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The Last Unicorn with Hannah Eko · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn Beast,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Last Podcast.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: If only right? What a sigh of relief.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: We're the last one.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: We're the final one. We did it.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: We're the only one left.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: That is okay, just spoilers for the movie right away.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: And if we released all the podcasts from the ocean,
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: would that be a force of good? Is the question?
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: It really depends. That's a lot of different kinds of unicorns.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: We're talking true, but we are. Yes, We're the last podcast.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: My name is Jamie Loftis.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Dorante. This is the Bechdel Cast,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: lens using the Bechdel test. Simply us a jumping off
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: point a podcast unicorn. You could say, exactly and then
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: whatever is the Bechdel test, Jamie.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you it is a media metric created
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: by a unicorn in her own rights. The one and
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: only Alison Bechdel in her old comic strip Di Likes
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: to Watch Out For. It was a one off joke
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: in the eighties that was meant to draw attention to
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: the fact that there were no queer love stories between
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: women on screen. It has since been adapted into a
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: mainstream media metric. There's a lot of versions of this test.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Our version of the test requires the following two characters
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: with names of a marginalized gender speaking to each other
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: And I feel like the movie rere Covering Today is
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: in conversation with the Bechdel the Bechdel Test, obviously the
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Bechdel cast in a very interesting way. Yeah, I have
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: to say, like right out the jump and then we'll
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: get our guests in here, because I'm very, very excited.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: There were so many lines in this movie that had
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: me like flat on my back, where you're like, people
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: are just saying things in this movie. It is so
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: I think my favorite line that I could not have
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: seen coming is when the guy who I thought was
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: like Scottish or Irish coded right, invites Alan Ark and
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: the Magician around the fire and offers him a taco
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: and You're like, that is anyways, that's gonna be people
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: surprise you all the time. That's and that's sort of
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: what this movie is about. So let's true, let's get
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: our guests in here.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, let's She is a writer Bookdula, founder of the
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Cannabis Literary event series The Lit Club, and author of
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: the book Honey is the Knife. It's Hannah Echo. I'm welcome,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, thanks for being here.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I also remember that line, and I was like, huh,
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: I'm like, maybe that's more explained than the book, Like
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: maybe there's context that we we missed here because it
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: was very I was like, maybe that was like an
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: early eighties reference to something else.
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: It's like a taco very could be. Yeah, No, I
• 3:17
  Speaker 5: was eating tacos. I don't know. It's a mystery. I
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: did write it down as well.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: The thing that really knocked me flat on my ass
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: was the entire Butterfly song. Yes, it's just like, what
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: are you saying?
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: We don't know, sir, we don't know.
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a lot of riddles.
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: Yes, the cats, the butterfly, the skeleton.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, skeleton, best characterleton.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so that seems to be a major motif.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, we are. I guess we should have said we're
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: covering The Last Unicorn nineteen eighty two. However, we're so
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: excited to have you on the show. This is like
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: I I was so taken by this movie, and we
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: want to know what your history with it is.
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I wrote about this some years ago.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: I immigrated to California when I was four years old,
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: so I hadn't met my parents. Well, i'd been with
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: my mom until seven months. Very typical of like I guess,
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: first gen so Nigerian household. So I remember very distinctly
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: like it was just such a such a journey from
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: just like this cold England and then boom, I'm in California, LA.
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: And my dad at the time, he and my uncle,
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: they co owned a convenience store in La on Western
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: twenty seventh and so we also rented videos.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: At the time, we.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: Had like a small section and there's also a small
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: porn section and yeah, you know, so you know, learning
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: many things as a child, and I remember very distinctly
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: like the two movies that were like my like go
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: to at the time. It was a Little Mermaid and
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: it was a Last Unicorn, you know, and I look back,
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: I I find it interesting what kids gravitate to naturally, Yeah,
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: because not all kids feel the same way about all movies,
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: and so I really do think that there is some
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: kind of mystical resonance that these children are having because
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: they're in their like receptive state. So for me, the
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: Last UNQUI, I just loved it.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: I don't know if I had heard.
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: Of unicorns before that point, but I very much remember
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: just being really taken by this film. And around that time,
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: or maybe sometime later, our store was like vandalized during
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: the Rodney King riots, and I remember like the people
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: end up coming in from the roof.
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: It was like a big hole in the roof, and
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: they stole a bunch of things.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: I think people some people unfortunately, were just using it
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: as an excuse of course, to you know, do damage,
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: and so they stole a lot of stuff in the store.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: And I remember as a kid, I couldn't say it
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: out loud, but I was very happy because they didn't
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: steal the last Unicorn. I think they took the Little Mermaid,
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: you know, someone was like maybe took it from their daughter,
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: I don't know, but they didn't take the last unicorn,
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: and I remember just really feeling like very blessed for that.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: And then I also very much remember like I was
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: so taken of unicorns, as many young girls are, and
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: I asked my dad, I was like, are there actually unicorns?
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: It just seemed very plausible to me, you know, a horse.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: Of a horn, and he's like, yeah, there are, but
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: they live in Nigeria. And so for years I believe
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: that they actually, like were real and they lived in Nigeria.
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: So that's kind of my connection to it.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: I come back to it every so often in the movie,
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: and it's very interesting when I find people who also
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: have a connection to it, because it's a very, I
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: feel like, millennial niche kind of thing.
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: I feel there are certain things that only certain.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: People kind of were able to get caught into the
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: web of and lasting a corners definitely want to go
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: sing so asked by some of my history with the
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: film beautiful, that's really beautiful.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I like the two movies that really resonated with you
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: as a kid are ones where a mythological creature gets
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: turned into a mortal human.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: For a while, the eighties was all about that premise,
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: it seems like, and in the fact that these two
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: movies that I now love both, I hadn't seen The
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Last un To Cohen before, but that they handle that
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: premise in such different ways. I think it's really beautiful.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, Jamie, what's your relationship if any with this.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: I had never seen it before. I don't think for
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: any particular reason. I think just it might have I
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: think this seems like a micro generational thing. I might
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: have been a little bit too young to see this.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: I was really interested as like an animation history dork.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: This has a very interesting place and animation history, which
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: I think is very cool, as does Peter Beegle, which
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: is the author of who wrote the screenplay and the
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: original book. Ana just has an awesome name. I don't know.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: I was really taken by. I like, how you know
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: he I think wrote the screenplay for the Lord of
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: the Rings adaptation that was done by the same group
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: of animators. A lot of the animators from this movie
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: go on to work for Studio Gibley. It's just really cool.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: I love Rank and Bass, and you can, like, I think,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: because I grew up watching the Rank and Bass holiday specials,
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: you can hear certain voices and you're like, oh, it's Burger, Meister,
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Meister Burger, et cetera. Yeah, this movie, Like, I really
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: loved it. It's so weird in a way that I
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: really appreciated. I feel like I wasn't I don't know
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: why I wasn't like super into fantasy after like middle
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: school age. I think I went more like mystery route.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: But I really love the like fantasy convention that you
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: meet a character and the character is so bizarre and
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: then they're just gone. And that happens in this movie
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: one hundred times and all of the characters. I was
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: scratching my head. Respect You're like, okay, and now there's
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: a tree with huge tits, and then ninety seconds later
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: you're like, and for sure that's the last we see
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: of the tree with huge tits, and it is, And like,
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: I just I loved it. I had I had the
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: best time, and I'm really excited to talk about it. Caitlin,
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: what is your history with The Last Unicorn?
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: I saw this movie in college during the Great Caitlyn
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Movie binge of two thousand and five. A friend of
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: mine suggested it. I had this friend in college who
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: introduced me to a lot of my what are now
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: my favorite movies still to this day, such as Josie
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: the Pussycats and American Psycho, and She's like the Last Unicorn,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: also rips we should watch it. So we did, and
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: I wasn't as taken with it as I might have
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: been if I had seen it when I was younger, perhaps,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: And I didn't remember really anything from it except I
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: remember recognizing Jeff Bridge's voice because I was a fan
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: of The Big Lebowski at the time and still and
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: I was like, Hey, that's the dude like being this
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: weird prince who doesn't seem to notice that his dad
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: is pure evil.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: And then also that his dad is like, oh, by
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: the way, that's not even my son anyway, So you're
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: like what what? And then he's like, anyways, you're the
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: last you at a cord.
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: I know it.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: Like I just love this movie is so silly. I
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: love it.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: It's so bizarre. But uh yeah, I hadn't retained much
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: from the story, so watching it this time to prep
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: for the episode, it was kind of like watching it
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: for the first time. And it's a very interesting movie.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know what to make of a lot of it.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: I'm ready to be swayed. One way or the other.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: I have thoughts, but I'm just like, what is going
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: on in so much of this? But yeah, I'm really
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: excited to talk about it.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Should we take a quick break and then come back
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: for the recap?
