Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Zootopia with Matthew Mixon
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: On the Doll Cast. The questions asked if movies have
- 0:04Speaker 1: women and um are all their discussions just boyfriends and
- 0:07Speaker 1: husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in
- 0:12Speaker 1: best start changing it with the bel Cast. Jamie, Hey,
- 0:18Speaker 1: I don't have a great intro for this, but I
- 0:20Speaker 1: was thinking that we should get those little like carrot
- 0:24Speaker 1: shaped pens. They are also voice recorders that Judy Hopps
- 0:29Speaker 1: has in the movie, and then use that to record
- 0:31Speaker 1: the beck Dold Cast on from now on. Just depend
- 0:35Speaker 1: with how much I had genuine questions about a lot
- 0:39Speaker 1: of things in this movie. One of the lower stakes
- 0:41Speaker 1: things was the pen. I was like, how much storage
- 0:43Speaker 1: is on that thing? Is there an SD card? I
- 0:46Speaker 1: think it's. I think it's we gotta we gotta go
- 0:50Speaker 1: to I. I don't want to go to zo Topia.
- 0:53Speaker 1: I really don't. Um, well, I'll still go. I gotta
- 0:56Speaker 1: be honest, you go, what would you do? Um, we'll
- 0:59Speaker 1: get to that. Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name
- 1:05Speaker 1: is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Darante, and this
- 1:08Speaker 1: is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional
- 1:10Speaker 1: feminist lens using the Bechtel test simply as a jumping
- 1:14Speaker 1: off point. But Jamie, I don't remember what that is. Well,
- 1:20Speaker 1: I can tell you what it is if you want, Okay,
- 1:23Speaker 1: I will. The Bechdel Test is a media metric created
- 1:28Speaker 1: by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test.
- 1:32Speaker 1: Many per mutations of this test. Here's the one we use.
- 1:36Speaker 1: We require that two characters with names of a marginalized
- 1:41Speaker 1: gender speak to each other about something other than a
- 1:43Speaker 1: man for two lines of dialogue minimum, and the it
- 1:48Speaker 1: has to have some meaning to it. It's got to
- 1:51Speaker 1: have some heft. I like that. Nothink I've ever said.
- 1:55Speaker 1: I don't find myself saying heffed out loud a lot.
- 1:57Speaker 1: But and for anyone was to the show for the
- 2:01Speaker 1: first time, being like, is that all you're going to
- 2:03Speaker 1: talk about on the show? No? And in fact, I'll
- 2:05Speaker 1: say that this movie does pass um. It's not really
- 2:08Speaker 1: it's not as maybe not as much as a show,
- 2:10Speaker 1: but it does. You know, we'll talk about it. Something
- 2:13Speaker 1: that has been happening to me for the past I
- 2:16Speaker 1: don't know, one to two years of this podcast is
- 2:18Speaker 1: I forget to pay attention very I mean, it's and
- 2:22Speaker 1: you're very on top. You're great at your job. Thank you.
- 2:26Speaker 1: But that is the one thing you good is the
- 2:30Speaker 1: name of this show. We've transcended so far beyond the
- 2:34Speaker 1: very basic low bar that is the Bechdel test. Yeah,
- 2:38Speaker 1: our our third eyes are open, right, and I just
- 2:41Speaker 1: where is this? Uh? Genuinely I think they're coming up
- 2:49Speaker 1: on three hunt are definitely with our Matreon episodes, we've
- 2:54Speaker 1: covered around three D and fifty movies. Yeah, let me
- 2:58Speaker 1: consult the Wikipedia. Also shout out to the mysterious benefactor
- 3:03Speaker 1: who's been taking care of the Wikipedia page for years now.
- 3:06Speaker 1: We don't know who you are, but boy, do you
- 3:09Speaker 1: put me on blast in the footnotes sometimes? Holyishh it
- 3:14Speaker 1: I never I forget to check. Two hundred seventy seven
- 3:18Speaker 1: episodes out of today have been released on the maid
- 3:20Speaker 1: feed on the Mad Yeah, I've been doing this for
- 3:23Speaker 1: many moons. Oh my goodness. Well let's get our guests
- 3:27Speaker 1: in the mix, shall we. He's a writer and director
- 3:30Speaker 1: and that's our friend Matt Mixon. Thanks for having me,
- 3:34Speaker 1: thanks for coming on, thank you for and thank you
- 3:36Speaker 1: for bringing us a real pickle of a waiting And
- 3:40Speaker 1: why did we do this one? Again? Was this on
- 3:42Speaker 1: the list on your list, but this but my I
- 3:44Speaker 1: made my list based off of the frequently requested yeah
- 3:49Speaker 1: backtel cast list right correct. We've gotten a lot of
- 3:52Speaker 1: requests for this movie over the years, and I once again,
- 3:57Speaker 1: as with many of our popular requests, I'm like, really, everyone,
- 4:02Speaker 1: are we okay? Um? But we're We're curious, Matt, what
- 4:07Speaker 1: is your history? It was, oh yeah, the movies Utopia.
- 4:10Speaker 1: He came out in the greatest year of all time? Um, Matt,
- 4:15Speaker 1: what's your history with this movie? I watched this movie
- 4:19Speaker 1: on the day of a funeral of like a really
- 4:22Speaker 1: close loved one past and I was in Wisconsin and
- 4:25Speaker 1: it was freezing, and I was with my mom and
- 4:28Speaker 1: my sister and we popped it on and I remember
- 4:31Speaker 1: really enjoying it. It was my number fourteen movie often.
- 4:36Speaker 1: I retroactively popped it on having seen it in January.
- 4:42Speaker 1: Do you do yearly rankings? Yeah? I do him. Um,
- 4:46Speaker 1: I keep it running ranking on letterbox now. But also
- 4:49Speaker 1: have a movie journal so I can always know the
- 4:52Speaker 1: day and like, who I saw this? That's so nice.
- 4:55Speaker 1: I should be more diligent about logging my movie activity.
- 5:00Speaker 1: It's just like a it's like a life journal. You
- 5:01Speaker 1: can just look back and remember. You'll just see a
- 5:04Speaker 1: weird name, be like who Funks? Did I see that with?
- 5:06Speaker 1: Like or you know, yeah, it's just really it's a
- 5:10Speaker 1: nice way to remember. Yeah, I Maggie may Fish shout
- 5:13Speaker 1: out to someone who's wedding we just attended. UM makes
- 5:17Speaker 1: movie journals. I think we will drop the link in
- 5:20Speaker 1: there because I because I got one and I have
- 5:23Speaker 1: yet to use it because I have a fundamental resistance
- 5:27Speaker 1: to remember things that happened to me. UM, and that's
- 5:31Speaker 1: a therapy problem. So, um, Jamie, what's your history and
- 5:35Speaker 1: relationship with Zootopia? Nothing. I had not seen this movie,
- 5:40Speaker 1: and it was what a journey because I feel like
- 5:44Speaker 1: maybe if I saw this at the beginning of twenty
- 5:46Speaker 1: sixteen when it came out, I probably would have felt
- 5:50Speaker 1: different just because but I don't know. I mean, I yeah,
- 5:53Speaker 1: I hadn't seen it. I didn't really know what it
- 5:55Speaker 1: was about, and I didn't like it. It's fucking it's
- 6:00Speaker 1: such a bad movie. Okay, I'm glad that the Tension
- 6:03Speaker 1: has been released, because I fucking hated every second of
- 6:06Speaker 1: this movie. It was like kind of vile and it
- 6:10Speaker 1: was like, I don't think that there were like poor
- 6:13Speaker 1: intentions behind this movie, but like the just every bad
- 6:17Speaker 1: choice like it was. I was blown away by how
- 6:21Speaker 1: much I disliked it. I think people requested this movie
- 6:24Speaker 1: originally because they liked it. Yeah, but it's about girl
- 6:29Speaker 1: boss Cop Solves, who causes racism and then she fixes it,
- 6:35Speaker 1: but also she This movie truly blew my mind for
- 6:39Speaker 1: like how many very at least very obvious, uh flights
- 6:46Speaker 1: of logic that it just barrels through. Um. So yeah,
- 6:51Speaker 1: I'm I came to this movie with fresh eyes, and boy,
- 6:54Speaker 1: oh boy, I hated it. You remember liking it when
- 6:59Speaker 1: you first saw it as well, which was in theaters,
- 7:02Speaker 1: and when did it come out, like March of and
- 7:07Speaker 1: I remember having a good time, But that was also
- 7:10Speaker 1: the year that Mo Wanna came out, and I remember
- 7:13Speaker 1: being furious that this movie, Zutopia won the Academy Award
- 7:17Speaker 1: for Best Animated Feature the Academy Award over mo Wanna. Yes,
- 7:21Speaker 1: And I was absolutely furious because I was like, yeah,
- 7:26Speaker 1: Zutopia was fun, but Mohanna is a far superior film.
- 7:31Speaker 1: And the gap now between the quality of those two movies,
- 7:35Speaker 1: because at the time I was like, oh yeah, Zutopia
- 7:39Speaker 1: is only slightly not as good, But now I'm like
- 7:42Speaker 1: Zootopia's socks and Mohanna is still perfect, so I think
- 7:47Speaker 1: it is. Really, I mean, it's an interesting example of
- 7:50Speaker 1: like how much public thinking has changed in the last
- 7:54Speaker 1: six years alone. It came out six like less than
- 7:57Speaker 1: six years ago, and I truly was shocked at how
- 8:01Speaker 1: poorly it's aged. Like just, yeah, there's there's so much
- 8:05Speaker 1: to talk about. We're not like coming into I Sometimes
- 8:08Speaker 1: I feel like we come into a movie like this movie,
- 8:10Speaker 1: Like if you liked the movie when it came out,
- 8:12Speaker 1: I'm sure I would. Like if I had seen it
- 8:14Speaker 1: in theaters, I'm sure I would. I would have enjoyed it.
- 8:16Speaker 1: And like, if you still like it, that's also fine.
- 8:21Speaker 1: But then listen to us during the episode. Yeah, should
- 8:26Speaker 1: we just get into it? I guess so, yeah, and
- 8:29Speaker 1: Matt feel free to jump in during the recap, we
- 8:32Speaker 1: go there's so much there's so many things that I'm
- 8:34Speaker 1: going to want to be like but wait, if that's true,
- 8:38Speaker 1: how could that be true? Okay? How did she puts
- 8:41Speaker 1: her phone in a plastic ziploc baggy to like when
- 8:45Speaker 1: they flushed themselves down the toilet? But why doesn't she
- 8:47Speaker 1: do that for her little pen. That's the first thing
- 8:49Speaker 1: you're taking only because we were talking about that's the
- 8:54Speaker 1: my only gripe with the film end of episode everything else,
- 8:57Speaker 1: the message that positive. I think it made a ton
- 9:00Speaker 1: of sense. This uh well, kind of say again before
- 9:03Speaker 1: we start shooting all of this movie. I enjoyed it
- 9:05Speaker 1: when I saw it. Yeah, a lot has changed in
- 9:07Speaker 1: four or five years. So whatever, let's have a good
- 9:10Speaker 1: time here. But you know, just I it was my
- 9:13Speaker 1: number fourteen of the year. I mean that's crazy, that's wild.
- 9:16Speaker 1: I mean it's like, yeah, so so again it's like
- 9:19Speaker 1: as always on the back to cast, never feel bad
- 9:22Speaker 1: for loving him, unless I mean there's a few where
- 9:24Speaker 1: it's like you should feel bad. This is not one
- 9:25Speaker 1: of them, right. But also, you know, if we can
- 9:28Speaker 1: bring maybe a few red flags to your attention, we
- 9:33Speaker 1: would like to do that. That's our job. Okay. So
- 9:36Speaker 1: Zootopia takes place in an advanced animal society where predator
- 9:42Speaker 1: animals and prey animals coexist in harmony. Big cats can
- 9:48Speaker 1: be accountants, sheep can be astronauts. Anyone can be anything,
- 9:53Speaker 1: though it wasn't always that way in this world, predators
- 9:56Speaker 1: used to eat prey, just like in our world. Uh
- 10:01Speaker 1: but again, huge problems, enough for fun, but the animals
- 10:05Speaker 1: have evolved beyond that. So we meet Judy Hopps. She's
- 10:10Speaker 1: a young rabbit who wants to be a police officer
- 10:13Speaker 1: for the city of Zutopia number two, also voiced by
- 10:20Speaker 1: um mrs. He's just not that into you herself A
- 10:24Speaker 1: good one. I hadn't heard of this person. Oh really
- 10:27Speaker 1: she's I'm sure she's in other things, and but I
- 10:31Speaker 1: know her as the person who really was not fun
- 10:35Speaker 1: to watch in a movie that wasn't fun to watch.
