Basic Instinct with Sarah Marshall

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the bed Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women and um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in
best start changing it with the bec del Cast. Hey, Jamie, Hey, Caitlin,
I have an idea for a new podcast that I

(00:22):
want you to co host with me. Okay, yeah, I know.
I'm in great because here's what it's going to be.
It will be me describing how I will murder my lovers,
and then when my lovers end up dead in like
a year or so, this podcast will be my alibi
because I'm not going to be so foolish as to

(00:43):
kill my lovers in the exact same way I described
on this podcast. Okay, yeah, okay, So I mean and
and honestly, because you got so close to my face
while you were telling me that I believe you, and
also I'm in love with you perfect and don't worry,
I will not frame you or anything. Oh no, you
wouldn't know, because what we have is real as opposed

(01:05):
to all the others. I'm not like the other boys. Um,
Michael Douglas, Great, Kiss, Kiss what I'm Katherine Zada Jones
is I. Honestly, I there was like a world in
which I was going to try to go through this
whole episode, referring to Michael Douglas as Catherine Zada Jones's
husband because that's how I think of him. Welcome to

(01:29):
the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus, my name
is Caitlin Dronte, and this is our show where we
examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens. Using the Bechtel
tests simply is a jumping off point. But you know
what the Bechtel test is? I don't, because I do,
Can you tell me? Well? It is a media metric
created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechtel

(01:53):
Wallace Test. A lot of different versions of it. The
one we use requires that a piece of media have
two characters with names of a marginalized gender talking to
each other about something other than a man for two
lines of dialogue. And it should be a sort of
meaningful interaction. You know it when you see it, and uh,

(02:17):
you know, we've we've we've got it. We've got kind
of a It's complicated today. Everything is complicated today. It's
very it's a very complicated day. Yes, you're on the
picktel Cast. Do you remember that Facebook? Did you ever
have that? Oh, it's like a relations relationship status. I
loved that. That's so inviting conflict um that you have

(02:38):
to respect it. I don't have the personality to publicly
declare it's complicated, but there were plenty of teenagers who did. Wow. Yeah,
they'd be like, it's complicated with Chris are. They were
like doing it in earnest because everyone I saw who
put that it was like a joke. Who would be like,
it's complicated with my bff t. He joked a joke, right, Yes,

(02:59):
uh no, No, when you're fourteen, it's serious. It really
is complicated because you don't you don't even understand what's
happening to your body. So everything, even if it's going
great in your in a relationship, it's still complicated. Yeah. Anyways,
welcome to the backcast. We're talking about basic Instinct today.

(03:20):
Long time request, and we were simply waiting for the
perfect guest to come along, and here she is. Yes,
let's get her, let's get her in the mix. She
is the host of Your Wrong About podcast and the
co host of You Are Good Podcast, it's Sarah Marshall. Hi, welcome.

(03:40):
This says what a how are we going to talk
about this movie? Like? Because defies? What is it? Yeah?
I don't know. It is so I've I've read so
many takes that my brain started leaking out of my nose.
There doesn't seem to be any or I mean, this
is true of every movie, but like this one in particular,

(04:03):
it's like there's just no right answer. It doesn't seem
like everyone's got a different take. We hate it, we
love it, we're reclaiming it, we're putting it in the trash.
It's good, it's bad. We don't know. It's empowerment for women,
it's horrible for women. Yeah, it's it's every take on
every end, Fanti cop. We don't know, we don't know.

(04:25):
I'll tell you what we know. It is. It was
a three million dollar screenplay. That is one thing that
is known. What a thing to know, which is absurd
and which is more than Sharon Stone got paid to
be in the movie. She only got paid five hundred
thousand dollars to be in this movie, right, which is
like obviously good money, but not for what she fucking did. Also,

(04:46):
this screenplay was written in thirteen days, which makes so
much sense and right right, And the budget was million
dollars and only thousand of that went to the lead
of the movie. That makes me feel very bad. There
there's so much I mean, there's also not only is
there a ton to talk about about the content, but

(05:09):
there's so much to talk about about behind the scenes
some of it. I mean, we'll just see where this goes,
because there's like some things that aren't necessarily relevant to
the topic of this show that I was sort of
still like, what the fuck? I just wrote so much
stuff down. Every fact I learned was scarier than the last. Right. Yeah,
I think this episode may just be as chaotic as

(05:32):
the movie itself. That sounds great. I'm very excited to
talk about it, and I feel like this discussion honestly,
I I hope it will be clarifying for me because
I'm all over the place. I did enjoy watching it.
It's highly entertaining or is it. I don't know. Sometimes
I'm like, I'm board, it's over two hours long. Why

(05:53):
isn't this half hour shorter? It's taking itself very seriously,
which is a flash doesn't have But one of my
favorite things about this movie is that we have two
women famously and to distinguish them from each other and
create some symbolism, one wears beige clothing and the other
wears brown clothing. It's I mean, how else were you

(06:16):
supposed to tell high status white women apart in the nineties.
The only way you could do it except by what
color neutrals they put on head to toe that morning.
So many loose neutrals in this movie, which have kind
of come all the way back around. Much like many
elements of this movie. I was just thinking that true murdering,

(06:39):
murdering people is so in right now, It's totally in fashion.
Look as a as a bisexual murderer, representation matters. It's
just nice to see an early version of the media
landscape we have today. So I'm so excited to hear
your thoughts on this movie, Sarah, Like, what is your

(07:01):
history with Basic Instinct. I think I first saw it
when I was like fourteen or fifteen, and I just
knew that it was a movie that adults talked somewhat
fearfully about. I think specifically I had heard of it
in the part and Sleepless in Seattle, where Tom Hanks's
son obviously alludes to it because he's like, so, if

(07:21):
you date, you're probably gonna have sex, right, And his
dad's like, I certainly hope so, and he's like, and
if you have sex, I think she's going to scratch
up your back, which he like learned from probably from
watching Basic Instinct on cable or any of the other
abundant like sort of Glossy got really bad reviews but
did amazing when they hit the video rental market movies

(07:45):
of the time, like other Joe esther Haws films, including
Sliver and Jade. So I think I guess like I
watched it because I was like, this is a movie
that scandalize as adult ELTs, and I want to see
something that scandalized adults. And then I remember just being like,
I don't know what I think about this. It felt

(08:08):
like it was too deep a look into like the
sordidness of adult culture. And then when I came back
to it as an adult, the thing I really noticed
was that the score by Gerry Goldsmith is doing so
much work I think to sort of try and be Hitchcockian, right,
It's like it's its own character and it's a very

(08:29):
loud character that won't stop screaming, and it always kicks
in after Catherine is like I enjoyed having sex with him,
It's like what, Like, oh, that's it's like a big
scary reveal just happened. And it also does that when
she's like, I was having sex with my girlfriend or whatever. Right,

(08:52):
it did feel like I was trying to put myself
in brain and I was like, that was supposed to
be like a huge reveal, right, like her queerness was
a reveal when it's like you could also watch that
scene and still have it be very Verhoeven exploitative, where
she like grabs her girlfriend's boom the second she enters

(09:13):
the room. But it's like you can also watch that
with goggles. Would be like, oh, okay, she's with someone
and that is why he's upset. But it's clearly like
he's upset that she's with someone and that person is yeah,
very upset to him. This movie is so weird. This
movie is so weird, Jamie, what's your history with it?

(09:35):
Not much? Um, I've never seen it before we started
prepping for this episode. It's weird. I feel like Sharon
Stone is just popping up in my life a lot. Recently.
I've gotten many, many recommendations to read her her memoir
that came out last year, which I haven't started yet,
but I'm very, very excited. And then I also recently

(09:57):
saw Casino for the first time, and she's amazing in movie.
Because Sarah, you were talking to me about Casino. Yeah,
I love her so much in Casino. She's amazing Casino.
If you've seen bass against inco, watch Casino and see
what it's like when Sharon's giving it a percent right
and like she's given like a part that's maybe a
little more cogent um. But but yeah, I don't know.

(10:20):
I've been in a Sharon state of mind. I was
very ready and excited for this. And also Paul Verhoeven
just came out with a new movie that I want
to see, Benedetta. It's a lesbian nun thriller, so I
will be seeing that and hopefully, Well this is interesting
too because it's like he's returning to lesbians. I hope

(10:42):
he does a good job. Growth is important. Yeah, we'll see.
I know it's it's it's so I've got a series
of He's tricky, He's tricky. This is the second for
Hoven movie we've covered on the show. We covered Starship
Troopers last year, which um is an extremely different movie,
but there are still themes that kind of crossover in

(11:03):
most of his work, and I'm interested to talk about
how this movie depicts police work. Also, like there's just
there's just a lot going on. I don't know how
to feel about any of it. My take I I've
done a ton of research and done a ton of reading,
which I know how to do. Congrats. My takeaway is
that I love Sharon Stone. So we're gonna have to

(11:27):
really tease this apart today. Caitlin, what's your history with
Basic Instinct? My history is that I saw Hot Shots
Part Do as a child, a movie I watched over
and over and over again, which very heavily spoofs. It's
a spoof. It is a spoof, not specifically of Basic Instant,
because it's spoofs a bunch of different movies of that era.

