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Transcript

Challengers with Princess Weekes · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zeph and Best
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: start changing with the Bechdel.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Cast, Game Match Point, Love Tennis podcast, fucking touching fingers, Oh,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: sweaty hugs.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: What do you think Tashi majored in? I was wondering
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: that what did Tashi major in? Because okay, sorry for
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: just starting the episode. I just I can't stop thinking
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: about what was Tashi majoring in. Was it genuinely an
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: athlete style journey where she was doing general studies? Or
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: my guess, I feel like Tashi is she a woman
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: in stem? Is she?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I think she was a psych major?
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: I was gonna guess anthropology, Okay, something like that. I
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: don't know. Well, wait, let's start the episode. Okay, this
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: is I I have true clearly cannot wait to start
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: talking about challengers. Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name's
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Jamie Loftus.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Deonte. This is our show where
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point, Jamie, what
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the heck is that test? Well?
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: The Bechtel test is a media metric created by friend
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: of the show queer icon Alison Bechdel, originally for her
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: comic collections to watch out for Our way back in
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: the eighties as a one off joke, as a way
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: of discussing something that is relevant to our conversation today,
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: why there was not more queer women depicted in movies,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: and has since been you know, sort of transformed into
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: a more generalized media metric. So our version of the
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: test is it requires that two characters of a marginalized
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: gender with names speak to each other about something other
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: than a man for more than two lines of dialogue,
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: and the dialogue should mean something.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: We think so, we think so, and.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: What that means to you? Look, we only have one life.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: I once had the dog in me to argue about
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: the pedantics of the Bechdel Test, But frankly, we've got
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: bigger fish to fry today because we have.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Got bigger balls to hit with a racket, We've got
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: bigger tennis balls to hit.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I will say I watched Challengers with my dog bravely,
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: and he was locked in and I was like, Wow,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: he doesn't usually sit for movies, and it's because there's
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: tennis balls everywhere. I was, literally honest, like, why is
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Sunny so into this movie? And it's because there's tennis
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: balls in almost every scene and that's his past a dog.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: He is a dog.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Wow, makes so much sense.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: But yes, we have an incredible returning guest, so let's
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: get her in here.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: Oh.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, she's a video essayist. You remember her from our
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: episodes on Wild Things, Space Jam Gone Girl. It's Princess Weeks.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Hi.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: Everyone, I'm so happy to be back. And I think
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: Tashi was a marketing major.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because we do see her do marketing me.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally makes sense. I do feel like Tashi was
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: taking college. Seriously, we just didn't get to see it
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: happening exactly.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: The movie was not interested in that. It was like,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: what if she is a tennis dom Yes, and that's
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: what the movie's about.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Thank god, And that is a compelling question.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Princess, tell us what your relationship with this
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: movie is.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: Wow. I mean I just was so excited to see
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: Zendaya in a movie that had nothing to do with
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: anyone from Euphoria. That was initially the big draw, and
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: I grew up loving tennis. You know, I think every woman,
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: but especially every black girl grew up just loving the
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: Savina and Venus Williams, and so I have a lot
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: of just love for watching you know, black women in tennis,
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: and then you know the hint of bisexual men. It's
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: a siren song that'll get me every time. We didn't
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: know we were gonna have heated rivalry. So I was
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: just very much invested in, like, finally, after this sexless
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: drought that we were dealing with, with contemporary films that
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: actually have something that was erotic and interesting and like
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: for adults specifically, And so it just was this moment
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: of like, oh my god, an adult movie starring Zenda
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: that got pushed back during the pandemic. We're here, We're
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: back cinemas. Yeah.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: I feel like Challengers walked so that heated rivalry could run.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: It's true. It's true. Yeah, Challengers could kiss, so heated
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: rivalry could absolutely raw.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: Fuck Thank god for that.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Jamie, what about you? What's your relationship with Challengers?
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: I really like it. I really like it. I saw
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: it in theaters in Boston when it first came out.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Which was kind of fun because a lot of this
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: movie is shot in Boston. Yeah, this was a movie
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: that from the second I saw the trailer, which I'm
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: very excited to talk about, and I was reminded of
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: because of Princess's wonderful video essay about Challengers and about
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: Tashi Duncan.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: She's and yours sort.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: Of like is she?
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: But from the second I saw the trailer, I was like, Oh,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: this is I'm in. I'm a horny. This was a
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: trip where I think I saw both Love Lives Bleeding
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: and Challengers.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: Oh wow, which are That's a horny day.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: It was a horny, horny time for me. I was
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: looking to escape and there were horny movies out. It
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: was great. And I feel like these two movies are
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: weirdly in conversation with each other in a way I'm
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: excited to talk about. Anyways, I love Challengers. We'll be
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: talking about it critically today.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: But man, I turned this movie.
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: On and I've blackout.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: I'm fucked up.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: I get horny. And that shot of Zendia watching the
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: boys kiss oh really goals a generational a generational image.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: I'm very excited to talk about it.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: Also, I didn't know shit about tennis really outside of
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: watching Venus and Serena growing up until like two days
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: ago when I started getting ready for this episode, also
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: thanks in part to Princess's video, So I'm very excited
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: to live, laugh, Learn, Kitlin, what about you.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I also saw this movie in theaters in Oxford, England,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: because I was there during the Shrektannic tour that Jamie
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: you tragically were not able to join me for.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: I was in Boston witnessing death and seeing Horney movies
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: and see and those are sort of the two things
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: I was doing at that time, the.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Spectrum of life exactly, and so I just had sort
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: of like a free day that I didn't really have
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: anything else going on, and everyone was talking about Challengers.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: So I went to go see it and I enjoyed
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: it a lot. I love the soundtrack, the score like
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: the music does a lot. I remember thinking that it
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: ended too abruptly and I wanted I kind of wish
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: the movie had the guts to like put them into
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: a throttle at the end or something, and I'll talk
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: more about that, but overall, I enjoyed it. This is
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: one of those movies where so sometimes when we watch
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: a movie for this podcast, and I'm prepping, and after
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: my first watch, I have pages and pages of notes
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: because it's such a cut and dry, like problematic things
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: that are very clear, and I have a lot to
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: say that is like exactly what you would expect us
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: to say on the podcast. And then there were other
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: movies where I've done my first watch and I'm like,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know what to make of this.
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: That's how you know he got a good one on
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: our hand?
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And this was this movie. And then so I
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: had that experience where I watched the whole movie and
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: then I looked at my notes and I had not
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: written a single thing down. And I was like, oh, no,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: you were too horny. I was too horny. You're shaking
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: vibrating with horniness. And then I went out last night
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: with a friend. We got some drinks, we danced. I
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: haven't danced in ages, and I forgot how to fun
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: dancing is Wait, where'd you go this bar in? I
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: think I was in Cypr's park called Footsies.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Oh Footsies is so fun.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. I came home. I was tipsy. I was like,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: I know exactly what I'm gonna say now, it was
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: just I just had to kind of loosen up, I think,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: and now I have so many thoughts.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: So this is a fascinating, Like you can watch this
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: movie with your brain fully on or your brain fully off,
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: and I feel like it's a good experience either way.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's here's the hilarious thing. I was gonna say,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: it's kind of you know, this movie is challenging. I
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: was to discuss I was challenged. I felt challenged by
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: this one.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: And I also like the deep lore of this movie
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: is so fascinating in a very parasocial way. I'm so
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: curious about Selene's Song and Justin Kuritzky's as a couple,
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Like what is going on with those two? Because this
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: is Justin Kurskis, who wrote this script, has been married
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: to it is I think most famously Selene Song's husband,
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: as it should be. But he's a great writer as well,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: and he is like sort of we're led. I think
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: like he's he's kind of portrayed in Past Lives as
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: the writer of Boner. Remember yeah, the husband in Past
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: Lives writes a book called Boner. Justin Kritzky's also wrote
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: a novel. So I think you know, one plus one
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: often equals too equals too.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: I mean we see a Boner in Challengers boner representation.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: And you're like, okay, yeah, genuinely Boner was on his
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: mind exactly at this time.
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: It's giving bisexual and I and I say that as
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: a bisexual. I'm like, there's something just very like because
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: he also wrote queer, I believe, right, and so there's
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: just something kind of algebras a quah about his work
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: that I'm very like intrigued ry and I'm like, tell
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: me more.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Me too, Yeah, I just I'm very I don't know.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: There's few marriages that I'm I want to know more about,
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: quite honestly, but this is one of them. Also, he was,
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: did either of you I remember watching this in like
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: high school or college.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: The Potion Sellar video. What what is that? What is that?
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: It's like it's a very like lo Res viral video
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: from twenty eleven. It's so silly and it's justin Kurtzky,
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: he like went viral in twenty eleven for being wait.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: I do think you should both watch it.
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: It makes me love it.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: So it's literally it's so twenty eleven that it's a
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: joke that is based on a filter on photo booth.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: Oh oh, photo booth. I kept so many nudes in there.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: Oh oh, yes, I used to love this video. It's
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: so old that he wrote challenges.
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: You know what. This is why we say that, like
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: men's rights do matter, because imagine a while. Every once
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: in a while you need a man who can just
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: do something like this for you.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: It's true, it's true.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: I love that we have more subscribers than him, though
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: that's also reassuring, very true.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: One day anyway, So should we take a break and
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: then come back for the recap? Let's do it. Okay,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: So here's the recap. We are in New Rochelle, New York.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: Ever heard of it? I hadn't.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: I had because someone who I dated in college briefly
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: was from there. Also, speaking of okay, I forgot the
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: other part of my history with challengers. With tennis. I
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: bought a tennis racket my freshman year of college because
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: I was like, I'm going to get into tennis. I
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: took a few lessons from a sophomore student who was
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: on the men's tennis team. I took a couple lessons,
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: and I was like I'm not good at this. I
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: like it, but I'm not sure if this is the
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: sport for me, because if I'm not automatically great at something,
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I immediately quit me too. But I kind of kept
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: taking lessons with him because I thought he was very hot.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Kitlyn, you have a pattern of doing this.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not wrong.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: You're a bit of a challenger yourself.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of a challenger in this way.
