Latest / The Bechdel Cast / The Luck of the Irish (2001)

Transcript

The Luck of the Irish (2001) · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On thee cast, the questions asked if movies have women
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy, Zephy and Beast
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: start changing with the Bechdel.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Cast top of the episode, to.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: You, Jamie, Oh wait, I had to do. I can't do.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: I can't do an Irish accent. But that didn't stop
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: anyone in this movie. Oh let's do. Let's do a
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: wee bit of podcast.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: And guess I love that.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: I loh my god watching Ryan Merriman crash out over
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: saying da instead of Dad, He's like, no, I'm Irish. Also,
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: this movie is so iconic presenting Irishness as a disease,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: like out of Irish as a mostly Irish person, you know,
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: I saw the vision. Being Irish is a disease and
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: it's wow. Shout out to our Irish listeners. I think
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: we have any we do, we do and truly like
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: some of our I think longest most loyal listeners are
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: are Irish. And Caitlyn, are you Irish at all?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I am, I'm about twenty five percent Irish.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Nice, so you're you're you? Gulds aer so a wee
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: a week.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: I would say, I'm a wee bit Irish.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: I'm I believe, like sixty seventy percent Irish. I'm quite Irish.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: My dad's side of the family is all Irish. Sure,
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: I guess, well, I guess. Let's start the show. This
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: is a main feed episode. Well, welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: My name is Jamie loftis Irish, so you can't yell
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: at me Irish last name. Yes, I'm taking out my
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Irish card.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: My name is Caitlyn Derante. Caitlin spelled the Irish way exactly.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Okay, yup, yup, yup. We won't be doing the accent.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: We only do that to punish our Australian listeners for
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: some reason.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry about that too, are Australian listeners. I might
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: accidentally kind of slip into an Irish accent a little
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: bit in this episode.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: That's okay.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I beg your forgiveness, listeners.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Look, I just you know this is my revenge on
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: anyone who has ever butchered the Boston accent. All right,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah no, I really I don't know why, because
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I have I like have Irish family, but I just
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: have never the accent. Has never leapt out of me.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know what it is.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: It's a hard one.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: It's a very tricky one. It's a very master But
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: here we are. This is the Bechdel Cast podcast where
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: we take a look at your favorite movies and today
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Ryan Coogler's favorite movies and take a look at it
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: from an intersectional feminist lens. And we are in fact,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is the week of Saint Patrick's Day
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: and we are talking about the two thousand and one
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: movie What a year in film? This, Shrek Wow, end
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: of this.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Pretty much it?
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, a d com from two thousand and one.
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: Kind of obscure, but in the news recently, genuinely because
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: of Ryan Cougler, who is doing such an amazing press
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: tour or like an Oscar's tour for sinners. He's just
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: saying kind of whatever. The two stories that I've seen
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: from his interviews that have gone viral are about this
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: the Luck of the Irish and also about the Coke
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Remix Machine. Have you seen that story?
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Oh? I haven't seen that one.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: What's this? Wait? Hold on, I think I'm getting the
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: name of it wrong. It's like the coke machine at
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: AMC's and like Wendy's and wait, what is that called coke?
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: Like the Dispenser ye January Okay, this is a Vulture
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: headline from January twenty eighth, twenty twenty six. Ryan Kugler
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: spills on love affair with Coke freestyle machine. Quote I
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: got involved with that unquote. Oh he's so funny. I
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: forget that. Ryan Coogler is like in his thirties, Like
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: he's young and would have seen The Luck of the
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Irish on TV. We'll talk more about his history with it,
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: but that's sure how this iconically not even remotely Irish
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: movie has come across our radar, as it apparently had
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: a hand in inspiring the Irish characters and sinners, which
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: is wild. Yes, honestly brave of him to admit. Yeah,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: if I were him, I would have That's I appreciate
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: when someone says something so embarrassing that it has to
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: be true. I know.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Well, the clip that's going around is him. It's at
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: a screening or whatever. It's like a panel and someone's
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: interviewing him and he starts talking about Luck of the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Irish and then someone in the audience.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: Has worked on it.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's like, that was my idea. And he's like,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: wait what, and she's like, yeah, I pitched it to Disney.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I meant to look into that further, but I simply
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: didn't even I was not.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: Able to figure out who that was. But I have
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: read inner views with I'm like, weirdly well prepared for
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: this episode. I've read interviews with the writer, which and
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: you won't believe this. He he does not know a
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: lot about Irish culture. What can you believe that? Can
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: you believe that it's going to be shocking based on
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: this movie's presentation of presenting being Irish as both something
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: to be extremely proud of but not as proud as
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: being American, as well as.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Being present being very ashamed of it, something.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: That is a cause for shame, and it's basically a disease.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: I kind of it's such a mess that it's I'm choosing,
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: and I'm so interested what our Irish listeners think. This
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: movie is so convoluted that it's like hard for me
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: to get offended by it because you're just like, I
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: think the intent is good, but it's kind of impossible
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: to know.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we'll talk about it.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of there's it's mainly the colonialism stuff
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: that you're just like, well, we maybe should have learned
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: a little about Irish history before talking about being the
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: power hungry king of Irish. You're like, well, well you
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: have to go back pretty far anyways. Yeah.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, everything is very very vague, glossed over, or just
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: not even acknowledged it all.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: They're either talking about the Lucky Charms mascot or they're
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: talking about kind of England. At a lot of points
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: where were like, this is not this is like this
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: is what are you doing? Anyways? This is the Bechdel cast.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: This is gonna be a silly one.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, but what's your well, what's your history with
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: this Jamie?
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: My history with this baby? I have to imagine. I
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: don't think I saw it like right when it came out,
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: But this was shown on Disney Channel all the time,
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: so I definitely had seen it more than once, I'm assuming,
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: but not in a very very long time. I did
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: not remember most of what happens in this movie. I
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: just remember mainly being like, I have a crush on
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Ryan Merryman because he was just like a boy you
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: had a crush on. At this time.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: It was he was in Smart House. Also was he not?
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: He was iconically in Smart House and Final Destination three.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: Let's not forget Well, so we've covered. This is our
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: third Ryan Merriman movie. Yes, and the Merryman a verse
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: goes deep. I don't really know anything about Oh and
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: he was in Pretty Little Liars, which is one of
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: my guilty pleasure shows. I don't know how much he's
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: working now, but he should be. He should have been
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: in Centers, although I guess by watching the look of
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: the Irish Ryan Cocher would be like, well, he can't
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: do the accent, so maybe that's why he didn't get cast. No,
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: this was a fascinating watch because this movie is We're
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: going to try to cover as much as we can
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: in the time we have, but it's kind of impossible.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: There's so much that happens. Okay.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: I so normally when I'm watching the movie, because I'll
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: watch the movie twice generally to prep for the episode. Sure,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: the first time is when I write the recap, and
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: so I'm sort of like writing, maybe pausing occasionally to
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: like kind of catch up. I could not do both
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: at the same time because this story moves so fast
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: and so much happens, and none of it makes sense that,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Like I was like, I just need to let this
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: wash over me and I'll do the recap later.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: I have no choice but to say, like this, I
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: don't know. There are parts of this movie that are
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: incredibly frustrating, but it's so silly that it's hard not
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: to be like, yes, time well spent. Yeah, yeah, So
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: I definitely saw it when I was a kid. I
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: did not remember really any of it other than this
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: is the Saint Patrick's Day movie with my crush. So
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: it was really interesting to realize that it falls into
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: I think it's weirdly in conversation with another movie we've
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: covered and another dcon that we haven't covered. And I'm
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: gonna call this and let me know if you can
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: think of others like family friendly, coming of age body horror,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: because that is definitely what this is. There's another d
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: com that also stars a young man, which I think
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: is interesting, called The Thirteenth Year, and it's about a
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: boy who on his thirteenth birthday becomes a merman. And okay,
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: I remember watching it another movie. I haven't seen it
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: easily twenty years. I remember being like, am I having
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: a Sexual Awakening with the with the Mermaid boy and
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: you know, so there's that, But it also reminded me
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: a little bit of a movie we've covered, Turning Red,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: another coming of age body horror movie. Okay, yes, I
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: was just thinking that this is a whole sub genre.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: And then I was also thinking about speaking of Pixar.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: Was Turning Around a Pixar or.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Was it just Disney animation either way?
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Brave. Yeah, but that's the mom though, that's the mom.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Turns into a bear, right, Okay, I couldn't totally remember.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: What the plut Brother Bear.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, you know, I've never seen that one.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: I haven't seen it in a very long time. I
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: think Brother Bear might be the bear transfer bait. Weird
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: that there's too Brother Bear might be the one that's different,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: although I feel like Brother Bear it's like a curse
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: or something which I would almost put in a different
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: category because oh, this is like because my like you're
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know, and I don't mean to like be
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: creepy about it, but it's like my in Turning Red,
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: it's the most explicit my body is changing and so
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: I am now a different species.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: And so we have Leprechaun Merman and Panda and Red Panda. Okay,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: then there's Witches, where a boy is turned into a mouse,
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: and the horror imagery in that movie, if you recall it,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: is really gruesome.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Then you have something like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, which.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever seen that weirdly, even though
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Rick Morana's could get it, you could crush.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't seen it in a really, really long time,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: so I don't remember a lot of details. But no,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: I think there are a lot of wow movies in
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: this subshote. This is a letterboxed list waiting to happen.