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Let's do it.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Here is the recap of the Last Unicorn in nineteen eighty.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Two, and Hannah feel free to jump in whenever I
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: feel like there's just like, there's so much going on. Yeah,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: there's five thousand characters.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: There are, and I love it for That's also one
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: thing I really do love about it is the it's
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: very episodic. Y. Yeah, it's just like things are just happening,
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: and I think that's very life true.
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: People coming and going.
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes you spend a night with a tree and
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: you're like, who knows, who knows?
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes you're nestled in the bosom of a huge
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: titty tree and you.
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: Just tie to go with it and tied a rope,
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty kinky, honestly, Yeah, No, it's a very kinky.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: If anyone watches this, I'm like, you're either probably into psychedelics,
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: you're queer, or you're into kink.
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: Probably all three.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Probably all three.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: I think that about a lot of eighties fantasy, because
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: I also associate that with like the never ending story.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: There's a bunch of like bizarro stuff going on, right,
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: Like you're just I don't know, it's all it's all
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: a little sexy eighties fantasy.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, So here's the story. We see two hunters
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: in a forest. They're talking about how a unicorn must
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: live there because it's lush and green and beautiful and
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: always springtime, and they speculate that this must be the
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: last unicorn. Hey, that's the name of the movie in
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: existence anywhere in the world. These hunters leave, not wanting
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: to bother the unicorn who we meet, and her name
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: is just sort of unicorn for most of the movie,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: and she's Mia Farrow and she's voice by Mea Farrow.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: She has overheard the hunters and wonders, am I really
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: the last unicorn? Then a butterfly shows up and he
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: sings one of the wackiest songs I've ever heard in
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: a movie.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: I truly don't know if the songs in this movie
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: are either amazing or horrible, And I truly don't know which,
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: But I'm like, I was locked in, especially when we
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: get to the Jeff Bridges character, who's like, his whole
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: song is like I can't really read or write. You're
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: just like, yeah, cool, exactly.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: This is probably the weakest song fortunately.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: It is a very hympo coded song where he's like,
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I love you, I can't write a
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: polm yeah.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: And then we have this Butterfly song, during which the
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: butterfly calls this unicorn a pickle faced consumpt of Mary Jane.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: I was like, what are you talking about?
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: My friend we just met.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: It's weird. It's true, it's weird.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: So the unicorn asks the butterfly if he has encountered
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: any other unicorns on his travels, and the butterfly eventually
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: reveals that a red bull has driven all of the
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: other unicorns to the ends of the earth, but she
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: can find them if she's brave.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: Was I the only I felt? I like, this is
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: the coldest take of all. But like every time I
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: heard whenever red Bull came up, I was like he
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: he no, same, It's yeah.
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: They didn't know, you know, but that's even something to
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: talk about.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: Like, Okay, years later, we have this drink that a
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: locks a very specific type of energy in people.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: It was like it brings out people's dark side all
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: of a sudden. You want to entrap in the ocean. Yeah,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: The joke I kept trying to make in my head
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: was like, what if there's like a knockoff version of
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: this movie and rather than the Red Bull, it's like
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: the Monster energy drink.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Because the diet rock star is holding all the unicorns hostage.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Has driven all the unicorns into the sea. Anyway, Okay,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: so the unicorn, desperate to be with her people, sets
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: off on a journey to find them. She first comes
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: upon a farmer who mistakes her for a horse because
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: men slash humans, or maybe specifically, men can't see unicorns
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: for what they are because they can't see their horns.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: But the farmer still likes her and he wants he's
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: trying to capture her, but she gets away and continues on.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Then a traveling carnival finds the unicorn while she's sleeping
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: on the side of the road.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: Incomes one of my favorite characters, Mommy.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: Here comes Mommy, Yes, Mommy, Fortuna yeah, Fortuna yeah, and
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: her brothel.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: She's a wi or a hag or something voiced by
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Angela Lansbury killing it. She has a colleague. I don't
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: know who this person is to her exactly, but this
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: guy named Rook feels generous, and then a wizard named
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Schmndrick voiced by Alan Arkin. Are like the traveling Carnival
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: and Mommy Fortuna abducts the unicorn.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: And she can see that it's a unicorn. I thought
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: that that was interesting that there. It does seem to
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: be like, yeah, there don't seem to be hard and
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: fast rules, but it's mostly like men cannot see the
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: beauty of the unicorn. Mommy, for Tuna can and chooses
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: to exploit it.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: And you're, yeah, yes, because what she does for her
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: carnival is puts spells on old and or wounded animals
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: to create the illusion for spectators that they are looking
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: at like a manticore or a dragon or some fantastical beast.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: But Schmendrick, the magician, can see the unicorn's horn and
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: knows that she is in fact a unicorn, and he
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: wants to help her escape. Now, Mummy Fortuna has also
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: captured a real harpy, which I had to look up
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: with this is I only knew harpy in sort of
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: like the derogatory like woman context. Yeah, I didn't know
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: that a harpy was a mythological creature.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: I don't think that they did. They usually have three titties,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: three spoobs.
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know, nor do I, but this one does.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: This one has three titties and they're out.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: I was, I was thrown. I was like, I'm with
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: her now.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, a feminist icon. The harpy. The unicorn begs Mummy
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Fortuna to let her and the harpy go, but she refuses,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: so Schmendrick tries different spells to try to free the unicorn,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: but at this point he is a bit of a
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: flop of a wizard, so none of his spells work.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: But he does have the keys, so he just unlocks
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: her cage and the unicorn frees the other animals, including
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: the harpie, who kills Mommy Fortuna.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Oh incredible, amazing.
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: It's such a good death. Yeah, arms wide.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: She died as she lived a drama queen like I was. Really,
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: I was really rooting for the harpy to come back.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: But spoiler alert, I know this is the last we
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: see he of her unfortunately, but I like how you
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: framed that. Hannah's like, you know, that's life.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: People come and go true. So the Unicorn and Schmendrick
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: escape together and they head toward someone named King Haggard
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: in his fortress, who seems to be in cahoots with
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: the Red Bull, and I also like that. Schmendrick is like,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: let me come with you, and she's like, ugh, I
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: guess it.
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: They are sort of building like a Wizard of Oz
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: style team if the like if Dorothy was like, if
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: you must, if you must, if you must.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: I love the Unicorn. She the things that many things
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: I love about the Unicorn, but she never apologizes to
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: really anybody unless she really means it. Sometimes people will
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: be like, oh, I must have worried you or whatever.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: She's like, you did it.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: Oh, he was like, don't worry. She's like, don't worry
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: about it. She's like I'm not yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: Yes, okay, yeah, okay.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: I would have been leveled if I got a comment
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: like that from the Unicorn, but Schmndrick takes it in stride.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Then Schmendrick and the Unicorn are separated when this
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: guy named Captain Cully and his band of outlaws abduct Schmendrick.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: He does some magic for them. He like conjures Robin
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Hood and like a bunch of other and they're like, whoa,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: that's wild. But also Captain Kelly does not like it
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: or something or he feels threatened.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: Captain Kelley famously of the have a Taco, Have a
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: Taco fame, and it was like the saddest thing of all.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: I don't think Schmendrick ever got his taco.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: No, no, he didn't. Instead, he gets tied to a
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: tree which comes to life. I think it's because Schmendrick
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: does magic on the tree and then.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: It's not clear on that, not sure or with the
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: purpose of that. But also I think maybe that foreshadows. Okay,
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: here's my pitch, because Schmendrick's whole whenever he can get magic,
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: he is like too horny with it. He just like
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: conjures a hot lady. And so maybe that was foreshadowing.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: But that's what's gonna happen to our friend the Unicorn. Yeah,
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: he gets too horny close to the tree.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: I'm like, was he trying to do something to free
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: himself because he gets tied to this tree, right, and
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: then he does magic. I think to try to escape,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: but it just turns the tree into this like sexy,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: big titty.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: Tree from New Orleans all of a sudden, and then
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: there's no immortality but a tree's love. It's like, all right,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: cool whatever.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Right, because the tree is like hubba, hubba, who's this?
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: I love him? And then the Unicorn shows up to
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: save him from this tree that's smothering him with her.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Talk of boobs born sexy, yeah today today right now yeah.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: And then Captain Cully's his wife, Molly Grew Grew kind
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: of links up with the unicorn and Schmndrick and confronts
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: them in the woods and she's tearfully saying like where
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: were you when I needed you? Where have all the
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: unicorns gone? And she offers to go with them to
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: find King Haggard's fortress.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: I was so thrilled that Molly returned, because I'd already
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: adjusted to the idea of like, Okay, you see a
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: character once and then they're gone. But I love that Molly.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: I just I really up to a point. At some
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: point I f like her character. The plot kind of
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: forgets about her. She starts defending men for no reason.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: But there's a chunk of the movie where she's she's
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: just she's a girl's girl. She's a unicorn's girl, and
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: I really appreciated.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Her true and she also knows the right direction to
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: go in. She's like, you guys are fools. You're going
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: the wrong way. We have to go this way to
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: the fortress. So they've set off again and they get
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: pretty close to King Haggard's fortress, but then the red
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: bull comes charging out and chasing the Unicorn, so Schmendrick
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: uses his magic to turn her into a human so
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: that the bull won't bother her.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: I'm now convinced that it's been established. The only time
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: schmender can do magic, he's too horny with it. And
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: this is how we end up with. Oh, this scene
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: is like devastating, it's really beautiful.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he turns her into a human woman who is
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: naked because he's so horny with his magic. Yeah, and
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: both the Unicorn and Molly Grew are like, what the
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: heck have you done, Schmendrick? Why'd you turn her into human?
