Breakfast at Tiffany's with Gabe Dunn

Jamie Loftus and Caitlin Durante invite special guest Gabe Dunn over to eat pastries outside a jewelry store and to discuss Breakfast at Tiffany's.

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask if movies have
women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zephim vast
start changing with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello, and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is
Jamie Loftus and.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
My name's Caitlin Derante.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
And before we get our episodes started today, we wanted
to welcome all our new listeners. This is our first
episode on the How Stuff Works Network. We are so
thrilled to be here. Yes, so if this is your
first time listening to our podcast, we'll just give you
a quick explainer on what we do here.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
That's right, So we again are the Bechdel Cast. We
talk about the portrayal and representation of women in movies
through an intersectional feminist lens.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Every Thursday, we bring in a special guest who brings
in one of their favorite movies, a movie that's really
affected them, and we tear it apart based on the
way that it treats women in that movie. Sometimes it
does really well, times not so nice.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yeah, Hollywood kind of has a long history of not
representing women well at all what Yeah, hard to believe.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Hot take.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
That's why we're here. We use the Bechdel test as
a sort of jumping off point to initiate this larger
conversation about representation of women.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
What on earth is the Bechdel Test? Kaitlin?

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Why, Jamie? I'd be happy to tell you, Okay. It
is a test that originated from cartoonist Alison Bechdel in
the nineteen eighties. It requires that a movie has at
least two women in it who have names check. They
have to speak to each other eick, and that conversation
cannot be about a man.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh at all? Word?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Shall we demo it?

Speaker 3 (01:44):
I'd love to.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Let's demo it for the people? Okay, begin test. Hi, Caitlin,
Hey Jamie, did you know that this is our first
episode on the House Stuff Works Network?

Speaker 3 (01:54):
I did know that, Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
But like for people who are like new to the podcast,
like what should listened to? Are there other episodes?

Speaker 3 (02:02):
There are because we've operated independently up until now. Good
for us, I know we're such strong independent women.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Queen go off.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
We have over eighty episodes backlogged of a ton of
different movies, so check those out. Chances are we've covered
one of your favorites.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, we've got a lot of hot, spicy backlog with
some hot spicy discourse. We've covered Star Wars, We've.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Covered Black Panther, We've covered Jili for some reason, we
covered Gilie.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
We sure did. Uh So, did that conversation pass the
Vitels test?

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Well, except for Gelie because Julie is a man, but
up until Larry and Icon, yeah, grows up until the
very end of that conversation, I would say we've passed
with flying colors.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Good for us, I know.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
And so toward the end of every episode, after our discussion,
after our heavy but also fun discourse.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Sometimes it's heavy, sometimes it's light.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah, we will determine whether or not the movie passes
the Bechdel test, and we will rate the movie on
our special rating system, which we will get to. But yeah,
other than that, we're so happy to be here on
how stuff works. We're happy you're joining us. And today's episode,
we are talking about breakfast of Tiffany's. Yes, and we

(03:18):
have a wonderful guest, so let's introduce her.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yes. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
She is the host of Bad with Money podcast and
she is the writer of I hate everyone, but you
Gaby done. Hi, Hi, thanks for being here.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
Oh, thanks for having me. We're going older than we
usually go today.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
We haven't done a lot of movies before nineteen eighty.
I would say, agree, yeah, but this is a big one.
This is a classic.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
Yes, I did notice that you guys don't do a
lot of very old movies, which is why I suggested
this one.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
I think probably one of the reasons we tend to
steer more toward modern and contemporary movies is that our
conversations are about how we influence media. Media influences us.
So today's world, not as many people are watching the
older movies anymore.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
Maybe I don't know my grandmother. I'm a turner classic movies.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
I used to be a TCM right addict.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
Yeah, Kim, it's really good.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
But like, especially like with today's younger generation, who are
the most easily influenced, they're watching you know, Marvel stuff
like what's in theaters right now, and they're not a
lot of them unless they're like film buffs, aren't necessarily
going back to older movie.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
Pretentious I mean. But also the thing is with this
one is that like young women have this aesthetic about it,
and they also like, have you know the poster of
Audrey Hepburn, and like they're aware of this as like
a classic that keeps keeps coming back kind of as
like a cool thing, right without possibly even understanding the

(04:48):
movie or having seen the movie.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
I hope that we do more old movies. It's it's
for me. I just sort of assume that anything before
nineteen eighty, even though I've seen a lot of them,
but like a lot of pre nineteen eighty is just
straight up a wat where you're just like, yeah, that's
not gonna do well. That's not gonna do well. And
most movies after nineteen eighty and also most movies that
come out now, but yes, in particular before that.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
But sometimes they're really sneaky feminist. Yeah, like they get
away with a lot of stuff. Like I was just saying,
I love the movie Gentlemen before Blondes, and that is
like very they get away with so many things, like
Marilyn Monroe's characters they're both like so overtly sexual and
it's just like completely fine. So I think there's like
a lot of stuff that I don't know. It's not

(05:30):
all like oh this is terrible and Women Suck and
there were a lot of really great like leading parts. Yeah,
women back, And I don't know where we steered wrong, but.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yeah, I would say it's probably the well, this movie
came out in nineteen sixty one while the production Code
was still in full effect, so I would hazard to guess.
And I don't know a whole ton about this, but
the production code was an effect between nineteen thirty four
and I think nineteen sixty eight or nine, and this
was like all the censorship of like you could, like
there was no overt sexuality, you couldn't swear, there couldn't

(06:04):
be graphic violence, there couldn't be snaky. Yeah, there's like
tons of innuendos, and that gave birth to things like
screwball comedy and like a whole bunch of other things.
But like, yeah, because of the production Code and all
the censorship that came with that, I think reinforced more
like rigid gender roles. But they have think.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
They I think like limitations made people a little more
I don't know them, made them a little more creative
about rather than just going for like the eases.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
In some movies.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (06:32):
Just am always shocked by how overtly sexual. They're like
allowed to be with these kind of innuendos or like
having to write around these sort of things. Like I
was saying to Jamie too before this that I read
that they had the Paul character. They added more sexual
stuff for him in the script so that the sensors
would go after him and censor more of his things

(06:55):
and leave Holly golightly alone. Yeah, which is smart, Which
is like an interesting trick.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
That's a cool misdirect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I Well, let's
talk about your history with the movie. When did you
first see the movie? And like, what is your history
with that up till now?

Speaker 4 (07:09):
When I was in high school, I was like a
very pretentious asshole, and so I was kind of doing
this thing where I was like I like old music,
I like old movies. I'm wearing silk gloves to prom
whatever that kind of girl, And so I would start
watching these old movies because I just I don't know,
I was trying to be like a person who knew
about things that other kids at school didn't know about,

(07:31):
which you know, people loved obviously, like Super wanted to
be friends with me, and so like I took a
lot of pride in being like I know about all
this media that you don't even know about. So I
think I watched it just because I had seen all
these photos and I knew about like the picture of
her with the with the tiara andy, but I had
no idea what it was about. So I watched it
in high school because I watched a lot of like

(07:53):
Elvis Beach movies. I watched Hard Day's Night all the time.
I liked Marilyn Monroe's stuff.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
This was like your era that you that you into,
like got in late fifties early sixtiest.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
Like got into it. And then when I watched it,
I was like, wait a minute, they're both sex workers.
Like this is crazy, Like I this movie that is
built up as being this classy kind of like beautiful
thing that like an Audrey Hepburn especially who's viewed as
kind of like untouchable and like a porcelain doll.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Right, And it's like not explicitly stated in either in
the story or the movie, but it's so Like Truman Capoti,
I liked this phrase a lot when he was asked
if like A Letley was a sex worker, like years later,
he's like, I like to think of her as an
American geisha. Yeah, okay, okay, so you're saying it, but
you're not going to say, Hey, they.