- 10:38Speaker 1: He's just not that into you. Sure, wow, Okay, So
- 10:42Speaker 1: she wants to be a cop when she grows up,
- 10:44Speaker 1: something that her carrot farmer parents try to discourage her
- 10:48Speaker 1: from doing, saying that there's never been a bunny cop before.
- 10:52Speaker 1: That's again, it's like it's so at first, then the
- 10:55Speaker 1: parents are like, don't be a cop. I was like,
- 10:56Speaker 1: all right, I'm listening, and they're like, because bunny a cop,
- 11:00Speaker 1: it wouldn't have I was like, oh god, okay, we
- 11:02Speaker 1: missed it. And then it's like, oh, not wanting a
- 11:04Speaker 1: bunny to be a cop is prejudice and misogyny. It's right.
- 11:10Speaker 1: The muddled allegory is really muddled, and the movie is
- 11:15Speaker 1: confused anyway. Okay, So her parents are like, don't be
- 11:19Speaker 1: a cop and then also a bully. This fox named
- 11:24Speaker 1: Gideon also tells her that she'll never be anything more
- 11:28Speaker 1: than a week carrot farming little bunny and then he
- 11:31Speaker 1: scratches her face. So now she has all this fox
- 11:33Speaker 1: related trauma. Cut to fifteen years later, Judy is now
- 11:38Speaker 1: attending Zutopia Police Academy. She struggles at first, but learns
- 11:44Speaker 1: to play to her strengths and she starts to excel
- 11:46Speaker 1: at the academy. This whole scene was really giving me
- 11:50Speaker 1: the worst possible version of that sequence from Mulan, Oh,
- 11:54Speaker 1: where Mulan becomes a really amazing soldier, except this is
- 11:59Speaker 1: her book coming a semi competent cop, and it's like
- 12:04Speaker 1: she keeps hearing the like you'll never be a cop,
- 12:06Speaker 1: and it's like sometimes it's like listen to the voices
- 12:08Speaker 1: in your head. I mean, there's nothing wrong with giving up. Yes, Okay.
- 12:15Speaker 1: So then at her graduation from the academy, the mayor
- 12:19Speaker 1: of Zutopia, a lion named lion Heart, while also created
- 12:25Speaker 1: and his assistant mayor, a sheep named Yes literally Jenny
- 12:35Speaker 1: Yes a k a. Also Bell Weather. They recognize Judy's accomplishments.
- 12:40Speaker 1: She's the valedictorian of her class and she's the first
- 12:43Speaker 1: rabbit to become a police officer in Zootopia. So Jody
- 12:48Speaker 1: is about to ship off to Utopia. Her parents tell
- 12:51Speaker 1: her to be careful in the big city, to be
- 12:53Speaker 1: aware of predator animals like bears and wolves and especially foxes.
- 12:59Speaker 1: Then they give her some fox repellent spray. Judy then
- 13:04Speaker 1: gets assigned to Precinct one of Utopia. It's the city center,
- 13:08Speaker 1: though there are like a dozen different ecosystems in a
- 13:12Speaker 1: city like Tundra town Sahara Square, and Rainforest District Wow.
- 13:20Speaker 1: So on her first day on the job, Judy learns
- 13:23Speaker 1: about fourteen different missing animal cases. They are all predators
- 13:27Speaker 1: who have gone missing um, but she doesn't get assigned
- 13:30Speaker 1: to work on any of those. Chief Bogo, voiced by Idrisalba,
- 13:36Speaker 1: assigns her parking duty, and while she's doing that, she
- 13:39Speaker 1: sees a fox who seems to be up to no good,
- 13:43Speaker 1: but then it turns out he's just It's Jason Bateman
- 13:49Speaker 1: and he's just trying to buy his son a popsicle
- 13:52Speaker 1: from an elephant who is prejudice against foxes. But then
- 13:56Speaker 1: it turns out he is up to no good. His
- 13:59Speaker 1: name is Nick Wild. By the way, this is like
- 14:02Speaker 1: the first of many examples in this movie where a
- 14:05Speaker 1: prejudice is referenced, but then canonically in the world, it's like,
- 14:10Speaker 1: and she was right, Like, you're just like right, what
- 14:14Speaker 1: is the point? What is the function of that? I
- 14:16Speaker 1: will say that There's all these like little moments towards
- 14:18Speaker 1: the beginning of the movie when Judy is like, I
- 14:21Speaker 1: want to be a girl boss cop. But then she's like,
- 14:23Speaker 1: I guess I'll take out all my frustration about not
- 14:25Speaker 1: being able to be a real cop, which again is
- 14:28Speaker 1: like that's loaded into like issuing petty parking tickets to
- 14:33Speaker 1: the working class and what if I did that? It's okay, right?
- 14:37Speaker 1: Or are we are we jumping in to talk about it?
- 14:40Speaker 1: Or do you want to finish your thing because I
- 14:42Speaker 1: got thoughts. We'll get well, let's let's get through the
- 14:45Speaker 1: recap and then I'm going to keep jumping in. Um okay,
- 14:52Speaker 1: So Nick Wild the fox is actually up to no good.
- 14:56Speaker 1: He's yeah, not bad. He melts down the popsicle to
- 15:02Speaker 1: make a bunch of smaller popsicles to sell to lemmings
- 15:04Speaker 1: to make a profit. Fun hilarious, right, So then Judy
- 15:10Speaker 1: confronts him about it, and he's like, no, I have
- 15:13Speaker 1: all the permits I need. Also, you're a loser and
- 15:17Speaker 1: you thought that, you know, you would live here and
- 15:19Speaker 1: it would be this equitable utopia, but that's not the reality.
- 15:24Speaker 1: So then she goes home and she feels all dejected.
- 15:26Speaker 1: But then the next day she stops a thief from
- 15:29Speaker 1: stealing a bag of onion like vegetables. Those are important later,
- 15:34Speaker 1: I guess um. But even so, Chief Bogo isn't happy
- 15:39Speaker 1: with her and he's about to fire her, but then
- 15:42Speaker 1: an otter named Mrs Otterton comes in another sorry, another
- 15:47Speaker 1: genius name, perfect no notes, voiced by Octavia Spencer. Is
- 15:52Speaker 1: that right, Yeah? What a thankless voice role she does.
- 15:56Speaker 1: She has like thirty seconds of screen time. So she
- 16:00Speaker 1: comes in saying that her husband Emmett Otterton has been
- 16:04Speaker 1: missing for ten days, and Judy is like, well, I'll
- 16:07Speaker 1: help find him. So Chief Bogo gives her forty eight
- 16:10Speaker 1: hours to find the missing otter, but if she can't
- 16:13Speaker 1: then she's off the force and it seems like there
- 16:17Speaker 1: are no leads for this case. But then Judy notices
- 16:21Speaker 1: Nick the fox in the photo of Emmett Otterton's last
- 16:25Speaker 1: known sighting. So Judy finds Nick and makes him help
- 16:31Speaker 1: with her investigation. Emmett Otterton had bought a popsicle from Nick,
- 16:35Speaker 1: then he went to a spa, where Judy gets a
- 16:37Speaker 1: lead that Emmett left the spa and got into a
- 16:40Speaker 1: white car. Also, like every time that she's moving the plot,
- 16:44Speaker 1: I mean she's moving the plot forward, but she often
- 16:47Speaker 1: moves the plot forward by um breaking the rules of
- 16:51Speaker 1: being a cop, where she threatens to put Nick in
- 16:56Speaker 1: jail for tax evasion. Classic cop Like she right, yes,
- 17:04Speaker 1: she's kind of born, born to do it because she
- 17:06Speaker 1: And then there's that part that we're about to get
- 17:07Speaker 1: to where she's like, well, there's ways around getting a warrant.
- 17:11Speaker 1: You're like, what the fuck? She sorry, we'll go ahead.
- 17:16Speaker 1: She fucking tricks Nick into climbing the fence, so she
- 17:20Speaker 1: has probably cause to bake. Yeah, Like that's like fucking coption,
- 17:26Speaker 1: Jennifer Goodwin. So then they go to the d m
- 17:31Speaker 1: V and run the license plate that the guy at
- 17:33Speaker 1: the spot just happened to remember. Then there's a scene
- 17:36Speaker 1: with sloths that I find so annoying. Well, it's another
- 17:41Speaker 1: example of like, oh my god, I hated it. They
- 17:46Speaker 1: used that as promo for the movie for a while,
- 17:48Speaker 1: and I was just like, I don't want to see
- 17:50Speaker 1: this movie because this scene sucks. I really hated it
- 17:53Speaker 1: so much that. Yeah, I thought it was a funny idea.
- 17:57Speaker 1: But again it is like another example of like the predge,
- 18:00Speaker 1: this is correct, right, Yeah, we were leaning into the
- 18:03Speaker 1: stereotypes of sloths. I don't know, but as a but
- 18:07Speaker 1: as a but as a funny comedy set up where
- 18:09Speaker 1: he kept changing the words in the sentence. I was last,
- 18:14Speaker 1: maybe the movie's only truly good bit. Uh, yeah, I
- 18:18Speaker 1: suppose you're right. I just found that the way that
- 18:20Speaker 1: the line delivery of the sloths, I was like that,
- 18:23Speaker 1: I just didn't like it. The performance is what I
- 18:26Speaker 1: really took issue with. Anyway. So they go to the
- 18:32Speaker 1: d m V. That leads them to a limousine company
- 18:35Speaker 1: in Tundratown, where they find the limo and inside his
- 18:38Speaker 1: Emmett's wallet and a bunch of claw marks. Judy and
- 18:41Speaker 1: Nick are like, what the fuck. But then they get
- 18:43Speaker 1: caught by the Limos owner, which is this crime boss Mr. Big.
- 18:47Speaker 1: It's a whole like homage to the Godfather for this.
- 18:51Speaker 1: This reminded me of like there's a few sequences in
- 18:54Speaker 1: this movie where this movie is like going for this
- 18:57Speaker 1: is not the first time I've said this. In the show,
- 18:59Speaker 1: they're going for a shreky in energy, but it's perhaps
- 19:03Speaker 1: not working, um because they're just like there's this like
- 19:07Speaker 1: long homage to a movie that no child has ever seen,
- 19:10Speaker 1: and they like, hopefully the parents are going to crack
- 19:13Speaker 1: up at this weird Godfather interlude that will come back.
- 19:19Speaker 1: I hated came Also, we should put shreky In on
- 19:25Speaker 1: some new merch. Shreky and something about shreking energy, shreking
- 19:30Speaker 1: vibes something. It rarely works outside of Shrek and this one.
- 19:35Speaker 1: I mean, because there's like multiple points where it's like
- 19:37Speaker 1: this movie is very like leaning into pop culture. She's like, listen,
- 19:40Speaker 1: anytime there's like a movie where they play all by
- 19:42Speaker 1: myself when the character's sad, like, okay, shreky In, um,
- 19:48Speaker 1: but it doesn't work. It wasn't laughing, not in Zootopia, Shrek.
