Babygirl (2024) with Emma Alamo

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On The Bechdelcast.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
The questions asked if movies have women and them, are
all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they
have individualism the patriarchy? Zeffn best start changing with the Bechdelcast.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Hello Bechdel Cast listeners. We've got a little plug at
the very top of this episode.

Speaker 4 (00:22):
It's a double plug. Who wants to go first?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Oh my gosh, you go first, Jamie.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
Okay. So I'm really really excited to announce that Wevian House,
which is a show created and hosted by Theo Henderson
that I also have been executive producing for the last
two years, is nominated for a Webbee and we need
your help. There is a portion of the web is
where you vote. Voting is only opened until April seventeenth.

(00:47):
We are in the public service and Activism category. I
know we've plugged it on the show before, but if
you haven't listened, way to vote and a way to
listen to the show will be linked in the description.
And the show is hosted by THEO, who has previously unhoused.
Started the podcast while living on the streets of LA
in twenty nineteen and has since grown into the only

(01:10):
podcast in existence that talks about issues that affect the unhoused,
told by and centered on unhass people. It is like
such a pleasure to work on this show, and I'm
really excited. So if you have a second, literally, they
made us a link where you can just click and
go to our category. You don't have to vote in

(01:30):
anything else if you don't want to, And it's a
tight race right now, so we'd really appreciate your vote
and listen to me the end house.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
It's great, yes, And we'll put that link both on
our link tree and in the description of this episode,
so easily accessible. Awesome for my plug, it is the
shows that I have coming up on the East Coast.
One of them is like Tomorrow. If you're listening to
this episode on the day it comes out, it's on Friday,

(02:01):
April eleventh in State College, Pennsylvania. It's me headlining a
stand up show plus a lineup of a bunch of
fun local comedians, So come check that out if you're
in the central Pennsylvania area. Also same spot, which is
the Blue Brick Theater. On Sunday, April thirteenth, I am

(02:25):
teaching a stand up workshop. So if you're like wait
a minute, I want to I'm interested in stand up,
but I don't know how or I don't know how
to do it. I'll tell you about it, and then
I'm scooting over to New York City. Ever heard of it?
Because on April fifteenth, which wait a minute, isn't that

(02:46):
the day Titanic sank?

Speaker 4 (02:47):
Whoa?

Speaker 3 (02:48):
And isn't that also the day that I'm doing a
Titanic themed stand up show. It's all commemoracted such an occasion. Well,
it's all true. So on April fifteenth, I'm doing a
show called A Night to Remember with Caitlin Dorante wow
at Union Hall in Brooklyn, and it's me headlining, and

(03:10):
then a lineup of many past Bechdel Cast guests, so
familiar faces.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
They have Murderer as well.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Oh, such a good lineup. And there's gonna be some
other you know, Titanic trivia and little bits here and there.
So come out to that. I'd be so grateful. The
ticket links are also on our link tree.

Speaker 4 (03:31):
So lots of things to click on, so many.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Links to click on, So go to link tree slash
Bechdel Cast and check out all of that and otherwise
enjoy this episode on baby girl, cast Hey Jamie, Hey Kaitlyn,
drink this full glass of milk that I sent over

(03:57):
to you.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
Is the milk weirdly thick for effect?

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (04:02):
Will you later give me a saucer of the same
very thick, cumelike milk.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
You're absolutely right, Oh my god, I'll.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
Do it, good girl, thank you, Oh my good Listen.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
I'm lactose intolerant. That scene was super hot to me,
so I don't know what that says.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
I like, just the convulsing my body did is I
watched her drink a full glass of milk.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
That was a bigger ask than anything else that happened
to me. I was like, a glass of full milk
at ten pm. It was. It wasn't the milk, it
was the timing of the milk. A glass of milk
at ten pm was like, I'm like, it's nice, it's nice.
My dad. That feels like a very okay, we're already
off track, but like that feels like a very boomer
coated thing, like my dad would drink milk at night.

(04:50):
I stopped drinking milk at night when I was twelve,
because it turns out it's actually not that good for you.
That was like, big milk.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
We should not be drinking milk after infancy.

Speaker 4 (05:01):
I mean, as you can. It's not gonna kill you,
Like I know, it's gonna killy. Darry is fine, but
it's the bodies weren't.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Our bodies are not made to digest it.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
The food pyramid is fake. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Should we just do this episode about dairy instead?

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Forget Baby Girl. We're talking about dairy.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
We are the anti dairy. We're the oat milk Lobby. Okay,
welcome to the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
My name is Jamie, my name is Caitlin, and we
are here to talk about baby Girl.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
We are here doing.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
The Bechdel Cast. This is our show where we examine
movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test
as a jumping off point. But what on earth is that?

Speaker 4 (05:45):
Well, Caitlin, I'm glad you asked. The Bechdel Test is
a media metric originally created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel
for her comic collection Dikes to Watch Out For, and
over the years, has turned into a more general media metric.
Our version of the test requires that two characters with
names of marginalized gender must speak to each other about

(06:07):
something other than a man for more than two lines
of dialogue, and it should be relevant dialogue that will
happen in this movie.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
But just so you know, just so you know. Yeah,
So the movie today is Baby Girl twenty twenty four.
Our guest today is for a friend of this show.
We're very excited to have her. She's a designer and
maker of size inclusive leather bondage harnesses, which you can
find at Emmaalimo dot com. It's Emma Alamo.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
Hello, Hello, and welcome Emma. What's up.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
So excited to talk about this movie with y'all?

Speaker 4 (06:41):
Oh my gosh, simply so happy to have you here.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
I have a feeling that y'all have viewed it very
differently than me.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
No, No, I mean I think you'll be a surprise.
I think that they'll definitely be a diversity of opinion,
but like, yeah, I guess that it might be as
long as everyone's comfortable when we're talking about our experience
with this movie. Also like our level of familiarity with
Kink in general, because I think that that definitely colors. Yeah,
just the amount of informantness you come at this movie

(07:10):
with which is important, and I feel like we've kind
of neglected it as a show to do that in
previous episodes that address kink, because we haven't done it
in a while. We grew up exactly.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
So, Emma, tell us about your experience with the movie,
with kink in general, tell us everything, tell us more
about your business.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, I'm obviously into kink. Otherwise it would be kind
of weird if this if I was just running this
business as a full outsider.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
You're just a neutral You're a neutral party. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah. But I started actually getting into like power play,
like subdom stuff with a partner when I was like
twenty two, and I was into it like on an interpersonal,
like one on one basis. I had never been a
part of the community or gone to any events around
it until I started making bondage harnesses. Okay, but now, yeah,

(07:57):
I'm we sell at various kink events around the country,
so I am at wild kink events all the time,
and my threshold for what is normal is very different
than most people. Yeah. I was hesitant to see this
movie at first, because, first of all, I was like,

(08:18):
it's gonna be like fifty shades of gray. It's gonna
be like really unrealistic and corny and the bad depiction
of what subdomn relationships are. And then also I was
afraid it might be triggering because I had I had
a relationship with a superior at a previous job that
ended up being really traumatic, and I was delighted to

(08:39):
see that it was neither of those things for me.
I loved it so much.

Speaker 4 (08:42):
Oh great, I mean, this seems to be a pretty
well loved movie among sex therapists and kink experts.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
For the most part. I've it has been kind of
divisive in the kink community.

Speaker 4 (08:53):
I'm excited to hear about it.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, for a number of reasons we can get into later.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, sure, well I'll jump in. And So I have
never been very immersed in the kink community, specifically like
any kind of dom sub dynamic. I've experimented lightly, never
full immersion, but like a little bit of experimentation here

(09:17):
and there. And I've had a lot of interactions like
conversations with straight dom men, particularly on field, which for
anyone who is not familiar.

Speaker 4 (09:30):
Is a I know where this is going, I know
where this I know this one.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
This is a dating app that is geared toward various
communities I would say specifically and particularly the kink and
the polyamory community. There's other, you know, bubbles that it
appeals to, but I feel like those are kind of
like the primary communities that tend to use field and
for me, it's like the polyamory aspect of it. That's

(09:56):
why I am on and off that. But I've with
a lot of men from that app and have like
had some experiences with them that are you know, me
experimenting with me being a sub, which I've learned that
I am not. I am not that at all. If anything,

(10:19):
I am a dom, although for me I prefer just
like a more kind of balanced to distribution of power
in any kind of like romantic or sexual situation. But
what I've learned, and I was going to talk about
this later, but it's just gonna come up now. I
really so a lot of the interactions and experiences I've
had in this little journey of figuring out where I

(10:42):
am on this spectrum has been me talking to men again,
like straight men who consider themselves to be doms, who
with evidence I've seen, it feels like many of them,
not all of them, of course, but many of them
are using kink as a cover to simply be abusive

(11:02):
to women. Yes, either physically or sexually, or emotionally or verbally,
or any type of abuse that feels like a common thing.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
I've seen that, Yeah, so much so that it.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
Put me off a field for a while because I
was just having so many I was like matching with
people and then they would just like immediately be really
inappropriate and.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
Like without checking in with your boundaries first.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Kind of Yeah, and that's not how it's supposed to work,
supposed to have a conversation and make sure you're on
the same page about stuff exactly.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
So I I've noticed this trend, and it's just it's
a it's a bummer because for those people who are
in this community, who are actually doing it respectfully and
responsibly in the way that it's meant to be done.
It's just I hate that there's all these like abusers
out there who are like getting mixed up in that.
So that's been kind of my experience with it. And

(11:56):
then so I saw this movie in theaters and I
couldn't help but feel like there are glimpses of that
in Samuel's character. Or maybe it's just that I'm not
understanding kink enough hard to say, but I couldn't help
but like feel that there was like some degree of that.
But we'll we'll talk about that further. But you know,
I saw the movie. I it's not really the type

(12:19):
of movie that I tend to gravitate toward. It's not
very much of a romp, so it didn't really speak
to me. I think there's a lot of interesting things
about it. I think I didn't really understand what the
director's intentions were the first time I saw it, and
then I went back and watched some interviews with her,
and I came away like with a better understanding and
appreciation for what she was trying to do. But yeah,

(12:41):
I have mixed feelings about the movie in general. Jamie,
what about.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
You, you know, bringing another experience to the table here.
I am, I think pretty fairly naive when it comes
to kink. I've done some stuff. I'm a monogamy head,
uh so, I you know, like with trusted partners, I've
done some shit. I don't need to get into it,
but I've enjoyed myself. I've played many parts in my day,

(13:10):
and I don't mind being submissive as long as I
have more money than them. What does that mean. I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
I have classic I know exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
I think that it's it's like it kind of scares
me because you're seeing that at the highest possible level
in this movie. Yeah. But anyways, I will say I'm
very naive when it comes to the king community. I've
never really taken part. And if it's okay for me
to say so, Emma, you have actually we it was
almost two years ago now, or maybe exactly two years ago. Wow, Yeah,

(13:41):
we broke bread aka hot dog buns, and then you
fit me for a harness in your shop, which was
like such a cool experience for me. I'd never had
an experience like it, and it's a really great thing
and I love it. And so while I consider myself
i've I feel like fairly neutral in this area because

(14:03):
I you know, most of my experimenting has been I think,
kind of vanilla. I think by most people's yardstick. But yeah,
I guess I was coming in naive and tried to
explore kind of the widest breadth of opinion I could find.
And it's really interesting because I mean, there couldn't be
a more you know, personal way to come at a

(14:24):
movie than like, how do you feel about sex? I
also at some points felt like I wasn't old enough
to understand some of the dynamics of this movie. And
I wonder if I revisited this movie in ten, fifteen,
twenty years, if I would view it differently, you know,
because I would say a lot of you know, again,
like younger letterbox reviewers being like, who would cheat on
Antonio Banderas, And I'm like, well, I think that's a
fundamental misunderstanding of marriage, not about that. Yeah, yeah, like

(14:48):
you know things even if even Antonio Banderas, you know,
he's been divorced. So the point is, I, yeah, I
even among like writers and people who I really respect
their opinions, there's been a huge breadth of opinion, and
so I'm very open. I generally liked the movie. I
understand where you're coming from, Caitlin. I'm excited to talk

(15:10):
about that. I was more. I mean, what really gets
me turned on is talking about class. I think that
my core issue with the movie is the class setting
of it and the motivation for the class setting. I'm
interested to talk about that because I can see pros
and cons for it, but I think of all the
things I appreciated about this movie, some of which might
have been under informed, right. I am very sick of seeing,

(15:34):
you know, explorations of the absolute richest people in the
world and being like they actually are quite complicated people.
I'm very frustrated with that, and as a viewer of
The White Lotus, I'm kind of pretty burnt out on it.
So that setting, because it's like there's kinky people absolutely everywhere, Like,
why do we need to choose the number one girl boss?
I think I understand why. It just wasn't my favorite choice.