Speaker 4 (08:43):
Would in the in the press for the film at
the time, they were saying she was a party girl
or that she They also used the word cook a lot.
They were like, she's an eccentric kuk right, And it's like.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Okay, this is some really wild codd language we're pulling out.
But it's like, no one will actually say it, but
it is clearly what's you know.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
Yeah, I mean there's it's not subtle. I mean he
gives her money for the quote unquote powder room, the
interior decorator quote unquote leaves Paul three hundred dollars like
on the nightstand. Like it's not subtle at all. So
then I was like, oh my god, this is the
same movie that people lawed as this classy sort of

(09:19):
thing that like women you know, dress up for as
Halloween like in you know what I mean. I put
the poster in their dorm and I was like, does
anybody else understand what this movie is about? And then
I loved it because I always loved sort of subversive stuff.
So I was like, this is great, and then I
would watch it every so often as like a you know,
to fall asleep, as like a soothing because now it's

(09:40):
kind of like this comfort movie, which a lot of
Audrey Hepburn's stuff is for me. Yeah, like just very comforting.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
So it's been with you for a long time. Yeah, yeah,
it's sort of similarly. I had the poster before I
saw the movie. Yeah, I had the poster hanging in
my room. I think my mom gave it to me,
and I had it for like a full year before
I was like, oh, yeah, I should probably watch this
because I love old movies. My era was I was
like wartime MGM movies. Okay, I had a stack of

(10:08):
tapes and like DVDs full of TCM Judy Garland movies,
like every Judy. I was a full on Judy person,
which is also one of the many reasons it's so
painful to watch Mickey Rooney in this movie, because he's
in all the Judy Garland movies. But so I finally
got around do watching Breakfast at Tiffany's and then read
the book as well, and I really really really loved

(10:29):
Truman Capoti, who did not like this movie. But I
think it's really nice. There was so much I haven't
seen it in at least two or three years. Like
it's sort of the thing that whenever it's on Netflix,
I'm like, oh, this is a good background thing, but
I totally forgot about some of the very like moving,
sad things that happened in this movie. It's and I

(10:51):
think that that's true. There's just like this weird dissonance
with this movie where you remember what Audrey Hepburn looks like,
you remember sort of how she behave. Do you remember
that there's parties, and you remember there's a kiss in
the rain at the end and everything else. It's you're
sort of just like, oh, yeah, she's arrested. There's a
character named Sally Tomato.

Speaker 4 (11:12):
There's like brother does I totally forgot her brother died? Yeah,
It's like an incredibly sad movie. And then it's recreated,
like I keep thinking of the scene of Gossip Girl
where they recreate it and Leeton Mester is her, and
then it's just played us this very romantic thing, right,
and people like don't know what the movie is about,
which I can see why Truman Capote would freaking hate that.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
He hated well, we'll get into this in a bit,
but there's like the context that he wrote this story,
and also that in the short story, Paul is coded gay,
which obviously they completely scrap in this movie. But there's
you know, there's just like a lot of interesting stuff.
But yeah, this movie was with me since I think
high school as well. I have a really embarrassing MySpace

(11:56):
profile pick with the poster in the background and it's
black and white and it's really horrible. No, it's really bad,
but I don't know. And then watching it this time,
I don't dislike this movie. I still I still enjoyed it,
but there's just like a lot that stuck out to
me and just stuff I'd forgotten. Yeah, what about you.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
I saw it for the first time in college during
that period of time because I was not to brag,
but I was majoring in film, so I was trying
to watch as many movies as I could, so I
would sometimes watch like two or three movies a day,
and then like from that period of time, my brain
didn't store anything about the story or like any of
important things about the movie. The only thing I would

(12:37):
remember about the movies I watched back then is whether
or not I liked them, and what I remembered about
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a very visceral hatred.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
For this movie.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
I hate this movie.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
You hated it the first time you saw it, so yes,
oh wow, and you hate it now.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
I hate it this movie.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Were you really left to have me on because of that?

Speaker 3 (13:01):
No?

Speaker 4 (13:03):
We like because it's fun.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
I think it's fun a lot of times.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, we love talking about movies that we hate and
more fun.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
I think we do our best, at least to try
to not let our personal feelings about the movie influence
our critical analysis of the portrayal of women in the movie. Okay,
So I do my best to keep that separate.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Anytime it's an old movie, Caitlin hates it. Anytime it's
a movie with aliens, I hate it. We all do our,
don't get me wrong.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
I like a lot of old movies. This just isn't
an example of one of the ones that I like. Yeah,
so I like Audrey Hepburn.

Speaker 4 (13:34):
She kind of plays a similar type of woman a lot.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
I think the only other thing I saw her in
was My Fair Lady.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
I liked that movie. Okay, and I had Red Pig
Million and I liked that. I haven't seen it for
over a decade, so I don't know if it holds
up at all. But the reason I don't like this
movie is I find the Holly Golightly character absolutely insufferable.
I didn't read the novella, sall, I'm not super familiar
with the context, but just there's barely a plot and

(14:02):
I hate the character. So sorry about that. But from
here on out, I'm going to be happy and nice anyway,
So I'll do the recap.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
We are introduced to Holligo lightly. She's living in New
York City. Wow city where dreams true, concrete jungle where
dreams are made up? Okay, so it's the early sixties. She's,
you know, living a life in New York City. Although
it's never explicitly stated, there are different innuendos and hints
to suggest that she is a sex worker, escort American geisha.

(14:41):
And early on she meets her new neighbor who moves in,
named Paul, but she keeps calling him Fred because he
looks like her brother and Fred.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
And we know that it's a red flag because he
is a blonde male adult. It's still one of the
biggest human red flags you can encounter is an adult
blonde male, very dangerous. Do not interact with them.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
So Paul also seems to have a certain arrangement with
a woman named missus Phalanson.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
I love missus Phalanson.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
So Patricia Neil, she's amazing, so got her.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
Husky voice, and then she she just she like appears
in a room and like, oh, she's going to fuck him. Yeah,
Like it's just such.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
She's married to Roald Dahl.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, I didn't know that. That's so cool.

Speaker 4 (15:31):
Fact cool.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
So they have an arrangement where he he's a writer,
but a struggling writer. He's written one book of nine
short stories. But other than that he needs some financial security,
which missus Falansen seems to provide. So Paul and Holly
are in similar careers and they relate. They yeah, so

(15:53):
they kind of They started to become friends early on,
Like Holly throws a party and she meets a few
different rich guys who get invited. One's named Jose Da
Silva Pereira and the other one is rust Patrolla. These
men eventually become two men that Holly tries to pursue
and like seduce so that they will marry her so

(16:15):
that she can be wealthy, a wealthy man. Then Holly's husband,
we find out that she was previously married when she
got married. Okay, so this is going on fourteen thirteen.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
This is crazy. So she and her brother were poor,
their parents died. They were stealing turkey eggs from this
guy's yard. He was like full grown man. He was like,
oh my god, I'll adopt you. So she so he
adopts her and Fred and then when she gets to
be thirteen, he's like and he has kids from a
previous marriage. He's like, oh, I want to marry you.

(16:49):
So then he marries her and then they like are
raising the brother and the kids together.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
What so weird. And then the way that the movie
presents him to me is also very bizarre, Like they
present him as like you understand why she doesn't go
back with him, obviously, but also he's presented it's like
this really like sympathetic.

Speaker 4 (17:08):
Sweet, simple man, but.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
He loves her, and you're just like, no, this guy's
like sucking criminal raise this saturatory rapist who shows up
with his big blue eyes. He's like, come back to
the farm, and you're just like.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
No, she's in the right, but as played as that,
like he's in the right. And also she says like,
well I was I was only thirteen, so the marriage
wasn't old. Yeah, yeah, I bet it was.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah, that tracks like there's and also Paul pissed me
up in that scene, and this is I think, in
a lot of ways, just revealing of the era. Where
Doc shows up. He's like, hey, that girl you have
a crush on I raped her and and like I
need to see her because I'm her husband. And Paul,
without checking, without giving Holly any manner of heads up,

(17:55):
just knocks on her door and he's like, hey, found
your rapist outside. Was like you fucking there. You just
sold her out so hard, And then Holly has to
deal with it. She does not get mad at Paul.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
She's like Doc's just a sweet guy.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, I just like we we can be upset with Doc.

Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
I just that scene was so like there's a few
different moments in the way that Paul treats Holly that
this story doesn't address that. It's really just like okay, yeah,
at that time, if a man says I'm this woman's husband,
it doesn't matter how the woman feels you bring him
to her right, and his like this person you just met,
his needs matter more than the person you're falling in

(18:36):
love with. Sure, right, right.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
So that is a fun story beat, But ultimately he's
like trying to lure her back home with the promise
of like, hey, your brother Paul's getting out of.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
The army, said Fred.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
She's like, no, I can't go back, and.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Then he like sort of threatens. He's just like, well,
if you don't get on his Greyhound buzz with me,
maybe you'll never see Fred again.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
It was like, what friend's an adult?

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, he's a man.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
But so then she's like, oh, I have to marry
a rich guy so that I can bring Fred to
me in New York City so I can take care
of him again, this adult man who has been in
the army for presumably a few years.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
She kind of insinuates that Fred is not smart.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yes she's it's not stated, but yeah, she says at
the beginning that he's very slow and tall.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Maybe he's like John Malkovich of Mice and Men.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
Yep, that's what that's the canon I'm going with.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
So she's trying to seduce these different rich men. First,
she starts with Rusty Troller, but then she finds out
that he has married someone else, and then she starts
to go after Jose And meanwhile, like she's spending time
with Paul and they're really connecting and he's catching some
feels for her. But she, you know, she doesn't know
she is or not because she doesn't like to be

(19:53):
tied down to anyone. She's she's a free as a bird.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
There's a hat. It's a metaphor, right right.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
The cat doesn't have a name, and the cat will
get a name when she feels like she can settle down, right.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, But these different pursuits don't work out because she
gets arrested for her Oh wait, she I can't believe
I forgot to mention Sally Tomato.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
Feminiss Sally Tomato.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
He was like a known gangster. This like drug scandal
surfaces and because she was visiting him in prison. Yeah,
she gets I guess. Yeah, I don't really understand that hole.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
I read about it, and in the write ups I read,
they believe that she really didn't know, like she really
thought it was a weather report. But I don't know
if she's that stupid.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, she's gotten through life pretty cleverly.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
Yeah, But so then she she's like about to go
to Brazil to marry Jose, and then she gets arrested
for her involvement with Sally Tomato.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
And then she is this before or after She finds
out that her brother has died in a.

Speaker 4 (21:00):
Before before before because Jose is still there. Doesn't Jose
leave after?

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yeah he leaves because.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
She got arrested.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah, all right, So she finds that out, and then
she trashes her room and then she is in a cab.
Paul has like picked her up from prison, and then
he's just like, I love you, Holly. You need to
get out of your cage that you built for yourself.
You belong to me. He tells her that because he
loves her, that she belongs to him.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yeah, he won't let her go in the library and
he's like, good, he's got icecript. It's very romantic.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
And then she flings her own cat out of the cab.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Oh, she's like.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Kind a home here.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah, there's also that one shot. This is like, I
think it's the scene we found out where Fred died,
where someone it's clear it's not Audrey. Hepburn throws a
cat at the wall and you see the cat lie
through the frame and hit the wall. I was like,
you can't do that, you kitchen, you.

Speaker 4 (21:55):
Had lands on the window.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Yeah, yeah, you see. Like I'm like, you just imagine
like a first dad being like, Okay, I'm just gonna
throw this cat really quick.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
Also, cats do have eight nipples. This is cat facts
with Caitlin, Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
So, basically, in the in the cab right at the
end of the movie, Paul is confessing his love for Holly.
She's like yeah, and then she's like, wait a minute,
He's right. I do need to let people in. I
need to let love into my life. I do need
to go back and get my cat. So she gets
out of the cab and they look for the cat together,
they find it, and then there's a kiss in the rain,

(22:32):
and that is the end of the movie. Okay, let's
take a quick break and we'll be back in a moment.
All right, and we're back.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
There's a lot that happens in this movie.

Speaker 4 (22:50):
Yeah, there's a lot of plot.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Yeah, there's not on top of plot.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
To me, it's like there's no like really distinct desire
that she's given she has a few like micro goals,
but I think that Fred.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
And security or her two motivations, Like she wants to
be with her brother, and she also wants to like
live a comfortable life without having to commit to someone
at first and then later decides she does want to
commit to someone because of comfort.

Speaker 4 (23:18):
Yeah, and Paul wants to be a writer. They're both
kind of trying to get out of sex work.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Yeah. So this just for context of the book, which
is very different. So Holly Golightly was pulled from two
different sources in Truman Capotte's life. One is his mom,
who literally did basically the Lula May thing where when
Truman Compotti was very young, his mom and this is

(23:45):
like they lived in Alabama, blah blah blah. Truman's mom
boots out, She's like, actually, I'm going to go to
New York and like find us a cool life, changed
her name the whole, like the whole Holly Galately sort
except she had a kid, and then eventually move Truman
Capoti to New York with her. It didn't work out.
They ended up moving back to Alabama. But so his mom,

(24:06):
who he had like a weird relationship with his whole
life basically lived this sort of Holly Golightly adjacent lifestyle
for a while.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
Wait are you telling me a gay creative had a
weird relationship with his mom.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
I can't.

Speaker 4 (24:20):
I can't believe it, but I get it better.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Okay, because Paul in the story is Holly's neighbor but
is not like an explicit love interest at all and
is coded gay or that is like what was speculated
by a lot of critics. So it's like Truman Capoti
wrote this novella where he as an adult, became friends
with his mom at his age and then they have

(24:44):
this like it's it's great, and then the other one
is a.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
Neighbor of his right, a woman who lived downstairs from him.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Exactly. Yeah, So it's like interesting self fan fic in
some ways. And then he also pulled on like he
I guess he's like, I want to write a female
Gatsby character, which you can see a lot of in
Hollygolately as well as like, oh yeah, the self made.

Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yeah is she a phony? The thing is she's a
real phony exactly. Yeah, she is a prototype manic pixie
dream girl.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 4 (25:16):
The way she's introduced when he comes in and she's
just talking over him so manically and like doesn't even
find my shoes.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah they're alligator.

Speaker 4 (25:24):
And it's just very like, oh, of course I'm doing this,
like and he's sort of blown away by her, and
she's like, you know, just being super quirky.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Her being able to call a taxi, like her catching
her on the balcony, just improvising this beautiful tweet song
from the acoustic.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
Guitar which is moon River, which was written for the movie.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Yeah. Yeah, but I feel like that trope is I mean,
it's not even fully a recognized trope at this point,
but it's commented on more than other Manic pixies where
we are given the context of her background and like
why she puts on this persona to survive, and like
it it makes sense and is explained and commented on

(26:09):
enough that it almost doesn't bother me really too much.
Yeah it does movie.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
Yeah it doesn't bother me that much either, especially because
nobody is like shaming her for her flaw or like
her being a sex worker is not even the problem,
do you know what I mean? And so that's that's
like a twist on it for me, where it's not
like someone had to save her necessarily. She had to figure,

(26:34):
she had to come to this on her own, that
she she doesn't want. I don't know. I guess Paul
does a lot of the work, but she like makes
the choice to get out of the cab, right.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
I mean, she she has a lot of agency. The
ending rings where it was like my favorite part when
I was younger, Like it rings a little bit hollow
for me now because the way Paul behaves at the
end of the movie is so entitled.

Speaker 4 (26:57):
And yeah, he's very entitled, not like you belong to me,
And she says people don't belong to each other, right,
and she's right.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Right, But then cut to five minutes later, she belongs
to him now and the cat you know, Yeah, it's
it's weird that we hear her say those lines that
like definitely stuck with me when I was younger, and
then minutes later she goes back on it entirely, or
the story has her go back on that entirely, and
now she's gonna be in, you know, a normal relationship

(27:28):
with Paul, which is apparently all she ever wanted, even
though that's never really what she said that she wanted.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
Which is why, like, I don't know if she has
that much agency. She's not that active of a character,
like so she's like, yeah, she has a few different
goals and motivations, but she's the worst person.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Why didn't she like her? Why?

