Blue Crush with Melody Kamali

Surf's up! Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Melody Kamali are catching waves and talking Blue Crush (2002).

Follow Melody on social media at @melodykamali

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women and them are all their discussions just boyfriends and
husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zeph and
bast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey Caitlin, Yeah, oh not much.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Hey Jamie, do you wanna do you want to catch
some perfect waves? Air waves that is to release our
podcast on.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
I would love that, And that's how surfer's talk. I think, honestly,
so much of what I know about surfer culture does
not come from Blue crosh It comes from the cartoon
Rocket Power. That was what I was just going for,
is I know, I don't think you would have grown
with you, and it is my life's mission to catch
you up on cartoons you've missed. Rocket Power was a
nicktoon and I think the late nineties early two thousands

(00:53):
that was about a bunch of surf kids on Venice Beach.
I think it was Venice Beach. They're definitely in California,
and they had this like kind of burnout dad named Ray,
who I think probably wouldn't have taken the vaccine, like
that sort of surfer dad vibe. It was like a
very weird, funny, diverse cartoon about surfer kids. And the

(01:18):
best part was anytime there were like tourists on the beach,
they would call them shoe bees. I don't know that.
I can't explain, but they'd be like shoe bees and
they all talked like that because it was a cartoon. Okay, anyways,
Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name's Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
My name is Caitlin Dorante. This is our podcast where
we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
Bechdel Test as a jumping off point. But Jamie, what
is that?

Speaker 4 (01:47):
Well? The Bechdel Test is a metric created by queer
cartoonist slash our best friend, Alison Bechdel back in the
eighties in her iconic comic on a Comic Likes to
Watch out For. Originally written as a joke, often called
the Bechdel Wallace Test because it was co created with

(02:07):
her friend Liz Wallace, but it has since been sort
of adapted to be a mainstream media metric. The version
of the test that we use requires that two characters
with names of a marginalized gender talk to each other
about something other than a man, and it should be
a meaningful exchange of dialogue.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
And it's especially relevant for today's episode because again, the
origins of the test, as we mentioned from time to time,
is that it was presented in Dikes to watch out
for as this way for characters in the comic to
be like, Wow, anytime I see women on screen in
a movie talking to each other about something other than

(02:52):
a man, I can pretend like they're in love with
each other.

Speaker 4 (02:57):
Because boy, does that happen with this movie?

Speaker 3 (02:59):
Yes, hey, yes, so that is our show. Today's movie
is Blue Crush.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
Long time request, long, long time requests. This has been
a long time coming.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Yes, indeed, and we have a wonderful guest joining us today.
Let's get her in the mix. She is a writer,
comedian host. You've seen her at the New York Comedy
Festival and shows. It's Stonewall, It's Melody Kmalie Hei.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
Hello, welcome, Helloha, even what yeah, how are you? Thanks
for blue crashing with us today?

Speaker 5 (03:35):
Thanks for having me. I think I talked to Caitlin
about this movie years ago, asking if it had been done,
and I'm so excited that she reached out knowing that
I'm this is the movie that did launch like a
thousand trips to pacsun of course, like in the early aughts,
but also my queer awakening. But I'm also kind of

(04:00):
mad at you guys for having me rewatch this like
with a critical eye, because it's just.

Speaker 4 (04:10):
Yeah, yeah, well get it kind of ruins it. It
kind of ruins it. Sorry for asking you to think
too hard about blue Crush. That is sometimes that's a
very common experience on this show. You've been buckdle casted. Sorry.

Speaker 5 (04:22):
Yeah, I don't want to think. I just want to
vibe like girls. But yeah, this is gonna be fun.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
There's so much to talk about. The highs or high,
the lows are low with this one.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
I think just like waves, just like tides.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
Have any have either of you ever attempted to serve
I have not?

Speaker 5 (04:42):
No, yes, because of this movie.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Excellent? How did it go?

Speaker 5 (04:48):
No? No, I didn't have the core strength. It was
a chubby little teenager sixteen. I had this DVD. I
got it as a gift. My friends all knew. I
was like really into surf culture, not like gay culture,
like my friends were like Melody's weirdly obsessed with this movie.
I was gifted the DVD freshman or sophomore year of

(05:11):
high school, and then we had a family vacation to Hawaii.
I grew up in central Connecticut. I was so yeah,
I signed I made a point to sign up for
a lesson. It was humiliating, I got up once, I think,
But it was really for the pictures, Like I have
a bunch of disposable, underwater water proof pictures of me

(05:34):
like with my arms, my hands on my hips, just
posing in front of like a display of all these surfboards.
I'm wearing a hurly tank top, I believe, and just
you know, like decked out, just so phony about it.
But it's fun.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
I can like picture the very specific digital camera grain
that is almost certainly on these pitches. So great, So
what a what a moment?

Speaker 3 (06:01):
And then herly like like Roxy Quicksilver Billabong owe that
I was buying and wearing as a teen, even though
I didn't know what they were full.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Like I didn't know, yeah, landlocked teenagers like walking around
in board shorts for at all.

Speaker 5 (06:21):
This really this is a long form ad for Billabong,
and you know it works. It worked well, it.

Speaker 4 (06:28):
Did, it did. There's so there's so much to get
into the thing that I this is silly objectively, but
I did not realize that this movie was based on
a Susan Orlean article, and my like inner dork was
really I was like, Wow, Susan Orlean really had like
a grip on culture at this specific time, because this

(06:51):
is also the same year that adaptation comes out. Yes,
she's literally a character in that. You wouldn't guess by
watching this movie that it was originally based on reporting.
I guess I would say, but I just thought that
was fascinating. What is Wait, there's like one other thing
that she wrote that got adapted, and then she wrote

(07:13):
on John Wilson's show a couple of years ago, which
is really Yeah, she's cool. If anyone hasn't read Susan
Orlean's stuff, my favorite book of hers is well, they're
all good. But her first book is called Saturday Night
and it was written in the nineties and it was
just about her following a bunch of real people's stories

(07:34):
in New York on a Saturday night in like nineteen
ninety six, and it's just this beautiful long form like
every different kind of person you could meet in New
York and what they did on this specific night. It's
such a vibe. I recommend it.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
So melody your relationship with the movie. You saw it
as a teen and it was part of your queer awakening.

Speaker 4 (07:57):
Any other notable Well.

Speaker 5 (07:59):
Just you know, my DVD player broke a long time ago,
and I hadn't seen it for a really long time.
I do always like quote it when I'm at the beach.
I realized, like it is when you and I go
to the queer beach here in New York, Reace Beach,
the People's beach they call it. It's like a super
great queer beach. And I was like splashing around in

(08:21):
the water last summer and said to my friend, like,
we grew here, you flew here like because we saw
straight people, like a straight couple walking along the shoreline,
and we're like, oh my god, this was a lesbian.
Of course I said this too, and then I just
heard like other lesbians in the water cheer and point
at me like ocarage, like it is such like touchstone

(08:45):
in the community. And we went home and we watched it.
But again, we had some nutcrackers at the beach. If
we know what these are, and I don't know if
it's happens outside of New York nutcrackers. It's like people
selling like juice with like rail liquor. They just like
walk around like the parks and the beaches here in

(09:06):
the city. So all that to say, like when I
did rewatch it for the first time in like a
decade last summer, I was a little drunk. So now
I'm rewatching it and you're sober.

Speaker 3 (09:19):
You've got a critical lens.

Speaker 5 (09:21):
Yeah, thinking cap on. Yeah, it is an adaptation. I
remember it had a lot of buzz. What was it
like summer two thousand and twenty two or three, because
it was the twenty year anniversary.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
Summer twenty two, so.

Speaker 5 (09:39):
There were a lot of like articles going around and
interviews with Kate Bosworth and like Vulture. So around that
time I read those interviews and was just so bummed
about the movie it could have been. It is wildly
different from the It's like an adaptation of an adaptation.
The director came on and like completely changed the script.

(10:03):
It was originally supposed to be a lot closer to
the article. It was supposed to be all about, you know,
female friendship. I think the Anne Marie character was supposed
to go to the Mainland for college. They said it
was inspired by Mystic Pizza, the original script and about
those female friendship dynamics and well the friendship's last and

(10:27):
all of that, and I'm just like so upset that
I not upset. I still love the movie, but it's
crazy reading about the original script. But they did also
say there's they are all on board for a sequel
every time there's an interview with any of those girls,
So Kate Bosward has made a point to be like,

(10:47):
I really wanted to be more about the girls and
their friendship, So like, maybe that'll happen and everyone will
be happy.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
One can helpe. Yeah, there's a guy named Matt in
the movie for some reason, and we're like, just mattre.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
At a waste.

Speaker 5 (11:03):
Yeah, legally blonde villain.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Yeah, the boyfriend the ex boyfriend from Legally Blonde.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's not I get it. He's
got to work, but get him out of the movie.
He's got to get out.

Speaker 5 (11:16):
I know. They're a surf instructor in the actual article
that the surfer girls learned from is named Matt. So
it's like, thanks, they named the orderback man.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
Thanks. Why is he a quarterback that at Yeah there,
Well we'll talk about this was this is an egregious offense. Yeah,
because also having read and there's also I mean, there's
so much to talk about of like centering a white
character in a movie about Hawaii, Oh my god, which
is like name a more two thousand and two choice there. Yeah,

(11:52):
but the fact that like if you read the original
Susan Orlean piece, which does center white girls, unfortunately, like
you're saying, like the original piece is so much about
like friendship and ambition, and it sounds like way closer
to the original script and way closer to the movie
that we actually wanted in two thousand and two and now, Yeah,

(12:13):
it sucks a.

