Latest / The Bechdel Cast / Basic Instinct with Sarah Marshall
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: On the bed 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 bec del Cast. Hey, Jamie, Hey, Caitlin,
- 0:19Speaker 1: I have an idea for a new podcast that I
- 0:22Speaker 1: want you to co host with me. Okay, yeah, I know.
- 0:24Speaker 1: I'm in great because here's what it's going to be.
- 0:27Speaker 1: It will be me describing how I will murder my lovers,
- 0:33Speaker 1: and then when my lovers end up dead in like
- 0:37Speaker 1: a year or so, this podcast will be my alibi
- 0:41Speaker 1: because I'm not going to be so foolish as to
- 0:43Speaker 1: kill my lovers in the exact same way I described
- 0:46Speaker 1: on this podcast. Okay, yeah, okay, So I mean and
- 0:50Speaker 1: and honestly, because you got so close to my face
- 0:53Speaker 1: while you were telling me that I believe you, and
- 0:56Speaker 1: also I'm in love with you perfect and don't worry,
- 1:00Speaker 1: I will not frame you or anything. Oh no, you
- 1:03Speaker 1: wouldn't know, because what we have is real as opposed
- 1:05Speaker 1: to all the others. I'm not like the other boys. Um,
- 1:10Speaker 1: Michael Douglas, Great, Kiss, Kiss what I'm Katherine Zada Jones
- 1:17Speaker 1: is I. Honestly, I there was like a world in
- 1:20Speaker 1: which I was going to try to go through this
- 1:21Speaker 1: whole episode, referring to Michael Douglas as Catherine Zada Jones's
- 1:25Speaker 1: husband because that's how I think of him. Welcome to
- 1:29Speaker 1: the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus, my name
- 1:32Speaker 1: is Caitlin Dronte, and this is our show where we
- 1:35Speaker 1: examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens. Using the Bechtel
- 1:40Speaker 1: tests simply is a jumping off point. But you know
- 1:43Speaker 1: what the Bechtel test is? I don't, because I do,
- 1:46Speaker 1: Can you tell me? Well? It is a media metric
- 1:49Speaker 1: created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechtel
- 1:53Speaker 1: Wallace Test. A lot of different versions of it. The
- 1:55Speaker 1: one we use requires that a piece of media have
- 2:00Speaker 1: two characters with names of a marginalized gender talking to
- 2:04Speaker 1: each other about something other than a man for two
- 2:07Speaker 1: lines of dialogue. And it should be a sort of
- 2:11Speaker 1: meaningful interaction. You know it when you see it, and uh,
- 2:17Speaker 1: you know, we've we've we've got it. We've got kind
- 2:20Speaker 1: of a It's complicated today. Everything is complicated today. It's
- 2:24Speaker 1: very it's a very complicated day. Yes, you're on the
- 2:27Speaker 1: picktel Cast. Do you remember that Facebook? Did you ever
- 2:31Speaker 1: have that? Oh, it's like a relations relationship status. I
- 2:34Speaker 1: loved that. That's so inviting conflict um that you have
- 2:38Speaker 1: to respect it. I don't have the personality to publicly
- 2:42Speaker 1: declare it's complicated, but there were plenty of teenagers who did. Wow. Yeah,
- 2:46Speaker 1: they'd be like, it's complicated with Chris are. They were
- 2:49Speaker 1: like doing it in earnest because everyone I saw who
- 2:52Speaker 1: put that it was like a joke. Who would be like,
- 2:55Speaker 1: it's complicated with my bff t. He joked a joke, right, Yes,
- 2:59Speaker 1: uh no, No, when you're fourteen, it's serious. It really
- 3:04Speaker 1: is complicated because you don't you don't even understand what's
- 3:07Speaker 1: happening to your body. So everything, even if it's going
- 3:11Speaker 1: great in your in a relationship, it's still complicated. Yeah. Anyways,
- 3:16Speaker 1: welcome to the backcast. We're talking about basic Instinct today.
- 3:20Speaker 1: Long time request, and we were simply waiting for the
- 3:24Speaker 1: perfect guest to come along, and here she is. Yes,
- 3:27Speaker 1: let's get her, let's get her in the mix. She
- 3:29Speaker 1: is the host of Your Wrong About podcast and the
- 3:33Speaker 1: co host of You Are Good Podcast, it's Sarah Marshall. Hi, welcome.
- 3:40Speaker 1: This says what a how are we going to talk
- 3:44Speaker 1: about this movie? Like? Because defies? What is it? Yeah?
- 3:49Speaker 1: I don't know. It is so I've I've read so
- 3:54Speaker 1: many takes that my brain started leaking out of my nose.
- 3:58Speaker 1: There doesn't seem to be any or I mean, this
- 4:00Speaker 1: is true of every movie, but like this one in particular,
- 4:03Speaker 1: it's like there's just no right answer. It doesn't seem
- 4:07Speaker 1: like everyone's got a different take. We hate it, we
- 4:10Speaker 1: love it, we're reclaiming it, we're putting it in the trash.
- 4:13Speaker 1: It's good, it's bad. We don't know. It's empowerment for women,
- 4:18Speaker 1: it's horrible for women. Yeah, it's it's every take on
- 4:21Speaker 1: every end, Fanti cop. We don't know, we don't know.
- 4:25Speaker 1: I'll tell you what we know. It is. It was
- 4:26Speaker 1: a three million dollar screenplay. That is one thing that
- 4:30Speaker 1: is known. What a thing to know, which is absurd
- 4:34Speaker 1: and which is more than Sharon Stone got paid to
- 4:36Speaker 1: be in the movie. She only got paid five hundred
- 4:38Speaker 1: thousand dollars to be in this movie, right, which is
- 4:41Speaker 1: like obviously good money, but not for what she fucking did. Also,
- 4:46Speaker 1: this screenplay was written in thirteen days, which makes so
- 4:49Speaker 1: much sense and right right, And the budget was million
- 4:54Speaker 1: dollars and only thousand of that went to the lead
- 4:59Speaker 1: of the movie. That makes me feel very bad. There
- 5:04Speaker 1: there's so much I mean, there's also not only is
- 5:06Speaker 1: there a ton to talk about about the content, but
- 5:09Speaker 1: there's so much to talk about about behind the scenes
- 5:11Speaker 1: some of it. I mean, we'll just see where this goes,
- 5:15Speaker 1: because there's like some things that aren't necessarily relevant to
- 5:18Speaker 1: the topic of this show that I was sort of
- 5:20Speaker 1: still like, what the fuck? I just wrote so much
- 5:23Speaker 1: stuff down. Every fact I learned was scarier than the last. Right. Yeah,
- 5:28Speaker 1: I think this episode may just be as chaotic as
- 5:32Speaker 1: the movie itself. That sounds great. I'm very excited to
- 5:36Speaker 1: talk about it, and I feel like this discussion honestly,
- 5:40Speaker 1: I I hope it will be clarifying for me because
- 5:43Speaker 1: I'm all over the place. I did enjoy watching it.
- 5:47Speaker 1: It's highly entertaining or is it. I don't know. Sometimes
- 5:50Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm board, it's over two hours long. Why
- 5:53Speaker 1: isn't this half hour shorter? It's taking itself very seriously,
- 5:57Speaker 1: which is a flash doesn't have But one of my
- 6:00Speaker 1: favorite things about this movie is that we have two
- 6:02Speaker 1: women famously and to distinguish them from each other and
- 6:07Speaker 1: create some symbolism, one wears beige clothing and the other
- 6:11Speaker 1: wears brown clothing. It's I mean, how else were you
- 6:16Speaker 1: supposed to tell high status white women apart in the nineties.
- 6:21Speaker 1: The only way you could do it except by what
- 6:23Speaker 1: color neutrals they put on head to toe that morning.
- 6:27Speaker 1: So many loose neutrals in this movie, which have kind
- 6:31Speaker 1: of come all the way back around. Much like many
- 6:33Speaker 1: elements of this movie. I was just thinking that true murdering,
- 6:39Speaker 1: murdering people is so in right now, It's totally in fashion.
- 6:43Speaker 1: Look as a as a bisexual murderer, representation matters. It's
- 6:49Speaker 1: just nice to see an early version of the media
- 6:53Speaker 1: landscape we have today. So I'm so excited to hear
- 6:57Speaker 1: your thoughts on this movie, Sarah, Like, what is your
- 7:01Speaker 1: history with Basic Instinct. I think I first saw it
- 7:05Speaker 1: when I was like fourteen or fifteen, and I just
- 7:07Speaker 1: knew that it was a movie that adults talked somewhat
- 7:10Speaker 1: fearfully about. I think specifically I had heard of it
- 7:13Speaker 1: in the part and Sleepless in Seattle, where Tom Hanks's
- 7:18Speaker 1: son obviously alludes to it because he's like, so, if
- 7:21Speaker 1: you date, you're probably gonna have sex, right, And his
- 7:24Speaker 1: dad's like, I certainly hope so, and he's like, and
- 7:27Speaker 1: if you have sex, I think she's going to scratch
- 7:29Speaker 1: up your back, which he like learned from probably from
- 7:32Speaker 1: watching Basic Instinct on cable or any of the other
- 7:35Speaker 1: abundant like sort of Glossy got really bad reviews but
- 7:41Speaker 1: did amazing when they hit the video rental market movies
- 7:45Speaker 1: of the time, like other Joe esther Haws films, including
- 7:49Speaker 1: Sliver and Jade. So I think I guess like I
- 7:55Speaker 1: watched it because I was like, this is a movie
- 7:58Speaker 1: that scandalize as adult ELTs, and I want to see
- 8:01Speaker 1: something that scandalized adults. And then I remember just being like,
- 8:04Speaker 1: I don't know what I think about this. It felt
- 8:08Speaker 1: like it was too deep a look into like the
- 8:11Speaker 1: sordidness of adult culture. And then when I came back
- 8:15Speaker 1: to it as an adult, the thing I really noticed
- 8:17Speaker 1: was that the score by Gerry Goldsmith is doing so
- 8:23Speaker 1: much work I think to sort of try and be Hitchcockian, right,
- 8:27Speaker 1: It's like it's its own character and it's a very
- 8:29Speaker 1: loud character that won't stop screaming, and it always kicks
- 8:35Speaker 1: in after Catherine is like I enjoyed having sex with him,
- 8:40Speaker 1: It's like what, Like, oh, that's it's like a big
- 8:43Speaker 1: scary reveal just happened. And it also does that when
- 8:47Speaker 1: she's like, I was having sex with my girlfriend or whatever. Right,
- 8:52Speaker 1: it did feel like I was trying to put myself
- 8:54Speaker 1: in brain and I was like, that was supposed to
- 8:57Speaker 1: be like a huge reveal, right, like her queerness was
- 9:01Speaker 1: a reveal when it's like you could also watch that
- 9:04Speaker 1: scene and still have it be very Verhoeven exploitative, where
- 9:09Speaker 1: she like grabs her girlfriend's boom the second she enters
- 9:13Speaker 1: the room. But it's like you can also watch that
- 9:15Speaker 1: with goggles. Would be like, oh, okay, she's with someone
- 9:19Speaker 1: and that is why he's upset. But it's clearly like
- 9:21Speaker 1: he's upset that she's with someone and that person is yeah,
- 9:27Speaker 1: very upset to him. This movie is so weird. This
- 9:31Speaker 1: movie is so weird, Jamie, what's your history with it?
- 9:35Speaker 1: Not much? Um, I've never seen it before we started
- 9:39Speaker 1: prepping for this episode. It's weird. I feel like Sharon
- 9:42Speaker 1: Stone is just popping up in my life a lot. Recently.
- 9:46Speaker 1: I've gotten many, many recommendations to read her her memoir
- 9:51Speaker 1: that came out last year, which I haven't started yet,
- 9:54Speaker 1: but I'm very, very excited. And then I also recently
- 9:57Speaker 1: saw Casino for the first time, and she's amazing in movie.
- 10:00Speaker 1: Because Sarah, you were talking to me about Casino. Yeah,
- 10:03Speaker 1: I love her so much in Casino. She's amazing Casino.
- 10:08Speaker 1: If you've seen bass against inco, watch Casino and see
- 10:10Speaker 1: what it's like when Sharon's giving it a percent right
- 10:14Speaker 1: and like she's given like a part that's maybe a
- 10:16Speaker 1: little more cogent um. But but yeah, I don't know.
- 10:20Speaker 1: I've been in a Sharon state of mind. I was
- 10:23Speaker 1: very ready and excited for this. And also Paul Verhoeven
- 10:27Speaker 1: just came out with a new movie that I want
- 10:28Speaker 1: to see, Benedetta. It's a lesbian nun thriller, so I
- 10:34Speaker 1: will be seeing that and hopefully, Well this is interesting
- 10:39Speaker 1: too because it's like he's returning to lesbians. I hope
- 10:42Speaker 1: he does a good job. Growth is important. Yeah, we'll see.
- 10:47Speaker 1: I know it's it's it's so I've got a series
- 10:50Speaker 1: of He's tricky, He's tricky. This is the second for
- 10:54Speaker 1: Hoven movie we've covered on the show. We covered Starship
- 10:56Speaker 1: Troopers last year, which um is an extremely different movie,
- 10:59Speaker 1: but there are still themes that kind of crossover in
- 11:03Speaker 1: most of his work, and I'm interested to talk about
- 11:06Speaker 1: how this movie depicts police work. Also, like there's just
- 11:10Speaker 1: there's just a lot going on. I don't know how
- 11:12Speaker 1: to feel about any of it. My take I I've
- 11:16Speaker 1: done a ton of research and done a ton of reading,
- 11:19Speaker 1: which I know how to do. Congrats. My takeaway is
- 11:22Speaker 1: that I love Sharon Stone. So we're gonna have to
- 11:27Speaker 1: really tease this apart today. Caitlin, what's your history with
- 11:30Speaker 1: Basic Instinct? My history is that I saw Hot Shots
- 11:34Speaker 1: Part Do as a child, a movie I watched over
- 11:38Speaker 1: and over and over again, which very heavily spoofs. It's
- 11:41Speaker 1: a spoof. It is a spoof, not specifically of Basic Instant,
- 11:45Speaker 1: because it's spoofs a bunch of different movies of that era.
