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Transcript

The Witch with Jana Schmieding · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: have women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and husbands? Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: best start changing it with the beck Del Cast. Hello
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name's Jamie Loftus.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Darante, and welcome back to the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Damn Cast. This is a podcast where we talk about
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of things. We talked about representation, uh in movies,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: of of women, of marginalized groups. We talk about representation
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and how guess what it's usually bad? What do you mean?
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, have you seen a movie before? No, I
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: have managed to never see it. Let's go back to
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: the beginning. So there are things called movies, and they're
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: so aggressive. They're so aggressive. What I have to reckon
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: with every day of my life is the fact that
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: my favorite thing is movies. I love movies. I went
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to school twice about movies and they're bad. They're all
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: just there's so most of them are just trash. And
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I really have to reconcile that the thing that I
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: love and have made a career out of and have
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: made my like, is my biggest hobby is just bad
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: in their life? Has ever liked something good? You know,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: such thing as good things? Anyway, so we the show
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: is called the Bechdel Cast. But if you've been listening
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: for a while now, you know that the Bechdel Test
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: is becoming increasingly less important to the show. But that's
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: what we named it, so that's what we have to
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: acknowledge that it's there. But anyway, so we use that
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: as just a jumping off point to initiate a larger
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: conversation about representation in film and um. The Bechdel Test
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: is a media test created by queer cartoonist Ellison Becktel,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test, and it requires that
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: our version of it, our updated version of it, requires
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: that we've made alterations. We have not been approval from anyone,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: but that is just um, what it's like to be brave. Yeah,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: we're our own bosses. Yeah, we're girl bosses. We're girl bosses,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: and we make the rules. Yes, girl. Our Becktel test
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: requires that two people of any marginalized gender UM that
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: includes women, that includes all trans people, that includes non
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: binary people, that includes intersex people, UH must speak to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: each other about something other than a man assists man
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and it doesn't happen a lot. It doesn't happen a lot.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: But Jamie, I would like to try it with you
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, let's do it? Okay? Um? Hey Jamie? Yes? Um,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: wouldst thou like to live deliciously? You're you're like, quoting
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: a male goat? Does that count? If you're reading me? Actually,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: this is like an a level of the test. We
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: never explored if two women are okay, So if we're
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: this is pointless. But if we're like, if we're quoting
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: like non gendered quotes but they're from a male goat,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: does that pass the test? Maybe not? I want to
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: say it does just because the goat is an icon,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm I'm reclaiming the goat is the
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: protagonist of the film. I was not ready for how
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: what a goat heavy plot we were in for Here,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I realized that I knew very little. What I thought
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I knew about this movie was wrong because I was like,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I did not think this was a talking goat movie.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Spoiler alert. The goat talks, well, the goat becomes a
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: man or the devil and then talks I think, But
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't I wasn't sure this movie was.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm just like this movie it was either. I mean,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I think it was like a little bit too smarter,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: too stupid for me. Don't know which, don't know which,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Let's bring our guest up. We're talking
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: about the which or it if you? Because there's men
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: are so annoying when they make movies. They're like, no,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: we're not using a W because reasons like so, it's
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the guest today. She is a Lakota native comedy writer
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: host of the Woman of Size podcast. It's Jenna sch Meeting. Hello, Thanks,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: happy to be with you today. We're rebranding this is cast.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I was something about seeing that made me furious, like,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: there's no way. He went for two v's and then
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I verified on the Wikipedia page. I'm like, sure enough
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: he went for I looked it up as well, and
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: it said something about a language called a Nokian. Did
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: you did? I don't know it was it's a witch's language,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: of course there. It's just like there, a man goes
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: to a library one time and all of a sudden,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the movies called the vich You're dislike so true he's
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: so authentic to the moment um. Yeah wait, let me
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: there's something about it on Wikipedia about you didn't have
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: like what seems like a grounded reason. I just thought
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: it was a very silliest. It just seems like a
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: very pretentious choice. According to our favorite scholarly journal, Wikipedia,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: director Robert Eggers said that he found this spelling in
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: a Jacobean era pamphlet that was on witchcraft. What is
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: the Jacobean area the era? Um, I don't know. I
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: would have to look up. I like, I will jerk
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: off the loser. Who does know who? The Jacobean there
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: there was? I I did, like I I did, uh
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: read all of Robert Eggers is like interviews from around
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: this movie's release, and he was I do at least
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: appreciate how he like explains his more pretentious choices as
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: mostly the answer is I went to the library and um,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: yeah it said no W. So I was like, all right,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: like he is, he isn't mercifully pretty straightforward and doesn't
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: give you, like a freshman film school x a nation
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: right to his weird choices. So I'm like, you know what,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: that's more than I expected. I think. He said. Also
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: something like somebody was asked him, were you going for
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: a feminist message in the film, and he said, not really,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: it just came out. I have the quote here, um
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: when Yeah, Basically, when asked about this feminist themes in
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: his movie, he said, quote, in all of my trying
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: to stand back and be objective about themes, feminism rises
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: to the top. There's nothing you can do about it.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: It's just in your face. End quote. But like, Okay,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I what That's a lot of words, but I don't
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: know what they're supposed to mean. And I don't know
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: what he means. I don't pebean by feminism. You know,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: it just there. It is. It's it's just in your face.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: It's so close you can't even see it, is what
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: I infer from that statement. Right, Honestly, based on these
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: weird interviews that I give he gives, I think I
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: kind of like him because I'm just like, he's just
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: a weird I don't I don't know. I haven't seen
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: the Lighthouse. I haven't either. Yeah, I have seen the Lighthouse,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: and I really embarrassingly enjoyed it to the extent that
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I dressed up as Robert Pattinson's character for Halloween this
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: past year. People seem to enjoy him like he and
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: he seems like, you know, it's just maybe just like
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: a weird guy. I don't know. That quote threw me
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: for a loop. I was like, truly, there is meaning
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: here I can't find I cannot find it. Um, I
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: certainly like him a lot better than the other like
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: high art, pretentious horror director of the moment right now,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Ari asked her, so, like, oh yeah, well yeah, I
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: really did think that it was an already aster film.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest. When I started watching it, I was like,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: oh my god, this is like giving me strong hereditary vibes.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: And then I look and I saw I was Eggers,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, well the other one, yeah,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I mean they both have real fixation on female trauma. Yes,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: leaning into the Trauma already asked or needs to like
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: seek treatment a therapist about his fixation on women's trauma.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I like, I at least like Rob, at least like
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: in Robert. In this movie, it felt at least plot relevant.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, anyways, so Jenna, what is your
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: relationship with the which My relationship with this the VICH
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: is basically, I really like horror as a genre. I
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: love to be scared. I like to be scared, like
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: to be creeped out. I don't know why. It's not
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: something I'm out of, um cinematically, cinematically, but I remember
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: seeing it a long time ago, like when it came out,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: and being like, this is a legitimately kind of creepy movie.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: And in thinking about it now, I think that since
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: it originally came out, there has been this kind of
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: um resurgence of the Witch as a thing that mostly
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: in my life, white women have embodied as like a
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: as a lifestyle and a and a something I don't know,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: and I find it to be very problematic as a
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: native person. Um. So I was like, let me watch
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: this again and see if it has at least like
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: origins of that, and it kind of does. Yeah, I've
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I truly had no idea what this movie was. I
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: was just shocked at every turn. So that was your
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: first time seeing it, Jamie, Right, Yeah, I'm new to
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the Vivich verse. I am not new to White Lady,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: which is this is something that I've been around, but
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the Yeah, no, I'm new to the Eggers extended universe. Yeah,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: this is so weird because I grew up not too
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: far from where this movie happened, and Massachusetts children learn
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I think, one of the more warped versions of this
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: moment in history, and so anytime I come across it,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I have to basically remember to unlearn all the stuff
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I learned as a kid, because I just everything I
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: learned was incredibly wrong. And I even looked up. Um,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh right, I wonder if he's like
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: from New England, and Robert Eggers is absolutely from New England,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: grew up going to Plymouth Plantation, the world worst, most
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: historically inaccurate tourist attraction, and just I was just like, okay,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: So I wonder how much he I wonder if he's
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: made an effort to unlearn these things. And I left
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: unclear on that topic. Sure, what about your history, Caitlin. Um.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't see it in theaters, although I remember the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: buzz around it when it came out, because it came
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: out five years ago. I remember it being hailed as this,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: you know, like, wow, this movie is the creepiest movie
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of the decade. It's so scary, it's so good, it's beautiful,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: it's haunting. All this stuff, so I was very intrigued
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: by it, even though horror is probably the genre that
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I am least acquainted with. I'm getting I'm getting better
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: at having seen more horror films, but I don't seek
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: out horror the same way I do other genres. But
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I was still intrigued by it, and I was like, Okay,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I gotta see this. I think I saw it probably
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: later that year, or like in early sixteen or something,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: not long after it came out, and I remember like, yeah,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: being like, Wow, that was creepy, that was haunting, that
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: was mesmerizing, and didn't watch it again until we started
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: prepping for this episode. And now I feel super I
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: just have a lot of I don't know what to
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: make of it, and I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah, yeah,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I'm very I guess I just left very unclear on
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: what this movie was trying to say. Well, let me
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: ask you both this what was creepier to you? The
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: talking devil goat that they kept calling black fellop or
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the elderly women woman's naked body. Okay, So I'm so
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: frustrated that any time, and this is like this new
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: guard of male horror directors. I feel like and and old.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I was even reminded of like the shining of like
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: I was going to bring this up using an elderly
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: woman's naked body for shock value. Is such attired. I
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: was so bummed to see that trope pop up here
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: because it's so like ari Astor just did it in Midsummer,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: but it's been if there's such a precedent for it
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: that I just that pissed me off. While I found
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the Satan goat to be very funny, by the time
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: that happened, I was just like, yeah, sure, like cool, yeah,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and what a sexy voice the goat had, I mean,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: not a trace of goat? Okay. So I looked up
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the actor who plays Black Philip when he once he
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: turns into the devil man. It's an actor by the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: name of Daniel Malick, who is a Pakistani actor who
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: is first of all, extremely hot. Secondly, the optics of
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: like a brown Pakistani person playing the devil in your
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: movie full of white people? Perhaps did you ever see him? Though?
