August 29, 2026 • 61 mins
SMNTY really wishes you'd enjoy this episode about the movie Obsession, but only of your own freewill, no One Wish Willow required. Anney and Samantha break into the themes of autonomy, male loneliness and insecurity and inverted horror tropes.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
And this is Anne.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Anne Samantha.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production
of iHeartRadio. And welcome to another edition of Spoiled Saturdays.
Happy birthday to me. I'm so excited because this was
(00:29):
a birthday present episode for me. We were talking about...
the movie Obsession, which I adore and have been talking
about on the show for a little bit. And was
a pretty big hit. It was very popular. Did very well.
And the actress who plays Nikki in the movie, Indy Navarati,
(00:52):
she's going to play Rogue in X-Men. That's how popular
we're talking.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
People are excited.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, people are excited. So I was very happy to hear.
We got kind of cut off, Samantha. But I was
worried you would be angry with me. But it sounds
like you're not so angry with me for suggesting this. No, no.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I was a little worried, but with the spoiler, I
will say, like, it wasn't as intense. And also, it
looked very... much like a stuffed animal. So it made
it a little better.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It being a cat. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
So I was trying not to get ahead on this
one for you, but like, yeah, so because I was
a worry, but yeah, that was some like, uh, parts,
but I was able to disassociate enough because I was like, what?
There's a lot to this. I was like, what just happened?
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I think that's a fair assessment.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I will say the worst part was like the cringe moments, like,
oh no, like during the party.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I meant to warn you about that because I know
how you feel about secondhand embarrassment.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I did fast forward a little bit through some parts
of that because I was like, I can't.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Oh, that part's so good. I mean, not all of it.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Like, I've got the gist. Don't you worry. I got
the gist.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah. No, that's... Before we got kind of cut off,
because we were about to record with Eves and we
were talking about it and Eves came on, so we
stopped talking.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I was going to bring up the secondhand embarrassment, but
at that point it was too late. So what good
have I done?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Because I think I'd already watched it by that point.
I was ready. I was like.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
But I did think about that with you. It's got
a lot of those elements in it. It does.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Because it's supposed to.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
But it was like, oh no, cringe.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
So.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I have talked about this movie before on a happy
hour and I'm going to revisit what I talked about
in that happy hour in this episode because it's kind
of changed since that came out, which actually I'm, I'm
just going to say as we're recording this, because we're
trying to get ahead, we're recording this kind of early.
So it's, uh, August 21st, 2026 in case some big
(03:12):
new conversation starter happens with this, which is totally possible
that it will. Um, I saw this in theaters twice.
And one of the things that kind of touches on
that cringe, embarrassment element is that people were so unsure about, like,
(03:37):
I'm so uncomfortable with what's happening here. Like, should I
be laughing? Is this scary? I don't know. Like, in
the audience.
The atmosphere was palpable. And I will be discussing how
I personally think that they vindicated my viewpoint on this movie.
(04:03):
But it's a visceral reaction that I experienced when I
saw it in theaters. People were really reacting to it.
That being said, I've got to put it in here.
Fan fiction. I don't read obsession fan fiction, but obsession
(04:27):
has made its way into fan fiction I do read
because it was so popular. And so now like every
couple you can imagine, there's a obsession fan fiction with
that couple. I do have one I like.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
That seems concerning.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Oh, I have one I like, and it's really good
because they're very clear this is a horrible thing. This
is not meant to be romanticized. So it's horrific. It's like... It's...
Just something I have to prepare myself for, which is
(05:06):
amazing how many fan fictions I have now that I
have to prepare myself before I read it. But it
is great. It's a great one. But I'm just surprised
a little bit at how much I've seen Obsession kind
of filter into other fandoms. Another thing, this is just
a random aside. I've noticed this in a couple of movies,
(05:29):
but Obsession has at the end, it can't be used
to train A.I. I don't know if that legally means anything.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I was going to say, does that really hold up?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I mean, it seems like it should because it's in
kind of all the copyright section. But I have no idea.
I just noticed it when I was watching on my recent.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Can we say that? To be fair, our company says
guaranteed humans. So I hope they have something that says
that they can't use our content for AI. Hey, stop
using us for AI. Yeah. Is that enough?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
We're guaranteed human. Definitely. No questions about it. Exactly. So
I'm also really excited about this because I got my
hair cut today and the person who cuts my hair,
she loves horror movies. And we just talked about this
movie like the whole time. It was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
And so y'all are on the same page? Yes. You
haven't met anybody that disagrees yet?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
No. I've met some people who, like, are a little, like,
not complete agreement, but nobody, I would say, essentially disagrees. Yes. No,
she was definitely on my page. And she was even
pointing me to, you should listen to this. You should
go watch this video. This will break it down for you.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I was like, oh, my gosh. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Are you one of those, too? Because my partner, if
they see a movie they really like, or at least, like,
have questions about, the first thing they have is YouTubes
that have breakdowns. Do you do this too?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
I don't normally do it, but for this movie, I did.
I watched a lot of video essays. I even watched
a really, really fun one that was about the legal
arguments every character has about the crimes committed. I loved it.
I'm going to be talking about it a little bit
more later. Normally, I don't do it, but just so
(07:30):
many people... After this movie came out, there was a
lot of conversation about it, and there were a lot
of really great videos that were made that I thought,
I want to check that out. I want to see
what that's about. Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
So, I mean, just to reiterate, hopefully, obviously, spoilers, the
whole thing, spoiled. Content warning, we're going to be talking
about violence, sexual assault, death, and suicide. And some of
this is kind of tricky to talk about because of
the nature of the story. Some people refer to Nikki
(08:10):
and not Nikki to differentiate. I'm going to stick with Nikki,
but know that after Bear makes the wish, it's mostly
not Nikki who is controlling Nikki's body and actions. And
the real Nikki is forced to experience it and occasionally
breaks free of it. Also, you're going to get my
(08:32):
Bear is the Villain manifesto. Don't you worry. Maybe not
a perfect, simple villain, but he is the villain. People
in the theater were rooting for this man's death. There
is also discussion about suicide that is a little bit messy.
In some of the videos I was watching, I was like, oof,
(08:54):
that is tricky to talk about. But all right, here
we go with the plot. Obsession is a 2025 horror
movie directed, edited, and written by Curry Barker. And I
(09:17):
realized doing this, he did Milk and Cereal, which is
a horror movie. It's available on YouTube for free. I
believe it's still available. It's like an hour long. It's
a very unique take on found footage. And I think
this is where I thought I'd already seen Obsession years ago.
(09:40):
And I'm pretty sure that I got something mixed up,
but I definitely saw milk and cereal. And when I
was reading that he was the person behind it, I thought, okay,
something is sliding into place for me. The movie stars
Michael Johnston as Bear and Indy Navarrete as Nikki. It
(10:02):
features Megan Lawless, Cooper Tomlinson, and Andy Richter. Yeah, it
was a huge critical and commercial success. It beat out
a lot of blockbusters for weeks. It is one of
the highest grossing horror movies of all time. Barker was
a YouTube sketch artist. Along with Tomlinson, he was also
(10:24):
in Milk and Cereal, Barker was approached by a producer
to make a movie. And Barker pitched an idea based
on a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode, and that's what
became Obsession. The plot follows Baron Bear Bailey, a young
man with romantic feelings for his friend Nikki Freeman, who
(10:44):
he works with at a music store with their friends
Ian and Sarah. He seems like he's really shy, and
in the beginning, he is practicing confessing his feelings for her.
It doesn't go well, at least according to his friend, Ian.
Bear returns to his apartment to find his cat, Sandy,
has died after getting into some pills Bear has left out.
(11:06):
We are going to talk about that more. Don't you worry.
Nikki calls and convinces Bear to come out to trivia
after informing him she's quitting at the music shop. So
she's put in her two weeks. So now Bear thinks
he has a time crunch to tell her his feelings.
(11:27):
So he agrees and heads out to a store to
replace a crystal necklace that Nikki lost. So it's kind
of a new agey store. Instead, he ultimately opts for
a novelty item called the One Wish Willow, a stick
that when broken is guaranteed to grant you one wish.
And you only get one wish. No more. The cashier
(11:51):
is very ominous about the whole thing and tells him
not to come in complaining. At trivia, Bear attempts multiple
times to start a conversation with Nikki, but is interrupted.
He offers to drive her home when she says she
just wants to sleep. On the way, on the drive,
Nikki implies that maybe Sarah has feelings for Bear, but
(12:14):
Bear ignores this and fumbles multiple times to make his
feelings for Nikki known. After they arrive at her home,
she asks him bluntly if he has feelings for her,
and he lies and says no. Once she's inside, he
breaks the one-wish willow and says, I wish Nikki Freeman
loved me more than anything in the f * * *
(12:35):
ing world. Suddenly, Nikki reappears, and it's a great creepy shot,
I love it, and seems confused about the death of
the cat, saying it's her cat. but then convinces Bear
to take her back to his place after she says
her father is dying of cancer. He agrees, and eventually
(12:58):
they start kissing until she abruptly snaps out of it
and falls off the bed looking confused and horrified. He
reacts extremely defensively, and she assures him it was just
a panic attack. The next day, Bear finds out that
Nikki has made him a shrine of Sandy's remains. thinking
(13:20):
that he would like it. Yeah. Bear talks to their
friend Ian, who suspects that drugs are involved. And this
is all happening, and she's like creepily staring at Bear,
by the way. There's a montage of them seemingly happily dating,
very domestic, but their friends are growing more and more concerned.
(13:42):
Ian reveals that Sarah told him that Nikki sees Bear
as a little brother, that that's what Nikki told Sarah,
who told Ian, and that her father is healthy, no
cancer to be had. When Bear confronts Nikki about this
on their date, she is extremely volatile, asking, what does
(14:04):
it matter if it's true or not? To which Bear says,
it doesn't matter to me. And then you cut to
Bear raping her. That night, Nikki behaves erratically, watching Bear sleep, screaming,
hiding behind flowers that she claimed were for Sandy, shrieking
at him to stay when he tried to move away
(14:27):
on the bed. The next day, Bear asks her to
be normal and not do any more of that, and
she agrees, sending him on his way with a packed lunch. However,
he finds that she has duct-taped the door shut. He
eventually pulls it free and goes to work and is
(14:49):
talking to Sarah about colleges after she received another rejection letter.