(15:57):
But anyways, Yeah, I enjoyed the movie, and I will
say one of the things that I was really hung
up on, as I always am in Nicole Kidman movies,
her wish. She starts this movie with an Australian accent.
She does and she and it gets fucked right out
of her. It's wild. I literally because I didn't go

(16:18):
back and watch because I was like, I'm gonna stand
in my truth here. And I know she because you
always have to pay attention to the first two scenes
of Anicle Kidman movie because it's never this I mean,
and I love her, and I actually I think that
there is like some really interesting commentary on her career
and life that's going on within this movie that sort
of echoes what dem Moore got a lot more attention

(16:39):
for in the substance this year, where you know, Nicole
Kidman has been constantly, you know, if not criticized, speculated.
I'm like, well, why you know she's a woman over fifty,
why does she have work done in bubble? And this
movie directly interfaces with that question in a way that
I thought was like really cool. It's like possible to

(17:00):
watch this movie and not think about her performance in
Eyeswise Chut, Like I think she's just like, yeah, she's
so fucking cool. I and I also have some thoughts,
so I'm excited to talk about it.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
I made a letterbox list after I watched this movie
entitled movies set around Christmas time in which Nicole Kidman's
husband feels emasculated by her sexuality, and on that list
is Baby Girl and Eyes Wide Chut.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yes, a great pairing.

Speaker 4 (17:26):
I love that, right.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
I love that The like indie movie theater here in
Chicago did like a Christmas special and one week the
two Christmas movies that they showed were Eyes Wide Hut
and Mup at Christmas Carol, And I've never felt more
seen by a pairing of movies.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
Oh Wow, Chicago Forever.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
Oh mup at Christmas Carol, Best Christmas movie classic.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
The other thing I find interesting about this movie, Baby Girl,
is that it is one of two movies that came
out in twenty twenty four in which Nicole Kidman plays
a woman who gets involved with a much younger man,
the other one being a Family Affair, that movie where
she starts dating Zac Efron's character.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
I mean that was a really hot thing. I mean, like,
this is a twenty four percent mommy porn. Let's make
no mistake of like what's happening here? And I say
that with unwavering support. But that was a big thing
last year because there was also that like Amazon Prime
movie with Anne Hathaway that I thought was kind of cute.
I think it's called like the Idea of you.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Yeah, who was the man in that?

Speaker 4 (18:27):
They're all the same man basically, And I say that
again with love. But it's like a very white boy
of the Month. I don't know who it was. He
did a good job, and Harris Dickinson does a great
job in this movie.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, let's take a quick break and
then we'll come back for the recap, shall we. All right,
and we're back. Okay, this recap might be see, we'll see.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
It's a messy movie.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
It's a messy movie.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
I'm a feel free to jump in whenever you know
this show. Okay.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
The movie opens mid coitus. A married couple are fucking.
This is Romey mathis played by Nicole Kidman, and her
husband Jacob played by Antonio benderis of Puss and Boots
slash Shrek fame, and.

Speaker 4 (19:26):
I think that that's his entire filmography. Basically, that's what
he's known for. Yeah, yeah, I noticed that, and then
I refuse to investigate it further. That both of the
men in this movie that are the sexual interests have
biblical names. And then I was just sort of like, huh,
and then I just kept watching. So maybe that means something.
If it does, I don't know what it means, but

(19:47):
there it is for you Bible heads out there. Tell
me what it means. Who's Jacob, Who's Samuel? I don't know.
I didn't get confirmed.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
Yeah, I have no idea who those people are in
the context of the Bible. But anyway, Romy and Jacob finish,
and Romy immediately goes into the other room and masturbates
in secret, as if the sex she just had wasn't
entirely satisfactory.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Little wild concept.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
Let's put a pin in that, shall we? And maybe
we even put we thrust a rock card. Pin's that's
absolutely naughty of you.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
Sorry.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
I do feel like it's important that the porn she
watches is like bed sound porn. It's like daddy dom porn.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Oh I didn't notice. I couldn't really tell.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Yeah, it's you know, I feel like the guy's calling
the woman he's fucking little girl and making like asking
her to beg for it.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah, okay, I was paying too much attention to how
she was masturbating because I was like, I feel seen
here in this moment, and then I won't say any
more about it.

Speaker 1 (20:59):
The most upsetting thing about the whole movie to me
is that after she comes, she just shuts her laptop.
She doesn't clear her browser history, she doesn't exit out
of incognito mode. Who does that?

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Oh I don't. Who's so powerful? Oh? Really, well, I
guess I just no one else has the password. No
one else has my fingerprint. God. So I'm just it
is kind of funny to jump scare yourself later in
the day by being like, oh right, that's where I
was at at four am for some reason. It's a
fun little game you can play with yourself. That's my
BDSM when I leave up on my computer for myself later.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
Wow. I chalked it up to someone so powerful and
riches her has to have so much hubris that she's like,
there's no there are no consequences to my actions.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
Oh like she just like lights her laptop on fire
at the end of every day. Yeah, just buys a
new one, like disposable contacts. Yeah, it is that they
are in that level of wealth, which Nicole Kibben, you know,
that's her thing, beige wealth with somehow a bad wig.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Yes, yeah, it's a really bad wig.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
It's kind of her signature at this point.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
Well, that's what I thought you were going to talk about,
and instead you talked about her Australian accent. But we've
also thought at length about Nicole Kidman's wigs.

Speaker 4 (22:13):
I support her wigs.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
Anyway, we learn more about romy She is the CEO
of a huge Amazon like corporation, automation, warehouse delivery AI
something something don't really understand, and we're sort of like, yes, exactly,
go off girl. It's very pink pussy hat of her

(22:36):
to do that. She's also the mother of two teenagers,
Isabelle and Nora, played by Esther McGregor and Von Riley, respectively.
On Romy's way to work, an aggressive dog is about
to attack her on the street, until a young man
manages to get the dog under control. This is Samuel

(22:59):
Will officially meet and shortly played by Harris Dickinson. Now
at work, we meet Romy's assistant as May, played by
Sophie Wilde, who introduces Romy to a group of company interns,
one of whom is this Samuel guy. And he asks
this like bold and like condescending question about the company,

(23:21):
and Romy's like, what the fuck?

Speaker 4 (23:24):
Well, it's like he also is like do you think
that he and Amazon? Intern is like is Amazon ethical
or what? This never comes back to be clear, Like
this is right, never comes back. I think it is
just supposed to. This was one of the clunkier writing
moments for me where I was just like, I think
that's just supposed to endear his character to the younger
audience watching because everyone knows Amazon is bad, but his

(23:46):
character doesn't really care.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
I mean, I didn't know what to make of it, right,
And to be clear, it's like it's condescending in the
For Romy, I was like, yeah, exactly, Samuel, great question,
but she's like, oh you gross, who is this?

Speaker 4 (23:59):
This a whole?

Speaker 3 (24:00):
But they make eyes at each other, They're like really
perceiving each other. A little later they run into each other.
They chat briefly about how he got that dog to
calm down, how she shouldn't drink so much coffee, and
we're like, hmm, wonder what dynamic is going to emerge here.

(24:21):
Then that night at home, Romy very shyly asks Jacob
if they can try some new things in bed, but
he's not very receptive to it, and they just end
up having like pretty regular vanilla hetero sex. Cut to
the company party. At one point, Romy steps outside and

(24:41):
Samuel comes out as well, and he tells her he
chose her to be his mentor for this like company
intern mentorship program, and she's like, that's not possible. I'm
not a part of that program. And he's like, yes
it is, and yes you are my mentor and she's
like okay. The next day at the office, Romy finds

(25:06):
Samuel's discarded necktie on the floor that he like tossed
aside at the party, and she goes into her office
and like rubs her face and lips. She kind of
like she kind of has like mouth sex with it.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah, she goes from like sniffing it to like trying
to snort it to shoving them helping in her mouth.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
Yeah. Yeah, it's very horny. Then it's time for Rommy
and Samuel's first meeting for this mentorship program. Rommy doesn't
really have the time for this. She doesn't want to
be there, and she makes that pretty clear to Samuel,
but he, like dominantly, stands his ground and they get

(25:48):
to talking about power and whether or not Romy likes
having power, and Samuel says, I think you like to
be told what to do, and then they both kind
of acknowledge that that was in a appropriate But when
she goes to leave, he stops her from leaving. Their
faces are like hovering around each other, and then they
kiss for a few moments, but then Romy's like, sorry, this,

(26:12):
this shouldn't happen, and she leaves, maybe like a week
or some a few days past.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Time is confusing.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
Time is so confusing in this movie because it seems
to be Christmas the entire time. Yeah yeah, yeah, but
it never seems cold because they're like outside swimming. But
they're New York, right, and they're in New York. We
don't know, we just don't know how time works in
this universe.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
It's a heated pool.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
Oh, the pools are always steamy. Yeah, you're just like,
I guess that that's sometimes. I'm just like, I'm sure
that billionaires have that. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
I mean, it's a house in the Hampton because it
took me forever to figure out that they have like
probably an apartment in Manhattan and then a separate house,
probably in the Hampton's or maybe upstate. I don't know,
but like a whole estate with a huge pool and everything.
I was like, where do they live? But it's like
two separate places, you know, rich people stuff. Okay, So

(27:07):
they've just had their little meeting and she like runs off.
Some time passes and Samuel approaches her. It seems like
romy hasn't responded to a request to like schedule another
meeting between them, and she tells Samuel that his behavior
is totally out of line, but she's like, hmm, but
I'll still think about meeting with you again. Then Romy

(27:27):
goes out for drinks with like some company staff. Her
assistant esme is there. She has been wanting to talk
to Romy about a possible promotion, but Romy keeps kind
of blowing her off.

Speaker 4 (27:40):
This moment I thought was really fascinating, where like the
movie makes it clear where she's at, where Esmey is
asking for, you know, basically professional affirmation and for advancement
in his career, that she's clearly busting her ass at
and Romy is on autopilot giving her affirmations while not
listening to her at all and thinking about something totally different.

(28:04):
Which I do think that this movie does have things
to say about girl boss feminism, but maybe just doesn't
quite stick the landing in the way I would want.
But I thought that that was interesting that they made
that very clear, that it's like, oh, she's you know,
she says she's for women, but it's because that's what
you quote unquote had to do to be a successful
woman and not be called evil. Right.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
I feel like Esmey is second wave feminism incarnate, right.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
Because she's like, I want to help other women get
to the you know, climb the corporate ladder. Yeah, and
suck on capitalism's dick along the way.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (28:40):
Yeah, Yeah, she's lucky. She's lucky. Esme is pulling from
the playbook that she is. It's very yeah, it's all
very nihilistic, right.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
So anyway, they're at this like drinks thing and Samuel
is also there and he sends over a glass of
milk to Roamy and she drinks it while make eye contact,
and then as the night is winding down, he walks
past her and whispers good girl.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
And we're like and we're kind of like, I mean,
come on, come on, that was good.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
That was good.

Speaker 4 (29:15):
That was good.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Meanwhile, Romy is managing her life at home. Her daughter Isabelle,
seems to be dating a couple different people where she's
in love with someone, but she's also fooling around with
the neighbor girl and Romy's like, hmm, interesting premise, maybe
I'll try that. And her husband, Jacob is directing a play.

