Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Frida with Angela Campos

Transcript

Frida with Angela Campos · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions ask if movies have women
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: best start changing it.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: With the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Hey, Jamie, Hi, Caitlin, would you draw me like one
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: of your freeda girls self portraits?
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Question Mark. Well, no, that's not how that works at all.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, that doesn't make sense. That's not how that works.
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: I appreciate the ask, but really, you really need to
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: look within, look.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: To your darkest parts.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: What I should have said is, hey, Caitlin, would you
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: draw me like one of your selves?
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: You know, we'll get there, We'll continue to navigate.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: It's a work in progress.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this joke will kind of coagulate throughout the episode.
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: In the meantime, Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Derante. This is
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: our podcast where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens,
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: using the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping off point.
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: And what is that though? I wonder well. The Bechdel
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: test is a media metric originally created by queer cartoonist
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: Alison Bechdel, often called the Bechdel Wallace Test because it
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: was co created with her friend Liz Wallace. Originally made
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: as a bit as will become actually relevant in today's episode,
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: but it was originally created as a bit for her
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: comic collection Dykes to watch out for, and was originally
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: sort of this conversation about how not just women or
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: people of marginalized genders never talk to each other in movies,
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: but how.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Queer women specifically never get to talk to each other
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: in movies.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: A lot of versions of this test, the one we
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: use requires that two characters of a marginalized gender with
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: names speak to each other about something other than a
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: man for more than two lines of dialogue, and it
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: should be you know, a plot relevant exchange that would
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: be nice, and we're we're going to get into it today.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: So let's get our guest in here, a long time
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: movie request, and it's happening, baby, It's finally here.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Our guest is an art historian and is currently in
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: a PhD program in art and education. So I am
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: not the person with the highest degree.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Hey, don't be humble. You used to teach paint night you.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Art, Yeah, but I only have a master's. I don't
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: have a PhD.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: That's true. And you do need a master's to do
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: paint night.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: You need a PhD to teach paint night class. Sorry,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: I have completely derailed your introduction. But yes, art historian
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: and in a PhD program in art and education. It's
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: an hala campos. Welcome, helone, welcome. Bye.
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: I'm very happy to be here, so excited.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: So happy to have you.
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: I still only have a master's degree.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Too, So okay, well that makes me feel better.
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: I'm currently in the PhD program. So yeah, it's fine, mate,
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: It's it's okay. Don't worry. We're in the same.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I will not be upscaled on my own podcast. No,
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: So we're talking about Freda, the two thousand and two
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: biopic directed by Julie Taymoor starring Salma Hayek, and.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Well, come on, and Alfred Molina.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: And sorry, Alfred, of course, Alfred Molina.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Now hold the damn phone. We can't. Let's not bury
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: the wee.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: Alfred Molina is in this.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: Movie, sorry to erase a male presence.
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: Well, as we've said many times on this show, and
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: it will be complicated in this movie. If Alfred Molina
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: is speaking, it passes the factel test automatically rules be damned.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: That is yes, yes, Well, we haven't brought up Alfred
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Molina quite some time.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: It's because you got married, so I'm moving on.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: He's off the market for you.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Anyways, sorry, So we're talking about Freda and we're curious, Angela,
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: what is your relationship with the movie with Frieda Callo
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: as an artist and historical figure. Tell us everything.
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: Well, first, I remember watching the movie when I was
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: way too young to be able to watch it. I
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: remember that it was I don't know if my mom
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: had it on DVD or something, but I remember watching
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: it because especially the scene. I don't want any spoilers yet,
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: but the scene with the sister traumatized me horribly. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: So I remember tiny parts of the film in my
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: unconscious mind, and I never rewatched it until I started
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: studying artists at eighteen nineteen years old. So, when you're
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: an art historian, especially in Mexico, you're kind of tired
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: of Frida Calo. Well, even if you're a Mexican person,
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: you're kind of tired of of Frida because she has
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: been exploited by the capitalist system in a way that
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: she would have hated being a communist.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: No exactly.
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, but she's constantly, constantly in our media, in
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: our international propaganda to come to Mexico and the idea
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: people have of Mexico so as a Mexican is it's
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: kind of annoying. So people tend to put her away,
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: no and say, ah, Frida Calo, I don't like her.
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: No so, And the taboo in art history, I believe
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: is to like her. So when I had my twentieth
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: century art class, because you have other artists from twentieth
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: century that are important, like Marie Squiero, not Tina Modotti,
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: who is in a movie of course, Remeliosa or Leonora Carlington.
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: All of these women that surrounded the same a time
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: and space as Prida Galo tend to be more popular
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: within the art history crowd. But then you realize, when
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: I had my art history class for the twentieth century,
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: I really found out the true sense and the true
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: the importance of fridacal No. Her paintings are not only
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: this thing of oh I'm so sad, I'm so sick.
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: I have a horrible life, which we all complain about constantly.
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: But it's a thing of how she pioneered something in
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: art that is so common nowadays, and maybe that's why
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: we don't notice it or consider it as important because
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: we have normalized it. But she did it first, and
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: it's not about her technique, her esthetic. It's about that
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: innovation that she brought to art history. And I found
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: that out until I studied the twentieth century in the
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: last symesters of my degree, and it was extramely shocking
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: because I realized my internalized missa genia against Rida Callo,
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: my prejudices against her, and how stereotypes of her had
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: shaped the image I had of her, instead of just
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: letting go and going with the flow and realize myself
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: if I liked her or not, which is something that
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: I also think. S al Mahaik said about her that
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: she didn't like her at first, and then she explored
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: her and she realized that she was amazing. That's what
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: happened to me too. So that's my journey with Ridakalo
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: and now I of course love her and yeah, what
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: about you so interesting?
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: I mean that, Yeah, I feel like that happens a
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: lot where something gets mainstream afied.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like over it's like saying you like Coldplay.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: You're like, exactly, sure you do, but everybody does.
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: Everybody does, and everybody when they come to Mexico. I
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: have cousins in Spain and they're like, I want to
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: see Frida. I want to see Frida, And I was like,
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: they behave, like Frida and Diego are the Sistine Chapel
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: or something, And then I realize they are for people
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: that aren't from here. And we have normalized going to
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: be Yes artists and se Diego's murals, we have normalized
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: being close to Lacasa Soul. We have normalized those things
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: about these great artists because we have them at least
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: in Mexico City, and being very centralist here unfortunately, but
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: at least in Mexico City, we have them very close
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: to us. So it's also a thing of re cherishing
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: what we have in our own art history and realizing
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: it's it's not just anything that we should skip and
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: and consider. Oh again, no, it's examly that we should
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: maybe explore from other perspectives.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: Sometimes things are very well known because they are good, yeah,
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: and it so rarely happens, but in the case of
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: Free to Callow, It's true. Yes, Jimmy, how about you?
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: What's your history?
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: I had not seen this movie before for a silly
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: reason that I will get to.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: But I was introduced to.
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: Frieda Callo's work through what we're going to talk about today,
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: this very sort of sanitized image of who she was.
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: I probably was introduced to Free to Callo in high school,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: like on a pair of socks or something. I like,
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: she's a very frequently and like you were saying on
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: there's like the fact that her politics mean that she
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: would fucking hate that.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: But she felt like, Yeah.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: This pantheon of frequently reproduced figures that I actually didn't
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: know much about. You would see her next to like
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: Einstein and like all of these sort of iconic innovative
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: people just presented without context for monetary gain.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: That's how I learned who she was. And then I.
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: Did read the book this movie is based on in
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: high school, a biography of Free to Callo by Hated Herrera.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: I read that in high school and like completely fell
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: in love with her just out of sight. I have
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: a framed print of the two Fridas. Yeah, the more
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: I learned about her I mean she's still to this day.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: I mean it's like a travesty that she's presented, so,
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: you know, simply, and I feel like in this way
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: that is very white feminism driven, completely lacking context, lacking
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: her politics, lacking her identity, and lacking her queerness as well,
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: like which was something I had to learn from a book.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: It wasn't something that was readily being printed about her
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: when I was in high school.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: So I've always been fascinated by her.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: I avoided this movie for years because a college professor
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: who was really mean to me is one of the
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: credited screenwriters. So for one of so, Diane Lake, I'm
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: calling your ass out. You were such an asshole to
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: me in twenty fourteen, and so, I like kind of
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: vowed to never watch this movie due to the.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Transgressions of one Diane Lake.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: However, I am very glad that I finally have cause
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: to watch it because there's so much to talk about.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: I'm so curious, but I don't know.
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: I feel like I'm going to figure out how I
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: feel about it in real time. I like Julie Taymoor
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: in general. I think she's a very creative director.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: I was one of the cringe fans of across the
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: universe me too, good, good, Yeah, I love her.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: I still played for my students when we see the
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: Vietnam War and stuff. I still play something because it's amazing.
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: I don't care.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: I was like, you had to be there, and if
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: you were there.
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: You understand exactly. Yeah.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Well, we'll talk about her a little bit.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: I've also wanted to shout out her funniest credit, which
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: is the Bad Spider Man music.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Killing All the Spider.
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: Man, the musical that she'll not be named. Yes.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: So anyways, I hadn't seen it, and I am very
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: glad that I did, because it gave me like reason
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: to revisit her life, which I hadn't in a while. Kaitline,
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: what is your history with this film and this political figure.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: I had seen the movie before, probably about twenty years ago,
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: and I didn't revisit it, although I remember liking it
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: at the time, but enough time had passed that I
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: forgot almost everything you learn in the movie, and then
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: I relearned much of it by visiting the Free to
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: Callo Museum in Mexico City. I went to La Casasoul
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: and I went with friend of the cast Adriana Ortega,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: who was on our Youtumama dambiena episode Loved and who
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: coincidentally connected us with you Anhela.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: She's just the best.
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, she's Yeah.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: She took me to the museum and obviously much of
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: her art is in the museum, as well as like
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: different dresses she wore, different outfits she wore throughout her life,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: different kind of medical apparatus that she wore, and I
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, right, she's dealt with chronic pain throughout
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: her life. I also relearned that she was a communist.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: I relearned that she was bisexual, all this stuff, and
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh yeah. And then so remembering that
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: this was about a year ago that I went to
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: the museum and relearned all this information, So I was like,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: I wonder how much of that is in this biopic,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: because I was like, I bet Hollywood is gonna like
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: wash a lot of that out.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I thought that.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: Her bisexuality would have been sanitized big time.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: But I mean, there are a lot of aspects of
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Freda's life, as far as I can tell, that are
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: somewhat erased or scaled back on in this biopic, But
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: it does show more about her than what I would
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: have expected, because I was like, oh, I bet this
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: movie like Capitalism washes her political ideology. I bet it
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: straight washes her queerness, you know, but it it doesn't.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: It doesn't. And we'll talk about that a lot. But yeah,
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: I really enjoyed going to the museum and learning about it,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: and then rewatching this movie. I was like, oh my gosh,
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: setting aside things that the movie might again scale back
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: on or kind of a RaSE about Frida's life, it's
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: a really enjoyable movie.