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And then I eventually was like, uh, I'm busy, I
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: can't anymore. Flash forward to four years later, I see
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: this guy at a bar and I was like, oh, hey,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: remember me. I took tennis lessons from you, and he's like, yeah,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I remember, And I was like should we kiss or something?
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: And then and then I started a torrid affair with
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: this man. And when I say that, I mean we
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: had really bad sex because he was really bad at
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: sex a couple of times. And then I was like, wow,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I also quit this because this time, this time, you're
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: the one who's bad at the thing, and I'm out
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: of here. And so that's my hero Tennis.
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: Thank you for many reasons, But I just find that
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: that's very tashy duncan of you.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: I feel like Hashi Duncan does not have time for
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: someone who well, actually, I don't know. Do do we
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: think our Donaldson is good at sex?
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: I think so.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I feel like he's a tender lover.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: I think he's a giver. I think he's definitely a giver.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: He can find the clip, but he finds it so
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: quickly that the appeal gets lost, you know, because she
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: likes the challenge. Yeah, exactly, Yes.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: It was really it was really interesting like watching this
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: movie not just to get horny, but to really pay
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: attention to the relationship dynamics because I think, like, Mike
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: is it Mike Feist? Feist?
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Is that how we say it? Fist.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: I feel like his performance was talked about the least
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: and I understand why, but I think he's really cooking
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: in this he is. He plays he plays the cock
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: very well.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: I find his relationship dynamic with Tashi very compelling and
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: again goals because I want to be a domb to
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: a man.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: Sub Yeah, as my friend Sidy would say, all blonde
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: men should be submissive. And he has like perfect bottom face,
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: like it's just like it's just like you look at it,
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: your like absolutely, it's the big eyes his open face,
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: but he's like very masculine still, but there's this like
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: tenderness where it's like, yes, open.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: He's kind of like a diabolical bottom too, because he's
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: always like best kind, he's scheming. I kind of Yeah,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: I was so taken in by the Patrick of it all,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: which is always the case. You get taken in by
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: the Patrick, and then, like Tashi, you dump him.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: You come for the Patrick, you stay for the art.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but then you get bored of art, you know,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: it's like it's it is, and then you maybe start
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: dating women. And that's maybe Tashi's story. We don't know.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: We don't know. We just know that at the end,
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: she's still blue baled. She's like, when are these men
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: gonna play real tennis? Yeah, they're hugging like losers. She
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: does not care about their relationship being resolved. She's like,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: play tennis. I love her.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Okay. So we're in New Rochelle right right, it's twenty nineteen.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: We are at a tennis competition sponsored by Phil's Tired Tone.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: It's so random that we're in twenty nineteen, by the way,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: like it is a period piece by way of like
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: three years. It's weird, but I thought it was kind
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: of fun.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: I think it's just so that they could do hot
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: in here in the flashback. That's the only that's the
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: only reasoning I could find.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: And that's worth it.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: That's worth it.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: Apparently that's not the song that was playing and the
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: scene happened because everyone was like, why isn't Day of
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: Dancing so like off beat offat high here? And then
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: she was like, it wasn't me, guys. Apparently, like when
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: they were filming, it was like a Bowie song or
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: something melodic and dreamy, and then they just put in
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: hot in air and close, so sday I can dance, guys,
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: don't let them fool you.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: I love movie. Wow, that's great movie magic. Anyway, So
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: there it fills tire Town Challenger, and I will mention
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Phil's tire Town one hundred times throughout this throughout this
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: recap because we keep cutting back to this match. Anyway,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: we meet Patrick Zwag played by Josh O'Connor and Art
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: Donaldson played by Mike fight story however you se it, yeah,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: who play each other in a series of matches and
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: watching them in the stands is Tashi Donaldson formerly Tashi
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Duncan played by Zenda, who is married to Art, and
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: then both men look at Tashi meaningfully and we're like, hmm,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: what's that all about? This movie?
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Is the male gaze is back and it's in the
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: movie Challengers.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we are seeing men.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Gaze and not respectfully, but I'm into it.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: I don't I kind of don't mind it. We also
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: see tennis ball gaze. We are seeing things from the
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: point of view of a tennis ball. At one point,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Trying to track that because I do think that we
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: generally see Tashi play tennis from the male gaze, but
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: we do see the guys play tennis from the female gaze.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: It's not like it's exclusively the male gaze. And then
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: occasionally we switch to the tennis balls gaze, which I
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: had never even considered.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: It's the pan sexual gaze. Everyone is getting their own
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: vision of like what makes them horny, and the tennis
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: ball just wants to be held, you know, it wants
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: to be at the center of the passion.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: That's where my cocker Spaniel really locked in. He's like, yeah,
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: what about the tennis ball.
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: Finally, someone talking about the main character.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: A protagonist of challengers the tennis ball. Okay, Then we
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: cut to two weeks earlier. We learn more about Art
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: and Tashi. Tashi is a former tennis champ but had
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: to retire and end her career early after a knee injury.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: She is now Art's like coach slash manager. They also
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: have a daughter together who loves into the Spider verse,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: so you know she has great taste.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: I love that was a great child representation.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, we see Art play a match and lose. He
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: is apparently rusty after recovering from a recent injury. Tashi
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: tells him to get his shit together and start winning,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: which is why she suggests that he plays something that
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: he's sure to win, such as this Phil's Tired Town challenger.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: And I don't exactly know enough about tennis to know
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: specifically what a challenger is or what the parameters of
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: it are.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: My understanding, because I really tried to understand tennis for this,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: and I did. I stayed up late last night watching
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: one of many Venus and Serena docs, and I don't know.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: I just like anyway, I was trying to get caught up.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: A challenger I think is like a low rung pro match.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: But like harder to be a lower rung. It's kind
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: of JV but it's still technically pro tennis.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: And is it the type of thing that, depending on
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: how you rank in it, it can like qualify you
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: for one of these US open kind of things.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because Patrick says that on his very depressing date
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: that poor woman, I know, but yeah, we're I think
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: he's saying that, like this is something that could, you know,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: if you perform well, it could sort of get you
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: into one of those top one hundred and twenty whatever spots.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So then we cut to Patrick Zwag who
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: is trying to get a room at a hotel so
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: that he can rest before this tire Town Match Challenger
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: thing that he is also playing and it starts the
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: following day, but he's completely broke and he can't afford
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: to pay for the room, so he sleeps in his car.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: He's hoping to win the Challenger because the winner gets
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: seven thousand dollars, so he's in kind of dire straits,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: although we learn later that he comes from a very
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: well to do family, and it seems like he could
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: ask his family for money and then he just chooses
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: not to, so One of the most frustrating personality types
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: is rich guy. Cosplaying as poor guy is exhausting.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: And it's like it's like pure early hobosexual representation. It's
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: just like, how does he where does he live? Underneath people?
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: That's how he like kind of a guy. I feel
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: like I met a lot of guys like this in college.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: A guy that you are like, oh wow, I feel
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: like I have stuff in common with him, and then
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: later you see what his family is like, and you're like,
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: I cannot believe I've lent this person money. He's really frustrating,
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: which of course means that he's probably great at sex.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. Also, I just love Josh O'Connor, Like, I know,
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: hot man, hot politics, hot girlfriend.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Like yes, wait, what's her? I just saw her out
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: the Saving Grace of Wuthering Eye.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, she's so they're so good together, Irish love. And
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: I'm just like, that's a third I would be in between.
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: It's just like, I will, I'll sign up for that
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: challenger events.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's your challenger.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: So Patrick checks in for this tournament, where by the way,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: there is Duncan Donuts representation because the woman that he
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: checks in with is eating a Dunk's egg and cheese
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: and bagel sandwich.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: I was doing the same thing just this morning.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: I was like, yes, we're so.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: Wow is what the culture is feeling, you know.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Dunce is back. Yeah. Then we flash back to thirteen
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: years prior. Patrick and Art are eighteen years old. I
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: think they're best friends. They are playing doubles tennis together
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: at the Junior US Open. They win their match, and
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: then they watch Tashi Duncan play. They do not yet
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: know her, but they know of her and they're like
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: hubba hubba a wooga, both at how attractive she is
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: and also her amazing tennis skills. Because she is a champ.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: They spot her at a party that night where she
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: is dancing offbeat too hot in here. They sprint up
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: to her. It is comical how they just rush her
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: and they're like, hey, what's up? Where Art and Patrick?
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: They also humiliatingly call themselves fire and Ice when they're
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: I know, I do feel like they capture a beautiful
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: like men being embarrassing together like as teenagers. It's really
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: captured Fire and Ice. And she's like, so, who's who
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: and they're.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: Like yeah, It's like it's one of those things where
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: it's like there are moments for like, I am attracted
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: to men, and it just it's like it was one
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: of those moments where it's kind of like as painful
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: as it is, I'm so I would be so lost.
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: I would be like this would work on me. And
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: I hate that.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: I mean especially the moment where yeah, I was like, wow,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: I've pit alone in this cabin for too long, where
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: clearly like they're just gonna wait for her as long
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: as they need to for her to pay attention to them,
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: and it seems like they wait for hours hours, and
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: it is just like God being on the receiving end
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: of that. Even if you're like not particularly attracted to
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: the person doing it, it can just be like I'm
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: so powerful, this rocks now go away, Oh so beautiful.
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: It's like it's one of those things where like I'm like,
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: I love this. I just love I just love her power.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: I love yeah, just.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: The way that she like sits in her own will.