Speaker 3 (27:48):
I have a list why you don't like her. She
treats people around her horribly, most notably her neighbor mister Yuniyoshi,
who will get into a whole horribly problematic oh boy
thing there. But there's a lot of people she doesn't
seem to care about. She uses people. She is superficial

(28:12):
and has terrible friends, and she only cares about status
and money. She is hyper materialistic. She never says anything
of substance. She only ever talks about like the rich
man she wants to marry. She's unaware of her surroundings,
and she accidentally lights a woman's head on fire. She
is calling people ugly and fat all the time. She

(28:33):
doesn't own any books. She's never been to a library before.
She thinks that South America is a country.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
I disagree on a lot almost all she does think
that South America is okay.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
I'll give you that.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
I think that you know those things in a void
are issues, but it's like she's a she's a I
think she does have a clear motivation and a lot
of those qualities. Especially I would argue the materialistic stuff
is so rooted in that she has had to find
ways to survive for so long and and it's like,

(29:10):
it's not like these men with money that you know, like,
I guess you can make the argument that she has
manipulating them, but they're doing the same thing to her.
They don't give a fuck about her. They want, you know,
like a piece to bring to events like it is,
and like fitting in with her like background as a
sex worker, even though no one's gonna say sex sex worker,

(29:32):
Like it's transactional in a lot of ways. And I
don't know, like the whole thing with her loving Tiffany's
just seems like in her life, given what we know
of her, the only consistent thing you can count on
our material things, because she's been let down by so
many people, with the exception of her brother, who she
is genuinely fighting for, but everyone else in her life,

(29:55):
like who else can she point to is like, Oh,
here's a person that is worth more than material security.
And I don't think that there is any I mean,
like her husband, like, well, we already went through that
where you know, the statutory rape and the you know, it's.

Speaker 4 (30:13):
Like what choice. She didn't have a choice but to
marry him. So it's really like because there was no
way out of that situation, right, It's similar like this
is like a downer, but my grandmother survived the Holocaust
and she's incredibly materialistic now, And like when I was younger,
I used to judge her for that, and now that
I'm older, I'm like, oh, of course, Like of course
she wants to surround herself with like finery. The background

(30:35):
on that is so dark that like she's just like
I want all the jewelry. I want all the stuff.
I deserve this right, Like and that completely makes sense
to me, Like that tracks as like motivation totally.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, I don't know, it makes I think we're given
the context for it to make sense. I get that
she's like not likable in a lot of ways, and
that definitely like the Manic Pixie stuff is like present
and like used as oh, it feels almost like a
short cut at some points to like get us from
point A to point B, especially in terms of like

(31:07):
why is Paul in love with her manic pixie behaviors,
so easy for it to be like and that's why, Yeah,
he lives here.

Speaker 4 (31:13):
And also she's totally messed up and has a lot
of problems but flawlessly beautiful the whole time. Yes, yes,
I would have like sleeping with makeup on, like like
she's like when she's like got the pigtails in the
sweater on and she's like, we have to go somewhere
where I can get in looking like this. I'm like,
but shut up, but joking, you look top ten most beautiful?

(31:34):
Are you kidding me?

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Right now than any of us will ever look in
our entire lives.

Speaker 4 (31:38):
Great thing, right, So there is a thing of like
romanticizing trauma and like making trauma beautiful, which is definitely
at play here.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, and then there's there's multiple points where I think
it's like three different men in this movie call her
crazy and that is always like red flag. And there's
one of my favorite ones just of like you know,
like when you watch an old movie, there are just
like some clueless ways that it will interact with its
characters where Doc says to her, you're talking crazy, Lula

(32:08):
May and she says, don't call me that, and I'm
thinking crazy and then she's like, don't call me Lula May.
I guess that's the bigger issue here, because people call
her crazy all the time, and it's just something she
has to deal with.

Speaker 4 (32:22):
She's a kook, she's an eccentric coup. Then what that was, Paul?
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Right? Yeah, I don't know. I was. I was like,
interesting choice that she's never been to a library before,
But then I forgot. I mean, there are so many
details of this movie I've forgotten. I was like, oh,
but she goes back later and she's like, oh, maybe
there is something to this.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
Whole He's never been to Tiffany's. So true, everyone's never
been places.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
Okay, I think it's much more common to have never
been to a Tiffany's than to never have been to
a library.

Speaker 2 (32:52):
And the I kind of liked, I don't know the
whole Tiffany's and like stealing in that whole sequence is like,
this is a bit long. They like each other, but the.

Speaker 4 (33:03):
Well do you know that New York City is the
third character? There's everyone I just want for the listeners
at home, Jamie and Caitlin both very much hated that.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
No, he collapsed, did not like that at all. I
need to be revived. There's that's something that happens when
we have male guests sometimes where male guests love to
say that locations are also characters, Like.

Speaker 4 (33:27):
Thank you so much for telling me that there's Oh
I mentioned in the beginning, I'm an old movies asshole, right,
like that was weird to everyone.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Carrina Longworth over here, Oh god, I wish there's I
know she's.

Speaker 4 (33:41):
The I listened to that. I listened to that show
and it's real good.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
It's really good. Oh yeah, the Tiffany thing. I liked
the comment that she makes inside of Tiffany's that like
just reminded me of being poor, of like, oh yeah,
I don't buy anything. I just like, you know, I
just like ster at nize things and it just like
calms me down. And that fits into the character very well.
Of just like the atmosphere of materialism is more comforting

(34:09):
than like other people.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
And there's a lot of class stuff too that they
like get the Crackerjack ring engraved. Yeah, Like it's just
a lot of like, you know the way that the
sales guy looks at them, and his judgy and that
they like keep going with the bit.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
And also in this world, it makes no sense that
he would look at these two gorgeous, well dressed people
and be like, seems sus it's like now they look
like they have money.

Speaker 4 (34:33):
Yeah, for sure, he's being a full on asshole.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
I think we had a similar discussion on like the
Mulan Rouge episode, where if you really boil down this story,
it is sort of about a woman who's a sex
worker who maybe is trying to get out of this lifestyle.
How active she is in that pursuit is kind of
up for debate, but ultimately it's about a man who

(34:59):
comes in and sort of rescues her from it in
the sense that he's willing to provide her with actual love,
unlike the other men that she's interacting with in her profession.
So in that sense, this is a story like the
one that we saw in Mulan Rouge and like we

(35:19):
see in Pretty Woman, and just a lot of like, oh,
you're a sex worker, that must mean that you just
need love from a man.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
I The counterpoint to that is that he is also
a sex worker, yes, and that he gives up missus
Phil he gives up her, and he gives up he
starts writing again because he's like, I need to make
money on my own, and he kind of also is
rescuing himself and she's rescuing him a little bit.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
But it's not his story, it's her story. So I
feel like I wish she had more agency and more
she was more active in the pursuit of whatever she wants,
which again I would argue, we don't like again, some
things are sort of defined, but I think there could
be a much clearer definition of what she actually wants

(36:06):
out of life.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
He's very entitled, but there is the thing that he
leaves her alone for a long time and then she
calls him to come back to the apartment.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Which is good. Yeah, I agree with both of you
on that. I think it's weird that, Like again, it's
like a Hollywood third act problem, where I think all
the work is done to make Holly a realized enough
character that the movie does not have to end the
way it does. She could act with way more agency
towards the end of the movie, and it would make

(36:37):
sense with her character because we've been given the contacts
in the background that she would have the motivation to
do it, but because of how these stories are structured,
she's not allowed to. There is one line that Paul
says when he's breaking things off with Missus Phelanson, where
he's that really, I was just like, oh, come on,
she can't help anyone, including herself. The thing is I
can help her, and that's a nice feeling for a change,

(36:58):
And so we know that he's going into it thinking
that he is rescuing her and like that is even
though we know that she has a lot to offer
him as well. He pretty explicitly articulates what his mindset is,
which is that like, I can help her, and that
makes me feel good, and I care about her, so
I'm going to.