And she has one more chance, which is her dream
college of Luther. While eating his sandwich, he finds a
picture of Nikki with the caption, not me, taken while
he was sleeping. And discovers that the meat inside is
(15:09):
that of dear old Sandy the cat. Yep. Bear calls
the One Wish Willow helpline. I love this. And talks
to a really bored customer service person who tells him
he can't change the wish. Bear asks if the love
is real. And the guy is essentially like, sure, man.
(15:33):
So Bear asks to cancel it. but he learns that
he cannot. Then the customer service guy plays what he
claims are the sounds of Nikki screaming from wherever she is.
He also informs Bear that the wish will end when
he dies. When Bear returns to his apartment, he finds
(15:54):
that Nikki has stood in the same place all day,
waiting for him, swirling herself, vomiting on herself. She acts
very shy about the whole thing and goes to shower.
Bear reveals that Ian invited him to a boys' night
that Nikki specifically wasn't invited to. In response to this information,
(16:15):
Nikki freaks out until he agrees for Nikki to tag
along to the party. This brings us to the party.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
There, the partygoers are playing a game of Jenga where
every block you pull has a message on it, like
a dare. Nikki pulls one and reads a really creepy
poem that she wrote that we'll talk about more later.
And Bear pulls one that reads, kiss the person to
your left, which happens to be Sarah. Before he can, Nikki,
(16:46):
with the most intense frown I've ever seen, pulls Sarah's
chair out and kisses him instead. It's extremely awkward. It's
so awkward. Even more so when Nikki suddenly screams... it's
not me, and starts bashing her face in with a bottle.
Broken bottle. Yeah, she breaks it and then starts. Yeah. Yep.
(17:11):
After way too much pressure, Bear takes her to the hospital,
but they are dismissed due to her refusal of treatment.
Back at the apartment, Bear implores Nikki to just be normal,
to just be Nikki, and she sobs that she can't be.
She threatens to kill herself to keep him in the apartment.
(17:36):
Later that night, Bear gets a message from Sarah requesting
that they meet. He slips away from Nikki in bed,
only for her to stop him with a plea to
kill her. She says, this is really me and not
the being that's been controlling her that she calls she.
Nikki begs Bear to kill her before she wakes up.
(18:00):
But he gets angry and says, what would be so
bad with being with me? And leaves her there crying.
He meets Sarah in her car in the park, where
she tells him that Ian and Nikki have been casually
hooking up for a long time. They are about to
open her last college letter together when Bear asks her
(18:24):
if she likes him. And Sarah says, I was to
your left. referencing the kiss she should have gotten earlier.
But before anything can happen, Nikki arrives and smashes Sarah's
skull in repeatedly on a brick. She promises to get
rid of the evidence, but Bear helps her. Later, Bear
(18:46):
opens Sarah's college letter to see that she did get accepted.
Bear returns to where he purchased the one-wish willow to
find another one in hopes of having someone counteract his wish.
He is able to purchase two and learns that the
cashier was perfectly satisfied with his wish. Bear goes to
(19:09):
Ian and tries to explain the whole thing, but Ian
doesn't believe him. And he snaps the one-wish willow, and
he asks for a billion dollars, and then money starts
to rain down upon them. I love that scene.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
That's where I thought he was going to get killed
by the money. I thought that too. I assumed it
was going to be like a monkey paw thing, which
is what I think this is the inspiration of. But
I'm like, oh, it just kept hitting him. Okay, maybe not.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
I thought it was going to be death by money.
But I love that scene because it's just like such
an immediate, clear, no, this thing works. Yes, yes. So
Bear goes... back to his apartment to find a shrine
to Bear and Nikki's relationship and a very messed up,
very bloodied Nikki. She threatens to kill herself again and
(20:00):
does kill Ian when he barges in. Bear retreats to
the bathroom with the gun. with the intent to kill
himself to end the wish, but instead opts to overdose
on the pills that killed his cat. Just as he's
waiting for death, he attempts to induce vomiting, just as
(20:21):
we hear the snap and song of a one-wish willow,
and suddenly he's all smiley because she has wished for
him to love her as much as she loves him.
And that is a recurring theme, that she is frequently angry,
insecure that he doesn't love her or he doesn't love
(20:41):
her as much as she loves him. So, he leaves
the bathroom. They smile awkwardly at each other until Bear
collapses and dies from the overdose. Nikki reaches for the
gun to kill herself, but snaps out of the wish
now that Bear is dead before she can. She tosses
the gun, shoves away Bear's body, and screams and wails.
(21:05):
Why did you do this? How could you do this?
All while the TV in the background plays video of
Bear sleeping. The end. Yeah. They did shoot an alternate
ending where she does die. Where Nikki does kill herself. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Now I will say, I was waiting for him to die.
I'm like, really? Really? Just die?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yes. Yes. Yes. And we're going to talk about it
a bit more, but it was a purposeful choice for
him to... He tries to induce the vomiting before she
makes the wish. So, there's a lot to be said here.
(21:55):
I have tried to condense it, so it's not just
me Screaming at the top of my lungs points that
so many people have made. But we're going to do
this a little bit differently. I'm going to start with
two main points because I think they inform the rest
of everything else. So the question of when does Bear
(22:18):
become the villain? So he is the villain. And I'm
happy that pretty much everyone seems to agree. Aside from
usual Manosphere bros. I'll get into that more in a second.
Because if you'll remember, I was very concerned about it
when I did that happy hour. This is one of
(22:39):
those things that I just thought, unless it's done well,
I don't know how people are going to take this.
And one of the things I love about this movie
is that the evolution of how Bear starts as a
(22:59):
sympathetic character And then over time, you start to realize, oh,
not so much. And that could happen at different points,
depending on your viewing experience, very quickly or over the
span of the first half. I'd say it demonstrates that
(23:21):
he's not someone deserving of sympathy. And I wanted to
put this in here. So Universal Studios. announced the character
Nikki would be featured as part of their Halloween Horror
Nights as one of the characters who is wandering around
scaring you. But when they announced this, they included a
(23:44):
statement that said, she's not the monster. Because normally all
these characters are monsters. And they went out of their
way to release a statement and say, she is not
the monster. She was the victim. She was the product
of a monstrous situation. I just thought that was interesting
that they felt like we got to be clear here.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
So is this going to be like her being possessed
or being taken over rather?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I think it's going to be her, either like the
really bloody version of her at the end or the
one that I think if she was like carrying around
the vase of flowers in front of her face. I'm
anticipating seeing that at Dragon Con. I think someone will
do that.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Well, that whole, like, go back and forth, which I
have seen TikToks of women doing that to their men
after watching this movie, freaking their boyfriends out. That would
be a hole.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I love that scene where he's like, you're freaking me out.
And she does that, like, rush at him. I love
that so much.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
That's what I'm saying. Like, they were like, because they
also obviously edited it to make it scarier. She has it.
People I've seen do it. And then the backwards walk.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yes. I love that whole part.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I think that would be really good. That would be
really good. I think there's going to be a pretty
decent showing of Obsession at DragonCon this year. Yes. So
another thing I wanted to note, some people like myself
thought the name Bear was to play on the whole
man versus bear trend that was popular when this was
(25:26):
being filmed. Basically, would a woman rather face a man
or a bear? The creator has said that no, that
is not the case, but he appreciates that so many
of us thought it. He was kind of like, oh,
if only. He said he just wanted a name that
would stand out.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, Baron, Bear, please stand up.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
But going back to the original question, when did he
become the villain? There are three main arguments, but they
all boil down to he knew what he was doing
and he knew something was wrong and didn't care. So
the first argument is right after the wish. So in
that first instance, he knows something is off with her.
(26:17):
He's attributing it to drugs. At first, he's like, maybe
she's just really sad about her dad having cancer. But
what I think is really telling about this whole thing
is that he, when they kiss, he immediately, she has
like her snap out of it, oh my God, what's
(26:38):
happening moment. And he immediately tries to defend himself. He
doesn't ask if she's okay. He doesn't check on her.
He just is like, you kissed me. It was you.
You did this. Like all of this stuff that he's
obviously aware something is wrong. And he is so much
(27:05):
more concerned that he is not going to get consequences
for it. And we're going to talk more about consequences
versus loss of autonomy. This happens again. When she shows
up at his apartment, it's a beautiful shot where she's
in like a red dress, but her face is all
in shadow and her eyes are gleaming.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Oh, and she says, well, I didn't want anyone to
think that you were taking advantage of me. And he's like,
I wasn't taking advantage of you. He's just immediately. And
she's like, oh, that's what I'm saying. But he is
so defensive right away. The second one, which I think
at this point, is the why does it matter rape scene.
(27:50):
So when they're on their date and Bear learns from
Ian that her father is fine, doesn't have cancer, he
asks her about it. And that's when she has her
wonderful scene I love. No, no, no, no, no. Don't
(28:11):
ruin this date. She sits down and he asks her, like,
do you love me? And then he uses the exact
same wording from his wish more than anyone in the world.
And that's when she says, does it matter? And he says, nope.
(28:36):
And then it cuts to the rape scene. And that
is why it's a rape scene. He knows at that point.
You can't convince me otherwise that he did not know.
And the wording of his wish and intent to control her,
that's really important. When he makes the wish, he sounds
(28:57):
like dejected and angry. And I think that you see
that throughout. And it's reflected in he doesn't care. He
just wants her. More than, like, he wants her to
only want him and nothing else. That's her whole world. So,
(29:24):
as I was saying, I did watch these legal videos
about this movie. It is illegal to have sex with
someone who has an inability to consent. And he clearly knows,
I think even in the first instance where they didn't
have sex, but he knows something is wrong even if
he doesn't know that it's the wish yet. And the
(29:49):
sad thing about all of the legal videos I watched
is Nikki would be punished the most despite being the
one who voluntarily chose the least. The company would be fine.
Bear is dead, so I guess you can make of
that what you will. But they go over multiple things
that Bear says in these legal videos that prove that
(30:12):
he knew something is wrong that they could use in
a legal case. He says she needs serious help. Something
is very wrong with her. She is exhibiting violence, threats
that are out of character. He went online online. to
try to figure it out, he called the company hotline
(30:34):
where they confirmed that she's been altered and she is suffering.