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I feel like I didn't see, only see maybe like
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like a silhouette or just like a
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: glimpse of his face, nothing to to really be able
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to distinguish it. So perhaps my point here isn't super valid,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: but I guess if you're being generous, I still am
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: not sure. But he did have a perfect devil voice.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I was, so I didn't know what to expect of
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the voice, and I did not leave disappointed. Yeah, well,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: shall we get into the recap and go from there? Yeah?
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I also just want to apologize. Apparently there is a
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: world war happening in my skies right now. So I
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: hear like helicopter, a lot of helicopter activity outside above
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: me as well, so that we've been having that. We
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: just have been telling our listeners, like, listen, we live
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: in a police state, and yeah, it will happen. Yeah, um, okay,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: So it is six hundreds. I think it's sixteen thirty.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Colonial New England, specifically Massachusetts, specifically Planmouts Plantation, although I
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: don't know if they ever say that in the movie,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: they say the Plata Plantation. I think that that might
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: have been the only one at a time. Got it.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: A man and his family are being banished from the plantation.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: It's never made clear exactly why, but the idea is
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that they are like too Christian. Yeah, they're like too
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: devout Christians. Were they wrong to say they were too Christian?
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: They're pretty Christians. They were really intense. They were like
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: not fucking around with being Calvinists. Yeah, it seems like
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: it was over some what seemed like a religious dispute
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: um that is not ever really specified. But my my
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: interpretation is like this family too devout, go away? Um,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: so they do, which is crazy considering in my humble opinion,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: when I think back on this time, I think everybody
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: was like this family, I know, right, I kind of
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: am curious of like what in a like in a
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: world that we know the white settlers were so extremely like,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: what would constitute like this is the line for us?
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: This is too Christian? Like I didn't know that that
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: line existed. Yeah, shrug, who knows. But we meet the family.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: The father is William from Game of Thrones. You're like, oh,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: it's who from Game of Thrones of Thrones, I truly
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: don't know. The actor's name is Ralph innosent Inosen another
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: great voice, great voice, yes, very gravelly deep voice. He's
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: got his wife, his wife Katherine. She is played by
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Kate Dickie, who was also in Game of Thrones. Yeah,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, we get it. You're casting British. Yeah,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: we get it. You want to cast British women who
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: will breastfeed inappropriately? Yes? Oh god. That was the other
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: moment that I'm just like, male directors shouldn't be allowed
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: to make these kinds of visual metaphors. I am oh icky.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: They have a teenage daughter, thomasin Thomas sin get it, Sin.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I I really enjoy this actresses work. Anya Taylor Joy
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: She's fun, she's fun and everything, and I think this
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: was her first movie. Yeah, I believe so. I feel
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: like every actor in this movie. Side note, great performances
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: all around despite the content, very good acting. Even because
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: it's We're always we always came, we historically come down
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: too hard on child actors. American ones were the worst. Yeah,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: but but the child actors in this, especially like the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: kid who plays Caleb, like he held it down, that
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: that was. And they're talking about like Old English like Iambic,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Pentameter Shakespeare. I mean, this eight year old is possessed
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: in Old English and like kills, It's very impressive. There
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: there will be scenes that don't cut away for a while,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: so these kids had to learn a lot of dialogue.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: At once, and yeah, I was super impressed. So, um,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Thomason is our protagonist. Her brother Caleb is I think
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I think he's supposed to be like twelve, although I
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: truly don't know how old children are said, that's probably wrong,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: and he's definitely he's definitely older than eight. You're both
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: right to me, I would say like eleven, twelve, maybe thirteen,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: even he's for sure a child. Then there are two
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: younger twins who they might be like seven or eight, um,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: but also I don't know. And then there's an infant Samuel.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Having been banished, they traveled to the wilderness and set
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: up like a homestead on the edge of some remote woods. Um.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And one day Thomasin is playing peekaboo with the baby
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: and suddenly the baby disappears. I like that very quickly,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the word which becomes a verb, like you get witch.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: He's witched. He was witched, Samuel was witched. You're like, okay,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: because then we see a witch scurrying through the woods
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: with the baby. Then we see her cutting their like
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: it's implied that she cuts the baby open and then
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: like pulverizes it and then smears it's flesh and blood.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: All over herself in some sort of like ritualistic sacrifice.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Why because I you know what, I looked it up,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: they said back in the Jacobean era. I'm assuming a
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: favorite era, our favorite era. Who knows apparently that one
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: of the ways in which witches were able to gain
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the power of flight is through a mixture of essentially
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: like ground down the fat of a baby, plus like
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: hemlock and like lions, main like all of the old
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: timey herbs that you can think of, like okay, like
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: grind them all together and rub them on their body,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and that is what makes a witch fly. Okay. So
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: like how at the end they're floating, that's because they
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: had herbs and babies. Yeah, they have that magical posh. Okay, incredible.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: That's actually really helpful to know, because I was just like,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: why does she want the baby? Yeah? She needed it's fat,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: she needed, Okay, so that she needs it the baby ingredient. Great.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: So then back home, the family mourns the loss of
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the baby. Um Catherine especially is inconsolable, and they all
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: think he was probably snatched by a wolf. So the
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: crops that the family are growing are diseased. Um, so
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: William the father takes Caleb out into the woods to
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: gather food. Um they try to shoot a rabbit but
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: are unsuccessful. Their traps come up empty, and William explains
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: that he traded Catherine's silver cup so that he could
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: buy the trap. I think, and he tells Caleb to
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: keep this a secret. Then we meet the most important
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: character of the film, Black Philip, A goat a vaguely
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: c G. I'd goat. Oh really, I didn't notice any
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: c G. I okay, maybe I'm wrong, but I just
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: there were a few moments where I'm like, oh, post
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: got to Philip. I did read some trivia that the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: actors said. Of all of the animals on set, the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: horse was great, the chickens were great, the rabbit was
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the most well behaved, but the Black Philip was a
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: real handful not cooperative. Well. Famously, this method, Yeah, he
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: was going. He was Daniel day Lewis and he's like,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna, of course, I'm gonna terrorize this set. I'm
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Black Philip to be Black Philip. Wrestling scene was improvised.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not joking. That's the nerdiest piece of trivia. I
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: feel like I'll drop off. God. Wow, that's scary. That's
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: how unruly he was. Black Philip, you little devil. That
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: makes it even better. So we mean we we mean
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: black Philip. And the two young twins, Jonas and Mercy,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: are chasing him around, and then Mercies like their friends,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: they say, he talks to us, he tells us things.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: And then Mercy tells Thomason how she has seen a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: witch of the woods, and um, it was a witch
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: who took the baby and Thomason to tease and scare.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Mercy is like, well, I'm the witch. And then that
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: night Katherine the mother, she's like, oh, I don't know,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: something is weird and unnatural. And and Thomason, you stole
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: my silver cup, didn't you? And she's like, no, I didn't.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And then William and Caleb don't speak up about this.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: They don't they let Catherine think that Thomason stole the cup. Oh. Also,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Thomason goes into the barn that night to tend to
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the goats, and she sees the same rabbit from the woods,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and we're like, is the rabbit the witch? Like she
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: take the form of this rabbit. I think that's what's implied.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: So then thomasin overhears her mother talking about how Thomasin
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: should be sent off to serve another family. Basically, I
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: think to be like married off is what the implication
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: is here, because they're starting to starve and she would
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: be one less mouth to feed and not wanting this
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: to happen. Thomasin and Caleb go into the woods to
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: find food, but they get separated because the witch rabbit
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: spooks the horse. And then in the woods Caleb comes
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: upon the witch's cottage and the witch comes out, only
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: this time she is younger and her cleavage is present,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: or she was him and by kissing him on the
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: mouth did that need to be shown? That did not?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: That was a real scene where a child gets kissed
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: on the mouth passionately by an adult by an adult woman.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And if you truly, if you're Robert Inger's and you're
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: like this needs to happen, then like there are so
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: many ways to show that without it having to happen. Also, throughout,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Caleb is like checking out his sister, like checking out
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Thomasin and kind of like feeling shy around her. There's
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: this weird vibe where he's like curious, right, which is
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: later weaponized against thomasin by her mother by saying like,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: why are you making your brother horny? And she's like,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I wasn't doing anything, poor Thomason this whole movie. She's