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of into it. I mean, I think it's
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: fun that it's not presented as horror, but it is
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: pretty horrific. What is happening to this young boy throughout
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: the movie? He's really I don't know. I just think
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: it's interesting. Anyways, I saw this movie, I had no
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: memory of how weird it is, and I'm very excited
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: to talk about it. Had you seen it before, because
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: I know you weren't a deep n kid.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I grew up without cable famously, and so
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: any Disney Channel original movie I've ever seen it was
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: because I watched it for this podcast.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Wow, You're welcome. I really do think I don't know
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: if we ever would have covered this movie if it
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: were because we've covered like movies by Irish filmmakers. We
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: very recently covered Bantches of It Ash Saron, So it
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: almost like this might not be a movie we would
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: have gotten around to if it weren't for mister Kugler.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: So thank you, question Mark. There's a lot. I also
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: like that he started like kind of a standing ovation
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: for the woman who worked on the Luck of the Irish,
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: and he's like a lot of kids in Oakland loved
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: your film. It's like.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: Ryan cleg was fun.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: He's great. But yeah, I had never seen this before. However, However,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: like the character Kyle, I have Irish ancestry, and like
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: the character Kyle, I feel not very connected to it
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: because I think this is a pretty common thing in
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: the US of white people with European ancestry, especially in
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know if this is maybe like more of
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: a small town thing because I've like I've met white
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: people from cities who are like, yeah, I have this
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: big Italian family and we're very connected to our Italian
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: ness or our greekness or you know, XYZ country in Europe.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: I think that's just true of like many immigrant communities.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: True, but also like I don't know if it was
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: like growing up in a small town where you're encouraged
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: to like assimilate and like leave any previous cultural heritage behind.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: But I'm you know, Irish, Italian, I think a little
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: bit German, some Scandinavians in there, and I don't have
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: any connection to any of these cultures.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: So I feel like that that's so, I mean, it's
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: like that's so much of what the movie is commenting on.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: I think, like at some points very effectively, other times
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: not quite the opposite so much, but like it is
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: interesting seeing that, Like where it reminded me of this
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: was like, god, maybe five years ago now, but the
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: conversation we had with Ali Naddy when we were talking
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: about Frozen two about how and I'm paraphrasing here because
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: this was half a decade ago, but she was saying
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: that white people should be more interested in what their
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: indigenous culture is instead of appropriating but nothing American culture,
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: well not even that, but like instead of appropriating American
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: indigenous culture, it's like you do have your own heritage,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: take an interest in it. Like, but but there is
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: this like discouragement to do that. I think how many
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Because I grew up I would say, like, I don't
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: I didn't know a lot about Ireland's history or anything
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: like that, but I did grow up with Irish family members.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: It's weird to remind this reminded me a lot of
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: like the parents in this movie kind of reminded me
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: of my dad's family a little bit. This is pretty
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: this is a stretch, but like my dad is fully
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: Irish and every summer when he was a kid, he
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: would be sent to Ireland to be with his family,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: but he would mostly be doing like manual farm labor,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: and so he was like, I don't like Ireland. That's
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: where I go to work to Bailhey, I don't like it.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: But like he was pretty like removed from that, Like
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: he experienced a lot of it firsthand, but like he
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: never really talked to us about it, And I wonder
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: why that is. I just I don't know. It's interesting
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: to think about because I would like to know more
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: about specifically Irish culture.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Have you been to Ireland?
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been twice. I've been to only Dublin. I've
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: been to Dublin to do shows twice. Yeah, I've never
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: met my family. My brother and I are actually possibly
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: going to be going this summer to meet some of
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: our family.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: It's lovely.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. But all that to say,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: this is such an interesting cultural like piece because it
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: does sort of direct well sometimes directly, sometimes not interface
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: with how estranged white Americans can be from their culture.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: Yes, I think it's quite which is which is not
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: something I've seen explored in children's media before, So I
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: don't know, But yeah, what did you What was your
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: experience of watching this movie?
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: You know, when you do not grow up with d
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: cooms and then you watch them well into your adult life,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: and like, these movies and these types of stories have
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: not been normalized for you, You're just like, what the
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: fuck this?
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Like? What am I looking at? This sucks?
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Is that kind of like that?
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: It's exactly like that, I would say. But you know
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: what is great about this movie is that it's like
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: eighty five minutes long and so.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Many such dcoms. Yeah, no, it's ultimately this movie is
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: really it's I appreciate it on the strictly on the
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: grounds that it's fucking weird, and I'm happy that it exists,
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: because I'm happy anytime a movie this weird exists and
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: people are still talking about it twenty five years later,
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: that's kind of cool. That said, it's nice the movie
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: is unhinged, so wild, it is so weird.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: We take a quick break and then come back for
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: the recap. I'm so excited for you to recap this.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Good luck, thank you be back. Yeah, we're back, okay recapping.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: We also, we didn't say what the if this is
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: your first episode of the Bechdel Cast. Interesting choice the
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Bechdel test. You know, I would say, you know, don't
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: worry about it. It's this movie does not pass it.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: No, you could yeah, look it up on your own
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: time or listen to another episode.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: But there was one exchange that almost almost really close,
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: but it was like between a teacher and a student
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: and the teacher had no name, so oh swinging a
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: miss and the rest is men having crisises about their
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: leprechaun bodies.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: So well that okay, I I kind of knew that
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: this was one of the many many not just dcoms,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: but just like family like kids movies in general, that
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: centers around a sport, and often specifically basketball.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: This is not even the first dcom basketball movie that
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: we've covered, too, because we covered the what was it
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: like Full Court Miracle or something?
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Oh yes, a movie, right, and then High School Musical
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: heavily features basketball.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: And we haven't covered I think a lot of millennial
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: queer awakenings to the movie Double Teamed, which is a
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: pretty wild name to give to a children this movie,
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: but they but they did that and it's about twin
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: basketball players. Wow, yeah, okay, yeah, because that was the
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: other millennial media trend was sports and twins.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: Twins, yes, yeah, yeah, so lots of sports. So I
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: knew that about this movie because I've seen the poster
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: before and like he's in his basketball jersey on the poster. Yeah,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: I thought it was gonna be a story about him
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: going to Ireland and then like, I don't know, doing
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: something that far too simple, too simple, and since way
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: too big of a budget. They don't have go to
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Ireland money, no budget.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: They really don't. Apparently it was shot in like Utah,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: like yes, because I was like, there is like a beautiful,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: like mountainous background. I'm like, where the hell are they
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: and they're apparently in Utah for I'm assuming budgetary reasons.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, what tax breaks was Utah offering in
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: two thousand and one.
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: We don't know.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Anyway, Here's here is what the story is about, not whatever.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: I thought it might be.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: We meet Kyle Johnson played by Ryan Merriman. He's having
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: a bad dream where he's at a school heritage day
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: assembly thing and he's about to perform. But wait, he's
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: only like two inches tall, so no one can see him.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Foreshadowing alert.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, Yeah.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: There's also voiceover from Kyle talking about.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: How a lot of voiceover from Kyle every time. Well,
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: I think it is necessary, and they just probably didn't
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: shoot some stuff they should have.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Oh.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: Well, true, there's a lot of things where there. I
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, I guess they just couldn't afford to
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: show us that. So he's just saying it.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: He's telling us in his voiceover. He's saying he's talking
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: about how everyone in the world is different and we
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: all have these different cultural backgrounds that should be celebrated.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: But wait a.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Minute, he doesn't know anything about his heritage. So he
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: wakes up and he asks his mom and dad where
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: their family comes from, and he's interested because of this
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: like upcoming heritage day assembly that's actually happening. He's not
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: just dreaming about it.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: He's organized by his crush.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: His crush slash frenemy girl, Unclaire.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: She really hands his ass to him so many times
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: in this movie. It's so awesome. One time she literally
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: hands his ask to him and then like gets up
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: basketball in the hoop like awesome. Yeah. She literally she's like,
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: you suck and then swishes, It's awesome, go bond.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: She does hand his ass to him a lot, but
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: she also spends all of her waking hours like chasing
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: him down, being like, let me help you figure out
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: your heritage. I'm like, you have others?
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Don't you have anything else going on? She's a girl
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: in a movie, Cayle, what's she gonna do have a friend?
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: I don't think so not in this movie, no way.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: And then the twist at the end is I also,
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I'm getting way ahead of myself, but
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: like the twist at the end, being like she wanted
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: to play basketball the whole time, I was like, oh,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: I was not picking up on naw But I guess
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: good for her. That her the Wish. We didn't know
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: she had came true question mark.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Irish Wish. Remember that movie that I'm still
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: petitioning that we cover.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: We should cover it, we should be Look, I if
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: you're listening to this, it's possible that we are covering
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: it on the Matreon because as of this recording, we
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: haven't pulled yet. So yeah, if you're a if you're
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: a matron, maybe maybe you've chosen violence, then we have
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: in fact covered that movie at this point.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, anyway, so Kyle asks his mom and
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: dad where their family immigrated from, and they're like, no,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: we're we're from here. We're from America. We're Americans and
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: that's the only heritage we need.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: I thought this was a really interesting again, like we
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: were talking about, like, I think it's obviously super exaggerated
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: because it's I also like that it's basically shot like
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: a horror movie where it's like all fish islandses they're
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: eating this like horrific, disgusting castrole and Kyle, my god,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: that was so funny. I thought, like this, there's moments
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: where this movie is really cooking. I thought, like where
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: she's making this like lettuce monstrosity. And Kyle's like, oh,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: is this like a dish from our from our culture,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: and she's like, no, it's just from a magazine. It
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: looks horrible.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Let me describe this dish. It's like plain spaghetti or
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: glass noodles or something. Point is, there's no sauce to
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: speak of, although.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: The but it is wet. It is a wet, slimy
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: but it's just like.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Glass noodles with like gelatinous globs of tofu or chicken
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: or something, and then like random vegetables kind of loosely
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: scattered throughout, and it served in this enormous bowl that's
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: lined with romaine lettuce leaves.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: Like it is horrible. It's it's horrifect horrible. But I
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: also I was like, shout out to whatever prop master
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: came up with that, because it was it was really amazing.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: I was. I was so impressed. But yeah, but I
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: did like that for a portion. And again, this movie,
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: anything that you like about this movie will prove to
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: be inconsistent as the movie goes on. But but I
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: did sort of like the like that this like aggressive
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: like we're not anything, We're American is presented like a
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: horror movie, because uh yeah, that is you know, not
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: far off right, because it's just I mean, the thing
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: that this movie won't do that we'll talk about is
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: like acknowledge like it. I feel like multiple times they
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: walk right up to the line of acknowledging colonialism, but
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: and then not quite then back off and say Americans
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: believe in baseball, and they're like, well, what the hell
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: like you like, it's so close, and multiple instances of
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: genocidal colonialism as well. It's like American colonialism, English colonialism
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: of Ireland like, but instead it's just kind of vaguefied
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: and to like, we had some difficult times, but we
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: were resilient and now you're fine, and you're like, Okay,
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: what was the what happened? What happened? And that's you
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: know where Disney draws the line. They're not about to
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: talk about what.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Happened, certainly not and certainly not in two thousand and one. Okay,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: So Kyle is curious. His parents keep being like, no,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: that's we're American, so shut the hell off.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: We're from Cleveland again, and a very funny joke.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that maybe goes on for too long, but they
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: talk about it all the time.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Until the very end of the movie they're still I'm like, okay, okay, yeah,
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: But anyways.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Either way, Kyle can't help but feel like there's something
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: his parents are not telling him. Also, Kyle has a
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Chekhov's Lucky Coin necklace thing which he takes to his
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: basketball game where he made makes a lucky shot. It
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: wins his team the big game and they're gonna go
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: to the championships. And then the next day he takes
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: a test at school and he guesses all the correct
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: answers by pure luck. So he's a lucky guy.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Although at some point I felt like it got confusing
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: where it's like the it stands for the luck of
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: the Irish, which again is like pretty laden in tropes
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: around Irish people, but also at some points it seems
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: to in conversations with Bonnie, it seems to sort of
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: be the lucky coin stands in for like white.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Privilege, white privilege.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but kind of only in that one scene where
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: she's like, oh, well, you never have to try, like
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: you know, some of us actually have to try, and
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: it feels like she's talking about white privilege. But then
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: that kind of just goes away and you're like well,
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: that was like many things in this movie, We're like,
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: that was an interesting idea, we will not be saying
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: it again.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That immediately tapers off and goes nowhere. Yes, yeah, okay.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: So that night he asks his parents again where their
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: ancestors are from, and this is where we get the
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: scene with the disgusting bowls.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and again his parents dodge the question. So at
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: school the next day he goes on www dot Internet
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: search website dot com, slash two thousand and one, every movie.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: Every Yeah, He's like, what is what? Who is my dad?