(11:49):
Oh it's so it's like that, it's sort of like,
what are those other like like scary movie, scary movie,
but like the Leslie Nielsen movie. Yeah exactly, yes, So, um,
I'm learning anyway, the very famous scenes in Basic Instinct
are heavily referenced in Hot Shots Part Do, but I

(12:10):
didn't understand the references to Basic Instinct or any of
the other movies it's spoofs until years later when I
finally got around to watching all those other movies. But anyway,
so a lot of the like famous imagery from Basic
Instinct I was very familiar with. And then when I
saw the movie for the first time, which was I
think I was in college, I was like, Oh, that's

(12:31):
what Hot Shots Part Do was referencing. So I saw
I so funny. What are the things that it's specifically
spoofs in this The scene where you see Sharon stones vagina,
the scene that I just kept referring to that as
thus seen because I had not seen this movie and

(12:52):
everyone knows that scene right, it's like the chess Burster
an alien, it's that big of a surprise. And Hot
Shots Part Do, however, you that's shot differently. It's shot
with the woman from behind and you just see her
leg very um exaggeratedly lift up over her head to
like cross to the other side. That's pretty good. And

(13:17):
then there's a sex scene and Hot Shots Part Do
where she's having sex with Charlie Sheen is unfortunately in
the movie, and she ties his arms to the bed
post with this white silk scarf, and then she is
like reaching for something and you're like, oh my god,
what's she reaching for? And then she grabs a screwdriver

(13:39):
and kind of unscrews part of the bed frame to
make it creakier so that when they continue to have sex,
it's like way more like you have to have hot
shots part do because those movies can get pretty like
gnarly and exploitative and like really bad. And that sounds
just like I think he's just like superhand in this. Yeah, yeah,

(14:02):
what if Catherine was just really handy. Does either of
you ever watch those thumb movies? Yes? Oh my god,
And I took foreverard to download to thumb Wars. There's
a Caitlin I should show in thumb Tanic. Yes, there's
it's a series. It's it's the thumber Verse. But it's
like a series of spoof movies where it's just like

(14:25):
a spoof movie but only with thumbs. It was really funny.
Me and my cousins used to watch thumb Wars long
before I saw actual Star Wars. I thought I saw
thumb Wars many times beautiful, and it's just as good.
So in conclusion, I saw Basic for the first time
in college. I saw it again. I think I rewatched

(14:47):
it right when we covered Fatal Attraction, because I get
those two movies confused a lot because they're both Michael
Douglas and it's both about a scary woman who murders
and who wants to have sex with Michael Douglas for
some reason. Right, It's it's like literally, it's like, oh,
Michael Douglas is a character who's threatened by a woman's agency,

(15:08):
but it turns out he's right. That's a classic class
So sorry, the movie was called thumb Wars the Phantom Cuticle.
Pretty funny. I love it. It's pretty great. Sorry, Okay,
I done so anyway. Yeah, I had seen Basic Instinct
a couple of times before prepping, and I've seen it

(15:29):
twice since we started prepping. And I, similarly, who don't
really know what to make of this movie. I'm kind
of all over the place. There's so much to unpack.
I feel like my notes are so long, and yet
I feel like I've barely scratched the surface. Like it
sounds like we're all kind of on the same page here,
of like, well, let's just talk about it and see

(15:50):
what happens. You got us for Hoven uh for. Movies
are honestly very hard to cover on this show. That
makes sense. Um, so we're going to try. Let's take
a quick break and then I'll get into the recap. Wait. Sorry,

(16:10):
I'm like the guy who wrote thumb Wars has written
so many famous movies. What written He wrote The Nutty Professor,
he wrote Patch Adams, he wrote Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius.
He wrote Kung Pau Enter the Fist, which I used
to really love. And he wrote Bruce and Evan Almighty Wow,

(16:33):
and also, most famously, thumb Wars. I am interested in
thumb Tanic. It's pretty good. All the next time I
come over, I'll it's got to be somewhere. I'll find it. Okay,
I'll pay money to rent it. Let's charge it to
the Yeah, that's what Patreon money is for to watch tank.
I think our our matron's will will understand. Maybe maybe

(16:55):
that's what we could cover for our for our Titanic episodes,
because we're running out of Titanic content. UH speak for yourself. Sorry,
you're right. Yeah, it's on YouTube in full. Okay, perfect. Okay,
So here's basic instinct and I'll place a trigger warning

(17:18):
at the top here because, um, there is a rape
scene in the movie. Okay, So we open on a
woman having sex with a man. We never quite see
her face because her blonde hair of obscuring it. We
see her tie up the man's hands with a white
silk scarf. Then she pulls out an ice pick and

(17:41):
stabs him repeatedly to death. Titanic reference. Um oh, because
of the ice pick slash iceberg. Yeah, maybe if the
that the joke going there was maybe if they had
nice pick they could on board. She would have been like, oh, man,
I love doing this, sice a whole glacier guest for

(18:03):
me exactly. Wow, makes you think. Then we cut two.
Detective Nick Curran played by Michael Douglas and his partner
Gus Moran there at the scene of the crime. We
are in San Francisco, by the way. The victim, Johnny Boss,

(18:24):
was last seen the night before with his girlfriend Katherine Trammel.
So Nick and Gus go to Katherine's house to question her.
She isn't there, but Katherine's friend Roxy is, and Roxy
directs them to where Katherine is, which is like her
second home summer where she's being hot on a balcony. Right,

(18:48):
Nick and Gus Fine, Katherine trammel Um. She is Sharon Stone.
Of course, she's very sultry and sexy, and she has
the same exact hey and body type and skin color
as the lady who murdered Johnny Boss. I wonder if
she did it, which is so wild, you're like she

(19:10):
and she did. And then Catherine tells the detectives, Yeah,
I was fucking that guy, but I didn't go home
with him and I didn't kill him. Now go away.
That's a fun place to start the movie, where she's
just I mean and and yes does the movie ultimately
undercut the fact that she enjoys sex and isn't ashamed

(19:34):
to admit it and implies that if you, if that's you,
you two could be a murderer. But I really enjoyed
her like delivery in that scene, and when she's just
like telling, like Sharon Stone telling to cops to go
funk themselves is an inherently satisfying experience, no matter the

(19:56):
subtext of what the movie wants me to think I
like to see her neg cops. I hope that if
ever I have the misfortune of having to interact with
a cop, I have the guts to say, I don't
want to talk to you, fuck off and get the
funk outta here. I mean, she's also yeah, she's also
protected by a lot of privilege, but it's still very

(20:16):
cathartic to watch. Yeah, they got to go on a
tour of all her real estate before they meet her
and see all her sports cars in the driveway. Yeah,
they're like, oh, she's got holdings, she's got a Picasso. Yeah.
So then they leave at her request, and Nick goes
to see a counselor Beth played by Jean triple Horn

(20:40):
awesome name, who he is mandated by Internal Affairs to
see for reasons that we don't yet know. They're talking
and he refers to the sexual relationship he used to
have with Beth, and then she tells him that she
still misses him so already, Like it's so funny. There's
like police corruption for the jump where they're like, okay,

(21:02):
so everyone in the office is aware of this relationship,
which we find out right away, and his him keeping
his job relies on you know, him remaining in her
good favor or her being hung up on him, and
everyone's like, yep, that's fine, that's which, I'm sure, which
which is like, I'm sure not too far from the truth. Na,

(21:25):
your ex girlfriend will be very therapeutic, right. Oh gosh,
there's there's so much this movie's views on psychiatry. There's
so much yes, yes, yes, yes, Okay. So then Nick
and Gus go over more details of this case and
the victim, Johnny Boss, who was a former rock and

(21:45):
roll star. They also discussed Katherine Trammel as a suspect.
She is an author, and it turns out that she
published a book the year before under a pen name,
about a retired rock and all star who gets murdered
by his girlfriend when she ties up his hands with

(22:05):
a white silk scarf and stabs him with an ice pick. Amazing.
So Katherine is starting to seem extra suspicious. So then
Nick and Gus bring Catherine to the station to question
her on the way. She tells him about a new
book she's writing about a detective who falls for the
wrong woman and then she kills the detective. I think

(22:29):
that there's so many scenes in this movie that I
know that we um, what have we renamed the bush
Emmy test? But we could run the bush Emmy test
on Sharon stone several times in this movie and be like,
if this were a regular looking person saying these things,
she would be so in jail, Like it's wild how
in jail she would be? Yeah, absolutely so. Then at

(22:51):
the police station, the assistant district Attorney A. K Wayne
Knight questions her. Wayne Knight was like cranking out the
hits in this series of years. Oh yeah, because in
the next year he's in Jurassic Park and oh my gosh,
he gets to see a vagina and a dinosaur in
a single calendar year. We should all be so lucky.

(23:15):
So he's questioning her, and this is when we get
the famous Sharon Stone on crosses her legs and flashes
her volva scene. There's plenty to talk about with this,
we'll get to it. Katherine says, do you think I
would be so foolish as to murder someone in the
exact way I described in my book? So she's basically
using her book as an alibi, which is what a

(23:37):
few psychologists had said she would do if she is
in fact the murderer right, and even though Catherine passes
a lie detector test, Nick still thinks that she's lying
and that she is probably guilty, especially because of some
deaths in the past that Catherine could be linked to,

(24:00):
such as her parents died in a voting accident, a
professor she had in college was murdered, and a boxer
boyfriend died while they were dating. To quote her, everyone
I love dies and she doesn't seem to be wrong there,
And Stephen Tobolski is there, which I think is fun. Yes, yes,

(24:22):
I didn't see that coming. That's yet another thrilling basic
instinct twist. He's also having a good couple of years,
because he's in Groundhog Day right around this time, being
ed Ryerson. Well, I'm glad that the boys are thriving
in the early nineties. Good for them. The white men
are having a blast. I think that they're still doing
well to this day. Yeah, I think you may be right. Um, Okay.