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: I find it very fun and entertaining, and I enjoy
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: it just as a piece of cinema. And then I
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: also I didn't finish it. I have about twenty minutes left.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: But there's a documentary called Freeda that came out recently, yeah,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: on Prime that takes excerpts from her diary, from letters
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: she wrote, correspondences from other figures in her life, including
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Diego Rivera and other friends and lovers of hers and
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: their diaries, and it just has all this sort of
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: like voice over photographs of her, video of her, I
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: guess film film footage of her, obviously her works of art,
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: and so that provides a little bit more context. So
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: I learned some more stuff from that, and uh, yeah,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate free to call it as an artist
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: and historical figure. And I like the movie a lot,
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: but there's lots to talk about. Yes, so let's take
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: a quick break and then we'll come back and get
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: into the recap.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: And we're back. We're back. Shall we get into the
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: flim the movie.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: I just was like, I'm kind of panicking about but
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: you know what, I just I need Diane like to
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: know how I feel.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Let's leave it in. Let's leave it in.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: I could bleep out the name if you wanted to.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: I guess that there are four credited writers on this movie,
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: and I guess an uncredited scriptwrite from Edward Norton, which
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: I don't even know if I want to talk about.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: I was like, when you learn a fact and you're like,
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: h I don't know if I can engage with that
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: fact right anyways, No.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: Leave it in, Okay, We'll leave it in. Okay. So
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: the movie opens on Frida Callo as an older adult
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: near the end of her life. She's in bed which
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: is being loaded onto a truck. We will find out
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: why because this pays off later in the movie. Then
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: we flash back to nineteen twenty two in Mexico City.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Frida is a teenager. I think she would have been
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: around fifteen years old at the time renowned artist Diego
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: Rivera played by A one Alfred Molina.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: Oh Fort Molina. I will say, I love Salamahayak so much.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: It was so distracting watching her be fifteen years old.
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: Truly.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: She was doing this like I don't know, like taking
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: this childlike stance. Yeah, just get a different actor. It's
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: just a couple scenes.
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, was in her thirties when she recorded a film,
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: So it's like, yeah, that's strich.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, very very movie like it happens all the time.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: But the cut too, is severe. It was like whoa, okay, cool.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: It reminded me of an episode of like Penn fifteen
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: kind of it was giving Penn fifteen.
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Anyways, so Diego Rivera is at her school painting a
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: nude portrait of a woman with whom he's also having
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: an affair, and Frida and her friends sneak in too
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: watch him work. One of these friends is her boyfriend
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Alejandro aka Alex.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Played by baby Diego Luna.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Oh love to see him. So, Jamie, You're lifelong crush
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: is in the movie, and my more recent crush, Diego
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: Luna is in the movie. So the boys are there.
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: He's Mexico's crush too. Yeah, human guy. Oh my god,
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: Mexico's proudest moment.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: That's another there being Caitlin crush.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're my boys. Okay, So they are together, Frida
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: and Alex. Then we see Frida's childhood home. We meet
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: her mother, her father who is a painter and photographer,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: her sister Christina played by Mia Maestro, and she's about
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: to get married. So they're gearing up for the wedding.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: One day, Frida and Alex are on a bus. This
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: is when she was eighteen years old, discussing politics and Marxism.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: The bus crashes, leaving Frida with several serious injuries broken bones,
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: her pelvis was impaled by the handrail of the bus,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: and she has several operations in this Really I think
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: cool stop motion animation sequence.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, for a time, you see like a biopic about
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: an artist and it doesn't even attempt to like bring
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: in their craft into the filmmaking.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: I was so glad they did that. It looked really cool.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and it was very Julie de Marco that too, Like, yes,
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: the whole esthetic of that of that scene because in
• 19:30
  Speaker 5: a crossing universe, for example, she does similar things. And
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: I also love that they use the skulls the calacas
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: because of the relationship with Rita's idea of that, but
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: also Mexican typical art very cool.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: So she's in recovery for a long time after the accident.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: Doctors are uncertain if she'll ever walk again. One day,
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Alex comes in and tells Frida that he's moving to Europe,
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: so they effectively break up and Frida is devastated. And
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: then while she's recuperating, her parents gift her painting supplies
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: and they install a mirror on the ceiling of her
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: four poster bed so that she can paint self portraits.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: So she starts painting a lot, and eventually she starts
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: walking again, and one day she approaches Diego Rivera and
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: shows her paintings to him and wants his professional opinion
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: because she's hoping to make a career out of painting
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: to make money and help support her family. They have
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: substantial medical bills that have piled up from all of
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: these operations, and Diego Rivera is like, wowie wow a wooga,
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: you're a great painter and your work is very original
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: and it's terrific. And so he becomes a mentor to
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: her and kind of takes her under his wing. He
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: brings her to a party full of artists and political activists.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: They're talking about you know, socialism and communism and drinking
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: and you know stuff that you do at a party.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: One of those parties, right, Antonio Benders is there as
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: the Videlfarro Cicios. He and Diego are like frenemies.
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: I never thought i'd see the day where Alfred Blina
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: and Antonio bender has got into a physical altercation.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: But today was that day.
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: By the way, a very big favor by casting Antonio
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: and they just let.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: Me say that, oh is because is he not?
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, he didn't look like that. No, no, no, all.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: I mean Alfred Blina is casting of Diego Rivera like
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: it was.
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: Also a favor for yes.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: The biopic treatment in the biop at least.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So we're at this party. Ashley Judd is also
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: there playing Tina Medotti, who was an Italian American photographer, model, actor,
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: political activist, she and Freda do a sexy dance and
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: have a little kiss together. Meanwhile, Diego is trying to
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: sleep with Freda. He is a known womanizer, and she's like,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna sleep with you, dude, and he's like, okay, fair,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: We'll just be comrades, colleagues and friends, but we'll never
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: sleep with each other.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: And that gets her horny, and then.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: They immediately they immediately start making out and having sex.
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: I do love that Freda from the very beginning of
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: this movie is canonically horny, because that also seems to
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: be historically true.
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, very horny person who had many affairs.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: Truly a murderer's row list of lovers, extramarital affairs like
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: she had Paul.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, goals, you know, incredible, Yeah, my goals. At least,
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: so time passes, Freda and Diego fall in love. They
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: get married, though her mother disapproves of the marriage because
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Diego Rivera is an atheist and a communist. Frida also
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: has doubts about her relationship with Diego. We see at
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: the wedding Diego's ex wife, Lupe Marine played by Valeria Golino,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: causes a scene she insults Frieda. Frida gets upset that
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Diego doesn't defend her. It's day one of them being
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: married and already not off to a great start.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Or at all. Yeah.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: Then Frida finds out that Lupe lives right above Diego's
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: apartment with the children they have together, which infuriates Frida
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: at first, but then she and Loupe start like hanging
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: out out and Lupe teaches Frida how to make her
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: molay recipe, and she tells Frida about Diego Afferre's various infidelities,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: and this pattern of behavior does not change with Freida.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: No imagine that a man that changing impossible? Yeah, wun't you?
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: So Frida finds out about his many affairs, often with
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: the models he paints portraits of. There's also a political
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: undercurrent to the film, as previously kind of hinted at.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: But Diego has painted a socialist portrait in a government
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: building in Mexico City, but his party thinks he's a
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: trader because he's like making art for a bourgeois government.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: So there's like this push and pull there.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: He's making art for Edward Norton Rockefeller, which was yes,
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: the most interesting jump scare in this movie for me
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: where you're like, what.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: The hell are you doing here?
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: I had a similar jump scare with Ashley Judd. Oh yeah,
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: I was like, uh yeah, what is she doing here?
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: I was expecting an Italian actress or something, and they
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: actually judge showed up right right.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Well, isn't Valeria Galino an Italian actress?
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: Wouldn't she is the one who plays Slooper Marino.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she probably would have made more sense in that
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: role anyway. So that's about to happen where Frida and
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Diego go to New York for a solo exhibition of
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Diego's Diego then paints a mural in the Rockefeller Building.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Edward Norton is playing like Rockefeller Junior. Frida's voiceover is
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: talking about the class disparity and poverty she sees in
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: New York. This is also highlighted in that documentary. I
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: was referencing the way she talks about New York, the
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: way she talks about like rich Americans especially, She's like,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: these motherfuckers are the most boring losers I've ever met.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: She talks about like having visited Harlem and how it
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: was such a beautiful, vibrant neighborhood that reminded her of
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: neighborhoods in Mexico City, like the way she describes New
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: York I found very funny. Anyway. Diego continues to be
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: unfaithful to Freda on this trip, but Frida is also
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: having affairs. We see her with a woman who Diego
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: head also slept with. Then Frida reveals to Diego that
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: she's gregnant, although he expresses concern about her body being
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: able to handle a pregnancy because of the injury she sustained,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: and sure enough, she has a miscarriage and is rushed
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: to the hospital. Her miscarriage inspires some of her paintings.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: It's obviously very devastating to her also, and around this
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: time that Frieda's mother falls ill and passes away. Diego
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: is still in New York doing this Rockefeller Building painting,
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: and he has put Vladimir Lenin into the mural, and
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: some people are like woo hoo, hero, and then all
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: the capitalists are like, boo, take that out of there,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: but Diego refuses to compromise his vision, so he's fired
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: from this commission and the painting is destroyed, which enrages Diego.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: They return home to Mexico, where he feels like restless
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: and creatively unfulfilled, and he resents being back in Mexico
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: he was having a great time in New York. And
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: it's kind of throughout the movie, but it's especially around
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: this point where I'm like, what about Frieda's art, Like
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: we see more of that?
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because he was also very resentful against her because
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: they returned Mexico because she was homesick. That was his
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: idm oh so, so he's like, Nah, this is your
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: fault that we're here. Yeah, and yeah, she says something
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: along the lines of I want to return to that
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: artist that you were painting, Maggie, Yes, and not being
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: a pompos guy in brockefit.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: Corporate chill, yeah, capitalist stooge.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Right. I that just not as well, Kaitlyn.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: I was curious what others thought about it, were like,
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: I feel like we see a lot of Frida's paintings,
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: you know, brought to life through these stop motion animations
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: that Samahayak is very frequently in, and they're presented, but
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: like it's not fully contextualized what is motivating them? And
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: I wish that there was a little more, especially in
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: a biopic about an artist, to like have a fuller
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: idea of what was inspiring these pieces, because I loved
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: the visuals of it, but it felt like a little
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: less focused on her art than I would have liked.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and we'll talk more about it. But that was
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: something I definitely noticed throughout the movie.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: But I also know that, like in her lifetime, her
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: art career was not sufficiently like Diego Rivera's art career
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: always got precedence over hers too.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I don't know, yeah, right, and.
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: This was a systemic issue in Mexican and art ya exactly.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: My thing is, well, if that was like where his
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: art was always like overshadowing hers, like, shouldn't the movie
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: like call more attention to that and like address that. Yeah,
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: examine the systemic patriarchal, sexist context for that, anyway, we'll
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: talk more about it. So then Freda hires her sister, Christina,
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: who had recently left her abusive husband, to help out
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: in Diego's studio. Diego and Christina promptly have sex, which
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: is like the ultimate betrayal to Frida. She I don't
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: know if tolerated was the right word, but she put
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: up with his infidelities, but this was like the last
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: straw him sleeping with her sister, So she leaves Diego
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: and she stops talking to her sister for a while.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: Frieda moves back into the house she grew up in.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: She cuts off all her hair, making her the baldest
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: woman in charge. She starts dressing androgynously some of the time,
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: which is something we've seen her do already different times
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: throughout the film. It's also clear that she's having trouble
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: supporting herself. She considers selling some of her paintings, but
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: comments are made about how they don't have enough commercial
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: appeal sort of thing. Then Diego approaches Frieda asking if
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: she'll house Leon Trotsky played by Jeffrey Rush and his
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: wife Natalia, who have been granted asylum in Mexico after
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: being exiled from the Soviet Union and then from Norway.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: I think, and Frida agrees. So Trotsky moves in and
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: he takes to Frida. Immediately, he marvels her paintings. He
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: really likes her, and they start having an affair. They
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: also visit some pyramids, yes where I also went on
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: that same trip to Mexico City, and they're stunning, but
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: I was like, wow, I recognize these places. I went
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: there and so this affair is ongoing between Frida and Trotsky.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Natalia finds out about it, so she and Trotsky move out,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: which is dangerous for them, and an assassination attempt is made,
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: although Trotsky survives it this one at least.