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: just like I'm literally just standing here and they're just like,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: you're the devil. I do think that that is when
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: when I was reading about the movie and reading feminist
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: critiques or quote unquote feminist critiques that they were that
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of them said, yes, this is true to
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: how the witch trials were presented at the time, that
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: like young women were seen as like very very demonized
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: just in general, like you just all you just had
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: to be mothered in some way. It could be the
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the crops sucked or whatever. You you're an unmarried woman
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: older than the age of sixteen or whatever, and you're
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: just a witch and joking aside. I mean, it is
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: like it's especially unfortunate to see her mother being the
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: one to voice this criticism. But like being blamed for
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: a man like looking at you is like a thing
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: that happens constantly, and it's doubly hurtful when another woman
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: is the one doing the blaming for it. It is
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: weird how the position of the father and the mother
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: in terms of the way that they treat Thomasin are
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: kind of reversed natural, like like, it's to me, it's
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: unnatural that the mother would not she would not understand
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: and be like, wow, she must be a little witch,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: you know, and the father is like protective of Thomasin.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: That doesn't make any fucking sense that the dad is
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: clearly the witch mongerer and the mom would be like, yeah,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I went through this too when I was sixteen. They
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: all thought I was a witch too. Yeah right, yeah,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: there's I was kind of I went back and forth
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: on how I felt about that, and again it's just
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: like I just wasn't really able to tell what the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: author was trying to say, and then sort of fell
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: on like I think that he just kind of like
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: wasn't there. I mean, he said it himself. He wasn't
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: thinking about it from a feminist perspective, So some stuff
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: kind of gets a little garbled, which is a bummle
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: because I feel like if it had been if it
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: had been focused a little, or if he had had
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: a woman look at the script, we could have gotten
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: a little I have a whole spiel on this that
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I'll get to later, but yeah, it's it's muddled to
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: say the least. Um So, So Caleb is missing, the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: family is frantic, but he appears again outside the house.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: He's very ill, uh, and then the family is trying
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: to figure out what to do. Things seem hopeless. He's
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: not recovering anyway. And then Caleb takes a turn in
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: which he barfs up an apple and then dies. And
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: then everyone's like, thomasin you did this to him because
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: you're a of a vitch and she's like, no, I'm not.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe Mercy and Jonas are the witches. They're the ones
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: always talking to Black Philip, and the Devil appears as
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: a goat often, so I don't know, maybe look at them, which, honestly,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: when she said that, at first, I was like, all right,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: that's a stretch, not knowing that she was urect so
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I thought that there was no way. I was just like, oh, okay,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Like Thomason is in a difficult position and she's trying
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: to be like, where can I deflect this blame so
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: people will leave me alone? But nope, it the devil
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: is the goat And she was right, yes, but I
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: mean I also feel like imagery of the devil, at
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: least in like pop culture is often to a metal concert,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: like you know, there's like the horns and the hoofs
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. It just feels it just feels
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: weird hearing in Old English. I guess I would choose
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: just like could be the goat, like it'd be it'd
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: be Black Philip. But she's right, um So, not knowing
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: who to trust, William locks up Thomas and Mercy and
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Jonas and Black Philip in the barn for the night.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: And then the old witch flies in because she knows
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: how to fly now because of the potion that she made,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: and she drinks the blood milk from another goat, not
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Black Philip. So the next morning, Um William comes out
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: and the barn has been torn open, mutilated bodies of
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: the goats are lying around. The twins have disappeared, and
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I think, don't show up again in the story. And
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: then suddenly Black Philip impales William with his horn. It's
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: a big metaphor. He falls beneath the wood that he
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: was chopping, and he collapsed underneath his own failure as
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a patriarch when he was wearing his like Jesus E
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: robe chopping the wood in a like, yeah, has his
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: canvas skirt. He's like, yeah, he's like wearing like a
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: canvas fit and he's got like his light six pack
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and he kind of like, I mean he looked good. Okay,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I'm hetero and I was into it. Name the Thrones's
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: dad gets shirtless early and I was like, oh, who
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: is he? Game of sounds again. Oh, I couldn't tell you.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you the name of a Game of
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Thrones character, but I but he is, um, he's definitely
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: he was on the show. I recognized his voice, not
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: his face. So maybe he wore a lot of makeup
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: on the show. I don't know, Maybe he was. I
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: couldn't tell you one thing that happened on that show,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: but I did see every episode, same exact same um. So,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: then William is dying and Catherine comes out and she's like, wow, Thomason,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: really seems like you killed all of my children and
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: my husband and that you are a witch. So Catherine
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: tries to strangle Thompson, but she fights back and ends
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: up killing her mom, and then she's like, well, my
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: whole family is dead. Now what do I do. We Also,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: we don't see the twins die, but we're like, well
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: safe to assume, right, yeah, or they've gone off and
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: done more of Black Phillips bidding somewhere else scarious because
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: I was like, they were Black Phillip's only friends and
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: it would be rude of him to kill them. They
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: were so nice to Black Philip the whole time. They
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: were singing songs about him constantly. They're making fans art
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: right and last. But anyway, so Thomason goes to Black
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Philip and she's like, hey, any chance you're the devil
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and he's like, actually, high, yes, step into my office,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: please sign my book, Please follow me on Twitter, and
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I'll give you whatever you want. Then she goes into
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the woods and joins a coven of witches and they
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: all start levitating off the ground and she seems really
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: really happy. Now elated elated, yes, which is another like
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: there's an echo of I know that this movie comes up,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: but I hadn't seen this, and I was like, this
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: reminds me of the end of Midsummer Oh, very similar,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: like everyone's dead and now I can finally smile and
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: now I'm with my new friends hereditary. It's like, yeah,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, but I guess that that is more of
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: an Ariaster criticism because both those movies came out after this. Yes,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and then we'll come right
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: back to discuss and we're back. So the main thing
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: for me for this movie is so like like many
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: horror movies, including several that we have discussed on the podcast,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: this is a movie, it feels like to me where
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: there is a pretty clear feminist reading of it, and
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: there's also any number of readings of it that are
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: not so much because on one hand, like you, it's
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: a movie about a young woman who is accused by
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: her family of being a witch because they're starving and
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: their farm isn't yielding crops, so they're blaming her. They're
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: like using her as a scapegoat. Goat, scapegoat. Hello, Black Philip,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: he is with us now. But you know they're just
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: they're accusing her of like being a wedge and placing
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: a curse on them, And you know, this accusation isn't fair.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: It mirrors the unfair way in which women were treated
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: during this time period and in the present time. And
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I do really appreciate that the movie from moment one
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: makes it clear to the audience that there is like
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: it's never a like suspicion of like is Thomas and
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: a which we know from the first second that she
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: isn't and that you have like this level of anxiety
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: of like wanting to protect her because you know that
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: she truly didn't do anything, which is nice. I feel
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: like not every movie would lend her that pretty I
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: feel like it would maybe be more ambiguous, right um.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: And then part of this part of these like accusations
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: that are hurled against her, we already hinted at this,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: but like it's that she's going through the natural process
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: of physically maturing and like quote becoming a woman with boobs,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: and that makes her extra suspicious in the eyes of
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: her family and society. And like the fact that she
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to be sold off to some other family
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: like a piece of property also makes her seem et witch,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: right what a b bitch? This vivid sacrifice your life
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: for the starving family, right um? And then also you
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: know the end where she like her becoming a witch
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: could be seen as like her becoming empowered and independent
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: and having her own agency and autonomy, and she joins
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: a coven of other women and you know, in that
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: way I see the feminist read. However, I feel like
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: this message in the movie would be way more effective
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: if there weren't also, like quote, real witches in the
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: story who are evil, scary baby snatching murderers, because like,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know, just like to me, it sends a
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: conflicting message of like, oh see how women were accused
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: of being witches for no reason, and doesn't that suck anyway?