(24:47):
So that night Nick goes home with Beth the counselor,
and then again trigger warning for rape, he rapes her.
Although the movie is as I'm concerned, treats this as
a consensual sex scene, I think that there's a there's
a well, let's we'll get to that conversation. We'll get

(25:07):
to it. Yeah, yeah, I felt a little bit differently,
but I see what you're saying. Then Nick tails Katherine
for a while. There's a scene where she's driving like
a bat out of hell and he's chasing her. He
pays her another visit. He discovers that she has all
these articles about him, and we find out why he

(25:27):
has been mandated to see a counselor. Apparently he had
shot a couple of tourists a while back, and Catherine
has been following this story for quite some time because,
according to her, she's using him as inspiration for the
detective in the book she's writing, he's a killer cop.
It's there's so much to talk about. She keeps calling

(25:49):
him shooter. She also fixes him a drink and then
breaks the ice with fishemy test. She's in jail again.
Right then Nick realizes she has access to his psychiatric file,
which she apparently got from this guy in internal affairs,
this guy Nielsen, who then ends up dead. He was

(26:12):
shot in the head and everyone thinks that Nick did it,
so he gets put on leave, but Nick thinks Catherine
Tremell did it. So then Catherine shows up at his place.
She's being all seductive and messing with his head. He
meets up with her a little later at a dance club.
Then they go back to her place and have sex.

(26:34):
She ties him up with a white silk scarf and
we think maybe she's going to stab him with an
ice pick, but she doesn't. She just like collapses on
him in pleasure or something. Um. Then it's called ecstasy.
Caitlin ever heard of it? Yeah? Nick has had a

(26:57):
great time. He's like, Wow, that was the fun the century.
Katherine is like it was a good start. We also
have learned by this point that Katherine is in some
sort of romantic and or sexual relationship with that woman Roxy,
who we met at the beginning, although we don't really
well we can talk about this too, but we don't

(27:18):
know that much about their relationship. But Roxy does seem
to be very jealous of Nick. And then someone tries
to run over Nick in what looks like Katherine's car.
There's a high speed chase. The person chasing Nick crashes
and it turns out to be Roxy, who has died
in the crash. They kill their gays folks, and we're

(27:42):
may be meant to think, oh, so was it Roxy
who maybe killed Johnny Boss question Mark? But now it's
the person that you are told in the opening scene
did it right? So then Nick goes to see Katherine again.
She is upset about Roxy's death. She's all like, oh,

(28:02):
I have such bad luck dating women, and she tells
him about this woman that she met in college, Lisa Hoberman,
who she slept with once, and then this woman started
stalking Catherine. I immediately was like, oh, so Beth, But
the movie takes it like fifteen minutes to be like
and it was Beth. You're like, I think I could

(28:23):
I think you could tell because you're told, Like, why
else would you be told? They went to college to
get right? This movie kind of like skirt around Some
thinks nobody knows there are multiple nicknames for Elizabeth and
that this is a really bright quest right, Yes that too?
Especially yeah, because also Catherine originally was like her name
is Lisa Oberman and then he's like I couldn't find

(28:44):
anyone named Lisa Oberman and she's like, I said, that's
so goofy. I like, why what a waste of five minutes,
but it made me laugh. The two lines that made
me laugh the most in this movie where I said Hoberman,
which should be added to every movie at some point,
a very human misunderstanding that has no place in a thriller.

(29:06):
And then at the end when Beth says I love
you was dying, I was like, this damn movie makes
no sense. Have some dignity, Beth, I know, and she's
She's like the twist, I'm not a murderer, and I
love men so much, even when they're rapist murderers. Remember

(29:28):
my little Simpson's key Chane, I only loved you. Shout
out to bart Art high bart visibility. Truly, there's also
some pizza Hut visibility. I just wanted to shut up
at um. My favorite line of dialogue in the movie,
towards the very beginning, one of the few people of
color in the movie. It's another cop named Sam. He

(29:52):
says there's cum stains all over the sheets. He sure does,
and that is a line of dialogue. And then that's
a sag card. Yeah, okay. So Nick looks into this
Lisa person who turns out to be Beth, the counselor
who works for the police department. Beth says, Katherine stalked

(30:15):
Beth in college. Katherine says Beth stok Katherine in college.
They're both claiming that the other one was like single
White Female NG the other which also comes out this
same year, right, So it's not even like they were
ripping it from there. They were just this was just
something that was on the brain. I wonder if there's
like a real life story that was like on people's mind,
because I was I was like, that's so bizarre. Why

(30:36):
were women all supposed to be murdering each other in
the early nineties right about? Yeah, which you've covered extensively there, Yeah,
not so much the idea that women were murdering other
women at this time though. That's really interesting. Yeah, I've
covered men's perpetual fear of being murdered by women, right, Yes,

(30:57):
so Single White Female really subverts some troll hopes. It's
like women can murder other women too, Like, hey, we
can murder each other too, don't forget it. And that's feminism. Yes,
third wave feminism is amazing. It makes so much sense. Okay,
so we're not sure who to trust, we're not sure

(31:19):
who's telling the truth, but now Nick thinks that Beth
is the prime suspect, and she's seeming more and more
suspicious because Beth's husband was mysteriously shot and killed a
few years back. Meanwhile, Katherine ends things with Nick because
she was just using him for her book, which she
has finished. Nick is all hurt, and then he goes

(31:44):
with Gus to meet up with another woman who knew
Catherine and Beth in college. But it's a setup. The
killer stabs and kills Gus with an ice pick. Nick
rushes in. Beth is right there and I again because
Nick thinks that she's the prime suspect, he shoots her

(32:04):
so abruptly, like yeah, I mean, really, is uh being
a cop about it? Right? And then the cops find
a bunch of incriminating evidence at the crime scene and
in Beth's apartment, so it seems like she was the
killer all along. Nick goes back to Catherine. She takes

(32:27):
him back. She's all like, I don't want to lose you.
They have sex. It seems like again maybe she's going
to stab him with an ice pick, but then she doesn't.
But but then we pan down to see that she
has an ice pick on the floor that she maybe
was or is going to kill him with. So now

(32:49):
we're like, oh, she is the killer. She apparently just
framed Beth and that's the end of the movie. Every
Woman is a murderer. How how many times have we
talked about this on the show? Every Woman is a
stone cold killer. Yeah, so let's take another quick break

(33:09):
and we'll come back to discuss, and we're back. Uh,
where where should we start, gang, I mean, where where
makes sense? I mean, I guess what we can sort

(33:30):
of just state the obvious of Katherine Trammel being a
pretty classic fem fatale character. You know, she's seductive, she's cunning,
she uses her sexuality to lure men in and then
kill them. But she's also like a fum fatale dialed
up to an eleven because a lot of like fum

(33:52):
fatale characters were from movies of like the forties and fifties,
which were under the Hayes production Code restrictions, which meant
that there couldn't be sex, nudity, overt sexuality, any romance
or implied sex had to be heterosexual. There could be
no graphic violence, things like that. So Catherine is this

(34:13):
like post production code version of the film Fatale, which
means we see nudity, we see sex. She loves to
have sex, she loves fucking, she talks about it all
the time. And then she also seems to be able
to like very easily detach emotion from sex, which the
movie seems to be making a judgment call about because

(34:37):
of these are all the things that make Katherine Tramel
so sinister and so fatal. It's like she's probably a murderer.
She's having sex casually, right, Like that's repeatedly insinuate, you know,
all while and it's I guess part of what I
struggle with this movie is I can't parse out always

(35:00):
self aware it's being but yeah, like all all, well,
you know, Michael Douglas is having casual sex all the
time and including non consensual casual sex, and um, isn't
he's not a well actually he is a murderer, but
it's not as big a deal when he does it.
It's so confused, like he doesn't well, he's at work,
so it's better. It's very confusing. So something's been in

(35:22):
the air on the pod lately. We've been covering a
lot of different from Fatale characters. We did double indemnity.
We did a simple favor and now we're doing basic instinct,
And yeah, I mean it's I understand. I guess why
people have a hard time with this movie because a
lot of Catherine's dialogue and a lot of Sharon Stone's performance.

(35:43):
I think it's like very reclaimable because it's so matter
of fact and good where she you know, when she's
like I wasn't dating him, I was fucking him, You're like, yeah,
that's exciting, you know, or like are you sad he's dead? Yes,
because I liked fucking him. Like that's it's so like
can't be it funny and like you don't get to

(36:05):
see women talk like that very often. But also we're
supposed to think that she's a supervillain, right, so it's
a it's it's tricky. Right. On one hand, it's the
villainizing a sexually liberated woman, which is what the fem
fay towels whole thing is is like, well, a woman

(36:25):
who is sexy and and you're seduced by her and
she likes sex, Well, obviously she's evil because sexual liberation
and a woman is scary. But then, like you said, Jamie,
like there's an argument to be made that that's still
representation on screen of a sexually liberated woman, and you

(36:46):
don't often get to see a woman just like very
openly talk about how much she enjoys sex and how
she likes men who give her pleasure, and she seems
to be prioritizing her pleasure over giving a man pleasure.
And it's not a role model situation, but it is, like,

(37:10):
I don't know this movie is for adults, hopefully, I mean,
I guess what I saw, and it was, like it
is kind of cathartic to see whether this was intended
or not, which I don't really think it was. But like,
see a woman who is like, by far the smartest
person in the room, playing a bunch of cops and
doing whatever the funk she wants, like that is inherently exciting,

(37:34):
like and and fun to watch. I mean, she's she's cool,
she's she's like, what if I commit a bunch of
murders and don't try to hide it and then when
I'm questioned about it, I'll basically be like, yeah, I'm
a murderer, and then I'll just keep getting away with it.
Let's just do that again. That was fun last time.
It's I mean, and it's like she got when they

(37:56):
quote unquote arrest her the first time to take her
down for the scene, like the questioning scene. I just
like it is the most like rich white lady arrest
ever where she's like, you're arresting me, Okay, we'll let
me change first, and you're just like she but like
the way that sheared Stone like owns every second of
it is so I mean, I really love watching her

(38:17):
in this movie. And and I'm not that's not even
really in defense of the movie as much as it
is of like watching this I get why this movie
has severe detractors, and I get why it has huge
camp fans, which is feel like it's true of a
lot of Verhoeven stuff. Um. And also it's like most

(38:38):
of the people that she kills seem like they sucked.
Well maybe not her parents. We don't know that they
were rich white people, so chances are so she and
she's awesome, So it's kind of hard anyways, and I
like that. Okay, so other elements of her character before

(38:58):
we get to the biphobia discussion, which we which needs
to be had, things I liked about Catherine. I like
that she everyone in this movie is doing a police corruption,
like literally everyone every main character is involved in, but
she's the She's the only one that's doing like police

(39:19):
corruption for sort of good, Like she's she's the only
person in the movie who I mean, and it's for
selfish means, she doesn't care, but she does almost expose
Michael Douglas as a murderous cop in a way that
most people wouldn't have been able to. She gets his records,

(39:39):
She's constantly like four shootings in five years, all accidents.
Doesn't sound legit to me, like which I again, it's
like Paul Verhoven didn't write this movie, but it sounds
like he demanded that it be rewritten a lot of times,
and he does have a preoccupation with like militarized police,
which I do think kind of comes out in this movie.