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Like that's sort of yes.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: And then the girl at school who keeps hounding him
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: about Bonnie the Heritage Day assembly, This is Bonnie Lopez.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: She sees him struggling, so she tries to help. But
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Kyle's last name is Johnson, which of course is one
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: of the most common names in the US, So he
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: cannot find anything. There's like four million hits on his search,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: and he does not know his mother's maide a name.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: He says something like, yeah, I've never really thought about
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: my mom's side of the family, and it's like, oh,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: do you not consider women at all?
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: People? And also like seeing his dad I'm like, this
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: is the interesting person in your family. Oh my gosh,
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: it is like the most like stereotypical, like Dufus Disney dad.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, ever, I'm from Cleveland whatever. And of
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: course this will come up with Bonnie multiple times. But
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: like Bonnie good potential for a character, right, But like,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: the thing with Bonnie is that her whole you know,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: she is in charge of heritage day all this stuff,
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: and we never find out what herriage, anything about her heritage.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: We find out at the end that her and Kyle's
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: other friend, Russell, who is black, they both have fathers.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: That's the reveal at the end of the movie. They
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: both have fathers, and you're it's just like, okay, but
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: you never learned anything about their heritage except for a
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: very weird line of dialogue that we'll get to oh later,
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: trust me.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. So Kyle is like, why don't I know
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: anything about my family's heritage. So he keeps digging around.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: He looks through his dad's yearbook and newspaper clippings and
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: like his birth certificate or something. I don't know, but
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: he discovers that his dad's last name wasn't originally Johnson,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: but Smith.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: And You're like, is he a spy? Is he cool?
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: The answer is no, no, And I don't even does
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: this even come back? Why did he change his name?
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: It's they changed They changed it so that they wouldn't Okay,
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: this is confusing, Like they they said later that there
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: is and this is like again based in something real,
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: but the way they're describing it is so incoherent, where
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: they're like, oh, like leprechauns don't accept leprechaun's marry non
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: leprechaun like you can't have marriages with non leprechauns, which
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: does come off a bit anti irish, but that they like, Okay.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: This is where I get confused, because I think that
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: they changed their names so that they would they could
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: like live in cognito mode. But they also moved to
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: the town where her father owns a very successful potato
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: chip factory. So I'm like, why did they not move
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: somewhere else?
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I think they moved their first to Utah, and
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: then the father follows them but doesn't try to interact
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: with them.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: At all, and so I'm like, well, then why the
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: hell did he do that? And why I mean the
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: potato chip of it all is so funny. And also
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Bonnie is so like smartgirl dot jpeg that she knows
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: things that you're like, what the hell who told you that?
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: Where she when they get to the potato chip factory
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: because listeners, there is a climactic scene at the potato
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: chip factory where she's like, actually, potato chips were invented
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: over one hundred years ago. I'm like, why do you
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: know when potato chips were invented? You can't just be
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: like anyways, and it's not even Irish, it's just whatever,
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: It's fine.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: It's so confusing, Okay. So Kyle learns that there's some
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: mystery with his family name, and so he and his
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: friend Russell speculate why his dad might have changed his
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: last name. And this is all happening while they're shooting
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: hoops because they wedge basketball in every chance they.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Get anywhere, anywhere possible.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: And then Kyle sees a sign advertising this like Irish
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: fair thing yeah that this guy named Seamus McTiernan runs.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: Who randomly ends up being the villain, although it takes
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: a really long time.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, and so on this sign is a
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: symbol that matches the symbol that's on Kyle's lucky coin.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: So Kyle is like, what am I Irish? And so
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: they go to this Irish fair.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: It also is so funny to be that, Like, I
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: don't know, maybe it's because I grew up in a
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: very like high concentrated Irish Italian area, but the fact
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: that he's like shocked that he could be Irish, I'm like,
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: it's it can't be that shocking. That's so it's I'm
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: like trying to think of an equally ludicrous thing for
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: him to be shocked by. But he's like, I'm Irish.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: You're like, I mean, yeah, you're Ryan Merriman. He also
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: looks Irish. Yeah, his mom has red hair, Like he's like,
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: I'm Irish. Anyways, well, he never noticed his mom's hair
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: because he never noticed his mom before because he does
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: not consider women to be people. Yeah he said he
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: he said, women actually aren't people to me, And you're like, oh,
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: got it got him?
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Oh I see Okay. So at the fair, they meet
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: an old irishman who keeps carrying on about Kyle's shoes,
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: and he mentions Kyle's mom there's this weird thing with
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: cgi quarters, and then the old irishman mysteriously disappears, and
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: so we're like, okay, we're getting kind of like plot
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: Wich vibes, except it's a plot man man, which yes, okay.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: So then some step dancers start performing, led by the
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: man who runs this fair, shamous McTiernan played by Timothy Omendsen,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: who is like in things like he was in psych
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: and he's in some other stones.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah. G was like, I love this guy.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know, You're like, oh yeah, sure. And so
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Kyle starts like doing the dance along with all these dancers,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: like he somehow instinctively knows all the steps, which.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: I again, it's presenting like I'm displaying symptoms of irishness, like.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: He's having an Irish outbreak.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Uncontrollable step dancing, It's like it's iconic. It's iconic, the
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: uncontrollable step dancing. It's like, I'm you know, Irish SLISters
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: is very possible. I don't know, You're like, am I
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: offended by it? It's hard, it's hard. It's just so silly.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: It's so so silly.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: So he's dancing, but then someone bumps into him and
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: knocks him on the ground, and then they help him
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: up and they're kind of like man handling him a bit,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: and we're like, hmmm, what was that all about. Don't worry,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: we'll find out soon. But before then, his mother, Kate,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: seemingly apropos of nothing, suddenly has an Irish accent. She's
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: cooking traditional Irish food for breakfast. She has unleashed her
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: curly red hair, and she's like, by the way, Kyle,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: I've decided to tell you that me family came from Ireland.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: And he's like, oh, okay, what what?
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: He cannot believe it. I cannot believe his white Irish
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: family with red hair is from Ireland.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: I also don't understand why she changed her mind all
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: of a sudden. Is it because of the coin thing?
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: I think it's again, it's like, the rules are so unclear.
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: I thought I thought that the rules of being Irish,
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: but like, also it fully conflates being Irish with being
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: a straight up leprechaun. Like I couldn't I couldn't tell
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: if this movie in the world this movie takes place
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: in regular Irish people exist.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Or right or all Irish people. Leprechauns is a leprechaun movie.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: There's also confusing rules around, like when you can see
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: a Leprechun versus when you can't. At the at the
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: climax of this movie, the grandfather Leprechaun is just sitting
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: on top of a basketball hoop, and so I I
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: was like trying to get there, and I'm like, oh,
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: probably only other leprechauns can see him. Question work. But
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: then Russell just walks up to him and is like hey,
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: and I was like, okay, so everyone can see him
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: and no one cares. Yeah, the rules are I mean,
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: it's you'll, You're just there's there's no point in trying
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: to understand the rules because there's no rules. But I
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: I thought that the mom was becoming uncontrollably irish as
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: a symptom of being irish. I thought it was like
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: she she's like, you know, she can't control it. It couldn't.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: I didn't interpret it as a decision she was making
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: well because which is not great for agency of women,
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: which is what the show is about.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: This is true. I okay, here's my best guess. Okay,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: her suddenly displaying her irishness.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: But also not irishness.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: It's she's leprechaunness.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's like being Irish is a symptom that could
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: lead to becoming a leprechaun. That's sort of the because she,
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: I guess she did first embrace like very broad iris,
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: like Irish food, and uh, her hair is out and
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: she has an accent, but then it's presented as like
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: and the symptoms continued to worsen, and then she became
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: a leprechaun. So here's what it is. Maybe okay, try
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: yeah anything.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Her displaying these quote unquote Irish slash leprechaun because the
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: movie does not know the distinction between the two traits.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: Coincides with Kyle losing his coin, which he doesn't know
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: that he has lost it yet, but it happens at
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: the fair because it gets stolen. We'll find that out.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: And then that seems to be the moment that his
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: mom and the whole thing is that the coin allows
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: this family to hide their leprechaun features, such as their
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: very short stature and their Irish accents. That's why the
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: coin is so important. And then when he loses it,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: that's when his mom is no longer able to like,
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: quote unquote pass as a human right.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's like that's fine. I mean, this movie
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: there's so many reads of this movie, and the movie
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: just never really decides on what.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Well, no, the movie like the grandpa does say that
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: he's like, the coin is what we use.