Speaker 5 (12:14):
Lot of community too, is about community the article, and
they just feel so isolated, like everyone's mean to them.
It's them versus everyone, and it's supposed to be like
the tight knit surf community on the island.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
Yeah, but I ever, yeah, you know, many such cases
for sure.

Speaker 5 (12:34):
But you know, Fast and Furious had come out, so
they needed to use Michelle, and I think that's why
it got such a shift in the rewrite.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Oh okay, So a lot of people when Fast and
Furious came out, they were like this is just point break,
but with cars instead of surfing.

Speaker 4 (12:54):
So so just a little and.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
That's fine actually, But to do like movie release math equations,
I guess it would be point Break minus Fast and
the Furious equals blue Crush. Does that resonate with anyone anyway, Jamie, I.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
See what you're saying. I see what you're I see
the vision. Thank you, thank you. I'll work on it.

Speaker 5 (13:21):
I'm riding that wave.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
I'm right, okay, Jamie.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
What is your history with this movie?

Speaker 4 (13:29):
My history with this movie is, of course I saw
it at a sleepover. I saw it at a sleepover,
which is how to best consume this movie. See at
a sleepover in two thousand and four. Yeah, I I
think like a similar like they're They're definitely was. This
isn't like a seminal awakening movie for me, but it's
definitely there. And rewatching it now, I'm like, I'm surprised

(13:52):
it didn't play a bigger part. I I don't know,
I don't know what it is, but either way, yes,
I was. I was very into this movie. I'd seen
it many times, but I hadn't seen it in easily
ten fifteen years, I think, before getting ready for this record,
and I did remember, even as a kid being like Matt,
who cares? You know, like Matt, we're not interested, like

(14:13):
you are. I sort of forgot that he was in
it much less the fact that they like really bend
over backwards.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
To be like, and he's a quarterback from out of town,
because I feel like the internal logic there is very
studio notes of like, well, we don't want Kate Bosworth
to end up with someone in her own community.

Speaker 4 (14:34):
God forbid, it's got to be a white guy with
a lot of money from out of town. And it's like, no,
it doesn't. But I digress. We got plenty of time
to talk about it. Yeah, no, I this was just
like in the Sleepover rotation. I was a fan, and
I had never thought about it critically for a second
in my life untill now. And boy, oh boy, is

(14:56):
there a lot to talk about. I didn't quite go.
I think it was maybe because I never quite got
like the surfer culture. Bug I definitely, you know, I
feel like in the early to mid two thousands, two
roads diverged in a wood and you either went the
goth route or the surfer route. And I walked down
the hot topic path, sure, and so this was a

(15:20):
part of my life, but it wasn't my lived experience.
I wasn't a billow bong girly. That's okay, what's your
experience with Crush, Kaitlin. I saw it pretty close to
it coming out. I don't think in theaters. I might
have also seen it at a sleepover. I was in
high school when it came out, So I feel like
it's a teen movie that the rare teen movie about

(15:41):
teenagers that teenagers actually watched. Where yeah, most movies about
teenagers are actually intended for nine year.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Olds, right, So I saw it, and I have not
seen it since until prepping for this episode, but I
did vividly remember, and this will be like seered into
my brain for all of time, the scene where they
walk into the disgusting hotel room that has been like

(16:09):
trashed and vomited all over, and then the condom gets
stuck to one of their feet and they have to
pull it off, and then they go to the beach
and be like, sir, here's how you throw away a condom.
For some reason, that scene really stuck with me. I
will never forget it, to the point where, like I
just it was just sort of floating around my memory.

(16:29):
And I don't even know if I remembered that it
was in this movie. I just like had that scene
in my brain. So when I was watching this to prep,
I was like, oh, this movie is where that scene
is from.

Speaker 5 (16:42):
He took the one badass feminist point of the movie
with you and that right.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yeah, yes, So that I remembered vividly, But the rest
of the movie I didn't remember anything about except for
it's about surfing. So so watching it again was interesting.
Lots to talk about. We will get into it shortly,
but in the meantime, let's take a quick break and

(17:11):
then we'll come back for the recap. Okay, so here's
the recap. We are in Hawaii. We meet a young woman,
Anne Marie Chadwick played by Kate Bosworth, who aspires to

(17:35):
be the best surfer in the world. There is a
surfing tournament called the Pipemasters in seven days, which Anne
Marie hopes to win. She has a dream about an
accident she had while surfing a few years prior, so
that's sort of like weighing on her.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
And already we're off to such a strong start. We've
got a girl with a dream but given twenty minutes.

Speaker 5 (18:04):
But I can't believe we didn't mention the accident of
it all yet her her injury, because it feels like
this is sort of a movie about PTSD and true
how simply being with a man could help you overcome it.
I think right here to PTSD Matt a quarterback named

(18:24):
Matt from Minnesota, Oh my god. Yeah, and the fact,
I mean, no offense to our Minnesota listeners, but like,
why Minnesota, why can't this movie?

Speaker 4 (18:33):
I mean, I just it just feels so studio Notese
that they're like we, I don't know, just like the
lack of faith that a movie that centers Hawaiian culture
actually has the reach that A very obviously does not
for nothing, this is the same year that Lelo and
Stitch came out.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
Like I don't know, yeah, absolutely so, Anne Marie wakes
up and gathers her surf crew, which is her friends
Lena played by snow Lake and Eden played by Michelle Rodriguez,
and Anne Marie's little sister Penny played by Mika Borum,

(19:11):
and they all head to the beach to catch the
perfect waves that are happening today. Perfect pipe, as they
call it also there is a group of guys who
are like kind of frenemies with the women. One of
them is Anne Marie's ex boyfriend, Drew played by Chris Taaloa,

(19:35):
and those guys are like, girls can't surf, and that
is a consistent through line throughout the movie, which we
will talk about. But anyway, Anne Marie, Penny, and Lena
are like, yeah, we can surf, and then they start surfing,
but it's at a spot where the waves aren't super intense.

(19:59):
So Drew come and he's like, you're not gonna win
the pipe masters surfing, these little baby waves come over
to the real pipe. So they head to another area
with these more intense waves where all the other surfers
are men, and Anne Marie tries to catch a wave,
but she has a memory slash flashback of hitting her

(20:23):
head on a rock, that injury that we were just
talking about, and it freaks her out and she bails
on the wave. And we'll find out eventually that this injury,
this accident happened during a competition a few years prior
where she was like making waves surf pun in the competition,

(20:48):
but this accident put her out of the competition. She
nearly drowned. She has PTSD about it, and because she's hesitating,
the men are giving her a hard time again being like.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
Girls surf, which a very common theme of movies of
this time of girls can't blank. But also people still
say that, people do still that, people still do that.

Speaker 5 (21:13):
Oh my god, with this renaissance in women's sports right now,
like it is every comment section.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
Yeah, I really want movies to rise to the reality
of women's sports right now, because I feel like the
last round of it, I mean, I guess it would
have been kind of around this time where we grew
up with so many movies. I feel like, especially if
you're a d comm person, there are a lot of
movies about women's sports, and this was like the age
of like Lisa Leslie and Mia Hamm and like all

(21:41):
of these turn of the century women's sports stars, and
now we have them again.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
So where are the movies right Yeah? And then also
the big conversation I feel like around women's sports right
now is trans women in sports and everyone who's pissing
their pants and bursting into tears about trans women participating
in sports, And where's the movie that would be an
interesting movie? Yes, Okay, so again the men are giving

(22:10):
Anne Marie a hard time, and another big wave comes
and she stands up on her board for a second,
but then she falls off into the water. And her friends,
especially Eden, who parentheses might have a little crush on
Anne Loue.

Speaker 4 (22:26):
Yeah, she's like, come on, you had that one. You
just have to commit. Yeah, there's I feel like so
much of Michelle Rodriguez's character is just being.

Speaker 5 (22:36):
Like harder, like yeah, like friend or coach trainer.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
Slash covert love interest. Okay, so later that morning, Anne
Marie and her friends drive Anne Marie's teen sister Penny
to school. It's clear that Anne Marie is her caregiver.
Their parents aren't around. We'll find out that their mother
moved to Vegas to be with a man and left

(23:05):
them as teenagers behind.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
We get one line, Yeah, it's like they're just throwing
shit out there really with character details.

Speaker 5 (23:15):
This is why they're orphans anyways.

Speaker 4 (23:17):
So but also it is interesting I this movie is
obviously dissimilar from Lulo and Stitch in most ways, and
that there's no Little Blue Alien. However, the sister dynamic
is not dissimilar, where as true the older sisters raising
the younger sister, and the younger sister is like lashing
out in all of these ways.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
True, and in both movies, the sisters are living in poverty.
They're scraping by. By contrast, they see another surfer woman
who has come to town for this upcoming competition, who
makes a bunch of money from her various brand sponsorships, endorsements,

(23:59):
magazine appearing, etc. A life that Anne Marie dreams of,
but instead she and Eden and Lena had to work
as cleaning staff at a resort where Anne Marie makes
eyes with one of the hotel guests. This is Matt
He's an NFL player there with some of his teammates

(24:24):
and they're all VIP guests. That night, Anne Marie comes
home to discover her sister isn't there. That Penny drank
all of their beer and smoked marijuana and went to
a party. So Anne Marie goes to collect Penny, but

(24:45):
they get in an argument and Anne Marie storms out.
The next day, at work, the women have to clean
a particularly gross hotel room. This is the one that
I vividly remember, with vomit and used condoms on the floor.
Anne Marie go down to the beach, she finds the
football player guy who's staying in that room. His name's Leslie,

(25:05):
and she teaches him how to throw away a condom,
which gets Anne Marie fired.