(39:59):
It's like, such as making the call to make your
protagonist a cop who is a rapist and a murderer,
which is not uncommon things for cops to be in
in the US in particular. So I thought that that
was like interesting that she was kind of using her

(40:20):
power and like intelligence to do a police corruption in
her own interest. Um. Meanwhile, everyone else's police corruptions are
for the police, where it's like, we gotta protect Michael
Douglas and therefore they're fine. Yeah. I also love how
he's the protagonist, and I feel like this was made

(40:41):
with the expectation that he's like, like, I think he's
supposed to be kind of a noir antiher. But I
assume that the audience when this came out was supposed
to be like, oh no, that for rapist and murderer.
He's going straight into the path of that murderer, right,
I do think that was the intent, Yes, which just like, uh,

(41:01):
it's so. I I feel if I had watched this
movie when I was younger, it would have sucked me
up so bad. It's so it's like it scrambles your
brain how much you see Michael Douglas like you see
him do like basically nothing right, Like, at what point
does he do something that is good at his job
or good morally? Like you? I feel like usually with

(41:23):
anti heroes there at least like good at their job,
like Don Draper was good at advertising. There's a scene
where he pulls out his little like notebook where he's
allegedly keeping and all it just has like a few
different addresses written on it. There's no like, oh yeah,

(41:43):
I'm like, is that all the Is that the extent
of the police work you're doing. You're just writing down
addresses that other people have told you like to go to.
And at this point he's been on the case for months,
he's like all right, I think he's just checked out
and he's using being detective is a way to find
girl friends. Now, that is what it seems like, because

(42:06):
he he has everything he does is either bad police
work where he's like recklessly driving and like putting everyone
in danger. He's having sexual relationships with both his counselor
and his primary suspect and his prime suspect, which is
like very noir. But if you're just like buddy, the

(42:28):
conflict of interest in everything he does is staggering. Well,
I think that that's kind of like again just like
a I guess we're sort of like talking about his
character here as well, Like he's gullible to the point
where it's kind of like attributing like a magical power
to shared's done character, like it's giving her like I mean,

(42:51):
it is a combination. It's not just like it's her
like powers of manipulation and like sexual prowess is like,
I feel like the movie wants you to think it's
making him bad at his job, and you're like, he
might just be bad at his job. It sounds like
he's bad at his job at the beginning. He can't
stop murdering people and having sex with everyone he shouldn't like.

(43:12):
And there's no mention of him solving a crime previously,
like there's so you know, it sounds like maybe he
just always wasn't very good at it. But I feel
like the movie wants you to think like she has
led him, so, you know, far off a cliff with
her her various college degrees and Bob, he has a

(43:32):
master's degree. Okay, she's capable of anything, Caitlin, can you
attest to that? Yes, I can confirm as someone who
has a master's degree in screen writing from Boston University,
which I don't like to mention, you can kill people,
can murder people and get away with it. To quote
Gus when he's talking to Nick about Catherine, quote she

(43:55):
got that magna kum laude pussy on her. That done
fried up your brain? Sorry, that is that is another
line I wrote down is one of the greatest things
I've ever heard. Honorary Oscar Worthy Oscar for Best Single
Line in a Screenplay for Esther hass I want someone
to say, I've got magnacum laud a pussy. That's who

(44:19):
I really, honestly do. That's the thing. What a compliment.
He meant it as an insult, but I'm like, yeah,
go go for it. I'd be like, thank you. I
also like how I read the screenplay to Basic in
sing this morning. That was really it was really fun.
And one thing I like is that Gus in the
screenplay is supposed to be like twenty years older than

(44:41):
Nick and Oliver Hopean was like, what if they were
the same age? Interesting, which is funny because in the beginning,
when Gus doesn't know who Johnny Boss is, Nick is like, oh,
he's before your time, and it's like, really, they seem
to be about the same age. So that's um. But Jamie,

(45:03):
to go back to what you were talking about. I
feel like that's part of like one of the characteristics
of the firm fatalel archetype, where she's like a witch
basically who will put you in a trance and make
you bad at your job and make you do things
that otherwise reasonable man wouldn't do. But because he's under
the spell of this fem fatalel, he's not himself anymore.

(45:27):
And to kind of complicate that, I mean, it's like,
I think it's interesting the ways where this trope is
like updated for the nineties or just I mean, I
guess this run of Michael Douglas movies where it's like
in the forties, you know, your FM faytales, they were
you know, mostly cunning wives because that is, you know,
majority what you could be as a middle class white

(45:50):
woman at that time. But when it leveled up, it's like,
I feel like they think they're doing a good thing
by like giving her a higher and higher level of
education and achievement, but it just kind of becomes messy
in a different way where I like it also is
like this, I don't know what did either of you
think of it. I just was like, obviously, Michael Douglas

(46:11):
doesn't believe in um mental health in this movie, Like,
but I also thought it was interesting that like both
of the women, that he's kind of like ping ponging
between our authorities in mental health, where like shared Stone
has a master's in psychology and Beth is a psychologist

(46:33):
or like a police therapy. I don't want's her job
title either way, Like they both work in that field.
And he is clearly unwell and also doesn't believe it,
And I'm like, does the movie believe in psychology? Like
it's so confusing. I couldn't tell. Does the movie believe
in psychology? I couldn't tell either, But I mean, when

(46:54):
you have a protagonist who has certain opinions and the
movie asks you to go on this journey with this
protagonist and like see the world through his eyes, I
feel like, and that's not the case for every movie,
but it's tricky when it's of Noir. I don't know.
But because he's like, you're a psychologist, well, your job

(47:16):
is to manipulate people, and obviously your whole thing is
to play games with people's heads, and that's what psychology is.
It takes a very mid sectury of you of therapy.
But I feel like it's also very obvious in text
that he's unwell, and so I don't think that we're
necessarily supposed to take him at his word in that moment.

(47:37):
So it's confusing. Yeah, right, I feel like the script
is maybe like he doesn't need therapy, just belongs to
the Fraternity of killers or something. But like, I mean,
I feel like the noir has its roots and like
the concept of confusing vulnerability with strength or I guess
because being like, well, I'm traumatized in this way and

(48:00):
I have to do it. I have to make use
of it somehow, I guess now. And I feel like
that's where the tradition of the detective partly comes from,
this idea that like the detective sort of has to
stand between society and the French here in whatever way necessary,
and he can't really like be a happy family man.

(48:22):
He has to be a loner right right, which lines
up with the anti heroo stuff as well. It's so
it's I mean, I like that, it's great for hope.
The movies are so challenging, like I and I like
that about them, but it's, um, it's tricky. I I
felt like my and again I think I was maybe

(48:43):
I had to too much brain when I was watching
this because I was like, oh, well, obviously he's very unwell.
So the movie is probably like he should probably believe
in psychology, he'd get something out of it. But that's
almost definitely not what people would have you believe in two,
I don't know the other thing for Hope and sometimes

(49:03):
will go rogue and like doesn't have a high opinion
of cops, and so I'm sort of like maybe, but
I don't know. To whatever degree the movie wants you
to think that Nick is unwell, every woman you meet
the movie does want you to think is way more

(49:25):
unwell and scary. And because they're like you said, Jamie,
they're all murderers. Like every woman in the movie who
has more than a line of dialogue is either confirmed
murderer or for some chunk of the movie, the audience
is led to believe that she probably is a murderer. Well,
and they're also all some well actually I don't I

(49:47):
don't know about Roxy, but they're also all like the
depraved bisexual to some extent, Right, all the women that
we're supposed to believe are murderers. I believe I think
so or or you know, yes, except again, we don't
know if Roxy is bisexual or she's we don't know,
right right right, movie doesn't care. But between like Catherine

(50:10):
who you could argue that the ending is ambiguous, but
also pretty clear that yes, she was the killer all along. Beth,
because of the ambiguity of the ending, is also then
ambiguous as to whether or not she was a murderer
of any kind. But at least with my read of
the movie, Catherine framed Beth. But even so, Beth is

(50:33):
a character who seems to be withholding information and she
still seems to be like devious in some way, and
we can kind of we can get into that more
in a bit. But then there's Roxy, who we learned
killed her two young brothers when she was a teenager
because she just felt an impulse to kill and she

(50:53):
tried to kill Nick by running him over with a car,
So she's a confirmed murderer. Roxy is troped literally to
death in Safe. And then there's this woman Hazel, Hazel
Dobkins or something, who is a friend of Katherine's who
also might be in a romantic relationship with Katherine. I
thought that was so unclear to me, at least in

(51:17):
a kissing relationship. Yeah, they kiss, and then Catherine calls
her honey at some point, an implication for movie, right.
And then Hazel, we learned, killed her husband and three
small children by stabbing them with a knife, So that's
not good. I don't think that there's I don't think