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: Well, yes, he literally.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Says, like that's how we pass as human, I know,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: the lucky coin.
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: But it's like, but that also kind of but that
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: read which they state, also for me kind of chafed
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: with the Body Horror read, which they also state, and
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: like it just feels like there's a little bit of
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: mixed messaging of like should we be proud to be
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: irish or not? Like it's, oh, we're so confusing because yeah,
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: I wrote, like you know, there's a read of this
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: movie that's like a coming of age body horror. And
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: then there's the one that like, being a leprechaun is
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: a metaphor for being a descendant of an immigrant culture
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: that's been forced to assimilate, but it's still an unavoidable
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: part of who you are, and that's nothing to be
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: ashamed of. And you can't at some point, you can't
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: tide where you come from, even if you don't fully
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: understand why you are the way you are, and that
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: there is this you know, inherent disconnect if you are
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: isolated from your native culture. And then there's the one
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: where it's like I'm so short now and I'm scared,
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: Like it's so confusing. I love this movie.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: I think wait right, it's like and maybe this is
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: us getting ahead of ourselves, but the movie is trying
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: to be like, America is a culturally diverse melt pot,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: and that's part of what makes it great.
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: But then it's also like, also, being American is a
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: distinct identity and it's important that you adhere to it.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: It's very confusing, and.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Our cultural differences should be celebrated. But also if you
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: are culturally different from quote unquote American culture, such as
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: being a leprechaun question mark, you should hide it.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: And well that's the thing. It's like, yeah, but the
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: like when Kyle embraces his and again like we have
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: to for the sake of the way the movie works
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: conflate Irish people and leprechauns, which is but like, once
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: he embraces the fact that he is Irish, all his
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: leprechaun like qualities disappear and he is himself again. So
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: you're like, well, it's not it's not very Shrekian, is
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: what I'll say, because part of why Shrek is so
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: effective genuinely is because he continues to embody the other
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: form and like embraces the beauty of it. And that's
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: what Fiona does, right, But Kyle kind of goes back
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: to looking like a white kid in Utah, so like
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: it's just whatever, whatever, this movie doesn't make any sense again.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: No, okay, where were we? Kyle's mom is displaying irish qualities.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: But also like he's yeah, sort of quote unquote quote
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: exactly quote unquote.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: And then the other unusual thing about this day is
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: that Kyle's luck seems to have run out. He gets
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: splashed by a puddle, he keeps dropping things and spilling
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: food all over himself. He drinks from a drinking fountain
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: that makes him look like he pissed his pants, he
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: can't make any foul shots at basketball practice. And then
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: also after this practice, they also have another the big
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: basketball game that same night. Like normally you don't have
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: a practice and then a game on the same day,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: but sure, yeah, this.
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: Is like we've got bigger fish to fry. I don't
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: even know. Honestly, that did not even scan for me.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, of course, of course. Of course
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: we've been at the school for forty hours at this point.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: The other sports thing that doesn't scan is that toward
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: the end of the movie, Kyle is wrestling and then
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Russell says like, oh, yeah, Kyle's on the wrestling team.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: Oh. I loved that. I loved that. They just throw
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: that in there so that the scene makes sense so exactly.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: But here's the thing.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: The wrestling season, oh h happens at the same time
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: as basketball season, so you probably can't do both.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: I think that that that to me screamed studio note
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: where they're like, why can you do that? Oh, just
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: have Russell say he's on the wrestling team. That'll make sense. Meanwhile,
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: it's like one of the most incoherency in the entire
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: movie where they're doing ancient Gaelic games while repeating incorrect
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: Irish history, like it's so bizarre. It's so bizarre. Yep.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: Okay. Anyway, so before we get there, there is this
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: basketball game and Kyle, because his luck has run out,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: biffs the game and everyone is mad at him, although
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: they still win. So they have another the big game
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: the following night.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: The next day.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, so then the next day his mom is now
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: in like, I don't know, nineteenth century Irish garb. Her
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: irishness quote unquote keeps heightening, and Kyle is still having
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: really bad luck, and he finally realizes it's because his
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: lucky coin necklace is gone, because his is made from gold,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: but the one he has is iron, which he finds
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: out in science class because they're experimenting with magnet.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and Russell knows how magnets work, which is how
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: we randomly when we're later told I want to be
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: a scientist, I was like, oh, because he knew one
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: thing about magnets.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Well, he knows about magnets, and he knows about rainbows
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: and like it's refracting of lights.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: So he knows stuff. He's a science kid.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: He's a kid in stem.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is how Kyle finds out about his necklace.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: So he realizes someone must have stolen the coin and
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: swapped it out for a different one. Kyle goes home
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: and discovers then that his mom is a leprechaun and
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: comes from a long line of the leprechauns of the
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: like clan O'Reilly. So his mom's maiden name is O'Reilly.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: His mom is now six inches tall, and this all
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: explains why Kyle his hair is turning red, his ears
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: are kind of pointy, he's shrinking, he's like shorter than
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: he used to be because he's half Leprechaun.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: It's it's pretty cool. It's pretty he is. Again, this
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: is like a horrific sequence. But they're like, I also
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: like that they stop short of They're like, well, he's
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: only half leprecan so he's only going to get like
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: a little smaller, right, He's gonna be just like a
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: short kid. And his and he has like kind of
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: like a box dye job for sure, which is awesome.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: The ears, it it's you know, it's a lot, but
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: I'm into it.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: The makeup department was really they were cooking, Yeah, with
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: all twelve dollars they were given precisely. Okay, So we
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: learn that as long as the O'Reilly clan has their
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: luck aka the Lucky Coin, they can pass as human.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: But because Kyle no longer has the coin, that's why
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: they're all shrinking and becoming more leprechaun like. And Kyle
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: is like, okay, I think I know who stole the coin.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: This old Irish man at the fair and his mom
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: is like, oh, yeah, that's your grandfather. We were bound
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: to run into him ever since he opened up that
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: potato chip factory down the road.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: And You're just like, I cannot, I cannot take in
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: another piece of information right now? What do you mean
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: ever since he opened that potato chip factory around the
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: corner from where we live in Utah? Like sure, if
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: any why the hell not?
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't it make more sense if the if the movie
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: was set in Idaho, which is famous for potatoes.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, and also not for nothing.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: Like again, just the randomization of this movie, like potato
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: chips are not from Ireland, they were invented in England.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: Oh again, just like a lot of weird English history
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: is being attributed to and that's like very obscure. It
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: was invented in England in like the eighteen hundreds. So
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: I'm like what, so why? So just like why why?
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Why? Is the question you can ask every thirty seconds
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: I would say in this movie. Okay, so we learned
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: this about Kyle's grandfather, who he had never met because
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: the grandfather disowned his daughter aka Kyle's mom when she
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: married a human. Because as you alluded to earlier Leprechauns
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: don't believe in mixed marriages.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: And he's never thought about his family before.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he doesn't, although he does like it seems like
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: he approached Kyle at that fair knowing that that was
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: his grandson. And he's like, wow, shoes, leather, potato chips,
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: and it's just like, is this how you talk to
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: your grandson?
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I also loved the cgi quarters he throws into
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: the sky.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: Oh it's icon hideous. Okay. So Kyle and his family
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: go to the potato chip factory called Emerald Isle to
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: confront Kyle's granddad, whose name is Riley, Oh Riley, And
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: let that sink in for a minute.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: And that's on Ireland, right.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Right, And he's played by Henry Gibson, who I recognize
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: from a few different things. He's also like, you know,
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: he's in stuff, not you.
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: Know, he's American for what it's worth, he's American. If
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: you couldn't tell, that's not a real Irish accent. He
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: does look very weight. I'm looking at his Oh oh grant, Okay,
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: I'm out in my fiance as a dork. He's he's
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: in magnet. Oh yeah, that's what Grant knew him from.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: I think that's what I most recognize him from as well.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: In Magnolia, he's in wedding crashers and he's in Boston Legal.
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: Maybe that's what I know him from. Oh wow, anyways,
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: he's I think he makes a meal of whatever the
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: hell he's supposed to be doing, and oh, absolutely, I enjoyed.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: I enjoyed it.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, So they go to try to confront Grandpa Riley O'Reilly,
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: but they can't get in to see him. Meanwhile, Bonnie
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: is at the factory for a tour with the Young
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Achievers Club, so Kyle links up with her. The security
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: guards start chasing them because Kyle isn't supposed to be there,
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: and then they end up bumping into Grandpa Riley O'Reilly,
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: who tells them about the luck of the Clan O'Reilly
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: and he's like, well, I didn't steal your coin, but
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: I think I know who did. Seamus McTiernan, the guy
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: who puts on the Irish step dancing.
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: Fair And you're like, right, the perfect crime there.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: And we learn that Seamus is a fair dereg which
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: I had to look this up. It's a type of
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: fairy found in Irish folklore, one who loves playing pranks,
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: especially like kind of gruesome pranks.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: Yes, there are random real things that are referenced here,
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: but there's so few and far between that I have
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: to attribute it to rewrites. Oh yeah, they're like, we
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: should put a fact in here, right, So.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: They go after Seamus in Riley's lime green convertible. So awesome,
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: So it is pretty cool. Also, Riley O'Reilly has a
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: long white beard now because I guess this is him
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: turning more and more into a leprocase.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: Again, it's like Irish as Irish is a disease and
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: you're catching it. Yeah.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: Russell also randomly joins them because he's just sort of
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: out wandering the streets.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: As many characters as most of the supporting characters in
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: this movie seem to be doing. They're just loose.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: They're just kind of waiting around for Kyle.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: It's kind of Truman show ish. They're just like, where's
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: Kyle at?
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: Is exactly like that?
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So together they start chasing Seamus's mobile home camper
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: van thing that has a pot of gold inside. But
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: because the Clan O'Reilly don't have luck anymore, they crash
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: the car because Seamus throws corned beef and cabbage on
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: the windshield.