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: Just a quick note that I found out earlier that
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: the actress who plays Natalia Trotzky's wife, and Salamahayek had
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: worked together Indlos Milos, Mexican Away from nineteen ninety five previously.
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: Oh well, yeah, yeah, so in this film their enemies
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: of course, because she ends up hating Frida Calo for
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: sleeping with her husband, but they had previously worked together
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: in a very good Mexican film. Yeah, that's so cool.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll have to check that one out. So then
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: Frida goes to Paris for an exhibition of hers.
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: And the only people she hates more than Americans are
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: French fields, which is that seems.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: To be you know, the order of operations there.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: And she's writing letters to Diego saying that she misses
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: him and she does want to be with him after all,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: but the next time they see each other, he asks
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: for a divorce. Trotsky is then eventually murdered and the
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: Mexican government thinks that Diego had something to do with it,
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: and so they interrogate Frida, asking where Diego is, but
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: she won't cooperate, so she's arrested and put in jail.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: I think is what happens here. Her sister Christina bails
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: her out and then they make up. Frida's health has
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: started to decline around this point. Some of her toes
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: are amputated after they're discovered to be gangrenous, And the
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: movie doesn't make this super clear, but I think she's
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: had additional operations and again is suffering from chronic pain.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Diego comes back and wants to get married again, and
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: at first Frida's like, I don't need your pity. I
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: don't need you to save me, and he's like, I'm
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: the one who needs saving. So they get married again,
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: and by now it's I think nineteen fifty three, she
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: finally has her first solo exhibition of her paintings in
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: her own country, something that she's been waiting for her
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: whole life. But she's too ill to leave her.
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: Bed because she had her leg amputated. Two in nineteen
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: fifty three.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: Right, which is like somewhat clear in the movie.
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because she takes the leg now.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, She's like, give me my leg back.
• 34:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: So Diego goes to this exhibition on her behalf. He
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: gives a monologue about her work as an artist.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Big movie moment that also happened.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: Happened in real life where Frida shows up. She has
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: had people carry her in in bed so that she
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: can enjoy the event, but you know, obeyed the doctor's
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: orders of like not leaving her bed. And then shortly
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: after this she passes away on July thirteenth, nineteen fifty four.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: then we'll come back to discuss and we're back. One
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: of the main things that I I am curious about
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: Angela is as far as what we know about Frida Carlos'
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: life and art and political positions and all of that,
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: how does it compare to what is shown in the movie.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: And are there important things about Frida that were left
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: out or glossed over in this biopic.
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: I believe generally she was depicted very accurately because Almachayk
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: was very passionate about this. She even contacted Dolores Olmelo,
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: who was the last lover and the person who, aside
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: from his kids, held Diego Riveda's inheritance and Frida Carlos artwork.
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: So she was a very rich woman and there was
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: a museum that recently closed in the south of Mexico
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: City that had all her collections and stuff. But Salmachayik
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: contacted this woman and asked her for permission to put
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: Frida's paintings in the film, and sal Machaik, I think,
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: was very passionate about this project, so she didn't want
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: to depict Rida Calo in a way that wasn't truthful.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: But again, it has some things that are immediately not true,
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: like the fact that all the dialogue is in English
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: and they try to include some Spanish in a sometimes
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: in a forced way, and like stereotypical Mexican way, I think.
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: But I think that the spirit of Rida Calo is
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: very well represented in the terms of her being a rebel.
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: Every time they say she cannot do something, she finds
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: a way or a loophole to do it. The horny
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: aspect that you were mentioning, no or I think what
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: is very washed down is how violent Diego was towards
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: Frida in his relationship with her, because it's still very romantic.
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: I understand that it's from Frida's perspective, which was very romanticized,
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: and her idea of him. Never she never realized how
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: violent it was what he did to her, But it
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: could have been more critical in that way because it
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: was terrible. He was a very very bad man, and
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: not only towards Frida. Earlier on, I mentioned other Mexican
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: female artists from this time, including Marie Squeredo, who was
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: If we use intersectionality as a tool for this, we
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: can see that she has a higher level of dissidence
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: and because she was a brown woman, for example, she
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: was racialist. And Marie Quero wanted to paint murals and
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: she was extremely targeted, but she could only paint canvas
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: paintings because Cicos and Rivera never let women have public
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: spaces for muralism, which is very interesting because there is
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: a book called Lipse la Tlunas by Dina co Misenko,
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: a researcher that basically discovered female muralists in Mexico who
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: did paint, but they granted them small spaces. Now instead
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: of the big lace where the president holds his and
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: now hers because we will not have female president speeches.
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: They gave them the little building in the little part
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: of town that nobody actually saw. No, And this was
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: because of a monopoly that these guys had, these men
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: had in muralism in Mexico. And also it has to
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: do with the rivetas incoherence with his political discourse and
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: his political beliefs, because Fridaclo was much more coherent than him.
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: She never sold out, let's say, and the Oribta was
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: coherent only when he could be kind of dramatic about it,
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: like with the Rockefeller thing. There he decided, no, no, no,
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: I have to follow my ideology and I will never
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: back down. But then why did you go there in
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: the first place if you're such a communist, right.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: It always felt like a pr thing.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: From his Yeah, yeah, like deciding halfway through painting something
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: for Elon Musk, like, actually I don't like this guy.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: You're like, well, we are.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: Here and he already paid you.
• 39:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah. So he was kicked out of the Communist Party
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: from Mexico three times because of these incoherences. And Freda
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: was much more strong in this sense too. And I
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: think that all of those little nuances I mean, it's
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: a film. It's a two hour film. You can really
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: depict them exactly, but there are little details that I
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: think would enrich this general idea we have a freedom
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: and make her even more of an admirable character like
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: we see her when we find out all of these nuances.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: Thank you for contextualizing that better, because I think that
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: that also speaks to Kaitlyn what you were saying a
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: little earlier about While we see a lot of her work,
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: the context of how welcome women were or were not
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: into art in Mexico and the US at the time
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: isn't fully explore in a way that I feel like
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: would make sense to do in this movie.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: And I also, I mean, I found.
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: A quote from Diego Rivera because I remember from reading
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: this book all these years ago that the abuse that
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: he subjected to her and others was horrific, And I
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: was like, one of the disappointing elements of the movie,
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: or I think the most disappointing element of the movie
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: to me was kind of making the Hollywood choice to
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: have the action of the movie we're following Frida's life,
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: but the most important thing we're following, according to the movie,
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: as her relationship with Diego, which obviously that's complicated because
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: it was one of the most deeply important relationships of
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: her life. Anyways, here's this quote I found from Rivera
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: that sort of bears this out. He said, if I
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: ever loved a woman, the more I loved her, the
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: more I wanted to hurt her. Frida was only the
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: most obvious victim of this disgusting trait.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: So he also stated himself.
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: Like, don't do it right right.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: Well, one of the things that I thought was interesting
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: because I went back and fact checked this because I
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: was like, what a weird line of dialogue if this
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: was made up. But he says early in the movie
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: essentially when he says like, if we get married, it
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: will have to be an open marriage because I can't
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: do anything else. And he says like, oh yeah, I
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: talked to this doctor and he said I'm like, I
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: can't do monogaby, which is like the most scumbag thing
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: he could possibly say, And it turns out that actually happened.
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: He yeah, the real if Diego Rivera talked to some
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: doctor at a party and he was like, yeah, you're
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: diagnosed as always going to cheat.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: Well, coming at it from a polyamorous standpoint, like, he's
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: clearly someone who was inclined toward polyamory, and it seems
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: as though despite Friedo's affairs, seems like she was only
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: having those because she knew that Diego was in response
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: to Yeah, exactly. So that's what tends to happen when
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: a polyamorous person and a monogamous person get together, is
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: that it doesn't quite work.
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: But well, I'm not trying to like make any sort
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: of disparaging statement towards polyamory, for sure, like Diego Rivera
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: was an abuser like that.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, to be clear, being polyamorous and being an abuser
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: and a liar and not honoring the type of relationship
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: your partner wants are two very separate things. And I
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: don't want to conflate ethical non monogamy with any kind
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: of partner abuse because there was nothing ethical about what
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: Diego Rivera was doing in his relationship.
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and most relationships at that time in art in
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: Mexico had that for that. That's why she's so amazing
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: because she portrayed these personal, very personal pain and suffering
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: and process. But it was a political statement too, because
• 43:05
  Speaker 5: she understood power relations and she understood disparity in gender,
• 43:12
  Speaker 5: and she understood how hurtful a binary system was because
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: she was also, like you said, very androgenous in some
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: points of her life. And she understood these things and
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: she depicts them in her art. And this is amazing,
• 43:28
  Speaker 5: at least for me, because it's a very weird thing
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: when the hegemony at the time was these male artists
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: who painted these murals that represented the official version of
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: Mexico's history, and they should be doing things that serve
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: our country, not which was Vasconcelos's this course, the guy
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: that proposed muralism as our national art, and muralism is
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: it's like derivera in an art movement, I would say,
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: like big in the terms of a big figure also
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: towering over you all the time, also telling you a
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: version of how you should be, also showcasing everything that
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: is wrong with the system. And he even included freedom
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: in one of the paintings. Now it's always her painting
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: in a private space in a studio on canvas, and
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: him painting in a public space with the government and everything.
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: Creating a national basically nationalism, not creating our idea of
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: what it is to be Mexican. So It's very interesting
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: for me to see that now the idea of what
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: it is to be Mexican has more to do with
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: Freida than with Diego. But it isn't surprising because Flida
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: showcases a lot of experiences that unfortunately Mexican women have,
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: and Carlos Moncivice even said that she was kind of
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: a new version of the Virgin of Galla lupetuous. So
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: she represents Mexican going both the good than bad things,
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: better than the Rivera, who was paid to represent Mexico.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: Right, yeah, right, right, so he was always beholden to
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: somebody else. I'm curious what you both think about this,
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: because going back and sort of reviewing, how I think
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: this movie is more political than I was expecting it
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: to be. Communism was more explicitly addressed than I would
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: have expected in a mainstream.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Movie, especially because Hollywood is so afraid of communism historically.
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: Right, I mean whatever, It's very like one oh any
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: kind of stuff. But I felt like the movie kind
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: of implies that Freda comes by her political beliefs via
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: Diego Rivera, and that rubbed me the wrong way because
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: she joined the Communist Party.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: When she was a teenager, like she was really.
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: Politically active far before she was like romantically attached to Rivera.
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: And I felt like the movie kind of suggested that
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: when she started seeing him after she had gone through
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: this first recovery, that that was how she arrived at
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: her political beliefs, and I just it's not true.
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: I didn't feel that quite so much, especially because we
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: see that scene with her on the bus with Diego
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Luna's character, that's true, where they're talking about He's like,
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: you always read things in the wrong order. You have
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: to read this one guy before you read Mark.
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: You have to read Hale before Mark. Yeah.
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I guess I just met like her explicit
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: connection to the party.
