little bit the thing of
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: like when Harry yells at Matilda sort of like when
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: a person is bad, you know, instead of saying like
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: when a parent or when an adult is bad, and
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: like in giving Matilda that key of sort of saying
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: when a person is bad, he allows her to have
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: that autonomy of sort of saying like, oh, okay, well
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I can then make choices. I don't have to be
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: just passive and have things happen to me in this story,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: you know, like so often, you know, you guys talk
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: about it on the show all the time, you know.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: We we sort of get these protagonists that like things
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: happened to them, and then another thing happens to them,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: and then another thing happens to them, but they're not
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: really choosing at any point in time. And yet here
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: we have this story of this young girl. You know,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: we see her from literally like being born up into
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: the age of like six and a half, um, you know,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: and being very very active. And I think so much
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: of that too, you know, in terms of like how
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: this adaptation was done, has to really do with the
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: fact that there were like a lot of women, a
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: lot of parents, a lot of people involved. That like
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: we're invested in young women. That sounds like a weird
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: way of putting it, but like both Danny DeVito and
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Real Pearlman, as well as Robin Spee Cord and Nicholas Kazan,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: who were the screen the couple who wrote the screenplay,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Zoe Kazane's parents. I didn't realize. Yeah, both of both
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: of those like both of those couples came to the
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: book through their daughters. And I think that that like
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: shows in the way that the film it did get
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: adapted and the choices that were made, you know, the
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: things that were changed. There were a lot of male
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: characters that are in the book that don't appear in
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: the movie. Like the majority of the cast is female.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: You know. It is really like this story that is
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: like very much focused on empowering Matilda, you know, within
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: her world. And I think that that is because you know,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: like I said, you know, they're coming to this story
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the book came out I think at the end of
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: the eighties eight nine, you know, so they're coming to
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: as parents themselves, being like, oh, you know, my daughters
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: can see themselves in this book, you know, how do
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: we recreate that? And Robin see Court is, as you
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: probably with No. Two, was like super involved in A
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Little Women just before this as an adaptation. So it's
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: like it's also you know a lot of like the
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: feminist stuff that happened in The Little Women, you know,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: like that's also a little bit of her influence in there,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: you know, Like so I think that that's like kind
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: of why the story ends up getting crafted that way.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: Mar Wilson's mom also was like a really big driving
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: force and getting this movie made. Um because when you're
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: a kid actor, of course, you know, it's like you
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: have your agent and then you know your parents. Hopefully
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: you're making decisions that are in your best interest. And
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Mara was starting to become like had been in a
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: couple of things and was starting to like become famous
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: or more famous as a child performer. And they were
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: being sent tons and tons of scripts all the time,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: you know, for these like cute little girl parts. Um.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: But Susie Wilson, her mom had Red Matilda with all
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: of her kids, was a huge proponent of like reading
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the book, even like at like Mara's school, like in
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the library to kids and stuff like that. Um. So
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: when this script came up, you know, it was like
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: mar Wilson I think described as or like her mom
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: like left on it was like this one, you know,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: and was like very present on set and the films
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: dedicated to her because Unfortunately she passed away shortly after
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: it was in prosproduction, so like she had just like
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: such a huge effect, um, and yet she's not necessarily
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: one of the credited names that we think of in
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: in terms of this film. But yeah, you know, and
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: I think that like because like, you know, as a
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: working artist, like I think a lot about the intention
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: that goes into things when we're making things, right, Like
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: filmmaking is is such a team sport, and I think
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: so often, you know, we're sort of like especially since
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: sort of like this era of like at war directors
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: and like it's all about sort of like the person
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: who's like got that director credit and who's at the
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: head of it. But so often I think that there's
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: like all these other influences that are coming into that
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: story that are important to acknowledge, because we don't make
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: things in a vacuum, right, So it's it's just as
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: much about the who's introducing the idea to who are
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: you talking about the idea with? You know, who are
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: you who's helping you with like the design of the film,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Who's you know, doing all these sort of things. Yeah,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I think I think that's sort of like
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Lad a pretty good groundwork for the for how the
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: film turns out. And by all the accounts I read
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: about the production, it seemed like everyone had a ball.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Danny DeVito was an angel, good and responsible director, right, Yeah,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: and the kids had fun and the adult actors had fun,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: and yeah that it was like a very pleasant experience
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: for everyone involved as far as I could tell. Yeah,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: even like Jamie you mentioned pamp Ferris, who played Agatha
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: trench Bowl, even though she had gotten injured and doing
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: a couple of the stunts and things like that, Like
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: she I was watching an interview which she was talking
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: about it, and she was like, you know, I was
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: like trying to stay away from the kids, and I
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: was trying to like not have fun because it was
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: like I was supposed to be there. It's like the
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: trench Bowl in the superintimidating presence. And she was like
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: after two or three days, like she's like, the kids
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: would come up to me and put their like little
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: hands in mind and I couldn't help it, like you know,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: would just be like totally run over and totally sweet,
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: and like pam Feris is such a a far cry
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: away from like the Trench Bowl it's really it's really
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: quite funny having seen her in other work and being like,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: oh my god, I can't believe that's the same person.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I know. I forgot that she was on Marge as
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: well in the Harry Potter series because I feel like
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: she we only encounter her as someone who like she's
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: very typecast as villainous, and then yeah, we might have
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: watched the same the same interview because I was just like,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: she's so sweet, Like what a her She was in
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Called the Midwife too, She plays us none in that
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: and Called the Midwife is you know whatever, like it's
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: about sisters, religious sisters who are midwives in like London
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: around the Second World War, I think, and like, you know,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: spoiler alert, I guess for Called the Midwife fans, but
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: like when her character dies on Call the Midwife, like
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: there's people who've written entire blogs about like how crush
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: they were about that, Like you know she is, like
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: she is this like British character actor who's just like
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: so beloved in so many ways. But I feel like
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: you're in North America, were like trunch Ball, Like where
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: do you think she knows Molina another British character actor.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: I want to say. I want to say, yes, yes.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: I wonder if they have any like overlap. Maybe they
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: met at the theater. Who knows, could be very possible
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: because Pam Fares has done a lot of theater. It's true.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: I love the idea of Pam Farris, like trying to
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: go method on set and then like that lasting for
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: a couple of days and then she was just like
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: so one over by all the sweet kids and she's like, well,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: never mind, going method is actually an incredible waste of time.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Usually yeah, yeah, exactly, Like she's not leaving dead rats
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: for like the crew to find or anything. She's just like, yeah,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: like they're these kids are smart, they can they can act,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: but that's why they're here. Um, there was a little okay,
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: So one of the first things that jumped out to me,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: which is like partially based on personal experience, it's like
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the concept of whatever, the concept of genius is fake,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: and that I always think is such an interesting I
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: almost wish that it had been phrase a little different
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: because I think that it's phrased that way in service
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: of saying Matilda is special. But what makes her special
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: isn't the fact that she's a genius what makes her
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: special is that she is compassionate and uses uses her
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: natural abilities to help other people and to pursue justice.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: I feel like that, but I don't know that. I
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: feel like I just have mensa PTSD, and so I'm
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: just like, no, not that word genius with children. It's
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: that's a dark road to go down. Absolutely. And Also
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: that joke that Harry Wormwood makes about Moby Dick, I
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: was like, that was the there are a few moments
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: where were like, oh my gosh, that is such a
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: nineties children's movie moment where he like kind of implied
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: like he thinks that Moby Dick is about sex or
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: something like what iconic bizarre children's joke from the nineties. No. Absolutely,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Uh well, I mean we can talk about it. I
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: mean I think it's interesting to sort of look at,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: you know, bringing up the idea of genius, bringing up
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: sort of like the idea of exceptionalism, and how like
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: that comes into like the class conversation that we could
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: have in Matilda. Because I also, as much as I
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: love and that's not even like too strong a word,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: as much as I love like Harry and Zenia Wormwood, like,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: despite their horrible nous are so like spot on the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: way that they're characterized is like, you know, we get
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: that sort of first line at the very beginning where
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: it's like they live in a nice neighborhood, they have
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: very nice things. They're not very nice people. You know,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: we're set up to sort of understand them as being
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: villainous based on their values, and when we take a
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: look at what those values are, you know, they love money,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: they love consumerism, they love TV, sticky stuff, they love
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: sticky stuff, they like, they eat, they eat micro We
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: have dinners in front of the TV every night, like
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: that's their family time, you know. And I feel like
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: characterizing this like also the fact that like Harry Warmwood
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: is like I used car salesman who's like buying and
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: selling like stolen cars. Um. You know, I feel like
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: if they were poor, then they'd be considered white trash,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: you know. And I think that like I'm I'm not
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: entirely sure what we're supposed to take away from that,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: you know, because and also that characterization of white trash