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Which is are real and some women are witches and
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: they've made a pact with the devil and they will
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: murder your whole family for no reason. I had a
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: similar thought. I thought, and multiple and I mean I
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I did not get to the point where I'm like,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: and here's a rework of the movie that would have
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: worked better for me, But I did like at some
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: point in the movie, I'm like, I feel like this
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: would be an even more anxiety inducing movie if witches
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: don't exist, not yet, and things keep happening and they
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: keep being blamed on people like I feel like it
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: is almost a weird narrative crutch for which is to
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: be real? Does that like there's a movie, there's a
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: movie in there where that doesn't need to be there,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: and I feel like they're at the beginning. It says
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: like the ve Vich like an American. They use the
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: word folk tale as the subtitle, and I feel like
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Robert Egger's really leans on that to get away with
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: some story stuff or like not fully explore stuff, because
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: he's like, well, they're based on folk tales, and folk
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: tales were very biased and they don't actually make a
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: lot of sense, and so I was just kind of
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: doing that and it's like, well, or don't, like, yeah,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like the scarier choice to me is to
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: lean into how extreme these settlers really were at this time,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: like so terrifying. They're super religious. They are religious to
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: the point that they will invent the devil in anything
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: that is mothered, and they're terrified of this land. They
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: don't know how to manage it. They're like tripping balls
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: on like fungus that's growing on their corn, which I
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: read as a criticism or something that Eggers actually puts
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: in the film. It's like apparently in one of the
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: first shots of the corn field, you can see a
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: fungus growing on the corn, and it's like, at this time,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: this was like a popular thing that used to happen.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: They couldn't manage the fungus that would grow in their corner,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: and it would make them hallucinate. It would give them
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: the illusion of having possession or like hearing voices and
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: ship I didn't realize that that should have been more clear,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: and then like, and then you wouldn't have needed the
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: wit I mean, is there. I was also trying to
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: figure out, like, is there a plausible reading of this
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: movie where you're like the witches were being hallucinated? But
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I, well, it's so witch heavy. I
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I truly feel like
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: a better version of this story that I would be
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: able to latch more onto from, just from a feminist perspective,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: is if which is, we're not actually real the paranoia
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: around witches and witchcraft. Sure that could have been real
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: because that fear of witchcraft was historically accurate, and that
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: fear could have been heightened by the religious zealotry of
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: this family. Like that all makes sense to me, especially
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: in this specific era when a ton of people were
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: afraid of the idea of which is like, they didn't
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: they didn't understand science, so they thought if you were
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: sick or if you had a mental illness, like they
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: thought you were being cursed by a witch or or
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: possessed by the devil. Like it's all of their misunderstandings
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: of everything that would lead them to this, this fear
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: that makes them become violent and kill each other. Like,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: to me, that's a more intriguing story if them being
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: uncompromising religious fanatics leads to their demise and not actual
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: like witches. So I had no idea that Jenna, I
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: didn't realize that he like, he puts the fungus in
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: front of you, so he clearly has done his homework
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: and knows it exists, So then why not right to that?
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: That is so I feel like that is like a
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: way scarier movie to me than like to Jump scares
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: that are that are like rabbit based, right, And then
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: I'm like and then I'm like, the witch is a
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: symbol for what I don't know. That's sort of what
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: the Lighthouse is about, where it's these two people who
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: are in isolation together and they are just like slowly
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: driven mad because of the isolation. But what I mean,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: what I did feel like this movie did well. This
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: movie did some things well for me and then other things.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: I was like I couldn't couldn't make heads or tails
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: of it, but I did like how clear it was made,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: and like how authentic it felt in story that it
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: was like their own religion and was setting them up
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: to tear each other apart, and it was setting them
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: up to not be able to process their own failures.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: It was setting them up to be completely unwilling to
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: process their own grief and like they are so like
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: set on this really deeply restrictive, sexist, emotionally withholding way
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: of life that it's like if you isolate those people,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: how on earth are they going to survive? Like, of
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: course they tear each other apart, and they're on drugs.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: I guess they're just being poisoned every day by themselves. Yeah,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: And I really liked that. Um the establishing shot we
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: get with thomasin where she is like doing I'm sure
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: an authentic prayer. It seems like Robert Eggers really did
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: go to the library. It's all we talked about on
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: the press tour. Uh. But she she does this like
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: very specific, deeply self hating prayer that is like I
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: am bad, I am. And then I did a little
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: bit of research brag on Calvinism specifically because I was
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: just like, I didn't is it just like the X
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Games of Christianity? And it kind of is, oh, yeah, baby,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: give us the deeds? What the hell is Calvinism? So
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Calvinism is not just extreme Christianity. And I feel like
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: once I knew this, it kind of put some of
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: the talks that especially William, who I feel like is
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: the most religious lot of everybody. Um. So Calvinism says that, um,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: there are a small number of saints who are marked
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: out for heaven and everyone else is condemned to how
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: and people who are living have no way of distinguishing
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: the first group from the second. So no wonder Caleb
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: is so stressed out all the time about the baby. Yeah,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: and it's like, I guess getting baptized increases your answers
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: of going to heaven, but there's no guarantees. It's a
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: very Unfit's the least forgiving version of Christianity I've ever
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: heard of. It's yeah, all humans are born sinners, but
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: it's just it's like very elite heaven tier and then
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: like of people go to Hell, And so what's anyone's
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: incentive to like be a good person while they were alive.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Then according to this religion, you gotta get God to
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: your baby. I don't like, but it's like that that.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Knowing a little more about Calvinism specifically, I'm like, this
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: family is fucked like and it's so it is devastating
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of like, Caleb is so stressed out
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: about whether his baby brother is in heaven or hell,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: and then his dad is just kind of doing some
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: religious deflection and saying God's plan, God's plan, which is
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: sometimes what religious people say when they don't know what
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: to tell you. That I a lot of that in
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: in my childhood. Uh, they're like, I d like it's
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: it's just what Christian people say when they can't say,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: like I d K my bff Jill, Like they're just
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: like that. But it also the way it's framed to
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Caleb implies that he has to like they're like, and
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: we're never speaking of this again. Your baby brother never existed,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: which is like, that's, oh my god, what a traumatic
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: thing to to learn as a child who's somewhere between
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: the ages of eight to old enough to wake up
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: at the crack of dawn and go hunting with your father, right,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: So that's Calvinism, and yeah, Calvinism is um the scariest
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Christianity I've heard, I mean, And to just to zoom
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: out a little bit, like I look at this film
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, I actually really love films that like
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: depict the harshness and the rawness of early America. I
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: also love like films about that, like depict the harshness
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: and rawness of Renaissance England and like, you know, like
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: how people actually lived. I find it fascinating, and I
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: think that I've agreed that I found it so gross
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: and beautiful um in that way. But to like look
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: at it historically, to think about, like, even in this
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: dramatized representation, which I'm sure definitely has some truth and reality,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: and like what it was actually like these are like
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: the foundations of white America, Like this is our past,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: and this is these are the people that were like
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: quote unquote first the first whites. Then you can fucking
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: still like a lot of those vibes still radiating in
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: this country. That actually might be the most unsettling aspect
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: of this horror movie to me, that like this is
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: the type of people on which like white America was
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: built like the colonists, the colonize this is who these
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: people were, and how again they're like their own religious
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Zelo Tree was like was their demise and this is
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: what you know America as we know it today was
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: built upon. And that is very unsettling. Yeah. Um, I
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: tried to do a little more research into because I
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, sixteen thirties. So at this point, the
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: colonists have been in Massachusetts for about ten years, and
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: that it's even referenced in story a little bit because
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Thomasin and Catherine both mentioned that they're very homesick and
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: that they had this previous life in England. So it's like, Okay,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Thomason was I think maybe the other kids were born, um,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: stay outside, but Thomason was like born in England and
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: and you know, didn't the whole trip and all this,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and so I was looking up, Okay, what was I mean,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: you know, what's going on in Plymouth Plantation is bad,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: but the first ten years of colonists in Massachusetts on
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Plymouth Plantation is so fucking brutal, Like it is just
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: some of the most I don't even want to like
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: repeat it all here, but it it is some of
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the most disgusting slices of history that you'll you'll ever
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: come across, and so this family is coming off of
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: almost definitely, William was actively participating in a genocide a
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: few years before this, and so which is not you know,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: is very sidestepped in the movie. I feel that like
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: that this family were full and as as sympathetic as
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: they can come across. They are full participants in the
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: colonialist lifestyle, and and apparently they go too hard in
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: the lifestyle there. There's also it's like almost certainly all
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: of their friends have died, Like there's just the first
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: ten years of colonial history is so it's all genocide
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: and it's starvation and it's just blowing it. Yeah, just
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: completely not a single good thing happened. But it seems
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: like a joyless existence. It doesn't surprise me that by
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: the end, when when Thomason is like floating in the air,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I guess same, Like seems liberating. Whatever
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: was happening back there sucked, right, And like Jamie you
