Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Mad Max Fury Road

Transcript

Mad Max Fury Road · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Beck Doll 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, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: invest start changing it with the bec Del Cast. Jamie caivin,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Oh what a day, What a lovely day? Witness me.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: It's my birthday. I'm oh, my god, I get it.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I get it. I understand. What a lovely day for
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: it to be my birthday. It's always a lovely day
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: for it to be your birthday. Happy birthday, Thank you,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I love you. What a day this is going to be.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is We're not recording this on your birthday,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: but I feel like it's good. We your birthday is
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: tends to be kind of an event. Yeah. I really
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: think that I'm a special person and really think that
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: my birthday is a special day for everyone and not
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: just me. Well, you're not a huge holiday person, so
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: this is your holiday. Like it all makes sense. Um,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I think I maybe I gave you or I didn't
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: give it to you because I haven't, but a part
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of your birthday present the spirit channeled survivor of Titanic book,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I have to give to you amongst other things that
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: will be revealed at a later time. Happy birthday, thank you,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: and we're doing a special I'm I'm excited. I'm excited
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: for this episode. I've been kind of nervous for it
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: because anytime we go into an episode where there's like
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of your like, there's just so much. But
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: but I'm glad. I'm glad that we're doing this. Here,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: we are same, back in heaven where we live. And
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: what a lovely day it is. Uh. This is the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante. My name is
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where we examine
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel Tests
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: simply as a jumping off point for our discussion. Jamie,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: I need you to tell me on this lovely day, huh,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: what the Bechdel test is. It's your birthday. I'm happy
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: to oblige. So. The Bechdel Test, sometimes called the Buckdel
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Wallace test, is a media metric created by queer cartoonist
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Alison Bechdel. There's many per mutations of this test, however,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the one we use requires the following that therapy two
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: characters of a marginalized gender. Sometimes sometimes my one of
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: my signapps is collapses mid sentence. Uh, this is like
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: our audition monologue that we do every week, right, because
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: it's like it feels so like, it feels very rehearsed
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: sometimes when I'm saying it, because I just like have
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: it so committed to memory that I'm like, wait, did
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I like accidentally forget one of the That's It's just
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: it's a whole thing. Every time I trip myself up
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: because I I worry because it's so grained in my
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: brain that I'm going to switch a word and neither
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: of us will notice because we're just like, yep, that's
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the monologue. This is our tomorrow and Tomorrow and tomorrow
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: creeps in this petty pace. Wait, what is that a
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: reference to? I don't think that this doesn't pass the
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: back because this is it's a Shakespeare passage. Everyone in
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: my high school had to memorize this one Shakespeare passage
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow creeps in this petty pace
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: to the last syllable of recorded time. I already sucked
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: it up, and all the shakespeare heads are going to
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: be like, you fucking do fist as as I was saying,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: on your birthday, no less of all days, of all days.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: So this also isn't coming out on my birthday, I
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: don't think, because my birthday is a Tuesday and we
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: always release episodes on But who knows, maybe we'll mix
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: it up this week. I don't know. Look, you'll find
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: out when you're listening. You'll know. And then if you're
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: listening to it, not the day it comes out, which
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: is probably a lot of people, you'll be like, shut up,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: tell us what the Bechdel cantest is. Well, it's this,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: here's the one we use. Now I'm really going to
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: suck it up. We were calling. We require that we
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: our version, you've got to have two characters of a
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: And these lines of dialogue should be narratively significant in
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: some way, shape or form, not throw away dialogue for
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: crying out loud and uh, you know, because of the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: movie we're covering, it's smooth sailing baby, not a problem.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: It's not a problem from the director that brought you
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Babe Pig in the City and Happy Feet one and two.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I found someone took it upon themselves
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: to write a passage on scholarly journal Wikipedia of about
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the thematic similarities between happy Feet and mad Max Fury
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Road and it actually completely scans. Yeah. Well, I talked
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: about happy Feet on blank check and I pointed out
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: speaking of being scholarly in a very scholarly way, I
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: pointed out some of those same similarities. So an environmental
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: family story. Also, like Hugo Weaving plays this penguin that
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: has this like extremist religious dogma that he's like trying
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: to foist on to the other penguins in the penguin community,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: much like a Morton Joe is like foisting this extremist
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: religious dogma. Look, there's a lot of there's a lot
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: of similarities between Mad Max Fury Road and happy Feet,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: is all we're saying. I love our canonical pronunciation of
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: happy feet, happy feet, happy feet. Uh, there's it reminds
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: me of There's is one acting choice that Tom from
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Succession makes, and I believe that that's his Christian name
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: um where every time he says he's talking about how
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Chiv cheated on him on on their wedding night, he says,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: on our wedding night. And I'm like, why is he
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: saying it like that? But he says it like it has.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: He keeps saying wedding night, and it drives me. It
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: drives me horny. I love it. Wedding night, happy feet,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: wedding to night, happy feet. I'm like, is that Shakespeare? No,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: that's maybe I am bic pentameter. No, it's not. You know,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: it's something though, it's something though, it's you know, I trust,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: I trust, I believe that it's got to be something.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: And today we're talking about mad Max fury Road. Yeah,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: we are Magic Mike and Mad Max in the same
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: couple of I mean, we're really describing these these monosyllabic men,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: aren't we. Yeah, so I guess the Magical Michael version
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: of Mad Max would be like mat madgening Maxwell. That
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't quite work, but yeah, I guess. I guess. So. Also,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Steven Soderberg loves this movie. I found so many quotes
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: from him being like WHOA. I was like, Wow, Magic Mike,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Mad Max, It's all coming together. Do you think that
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: he loved the original Mad Max so much that he
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: subconsciously channeled it into magic. Mike, maybe I think we
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: should go with this theory. Okay, no one correct us.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: It's Caitlin's birthday. We can't be wrong today, exactly. I
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: can be wrong. You can yell at me except that. Yeah,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: but I am infallible today. You're untouchable. You should say
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: anything really fucked up? Alright, Caitlin. Okay. So, and and
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: last last thing. If if you're if you've been with
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: us since the beginning, almost six years at this point,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, didn't these ladies cover Mad Max
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: at some point? Yes, we did. It was extremely early
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: in the podcast, one of our first episodes. Yeah, and
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: there was a couple early episodes that of about a
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: year and a half ago, We're like, we want to
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: redo these. We've learned so much through doing this show
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: and just through the general evolution of society and time,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: and this was one of the movies we've always been
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: wanting to redo. So it's not in your imagination, but
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: this is the all new and improved Matt Max Fury
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Road episode Exactly. We are now better equipped to tackle
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the discussion that we want to have around this movie,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: especially because it has since recording that original episode. It
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: has become one of my favorite movies of all time.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Hence also why we're doing it for my birthday, and
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: since it came out, because we covered it like about
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: a year after it came out, I think roughly something
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: like that, maybe yeah, because it came out in yeah,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: this summer of and then we recorded the episode early.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: It was not that long after. And now it's you know,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: considered for many the greatest action movie ever made. So
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: we can talk about how the perception of the movie
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: has some evolved as well. Certainly there's there's just there's
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: you know, the passage of time and can I just
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: say from s to now no notes societally, so, um,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I don't think anything has really happened now we're living
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: in the greatest timeline. Um so. So Caitlin the birthday gal,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: please do tell me what is your history with Mad
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Max Fury Road. I did see it in theaters when
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: it came out, I think probably opening weekend. I was
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: pretty jazzed to see it based on the trailers in
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the marketing and it thing, and I was blown away
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and have only developed a greater appreciation for it more
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: and more as time goes on. I would say, I've
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: seen this movie somewhere between like sixty and seventy times. Yeah,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't know it was that serious. It is. It's
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: pretty serious because it's one of those movies that I
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: am never not in the mood to watch. So like
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I am just I will throw it on. It's my
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: plane movie. So anytime I on a flight, I will
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: watch this movie both times. So on my journey to
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the place and then on my journey back home. I
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: watch it on dates all the time. Uh an emphasis
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: on all the time, because I'm always going on dates.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Having a Greg, you do go on many successful dates,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: and I would not call them successful, but sorry, go ahead,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: it's your birthday. I'm I'm I'm fluffing. I'm fluffing it's
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: your birthday. Yes, No, I'm so good at dating. I'm
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: so good at finding people I'm compatible with. It's an
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: incredible phenomenon. It's you can't stop falling in love. That
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: it is good to have go to date movies. I
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: my no, the jinks I was gonna says, I've got
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: to change it. I've got to grow as a person.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: But that's one way where I very firmly I have
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: not that's okay, that's okay. You know, sometimes it's fine
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: to be absolutely static. Here's in some ways it is comforting.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: But in that one, I would say, maybe it could
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: it could go. Um, Caitlin, were you Did you ever
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: watch the original Mad Max movies? Yes, so I have
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: seen all of those, but I have no real attachment
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: to them, especially compared to the Hatchman I feel to
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: this movie. That was what I was curious about, because
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: it seems like there's a few camps of fans of
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: this franchise, some of whom are like this movie, and
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: then some of whom are like all Max Cannon. Yeah,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: um no, I am not thrilled with any of the others,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: mainly that Mel Gibson cannot stomach watching anything he's in
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: except for Chicken Run, which you only hear his voice.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: So I give it a path and it still feels bad.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: And it still feels bad. Um yeah, I do. I mean,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: there will will be talking about in plenty today, but
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I do think that George Miller is a very interesting
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: case of a filmmaker who has demonstrated a lot of
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: growth throughout his career. Although there's a lot that I
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: learned about the protection of this movie. That sounded, uh,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: not great. We'll get there, yeah, for sure. Um, but
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: it's really only this installment Fury Road that I have
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: any attachment to, so much that I got a tattoo
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: of the war rig that Furioso drives on my arm,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and that I think concludes my relationship with this movie. Jamie,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: what is your history and relationship with Mad Max Fury Road? Um?