- 19:52Speaker 1: What I we need to stop the regarding Shrek Rock
- 19:59Speaker 1: it's good, I mean, it has its problems, and then
- 20:03Speaker 1: Shrek Too. You gotta see Shrek to Shrek Too is
- 20:08Speaker 1: has suffers from many of the same problems. Also going
- 20:12Speaker 1: to say this this seek this part rips off training day,
- 20:16Speaker 1: yeah day where they're like having in the bathtub and
- 20:18Speaker 1: they're both to kill Ethan Hawk and then they find
- 20:21Speaker 1: out that he saved the dude's daughter. It's like the
- 20:24Speaker 1: exact same thing that happens there, Okay, And again it's
- 20:27Speaker 1: like that reference is for who. I don't think it's
- 20:30Speaker 1: a reference that was just straight. That was this plagiarism
- 20:35Speaker 1: that was and that was like another bizarro girl boss
- 20:38Speaker 1: cop moment where if you like, I mean, it's like,
- 20:41Speaker 1: if you apply a second of thought to a lot
- 20:43Speaker 1: of the things that happened in this movie, it just
- 20:45Speaker 1: completely falls apart or becomes deeply unethical. Um where it's
- 20:50Speaker 1: like she saves that what animal is the Godfather is
- 20:55Speaker 1: like like a little mole. I think, awesome, No, that's
- 20:58Speaker 1: not powesome. I'm from the woods, so I know about
- 21:02Speaker 1: woodland critters. Possums are huge and they're fucking on my
- 21:05Speaker 1: neighbor's roof every single night. I think it's like a
- 21:08Speaker 1: little mole maybe, but like she saves the Godfather's daughter
- 21:14Speaker 1: from and I haven't seen the Grandfather, so I'm just assume,
- 21:17Speaker 1: but I know what happens in the movie. Basically, it's
- 21:20Speaker 1: pretty good. It's wait, that's a hot take. I've never
- 21:23Speaker 1: heard that. You check it out. But Godfather too, Godfather
- 21:29Speaker 1: to suffers from many of this. This person just told
- 21:32Speaker 1: me they saw a house of Gucci twice in two days,
- 21:35Speaker 1: like fifteen minutes ago. Look, I see, I see it.
- 21:40Speaker 1: I haven't seen you know that's true. I mean, we
- 21:42Speaker 1: all have our areas we do need to, you know,
- 21:46Speaker 1: improve upon. My Godfather spot is not good. But well,
- 21:51Speaker 1: we've been talking about for years maybe doing Godfather Month
- 21:54Speaker 1: on the Matreon because we covered a frances for Cobla
- 21:57Speaker 1: movie recently. But it was Peggy's who got married Francis Yeah, yeah, yeah,
- 22:05Speaker 1: yeah I did. It's a weird one, but oh so
- 22:08Speaker 1: the logic is that Judy saved the daughter from a
- 22:12Speaker 1: large doughnut whatever, and then Judy compliments her wedding dress,
- 22:17Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, okay,
- 22:20Speaker 1: now the cops can collude with the mob, and then
- 22:24Speaker 1: that's just cannon. For the rest of the movie, the
- 22:26Speaker 1: cops are colluding with the mob, which happens in real life.
- 22:29Speaker 1: But I don't think that that's any Like the movie
- 22:31Speaker 1: is not commenting on anything there, Like the mob is
- 22:33Speaker 1: funny r so, and we love cops that here in Zootopia,
- 22:39Speaker 1: Oh my god, they love cops. So the crime boss
- 22:44Speaker 1: is like, all right, you can get some more information
- 22:46Speaker 1: from the driver of the limo. So Judy and Nick
- 22:50Speaker 1: go to the rainforest district to talk to the limo driver,
- 22:53Speaker 1: a jaguar named Mr Manches, who says that all of
- 22:57Speaker 1: a sudden, emmet the otter went wild in the limo.
- 23:02Speaker 1: He became violent and attacked him, all while yelling about
- 23:06Speaker 1: night howlers. And then right then Mr Manches also turns
- 23:11Speaker 1: into a wild animal and attacks them. Judy and Nick
- 23:16Speaker 1: narrowly escape, but when Chief Bogo shows up to the scene,
- 23:19Speaker 1: Mr Manches is gone, so Judy has no evidence to
- 23:22Speaker 1: support her theory that for some reason, these animals are
- 23:25Speaker 1: going wild. But Judy still has a few hours to
- 23:29Speaker 1: crack the case. So she and Nick, who are getting
- 23:33Speaker 1: along better, maybe they're even becoming friends. What they set
- 23:40Speaker 1: off to city Hall to get help from Assistant Mayor Bellweather,
- 23:45Speaker 1: who Assistant Mayor Jenny Slade missing a major piece which
- 23:50Speaker 1: thing trauma. Oh, yes, okay, so there's a flashback. Yeah,
- 23:55Speaker 1: I figured we'd we'd get sometimes I gloss over. Let
- 24:00Speaker 1: me do my job, Matt. So they go to bell Weather,
- 24:05Speaker 1: who can get them access to traffic cams to see
- 24:09Speaker 1: where Mr Manches went. They discover that a couple of
- 24:12Speaker 1: wolves grabbed Mr Manches and put him in the back
- 24:15Speaker 1: of a van. Judy's like, oh, those must be the
- 24:18Speaker 1: night howlers, because wolves howl. So they track where the
- 24:23Speaker 1: wolves went, which leads Judy and Nick to this facility
- 24:26Speaker 1: where they find a number of predator animals basically all
- 24:30Speaker 1: the mammals who have recently gone missing, including Emmett Otterton,
- 24:34Speaker 1: but they're all like feral and wild. Then Mayor lion
- 24:38Speaker 1: Heart comes in. He seems to be the bad guy
- 24:40Speaker 1: behind this whole operation. So, like Judy calls it in,
- 24:44Speaker 1: the mayor is arrested and it seems like the case
- 24:46Speaker 1: is solved. And this is one of the points in
- 24:48Speaker 1: the movie that I got so frustrated because it's like, Okay,
- 24:51Speaker 1: city Hall corruption yeah, totally, but but but but you
- 24:57Speaker 1: know what institution is above criticism the cops. You're like
- 25:02Speaker 1: a fucking hey, come on. Anyways, So then during a
- 25:07Speaker 1: press conference about this case, Judy mentions that all of
- 25:12Speaker 1: the animals that went wild, we're predators and mentions that
- 25:16Speaker 1: maybe it has something to do with their biology, which
- 25:19Speaker 1: greatly upsets Nick since as a fox he is a predator,
- 25:24Speaker 1: so he storms off. And then following this press conference,
- 25:27Speaker 1: there is civil unrest around Zootopia, with more predator animals
- 25:34Speaker 1: going wild and attacking prey animals wondering if they're safe.
- 25:39Speaker 1: There's protests. Also the Shakira as a gazelle. She's like
- 25:45Speaker 1: everyone everyone in Zootopia is a huge fan of Shakira.
- 25:50Speaker 1: Also that song the Slap. Though, to be fair, try
- 25:55Speaker 1: anything pretty good for me, and I'm a fan. I
- 26:00Speaker 1: don't dislike Shakire at all, but I just feel like
- 26:03Speaker 1: there's other pop stars there. I recently watched Don't Look Up,
- 26:08Speaker 1: which I also didn't really like very much, but Ariana
- 26:12Speaker 1: Grande fills a similar role in Sure and Don't Look
- 26:15Speaker 1: Up and the song and I was equally underwhelmed by
- 26:17Speaker 1: the song Sure. I quite liked don't look up. But
- 26:21Speaker 1: that's just me, you know. Anyways, So it wasn't shrekky
- 26:25Speaker 1: and enough. And also, as Matt pointed up, I saw
- 26:29Speaker 1: how was a Gucci twice, So we're just different people
- 26:31Speaker 1: at the end of the day. So Judy feels responsible
- 26:38Speaker 1: for this civil unrest and resigns from her cop job,
- 26:41Speaker 1: much to the disappointment of Bell Weather, who is now mayor.
- 26:46Speaker 1: So then Judy goes back home to become a carrot farmer.
- 26:49Speaker 1: But when she's there, she learns about these vegetables that,
- 26:53Speaker 1: when eaton, can make an animal wild and aggressive. And
- 26:57Speaker 1: guess what they're called night how Rulers. So it turns
- 27:02Speaker 1: out that's what Emmett Otterton was talking about. Also, her
- 27:06Speaker 1: bully owns a food truck now question Mark awesome, And
- 27:11Speaker 1: it's like the most aware, self aware bully you've ever
- 27:16Speaker 1: seen in a movie. He's been in therapy for. Oh,
- 27:20Speaker 1: this was one funny. Like one of the funnier flights
- 27:23Speaker 1: of logic of the movie is that all the animals
- 27:27Speaker 1: in the Zootopia expanded universe live human length lifespans. Because
- 27:31Speaker 1: at the beginning, it's like, you know, Judy is bullied
- 27:35Speaker 1: by a future food truck owner, and then it was
- 27:38Speaker 1: fifteen years later and it's like, oh, Judy is fully dead.
- 27:42Speaker 1: She's fifteen years later, you're telling me a twenty four
- 27:46Speaker 1: year old rabbit is good. Piss me off, didn't. I
- 27:51Speaker 1: was like, there's so many there's huge, high level issues
- 27:55Speaker 1: and then there's little things that it's like, come on, well,
- 27:58Speaker 1: you know, and you're disbelieve you're fair fair? What can
- 28:07Speaker 1: I say to that? Okay? So, so it turns out
- 28:10Speaker 1: these vegetables are what has been making the predators become violent.
- 28:14Speaker 1: So Judy rushes back to Zutopia. She tells Nick her
- 28:18Speaker 1: theory that someone is targeting predators on purpose and making
- 28:22Speaker 1: them go wild. So then Nick forgives her and the
- 28:25Speaker 1: team back up and find a lab where this ram
- 28:29Speaker 1: named doug Uh is like making a serum with the
- 28:37Speaker 1: nightholler vegetables that he's been shooting predators with. So that
- 28:42Speaker 1: grabbed the evidence and make their way to the police department.
- 28:44Speaker 1: Also really clunky breaking bad reference. So on the way
- 28:51Speaker 1: they run into Shrek that that is an attempt at
- 28:56Speaker 1: the Shreky end, but it's not where it doesn't quite
- 28:59Speaker 1: work the way this movie like in the way that
- 29:01Speaker 1: I was like, I know what you're talking about, but
- 29:04Speaker 1: unlike Shrek, it's making a reference and I'm not laughing.
- 29:08Speaker 1: It's just a reference for a reference to say. So.
- 29:13Speaker 1: On the way to the police department, they run into
- 29:17Speaker 1: Mayor bell Weather, who ends up being the bad guy
- 29:20Speaker 1: who was behind the whole thing. She tries to sabotage them,
- 29:24Speaker 1: and she shoots Nick with the serum so that he
- 29:27Speaker 1: will go wild and kill Judy. But Nick had loaded
- 29:30Speaker 1: the gun with blueberries, so it didn't work. Classic classic switcher.
- 29:37Speaker 1: How does this factory into Chekov's guns principle? There's Jason
- 29:43Speaker 1: Bavin has to load it with blueberries by the third
- 29:47Speaker 1: act or it shouldn't be there. Um okay. So, and
- 29:51Speaker 1: then they managed to get an audio recording on Judy's
- 29:55Speaker 1: little Carrot pen that is also a high quality voice
- 29:59Speaker 1: recorder um of bell Weather confessing to this whole conspiracy.
- 30:06Speaker 1: Bell Weather is arrested, Lion Heart is reinstated as mayor
- 30:09Speaker 1: I think, or maybe that doesn't happen. I don't know.
- 30:12Speaker 1: Um no, he's like also in trouble, right, yeah, yeah,
- 30:16Speaker 1: because he was complicit, but Judy is a hero. And
- 30:20Speaker 1: then Nick also becomes a cop slash Judy's cop partner,
- 30:25Speaker 1: and then the movie ends on another sloth joke. I
- 30:29Speaker 1: was blown away that it was like, it was like,
- 30:31Speaker 1: there's no he's he's good in that he's a cop
- 30:34Speaker 1: at the end, and they're like, and don't we love that?
- 30:37Speaker 1: And don't we love it? Let's take a quick break
- 30:40Speaker 1: and then we'll come right back to discuss back we're
- 30:50Speaker 1: back um with odds. Where should we begin here? I
- 30:57Speaker 1: think we we um. We gave a preview of some
- 30:59Speaker 1: of the mater issues, but there's we didn't even touch
- 31:04Speaker 1: on all of them. There's Joe Biden's America. I know
- 31:08Speaker 1: this movie came out in Obama's America, but this is
- 31:13Speaker 1: a Joe bidden and then yea all day Okay, so
- 31:16Speaker 1: what who is Jason Paymon Black? Like what's what the fuck? There?