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah yeah. And also, there were twenty five hundred students
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: in the SCA, which was at the time the only
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: high school in Mexico, and she was like one of
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: thirty five women out of those twenty five hundred students,
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: and she joined the Kachucas, which was a group that
• 46:56
  Speaker 5: was highly political and Candro, her boyfriend, was one of
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: the leaders for student autonomy and student movements, which will
• 47:06
  Speaker 5: eventually have a very dark history in Mexico. So it's
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: very interesting because she was always involved that she always
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: was going to end up being a communist. No, right,
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: So it isn't related to Viego Rivera, I think, and
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: we shouldn't attribute it to him because also, like I said,
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: he's not a coherent communist at all.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: He's really bad at being a communist.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: I do think the movie after that scene where she
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: is discussing like Marxism with Alex, it's almost always us
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: seeing Diego Rivera talk about his communist ideology, and Frida
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: we don't see discussed it that much, except for that
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: one scene where she's they've arrived in New York. She
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: keeps calling it Gringo Landia, which is very funny. Yeah,
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: and she's talking about like income disparity and poverty. Aside
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: from that, her political ideology isn't super clear, and if
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: it comes up in the movie, it's usually in the
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: context of what Digo Rivera is doing or what he's
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: painting or what he's saying.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah. And also for that when she was buried, well
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: not she was, she wasn't buried when it was she
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: was cremated and the ashes are in the Akasa sut
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: but when she was in her service, for when she died,
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: they carried the communist flag to a Yasatats, which is
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: like the palace of fine arts in Mexico City, and
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: in her service, the communist flag was carried with her.
• 48:37
  Speaker 5: So she really really really believed and cared about communism.
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: And that's what I also find very interesting about how
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: she has been made into a token for feminism. I
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: personally I am a feminist and I have been in the
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: feminist intersectional field in Mexico for more than ten years.
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: But I always is kind of cringed when they said, ah, yes,
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: Frida a feminist icon, because when they do that, they
• 49:05
  Speaker 5: expect then for Freda to be super coherent with feminism.
• 49:10
  Speaker 5: And then they find out about her relationship with Diriba
• 49:13
  Speaker 5: and they cancel her and they're like, oh no, But
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: she allowed herself to be in that relationship and she
• 49:19
  Speaker 5: helped a man like that exists, and it's like, you
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: can expect her to be a communist. She understood feminist ideas,
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: but she never called herself a feminist because that wasn't
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: even chronologically coherent. And I have seen when I went
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: to the States one time, at Barnes and Noble, I
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: saw these set of cards that had like feminist icons
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: and like Ruthbetter Ginsburg, Frida Calo, Hillary Clinton.
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: And I was like, what, right, like the people you
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: see printed on socks gentrified.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: Areas and you're like, oh, no, she was not.
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: She would die if you put her next to Heary Clinton.
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: Oh my god. Yeah, that's what the America that she
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: was referring to in her diary, right, So it's no.
• 50:05
  Speaker 5: And I think that's very interesting how they decided to
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: pick and choose which part of her rebellion to take,
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: and they chose those feminist traits and whitewash them, of course,
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: and this white feminism that you were mentioning, but they
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: completely left out not in the movie I'm saying, but
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: in the in how readily is treated by the culture
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: in Mexico and the United States and other countries mainstream
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: feminist movement, right. And I think that's interesting.
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's like one of the I feel like many
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: offshoots of like corporatized feminist discourse that is just like
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: so aggravating, where it's like, oh, the idea of being
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: a feminist means that you're a woman who did something successfully, yeah,
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: and like not even connecting it to any like you're saying,
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: like a coherent political ideology, like putting those three women
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: next to each.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: Other, what do they politically have in common?
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: So disparate.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: It's really all over the place.
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but I will say, like, I do appreciate that
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: this movie does. I don't know if I'm like grading
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: it on like a two thousand and two sliding scale
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: of like it was doing more than I expected it
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: to politically, although it does feel like politically I think
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: it did.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: Caitlin, I think like you're saying, make.
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: It clear that Diego's communist ideals could be showy versus productive.
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: I don't think he's held fully to task for that,
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: but at least it's not presented like they were both,
• 51:41
  Speaker 4: you know, like incredible and politically flawless.
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: The other element of Freda's life that I was, well,
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: I feel like it's complicated by a lot of the
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: production stories around this movie, which we'll get to because
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: Samahayak later discusses how Yeah just bullied and harassed she
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: was by Harvey Weinstein before and throughout the production of
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: this movie. She spoke about that during the Me Too
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: movement and has more sense. So this it sucks because
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: I feel like this particular element of the story is
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: kind of tainted.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: By those stories.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: But Freda's queerness and a willingness to not just reference
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: it in passing, which I was kind of wondering at
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: the beginning, where there is one like affair she's had
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: with a woman who I guess has also hooked up
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: with Diego, and it's discussed and there's like a little
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: handsiness under the table, and I was like, I wonder
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: if that's all the movie is gonna do in terms
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: of like referencing that she was famously bisexual or I mean,
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: it sounds like her sexual identity was like very complicated,
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: and you know, I doubt she would want to be
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: put in one particular category.
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: That could possibly be true for her gender as well,
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: especially because I mean, sure I'm speculating here, but you know,
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: the way she would dress sometimes in men's clothes, possible
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: that she was gender queer before that was ever an expression,
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: or perhaps she'd just like to wear men's clothes sometimes
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: hard to say, but she definitely didn't shy away from
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: engaging with androgyny totally with her sexuality her queerness.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: Which is like why it's kind of like, I mean,
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: going back to like the mainstream discourse around her, It's
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: kind of like, as I was reading through, there's been
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: so much written about her, obviously, but sort of like
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: very modern attempts to like retroactively put her in a
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: box and claim her where It's like, first of all,
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: you'll never know, and second of all, like that just
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: seems antithetical to what like how she lived her life
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: in general.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Anyways, all I.
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: Had to say, I appreciated that they reference that this
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: fluidity with her sexuality existed throughout her life, and we
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: see a sex scene with Josephine Baker, and a complicated
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: part of that is that Harvey Weinstein, I guess, insisted
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: on that because he wanted Samahayak to appear full frontal
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: nude in the movie because he was angry throughout the
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: production that she looked quote unquote too ugly. So that
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: was like because at first I was like, oh, wow,
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: it's so rare to see queer sex scenes in a
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: mainstream movie at all, and then you find out the
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: reason it's there, and so there's that it's.
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: Very sad, Yeah, to find out afterwards.
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'll share some of the piece that she
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: wrote in the New York Times.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: Oh Yes, her op.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: Ed yes entitled Harvey Weinstein is My Monster Too, because
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: this also informs another thing about the movie that I
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: want to talk about, which is representation of disability. So
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: first I'll start by sharing a quote from this piece
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: where she talks about her passion for this project and
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: her love of Free to Callo. She says, quote, one
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: of the forces that gave me the determination to pursue
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: my career was the story of Free to Callo, who,
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: in the golden age of the Mexican muralists would do small,
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: intimate paintings that everybody looked down on. She had the
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: courage to express herself while disregarding skepticism. My greatest ambition
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: was to tell her story. It became my mission to
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: portray the life of this extraordinary artist and to show
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: my native Mexico in a way that combated stereotypes unquote.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: So again to showing her appreciation for the subject matter,
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: her passion for the project. It was like one of
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: the main things she wanted to do in her career
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: as an actor, and so with this project she was
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: passionate about. She took the concept to Harvey Weinstein, who
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: at the time, she heard good things about as a
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: film producer. His name came with a level of prestige.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: You know, he was known to have made excellent films.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: So she went to him, approached him with the project,
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: and he then started sexually harassing her incessantly. She kept
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: telling him no, I won't do this, No I won't
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: do that. No, no, no, and him being told no
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: enraged him and they entered a legal battle over the movie,
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: where he named all these stipulations that the only way
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: that he would proceed with, you know, producing and financing
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: the movie is if she met these kind of unrealistic
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: criteria on a really short deadline. But she managed to deliver,
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: so the movie went forward into production. And then this
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: is where I'll start quoting from the piece, she says. Quote.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: Halfway through shooting, Harvey turned up on the set and
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: complained about Frieda's unibrow. He insisted that I eliminate the
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: limp and berated my performance. He then asked everyone in
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: the room to step out except for me. He told
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: me that the only thing I had going for me
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: was my sex appeal and that there was none of
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: that in this movie. He told me he was going
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: to shut down the film because no one would want
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: to see me in that role. It was soul crushing
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: because I confessed lost in the fog of a sort
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: of Stockholm syndrome. I wanted him to see me as
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: an artist, not only as a capable actress, but also
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: as somebody who could identify a compelling story and had
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: the vision to tell in an original way, which I
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: feel like speaks to something that so many women. And
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: this is me speaking now, I've stopped quoting for a
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: moment to be clear, but you know it speaks to
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: something that so many women and people of marginalized genders
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: deal with as far as imposter syndrome, and goes on
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: to say quote I was hoping he would acknowledge me
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: as a producer who, on top of delivering his list
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: of demands, shepherded the script and obtain the permits to
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: use the paintings. I had negotiated with the Mexican government
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: and with whomever I had to to get locations that
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: had never been given to anyone in the past, including
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: Freda Collos houses and the mural of Collo's husband Diogoro Vera,
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: among others. So again, she as a producer did like
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: all these incredible feats to get this movie made, she says,
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: but all of this seemed to have no value. The
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: only thing he noticed was that I was not sexy
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: in the movie. He made me doubt if I was
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: any good as an actress, but he never succeeded in
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: making me think that the film was not worth making.
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: He offered me one option to continue. He would let
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: me finish the film if I agreed to do a
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: sex scene with another woman, and he demanded full frontal nudity.
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: She goes on to describe the pressure he put on
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: her and director Julie Taymoor to include this full frontal
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: nudity sex scene. They felt they had to concede.
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: He also, like I think, threatened to fire Julie Taymor
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: if Samahayak didn't comply with including this scene. Like it
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: just was like threats to basically sabotage this entire production.
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: She had spent the better part of ten years trying
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: to make right happen. And I mean, I feel like
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: you can attribute so much of how authentic this feels
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: as opposed to other biopics to the willpower of Samahayak,
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: and also the fact that she, like you're saying, Caitlin
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: is a really talented producer.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Which I feel like is such.
• 59:36
  Speaker 4: A double standard in Hollywood in general, where when a male.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Actor produces his own work, it's.
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: Really drawn attention to, but with women it's almost always minimized.