Speaker 3 (37:16):
And also because I love her, then she belongs to.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Me, right, So that is like a third actissue I have.
And then there's also like one the other thing where
they are both sex workers, right, and her motivation is
so deeply rooted and survival. We also see her, you know,
because she is a woman like treated worse like. At
the very beginning, the motivation for their first hang is

(37:40):
that mel blank fucking bugs Bunny is like chasing her
out of her own apartment to the point where she
has to leave out the way.

Speaker 4 (37:50):
Yeah, these men are getting violent and like there's an
implication that he's gonna rape her. Right, She's just like
another day at the office exactly.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
She's like, he's nice when he doesn't drink, and you're
just like, yikes, okay, Yeah, so she has so so
much more shit even though they're both workers. It's clear
that she has to take more shit and Paul is
sort of given the luxury that I don't think she
really has in this movie of he has wanted to
provide her yes and is allowed to have a creative

(38:22):
pursuit and has the time to be able to do that,
and that doesn't seem as possible for Holly.

Speaker 4 (38:29):
I also think the belong to each other thing is
interesting because it's phrased terribly, but what he means is
and what she ultimately takes away from it, and what
the cat provides is that.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
What the cat provides my new podcast.

Speaker 4 (38:45):
Is that put down roots. You have to put down roots,
you have to commit to something, you have to name
your cat. And that's why I like that she goes
after the cat when she gets out of the car,
because it's yes, belong to each other's phrased poorly, but
I do think he has a point in that, Like
she's she's always gonna be running, and as is this

(39:06):
doctor SEUs. Wherever you go, there you are. Uh oh,
I feel like that's a doctor Seuss thing, but maybe not.
But basically, like you you have to you're always gonna
be stuck with yourself, so she can't keep running. Like
in the cabs, she's like, well, I'm gonna go to
Brazil anyway. I'm just gonna try to go anyway. Yeah,
and he's like, you love New York, you love me,

(39:28):
you love this cat, like deal with it. So I
do think there is If she was like, actually, I
do want to be this free person and he was
coming from no evidence and no information, then I can
see it. But also it is hard to swallow a
guy being like, here's what you need, but it is
what she needs.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
Well, but it's just it sucks that he has to
make her see that and she doesn't come to that
conclusion on her own, but.

Speaker 4 (39:53):
She does when she gets out of the car because
she kind of just gone to Brazil and been like, nah,
fuck you dude.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
Well, it's only because the long speech that he has delivered. Yeah,
like it was still like his actions and his words
poorly phrase though they may be that gets her to
realize what I mean.

Speaker 4 (40:08):
But yeah, that's why it would have been great if
jose had been waiting for her, Like if she had
actually have a choice, then she would have made a choice.

Speaker 3 (40:17):
Yeah, right, right, right, Yeah. I don't hate aside from
his very horrible phrasing of saying that she belongs to him,
I don't hate the message that he's saying, which is
basically just like, you need to be emotionally vulnerable if
you ever want to connect with anyone and be happy,
which she realizes that it just yea. I wish that
she had come to that conclusion on her own, through

(40:38):
her own you know, journey, rather than to have him
very explicitly teach her that lesson.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
Yeah, and also would have liked to see maybe a
bit more of her throwing that back at him and
being like, you do the same thing. You don't fucking write.
You say you're a writer, but you don't write. You're
kind of a prototype of a of a guy who's
just privileged in just being like I'm gonna I'm good looking,
so I'm gonna like let women, you know what I mean, Like,
she doesn't give it back to him.

Speaker 3 (41:04):
She was a hard challenge him.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
Yeah, at all, as hard as anyone.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
I wanted her to yell at him so much when
she was like, why did you bring Doc to my house?
But that's just I don't know why. That was the
part I most strongly objected to. But I was so
mad at he's so mad at me.

Speaker 4 (41:21):
He ambushes her with her rabbit.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
He's just like, yeah, you're gonna want to get on
a Greyhound bus with this guy. I'm like, what is
wrong with you?

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (41:31):
Yeah? Anyways, are there any the other women at the party?
Is that one boisterous woman that she hates, mag wild
mag Wildwood, who she hates and thinks is a bore
and then who passes out and everyone just lets her
hit the ground.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
Yeah, that's another reason she's a terrible person. Like she
knows that she's about to fall, and instead of Holly
helping her fellow woman, she goes timber.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Also, no one, no one like that clear out of
the way. It reminds me of that scene at the
beginning of School of Rock where Jack Black tries to
do the stage dive, but everyone's like he's a jerk
and they just let him hit the floor. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
Yeah, but that she would be dead, you know what
I mean, And like that's off, like she hits her
head like it's not okay.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
She would have at least broken her no, right face.

Speaker 4 (42:20):
And then there's like other women at the party, irving
who's like the guy the OJ the agent is trying
to get with yes, oh yes, And then who's he's
kind of like chasing her around. And then there's one
Asian woman, yes, who does not does not speak.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Is I mean not the worst part of the way
Asian culture is portrayed in this movie, for sure, but
this reminded me a little bit of a few episodes
ago we did the Royal ten and bombs in just
like the use of Asian culture as set dressing correct
and characters that are never given any.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
Yeah, and she's dressed a very specific way. Yes, I
mean it was interesting that she was in clue in
the socialite scene. I thought that was interesting, but also
dressed a certain way and doesn't.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Talk, doesn't Yeah, so we just have no context of
like who she is, why she's there.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
And then also there's like an interesting thing where with Jose.
It seems like his family is like very important politicians
in Brazil, and so there's like an implication that he
can't marry a white woman, which is very interesting too.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Oh I didn't catch that.

Speaker 4 (43:23):
I mean that he's like bringing her around and she's like,
we're gonna get married with all his family there, and
it's like very clear that that's not gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
I wasn't sure if that was because she was a
call girl. Oh.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
I got the impression that like she's trying to, like
she was learning to cook and like trying to learn
Portuguese and like fit in with his family, and I
think there was like an implication that he can't marry
someone who's not part of like the Brazilian political family.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
Or whatever that makes sense. I thought that they were
just like, hey, don't marry a sex worker.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
But then she has a line well yeah, and then
she has a line where she says, oh, our kids
will have dark skin, but but green eyes. I was like, okay, okay,
x yeah. Well, I was like, what do you mean, Holly,
you don't have green eyes? Like what are you talk about?
Who here has green eyes? What are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (44:16):
From?

Speaker 4 (44:17):
But yeah, it's it's very weird. And then of course
Mickey Rooney.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Yeah, I mean we should we just do it?

Speaker 3 (44:26):
Yeah, we gotta do it. I'd recommend an article that
was in the Wall Street Journal from a few years
ago by Jeff Yang, who talks about this role at length.
So this, this is something that's been talked about for years.
People have protested like different.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Screenings of this movie.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
Yeah, sure, because of Mickey Rooney's portrayal of the character
of mister Unioshi, which is.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
Of course two thousand and eight comes out with a
big old defense of ye doing it Earlier.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
Earlier he had said he regretted it, he's sorry he
did it, he didn't know, blah blah blah, you did
this whole thing. And then he got older, I assume,
more senile, and then in two thousand and eight was like,
not fuck y'all.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Yeah. I I never in defense of Mickey Ronny here,
but Mickey Ronnie the last couple of years of his life,
pretty much anything he says is not loucid. So it's
a bummer that he was even allowed to make a
statement about it, because I think he was like still
lucid when he was like Oh, that's incredibly offensive.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
Well, I think he.

Speaker 4 (45:30):
Believed, Yeah, he believed it was offensive, but I think
he got upset when screenings were canceled, and that's when
he was like went full defensive.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
Like no one's ever complained about this role before that
they have.