(29:41):
Romy goes to see it, but she leaves right after,
even though Jacob is like, hey, I need you by
my side, and she's like sorry, I'm too busy initiating
an affair with someone else.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
And also like I couldn't fully tell what the play
was about, but it seems like that is like his
zone of projection is like through his work is where he,
like Rejas, whatever's going on with him, and she is
like not present enough to see what his I don't know.
He's an interesting character, I think like his in his
flavor of internalized misogyny is interesting for sure.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
The play that they're doing head a Gabler seems very intentional.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
It was like the modern like that whole you're like
okay with this screen, like what's going on?

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, And when she comes in when they're rehearsing, it's
the scene where a man is like pointing a gun
at a woman and she's like leaning into it.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
And this shows you how much I know about theater
because I don't really know what that is. I'm not
familiar with the play.

Speaker 4 (30:38):
I read it in high school. It's a great play.
It's a great play. I don't know there. I mean,
I know that there's been plenty of adaptations, like film
adaptations of it. I don't know that I've ever seen
one though, But yeah, it seemed like a very like
it reminded me of like the current adaptation of Sunset Boulevard.
That's like playing on Broadway with Nicole shirt Singer. It's
like a similar thing. Not that play exactly, but like

(31:00):
the modern Like now we're using screens and you're seeing
it from I think you're seeing had a Galbler from
like the point of view of the gun, and you're like, ohhh,
you know, he was doing a hashtag modern hashtag theater piece.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
So true, so true. Yeah, but Romey's too busy for
his to be interested in his career.

Speaker 4 (31:20):
His theater kid bullshit.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
Yeah, And she gets a note from Samuel to meet
her at a hotel the next day. So she goes
to the hotel and she's like, I'm here to tell
you that your behavior is unacceptable and we need to
put an end to this. But an end is not
put to this. He you know, kind of assumes this

(31:43):
role of dom and he tells her to get on
her knees. This all seems to be quite new to her,
and you can kind of see her confusion and inner turmoil,
but she's turned on by the fact that he has
power over her because he could make one phone call
and her career, her family, you know, he could turn

(32:05):
her life upside down. And he says this, and she's
like hubba hubba, Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Oh And then he's like, does that turn you on
when I say that? And the whole audience is like.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
Yes, yes it does to her, which to me again,
I was like I thought that was going to go
somewhere where it was like, oh she I mean, she's
clearly aware that what she's doing is not good, but
then it turns out it might just be a kink
thing and she doesn't care.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Yeah, So feel like it's important to say that Samuel
is not like physically threatening in any way he has.
He acts like a little boy in a lot of ways,
and like she when she goes to leave, she gets
to the door and then turns around and runs back
to him, like she clear I feel like the whole
movie she's going back and forth between I want this,
this is unacceptable, and she just kind of doesn't know

(32:50):
what she wants. No, she doesn't, so unrelatable right, So.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Eventually she starts doing what he tells her to do.
She gets on all fours, She eats candy out of
his hand, then spits it back out all for his instructions,
and then he jerks her off and she has an orgasmic.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
Laptop style too, not that he knows the way that
she works her off laptop style.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And the like gutt roll that she
lets out.

Speaker 4 (33:27):
I was like, you know what, she was robbed of
an Oscar nomination.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
Yeah, I tell me about it. She was, and uh,
I loved that my nipples, I already know that's where
my nipples are going. Guttural orgasm sound.

Speaker 4 (33:41):
She had to dig deep to find that. I hope
she did. I hope she did a lot of research
at home for that one.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Yeah. Wait, who's her husband in real life?

Speaker 4 (33:51):
Hebb and Fell.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Yeah, I hope. I hope he gives her orgasms like that.

Speaker 4 (33:58):
I mean that has to be the great part of
of you know, being a famous actress is like coming
home and being like, guess what you have to make
me come so much? Or I'm going to do a
bad job at work. It's R and D Gauntlet Throne.
Figure it out.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
Okay, So then we cut to a montage of Romy
and Samuel's torrid affair. Romy is also balancing her home life.
She comes home one day and Samuel is there. He
had brought her laptop from work because she forgot it. There,
he's hanging out with her husband and two kids, and

(34:31):
then when they're alone, Romy tells Samuel to never show
up at her house again, and then she effectively ends
their relationship. Reasonable, I think, yeah, quite scary. When he
does that, he does not behave reasonably. He has a
very angry outburst and he storms off. Then at work,
he tells her that he doesn't feel comfortable working for

(34:52):
her anymore and that he's going to request to be
transferred to a different department. And she's like, you can't
do that. They'll invest the gate why and I could
get fired, But he doesn't.

Speaker 4 (35:04):
Care and he leaves again. Kind of fair reasonable, yeah,
because every time I felt myself starting to be on
Romy's side, I'm like, wait, a second, tremendous abuse of power?
What am I? Yeah, it's like he's he's welcome to
do whatever the fuck he wants, but then also scary
of him to show up at her house. I don't know,
we'll talk about it. I think they're both they're both

(35:24):
maybe quite scary, well, but that doesn't make what she's
doing appropriate whatever.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
Right, totally. At home, romy confesses to Jacob that she
has never had an orgasm with him. He's like what,
and then she leaves and goes to the bar where
Samuel works to try to talk to him, but he
refuses and basically has her kicked out. The next day,

(35:50):
Jacob is like, did you mean that thing you said
when you've never had an orgasm with me? And she's like,
JK no, because she lies a lot.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
I was tired. I was tired. I mean that is
that is hard to bounce back from.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
I mean, not to walk going back, yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:06):
Right, nineteen years no coming, it has to be said,
but impossible to take back. I really, I mean, I
do appreciate that this movie has some sort of just
whatever a good marriage in some ways, but like, if
you're sexually incompatible, that is going to inevitably come up
at some point in your marriage, and that's like a

(36:27):
reasonable request. I don't know, it's interesting, it's interesting totally.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
So then at work, Romi has another meeting with Samuel.
They discuss like picking their relationship back up, but setting
some ground rules, such as the rule is he tells
her what to do and she does it consensually because
they talk about consent and trust, and by the end

(36:55):
of the meeting, she says, I'll do whatever you tell
me to do, and he's like good and he leaves
mid playing with her pussy because he started playing with
her pussy during this conversation, and then he says good
and then runs out, and we're like, we're like ah.
Cut to a fancy hotel room. Samuel has Romy take

(37:18):
her dress off. She's feeling insecure. He tells her she's beautiful,
that she's his baby girl. That's the name of the movie.
Cheering cue another horny montage. They kiss and fuck and stuff.
He also has her lap milk out of a saucer.
There also seems to be some you know, cuddling and

(37:41):
aftercare and a lot of dancing, and and lots of dancing.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
Which is the most vulnerable thing they do with each other.
In my opinion, it feels like, right, that would be
the hardest thing for me to do, because I was like,
I'm weird. Sorry anyways.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
They also establish a safe word, Jacob aka Romy's husband's name,
which is.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
An unhinged choice for a safe word.

Speaker 4 (38:06):
I was like, she was nasty for that. She was
nasty for that. Meanwhile, he's directedly had a gabbler minding
his own business, like, come on, not nice.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
I also find it interesting that they don't establish a
safe word until an hour and fifteen minutes into the movie.
I'm like, shouldn't this have happened earlier?

Speaker 1 (38:25):
But it absolutely should have. But also like I feel
like I have said this over and over again every
time I'm talking to like a kinky person who didn't
like this movie. But this movie is not an instruction manual.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
On how to do king right, which is what I
didn't understand it first.

Speaker 4 (38:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
When I saw this, I was like, oh, is this
supposed to be like good representation of kink? And I
realize now that like that's not necessarily true.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
Well yeah, I think that that's like a conversation that
we should have in generally. Yeah, because it's just like
this is a big third fourth wave feminist thing that
we have to get through.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
We'll circle back, yesh, we'll circle back.

Speaker 3 (39:00):
Okay. So sometime later, Romy is throwing a party at
her house and she has invited her assistant Esmey, who
brings Samuel because surprise, Esmey and Samuel are dating diabolical.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, I was not expecting that one twist.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
Of the century.

Speaker 4 (39:18):
As May innocent girl boss, girl boss.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Down, Yeah, and Romy says to Samuel, She's like, I
don't want you seeing other women your mine. But before
they can continue that discussion, es May walks in on
them and they're like kind of mid embrace, if you
can call it that.

Speaker 4 (39:39):
Yes, And of course this makes Samuel's peepe hard hearing
that you know, he belongs to her, and I'm just
like my poor girl boss catching astray. But as revenge,
she will become presumably the most evil person in the world.
So what can you do?

Speaker 3 (39:55):
Seems like she's really on that path.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
Later at work, Romy pulls esmander office and Esmey thinks
they're going to talk about her promotion, like her future
at the company, but instead Romy asks esme about Samuel
and tells her to be careful because she's in a
position of power over him since he's an intern. And

(40:19):
we're like, hello, like pot calling the kettle black much?

Speaker 4 (40:24):
Yeah, no, Caitlyn, that was feminism that you witnessed. That
was think about it, really, think about it.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah? Yeah, sorry, sorry, I was villain behavior wild.

Speaker 4 (40:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
That night, Romy meets up with Samuel at a nightclub
because he's like, I want to see you. And I
know that I'm getting old because the scene at this nightclub,
I was like, oh my god, sensory overload.

Speaker 4 (40:47):
I was also very stressed out, so stressful. I think
there is there is not an age where I would
have been comfortable in that situation, but I celebrate that.
I mean, they exist, so there for somebody, There there
for people.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
I did shit like that in my early twenties and
now I'm like, oh, my earplugs wouldn't be strong enough
for the music in there. I'd have a migraine the
next day. I'd have to stay up past my bedtime.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
I guess My thing is like it's very possible that maybe,
like I mean, we don't we know very little about
Romy's background. We know that she was like grew up
in possibly some sort of like very restrictive religious cult
like environment. Yeah, so I'm like, maybe these are experiences
that she was deprived of when she was younger that
she's like that she's wanting to experience. That's the only

(41:33):
way I can get there, being like I can't, you know,
I'm thirty one, and I wouldn't be caught dead, But
what can you do? I don't know, different strokes, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
Yeah, So, anyway, they're at this night club and they
eventually go somewhere quiet and talk about Samuel and how
he is with Romy versus how he is with Esme,
and like the different versions of himself and his conduct.
The next day, as May approaches Romy to be like,

(42:05):
Number one, you keep blowing me off every time I
try to talk about my promotion. Number two, I know
what's going on between you and Samuel. Number three, I'm
not blackmailing you, but you can never see Samuel again
and bailing you.

Speaker 4 (42:19):
But if you don't promote me, your life is gonna
blow up in ways you couldn't possibly imagine. And you're
just like, oh, no, she's really built for the job.
Like that I thought was a very sinister twist when
you're just like, oh, osme is not for other women.
She's she's sort of it like she thinks she is.
I think she thinks she.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Is right, because the other point she makes is number four,
you're not an ally to other women, Romy, and you
need to do more to lift up other women at
the company, because that's as May's whole thing. She like
wants to start this initiative that like helps women rise
to the top.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
But this was also an issue I had with what
was the Zoe Kravitz movie Don't blank Blank twice I
was don't look up. I like they al blunt to
get accept but yeah, that it's like more women should
have access to the villain space. And you're like, I
get like, no, have we not moved? Can we move past?

(43:13):
More women should have access to the villain space? But
you know, I think this movie is trying to say
something about that.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Though at least yeah, ish, okay. So then Romy tells
her husband Jacob that she was with someone else, but
she's lying a lot through this whole thing, saying that
it was only one time. It's someone who Jacob doesn't know.
Even though Jacob does know this person like he and
Samuel of met a couple times. Romy says that it's

(43:39):
someone who she doesn't really even know either, she doesn't
know this person's name, but that she's always had these
like you know, quote unquote dark thoughts and desires and
like she has this fantasy in which, like, you know,
things have to be at stake for her and all
this stuff, and Jacob is furious that she jeopardized their

(44:02):
family and their kids. Then I think this is where
she goes to the like the big fancy house and
the Hampton's or.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
Whatever, exiles herself to their mansion in the Hamptons.