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: And I think that's what makes Tashi such an interesting character.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: And I think just from like a character's standpoint, it's
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: such an interesting thing for Zendeia to do because I
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: think that this is something that her career really needed,
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: because she was going in that space where she's been
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: paying like young adults and like teenagers for such a
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: long period of time, even though she isn't like she
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: is thirty, and it felt like her first truly adult role.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: And I just want her to find her Ryan Kugler
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: or her Naya da Costa who will like really take
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: all of her acting potential and start curating movies around
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: her for that potential, which I think this movie really
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: well does.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, I'm very excited for the drama for that reason.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: I'm like very curious if that utilizes her the way
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: she deserves to be utilized.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: Is that the one that she's in with Robert Pattinson?
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, which as soon as I saw that casting,
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: I was like inspired, especially because especially because now you know,
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: Tom Holland is now Tom Zendaya and like locking her
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: down as you should, and that's he's got that art
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: energy in real life, Oh for sure. Yeah, and we're
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: rooting for it.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: He really does. Yeah, It's just I love their relationship.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: I love that I know basically nothing about it, and
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: I love they're seeing like little bits and pieces of
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: her and Robert Pattinson in conversation with each other. Is
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: so funny because she is like so clearly the adult
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: in the room in spite of the fact that he's
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: I think, like ten years older than her. Where she's
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: just she's so poised. I love her.
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: She's amazing. Actually I think she's older than him.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: No, the same age, No, the same age really with
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: her and Tom Holland, I was talking about Robert Pattinson.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: Oh, Robert Pattinson.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, Oh my god, sorry, Robert Pattinson's like forty yes, yeah,
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: oh my gosh. He's really close to your age. He's
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: born on May thirteenth.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. We always figure this out. I always look,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: this has happened on the podcast several times. I find
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: out his birthdays right next to mine and that we're
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: the same age.
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: I love that. Well, he's gen z emotionally, so that's why.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Yes, right right, right, right right.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Okay. So they're at this party. They wait for her
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: because their conversation gets cut short. They're desperate to talk
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: to her, so they stick around. They invite her to
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: hang out. She agrees. They talk about tennis, and she's
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: basically like, you guys are not tennis players. You think
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: you are but you're not. Tennis is a relationship and
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: that's not what you're doing when you're playing. And then
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: they're like, by the way, we both want your number,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: and we also want you to come to our hotel
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: room later tonight, and she's like, yeah, okay, but she
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: does show up then, Yeah.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: Such a great sequence that, like you see everyone's perspective
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: in this where they're like, she's not coming, and then
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: there's a knock on the door and I think Mike
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: does a flip over.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Himself, yeah, to get you some resaults off the bed.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: But the underrated part of that sequence is when you
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: see Zendia hearing all of this happening and like laughing
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: from behind the door and then pulling it together in
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: time for the door to open.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: It's so good cinema, so powerful.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: I just I just love how thirsty they are for
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: her the entire time. It's just like it's just like, yes,
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: actually you should be thirsty for her.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: One of the hottest people ever to be alive.
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: And just cool. Like I think also what makes the
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Tashi character work is that Zandia is cool. Like Zendeia
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: has like that quality of her that makes her seem
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: intense and then also just like high glamots like, yes,
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: this totally makes sense.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: An icon, Yeah, it's true. Okay. So she's in their
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: hotel room. They're kind of flirting. She asks if they've
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: ever hooked up with each other, and they're like, well, no,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: but no, we learned that Patrick taught Art how to
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: jerk off.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Okay, so we have the top bottom established, got it,
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: got it, got it?
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: Just just boys being boys, you know.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: Yep, I love being a teenager who does not yet
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: realize you're bisexual. You're just like, no, that was just
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: like a weird thing that happened.
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: Was I just taught my homeboy how to jerk off,
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: Like someone has to do it, right, So.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: I was like no, me and my best friend would
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: just practice kissing to Madonna's American Life, Like it's just
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: sort of like so we would know how to kiss
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: when boys wanted to kiss us.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: We just trying to keep warm in the wintertime, and
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: you keep warm by snuggling and making out like obviously obvious.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Just girls being girls, Yes, Okay. So then Tashi sits
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: on the bed and beckons for them to join her,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: and they leap at the opportunity. She kisses Art, then Patrick,
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: then back to Art and back and forth, and then
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: there's a three way kiss which she backs away from.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: So now it's just Art and Patrick making out and
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: she's loving this again. The look on her face, Oh oh,
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: it's gorgeous. It's just beautiful.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: And I did not know so that is not in
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: the original script written by the potion Master. The potion
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Master himself, the Passion Master himself. This was insisted upon
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: by queer icon Luca Guadnina, who said, who had a
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: very Italian way of describing why this needed to happen.
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: This is from an interview with the potion Master. Luca
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: felt it was very important that in any love triangle
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: all the corners touch, and I quickly realized.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: He meant it literally.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, that's so Italian, that's beautiful.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: Let him remake the Twilight movies.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Let the tips touch, is what Luca said.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So they're making out and Tashi is loving it,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: and then she goes to leave and they're like, well,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: what about your number? And she says, whoever wins the
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: match they're competing against each other in the following day
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: will get.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: Her number, because at the end of the day, what
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Tashi Duncan wants to have sex with is Tennis's tennis. Yes,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: and that is why she can never fully be satisfied
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: and it is an incredible it's so cool.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, Then we cut to their match. They are both
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: desperate to win so as to get Tashi's number, but
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: before we know the result, we cut back to Phil's
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: tire Toalne Challenger. Although it's a few days before the
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: match where Patrick and Art each other. Patrick is on
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Tinder swiping right on everyone because we learn that he
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: needs a place to sleep. That night, he gets a
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: match and goes on a date. He surprise kisses this date,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: and I do not like the way that is handled.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: But at the bar he sees Tashi and she's like,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: what the fuck are you doing here, so we learn
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: that oops, they're not on good terms. We flash back
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: to thirteen years prior after the one on one match,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: which apparently Patrick won, because now Art is prying for
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: details about whether or not Patrick and Tashi have had sex,
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: and Art says, if you do serve the ball like
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: I do, because he has this specific serving habit, and
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: if they didn't have sex, Patrick should just serve it
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: like himself because the whole thing here is Tashi was like,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: I don't tell anyone that we're fucking because I'm embarrassed
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: to do what seems Yeah, I do.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: Think it's kind of funny that she does seem to
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: be like a deal is a deal. I guess you're
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: my boyfriend now, Like, well, you didn't have to honor that,
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: but you.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Did date the fuck boy first. She well, she I
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: think she uses men to vicariously have sex with them
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: so that she can feel like she's having sex with
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: tennis with tennis. So she keeps Patrick around.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: And this is where Tashi Duncan and my Sonny have
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: a lot in common in that way. Yeah, you can't
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: just have sex with a tennis ball, so you have
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: to figure out how else can you satisfy exactly.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to find a human conduit by which
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: you can have sex with tennis. And that's what Tashi
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: is doing the whole movie. Okay, then Patrick serves it
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: like Art serves the ball, indicating that Patrick and Tashi
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: did indeed have sex, and Art is jealous.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: No, he's fine, He's fine, that's this whole thing. He's like,
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: that's fine. Actually, he's so like clenched spiritually.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. Then it is twelve years prior to the present,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: so it's like a year after the boys have met Tashi.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: Tashi and Art are both at Stanford on tennis scholarships.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: It seems they're pals, though Tashi and Patrick are still dating,
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: much to Art's dismay because it's clear that he is
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: absolutely in love with her. Then Patrick comes to campus
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: to visit Tashi, but first he's hanging out with Art.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: They're sitting very close to each other eating churros parentheses phallic. Yeah,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: they're they're not.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: You know, it's not subtext, it's just text text. Anytime
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: these guys are eating there, it's it's a full dick.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Oh it's bananas. Oh, it's true's I'm surprised they don't
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: eat a hot dog.
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: And they take a bite out of each other, like
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: like that's love, that's that's an indirect kiss.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's them making out again. Basically, Patrick senses that
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Art is still into Tashi and that he's trying to
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: get in between them and like kind of break them up.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: And Patrick is like.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: He's kind of like turned on by this.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: He's like he's like, honestly, this is hot and it's
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: making you a better tennis player. Tashi is also turned
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: on sexually and athletically by this love triangle situation. There's
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: a scene where she's trying to coach Patrick, who seems
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: to have just like I don't think he's in college.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I think he went straight to pro. And then we
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: start to see this the beginning of this sort of
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: like domb sub dynamic that she's projecting, where she is
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: the dom and she wants to coach men, tell them
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: what to do, tell them how to play tennis, and
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: she wants a submissive man to be receptive to that.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Trouble is, Patrick is not into it, so they argue
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: and then he leaves. Tashi goes to her match, where
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: she's playing great until this is when she very badly
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: injures her knee and Art, who is at the match,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: runs to her side. Patrick shows up once he has
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: heard what happened, but Tashi and Art send him packing,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: and now it's Tashi and Art together.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: It's so interesting how like, I don't know on this
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: rewatch there whatever in this specific way that like someone
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: who knows you as you're growing up can just clock
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: you and clock your intentions in ways that people you
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: meet as an adult kind of can't no matter how
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: close you are to them. Patrick, while a huge asshole,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: is really good at knowing what people are up to and.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Just saying it.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: Because what he says to Art a few scenes earlier
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: of like, I know, it's like not your style to
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: just make a move. You're just gonna hang out in
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: the sidelines until I fuck up, and then you're gonna
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: swoop in, which is exactly what happens.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: This third eye is so open. It's like he's like
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: he's like he only uses it for evil, evil and sex.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: That's it's like, I can do two things, three things
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: really well, and none of them are constructive to my
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: men's wealth.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: Right, But like he he at different points, like especially
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: with Art, because they're you know, the boner boys from boarding.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: School or whatever. The Jerkoff Brothers.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the Jerkoff Brothers, disgusting brothers. They're the disgusting brothers. Farness,
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: they're the disgusting brothers. But with Tashi too, like he
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: much later in the movie pretty much states the state
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: of her marriage after witnessing it for like twelve seconds,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, well, you're not wrong.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: It's all true.