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: I had only seen it to prepare for the first time.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: We did this episode about five years ago. That was
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: the first time I saw it. Didn't like it the
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: first time. This was in a phase of life where
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I was deeply against any aesthetic I perceived to be
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: remotely steampunk. Look, I was in my early twenties. I
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: was just I. I had a hot take. I clung
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: to it. I don't stand by it, I will say,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: speaking of growth, Speaking of growth, I really I've seen
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: this movie a couple of times in the interim, Um,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I think at least once with you, but I like
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: it more or each time I see it, I feel
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: like it. It has. It has a lot to do
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: with just like me understanding more about movies than I
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: did six years ago, understanding more about feminism, than I
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: did six years ago, understanding more about environmentalism than I
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: did sing here, and also like having a growing appreciation
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: for action movies. It's still not my genre. I don't
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: think it will ever be my genre. However, I feel
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: like I can now appreciate a well crafted, paste looking
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: ass action movie. So I've really grown to Uh. I
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: really love this movie. And I and I had a
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: really daunting, slash fun time preparing for this episode. There's
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: so much to go through, there's so much to talk about.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: It's very dense, but it doesn't feel dense. It's such
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's I guess it's like it's so dystopian.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: It's a dystopian romp. It is a romp, but it
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: is it's a serious upsetting. I think you you nailed it.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: It's it's not totally light yet. It is still a romp,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: but it is literally never not moving. That's the beauty
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: of romps. It's a spectrum and it's very inclusive. In
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: this essay, we will no but for real, probably for
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: a couple of hours. So that's my history. Uh. Used
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: to be a hater, and then I got educated and
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: I grew up literally as how I would describe what
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: happened that warms my heart? Is it my favorite George
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Miller movie? It is not. That is still Babe, but
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: this is a close second because Happy Feet is one
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: we I think we've maybe talked about this in our
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Babe episode which is on the Matreon, and I think
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: it's quite a good episode. You did an incredible segment
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: on how movie animals are treated in that episode. But
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: in any case, Happy Feet is one of those movies
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: that I know I have seen at least three times,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and I could not tell you a single thing that
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: happens in the movie. I have the same issue with
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of Wes Anderson movies where I'm like, I
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: remember how it looks, I remember how I was feeling,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: couldn't tell you what happened. I could try to tell you,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and this isn't the time or place, because I've seen
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: it a couple of times to prepare for the blank
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Check episode I did. And I think I'm in the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: minority because I think that movie absolutely sucks shit. No,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I think that people didn't. I don't think that there
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: it was like nominated for Academy Awards like I think
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: it was like, but people responded to it well like audiences.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Was it well reviewed? It was well reviewed? Bizarre? I mean,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I understand why kids, my my. Anyways, you know what, ultimately,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: if Happy Feet hadn't performed while the box office in critically,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: we wouldn't have Mad Max Fury Road, now, would we?
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: Or so I read is true? Yeah? So you know,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: no matter where you fall on the Happy Feet criticism enjoyment,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: o'met or um, you gotta hand it, you gotta foot
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: it to the Happy Feet because if that boring ass
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: movie I can't remember with Elijah Wood Penguin, am I correct? Correct? Correct?
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: You know, then we wouldn't have this awesome movie we're
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: talking about today. True? Should we start talking about it? Yeah?
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Let me do the recap, shall I? Let's do it.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: So we hear some sound bites at the very beginning
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: about water and fossil fuel shortages. We hear about wars
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: that have happened as a result. We hear about like
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: nuclear skirmish. We see a barren wasteland, and then we
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: meet Max Rockatanski played by Tom Hardy. We get some
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: voice over from him in which he says that the
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: only thing he cares about is survival. Max is then
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: pursued by war boys who capture him and take him
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: to this place called the Citadel, which is ruled by
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: and Morton Joe played by Hugh keys Burn. He is
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: this tyrannical leader who controls access to people's food and
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: water in the Citadel. Right. He has a bunch of
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: people working for him, many of whom are his offspring Others.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: On the Wikipedia page someone it might not be true
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: by the time you listen to this episode, but someone
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: keeps referring to one of the sons as his large
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: adult son um. Would that be Rectus erectus. Yes, yes,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Rectus erectus is repeatedly referred to as a large adult
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: son and uh an accurate description of the character. It
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: is hard to tell because of how they're at this.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: They're stylized. You're like, which which son is which? It's confusing, sure,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: but that's the point that. Yeah. Others are people that
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: he has either enslaved or manipulated via this religious ideology
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: where a Morton Joe has convinced them that he is
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: their redeemer and they will ride with him eternal on
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the highways of Valhalla. It is all I mean, and
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I do I do appreciate the use of Like any
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: time there's like Norse mythology popping up, you're like, mmmm,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: this is probably not a character I'm going to end
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: up rooting for, which is an interesting story convention that
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: pops up all the time. Yeah. Then we meet Furiosa,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: played by Charlie's Thearren. She seems to be pretty high
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: up in a Morton Joe's ranks. She drives a war
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: rig which she boards to head to Gastown and the
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Bullet Farm, to neighboring communities that barter and trade with
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: the Citadel. We will soon find out that they have
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: similar tyrannical warmongering leadership. As Furiosa is driving, she veers
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: off course. We are not sure why at first, but
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: then we realized that in her war rig, furio Set
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: has Morton Joe's wives a k a. Women who he
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: has enslaved and who he assaults in order to bear
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: him healthy offspring, and Furiosa is attempting to rescue these
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: women and escape once and for all, and they are
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: headed to somewhere called the Green Place. When Morton Joe
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: discovers this, he sends out a bunch of his war
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: boys in their vehicles to chase after and catch Furiosa
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: and bring the wives back again. I just love the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: simple turn of phrase that is war boys, because that's
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: how I would describe them if I didn't know what
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: they were called. And that is just what they're called.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: That it's just what they're called. Yes, this movie is
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: perhaps not subtle, no, but but you know that. But
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: that's how we why we go to action movies. We
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: don't go to action movies for the subtlety. I go
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: to Babe for subtlety. And I kind of mean that. Yeah.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: So one such war boy is Nuts, played by Nicholas Holt,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: who Max has been rigged up to as Nux is
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: blood bag because a lot of the war boys are
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: dying from radiation poisoning and they need regular blood transfusions. Right,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: So you immediately see how characters of all genders are
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: reduced to the basic functions of their body by and
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Morton Joe at all, Right, exactly, So Nucks wanting to
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: participate in this chase to catch Furiosa, he takes Max
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: along with him in this pursuit. Uh. Then we get
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the first big chase of the movie, where Furiosa manages
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: to lose a Morton Joe and his war party in
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: a sandstorm, but afterward Max finds her and the other women,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the wives who are splendid and her played by Rosie
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Huntington's Whiteley. Okay, transformers. Oh that's the only other thing
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I know. She wasn't got it yep capable played by
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Riley Kyo, who I've seen this movie a bazillion times
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: and when I was watching Zola to prep for that episode,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: did not realize it was the same actor. I mean,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the power of a red Die job cannot be understated.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I think she's great in this movie, too. Agree, Yeah,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: I mean I think all the all the wives are
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: are very talented for sure. We've also got Toast the
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Knowing played by Zoe Kravitz. We've got name Cheeto, the
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: fragile played by Courtney Eaton, and we've got name and
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: we've got the Dag played by Abby Lee. So when
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Max comes upon them, he and Furious to fight, and
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Max attempts to hijack Furious as war rig and leave
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: all of the women to be captured by a Morton Joe,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: but Furiosa has kill switches enabled on the rig, so
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Max cannot drive away, and she bargains with him, and
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: then they all set off together, with Furiosa driving but
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Max holding them all hostage. Then Furiosa drives to this
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: canyon where she has bartered for safe passage through, but
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: a Morton Joe has caught back up to them, along
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: with the people eater of gas Town and the bullet
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: farmer from You'll never guess this the Bullet Farm. I
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: do appreciate. Yeah, again, just with the simplicity of the names.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: It's helpful. There's a lot of characters, and I just
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: like how he names them by what they do or
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: sort of how you would kind of describe what you
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: think they might do. Right, It's helpful. It is so
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: wait quick question, Yeah, is it Nicholas Holt that you
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: have a huge crush on? I do have an enormous
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: crush on Nicholas Holt, is true, Okay, I was just
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: checking in about that. Thank you for confirming and taking
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: away love a little aside where we simply cannot pass
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the Bectel test. Look, we're no one's asking life to
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: pass the Actel test, although it, you know, could be
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: it would probably be a generally better experience life, but um,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a quick detour to be horny about
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Nicholas Holt, no further questions. I also didn't realize that
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Nux is Nicholas Holt, because I mean, it's a it's
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: a really good performance, but it could be any person
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: in there. A lot of his recognizable features are they're
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: all kind of like buff looking slenderman bob a Duke types.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: The war Yeah, yeah, yeah, the war Boys are Yeah,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: just to pack a slenderman Zimbaba Dukes. Yes. Okay. So
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: with these three war parties in hot pursuit, everything goes
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: wrong in this like situation where Furious is trying to
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: barter for safe passage. There's another big chase. This one
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: is my favorite one of the movie, by the way,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: during and after which Max and Furiosa go from being
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: enemies where he is holding her hostage. Two allies who
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: are working together who are slowly realizing that they have
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: not too dissimilar backstory. Sure. Also during this chase, Angered
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: is killed or maybe at this point just fatally wounded,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: which slows down and morton Joe for a while because
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: she was his favorite and she also had a nearly
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: full term pregnancy and he is concerned about the baby surviving.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: So this allows Furioso, Max and the rest of the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: wives to get away and they drive onward toward the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: green Place. Meanwhile, Capable discovers nuts on the rig. He's
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: having a crisis. The two of them become friends, and
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: he switches sides and becomes an ally too. Furiosa and friends.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: I would watch that. I would watch that children's show
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: that's spin off. Yes. Meanwhile and Morton, Joe and the
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: war parties are not far behind again, and they're all
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: driving through this like marshy swampy area. Everyone is getting stuck.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Our friends get unstuck with Nux's help, and they continue
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: onward and eventually they come upon the Volvelini, this band
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: of women who live in the middle of the desert.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: It's the clan not a very subtle nation. I was like,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: are they saying Volvolini and it's it's volvoly It does
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: sound like it's vagina pasta that is being described for me.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: For me, it sounded like a plate full of vagina. Yeah,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: I don't disagree. They are also known as the Many Mothers.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: They are the clan that Furiosa used to be a
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: part of until she was kidnapped, stolen, and taken to
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the citadel. They tell Furiosa that the green place no
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: longer exists. Earth had become to sour, the water became poison,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: nothing would grow, so they had to get out of there.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Not a relatable thing at all there are, I mean yeah,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: and each time you watch this movie, you're just like, wof,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: had you told me that in six years? Perhaps not
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: the aesthetic, but the water wars. They're a common baby
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: people and maybe I need to stop doing this, or
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: maybe I need to do it more. But anytime someone where,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: anytime someone refers to how things might be in like
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: twenty or thirty years from now, I'm like, yeah, that's plausible,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: assuming we're not all killing each other during the water Wars.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: And then they're like oh um uh yep, a little
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: bit nervous. But now people are like, oh no, do
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: you have information? So that is I think a feasible reality.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I think now more than ever, keep plugging the water wars.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: People are gonna love to hear you say I told
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: you so all the time water Wars are on, and
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: then they'll shoot me in my face and then and
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: then steal my water. Yeah. I mean if if this
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Australian documentary is do we believe Yes, it's very possible. Okay,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Furious to learning about the Green Place no longer existing
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: is absolutely devastating to her, especially because there's now no
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: place that she can kind of find this redemption she
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: was looking for in terms of like bringing these women
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: to safety and just having a place where they can
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: stay and survive. And then Max is like, well, wait
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: a minute, what if we go back to the citadel
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: and take control while it's undefended. Sorry, I'm gonna let
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: that loud motorcycle pass Martin Joe. So they turn around
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and charge back towards the citadel and Morton Joe realizes
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: what they're doing, so he goes after them again. There's
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: one last, you know, big act three climactic chase. There's
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of ups and downs. We've got Joe trying
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: to abduct the wives. Furious so gets stabbed, but then
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: she crawls onto with Morton Joe's vehicle and rips his
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: face off. Oh is that a And and speaking of
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: face off, if you head of urture Matreon this one,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be some faces coming off. Look big month
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: for no face. This is the right and no face
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: because no face in spirited way. This is no face
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: may wild, Oh God, the best of luck to future
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: us trying to observe this a second time. It's gonna
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: be all to be original horror movies. Although did you
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: notice there Roku originals? I think Roku Originals. I'll put
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: this on wax. I think Roku Originals is trying to
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: is trying to do something, because that that new weird
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: al movie starring Daniel Radcliffe is a Roku original, is it?
