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A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night with Anna Hossnieh · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: On the Bedel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women and um are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Or do they have individualism? The patriarchy ze invest start
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hey, Caitlin, Yes, Jamie,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: If a girl walks home alone at night and no
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: one is there to see her do it? Did she
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: walk home alone at night at all? Wow? Just an
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: incredible thought. Let me answer your question with another question.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: If a girl walks home alone at night and there's
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: no one there to talk to her because she's alone,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: does it pass the Bechdel test? Well? I guess it
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: depends on whether you consider the girl to be a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: name or not. I guess we'll have to talk about it. Oh,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: yes we will. Well, theme to the beck Del Cast.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: My name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Toronte,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and this is our podcasts that in in which we
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: look at popular movies using an intersectional feminist lanes, and
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: we use the aforementioned Bechtel tests, sometimes called the Bechtel
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Wallace test, which was originated by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: which asks due to named people of any marginalized gender
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: speak to each other about something other than a man uh,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and that has to be at least a two line exchange.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: So we use that test, just use it as a
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: jumping off point for a discussion, and then we go wild.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: We bite off the heads of everyone around us using
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: the test various perps um. I'm really excited to talk
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: about the movie. I think that we've gotten a fair
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: amount of request for this movie over the years. Yes,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: and uh, it was my first time watching it, and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: but it's not my first time talking to our incredible guest.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, perfect transition. Amazing Jamie. Our guest today
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: is an I heeart producer. She's a co host of
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Ethnically Ambiguous and Deckheads podcasts, and you know her from
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: our episodes on She's All That and A Star Is Born.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: So she is joining the elite tier of three time
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Bectel Cast guests. It's on a Hostie A, Hi, Hi,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I forgot we did Stars Born? Wow, I can't it
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: every day? That was beautiful? Actually, could you thank you?
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I can't tell the difference go on for the rest
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: of the on A. The reason that we're having you
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: back on the cast is that I just wanted to
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: take another character. Oh, okay, do you think my nose
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: is not um marketable? I felt like that was the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: thesis of the movie. Is is my nose marketable? Oh?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: A white rich Man said it was okay, then it is.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: That's all I remember for that movie. Wow. And also
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: remember feminist icon Gale, which we made merch about. Andy
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: ever referred to that one time. It never came up again.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I have that merch. I wear that shirt around good.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I love it. I still have mine too, And I'm like,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: if I wear this outside, will anyone know what I'm
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: talking about? It's so I was thinking about this the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: other day, like all of Lady Gaga's new music sounds
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: exactly like the music in A Star is Born that
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be bad, And so I think that
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: A Star is Born ultimately anti pop because the music
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: is not bad. And I think one of the songs
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: besides Shallow I listened to in the soundtrack the most
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: is well, which dude, I do that? Do that? Do that?
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Do that to me? It's good? Yeah, wow, But that's
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: not what we're talking about. We're talking about A Girl
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Walks home Alone at night film written and directed by
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Ana Lily Amir Poor. So, Anna, what's your relationship with
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: this film? Do you want to do? You want me
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: to do what my dad would do if someone if
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I pronounced an Iranian name not good enough, he goes
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: a Lily Amirpoor And You're like, Okay, chill, bro, it's fine,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: you're yelling. He does that with every Persian word or
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: name I say that he does not feel is I said,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: it's like, like, like Iranian enough screaming is at just
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: a legend in everywhere. That's the person thing is to
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: correct your like dumb American Irani an American kid like
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: you are not saying it correctly, Anna, And I'm like, okay,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: well you didn't even watch the movie. Dad, This is
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: all hypothetical. That's how deep the terror of his brain
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: is into my blood. But I'm sorry you asked what
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: did I think of the movie or what is my
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: just what's your relationship with it? Well? I actually I
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: know I don't personally know the director, but I know
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: of the director, and she's an Iranian American director and
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I've always kind of followed her work. But for some reason,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: I never watched this movie. And that's because I am
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: scared of anything that says horror in the description. I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: just don't. I don't know how to take it in.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not a very good like, I'm just not a
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: very good horror movie watcher. I'm too scared, I'm too jumpy.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: I cover my eyes for most of it, and I
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: always feel like that's not a good way to watch
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a movie. So I just tend to stay away from them.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Um So, I never watched this, but like, I've watched
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the director's other work, Like I've seen her other movie,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: The Bad Badge. I've seen all the like TV shows
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: she's directed. You're saying she's Twilight sing, Yeah, she's a
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Twilight light zone. She did like Castle Rock. What's the
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: other one? There's another like Legion. That's right, Legion. She
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: directed an episode Legion. So like I've watched um those,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: but this was the one I never got to watch,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: even though it's interesting because it's like the actual one.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I would connect the most too, because it's all in
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: FARSI uh, and it's supposed to be about like these
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: like Iranian characters. I'm glad I I actually like after
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: watching it, I really liked it, like a lot, a lot,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad. I finally got to well, you're welcome.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you, yes, thank you for like putting putting it
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: on me and being like it's time and me being like,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: you'll write. I don't know what that was supposed to be.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: But you're like my master. And I was like, you're
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: my movie master and you told me to watch it.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not comfortable with that. You are my movie master.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: And when you tell me to watch a movie, I
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: watch it. I mean, if you mean that I have
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University, the fact
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: that I would never bring up, then yes, you're correct.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I am a master in that way. That's exactly right.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: And that's why I think of Caitlin as my movie
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: master and Jamie as my friend. Incredible. Oh gosh, okay,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: so Jamie, what's your relationship with the movie? I hadn't
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: seen it. I also, I get um. I like watching
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: horror movies, but I don't watch them in theaters usually
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: because I just worry about reacting too hard, and I
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: don't like to react too hard in public. It makes
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: me nervous. So I remember missing a screening of this
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: movie while I was in college. I think because I'm
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: a coward, and then I watched it for this episode,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: and I also I really really really enjoyed it, and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I it's weird. I mean, this movie is and we'll
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: talk about me. It's so many cross genres. But it
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: is not a gory movie. Really, I mean it's and
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: and and it's not like super scary either. I don't
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: know like where to classify it, but I think that's
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: part of the point. Um. I really I really liked it. Yeah,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is many genres, and I would say
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: horror is present, but it's also like of all the
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: genres that it is, like it is horror the least.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: It's more like I mean, this movie has been described
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: as like a Iranian spaghetti western horror, vampire love story
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: is like all the things that it is. Um, but yeah,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: there's not that. There's very little gore. There might be
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: like one jump scare and it's pretty mild. So but
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: it's interesting. It seems like like a lot of the
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: genre labels associated with this movie are not put there
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: by the director. And so while this movie was like
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: labeled a horror movie, that's not necessarily true. And it's
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: a label of the western movie. But that's not necessarily true.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know. There's there's so much. There's also I
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: forgot to mention, um noir, there's some noir elements to it.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: So life for crying out loud, good grief. So my
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: history with it, my relationship is that I didn't see
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: it when it first came out, but I did watch
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: it a few years ago because it had been it
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: was pitched to me, and I forget exactly who all
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: recommended that I watch it, but I remember people pitching
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: it as like it's like a feminist horror movie about
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: a vampire who rides around on a skateboard. And I
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: was like, what, that sounds awesome. I have to watch
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: that immediately. And I watched it and I did like it.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I'll say that it is a little slow and meandery
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: for my taste. It definitely goes like art art at
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: some like there's some long ARTI for sure. And a
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: part of that is also like the vampire vibe, like
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: vampires are kind of like weird, scary, quiet types and
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: you're like, okay, move it along, vampire, we get it.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: You're brooding, right, Um. But overall I think it's it's
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: a really cool film. Um I love the soundtrack. It
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: has a really awesome like score and soundtrack, lots of
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: fun themes for us to talk about. Yeah, I'm excited
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: to discuss. Yeah, I think it's interesting. I mean this
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: movie I saw and again it's like, this is a
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I mean a pretty fairly recent movie six years ago
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I came out, and even so it's it's I don't know.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Like most and most of the reviews I was reading,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: they're kind of drawing you too, They're like, oh, she
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I always found this frustrating with especially like new and
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: particularly female filmmakers. Where in the like lead for the review,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: it references it gives you three reference points of male
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: filmmakers to be like, no, no, now before you say
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: you're not going to watch it, David Lynch, Jim Jar, Moosh,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Jim any anything. It could be any Jarmish, I don't
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: know Jim Jar, Jim j but there. But I mean,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: I do see where this. I don't know about Jim
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Jar because truly I don't know what. I've never watched
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: his work. I understand I understand that David Lynch comparison,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and I feel like that is like maybe where the
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: long brooding moments comparison is, but it's still I just
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: always find that frustrating. Anyways, Yeah, those were a few
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of the comparisons I saw. I also saw Tarantino and
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Robert Rodriguez comparisons as well, so yeah, I definitely took
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: note of that too. Like everything I read it was like, well, um,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: because you don't know who this woman is, let's compare
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: her work to forty seven men who you are familiar with.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: And it's like, all right, well that's annoying. Yeah, well
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: should I do the recap and then we'll go from there. Sure, Sure,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: So we open We're in a ghost town called bad
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: City in Iran. Bad. It's really funny to me. It's
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: actually I didn't even think about it till now. But
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: how like in Farsi we just say bad. We don't
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: actually have a word for like, we don't have a
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: direct translation for the word bad. So we go bad,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: just bad. He's like, add a little, I shot a
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: bad It's like, okay, so yeah, we're in bad City.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: We meet a young man or ash. He has a cat,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: which you don't think necessarily is going to be that important,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: but then it ends up the cat is actually the
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: star of the film. The cat is a metaphor. The
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: cat is probably one of the greatest actors of the movie.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: So that cat took direction. So the motive cat. Yeah,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: so many opportunities for that cat to um leave the
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: scene because it's a cat, not once. I really enjoyed
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the cat and the cat, the fact that the cat's
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: significance just continues to escalate. And then the twist at
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the end is the cat. It's good. It's like it's
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Tchekhov's cat. It's incredible. Okay, so we've met Arish. His
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: father is a heroin addict who owes money to this
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: pimp drug dealer guy. He's wearing a sweatsuit, which is
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: cinematic language for not nice for bad, bad city, and
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the pimp steals Arish's car. Then we see Arish at work.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: He works for this rich family. He steals some earrings
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: from the daughter. Then we cut back to the pimp
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: who picks up a sex worker named At and he
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: treats her poorly. He refuses to give her her earnings.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: He coerces her to perform a sex act on him,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and then while this is happening, we see someone looming
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: in the background who is watching the pimp mistreat this woman.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Then we start to follow this person who had been lurking,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and it turns out to be a young woman, and
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: that young woman turns out to be a vampire. She
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: stalks the pimp and then she goes home with him,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and then she bites off his finger and kills him.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: I do want to point out that the pimp had
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: the phrase josh on his head and that just means pimp,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: so he literally had pimp tattooed on his head. Yeah,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I thought that was an interesting choice, very funny. He
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: also has just the word sex written across his like
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: tattooed across his neck. There's an interesting thing about like Iranians,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and I'm speaking just out of experience of knowing my
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: own cousins were like very simple like things like a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: marijuana plant or the words sex is like the edgiest
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: thing in the world. So like if you saw a guy,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: like in America, if we saw a guy who had
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: sex tattooed on him, we'd be like, I don't know,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I don't take this guy very seriously. But like if
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: you see a guy like that in Iran, you're like Iran,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh my God, like, who is this terrifying man?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Like to a point where like in Iran, based on
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: my understanding of what my cousin has told me, if
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: you have tattoos, you need a like a psychologists note
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: like claiming that you are mentally fit to get things
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: like a driver's license, because they like in that culture,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: like why would you inc up your skin? That's a
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: person who's unwell if they did something like that. So
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the guy who got the sex face tattoo had to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: get a doctor's note for that, well, he might have
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: had to get a doctor's note. I don't know obviously
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: in the context of what goes on in bad city.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: But if you lived in like a city like Hran
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and he looked like that, like yes, there are chances
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: unless he went through like other routes that if he
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: went to like a d m V of Iran, they'd
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: be like, sir, you are clearly mentally unwell because you
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: have pimp tattooed on your head, so which you know
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: that's that makes I would understand that, but like my
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: favorite but like, yeah, you would have to prove that
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: you are like a stable human being who can like
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: handle having a driver's license because clearly you've made this
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: really weird, mentally unstable choice of having a tattoo. But
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: like that's that's like the level, Like the culture is
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: very strict like that, so like that's what it's like.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know. So the vampire who is known only
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: really known in the movie and on IMDb as the Girl.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: She leaves the pimp's house after killing him, and she
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: crosses paths with Arish, who is there trying to get
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: his car back, and Orish discovers the dead pimp when
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: he goes instide, he steals his briefcase full of drugs,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: which he then starts selling. Caitlin, I'm gonna stop you there.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: It's all Rash. I'm so sorry. Please apologize to your father.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: It's I have I have the name our Ash tattooed
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: on my thumb because it's my cousin's name. It's a
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: pretty common name in Iran. But yes, it's all Ash. Sorry.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I sorry to bring my dad for you. Do you
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: want me to just do that for everything? Yeah? Yeah,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I'll say it my way and then I'll pause so
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: that you can correct me, and I'll scold you in
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a yelling way like my dad always does. And I'm like,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I will say that I was often I found myself
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: very distracted while watching this movie because our ash is
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: one of the most handsome people I've ever seen. I
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, he's so hot. He's pretty attractive.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: So I just you know, I had to I had
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: to not pass the Bechtel test in that moment. Just
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I do think they did kind of or you know,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the nailed the casting of like this kind of quintessential
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: young Iranian man, because that's like what a lot of
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: like my young like cousins are just like the young
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: men I've known in Iran kind of look like got it,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: like kind of like cool guys in a way, not
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: all of them, but like there's James Dean kind of
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: aesthetic going. Well, a lot of their influences are European
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: in that sense, so a lot of things I don't know.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I do think like there's kind of like they enjoy
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: this kind of like older style, but it's like very classy.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: But like what I've seen, they did kind of nail
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the casting aesthetically, and they're like, let's get the hottest
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: guy we can find, and then they did so Caitlan
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: getting corny on the pot. I can't. I'm so horny
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: for him, I just can't stop thinking about it. And
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: he he has a cat, a really cute cat. I mean,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: he's the perfect man for me. And he does reste
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: a cat in the opening shot, and so you're like, okay,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I was confused by the I'm like, is this you
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: are you just like taking home a stray cat or
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: is that your cat that you were just sort of
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: like letting roam around outside. It is an interesting thing
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: to to find such a well behaved stray cat, right
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: very rarely is that the case. That's why I'm like,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I think he just like takes his cat outside and
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: like kind of lets it roam around and then he
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: puts it back in his car and then drives home.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know anyway, So our vampire friend there's this
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: kind of little kid who's like in the neighborhood that
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: we've seen in different scenes, and she kind of stalks
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: him a little bit and then confronts him and she's like,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: are you a good boy? You better be a good boy.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be watching you for your whole life to
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: make sure you're good and you're well behaved. And it
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: scares the ship out of him and he runs off,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and then she steals his skateboard and starts riding it around. Meanwhile,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: Irish is at a costume party dressed as a vampire,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: and then he does a drug that I think is ecstasy,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: but again I'm a square and I don't understand drugs.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: I think it was good, good. And then later that
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: night he crosses paths with the vampire again, not knowing
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: that she's a vampire. She invites him over to her
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: house and then we're like, oh, no, is she going
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: to kill him with her vampire teeth? But she doesn't,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and instead they like kind of just nuzzle against each
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: other a little bit, and we're like, oh, they're they're vibing.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: She does a good job at resisting, yeah, because she
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: she also thinks he's really hot. Okay, So then later
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: she starts to follow Auti, the sex worker from earlier,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: but it's not because she's preying on her, it's because
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: she's actually looking out for her. Then Irish and the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: vampire meet up again outside of a power plant, very
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: romantic spot, and you were like, yeah, okay, they like
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: each other. He gives her the earrings that he had
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: stolen previously, but she doesn't have her ears pierced, so
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: she's like, pierced my ears and he's like, if you
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: want me to, okay? And then also we're like what
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: is this To Lindsay Lohans in The Parent Trap, I
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: think I was like, in terms of ear piercing in
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: popular media, I think this one is more fun to watch,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: and I love the I love the two Lindsay Lohans,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: but I'm like, this is but this is cool. This
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: one is cool. Is the sexy ear pierce Yeah, Lindsay
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Lohan air piercing decidedly were like is this amount of
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: a metaphor? You know, the penetrative act of getting your
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: ears pierced? DKA anyway, and then they're about to kiss,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: but she's like, no, I've done bad things. I'm bad
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and he's like we've all done bad things. No. In
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Bad City was like, and you're all bad people. Anyway,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: she runs off, and then later Arash and his father,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: who is now going through Heroin withdrawal, get into an
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: argument and then Arish kicks him out of the house
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: and he's like, take your cat with you. So then
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the father, whose name is Hossain, by the way, played
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: by Sane you got it, you got it right, Um
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: played by notable actor Marshall menesh Yes character actor for
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the Ages. So he leaves, he takes the cat with him.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: He picks up Atti, who he also mistreats like forces
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: her to take heroin so you'll never guess who shows
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: up our friend the vampire. She kills Hossain. Then the
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: cat comes into her possession, and then the little boy
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: from earlier sees the vampire and Auntie dumped the body
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: than ours was like, who killed my father? And then
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the little boys like I d ka because the little
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: boy is afraid of the vampire. The girl who was like,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I am watching you every moment for the rest of
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: your life. So he's like, I'm not about to like
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to to this whistles this train on. That moment was
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: a bummer, say batch batasty that j Batasty. I was like, bitch,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: get out of here. You're traumatizing this child for life.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I know. I felt there there were like a few
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: moments in the movie where I'm like, the girl needs
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: to really choose her targets a little more, a little better, um,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: And one of those moments was but that said good
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: child actor terrified I would be scary. Um So anyway,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: So Irish, with nowhere else to go and no one
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: else to turn to, goes to the girl, who he
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: still does not know that she is a vampire who
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: killed his father, and he's like, let's get out of here,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: let's leave this place together. But then he notices that
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: she has his dad's cat, and he's like, oh shit,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: my new girlfriend. Did she kill my dad and steal
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: his cat? But then he's like, shrug, let's go anyway,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: and then they do, and that is the end of
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the film. So let's take a quick break and then
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: we'll come right back to discuss. And we're back. Where
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: is a good place to start with this movie? You
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: never know where to start? Where does hegin? And is
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: there anything that like what what jumped out to you
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: the most about this movie? What I think? I don't know.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: There was something interesting to me, like this this place
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: called Bad City, where like everyone's kind of like just
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: drifting through life, and there was like weird like metaphors
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: to like what it's like to be in Iran when
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, I shouldn't say too much because I do
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: want to go back to Iran. One day, but just
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: like this this kind of life where you find your
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: thrills where you can. And I'm speaking of my experience
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: having gone to Iran and hanging out with family members
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: and being like it's a very strict country to live in,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: but you just you take what you can get when
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: it comes to like true like adventure and so like
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: to me, it's like this young man at ash who
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: like finds this drug dealer having been murdered, is like,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna start selling drugs, like I do what
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I gotta do, And it like made sense to me,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Like and at no point was like why would you
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: do that. You're ruining your life, Like I was like, yeah,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, like this guy's dead. This this drug dealer
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: who's been like haunting your family, now he's not a
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: ound to like sell it to your dad, so you
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: could possibly help your dad get off heroin. But at
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the same time, like make money on the side to
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: like survive this. I don't know that that stuck out
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: to me as like a theme of like doing what
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: you can to survive because like no one else is
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: going to help you, like you're on your own, and
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: like I saw that within the Vampire like she's completely
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: on her own. And then there's also this kind of
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: amazing thing where like I thought it was cool that
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: like a girl walks home alone at night, which you
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: know usually is not the most comfortable, safe choice for
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: a woman, but then it's kind of like flipped on
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: its head where this woman is like, she's the one
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: you should be fearing because she will literally kill you
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: and take your blood. So that was like a really
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: cool thing to be like, yeah, for once, it's not
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: like this sad story of like I walked home alone
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: at night. Oh no, I'm so scared. It's like our
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: forever narrative as women. It was nice to not see
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: that for once of like a woman holding her keys
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: between her hand, to be like maybe this will do something,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: you know, like that fear you have in you and
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: like every time I walk my dog at night, at
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: the back of my mind, I'm like, just any shadows,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: you know, like be careful. And yeah, it was like
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: a relief to see that. Yeah, I did not know.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I knew the vague descriptors that are kind of like
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: stuck on this movie going in where they're like feminist
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Western horror, like seventeen words in a row. But even
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: based on I mean, I felt I felt for the
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: title entirely. I thought, I mean just because of like
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the you know presumptions you were just talking about Anna, like,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, something bad is going to happen to a
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: woman on her way home, but she is the danger.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: And of all the many subversions of this movie makes
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: that's one of my faces, I'm like, damn, I got
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: tricked in the title. I gotta pull it together. The
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: It's one thing I really like about this movie because
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: in general horror movies, thriller movies, they are often showing
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: women being the prey, being the victims, like being the
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: targets of violence, and scary people usually scary men or
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: like coded male figures. And while that is a reflection
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: of many real life circumstances, unfortunately, I just I really
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: appreciate any story that kind of flips that narrative fantasy,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: though it may be that it shows the woman as
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: a predator, because usually a woman doesn't get to be
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: like a predatory character in any kind of horror movie.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: And when I say, like a woman is a predator,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: they're not predators the way that male men are predators.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: The animal style exactly like predator prey like rite, because
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: when men are predators in real life and often in movies,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: they are predators because they're like exploiting their power over people,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Whereas when women are predators in stories, it's almost always
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: either like a revenge narrative or like a vigilante justice story. Well,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: I would argue that this is in some ways a
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: vigilante justice story. Um that yeah, like there and and
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: but again, it's like this movie is so tricky and
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: complicated because it isn't. We've seen, you know, stories where
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: women are enacting vigilante justice before on this show with
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: teeth and with Jennifer's body, hard candy, hard candy. But
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: this movie is like, it's not super straightforward because sometimes
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the prey is very logical and then sometimes the prey
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: is not. I don't know. I I just this movie
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: like keeps you on your toes in so many ways,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: and I really like it where it's like the moral
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: code isn't complete Lee clear right, that's bad city, baby,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: that's bad That is bad city. That is something that
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I wish had been handled a little differently because I
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: think she has three victims total, and then she and
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: then she scares the ship out of the Little Kid.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Two of her three victims are men who we see
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: mistreating a woman, and it's the same woman both times.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: It's Autie. She has the smurfet of Bad City, right, right,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: the only human woman that appears besides the girl. Well, yeah,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: but she's a vampire, right, But she's a vampire, right.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: But then the third victim is a person experiencing homelessness,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: which I don't know if like that was the director
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: kind of saying like this person's life is expendable, or
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: it was more saying like her moral code. Sure, maybe
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: she's like a vigilante justice fighter most of the time,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: but also sometimes she gets hungry, and like, I didn't
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: like that choice just because of I mean, how it
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: just kind of reinforces popular stereotypes about unhoused people. My
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: my interpretation of that scene was a breaking of moral
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: code for the girl, which is like, fine, I mean,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I understand that that plot point makes sense at at
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: that point in the same way that I mean other
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: characters break, Like it's really just her and Rush who
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: are breaking their moral codes because they're kind of the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: only people in Bad City that have moral codes to break.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: So I get why that choice had to be made.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I just wish that it was not at the expense
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: of an unhoused person. There's I don't know, there there
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: were other ways to make that same plot point. Yeah,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: but but it's I don't know, it's it's it's definitely
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: supposed to make the viewer uncomfortable in ways that felt least.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I still don't like the choice because
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: it just dehumanizes and has people. Scenes that I could
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: think of that I've encountered before that have a similar
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: crime taking place were slightly different at least where it's
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: like that scene in American Psycho or Yeah, that's the
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: first one I thought of too, I believe in House
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: of Cards, which is a show I watched one season
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: of when it came out, but but basically like a
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: showing of like a very privileged, rich white guy exerting
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: his power on someone with significantly less privileged than him. So,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: but it's the same crime and it's never I don't know,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: it's there was a different way to make that choice. Yeah,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I would have much preferred. Honestly, not that much happens
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: in the movie because it is paced quite slowly. I
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: wish that had we had maybe seen more targets of
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: hers that were like men being awful and then like
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: just really emphasizing that kind of theme. But yeah, but
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: it's like that does kind of push against the morally
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: gray stuff. And then it was like, I mean, I'm
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: kind of devil's advocating here, but like, wouldn't it just
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: then be teeth of like a character that is strictly
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: doing this to enact revenge on men who are mistreating women,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: which is sometimes the case for the girl, but other
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: times it isn't. And I don't know, Yeah, let morally
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: gray women exist on screen, that's true. I mean, it's
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: it makes it more nuanced than you're more like neat
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: and tidy like Hollywood film that probably would have more
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: of like a well let's just make her batman kind
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: of right. Um but um so, yeah, I appreciate like
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: the nuances of that, But but are we do think
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: that maybe she only And again I a part of
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: me was like, well, I shouldn't like, yes, she goes
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: back for she kills this homeless man, because maybe she
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: just assumes that like this person, you know, because they're
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: a housed that they don't matter to society or whatever,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: in her own what I assume is like a skewed mindset.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Part of me was like, maybe it's because it's bad city,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: and that's what bad cities like, Like they truly don't
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: bad city, baby, I don't know. The murder of an
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: unhoused person was just very strange to me that a
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: part of me is like, but does she actually have
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: morals or or is she just doesn't kill you if
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: she finds some sort of kinship with you, Because like
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: a part of was like, maybe she would have killed Ati,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: but like somehow like felt like maybe she related to
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: her in somewhere, or maybe she just felt this like
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: feeling with her, because I feel like she she comes
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: to you, because like if she didn't want to hurt
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: our Ash, why would she kill his dad? You know,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: like if you know it's like you would either. Did
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: she know that was his dad? I was kind of
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: it seems like she knows everything in Bad City, Like
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: she just kind of this omniscient character because she knows
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: what people are feeling and thinking, and so it wasn't
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: totally I mean, I guess it wasn't stayed in text,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: but she had to have known that with his dad, right,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: I wasn't sure. I don't know, because she she stalked
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: him before. She stalks at one point when he's bothering
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: at asking for like I guess for her to like
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: pleasure him in some way, and she's like, come back
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: when you have money. The girl was there like watching him.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know, So I have kind of a feeling
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: on that. I think you're kind of right on it,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: where it's like, I okay, so this movie was labeled
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: like this is like an overtly feminist movie and then
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk about this in a bit, but the
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: director kind of pushes back on and like resists that
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: and all labels that are associated with this movie. So
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: it's not a specific, you know, like indictment of feminism,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: but it's it's kind of she just like, don't label
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: it as anything, just watch it, which fair enough, right,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: But I think that a lot of the reason that
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: people interpret this as a feminist film, and I think
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: that this is kind of taking the female predator out
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: of the conversation. But it's because she like pretty, it
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: looks valiantly defends a woman, but it's the only woman
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: in town. So is it feminist to do that? I
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: mean it she and and other choices she makes are
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: kind of great where I kind of thought that the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: people that she will defend are people who are also
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: experiencing a lot of like loneliness and like, which is
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: everybody in the movie. But it's like lonely people who
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: are not murdering other you know, and not like we're
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: not harming others. It seems like and and and lonely
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: people who are willing to almost like for her own purposes,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: like lonely people who are trying to connect with other
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: people ball, which kind of to me explains the two
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: people that she spares are people who talk to her
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: um and people who don't push her away, and people
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: who are kind of open with like, I don't know
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: what you do. I don't like it here. I feel
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: very isolated and she it seems like that is the
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: connecting factor of who she spares versus a gender based
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: moral code. But I don't know, because if there was
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: another woman in town, I guess we would have more
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: of a control group. But yeah, because I mean, she
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: doesn't kill based solely on gender. It's not like she's
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: just like I'm going to kill every male. Yeah, it's not.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: And I love Tea, but it's not right because she's like, well,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I see this boy here, and I this vampire clearly
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: has a deep mistrust of or distrust what's the difference,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter of men. So she's like, you're a you're
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: a young child. You haven't done anything wrong yet, but
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: you have the potential too, so don't become bad and
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I'll be watching you. So she like doesn't attack the boy,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: she doesn't attack Autie. She kind of helps her and
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: looks after her and protects her, and then she doesn't
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: attack our Ash because he's hot and she falls in love.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I personally really like they're like romantic subplat I think
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: it's awesome and it's complicated and hot, and I liked it,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: so do I And I'm normally not a big fan
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: of most like romantic storylines in movies, but I'm like,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: let's see more. This is what like Twilight should have been.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Hell yeah, team are Ash. Also, I feel like she
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: feels the sort of kinship with people who like try
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: and feed her but like she can't eat technically, but
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: like Rash tries to give her food, AUTI tries to
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: make her take up what I think is a plum,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: which is a very like Iranian culture, Like everyone's trying
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: to feed you at all times, and they want you
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: to eat, especially fruit that they put out for you.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: That really took me back to home my mom being
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: like I put this fruit out. Don't you want fruit?
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Do you not want a fruit? Do you want to banana?
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Do you want this fruit? Oh? It's that for not
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: good enough for you? Well what about this fruit which
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: like this fruo And you're like, oh my god, I
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: just got here. So it's like maybe this like she
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: finds comfort in someone who's like trying to like take
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: care of her in a way, like not even just
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: take care of her, but like reach out. Like it's
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: like this like kind of a peace offering of like, hey,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I brought you this. Obviously Autie at the time didn't
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: realize she was a vampire, and I don't think our
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: should realized until the way end, or if he ever
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: does realize that she can't eat, but like they're really
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: they're giving her something, and I feel like she because
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: remember she she goes and sees Auti because she's following
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: her around. And this is way before hossein AS's father
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: comes through to try and like hurt her, and she
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't do anything. She just talks to AUTI. She's just like,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't think you're happy, and Auntie is like,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: I honestly don't know anything anymore because of what I've
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: seen and done and that I feel like in that
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: moment when she offered her the plum, there was kind
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: of like a change in her, like she was like
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: looking at the plum like, oh, this is almost like
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: this offering to me. And then all of a sudden,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: like she became like a like someone who was watching
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: over Autie to make sure she was safe. Like it
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: was as if I don't even know, like somehow the
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: cat informed her, like she was able through the cat
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: to see that Autie was in trouble, and she like
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: showed up to help her. I'm telling you, the cat
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: is the most important character. There was like there are
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: some themes in this movie where I'm like, I don't
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: know if I'm smart enough there where when she can
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: see through the cat, it seems I'm like there is
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: this And again I'm like I wasn't sure what what
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: the ultimate point of what they were trying to say was,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: but it was like some through line of like surveillance
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: and like being why touched and an omniscient all seeing
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: element to this story that I don't know, that kind
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: of for me, it didn't fall here nor there because
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: it's like, we we like the girl and to an extent,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: we're kind of rooting for her to get pulled out
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: of this loneliness, but she is this kind of like
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: omniscient surveillance character that it knows everything about everyone too,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: so and she can see through cats. I don't know,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I'm like, maybe that's just something fun in the movie.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, I looked it up and it
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: said vampires are traditionally either cats or wolves, like in
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: like lore whatever, Wait, what about bats? I thought vampires
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: were bats? Yeah, I guess bats. I mean I only
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: looked at I literally googled vampires and cats, so it
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: could go either or Yeah. What is it the movie
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Ghost where like there's a cat that like senses the
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: presence of Patrick Swayzy's ghost. Am I remembering that correctly?
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Cats that are are just supernatural little creatures? I also,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: I felt, so I'm if I'm assuming how a vampire
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: exists based on my own kind of basic knowledge of
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: vampires and in popular culture and movies and all that
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: they are old souls because we don't know how long
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: the girl has been a vampire, Like, we don't know
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: how long she's just existed in this form, And a
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: part of me was like, maybe she's a lot older
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: than we realized, because she wears a chow door, which is,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: you know, the black cloak she puts on herself, which
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: is traditionally in Iran only kind of worned by older
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: women because it's kind of like a it's from a
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: different era, if you will, of Iranian culture, like now
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the women all kind of wear like more like stylish,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: kind of like head wrapped scarf situations he jobs, if
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: you will. But like her aesthetic was very like almost
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: like older Iranian woman, Like she's very like her simple.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: She always had one shirt, striped shirts, jeans, whatever, shoes
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: and then the chad door didn't even have her years
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Pierce do you have? Everything about her was very like
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: dated in a way, so which makes me think like
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: she like even the music she listened to. Of course,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know what era this is supposed to be
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: taking place, because our ash did kind of have like
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: this James Dean style with but like all the tech was,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: you know, like the tech, and like uh said, the
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: Pimps House was also very current, so it's like this
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: kind of a mash up of eras. But she listened
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: to like what felt like kind of like new wave
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: American music. So like I was trying to get, like,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: maybe she's a lot older than we realize, so she
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: just kind of has her sensibilities about it, Like she
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: has her her way of doing things, which is I
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: guess an housed people whatever, kill them, who cares or whatever.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: So she could also have that kind of dated view
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: on that of like you know versus us who are
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: like okay, you know, those are also people and you
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: need to respect them just because they don't live in
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: a home, like a classical situation of what you a
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: person should live like in order to be respected. Like
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: she just might not have that because she's from a
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: different era or generations, like a boomer vampire. Yeah, exactly,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Like she could be a boomer in that sense of
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: like she just doesn't respect life unless you're, like I
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: don't know, living with a roof under your head or
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: over your head or something like. That's what I was thinking,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: possibly that she might just be not that it's an excuse,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I was curious about your thoughts on that,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: because there there were like, as I was reading through,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: just kind of I mean, it's interesting because because this
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: movie is like classified as horror, people write about it
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: every October. Uh, and we're releasing this episode in October,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: and several pieces by Iranian writers as well, and a
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: lot of different writers have a lot of different takes
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: on what the symbolism of her wearing the trade or
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: seems I mean, And from what I could find, the
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: director never really stated it because that she doesn't really
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: want to influence people's opinions. But I found a read
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: of it that was suggesting that it might be a
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: sign of protest because I and I didn't know this,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: but I guess that in like the late sixties early seventies,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: the shador could be worn as a sign of protest.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: I saw the read you're talking about where it's like
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: she is representing uh, prior generation, and yeah, I don't
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: know if everyone has a different take on what her
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: wearing it means. I read that it could be seen
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: as political, but Apartment was like, I would understand that
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: because maybe in the sixties, because the revolution happened in
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: seventy nine, so in the sixties and seventies it was
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: a very westernized country under the shaw Uh Patavi, who
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: he was in the pocket of the American CIA, like
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: he if you paid him enough money, he would do
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: as he would do what you wanted. So, um, I
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: could see that like maybe the more religious people who
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: like Iran has lost its way, we're Muslim and we're
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: out here people are just doing whatever they want, would
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: potentially still continue to cover up because they felt it
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: was to be more modest. But later on, after the
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: revolution happened and it became an Islamic republic, you have
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: to cover up. So that's kind of this interesting thing
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: of like I don't fully understand the political statement necessarily
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: in this movie, And of course it could be because
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: I am not smart enough. I am fully willing to
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: give that over. I don't know fully because it's like,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: is your statement that we as a people went too
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: far and we were corrected or are we still trying
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: to correct I don't know. See, I don't know. I'm
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: not smart enough. Sorry, would be like laughing maniacally at
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: this discussion because she just scared out because I have
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: a quote here from a Wired article that kind of
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: profiles the director. They're discussing the film setting, which is
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: this again fictional ghost town, bad City, sakers Field as well.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: I read that right. It was shot in California, but
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: she grew up in California. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: quote from this article talking about Bad City as being
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: quote a place full of loners, gangsters, junkies, and the
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: love lorn and a vampire known only is the Girl.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: The thing tying them all together is that they're on
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: the margins of their respective societies. This is particularly true
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: of the character Rockabilly, who never speaks but serves as
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: a silent watcher in Drag and Then here is a
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: quote from the director herself saying, if there's one political
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: thing in the movie, it's not the edd or it's Rockabilly,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: because it's not okay to be gay in Iran and
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: quote and we can talk about this Rockabilly character are
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: kind of on a separate discussion. But she the point
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: here is that it was not intentional for the use
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: of the child or to be like a political statement
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: like that was not her intention. I was watching an
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: interview where she just like got her hands on one,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, this would just be a really
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: cool thing to put a vampire character in, especially if
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: she's like riding around on a skateboard. So it was
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: more like almost like an aesthetic choice than a any
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: sort of like symbolic or political statement that she was
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: trying to make. I was wondering because I was like,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: the chold Door has a very cape like aesthetic to it. Yeah,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and it's somewhat mimicked or ashes like Dracula cape earlier
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: in the movie of like Oh, it's it's just he's
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: like trying to create the style of like the vampire,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: and she just has her own cultural version of it,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: which is the chold Door. It's almost like she's just
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: like a caped crusader, you know, Like I guess certain, yeah,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: I really, I don't know. I like respect this ship
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: out of how you know, she like kind of like
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: rolls her eyes at some of the because it is
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like and we are not spared from
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: this of like the way that people interpret movies in
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: ways they're like that was just a choice of necessity
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: or like I liked how that looked, um like how
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: um Alonso Kuran was like, I just like the color green.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: It has no symbolic purpose and a little princess. I
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: just like green. And everyone's like, but there's forty essays
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: on like the use of green, and and like this
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: is movies, it's literature, it's everything. We're just I don't know.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: I like when directors are like, shut up, Like no,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: I just like the way it looked. It looked the
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: way I wanted it to look. Um, but there are
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: there are limitless takes on a lot of things that
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: the director is very firm on. Like that was not
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: in my head, that was not my intention, But go on,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: I guess like, so um, I like that. Let's take
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: a quick break and then we'll come right back for
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: more discussion, and we're back. I wanted to kind of
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: just speak briefly because I've only I would need to
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: do a deeper dive about vampire lore and like the
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: the history of the representation of vampires in media and
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: then the kind of specifically for our purposes of like
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: representation of vampires in popular movies, but like, but in general,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: just like with my peripheral knowledge about it, vampire lore
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: is generally like about vampires who are coded as men
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: who generally prey upon and or brutalize women, and even
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: like updated contemporary like pop culture versions of vampire lore
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: like Twilight, for example, it's still like a male vampire
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: preying upon and emotionally abusing a human woman, and that
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: just seems to be the trend or way vampires and
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: more insidious that there are female vampires present in all
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: of these stories, but they're always in the way, way
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: way way back of the story. Like it's I feel
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: like it's like a sub sub sub bcdel test kind
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: of thing where it seems pretty common that it's like,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: oh and here's his female vampire assistant sister mother. Like
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: you see female vampires around, I mean even in Twilight,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: like you're like, there there are a ton of women,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: but like did they get to do anything? No, not much,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: or like in an interview with a vampire where like
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: tiny Kirsten Dunst is like a child vampire but she
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: means you love to see her. But same. But my
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: one of my other favorite vampire flicks, The Little Vampire. Uh,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: not familiar with that. Oh my god, I really want
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: to cover it on the Matreon. I am remembering um
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: but an iconic kids vampire movie where there is another
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: little sister vampire who's there to be like he, but
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: like you know, there there's not a larger story, so
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: you know, justice for female vampires. This is the end
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: this movie. This just that's the point I would eventually
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: arrive at, which is that this movie is a very
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: nice subversion of what we have come to know just
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: sort of culturally as what vampires tend to be. Because
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: this movie completely turns out all on its head. And
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: I really appreciate that about this film. Women as Predators.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: We love to see it. We've been talking about the
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: girl quite a bit and I wanted to, I guess
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: discuss there's a lot of overlap her relationship and and
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: the other female character in the movie, so Ati, So
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: there is I would say of the relationships, I feel
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: like there's I guess three relationships in this movie that
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: we see in more depth, which is the girl and
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: at the girl and Rash and Rash and his father
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: and Rash and his cat and and the can the
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: cat and the girl and the cat, and the cat
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: has an important relationship with everybody. The cat gets around
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: is the fast effect of as of a cat with
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: no name stars meaningfully at a vampire woman. Yes, yes
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: it does, and they don't mention a man. Interesting, but
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Ati is the Smurfette of Bad City. She's the only
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: human woman we see besides actually besides rash and where, Yes,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: we got a nose job. Coincidentally enough, I was like,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: is that the most Persian thing ever to just show
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: up and have like a post nose job. I was like,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: what the she got a nose job? Are you kidding me?
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: That was the one thing I was kind of offended by.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: I was like, come on, we don't need a Persian
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: woman with a nose job. We all have our cousins
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: who tell you when they see you, you're so lucky
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: you don't have to get a post a nose job.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: Like so just my cousins will say that to me,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: like you are so lucky, you don't need a nose job,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, you don't either, Like you actually don't either.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: You're just being like you're being mind fucked into believing
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: that you need to meet a certain standard, but in reality,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: you don't need a nose job. So I don't know
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: that was I didn't. I mean, it's very Persian, but
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: I didn't think they needed to include maybe other than
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: to show that Shada was like a very like she
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: very into her looks. What does that work. Yes, they're
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: trying to show hers like a vain person. But like
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: to me, I was like, god, damn it. I was
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: curious about that too, because it's for I guess. I mean,
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: let's talk about Shadea for a second, because she's in
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: the movie briefly. But I feel I was What I'm
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: like is was the fact that she had gotten a
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: nose job for these restrictive kind of cultural reasons. Like
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: I felt like I was supposed to make you not
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: like her, which sucks, Like I I that choice was
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: strange to me. There's a lot of interesting things that
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: go on an Iran that are totally like okay, Like
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: having facial work done like a nose job is actually
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: like no one even remotely like we'll look down on you,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: not like here where you're like no, no. It was
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: a deviated symptom. I had to and everyone's like, oh
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: my god, sure you know. Like there it's like it's
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: like a rite of passage. You're like offered a nose job.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Like I remember when I was young, my dad said,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: we'll just let me know if you ever need a
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: nose if you ever want a nose job, And I
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: was like, what the fuck, Like that's a very common
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: thing to have done, and I have multiple cousins who
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: have had nose jobs done, and um, it's just not
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: looked down upon. It's culture really completely okay. A lot
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: of women tattooed their eyeliner on, a lot of women
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: tattooed their eyebrows on. That's there's nothing. I don't know why,
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: but it's just completely culturally acceptable to do such things.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: So while it is like a very strict culture like
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: these things, within like the more affluent communities, it's it's
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: almost normal to get such things done. Like I remember
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: I was in Iran recently and my cousin every morning
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: had eyeliner on, and I just like it wasn't computing
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: to me that it was tattooed on. And I was like,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: how do you do your makeup every morning? Like you
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: have kids? Like you just look so like ready to
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: go every morning, and she's like, no, these are this
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: like wingtip is tattooed on my face, like I don't
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: do anything. And I was like, oh, to me, that
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: was like shocking. But to her, she's like, what a
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: weird question. No, I would not do my makeup. I
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: just had it permanently put on, and like you could
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: do like you could tattoo your lips and get like
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: forever lipstick on if you want it, and it's okay,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: it lonks like it saves a lot of time. But yeah,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: I felt like, and I don't let me know if
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: you agree, but I felt like the way she does
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: nose job was presented was in a way to be like, oh,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: she's so vain and we don't like her, which didn't
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: feel very fair, right. I didn't like that. I didn't
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: like that they were trying to be like this girl
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: so into herself and she sucks, and I was like, oh, okay,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: well all right, yeah okay. I interpreted her character as
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: almost like the function of her was to characterize Rash
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: a little bit more, because we see her twice in
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: the movie. The first time is when he is in
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: her bedroom because her like TV is on the fritz,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: and he's like, it's gonna take me a while to
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: fix this, so let me stay here and fix your TV.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: You should go because it's inappropriate, like your parents are
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: going to think it's inappropriate if, like me, a man
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: is alone in your bedroom with you here. So I
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: and GE's like showing that he kind of has this
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: moral compass at least when it comes to like respectability
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: of women. But then he steals her earrings. That is
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: very common for men and women to not be alone
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: together an Iran unless there's like family, So that was
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: while it was used as a tool to like steal
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: from her. That it's like he took this like cultural
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: thing that goes on and used it for his own
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: like dark reasoning. But it's very real. But I also
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: just want to point out that I think they were
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: trying to make Shadea look shitty or like vain and
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: just like annoying to almost give our ash the okay
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: to steal from her, right, like they're used to justify,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: justify or like make you feel because yeah, I guess
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: that that is kind of like because we like him
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: and we're not supposed to like when people steal, So
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: how do you get around that make the person he's
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: stealing from like of all? But then he also used
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: a cultural stereotyped for his own dark knees. I don't know,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: there's there's so many like what is it, Like, God,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: I'm so I'm like losing all my words stays because
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: I haven't enough coffee. But like he's an antagonist in
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: a way because it's like I I didn't trust him
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: from the beginning of when he like the second he
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: took the drugs to start selling them, I was like,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: this is just not a good person. He Well, that's
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: the thing is that, like he like the girl the Vampire,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: his like moral code is like pretty murky. It's pretty
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: gray area because like so in that at the end
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: of that scene when he's in Shadow's room, he's like,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: you know, you better leave, it's inappropriate, and then she
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: kind of like flirts with him, like makes this almost
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: like mini pass at him, and then leaves. And then
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: later the second time we see here in the movie
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: is at that costume party where he's dressed as Dracula.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: He has taken the ecstasy at her suggestion, but she
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: only also has ecstasy because he gave it to her.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: But then also like he's like tripping on e or
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: whatever you do when you're on ecstasy. Again, I don't
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: understand drugs, but he then tries to surprise kiss her
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: and she's like no, no, no, no, like what are
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: you doing? And I think a lot of the at
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: least for part of the movie, the tension comes from
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: the audience being like wondering whether or not the vampire
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: is going to like deem him worthy as a victim
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: of hers because he has engaged in some kind of
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: sketchy behavior. So it's like, is that enough for her
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: to want to eat him and kill him? Because you know,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: he almost he tries to surprise kiss a woman. He
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: like kind of springs a random hug on the vampire
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: because he's like, you're so cold, not knowing that she's
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: a vampire, and he's like, let me hug you to
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: warm me with the reason by being like he th
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: high or like that right right right. So it's like
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: it almost seems like he's he's crossed the line or
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: he's going to cross the line several times and that
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, no, is she gonna is she
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: gonna kill him? But instead they fall in love. So like,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: to me, like Shadah's function in the story was mostly
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: too like give him opportunities to kind of display some
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: of this like moral gray area behavior. I guess, yeah,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: my read of her was more of like saying something
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: about class, but doing it in a way that was
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: kind of cruel to Iranian woman like women, because she
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: is the only I mean, unless you you count Mr.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Track Suit, she is the only character of means that
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: we see in this movie. And so I I felt
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: a little bit of like, I don't know, just like
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: kind of a stockish, rich girl character um being shown
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: through her, and you know, we're not on the side
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: of that character for the most part. And I think
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: it kind of sucks at the way that that statement
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: that people generally agree with is made through saying things
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: that are like disparaging about women making choices about their bodies,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: whether it's a nose job or a no nose job,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: or like wanting to kiss someone or not wanting to
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: kiss someone. Right, So yeah, I don't know that that
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: just was for me, like just not incredible writing choices. UM.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: I think she was going for a statement on class there.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know, she wouldn't tell us probably, but yeah,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: I just felt like saying one thing that I agree
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: with at the expense of I don't know, I just
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: felt like bizarre, bizarre, right, because like when asked if
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: like she intentionally made a feminist film, or like asked, like,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: do you find your film to be feminist? The director
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: was like, uh no, these full blosophies are a disease
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: for which they claim to be the cure, and like
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: some basically, I mean, I think, like you said, Jamie,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: she's not necessarily coming down against feminism as a concept.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: It's more that, like, my intention to make this movie
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: was to just show characters doing their things and living
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: their lives. She says, quote, I would have become a
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: teacher or activist or something if I was trying to
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: tell you stuff. I get more excited when people are
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: asking their own questions and seeing their own stuff and quote.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: So she's just encouraging more like active participation as a
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: movie going audience, and just encouraging people to kind of
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: think for themselves and interpret things how they want. And
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: because many people have interpreted this as a feminist text,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: which like, I very much see that, I would I
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: would classify that this movie as such. But it's less
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: that like the director made this movie with that intention,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: and more that she's just like, these are the things
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: that I wanted to happen in my movie. This is
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: the character's story that I wanted to tell interpreted however
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: you want. So that was interesting to me. Um, yeah,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: I really, I I really, I don't know. At first
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: I was kind of like, whoa, But the more I
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: read of what she was saying, I think I agree
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: with her more than I don't. Where Yeah, I think
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of the poll quotes that are taken from
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: her kind of frame her in an unflattering light where
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: if you read the full quote, there's actually quite a
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: bit there where like that quote continues to say, like
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: I just am resistant to categorization in general. She she says,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: a film is like a mirror what I connect with
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: when a movie is my own stuff. You know, everybody
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: in the world in the film, in my mind, is
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: much more than what you see on the surface. All
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: people underneath have strange, weird secrets inside, and when you
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: get to those things, that makes you re evaluate the
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: outside and reevaluate your assumptions. That's what I'm interested in.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: It's not is um All of those things can fine
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: your thinking because they tell you this is what it is,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: and then it's done. I think everything just has to
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: be considered in its own individual space and time, which
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: I think is fair, and I think that that speaks
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: to pressures that marginalized filmmakers undergo in general, of like,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: you know, like these are not questions that you would
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: here asked of Christopher Nolan, And I think resistance to
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: being put in a box because you are who you are,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: even if it's well intentioned, and even if it's like
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: being presented as like, no, I'm trying to say something
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: positive about your movie. I can see why that would
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: be frustrating of like, well, funck, you evaluate my movie
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: the way you would evaluate anyone's movie, right, So yeah,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: I I there were some pull quotes that I'm like,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: I don't I wonder what she would say about this now,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: But in general, her reaction to those questions made me
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: think a little bit about my approach to stuff too,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: and like my approach to movies in general, where I
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: want I mean, it's I like the quote about like
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: whatever the movie is a mirror, which is very like
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: you know, freshman year film school. But we are coming
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: into this wanting to see feminism in horror, and so
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: we see that, you know, if if certain elements are there.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, I thought, I've just been in
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: a real thought bubble about this director, about this movie.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: Also the irony she I mean, she mentions a mirror,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: but the irony of vampires not being able to look
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: in the mirror because they don't have a reflection, which
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: is why she puts that scene where she's putting on
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: um eyeliner and lipstick. She's not doing it in front
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: of a mirror because there's no point because she doesn't
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: have a reflection. She's just having to Like I don't know,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: she's freeball it or whatever. I didn't even notice that. Yeah,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't notice it until they watched an interview where
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: they pointed it out. But it's still pretty cool. Oh
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: there's I wish I didn't have time to do it,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: but I want to see like a map of like
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: what her I guess it's her apartment, but I'm like vampire,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: so it's her layer. Um, but I liked her layer
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: a lot. The one thing I was able to find
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: of like because I was watching I was watching it
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: on the computers. I'm like, I can't really see what
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: this is. But um, there was like a picture of
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Margaret Atwood style to look like a Madonna album cover.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: Like there's a lot of fun, weird touches in there
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: that I'm sure to tell you more about who she is,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: what time she said in where I guess that that
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: the Madonna aesthetic feeds into the new wave like eighties era.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know, is she in eighties Vampire? Well, speaking
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: of just watching a bunch of interviews and finding out
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: information on a Lily, A mere Port says in an
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: interview that the girl is I think she said a
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighties seven years old. Um, we don't learn
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: this in the movie at all, like Edward Cullen specificity. Yeah, right,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: so she's basically as old as I Frankenstein. Um, but incredible, incredible,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: Um so yeah, I mean maybe I don't know. Like
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: there's the girl. The character of the girl is just
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: fascinating to me. She's hard to discuss. I like it,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: you like it because it's not I think that sometimes
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: we come into stuff and in general like we're like, Okay,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: a feminist film has this, this and this, if this
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: is the villain, this is what should happen, and when
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: these things happen, I'm smiling. But which in some ways
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: is great and for some movies that works perfectly, But
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: I also get how that's like limiting in a lot
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: of ways, like they're I like that. She's hard to
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: talk about, like it because she makes good choices and
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: bad choices like people like a person and she's not
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: even a person because like in vampire mythology, vampires like
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: don't have a soul, which you know, interpret what a
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: soul is how you will. But you know, most people
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: would interpret that as some kind of like moral compass
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: or I mean, I guess that's how I would interpret
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: a soul. But yeah, I mean she she has what
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: seems like an agenda most of the time. She's like
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: out there protecting women from or protecting a woman woman
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: from a couple bad guys. But do you think that
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: she would hesitate to kill a woman if it came
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: down to it, Because I don't think she would. I
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: don't know, Yeah, I don't think she would. Yeah, it's hard.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: It's hard to say, I think, right, because she does
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: just sort of seemingly at random because she's hungry kill
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: that unhoused man like so and she apropos of nothing,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: terrifies an adorable skateboard child. Ye, like she does sucked
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: up stuff. I feel like she would kill our ash
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: if she ever witnessed him do something truly tragic right
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: In fact, like the movie fades out when they they're
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: driving off, like with the cat in the car. The
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: cat is present a great actor, but like, I don't know,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: maybe ten minutes later she like says something fucked up
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: or like tries to kiss her and she's like, you
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: know what, I've had enough of you, and then kills him.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: We don't know, Well, we don't know what he's going
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: to do with her, because he's clearly figured out that
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: she killed his father, and it's like whether or not
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: he has come to terms with it and decided it's
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: actually a good thing is unclear. Like he gets out
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: of the car at one point looks very stressed out,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: but then gets in like funk it, let's just go.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: But we don't know if his mind's going to change
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: within a few minutes of like wait, no, fuck you,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: you killed my dad because he loves because he does love,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: he loves his dad, And there I don't know. It's
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: like we don't in movies in general, you don't often
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: see like a kid with an addict parent and all
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: of the complications and like horrible moments that come with
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: that and this is like escalated because we're in bad city.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: But I thought, like, I think he like loves his dad.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: He was protecting him even when his his dad's addiction
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: was really hurting him. And there's that small like another
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: cool moral moment is like I had the smallest bit
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: of like, I don't know, you see Josan do something,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: commit a crime, something completely unconsfortable where he forces Ati
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: to take heroin. He you know, sedates her. It seems
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: like he's going to fully assault her sexually. But the
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: movie has established him as someone that our protagonist loves,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: and so there's like the smallest part of me that
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: when he was killed, you're like, okay, like that makes
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: sense that like the girl that's that is someone that
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: the girl would kill and it makes sense why she's
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: doing it. But you're like, oh, but it's a Rash's
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: dad and he loves his dad, and like, I don't know,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: there was another like complicated brain. Yeah, wait, here's something
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: that just occurred to me. I feel like Rash figured
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: out right away that she was a vampire because she
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: like comes down the stairs after killing the pimp and
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: she I think she still has blood all over her,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: like all over her mouth. But even if that's not
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: the case, he like goes up into his house and
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: then the pimp is dead, so like all he has
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: to do is just like connect to dots and be like,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: I think she's a vampire. Because then later, I mean,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: why do you think he dresses as Dracula to the
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: to the party because he knows. And then he when
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: he writes that note on her door and he's like,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: meet made by the power plant at ten pm because
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: he knows that she can only come out after dark.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: And then I that just reminded me of Titanic. When
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: I saw it, I was like, oh, someone past meet
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: him somewhere at a time. Culture make it count. Meet
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: me by the clock should make account. I'm document, it
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: shouldn't made account. Meet me by the clock at the
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: power plant. Um. Anyway, I think it just occurred to
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: me that I think maybe he's either maybe not consciously knew,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: but I think he subconsciously knew that she was a
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: vampire this whole time. And then and then when he's like, oh, wait,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: my cat is here. That was my dad's cat, who's dead. Now,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: why do you have my dead dad's cat? Then that
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: really solidified his thinking. But I think he knew the
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: whole time. It's interesting that no one ever acknowledges like,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: like there's never athing, Like there's people dying and they're
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: always puncture wounds on their neck, right, no one ever
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: really acknowledges the c s I of it. Well, yeah,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: where's the crime scene investigation? Have a bad city? A
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: lot of people are dying with Well, must be a dog, right,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: she whiz. There's also a whole ditch full of dead
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: body that you're right, Oh my god, I forgot all
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: about that. No one are ash in the first scene,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: walks right by it, like, hey, yeah, you know that ditch?
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: You know how that is? That's that's bad city baby. Anyway,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: I feel like the movie kind of demonizes addiction in
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: a way that I don't think is really fair. I
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: think a lot of people misunderstand drug addiction and like
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: don't treat it as like the mental illness that it
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: often is, and you know, and it kind of goes
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: with the stigma of mental illness anyway, So I feel
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: like the movie kind of miss hunt handles that a
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: little bit. But I see that. But I also think
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: that we get good moments with Jossin where he's not
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: universally characterized as a villain necessarily, like there you see
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: the manipulative forces in his life. You understand, you know,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know. The movie certainly doesn't say explicitly that
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: it's a disease, and it's not perfect, but I don't know.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: I thought it was better than a lot of portrayals
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: of addiction that you see it because you see his
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: family life, you get background, you see that he's you know,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: he he doesn't have the resources to escape this. He's
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: not being given the resources to escape which is the
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: problem with addiction so much of the time is that
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not insurmountable in all cases, but but
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: it's just a lack of access and there's you know,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: it's a bad city. I thought it's a very interesting
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: portrayal of like an older family man who becomes addicted
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: to heroin because it's like you hear a lot about it.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: People start doing opiates because that they're paying whatever, they
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: become addicted and then you know, because it's cheaper to
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: just do heroin straight, that's what happens, and that's kind
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: of what leads to a lot of death and whatever.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: Outside of like the cutting of fentanyl into these drugs.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: But like, I thought that was an interesting portrayal because
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting the dad to be just a full
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: blown heroin attic Like that actually took me by surprise,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: because you don't you if you would see a man
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: like that on the street, you'd be like, Okay, in
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: my case, that's an older Iranian man. He's a family man.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: I would never guess that he was on heroin. Like
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: there was kind of this kind of like stereotype breaking
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: aspect of that, Like I wasn't expecting it. It It could
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: be like it was almost like it could be your father,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: and and that was kind of like, I mean, it
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: hit home because I've had like family members who have
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: gotten caught up in things like this, and it's like
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: you never you never know what someone's going through. And
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: that was very interesting to me. You don't know, you
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: don't know what this man is doing, what he's shooting
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: in between his toes at night, like you just genuinely
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: don't know. And he could just look like any other
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: old Persian man and he would just be like, oh
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: what I didn't what I didn't I guess the plot
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: point that I didn't like was conflating his addiction with
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: being a sex person like that. That's what I'm That's
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: what I'm what I'm saying. It's mishandling it going from
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: I mean and it it's yeah, like including those two
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: plot points and the same character, like it wasn't necessary.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: I thought the father's son aspect of like seeing a
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: parent who is struggling with addiction in a very immediate
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: way and the tension and the complications that come with
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: your own child like that didn't bother me as much, um,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: but but it was. It was the second he is,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: you know, kicked out by his son and you understand,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: at least plot wise, why Irash is doing that. I
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: don't know, it made sense to me in the story.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: But but the fact that he immediately goes and assaults
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: the only woman that he's been harassing for the entire movie. Yeah,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: those plot points I I don't think it needed to
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: be connected. And that's what I mean. That is like
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: a difficult scene to watch because we getting back to
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: a t in that scene. I mean, she she is
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: repeatedly mistreated by men in Bad City. We first see
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: her with said who just is really giving her a
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: laundry list of like sexist things to say. It's like,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: how old are you? I'm thirty. Oh, you're getting pretty
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: old that you want kids. Just every like lazy sexist
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: thing you can think of to say. He, you know,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: kind of demands sex from her, then refuses to pay her.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: When she gets upset about this, he assaulted. He pushes
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: her to the ground. Then later on the other person
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: that you see her with, who is I mean, it
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: seems like because Josean has been given some money by
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: a raj, he's paying her as well. But then he
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: crosses a line and she says, no, I don't want
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: to have sex with you, over and over and over,
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: and he responds by grabbing her, pulling her down and
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: sedating her. So it's just like a direct assault. And
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: I thought it was that she didn't want to do
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: Heroin with him, Like he was trying to be like,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: let's do Heroin together, and she kept like, no, I
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: don't want to do he because he said he kept
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: saying like, let's have a good time. Let's have a
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: good time, like yeah, and I thought that was him
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: being like, let's do Heroin together. I think it's open
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: to interpretation. Yeah, I feel like Ati just is brutally
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: put through the ringer in this movie, And yeah, I
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: thought it was. I. I guess I don't really know
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: where I land on how she's treated. I mean, I
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: think that it's like saying one thing that it's it's
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: sex workers are certainly frequently mistreated and their boundaries are
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: crossed and they're not respected. And seeing that reflected, it
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, that is, you know, certainly something that exists.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know. And then and then the girl comes
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: into her life, and I don't know. This is another
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: thing where I'm just like I don't know how to
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: feel or I kind of know how I feel. Where
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: the girl and Auntie meet formally right, and they hang
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: out because the girl is following her around because that's
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: that's her thing that she loves to follow. She is
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: a camera, she's a dolly following at but but at
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: like Rash doesn't react with like terror. She just says like,
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: what are you doing? Do you want to talk like
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: and appeals to her need for company. So they hang out.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: And then and this was the point where I wasn't
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: totally sure if the girl like truly knew healthy people
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: felt or if she was just because there's a scene
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: that's the first scene with them. She basically tells at
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: how she feels about her life and about her profession,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: and in some ways that I think are perpetuating negative
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: stereotypes about how sex workers view themselves in their profession,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: where it's I don't know, I guess portraying it as
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: the norm of like you couldn't possibly enjoy this job,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: you couldn't possibly feel pleasure if you have this job,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: and all these kind of common stereotypes that the girl
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: is presenting to a t as fact and at is like, wow,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: I feel seen right which apartment was? Like is that
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: the like boomer Iranian culture that the girl is coming from?
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: Like that's because in any other case, if you're interacting
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: with Iranians who are kind of deeply embedded in their culture,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: they're just not like if you will woke in that manner,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: Like I have friends who are my same h who
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: would probably be like, you would never want to be
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: a sex worker, Like they would talk down about something
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: like that versus someone like me who's more involved in
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: like social justice work. If you will. I hate to
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: say such words like weke and social justice right now.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: But like I, I have maybe more of an open
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: view of such things. But if I were to today
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: today call my dad and be like, what do you
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: think of sex work? He's a culturally boomer Iranian man,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: he'd be like, why would you even ask me about this?
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: That's not a good thing, Like they I think, I
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: feel like she comes from that era, and and so
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: does kind of utty, and it's like all viewed from
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: this like Iranian cultured lens of like kind of less
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: open mindedness. That's like how I was kind of seeing it,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: because I think as soon as I watch a film
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: that's in FARSI I immediately assume that things might not
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: be as open minded and as progressive as I would
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: hope they be. But I don't know that the director
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: is like Iranian American woman, so I don't know exactly.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: Of course, she's just waiting for us to like dig
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: too deep. I'm so yeah that that was another that
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: I wasn't. I just wasn't because plot wise, what we
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: know of autis experience in sex work. It stands to
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: reason that she doesn't enjoy what she's doing, and it's
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: because we've only seen her get abused. But again, it's like,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: you know, you didn't need to make that plot choice,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: but it would also feel, I guess, kind of off
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: center for a sex worker to feel very safe and
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: respected in bad city. So it's just kind of another
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: thing where I just like, I just I don't love
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: how that scene plays out, especially because it's like one
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: of the only scenes where women are talking to each
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: other and it does pass the back deal test, but
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: it's like, don't you just hate your life? And the
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: woman's like, yes, I do, which now when I say
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: it out loud, I have that conversation every day. Um,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: but you know what I mean that that was an
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: that was like a loaded scene in a lot of ways,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: and I can see a lot of different interpretations. And again,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: if any listeners that are sex workers, I'd love to
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: know your take. Yeah. Indeed, another thing I wanted to
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: talk about a little bit that we already referenced from
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: a quote that I read earlier, but the Rockabilly character,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: and that is the character who who we see in
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: a few different scenes that we don't know exactly how
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: they identified because this character does not speak words. They
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: don't speak. They're seen dancing around at some point, I
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: thought it was interesting to include that character because there's
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: no real function they serve as far as I can
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: tell on the kind of a surface level in the narrative.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's some sort of like allegorical thing or symbolic
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: thing that I just wasn't super picking up on me
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: like a an art movie. Yeah, I just I And
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: and like with the quote that we read earlier, I mean, well,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: she she basically said explicitly that, um, where so many
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: reviewers and viewers were saying that, um, this movie was
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: an outright political movie, that the only thing she viewed
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: as a political statement was Rockabilly because of how queerness
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: is dealt with by Iranian culture, which is something where
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: we want to know more about from you on a UM,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: it's I mean, I kind of only know the basics.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: I wish that we got to know this character better
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: and had like a fully developed queer character. But I
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: am happy for Rockabilly's presence. Yeah, same, I agree. I
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: kind of wish we saw more of Rockabilly because like
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: the first shot, I believe they were just standing around
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: when our ash was walking by or maybe a site
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: I'm blanking now, and we see them pretty it's a
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: quick shot, and I think like in the moment, I
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: didn't really register who that was. And then later when
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: we we kind of see them pop up around the movie,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: but we don't get like a full interaction until they're
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: dancing for us, I kind of wanted more, Like I
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: was like, maybe this character will interact with the girl,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: or maybe this character will interact with Ash, but like
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: or even like Hossein the Father or even Ati, but
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: like it was almost as if it was this this
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: character that was placed. There's like all knowing, they see
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: everything as well, they know what's going on, and they're
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: just kind of like they're just like almost like reveling
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: in like all the madness around them of like Bad City.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: But I was kind of hoping for more because I
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: was like, Okay, oh, all right, now this character is
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: dancing for us, but then they just don't really know why.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: I was hoping that something was going to like pay
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: off there, you know, whereas like they're seeing this character
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: kind of in almost seems like being used as a
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: transitional tool to get you from sequence to sequence, And
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: I was hoping because I was, I mean, I did
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: really enjoy this movie. I was like, oh, maybe that
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: is just like a very long con of a plant
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: and then there's going to be a payoff and that
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: this character will get to do something at some point,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: but that just doesn't happen. Yeah, that's what I was
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: hoping as well, right, especially because like we see the girl,
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: the vampire interact with most other characters we meet, or
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: every character we meet interacts with someone else that we meet,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: except for Rockabilly, who doesn't seem to interact with anyone one.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: So because of that, we don't really get any context
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: for who they are, why they're they're, what they're doing.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Are they also a vampire who knows that will be fun?
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: I mean Rockabilly seems I mean it just based on
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: how they're framed. We only see them alone really, so
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: it's like you would think this would be a prime
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: candidate to be friends with the girl. There's another isolated
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: person that needs someone to talk to hang out with.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: That's the girl's bread and butter. She loves lonely people,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: it's her addiction. Well, I found an abstract on the internet.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: I did too, and then I'm like, I don't have
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah I didn't, so I requested it for for for free. Oops. Um,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: and I have not heard back from them recording. But
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: what what is this that you requested? So it's it's
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: a academic piece of writing entitled Queer Utopias and a
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: Feminist Iranian Vampire A critical analysis of resistive monstrosity and
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: a Girl Walks Home Alone at Night And the abstract Sorry,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know what an abstract is, as it turns out,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: but the abstract of this academic piece of writing says this, Yeah, uh,
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: just the black and white vampire spaghetti western. A Girl
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: Walks Home Alone at Night follows the narrative of the girl,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: a forlorn, trador wearing feminist vampire vigilante in the fictional
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: world of Bad City. In this queer utopia, the girl
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: prais on immoral men so that she can protect the
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: female residence of Bad City from the violence of patriarchy.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: We explore themes of monstrous feminisms and queer doublings to
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: consider how the film uses the trope of the vampire
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: to manifest queer utopias and reflect Iranian and Iranian American
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: feminist themes. So that's what this academic paper is about.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: We do not have access to it, can credit if
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: there if, if, if, and when it comes Caitlin's way
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: and it changes our whole perspective and read, we will
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: do a follow up. But I wish I was glad
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: that there was at least something out there to address that,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: because I mean, I understand that, like, not every movie
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: can address you know, every every societal issue, right, and
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: this movie tackles a lot, But it would not have
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: been difficult to include Rockabilly in a meaningful way and
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: in a way that would have elevated the movie, I think,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: and like could have fleshed out the characters we already know,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: but yeah, they're from what I could tell, no one
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: has really asked that question of the director, and so
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: we don't really know if that if it was a
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: decision made very deliberately to have the only character that
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: she has specifically stated as queer being non speaking, and
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: we don't even know. You don't know what Rockabilly's name
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: is unless you like look at the IMDb page, like
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: it's the character is not referenced at all, So it's
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: like almost, yeah, I have a question. So it sounds
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: like that like articles saying that she protects the women
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: from the men, which means that she was just assuming
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: that unhoused man would be a danger at some point.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: That is not okay, So that actually kind of like
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: trying that that's something there is. There are so many
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: reads of this movie that it makes my head to explode.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: A different read I read on this movie and several
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: different places, was that, okay, get ready for symbolism, that
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: the girl and the vampire is a stand in for society,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: because we live in a society. So what it sounds
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: really corny. The reasoning against it is fairly sound, but
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: based on what I've read of what the director says,
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: I doubt it's true. But the read goes as such
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: that the girl is always killing. You can perceive the
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: girl killing someone in a way that could be perceived
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: as them kind of like succumbing to a societal ill
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: or a societal disadvantage. So the moment she kills Hossein
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: is when he is at the absolute bottom of his addiction,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: so her killing him could be seen as him succumbing
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: to untreated addiction. And the same goes to the read
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: of her murdering an unhoused person, where there is a
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: read of this that is, well, this is a person
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: who is succumbing to being completely neglected by society. I
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: don't agree with it, but I did at least think
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: it was worth mentioning because it's brought up quite a
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: bit in reviews and the initial um wave of think
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: pieces about this back in Because I also don't really
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: see how that plays into the death of the pimp,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: because he seems to be toxic masculinity killed. I don't
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: succumb to full just shitty behavior. Yeah, I mean, but
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: like men get away with that all the time, and
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: society allows them to do that. So yeah, I don't know.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: I think how much I agree with that read. I
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: don't agree with it. I didn't think it was like
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: an interesting I don't know. This movie is so fascinating
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: and the way that the filmmaker treats her own film
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: is so fascinating that I feel like you get all
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: these reads that kind of go on challenge because the
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: filmmakers like whatever you think, what you think, and that
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: like this is like my movie is a mirror to
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: how you think, and so you kind of have a
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: wide array of reads on what happens because there's just
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: not there's no you know, no training wheels. Baby. Yeah,
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: but yeah, vampire. More like, we live in a society.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: Society is always biting my neck and trying to kill me.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: Ain't that the truth? And yet society refuses to look
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: at mirror and see itself for what it is. Either way,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: I am never going to be like, yeah, totally, I
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: understand violence against unhoused people. That's the one part it
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: that really throws me because I could get behind like
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: any sort of like, yes, she's a protector of women,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: until she's like yeah, but you know, vampire got a
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: feed and then you're like, oh okay. I was like,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not like really rooting for you any more. Is
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: there a single character you guys find yourself rooting for?
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: In my case, I found it to be Auti. Yes, yeah,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: I was rooting for Auti, and then um, I was
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: mostly rooting for Rash, even though there were things he
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: did that were not good and that he should be
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: held accountable for, um such as you know, surprised get
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: saying women while he's high and just kind of I mean,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: he does make a series of missteps, but considering the
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: amount of ship he's up against, I was generally rooting
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: for him and anti just whole I'm all in I
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: want the best for her, and the fact that she
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: basically still protects the girl after this murder, which she
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: didn't have to do, Like, yeah, I just love it
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: because they like she helps Autie helps the girl, like
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: dom po Sin's body and like she's like, we gotta
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: get you out of here. We gotta deal with this.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: So like you know, they're they're they're helping each other out.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, I am rooting for the girl most of
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: the time. It's just that one moment where it's it's
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: a scene that is maybe twenty seconds where she kills
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: a person experiencing homelessness. Get it out of the movie.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: Like that little moment just like really makes me lose
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of like empathy for her. And and again
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: it's like we don't know if that was intended, and
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: like did the director want us to lose empathy for
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: her in that moment or was it that she just
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: genuinely made a bad or choice I really don't like
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: in the movie when she could have made that plot
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: point of like the girl loses her moral code in
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: a number of different ways, right, she could have smashed
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: a skateboard, which she would never do, or if we
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: just see another scene where we see a different man.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: I mean not that I'm advocating that we see men
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: harassing women or anything like that, but if there was
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: something that a man did to behave badly that justified
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: him getting killed, I would have much rather. But then
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: that wouldn't have broken her that that wouldn't have broken
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: her code though really because she would she was going
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: to do that anyway. I don't know, there's there was
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: definitely maybe I'm a simple maybe I'm simple minded for something,
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: but I'm just like, I just want her to be
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: a good following her moral compass the whole time. And
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: that ain't bad city. I know, you're right. Is there
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: anything anyone else wants to talk about? Jamie brought something
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: up which was about like queerness in like the Iranian culture,
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: and I never really say anything about that, but to
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: expand on that, it is definitely looked down upon. It
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: is not considered normal in their eyes. That's how Iranian
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: culture like. Yes, there are queer people. There is an
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: lgbt Q, I A you know, plus community in Iran.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: Do they live out like are they able to be comfortable? No?
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: Obviously not, um I think they kind of there's certain
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: ways they have to live their lives in order to
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: um stay hidden and out of you know, the government's eyes.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: And you know it's not ideal, but the Iranian culture
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: is not. I mean, it's a Muslim republic, it's a
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: republic of Islam. And while I don't personally think, and
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: this is always up to interpretation that the Koran specifically
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: says that you cannot be gay, a lot of people
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: have different interpretations of it. I personally certain parts that
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: I've read in research that I've done for like ethnically,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: Ambigi is like, I don't think there's any clear wording
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: that says you can't do it anything, Like I don't know.
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: Of course, you know, there will always be debates about
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: this um because like this movie, the corona is up
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: and for interpretation, you know, like the Bible or whatever.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: Like you take it how you want it, and certain
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: people take it in a more negative, evil sort of
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: route and how they treat people, and other people are like,
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: I don't see it that way. I don't think it's
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: explicit that you can't be gay, but because it's such
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: a strict culture and society, they just they don't under
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: the big I think the big thing is they don't
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: understand why, and they don't they will never go out
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: of their way to understand why because to them, it's
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: like in a lot of Iranian culture and you'll see
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: this kind of in other Middle Eastern cultures or South
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: Asian cultures, is it's all about giving the outward expression
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: of everything is great, and you want to keep everything great,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: and everything's about your reputation. So like my family, like whatever,
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, my brother were in trouble, like my parents
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: wouldn't you know, one would ever know. My parents always
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: be like they're doing great, everything's great, everything's lovely, like
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: to point where you're you know, you're like white knuckled,
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: like gripped on something like everything guys great. And so
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: that culturally is what they do. It's very accepted to
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: hide negative aspects of your life and for them to
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: be like, okay, well why would you be gay? It
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: would just make your life harder. And it's not about well,
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: it's not my choice. This is who I am and
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: this is what makes me happy. They're like, well, why
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: would you choose something that makes you happy that would
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: make your life harder? And it's like always this constant
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: roadblock that I've seen with, you know, like speaking with
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: family members and even my own parents who now live
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: in America, but have come a long way in regards
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: to like cultural things in this country and like leaving
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: behind those like that mindset they had for so long.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: Like my mom is a Muslim woman, devout practicing, you know,
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: praise five times a day, but took her a very
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: long time and now she's fine. She's like, you do
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: whatever you want with your own life. But I would say,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: like up until like ten years ago, like I was
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: still having the discussions with her, like, you know, you
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: really can't be judging people like that, Like you yourself
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: always constantly preached never judging and always having compassion. Because
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: my mom is actually surprisingly very chill Muslim. Uh. She
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: doesn't care what you do with your life. She's come
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: a long way. And I think that's also because she
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: lives in the Bay Area, and it's like that whole
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: Berkeley like hippie Muslim. It's a very you know, interesting
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: type of Muslim where they're like, you know, we sing
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: our own meditation songs and you're like, what, you'll find
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: those CDs around my parents house. It's very funny to
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: hear my mom being well, we'll get into another episode,
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: but so like but she had to come a long way,
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: and my dad even further, Like with racism, just like
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: how things work. They're like, it's so deeply built in
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: them to to basically want to go towards like the
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: white supremacist agenda because that's what they're told for, like
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: movies and culture and like westernize anything that that to
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: be the whitest is the best. So when they come
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: to America, they're like, well, we have to work to
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: prove ourselves to be white. And it's like everything is
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: like ingrained in them from like systems that were built
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: by old white rich men. So like they're constantly trying
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: to understand and be like, but this is what I know,
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: and you have to be like, no, that's what you
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: thought you knew. And actually you can have different feelings
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: towards this once you like meet a person who could
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: be gay, and then you're like, oh, you're right, their
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: life is like I shouldn't be worried about how hard
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: their life is going to be or whatever, like what
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: choices they're making. And I and and I think the
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: unfortunate thing is the culture has to see outside of themselves,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: and in a lot of these experiences, they don't. They
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: don't have the experience to do so, because it's very
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: hard to leave Iran, Like it's very hard to get visas,
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: like getting a visity Europe. Like my cousin will be like,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: We're going to Italy in three months, and I'm like,
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: what three months? Okay, Like when we get our visa,
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: if our visa comes through and you're like okay, and
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: then you know, then they're able to go see another culture.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: Like I have a cousin who was born and raised
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: in Iran and he recently went to college in Australia,
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: and like, looking at his Instagram, I'm like, oh, you
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: just discovered the world. Like you your Instagram is you're
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: just being like guys, I'm at the club and you're
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: like yeah, okay, Like and it's just like this like
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: intensity of like look at this whole other place that
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: I never experienced because I just never got to like
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: see outside myself. And it's like that's kind of a
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: weird metaphor. I've been seeing his instagram along being like, dude,
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: he's always at the club. What have you never been
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: to a club before? And then it's like, no, he
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: never went to a club before, Like alcohol is illegal
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: in Iran. Like you don't see these sorts of things,
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: you know. So like I mean, even I'm curious about him.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: I actually want to talk to him, like how he's
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: seeing maybe more um marginalized communities now that he actually
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: has the ability to interact and interact with them in
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: open and like talk to them and hear their experiences.
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: And it's I don't know, it's a tough culture. And
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: while I do think the Iranian culture is beautiful, there's
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of walls built up because they just aren't
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: able to see outside themselves or outside the culture, and
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: they just will never have the opportunity to understand or
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: experience why someone is the way they are because again,
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: you know, queer communities can't live out loud in Iran.
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: Does that help break things down? I don't know. I
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: feel like it just went like a thirty minute. Definitely does.
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: I mean and even just like in contextualizing bad city
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: of just like that the thought patterns that people are
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: trapped in there too, that's yeah, yeah, that's that's incredibly helpful.
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, So then for to look back at the
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: rockabilly character who seems to be openly like expressing themselves
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: and expressing their queerness and to like have that be
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: in the open sound like something that wouldn't necessarily fly
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: in Iran. But maybe Bad City is, or maybe and
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: then maybe this is what this academic paper is talking about.
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: It is basically like the girl is just like killing
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: anyone who might have a problem with queer expression or
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: queer identities to like create this queer utopia for for
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: people like the rockabilly to live in. So I'm guessing
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: that's what or you can see it as this is
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: a character we only ever see on the outskirts of
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: town alone. Like there's that's true, There's so many And
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: then the last thing I wanted to bring up was
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: even this movie is shot in California, it's also made
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: explicit that Bad City is uh somehow associated with oil
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: um where we see like a number of shots that
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: are like this is an oil town, which also feels
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: I mean again, I couldn't find, uh pull quote from
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: the director addressing this directly, but certainly, you know this
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: is an Iranian American director who is you know that
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: is a huge component of the of how those cultures
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: intersect at least um economically, so M and again, I mean,
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: I just want to acknowledge what a huge fucking thing
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: it is that not just this movie did so well
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of already regarded pretty early into its
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: life as a film as a as a cult classic,
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: but also that it was released at all. I mean,
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: it's so. I mean, making this movie, um and getting
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: it funded was a long and difficult process for Anna
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: Lily Am the Airport. You can read there's a ton
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: of interviews where she kind of detailed how long it
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: took to get this movie made it all. And so
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: the fact that it is out there and incredible and
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: already kind of has this life of its own is incredible.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: She also won the Bingham Ray break Through Director Award
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: at the Gotham Film Festival. Um. So she's got like
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit of what what do you call when
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: you have an award on the shelf? You call it
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: an award on the shelf some clout, some crediblity, some
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: institutional ship behind you. And it's also worth mentioning that
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: this is one of the very few movies written and
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: directed by a woman of color that we've covered on
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: this show, which is certainly partially on us, and we
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: need to be continuing to to cover these movies because
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: they're good fucking movies. But on top of that, I mean,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: I think it also is kind of symptomatic of who
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: is given money and confidence and the ability to get
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: a wide release in Hollywood. Yeah, and let's uh make
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: it a point to cover more movies on this podcast
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: that are made by women of color. Yes, And speaking
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: of women amazing transition. Do they talk to each other
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: in this movie? Does the movie past the Bechtel test?
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: I think it does between the girl and Atti. And
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: you could argue with the girl doesn't have a name, um,
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: which I would counter argue, I think she does. She
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: is the girl um and in the same way that
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: Mom is sometimes Mom. Well. Also, like that kind of
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: caveat of the test, I think applies specifically to characters
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: who we would only see for a few seconds and
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: they are not important enough to be given a name to. Obviously,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: the girl is the protagonist and the one of two
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: the most important characters in the movie. Uh, So, like
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: that caveat I think doesn't apply in this scenario. So
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: I really care about it's the main character yeah. Yeah,
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: she also has like so much agency, like just my
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: reader that she this is of like a feminist character.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: And then and and it would pass affective us, right, yeah,
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: because she and Auntie talk in a few different scenes
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: and they are not talking about men. They're talking about
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: their feelings and what like. She's like, you don't like
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: what you do and you don't even remember what it's
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: like to want something. Yeah. So, Um, as far as
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: our nipple scale goes zero to five nipples based on
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: an intersectional feminist analysis, I would give this a pretty
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: high rating. I'm inclined to give it like a four
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: or maybe even a four and a half. Um, where
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: I think it falls short is the couple of things
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: that we've already discussed in that it almost feels to
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: me like the girl killing the unhoused person. I don't
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: know what the intention is there. I'm not convinced there
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: even is a specific meaningful intention. Whatever it is, it's
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: not clear enough, and I don't like that it happens.
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: Um And I would have liked to see a more
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: meaningful inclusion of rockabilly and understand why who they are
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: and what their circumstances are, how they feel about things,
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: et cetera. So I'll give it a four point to
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: five generally. You know, I like, I think this movie
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: is doing a lot of really cool things. I think
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 1: it is a feminist text just in it being a
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: movie about a woman who is a vampire, because also
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: women don't get to be vampires that much in like lore.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: It's usually you know, your your draculas and your nose
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: s ferratos and all of that guy to turn you like,
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: come on me, Belliswan. The yeah, I mean the fact
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: that it and this might be an oversimplification of the movie,
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: but it's about a vampire woman who goes around and
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: for the most part protects women and or protects a
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: woman and who um fuckx up toxic men. So I
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: like that about it. I will give it four point
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: to five nipples. Um, I'll give one to the girl.
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: I'll give one to Autie, I'll give one to the
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: director on a Lily, Amir Poor, I'll give one to
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: Elijah Wood, who produced this movie. And then I'll give
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: my point to five nips to the cat. And I
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: guess now would be a good time to bring up
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: cat facts with Caitlin, which I really want to dissociate
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: myself from. So I'm not even gonna say what the
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: cat fact is. I'm going to just leave it at that.
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: Anyway I'll go, I'll go four five as well. I'm
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: docking it for um, the treatment of and housed people
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: and also conflating uh addiction with sex crimes. Yes, yes,
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: so that is when I'm talking for However, I really
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: liked this movie. I think it was like really challenging
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: and cool in a lot of ways. The more I
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: researched about it, the more I kind of like question
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: myself and um, what the assumptions I made? And I
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: don't know, I just on top of everything you've been
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: talking about kitly and I just like I really felt
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: like challenge in a positive way by this movie. Also,
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: this is the first Iranian American movie we've ever covered.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: You know, she's a first time director. If you look
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: into the production behind this movie, she had to crowd
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: fund a good part of it. This was not an
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: easy movie to make, which you know, goes into a
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: number of things of why is it so hard for
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: filmmakers that are not white men? And will you know
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: I'll reference that Wes and or send anecdote again about
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: how he submitted and you know, sixty pages in Longhand
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: and was like is this a movie? And then they're
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: like it's bottle Rocket where honestly I'm important. You know,
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 1: she been at it making shorts for years and years
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: and years before she got the opportunity to half crowdfund
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: her own movie. And it's still fucking amazing, Like that
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: is so cool, and so I really admire all the
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: work that went behind this. I want to shout out
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: the actress who plays the girl, Sheila Vand I did
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: more look into her body of work as an actress
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: and as just like an artist. She's done a ton
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: of like really cool um work in the arts space.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: So I recommend checking that out. She's really really cool.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I just, um, I really loved this movie.
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: I thought, I thought it addresses so much, but in
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: a way that doesn't feel like it's you know, bashing
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: you over the head with it. It's fun. The ending
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: scene really fucked with me. And yeah, I I really
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: liked it. So I'll give you four point to five,
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: give two to the girl to to a t and
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: then point five to the cats or point to five whatever.
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: Who cares? All Right, Um, well before I gave him
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: my nips. I didn't want to say, you guys should
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: watch Not Without my Daughter out from Molina film where
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: her Man. Someone brought this up to us recently. I
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: like the movie because I saw it when I was young,
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: so it's like whatever this is. It's like one of
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: those nostalgic things. But um, I haven't seen it recently,
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: and I am curious if it holds up. But like
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: thinking to like they cast Alfred Molina to play an
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 1: Iranian man, You're like, what what a time there? Early nineties?
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: Bring him back on the cast. He also he plays
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: an Armenian character in that movie called Magnolia. Magnolia. Yeah, oh,
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: I would never watch Magnolia friendly. It's it's simply too long.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: It's very long. I do have it on DVD. Embarrassing anyway.
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: Um so, yes, Anna, what's your nipple? I'm gonna go
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: four point five nips? And that is because I had
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: You know, I struggle when a movie is like filled
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: with symbolism and then the directors like figure it out,
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: because that always just annoys me in away because I'm like,
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not smart enough to figure it out. I don't
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: know what's going on in this movie. It feels like
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: they're symbolism. That cat felt like symbolism. Everything feels like symbolism.
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: Yet you want me to figure it out myself. Just
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: give me a hint. What were you thinking? Just tell
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: me what you were thinking. Um. It takes me back
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: to like Inception when like whatever his name is, Christopher
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: Nolan's like it's a movie set, and I'm like, you're
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: wrong about your own the dreams are actually me making
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: a movie. Like it's like, at least give us something
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: so I can figure out if I see that or not.
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: Give me even a little bit of a taste of
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: what you were thinking so I can decide myself if
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: I was able to see that. And then when when
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: they don't, and you know, and look, I like on
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: a lily import like I love her work. I think
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: she's a great director. I think she has such an
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: interesting I like this movie was wonderful, but like, don't
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: be too cool. You know that always bugs me when
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: they get too cool, when you know, the Vice News
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: logo or whatever comes up and I'm like or Vice Entertainment.
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: I'm like, man, she's too cool for us. Um, But again, yes,
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't care for the kind of lack of explanation
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: as to why the girl attacked on housed man. That
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: really threw me because I really thought I had figured
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: out what the girl's thing was, and that threw me
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: for a loop. Yeah, I wish there was more on
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: Rockabilly incorporating that character into the plot a little more,
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: versus is like this side character as like this kind
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: in a political statement, but at the same time not
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: really giving that character any ground to make more of
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: a political statement, versus just kind of being this like
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: a little haunting figure around the just around, you know.
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's kind of other than that. Like, I
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: love the film, I love the direction. Um, I would
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: give one nip to the whites of our Ash's eyes.
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, he's so so milky in those eyes
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: that scene where he's like realizing that she might be
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: involved in his father's death and his eyes are just
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: like moving back and forth, like I felt like I
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: was swimming in some lactose. But yes, I would give
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: two nips, specifically to that goddamn actor of a cat
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: like ship. Can we get that cat nominated? Get this
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: cat franchise for crying out loud? And then I would
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: give one to Sheilavan the girl. She's great, her like her.
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: Just the quiet she brought I thought was very well done.
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: What I learned from this movie is that I want
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: to be friends in Sheila Man. Yeah, yes, Sheila call
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: us baby, that's like and then um my half nip. Actually,
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: like this was a very interesting thing to me, of
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: like portraying an Iranian sex worker. Rarely do you ever
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: see an Iranian sex worker because again, in most Iranian films,
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: they'd rather not ever like be like, this woman is
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: a sex worker, because they don't even like to acknowledge
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: that that would be a thing in their culture, in
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: their society. And I think seeing that, I don't know,
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: there was something so like refreshing about it for me
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: to be like, yes, Iranian sex workers exist. They're people,
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: they do what they have to do to get by,
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: They make their own choices, they have their own agency,
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: And that was I don't know, it was really cool,
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: like I don't I don't even know how to explain
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: it other than like, I don't think I've ever seen
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: an Iranian sex worker in any movie I've ever seen
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: from Iran, Out of Iran by any sort of Iranian
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 1: related filmmaker. So yeah, that's that's how I distribute my
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: four point five nippy tipps, my tippy and my nippies.
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: Hell Y, well, Anna, thank you so much for being here.
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: Where can people follow you online and check out your stuff?
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: I'm at Anna host n A A N N A
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: H O S S N I e H what a
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: Persian last name? On Twitter? And I have a podcast
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: all about like kind of Middle Eastern culture and news,
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: and we interview a lot of people of color to
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: kind of give them, like spotlight them a little and
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: be like, hey man, it ain't all just the white.
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: But I host that with Sharne Eunice, who's this amazing
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: Syrian American filmmaker, artists, very funny person on Twitter. Follow
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: her as well, Yes, front of the cast she's been
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: on here go check out her episodes. It's called our
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: shows called ethnicly Ambiguous. I don't know for the title,
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: you can tell we are ethnically ambiguous, uh. And I
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: also host on the complete opposite spectrum of any sort
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: of knowledge, uh is the show called Deckheads, which is
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: all about Bravos below deck and I host that with
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: comedian Nick Turner and we cover every episode of the
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: TV show, and we just rip apart rich people limb
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 1: by limb and their behavior and how terrible they can be.
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: And there's something really interesting about it because it's made me.
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: A reality TV about rich people really hits the right
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: sort of mark right now for me, because I just
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: think it proves how much we need to like work
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: towards income and quality and like just like equality across
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: all boards. Because boy, or do you not look good
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: when you go on a yacht and lose your mind
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: and say a bunch of terrible things and treat people poorly.
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: I was like, and then you will let this be
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: on a reality show, because that's the other thing. It's like,
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: you're so okay, would that be haveavior? You're fine with
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: it being aired on TV. That's the problem. We shouldn't
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: be allowing that. That shouldn't be okay. We should all
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: be very empathetic towards other people and self aware that
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: how our behavior hurts or destroys other communities and other
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: like income levels and other you know, just everything. And uh,
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: we must have fund the police, okay. And that's uh,
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: that's kind of what I've learned from watching Below Deck.
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: I know you're all thinking how, but I'm like, I
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: watch it with a very critically so yeah, check that
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: out if you're into that, Yes, please do, and thanks
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: again for being here. You can follow us on Twitter
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: and Instagram at Bechtel Cast. You can subscribe to our
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: Patreon aka Matreon at patreon dot com slash packtel Cast.
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: It's five dollars a month and it gets you two
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: bonus episodes every month, plus access to the entire back
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: catalog of all of our Patreon episodes. You can also
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: check out our merch store at t public dot com
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: slash the Bechtel Cast for all of our merchandising needs
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: and thanks for listening, and watch out for vampires.