Speaker 4 (44:16):
This and this is also Nicole Kidman cannon, except when
she is you know, and I say this with love,
and when she's playing poor to get an Oscar nomination,
she doesn't do this, but your stock Nicole Kidman character
always has a second house to retreat to, and usually
a second wig kept at the second house.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
Of course, yeah, because the first wig gets wet in
the swimming pool whenever Samuel pulls her into the pool.

Speaker 4 (44:43):
There's the pool wig in the shed, there's the transit
wig on the on the private jet, and then there's
the vacation wig in the Hamptons. So she's you know,
she's exiled, but you know, she still has five thousand
square feet. She's good.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
She's good because like Samuel has showed up at her
her Hampton's house and he's just in her pool. So
they're like, you know, lightly stalking each other throughout the movie,
and she's like, you can't be here because Jacob might
come in and that's exactly what happens. Jacob walks in
on Samuel and Romy just when they're talking, but like.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Maybe having the first honest conversation with each other they've
had the whole.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
Movie, right, because they're talking about how they've like kind
of played mind games with each other. Jacob comes in
and sees this, and so he and Samuel have a
little scuffle. Things calm down a bit. After a while
they talk some. Jacob has a panic attack, which Samuel
comforts him through, and it's very touchy and intimate and

(45:47):
I'm like, you guys should kiss?

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Oh my god? Right, they don't like, can this please
turn into But.

Speaker 4 (45:54):
Then you're like, yeah, I get that it's not the time,
but how interesting would it be? But what if? Because
at that moment, like Antonio Banderis is the wounded dog,
like he's the baby girl. Karis Dickinson can't stop helping
the baby girl. He was born to help the baby girl.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
Yes, but after this Samuel leaves for good because we
cut to Romy's office as May has been promoted. Samuel
has been transferred to Japan, another like higher up at
the company. I think his name is Sebastian, Yes, he
hints to Romy that he knows what was going on
between her and Samuel and that he's like gonna hang

(46:34):
that over her head, and then Romy says, don't ever
talk like that to me again. If I want to
be humiliated, I'll pay someone to do it. Now, get
the fuck out of my office.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
God like whoo, which which is yea. But then at
this at this point, for me, every empowerment moment very
much ends in a question mark. She's like, woo, Like,
I mean, obviously you're not rooting for a sabat, but
you're also like impossible for me to root for Romey
at this point. But i'd I don't object to her cubbing.

(47:06):
It seems like that would have solved a lot of
her problems. I don't know, I don't know, there's much
to be said.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Right, And then the movie ends with Romy and Jacob
rekindling their relationship. They're trying a sex thing that she
wants to try, which is basically the thing that Samuel
did to her in the first hotel room, which is
also similar to the way that she masturbates. So that's
how the movie ends. So it opens and ends with

(47:36):
you know, sexual contact between Romy and Jacob, that's the movie.
Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.

Speaker 4 (47:56):
And we're back, and we're back where you begin. Emma,
we're gonna let you take the reins here. We're giving you.
Will you dom us you can and will you dm
us with your knowledge because I'm really.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
More than a more of a sub, but I'll do
my best.

Speaker 4 (48:14):
Okay, okay, right, I'm the dam I'm I'm most comfortable
as a sub, so I'm happy to take a back
seat here.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Caitlyn is daddy.

Speaker 4 (48:23):
Daddy girl, You're my baby.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
Girls.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
I guess, like the first thing that really stood out
to me about this movie is the way that it
focuses on her pleasure. I have never seen that in
like a Hollywood mainstream movie. I never thought I would
be sitting in a movie theater watching a high budget
movie where there are sex scenes that only focus on
the woman's face. Yeah, it's just about her pleasure. Like

(48:50):
there's a scene where you see her like unbuckling Samuel's
pants and it's implied that she's about to give him
a blow job, and then it cuts away because it
really just focuses on her pleasure and also just the
fact that she's an older woman. Granted she has been
she's had a lot of plastic surgery to make her
look younger, which is confusing because I'm like, part of

(49:11):
me wants to see a more typical, like fifty something
year old woman, but also it fits her character so well.
She's the kind of person that would have all of
the plastic surgery that Nicole Kidman.

Speaker 4 (49:21):
Has had, and that it was acknowledged in text in
a way that I see you're getting botox, yes, And honestly,
I wish that was more fully explored. One of the
dynamics that I do wish was more fully explored was
the one between her and her teenage daughter, which comes
up a few times throughout the movie, and you know,
there might not have been space between It's already pretty

(49:42):
long movie, but like, there is one moment where her
witch daughter is it. I couldn't remember the names of
the daughters.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Isabelle is the one that she has a lot more
interactions with.

Speaker 4 (49:53):
Yes, Isabelle who who they're they're like our bond is
weird cheaters. But Isabelle early on when they're having Christmas
pictures taken basically explicitly criticizes her mom for getting botox
and shames her for it in a way that like,
my mom never had botox, But I remember, you know,

(50:14):
like as a teenage girl criticizing my mom's appearance in
a way that must have been very painful for her,
in a way that to me at the time, for
whatever reason, felt empowering to me, you know, of like,
and I think that that is a pretty common you know,
not prescriptive, but like a common thing between mothers and daughters,

(50:36):
is that criticism of each other's bodies throughout your life
and seeing that presented, especially in a way that like
if you know anything about I mean, you don't need
to know about Nicole Kidman's career trajectory to understand that moment.
But I did think it was impactful, like in the
context of her career, because she has been you know,

(50:57):
publicly scrutinized quite a bit for the plastic surgery she's gotten.
I don't think she's really spoken on it extensively, not
that she's she has to, you know, but I thought
it was interesting that she, you know, chose this project
where that interaction takes place where she is being you know,
shamed by her own daughter for having this work done.

(51:18):
But also it's clear that this is a part of
the role that she feels like she needs to play
in order to succeed, which you know, thankfully, Nicole Kidman
is not Jeff Bezos, but she lives in a society
and it fits the role. I totally agree. But I
feel like that's part of the convenience of the class

(51:39):
setting of this movie, which is like a part of
the sort of myth miss I have. Anyways, anyways, sorry
I interrupted you on a Okay, I started damming.

Speaker 3 (51:48):
I'm sorry. I'm getting back on my knees. We're all
We're just we're switching. We're switches for switching on this episode.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
In the substance episode, y'all did the other day, I
think Jamie said something about how an older woman's naked
body is never shown unless it's a horror movie or
unless it's supposed to be a scary moment, and I
was like, not a baby girl.

Speaker 4 (52:11):
Yeah, true, we did.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
Yeah, and I love that you see. Yeah, Like the
focus on a woman's pleasure, the on screen representation of
a woman orgasming, of a woman masturbating like this has
been historically so rare to see in mainstream media that's
not like porn.

Speaker 4 (52:32):
Yeah, especially seeing like true true blue lapstop laptop style
masturbation is like maybe I've seen it in a movie before,
but if so, maybe once or twice like true lapstop
style masturbation. It's a classic. Is a classic for a reason,
and it's nice to see it in a movie. I

(52:53):
don't think that a male director would have known be like,
just do it laptop style, you know?

Speaker 3 (52:58):
Yeah, no, he doesn't know.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
It works a lot of the To go back to,
like the criticisms from people in the king community, a
lot of people have said, like, it would be better
if consent was established earlier, it would be better if
they communicated more clearly, or if like either of them
knew what the fuck they were doing. And while like, yes,
I agree with that, they're also essentially saying like this

(53:22):
movie would be better if there was no conflict, and
that's not how movie works, right, And again, it's not
an instruction manual. It's a story about to fucked up
people figuring their.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Shit out right, So I've every time I watched this,
I just can't help but become hyper focused on Samuel's behavior,
and part of me was like, maybe this is just
not me knowing enough about this dom sub dynamic, and like,
particularly when it's like the dom is a man, the

(53:56):
sub is a woman. I was like, maybe I'm just
like misunderstanding. But what I do know is like there
does need to be more open communication right off the bat.
There does need to be very clear boundaries and safe
words established, and obviously consent throughout the whole experience every
time is vital, and we just don't see very much

(54:20):
of that, at least not as much as I would
have liked to see. And what we see instead, at
least as far as I'm interpreting it, is Samuel exhibiting
various signs of abusive behavior. He's often ignoring her boundaries.
He often barrels past her saying no. There's like a
whole list I wrote out of all the times where

(54:42):
she tries to establish a boundary or she says no,
or she says stop, or she says I can't do this,
and he just like completely ignores it and barrels.

Speaker 4 (54:51):
Through it prior to their being rules established.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
Exactly like because that sets a really bad precedent that
no means yes, And then if you just keep blowing
past the no, you'll wear the person down until they
do agree and consent, because that's what happens in a
lot of these scenes where he barrels past her saying no.
She eventually relents and then it does seem like she's
consenting to what happens next. But like, that's not how

(55:18):
this dynamic now should go. And so I mean, I
think that is when I said earlier, like that this
is not good representation of a dom sub dynamic. I
think it's probably authentic in many cases. Again, like a
lot of what I've experienced, what we see in this
movie is emblematic of that, but it's not representative of
a like healthy dynamic. But also like I wish, I

(55:42):
just I guess I wish that the movie. To me,
the movie didn't make it as clear as I would
have wanted it to be that this is an unhealthy,
toxic example of this dynamic. But curious to hear your
thoughts on that, Emma.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Yeah, Well, first of all, I get the impression that
Samuel also came into that relationship with no background understanding
of kink. It seemed like he he picked up on
the fact that romy was into that and was sort
of stepping into that role, right, a pleasure dom you
might call it. So I think they're both figuring it out,

(56:19):
which is not how you're supposed to do it, But
I don't know. I also feel like Romy, I feel
like they're both really toxic in the way they behave
to each other because Romy is constantly.

Speaker 4 (56:30):
She is his boss's bezos, like.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
And first of all, like the power dynamic is so
like carefully constructed in this movie because like she's as
high above him at work as she could possibly be,
but she's the sub and you know, he's a man,
so he has that privilege over her. Like it's just
all of these checks and balances that is really helpful, Whereas,
like the relationship I was in that was fucked up

(56:57):
with someone at work he was in addition to like
being my superior, he was also the dominant one and
that was terrible. There needs to be like some kind
of balance there. But also don't fuck people at work
who are above or below you is the main thing.

Speaker 4 (57:14):
Right, It's part of why this movie was so thorny
for me, and I honestly don't feel like it's been
out long enough for me to have my head fully
around it, because I had to keep reminding me myself
that while I do think that Samuel makes big mistakes
and has internalized misogyny of his own to work through that,

(57:37):
first off, ROMY not that this means she should be
open to abuse of any kind. But I think if
you gender swap this dynamic, it resolves itself pretty quickly,
like if Jeff Bezos is being hit on by a
young woman. In turn, I think that this conversation would
be quite different, Yes, because Whataomi is doing from a

(58:02):
power stance, you know, however, you feel about monogamy because
that is like, you know, that's a personal journey, but
professionally what she's doing is wrong and it is predatory
on paper what she's doing by engaging with this, you know,
and and that was I mean, I think it's like
an interesting thing to bring up that the movie doesn't
fully resolve. But that also brings me to I think, Ema,

(58:22):
what you were sort of getting to, where it's like,
what is the job of a movie and what is
the intended audience?

Speaker 1 (58:30):
Right?

Speaker 4 (58:30):
Because this is you know, if this movie was rated PG,
I would be like this even if it was rated
PG thirteen, honestly, because then an eighth grader can go
see it, right, and not to say the eighth graders
don't see R rated movies. I famously saw Lord of
the Rings Part three in theaters when I should not have. Okay, brag,
is that R rated? It weirdly was or maybe it

(58:51):
was PG three.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
I think it was PG.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
I think it was. No, No, they're PG thirteen and
I was eleven. Never mind. The point is theoretically adults
should be saying this movie. That doesn't mean that they won't.
But I'm just with a critical eye, right, and so
I you know, and this is something that I have
mixed feelings on how I've talked about this dynamic on

(59:14):
the show in the past, and I feel like my
feelings have sort of evolved with time, where it is
not the job of the movie Baby Girl to teach
me what BDSM is. It is the job of the
movie Baby Girl to tell me the story of Baby Girl.
Whether I like that story or not, it's totally up
to me. And I do think that there has been enough,
you know, not a ton, but there has been discussion

(59:35):
of BDSM in the public consciousness enough that I feel like,
as an adult, you know, I'm able to view this
movie as a pretty vanilla person and decide what I
want to take and what I don't you know, I
I guess yeah, like I. The more time goes on,
the more it's like, especially when it's a movie directed
by a woman who is the age of the character,

(59:58):
you know, navigating her own feelings around sexuality, I'm like, yeah,
you know, anymore than it's Coraley Frsha's job to explain
to me how an aging person's body is perceived by society,
you know, I don't know. I do think that their
relationship is unquestionably messy, yes, but I almost view when
we've talked about this in the past with fifty Shades

(01:00:19):
of Gray, where fifty Shades of Gray does attempt to
tell you this is how this works, and it tells
you wrong, you know, just yeah, it's like this is
BDSM one oh one, and it's like wrong, wrong, wrong, abuse, abuse, abuse,
and something with Secretary Yeah, which I was gonna point out.
There's a piece by friend of the cast, Jordane Searles,
who loved this movie in the LA Review of Books

(01:00:42):
that sort of contrasts these I have a quote from
it to use later. But Secretary, we were not big
fans of because it lays out BDSM just fundamentally incorrectly,
Whereas I feel like what we're seeing here and Emma,
let me know how you feel about this, because I
don't know what I'm talking about fully, but just based
on experience of viewing this and talking about it in

(01:01:03):
the past, this movie is not telling you how BDSM works.
It's showing you how these characters who are fundamentally uninformed
are working it out in real time. And it's messy
and it's not correct. And I do think that there
are Caitlin speaking to your point, like there are abuse
dynamics at present on not to be like Donald Trump

(01:01:24):
on both sides, but on both sides there are I
think abuse of dynamics present. It is deeply messy, which
makes the conclusion feel a little weird to me, especially
on Samuel's side, where he's like, you don't understand how
sex works today, and here I go to Tokyo and
you're like, well, that doesn't feel quite right. But I

(01:01:45):
don't know. I felt like this movie at very least
is not trying to tell you this is the right way,
or even this is the way, because every other movie
I think we've talked about that covers BDSM in gender
has tried to give you a prescriptive version that was
ultimately harmful. Yeah, I don't know. Also I didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
I think this one is, as much as it's toxic,
is more realistic than other depictions of it that I've seen,
because most people aren't like, hmm, I'm curious about being dominated.
I'm going to read up on it and then go
to a dungeon where they teach classes on it, and
then find a vetted dom.

Speaker 4 (01:02:29):
I feel like a lot of yah, I would do that, but.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
Okay, Ki, and there's nothing wrong with it. That's again,
that's probably the healthiest way to do it. It would
make a boring movie. Yes, Yes, I feel like a
lot of people, especially women, are ashamed of these desires.
And I know it took me a while to come
to terms with because I'm you know, I'm like an
outspoken feminist and I'm a strong independent woman or whatever

(01:02:55):
romy says she is, and it's weird to square that with.
And I like being told what to do and I
want to be bossed around and I want to be
like not in control, when really it's just that I
think the things that we're afraid of often turn into
the things that turn us on. It's a subversion.

Speaker 3 (01:03:15):
I think it would not that would not necessarily make
a boring movie. If it's someone who like wants to
do things the healthiest and the most appropriate way. It's
just that you'd have to find conflict elsewhere. The conflict
couldn't come from.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
That's true.

Speaker 3 (01:03:33):
Yeah, dealing with a toxic, abusive partner. It would just
have to be like whatever the person's own insecurities and
coming out of their shell, and you know, any other
number of things that could provide tension in the story.
So I guess, I guess I would actually really be
interested in a story.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
Like that in that movie.

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
Because for this again, I just like I was. It
was so hard for me to root for anyone y
because I like to watch my movies where I could root
for someone and.

Speaker 4 (01:04:01):
Yeah, I mean, I think this movie is fairly at
least for me, it was impossible to root for any
I was.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Rooting for the dog.

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
I was rooting for Isabelle the Daughter, and that was
like low key it because it's hard to root for
romy since she's like missus capitalism girl boss who's exploiting
her power over her subordinate. It's hard to root for
Samuel because again he's pushy and abusive. Like there are
other examples of abuse that Samuel is doing besides the

(01:04:32):
ones I mentioned earlier. You know, there's like him saying
things like, well, you show up dressed like this and
you expect me to not do anything, you know, the
way that men have often claimed something like well, she
shouldn't have been wearing that short skirt if she didn't
want to be assaulted. Or when he has that like
angry outburst in the car and he says like, you're

(01:04:56):
making me feel this way. I'm screaming and having an
am albers because you made me do that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
But that's also in response to her not letting him
get out of the car. He's trying to leave and
she locks the door and he's like, let me out,
and she says no several times. Totally fair, yeah, which
I'm not saying either of those are the correct thing
to do. I'm just like they're constantly bouncing off of
each other in their in their toxicity.

Speaker 4 (01:05:22):
For sure, right, And I think that that speaks, I mean,
to both of your points in a way. I feel
like I'm like the ping pong net that. But but
I see what you're both saying is the fact that
for a lot of the scenes between them in the
first half of the movie is I felt myself as
if you were being like, are there rules in this?

(01:05:43):
And I think that they don't know, and that is
a very very risky, kind of scary space to be
in in an intimate setting, especially with the power dynamic
that they have, and the car I feel like is
sort of like the most extreme of those scenes where
they're doing this, and I was like, are you guys
fucking with each other? I don't know, And if I

(01:06:04):
don't know, probably you don't know, yeah, because it's not
like this movie really revels in keeping things from the viewer,
and so you know, it is extremely, extremely messy for
the first half of the movie, and then once rules
are established, things still spiral out of control, but they
have an understanding, and so as if you were I

(01:06:25):
weirdly could feel more relaxed in the back half of
the movie because I'm like, whatever happens to these motherfuckers,
they have an understanding, you know, But I don't. I mean,
I don't know. I I guess I don't. I mean,
I don't have experience in this world, but it seems
like I mean, Emma, would you say that this is
like a fairly realistic like navigation of this to people
who are unfamiliar with I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
It's not the way that it should be. And my
perspective is skewed because I'm basically into the exact same
shit that Romey is into, and I was also like
ashamed of it for a while and like uncomfortable generally
telling partners how to even get me off. And a
big part of me like coming to terms with what

(01:07:08):
I'm into was through a very toxic relationship at work.
So yeah, so my perspective on this is going to
be it feels very realistic to me, is what I'm saying.
But I yeah, I think a lot of people, I mean,
just like with regular non kinky relationships, sometimes you have
to learn, you know, sometimes you have to make mistakes

(01:07:29):
totally to learn. And again, this is not the way
it should be. This is not healthy, But I do
think it's realistic.

Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
I just I mean, yeah, I guess it brings me
to just like a general question that I'm like navigating
that I think when we started the show versus now
I have a different feeling on which is like, what
is the role of a movie to help a viewer
on this journey? And I think that a lot of
people who I've you know, and I am truly not
singingly anyone out, but just over the last decade that

(01:07:58):
we've been doing this show, basically, there's been plenty of
media critics that are, like, it's not the movie's jab
to you know, justify doing something very harmful. But I
don't think that that is an irrational line of thought,
you know, And so it is just an absurdly gray area.
And I think that I used to skew far more

(01:08:19):
to like, if not portraying something completely in a black
and white clear way could pose harm, then it's not
worth making. I don't necessarily feel that way now, but
I don't have a solution to it, and so it's
quite messy.

Speaker 1 (01:08:35):
I don't either. Yeah, Like the classic example of that
I'm thinking of is Fight Club, which was a critique
of masculinity and then the boys really took it and
ran with it, like.

Speaker 4 (01:08:45):
Written by a gay man, Yeah, yeah, and like it's
just and what do you do with that? Yeah, it's
really you know, if we had an answer, this show
wouldn't exist, but.

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
It still exists. We would just keep talking about Shrek every.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
Episode, so we just do that. We would just air
this Shrek episode, would be the Shrektal cast, the cast
I mean, and that is the show's truest forum. That
is us at our peak. But but for this, like,
these movies are very challenging in a way that I
appreciate because there isn't an answer for that. And I
also feel like it tends to be the movies that
are made by women that bring these questions up the

(01:09:24):
most saliently, where it's like, you know, who am I
to fight with a director who is making this for
her peers? You know, I don't know. I don't know.
I'm interested to watch this movie down the line and
see how my view of it changes.

Speaker 3 (01:09:37):
Yeah, I wanted to share some quotes from writer director
Helena rain Is maybe how you say her last name?
She is a Dutch director.

Speaker 4 (01:09:47):
Yes, and we both really loved Bodies, Bodies Bodies.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
I haven't seen it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
I need to rewatch that. I don't know if I
would like it as much on the second viewing. I
don't know. I just need to revisit it.

Speaker 4 (01:09:58):
Okay, misogynists, that's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
Yeah, I hate women.

Speaker 4 (01:10:01):
Sorry, I'm kidding. I endread it. I saw it in
the movie theater on a day where it was one
hundred and ten degrees outside.

Speaker 3 (01:10:08):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:10:08):
So maybe I just loved it because I was cool,
not dying. Yeah, but I remember really liking it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
Nice. So I watched a few interviews with Helena and
I wanted to share some quotes. Some of them are
kind of along, so bear with me. She did an
interview on The Daily Show. I'll paraphrase part of what
she said. She spoke to how this movie is like

(01:10:35):
a letter to herself to encourage herself to become more
unapologetically her authentic self without shame, because she had spoken
about feeling shame over her various desires and fantasies and
was trying to reconcile that partly with this movie. She
also talks about how she wanted it to be funny,

(01:10:57):
how it was marketed as an erotic thriller, but she
classifies it more as a comedy of manners. She talks
about how she loves the erotic thrillers of the nineties,
such as Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Unfaithful, nine and a
half weeks, but that they tend to punish the female lead,
the fem fatal, etc. She didn't want to punish her characters.

(01:11:20):
She was more interested in exploring their humanity. And I'm
also like, well, does a billionaire have humanity? No? But yeah,
She's like, you know, we all have a dark side,
and if you suppress, you know, your deepest, darkest desires.
Allah what romy is into the kinks that we see
she's into in the movie. She kind of describes this

(01:11:42):
movie almost as like a cautionary tale of like, this
is what can happen if you don't more openly explore
those things and you suppress them for so long. She
also talked a lot about how a big priority of
hers on set was making sure that her actors felt
safe during any scenes, and particularly like the intimacy and
sex scenes. She wanted them to feel safe both physically

(01:12:05):
and emotionally. We talked about that on the Rylay episode,
how that director was like.

Speaker 4 (01:12:12):
I do want to talk more about that?

Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
Yeah, yeah, I'll keep going with these couple more quotes. Yeah,
and then we can kind of dive in. So now
I'm quoting her. She says, quote I wanted to make
a comedy of manners about power, consent, sexuality and femininity.
Of course is my priority. I'm a woman, so I
write from the female gaze. I do anything from the

(01:12:34):
female gaze. But the movie is just as much about masculinity.
It's not a classical story about a sub and a
dom at all. They are both vulnerable. They're both interested
in what is power, what is surrender, what is giving
up control? What is taking control? They're both in crisis.
She's in a full on midlife crisis where she sees

(01:12:55):
the horizon is over there, what am I doing? Where
am I going? And she thinks she can be this
perfect creature. If she does enough ice baths and botox
and therapy, she can become a perfect woman. And she
has to accept through meeting Samuel, that she has to
connect to her inner beast. But him as well. He's
in a crisis in the sense that he's taking his

(01:13:16):
first steps into the world as a man and he
doesn't know how to behave He doesn't know how to
be around power, or how to be around an older woman.
And I wanted to show that vulnerability. And I think sexuality,
to me, it can sometimes be very hot, of course,
but it can be very vulnerable and weird and clunky
and uncomfortable. And I wanted to show all of that

(01:13:37):
because when you see that, you relate to it, and
in the end, when it does work, then it becomes
way more sexy than if you just show this perfect
Hollywood fairy tale. I didn't want to do that. Unquote Okay,
so flood.