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: I did not realize that. I didn't realize they had
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: two nickels to rub together. Turns out they've got Harry
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Potter money wild um okay, So Furious pulls a face
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: off Parentheses, starring Nicolas Cage and John Travolta. She rips
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and morton Joe's face off, but she's also very badly injured.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: So Max gives her a blood transfusion and he's like,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: by the way, my name is Max. And then she's
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: able to get right back up on her happy feet,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and she's looking like a babe. She's looking like a babe,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: and she's back in this. She's in the City Dell
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: on her happy feet, happy and another George Miller movie, wait,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: the other one, and the Witches of Eastwick. I just
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: got the Wives of Eastwick with her Oh my word, wow,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: is Lorenzo's oil at George Lorenzo's oil? Yeah? What does
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: that mean? I don't need to know. It's fine, let's
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: never talk about it again. Okay, not my business. Which
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: is a east Wick though? Check out that episode on
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: our Matreon. Everyone. Yeah, we have Actually we're kind of
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: like almost Miller completionists, wow in a way, minus Lorenzo's oil. Okay,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: So Max is like, my name is Max because earlier
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: he refused no ship. And then they arrive at the citadel,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: they gain control of it, the implication being Furiosa is
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the new leader. They unleash water, so the unleash the crack. Yeah,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: the people now have access to the water. And then
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Max SLINKs away because he's a lone ranger or whatever,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: and that is how the movie ends. So let's take
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: a quick break and will come back to discuss, and
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: we're back. Where would you like to begin? Uh? We
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I know we both have truly absurd amount of notes
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and things to go through. Where where would you like
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: to begin? My birthday friend, thank you so much. I
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: would like to start with I don't know if I
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: want to start with what I really appreciate about the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: movie or what missteps I think the movie makes, because
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: there are certainly some of those. Yes, there certainly are
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: and I and there, I mean, I guess let's start there,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: because I think that that list, uh, while there's plenty
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: to talk about, is generally shorter. So I found some
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: writing about this. But one thing that stood out to
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: me the first time I saw this movie and still
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: does now is um because this is such broad storytelling, uh.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: And I find it frustrating because it's like George Miller
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: finds so many ways to subvert a lot of common
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: action tropes and stock character assumptions in this movie. But
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: I do think he uses um atypical bodies to indicate
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: evil or lack of morality quite a lot in yes movie. Yeah,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: And it's it's a complicated discussion because disability is treated
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: differently or atypical bodies are treated differently based on the character. Yes,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: because there is a lot of disability visibility in this movie,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: but it is used in different ways. So on one hand,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: you have Furiosa, the protagonist of the movie. She has
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: a physical disability. Her I think left arm has been
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: amputatd below the elbow. She uses a mechanical arm, and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: attention is drawn to this, but not in a way
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: that's ever like she's disabled and she's so bitter about it,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: the way that disabled characters are often treated in media.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: It's just a part of her character. She's presented in
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: the movie as being extremely physically competent. She's a strong fighter,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: she's a skilled marks person, and her disability is never
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: shown as impeding her skills in any way. Right, And
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: we also see her with and without the mechanical arm. Yeah, right,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: And it's never like it's never commented on or drawn
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: attention to positive or negative. Like, it's just neutral. This
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: is just an aspect of her character. We are given
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: no information about it other than just seeing it visually.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: We don't know any kind of backstory regarding this. But
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: it's just presented as one of the many aspects of
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: her character in a way that to me felt like
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: it had a normalizing effect, which I think is one
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: of the goals when it comes to representing disability in movies.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: But then you have a character like and Morton Joe
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: who is covered in tumors, presumably having radiation poisoning. He
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: also uses breathing apparatus, and his disability is used to
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: make him seem like a more formidable opponent, especially like
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: in the way that the mask that he uses just
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: like aesthetically makes him seem scarier. Yeah, I mean, and
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: it's as with a lot of these issues in the movie.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: It's it very much has to do with framing and
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: music and like how these atypical qualities are introduced to you,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: because it's very I mean, it's like, there couldn't be
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: a more villain intro than showing a morton Joe's body
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: at the at the opening right to the movie. It's
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: very very clear how you're supposed to feel about him.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: It's like movie shorthand for like, look how grotesque he is.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Obviously he's the villain. Look at this breathing apparatus he uses,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: and I guess maybe you could make the argument that, like,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: of course this type of tyrannical dictator would wear something
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: to make him seem more intimidating, because his mask is
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: this sort of grotesque, exaggerated thing with like huge teeth
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: that looks like an animal skull. But because there's such
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: a long history of this specific thing in media of
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: disability being used to make a villain seem more intimidating
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: or scarier or more unattractive, this choice just feels extremely
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: pointed and completely unnecessary. Yeah, and like beneath what the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: movie generally tends to be as well. Right, And then
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: like I remember talking about this on our Casino Royal
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: episode where our guest Cannie Smobily brought up that villains
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: are often given asthma or some other type of like breathing,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: and I was like, of course, Darth fade Arth and
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I was born in it. Isn't that another Tom Hardy character? Bain? Yeah, Bain,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I never I don't know Bain's name. I just go
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: I was born on it. And people know what I'm
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: talking about. Tom Hardy is so uh just exhausting to
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: hear about any anecdote with him. You're just like I
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: am annoyed and asleep. But boy, you can't take that
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: line read from him, Kenya. You can't take uh, you
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: can't take the Bain line, and you can't take my
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: favorite Tom Hardy moment. And then I mean, I know
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: we are going to discuss him, but I just not
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: I mean whatever method not necessary, okay, which we'll get
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: to because Charlie Sarron had just a great moment for like, uh,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: stop making my life difficult. Um, But I do I
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: do really like his line read of like suggesting we
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: go back the way we came. Like that's you know,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: he was born in it, baby. There's one thing I
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: know about Tom Hardy. He's born in IT. And I
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: will say, not only do I not mind him, I
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: would even go so far as to say I like
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Tom Hardy. I may regret saying this at a later date,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: but for now I'm cool with Tom Hardy. Generally, he's fine.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I just have a general general dislike of method actors
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: and the stories you tend to hear. He's definitely not
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: the worst of the method actors, but it does sound
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: like he has made the lives of his co stars
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: very unpleasant at different times in his career. Um. And
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: of course, when we say Tom Hardy was born into IT,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: we mean that he was born into a wealthy arts family.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: He was born in it, um, and that's why he
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: gets to be a professional actor. He was born and
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: it did. I realized that his dad's name is Chips
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Hardy question mark Chips plural, Yeah, like the ones in
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: the Bags Chips Partney. Anyways, Um, back to this discussion. Okay,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: So there's another layer of this where Morton Joe and
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: one of his sons Rictus Erectus a k a. His
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: large adult son who also uses an oxygen tank to
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: help him breathe. Both of their breathing apparatuses are used
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: to either kill or injure those characters in some way,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: where Furiosa rips Joe's mask off and also his face
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: off starring Nicolas Cage and John Travolta heard of it,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: and Max uses Rictus Erectus's oxygen tank to beat him
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: in the face. So it's just another layer of like
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: not only our disabilities being used to further villainize these villains,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: but then also the apparatus they use because of their
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: disability is then used against them violently, which feels especially pointed.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: So there's that. Um, there are other characters like the
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: people Eader you know has severe inflammation in his feet.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: I think that and his obesity are his traits that
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: are intended to make him seem grotesque and more villainous.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Then you see a lot of disability in the people
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: who live of in the citadel. Some are citizens who
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: I think you can assume survived nuclear war, some are
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: probably just dealing with malnutrition. It mostly feels like these
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: characters are just used as a part of the world building,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: which because we know nothing about them and they're just
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: sort of scenery, it feels like pointed set dressing. Yeah.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: Sort of similar is the character of Corpus Colossus played
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: by Quentin Kenahan, who is one of the Morton Joe's sons.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: We do not learn anything about that character, and just
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: in general, none of these disabled characters or characters with
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: atypical bodies are given any focus in this story. All
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: of the major characters, with the exception of Furiosa and
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: you could argue Knucks, who is also affected by radiation poisoning,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: All the rest of the main characters that we are
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: rooting for are able bodied. They are very attractive by
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Western beauty standards, and even I would argue Furiosa and
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Nuts are kind of able to pass as able bodied,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: especially compared to the characters like Morton Joe and the
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: people Eater, where again their disabilities are are used to
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: further villainize them or its characters who we learn nothing about,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: which I do also feel has to do at least
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: in part with how the characters are framed, where Furiosa,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: like Furious, has a mechanical arm, but it's not brought
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: to your attention explicitly all the time, in the way
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: that when a villain has a disability, your eye is
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: constantly being very very intentionally drawn to it. Yea. And
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: of course, of these main characters like Furiosa, Nux and Morton,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Joe and the People Leader, they are played by actors
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: who are not disabled. So that's something that we come
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: upon again and again. Yeah, not great, not great at all,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: simply not great. Sort of related to the discussion of bodies.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: One of the things that it took me a while
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: for this to click for me, and I'm honestly embarrassed
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: about how long it took. But so the women, the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: quote unquote wives that Furiosa is trying to bring to safety,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: are all very traditionally attractive by Western beauty standards. That
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: didn't take. That's not the thing that took me a
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: while to figure out that I obviously noticed quite obvious. Yes,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: it's very very obvious. Zoe crab is there, so we
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: like several professional models are among the people cast in
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: those roles. The thing that I was like, wait a minute,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: So we see a group of women at the Citadel
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: who are again used for the very kind of like
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: basic function of like bodily function. They're they're hooked up
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: to breast pumps. They're basically treated like milk cows. And
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: they are all fat women who I think Western beauty
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: standards would consider not attractive. And again, with the way
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: that the camera is framing and drawing your eye, it
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: seems like the movie is not pushing against that in
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: any way. Right. Yeah, So the thing that I was like,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: what the fuck FURIOUSA doesn't try to save them, Like
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: for unknown reasons, what the hell? Like, were they not
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: hot enough to save? Were they not considered? What's the
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: deal with that? Why were they not among the women
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: that God? I mean, because there, you know, I always
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: want to get furious that the benefit of the doubt.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: She makes it seem she makes it seem as if
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: she's done stuff like this before. Perhaps that is a
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: separate trip. We're also told that the wives explicitly asked
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: her to help them do this. She didn't take them.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: They begged her to go, says Miss Giddy. Yeah, but yeah,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: I also picked up on that as well, where it's again,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: most of the characters, or many of the characters who
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: are not you know, classically Western beauty standard slim and
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: and look a very particular way like they are treated
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: as said dressing, and that is very much Yeah, how
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: how those characters are presented. Yeah, I just I would
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: have liked a version of this story where even if
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: it was the wives, there's gotta be a better name
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: for them. But even if it was their idea for
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Furious to take them away from the citadel, couldn't Furious