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: is like garbage, and and you know, I hope that
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: I don't offend anybody but using that term, but like
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: I know what you mean, but like it's sort of
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: like this idea that even though they're you know, they
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: have achieved a certain level of like status and wealth,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: they're lacking middle class of values which would make them
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: part of like the in group of their peers, like
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: you know, no other homes even in that neighborhood. Like
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: when they're doing like the shot of like the car
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: pulling and look like their home. You know, they've got
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: like lawn ornaments and it's like very retro looking. You know.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: So even as the villains though they're they're placed a
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: sort of like very outside of their peer group to say,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: like or like when they go to the fancy restaurant too,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: you know, and there's all sorts of buffoonery that kind
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: of goes along, you know, and zinnias. They're going in
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: like take your hat off, Like we're in a nice place,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: take your hat off. You know. There's this desire to
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: be acceptable, but they perpetually miss the mark and talking
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: about sort of like what middle class values mean in
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: like this sort of sense, it's like hard working, self disciplined,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: thrift nous like honesty, white, able bodied Protestant, like respectable conformism, patriotism. Yeah,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: exactly patriotism. You know, they're fleeing to Guam, but the
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Guam is a U S territory. The FBI can get
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: you there, like but like the yeah, like I feel
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: like they don't know that, and like the reason that
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: this matters, I think in the film comes back to
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: sort of this idea of like why, you know, why
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: are we calling Mattila a genius? Like why are we
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: putting that out there? Like is because there's like certain
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: like social markers, certain cues that I think we're setting
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: up from the very beginning about like who you should
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: like and why you should like them, and you shouldn't
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: like the warm words because they chafe against middle class
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: values before we even know that they are terrible people,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: right you know what I mean? Yeah, there's I was
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: a little I feel like there's some dissonance with the
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: way the Wormwoods are characterized because on one hand, you
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: know that there villainous because they're selfish and they neglect
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: and abuse their daughter, and Harry is very unethical in
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the way that he conducts his business and and of
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: like part of his villainy there is that he is
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: not like taking from the rich, he's taking from people
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: who have less money than it. He's exploiting exactly. And
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: so there's all these things that, like us watching this
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: movie are like, yes, clear signals, clear markers that he's
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: a villain. But then there's this other component that kind
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: of comes into this classism elitist thing, and it's like
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: kind of education based where the movie subscribes to this
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: thing where people who are highly educated and who have
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: a job that requires a lot of education equals good. Um.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: This is most clearly demonstrated with miss Honey with her
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: kind of job and position and her just sort of
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: valuing getting in education, getting in higher education. She even
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: has this little monologue where she's like, you know, if
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: you were to get sick, the doctor you go to
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: would have gone to college. If you get sued for
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: selling a faulty car, the lawyer you hire would have
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: gone to college. A k A like quote unquote important
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: people with quote unquote important jobs go to college versus
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: people who don't go to college and who have a
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: job that does not require college education equals bad according
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: to the movie, such as Matilda's parents, Like again, her
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: dad is like a car salesman who says he didn't
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: go to college. Her mother plays bingo all day. She
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: says she didn't go to college. Um, there's the lunch
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: lady who is presented in such a way, and she
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: has such a small part in the movie, but she's
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: presented in such a way that like the movie wants
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: you to think she's grotesque because she's working class person,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: working class older woman. Like, yeah, and this movie has
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: an issue with older women. That will get to write
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: the exception here is miss trunch Bull, who would have
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: to be highly educated to be a school principle. But
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: in theory, I don't understand how she takes over cruncham Hall,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: Like I think that that's like specifically vague, like, but
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: because she the way she conducts her professional life, she
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to care about education. She does not even
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: though she's a principal of the school. She's more concerned
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: about abusing children and terrorizing children then she is about
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: children having an education. So the movie subscribed to this
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: thing where it's like if you see the value in education,
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: which like kind of in theory or just like inherently
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: like obviously education is good in learning things is good,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: but this idea that like you have to go to
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: college to be worth anything is classist and elitist and
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: and and it would be somewhat not completely at all,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: but it would be a somewhat of a different discussion
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: if the concept of higher education weren't inherently tied to money, right,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: and tied to class and and there are all these
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: I mean well documented, we can't possibly cover them all here,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: but issues with access to higher education and who it's
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: available to versus who it isn't And so yeah, I
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: kind of like it's so cooked into the story that
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: I can't I couldn't really think of a way to
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: fully remove it. By I thought it was like, it's
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: such an important choice in terms of the movie working
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: where I feel like a lot of the classism and
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: elitism could have been removed from me if that idea
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: was just sort of simplified to like in curiosity about
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: the world around totally. But because they take get a
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: step further and say that if you do not pursue
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: higher education or if you're not highly educated, you must
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: be an incurious villain that like like evil, right, abusive, etcetera. Absolutely,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: which it would have satisfied me if the Wormwood parents
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: were just incurious people. But it isn't it. It's tied
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: to class and it's tied to I think it's going
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: back to what you were saying just about how they're
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: kind of characterized as visually as like quote unquote white trash.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: It seems like their intellectual in curiosity is tied to class,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: it's tied to their appearance, and it's saying people like this,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: you know, people like this aren't worth as much as
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: people like you know, miss Honey. And I think the
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: visual language of the film can't be you know, overlooked
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: because it is it is a children's film, you know,
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: so there is like a lot of simplification of the
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: narrative that ends up being transmitted on a visual level,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: because you know, it's sometimes it's easier to communicate those ideas,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: is of like you know, this is you know good
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: and this is bad. That's also you know, like a
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: in Kately you can probably speak to this from like
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: a screenwriting level. You know, you have to have tension
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: in script, you have to have like the white hat
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: and the black hat. You know. Like but I think
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: the way that people are stylized in this film, you know,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: and even just to talk about fatness a little bit
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: which which I'm sure we'll get to, but yeah, it's
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: relying on really really tired tropes, you know, like and
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: we made the joke sort of about like, you know,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: where his pages the whole movie she's wearing essentially like
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: a potato sack um. You know. In the book, there's
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: a lot more context given around that, about the fact
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: that like Ms. Trench Puple is like garnishing her wages
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: and that she's actually quite poor and that's why she's
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: living in a farmer's shed. You know. The cottage that
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: we see in the film is quite lovely, like I
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: would love to live in that little cottage, full on
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: like Instagram cottage, like yeah, you know, it's gorgeous. Um.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: But like in the book, she's living in a farmer's
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: shed for a dollar a week or like a hound
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: a week, because of course she works at trench Ball School,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: so trench Ball controls how much money she gets paid,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: and so she's you know, so there's like there is
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: like a you know, if her parents was very plain
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: in terms of like the book, it was, you know,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: it was kind of explained by that, you know, by
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: the fact that she didn't have access to fund where
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: we don't get that context in the film. So Miss
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: Honey is just presented as like this paradigm of like goodness,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: and it's like she's well educated, she comes from an
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: affluent background. You know, she's soft spoken, she's feminine, she's
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: you know, and and and you know, this isn't not
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: not to dismiss that character, because I think Miss Honey,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: as we talked about a little bit earlier, you know,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: plays this really important role you know, in her liberation
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: is part of Matilda's story as well. Um, and also
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: the way that she relates her own experiences with trauma
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: and abuse to Matilda. I think it is very critical
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: to helping Matilda. But yeah, like we're sort of you
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: know that moment where um, she's sitting in the Warmon's
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: living room and she's giving them that that speech about education,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: and they you know, like I think Zenia has like
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: curlers in and like Harry's like he's trying to redye
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: his hair after it's been bleached and they're watching a
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: fight on t you know what. It was iconic, but
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: you know, like there's this very stark contrast. Again, she's
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: like a thing that's out of place right in the
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: Wormwood setting the same way that like, Matilda is out
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: of place in that setting, but it's I think that
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: it's made less stark because of of who Misshoney is. Yeah,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: and there's a line of dialogue from Matilda's mom that
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like could effectively transition us into the conversation
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: about appearance and fatness and femininity and and that kind
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: of stuff, where her mom says, a girl does not
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: get anywhere by acting intelligent. You cho those books, she's
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: talking to, Miss Honey, You chose books. I chose looks.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the way people look and like.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: And as Zennia is saying that though we're supposed to
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: be laughing because we can see how Zenia looks, you know,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: and like. And there's a couple of moments like that
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: in the film specifically about looks like. There's another line
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: trunch Bull says at one point, you know, like I
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: can take a joke as well as the next fat
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: person from where we're supposed to be, where we're we're
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: supposed to be laughing at the character and not with
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: them specifically, right, Yeah, I mean, Caitlin, you were alluding
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: to this a couple of minutes ago, but how or
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe as you just how appearance is so emphasized