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: The Unicorn hates her new human body, but Schmendrick is like,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: don't worry, It's fine. This is our only hope of
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: getting you close to King Haggard. And then he names
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: her Amalthea and the three of them arrive at the
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: fortress and have a meeting with the sinister King Haggard,
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: who is voiced by Christopher Lee, as well as his
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: son prince Lear voiced by The Dude aka Jeff Bridges,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: and the three of them kind of move into the
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: castle Shamandrek is like, I'll be your wizard, Molly Grew
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: will be the cook.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Molly just has to start working. I was like,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: why can only a Malfia stay for free? It feels
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: like there's there's a sinister classist looks based hierarchy going
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: on here.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then prince Lear takes a liking to Amalfia
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: and he tries to show her how much of a
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: hero he is, but.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: He's kind of like de Doy, like He's like, I
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: couldn't decide how I felt about prince Lear. I spent
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: a good chunk Once prince Lear entered. I became full
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: body terrified that she was going to be a woman forever.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: She's gonna have to marry this guy whose only song
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: is about how he can't write.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it almost gets there, but then everyone's like, that's
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: a horrible ending to this story. Let's not do that,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: and they're like, okay, exactly, let's do something else. But yeah,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: he's trying to show her how much of a hero
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: he is. Amalthia is like, oh, so you killed a dragon.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: That don't impress me much, and she is not into it. Also,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: this human body, it's no good for the unicorn, and
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: she starts to kind of lose her sense of self
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: and she starts to forget what she's even trying to
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: do at this fortress. Meanwhile, there's a pirate cat.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it, don't ask
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: any questions, And of course he only speaks in riddles.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Don't worry about it.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes. He knows that Amalthia is actually
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: a unicorn, and he tells Molly Grew how to find
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: the red Bull so that they can defeat it, except
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: he doesn't tell them directly. He speaks in riddles.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: And this is when Molly Grew kind of enters her
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Defending Men story arc, where she's like, come on, date,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: prince like lear and you're like, why what at least,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: because I mean, I feel like the fear that you're
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: seized by is like knowing how the Little Mermaid ends
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: and knowing that she does choose to remain a person.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: But at least that movie had the decency to make
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Prince Eric hot and charismatic, which I would say is
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: not something that Maybe not what I would say of
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: Prince Lear necessarily he's a bit of a dud. I
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: would not be changing species for him.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: No, But what I do like about this series of
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: story beats is he's like, look how much of a
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: man I am. Look at me besting ogres and slaying
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: dragons and blah blah blah, and Amalthia is like, I
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: don't give a single shit about that. And then he's like, Okay,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: I'll change my tactic. I'll write you a poem.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: And he's like, I don't any he's bad at it, But.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: That works for her. She's like, oh, you're you're, you know,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: expressing your feelings and thoughts with your words and and
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: showing affection and clearly communicating with me. That works for me,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: not you slaying a bunch of dragons and shit. So
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: I do like that.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not into it. I'm not into it.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: I'm like, we gotta we gotta raise the bar. We
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: gotta raise the bar.
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, maybe we can't.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: We can't be I mean, look, this happens all the time,
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: but marrying the first person who manages to sort of
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: effectively communicate, it's like, we come on, keep it coming.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I don't disagree, but.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: I but I for the time, especially because this comes
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: out well before the Disney Princess Renaissance, where we have
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: very little of that. Yeah it is. It is cool
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: to see.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So the poem works on her and she likes
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: him now, and then they kiss and they're also singing
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: a song at each other and the song is not
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: very good. Then King Haggard approaches Amalthea to be like,
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: I know what you are. You should join the other
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: unicorns that I have cast into the sea.
• 28:00
  Speaker 6: I love this scene because she's like, oh funny, lol, no,
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: I'm not a unicorn, but also, oh my god, what
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: the fuck did you do?
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: And he's like, by the way, he's not my son.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Also I did this, and then he says, don't make
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: fun of me, Like, what the hell is this? I
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: loved it.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: It was hilarious. Then Amalthea, Schmendrick, and Molly Grew begin
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: to follow the Cat's riddle, starting with talking to a
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: skeleton who is a whino. He is, I don't know
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: what's going on with him, but I love the skeleton.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, couldn't couldn't have loved him more he could me.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: It sounded like Nathan Lane maybe wasn't available, but like
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: that was what the performance was.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: I had the same thought.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Renee ab oh he's odo on Deep Space nine. Okay,
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: that actually helps if you're a stark head, which Peter
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Beagle was. He wrote an episode of Star Trek TNG
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: in the nineties. Very cool.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, So they're talking to the Skelington and he tells
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: them that they need to walk through this big clock.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: So they do, but then he narcs on them, the
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: skeleton does, and King Haggard starts chasing them. Prince Lear
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: shows up to be like, hey, I'm Aalthia. I love you.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Where are you going? Were you gonna leave me? And
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: she's like no, I love you too. Actually, I don't
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: even want to turn back into a unicorn anymore. I'll
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: just stay a human and be with you. Prince Lear
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: and then everyone else is like, what the fuck, don't
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: do that. We have to stay We're on a quest
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: to save the unicorns, let's keep going.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: I appreciate that. I mean, I know there's a lot
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: of ways to view that, but I really thought that
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: was a very effective story beat where it's like she
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: has lost faith herself and it almost seems like, let
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: me stay with what's easier and more comfortable.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: And then are good friends like now they're likeicorn.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Even Prince Dude is like, because that would be, you know,
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: probably what would have made him more happy. But he's like, no,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: it's not it's not how it goes. We got to
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: get the Red Bull.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we gotta get their head, gotta get the the
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: monster energy drink. Then the Red Bull, speaking of shows
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: up and starts chasing them. Schmendrick turns Amalthea back into
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: a unicorn, and I'm not totally sure why he does
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: this in this exact moment, but now the Red Bull
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: is chasing her even harder. Prince Lear is like, well,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: I'm a hero, remember, so I'll help, but then he
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: gets knocked out immediately. I loved that. Then the unicorn
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: decides to fight back against the Red Bull, and this
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: seems to empower the other unicorns who had been trapped
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: in the sea to re emerge.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: What a beautiful shot. I loved it.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: And then the Red Bull is defeated. The unicorns escape
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: from the water to their freedom, all while King Haggard's
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: fortress crumbles to the ground, and I'm like, okay, a
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: fantasy movie where Christopher Lee plays an evil man with
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: a long white beard who lives in a sinister looking tower,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: who is defeated at the end of the story. What
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: is this Lord of the Rings the Two Towers?
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: WHOA, yeah, it's true, it's true. I do like that.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: There's like a single shot of Prince Lear looking at
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: where the castle crumbles and like, I don't know what
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: is intended, but my head canon, he's like, well, well,
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: I gotta find a new place to live. All my
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: stuff it's gone.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Yep, And then Prince Lear says goodbye to the others.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: The d new mall if you will, is that Schmndrick
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: is a true wizard. Now, Molly Grew is like, well,
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: I'll just hang out with him because I left my
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: husband nothing for Molly Grew like, yeah, okay, what the
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: hell is her arc nothing.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: The unicorn doesn't even say goodbye. The unicorn like she doesn't.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: She doesn't do things to be nice. She does what
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: she needs to. Because Molly Grew's whole introduction is like,
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: you haven't visited me since I was a girl. I'm
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: so sad. The unicorn leaves without saying goodbye.
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she just fucks off. But because she has lived
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: life as a mortal human for a while, the unicorn
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: understands feelings like love and regret, and she is grateful
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: for that. And she's also grateful that the other unicorns
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: have been liberated so that they can freely roam the
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: world again. And then the movie ends with the not
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: the last Unicorn anymore, just a unicorn returning home to
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: her forest.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: The and beautiful.
• 33:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's the story.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: And we're back, Hannah, what's sticking out to you?
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: Where would you like to start?
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: There's so much, you know, I was like thinking, of course,
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: of the queer subtext, because there's so much I'm not
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: sure about the author, Like, I feel like fantasy is
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: a very interesting genre and that it really is actively plumbing,
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: like the universal like unconsciousness, you know, and archetypes. So
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: what people are bringing in and what you bring to it?
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: So whatever?
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: I wonder what As a child I was like so
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: attracted to and then as an adult I was like,
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: you know, immediately my mind goes, okay, what do uniform
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: unicorns signify? That they are typically like they are these
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: creatures that only appear to virginal young women, which of
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: course is a patriarchal myth, but there is something beautiful
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: about that. They're very untouched. They're very like, you know,
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: there is this lore around like men cannot see them,
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: and that's why Molly grew so angry. She's like, I
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: miss my chance. So I just I love that. I
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: love that motif of who can see the unicorn. Of course,
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: my mind immediately goes to like bisexual women. I was like, okay,
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: what about this is like I got bisexual woman. And
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: the thing that always caught me though, is like when
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: she thinks she's like I might a last I'm like, girl,
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: you're in a forest by yourself, like did you not notice.
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: You neither know the unicorns around you?
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: Like that was also low weird to me, but yeah,
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: I felt like I started. Once the unicorn thing stuck,
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: I was like, okay, it's a bi sexual story is
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: about and enlightened bisexual tried to find and I was like, oh,
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: the different people were like I know what you are,
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: and then the men who are like, no, you're just this,
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: you know, like that, there's something that felt very real
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: about that, and even like she's kind of in this
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: like menage TOOI with Mendrick and Molly grew, you know,
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: and how he's like, you know, you brought up like
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: the horny magic. There's so many places to go, but
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: like the there's definitely something about the sexual, like he's
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: constantly doing stuff around the sex, and it's like he's coming.
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: He's like going from like a submissive soft boy is
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: not using his full power to someone who's empowered in
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: that magic. So yeah, there's so many places I don't know.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, well, yeah, since Schmendrick can see the unicorn
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: for what she is, and he is a man or
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: at least is coded that way.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: Maybe it's it's.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Just because he has magic the way that a lot
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: of these other men don't, but he can see her,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: so like, what does that say about him? We don't
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: have to answer that question right now, but just a thought.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: I love how open it is though I really enjoyed.
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, we talked about this many many many moons
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: ago when we covered The Little Mermaid of how there
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: is you know, a queer reading of The Little Mermaid
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: as well, and I feel like that I don't know,
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: these stories are so entwined and it's like we don't
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: really know what the intention is, but it doesn't really matter.
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: Like and I found this letterboxed legend. Sally Jane Black,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: who writes a lot about queer and trans representation in movies,
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: reviewed this movie and sort of said we can get
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: in the description but said something similar that I feel like,
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: is you know, connected to why we talk about the
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: Bechdel Test in the first place, Where the themes in
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: this movie really resonated with a lot of people and
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: a lot of kids, but a lot of queer and
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: trans kids as well, and how like when you watch
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: the movie, I mean, it makes total sense. And also
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: that there was not other representation present in media, and
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: how this movie really appealed to Sally Jane Black as
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: a kid, because you know, she feel like she was
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: seeing that kind of discomfort and frustration expressed in other
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: children's media and was really drawn to it. So I've
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: there's a lot that's been written about this movie, and
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: I mean everyone's perspective on it. I don't know, it's
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: just that's like what's great about fantasy is it's so
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: open that like you can you can find yourself in
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: one of these characters.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I find myself in this skeleton.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the Whyo skeleton. I really I really appreciated Molly Grew.
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: I think it was like just that her introduction, I mean,
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: the unicorn. Obviously we were all trying to be the unicorn.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: But I do think I'm more of a Molly crew type,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: but like her, I don't know that like an adult
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: woman's like sadness and frustration and feeling like something is
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: passed her by and like, but then also wanting to
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: be a part of the Unicorn's life and to help
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: her however she can. I really appreciated how how quickly
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: I guess both of like both Molly and Schmndrick just
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: totally bailed on their previous communities that weren't serving them
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: and they're like, yeah, no, I'm going unicorn mode. Like
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: Molly in particular because it seems like she's maybe lived
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: with these like guys eating tacos her whole life, and
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: she's just like see, like she emerges from behind a tree,
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: She's like, yeah, they were chasing a ghost, like I was,
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna chase a unicorn. I just the
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: friendship was and it could have gone so many I
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: don't know, like I appreciate how how much this movie
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: sort of pushes back on Like I guess what I
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: think of is like recognizable like Disney fairy tale style tropes.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: It's more complex than that.
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure.
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this is definitely for the child who you know
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: is already like you were saying, like kind of feeling
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: like left out. There is something like I just think
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: there's there's a lot of children, whether it's queerness or
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: neurodivergence or whatever it is, where you're not quite there's
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: something that you're not like, there's like a gap here
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: that I'm not quite getting, you know, And I think
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: kids know who they are and so they start you
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: start to pick that up. And I think these kind
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: of tales like really appeal to that feeling and appeal
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: to you finding your people and it's just also like oh,
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: it's like a struggling magician who you know, he's.
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: Trying, but it's not happening.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: Mommy Fortuna is like not a great boss, right, She's
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: like I llegal like said, I was like, this is
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: like sex trafficking, right, Like.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: She's she's a trafficker.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Like she's just like yeah, and then with the heartbeat,
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: which she's like, I know you're gonna kill me one day,
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: like I know, but I'll be immortal too, because I'll you.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: Know, I'm leaving a legacy.
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: I'll be the only one. Yeah.
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: And I was like that's such an interesting and I
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: like that. It was like it wasn't her femininity, right,
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: She's still evil, right.
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: Unfortunately she's a witch, I got, which.
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: We could have had a context for a positive, more
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: witch representation, but I appreciated that a lot.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: I was trying to figure out what to make of
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Mommy for Tuna, because she is like very classic hag
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: tropes are applied to this character and she's exploiting like
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: all the creatures around her, and I was like, Okay,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: I guess you could read this as like a woman
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: who's not an ally to other women, And if we
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: kind of consider the unicorn and the Harpie as like
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: women codd characters, because there are many women like that,
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: and she is perfectly willing to exploit other women. So
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: I'm just like, maybe that's what they're trying to do.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know, again, was this intentional? Did Peter s
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Beagle have a strong understanding of these things?
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: I don't know. Peters speaking of Peter S Beagle because
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: he is he's quite old now, he's in his eighties,
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: but he is still alive with us and logged in
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: and in fact, just an hour ago as we're recording this,
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: posted a picture of the giant titty tree, so he's
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: still locked in. He captions it. The trees know how
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: to let go beautifully. Maybe we can too. And it
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: is just as still of the magician motor boating the tree.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: But whatever, based on what I because I read it,
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: I read a number of interviews with Peters Biegel, I mean,
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: he's definitely an ally. I think he keeps his own
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: his business, his business, but he has posted an I
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: mean he posts for Pride month every month. He's a
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: very vocal supporter of his queer fans and also just
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: very I don't know, I feel like fantasy novelists are
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: like uniquely good with like interacting with their fan base
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: as well, because I think about how much like George R. R.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: Martin comes to mind immediately of just like someone who
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: very openly interacts with his fans and all that. But
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Peter Biegle, he from from what I can see, he
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: seems to be like a very lovely person who who
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: almost like doesn't really offer a lot of explanations on
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: the various interpretations of his work, unlike some perhaps evil
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: fantasy writers out there.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Oh turfy transphobic ones.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, But I appreciated in like going through these
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: interviews with him that he's like, it means whatever you
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: think it means, you know, like, and because that's like,
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: you know, being a fantasy writer, being especially a writer
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: who's writing for children, it's like you're not going to
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: tell a kid what it means. I really appreciated his
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: sort of outlook on that because this was a book
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: that was published in the sixties and then yeah, it
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: was published in sixty eight and then was later adapted
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: by It was so interesting if this was almost adapted
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: by the animation company that did the Peanuts television specials
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: and then jumped over to Rank and Bass, who are
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: all over the place. I don't like rank it. I
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: don't really understand what what would make Rank and Bass
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: do something versus not do it because it's so all
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: over the place. But I really loved it. I don't know.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And then just a few years ago, in twenty
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: twenty three, Peter Beegele published I think It's two novellas
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: that take place in this world as the last Unicorn
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: called the Way Home, so he like revisited this world.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of the same characters make appearances,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: particularly Schmendrick, molly Grew, and I think Prince Lear are
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: in these two novellas. I don't know much beyond that,
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: but listeners, if you like this world and you like
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: these characters, those books might be worth checking out.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: I can't get over that he posted the Titty Tree
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: an hour ago, Like what a way to find out
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: someone is still alive?
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: It's like still kicking.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: That is so funny, amazing.
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that scene, you know, was very again like
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: I feel like subcoded, you know, I mean, just like
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: it reminded me of I'm a big like wonder Woman
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: fan William Moulton Marston is a creator a wonder Woman,
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: and he actually during his lifetime he had my two wives.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: They all lived like in the same house, and he
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: was in a very interesting relationship of like feminine empowerment
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: and like when you see like a wonder room of
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: like the lasso and she's always getting like tied up.
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: It's like very kink coded. And it's the point where
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: his like bosses, like the comic book were like, you
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: need to stop, like it's getting out of hand.