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: And the things she got PERMASI for are truly impossible
• 59:54
  Speaker 5: in Mexico because Frieda and Diego are considered patrimonial artists
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: and getting permitt for anything related to them is impossible.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: So what she did is truly a big fit. Yeah.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: Before I read this piece, I assumed that they had
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: just built doubles of those sets, not realizing that they
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: actually like shot on location and yeah, like la asuol
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: and stuff. Yeah, and then she describes the day that
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: they shot that sex scene, she had a nervous breakdown.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: She was throwing up, she was shaking uncontrollably because she
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: knew she was conceding to the will of this predator
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: and that's what made her feel so sick.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: He then tried to sabotage the release of the movie
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: after it was completed. He like didn't want it to
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: be in theaters really, and.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: He sabotaged her Oscar campaign almost wholesale yep.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: So, and then the piece concludes with Somemahaik talking about
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: women being devalued and undervalued as artists and filmmakers and she,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: you know, longs for gender equity in Hollywood. So a
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: piece worth reading if any listeners want to learn more,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: but truly sickening to be reminded of all the horrors
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: that Harvey Weinstein puts so many people through.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: I think it's very sad and kind of meta that
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: they're making a film about free that but also about
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: her abuser and this horrible person that controlled the art
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: world in Mexico. And I find a lot of parallel
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: lines between Harvey Weinstein's figure and the Rivera's figure in
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: the making of the movie and in the story that
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 5: they're telling. So it's so sad that it's so contradictory,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 5: know that they're telling this story and it happens on set, yeah.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: Right, all while scaling back the abusive nature of the
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: other person. Like I just wanted to add as a
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: I guess like punctuation on that that. Alfred Melina also
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: did interviews around this time, and also before hating Harvey Weinstein, before.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: It was cool.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: He's a real one he is, Yeah, but they he
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: sort of expanded on how Weinstein, when he was not
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: successful in getting Samahayak to creatively compromise, started talking to
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: other actors to see if he could turn them against her,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: including going over like trying to basically get Alfred Malina
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: on his side and being like, she's one of the
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: best actors in the world, and what do I see
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: on screen? Nothing but Freeda. Molina expressed disbelief. Well, that's
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: the whole fucking point, isn't it. He's me like, which
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: like yeah, And then sort of subsequently for the amount
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 4: of time Weinstein had power after that was Black Belt
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: by Miramax.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: Mean it's just it's so I mean, it's like a
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: story we're very familiar with now, but just hearing how
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: how hard Salmahayak had to work to even get this
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: in production because looking at the Freedom movies that almost
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: happened and thankfully didn't one with Jailo with Jelo, but
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: also the biography by Hayden Herrera was first optioned in
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: nineteen eighty eight, and they wanted to have either Meryl
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 4: Streep or Jessica Lang played Frieda or you Madonna almost
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: played Frieda with Robert de Niro starring as Diego Rivera,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 4: and you're like, no offense for Robert Nio, but like,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: there's a whole there's so many reasons for him not
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: to play Diego Rivera.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: So the fact that this movie that Samahiak's production is
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: the one that prevailed is amazing.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: Yeah, with a Mexican woman as a lead from Quatsa
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: qual Cosbera Cruz who came up through a telenovela SI
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: stem in Mexico and ended up in Hollywood. No, So
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: that's also something that I found very valuable about. I
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: love Salama Kayak, of course, and I think that that's
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: why she's so aware of the fact that what Harvey
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 5: Weinstein did to her, because it's very colmon here in
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: Mexico in the telenovela system too. So I don't think
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 5: unfortunately it was the first time she encountered these predators
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 5: in her job. Yeah.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: I read an interview she did in twenty twenty one
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: that sort of followed up on the op ed you
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: read us Passages from Caitlin, where Yeah, she basically confirms
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: that she's like, I don't mean to minimize my experiences
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: with Weinstein. They were very traumatic, but that had already
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: happened to me so frequently that I almost like tried
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: to take it in stride at the time, because it
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: was just how I was conditioned to believe things were
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: going to work, no matter where I was working or
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: at what level, which is miserable.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, I wanted to touch on the other thing that
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: the piece alludes to, as far as like compromises that
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: she felt she had to make in order to appease
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: this monster of a person, as far as is the
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: representation of disability where Frida Collo dealt with chronic pain.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: She had many surgeries throughout her life, she had a miscarriage,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 3: and the movie You Know examines how this inspires some
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: of her artwork. But it seems like the movie attributes
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: all of this to the bus accident that we see
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: happening on screen, which he sent through.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 5: Ye right.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: The movie does not mention that she had polio as
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: a child, I believe when she was six years old,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: which caused leg pain and for her to have a
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: limp when she walked even before the bus accident. And
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: I saw criticism that the movie tends to downplay and
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: erase Freda's physical disability. This could be because Freda is
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: played by an able bodied actor, but I read a
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: piece from a writer who is disabled named Marta Russell,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: who took issue with the disability rature, particularly the scene
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: where Frida is doing that seductive dance with Ashley Judd's character.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: The movie depicts her in you know, high heels dancing.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: There's no visible limp, but the real life Frieda wore
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: several layers of socks on her right shoe that was
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: also like build up to compensate for her smaller limb.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: Her right leg was was it her right le? One
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: of her legs was considerably smaller and weaker because of
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: the polio, I believe, or maybe it was a combination
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: of the polio and the bus accident.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: There was another thing, m There are historians who believe
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 5: that the polio diagnosis was kind of invented by her
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: family because it was a how do you see in
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: English congenital disease. Congenital congenital disease called spina bifida spleet
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 5: spine that her and her siblings all had, and it's
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: proven she had a little brother that was born and
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: died as a little baby named Guillermo, and they all
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 5: had disability. And what is interesting is that like historians
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 5: that have worked with Freda in their careers have discussed
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 5: about this topic and so why would the family decide
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 5: to say it's polio? And it also has to do
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: with the fact that all the siblings had this diagnosis
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: of spineappifida. And what is interesting about this is that
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 5: they also proposed the idea that Frida didn't only have
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: a miscarriage, she had two abortions. No, and many believed
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 5: that she did because she was scared of passing down
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: that condition to her children. So it's that's why they
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 5: tend to believe that there's like weird thing there that
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: we don't know about with the where the family said
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: something and then Frida behaved towards it. But also Frida
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 5: had a very internalized ablest attitude against herself. They say
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 5: that the way she dressed, even the one a skirts
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 5: that she wore and the outfits that she were, especially
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 5: later running her life when she encountered the biggest tissues
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 5: and complications, they hit her disability with her legs. So
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 5: it's very interesting to notice how everything that we know
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 5: about her disability is kind of contradicting each other's versions
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 5: of the facts. And I found that very interesting because
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: it tells you how it's invisibilized, not like the movie does.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 5: And it's also something that hasn't been researched as other
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: aspects of her life. And we don't know an official
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 5: version of the facts. So why do I suddenly find
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: out that all of her siblings had this same disease
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: and so on and so forth.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: No, Right, So, even though we might not know exactly
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: what the specifics were of her source of pain and disability,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: we do know that she did deal with chronic pain
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: and again walked with a limp. And the movie more
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: or less erases that it's very inconsistent. But then you
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: find out why, Yeah, because apparently Harvey Weinstein insisted that
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: was the case, or to be.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 5: Sixy Yeah, and just the fact from what I was
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: saying that I forgot to say. They say that she
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: couldn't walk at three years old, for example. Oh, so
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 5: that's why they believe it second genital disease and not
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 5: so much something she contracted later.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: I see, Yeah, it's so I'm willing to find this
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 4: wholesale on Harvey Weinstein.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but maybe that's just the easiest answer.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: I do think that this also like connecting with what
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: you're both saying, there is such a resistance to depicting
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 4: and especially responsibly depicting disability.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: And then the further.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 4: Back you go, especially if you're doing a historical piece,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: the harder it is to sort of parse out how
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: disability was spoken about or not spoken about then versus now.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: So it's like a very I mean, as disability advocates know,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: it's a very very difficult needle to thread, and it
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: just seems like the only thing that is certain is that,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 4: because of how this production was being controlled, this was
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: not a production that was going to handle the issue
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 4: of disability responsibly.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's very sad. It is because also Frida didn't.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's a whole conversation about why would disability
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: make someone vulnerable on this ableist world, how it's built
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 5: in enablest manner and everything. But Frida also didn't want
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: to look vulnerable against the world. No, and that's why
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: she herself didn't want to accepting her paintings, of course,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 5: but in her because when you see pictures of her
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 5: in everyday life. She was performing all the time, her outfits,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 5: her whole esthetic, how she dressed. It was like performance art.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 4: It reminded me of I feel like again, just like
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: how at least how my art education was, because I
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: was not an art major or anything like that. But
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 4: I feel like it's often presented in contemporary classes, like
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: Cindy Sherman was the first artist to ever do that,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: And you're like, but that's so clearly what Frida is doing. Yeah,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: she's presenting herself in all these different ways and in characters,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: and like, it's just it's amazing.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 5: And Cindy Sherman does it in her pictures, but Villa
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 5: Cala didn't her everyday life. No, And it's very very
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 5: interesting because she had a whole persona that she embodied
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: every time that she was out in public, or she
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 5: was having a party in her house, or and it
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 5: had to do with a very particular set of tools
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 5: that she had developed because of her queerness, because of
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 5: her disability, because of the chata just she had encountered
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 5: throughout her life. And I think it's nowadays it's one
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 5: of the most appropriated parts of Frida Carlo that the
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 5: braids and the rebon in her hair and the Mexican attire,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 5: like stereotypically Mexican and all of that, and it's part
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 5: of what she did to both conceal her insecurities and
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 5: also showcase herself as whatever she wanted to do, and
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 5: that was shown in her attire.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: I think, yeah, this movie does adequately show that Freda
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: color is really cool, but never enough. It feels like
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: I wanted to acknowledge something that I don't know how
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: to address. I was going back in because I've seen
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: it referenced over the years of casting for this movie.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: Because Alfred Molina is a white guy, he is of
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: Spanish and Italian descent, and so there has been a
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: fair amount of criticism around his casting. The complicating factor
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: there is that Selma Jyak directly asked him to play
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 4: the part, and like went to his play and was like,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: you're the guy, and I guess, like, you don't say
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: no to Selma Jyak, And I don't know, because I
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: was looking into Dico Rivera's background and he is also
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: very multicultural but also very Mexican.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: So it's just yeah, I mean, it doesn't.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: Seem like if this movie was being made today that
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: Alfred Molina would be the right choice for this part.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I just saw a lot of conversation around
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 4: it then and now I saw a red carpet interview
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: with him at the premiere of this movie, and him
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 4: addressing the criticism and being like, there's no doubt, like
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 4: I am of Spanish Italian descent, and there are a
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: lot of people in Mexico who were upset that I
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: had been cast, and I understand why, which then leads
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: to the question.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: Well, then why did you do it?