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: to be like, hey, hey, you guys in like the
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: milking room, I'm I'm going on a trip. I'm saving
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: some people want to come come on. Yeah, At very
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: least I guess that they, they along with the rest
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: of the citadel, are are liberated at the end of
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: the flim We do see another shot of them at
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: the end. Yes, they are, they are freed, but I think, yeah,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: the larger point here is that there are no fat
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: characters who are heroes who we are rooting for exactly,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: which is just kind of another way in which this
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: very broad movie does not push back on very well
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: worn movie media stereotypes in a way that would have
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: been so simple not to like that true, Like, there's
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: no reason that one of the I don't know what else,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: one of the his wives, but they are being sex trafficked.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, what one of the what should we let's
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: let's come up with something right now. One of the
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: women in beige, the women, the women in gauze, Yeah,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: one of the I mean one of the there there's
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: no reason one of the gauzy gauzy women, Um, couldn't
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: couldn't have been a fat woman. There's just there's just
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: simply no reason. Yeah, there's It's it's interesting because, yeah,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: this movie is less than ten years old, but already
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I mean, based on how we are
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: needing to discuss it a second time, you can already
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: you can still pick up on things that were dated
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: at that time, that probably were not commented on extensively
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: at the time. But it says there's been so much
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: written about this movie when it came out, but also
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: just over the years. It's interesting to kind of watch
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: how people's views on how bodies are treated in this movie.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: I wanted to quickly go back to the Tom Hearty
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: thing because there is have you read about the confrontation
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: between him and Charlie's barren, not extensively, so please feel
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: free to fill me in. Okay, so this is not
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't know very much about the production
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: of this movie. It sounded like an absolutely hellacious shoot
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: that went on for like nine months in the desert.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Riley Keo got hypothermia. George Miller says, there was a
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: there's two oral history pieces I'd read about this movie.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: One came out in one came out earlier this year
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: New York Times and I think Vanity Fair respectively. But
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: in the New York Times one. Yeah, the actors, it
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: is kind of interesting. I feel like you, I'm trying
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: to think of other I mean, I guess that you
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: could use a Titanic parable here too, because literally hypothermia,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: or I guess in Kate Win's was a case pneumonia.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: But you know, a movie that was extremely difficult to shoot,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: that sounds like it was absolute torture for the actors
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: at different points that later on, because the movie was
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: a huge success and was a classic, they're kind of
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: like Yeah, that wasn't great, But I'm glad the movie
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: was a hit, you know, like a little but but
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: you know, it sounded like this was a um a
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: shoot where everyone slowly lost their grip on reality, cast
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: and crew. There were several cases of actors getting sick,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Like I just said, Riley Ko got hypothermia because it
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: was so cold shooting in the desert at night. The
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: actors are shooting in the middle of the desert, and
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: they're not because of their costumes. They're literally in gauze
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: for a lot of it, and so there's not a
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: lot of protection from the elements. A lot of stories
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: like that. And then there was also some onset tension
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: between Charlie's Thearren and Tom Hardy, which has expanded a
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: little more in the Vanity Fair article. So I guess
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: that Charlie Sarren had recently had a baby when she
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: was shooting this movie, and so she's I get she
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: has like a reputation for being very professional, shows up
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: on time, expects to be released at the correct time,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: as is her right. That's union ship. Tom Hardy is
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: known to be a method guy, known to never show
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: up on time, known to be a little bit combative
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: at times, and he and Charlie's well, they simply did
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: not like each other. And there is a story in
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: which Charlie's Thearren was there on time, sitting in the
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: war Wig waiting for mad Jical Michael to show up.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: So he's not showing up. This was day five trillion
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: of shooting in the war Wig. At this point, the
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: women in Gauze had openly talked about Tom Hardy in
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: front of him. Everyone was sick of him. Then he
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: gets there late, Charlie's Thearren yells at him in front
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: of everybody. She says, and I quote, find the fucking
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: cunt a hundred thousand dollars for every minute he's held
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: up this crew. How disrespectful you are. Love that for her,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: and then Tom Hardy physically charges at her, and uh,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: you know, says what did you do to me? And
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: like lit like physically charges at her. She felt the
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: need to request a producer for protection for the remainder
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: of the shoot because things got so tense between the
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: two of them. It sounds like they have since reconciled.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: But I guess make of that story what you will,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: But I don't think Tom Hardy comes off particularly well
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: in It's certainly not and I take back what I
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: said about him methin actors truly. I mean, I just
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know my crush. Will Poulter said it best
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: when he said something like, I don't like it. Yeah,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: what it was a good quote. We should look it
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: up and let's find it. I'm because I love quoting,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: as you know, I'm always happy to google Will Poulter.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: It's easy for me to do. Oh he said, it's
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: quote an excuse for inappropriate behavior unquote. So that's that. Um.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: Should we take a quick break and then come back
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: and talk some more. Yeah, let's take a quick break
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: and we're back. We are back. Where would you like
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: to go from here at Caitlin, Oh, my goodness. I
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: would like to talk about how the movie handles race,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: which is another thing that is not particularly good, y'all.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: This has been discussed before. We're not really pointing out
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: anything new, but for the sake of a complete episode exactly.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: The movie largely centers white people, which has been pointed
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: out as being especially strange in this context of like
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: the world that this movie exists within. I want to
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: pull a quote from and then also shout out a
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: book which is a series of four different essays, all
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: written by scholars I heard of them. The book is
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: entitled Furious Feminisms Alternate Routes on mad Max Fury Road.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: There is a quote I will pull from the essay
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: entitled just a Warrior at the End of the World
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: by Barbaraker. This brighter put it better than I think
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: I could. So quote Max's story, like so many in
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: dystopian fiction, begs the question why do only white people
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: survive the apocalypse? The absence of indigenous bodies, indeed of
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: people of color generally throughout all four films, meaning all
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: four of the Mad Max films reflect the white supremacists
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: arc of settler colonialism in Australia. The presumed geography of
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: the film and elsewhere and further is a narrative that
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: seemingly relies on gender, but is always already raised as
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: only certain bodies are visible, only certain bodies are active,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: only certain bodies are worthy of survival after the end
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: of the world end quote. This is not to say
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: that there are no people of color in the movie
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: and in the main cast, because of course you have
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Zoey Kravitz. You also have the character of Cheetoh the
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Fragile who is played by Courtney Eaton, who is Maori
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: and Cook Islander. Also shout out to the Ali Naughty
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: Test because this character passes the Ali Naughty Test. This
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: test examines representation of Indigenous women in media. In order
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: to pass, a character must be an Indigenous or Aboriginal
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: woman who is a main character. She must not fall
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: in love with a white man. And she is not
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: raped or murdered at any point in the story. And
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: according to the actor Courtney Eaton, Cheeto is the only
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: one of the wives who was not assaulted by Morton,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Joe or anyone else. So, okay, that's good, that's good
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: to know. We'll we'll get to this. I was very
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: fascinated at how those actors got to develop their own
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: character's history and story and that kind of collaborative process.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: But we'll get there. But but yes, I am I'm
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: happy to here that that Cheeto passes the Ali Naty Test.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: I do wish that characters that passed the Alien Nati
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: Test were more prominent in the story. She certainly has
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: important moments in the story, but she's you know, I
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: think kind of one of the less prominent of the
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: of the women in Gauze and when you are just
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: sort of like isolating screen time and just kind of
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: like narrative significance, Definitely Max and Furiosa are the two
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: most prominent characters. They share a dual protagonist situation. All
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: this to say that the majority of the characters that
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: we are rooting for are white characters. Yeah, I mean
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: our to the two lead characters or I know that.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: God I've read so much of like actually Max is
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: a deuteragamist and I'm just like, okay, with all due respect,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: shut the funk up, Um, I don't want to hear it.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: But yes, there are two are two leading characters who
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: were supposed to I mean, the two people on the
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: fucking poster are sis white movie stars. And thank you
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: for thank you for sharing that quote. Because but now
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: we've covered um several I think Australian movies where where
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: this issue has been brought up? Um, what shall we
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: address next? So I wanted to just this is another
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: production note, but since it came up via learning a
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: little bit about Courtney Eaton's Um character backstory, something I
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: thought was quite interesting was and again just like an
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: interesting showing of growth in a director over time. Is
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: that George Miller brought in a consultant to help. It
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: seems like primarily Charlie Scarron and the women in Gauze
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: developed their characters. I don't know if the uh the
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: VOLI I was gonna say, VOLVIONI So there you go,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: so like a damn Mario character. Okay, yeah, I I
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: don't know about um the women in that area of
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the story. But George So, George Miller brought in Eve Ensler,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: who most famously wrote the Vagina Monologues, which is very
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: dated in many ways. Uh, you know, we're not caping
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: for the Vagina monologue, but she's she's been a feminist
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: activist for a very long time, and he specifically requested
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: that she be available to the actors who were playing
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: um women who were being sex trafficked. And it experienced
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: quite a bit of trauma because eve Ensler has a
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: lot of experience working with survivors of sex trafficking. And
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: I guess that that is like what she was doing
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: when George Miller originally reached out. And so what they
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: did in a way that I think it seems to
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: have um Again, this is like we we cannot speak
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: from personal experience here, but it seems to generally elevate
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: those characters. And I feel like those characters are generally
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: treated with respect. And you see, you know, even through
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: the five women in gaul As, you see a bunch
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: of different um reactions to like they're all distinct characters
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: in a way that I think if the movie was
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: made twenty years before probably wouldn't have been true. Um.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Not only do they have different skills and strengths where
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: and I'm not going to get the names right. So
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: Zoe Kravitz, for example, can handle a gun like she
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: knows her ship in that department, Riley Kio really strongly
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: wants to go back for Rosie Huntington Whitely. They have
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: different opinions on what they should do with knocks like
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: there there's constantly disagreement, and even though many of them
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: have experienced similar kinds of abuse, they are all interpreting
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: it very very differently, which I thought was effective and
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: um done kind of seamlessly with the story. But I
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: wanted to share a quote from Eve and Sler in
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: that New York Times Oral History just to give some
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: insight into how they did it, so, she says, quote,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: it was really surprising for me. George would send me
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: pieces of the script for feedback, and we began to
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: get into a dialogue about the women who were going
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: to play these sex slaves and how they would know
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: what that lived experience was. Eventually he invited me to Namibia,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: which is where the movie was shot, to spend time
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: with them in workshops, and my contribution was really to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: help those actresses become confident in that world. I think
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: it was a really radical thing that he asked me
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: to do that unquote. Um, I'm generally inclined to agree.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: And it seems like the actors got a lot out