Speaker 2 (45:44):
Yeah, it's really he has never seen a computer before.

Speaker 4 (45:48):
It's really bad. It is him straight up in yellow face.
He's got a terrible accent. He's treated terribly by hollygo lightly.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
It's such a wee weird, horribly offensive character. It's like
one of the worst, like the most racist characters ever
committed to film.

Speaker 4 (46:06):
For sure.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
They put buck teeth in his mouth, they like taped
his eyes.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
Yeah, it's really bad.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
That really irresponsible thing. You can think of, every insensitive thing,
incredible attention to detail. It's just fucking crazy.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
Because we did an episode recently also about Aliens, and
we talked about the character of Vesquez being a brown face.
At the very least, Again not to defend any you know,
whitewashing or anything like that, or any racist characters, but
at least that character of Vesquez is treated with respect
by the other characters and the movie itself. Yeah, this

(46:43):
is just like the worst example, and.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
It also doesn't add anything to the story. Like I've tweeted,
I've tweeted about like loving Breakfast to Tifany's and I've
been like my kingdom for someone who will just cut
a version of the movie without his character at all,
and the movie would make complete sense.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Yeah, I mean, don't need it. There's a few different
elements of this movie. Just from a story perspective, you
don't need that character. You don't really need Sally Tomato,
Like there's not there's some there's certain things that just
like you're some weird fat trimming.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
Sally Tomato comes into play because her arrest is what
leads Jose to leave her. But it would make even
better and just as much sense if she decides on
her own to leave Jose and be with.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Paul, right she loves him.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
Yeah, yeah, I think the cat has is more of
an important part of the story plot wise than any
of those other.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Things, right, yes, so yeah, I checked that piece out.
And and then also it Warrant's saying that, you know, well,
this is one of the most egregious examples of a
yellow face character in film. It was happening, you know,
as recently as Emma Stone, so it is something that
still happens in film and will anyone ever learn ever?

Speaker 4 (47:57):
Yeah, I just watched Doctor Strange until this Winton's character
is supposed to be Asian as well.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
It's like, what, there's so much whitewashing.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
That's horrible.

Speaker 4 (48:06):
Yeah, especially I think like I think because it's yellow face,
people are willing to give it more of a pass
than like if he was straight up in black face,
people would be like, well, obviously that's not I mean,
some people would say it's bad, but because it's yellow face,
people are like no, it's like okay, you know what
I mean, Like they view it as not as bad

(48:27):
when it very clearly is right. And similarly with aliens too,
I think they're like, that's not so bad. Yeah it is.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
It is it is.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
It is so bad. Yeah, and it sucks because it's
otherwise like a good, feel good movie. And then you're like, like,
I really do please someone out there edit together the
movie without those scenes and it would be just as good, right.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
It's really it's really frustrating, And at the time I
was trying to like figure out like, okay, what did
this add to this movie at the time, and it's
just like I think it was intended as like a
slap sticky, like, oh, wouldn't it be funny, which is
just makes it even worse. And it's also totally at inconsistent.
It's like a completely different it's taking place in a

(49:11):
different movie. Right, It's not good. It's bad.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
Can you imagine if you just like lost your keys
all the time and then you woke up your neighbor.

Speaker 4 (49:23):
If you have twenty six keys made to your apartment,
yeah you can get in, But do you.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
Like consistently like buzz your neighbor and wake him up
all the time, and then in order to like appease
him for a moment, you say, yeah, you can take
nude pictures of me.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Sometimes I did that with my moment orn yesterday. No
kind of we just just a moment in praise of
Emily Eustace Phalans.

Speaker 4 (49:48):
Oh for sure.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Patricia Neil, she just think that she is so cool
and like for this time she's so confidently cheating on
her husband that it is fun to watch. And then
and then you see this breakup scene between her and Paul,
which I thought was like kind of sad but also
kind of I don't know, I was surprised. Yeah, because

(50:11):
we only see her three years.

Speaker 4 (50:12):
She doesn't break out. She's sort of very like practical
minded about it.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
She's not like, yeah, but it's a little sad too,
where it's like the way that she exerts her control
over the situation with her and Paul is with her
money and so when he makes the emotionally based decision
of like I'm falling in love with someone, I need
to break this off. I can't do this anymore, she's like, oh,
how do I retain my power in the situation? And

(50:37):
she tries to give him money, and that was just like,
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (50:40):
My assumption was that she was I thought, I always
think that she's giving him the thousand dollars check to
go on a trip because she thinks that they will
spend time together, realize they're not in love, and that
he'll come back.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Oh okay.

Speaker 4 (50:55):
I always thought that she was like saying, like, go
for it. Then, like I'll even pay for it because
this isn't gonna work out, so.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
You know what I mean exactly, Yeah, like.

Speaker 4 (51:04):
Enjoy your trip, realize you're both people, fall out of love,
you'll come back, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (51:08):
And then he goes into his closet and he's like,
find another fuck boy, goodbye.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Hopefully he has the same length of arms as me,
so you don't even have to go to a tailor.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Starts toss out. It's great.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
So she'll be fine. She'll she'll find another young, strapping man.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
Yeah, they're super hot. You want to be writers.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
Yeah, I really like that character. She's a feminist icon.
I love her calls Paul while her husband is in
the room. This just like, Hey, my husband came home early. Gross,
So I guess we can't see each other today. He's
right there.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know why she's the
icon of this movie for me.

Speaker 4 (51:50):
We don't know what the husband's deal is. She just
like she's just like I want to pay for sex
and I don't care.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
Maybe they're in an ethical non monogamy relationship.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yeah, that's why she is able to make the call
while he's in the room. My god, I don't I
guess I sort of just assume, like, well, it was
a marriage in nineteen sixty one, so it probably was
bad and she could not get out of it and
being disgraced.

Speaker 4 (52:14):
Yeah, and likes likes her younger men.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
Yeah, good for her. Yeah, she's also Yeah, she's like
an older woman who's just I just I like her
a lot.

Speaker 3 (52:23):
Yeah. Well, speaking of marriage and that, like the fact
that Holly is trying to pursue two different men who
are rich and she thinks that she's going to be
able to marry into money. I get that that is
maybe a logical next step for someone in her profession.

(52:44):
Even so, the fact that she is trying to marry
for money and not actually pursue like any of her
other talents or anything like that, to just try to
get a job and earn money for herself.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
Where would she work.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
I don't know. You could go to work at Tiffany's not.

Speaker 4 (53:02):
Really Yeah, yeah, well she doesn't have a bumpkin. You know,
she's a bumpkin. She doesn't really have a lot of
other options.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
Like there have many options in something, but it's notety.

Speaker 4 (53:13):
One, it's not nineteen sixty one. It's hard. There's not
a lot of avenues for women. You really only had
you had to get.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Married, right, It's like, well that's the sex work does
seem like one of really the only routes for Holly
to live the life that she wanted to live at
that time, because it it seems like if her motivation,
her ultimate motivation is she's waiting for her brother to
get out of the army so that they can go
off and live together. And she's trying to save so

(53:44):
she doesn't want to be tied down because that means
when Fred gets out of the army, then they can't
go through with the plan. And so, yeah, she has
so few options. She doesn't have an education, she's.

Speaker 4 (53:56):
Never been to a library, like yeah, yeah, and she
is like coming from a trauma background and I don't
don't think she has a lot of And honestly, like
that was that was like a valid career path, Like
marrying rich is like a valid career path to get
out of shit.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
I mean women used to go to college to meet
their husbands so.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
That you can like try to move up in class,
move up in your station. She's already pretty wild that
she got out of she's in Alabama.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
Right, I don't know if she's from Texas that she
got he's from Alabama.

Speaker 4 (54:31):
Okay, Yeah, that she got out of there anyway to
go in the sixties to be in New York.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Yeah, Like it's a miracle then she and like a
testament to her own, you know, like cleverness and tenaciousness,
that she is able to live the life she has,
even though it is unsustainable and requires constant like hustling,
et cetera. I don't know. I think I left this
viewing with a better understanding of Holly. I still like that.