- 11:49Speaker 1: Oh it's so it's like that, it's sort of like,
- 11:52Speaker 1: what are those other like like scary movie, scary movie,
- 11:56Speaker 1: but like the Leslie Nielsen movie. Yeah exactly, yes, So, um,
- 12:02Speaker 1: I'm learning anyway, the very famous scenes in Basic Instinct
- 12:07Speaker 1: are heavily referenced in Hot Shots Part Do, but I
- 12:10Speaker 1: didn't understand the references to Basic Instinct or any of
- 12:14Speaker 1: the other movies it's spoofs until years later when I
- 12:17Speaker 1: finally got around to watching all those other movies. But anyway,
- 12:20Speaker 1: so a lot of the like famous imagery from Basic
- 12:23Speaker 1: Instinct I was very familiar with. And then when I
- 12:25Speaker 1: saw the movie for the first time, which was I
- 12:28Speaker 1: think I was in college, I was like, Oh, that's
- 12:31Speaker 1: what Hot Shots Part Do was referencing. So I saw
- 12:36Speaker 1: I so funny. What are the things that it's specifically
- 12:40Speaker 1: spoofs in this The scene where you see Sharon stones vagina,
- 12:47Speaker 1: the scene that I just kept referring to that as
- 12:50Speaker 1: thus seen because I had not seen this movie and
- 12:52Speaker 1: everyone knows that scene right, it's like the chess Burster
- 12:56Speaker 1: an alien, it's that big of a surprise. And Hot
- 13:00Speaker 1: Shots Part Do, however, you that's shot differently. It's shot
- 13:03Speaker 1: with the woman from behind and you just see her
- 13:07Speaker 1: leg very um exaggeratedly lift up over her head to
- 13:12Speaker 1: like cross to the other side. That's pretty good. And
- 13:17Speaker 1: then there's a sex scene and Hot Shots Part Do
- 13:20Speaker 1: where she's having sex with Charlie Sheen is unfortunately in
- 13:24Speaker 1: the movie, and she ties his arms to the bed
- 13:28Speaker 1: post with this white silk scarf, and then she is
- 13:33Speaker 1: like reaching for something and you're like, oh my god,
- 13:35Speaker 1: what's she reaching for? And then she grabs a screwdriver
- 13:39Speaker 1: and kind of unscrews part of the bed frame to
- 13:43Speaker 1: make it creakier so that when they continue to have sex,
- 13:45Speaker 1: it's like way more like you have to have hot
- 13:50Speaker 1: shots part do because those movies can get pretty like
- 13:53Speaker 1: gnarly and exploitative and like really bad. And that sounds
- 13:56Speaker 1: just like I think he's just like superhand in this. Yeah, yeah,
- 14:02Speaker 1: what if Catherine was just really handy. Does either of
- 14:05Speaker 1: you ever watch those thumb movies? Yes? Oh my god,
- 14:10Speaker 1: And I took foreverard to download to thumb Wars. There's
- 14:14Speaker 1: a Caitlin I should show in thumb Tanic. Yes, there's
- 14:19Speaker 1: it's a series. It's it's the thumber Verse. But it's
- 14:22Speaker 1: like a series of spoof movies where it's just like
- 14:25Speaker 1: a spoof movie but only with thumbs. It was really funny.
- 14:28Speaker 1: Me and my cousins used to watch thumb Wars long
- 14:31Speaker 1: before I saw actual Star Wars. I thought I saw
- 14:33Speaker 1: thumb Wars many times beautiful, and it's just as good.
- 14:39Speaker 1: So in conclusion, I saw Basic for the first time
- 14:42Speaker 1: in college. I saw it again. I think I rewatched
- 14:47Speaker 1: it right when we covered Fatal Attraction, because I get
- 14:50Speaker 1: those two movies confused a lot because they're both Michael
- 14:54Speaker 1: Douglas and it's both about a scary woman who murders
- 14:57Speaker 1: and who wants to have sex with Michael Douglas for
- 15:00Speaker 1: some reason. Right, It's it's like literally, it's like, oh,
- 15:03Speaker 1: Michael Douglas is a character who's threatened by a woman's agency,
- 15:08Speaker 1: but it turns out he's right. That's a classic class
- 15:13Speaker 1: So sorry, the movie was called thumb Wars the Phantom Cuticle.
- 15:19Speaker 1: Pretty funny. I love it. It's pretty great. Sorry, Okay,
- 15:22Speaker 1: I done so anyway. Yeah, I had seen Basic Instinct
- 15:26Speaker 1: a couple of times before prepping, and I've seen it
- 15:29Speaker 1: twice since we started prepping. And I, similarly, who don't
- 15:34Speaker 1: really know what to make of this movie. I'm kind
- 15:36Speaker 1: of all over the place. There's so much to unpack.
- 15:39Speaker 1: I feel like my notes are so long, and yet
- 15:41Speaker 1: I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. Like it
- 15:45Speaker 1: sounds like we're all kind of on the same page here,
- 15:47Speaker 1: of like, well, let's just talk about it and see
- 15:50Speaker 1: what happens. You got us for Hoven uh for. Movies
- 15:54Speaker 1: are honestly very hard to cover on this show. That
- 15:57Speaker 1: makes sense. Um, so we're going to try. Let's take
- 16:01Speaker 1: a quick break and then I'll get into the recap. Wait. Sorry,
- 16:10Speaker 1: I'm like the guy who wrote thumb Wars has written
- 16:13Speaker 1: so many famous movies. What written He wrote The Nutty Professor,
- 16:19Speaker 1: he wrote Patch Adams, he wrote Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius.
- 16:24Speaker 1: He wrote Kung Pau Enter the Fist, which I used
- 16:27Speaker 1: to really love. And he wrote Bruce and Evan Almighty Wow,
- 16:33Speaker 1: and also, most famously, thumb Wars. I am interested in
- 16:37Speaker 1: thumb Tanic. It's pretty good. All the next time I
- 16:40Speaker 1: come over, I'll it's got to be somewhere. I'll find it. Okay,
- 16:43Speaker 1: I'll pay money to rent it. Let's charge it to
- 16:46Speaker 1: the Yeah, that's what Patreon money is for to watch tank.
- 16:52Speaker 1: I think our our matron's will will understand. Maybe maybe
- 16:55Speaker 1: that's what we could cover for our for our Titanic episodes,
- 16:58Speaker 1: because we're running out of Titanic content. UH speak for yourself. Sorry,
- 17:04Speaker 1: you're right. Yeah, it's on YouTube in full. Okay, perfect. Okay,
- 17:10Speaker 1: So here's basic instinct and I'll place a trigger warning
- 17:18Speaker 1: at the top here because, um, there is a rape
- 17:21Speaker 1: scene in the movie. Okay, So we open on a
- 17:27Speaker 1: woman having sex with a man. We never quite see
- 17:30Speaker 1: her face because her blonde hair of obscuring it. We
- 17:35Speaker 1: see her tie up the man's hands with a white
- 17:37Speaker 1: silk scarf. Then she pulls out an ice pick and
- 17:41Speaker 1: stabs him repeatedly to death. Titanic reference. Um oh, because
- 17:48Speaker 1: of the ice pick slash iceberg. Yeah, maybe if the
- 17:52Speaker 1: that the joke going there was maybe if they had
- 17:55Speaker 1: nice pick they could on board. She would have been like, oh, man,
- 18:00Speaker 1: I love doing this, sice a whole glacier guest for
- 18:03Speaker 1: me exactly. Wow, makes you think. Then we cut two.
- 18:10Speaker 1: Detective Nick Curran played by Michael Douglas and his partner
- 18:15Speaker 1: Gus Moran there at the scene of the crime. We
- 18:19Speaker 1: are in San Francisco, by the way. The victim, Johnny Boss,
- 18:24Speaker 1: was last seen the night before with his girlfriend Katherine Trammel.
- 18:28Speaker 1: So Nick and Gus go to Katherine's house to question her.
- 18:33Speaker 1: She isn't there, but Katherine's friend Roxy is, and Roxy
- 18:37Speaker 1: directs them to where Katherine is, which is like her
- 18:43Speaker 1: second home summer where she's being hot on a balcony. Right,
- 18:48Speaker 1: Nick and Gus Fine, Katherine trammel Um. She is Sharon Stone.
- 18:53Speaker 1: Of course, she's very sultry and sexy, and she has
- 18:58Speaker 1: the same exact hey and body type and skin color
- 19:02Speaker 1: as the lady who murdered Johnny Boss. I wonder if
- 19:07Speaker 1: she did it, which is so wild, you're like she
- 19:10Speaker 1: and she did. And then Catherine tells the detectives, Yeah,
- 19:17Speaker 1: I was fucking that guy, but I didn't go home
- 19:20Speaker 1: with him and I didn't kill him. Now go away.
- 19:24Speaker 1: That's a fun place to start the movie, where she's
- 19:27Speaker 1: just I mean and and yes does the movie ultimately
- 19:30Speaker 1: undercut the fact that she enjoys sex and isn't ashamed
- 19:34Speaker 1: to admit it and implies that if you, if that's you,
- 19:37Speaker 1: you two could be a murderer. But I really enjoyed
- 19:44Speaker 1: her like delivery in that scene, and when she's just
- 19:48Speaker 1: like telling, like Sharon Stone telling to cops to go
- 19:52Speaker 1: funk themselves is an inherently satisfying experience, no matter the
- 19:56Speaker 1: subtext of what the movie wants me to think I
- 19:59Speaker 1: like to see her neg cops. I hope that if
- 20:03Speaker 1: ever I have the misfortune of having to interact with
- 20:06Speaker 1: a cop, I have the guts to say, I don't
- 20:09Speaker 1: want to talk to you, fuck off and get the
- 20:11Speaker 1: funk outta here. I mean, she's also yeah, she's also
- 20:14Speaker 1: protected by a lot of privilege, but it's still very
- 20:16Speaker 1: cathartic to watch. Yeah, they got to go on a
- 20:19Speaker 1: tour of all her real estate before they meet her
- 20:21Speaker 1: and see all her sports cars in the driveway. Yeah,
- 20:25Speaker 1: they're like, oh, she's got holdings, she's got a Picasso. Yeah.
- 20:31Speaker 1: So then they leave at her request, and Nick goes
- 20:35Speaker 1: to see a counselor Beth played by Jean triple Horn
- 20:40Speaker 1: awesome name, who he is mandated by Internal Affairs to
- 20:44Speaker 1: see for reasons that we don't yet know. They're talking
- 20:47Speaker 1: and he refers to the sexual relationship he used to
- 20:50Speaker 1: have with Beth, and then she tells him that she
- 20:53Speaker 1: still misses him so already, Like it's so funny. There's
- 20:58Speaker 1: like police corruption for the jump where they're like, okay,
- 21:02Speaker 1: so everyone in the office is aware of this relationship,
- 21:06Speaker 1: which we find out right away, and his him keeping
- 21:09Speaker 1: his job relies on you know, him remaining in her
- 21:12Speaker 1: good favor or her being hung up on him, and
- 21:17Speaker 1: everyone's like, yep, that's fine, that's which, I'm sure, which
- 21:20Speaker 1: which is like, I'm sure not too far from the truth. Na,
- 21:25Speaker 1: your ex girlfriend will be very therapeutic, right. Oh gosh,
- 21:31Speaker 1: there's there's so much this movie's views on psychiatry. There's
- 21:35Speaker 1: so much yes, yes, yes, yes, Okay. So then Nick
- 21:39Speaker 1: and Gus go over more details of this case and
- 21:42Speaker 1: the victim, Johnny Boss, who was a former rock and
- 21:45Speaker 1: roll star. They also discussed Katherine Trammel as a suspect.
- 21:50Speaker 1: She is an author, and it turns out that she
- 21:53Speaker 1: published a book the year before under a pen name,
- 21:57Speaker 1: about a retired rock and all star who gets murdered
- 22:02Speaker 1: by his girlfriend when she ties up his hands with
- 22:05Speaker 1: a white silk scarf and stabs him with an ice pick. Amazing.
- 22:11Speaker 1: So Katherine is starting to seem extra suspicious. So then
- 22:17Speaker 1: Nick and Gus bring Catherine to the station to question
- 22:20Speaker 1: her on the way. She tells him about a new
- 22:22Speaker 1: book she's writing about a detective who falls for the
- 22:25Speaker 1: wrong woman and then she kills the detective. I think
- 22:29Speaker 1: that there's so many scenes in this movie that I
- 22:32Speaker 1: know that we um, what have we renamed the bush
- 22:34Speaker 1: Emmy test? But we could run the bush Emmy test
- 22:36Speaker 1: on Sharon stone several times in this movie and be like,
- 22:40Speaker 1: if this were a regular looking person saying these things,
- 22:43Speaker 1: she would be so in jail, Like it's wild how
- 22:47Speaker 1: in jail she would be? Yeah, absolutely so. Then at
- 22:51Speaker 1: the police station, the assistant district Attorney A. K Wayne
- 22:56Speaker 1: Knight questions her. Wayne Knight was like cranking out the
- 23:00Speaker 1: hits in this series of years. Oh yeah, because in
- 23:04Speaker 1: the next year he's in Jurassic Park and oh my gosh,
- 23:08Speaker 1: he gets to see a vagina and a dinosaur in
- 23:10Speaker 1: a single calendar year. We should all be so lucky.
- 23:15Speaker 1: So he's questioning her, and this is when we get
- 23:17Speaker 1: the famous Sharon Stone on crosses her legs and flashes
- 23:21Speaker 1: her volva scene. There's plenty to talk about with this,
- 23:25Speaker 1: we'll get to it. Katherine says, do you think I
- 23:28Speaker 1: would be so foolish as to murder someone in the
- 23:31Speaker 1: exact way I described in my book? So she's basically
- 23:34Speaker 1: using her book as an alibi, which is what a
- 23:37Speaker 1: few psychologists had said she would do if she is
- 23:41Speaker 1: in fact the murderer right, and even though Catherine passes
- 23:47Speaker 1: a lie detector test, Nick still thinks that she's lying
- 23:51Speaker 1: and that she is probably guilty, especially because of some
- 23:56Speaker 1: deaths in the past that Catherine could be linked to,
- 24:00Speaker 1: such as her parents died in a voting accident, a
- 24:02Speaker 1: professor she had in college was murdered, and a boxer
- 24:06Speaker 1: boyfriend died while they were dating. To quote her, everyone
- 24:11Speaker 1: I love dies and she doesn't seem to be wrong there,
- 24:17Speaker 1: And Stephen Tobolski is there, which I think is fun. Yes, yes,
- 24:22Speaker 1: I didn't see that coming. That's yet another thrilling basic
- 24:26Speaker 1: instinct twist. He's also having a good couple of years,
- 24:29Speaker 1: because he's in Groundhog Day right around this time, being
- 24:33Speaker 1: ed Ryerson. Well, I'm glad that the boys are thriving
- 24:36Speaker 1: in the early nineties. Good for them. The white men
- 24:39Speaker 1: are having a blast. I think that they're still doing
- 24:42Speaker 1: well to this day. Yeah, I think you may be right. Um, Okay.
- 24:47Speaker 1: So that night Nick goes home with Beth the counselor,
- 24:52Speaker 1: and then again trigger warning for rape, he rapes her.
- 24:57Speaker 1: Although the movie is as I'm concerned, treats this as
- 25:01Speaker 1: a consensual sex scene, I think that there's a there's
- 25:04Speaker 1: a well, let's we'll get to that conversation. We'll get
- 25:07Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, yeah, I felt a little bit differently,
- 25:09Speaker 1: but I see what you're saying. Then Nick tails Katherine
- 25:14Speaker 1: for a while. There's a scene where she's driving like
- 25:17Speaker 1: a bat out of hell and he's chasing her. He
- 25:20Speaker 1: pays her another visit. He discovers that she has all
- 25:24Speaker 1: these articles about him, and we find out why he
- 25:27Speaker 1: has been mandated to see a counselor. Apparently he had
- 25:30Speaker 1: shot a couple of tourists a while back, and Catherine
- 25:34Speaker 1: has been following this story for quite some time because,
- 25:38Speaker 1: according to her, she's using him as inspiration for the
- 25:42Speaker 1: detective in the book she's writing, he's a killer cop.