(51:39):
that there's very much like that's where the I mean,
it's with the depraved bisexual trope, which we just talked about,
which is a newer concept for us, but we talked
about it on the A Simple Favor episode. That really
doesn't work as much for me. But there's a bunch
of um, there's a bunch of Indians about this. Yeah,

(52:02):
should we get into it? Yeah, let's get I mean,
there's there's so much to talk about there. I had there.
There's been a lot written about this over the years,
but the context that you need that I didn't. I
didn't know that it had escalated to this point. But
the queer community in San Francisco, of which there's obviously
like a huge historically queer community in San Francisco were

(52:25):
not happy when this movie was being made. When they
were filming in San Francisco, the production called in the
San Francisco Police Department riot police every day, which is
almost certainly a gigantic overreaction, but the queer community was
protesting significantly. They were holding signs that said honk if

(52:46):
you love the forty niners and honk if you love men,
which is very funny. Um, but they basically did everything
they could to stop the movie from being filmed cogently,
like they used lasers and whistles to interfere with the
filming of the movie. And one of the producers of

(53:06):
the movie, Alan Marshall, allegedly selected individual protesters and demand
they'd be arrested, which is um fucked up. And then
the protesters did a citizen's arrest of the producer, which
came to nothing because the cops don't give a ship.
But all that to say, like this was at no

(53:27):
point was the issue with the depraved bisexual troops in
this movie not an issue like before it came out,
it was a very controversial thing. Verhoven I guess defended
the protesters right to protest, but disagreed because it's his movie.
Um So, how this kind of is played out is

(53:51):
as time passes, as time famously does. There's a lot
of people who are still you know, very for on
the like this is extremely biphobic in a way that
is not reclaimable. And then there are queer writers and
filmmakers who have found prose and reclaimable elements to it.

(54:13):
So yeah, so that's the context. So what's happening in
the in the movie itself is that it's playing into
stereotypes about bisexual people, such as that bisexual people are promiscuous,
they are untrustworthy, they are immoral cheaters, the cheaters, And

(54:34):
then the movie takes it a step further and says,
any queer woman is an evil murderer who will just
snap at the drop of a hat and murder without motive,
just because they had the impulse to do it. That
was so wow. They're like, yeah, she just saw a
razor and was like, let's do this. Baby. You're like, what,

(54:56):
I don't want it to go to waste. I have
to kill someone with a the sharp object that's near me.
And yet like, and Jamie, you're a girl boss expert.
This is why I'm asking you. Is there anything more
a girl boss than being a sexually motivated female murderer
of men? Exactly, Ladies, I've been saying this, um, women's

(55:20):
empowerment means getting away with murder. I wish I was
my thora nosed T shirts and the male I don't
have it yet, but and making men fear for their
right to have sex. It is so like, it's so messy,
it's so many Like. I found a piece written by

(55:42):
a queer filmmaker named Adam Morrison who's kind of like
went to bat for this movie in and I thought, like,
and also while acknowledging the clear biphobic issues, because also contextually,
it's important to remember that Basic Instincts came out at
a time where queer representation in general was kind of

(56:03):
like an all time low, while the AIDS crisis was ongoing.
Um like the Silence of the Lambs had come out
the previous year, which the queer community was kind of
like rightfully on high alert about how they were being
represented in film because it was egregiously bad. So yeah,
he he writes a quote, if we're dying of a plague,

(56:24):
can't get married, can't adopt, can get fired or evicted.
If anyone finds out our sexual orientation, why on earth
will be supportive film that paints us as nothing more
than He then would like to funk hard and then
stab each other unquote. But then he counterpoints that twenty
four years later by saying the following, which I thought was,
I don't know, like I I don't I truly don't

(56:45):
know where I fall here, but he says, uh, quote,
when was the last time you saw a movie where
a gay character was the wealthiest person in the room?
Katherine Trammels worth a hundred million? When was the last
time you saw a movie where a gay character was
the smartest person in the room? One was last time
you saw a gay character be the most successful? Catherine's
books are best sellers. When was the last time a
gay character was all three of those things that once?

(57:07):
Probably never? And then he sort of goes on to
like draw this comparison of like, she has these godlike qualities,
she's kind of like omnipotent, She's she can outwit literally anyone,
and in the end, for her purposes, she wins. She
gets away with it. Um, so she's not punished or
killed off, and so, which I think is like an

(57:30):
interesting read of the movie. I don't know. Yeah, I
mean that to me is just like, well, when representation
invisibility is low and bad, all you can do is
grasp at the crumbs. And that's what that feels like. Well,

(57:51):
that's yeah, I mean, I'm not suggesting that any of
that was intended in text, but I do understand that
argument also, sure, Sure, and then to break down the
various relationships even further, because I kept thinking we were
going to learn more about Catherine's relationship with Roxy. Yeah,

(58:12):
but you never really do you know that they lived together?
Question mark? I think so right? Or was that Cannon
and Esther has trying to write them having a quiet
night at home and Roxy being like is this chicken
from Thursday night? You know? And like that's another thing.
I kept thinking, like we never see them interact except

(58:34):
to kiss in a couple of scenes, but we don't.
There's no dialogue between them, and so this is a
movie where like if the movie passed the Bechtel test
between these two characters, that would be great because we
would know anything about their relationship. But that's where it's like,
it's so early nineties where I bet that the writer,
who what's the writer's name again, Joe Ester, has really

(58:58):
thought he was doing something by like making her well
educated and like giving us a lot of information about
her at the top, but we never yeah, like we
never get information about and I don't think that it
would have taken away from the non mystery of this movie,
which is that she did it and we see it
in the first scene to flesh out that relationship a
little bit more. I think it actually would have helped

(59:21):
the point later where it's like she's saying, like, I, I,
you know, really cared about Roxy. Like that's the first
person we see her have a reaction to the depth
of it all. And so if we saw that that,
I don't think it would have hurt anything, right, because
what that does. So when we see Catherine learned that
Johnny Boss is killed, she doesn't cry. She barely bats

(59:43):
an eyelash. She's just like, yeah, I guess I'm sad
because I liked fucking him. But when Roxy dies, she's sorry,
right iconic. When Roxy dies, she's noticeably upset, she's crying,
she's having what seems to be a genuine react. But
because we don't know anything about relationship with Roxy, and

(01:00:04):
because Catherine told thing is that she's very untrustworthy, we
don't know if these feelings she's displaying our genuine because
we don't have any information about Katherine and Roxy's relationship.
So it's which could be I mean, which I get
why that would be a noir writing, but I just
like I find it so ridiculous that you're supposed to
spend a lot of it's just like it's not just

(01:00:24):
like but you know how like the central quote unquote
mystery of the movie Doubt when it came out was
like do you think he did it? And you're like,
it's so obvious that the that the protagonist did the crime?
Why is that even the discussion like what about all
other ship going on? Right? So that's all confusing. And

(01:00:47):
then Beth is also revealed to be bisexual or by curious.
We learned that she had a sexual relationship with with
Katherine in college, and she's also similarly depicted as being untrustworthy.
And even though she might not have been the murderer

(01:01:08):
that we're led to believe she possibly was for a while,
she's still not forthcoming a lot about a lot of things.
She seems to be withholding a lot of information. You
could make the argument that, like, why would she divulge
her sexual orientation to her police colleagues. They're probably not

(01:01:29):
going to accept her if they learned that she is queer,
And she also seems to carry a lot of shame
about it too, because that and I feel like that
is almost like I guess maybe I talking this at
in real time. There's some kind of like gray area
where it felt like when the more she acknowledged that

(01:01:50):
she was ashamed of having any queer experience, the more
her kind of redemption arc started to swing back, or
it seemed like even but which is hard to say
because Catherine lives and Beth dies, so she is. I mean,
movies love to kill people named Beth. I'm just thinking
of little women. Um but but I so, I don't

(01:02:15):
know if that's that completely scance, but it does like
she distances herself from any queer experience she's had as
much as possible, she tells. And I guess it's unclear
because we only see her around Nick, who we can
tell wants her to do that, but she it does
seem like she's genuine when she tells him that whatever

(01:02:35):
that weird apartment they're always having sex at is her
apartment next to the aerobic studio. Of course it's just
like windows and you're like, yeah, sure, I'm sure a
police the officer makes this much money. But yeah, like
she she says that she's like embarrassed by it at
some point, and then her literal dying words I feel

(01:02:57):
like she might as well be saying I was right,
and then she dies, Like that was what I was
getting from, because her dying words are looking Michael Douglas
in the eye and saying I love you. Here's let
me tell you my theory, because I've watched this movie
maybe ten times in the past five years, and I

(01:03:19):
I think that Catherine was obsessed with Beth and was
playing the long game to like manipulate her ex boyfriend
into killing her. And what that means is that Nick
is sort of meaninglessly caught up in the crossfire of
Catherine's obsession with Beth, and she's just going to like
keep him alive a little while longer because he amuses

(01:03:40):
her someone or something like that interesting. And now I
mean he's and he's killed Beth now, so it's like, yeah,
so why bother? I mean, she's got to do something
with her time. There's that's interesting. Like I I didn't
know what to make of that. I'm glad that you
have a theory about it, because I didn't know what
to make of at like, who's single white female? Who? Like?

(01:04:05):
Because even in that is an implication that like, in
order for two women to be interested in each other.
They have to also be like stealing each other's identity,
which is just so right, yes, of course, Like it's like, oh,
you can't just be attracted to someone, you have to
also want to wear their skin and like have their
social Security number, which apparently was a very like potent idea. Ino.