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: We get what you're doing. No one's fooled.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: So there is something to be said about Like again,
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: I just couldn't Like God, I was like once I
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: had the bisexual thing, I was like, I'm gonna go
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: with it.
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: I'm like, she is a bisexual.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: And there's even this part where prince Lear like I
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: also love to see like what people's desire, like how
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: they interacted with her, right, So it's like Schremendrick is like,
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: you're gonna give me a chance to prove my magic.
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: Molly Grew has like her coming her late coming of age.
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: Prince Lear kind of wants to possess her, is in
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: love with her, but also isn't gonna sell what she is.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: King Haggard definitely wants to possess her, and she's like
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: her into the ocean.
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: And I was like, oh, this is a very.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: Interesting relationship to bisexuality, and I think it mirrors the life.
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: And there's a point where he says, Prince Larry's like
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: he actually says the word mermaid. He's like unicorn, mermaid sorceress.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: I love who I love, Yeah, you know. And I
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: thought that that was very telling about her own journey
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: and what.
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: She had to like his. That was like kind of his.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Bisexual awakening pan sexual awakenings.
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: I think so, I think so so.
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: I just I love that she was just this mirror
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: to other people's stuff, you know.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: And that she didn't I that's so beautifully. But I
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: really I don't know this damn unicorn. She like she
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: she is like this mirror to the people who she
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: meets along the way, but doesn't like submit to anyone's
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: vision of who she is, which is part of why
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: I think it's so cool when you know, Prince Dude,
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: Prince Lear and and Schmandrick and Mollie all say like, no,
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: you can't just stay a human now you need to
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: like finish your journey, because they wouldn't have been able
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: to do that if they hadn't met her. And I
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: like that they had an like a vested interest in
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: being like, now you need to, you know, go on
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: your journey and be who you are. And yeah, that
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: that moment where prince Lear just accepts her and it's
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: like whoever, it doesn't it doesn't matter, So he has
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: his awakening, And I just love that this movie offers
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: kind of a non prescriptive version of what love looks like,
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: where it does still feel like it is a love
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: story between the Unicorn and prince Lear, but you know,
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: they can't beat together, but they love each other. And
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: you know, again it's like I adore the Little Mermaid
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: and always will. But that's like if we're we're holding
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: the two aside each other. The Disney version of The
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: Little Mermaid, obviously not the original version, ends in this
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: very you know, kind of prescriptive cis normative version of
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: love and happiness, and the last Unicorn goes a completely
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: different direction and it's like really affecting.
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it kind of goes in like a Pocahontas direction
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: where it's like you know, like the male character, he's
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: going to be changed by his interaction, but he never
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: gets to possess, you know. And because she would have
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: been changed, right, and she's like she sings that whole
• 48:39
  Speaker 4: probably one of the weakest songs honestly, Now I'm a woman, Yeah,
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: because I love the America like songs Man's Road and
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: the Last Unicorn Y, I like, it's just and it's
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: just I find it beautiful, you know, And it's definitely
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: a good like workout if you want to kind of
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: you know, run and feel like you're openings like this
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: new vistas amazing, Like.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: You are you become the unicorn?
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you really do.
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: And it's like how he talks about the unicorn, like, oh,
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: she's kind of worn, but she's still there. But yeah,
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: I found I felt like they had a They're also
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: blonde men, which is interesting. So yeah, blonde men who
• 49:23
  Speaker 4: are kind of sheltered in their worldview who have this
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: like entry interaction with a feminine aspect which is outside
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: of their understanding of what life is, and then they
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: are changed. But then it's also like, but you're not
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: going to get to be together, right and her also
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: like from a unicorn to a woman and then her
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: immediately hating her, you know, her immediately being like oh
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: my god, I can feel this and dying like I
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: don't want to.
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: Be this, you know.
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: And Molly grew also really understood that moment, like that
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: was a very telling moment. I don't think I understood
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: the significance of as a child is really what the
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: movie is saying about immortality and what it's saying about
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: archetypes of energy, and so like, there's that part we
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: talked about the hearpbee, the three breasted half woman, half bird.
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: But when she's like, you we pop to the same magic.
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: We're two sides of the same. And I was like,
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: oh yeah.
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: It's like you have the unicorn, who kind of represents
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: the virginal, untouched, mystical female, and then you have like
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: the heartbee, right, who is like you put a heartpee anywhere.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: She's gonna ruin some shit.
• 50:41
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 50:42
  Speaker 5: She even tries to kill a unicorn at one point.
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: She was like you just read her.
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So it's like, but they're the same. She's like,
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: we're the same. And even the unicorn is like I
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: have to free her. I can't let her let this
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: energy be caged, you know, And I thought that that
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: was also interesting, is that she wasn't incompetent Titian. She
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: didn't name her as evil. She was like, she too
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: deserves to be free in this world.
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I just yeah, the Unicorn's approach to I feel
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: like I've not really seen a lot of movies in general,
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: but like especially children's movies that have a character that
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: is quite like her, where I'm like, maybe this is
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: just how I'm trained to view I don't know, like
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: protagonists of children's movies or like women and children as
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: they're presented in media in general. But like I was
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: always very pleasantly surprised. I guess when the Unicorn, you know,
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: with the Harpy example of like she respects and sees
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: the Harpy, but doesn't feel that she owes her anything.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: And it's not like they have to, you know, they're
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: they're all going to oz or where, you know, like
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: the idea that like they meet, they see each other,
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: they have a strong respect and understanding of each other,
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: and then they can move on. It's just it's like
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: not something I've seen very often.
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: Ever.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: I feel like, yeah, there is this feeling that every
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: character you meet you, You're like, okay, now I will
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: you know, we have to take care of each other
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: now or whatever it is. But it's just this very
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know, it almost feels like a religious figure
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: that we get in the Unicorn where she just releases
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: you know, the creatures that she encounters. And then there's
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: other characters that I'm like, what's going on with the
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: pirate cat. I don't know.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't know a thing about that. I liked it.
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: I liked it.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm not complaining, No.
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: I do believe.
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: I think fantasy is very makes its home with that
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: and that again it can have that feeling of like
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: West the Western canon is very like you know Hero's Journey, right,
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: It's a set of initiation points really, that's all it is,
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: and then you move to the end. But I did
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: appreciate that, Like again, I find this semmic life that
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: sometimes you meet these very strange characters in your life
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: and you know, sometimes you're like, I'm never going to
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: talk to this person ever again.
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: But they will.
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: How you'll think about them like years later, you know,
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: maybe for the rest of your life about this thing,
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: like they just almost gave you this Jewel, and I
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: feel like fantasy is really a good place to deal
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: with that, like the randomness of life, the magic of life.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: I also love Schmendrick's journey because I think it really
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: is about like becoming more in control of.
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: Your sex magic.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: You know, at first, he's like magic, do as you will,
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: and it's like, that's not a good spell.
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: You know you're going to need to bring.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Need to be more specific, perhaps, yeah.
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: More specific and be more grounded. And he gets better
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: over time, you know, Like there's just there's just so
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: much happening with their journeys and with like what magic means.
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: I think what struck me that when I first wrote
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: about it a couple of years ago, was Molly grew
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: about the midlife awakening that we don't really talk about,
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: and I wish that she got a better arc.
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, when I watched it again, I was like, Yeah,
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: she kind of just like.
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: Cleans and gives little tidbits, but there's really no change.
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: I'm like, what would her arc be, Like, what would
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: her new like?
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: She's clearly like she has been changed from this experience,
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: but what does she change into?
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: Like?
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: Was that just too much for the creators of this
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: film to like hold, you know, because everyone else has
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: a very marked arc except for her.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: To the extent where Peter Beegle admits that he like
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: forgot question mark or just like didn't bother with writing
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: much of a like detailed background for that character, and
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: how he was grateful that the voice actor Tammy Grimes,
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: who voices Molly Grew, brought life to the character on screen,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: because he's like, whoops, I've kind of forgot to you know,
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: give her any characterization in the story. So the author
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: acknowledged that she's but I think she's a character who
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: we can easily identify with, and I do wish that
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: there was more context given to like what compels her
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: to leave her husband and go on this journey. We
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: can you know, make assumptions, but I feel like there
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: could have been more just more writing around that, and
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: then like I would have liked to see more about like, Okay, well,
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: what does she what is she longing for that maybe
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: gets fulfilled by the end of the story or something.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I would also, I mean, I just wanted
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: a place for her to land more than anything where
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: it's like like you're saying, like schmndrick, like there is
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: a clear end to everyone's arc, but we don't really know.