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: And that's the worst part. There's nothing worse than your
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: ex being right about your life. You're like, shut up,
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: you don't know me, hot dog man.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Meanwhile, meanwhile, sometimes you get clocked.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: You get clocked by the hot dog man.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Then we get another quick glimpse of the Phil's
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: tire Town match between Art and Patrick, because the movie
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: again keeps periodically cutting back to this. Then we flash
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: back to the aftermath of Tashi's injury. She is recovering,
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: she's practicing with Art, but her game is not what
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: it used to be. It's pretty clear that her tennis
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: career is over, as is her relationship with Patrick, and
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: again Art is there to console her. Then we to
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: three years after that. Tashi is now coaching tennis. Art
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: is a rising star. He suggests she be his assistant
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: coach and she's like, well, what about how you're in
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: love with me? And he's like, TIHI, I don't know.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Also, this all happens at an Applebee's, which is great.
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: Yes, we love the representation of the working classes, like.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: We sure do. And then he's like, hey, what if
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: we kiss? And she responds by going and they're making out.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Then we cut back to tire Town timeline. A little after,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Tashi and Patrick have run into each other and he
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: approaches her to be like, will you be my coach?
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: And she says, okay, here's my coaching. Quit tennis, you bitch.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: And they talk a little bit about her relateationship with Art,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: how she clearly resents him, and then Patrick asks if
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Art knows about Atlanta and we're like, hmm, what happened there?
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: We flash back to eight years prior in Atlanta, where
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Art and Tashi are because he's competing in the Atlanta Open,
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: as is Patrick. And during the tournament, Patrick runs into
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: Tashi late at night when she's having a drink at
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: a bar.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: And he's also wearing her shirt because it's a shirt
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: she is wearing in college that he's clearly hung onto,
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: the shirt that says I told you, oh wow, shows
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: up at the hotel wearing on her shirt and you're like, oh,
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: he's such a slug. Yeah, he really is. He's really
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: testing the boundaries. I love him. He's so easy, Like
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: the fuck, I hate him, love it, I hate him,
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: but I love him.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: Oh God, I'm so powerful.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: They start kissing, and then a little later Art sees
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: the two of them, not while they're kissing, but they're
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: like close and cozy. He gets distracted for a moment
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: and when he looks back, they are gone. It seems
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: like they've left together. And I believe the implication is
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: they go to have sex with each other.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and Art pretends he does not see it. He's
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: that's kind of his mode.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: He's like my femdom wife or I think fiance at
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: this point can do whatever she wants and I can't
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: say a damn thing about it.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: And it's true, you really can't.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: That's the arrangement.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: You get what you pay for.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: We cut back to the night before the Art Patrick
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: match at the tire Town Challenger. Art tells Tashi that
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: he wants to quit tennis soon, that he's tired and
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: worn out, but he also wants thealidation one way or
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: another from Tashi, because again, that's his whole thing, constantly
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: seeking validation from her. He's like, hold me until I
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: fall asleep, mommy.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: And she does kind of the opposite of that.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: She does for a little bit, but this makes her
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: absolutely despondent. So after Art falls asleep, she links up
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: with Patrick to tell him that she wants him to
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: lose tomorrow so that Art will have the confidence to
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: keep playing. And Patrick is like, fuck you, I'm pretty
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: sure you came here tonight to have sex with me,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: and she's like, no, I didn't. And then he's like, yes,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: you did, and she's like maybe. And then as they're
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: sort of arguing about this, and also she spits in
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: his face.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah. She also has like slapped him earlier this like
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: earlier in the day, like for the week. Everyone is
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: getting off on all of this.
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: It's so toxic.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. So she spits in his face. She storms away,
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: but then she turns back around and they start passionately
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: making out. They have sex in his car, and it
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: seems like the agreement is basically because she fucked him,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: he will agree to lose the following day to Art.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: We cut back to the end of the match. It
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: is neck and neck. It's unclear who will win. It's
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: unclear whether or not Patrick will honor this agreement. Patrick
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: is about to serve and then he does the callback
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: to the thing that we saw earlier in the movie,
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: which is that he serves the ball like Art does,
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: indicating that he and Tashi recently had sex.
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: Everyone in my theater gasped when this happened. It was
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: like a miseral line.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: And Art is shook to his very core. Yeah, Patrick
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: stars again. He wins the match, but there's one match left,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: a tiebreaker.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: I do love the Wikipedia summary for this. They say
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: during the tie break, Art and Patrick furiously trade ground strokes.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: And you're like, oh, yeah, okay, the strokes.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: The jerk off brothers strike again, you know when you're
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: you know, and the discussing brothers are furiously trading strokes.
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, they put they put a little dot
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: on each other's head to be like, I choose.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I I would describe it as them volleying back and forth.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: But what do I know.
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's a hornier way to say that. And
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: one and one disgusting Wikipedia user did sound.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: The way yeah, and I U. They're doing this. They're
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: getting closer and closer to each other, and eventually they're
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: so close that Art jumps up and then kind of
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: lands on Patrick and they're hugging. And then also Art
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: won the match. Just now because we cut to Tashi
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: and she's very, very happy, and that's how the movie ends.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: So let's take a quick break and we'll come back
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: to discuss.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: And we're back, and we're back, I mean hard to
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: beget princess guests choice, Where would you like to start?
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: Oh my god?
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: So we furiously trade ground strokes throughout this discussion.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: What is podcasting? What is a conversation if not.
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: But groundstroking over the air into your ears? You know.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: I think one thing I was thinking about in preparation
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: for this specific conversation. I know we'll get into, like
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: if it passes the Bechdel test later, but I wonder
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: what you guys feel about Tashi being often the sole
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: woman in the room aroung these two men, because I
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: feel like that in itself is like this interesting conversation
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: because she is arguably the most talented of the three
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: of them, but she's also the most marginalized, and that
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: really sort of plays into her relationship to both of them,
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: because she is sort of between these two white men,
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: who are, you know, gonna get more opportunities than her
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: no matter how talented she is, And then with her injury,
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: she kind of ends up having to almost lean on them.
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: It's like an interesting dynamic between her and the two boys.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: And I find that, besides the sexiness of it. I
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: find it just like narratively compelling.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, I feel like I And this was
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: something that I was like because I watched your video,
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: did a bunch of tennis research, and then rewatched Challengers
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: because I was trying to like take the horny gauze
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: off of my previous viewings of it. And you said
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: something in your video that really stuck with me, which
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: is that we really only see Tashi once that isn't
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: in a scene with one of the guys. This is
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: definitely not true for the guys. We see the guys
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: together alone a number of times, which is why I
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: think they are ultimately kind of the protagonists of the movie,
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: even though Tashi is the central figure. But the only
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: time I think that we see Tashi without one of
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: them is when she's alone on campus after she's been injured.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: The tree crying. Yeah, yes, that's.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: The only time we see her certainly alone, but also
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: like without one of the guys. That and like the
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: moment she gets back from having sex with Patrick. But
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: that's only a couple seconds really, And it's interesting because
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: it's it's I don't know, I she's such a compelling
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: figure and because the focus of the movie is so
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: on the triangle, we don't really get an idea of
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know like that. I think it comes through
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: in the performance who she is outside of this dynamic,
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: but we don't get to see very much of that.
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: Although I guess you could say the same for the guys,
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: but they have the pre existing relationship. I don't know. Yeah,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: but it really struck me that that is the only
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: time we see her by herself.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: It does make you wonder does she have any friends
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: who are women, any tennis players, like athletes who are
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: women that she is buds with. Makes you wonder what
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: she's like as a mother. We see a tiny, tiny
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: glimpse of it when they're talking about Spider verse, but
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: aside from that, we see very very little of her
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: interactions with her daughter. We see a few interactions with
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Tashi and her mother, who seems to be present in
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: the story because she is the caretaker of their daughter, right,
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: But yeah, we really don't see I mean, this movie
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: is just so hyper hyper focused on tennis and this
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: love triangles, the threuple situation or what should be a thruple,
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: and it just doesn't really dedicate any time to anything else,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, Like a lot
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: of stories are very hyper focused on a specific thing.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: But I feel like there was still room for giving
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: us a little bit more of a glimpse into like
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: what else, Like even if it just told us is
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: something something as simple as what was her major? Because
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: she even says like, I'm going to college because I
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: want to learn things and I want to take classes
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: and I don't want my only skill in life to
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: be hitting a ball with a racket. But then the
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: movie doesn't bother to tell us, well, what is she pursuing?
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: Well, I do think, so I'm so on the fence
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: about this, and I want to know what you think
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: about it, Princess, because it's like that's that is definitely true.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: And then I also kept like second guessing myself because
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: there is a lot we learn in passing and through
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: the performance, where like that line I don't want to
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: just only know how to hit a ball with a
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: racket is called back later when she's at the Apple
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: Bees with Art and she says, well, it turns out
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: all I know how to do is hit a ball
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: with a racket. And so it's like she does eventually
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: kind of resign herself to the idea. And I don't
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: think like unhappily, but like she is like that tennis
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: is the thing she cares about. It's not like she's
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: being forced to remain there. She wants to be there. Yeah,
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: I think that there's almost like a classic film quality
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: to the movie in a sense where like the actor
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: is giving backstory through their performance of it all. Yeah,
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: And I think that is effective. And I think also
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: if you know anything about women's tennis, there's a lot
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: of just sort of like a lot of things happening
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: up beneath the surface because the reality is that like
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: you don't really see a lot of women tennis friendships
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: that are like of the same generation. Like there usually
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: is like the older person is kind of like the
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: mentor figure and then the younger person's like the up
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: and comer, and that's the dynamic.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: Like I was thinking about how like Billy Jean King's
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: relationship with the Williams Sisters and like stuff like that. Yeah,
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: it's like more of like a mentor mentee kind of deal.