- 25:45Speaker 1: It's there's so much to talk about. She keeps calling
- 25:49Speaker 1: him shooter. She also fixes him a drink and then
- 25:52Speaker 1: breaks the ice with fishemy test. She's in jail again.
- 25:59Speaker 1: Right then Nick realizes she has access to his psychiatric file,
- 26:04Speaker 1: which she apparently got from this guy in internal affairs,
- 26:08Speaker 1: this guy Nielsen, who then ends up dead. He was
- 26:12Speaker 1: shot in the head and everyone thinks that Nick did it,
- 26:15Speaker 1: so he gets put on leave, but Nick thinks Catherine
- 26:19Speaker 1: Tremell did it. So then Catherine shows up at his place.
- 26:23Speaker 1: She's being all seductive and messing with his head. He
- 26:27Speaker 1: meets up with her a little later at a dance club.
- 26:30Speaker 1: Then they go back to her place and have sex.
- 26:34Speaker 1: She ties him up with a white silk scarf and
- 26:37Speaker 1: we think maybe she's going to stab him with an
- 26:39Speaker 1: ice pick, but she doesn't. She just like collapses on
- 26:44Speaker 1: him in pleasure or something. Um. Then it's called ecstasy.
- 26:51Speaker 1: Caitlin ever heard of it? Yeah? Nick has had a
- 26:57Speaker 1: great time. He's like, Wow, that was the fun the century.
- 27:01Speaker 1: Katherine is like it was a good start. We also
- 27:05Speaker 1: have learned by this point that Katherine is in some
- 27:08Speaker 1: sort of romantic and or sexual relationship with that woman Roxy,
- 27:12Speaker 1: who we met at the beginning, although we don't really
- 27:16Speaker 1: well we can talk about this too, but we don't
- 27:18Speaker 1: know that much about their relationship. But Roxy does seem
- 27:22Speaker 1: to be very jealous of Nick. And then someone tries
- 27:26Speaker 1: to run over Nick in what looks like Katherine's car.
- 27:29Speaker 1: There's a high speed chase. The person chasing Nick crashes
- 27:33Speaker 1: and it turns out to be Roxy, who has died
- 27:37Speaker 1: in the crash. They kill their gays folks, and we're
- 27:42Speaker 1: may be meant to think, oh, so was it Roxy
- 27:45Speaker 1: who maybe killed Johnny Boss question Mark? But now it's
- 27:49Speaker 1: the person that you are told in the opening scene
- 27:52Speaker 1: did it right? So then Nick goes to see Katherine again.
- 27:59Speaker 1: She is upset about Roxy's death. She's all like, oh,
- 28:02Speaker 1: I have such bad luck dating women, and she tells
- 28:05Speaker 1: him about this woman that she met in college, Lisa Hoberman,
- 28:09Speaker 1: who she slept with once, and then this woman started
- 28:12Speaker 1: stalking Catherine. I immediately was like, oh, so Beth, But
- 28:17Speaker 1: the movie takes it like fifteen minutes to be like
- 28:19Speaker 1: and it was Beth. You're like, I think I could
- 28:23Speaker 1: I think you could tell because you're told, Like, why
- 28:25Speaker 1: else would you be told? They went to college to
- 28:27Speaker 1: get right? This movie kind of like skirt around Some
- 28:31Speaker 1: thinks nobody knows there are multiple nicknames for Elizabeth and
- 28:34Speaker 1: that this is a really bright quest right, Yes that too?
- 28:38Speaker 1: Especially yeah, because also Catherine originally was like her name
- 28:41Speaker 1: is Lisa Oberman and then he's like I couldn't find
- 28:44Speaker 1: anyone named Lisa Oberman and she's like, I said, that's
- 28:48Speaker 1: so goofy. I like, why what a waste of five minutes,
- 28:52Speaker 1: but it made me laugh. The two lines that made
- 28:55Speaker 1: me laugh the most in this movie where I said Hoberman,
- 28:58Speaker 1: which should be added to every movie at some point,
- 29:02Speaker 1: a very human misunderstanding that has no place in a thriller.
- 29:06Speaker 1: And then at the end when Beth says I love
- 29:09Speaker 1: you was dying, I was like, this damn movie makes
- 29:14Speaker 1: no sense. Have some dignity, Beth, I know, and she's
- 29:18Speaker 1: She's like the twist, I'm not a murderer, and I
- 29:22Speaker 1: love men so much, even when they're rapist murderers. Remember
- 29:28Speaker 1: my little Simpson's key Chane, I only loved you. Shout
- 29:32Speaker 1: out to bart Art high bart visibility. Truly, there's also
- 29:37Speaker 1: some pizza Hut visibility. I just wanted to shut up
- 29:41Speaker 1: at um. My favorite line of dialogue in the movie,
- 29:44Speaker 1: towards the very beginning, one of the few people of
- 29:47Speaker 1: color in the movie. It's another cop named Sam. He
- 29:52Speaker 1: says there's cum stains all over the sheets. He sure does,
- 29:57Speaker 1: and that is a line of dialogue. And then that's
- 30:00Speaker 1: a sag card. Yeah, okay. So Nick looks into this
- 30:07Speaker 1: Lisa person who turns out to be Beth, the counselor
- 30:11Speaker 1: who works for the police department. Beth says, Katherine stalked
- 30:15Speaker 1: Beth in college. Katherine says Beth stok Katherine in college.
- 30:18Speaker 1: They're both claiming that the other one was like single
- 30:21Speaker 1: White Female NG the other which also comes out this
- 30:24Speaker 1: same year, right, So it's not even like they were
- 30:26Speaker 1: ripping it from there. They were just this was just
- 30:29Speaker 1: something that was on the brain. I wonder if there's
- 30:31Speaker 1: like a real life story that was like on people's mind,
- 30:35Speaker 1: because I was I was like, that's so bizarre. Why
- 30:36Speaker 1: were women all supposed to be murdering each other in
- 30:39Speaker 1: the early nineties right about? Yeah, which you've covered extensively there, Yeah,
- 30:45Speaker 1: not so much the idea that women were murdering other
- 30:49Speaker 1: women at this time though. That's really interesting. Yeah, I've
- 30:52Speaker 1: covered men's perpetual fear of being murdered by women, right, Yes,
- 30:57Speaker 1: so Single White Female really subverts some troll hopes. It's
- 31:00Speaker 1: like women can murder other women too, Like, hey, we
- 31:05Speaker 1: can murder each other too, don't forget it. And that's feminism. Yes,
- 31:11Speaker 1: third wave feminism is amazing. It makes so much sense. Okay,
- 31:16Speaker 1: so we're not sure who to trust, we're not sure
- 31:19Speaker 1: who's telling the truth, but now Nick thinks that Beth
- 31:23Speaker 1: is the prime suspect, and she's seeming more and more
- 31:27Speaker 1: suspicious because Beth's husband was mysteriously shot and killed a
- 31:31Speaker 1: few years back. Meanwhile, Katherine ends things with Nick because
- 31:36Speaker 1: she was just using him for her book, which she
- 31:39Speaker 1: has finished. Nick is all hurt, and then he goes
- 31:44Speaker 1: with Gus to meet up with another woman who knew
- 31:47Speaker 1: Catherine and Beth in college. But it's a setup. The
- 31:52Speaker 1: killer stabs and kills Gus with an ice pick. Nick
- 31:56Speaker 1: rushes in. Beth is right there and I again because
- 32:00Speaker 1: Nick thinks that she's the prime suspect, he shoots her
- 32:04Speaker 1: so abruptly, like yeah, I mean, really, is uh being
- 32:10Speaker 1: a cop about it? Right? And then the cops find
- 32:14Speaker 1: a bunch of incriminating evidence at the crime scene and
- 32:18Speaker 1: in Beth's apartment, so it seems like she was the
- 32:22Speaker 1: killer all along. Nick goes back to Catherine. She takes
- 32:27Speaker 1: him back. She's all like, I don't want to lose you.
- 32:30Speaker 1: They have sex. It seems like again maybe she's going
- 32:33Speaker 1: to stab him with an ice pick, but then she doesn't.
- 32:37Speaker 1: But but then we pan down to see that she
- 32:41Speaker 1: has an ice pick on the floor that she maybe
- 32:45Speaker 1: was or is going to kill him with. So now
- 32:49Speaker 1: we're like, oh, she is the killer. She apparently just
- 32:51Speaker 1: framed Beth and that's the end of the movie. Every
- 32:57Speaker 1: Woman is a murderer. How how many times have we
- 33:01Speaker 1: talked about this on the show? Every Woman is a
- 33:05Speaker 1: stone cold killer. Yeah, so let's take another quick break
- 33:09Speaker 1: and we'll come back to discuss, and we're back. Uh,
- 33:21Speaker 1: where where should we start, gang, I mean, where where
- 33:26Speaker 1: makes sense? I mean, I guess what we can sort
- 33:30Speaker 1: of just state the obvious of Katherine Trammel being a
- 33:35Speaker 1: pretty classic fem fatale character. You know, she's seductive, she's cunning,
- 33:41Speaker 1: she uses her sexuality to lure men in and then
- 33:44Speaker 1: kill them. But she's also like a fum fatale dialed
- 33:48Speaker 1: up to an eleven because a lot of like fum
- 33:52Speaker 1: fatale characters were from movies of like the forties and fifties,
- 33:56Speaker 1: which were under the Hayes production Code restrictions, which meant
- 33:59Speaker 1: that there couldn't be sex, nudity, overt sexuality, any romance
- 34:05Speaker 1: or implied sex had to be heterosexual. There could be
- 34:09Speaker 1: no graphic violence, things like that. So Catherine is this
- 34:13Speaker 1: like post production code version of the film Fatale, which
- 34:18Speaker 1: means we see nudity, we see sex. She loves to
- 34:23Speaker 1: have sex, she loves fucking, she talks about it all
- 34:26Speaker 1: the time. And then she also seems to be able
- 34:29Speaker 1: to like very easily detach emotion from sex, which the
- 34:33Speaker 1: movie seems to be making a judgment call about because
- 34:37Speaker 1: of these are all the things that make Katherine Tramel
- 34:39Speaker 1: so sinister and so fatal. It's like she's probably a murderer.
- 34:47Speaker 1: She's having sex casually, right, Like that's repeatedly insinuate, you know,
- 34:53Speaker 1: all while and it's I guess part of what I
- 34:55Speaker 1: struggle with this movie is I can't parse out always
- 35:00Speaker 1: self aware it's being but yeah, like all all, well,
- 35:04Speaker 1: you know, Michael Douglas is having casual sex all the
- 35:06Speaker 1: time and including non consensual casual sex, and um, isn't
- 35:11Speaker 1: he's not a well actually he is a murderer, but
- 35:14Speaker 1: it's not as big a deal when he does it.
- 35:15Speaker 1: It's so confused, like he doesn't well, he's at work,
- 35:18Speaker 1: so it's better. It's very confusing. So something's been in
- 35:22Speaker 1: the air on the pod lately. We've been covering a
- 35:24Speaker 1: lot of different from Fatale characters. We did double indemnity.
- 35:28Speaker 1: We did a simple favor and now we're doing basic instinct,
- 35:31Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean it's I understand. I guess why
- 35:35Speaker 1: people have a hard time with this movie because a
- 35:37Speaker 1: lot of Catherine's dialogue and a lot of Sharon Stone's performance.
- 35:43Speaker 1: I think it's like very reclaimable because it's so matter
- 35:48Speaker 1: of fact and good where she you know, when she's
- 35:50Speaker 1: like I wasn't dating him, I was fucking him, You're like, yeah,
- 35:53Speaker 1: that's exciting, you know, or like are you sad he's dead? Yes,
- 35:57Speaker 1: because I liked fucking him. Like that's it's so like
- 36:01Speaker 1: can't be it funny and like you don't get to
- 36:05Speaker 1: see women talk like that very often. But also we're
- 36:10Speaker 1: supposed to think that she's a supervillain, right, so it's
- 36:14Speaker 1: a it's it's tricky. Right. On one hand, it's the
- 36:18Speaker 1: villainizing a sexually liberated woman, which is what the fem
- 36:22Speaker 1: fay towels whole thing is is like, well, a woman
- 36:25Speaker 1: who is sexy and and you're seduced by her and
- 36:30Speaker 1: she likes sex, Well, obviously she's evil because sexual liberation
- 36:35Speaker 1: and a woman is scary. But then, like you said, Jamie,
- 36:39Speaker 1: like there's an argument to be made that that's still
- 36:41Speaker 1: representation on screen of a sexually liberated woman, and you
- 36:46Speaker 1: don't often get to see a woman just like very
- 36:51Speaker 1: openly talk about how much she enjoys sex and how
- 36:56Speaker 1: she likes men who give her pleasure, and she seems
- 36:59Speaker 1: to be prioritizing her pleasure over giving a man pleasure.
- 37:04Speaker 1: And it's not a role model situation, but it is, like,
- 37:10Speaker 1: I don't know this movie is for adults, hopefully, I mean,
- 37:14Speaker 1: I guess what I saw, and it was, like it
- 37:16Speaker 1: is kind of cathartic to see whether this was intended
- 37:19Speaker 1: or not, which I don't really think it was. But like,
- 37:22Speaker 1: see a woman who is like, by far the smartest
- 37:25Speaker 1: person in the room, playing a bunch of cops and
- 37:28Speaker 1: doing whatever the funk she wants, like that is inherently exciting,
- 37:34Speaker 1: like and and fun to watch. I mean, she's she's cool,
- 37:38Speaker 1: she's she's like, what if I commit a bunch of
- 37:40Speaker 1: murders and don't try to hide it and then when
- 37:43Speaker 1: I'm questioned about it, I'll basically be like, yeah, I'm
- 37:46Speaker 1: a murderer, and then I'll just keep getting away with it.
- 37:50Speaker 1: Let's just do that again. That was fun last time.
- 37:54Speaker 1: It's I mean, and it's like she got when they
- 37:56Speaker 1: quote unquote arrest her the first time to take her
- 37:58Speaker 1: down for the scene, like the questioning scene. I just
- 38:02Speaker 1: like it is the most like rich white lady arrest
- 38:04Speaker 1: ever where she's like, you're arresting me, Okay, we'll let
- 38:08Speaker 1: me change first, and you're just like she but like
- 38:11Speaker 1: the way that sheared Stone like owns every second of
- 38:14Speaker 1: it is so I mean, I really love watching her
- 38:17Speaker 1: in this movie. And and I'm not that's not even
- 38:20Speaker 1: really in defense of the movie as much as it
- 38:22Speaker 1: is of like watching this I get why this movie
- 38:25Speaker 1: has severe detractors, and I get why it has huge
- 38:30Speaker 1: camp fans, which is feel like it's true of a
- 38:33Speaker 1: lot of Verhoeven stuff. Um. And also it's like most
- 38:38Speaker 1: of the people that she kills seem like they sucked.