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: So some really interesting, intense, like intense shots of corn
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: beef and cabbage really beautiful, Like, yeah, I and I
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: love my Irish brethren, but the food is just not
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: for me. It's just not for me. And I don't
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: think this movie does it any favors in making it.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, well, because the breakfast looks good. The
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: breakfast looks good.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Sure, but then also his mom is like, here, take
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: this to school. It is a rusty bucket full of
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: what appears to be mostly slopped.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: Why does she give him lunch in a bucket? Is
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: a question.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: I had no lid.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: This is taking this is taking it back a little bit.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: But I did think it was very funny and very
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: like Disney coated that on like Kyle's least Lucky day.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: Ninety percent of what happens to him is he's just
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: like spilling things on himself. He's just like every he's like,
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: this is the worst day ever. And then he'll like
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: slip on a banana peel and fall into like a
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: bowl of soup, and like it's just him getting stuff
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: on his clothes.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all day long, all day long, worse day ever,
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: which okay, you know we've talked so much about like
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Hillary duff pratfalls. Yeah, it's nice to see a boy
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: character do he gets something similar for one.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but he's like not even I guess he does fall.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: He does fall, he does fall.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: But you're right, it is mostly it's like whatever, it's
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: it's general clumsiness.
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: It's just like a scene after scene, we cut a
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: cut a few because he gets he gets spilled on
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: at the locker, he gets spilled on at lunch, he
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: gets spilled on out, he gets he spills the bucket
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: on himself.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: The water fountain sprays his crotch, and then it looks
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: like he pete himself. He gets splashed by a puddle
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: with a car driving by. It's truly like eight different things.
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: It's just so. And meanwhile he's like doing this weird
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: teenage like hitting on a girl where he's like, looky
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: looking good ladies.
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: It's like, ah, Ryan Merryman, looking good ladies. I'm like, yeah,
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: definitely what fifteen year old boys were doing. It's so
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: like my dad wrote a script.
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: Oh looking good the ladies.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so the car has a flat tire. Their chase,
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: their pursuit of Seamus McTiernan has come to a screeching cult.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: All hope is lost. Kyle is like, I'm not even
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: good at basketball, am I it was just my luck
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: that made me good at it. And then his dad
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: is like, oh, I'm so sorry, Kyle. We should have
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: told you about your leprechaun heritage a long time ago.
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: I do appreciate that the dad apologizes to him. I
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: sure am confused about the implications of his whole life
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: being attributed to a coin. Like again, this is where
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: the white privilege thing becomes introduced and unintroduced. There's a
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: great scene with Bonnie and Kyle where she says like,
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: you're a nice guy, but you'd be a better person
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: if everything hadn't always been so easy for you, and
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: then she like basically dunks a basketball that wasn't luck,
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: it was practice, you know, hard work. And you're like, oh,
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: that's interesting, but it's also kind of I feel like
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: it's it's sad for Kyle's entire like his passion is
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: playing basketball, and they're like, well, that had nothing to
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: do with you, and you're like, that's really that's really dark.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: That's a really dark thing to introduce. Like without this,
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I like it doesn't even really scan
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: for me. Like, without without a connection to your culture,
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: you have no function, You're useless, Like it's just a Again,
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: the messaging is a little bit like muddled. I don't
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: quite a muddled Dan. Yeah, Like I don't think that
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: there's a way to be like, oh, this is what
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: they were trying to say. They were just like, we
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: got to fill eighty minutes on TV. Yes, exactly by
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: any means necessary. Yeah, including what is about to happen,
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: which I definitely didn't remember and could not have anticipated.
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: The ancient games.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's coming up very shortly. First in this
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: like you know, end of act to low point moment,
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: it starts pouring rain and so they're stuck.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: In the rain.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: But Bonnie an uplifting speech.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: About how Irish people lifted themselves by their bootstraps and
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: America is slay. Wait when the Irish also, she knows
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: so much about Irish history, and we get no insight
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: into her heritage this scene. We have to just go
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: through it. Yeah, Bonnie says, when the Irish came to America.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: Things were tough, and they had to work at jobs
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: that other people wouldn't take, and they didn't get paid
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: what they deserve. Russell interjects, at least they got paid,
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: which I think is supposed to reference that he is
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: possibly descended from enslaved people.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: That's what I thought as well.
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, which is an unhinged way to acknowledge acknowledge slave slavery.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: And yes, also that is the only insight we get
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: into any non Irish character's heritage. It's upsetting. Bonnie ignores
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: the thing Russell has said, correct and continues, but they
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: didn't give up, and they kept trying until things got better.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: That's what makes them special, not where they are now,
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: but the spirit that keeps them going on the way there.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: Kyle says she's a young achiever to nag her, and
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: then Bonnie is, you know, whips are fucking flat, and
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: she doesn't, but she says, I'm an American, That's what
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: we all are, and Americans don't give up. And everyone's
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: like clapping check yeah, Like it's one of the weirdest
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: jingoistic Like I mean, it does sort of. I still
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: think it's weird even for its time, But like, it
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: definitely lines up with a lot of the messaging that
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: you received or you received. It's certainly not messaging that
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: children are getting now from the oppressive power structure they
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: live inside of, because we now live in an openly
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: anti immigrant country. But for a long time, the way
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: that Americans would and particularly white Americans would obvious gate
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: the internalized racism and anti immigrant tendencies was to tell kids,
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: we're a nation of immigrants, we're a melting but all together,
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: we're a melting pot, and we're all Americans, and the
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: identity of Americans is one of tolerance. And and then
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: like capitalism, basically it's like working hard. There's a there's
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: a scene that happens later with Kyle and his grandfather
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: where Kyle's grandfather, Riley O'Reilly, is like, I'm gonna take
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: the gold. Then Kyle's like, no, don't take the gold.
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: We work hard to do to earn, like to or
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: we came to America to work hard. And so it's
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: like preaching the melting pot myth that America was founded on.
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: And also capitalism is is how immigrant communities are able
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: to lift themselves up. And you're just like, this is
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: a mess and it ends on this land is your land?
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: Or like yeah, yeah, no, there's so many either like
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: monologues or bits of voiceover or just imagery that is
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: basically like you will say, you would say, like it is.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: So jinguistic, right, which feels very of its time, Like
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: it feels like it reminds me again of a very
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: weird and coherent version of like stuff you would experience
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: at school as a kid, of like assemblies and like
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: we're so proud to be Americans. And I don't know
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: if you were at if you were in a public school,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: anytime I ran around nine to eleven, like it was
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: relentless m hm.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: So Bonnie gives this speech about how awesome America is,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: which causes the rain to instantly stop and a rainbow appears.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: Oh you didn't think the rain was plot relevant, Well
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: it is because now there's a rainbow.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: They have to go fight in the ancient games and.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: They have to chase the under the rainbow. So they do,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: and they're running and running, and then they eventually find
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: Seamus's camper van and Kyle and his grandfather sneak inside
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: and take back Kyle's lucky coin, but not.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: All of the gold, because that would be you have
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: they have to earn the gold. I was like, I
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: don't think Seamus earned the gold. No, and that's well whatever, whatever. No,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 3: for some reason, Kyle is right in this situation.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: Kyle is right. Well, yeah, we learned that Seamus the
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: whole reason that he stole Kyle's coin was that he's
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: collecting all the lucky coins from all the leprechauns across
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: America so that he can become the king of the Leprechauns.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: And based on what we've seen, because we are conflating
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: Leprechauns and Ireland, I'm like, so he's sort of like,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be the k King of Ireland Ireland,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: which to my understanding, and again I'm not super tapped
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: into Irish history. I think that the reason they're going
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: into ancient history and the Teltan Games is because he's
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: trying to recapture an ancient version of Ireland question mark.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: But again, it is confusing that they do that. It
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: feels like kind of obvious gating that they're doing that
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: because the relevant parts of Irish culture that we're talking
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: about to the plot, it seems like Kyle's grandfather immigrated
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: from Ireland, possibly around the time that Ireland gained independence,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: possibly during the time of the potato fan man. That
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: history isn't interfaced with because that is too challenging to colonialism.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: I think. I think that's why they go into ancient history,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: because they don't want to talk about English colonization anymore
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: than they want to talk about American colonization. That's my guess.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I I can see it. Yeah, I'm also
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: guessing that that's why they're like, yeah, Riley O'Reilly invented
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: the potato chip because Ireland equals potatoes. Yeah.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: I do think that that is as far as they're
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: thinking about it, honestly for sure.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, so they find Kyle's lucky coin again, but Seamus
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: McTiernan uses his fair Darrig magic to sense that something
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: is wrong, and he appears and kidnaps Riley O'Reilly, and
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: then Kyle remembers that Seamus can't say no to a bet,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: something that was planted earlier in the movie. So Kyle
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: challenges Seamus, saying, if I beat you at sports, you
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: have to let my grandfather and I go, and I
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: get to keep my lucky coin.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: And then he really raises the steaks for seemingly no
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: reason at all and says, yeah, go ahead.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: Well, okay, so they play sports, but oh no, it's
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: not you know, basketball and baseball and football like Kyle
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: was expecting. Seamus transports Kyle and Russell maybe to Ireland.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure where they are, but they're on a
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: field where they play the Charlton Games, which again had
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: to look up, but it's a series of games and
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: sporting events similar to but pre dates the Greek Olympics
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: by over a thousand years. And then I started to
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: do a deep dive on these games and I was like, focus, Caitlin,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: it's really interesting.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is is. I'd never heard of these before,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: nor I.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: So they start doing the various kind of sporting events
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: such as the sport of hurling. They're also heaving around
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: boulders and chariot wheels, and they're wrestling and Kyle's team
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: and Seamus's teams and up tying, and Seamus was like, well,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: the bet was that you would beat me, and you
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: didn't beat me because we tied. So Kyle has to
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: hand over his lucky coin. But then he's like, well
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: wait a minute. What if if I beat you at
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: basketball without my luck and my lucky coin, I get
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: to get my luck back, and you have to go
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: to the land of my forefathers, the shores of Eerie
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: for all of eternity. And if I lose. I think
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: these are the stakes you were talking about, I will
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: be your slave, he says.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: And why the hell does he raise the stakes in
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: that way that is not asked of him? He just says,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: here are the stakes. I'm willing to Like, it's so weird.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: I know that, like I would say the stakes are
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: appropriately high before he says that, it's just I don't
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: have an xation for it. I just thought it was
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: very weird that the stakes were raised so severely.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: I guess he's trying to save his grandpa, because yeah,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: But also it's just like, why did he suggest that?