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: in children's media because of the audience and how like
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: it these very deliberate choices really make a big difference
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: in just forming children's views of the world. And so
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: you can see and really all of roll dolls work.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: And just an aside, their Roldal not just a deeply
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: unpleasant person, but a deeply anti Semitic person, very pro vaccines,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: So I guess that's good, but certainly very like but
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: also like hugely misogynistic as well, like uh, incredibly racist.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Like if we're going to dive into roldlf for for
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: a moment, like, yeah, I think we should because it's like,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, his views are subtly accessible here, I think absolutely,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: and and like and I think that it's important context
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: to like have this information in terms of even looking
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: at like other of his works that have been adapted,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: you know, because he's looked at us being this really
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: beloved children's author, you know, like he's on all these
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: lists of like you know, most beloved UK children's authors
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: of all time, you know, like most beloved this and
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: that and the other thing. And yet yeah, he's a
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: highly unpleasant person, incredibly anti semitic, incredibly misogynist. He also
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: wrote pornographic books for adults, whoa I did not know this? Yeah,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: did you even know? That's like I feel like I
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: remember I learned that when I was a teenager, and
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: I was like wow, yeah, him and Shel Silverstein were
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: like writing making mint, like writing like books for kids,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: and but also writing a lot of like pornographic books
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: for atuts. Interesting. Yeah, and there's nothing with writing pornography,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: like right now, you know, like there's nothing writing wrong
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: with writing erotica. It's a good way of expressing your
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: creativity and horny nous. But um, I write it via
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: text message to people all the time. You know what
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: text messages are kind of like the new one pages
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: or like single sheets sexting what is a sext but
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: a logline for a film it is, It's like an
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: elevator pitch. It's like, hey, these out yeah, you know,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: and and and like you know, people used to write
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: love letters. Sex thing is just like today's love letter,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: you know. But like yeah, just just the fact that
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: like even people who have read his like erotica are like, yeah,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: like it's this is very misogynistic. I mean, that's a
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: good that's a good indicator because there's a lot of
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: you know, and his I mean, his racism like is
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: present in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory repeatedly, like the
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: characters of the Upa Lumpas are deeply rooted in his
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: own racism. And there's I think that other examples in
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: his work were it's so as we're talking about this,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: it reminds me of the conversation that was taking place
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: around Dr seuss work last year as well, where it's
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: like there are all of these men, like men who
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: wrote children's books and are deeply influential and there and
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: I mean and also not men, because we can bring J. K.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: Rowling into that conversation as well, where you know, on
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: a closer look, not only where their politics got awful
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: and their prejudices god awful, it is also present in
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: their work in ways that it are like hard to
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: kind of grapple with. Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: been quite as bit a conversation around role Dal. I
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: don't know why that is. Yeah, maybe because he's dead,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, and it's very interesting to
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: look at because I think that like oftentimes, when you know,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: when we talked to about like yeah, like like rolled
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: as a really excellent example, we haven't really he hasn't
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: really had like his reckoning sort of, I guess in
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: terms of like social media. But I think it's because
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of people don't really know, I guess about
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: his anti semitism and like misogyny and racism or like,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: you know, it always comes back to this thing, you
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: know when I talk about this a lot, because oftentimes
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: people will be like, as like an indigoud person, people
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: will be like, oh, yeah, well it was okay that
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: we like treated Indians like we did at such and
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: such a time, because you know, that was just the culture.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately that's always patently wrong. You know, like when
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: there is discrimination and prejudice and bigotry, you know that
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: is happening at any point in time. It's not so
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: much that that was the culture as the powers that
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: be within the culture, like us as individuals, were willing
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: to permit it because it wasn't going to lose as
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: social capital. You know, we knew, we knew when like
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: Song of the South came out in the forties that
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: it was incredibly racist film, you know, but we weren't
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: we as in like white and white passing people weren't
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: willing to get up in arms enough about it until
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: it was like Disney plus, like it was like, oh,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: and you know, we're going to keep this one in
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: the Disney vault. And then people were like, oh, yeah,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: that was a really racist filment. Was like, but we
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: knew that at the time, you know, we we know,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: we know that kind of stuff at time, and we
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: and we still sort of like let it go anyway,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: you know. And I think that we have to sort
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: of understand it much more in a human level as
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: opposed to sort of being like, oh, well that was
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: just okay at the time. It's like, no, we made
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: it okay, you know, and the same thing was rolled out.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: I feel like there are people, you know, as much
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: as like what he said. It's horrendous and I don't
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: want to repeat something anti semitic marks that he made,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: you know, here, I think there were a lot of
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: people who probably agreed with him, or at least like
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: didn't disagree strongly, you know, or we're just complicit. I mean, yeah,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: intolerance has been tolerated for much of I mean, people
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: called out D W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation in
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen for being racist when it was coming out. Yeah,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: but like not enough people took him to task, and
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: then he just kept making movies. And yeah, so I
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: think that I mean, what what what you just said
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: that's so beautifully of inherently tying it to social capital
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: does seem to be the big thing where it's like, yeah,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: people are not like people didn't just wake up to
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: the injustices of the world five or six years ago,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: which I feel like is sometimes how it's characterized. Obviously
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: that's not true. But now, I mean, at least at
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: present in some cases, still not all cases, there is
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: a risk of losing social capital if you are intolerant publicly. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: so people who perhaps in another setting would have been
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: apathetic or ambiguous, you know, do feel perhaps a little
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: bit more pushed to at least not comment or or
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: or or to do so like in a in a
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: very like in a way that's not going to lose
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: some social capital. And like I'm not trying to like
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: point any fingers with that, Like I said, like, I
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: think that it's important that we understand it on a
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: human level and that also means like for ourselves. Um,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: you know, even though I grew up knowing that like
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: my grandmother was Magma, I was also taught like some
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: pretty horrendous shitty stuff about Native people through like the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: education system. And I definitely have like funked up in
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: racist when racism like is applicable like to other groups
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: and other situations that I am not like directly a
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: part of, like, but like you take responsibility for that
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: and then you try and do the best that you can.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: But this podcast is not about me. Let's get sticky.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: Let's get sticky. Let's get sticky. The last thing I
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: wanted to say about Role Doll and then let's get
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: the funk out of Rolled doll Land because it is
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: so depressing. There the last thing, and I think this
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: ties to social capital and capital capital is I didn't
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: This news went right over my head. But in December
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: of Roll Dolls Family only, slash Estate issued an apology
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: for his anti Semitic comments. I think it's very interesting
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: that they only chose to like thirty years after it happened.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: First of all, waited thirty years, which many I mean,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: it sounds like there were many Jewish groups that said, like, okay, cool,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: but why the thirty years And what I think that
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: that is inherently tied to is the conversation that was
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: taking a place around Dr Seuss around that same time.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: There is kind of I mean, and while I want
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: to believe, and I have no reason to not believe
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: that Roll Dolls descendants do not hold the anti Semitic
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: feelings that their grandfather did, it doesn't feel it comes
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: off as very disingenuous because it feels like damage control
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: because the Roll Doll estate received reportedly potentially as much
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: as one billion dollars from Netflix to license his catalog
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: to adapt over the next you know, decade or or
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. So it's you know, it's it's like, okay,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: that is Situations like that are so are so frustrating
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: because of course, an acknowledgement of the inherent harm that
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: those comments made towards the Jewish community like that absolutely
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: is worth saying. But it doesn't feel like it's being
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: done for the right reasons at all. It sounds like
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: it's to preserve the Estates capital and I feel like
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: we're seeing a lot of that right now, and I
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: don't It's it's like I don't know what alternative to suggest,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: Like I'm not unhappy that the estate is acknowledging it,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: but it just doesn't. And also I was like, but
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: what about the misogyny and the racism not that. No, no,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: we're not gonna we're not gonna talk about that, Jamie,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: like one issue at a time. Well, we'll circle back
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: until we get threatened for something else. And no, and
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: and and you're you're totally right, you know what, You're
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: totally right. And it's sort of like, actually, like looking
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: at what this film is about and about having a
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: sense of justice, and how about like standing up for
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: what you believe in and sending up for people you
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: care about on the one hand, and then on the
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: other hand, being a total and absolute corporate chill like
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: and I mean, you know, allegedly allegedly allegedly, I guess,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: like I don't have any kind of association with adult family.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they're all lovely, you know, we're not trying
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: to tire them all with the same cancel of the dolls. No, no,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: but yeah, but it's it's I think that like I
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: would encourage people to be very to be very skeptical
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: when these kind of moves happen because of what's going
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: on behind it, you know, and like they're getting reportedly
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: a billion dollars from Netflix, but like Roldal also already
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: came from a very affluent family. They have had this
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: like very successful publishing arm you know, of his estate
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: as well. It's also like a billion dollars going to
