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Women and the Apocalypse · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
0:07
Speaker 2: Welcome to stuff. I've never told you a productive I heart.
0:08
Speaker 1: Radio and for no specific reason at all or timing
0:22
Speaker 1: at all, we thought it would be fun to talk
0:25
Speaker 1: about the apocalypse. No, everybody loves, everybody loves end time,
0:31
Speaker 1: no fun for all. And if you've been following along
0:35
Speaker 1: recently with our episodes, and kudos to you, because we
0:39
Speaker 1: know we have a lot of content. So if you're like, yeah,
0:41
Speaker 1: I heard that, one will be like wow, good on you.
0:45
Speaker 1: I have been exploring how to survive the world as
0:49
Speaker 1: it starts to implode. I bought a breadmaker, I have
0:54
Speaker 1: plans for gardens and other things, which made me ponder
0:59
Speaker 1: what people think when it comes to women and the apocalypse,
1:05
Speaker 1: because you know, again as we told you previously, many
1:07
Speaker 1: many times, we're always thinking about episodes in this show specifically,
1:12
Speaker 1: So there you go, and perhaps to no one's surprise,
1:16
Speaker 1: there's a lot of speculation on women, especially in like
1:20
Speaker 1: a zombie apocalypse, because that's the majority of Like when
1:23
Speaker 1: we were looking for quizes or something fun, it's just
1:26
Speaker 1: zombie apocalypse. And yes that includes several articles based on
1:31
Speaker 1: the last of us any I know, I know, but
1:34
Speaker 1: also a lot of references on how women are the
1:38
Speaker 1: face of the biblical apocalypse as well. So, uh, why
1:43
Speaker 1: don't we talk about some of the facets of this
1:46
Speaker 1: apocalypse and women anyone? Why don't we jump into it?
1:50
Speaker 1: You ready, I'm thinking this is gonna be a little
1:52
Speaker 1: bit shorter. One. Why do I do this? I myself
1:56
Speaker 1: up dedn't I.
1:57
Speaker 2: You're starting the apocalypse? This is like where at the
2:00
Speaker 2: beginning of the pandemic, when everybody was thinking about the
2:03
Speaker 2: one thing they did or said that started ours.
2:06
Speaker 1: Was the predictions. Weren't they? Okay, moving on, We're not
2:10
Speaker 1: gonna harp on that one again. So the apocalypse is
2:13
Speaker 1: a wonderful I say this sarcastically, setting for so much entertainment,
2:19
Speaker 1: whether we are talking about movies, books, or games. It
2:22
Speaker 1: has opened up so many scenarios and possibilities and plot lines.
2:29
Speaker 1: And how many types of apocalypse are there? Well a lot,
2:32
Speaker 1: There's a lot out there. Some of them include like
2:35
Speaker 1: Pandemic level and yeah, we still need to finish our game, Anie.
2:39
Speaker 2: Yes, Pandemic being a board game that is very very fun,
2:43
Speaker 2: very very difficult. It has many difficulties and also different iterations.
2:48
Speaker 2: We were playing it during the Pandemic, we got through
2:53
Speaker 2: two one, well, we got through like the main We
2:56
Speaker 2: got through like the main one that people play, and
2:58
Speaker 2: then we did the like long longer campaign one, and
3:01
Speaker 2: then we had a second longer campaign one and we
3:04
Speaker 2: haven't finished that one, and when we sit down to
3:06
Speaker 2: play that again, we're gonna have to do a refresher.
3:09
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to be like I'm I'm almost thinking
3:11
Speaker 1: we might have to start over all, like.
3:13
Speaker 2: I don't know how much character interesting.
3:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's probably gonna die an character so many I
3:23
Speaker 1: don't mean to be a few of our characters died, like.
3:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, y'all. They're fun.
3:29
Speaker 1: It's a thing.
3:29
Speaker 2: It's fun.
3:30
Speaker 1: It is, but it's also like a thirty minute set
3:33
Speaker 1: up to remember how to play it. We love those campaigns, right,
3:37
Speaker 1: So there's the pandemic, and then we have the man
3:40
Speaker 1: created war, nuclear holocaust, Uh, there's alien you know that
3:46
Speaker 1: type of apocalypse, and so much more. But it seems
3:50
Speaker 1: the more recent or I guess favorites are something along
3:53
Speaker 1: the lines of a specific disease or disaster that eventually
3:57
Speaker 1: creates a zombie like environment that's going to come and
4:00
Speaker 1: eat you or infect you. Like one of those iterations, right,
4:06
Speaker 1: And to add some depth todays, here's some explainers of
4:10
Speaker 1: some of the apocalypses. Again, I think they have like
4:13
Speaker 1: the list goes on and on. I looked at one
4:15
Speaker 1: and you know how Google shows you the top whatever.
4:18
Speaker 1: So there was like twelve listed and then the numbers
4:20
Speaker 1: says many more. Yeah, so we're not doing all of them, okay,
4:26
Speaker 1: So but just just to give a kind of a
4:27
Speaker 1: small explainer. So one timely classic is the nuclear war
4:32
Speaker 1: thinking fallout, that game, you know what I mean, where
4:36
Speaker 1: everybody's hiding in bunkers, all these things. It isn't a
4:39
Speaker 1: surprise that after the usage of the nuclear weapons in
4:44
Speaker 1: World War Two that people had legitimate fears of world
4:48
Speaker 1: collapsing attacks and of course the current state of being
4:52
Speaker 1: with power hungry people who've been given unlimited power, or
4:57
Speaker 1: so they claim. So you know, that's one that's in
5:00
Speaker 1: the back of our heads. That's an option. Right. Then
5:02
Speaker 1: we have the pandemic apocalypse again, something that seems like
5:06
Speaker 1: it could occur at any moment. In Ashells dot Com
5:09
Speaker 1: even talks about being the most plausible of all the apocalypses.
5:14
Speaker 1: Here's a quote a pandemic apocalypse is one of the
5:17
Speaker 1: most plausible types of apocalypse, and it's a scenario that
5:20
Speaker 1: we are currently living through with the outbreak of coronavirus.
5:23
Speaker 1: While the current pandemic isn't yet on the scale of
5:26
Speaker 1: some of the fictional examples below, it's still a grim
5:29
Speaker 1: reminder of how quickly a virus can spread and how
5:32
Speaker 1: easily civilization can break down. So, yeah, that's one, and
5:38
Speaker 1: I have like his article was in the midst of this,
5:41
Speaker 1: so it makes a lot of sense. One we didn't
5:45
Speaker 1: mention before is the religious idea of the rapture. Remember
5:50
Speaker 1: the Left Behind series? Did you read any of those
5:52
Speaker 1: any or watch her camera in action?
5:57
Speaker 2: That was a heavy side. I did read left Behind.
6:00
Speaker 2: I know there was a show I didn't watch that
6:03
Speaker 2: I have said before. I had a teacher in eighth
6:07
Speaker 2: grade who just really really didn't like that I wasn't
6:13
Speaker 2: that I was an atheist, and he would always say,
6:15
Speaker 2: it's like you're running off a cliff and I'm trying
6:17
Speaker 2: to stop you. And he was like, You've got to
6:20
Speaker 2: read Left Behind, And I did it. It was fine.
6:27
Speaker 1: I love when people take fictional tales and be like,
6:30
Speaker 1: you need to read this. This is gonna be you.
6:33
Speaker 2: He was really like, this is going to change your
6:35
Speaker 2: whole perspective. And I was like, Okay, let me try.
6:38
Speaker 2: And I was like, just say, I think of the
6:39
Speaker 2: Da Vinci Code.
6:40
Speaker 1: It came around the same time, so you would think
6:43
Speaker 1: like anyway, but anyway, Oh yeah. So here's a brief
6:46
Speaker 1: explanation from that same article at ashtails dot com that
6:49
Speaker 1: says the religious rapture apocalypse is a popular motif in fiction,
6:54
Speaker 1: often used to explore themes of fate, morality, and human nature.
6:58
Speaker 1: In these stories, the world comes to an end, not
7:01
Speaker 1: through natural disaster or nuclear war, but through the intervention
7:05
Speaker 1: of a higher power. This can take the form of
7:08
Speaker 1: God descending angels to whisk away the faithful, or of
7:12
Speaker 1: Jesus returning to judging the living and the dead. Whatever
7:16
Speaker 1: the specifics, the religious rapture apocalypse is a powerful way
7:19
Speaker 1: to explore the idea of an all powerful being who
7:22
Speaker 1: decides the fate of humanity. And we're not going to
7:25
Speaker 1: go too deep into that in itself, but we do
7:28
Speaker 1: want to come back round and talk a little bit,
7:30
Speaker 1: just kind of mention some of the female images used
7:32
Speaker 1: to portray these ends of times within the religious concepts
7:36
Speaker 1: of the apocalypse based on revelation and if you know,
7:39
Speaker 1: you know which you're gonna know at the end of this.