Speaker 4 (01:13:56):
This is where I felt like the movie kind of
pull her me and bid off more than it could chew.
Where it is trying to tell a story about BDSM
and those power dynamics and contrast it with real life
class power dynamics. And that was where it fell flat
for me in a big way, and it like almost
undercut what I thought it did. Again, and this is

(01:14:18):
coming from a place of relative in experience, but you know,
I wish this movie was set in a different class.
There are power dynamics within every class. I don't know
why we needed to choose literally Amazon dot Com to
set this, because that makes romy so fundamentally unlikable from

(01:14:40):
moment one. I think that you could have I mean,
and again, if that's her intent, that's her intent. This
is just my opinion, but I think that this would
have been a sort of like more little piece of
gristle to chew on if it took place in like
an independently owned, like a woman owned small business that
it was big enough and was growing and had interns,

(01:15:03):
and you know, it had sort of like an upstart
woman in charge that was all of a sudden, you know,
attracted to an intern. I almost think that that's more
interesting because first of all, it's easier for audiences to
connect with, and it's less fundamentally polarizing because no one
is this movie is I feel like trying to get

(01:15:24):
you to be like, what if Jeff Bezos was girl
and just couldn't come? And that's another thing that I
kind of resent about, And again, like, feel free to
correct me. I think that this is something internalized I
have as well. But I always get a little bit
frustrated when it's even vaguely implied that the reason that

(01:15:46):
a woman is abusing power is because she's sexually frustrated.
I don't like that as a trope, and I think
it is not often this, you know, told that that
is because we are I think through this movie that
a part of the reason she does what she does
is she plays the role that is most advantageous for
her to play, and that is because she lives in

(01:16:08):
a society. But that includes faking orgasms and being Jeff
Bezos and that sucks in some ways, but in other
ways is quite evil and is killing us, and so
it is hard for me to sympathize with her. Really
at the end of the day, like it was hard
for me to connect with her. But I just also
I think that that has been subtly implied in rom

(01:16:29):
comms throughout time. If like we're talking Sandra Bullock two weeks,
notice she's quote unquote uptight. She just needs to be
fucked right, and then she will no longer be Jeff Bezos,
you know, Like and I felt like, again the because
I am I don't feel qualified to speak on the

(01:16:49):
kink issues. I do feel qualified to talk about the
class issues, where I think that this movie chooses a
very specific class and then under examines it to a
pretty wild read. To me, esmey is the closest we
get to any sort of examination of this. But I
just felt like, you know, at the end of the day,
and I do think this is really I don't even know.

(01:17:11):
I'm curious what you both think where ultimately she is
the CEO, she does not experience a consequence for doing this.
That is very normal, right, But is it normal for
her to get a Schwarzenegger style one liner over on
a male coworker who is just below her level and
be able to get away with it. I'm not even

(01:17:33):
sure that that's true, you know, Like, I just I
feel like at the end, it's like, oh, she got Sebastian,
good because if she wants to be humiliated, she'll pay.
I'm like, she's still Jeff Bezos, like yea for you know,
her morally hasn't resolved. That's fine because, like we were
talking about, is not the job of the movie Baby
Girl to tell me that Amazon dot Com is bad.
I just don't understand why it was set there, because

(01:17:56):
it does feel like the end note of like and
now she can come with her husband because she fucked
her intern. I'm like, what are what's going on here?
Like what is the class I don't I don't I understand.
I just don't understand where it falls class wise, because
I feel like it was trying to say something and

(01:18:18):
where it fell was either inconclusive or too European for
me to discern is where I fell.

Speaker 3 (01:18:25):
My guess is the idea was like, let's create this
extreme contrast. Sure again, I'm speculating here, but I wonder
if it was like, what would it look like if
one of the most powerful women in the world is
submissive sexually.

Speaker 4 (01:18:45):
Fine, like whatever you have to do to not be
Jeff Bezos, do that, Like, just do that. I don't know,
I don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
Well.

Speaker 3 (01:18:53):
I was reminded of your character Jamie from Boss Huma's
Girl Shell Gasoline Sandwich actually when watching the scenes where
she's doing her self care routine, because I'm like, what
the fuck is this? She like goes into this weird
ice chamber wearing nothing but like ear muffs and mittens
and like a swimsuit, and then she's doing like oh
that's how women's ice plunges and botox and then she's

(01:19:17):
doing this. I was not familiar with what type of
therapy this is where you're just like watching a bunch
of quick flashes of images and then the therapist is like, dr,
just make you feel what is it?

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
Yeah, emdr, emdr.

Speaker 4 (01:19:29):
I need to research that I have done that. I
haven't done it. That I haven't done it. With the screens.
I've just had it with my therapist reading tweets back
at me. But you know, I just.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
Like, while you stimulate one side of your body and
then another because it does something to your brain.

Speaker 4 (01:19:45):
Yeah, I did CVS em DR mostly auditory anyway, that's
so funny.

Speaker 3 (01:19:54):
You know, she's this, it's someone who, like I think,
on the very very surface, people in general would be like, wow,
this is a this is someone who we should celebrate
because she's a strong and powerful woman who has succeeded
in an area largely dominated by men. But we know
that it's only because she's like trampled on women along

(01:20:16):
the way while like again sucking on the dick of
capitalism and AI, you know, all the stuff that's ruining
the world.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:20:24):
But that is a good criticism of twenty ten's feminism,
I think is that, like so much of girl Boss feminism,
you know, going back to whatever lean in was, what
twenty eleven, twenty twelve, but that whole era of feminism
was whatever is keeping you from your success is wrong
with you, So step on any woman's head you need to,

(01:20:46):
and then you'll be Jeff Bezos And that's feminism. And
like that was the whole idea, and that is clearly
where Romy is coming from. And that's also like Esme
aspires to a version that which I found kind of
like that was one of the more devastating and the
movie intends that. I'm not saying, like how dare the movie,

(01:21:07):
but like that was devastating to see that, Like as
May of course she's successful, she's as conniving as Romy
would be in that situation twenty years earlier. Is that
you know, as Ma is a fan of feminism as
far as it goes to giving women access to evil

(01:21:28):
as well, right, Like.

Speaker 3 (01:21:30):
I love corporate feminism.

Speaker 4 (01:21:32):
Right, And that it's also acknowledged, I think, probably not
as overtly as it should be, but that you know,
Esbae is ignored not only because of her youth, but
because of her race. She's put in this subservient role
to Romy. She's the only black woman we get to
know remotely well, and she is used by everyone around her. Yeah,

(01:21:53):
And the reveal quote unquote with her is that she
is well aware of this, and you know, she's like,
I know that it is impossible to get the promotion
that I know I deserve through you know, marriage, moral
means yeah, because it's like she does deserve it, but
who deserves to be Jeff Bezos, you know, like, so

(01:22:16):
it is it introduces this really I think interesting question,
but it just doesn't feel like I just wasn't happy
with where the movie landed because it did. I don't know,
did it feel like a happy ending for you both?
Like I felt to me too happy of an ending
for her, of like now she can come, I can't,
and you're like.

Speaker 1 (01:22:35):
Okay, decide how I feel about that ending.

Speaker 4 (01:22:38):
I thought the I felt like the last I found
the last fifteen minutes quite frustrating.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
Honestly, I don't think it like and it's a like
necessarily a happy ending for her, although it is technically
a happy ending because she's coming, but because she's she's
like found a way to work some of her desires
into her life, but it's largely by fantasizing while she's
having sex with her husband. So she's like her desires

(01:23:03):
aren't like a secret anymore, but she's not fully embracing them.
She's just finding a way to make it work. And
also by the implication that she might be like paying
for sex.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
Mm, I mean I would rather that she do that
than like fucking her own interns. Absolutely she has the money,
Like I guess, yeah, I guess. I do appreciate that
it wasn't like as explicit as and now because all
of the events of the movie Baby Girl. Yeah, when
Antonio Banderas fucks me, I just come normal, Like I

(01:23:37):
appreciate that there is at least like there is always
gonna be these layers of complication. But I don't know,
I just I felt like the movie in general, because
of the class setting, ultimately felt too kind of like
myopically focused on Romi in a way that really and
maybe this was the intention, but it really made me

(01:23:58):
work as a VI You're to have to constantly pull
out to be like, wait, why am I rooting for
this woman's happiness?

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:24:06):
Why am I rooting for this woman's happiness? Like, yeah,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:24:10):
I don't even know, like if I was rooting for
anything in particular in this movie, I was just so
taken by the way it shows.

Speaker 4 (01:24:17):
Power okay, yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (01:24:19):
The way that like that evolves throughout the movie. There
are several scenes that like where a scene will happen
in the first half and then a similar scene will
happen in the second half, and the power's totally reversed,
like like as May like meeting with Romy in the
beginning and Romy has all of the power, and then
at their meeting towards the end, as May has all

(01:24:39):
of the power and is calling the shots, or the
same with the meeting that Samuel and Romy have, or
even in the sex montage towards the beginning, Samuel breaks
a cup and has Romy clean it up, and towards
the end, Romy drops a plate and Samuel cleans it up.
I feel like they're just like toppling over what is power?
Which is which? Is like a really interesting question within

(01:25:01):
the BDSM context, because most people will say in a
subdom relationship, the sub is the one who has.

Speaker 4 (01:25:07):
The power, right.

Speaker 3 (01:25:08):
I remember like learning this when we were researching for Yeah,
the Fifty Shades of Gray episode. I was like, Oh,
I'm surprised, but now it makes perfect sense to me.

Speaker 1 (01:25:18):
That was really cute. You had like a book report
on kingk.

Speaker 3 (01:25:24):
Wow, humiliating for me our old episodes simpler times similar times.

Speaker 1 (01:25:30):
I also, I guess I want to say that I
feel like there would be more context for a movie
like this to not have a negative influence if there
was more context for kink and media in general exactly,
like if there was the movie where it's someone getting
into kink and maybe like that isn't the focal point,
That isn't the struggle, like if it was just a
thing about someone instead of the central struggle of the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:25:52):
I'm going to write this, okay, please do yeah, my
screenwriting degree that I would never talk about, and.

Speaker 4 (01:25:57):
Make it PG thirteen so that everyone has to see
that movie. Like I mean, it would be hard to
make it PG thirteen because you know, the ratings board
is so Protestant. But I believe in you.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:26:09):
Yeah, I think that like media literacy does set complicated
movies like this backwards, and yet I still do feel
like it's biting upward, that it can chew. Something I
wanted to talk about, yeah, was something that because we
recently or two weeks ago, we did our big Oscars show,
and I wanted to talk briefly about intimacy coordinators because

(01:26:31):
it was a big conversation around the Oscars this year,
primarily because the sort of Oscar sweep movie of the year, Anora,
did not use intimacy coordinators. It was a sort of
big talking point of you know, just because intimacy coordinators are,
at least in big budget productions, are relatively new normative thing.

(01:26:56):
Anora was an independent production, they opted to not go
with intimacy coordinators. You can read up on that. But
I say that because in late December there was sort
of uh, you know, sort of upright uprising. There wasn't
an uprising, there was a social media don't want to
start one. We have bigger fish to fry, honestly, Like,

(01:27:20):
if you're doing an uprising over Theonora intimacy coordinator thing,
redirect your energy. Truly, people are dying, Kim. But in
any case, there was a conversation, a valid conversation around
that where you know, both Sean Baker and Mikey Madison,
who the starry director of Honora, said we opted to

(01:27:40):
not go with intimacy coordinators. It got a fair amount
of criticism. I don't want to comment on that. What
I will say is that the crew of this movie,
including I know I have to try to say her name,
Helena Rashan, responded to this by saying that Baby Girl
did use an indepacy coretor and got a lot out

(01:28:01):
of it, and that's something that I really appreciated a god. Yeah, yes,
because especially with and this speaks to your point, Emma,
the amount of under education that exists in the general
public and a media about kink. This is a great
example of a movie that absolutely needs an intimacy coordinator.

(01:28:22):
Oh yeah. So this is from a Deadline article from
late December of last year called Baby Girl. Director praises
intimacy coordinators for achieving quote more extreme sex scenes unquote.
I just want to share a quote from the director
from that. She says, I'm also against people who are
saying no, my actors didn't want an intimacy coordinator. That

(01:28:44):
makes no sense. It is also for your safety as
a director and for everyone what if there is a misunderstanding.
It's just amazing to have a person like that on set.
And if you're creative and talented enough of a director,
you can pull it off. Trust me, you just have
to go a little through your own discomfort and then
you will discover a whole new world of creativity and possibilities.

(01:29:08):
I've only worked to work with an intimacy coordinator once,
but I will say it makes a big difference. It
is very uncomfortable pretending to fuck a stranger and having
someone there who is your person. I know that. Like
and again, I you know, whatever however an actor feels

(01:29:30):
is however they feel. I don't want to say that
anyone is wrong for feeling one way or another. But
I appreciated that the cast and crew of Baby Girl
very much came forward in favor of this being normalcy
in the Hollywood production, because I think that the risk
outweighs the benefit very much in that situation.

Speaker 1 (01:29:52):
And that kind of reminds me of just like having
a conversation about a weird sex thing before you do it,
Like people will be like, oh, it's just hotter if
you just do it, and it's like, yes, sure maybe sometimes,
but it's it can be as hot with a conversation before,
and you have more potential to get more out of it,

(01:30:13):
and in the grand scheme of things, it's a better
practice for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:30:17):
So I do appreciate that ultimately, like knowing that the
crew of this movie was very much considering the safety
and comfort of their actors. That made me think higher
of the movie in general, honestly, because if this movie
had come out on the opposite side of that because
without getting to it, but like, you know, knowing that

(01:30:39):
intimacy coordinators they were like, no, thanks for Anora, Maybe
think less of that movie. Yeah yeah, And knowing that
there were intimacy coordinators here made me think more of
this movie because I think that the clarification that I
haven't really seen made in the public eye is like
that an intimacy coordinator is not going to be like
you can't do that, At least in my experience. They're

(01:31:03):
just like, what are you comfortable doing? Where are your boundaries?
And how can I help you perform around your boundaries.
They're not there to tell you do not do this
because it will look too horny on screen, or like
they're not trying to make the scenes less hot. They're
trying to manage your boundaries and your partner's boundaries while
achieving the director's vision. And that is like a very

(01:31:25):
important role because the director is doing fifteen different things.
It is very easy to lose the actor's comfort if you,
as an actor, are like, uh huh, I feel fine,
you know, yeah, because you don't want to slow things
down because there's twenty people to hate you and you
want to put your bra back on you know, like,

(01:31:46):
so it is a very I don't know. I think
it's an important role to have available. If everyone chooses
to forego it, that's another story again, like I don't
I have We're not covering an aura. But I just
am glad that the crew of this movie stood up
for that role as normalcy on an erotic thriller set.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:32:08):
Absolutely. The other thing that made me think higher of
this movie is the final quote that I'll share from
director Helena Ryan Range recission we're not just too sure
about Dutch names, but it's hard. She did an interview

(01:32:28):
with friend of the cast Manuel Bettencourt the Academy Conversations,
and in this interview she says, quote, for me, making
this movie is going into the areas of myself where
I feel incredible shame because I'm like, I'm a strong woman.
How is it then that I want a man to

(01:32:49):
be dominating me or protecting me? And so I think
it's very liberating to create stories about it. She goes
on to say, as long as you do it in
a safe space and you ask consent, there's nothing wrong
with it, then you should celebrate your kink. But this,
of course is happening because romy this being like the

(01:33:09):
plot of the movie, this is of course happening because
Romy doesn't allow that to be there, and that's why
it comes out with a much younger man in a
situation that is of course morally wrong unquote. So like
again she's acknowledging, like, the events of this movie are
not like, this is not what you should do. This

(01:33:29):
is not like a guidebook. This is what it looks
like when you are suppressing your desires and you're not
letting yourself fully explore them, and you're just sort of
like fumbling around with the first person who seems to
notice that you have these desires, and they're both handling
it poorly. So I'm glad that, like the director acknowledges

(01:33:53):
that because again I went into this first screening of
it being like, what was this takeaway here exactly like
what I supposed to be rooting for these people? Was
I supposed to be like a fan of their connection?
Because I was not. But yeah, I'm glad that now
that I have like a clearer understanding of the director
and writers the writer director's vision, I'm like, Okay, then

(01:34:16):
you've achieved what you were going for then, so you know,
I this is what I really want is it's just
like you were speaking to em. More movies that do
show a healthy DOM sub BDSM dynamic in which the
conflict is coming from elsewhere and not like toxicity that

(01:34:39):
might be present in that dynamic.

Speaker 4 (01:34:42):
And preferably this is like, you know, the directors only
have so much control over this, but like preferably directed
to a younger audience, because there's only so much, you know,
and a director who will only be granted and R
rating can be held accountable for. It's hard because it's
like you don't know until the movie's done, and then

(01:35:03):
it's uh, you know, back and forth with studios and
back and forth with with programmers being like, Okay, what
needs to be taken out for this movie to be
deemed quote unquote appropriate, which is always gonna you know,
be attuned to what the sensibilities of the time are.
And that makes me feel worried because the times are

(01:35:24):
not good. I felt a great.

Speaker 1 (01:35:28):
I want to say that while I do think this
can be an accurate depiction of how people discover or
like explore their kinks on a one on one basis
without knowing what they're doing, it is absolutely nothing like
what the kink community looks like. Like at kink events,

(01:35:49):
they are not this glamorous. They are so nerdy.

Speaker 4 (01:35:51):
They're not worrying beige and bad way.

Speaker 1 (01:35:54):
There's no beige. I've never seen beige at a kink
party and it's not like you. I feel like a
lot of this movie is about the actual sense of
danger and that's all manufactured at a BBSM party, and
they are like great lengths gone to to make sure
that everything is consensual. BDSM parties are really strict about

(01:36:17):
alcohol and drugs. Usually, like the Dungeon here in Chicago
has a bar where you can go get a diet
coke because they don't want anyone being inebriated. They're usually
dungeon monitors that are like checking up on things and
making sure everyone seems into what they're doing. There's there
will be like a safe word for the whole dungeon,
so so everyone knows if something's going wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:36:39):
That's great. Yeah. I upon watching this movie and like
you know, the sex parties I've been to, wo we woo,
I was like, oh, these these are not the same. Yeah, yeah,
this is not what this looks like. Yeah, was there
anything else? Anyone wanted to talk about regarding a baby girl.

Speaker 1 (01:37:00):
Another thing that was a big takeaway from me the
first time I saw it was when Samuel's like, I
could make one call and it would be over for you.
I was like, Wow, That's not how it was for
me when I was having a secret relationship with my manager.
If I made one call, then it would everyone would

(01:37:21):
assume I was lying and I would get fired. Wonder
what the difference there is?

Speaker 3 (01:37:27):
Does it have anything to do with gender?

Speaker 4 (01:37:29):
Who could say, right, and the movie doesn't. That was
something that I was like, I feel like the movie
should have maybe because if you gender swap, and again
it's like, we're over gender swapping, but this movie is
gender swapping stuff we've seen in movies before. Yeah, it
does feel worth acknowledging that in saying this with like,

(01:37:50):
you know, girl, Jeff Bezos, whatever, shell Gaslen Sandwich style.
If you haven't seen it, maybe we'll link to it
in this episode on YouTube, you know. But like, just
because evil is being done by a woman does not
make the consequences of it less severe. It does, however,
make the tightrope of consequence for the person doing it
more precarious. Again, I'm not quite sure why the director

(01:38:16):
chose this tightrope to examine, but because she did choose
it to examine, it felt a little bit under explored,
because you're totally right, Emma, where it's like, if we
did gender swap this and it is a young woman
saying Jeff Bezos and I are in a BDSM relationship,

(01:38:38):
it does feel like it's it wouldn't go well for her,
far easier to ignore, and that's not to say and
we never get to the point where we even ask
what would happen if this happened, because this movie doesn't
even go there because it is made. And that's a
little bit of the problem I had with the Samuel
character in general, where we know so little about him

(01:39:00):
that he's a bit of a cipher, which in the
sex sense is useful.

Speaker 1 (01:39:05):
It's kind of a manic pixie dream boy.

Speaker 4 (01:39:07):
He kind of is, right. Okay, Okay, I'm glad you
said that, because I didn't write that down, but that
does sort of feel like what he is. Because we
know the bare minimum about Romy's background, but we do
know a lot about her home life. Samuel, well, we
know really nothing. We know that he gave a dog

(01:39:27):
a cookie and that's all we know. Like and other
than that, he is kind of a manic pixie dream
boy where you know, if you buschemi test this thing,
it doesn't work at all. But it takes a fair
amount of like vibing and movie magic to make this
relationship even happen in the first place. And then he
sort of just literally walks into the mist and goes

(01:39:50):
away and goes to Tokyo, and we don't really know how
this relationship has affected him. The line from him that
affects to me the most that again I felt like,
didn't really go examined in the way that the movie
plays out, is that he's talking about how his relationship
with romy is different from the way that his relationship

(01:40:12):
with Esme is. I liked that exchange a lot, but
it never comes back where he just is like, basically,
he basically says the side of myself that I am
with Esme is different than the side of myself I
am with you, But he doesn't say that neither of
those sides are invalid or not authentic. Yeah, he's just like,

(01:40:32):
you know, with you, I can explore a different part
of myself than I can with her, But it doesn't
you know. I was very prepared for him to say
I'm faking it with her. It's totally insincere, but he
doesn't say that he you know, and I thought that
that was like a very interesting sort of thing to
be dangled that isn't really explored because as May drops

(01:40:53):
him to be Missus girl boss, right, so it's like
that sort of goes away. I just I do wish
that this story was a little bit I mean, it
lets go of because I think that this movie, the
way that it was celebrated was like it's it's women's pleasure,
but it's like of Missus, Jeff Bezos, can't we do better?

(01:41:14):
Can't we do better? Because it feels like the consequence
of that is that the younger characters go unexamined, and
that also, I mean, we haven't really talked about Jacob
very much, where Jacob is a whole other animal. Where
I thought Antonio Banderas gave kind of like a great
understated or as I call it, Dakota Johnson's stepfather.

Speaker 3 (01:41:37):
Well as I call him puts in Boots the live action.

Speaker 4 (01:41:40):
Version The Man, But I thought he'd gave a great
understated performance in this where he's and also his casting
is like Nicole Kidman's it's so deliberate, where it's like
you're culturally led to believe who would cheat on this man?
But his performance bears that out where he is a
emotionally present husband, which is again a gender swap of

(01:42:02):
what we normally see in this situation. He is emotionally present,
she is not.

Speaker 3 (01:42:06):
She's always on her phone.

Speaker 4 (01:42:08):
Right, which is trophy, Right, that is trophy. But I
do think like saying an emotionally present husband and father
versus not is somewhat unusual. But then seeing like you know,
even that is not necessarily enough to sustain a marriage,
I think that that is like a point to be made,
and also that his frustration and his hurt is totally

(01:42:33):
valid as well to be because she fucks him over
big time. Because in his mind, and I can imagine
being in his position, he's like, what the fuck have
I done wrong? All I did was direct, had a gabbler,
and love our daughters. And it's like the things he's
done wrong, he has not been culturally conditioned to examine.

(01:42:54):
He has not been culturally conditioned to consider what his
wife's pleasure should look like. You know, and like that
is a very unique thing that I think a lot
of men, and I'm sure of Antonio Banderaz's generation particularly,
haven't been thought to consider. And women of Nicole Kidney's generation,
who are you know, Basically our moms were not taught

(01:43:17):
to ask for right. So I do think it's like
a useful example. But I just felt like the way
that Jacob's character was presented kind of petered out at
the end where it was sort of presented like Jacob
is the past, Samuel is the future, and then Samuel
just turns into mist and goes to your pin and
You're like, well, I don't know, you know, there was

(01:43:40):
a little bit of gray area there, but I guess,
you know, we just gotta make her come and roll
the credits.

Speaker 1 (01:43:45):
I am so glad though that they specify what like
that Samuel didn't get fired. He wasn't like right, he
didn't take any like real professional harm from his affair
with the CEO, Like she transferred him to do a
really good job in Tokyo, So he was still on
his career path, if not a little bit more advanced,

(01:44:06):
but also very.