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: people who are not or either you know, like like
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: that's the thing too with like these these literary adaptations,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: like like something to keep in mind as well, is that, like, oh, yeah,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: I know, it's nice that like the books that we
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: love as children are being adapted and things like that.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: But like if it's just like more money going into
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: line the pockets of people who are already wealthy, why
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: not go to an independent bookstore? Like why not take
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: a chance on like a first time author, you know,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: of color? Why? Right? Why why invest so much money
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: in adapting books by a misogynist, racist, anti semi and
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: instead invest that like not and this isn't the point,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: but like that have also been at that have already
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: been already been adapted to death. Are you, like, do
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: you really think you're going to make a better Matilda
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: than this? You probably not like that. So sorry, sorry
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: to derail the conversation around um visual representations. I just
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: think that, yeah, that Royal Doll's background is important to
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: prejudices are important to understand and leading with that discussion, right,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: so let's talk about yeah, because his I mean, his misogyny.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: Although I mean, to be fair, I don't think I
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: read this book. I read a few other Royal Dolls
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: books as a kid, but I don't think I did
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: read Matilda. So I'm not sure how much of this
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: is cannon to the book and adapted from that, or
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: if it's more cinematic like adaptation choices. But what we
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: see here similar to the like higher education people equals good,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: people who have not gone to college equals bad. We
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: have a and this is worth unpacking because I'm gonna
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: kind of probably oversimplify this here just to start with,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: but there's this idea of like women and like female
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: presenting characters with more feminine features slash like who more
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: closely adhere to Western beauty standard thin women. I mean,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: then like thinness is virtue equals nice and good, which
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: again is embodied in the Miss Honey character predominantly, and
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: then women with more masculine features slash women who don't
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: adhere to Western beauty standards equals mean evil, bad, embodied
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: by principal trench Bowl. Um. I think there's also a
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: conversation to be had about how that character is possibly
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: another example of a queer coded villain. Yeah yeah, so yeah, yeah,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I know, butches that in the right light,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: you're like full trunch bowl. I would even argue that
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: the name trunch Bowl is like homophobic, like you know what,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: like come on, like, how are some slack god? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, no,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: so trunch trunch Bull is definitely a queer coded villain.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, whatever with Gator, But like honestly, you see
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: the trench Ball and you're like, Okay, you know, I
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: know what's going on. And what's so sad about that
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: in so many ways is the fact that, like one,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: this idea of creating queer villains is not a new idea,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: you know, like this is like Disney playbook, you know,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: this is something that we've been doing in popular media
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: for a really really long time. Um. And I think
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: that like in the unfortunate case of Miss trench Ball,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: and again, like I feel like I'm in this episode
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: I'm coming across like I sympathize with the villains a
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: lot in this piece, and I really like, maybe that's
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: like some of my own issues and empathy or whatever,
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: but like, I really feel bad in some ways for
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: the way that like miss trench Balls represented because I
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: think that she's mothered not only in the masculinity of
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: her body, so to say things like they intentionally darkened
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: Pam Ferris is like mustache as an example, you know,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: when they put her in this very boxy outfit and
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: they give her like a false end of her nose
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: to make her nose more prominent, and they did all
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: these things to make to make her appear more masculine
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: on purpose, and like that, plus her size sort of
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: like takes her out of this realm of femininity and
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: like her in her kind of interest too, as far
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: as like Olympic shot pudding and like right, which is
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: like extremely fucking cool. Yeah yeah, And if you look
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: at the athletes that perform in those those uh that
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: perform that perform it's not a performance. If you look
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: at the athletes that compete in those categories, they're built
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: like a brickshit house because they have to be like
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: if you're gonna like pick up a super heavy weight
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: and like hurl it across, you're not going to be
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: built like a gymnast is going to be, you know,
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: very petite and like you don't have a ballet ballerina's body.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: But that's like inherent to the sport. It's like so
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: exactly right, you know. And and you know, one thing
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: that I don't I don't feel like we talked about
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: enough in terms of like body pot sittivity and things
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: like that is the fact that like different bodies are
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: good at different things, you know. And and miss French
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: Dooble is like a former athlete, Like it makes sense
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: that she looks the way that she looks, and yet
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: that's used to demonize her in such a poignant sort
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: of way. And like part of that is the way
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: that like fatness is represented in this film. And to
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that as like, because I
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: think Trenchable is like not only the like antithesis of
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: Misshani in terms of like you know, good and evil,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: it's like even just like their characteristics, you know, principle
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: is large and expansive and loud and mascula and all
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: these sort of different things and she hates children, you know,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: but I think specifically because of her fatness, Like it's
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: worth noting the way that in our culture fatness tends
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: to be portrayed and also tends to like affect gender.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: So what I mean by that, And you know, looking
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: specifically at this film, fatness tends to either for men,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: tends to feminize them. You know, we've seen that in
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: like expressions like oh you've gotten man boobs or whatever,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: So a fat man is looked at as being more vulnerable,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: more feminine, we will, you know, and we see that
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit in the way that like it's not
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: I think a coincidence that the kid that trench Bill
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: picks on is a fat kid. You know. That's like
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: a whole other conversation, you know. Whereas like I think
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: for women, and like, even though I am non binary,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: I was raised or I was like assigned female at birth,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of ways in which like being fat
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: and being assigned female at birth or presumed female um
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: or being female um ends up removing you a little
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: bit from femininity, or at least it used to. Like
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: to give an example, there was this ad campaign that
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: was really very controversial, A couple of years ago in
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: the States and encamp and that was supposed to be
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: targeting like childhood obesity, and it was like, it's really
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: hard to be a little girl when you aren't And
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: it was a picture of a of a girl who
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: was fat, and like that was like the line that
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: was like over her fat body was like, it's hard
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: to be a little girl when you're not and when
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: you're not little, when you're not little, that was the
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: the implication, and for a long time that was true. Like,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: for example, when I was growing up, like we didn't
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: shop at the mall or anything like we you know,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: we relied on like thrift stores and and like hand
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: me dns and stuff because we were like lower middle class.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: And I used to like wear my dad's like some
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: of my dad's old clothes and stuff to school because
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: anything that was like handed down that was sort of
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: girly or anything that we like my mom got that
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: was like sort of like what we're girly like styles
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: and sighs, like her sighs so small for somebody that
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: was like it would have never fit my body. So automatically,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: you know, you're getting made fun of at school because
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: like one you're fat, but also like you're wearing your
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: dad's clothes to school because like literally there weren't clothes
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: to fit you. And I think that like there are
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: some more like size inclusive brands and things like that.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: And that's why, like when we're talking about fat liberation,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: like clothing does play a part in that, because you
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: have to wear clothes in society. Um, Unfortunately, we live
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: in a society, yeah exactly, and people are going to
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: judge a twelve year old wearing like their middle aged dads,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: like business casual clothes a lot harsher, you know than
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: they are like another twelve year old that's like fitting
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: in with like what people are wearing. So uh, you know,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: and it used to be the same, I mean, and
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: I still think it is largely the same. Unfortunately for
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: folks you know, who are my size and larger. You know,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: there's still is very few choices that we have when
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: it comes to clothing and and things like that. Um,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: and so there is this like if you can't find
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: gender affirming clothing, then like already your gender identity and
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: how you affirm that is like sort of skewed, you know,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: in a way. And I think with trunch ball as well,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: Like she's not dainty, she's not like she doesn't have
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: these traditionally feminine qualities, a lot of which are related
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: to size. You know, when we talk about fat phobia,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: you know, it's important to recognize like the gendered elements
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: of that and as well as like the racial elements
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: of that. A lot of fat phobia is anchored in racism.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: You know, it's anchored in this idea that like white
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: virginal like you know, what is it, like Anglo Saxon
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: Protestant like bodies were supposed to look a certain way,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: and that became the ideal that people in society, women
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: specifically were expected to adhere to. Jamie. You Um. A
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: recent episode of ac cast dove into that as far
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: as like diet culture and beauty standards and body size standards.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: Really well, so if anyone hasn't listened to that already,
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: check that out. But um, yeah, it's grounded in a
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: very colonialist Western I mean, we talked about the Western
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: beauty standard all the time, and and it's it's very
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: much rooted in colonialism and racism, and and it's a
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: it's a zero sum game for everybody because it's rooted,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: and like everyone's bodies are being controlled. And so it's
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: like even if you're you know, if you do look
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: like miss honey, let's say that is still the result
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: of the demands and pressures of the society that you're
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: living in. So it's yeah. The the book that I
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: would recommend to everybody listening is Fearing the Black Body
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: by Sabrina Strings, which is just such an incredible comprehensive
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: look at how fat people are othered and also how specifically, uh,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: non white fat people are extremely mothered um and have
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: then yeah, and and how it's just it's yet another