(01:04:26):
There's two movies where that's a major plot point. But
even even when um Nick kills Beth, he like the
last thing he says to her is inherently tied to
his insecurities about her having had a queer experience, where
he's like, I know about your husband, you still like girls, Beth,
And then he kills her, like, and then she says

(01:04:48):
I was straight, And then the movie is over. He's
advancing on her with a gun and he's saying it
as if it's evidence again that like he's going to
have to shoot her, right, because maybe she's still likes girls. Right.
It's like very overt, yeah, and so it's like it's
only tragic that she dies because maybe she was straight. Like,

(01:05:10):
it's just it's confused because she loved this horrible rapist
who represents the shriveled ass of compulsory heterosexuality. Yeah, I
mean it's like that is, well, let's did anyone have
anyone else anything else to say about the depraved bisexual
trope before we move into the next horror show that

(01:05:31):
come right, I'll just add that and let me know
if you think this has any merit. But I feel
like this movie also villainizes ethical nonmonogamy in a in
a way that like stereotypes about polyamory are on display

(01:05:53):
and demonized in this movie because it seems to be that,
for example, Catherine and Roxy's relationship is ethically non monogamous
because they are together, but Roxy knows about the various
other people that Catherine is involved with, so they are

(01:06:15):
in this ethically non monogamous relationship. But because they both
end up being murderers, that's just another way in which
polyamory is demonized. Right. It's the only relationship that I
can exist between two murderers. Right. So I just wanted
to point that out because I that's something I'd be
interested in keeping my eye on more, because I feel

(01:06:38):
like it's equating ethical non monogamy with with sexual deviant,
non ethical promiscuity. Yeah, exactly right, Yeah, that's that is
something that and it's like I feel like, I mean,
I guess I don't know when that term came into
the zeite guys, but I would guess it was not right. Yeah,
so I guess. I mean the last thing with Roxy,
we mentioned this, but like she's very much subject to

(01:07:01):
the barrier gaze trope where, yeah, we don't know exactly
like how she identified before they attribute a fit of
murderous rage and they kill her, but you know, there
it is, which also doesn't make sense because like, if
she wasn't the murderer who killed like Johnny bos, why

(01:07:22):
is she? So I love the name Johnny. There are
some good fake nuts in this movie. Joe Astrohouse is
a good bad screenwriter. Yeah, but according to Catherine, Roxy
liked to watch Katherine have sex with men, right, And
it didn't seem as though Roxy was harboring jealousy until

(01:07:45):
Nick comes along, and then, for reasons that go unexplored,
Roxy's like, well, I'm jealous of Nick and I have
to kill him by running him over with a car,
But did you get the feeling? And then we, I know,
we've got to move on, but like, but did you
get the feeling? In bathroom confrontation between Roxy and Nick.
It sort of sounded like maybe she didn't like watching

(01:08:06):
because she's she's just like I watched because like Catherine
tells me too. So it sort of sounded like maybe
Roxy is getting kind of manipulated by Catherine as well.
That's fair. I don't know. That was like a fleeting
moment that goes completely unexamined by the movie, So it's
kind of a wash. But I sort of was like
I felt for Roxy in that moment. If I was
like reading it correctly, I was like, Oh, that sucks,

(01:08:28):
Like maybe she doesn't like even which would complicate things
even more. But I wasn't. I wasn't sure. God boggles
the mind. Okay, there's still let's let's get the other
difficult conversation out of the of the way here and
talk about trigger warning again, talk about the way that

(01:08:52):
sexual assault is portrayed in this movie. Again. I don't
know if I'm bring too much to it, but I
was very conflicted about it. Same. So basically what happens
is there's a scene in which Nick goes home with Beth.

(01:09:12):
They start to kiss. It seems to be consensual at first,
he gets more and more aggressive. She is saying no, repeatedly,
he does not stop and proceeds to rape her, which
we see on screen for several seconds, which apparently is

(01:09:33):
in the director's cut but not the theatrical cut, which
makes sense, And I'm glad. I'm kind of glad. I
I I don't know because if I saw this movie,
in which I couldn't have, but if I did, like
I know that, like the basic idea of being raped
by someone you know and had already been intimate with

(01:09:55):
was not like a common thing to be portrayed in movies.
And I feel like even having that because we've talked
about this on the show a bit jillion times where
it's like there's many many movies where the concept of
rape and a rapist is like a stranger lurking in
the corner. It's like you don't know who it is.
It's deeply traumatic, and then they're often too the night
and it's all very you know, night's dockery. Not to

(01:10:17):
say that that doesn't happen, but it is overwhelmingly somebody
that you already know and very possibly somebody you've already
been intimate with, And so I thought that that was
I mean, it's a very very upsetting scene, and it
feels so obviously like textbook rape. She says no, over
and over and over. And then my read of this

(01:10:38):
scene was that she had to protect her like she
wasn't really able to fight back for her own safety.
But then the way that that plays out throughout the
rest of the movie, I thought, like undercut very like
common thing that happens to mostly women. So in in

(01:10:59):
the aftermath, the immediate aftermath of that scene, Lucy Nick
and Beth talking, she asks about Catherine. She mentions that
she knew Catherine in college. Then she refers to the
encounter they just had, saying, you've never been like that before.
Why and and he says, you know you're the shrink
you tell me, and she says, you weren't making love.

(01:11:23):
It's kind of open to interpretation what she means, Like,
is she calling him out for forcing himself on her
and raping her? Or is the movie just not aware
of what rape is like? It's to me, it's hard,
it's hard to tell Sarah, what's what's your take? I

(01:11:43):
think that she's calling him out in the mildest possible way,
as if he's like put his feet up on her
coffee table. So you know, it's it's I mean, you
can interpret that as her saying like that was rough.
I didn't like it. That was too rough for me,
and that being all the understanding the filmmakers had of this,
and I would totally buy that and like and then
maybe they do have more knowledge than that, but it's

(01:12:04):
not on display, right, Yeah, and then you know, she
continues trying to mother him for the rest of the movie,
and it's never discussed. I also think it's fascinating that
this movie is taking so many cues from Vertigo, that
she's totally in the Barbara Bell Getties role and there's

(01:12:26):
the same glasses. It's really Yeah, this movie didn't Dare
have two blonds. Yeah, she's very much Katherine is so
stylized the way that and I haven't seen that movie
in a long time, but yeah, there's there's a lot
of visual symmetry. Yeah, there's a movie that earned its
overbearing score, right, a score that's really turning your head

(01:12:51):
to what you're supposed to be thinking. I had a
I had a So I was very mixed up on
this subject, and so I wanted to know more about
what the filmmakers. I was like, I assumed that they've
been asked about this. I didn't get. I mean, I
can't speak to the writer's intent, which I have like

(01:13:12):
a quick thing on him. And but just because like
he's just a weird guy. But Verhoeven specifically has whatever
themes and things that he returns to in there's movies
all the time, one of which is women being brutalized
and sexually assaulted. So there was one press cycle and
again I'm like, I don't know what to feel about

(01:13:33):
any of this. There's a press cycle from a movie
he did inten called l which I have not seen.
I guess it's in French, where he was asked kind
of repeatedly about why this comes up in his movies
so frequently, and like what is it about this that
keeps coming up for him? And so this is from

(01:13:55):
an interview in Slate from where he's basically just asked, like,
wire women raped and brutalized in your movie so much?
He says yeah, because of course, let's say, especially with
the element of rape, if you look at the statistics,
they say someone is raped about eighteen hundred or nineteen
hundred times a day in the United States, So that
means a rape a minute. If you express that violence,

(01:14:17):
then you can only express it in what it is.
If you aren't honest about that, then I think that's
very dangerous because then it becomes banal. It makes it
smaller than it is. It's really something where people are
traumatized for the rest of their lives. Even the word
sexual assault is already making it less than it is.
I think the word rape expresses exactly what it is.
If you hear rape, you know you're talking about brutal

(01:14:38):
violence against women also men, of course, But if you
use sexual assault, that makes it softer. And so there
is in general a feeling that I get in the
United States that it's very dangerous or very not done
to use the word rape, which is replaced by sexual assault,
which I think I did, um five minutes ago. Um.
But I'll have to say, I see what he's saying,

(01:14:59):
but I like it's a matter of execution and making
sure that that is clearly telegraphed in the plot, which
I think this movie fails at. Yes, exactly. Yeah, I
think that Show Girls actually does a much better job
of doing what he's saying here. In jest. I still
I still haven't seen show girls. It's been a request
for a million years. Yeah, we got it. We'll get

(01:15:20):
to it. But it's tricky because I fundamentally agree with
what he's saying. I just don't think that the execution
is there in this movie. It's just hard to know
what the purpose of the scene is. It even has one.
I don't think it does, like I I know, like
what function. My My best guess is that because this

(01:15:40):
scene takes place right after Nick has gone to see
Katherine in her home and she was being again very
fem fatally. She was being very sultry and seductive, and
I think the movie is suggesting that he's starting to
fall under her spell and he's getting really horny, and
he goes and he takes out that horny nows on

(01:16:02):
Beth because she's right there, and then it's doing the
thing where it's conflating her, who's like, as far as
we know, having lots of sexual adventures with people consensually.
And he's like, I'm emulating you, Catherine, I'm raping my
ex girlfriend. And it's like what, no, right, it's yeah,

(01:16:22):
And it's like there there is this element yeah, of
like all of Nick's bad behavior is like the subtext
of it is like, and it's somehow Catherine's fault that
he's doing all of this because she's infuriating him. She's
frustrating him, she's like fucking with his head. She's making
him drink again, she's making him smoke again, like right,
Like it's it's somehow all of his behavior that we know,

(01:16:46):
that's the thing that blows my minys like that we
know predates his knowing her by a lot, Like so,
but now he has the perfect person to blame everything on. Yeah, exactly.
I also love how she's like superpowered for a woman.
Like they have a part where Nick is listing all
of her assets basically, and he's like, she fox rock

(01:17:10):
stars and boxers, she has a hundred million dollars, she
writes books, and she has a degree and messing with
people's heads. And it's like, yeah, it seems like he
finally found a worthy adversary, a woman who's got enough
expansion packs to scare you. That's the Michael Douglas plot point.