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: I would have suggested something far less consequential, right, But
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: Kyle is so confident in his basketball skills that he
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: has been told he doesn't have that he would be
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: willing to raise the stakes in that way.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: He's risking it all.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: I was confused. I was confused, But the stakes were
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: raised regardless of how I feel.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: This is true and actually that's really good storytelling. So yeah,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: there you go, there you go. Okay, so Seamus transports
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: them to the middle of Kyle and Russell's the biggest
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: game yet it.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: Is so well because the Telton games I thought was
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: the big game, but there was bigger games to be had.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: There's a still somehow another game, and now Riley O'Reilly
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: is chained a basketball.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: Who yes, yeah, and theoretically everyone everyone can see him
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: to everyone can see him, no one reacts, and when
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: they're playing against Shamus, the referee.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: Like again, it feels like a studio note of like,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: well they wouldn't just let Ryan Merriman play basketball, I
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: guess a forty year old, and so they call it
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: out for some reason where I think again, it's like
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: Russell is tasked with having to like spackle the plot
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: where he's like, wait, you're not just gonna let us
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: play against a forty year old and the referee is
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: like trunk whatever, then lets him play against an angry.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: Forty year old who becomes at one point really like
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: ghoulish looking. He becomes this like Leprechaun monster. But don't
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: worry it has absolutely no consequences or effect on the plot. No,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: and it happens right before Russell scores the winning basket,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: although before that they're playing in their Kyle's team is losing,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: and then he has to realize that actually, luck doesn't
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: come from a lucky coin, it comes from your heart.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: Or maybe luck is confidence and confidence comes from your heart.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: Or there's a number of possible answers. There's an you
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: can really kind of choose your own adventure as to
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: what the ending means. Also, we randomly see Russell's dad.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: Russell's dad is presented as like this big I feel
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: like he's presented as a reveal, even though we've been
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: told he exists many times. No, we see him.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: Earlier in the like we see him pretty early on
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: in the movie.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, we do see it because he's talked about
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: a lot, because Russell's always like my dad, my dad,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: my dad, And you're like, okay, this is going to
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: be another person of call our best friend whose family
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: we never meet. I guess we technically meet his family.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: But also it's just weird that Bonnie and Russell. You
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: know this happens, but I just thought it was weird
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: that they were both like, here's their dad, and because
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: this story is like pretty aggressively disinterested in women and
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: specifically mothers, because it's like, to me, Kyle's mother is
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: very important until the grandfather's introduced, and then she all
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: but disappears from the movie for sure. It was like
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: they just were waiting for it to get to a
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: point where it could be about fathers and sons, and
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: then they kind of do away with her, like.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: This movie could easily write out the grandpa character and
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: just just have Kyle's mom take on that role.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: Well, but then how are there be a potato chip factory.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: Caitlin, Well, yeah, and that's a hugely important part of
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: the stories.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: I'm guessing that that's a big reason stand that's corrected. Yeah.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: Also, I was wondering, like, so my best guess about like, Okay,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: we only meet Russell and Bonnie's dads, but not their
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: mom's because both of those characters, Bonnie and Russell have
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: tiny little arcs, but they're both about basketball, and I
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: think the movie was just like, well, okay, they both
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: like basketball, and so their dad has to be involved
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: because sports and basketball are boy things. Even though Bonnie
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: wants to play bad. So like, I don't know, I
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: don't know the logic behind any of this, but it
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: is messy and ridiculous. Yeah, Okay, The point is Kyle's
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: team at the last minute wins the big game to
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: end all big games, which means that Kyle takes back
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: his lucky coin and Seamus is cast away not to
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: era like Seamus Things, which of course is the name
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: of Ireland in the Irish language.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: Yes, which is I didn't think was clearly explained. No,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: I had to look it up, not that it's And
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: again it's like it's interesting because there are certain movies
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: we just talked about Daughters of the Dust recently that
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: is like it is a directorial choice and intention to
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: not explain a culture because it is not someone's job
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: to explain their culture to you. But I don't think
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: that really plays here, because no, this whole movie has
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: been presenting very broad Irish stereotypes and also still explaining them.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: So then to present an actual fact and not tell
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: us what it means is weird.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: Weird And also you like, consider the audience, this is
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: young people watching it. Yeah, it's like clearly like sort
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: of an educational intention with this movie, but they're not
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: correctly educating the audience. No, Okay, so a little trick
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: because Kyle is a leprechaun and leprecauns love little tricks.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: He says, I didn't mean Era, I meant Eerie aka
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: the shores of Lake Erie aka Cleveland, Ohio. Oh my god,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: because Dad, because Kyle's dad is famously from Cleveland. Yeah,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: there's the small beat with Bonnie and her dad, who
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: is always pressuring her to overachieve. But Bonnie's whole thing
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: is she actually wants to play basketball. And because a
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: white man told Bonnie's dad that he should let her
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: play basketball, He's like, Okay.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: Sounds great because it turns out this is what she's Yeah,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: fixed it there. And then Riley r Is like and
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: that's kind of the magic of America, isn't it?
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: And You're like, right, right, right, And then the movie
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: ends with the Heritage Day assembly where Kyle does Irish
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: step dancing because he's fully embracing his Irish heritage.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: Now, poor Ryan Merriman, I'm like, did they give him
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: even one minute of training? He looks awful, he looks terrible.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: Doesn't appear to be doing it. Well, and then he
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: leads the crowd in song. Like you said, Jamie, They're
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: singing this land is your island, this line is Mineland,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: and it's all very yay America.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: The end, Yeah, it's it's and again like we could
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: get into and there's I believe a lot of good
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: episodes of cool people who did cool stuff about this,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: like the history of the song this land is Your
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: Land and Woody Guthrie is far more nuanced than the
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: very jingoistic way it's presented here. But I don't think
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: it's intended to I don't think it's put here for
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: the sake of nuance. I think it's just like America
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: is all about, uh, whatever this movie was. And you're like, right, yeah, totally.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll come
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: back for more.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: And we're back and we're back.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, we've already talked about a lot of the things. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, And the big thing with this movie is
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: that it clearly wants to present this idea of like, Wow,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: America is great because it's so culturally diverse and it's
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: a melting pot and all of our cultural differences from
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: all of our heritages make it awesome.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: But while avoiding all of the parts of American history
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: that did not support that. It's so it's like, obviously
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: it's like bad for kids to be receiving this messaging
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: in the way that it's bad when kids receive that
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: messaging at school, which the message itself the message of
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 3: tolerance and the message of like it is a positive
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: thing to be connected with your heritage and to know
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: and understand it and to feel comfortable sharing it with
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: other people. That is true? Is it true that you know,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 3: at different points in history there have been opportunities for
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: immigrant communities that were not possible elsewhere. Sure, but it's
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: just so clearly American propaganda that like there's no nuance
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: to what is being said. So it's frustrating. It undercuts
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: what I think is like kind of a nice message,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: which is like a connection to your native heritage is
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 3: a positive thing, right, which is like yeah, but it's
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: also tying that in with I mean, like we've talked
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: about on the show a lot, and what is like
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: very clear here is just like, but on top of
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: your native heritage, you're also an American capitalist and you
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: love America, don't you. And there's nothing wrong with America.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: All we do is play baseball and work really hard
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: and there's no I mean, there's a moment with Kyle
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: and his parents at the beginning where it's like almost
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: presented as a joke where he asks if he's if
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: they're indigenous. He's just throwing out random cultures of like
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: are we this?
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: Are we this?
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: Are we this? And they're like, no, I don't, of
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: course we're not indigenous. You know, Like there are moments
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: where colonialism is acknowledged, right referenced, but I guess referenced
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 3: is the word, but not acknowledged.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: The way indigenouity in this movie is handled is very bizarre.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: I have a whole spill about this. It f you'll
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: indulge me, please. So opening scene of the movie is
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: Kyle's dream. We're in the auditorium. We see like different
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: people from different cultural backgrounds who are never characters that
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: we meet never never. The stage features flags from around
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: the world, including the flag of Israel, the genocidal fake
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: country of Israel. There's the voice over talking about, oh,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: celebrating our cultural differences. We see a native person dancing
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: on stage. They're in regalia. They're doing what appears to
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: be a traditional Native dance. I am unable to say
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 2: how authentic any of this is, right, I don't know
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: for sure either way. Again, another character, well, I wouldn't
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: even call him a character, Like, we don't meet this,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: but they're not a character, you know, we know nothing
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: about them. Yeah, And then again the way indigenouity in
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: this movie is either largely ignored or referenced in very
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: bizarro interactions. The next one is, like you were just
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: talking about Kyle asking his parents where they immigrated from.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: He says, everyone's family comes from somewhere else if you
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: go far back enough, unless we're Indians meaning native people, right.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: Which is referencing that, like native people were on this
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: land before. But there's no effort to be like I mean,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: it's just that like obfuscation of like and then what
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: happened because this is a movie or more importantly, a
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: media company that is ever going to acknowledge colonialism or
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: colonial genocide exactly. And then the dad is like, no,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: I don't, We're from Cleveland.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: We're from Cleveland, right. A little bit before that, one
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: of the many times Bonnie goes up to Kyle to
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: ask him about his heritage. And what he's gonna do
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: for the Heritage Day Assembly, and she says America is
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: a nation of immigrants. Everyone's ancestors came from another country,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: which again not true for people indigenous to Turtle.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: Island, right. I mean it's oversimplified, like you see what
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 3: she's saying. But it's what frustrates me more there is
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: that if this were a normal human interaction, she would
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: then be talking about her family exactly.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: She's like, for example, my family's from x y Z
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: place we don't know. She doesn't offer any information, and
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: then Russell responds, I'm part Cherokee, which number one one
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: contradicts what Bonnie just said, but he says it in
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: such a way where it seems like he's supporting Bonnie's statement.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: So it's either weird acting or.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: Just it's not the kid's fault.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: It's bad writing.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: It's bad writing. I think that it's genuinely like a
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: writer not even thinking hard enough to realize that that's
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: a contradictory statement for sure.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: And then if Russell is Afro Indigenous, we learn nothing
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: more about that part of his identity because.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: We learn that he is part Cherochy and he's it's
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: implied he's descended from enslaved people, right sol.