7:42
Speaker 1: But yeah, I find this interesting because again, when you
7:47
Speaker 1: have tales of the Rapture, there's always a center character
7:52
Speaker 1: about the anti Christ. Yeah, and if I were to
7:56
Speaker 1: go back and I look at the Left Behind series,
7:59
Speaker 1: it feels like it's train someone weird, no helves president
8:05
Speaker 1: just yeah, why. But what's so funny is my part
8:10
Speaker 1: of my family and that that like Cookie Crew extended
8:14
Speaker 1: family really really thought it was Oprah.
8:17
Speaker 2: The anti Christ.
8:19
Speaker 1: Wow, I'm like, like, a black woman's gonna have that
8:23
Speaker 1: much power? Ever, dang, Like, not because they're not powerful,
8:29
Speaker 1: it's because society wouldn't let them give that kind of authority,
8:33
Speaker 1: but that that was their belief for a while. I
8:37
Speaker 1: love the whole I think Beyonce is actually now part
8:39
Speaker 1: of that category. I do.
8:41
Speaker 2: I mean, I find it really interesting that a lot
8:43
Speaker 2: of times a woman gets really powerful and all of
8:45
Speaker 2: a sudden, heavy quotes around like respectable conservative media is
8:54
Speaker 2: like they must be witches. There's no other way.
8:59
Speaker 1: There's no other way, which again I will say, at
9:01
Speaker 1: least the Left Behind series, whether or not it's because
9:04
Speaker 1: of lack of imagination, or they also felt like, now
9:07
Speaker 1: there's no way that anybody but a white man in
9:09
Speaker 1: power could be just powerful. He does portray the Antichrist
9:13
Speaker 1: as a white man, so you know, they were all
9:16
Speaker 1: on the same page there anyway. And then the last
9:20
Speaker 1: example we want to give is addressing the zombie apocalypse,
9:23
Speaker 1: which pretty much like the other types, are multifaceted and
9:28
Speaker 1: could all be connected, such as maybe a nuclear war
9:31
Speaker 1: creating zombies and diseases and being caused by some ideal
9:34
Speaker 1: of a holy war. You know, you could put all
9:36
Speaker 1: that together. But zombies, much like vampires or witches because
9:40
Speaker 1: we've talked about talked about this before or werewolves, seem
9:44
Speaker 1: to be a part of a cyclical horror fad that
9:47
Speaker 1: becomes trendy at different times, because like Training a Bousan
9:51
Speaker 1: and all of those movies came out, World War Z,
9:54
Speaker 1: Zombie Land, that kind of all came out and chunked together,
9:57
Speaker 1: and they're still popular. So they have outdone the gamut
10:01
Speaker 1: of most other fictional characters. Villains, what would you call them? Villains?
10:06
Speaker 1: Just horrible?
10:07
Speaker 2: Oh, that's the question. We don't need to get into
10:12
Speaker 2: a morality debate vampires right now, I wouldn't call I
10:22
Speaker 2: wouldn't call zombies villains because they typically don't have any
10:28
Speaker 2: brain function, so they're more like a sad outcome of
10:34
Speaker 2: a virus. I don't know, I won't call them villains.
10:38
Speaker 1: Which movie? Which zombie movie? Is it? That they adapt
10:43
Speaker 1: They could suddenly get faster, and they figured out how
10:45
Speaker 1: to do doors, and they kind of figured out like.
10:47
Speaker 2: Is that senses it's twenty eight days later? Maybe that's
10:52
Speaker 2: the one they were It was twenty eight days later,
10:55
Speaker 2: was new and that they were fast?
10:56
Speaker 1: Okay, so watch remember, like they have this conversation the
11:02
Speaker 1: survivors do about like they're adapting. They're adapting to us,
11:05
Speaker 1: like trying to get to us. And I was like, huh,
11:08
Speaker 1: they are becoming more people.
11:10
Speaker 2: Like they're like raptors.
11:13
Speaker 1: Oh. With all of that, zombies are somehow created and
11:21
Speaker 1: become a part of the threat of humanity. But we
11:24
Speaker 1: know by this point that it's often a cautionary tale
11:27
Speaker 1: of the downfall of humanity in itself, as Ryan law Again,
11:32
Speaker 1: who wrote the Ashtales dot Com article, says, although it
11:35
Speaker 1: is usually presented as a horror story, the zombie apocalypse
11:39
Speaker 1: can also be a commentary on society, human nature, and
11:43
Speaker 1: our relationship with technology, and of course, like we looked
11:47
Speaker 1: at jarj rameirow was like the beginning of the zombie
11:50
Speaker 1: movies and having this whole conversation like it was a
11:52
Speaker 1: conversation of race, if I remember, like a lot of
11:55
Speaker 1: things in society, but this is specifically about race in
11:57
Speaker 1: its conversation. And then we had filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino
12:04
Speaker 1: who came in trying to make his own kind of
12:06
Speaker 1: version of horror, and when he did it, it was
12:09
Speaker 1: all just like I have a lot of opinions about him,
12:14
Speaker 1: but all like just gross tesque like type of shocking movie.
12:20
Speaker 1: And I remember there was a quote about just like
12:21
Speaker 1: Romero like getting up and leaving in the middle of
12:24
Speaker 1: the screening because he didn't like it, and Quentin Tarantino
12:26
Speaker 1: took it that as a victory, saying he scared him
12:30
Speaker 1: so badly, when in actuality, he was just disgusted because
12:33
Speaker 1: the whole point of Tarantano's movie was to gross people out,
12:36
Speaker 1: to shock people. I think there was a scene where
12:38
Speaker 1: he's trying to rape somebody and like his falls off,
12:42
Speaker 1: which is kind of funny, like you're like okay, but
12:46
Speaker 1: that's obviously no real social commentary to that other than
12:49
Speaker 1: he wanted to be gross and like have a that
12:52
Speaker 1: as this conversation. So, like we know, when it comes
12:55
Speaker 1: to things like the zombie movies, and especially as its origins,
13:00
Speaker 1: it's a bigger conversation about this.
13:03
Speaker 2: The wave before the wave we're in now, those zombie
13:06
Speaker 2: movies were largely about consumerism because it was like, I mean,
13:12
Speaker 2: very basically, I could talk about this for a long time,
13:14
Speaker 2: but you know, it was essentially a lot of them
13:16
Speaker 2: took place in malls, and it would be your sort
13:20
Speaker 2: of mindless zombie and that representing consumerism but also kind
13:26
Speaker 2: of being I won't even say romanticized, but like some
13:30
Speaker 2: part of you being like that would be nice if
13:32
Speaker 2: my like life was heavy quotes again, more simple in
13:40
Speaker 2: terms of I just have to survive, I guess.
13:43
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, And as Laws wrote, also, it can
13:47
Speaker 1: be a conversation about our relationship to technology, and I
13:50
Speaker 1: think that's like the newer version of things. So it
13:54
Speaker 1: is it's like, okay, okay, interesting. So in the world
14:07
Speaker 1: of fantasy, these scenarios happen often. But the question that
14:11
Speaker 1: we're having is how do women fare especially in these
14:16
Speaker 1: fantasies and horror situations. And we are going to look
14:19
Speaker 1: at the entertainment factor because there's a lot to be
14:22
Speaker 1: said about what people think may happen and how they
14:26
Speaker 1: see women in these scenarios as well. So I want
14:30
Speaker 1: to go ahead and put this caveat most of this conversation, unfortunately,
14:34
Speaker 1: is very sis heteronormative in the ideal that they want,
14:37
Speaker 1: like it's almost rendering it back to gender norms, like
14:41
Speaker 1: classic gender binaries. So they really heavily weighs on that.