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: of it. Uh. They were asked to write their own backstories,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: essentially write letters in character to their abusers. I mean,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: it just seemed like a very immersive way of of
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: building characters. And I do appreciate when a male OH
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: tour such as George Miller knows when he's out of
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: his depth and brings someone in who is not out
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: of their depth. And I'm sure that those actors are
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: more comfortable talking to Eve Ensler than they would be
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: talking to George Miller about this topic. Um, So I
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: just thought that was a good creative choice, whereas um,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: really Kio being left vulnerable enough to get hypothermia was
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: perhaps not as good. Yeah, the shoot of this movie
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: just sounded absolutely fucking wild, and you can tell by
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: watching it because so many of the so many I mean,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: they're on location. It's practical effects in a desert in winter,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: sand blowing and everyone's faces and being exposed to the elements.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I don't even mean to be too
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: hard on George Miller specifically with that. I mean the
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: buckstocks with him because he's a director. But but like,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: nine months in the fucking desert with a gigantic crew
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: and you're all doing practical effects of some of the
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: wildest shit I've ever seen in my life. It's a
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: miracle that everyone lived, um, which is also what one
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: of the things that Steven Soderberg said. He's like, how
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: did a hundred people not die? Right? So, so not
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: to you know, getting hypothermia on at work is horrible,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: but given the scale of the movie, shocking that everyone survived. Yeah.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: I read that a stuntman suffered a broken leg on
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: this movie. Hopefully he got workman's comp I know, I
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: hope he got that workman's comp million. Baby. I hope
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: he's I hope he's doing well. That is God, stunt
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: work is so terrifying. Yes, okay, so I did. Yeah.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: I wanted to just kind of shout out the rare
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: male filmmaker, knowing when he's out of his depth, it
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be impressive, but it is. But it kind of
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: is to the point where even even Sler was like,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: I was also shocked he wanted to do to do that,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: and I like, I think we talked about this in
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: the Babe episode. Perhaps I don't remember, but a woman
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: edited this movie. George Miller's partner, Margaret six Cell, edited
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: this movie. I think we've brought up in the show
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: a couple of different times that women editing a movie
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: of this scale is again quite a big deal, and
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: she wanted an oscar. I was gonna say, the editing
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: is absolutely incredible. Yeah, it's absolutely it's I also didn't
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: reading about the production of this movie was so like
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: I didn't get really excited like into it because you're
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: just like, holy shit, any epic You're just like this
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: is how how where they like didn't have the budget
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: to shoot the scenes at the Citadel, and so she
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: edited most of the movie with nothing at the beginning
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: or end like that sounds so awful, like for her, like,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: that's so stressful. Yeah, I think they had to go
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: back and do reshoots, and yeah, the production went way
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: over budget and you know all the things that you
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: would expect when you watch the movie. The movie didn't
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: technically make money after like all the stuff incurred. Yeah, okay,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: So when I had one last behind the scenes thing
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: I wanted to draw to that, I think we'll hopefully
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: transition into a bigger discussion question mark, let's see, and
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: that is the costume design of this movie. Uh, it
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: was You're headed by Jenny Beavan, who also spoke in
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: this oral history, and it sounds like what I what
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: I thought was really interesting about it is that it
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: sounds as if the character designs and the costume designs
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: since this movie went, you know, was first conceptualized in
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: seven like before Zoe Kravitz existed on this physical plane,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: what Furious As character was going to look like it
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: changed quite a bit and again was like collaborative with
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: the actors. So Jenny Beavan says, quote, I am not
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: into fashion wild thing for a costume designer to say
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: I love it. I also had that thought as I
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: wrote that quote. I am not into fashion and I
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: don't particularly care what people look like. The clothes have
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: to come out of the stories they tell, since she
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: travels long distances, furious and needed very practical clothing. And
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: when I met with Charlie's that was one of the
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: things we talked about that and what on earth should
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: she would she do with her hair? So, because it
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: is Charlie's there own's idea to be the baldest woman
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: in charge, which is the episode where we started talking
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: about that, I believe it is true. Yeah, that's uh,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: one of the things we we did lose our I
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: p by removing that episode from the feed is the
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: origin of the baldest woman in Charge. But hey, we're
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: bringing it back. We weren't completely you know, useless in
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: we were just mostly useless. Um. But but yeah, I
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: thought that the talking about the costume design is an
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: interesting discussion because I feel like I'm interested in your
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: opinion because I think, furiosa, that's a pretty straightforward discussion.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: Like she is, I think dressed pretty appropriately for the
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: work that she's doing, and she's you know, she's protected.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: It seems like generally like that makes sense. And then
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: with the with the women in gauze, they're definitely like
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: their bodies are there's more attention drawn to their bodies
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: and it so it was tricky because I remember the
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: first time we had this discussion, I think that maybe
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: we kind of oversimplified it where it was like, oh,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: these hot models and they're wearing hot outfits. Yes. However,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: me is more inclined to say, like, well, in story,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: that does technically make sense given who was dressing them
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: and where they were coming from. Meaning like a Morton
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: Joe would have selected like the most trophyist wives to
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: be his trophy wives, and yes, would have put them
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: in these outfits. And then we also see them in
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: chastity belts that we see them the first thing they
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: do when they get any amount of liberation is used
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: bolt cutters to take them off, take off the chastity belts. Yeah,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: so I didn't really have And then when you meet
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: the you say it again, the Volgolini, Volgali okay, Volvolini, Okay,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: I think I've got it now. They I think, for
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: the most part, I mean they're basically a biker gang
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: and they're like weather Gang and they're doing biker gang
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: ship ganges, so that generally makes sense. I think the
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: only character you see, the character who is known as
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: the Valkyrie, she is nude when you first see her
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: question mark or she's like mostly unclad and she put
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it didn't particularly bother me. I don't know.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: The only thing that really bothers me about any of
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: the costume design or like just kind of general character
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: design is how do the women in Gauze never get
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: dirtier than they are at the very beginning, considering they're like,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: you know, tumbling through sand and marsha is and yes,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: but they stay like perfectly quoft and without like smudges
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: on their face, and that is Yeah, I think we
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: talked about that in the first time, and yeah, I
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: agree with you. You would think that it would I mean,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: continuity wise, that sounds like someone's worst nightmare. But I
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: think in story that would have been more appropriate, which
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: I guess kind of does bring me around too. There
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: has been some criticism of this movie on gender essentialism.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: So we've discussed this on the show many many times,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: but it's it is a tricky discussion as it pertains
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: to this movie because in a Morton Joe's hyper patriarchal
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: capitalist society, the way he views women are as baby
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: making machines when the reality is that not all women
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: have uteruses, have wombs, can have babies. Like the definition
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: of womanhood that Morton Joe's society cast them as is
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: extremely it's just false. And we know that everything that
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: Morton Joe does is deeply wrong. Where it gets confusing
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: for me as I it's at times hard for me
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: to understand what the movie believes, which I think is
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: like evidenced in the fact that the again, like the
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: characters who we are focusing on and who were rooting
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: for and who are brought along for the journey are
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: these Western beauty standard attractive people, and then everyone else
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: is either a villain or just gets left out of
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: the narrative and is only there as like world building,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: set dressing. But then, but then there's a lot of
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: cool stuff that the movie is doing that subverts a
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: lot of existing archetypes and tropes. So I've i've I've
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: read arguments on both sides of this that. So i've
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: i've I've read some stuff that argues that the script
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: overly essentializes and defines, um, you know, is like baby
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: making equals only way to be woman, which we know
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: very well is false. But then I've also read counter
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: arguments to that argument that are a little more recent. Interestingly, Uh,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: and this is yeah, I guess for our listeners, I'm
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: like kind of synthesizing this in real time. But that
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: argue that the movie actually does push against that essentialism
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: in text through the women of the Volvolini. And I
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: will say that Volvolini does not help that argument at all,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: especially because they're like other name is the many mothers,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: but also you don't see any of them as mothers,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: like there they don't or it's not clear. They're kind
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: of like this utopian like it just seems like they
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: just yeah, they they function as a family, but there doesn't.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know. But then the Keeper of the Seed
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: that like it's I don't know where I land in
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: this argument. However, Uh, the counter argument, just to present
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: it is that the women of the Wolglini, many of
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: whom I think most of whom are older, are not
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: of childbearing age. If they ever were able to bear
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: child we don't know right, who gives a ship U
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: people alone? But but I think you know, because they
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: are older in the eyes of Morton Joe, that makes
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: them not useful productive members of his society. In the
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: world of the movie. And to the women in Gauze,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: to mad Maximilian to fear Riosa, they are very valuable
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: because they are valued for wisdom. They are just as capable,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: if not more capable warriors, and it is very clear
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: in text that they are extremely important to the mission
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: being a success. So it's it's certainly complicated. There are
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: certainly ways to interpret what is presented to us differently.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: I see both sides, although I tend to be of
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: the mind, not us being centrists. Um I And maybe
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: it's just because I love this movie so much that
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go to bat for it pretty hard.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: But sure do I love this movie so much because
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: I think it's doing a lot of good things. That
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: is part of it. So I want to just sort
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: of talk about sort of just like generally speaking, here,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: this movie presents a world in which you know, this
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: extremely toxic, tyrannical leader of a Morton Joe. He's obsessed
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: with war, he's obsessed with controlling people. He owns all
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: of the wealth. He is patriarchy, the guy, the man.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: He manipulates people. He sees women as property and you know,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: like you said, baby making machines, he sees his son.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's also interesting how he everyone
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: is a means to an end. The gender nature of
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: how he views women is pointed and particularly brutal. But
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: I but I never, like, really, I don't know. I
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: hadn't watched this movie with Bechtel Castle in like goggles
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: on in a long time, but you see really early
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: on that like you know, mad Max is a fucking bloodbag,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: like he's used for what Morton Joe thinks is valuable
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: about District viewing him as an object as well. Right, yes,
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: and all of these things are shown by the movie
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: as being wrong and toxic and worth fighting against. And
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: of course sometimes it gets a little on the nose.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: It's not very subtle, but you know, the intentions are
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: clear what the film is trying to say and do.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: And just to have an action movie that is a
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: critique of toxic masculinity and like hegemonic masculinity is pretty
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: remarkable since most action movies celebrate toxic masculinity. Yeah, so
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: that's kind of step one of what we're dealing with here,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: because I even though so many action movies celebrate toxic masculinity,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: I love the genre, but I especially love action movies
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: with substance and interesting world building and that have something
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: to say. So that's why I've really latched on to
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: this one. Now, Furiosa, there are different interpretations of the