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: mentioned that Catherine especially there's a line where she's like,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I wish I was home in England and it's like, well, then,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: I mean I guess you move like you colonize this
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: new place because you thought you'd have a better life.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: But um, look how wrong you were. Comma idiot um.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: But like, well, the people that came across, we're all
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: we're ousted from England for their zealotry right well speak
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: King of the colonizers and the genocide that they were
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: committing against indigenous people. There are a few references to
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: native people. And you see him, you see him one time,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: you see a few beginning a whole. One time, William
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: says that he traded with someone named Indian Tom for
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: the traps. And then when Caleb shows back up at
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: the house and he's sick and quote possessed, Catherine is
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: like talking to William and she's like, do you remember
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: some family's son that first winter? He was tormented of
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Indian magic. So they are blaming the native people, who
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: they are actively committing a genocide against, for having some
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: kind of dark magic that is plaguing their white children. Yeah,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: and that's a that's a themed that persists until about
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five when the Religious Freedom Acts passed in
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: the United Yeah. Um, depressing facts. Truly. Both hated the
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: quote unquote magic of the natives at the same time
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: stealing it, right, so when using it, I mean it's
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: it's a tragic thing. I think. Like also, like just
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: this the the savagery, the narrative of savagery also persists
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: and and was used. Um it's so weird, Like I
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: don't really understand. I can't imagine. The first of all,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: genociding any one is must be very hard, Like it
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: must actually be so traumatic to do that to a
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: people who actually we're helping you in the beginning, right
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: and like teaching you their ways, and to be to
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: turn around and be like yeah, actually like just gonna
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: take you out makes me question there their capacity for
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: love and compassion. I just don't. I wonder where that
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: comes from. And it's got to come from that religious ship.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: I think it is rooted in that, like very I
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: mean it's rooted in white supremacy. But yes, but a
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: lot so much of that is contained within this religion
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: that they're so rooted in of of just like even
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: like the Calvinist log line is like there's only a
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: few spots in heaven, so good luck, and like this
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: chosen one narrative that they've like really lived by, and
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: I will say that like indigenous people on this land
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: in North America specifically, but this is true for probably
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of Indigenous people who have been colonized by Christianity,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: that kind of religious oppression has persisted as well, and
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: is like largely been used as a like force of
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: colonization and a force of cultural genocide against those people.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: So like, I see like the adherence to like this extreme.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: Like I I feel like I look at um the
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: way that Americans vilify Islam and Muslim people, and I'm like, man,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: I just watch the the vich guys. We're we're that
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: like that is that is? That is like come on,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: just all the missionaries that Christians go on to more
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: or less force their religion onto other people. Yeah, it is.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: It's oppression. Yeah, it's just like that core idea that
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: like how I'm a random person and I believe that
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: what I am bringing you is surely better than whatever
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: was here. And we all can see that people before
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: they came, we were flying around with baby fat on
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: our bodies. It was so much better. You were thriving.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: This is another I think that like I wasn't able
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: to find a quote of Robert Egger's being asked about
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: the kind of absence of any Indigenous person from this narrative.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: And granted it's this family is very isolated by themselves,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: but what I feel like it's bizarre to not contextualize
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: is why is the area they're living in so extremely
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: isolated because a genocide took place, and like the there's
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: not a lot of context given as to why they're
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: living in a ghost town and what and what was
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: here before the plantation, Like before they left the plantation.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: They're just a day away from the plantation, and so
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: there's just I don't know, very little to contextualize their
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: surroundings or really their history in this area at all,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: even though we know that they would have been there
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: for about ten years at this point. Yeah, you can
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: see that the way the plantation is they have the
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: like big gates and it's like enclosed. It's like a
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: gated community, and that was one to keep a barrier
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: between them and the indigenous people of the time, which
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: is you know, but there's also within the barrier you
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: see in this film that like there are natives like
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: mingling amongst them, trading, like there's so much it's truly
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: like such an intense clash of cultures happening because is
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: seen by white people as like uncivilized savagery. I think
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: even in our modern minds, we have to like really
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: train ourselves to look at that time and we and
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: and you know, fuck American cinema and television for like
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: poisoning us with this understanding. But like we don't really
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: see early Indigenous Americans as civilized when in fact, there
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: were extremely like highly coordinated centuries old trade routes and
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: languages being exchanged, and like you know, materials being exchanged,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: like and and exchanges happening with settlers. Like it wasn't
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: all just like we came and we wiped them out,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: Like there was actual collaboration happening also, and like deep
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: partnership happening because they had to. They would not have
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: survived if it weren't for the indigenous people. They wouldn't
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: have been able to do anything. They had no idea
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: what they were doing. Well. And when William you know,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: and his family strike out on their own to try
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: to yield crops, he can't do it. He can't trap.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: He has no idea how to trap animals. He has
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: no idea how to hunt animals like he can't. He
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: just has no survival skills. Yeah. I think it was
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: kind of I mean, irresponsible and just bizarre to me
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: in such a pretty well researched film to just not
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: address anything or anyone, Like there's just a lot that
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: is just left out, and then you're like, the goat
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: is haunted, let's go. Like to me, I'm just so
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: used to it. I just I never ever expect that
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: anybody's going to tell a story about indigenous in a
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: story about settler colonialism from an indigenous, even mentioning indigenous people.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: It's never it never happens, and when it does, it's
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: done poorly. So actually, I'm kind of okay with him
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: not having touched that aspect. I don't think that he
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: would have managed it. Well, oh that's true. No, especially
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: because like in most horror movies where there is any
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: mention of indigenous people, it's like, oops, we built our
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: house on an on a burial ground and now it's haunted. Yeah,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: not good. A lot of I b g s flowing
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: around this this uh entire land, and they're so spooky.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Let's take another quick break and I will come right
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: back for more discussion. And we're back. Um. I wanted
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: to kind of jump off of we were talking a
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: little bit about Williams inability to grow corn Um and Jenny.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: You reference this earlier, and I his character, I is
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: all over the place. I think I generally like where
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: it went, but I also sometimes when I was feeling
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: empathy for him, I was just like, what, I feel
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: like this should be with someone else? Uh? There what
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: I think I mean? Because he is trying to be
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: the perfect Calvinist, right, he is super He loves can Calvin.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: He loves Calvin. I don't did they worship Calvin? I
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: don't know, but there he loves Calvin so much, and
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: he's but he's very like the religious enforcer of the family,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: and if anyone is having a crisis of faith, he's like,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: get your ship together, while also constantly lying to his family.
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Right from the jump, he lies and asks his son
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: to be complicit in that lie, so he is disingenuous
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: towards Calvin, let's say. Um. Later, he then takes accountability
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: for this lie, which I wasn't expecting him to do.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: I thought he was just gonna let Thomason take the
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: falls episode. Now I'm like Okay, he admitted he made
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: a mistake. Let's see where this goes. And the moment
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: that I thought was really effective was when he and
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: Thomason are arguing, and this is like a really difficult
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: scene to watch, but he is like, I think, really
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: trying to hold it together. He wants to believe Thomasin
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: more than her mother does, which I agree, Jannah felt
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: like kind of strange, like a strange choice not to
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: say that. There isn't like a mother that is so
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: attached and so and she's like racked with grief and
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: there's a lot going on, um, and she's just shrewman,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: probably just straight shrewman this whole time, high on mushrooms
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: and her children are just dropping like flies, and she's
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: breastfeeding a crow at one point, like she's having a
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: hard week. And so like, yeah, a lot of really
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: piles on to this family in a really short amount
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: of time together. They're having the worst week ever. Uh.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: But William does try like he believes Thomasin pretty far
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: into the movie and doesn't believe that she has a witch.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: But the second that she says correctly that he is
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: mediocre and that he is not able to provide for
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: the family the way they need. Then he snaps and
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: basically dooms the entire family. And I thought that was
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: like a really effective story choice of like being the
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: moral superior until you criticize me, and then I'm going
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: to kill you, like totally yeah. Yeah. The second she
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: challenges him, he's like, the devil is in your tongue,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: you bitch. He calls her a bitch and then he
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: throws her on the ground. Should have called her of
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: a bitch um. And then yeah, accuses the devil of
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: like being inside her and giving her these thoughts and
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: these words, which is kind of like a fun male
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: that not funny, it's horrible, but like it is like
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: a very it is very male of him to me
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: to be like, you're not a witch unless you say
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: I'm bad at something, and then you must be possessed
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: by the devil. I mean, it's fragile male ego at
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: its like peak here. So I thought that that was
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: pretty effective. I agree, And then like where the yeah,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: where the story goes from there is that he's immediately
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: murdered by black Philip. So maybe, okay, let me re
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: look at this, let me free reframe this story for
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: a second, what if like black Philip is like rooting
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: for thomasin this whole time, and he's like slowly getting
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: rid of the rest of this like scary family of
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: hers who are like accusing her and manipulating her and
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: stuff and ugly, yeah, like ancestual ogling. And then he's
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: so he's rooting for the baby. He did take the baby,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: but he that was kind of a decision. He needed