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: But that's the point, Like there's no attention or care
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: about any character's cultural heritage or ethnic heritage except for
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: the white kid whose family's from Ireland.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: And which is like, you know, Irish heritage valid, great,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: love it, We've got it, we love it. But it
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 3: is it is glaring that in this like fairly diverse
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: cast of kids that it's only the white kid who's
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: I feel like and this is not to put down
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: my Irish brethren, but it is sort of present the
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: way that the very real oppression of Irish people, which
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: again is it's not really said who why things were hard?
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: And then we came to America? Who was oppressing us?
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: Why America? Like you know, all of these questions that
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: there are clear answers for, but that it's presented that
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: like Irish people are uniquely oppressed in a way that
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: is just like, no, this is this is how colonial
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: oppression works. You know, it's not explained what the oppression
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: is and it's sort of presented as like and this
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: is the only time that's ever happened, which again is like,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: you know, this movie is like obviously a bad educational
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: tool if that's what it's supposed to be, which I
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: don't think it is. But but it's just like, okay,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: if we're acknowledging that Russell's ancestors were enslaved, like we
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: know nothing about Bonnie's ancestors. Like, it's just I think
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 3: it presents this weird form of in the way that
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 3: I think Irish culture is sometimes sort of used as
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: a way of being like, well, white people have been
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: oppressed too, and you're like okay, like okay, but that
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: but but it's I feel like it's sometimes used as
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: a way to obvious gate how disproportionately non white cultures
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 3: are oppressed by white cultures, right, So it just feels
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: like I'm not opposed to the premise. Well, I don't
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 3: even know if that's true. I'm not opposed to the
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 3: premise of like acknowledging oppression of the Irish, which by
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: the way, is not a completely white culture, but like,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 3: I'm not opposed to that, but it is weird to
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: do it in the framing device of a heritage fair
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: and not acknowledge any other heritage. Not only not acknowledge
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: any other heritage, but not acknowledge any other culture's oppression.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: Right, except for in very passing again Bizarrow lines of
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: dialogue when Yah Russell says, well, at least the Irish
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: people were paid. Just mind boggling.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 3: I think it sucks that they made a kid say that,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: And then you have Bonnie Lopez, who we can presume
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: because we have to presume because the movie doesn't give
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: us any more information, but we could potentially presume that
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: she's Latina based on her last name and her father
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: who we meet at the end.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: It seems like she is like a first generation American,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: but that's all we know, and we only know that
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: at the very end. And I think that they're also
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 3: kind of trafficking in some cultural stereotypes around immigrant parents
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: there too, because Bonnie is there's a lot of pressure
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 3: on her to go to med school, there's a lot
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: of pressure on her to excel. She kind of implies
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 3: it multiple points in the movie that like if she
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: doesn't do well in school, her parents are going to
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: be or her dad specifically is going to be very
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: upset with her, which is, you know, like just a
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: stereotype around immigrant parents in the US writ large for sure,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: that is presented with absolutely no nuance because we don't
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: know anything about her family. It's like a shock. I
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: was honestly shocked we met her father at all.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: Same Yeah, and he's truly on screen for fifteen seconds
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: at the very end of the movie.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: And what I found to be ultimately a kind of
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: depressing interaction because first of all, the movie does not
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: tell us that Bonnie actually wants to play basketball, and
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: then at the end she gets to, but it's only
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: sort of through deception.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's because Riley O'Reilly is like, hey, Bonnie's dad,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: you need to let her play so that she can
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: get an internship or a scholarship or whatever my potato factory.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: So let her play basketball.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 3: And then he's like, oh, great, okay, I'll let her
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: do that now. And then Bonnie says whatever you say, dad,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: and you're like, ooh, that's bleak like that. You know,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: She's like, well, I don't think that relationship was improved
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 3: at all, So yeah, I don't know's there's also a
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: lot of references to like American individualism and you know,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 3: implying that, and I think that this is like again
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: where like the heritage messaging gets a little muddled, is
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 3: like it. I think there's a specific line of dialogue
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 3: that I have so many notes, I can't find it.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 3: But there's a specific line of dialogue that like references
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 3: where it's like and it is a sort of satirical
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: line of dialogue because it's before we find out he's
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: Irish the reveal, but that like America is a place
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: where you can really be an individual who cares about
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: your heritage. I think it's something that his dad says, yeah,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: and so I think so. But I don't think that
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 3: the movie really does a lot to push back on
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: the fact that it's very possible to be an individual
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 3: in other cultures. It's sort of presented as like America
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 3: is the only place you can be a distinct individual,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: and other cultures are so all consuming that if you
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 3: engage with them even a little, you will shrink a
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 3: foot or sprout a beard, or like begin dancing uncontrollably,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 3: and so like being American is presented as the norm and.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 2: The cure to your leprechaun disease.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So yeah, there's just like this is ultimately in
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 3: a movie that is supposed to be about Ireland, it
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 3: is way more about America, yes, and about American understanding
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: of other cultures, and I think it is kind of
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: like an interesting case study there because it's like like
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: most like American propagandistic systems, like it's only interested in
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 3: presenting broad stereotypes and saying we're fine with this, but
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: ultimately you're American, right, which is why I think part
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 3: of why and also just because I assume this movie
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: was made in forty five minutes, why the actual facts
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 3: about Irish culture are? You know, there are facts there,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 3: there's other facts sort of half there, and then there's
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: just broad stereotypes presented all alongside each other. Really hard
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: to distinguish, especially if you're a kid watching this, distinguishing
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 3: what's real and what isn't sure because it is like
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 3: being Irish means you could be a leprechaun. That was
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: sort of my takeaway. It's not really pushedback on that.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 3: There's just Irish people.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, because I think every well, okay, it seems
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: as though Riley O'Reilly has hired nothing but Irish expats
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: slash immigrants.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: To work in his potato factory, right, which does make
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: all Irish people seem deceptive and evil. Also not a
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: great vibe, but.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: It's also like, well, are they also leprechaun? Like the
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: movie again, the world building is.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: We have no idea. I'm I think it is implied
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: via Seamus that any Irish person has the ability to
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 3: become a Leprechaun. And it also kind of gets a
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 3: little bit eugenicsy because they're like, oh, well, Kyle's not
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 3: full Irish, so he can only become half Leprechaun. And
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: you're like, I'm not loving the how Matthey we're getting
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 3: with this. It's again, this is nothing the movie is
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: intending to do. The movie is just I think, intending
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 3: to come out on time. But it is interesting the
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 3: kind of crutches they use to accomplish that. I guess I.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: Wonder if there were like white children in two thousand
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: and one, and there were on there were two of
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: them who saw this movie and perhaps felt seen by
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: the riot by the Kyle character not knowing and like
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: being curious about his cultural identity and heritage but not
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: really knowing anything about it.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 3: But other than that, I think that that's what the
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: movie ultimately kind of does that felt unique to me,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: was acknowledged. This kind of I think pretty common but
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: not often acknowledged truth that like, and I think that
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 3: that is like a tool of colonialism is if you
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 3: are completely you know, if you as a white, a
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 3: white American, are completely estranged from your culture of origin
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: and encouraged to believe that you are just American, you
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 3: are therefore encouraged to believe that America belongs to you.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 3: So I think it is like it is a tool
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 3: of colonialism to estrange anyone from their culture. But it's
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 3: kind of like this different pernicious thing with white cultures specifically.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 3: And also this movie doesn't care about women, obvious, they
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 3: said women suck and they're boring Bonnie, Bonnie. I'm curious.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: It did remind me a bit about how I mean,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 3: because Disney Channel dcoms very often have a little romance,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: to the point where it felt curious that the what
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 3: I think would ordinarily be a romance between Kyle and
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: Bonnie was not expanded upon a little more. And I wonder,
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I just I'm putting that out there
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 3: because there is you know, the further you go back
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 3: in time, the more resistance there is to showing an
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: interracial romantic interest. And I can't think of a ton
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: of d cooms where that happens. I'm not stating that
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 3: that's what's happening here. It also could just be that
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: the movie is a mess, but I did want to
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 3: shut that out. And also that Bonnie, as with any
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: many women characters, seems to only care about what happens
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 3: to Kyle. She has no life outside. The one thing
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 3: we know about her is that she's very smart.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: She's in charge of a lot of extracurricular clubs.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: But it doesn't appear that she has any friends because
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't for much of the movie describe her and
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 3: Kyle as friends, right. It seems like they're kind there's
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: kind of an antagonistic relationship, but we don't really see
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 3: her talk to anybody else. She sort of just walks
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: out of the ether and it's like, Kyle, are you
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: irish or not?