14:46
Speaker 1: So that's the bigger conversation, and that's bigger examples that
14:49
Speaker 1: we have. Of course, there's new people who are doing
14:51
Speaker 1: things that are creating and pushing the boundaries, of course,
14:55
Speaker 1: but we can't ignore that that has been a perpetual
14:58
Speaker 1: part of the conversation, and especially when you look at
15:00
Speaker 1: like Apocalyptid film where they use and we're gonna talk
15:03
Speaker 1: a little bit more use women, whether it's as victims
15:10
Speaker 1: or as the plot line like you know, dead women
15:13
Speaker 1: or rescuing women and all those things. So that does
15:16
Speaker 1: come into play as well. Now, like many things in life,
15:20
Speaker 1: this question how do women fare in the situation is
15:24
Speaker 1: a toss up. It's a toss up, y'all. There are
15:27
Speaker 1: those who see women being portrayed as mere tokens, because
15:30
Speaker 1: you've got to have some type of romantic tension, right,
15:32
Speaker 1: So for one to survive a long time must be
15:36
Speaker 1: somewhat capable, but not too capable. And an example that
15:40
Speaker 1: we were given is The World War Z's a long
15:43
Speaker 1: time since I've seen that. I did remember, like I
15:45
Speaker 1: liked it, but it does point out the fact that
15:48
Speaker 1: his wife, who kind of she's supposed to be a scientist,
15:51
Speaker 1: I believe. Do you remember the movie I've never seen
15:54
Speaker 1: or the book, Oh, you've never seen it. I have
15:59
Speaker 1: question marks because it's definitely a horror movie ish thriller,
16:04
Speaker 1: I guess suspense.
16:05
Speaker 2: I don't think it's enough on my horror radar.
16:09
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, it's got a few jump scares, but like
16:12
Speaker 1: the woman is with their family and he's trying to
16:14
Speaker 1: get to them, but he's needed because he's so important
16:17
Speaker 1: all these things, and like she has this conversation with
16:20
Speaker 1: him and then like she just stays on the boat
16:23
Speaker 1: like that's her tire character. Yeah, bro plays this so
16:28
Speaker 1: that or even walking dead like you as many like
16:32
Speaker 1: good characters are in there, it's like the token. They're
16:35
Speaker 1: still not the actual main characters. They might be a foil.
16:39
Speaker 1: Think about Glenn and Maggie. Like a lot of people
16:42
Speaker 1: hated Maggie at the end of that because they blamed
16:44
Speaker 1: her for her death. And I didn't even see that scene.
16:46
Speaker 1: I was not ready for that song.
16:48
Speaker 2: No, is this spoilers. I don't know what happened.
16:51
Speaker 1: I know it was later on, but that that's been
16:53
Speaker 1: a while, right, well, I don't know anyway things happen.
16:58
Speaker 1: Maggie gets blamed, right, all right, we're gonna go with that.
17:03
Speaker 1: And then you have the women being a product or hostages.
17:08
Speaker 1: I think Mad Max or a Handmake's tell. And yes
17:12
Speaker 1: there is female Lee's to this one and even in
17:15
Speaker 1: the later Mad Max Viriosa and Fury Road. But there
17:19
Speaker 1: also lies the like the abuse of women as a
17:22
Speaker 1: subplot for most of that, even like the old School
17:26
Speaker 1: one with Mel Gibson and Tina Turner. Come on her
17:28
Speaker 1: her costume is iconic, but it's still doesn't say much
17:32
Speaker 1: to women. I will say again, we've had this debate,
17:38
Speaker 1: and I think had I already started on the show
17:42
Speaker 1: when the Fury Road came out.
17:45
Speaker 2: Yes, because I I got in big trouble at my
17:49
Speaker 2: job the day I saw Fury Road and it all
17:51
Speaker 2: worked out. But I remember very specifically the day I saw.
17:56
Speaker 1: Were we the other?
17:57
Speaker 2: No? I was, No, it was before you actually.
18:02
Speaker 1: Okay, So I just remember being really upset, not upset,
18:06
Speaker 1: but like disappointed because everybody had painted this all the
18:10
Speaker 1: all the men who hate who hated this movie, talking
18:13
Speaker 1: about how they didn't need her character. She made it
18:17
Speaker 1: worse and in the end was like, but she's the
18:19
Speaker 1: one that gets saved, Like, yes, she has a pretty
18:22
Speaker 1: bad role, but in the end she still needed the
18:24
Speaker 1: main character save her, So why are you mad? This
18:28
Speaker 1: seems typical what's happening. So even with the big publicity
18:32
Speaker 1: to that, it still didn't wow me and like, oh
18:36
Speaker 1: look there's this feminist icon and she don't get me wrong,
18:40
Speaker 1: Charlie stir own on her own as an icon, but
18:44
Speaker 1: in that movie it didn't match the energy that was
18:48
Speaker 1: given to me. But all those things and talking about
18:53
Speaker 1: all of this, writer sable A Radio talks about these
18:56
Speaker 1: types of scenarios in her post titled Sexism in the Apocalypse,
19:00
Speaker 1: and she goes on to talk about how using these
19:02
Speaker 1: types of scenarios are another addition to the harmful idea
19:04
Speaker 1: that the only way women would survive is by being
19:08
Speaker 1: protected by the good men or good guys from the
19:11
Speaker 1: bad men. She writes, that's why I've had enough of
19:15
Speaker 1: How Yet, again, even in what otherwise a well thought
19:18
Speaker 1: out apocalypse story from a writer I respect, this is
19:21
Speaker 1: repeated as if it were the gospel truth. Women in
19:23
Speaker 1: the apocalypse need men to protect them from the gains
19:26
Speaker 1: of rapist men.
19:28
Speaker 2: Yes, and she continues, the roving bands of raping marauders
19:31
Speaker 2: are orcs for writers. You can feel okay about killing
19:34
Speaker 2: them because it's justified. But I think it's perpetuing a dangerous,
19:38
Speaker 2: misogynistic and missandrist stereotype that has repercussions, the idea that
19:43
Speaker 2: feminism is dependent upon civilization, and that if the authority
19:47
Speaker 2: of civilization were to fall, women would become prey and
19:50
Speaker 2: men would descend immediately into acting like gorillas competing for
19:53
Speaker 2: a harem. Even Margaret Atwood, hailed as a powerful feminist voice,
19:58
Speaker 2: has fallen victim to this stereotype.
20:01
Speaker 1: So the stereotypes obviously transcend the horror, but also into
20:06
Speaker 1: the comedic ideals as well. Another example of women not
20:10
Speaker 1: doing much or barely seen is from the apocalyptic comedy
20:15
Speaker 1: of This is the End where most of the people
20:18
Speaker 1: and women specifically all get swallowed up in a sinkhole
20:22
Speaker 1: or the one woman that appears, Emma Watson playing herself,
20:26
Speaker 1: comes through but hurriedly runs away with an axe when
20:29
Speaker 1: she realizes she may be stuck with an entire group
20:32
Speaker 1: of strange men who make comments that are a little
20:34
Speaker 1: too eager. So obviously she runs away, But like, there's
20:37
Speaker 1: definitely a lot of conversation, because that is one of
20:42
Speaker 1: the biggest critiques to these movies, into these shows about
20:46
Speaker 1: apocalyptic scenarios is that once again, women are just property.
20:53
Speaker 2: I think I would say one of the things I
20:56
Speaker 2: noticed when I was compile telling the Survival Horror chapter
21:03
Speaker 2: in our book you can go get wherever you get
21:06
Speaker 2: your books, your books, is that I mean, and we've
21:09
Speaker 2: been doing it in this episode, is that a lot
21:11
Speaker 2: of times it's the one she's the woman. Like there's
21:16
Speaker 2: it's all men, and then there's the woman, and then
21:21
Speaker 2: if there are more women, then yeah, they are usually
21:25
Speaker 2: some type of property or something to be exploited or protected,
21:29
Speaker 2: but they're not like fully realized characters.
21:34
Speaker 1: Right right, Well, with all of those risks and uncertainties.