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: his his friend in the woods to find it was.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: The baby served a very important purpose in the story.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: So yeah, what if he's like looking out for Thomason.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: And then his whole plan, his master plan was to
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: be like, yes, come with me. I'll I see how
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: oppressed you are in this family. I have such a
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: better life to show you. Here. I've got this group
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: of women were all hanging out. I'll give you whatever
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: you want. That I actually I sort of like that.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: I guess that was like, so, okay, I'm very curious
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: at how you both read the ending, because I watched
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: the movie and then I had to go on a
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: walk and then and then when I got back, I
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: was like, I think I but I was also maybe
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: this is a reach. But my read of the end
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: of the movie was that like, Thomason has been living
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: in this world that is so deeply restrictive, and she
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: has been like because of what we know about how
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: you know, any woman who is mothered in any way
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: is going to be accused of being a witch in
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: this culture. That like giving herself over to Satan is
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: more liberating than continuing to live with this in this
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: like deeply restrictive religion, and so like why not why
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: not Satan? At least there's less rules. They already think
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: I'm of a bitch, might as well become of a bitch.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: I think that that's kind of like a through line
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: also with the Ariaster stuff. It's like like the scariest
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: thing is that she actually just becomes one and like
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: really just rejects that the restriction and just goes and
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: becomes a fucked up, which you know, Yeah, My problem
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: with that is why does that have to be depicted
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: as an evil thing? Yes? Why does it have to
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: be devili Like the devil has nothing to do with that.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: It can be completely like I just went to live
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: with a coven of other broads man, this goat went
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: pog on my fucking family, and I just there's nothing
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: left here for me except for some roomed up corn.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: Let me go live with these the only other humans
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: that I've seen, these naked old ladies who seem to
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: be having a good time summer. Yeah, that's my whole
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: thing with this movie. Another reason that I don't think
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: I don't find the end of the movie to be
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: a moment of empowerment for Thomason is that like any
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: agency or power that she does have that she gets
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: at the very end of the movie is like bestowed
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: upon her from a man, like the Devil, a devil man. Yeah,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: I wonder, I always wonder. I'm like, I get the
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Devil is I guess, I mean, in this movie certainly gendered.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: I think the devil is always I mean there's like
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: she devil, you hear the expression she devil. But like
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: I think in like Christian lore, the devil is always
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: perceived as a man, or like with he him pronounce
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: for sure, right, I need to Yeah that I I agree.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: I just wonder if there are you know, different version.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many versions of the devil, and
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: I wonder if there is a genderless devil, I mean,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: would really clear up some issues here. I think and
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: I was not raised Christians, so I can't not say
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: for sure, but thank you I was. The devil is
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: gendered as a male in Christianity and certainly in Calvinism.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: Calvin shout out Calvin, Calvin. Calvin, Yeah, loves when men
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: have power. So this is a male devil. So the
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: point is like she got her powers from a male figure,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: and so did We can assume all of those other
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: women at the end, Um, they got her their powers
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: from him as well. So to me, they're living, they're
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: still living in a patriarchal structure like doing a man's
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: bidding or this, you know, male figures bidding. So Thomasin
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: basically goes from one like patriarch to another at the end.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: At least it's not a lateral move at least it's
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: like the patriarchy. But now you can fly. It is
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: an upgrade. Yes, yes, yeah, I I hope that she
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: um doesn't remain in the Devil's employ too long. I
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: know and heard bad things. It's it usually does not
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: end well. Um, Yeah, we don't know what happens after
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: she starts floating. Maybe who knows, Maybe the devil is
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: a really you know, just and kind devil is literally
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: a socialist, and I feel like, I don't know why
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: I have a great healthcare that doesn't make sense, but
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: the Devil wants to defund the police. Yeah, exactly the Devil.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like in in the time, the
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: Devil was demonized, but actually he had some pretty good ideas.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: Oh what makes you think revisionist history anyone? No one
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: wants to see that movie anyway, So I'm well, too
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: bad because I'm writing it right now. Um, but you know,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: I totally agree with you. She's going from the i
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: mean multiple patriarchal structure. She's she's trapped inside of her family,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: she's trapped inside of religion, and then she just kind
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: of um upgrades to like patriarchy with superpowers. Yeah. The
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: scene at the end with Thomason joining the coven of
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: other witches, there's kind of a similar scene in a
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: very different movie, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, where
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: like it's these rural French women who like help other
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: women out by, Like it's like, oh, you need an abortion,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: come on by the coven. We'll give you an abortion.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: Let's sing around the fire, and it's very nice and
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: not evil and not murdering, like that's how I wish
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: this movie had ended, Yeah, conflating it with evil, And
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: this is, I mean, a very common choice for this
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: new wave of white outour horror directors to make. Is like,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: and it's frustrating because at least aesthetically, I enjoy these movies,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: and I enjoy parts of these movies, but I can
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: never fully be like, I'm a big fan of this
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: movie because in every single case, and I think Caitlin
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: and I have talked about this before, of like, there's
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of male directors right now who are trying
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: to write a female character for the first time and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: blowing it there. And I think that a very common
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: mistake that they're making is to conflate women with evil.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: But they're like, but it's liberating, and you're like that
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: you still yeah, and and also entirely defining, using like
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: the last moment of the movie to define a woman
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: entirely by her trauma, which women are constantly asking male
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: writers not to do. Um. This bothers me more in
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: ari aster movies than here. But I think that it
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: is like a very similar thing of like, yeah, she's evil.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: It's all kind of the same thing. Well, the Lighthouse,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: which is again Robert Egger's other feature at this time.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: Having seen both of these movies pretty recently, now, I
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: think that Robert Eggers thinks that women are either which
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: is or just like kind of evil temperatures is in general,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: because in the Lighthouse, there is one woman. She's on
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: screen for maybe less than a minute. Probably. Uh, she
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: is a like siren. She's a hallucination succubus type of mermaid. Yeah,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: she's a She's a figment. She's a figment of Robert
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: Pattinson's imagination. He definitely does have sex with her in
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: his imagination's also jerking off to a mermaid figurine at
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: different points in the film. I just I don't understand
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: how you could say that when Robert Egger's famously said
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: in all of my trying to stand back and be
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: objective about feet from it arises to the top, like
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: he famously said, the most famous thing that has ever
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: been said about feminism, that makes the most sense. Truly,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry I should be giving him far more credit.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: He gets the Accidental Feminist Award. I mean it comes
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: down again to like Robert Egger's to me was like Hey,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: you know how a bunch of people, mostly women, were
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: persecuted during this time and also throughout a large chunk
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: of recorded history because they were suspected of being witches,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: even though this version of witchcraft is not real and
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: was completely invented by the people making these accusations. Well,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: my movie is about how those witches are real and
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: peur evil to verify it. That's why I don't. I mean,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: it's like he so he does, he goes to the
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: library were six times, and he like, I have no
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: doubt that he went to the library, he said it,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: But but I don't. I guess that it's like he's
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: doing this research on folklore from just white settlers of
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: this time, which he which is reflected in the interviews,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: is he was reading early colonial accounts and folklore, and
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: then he he doesn't subvert anything about like he does
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: show I guess. I guess he goes as far as
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: showing that the women being accused of witchcraft themselves probably weren't,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: which is at first, but then religion made them, which
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: is like I don't really know. I feel like he
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: subverts the crucible by making witches actually real, which we
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: didn't need. We don't need that. We need a story
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: of the Crucible, right, Yeah, I just the the whole.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: I just feel like, yeah, he uses one word in
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: the subtitle of the VICH to just not actually say
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: that much. That said, I do I do like thomasin.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: I think that she's like a pretty well written and
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: well realized character who I was worried for the whole time.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: And I like that she does. Like the moments that
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: she chooses to stand up for herself, which at the
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: moment she doesn't, felt pretty authentic. And I also like
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: I felt bad for or Mercy when Thomason bullies her
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: and like chokes her. That was not nice. But I
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: also like even in that, it's like she I don't know,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: I guess maybe being an elder sibling myself, who I
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: didn't choke Ben, but I wasn't nice to him. But
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like when your parents are giving you ship.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: The only power Thomason has to inflict is on her
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: younger siblings, and so while it's not the best thing
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: for her to do, it felt like, Okay, yeah, older
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: siblings do that because that's the only power they have, right.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: She's also what like, I don't I don't know exactly
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: how older character. Yeah, but I would have guessed sixteen. Wait, okay,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: so I have the screenplay here, so let me just
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: let me pull that up and see if her age
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: is actually indicated in the screenplay. So let me just
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: because my guests would have been, I think that, like
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: I think Anya Taylor Joy was sixteen when it was shot.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that, oh okay. According to the screenplay, Thomasin
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: is thirteen. Yeah, I was thinking she was older. I
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: was thinking she was like fifteen, sixteen, I want to
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: I I guess I appreciate that they don't say an
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: exact number. I mean, I don't really think that. I
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: don't know. I would have thought she was supposed to
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: be older, right, I guess it wouldn't make a huge difference.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: The implication is that she, I guess is you know,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: she's just starting to become a woman. So that makes
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: sense because that's like, how old is Caleb supposed to be?
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: Because I was already said eight, right, Caleb is supposed
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: to be eleven? Oh damn it. So we so close, Jamie,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: so close. Um. So that brings me to wanting to
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about something we already touched
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: on a little bit, which is just the idea of
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: women's bodies in the the vich like the women and
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: so part of this discussion is Thomason maturing physically and
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: then being shamed for it when people notice that her
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: brother is always leering at her because he's also nearing
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: puberty if he's eleven. So, like, there's a line where
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: her mother says something like, you bewitched thy brother, proud slut.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: Did you not think I saw thy sluttish looks to him,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: bewitching his eye as any whore. Thompson's minding her own business,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: doing her chores, and her brother is, you know, creepily
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: leering at her, and then her mom is like, you're
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: a slut. Yeah, I mean, and I don't even for me.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: That's not so much a critique of the movie as
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: it is of like, this is very true to this
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: time and also this religion which I found out. I
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: was like, whoms is Calvin? Truly he was. He's a
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: guy named John Calvin, oh, a Protestant reformer in the
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: steenth century. So it's just, I mean, all these regressive
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: views I was basically joking, but actually came from a
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: man whose last name is Calvin and Calvin, so you know,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: um Calvin is canceled. Yeah, yeah, I don't mean to
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: imply that I think that like that this isn't a
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: critique of the movie. This, Yeah, this is very historically
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: accurate and this still this idea of like shaming and
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: blaming women just for having bodies is very present today
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: and to me, like that's the horror or that's one
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: of the sources of horror for this movie. Like you
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: don't also need to put these quote real witches in
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: your movie when your character has a puritanical mother who
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: hates you because you're developing breasts, Like like just heightening
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: that would be would have been a more effective approach
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: to the horror movie than, you know, just to have
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: some random which pop up every so often. So the
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: other thing, and we already touched on this as well,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: but the idea of like the various forms in which
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: we see the vivitch. We've got the like kind of
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: the older which form, We've got the young, which form,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: and then we've got the rabbit form, which is a
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: an Actually I looked it up. The hair does have
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: witchy representations in old in early Americas, which more didn't
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: realize that, well, he went to a library, and you
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: think there were also things for like frogs. I mean,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know. People were just shreaming so hard back.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: They're just like, oh, there's an animal, probably a demon
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: lives inside of it. It's trying to kill me, to
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: kill me. But um, so just to kind of repeat
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: the idea of there is a horror trope that is
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: quite present in many horror films, the idea of seeing
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: an image of an older woman skin a hack, not
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: super thin, not western beauty standards, gorgeous, as being a
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: part of the horror imagery of the film. And Jamie,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: you brought up the Shining. This exact same thing happens
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: in that movie too, where it's like there's that scene
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: where you know, Jack Torrence is drawn to room whatever
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: it is two thirty seven or if that's wrong, please
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: slide in never religion. But he starts because he's drawn
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: in by this conventionally attractive woman lures him in. They
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: start making out because she's naked, and that's what you
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: do when you see a hot woman, and um, then
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: suddenly she is older. She's the you know, the hag trope,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: and that's part of the horror like, oh, how it's
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: disgusting now terrifying, it's just shorthand for evil, Like it's
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: the least sexual naked image in movies. I feel like
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: it's like the bodies of older women are the least
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: sexual like nude images, and hor be terrified of it.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, both, but I am really
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: looking forward to having a body that looks like that. Um,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: it sounds it seems great. I just got the the
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: the amount of trouble male filmmakers will go through to
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: make women terrified of what would be a very lucky
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: thing to arrive at, to get to live for a
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: long time and have a body like but they don't
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: like it, they don't want to have sex with it,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: so it's scary. I feel like it's on par with
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: like the sci fi vagina mouth monster with the most annoying,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: like blatantly anti feminist tropes that if you ask a
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: male filmmaker about it doesn't look like a vagina to me,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: and you're like, sir, it's that's the thing in the
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: lighthouse to where the mermaid who he imagines, uh and
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: then has sex with. There's like this, and maybe I'm
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: misremembering this, but I'm pretty sure this is what happens,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: where he like looks down and she has like the
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: mermaid succubus lady has like an enormous volva, like the
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: size of a dinner plate. Like it's like forty Like
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: can you not do this? Truly? Couldn't your hang up
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: man deal with this by yourself? I don't know. By
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: the way, um. The actor who plays the vitch Beth
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: Sheba Garnette, she was born in nine, so in this
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: movie she's like ninety and that yeah, good for her.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: If only she had been like framed and used respectfully
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: in the movie. Imagine that being too much to ask.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think about this often because I am
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: also a performer, But I just I dread the casting
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: notice that is asking for or my naked old body,
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: the older, the better, the saggy, or the better in
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: the same way that I um am privy to um
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: fat casting notices that are really extremely offensive because we
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: can't cast fat women as um anything but the fat
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: woman that's the defining character is stick of their character
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: and that's all we ever know about them. Oh good grief, Well,
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: does anyone have any other thoughts? On the film The Witch.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: I guess I just wanted to talk about Catherine really quick.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: We haven't talked about her that Oh sure, much she
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: apologizes for bringing a shrew to her husband, she does
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: pique his wife behavior. I should not have been a
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: shrewd to the and it's like, all right, um, I yeah,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: I guess that. I don't love that she is painted
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: to be the more villainous parent. I don't quite like
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: how she's characterized, but it I do think it's interesting
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: in the same way that like Caleb isn't allowed, like
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: his religion doesn't permit him the space or permission to
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: grieve his dead family member, I feel like you do
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: sort of on top of the fact that she is
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: a part of a deeply oppressive society and is on drugs.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: Um like, she is deeply depressed, and anytime she brings
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: it up to anyone around her, they basically tell her
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: to shut up, and she's like just lost an infant,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: and so in that way, I feel for her, But
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: it's also like a mother being also the visual metaphor
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: of like the repeated visual metaphor of mother's equals breastfeed
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: Like breastfeeding metaphor I feel like it's is pretty lazy
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: if nothing else, And you know just the fact that,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, we don't know much about any of these characters,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: but we know. What we know about this character is
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: that she is grieving her son and she hates her daughter.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: And why, I mean, I guess you again. Another generous
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: interpretation is that, like, it doesn't seem like Calvinism encourages
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: women to like each other or to to do anything
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: but blame each other for the things that are not
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: their fault. And there are moments where you can tell,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: you know, she wants to believe Thomasin. But then but
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: the second she gets permission to call her a witch,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: she's like, I'm going to kill you, and so um,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: I just I don't like her. I don't have to
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: like her. But you know what I think is interesting
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: is this actress who plays her what's her name again,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at Kate Dicky. Kate Dickie, who plays Catherine
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: breastfeeds in the movie and also in Game of Thrones,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: plays Catherine's sister in Game of Thrones, who is breastfeeding
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: a like eight year old, yeah, eight year old, like
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: a very well past breastfeeding age. She has had to
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: breastfeed in her career. For two major roles, She's had
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: to breastfeed, which is such a weird type cast. What
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: a horrible situation we're putting people in. That's so annoyed
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: like her to arguably her two biggest credits, she has
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: to horror breastfeed. Yeah right, It's like the same thing
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: of like body horror imagery, like things that are natural,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: like a woman's body, aging, breastfeeding, etcetera. Like those things
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: are made to seem scary and unnatural and wrong, And
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: I just I don't think images like that should ever
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: be included as a part of like the horrifying imagery
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: of a horror movie, especially when those things are never
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: almost never framed in any kind of positive light in media.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: Either we see nothing in terms of that kind of representation,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: or it's there but only in horror movies as a
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: part of the horror. And I do not like that
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, I don't know. There's I think as
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: it pertains to women, I I like Thomasin's characterization, and
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: I don't think that any of the female characters especially
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: are particularly well thought out, especially because the conclusion is
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: that they're evil. But I guess that's what I'm to saying.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, if nothing else, I like that Thomason survives
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: until the end. I was really worried that she wouldn't.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: I'm glad she does, but I don't like that it's
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: to be like and she's the witch, and you're like,
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: what are you telling me? Like? What are you telling
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: me that? I think I think what he might be
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: trying to say, And maybe I'm like, I don't want
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: to put words in feminist icon Robert Egger's mouth, but
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: I feel like he's like, you know, witches are like made,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: not born, I think is maybe what that's I think
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: a generous interpretation of like all this religious oppression made
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: her a witch and it wasn't. But but but that
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: also um still makes women evil and also doesn't make
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense. UM. So I am just quickly
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: looking up the two WHOA, I'm looking up the two
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: people who played the people to see if they're actually native.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: I can't tell. One of them was also in Freedom
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: Writers and was on Top Chef. Anyway, I always look
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: for that because I am genuinely like pleased when a
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: director casts actual native people to play natives in movies.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: It doesn't happen that often. That does not surprise me
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: and Jenna. You mentioned, um a test that I don't
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: think we were familiar with, Jamie and I um until
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: you mentioned it. But would it be the a LA test,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: the ISLA tests, ISLA test. Yeah, if I'm reading it
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: as Iola and it is a media test created by
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: Ali Nadi. Um, I hope I'm pronouncing that right. And
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: to pass the test, a female character in a piece
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: of media is an indigenous slash Aboriginal woman who is
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: a main character, who does not fall in love with
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: a white man, and who does not end up raped
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: or murdered at any point in the story. So, um,
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: the three qualifications. It needs to be stated. It's real
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: bad here for depressing good lord, thank you for letting
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: us know about that. Um. Yeah, it's relatively new. This
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: this test is from the first of it's kind, but
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: it's absolutely necessary because you will be hard pressed to
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: find a a lead female character in a TV show
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: who doesn't get killed. I mean, not even elite. You
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: will be found hard pressed to find a lead indigenous character.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: I'll just say that. That's the end of my statement. Well,
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: does that bring us to the other tests that we
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: should put this film up against. Yes, okay, the Bechtel test.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: Does it pass? I think it does. Between Thomasin and Catherine,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: they talk about a silver cup, they talk about goats.