(01:17:35):
I guess, like it's so. And then there's other elements
of Beth where it's like I just think that Beth
is such a like poorly developed character because really like
everything about her hinges on us, assuming that she still
loves Nick no matter how awful he is in avoid
also like we don't get any insight into what from

(01:17:58):
her past might make her acted to someone so deeply talkic,
like what there's no attempt because it's like, you see,
she's she's nagged for her profession in her first moments
on screen, and then she agrees with him where he's like,
this is bullshit and you know it. She's like, yeah,
it's bullshit, but have a seat. You're like, that is
a funny way to start a therapy session, but we

(01:18:21):
got to do it because you're being mandated to do this,
not because you clearly need counseling. I hope her. I
hope my therapist says that to me someday. I'm like,
this is bullshit. She's like, yeah, but I sure I
sure hoodwinked you out of a lot of money, didn't
I also, do you guys love the moment where we
find out that Beth is supposed to have met, potentially

(01:18:43):
met Johnny Boss at a Christmas party that her office
made his therapist through and it's like, of course, we're
living in a world where therapists invite their patients to
their Christmas parties. There's no there's no ethical connection between
people bowl in in this movie. I also, I mean
that is always an element of like any Norrish movie

(01:19:05):
that I have fun with, where it's just like, even
when it's not necessary, everyone needs to have known each
other and met each other at some point, and sometimes
it's just like a weird stretch like that's not even necessary,
but just to establish as much suspicion as possible. It's
like maybe she a friend of a friend of a
friend of a friend in a Christmas party from could

(01:19:26):
be you know, like it's just wild. It is so wild. Yeah.
Bottom line is the way I mean everything in this
movie is executed is at best mind boggling, at worst
extremely harmful. Because again with the rape scene, I think
you can make the argument that the movie treats this

(01:19:49):
as a consensual but you know, maybe more rough than
best is used to sex scene when in fact is
rape because she is repeatedly saying and he ignores her,
and then and then like you're saying, Sarah, she continues
to look after him and do anything that will support him.

(01:20:09):
For the remainder of the movie, and then he kills
her for having sex with a woman once twenty years ago. Yeah,
that that is I guess the legally prescribed penalty for that,
but you so rarely see it carried out. It is brutal.
Like it's just brutal. Um. We must also talk about

(01:20:31):
the scene. The scene. The scene scene in which Sharon
Stone's volva is exposed, because Sharon Stone has spoken about
how she was misled by the director who told her
that it would not be visible on camera. There's an

(01:20:52):
article in Vanity Fair by Sharon Stone. It's an excerpt
from her memoir The Beauty of Living Twice. The article
is called you Can't Shame Me Sharon Stone on how
Basic Instinct nearly broke her before making her a star.
So she talks about this, and I'll just quote this article.
She says, quote after we shot Basic Instinct, I got

(01:21:15):
called in to see it, not on my own with
the director, as one would anticipate, but with a room
full of agents and lawyers, most of whom had nothing
to do with the project. That was how I saw
my vagina shop for the first time, long after I've
been told we can't see anything. I just need you
to remove your panties, as the white is reflecting the light,

(01:21:37):
so we know you have panties on. Yes, there have
been many points of view on this topic, but since
I'm the one with the vagina in question, let me
say the other points of you are bullshit, Sharon. She says,
now here's the issue. It didn't now here's the issue.
It didn't matter anymore. It was me and my parts

(01:21:58):
up there. I had to decisions to make. I went
to the projection booth, slapped Paul across the face, left,
went to my car and called my lawyer, Marty Singer.
Marty told me they could not release the film as
it was, that I could get an injunction first. At
that time, this would give the film an X rating.
And Marty said, per the Screen Actors Guild, my union,

(01:22:19):
it wasn't legal to shoot up my dress in this fashion.
Who I thought? Then Sharon goes on to say that
she gave it more consideration and tried to be objective
about it. And then I'm quoting again. After the screening,
I let Paul know of the options Marty had laid
out for me. Of course, he vehemently denied that I
had any choices at all, I was just an actress,

(01:22:43):
just a woman. What choices could I have? But I
did have choices, So I thought and thought, and I
chose to allow this scene in the film. Why because
it was correct for the film and for the character,
and because after all, I did it unquote. So that's
and and I mean, Sharon Rocks, I like that is horrifying.

(01:23:05):
Verhoven responded in denial that this had happened. But it's like,
I very much believe Sharon, not just because I believe Sharon,
but also because she was already so disempowered in this
creative process and that was already so well established. Was
like that she was not being paid well, like she
was not being treated like an equal collaborator on the

(01:23:27):
scale that you know certainly Michael Douglas was, or that
a lot of people involved in this movie was were
So that totally scams for me. That it's like she
would be mistreated and her desire to not have to
flash her vagina on screen and also be like duped
into doing it would be something that they would try

(01:23:48):
to get away with because they already got away with
so much. And I think that there's that's that kind
of assumption from especially like in acting, but in a
lot of industries where you're like quote unquote pay your
dues by being abused by someone who has more power
than you. Because in that same section, Sharon talks about
how she felt like a lot a lot of the

(01:24:09):
odds were against her. She was not she was like
the twelve choice for this role. Michael Douglas didn't want
to work with her, Like there were all of these
things stacked against her, and then to be manipulated into like,
it's just it's so fucking bleak. I'm glad that she
like got the last word on it, because yeah, it

(01:24:31):
just it sucks that she just felt so disempowered to
the point where she's like, well, what choice do I
have but to just let this be in the movie,
because yeah, she She also describes in this article various
Hollywood horror stories producers and directors condescending to her, harassing her.

(01:24:51):
Her manager at the time told her that she wouldn't
get hired for a part like Basic Instinct because she
was not sexy or quote fukable. Um, she was she
always like. She also talks about how she was considered
to be difficult because she would speak out against being
mistreated and that she would like refuse to have sex

(01:25:13):
with her co star of a movie after a producer
suggested they have sex because it would give them better
on screen chemistry, and she said, no, I'm not going
to do that, and then she was labeled difficult by
people and all this kind of stuff. Um, but yeah,
I I completely believe Sharon. And there are just all
these other examples of movies where the director misleads the actors,

(01:25:38):
often women, to get a particular shot or to get
a reaction that seems more genuine. There there I remember
Kubrick and Shelley Duval. I feel like it's the most famous.
There was also, um a scene from them that movie
Last Tango in Paris. A story broke about that a
few years ago that really I forget specifically what it

(01:26:01):
is and I'd have to go back and read it.
But a woman was assaulted as the camera was rolling
and was not told what was going to be happening
in the middle of the scene so that the director
could get like a genuine reaction out of her. It
was something I might have some details a little bit,
you know, I'd have to double check on some details,
but it was something along those lines, and so there's

(01:26:23):
there's various examples of actors and again especially women being
mistreated as cameras are rolling, being assaulted as cameras are rolling,
all this stuff happening without their knowledge or consent, just
so this aw tour can like see his vision come
to life or whatever, you know, some bullshit excuse which

(01:26:44):
is like not just abusive, it's like Sharon Stone is
right there, like she collaborate with her. You've got fucking
Sharon White. I hate it. It's awful. So justice for Sharon.
I'm very, very excited to read Sharon's book too. One

(01:27:05):
of the last things I have here in my notes
that again I feel like I'm only scratching the surface
of But um, you'll never believe it. But this is
another movie with mostly white people in the cast, which
is predictable. But like, also, this is San Francisco in
the nineties, This is not like this is a very
diverse area. Yes, for fox sake, the few people of

(01:27:28):
color in the movie are minor characters with very few
lines of dialogue, no real narrative impact. They're relegated to
the sidelines, and all the major players are white people. Yeah,
I feel like, ultimately, like this movie has got a
very weird legacy where there's plenty to talk about inside

(01:27:52):
of it, but mostly it's the kind of movie where
people mostly take away uh single shot versus at any
sort of like it doesn't seem like this movie, even
though there's like all of this like very era specific
history involved. People mostly just remember a scene where Sharon
Stone was being coerced into doing something she didn't want

(01:28:14):
to do and it was hailed as the sexiest thing
ever committed to film. There's also a there's a good
Vanity Fair piece about sort of how that shot and
like the scene had a an impact on um porn
for decades after that, and like the ripple effect of
that scene alone is significant. I think the ripple effect

(01:28:36):
of like the unexamined biphobia in this movie. Uh, this
is a very influential movie. Like the stuff that they
got wrong here did carry on for for some time.
So yeah, it's a tricky one. Do you guys want
to know all the actresses that turned down the role
of Catherine? Do I? Ever? Yeah? I I also have

(01:28:57):
this list. So I'm gonna put forward two guesses, And
by guesses, I mean I think I kind of remember
this list. Okay, wait, let me guess a few. Jodie Foster,
Michelle Phiffer, Kelly McGillis, Michelle Phiffers, one, Meg Ryan, Meg
Ryan one, Wow, Killia Roberts, Yes, whoa Okay, Kim Basinger

(01:29:23):
was Michael Douglas's pick. She said no, Gretta Scotchy who that.
I'm not sure who that is. That was like the
one day Miles my British. I think Gina Davis said
no fucking way. Kathleen Turner said no way, Kelly Lynch,
I don't know who that is. Ellen Barkin said no,
maryel Hemingway said no. And I guess Demi Moore was considered,