21:38
Speaker 1: We do have some, as you said, who have done
21:43
Speaker 1: better and treated better, existed better, suggest the ladies from
21:47
Speaker 1: the zombie Land, some trickery and deception could keep you
21:50
Speaker 1: alive a bit longer, you know, according to them. However,
21:54
Speaker 1: another article written by Ray Alexandra, titled how to be
21:58
Speaker 1: a woman in the Apocalypse according to male dominated movie
22:01
Speaker 1: So this is somewhat sarcastic, does give praise to one
22:04
Speaker 1: woman again, that one who plays it smart and safe,
22:08
Speaker 1: and that's Michelle from ten Cloverfield Lane. I have not
22:12
Speaker 1: seen this movie. Have you seen this one? I have
22:14
Speaker 1: seen this one, this one you have. I like that
22:15
Speaker 1: we've seen one of each at this point now, And
22:19
Speaker 1: she writes this. The protagonist of ten Cloverfield Lane, Michelle
22:24
Speaker 1: played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, offers a damn near perfect
22:27
Speaker 1: guidebook on how to realistically survive the apocalypse. Thank you
22:31
Speaker 1: JJ Abrams. She says, she knows when to be patient
22:35
Speaker 1: and when to fight, her mind is always working overtime,
22:38
Speaker 1: and she's crafty enough to make her own hazmat suit
22:41
Speaker 1: and gas mask. Thanks to these factors, as well as
22:44
Speaker 1: taking the time to heal from a physical injury. Michelle
22:47
Speaker 1: ultimately out with the shady doomsday survivalist who ran her
22:51
Speaker 1: off the road and held her in his bunker. On
22:54
Speaker 1: top of all of that, Michelle shows us that even
22:57
Speaker 1: when you do finally find out that the Earth husband
22:59
Speaker 1: in by humanity destroying aliens, it is best not to
23:03
Speaker 1: freak out, just quietly get into the nearest car and
23:07
Speaker 1: bravely head out to find other survivors. So we do
23:11
Speaker 1: have some I like this, she I like that she
23:14
Speaker 1: wrote that this is our guidebook.
23:17
Speaker 2: You don't know it now that you mentioned it. Yeah,
23:20
Speaker 2: that it is true because it's like a guy is
23:22
Speaker 2: trying to protect her, but really he was keeping her,
23:25
Speaker 2: holding her captive, and she had to kind of out
23:30
Speaker 2: out smart him and then gets out in the world.
23:33
Speaker 2: Turns out he was right, but hey, she was like, nah,
23:37
Speaker 2: I'm better off. I'm good without you.
23:40
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Oh. Which brings us to those
23:43
Speaker 1: who think women maybe the last to remain According to
23:48
Speaker 1: our entertainment, The Last of Us is talk full of
23:53
Speaker 1: women leadership, the survival of women is not guaranteed, and
23:57
Speaker 1: talks about how it is stacked against women, but the
24:01
Speaker 1: fact that they they're all these that exists. Are they
24:05
Speaker 1: all great? No? I like that, but they're leaders, but
24:10
Speaker 1: their leaders. So we have Marlene, we have Kathleen, we
24:14
Speaker 1: have Maria and Ellie herself of course. And we're not
24:18
Speaker 1: talking about the Last of Us Too yet Annie, not yet.
24:22
Speaker 1: I know you really want.
24:23
Speaker 2: To, Willie.
24:25
Speaker 1: Can't you know what? I'll give you the exception, what
24:27
Speaker 1: would who would you add from the Last of Us too?
24:31
Speaker 2: Abby?
24:31
Speaker 1: Obviously? Is she a leader for her group?
24:34
Speaker 2: Though she's a leader with a her organization. I would
24:38
Speaker 2: say she's like first pick of the team you want? Abby?
24:44
Speaker 2: Also male, but that's a different story. Okay, I won't
24:48
Speaker 2: go into it too much, but yeah, I mean, and
24:50
Speaker 2: I do like there are a lot of women leaders
24:56
Speaker 2: in the Last of Us series. I kind of like
25:00
Speaker 2: because I think the whole point is the Last of Us.
25:02
Speaker 2: We jokingly called our crew when we did Betrayal at
25:08
Speaker 2: the House on the Hill, that campaign, that board game,
25:11
Speaker 2: we called our crew the least of Us because it's like,
25:14
Speaker 2: how did you survive? You probably had to do some
25:16
Speaker 2: things that weren't great.
25:17
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I know that's why we called
25:20
Speaker 1: ourselves that.
25:22
Speaker 2: You chose it.
25:22
Speaker 1: I assume that was my partner I am not that creative.
25:27
Speaker 2: I thought it was you. But anyway, so I like that,
25:30
Speaker 2: you know, you see the kind of the good and
25:34
Speaker 2: bad of them, and you understand, like that's one of
25:39
Speaker 2: the most painful and wonderful parts of the last of
25:41
Speaker 2: us because you're like, Okay, I get it. Maybe I
25:44
Speaker 2: don't like it.
25:45
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the whole point of end of times. Yeah,
25:49
Speaker 1: content right, like this is the end of humanity? How
25:52
Speaker 1: far do we go? How good or how bad is it? Yeah?
25:55
Speaker 1: And with some of those great examples, there's also the
25:58
Speaker 1: argument that many of the women leaders are survived are
26:00
Speaker 1: often white, perpetuating the idea of white saviors. One thesis
26:05
Speaker 1: written by Sarah Austen wrote about this, specifically titled white
26:09
Speaker 1: Girls in the Apocalypse, Race, Gender, and Sexuality at the
26:12
Speaker 1: End of the World, and as the title implies, it
26:15
Speaker 1: also takes on the more stereotypical heteronormative standards as well,
26:18
Speaker 1: so the verisis heteronormative, gender binding type of ideal so
26:25
Speaker 1: Austin wrights to maintain the cultural status quo while focusing
26:30
Speaker 1: on a girl power heroin. The post apocalyptic white girl
26:33
Speaker 1: savior subgenre has specific markers that center around white women's
26:38
Speaker 1: sexuality and reproduction as hallmarks for the survival of humanity
26:42
Speaker 1: at large. This combination of traits, intended to make characters
26:46
Speaker 1: relatable and aspirational for young adult audience, also acts as
26:50
Speaker 1: a form of capitalist activism by exploiting white feminism and
26:54
Speaker 1: girl power rhetoric to generate viewers, ad revenue, and licensed products.
27:00
Speaker 1: These text media maintain the importance of white women's sexuality
27:04
Speaker 1: and roles as mothers in late stage capitalism, while denying
27:08
Speaker 1: the full humanity of queer, trans black, indigenous, and people
27:11
Speaker 1: of color or bipoc and the other women marked by
27:15
Speaker 1: differences from an idealized heterosexual white identity. So it does
27:19
Speaker 1: say a lot to that. Now again, we're gonna give
27:21
Speaker 1: kudos to the last of us who really kind of
27:24
Speaker 1: changed some of those ideas by bringing in a queer
27:27
Speaker 1: character and all of these things. So we definitely see
27:31
Speaker 1: a little differences in that type of conversation, but for
27:36
Speaker 1: the most part, a chunk of all of these kind
27:38
Speaker 1: of like girl power, end of times heroism fighting for
27:43
Speaker 1: society movies, it is white sis, heterosexual girls. So in
27:50
Speaker 1: her article, Austin gives examples of catnus from Hunger games,
27:54
Speaker 1: Buffy from Buffy, the vampires they are, and even Emma
27:57
Speaker 1: Swan from Once upon a Time. I was like, ah,
28:00
Speaker 1: look at that. I don't think of that as end
28:02
Speaker 1: of times, but there is a lot of the times
28:03
Speaker 1: where they're trying to in the world, oh, or take
28:08
Speaker 1: over the world okay, okay, and make it there so
28:12
Speaker 1: like they destroyed the fairylands essentially.
28:17
Speaker 2: Oh oh, and they.
28:18
Speaker 1: Come to a different world and then she wants to
28:20
Speaker 1: take over that world. Got you so all those things
28:23
Speaker 1: so so good? Kind of no, And with that she
28:28
Speaker 1: points out their transparent attempt to be inclusive by writing,
28:33
Speaker 1: I argue that the post apocalyptic white girl's Savior is
28:36
Speaker 1: always haunted by race and queerness. These side characters make
28:40
Speaker 1: the reader feel feel as if the trope is inclusive
28:43
Speaker 1: and allows the subgenre to access bipock and queer identities
28:47
Speaker 1: to the service of white supremacy and heteronormativity. Building on
28:51
Speaker 1: the cultural narrative of white women as universally welcoming and mothering,
28:55
Speaker 1: the girl's Savior must be needed near these forms of differences,
28:58
Speaker 1: but cannot embody that since she is chosen for her
29:01
Speaker 1: lineage or special qualities, which are inextricably tied to her heterosexual,
29:06
Speaker 1: white femininity. Buffy, for example, is both more effective and
29:10
Speaker 1: more civilized than the first black slayer, Snaia, which means
29:13
Speaker 1: restless apparently, despite the savior's straight, white, unmarked identity, her
29:19
Speaker 1: friends and helpers, such as Buffy's lesbian best friend Willow,
29:22
Speaker 1: demonstrate her open mindedness and universal appill So her entire
29:27
Speaker 1: paper is a fascinating read. It's a pretty long paper,
29:31
Speaker 1: and she does clearly show the continued white savior trope
29:34
Speaker 1: within these shows or books, and she, like I said,
29:37
Speaker 1: gives True Blood as an example of that as well.