So all of this proves he suspected he caused it
or something was wrong and he did not care. So
as I was saying earlier, there is an interesting dichotomy
in a lot of horror where male horror is a
(30:57):
fear of consequences. And female horror is loss of autonomy.
And that can switch up, like Alien is a great
example of when it switches up. And in this case,
he is, Bear is more afraid of the consequences and
she has lost her autonomy. And he ruined her life.
(31:23):
He took her future. I think you could argue he
took Sarah's future. And these were his choices that he made.
So that's a larger conversation to have. But the third
and final point, I think irrefutable if you make it
(31:44):
this far, that he's the villain, is when she begs
him to kill her. And what does he do? He says,
would it be so bad to be with me? and
leaves her alone. And he knows she's suffering. He knows
at the very least she's become unstable. And I just
(32:09):
can't imagine walking away from someone I cared about who's
begging me to kill them. Like, walking away from that situation,
making it about you. He doesn't care about her at all.
I have a whole section about that later. He doesn't
(32:29):
care about her. He thinks he is the victim. He
could have gotten her help multiple times. If this is
his friend, multiple times, and he never tried. He never
ever tried. I have seen that this has become a
(32:50):
new boyfriend test of If your boyfriend is like, oh,
I see where he's coming from. Women being like, oh, no. Okay.
And a lot of the things they say is, he
didn't take advantage of her on the first night. And
(33:10):
I just think, wow, the bar is so low.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Do we know that for sure, though? Well, that's just
what they say. Just because they didn't show it doesn't
mean it didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Yeah, and I think you could argue that he did.
But just the fact that they're like, well, he didn't
have sex with her or rape her that night. And like,
this is the saddest point you could make for your argument.
That's odd. Yeah, yeah. So those are my three main,
(33:43):
and not just me, I think those are the three
main points that people use to be like, this is,
he's the villain. Another thing people like to debate is
whether or not Bear could have actually gotten with Nikki
if he'd just spoken to her about his feelings honestly.
The creators have been clear that no. When Sarah told
(34:05):
Ian Bear was friendzoned, that was the truth. I think
the clearest indicator of that fact, of that Nikki didn't
view Bear romantically, is when she reads her creepy Hansel
and Gretel poem at the party. And she's talking about
how only the branch of a willow tree could conjure
a love between a brother and sister. Yeah, she's talking
(34:26):
about an incestuous relationship forced by a branch of a
willow tree. Yeah. And that makes it so much worse
to me because she trusted him as a friend. And
when she's begging him to kill her, she still had
faith in him. She thought he might not realize what
was going on, and she was willing to die to
(34:47):
protect her friends. And in the face, she didn't want
to continue living that way without autonomy. But in that moment,
he made it clear to her that he was punishing
her for perceived rejection. And all of this is made
worse in that he could kill himself to save her,
(35:08):
and he knows it. So she's saying, I'll do it,
and he doesn't. just leaves her to suffer. Another thing
is he could have gotten with Sarah. Sarah clearly was
interested in him.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Which Nikki kind of brings up.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, Nikki's kind of like, how would you feel about this?
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I told her, what do you think? And he very
much knows what that means. Yes.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Yes. And I think he, when it becomes clear that
Sarah is interested in him, suddenly he sees that as
an option. And that's going back to the fear of rejection.
He's too insecure. And so it took Sarah to kind
of be open and Nikki to kind of tell him
for him to think, oh, maybe it could be Sarah.
(35:59):
He's also very much in the vein of a guy
who thinks a woman will fix his problems, which we'll
discuss more. I also, like, every time I rewatch it,
I always am so sad in the beginning. Nikki just
wanted to go home and sleep. She just wanted a
(36:20):
ride home. And this is what happened. Another thing that's
interesting is that when they were doing the casting, Andy Navaretti,
her audition, one of the reasons they chose her is
because she brought out a very, like, kind of sassiness
(36:43):
that they wanted to make sure that people knew it
was a friend zone situation. Because originally, at least according
to the creator, she'd been written very girl next door,
but she brought in this kind of, like, sassiness.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
It was obvious she saw him as the friend. Like,
there was no, like, there was that tough girl, like, hey,
you know, we're good, right? Because, like, nah, this is
a nah.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Like she, like it was very upfront. Like she treated
him like a younger brother, essentially.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yes. Yes. Something else I thought was interesting is costuming.
So a lot of the interviews I watched about this,
because you don't actually get to see Nikki before she's
possessed for a long time, It's a short amount of
(37:40):
time that you get to see her before she's possessed.
They tried to make as much use of that time
to showcase who she was. And one was in the costuming.
So in the first costume she wears, it's like an
oversized coat. It's very comfortable. After the wish, she is
(38:03):
dressed much more seductively. She's in like short shorts, tight clothes,
tight dress. So doing it for Bear and not for her.
So I thought that was interesting. This brings us to
(38:27):
the inversion of tropes, of which there are many. The first,
Wish Gone Wrong. So one of the things the director
slash creator has been very clear on, and I think
is extremely important, is that this is not a monkey
paw situation, meaning it's not a cursed item that is
(38:47):
going to twist your words and give you the worst
possible outcome. We are shown in the movie some people
used the one-wish willow and were happy with the outcome
of their wish. He made a bad wish. He took
away someone's choice, her autonomy. and in doing so, allowed
for something else, her, to inhabit Nikki's body. He reduced
(39:12):
her to an object for his wish fulfillment, erasing what
made her, her, so his wish was never going to work.
Because even though he claimed he wanted Nikki, he didn't, really.
He wanted the idealized version of her, and the life
that they could have together that he created in his mind.
(39:34):
He keeps telling her to be normal after she's possessed,
to just be Nikki, a very clear indicator that he
knows that she isn't Nikki, but he wants the Nikki
who was in love with him without the fear of
her rejecting him. That being said, the wording matters in
terms of bear's intentions. When he made the wish, his
(39:58):
words are not getting twisted. He could have wished to
be the person she'd want. He wished to make her
essentially subservient to his desires. So I think that's important.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah. I said monkey paw, so obviously not.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
I think, though, I get it because the idea of
a wish not going how you want. Yeah. I get,
I think I called it monkey paw too. But I
think that distinction is important, that it's not like it
was twisting his words.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
It was his choices that was being interesting because I
do remember when he was reading, trying to research about
this specific thing. And one of the wishes were like,
he's one of the comments where it works and it's amazing.
My mom is so happy. She's so gorgeous and she's
so happy about herself. So that person had wished for
her mother to, to become beautiful or whatever whatnot. And
(40:52):
it seemed like it had worked out. Like they're all
happy because it wasn't about her necessarily, but letting her
mom have what she wanted. I just remember that one
for some reason.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah. Yeah. And well, when he goes to the, a
very funny and absurd scene when he's covered in blood
and goes back to the store and it's like how
he's telling the cashier, like, how could you sell this
to people? This product is dangerous. Can you make the
wish to counteract my wish? And he says, the cashier
(41:22):
says so calmly, like, I already made my wish, man.
That's great. He never says.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
What it is.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Whatever happened with him, he wasn't worried about it. So yes,
it is a situation where he made a bad wish.
And if you're looking up, I would urge you not to.
But if you do stumble into the manosphere arguments of
why Bear is actually the victim here, A lot of
times they say he just worded it incorrectly. That's not true.
(41:55):
Especially because when he gets on the line with the
customer service people and he asked to alter it before
he's like, oh, I'll cancel it then. He asked to
alter it because he still wants this thing even though
he knows it's not her. Yes. So another trope, the
(42:19):
nice guy trope. The character bear would generally fall under
the nice guy trope. And this is a trope that
paints a guy as nice. He is usually nerdy and shy.
But once you do a little digging underneath that, they're entitled,
they're angry, they're vengeful. The scary thing about the nice
guy is that he's not openly radicalized, but he still
(42:42):
thinks women are objects. So you won't necessarily know. One
of the ways I see this manifesting with him is
how Bear weaponizes sympathy. So from the start, he uses
the death of his cat to garner sympathy. He takes
Nikki's fake story that he later knows is fake and
(43:04):
keeps telling it about her dad having cancer to elicit
sympathy from their friends and kind of as a like
shield from their judgments. because the friends are really concerned
about Nikki's behavior. Another big conversation that's come out about
this has been about the victims of male loneliness and
(43:24):
male insecurity. So Bear is lonely. He's extremely lonely. He
doesn't have much going on. He lives in his grandmother's apartment,
and his grandmother has just died. His cat has just died.
And in the beginning, all the stories, when he's doing
(43:46):
his practice confession, all the stories he shares about Nikki
involve her being the only one who was there for him.
Because he was lonely. He doesn't seem to have much
going on. And this is interesting when compared with Ian,
his kind of frat boy friend. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Who literally tells him to, like, neg her, essentially.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yes. So if you had the two of them together,
you would think Bear is not a threat. Both of
them are trying to control access to Nikki. Neither one
is good. I just think it's interesting that you'd probably
be more willing, oh, Bear might be fine. Nope. His
(44:35):
first reaction to Nikki saying she wants to quit and
continue writing is not support our curiosity, but instead a
knee-jerk reaction about not seeing her anymore and assuming that
she's writing romance. So not wanting to be lonely again
and worrying that she'll move on. It's not that I
(44:55):
don't get the, oh, I'm going to miss you, but
he immediately was like, oh. I'm not going to ask
her about what she wants or anything like that. Patriarchy
hurts everybody. There are systemic reasons contributing, at least in part,
to why Bear is so lonely. But the violence is
(45:16):
often directed at women. This brings us to my lack
of care point. He does not care about Nikki. I
cannot stress this enough, not truly. At multiple points, he
doesn't seem to know much about her, and even the
things he does know, like she doesn't like the nickname
(45:39):
Freaky Nikki, he disregards in hopes of getting with her.
She repeatedly tries to make clear that it isn't her,
it's not me, and he doesn't care. She smashes her
head in, and he won't look at her. He's mostly
annoyed and angry and took her home and yelled at
(46:01):
her to just be Nikki. Like, she's still covered in blood.