- 31:26Speaker 1: Great questions questions? Okay, our foxes black? I know this
- 31:32Speaker 1: movie doesn't know, but what do you think they thought?
- 31:35Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of shrug and going on
- 31:38Speaker 1: between these couple of writers. I feel like the movie
- 31:41Speaker 1: gets so a lot like because when the movie starts,
- 31:45Speaker 1: I thought I was like, oh, bunnies are being presented
- 31:50Speaker 1: as a minority because they're like, well, bunnies don't become cops.
- 31:54Speaker 1: Bunnies can't do anything but be carrot farmers, and there's
- 31:58Speaker 1: no reference to like jener or anything like that. I
- 32:01Speaker 1: was like, Okay, so is that the allegory being set up?
- 32:03Speaker 1: But then it turns out no, that's not. And then
- 32:07Speaker 1: and then so it's like every new character I feel
- 32:09Speaker 1: contradicts the logic of what the movie has been saying
- 32:12Speaker 1: so far. I don't know, here was my best guests.
- 32:18Speaker 1: So I think that the movie is setting up a
- 32:22Speaker 1: parallel basically that predator animals are people of color and
- 32:29Speaker 1: prey animals are white people. There are a few hints
- 32:34Speaker 1: to this as far as like the ratio of like
- 32:39Speaker 1: prey to predator, but also that's not even reflective of
- 32:42Speaker 1: like a major metropolis, where like a lot of cities
- 32:45Speaker 1: are extremely ethnically diverse, So that doesn't even track right.
- 32:50Speaker 1: But then also, although I would say, you know the
- 32:54Speaker 1: piece where her parents are super afraid of letting her
- 32:57Speaker 1: go to the city, that's real, sure, you know, like
- 33:01Speaker 1: they're they're like, oh, there's all these predators there. Don't go,
- 33:04Speaker 1: you'll get mubbed or whatever. Right, I'm not saying that
- 33:09Speaker 1: was like a good point or anything. I just right.
- 33:13Speaker 1: There were like moments where I was like, Okay, I
- 33:16Speaker 1: think I understand what the movie is trying to do here,
- 33:19Speaker 1: and then there were other scenes where I was like,
- 33:20Speaker 1: I just don't know. I just like right, because it's
- 33:24Speaker 1: so muddled. The messaging in the allegories extremely muddled. And
- 33:28Speaker 1: you'll never guess why. It's because the people who made
- 33:31Speaker 1: this movie were a lot of white men. What I okay,
- 33:39Speaker 1: So here's a little here's some context corner. So and
- 33:43Speaker 1: I got a lot of this information from So. There
- 33:45Speaker 1: was a screening of the movie in and there was
- 33:48Speaker 1: a Q and a panel with several of the filmmakers
- 33:51Speaker 1: after the screening. So it was Jared Bush, Rich Moore
- 33:55Speaker 1: Byron Howard, who all directed the movie. I will say
- 33:58Speaker 1: Richmore is a great white guy name What's More Money Baby.
- 34:05Speaker 1: Jared Bush also co wrote the screenplay, and also present
- 34:08Speaker 1: at this panel was Phil Johnston, the other co writer
- 34:11Speaker 1: of the screenplay. The movie also has several story by credits.
- 34:15Speaker 1: Jared Busch is also credited on MO Wanna big here
- 34:20Speaker 1: for that guy? J I s Jared, I saw it.
- 34:27Speaker 1: We'll do an episode on it. We got to do
- 34:29Speaker 1: it with Melissa Right, Okay, so this panel got written
- 34:34Speaker 1: about in the rap, so here's where I'm getting a
- 34:37Speaker 1: lot of this information. So basically in this like right up,
- 34:42Speaker 1: the filmmakers are really patting themselves on the backs, being like, wow,
- 34:47Speaker 1: our intentions were like so honorable when we were making,
- 34:51Speaker 1: you know, developing this movie. We wanted to do a
- 34:54Speaker 1: movie with like an easily digestible allegory for racism, isn't
- 34:59Speaker 1: that And then they talked about like the research they did,
- 35:03Speaker 1: and they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, this movie is
- 35:06Speaker 1: so prescient during this time of political unrest because it
- 35:09Speaker 1: was released during the time that was leading up to
- 35:11Speaker 1: the election. Uh. And they're like yeah, but you know,
- 35:15Speaker 1: we've just been paying attention to what's been happening, just
- 35:19Speaker 1: like not even reflective of the movie's production history even remotely. Yes,
- 35:23Speaker 1: because it was supposed to be a sixties heist movie,
- 35:27Speaker 1: like an espionage John Lasseter and you're just like I
- 35:31Speaker 1: was like, so okay, so yeah, the movie went through
- 35:34Speaker 1: several drafts and just like wild rewrites. So the filmmakers
- 35:40Speaker 1: they're talking about how relevant their movie is. Um, you
- 35:43Speaker 1: learn about the research they did, which was mostly on animals,
- 35:48Speaker 1: Uh at the Animal Kingdom. They didn't even They literally
- 35:52Speaker 1: are like, let's go to Disney's World. We can do
- 35:56Speaker 1: that for free, and let's just stare at Lemmings for
- 35:58Speaker 1: six days and be like, all write our movie about racism.
- 36:02Speaker 1: You're forgetting about the two weeks safari they went on
- 36:06Speaker 1: in Kenya where they studied animal behavior. Uh, they did
- 36:10Speaker 1: not seem to do nearly as much research on I
- 36:14Speaker 1: don't know, critical race theory or anything like that. It
- 36:18Speaker 1: seems as that they talked to exactly one person, Dr
- 36:22Speaker 1: Shockty Butler, who is a filmmaker and an educator on
- 36:27Speaker 1: racial diversity. Director Byron Howard said, quote, she taught us
- 36:32Speaker 1: everything there was to know about bias and discrimination things
- 36:36Speaker 1: we had no idea existed. End quote. So this is
- 36:40Speaker 1: the background, Like, this is the context that these filmmakers
- 36:44Speaker 1: had for trying to develop this allegory for racism, which
- 36:52Speaker 1: they did not execute well. Which is so clear based
- 36:57Speaker 1: on like the story team assembled is I believe five
- 37:02Speaker 1: white guys, uh and then um one white woman Jennifer
- 37:08Speaker 1: Lee who is the director of The Frozen from Chies,
- 37:14Speaker 1: and then one woman of collar Josie Trinidad, who is
- 37:20Speaker 1: currently and I think at the time of this movie's
- 37:22Speaker 1: release as well, was in charge of the Disney Animation
- 37:25Speaker 1: story team. So it's kind of unclear how much actual
- 37:29Speaker 1: story she wrote because her job is primarily translating script
- 37:34Speaker 1: to visuals um like storyboarding type stuff, right, right, and
- 37:39Speaker 1: that seems to be kind of her her primary job.
- 37:42Speaker 1: So it's like impossible to know who contributed what in
- 37:45Speaker 1: a team this big. But the team is vast majority
- 37:49Speaker 1: white guys, and then you know white people in general, right,
- 37:54Speaker 1: So they fumbled it in a number. So okay, this
- 37:59Speaker 1: movie we made a billion dollars. A billion dollars, that's
- 38:06Speaker 1: so many, but it still doesn't make sense. Who is Hops?
- 38:12Speaker 1: What's Hops? As deals supposed to be? Right, So we've
- 38:14Speaker 1: got this, like you were saying, Jamie, the movie is
- 38:18Speaker 1: setting up this like the idea that people are prejudiced
- 38:21Speaker 1: against rabbits and saying you can't be a can't be
- 38:26Speaker 1: cops Hops is a woman? That okay, so right, right,
- 38:30Speaker 1: But it's like if that's the case, they need to
- 38:32Speaker 1: make that clear because it's like not like bunnies covered
- 38:37Speaker 1: the gender spectrum, but they were just like no bunny
- 38:40Speaker 1: cops period, right, So that's confusing and right, So I
- 38:46Speaker 1: guess like in this movie, rabbits are women, because there's
- 38:50Speaker 1: there's a few other references to that too, where it's like, oh,
- 38:53Speaker 1: you rabbits, you're you're so emotional, and oh you throw
- 38:58Speaker 1: like a bunny, you're bad drivers, you throw like a bunny,
- 39:02Speaker 1: like all these things that are stereotypes about women. But
- 39:05Speaker 1: we know that all rabbits are not women because Dad
- 39:11Speaker 1: multiple occasions and the front desktop calls her cute, and
- 39:15Speaker 1: she says that only another bunny can call her cute. Okay,
- 39:18Speaker 1: So there's a bunch of like weird, very cringe e
- 39:22Speaker 1: jokes that are like specifically referencing either aspects of black
- 39:27Speaker 1: culture or stereotypes about black people, right, where it's like, oh,
- 39:32Speaker 1: a bunny can call another bunny cute, right, that makes
- 39:35Speaker 1: no sense, But if she's who we think she is, right,
- 39:40Speaker 1: Jennifer Goodwin. And then there's another scene where Nick is
- 39:47Speaker 1: touching bell Weather's wool on her head and she's like,
- 39:52Speaker 1: you can't touch a sheep's wool, which is like, I
- 39:56Speaker 1: guess analogous to you, you can't touch a black woman's hair.
- 40:00Speaker 1: So this sheep with her wolf. So there's that thing
- 40:03Speaker 1: that doesn't make sense, but it's Jenny's Jenny's light has
- 40:08Speaker 1: been in this pickle a couple of different times. And
- 40:13Speaker 1: then there's another scene where shortly after Judy meets Nick
- 40:17Speaker 1: in like the popsicle place, she's like, Oh wow, you're
- 40:21Speaker 1: so articulate, but it's Jason Bates. It's pretty articulate, actually, right.
- 40:32Speaker 1: The metaphor is so messy, where sometimes it's a metaphor
- 40:36Speaker 1: about discrimination that women face, but we only see that
- 40:40Speaker 1: with one character in Judy hops and she's a prey animal,
- 40:45Speaker 1: and then the rest of the metaphor is about race
- 40:47Speaker 1: rather than gender. But sometimes references to people of color
- 40:51Speaker 1: are attributed to prey animals when the larger allegory is
- 40:55Speaker 1: that predator animals are the allegorical people of color. Christian
- 41:00Speaker 1: Mark like, it's so messy, and like, I understand that movies,
- 41:06Speaker 1: especially when it's like directed towards children, if they're trying
- 41:09Speaker 1: to tackle a complex issue, like a complex allegory, they
- 41:13Speaker 1: will simplify things and the interest of like making it
- 41:16Speaker 1: digestible for a younger audience. But there's also a responsibility
- 41:21Speaker 1: to make that allegory clear and make sure it makes
- 41:26Speaker 1: sense and that it tracks, and the movie like again,
- 41:30Speaker 1: just fumbles it and every step of the way. I
- 41:34Speaker 1: also feel like that not to bring Shreky and back.
- 41:38Speaker 1: But if you are, like, it's clear that like Disney
- 41:42Speaker 1: at this point, this is true of all Disney movies.