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like in the Williams Sisters with like you know,
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: Cocoa Golf, and like Maioi Osaka, it's like there isn't
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: a lot of like general like rivalry tends to be
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: the thing that gets the more attention than like and
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: ship heated rivalry, and so there's this aspect of in
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: a certain way, it makes sense that Tashi has no
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: female friends because everyone is her rival, because there is
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: no room to like, she doesn't have like a sister
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: to be her doubles partner, and she's not doing doubles,
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: so there is no space for her to be And
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: it's also just very white in general, and so there
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: isn't there's always going to be contrasting things happening, and
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: I think that is like the subtext of a lot
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: of Tashi's experience, and it's clear from reading interviews that
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: that is what they were bringing to that character. But
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: what I do think is always an interesting question and
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: not necessarily criticism, is like how much of that is
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: known can be absorbed by the audience that doesn't have
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: this background knowledge of this sport, right because.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: The movie doesn't delve into any of that explicitly. I mean,
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: I learned so much about it from your video where
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: you talk about like the context of a character like
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Tashi coming up in the era that she does as
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: a black woman tennis player in the wake of Serena
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: and Venus Williams before them Althea Gibson. But if you
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: don't already know that context, it's not like the movie
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: tells you any of it.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: So right, and it's like and it's hard because it's like,
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: I don't know, like I was having. It's part of
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: why this movie is so challenging because it's not like
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: the movie is giving you that context for men's tennis.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: It's not giving you any context. It's just throwing you
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: in and being like, so you've seen a tennis match, YadA, YadA,
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: it's a metaphor for sex. But but yeah, I feel
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: like with Tashi specifically because potion Master did say specifically
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: that he he wrote, you know, like this was not
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: written for a white woman, and was later you know like, oh, well,
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: Zenda is interested, so now Tashi Duncan is a black woman.
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: Tashi Duncan was always written as a black woman. I'm
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: going to quote Postmaster Harry said, Tashi was always a
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: black woman. Patrick was always a well to do Jewish guy,
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: and Art was always a somewhat well to do wasp,
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: and so these characters were very clearly specified in the
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: original script, and I think that that does again like
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: come through. But like you're saying, princess, I think primarily
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: in the performance, there's a few lines of dialogue that
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: could give you some insight into it that I think
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: you shouted out in your video as well. Of when
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: they're about to have the big awesome kissing scene, the
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: two guys are talking about how they were boarding school roommates,
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: and they're like, did you go to boarding school trying
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: to be like just rich kids hanging out? And she
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: was like, well, no, we couldn't afford it, and even
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: if we could have, my parents wouldn't have wanted me
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: in that environment. There's one offline where she's talking about
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: the girl she was playing tennis against when we first
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: see her, who she says pretty offhand, she's like, oh,
• 56:10
  Speaker 3: she's you know, don't feel bad for her. She's a
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: racist bitch.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: It's fine.
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: And like her character is.
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: Very both very specific and very left open to interpretation.
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: And I think that's interesting because it kind of reminds me,
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: in like an odd way of like Pacific rim and
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: how like when you have a woman of color in
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: a role that is not traditionally where we see women
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: of color. How then, does that change the way that
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: we operate in terms of like traditional feminist critical lens,
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: which while should be all encompassing, does tend to lean
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: towards white womanhood because I think if Tashi were a
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: white woman, we might be having different conversations about it,
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: but she isn't, and that's intentional, and that creates other
• 57:00
  Speaker 4: layers of conversation between everyone involved, which I just think
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: it is just inherently interesting, Like I think that it's
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: interesting to deal with the film that doesn't want to
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: tell you everything, but has so much in the background
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: of its intentionality that you can't help but want to
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: pull on more threads of it. So I don't think
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: if it is like a failing of Challengers, but I
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: do think it's something that I think got overlooked to
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: a certain degree, and that's why it got ignored when
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: it came to like a lot of awards stuff, because
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: it is a really rich film, but I feel like
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: people only saw the horniness and all of the kind
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: of like even within that holiness, any sort of like
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: commentary of like it's not as if Patrick is openly bisexual,
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: you know, like it's not as if he's flamboyant about
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: it and how that would impact his career and all
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: those other things are there, but they're not the main
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: focus in the way that the relationship.
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: Is absolutely yeah, like rewatching it with my hornygog off
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: and my context goggles on there. Again, it's just like
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: a passing moment with Patrick where he's on Tinder or
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: whatever app like swiping, and it's like people of all
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: genders are showing up, but he hesitates before swiping right
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: on a man. So it's like it just in a
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: gesture communicates like he is bisexual, but he still hasn't
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: like really come to terms with that. And then with Tashi,
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: one of the things that I really appreciated was left
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: open ended, and I'm curious what you both think about
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: it is that she is a mom who seems like
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: a caring mom, but her role as a mother is
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: not harped upon, and it seems like she is like
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: not her child's primary caretaker. And I didn't feel that
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: the movie was judging her for that. And I've very
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: rarely seen, you know, a central woman who has kids
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: that like motherhood isn't a main element of her character,
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: and this movie does not really prioritize that for either
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: of them. I mean, we see that, like clearly they
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: love their child, you know, Lily. I don't know what
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: kind of kid does Lily grow up to be growing
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: up in hotels with her grandma. I don't know, but
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: I appreciated that, you know, in a societal landscape that
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: is very quick to judge mothers and rarely, if ever
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: judges fathers, it seems like this is just a dynamic
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: that is presented without judgment, and then you, as the viewer,
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: can just make of it what you will.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: I think there are many examples of Tashi being presented
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: in a way that we do not often see women
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: represented on screen, in a way that the movie does
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: not pass judgment on her, similar to what you're talking about, Jamie.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: A few examples are there's the scene where she and
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: Art are at Stanford. She is dating Patrick, but Art
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: is clearly in love with her. He's trying to break
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: them up, and he says something like he's not in
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: love with you, and she stops in her tracks and
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: kind of slowly turns around and comes back, and we
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: are conditioned to think that a woman being told that
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: a man isn't in love with her will make her
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: be like, oh my god, oh no, this is devastating.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: I can't be with someone who doesn't love me. But instead,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: she says, what makes you think I want someone to
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: be in love with me? Did I ever say I
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: was in love with him? And he's like, no, you didn't,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: And she's like, well, so why would I give a
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: fuck if he loved me or not? And he says like,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: don't you think you deserve it?
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: Like, which is he's being so I never like really
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: listened to that line in contacts before. He's being so
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: manipulative there, he's doing a thing that like male feminists
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: do or they're like you deserve better, girl, and by
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: better I mean me specifically.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: It's so manopulia, And that's the thing. I think. That's why,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: like there's a lot of bias between like people who
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: like are and people who love Patrick. You know. Unfortunately
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: the dirt bag with the huge penis Lend's out like
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, like at least he's a dirt bag. He
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: lives in his car, but he's funny and he's not
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: and he's not trying to like soft launch a relationship
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: while I'm with someone else through myn emotional manipulation. He
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: just won the tennis match like an adult.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: I get it. I get it, like it's I don't know,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: you can't win right where it's like having because in
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: Tash scenes with Patrick, it's like he is not on her.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, neither of these guys are on her level remotely,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: but Patrick, I think, is able to like scratch an
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: itch that she needs, which is someone who is going
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: to like challenge her and challenge her. Yeah, challenge her.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: Wow, challenge hers.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: Okay, we're actually recording this on International Women's Day and
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: that was really impactful. Challenge her.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: Wow, I'm with, challenge her.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: I'm with.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: But he is like willing to have an argument with
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: her in a way she seems to want, but not
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: in a long term way. She does want a sub
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: at home, but she does want to have a guy
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: to argue with who has a huge dick and is
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: a mess And you're like, yeah, which hard to have
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: all these things at once.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: It's a woman trying to have it all. But these
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: are also all of the ways in which we almost
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: never see women represented on screen. The fact that she
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: is way better at the sport that she plays than
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: the men around her, that she's like the best of everyone,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: including all the men. The fact that she is kind
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: of using men to like live vicariously through them so
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: that she can still do tennis things. And I'm not
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: praising that as a good quality to have. Obviously you
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: should not use people. But my point is she has flaws,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: she has layers. She can be messy, she can be calculating,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: and we usually do not get to see a woman
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: portrayed in these types of ways in movies because normally
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: we see women who are either like perfect little angels
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: who would never make a mistake or do anything wrong,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: or women who are given so little characterization that you
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: don't even know what choices they would make. So even
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: though Tashi is like not behaving well a lot of
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: the time, it's more interesting than the like nothing characters
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: we so often see with women in movies. So there's that.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: There's the fact that she loves tennis more than she
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: will ever love any man, and like the men around
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: her do not know what to do with that exactly.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: The fact that again, and I'm gonna keep harping on this,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: like dom sub dynamic thing. It's not how we traditionally
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: think of dom sub dynamics in like the kink sphere,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: but she is in her relationship with Art, the dominant
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: figure who is always telling him what to do, how
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: to play tennis, which tournaments he's gonna compete in. He
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: never pushes back, he just says, whatever you want, babe.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: Also that scene, so there's a scene at the very
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: beginning where she's like, you're humiliating yourself. You need to
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: get your shit together, Like, let's have you do something
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: that you can win so that you can stop being
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: such a loser.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: Yea.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: And that scene ends with her han soloing him where
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: he's like, I love you and she's like, I know, and.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: He kind of loves that though he kind of love that.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: If it was easy, he wouldn't be there. And I
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: think that's sort of like what's interesting about their dynamic.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: And I also love like to what you're saying, Caitlin,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: I definitely feel like she resents the fact that, like,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: I literally physically can't play this game anymore, and if
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: I could, I would, but I can't, and like and
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: now you're here crying about Oh, I think I want