(01:29:47):
but I don't know if she was ever asked. And
as you alluded to, Jamie, Michael Douglas was really reluctant
to work with Sharon Stone because she didn't have any
star power at the time. This was before where she
this movie made her a star. And also she was like,
this is my star power, bitch, right, So Michael Douglas

(01:30:07):
didn't want to work with her because she wasn't in
a list celebrity at that point, and he was like, well,
I'm an A list or, and if this movie is
received poorly, I need to have another A list or
to take the fall so that all the blame doesn't
get on me. Like I'm not taking the only l
on this movie that might suck, which I get, but

(01:30:29):
it's like, come on, Sharon, Sharon, Sharon, get a grip.
So yeah, I think that's really about all I had
written down. Lease, does anyone have any other thoughts about
the film? I mean, I'm gonna go on this movie forever,
but I'm going to say no. I guess I will

(01:30:53):
say that ultimately, I am pro Sharon Stone, and I'm
happy that this movie created a launch add for her
to do more of what she wanted to in the world.
And I think it belongs to a museum. I mean,
it has that going for it. It really expresses like
a lot of the fear around gender roles in the

(01:31:15):
early nineties and sort of the way that heteronormativity was
responding to the lightest prodding. Yeah, I'm happy that we're
all equally speachless about it. Yeah, I'm ultimately, like, I
don't know a lot of bad stuff going on. I Yeah,

(01:31:39):
I mean, I feel like the legacy of this movie
is kind of like net in terms of like the
tropes that like really really continued or popularized. It's got
kind of a net negative effect. But how much of
that isn't It's just all very messy. We've spent two
hours talking about it and I still have no fucking
clue how I feel. Um. But does it pass the fact?

(01:32:05):
I don't think so. The two women do interact when
Roxy and Katherine kiss each other a couple of times,
and it's implied they were having a conversation that Michael
Douglas walks into, but we don't actually hear any of
their dialogue, and then Roxy walks away, so we never
see them actually speak on screen. And I think those
are the only two women who interact in the whole movie.

(01:32:28):
There's Hazel Dopkins and Katherine, but I don't see them
talking to each other either. No, there's a lot of
scenes where there's a kiss and no dialogue, or a
boob squish and no dialogue, or I think there might
be one part where Katherine says something to uh, wait,
what's her name, Hazel, and she calls her honey. She says, honey,

(01:32:50):
I'll be right with you, or something, but then Hazel
doesn't respond, you know, things like that. So there afore
women in this movie, and they're all convicted or potential murderers.
I mean I do honestly, I like that. I think
that's absolutely ridiculous. And yes, this movie is a net negative.
And yet the fact that all of the female characters

(01:33:12):
in this movie who have any kind of impact are
actual or probable murderers is kind of amazing. You don't
kept that a lot. I do it Like it's like
the camp element is hard to deny with this movie.
It's like it's hard to there. I wanted to give
a quick shout out to the women who plays Hazel,
who's an oscar winning actress, Dorothy Malone. Hello Dorothy. Yeah,

(01:33:36):
this basic Instinct was her last on screen appearance before
she died. But she she before she retired, Sorry because
she she just died a couple of years ago. But
she's in the big sleep. She won an oscar in
ninety six for a movie called Written on the Wind,
which I've never heard of, but she she won an
oscar the Hudson Fantastic and then she was a big

(01:33:59):
success on TV. She was on Peyton Place in the sixties.
So it turns out she was a terrifically successful actor
and this was her last movie, So shout out Dorothy Malone.
Sorry you didn't get I don't think a single line
of dialogue. Really. I think she called him a shooter once,
so yeah, she's like, oh, you're the shooter, aren't you.

(01:34:20):
And then but sorry, you didn't get a whole scene.
Like imagine being an Oscar winning actress and they're like, um,
you're essentially a glorified extra. Yeah, so have fun with
that and uh, you know, make your own movie. I
guess there, which which brings us to our rating system,

(01:34:41):
the nipple scale zero to five nipples, based on how
the movie fares looking at it through an intersectional feminist lens. Well,
even though there are things that are arguably reclaimable about specifically,

(01:35:01):
I would say Sharon Stone's character, I'm just not in
a place where I feel fully comfortable doing that, although
isolating a few lines of her monologues where she's like,
I like fucking, I like men who give me pleasure.
I like fingers and hands. I want to just like

(01:35:24):
tweet that out is like red classic sex fingers in hand.
I want her to get together with Wayne Knight. I
like it when she tells the cops she says something
like I don't feel like talking anymore, so unless you're
going to arrest me, you can get the funk out
of here, and they're like, I can't argue with that, okay,

(01:35:46):
so we got to get the funk out of here.
I love it when she's like, what are you gonna do?
Was smoking and they're like, well, dog got it. She's
because stopped us right in our tracks. We don't know
what to say to that. Another another thing that is
spoofed in Hotshots part do so I gotta And I
also like the moment, like there's just certain moments where

(01:36:08):
it's like she's being villainized, but also her reaction to
anything that is like a suggestion of typical heterosexual domesticity
results in her getting angry or violent, which I kind
of do. Like that scene at the end where he's like,
I don't know, we're gonna fucking pop out a couple
of kids and get married, and her response is to

(01:36:28):
like clutch an ice pick, like that's kind of cool,
Like there he goes, we can fuck like minx, have
a few rug rats and live happily ever after. And
then she's like, she's like, I hate rug Rats and
then she's like clearly fondling her ice pick, ready to
like stab him. And then he's like, forget the rug Rats,
we can just funck like Minx and live happily ever after.

(01:36:49):
And then she takes her hands off the ice pick
because apparently she was going to kill him if he
wanted to have children with her, which is kind of
who wants kids? But that like that's a cool moment.
I don't know how boy, he would not be a
good dad. I bet she's going to kill him like
four days later, right, because do you feel like he's
on condition of not making her board right his day?

(01:37:11):
His days are extremely numbered. I feel like it's very clear.
But inter Caitlin was he'sier, what is your rating for? Okay?
So even though there are things, they're very isolated things
I like about the character of Catherine Trammel and Sharon
Stone's performance, I would say, overall, like you said, Sarah,

(01:37:31):
this is a net negative movie between the villainizing of
a woman's sexuality being open and liberated between the depraved
bisexual trope. Because like gosh By, Visibility was extremely low

(01:37:52):
and still is. But in the early nineties it was
basically absent, and if it was there, it was being
villainized in very harmful ways, much like what Basic Instinct does.
So there's all these harmful things that the movie does. Um.
And it is too long. Um. But the score is

(01:38:14):
memorable and the plot is convoluted and um. According to
this movie, all women are murderers and they will have
no motive. They will just decide to murder, I mean,
for no reason. Okay, UM, So I'm going to give

(01:38:37):
the movie with all that in mind, I'll give it
one nipple, and I'll give it to Sharon Stones nipple
which we see many times. And it's a great one too.
There's two. There's two of them. There's two of them. Uh,
I guess I'll match you there. I feel like ice.

(01:38:59):
I see why some of the camp here, isolated moments
are reclaimed. And I also had a lot of fun
and really appreciated that. Also, you know, there's I don't
think I have anything new to new to add. I
think that I'm gonna meet you at one and I'm
going to give my nipple to um Hazel because she

(01:39:23):
should have had more lines or lines true, Sarah, I
am also going to give it one nipple, and I'm
going to give it to Sharon Stone, so now she
has three nipples. And yeah, because I think she's just great.
And at this point, I've seen this movie enough times
that I can guess kind of enjoy the idea of

(01:39:43):
this like freewheeling murderer who likes to go around announcing
herself as a murderer to men who just continually are like, what, no,
I don't, I don't. I'll be fine. I'm different. And
how that just is what she does for a hobby apparent.
I think that's interesting. I love that for her. I know,

(01:40:04):
I'm like, you have a hundred ten million dollars, We've
got to find another place for you to put this energy. Girl,
Like there's she could be doing so much like a magazine.
I was kind of hoping I wasn't able to find one,
but you know how like sometimes when there's like a
famous writer in a like oh, Gone Girl is a
good example, the fake book and Gone Girl was a

(01:40:25):
real book that was sold like amazing amy, And I
was hoping that Catherine's books, like the fake novelizations of
the Katherine Trammel books were somewhere, but I wasn't able
to find them. That would have been amazing. It's not
too late to hire one of us two ghost right then? Well, yeah,
I know my next project. Well, Sarah, thank you so

(01:40:46):
much for joining us, Thank you so much, Thank you
for exploring this. This is strange, beast, this is really fun.
Thank you for bringing us this movie. I'm glad that
we talked about it. And you know, hopefully if you
are a listener watching this movie, you're just as confused

(01:41:08):
as we are. Uh, Sarah, Where can people check out
your stuff? Follow you on social media? Plug away, you
can hear me and You're wrong about and you can
also hear me on You Are Good and other podcasts
from time to time. And I'm trying to not use

(01:41:30):
social media so much, so I find me there if
you must, but I shan't encourage you. Perfect. You can
follow us on Twitter and Instagram, which you know what,
I'd encourage it, but you don't have to do whatever
you want. Sometimes we get stressed out and we don't

(01:41:51):
check it, so I don't get mad if we don't
reply right away, right, But yeah, you can follow us
there at Bechtel cast. You can also subscribe to our
We would definitely encourage this. Subscribing to our Matreon at
patreon dot com slash backtel Cast. It gets you too
bonus episodes every month plus access to the whole back

(01:42:13):
catalog of bonuses, and it is five dollars per month.
And you can also get merch at t public dot
com slash the PacTel Cast if that's something that you
are in the mood to do. And with that, I
want to say, wait, what is that line again? I
the my favorite line in the movie that Magnicum Laude pussy, Yes,

(01:42:38):
Friday up your brain. Let's um, let's take our Magnicum
Laude Pussy's out of Bye bye bye

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