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: Between Thomason and Mercy as well, they're talking about chesch.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: They're all accusing each other of being witches. That unfortunately
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: passes the when you say, hey woman, you are a witch. Yeah,
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: I think I think it does. Um, it does pass,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: amazing feminist icon Robert Igers. I'm surprised and amazed. Yeah,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: I honestly as well. But it does not pass some
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: of the other tests that we moving forward or going
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: to put the film up against, such as the it's
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a bunch of white religious extremists colonizers
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: and yes, so it's really not going to pass most
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: of the tests. Very least they're not made out to
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: look good, right, which is I think the most you
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: can say. Well, that brings us to our nipple scale,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: in which we um examine how well the movie fares
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: when it comes when it's put through an intersectional feminist
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: lens as a five nipples, my brain is like rupturing.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: I guess I would give it like a two on
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: the grounds that well, that's probably too generous. I do
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: like Thomason as a character, and I do see a
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: version of the story in which she is empowered by
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: the end and like has autonomy and has escaped the
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: fundamentalism of her oppressive family. And you know, I guess
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: is gonna thrive as a witch, probably in the coven
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: of the other witches. Um, But we don't know that,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: I guess, are we assuming have been through the exact
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: same thing? Right? Is it just like other like farms
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: like spread out like every few miles, there's just another
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: daughter who's like being oppressed by their Calvinist family and
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: they have to escape this life and they all just
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: converge in the forest. May Yeah, I guess so. But yeah,
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: my big issue with this is, um, the being accused
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: of being a witch and then having that happened in
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: the same story in which evil witches who have made
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: a pact with the devil are real and you're probably
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: going to become one. Um feeling around long enough and
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: just yeah, that whole thing, So maybe I'll go down
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: to now I'll stay with it too. I'll be decisive
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: for once in my life, which is still a failing grade,
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: so I feel fine about that. It's less than so uh,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: and I'll give both of them to Black Philip. Obviously,
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: both of my nipples go to Black Philip, which is weirdly.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: I know that we it's the title of the character,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: but I cannot help but find racial undertones in the name.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: It's for sure, especially because like the two goats that
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: were per quickly, well behaved and not possessed by the
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: devil were white, and that is an actual real thing
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: in witchcraft, the idea of white magic versus black magic
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: is does have racial origins. Yes, did you read that
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: at the library, Robert, I'm pull in my library hard.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: I'm being a little hard on him. He doesn't say
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: it that much, but it just made me laugh that
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: He's like, well, folks, I went to the library. I'm
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: going to give this movie one nipple. I I think
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: that it is partially stemming from frustration that it features
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: so many tropes that are used against female characters so often,
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: especially in contemporary horror. But it also I think the
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: response to it at the time was like feminist, which
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: I don't think is true. And I just I really
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: I know that horror it's a horror movie. There's going
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: to be a lot of trauma, but I think that
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: there are better ways to depict female trauma than is
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: done in this movie. I like Thomas and a lot.
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: I hope the best for her in her next chapter. UM,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: and I don't. I don't want it. Uh, we don't
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: need it. But but she I do like. I feel
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: like she makes the movie for me, and like the
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: anxiety I felt wanting to protect her. I feel like
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: is what held the movie together for me. And also
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: just seeing, like, in a very brutally depicted way, the
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: delusion that comes with extreme religious settings and how it
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: can turn you against people that you love, and like
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: it can just completely tear your life apart. I thought
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: like that point was well made, and I think maybe
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: that was more the point he was trying to make.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: But inside of that point he's trying to make. I
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: feel like his female characters get a little lost in
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: a little muddled so to quote a scholar, In all
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: of my trying to stand back and be objective about themes,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: feminism rises to the top. It's just there in your
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: face that rises right up. I just like I cannot
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: subscribe to the mindset that I just feel like it
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: is so like baby brain to be like levitating woman
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: last shot. It's feminist, Like I just know, I'm gonna
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: give it one nipple, and I'll give the nipple to Thomason.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: I hope she's doing well. Are Robert Eggers which is immortal?
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. She might still be around,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: could be Jenna, what about you? Um, I'm also gonna
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: give it one nipple. If I'm really looking at it
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: authentically through an intersectional lens, Thomason is really only experiencing
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: one oppression, and it's because she's a woman. I guess
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: there's some religious oppression happening in there too, But intersectionality
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: is more about um, the oppression that arises from queerness,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: from gender, from race, and I think that like there's
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: literally no other UM. I guess there is some. There
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: is a lot of ages m in this movie, just
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: like we just hate old people, specifically old women. I
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: don't love that. I really think we can there's a
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: better way to scare people. I feel like there's a
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: better If we're going to move toward horror that is
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: actually psychologically terrifying, we need to lean into the get
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: out versions of these things, and this was this had
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: opportunities to really make a critique about early religious settlements
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: and how fucked up they were. Um, but it then
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: it just was magical in the end um, instead of
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: like confronting the reality, the non magical reality of just
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: straight up tripping balls hyper Christianity. Right, you know what,
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring my score down to one nipple. No,
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: I do this all the time. I let other people
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: influence me. But hey, isn't that how we grow? Isn't
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: that how we become better people? To listen and to
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: flect back onto ourselves five minutes ago? Oh my god.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: That like any time I write in a diary and
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: I'll like go back to three days earlier and just
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: to see what I was like, Oh, I hate myself
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: three days ago. I was such an idiot. So this
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: is very much my personality. It's good. It allows growth. Yea, yeah,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: I didn't even really thought of it. Yeah, it's like
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: every every complicated discussion that this movie could have had,
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: it just says magic instead. Yeah, specifically like black dark magic,
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: like dartmagic, with very in my opinion, clear racial undertones.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: Racial undertones for sure. Yes, Um, well there you have
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: it folks, the Witch, sorry, the Vivich, Jenna. Thank you
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: so much for being here. This has been amazing. Thanks
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: for having me. Of course. Of course, where can people
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: follow you online? Check out your stuff anything, whatever you'd
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: like to plug? Oh my gosh, um Well, I have
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: a podcast called Woman of Size. It's about life in
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: the intersections of race, gender and fatness. It's about wait
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: stigma and it's also funny. It's great. But that is
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: at Woman of Size pot on Instagram and Twitter. I
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: also have a personal Instagram Twitter that's Janna Unplugged. And
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: I hope that everybody will watch the TV show Rutherford
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: Falls coming out on the Peacock Network. I wrote on
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: the show and it's the first show that is has
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: native lead comedic characters. That's awesome. So I'm really excited
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: about that. Hell yeah, if you can check out us
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: on the social media as well, Twitter, Instagram, at Bechtel Cast.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: We've got our Patreon ak Matreon. It's five dollars a month.
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: It gets you two Bonnets episodes every single month, plus
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: access to our entire back catalog. Also, if anyone wants
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: that Robert Egger's quote on a T shirt, I'm very tempted.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: So I just need one one listener to want it
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: and that will be enough for me to follow through.
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: We gotta there. I have a list of of of
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: like T shirt. Well, now it's time we gotta make
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: you know, deeply unemployed and and locked in my home?
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: So sure, can I just scrawl the words of Robert Duggers?
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: Yes I can. Well, if you do want our existing
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: merch and any upcoming new merch, go to t public
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: dot com slash the beectel cast for all of your
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: merchandising needs and otherwise, uh, you know, I was going
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: to try to quote this movie and I realized I
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: don't know a goddamn thing they're ever saying, because it's
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: like seventeenth century English, So never mind lived deliciously, deliciously, deliciously. Also,
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: any time that someone started one more, one more Robert
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: Egger's Dunk before we go, anytime someone was like, wow,
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: the dialogue sounds so authentic and he's like, well I
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: went to the library. You're like, shut up, stop, he's
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: a library boy, library baby. Also, sorry, one last thing,
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: the Black Phillip the Devil and when he becomes am
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: a man, a devil man He's like, what would you like.
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: I'll give you a pretty dress, because you know, women
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: be shopping. Women be loving dresses, even zero dollars in
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: the middle of the woods. Women be shopping truly. Um, alright,
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: that'll that'll do it. Thanks for listening, We'll we'll see
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: you next week. I