- 38:42Speaker 1: Well maybe not her parents. We don't know that they
- 38:47Speaker 1: were rich white people, so chances are so she and
- 38:51Speaker 1: she's awesome, So it's kind of hard anyways, and I
- 38:55Speaker 1: like that. Okay, so other elements of her character before
- 38:58Speaker 1: we get to the biphobia discussion, which we which needs
- 39:03Speaker 1: to be had, things I liked about Catherine. I like
- 39:07Speaker 1: that she everyone in this movie is doing a police corruption,
- 39:12Speaker 1: like literally everyone every main character is involved in, but
- 39:16Speaker 1: she's the She's the only one that's doing like police
- 39:19Speaker 1: corruption for sort of good, Like she's she's the only
- 39:24Speaker 1: person in the movie who I mean, and it's for
- 39:26Speaker 1: selfish means, she doesn't care, but she does almost expose
- 39:31Speaker 1: Michael Douglas as a murderous cop in a way that
- 39:35Speaker 1: most people wouldn't have been able to. She gets his records,
- 39:39Speaker 1: She's constantly like four shootings in five years, all accidents.
- 39:43Speaker 1: Doesn't sound legit to me, like which I again, it's
- 39:47Speaker 1: like Paul Verhoven didn't write this movie, but it sounds
- 39:50Speaker 1: like he demanded that it be rewritten a lot of times,
- 39:53Speaker 1: and he does have a preoccupation with like militarized police,
- 39:57Speaker 1: which I do think kind of comes out in this movie.
- 39:59Speaker 1: It's like, such as making the call to make your
- 40:03Speaker 1: protagonist a cop who is a rapist and a murderer,
- 40:08Speaker 1: which is not uncommon things for cops to be in
- 40:12Speaker 1: in the US in particular. So I thought that that
- 40:14Speaker 1: was like interesting that she was kind of using her
- 40:20Speaker 1: power and like intelligence to do a police corruption in
- 40:24Speaker 1: her own interest. Um. Meanwhile, everyone else's police corruptions are
- 40:30Speaker 1: for the police, where it's like, we gotta protect Michael
- 40:34Speaker 1: Douglas and therefore they're fine. Yeah. I also love how
- 40:38Speaker 1: he's the protagonist, and I feel like this was made
- 40:41Speaker 1: with the expectation that he's like, like, I think he's
- 40:44Speaker 1: supposed to be kind of a noir antiher. But I
- 40:47Speaker 1: assume that the audience when this came out was supposed
- 40:50Speaker 1: to be like, oh no, that for rapist and murderer.
- 40:54Speaker 1: He's going straight into the path of that murderer, right,
- 40:57Speaker 1: I do think that was the intent, Yes, which just like, uh,
- 41:01Speaker 1: it's so. I I feel if I had watched this
- 41:04Speaker 1: movie when I was younger, it would have sucked me
- 41:06Speaker 1: up so bad. It's so it's like it scrambles your
- 41:09Speaker 1: brain how much you see Michael Douglas like you see
- 41:13Speaker 1: him do like basically nothing right, Like, at what point
- 41:17Speaker 1: does he do something that is good at his job
- 41:20Speaker 1: or good morally? Like you? I feel like usually with
- 41:23Speaker 1: anti heroes there at least like good at their job,
- 41:26Speaker 1: like Don Draper was good at advertising. There's a scene
- 41:30Speaker 1: where he pulls out his little like notebook where he's
- 41:34Speaker 1: allegedly keeping and all it just has like a few
- 41:38Speaker 1: different addresses written on it. There's no like, oh yeah,
- 41:43Speaker 1: I'm like, is that all the Is that the extent
- 41:45Speaker 1: of the police work you're doing. You're just writing down
- 41:47Speaker 1: addresses that other people have told you like to go to.
- 41:51Speaker 1: And at this point he's been on the case for months,
- 41:55Speaker 1: he's like all right, I think he's just checked out
- 41:58Speaker 1: and he's using being detective is a way to find
- 42:01Speaker 1: girl friends. Now, that is what it seems like, because
- 42:06Speaker 1: he he has everything he does is either bad police
- 42:12Speaker 1: work where he's like recklessly driving and like putting everyone
- 42:16Speaker 1: in danger. He's having sexual relationships with both his counselor
- 42:22Speaker 1: and his primary suspect and his prime suspect, which is
- 42:25Speaker 1: like very noir. But if you're just like buddy, the
- 42:28Speaker 1: conflict of interest in everything he does is staggering. Well,
- 42:34Speaker 1: I think that that's kind of like again just like
- 42:36Speaker 1: a I guess we're sort of like talking about his
- 42:39Speaker 1: character here as well, Like he's gullible to the point
- 42:43Speaker 1: where it's kind of like attributing like a magical power
- 42:46Speaker 1: to shared's done character, like it's giving her like I mean,
- 42:51Speaker 1: it is a combination. It's not just like it's her
- 42:54Speaker 1: like powers of manipulation and like sexual prowess is like,
- 42:59Speaker 1: I feel like the movie wants you to think it's
- 43:00Speaker 1: making him bad at his job, and you're like, he
- 43:03Speaker 1: might just be bad at his job. It sounds like
- 43:04Speaker 1: he's bad at his job at the beginning. He can't
- 43:06Speaker 1: stop murdering people and having sex with everyone he shouldn't like.
- 43:12Speaker 1: And there's no mention of him solving a crime previously,
- 43:16Speaker 1: like there's so you know, it sounds like maybe he
- 43:18Speaker 1: just always wasn't very good at it. But I feel
- 43:20Speaker 1: like the movie wants you to think like she has
- 43:23Speaker 1: led him, so, you know, far off a cliff with
- 43:26Speaker 1: her her various college degrees and Bob, he has a
- 43:32Speaker 1: master's degree. Okay, she's capable of anything, Caitlin, can you
- 43:36Speaker 1: attest to that? Yes, I can confirm as someone who
- 43:40Speaker 1: has a master's degree in screen writing from Boston University,
- 43:43Speaker 1: which I don't like to mention, you can kill people,
- 43:46Speaker 1: can murder people and get away with it. To quote
- 43:50Speaker 1: Gus when he's talking to Nick about Catherine, quote she
- 43:55Speaker 1: got that magna kum laude pussy on her. That done
- 44:00Speaker 1: fried up your brain? Sorry, that is that is another
- 44:03Speaker 1: line I wrote down is one of the greatest things
- 44:06Speaker 1: I've ever heard. Honorary Oscar Worthy Oscar for Best Single
- 44:11Speaker 1: Line in a Screenplay for Esther hass I want someone
- 44:15Speaker 1: to say, I've got magnacum laud a pussy. That's who
- 44:19Speaker 1: I really, honestly do. That's the thing. What a compliment.
- 44:23Speaker 1: He meant it as an insult, but I'm like, yeah,
- 44:25Speaker 1: go go for it. I'd be like, thank you. I
- 44:29Speaker 1: also like how I read the screenplay to Basic in
- 44:33Speaker 1: sing this morning. That was really it was really fun.
- 44:35Speaker 1: And one thing I like is that Gus in the
- 44:37Speaker 1: screenplay is supposed to be like twenty years older than
- 44:41Speaker 1: Nick and Oliver Hopean was like, what if they were
- 44:45Speaker 1: the same age? Interesting, which is funny because in the beginning,
- 44:49Speaker 1: when Gus doesn't know who Johnny Boss is, Nick is like, oh,
- 44:54Speaker 1: he's before your time, and it's like, really, they seem
- 44:57Speaker 1: to be about the same age. So that's um. But Jamie,
- 45:03Speaker 1: to go back to what you were talking about. I
- 45:05Speaker 1: feel like that's part of like one of the characteristics
- 45:07Speaker 1: of the firm fatalel archetype, where she's like a witch
- 45:12Speaker 1: basically who will put you in a trance and make
- 45:15Speaker 1: you bad at your job and make you do things
- 45:18Speaker 1: that otherwise reasonable man wouldn't do. But because he's under
- 45:23Speaker 1: the spell of this fem fatalel, he's not himself anymore.
- 45:27Speaker 1: And to kind of complicate that, I mean, it's like,
- 45:29Speaker 1: I think it's interesting the ways where this trope is
- 45:31Speaker 1: like updated for the nineties or just I mean, I
- 45:35Speaker 1: guess this run of Michael Douglas movies where it's like
- 45:39Speaker 1: in the forties, you know, your FM faytales, they were
- 45:41Speaker 1: you know, mostly cunning wives because that is, you know,
- 45:46Speaker 1: majority what you could be as a middle class white
- 45:50Speaker 1: woman at that time. But when it leveled up, it's like,
- 45:54Speaker 1: I feel like they think they're doing a good thing
- 45:56Speaker 1: by like giving her a higher and higher level of
- 45:59Speaker 1: education and achievement, but it just kind of becomes messy
- 46:02Speaker 1: in a different way where I like it also is
- 46:05Speaker 1: like this, I don't know what did either of you
- 46:07Speaker 1: think of it. I just was like, obviously, Michael Douglas
- 46:11Speaker 1: doesn't believe in um mental health in this movie, Like,
- 46:17Speaker 1: but I also thought it was interesting that like both
- 46:20Speaker 1: of the women, that he's kind of like ping ponging
- 46:22Speaker 1: between our authorities in mental health, where like shared Stone
- 46:28Speaker 1: has a master's in psychology and Beth is a psychologist
- 46:33Speaker 1: or like a police therapy. I don't want's her job
- 46:36Speaker 1: title either way, Like they both work in that field.
- 46:39Speaker 1: And he is clearly unwell and also doesn't believe it,
- 46:43Speaker 1: And I'm like, does the movie believe in psychology? Like
- 46:46Speaker 1: it's so confusing. I couldn't tell. Does the movie believe
- 46:50Speaker 1: in psychology? I couldn't tell either, But I mean, when
- 46:54Speaker 1: you have a protagonist who has certain opinions and the
- 46:59Speaker 1: movie asks you to go on this journey with this
- 47:02Speaker 1: protagonist and like see the world through his eyes, I
- 47:05Speaker 1: feel like, and that's not the case for every movie,
- 47:08Speaker 1: but it's tricky when it's of Noir. I don't know.
- 47:12Speaker 1: But because he's like, you're a psychologist, well, your job
- 47:16Speaker 1: is to manipulate people, and obviously your whole thing is
- 47:20Speaker 1: to play games with people's heads, and that's what psychology is.
- 47:24Speaker 1: It takes a very mid sectury of you of therapy.
- 47:28Speaker 1: But I feel like it's also very obvious in text
- 47:30Speaker 1: that he's unwell, and so I don't think that we're
- 47:33Speaker 1: necessarily supposed to take him at his word in that moment.
- 47:37Speaker 1: So it's confusing. Yeah, right, I feel like the script
- 47:41Speaker 1: is maybe like he doesn't need therapy, just belongs to
- 47:44Speaker 1: the Fraternity of killers or something. But like, I mean,
- 47:48Speaker 1: I feel like the noir has its roots and like
- 47:51Speaker 1: the concept of confusing vulnerability with strength or I guess
- 47:56Speaker 1: because being like, well, I'm traumatized in this way and
- 48:00Speaker 1: I have to do it. I have to make use
- 48:02Speaker 1: of it somehow, I guess now. And I feel like
- 48:05Speaker 1: that's where the tradition of the detective partly comes from,
- 48:08Speaker 1: this idea that like the detective sort of has to
- 48:12Speaker 1: stand between society and the French here in whatever way necessary,
- 48:19Speaker 1: and he can't really like be a happy family man.
- 48:22Speaker 1: He has to be a loner right right, which lines
- 48:26Speaker 1: up with the anti heroo stuff as well. It's so
- 48:30Speaker 1: it's I mean, I like that, it's great for hope.
- 48:34Speaker 1: The movies are so challenging, like I and I like
- 48:37Speaker 1: that about them, but it's, um, it's tricky. I I
- 48:40Speaker 1: felt like my and again I think I was maybe
- 48:43Speaker 1: I had to too much brain when I was watching
- 48:46Speaker 1: this because I was like, oh, well, obviously he's very unwell.
- 48:50Speaker 1: So the movie is probably like he should probably believe
- 48:53Speaker 1: in psychology, he'd get something out of it. But that's
- 48:55Speaker 1: almost definitely not what people would have you believe in two,
- 48:59Speaker 1: I don't know the other thing for Hope and sometimes
- 49:03Speaker 1: will go rogue and like doesn't have a high opinion
- 49:07Speaker 1: of cops, and so I'm sort of like maybe, but
- 49:10Speaker 1: I don't know. To whatever degree the movie wants you
- 49:14Speaker 1: to think that Nick is unwell, every woman you meet
- 49:21Speaker 1: the movie does want you to think is way more
- 49:25Speaker 1: unwell and scary. And because they're like you said, Jamie,
- 49:28Speaker 1: they're all murderers. Like every woman in the movie who
- 49:32Speaker 1: has more than a line of dialogue is either confirmed
- 49:37Speaker 1: murderer or for some chunk of the movie, the audience
- 49:40Speaker 1: is led to believe that she probably is a murderer. Well,
- 49:44Speaker 1: and they're also all some well actually I don't I
- 49:47Speaker 1: don't know about Roxy, but they're also all like the
- 49:50Speaker 1: depraved bisexual to some extent, Right, all the women that
- 49:54Speaker 1: we're supposed to believe are murderers. I believe I think
- 49:57Speaker 1: so or or you know, yes, except again, we don't
- 50:01Speaker 1: know if Roxy is bisexual or she's we don't know,
- 50:04Speaker 1: right right right, movie doesn't care. But between like Catherine
- 50:10Speaker 1: who you could argue that the ending is ambiguous, but
- 50:14Speaker 1: also pretty clear that yes, she was the killer all along. Beth,
- 50:19Speaker 1: because of the ambiguity of the ending, is also then
- 50:22Speaker 1: ambiguous as to whether or not she was a murderer
- 50:25Speaker 1: of any kind. But at least with my read of
- 50:28Speaker 1: the movie, Catherine framed Beth. But even so, Beth is
- 50:33Speaker 1: a character who seems to be withholding information and she
- 50:37Speaker 1: still seems to be like devious in some way, and
- 50:40Speaker 1: we can kind of we can get into that more
- 50:43Speaker 1: in a bit. But then there's Roxy, who we learned
- 50:46Speaker 1: killed her two young brothers when she was a teenager
- 50:49Speaker 1: because she just felt an impulse to kill and she
- 50:53Speaker 1: tried to kill Nick by running him over with a car,
- 50:57Speaker 1: So she's a confirmed murderer. Roxy is troped literally to
- 51:01Speaker 1: death in Safe. And then there's this woman Hazel, Hazel
- 51:06Speaker 1: Dobkins or something, who is a friend of Katherine's who
- 51:10Speaker 1: also might be in a romantic relationship with Katherine. I
- 51:13Speaker 1: thought that was so unclear to me, at least in
- 51:17Speaker 1: a kissing relationship. Yeah, they kiss, and then Catherine calls
- 51:21Speaker 1: her honey at some point, an implication for movie, right.
- 51:26Speaker 1: And then Hazel, we learned, killed her husband and three
- 51:31Speaker 1: small children by stabbing them with a knife, So that's
- 51:36Speaker 1: not good. I don't think that there's I don't think
- 51:39Speaker 1: that there's very much like that's where the I mean,
- 51:43Speaker 1: it's with the depraved bisexual trope, which we just talked about,
- 51:47Speaker 1: which is a newer concept for us, but we talked
- 51:48Speaker 1: about it on the A Simple Favor episode. That really
- 51:54Speaker 1: doesn't work as much for me. But there's a bunch
- 51:57Speaker 1: of um, there's a bunch of Indians about this. Yeah,
- 52:02Speaker 1: should we get into it? Yeah, let's get I mean,
- 52:04Speaker 1: there's there's so much to talk about there. I had there.