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: But I just wanted to acknowledge that as well, because
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: it feels like something that's frequently cited in this movie,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: and also just throughout Alfred Molina's career, he's been cast.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think of his role in Indiana Jones
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 4: as kind of another example of this.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, He's definitely played characters of ethnic backgrounds that are
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: certainly not his own.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and I'm the last person to want
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: to bring down the hammer on our boy, but I
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: still acknowledge that. I want to seem like I was
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: not willing to engage with that discussion just because it
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: was Alfred Polina.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 5: I relate that also to some recent criticism I have
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 5: seen against Rida Calo herself, no, that she really portrayed
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 5: herself as these indigenous Mexican women, especially towards her adult years.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 5: And lasos Fridas, of course has the European Frieda and
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 5: the Mexican Frieda depicted there. But her dad was German, No,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: and her mom was well, her grandfather from her mom's
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 5: side was an indigenous man, but her grandmother from her
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 5: mom's side was a Spanish descent also, and almost all
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 5: Mexicans we have this complex mixture of ethnicities and races
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 5: and backgrounds. So it would be very hard to cast
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 5: someone that is perfect for the egorrita because our history
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 5: in Mexico comes from and I'm not saying that's something
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 5: good that happened. It's the invasion of Mexican by the
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 5: Spanish was basically and the creation of the Mestizo race,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 5: which is the mixture of indigenous and white Spanish people,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 5: is basically the rape of thousands of Mexican original community women.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 5: But this is something that Frila Calo has also been
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 5: accused of doing, of appropriating cultures that are not her
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 5: and stuff like that, and I think that's a very
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: complex discussion. Now. The other day, I was teaching cultural
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: appropriation with my students and they were like, but when
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 5: when is it appreciation and when is it appropriation? And
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 5: they were telling me examples, and I was like, it's
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 5: very hard. We have to contextualize every single example to
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 5: understand what happens there. Not because some may say I
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 5: freely doesn't have any right to portray indigenous experiences in
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 5: her art, but also her grandfather was from indigenous assent,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 5: and you know, Alfred Molina, I think has the same thing.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 5: He comes from a Spanish Italian background. He's not Mexican.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 5: Diria was. But Mexican is not a race or an ethnicity,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 5: it's a nationality.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 4: So yeah, and that was why I felt naive when
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: I was looking into this, because I feel like i'd
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 4: seen it presented like you're talking about the same way
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 4: that I saw a lot of I feel like it
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 4: was like ten years ago or so. There was just
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: like this wave of criticism that's exactly what you're.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: Describing about free to callow.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 4: And then a piece that I we can link it
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 4: in the description of this, but I read a piece
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 4: by Tanya Nunez who wrote a whole essay basically saying
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 4: what you just said, Angela, whereas like.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: Well it's not that simple.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 4: And you know, even if there were contemporary criticisms, if
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: free to Callo was working today, she wasn't. Those weren't
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: the conversations going on then, and during her lifetime, she
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: was largely not trying to profit off of this.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, she only sold one painting, which was the two
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 5: Freedas for two hundred and fifty dollars ry. No, she
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 5: only had one solo exhibition, which was the one that
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 5: picked her in the movie. The other exhibitions were with
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 5: other artists, so she didn't really profit. She was Diego's
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 5: wife most of the time for the public, right, unfortunately.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 4: And it's like a conversation she's mostly having with herself
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 4: throughout her life and like trying to understand her identity
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: and then looking into Diego's background. Yeah, it says on
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 4: scholarly journal Wikipedia it says Diego was of Spanish, Americandian, African, Italian, Jewish, Russian,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: and Portuguese descent.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: So it's just like, yeah, I don't know.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what happens with the American continent.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: No, yeah, yeah, and I think that's the I mean,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: this is something I have spent a lot of time
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: and effort learning slash unlearning as far as because I
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: think a lot of white Americans do view being Mexican
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 3: as a racial identity. Yeah, and I've heard people be like, oh, no,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: he's not white, he's Mexican. It's like, well, that does
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: not preclude him, Like he could still be a white Mexican.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah. I'm white as folk, and I'm Mexican because my
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 5: daddy's from Spain and my mom's sambili is from Spain too,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 5: and I have a Mexican nationality. It doesn't mean anything, no.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: Right, right. So there's a lot of I think still
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: to this day, misunderstanding about the difference between like the
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: ethnic and national and racial background of everyone in Latin America.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: And there's so much erasure also of Afro Latin X people.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 3: Of course, there's so much erasure of indigenous people who
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: were the original inhabitants of what would become known as
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: Latin America. And it's such a fraud history with colonization
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: and the Transatlantic slave trade. It has created a lot
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 3: of confusion for a lot of people. And so it's
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: something that I think we've gotten wrong on the podcast
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: before and.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 5: For sure, and it has to do with what Riverta did.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 5: He created this Mexican nationalism that makes you believe that
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 5: we are a race they said, the say the Bronze race,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 5: that it comes from that glorious indigenous past, from the
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 5: Mechicas and all of these pre Hispanic civilizations that emulates
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 5: how Europe treated the Greeks and the Romans. That's what
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 5: Basco Clos and the muralist projected here in Mexico. But
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 5: at the same time, governments mistreat alive indigenous people who
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 5: are living in our world today, you know. So it's
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 5: a it's an issue, and Dio Riverta was a very
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: big participant in that. And this idea, the stereotype of
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 5: what it is to be Mexican is also created by
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 5: our own nationalism and how we portray ourselves to the world.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: So yeah, Tangled Web, I mean, I've spoken to Mexican
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: American people who are racially white who have said I'm
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: not white, I'm Mexican.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 5: No. And we even have a term in Mexico called
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 5: white Secans, which are the white Mexicans that are middle
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 5: high class people that behave like assholes to towards everyone,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 5: and they believe that they're superior and this systemic and
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 5: super super rooted racism we have in Mexico and classism
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 5: and everything, and there's the white secun label. And once
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 5: I had a student that's me, future are white secut
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 5: and I was like, well, yeah, I'm white and I'm Mexican.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 5: I hope I don't behave like a serty people white secun.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, yeah, for people in the US especially,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: it's it is, we're just like severely under educated about it,
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 3: Like it's embarrassing. Yeah.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 4: With regard to just like closing the loop on the
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 4: Alpha Molina thing, it was tricky because it involved digging
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: up two thousand and two media, which is either hard
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 4: to find or kind of inscrutable when you read it.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 4: It just seemed like they're two separate strains of criticism
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: going on, one being that Alpha Blina is white and
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 4: the other just that he had no connection to Mexican culture,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 4: and that because Diego Rivera was such a prominent Mexican
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 4: figure that they were like, well, why this, why do we.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: Have this British like that?
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, which is I think a fair criticism, And I
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 4: also think he gives a great performance because it's South
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 4: for Bolina is a star.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 5: He's amazing. I have something to say about this because
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 5: there is a part of the film where they a
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 5: trotsky and Frida paints it to Frida's there is a
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 5: woman singing do you remember like yourna? Yes, yes, that
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: woman who appears in the movie. She is created as
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 5: Lapelona and Death. No, she plays death which we call
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 5: lapelona sometimes. That woman is famous for singing that song.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 5: Her name is Celle la Varagas, and cevel la Vargas
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 5: is from Costa Rica. But she said that famous quote
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 5: that says los Mexicano that means Mexicans are born wherever
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 5: they fucking want. This is because she is considered Mexican
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 5: and an icon for Mexican culture, but she wasn't born
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 5: in Mexico. And Chaveel la Vargas is also related to
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 5: the queerness of in the film. This is a very
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 5: like nice detail in my opinion, because tavel la Baga
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 5: is that old lady that you see in the movie,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 5: is actually someone who had a relationship with Frida. Oh oh,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 5: they had a very passionate affair. And Chavelas appears in
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 5: Frida's movie Singing too, San Maachayek portraying Frida No, and yeah, yeah,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 5: it's it's incredible because if you don't know this nice story,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 5: you wouldn't know. That's another way that they introduced free
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 5: theat Aquaerness by bringing one of her, the actual person
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 5: that she had an affair with, into the film. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 5: so cool.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 4: Oh gosh, that's just like such a w to make
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 4: a cameo in your lover's biopic, Like really good stuff.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 4: That's I didn't know that. That's really cool.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 3: Well, I think an extension of the conversation of cast
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: in this movie can extend to the crew as far
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 3: as like, why did a white woman from the US
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: who is not Mexican or Latina? Why was she the
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: one hired to direct this movie? Right?
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: Why was it a majority white writers? Including Diane Lake?
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: By the way, what was she doing here?
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: Sworn enemy of Jamie She's my new enemy. Yes, yes,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 3: I saw that and like IMDb and I read it
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 3: really quickly, and I thought it said Diane Lane. I
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, wow, is Diane Lane a screenwriter? But
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 3: then it's a slightly different is it?
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 4: Fred Callos super fan, No I wish instead it's my
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 4: sworn enemy who gave you a C because I was
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 4: late to class too many times.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: Grow up?
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: You know what? Lateness is just a construct invented by
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: capitalism exactly.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: Lateness is on timeness leaving the body. And I don't
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 4: I don't care for this. There was one writer, one
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 4: credited writer because also it is said that Edward Norton
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: worked on the screenplay but was not credited as a
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 4: writer for like WGA reasons. But there was one writer
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 4: of Mexican descent who worked on the screenplay, Gregory Nava,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 4: who had worked on a number of movies prior. He
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 4: also directed Selena, the Jlo Celena movie. Oh yes, anyways,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 4: from what we can tell. And also it's always so
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 4: inscrutable because the ways that movie writing credits happen, who knows.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 4: But yes, it seems like there was only one Mexican
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 4: writer involved in the writing of this movie, although there
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 4: was one famous communist writer involved, which maybe is attributable
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 4: to how political this movie did get. In the script
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 4: where clans I recog it is his name, and I
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 4: was like why because I went into a big blacklist
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 4: research hole and I wonder why. But Anyways, he was
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 4: a screenwriter who was called in and subpoenaed by the
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 4: House Committee of on American Activity. Is he was a
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 4: card carrier communist and it seems like just generally a
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: real one from what I can tell.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: So yeah, and then Diane Link Boom, and then.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 4: She's she worked on it as well, and it's her
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 4: only screenwriting credit, her other credit disrespecting me.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 3: I call that a discredit.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah. What I was telling Kaitling during the break is
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 5: that the DP the cinematographer uses who is Yeah, he's
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 5: an amazing and amazing cinematographer who is Mexican. So and
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 5: I also when I saw the credits, I really saw
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 5: a bad lance between male and female crew, which I enjoyed.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 5: I don't know their backgrounds, but I don't see that
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 5: very often, so I was happy about it.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, especially at the top. It is largely
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: a woman driven movie as far as the director, half
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 3: of the writers, Selma Hayek producing, and.
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 4: I do feel like when women are producing their own projects,
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 4: you tend to see more gender parody in the cruise,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 4: which is just another way of saying you have to
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 4: have representation at every level.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: Of production of course.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we were talking about Rodriguo Prieto, I think quite
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 4: a bit earlier this year, because he just had like
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 4: the wildest last year where he was the cinematographer for
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 4: both Barbie and Killers of the Flower Moon, which is
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 4: just like the range, the range this man has. I mean,
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 4: his resume is wild. The same year he did Frida,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: he also did eight Mile. He's got range with I mean,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 4: he loves to do a totally different movie.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah. He also, like I told Caitlin, I'm a swiftly
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 5: so I love him because she he directed all of
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 5: my favorite videos recently. Really yeah, I didn't he was
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 5: sweet Taylor.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, oh my god, wait, so many twists in turns.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 4: I knew that, like because he's like Martin Scorsese and
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 4: Julie Taymore and I think Inatu's go to guy.
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 3: Like oh right, we were talking about it because he
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: shot Wolf of wall Street in Robbie's first major role,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: and then shot her whatever ten years later as Barbie.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: As a sorry for shooting you that way and wolf
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: of yeah gesture.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 4: Now he literally directed the Cardigan there, wow.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 5: Cardian Fortnight. Yeah. She also works with another Cinemata refer
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 5: who's a woman. Yeah, I think he's her Nay, but
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 5: she also works with Rodrio Prito, so I am very proud.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: Of them every time.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 4: Wow, this is a fun recur He's a fun recurring
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 4: Bachtel cast character because every time I learned something new
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 4: about him, it is completely unexpected and fascinating.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 3: And he did a great job with this movie. It
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 3: looks so cool.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it's so pretty, the colors.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 4: And I just love the idea of him going back
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 4: to his hotel room at the end of the day
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 4: of shooting on Frida and answering an email about eight
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 4: miles like, yeah, yeah, he opened up his hotmail dot
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 4: com two thousand and two web book or palm pilot
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 4: or whatever the fuck you were using then, So, does.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: Anyone have anything else to discuss?