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: to retire early I didn't get a chance to retire early.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 4: You know, I didn't get a chance to even go
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: as far as I knew I was capable of. And
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: so I think part of why she finds both of
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: them frustrating is like, these are two guys who cannot
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: use their privilege to do the thing that she could
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: do well with less of it. Yeah, it's like it's
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: like it's like it's exhausting. It's like, you guys have
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: money and ability and the physicality, and yet you just.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: Won't right and your men and you're white.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: Exactly, and they're both from like well off families, and like,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: I mean that is something that again like comes up
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: between Tashi and Art very early that I am able
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: to see how that is like dysfunctional for both of them,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: where she is putting a lot of pressure on him
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: to do something he doesn't want to do anymore. He
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: says later, like bluntly, like I'm I know that I'm
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: playing for both of us. But there's a moment where
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: Tash is so understandably frustrated and she's like, I would
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: have killed for a recovery like yours, like, and she
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: is to some extent projecting onto him of like you recovered,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: so you have to keep going. And it's I don't know,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: like I if there was one thing I wish I
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: we had more of in this movie is like Tashi
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: is having to fight against so much. She's not just
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: fighting against massage noir that exists within this sport, She's
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: also fighting against her own body and like the frustration
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: that comes with that, and how that clearly that is
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: such a big turning point in her life, that and
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: and and in that same opening sequence again, it's like
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: all these like little things that they add in that
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: could be a full movie, but it's just like a
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: shot in Challengers where she is it kind of was
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: like giving Victoria and David Beckham to me where there's
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: like that we're work what but that we're like that
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: big like ad, that billboard ad that she's editing to
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: reflect that she is a part of it. So she
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: even though it is like not a central focus, you
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: can tell that the world is trying to frame her
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: as someone's wife and not Tashi Duncan, and she is
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: like having to quietly or loudly push back against that.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: And I don't know, there's just like so.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: Many little things that come through and like Zendia should
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: have been nominated for everything for this, but no one
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: gets nominated for erotic thrillers, so it didn't happen. But
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: it just like she's doing so much and the script
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: is doing so much too of just like these little
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: moments that you're like, of course she is like a
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: ticking time bomb. It's all so fucking frustrating.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: No, And I definitely feel like I think it's interesting
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: because like when did Baby Girl and like all those
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: kind of movies start coming out, because I feel like
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 4: now we're in this place.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: Where everyone around the same time, right.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: Around the same time, right, yeah, late twenty twenty four
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: was when Baby Girl came out, I think, yeah.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: And I feel like we're just getting into this place
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: with the erotic thriller but also this ability to understand
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: eroticism and affection, and I think where like it's I
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: don't think it's a lazy comparison to be like, you know,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: Heated Rivalry and Challengers like exists in a similar timeline,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: and I think the Challengers came out a little bit
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: closer to Hated Rivalry. People might appreciate it a little
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: bit more because of how like sexually earnested. It is, like,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: I think what's really sweet about Art. I think there's
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: a sweetness to Art and Patrick's relationship that makes it
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: also really captivating. Like I love Tashi in between both
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: of them. But I also think like that that three
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: way kiss is so compelling because it's like it goes
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: on for a while. It's not like it's not like
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: they see it happen. They're like, oh that's good. They're
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: like they're going forward, they lean into it, they're going
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: into it, and it's just like the potential.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: And they have to know that they are kissing each
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: other and that Tashi is not involved.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I also had canon. I think they're lying in
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: that earlier in the scene where they're like they you know,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: it's convenient to have the disgusting Brothers jerk off story
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: to support it, but I'm like, they've kissed before. That
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: wasn't the first kiss I was looking at over there.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: It was phenomenal these boys and they're basically sort of
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: kissing at the end, and Tashi is sort of like whatever,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: as long as because you're playing good tennis while doing
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: whatever you're doing, I'm not bothered by it.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: Again, they they should just be in a thrupple. I
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: mean you mentioned this in your video, Princess, about how
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: all of these characters like should have read the Ethical
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: Slut and didn't. But like if they just embraced the
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: fact that Tashi wants to have sex with both of them,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: because that's how she has sex with Tennis. Art and
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: Patrick want to kiss each other and maybe more because
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: there's all these moments of homo eroticism throughout the movie.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: There's a part where like Patrick puts his hand on
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: Art's knee.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: While it's awesome, there is.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: There's like the mutual stretching that they do where they're
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: embracing each other. There's the truro eating scene where they're
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: sharing churros and everything they eat is phallic. Yeah, just
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: like all all these moments of physical closeness between them.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: Well, and it's also not a mistake that like their
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: big confrontation at the Challenger is where they're both completely
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: naked and a sauna, Like the movie is not subtle.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: And apply a towel over it. It's like, we know
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: you guys are doing.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: Patrick comes in dick out, He's like, you know what
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: this is?
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: So he's like, so about how I'm fucking your wife, Like,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: oh my god, they're such babies. I think that that
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: is like, I think all three of them kind of
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: do treat these relationships like a game, but the way
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: that they do is so specific to who the character is,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: where Patrick is still kind of being a teenager, Like
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: it's I don't know these three, these three who knows
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: what the hell is going on with them? But I
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: but I love that.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: I love to watch it.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: I love whatever the hell's going on here.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: I wish I could just trade like Aporia season three,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: Let's just do Challengers season one, Let's just go right there.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: Oh it would be so good. Another I mean, just
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: speaking to it is all these like little moments, but
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: how it does seem like Patrick in art genuinely in
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: different ways want Tashi's validation. Another moment that I picked
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: up on in this most recent watch was after she
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: and Patrick have sex in his car the night before
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: the Challenger or like the finals, he starts getting very
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: like postcoital affectionate with her, and he's like, I miss
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: watching you. Do you play tennis? You're so beautiful? And
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: she's like, so anyways, tennis, Like, let's talk about my
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: true love speaking of what I care about, Like she
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: just doesn't care. And I love their confrontation when she
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: with her bob and her sweater. It's just so great
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 3: where she says, to his face, you look like shit.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: She she calls him out directly for cosplaying as a
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: poor person. You know, she says, like, your dreams are shit,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: your garbage, and he, you know, Patrick can take shit
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: like that in stride, which I think is appealing to Tashi.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: He seems to kind of get off on being called
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: a piece of shit. A lot of rich guys are
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: like that. But he he like gives it back to
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: her to say way they they did when they were
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: in a relationship together, and it's like, well you don't
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: you don't love your husband and he just wants to
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: eat a cheeseburger and take a nap and you hate
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: him for that, and she's like, well so what shrug.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: I know, like her dynamic with Patrick is that he's
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: a brat and she's like his brat tamer. And then
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: with Art it's he's a simp and she's just like, yeah,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: do whatever I say.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: You can't.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, it just so toxic. How it's just like
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: he's he's like, you don't love your husband, and she's like, well,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: you should kill yourself. And I was just like, WHOA,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: legendary really elated. She took it. She took it to hell.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: He's like when they go low, I'm going to the
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: Winter Earth. That's like, you know, if you improve your game,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: be in the ground. I was like, whoa.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: It was wild.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: But she and then on the other end, like another
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: moment with Art that I kind of forgot about that
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh my gosh, these three are so broken.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 3: Where she leaves to cheat on him but also sort
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: of be his manager in a way in a like
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: she's sort of at works, sort of not when she's
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: having sex with Josha Connor, but she comes back and
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: he's just like sleeping next to their daughter, and that
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: you don't know, that really got me this time. I'm like, oh,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: he just needs to feel loved.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: He does.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: He just wants to be held tenderly until he falls asleep.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: And she does that. She like pats him on the
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: back for three minutes and she's like, so I have
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: to go. How secks with your roommate.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: She's like, you're not a pile of tennis balls. So
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not really interested in holding you very much exactly.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one thing I wanted to touch on that I
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: do think that we do have because this movie is
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: so hyper focused on the love triangle, and I do
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: think we this is the love triangle. We're used to
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: saying two men and a woman, not two women and
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: a man. But because this happens in the world of tennis,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: I just wanted to touch on a Dazed article that
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: came out around the release of this movie by Helena
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: Jabrill that is specifically about women who are athletes and
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: their bodies. The name of the piece as Challengers missed
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: an opportunity to spotlight female athletes bodies, so I just
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: wanted to share it a little bit from that. It
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: is not a criticism of Zendeia. I think it's more
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: criticism of the fact that because there is really just
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: one woman athlete we get to see and know in
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: this movie, we lose an opportunity to explore a very
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: common criticism of women in sports, and also specifically Black
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: women in sports, which is the hyperfixation on their bodies historically.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: So to share a piece of that. While watching Challengers,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: I wondered why Tashi's body didn't resemble other young tennis
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: stars we know from real life, from Cocoa Goff and
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: Naomi Osaka to the young Serena and Venus Williams, all
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: women who help shape the character of Tashi. These sportswomen
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: have a more muscular and broader physique than Tashi. Challenging
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: idealized notions about what women should look like, even those
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: in Daa's portrayal of Tashi is impressive. Challengers would have
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 3: been more interesting visually and textually if the object of
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: Art and Patrick's desires was a woman who stood in
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: opposition to idealize femininity rather than conforms to it, as
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: so many women in sport do. From the racist redicule
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: that was always leveled against Serena Williams because of her
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: dark skin and muscular body, to the questioning of Olympic
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: runner casters Men's gender because of all the high levels
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: of testosterone in her body, all women, but especially black
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: women athletes, have constantly been bullied and seen as less
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: desirable when their bodies and behavior go against traditional ideas
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 3: of femininity. Challengers had the opportunity to confront our normative
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: understanding of who and what is desirable in the same way.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: The film presents an alternative and queer view of how
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: relationships can work. So it is like in a movie
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: that has three characters, it's not even like necessarily a criticism,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: but I did think it was like an interesting perspective
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: to offer because women are constantly criticized for being too muscular.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: And that's where Love Lies Bleeding comes in, where a
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: movie that came out the same year features a queer
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: relationship with Kristen Stewart and Katie O'Brien, and Katie O'Brien
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: is a you know, like a weightlifter who looks like
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: a weightlifter, a bodybuilder. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, I don't know.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: I thought it was an Seeing Peace and we.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: Got to cover that movie.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, I love that movie. That was also something
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: I thought about in the back of my mind because
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: I'm like, I get what they picked Zendaya because that
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: is like a star. And also Zindaa is not the
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 4: kind of actor who you necessarily can gain like a
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 4: whole amount of muscle, even though I know she did
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 4: gain some for this movie, and so it's one of
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: those things. It's like it's like one of those caveas
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: where like I wish they had more background people that
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 4: did reflect that body type.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: I think that that would have been like a nice
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: balance to have more people or like get Cocoa Golf
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: for a cameo or something like that.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: Totally, totally, yeah, yeah, Like I do think there was
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: room for in a movie that is full of small
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: moments that really stick with you, small moments with another
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: woman athlete who doesn't look necessarily like Zendia or like
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: a Hollywood actor could have been cool.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the closest thing we get is that
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: scene where Tashi is playing at Stanford in a match
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: with I think a student from Pepperdine or something like that,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: and the other student, who I believe is a white woman,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: is like laboriously running back and forth and Tashi, by contrast,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: is pretty stationary, implying that like this is effortless for Tashi.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: She is like she is just crushing this woman and
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: the other woman is like having to work so much harder.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: But that's kind of the only time we really see
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: another woman play tennis in the movie, and it's a
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: thin white woman, so it's again not doing anything to
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: challenger what we're talking about.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 3: That said, it is cool and worth mentioning that Zendia
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: is a top line producer on this movie. I love
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: when women are producing their own li movies and have
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: a say in how they are portrayed. I feel like
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: you can really feel that in this movie because we
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: like referenced this earlier. There is a lot and I
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: guess I can't put my finger on exactly why I'm
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 3: not bothered by this, but like there is a lot
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: of male gaze in this movie, but like not in
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 3: the way that we're used to seeing it. It's maybe
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: it's because it's like the simping male gaze and not
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 3: be like violent male gaze. I don't know what it is,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 3: but because we do see things from Zendea's perspective as well,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: like I mean, most iconically the shot of her watching
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 3: the boys making out, but like I don't know, yeah,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: the perspectives, like the camera work in this is so
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: good and like horny and weird and thoughtful and a
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: bunch of other words as well.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think this is the balancing of the equal
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 4: opportunity and also that Zendeia is a star that has
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 4: the power to say no to nudity, like if she
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 4: did not want to have that, I don't because she's
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 4: one of the few juds who's never been naked in Euphoria,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 4: So I think that it kind of makes you feel
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 4: like she has power in it, kind of like with
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 4: poor Things, where it's like, is it a little gazy
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: at times? For sure? But because we know Zendia has
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 4: power in the industry, we can at least know that
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 4: if she felt uncomfortable, that she is someone who is
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: empowered to be like no, thank you totally.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 3: And yeah, then the fact that like the four producers
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 3: credited on this movie are three women, Amy Pascal, Zendia,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: Rachel O'Connor, and a queer man Luca Guadnino. Like it,
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: I don't know, you just do get the feeling that
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: you are in good hands because the male gaze, I
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 3: don't know. I think we've been so conditioned to see
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: it to say that seeing male gaze shots is inherently
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: a bad thing, because it more often than not has
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: ben in movies. But this is I think an outlier,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: and that like it is, you know, not completely useless
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: to see things from a male character's perspective. It's just
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: nice to not feel attacked by it.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and not everyone is getting a little bit of
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 4: it because it's like we see, we see like a
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 4: little hint of penin. We're never seeing anything more from
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 4: her that we don't see from another.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: Man, right, I mean, I would argue that there are
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: shots of the two men that are more sexualized than
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: anything that we see of Tashi, especially in the final
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: sequence when Patrick and Art are getting closer and closer together,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: they're dripping sweat. They're like, we get kind of isolated
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: shots of like their thighs and their arms and shoulders
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: and the muscles just pulsating and glistening, And to me,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: that feels way more sexualized than anything that we see
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: of Tashi's body.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 3: And I think you could still argue that that is
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 3: a male gaze because I think, to me, that's them
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 3: looking at each other. That's not Tash. True, Tashi is
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 3: like thinking about tennis balls.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: Like she's like finally, yeah, so true.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's what makes the whole movie so refreshing,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: and what makes it truly erotic is that it's erotic
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 4: for everyone. If it's only erotic for like one participant,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 4: Like again, all those tips need to touch.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's all tips of the triangle. It's like, Wow,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: what a bar.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: They need to fold in on each other and touch exactly.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 2: Can we talk about the marketing of this movie, which
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: is also something that you bring up in your video essay, Princess,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: but the fact that there were there was at least
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: one trailer that positioned Tashi as the femme fatale, the villain,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: the vindictive home wrecker, and and Nelly Furtado's man Eater
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: is playing and what a bop of a song. But
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: then you watch the movie and you realize, oh, that's
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: not what's happening. Maybe there are traces of it kind of,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: but she's a far more complicated character than that. And
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 2: I think it's just that with marketing for movies, they
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: have to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: and this is kind of a hard movie to market,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: if we're being honest. So they have to figure out, Okay,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: what's the hook. How are we going to sell this
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: because what we have in Tashi is simply a confident
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: and dominant woman. But that's scary to people. Absolutely, people
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: don't want to watch a movie about that. So how
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: do we take the footage we have from the movie
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: and put a spin on it so that it's more
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: sellable and more marketable. Oh, we'll make her a vindictive,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: manipulative woman.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's interesting. Like both times, the first
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 4: time I watched a movie, I thought that she would
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 4: be in it more because of how heavily she is
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 4: like the face of this movie. Yeah, and I think
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 4: it's surprising how much it is about the boys because
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 4: of that, Which is not to say that she's not
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: an important character, Like you don't have to be in
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 4: every single shot to be important, because she's definitely like
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 4: haunting the narrative, so to speak. But it definitely like
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: surprised me that, like they're the ones who chase after her,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 4: like in a lot of the sequences, like she's responding
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 4: to like like you know, they're serving the ball and
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 4: she's just serving it back at them, but at her
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 4: own speed. And I think it sometimes and I think
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 4: also because of the way that you know, fandoms will
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 4: make the female character the bad guy inherently, it's possible
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 4: to really flatten all of Tashi's nuance in the narrative
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 4: by just being like, well, she's in the way of
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: these two minutes, Like, no, those two men are in
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 4: the way of themselves.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, everyone is like in the way, and sometimes the
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 3: world is in the way.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's society.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: They live in a society.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 4: They live in a society, and I think, like that
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 4: is what's interesting about Like, yeah, it's the man eater.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 4: Well sn M is a little bit later, but the
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 4: man eater thing is definitely very funny because I don't
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 4: think she's a man eater. I just think that she's
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 4: like hot and confident and they're overwhelmed by it.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 3: Right, It's like I don't I mean, we are led
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 3: to believe that she, in her adult life has had
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 3: sex with two people, and it's the two guys in
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 3: this movie. Right, I don't think she's a man.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: Eater necessarily, And if she is a man eater, she
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: is eating a man who wants to be eaten.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she's on a nye and it's very little carb. Yeah,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: because it's like it's it's it's just these two boys.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 3: I think another great Tashi and Art moment where you're
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 3: just like, oh god, Art Art, Art buddy, where he's
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: like he's trying to take a stand and I and
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: I mean trying. He's trying to take a stand and
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 3: he's like, I'm quitting tennis. I'm sleepy. I don't like
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 3: it anymore. And then well and then she's like okay, fine,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: and then he's he like tries to walk away from
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 3: the conversation.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: He's like, but what do you think?
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 3: Is it okay?
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: Are you mad? Do you love me?
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 3: And like he ough, yeah, buddy, I do think And
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 3: it's like in that way, I am kind of glad
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 3: that again it feels like equal across the three of
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 3: their backgrounds. We know enough to know, you know, at
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: least have an idea of why they are reacting to
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 3: each other the way that they are, but we don't
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: get a deep look into like what are their relationships
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: with their parents? What I mean, I think we know
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: the most about Tashi because we see a fair amount
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: of her mom, and it's.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: Very loving and care mutually respectful.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 3: It seems like a good relationship. But but that like
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 3: I don't know, like you can kind of like project
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 3: onto these three characters in any sort of way because
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 3: you're not given too much information about them. And I
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: think that that is something that is maybe a like
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 3: peak TV over correction that sometimes and I think that
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: like I've been guilty of this of like wanting to
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: know more than a movie is telling me, because I
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 3: think we're so used to having things over explained to
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: us now in a lot of movies where there could
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 3: be an entire side movie about one character you saw
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 3: for one second and one movie ten years ago, and
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 3: you know, like, this movie is not over explaining itself
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: to you in a way that I think it helps
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 3: and like is makes it better?
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, does anyone have anything else they want to
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: talk about?
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 4: I just I just love the soundtrack as well. I
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 4: think that's the one last thing I want to say
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 4: is it's like just like the way it goes like
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 4: like every time like the sound stops and then picks
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 4: up again, it's like electrifying. It's like, yeah, I just
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 4: the fact that just didn't get nominated for Best Score blasphemy,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 4: Like that is just like a crime, a literal crime,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 4: Like what were you guys doing? Were you on drugs
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 4: at the time? Please share with the clouds. So that's
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 4: the one thing I will say. I'm like, I have
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 4: no idea how they could have ignored that aspect of
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 4: anything about this film. It's so bizarre. Yeah.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: How many Yeah, how many soundtracks end up on like
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 3: people's regular rotation, and the Challenger soundtrack has definitely remained
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 3: in mind, and I think I'm very much not alone.