- 41:44Speaker 1: They're very self referential and they make it clear that's like,
- 41:46Speaker 1: we know that adults are watching this too, and we
- 41:48Speaker 1: want to give you something to enjoy too. So it's like,
- 41:51Speaker 1: if that's true, then you need to really think through
- 41:55Speaker 1: the entire metaphor. You can't just like throw in a
- 41:57Speaker 1: couple of song references and be like it's for grown
- 42:00Speaker 1: ups too. It's like the right And then another reason
- 42:05Speaker 1: that this whole metaphor doesn't track is the copaganda thing,
- 42:11Speaker 1: where the irony of a movie that is trying to
- 42:15Speaker 1: make a statement about racial prejudice that also centers a
- 42:19Speaker 1: character who is like this hero cop and in a
- 42:22Speaker 1: movie that seems to have like a very pro cop agenda,
- 42:26Speaker 1: keep saying like, wow, cops are awesome. We need them
- 42:30Speaker 1: to make our community safe. They help make society a
- 42:33Speaker 1: better place, when in the real world, like law enforcement
- 42:37Speaker 1: is an institution that was founded on and is one
- 42:40Speaker 1: of the biggest enforcers of racial prejudice, which renders the
- 42:45Speaker 1: allegory of this movie a complete paradox. Like it just
- 42:50Speaker 1: it ends the movie ends with both, Like the movie
- 42:55Speaker 1: begins with neither of our protagonists being cops and ends
- 42:59Speaker 1: optimistically with both of them being cops. They should have
- 43:02Speaker 1: ended the movie at the end of act two where
- 43:04Speaker 1: she she stops being a cop. That was the best
- 43:07Speaker 1: part of the movie. Well that was the second best
- 43:09Speaker 1: part of the way. I'll get to the best part, okay,
- 43:12Speaker 1: but yeah, I was like, hell, yeah, go off like
- 43:15Speaker 1: a back tops, be a farmer, you know, just like
- 43:20Speaker 1: work the land, or be something else, like they keep
- 43:24Speaker 1: That's why it's like, I mean, even the opening sequence
- 43:26Speaker 1: of the movie, they're like, anyone could be anything, and
- 43:29Speaker 1: then they come up with like accountant and cops, like
- 43:32Speaker 1: there's yeah, the jaguars, Like I want to be an actuary.
- 43:37Speaker 1: I don't even know what that is, and I didn't
- 43:39Speaker 1: bother looking it up. I don't know. It sounds boring.
- 43:44Speaker 1: Dream Baker kids like do and and yeah, I mean
- 43:48Speaker 1: that's of the many things that gets muddled here. It's like,
- 43:52Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, in a movie, even in
- 43:55Speaker 1: sixteen it is a very bizarre specific route to choose
- 43:59Speaker 1: be being a cop, and then kind of like doubling
- 44:02Speaker 1: down on that by I mean, in my head, I'm like,
- 44:04Speaker 1: this is a girl boss logic firing on all cylinders,
- 44:08Speaker 1: where you know, her parents are like, it's great to
- 44:10Speaker 1: have dreams, but don't don't dream too big. You don't
- 44:14Speaker 1: want to dream out of your pay grade kind of thing,
- 44:16Speaker 1: which is something you see It happened very often at
- 44:18Speaker 1: the beginning of uh story where a woman is told,
- 44:22Speaker 1: you know, this isn't your place, and then Drew Barrymore
- 44:25Speaker 1: does whatever, and then the movie's over, and that's very
- 44:29Speaker 1: clearly what's being set up here. But her dream sucks,
- 44:32Speaker 1: and so you're sort of like, well, maybe your parents
- 44:36Speaker 1: are right. Yeah, okay, so let's let's just say that
- 44:39Speaker 1: she is like the girl boss white woman. On top
- 44:43Speaker 1: of that, she fucking sucks, like she's a piece of ship.
- 44:47Speaker 1: Yeah okay, So what do you what do you both
- 44:50Speaker 1: think is the movie saying that? Okay, because she has
- 44:54Speaker 1: this idea of like, her idea of being a cop
- 44:58Speaker 1: has nothing to do with like helping people. It's it's
- 45:01Speaker 1: like she says it does, but it does she ever
- 45:04Speaker 1: say that yeah, because she says, I want to make
- 45:06Speaker 1: the world a better place by being a copy Yeah,
- 45:10Speaker 1: but her actions do not reflect that. Right. She wants
- 45:13Speaker 1: to like cough bad guys basically, and so she gets
- 45:18Speaker 1: caught up by Gideon as a kid, and that gets
- 45:22Speaker 1: like linked to her dream of being a cop, right yeah,
- 45:27Speaker 1: and her you know, punitive ideas of justice and like
- 45:31Speaker 1: you know, tracking people down and like you know, hunting Weaselton,
- 45:35Speaker 1: who I'll get to in a bit. Weaselton's the ship
- 45:38Speaker 1: the dopest character in this movie, Weaselton, who I was like,
- 45:41Speaker 1: that sounds a lot like Steve bush Emy, but it's
- 45:44Speaker 1: not doing impression. Totally didn't it. So I don't know
- 45:52Speaker 1: what they're trying to say. They're trying to say that
- 45:53Speaker 1: Foxes are bad, so that's why she's gonna stop them,
- 45:58Speaker 1: or she's trauma ties by a fox and so now
- 46:02Speaker 1: she holds an unfair prejudice against Foxes. It maybe both
- 46:07Speaker 1: because she wants to be a cop prior to that,
- 46:10Speaker 1: but like that moment where she stops the bully and
- 46:13Speaker 1: then he specifically says you'll never be You'll never be,
- 46:16Speaker 1: and it's like it's like, Okay, I'm rooting for him,
- 46:19Speaker 1: like love the pies, like really good good stuff there.
- 46:28Speaker 1: I like, it's so I don't know. This movie like
- 46:31Speaker 1: really reads to me, like this movie went through five
- 46:33Speaker 1: million drafts because it was like her character like regresses
- 46:39Speaker 1: throughout the movie. Because before she leaves for cop Academy,
- 46:44Speaker 1: she you know, her parents are being prejudiced towards foxes
- 46:48Speaker 1: and here like you know, you gotta be carefully. Here
- 46:50Speaker 1: is repellent. And then she says, well, I was bullied
- 46:52Speaker 1: by a fox, but it was a mean person who
- 46:55Speaker 1: happened to be a fox. And then rabbits are jerks too, Yeah,
- 47:00Speaker 1: like anyone can be an asshole, and you're like, okay,
- 47:03Speaker 1: like Children's movie, I see where this is going. But
- 47:06Speaker 1: then like later in the movie, she I mean, I
- 47:09Speaker 1: guess this is maybe reflective of reality. Becoming a cop
- 47:12Speaker 1: sets her views backwards. Yeah, and she becomes more prejudice
- 47:18Speaker 1: as the movie goes on, right to the point where
- 47:21Speaker 1: she almost fox mess Jason Bateman, who's a black guy.
- 47:25Speaker 1: But she looks to constantly reorient your brain of like right,
- 47:33Speaker 1: saying right, I don't know, very stressful, right, She like really,
- 47:38Speaker 1: even after she's become friends with this fox, who she
- 47:42Speaker 1: again had this like prejudice against up until this part
- 47:46Speaker 1: of the story, and he had shared with her this
- 47:49Speaker 1: like very traumatic story, which is like that part of
- 47:53Speaker 1: the movie like does move me to tears where there's
- 47:55Speaker 1: a flashback where he's like, I wanted to join the
- 47:59Speaker 1: Junior Rangers and but I was the only predator and
- 48:03Speaker 1: I thought I was going to be welcome, but then
- 48:05Speaker 1: I got harassed and assaulted by who I thought were
- 48:09Speaker 1: my friends, and they put a muzzle on me. And
- 48:11Speaker 1: I learned to accept who I am and if if
- 48:15Speaker 1: everyone's just going to see me as a sly, sneaky
- 48:18Speaker 1: little fox, well then that's who I'm gonna be. And
- 48:22Speaker 1: he like tells her this story and like it opens
- 48:25Speaker 1: up and she's like, oh my gosh, that's awful, and
- 48:29Speaker 1: then she becomes like at a press conference, she's like, yeah,
- 48:36Speaker 1: well spouting eugenics like she's it's so wild, right, So,
- 48:43Speaker 1: like that scene is like bizarre because the movie is
- 48:47Speaker 1: suggesting that racism is the result of a press conference
- 48:53Speaker 1: from one rabbit and also like one sheep's actions of
- 48:59Speaker 1: shooting blueberry looking paintballs at animals and not like systemic,
- 49:07Speaker 1: like a systemic widespread problem. Yeah, I mean it's like
- 49:11Speaker 1: this movie is like really determination to not interrogate systemic
- 49:16Speaker 1: anything is kind of like I mean, but they kind
- 49:19Speaker 1: of do with the mayor's office, but for some reason,
- 49:21Speaker 1: like they're willing to go for it there right, but nowhere,
- 49:25Speaker 1: not in like right, not in law enforcement, but in
- 49:29Speaker 1: within this allegory. What is Jenny Slate's end game so
- 49:34Speaker 1: to like what what is also like Otter Tens a predator,
- 49:38Speaker 1: He's like smaller than the right, so like what's the
- 49:43Speaker 1: what the fuck? It's so I mean, I feel like
- 49:46Speaker 1: one of the And this is not a new point.
- 49:48Speaker 1: This point has been made about Utopia many times, and
- 49:51Speaker 1: I know that we have a famous tweet from a
- 49:54Speaker 1: friend of the show, Kate Young, about this. But the
- 49:58Speaker 1: huge issue, like one of the huge issues is like
- 50:02Speaker 1: implying that like in this world there are predators in
- 50:05Speaker 1: prey and conflating minorities with predators that have been integrated
- 50:12Speaker 1: into society like plays into so many super predator right,
- 50:17Speaker 1: like how how did they? I mean, this is classic
- 50:19Speaker 1: five white dudes in a room like uh, this is
- 50:22Speaker 1: the fucking Hillary Clinton c SPAN press conference where she's
- 50:26Speaker 1: like super predators are like mindless killing machines. These black
- 50:31Speaker 1: teens are like mindless killing machines or whatever. M fucking
- 50:35Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, um, girl boss. And so then the whole,
- 50:40Speaker 1: the entire conceit of the movie is set up between
- 50:42Speaker 1: predators and prey like you're already like on fucking third
- 50:46Speaker 1: real city. They're like, you know, and and that's like
- 50:50Speaker 1: one of the many. I mean, I think it's like
- 50:52Speaker 1: maybe them. It's hard to say what about this movie
- 50:54Speaker 1: is the most egregious, but like that, like taking that
- 50:58Speaker 1: logic and then making it can likely true in this
- 51:01Speaker 1: world is so fucked Like, yeah, the I wanna so
- 51:06Speaker 1: the tweet you're referring to, So Christina Holland at American Wombat,
- 51:11Speaker 1: which is an amazing handle, tweeted a couple of years ago.
- 51:15Speaker 1: I think a big problem with kids allegories for racism
- 51:18Speaker 1: is it's like the Green people and the purple people
- 51:22Speaker 1: hated each other just for being the other color. Isn't
- 51:26Speaker 1: that silly? And not the purple people kidnapped the green
- 51:30Speaker 1: people and treated them like livestock for hundreds of years.
- 51:34Speaker 1: So that's the original tweet. And then friend of the
- 51:36Speaker 1: show Kate Young quote tweeted it and then just said
- 51:39Speaker 1: glares at Zootopia, which is like very much the problem
- 51:44Speaker 1: with this movie. It's ignoring the coherent enough to be
- 51:51Speaker 1: guilty and bad. It's missing so many points. But like right,
- 51:57Speaker 1: but I mean shout out to Kay. Yes, yeah, this
- 51:59Speaker 1: movie is like incoherent in such a frustrating way. But
- 52:03Speaker 1: like casting like the white coated animals question mark, because
- 52:08Speaker 1: that fluctuates throughout the movie wildly, but like I think
- 52:11Speaker 1: ultimately who we are supposed to believe for the white
- 52:14Speaker 1: coated animals as prey is like well, no, like it's
- 52:20Speaker 1: just I mean we should say that Jason Bateman's partner
- 52:23Speaker 1: in crime, he's like the blackest dude I can think of.
- 52:26Speaker 1: It's it's tiny Lester, who is like Debot from Friday,
- 52:30Speaker 1: and you know, he's like the big, bald, scary dude.
- 52:34Speaker 1: He was a very deep voice and in the movie
- 52:36Speaker 1: he's the tiny little fox with big ears or I
- 52:40Speaker 1: don't even know what kind of animal that is. But
- 52:43Speaker 1: he's like pretending to be Jason Bateman's character's son when
- 52:47Speaker 1: they do their whole like scam scam. He rules too,
- 52:51Speaker 1: because the second he the second the cop comes around,
- 52:54Speaker 1: he's like not fucking with her, and then when Bateman
- 52:57Speaker 1: decides to help the cop, he's like, I'm not fucking
- 52:59Speaker 1: with you. The movie him. Weaselton was like, oh, so
- 53:06Speaker 1: now you're helping a cop. That's why we okay. Weaselton
- 53:10Speaker 1: rules because he calls that out off the rip. And
- 53:12Speaker 1: then later when he gets like Mr Big is like
- 53:17Speaker 1: going to kill him, he's like dangling him above like
- 53:19Speaker 1: an ice pit. And Weaselton's still like, buck you for
- 53:22Speaker 1: hanging out with cops, like, I would never fucking I
- 53:24Speaker 1: would never funk with the fun with cops, Like he's
- 53:26Speaker 1: just down to die for the coups, Like Weaselton's the
- 53:29Speaker 1: hardest due in this movie. He's also selling an array
- 53:33Speaker 1: of DVDs that are referencecing shreking references to other Disney
- 53:39Speaker 1: movies that we're coming out around this time, such a
- 53:41Speaker 1: but they're all like the animal versions of it. My
- 53:44Speaker 1: favorite one is obviously Meajuana, so it's Mowanna as a cat.
- 53:51Speaker 1: I like this part, so that's the best part of
- 53:53Speaker 1: the movie. Perhaps his iPad was tight to that was
- 53:57Speaker 1: some cold design animal bands stuff. Yeah, but um, let's
- 54:02Speaker 1: you know what, Let's take a quick break and then
- 54:04Speaker 1: we'll come back. God all right, we're back. Now where
- 54:15Speaker 1: do we go? So, there's there's so many places we
- 54:18Speaker 1: could go. Here's where I would like to go next.
- 54:21Speaker 1: So the movie repeatedly uses a word that is a slur.
- 54:28Speaker 1: I will use the word to identify it. The word
- 54:31Speaker 1: is savage. Again. The movie uses it repeatedly to refer
- 54:36Speaker 1: to the animals who have gone wild and have become
- 54:38Speaker 1: violent and attacked. So, uh, this word is a very
- 54:44Speaker 1: offensive slur toward indigenous people in particular, I will say,
- 54:49Speaker 1: I guess in the movie's defense, the conversation around this
- 54:52Speaker 1: word being a slur was not a very mainstream conversation
- 54:56Speaker 1: at the time of this movie is like making and release.
- 54:59Speaker 1: It's been in kind of like more recent years that
- 55:01Speaker 1: this conversation has been brought to the forefront of cultural consciousness.
- 55:08Speaker 1: But even so, one of the many elements of this
- 55:12Speaker 1: movie that aged extraordinarily poorly five years right, um. I
- 55:17Speaker 1: asked a friend of the cast, Jess Merwin, their thoughts
- 55:20Speaker 1: on the use of this word in the context of
- 55:23Speaker 1: the movie. I said, you know, is it still offensive
- 55:26Speaker 1: in the context that it is being used in this movie?
- 55:28Speaker 1: Or is it just a word that should be eliminated
- 55:31Speaker 1: from our vocabularies entirely. And this is what just had
- 55:35Speaker 1: to say. Within Western culture, the concept of savage exists
- 55:41Speaker 1: in a binary with the concept of civilized, the idea
- 55:45Speaker 1: of one cannot exist without the other in opposition. Even
- 55:49Speaker 1: though in the film the word isn't being applied to
- 55:51Speaker 1: human beings, this binary still presents itself in the behavior
- 55:55Speaker 1: of the animals being labeled savage. They are violent, they
- 55:58Speaker 1: are volatile, they are quote other. When we associate violence, volatility,
- 56:04Speaker 1: being uncontrollable, being other with the word savage, we perpetuate
- 56:09Speaker 1: the harm that the word was intended to do when
- 56:12Speaker 1: it was applied to black and indigenous people. So basically,
- 56:18Speaker 1: for any listeners or anyone who's just not aware this word,
- 56:23Speaker 1: don't use it. Thank you, j Yes, thank you so
- 56:27Speaker 1: much Jess for your time and thoughts. So but yeah,
- 56:31Speaker 1: I was counting. The word gets used in the movie
- 56:35Speaker 1: no less than a dozen times, possibly more, just like constantly,
- 56:39Speaker 1: especially like after the halfway mark, which and and it's
- 56:43Speaker 1: the way it's used is to kind of reinforce this
- 56:47Speaker 1: gigantic failed metaphor. That is, like the word is used
- 56:53Speaker 1: to apply to predators, which again is like a hillary
- 56:58Speaker 1: the Hillary Clinton. It's infuriating and and I wanted to
- 57:05Speaker 1: get into that part two. I don't know, just like
- 57:07Speaker 1: as this movie was going on, there just more and
- 57:10Speaker 1: they were I feel like every time one metaphor would
- 57:14Speaker 1: kind of sputter and fail, they would start another one,
- 57:18Speaker 1: and that one would also be really poorly realized and
- 57:22Speaker 1: not good. The last big set piece of the movie
- 57:26Speaker 1: that's trying to comment on something unclear is the what
- 57:31Speaker 1: is it that howling the night howers right where they're implying,
- 57:37Speaker 1: you know, it's And there was a lot written about this,
- 57:41Speaker 1: like not right when the movie came out, but like
- 57:43Speaker 1: for some reason and eighteen I think people rewatch this
- 57:46Speaker 1: movie and they were like, now, hold on a second.
- 57:48Speaker 1: Is Utopia trying to comment on the drug epidemic in
- 57:54Speaker 1: the US? I'dn't even consider that. Uh well, the arguments
- 57:59Speaker 1: for that include the including this like very throwaway goofy
- 58:06Speaker 1: breaking bad reference and like basically implying that the government
- 58:11Speaker 1: is bringing drugs into quote unquote predator neighborhoods and turning
- 58:18Speaker 1: them into like, uh, I don't I don't know what
- 58:22Speaker 1: to but you know what I mean? Like, and so
- 58:25Speaker 1: I think that in the third act of this movie,
- 58:28Speaker 1: they're trying to like comment on the crack epidemic and like,
- 58:33Speaker 1: but again it's so poorly realized and so like in
- 58:36Speaker 1: this movie, like last minute like that, you're just it's like,
- 58:40Speaker 1: what are you doing, guys, Like execute one thing correctly,
- 58:45Speaker 1: like truly one thing. They simply can't. Wow, Yeah, that
- 58:49Speaker 1: doesn't occur to me either. It's now that you bring
- 58:54Speaker 1: it up, it is very wild. This is from it
- 58:59Speaker 1: was like referenced in a review of this movie from
- 59:02Speaker 1: Birth Movies Death Um that did come out at the
- 59:04Speaker 1: time that the movie came out, but yeah, just sort
- 59:07Speaker 1: of reference that. It's like it appears that like, yeah,
- 59:11Speaker 1: the government is bringing drugs into certain neighborhoods and then
- 59:15Speaker 1: you know, using the media to inspire fear and hatred
- 59:20Speaker 1: among everyone else, like in the quote unquote in Utopia,
- 59:24Speaker 1: World Prey. This movie is so funny and then like
- 59:29Speaker 1: and on top of that, the depiction of media in
- 59:33Speaker 1: this movie I also found to be very bizarre. Where
- 59:36Speaker 1: media is obviously very very up for criticism, but the
- 59:40Speaker 1: way it's used here is primarily Oh, the only reason
- 59:45Speaker 1: that Judy really fumbled and couldn't stop spouting eugenics and
- 59:50Speaker 1: her one press conference is because the media was twisting
- 59:53Speaker 1: her words and like they were like media training, but
- 59:58Speaker 1: she immediately forgot and they like and it's like implied
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: that like the media is misreporting on police press conferences,
- 1:00:08Speaker 1: which I wouldn't say is the problem, Like it's it's
- 1:00:13Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just incoherent. Like every issue they
- 1:00:17Speaker 1: try to tackle, it's like I don't know what you're saying,
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: but I think I disagree, And then other words it's like,
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: oh yeah, I definitely disagree. But like that was another
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: moment where I'm like, what does it take, like believe
- 1:00:30Speaker 1: cop press conferences, Like what is the takeaway from that?
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: To quote ma wanna, what is the lesson? What is
- 1:00:38Speaker 1: the takeaway? Don't miss with Mauie when he's on the breakaway.
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: This movie needed more Maui problem. One thing I think
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: this movie gets pretty accurate is um, dirty cop bullshit
- 1:00:51Speaker 1: because Hops pulls out all the tricks, but that's not
- 1:00:55Speaker 1: the movie. It's like presenting her as being like, look
- 1:00:59Speaker 1: how lever she is. She's so resourceful, she can get
- 1:01:03Speaker 1: stuff done, because like I think maybe one of the
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: reasons this movie was requested so frequently, especially like shortly
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: after it came out. Is because it's like an example,
- 1:01:12Speaker 1: I mean, very much on the surface. You could look
- 1:01:15Speaker 1: at this movie and be like, oh, it's a female
- 1:01:16Speaker 1: character who is really motivated and really active, and she's
- 1:01:21Speaker 1: driving the narrative and she's smart. She undergoes an arc
- 1:01:25Speaker 1: and she got more racist. But like she literally almost
- 1:01:31Speaker 1: shoots Jason Bavan at the like at the end of
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: the second act, just for like because he kind of
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: scared her and she almost one billion dollars. So anyway,
- 1:01:51Speaker 1: what was I saying, Um, oh, you're taking to highly
- 1:01:55Speaker 1: motivated a female character, like a surface feminine so so
- 1:01:59Speaker 1: I I guess it has that going for it. But
- 1:02:03Speaker 1: as we've pointed out, that female character is just like
- 1:02:06Speaker 1: girl Boss cop Lady, who is like doing crooked cop ship.
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: But the movie is not. Actually, the movie's intent is
- 1:02:16Speaker 1: not to be like, look at how crooked cops are.
- 1:02:20Speaker 1: It's like, look at how resourceful this clever bunny is
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: well and and like Jason Bateman Fox with Nick nick
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: Nick like says that once, like when she's in the
- 1:02:30Speaker 1: middle of doing a cop crime, he's like smart a
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: little bunny. It was like, what the fuck is happening?
- 1:02:38Speaker 1: Do we, um, did we hit on all of the
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: cop crimes? She did? Because we we did? Reference we
- 1:02:43Speaker 1: should run it down. Yeah, do you does anyone have
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: a comprehensive list? Because there there was a bunch. Okay,
- 1:02:49Speaker 1: So she tries to um. Well, first of all, she
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: profiles Gideon in the beginning, before she's even a cop,
- 1:02:55Speaker 1: she's on her fucking Kyle Rittenhouse ship and she just
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: fucking sticks her no into some ship that's not, frankly
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: her business. I mean, I guess her friends were getting robbed,
- 1:03:04Speaker 1: but you know, don't snitch. Um. So she profiles Gideon,
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: and then when she gets to Zutopia, she profiles Well.
- 1:03:12Speaker 1: First she's like, hype to give out parking tickets. Yeah right,
- 1:03:16Speaker 1: She's like hundred, I'll give out two hundred by noon,
- 1:03:19Speaker 1: and this is supposed to endear us to her. And
- 1:03:22Speaker 1: if it's a parking ticket in a city like Los Angeles,
- 1:03:25Speaker 1: for example, that then costs somewhere between like sixty five
- 1:03:28Speaker 1: and seventy five dollars. And she's so she's like basically
- 1:03:31Speaker 1: robbing the civilians of Utopia. She doesn't want to help people,
- 1:03:36Speaker 1: she just wants to facilitate. Trying to exactly from everyone.
- 1:03:42Speaker 1: Then she um tries to basically blackmail Wild after he
- 1:03:48Speaker 1: explains his scam, she pulls up she has tax forms?
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: Did she Why does she have those? I don't know
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: to blackmail him with I know, but well, I guess
- 1:03:57Speaker 1: she planned ahead. That was like a premeditated black if
- 1:04:00Speaker 1: she already had the forms. She tricks Wild into jumping
- 1:04:04Speaker 1: a fence, um so she can use probable cause to
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: also jump the fence and break into a car to
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: get evidence. I mean, Mr Mantchez is basically having a
- 1:04:14Speaker 1: mental health episode and she just calls more cops to
- 1:04:17Speaker 1: the scene to funk him up, which historically has never
- 1:04:21Speaker 1: goes well. Yeah, like she does so many cop crimes.
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: And also like there's just like these kind of I
- 1:04:31Speaker 1: mean again and maybe this is more like kids movie stuff,
- 1:04:34Speaker 1: but it's like kids copaganda, so it's complicated. But there's
- 1:04:38Speaker 1: like multiple moments where she's fired and then she's just
- 1:04:42Speaker 1: like no, I'm not, and then she's not, and then
- 1:04:46Speaker 1: at one point Jason Bateman is like no, she's not,
- 1:04:48Speaker 1: and then it's like you can't. You don't even work here,
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: what are you talking about? Like, but he will also
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: we should point out that like Bateman is like, you know,
- 1:04:57Speaker 1: he's the criminal or whatever, and then when he reforms,
- 1:05:01Speaker 1: he just becomes a cop. So like that's like, that's
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: like the station that all goodhearted animals and Utopia aspire to,
- 1:05:12Speaker 1: the pipeline from criminal. Before he meets Hops, he could
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: never dream of being a cop. It's like, catch me
- 1:05:19Speaker 1: if you can. When he's like, first, I'm a con
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: artist and I'm so good at that that I'm going
- 1:05:24Speaker 1: to help the cops learn about con artists. And that's
- 1:05:28Speaker 1: what happens at the end of the movie. They both
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: fucking suck. They suck so much it's so like, it's
- 1:05:34Speaker 1: so frustrated, like and I feel like the way that
- 1:05:38Speaker 1: Idris Elba's character is used is also like he's one
- 1:05:42Speaker 1: of the only black voices in the cast, and he's
- 1:05:46Speaker 1: cast in the police chief role, which is, at least
- 1:05:50Speaker 1: right now, is a very popular trope of like the
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: black police chief who just kind of unquestioning lee holds
- 1:05:57Speaker 1: up the establishment. It's just, I don't know, the fact
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: that this movie has no interest in interrogating policing at
- 1:06:04Speaker 1: all is just so like mind blowingly frustrating to the
- 1:06:10Speaker 1: Elda thing. Elda thing is so modeled too though, because
- 1:06:12Speaker 1: he has such a specific like South London accent and
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: like voice. Yeah, if they want, if they needed to
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: like get a black cop, like he's like the not
- 1:06:23Speaker 1: he wouldn't even be in like my top one voice list,
- 1:06:25Speaker 1: you know, right, nothing. It's just so like I just
- 1:06:31Speaker 1: feel like it's yet another example of like this movie
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: just like no one is in the room who is
- 1:06:37Speaker 1: thinking it through? And the little tiny bit of research
- 1:06:41Speaker 1: they seemed to do was to ask one person who
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: she taught them everything, and then they went to Disney
- 1:06:50Speaker 1: World to congratulate themselves. Oh my god, Oh wait, one
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: more thing. Um, there's a fucking you'll ever seen like
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: the TikTok or Instagram videos or like cops play basketball
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: with kids, like like you know, we're community policing. We're
- 1:07:08Speaker 1: like we're cool. You can talk to us like we're down.
- 1:07:12Speaker 1: You don't know what I'm talking about. It's just like
- 1:07:16Speaker 1: bad cop propaganda to be like, look, we're actually cool,
- 1:07:20Speaker 1: but it's like pretty popular in the social media age.
- 1:07:23Speaker 1: There's like a thing at the end where she plays
- 1:07:24Speaker 1: soccer with these two kids. Did you catch that? Like
- 1:07:27Speaker 1: she's walking into city off She's like hey kids, check
- 1:07:29Speaker 1: this out. Hello, fellow kids, it's me a cop. Um. Okay,
- 1:07:35Speaker 1: here's a thing I'll say. Ready, So, Gideon the Fox
- 1:07:40Speaker 1: speaks with a thick accent from somewhere in the American South.
- 1:07:45Speaker 1: I don't know. Um. So, there's obviously a tendency to
- 1:07:50Speaker 1: assign like American Southern accents to someone who has like
- 1:07:54Speaker 1: a backward way of thinking, someone who has like regressive politics.
- 1:07:58Speaker 1: I myself have been guilty of doing this in the past.
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: But it's like it's basically doing what the movie is
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: trying to say, Hey, don't do this, don't make sweeping
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: generalizations about people. Don't like lean into stereotypes. And that's
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: what they're doing with that character. I had that as well, Wow,
- 1:08:19Speaker 1: look at us, look at us. Um it is a
- 1:08:22Speaker 1: small thing, and I feel like it is something that
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: it's not even like inherent to animation, although animation tends
- 1:08:29Speaker 1: to be a worse perpetrator of most tropes because it's
- 1:08:32Speaker 1: such an exaggerated form. But yeah, I mean I feel
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: like that's something we see all the time of the
- 1:08:37Speaker 1: person who is wrong quote unquote, even though he's like,
- 1:08:41Speaker 1: don't be a cop, but like he's wrong. Uh, you know,
- 1:08:44Speaker 1: he shouldn't have hit her. Okay uh. I think the
- 1:08:51Speaker 1: person who is wrong is given a Southern accent, and
- 1:08:55Speaker 1: the person who is right has a coastal accent even
- 1:08:58Speaker 1: though they live in the same place, And like, why
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: is does everyone here have and why does everyone here
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: have a different accent? And it is truly I think,
- 1:09:07Speaker 1: like just assigning heroism and nice good ideas to people
- 1:09:13Speaker 1: from the coasts and if you have any kind of
- 1:09:16Speaker 1: any I mean really like most regional American accents are
- 1:09:20Speaker 1: applied to people who you're not supposed to think are
- 1:09:24Speaker 1: as smart as someone who talks like they you know,
- 1:09:27Speaker 1: like work in Manhattan or whatever the funk, you know
- 1:09:31Speaker 1: what I mean. So yeah, that's just yet another weird
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: l this movie voluntarily takes one billion dollars. Another one,
- 1:09:42Speaker 1: I would say is the movie leans into some fat
- 1:09:46Speaker 1: phobic tropes and stereotypes with the Clawhouser character and that
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: he's constantly eating, He's like very sedentary and out of shape.
- 1:09:57Speaker 1: The one time he has to like chase after someone
- 1:09:59Speaker 1: he like is not able to physically move very well.
- 1:10:02Speaker 1: Just different things like that. And there's there's the movie
- 1:10:06Speaker 1: being shitty yet again in in a different way. I know,
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: like we've we've like referenced a lot that there's just
- 1:10:13Speaker 1: like so many individual moments in this movie where you're
- 1:10:16Speaker 1: like the moment that you've brought up, Matt where um,
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: where Judy quits being a cop at the end of
- 1:10:25Speaker 1: the second actor, we're like, let's call it. We did it.
- 1:10:27Speaker 1: Movie done. But again how it's like just like such
- 1:10:32Speaker 1: a nasty feminism that is being expressed here that is
- 1:10:37Speaker 1: extremely white and in service of all things capitalism, where
- 1:10:42Speaker 1: it's like the framing for her quitting being a cop
- 1:10:44Speaker 1: because she, in the world of this movie has ruined
- 1:10:50Speaker 1: the city is like, but what about your dream? Girl?
- 1:10:54Speaker 1: Like they're like, girl, don't come up on your dreams
- 1:10:57Speaker 1: to fucking ruin society. You're like, what, but the movie
- 1:11:02Speaker 1: believes that the movie believes that she would be morally
- 1:11:05Speaker 1: wrong to give up on her dream of ruining society,
- 1:11:09Speaker 1: Like it's just so misguided and so like, I don't know.
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: And then Eadris Elba says, the world has always been broken,
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: that's why we need good cops like you. And then
- 1:11:23Speaker 1: she's like, I quit and then she's like, no, you're right,
- 1:11:25Speaker 1: I'm going to get a new cop on the forest
- 1:11:28Speaker 1: and recrude. I'm recruiting people, yea, so um, but that
- 1:11:33Speaker 1: sex Bole they go to fucking kicks ass. That's like
- 1:11:39Speaker 1: where I would hang in Utopia. I was trying to
- 1:11:42Speaker 1: think of, like what micro climate I would want to
- 1:11:44Speaker 1: go to, because that sequence where she first she takes
- 1:11:47Speaker 1: the train, gotta give it up. That part she's cruising
- 1:11:53Speaker 1: through all these climates. You've seen Utopia, which looks very
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: much like Asgard from the Thorn movies, by the way,
- 1:12:00Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, I wonder where I would live.
- 1:12:01Speaker 1: I think I chose the jungle, but then once I
- 1:12:03Speaker 1: saw the sex Spot, it's wherever that is that your
- 1:12:06Speaker 1: number one favorite part of the movie. I mean, no,
- 1:12:09Speaker 1: I'm never a part of the movie is when Weaselton
- 1:12:11Speaker 1: is just like I'm ready to die, motherfucker, like I
- 1:12:13Speaker 1: will never help the cops like fucking kill me. But um, yeah,
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: the sex Spot part is sex Spot rules. Yeah. The
- 1:12:20Speaker 1: world building in this movie from a strictly visual point
- 1:12:24Speaker 1: of view, not like cultural or societal, but just like visual.
- 1:12:29Speaker 1: It's like very pretty and cool. I loved I loved.
- 1:12:32Speaker 1: Was it called Rodentia or something where it's like where
- 1:12:37Speaker 1: it was just a bunch of dollhouses. I liked that.
- 1:12:40Speaker 1: That was fun, the filmmaker. So, speaking of kind of
- 1:12:42Speaker 1: the world building, the filmmakers consulted experts such as zoologists,
- 1:12:49Speaker 1: who were like, this is how animals move and what
- 1:12:52Speaker 1: their fur looks like. I just like that shouldn't be
- 1:12:56Speaker 1: priority number one, right, That's what I'm saying. Like, But
- 1:12:59Speaker 1: they went so far as like consult specialists from the
- 1:13:02Speaker 1: Americans with Disabilities Act who helped construct a city where
- 1:13:07Speaker 1: like a two inch little rodent would live in the
- 1:13:11Speaker 1: same city as like a twenty seven foot giraffe. Um.
- 1:13:15Speaker 1: They also consulted h VAC system designers to figure out
- 1:13:20Speaker 1: how to, for example, build a tundra neighborhood next to
- 1:13:24Speaker 1: a desert. But they just only talked to that one
- 1:13:28Speaker 1: lady about how to do racism. Like that's all sounds
- 1:13:32Speaker 1: pretty cool, but there's one there. Oh god, that's so.
- 1:13:39Speaker 1: I mean, it's like and that research. I'm sure that
- 1:13:41Speaker 1: that was really fun and interesting. It's like, you gotta
- 1:13:44Speaker 1: do the whole movie. You can't just do Yeah, it
- 1:13:49Speaker 1: could have been awesome if they had just gone with
- 1:13:50Speaker 1: a different story. I mean, the setting is awesome. Um.
- 1:13:54Speaker 1: I read that. I forget which of the directors this was.