Speaker 4 (01:44:07):
Far away so far, which would that have happened if
the gender was reversed that we know no, and also,
I mean, unfortunately, would Esme's career have advanced if she
hadn't made the move that she made. I don't think likely.
I don't think so because the movie literally tells you

(01:44:29):
that wouldn't happen, because the way that Romy is a
hashtag feminist girl boss is inherently passive, and the movie
goes out of its way to tell you that because
she has to be put into personal peril before she
will talk to or seriously consider Esme's needs or her

(01:44:49):
own daughter's needs, where it's not until she sees her
daughter mirroring her own behavior to some extent that she
even considers it valid like we're not she's not a
great mom. Like, but I also appreciated seeing not a
great mom being approached by her teenage daughter and being like,

(01:45:10):
you're not doing great, but we could really use you back.
I'm like visibility, we really we love that. We love
that you weren't doing a great job, but you're better
than nothing. Get home, you know, I get it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:45:24):
I think it just comes down to this movie presents
a lot of complicated things, and I wish would have
examined many of them more closely, or may maybe like
a clear stance on them. But there's also lots of
upsides to what we see in the movie, especially as
far as like representation of a woman's pleasure and orgasm

(01:45:46):
and sexuality in general. I think it was interesting to
see that of this couple between romy and Jacob, that
the woman is the more sexually adventurous one and the
man not so much. And it's it seems like the
movie to some degree implies that that's why she like strays,

(01:46:08):
because she's like looking to find someone who will help
her bust a nut and her husband can't do that
for her.

Speaker 4 (01:46:18):
What I what I wish was more emphasize is that
it shouldn't be and this is a symptom of capitalism.
It shouldn't be a symptom of if Nicole Kidman doesn't
bust a nut, people will die, which is the concept.
These are the existential sequences presented by this movie that

(01:46:40):
the movie does not quite want to interact with.

Speaker 3 (01:46:43):
Right And you're also just reminded like, okay, well, if
you want to bust a nut and you're already married
in a monogamous relationship, then you know, try to use
your words a little bit better.

Speaker 4 (01:46:56):
But I mean that that is like easier said than dine.
I mean, yeah, we know our moms. It's easier said
than done. It's a motherfucker.

Speaker 1 (01:47:04):
Like.

Speaker 4 (01:47:04):
I don't mean to like talk her character down too much.
I just well, yeah, I guess to round up how
I feel about this movie, I think it is an
interesting step forward in this genre of movie, and I
just sort of wish it had chosen a less challenging
extreme class dynamic to examine. And it's it's doing. It

(01:47:28):
passes the Bechtel test for what it's worth. It does
indeed a lot, Yeah, a whole lot. But what does
that mean? Does anyone else have closing comments before we
head into our ratings.

Speaker 1 (01:47:40):
I thought that the wardrobe designer did a really incredible
job with this, just like the way that Samuel's suit
never fits him right is so on point for his character.
And then also for most of the movie, especially for
the first half, Romy is wearing a top or a
dress that looks like it's choking her to death. She's
like always wearing something that ties at the neck. And

(01:48:02):
then as she gets more into her sexuality, you see
her like at the scene with her and Samuel at
the hotel, she's wearing a strapless dress. At the rave scene,
she goes in wearing a top that's like tied at
the top and he helps her untie it and take
it off.

Speaker 4 (01:48:19):
Right. Oh yeah, we'll spot it.

Speaker 2 (01:48:21):
Well.

Speaker 4 (01:48:22):
I was just like, wow, it's hard for me to
get past, like Nicole Kippen looks awesome. Yeah, you're so right,
You're so right.

Speaker 1 (01:48:30):
But yeah, we should maybe wrap up because I could
talk about this movie for three more hours.

Speaker 3 (01:48:34):
So I know, I feel like, I mean, there's it's
so it's such a rich text. There's so much to examine.
I feel like we haven't even scratched the surface.

Speaker 4 (01:48:42):
Truly, but we've we've almost gone the length of the text.
So that is our natural conclusion classic us.

Speaker 3 (01:48:48):
But yeah, I guess that brings us to our nipple scale,
where we rate the movie based on examining it through
an intersectional feminist lens. Ooh, this one is a tricky
one and this movie really challenged me. You know, there's
things I really like about what we see on screen,

(01:49:09):
especially as far as, like again, representation of a woman's pleasure.
But it's like, to your point, Jamie. Why is it
missus Amazon dot Com? Because that's an impossible character to
root for. I really struggled with that. There's just there's
lots of stuff that kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

(01:49:32):
But again, now that I know more about where the
director was coming from, I appreciate it more. But I
feel like I'm still only gonna give it three nibles.
I don't know, I'll stick with three. One goes to
the glass of milk, one goes to the necktie that

(01:49:54):
Romy performs oral sex on, and my final nibowl goes
to her again guttural orgasm sound.

Speaker 4 (01:50:05):
Amazing, wow, really good, really good, thank you, thank you.
I'm bravely going to forego nipples on this because I
just don't feel well informed enough to give my full
nipple reading here. I will say this, this movie challenged
me to the extent that I don't feel comfortable giving nipples.
My main criticism of this movie is that it chose

(01:50:30):
intentionally to choose the highest possible steaks for this situation,
which made it harder for me to engage with it,
and also weirdly more like fan fiction y of like
what if Jeff Bezos fucked you? Like it really does

(01:50:50):
feel kind of like more fan fiction y. I wish
this took place in a more grounded environment. I don't
think that you would have lost the steaks, and I
think you actually would have gained a lot of ability
to engage with the story that I didn't feel the
ability to engage with because you're like, well, I would
never do it, missus Jeff Bezos does. But if you

(01:51:10):
put it in the you know, like stakes of your
mom's most successful friend, maybe you could put yourself in
that situation. I just I don't know. I mean, I
would be curious what the director's motivation was to it
just felt like it was trying to do a little
bit too much.

Speaker 3 (01:51:28):
For me.

Speaker 4 (01:51:29):
I'm gonna forego my nipples at this point. I also
I'm gonna for the things that we didn't have time
to talk about. I just wanted to link to sort
of differing opinions that I both value very much from
past guests of this show. Angelica Jade Bastien wrote a
great piece about this in Vulture, and Jordaanine Seerles wrote

(01:51:50):
a great piece about this in the La Review of Books.
So I will defer to you to them Jordaane was
a big fan Angelica Lesso, and I feel like I
just need a little more time with this one. I
don't know. If I had nipples to give, I would
give them all to the pool that steams in January's

(01:52:10):
pretty greatfool. The pool of infidelity, Yes, right, the cheating
on your spouse pool. I love that.

Speaker 3 (01:52:18):
Yes, yes, how about you? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:52:21):
This one is so hard because I feel like all
of the positive things about it are so positive to me,
and then all of the negative things are so negative.
It's just really extremes.

Speaker 3 (01:52:33):
And that's when we do a two point five nipple,
we just split down the middle.

Speaker 1 (01:52:38):
I'm gonna give it a three point five, and I'm
going to give all of those nipples, not specifically to
the scene where Harris Dickinson is dancing with his shirt
off and his fuck boy tattoos, but to the directorial
choice to have that scene happen to the George Michael
song father figure. That was a choice.

Speaker 4 (01:52:56):
Oh my god, yes she was. They're like, okay, she is, Daddy.
Now You're like, okay, I get it, I get it.
Maybe daddy. Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:53:07):
Also, those are all his real tattoos.

Speaker 3 (01:53:09):
Oh, I was wondering I meant to look that up.
I was like, I wonder if there's like shirtless photos
of him.

Speaker 1 (01:53:14):
I came out of the first of you and being like, man,
they did such a good job with the fake tattoos.
They're such fuck boy tattoos and they're all real.

Speaker 4 (01:53:22):
That makes be so good for you, Harris. Good for
you for living your truth. You've lived a real human life.
If you have tattoos that embarrassing.

Speaker 3 (01:53:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:53:33):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:53:34):
The final thing I'll say is that if this movie exists, Emma,
if you know, let me know, or if listeners know.
But I want to watch a movie about like a femdom,
like the woman being the dominant person in that dynamic
with a submissive man, because I mean, we've talked exclusively

(01:53:56):
about hetero couplings on this episode. I mean there is
the Isabelle character, who, you know, the teen daughter who
dates other teen girls. But in the context of like
the dom sub dynamics that we've discussed on this episode,
it's all been hetero things. But I'd also like to
see a movie about a dom sub dynamic present within

(01:54:17):
a queer relationship because when a mainstream movie comes out
that is about BDSM I feel like it's always the dom.
It's a sishead man, the sub is a sishead woman,
and that's just the pattern we see over and over.

Speaker 4 (01:54:31):
We should just do it a month on the Bexel
cast of like s tier narrative porn. Honestly, like we've
been on the air long enough, we should it's time I.

Speaker 3 (01:54:41):
Own on DVD brag the porn movie Pirates, which is
a porn parody of Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh and
there's okay, yeah, I have it and we can watch it.
There's also a sequel which I've seen. And then for
a time both movies, both porn films, were on Netflix,

(01:55:05):
but the sex scenes were cut out, so it was
just the like Pirate story rocks.

Speaker 4 (01:55:13):
That's like kill Bill on TNT.

Speaker 3 (01:55:16):
That is amazing, Yeah, because like there's story, there's like
a whole plot, sure, and then like they take a
you know, a little like narrative break from the plot
to have a sex scene and then they just go
back into the plot. So like it kind of works
without the sex scenes. It's also like one of the
highest budget porns ever made.

Speaker 4 (01:55:35):
Like okay, well, yeah, I'll come over to watch the DVD.
I'm not interested in the non sex version. We're gonna
well cool, Emma, Thank you so much for on that note.
Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for
bringing us this very complet I wish we had like
three more hours to talk about it. I feel like
I could talk about it all day. Thank you so

(01:55:56):
much for coming, coming on and coming to talk about this.
Tell us more about where we can find you online.

Speaker 1 (01:56:02):
You can find my website at Emmaalimo dot com. You
can find me on Instagram at Emma underscore Alamo. I
am frequently very shadow band, so you might have to
type in the whole name for me to pop up.

Speaker 3 (01:56:15):
While worth it and listeners, check out Emma's online store
and buy some dang.

Speaker 1 (01:56:22):
Harnesses, buy some dang sex harnesses.

Speaker 4 (01:56:24):
Look, I'm mine's give it a whirl. I can recommend
and I'm so boring and it'll make your life interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:56:33):
Vanilla does not equal boring. This is a crusade that
I've been on for years.

Speaker 1 (01:56:37):
Truly, I'm on that crusade too, Like vanilla is delicious
and a.

Speaker 4 (01:56:43):
Lot of the best classic for reasons, and also.

Speaker 1 (01:56:46):
A lot of the best ice creams have an element
of vanilla. In them. It'll be like vanilla ice cream
with cookie dough. Like vanilla is not bad. Vanilla is
just one of many options.

Speaker 4 (01:56:56):
It's a great thing to add other things to Bye
M's version. Dice you can find You can find us
online all over the place. You can join our patreon
ak Matreon for five dollars a month, where every month
we do two bonus episodes just Caitlin and myself on
a ridiculous theme that you often choose. We just covered

(01:57:19):
roadent Tober for March, which was Ratitude and the Great
Moss Detective. A lot of important feminist discussion going on
over there.

Speaker 3 (01:57:28):
Oh yeah, yes, thank you for listening. Emma, come back anytime.

Speaker 1 (01:57:34):
Yeah, I'll come back to do that pirate porn with
Y'allieve I would I would love to cover some sort
of classic porn movies on this show.

Speaker 3 (01:57:41):
W does Dallas deep Throat exactly, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (01:57:46):
Yeah, I'm here for it.

Speaker 3 (01:57:47):
Okay, bye bye, right bye. The Bechdel Cast is a
production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus,
produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Moe labord Our. Theme
song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskresenski.

(01:58:08):
Our logo in merch is designed by Jamie Loftus and
a special thanks to Aristotle Assevedo. For more information about
the podcast, please visit Linktree slash Bechtelcast

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