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like it's to me. It's like this year
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 4: the soundtrack that I'm like a gog didn't get any
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 4: nominations is like a testament of Anilee and a couple
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 4: of years ago. It's so God, I am like the
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 4: biggest evangelical of that movie. I'm like, mother, Anne is so,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 4: but I but I it has an amazing soundtrack, and
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 4: I think so does Challengers. I'm like, these are like
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 4: such great, great stories.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: We should start our own awards.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 4: Exactly, we'll get it right.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: Bechtel's test wise, this does pass a couple times.
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: Obviously.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: There is one woman who is central to the narrative,
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: but she talks to her daughter. She talks to her mom.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: She talks to her daughter about into the Spider Verse.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 3: A fun little ZiT nod to Zendia's career, also Spider
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: Man background.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 4: Her husband does Spider things.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 3: I guess I've heard of her husband. He does spider things, right,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: he seems nice.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, there's that line in this movie where Patrick
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: is like, I'm not some lapdog who's gonna sit around
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 2: and let you punish me. I'm not Art, But maybe
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: you need someone like that. Maybe you want someone who's
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: gonna be mister Tashi Duncan. And that it seems like
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: that is exactly what how she wants.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that is actually exactly what she wants. And I know,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 3: just the man for the job.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: And she is Zendia and she has mister Zendia, and
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: so I think that's how she lives her regular life too.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 3: I don't thank God, who knows. We don't know, and
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: it's none of our business. And I love that.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, she talks to her daughter, she talks
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: to her mother, talks to her mum, mostly about childcare stuff.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: So yeah, these these interactions past the Bechdel test.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: There is one other woman in the movie that we
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 3: haven't chatted out but just deserved better. And that's Helen,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 3: the woman who Art goes out a date with who
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 3: for Hella, who is not treated well. And I just
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: wanted to shout her out as a woman who I
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 3: hope wherever she is in this fictional world, I hope
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 3: she is well, and I hope she found someone who
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 3: could listen to her finish a sentence.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and doesn't surprise kiss her, which like, Okay, Patrick
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: is a complete dirt bag. He probably is the type
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 2: of man who would surprise kiss a woman. But also
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know we did did we need
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: to see that in the movie. Couldn't we have seen
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: him asking for consent? He can still be a dirt
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 2: bag about it, but.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like that is almost like used as
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 3: a tool to contrast him in Art in a way
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 3: that almost wasn't necessary because Art is like mister consent.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 3: He like in the Appleby's Parking Lite, He's like, so
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: I really want to kiss you, but I'm afraid that
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 3: you have a feeling, and you're like he is like
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 3: mister consent. That's kind of he's he's he's hot for consent. Yeah,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 3: his whole and that is like again just like sorry
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 3: to like start another converence, but like it's just so
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 3: thoughtfully like written and performed, where that is always who
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: Art is, like from the moment he meets Tashi, he's
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: always the one that's like, I really admire.
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: Your game, Tashi.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 3: You're very you're a very tough like he even says
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 3: to Patrick when Tashi's not even there. He's like, come on, Patrick,
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 3: she's a very remarkable young woman, and you're right now Art.
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 3: I kind of love him.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 4: It's one of those things where like I hate it,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 4: but I was like, that makes me so dry that
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 4: he just said that, like, not ironically, like I was
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 4: just like, no, he.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 3: Was alone with his boy and said, she is a
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 3: remarkable young woman. And I'm like, I go, you gotta
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 3: love art. You gotta love art.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 4: At least I didn't call her articulate. That would have
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 4: really fucked me up.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: But yeah, what about our nipple scale? Though our scale
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: where we rate the movie based on examining it through
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: an intersectional feminist lens zero to five nipples. I think
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: because this is a movie that showcases a woman who
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: is I think, very complicated, very interesting, who is allowed
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: to be confident and dominant, and sure does she mistreat
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: some people along the way. Yeah, I'm not saying that
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: she's necessarily like someone to aspire to be, but also
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 2: I do aspire to achieve the level of dominance that
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: she has over men. I think I kind of struggled
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: with the Tashi character the first time I saw the
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 2: movie but when I rewatched it and sort of like
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: framed her character through that lens, I was like, wait
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: a minute, she's she's cooking, she's onto something. I think
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: I want to give this movie like I don't know,
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Is it three nipples? Is it four nipples?
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 2: Is it less? Is it more? This is a this
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 2: is a challenging one to rate.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 4: I'm going for I'm going for too.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, me too.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think I think I would give it four nipples.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 4: And I'm only taking a nipple off because she's the
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 4: only woman of color and I think that, like besides
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 4: her own child, and I would have just liked for
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 4: her to have like another relationship to like one other
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 4: person of color that's not related to her.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So because of that, it gets four from an
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 4: intersectional lens. But I do think, like it's so refreshing
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 4: to watch a female character who's just behaving badly, like
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 4: Harper from Industry watches Challengers and just like this is
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 4: my inspo, Like I really love Tashi Dugan as a character,
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 4: and I think it's probably my favorite Sunday of performance
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 4: thus far because she really shows that she is a
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 4: movie star, but also has it in her to be
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 4: like this really complicated character actress.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: For sure, I'm gonna go for as well. I think
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 3: for the same reasons. I think that there was definitely
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: a room for a relationship with Tashi and another woman,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 3: specifically a woman in tennis that would have been interesting.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: But I don't know. I mean, it's like, she's such
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: an incredible character. I feel like Challengers is going to
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 3: be thought of as a classic in the future, and
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 3: it's just I don't know. I love seeing Zendaya like
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 3: sort of I feel like this was her real like
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 3: I I don't know, like straddling. She does technically play
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 3: a teenager in this movie, but she's also like, but
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 3: what you really want me to see is play a
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 3: woman who is my current age, and I just know
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 3: that she's gonna do so much amazing stuff. It weirdly
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 3: reminds me a little bit, and maybe I'm just looking
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 3: for an excuse to bring up one of my favorite movies,
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 3: but it reminds me a little bit of it Tanya,
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 3: which is I think, like Margaret Robbie's comparable moment of
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 3: like I'm producing my own movies. Now I'm playing the
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 3: character you've seen me play before and I'm doing this
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 3: other thing you've never seen me do. And I just
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: think that, like, we'll keep saying that from her and yeah,
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 3: it's it's it's a great movie. Thank you, Potion Master,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 3: thank you Luca, than.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: You well, Princess, thank you so much for joining us,
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. Obviously you're welcome back anytime.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 3: Whatever you want you bring, you bring a very different
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 3: movie to the table every time.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 4: I know what how we collectic. I'm like, next, we're
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 4: gonna do Barry Lyndon for the boys.
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: We got we gotta do something for this.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 3: I still haven't seen it. I know Candle's question mark,
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 3: That's what I know.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 4: I saw it in theaters with a friends with a
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 4: group of friends in Houston and it had the intermission
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 4: in the middle. Perfect way to see a movie. But yeah,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 4: call me friend of your coop brooking and needs. I'll
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 4: I'm there for you, guys. Is emotional support.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: Where can people follow you? Check out your work plug away?
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 4: Yay, thank you guys so much. I love being on here.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 4: You guys can find me on YouTube, Princess Weeks. I
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 4: just had a recent video at about Weathering Heights. I
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 4: have a video coming out by the time this is
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 4: out about the Tragic Mulatto, which is really interesting and
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 4: very academically and I uh am there and I'm on
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 4: Blue Sky also Princess m weeks with one S for
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 4: Princess because I spelled my name wrong, but I thought
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 4: it gave it character, so I kept it. And uh yeah,
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 4: I'm just so happy to talk. I just missed talking
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 4: to you guys, so I'm just happy to do that
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 4: all day long.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: That's why we pod that. It is so nice to
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 3: used nice to hear your voice. And yeah, I don't know,
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 3: I feel like I see you all the time because
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 3: I have my notifications on for your channel.
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 4: That's how I feel when I hear your voices. Of course,
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 4: I subscribe to the Matreon as everyone should. It's all
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 4: good financially forward women should do. And so sometimes I'm
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 4: going to bed and listening to you guys. I'm just like,
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 4: that's so right, exactly.
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: And speaking of listeners, if you're not already a Matron,
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: get over there the hell over there.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 3: That's where we're consistently abused by our biggest supporters.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 4: You're Tashie Duncans.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 3: Our Tashi Duncans are like talk about the Boondocks Saints.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 2: Doing and we we are ur Donaldson and we have
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: to say, oh yes.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 3: We're like, yes, mommy, we will talk about.
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: The Boondock Saints.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 3: Yes. That's where. For five dollars a month you can
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 3: get access to two new exclusive episodes a month on
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 3: a theme usually if you're choosing, and access to over
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 3: two hundred episodes of back catalog. And it is true
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 3: that in the month of March we are doing movies
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 3: that feature Irish characters. And you all voted for the
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 3: Boondock Saints and wee beer. Oh, I have no one
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 3: but yourselves to blame, but not Barry Lyndon.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah, oh my gosh. Well, uh yeah you can.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 2: You can find us on our Matreon, Patreon, dot com
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 2: slash Bechdel Cast. You can also follow us on Instagram.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 3: And that's that.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: Shall we shall we hit the tennis courts and have
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: sex with tennis just like Tashi Doug.
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, Bye bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 3: of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced by me Jamie Loftus.
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 2: And me Caitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtermann and.
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 3: Edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of them?
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: That's me and our logo and merch and all of
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 2: our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus Ever
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 2: heard of her? Oh My God?
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 3: And our theme song, by the way, was composed by
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 3: Mike Kaplan.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: With vocals by Catherine Voskrissy.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 3: Iconic and especial thanks to the one and only Aristotle Ascevedo.
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 2: For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: Spectelcast