If you pay attention, this is just a fun detail,
Nikki seems to snap out of her possession when she
sees her reflection in a mirror or some type of
reflective surface. So she recognizes it's not her. I just
thought that was cool. I also would say he's not
(46:24):
really being honest about who he is with her either.
They just don't seem to have, as much as he
built it up with his confession, they don't seem to
have a very communicative relationship. And I mean, he didn't
know about her being with Ian, and it's not any
of his business. But I just think there's a lot
of things that, I don't think he really cared about her, man. Yes,
(46:49):
as I said, every memory he shares about how much
he loves her center on her attention on him. He
doesn't ask questions about her when they're on their date.
Other than, oh, hey, let me see how far this
wish thing goes. And this brings us to the cat. Yes,
poor Sandy the cat, R.I.P. Sandy is Bear's cat, and
(47:13):
the story opens with him finding his cat dead in
his apartment. The cat then becomes a through line in
the movie with Nikki making a shrine to it and
cooking it and feeding it to an unsuspecting bear. The
cat represents Bear's lack of ability to take care of
living things that are under his supervision. So if you
(47:37):
look around his apartment, you can also see dead plants.
Sandy died because she was apparently hungry to the point
of starving. because she had torn open the bag of
cat food, and she got into Bear's grandmother's medicine and overdosed.
And this implies that Bear did not secure the medication
(47:58):
and left it accessible for the cat. When Nikki is
reduced to a shadow of herself, and I do love
how they frame her in darkness all of the time,
he treats her like a pet. He decides what they do,
what they eat, what they watch, And yes, she even
wets herself waiting for him in that one spot. When
(48:22):
he takes the pills to overdose at the end, he
did not do that for her, in my opinion. I
think he was like, I'm in a situation, I don't
know how to get out of it. And then he
still backed out. That's my opinion. That's my.
Another trope, the crazy girlfriend. So this was inverted in
(48:46):
a lot of ways. I will say, in my opinion,
everyone failed Nikki. Like, everybody. They dismissed her as being
crazy or on drugs. And to be fair, I wouldn't
go straight to possession either. But instead of trying to
(49:06):
help her, yeah, like, Sarah's worried, oh, she's taking advantage
of Hubert or... Ian's worried about, oh, how's it going
to look? And probably with a hint of he didn't
want Ian to be with her. They weren't genuinely worried
about her other than how it impacted him and them.
(49:28):
The whole thing was very victim-blaming. I also just want
to throw in here, sometimes women are just nice. And
that's all it f * * * ing is. That's it.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
They were friends from high school. Or middle school.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And that's always been a thing. That's it.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
That's it. That's all it is. I think it's interesting
that you could make the argument that Nikki is a
manic pixie dream girl or somewhere in that realm. But
I do think she was a legitimately nice person that
Bear painted that way in his mind. Like that is
(50:04):
what he saw and wanted her to be. The more
you learn about her, the more that image cracks. And
one of the lines that stands out to me is
after she kills Sarah, Nikki says, you wished for this.
You wished for this. And if you heard my heavy
(50:25):
sigh in our recent episode with Bridget about AI companions,
it was because of how the male fear of rejection
has contributed to the rise of these companions. But I
couldn't talk about how I was like, obsession has this
whole thing too he's too afraid a rejection to be
honest about how he feels so i had to rein
(50:49):
myself in he wants to deal with nikki the sycophantic
ai he doesn't want nikki the person and he's the
one that made her the crazy girlfriend trope uh The
crazy girlfriend trope always puts the blame on the woman
without discussing why she might be that way. When you
(51:10):
think about it, statistically, men are often the ones stalking.
They're the ones engaging in domestic violence, trapping women. And
these are all behaviors that she exhibits. But he's the
one that put her in that situation. That's not her. Mm-hmm. Also, interestingly,
(51:34):
it is hilarious and terrifying. The men using this movie
to be like, see, I'm vindicated. Women are crazy. Completely
missing the point. Really?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, obviously, I mean, I feel like
obviously he keeps screaming at her, just be Nicky. when
she's acting like the crazy girlfriend, but he knows it's
not Nikki. He knows what he did. He knows that
(52:09):
he is the one that made this situation and he's
angry at her for it, but she wasn't the crazy girlfriend.
He's the one that orchestrated this whole thing. And listen,
by this point in the movie, he absolutely knew. I think,
(52:29):
Some people will argue about when, but at that point,
no way. He absolutely knew. If he's yelling at her
for like, please just be Nikki, why can't you just
be Nikki? No. I would guarantee a lot of the
men who think Bear is the victim don't like it
when women are not subservient to them and they get
(52:49):
mad when women are mad at them for cheating or
when women ask to be treated with respect. or as
a human being, to me, it's scary, the disillusionment you'd
have to have for this take. That's a wild thing
to me. But yeah, it does exist. And that's kind
(53:13):
of the update I wanted to do on my happy hour,
because in there I said I was so glad most
people seemed to be understanding that Nikki was not the villain.
She was the victim. But there were definitely the Manosphere
videos came out after that. And so finally, we're going
(53:34):
to talk about love in a couple of ways. So
as a part of the like crazy girlfriend trope, obsessive love,
this does usually rely on the girlfriend in question being
obsessed with the guy in question. In this case, it
was a wish forced upon her. And this is pretty
telling to me because it feels like a commentary on
(53:55):
writer's to force this on women characters. A lot of
these sometimes romanticized obsessive behaviors are used for horror, including
the thing many women hate hearing, just smile, just be pleasant.
She has so many creepy smiles in this movie. She
(54:18):
laughs way too loud. She cries too loud. She gives
her family heirloom to him. all of it feels very
demonic and not human. And yeah, her performance is amazing
and unpredictable. They did not use CGI or AI. It
(54:38):
was her and makeup, all of that. Wow. Yep, yep, yep, yep.
And then kind of like at the end, having the
really sad turn where she's like screaming, why don't you
love me? And there's the dead body of Sarah. And
she's trying to look like Sarah and she's trying to
smoke to be like Sarah. And he could have had Sarah.
(55:06):
It's just, it's really tragic, the whole thing. Oh, also,
there is a kind of Easter egg where you can
see an ad for the One Wish Willow. And it says,
dangerous when used by people that are insecure or obsessive. Hmm.
So this brings us to something Nikki says in the
(55:29):
beginning of the movie where she's kind of, she's talking
about a book she's writing and Bear immediately assumes it's
a romance and she says, no, it's a love story.
He says, aren't they the same thing? And she says, no.
So let us break that down a little bit. From Oprah.com,
in America, we live in a culture that glorifies passionate
(55:50):
romantic love. Our friends are in love, dreaming or daydreaming
of it. waiting and dating to fall into it. Women
and men begin new lives in love. Romantic love is
our inspiration, our motivation, our reason to be. Romance is
a cultural obsession, an imperial ideal. We believe that love
can be found here and now and forever in an
(56:11):
instant across a crowded room or tomorrow just around the corner.
It can, but rarely. In reality, romance is more fleeting
and more dangerous than we are told, more complicated than
we could have imagined. more elusive than we've been led
to believe. Love is a promise made every day only
to be broken tomorrow. So I like this quote because
(56:37):
of how it talks about the cultural obsession of how
this will kind of fix my problems, which I think
Bear has really attached himself to. Psychology Today wrote about
obsession in this context. a fixation on an object followed
by the uncertainty of reciprocity, what we call a limerence
(56:57):
and the desperate need to resolve it by searching for
hints of affection. I mean, that's it. He's fixated on Nikki.
He's uncertain if she reciprocates and he's determined to search
for these hints of affection. There's also a part of
(57:18):
that article talks about, um, The person that you believe
is the one that sees you, truly sees you. And
he thinks that Nikki is that person. But it's an
obsession about controlling her body and her choice. And there's
a lot of great video essays out there about this.
(57:39):
But just the way he words the wish and the
way he acts after, that's really what he was obsessed with.
So Nikki and Bear... have these different ideas of love
stories and of what love is. And maybe this sums
up how some men could interpret this movie so differently
(58:00):
than like everyone else. Fear of consequences versus fear of
loss of autonomy. Whose needs did he think mattered more
to achieve this love that he wanted? And how did
it look? It looked like her staying in the box
that he put her in and him being Her entire world,
(58:22):
which is not healthy. He did not care about her choices.
He wanted to protect his ego and use her to
solve his problems. He wanted to believe he was a
good guy who deserved her, even as the evidence he's
not piles up. He never tried to help her. Not once.
That is not love. That's not even friendship. And he
(58:43):
thinks that it's okay because of whatever patriarchal systemic shit
he's absorbed. at least on some level. And when we
look at the news and what's going on and the
taking away of women's choices and how women are viewed,
it's no wonder, unfortunately. So there's my whole thing. about obsession.
(59:11):
I could have gone on and on, but like I said,
so many people have been talking about this. It started
a lot of conversations. So if you want to learn more,
you absolutely can. It is out there. There are some
really wonderful think pieces about it, and then some fun things. Like, legally,
(59:35):
the company behind One Wish Willow, you'd be sued. You'd
be sued to oblivion.
Speaker 2 (59:40):
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. If you can prove it. Like,
that's the problem with, like, this type of magic, so
no one really believes it until they do it.
Speaker 1 (59:49):
Yeah. I think the big point in the argument, though,
was if you have a product where on a consumer level,
On a customer services line, they say, well, one way
to end the wish is to kill yourself. One, presumably,
you'd think it was recorded. And so that's a pretty
(01:00:12):
big issue for the lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
I mean, yes, but.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Yes. No, I mean, that's the thing. That's the biggest
issue with Nikki's legal defense, because, I mean, what is
she going to do now? is that, at least in
the videos I watch, she has a really great legal defense, actually,
but it depends on people believing that this product worked.
(01:00:43):
And what jury and judge are going to believe that. Yeah. Well, thanks, everybody.
This has been fun for me. It's a nice birthday
episode for me.
Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Fantastic. Thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Thank you for watching. I did.
Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Yes. Well, listeners, if you have any thoughts, please let
us know. You can email us at hello at stuffmonevertoldyou.com.
You can find us on Blue Sky at Mom's Top
Podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuffmonevertoldyou. We're also
on YouTube. We have some merchandise at Cotton Bureau. And
we have a book you can get wherever you get
your books. Thanks, as always, to our super producer, Rima,
and our executive producer, Maya.
Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told
You is produced by Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Heart Radio, you can check out the Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
And this is Anne.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Anne Samantha.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production
of iHeartRadio. And welcome to another edition of Spoiled Saturdays.
Happy birthday to me. I'm so excited because this was
(00:29):
a birthday present episode for me. We were talking about...
the movie Obsession, which I adore and have been talking
about on the show for a little bit. And was
a pretty big hit. It was very popular. Did very well.
And the actress who plays Nikki in the movie, Indy Navarati,
(00:52):
she's going to play Rogue in X-Men. That's how popular
we're talking.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
People are excited.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, people are excited. So I was very happy to hear.
We got kind of cut off, Samantha. But I was
worried you would be angry with me. But it sounds
like you're not so angry with me for suggesting this. No, no.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I was a little worried, but with the spoiler, I
will say, like, it wasn't as intense. And also, it
looked very... much like a stuffed animal. So it made
it a little better.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It being a cat. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
So I was trying not to get ahead on this
one for you, but like, yeah, so because I was
a worry, but yeah, that was some like, uh, parts,
but I was able to disassociate enough because I was like, what?
There's a lot to this. I was like, what just happened?
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I think that's a fair assessment.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I will say the worst part was like the cringe moments, like,
oh no, like during the party.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I meant to warn you about that because I know
how you feel about secondhand embarrassment.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I did fast forward a little bit through some parts
of that because I was like, I can't.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Oh, that part's so good. I mean, not all of it.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Like, I've got the gist. Don't you worry. I got
the gist.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah. No, that's... Before we got kind of cut off,
because we were about to record with Eves and we
were talking about it and Eves came on, so we
stopped talking.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I was going to bring up the secondhand embarrassment, but
at that point it was too late. So what good
have I done?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Because I think I'd already watched it by that point.
I was ready. I was like.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
But I did think about that with you. It's got
a lot of those elements in it. It does.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Because it's supposed to.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
But it was like, oh no, cringe.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
So.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I have talked about this movie before on a happy
hour and I'm going to revisit what I talked about
in that happy hour in this episode because it's kind
of changed since that came out, which actually I'm, I'm
just going to say as we're recording this, because we're
trying to get ahead, we're recording this kind of early.
So it's, uh, August 21st, 2026 in case some big
(03:12):
new conversation starter happens with this, which is totally possible
that it will. Um, I saw this in theaters twice.
And one of the things that kind of touches on
that cringe, embarrassment element is that people were so unsure about, like,
(03:37):
I'm so uncomfortable with what's happening here. Like, should I
be laughing? Is this scary? I don't know. Like, in
the audience.
The atmosphere was palpable. And I will be discussing how
I personally think that they vindicated my viewpoint on this movie.
(04:03):
But it's a visceral reaction that I experienced when I
saw it in theaters. People were really reacting to it.
That being said, I've got to put it in here.
Fan fiction. I don't read obsession fan fiction, but obsession
(04:27):
has made its way into fan fiction I do read
because it was so popular. And so now like every
couple you can imagine, there's a obsession fan fiction with
that couple. I do have one I like.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
That seems concerning.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Oh, I have one I like, and it's really good
because they're very clear this is a horrible thing. This
is not meant to be romanticized. So it's horrific. It's like... It's...
Just something I have to prepare myself for, which is
(05:06):
amazing how many fan fictions I have now that I
have to prepare myself before I read it. But it
is great. It's a great one. But I'm just surprised
a little bit at how much I've seen Obsession kind
of filter into other fandoms. Another thing, this is just
a random aside. I've noticed this in a couple of movies,
(05:29):
but Obsession has at the end, it can't be used
to train A.I. I don't know if that legally means anything.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I was going to say, does that really hold up?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I mean, it seems like it should because it's in
kind of all the copyright section. But I have no idea.
I just noticed it when I was watching on my recent.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Can we say that? To be fair, our company says
guaranteed humans. So I hope they have something that says
that they can't use our content for AI. Hey, stop
using us for AI. Yeah. Is that enough?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
We're guaranteed human. Definitely. No questions about it. Exactly. So
I'm also really excited about this because I got my
hair cut today and the person who cuts my hair,
she loves horror movies. And we just talked about this
movie like the whole time. It was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
And so y'all are on the same page? Yes. You
haven't met anybody that disagrees yet?
Speaker 1 (06:33):
No. I've met some people who, like, are a little, like,
not complete agreement, but nobody, I would say, essentially disagrees. Yes. No,
she was definitely on my page. And she was even
pointing me to, you should listen to this. You should
go watch this video. This will break it down for you.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
I was like, oh, my gosh. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Are you one of those, too? Because my partner, if
they see a movie they really like, or at least, like,
have questions about, the first thing they have is YouTubes
that have breakdowns. Do you do this too?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
I don't normally do it, but for this movie, I did.
I watched a lot of video essays. I even watched
a really, really fun one that was about the legal
arguments every character has about the crimes committed. I loved it.
I'm going to be talking about it a little bit
more later. Normally, I don't do it, but just so
(07:30):
many people... After this movie came out, there was a
lot of conversation about it, and there were a lot
of really great videos that were made that I thought,
I want to check that out. I want to see
what that's about. Okay.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
So, I mean, just to reiterate, hopefully, obviously, spoilers, the
whole thing, spoiled. Content warning, we're going to be talking
about violence, sexual assault, death, and suicide. And some of
this is kind of tricky to talk about because of
the nature of the story. Some people refer to Nikki
(08:10):
and not Nikki to differentiate. I'm going to stick with Nikki,
but know that after Bear makes the wish, it's mostly
not Nikki who is controlling Nikki's body and actions. And
the real Nikki is forced to experience it and occasionally
breaks free of it. Also, you're going to get my
(08:32):
Bear is the Villain manifesto. Don't you worry. Maybe not
a perfect, simple villain, but he is the villain. People
in the theater were rooting for this man's death. There
is also discussion about suicide that is a little bit messy.
In some of the videos I was watching, I was like, oof,
(08:54):
that is tricky to talk about. But all right, here
we go with the plot. Obsession is a 2025 horror
movie directed, edited, and written by Curry Barker. And I
(09:17):
realized doing this, he did Milk and Cereal, which is
a horror movie. It's available on YouTube for free. I
believe it's still available. It's like an hour long. It's
a very unique take on found footage. And I think
this is where I thought I'd already seen Obsession years ago.
(09:40):
And I'm pretty sure that I got something mixed up,
but I definitely saw milk and cereal. And when I
was reading that he was the person behind it, I thought, okay,
something is sliding into place for me. The movie stars
Michael Johnston as Bear and Indy Navarrete as Nikki. It
(10:02):
features Megan Lawless, Cooper Tomlinson, and Andy Richter. Yeah, it
was a huge critical and commercial success. It beat out
a lot of blockbusters for weeks. It is one of
the highest grossing horror movies of all time. Barker was
a YouTube sketch artist. Along with Tomlinson, he was also
(10:24):
in Milk and Cereal, Barker was approached by a producer
to make a movie. And Barker pitched an idea based
on a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode, and that's what
became Obsession. The plot follows Baron Bear Bailey, a young
man with romantic feelings for his friend Nikki Freeman, who
(10:44):
he works with at a music store with their friends
Ian and Sarah. He seems like he's really shy, and
in the beginning, he is practicing confessing his feelings for her.
It doesn't go well, at least according to his friend, Ian.
Bear returns to his apartment to find his cat, Sandy,
has died after getting into some pills Bear has left out.
(11:06):
We are going to talk about that more. Don't you worry.
Nikki calls and convinces Bear to come out to trivia
after informing him she's quitting at the music shop. So
she's put in her two weeks. So now Bear thinks
he has a time crunch to tell her his feelings.
(11:27):
So he agrees and heads out to a store to
replace a crystal necklace that Nikki lost. So it's kind
of a new agey store. Instead, he ultimately opts for
a novelty item called the One Wish Willow, a stick
that when broken is guaranteed to grant you one wish.
And you only get one wish. No more. The cashier
(11:51):
is very ominous about the whole thing and tells him
not to come in complaining. At trivia, Bear attempts multiple
times to start a conversation with Nikki, but is interrupted.
He offers to drive her home when she says she
just wants to sleep. On the way, on the drive,
Nikki implies that maybe Sarah has feelings for Bear, but
(12:14):
Bear ignores this and fumbles multiple times to make his
feelings for Nikki known. After they arrive at her home,
she asks him bluntly if he has feelings for her,
and he lies and says no. Once she's inside, he
breaks the one-wish willow and says, I wish Nikki Freeman
loved me more than anything in the f * * *
(12:35):
ing world. Suddenly, Nikki reappears, and it's a great creepy shot,
I love it, and seems confused about the death of
the cat, saying it's her cat. but then convinces Bear
to take her back to his place after she says
her father is dying of cancer. He agrees, and eventually
(12:58):
they start kissing until she abruptly snaps out of it
and falls off the bed looking confused and horrified. He
reacts extremely defensively, and she assures him it was just
a panic attack. The next day, Bear finds out that
Nikki has made him a shrine of Sandy's remains. thinking
(13:20):
that he would like it. Yeah. Bear talks to their
friend Ian, who suspects that drugs are involved. And this
is all happening, and she's like creepily staring at Bear,
by the way. There's a montage of them seemingly happily dating,
very domestic, but their friends are growing more and more concerned.
(13:42):
Ian reveals that Sarah told him that Nikki sees Bear
as a little brother, that that's what Nikki told Sarah,
who told Ian, and that her father is healthy, no
cancer to be had. When Bear confronts Nikki about this
on their date, she is extremely volatile, asking, what does
(14:04):
it matter if it's true or not? To which Bear says,
it doesn't matter to me. And then you cut to
Bear raping her. That night, Nikki behaves erratically, watching Bear sleep, screaming,
hiding behind flowers that she claimed were for Sandy, shrieking
at him to stay when he tried to move away
(14:27):
on the bed. The next day, Bear asks her to
be normal and not do any more of that, and
she agrees, sending him on his way with a packed lunch. However,
he finds that she has duct-taped the door shut. He
eventually pulls it free and goes to work and is
(14:49):
talking to Sarah about colleges after she received another rejection letter.
And she has one more chance, which is her dream
college of Luther. While eating his sandwich, he finds a
picture of Nikki with the caption, not me, taken while
he was sleeping. And discovers that the meat inside is
(15:09):
that of dear old Sandy the cat. Yep. Bear calls
the One Wish Willow helpline. I love this. And talks
to a really bored customer service person who tells him
he can't change the wish. Bear asks if the love
is real. And the guy is essentially like, sure, man.
(15:33):
So Bear asks to cancel it. but he learns that
he cannot. Then the customer service guy plays what he
claims are the sounds of Nikki screaming from wherever she is.
He also informs Bear that the wish will end when
he dies. When Bear returns to his apartment, he finds
(15:54):
that Nikki has stood in the same place all day,
waiting for him, swirling herself, vomiting on herself. She acts
very shy about the whole thing and goes to shower.
Bear reveals that Ian invited him to a boys' night
that Nikki specifically wasn't invited to. In response to this information,
(16:15):
Nikki freaks out until he agrees for Nikki to tag
along to the party. This brings us to the party.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
There, the partygoers are playing a game of Jenga where
every block you pull has a message on it, like
a dare. Nikki pulls one and reads a really creepy
poem that she wrote that we'll talk about more later.
And Bear pulls one that reads, kiss the person to
your left, which happens to be Sarah. Before he can, Nikki,
(16:46):
with the most intense frown I've ever seen, pulls Sarah's
chair out and kisses him instead. It's extremely awkward. It's
so awkward. Even more so when Nikki suddenly screams... it's
not me, and starts bashing her face in with a bottle.
Broken bottle. Yeah, she breaks it and then starts. Yeah. Yep.
(17:11):
After way too much pressure, Bear takes her to the hospital,
but they are dismissed due to her refusal of treatment.
Back at the apartment, Bear implores Nikki to just be normal,
to just be Nikki, and she sobs that she can't be.
She threatens to kill herself to keep him in the apartment.
(17:36):
Later that night, Bear gets a message from Sarah requesting
that they meet. He slips away from Nikki in bed,
only for her to stop him with a plea to
kill her. She says, this is really me and not
the being that's been controlling her that she calls she.
Nikki begs Bear to kill her before she wakes up.
(18:00):
But he gets angry and says, what would be so
bad with being with me? And leaves her there crying.
He meets Sarah in her car in the park, where
she tells him that Ian and Nikki have been casually
hooking up for a long time. They are about to
open her last college letter together when Bear asks her
(18:24):
if she likes him. And Sarah says, I was to
your left. referencing the kiss she should have gotten earlier.
But before anything can happen, Nikki arrives and smashes Sarah's
skull in repeatedly on a brick. She promises to get
rid of the evidence, but Bear helps her. Later, Bear
(18:46):
opens Sarah's college letter to see that she did get accepted.
Bear returns to where he purchased the one-wish willow to
find another one in hopes of having someone counteract his wish.
He is able to purchase two and learns that the
cashier was perfectly satisfied with his wish. Bear goes to
(19:09):
Ian and tries to explain the whole thing, but Ian
doesn't believe him. And he snaps the one-wish willow, and
he asks for a billion dollars, and then money starts
to rain down upon them. I love that scene.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
That's where I thought he was going to get killed
by the money. I thought that too. I assumed it
was going to be like a monkey paw thing, which
is what I think this is the inspiration of. But
I'm like, oh, it just kept hitting him. Okay, maybe not.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
I thought it was going to be death by money.
But I love that scene because it's just like such
an immediate, clear, no, this thing works. Yes, yes. So
Bear goes... back to his apartment to find a shrine
to Bear and Nikki's relationship and a very messed up,
very bloodied Nikki. She threatens to kill herself again and
(20:00):
does kill Ian when he barges in. Bear retreats to
the bathroom with the gun. with the intent to kill
himself to end the wish, but instead opts to overdose
on the pills that killed his cat. Just as he's
waiting for death, he attempts to induce vomiting, just as
(20:21):
we hear the snap and song of a one-wish willow,
and suddenly he's all smiley because she has wished for
him to love her as much as she loves him.
And that is a recurring theme, that she is frequently angry,
insecure that he doesn't love her or he doesn't love
(20:41):
her as much as she loves him. So, he leaves
the bathroom. They smile awkwardly at each other until Bear
collapses and dies from the overdose. Nikki reaches for the
gun to kill herself, but snaps out of the wish
now that Bear is dead before she can. She tosses
the gun, shoves away Bear's body, and screams and wails.
(21:05):
Why did you do this? How could you do this?
All while the TV in the background plays video of
Bear sleeping. The end. Yeah. They did shoot an alternate
ending where she does die. Where Nikki does kill herself. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Now I will say, I was waiting for him to die.
I'm like, really? Really? Just die?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yes. Yes. Yes. And we're going to talk about it
a bit more, but it was a purposeful choice for
him to... He tries to induce the vomiting before she
makes the wish. So, there's a lot to be said here.
(21:55):
I have tried to condense it, so it's not just
me Screaming at the top of my lungs points that
so many people have made. But we're going to do
this a little bit differently. I'm going to start with
two main points because I think they inform the rest
of everything else. So the question of when does Bear
(22:18):
become the villain? So he is the villain. And I'm
happy that pretty much everyone seems to agree. Aside from
usual Manosphere bros. I'll get into that more in a second.
Because if you'll remember, I was very concerned about it
when I did that happy hour. This is one of
(22:39):
those things that I just thought, unless it's done well,
I don't know how people are going to take this.
And one of the things I love about this movie
is that the evolution of how Bear starts as a
(22:59):
sympathetic character And then over time, you start to realize, oh,
not so much. And that could happen at different points,
depending on your viewing experience, very quickly or over the
span of the first half. I'd say it demonstrates that
(23:21):
he's not someone deserving of sympathy. And I wanted to
put this in here. So Universal Studios. announced the character
Nikki would be featured as part of their Halloween Horror
Nights as one of the characters who is wandering around
scaring you. But when they announced this, they included a
(23:44):
statement that said, she's not the monster. Because normally all
these characters are monsters. And they went out of their
way to release a statement and say, she is not
the monster. She was the victim. She was the product
of a monstrous situation. I just thought that was interesting
that they felt like we got to be clear here.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
So is this going to be like her being possessed
or being taken over rather?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
I think it's going to be her, either like the
really bloody version of her at the end or the
one that I think if she was like carrying around
the vase of flowers in front of her face. I'm
anticipating seeing that at Dragon Con. I think someone will
do that.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Well, that whole, like, go back and forth, which I
have seen TikToks of women doing that to their men
after watching this movie, freaking their boyfriends out. That would
be a hole.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
I love that scene where he's like, you're freaking me out.
And she does that, like, rush at him. I love
that so much.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
That's what I'm saying. Like, they were like, because they
also obviously edited it to make it scarier. She has it.
People I've seen do it. And then the backwards walk.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yes. I love that whole part.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I think that would be really good. That would be
really good. I think there's going to be a pretty
decent showing of Obsession at DragonCon this year. Yes. So
another thing I wanted to note, some people like myself
thought the name Bear was to play on the whole
man versus bear trend that was popular when this was
(25:26):
being filmed. Basically, would a woman rather face a man
or a bear? The creator has said that no, that
is not the case, but he appreciates that so many
of us thought it. He was kind of like, oh,
if only. He said he just wanted a name that
would stand out.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, Baron, Bear, please stand up.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
But going back to the original question, when did he
become the villain? There are three main arguments, but they
all boil down to he knew what he was doing
and he knew something was wrong and didn't care. So
the first argument is right after the wish. So in
that first instance, he knows something is off with her.
(26:17):
He's attributing it to drugs. At first, he's like, maybe
she's just really sad about her dad having cancer. But
what I think is really telling about this whole thing
is that he, when they kiss, he immediately, she has
like her snap out of it, oh my God, what's
(26:38):
happening moment. And he immediately tries to defend himself. He
doesn't ask if she's okay. He doesn't check on her.
He just is like, you kissed me. It was you.
You did this. Like all of this stuff that he's
obviously aware something is wrong. And he is so much
(27:05):
more concerned that he is not going to get consequences
for it. And we're going to talk more about consequences
versus loss of autonomy. This happens again. When she shows
up at his apartment, it's a beautiful shot where she's
in like a red dress, but her face is all
in shadow and her eyes are gleaming.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Oh, and she says, well, I didn't want anyone to
think that you were taking advantage of me. And he's like,
I wasn't taking advantage of you. He's just immediately. And
she's like, oh, that's what I'm saying. But he is
so defensive right away. The second one, which I think
at this point, is the why does it matter rape scene.
(27:50):
So when they're on their date and Bear learns from
Ian that her father is fine, doesn't have cancer, he
asks her about it. And that's when she has her
wonderful scene I love. No, no, no, no, no. Don't
(28:11):
ruin this date. She sits down and he asks her, like,
do you love me? And then he uses the exact
same wording from his wish more than anyone in the world.
And that's when she says, does it matter? And he says, nope.
(28:36):
And then it cuts to the rape scene. And that
is why it's a rape scene. He knows at that point.
You can't convince me otherwise that he did not know.
And the wording of his wish and intent to control her,
that's really important. When he makes the wish, he sounds
(28:57):
like dejected and angry. And I think that you see
that throughout. And it's reflected in he doesn't care. He
just wants her. More than, like, he wants her to
only want him and nothing else. That's her whole world. So,
(29:24):
as I was saying, I did watch these legal videos
about this movie. It is illegal to have sex with
someone who has an inability to consent. And he clearly knows,
I think even in the first instance where they didn't
have sex, but he knows something is wrong even if
he doesn't know that it's the wish yet. And the
(29:49):
sad thing about all of the legal videos I watched
is Nikki would be punished the most despite being the
one who voluntarily chose the least. The company would be fine.
Bear is dead, so I guess you can make of
that what you will. But they go over multiple things
that Bear says in these legal videos that prove that
(30:12):
he knew something is wrong that they could use in
a legal case. He says she needs serious help. Something
is very wrong with her. She is exhibiting violence, threats
that are out of character. He went online online. to
try to figure it out, he called the company hotline
(30:34):
where they confirmed that she's been altered and she is suffering.