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: kind of like Max and furious A dynamic. From a
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: character function point of view, I consider them to be
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: dual protagonists, and they share protagonists. Actually actually, um, I
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: would actually call maximist, and in this essay I'll talk
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: about why that's screwed up because it's his name in
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: the movie. UM. Sorry, I continue, I I agree with you. So,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: just to come at this from a screenwriting point of view, um,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: not that I would ever, you know, mention a master's
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: degree that I have in screenwriting from Boston University. Certainly
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: not on your birthday, no less, certainly not on my birthday.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: But they share protagonist functions in the sense that Furiosa
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: has the stronger motivation, the more distinct goal, which is
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: the thing that dry it is the narrative, and the
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: higher stakes whereas Max has the more significant character arc.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: You know, he goes from being this like borderline animal
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: survival boy to someone with like human empathy. Both characters
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: are equally active and the story is told from their
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: point of view in pretty equal distribution. So that's why
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: I contend that they are dual protagonists. Um, which means
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: we have one of the protagonists in the movie being
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: a woman, which is pretty rare for an action movie
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: Furious especially of course, because she is one of two
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: leading characters, is participating in the action and fighting. And
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: again that makes sense because this is an action movie
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: just as much as Max, more so even in the
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: first act, because Max is restrained and chained to a
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: car so he can't do anything for a while. There
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: are moments where she gets to take the lead because
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: she has more skills than him. There's that scene where
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: she shoots the guys on the motorcycle that are coming
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: after them because she has like better marksmanship, and also
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: she's done this before and he hasn't. Like that's established
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: really early on, where like she this is like not
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: quite a day at the office for her, but like
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't, she's more experienced and like he's
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: like a cop, so he in theory has like experience
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: shooting a gun. But like, oh no, I didn't mean
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: like she, but I meant like in terms of knowing
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: the war raging like that, Like she, yeah, like has
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: more not like I feel like it's presented very early
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: on that she has more relevant information and skills than
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: he does for the situation they're in. But they're both
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: very skilled, right right, right, okay, yes, yes, um right,
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: and she just like has power over him in knowing
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: the like code, the Da Vinci code, the unlocks, the
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: killed switches or whatever. Do you remember that famous scene
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: or furious Selene's over to Mad Max and she says apple,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: and then he goes, oh, my name's Max, so I
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: have it in She's like he has to tell She's like,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: here's how to disable to kill switches. It's a p
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: p L E. And then he goes, wow, I can't
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: believe I read six hundre pages to get to this. So,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, And it's just I mean, just the fact
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: that she is driving the war rig for a large
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: chunk of the movie. I hate that that is such
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: a big deal. But it's a big deal. That's a
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: big deal. One of the best hand to hand combat
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: fight scenes in an action movie that I've ever seen
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: is that early one between Furios and Max. We have
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: a man and a woman fighting, which, as we've discussed
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: on the show, does not happen often. We've discussed how
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: in a lot of action movies where like the rarer
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: cases where a woman is allowed to participate in the action,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: she is often fighting other women. So to see this
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: like very equally balanced fight between a man and a
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: woman where they are both extremely capable, is again shouldn't
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: be groundbreaking, but I'm like, oh my gosh, this is
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: so cool to see. It's wild. And uh. Something else
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: that I liked about this fight that felt a little
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: unusual watching it this time around was I feel like
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: you rarely see a male action protagonist fight because they're
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: very obviously scared. Like Max is really scared in that scene,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: and like, I like, he's behaving brutally, but it's I
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, a slight tip of that
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: whatever to Tom Hardy, Like you can tell that it's
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: like he's not doing the like hyper masculine action starting
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: He's afraid and that is why he's fighting, And i'e
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: like you don't. That's just not something you get from
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: a male action hero very often. True. I'm about to
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: go into a bunch of ways in which the female
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: characters in this movie subvert a lot of action movie tropes.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of stuff also that's subverted about
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: Max's character. Like, I mean, he's, like what you said,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: he's got PTSD that really strongly affects him, And I mean,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: I guess that that's not unheard of in this genre,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: but to have it presented as something as scary and
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: debilitating as it is to him, I feel like, is unusual.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: I think, I think so. I think also that again,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: him being kind of like incapacitated for the first act
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: of the movie and not being allowed or able to
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: participate in the fighting and action is a subversion. I
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: think that his arc being that he learns empathy is
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: a very interesting arc for a male action hero. I
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: don't know, just like a lot of fascinating things to me,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: But not as interesting as furious a baby, not as
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: interesting as Furiosa. So back to that hand to hand
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: combat fight between Max and Furiosa. Also during that fight,
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: the women in Gauze, though not trained warriors, at all,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: they are still participating in the action. For example, one
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: of them tosses a weapon to Furiosa for her to
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: use against Max. At different points they kind of rally
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: together to either pull acts or nuts away from Furiosa. Um.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: There are other moments throughout the rest of the story
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: where they the Kravitz does know how to shoot again.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: For yes, you know, like someone that she knows. Yeah,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: she knows how to like load reload a weapon. She
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: knows how to Like she knows. And this doesn't like
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: seem that impressive. But also like if someone's like, here's
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: a pile of a bunch of different bullets, here's a
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: pile of a bunch of different guns. Match the guns
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: to the bullets. I can't. I wouldn't know where to begin. Yeah,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: no fucking clue there. It's it's like it's cool like there,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: and I forget how we view this. View this the
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: first time around, but watching it back, you're like, oh,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: this is like having the women in Gauze. I feel like,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: in a less capable team's hands could either have gone
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: super merry Sue or completely sidelined those characters in the action.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: But I feel like the action you get from them
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: is significant. It's narratively impactful, and it's not like ridiculous,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: like they're a fucking swat team, because like that wouldn't
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: make sense with their lived experience, right, it tracks with
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: their background. They are able to do things like use
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: bolt cutters, they create diversions to help them escape dangerous situations.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just like they are given opportunities to
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: be able to do things that impact the story in
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: ways that other action movies don't afford those opportunities to
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: women usually. And then, like we've mentioned the team up
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: with the Wovelini, the Many Mothers, and you know what
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: it's reminding me of. It's reminding me of the VOLTUREI
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: from fucking Twilight. Oh my gosh, the Italian vampire team.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, it sounds like Vagina pasta,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: but it also sounds like something else. It sounds like
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: the Vulture led by I believed the code of Fanning.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: That sounds right, memory serves anyways, Sorry, that was that
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: was bugging me. Now now I remember. I'm glad we
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: I'm glad we worked through that. So they meet up
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: with the Wovelini and like the number of female characters
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: doubles or maybe even more than doubles, and then it's
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: like they're all trained warriors in a way that makes
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: total sense. Right, there's a lot of cool stuff happening there.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: And then more specifically, so I would recommend a video
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: essay series from Innuendo Studios that was written and narrated
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: by Ian Danskin, who is a cisman but he does
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: make a lot of points that I agree with and
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: and and brings a lot of insights. He does say
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: due to ragamus quite though he does, and I will
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: forgive him for that. Yeah, it's a good series. The
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: videos series is called Bringing Back What's Stolen, Fury Road
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: and the Avenging Feminine. So this video series has a
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: lot of insight about how female characters in Fury Road
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: compare to female characters in other action movies. Or he
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: keeps calling them violent movies because he also introduces some
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: examples from like horror slasher movies. UM, So if you're
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: just kind of like using the umbrella of violent movies. Um,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: A lot of tropes and archetypes have emerged over the
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: years that Fury Road tends to avoid. So I'll just
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: kind of quickly go through this. I recommend watching the
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: whole series, but it pointed out a lot of things
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: that I wasn't really able to articulate very clearly. So yeah,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: it's very very streamlined. It's it's really good. So. One
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: of the archetypes of female characters in action slash violent
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: movies is the innocent um based sally when a woman
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: is captured, damseled, brutalized to provide steaks for the male hero.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: We talk about this all the time. It often takes
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: the form of a woman being captured and damseled and
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: needing to be saved by a man. Obviously, Furiosa doesn't
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: fall into this archetype, and neither do the wives because
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: even though Furiosa is taking them away from a Morton
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: Joe to safety, as we've discussed, they're not helpless. They
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: are participating in the action. Yeah, and it was also
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: like I thought it was a smart, subtle choice that
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: it was their idea for it to happen in the
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: first place, Like they weren't just like doi I want,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: Like they were highly motivated to get out of their situation,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: and they sought out someone who could help them, like huge,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: like literally graffiting on their walls the reasons saying like
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: our babies will not be war lords. We are not
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: things that whole I mean, And that's there's some I
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: think that some of the issues we've discussed as it
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: pertains to like gender, I feel like part of it
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: is because there is that really strong like seizing the
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: means of production energy to this movie, Like where for
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: the majority of like the characters in this movie, the
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: means of production is like reclaiming your own body, which
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: is like you know, by liberating themselves from a morton
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: Joe and refusing to have his children like that is
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: their means of production. Same thing goes for like Max,
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: Like the difference between Max being used as a blood
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: bag for Nicholas Holt and Max giving his blood to
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: Furious at the end is like he sees the means
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: of his own production. It's the same thing, but the
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: context is uh. Anyways, The next archetype that this video
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: series identifies is they call it the Vasquez named after
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: the character Vasquez in Aliens. Listened to that episode for
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: our discussion on that character specifically. There's a lot going on,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: but it's the female action movie archetype where the woman
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: is one of the guys and ends up embodying traits
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: of toxic masculinity, which is again subverted in this movie
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: because Fury Road explores a more nuanced and less binary
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: spectrum of gender, of masculinity and femininity. That one, I mean,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: that was wild in that particular video section, with that
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: super cut of all the different women protagonists that have
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: said suck my dick. Different You're like, oh, yeah, I
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: guess that that is a that is a thing that
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: happens quite a bit, uh, in a certain era of
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: but also like still kind of now anyway sometimes Yeah.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: One of these archetypes has been dubbed the dominatrix. Uh.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: This is the highly violent and also highly sexualized female character.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: She is often the villain or anti hero. Old school
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: Catwoman's stuff exactly like leans into the hyper sexualization of
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: women's bodies. I maintain that even though we see, especially
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: the women in Gauze, they are arguably kind of scantily clad,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: they're not sexualized in an exploitative way. I would agree
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: with that. You could you could make an argument against that,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: and I and I would listen and probably agree with
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: some of it. But I think that there is an art.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: There's definitely an argument for it, but it just it's
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: hard to describe. It doesn't feel like the movie is
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: trying to titilate with shots of their body. I always
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: think of the shot of like pregnant Rosie Huntington Whiteley
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: and the Hose where you're like a still of that.
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: I could see the argument, but presented in context, I
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: didn't feel like it was supposed to be a titilating
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: shot right right. The video essay points out that most
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: other action movie directors would frame that scene in question,
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: which is the one where Max comes upon the war
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: rig for the first time when it's like cartoon wolf.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: And then it would because they're like posing each other
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: down there, like cleaning off after this first big chase.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: They are drinking water, you know, all this stuff. That's
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: when they say so fresh face. Throughout the movie, they
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: occasionally rents off they're taking baths. That's true. Um. The
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: video essay points out that like most other directors, and
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: I'm especially thinking of like how Michael Bay would shoot this,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: but they would like shoot that scene like a wet
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: T shirt contest. But this scene is mostly like the
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: women at a far distance or like tight shots of
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: their face in a way that we're not seeing like disembodied,
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: you know, like breasts and asses and stuff like that. Yeah,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: so uh that's another subversion um. The next action movie
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: archetype is the Mama Bear, which is typically a pretty
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: feminine woman who will become violent in order to protect
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: her children. Think like Ripley and Aliens. Thanks Gina Davis's
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: character in The Long Kiss Goodnight, Um, I can't, I
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: haven't seen it. Okay, then don't think about it. The
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: video essay goes into detail about how Fury Road subverts
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: this and that even though there is the idea of
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: like motherhood presented in that, like the way, we're more
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: rooted in our refusal to uh like right, yeah, it's
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: it's it's more rooted in I mean and full disclosure,
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: we are we're recording as in a big week for
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: bodily autonomy talk. But it is like the most one
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: of the most dystopian examples of trying to regain your
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: bodily autonomy by refusing to have a child that you
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: don't want that was a product of assault. Like period. Yeah, yes,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: bad week, bad week, that's a really bad week. The
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: next archetype um being the final girl. This is already
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: a familiar thing, most common in horror slash slasher movies.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: This video essay examines how kind of the idea of
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: specialness and being quote not like the other girls is
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: the thing that enables the final girl to survive, where
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: in this movie, Fury Road subverts this by not presenting
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: anyone as like more deserving or more special than anyone else.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: Although see my point again about the trophy wives being
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: rescued but not the women who are being milked. Yeah,
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: I don't think that that's universally true, but of the
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: characters we know we are, that's generally true. And I
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: also thought it was like, uh, just a choice that
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: made sense in the genre. That I mean, none of
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: the none of the we don't lose the women in gods,
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: but there are a few of the vulture the vampires, yes,
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: the Italian vampires that do die in in battle, and uh,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: and there's also plenty of war boys who die in battle. Certainly,
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: I don't think that, I mean, we haven't really brought
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: up nuts too much. There's not too much to talk
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: about there. But I do think that it's interesting that
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: he ties into this theme of redemption that the movie
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: has that it would be it would have been very,
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: very easy for them to just kill him, and they
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: consider it, like the Furiosa has a knife to his
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: throat at one point. Yeah, but but after the women
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: in Gauze sort of talk it out a little bit
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: and Furiosa weighs in that they I think it's Rosie
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: Huntington Whitely who who ultimately says like, basically, this is
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: a kid who's been indoctrinated into this fucking horrible place
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: and sort of suggests that killing him is not the
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: way to go, which ends up serving the story. And
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: I like that this movie is, you know, there's like
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: the whatever restorative justice is at play for a lot
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: of it because even though Nuxt still dies, he like
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: is redeemed by and and in a way that isn't
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: like an annoying movie redemption. It's not like Adam Drivers
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: Star Wars Redemption. You know, it's it's like it's efficient.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: You know that he has been indoctrinated. He makes an
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: emotional connection with one of the women in Gas, the
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: Riley Kio character, who I mean, it just sounds like
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: he's basically shown mercy and like empathy as opposed to
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: gas lighting and a fucking spray cand of the face
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: for the first time in his life. You could argue
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: that having only women display those qualities is pointed, but
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: I thought it worked in the movie. But that's also
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: an interesting arc for him to have to where like
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: he starts out as being, you know, this product of
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: his environment of being like extremely radicalized in this very toxic,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: warmongering way, and then as soon as one person shows
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: him any amount of empathy and patience, riley Ko literally
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: says like, oh that sucks, and he's like it blows
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: his mind. He's like, wait, someone is it yelling at
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: me and calling me mediocre? Don't call Nicholas whole mediocre,
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: but yeah, Like his arc revolving around, similar to Max
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: is like being responsive to empathy, yeah, or like having
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: a healthier relationship with empathy. Is both of what the
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: main male characters arcs revolve around, which is I think
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: really interesting and cool. Um I agree. The final archetype,
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: as discussed in this video essay, is the rape revenger,
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: which again deals more commonly with like rape revenge horror movies,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: but based on the context of and like backstory of
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: the women in Gauze it's applicable here where the general
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: trope slash archetype presents women in a usually very exploitative
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: way that kind of revels in the physical and or
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: sexual violence that happens towards the women in these stories
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: and revels in their suffering, whereas Fury Road opts not
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: to show any of this exploitative violence and suffering. We
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: understood that it has happened to them, but any of
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: the violence toward women in the movie is just the
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: women actively engaging in battle as warriors and not that
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: kind of like exploitative violence towards women. And the video
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: ends with a proposal of like a new and like
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: a new future archetype that Furiosa falls into, which is
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: called the avenging feminine, in which, uh, you know, a
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: woman takes what is hers, she fights because it's her
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: right to fight against men who tell her it's not
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: her right, among other traits. Um I found the whole
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: thing really insightful. I don't necessarily drive with every single moment,
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: but um I found it generally it really cool. Yeah,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: we'll link it um if anyone wants to check it out.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: But it helped me because like it identified action movie
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: tropes that are ascribed to female characters that I just
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: like didn't have like the vocabulary for and stuff. So yeah,
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: I just I found it really helpful, and I agree
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: with most of the analysis of how Fury Road subverts
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: those archetypes. So it's true. That's my little piece about that,
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: and I think all of it is very cool and
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: again largely why I love this movie so much. It's perfect.
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm rictus erectus just here in it, uh, And
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: that's my little contribution. Thank you. What a wonderful birthday
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: gift the birthday. Yeah, I mean, Furious it is just
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: like a fucking awesome character for for all the reasons
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: you describe. And also I mean just a very I
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: feel like it's fun to see a character of any
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: gender kind of arrive fully formed, like when you meet
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: Furious that she's highly motivated. She's one of the only
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: characters that we meet who already has a vested interest
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: in people who are not just herself. It's kind of
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: her and the women and gods who care about each other. Um,
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: and that that isn't because I feel like sometimes empathy
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: and this isn't like the worst trope in the entire world.
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: But it is a trope where empathy and emotional intelligence
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: is more often attributed to women characters. It's not a
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: trope that comes from nowhere, I would say, uh, but
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: but it is a common trope, and I think sometimes
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: in movies it's applied rather sloppily, where it's like women's
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: intuition and ship like that. Sure, but with Furiosa, I mean,
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: you get explicit context as to why she has a
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: collective mindset and because that's how she was raised. She
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: was raised in a feminist utopia that prioritized the collectives,
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: so the fact that she retains those values as an
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: adult makes total sense. But also there are moments where
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: she does not display empathy, like the part where she's
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: about to kill nuts. Uh. There's there's the part where
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: she's like Rosie rolled off the war rig. We gotta
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: keep going baby, we gotta keep going right, which is like,
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: that's just pragmatic ship. Unfortunately for Rosie. Glad she made
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: it exactly. But it's something so I've talked about this
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: on the show before, but something that drives me absolutely
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: wild about horror movies especially, and it's usually like the
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: Final Girl, but you see this in some action movies too,
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: and other genres. But like whoever, the most important female
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: character of the movie is she has so much empathy
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: that she has put in a position where she has
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to badly maim and or kill the person
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: who is trying to kill her. But because she has
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: so much empathy, she's like, I can't do it. I can't.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, which, which I think in certain you know
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: that I feel like that's super case to case, but
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: can be super sloppy and trophy if it just seems
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: like it's because it's because girl, girl is nice, girl
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: has feeling right and that and that's some women are
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: fucking heartless and you should remember that. But um, often
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: when I see it, it's it's very infuriating in Furious
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: curiousting because of the way it's presented. Um And in
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: this case, we see Furiosa killing people all the time
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: because they are actively trying to kill her. So but
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: she kind of but but I also appreciate that she doesn't.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know, no, when I guess this is like
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: part of why they're the hear like, no one is
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: killing for fun, they're killing for survival. Um, where like
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: I mortem Joe is killing for say his name again,
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: Jamie Morton, bro Elan mc volvolorins, I just passed out.
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: I just got a nose leed on the zoom call.
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: I think you're called Knucks Knocks at one point as
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: well Knocks l a the place I write for. Um. Look, look,
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: they're difficult names. There's too many characters. There are a
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: lot of characters, and they all have pretty unfamiliar names.
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: They have very name. Okay, I've called that was on
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: your birthday. Can't believe it. Um, I truly forget what
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: I was talking about, but I'm sure I was in
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: the middle of I'm sure. I mean, good job, Jamie,
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: He's made a good point. Oh something you wanted to
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: bring up really quick? I mean, I guess it's just
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: like Hits Home again. It's just a scene that I
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: had forgotten about. I hadn't seen this movie and maybe
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: two years, and I was like, oh boy, uh when
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: the dead baby the dead baby, there is a dead
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: I don't really I don't have a bettel Cast Galaxy
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: brain point to make about it, but I do. I mean,
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: I guess that that just that like Hits Home super hard,
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: not subtly at all. How little life is valued when
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have when it doesn't specifically benefit the upper class,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: because no one gives a ship. If Rosie Huntington Whiteley
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: is okay, it's like is the rawduct because they view
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: children as products and a future war boy, you know.
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: And so I just forgot about that scene and I
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: find it disturbing every single time. Again another reminder of
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: what is happening in this country right now. Yeah, there's
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: a lot about this movie that the more time that passes,
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: you're just like, whoa with? I mean even just like, yeah,
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: a radicalized force of young men. You're like, I know, yeah, uh,
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: anyways away, you know it's it's it's still fiction for now.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: So that's good. Yeah, did you have anything else you
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: wanted to talk about? Not really. I just want to
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: give a shout out to miss Giddy. I wish we
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: just knew more about her character. Amazing line reads great.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: I love her tattoos. There was a scene that was
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: shot but deleted from the movie in which Angherd's body
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: and Miss Giddy were left to die and be eaten
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: by crows, which I think would have been just like
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: a very unnecessarily violent scene towards Miss Gutty specifically, that
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: was removed. Honestly weird that it was even considered to
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: be included in the movie. But I did not know that.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: That's very Yes, um so that was no good. But uh,
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: Miss Gitty is just seems like a prime candidate for
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: a limited series. That's a character. I would watch a
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: whole series about the marvelous Miss Kitty. I like that.
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: That's where you took it here, like as she does
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: do stand out. She's a stand up comic at the Citadel,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: she did the Comedy Citadel. She headlines the Comedy Citadel,
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: and I'm running my Type five at the Citadel tonight.
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: I want to come, um just like a goofy, Like
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: it's real hard bringing a woman in comedy, right, And
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: she just said the fucking Citadel. Uh God, Anyway, wish
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: I knew more about wish we knew more about her character.
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: I think we just built out some pretty let's let's uh,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: let's run that past Eve Ensler. But I think that
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: she's gonna love it. I agree, Yeah, I think that
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: is all I had. Did you have anything else? No,
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: that's that's that's about all I had as well. Um,
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this movie, and I really enjoyed talking
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: about it. I'm so glad to hear that. But here's
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: my question, Caitlin. Does it pass a back? It does
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: a lot. Furiously talks to the various women in Gauze.