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: systemic issue that can be traced right back to colonialism absolutely,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: and and like and I second Jamie's recommendation on the
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: books such a fantastic book and and like I feel
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: like it's a book that I will continue to go
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: back to and like reference, uh, because yeah, you know,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of stuff that we can all learn.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: What I was going to say in addition to that, too,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: is is, like you said, it's a zero sum game,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: everybody loses. And fatness and like queerness, the way that
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: those two things interact as well in terms of villainy,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: like I said, is to just sort of render this
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: body monstrous. You know, Like there are distinct moments in
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: the film where trench Bull is like portrayed as being
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: almost like animalistic. Like I think about like when she's
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: like sniffing like the ribbon that she finds um you know,
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: it's like yeah, or when she's like chasing Matilda and
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: Massani through the house, which is still such like even now,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: it's still like such a terrifying scene to me. She's
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: like sniffing the end, she's like she's like breathing heavily
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: and like visibly perspiring, you know, And it's like this
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: very animal sort of thing. And the way that her
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: the camera treats her body at many points, and I
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: feel like we're we're constantly seeing her from like up angles.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: We're seeing like her fishy lenses, like like unflattering lenses.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: She's shot very very differently than anyone else in the movie,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: even the other villains, because it's like you don't really
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: see those applied to to Matilda's parents, even though I
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: think that they are also not through fatness, but they're
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: they're also physically mothered. Yeah, especially I think like especially
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: I think Harry, I think it's sort of like the
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: taller woman shorter man sort of thing that's like that's
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: that played with like and like sort of stereotypes around
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: like masculinity. I think also come into play a lot
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: with Harry, And I think that that's maybe y mental
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: to plays the pranks that she does on her dad
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: is because he is so invested in this like masculine
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: idea of his appearance. You know, he says to his
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: son at one point, like, you know, I'm not selling
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: a car, I'm selling me, you know, like, and so
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: I think that, like that's another sort of line in
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: the film where I feel like we're supposed to be
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: laughing at the character because he's like, you know, he's
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: like the short little guy who's like, you know, we
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: have this idea in our minds that like short men
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: are like somehow more vengeful then just like regular sized men,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: which is wrong. I mean, it's incorrect, but like I
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: think that it's definitely like something that exists culturally. So
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: I think that there's like a lot of different like
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: ways that people's bodies are used in this film. And
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: I also think, like I think about like the fat
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: characters that I had growing up as a kid. It
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: was like Miss trench Bull, uh that one Chicken from
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: that uh like from Chicken Run. Oh no, not even
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: from Chicken Run from from the like Disney Robin Hood
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: where they're like foxes, I know exactly who you're doing.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: And she's like made Marian's and she's Scottish and she's
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: like I think she's called Mrs Cluck, Madam Cluck, Lady Cluck.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Mrs Chicken. I don't know. Anyway, she
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: was fat. Also, there is ursula. You know, we're not
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: getting like there's not like you know, it's not like
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: we get like a broad great spectrum, you know. Um
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: so yeah, so when you do see like this like
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: particularly unflattering portrayal of like a fat character, you know,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: like that's what I mean. Like I think my empathy
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: really like kicks in and it's like, poor miss trench Bull,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: you're so awful. Also, I don't know, like one thing.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: This is sort of a side sort of note, but
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: like trunch Bull says at one point that like she's
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: like she hates children, and she's like I'm glad I
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: would never was one. And that just makes me think
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: that like maybe trunch Bill had like a really traumatic
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: upbringing and she didn't go to therapy, and like that's
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: why she behaves the way that she does, you know,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: and we don't get any insight into how That's something
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: I didn't even that didn't even click for me, is
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: like we get an extreme insight into how Matilda and
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: Miss Honey were raised, but we get no insight into
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: the people were being told are the villains. We have
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: no insight into why they behaved the way they behave
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: with the parents or with Miss trunch Ball. No, and
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: and and like not to excuse like villainous behavior, not
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: to excuse like people who are abusive, absolutely not, and
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: not to make excuses for them. But I would argue
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: that you know, here in we're pretty well aware of
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: the fact that like, sometimes people who are abusive are violent.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes people who are not great parents are
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: the way that they are because of the fact that
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: you know, they didn't have great role models and experienced
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: abuse or experienced trauma themselves. Like hurt people. Hurt people
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: because thing happens in a vacuum. And it would have
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: been interesting to explore, yeah, why these villainous characters are
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: the way they are, but the movie doesn't have any
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: interest in exploring that, and especially when it queer codes them,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: like that's why. That's what it really bothers me. Is
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: sort of like the fact that like, you know, here
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: we have a queer coded villain who's like violent and
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: abusive and we have no context for why. So then
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: it's just like, oh, queer women specifically are just violent
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: and abusive, and that end the story, which is like
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: not not nothing, you know, like it's it's not a
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: helpful narrative to perpetuate. It did make me laugh when
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: Miss trunch Bull comes into the class, I think the
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: second time she like oversees Miss Honny's class and the
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: little girl who she had formerly thrown around by her
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: pigtails was like, yeah, we learned how to bell difficulty
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: via a song that Miss Honey taught us Mrs D,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: Mrs I, Mrs f f I, Mrs C, Mrs you,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: Mrs L t Y. And then trench Bull is like,
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: why are all these women married? There? I think that,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: but but like why are why are all these women married? Question?
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: And that's like another reason so here, okay, just as
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: like a quick summary, I keep referring to trensh Bull
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: as a queer coded character. Here are the reasons. That
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: is one of the reasons in the book, although I
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: don't think it's made as explicit in the movie. She
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: hates long hair. That's why she throws the girl around
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: by her pink tails, is because she hates long hair. Um.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: Like I said, they darkened Pam Ferris's mustache specifically for
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: like the trench Bull, and of course we associate facial
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: hair with like certain types of gender expression. You know.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: It's the fact that there are no love interests in
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: this movie, and we didn't bring that up in terms
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: of like something that's kind of crazy about kids films,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: but there's always love interest in kids films, but this
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: film has no love interests. Yeah, so I think I
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: love it, right, It's so good. I'm so happy that
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: Matilda didn't get like a boy that she was sweet on.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: That made me so happy or that Honestly, I thought
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: that Miss Honey, that was the most remarkable avoidance of
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: that trope, because I the second I saw Miss Honey,
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, they're going to marry
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: her off to some weirdo, like to Paul Rubens. Or something.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: She's gonna marry a cop Lana del Ray style. This
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: is a nightmare. But Miss Honey, I thought it was
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: like because I feel like and I'm trying to think
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: of who I'm thinking of here, but because I feel
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: like we've seen so many Miss Honey characters in children's
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: media who always are like that. That is how the
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: traditionally Western beauty standards feminine woman. That's how her story ends.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: It's like but where it's like, there's so much of
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: Miss Honey's story as its present it in the movie
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: is almost like a Cinderella e story, except that it
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: ends with her asserting herself, confronting her past, and adopting
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: a child to raise as a single parent, which is like,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: that is awesome. That like I was blown away by
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: that creative choice and like, you know, and and that
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: idea of sort of like even after like even in
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: the like after the you know, when we're getting into
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: like you know, after Trunch believes, you know, and Miss
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: Honey's living her life and until it's coming to his
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: like there's no man at that point, even that's brought
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: into the picture, it's like no, no, no, she decided
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: to be a single parent. She was like, no, I
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: got daddy bucks. I'm good, Like, don't even worry about
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: like ushbucks. Yeah, yeah, because her dad's And I think
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: if they had married her off, we wouldn't have had
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: those moments, Jamie. I really think that there would have
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: been like, instead of her standing up for herself in
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: a certain herself, I really think it would have been
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: the man being like, well, gosh, darn it, you can't
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: let your aunt treat you like that, you know, Jennifer,
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: how could you let yourself be treated this way for
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: so long? And you're like, get out of here there. Yeah.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: But then but then it's it's it's such a double
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: edged thing because as it feels so pointed when that
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: same choice is applied to miss trunch Bull, because it's
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: done so without context and we don't have any context
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: about who she is exactly right, And because she's also
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: like the older spinster and I had to use that word,
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: but like she's like the older unmarried woman. I feel
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: like there's also always a connotation like that, like and
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: and again, I hope this is changing, but I feel
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: like for a really long time, it's like, oh, the
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: older unmarried woman. You know, it's like, well, you know,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: you guys might not be able to see, but I'm
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: raising people on the podcast can't see at all, but
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: I'm like doing like the vaguely eyebrows sort of thing.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, there would have definitely been like a
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: folksy old saying that we had for that on the
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: East Coast, like, oh, you know, she's a little lightner
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: Loofer's meaningful glance like, yeah, I heard she's more of
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: a cat person, if you know what I mean, except
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: that we do see trunch Bull kick a cat across
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: the yard. Yeah, she's actually not much of a cat.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: She's not much of a cat person. That that scene
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: is still swept saying to me that in the new scene,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: the cruelty to animals, yeah, really bad. I want to
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: go back to the way fatness is treated in the
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: movie as it relates to Bruce bog Trotter, she played
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: by Jimmy carrs who's a doctor now, who's a doctor? Now?