Speaker 5 (25:10):
Can I just say, though, you said their VIP guests right,
And there's a scene where they're having their morning meeting
all of the maids at the hotel and their bosses like,
remember their VIP they are like number one, why are
they in room to fourteen? Because in that scene she

(25:31):
goes down to find Leslie and is going room fourteen,
two fourteen or two fifteen something the second level.

Speaker 4 (25:38):
I don't know I even thought about that.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
That would be like be in like the penthouse. I
guess she didn't think about that either. I don't know
where the luxury hotel rooms are. I've never stayed are.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
Yeah, but no, that's actually that actually makes sense because
Caitlin and I stayed in those places all the time.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Oh yeah, I forget.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
They should be on the thirtieth floor where we stay.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
Okay, thank you, good point, good point.

Speaker 5 (26:01):
Oh inconsequential please sorry, we can continue.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Okay, So Anne Marie gets fired. Later, they head to
the beach for more training and surfing. Drew and his
friends are there, and then something happens where a guy
I think it's Drue. It's kind of like a wide
shot so it's hard to see, but he interferes with
Anne Marie's surfing and she falls and her board breaks.

(26:30):
And then that guy, Matt pops up to be like, Hi,
I was just vaguely stalking you anyway, can you teach
me how to surf? And she's like pass, But then
her friends are like, well, maybe he'll pay you and
you need the money, so they chase him down and

(26:50):
he's like, yeah, I'll pay you one hundred and fifty
dollars a day, and they're like a wooga. And then
three of his teammates want to learn how to surf
two so Anne Marie, Eden, Lena, and Penny each take
on a student. We get a little montage. Everyone's having fun,
they're goofing around, they're surfing, and Anne Marie and Matt

(27:11):
stay out later than everyone else and they're vibing. Then
he invites her to his hotel room pays her one
thousand dollars because he wants a lesson every day for
the next week.

Speaker 5 (27:24):
The days leading up to the competition, mind you.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
Yes, So perhaps Anne Marie doesn't to quote is this
high school musical. She doesn't have her head in the game.
She needs to get her.

Speaker 4 (27:38):
Head yet in the game. Yeah, if only zac Efron,
we're there.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
So then they smooth on the lips also until he
gets a phone call, which he answers and he's like, hey, sweetheart,
miss you. So Anne Marie thinks that he's married or
has a girlfriend and he's like, no, no, no, no, no,
it's my niece, which honestly seems fake, but we're supposed
to believe it. And they carry on because he takes a.

Speaker 4 (28:06):
Picture out of his wallet, right, and don't worry. This
never becomes relevant. I think it literally is just like,
oh he's a great guy. Yeah he has a niece,
he took a call from her, or even clearing a
very low bar our friend Matt.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
Also, another thing that doesn't make sense is that he
makes the excuse of like oh, no, no, yeah, they're
calling me right now. Because of the time difference. They
say that it's two am in Hawaii, which would mean,
assuming they're on the mainland, maybe in Minnesota it would
be like six am or some other like ungodly hour.

(28:44):
Weird time to be calling your uncle. So it's like, no, no, no,
that doesn't make sense.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
You don't understand their relationship.

Speaker 5 (28:52):
No, he's like a really good uncle.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
Yeah, as an adolescent, I was always calling my uncle
in the middle of the night talking about.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Okay. So the next day, Anne Marie takes Matt to
a more private beach away from all the tourists. But
then Drew and his minions show up and they're like,
this beach is for locals only. What's this outsider doing here?
And a fight breaks out. Matt and Drew throw some punches.

(29:26):
Anne Marie breaks it up and they leave and they
go back to Matt's hotel, which means that she blows
off Eden because they were supposed to hang out and
train and go jets skiing together or something, and so
Eden thinks that Anne Marie is screwing up. She's distracted

(29:47):
by this guy, Matt, who she keeps smooching, and she's
staying in his hotel room where she used to work
and clean up puke off the floor. But now she's
getting a taste of what it's like to be on
the other side of this. She's ordering room service and whatnot.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
Yeah, is this one.

Speaker 5 (30:05):
She's making like a mayonnaise sandwich in the kitchen this scene.
Oh yeah, I just can't the way they eat. Obviously
they don't have much money. They're scrounging coins to get
like twinkies and send mayonnaise. But it's like, if Eden

(30:25):
is so on her about her training, let's get a
vegetable in the mix.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
I did appreciate that. I mean there, we've talked about
this in the show a million times and again, like
the rigid body standards don't like I think even when
we do see women eating, it's still like they still
are held to this very high, rigid, early two thousands
body standard, which to this movie is no exception too sure,
but I did appreciate even as a kid, because I

(30:54):
love gross food. I love it. I used to make
when I would go to my friend Lois's house, we
make frosting sandwiches, and I just felt I just felt
very seen by this where you're like, yeah, that's absolutely gross,
but she's still hot and that's something to aspire to.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
She does eventually put baloney on these manonnaise sandwiches, but
she's slathering mayo on the bread for a long time.

Speaker 4 (31:20):
Good honor.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Also, we see them buy some food and make some food,
but we never see them eat food.

Speaker 5 (31:26):
I don't think, oh interesting, I guess I didn't notice
that you need fuel.

Speaker 4 (31:31):
Still, I mean, I've never seen a mayonnaise sandwich of
that caliber assembled in media true visibility.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
You know, representation matters. Okay, So Eden is getting on
Anne Marie's case about this guy distracting her, but Anne
Marie sits. The contest comes first, and the next day
Anne Marie trains with Eden and it's going well at first,
but then a gnarly wave knocks them around and they

(32:02):
get into an argument where Anne Marie is like, quit
trying to live vicariously through me, get your own dreams,
and Eden is like, oh yeah, well you're scared and
you're just trying to run away like your mom. And
then they part ways. Anne Marie goes to Matt again.

Speaker 4 (32:22):
Not her friends, because that would make too much sense. Yeah, yeah,
not someone who actually knows her family dynamics. Just some guy,
just a guy who she.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
Met three days ago. He also has bought her a
nice dress, and there's like this big fancy dinner that
his teammates and their girlfriends are all going to so
she accompanies them, and in the bathroom, Anne Marie overhears
the women saying all these mean, classest things about her,
talking about other women who Matt has done this with,

(32:55):
of like finding a local working class woman, treating her
and buying stuff for her, including a server at Denny's,
our favorite restaurant, an American institution. So Anne Marie is like, Matt,
what the fuck? And He's like, no, no, no, You're
not like those girls. And Anne Marie once again believes

(33:19):
him for some reason, and they have a heart to
heart and she talks about what she wants in life,
asks him what she should do, and he's like, go
for it.

Speaker 5 (33:31):
This is in the water, by the way. She gets
such a she walks into the night ocean.

Speaker 4 (33:36):
Okay, the water. The ocean cinematography in this movie is clutch. Yeah,
pretty good, the cgi with the surfing.

Speaker 5 (33:46):
Even yes, sometimes I'm like, her body's there and her
face is there, but.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
I don't think I would have noticed it in two
thousand and two.

Speaker 4 (33:55):
I notice it now, No, but yeah, of course.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
But also yeah, there the water. Because Anne Marie goes
in the water in her expensive dress, Matt chases after her.
He's also fully clothed, and it's like, who do you
think you are? Leonardo DiCaprio in all of his movies?

Speaker 5 (34:12):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (34:12):
Oh, anyway, so she's like, what should I do? He's like,
the girl who I met would never ask a guy
what to do, and we're like, whoo two thousand and
two feminism.

Speaker 5 (34:27):
Yeah, even he is like, why am I supposed why me?

Speaker 3 (34:33):
Don't fucking know I met you three days ago?

Speaker 5 (34:36):
Where's your lesbian friend? Get it together?

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Then we cut to the Pipemaster's contest the next day.
We learn in a throwaway line that is barely audible,
that this is the first time women have been allowed
to compete in this contest.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
I feel like that was also eighty yard and labably yeah,
because it's so I was like, I think they maybe
forgot to mention what the movie was supposed to originally
be about. And they're like, shout out to that. But
ultimately this movie is about the power of Matt's penis
to change lives.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yes, unfortunately, Yes. So Anne Marie is competing among the
best surfers who are women in the world, so the
competition is stiff. She goes and tries to catch her
first wave and flubs it up. But then one of
her competitors, Kate Scarrett, who is a real surfer, real athlete,

(35:40):
playing herself, she also wipes out and gets injured, and
this is like Anne Marie's chance. She keeps hesitating, but
she manages to do a good surf. I don't know
how to talk about surfing.

Speaker 4 (35:55):
No, that's good. You could be a commentator, Thank you
so much.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
She does a good surf, although she gets caught on
a coral reef and nearly drowns again. But she's okay
and she advances to the next round, though she seems
unsure if she should continue with the competition because of
this mishap.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
But is this one?

Speaker 5 (36:17):
He gives her the pep talk exactly and inspires her
with his own injury story, like, yeah, see my pinky,
it's broken. But because of that, I got this sick
little spin.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
When I throw the banging my head against the table.
You're like, who cares?

Speaker 5 (36:35):
Why are you here?

Speaker 4 (36:36):
Stop trying to connect with her?

Speaker 5 (36:38):
Leave?

Speaker 4 (36:39):
Leave? How long is this fucking vacation? Ages?

Speaker 3 (36:43):
So she decides to move forward, and then it's time
for the next round. Anne Marie is up against a
new competitor, Kila Kennelly, who is also a real surfer
playing herself, who is crushing it and Anne Marie keeps hesitating. Again,
she goes for it eventually wipes out, but then she

(37:07):
goes again and catches an awesome wave and gets a
great score. She does not advance to the next round,
but she has redeemed herself and the crowd loves her.
People from Billabong and other brands approach her to be like,
join our team. And then the movie ends with Anne
Marie and Matt sharing a heterosexual kiss on the lips. Plus,

(37:29):
Anne Marie is featured on the cover of the magazine Surfing,
so she got.

Speaker 5 (37:34):
One of the things she wanted, which should be the
big win.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
But yeah, but no, Ultimately she has a rich boyfriend. Now, yeah,
so that's the movie.

Speaker 3 (37:45):
Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to
discuss and we're back.

Speaker 4 (38:00):
Yeah, where would we like to start? So so much
to pull from.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
There is I kind of want to start with something
that was alluded to earlier, but just the idea that
this is a story set in Hawaii that centers a
white woman and her white tourist boyfriend. Yes where you know.
Many scenes take place at a resort. We see little

(38:25):
to nothing as far as Native Hawaiian communities or neighborhoods
or anything like that. The characters who are Native Hawaiian
or implied to be Native Hawaiian, such as Drew and
his friends, are presented as antagonistic characters. They're always giving
Anne Marie a hard time.

Speaker 4 (38:45):
Which is something that we see quite a bit in
stories like this. I forget what episode we recently encountered
a similar thing. It was actually Perfect Blue, where you know,
any character that wasn't being presented as the like quote
unquote beauty ideal or even just had a darker skin
tone was made out to be a side character and
a bully. Which, yeah, and the fact that I mean again,

(39:09):
taking Matt out of this story improves it tenfold. I
don't I don't know. I don't know how realistic it
is in a teen movie that came out in two
thousand and two for there to not be a forced
romantic hetero interest. I want to believe better. But even
like in Leelo and Stitch, to talk about the other

(39:30):
big movie set in Hawaii that came that was mostly
made by white people that came out the same year, yeah,
Nanni has a love interest, but he's a person in
her community, and they take time to have the romantic
interest makes sense in a way that doesn't, you know,
overshadow what the story is actually about, which is very

(39:52):
rooted in Native culture. However flawed, but this movie just
has an aggressive disinterest in Native why and culture, and
the way that it's shown is very I mean, obviously
the movie is interested in surfing, but it's more interested
in the corporate side of surfing, which I think inherently

(40:13):
when you're talking about the capitalist side of it, it's
like tied to well, of course we're going to gravitate
to white characters. And I don't know reading I was
rereading the Susan Orlean piece this morning. I didn't quite
get through it. I've read it two weeks ago as well.
But there is a lot of you know, in the
moment that this is set in, there were a lot

(40:33):
of racial tensions in small surfing communities that are not
I mean that I feel like if they are attempted
to be acknowledged in this, they make out Native communities
to be resentful bullies who are pushing around. We're told
by the music, we're told by the amount of screen time.

(40:54):
Whose quote unquote side we're supposed to be on, and
it's Matt And with Anne Marie, we have like, first
of all, she does not need to be the main character.
If anything, it would be interesting to have her there
as a way to illustrate actual racial dynamics in this
community at the time, but like this movie is not

(41:14):
capable of doing that. But it was just interesting reading about,
you know, what was actually happening in these communities at
the time, because there are dynamics that are just very
much surface acknowledged or just left on the table completely, right,
Like the one Native woman.

Speaker 5 (41:30):
In the movie, the cashier at the store when at
their gas station when they're trying to buy their twinkies,
I think is the only person in the movie who
is nice to them. It's just so fleeting. And even
in that one exchange, she like puts herself down and
references her weight yeah right, right yeah, and compares herself

(41:50):
to Kate Bosworth's character, and You're like, no, come on.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
So I did want to say we that Senna Lake,
I hope I'm saying her name. Who plays She is
born and raised in Hawaii. She's of Hawaiian, Japanese and
English descent, but she is very connected to native Hawaiian
culture and a Hawaiian herself, and I think it's frustrating
that she's there. But she's, like, of the three girls,

(42:15):
the character we get to know the least well for sure,
and like, again, there's a huge opportunity to you know,
and I know, I'm sure that part of it had
to do with the fact that this was her first
movie and like she was not a very experienced actor,
but like, then find an experienced Hawaiian actor and center
the story around them. And I'm not even adverse to

(42:37):
having Anne Marie be one of the girls in the background. Right,
But yeah, of the three girls, we do have a
native Hawaiian character played by a native Hawaiian actor, but
we don't get to know her at all at all.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
Yeah, right, yeah, and then the native characters that group
of men Drew in his his Minions are There's that
scene where Anne Marie takes Matt to the private beach
and Drew and his friends show up to be like,
you know, only locals are allowed here. They call Matt Howley,

(43:11):
which is a Native Hawaiian term meaning a person, especially
a white person who is not a native Hawaiian. I'm
not quite sure how derogatory it is in different contexts,
but they're using it derogatorily in this scene. But Native
characters being protective of their land is presented in the

(43:34):
movie as them being assholes and being like aggressively territorial.
There's no acknowledgment of colonialism or land theft or anything
like that.

Speaker 4 (43:44):
No, which they're only about forty years removed from at
the time that this has happened. I don't it's again
not to keep bringing up lie Lowed Stitch. I guess
that the remake just came out, so it's on my
mind anyway. But you know, and that movie does the
bare minimum. It's a fucking Disney movie, but it still
does more than Blue Crush to acknowledge the history of

(44:09):
oppression and the tour like this movie is very weirdly
pro tourism. Well not weirdly because they are. You know,
the Tourism Board was very involved in the making of
this movie, which we can talk about. Yeah, so it
is very like intentional that taurists are not being criticized

(44:29):
in this context, but it's I don't like it. I
don't it's and it's weird because again you're given this,
like the three girls work at a hotel, and that's
the closest you get to it being critical of tourist culture.
But you know, it's whatever. It's a it's a it's
a movie. So tourist culture can be resolved by the

(44:51):
main white girl telling off the rich guys one time
and it's like boom solved, great, and then she herself
sort of gets to benefit for in the way that
the tourists do, which I feel like there is like
a pretty woman appeal to that switch. I remember liking
that as a kid of like, oh look who gets

(45:12):
to hang out in the fancy hotel. Now, Like that's satisfying.

Speaker 5 (45:14):
I get it.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
But it's just like I think, because of the way
it was made, and we can talk about that too,
like it's just fundamentally unwilling to deal with necessary, uncomfortable
parts of Hawaiian history, because I think that part of
the purpose of this movie is to convince people to
go on vacation.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
Yeah, yeah, right and get surf lessons from white surfers.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
There's a scene where Anne, Marie and Matt are relaxing
in the hot tub in his hotel room, and Matt
says something like, oh, I can see why the tourists
never leave their hotels, and then Anne Marie starts to
be critical of that. She's like, oh, don't say that,
that's not real Hawaii. But then she pivots and is

(46:01):
talking about the native community and says they're so protective
of their land, their waves, and she's saying it like
they it's so annoying that the people who are indigenous
to this land are protective of their land from colonizers
like me. Ugh, and it's like, do you hear yourself?

Speaker 5 (46:23):
Yeah, there are a bunch of drus honestly, like they're just.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
Hate that scene. So this movie was indeed made with
the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau. That was the group
that and again it's like it's a very very I
would be curious what our Hawaiian listeners think about this
because that is the main source of income in the

(46:50):
state of Hawaii. Because of all of these issues with
colonialism and so it's a very, very complicated topic. We
also talked about it during our Lee, Low and Stitch episode,
but that yeah, it seems like a lot of the
reasons that these issues don't come up are because it
was made to basically convince people to vacation. It was

(47:10):
made so the idea is to cross promote the film
and the state of Hawaii. And it was brokeer and
buckle in here by a woman named April Missini, who
had also previously brokened similar deals with the Hawaii Visitors
and Convention Bureau on productions like Baywatch Hawaii and Pacific

(47:31):
Blue and also the Miss Universe pageant. And you're like, hm,
Miss Universe, and is she terrifying Trump Republican? Well, yes
she is, and she has since sort of pivoted to
be full time Trump booster. So that's who brokeer the

(47:51):
deal with the State of Hawaii here. So knowing that,
I was like, okay, of course, this is a very
uncritical look at you know, like basically colonialism never happened
in the version of Hawaii that is presented here. And
I think, like, yeah, part of the purpose of having
the boys or the Native boys be cruel to the

(48:13):
random football guys is to make it seem as if
Native Hawaiians are resentful of them or like territorial in
a way that it's like, well, fucking yeah, of course,
but this movie takes the side of this of the
football players, because they want the football players to come
on vacation. Yes, And this is why we can't think
too hard about the movie Blue Crush just unraffled.

Speaker 5 (48:34):
Scott Bechel casted so hard just now.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
And the fact that like somehow the NFL ends up
getting some free publicity in this too.

Speaker 5 (48:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:45):
Yeah, iconic, unproblematic institution, the National Football League, because they're
name checking stuff. There's saying he's an NF He's not
just a football player. He's an NFL quarterback. And he's
in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl, which is so Again,
it's like this April Messini, diabolical evil person is getting

(49:06):
you know, every bad, gigantic business in the US is
getting a bite at the Blue Crush apple. Also this
is separate, but in the Susan Arlene article there is
a guy named Matt who features prominently, but he is not,
shockingly not an NFL quarterback. He is instead a coach

(49:30):
slash I think father figure to the girls that the
peace centers around. I guess that he's in his late twenties,
he's got his own family, and the piece deals a
lot more with the fact that many of the girls
it's following are poor right or have a single parent household,
and that this coach has been a part of sort

(49:53):
of plugging the holes in like what they need. They
stay with him, sometimes, he gives them food, he helps
their parent rents out, and it's like a very community
based idea around this guy. But instead they're like, what
if we just did not have anyone like that? Because
weirdly all of those traits end up sort of being
attributed to Eden's character of the pseudo coach. But I

(50:18):
was like, I would much rather have that version of
Matt where it's like he was a guy who had
resources and was connecting the girls with sponsorships so they
could afford to continue surfing. But they're kind of left
in the lurch in the Blue Crush averse.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
And the movie does examine class, but in a very
weird way where on one hand, and I'm not saying
that there are not poor white people in Hawaii, but
poverty disproportionately affects the Native community in Hawaii because of
all the usual suspects colonialism, land theft, displacement, white supremacy,

(50:59):
capitalist some labor exploitation, the movie doesn't acknowledge that, and again, like, I.

Speaker 4 (51:05):
Don't think that it's a bad thing necessarily to show
poverty at all, but sure it's not presented as a
community problem. It's presented as a cake Bossworth problem, right,
which doesn't make sense, right, And.

Speaker 5 (51:19):
The reason behind it is colonialism. So if you're trying
to sell hotel packages, you can't include that. So we're
gonna keep it colonial gaze, right, And.

Speaker 4 (51:34):
They're like, it's the fault of their deadbeat mom, that
this is all happening, not the fault of American colonialism, right,
And again that's I think, or I would I guess
hazard I guess that that's part of why we don't
really know more about Lena's character, and we don't, I mean,
we don't know that much about Michelle Rodriguez's character either,

(51:56):
Like it we don't know anything about the home life
of really anybody Kate Bosworth. And then the the quote
unquote solution is a rich boyfriend exactly from the National
Football League for the Pro Bowl. And it's not that
you should unionize the workers at your hotel, and'd say
fuck you. It's it's that you should be staying at

(52:18):
the hotel. You should be at the hotel. It's just, yeah,
it's very like, I don't know. I did appreciate, I
did appreciate the sister dynamic. I thought that a lot
of beats between the two of them worked. And I
wish that that level of care and nuance was applied
to literally any non white character in the movie. And

(52:41):
that's just not what happens.

Speaker 5 (52:42):
And you have to really pay attention to catch that arc. Yeah,
because they're at odds with each other at the beginning,
that's clear. Side note. Taking her from that party she
snuck off to and she was like, Hi, she looks
like twelve years old and in the arms of much
older men, and that just was disturbing to watch as

(53:05):
an adult. But when they finally come together, it's just
like one little moment when they're teaching the football players
how to surf, and you could see Pennies getting really
into her linebacker's development and he finally catches a wave
and she's so excited about it, and Anne Marie's watching

(53:26):
her the entire time get more and more excited and
just gives her this like big hug, and you could
see she's just so proud of her but like that,
I don't know that's it. It cut to her hugging
her at the end when they're all celebrating her not winning,
but being celebrated by the man and getting the sponsorship.

Speaker 3 (53:48):
And I mean, like you said, Melody, Penny is constantly
surrounded by and she's fourteen, She's surrounded by men who
were presumably in their early twenties. No one is saying
anything about this predatory behavior of the men.

Speaker 4 (54:04):
Well, I do think that there is a one off
line that this does not resolve the issue at all.
It maybe even makes the whole thing kind of sadder,
where it is acknowledged like she's being you know, sort
of pursued and harassed and eventually assaulted by these older men.
But then I think it's Eden who is just like, well,

(54:25):
what do you care, Ane, Marie, Like we did the
same thing at the same age. Like it's almost presented
as this cyclical thing of like, well, this is just
how men treat us, which is not the way to
address that issue at all. If anything, that should make
you angrier. But I think that like the way that
they talk that away and even the fact that like

(54:46):
when the little sister is going to these parties. It's
made out as like she's making these choices, like this
is her fault, and the way EDID presents it's like, well,
you did the same thing at the same time, as
if to say, you know, not in a way that's
like and that shouldn't be happening. It's more of I
think that in their group, this is quote unquote to

(55:10):
be expected in terms of how you're conditioned to accept
treatment from men, and unfortunately, I mean, I don't think
that this movie is intending to make commentary on really
anything maybe, but that's definitely something that I remember from
being younger and having like older cousins that are like, oh, well,

(55:31):
this is just what happens, Like this is you know,
and then it's not till you're older or you have
someone in your life who can you know, pull that
into focus of like this is not acceptable for this
to be happening to you, and like that you're able
to I don't know, I just found I found that
seemed to be very sad for for literally everyone, because

(55:51):
it's like they don't intervene because they were taught that
it's okay to happen to them too.

Speaker 5 (55:56):
Yeah, they're just watching her in the water. Look at her,
just look at it, like right, and.

Speaker 4 (56:01):
They're like shaming her the way that they would shame
themselves and each other. Like it's just a very vicious cycle.

Speaker 5 (56:07):
Yeah, we need the fervor from the condom scene applied
to so many more systemic issues than this movie.

Speaker 4 (56:15):
Right, the selective go girl feminism moments. Yeah, yeah, but
it's like, but if your twelve year old or fourteen
year old sister is being hit on by grown men,
she's a slot.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
You're like, Anne Marie literally says something like, oh, she's
just doing this for the attention and to piss me off,
you know, putting the blame on Penny rather than the
adult men who are hanging out with a fourteen year
old girl. Yeah, and it's a very like two thousand
and two attitude. But it's atrocious.

Speaker 4 (56:44):
And I just wish that there were a character in
this movie that was even able to like course correct
Anne Maria on that, because it's not like unbelievable to
me that another teenager would have a warped view of
these dynamics. But it's like, you need a grown up
in the room, like where And also just going back

(57:04):
to the season Orlean piece. Again, they wrote out the
like the girl who Anne Marie is ostensibly based on
is a teenage surfer named Teresa McGregor who does have
a mom. She simply does. She's from a single parent household,
her dad's side in the picture, but she does have

(57:25):
a mom and she has this coach named Matt. And again,
I just feel like it's very Disney Princess vibes to
write out the mom for reasons that exist in a
vacuum that aren't the reasons that we get in the
nuanced masterpiece. Lee lowd Stitch, I have to rewatch this

(57:47):
seen it since it came out. I'm kind of joking,
but it is doing more than this movie is.

Speaker 5 (57:51):
Oh absolutely, I'm sure.

Speaker 4 (57:53):
Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
Also, Penny is a white girl with corn Rose. Speaking
of appropriation, I wanted to talk a little bit about
the sport of surfing. So, you know, on top of
everything we've talked about as far as this movie centering
a white woman and her white love interest in Hawaii

(58:17):
and the villainization of Native Hawaiian characters, on top of
all that, this is a movie about a white woman
doing a sport that Native Hawaiians originated. I don't know
a lot about surfing, but I did a little research
on the history of the sport, and you know, there's
evidence of it existing as long ago as three to

(58:39):
five thousand years. It popped up in different regions of
the world, such as Peru, various regions in West Africa,
various areas of Polynesia, including pre colonized Hawaii, where surfing
or hey nlu which translates in English to wave sliding,

(59:02):
it was part of religious and spiritual traditions. The crafting
of surfboards was an important cultural practice. Then colonizers and
Christian missionaries invaded the islands banned surfing, and yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:17):
I didn't realize for a long time until surfing was
so popular that they couldn't continue to ban it, and
then so instead they commercialized.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Exactly like it was banned in an attempt to erase
indigenous culture and assimilate Native Hawaiian people into Western culture,
which is what always happens during colonialism. But then when
the colonizers realized they could capitalize off of surfing, they
brought it back and turned it into a whole industry.

(59:49):
So I just wanted to touch on that.

Speaker 4 (59:52):
I mean, it's very much another example of like what
we see here is almost completely forced from Native Hawaiian culture.
What we're seeing is like the commercialization of this sport
and you know, selling people on its authenticity by manufacturing
a poor white girl to like, it's just it's it's

(01:00:16):
a fucking mess. And and again it's like the purpose
of this movie is to sell stuff. It's to sell
surfing garments that I didn't I meant to look into,
you know, where the big surfing brands originated to see
if any are potentially Native owned. I didn't have time.
Oh interesting, But you know, basically it's trying to sell
you on an idea of embracing another culture while completely

(01:00:40):
not doing that, which is what we see all the time.
I mean we were it worked, and it worked, and
it was It's just like another way in which American
colonizers sell the idea of honoring native cultures that they've
completely decimated and taken and then sold back to tours.

Speaker 5 (01:01:00):
Yeah, and the white protagonist is never going to be
the vessel to even mention once like any of the
deep cultural or spiritual meanings with surfing. But no, it's
just like the waves are strictly like gnarly are sick
and like never sacred. We're never going to get that

(01:01:21):
from Anne Marie, you know right now.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Yeah, what the movie does instead in regards to surfing
is the through line of surfing being a boys club,
like it is in you know, most sports, where again
it's always you know, Drew and his friends being like,
girls can't surf, and they're undermining her skills. They're making

(01:01:48):
various sexist remarks, which, yes, like this type of sexism
is very pervasive in sports and of course the world
in general. Anne Marie tries to push back against that.

Speaker 4 (01:02:01):
She but it just still feels pretty hollow. It does
where it's like that's as radical as the movies will
like to get for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
Yeah, feels very white feminism.

Speaker 5 (01:02:11):
Yeah, and not even a lick of an exploration to queerness.
Obviously I'm expecting too much, but there is an inherent
sapphic energy let's talk about it within that culture.

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
I mean, now let's get into the good stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:02:30):
I think the actual professional surfer we see at the
gas station that they point out and like, oh she's
on the cover. She sponsored he or she gets to
surf indo, like she reads very gay, that surfer and
there's just like this moment where she notices them and

(01:02:51):
their boards on the top of the car and goes, ooh,
surfer girls, local girls, and like, just the way she
says it may maybe the only time we get like
a peek into any queerness in the culture of surfing.
Obviously it's all whatever we took from it and ran

(01:03:13):
with the undertones I guess may have been there, but
obviously it left us swatting a lot more.

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
Yeah, there's nothing explicit or overt, but as you can
speak to Melody, there is a lot of shipping that
has been done. Yes, between Anne Marie and Eden.

Speaker 5 (01:03:36):
There's got to be fan fiction out there, Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
I'd imagine so. But yeah, it's a lot of like
Eden not liking that Anne Marie has started dating a
man named Matt, And yeah, they're just different scenes where
Eden will be like, oh, what some guy thinks you
look hot in a bikini and you forget all about

(01:04:00):
the contest. Yeah, She's like, I'm not mad, I'm I
just happen to know you kick ass out there. It's
just you and one other girl out there.

Speaker 5 (01:04:08):
It works it like but also inadvertently reinforces the angry
lesbian stereotype, regardless of whether or not this was an
intentionally gay character. She's just so angry she is.

Speaker 4 (01:04:27):
And there's no context, and so it just is I
I it's it's just there's so many lost opportunities here.
It's just it's it's such a bummer watching it through.
Although I mean, speaking to your point earlier, Caitlin, this
is literally why the Bechdel test originally existed, is to
address dynamics like this where you're like, it's right there,

(01:04:49):
but is it? And that's what the movie, you know,
is fucking you, fucking with you, But just the idea
that there is this group of young women who are
probably probably still they're teenagers, they're probably still figuring out
who they are, and like a lot of whatever sixteen
to eighteen year olds are not fully out or even

(01:05:10):
no or anything like that, and you have them all together,
I don't know. Again, just like going back to the piece,
there's all of these descriptions of like the girls having
these like sleepovers out of necessity so they can wake
up early together and having these like bonding exercises literally
braiding each other's hair, and like talking about like strength

(01:05:33):
training and eating a shitload that was. Something that's brought
up constantly is that surfers burned calories like no one's
business and have to refuel constantly, which is something that
like Kitler, you're saying, we see, but we don't. And
even though we see the girls together, they don't like
really share a lot of like intimacy that you would
think that they would like it's just I don't know,

(01:05:57):
kill Matt, hit Matt with a meteor.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
Yeah, I know. The original article is about mostly teens.
I feel like the movie aged them up to like
definitely twenty year old's twenty two, early twenties. I think
they all live together. They share the cost of rent
and bills and all that, right, but.

Speaker 5 (01:06:19):
Like they're in the prime of their lives and it's
like now or never, right, and it's not even to succeed.
It's like, so you can escape this, but we don't.

Speaker 4 (01:06:29):
Address what this is is it because it's like it's
one thing if it's poverty, but they're not explicit about it.
So it seems also anti Hawaiian culture.

Speaker 3 (01:06:39):
Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the camaraderie that you
think would be shared among them you see a little
bit of in the movie, but yeah, like you said, Jimmie,
there's not as much. And Eden's crush on Anne Marie
is just too too covert because like you you watch

(01:07:00):
the scene where they're on the back of a jet
ski and Anne Marie is behind Eden clutching Eden's waist
and we are we are then is playing and you're
just like, again, like watching that from a like Bechdel
test point of view, you're just like, yeah, they're in love,

(01:07:22):
but the movie doesn't let them, but they.

Speaker 4 (01:07:24):
Don't be let us. Yeah, I mean, and so that's
a good time to look at, well, who made this,
And well, I have revealed myself to be a Susan
orlean Stan. She is a white woman from Ohio. So
that is the original reporting, which and I would say
it's more of a gondo like she's she's not doing

(01:07:44):
a deep dive into Hawaiian culture. She's writing about this
like series of a couple of weeks she spent with
the specific surfers. So it's not a piece that's invested
in the history or appropriation of Hawaiian culture at all,
which makes it a convenient piece to adapt here. So
I think that like why this is happening is it's

(01:08:06):
adapted from a piece of light reporting from a white
woman from Ohio who I love, but there it is.
The screenplay is by white woman from Los Angeles, Lizzie Weiss,
who I've read a couple of interviews with. She had
no connection to Hawaiian culture, and in fact, her family
used to go on vacation there as when she was

(01:08:27):
a child, so she is coming from the perspective of
this is a vacation destination. Is directed by a white
guy from Texas named John Stockwell. And so you know,
where is the Native Hawaiian representation at any point in
this production? I think the only place that there might

(01:08:51):
be native perspective is the representatives for the Hawaiian Visitors
and Convention Bureau. But listen to the name of that,
what is the goal? It doesn't From what I was
able to gather, there wasn't really any indigenous or just
Hawaiian in general contribution to this that was critical of

(01:09:11):
tourism or colonialism. And there was also this I wasn't
able to fully wrap my head around this, but this
movie does have a connection to a law that happened
pully here from scholarly journal Wikipedia. But I did read
the few articles that came out about it at the time.

(01:09:31):
Blue Crush is the first film to use Hawaii's Act
two twenty one, a progressive local tax incentive that called
for a one hundred percent state tax credit for high
tech investments meeting the requirements for qualified high tech business
while also allowing local investors to receive tax credits for
investments in film or television products. Universal Studios use a

(01:09:52):
legislation for the Blue Crush production, receiving approximately sixteen million
dollars in a deal with local investors, who in exchange,
received of the film's high tech tax credits. So I've
this is not my area of expertise. What I can
gather and what I gathered by reading into this law
a little bit. And this happens all over the place,

(01:10:14):
but I think it particularly in a colonized recently colonized
land like Hawaii. It's relevant is that filming this movie
on location, there was a law that made it more
affordable and put money back into the Hawaiian economy. What
my guess is is this is part of the reason

(01:10:36):
why this movie was able to be as commercial as
it was and as uncritical as colonialism as it was.
Right because you have this law that's like, Okay, we're
going to put money back into the local economy as
long as we can make the movie the way that
we want to make it and have it ultimately be
about a white girl and selling board shorts at the

(01:10:58):
mall in Ohio. And so I don't know if any
listeners have a better understanding of the law than I do.
And it's not hard let me know if I'm on
on the mark there. But I just think it was
interesting that this movie was sort of the one that
set that precedent and engaging with the local Hawaiian economy

(01:11:21):
while not engaging with their culture or people outside of
a few casting like casting native actors mostly as bullies. Yeah,
it seems like that was the extent.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
Definitely.

Speaker 5 (01:11:35):
Yeah, if only Leilo and Stitch unpacked that law. Yeah,
not only. I did read an interview with Lizzie. Not
only is she not a surfer, but she talks about
how afraid of the ocean she is.

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
Like, maybe this isn't yours.

Speaker 5 (01:11:52):
She said, I'm more of a river in lake person.
I'm actually terrified of the ocean.

Speaker 4 (01:11:57):
I honestly, I am also terrified of the ocean. But
maybe that's a reason for maybe I shouldn't write a
movie about surfing, Like maybe this just isn't your I
don't know, it's it's just it's disappointing, especially when it's
like you know it. Unfortunately, still is rare for women
to be writing movies about women, even if they are

(01:12:21):
privileged white women. Unfortunately.

Speaker 5 (01:12:23):
But uh, yeah, Lizzie, I don't know, Lizzy, she was
sent by the studio to Hawaiian Maybe it is so,
I mean, we know it had to be commercial to
a degree, but that's all she knew.

Speaker 4 (01:12:36):
It's all out there, so all she saw was the hotel.

Speaker 5 (01:12:39):
That's why we got that line about now I get
why no one leaves the hotel, right right?

Speaker 4 (01:12:45):
You can just really trace the direct line of having
this story completely told by outsiders. And I think Susan
Orlean told the best version of this story. But even
she's basing it on a very small community and very
little outside knowledge or experience. Like there, if this story

(01:13:07):
was to be adapted into this movie, then why would
you not then bring in Hawaiian people to consult on it? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:13:17):
I wonder if we all read the same interview it
was in something called Monster Children, did we shared the
interview the interview with the Anniversary right the twentieth Anniversary
with screenwriter Lezzlie Weiss, seems like her main objective with
this movie was like girl power. Apparently she had a

(01:13:41):
women's studies degree and so she wanted to showcase women
in sports. And you know, she talks about how it
was important that she showed women on screen supporting each other.
Because there's that scene towards the end where Kayala Kennelly
is saying like you got this, go for it to

(01:14:04):
Anne Marie, and then there's that part where Anne Marie
says something like she's listening off everything she wants and
she's like, I want a girl to be on the
cover of Surf magazine. It would be great if that
girl were me, but any girl will do. And we're like, yay,
once again two thousand and two feminism.

Speaker 4 (01:14:23):
I mean, and I don't want to come down too
too hard on Lizzywise here, because it's like, yes, it's
two thousand and two feminism, but also it is two
thousand and two, Like this is this is not uniquely
a Lizzy Weiss problem. Sure sure yeaheah.

Speaker 5 (01:14:38):
The first draft is wildly different than the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:14:42):
We all see wait, can can you speak more to it?
Because I failed to do adequate research on that.

Speaker 5 (01:14:47):
Well. I read she co wrote the first version, and
I think I said at the beginning, like she had
mentioned in a couple interviews, that it was inspired by
Mystic Pizza, and it was really about female friendship and
community and they're a lot younger. It was like that

(01:15:09):
after high school, in between college time, one of the
girls was set to leave to the mainland, and it
was just exploring all their relationships and those feelings of
like endings and things way more female centered. Of course,
I read that the director came on board and wanted

(01:15:30):
instead to make an action movie.

Speaker 4 (01:15:32):
It's like we got Michelle Rodriguez.

Speaker 5 (01:15:34):
And I also read that Lena and Eden had more
developed roles. It was more about their like collective effort
to support Anne Marie and her surfing. Yeah. I just
I remember reading it was just like very different, and
I just I want to copy. I really did.

Speaker 4 (01:15:54):
I would love yeah, because I just I see this
a lot in I mean, in like criticism of movies
that happen now where I And again this is also
just me being a defensive writer, but so much of
what comes up short in a finished product is often

(01:16:15):
blamed on the writer explicitly when often you don't know,
like your name is sometimes on something that like these
are not your words, it's not your original attention. And
that's just like how the industry works. And I would imagine,
I mean, based on your description, we had a movie
that would have been imperfect, still would have centered sure,

(01:16:37):
this white character, but was a stronger attempt at telling
a grounded story. And I mean, you know, having Lena's
character rounded out more, seeing what her home life is like,
getting her connection to her culture. Like we can't say
that didn't happen at some point. I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:16:54):
But what we do know is there was no NFL
quarterback romance in the first version, right, definitely wasn't. The
studio wanted it to have a broader appeal and had
them add that in.

Speaker 4 (01:17:07):
And then you look at the number of players that
are involved in like you have to get the Tourist
Board to sign off on this script, you have to
get Universal to sign off on this script. You have
to have this director that wants an action movie and
doesn't think that a story about women can be meaningfully
incorporated to sign off on this script and it's a

(01:17:30):
system wide failure.

Speaker 5 (01:17:33):
It apparently also like really centered on like the grit
of the working class women, and that's obviously not going
to fly with the tourism board, of course, But I
would have loved to see Hawaii as more than a backdrop,

(01:17:53):
right like and just interact with it a little.

Speaker 4 (01:17:57):
Not to continue piling on, but another thing I did
notice about this movie is the two other football players
we meet are black characters who are presented as comic
relief and really don't bring much more to the table
in that, which also feels like an extremely of the

(01:18:20):
time choice and just a different way in which non
white characters are put to the side in this because
the only romantically viable NFL player and again, why are
there NFL players in this movie is the white guy
from Legally Blonde.

Speaker 5 (01:18:39):
And yes, no black women at all, even in the
girlfriend group.

Speaker 4 (01:18:46):
I think, yeah, oh was there?

Speaker 3 (01:18:49):
I don't remember.

Speaker 4 (01:18:50):
I think they're they're women of color, yeah, but we
literally see.

Speaker 3 (01:18:54):
Them on screen for all of three seconds.

Speaker 5 (01:18:56):
So yeah, and they're what mean everyone's and they're very
like there are there are like Hawaiian people in this movie.

Speaker 4 (01:19:07):
I mean they do talk like I was able to,
you know, find that there was a fair amount of
local casting, although I wonder how connected that is to
this tax break versus like an actual good faith attempt
to meaningfully include Hawaiian actors because they are mainly cast
as background characters and bullies. So I would hazard a

(01:19:27):
guess that that probably had more to do with getting
this massive tax credit. Yeah, the world is so fucking depressing.
There's here's here's a good thing, here's a here's a
smiling thing. Maybe yeah, let's smile, or maybe I'm wrong.
Let's see you do get to see I think you're

(01:19:48):
you were both talking about this off mic before we
started Melodia as well, that you do see real life
women athletes in this movie, and they're celebrated and presented
as like aren't they awesome? And they do I think
classic athlete cameos where they can't act to save their lives.
They're like, hello, I am It's one of my favorite

(01:20:09):
kinds of cameos is athlete reading from a piece of
paper off screen. And I liked it. And you actually
get to see them.

Speaker 3 (01:20:16):
Yeah, you see them on screen. They have cameos. The
two that we see surfing pretty significant chunks of time
in the movie are Kate Scarett and Kayla Kennelly. There
are others who are mentioned or seen on screen. I
kind of I didn't write down enough stuff as I
was watching, so I'm leaving people out.

Speaker 5 (01:20:36):
I know that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:36):
But yeah, the point is it's real athletes playing themselves
and also doing a lot of the like stunt work
and like body double work for the lead actors, and
they are credited as such. They're properly credited. I'm reminded
of the discussion we had in the Black Swan episode

(01:20:58):
where ballet dancers did a lot of body double work
for the lead actors but were not properly credited. The
production acted like Natalie Portman and Mila Kunez did all
of their.

Speaker 4 (01:21:11):
Own professional ballerinas, which, like, upon reflection, I was like
wild that they thought we would buy that. But I
do think that that is such a like Hollywood commercialism
thing to like not to shit on actors, right, I'm
an ally to actors, brave, I'm even marrying when someone's

(01:21:31):
got I know, controversial. You live in La long enough
and all of a sudden, but yeah, that the I
was reading some of the in Kate Bosworth in because she,
of course did a retrospective interview about this. It's the law,
I think, especially during Lockdown, there were a lot of
these pieces coming out. But Kate Bosworth did an interview

(01:21:51):
for the twentieth anniversary with Alana Caplan a Vulture and
talks about how she was like, I was not an
experienced surfer. I did everything I could to prepare for
the role, to convincingly do some stuff, but absolutely needed
like was very forward about the fact that she needed
body doubles. And that's unfortunately unusual.

Speaker 3 (01:22:13):
And yeah, because so many productions will be like, no,
we didn't use any body doubles. There weren't any stunt performers.
Actors can do everything.

Speaker 4 (01:22:24):
But now that the like concept of a movie star
to like no longer exists outside of like five people,
I think that it's easier to acknowledge it. Although this
is a here's here's another thing that gets stuck in
my I'm getting attacked. Here's another thing that gets stuck
in my crawl. Casper loves to weigh in, here's another

(01:22:46):
thing that gets stuck in my damn crawl. The time
is there still not an oscar for stunt work? And so,
you know, even to this day, I think it's like
important for actors, especially high profile actors, to acknowledge their
stunt counterparts, because the industry is still you know, systemically
undervalues them. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:23:07):
I learned, or I've been thinking about that a lot,
because a contestant on the last season of Survivor was
a stunt actor and he talked a lot about how
broke he was and he was living in his car, So,
oh my god, more for them.

Speaker 4 (01:23:21):
Yeah, there is not enough talk about how many like
critical people in the industry are living in active poverty, right,
But yeah, the least that actors can do is is
what Kate Bosworth is doing, which is acknowledging that she
did not magically become a professional surfer overnight. It's not
a lot to ask for. Also, I this is so

(01:23:44):
beside the point, but I didn't know that Kate Bosworth
and Justin Long were married. And I'm like, what, that's
so cute. That's so cute. I kind of love that.

Speaker 5 (01:23:52):
It's something I always forget. They're just under the radar.

Speaker 4 (01:23:57):
Like two. I love when two icons that you would
not expect have even met before are low key married.
It's nice they're smooching. Yeah, does anyone have anything else
they'd like to discuss.

Speaker 5 (01:24:10):
I just want to know if either of you know
anything about Blue Crush too.

Speaker 4 (01:24:14):
No, wait, I don't.

Speaker 5 (01:24:16):
Oh, I don't know anything, Like I refuse.

Speaker 4 (01:24:18):
I know it was like a straight to TV movie.
See who's in that's it?

Speaker 5 (01:24:24):
Okay, But I do remember in that Vulture article they
do touch on it when they're asking if Kate Bosworth
wants to if she would do a sequel, and she
says that she's on board. She knows the other girls
are on board. She would want it to be way
more about their friendship and surfing, but she they make
a point to say she would want it to jump

(01:24:46):
off of Blue Crush, and in so many words, it
seems like she wants to completely ignore Blue Crush. It
doesn't exist in this universe.

Speaker 4 (01:24:55):
This is hilarious, Okay. So I don't even know if
Blue Crush two had permission to associate itself with Blue Crush,
because this is okay. Blue Crush two is a twenty
eleven so weird amount of time twenty eleven film starring
Blah Blah Blah. Despite the title, it is not a
plot continuation of the two thousand and two film and
critic reviews were generally negative, so it's we're not dealing

(01:25:19):
with the same character. It seems like they may have
just released a movie called Blue Crush two because it's
not technically illegal. I'm looking at the DVD cover. It
says from the filmmakers that bought you Blue Crush. Unclear
what they mean by that. I think it was maybe
distributed by Universal Direct to DVD. Interesting, but it's about
a totally different person. It's about someone named Dana and

(01:25:42):
her friend Jaybay.

Speaker 5 (01:25:45):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:25:46):
Oh no, Jbay is a place, not a person. I
don't know. It's totally different. It's totally different.

Speaker 3 (01:25:51):
Yes, you know what other movie does this is Titanic two,
which is not about the characters nor even the ship Titanic.
It's about the ship called Titanic two. Yeah, all right,
other people and Shane van Dyke directed in stars in it.
That of course is Dick Van Dyke's grandson. And it's

(01:26:15):
a great movie. We should cover it someday, Jamie, Oh, okay, fine.

Speaker 5 (01:26:19):
I do also remember, like Deadline articles from mid twenty
ten's about there was going to be a TV show.
They sold it like Lizzie Weiss was they were developing
the TV show for I think NBC with like Universal
and everything. But that's all I know about that. I

(01:26:39):
don't know what happened, but that would have been interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
Yeah, I'm ready for it if it ever comes. The
last thing I wanted to mention this is going back
to the the sapphik undertones of the movie. In that
same interview that we've referenced before with screenwriter Lizzie Weiss
from Monster children dot Com, the interviewer asks, by the way,

(01:27:05):
many of my queer friends wanted me to tell you
that you caused their gay awakening, and Lizzie responds with,
that's so funny. I guess that's something. If I were
to do it again today, that would be more in
the conversation. Maybe i'd make eat and buy. I think
it'd probably feel more real and honest to that world

(01:27:27):
and our world and every world to mention that unquote Okay.

Speaker 5 (01:27:31):
Lizzie, Okay, maybe I'm glad she didn't take it on.

Speaker 4 (01:27:35):
I know it's like, let's get a new writer in
the mix's done her part. Yeah, yeah, I think that's
everything I have. Yeah, I would. I would be really
interested If we have any native Hawaiian listeners that would
like to weigh in, We would love to hear your
thoughts on the legacy of this movie because it is uh,

(01:27:57):
there's a lot going on. We've done our best to
get into it.

Speaker 3 (01:28:00):
Yes, the movie does pass the Bechdel tests yea technically.
Where Anne Marie talks to Eden and Lena and her
sister Penny about surfing, she talks to different other the
like pro surfer character slash real life athletes about surfing.

(01:28:21):
There's just a lot of talk about waves and pipe
and surfboards. Eden makes her own surfboards. I don't know
if she sells them, but we see her like crafting
aboard at the beginning, which.

Speaker 4 (01:28:35):
Is another thing lifted from the original piece that their
coach does, which maybe does make more sense.

Speaker 3 (01:28:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:28:42):
I wasn't mad about it, but I did like that
she is an all purpose surfer. She could do anything.

Speaker 3 (01:28:48):
She's crafty.

Speaker 4 (01:28:49):
But it was like, let's give her an ambition. Does
she want to open her own company? As that why
she's so like it. It's not that I don't know, guys,
We'll never know. We'll never know.

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):
We have to spend too much time on Matt.

Speaker 4 (01:29:02):
Matt, Bring back Matt. That would be so funny if
they opened a like continuation of the story being like,
Matt was hit by a meteor unfortunately moments after the
ending of Blue Crush one. But don't worry, we're all
over it. Put an outrun.

Speaker 5 (01:29:17):
It not that great.

Speaker 4 (01:29:18):
I know, it turns out he was that good after all.

Speaker 3 (01:29:22):
But that meteor created huge waves for them to surf.

Speaker 4 (01:29:27):
Yeah, and that was how we became surfing champions.

Speaker 3 (01:29:32):
Yeah, it does pass the Bechdel test and then our
nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale
of zero to five nipples based on examining it through
an intersectional feminist lens. You know, there's some stuff this
movie does about end of sentence. There's you know, there

(01:29:54):
is this acknowledgment of sexism in sports and how like
surfing is this boys club and all of these sexist
men who are telling women that girls can't surf, and
it's you know, the women pushing back against that, and
you know, it's there's not a whole lot of commentary
specifically on the pressure and the burden that is put

(01:30:17):
on marginalized people to prove that they are just as
competent as their privileged counterparts. But we do see that
happening in the movie, and we see Anne Marie being
a good surfer and other women being good surfers, but
the erasure and the villainization of Native Hawaiian culture throughout

(01:30:38):
the story and things of that nature.

Speaker 4 (01:30:43):
I think I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:30:44):
Gonna give it two nipples. I'd say, let Eden be
gay on screen.

Speaker 4 (01:30:52):
Come on, come ont kill men.

Speaker 3 (01:30:57):
I'll give one nipple to know Lake who plays Lena,
and I'll give my other nipple too. That close shot
on Kate Bosworth's eyes where you see that she has
one blue eye and one brown eye.

Speaker 4 (01:31:16):
Yeah, like, oh, I remember that was like her whole
That was how she was sold to the world, which
is unfair to her because she's talented, But I remember
that being like a huge like, oh my god, she's
not like other girls. She's a hot blonde with two
different colored eyes.

Speaker 5 (01:31:32):
Even the DVD commentary, they took a moment to really.

Speaker 4 (01:31:36):
Get it to be like get sink like, let it
sink in, Let it sink in. Girls. This is diversity, people.
I think that that is two thousand and two diversity. Yeah,
I'm gonna give this what was your ranking name.

Speaker 3 (01:31:54):
I give it two nipples.

Speaker 4 (01:31:55):
I'm gonna meet either. I think I'm like tempted to
go lower because I hate Natt's so much. I might
go on it. I don't know, but I know that
this is a seminal movie for a lot of people.
I'll give it to you because of the potential, because
there was a script that didn't suck. Because technically this
is a story about women that was adapted by women,

(01:32:17):
but they were white women who had no experience in
the communities they were writing about, and so you sort
of lose. So it just it's a very two thousand
and two predicament we find ourselves in. We've talked about
this a lot still, I still feel like there was
so much research to do for this episode that I
didn't get to everything that I would have liked to.

(01:32:38):
I feel the same, But this is the same movie
is like a third wave feminist girl power commercial movie.
It's and while there is you know, I think a
lot nostalgically to love it is so disconnected from the
culture it pretends to be partaking in and appropriating that

(01:32:58):
and just let eat and be gay. I'm going to
give it two nipples and I'm going to give I
mean to give them to the young queer people of
the early two thousands who had to really fight for
their lives to see themselves in this movie. Thank yous
are for you?

Speaker 5 (01:33:20):
Yeah or just I want to give this movie snaps
for the opportunities that it ultimately like presented but missed
some feeling.

Speaker 4 (01:33:29):
Right now, it's a moment of silence.

Speaker 3 (01:33:34):
Yeah, do you have a nipple rating?

Speaker 4 (01:33:35):
Melody?

Speaker 5 (01:33:36):
Yeah, you have to give it like something the two
yeah two average sure women are if like two is
are ready for?

Speaker 4 (01:33:44):
Women are in it.

Speaker 5 (01:33:45):
Women are technically evolved in the production for passing the
test on a technicality.

Speaker 4 (01:33:50):
But that's about all we can say. I just even
just killing Matt with a meteor at the very end,
hitting them in with a bus Regina Jarge style, come on,
come on something something.

Speaker 5 (01:34:00):
I thought of Regina, I thought of mean girls when
she is in that fight with Lena and she basically
does that line where she's like, I'm sorry, you're so
obsessed with me and like Genesee and another queer coded character,
the femme more acceptable conventional girls like ah god, like

(01:34:25):
get off, like the one who's just trying to get
her to see what's real and important pushed to the side.

Speaker 3 (01:34:34):
Yeah, well, Melodie, thank you so much for joining us,
for this, for having me.

Speaker 5 (01:34:39):
This has been impactful. Rewatch this discussion.

Speaker 4 (01:34:45):
We're sorry for processing for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:34:49):
Yeah, sorry for Bechtel casting you.

Speaker 4 (01:34:50):
It's our job. It's our job to ruin your favorite movie.

Speaker 5 (01:34:53):
I'm not going to be quoting it. I'm not going
to be quoting it every speech this summer. No, I'm
gonna actually rep man to anyone who does.

Speaker 4 (01:35:01):
Yeah, you can, you can actually innocent people at the beach.

Speaker 3 (01:35:06):
Yeah sure? Where can people follow you? On social media?
Plug away, take.

Speaker 5 (01:35:14):
A little break from it. I'm there, I'll be I'm
gonna make a comeback. It's gonna be so good. There's
stuff there at Melody Kamalie on all social media. I
also did host a podcast called Dyking Out and there's
some good feminist discussion there. And congrats to the Alison

(01:35:38):
Bechdel interview. We had her on and I feel like
she liked you guys so much more as we were
just trying desperately, I think, to get her to laugh
or to like us because we're stand up comedians like that.

Speaker 4 (01:35:51):
Yeah, anyway, she's very low key.

Speaker 5 (01:35:53):
Yeah, but we we deem ourselves with Rosi o'donald. That's
a good episode to check out if you'd like. But otherwise, yeah,
happy to hear any criticisms of my criticism in my
dms there if you'd like.

Speaker 3 (01:36:11):
You can follow us on social media at Bechtel Cast,
mostly on Instagram, as well as our Patreon aka Matreon,
where we release two bonus episodes every month centering a
brilliant genius theme, plus access to the back catalog of
nearing two hundred bonus episodes and that's all for five

(01:36:33):
dollars a month over at patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast.

Speaker 4 (01:36:39):
And with that, anyone want to go kill a professional
football player?

Speaker 5 (01:36:46):
Anyone want to go listen to pod right now?

Speaker 4 (01:36:52):
To you the Nation?

Speaker 3 (01:36:54):
Oh Iconic, Yes, b B by bye. The Bechdelcast is
a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis,
produced by Sophie Lichtermann, edited by mo La Boord. Our
theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by
Katherine Voskresenski. Our logo in merch is designed by Jamie

(01:37:18):
Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Assevedo. For more
information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash Bechdel Cast