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, she if what she all she wanted was
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: to reconnect with this unicorn, and like the if in
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: this context, the unicorn represents like innocence in childhood and
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: like feeling this feeling of infinite possibility. She's made that connection.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: But but she doesn't even get a goodbye, like it's
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: and we don't really know, like where does she go
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: from here? We know that she's liberated herself from it
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: seems like this, you know, bunch of losers she was
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: spending her life with, which is like a reward in itself,
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: and it's like I almost I don't know, Yeah, like
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: I just I think if we just knew a little
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: bit more about her, But I was. I was also
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: very like touched by the performance and frustrated. I think
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: once once she gets to the castle, she just sort
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: of is like, I like the prince, you're being mean
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: to the prince. Stop yelling at schmndrick. And I was like, wait,
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: but this is your girl, Like come on.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: I do appreciate that she is I would say more
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: active than Amalthea in the back half of the at
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: least because she's I don't even know if she seeks
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: that cat out, but the cat's there, and she's like, okay,
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: well where do I find the red Bull? And he
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: gives his little riddle, and then it's Molly who is like, okay,
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: we got to go find the red bull? Like what
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: are we doing here? Even so, I appreciate that at
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: least she is given some agency and is able to
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: make some active choices that propel the story forward in
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: a way that I'm not even sure they would have
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: been propelled forward if left to like Amalthea's devices, because
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: she's just like, well, I guess I'm content to stay
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: here with Prince Lear, who I love now, I guess.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: And I want to talk more about that too, because
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: someone mentioned earlier about like, well, it's that sort of
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: metaphorical for a woman who's sort of agency has been
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: stripped from her and is kind of on the brink
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: of giving up, or like what does that mean? Why
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: does she? Why is she content to sort of abandon
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: her journey of finding the other unicorns and finding her
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: people and just being content to live as a mortal
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: human with this guy who she just met, who doesn't
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: know how to really identify with her.
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: I had a feeling about that that I don't know,
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: maybe it's again like being overly forgiving of what could
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: have been a story plot. But that's like right where
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: that's the moment where either you're like, Okay, this is
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: the moment where it becomes the Little Mermaid, or it doesn't,
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: like Disney's The Little Mermaid and it doesn't. I really,
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: I don't know. It's not my favorite story beat. But
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: I almost like interpreted that moment of her. It was
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: like a fear based decision, like she was I don't
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: know whatever, two things being true at once. She does
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: really love and care for Prince Lear, and staying in
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: this form with him is the easy choice in this moment.
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: It's the choice that allows her to not go through
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: the difficult process of understanding who she really is and
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: not confront the big bad and you know, not do
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: all these things that are important to do but also terrifying.
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: And I don't know, I kind of not liked it,
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: but like I feel like that that was how I
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: read it, and that her friends who she you know,
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: who had found themselves by knowing her, were like, no,
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: you need to give this to yourself and we support
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: you like whoever you know, however this ends, we support
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: you when we love you. So I kind of liked
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: that the story built up that chance for her to
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: have a moment of fear and weakness and be supported anyways.
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: True, yeah, because she was like deeply unmored by her transformation.
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah you know, and I think like like any transformation,
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: you start to sometimes forget like who you are and
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: what your purpose is, and you know, you do the
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: easier thing, You do the thing that is most accessible
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: in that moment. And it's also like both like a
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: trope wise, right, like okay, just have her be rescued
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: by this prince and live happily ever after in the castle,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: and it's like all written for you, right, you have
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: to take a very different types of action, like even
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: when you know the I think it's molly gru at
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: the point, it's like you can fight back, like you
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: don't have to just like take what the red bull
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: is doing. And I also felt like there again, I
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: always I kept on because of the bisexual thing. It
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: was just like very much there, like don't forget your
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: other bisexuals. You know, this is not just you. This
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: is also like when you remember who you are. You're
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: helping these like other bisexuals be free from this place
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: that they've been placed in. And I also thought King
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: Haggard was very interesting in his like reasoning. He was
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: just like, yeah, they're like the only thing that makes
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: me happy.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 7: You know. And I felt like a young in spite
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 7: of my old age.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh, that's what men say when they
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: want to sexually harass like a very younger woman, like, oh,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: she made me feel young, you know. And it's this
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: vicarious like he's leeching this energy from this place. But
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: he can't, of course let them be free. He has
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: to cage them in some way. They have to be
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: under his control.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 7: And he knows what.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: She is like at first, he's kind of like I
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: don't know when she first comes to the castle. But
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: then he's like, you betrayed yourself with the way you
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: move and you do this and you do that. So yeah,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: I was just like, yeah, this is this is very
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: there is to me, like a very potent like sexual energy.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: And then what happens is like, you know, he falls
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: to his death, you know, and we're all happy for it.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 7: Yeah, So I yeah, I just I.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: Still very much like appreciate what it's saying. And I
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: think that it's it's doing something very complex like that
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: kids may not understand, but it's laying the groundwork for
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: like the Pocahontas the Moana, right, like kind of like
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: the Disney spaces where it's not just you end up
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: with the dude. Right, those are the two that I
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: can really see that that happened in and I don't
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: think that's an accident.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, to go back to the Unicorns transformation too.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: In the story, her transformation is like thrust upon her.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: It's Schmendrick being like, oh my god, I have to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: do something to save her. I'll turn her into a
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: human so that the Red Bull doesn't care to be
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: bothered with her versus again, if we're going to compare
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: this to the Little Mermaid, Ariel seeks out her own transformation.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: She goes to Ursula. She says, I want to be
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: a human. Her motive is you know, questionable, but also
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: you know, she she has the agency. She's like, I
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: want something, I'm going to go for it, and I
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: even if it is to she's sixteen, it is that
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: she wants to be with this man who she saw
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: one time, but again she's a teenager. The point is
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: she seeks out her own transformation versus in the last Unicorn. Again,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: that transformation to human form and like being a mortal
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: is thrust upon a Mauthea slash the unicorn, and it
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: starts to destroy her again. She's like losing her memory,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: she's losing her sense of self. I feel like you
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: could read that possibly as like, you know, whatever gender
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: roles or rigid expectations that a patriarchal society thrusts upon
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: women and everyone, but how it like tears you down
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: and breaks you apart. And she then I do wish
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: that because Mendrick just kind of randomly changes her back
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: into a unicorn sort of in the middle of the
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: final like red Bull battle. I wish there was maybe
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: like narratively something more significant that like is a catalyst
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: to get her to turn back, or that she is
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: like I want to turn back and she does it
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: herself or something. Maybe that's just kind of weak storytelling and.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: They're like, we have five minutes to end the movie.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, we gotta do she has to be a unicorn again.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: How do we do it? But it isn't until she
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: does transform back into her like true self that she's
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: able to then fight back against the red Bull. I
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: don't even know what happens to her. She just sort
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: of like intimidates him into the sea and then he
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: like dies question Mark, and then that liberates all of
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: the other unicorns. But yeah, I think that that like
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: the thing thrust upon you versus you having the agency
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: to seek it out yourself, and these two different stories
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: I find very interesting.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and there is that space too for that like that,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: it was a very the transformation was very exciting. She's like, oh,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: you could done this the whole time, I guess, but
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: here we are. But an interesting thing about like the
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: the unicorn is that it's always been like kind of
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: a queer coated entity because it's this like beautiful white
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: horse kind.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 7: Of going like horse lore.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: But then it has this like phallic symbol right of
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: like a horn, and it's like she remembers that, oh,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: I have this horn, you know, and that's kind of
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: what she uses to like fight back. So it's like
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: her acknowledging all that she has in that moment, which
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: I also felt like that was her like kind of
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: like a more complete space she was she knew to
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 4: fight against the heartbeat. I mean, she kind of was
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: using the horn there, but maybe she didn't think that
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: her horn had enough juice to you know, for the
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: red bull. But then realize it and he just kind
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: of like it is like oh all right, kind of