- 52:07Speaker 1: There's been a lot written about this over the years,
- 52:09Speaker 1: but the context that you need that I didn't. I
- 52:14Speaker 1: didn't know that it had escalated to this point. But
- 52:17Speaker 1: the queer community in San Francisco, of which there's obviously
- 52:21Speaker 1: like a huge historically queer community in San Francisco were
- 52:25Speaker 1: not happy when this movie was being made. When they
- 52:29Speaker 1: were filming in San Francisco, the production called in the
- 52:32Speaker 1: San Francisco Police Department riot police every day, which is
- 52:36Speaker 1: almost certainly a gigantic overreaction, but the queer community was
- 52:41Speaker 1: protesting significantly. They were holding signs that said honk if
- 52:46Speaker 1: you love the forty niners and honk if you love men,
- 52:49Speaker 1: which is very funny. Um, but they basically did everything
- 52:53Speaker 1: they could to stop the movie from being filmed cogently,
- 52:57Speaker 1: like they used lasers and whistles to interfere with the
- 53:03Speaker 1: filming of the movie. And one of the producers of
- 53:06Speaker 1: the movie, Alan Marshall, allegedly selected individual protesters and demand
- 53:12Speaker 1: they'd be arrested, which is um fucked up. And then
- 53:16Speaker 1: the protesters did a citizen's arrest of the producer, which
- 53:20Speaker 1: came to nothing because the cops don't give a ship.
- 53:23Speaker 1: But all that to say, like this was at no
- 53:27Speaker 1: point was the issue with the depraved bisexual troops in
- 53:32Speaker 1: this movie not an issue like before it came out,
- 53:34Speaker 1: it was a very controversial thing. Verhoven I guess defended
- 53:39Speaker 1: the protesters right to protest, but disagreed because it's his movie.
- 53:46Speaker 1: Um So, how this kind of is played out is
- 53:51Speaker 1: as time passes, as time famously does. There's a lot
- 53:57Speaker 1: of people who are still you know, very for on
- 54:00Speaker 1: the like this is extremely biphobic in a way that
- 54:03Speaker 1: is not reclaimable. And then there are queer writers and
- 54:08Speaker 1: filmmakers who have found prose and reclaimable elements to it.
- 54:13Speaker 1: So yeah, so that's the context. So what's happening in
- 54:18Speaker 1: the in the movie itself is that it's playing into
- 54:23Speaker 1: stereotypes about bisexual people, such as that bisexual people are promiscuous,
- 54:29Speaker 1: they are untrustworthy, they are immoral cheaters, the cheaters, And
- 54:34Speaker 1: then the movie takes it a step further and says,
- 54:38Speaker 1: any queer woman is an evil murderer who will just
- 54:42Speaker 1: snap at the drop of a hat and murder without motive,
- 54:46Speaker 1: just because they had the impulse to do it. That
- 54:49Speaker 1: was so wow. They're like, yeah, she just saw a
- 54:51Speaker 1: razor and was like, let's do this. Baby. You're like, what,
- 54:56Speaker 1: I don't want it to go to waste. I have
- 54:58Speaker 1: to kill someone with a the sharp object that's near me.
- 55:02Speaker 1: And yet like, and Jamie, you're a girl boss expert.
- 55:05Speaker 1: This is why I'm asking you. Is there anything more
- 55:07Speaker 1: a girl boss than being a sexually motivated female murderer
- 55:13Speaker 1: of men? Exactly, Ladies, I've been saying this, um, women's
- 55:20Speaker 1: empowerment means getting away with murder. I wish I was
- 55:26Speaker 1: my thora nosed T shirts and the male I don't
- 55:28Speaker 1: have it yet, but and making men fear for their
- 55:31Speaker 1: right to have sex. It is so like, it's so messy,
- 55:37Speaker 1: it's so many Like. I found a piece written by
- 55:42Speaker 1: a queer filmmaker named Adam Morrison who's kind of like
- 55:46Speaker 1: went to bat for this movie in and I thought, like,
- 55:50Speaker 1: and also while acknowledging the clear biphobic issues, because also contextually,
- 55:57Speaker 1: it's important to remember that Basic Instincts came out at
- 56:00Speaker 1: a time where queer representation in general was kind of
- 56:03Speaker 1: like an all time low, while the AIDS crisis was ongoing.
- 56:07Speaker 1: Um like the Silence of the Lambs had come out
- 56:10Speaker 1: the previous year, which the queer community was kind of
- 56:13Speaker 1: like rightfully on high alert about how they were being
- 56:16Speaker 1: represented in film because it was egregiously bad. So yeah,
- 56:21Speaker 1: he he writes a quote, if we're dying of a plague,
- 56:24Speaker 1: can't get married, can't adopt, can get fired or evicted.
- 56:26Speaker 1: If anyone finds out our sexual orientation, why on earth
- 56:30Speaker 1: will be supportive film that paints us as nothing more
- 56:32Speaker 1: than He then would like to funk hard and then
- 56:34Speaker 1: stab each other unquote. But then he counterpoints that twenty
- 56:39Speaker 1: four years later by saying the following, which I thought was,
- 56:43Speaker 1: I don't know, like I I don't I truly don't
- 56:45Speaker 1: know where I fall here, but he says, uh, quote,
- 56:48Speaker 1: when was the last time you saw a movie where
- 56:50Speaker 1: a gay character was the wealthiest person in the room?
- 56:53Speaker 1: Katherine Trammels worth a hundred million? When was the last
- 56:55Speaker 1: time you saw a movie where a gay character was
- 56:57Speaker 1: the smartest person in the room? One was last time
- 57:00Speaker 1: you saw a gay character be the most successful? Catherine's
- 57:03Speaker 1: books are best sellers. When was the last time a
- 57:04Speaker 1: gay character was all three of those things that once?
- 57:07Speaker 1: Probably never? And then he sort of goes on to
- 57:11Speaker 1: like draw this comparison of like, she has these godlike qualities,
- 57:14Speaker 1: she's kind of like omnipotent, She's she can outwit literally anyone,
- 57:19Speaker 1: and in the end, for her purposes, she wins. She
- 57:23Speaker 1: gets away with it. Um, so she's not punished or
- 57:27Speaker 1: killed off, and so, which I think is like an
- 57:30Speaker 1: interesting read of the movie. I don't know. Yeah, I
- 57:34Speaker 1: mean that to me is just like, well, when representation
- 57:38Speaker 1: invisibility is low and bad, all you can do is
- 57:46Speaker 1: grasp at the crumbs. And that's what that feels like. Well,
- 57:51Speaker 1: that's yeah, I mean, I'm not suggesting that any of
- 57:53Speaker 1: that was intended in text, but I do understand that
- 57:58Speaker 1: argument also, sure, Sure, and then to break down the
- 58:03Speaker 1: various relationships even further, because I kept thinking we were
- 58:06Speaker 1: going to learn more about Catherine's relationship with Roxy. Yeah,
- 58:12Speaker 1: but you never really do you know that they lived together?
- 58:16Speaker 1: Question mark? I think so right? Or was that Cannon
- 58:20Speaker 1: and Esther has trying to write them having a quiet
- 58:24Speaker 1: night at home and Roxy being like is this chicken
- 58:26Speaker 1: from Thursday night? You know? And like that's another thing.
- 58:31Speaker 1: I kept thinking, like we never see them interact except
- 58:34Speaker 1: to kiss in a couple of scenes, but we don't.
- 58:37Speaker 1: There's no dialogue between them, and so this is a
- 58:39Speaker 1: movie where like if the movie passed the Bechtel test
- 58:42Speaker 1: between these two characters, that would be great because we
- 58:46Speaker 1: would know anything about their relationship. But that's where it's like,
- 58:50Speaker 1: it's so early nineties where I bet that the writer,
- 58:54Speaker 1: who what's the writer's name again, Joe Ester, has really
- 58:58Speaker 1: thought he was doing something by like making her well
- 59:01Speaker 1: educated and like giving us a lot of information about
- 59:03Speaker 1: her at the top, but we never yeah, like we
- 59:06Speaker 1: never get information about and I don't think that it
- 59:09Speaker 1: would have taken away from the non mystery of this movie,
- 59:12Speaker 1: which is that she did it and we see it
- 59:14Speaker 1: in the first scene to flesh out that relationship a
- 59:18Speaker 1: little bit more. I think it actually would have helped
- 59:21Speaker 1: the point later where it's like she's saying, like, I, I,
- 59:25Speaker 1: you know, really cared about Roxy. Like that's the first
- 59:27Speaker 1: person we see her have a reaction to the depth
- 59:29Speaker 1: of it all. And so if we saw that that,
- 59:32Speaker 1: I don't think it would have hurt anything, right, because
- 59:35Speaker 1: what that does. So when we see Catherine learned that
- 59:39Speaker 1: Johnny Boss is killed, she doesn't cry. She barely bats
- 59:43Speaker 1: an eyelash. She's just like, yeah, I guess I'm sad
- 59:46Speaker 1: because I liked fucking him. But when Roxy dies, she's sorry,
- 59:51Speaker 1: right iconic. When Roxy dies, she's noticeably upset, she's crying,
- 59:57Speaker 1: she's having what seems to be a genuine react. But
- 1:00:00Speaker 1: because we don't know anything about relationship with Roxy, and
- 1:00:04Speaker 1: because Catherine told thing is that she's very untrustworthy, we
- 1:00:08Speaker 1: don't know if these feelings she's displaying our genuine because
- 1:00:12Speaker 1: we don't have any information about Katherine and Roxy's relationship.
- 1:00:15Speaker 1: So it's which could be I mean, which I get
- 1:00:17Speaker 1: why that would be a noir writing, but I just
- 1:00:20Speaker 1: like I find it so ridiculous that you're supposed to
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: spend a lot of it's just like it's not just
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: like but you know how like the central quote unquote
- 1:00:27Speaker 1: mystery of the movie Doubt when it came out was
- 1:00:31Speaker 1: like do you think he did it? And you're like,
- 1:00:33Speaker 1: it's so obvious that the that the protagonist did the crime?
- 1:00:38Speaker 1: Why is that even the discussion like what about all
- 1:00:41Speaker 1: other ship going on? Right? So that's all confusing. And
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: then Beth is also revealed to be bisexual or by curious.
- 1:00:54Speaker 1: We learned that she had a sexual relationship with with
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: Katherine in college, and she's also similarly depicted as being untrustworthy.
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: And even though she might not have been the murderer
- 1:01:08Speaker 1: that we're led to believe she possibly was for a while,
- 1:01:13Speaker 1: she's still not forthcoming a lot about a lot of things.
- 1:01:16Speaker 1: She seems to be withholding a lot of information. You
- 1:01:19Speaker 1: could make the argument that, like, why would she divulge
- 1:01:23Speaker 1: her sexual orientation to her police colleagues. They're probably not
- 1:01:29Speaker 1: going to accept her if they learned that she is queer,
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: And she also seems to carry a lot of shame
- 1:01:35Speaker 1: about it too, because that and I feel like that
- 1:01:38Speaker 1: is almost like I guess maybe I talking this at
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: in real time. There's some kind of like gray area
- 1:01:47Speaker 1: where it felt like when the more she acknowledged that
- 1:01:50Speaker 1: she was ashamed of having any queer experience, the more
- 1:01:54Speaker 1: her kind of redemption arc started to swing back, or
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: it seemed like even but which is hard to say
- 1:02:01Speaker 1: because Catherine lives and Beth dies, so she is. I mean,
- 1:02:06Speaker 1: movies love to kill people named Beth. I'm just thinking
- 1:02:09Speaker 1: of little women. Um but but I so, I don't
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: know if that's that completely scance, but it does like
- 1:02:18Speaker 1: she distances herself from any queer experience she's had as
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: much as possible, she tells. And I guess it's unclear
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: because we only see her around Nick, who we can
- 1:02:29Speaker 1: tell wants her to do that, but she it does
- 1:02:32Speaker 1: seem like she's genuine when she tells him that whatever
- 1:02:35Speaker 1: that weird apartment they're always having sex at is her
- 1:02:39Speaker 1: apartment next to the aerobic studio. Of course it's just
- 1:02:43Speaker 1: like windows and you're like, yeah, sure, I'm sure a
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: police the officer makes this much money. But yeah, like
- 1:02:50Speaker 1: she she says that she's like embarrassed by it at
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: some point, and then her literal dying words I feel
- 1:02:57Speaker 1: like she might as well be saying I was right,
- 1:03:01Speaker 1: and then she dies, Like that was what I was
- 1:03:04Speaker 1: getting from, because her dying words are looking Michael Douglas
- 1:03:08Speaker 1: in the eye and saying I love you. Here's let
- 1:03:11Speaker 1: me tell you my theory, because I've watched this movie
- 1:03:16Speaker 1: maybe ten times in the past five years, and I
- 1:03:19Speaker 1: I think that Catherine was obsessed with Beth and was
- 1:03:23Speaker 1: playing the long game to like manipulate her ex boyfriend
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: into killing her. And what that means is that Nick
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: is sort of meaninglessly caught up in the crossfire of
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: Catherine's obsession with Beth, and she's just going to like
- 1:03:37Speaker 1: keep him alive a little while longer because he amuses
- 1:03:40Speaker 1: her someone or something like that interesting. And now I
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: mean he's and he's killed Beth now, so it's like, yeah,
- 1:03:47Speaker 1: so why bother? I mean, she's got to do something
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: with her time. There's that's interesting. Like I I didn't
- 1:03:55Speaker 1: know what to make of that. I'm glad that you
- 1:03:57Speaker 1: have a theory about it, because I didn't know what
- 1:03:59Speaker 1: to make of at like, who's single white female? Who? Like?
- 1:04:05Speaker 1: Because even in that is an implication that like, in
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: order for two women to be interested in each other.
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: They have to also be like stealing each other's identity,
- 1:04:12Speaker 1: which is just so right, yes, of course, Like it's like, oh,
- 1:04:15Speaker 1: you can't just be attracted to someone, you have to
- 1:04:17Speaker 1: also want to wear their skin and like have their
- 1:04:20Speaker 1: social Security number, which apparently was a very like potent idea. Ino.
- 1:04:26Speaker 1: There's two movies where that's a major plot point. But
- 1:04:29Speaker 1: even even when um Nick kills Beth, he like the
- 1:04:34Speaker 1: last thing he says to her is inherently tied to
- 1:04:37Speaker 1: his insecurities about her having had a queer experience, where
- 1:04:41Speaker 1: he's like, I know about your husband, you still like girls, Beth,
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: And then he kills her, like, and then she says
- 1:04:48Speaker 1: I was straight, And then the movie is over. He's
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: advancing on her with a gun and he's saying it
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: as if it's evidence again that like he's going to
- 1:04:57Speaker 1: have to shoot her, right, because maybe she's still likes girls. Right.