29:39
Speaker 1: You have that heterosexual white girl, innocent white girl coming
29:45
Speaker 1: to a fairy at that coming to say, but all
29:47
Speaker 1: her like cronies, her side gigs are from the bipod
29:52
Speaker 1: community essentially as well as usually queer community, so like
29:56
Speaker 1: it does hang on to like, Yes, it's about her sidekicks,
30:00
Speaker 1: but they can't be the embodiment of the savior obviously.
30:04
Speaker 1: In it, she also talks about the different tropes such
30:08
Speaker 1: as the love triangles and why that's necessary, as well
30:10
Speaker 1: as motherhood that is heavily used in order to tie
30:14
Speaker 1: the feeling of humanity and emotions into a plot, but
30:18
Speaker 1: still has to stay with that within that heteronormative standards.
30:22
Speaker 1: You cannot straight from that at all. And of course
30:25
Speaker 1: a part of that conversation with things like vampires or
30:30
Speaker 1: all those is about having children and not being able
30:32
Speaker 1: to be a mother. We know that we've talked about that,
30:36
Speaker 1: not siring a child. I think on that, and that's
30:41
Speaker 1: part of like you can't do this which motherhood if
30:43
Speaker 1: that is something that's important to you, can break a
30:45
Speaker 1: relationship for sure, but like it definitely has this level
30:49
Speaker 1: of like incompletion for those characters. So you know, you
30:56
Speaker 1: do it like Twilight and get pregnant with the vampire
30:59
Speaker 1: baby over look is coming coming and uh with that,
31:19
Speaker 1: I actually we stumbled upon another article and this was
31:22
Speaker 1: written by Nicole. It doesn't have her last name, so
31:24
Speaker 1: I'm not leaving about her name is Nicole and it's
31:27
Speaker 1: for Beyond Black White dot com and the article is
31:30
Speaker 1: titled and asks would black women survive a zombie apocalypse?
31:36
Speaker 1: So she talks specifically about survival skills and how she
31:38
Speaker 1: imagines people may be planning the end of times, and
31:42
Speaker 1: she brings on good points about things that can lessen
31:45
Speaker 1: the chances for anyone's survival. So she talks about children
31:48
Speaker 1: or having a lot of children, and I think about
31:50
Speaker 1: the fact that I have a pet, and how there's
31:52
Speaker 1: no way I could I could remain alive for long
31:58
Speaker 1: if I try to keep Peaches, because if we're being
32:01
Speaker 1: hunted down by zombies or just bad people's in general,
32:03
Speaker 1: She's a she's gonna bark. She's a barker, and then
32:06
Speaker 1: she's a highes front with me, and I'm like, what,
32:09
Speaker 1: so she's gonna give me away immediately after the barking,
32:13
Speaker 1: And I guess, like again, when we talk about like
32:16
Speaker 1: young babies or toddlers, they don't know why they're in
32:20
Speaker 1: this emergency situation and cry when they need things like
32:23
Speaker 1: that's their communication. That could be a problem.
32:28
Speaker 2: This this reminds we have I haven't watched it yet,
32:33
Speaker 2: but I have in quiet place on.
32:35
Speaker 1: The calendar, well like the quiet place too where she
32:38
Speaker 1: has the box, I mean the first one. I'm sorry
32:40
Speaker 1: with the baby, the first one. Both both already made,
32:47
Speaker 1: and so when it when she when it's born, she
32:49
Speaker 1: immediately puts it into that box with the oxygen tank,
32:52
Speaker 1: which is already running out. I'm like, okay, how do
32:55
Speaker 1: you know for sure we're not testing that. That's okay.
33:00
Speaker 1: Willing suspension of this belief these is what makes these
33:03
Speaker 1: movies amazing. So you know, those things I do think
33:06
Speaker 1: about as well. But she never really Nicole never really
33:10
Speaker 1: gives any definitive answer outside of the fact that beyond
33:15
Speaker 1: black women know how to survive point blank, and they
33:18
Speaker 1: know how to push forward. As Nicole writes, I'm a survivor.
33:22
Speaker 1: I'm not going to give up destiny child out there.
33:25
Speaker 1: If nothing else, Black women are survivors for better or worse.
33:28
Speaker 1: We pride ourselves collectively on the ability to make a
33:31
Speaker 1: dollar out of fifteen cents. The tenacity would be one
33:34
Speaker 1: of the key ways black women could survive in the
33:36
Speaker 1: face of adversity. We plant our feet and get that
33:39
Speaker 1: work done. Additionally, I could count on black women to
33:42
Speaker 1: make the can food rations and Squirrel made Post Apocalypse
33:45
Speaker 1: to be rather tasty given the apocalyptic circumstances. It is
33:50
Speaker 1: a talent to be able to cook just with what
33:52
Speaker 1: you have and make it good. There's only a handful
33:55
Speaker 1: people that I know that can do that, chefs obviously,
33:57
Speaker 1: But like that, I'm known in real life and yeah,
34:01
Speaker 1: I'm not one of those people. And however, Nicole does say,
34:07
Speaker 1: like many others can't imagine that humanity in itself would
34:11
Speaker 1: be so kind or giving and with all of those uncertainties,
34:16
Speaker 1: you know, could they could? Who could survive in this scenario?
34:20
Speaker 1: Who is going to survive in those scenarios? So she
34:25
Speaker 1: gives advice. So if you want to go back and
34:28
Speaker 1: look at that article that I just mentioned, you should
34:29
Speaker 1: go back because she's like, you know, if you're into witchcraft,
34:31
Speaker 1: get those herbs, ladies. And I'm like, yeah, that's actually
34:34
Speaker 1: really smart. Get those herbs. Uh, with all of that,
34:37
Speaker 1: because we're kind of going to come back into I
34:41
Speaker 1: guess the real scenario. Could this actually be? Could we
34:46
Speaker 1: survive that this was a real scenario? So do you
34:48
Speaker 1: have any characters Annie that you would regard as good
34:51
Speaker 1: examples are surviving or just iconic women of the apocalypse?
34:55
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I I hesitate because like good examples. Again,
35:01
Speaker 2: I think a lot of times apocalypse media is about
35:06
Speaker 2: like how you hold onto your humanity when you're in
35:09
Speaker 2: this situation. So there are examples of people doing that,
35:18
Speaker 2: but it's still like you've faced so many losses. I
35:22
Speaker 2: would say Dina, who's from the Last of Us two.
35:27
Speaker 2: I won't give any further spoilers, but just yeah, Dina
35:36
Speaker 2: Clara Redfield from Resident Evil two, she's a good one.
35:43
Speaker 2: Maybe Heather from Silent Hell three, which, by the way,
35:46
Speaker 2: I recently found out. I don't know how I didn't
35:50
Speaker 2: know this, but there's a Silent Hill two movie that's
35:55
Speaker 2: based on Silent Hill three, which is one of many
35:59
Speaker 2: funny things about that movie. And I watched it, and
36:04
Speaker 2: I have the time of my life, to be honest,
36:08
Speaker 2: Carrie and Moss is in it. Carrie Moss is probably like,
36:11
Speaker 2: please never bring this up again. But speaking of Carrie Moss,
36:16
Speaker 2: Trinity from The Matrix, Yeah, yeah, she's a good one.
36:20
Speaker 2: I do you think Maria from the Last of Us
36:24
Speaker 2: and Marlene. I don't know. It's just so tragic. All
36:28
Speaker 2: of it's so tragic. I'm like struggling to think of one.
36:34
Speaker 1: That's a spoiler alert. Yeah, those are some good ones. Again,
36:38
Speaker 1: I haven't seen all of fall Out, obviously. The Fallout
36:41
Speaker 1: is just beginning with the main character, like she seems
36:44
Speaker 1: to be again, she's also very wholesome, so and she's
36:48
Speaker 1: also very white, so I wonder if this is the
36:50
Speaker 1: same context as we were talking about I'm trying to
36:55
Speaker 1: think because yeah, like in the all the horror movies,
37:00
Speaker 1: the train to Busan was a pregnant woman with the
37:02
Speaker 1: little girl that survived, but it was based on her
37:05
Speaker 1: father and the father of the or the husband of
37:09
Speaker 1: the pregnant woman like that really helped.