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: bows down and it just goes to the ocean. Dodn't
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: really know what happens to him, and then that's the end.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: And I also felt like it was interesting to me too, like, Okay,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 4: King Haggard can't fight, he doesn't have his name is Haggard, right,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: He's like not life is sucked out of him, so
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 4: he has to rely on this other entity.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 7: And I'm like, oh, that's like toxic masculinity.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: Like it's like when you know you don't have the
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: the power in yourself, so you have to have these
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 4: like kind of henchmen do the thing for you.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 7: And then with the bull.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: My bulls typically signified they're like toxic masculinity in Taurus form,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: you know, very.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 7: Controlling, very stubborn, very domineering.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: Speaking as a Taurus can confirm.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: You know, like you know, we all have our udevolved
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 4: like quote unquote shadow sides of our signs, and that
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 4: is the bull right and red, which is also interesting,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: you know war.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 7: So there's there's there's.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 4: A lot going on with the symbology of how he
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: himself can't do it but he has to rely on
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: this other end to do it, and that it's unicorns
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: yet again you know that are that are there And yeah,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: I just I just love this film so much.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: It's doing so it's so deep and that that you
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: both make excellent points. I just this, I love this movie.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: I do think I hadn't really thought about, like, yeah,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: how Ariel really does spearhead her own transformation whereas and
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: and that in that read they both end in the
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: forum that was like their heart's desire and that they
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: saw their their journey through and that's really beautiful. And yeah,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: I'm so curious. I mean I didn't look into what
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: happens in the like the newer stories, but like I
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: want to know what I feel like you sort of
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: have an idea of where the unicorn and where Schmndrick's
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: story is heading from there, but I'm like, what happens
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: to Mollie and what happens to prince Le or where
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: where does he go here? Does he like take a
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: writing class, does he I hope so that would be
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: a fun continuation of his story. Is like he finished
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: that symphony he was complaining about.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the more we talk about it, the more I
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: fall in love with the movie. It's really cool, and
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: I hope it's the sort of thing. I mean, I
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: watched it on to be but I hope that it's
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: still finding an audience today. I haven't heard much about it,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: but I don't know. I'm going to show it to
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: my niece the next time I s he here. I
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: think she'll love it.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, i'd be curious to know. Like I think there
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: are certain films I'm like, okay, when kids like it,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: what is this again saying about their own understanding of
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 4: the world, because we don't really have that now. I mean,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: the animation I think in this film is like so beautiful. Yeah,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: it's like very artistic. I mean there's this one scene
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: where it's like there's like some kind of sunset and
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: there's like mountains and they're catching all the refracting a
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: light that happens when you know, you see snow.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 7: And like a sunset, and I'm like, you don't see.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: That level, like that level of animation, like they were
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: really taking kids seriously. And I think that's the thing
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: I read about it, is like this is a film where.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 7: Kids are taken seriously.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 4: They're not pandering to you, They're not I mean, they
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: have like some kind of off collor jokes, but it's
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: very like we are going to present this story too,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: We're not going to tie it up of a neat boat.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 7: So I feel like it's just very.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: Much like someone being on like really seeing kids as equal,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: you know. And that's another thing that I deeply appreciate
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: about this film.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this movie doesn't shy away from something that I mean,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: I guess it depends on the quality of movie, and
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: it's like, of course there were crummy, condescending animated movies
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: coming out the eighties as well, but I really appreciated
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: how much this this movie does not shy away from,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: like a feeling of profound loneliness. I feel like stories
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: like those are so appealing to a lot of kids
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: feeling out of place and feeling just like alone and
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: like you're business. I don't know, Like a lot of
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: the things that I was drawn to when I was
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: a kid were stories like that, of stories of feeling
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: isolated and stories of feeling like you had to there
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: was some sort of like fight to understand yourself and
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: be who you were. And I don't know, Yeah, there
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: is so many moments of from heroes and villains in
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: this story of profound loneliness. And I feel like there's
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: a pretty clear understanding that King Haggard, I mean, is
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: doing this horrible thing because he doesn't understand himself. He
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: doesn't know how to find joy in a way that
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: isn't depressive, and he's clearly so lonely. And you see
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: that like similar qualities in the friends and that find
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: each other. And I just I don't know. I feel
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: like loneliness is such a big part of being a kid,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: and movies that really don't shy away from that and
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: don't say like whatever, just make a friend, which is
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: I think how like more sort of talk down to
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: you kind of media does is really impactful and like
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: it sticks with you through throughout your life.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: Yes, is there a more chosen family than the Unicorn
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: Schmendrick and Molly grew.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: It's it's a weird little.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: Family, yes, or mana maybe both, but you know it's
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: like it's definitely chosen community. It very much reminds me
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 4: of like, you know, the yeah, the first Muppet movie. Yeah,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: hermish is going on and like you're just gathering.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 7: People like a team, and.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, you'll do yeah, you know, why don't
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: you come along? And yeah, I love I love that, and.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 7: She's just like, yeah, this is this is chill, this
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 7: is fine.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: But you know, she's on her own journey. But her
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: journey it's what awakens them to theirs. But I would
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 4: I mean, I hope that if you know, Peter Beegle, like,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 4: if he you know, keeps going with this, I would
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: love to see what he would imagine Molly grew, Like
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: what would her space be like from there? Like does
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: she stay wish Mandric or she's like, you know, this
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 4: is kind of getting old, Like I need to kind
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: of get my own.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 7: Stuff together, Like yeah, what does she meet up with
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 7: the unicorn again?
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd really want to see because I think that
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: what's very interesting about fantasy is you know, here you
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: have this universe where you can do anything right.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 7: All the rules are off the table.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: You can make trees have boobs, you can have a
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 4: hearpeet with three breasts, you can have a red bull
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: that gathers unicorns in the sea, but we don't quite
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: have the imagination to think of an older woman who
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: goes on her own journey, right, Like that is a
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: sticking point and it's like, oh wow, Like so it
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: just shows just how And that's I think a big
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: critique for a lot of fantasy, especially men writers, is like, okay,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: so you can imagine people speaking Elfish, but not like
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: a woman having agency. Like that's so interesting, like where
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: the imagination can just shut down. And so I would
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 4: really love to see what happens because that was a
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 4: part that definitely when I rewatched it sometime in my
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: late twenties, like I was just so struck my Molly groued.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: I literally had to show my sister. I was like,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 4: and she's like, it's so real, you know that part
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: of when you feel like life has passed you by,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 4: but then getting a chance to do something different. But
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: we don't really get to see that different. So I
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: think that that's an opening. Maybe people who are into
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: fan fiction can take that story into a different space,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: because I do think it could be a really beautiful
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 4: story because she literally just goes to the castle and
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: most of the scenes that we see her again, she's
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: defending the men or she's cleaning, you know, and I'm like,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: that doesn't seem I think she.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 7: Has more clearly has more fight than that, more smart
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 7: than that.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: We're going, yeah, I feel like that's not who we
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: met at the because I just like, oh, I was
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: so taken with her, because I mean, even her first
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: line to the unicorn being where have you been? You're
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: just like oop, like it just like hits you. And
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: then she just sort of laughs in men's faces for
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: a good twenty thirty minutes.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: And she does pet the cat and the cat's like yeah,
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: do that.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: Oh, And You're like, all right, all right, mister beagle.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: Whatever you say, why not?
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: This is this is silly. But I was like, Mollie Grew,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: h Is she an ancestor of I Grew? I thought
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: the same thing. You know, it's like the Minion verse,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: the Minion verse.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe you know, maybe Molly Grew has
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: you know, for I kind of I need to rewatch
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: the Rise of Grew. I kind of forgot, yeah, the
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 3: origin story, but maybe she is an ancestor of Grew
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: A very powerful whole wizarded his own right or something.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, is there anything else that you wanted to talk about?
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is such a rich text and I
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: feel like I'm probably missing stuff, but that was kind
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: of all I had.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Oh, I did have something about the America doing
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 4: a soundtrack. I thought that that was really telling. If
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: you listen to the lyrics of a song, there is
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: a clear like climate.