- 1:05:01Speaker 1: It's like very overt, yeah, and so it's like it's
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: only tragic that she dies because maybe she was straight. Like,
- 1:05:10Speaker 1: it's just it's confused because she loved this horrible rapist
- 1:05:14Speaker 1: who represents the shriveled ass of compulsory heterosexuality. Yeah, I
- 1:05:20Speaker 1: mean it's like that is, well, let's did anyone have
- 1:05:24Speaker 1: anyone else anything else to say about the depraved bisexual
- 1:05:28Speaker 1: trope before we move into the next horror show that
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: come right, I'll just add that and let me know
- 1:05:35Speaker 1: if you think this has any merit. But I feel
- 1:05:38Speaker 1: like this movie also villainizes ethical nonmonogamy in a in
- 1:05:46Speaker 1: a way that like stereotypes about polyamory are on display
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: and demonized in this movie because it seems to be that,
- 1:05:59Speaker 1: for example, Catherine and Roxy's relationship is ethically non monogamous
- 1:06:04Speaker 1: because they are together, but Roxy knows about the various
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: other people that Catherine is involved with, so they are
- 1:06:15Speaker 1: in this ethically non monogamous relationship. But because they both
- 1:06:19Speaker 1: end up being murderers, that's just another way in which
- 1:06:23Speaker 1: polyamory is demonized. Right. It's the only relationship that I
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: can exist between two murderers. Right. So I just wanted
- 1:06:31Speaker 1: to point that out because I that's something I'd be
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: interested in keeping my eye on more, because I feel
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: like it's equating ethical non monogamy with with sexual deviant,
- 1:06:43Speaker 1: non ethical promiscuity. Yeah, exactly right, Yeah, that's that is
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: something that and it's like I feel like, I mean,
- 1:06:48Speaker 1: I guess I don't know when that term came into
- 1:06:51Speaker 1: the zeite guys, but I would guess it was not right. Yeah,
- 1:06:56Speaker 1: so I guess. I mean the last thing with Roxy,
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: we mentioned this, but like she's very much subject to
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: the barrier gaze trope where, yeah, we don't know exactly
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: like how she identified before they attribute a fit of
- 1:07:10Speaker 1: murderous rage and they kill her, but you know, there
- 1:07:14Speaker 1: it is, which also doesn't make sense because like, if
- 1:07:17Speaker 1: she wasn't the murderer who killed like Johnny bos, why
- 1:07:22Speaker 1: is she? So I love the name Johnny. There are
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: some good fake nuts in this movie. Joe Astrohouse is
- 1:07:29Speaker 1: a good bad screenwriter. Yeah, but according to Catherine, Roxy
- 1:07:37Speaker 1: liked to watch Katherine have sex with men, right, And
- 1:07:40Speaker 1: it didn't seem as though Roxy was harboring jealousy until
- 1:07:45Speaker 1: Nick comes along, and then, for reasons that go unexplored,
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: Roxy's like, well, I'm jealous of Nick and I have
- 1:07:51Speaker 1: to kill him by running him over with a car,
- 1:07:53Speaker 1: But did you get the feeling? And then we, I know,
- 1:07:56Speaker 1: we've got to move on, but like, but did you
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: get the feeling? In bathroom confrontation between Roxy and Nick.
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: It sort of sounded like maybe she didn't like watching
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: because she's she's just like I watched because like Catherine
- 1:08:10Speaker 1: tells me too. So it sort of sounded like maybe
- 1:08:12Speaker 1: Roxy is getting kind of manipulated by Catherine as well.
- 1:08:16Speaker 1: That's fair. I don't know. That was like a fleeting
- 1:08:18Speaker 1: moment that goes completely unexamined by the movie, So it's
- 1:08:20Speaker 1: kind of a wash. But I sort of was like
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: I felt for Roxy in that moment. If I was
- 1:08:25Speaker 1: like reading it correctly, I was like, Oh, that sucks,
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: Like maybe she doesn't like even which would complicate things
- 1:08:32Speaker 1: even more. But I wasn't. I wasn't sure. God boggles
- 1:08:36Speaker 1: the mind. Okay, there's still let's let's get the other
- 1:08:43Speaker 1: difficult conversation out of the of the way here and
- 1:08:46Speaker 1: talk about trigger warning again, talk about the way that
- 1:08:52Speaker 1: sexual assault is portrayed in this movie. Again. I don't
- 1:08:59Speaker 1: know if I'm bring too much to it, but I
- 1:09:02Speaker 1: was very conflicted about it. Same. So basically what happens
- 1:09:08Speaker 1: is there's a scene in which Nick goes home with Beth.
- 1:09:12Speaker 1: They start to kiss. It seems to be consensual at first,
- 1:09:18Speaker 1: he gets more and more aggressive. She is saying no, repeatedly,
- 1:09:24Speaker 1: he does not stop and proceeds to rape her, which
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: we see on screen for several seconds, which apparently is
- 1:09:33Speaker 1: in the director's cut but not the theatrical cut, which
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: makes sense, And I'm glad. I'm kind of glad. I
- 1:09:40Speaker 1: I I don't know because if I saw this movie,
- 1:09:43Speaker 1: in which I couldn't have, but if I did, like
- 1:09:48Speaker 1: I know that, like the basic idea of being raped
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: by someone you know and had already been intimate with
- 1:09:55Speaker 1: was not like a common thing to be portrayed in movies.
- 1:09:58Speaker 1: And I feel like even having that because we've talked
- 1:10:01Speaker 1: about this on the show a bit jillion times where
- 1:10:03Speaker 1: it's like there's many many movies where the concept of
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: rape and a rapist is like a stranger lurking in
- 1:10:09Speaker 1: the corner. It's like you don't know who it is.
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: It's deeply traumatic, and then they're often too the night
- 1:10:14Speaker 1: and it's all very you know, night's dockery. Not to
- 1:10:17Speaker 1: say that that doesn't happen, but it is overwhelmingly somebody
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: that you already know and very possibly somebody you've already
- 1:10:25Speaker 1: been intimate with, And so I thought that that was
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: I mean, it's a very very upsetting scene, and it
- 1:10:30Speaker 1: feels so obviously like textbook rape. She says no, over
- 1:10:35Speaker 1: and over and over. And then my read of this
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: scene was that she had to protect her like she
- 1:10:42Speaker 1: wasn't really able to fight back for her own safety.
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: But then the way that that plays out throughout the
- 1:10:49Speaker 1: rest of the movie, I thought, like undercut very like
- 1:10:53Speaker 1: common thing that happens to mostly women. So in in
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: the aftermath, the immediate aftermath of that scene, Lucy Nick
- 1:11:03Speaker 1: and Beth talking, she asks about Catherine. She mentions that
- 1:11:08Speaker 1: she knew Catherine in college. Then she refers to the
- 1:11:13Speaker 1: encounter they just had, saying, you've never been like that before.
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: Why and and he says, you know you're the shrink
- 1:11:19Speaker 1: you tell me, and she says, you weren't making love.
- 1:11:23Speaker 1: It's kind of open to interpretation what she means, Like,
- 1:11:26Speaker 1: is she calling him out for forcing himself on her
- 1:11:30Speaker 1: and raping her? Or is the movie just not aware
- 1:11:34Speaker 1: of what rape is like? It's to me, it's hard,
- 1:11:37Speaker 1: it's hard to tell Sarah, what's what's your take? I
- 1:11:43Speaker 1: think that she's calling him out in the mildest possible way,
- 1:11:46Speaker 1: as if he's like put his feet up on her
- 1:11:48Speaker 1: coffee table. So you know, it's it's I mean, you
- 1:11:51Speaker 1: can interpret that as her saying like that was rough.
- 1:11:53Speaker 1: I didn't like it. That was too rough for me,
- 1:11:56Speaker 1: and that being all the understanding the filmmakers had of this,
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: and I would totally buy that and like and then
- 1:12:02Speaker 1: maybe they do have more knowledge than that, but it's
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: not on display, right, Yeah, and then you know, she
- 1:12:10Speaker 1: continues trying to mother him for the rest of the movie,
- 1:12:13Speaker 1: and it's never discussed. I also think it's fascinating that
- 1:12:18Speaker 1: this movie is taking so many cues from Vertigo, that
- 1:12:23Speaker 1: she's totally in the Barbara Bell Getties role and there's
- 1:12:26Speaker 1: the same glasses. It's really Yeah, this movie didn't Dare
- 1:12:31Speaker 1: have two blonds. Yeah, she's very much Katherine is so
- 1:12:35Speaker 1: stylized the way that and I haven't seen that movie
- 1:12:38Speaker 1: in a long time, but yeah, there's there's a lot
- 1:12:41Speaker 1: of visual symmetry. Yeah, there's a movie that earned its
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: overbearing score, right, a score that's really turning your head
- 1:12:51Speaker 1: to what you're supposed to be thinking. I had a
- 1:12:54Speaker 1: I had a So I was very mixed up on
- 1:12:58Speaker 1: this subject, and so I wanted to know more about
- 1:13:04Speaker 1: what the filmmakers. I was like, I assumed that they've
- 1:13:06Speaker 1: been asked about this. I didn't get. I mean, I
- 1:13:09Speaker 1: can't speak to the writer's intent, which I have like
- 1:13:12Speaker 1: a quick thing on him. And but just because like
- 1:13:14Speaker 1: he's just a weird guy. But Verhoeven specifically has whatever
- 1:13:20Speaker 1: themes and things that he returns to in there's movies
- 1:13:23Speaker 1: all the time, one of which is women being brutalized
- 1:13:26Speaker 1: and sexually assaulted. So there was one press cycle and
- 1:13:30Speaker 1: again I'm like, I don't know what to feel about
- 1:13:33Speaker 1: any of this. There's a press cycle from a movie
- 1:13:36Speaker 1: he did inten called l which I have not seen.
- 1:13:40Speaker 1: I guess it's in French, where he was asked kind
- 1:13:43Speaker 1: of repeatedly about why this comes up in his movies
- 1:13:48Speaker 1: so frequently, and like what is it about this that
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: keeps coming up for him? And so this is from
- 1:13:55Speaker 1: an interview in Slate from where he's basically just asked, like,
- 1:14:00Speaker 1: wire women raped and brutalized in your movie so much?
- 1:14:03Speaker 1: He says yeah, because of course, let's say, especially with
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: the element of rape, if you look at the statistics,
- 1:14:09Speaker 1: they say someone is raped about eighteen hundred or nineteen
- 1:14:11Speaker 1: hundred times a day in the United States, So that
- 1:14:14Speaker 1: means a rape a minute. If you express that violence,
- 1:14:17Speaker 1: then you can only express it in what it is.
- 1:14:19Speaker 1: If you aren't honest about that, then I think that's
- 1:14:21Speaker 1: very dangerous because then it becomes banal. It makes it
- 1:14:24Speaker 1: smaller than it is. It's really something where people are
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: traumatized for the rest of their lives. Even the word
- 1:14:30Speaker 1: sexual assault is already making it less than it is.
- 1:14:33Speaker 1: I think the word rape expresses exactly what it is.
- 1:14:36Speaker 1: If you hear rape, you know you're talking about brutal
- 1:14:38Speaker 1: violence against women also men, of course, But if you
- 1:14:41Speaker 1: use sexual assault, that makes it softer. And so there
- 1:14:45Speaker 1: is in general a feeling that I get in the
- 1:14:46Speaker 1: United States that it's very dangerous or very not done
- 1:14:49Speaker 1: to use the word rape, which is replaced by sexual assault,
- 1:14:53Speaker 1: which I think I did, um five minutes ago. Um.
- 1:14:56Speaker 1: But I'll have to say, I see what he's saying,
- 1:14:59Speaker 1: but I like it's a matter of execution and making
- 1:15:03Speaker 1: sure that that is clearly telegraphed in the plot, which
- 1:15:05Speaker 1: I think this movie fails at. Yes, exactly. Yeah, I
- 1:15:08Speaker 1: think that Show Girls actually does a much better job
- 1:15:11Speaker 1: of doing what he's saying here. In jest. I still
- 1:15:15Speaker 1: I still haven't seen show girls. It's been a request
- 1:15:17Speaker 1: for a million years. Yeah, we got it. We'll get
- 1:15:20Speaker 1: to it. But it's tricky because I fundamentally agree with
- 1:15:23Speaker 1: what he's saying. I just don't think that the execution
- 1:15:25Speaker 1: is there in this movie. It's just hard to know
- 1:15:27Speaker 1: what the purpose of the scene is. It even has one.
- 1:15:32Speaker 1: I don't think it does, like I I know, like
- 1:15:35Speaker 1: what function. My My best guess is that because this
- 1:15:40Speaker 1: scene takes place right after Nick has gone to see
- 1:15:46Speaker 1: Katherine in her home and she was being again very
- 1:15:49Speaker 1: fem fatally. She was being very sultry and seductive, and
- 1:15:53Speaker 1: I think the movie is suggesting that he's starting to
- 1:15:56Speaker 1: fall under her spell and he's getting really horny, and
- 1:15:59Speaker 1: he goes and he takes out that horny nows on
- 1:16:02Speaker 1: Beth because she's right there, and then it's doing the
- 1:16:05Speaker 1: thing where it's conflating her, who's like, as far as
- 1:16:08Speaker 1: we know, having lots of sexual adventures with people consensually.
- 1:16:13Speaker 1: And he's like, I'm emulating you, Catherine, I'm raping my
- 1:16:17Speaker 1: ex girlfriend. And it's like what, no, right, it's yeah,
- 1:16:22Speaker 1: And it's like there there is this element yeah, of
- 1:16:25Speaker 1: like all of Nick's bad behavior is like the subtext
- 1:16:27Speaker 1: of it is like, and it's somehow Catherine's fault that
- 1:16:30Speaker 1: he's doing all of this because she's infuriating him. She's
- 1:16:34Speaker 1: frustrating him, she's like fucking with his head. She's making
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: him drink again, she's making him smoke again, like right,
- 1:16:41Speaker 1: Like it's it's somehow all of his behavior that we know,
- 1:16:46Speaker 1: that's the thing that blows my minys like that we
- 1:16:48Speaker 1: know predates his knowing her by a lot, Like so,
- 1:16:53Speaker 1: but now he has the perfect person to blame everything on. Yeah, exactly.
- 1:16:59Speaker 1: I also love how she's like superpowered for a woman.
- 1:17:02Speaker 1: Like they have a part where Nick is listing all
- 1:17:05Speaker 1: of her assets basically, and he's like, she fox rock
- 1:17:10Speaker 1: stars and boxers, she has a hundred million dollars, she
- 1:17:15Speaker 1: writes books, and she has a degree and messing with
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: people's heads. And it's like, yeah, it seems like he
- 1:17:21Speaker 1: finally found a worthy adversary, a woman who's got enough
- 1:17:25Speaker 1: expansion packs to scare you. That's the Michael Douglas plot point.