37:11
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean this is really interesting too in
37:18
Speaker 2: terms of the fiction piece we do Once a Month
37:25
Speaker 2: that I wrote when I was right out of college.
37:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're I'm pretty sure less of us people stole
37:32
Speaker 1: it from you, which they've never.
37:33
Speaker 2: Read this, so somehow they absolutely didn't, but I like
37:36
Speaker 2: to blame them as if they did. But it is
37:40
Speaker 2: interesting in terms of that is it's instead of like
37:45
Speaker 2: being a Joel and Ellie, it's a woman and her son.
37:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. Just interesting the flip.
37:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean it does have a lot of
37:54
Speaker 2: these things in it. It's it's hard to.
37:56
Speaker 1: Escape it is. So with that, let's ask the real question,
38:03
Speaker 1: how will women do in an apocalypse? For real? In
38:08
Speaker 1: real life? Annie? So in a zombie type of scenario,
38:12
Speaker 1: do you think we could survive?
38:15
Speaker 2: No? I don't think I could. I've thought about this,
38:20
Speaker 2: We've talked about it on the show. I've already I'm
38:24
Speaker 2: in Atlanta, I would be huge trouble. I mean, if
38:27
Speaker 2: the seed you see, something happens there. I'm already infected,
38:31
Speaker 2: but like to get out of the city, and then
38:35
Speaker 2: you're dealing with like dwindling supplies because it you know,
38:39
Speaker 2: in a city, you have more, but there's more danger
38:42
Speaker 2: of I've thought about it a lot. I don't think
38:44
Speaker 2: I would make it. I'm not gonna I think i'd
38:46
Speaker 2: make it maybe a little bit longer than some people,
38:49
Speaker 2: but not very long, very long. How about you.
38:52
Speaker 1: I don't think I would make it either, but I
38:54
Speaker 1: think I would make it just doing the whole like,
38:56
Speaker 1: don't come out, you know what, stick around because we're
39:00
Speaker 1: going to do a very informative and obviously very realistic quiz.
39:04
Speaker 1: Definitely to see if we could survive at the end
39:07
Speaker 1: of this. But according to Megan A. Armstrong, she says maybe,
39:13
Speaker 1: but it definitely isn't a great set for women. In
39:16
Speaker 1: her article for International Feminist Journal of Politics titled why
39:20
Speaker 1: is the zombie Apocalypse so terrible for women? Gender, militarism
39:24
Speaker 1: and ontological insecurity at the End of the World, she
39:27
Speaker 1: explores the topic with the hell from the book and
39:30
Speaker 1: film World War z, which I have now referenced twice
39:34
Speaker 1: because it's in several of the articles. She takes a
39:37
Speaker 1: deep look at the basis of the heavy militarization of
39:40
Speaker 1: the situation, how they take on the very masculine violent
39:43
Speaker 1: role or route as a solution to the problem.
39:46
Speaker 2: She writes, this is a common theme in apocalypse narratives,
39:50
Speaker 2: the chaos of the immediate aftermath of the disasters leading
39:53
Speaker 2: to a Hobbesian state of nature. What we imagine to
39:57
Speaker 2: be a robust, stable civilization can be taken down and
40:00
Speaker 2: fast by a single destabilizing element. Apocalyptic visions of the
40:04
Speaker 2: future can help to articulate present anxieties and offer hypothetical responses.
40:09
Speaker 2: They create a space for an imaginary future in which
40:11
Speaker 2: characters map out a means of survival. Such visions allow
40:16
Speaker 2: audiences to imagine themselves in the narrative and therefore produce
40:20
Speaker 2: certain kinds of normative, legitimate responses. However, in WWZ old
40:25
Speaker 2: wor Z, the aggressive militarized response to the zombie threat,
40:29
Speaker 2: led by a particularly masculinized hero figure, departs in some
40:33
Speaker 2: ways from other examples of the genre.
40:35
Speaker 1: Right, so we're jumping into the fact that again it's
40:38
Speaker 1: kind of like the one versus the total, which I
40:42
Speaker 1: don't think is too different, but during the beginning of
40:45
Speaker 1: World War ZE it kind of was different, especially if
40:47
Speaker 1: it was like an international So I don't think it
40:49
Speaker 1: happens in the US. It happens somewhere else first, which
40:52
Speaker 1: a lot of things do take place, but sometimes it
40:53
Speaker 1: just happens in the US versus And the article talks
40:57
Speaker 1: about the gender roles specifically. Once the zombies has strike, however,
41:02
Speaker 1: this and they're talking about all the stuff that had
41:04
Speaker 1: happened previously is undone, and Karen remains with the children,
41:07
Speaker 1: the wife as all you're talking about as Jerry travels
41:10
Speaker 1: the role in search of the key to eliminating the
41:13
Speaker 1: zombie threat. This suggests that WWZ likes so much of
41:17
Speaker 1: the zombie genre functions to stabilize gender roles in a
41:20
Speaker 1: time when traditional gender roles have been increasingly destabilized. This
41:26
Speaker 1: return is interestingly informed by the more progressive gendered order
41:31
Speaker 1: depicted at the outset of the film. Jerry is neither
41:33
Speaker 1: aggressive nor violent, but first and foremost a family man
41:37
Speaker 1: who will give up his career to protect his family
41:39
Speaker 1: and fight for their survival when necessary. Through Jerry, ontological
41:44
Speaker 1: security is restored through particular gendered and militarized responses as
41:48
Speaker 1: he assumes his role as protector of the family and
41:51
Speaker 1: directs the international military action that secures civilization itself. The
41:57
Speaker 1: zombie allows for the restoration of gendered order in a
41:59
Speaker 1: time of threatening the stabilization, but in order that still
42:03
Speaker 1: nods to its more contemporary evolutions. And she continues explaining
42:08
Speaker 1: why this is all important, saying there are some for
42:12
Speaker 1: whom the normal way of life, the status quo upheld
42:15
Speaker 1: in the extermination of the zombie was never conducive to survival,
42:19
Speaker 1: but their stories are not often told in zombie narratives.
42:22
Speaker 1: WWZ doesn't reveal that certain kinds of families may survive
42:27
Speaker 1: the zombie threat while others will not. To occupy normative
42:31
Speaker 1: gender role is not enough to guarantee survival. And here
42:34
Speaker 1: we see how the knowledge system of zombie reveals itself
42:36
Speaker 1: to be not only gendered, but racialized. So she goes
42:40
Speaker 1: into a deep dive on bat It's a very fascinating paper,
42:44
Speaker 1: like she really goes deep into this conversation, almost like
42:50
Speaker 1: this is a societal tell on warning us that feminism
42:55
Speaker 1: is ruining our lives and it's going to kill us
42:58
Speaker 1: because of zombies.
43:10
Speaker 2: I got I can't help it. I got a couple
43:13
Speaker 2: more points about the last and I was like, oh,
43:16
Speaker 2: one is that and this is so tricky. And I
43:22
Speaker 2: actually do have an episode that's coming out about this
43:24
Speaker 2: that I wrote forever ago, but because it's a pain,
43:26
Speaker 2: I've just been putting it off. But I feel like
43:31
Speaker 2: the message that was intended at the end of the
43:36
Speaker 2: last a lot of people took not they took it
43:42
Speaker 2: very differently, and so yes, they were like angry, Oh,
43:47
Speaker 2: she's a girl, she can't survive, like she's a young
43:50
Speaker 2: this is wrong, when I don't think that's what the
43:53
Speaker 2: actual material was saying. But people were taking that and
43:59
Speaker 2: you using it as like, oh, this is why I
44:02
Speaker 2: this can't be right. I hate this. And I've even
44:05
Speaker 2: heard that in terms of the violence that Ellie does,
44:10
Speaker 2: the main character, one of the main characters, like, I
44:14
Speaker 2: don't I feel like this is irredeemable. I'm like, you
44:17
Speaker 2: seem to be cool and enjolded it. I find this
44:21
Speaker 2: really interesting. Yeah, but like those those divides, we're gonna
44:28
Speaker 2: we're gonna see how that plays out. But also I've
44:30
Speaker 2: been in the first time I went to dragon Con,
44:33
Speaker 2: which is a huge convention here in Atlanta that's kind
44:38
Speaker 2: of like COMCN, very nerdy and all this stuff. I
44:40
Speaker 2: made a mistake and I went to how to Survive
44:43
Speaker 2: a Zombie bock clips panel, and all of them were
44:48
Speaker 2: like conservative dudes that were saying, you know, liberals are
44:54
Speaker 2: all gonna die, and then we'll go back to the
45:00
Speaker 2: right way.
45:02
Speaker 1: Right way God intended obviously.
45:05
Speaker 2: Right anyway anyway. Armstrong concludes, when we read artifacts such
45:10
Speaker 2: as WWZ with attention to what they reproduce and normalize
45:14
Speaker 2: through the zombie as knowledge system, we can understand negotiations
45:18
Speaker 2: of ontological insecurity as they are enmeshed with gender and race,
45:22
Speaker 2: and remain attuned to what responses they render intelligible and possible.
45:27
Speaker 2: Here we can see the ways in which anxieties over
45:30
Speaker 2: how Western civilization survives the overwhelming threat of the zombie
45:34
Speaker 2: are materialized and resolved. The zombie reveals what and who
45:39
Speaker 2: is considered necessary for civilization to survive, as well as
45:43
Speaker 2: who will be abandoned. The sense of contemporary feminism as
45:47
Speaker 2: a threat to the male self comes through, and the
45:50
Speaker 2: negotiation of a kind of masculinity that is responsive to
45:54
Speaker 2: changes in gender norms and expectations, but still positions masculinity
45:58
Speaker 2: as a savior. Yes, also in every survival horror game pregnancy,
46:06
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's disturbingly not that far off, it's dangerous.
46:12
Speaker 1: And then also that conversation of like who has access
46:15
Speaker 1: things and trying to get those things just just in cases.
46:19
Speaker 1: There was of course one response, and I think it
46:22
Speaker 1: was a really interesting idea, is that writer Sammy Eastwood
46:26
Speaker 1: watching some of these horses, and we've talked about this
46:28
Speaker 1: in video gaming, like these impromptu crop tops that make
46:32
Speaker 1: no sense in trying to defend your land property yourself.
46:38
Speaker 1: She says that women won't survive the apocalypse thanks to our clothes.
46:41
Speaker 1: Like that's the beginning of her article, and she talks
46:43
Speaker 1: about those conversations of like why are we dressed like this,
46:47
Speaker 1: Like we couldn't wear ballet slippers, Like no wonder we're
46:50
Speaker 1: falling over ourselves and dying when the killer is chasing
46:52
Speaker 1: us because of those hills do not work when you're
46:55
Speaker 1: running in dart.
46:57
Speaker 2: You lose them. You use them as a stabbing device.
46:59
Speaker 1: But yeah, but also I can't walk in them, so
47:04
Speaker 1: like breaking my ankle.
47:06
Speaker 2: By that point, it's too close. You don't want to
47:07
Speaker 2: be that close to them, right exactly.
47:10
Speaker 1: I did the parody video just recently about how the
47:14
Speaker 1: woman gets a complex because the serial killer keeps passing
47:17
Speaker 1: her by and ignores her to kill everybody else, and she's.
47:19
Speaker 2: Like, why not?
47:20
Speaker 1: Why not me? Anyway, But yeah, that could be a problem.
47:25
Speaker 1: I could get us killed, so some say, but again,
47:29
Speaker 1: all this may be upon Minia said that the way
47:31
Speaker 1: of survival is actually the gendered idea of femininity. It
47:36
Speaker 1: might be a savior to this. History even shows that
47:40
Speaker 1: more women survived some of the most difficult times. From
47:44
Speaker 1: a twenty eighteen Complex article, journalist Victoria L. Johnson writes,
47:48
Speaker 1: scientists over at the University of Southern Denmark analyze times
47:51
Speaker 1: of feast or famine in the past three hundred years,
47:54
Speaker 1: including the Swedish famine of seventeen seventy two to seventeen
47:57
Speaker 1: seventy three, life expectancy of enslaved people Interrinidad in eighteen thirteen,
48:02
Speaker 1: the eighteen forty five Irish potato famine, the measles epidemic
48:06
Speaker 1: in Iceland in eighteen forty two, in eighteen eighty two,
48:08
Speaker 1: as well as in nineteen thirty three Ukraine famine, and
48:11
Speaker 1: there was always one truth that remained true. On average,
48:16
Speaker 1: women lived longer than men, and this is regardless of
48:19
Speaker 1: age as well. So she is actually referring to a
48:22
Speaker 1: study titled women live longer than men even during severe
48:25
Speaker 1: famine and epidemics. In that research paper, they write, women
48:31
Speaker 1: are the life expectancy champions. They can expect to live
48:35
Speaker 1: longer than men almost anywhere in the world today. This
48:38
Speaker 1: pervasive inequality has intrigued researchers for decades. The cumulative corpus
48:44
Speaker 1: of research supports the conclusion that the gap has biological underpinnings,
48:48
Speaker 1: modulated by social and environmental conditions, and was more is
48:52
Speaker 1: during the hard times that women still outlive men, so
48:57
Speaker 1: they continue. The conditions experienced by the people in the
49:00
Speaker 1: analyzed populations were horrific. Even though the crisis that reduced
49:04
Speaker 1: the female survival advantage in life expectancy, women still survived
49:08
Speaker 1: better than men in all populations. Men had equal or
49:12
Speaker 1: higher mortality than women across almost all ages. A substantial
49:16
Speaker 1: part of the overall female advantage in life expectancy was
49:19
Speaker 1: due to survival differences among infants. Further support of the
49:23
Speaker 1: hypothesis of an overall ability of women to withstand high
49:26
Speaker 1: mortality crisis better than men comes from a different mortality
49:30
Speaker 1: measure from all populations. The extreme age, the age to
49:34
Speaker 1: which five percent of the population survived, was higher for
49:37
Speaker 1: females than for males.
49:38
Speaker 2: And writer Sarah Youngblood Gregory writes specifically about the need
49:42
Speaker 2: for a feminine approach to survival in their article for Cosmopolitan,
49:46
Speaker 2: And here's a quote. Gender roles are obviously socially constructed,
49:50
Speaker 2: and yet their conventions shape our lives and justify exclusion
49:54
Speaker 2: and oppression even in our fantasy worlds. Femininity, which I'm
49:59
Speaker 2: defining in a traditional sense as relating to women's softness, motherhood,
50:03
Speaker 2: physical weakness, emotional communication, collaboration, and submissiveness, is often an
50:08
Speaker 2: affront to the gritty survivalist mentality of the apocalypse genre, which,
50:14
Speaker 2: in a COVID era climate change raviged Earth, has captured
50:17
Speaker 2: the imagination of so many.
50:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they go on to talk about how this, though,
50:25
Speaker 1: can actually help survival rates, and how being able to
50:28
Speaker 1: listen and communicate and in like standing a group that
50:31
Speaker 1: is humanity, which is often seen as feminine, can actually
50:37
Speaker 1: bring on a survival tactic and bring on more for
50:41
Speaker 1: being able to survive. They also go on to talk
50:44
Speaker 1: about writers from the marginalized community and how they understand
50:48
Speaker 1: how their leading heroin doesn't reject womanhood but embrace it,
50:52
Speaker 1: and they talk about how it comes from a depiction
50:56
Speaker 1: of real life. So here's another quote from Gregory Butler,
51:00
Speaker 1: the author and Brown's depiction of womanhood le you know,
51:02
Speaker 1: on the true history of women surviving world ending events,
51:05
Speaker 1: writer Fannie cho argues in her latest work that the
51:07
Speaker 1: apocalypse is nothing new. It happened over and over again
51:11
Speaker 1: to marginalize people, and then conclude true femininity is a
51:15
Speaker 1: tool for better, more just worlds through community care, communication, collaboration,
51:21
Speaker 1: critical thinking, and empathy. Femininity has already survived the worst
51:24
Speaker 1: and will continue to do so, maybe not on TV,
51:27
Speaker 1: but always where it counts. And yeah, that was an
51:30
Speaker 1: interesting conversation because, yeah, like we often see femininity portrayed
51:36
Speaker 1: as a weakness, so they get hysterical and cry and
51:38
Speaker 1: can't move on and they don't want to survive anymore.
51:40
Speaker 1: And that's not necessarily how that goes, Like the horrible
51:47
Speaker 1: opposite portrayal of an angry mother that needs to get
51:49
Speaker 1: revenged versus like the mother who just gives up instead
51:52
Speaker 1: of the in between who sucks it up, and like,
51:54
Speaker 1: all right, been through this, I know how we can
51:56
Speaker 1: get through this. Interesting.
51:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And there have been a lot of We've
52:02
Speaker 2: done past episodes on this about a lot of studies
52:06
Speaker 2: about pain endurance and women versus men, and just like
52:15
Speaker 2: long term endurance and women usually come out on top
52:20
Speaker 2: in those studies.
52:21
Speaker 1: So yeah, and yeah, I just want to kind of
52:25
Speaker 1: head on to what I think is interesting, specifically when
52:28
Speaker 1: it comes to the religious apocalyptic literature. This was my
52:34
Speaker 1: my like secondary in education. I think I might have
52:37
Speaker 1: said before literature, but I find it fascinating because they, uh,
52:44
Speaker 1: this one actually comes from the West End Biblical Chapel
52:47
Speaker 1: dot Org and they talk about revelation, and they talk
52:49
Speaker 1: about the four women present of the apocalypse, and I
52:52
Speaker 1: believe there's several like depictions and books often used, and
52:57
Speaker 1: these are all gonna sound familiar, but one of them
52:59
Speaker 1: is the Jezebel or Jezebel, which is a she devil,
53:04
Speaker 1: and they describe it in their resources that she is
53:08
Speaker 1: the leader of a church for idolatry and immorality, and
53:15
Speaker 1: that she was guided by the familiar spirits of the
53:18
Speaker 1: wicked Queen of Jezebel of the Old Testament. If you
53:21
Speaker 1: know Jezebel, she gets a pretty bad rap, you know.
53:26
Speaker 1: Then we have woman in clothed with the sun, and
53:28
Speaker 1: apparently I think she is the better version. So there's
53:31
Speaker 1: always like a yin and a yang. I'm using Asian ideology,
53:35
Speaker 1: but this woman all represents a corporate body. She's the
53:39
Speaker 1: nation of Israel. So remember that she has given birth
53:43
Speaker 1: to the man child, who is the Messiah. So that's
53:47
Speaker 1: the one. That's the other one. And then the Harlot.
53:49
Speaker 1: The Harlot, she's present in a lot of like apocalyptic
53:54
Speaker 1: type supernatural. She comes up a lot in that. So
53:59
Speaker 1: this is the woman that's designated, and she's the mother
54:02
Speaker 1: of all prostitutes and the abomination of the earth. This
54:05
Speaker 1: is all in all caps when they describe these people
54:07
Speaker 1: by the way, oh my goodness, so you born. And
54:13
Speaker 1: then we had Bride of the Lamb, who is once
54:17
Speaker 1: the horror of the Antichrist is destroyed. She is the
54:20
Speaker 1: bride of Christ who was displayed. Okay, so in a
54:27
Speaker 1: lot of representations, I think we talked about this. The
54:30
Speaker 1: there's the Trinity, and it's often the church is the
54:33
Speaker 1: bride to that, so that there's so many conversations. But
54:38
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting because that does come into
54:40
Speaker 1: play in our regular types of things like Supernatural, like
54:43
Speaker 1: we talked about, because there's how many apocalyptic situations do
54:46
Speaker 1: they have in their fifteen seasons?
54:48
Speaker 2: Every season? Every season? Yes, this is the TV show
54:52
Speaker 2: by the way, everyone.
54:53
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, popping back up. I just saw someone's
54:56
Speaker 1: reaction to watching all fifteen seasons, like she was having
54:59
Speaker 1: a time. But I thought it was interesting because that
55:03
Speaker 1: does play a lot in what we are hearing today.
55:07
Speaker 1: I know, the Bride of Israel, all of that. That's
55:11
Speaker 1: that's what That's a big conversation we're having, especially when
55:14
Speaker 1: we do come back and talk a little bit about
55:16
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five and trying to come back to
55:19
Speaker 1: these roles, those gender roles that they think is holy
55:25
Speaker 1: in order to fix things, but also telling us that
55:29
Speaker 1: all of these things such as like natural disasters and
55:33
Speaker 1: such being a thing of the apocalypse and who we
55:36
Speaker 1: should be watching out for. So something to take note of.
55:40
Speaker 1: I did say that we were going to talk about
55:43
Speaker 1: if whether or not we were survived. I sent you
55:45
Speaker 1: to quiz as any did you take them?
55:47
Speaker 2: You did.
55:48
Speaker 1: Okay, the first one, how long would you survive the
55:52
Speaker 1: Ultimate Zombie quiz?
55:54
Speaker 2: I got five months? And I made it five months,
55:59
Speaker 2: but no more.
56:00
Speaker 1: I think I like four months longer than you. Good
56:04
Speaker 1: for you, I'm just kidding.
56:09
Speaker 2: You wouldn't like. The taste is too much cheap light beer.
56:16
Speaker 1: Oh no, beer, chili is great. I know beer canned
56:20
Speaker 1: chicken or something.
56:22
Speaker 2: Oh gosh.
56:24
Speaker 1: And then this one, this is the buzzweek, was how
56:26
Speaker 1: would you make it in the Last of Us? How
56:28
Speaker 1: long would you make it in the Last of Us Apocalypse?
56:31
Speaker 1: How long did you make it?
56:32
Speaker 2: It's said ninety years? And then I would die of
56:38
Speaker 2: natural causes.
56:40
Speaker 1: But it's not even possible, is it?
56:43
Speaker 2: But I took it twice, and I like the first
56:49
Speaker 2: time I did like I said, the last time we
56:51
Speaker 2: took a quiz like this, and I was like, you know,
56:53
Speaker 2: I'm in between these two. And the first time I
56:56
Speaker 2: took it, I got one day, So I'm on the
57:01
Speaker 2: I think I'm like, I'm on the ledge for a
57:05
Speaker 2: long time. One or the other.
57:08
Speaker 1: Either you're immediately gonna die or you'll survive forever. If
57:11
Speaker 1: you can survive that one day, Okay, mine says thirty years.
57:15
Speaker 1: So I feel that's that's a good time. After thirty
57:17
Speaker 1: years of barely surviving, you trip on some fun guy
57:20
Speaker 1: and our heart of fun guy people come to come
57:21
Speaker 1: to you. Yeah, I'm devoured by fun guy people. But yeah,
57:27
Speaker 1: that would be sad. I'm like, oh no, well, I
57:30
Speaker 1: don't get I don't get a natural of death. I
57:32
Speaker 1: guess that's fine, that's fine. It turns out that we
57:35
Speaker 1: do kind of survive ish. I do like the people
57:38
Speaker 1: who are like who because they did write that. I like, immediately,
57:41
Speaker 1: I want immediately out like Caroline and I have a
57:44
Speaker 1: whole pact in case a zombie apocalypse happened. So, oh,
57:51
Speaker 1: there you go. Guys, that is a very shortened could
57:55
Speaker 1: we survive? Let's look at what society and entertainment tells
57:59
Speaker 1: us so vive. It's a toss up.
58:04
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, like it took us an hour
58:07
Speaker 2: long to get to about. Yeah, toss up, because it is.
58:15
Speaker 2: That's kind of what the apocalypse is about. I guess,
58:17
Speaker 2: although you know you're religious, like the rapture in theory,
58:22
Speaker 2: if you've done everything right, you'll be all right. That
58:28
Speaker 2: we'll have to come back and talk more about some
58:30
Speaker 2: of that stuff. But For now, that is what we
58:35
Speaker 2: have to say about women and the apocalypse. Please let
58:40
Speaker 2: us know if you have any thoughts on this, if
58:43
Speaker 2: you have a favorite apocalyptic entertainment piece, media, or just
58:49
Speaker 2: any suggestions about what what more we should talk about
58:52
Speaker 2: about this. You can't email us at STEPHANIDM, mom Stuff
58:57
Speaker 2: at iHeartMedia dot com or Hello at stuff Will Never
59:00
Speaker 2: Told You dot com. You can find us on Blue
59:03
Speaker 2: Sky at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok
59:07
Speaker 2: at stuff We've Never Told You. We're also on YouTube.
59:10
Speaker 2: We have a tea public store, and we have a
59:12
Speaker 2: book you can get wherever you get your books, and
59:14
Speaker 2: we do talk about some of this stuff in there.
59:16
Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, executive producer
59:19
Speaker 2: and our contributor Joey.
59:21
Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
59:23
Speaker 2: Stuff Will Never Told You is protection of iHeart Radio.
59:25
Speaker 2: For more podcasts on my heart Radio, you can check
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Speaker 2: out the heart Radio app app a podcast or where
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Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows.