Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Hairspray (2007) with Keah Brown

Transcript

Hairspray (2007) with Keah Brown · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdecast, the questions asked if movies have women
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, eff and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Beast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Bedel Cast.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Oh there's that's Oh.
• 0:22
  Speaker 4: I wish I had time to come up with a
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: second everything like immediately. Yes, every night it's like a bedocast.
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: Every sounds on the bed Dolcast.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: People. Ever, we just lost all of our listeners all once.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: I am yours, Thank you, Kia.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: We gained a billion more.
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: The world's gonna wake up and see Bechdel Cast and
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: me us that's you.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: The listener exactly.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: It's I.
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know what I was going to say. Oh,
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: I was going to say, this is like that. I
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: just had a really scary flashback to like the one
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: year I was doing musical improv and most lines I
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: was firing off sounded a little something like that.
• 1:14
  Speaker 5: Rhy.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: I'm in the word with the word word.
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: God, I am so jealous of people who can do
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: musical improv and that is a very embarrassing thing about me.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: No, it's really impressive. It requires so many different skills.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I'm also really jealous of people who can
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: sing in general. So dr how dare you?
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: It's not nice?
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: It's not nice. I would be such a problem if
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: I could sing, Oh my god, I have no friends.
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: They'd be like, KI, shut up, and I'd be like,
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: I don't know how.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: I used to really like, I had a huge theater
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: kid phase, and then I went to school with a
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: theater program, and then you're kind of forced out of
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: being a.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Theater kid because you're like, oh, these theater kids.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: Can sing, And I resented them for a while, but
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: then I'm like, you know what, if I can thing
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: like that, I guess I would be annoying as shit too.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: And some people just have the gift they can be
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: annoying forever. So I mean, so I think we have
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: that gift. We've been annoying for a very long time.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: We are so annoying anyways.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Welcome to the Bechel Cast.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: My name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Dernte,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: and this is our show where we examine movies through
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test simply as
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: a jumping off point to initiate a larger conversation. What
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: is the Bechdel test? Though, I'll tell you, or Jamie if.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: You want yeees, okay, I'll tell you. I was like, Wow,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: they're really going for it today, okay.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: The Bechel Test is a media metric created by queer
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Test, originally created as a bit as a goof for.
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: Alison Bechtel's Credible Comics collection Likes to Watch out for
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: You got to read it.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: It's a classic. It's also getting adapted for TV.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: I don't know when it comes out, but it's turning
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: into an animated show that I'm very excited to watch.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Anyways, a lot of different versions of this test.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: It's sort of become pop. It's sort of it's become
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: extremely popular over the years.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: But the one we use is this.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: We require that there'd be two characters of a marginalized
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: gender with names talking to each other about something other
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: than a man for two lines of dialogue or more,
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: and it has to be an impactful exchange.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: It just does. It is what it is. If you
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: don't like it, you can get the fuck out. Many
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: movie musicals past this, many movie musicals don't.
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: And we'll just leave it at that for now, because
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: today we're covering a movie musical. That's right.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: It's our Hairspray episode, specifically the one from two thousand
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: and seven, which we were almost going to do an
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: episode on back in I want to say twenty eighteen
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: or twenty nineteen, when we famously on our Patreon aka
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Matreon covered we called it different things. Sometimes it was
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: march Efron, sometimes it was zach Martron. Basically we were
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: doing zach Efron March. I don't remember if we actually
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: observed this in the month of March.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: I would say it's safe to say that we didn't,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: right exactly. Most likely we.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Knew that we had many, many, many requests for Hairspray
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: two thousand and seven, but we didn't end up doing
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: it because we wanted other perspectives aside from our own,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Hence bringing on our guest who you know her from
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: episodes on Cadet Kelly Brandy Cinderella from nineteen ninety seven
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: ever after, and she's a journalist and author of the
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: brand new novel The Secret Summer Promise.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Kia Brown yeah, welcome back, welcome back.
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: I'm so excited to be here. You know, I love
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: you too, So this is gonna be good.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: I love you too. Congratulations on the fuck. We're so excited.
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: Thank you. I love it. I'm sessed. Please buy it,
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: thank you.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: So what's your relationship with Hairspray two thousand and seven.
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: Oh, I'm obsessed with it, like, genuinely obsessed. It's one
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: of my pick me up movies when I need to
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: feel something good. Yeah, I put it on. Sometimes I
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: sing among sometimes I'm just like deeply engrossed in what's happening,
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: you know, I know some of the lines back and forth,
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: and like it's just a vibe. I'm deeply obsessed with it.
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: And the majority of that obsession has nothing to do
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: with Zach Brown. Like he's great in it, but he's
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: not why I keep coming.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: Back, sure fair, Yeah, he's not the main attraction.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: James Marsden is No, I'm kidding.
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: Absolutely no way.
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, hold on, because I think that a lot
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: of people would agree with that.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: And I love James Marsden and sorry to not be
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: passing the Bechdel test right now, but and I hope
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: this age as well, and because you never know when
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: you say I love a man, I've regretted saying that
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: many times.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: We had famous and otherwise right.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: But I'm a big Marsden fan. I would say.
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: The man's got range. Maybe not in the movement of
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: his face necessarily, but he's got range. He can do anything.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: I thought he was just a treat in the Sonic
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: the Hedgehog movies. I love the guy, and he's amazing
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: in that new injury duty he's doing.
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: He's amazing.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: He's perfect.
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: Goodness, he's perfect.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: This is my second favorite, or I guess like second
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: most impactful James Marston performance, right behind Enchanted.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: Because I think he's pretty close to perfect and enchanted perfect.
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, this is my number one. This to me is
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: just magnamobus. Did I use that correctly?
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he really was born to be Corny Collins.
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: He was, Oh, we're gonna get it, We're gonna get.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: In Jamie, what is your relationship with Hairspray?
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: Oh?
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: I also loved the hell out of this movie, so
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: the second it came out, there's like for for better
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: or for worse. I love basically every movie musical that
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: came out in the two thousands. Most of this love
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: is purely nostalgia based when I rewatched them, because you're just.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Like hmm hmm, Joel Schumacher. Phantom of the Opera Does
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: it hold up? No, Well, I watched it again. Of course,
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: Chris Columbus rent even worse, worse. But and yet I
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: continue to watch Chicago Chicago Now that holds up. I
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: want that, not two days ago.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: I love it.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: And Harrispray.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: I think Hairspray in Chicago or the two movie musicals
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: from this era that hold up the best.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: I think it's a great adaptation.
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: And for the I had never seen before I was
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: prepping for this episode, I'd never seen the original John
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: Waters nineteen eighty eight one with Divine and Ricky Lake,
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: So I went back and watched it, expecting that I
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: would like it better, because I feel like that's the
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: general what you expect. The original is usually better. But
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: with all due respect to my king John Waters, the
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: musical rips. It needs the songs. It needs the songs,
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: and it needs James Morrison. And that's just kind of
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: the beginning, middle, and end.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Those are objective facts.
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: If Divine could be in the movie adaptation. It would
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: be the perfect movie in terms of me smiling. We
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: have plenty of notes like perfect movie.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: In asterisks, many thoughts that we will share.
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: We have about two hours and what's not perfect about it?
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I love Hairspray.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: I listened to and I also loved Nikki Blonski so much,
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: and I'm still angry to this day that she didn't
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: have a bigger career coming off of Hairspray.
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: A deeply agree, right.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: I remember, like her origin story really spoke to me
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: because she worked at Coldstone Creamery and they heard her
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: singing there, and I was just like, that is so magical,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: Like she was just like plucked out of.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: Nowhere, literally perfectly cast, like the perfect Tracy.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, this movie is the best, and I'm it
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: was interesting to look at it more critically because I
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: hadn't seen it in like maybe four or five years.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: Kaitly went your history with Hairspray.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I saw it somewhere along the way, probably like twenty ten,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: when I was first falling in love with zac Efron.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Better late than Never, Never, baby, exactly.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: I watched it, maybe it was like twenty twelve, who
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: could say even But as listeners might know. I tend
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: not to gravitate toward live action movie musicals, but I
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: will say this one is like campy and colorful enough
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: that it works for me. Some of them are just
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: too they're taking themselves too seriously or something. They need
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: to basically be an animated movie without actually being animated
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: for me to be able to stomach a movie musical.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: But this one works.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: I kind of I kind of wonder.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, It's like I think that I consider the end
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: of like movie musicals of me seeing every movie musical
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: was when I just could not do the lame Is adaptation.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: I couldn't do it.
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: No thank you, I could not do it, could not
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: finish it. I was like, that's not for me specifically
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: a virgo, but it's for somebody.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: Someone likes it. I'm glad that that movie is hilarious too,
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: because it's like that I think that that's that's the same.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Director as Cats yea an iconic movie musical, But.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: There it's like the I think that that's where that
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: director was like, we're gonna do live singing, and for
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: some reason everyone's like, good idea.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: But then you listen to.
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: The soundtrack and you're like, oh, this is not a
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: good idea. We shouldn't be hearing Russell Crosse sing live,
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: and I think he'd agree with us. Yeah.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just as bad as when Pierce Brosnan sings
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: a song in Mamma Mia.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Oh but he's camp.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: Do you remember the song in Mama Mia where he
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: sings like like I don't know, like his mouth is
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: just like full the whole time.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: The way he sings sos is unparalleled.
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: It's like he's on the joke. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Russell Crowe didn't get the memo unfortunately.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: So I it took me a while to see this Hairspray,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: but I did see the nineteen is it eighty eight? Yeah,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: hairsp Bray, written and directed by John Waters. I saw
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: that sometime in college, so it was like two thousand
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: and five, two thousand and six. I was watching a
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: few John Waters movies back then, including Pink Flamingos, and
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: I think cry Baby was the other one. And I
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: because cry Baby is a musical, I think I assumed
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: the original would be a musical as well, but no,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: but it's not. And what happened was that the so
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: this movie that we're talking about today is based on
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: the Broadway musical adaptation of the original movie from nineteen
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: eighty eight, so it went through a few different evolutions.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: It's funny because we're Kiya after this, we're doing Newsies,
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: which is like kind of the opposite journey where it's
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: like movie musical and everyone hated it and then they
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: turned it into anyways.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: I love musicals so much. I can't believe.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: Prepping for these episodes reminded me that we have yet
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: to cover Little Shop of.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Horrors and how that is a travesty.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: Okay, Hairspray, Yeah, I'm really excited to talk about like
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: the history of and like the adaptation changes that were
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: made too, Because I knew that John Water's allegiance to
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: Baltimore is unparalleled and he lives there to this day,
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: but I didn't know how connected the original story for
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: Hairspray was to like his childhood, and Hairspray is basically
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: like a like John waters reimagined history of his own childhood.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: So excited to get into it.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take a quick break and then come back
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: for the recap and we're back. We're back, Okay, Here
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: is the recap of Hairspray two thousand and seven.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: Everyone's welcome to sing when their favorite songs come up.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Yes, putting that out there.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we are famously in Baltimore, Maryland. Ever heard
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: of it? It is nineteen sixty two. Yes, we meet
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: teenager Tracy Turnblad played by Nikki Blonski as she's putting
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: on Hairspray and singing, good morning Baltimore.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: I song love her so much.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: She's incredible.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: I love when people have it.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: It's like, one of the easiest ways to get me
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: to fall in love with the character is when they
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: have deep allegiance to a place that kind of sucks,
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: and that is like the most relatable, wonderful thing in
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: the entire world.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: I feel nothing when people are like New York is amazing.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: You're just like, shut up.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that famous song new York is amazing.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: You know, from the musical New York is Amazing. Well,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: but the King of New York Newsies. I got Newsies
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: in the brain. Anyways.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: I don't really respond to songs about New York or
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: LA because there's a billion of them. Yeah, there's only
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: one song about Baltimore that I know of, and it
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: involves Tracy Turnblood going to school in a garbage truck
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: and that I love.
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: We love a queen. Okay, so.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly, she misses the school bus. She's gonna get on
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: a garbage truck. The song is about how she loves
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: life and she loves Baltimore and she loves dancing. We
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: also get a little cameo from John Waters and.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: He's the flasher who lives next door mm hmm.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: And she sings about how she wants to be a star.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: She just needs the opportunity. She goes to school, it's
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: boring and she's really just counting down the minutes when
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: she and her best friend Penny Pingleton played by Amanda
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Bynes a perfectly cash so perfectly cast love her.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: I forgot that.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: Alison Janny plays Amanda Byn's mom, and that's really inspired
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: that that happened.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: This is an incredible cast. You've got Christopher Walkin, You've
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: got Michelle Pfeiffer, basically all of the villains from Batman Returns.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: You've got Jerry Stiller, John Travolta, is there, Brittany no
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Queen Latifa. It's just wow, it's exciting.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: A very young Oh my gosh, wait, no, a very
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: young she's mainly a composer. Now, who am I thinking
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: of Taylor Parks? For all you pop music heads out there,
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: she's like a really favorable she's an artist as well,
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: but she's like written a ton of pop songs and
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: she plays yez.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: Okay. So Tracy and Penny go home and watch their
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: favorite after school television program called Corny Collins Show, hosted
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: by Corny Collins played by James Marsden.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: I didn't tap dance to that in high school.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Whoa yeah twist when he's like.
• 17:15
  Speaker 5: Nice white kids, you like something their day and once
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: a month we have a good day. I love that. Sorry,
• 17:24
  Speaker 5: I'm feeling.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Things for your heart out.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: This is now a singing podcast, no experience required.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: So on the Corny Collins Show, teens dance. That's really
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: just this show that the teens are dancing with each.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: Other based on like real shows that happens back in
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: the day. And this we'll get into this a little
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: like The Corny Collins Show is parodying or mirroring a
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: specific Baltimore based team dance show that John Waters watched
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: growing up that also had a majority white cast and
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: then had I believe that they did call it Negro
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Day in Baltimore at the time. So like most of
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: the details of the Corney Collin Show are directly ripped
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: from John Watter's childhood, except for the way the movie ends,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: which we'll get.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, okay. So we meet some of the teens
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: who regularly dance on the Corney Collins Show, including Amber
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: that's Britney Snow and Link that's zac Efron and it's
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: also like Link Zelda Tears of the Kingdom much anyway,
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: we get to know Amber and Link a little bit.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: They are dating. Amber is very mean, Link is nice,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: and Tracy has a big crush on Link.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: There is this thing with Okay, I never noticed this before,
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: but there is definitely a vibe about Harris Bray where,
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: for some reason, men most men in this story are
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: impervious to being bad.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: They're all good. No, he's good.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: Corney Collins, He's definitely not racist, he's good.
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: The only guy who's questionable is the station manager, the
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: person above Michelle Pfeiffer's character.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: Right, Yes, capitalism the person racism the person yes.
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: Except he doesn't outwardly, He's not as outward about it
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: in the way that Michelle Pfeifer is, which I find
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: to be hilarious because you would think it would be
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: coming from him to her and then her carrying it.
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: But it's just like, no, she's rogue.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: She's like mask off evil. Yeah, extremely she took her
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: catwoman mask off, and she's like, I'm she was like racism.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: She was like, I don't want to be I want
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: to be racist.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: So but she plays such a good villain, she really does.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: So we meet all these teens who are mostly white,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: and then we learn about this one day of the
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: mon that they call Negro d which is led by
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: motormouth Mabel played by Queen Latifah, which is the only
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: time when black people are allowed to dance on the program.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Otherwise the show is completely segregated and white. The show
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: announces that they have a spot, an open spot for
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: a new dancer, and they're holding auditions, and Tracy wants
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: to audition, but her mom, Edna turned Blad played by
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: John Travolta, is worried that people will laugh at her
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: because Tracy is fat. But her dad, Wilbur played by
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Christopher Walkin, is like, no, Tracy, if you want it,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: go for it.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: So another man who's always good, good, never bed.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: I did think and we'll talk about this later too.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: I rewatching this. I do feel like this movie does
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: a pretty solid job of like illustrating how mothers will
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: often project their own issues onto their daughters.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: I love that Tracy's like nope.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: She's like I'm good, thank you.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're actually both on a healing journey mother. It's nice.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: So Tracy goes to the audition. But Velma von Tussel. Also,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: the character names in this movie are incredible. Everything that's
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Michelle Pfeiffer aka former Miss Baltimore Crabs.
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: She is I love when in these movie musicals when
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: the actor can't really sing and kind of knows that
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: and so it's just like I'm just gonna perform. And
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: I feel like Michelle Pfeiffer really performs Miss Baltimore Crabs.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't say she's singing necessarily, but I don't care.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Right, Yes, And Velma does not like the look of Tracy,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: and she does not like that Tracy is pro integration because,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: as we mentioned, Velma is very racist. She's also Amber's
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: mom and the TV station manager, so she has like
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: a say in who is being cast in which like
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: kind of segments will happen or not on the.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Show Very Evil Girl Boss. Yes, Yes five.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: So later that day at school, Tracy gets detention because
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: of the height of her hair, and this is where
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: she meets several black students because similar to the American
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: prison industrial complex, where black people are disproportionately incarcerated, black
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: students at this school are disproportionately sent to detention. And
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: there Tracy meets befriends, and dances with Seaweed Jay Stubbs
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: played by Elijah Kelly.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: I had a crush on every boy in this movie
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: when I was oh, and I.
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: Went through a real like I'm gonna marry all of you.
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I just really like some days it's a zach Afronde,
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: some days it's an Elijah Kelly day, and if I'm
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: feeling mature, it's a James Marsden day.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Really, anything can happen.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Now, Link, who goes to Tracy's school sees her dancing
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: in the detention room and is like, oh, if Corny
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Collins saw you dancing like that, he would put you
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: on the show. And then Tracy considers this and then
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: does a whole song and dance number about how horny
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: she is for link. Then she goes back to the
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: set of the show or some event. It's like a
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: dance event sponsored by the Corny Collins Show or I
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: don't know something. The Corny Collins people are there and
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: she quote unquote borrows a dance slash appropriates a dance
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: from her new friend Seaweed, which never.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: Is brought up again. She she does she does what
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: the TikTok thing that white teenagers do on TikTok there that, yeah,
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: I guess it never like truly truly hit, and it's
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: kind of embarrassing. It never like truly hit until I
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: was watching to prep for this episode that I was like,
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: she steals seaweed dance and never credits.
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: Because she asks, but she never ever says and this
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: is by Seaweed.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: She's just like, yeah, which is wild because Seaweed is
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: usually right there. It's so it's so annoying that that
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: was one, especially because like that happens in the original
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: as well, and it's like, you could change.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: That, but nope, they did not.
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: And then Zagafron sings Ladies' Choice, which is such banger,
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: like it's still on my Apple Music.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: I really does I feel like zach Efron when he
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: was not allowed to sing in high school musical one.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: He took that really personally and dedicated the next half
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: decade of his life to being like, Oh, I can't sing,
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: Oh I can't sing. That's interesting, when obviously he can.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen it, I've heard it. Okay. So Corny
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Collins sees Tracy doing this dance and he loves it,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: and he puts her on the show, and she's now
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: a cast member. She is continuing to talk about how
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: she is pro integration. Corney Collins is also pro integration,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: which enrages Velma. Also, Corney announces the Miss Teen Hairspray contest,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: which is Tracy's dream to participate in, and so Tracy
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: starts regularly dancing on the program. She's becoming more and
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: more popular. Kids at school are starting to pay more
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: attention to her. Mister Pinky played by Jerry Stiller who
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: is in the original movie, who plays her dad. Yeah,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: he is the owner of a dress store and he
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: wants Tracy to be his spokesgirl. And Tracy is like, oh, mom,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: you should be my agent and help me negotiate deals
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: like this, But her mom Edna is very self conscious
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: about her weight and she hasn't left the house in years.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: So Tracy, via song and dance, of course, shows her
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: mom that times are changing and that for people who
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: are different, our time is coming.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: I love that. I mean, I love all those songs.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: I also love Welcome to the Sixties. Also did a
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: dance to that in high school.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Incredible.
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: It's such a good song. So you made the correct choice.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: It's true. Then Seaweed invites Tracy, Link and Penny to
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: a party where they meet Seaweed's sister, Little Linez, played
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: by Taylor Parks, and everyone is dancing and having a
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: good time. There's romantic tension between Seaweed and Penny, but
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: then Maybell reveals that Velma has canceled Negro Day and
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Tracy suggests that they march and protest, because you know,
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: civil rights demonstrations were white people's ideascy and they're like, wow,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: great idea, Tracy, and Tracy plans to march with her
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: black friends, but Link is a coward and he's like,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: I'm not gonna go. This would jeopardize my career.
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: Another I mean, it's so weird. Okay, So this is
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: where obviously, the all men are good rule that this
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: movie subscribes to is challenged, but it doesn't close in
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: a satisfying way at all at all.
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: They're like are you Are you guys good? They're like yeah,
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: you know, no, Biggie, Like I feel like, yeah, we're good.
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: We'll just we'll look past that the fact that you
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: don't care enough to stand up for people that are
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: supposed to be my friends, and we'll just.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Write be together and then I'm gonna kiss you at
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: the end. I feel like when he.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: Comes back, he's responding to like not the issue of
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: why everyone's mad at him, where like he everyone's like,
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: well fuck you link because he refuses to stand up
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: to racism or march. And but then he comes back
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: and he's like, Tracy, I love your body.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: And I was like, that wasn't that wasn't the issue.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: That wasn't the problem.
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: But she's like okay, and then it was like, but
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: that wasn't the issue.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: I felt like I was losing my mind.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well I was.
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: Just thinking like in with in the song without Love,
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: literally they're talking about like like in the Sex with
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: Seaweed and Penny, it's like very clear, like we can't
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: be together. And then it's like Link is over there,
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: like Tracy without you, like I don't know what I'll do,
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: And then she's like, Link, I'm about the breakout so
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: that I can get my hand down. You're like they're
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: having separate, separate conversations entirely about what's Yeah.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: One of his lyrics is something like I will love
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: you no matter what you weigh. And it's not that
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: that's coming out of nowhere completely because various characters have
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: commented on her weight prior to this, but Link never did,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: and that didn't seem to be an issue for him
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: nor for Tracy.
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: In fact, it was never an issue for Tracy. Right,
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: that was an issue for her mom. But Tracy has
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: never once been like I don't like my body, I'm
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: uncomfortable with what I weigh. Link won't love me, in fact,
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: she says, and I can hear the bells and birthday
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: the Link will love a woman like we will wait
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: and see, like she knows that she's got you know
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: what it takes to be loved by somebody regardless of anything.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: Exactly, which is like one of the which is one
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: of the like that's what I love so much about Tracy,
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: and that's true in both adaptations, but I feel like
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: it's stated really really clearly. But yeah, it's like Link
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: is inventing a problem that he doesn't ever talk about
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: with anybody else if it is a problem for him,
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: or like an insecurity that he has or a stigma
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: that he's absorbed. But yeah, he doesn't seem to understand
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: why everyone's mad at him.
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and then strangely enough, like he comes back and
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: everybody's just not mad. I mean, that's how musicals work.
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: But it's like everybody forgot about their fundamental differences in
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: terms of even even I did because I love this movie.
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: But it's like, but it's like, when you think about
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: it critically, they would have to have a conversation about it.
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: There's just no way. But you know, in my head,
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: canda together forever. It's fine. But still they just everybody
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: was like, oh, okay, he's with us now because he's
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: dancing on stage, you can't stop the beat. And then
• 31:13
  Speaker 5: he's like, come on, I knows, let's let's you know,
• 31:16
  Speaker 5: let's do it, and they dance and he gives it
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: her moment and like it's like, okay, cool. He likes
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: bad people awesome. You know, it's like, I guess he
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: learned or whatever.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: He's one of the white people who helps solve racism
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: in this movie.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they really This movie is wild.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: And we were talking about this yesterday with a very
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: different movie, National Treasure Too where it's like it I
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: don't know, because this movie's messaging is so like everything
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: is great and three white people from Baltimore solved racism forever.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: It's like the fact that the movie is also really
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: fun to watch, that a more sticky lie to like
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: absorb and the same way that you're like, I love
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: watching National Treasure Too Bad that it's jingoistic garbage at
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: its core.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: But.
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, see, I feel like I feel like the ability
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: for it to be so fun the two thousand and
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: seventh verge because I like the original, but let's be serious.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not as fun.
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: This one's fun. I think the way that this is
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: fun sort of makes you forget just how to me.
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: It makes me forget just how messy the sort of
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: positives and reality of what's happening is. Because I spent
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: my time desperate to find Corny Collins and Motormouth Maybell
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: fan fiction yes, did you want first watch this? I
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: was like, I want them to get bad. We need
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: a sequel bad. And I was just like, I remember
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: being like a child searching for their fan fiction because
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: I wanted somebody else to prove to me that I
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: was not wrong about their insane chemistry.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Did you ever find it?
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: No?
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Well, I guess you have to write it.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: James Marrison been and anything with Queen Latifa since because
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: their chemistry is truly off the charts.
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: I don't think so. But I feel like if I
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: was to ever interview him, like I wouldn't act, that
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: would be my first question. I'd be like, listen, can
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: we talk about the chemistry that you too at or
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: you know, do you have time for that? They'd be like, Kia,
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: that's not the aim of this article about years ago.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: It doesn't matter, Okay, So back to the movie that
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: is about the movie that was all on time.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Sorry, back to the recap. Back to the recap. Link
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: has just said I'm not going to march with you.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: I can't jeopardize my career, which upsets Tracy greatly. Meanwhile,
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Velma goes to Tracy's dad's joke shop. She's trying to
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: seduce him in order to destroy their family and try
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: to get Tracy kicked off the show, and it almost
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: works because Edna walks in the shop when Velma has
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: herself wrapped around Wilbur, and she gets very upset. But
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Edna eventually forgives Wilbur, realizing that it was like a setup,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: and the two of them, Edna and Wilbur sing a
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: song about how they are timeless to each other.
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: They're kind of beautiful, yeah, and neither of them can
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: sing no, but that's okay.
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: It works.
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: It was beautiful. It was beautiful though, like, wow, what
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: a moment.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: I know mom and dad are working it out.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Then it's the day of the march and Tracy shows
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: up and Maybell is like, well, if you march with us,
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: you will never be allowed to dance on the show again.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: And Tracy says, I don't care. This is more important,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: So they march. Maybell sings a song and the cops
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: and press show up and Tracy hits a cop with
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: her sign and he's like, you just assaulted me. So
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: she runs away and now there's this huge man hunt
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: with the cops looking for Tracy. Penny tries to help her,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: but Penny's mom Alice and Janny, who is also very
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: racist and very awful.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: And also super religious.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: Right, yes, she punishes Penny and like locks her in
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: her room, but then Seaweed comes to rescue Penny. While
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: that's happening, Link realizes he's in love with Tracy, and
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: they all are singing a song about these kind of
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: like forbidden love's kind of thing.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: I just wanted to make a quick note that in
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: the I think the original movie if I'm remembering correctly,
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: and definitely in the original stage musical at Tracy goes
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: to jail with other protesters, that does.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: Not happen in the movie. So they cut a song
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: that I've never heard. Oh but it's called the Big
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: Dollhouse question mark.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know, okay, sure.
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: Also, can I make one small note please when one
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: of the funniest lines to me in the movie is
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: when Seaweed goes to get Kenny out and she's like,
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: sorry about the nots and he was like, it's fine,
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: but was your mom and the Navy? Yeah, because he's
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: impressed finding it, by the way, how like intricate the
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: knots are And he's like one of the funniest lines
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: to me in the movie because he's just like, what
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: is going on? Am I going to get you out
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: of it?
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Because she says something like I was so worried
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: that the color of our skin would keep us apart,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: and he's like, no, but these knots might yeah, and
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: we're like, uh huh okay. So then Tracy, Penny, Seaweed,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Maybelle Edna, and a bunch of other people sneak into
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: the TV station on the day of the Miss Hairspray pageant,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: and right when it seems like Amber is about to
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: be announced as the winner, Tracy crashes the pageant. She
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: dances with Link a little bit, and then Link as
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: we as We alluded to, invites Seaweed's little sister, Ayez,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: on to the stage to dance, which is the first
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: time this program has integrated dancing, which, of course Velma
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: has a conniption about. Penny's mom is also seeing this
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: on TV. She's freaking out because then like Seaweed comes
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: on stage and dances with Penny. Meanwhile, a bunch of
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: people are calling into the station to place their votes
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: for the pageant, and Anez is named Miss Teen Hairspray,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: and then Corny Collins declares that his show is now
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: officially integrated and everyone's dancing and having a great time.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Velma is fired, and then Tracy and Link kiss the end.
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: I just think, what a movie.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: The end, They're like, racism cured, we fixed it nineteen
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: sixty two, only took a couple of weeks.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: You're like, wow, kind of yep, So let's take another
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: quick break and we will come back to discuss, and
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: we are back.
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: It's true.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: Where shall we start?
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: Where? Well? I can I share the historical context to begin?
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Please?
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I didn't know any of of this before
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: prepping for this episode, but John Waters wrote and directed
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: the original and was very much pulling from his memories
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: of Baltimore growing up when writing this. And so The
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: Corny Collins Show is directly based on a teen dance
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: show called The Buddy Dean Show that also had a
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: big integration scandal. However, it ends very differently. So I'm
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: going to be reading from an Atlantic article that came
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: out in twenty sixteen where there was a lot of
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: writing about Hairspray because they did one of those TV
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: broadcasts of the stage musical. So there's a lot of
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: twenty sixteen discourse around Hairspray, which sounds confusing but isn't anyways.
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: The piece is by Matthew Delmont, and here it is quote.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: In December nineteen sixty three, producers at Baltimore's WJZTV canceled
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: the book Buddy Dean Show rather than integrate the popular
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: teen dance program. This move would have been a footnote
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: in the annals of television if not for director John Waters,
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: whose nineteen eighty eight film Hairspray offered up an alternate
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: history with its fictional Corny Collins Show and rose tinted
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: lets all Dance Together. Ending from nineteen fifty seven to
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: nineteen sixty three, only white teens were allowed to attend
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: the weekday broadcasts of The Buddy Dean Show, with the
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: exception of one Monday each month when black teenagers filled
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: the studio, the so called Black Monday. In nineteen sixty three,
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: the Civic Interest Group, a student integrationist group founded at
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: Morgan State University, challenged this policy by obtaining tickets for
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: black and white teens to attend the show on a
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: day reserve for black teenagers. After a surprise interracial broadcast.
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: WJZTV received bomb and arson threats, hate mail, and complaints
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: from white parents. Facing controversy over the possibility of more
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: integrated broadcasts, the station canceled the program. So that is
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: something that John Waters remembered from when he was a kid,
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: and that was kind of part of his I guess
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: mission when writing nineteen eighty eight, was imagining that ending differently,
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: So I just wanted to open with that thing I learned.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, that is helpful context. And he was I think
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: one of the few white filmmakers in that era who
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: was addressing and examining racial inequality of that time. And
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: then he wrote this kind of like fairy tale ending
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: almost to this narrative, So you kind of have to
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: look at the movie through that lens of like, yeah,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: everything was great and racism solved. But yea, his approach
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: to that is extremely a like white perspective, and this
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: adaptation that we are talking about, we're focusing on the
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: two thousand and seven to one, carries a lot of
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: that like kind of fumbling of how that subject matter
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: is handled because like, this is a white savior narrative.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: The movie has very few black characters despite it being
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: a movie that involves advocating for racial integration. Like we mentioned,
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: there are moments of like characters appropriating culture and dance
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: from black characters, and the movie presenting that is like
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: a positive thing. There's this example of like police aggression
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: directed toward a civil rights protester, but it being directed
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: at a white person, when we know that police aggression
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: and brutality is disproportionately targeted at black and brown people.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: So there's just all these things that they're like, yeah,
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: white people, it was their idea to solve racism, and
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: then they did it.
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: I think the thing though, and I kind of give
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: them credit for this, is that, like, as a black person,
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: I enjoy the movie more knowing that it ends in
• 43:20
  Speaker 5: this weird happily ever after. Like I don't want to
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: watch a movie where I'm just reminded of the trauma
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: of you know, that time frame, and that's in the
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: civil rights in general. It's like, I enjoy that this
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: version of the movie Corny Collins Show didn't get canceled,
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: or that you know, racism is seemingly solved, because I
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: don't want to watch another movie or another musical where
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: I'm reminded of my own otherness because I see it
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: all the time. Like I think that the I think
• 43:52
  Speaker 5: the thing that for me about Hairspray is that I
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: can forgive the rest of it because I don't need
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: it to be a document styles right, I would prefer
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: to escape for a little and pretend, like you know,
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: Corny Combs are the person that exists, and he's like
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: nice to black people and secretly with mortimonk female because
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: they're seeing you together and they're very happy and it's fine.
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: But I would also, like I just I think for
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: me it's easier to dismiss or ignore those things because
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: it makes me feel better knowing that they don't exist
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: in that world. If that makes sense.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: That is totally fair.
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's something that I saw when I was going
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: through the sort of like twenty sixteen round of discourse,
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: A great time for internet discourse. Twenty sixteen really nothing,
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: nothing like it, only only better discourse was twenty twenty
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: a great year having opinions. Yeah, And I think that
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: the discussion that you two were both having was very
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: present in that round of discourse because I think in
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: that same piece in the Atlantic, Matthew Delmont is arguing
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: that you know twenty sixteen is not the time to
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: be presenting alternative history on the history of racism in America,
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: which I think is a fair point. And also I don't,
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I think it like really depends on
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: who is watching Hairspray and what they're watching it for.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: It Really it feels like it's the eye of the
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: beholder is really relevant in that discussion because like you,
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: what you just said like makes total sense. Why would
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: you want to see trauma played out in this big,
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: splashy musical. And then also it's like, I don't know,
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: I guess. It's like I don't, I guess. I wonder
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: is there a member of the audience in Hairspray that
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: watches it and is like, yep, this was historical document?
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: Like the thing is like, why are you watching hares
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: for a history lesson? I think it's the same thing
• 45:58
  Speaker 5: with the Little More the new reboot is people were
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: up White people were upsetly be clear, it was white
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: people who were upset because they didn't talk about slavery,
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: because when they adjusted where everything was, they were upset
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: that they didn't talk about slavery. And it's like, sorry,
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: I don't want to go see Ario Eric and the
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: Slave Trade. I don't want to. I don't want to
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: go see that. I think. I think if you're looking
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: at a movie musical from two thousand and seven and
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: saying to yourself, damn it, why is that not accurate
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: to what actually happened? Is this my history? Then you
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: have bigger fish to fry, Like it's not, you have
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: bigger concern I guess.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: I guess. My thing is that had this been in
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: the hands of black filmmakers, they would have because, like,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: I also appreciate that there's like escapist media that does
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: touch on racism and segregation that doesn't have this like traumatic,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: violent ending. But I think that there are certain elements
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: within the story that could have been handled a little
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: bit differently had they been had it been like written
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: and directed by black filmmakers, where there wouldn't be those
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: like moments where like, yeah, oh, it's totally fine when
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: this white person appropriates this dance from this black dancer.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah it's the white girl's idea for the black people
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: to hold a protest like.
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: It would have been met with more nuance.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: I see what you're saying, right right, right right, Yeah,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: I think my main issue.
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because it's I guess the frustrating thing is like
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: those would not have been difficult changes to make, and
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: it wouldn't have really changed what happens in the story
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: much at all.
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: I think in many ways it is a reflection of
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: what happens, you know, but who will say something and
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: then a white person will get the credit for it
• 47:54
  Speaker 5: or whatever. Sure, but I do think I see what
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: you're saying, Caitlin about the fact that, like, if it
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: was directed by black people, there would be more nuanced
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: to it. It would it would have brought about I think,
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: a more nuanced conversation for sure. But I do absolutely
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: see what you're saying. I just think it's like in
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: that aspect. Unfortunately, in many ways, it's true you shoult
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: of have to use non black people to get the
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: point across about black things, even though it didn't really
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: work because she didn't give them credit.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's frustrating because it's like, what it doesn't really
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: change anything about the movie if she gives him credit
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: for that, and it doesn't change anything about the movie.
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: If it is like motormouth Maybell's idea to March and
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: not Tracy's so and I also is interested in this
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: same Atlantic piece. It gives the context of when the
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: music when the Broadway musical came out, it came out
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: really shortly after nine to eleven. I know, Shrek nine
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: to eleven, Hairspray the musical was the sequence of events,
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: and that, I guess wasn't surprising to me because I
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: feel like there's so much post nine to eleven media
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: that was very escapist and in some ways, and I
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: guess I don't mean this as good or bad, but
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: like revisionist and like we need to all come together,
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: and yeah, I feel like Hairspray's like very squarely that
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: the musical at least is very squarely in there. I
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: guess my main thing is I wish we knew more
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: about the black characters in the story and that they
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: were actually written, because it's like, we certainly have this
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: space for it, especially because you have Queen Latifah. Why
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: would you not give her character a backstory outside of
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: like a couple of lines. I mean the same with Seaweed,
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: where Seaweed is on screen pretty frequently, but we don't
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: really know much about him outside of that he loves
• 49:56
  Speaker 4: being on the show and that he's falling in love
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: with Penny. You don't get much. I mean, I don't know. Yeah,
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: I feel like there was definitely space, and I wonder
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: if it exists in the musical and wast cut for
• 50:06
  Speaker 4: the movie. I don't know. I haven't seen the musical.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: I would like to, but I wonder if there are
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: scenes where you see like Inez and Maybell and Seaweed
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: at home, the way that you see all the white
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: characters at home, including Penny.
• 50:20
  Speaker 5: I was gonna say, we learned so much about Amber.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we learn about Amber, we learn about Penny.
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: There's a whole song about Velma's teenage years, like.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: Baltimore Crabs are like, yeah, why do we have that?
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: But not get any scenes where we see this family
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: at home. Also, think about how much more cathartic it
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: would be when Inez wins Miss teen Hairspray if we
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: knew anything about her.
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, right, Because even when we see her in that
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: little bit where Seaweed is singing run till that, all
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: he says is like, you know you're up next, your
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: time is coming, But we don't really know what she's
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: after at any point after that, or like you know,
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: like she winn which is great, but it's like, who
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: who are they outside of their connection to Tracy? I
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: would love I agree, I would love to know. Although
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: they did use them with people correctly and by finally
• 51:18
  Speaker 5: giving our a song, that would have been a crime.
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: I had she done a whole movie with no sing,
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: I would have been like, absolutely not. But you know,
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: aside from her secret toward love affair with twenty Pollins,
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: she you know, I wanted more. I wanted to know
• 51:34
  Speaker 5: more about her and and sort of how how she's
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: raising these two kids in this time frame of Baltimore.
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, because I did. I mean, and I found
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: that to be true in the original movie as well,
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: where like you were saying earlier kid like I think
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: it's or Kaylie, did you say I don't remember? My
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: brain no longer works that? Like John Waters was a
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: director who wanted to his center issues like racism and
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: like homophobia in his work at a time where not
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: a lot of directors were wanting to do that and
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: certainly not wanting to do that in a way that
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: had any like nuance or like it wasn't really steeped
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: in trauma. And that's like part of what's amazing about
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: him but it's like, but if that is something you're
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: committed to doing, you have to like write the characters
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: right or it's gonna ring a little bit hollow for sure.
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: Also, having seen cry Baby, which is one of the
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: wildest movies I've ever se.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: I barely remember it, I think it's like.
• 52:39
  Speaker 5: In some ways his Hairspray makes sense after you watch Crybaby,
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: because it's like it's sort of dry and weird and
• 52:49
  Speaker 5: it doesn't exactly make sense in a way, So like
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: maybe that's his vibe. Like I think with this one,
• 52:56
  Speaker 5: with the two thousand and seven one, they had ample opper,
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: you need to make these things make sense, right, and
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: some of them, some of them they did, but most
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: of them it was just sort of like, nah, it's good.
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: We don't gotta you know, we don't gotta really focus
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: on that. Yeah, what do you mean they have thoughts
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: and ideas outside of like Tracy hoping.
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: That no movie would have happened. Uh, yeah, I don't know. Yeah.
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: I think it's so funny because this movie, like obviously
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: it's based on John Water's work, but it is so
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: sincere that it's sometimes you're like, oh, yeah, this was
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: at one point a John Waters movie because it just
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: feels like antithetical to how like his vibe where it's
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: funny but it doesn't have the same sense of humor.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: You would never guess that, like Pink Flamingos and the
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: two thousand and seven Hairspray came from the mind of
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: the same person.
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, well because also he he I don't think wrote
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: the book of the music.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Awe, no, no no, So yeah it was so he
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: wrote and directed the original film from eighty eight the
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Broadway musical adaptation book written by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: Mean Song lyrics by Mark Shaman and Scott Whitman. If
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: you're wondering if those are all white men, yes, they
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: sure are. And then the two thousand and seven screenplay
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: was written by Leslie Dixon, a white woman, and directed
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: by Adam Shankman, a white man.
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: So we also directed A Lock to Remember, he sure
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: to add, which is my favorite movie in the whole
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: entire world. Sorry, I just had this.
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, well it really is a singing episode.
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: I like Adam Shankman, you know, missus the mark on
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: a lot of the themes in this movie. But boy,
• 54:53
  Speaker 4: can that guy direct a movie that I will watch
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: the fuck out of, Like.
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because did the step with some of the step
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: up movies.
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: He directed The Wedding Planner I walked remember, bringing down
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: the House. So he's Queen Latifa Cannon the Pacifier. Yep,
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: that is Dwayne the Rock Johnson's babysitter movie Cheaper by
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: the Dozen, two Hairspray. Oh, and he did direct What
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: Men Want Alright, alright, oops, all right, and then he
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: directed the Enchanted sequel I didn't watch. I like him.
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: He's got some hits on his some banger, it's true.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: Also, fun fact about Adam Shakeman, I mean he's he's
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: I think we talked about this probably on the Walk
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: to Remember episode, but he's or maybe the Wedding Planner episode.
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: He's a queer director. He's been out for a long time.
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: But that's not the fun fact I wanted to share.
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: The fun fact I wanted to share is that he
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: officiated the wedding of Freddie Prince Junior and Sarah Michelle Geller. Why.
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: Wait, I think then they do. Does he have anything
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: to do with that?
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: Or let me see, where As I think maybe he
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: directed Buffy episodes No, he didn't.
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: There's something there. I don't know if it's with Freddy
• 56:17
  Speaker 5: or but I'm like, why I remember some sort of something.
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: Oh, he was okay, keeping with the they are all
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: wait is Rob Marshall because he directed Chicago and he
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: just directed the new Little Mermaid movie. Anyways, Uh, they
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: are all white guys, but they're three queer directors who
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: started as choreographers and then became directors of movie musicals.
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: Adam Shankman, Kenny Ortega, and Rob Marshall.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: What a pipeline.
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: Shout out to Kenny. I'm sorry, but he also has hits.
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: He god, he really like doesn't have missus that I know, like.
• 56:58
  Speaker 5: Right shots and Julie and the phantoms that got canceled
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: too early on that.
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: So Good, So Good, Gone too soon. We're gonna be
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: talking about that on the Newsy's episode because that was
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: the first movie he ever directed. But yeah, it is
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: shocking to me how Kenny Ortega, like, his movies are
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: very rarely received well in their time. But the age
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: like a fine wine.
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: They're all perfect, people who know and people who have taste,
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: Anyways, that's I guess. Now we've talked about Adam Shankman.
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: But to go back to the whiteness of this movie,
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: it's just like it doesn't seem like there was anyone
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: in the room who wasn't white. To draw attention to
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: issues that in twenty twenty three seem very obvious and
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: very fixable.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, can we talk about the movies examination of fatness
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: and like how society and beauty standards perceive fatness and
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: like the movies handling of all of that, Yes.
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think I think the movies handling
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: of fatness, aside from Tracy and Motorvel Maybell like and
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: how they feel about themselves, is like fatness is equitable
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: in this movie to like the most disgusting possible thing
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: you could ever be, And I find that to be
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: really annoying. But also like it's interesting because it's like,
• 58:36
  Speaker 5: we don't see a lot of fat people in this movie, right,
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: It's just Tracy and Motival, Mabel and John Travolta as
• 58:45
  Speaker 5: the mom. But it's like everybody everybody around them is
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: either average size or skinny. But yet fatness is it
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: still seemed like this like epidemic that we can't possibly
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: allow to what is way do people use all the
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: time now when they're like glorify Yeah, And I find
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: that to be really intriguing considering the majority of the
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: cast and the characters in this movie are nowhere near fat, right,
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: it's just the three of them, and it's still just
• 59:16
  Speaker 5: like fatness is running rampant.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like you said, it kind of conflates people being
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: prejudiced against fat people with racism.
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, which that was a big element of the
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: twenty sixteen discourse as well, of just like these are
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: not the same struggle. They're both struggles, but putting them
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: on the same no sense.
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: Like the man Hunt for True, the man Hunt for Tracy, Sorry,
• 59:48
  Speaker 5: it just makes you laugh. The man Hunt for Tracy,
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: for the sound thing is so coded in her being
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: fat that like by the time that the police are
• 59:58
  Speaker 5: out search of her and they carry her inside in
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: the spray can, it's like or the hairspray can, it's
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: it's sort of like, oh no. Then we have the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: police inside and they want to go stop the black
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: people from being on the stage, and the almost like
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: wait till commercial and it's like, why is there a
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: connection there? I think that it's so wild to me.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: It's like, oh no, we've got a way to commercial
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: for the black people get off the stage, and oh,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: we have to stop traicing because she's changing the minds
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: of Baltimore and they're they're somehow connected because she suffers too,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: and it's like.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 4: It's not right, No, it's just like so it's I
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: don't know, like it's almost funny because it's so I
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: think it's so sincerely felt that you're just like, yeah,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: what do you think you're saying here? It's so confusing,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: and that does also kind of ring very like Post
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: nine to eleven trying to say something but is made
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: by a whole pile of white guys and is not
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: really like saying what it thinks. It is kind of
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: stuff where it's it's just like flattening the concept of
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: struggle in America and there's like a prescriptive solution and
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: that is being allowed to be on the Corny Collins Show.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: Like it's just like, no, it's very we all bleed.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: Red, yes, yes, yes, yeah, very much.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 5: Like oh, guys, I don't care if you're red, green, blue, whatever,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 5: you know, we all struggle.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like Clinton, yeah right. The thing that I was
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: most frustrated with with this movie specifically is that John
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: Travolta is in a fat suit that I feel like
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: that just like undercuts so much.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: Definitely, Yeah, like it.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: It just undercuts a lot because in the original Divine
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: plays Edna and plays like a It's I think it
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: is interesting that the character of Edna is adjusted between
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: the original movie, and also I guess from the musical
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: to be more introverted and be more shy. I don't
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: hate that decision, but that was a of us made.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: But in the original Divine is fat and not like
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: wearing these really distracting prosthetics that I've seen people in
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: recent years, you know, reclaim John Travolta's performance and like,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: you know whatever, if you love it, you love it.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I think especially because fat suits on big
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: time celebrities. That was literally a huge topic of discussion
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: less than six months ago when Brendan Fraser won the
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: Oscar for the Whale, And like, so I feel like
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: that undercut any Like like the attempts and I think
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: some of the attempts to talk about fatness in this
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: movie are successful, but like the John Travolta fat suit,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: I'm just like, what are we doing here?
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like you said, it undercuts a lot because it
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: is rare for a movie to have a fat character
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: at all, let alone a fat protagonist. It's even rarer
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: for a story with a fat protagonist to be about
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: something besides the character's size, And in this movie, like
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: her size plays a part in the narrative, but it's
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: not what the story is about. It's you know, her
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: goal is to be a dancer. It's not to lose
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: weight or to find the confidence to be a dancer
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: despite her size anything like that. Because another rare thing
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: is for a movie to portray a fat character who
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: is confident in herself. It's also a rare example of
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: a movie showing a fat character doing something physical like dancing.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: A lot of movies with fat characters rely on stereotypes
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: of like, oh, the only thing the fat character does
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: is sit down and eat food.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: Stuff like that, and she's always alone, like like whoever
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: it is, they never end up with some with a
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: romantic partner.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: Either, exactly, Like, it's rare to see a fat character
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: be romantically desired by another character period, especially one who
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: is thin and who is like very traditionally attractive, such
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: as someone played by Zac Efron. So you have these
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: things that most movies refuse to do. But then it
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: also turns around and again puts John Travolta in a
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: fat suit. It has that character Edna eats when she's upset,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: people use food to convince her to stay at a party,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: So it's still relying on stereotypes for that character. But
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: I guess I'm just saying, like, it's not all bad
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: with at least with Tracy, but it fumbles a lot
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: of other things.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because you don't really see her come out of
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 5: her shell or like anything remotely into the very last
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 5: scene when she goes on stage to sing. I do
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: think it's really interesting though, because maybe I'm wrong because
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 5: I've never seen the musical. But like Motor Belt, Maybelle
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 5: was not. She was not in the movie. Was she
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 5: in the nineteen Year She was?
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: But it's like she's a much smaller character.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Okay, So I think I think the addition of
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 5: like making a slightly bigger character made sense because then
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 5: it's like you get to see she doesn't have the
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 5: same even though her and Edna are supposed to be
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 5: like close in age, I assume she doesn't have the
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: same hang ups about her body. True and what it
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: means and why that matters as Edna does. And so
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: that's what I really appreciated. I started, you mentioned Caman
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: about how she uses food to make Edna's stay. She's like,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 5: we got a whole feast, like I'm gonna eat. Yeah,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 5: So like if you're like, if you want to stay
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: and you want to eat, that's great. But I think
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: I think honestly though they had to because it's Cleanlatifa,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 5: like you can't just like she's not gonna be like,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 5: you know, a small role in general, but I think
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: that one thing right that's not like that's one of
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: the things that I deeply enjoyed it as a movie
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: as well as like, even though we did not get
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: what I think is great characterization of the black characters
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: in the movie, the addition of her that that made
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 5: her a bigger character in it was.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: For the better for sure.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: I did like that Edna, I guess, like because yeah,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: I think all the tropes that we've we've already talked
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: about are very present. But I did like and feel
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 4: like there was some value in like Edna seeing other
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: women in her life, including her own daughter, like loving
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: themselves and being happy and taking. I feel like it
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: was like realistic that it took her a while to
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: internalize that, and I love that, Like it's it's part
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: of the like very happy, wonderful ending of this movie
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: that she accepts herself, and it's I don't know, I
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: think that there's a lot of ways to get there,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: but I think realizing that, like she is loved and
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: accepted by her own daughter, there is I guess in
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: this Baltimore, there are more options for her to like
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 4: wear clothes that she's comfortable in that she doesn't know exists.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: There's like ways for her to ease into like a
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: better relationship with her own body. And I like that
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: that's it's like a really fun, I think fantasy thing
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 4: to like see that she like her her daughter helps
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: her realize that. And also it felt pretty authentic that
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: like Edna is judging her own daughter's body towards the
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: beginning of the movie and saying like, well, you shouldn't
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: you know, you shouldn't audition for Corney Collins because they're
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: going to laugh at your body. In like a way
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: that it's like she's trying to protect her from what
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: she's afraid of happening to her right, it's for a
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: movie that like doesn't do complex like super well, I've
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: like this that relationship really, I mean it like definitely
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: for me where I feel like that. There's a lot
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: of parents, but I mean I think very often mothers
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: who project the body issues that they have with themselves
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: onto their kids in presenting it like I'm just trying
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: to help you, and I like that. Tracy rejects that
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: and instead of I mean, there is definitely a version
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: of this story that isn't as fun where she's like, no,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: fuck you, mom, like but because Tracy is Tracy, she's like, no,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: I feel like I'm good with myself and like I
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: want that for you too, and let's sing a song
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: about it.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 5: You know what else I appreciate, which I don't know
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: if when you touched on earlier, it's like Wilber loved
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 5: her the entire time, the entire time, but like even
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: that wasn't enough. It's like she had to go and
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: figure out for herself how to love herself. She couldn't
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: put her hopes and dreams and whatever. I'm like, I
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 5: got your dad love me, so it's lit. She was
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 5: just like, yeah, you love me whatever, But like I'm
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: not comfortable with me until she was yeah, which I
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 5: appreciate because oftentimes it's like, especially with marginalized people in general,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 5: it's like, oh, if you can get one person to love,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: you hold on to that person and never let them
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 5: go because that's the only option you got. Whereas they've
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 5: been happily married. But she was still unhappy, and so
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 5: it's showcased that like, oh no, I need to find
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 5: it within myself and not place it in another person.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: Which is also a fantastic message for Tracy because even
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: though she was like, I'm trying to get in Laney's pants, okay,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: she still didn't. She was like, I try to get
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 5: dick down.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: She is not shy about saying it too. Her song
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: is so horny about him.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: It's so horny, especially when she says like she won't
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 5: go all the way, but she'll go pretty far.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: Oh I love suck up.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 5: So like I think it's even though she's very horny
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 5: for Link, it's like she did not base her happiness
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 5: on whether or not they got together. She based her
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 5: happiness on being able to achieve her a dream of
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 5: being a dancer.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I and the same kind of goes for
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 4: I don't know, like where. There's a lot of like
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: women perceiving other women's bodies in this movie, which I
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: always think is interesting. It's really easy to fuck up,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: but I just want to say it's interesting because you
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 4: also get like in the Wilbur and Edna story, miss
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 4: Baltimore crabs making the assumption that Wilbert is not attracted
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: to his own to his wife.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 5: His wife his wife.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 4: And being wrong about that, and being like made a
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: fool of for making that assumption.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she goes in and is like, I'm Michelle Pfeiffer,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: Christopher Watkins's gonna want to smooch on me.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: And You're like, well, she does have a point. She
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: is Michelle fIF she is.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: But he's like, no, I would rather just sell you awesome,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: like whoop exactly such a due I might rubber chicken,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: et cetera.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: I love Christopher Walking joke shop owner. Yeah, now should
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: he let us know what happened on that boat with
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: Natalie Woods show? And I have to bring it up
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: every time we cover a Christopher Walking movie.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: I would like to also know. Also, one of the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 5: funniest lies in the movie is when Britney snow calls
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 5: u Na and she and she's like, She's like, who
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 5: is this And she's like Mike. He's like Mike, who
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 5: I don't know Mike. And then and then she's like
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: where she said, where is Tracy? And she goes, I
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 5: don't know, she's no. I don't know who she was
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 5: asking for. Maybe it was her mom. She was like,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 5: I don't know. He's with those, he's with that, He's
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 5: with that great white wheel and those blue grow It
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 5: is like the way that I say that is like
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 5: in my daily life, at least once every every two weeks,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 5: just randomly, I'll be like, he's with those, He's with
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 5: that great white all those new gros. But to myself
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 5: out loud, I don't know. It's definitely mean.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: It's so plays a good village. She does, she does,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: she does, Where is she? Where is she at now?
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: What she is she doing?
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 5: I think she just finished an indie movie or TV
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 5: show or something.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: She's also in the Pacifier. Adam Shankman loves her.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 5: Who knew the Pacifier is an American classic?
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 4: Shout It's true, It's true. Oh yeah, it's the Vin
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: Diesel babysitter in a movie. Not the Rock and babisit
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: a movie that's the truth fairy, the Truth Fairy.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, And then isn't there a John Cena babysitter movie? Also?
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: Or like he's a fireman and then some kids show
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: up at the firehouse.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: Why do people love in a beefcake babysits in a movie?
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean he technically babysits Vin Diesel's kid in
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 5: The New Fast.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: You're not an American classes perfect film. No notes. Speaking
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: of actors, Nicki Blonsky, as we've said, does an incredible
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: job in this movie, but despite that, she never became
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: a big star, which is just indicative of the way
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: Hollywood tends to treat fat actors because it just refuses
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: to cast fat actors in most roles. And I was
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: looking at her I AMDB, and one of the things
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: that she's known for aside from this movie is she
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: is a lead or one of the leads in a
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: show called Huge.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: So I wanted to Yeah, I wanted to bring that
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: up because it because I was on the Nicky Blonsky train.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: It sounds like you were as well. And I remember
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: most of her roles after Harrispray, a movie that she
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 4: plays Tracy Turnblad a like woman who is comfortable in
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 4: her own skin, and then her her roles after that
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: for the next couple of years were mostly defined by
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: what she looked like and also around shame, because I
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: remember Huge. I also remember, if I'm remembering correctly, Queen Sized,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: which was a Lifetime movie about a fat prom queen,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: and so there there was definitely like it seemed like
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 4: very and I honestly didn't did you did you ever
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: watch Huge? I never watched it? I did, Yeah, what
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 4: did you think?
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 5: It was basically like a TV show about a fat
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 5: camp and her character struggled so much with like feeling
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 5: worth worthy, and she was like desperate to lose weight,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: and there was this really melo dramatic storyline about how
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: some of the campers had like eating disorders and like
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 5: they were desperate to lose weight. And I just remember
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 5: being like, this is such a far cry from Hairspurd
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 5: and like that happens. But I truly believed that, like
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 5: all of her missteps as an adult human being aside,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 5: Nikki Bonski really is a casualty of the time, because
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 5: that movie should have catapulted her. Yeah, like it really
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 5: should have shot her to an actual trajectory and now
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 5: people make fun of her because she had that racist incident.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 5: I think it was got airport.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: Yes, So that was the other thing I remembered that
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, I yeah, I totally agreed Kia,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: that she was absolutely a casualty of attitudes towards fat
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 4: women when like, because we just like grew up at
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 4: such a horrible time.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was wrong.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: But there was also because I when I was prepping
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 4: for this, I was like, oh, I remember that it
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 4: was like she and her family got into like a
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: racist fight at the airport in like Turks and Caicos.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 5: It was like it was deeply racist tirade. Her and
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 5: her mom went on to these other black people and
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 5: everybody was just like, wait, what hairspray?
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 4: Right, what's happening the girl who started the movie about
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: curing racism? Like it just because and it was also
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: the woman or it was like two families, but like
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 4: it was America's next top model contestant that they got
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 4: into a fight with. It really sent me back to
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: and and of course, like I was going back through
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 4: the like tabloid coverage of this from two thousand and
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: eight and it is pretty pro Blonski in terms of, like, well,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: this was just being blown out of proportion. A lot
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: of the context of what prompted the fight is not
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 4: include and so it is like, I mean, there's certainly
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: like more shades of gray here. But yeah, as far
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 4: as her her career went, it was mostly roles that
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: were defined by her body and then not as much.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: I was kind of interested because she she didn't do
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: interviews for a long time, and I have a guess
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 4: as to why. But when she did start doing interviews
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: again is in twenty twenty, because she came out but
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: never really spoke to the kinds of role she was offered,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: So I don't have her opinion of that.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, she.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 5: Has a cameo too. I booked a cameo for my
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: friend because she likes this baseball player guy, and I
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 5: saw her on a little thing. She has, like cameo
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 5: interesting and she wishes people like happy graduations from Nikki
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 5: Bonski of hairs gray, like she's you know, that's her rug,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 5: which is great. Oh my god, I realized it's crigma
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 5: that I'm out here talking about a straight couple.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: How dare you?
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 5: I was like, Oh my god, guys, I am a
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: I am a distress. So bisexuals everywhere. But in my defense,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 5: I was like, you know what, they would have a
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 5: third occasionally, they would have a third.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Corney Collins is polyamorous, and in addition to having
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: a secret romance with Maybell, he also kisses who's another
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: adult man in the movie besides christ Maybe he kisses
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: Christopher Walking.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: I don't know, well, does I feel like Christopher Walking?
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: Like Wilbur's vibe is like open to a third for sure.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, Wilbur's vibe is very like down the clown,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's literally a damn job. He's like, yeah,
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 4: let's have a third and let's all fucking the joke shop.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: Let's let's let's get weird, kinky.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Can we talk about John Travolta again, but in
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: a different context. Yes, So a man playing a female character.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: So obviously John Travolta plays Tracy's mom Edna. The precedent
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: had been set for a man or mask presenting person
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: to play this character in the eighty eight John Waters version, because,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: as we said, Divine plays that character. Divine was a
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: drag queen and a queer person, and not that you
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: have to be those things to play a gender bending
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: role like this, but it kind of makes more sense that,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: you know Divine was cast in that role, and it
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: kind of begs the question, why would they have not
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: cast another, you know, iconic drag performer to play Edna
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: in this movie, because to my knowledge, which John Travalta
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: is not a drag performer. Unless I'm missing something, I
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: don't know who like originated the role in the Broadway musical.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 4: I was just trying to find out.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: In any case, I guess I have complicated feelings on
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: like I don't mind gender bending roles like this. I
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: don't mind when like a mask person plays a femme
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: or vice versa, or you know, someone elsewhere on the
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: gender spectrum plays any kind of role. I think, honestly,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: it would be cool if there was more gender bending
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: casting in media, But there's very little parody because I
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 2: can think of several examples of men playing characters who
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: are women. You've got your like Louis Anderson in Baskets.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: You've got Tyler Perry as Media. You've got Martin Lawrence
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: as Big Mama This House. You've got Eddie Murphy and
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: several of his like whatever, clunk, clump, what are they?
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: What anymumps? And I think other of his movies as well,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: Norbit Yes, yes, And a lot of those actors are
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: also in fat suits, which again we discussed is a big.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: Harvey Fierstein played Edna on Broadway and they okay, and
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 4: one of Tony Baby Interesting. Yeah, I have I have
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 4: also complicated feelings towards that, but I feel like I
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 4: don't know, I think I sort of landed on like
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I don't know like it. I feel
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: like the part is so it's such a divine part
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 4: that whatever not gonna argue the thing divine did and
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 4: hurt and in her entire life great. And I'm not
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 4: opposed to actors in drag at all. I mean, I
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 4: think it just has to do with how well written
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 4: is the character, is character written as a punchline or
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 4: I think it reminds me of this was in the
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 4: last ten years. Keenan Thompson I said that he was
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 4: no longer going to play drag roles on SNL because
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 4: he felt that it was just because they hadn't cast
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 4: a black woman on the show and that they were
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: you know, using him in drag as an excuse like
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 4: not to cast a black woman, which is a great
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: reason not to do drag for sure. But I think
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I sort of landed on like I'm
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 4: more upset about the fat suit. I think the fat
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 4: suit fucking sucks. Yeah, And also I guess I just
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 4: worry about like the slippery kind of slope that is
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 4: presented there, because you know, John Travolta's sexuality has been
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 4: speculated about for decades and it's none of our business,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 4: like how he identifies, and you know, it is our
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: business that he's so high up in scientology, but as
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 4: far as how he identifies, who gives a shit, I
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 4: don't know. I mean, I guess my answer is I
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: don't know. It doesn't bother me that Edna is a
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: historically a drag role, because there are a ton of
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 4: non drag rolls in this movie. It's not like the
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 4: Keenan Thompson issue where it was like, well, we're gonna
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 4: put a man in drag specifically because we don't want
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: women around like it.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: Right, But a lot of movies would rather have a
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 2: cis man in a fat suit play a fat woman
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: than actually cast a fat woman.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 5: I think for me, I'm sort of in the same
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 5: boat as Jamie where it's like I feel like, and again,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 5: not give a man too much, but I feel like
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 5: John Travolta played and with a sense of like sincerity
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 5: and it wasn't like she was the butt of a
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 5: joke or that he didn't take it seriously. And I
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 5: think that's what makes it better because I've always felt like,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 5: even in interviews that I watched, and I remember watching
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 5: them on Oprah specifically about how he was just like,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 5: I didn't I was never going to play this like
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 5: a joke because it's not a joke to me. Edna
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 5: is a real person to me, and I'm going to
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 5: treat her with the respect he deserves or something like that.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 5: I'm paraphrasing, but I think because I knew going into
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 5: the movie that he seemed to take it seriously and
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 5: didn't feel like he was just you know, pretending to
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 5: be a woman putting on a show, I felt like
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh, okay, I'm okay with him being
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 5: Edna because at least he's not making her the butt
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 5: of any jokes, Whereas like a lot of times and
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 5: again I respect them as well, but like Eddie Murphy
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 5: and Martin Lawrence and you know, all these other people,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 5: it's like the joke is that they're a man in
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 5: a fat suit.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly, I mean pretending to be a woman, and like
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: missus doubtfire.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's why it's like, that's the joke, that's the bit,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 5: Whereas like in this movie, it's not inherently a bit.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 5: It's just this is the thing we understand and know.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 5: But it's not like, oh, guys, haha, laugh at me
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 5: because I'm John Travolta playing.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: A woman, right, because that is the the joke. A
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: lot of the time, it's there's this kind of idea
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: that a man playing a woman is inherently funny, and
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: like part of the comedy of a lot of these
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: movies I mentioned is that there's a man playing a
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: woman because it's funny when a man presents as feminine,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: like he's kind of being emasculated because he's wearing a dress,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: And isn't that hilarious, right?
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 4: I think, yeah, Kia, you're like spot on that it
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 4: like has everything to do with the actor's intent because
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 4: you can feel, you know, in a lot of the
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 4: roles we just discussed that, like fat women and men
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 4: are the butt of the joke very very very much.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: So I think that, I mean, I think that the
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 4: fat suit, the use of the fat suit like really
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 4: complicated stuff, and I would say it's dated, except it
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 4: still happens. But as far as as far as like
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: John travolt does intent, that's really great to know, and
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: I feel like that does come through in the performance.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: I think that the only thing that really sticks with
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 4: me outside of the use of the fat suit is
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 4: that Edna is the only fat character I think who
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 4: who is being written to fall prey to the tropes
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 4: of like emotional eating and like always hungry, and that's
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 4: how you keep her in a room. I don't think
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: that the other fat women in the in the movie
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: are really treated that way. So I feel like there's
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 4: notes of that, but it's definitely not I think the
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 4: worst incarnation of it, and I do, I mean it is.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 4: It does make me feel a lot better that like
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 4: in the in the press junk that like John Travolta
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 4: is like, no, I'm not trying to make fun of anybody,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 4: and I do feel like that comes through in the performance,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 4: And yeah, I don't.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: Know also Worth mentioning that every time a man is
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: cast to play a woman, it takes a role and
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: a paycheck away from a woman. But but if there
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: was more parody and you got to see like femmes
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: playing mask characters more often, because that rarely happens in movies. Again,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: like the lack of parody is kind of noticeable. But
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know, just I thought Worth mentioning, Yeah, I
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: don't know.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 4: I think ultimately it doesn't bother me that Edna is
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 4: historically a drag role. No, yeah, I think, And honestly
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 4: in my notes, I was like I got stuck in
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 4: my head about it, and then I was just like,
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 4: it's it's John Water's story of course, right, there's going
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: to be people in drag. It's John Waters. That just
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: makes sense.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, does anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about?
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 4: I was just glad that I just learned Harvey Firestein
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 4: played dead. No, no that way. It was like I
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 4: want to listen to the fire Steam cut. And also like,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 4: you know, like he's really famous. Why did why didn't
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 4: he get to be? I mean I know that like
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 4: John Travolta, I remember the marketing for this movie and
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 4: that was like the headline. Yeah he was, yeah, in
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 4: a movie full of famous people, but I was like Harvey.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 4: I would loved to see Harvey Firesteam played in this version.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I remember they Press junk They did a lot
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 5: of like, come see this movie because John Trewood was
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 5: in it, and also Queen Latifa and I they paired
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 5: them together, you know, in the little Press Junkers. It
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 5: was always those two and then randomly Zacha frown by
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 5: himself a couple of times, then him with like Nikki Bronski.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 5: I feel like only really did in every use with
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 5: But I think it's because they were like introducing her
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 5: like this was our first big thing. But it was
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 5: very much like, guys, come see this movie. John Tavoltz
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 5: is in it, and so is Kreeamatifa. If you don't come,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 5: we hate you. This is this is the draw, This
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 5: is the thing. But yeah, I think I don't know.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 5: I guess. If there's one other thing that I would say,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 5: it's that James Marsden should be cast in rom Comes
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 5: where he gets the girl. There should also fiction I'm
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 5: the really gonna let it go? There should also these
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 5: fans fiction of Corney Tallens and Monmouth Maybell and if
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 5: you're not, if you don't write it, you're racist. And
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 5: then also it's just like this is a lesson in
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 5: what it takes to like have chemistry with the people
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 5: that you cast like, we don't focus on chemistry enough anymore.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 5: Please bring back chemistry reads, that's what it is. Yeah,
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 5: bring it back. We need it desperately.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 4: There has just been just.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 5: Because they're heart doesn't mean that they should actually work together.
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. See Matthew McConaughey in every rom com he's ever
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: been kept.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 4: Okay, see watch already that's Adam Shankman. Adam Shankman decided
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 4: he and Jalo had chemistry, and I trust him, and
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 4: I think they did.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 5: And I think they did too. I think I think
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 5: he had more chemistry with her than he did with
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 5: Jennifer Garner in that one movie about the ex girlfriend's
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 5: past that he doesn't.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: Have chemistry with any women.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 4: Kitlyn is a McCaughey detractor.
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 5: They had chemrasry. You don't think they had chemistry.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 4: I think Kate Hudson can have chemistry with a wall.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 5: You know, he didn't have chemistry with a failure to launch.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 4: Oh, Sir Justica Parker Parker, they did not have chemistry. Yeah,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 4: that didn't work. I didn't, especially when you grow up
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 4: watching Sarah Jessica Parker have chemistry with so many different people.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 5: You're like, literally so many different people.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I'm only hearing examples of people whom Matthew
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 2: McConaughey doesn't have chemistry with. My point has been proven
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, that's all I think.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 4: That's that's all I have to say. Yes, but does
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 4: this movie past the Bechdel test?
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: It does a lot.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: Tracy and Penny talk about dancing. Tracy and Edna talk
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: about how it's the sixties and times are changing. Tracy
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: and Velma talk about how Velma is racist, Velma and
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: Amber talk lots of different combinations.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 4: It's true, And I like, Oh, last thing I'll shout
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 4: out is there is like what would typically be coded
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 4: as a makeover scene in this movie, but it's just
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 4: Edna getting closed that she likes more.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it didn't even register for me, honestly.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 5: And I like, there was nothing that was like, ooh,
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 5: let me make a sinner exactly.
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 4: She's like, oh, there is like a store for me,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 4: and now I can have a matching sequin outfit with
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 4: my daughter, which incredible.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 5: I also really like Big Blonde and Beautiful. Yes, I
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 5: think that's a very good song that has nothing to
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 5: do with a man and just being like, yeah, I
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 5: like to eat dopey STANDI I'm a grown girl, Like
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 5: I'm gonna eat this food on his table, and you
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 5: know I like that because I'm always hungry.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: And now it's time for our nipple scale, our perfect metric,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: in which we rate the movie on a scale of
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: zero to five nipples based on examining it through an
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: intersectional feminist lens. I would say, I'll start by saying
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: that I completely hear your point, Kia, about wanting to
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: see something that you can escape into a story that
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: deals with racism and has this happy, kind of fairy tale,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: escapist ending that doesn't remind you of, you know, the
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: horrors and trauma of real life racism. I guess I
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: would just like to see more versions of that as
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: told through a black perspective that doesn't do the various
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: fumbles that this movie does, and that actually characterizes the
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: black characters and gives them interior lives.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think that there's ways for media to
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 4: be escapist and inclusive, like yeah, for sure, and it's yeah,
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 4: and it's all behind the scenes stuff, definitely.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: And then between that and the movie's perspective on fatness,
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: which in some ways is rather progressive in terms of
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: it showcasing a fat character who is confident and who
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: loves herself and her body, which is something that's so
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: rare to see in popular media. But then it turns
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: around and puts John Travolta in a fat suit and
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: relies on reductive stereotypes for the Edna character. So I
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: don't know. Oh, how many nipples?
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 5: Is it? Like?
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: Two? Is it three?
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 4: Bruce Flanche also played Edna.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: Oh that's great.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 4: Sorry, still on this article.
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, nipples, I'm gonna give it. It feels like cheating
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 2: to give it two and a half, but I think
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: that's where I'm gonna land because it's heart is in
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: the right place. It's trying to do something and say something.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: It's not doing it perfectly, but the attempt is clear.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: So I'll give it two and a half nipples. I'll
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: give one to Taylor Parks, who plays I knows. I'll
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: give one to Queen Latifah and I'll give my half
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: nipple to Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, and Batman returns.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna go three for nostalgia purposes, I agree, Like
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 4: I think that the again, it's just like this movie
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 4: slash production. It's more understandable to me that these issues
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 4: are present in the nineteen eighty eight version because John
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 4: Waters was always working on such shoe string budgets. But
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 4: by the time it's like a huge This was a
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 4: huge budget movie. They had John Travolta money, So yes,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 4: you did have the money, but not the foresight to
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 4: have black creatives involved behind the camera, which is I'm
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 4: a say we hear about all the time, but I think,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 4: especially in a story that explicitly deals with race at
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 4: a very specific place in time, you know, it's ridiculous.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 4: I hate the Fat Suit, Zero out of Town on
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 4: the Fat Suit, but I think that this movie is
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 4: so campy in so many ways. I this movie is
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 4: so queer coded in so many ways. For some reason,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 4: I'm like Miss Baltimore Crabs is a queer song. I
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 4: can't really tell you why that is, but I know
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 4: that it's true. Like it's just a very gay movie,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 4: and that's part of why I love it so much.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: The font of the title on the poster is a rainbow.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 4: It's iconic. I mean, it's like there's you know, queer
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 4: representation in this movie, even though none of all of
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 4: the characters are straight, is at an all time high.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, not even joking, goodness, it's like, it's
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 4: a blast. And I agree that like for all of
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 4: its issues, it's not nothing that its heart is in
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 4: the right place. And even though it fumbles, you know,
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 4: we've talked about it at length at this point, it
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 4: certainly fumbles a lot, but this movie is not mean spirited,
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 4: which I think means something and it's Yeah, So I'm
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 4: gonna go three nipples. I think I'm gonna give one
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 4: to Harvey Fairestein because I'm now really invested in that.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 4: Of course, I'm going to give one to Taylor Parks,
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 4: who is one of the great pop song composers of
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 4: our generation. She's a legend. I love her so much,
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 4: and I will give the last one. Ooh, I'm gonna
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 4: split the last one, and I'm going to split it
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 4: between Elijah Kelly and James Morriston, who in spite of
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 4: the Zach Effron of it all, were my top two
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 4: crushes in this movie.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go four out of five.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 5: Listen with its issues, Yeah, even with it's very greatant
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 5: and very obvious issues, this movie is very important to
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 5: me as a virgo. And I think, like despite the
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 5: sort of white savior miss and the fat suit and
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 5: the like inability to just have fat people be fat
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 5: people without being en day for all of their characters,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 5: I would say four out of five because it just
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 5: for nostalgia reasons, it just really means the world to me,
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 5: and I think that it's a perfectly casted movie. And
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 5: so my first nipple is going to clean the Tifa
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 5: because she's clean Latifa, of course, and she's the perfect
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 5: motibile bebel. And my second nipple is going to the
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 5: relationship more about Lobo, because they're together, they go together
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 5: real bad, like Carisia said.
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: Corny Collins, more like Horny Collins.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 5: Yes, exactly. And then my third nipple of course goes
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 5: to honestly Amanda Vines because even though she didn't sing,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 5: she was perfectly petty in this movie. And like I think,
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 5: I think about the live adaption of Harris Pray that
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 5: Arianna Grande was tenny and she can sing.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: But I think doesn't feel like the right test.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 5: Amanda Vines acting as Penny. Yeah, yeah, Amanda Vines acting
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 5: as Penny was a one day one. And then yeah,
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 5: my final nipple goes to I'm stealing your answer, Jamie.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 5: They have to Elijah Carry and the other half to
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 5: James Marsden because I love them both. They're both fine,
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 5: and I love an attractive man. I forget that they're possible,
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 5: but they are in this movie. And yeah, just you know,
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 5: shout out to the queer codedness as well. Yes, because
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 5: again it's Pride Month, and as your local buye, I
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 5: will say that I find almost every woman in this
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 5: movie just as attractive as almost every man.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 4: It's pretty unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, I oh, what was I
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 4: gonna say?
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 4: I didn't know Ariana had played that part. And it
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 4: just I'm an arian orientator, That's what I am.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, me too. I like our music.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 4: I just think like Taylor Parks writes a lot of it.
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I just think it was like glaring to me
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 5: what the difference is between the two. Like Amanda Vines
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 5: cannot say, Ariana grind they can sing, but Amanda Vines
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 5: was given as tunny. I fully believe, yeah, she understood
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 5: the vibes of who Penny needed to.
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 4: Be ultimately in movie musicals, It's like, I would much
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 4: prefer someone could act than sing. It would be great
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 4: if they could do both. But I also, oh, that
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 4: was what I was gonna say, because arian is in
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 4: the Wicked, the live action Wicked movie, and I'm just
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 4: a little worried because I'm a fan. But the girl
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 4: can't act. It hasn't been able to since she was
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 4: a child. It's concerning.
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I mean, like like you, Jamie.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 4: I'm very worried Cynthia Arrivo cannot carry this movie on
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 4: her back.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: It's not fair.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 5: It's just it's gonna be interesting to see because it's
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 5: like two movies now they're splitting it so.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 4: Which also is like what huh, We're going to sing
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 4: defying gravity and then make me come back a year later,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 4: Like what are you talking about? Yeah, the theater kids
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 4: are gonna be fairal I'm looking forward to it.
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much, Kia for joining us. It
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: is always a damn delight to have you come back
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: truly any time for any movie. Where can people follow you,
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: check out your work, order your book, et cetera.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'm over on the hell site called Twitter
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 5: at kok Ah Underscore Maria m A l I. It's
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 5: the same on TikTok and Instagram. Even though I am
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 5: bad at TikTok, I'm there, and then you can find
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 5: me on Facebook at the Kia Brown and my website
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 5: is Kia Brown dot com. And also again, if you
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 5: like queer y a romance stories where they don't do
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 5: drugs in a seven eleven parking lot, you can read
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 5: my book, The Secrets of My Promise, and I think
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 5: you'll love it, so please buy it because I promise
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 5: it's good.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: So that's a secret summer promise. Yeah.
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I bought it and it's in the other I
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 4: bought it at book People in Austin, Texas.
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 5: You did bring it with you so that if I
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 5: see you, I can sign it.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 4: Okay, Oh my gosh.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: Hell yeah. You can follow us on the hell website Twitter,
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 2: as well as the other hell website, Instagram or app
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: at whatever. I'm one hundred years old and you can
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: follow us there. At Bechtel Cast, you can subscribe to
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: our Matreon where we did do Zach Marchron slash march
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: Efron slash zach Efron March probably observed in July October,
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: so we did march Efron and many many other episodes
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 2: which you can have access to for five dollars a month,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 2: and that's at patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast.
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 4: And you can get our merch over at teapublic dot
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 4: com slash Thepechtyl Cast if you're feeling so inclined. And
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 4: with that, oh look the garbage truck is passing five.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 4: We've got to get to school. Here we go, Bye
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 4: bye bye