- 1:17:35Speaker 1: I guess, like it's so. And then there's other elements
- 1:17:40Speaker 1: of Beth where it's like I just think that Beth
- 1:17:42Speaker 1: is such a like poorly developed character because really like
- 1:17:47Speaker 1: everything about her hinges on us, assuming that she still
- 1:17:50Speaker 1: loves Nick no matter how awful he is in avoid
- 1:17:55Speaker 1: also like we don't get any insight into what from
- 1:17:58Speaker 1: her past might make her acted to someone so deeply talkic,
- 1:18:01Speaker 1: like what there's no attempt because it's like, you see,
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: she's she's nagged for her profession in her first moments
- 1:18:08Speaker 1: on screen, and then she agrees with him where he's like,
- 1:18:12Speaker 1: this is bullshit and you know it. She's like, yeah,
- 1:18:14Speaker 1: it's bullshit, but have a seat. You're like, that is
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: a funny way to start a therapy session, but we
- 1:18:21Speaker 1: got to do it because you're being mandated to do this,
- 1:18:25Speaker 1: not because you clearly need counseling. I hope her. I
- 1:18:29Speaker 1: hope my therapist says that to me someday. I'm like,
- 1:18:31Speaker 1: this is bullshit. She's like, yeah, but I sure I
- 1:18:34Speaker 1: sure hoodwinked you out of a lot of money, didn't
- 1:18:36Speaker 1: I also, do you guys love the moment where we
- 1:18:39Speaker 1: find out that Beth is supposed to have met, potentially
- 1:18:43Speaker 1: met Johnny Boss at a Christmas party that her office
- 1:18:46Speaker 1: made his therapist through and it's like, of course, we're
- 1:18:50Speaker 1: living in a world where therapists invite their patients to
- 1:18:54Speaker 1: their Christmas parties. There's no there's no ethical connection between
- 1:18:59Speaker 1: people bowl in in this movie. I also, I mean
- 1:19:02Speaker 1: that is always an element of like any Norrish movie
- 1:19:05Speaker 1: that I have fun with, where it's just like, even
- 1:19:08Speaker 1: when it's not necessary, everyone needs to have known each
- 1:19:11Speaker 1: other and met each other at some point, and sometimes
- 1:19:14Speaker 1: it's just like a weird stretch like that's not even necessary,
- 1:19:17Speaker 1: but just to establish as much suspicion as possible. It's
- 1:19:20Speaker 1: like maybe she a friend of a friend of a
- 1:19:23Speaker 1: friend of a friend in a Christmas party from could
- 1:19:26Speaker 1: be you know, like it's just wild. It is so wild. Yeah.
- 1:19:32Speaker 1: Bottom line is the way I mean everything in this
- 1:19:36Speaker 1: movie is executed is at best mind boggling, at worst
- 1:19:42Speaker 1: extremely harmful. Because again with the rape scene, I think
- 1:19:46Speaker 1: you can make the argument that the movie treats this
- 1:19:49Speaker 1: as a consensual but you know, maybe more rough than
- 1:19:53Speaker 1: best is used to sex scene when in fact is
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: rape because she is repeatedly saying and he ignores her,
- 1:20:02Speaker 1: and then and then like you're saying, Sarah, she continues
- 1:20:04Speaker 1: to look after him and do anything that will support him.
- 1:20:09Speaker 1: For the remainder of the movie, and then he kills
- 1:20:11Speaker 1: her for having sex with a woman once twenty years ago. Yeah,
- 1:20:16Speaker 1: that that is I guess the legally prescribed penalty for that,
- 1:20:21Speaker 1: but you so rarely see it carried out. It is brutal.
- 1:20:27Speaker 1: Like it's just brutal. Um. We must also talk about
- 1:20:31Speaker 1: the scene. The scene. The scene scene in which Sharon
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: Stone's volva is exposed, because Sharon Stone has spoken about
- 1:20:41Speaker 1: how she was misled by the director who told her
- 1:20:47Speaker 1: that it would not be visible on camera. There's an
- 1:20:52Speaker 1: article in Vanity Fair by Sharon Stone. It's an excerpt
- 1:20:56Speaker 1: from her memoir The Beauty of Living Twice. The article
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: is called you Can't Shame Me Sharon Stone on how
- 1:21:02Speaker 1: Basic Instinct nearly broke her before making her a star.
- 1:21:06Speaker 1: So she talks about this, and I'll just quote this article.
- 1:21:12Speaker 1: She says, quote after we shot Basic Instinct, I got
- 1:21:15Speaker 1: called in to see it, not on my own with
- 1:21:18Speaker 1: the director, as one would anticipate, but with a room
- 1:21:22Speaker 1: full of agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing
- 1:21:24Speaker 1: to do with the project. That was how I saw
- 1:21:27Speaker 1: my vagina shop for the first time, long after I've
- 1:21:30Speaker 1: been told we can't see anything. I just need you
- 1:21:34Speaker 1: to remove your panties, as the white is reflecting the light,
- 1:21:37Speaker 1: so we know you have panties on. Yes, there have
- 1:21:40Speaker 1: been many points of view on this topic, but since
- 1:21:43Speaker 1: I'm the one with the vagina in question, let me
- 1:21:46Speaker 1: say the other points of you are bullshit, Sharon. She says,
- 1:21:52Speaker 1: now here's the issue. It didn't now here's the issue.
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: It didn't matter anymore. It was me and my parts
- 1:21:58Speaker 1: up there. I had to decisions to make. I went
- 1:22:01Speaker 1: to the projection booth, slapped Paul across the face, left,
- 1:22:05Speaker 1: went to my car and called my lawyer, Marty Singer.
- 1:22:07Speaker 1: Marty told me they could not release the film as
- 1:22:10Speaker 1: it was, that I could get an injunction first. At
- 1:22:13Speaker 1: that time, this would give the film an X rating.
- 1:22:16Speaker 1: And Marty said, per the Screen Actors Guild, my union,
- 1:22:19Speaker 1: it wasn't legal to shoot up my dress in this fashion.
- 1:22:23Speaker 1: Who I thought? Then Sharon goes on to say that
- 1:22:26Speaker 1: she gave it more consideration and tried to be objective
- 1:22:30Speaker 1: about it. And then I'm quoting again. After the screening,
- 1:22:34Speaker 1: I let Paul know of the options Marty had laid
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: out for me. Of course, he vehemently denied that I
- 1:22:39Speaker 1: had any choices at all, I was just an actress,
- 1:22:43Speaker 1: just a woman. What choices could I have? But I
- 1:22:46Speaker 1: did have choices, So I thought and thought, and I
- 1:22:48Speaker 1: chose to allow this scene in the film. Why because
- 1:22:52Speaker 1: it was correct for the film and for the character,
- 1:22:54Speaker 1: and because after all, I did it unquote. So that's
- 1:22:58Speaker 1: and and I mean, Sharon Rocks, I like that is horrifying.
- 1:23:05Speaker 1: Verhoven responded in denial that this had happened. But it's like,
- 1:23:10Speaker 1: I very much believe Sharon, not just because I believe Sharon,
- 1:23:14Speaker 1: but also because she was already so disempowered in this
- 1:23:18Speaker 1: creative process and that was already so well established. Was
- 1:23:21Speaker 1: like that she was not being paid well, like she
- 1:23:24Speaker 1: was not being treated like an equal collaborator on the
- 1:23:27Speaker 1: scale that you know certainly Michael Douglas was, or that
- 1:23:31Speaker 1: a lot of people involved in this movie was were
- 1:23:34Speaker 1: So that totally scams for me. That it's like she
- 1:23:37Speaker 1: would be mistreated and her desire to not have to
- 1:23:43Speaker 1: flash her vagina on screen and also be like duped
- 1:23:46Speaker 1: into doing it would be something that they would try
- 1:23:48Speaker 1: to get away with because they already got away with
- 1:23:51Speaker 1: so much. And I think that there's that's that kind
- 1:23:53Speaker 1: of assumption from especially like in acting, but in a
- 1:23:57Speaker 1: lot of industries where you're like quote unquote pay your
- 1:24:00Speaker 1: dues by being abused by someone who has more power
- 1:24:03Speaker 1: than you. Because in that same section, Sharon talks about
- 1:24:06Speaker 1: how she felt like a lot a lot of the
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: odds were against her. She was not she was like
- 1:24:11Speaker 1: the twelve choice for this role. Michael Douglas didn't want
- 1:24:14Speaker 1: to work with her, Like there were all of these
- 1:24:17Speaker 1: things stacked against her, and then to be manipulated into like,
- 1:24:21Speaker 1: it's just it's so fucking bleak. I'm glad that she
- 1:24:26Speaker 1: like got the last word on it, because yeah, it
- 1:24:31Speaker 1: just it sucks that she just felt so disempowered to
- 1:24:34Speaker 1: the point where she's like, well, what choice do I
- 1:24:37Speaker 1: have but to just let this be in the movie,
- 1:24:40Speaker 1: because yeah, she She also describes in this article various
- 1:24:44Speaker 1: Hollywood horror stories producers and directors condescending to her, harassing her.
- 1:24:51Speaker 1: Her manager at the time told her that she wouldn't
- 1:24:54Speaker 1: get hired for a part like Basic Instinct because she
- 1:24:58Speaker 1: was not sexy or quote fukable. Um, she was she
- 1:25:03Speaker 1: always like. She also talks about how she was considered
- 1:25:07Speaker 1: to be difficult because she would speak out against being
- 1:25:11Speaker 1: mistreated and that she would like refuse to have sex
- 1:25:13Speaker 1: with her co star of a movie after a producer
- 1:25:17Speaker 1: suggested they have sex because it would give them better
- 1:25:19Speaker 1: on screen chemistry, and she said, no, I'm not going
- 1:25:21Speaker 1: to do that, and then she was labeled difficult by
- 1:25:24Speaker 1: people and all this kind of stuff. Um, but yeah,
- 1:25:29Speaker 1: I I completely believe Sharon. And there are just all
- 1:25:32Speaker 1: these other examples of movies where the director misleads the actors,
- 1:25:38Speaker 1: often women, to get a particular shot or to get
- 1:25:43Speaker 1: a reaction that seems more genuine. There there I remember
- 1:25:47Speaker 1: Kubrick and Shelley Duval. I feel like it's the most famous.
- 1:25:50Speaker 1: There was also, um a scene from them that movie
- 1:25:54Speaker 1: Last Tango in Paris. A story broke about that a
- 1:25:57Speaker 1: few years ago that really I forget specifically what it
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: is and I'd have to go back and read it.
- 1:26:03Speaker 1: But a woman was assaulted as the camera was rolling
- 1:26:07Speaker 1: and was not told what was going to be happening
- 1:26:11Speaker 1: in the middle of the scene so that the director
- 1:26:13Speaker 1: could get like a genuine reaction out of her. It
- 1:26:15Speaker 1: was something I might have some details a little bit,
- 1:26:18Speaker 1: you know, I'd have to double check on some details,
- 1:26:21Speaker 1: but it was something along those lines, and so there's
- 1:26:23Speaker 1: there's various examples of actors and again especially women being
- 1:26:27Speaker 1: mistreated as cameras are rolling, being assaulted as cameras are rolling,
- 1:26:32Speaker 1: all this stuff happening without their knowledge or consent, just
- 1:26:36Speaker 1: so this aw tour can like see his vision come
- 1:26:40Speaker 1: to life or whatever, you know, some bullshit excuse which
- 1:26:44Speaker 1: is like not just abusive, it's like Sharon Stone is
- 1:26:49Speaker 1: right there, like she collaborate with her. You've got fucking
- 1:26:53Speaker 1: Sharon White. I hate it. It's awful. So justice for Sharon.
- 1:27:00Speaker 1: I'm very, very excited to read Sharon's book too. One
- 1:27:05Speaker 1: of the last things I have here in my notes
- 1:27:08Speaker 1: that again I feel like I'm only scratching the surface
- 1:27:10Speaker 1: of But um, you'll never believe it. But this is
- 1:27:14Speaker 1: another movie with mostly white people in the cast, which
- 1:27:19Speaker 1: is predictable. But like, also, this is San Francisco in
- 1:27:22Speaker 1: the nineties, This is not like this is a very
- 1:27:25Speaker 1: diverse area. Yes, for fox sake, the few people of
- 1:27:28Speaker 1: color in the movie are minor characters with very few
- 1:27:33Speaker 1: lines of dialogue, no real narrative impact. They're relegated to
- 1:27:38Speaker 1: the sidelines, and all the major players are white people. Yeah,
- 1:27:43Speaker 1: I feel like, ultimately, like this movie has got a
- 1:27:47Speaker 1: very weird legacy where there's plenty to talk about inside
- 1:27:52Speaker 1: of it, but mostly it's the kind of movie where
- 1:27:54Speaker 1: people mostly take away uh single shot versus at any
- 1:27:59Speaker 1: sort of like it doesn't seem like this movie, even
- 1:28:01Speaker 1: though there's like all of this like very era specific
- 1:28:06Speaker 1: history involved. People mostly just remember a scene where Sharon
- 1:28:10Speaker 1: Stone was being coerced into doing something she didn't want
- 1:28:14Speaker 1: to do and it was hailed as the sexiest thing
- 1:28:17Speaker 1: ever committed to film. There's also a there's a good
- 1:28:20Speaker 1: Vanity Fair piece about sort of how that shot and
- 1:28:24Speaker 1: like the scene had a an impact on um porn
- 1:28:29Speaker 1: for decades after that, and like the ripple effect of
- 1:28:33Speaker 1: that scene alone is significant. I think the ripple effect
- 1:28:36Speaker 1: of like the unexamined biphobia in this movie. Uh, this
- 1:28:40Speaker 1: is a very influential movie. Like the stuff that they
- 1:28:43Speaker 1: got wrong here did carry on for for some time.
- 1:28:48Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a tricky one. Do you guys want
- 1:28:52Speaker 1: to know all the actresses that turned down the role
- 1:28:54Speaker 1: of Catherine? Do I? Ever? Yeah? I I also have
- 1:28:57Speaker 1: this list. So I'm gonna put forward two guesses, And
- 1:29:01Speaker 1: by guesses, I mean I think I kind of remember
- 1:29:03Speaker 1: this list. Okay, wait, let me guess a few. Jodie Foster,
- 1:29:08Speaker 1: Michelle Phiffer, Kelly McGillis, Michelle Phiffers, one, Meg Ryan, Meg
- 1:29:13Speaker 1: Ryan one, Wow, Killia Roberts, Yes, whoa Okay, Kim Basinger
- 1:29:23Speaker 1: was Michael Douglas's pick. She said no, Gretta Scotchy who that.
- 1:29:29Speaker 1: I'm not sure who that is. That was like the
- 1:29:31Speaker 1: one day Miles my British. I think Gina Davis said
- 1:29:34Speaker 1: no fucking way. Kathleen Turner said no way, Kelly Lynch,
- 1:29:39Speaker 1: I don't know who that is. Ellen Barkin said no,
- 1:29:43Speaker 1: maryel Hemingway said no. And I guess Demi Moore was considered,
- 1:29:47Speaker 1: but I don't know if she was ever asked. And
- 1:29:51Speaker 1: as you alluded to, Jamie, Michael Douglas was really reluctant
- 1:29:55Speaker 1: to work with Sharon Stone because she didn't have any
- 1:29:58Speaker 1: star power at the time. This was before where she
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: this movie made her a star. And also she was like,
- 1:30:03Speaker 1: this is my star power, bitch, right, So Michael Douglas
- 1:30:07Speaker 1: didn't want to work with her because she wasn't in
- 1:30:11Speaker 1: a list celebrity at that point, and he was like, well,
- 1:30:15Speaker 1: I'm an A list or, and if this movie is
- 1:30:18Speaker 1: received poorly, I need to have another A list or
- 1:30:21Speaker 1: to take the fall so that all the blame doesn't
- 1:30:24Speaker 1: get on me. Like I'm not taking the only l
- 1:30:26Speaker 1: on this movie that might suck, which I get, but
- 1:30:29Speaker 1: it's like, come on, Sharon, Sharon, Sharon, get a grip.