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: Her whole function in the story, yeah, is to support
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: Kyle's journey that he's going.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 3: Journey to being irish, which is like so silly, And
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 3: again it just there are small, as with most of
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: these movies, small modifications to the story that include Bonnie
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: being like, for example, like it still can be Kyle's story,
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 3: but like how would it not help the story for
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 3: her to say, like, for example, this is my connection
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: to my culture, and I find it very affirming. It's
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 3: very important to me. I like blah blah blah, get
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 3: specific about it that helps tell the story. So it
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 3: just feels like this weird void where like, you know,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: to speculate, a white writer doesn't know anything about any
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: cultures that aren't their own and didn't even bother to
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: research it for the sake of this character. Right, same
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 3: goes for Russell, really any character, and also frankly the
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 3: same goes for Kyle because there's really not a lot
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: of Irish information in the story. There's a lot of stuff, just.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: A lot of either conflation or like things that your
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: average American associates with Irish cultures, such as leprechauns, pots
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: of gold at the end of a rainbow, the color green,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: Like the amount of green in the production design in
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: this movie is astonishing.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 3: Which I mean again, this is like in the same
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 3: way that Dcom's had like a Hanuka movie Capital h
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 3: this is these Saint Patrick's Day movie, I think just
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 3: because they didn't have one, and so it feels very
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: rushy and very like what are people like it's it's
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 3: more presenting the commercial holiday versus anything else, because I mean,
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 3: and there is you know, the leprechauns are a bit
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 3: of Irish folklore. In American media, they're presented it seems
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 3: like pretty incorrectly. I did a little bit of did
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 3: you do some leprechaun research? A little bit. They're they're
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 3: wearing red most of the time. They're not even usually
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 3: wearing green.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 2: This is correct. I did a little bit of research,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: and I mean suffice it to say that everything we
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: see a lot of what we see in this movie
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: is either it's just like a home a stereotype, or
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: an oversimplification of it, or just like flat out incorrect.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: I forgot to say that part of my just general
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 2: history with Irish culture in Ireland is that I also
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: have been to Ireland a couple of times, mostly to
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: do comedy and.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 3: To go to see Titanic related things.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: Because I went to Northern Ireland, which I know is
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: a different country than Ireland, just so listeners know that
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: I know their distinction. I went to Belfast to visit
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: the Titanic Museum, of course, but also when I was
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: in Dublin, I went to the National Leprechaun Museum of Ireland.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: And I will say that I forgot everything I learned
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: because it was seven years ago. Okay, so I don't
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: really didn't really retain, but I remember learning a lot
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: about Irish folklore, folklore specific to leprechauns, how it's almost
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: always misrepresented in popular media. So yeah, I found it
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: very interesting. Yeah again, this movie's representation of leprechauns. You know,
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: it's I would say, not super accurate, safety say.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 3: And it's like again, it's just it's it's the disney
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 3: fied version of it, but like also something even weirder
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 3: than that, and I can't really under I don't understand
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 3: what the hell's going on. Dcoms were Look say what
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 3: you will, because most of them are bad, but there
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: is a lawlessness to a dcom that I find very
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 3: nostalgically appealing, where like they were doing whatever, oh, they
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: were doing whatever and just throwing They said, here's your slop, kids,
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 3: and we were and we were loving them.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: Here's your here's the spaghetti slash weird glass noodle dish
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: that's surrounded by romaine lettuce and an enormous bowl. Throw
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: it against the wall and see what sticks.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 3: Eat up, bitch, and like we and I was eating up.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 3: I was slurping it up and loving it, and so
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 3: was acclaimed genius Ryan Coogler. So look, I'm glad that
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: mister Kogler brought this to our attention. I would be
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 3: really curious how he felt on a rewatch. I did
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 3: want to just share because we've got to wrap up,
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 3: but I just want to share. I read an interview
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 3: with the screenwriter that was like refreshingly honest. I believe
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 3: Andrew Price is his name. This was an interview online
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 3: from a while ago where he basically admits he did
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 3: no research. So he's asked the movie centers on heritage.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 3: Is that an aspect of life you feel strongly about?
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 3: And he says I used his search for heritage as
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 3: a jumping off point for what I hoped to be
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 3: a more personal story. After reading my first draft, my
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 3: wife kept trying to convince me I was writing about
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 3: a boy discovering and coming to terms with being gay.
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 3: I was more interested in a boy who has to
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: rediscover himself. Since I'm not a leprechaun, I needed defend.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: This is such a weird interview. He's like it's not
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: about being gay. I'm not a laprechaun. Since I'm not
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: a leprechaun, I needed to find something about Kyle that
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 3: I could relate to and make personal. Not to harp
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 3: on my own life experience, but for me, high school
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: was very easy, but college was like an ice bath.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 3: I wanted Kyle to have those personal feelings of security
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 3: followed by confusion, alienation, and fear culminating in a newfound
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 3: confidence and joy. So I think that was his way
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 3: of saying, I do not feel strongly about heritage at all.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 3: I'm not gay and I'm not a laprechaun, and so
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 3: that's interesting. A follow up question, I love the character
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 3: detail that Riley O'Reilly invented potato chips. How much research
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 3: into Irish history and folklore did you do? The writer replies,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 3: I did a little research into the culture, read books
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 3: and watched some Irish dancing, as well as ate some
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 3: of the food. However, I didn't want to feel hemmed
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 3: in by mythology and wanted my story to come from
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 3: my own imagination. I use what I read as color,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 3: but didn't go too deeply in the actual folklore. So
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 3: if there was any question, he was like, I read
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 3: a book and I ate a piece of cabbage and
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 3: I watched River Dance, and then I was kind of like,
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 3: I get it. And then he just freeform jazzed all
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 3: over Ireland since I'm not a leprechaun, which I think
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 3: is his way of saying, since I'm not Irish, since
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 3: I'm not a leprecaun. So it's just like I don't know,
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know, and then there and then the interview
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 3: ends like have you written another movie since this? And
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 3: he's like, no, no one wants them for some reason.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 3: It's funny. It's funny. Men.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: In my research about leprechauns, I learned that listeners from
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 2: Ireland please share your experience with this, but I learned
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: that a not insignificant number of Irish people believe in
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: leprechauns currently or believe they once existed in the past.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 3: Okay, so Irish listeners sound off, Yeah, is this is
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 3: this accurate?
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 5: Are we?
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah? And and if you do believe in leprechauns, tell
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 3: us I'm I'm open. I'm open to being swayed. I
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: believe in all sorts of shit.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we we you know, many of us believe in
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: I'm a Taurus, therefore I'm I'm stubborn, and also I
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 2: like to lie down a lot on a comfy bed.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: It's true, it's true. I've seen it, so you know that.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 3: So it doesn't pass the Bachdel test, and I wouldn't
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 3: even say it comes close. There is one exchange that
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 3: I noticed between women that was like a teacher. That's
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 3: like the science teacher talking to a student that randomly
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 3: gets a name, and we learned about magnets and that
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 3: becomes relevant later. So I would have been able, I
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 3: would have given it a pass as a relevant exchange
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 3: of dialogue. But we don't know what the teacher's name is.
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: So and I entirely forgot about that conversation. So if
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: it's not a very memorable moment it was, Yeah, I'm
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: not too sure about that.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 3: It's a nice try. I was gonna say nice try,
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 3: but obviously they were trying.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: Not a try at all. Yeah, Like I mean Kyle's mom,
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: who does have a name. Kate and Bonnie will appear
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: here and there throughout the story. Sometimes there will be
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: like plot relevant they.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 3: Say that they're both important characters.
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 2: They are, but then they'll also get jettisoned out of
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: the main action of the story for large swaths of it.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 3: So yes, not doing a.
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: Great job there. Yeah, the movie does not pass the
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: Bechdel test. What about our nipple scale though, our scale, god,
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 2: our scale where we rate the movie zero to five
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 2: nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna give it a half nipple, Like it's not
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of maybe a nipple. I don't know, I'm gonna.
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 3: Give it one because women are in it.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: Right, women are in it, and it's trying to say
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: something about being proud of your cultural heritage, but it's
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 2: also saying a lot about how but if you're American,
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 2: that's the most important thing, and go, go, go America
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 2: America number one.
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 3: I be very curious if that is something that appeared
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 3: in the first draft, or if that was like a
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 3: disneyfied element. I'm always very curious about how these because
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 3: like media for children is so deliberate in that way, right.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 3: I would love to see a second interview with this
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 3: writer where he's like, first of all, I'm not a leprechaun.
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 2: Second of all, Second of all, college was really hard that.
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 3: That interview is so iconic to me, where it was
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 3: like a pretty long interview and I'm like, this guy
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 3: is like the lights are not on. Amazing that he
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 3: has a produced screenwriting credit and like three women in
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 3: history do yeah, awesome.
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: Bleak.
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: Anyways, Yeah, so one nipple, uh, you know all the
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: things we talked about, and I will give my nipple
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: two leprechauns.
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna give it one nipple and I'm gonna give
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 3: the nipple to I think just the plot point that
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 3: the grandfather Leprechaun is shackled to a basketball hoop, that
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 3: is like such a funny detail that clearly no one
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 3: in the movie knows what to do with. We cannot
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 3: decide if we can actually see him or not. Sometimes
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 3: we can. Sometimes the entire gymnasium decides this game is
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 3: so important that it doesn't matter if there's an old
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 3: man shackled to the away teams basketball hoop or not.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 3: And that is very Santa University coded to me. I
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 3: really appreciated that that They're like, we don't know what
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 3: to do with it, so it just is take it
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 3: or leave it, and I'm taking it. No, I'm taking it.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 3: I'm claiming it.
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: It's a very brave storytelling choice.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 3: Yes, well, there you have it.
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 2: Listeners for more movies that are about Ireland slash Irish
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: people slash maybe leprechauns. Yeah, refer to our Matreon this
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 2: month because we're covering a few more.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, please join us in celebrating. Well, it depends. We're
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 3: going to give you a charcutery board. If you're already
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 3: a matron, you already know. We're doing both movies written
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 3: and directed by Irish artists and movies that are about
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 3: Ireland and may or may not do better than the
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 3: movie we discussed today. But once again, well, actually I
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 3: guess I'm giving I'm going to take back my nipple
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 3: from Bonnie, Sorry Bonnie and give it to Ryan Coogler. Ohay,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 3: this episode possible. Thank you for making interviews fun to watch.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 3: And we've already covered Sinners on the show, so you
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 3: can listen to that. We've covered black Panthers, so plenty
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 3: of Coogler on the pod. You can yeah find us
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 3: over on the Matreon or on Instagram. And with that,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 3: shall we go to the end of the rainbow and
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 3: then engage in ancient warfare?
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 3: Awesome.
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 2: Bye, Okay Bye.
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 3: produced by Me, Jamie Loftus and.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann.
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 3: And edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever Heard of Them? That's Me?
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: And our logo and merch and all of our artwork,
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever heard of her?
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 3: Oh My God? And our theme song, by the way,
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 3: was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 3: Iconic and especial thanks to the one and only Aristotle Ascevedo.
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: Spectelcast