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 5: Oh, I have my notes with Osama we say in Spanish,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 5: and I take notes of everything when I get excited.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: But oh, I have pages of notes.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: You're in good comfort.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah. Just what I think is very nice about
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 5: the movie is also they don't portray the art as
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 5: much as we wanted them to do. No, as Jamie
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 5: think was mentioning earlier on but what I like is
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 5: that they really create these life paintings and free the
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 5: an aesthetic at the end of her life that came
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 5: from what we call in Mexico exbotos. Exbotos are little
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 5: paintings made in rural Mexico, in outside of Mexico City.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 5: People are very Catholic, especially in those places, and when
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 5: something happens to them, they pray for it to get better. Know,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 5: something bad happens, they pray for it to get better.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 5: So what they do is that they go to the
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 5: town's painter, and the painter ask them what the event was,
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 5: who are they praying to, what saint and who is
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 5: this being dedicated to? Know, So it has a format
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 5: and it's text an image of the event. And then
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 5: what they do with those little paintings is that they
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 5: hang them at the church. And after they leave the church,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 5: and after they have asked for help from this saint,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 5: they have to move on and carry on with their lives. Know.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 5: And Frida, I think, and this was said by Marta Samora,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 5: who was a biographer of Frida, how Frida took this
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 5: idea of expotos and put it in her painting. And
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 5: I think that's very nice because it's something very niche
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 5: of Mexico and that most people from other countries don't know.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 5: But if they look at afrida color of painting and
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 5: they look at an expoto, they will see the similarities.
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 5: And Frida did this to survive. Basically, she wanted to
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 5: create these paintings that looked like exbotos and she carried
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 5: out that in her life. She painted with all her
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 5: pain and her suffering in the canvas and this personal
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 5: and political intersection that she was so good at the
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 5: and she was the only one at the time that
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 5: did it as well as that, and then she carried
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 5: on with her life.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 5: So it's amazing because we see her in the movie
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 5: having fun. I mean, of course this in the civilization
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 5: of the disability is not good, but she has fun.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 5: We also see her in other aspects now, her alcoholism,
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 5: her addiction to paint bills. But Frida tried to carry
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 5: on despite all of the things that went on. And
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 5: I don't think it has to do with this saving
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 5: race or trying to get rid of the idea of
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 5: suffering and pain. But because she was a rebel at
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 5: the end of the.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 3: Day, yeh, I do appreciate the movie contextualizing where some
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: of her inspiration comes from and her paintings like something
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: will happen and then you see it inspire one or
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 3: several of her works of art. My main thing is like,
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 3: I just feel like the relationship between her and Diego
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: Rivera takes up too much narrative real estate.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 4: Which seems to be the through line with how most
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 4: of the adaptations of her life in fiction like She's
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 4: I feel like still too frequently presented as equally built.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: With because I feel like this movie is called.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 4: Frieda, but it could easily be called Frieda and Diego
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 4: and yeah, yeah.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 5: Exactly right. And they wanted to be separated at the
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 5: end of their when in their second marriage they had
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 5: the house created by Juana Gorman in Sananjel that were
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 5: two houses again goals, yeah, goals, And she didn't even
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 5: live there for that long because her dad got sick
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 5: and she went to La Casasoul and they lived separate
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 5: lives at the end. So I don't think they wanted
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 5: to be seen as an item, and they were seen
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 5: as an item all throughout their relationship, so at least
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 5: Frida as an art historian, of course I'm biased, but
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 5: I would have liked to see her creative process a
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 5: bit more same. Yeah, how did she know which colors
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 5: to use? How did she decide the size of the painting?
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 5: How did she come up with a little girl with
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 5: the skull face, the watermelons, not all of those things?
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 5: How did she decide to do that? I would have
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 5: liked to see the creative process come to life instead
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 5: of just being the end result of the painting exactly.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 4: I feel like this is something I've noticed in biopics
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 4: about women again, specifically where it's just like there's always
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 4: less focus on process when the story is about a woman.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 4: I think because I think about like biopics of the
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 4: last couple of years, Oppenheimer immediately comes to mind, where
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 4: there are very sort of like magical, you know, sort
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 4: of the sequences about and then he's scienced or whatever,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 4: but there is also sequences where you're explained like this
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 4: is the process, this is how he gets there.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: And I feel like even with movies about.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 4: Male artist, there is just inherently more of a focus
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 4: on process. And I'm not upset that there's a focus
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 4: on process, but that should be something that is like
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 4: across the board available to any exceptional person exactly, like
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 4: why would you not want to know how the sausage
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 4: is made?
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 5: And it's not very obvious if you don't know, for example,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 5: that Frida had this obsession with mirrors or with death,
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 5: it's not very obvious. I mean it's in the film
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 5: language now that at the beginning she starts looking at
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 5: herself in the mirror and that's how the movie begins.
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 5: But she truly had an obsession with looking at herself
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 5: and with time passing because she spends so much time
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 5: in bed with death. She wanted to die at the
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 5: end of her life so bad, and when she did,
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 5: she was very happy. Her last drawing said that, No,
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 5: so everything that I think I would have liked to see,
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 5: how do you become Frida Calo as an artist? Because
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 5: as a person, I think it's clear some things missing,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 5: like with this ghost. But as an artist, how did
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 5: she find that particular esthetic that is so divisive because
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 5: people either love her or hate her, but it causes
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 5: an impact, And how did she find that? I would
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 5: have loved to see that in the movie.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I also in the like mainstream feminist.
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: Capitalistic way. I literally it was really annoying.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 4: I saw like a modern defection of free to call it,
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 4: where it's like free to caller, queen of the selfie.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 2: And you're like, no, we're like it's.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 4: Like patronizing, right, Like we're I don't know. All of
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 4: her work is like you have to be having three
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 4: or four conversations that wants to really talk about it
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 4: and seeing people sort of cherry pick the part of
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 4: her work that they resonate with and then ignoring the
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 4: political aspect, ignoring the identity aspect, because so much of
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 4: Freda's work was connected to her connections to my Mexico
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 4: and like understanding what her identity was across time, and
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 4: like it's just irritating.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 5: Only Frida could have done that, like putting such universal
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 5: feelings like pain, the fear of abandonment, the fear of
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 5: a miscarriage, all of those things she had depicted, but
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 5: intersecting it with politics. She was a genius for that.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 4: Yes, it's awesome, and I mean the fact that so
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 4: many people can miss it maybe is just like speaks
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 4: to how complicated the work is. But it's also like,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 4: just read a little bit.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 3: I want to share a quote from her. I think
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 3: this is something she said later in her life, but
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 3: just kind of tying it back to the things that
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 3: inspired her art, and the movie skimming over her political ideology,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 3: not ignoring it or erasing it, but like again, focusing
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 3: way more on Diego Rivera's politics than Frida's. But she said, quote,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 3: I have a great restlessness about my paintings, mainly because
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 3: I want to make it useful to the revolutionary communist movement.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 3: Until now I have managed simply an honest expression of
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 3: my own self. I must struggle with all my strength
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 3: to ensure that the little positive my health allows me
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 3: to do also benefits the revolution, the only real reason
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: to live unquote obviously translated from Spanish. So she was like,
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 3: my work means nothing unless I'm moving the communist movement forward,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 3: is how she felt. I think later in life, and
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 3: maybe also earlier, but yeah, yeah, I feel like I'm like,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 3: can we get a little more sense of that in
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 3: the movie, please.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 4: I think the last thing I had that I just
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 4: wanted to say, like I was glad was reflected in
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 4: the movie was that even though the movie, as we've
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 4: all said, is sort of unduly focused on Diego as well,
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 4: I did like that we see that friendship between Frida
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 4: and Lupe develop and that you get real moments, because
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 4: I feel like, again I was like a little bit
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 4: like oh no, Weinstein production when Lupe makes the scene
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 4: at their wedding and You're just like, okay, is she
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 4: just gonna be presented as irrational?
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: And but I thought that the.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 4: Way that played out for you know, big Hollywood movie
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 4: was more nuanced and thoughtful than I thought it would be,
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 4: and seems to be at least the friendship is like
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 4: reflective of their actual experience. And then a relationship I
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 4: wish I had seen more of was between Frieda and Christina,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 4: because it seems like her relationship with Christina was very
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 4: dominant in her life, and it is true that Diego
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 4: had an affair with her sister. But again, I feel
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 4: like the movie defers to how does Freeda feel about
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 4: that in relation to Diego and doesn't really like it
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 4: seems like most of the progress in the relationship with
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 4: her and her sister takes place offic screen, which I
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 4: don't know, I'm nipicking at this point, but it would
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 4: have been nice to see the relationships that we know
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 4: were very significant to free to, you know, proportionally reflected
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 4: in the movie instead of just going back to Diego
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 4: all the time.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 5: Heard that too, Yes, because she learned how to position
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 5: people in a painting from her dad being a photographer,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 5: and her dad was a very successful photographer during the Porfiliato,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 5: which was a dictatorship regime we had before the Mexican
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 5: Revolution and after her dad had a lot of problems
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 5: because of the revolution, and the Mexican Revolution was based
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 5: on the freedom at least one part, on the freedom
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 5: of indigenous people and their land being returned to them,
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 5: and well that was happening. The gorilla was in Paris
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 5: learning how to paint. So it's so, it's how I
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 5: would have also liked to see the context because Mexico
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 5: at that time was chaotics, like very chaotic. We had
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 5: just gone through a civil war, and I would have
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 5: liked to see how that context affected freedom. Her family,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 5: being a bourgeois, very high class European who profited from
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 5: the regime before the revolution, what that did to her life,
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 5: and why that radicalizes her into communism too, So I
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 5: would have liked to see that.
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she you know, would frequently kind of fudge the
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 4: year she was born to line up with the year
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 4: that the revolution started nineteen ten. Yeah, like connect her
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 4: identity to like I am a born revolutionary.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that she would kind of erase her background
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 3: coming from a like well to do family.
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, which Diego Rivera was also from a pretty yeah
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 4: wealthy family as well.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's why he could study art no and not.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: Right fuck after France for a couple of years.
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and didn't become a soldier is one of the
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 5: factions of the revolution.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 3: Yeahm hmmm. All this to say, I feel like Frida's
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 3: life deserves a whole series rather than just a two
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 3: hour film. So if we ever see any more like
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 3: kind of biographical stories about her on the screen, it
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 3: should be a long TV series because there's just so
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 3: much well speaking to her relationships with the women in
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 3: her life that the movie kind of touches on but
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 3: could have examined more the Bechdel test. The movie does pass,
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 3: I mean.
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 4: Not as much as you would like it too for
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 4: a biopic about women that had a lot of women
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 4: who were important in her life.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it does.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 3: But then she does talk to Alfred Molina a lot
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 3: and to the Bye Laws of the Bechdel cast.
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: I forgot my own role.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 3: You know, people of marginalized genders. Speaking to Alred Molina
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 3: about Alfred Bina is an automatic.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so in that way, it's actually kind of unprecedented.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 5: You have converted me to Alfred Morina fans.
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 4: Yes, well, you you've joined an elite group because Alfred
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 4: Molina is a past guest.
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: Of this show. Yeah. Oh my. We still don't know
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: how we pulled it off.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 3: We don't have to know, but we talked about Aaron Brockovich.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 5: Oh I love that movie.
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 4: He's wow, that's amazing. You're amazing, King, He's amazing. I
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 4: love to praise this man on our phone show. But yes,
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 4: it does pass the actual test, but I do feel
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 4: like I wish.
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: It did more more. Yeah.
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 3: As far as our metric, the Nipple scale scale, where
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 3: we rate the movie zero to five nipples based on
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 3: examining it through an intersectional Felm and this lens, I'm
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 3: inclined to give it maybe like a three point five.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 3: I do wish that, you know, for a movie called
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 3: freeda that is allegedly about her life, and the main
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 3: thing we know about her life is that she was
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 3: an artist, like you know, as a public figure. If
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 3: someone's like, who's Free to Callo, You're like, oh, an
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 3: artist And for us to not see as much as
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 3: you would think we would about her artistic process, more
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 3: about her inspirations, so much narrative real estate going to
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 3: her relationship with Diego Rivera, And yes, that was an
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 3: important relationship in her life. But I feel like we
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 3: end up learning more about Diego Rivera than we do
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 3: about Free to Callo and her backstory and her political
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 3: ideologies and her identity and all this stuff. So wish
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 3: the movie had focused a bit more on Freeda.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: Doesn't feel like too much to ask.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 3: It doesn't, but I do. I do appreciate that. Again,
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 3: for a movie from two thousand and two, which was, like,
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 3: you know, a Hollywood produced movie, I assumed that so
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 3: much of her, especially her queerness and her communist ideology,
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 3: would have been erased or really really downplayed, maybe only
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 3: mentioned in passing but never shown on screen. But like,
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 3: you have three different romantic or sexual moments between her
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 3: and another woman in the movie. One of them carries
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 3: a lot of baggage because it was basically forced to
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 3: exist by Harvey Weinstein, but the benefit of it is
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 3: that you do see this like steamy, perhaps exploitative, but
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 3: I know it.
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 4: It's like knowing that Salma Hayek felt ill the day
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 4: that has happened.
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: I just it.
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 4: I Ugh, Yeah, Harvey Weinstein can't suffer enough.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 2: As far as I'm concerned.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 3: No rot in hell, but the fact that there is,
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 3: because in two thousand and two it was very hard
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 3: to find even if there were queer characters, we wouldn't
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 3: see any type of like kissing between two women or
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 3: kissing betraying men or anything like that. It is a
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 3: relief to see that.
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 4: And also with Josephine Baker, which I didn't know. I
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 4: was like, she also had an affair with Georgia O'Keefe,
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 4: but I guess that they were like, we've hit the
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 4: upper limit of affairs we can show in this movie.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 4: But I was like, if they gave Trotsky a steamy
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 4: kiss and we don't see a queer love scene, I'm
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 4: gonna I'm gonna like explore not that, but like, just
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 4: it was very weird seeing Trotsky in a horny count Yeah.
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 5: I hated so hard, so weird.
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 2: Jeffrey Rush get away from her.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 4: I don't want to see that ever, Horny Trotsky, No,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 4: thank you whatever, good for them.
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 2: I'm happy for them, but I don't want to I
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 2: don't want to look at.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 3: It nor anyway of the day. I mean, this is
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 3: a movie about a queer, disabled communist Latina artist, and
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 3: the movie is like, yes, that's all here. We're used
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 3: to crumbs and this movie gives you more than crumbs.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and the movie is not criticizing her for because
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 4: I feel like often when we see marginalized characters, it's like,
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 4: I don't know, it's just led to their downfall or
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 4: whatever exactly, or like the movie is encouraging you to
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 4: not be on their side.
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 5: And what led to her downfall we know by what
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 5: the movie says is in big part a man, which
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 5: I think is very accurate.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: So true, that certainly seems that way.
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and they also portrayed the alcoholism part, which I
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 5: think is very important. They don't say that a lot
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 5: about free them. She was an alcoholic, so it's important
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 5: to talk about it. So yeah, I think it portrays
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 5: the nuances of her life very well, but I think
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 5: it could do it more. Of course, what I am satisfied,
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 5: I think it's I watched it as a little girl,
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 5: I shouldn't have. I got scarred for life by seeing
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 5: Freda's sister betray her in that way. But now as
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 5: an adult, I think that this is a very good movie.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 5: At least two understand how we can start to think
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 5: about biopics in a way that they actually portray the
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 5: character in an integral manner and not just pick and
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 5: choose whatever we want to make them.
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 3: So you're going three and a half, kid, Yes, I'm
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 3: going three and a half. I will distribute them between Samahayek.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 3: I want to give at least one nipple to the
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 3: wedding toast that actually judges character. Yes, I love that
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 3: so much. If anyone ever asks me to give a
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 3: toast at their wedding, I'm just going to cite that
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 3: exact speech noted because it's basically she's just like, I
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 3: don't believe in marriage. I think it's either delusional or
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 3: a way to trap women. But if people recognize that
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 3: and they decide to get married anyway, then good for you.
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 3: That's pretty cool, and that's how I feel about marriage.
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 3: So one nipple, two the representation of free to call
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 3: having underarm hair very good. That is something you don't
• 1:49:32
  Speaker 3: see in movies, where like there will be a movie
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 3: either at a time or a place where women would
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 3: not have removed their body hair, but because it's a movie,
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, all these characters in Cold Mountain don't
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 3: have any body hair, and it's just like what right?
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 4: Or when you see like I'm trying to think of
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 4: what there.
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: I saw a historical movie.
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 4: Recently with nudity and every woman had a wax, and
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 4: You're like, what is this?
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 2: Like what are we doing here?
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it feels like such a tiny thing, but it
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 4: is wild how historically recently, just like any sort of
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 4: body hair was just sober boten. There was like that
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 4: red Carpet moment with Julia Roberts, like less than twenty
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 4: years ago where she had armpit hair and it was.
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 2: Like a global news story. You're like, grow up.
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, anyways, and then whatever I have left, I'm not
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 3: really keeping track, but I would certainly want to give
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 3: some of my nippleage to free to call oh herself, Yeah,
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 3: feminist icon.
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna do three and a half as well. I
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 4: think that because you could just as easily call this
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 4: movie Free to in Diego sort of takes away a
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 4: little bit of like the focus where you want the
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 4: movie to be, and I do agree that it seems
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 4: to be at least as far as biopics go, and
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 4: like how wildly inaccurate biopics tend to.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 2: Be or gloss over entire areas.
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 6: Of the subject's identity because of what is considered acceptable
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 6: to a mainstream audience at the time of production. I
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 6: think this movie does so much more than I was
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 6: expecting and does seem to be like a solid sort
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 6: of one on one to what Frida's life was sort
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 6: of in the in the major beats, but there's no Yeah.
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 4: I wish that there was more focus on her artwork,
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 4: her process, and what motivated her art, versus this hyper
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 4: fixation on the relationship with Diego, because that can be
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 4: important in her life and not be the thrust of
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 4: her life, which it seems like towards the end of
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 4: her life how she felt as well, also huge question
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 4: of like would she want her life story be commodified
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 4: into a movie?
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 5: Maybe not but by Hollywood no, definitely not.
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, made by a sex criminal multi millionaire no.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 4: Right, So it's also dogging, I mean, just the darkness
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 4: in this production. I hate how it's like such a
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 4: horrible example of how even making art that is, you know,
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 4: more subversive than you're used to seeing required on Selma
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 4: Hyak's part, the like cooperation with an absolute monster to
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 4: even make it possible, and subsequently erasing all of her
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 4: amazing production work and all of this stuff, and having
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 4: the release and the awards campaign for this movie to
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 4: be completely sabotaged basically. But anyways, I like the movie
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 4: quite a bit, and so I'm going to give one
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 4: nipple to free to callow one nipple to Salma Hayek.
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: I'm going to give hm Well one nipple.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 4: To olt from Malina Well of course, and I'll give
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 4: my final half in a showing of waving the little
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 4: white flag.
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 2: I'll give the last half to Diane Lake.
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 3: Whoa see, I thought you were going to be like
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 3: and I'm going to give a pile of shaite to
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 3: die and like.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: I'm growing up. We'll let bygone speak up by gones.
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, two hours ago you were a different person.
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but she was so wrong to give me a sea.
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 4: Come on, maybe your class was less boring.
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 2: I want to showed up on time.
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 4: Who maybe if all you did, if she did Okay,
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 4: now I'm being meeting again. All she ever did was
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 4: talk about how she was a credited writer on Freda.
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 5: Oh my god.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, they came out fifteen years ago, lady,
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 4: what's new anyways?
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 2: All right?
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 3: Sorry, anyway, Anela, how about you? What say you?
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 5: I agree with you. I think three and a half
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 5: is a good rating. My first nipple goes to Saramahayak
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 5: two because she did this amazing production and I think
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 5: I'm very proud that she's my my Paisana.
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 5: Then my second one would go to the scene the
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 5: sequence that has Treats giving assassinated Anthea painting the two
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 5: that's at the same time. I found such a good
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 5: sequence that was my favorite part of the movie. And
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 5: the third one I would like to give to Frida
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 5: as an artist, but also particularly her showing up to
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 5: the exhibition for the last in her bed.
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such a good moment. Yeah.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah. And some doctors think that that probably was the
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 5: thing that ended up killing her going out like that,
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 5: but I mean it was worth it, I think for her,
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 5: and I think it was such a good moment both
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 5: in the movie and in her life.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 3: I like the part where she's like, burn this judas
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 3: of a body because it betrays me. She was in
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 3: so much pain. Yeah, she was absolutely suffering.
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 5: And there are some historians that believe that she committed
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 5: suicide by taking eleven instead of the seven pills she
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 5: had prescribed to her, because her nurse said that. But
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 5: we don't know. She died on her own terms, and
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 5: she didd everything on her own terms, and I think
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 5: that's amazing. My half of a star would go to
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 5: Rodrigo Prieto because yes, yes, he's also my Paisano. And
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 5: the cinematography is amazing, and he gave us a lot
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 5: of different movies to talk about in the span of
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 5: two minutes, so it was great.
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 4: Yes we should, Kaitlin now would be a good idea
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 4: for the Matreon. Just choose two random movies. He was
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 4: a cinematographer for you could pick almost any genre of movie.
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 3: Let's do it. Let's do that for December, yeah, in November.
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much Angle for joining us and for
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 3: lending your expertise. Is there anything you'd like to plug
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 3: or anything like that.
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 5: I would like people to look at Tina Modotti's pictures,
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 5: her photographs. I would like to plug her even though
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 5: she's been dead for a few years now, because she's
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 5: portraying the movie and her pictures are portrayed for a
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 5: quick sequence. But I think that it's amazing how she
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 5: depicted everything communism and the Mexican Revolution and the Mexican
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 5: working class through her pictures. So look at in them
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 5: out these pictures. My Instagram account is Angela CMPs. It's
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 5: private for now, but I'll make it public for a
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 5: couple of days if anyone wants to follow act now
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 5: because if not, my students will find it and I
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 5: don't want them following me because teenagers in social media
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 5: are not my favorite thing. So that's about it. Thank
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 5: you so much for having me. I could talk to
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 5: two amazing women for two hours about my favorite topic.
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 5: So I don't know why I cannot do this every
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 5: day of my life, but I wish I could.
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 2: We'll have you back for another movie. Yeah, come back anytime.
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 5: Whenever you want to have me. I'll come back because
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 5: I had so much fun. Thank you very much.
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, thank you. I had a class truly.
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 3: And as far as where you can find us, it's
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 3: on the same old places Instagram. It's on the Patreon
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 3: aka Matreon five bucks a month, two bonus episodes every month,
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 3: plus the back catalog.
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 4: Right now, because it's ok tuba. We are doing two
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 4: scary movies that center women, we did and we just
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 4: an episode on the Exorcist and we're covering Pearl later
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 4: in the month. So yeah, head over there, check that out.
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 4: You can get our merch at teapublic dot com. Slash
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 4: the Bechdel Cast And.
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 3: With that, I'm gonna get in bed and then make
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 3: a bunch of men carry me around in bed.
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 5: As you should.
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 4: Yes go, everyone deserves that moment.
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 5: Yep, bye bye.
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, host by
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 3: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 3: by Moe laboord our theme song was composed by Mike
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 3: Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskressensky. Our logo and merch
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 3: is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 3: Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 3: linktree slash Bechdelcast