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 7: Change, you know, a thread that's happening.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: And you kind of can see like where she's going,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 4: and then when she goes to Caggard, it's like completely
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: like wasteland.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and so that was a part that I'm.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 4: Like, oh, like it's like the Last Unicorn bisexual Awakening
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: and or climate change optimism about you know, releasing these
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 4: unicorns from the sea. But there are songs, especially Man's
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: Road and The Last Unicorn definitely have like a climate
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: like everything's desolate, but then we see the unicorn is there.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 4: It's that it's a sign that there is still yet life.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: So that was something It's almost like Loraxe a little bit. Yeah,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: like the Final Tree Seed. Yeah, I didn't make that connection. Yeah,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: everything else I have were just like lines that I
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: was like, huh in a fun way where the when
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: King Haggard fires his old magician or whatever, He's like,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: this guy's kind of a magician's magician, but maybe he's
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: too good at magic. He's fired like everything King Haggard does,
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: like he is a villain whose villainy spreads from like
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: loneliness but also just boredom, and so it's funny. I
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: liked the Magician's Magician just like a comics comic, Yeah, exactly.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: I liked the random, just really good character names across
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: the board. Characters that we meet once and ever again
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: include Jack Jiggly and will and Willie Gentle.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: Amazing names.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: There are two of the guys who are essentially eating
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: tacas and then they follow the ghost of Robinhood or whatever.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: You're just like, fantasy is fun.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 5: Fantasy.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: It's your brain is both very on and very off
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: at the same time, and it's just like a very
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: specific frequency.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 7: Yes you need that duality.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. The butterfly butterfly I mean legend, I think
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know, right is he I don't know.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: It seems like he just like listens to other songs
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: and then recites them at people, but then he also
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: knows about the red Bull and what the unicorn needs
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: to do to find her people just ddles.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: Riddles, riddles, riddles, my mom kind of tests. There was
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: one point where I was I was watching this with
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: my fiance and I turned to him and was like,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: this is how my mom texts. My mom texts in
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: riddles sometimes, like I've had this conversation before. My mom
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: is very the Butterfly did where it's like sort of
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: insulting you, sort of complimenting you, and it's a series
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: of incoherent riddles, and I love shout out Jill.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: The Butterfly and the cat should be friends.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, they should, they should mesties.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: And then oh the skeleton.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 7: Yeah, maybe all three I would love. Maybe that's another
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 7: fan fiction just them.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that would rock. That would just them anywhere and
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: doing anything I would I would love.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the movie does pass the Bechdel test. It
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: does between the Unicorn and Molly Grew, especially in that
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 2: scene where Molly Grew's like, where were you when I
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 2: needed you? Later she does tell amalthea when she's like
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: in her human form and she's like, why are you
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: so cruel to prince Lear. Yeah, there's a few exchanges
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: I was hoping there might be more, but there's a few.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: But as far as the one true metric, the last metric,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: if you will, the Bechtel Cast nipple scale, where we
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I'll give this
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: maybe like three and a half. I don't know. I'm
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: a bit flum mixed still by like some of the things.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: But I think as far as you know, interpretations and
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: readings of this movie, because it's so open to so
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: many things, I really appreciate that. I do appreciate that
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: it subverts a lot of like Disney princess tropes and
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: kind of examines what happens to a character a unicorn
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: when she's isolated and is not with her people and
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: doesn't have her community. I mean, we don't know a
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: lot about her backstory or general unicorn lore in this
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: specific world, Like are unicorns generally solitary creatures and that's
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: why she doesn't notice that she's the last one, or
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: did she used to have a unicorn family? If so,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: what happened to them? So there's a lot we don't
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: know about her. I feel like the female characters overall
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: in this story could have been better characterized, but there's
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: still a lot of interesting things going on here. Also
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: again the thing with her physical transformation into human form,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: that being something that wasn't her choice, and how it
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: makes her sort of lose her sense of self and
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: then she has.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: To regain it.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: You know, all these interesting themes. She's complex, She's complexlex
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: I love her chosen family, and I love all these
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: random side characters that pop in and out. So I
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: will give I'll give it three and a half nipples.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: And we see so many nipples in the movie, such
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: as the Harpies three nipples, so I'll give I'll give
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: one to the Unicorn, one to the Harpie, one to
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: the tree with boobs. My half nipple can be shared
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: by the cat and the skeleton, my two favorite characters.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: I'm feeling a four. I don't know. I'm like, I'm like,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: why not? My heart is open. I feel like a
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: unicorn prancing through beautiful. I'm going four. I think that
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: this movie. I liked everything about it. I think I
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: think outside of it. I'm docking it mainly for its
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: lack of cohesion on Molly's part. Molly's my favorite character.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: Sorry to the Unicorn, but Molly takes it for me.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 3: I just I just was like so moved and like
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: you said, Hannah, I mean, there's so few representations, especially
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: in children's media, of like a woman having an awakening
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 3: in middle age. If like, most often we just see
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 3: stock moms or hags, and we do see a hag here,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: but she's a complicated hag. She's competicated.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 7: Haw.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: I just like I love what this movie is doing.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna dock it for not giving Molly her you know,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: the full arc that she deserved. But outside of that,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 3: I just I was very I was laughing, I was crying,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 3: and I really appreciated it. So I'll go four nipples.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 3: I'm giving one two. Are we gonna give two to Molly.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna give her a full I'm gonna give three
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: to Molly's like the Harpy. Wow, like the Harpy's three nipples,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 3: and then I'll give that the Unicorn. I mean, the
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: Unicorn is she's she's good, she's good. I am going
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: to give my final one to I think Mommy, because
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: you know, Mommy Fortuna because again, just another perfect character.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: Name and and perfect. Even when the voice cast like,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: even when the voice performances were weird, I still loved it.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 3: You can tell that everyone is in a booth in
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 3: a different state weeks apart, but that's animation.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: Baby. They read the script and they're like, I don't
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: really notice.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 3: I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced Jeff Bridges read the script.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: Maybe yeah, I don't think.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: So, but that's okay. He may not know what happens
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: in this movie to this day, but I yeah, So
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: four for me, Hannah, what do you say?
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm also going to give it four nipples, mainly
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 4: again for the Molly Grew, but I give it four
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 4: nipples for what it's saying without saying, the way that
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 4: it takes children seriously, it's art direction and this very
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 4: strange tale that you know, they just go with it,
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 4: and I really appreciate that. But yes, I think the
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 4: main thing was I would have loved to see more
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 4: from Molly Grew, more of her arc.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 7: I think it could have gone in some really exciting places.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 4: I also felt like prince Lear could have becive a
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 4: little bit a little oomph.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: I appreciate the effort but I think there could be
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 4: more there. But yeah, I just this is still such
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 4: a classic for me. And so if I was gonna
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 4: assign the nipples, I have to give one to Mommy
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 4: for tuna any woman with I mean, you know, it's
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 4: like kind of Madame's.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 7: Like when you're using your power to.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 4: You know, like she wasn't she wasn't a sex positive, right,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 4: she was trickery and filters and all kinds of things.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 4: But I appreciate her ambition and that she knew she
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 4: was going to die. She was like, yeah, like I'm
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 4: giving myself to this, and it was this the you know,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 4: like she didn't run, like she just stood there, right,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 4: And so I appreciate that I give one to her.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 7: I give one to the unicorn.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: I appreciate her being like just really on her own
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 4: shit and.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 7: Going on her own way. And then you know, she
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 7: could stay in the forest, but she she left right,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 7: and she was brave. So I love that.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 4: I'll give one to Molly, you know, and I pray
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: that she uses that nipple to awaken further in her
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 4: own life. And then my final nipple, I'm going to
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 4: give it to we want to give it to the
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: tree it was short, but it was powerful, and it
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: was definitely a scene that I never forgot.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: Memory.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 4: So yeah, and there's also a part where I probably
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 4: sure brought this up earlier, but it was my own
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 4: thing where I'm like, when it's not like he's kind
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 4: of nestled in between the.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 7: The boobs, but I didn't. I thought at first it
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 7: was ass.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 4: I thought he was like she like had and then
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 4: she changed and I was like, oh, okay, it's a
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 4: chest now, but it very much looks Yeah, it looked
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 4: like a kicked up tree at first that he was
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 4: just like, and I'm like, this is a very dumb
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 4: kind of thing going on here, so I have to
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: get Yeah, so yeah, that's where that's where I give
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 4: my my nipples too.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: Amazing, incredible. Thank you so much for joining us for
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: this disco.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: And for bringing us this movie. I'm just like a classic.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: Come back anytime.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. It's been a joy, and
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 4: I haven't talked about this movie in years, so.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it is.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: I'm actually curious as like when this episode goes live,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: like who who resonates and what does it bring up now,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: you know, because I think Molly grew supposed to be
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 4: like thirty eight in the so very specific age and
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, it's like perimenopause. It's very like what
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 4: the fuck was.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 7: I doing in my twenties?
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 4: It spilled over to my thirties but I'm waking up?
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 4: But also is it too late? And clearly it's not.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 4: It's not too late, So I would I would love
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: to definitely have a discussion with people who loved it
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: and how does it fit, you know, like, who are
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 4: they now that were that like the film was for telling,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 4: like this is the direction you're going, you know, like
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 4: you were going to be someone who is into psychedelics
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 4: and anime inspired art and complex storytelling. So, yeah, something
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 4: that I'm interested to see in this episode airs.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, listeners, drop your thoughts on our Instagram post or
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: I think you can comment on various podcast listening platforms
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: these days, so share your thoughts. Hey, where can people
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: follow you online? Check out your work? Check out your
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: writing plug away?
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 7: Yeah?
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 4: So the first place would just be my website, Hannah
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 4: oecho dot com.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 7: That's where I keep mostly everything going.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 4: I also am on Instagram at Hannah dot Echo and
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 4: that's kind of my like my own like unicorn journey,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 4: like just posting kind of what's going on. And I
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 4: write at Hannah Echo Rights dot subsect dot com under
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: this is where I keep my mouth. So that's kind
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 4: of where I keep my projects that I'm moving through,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 4: sometimes more finalized, sometimes not. But yeah, that's where you
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 4: can find me. Those three places.
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: You can find us on Instagram and our Patreon aka
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: the Matreon, where for five dollars a month you get
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: access to two bonus episodes surrounding an amazing, brilliant genius
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 2: theme that Jamie and I cook up. There's lots of polls,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: there's lots of fun stuff going on over there. At
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: patreon dot com slash Bechdelcast, you also get access to
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: the entire back catalog of bonus episodes. There's almost two
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: hundred summer around there, and it's a beautiful little community.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: It really is. So join us over there, and thank
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: you for joining us here today. We will be back
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 3: next week with another new episode.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: Bye bye bye.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: produced by me Jamie Loftus.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: And me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtermann and.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 3: Edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of them? That's me
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 3: and our logo and merch and all of our artwork
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus ever heard of her?
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 3: Oh My God? And our theme song, by the way,
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  Speaker 3: was composed by Mike Kaplan.
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  Speaker 2: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.
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  Speaker 3: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: Aristotle Acevedo.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast