Latest / The Bechdel Cast / The Love Witch with Alyssa Onofreo
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: On the Doodcast, the questions asked if movies have women
- 0:04Speaker 1: and um are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
- 0:08Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
- 0:12Speaker 1: start changing it with the bec del Cast. Hey, Caitlin, Yeah, Jamie.
- 0:18Speaker 1: Do you feel like podcast hosts are supposed to please
- 0:22Speaker 1: each other? Do you think it's one podcast host responsibility
- 0:28Speaker 1: to bring pleasure to the other podcast host? Or am
- 0:32Speaker 1: I just thinking too binary about our media? Sounds to
- 0:36Speaker 1: me like you've been brainwashed by the patriarchy bike podcast
- 0:42Speaker 1: gotten or should I say the pod triarchy? Wow? How
- 0:48Speaker 1: about that? It's true? It's true. It makes you think,
- 0:52Speaker 1: it makes you think. I hope, I hope Jack is
- 0:55Speaker 1: listening to this because we've been brainwashed by the patriarch
- 1:00Speaker 1: a k a. Jacob Bryan with little devil ears on
- 1:05Speaker 1: top of him. Oh my gosh. Well that was what
- 1:09Speaker 1: I had for the intro. I was I was like,
- 1:11Speaker 1: maybe we'll start debating, like Trisian Elaine being like, I
- 1:15Speaker 1: don't know, I don't care if my podcast co host
- 1:18Speaker 1: feels pleasure, and then I would be like, but you
- 1:21Speaker 1: have to bring your podcast co host pleasure. That's our
- 1:26Speaker 1: that's why I was put on this earth, Jamie, I
- 1:29Speaker 1: want you to feel all the pleasure that you want
- 1:33Speaker 1: to feel. Now it sounds like work for me, and
- 1:36Speaker 1: I don't want to do it. Well, we already have
- 1:43Speaker 1: a lively debate going Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My
- 1:46Speaker 1: name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Durante, and
- 1:49Speaker 1: this is our show about movies in which we look
- 1:53Speaker 1: at them through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel
- 1:58Speaker 1: Test as a jumping off point. There's a lot more
- 2:01Speaker 1: to discuss, but we kick it off. Actually we end
- 2:05Speaker 1: the episode on the Bechdel test, so what are we talking?
- 2:08Speaker 1: And then sometimes we don't even remember to do it.
- 2:11Speaker 1: As as we've said multiple times, it's so fun to like,
- 2:15Speaker 1: and not in a way that it's got your ass,
- 2:17Speaker 1: but in a way that you're like, oh, okay, just
- 2:19Speaker 1: like you know how people will tell like simple social
- 2:22Speaker 1: wise before, like oh I love your pig whatever, you know,
- 2:27Speaker 1: But when someone says that about the Becktel Cast and
- 2:29Speaker 1: then they're like, yeah, that's such a cool idea figuring
- 2:32Speaker 1: out if movies past the Bechdel test, I was like, oh,
- 2:35Speaker 1: so you have not actually have not actually listened. And
- 2:40Speaker 1: then I go to their little cabin upstate and I
- 2:45Speaker 1: kill them because they fall in love with me so
- 2:48Speaker 1: hard that they die. Yeah, and then you piston ship
- 2:51Speaker 1: and put your tampons in a jar, and then there's
- 2:55Speaker 1: voice over about like, this is actually really cool that
- 2:58Speaker 1: I'm doing this, and I did that was one of
- 3:02Speaker 1: my favorite parts when she's doing like the grossest thing
- 3:05Speaker 1: I can think of, and then there's a voiceover that's like, actually,
- 3:09Speaker 1: this is people need to chill out about the fact
- 3:12Speaker 1: that I'm putting my pisth and ship in a jar.
- 3:15Speaker 1: And I'm like, wow, makes you think, makes you think? Yeah?
- 3:21Speaker 1: So what is the Bechtel Test? Though? Oh yeah, okay,
- 3:26Speaker 1: So the Bechtel Test is a media metric created by
- 3:30Speaker 1: queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Is sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test.
- 3:35Speaker 1: There's many versions of the test, but the version we
- 3:38Speaker 1: use is that a piece of media should feature at
- 3:42Speaker 1: least one exchange between two people of a marginalized gender
- 3:47Speaker 1: with names, and they must speak to each other about
- 3:50Speaker 1: something other than a man, and for our purposes, it
- 3:54Speaker 1: has to be a meaningful exchange. I won't even get
- 3:57Speaker 1: into it too much, because this movie passes pretty handily.
- 4:01Speaker 1: I feel like we don't need to like split, maybe
- 4:03Speaker 1: not as handily as I would have expected it does,
- 4:07Speaker 1: but like, yeah, okay, Caitlin is gonna be hard on.
- 4:12Speaker 1: It's gonna be Caitlin did not like the movie. I
- 4:15Speaker 1: don't know how I feel about the movie. I'm in
- 4:17Speaker 1: too chaotic a headspace. But that is why we bring
- 4:21Speaker 1: a guest on, because we don't know shit about ship
- 4:26Speaker 1: at times, and I feel like in the horror genre,
- 4:29Speaker 1: we that is, that's where we've been, that's where we're at,
- 4:33Speaker 1: and so we have to bring on extra special experts
- 4:37Speaker 1: in the genre to explain to us what the funk
- 4:40Speaker 1: is going on. So let's bring guests. I love this movie.
- 4:44Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Unemasginedly love this movie.
- 4:49Speaker 1: I've seen it definitely more than six times. I was
- 4:52Speaker 1: trying to count last night when I watched it this
- 4:54Speaker 1: past time. So at least six maybe minimum, tin maybe
- 4:59Speaker 1: like at least in Yeah, I don't know. Okay, Well, okay,
- 5:02Speaker 1: so the voice you just heard is that of director
- 5:04Speaker 1: of social Media at Crypt TV, where there's an there's
- 5:08Speaker 1: a new show coming out this fall called Girl in
- 5:10Speaker 1: the Woods. It's streaming on Peacock TV. It was co
- 5:14Speaker 1: executive produced by our guest from last week's episode, Jasmine Johnson,
- 5:18Speaker 1: so be sure to check out The Girl in the Woods.
- 5:22Speaker 1: This week's guest is Alyssa and not Freyo. Hello, Welcome, Welcome,
- 5:28Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. A big fan
- 5:30Speaker 1: of the longtime listener. Yay, thanks, thanks for coming on.
- 5:35Speaker 1: We're so stoked to have you. And we're like because
- 5:38Speaker 1: you're you and also because you know so much about horror,
- 5:42Speaker 1: and as we were just alluding to, it's not a
- 5:44Speaker 1: genre either of us have a huge history with so
- 5:50Speaker 1: before so we're covering the Love which at twenty sixteen movie.
- 5:55Speaker 1: And so Alyssa, let's start by just talking about like
- 5:58Speaker 1: your history with horror, because I'm interested in, like what
- 6:02Speaker 1: draws you to the genre, what got you in, and
- 6:04Speaker 1: then we'll kind of get into the movie. So, growing up,
- 6:07Speaker 1: I was not into horror. I was Disney movies only childhood,
- 6:12Speaker 1: Like my parents did not allow anything beyond that. And uh,
- 6:17Speaker 1: I think I saw The Shining in college, which I
- 6:19Speaker 1: really liked. But my foreign of horror experience was my
- 6:22Speaker 1: freshman year of high school. At a boy girls sleepover,
- 6:26Speaker 1: they played Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the remake, and it was
- 6:30Speaker 1: the scariest fucking thing that's ever happened to me, and
- 6:34Speaker 1: it was Yeah, it was horrible. I was like, I
- 6:37Speaker 1: never want to see another horror movie again. That was horrible.
- 6:39Speaker 1: And also everyone was pranking each other all night, so
- 6:41Speaker 1: it was like extra spooky. So I saw I swaw
- 6:45Speaker 1: off horror for a while. And then college, I liked
- 6:47Speaker 1: the Shining that I took a class where I had
- 6:49Speaker 1: to watch The Ring. Walked out of that screening straight up,
- 6:54Speaker 1: was like, no, this is too scary. I saw The
- 6:57Speaker 1: Ring probably I don't remember when that movie came out,
- 7:00Speaker 1: but I saw it at my cousin's house shortly after
- 7:02Speaker 1: it came out, and I like pissed myself and had
- 7:05Speaker 1: to go home. That movie is very scary. It's so scary.
- 7:09Speaker 1: I can't watch that. I have not gone back to
- 7:13Speaker 1: Texas Chansaw. I tried to watch the seventies one. I'm
- 7:16Speaker 1: still like, it's not about it. It's too scary. It's
- 7:19Speaker 1: just like, yeah, trauma, memory's scary. Then I saw Alien
- 7:23Speaker 1: and Aliens and I was like, wait, what the funk
- 7:26Speaker 1: this was a movie in the eighties and no one
- 7:28Speaker 1: told me about it until I'm fucking furious. Uh. And
- 7:35Speaker 1: then I also saw the Thing that year and I
- 7:37Speaker 1: was like, wait, this was here the whole time and
- 7:40Speaker 1: no one told me. And then I also saw Evil
- 7:42Speaker 1: Dead too, and I just loved all of that, like
- 7:46Speaker 1: super extreme creature and like, I really love campy horror stone. Also,
- 7:52Speaker 1: I've been and so I've been working at krypt since.
- 7:55Speaker 1: So I'm coming up on my four year anniversary. Um
- 8:00Speaker 1: can't but yeah, the company has come a long way.
- 8:03Speaker 1: But we we make we're digital multimedia companies. We've started
- 8:07Speaker 1: by making short films on Facebook and YouTube and now
- 8:10Speaker 1: we have show on Peacock. I make TikTok's with our
- 8:13Speaker 1: monsters and they do a bunch of really silly stuff.
- 8:17Speaker 1: There's there's a TikTok of the Looksie, one of our monsters,
- 8:20Speaker 1: with this guy Johnny bridge Hold and they're like flirting
- 8:23Speaker 1: with each other and Tricy Mittel liked it on Twitter,
- 8:26Speaker 1: so like that's like one of my things that I
- 8:29Speaker 1: was part of, and I'm like, you've made it my dream,
- 8:32Speaker 1: I've made it, Yeah, exactly, That's so cool. Okay. And
- 8:37Speaker 1: then so so you like know your ship. It does
- 8:40Speaker 1: bring me some comfort that you're also a latecomer to
- 8:43Speaker 1: the genre, because I feel like there's a lot of
- 8:45Speaker 1: the horror horror fans I've spoken with in the past,
- 8:48Speaker 1: they're like, I was born, I was born into horror.
- 8:53Speaker 1: There definitely is some like gate keepiness about some of
- 8:57Speaker 1: the community. There are other people I've found that the
- 9:01Speaker 1: crypt community has definitely built themselves around are the people
- 9:03Speaker 1: who are just lovers of horror who want to share
- 9:07Speaker 1: it with other people and want to welcome people in
- 9:10Speaker 1: wherever you know that ends up being. So I have
- 9:13Speaker 1: another friend of mine, this guy dead Meat, who does
- 9:15Speaker 1: a kill Count YouTube channel, and yeah, I think about yeah,
- 9:19Speaker 1: oh yeah. So for a lot of kids who don't
- 9:21Speaker 1: watch the horror movies, they can watch the kill Count
- 9:23Speaker 1: and it's like a silly way of like getting into
- 9:25Speaker 1: horror or like watching something that is too scary for you.
- 9:28Speaker 1: So yeah, there's a lot of horror fans that are
- 9:31Speaker 1: more welcoming and want to get people in. Nice Oh
- 9:34Speaker 1: my gosh. So then as far as your relationship with
- 9:38Speaker 1: the Love, which you said you love it and you've
- 9:42Speaker 1: seen it several times. I love this movie. Yeah, so
- 9:46Speaker 1: it came out in sixteen. I saw it. I think
- 9:49Speaker 1: it was because they were doing a screening of it
- 9:52Speaker 1: at the New Beverley and they had a bunch of
- 9:54Speaker 1: Annabeller's original paintings hung up in the theater. So there
- 9:59Speaker 1: was a night where she was there, I think, but
- 10:01Speaker 1: I didn't see her in person, but I did get
- 10:03Speaker 1: to see all of her original paintings because she directed, wrote, produced,
- 10:08Speaker 1: made the costumes, made the sets, the score. Yeah yeah,
- 10:13Speaker 1: everything she did everything that blew me away, because yeah,
- 10:16Speaker 1: I was like, it took her like, what like seven
- 10:19Speaker 1: years to make this movie. Yeah, so wild. Yeah. So,
- 10:22Speaker 1: So another friend of mine had seen it at the
- 10:24Speaker 1: New Beverley and was like, Melissa, this is exactly your ship.
- 10:28Speaker 1: You need to go, Like do you love spooky stuff
- 10:31Speaker 1: and like sixties mud horror, campy like CULTI And so
- 10:37Speaker 1: I went and I saw and I was like, It's
- 10:39Speaker 1: just the best thing I've ever seen. I just also
- 10:42Speaker 1: seeing it in a theater with people, everyone was laughing.
- 10:45Speaker 1: And so there have been other times since then. I'm
- 10:48Speaker 1: now showing it to people and I've been like looking
- 10:49Speaker 1: at them expectedly and they're like, I don't know how
- 10:52Speaker 1: to react to this, like, I'm kind of freaked out, hello,
- 10:56Speaker 1: because Caitlin and I had like different degrees of reaction
- 10:59Speaker 1: to that, and it does. I can't see how seeing
- 11:02Speaker 1: this movie in a theater would have made a difference,
- 11:05Speaker 1: because it does feel like especially with part of my
- 11:09Speaker 1: so my history with this movie is I have no
- 11:11Speaker 1: history with this movie, and I was very excited that
- 11:14Speaker 1: you brought it to us because they had heard of
- 11:16Speaker 1: it several times. But I just had no I didn't
- 11:19Speaker 1: know anything because this movie is streaming and a lot
- 11:23Speaker 1: of places, and I was really stoked to watch it,
- 11:25Speaker 1: and I felt like I didn't have the pre existing
- 11:30Speaker 1: knowledge of what was being like pastiche to understand some
- 11:36Speaker 1: of the references. So I'm excited to go through them
- 11:38Speaker 1: because I think that, like I mean, in terms of
- 11:40Speaker 1: like if you showed me this movie and I did
- 11:45Speaker 1: not know when it came out, would not have been
- 11:48Speaker 1: like I feel like she nailed making it seem like
- 11:52Speaker 1: a movie from the seventies, Like in every single respect,
- 11:55Speaker 1: I never would have guessed that this came out in
- 11:57Speaker 1: the last ten years. You know, it's shot on thirty
- 12:01Speaker 1: five millimeter film and she's done. She did a lot
- 12:04Speaker 1: of collecting of vintage items, furniture and clothing and a
- 12:09Speaker 1: lot of stuff she remade herself. There are several tells though,
- 12:12Speaker 1: because there are modern cars and literally opens a cell phone.
- 12:18Speaker 1: Oh my god, I call in the restaurant. That's so.
- 12:22Speaker 1: There are two other references. There's a Stepford Wives References
- 12:25Speaker 1: which comes out in two and they referenced DNA testing,
- 12:29Speaker 1: which does not come into practice until So those are
- 12:34Speaker 1: the tales. So yeah, it's like I feel, I I
- 12:37Speaker 1: have a lot of questions and things I want to
- 12:39Speaker 1: like talk through and then criticisms as well. But I
- 12:42Speaker 1: do I mean, on its face, the like, I feel
- 12:46Speaker 1: like I'm gonna skew towards giving this movie the benefit
- 12:49Speaker 1: of the doubt in a lot of areas because it's
- 12:51Speaker 1: such a labor of love, and it's like I feel,
- 12:54Speaker 1: you know, it's like almost no directors get the chance
- 12:58Speaker 1: to do every single part of a movie and work
- 13:01Speaker 1: on it for the better part of a decade. And
- 13:03Speaker 1: the fact that a like a woman whose entire mission
- 13:08Speaker 1: statement for her whole career has been to see things
- 13:11Speaker 1: through the female gaze and and channel that I think
- 13:14Speaker 1: is so admirable and just really fucking cool. So I'm yeah,
- 13:18Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk about it. UM. Caitlin, what's your
- 13:21Speaker 1: history with The Love Which? I had never seen it either,
- 13:25Speaker 1: It's only been the past three or four days since
- 13:28Speaker 1: I first saw it. I will similarly have to talk
- 13:33Speaker 1: through my feelings. Caitlyn hated it. She hate this movie.
- 13:38Speaker 1: I'm sorry everybody, but I don't like it. Um. I
- 13:43Speaker 1: think it has a lot to do with wait for listeners.
- 13:48Speaker 1: Alyssa just pant over to a framed poster she has
- 13:51Speaker 1: of the Love Witch. I also dressed as a love
- 13:55Speaker 1: Which for Halloween. In no way that's as good. I
- 14:00Speaker 1: did the rainbow code. You did the rainbow The rainbow
- 14:03Speaker 1: code was gorgeous, and then knowing that Annabeller made the
- 14:07Speaker 1: rainbow coat made it better. Like, that's so cool. I'm
- 14:11Speaker 1: excited that Kayle hated it, though, because I'm excited to
- 14:14Speaker 1: have this conversation and this is exactly what I wanted. Okay,
- 14:18Speaker 1: this is an open forum, baby, I'm I'm a centrist. Okay, yeah,
- 14:25Speaker 1: the spectrum is represented here. UM. As far as how
- 14:29Speaker 1: you might feel about The Love Which, UM, I will
- 14:32Speaker 1: try not to come down too too hard on it
- 14:34Speaker 1: because there are some things that it's attempting that I appreciate.
- 14:39Speaker 1: But then there's like I have a whole other, like
- 14:42Speaker 1: monologue prepared about what it means to be a true feminist,
- 14:46Speaker 1: and that means that I can hate a feminist piece
- 14:49Speaker 1: of art and that's okay, yeah spicy, I know. Yeah.
- 14:53Speaker 1: I mean, well that's been we've been talking about that since.
- 14:56Speaker 1: Is like equality means that every one can be mediocre
- 15:01Speaker 1: ship and that's fine. Can bet, yeah, girl can bet?
- 15:07Speaker 1: But if I girl, oh no, must like other girl things.
- 15:15Speaker 1: But women support women, okay. Always. I feel like that's
- 15:20Speaker 1: what was that horrible movie. I feel like that's bombshell feminism.
- 15:24Speaker 1: That's like I have to empathize with Gretchen Carlson because
- 15:28Speaker 1: we're and you're like, no, I do not, baby, I
- 15:32Speaker 1: do not. Like, Yeah, I'm excited to get into that
- 15:36Speaker 1: because it's like, yeah, it's like if it's not your thing,
- 15:38Speaker 1: it's not your thing. Like that's fine, yeah, all right,
- 15:42Speaker 1: should we should we get into it? Let's get into it. Yeah,
- 15:46Speaker 1: you want to recap she want to recap it. I'll
- 15:48Speaker 1: be recapping it. Here we go. So, as we said,
- 15:52Speaker 1: the movie is very visually stylistic and homage and perhaps
- 15:57Speaker 1: even parody of like pulp novels and like technicolor B
- 16:04Speaker 1: movie melodramas of the nineties sixties. Down to the acting style,
- 16:09Speaker 1: to which I appreciate. I wasn't expecting that. I felt
- 16:13Speaker 1: like that was, like, the visuals are beautiful. Knowing that
- 16:16Speaker 1: the director made all the visuals is really cool to know.
- 16:19Speaker 1: But I felt like it was like kind of the
- 16:20Speaker 1: act the B movie acting that sold me on it. Weirdly,
- 16:25Speaker 1: I don't know, because I don't know how to describe
- 16:28Speaker 1: what kind of acting it is that they're doing. It's
- 16:32Speaker 1: not great. It's very stilted dialogue and like you can see,
- 16:36Speaker 1: at least for me, like I feel like I can
- 16:38Speaker 1: see the directing and I can like hear what directions
- 16:41Speaker 1: she gave the actors. And also there are many there
- 16:43Speaker 1: are a few points. I can't remember the woman's name
- 16:45Speaker 1: who's like the Queen of the Witches or whatever, but
- 16:49Speaker 1: she's like clearly looking at a card off camera, Barbara Barbara.
- 16:54Speaker 1: She's like very clearly like reading off of a card,
- 16:57Speaker 1: being like whiches have always been burned, and keeps looking
- 17:01Speaker 1: back and forth. And there's like no big names in
- 17:04Speaker 1: this movie, so it's hard, like it was kind of
- 17:07Speaker 1: fun to be Like, I wonder if that actor legitimately
- 17:10Speaker 1: has no talent or if they're playing a game of
- 17:12Speaker 1: four d ches. I don't know about hard to say,
- 17:15Speaker 1: but I thought Samantha Robinson was really, really, really good
- 17:18Speaker 1: in this part. It's I don't know how many actors
- 17:23Speaker 1: can but I okay, well we disagree on that. Like
- 17:26Speaker 1: I think she was in terms of like what it
- 17:29Speaker 1: seems like they wanted her to do, she did it.
- 17:31Speaker 1: I think she nailed this part. I think she fucking
- 17:34Speaker 1: was perfect for it. I don't think that anyone else
- 17:36Speaker 1: could have done it and sold it this way. But
- 17:38Speaker 1: I've never seen her in anything before. She's also in
- 17:41Speaker 1: this movie called Cam. She's not the main character of it,
- 17:43Speaker 1: but it's about a cam girl and like a competing
- 17:47Speaker 1: we've we've had Issa on the Pot before. Oh yeah, okay, yeah,
- 17:51Speaker 1: I think I definitely listened to your episode. Yeah. I
- 17:54Speaker 1: think that she came on for easy A Yes anyway, yes, okay,
- 17:59Speaker 1: So we meet that character Elaine. She's driving in a
- 18:02Speaker 1: red convertible. Her voice over tells us that she's starting
- 18:07Speaker 1: a new life. We see shots of a man drinking
- 18:12Speaker 1: something that seems to be poisoned. It turns out that
- 18:14Speaker 1: this is her ex husband Jerry, who she may or
- 18:19Speaker 1: may not have murdered. Then Elaine gets pulled over by
- 18:23Speaker 1: a cop. We'll put a pin in that guy. But
- 18:28Speaker 1: then she continues on her way. Her voice over continues
- 18:32Speaker 1: and she basically is saying, like, when Jerry left me,
- 18:36Speaker 1: I devoured everything I could about how to get your
- 18:39Speaker 1: man back. So she's on a mission. She arrives at
- 18:44Speaker 1: this house she's moving into. This woman Trish lets her in,
- 18:50Speaker 1: and then she and Trish go to this Victorian tea
- 18:53Speaker 1: room where they have a conversation about love and romance
- 18:59Speaker 1: and please using men love Trish rooting for Trish um.
- 19:07Speaker 1: Elaine tells Trish how the day her husband Jerry left
- 19:10Speaker 1: her was the day that she died, but then she
- 19:13Speaker 1: was reborn as a witch. Uh. Then we see Elaine
- 19:20Speaker 1: making a love potion and she sort of like praise
- 19:26Speaker 1: to the goddess to be sent a beautiful sweet man.
- 19:30Speaker 1: Then she meets this guy Wayne, and she has him
- 19:34Speaker 1: take her to his house in the woods, where she
- 19:38Speaker 1: gives him her potion and mesmerizes him with some dancing
- 19:45Speaker 1: and also the lining of her coat and also this
- 19:48Speaker 1: hallucinigenic herbs. Yes, I figured that was part of the potion.
- 19:55Speaker 1: Wayne is I mean, you know r I p in
- 20:00Speaker 1: a second. But Wayne is such a piece of work
- 20:04Speaker 1: where I just never knew how he was, Like just
- 20:07Speaker 1: such a what was what was the word he used
- 20:09Speaker 1: to describe himself. That was just a way of saying horny,
- 20:12Speaker 1: like a libertine Like yeah, I was just like, okay,
- 20:15Speaker 1: so you're a horny Like it makes me laugh so
- 20:18Speaker 1: much when horny people use fancy words to describe themselves.
- 20:21Speaker 1: I'm like, you could just say your horny and we'll
- 20:23Speaker 1: all know what you're saying. And it doesn't make you
- 20:25Speaker 1: a genius to be horny. Sorry, Like you're not like
- 20:30Speaker 1: galaxy horny nous what people intellectualize being horny. It cracks
- 20:36Speaker 1: me up. Um, So he has drink this potion that
- 20:42Speaker 1: he doesn't know is this love potion, and then he's
- 20:44Speaker 1: all like, ah, I feel so weird, and then they
- 20:48Speaker 1: have sex, and then he seems to very painfully fall
- 20:52Speaker 1: in love with her to the point where he dies.
- 20:56Speaker 1: It becomes from it. It's like he it almost like
- 21:00Speaker 1: he almost like Benjamin Buttons, where he becomes more and
- 21:03Speaker 1: more baby like and then he dies. Yeah, he's like
- 21:08Speaker 1: screaming and crying. Yeah, like he's calling for his mom
- 21:15Speaker 1: and then he and then he dies and then he dies.
- 21:18Speaker 1: That was fascinating. So he dies, and then she buries
- 21:23Speaker 1: his body, along with a witch bottle that she makes
- 21:27Speaker 1: that she puts her urine and a used tampon into.
- 21:33Speaker 1: Then she meets up with some witch friends at a
- 21:37Speaker 1: burlesque show, Barbara and gayan I'm not sure. Um. They
- 21:44Speaker 1: talk about love spells and how Elaine should be careful
- 21:47Speaker 1: with using them, and they talk about how they as
- 21:52Speaker 1: women need to approach love and sex and it's mostly
- 21:56Speaker 1: gay and being like this is how women should have love,
- 22:00Speaker 1: this is how women should sex, and dancing sexy is
- 22:04Speaker 1: actually good chicken soup for the for the lady, you're
- 22:08Speaker 1: just like, shut up, okay. And again it's like that
- 22:13Speaker 1: actor I thought did a really good job of making
- 22:15Speaker 1: me want them to stop talking just being real nasty,
- 22:20Speaker 1: just being a gross person. Yes, then we get what
- 22:26Speaker 1: might be a flashback but also just might be the
- 22:29Speaker 1: next scene, which is a just kind of like ceremonial
- 22:33Speaker 1: ritual where a lane I think it's like inducted into
- 22:38Speaker 1: the witch coven or there's some induction type ritual. Okay,
- 22:44Speaker 1: got it. Then we cut to the cop that had
- 22:49Speaker 1: pulled a lane over at the beginning of the movie.
- 22:51Speaker 1: This is Sergeant Griff Meadows. He has been promoted and
- 22:56Speaker 1: now he's a detective who starts investigating the death of Wayne,
- 23:04Speaker 1: the guy who died after taking Elaine's love potion. They
- 23:09Speaker 1: find his buried body and the witch bottle that Elaine
- 23:13Speaker 1: left behind with her tampon and urine. I was like,
- 23:17Speaker 1: Elaine really does leave behind a lot of evidence, evidence
- 23:23Speaker 1: for an evidence like that was I was like, Okay,
- 23:25Speaker 1: it's very campy because she has just left like so
- 23:29Speaker 1: many different ways to identify her on the scene, a
- 23:33Speaker 1: very shallow grave with you everything that belongs to her
- 23:36Speaker 1: bodily and physically right on top, like just a pile
- 23:41Speaker 1: of different DNA samples, and here's my driver's license, and
- 23:46Speaker 1: here's my birth want, here's my actually my phone number,
- 23:51Speaker 1: and feel free to text. So, like, the cops find
- 23:55Speaker 1: the body because the teacher that works with Wayne is
- 24:00Speaker 1: kind of seeing what's happening and she reports him missing,
- 24:02Speaker 1: and so that's why the cops go up there. Right
- 24:05Speaker 1: that woman also saw Wayne leave with Elaine, so the
- 24:12Speaker 1: mountain of evidence just keeps piling up real stacked against her.
- 24:19Speaker 1: So this investigation is happening. Meanwhile, Elaine has dinner with Richard.
- 24:25Speaker 1: This is Tricia's husband while Trish is out of town.
- 24:30Speaker 1: Elane feeds him some love potion. Is what I think
- 24:35Speaker 1: we're meant to understand happens. She's seducing him and he's like,
- 24:41Speaker 1: who are you and she's like, I'm the love witch
- 24:44Speaker 1: and we're like that's like, She's like, yeah, I'm the
- 24:51Speaker 1: love witch. And then we see another witchy ceremony where
- 24:56Speaker 1: Elaine tells Barbara that she broke things off with Richard
- 25:01Speaker 1: and so she's now back in the dating pool, and
- 25:04Speaker 1: she does like that classic thing where she's like, yeah,
- 25:07Speaker 1: things didn't work out, Like every time someone definitely dies,
- 25:11Speaker 1: she's like, I don't know what happened. I guess it's
- 25:14Speaker 1: just didn't work out. I was like, wow, been there,
- 25:20Speaker 1: That's why I identified worth about yeah. Um. So then
- 25:26Speaker 1: Sergeant Griff continues to investigate. He speaks to a professor
- 25:31Speaker 1: who specializes in the occult and then he speaks to
- 25:35Speaker 1: the owner of this witchy apothecary type store and she
- 25:40Speaker 1: tells Griff about Elaine. So he pays Elaine a visit
- 25:45Speaker 1: to ask her some questions about what might be a homicide,
- 25:49Speaker 1: and he's like, are you a witch? And she's like yeah,
- 25:54Speaker 1: I'm like okay, she's honest. And then he's like, do
- 25:56Speaker 1: you know Wayne Peters And she's like nah, and we're
- 25:59Speaker 1: like just kidding, but then he gets all like wooed
- 26:05Speaker 1: by her and she's like, we're meant to be together,
- 26:10Speaker 1: and then they start dating and he takes her horseback riding,
- 26:13Speaker 1: and while their horseback riding, they happened upon a Renaissance
- 26:18Speaker 1: fair where they're kind of like ca noodling and they
- 26:21Speaker 1: do this like long scene at the lone really long
- 26:26Speaker 1: scene at the Renaissance fair, and it's like, once again,
- 26:29Speaker 1: it's like, on my first watch of this movie, I
- 26:31Speaker 1: wasn't aware that the director had made every single piece,
- 26:35Speaker 1: And I'm like, I guess if I had made all
- 26:37Speaker 1: of those Renaissance clothes, I would have made that scene
- 26:40Speaker 1: last longer too. But that's also why I would hire
- 26:43Speaker 1: a costume designers so I would be less precious about
- 26:47Speaker 1: about it. That scene was really long. Yeah, she spent
- 26:50Speaker 1: a year on the costumes for that scene. A loan
- 26:53Speaker 1: I can't, but I mean, they were gorgeous. But I
- 26:55Speaker 1: was like, wow, we sure are spending a lot of
- 26:57Speaker 1: time here. But then in retrospects, second viewing, I was like, Okay,
- 27:01Speaker 1: I get it, I understand. I will say that this
- 27:04Speaker 1: scene did traumatize me a bit because a renaissance fair
- 27:08Speaker 1: is where I had my sledge attack, and so it
- 27:12Speaker 1: really brought back some some bad memory you know, if
- 27:16Speaker 1: you know, you know? Um? Okay. Anyway, so they go
- 27:20Speaker 1: to this ren fair and they have this kind of
- 27:24Speaker 1: like fake marriage ceremony, and then we hear Griff's voice
- 27:29Speaker 1: over about how love makes a man soft and how
- 27:33Speaker 1: an ideal woman doesn't exist. But it also seems like
- 27:37Speaker 1: he's falling in love with her. I do not think
- 27:39Speaker 1: he is. She has like fed him any potion, but
- 27:42Speaker 1: he is like smitten with her, to the point where
- 27:45Speaker 1: he refuses to investigate Wayne's death any further because he
- 27:49Speaker 1: no longer suspects Elaine of killing him. She's to his
- 27:53Speaker 1: girlfriend to be guilty. Then Trish discus over's her husband
- 28:01Speaker 1: Richard dead, having died by suicide. Then we cut to
- 28:05Speaker 1: a scene where Trish and Elaine have tea again and
- 28:10Speaker 1: Trish talks about how she blames herself for Richard's death
- 28:13Speaker 1: and how she suspects Richard was having an affair she
- 28:17Speaker 1: doesn't know with whom, but she wants to kill whoever
- 28:20Speaker 1: it was with. Then Trish discovers that it was Elaine
- 28:25Speaker 1: who had the affair with Richard, and Elaine comes home,
- 28:30Speaker 1: Trish is there, and then they fight at she's there
- 28:34Speaker 1: wearing a we like looking like late, I feel like that.
- 28:39Speaker 1: We gotta mention that. Yeah, I really did enjoy that part.
- 28:43Speaker 1: It's like, what is this like single white female, like
- 28:47Speaker 1: little road we're pulling up on. But I was like,
- 28:51Speaker 1: all right, let's see where this goes. And it kind
- 28:53Speaker 1: of didn't go anywhere, but whatever. It's fun to watch
- 28:56Speaker 1: because then Trish there's like a dagger involved, but no
- 28:59Speaker 1: one gets injured. And then Trish just like runs out
- 29:03Speaker 1: and then goes to the police um and like gives
- 29:06Speaker 1: Griff even more evidence. And then Elaine and Griff meet
- 29:11Speaker 1: up at the Burlesque Club and he's like, hey, Elaine,
- 29:16Speaker 1: the DNA testing came back and it's your DNA and
- 29:20Speaker 1: she's like, so, She's like, I didn't kill anyone. They
- 29:26Speaker 1: died because they were so in love with me and
- 29:28Speaker 1: he's like, um, you're still under arrest. And then all
- 29:32Speaker 1: the patrons at this burlesque club attack her and they're like,
- 29:37Speaker 1: burn the witch, Burn the witch. Griff helps her get away.
- 29:41Speaker 1: Then they're back at her place and she's like, Griff,
- 29:44Speaker 1: everything's going to be okay. I love you so much,
- 29:47Speaker 1: and then she tries to give him a love potion
- 29:51Speaker 1: but he tosses it aside, so she stabs him to
- 29:56Speaker 1: death in the chest. Lived happily ever after. The one
- 30:02Speaker 1: thing that killed and I were like, oh, she killed
- 30:04Speaker 1: the cop at the end, because there was so much
- 30:06Speaker 1: of this and I'm like, oh, this is playing out
- 30:08Speaker 1: like Lana del Ray's life. I hate it. But she
- 30:13Speaker 1: does kill the cops. She does kill the cop a
- 30:15Speaker 1: dand but then she has a fantasy about them getting
- 30:19Speaker 1: married and riding away together on a white horse, just
- 30:22Speaker 1: the way she described her like fantasy fairy tale. So
- 30:26Speaker 1: that is the story. Let's take a quick break and
- 30:29Speaker 1: then we'll come right back to discuss and we're back
- 30:40Speaker 1: so okay. So that where I wanted to start with with.
- 30:43Speaker 1: I want to kind of like get the bigger criticisms
- 30:46Speaker 1: out of the way so we can jump into like
- 30:49Speaker 1: movie discussion. So one of the things that really jumped
- 30:53Speaker 1: out to me about just like the premise of this
- 30:56Speaker 1: movie without even getting into what is really actually happening,
- 31:00Speaker 1: is getting into just like white Girl, which culture which
- 31:04Speaker 1: I feel like has always been a thing, but has
- 31:07Speaker 1: been kind of steadily on the rise in the past,
- 31:10Speaker 1: I want to say, like five to ten years, and
- 31:12Speaker 1: if it feels like something that this movie is very
- 31:15Speaker 1: much interacting with, and I feel like it's not. I know, Caitling,
- 31:21Speaker 1: you you have some stuff on this as well. It's
- 31:24Speaker 1: it's not something that you know, it's really within our
- 31:26Speaker 1: purview to completely unpack in the space of an episode,
- 31:30Speaker 1: But I just wanted to sort of acknowledge it because
- 31:33Speaker 1: it is so I mean, if I feel like it.
- 31:35Speaker 1: It follows so many kind of frustrating and unfortunate media
- 31:40Speaker 1: trends that are essentially white women co opting black and
- 31:45Speaker 1: indigenous culture in order to center themselves in narratives or
- 31:50Speaker 1: cultural practices or or whatever it is. Um and it
- 31:54Speaker 1: feels like, especially in particular, like the idea of Witchcraft,
- 32:00Speaker 1: most of the famous quote unquote like which is in
- 32:04Speaker 1: popular media are white ladies. And I wanted to shout
- 32:08Speaker 1: out one essay in particular that I thought was like
- 32:11Speaker 1: just so incredibly good. Well, we'll link it in the description. Um.
- 32:16Speaker 1: It's by a Navajo writer named Leu Cornum in The
- 32:20Speaker 1: New Inquiry, and it's called White Magic. That interestingly, uh,
- 32:26Speaker 1: their thesis kind of centers around another another movie we've
- 32:29Speaker 1: covered on this show, and so it's not in conversation
- 32:35Speaker 1: with The Love Which directly because I do think that
- 32:37Speaker 1: The Love Which is so campy that it kind of
- 32:40Speaker 1: manages to skirt some of this conversation, whereas the Vivich
- 32:46Speaker 1: is taking itself very seriously, so that the criticism feels like, Okay,
- 32:51Speaker 1: we really have to tell what is the name of
- 32:54Speaker 1: that director again? Who's like I went to the library?
- 32:58Speaker 1: Is it Robert Egger's Is that? Am I getting that right? Yeah?
- 33:01Speaker 1: I always want to say Robert Evans, but like that's
- 33:03Speaker 1: just my friend, Like that's not That's not who made
- 33:07Speaker 1: the Vivic at all. Yeah, Robert Eggers. And then he
- 33:12Speaker 1: has that iconic quote that was like I went to
- 33:14Speaker 1: the library, like and that was how he learned about
- 33:19Speaker 1: women and indigenous culture, and it's like, why did you
- 33:22Speaker 1: make this movie? Anyways? Luke Horner wrote this really good
- 33:26Speaker 1: essay that discusses the Vivich and also discusses other really
- 33:30Speaker 1: popular movies that have come out that center around white
- 33:34Speaker 1: women as witches. So think, I mean a lot of
- 33:38Speaker 1: movies we've covered on the show, Think the Craft, Think
- 33:41Speaker 1: Practical Magic, like Pincus, Pocus, pocus Pocus. Yes, like these
- 33:46Speaker 1: are all name checked in in the essay, But essentially
- 33:50Speaker 1: I mean, I I would really recommend that listeners read.
- 33:53Speaker 1: It's kind of a long essay, so you should also
- 33:55Speaker 1: read it for yourself. I want to quote a little
- 33:58Speaker 1: bit of it. But they're making the argum meant that
- 34:01Speaker 1: while it's not untrue that white women have practiced witchcraft
- 34:06Speaker 1: for a long time, no one saying that that isn't true. However,
- 34:10Speaker 1: it is often at the expense of, or the erasure
- 34:14Speaker 1: of black or Indigenous people. So I'm going to quote
- 34:20Speaker 1: a little bit here. They talk a lot about the
- 34:22Speaker 1: Salem witch trials, which is again a true event that
- 34:26Speaker 1: happened that specifically centers white women in the historical retelling
- 34:30Speaker 1: of it, even though there are many black and Indigenous
- 34:33Speaker 1: women who are affected by witch trials. So okay, Luke
- 34:37Speaker 1: Horton says, quote actual witch hunts of the past, such
- 34:40Speaker 1: as the Salem witch trials, followed from a fear of
- 34:43Speaker 1: Indigenous women and their role in forms of governance alternative
- 34:46Speaker 1: to those of the Foundling country, along with genocidal tactics
- 34:50Speaker 1: of sexual violence. Early settlers also worked through their fear
- 34:53Speaker 1: by projecting it elsewhere, the hyper visibility and necessarily spectacular
- 34:58Speaker 1: aspects of which trials a white women were an arena
- 35:01Speaker 1: to handle physically and politically the threat of indigenous societies
- 35:05Speaker 1: where women were in power. Beyond the events at Salem
- 35:08Speaker 1: historical spectacle as formative to America as the Thanksgiving myth,
- 35:12Speaker 1: unruly women, be they Native, black, or white, have continuously
- 35:16Speaker 1: been post as savage and placed outside the enclosed boundaries
- 35:19Speaker 1: of civilization and nation, and a move towards symbolic enclosure.
- 35:23Speaker 1: Both witches and Indigenous women have been reduced to accessorized
- 35:27Speaker 1: signifiers hawked by urban outfitters or Forever twenty one available
- 35:30Speaker 1: for the care free to adorn themselves with at Coachella
- 35:33Speaker 1: and express their pagan predilections for living ever so briefly
- 35:36Speaker 1: outside time unquote. So essentially, the argument that Luke Arnum
- 35:43Speaker 1: is very effectively making here is that it's just yet
- 35:47Speaker 1: another example of centering white women where the issue is
- 35:52Speaker 1: much much larger, and it is in some ways, uh
- 35:57Speaker 1: costume that white women can very easily take on and
- 36:00Speaker 1: off in almost like a cosplay kind of way, where
- 36:05Speaker 1: when black and Indigenous women engage with um with, I
- 36:11Speaker 1: guess it's like I don't even have the correct language
- 36:14Speaker 1: for it, but witchy shit, Um, it is not as
- 36:18Speaker 1: easily separated taken on taken off, and the consequences are
- 36:22Speaker 1: are more severe and pervasive. So I just wanted to
- 36:25Speaker 1: touch on that because we haven't talked about that in
- 36:28Speaker 1: a while, and I think we covered we covered the
- 36:31Speaker 1: craft so long ago that I feel like we we
- 36:33Speaker 1: didn't even really fully understand that stuff at the time. Totally. Yeah,
- 36:39Speaker 1: that was kind of before we were getting we were
- 36:41Speaker 1: doing like deep dives into context and things like that.
- 36:45Speaker 1: So um, but look at us having grown our old geniuses. Um, yes,
- 36:56Speaker 1: thank you for for doing the research and for sharing that,
- 37:00Speaker 1: and yes we'll definitely link that article. Um, some of
- 37:04Speaker 1: the context that I did but didn't get very far
- 37:07Speaker 1: into because it's a book and we famously famously don't right.
- 37:13Speaker 1: I tried my very hardest. Wow, in Unison, we killed
- 37:17Speaker 1: it Um. The book is entitled, which is Sluts Feminists
- 37:24Speaker 1: by Kristen J. Sol it Is, And again I did
- 37:29Speaker 1: not get very far into it, um, but I would
- 37:32Speaker 1: recommend it nonetheless because it seems like it's very cool
- 37:35Speaker 1: and well researched and has a thesis statement that very
- 37:39Speaker 1: closely aligns with the ideology that we promote on this show.
- 37:44Speaker 1: But it's basically about how the sexuality and sexual liberation
- 37:50Speaker 1: of women and fems has historically been feared and demonized,
- 37:56Speaker 1: and that fear has been used to justify condemning women,
- 38:00Speaker 1: accusing them of witchcraft and like accusing them of being
- 38:04Speaker 1: demonically possessed, burning them at the stake, all that stuff
- 38:09Speaker 1: from history, and then how that fear and condemnation has
- 38:13Speaker 1: never gone away but has evolved over the years into
- 38:17Speaker 1: what we recognize today as modern day slut shaming, UM
- 38:21Speaker 1: shaming of sex works, shaming of queerness. So that's what
- 38:25Speaker 1: the book is about. UM. I plan to read it
- 38:29Speaker 1: more one day when I have time to read a book,
- 38:32Speaker 1: one day when we're back to the book reading. But
- 38:36Speaker 1: but I feel like this movie is trying to say
- 38:40Speaker 1: a lot of what this book says. I would argue
- 38:43Speaker 1: more effectively. And this book is also way more inclusive
- 38:48Speaker 1: and its approach to that because we'll talk about how
- 38:51Speaker 1: this movie is very white, very heteronormative, very gender normative,
- 38:57Speaker 1: very body normative, like the list was on, and maybe
- 39:01Speaker 1: that'll bring us into the discussion about like what this
- 39:06Speaker 1: movie is trying to say. Um, but I feel like
- 39:09Speaker 1: hitting the trying really hard. But yeah, I recommend the
- 39:15Speaker 1: book for anyone who wants to check it out. I'll
- 39:17Speaker 1: check it out. Yeah, okay, so yeah, let's let's get
- 39:20Speaker 1: into the Let's get into the movie. Um, so, this
- 39:23Speaker 1: movie is definitely talking a lot about patriarchy, is talking
- 39:29Speaker 1: I feel like it. It presents a lot of I
- 39:32Speaker 1: don't know some of the moments, and it is absolutely
- 39:35Speaker 1: we'll get into how gender and heteronormative the approach is,
- 39:40Speaker 1: and and how the characters are. There were some conversations
- 39:43Speaker 1: so that I enjoyed watching characters go back and forth
- 39:49Speaker 1: about like I thought, all of the conversations, even though
- 39:52Speaker 1: they're not, you know, test friendly, but the conversation between
- 39:58Speaker 1: Elaine and Trish on both sides of the movie, I
- 40:02Speaker 1: thought were really interesting and just presenting different approaches to
- 40:08Speaker 1: dealing with patriarchy. Sure, yeah, I mean for me, I
- 40:14Speaker 1: mean I think there's an argument to be made that
- 40:18Speaker 1: this movie is about a woman who reclaims her power
- 40:25Speaker 1: and becomes sexually liberated by way of being a witch
- 40:30Speaker 1: and by way of murdering men, which is funny, but
- 40:37Speaker 1: it is very funny. I don't hate that. Now it's
- 40:40Speaker 1: fun again. For me, it's just like the execution, it
- 40:44Speaker 1: just didn't feel very effective to me. I feel like
- 40:47Speaker 1: the movie is setting her up for a character arc
- 40:49Speaker 1: that never happens. What did you think was going to happen?
- 40:53Speaker 1: I'm so curious. I thought that she was going to
- 40:55Speaker 1: start out. So she starts out being very much like
- 40:59Speaker 1: So the conversation she has with Trish at the very beginning,
- 41:02Speaker 1: I like transcribed it because I was just like, what
- 41:05Speaker 1: is happening here? Okay? So she's you know, she's all like,
- 41:10Speaker 1: you know, we may be grown women, but underneath, we're
- 41:14Speaker 1: dreaming about being carried off by a prince on a
- 41:16Speaker 1: white horse. And then she's like, men are like children.
- 41:19Speaker 1: They're very easy to please as long as we give
- 41:21Speaker 1: them what they want. And what men want is a
- 41:24Speaker 1: pretty woman to love and to take care of them
- 41:27Speaker 1: and to make them feel like a man and to
- 41:29Speaker 1: give them total freedom and whatever they want to do
- 41:32Speaker 1: or be. And then Trish is like, well, what about
- 41:35Speaker 1: what we want? What like, how are we going to
- 41:38Speaker 1: be equals if we keep catering to men and like
- 41:42Speaker 1: all of their needs. And I'm like, yeah, good point, Trish.
- 41:45Speaker 1: And Elene is like, if you want love, you have
- 41:47Speaker 1: to give love. Giving men sex is a way of
- 41:50Speaker 1: unlocking their love potential. And then this is when Trish
- 41:53Speaker 1: is like, sounds like you've been brainwashed. Elene, sounds like
- 41:56Speaker 1: a bad self help book at many points, like and
- 42:00Speaker 1: nineteen eighties self help Look for Women written by a
- 42:03Speaker 1: man exactly, That's exactly. And then this is when Trish
- 42:06Speaker 1: is like, it sounds like you've been brainwashed by the patriarchy.
- 42:09Speaker 1: Your whole self worth is wrapped up and pleasing a man.
- 42:13Speaker 1: So at the beginning, like at the beginning here, Elaine
- 42:16Speaker 1: has these very regressive ideas about like catering to men's needs,
- 42:20Speaker 1: and then Trish calls her out on it, and so
- 42:22Speaker 1: that's why I'm like, oh, there's this, you know, maybe
- 42:24Speaker 1: Trish is going to kind of help her see her
- 42:27Speaker 1: worth outside of how men value her and all this stuff.
- 42:32Speaker 1: And you could argue that that maybe happens again because
- 42:35Speaker 1: she just keeps killing men, but to me, it felt
- 42:38Speaker 1: like the voice of reason character Trish leaves the story
- 42:42Speaker 1: and it is absent from it for most of the time,
- 42:46Speaker 1: and then when she does show up again towards the end,
- 42:48Speaker 1: she's like, oh, maybe you were right, Elaine, maybe you
- 42:52Speaker 1: should give a man his fantasy and cater to his
- 42:57Speaker 1: desires and all that stuff, and I'm just like, huh.
- 43:01Speaker 1: I felt like, okay, So, like I I'm going through
- 43:06Speaker 1: an extremely heterosexual breakup right now. So I was sort
- 43:10Speaker 1: of just like, I mean, I don't mean to laugh
- 43:13Speaker 1: at that, but the way you framed it was sorry,
- 43:16Speaker 1: I framed it like it was an extremely goofy movie. Um,
- 43:19Speaker 1: and that's on me. I'm realizing why it is funny.
- 43:25Speaker 1: But I don't know, like there were I agree with
- 43:29Speaker 1: these structurally that where Trish lands isn't satisfying. And maybe
- 43:35Speaker 1: I'm giving the director too much credit here, but I
- 43:40Speaker 1: felt like Anna Biller is such an outspoken feminist that
- 43:44Speaker 1: she has to be aware of what she's doing there.
- 43:47Speaker 1: And it's kind of a matter for us of whether
- 43:48Speaker 1: we agree with that approach or not, because it's like
- 43:51Speaker 1: because because I feel like, if you know, if this
- 43:54Speaker 1: was actually a movie from the seventies that would have
- 43:57Speaker 1: most likely been written and directed by men, if a
- 44:00Speaker 1: conversation like that happened, there's no four D chest going on,
- 44:04Speaker 1: Like it's not like like that's just literally what they think.
- 44:08Speaker 1: But Annabeller's body of work very much indicates that that's
- 44:12Speaker 1: not what she thinks, and interviews that she did around
- 44:15Speaker 1: this movie indicate that it's not what she thinks. And
- 44:17Speaker 1: so where I was sometimes hitting a wall, but like
- 44:21Speaker 1: where where I kind of landed on was like, I
- 44:24Speaker 1: don't know, I'm curious what you think about this as well, Allissa,
- 44:26Speaker 1: of clearly there's a lot of dissonance in a Lane's
- 44:31Speaker 1: mind about men, because I feel like she's almost trying
- 44:36Speaker 1: to present this fantasy so hard, and it's not like
- 44:40Speaker 1: she's really presented to us as like an aspirational character,
- 44:43Speaker 1: like she's like whatever, but she's trying to present this
- 44:48Speaker 1: fantasy so hard in a way that is clearly so
- 44:51Speaker 1: psychologically destructive to her that she like kills the people
- 44:56Speaker 1: that she's working so hard to bring this fantasy to.
- 45:00Speaker 1: And on Trish is and I felt like Trish like
- 45:02Speaker 1: I was also bummed out that Trish ended by being like,
- 45:05Speaker 1: maybe I was wrong, Maybe I shouldn't have like had
- 45:08Speaker 1: thoughts about like my own agency and independence, And it
- 45:13Speaker 1: felt to be like Annabella kind of left it in
- 45:15Speaker 1: this place where it was like fighting the patriarchy is
- 45:19Speaker 1: really hard and doesn't always like work, which is so
- 45:24Speaker 1: depressing and like not really the message I'm seeking in
- 45:28Speaker 1: a movie. This is why I think it's so clever. Okay, yeah,
- 45:31Speaker 1: please please, you didn't hit it hit us because Annabella
- 45:35Speaker 1: is a feminist and she is aware of what she's doing,
- 45:38Speaker 1: and I think the conversations between Elaine and Trish clearly
- 45:41Speaker 1: show that, because like when Elaine is talking cuckoo, then
- 45:45Speaker 1: Trish is literally yeah the voice of reason, being like, um, hello,
- 45:48Speaker 1: here's reality, what are you talking about? But Elaine is
- 45:52Speaker 1: such a surreal and otherworldly character, and I put her
- 45:57Speaker 1: solidly in the good for her universe, like she wanted
- 46:02Speaker 1: love and she took it and she whatever, but I did.
- 46:08Speaker 1: I did also want to mention that Annabular was reading
- 46:10Speaker 1: a bunch of self help books and that was what
- 46:12Speaker 1: inspired her to write the movie, and the character was
- 46:15Speaker 1: like echoing those and that's what I think is so
- 46:18Speaker 1: cool is that it like the look of it being
- 46:21Speaker 1: so solidly sixties and it feeling like a sixties movie,
- 46:24Speaker 1: Like you could look at a frame of it or
- 46:27Speaker 1: a scene of it and think it's from the sixties.
- 46:30Speaker 1: And I think that's what the juxtaposition of all of
- 46:33Speaker 1: these things playing together, Like I'm not explaining it right,
- 46:37Speaker 1: but no, I feel like it it adds up to
- 46:41Speaker 1: something that is very funny and very clever to me,
- 46:44Speaker 1: because I think she's pointing out so many things while
- 46:47Speaker 1: staying so true to the campy sixty horror genre and
- 46:52Speaker 1: saying a new feminist message. Like I see Trish's like, well,
- 46:57Speaker 1: I guess feminism didn't work out for me after all.
- 47:01Speaker 1: And she's kind of doing this robotics. It's like this
- 47:03Speaker 1: robotic like I don't know what to do, and she's
- 47:05Speaker 1: just kind of like it's like she's standing at a
- 47:08Speaker 1: wall and she's like walking into it and like she's
- 47:11Speaker 1: malfunctioning almost. It's like, well, I don't know what to
- 47:14Speaker 1: do now. It's like the Stepford Wives moment where she's like,
- 47:17Speaker 1: come have some coffee. Comes Well, It's like when she's
- 47:20Speaker 1: supposed to she's supposed to be the good wife. She's
- 47:22Speaker 1: supposed to be the one who has emotions and and
- 47:25Speaker 1: earned her husband or whatever, or like, has her own
- 47:28Speaker 1: agency and feelings and blah blah blah. But then as
- 47:31Speaker 1: soon as she's without her husband, she's like, what what
- 47:35Speaker 1: do I like? That makes sense to me? I found okay.
- 47:41Speaker 1: So Annabeller has an interview about this movie posted on
- 47:46Speaker 1: her website that I found very clarifying in I don't know.
- 47:52Speaker 1: I had a lot of questions, especially when I was
- 47:54Speaker 1: leaving my first viewing of this movie, which I went
- 47:56Speaker 1: into completely cold, and then was like, hold on, who
- 48:00Speaker 1: is who made this movie? Because it makes it makes
- 48:03Speaker 1: all the difference. And speaking to your point, Elissa, yeah,
- 48:08Speaker 1: I I I found her perspectively helpful in wrapping my
- 48:12Speaker 1: head around like what she's trying to do. So the question,
- 48:16Speaker 1: I also am not clear on who's asking these questions.
- 48:18Speaker 1: It might be her asking frequently asked questions to herself unclear,
- 48:23Speaker 1: but on her. So the question is which character should
- 48:26Speaker 1: be identify with Elaine or Trish? Annabella replies, quote, our
- 48:31Speaker 1: identification flips depending on the scene. I'm trying to talk
- 48:34Speaker 1: about how difficult it is to be a woman in
- 48:36Speaker 1: today's culture and how all of the options for creating
- 48:39Speaker 1: an identity are problematic. For instance, Trish is comfortable with
- 48:42Speaker 1: herself and happily married, and Elaine feels she has to
- 48:45Speaker 1: tie herself in knots to please a man. So Trish
- 48:48Speaker 1: is the quote unquote normal one and Elaine is desperate
- 48:51Speaker 1: and has self esteem issues. But in the end, Elaine
- 48:54Speaker 1: uses her fantasy doll tactics to steal Trish's husband and
- 48:56Speaker 1: destroy him, and Trish is left widowed and broken. When
- 49:00Speaker 1: we see what Elaine has done to Trish, we hate
- 49:02Speaker 1: Elaine and identify with Trish. But at other moments, as
- 49:05Speaker 1: when Elaine is flashing back to her abuse by men,
- 49:08Speaker 1: we identify with Elaine. I tried to create a Junkian
- 49:12Speaker 1: animus for Elaine. First of all, Okay, you've read a book. Okay,
- 49:18Speaker 1: she went to the library. Who are you, Robert Eggers?
- 49:22Speaker 1: Robert Eggers went to the library. If we never made
- 49:25Speaker 1: that t shirt? Um, I tried to I think it's
- 49:29Speaker 1: I've never said Carl. Is it Carl Young? I think
- 49:33Speaker 1: Young the psychologist? Right? Yes, Okay, I tried to create
- 49:38Speaker 1: I'm continuing her. I tried to create a young Gian
- 49:41Speaker 1: animus for Elane, a group of judging, manipulating male characters
- 49:44Speaker 1: that she hears in her head or paints in her paintings.
- 49:47Speaker 1: It's in her attempts to escape this animus that she
- 49:49Speaker 1: becomes dangerous to herself and to others. It will be
- 49:52Speaker 1: interesting to see how many women will relate to this unquote.
- 49:56Speaker 1: So I get it, Like, that's that totally makes sense
- 50:01Speaker 1: to me of of like different perspectives on trying to
- 50:06Speaker 1: navigate patriarchy, navigate abusive relationships, because that is a lot
- 50:12Speaker 1: of what Elaine is actively processing throughout the movie is
- 50:16Speaker 1: like trauma inflicted on her by men from her past.
- 50:20Speaker 1: Whether it's I think that you like hear the echoes
- 50:23Speaker 1: of her father at one point, you hear certainly a
- 50:26Speaker 1: lot from her ex husband. She talks about it with
- 50:29Speaker 1: other characters. It's clearly like a big defining trauma that
- 50:34Speaker 1: like informs all of her behavior. So yeah, I mean,
- 50:38Speaker 1: I I'm having this thought in real time, so bear
- 50:42Speaker 1: with me here. But I feel like something this movie,
- 50:47Speaker 1: especially upon hearing that quote from Anna Biller, I feel
- 50:52Speaker 1: like part of what this movie is attempting to comment
- 50:57Speaker 1: on is something that we've kind of grappled with on
- 51:02Speaker 1: the podcast and even in my own personal life, this
- 51:07Speaker 1: navigating and reconciling as as a hetero woman. How how
- 51:13Speaker 1: do I reconcile being a militant feminist while also wanting
- 51:19Speaker 1: the hetero romantic companionship of a man. This is something
- 51:25Speaker 1: I have a conversation with myself about daily, and I
- 51:30Speaker 1: wonder if, like, that's part of what this movie is
- 51:35Speaker 1: dealing with, because we have Elaine, who is very emblematic
- 51:38Speaker 1: of this like old school sixties era and earlier ideology
- 51:44Speaker 1: of like, well, a woman exists to please a man,
- 51:48Speaker 1: to cater to his every whim, to be sexual, not
- 51:52Speaker 1: because you want to be sexual or explore yourself sexually,
- 51:56Speaker 1: but to sexually please a man. You know, all all
- 51:59Speaker 1: of this stuff that for all of history had been
- 52:03Speaker 1: what was expected of women by the patriarchy. And then
- 52:08Speaker 1: you have a character like Trish who is saying, like, no,
- 52:14Speaker 1: this is sixteen or the sixties. We don't know what
- 52:20Speaker 1: the decade it is that we're in, but we don't
- 52:23Speaker 1: think like that anymore. You're you've been brainwashed, like life
- 52:26Speaker 1: isn't a fairy tale, Husbands aren't Prince Charming's like get
- 52:32Speaker 1: with the program, So you have these like conflicting things
- 52:36Speaker 1: that and again I don't know what even point I'm
- 52:41Speaker 1: trying to arrive at here, but no, I I totally Again,
- 52:47Speaker 1: this is like watching this movie and at a very
- 52:50Speaker 1: interesting time for me personally. It's like, yeah, I think
- 52:55Speaker 1: that that's something that a lot of tragically straight with
- 52:59Speaker 1: it are grappling with, you know, is is And and
- 53:04Speaker 1: also like I think that that exists, you know, across
- 53:08Speaker 1: the spectrum of sexuality of like, well, I want to
- 53:10Speaker 1: be empowered, I want to be independent as a person.
- 53:14Speaker 1: Why am I still feeling like I want a partner?
- 53:18Speaker 1: But it's like that's part of and not everybody feels
- 53:20Speaker 1: that way. I'm not trying to over generalize, but but
- 53:23Speaker 1: it's like that's such a part of being human. And
- 53:25Speaker 1: the more I watched it, the more I engaged with
- 53:28Speaker 1: Anna Biller's commentary on like what she was trying to do.
- 53:32Speaker 1: I thought it was like kind of a really brave
- 53:36Speaker 1: thing to do in some ways. Again, it's like the
- 53:39Speaker 1: whole it's a very white cast, and Anna Biller is
- 53:42Speaker 1: is um half Japanese, half white, but the cast itself
- 53:47Speaker 1: is extremely white. I feel like this is you could
- 53:50Speaker 1: argue that it because it's interacting with sixties and seventies
- 53:54Speaker 1: B movies, it's extremely heteronormative and binary as it pertains
- 53:59Speaker 1: to gender. But I also feel like, like what you're describing,
- 54:02Speaker 1: it feels like almost like a feminist elephant in the
- 54:05Speaker 1: room for some people, where there's so many beliefs that
- 54:10Speaker 1: I hold very firmly that I cannot apply to my
- 54:14Speaker 1: own life to save my own life, Like you know,
- 54:17Speaker 1: I feel like, and this is maybe a reach, but
- 54:19Speaker 1: like I feel that way about like a lot of
- 54:22Speaker 1: body issues and a lot of like I'm an extremely
- 54:26Speaker 1: body positive person. I feel like I actively recognize how
- 54:30Speaker 1: our bodies are policed and mistreated and we're told to
- 54:34Speaker 1: look a certain way and I'm still anorexic. Like it's
- 54:38Speaker 1: so like it it is like such a personal journey
- 54:42Speaker 1: on you know, holding your beliefs and holding them very authentically,
- 54:45Speaker 1: which it seems like Annabillard does as well. And also
- 54:48Speaker 1: I don't know acknowledging through a piece of art that
- 54:50Speaker 1: it's like but yeah, when it's you like fucking good luck,
- 54:55Speaker 1: you know, it's yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know, I
- 55:00Speaker 1: feel the same way. I find so in that way,
- 55:02Speaker 1: maybe this movie is far more relatable than I'm giving
- 55:06Speaker 1: it credit for. For me, Okay, here's what I think
- 55:08Speaker 1: it is. Again. I see what the movie its intentions are,
- 55:14Speaker 1: and I honestly think it's because I think it has
- 55:17Speaker 1: a screenplay that I do not think is well written.
- 55:20Speaker 1: The execution just like kind of falls flat for me.
- 55:23Speaker 1: I think it's very largely like a screenwriting thing, an
- 55:27Speaker 1: editing thing. The movie is like a half hour longer
- 55:30Speaker 1: than it needs to be. And I feel bad dumping
- 55:33Speaker 1: on these things because I know Annabeller did all of it,
- 55:36Speaker 1: but that will bring me to my monologue that I'll
- 55:40Speaker 1: get to eventually. But so I think it's just kind
- 55:43Speaker 1: of like a personal preference thing where the execution falls
- 55:47Speaker 1: flat because the story is just sort of like meandery
- 55:52Speaker 1: and at times unfocused, and I think something's happen that
- 55:56Speaker 1: are probably like symbolic or allegorical of something, but it's
- 56:01Speaker 1: not totally clear to me what or things aren't totally
- 56:04Speaker 1: tracking and and I don't know if it's because it
- 56:07Speaker 1: was intentionally Okay, this is gonna be so mean, but
- 56:10Speaker 1: I have to say it was it intentionally poorly written
- 56:14Speaker 1: because it's paying homage to the like these pulpy b
- 56:19Speaker 1: movies of that era that are also poorly written. I
- 56:23Speaker 1: sort of thought, so, I don't know, what did you think?
- 56:25Speaker 1: Was that? In my opinion, yes, in my opinion, yes,
- 56:29Speaker 1: if it's is. If it is not, then in my opinion,
- 56:33Speaker 1: she like if you didn't do it on purpose, she
- 56:35Speaker 1: was geniusly riding the line of and just like stumbling
- 56:39Speaker 1: into the perfect like wrongness. But also so that's why
- 56:43Speaker 1: I think she had to have done it on purpose.
- 56:44Speaker 1: Like I think it's so stilted in the way that
- 56:47Speaker 1: it is written, and like, yet other lines are so
- 56:49Speaker 1: clever and like the stuff about the tampon, like must
- 56:54Speaker 1: men have never seen a used tampon? And then later
- 56:56Speaker 1: when he's like and I found an old hot dog
- 56:59Speaker 1: under the bed, it was like, so I didn't get that.
- 57:02Speaker 1: Tell my second viewing stuff like that is so clever
- 57:05Speaker 1: that I think that the moments where it is like,
- 57:09Speaker 1: I think it is just a perfect homage to sixties
- 57:12Speaker 1: movies and like using all of the parts that are
- 57:15Speaker 1: like using them as paper dolls, almost like sixties movies,
- 57:18Speaker 1: being like, Okay, these are the these are the pieces
- 57:20Speaker 1: that I have, so I'm going to use them to
- 57:22Speaker 1: tell more messed up, slightly different story, but it's these
- 57:25Speaker 1: are the what I have, and people recognize the roles
- 57:29Speaker 1: that these people are in, so I'll I will use them. Yeah,
- 57:32Speaker 1: I suppose I land on. Okay, Well, a poorly written
- 57:37Speaker 1: movie and kind of modeled story does then not lend
- 57:41Speaker 1: itself very well to a clear message for me? Sure,
- 57:47Speaker 1: clearly other because I read so many reviews that are like,
- 57:50Speaker 1: this movie is genius, it's brilliant, it's amazing people, we're
- 57:54Speaker 1: foaming for this movie. But to be fair, a lot
- 57:58Speaker 1: of the reviews I read, we're hailing the visual style
- 58:04Speaker 1: and all of the artistry that went into the movie,
- 58:06Speaker 1: but saying like you should just ignore the plot. The
- 58:09Speaker 1: plot you just don't even notice it, just like kind
- 58:12Speaker 1: of don't even watch the plot, but just be sure
- 58:14Speaker 1: to really look at the movie though, But it looks amazing.
- 58:18Speaker 1: So so for me coming from like a very like
- 58:21Speaker 1: story centric screenwriting background, I would obviously never mentioned my
- 58:25Speaker 1: master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University, but I just
- 58:30Speaker 1: feel like there could be a much clearer, more like
- 58:34Speaker 1: sex positive more. Here's why I think she did this way.
- 58:37Speaker 1: I think that the visual style of it is so
- 58:39Speaker 1: effective and it just burns into your brain. That's and
- 58:42Speaker 1: you can't not look at it. And I think the
- 58:44Speaker 1: poster is just so eye catching and like it looks
- 58:47Speaker 1: like the six season in such a way that you're like,
- 58:49Speaker 1: I have to see if this was real, Like I
- 58:51Speaker 1: have to know if this was from that time, And
- 58:55Speaker 1: the way it glues you into it that way, I
- 58:57Speaker 1: think is part of the app of it. And then
- 59:01Speaker 1: it also like is using this yeah, meandering type of stuff,
- 59:05Speaker 1: but in like these dreamy styles, because I think that
- 59:08Speaker 1: it's supposed to be when you realized later like oh,
- 59:11Speaker 1: that was the movie that was not really from the
- 59:13Speaker 1: sixth season, like these parts of it stick out to you.
- 59:15Speaker 1: So I think it's supposed to like parts of it
- 59:17Speaker 1: stick with you later where you're like, oh, an old
- 59:21Speaker 1: hot dog he he meant he found a tampon under that.
- 59:26Speaker 1: I think that's why it is affected. I don't think
- 59:28Speaker 1: it's supposed to be Like if it were more straightforward
- 59:31Speaker 1: about the message, I don't think it would be as
- 59:33Speaker 1: fun or interesting or catchy. That it uses that style
- 59:38Speaker 1: to its advantage, and like it has it does a
- 59:40Speaker 1: bunch of silly and possibly meandering stuff in terms of
- 59:43Speaker 1: like other films, but I don't think that it would
- 59:45Speaker 1: work any other way. And I think the campiness of
- 59:48Speaker 1: it is what makes it so weird and special and
- 59:51Speaker 1: why that the real cool feminist messages of it are
- 59:54Speaker 1: so special, because it's just like they're dropped in there
- 59:57Speaker 1: among this, like glittering just play, like, oh, I didn't
- 1:00:01Speaker 1: expect to find this in here, but this is fun. Yeah.
- 1:00:04Speaker 1: I suppose if it was more straight forward, it would
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: feel too preachy and just to like, we get it.
- 1:00:15Speaker 1: Women are people who deserve to be sexually liberated and
- 1:00:20Speaker 1: like all that stuff. So yeah, yeah, because because I I,
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: I don't know, Like I I run very hot and
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: cold on art movies, where like if I like it,
- 1:00:29Speaker 1: I love it, and if I'm like not vibing with
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: the style or the script, I'm like, this is the
- 1:00:34Speaker 1: most annoying ship I've ever seen in my entire let
- 1:00:38Speaker 1: Like that's whatever the nature of the genre. But yeah,
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: I don't know, it does feel like it comes down
- 1:00:46Speaker 1: to personal preference. I like that. She I don't know.
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: I just like I can't in good faith dump on
- 1:00:52Speaker 1: this movie too much because it's just so much work
- 1:00:54Speaker 1: and so many like risks, and I feel like making
- 1:01:00Speaker 1: very simple feminist points in movies is such a thing
- 1:01:03Speaker 1: to do right now, Um, where it's very like and
- 1:01:07Speaker 1: that's how I am and I'm and girls actually rule,
- 1:01:12Speaker 1: and like as time goes on, there are and this
- 1:01:15Speaker 1: this kind of brings me back to the essay from
- 1:01:18Speaker 1: Luke Cornum I was talking about earlier, where it's like
- 1:01:21Speaker 1: straightforward movies about which is that come out now are
- 1:01:26Speaker 1: operating on like a higher level in terms of social
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: commentary than they were twenty years ago, because if you
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: think about The Craft, the Craft starts as a story
- 1:01:35Speaker 1: of his sisterhood that devolves into teen girls blackmailing each
- 1:01:40Speaker 1: other over various guys, like it ultimately becomes and you
- 1:01:44Speaker 1: could say the same thing for Practical Magic, where it's
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: like it's about sisterhood but also is inherently tied to
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: heterosexual relationships and doesn't really end up making a point
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: about anything in spite of marketing itself like it is
- 1:01:56Speaker 1: saying something which it kind of isn't, even though it's
- 1:01:59Speaker 1: still fun to watch, right whatever. But I I am
- 1:02:03Speaker 1: finding myself more drawn to like unusual ways of making
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: points like that because there's just so many movies right
- 1:02:10Speaker 1: now that's like women are good, and it's like, yeah,
- 1:02:14Speaker 1: I know, it's that I just find that exhausting it
- 1:02:17Speaker 1: to like be bashed over the head with it. And
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: I think the scene that really solidifies is that the
- 1:02:22Speaker 1: last scene of the movie really solidifies that it is
- 1:02:26Speaker 1: a self aware of parody. To me, is like when
- 1:02:29Speaker 1: they go back to the Renaissance fair the mock wedding scene,
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: and all of the sound, all of the music is gone,
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: but you hear all of everyone's like start strustling and
- 1:02:38Speaker 1: like people breathing weirdly. So you hear like all of
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: these just like gross unsettling noises that are like okay,
- 1:02:45Speaker 1: there's people here, but there's all of the music is gone,
- 1:02:47Speaker 1: and like it's just very unsettling and weird. And so
- 1:02:51Speaker 1: that to me says like she is aware that, like
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: this is a really ridiculous fantasy and like obviously you
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: should not be like I'm going to be like when
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: I But also it's like that girl literally yeah, Mrs
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: Mrs girl Boss, Mrs Elizabeth Holmes, the Witch, but like yeah,
- 1:03:14Speaker 1: but also it's like I don't know, there were parts
- 1:03:16Speaker 1: of it I didn't like. There are parts of it
- 1:03:17Speaker 1: I did like but I do feel like now having
- 1:03:20Speaker 1: watched it a couple of times and like reading where
- 1:03:22Speaker 1: the director's coming from, I do feel and just like
- 1:03:24Speaker 1: through this conversation, I'm like, Okay, I understand what she's
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: trying to say. And then it's like, you know, no
- 1:03:31Speaker 1: no harm, no foul as far as I'm concerned, Let's
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: take another quick break and then we'll come back for
- 1:03:37Speaker 1: a more discussion and we're back. I agree with listen.
- 1:03:47Speaker 1: Like anything that bashes you over the head or has
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: some weird I just I'm always reminded of that scene
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: in the last Avengers movie. We're like ten women that
- 1:03:57Speaker 1: they've managed to like weave into the stories throughout don't
- 1:04:01Speaker 1: know each other. The girls are here exactly like all
- 1:04:06Speaker 1: the women in the m C. You congregate on the
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: battlefield and start to walk alongside each other, and they're
- 1:04:13Speaker 1: like why feminism, Donna Exactly. That ship annoys me so
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: much because it's just so like performative, and it's like
- 1:04:27Speaker 1: whatever male director's idea of what they think women want
- 1:04:31Speaker 1: to see or that they think is empowering for women
- 1:04:34Speaker 1: or whatever, and like so anything that's like very bash
- 1:04:36Speaker 1: you over the head like that is similarly not effective.
- 1:04:41Speaker 1: I guess. I just think there were some things that
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: I was like, how what what is the takeaway here?
- 1:04:48Speaker 1: What am I supposed to be? Or how does the
- 1:04:50Speaker 1: movie feel about this? Or how does the you know,
- 1:04:52Speaker 1: how does the filmmaker feel about this? And one of
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: those things was um and again, maybe this is more
- 1:04:59Speaker 1: clearly effective comedy and parody to other people, but I
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: was just kind of missing it. Where so the men
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: would typically take the love potion fall painfully in love
- 1:05:13Speaker 1: to the point where they were feeling in such a
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: way that some of the other characters were like, men
- 1:05:18Speaker 1: become soft when they fall in love, and it's it's
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: really gross for a man to have feelings. And when
- 1:05:26Speaker 1: Elaine calls him a pussy and she's like, why are
- 1:05:29Speaker 1: you pussy, he's crying just like a little girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 1:05:33Speaker 1: A lot of like equating um, men being vulnerable and
- 1:05:37Speaker 1: men expressing emotion to like being gross and stuff. And
- 1:05:41Speaker 1: I feel like, I guess because the characters who are
- 1:05:44Speaker 1: who don't find that appealing, our characters like Elaine, who
- 1:05:48Speaker 1: we are not meant to identify with, I felt guess
- 1:05:52Speaker 1: my take on that was that again, I do think
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: that Annabella knows that she's doing there where it's I
- 1:05:58Speaker 1: I feel like that would only happened to male characters
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: after they had already previously expressed that they found the
- 1:06:04Speaker 1: same quality when it appears in women to be embarrassing
- 1:06:08Speaker 1: and gross and annoying, where it's like Wayne's character before
- 1:06:13Speaker 1: he does begin like painfully emoting, which is like super
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: campy and like whatever, it's it's a bit much, but
- 1:06:22Speaker 1: he like they have He and um Elaine have this
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: discussion where he's like, oh, yeah, you know, like when
- 1:06:29Speaker 1: women expect things of me or like basically like I
- 1:06:33Speaker 1: don't know. I feel like everyone who is the like
- 1:06:37Speaker 1: misfortune of having sex with kind of an asshole guy
- 1:06:41Speaker 1: has had a version of this conversation where it's like,
- 1:06:44Speaker 1: you know, like I don't understand why I have to
- 1:06:47Speaker 1: be like nice to people that I have sex with,
- 1:06:50Speaker 1: Like it's it's so like corny and over the top.
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: But it's that I thought, because that conversation happened when
- 1:06:57Speaker 1: he was expressing the same overblown, clearly overstated behavior that
- 1:07:03Speaker 1: he was describing in an earlier scene that I didn't like.
- 1:07:08Speaker 1: It didn't come off to me as like men shouldn't
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: emote mentioned expect because some movies definitely firmly come down
- 1:07:14Speaker 1: on that side. But I think that it was almost
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: like a punishment for finding any woman he'd ever been
- 1:07:22Speaker 1: with two expect And it's also like he describes it
- 1:07:26Speaker 1: as like neediness, but what he's describing is basic respect.
- 1:07:30Speaker 1: Like I thought that then was really like the way
- 1:07:32Speaker 1: that that dialogue was written, as he's making it seem like,
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: can you believe someone would expect this of me when
- 1:07:39Speaker 1: it's kind of basic courtesy? So yeah, that didn't That
- 1:07:44Speaker 1: didn't bump me too much. And I like that she's
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: I like that she's sarcastically babing him in that scene.
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: She's like and then he goes in a way yes,
- 1:07:54Speaker 1: and you're like, oh god, I feel like they were.
- 1:07:57Speaker 1: She was showing like they were. They were flipping the
- 1:08:01Speaker 1: gender roles basically, and that like Wayne was becoming the
- 1:08:05Speaker 1: way women are like stereotypically portrayed ass like super emotional
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: and like needing whatever. And like when he does all
- 1:08:12Speaker 1: of that, then l And is like, oh, no, you
- 1:08:15Speaker 1: I didn't want you to be like that. This is
- 1:08:18Speaker 1: not what I wanted from love, But now you're doing
- 1:08:20Speaker 1: what women do and I'm not. This is not what
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: I asked for? Yeah, which does I mean? I think,
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: what what that flipped? Because it is like a clear
- 1:08:29Speaker 1: like the way we've been classically conditioned to view binary
- 1:08:32Speaker 1: gender roles flipped and then used to like weaponize against
- 1:08:37Speaker 1: CIS men. What that I mean? And it's like not
- 1:08:41Speaker 1: every movie can do everything. So I don't even know
- 1:08:44Speaker 1: how much of a criticism this is, but that creative
- 1:08:48Speaker 1: decision means that there's no room for nuance in the discussion.
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: Like it's like, if you're flipping traditional gender roles manufactured
- 1:08:58Speaker 1: by society in this sixties seventies way, then yeah, it
- 1:09:03Speaker 1: feels like Annabella doesn't leave herself a lot of area
- 1:09:07Speaker 1: to discuss living outside of like traditionally prescribed gender identities
- 1:09:14Speaker 1: or like so, so I I understand why, like that
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: is something that feels kind of glaringly missing. I don't know,
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: this is such a complicated discussion. Do you do you
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: think I'm really curious about this? Do you guys think
- 1:09:31Speaker 1: that it would be possible to emulate the sixties aesthetic
- 1:09:36Speaker 1: and theme and balance a more nuanced feminist conversation, because
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: I don't know, I feel like there would be room
- 1:09:43Speaker 1: for I mean, there's What I don't understand is like
- 1:09:47Speaker 1: why there's basically no non white actors in this movie,
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: because even for the sixties or seventies, that's not off
- 1:09:57Speaker 1: certainly like not off the table. So I thought that
- 1:10:00Speaker 1: was like definitely a bizarre choice, and I wonder how
- 1:10:04Speaker 1: consciously made that choice was, if at all. I don't know.
- 1:10:08Speaker 1: I mean, but in terms of like having a nuanced
- 1:10:10Speaker 1: conversation about gender, I mean, this is like the least
- 1:10:14Speaker 1: nuance genre available, So I don't know. I yeah, I guess,
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like, I mean, you can
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: just like even if you wanted it to be esthetically
- 1:10:26Speaker 1: sixties camp technicolor melodrama B movie type thing, and still
- 1:10:31Speaker 1: make commentary. I feel like that's possible because you can
- 1:10:35Speaker 1: just take creative liberties with things and it I mean
- 1:10:40Speaker 1: maybe it's it'll be disson it for some people, but
- 1:10:43Speaker 1: I don't know, I feel like it could be effective.
- 1:10:45Speaker 1: And now, okay, so now I'm thinking about how there's
- 1:10:48Speaker 1: like long monologues because I was like, oh, yeah, I
- 1:10:52Speaker 1: don't you know, I don't want anything that's bashing me overhead.
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: But then there's like these long scenes where like Barbara
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: and the the Witch man, gay In or whatever are like.
- 1:11:04Speaker 1: And this is another example of where I'm not sure
- 1:11:09Speaker 1: what the movie is exactly trying to say, because gay
- 1:11:13Speaker 1: In and Barbara they're talking, and they're saying some things
- 1:11:18Speaker 1: that I very much agree with, and then two seconds
- 1:11:22Speaker 1: later they say some other things that I cannot really
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: get behind. So I'm not sure exactly where the movie
- 1:11:28Speaker 1: lands or if this is parody that I just don't
- 1:11:32Speaker 1: quite get. But to give you an example, they're talking
- 1:11:35Speaker 1: about how, like, you know, there's this history of witchcraft
- 1:11:39Speaker 1: and it's interwoven with this fear of female sexuality and
- 1:11:44Speaker 1: how women were burned at the stake because you know,
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: men feared the erotic feelings that women solicited in them
- 1:11:53Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But then gains like, oh, but
- 1:11:57Speaker 1: a woman's greatest power lies in her sex ruality. And
- 1:12:01Speaker 1: I just I always found it a little bizarre that
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: that message came from a guy and who is clearly
- 1:12:07Speaker 1: painted as creepy, because I'm not opposed to the message
- 1:12:11Speaker 1: of like anyone finding their sexuality to be a liberating,
- 1:12:15Speaker 1: empowering thing, but it's just like, sure, the vessel for
- 1:12:19Speaker 1: the message is a little DISSI it, yeah, because later
- 1:12:23Speaker 1: he's also like, because women's greatest power is in their sexuality,
- 1:12:29Speaker 1: that means that you should wear perfume and high heels
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: and makeup and learn to dress your hair in attractive ways,
- 1:12:37Speaker 1: you know, display flesh artfully and be a mother and
- 1:12:41Speaker 1: a lover. I'm always displaying flesh artfully as all about
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: about you. And I'm not like anti makeup or anti
- 1:12:50Speaker 1: perfume or anti explosing flesh, like I do all of
- 1:12:52Speaker 1: these things. Anyone can do whatever they want with their body.
- 1:12:56Speaker 1: But he's basically saying, do these things in order to
- 1:12:59Speaker 1: be appealing to men, and it's very important that you
- 1:13:03Speaker 1: do these things. And then he says like he's telling
- 1:13:06Speaker 1: women to stand your ground, but always let the man
- 1:13:10Speaker 1: feel like a man. And then Barbara's chiming in and
- 1:13:13Speaker 1: she's saying, yeah, we have to use sex magic to
- 1:13:16Speaker 1: destroy a man's fear of you. And so I'm like,
- 1:13:20Speaker 1: is this what the movie subscribing to is? I didn't
- 1:13:23Speaker 1: think so, Like, I I didn't think. I mean, I
- 1:13:25Speaker 1: don't think that the movie was necessarily getting behind what
- 1:13:28Speaker 1: Gan was saying because he's like, I feel like he's
- 1:13:31Speaker 1: like clearly like this bizarre foil who's like trying to
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: get women to behave the way that he wants. But
- 1:13:39Speaker 1: I do, I do see what you're saying. That, like,
- 1:13:41Speaker 1: the message of this movie can get a little like
- 1:13:44Speaker 1: it's so esthetically pleasing, and then sometimes the message gets
- 1:13:49Speaker 1: a little bit mouddled, especially in a in a scene
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: like this, where again it's like this constant tug of
- 1:13:56Speaker 1: war of like points that I agree with and that
- 1:13:59Speaker 1: I think are coming from a place of like, yes,
- 1:14:03Speaker 1: it's okay to be empowered sexually as a woman. Yes,
- 1:14:08Speaker 1: women have historically been condemned and persecuted for their sexuality
- 1:14:14Speaker 1: and perceived as being evil witches because of it. And
- 1:14:17Speaker 1: then two seconds later, like this guy who Barbara and
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: Elaine seem to agree with, is like, and that's why
- 1:14:26Speaker 1: you should make yourself as attractive to men as possible,
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: because that's how you become empowered. And I'm like, and
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: again I'm like, this might be parody, but if it is,
- 1:14:37Speaker 1: I can't not really tell. And it's just not quite
- 1:14:41Speaker 1: working for me, just because of like the way the
- 1:14:43Speaker 1: scene is written, the delivery of the dialogue. There's just
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: like all these things that to me make it feel
- 1:14:48Speaker 1: very dissonant. It does I mean it just it does
- 1:14:52Speaker 1: seem like it's a matter of like this is just
- 1:14:55Speaker 1: like not definitely like not a movie for everyone, like
- 1:15:00Speaker 1: at its core, which like, yeah, I guess leads me
- 1:15:03Speaker 1: to my kind of spiel about how I tend to
- 1:15:08Speaker 1: feel this pressure to like media made by women and
- 1:15:14Speaker 1: other marginalized creators, especially media with a feminist with feminist
- 1:15:19Speaker 1: themes like The Love, which because I want to be
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: supportive to these filmmakers and this cause, but I also
- 1:15:28Speaker 1: don't want to feel like I kind of have to
- 1:15:30Speaker 1: automatically like these things based solely on this pressure to
- 1:15:34Speaker 1: feel supportive and because then it's just pandering, Like yeah,
- 1:15:39Speaker 1: I do. I do feel It's like I don't know,
- 1:15:41Speaker 1: everyone has a different perspective on this, but I feel
- 1:15:43Speaker 1: like I'm like I'm always going to like give a
- 1:15:47Speaker 1: marginalized creator's project and work a chance, like before I
- 1:15:51Speaker 1: will give some rando white guy a chance. But it
- 1:15:55Speaker 1: doesn't mean like I don't know. We talked about this
- 1:15:57Speaker 1: on this We've talked about this on the show in
- 1:15:59Speaker 1: the past, where it's like, you know, true true equality
- 1:16:04Speaker 1: means that everyone makes mediocre ship sometimes if the difference
- 1:16:08Speaker 1: is more in like how you know the number of
- 1:16:12Speaker 1: flaming hoops that are added for for marginalized creators. But
- 1:16:15Speaker 1: it's like exactly, it's like, this is a movie by
- 1:16:17Speaker 1: a woman of color, and she did have to jump
- 1:16:21Speaker 1: through a lot of hoops to make it, and it's
- 1:16:22Speaker 1: still not for everybody. I know. That's like kind of
- 1:16:25Speaker 1: what I'm grappling with on this entire episode, as I'm
- 1:16:28Speaker 1: sure listeners can tell. Where like, I want to be
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: able to judge things based on merit and based on
- 1:16:35Speaker 1: the quality of storytelling, which is the criteria I used
- 1:16:38Speaker 1: to judge media made by cis head white men, because again,
- 1:16:43Speaker 1: like true feminism is to me is that it is
- 1:16:49Speaker 1: okay to admit that you don't like a thing made
- 1:16:52Speaker 1: by a woman. But like you said, you know, I
- 1:16:56Speaker 1: know how difficult it is for marginalized creators to their
- 1:17:00Speaker 1: movies made, to get funding for their projects two strikes
- 1:17:04Speaker 1: if there's a flop, etcetera. Yeah, I mean right that,
- 1:17:06Speaker 1: you know, distribution and like have their movies seen by
- 1:17:10Speaker 1: a large audience. They don't. They don't even get to
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: do the same job. And I can't emphasize that enough
- 1:17:15Speaker 1: because I've seen I've seen it all different ways, and
- 1:17:19Speaker 1: they just don't even get to do the same job,
- 1:17:21Speaker 1: and it's just not fucking fair to judge them on
- 1:17:23Speaker 1: the same standards because it's a different ball game. Um,
- 1:17:26Speaker 1: that's why I am inclined to be more forgiving, or
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: to just to not not be more forgiving, but like
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: to like, Okay, what were the circumstances here, Like what
- 1:17:36Speaker 1: was the budget? Who else was involved in? Really like
- 1:17:40Speaker 1: analyze that part of the situation in context with how
- 1:17:43Speaker 1: I view my opinion of the movie, because I think
- 1:17:46Speaker 1: all of that really hugely matters. And like, like Anna Biller,
- 1:17:50Speaker 1: she had had experiences like that with her own crew
- 1:17:53Speaker 1: on this very movie. There was a piece in Indie
- 1:17:57Speaker 1: Wire published in late seventeen based on of a Twitter
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: thread that Anna Biller had made about how she felt
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: very frustrated by and disrespected by her own crew at
- 1:18:09Speaker 1: many points. And it doesn't sound like it was like
- 1:18:11Speaker 1: anyone high up. It sounds like the actors were all
- 1:18:13Speaker 1: very respectful, but um, just feeling that like that she
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: as a director who was a woman and also a
- 1:18:20Speaker 1: person of color, like she was not taken as seriously
- 1:18:23Speaker 1: as someone who was Like admittedly, I mean, if you've
- 1:18:27Speaker 1: seen the movie, she's doing some weird stuff. She's making
- 1:18:30Speaker 1: some like hard choices. The swings are big ones. But
- 1:18:35Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like her crew was as I don't know.
- 1:18:40Speaker 1: I mean, they weren't treating her like they would if
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: she was like David Lynch being like, we're doing something
- 1:18:46Speaker 1: weird today, everybody, and like they were just like, this
- 1:18:50Speaker 1: woman doesn't know what she's doing. So I wanted to.
- 1:18:53Speaker 1: I mean, she she we can link to this as well.
- 1:18:55Speaker 1: But she was saying, quote, it was so bad that
- 1:18:57Speaker 1: during reshoots we had different A d S Assistant directors
- 1:19:01Speaker 1: and they were appalled at what was going on. They said,
- 1:19:03Speaker 1: your own crew is sabotaging you. Why uh blah blah blah.
- 1:19:07Speaker 1: She said she's had quote this same thing on other films.
- 1:19:11Speaker 1: Some crew members seem how bent on destroying you and
- 1:19:13Speaker 1: the film to make sure it never gets in the can.
- 1:19:16Speaker 1: I think it has to do something with being a
- 1:19:18Speaker 1: female director, and something to do with how the line
- 1:19:20Speaker 1: producers said a bad vibe and then disappeared, so you know,
- 1:19:24Speaker 1: it's like and also it's person to person. I don't
- 1:19:27Speaker 1: know what Anna Biller's directing style or personality is. The
- 1:19:31Speaker 1: examples are too vague, but it does that's just like
- 1:19:33Speaker 1: painted in my head of like yeah, just like your
- 1:19:37Speaker 1: own crew is not aligning with your creative vision. That
- 1:19:41Speaker 1: has to be so frustrating as long as you are
- 1:19:43Speaker 1: treating your crew well, right, because you're just a different
- 1:19:47Speaker 1: shape and a different like, they won't see you the
- 1:19:50Speaker 1: same as they see a man, and so they're not
- 1:19:52Speaker 1: going to just intrinsically the way that things are. They
- 1:19:56Speaker 1: will not treat you the same and you will not
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: get the same respect, and so it is in earrently
- 1:20:00Speaker 1: a different ballgame to direct as a woman, and I'm
- 1:20:02Speaker 1: sure as as an Asian woman. Like it's like, um,
- 1:20:05Speaker 1: do you know who you're talking to? Like this is
- 1:20:08Speaker 1: the director of the movie? Like yeah, Like who said
- 1:20:10Speaker 1: do you think you're on? Yeah? Yeah, who do you
- 1:20:13Speaker 1: think is paying? Like who do you think your job
- 1:20:16Speaker 1: is coming from? Like yeah, I feel like it is
- 1:20:18Speaker 1: Like that's like a conversation that I hope we keep
- 1:20:21Speaker 1: having because it's like, I don't know, I mean, it
- 1:20:24Speaker 1: is kind of a difficult thing to reconcile. And I
- 1:20:27Speaker 1: mean I totally see where you're coming from. Caitlin's like
- 1:20:30Speaker 1: we don't want to like judge directors on separate scales,
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: like that's not fair. But then it's also like, but
- 1:20:39Speaker 1: not being assist white guy making a movie is going
- 1:20:42Speaker 1: to affect your experience totally significantly. So it's just which again,
- 1:20:47Speaker 1: I do want to like acknowledge and like take into
- 1:20:50Speaker 1: consideration as I am judging a movie. I don't want
- 1:20:54Speaker 1: to like ignore that or be like it doesn't matter.
- 1:20:56Speaker 1: I'm just going to judge a movie because like the
- 1:20:58Speaker 1: movie by the movie. But at the end of the day,
- 1:21:01Speaker 1: there were just some movies that, yeah, like that just
- 1:21:04Speaker 1: don't end up being for me, and all I have
- 1:21:06Speaker 1: to do is just not watch them. Ever again, I
- 1:21:09Speaker 1: think it's just like the work of asking yourself, like, well,
- 1:21:12Speaker 1: why isn't it for me? And if you hit a
- 1:21:15Speaker 1: block there, if you're like, well, I just couldn't perfectly
- 1:21:18Speaker 1: relate with the main character because they weren't exactly my
- 1:21:21Speaker 1: perspective or bah. Like if if you're hitting blocks that
- 1:21:24Speaker 1: are you know, based on your own biases or your
- 1:21:28Speaker 1: own unwillingness to learn about the experiences of others, Like yeah,
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: sit yourself down in your little inner brain chamber and
- 1:21:37Speaker 1: have a little talk like and that is a huge
- 1:21:39Speaker 1: and I feel like that is like kind of in
- 1:21:42Speaker 1: conversation with what you're talking about. And and part of
- 1:21:44Speaker 1: the reason it's so hard for marginalized creators to get
- 1:21:47Speaker 1: projects funded is because there is such a like sis
- 1:21:51Speaker 1: white male normative, like if a if a white guy
- 1:21:55Speaker 1: can't enjoy your movie, then you don't get a movie. Sorry.
- 1:21:58Speaker 1: Like but in this wait, it's like if you're if
- 1:22:01Speaker 1: you ask yourself, which it seems like you very much
- 1:22:04Speaker 1: have in the case of this movie, like why is
- 1:22:06Speaker 1: this movie not for me? And the answer is like
- 1:22:09Speaker 1: I didn't like the writing and I it's not my genre.
- 1:22:12Speaker 1: Then it's like, yeah, you're not, Like you're not going
- 1:22:15Speaker 1: to go to hell, Like it's totally fine. I don't know.
- 1:22:19Speaker 1: It's it's like it's a very It's like a similarly
- 1:22:22Speaker 1: hard thing to grapple with as um being a hetero
- 1:22:26Speaker 1: woman who likes the romantic attention of men. It's confusing,
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: it's all complicated. We're all on a journey here, baby. Yes,
- 1:22:39Speaker 1: I did want to shout out the cinematographer of this movie,
- 1:22:42Speaker 1: who is an icon. We've covered his work before. M
- 1:22:47Speaker 1: David Mullen, a Japanese cinematographer. Check out this resume, Baby
- 1:22:54Speaker 1: Aquila and the b Jennifer's Body and the Love Which
- 1:22:59Speaker 1: amongst other but those were the three that jumped out
- 1:23:01Speaker 1: to me as like, oh hell yeah that Debs he rocks,
- 1:23:06Speaker 1: he rocks. Yeah, I mean Aquila and the Bat alone,
- 1:23:09Speaker 1: and also a bunch of Madmen, a bunch of West
- 1:23:13Speaker 1: world Sarah Silverman special, just like amazing work top to bottom.
- 1:23:19Speaker 1: So I just wanted to shout out m David Mullen.
- 1:23:23Speaker 1: I just wanted to take a moment to give credit
- 1:23:26Speaker 1: to a man brave. Yeah, But I was like, wait
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: a second, the same guy who did the camera work
- 1:23:32Speaker 1: on Aquila and the Bat which I we have to cover.
- 1:23:36Speaker 1: We have to I can't believe we haven't covered Acula
- 1:23:40Speaker 1: Um Classic. I want to point out the heteronormativity and
- 1:23:46Speaker 1: gender normativity, especially in the way that the characters discuss
- 1:23:53Speaker 1: love and sex and romance and stuff, and again might
- 1:23:56Speaker 1: bee that's part of the commentary and parody of it all,
- 1:24:01Speaker 1: But all the love and sex that gets discussed in
- 1:24:04Speaker 1: this movie only refers to hetero attraction between SIS men
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: and CIS women. Discussions around gender are always framed in
- 1:24:12Speaker 1: a very kind of rigid binary of men and woman
- 1:24:16Speaker 1: and not acknowledging anyone else on the gender spectrum um,
- 1:24:21Speaker 1: which I do think that there could have been room
- 1:24:22Speaker 1: for in this movie in terms of diversity and race,
- 1:24:27Speaker 1: body type, and and I feel like, you know, I
- 1:24:30Speaker 1: know that queer identities were like I almost went full
- 1:24:34Speaker 1: boss and I was like wicked underrepresented in movies in
- 1:24:39Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies. But there's there was like queer
- 1:24:43Speaker 1: b movie cinema that existed, Like there there was, there
- 1:24:46Speaker 1: was definitely room for it, right, But and then well,
- 1:24:48Speaker 1: I also have to kind of question, like, is the
- 1:24:51Speaker 1: movie stylistically paying homage to that era and the movies
- 1:24:56Speaker 1: that came out in that era an excuse for why
- 1:25:00Speaker 1: I the movie looks like it does in terms of
- 1:25:03Speaker 1: whiteness and body normativity and gender and heteronormativity. I don't know.
- 1:25:09Speaker 1: I don't feel like that's a very good excuse for
- 1:25:11Speaker 1: a movie that comes out within the past five years.
- 1:25:15Speaker 1: But I don't know. I would that's again, that's something
- 1:25:18Speaker 1: that I would be interested in deferring to annabiller on
- 1:25:22Speaker 1: because I do I'm like, I trust that she has
- 1:25:25Speaker 1: a creative vision and if there's a question that it's
- 1:25:28Speaker 1: like she's truly like, oh, I guess I wasn't thinking
- 1:25:32Speaker 1: about that that hard and I don't have reasoning for it.
- 1:25:34Speaker 1: Then it's like, okay, well then I'm criticizing you for that.
- 1:25:40Speaker 1: But yeah, I would I would be. This is just
- 1:25:42Speaker 1: something that I was just like, I wish she would
- 1:25:45Speaker 1: answer these questions. Maybe she has and we just don't know. Um.
- 1:25:50Speaker 1: Does anyone have other thoughts about the movie? It's everything
- 1:25:56Speaker 1: that I had. I don't think there's anything I loved.
- 1:25:59Speaker 1: When she's burying way and her total tangent to talk
- 1:26:03Speaker 1: about her cat that she misses so much, Like, yes,
- 1:26:06Speaker 1: it's like my best friend. I was like, wow, feelings
- 1:26:09Speaker 1: seen girls. Uh yeah. There were a lot of moments
- 1:26:14Speaker 1: in this movie that I thought were like very funny
- 1:26:17Speaker 1: or like just I don't know, Like the moments where
- 1:26:19Speaker 1: I did understand what was being referenced, I was like,
- 1:26:22Speaker 1: who I love this ship. Um, And then there are
- 1:26:25Speaker 1: other moments that I'm like, this is referencing something I'm
- 1:26:28Speaker 1: assuming I don't know, but yeah, does it pass the
- 1:26:33Speaker 1: Bachtel test? I believe it does a couple of times,
- 1:26:35Speaker 1: not a ton of times, because it is mostly you know,
- 1:26:39Speaker 1: women talking about men. What were we talking about? Oh? Yeah, men? Yeah,
- 1:26:45Speaker 1: but it does past a few times. It is like
- 1:26:47Speaker 1: more on a technicality than I was expecting, honestly. But
- 1:26:50Speaker 1: there is that whole I mean, there's that whole interest
- 1:26:52Speaker 1: scene where Trish and Elane are meeting each other. They're
- 1:26:54Speaker 1: talking about the house, They're talking about why did you
- 1:26:56Speaker 1: move there? There, They're talking about a couple of things
- 1:26:58Speaker 1: that are not about men, like it does is past
- 1:27:00Speaker 1: interior decorating. Yes, Elaine also talks to the which shop
- 1:27:06Speaker 1: lady about selling her weares. Yes, but most of the
- 1:27:11Speaker 1: conversations between Mary meeting Um, But most of the conversations
- 1:27:18Speaker 1: between women are either directly about men or the subtext
- 1:27:22Speaker 1: of the conversation is about using witchcraft to find hetero
- 1:27:28Speaker 1: love with a man. Which makes sense, it's a story
- 1:27:32Speaker 1: about a woman who is trying to find hetero love.
- 1:27:36Speaker 1: But also why are so many movies where a woman
- 1:27:39Speaker 1: is the protagonist? About that? This movie broke my brain? Yeah,
- 1:27:44Speaker 1: this movie, this is the movie that broke the podcast.
- 1:27:48Speaker 1: Congratulations Annabellair, congratulations as the podcast broken. I'm so glad
- 1:27:56Speaker 1: that that I got to bring this one. I am too,
- 1:27:59Speaker 1: I really like i I'm this movie is going to
- 1:28:02Speaker 1: like haunt me and I think in a in a
- 1:28:04Speaker 1: generally positive way. I feel like there's gonna be a
- 1:28:07Speaker 1: lot of listeners who are going to be like, Caitlin,
- 1:28:10Speaker 1: you fucking asshole with your horrible opinions about this movie.
- 1:28:16Speaker 1: Very hard on yourself. I mean usually I am, yes,
- 1:28:20Speaker 1: I don't know my again, my brain is broken, and
- 1:28:24Speaker 1: let's rate it. Let's rade it. Let's rade it. Our
- 1:28:26Speaker 1: nipple scale is zero to five nipples based on how
- 1:28:30Speaker 1: the movie fairs. Looking at it through an intersectional feminist lens,
- 1:28:35Speaker 1: here's what I'll say, Oh my god, ready, um knowing
- 1:28:41Speaker 1: who made the movie and Annabeller being a very vocal,
- 1:28:46Speaker 1: outspoken feminist and all of the work she put into
- 1:28:52Speaker 1: it and the care she put into it, and what
- 1:28:55Speaker 1: is clearly messages of the sexual of you know, women
- 1:29:02Speaker 1: and fems, and how that's historically been feared and punished,
- 1:29:07Speaker 1: and how it deserves to be empowered, and how there's
- 1:29:11Speaker 1: commentary on toxic masculinity and male fragility, how there's kind
- 1:29:17Speaker 1: of this acknowledgement or maybe this was just my read
- 1:29:20Speaker 1: of it, but open to interpretation, that it's exploring this
- 1:29:26Speaker 1: kind of tug of war of like being a sexually
- 1:29:30Speaker 1: liberated feminist person and also a heterosexual woman who is
- 1:29:38Speaker 1: attracted to men, and how that can be confusing you.
- 1:29:46Speaker 1: It's like, do you kill the men? Do you have
- 1:29:50Speaker 1: sex with them? Why not? Boy? Cannot be both? Do
- 1:29:53Speaker 1: you get into a relationship with them and then have
- 1:29:56Speaker 1: sex with them and then kill them? It could be everything,
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: take anything off the table, and this movie certainly does
- 1:30:03Speaker 1: not take any of those options off the table, right,
- 1:30:06Speaker 1: So I think it's attempting to do some interesting things.
- 1:30:09Speaker 1: I think that because the screenplay and just the way
- 1:30:12Speaker 1: the story was crafted is muddled and dissonant. I found
- 1:30:17Speaker 1: a lot of the messaging to get lost in that,
- 1:30:20Speaker 1: and I feel like it wasn't as um again, not
- 1:30:23Speaker 1: as effective commentary for me as it seems to be
- 1:30:26Speaker 1: for a lot of other people. And again that's probably
- 1:30:28Speaker 1: that's just like a personal preference art being open to
- 1:30:32Speaker 1: interpretation kind of thing. So I appreciate what it seems
- 1:30:36Speaker 1: to be doing, and because of that, I will award
- 1:30:39Speaker 1: the movie three nipples. Maybe that's too harsh, but that's
- 1:30:45Speaker 1: what feels right to me at this time. Three nipples.
- 1:30:47Speaker 1: I'll give one to Anna Biller's costume design. I'll give
- 1:30:53Speaker 1: one too, Anna Biller's score, and I'll give one to
- 1:31:00Speaker 1: the prop that is the used tampon that goes into
- 1:31:05Speaker 1: the witch bottle. I'm gonna go three and a half here.
- 1:31:10Speaker 1: I here's what I think boiled down. The movie is
- 1:31:15Speaker 1: too white and too straight even for the genre it
- 1:31:19Speaker 1: is parodying for my personal preference, and that is kind
- 1:31:25Speaker 1: of my biggest stumbling block with this movie. I don't
- 1:31:31Speaker 1: see why there couldn't have been more characters and also
- 1:31:36Speaker 1: like a body normative things we've we've discussed at this
- 1:31:39Speaker 1: point in the episode, but I think that there was
- 1:31:41Speaker 1: certainly more room even within the confines of what Anna
- 1:31:46Speaker 1: Biller was very clearly referencing. So that I think is
- 1:31:49Speaker 1: my my main critique. Outside of that, I think like
- 1:31:53Speaker 1: this is like a movie that I am very glad exists.
- 1:31:58Speaker 1: I feel like the fact that it broke all of
- 1:32:01Speaker 1: our brains in the way that it did actually speaks
- 1:32:04Speaker 1: to the movie and speaks to the fact that it
- 1:32:08Speaker 1: is good that that like that. I'm that I'm very
- 1:32:10Speaker 1: glad it exists because it's presenting, you know, in a
- 1:32:14Speaker 1: in a very weird way that seems very inherent to
- 1:32:17Speaker 1: like who this director is and how many women get
- 1:32:20Speaker 1: to make very like weird movies exactly how they want
- 1:32:25Speaker 1: to and while she, while she was certainly limited by budget,
- 1:32:30Speaker 1: got to do the whole thing by herself and have
- 1:32:33Speaker 1: it received with extremely open arms by the general public,
- 1:32:36Speaker 1: which I feel like it's also unusual for marginalized oh twos,
- 1:32:41Speaker 1: where you feel like it's a more normal reception to
- 1:32:44Speaker 1: be like, you know, white guy reviewers being like, well,
- 1:32:47Speaker 1: I don't know what the funk that was about anyway,
- 1:32:50Speaker 1: like you know, so I think that they're like, this
- 1:32:52Speaker 1: movie has a lot going on, and the fact that
- 1:32:54Speaker 1: like we were like like the different ways of navigating patriarchy,
- 1:33:02Speaker 1: and again it is a very like how heterosexual women
- 1:33:07Speaker 1: navigate the patriarchy. But but but even the shades of
- 1:33:10Speaker 1: gray within that very specific group of people who are
- 1:33:14Speaker 1: overrepresentative movies. But to have that and have both of
- 1:33:20Speaker 1: them sort of lose, it's frustrating, But it's also so
- 1:33:25Speaker 1: reflective of what real life can be and except everyone
- 1:33:29Speaker 1: is really sexy and wearing cool costumes, and so ultimately
- 1:33:36Speaker 1: I think that it's I think it's definitely worth a
- 1:33:38Speaker 1: watch if you enjoy like very I'm trying to think
- 1:33:42Speaker 1: of the world like whatever The intellectual word for quirky
- 1:33:46Speaker 1: is that, like the I like anachronistic. It's not that,
- 1:33:52Speaker 1: but it sounds like that. Kitchen kitchi is kind of
- 1:33:55Speaker 1: what has in mind kitchy kitchen. It is definitely kitchy.
- 1:33:58Speaker 1: I'm gonna think of this word in like three hours
- 1:34:00Speaker 1: and then walking into traffic. But I'm very glad this
- 1:34:04Speaker 1: movie because I think it's I mean, just based on
- 1:34:06Speaker 1: the conversation we've had here alone, I would recommend watching
- 1:34:09Speaker 1: and see what you think. Maybe I like it, maybe
- 1:34:11Speaker 1: you won't. And that's just kind of art movies. Um,
- 1:34:17Speaker 1: So I'll give it three and a half talking for
- 1:34:20Speaker 1: the reasons described. I'll give one to Elaine. I'll give
- 1:34:25Speaker 1: one to Trish, I will give one to Annabiller. I'll
- 1:34:30Speaker 1: give my last half to Elaine's cat that died, poor kitty, Melissa.
- 1:34:36Speaker 1: What say you? I'm going a solid four nips? Wow,
- 1:34:40Speaker 1: we really did the spectrum. You already gave a nip
- 1:34:43Speaker 1: to Gray Malkins, so I'm gonna give Grat Malkin to
- 1:34:46Speaker 1: just to like be extra. I think this movie is
- 1:34:51Speaker 1: so clever. I think it's so funny. I think that
- 1:34:54Speaker 1: the satire of it it works so well for me,
- 1:34:58Speaker 1: because there's just so much to pick apart, and it's
- 1:35:02Speaker 1: not straightforward and you have to kind of look at
- 1:35:04Speaker 1: it for longer. And I can't remember the exact quote
- 1:35:06Speaker 1: that Anna says um, but she said something about making
- 1:35:09Speaker 1: it for the feminine gays and how she did a
- 1:35:12Speaker 1: lot of artistry with the costumes and the sets and
- 1:35:15Speaker 1: all of that so that you weren't just looking at
- 1:35:18Speaker 1: the women's sexually being like, oh, she's a beautiful woman.
- 1:35:20Speaker 1: It's like there's all of this other stuff to look
- 1:35:23Speaker 1: at at the same time. So she wanted there to
- 1:35:25Speaker 1: be like that to be part of it. But they're
- 1:35:27Speaker 1: for they're time more to look at. So I think
- 1:35:30Speaker 1: it's I don't know. I just think it's such a
- 1:35:33Speaker 1: great movie. I do want to share a quick quote
- 1:35:36Speaker 1: from Annabeller from an article in The Guardian in which
- 1:35:43Speaker 1: she's kind of talking about what she wanted to do
- 1:35:46Speaker 1: with this movie and like different cinematic identities she wanted
- 1:35:50Speaker 1: to reclaim as far as like archetypes and stereotypes and
- 1:35:53Speaker 1: and and like things like that, as far as like
- 1:35:56Speaker 1: female characters throughout cinema, and she says, or sorry, so sorry,
- 1:36:02Speaker 1: this is talking about what Annabeller wanted to do. So
- 1:36:05Speaker 1: it's not a direct quote from her, but it says
- 1:36:08Speaker 1: that she quote cites other female movie types whose voices
- 1:36:11Speaker 1: she would like to reclaim, the sexually aggressive, confident women
- 1:36:15Speaker 1: of the pre Hayes Code era, when many more screenwriters
- 1:36:20Speaker 1: were women, film noir fem fatales such as and Savage
- 1:36:24Speaker 1: in Detour and Jane Grier in Out of the Past
- 1:36:27Speaker 1: projections of male postwar anxiety and misogyny. And then she says, quote,
- 1:36:33Speaker 1: I'm doing that with the Love, which reclaiming the figure
- 1:36:35Speaker 1: of the which the fem fatale, an old sort of
- 1:36:38Speaker 1: male fantasy figure, and make it a fem fatale seen
- 1:36:43Speaker 1: from the female side unquote. So you know, I appreciate that.
- 1:36:48Speaker 1: I get what she's doing. Caitlin, It's okay you didn't
- 1:36:51Speaker 1: like the movie with that alysta. Where can we find
- 1:36:56Speaker 1: your online? Where can we follow you and follow your work?
- 1:37:00Speaker 1: You can find me omg Chump on Twitter and Instagram,
- 1:37:04Speaker 1: and you can find my work at Krypt t v
- 1:37:07Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram. It's krypt t v. And you
- 1:37:10Speaker 1: can also watch Girl in the Woods, which is our
- 1:37:12Speaker 1: new show coming on Peacock this October, and the whole
- 1:37:15Speaker 1: show centers around a queer love triangle and a non
- 1:37:19Speaker 1: binary person coming out and girls kiss in the first episode.
- 1:37:23Speaker 1: That's all I'm gonna say. It's spooky, it's fun. I
- 1:37:26Speaker 1: think it's got something for everybody. Yes, everyone, be sure
- 1:37:30Speaker 1: to check out The Girl in the Woods on Peacock TV,
- 1:37:33Speaker 1: which drops October twenty one, which, depending on the release
- 1:37:37Speaker 1: date of this episode, might be today, So check it out.
- 1:37:42Speaker 1: Uh And then you can follow us on Twitter and
- 1:37:47Speaker 1: Instagram at Bechtel Cast. And of course there's our Patreon
- 1:37:52Speaker 1: a k a Matreon, which is found at patreon dot com,
- 1:37:56Speaker 1: slash pecktel Cast. It's five dollars a month. It gets
- 1:37:59Speaker 1: you to this episodes per month and also the entire
- 1:38:04Speaker 1: back catalog. Love it. You can get merch at t
- 1:38:08Speaker 1: public dot com slash v Bechdel Cast. And the last
- 1:38:13Speaker 1: thing I'll say is everything I didn't like about this
- 1:38:15Speaker 1: movie or the moments I didn't like where when I
- 1:38:17Speaker 1: felt like I was watching a Lanta del Rey music
- 1:38:19Speaker 1: video and that I feel like I'm like, well, I'm
- 1:38:23Speaker 1: bringing my biases to the table as well. Sure, sure, okay,
- 1:38:28Speaker 1: bye bye,