(55:01):
I still like the movie. It's darker and sadder than
I remember, and I think that's like a super common
I know, way to.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
Forget sadder and darker than I think people who only
look at it for the esthetic give it credit.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
For yeah, you know, and it goes without saying, but
we should say it is a very white movie. It
is the most prominent non white character is played by
a white person. So there you go. That is just
a version of New York that only exists in fiction
and is frustrating.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
To write and of, you know, as we come up
upon on almost every movie we encounter a very hetero movie.
And I think it had the movie like adapted the
character of Paul as I mean, but then we like.

Speaker 4 (55:50):
Then you don't get the love story well, which.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
Is fine for me, but I also don't necessarily want
like I mean, and this is you know, early sixties,
so if there is a gay character, they would have
to be coded gay because of the production code, like
you know, that wouldn't have flown. But I just, man,
I haven't read the book.

Speaker 4 (56:08):
Is he still fucking the wife even though he's gay,
he's coded as gay?

Speaker 2 (56:12):
I don't know. I haven't I didn't reread the book
before this. I just went to read the He is
definitely still like coded as a sex worker. So I
think that, yeah, it's possible that he was having sex
with Valenson because she is a character in the novella
A double check. Yeah, how explicit because it seems like
even more so in the book than in the movie.
There's I don't think it would say explicitly that he's

(56:35):
fucking her. Yeah, right, so my guess is it would
be more implications. Okay, yeah, interesting.

Speaker 4 (56:43):
It would have been a cool movie if if he
was coded as gay and they just helped each other
as friends. That's interesting.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
Or it would have been even cooler if he was
just allowed to be explicitly gay and then they were just.

Speaker 4 (56:55):
Well yeah, I'm talking about nineteen sixty right right now,
you remake it. Now he's just like played who's he
played by Billy Eichner.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
Right, well, even in the book, he does say in
the book that he's in love with Holly Golightly, but
it is open interpretation of like what kind of love
for he's bisexual? Right, we don't know.

Speaker 4 (57:15):
We don't know.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Capote's dead. He cannot tell us. And on that note,
let's take a quick break and we'll be back in
a second. And here we are.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
We're back, We're back.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
Does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie?

Speaker 4 (57:36):
No, I mean, I'm trying to remember if if it
passes the Bechdel test, but we'll get there.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
The only other female character that gets to speak, I'm
pretty sure, is that female police officer when Holly's arrested.
She goes nuck it off, and I was like, oh,
a woman spoke a female police officer.

Speaker 4 (57:58):
Though, yes, hey, very progressive.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Shere's no female detectives, but a female arresting officer.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
Yes, there's also a female librarian who keeps yelling at
Holly because she's never been in a library before and
doesn't know that she needs to keep her voice down.
So yeah, let's talk about if the movie passes the
Bechdel Tester or not. There are very few scenes where
women interact.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
Mag Wildwood and Holly.

Speaker 3 (58:21):
At the party.

Speaker 4 (58:22):
Party.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
I had that conversation is not passing because they mentioned
mister Unioshi and the two mens that the Mag brings
to the party, Jose and Rusty So and.

Speaker 4 (58:36):
She's talking to them and Audrey Hepburn says, you're being
a bore and that's kind of the only right.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
So I didn't have that scene as passing, Jamie, you
said I.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Had, Holly mag Darling, you're being a bore. Mag says,
shut up, but that does.

Speaker 4 (58:55):
And then she talks to Emily Ustace whatever, what's her life?

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Hale.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
They talk in the beginning with Paul when they meet outside.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
Well, I didn't know that.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
Paul introduces them. Holly says how do you do? And
missus Vallinson says how do you do? But doesn't look
at her. She looks away because she hates her so much.

Speaker 4 (59:16):
Then he says, oh, this is my interior decorator.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, But that's all they that's that. It's
just like, how do you do? How do you do?
We see a few women interacting at Holly's party, but
we don't know any of their names. Holly does talk
about that librarian, but we never learned her name, or
the police officer or the police officer. Yeah, and I
don't think she and the police officer are actually interactive,
more like a side by side like yeah, so yeah,
I guess there are a couple two line exchanges that

(59:40):
technically pass the Bechdel test, but.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
Given the movie, it should do a lot better.

Speaker 4 (59:44):
You would think, yeah, yeah, and I think Mickey Rooney's
character should just decimate like that's like negative one thousand points. Yeah, yeah,
so any points you've earned, Yeah, it's a negative one thousand.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
Well, shall we the movie on our Nipples scale for
new listeners. We have a special rating scale that we've
devised to judge the movies that we've talked about.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Yes, it is called the nipple scale. Get used to
that phrase. You'll be hearing it a lot. It is
where Kayla, myself and our guest I'll rate the movie
we just discussed on a scale of zero to five
nipples based on how the movie treats its female characters,
not on how much you like the movie. The best
part of the Nipple scale is you get to describe
them in fact, you have to to describe them, and

(01:00:33):
you get to give them two characters in the movie,
or Alfa Malina if you want to right, Yep.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
So that's our nipple scale for me. I think I'm
gonna give it one nipple. I think it's interesting to
explore a story about a woman who's a sex worker
who falls in love with another sex worker. I think
that this movie, though, and it could be due to
some restrictions of the era and the production code and
things like that, but I think it doesn't do a

(01:01:00):
whole lot to explore all the interesting facets of that premise.
Number one. Number two. I think that Holly go Lightly
is a bad person who is careless and who mistreats people,
and she's like a prototype of the very annoying manic
pixie dreamgirl trope that we've come across several times and
that I don't especially care for. I think that her

(01:01:23):
desires and her motivations are arguably not that well defined,
and everything we do know about her and what she
wants is tied to a man in some way. She
wants to marry a rich man so that she can
take care of her brother, so at least that motivation
isn't entirely selfish, but men are still the source of
her desires, her motivations, and pretty much all she does

(01:01:45):
on screen is talk about men. And then also after
her brother dies, she just goes right back to wanting
to marry a rich dude. So it feels like just
kind of inconsistent and sort of like negates the motivations
that had been established for her earlier. Then finally it
takes a different man, Paul, to basically fix her and

(01:02:06):
to inspire her character arc. Also, and we didn't really
talk about this that much, but her relationships to the
other women in the movie are generally like very petty,
very caddy. It's like women feeling though they have to
compete against each other, women not treating each other with
kindness and respect. So it just kind of reinforces those
stereotypes of like women are always fighting, women are caddy

(01:02:29):
towards each other. And I understand that this is a
movie that came out many decades ago. Things were very
different back then. Historical context was very different back then,
but I still find that there's not that much redeemable
about the character of Holly, about the movie itself. I
just think that it could have gone in much more

(01:02:49):
interesting directions, explored her experience in a more interesting way,
had it so that everything that she does and wants
to do isn't tied to men in some way. So
one nipple from me and I will give it to
missus Fallonson because she is pretty dope femino Psyiconvalencin.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Yes, I man, I hope that I'm not being too generous.
I'm wanting to give it a two or two and
a half. Yeah, I'm gonna go with it doesn't matter.
The thing is that's a metric and it doesn't matter.
But I'm so stressed sor right now, I'm gonna give
it two and a half. I mean, it goes without
saying that the way this movie treats race, especially in

(01:03:34):
regards to Mickey Rooney's character, is abhorrent and terrible and
bad and there's no excuse for it. I agree that
this movie should have it cut entirely, and it wouldn't
have much of a difference on the movie. Yeah, but
as it pertains to the treatment of women specifically, I
do think that Holly golightly, I think she does have
a motivation and I think that she it is clearly.

(01:03:58):
She comes by her fault in a way that is
clearly explained by the movie and is grounded, and she
loses points for the manic pixie dream girl stuff, and
the movie loses points for how it sort of botches
the third act. I think in a lot of ways,
in the way that the message of being emotionally vulnerable

(01:04:20):
is communicated as ownership to a man, and you know,
the last fifteen minutes. I have a lot of issues
of how her characters treated, but in the way that
she's built and the portrayal of sex work, even though
it can't be explicitly stated in movies at all, at
this point, she's treated with respect. I think she's called

(01:04:42):
out for faults in ways that for the most part,
with the exception of her being called crazy, with the
exception of her being chased out of her own apartment,
with the exception of her romantic interest bringing her rapist
to her door, with the exception of those things, she
she is for the most part treated as if not

(01:05:03):
with respect, because she's not necessarily treat with respect. But
I do think she is treated as like a capable
character who for most of the movie has agency in
how she lives her life given the restraints that are
put on her by the world and the era.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
Yeah, I think I'm I'm ignoring like the time period
and the socioeconomic cultural situation of the early sixties.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Yeah, I think that there's a lot of stuff that
she doesn't do here, But at the time, I think
it's like it implied just because this is the world
that it came out, and that she couldn't do that
and that wasn't an option for her really at all.
So I'm gonna give it two and a half nipples.
I do like Holly, and I love missus Phalinson, and
so I'm gonna give a nip to miss Phalenson, a

(01:05:52):
nip to Holly, and then I'm gonna toss half a
nip to the one who goes knock it up. I
liked her a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:06:02):
I agree with everything Jamie said. You put it really well,
and I just think it's so cool. In a lot
of the old movies that I really love, I'm constantly
surprised by the way women are portrayed and that they
are just speaking purely in terms of being sexual beings,
Like the way that they're portrayed as like being allowed

(01:06:23):
to be that way, And I guess I had this
idea in my mind of women kind of only being
these like fifties or early sixties kind of like housewives,
And so I'm constantly or even like that pre marital
sex might be seen as bad, but like that, there's
so many characters and especially typified by hollygood lightly but
just in a lot of these older movies, there's so

(01:06:43):
many female characters whose motivations are sex or who like
are having sex. And when I started watching old movies,
I was really surprised by that because it's today seen
as such a thing. Like women like movies where women
are sexual are like given a standing ovation, And I'm like,
but we've been doing this. I don't know why, like

(01:07:05):
we have this. I think people haven't watched a lot
of these old movies, so they see it a certain way,
and they think that this movie is about like an
upscale woman in a tiara who just buys things from Tiffany's,
and like, they haven't watched it, so they don't know
that it's actually about like class and trauma and like
sex work and you know, all these things that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
And that she doesn't buy anything from Tiffany.

Speaker 4 (01:07:26):
She does.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
No purchase.

Speaker 4 (01:07:30):
She doesn't even eat breakfast inside you guys. Although fun fact,
this is like the first time Tiffany's allowed anyone to
film inside of Tiffany's.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Oh no kidding, that's cool.

Speaker 4 (01:07:39):
So yeah, So I just and I and that we
never we almost never see male sex workers treated with
respect or like, you know, male sex workers who are
with women, although I guess that show hung but like.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Who's in that show to miss Jane?

Speaker 4 (01:07:58):
Wow, if I got that right, that would be incredible.
And so I just think it's surprising, like maybe I'm
giving it too maybe I'm gonna give it three nipples,
and maybe I'm giving it too many nipples because I
was just so shocked by how chill the movie was
about so many things. Yeah, and for its era, and
how like misunderstood it is by like anyone who's ever

(01:08:23):
had a poster of it in their dorm room.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
It is Thomas Jane by the.

Speaker 4 (01:08:27):
Way, Wow, guys, take me on your trivia team. I
know so much useless stuff and so and I think
it's trying as hard as it can for its time.
I will give it negative five thousand nipples for Mickey Rooney. Yes,
and I can't even begin to imagine what they were thinking.

(01:08:50):
I guess they thought it was it was a comic
relief even racism aside, which it never is. But it
tonally does not fit with the rest of the movie.
It takes so away from the movie. Even if even
if the role was played by an Asian actor, even
if the role was toned down by fifty percent, it
would still tonally not fit in with the rest of the.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
Movie for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:09:11):
As a like screenwriter, it doesn't make any sense to me,
There's no point to it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
The party scene also seems totally inconsistent because there's some
like slapsticky physical humor there.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:09:23):
Just I was like, what is this supposed to be funny?
Like what I think this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
Movie was supposed to be like a rom COMI thing
of its time, But the rom and the calm feels
so separate. But it's just yeah, there's no there's no overlap.

Speaker 4 (01:09:36):
Yeah yeah, So some of the characters feel very grounded,
and then some of the characters are in a different
movie right, and that is either poor screenwriting or poor
directing or.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
A fun mix. Who are you giving your nipples too?

Speaker 4 (01:09:53):
Two to Failstein Failingstein, She rocks one to all you
go lightly, I guess the nipple only go to women.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
They can go to anywhere you want to, men, animals,
people who aren't even in the movie objects.

Speaker 4 (01:10:08):
I want to give one to the cat idea, I
want one to the cat. Absolutely, the cat is wonderful.
It did its own stunts.

Speaker 3 (01:10:15):
That was That was such good acting by that cat.

Speaker 4 (01:10:18):
That cat ruled. I mean the scene where the scene
where the cat's playing with the cigarette that I mean,
that cat was trained so well. I loved it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
The cat was wet and didn't freak out care. Yeah,
you're just like, what is what is this? Cat's a
star acharcter a cacter.

Speaker 4 (01:10:36):
Yeah, cat actor.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
Anyway, all right, well, Gabby, thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
For being here.

Speaker 4 (01:10:42):
Yeah, thanks for having me, and thanks for doing a
movie that you fucking hate.

Speaker 3 (01:10:47):
You're so welcome. I'm happy to make the sacrifice for
this podcast and for you, Gabby.

Speaker 4 (01:10:53):
Oh I just I wanted to try to get like
something super old in here. Yeah, just for your your
fans that are like seventy to eighty, like really your
demo which.

Speaker 3 (01:11:04):
We have so many of us. Yeah, I'm sure shout
out to our older fans. Thank you so much for listening. Gabby,
where can people follow you online? Do you have anything
you'd like to plug?

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
Oh? Sure.

Speaker 4 (01:11:15):
My podcast Bad with Money is currently on season three.
It's out now and it's about money, but it's tries
not to be stressful, just trying to break the taboo. Guys,
thank you. And I'm on Twitter at Gabby Done and
on Instagram at Gabby Road because I don't understand branding. Yeah,

(01:11:36):
and then I had a book come out last year
called I Hate Everyone But You and it was a
New York Times bestseller and it's a ya novel but
also like a novel regular and you can get that
wherever books are sold.

Speaker 3 (01:11:48):
Yeah, oh yeah, not at Tiffany's though, they don't sell books.

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
Not at tiffany.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
You can go to a lot, you can go the
library though, but you should buy. You should buy Gabby's book.

Speaker 4 (01:11:57):
Get to Tiffany's, get it engraved.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
Yes, you can find us. We are now in the
house stuff Works Network. Wow exciting. We're network girls, We're
little bitches. But you can also still find us on
our Matreon, Patreon dot com slash Bechdelcast. Five bucks a
month gets you two extra episodes. Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
Amazing for our new listeners. You can follow us on
social media at Bechdel Cast on both Twitter and Instagram,
and we also have a Facebook page just called the
Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
Nothing Tricky, Nothing Tricky. You can find me on Twitter
dot com at Jamie Loftis Help.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
And you can find me at Caitlin Dorante. And then
for our existing listeners, thanks for always being here, Thanks
for all of your support.

Speaker 4 (01:12:45):
Thank you guys for doing this show. It's so fun.

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
I love it, you love doing it, and we're glad
you could be here on your upgrade.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
Thank you so much. And I said, what about breakfast
at Tiffany's?

Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
And I said, I think I remember the film, and
as I recall, we both kind of liked it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:06):
Well, you recall correctly because I did not like it.
But that is still one thing we've got that passed
the Victal test.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
Yay, good eye