So all of this proves he suspected he caused it
or something was wrong and he did not care. So
as I was saying earlier, there is an interesting dichotomy
in a lot of horror where male horror is a
(30:57):
fear of consequences. And female horror is loss of autonomy.
And that can switch up, like Alien is a great
example of when it switches up. And in this case,
he is, Bear is more afraid of the consequences and
she has lost her autonomy. And he ruined her life.
(31:23):
He took her future. I think you could argue he
took Sarah's future. And these were his choices that he made.
So that's a larger conversation to have. But the third
and final point, I think irrefutable if you make it
(31:44):
this far, that he's the villain, is when she begs
him to kill her. And what does he do? He says,
would it be so bad to be with me? and
leaves her alone. And he knows she's suffering. He knows
at the very least she's become unstable. And I just
(32:09):
can't imagine walking away from someone I cared about who's
begging me to kill them. Like, walking away from that situation,
making it about you. He doesn't care about her at all.
I have a whole section about that later. He doesn't
(32:29):
care about her. He thinks he is the victim. He
could have gotten her help multiple times. If this is
his friend, multiple times, and he never tried. He never
ever tried. I have seen that this has become a
(32:50):
new boyfriend test of If your boyfriend is like, oh,
I see where he's coming from. Women being like, oh, no. Okay.
And a lot of the things they say is, he
didn't take advantage of her on the first night. And
(33:10):
I just think, wow, the bar is so low.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Do we know that for sure, though? Well, that's just
what they say. Just because they didn't show it doesn't
mean it didn't happen.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Yeah, and I think you could argue that he did.
But just the fact that they're like, well, he didn't
have sex with her or rape her that night. And like,
this is the saddest point you could make for your argument.
That's odd. Yeah, yeah. So those are my three main,
(33:43):
and not just me, I think those are the three
main points that people use to be like, this is,
he's the villain. Another thing people like to debate is
whether or not Bear could have actually gotten with Nikki
if he'd just spoken to her about his feelings honestly.
The creators have been clear that no. When Sarah told
(34:05):
Ian Bear was friendzoned, that was the truth. I think
the clearest indicator of that fact, of that Nikki didn't
view Bear romantically, is when she reads her creepy Hansel
and Gretel poem at the party. And she's talking about
how only the branch of a willow tree could conjure
a love between a brother and sister. Yeah, she's talking
(34:26):
about an incestuous relationship forced by a branch of a
willow tree. Yeah. And that makes it so much worse
to me because she trusted him as a friend. And
when she's begging him to kill her, she still had
faith in him. She thought he might not realize what
was going on, and she was willing to die to
(34:47):
protect her friends. And in the face, she didn't want
to continue living that way without autonomy. But in that moment,
he made it clear to her that he was punishing
her for perceived rejection. And all of this is made
worse in that he could kill himself to save her,
(35:08):
and he knows it. So she's saying, I'll do it,
and he doesn't. just leaves her to suffer. Another thing
is he could have gotten with Sarah. Sarah clearly was
interested in him.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Which Nikki kind of brings up.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, Nikki's kind of like, how would you feel about this?
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I told her, what do you think? And he very
much knows what that means. Yes.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Yes. And I think he, when it becomes clear that
Sarah is interested in him, suddenly he sees that as
an option. And that's going back to the fear of rejection.
He's too insecure. And so it took Sarah to kind
of be open and Nikki to kind of tell him
for him to think, oh, maybe it could be Sarah.
(35:59):
He's also very much in the vein of a guy
who thinks a woman will fix his problems, which we'll
discuss more. I also, like, every time I rewatch it,
I always am so sad in the beginning. Nikki just
wanted to go home and sleep. She just wanted a
(36:20):
ride home. And this is what happened. Another thing that's
interesting is that when they were doing the casting, Andy Navaretti,
her audition, one of the reasons they chose her is
because she brought out a very, like, kind of sassiness
(36:43):
that they wanted to make sure that people knew it
was a friend zone situation. Because originally, at least according
to the creator, she'd been written very girl next door,
but she brought in this kind of, like, sassiness.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
It was obvious she saw him as the friend. Like,
there was no, like, there was that tough girl, like, hey,
you know, we're good, right? Because, like, nah, this is
a nah.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Like she, like it was very upfront. Like she treated
him like a younger brother, essentially.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yes. Yes. Something else I thought was interesting is costuming.
So a lot of the interviews I watched about this,
because you don't actually get to see Nikki before she's
possessed for a long time, It's a short amount of
(37:40):
time that you get to see her before she's possessed.
They tried to make as much use of that time
to showcase who she was. And one was in the costuming.
So in the first costume she wears, it's like an
oversized coat. It's very comfortable. After the wish, she is
(38:03):
dressed much more seductively. She's in like short shorts, tight clothes,
tight dress. So doing it for Bear and not for her.
So I thought that was interesting. This brings us to
(38:27):
the inversion of tropes, of which there are many. The first,
Wish Gone Wrong. So one of the things the director
slash creator has been very clear on, and I think
is extremely important, is that this is not a monkey
paw situation, meaning it's not a cursed item that is
(38:47):
going to twist your words and give you the worst
possible outcome. We are shown in the movie some people
used the one-wish willow and were happy with the outcome
of their wish. He made a bad wish. He took
away someone's choice, her autonomy. and in doing so, allowed
for something else, her, to inhabit Nikki's body. He reduced
(39:12):
her to an object for his wish fulfillment, erasing what
made her, her, so his wish was never going to work.
Because even though he claimed he wanted Nikki, he didn't, really.
He wanted the idealized version of her, and the life
that they could have together that he created in his mind.
(39:34):
He keeps telling her to be normal after she's possessed,
to just be Nikki, a very clear indicator that he
knows that she isn't Nikki, but he wants the Nikki
who was in love with him without the fear of
her rejecting him. That being said, the wording matters in
terms of bear's intentions. When he made the wish, his
(39:58):
words are not getting twisted. He could have wished to
be the person she'd want. He wished to make her
essentially subservient to his desires. So I think that's important.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yeah. I said monkey paw, so obviously not.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
I think, though, I get it because the idea of
a wish not going how you want. Yeah. I get,
I think I called it monkey paw too. But I
think that distinction is important, that it's not like it
was twisting his words.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
It was his choices that was being interesting because I
do remember when he was reading, trying to research about
this specific thing. And one of the wishes were like,
he's one of the comments where it works and it's amazing.
My mom is so happy. She's so gorgeous and she's
so happy about herself. So that person had wished for
her mother to, to become beautiful or whatever whatnot. And
(40:52):
it seemed like it had worked out. Like they're all
happy because it wasn't about her necessarily, but letting her
mom have what she wanted. I just remember that one
for some reason.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah. Yeah. And well, when he goes to the, a
very funny and absurd scene when he's covered in blood
and goes back to the store and it's like how
he's telling the cashier, like, how could you sell this
to people? This product is dangerous. Can you make the
wish to counteract my wish? And he says, the cashier
(41:22):
says so calmly, like, I already made my wish, man.
That's great. He never says.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
What it is.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Whatever happened with him, he wasn't worried about it. So yes,
it is a situation where he made a bad wish.
And if you're looking up, I would urge you not to.
But if you do stumble into the manosphere arguments of
why Bear is actually the victim here, A lot of
times they say he just worded it incorrectly. That's not true.
(41:55):
Especially because when he gets on the line with the
customer service people and he asked to alter it before
he's like, oh, I'll cancel it then. He asked to
alter it because he still wants this thing even though
he knows it's not her. Yes. So another trope, the
(42:19):
nice guy trope. The character bear would generally fall under
the nice guy trope. And this is a trope that
paints a guy as nice. He is usually nerdy and shy.
But once you do a little digging underneath that, they're entitled,
they're angry, they're vengeful. The scary thing about the nice
guy is that he's not openly radicalized, but he still
(42:42):
thinks women are objects. So you won't necessarily know. One
of the ways I see this manifesting with him is
how Bear weaponizes sympathy. So from the start, he uses
the death of his cat to garner sympathy. He takes
Nikki's fake story that he later knows is fake and
(43:04):
keeps telling it about her dad having cancer to elicit
sympathy from their friends and kind of as a like
shield from their judgments. because the friends are really concerned
about Nikki's behavior. Another big conversation that's come out about
this has been about the victims of male loneliness and
(43:24):
male insecurity. So Bear is lonely. He's extremely lonely. He
doesn't have much going on. He lives in his grandmother's apartment,
and his grandmother has just died. His cat has just died.
And in the beginning, all the stories, when he's doing
(43:46):
his practice confession, all the stories he shares about Nikki
involve her being the only one who was there for him.
Because he was lonely. He doesn't seem to have much
going on. And this is interesting when compared with Ian,
his kind of frat boy friend. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
Who literally tells him to, like, neg her, essentially.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
Yes. So if you had the two of them together,
you would think Bear is not a threat. Both of
them are trying to control access to Nikki. Neither one
is good. I just think it's interesting that you'd probably
be more willing, oh, Bear might be fine. Nope. His
(44:35):
first reaction to Nikki saying she wants to quit and
continue writing is not support our curiosity, but instead a
knee-jerk reaction about not seeing her anymore and assuming that
she's writing romance. So not wanting to be lonely again
and worrying that she'll move on. It's not that I
(44:55):
don't get the, oh, I'm going to miss you, but
he immediately was like, oh. I'm not going to ask
her about what she wants or anything like that. Patriarchy
hurts everybody. There are systemic reasons contributing, at least in part,
to why Bear is so lonely. But the violence is
(45:16):
often directed at women. This brings us to my lack
of care point. He does not care about Nikki. I
cannot stress this enough, not truly. At multiple points, he
doesn't seem to know much about her, and even the
things he does know, like she doesn't like the nickname
(45:39):
Freaky Nikki, he disregards in hopes of getting with her.
She repeatedly tries to make clear that it isn't her,
it's not me, and he doesn't care. She smashes her
head in, and he won't look at her. He's mostly
annoyed and angry and took her home and yelled at
(46:01):
her to just be Nikki. Like, she's still covered in blood.
If you pay attention, this is just a fun detail,
Nikki seems to snap out of her possession when she
sees her reflection in a mirror or some type of
reflective surface. So she recognizes it's not her. I just
thought that was cool. I also would say he's not
(46:24):
really being honest about who he is with her either.
They just don't seem to have, as much as he
built it up with his confession, they don't seem to
have a very communicative relationship. And I mean, he didn't
know about her being with Ian, and it's not any
of his business. But I just think there's a lot
of things that, I don't think he really cared about her, man. Yes,
(46:49):
as I said, every memory he shares about how much
he loves her center on her attention on him. He
doesn't ask questions about her when they're on their date.
Other than, oh, hey, let me see how far this
wish thing goes. And this brings us to the cat. Yes,
poor Sandy the cat, R.I.P. Sandy is Bear's cat, and
(47:13):
the story opens with him finding his cat dead in
his apartment. The cat then becomes a through line in
the movie with Nikki making a shrine to it and
cooking it and feeding it to an unsuspecting bear. The
cat represents Bear's lack of ability to take care of
living things that are under his supervision. So if you
(47:37):
look around his apartment, you can also see dead plants.
Sandy died because she was apparently hungry to the point
of starving. because she had torn open the bag of
cat food, and she got into Bear's grandmother's medicine and overdosed.
And this implies that Bear did not secure the medication
(47:58):
and left it accessible for the cat. When Nikki is
reduced to a shadow of herself, and I do love
how they frame her in darkness all of the time,
he treats her like a pet. He decides what they do,
what they eat, what they watch, And yes, she even
wets herself waiting for him in that one spot. When
(48:22):
he takes the pills to overdose at the end, he
did not do that for her, in my opinion. I
think he was like, I'm in a situation, I don't
know how to get out of it. And then he
still backed out. That's my opinion. That's my.
Another trope, the crazy girlfriend. So this was inverted in
(48:46):
a lot of ways. I will say, in my opinion,
everyone failed Nikki. Like, everybody. They dismissed her as being
crazy or on drugs. And to be fair, I wouldn't
go straight to possession either. But instead of trying to
(49:06):
help her, yeah, like, Sarah's worried, oh, she's taking advantage
of Hubert or... Ian's worried about, oh, how's it going
to look? And probably with a hint of he didn't
want Ian to be with her. They weren't genuinely worried
about her other than how it impacted him and them.
(49:28):
The whole thing was very victim-blaming. I also just want
to throw in here, sometimes women are just nice. And
that's all it f * * * ing is. That's it.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
They were friends from high school. Or middle school.
Speaker 1 (49:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
And that's always been a thing. That's it.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
That's it. That's all it is. I think it's interesting
that you could make the argument that Nikki is a
manic pixie dream girl or somewhere in that realm. But
I do think she was a legitimately nice person that
Bear painted that way in his mind. Like that is
(50:04):
what he saw and wanted her to be. The more
you learn about her, the more that image cracks. And
one of the lines that stands out to me is
after she kills Sarah, Nikki says, you wished for this.
You wished for this. And if you heard my heavy
(50:25):
sigh in our recent episode with Bridget about AI companions,
it was because of how the male fear of rejection
has contributed to the rise of these companions. But I
couldn't talk about how I was like, obsession has this
whole thing too he's too afraid a rejection to be
honest about how he feels so i had to rein
(50:49):
myself in he wants to deal with nikki the sycophantic
ai he doesn't want nikki the person and he's the
one that made her the crazy girlfriend trope uh The
crazy girlfriend trope always puts the blame on the woman
without discussing why she might be that way. When you
(51:10):
think about it, statistically, men are often the ones stalking.
They're the ones engaging in domestic violence, trapping women. And
these are all behaviors that she exhibits. But he's the
one that put her in that situation. That's not her. Mm-hmm. Also, interestingly,
(51:34):
it is hilarious and terrifying. The men using this movie
to be like, see, I'm vindicated. Women are crazy. Completely
missing the point. Really?
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, obviously, I mean, I feel like
obviously he keeps screaming at her, just be Nicky. when
she's acting like the crazy girlfriend, but he knows it's
not Nikki. He knows what he did. He knows that
(52:09):
he is the one that made this situation and he's
angry at her for it, but she wasn't the crazy girlfriend.
He's the one that orchestrated this whole thing. And listen,
by this point in the movie, he absolutely knew. I think,
(52:29):
Some people will argue about when, but at that point,
no way. He absolutely knew. If he's yelling at her
for like, please just be Nikki, why can't you just
be Nikki? No. I would guarantee a lot of the
men who think Bear is the victim don't like it
when women are not subservient to them and they get
(52:49):
mad when women are mad at them for cheating or
when women ask to be treated with respect. or as
a human being, to me, it's scary, the disillusionment you'd
have to have for this take. That's a wild thing
to me. But yeah, it does exist. And that's kind
(53:13):
of the update I wanted to do on my happy hour,
because in there I said I was so glad most
people seemed to be understanding that Nikki was not the villain.
She was the victim. But there were definitely the Manosphere
videos came out after that. And so finally, we're going
(53:34):
to talk about love in a couple of ways. So
as a part of the like crazy girlfriend trope, obsessive love,
this does usually rely on the girlfriend in question being
obsessed with the guy in question. In this case, it
was a wish forced upon her. And this is pretty
telling to me because it feels like a commentary on
(53:55):
writer's to force this on women characters. A lot of
these sometimes romanticized obsessive behaviors are used for horror, including
the thing many women hate hearing, just smile, just be pleasant.
She has so many creepy smiles in this movie. She
(54:18):
laughs way too loud. She cries too loud. She gives
her family heirloom to him. all of it feels very
demonic and not human. And yeah, her performance is amazing
and unpredictable. They did not use CGI or AI. It
(54:38):
was her and makeup, all of that. Wow. Yep, yep, yep, yep.
And then kind of like at the end, having the
really sad turn where she's like screaming, why don't you
love me? And there's the dead body of Sarah. And
she's trying to look like Sarah and she's trying to
smoke to be like Sarah. And he could have had Sarah.
(55:06):
It's just, it's really tragic, the whole thing. Oh, also,
there is a kind of Easter egg where you can
see an ad for the One Wish Willow. And it says,
dangerous when used by people that are insecure or obsessive. Hmm.
So this brings us to something Nikki says in the
(55:29):
beginning of the movie where she's kind of, she's talking
about a book she's writing and Bear immediately assumes it's
a romance and she says, no, it's a love story.
He says, aren't they the same thing? And she says, no.
So let us break that down a little bit. From Oprah.com,
in America, we live in a culture that glorifies passionate
(55:50):
romantic love. Our friends are in love, dreaming or daydreaming
of it. waiting and dating to fall into it. Women
and men begin new lives in love. Romantic love is
our inspiration, our motivation, our reason to be. Romance is
a cultural obsession, an imperial ideal. We believe that love
can be found here and now and forever in an
(56:11):
instant across a crowded room or tomorrow just around the corner.
It can, but rarely. In reality, romance is more fleeting
and more dangerous than we are told, more complicated than
we could have imagined. more elusive than we've been led
to believe. Love is a promise made every day only
to be broken tomorrow. So I like this quote because
(56:37):
of how it talks about the cultural obsession of how
this will kind of fix my problems, which I think
Bear has really attached himself to. Psychology Today wrote about
obsession in this context. a fixation on an object followed
by the uncertainty of reciprocity, what we call a limerence
(56:57):
and the desperate need to resolve it by searching for
hints of affection. I mean, that's it. He's fixated on Nikki.
He's uncertain if she reciprocates and he's determined to search
for these hints of affection. There's also a part of
(57:18):
that article talks about, um, The person that you believe
is the one that sees you, truly sees you. And
he thinks that Nikki is that person. But it's an
obsession about controlling her body and her choice. And there's
a lot of great video essays out there about this.
(57:39):
But just the way he words the wish and the
way he acts after, that's really what he was obsessed with.
So Nikki and Bear... have these different ideas of love
stories and of what love is. And maybe this sums
up how some men could interpret this movie so differently
(58:00):
than like everyone else. Fear of consequences versus fear of
loss of autonomy. Whose needs did he think mattered more
to achieve this love that he wanted? And how did
it look? It looked like her staying in the box
that he put her in and him being Her entire world,
(58:22):
which is not healthy. He did not care about her choices.
He wanted to protect his ego and use her to
solve his problems. He wanted to believe he was a
good guy who deserved her, even as the evidence he's
not piles up. He never tried to help her. Not once.
That is not love. That's not even friendship. And he
(58:43):
thinks that it's okay because of whatever patriarchal systemic shit
he's absorbed. at least on some level. And when we
look at the news and what's going on and the
taking away of women's choices and how women are viewed,
it's no wonder, unfortunately. So there's my whole thing. about obsession.
(59:11):
I could have gone on and on, but like I said,
so many people have been talking about this. It started
a lot of conversations. So if you want to learn more,
you absolutely can. It is out there. There are some
really wonderful think pieces about it, and then some fun things. Like, legally,
(59:35):
the company behind One Wish Willow, you'd be sued. You'd
be sued to oblivion.
Speaker 2 (59:40):
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. If you can prove it. Like,
that's the problem with, like, this type of magic, so
no one really believes it until they do it.
Speaker 1 (59:49):
Yeah. I think the big point in the argument, though,
was if you have a product where on a consumer level,
On a customer services line, they say, well, one way
to end the wish is to kill yourself. One, presumably,
you'd think it was recorded. And so that's a pretty
(01:00:12):
big issue for the lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
I mean, yes, but.
Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
Yes. No, I mean, that's the thing. That's the biggest
issue with Nikki's legal defense, because, I mean, what is
she going to do now? is that, at least in
the videos I watch, she has a really great legal defense, actually,
but it depends on people believing that this product worked.
(01:00:43):
And what jury and judge are going to believe that. Yeah. Well, thanks, everybody.
This has been fun for me. It's a nice birthday
episode for me.
Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Fantastic. Thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Thank you for watching. I did.
Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Yes. Well, listeners, if you have any thoughts, please let
us know. You can email us at hello at stuffmonevertoldyou.com.
You can find us on Blue Sky at Mom's Top
Podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuffmonevertoldyou. We're also
on YouTube. We have some merchandise at Cotton Bureau. And
we have a book you can get wherever you get
your books. Thanks, as always, to our super producer, Rima,
and our executive producer, Maya.
Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
And thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told
You is produced by Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Heart Radio, you can check out the Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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