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I have some quotes to share. Okay.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: I found this oral history that is specific to the
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: cake eating scene in the movie. There's like a long
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: oral history from Newsweek. No kidding, I didn't know that
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: yes by Zach Schonfeld. Will link it in the description,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: but it's a long oral history about one scene in
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: the movie. Anyway, So a bunch of people are interviewed.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: I have a couple disturbing quotes from Danny DeVito, who's, uh,
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: maybe this makes him perhaps not the Wilke came we
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: thought he was well because he says, um, in an
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: earlier quote, he's just talking about the child actor Jimmy saying, um, oh,
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: you know, he was so cool. He's an orthopedic doctor.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: Now I don't know exactly if he's a surgeon or
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: just a bone guy. So there's that one. The second
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: quote is him saying, it's really funny because like Danny DeVito,
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: because like the reason I knew that kid is now
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: a doctor was because there's another quote another thing that
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: I read that Danny DeVito was like, yeah, kid, he's
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: some kind of some kind of doctor. Now, maybe an osteopath.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I thought you could, yeah, you could
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: hear him saying that in his voice, like I don't know,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: it's some kind of bone guy. I don't know, but
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: I love that Danny DeVito like those he's some kind
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: of bone guy. He's like an uncle who's trying to
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: remember some kind of like cousin's boyfriend's roommate or something,
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: you know, like, yeah, I don't need to know. I don't.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: I don't need Danny DeVito to know more about medicine
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: than that that's wine. That's good. Well, listen to this
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: second quote. There's a lot to unpack here. So Danny
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: DeVito says about the actor who eats the cake in
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: the movie quote, Jimmy is looking amazing. He's grown into
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: a fine young man. He was a little chubb chub
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: when I knew him. Now he's a strapping young gentleman
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: and a doctor not doctor doctor is how it's quoted.
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: Danny DeVito can't not talk like a Newsies character. She's
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: a doctor. And then the final part of this is
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: of his quote is oh I need bone doctors. Man,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: I'm the original guy in need of bone doctors unquote. Okay,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: and I'm back and I'm back. That second quote was
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: not great, but the third one I'm back. So how
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: is Danny de Vito a native auntie like that happened?
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know. God, that's I bring up this quote
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: because of the way he's talking about Jimmy carrs he
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: was a kid. Yes, So what happens in the movie
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: is Principal trunch Bowl calls an assembly so that the
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: whole school can watch her fat shame a child because
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: she suspects him of eating a piece of her chocolate cake. Um,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: which is it's never terribly clear if he did or
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: if he didn't. He says like it's better than my mom's.
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: But he's also but like, I don't know if that's
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: just like something a kid would say, right right, So
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: we're not even sure if he is like guilty of
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: this non crime, but for this nom nom crime whoa
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: sticky sticky alert. So she calls him on stage and
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: it's like, here, eat this piece of cake, and then
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: he does kind of reluctantly, and then she like summons
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: the cook of the school, who brings out the rest
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: of this enormous cake, and then trunch both forces Bruce
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: bog Trotter to eat the whole thing in front of
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: the school. So the fact that it's like a fat
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: kid who stole the cake to begin with, who is
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: made a spectacle of basically who is publicly shamed for
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: are perpet humiliated. Yeah, and eating thing, and the whole
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: thing being framed as being disgusting. Like I have to
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: skip over this scene because it is the way in which,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: like the costuming they put like all this like smeared
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: chocolate all over him in his face, and the angles
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: that they're shooting this kid with, and just the kind
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: of grotesqueness of it all is basically using cinematic language
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: communicating to the audience saying basically like when fat people eat,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: it's gross and it's shameful, and this is how you
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: should feel when you watch that, and it's just so
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: horrendously fatphobic and toxic. And and they do the same
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: thing with trench Bill. There's a there's a point when
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: trench Bills eating a piece of chocolate cake at her house.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: I think, when yeah, tell, then there are there where
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: they do like a sort of similar sort of call back.
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: And it's a lot of mouth sounds for no reason
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: and a very tight angle for no reason. You know.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: But this scene is like this scene in particular has
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: been written about by a lot of like fat academics
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: and artists, like because this is our trauma, this is
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: our collective trauma um for folks who can't see me
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: on the podcast. I am a fat person. I'm very
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: happy calling myself that. That is like being called a
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: little chub. Chub by Danny DeVito is now my dream,
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: um and putting it on my back list. But like
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, this is like this is part of
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: our collective trauma because like, UM, we have this association first,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: first and foremost, you know, we have this idea within
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: our culture that you are ultimately the person who determines
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: what your body looks like, which is not true. UM.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: Our bodies are they estimate probably you know, the way
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: that we look is determined by our genetics. So what
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: does your family look like? What did your ancestors look like? UM?
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: Is like variable sort of like health outcomes, but a
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: lot of that is also like tied to class, tied
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: to ability, you know, like do you have chronic illness?
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: Do you suffer from like depression? Things like that? Can
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: you afford? What was that article about that woman who
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: spends like so many thousands of dollars every month on
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: like smoothie like health food smoothies and like that. Oh absolutely,
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: you know, and like for indigenous people as well, like
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: you know, when if you want to talk about like
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: spending thousands of dollars at the grocery store, like there
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: is an overwhelming occupation. Um. And you'll see this a
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: lot on reserves here at least in Canada, Like, um,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of government messaging about how indigenous folks like, oh,
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: you need to make healthier eating choices and you need
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: to do this, and you do that. But um, like
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: I've been in flying communities in northern Quebec. Here we're
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: buying like it's to buy like like a two liter
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: of mal it's like fifteen bucks, you know, to buy
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: like a thing of like asparagus, it's like twelve bucks.
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're trying to feed your family, you know,
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: you have to make certain choices about like the food
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: that you can even have access to, like fresh produce,
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: like getting fresh produced up north can be challenging at times,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: you know. And it's not even just up north, Like
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: I'm from Eastern Canada. The last time I lived in
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: Eastern Canada, I lived in our a city, you know,
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: like a city with public transport and universities and like
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: like guess like a real city, like a real you know,
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: and like there was still like the winter before I
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: moved to Montreal, caulie flower to get ahead of cauliflower.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: It was like eight bucks, you know, like and that's
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: like in that's you know, that isn't in a remote area.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: That's just like being on the East Coast, the price
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: of living is very, very expensive, and so like I
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: hate the term food desert because again, like all of
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: this is very intentional. You know, people can grow cauliflower
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: in a lot of places, like there could be you know,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: different projects and things like that, but especially like a
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: lot of indigenous people you know, would love to connect
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: with like getting traditional food, um, but a lot of
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: that is made so difficult and so expensive that you know,
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it's sort of like
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: will make healthier choices, It's like, well I can't afford to.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: I am making the best choices that I can afford
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: to to feed my family, you know, and factory farming
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: is awful. And there's a lot of arguments around like
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: you know, eating specific diets and different you know, to
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: do different things, you know, lower cholesterol or less meat
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: intake because of the effect on they plan it. But
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: for so many, so many people, that decision is like
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: again like having enough food right right and having access
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: big time, and that is like one of the many
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: things that this movie does that feels it almost feels
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: like it's interacting with the point we were talking about
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: earlier where it was like the kind of you see
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: where they're going with it, but it's inherently like misrepresenting
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: issues around education and oversimplifying it of And I feel
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: like the way that this movie treats food, like you
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: were describing just as like this is an individual decision
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: as opposed to all of these factors. And then on
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: top of that, who gives a ship? It's none of business, yeah,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: you know, and like and even just like the portraying
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: it as like, oh, you know, he can eat all
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: of this cake because he's a fat kid. Like that
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: was like always like the jump that I sort of
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: we're making my brain of like and it's like, no,
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: like the human stomach, no matter what size your body is,
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: is about the same, Like it's about you know, it's
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: gonna be your little like your little poach. You know,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: it's not it's not that big cannot fit an entire
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: chocolate cake. That's like I don't know, twenty inches in diameter.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: That thing was enormous, like tall like and very sticky. Um.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: I would also like again sort of with like trunch Bowl,
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: you know, and broadcasting things via people's names, Miss Fanny
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: broadcasting things via people's names, Wormwood, which is a poison
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: broadcasting things via people's names. I feel like bog Trotter
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: is also like a fat name, like a lack of
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: like a better term for it, like and and it's
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: it's it's sort of this like it's it's because of
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: sort of like the like oh sounds that you end
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: up getting. I don't know, it's like the roundness of
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: an oh. I don't know, bog Trotter. You wouldn't call
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: a thin character bob Trotter. Yeah, I see what you're saying.
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: It almost sounds like because I wish I had written
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: them down, because trench Bowl comes up with several just
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: iconic insults that she calls the children. The one I remember,
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: she calls them something something piss worms something, it's like um,
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: but bog Trotter almost sounds like one of the insults
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: that she would hurl at a child and then like right,
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: But contrast, Miss Honey is called miss Honey because she's
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: sweet and pleasant, it's like Swan being your last name
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: and you being like beautiful. Right, It's like it's like that, yeah,
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: that extreme, Like I understand why Roldal makes those choices
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: because of whatever. He's telegraphing things in simple terms, because
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: he's a children's author, but he's telegraphing things that are
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: broad stereotypes, so he's using his tools for evil. I
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: don't like it. And then when we talk about how
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: Bruce's story plays out, because that scene takes place, and
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: then it kind of ends as this like Spartacuss style ending, Um,
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: let's let's unpack that. I'm curious of what you both
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: thought of how that seems kind of results, right, because
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: instead of any and again, this is a room full
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: of children who you know are perhaps not the most
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: equipped to advocate further peers against a tyrannical principle. But
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: it's also a movie, and like whatever, you can suspend
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: your disbelief for things. But rather than anyone being like, no, Bruce, stop,
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: you don't have to do this thing that's clearly like
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: making you ill and causing you pain and is humiliating
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: you and all this stuff, Matilda's like you can do it.
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: Keep eating which you're like, oh, she's trying. She's trying,
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: but like, yeah, like she's egging him on in support
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: and almost like encouraging him to finish the cake. Might
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: read on it as she's encouraging him to finish the
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: cake out of spite for Miss trunch Ball, right, So
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: it's like there's no like malice in her intent, but
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: as far as like the implications of what she's cheering
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: him on for is not very productive, we'll say no.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: And it's it's I mean, I'm sure we've all eaten
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: things out of spite for somebody, you know, at least
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: once a day, you know, like, yeah, it is really weird.
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: And I never, like as a fat kid and as
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: a fat adult, I never look at that scene and
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: at the end like feel like whoa, you know, yeah
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: we won, right right, it was like everyone loses. Yeah.
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: So it's it's like really, it's really really tricky and
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: it's nice. I'm so on the one hand, I am
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: so happy for Matilda that she stands up and like
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: supports one of her peers and like and some of
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: the scenes I love most of the movie is like um,
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: the scenes between like the friends when you start to
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: realize that like her in her Tensia and Lavender and
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: Bruce like hang out, you know, And I love that,
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: and I love that Matilda would feel like she's standing
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: out for for somebody. But yeah, it's I do want
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: to touch on Lavender really quick because she is one
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: of the few non white characters in the entire movie,
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: played by Kiami Duval. She is I think the only
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: bipop character who has any lines of dialogue. There are
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: others in background shots who were like kids, who were
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: like extras in the classroom, but she's I think the
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: only one who has lines of dialogue. Um. Even so,
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: though she has very little narrative significance, to the point
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: where if you noticed, she's barely mentioned in the recap
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: because you could essentially write her out of the movie
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: and the story would not really change at all. True,
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: I love that she's there. She's the cutest child I've
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: ever seen, and I just wanted more for her because
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: she is present but not in a meaningful way, and
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: that's extremely noticeable in a movie that is predominantly white,
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: which is as we talked about at Like at the
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: beginning of the show, mainstream children's movies in like American cinema,
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: especially the ones that have like stood the test of
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: time and that we like still watch and remember and
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: like talk about, are so so so white. It's just
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: another unfortunate example of there being very few people of
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: color in the movie, and the one that has a
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: name and any lines of dialogue still doesn't contribute to
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: this story, isn't allowed to contribute to the story in
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: any meaningful way. Absolutely it us feel like symbolic diversity
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: over anything, you know, like which feels very of its time.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: But also you know, how how much of that has
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: actually been resolved in modern media? Exactly No, And it's
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: it's so unfortunate because, like I said, you know, some
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: of my favorite moments in the film are moments between
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: Lavender and Matilda, Like I really love for example, when
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: um that last sort of rampage that trench wile goes
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: on and she, like Matilda then like saves Lavender by
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: like lifting her up and putting around the pipe and
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: then bringing her down safely, you know. And there's another
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: moment to where like when the newt and she knows
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: that Lavender put the new in the water, and Lavender
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: is like, well, thank you for not telling him Matilda's
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: like best friends don't tell you know, those moments are
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: really really nice, And I always been watching this film,
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: as much as I enjoy it, always wish that there
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: were more of those kind of moments, because, like, I
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: think it's also just like nice, nice friendships, you know,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: just and there's room for it in the movie, it
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: feels like it's and I feel like it's almost like
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: Lavender's character is put aside in favor of focusing on
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: their relationship between Matilda and Miss Honey. But I feel
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: like it would have been a powerful choice to have
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: Matilda like strongly connect and learn about her connection with
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: a with a kid her own age, too, especially because
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: it's set up in the movie that like, she doesn't
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: have friends like people her age that she talks to
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: because like again, her really awful parents are depriving her
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: of opportunities to connect with children her own age. So yeah,
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: I almost would have rather this story unfold in such
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: a way that sure, Miss Honey can be a character,
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: she can be a positive influence in Matilda's life, but
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: I kind of rather see a story about Matilda meeting
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: like a best friend and developing that friendship and the
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: hi jinks that they get into together or even just
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: like including Lavender in the Miss Honey story, like where
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: it seems like she is also has you know, she's
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: also being abused at this school by Miss trench Bull.
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: We have to assume there's a larger context for that.
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: How did she end up at this school? What? Like
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: what is her what is her family? Like like it
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: there's it? Would it would help the story? No, absolutely,
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: and sort of like yeah, like with her home life,
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: like like that's always the big question I have is
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: like part of trench Bulls like over the top punishments,
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: is like the idea that like parents would never believe children,
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: you know, so then it's like, oh, okay, well then
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: like what's is Lavender also in a situation where like
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: she needs to be rescued like you know, and and
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: you know, you start to sort of wonder about this
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: kind of things. I think it could also be interesting
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: for Matilda to like meet a family that's like functional
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: and like healthy like healthy relationship dynamics and sort of
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: like be able to sort of realize like which I
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: think she does. Like I think she's very well aware
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: of the fact that, like her home life is not ideal,
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: but like it might sort of like take that contrast
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: of like being like, oh, you know, like I could
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: maybe ask for something better for myself, Jamie, I know
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: that you have a heart out soon. The last thing
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up very quickly is just shout
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: out to this movie for not being copaganda, because the
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: FBI agents in this movie are like treated as kind
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: of being, you know, bumbling fools. And the funniest part
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: of the movie to me is when so like these
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: FBI agents are tailing Mr Wormwood because he is like
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: buying and selling stolen car parts and stuff. Why the
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: FBI is involved not sure, but the unclear. Matilda keeps
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: telling her parents like, oh, these guys that are outside
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: watching you all the time are obviously cops, and her
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: mom's like, no, their speedboat salesman. Um. And then at
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: one point Matilda comes home and the two agents, one
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: of which is Paul Rubens, are in the house and
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: like her mom is kind of flirting with them, and
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: then Matilda takes one look at them and just like
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: dead pan is like they're cops and it's the funniest
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: part of the movie. And I just like laugh off
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: off um and then Danny DeVito comes in and calls
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: them surfer dudes and male strippers, which is like, but again,
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: that's sort of like confronting. He's like, he's like picture
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: of his own masculinity. Like, right, you know, he's anti surfer,
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: anti surfer dudes and male strippers, surfer dude masculinity. We
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: gotta talk about it. Um, we've already covered point break,
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: Um that surfer dude cops do. Yeah, but yeah, this
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: movie is not pro cop which is saying a lot
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: for a movie from the nineties. I want to believe
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: that's the inner Danny DeVito to I do I do to,
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: And I also love that, Like you know, in my
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: head canon of like what happens to Matilda later is
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: she flourishes as a BiCon and is like, you know,
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: totally at protests with a sign that's like a cab
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: you know, Wilson rules. I mean, because that's who she
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: is too, Like, that's what she's doing in real life,
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: exactly similar, I imagine, I would hope a similar trajectory.
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: It's like Mario Wilson, but if she still had magical powers, yeah, exactly,
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: which she might. You know, Yeah, we have to ask
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: her um, does this movie pass the Bechdel tests? For sure?
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: Lots lots of lots between a lot of different combinations
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: of characters. As far as our nipple scale zero to
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: five nipples based on how the movie fares. Looking at
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: it through an intersectional feminist lens, this one is tricky
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: has while it's doing some good things as far as
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like themes and more like the moral
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: statement the movie is making and and how so many
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: people just took positive messaging away from the movie. Uh,
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: it is kind of overshadowed by the fact that a
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: lot of the ways in which that messaging gets across
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: is relying on harmful, fat phobic, classist, elitist, homophobic tropes.
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: With that in mind, I feel like I to me,
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: it is going to have to be one of those
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: like split down the middle movies, where like it's doing
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: good stuff but by way of bad stuff. So yeah,
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: I think I can only give it two and a
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: half nipples. I do. We didn't touch on this really,
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: but I do love the kind of theme or like
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: the interpretation of like the Chosen Family narrative, and like
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: that thing is really sweet. I love just again, how
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: like valuing a little girl learning and um, you know,
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: just like having a thirst for knowledge is something that
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: I think is important to see, especially when the movie
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: is directed at children. But yeah, it's a lot of
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: like of the time, nineties era problematic stuff. So two
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: and a half nipples, I will give one tomorrow Wilson,
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: one to Pam Ferris, and one to the poor cat
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: who is kicked by trunch bowl. Looks like fly, looks
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: like fly hit it hit and does have eight nipples there.
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: I brought cat facts back a very special appearances. I'll
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: meet you at at two and a half. I think
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: that there's this movie. I mean it's like it's it's
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: tough because it's like we've talked about this whole episode.
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: There is a lot of heart and I think good
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: intent at the core of this movie. And and that
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: really does make a ton of difference. However, I mean,
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: starting from the person who wrote the story, it wouldn't
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: with whom there's a trend of baggage attached. And um,
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: you know, his prejudice is kind of being difficult to
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: remove it impossible in some ways. To remove from his
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: own material is basically impossible. And so we see these
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: homophobic tendencies that you know are also inherent to the nineties,
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: like the homophobia, the fat phobia, the symbolic inclusion of
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: people of color. But the characters could be caught out
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: easily and don't have stories of their own. And so
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: while I love Matilda and I do love the message
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: at the core of her and Miss Honey's relationship and
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: story of chosen family of adults listening to and taking
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: children seriously, which is just always a message I respond
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: really strongly to, and and everyone's life improving as a
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: result of listening to children and taking them seriously. There's
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: so much good. And then the tools used to arrive
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: at that very good conclusion are just very loaded and
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: very harmful in many ways. So two and a half.
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: I will give one to Matilda, I will give one
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: to the Bengo Jacket, and I will give the last
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: half to Lavender. Um, I'm right there with you, with
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: both of you. As much as I love this film,
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: and as much as I sort of joked at the
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: beginning that like I, I I feel like it is very
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: informed of like the person that I have become, Like
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff that I take like as
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: good from the film is stuff that like I'm bringing
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: to it now and not like stuff that's necessarily in there.
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: And we do that a lot as as you know.
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: I think it is like queer and gender diverse people.
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: You know, for a really long time, stories weren't made
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: about us. And so you know when we get like
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: a queer villain like trench Ball, and we get like
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: a queer story like this, because I still think Matilda
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: like Zinny is basically in drag the whole time. Um,
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: there are like no male love interests, Like this is
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: a very queer story. And but like that wasn't put there,
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 1: I don't think intentionally. I think that is like interpretation
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: coming like after the fact. Um. And yeah, the chosen
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: family side of things is wonderful. And I would say
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: to anybody who might be out there and feeling like
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: they are not appreciated by their family or they are
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: not being loved and nurtured way that they need to
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 1: be that like, sometimes the people you are related to
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: you can't do that for you, and you can find
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: other people who who will love you and appreciate you.
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: Like those people are out there, and you should never
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: hesitate to seek out your chosen family because yeah, you know,
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: like you deserve that, you deserve to be left and nurtured. Um,
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: so two and a half nipples I will give. Oh man,
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: now we just want nipples on the Bingo jacket somewhere.
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: So I feel like, you know what I feel like.
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: I will give a nipple to Maura Wilson because not
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: only is she incredible in this movie. Not only is
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: she incredible now, but she was also like in the
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: process of losing her mom during this whole thing, as
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: a you know, and as a kid. I can't imagine
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: what kind of like stress that is so huge. One
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: nipple for Mara. Um, I would give my other nipple
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: to pan Fist as well. She's amazing and she did
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: such a fantastic job in this film just being such
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: a hammy camp villa in I hope there's somebody out
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: there who does trunch bowl drag. I'm going to look
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: it up. I bet there is. I'm gonna I'm gonna
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: look it up, and if not, I am going to
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: it's your time to shine exactly. And then my last
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: half nipple, um, my last half nipple hasco that Bengo jacket.
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: I'm going to recreate that Bengo jacket. I know, I
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: feel like there should be we have to contact Superyarchy
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: stat there should be repros of of the Bengo jacket,
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: or we should have like a like a crafternoon. That
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: would be so fun. Oh my god, this is the
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: first time I'm hearing this expression. Crafternoon. Yes, and it's
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: changed my life. Imagine the time we're going to save. Absolutely,
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: crafternoons are great. Well, Jess, thank you so much for
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: coming back and for this bringing a wonderful discussion that
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: was a pleasure. Where can people follow your stuff, check
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: out your stuff online, support you, etcetera. Um So, the
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: best way, the best place to find me is at
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: rad Babe on Instagram and it's like underscore rad Underscore
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: Babe Underscore. Anyway, if you search Jeff Marilyn, you'll find
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: me on Instagram. Um. I didn't think about the branding
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: when I chose the name. Okay uh and I'm I'm
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: always out there in the world doing doing queer stuff,
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: doing in indigit queer stuff, doing fat stuff, doing movie stuff.
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: Um So that's the best way to find me in
• 2:03:43
  Speaker 1: to to follow me. Um if you happen to be
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: in Montreal. Right now, the Cedar t Project, which is
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: a black and Indigenous solidarity project especially for street involved folks,
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: is doing a fundraiser, so you can check them out
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: on Facebook at the Theater Tea Project if you're looking
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: for something to support UM. I also have their information
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: up on my Instagram, so that's why you can find me.
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: I have a film that I made, a documentary called
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: Love is the First Sacred Lesson that is going to
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: be playing some film festivals this fall, so keep an
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 1: eye up for that. Congratulations, Thank you, thank you. I'm
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: very excited because it takes so long to make films
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: and then you know, you're like, I don't really want
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: to have anything to do with it anymore, so put
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: it out in the world. No, no, I this this
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: film is really really close to my heart in a
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: lot a lot of ways, so I'm excited for people
• 2:04:36
  Speaker 1: to see it. Wonderful. Thank you so much for being
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: here again. Whenever you want to come back, bring us
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: another movie and we'll talk more. Oh absolutely, And you guys,
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: you know, come to Montreal now that like things are
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: opening up a little bit, like well craft, dude, baby, Absolutely,
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: and we'll eat bagels and you know speak French. Carolyn
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: and I are always doing that, so it's just gonna
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: be another day for us, right, It's gonna be amazing.
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Becktel Cast.
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: You can subscribe to our Patreon ak Matreon. It's five
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: dollars a month. It gets you access to two bonus
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: episodes every month, plus the entire back catalog, which is
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: over one hundred bonus episodes at this point, so there's
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: lots of stuff to go through. It's a good time
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: to join um. You can also get our merch at
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: dot com Slage The Bechtel Cast, follow your heart, do
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: it or don't do it, We won't know either way.
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: But if you want some stuff, that's where you can
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: get some stuff. And with that, seems like we've gotten
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: pretty adequately sticky this episode. I'm extremely sticky, very stick
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: Never been stickier sticky with discourse. That is wow. Whoa okay,
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: bye bye ye