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: They talked to each other. They all talked to different
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: members talked to each other. Yes, Um, I don't have
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: a handle on what most of their names are, but
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: I think they are given names like in the script
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: and in the credits. They're all and stuff pretty like.
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I would say that they count his names
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: because male character eors are also given like weird titles
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: as names, like the Bullet Farmer. I would consider it
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: to be a character's name. Sure, yeah, in the same
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: way that yeah, the people Eater the Duf Warrior, which
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: you gotta love the Duf Warrior. Um. I didn't love
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: the Duf Warrior the first time around, but this time
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: I loved the Dufei. The dufe is cool. Speaking of
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: media tests, I wanted to call attention really quick to
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: the furiosa test. Oh yeah, I forgot about this. This
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: is a funny one, so obviously, so this movie provides
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: the origin for this test. The test was proposed by
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: Twitter user Sean M. Puckett in June a sentence who
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: said proposed the furious a test your movie, slash game,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: slash book, slash play passes if it incites men's rights
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: dipshits to boycott because what happened when this movie was released,
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: A bunch of m r a s were like, what
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: what is this? What's that? Well that then Alfred Bilina,
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: who famously denounces men's rights activism, king King of the World,
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: and you heard it here first on our show. People
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: don't talk about that enough. I think they don't talk
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: about it nearly enough. They don't really talk about it
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: maybe at all. It doesn't really come up. It's sort
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: of only just us who brings it up. But the
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: m r a s they just threw a little fit,
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: as they often do, when they realized what this movie
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: was about. They deemed it feminist propaganda. They you know,
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: demanded people boycott the movie. They still do this, But
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: I feel like the mis was when this like this
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: particular brand of like like masculine anchor was like they
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: were really in their bag because like Ghostbusters came out,
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: this came out like you're just like, oh my God.
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: I feel like everyone had like one man in their
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: life that was like, Oh, I didn't realize that you're
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: the pettiest kind of person that exists. Uh yes, fascinating Anyways,
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: what about our nipple scale though, you're the five nipples?
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: Based on how the movie fares when examining it through
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: an intersectional feminist lens, oh me, oh my, um okay,
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: I think I've got I've got a number in mine,
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: go go go off, Birthday, thank you, birthday, birthdays, first birthday,
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: first always. I am leaning somewhere between a three and
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: a half and a four. I might split the diff
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: and go three point seven five. I think the way
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: the movie treats disability and atypical bodies is unforgivable. I
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: think that the way the movie centers whiteness and centers
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: people who adhere to western beauty standards as being those
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: most worthy of being rescued and escaping to safety and
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: survival is dated and unfortunate, and there was so much
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: more room for more meaningful inclusion. Things like that, which
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: we've discussed that bring the rating down. But there is
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: also so much that the movie subverts, tropes that avoids
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: and things that it actually does actively do to push
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: the needle forward in terms of how women especially are
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: treated and the role that they play in an action movie.
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: Because of that, I'm going to go with the I
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: think at three point seven five. I'll give one to
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: furious A, one two the women who are left behind,
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: one to the women in Gauze, and I'll give my
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: three quarters nipple to the voltry Ak, the Wolvelini, okay,
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: the Ravioli. You know, we could keep going, we could
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: keep going. Oh my god. My favorite moment in all
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: of um history as do you ever? No, I guess no.
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: Every time you didn't watch SpongeBob. There's a great moment
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: where I forget what the context of it is, but
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: someone spells Chris Squidward's name wrong and he goes squid
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: word totally me and it's so funny because his name
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: Squidward Tentacles, sort of like the character Tentacles in the
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: Legend of Titanic. My favorite animated film of all time,
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: The Blueprint. Yeah good, oh god, I love squid word. Okay, um,
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give the movie. I'm gonna I'll be
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: generous because I feel residual guilt for how irrationally hard.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: I was on this movie the in our first run
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: at this episode six years ago. We're all works in
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: progress six years ago. To be fair, Yes I was.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: I was twelve years old. I'm eighteen now, so I
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: think I know a thing or two. Okay, good, I am,
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: I'm gen Z. What can I say? Um? Well, since
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: it's my birthday today, so I have actually aged into
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: being a boomer. Wow, that's how that works. There there
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: comes a day where we all become boomers selfordunately. I'm
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Botton ng I'm gen Z. Uh Um, but I'll
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: go for I totally agree with the way that this
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: movie treats disabled bodies and atypical bodies in general. This
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: movie's views on fatness in particular are um all extremely
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: dated for a movie that came out less than ten
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: years ago, which speaks to how underdeveloped those discussions are.
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: And and also, um, you know a positive spin, how
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: far conversations around that have come. And I would be
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: interested because there is supposed to be a prequel with
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: Anna Taylor Joy as young Furiosa coming out in I
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: would be curious because George Mill has a somewhat good
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: record on course correcting past mistakes. I wonder if that
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: will be something that is course corrected in another installment
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: of this franchise. We will see it curious to see um, curiosa, curiosa, honey. Uh.
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: But yes, the the treatment of disability and race in
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: particular are we're not good at the time and did
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: not age well um and should always be criticized. And
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: to this movie's credit, I do think that this movie's
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: good reception, this movie being embraced by action fans is
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: like a huge I would imagine. I mean, it's still
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: kind of early to tell. Obviously, the movie came out
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: seven years ago, but even in that time, I feel
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: like you can trace that it's made a difference in
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: the genre, and it's made a friends to fans of
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: action movies of like what an action hero looks and
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: behaves and like what they're capable of. I feel like
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: Furiosa is like a huge kind of game changer for
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: this genre, and it is a difficult genre to game
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: change because of all the loaded masculinity that it's known for.
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of baggage. Yeah, So for its fault
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: of which there are many, and we've discussed them, I
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: do think that it was a huge step forward for
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: the genre in many ways. UM. I generally like how
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: the women in the movie who we get to know? Um,
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: which is the women we get to know versus a
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: woman we don't, as we discussed, is very intentional and
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: pointed the when we do get to know, I feel
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: like are all given effective story arcs. I thought it
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: was really cool that George Miller empowered his actors to
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: develop their own characters, was open to feedback, brought in
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: a consultant like ship. You just don't hear about male
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: unters of this kind of magnitude doing, not giving him
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: a fucking crown or anything. But I think it's just
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: just another good example setting thing to have done. I
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: think this movie is awesome. I really enjoy watching it,
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: and UM, thank you Caitlin for first of all choosing
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: it for your birthday episode and for bearing with me
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: as I grew as a person and grew to appreciate it.
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 1: So look more, nippies. I knew it would happen. I
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: knew that you would undergo a significant character arc much
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: like Max does. So not Max. I don't like Max. Um,
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: he's my least favorite character, and you know, that there's
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of worse characters. But anyways, I'm going to
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: give my nepples, I mean, one to Curious, I'm gonna
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: give one does Zoe Kravitz in the bullet Bag, I'm
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: gonna give one to the Keeper of the Sea Needs,
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: And I'm gonna give one to Mrs. Oh what's their name?
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: Mrs Miss Giddy, Miss Gid Love it And that's the episode, folks.
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: It certainly is uh you can you know, do all
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: the stuff? Hey, you know what, since it's my birthday. Yeah,
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna not only suggest, but maybe even demand that
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: you oh ship this is this is me being absolutely
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: funked up as promised. I'm so scared right now. Would
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: you give me a little follow on Twitter and Instagram
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: at Caitlin Durante Because the more followers I have on
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: social media platforms, the more validated I feel as a
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: human being. And that is the sad state of the world.
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: I think that that's super healthy and I feel the
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: same way. Um, everyone follow Caitlin on every platform available.
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: You have TikTok to, I do have TikTok and I
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: um I have not really posted much except for a
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: couple of Titanic related TikTok's. Although I started doing this
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: new thing on my Instagram stories in which I recap
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: a movie speaking as quickly as I can and including
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: as much detail as I can in fifteen seconds or less.
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: So I might add those to my TikTok to really,
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: you know, because it's all about generating new content, you know. Um.
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: She says she's a boomer, but she's sounding like a
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: danger what M so definitely, you know whatever. I don't
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: care about TikTok right now, but I mean ask me
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: again in a year and I'll be like, follow me
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: on trink talk, um, but certainly follow me on Instagram
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: and Twitter. Also followed Jamie on those on those platforms, Hey,
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: why don't you do that for once in your life? Um? Yeah?
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: And then also listen to Ghost Church. That's my new
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: show that's coming out right now. It's about it's about
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: my my week in Cassadega, Florida and the history of
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: American spiritualism a k. Ghost Church, as I like to
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: call it. I'm having a lot of fun making it.
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: It's also produced by producer at the Bendel Cast. So
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: if you Lichterrman and why don't you, why don't you
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: head on over and give that a lesson. We just
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: love creating content so much, which says Instagram and Twitter
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: elon Musk's Twitter as I like to call it now,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus help on Twitter, Jay christ Superstar on Instagram,
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: and then follow the Bechtel Cast while you're on those
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: two cursed websites. Okay, yeah, at Bechtel Cast and uh.
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: A nice little birthday gift for me would be if
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: you give the podcast a little rate and review, preferably
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: a favorable one, like a you know, five nipple if
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: you dare, if you if you hated this episode, actually
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: please thank I'm still I'm still traumatized from the Zootopia
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: blowback of Oh my god. They're like, oh, it's just,
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: oh well, rabbits can't even be cops anymore, according to
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: these broads. I'm like, oh my goodness, gracious, take a
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: c folks. No one's listening to the episode at this point.
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: They're like, the episode ended ten minutes ago, it's been
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: over two hours, and we simply can't stop talking. Typical women, right,
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: always blabbing, blabbing, blabbing. Pe pe poo pooh. Two things
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: women love did you, and then follow our patreonic Adrian.
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: If you want more of that hilarious star banter, that's
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: patreon dot com, slash becktel cast. You want an episode
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: on Babe truly, that's where you'll find it. That's where
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: you're gonna fucking find it. Um, and we are we're
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: doing some of Caitlin's picks on the matre and this
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: months we're doing face slash Off and we are doing it.
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: What's the other one? Or doing Top Gun? Not because
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: I vouch for the movie for either of these movies.
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 1: It was honestly just like, Okay, the new Top Gun
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: movies coming out, what better time, I guess than to
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: cover the original Top Gun. And then also I was like,
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: what's another like big loud action, goofy action movie that
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: we can fold into the mix? And I was like,
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: Face Off. I think would be a lot of fun
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: for us to be like, what the funk is this movie?
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: Love it? So that's the plan, folks, And that's the plan.
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: And if you don't like it, go to hell to
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: quote um. Okay, one's let in Titanic, Well, let's get
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: out horror or follow me internal on the highways of
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: the see you in Valhalla everyone and go to Valhalla.
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: Deal with Valhallaco saw the Northman. I've had enough of Valhalla.
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: Goodbye Episode I