- 1:30:35Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that's really about all I had
- 1:30:41Speaker 1: written down. Lease, does anyone have any other thoughts about
- 1:30:46Speaker 1: the film? I mean, I'm gonna go on this movie forever,
- 1:30:49Speaker 1: but I'm going to say no. I guess I will
- 1:30:53Speaker 1: say that ultimately, I am pro Sharon Stone, and I'm
- 1:30:57Speaker 1: happy that this movie created a launch add for her
- 1:31:00Speaker 1: to do more of what she wanted to in the world.
- 1:31:05Speaker 1: And I think it belongs to a museum. I mean,
- 1:31:09Speaker 1: it has that going for it. It really expresses like
- 1:31:11Speaker 1: a lot of the fear around gender roles in the
- 1:31:15Speaker 1: early nineties and sort of the way that heteronormativity was
- 1:31:20Speaker 1: responding to the lightest prodding. Yeah, I'm happy that we're
- 1:31:25Speaker 1: all equally speachless about it. Yeah, I'm ultimately, like, I
- 1:31:33Speaker 1: don't know a lot of bad stuff going on. I Yeah,
- 1:31:39Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like the legacy of this movie
- 1:31:42Speaker 1: is kind of like net in terms of like the
- 1:31:45Speaker 1: tropes that like really really continued or popularized. It's got
- 1:31:50Speaker 1: kind of a net negative effect. But how much of
- 1:31:52Speaker 1: that isn't It's just all very messy. We've spent two
- 1:31:56Speaker 1: hours talking about it and I still have no fucking
- 1:31:58Speaker 1: clue how I feel. Um. But does it pass the fact?
- 1:32:05Speaker 1: I don't think so. The two women do interact when
- 1:32:09Speaker 1: Roxy and Katherine kiss each other a couple of times,
- 1:32:12Speaker 1: and it's implied they were having a conversation that Michael
- 1:32:16Speaker 1: Douglas walks into, but we don't actually hear any of
- 1:32:18Speaker 1: their dialogue, and then Roxy walks away, so we never
- 1:32:22Speaker 1: see them actually speak on screen. And I think those
- 1:32:25Speaker 1: are the only two women who interact in the whole movie.
- 1:32:28Speaker 1: There's Hazel Dopkins and Katherine, but I don't see them
- 1:32:32Speaker 1: talking to each other either. No, there's a lot of
- 1:32:35Speaker 1: scenes where there's a kiss and no dialogue, or a
- 1:32:38Speaker 1: boob squish and no dialogue, or I think there might
- 1:32:41Speaker 1: be one part where Katherine says something to uh, wait,
- 1:32:46Speaker 1: what's her name, Hazel, and she calls her honey. She says, honey,
- 1:32:50Speaker 1: I'll be right with you, or something, but then Hazel
- 1:32:53Speaker 1: doesn't respond, you know, things like that. So there afore
- 1:32:56Speaker 1: women in this movie, and they're all convicted or potential murderers.
- 1:33:00Speaker 1: I mean I do honestly, I like that. I think
- 1:33:04Speaker 1: that's absolutely ridiculous. And yes, this movie is a net negative.
- 1:33:09Speaker 1: And yet the fact that all of the female characters
- 1:33:12Speaker 1: in this movie who have any kind of impact are
- 1:33:15Speaker 1: actual or probable murderers is kind of amazing. You don't
- 1:33:20Speaker 1: kept that a lot. I do it Like it's like
- 1:33:22Speaker 1: the camp element is hard to deny with this movie.
- 1:33:25Speaker 1: It's like it's hard to there. I wanted to give
- 1:33:28Speaker 1: a quick shout out to the women who plays Hazel,
- 1:33:31Speaker 1: who's an oscar winning actress, Dorothy Malone. Hello Dorothy. Yeah,
- 1:33:36Speaker 1: this basic Instinct was her last on screen appearance before
- 1:33:40Speaker 1: she died. But she she before she retired, Sorry because
- 1:33:43Speaker 1: she she just died a couple of years ago. But
- 1:33:45Speaker 1: she's in the big sleep. She won an oscar in
- 1:33:50Speaker 1: ninety six for a movie called Written on the Wind,
- 1:33:53Speaker 1: which I've never heard of, but she she won an
- 1:33:55Speaker 1: oscar the Hudson Fantastic and then she was a big
- 1:33:59Speaker 1: success on TV. She was on Peyton Place in the sixties.
- 1:34:02Speaker 1: So it turns out she was a terrifically successful actor
- 1:34:07Speaker 1: and this was her last movie, So shout out Dorothy Malone.
- 1:34:11Speaker 1: Sorry you didn't get I don't think a single line
- 1:34:13Speaker 1: of dialogue. Really. I think she called him a shooter once,
- 1:34:17Speaker 1: so yeah, she's like, oh, you're the shooter, aren't you.
- 1:34:20Speaker 1: And then but sorry, you didn't get a whole scene.
- 1:34:23Speaker 1: Like imagine being an Oscar winning actress and they're like, um,
- 1:34:26Speaker 1: you're essentially a glorified extra. Yeah, so have fun with
- 1:34:31Speaker 1: that and uh, you know, make your own movie. I
- 1:34:34Speaker 1: guess there, which which brings us to our rating system,
- 1:34:41Speaker 1: the nipple scale zero to five nipples, based on how
- 1:34:46Speaker 1: the movie fares looking at it through an intersectional feminist lens. Well,
- 1:34:54Speaker 1: even though there are things that are arguably reclaimable about specifically,
- 1:35:01Speaker 1: I would say Sharon Stone's character, I'm just not in
- 1:35:06Speaker 1: a place where I feel fully comfortable doing that, although
- 1:35:10Speaker 1: isolating a few lines of her monologues where she's like,
- 1:35:14Speaker 1: I like fucking, I like men who give me pleasure.
- 1:35:18Speaker 1: I like fingers and hands. I want to just like
- 1:35:24Speaker 1: tweet that out is like red classic sex fingers in hand.
- 1:35:29Speaker 1: I want her to get together with Wayne Knight. I
- 1:35:32Speaker 1: like it when she tells the cops she says something
- 1:35:35Speaker 1: like I don't feel like talking anymore, so unless you're
- 1:35:39Speaker 1: going to arrest me, you can get the funk out
- 1:35:42Speaker 1: of here, and they're like, I can't argue with that, okay,
- 1:35:46Speaker 1: so we got to get the funk out of here.
- 1:35:48Speaker 1: I love it when she's like, what are you gonna do?
- 1:35:51Speaker 1: Was smoking and they're like, well, dog got it. She's
- 1:35:54Speaker 1: because stopped us right in our tracks. We don't know
- 1:35:57Speaker 1: what to say to that. Another another thing that is
- 1:36:00Speaker 1: spoofed in Hotshots part do so I gotta And I
- 1:36:05Speaker 1: also like the moment, like there's just certain moments where
- 1:36:08Speaker 1: it's like she's being villainized, but also her reaction to
- 1:36:12Speaker 1: anything that is like a suggestion of typical heterosexual domesticity
- 1:36:17Speaker 1: results in her getting angry or violent, which I kind
- 1:36:21Speaker 1: of do. Like that scene at the end where he's like,
- 1:36:23Speaker 1: I don't know, we're gonna fucking pop out a couple
- 1:36:26Speaker 1: of kids and get married, and her response is to
- 1:36:28Speaker 1: like clutch an ice pick, like that's kind of cool,
- 1:36:32Speaker 1: Like there he goes, we can fuck like minx, have
- 1:36:34Speaker 1: a few rug rats and live happily ever after. And
- 1:36:37Speaker 1: then she's like, she's like, I hate rug Rats and
- 1:36:40Speaker 1: then she's like clearly fondling her ice pick, ready to
- 1:36:43Speaker 1: like stab him. And then he's like, forget the rug Rats,
- 1:36:46Speaker 1: we can just funck like Minx and live happily ever after.
- 1:36:49Speaker 1: And then she takes her hands off the ice pick
- 1:36:51Speaker 1: because apparently she was going to kill him if he
- 1:36:54Speaker 1: wanted to have children with her, which is kind of
- 1:36:58Speaker 1: who wants kids? But that like that's a cool moment.
- 1:37:00Speaker 1: I don't know how boy, he would not be a
- 1:37:02Speaker 1: good dad. I bet she's going to kill him like
- 1:37:04Speaker 1: four days later, right, because do you feel like he's
- 1:37:07Speaker 1: on condition of not making her board right his day?
- 1:37:11Speaker 1: His days are extremely numbered. I feel like it's very clear.
- 1:37:15Speaker 1: But inter Caitlin was he'sier, what is your rating for? Okay?
- 1:37:19Speaker 1: So even though there are things, they're very isolated things
- 1:37:23Speaker 1: I like about the character of Catherine Trammel and Sharon
- 1:37:27Speaker 1: Stone's performance, I would say, overall, like you said, Sarah,
- 1:37:31Speaker 1: this is a net negative movie between the villainizing of
- 1:37:37Speaker 1: a woman's sexuality being open and liberated between the depraved
- 1:37:44Speaker 1: bisexual trope. Because like gosh By, Visibility was extremely low
- 1:37:52Speaker 1: and still is. But in the early nineties it was
- 1:37:56Speaker 1: basically absent, and if it was there, it was being
- 1:38:00Speaker 1: villainized in very harmful ways, much like what Basic Instinct does.
- 1:38:03Speaker 1: So there's all these harmful things that the movie does. Um.
- 1:38:09Speaker 1: And it is too long. Um. But the score is
- 1:38:14Speaker 1: memorable and the plot is convoluted and um. According to
- 1:38:24Speaker 1: this movie, all women are murderers and they will have
- 1:38:29Speaker 1: no motive. They will just decide to murder, I mean,
- 1:38:32Speaker 1: for no reason. Okay, UM, So I'm going to give
- 1:38:37Speaker 1: the movie with all that in mind, I'll give it
- 1:38:40Speaker 1: one nipple, and I'll give it to Sharon Stones nipple
- 1:38:49Speaker 1: which we see many times. And it's a great one too.
- 1:38:54Speaker 1: There's two. There's two of them. There's two of them. Uh,
- 1:38:57Speaker 1: I guess I'll match you there. I feel like ice.
- 1:38:59Speaker 1: I see why some of the camp here, isolated moments
- 1:39:04Speaker 1: are reclaimed. And I also had a lot of fun
- 1:39:06Speaker 1: and really appreciated that. Also, you know, there's I don't
- 1:39:12Speaker 1: think I have anything new to new to add. I
- 1:39:14Speaker 1: think that I'm gonna meet you at one and I'm
- 1:39:17Speaker 1: going to give my nipple to um Hazel because she
- 1:39:23Speaker 1: should have had more lines or lines true, Sarah, I
- 1:39:28Speaker 1: am also going to give it one nipple, and I'm
- 1:39:31Speaker 1: going to give it to Sharon Stone, so now she
- 1:39:33Speaker 1: has three nipples. And yeah, because I think she's just great.
- 1:39:39Speaker 1: And at this point, I've seen this movie enough times
- 1:39:41Speaker 1: that I can guess kind of enjoy the idea of
- 1:39:43Speaker 1: this like freewheeling murderer who likes to go around announcing
- 1:39:48Speaker 1: herself as a murderer to men who just continually are like, what, no,
- 1:39:53Speaker 1: I don't, I don't. I'll be fine. I'm different. And
- 1:39:57Speaker 1: how that just is what she does for a hobby apparent.
- 1:40:00Speaker 1: I think that's interesting. I love that for her. I know,
- 1:40:04Speaker 1: I'm like, you have a hundred ten million dollars, We've
- 1:40:07Speaker 1: got to find another place for you to put this energy. Girl,
- 1:40:11Speaker 1: Like there's she could be doing so much like a magazine.
- 1:40:15Speaker 1: I was kind of hoping I wasn't able to find one,
- 1:40:17Speaker 1: but you know how like sometimes when there's like a
- 1:40:19Speaker 1: famous writer in a like oh, Gone Girl is a
- 1:40:22Speaker 1: good example, the fake book and Gone Girl was a
- 1:40:25Speaker 1: real book that was sold like amazing amy, And I
- 1:40:28Speaker 1: was hoping that Catherine's books, like the fake novelizations of
- 1:40:33Speaker 1: the Katherine Trammel books were somewhere, but I wasn't able
- 1:40:35Speaker 1: to find them. That would have been amazing. It's not
- 1:40:38Speaker 1: too late to hire one of us two ghost right then? Well, yeah,
- 1:40:41Speaker 1: I know my next project. Well, Sarah, thank you so
- 1:40:46Speaker 1: much for joining us, Thank you so much, Thank you
- 1:40:49Speaker 1: for exploring this. This is strange, beast, this is really fun.
- 1:40:57Speaker 1: Thank you for bringing us this movie. I'm glad that
- 1:41:00Speaker 1: we talked about it. And you know, hopefully if you
- 1:41:04Speaker 1: are a listener watching this movie, you're just as confused
- 1:41:08Speaker 1: as we are. Uh, Sarah, Where can people check out
- 1:41:13Speaker 1: your stuff? Follow you on social media? Plug away, you
- 1:41:17Speaker 1: can hear me and You're wrong about and you can
- 1:41:20Speaker 1: also hear me on You Are Good and other podcasts
- 1:41:25Speaker 1: from time to time. And I'm trying to not use
- 1:41:30Speaker 1: social media so much, so I find me there if
- 1:41:34Speaker 1: you must, but I shan't encourage you. Perfect. You can
- 1:41:40Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter and Instagram, which you know what,
- 1:41:46Speaker 1: I'd encourage it, but you don't have to do whatever
- 1:41:49Speaker 1: you want. Sometimes we get stressed out and we don't
- 1:41:51Speaker 1: check it, so I don't get mad if we don't
- 1:41:53Speaker 1: reply right away, right, But yeah, you can follow us
- 1:41:57Speaker 1: there at Bechtel cast. You can also subscribe to our
- 1:42:00Speaker 1: We would definitely encourage this. Subscribing to our Matreon at
- 1:42:06Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash backtel Cast. It gets you too
- 1:42:09Speaker 1: bonus episodes every month plus access to the whole back
- 1:42:13Speaker 1: catalog of bonuses, and it is five dollars per month.
- 1:42:17Speaker 1: And you can also get merch at t public dot
- 1:42:20Speaker 1: com slash the PacTel Cast if that's something that you
- 1:42:23Speaker 1: are in the mood to do. And with that, I
- 1:42:30Speaker 1: want to say, wait, what is that line again? I
- 1:42:33Speaker 1: the my favorite line in the movie that Magnicum Laude pussy, Yes,
- 1:42:38Speaker 1: Friday up your brain. Let's um, let's take our Magnicum
- 1:42:42Speaker 1: Laude Pussy's out of Bye bye bye