- 1:13:58Speaker 1: But basically when he was pitching to John Lasseter, who
- 1:14:01Speaker 1: obviously John Lasseter, but he was like, yeah, When I
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: told him we wanted to do a movie about talking
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: animals who wear clothes, John Lasseter reportedly picked him up
- 1:14:12Speaker 1: and like hugged him and was like we green Light
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: was just laughing because just like picturing a grown man
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: picking up another grown man and like an excited of
- 1:14:25Speaker 1: animals and clothes, which does happen all the time. The
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: design of Zutopia reminded me a lot of Richard Scarry's
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: Busy Town. Oh. I really loved it when I was
- 1:14:39Speaker 1: a kid. Oh, I can't wait to show you. It
- 1:14:41Speaker 1: was just like it was a city where all animals
- 1:14:44Speaker 1: live together, and they wear clothes, and they have jobs
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: and um, and they, as far as I can remember,
- 1:14:50Speaker 1: don't attempt any themes that are way out of their
- 1:14:54Speaker 1: depth like Zutopia does. I do feel like with this
- 1:14:57Speaker 1: movie it's kind of another example of and we've talked
- 1:15:01Speaker 1: about this, I think from a lot of different angles
- 1:15:04Speaker 1: over the years, but like taking a massive societal ill
- 1:15:10Speaker 1: like racism and prejudice in general, and making it like
- 1:15:15Speaker 1: one person's fault and then being like and then they
- 1:15:20Speaker 1: either learned from their miss like they learn and then
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: they say, let's all get along. And then one person
- 1:15:25Speaker 1: goes to jail and we're not going to talk about jail,
- 1:15:30Speaker 1: like and then problem is solved. And that's like, what
- 1:15:34Speaker 1: because one rabbit solved the problem? Because one rabbit became
- 1:15:38Speaker 1: more racist? Like I firmly believe she became more and
- 1:15:42Speaker 1: more racist as the movie was going on. But like,
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: by sending Jenny Slight to jail, racism is solved. Is
- 1:15:50Speaker 1: the logic that this movie is operating under. I also
- 1:15:54Speaker 1: think it sucks that it's like the only other like
- 1:15:57Speaker 1: dominant female character in this movie is like the most
- 1:15:59Speaker 1: evil person in the world, which you know it happens,
- 1:16:02Speaker 1: but but it's a there's just I feel like we've
- 1:16:07Speaker 1: we've seen this. I always go back to I don't
- 1:16:09Speaker 1: know why, I always go back to the Girl with
- 1:16:11Speaker 1: the Dragon tattoo, and we talked about this, but like
- 1:16:14Speaker 1: there's a character who assaults Lizabeth Salander in that movie
- 1:16:19Speaker 1: and he is like this, you know, a symbol of
- 1:16:23Speaker 1: all misogyny. And by defeating this one man, we have
- 1:16:28Speaker 1: we've we've fixed it, and nothing bad is ever going
- 1:16:31Speaker 1: to happen again. And I feel like that's like there's
- 1:16:33Speaker 1: a version of that going on here with a different
- 1:16:36Speaker 1: theme that it's just like attributing a systemic, centuries millennia
- 1:16:43Speaker 1: long problem too. It was one person who's responsible, well,
- 1:16:49Speaker 1: like refusing to even reference any of the issues within
- 1:16:52Speaker 1: the system even though the movie is about Yeah, I
- 1:16:56Speaker 1: mean the conspiracy goes to city Hall, so they they
- 1:16:59Speaker 1: they're me at the system right like and city all
- 1:17:04Speaker 1: and cops get along. Like that's another like, I don't know,
- 1:17:09Speaker 1: I don't know. Does anyone have any other thoughts? Um,
- 1:17:17Speaker 1: good for Shakira. Good for Shakira. I will say that
- 1:17:22Speaker 1: a far, far, far better animal movie with a climactic
- 1:17:28Speaker 1: showdown between the protagonist and the villain that takes place
- 1:17:32Speaker 1: in a natural history museum is Paddington One. Wow, I
- 1:17:39Speaker 1: didn't think of that. You know what else is like?
- 1:17:42Speaker 1: Um Tailspina, Yeah, but it's it was like Jungle Book
- 1:17:50Speaker 1: characters but they live in a city. Oh, I wow,
- 1:17:54Speaker 1: I haven't thought about that. In Becky Whoa it was
- 1:17:56Speaker 1: like on Disney Channel. Um, yeah, it might have been
- 1:17:59Speaker 1: on regular STV too. I can't remember Starday Morning Cartoon.
- 1:18:03Speaker 1: Think whoa. I wonder if that holds up. It sounds fun.
- 1:18:08Speaker 1: I think I remember they're doing a new Disney plus one. Okay,
- 1:18:12Speaker 1: well that's the law. You have to every piece of
- 1:18:14Speaker 1: intellectual property must be rebooted. And if it's anything like Utopia,
- 1:18:19Speaker 1: if it'll be Mark capaganda billion dollars. Yeah. I part
- 1:18:28Speaker 1: of me is like, what about though, like the target audience,
- 1:18:32Speaker 1: and is this, despite its many problems, is this movie
- 1:18:37Speaker 1: an okay, jumping off point for young children to learn
- 1:18:41Speaker 1: about racism and prejudice. It could be. I don't want
- 1:18:46Speaker 1: to like undermine that as a possibility, but like, I
- 1:18:50Speaker 1: wouldn't show this confusing and inconsistent so never mind scratch that.
- 1:18:57Speaker 1: I mean, and it's again, it's like listeners if you know,
- 1:19:01Speaker 1: we're not parents, so like, if your kid loves this movie,
- 1:19:05Speaker 1: we would be interested to hear. Yeah, personally, I don't
- 1:19:09Speaker 1: know this. This one is too messy. I wouldn't want
- 1:19:13Speaker 1: my kids first introduction to these themes be this movie
- 1:19:18Speaker 1: because this movie doesn't know what it's saying. Yeah, very true.
- 1:19:22Speaker 1: It passes the Bechdel test though apparently between Jenny Slatee
- 1:19:27Speaker 1: and Jennifer Goodwin iconic Wow, what do they talk about
- 1:19:32Speaker 1: it's like sticking together talking at cops. Us. Little guy's
- 1:19:36Speaker 1: got to look out for each other, and she's like
- 1:19:40Speaker 1: woman's solidarity, the cop and the evil mayor. Um. Okay,
- 1:19:46Speaker 1: So as far as feminist, that is feminism five nipples.
- 1:19:51Speaker 1: As far as our nipple scales zero to five nipples.
- 1:19:54Speaker 1: Based on how the movie fares when examining it through
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: an intersectional feminist lens, I'll go with we'll get with
- 1:20:05Speaker 1: this movie a half nipple because, uh, the main character
- 1:20:13Speaker 1: is a woman, and um, she's you know, people are
- 1:20:20Speaker 1: sexist towards her question mark. Um, but again that this
- 1:20:25Speaker 1: is I just because this is where we find out
- 1:20:31Speaker 1: you've been friends with Officer Hops the whole time. Um,
- 1:20:36Speaker 1: so yeah, obviously I'm having a hard time justifying this.
- 1:20:41Speaker 1: Um I'll give it half nipple because of weaselton character
- 1:20:46Speaker 1: and the horny, horny horny animals at the horny horny
- 1:20:50Speaker 1: sex spots, and those are the only redeeming things. Judy
- 1:20:57Speaker 1: shut up. She's just so happy if the movie half
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: a nipple. He was like, you should have been five.
- 1:21:08Speaker 1: What about at the end they're driving like a militarized tank, Like,
- 1:21:15Speaker 1: oh my god, and they just fucking pull over the
- 1:21:17Speaker 1: slot dude, like, come on, and even though he was speeding,
- 1:21:22Speaker 1: it's implied that they're like, we'll let you off the
- 1:21:24Speaker 1: hook because you're my friend. Oh yeah, Oh, I thought
- 1:21:27Speaker 1: baby was like hyped to throw the book at I
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: don't know, hard hard to say. I'm giving this movie
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: no nipples. I really didn't like it. I did. I mean,
- 1:21:38Speaker 1: there are like small characters and like small scenes that
- 1:21:41Speaker 1: I liked, but I just like, I don't know, this
- 1:21:44Speaker 1: movie was such a bummer to watch. It's such a
- 1:21:47Speaker 1: bummer that it came out so recently. I just think
- 1:21:51Speaker 1: it's just like, and I know I sound like an
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: asshole saying this, but I think it's neoliberal trash and
- 1:21:59Speaker 1: I gets useless and I don't like it. Um Weaselton
- 1:22:03Speaker 1: was fun. I laughed at the slop scene and the
- 1:22:07Speaker 1: Shakira song was Okay, it's slightly better than okay. Anyway,
- 1:22:14Speaker 1: how about you if you think I'll give it one Okay,
- 1:22:17Speaker 1: I think it's a problematic and neoliberal trash. But if
- 1:22:22Speaker 1: you aren't thinking too hard, or it's on in the background,
- 1:22:25Speaker 1: or you want to just drag it with your friends,
- 1:22:28Speaker 1: it's pretty good looking I mean visually, the world building
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: is kind of fun. Just talk over it one nipple.
- 1:22:39Speaker 1: If you are not watching it, what you're saying. If
- 1:22:43Speaker 1: it's un mute and you close your eyes every time
- 1:22:45Speaker 1: there's a cop on screen, it's actually awesome. Now I'm
- 1:22:48Speaker 1: just doing the thing of like thinking about how I
- 1:22:50Speaker 1: really liked this movie like five short years ago. Sure,
- 1:22:54Speaker 1: but it's like it's yeah, like we said, it's a
- 1:22:56Speaker 1: testament to how things are progressing, and it's fun to
- 1:23:01Speaker 1: reflect on that. This is this was this this, this
- 1:23:06Speaker 1: one broke my brain a little bit. This was a
- 1:23:08Speaker 1: tough This was a tough prep. But I'm I'm glad
- 1:23:11Speaker 1: we did it. Thank you for Thank you for bringing
- 1:23:14Speaker 1: it to us, Matt, even though it sounds like you
- 1:23:16Speaker 1: kind of didn't want to. I mean, thanks for whoever
- 1:23:20Speaker 1: requested it. Because I was thinking, I didn't realize it
- 1:23:24Speaker 1: would be such a rich text to dive into. Yeah,
- 1:23:27Speaker 1: I didn't either. I genuinely did not know what this
- 1:23:29Speaker 1: movie was about. I was like, they're at the zoo.
- 1:23:32Speaker 1: It's it's Madagas, it's that movie. We bought a zoo.
- 1:23:37Speaker 1: We bought a zoo. We should cover that movie. I'm
- 1:23:40Speaker 1: kidding I don't know what I mean people sentence, but
- 1:23:46Speaker 1: I've been wrong before. Well that yes, thank you so
- 1:23:51Speaker 1: much for being here. It's been a delight. Thanks so
- 1:23:54Speaker 1: much for having me. Where can people follow you on
- 1:23:56Speaker 1: social media or if there's anything you'd like to plug? Um, yeah,
- 1:24:01Speaker 1: I don't really post too much, but it's Matthew Mixon
- 1:24:03Speaker 1: at Twitter and Instagram. Oh, actually, can I point my
- 1:24:06Speaker 1: mutual aid thing? Absolutely? Okay, Um, yeah, we have a
- 1:24:10Speaker 1: small mutual aid group and um, we're not very big.
- 1:24:14Speaker 1: But if you go to the links on my my
- 1:24:17Speaker 1: link tree or whatever, all the money I'll just like
- 1:24:19Speaker 1: or you can buy like Amazon stuff like socks and
- 1:24:22Speaker 1: tents and blankets and stuff. It's pretty cold in l
- 1:24:24Speaker 1: A right now. We just go out every couple of weeks.
- 1:24:27Speaker 1: And yeah, if you send me money, it'll go to
- 1:24:29Speaker 1: tents and cool stuff that people need. Or if you
- 1:24:31Speaker 1: just want to buy stuff off the Amazon links. Um,
- 1:24:33Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Hell yeah, so amazing. And if
- 1:24:37Speaker 1: you can follow us on social media at pecktel Cast
- 1:24:40Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram. You can subscribe to our Patreon
- 1:24:45Speaker 1: aka Matreon that is at patreon dot com slash pecktel Cast.
- 1:24:48Speaker 1: It's five dollars a month. It gets you Tube bonus
- 1:24:50Speaker 1: episodes every month, plus access to the entire back catalog
- 1:24:56Speaker 1: on a hundred episodes. We're finally this month U Matreon.
- 1:25:01Speaker 1: We read books. We're doing the Jane Austen adaptations. You
- 1:25:05Speaker 1: want to stop bugging us about um and Okay, we're
- 1:25:08Speaker 1: not going to make a habit of reading books, so
- 1:25:11Speaker 1: don't get used to it. Strongly anti book, anti reading podcast.
- 1:25:16Speaker 1: But just this once we each read a book. We
- 1:25:20Speaker 1: bought a zoom more like we read a book. Uh,
- 1:25:24Speaker 1: that was awful. You can get merged at dot com
- 1:25:28Speaker 1: slash the effectel Cast, where I will I will commit
- 1:25:31Speaker 1: to Shrek shreky in. I have a list of so
- 1:25:35Speaker 1: many shirts that we've said we would design over the years.
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: Ultimately I have not designed a new shirt in two years.
- 1:25:42Speaker 1: Since that's on me and now I uh bye, good episode, everybody,
- 1:25:49Speaker 1: Bye bye