Can't Hardly Wait with Shelli Nicole

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Burn attention Beck to Gast listeners.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
We're going on tour.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
We really are. And it's not just any tour. It's
a tour in the UK and it's a tour where
we are covering Titanic and.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Shrek, brilliantly titled the Shrek Tannic Tour.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yes, Shrek Tornic. We're working on it.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
There's a couple there's a couple months before the tour,
but yes, we're really excited. We're currently doing five shows
in the UK, with more shows to be added.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Stay tuned at the end of May.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yes, starting with two shows in London on May twenty second.
On's at six point thirty that's a Shrek show, one
at nine pm that is a Titanic show. Then we
are scooting over to Oxford on May twenty fourth we
are covering Titanic. Okay, that show is a part of

(00:58):
the Saint Audio Podcast Festival in Oxford, so be sure
to check out our show as well as other shows
at the festival. Then we're scooting up to Edinburgh on
May twenty sixth and doing Shtrek.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
If you're a Scottish Titanic fan, you are going to
have to commute and I know that that's not but listen, yeah,
you live in Edinburgh recovering Shrek.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but also you're welcome. And then
if you do want to see Titanic, you can head
down to Manchester. We're doing a show on May twenty eighth,
and that's a Titanic show. So yeah, you're just gonna
want to come to kind of all of them if
you live in the UK, if you live kind of
anywhere in Europe, or sort of just anywhere in the world.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
As your Bechdel Cast allies in the US can attest to.
Our live shows are super fun. It is like a
live episode plus a bunch of fun stuff. We dress up,
we bring audience members on stage sometimes we do. It's
just it's big and goofy and silly, and we're covering
two of our favorite movies that are Bechdel Cast can

(02:09):
and so we want to have a good time. We'll
be bringing exclusive merch and we will be doing meet
and greets before and after the show.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
We want to meet everybody.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
And we're really really excited and tickets are already going
fast because we released it to Matrons first, plugging the
Patreon really quick.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Little perk for the matrons. Yep.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
So if you live in those areas, get those dang
tickets because these shows will sell out.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yes they will. So head over to our link Tree
Link Tree slash Bechdel Cast, grab your tickets for the
Shrek Tanic.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
And enjoy the episode.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
On the Doodcast, the questions asked if movies have women
and are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or
do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy and bast start
changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Jamie Caitlyn, I wrote you a letter because I'm in
love with you? What? And do you know why?

Speaker 4 (03:16):
No?

Speaker 1 (03:16):
You don't even know me. No, I do, and you don't.
I know that you love strawberry pop tarts and that
I love strawberry pop tarts and that's enough fun what.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
I unfortunately not to break the bechel test immediately, but
I sent that scene to my boyfriend and I was like, wow,
we sort of had that conversation at one point. It
was like the first night he stayed over at my
house and I was like, oh, do you want any breakfast?

Speaker 2 (03:43):
I have three pop.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Tarts and he's like, wow, that's all I have at
my house meant to be. We should keep this thing
going and never improve as individuals.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
It's kind of nice.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Uh so all that to say teenagers are swart. Actually,
this movie is so bizarre. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Derante.
This is our show where we examine movies through an
intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test as a jumping
off point for a larger discussion. The Bechdel Test is

(04:21):
a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, often
called the Bechdel Wallace Test since she collaborated on it
with her friend Liz Wallace.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
That makes it.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Sound like it was like this big project. It was
not that it was just a throwaway Joe.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
It was just kind of a day that they had.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
In Alison Bechdel's Ducks to Watch out for from the
mid eighties. There are many versions of the test. The
one that we use is this, do two characters of
a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each
other about something other than a man? And ideally for us,
is it a nice, meaty conversation and not just throwaway Dialogue.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Today we are covering a much requested movie and I'll
say it, but a much requested guest.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
I feel that I'm just excited to bring her in.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
The vibes on our episodes with this guest are just
sort of unmatched.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
It's like chaotic good yes. And also I would say
very Shrekian.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
And not for nothing, not for nothing. Read the byline.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
It's right there, it's right there. She's a culture writer.
You can see her work on Substack at High Shelley
as well as Architectural Digest and Vogue. You know her
from episodes on Buffaloed and Empire Records. It's Shelley Nicole.

Speaker 5 (05:49):
Hi. I'm so happy I'm back.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Welcome back, I hike.

Speaker 5 (05:53):
You forget about the Shrekian How could I? I mean,
I need to put the mic down now because that's
so rude for me.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Has that not become your professional byeline?

Speaker 5 (06:03):
It is? It is. Now Now that I'm solo and
on my own, I'm changing my substack from Hi Shelley
to exactly.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
That, Hi Shreky, Hi Shreky exactly.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
I mean theoretically, I mean, you know, Shrek five is
allegedly in production, so if you're pitching yourself for reviewing it.
I mean, you're like, well, who who are you gonna
hire over Shreky.

Speaker 5 (06:27):
Herself better than me? I would love to go to
a premiere of that. Wow, that would be so great.
Oh my first interview. Guys, I'm gonna do it now
that I know it exists. You're gonna make substacks send me.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
I'm gonna.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
I'm currently spending so much like not it. I mean
I haven't done anything, but I just think about it
a lot of Like Despicable before comes out July third,
How hard could it be to get invited to that?
Like I have, I like, I do have to go.
I have Shrek news for everyone.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
What?

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Oh my god, tell us I was at the mall
the other day, right brag.

Speaker 5 (07:04):
I love that sentence. I love that very nineteen ninety
eight of you. I love this sentence. It's true.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
I'm studying the scene. I was at a store called
box Lunch.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Who knows.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Oh, I know it's it's sort of like hot topic, but.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Like a little but I think it's like quieter.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Quiet it's not quite so hot.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
I guess it's like a warm topic kind of thing.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought that this was literally
gonna be like a sweet green or something like that.
I didn't know, like hot topics, like conservative sisters.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Kind of yeah, like it's it is. It's it's like
a hot topic. Got a desk job.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
But it's still all like weirdly like merchandisee like merchandized stuff.
And they had a Shrek section and they had this
a Shrek instruction, you could say, And there was this
unbelove believable sweater that was like a full cable knit
sweater with like huge knit onions all over it, and

(08:08):
then on the back.

Speaker 5 (08:09):
Was Shrek like three D onions.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Three D onions, like huge onion like pom poms.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Oh my gosh, it was really wait, jamis for the Shrek.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
And with like a huge amount of disposable income.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Was this at the Glendale Galleria? Yes, okay, good, let's
go there and buy it.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
It's called a business expense. Gosh, I'm looking for Okay, here,
I'm gonna put it in the chat. It is sixty
five dollars, I guess for it A.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Nice five dollars. I'm like for a sweater you'll wear
every day for the rest of your life.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Maybe I mean small price to pay.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
Maybe there's also a Shrek hockey Tracy.

Speaker 5 (08:50):
Okay, see, this isn't as bad as I thought it
was gonna be.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
I think it's tasteful. I think you could wear it
to like parent teacher conferences.

Speaker 5 (08:59):
Yeah, like, yes, I'm the parent, and people will be like,
I feel like someone should call the FEDS because this
child is not okay, this child is not in a
happy home.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Oh well, okay, let's talk about well that we're all
caught up. So today we're talking about can't hardly wait
from nineteen ninety eight. Now, I didn't mean for that
to rhyme.

Speaker 5 (09:25):
I was gonna be like, that was very cool, your kid,
It was very cool. Yeah, it was very nice.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Anyway, So Shelley, what is your relationship with this movie?

Speaker 5 (09:35):
I saw this movie when I was in middle school
because it made me want to go It made me
excited to go to high school, or you know what
I'm saying, Like I think I had seen a lot
of movies that year because I was looking it up,
like when this movie came out, what else came out?
A Dead Man on Campus came out this year or too,
which a lot of people don't believe me. When I

(09:57):
talk about it that it is a real movie, s
like Zach Morris, Yeah, and it's got quite a plot.
One of my favorite teen movies came out. The Faculty
came out, featuring like usher disturbing behavior with like a
bad girl crop top Katie Holmes. So all of those
were like I was like, oh, it's kind of like

(10:18):
bad high school or scary high school or whatever. But
this one was so sweet and had like I know,
it's a bunch of silliness in it, but it had
like a cute little love story and stuff. And I
saw it. I rented it a blockbuster, of course, and
when I did rent it, it became one of the
movies that I always rented, like because I would rent

(10:39):
like two or three movies at a time, and I
would try to get a new one and then like
one where I'm like, I'm just going to watch this
all weekend and I'm gonna fuck this DVD up, like,
but I love this movie, yeah, And then that's my
relationship to it. Nothing really queer based, really, because I
was trying to think of that. I will say this
is one of the first movies I all that I

(11:01):
knew my answer to like do I want to like
be her, kiss her. I knew I wanted to be
Amanda Beckett and and a lot of the other movies
I saw. I was like, very confused this one right
out the gate. I was like, I just want to
be her, loved her tank top, love the hair I wear.
Hair sounds like this to this day. But yeah, I

(11:24):
just like, I love this movie so much. I love
also stand by it. I stand by the fact that
I think that this movie has one of the greatest
soundtracks I have ever heard in a teen film.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
It's good, the boldness require to do the same smash
mouthed needle drop twice.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
You're like, yes, what is this a Shrek movie?

Speaker 5 (11:47):
Shrek wait?

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Is Shrek ad opening on a.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Smash shrekd It's like it was Shrek before. I feel
like Shrek Saw can hardly waves. Like here's how my
feels like has to open.

Speaker 5 (11:58):
I need that. I mean, it's aligned. I mean, I'm
just saying, but this movie is like fucking incredible, and
I think it's the first time I also saw hazy
moments in movies, like for some reason, when Amanda or
Jennifer Love Hewitt, famous three named actress.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yes, I mean this was the era.

Speaker 5 (12:19):
Yeah, she got like RuPaul Season one drag race lighting
in a lot of the moments where she was like
monologuing her ass off. But yeah, I love this movie
so much. I love this movie.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Oh Jamie, how about you? What's your history?

Speaker 3 (12:34):
I'd never seen it. I'd never seen this movie before.
I jealous. I don't know, like why, because I found
I had seen a lot of the ninety teen movies.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
This is just one that I hadn't seen for whatever reason.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
My personal connection to it is that I was employed
by Seth Green for two years. Wow, so i'd certainly
and I've written with well, I mean, Breckenmeier's not in
this movie very much, but like we were in the
same writer's room for a chunk of time. So I
have like an attachment to two of the guys in

(13:11):
the movie. And then also like without this movie is
you know, and I guess it wasn't a success at
the time it came out, but without this movie, we
wouldn't have Josie and the Pussycats, And so I knew.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
It was Like, even if I don't love.

Speaker 5 (13:23):
It, I have to honor its place in history because
the director directors, Harry Elphont and Deborah Kaplan, who wrote
and directed this movie also wrote and directed Josie and
the Pussycats. Yeah that's so cool, right, I did not
know that.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
I Yeah, I really enjoyed this movie. I thought it
was I think, like, you know, the places where it's
dated is really you know, dated obviously. But I like
this movie, especially because we've covered a lot of teen
movies of this era.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
I think it's.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Doing a lot more than I expected in terms of
like showing it giving its characters some depth and some grace,
and like, I don't know any teen movie that ends
in a somewhat gray area I'm really intrigued by because
it's just like, not what happens. It's like it ends
with like a kiss and you will die with this teenager.

Speaker 5 (14:17):
Like smash cuts. It's twenty five years later, they're.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Still together, right or like or a bet or a
lie or whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Right, So it's like there, this movie's you know, trafficking
heavily in like stereotyped high school characters. But I feel
like it's doing a little more in terms of like
showing us the shades of gray to these characters.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
I think if I had seen this.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
As a teenager, I would have been like wow, Preston
and Amanda. As an adult, I'm so underwhelmed by President
and Amanda. I'm like, Amanda, what are you doing? What
are you doing? Yeah, the reality hasn't like I have.
I mean, I think, well, we probably all feel the
same way. But like she was so right and the
way she like cut him down to size and then

(15:00):
she read. I was like, well, sure he wrote a
nice letter because he's a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut,
question mark, was he famous for love letters?

Speaker 2 (15:08):
No, but like he has the.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Romantic stylings of Kurt Vonnicut, but like nothing, he still
doesn't know her.

Speaker 5 (15:17):
She was right.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Yeah, so yeah, anyways, I thought this movie was fun
and good and I love Lauren Ambrose.

Speaker 5 (15:26):
Literally love Lauren Ambrose. I was gonna talk about how
like Dyke coded this movie and that character is she's
going to NYU. She's like wearing all black, she's giving
like Clea Duval light. You know, it's also in this movie.
He's also two second movie. It's great, everybody's in this movie.

(15:47):
Everyone is in this movie. Everyone.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
And I say this with love I feel, but it's
like I think the in teen comedies today because we
have covered like some modern teen movies.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Everyone does look so perfect and I.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
Like that, Like, I mean, even though some of them
are kind of maybe visibly in their twenties, it's still
like I'm like, how do I say this in a
way that feels respectful, But like I like when they're like, yeah,
they're playing teenagers, they can kind of look like shit
and like be wearing confusing outfits and.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Like be sweaty, and.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
Like it feels like such a cool like because this
is Debora Kaplan and Harry Elphont's first feature, and it's
like you can tell they're not working with a lot
of money, so sometimes people.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
Are just sweating.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Yeah, and Jason Siegel's there, and I guess we'll allow it.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah why not? Yeah, I don't know. I'm excited to
talk about it. Uh, Cantlee, what's your history with this movie?

Speaker 1 (16:43):
I had seen it a couple of times before prepping
for the episode. It wasn't something that was like in
heavy rotation for me. But I saw it, I think
for the first time in probably college. I don't think
I saw it when I was still in high school,
so I was by the time I saw it for
the first time. I was just like high school, I
already did that, I'm not impressed. And then I feel

(17:06):
like I saw it again within the past five years.
I don't know what would have necessarily compelled me to
rewatch it. Maybe just because I was like, I love
Josie and the Pussycats and I want to be more
familiar with those filmmakers work. So I watched it again,
and I was reminded that it's like, like you were saying,
Jamie a more I would say, a slightly more subversive

(17:29):
version of like a teen ensemble cast movie.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
I was reading because I was having like.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
A half baked version of this thought. And then I
was reading the big retrospective of this movie that was
published in The Ringer like five years ago or so.
And Deborah and Harry because we're friends and so let's
just call them Deborah and Harry. They said, they're like
our inspiration for this was what if the party scene

(17:59):
from Say Say He was a movie? And I was like,
this movie has so much say anything energy to it,
like the the friendship between Preston and Denise felt very
say anything, because that's like another thing teen movies famously
can't do is like friends of the opposite gender not
getting married at.

Speaker 5 (18:19):
The end of the movie. That's so cool to know.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Preston and Denise are so cool. Like it reminds me
so much of friendships that I had where it's like
there's like not not any sexual tension.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
Between them that part.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, but it's clear they're never going to act on
it and like it's never gonna happen. I was like, ooh,
I definitely was friends. I had those friendships where.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Sometimes you're like stop and then you're like, oh.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
I hate it.

Speaker 5 (18:47):
I love the extra like puh, Like it's very that
and I think so too, because it's super like you know,
it's not not there, but they're never gonna act on
it for the sake of like we're such friends. Like
this would was so weird. It would have quite literally
ruin and I'm going to n yu. So I can't

(19:10):
like deal with.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
That, like and honestly, like, you don't want to Kurt
Vonnaget boyfriend going into college dead way, don't.

Speaker 5 (19:19):
No, not when you already wear like leather jacket and
lace like unronically to a teen party with your like
haircut and no, it's just no, no, I love that
character though.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
She's so cool. Right, all right, let's take a quick
break and then we'll come back for the.

Speaker 2 (19:38):
Recap and we're back.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Okay, Ready, here we go. It's high school graduation and
all the teens are talking about a huge party that night,
and there's a rumor going around that Mike Dexter also.

Speaker 5 (20:07):
I was like, okay, oh my god, the last Lennon boyfriend. Yes,
astronaut Mike Dexter from thirty Rock.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, yes, unbelievably distracting, so distracting, incredibly because I was like,
why do I Why do I know that name?

Speaker 5 (20:23):
Why do I know this name? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Is there any real I'm like, did they just pick
two first names?

Speaker 3 (20:30):
Like?

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Or is that?

Speaker 5 (20:31):
Like?

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Was there a writer at thirty Rock, like a fan
of this movie? Really bizarre?

Speaker 1 (20:37):
We don't know, but you know, one of the main
characters is named basically astronaut Mike Dexter. He has dumped
Amanda Beckett and it's a big deal. All the teens
are talking about it. And then when Preston Myers played
by Ethan Embry, learns this, he is elated because he
has a huge crush on Amanda and he is his

(21:00):
best friend Denise played by Lauren Ambrose, that he wants
to finish what he started with Amanda four years priori,
which turns out to be nothing.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
And if that sounds like a threat, it kind of really.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
He's not not stalking her.

Speaker 5 (21:20):
Very sinister retelling of the plot.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, So we see a flashback where Preston like misses
his chance to give her a tour of the school
on her first day of school because she moved there
freshman year, and Mike Dexter gives her the tour instead,
which led them to getting together. So Preston missed out
on his chance, but now that Amanda is single, Preston

(21:46):
is going to make a move. Meanwhile, we meet astronaut
Mike Dexter, who is played by Peter Fatchinelli aka Carlisle
Cullen from Twilight.

Speaker 5 (21:59):
Yeah, but this movie is so rooted in like teendum,
you know what I mean? Because also the teacher in
like the flashback scene when he was me she was
one of the og pink ladies from Greece. She's one
of the ones who sings like the toothbrush song in Grease.
This movie is like rooted in teen film history and

(22:23):
to then have this Cullen come on Hello.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
I'm really like fascinated by like, and I don't I'm
sure that it's like rarely intentional, but like an actor
that is just like a mainstay of like coming of age,
like through their career, like Luke Perry comes to mind,
like through his career he was always in teen stuff,
even when he was fifty, and you're just like, it's

(22:49):
just where he thrives.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Who knows why, It's just where he thrives.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
You know, we all have our little.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
Niche yes, And I feel like, you know, Peter Facinelli's
same energy he was on he was on Supergirl, like oh.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
He yeah, he's for the teens who can.

Speaker 5 (23:05):
Say why, oh well, Mike Dexter, he's this like jock
bro dude, asshole type and he encourages his other shitty
jock friends to break up with their girlfriends like he
just did, and they're.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
Like, yeah, that's a great idea. These girls are holding
us back. Also, one of the jock friends is Sean
Patrick Thomas from Save the Last Dance, which we just covered.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
So that was a nineties jump. Scarrow wasn't prepared for it,
but I was like, of course.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
He's there.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Then we meet William Lichter played by Charlie Coursmo. He's
the class valedictorian. He hates Mike Dexter for bullying him
for years, and so William and his like quote unquote
nerd friends are plotting this like revenge scheme, Revenge of
the Nerds.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Much. It does have like a little bit of Incelli.

Speaker 5 (24:05):
Agy, yeah very much. That. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Anyway, they're planning this scheme against Mike Dexter and his
jock friends at the party that night. Then we meet
Kenny Fisher, that's Seth Green and his friends. And the
thing about them is that they are white kids who
are appropriating black culture.

Speaker 5 (24:28):
And they are like called Homeboy number one in Homeboy
number two in the like oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
The character titles on this movie. It's a mess. Yeah,
it's a mess.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
It's messy. And then the other thing with Kenny Fisher
is that he is like desperate to have sex with
basically any girl at the party, and he has this
whole backpack full of like lube and condoms and candles
and all this like sex paraphernalia.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
He's got like the sex equivalent of a go bag.
Like it's just really.

Speaker 5 (25:05):
The fact that it like flaps open to like it
en zips all the way. Something about that never sat
right with me because I was like, book bags don't
do that, so that must be for something naughty.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Another bizarrely sinister element of this movie.

Speaker 5 (25:22):
Yes, the boys in this movie are scary kind of.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
Across the board, like I'm not rooting for a single
one of them.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Nope. Okay. So people start arriving at the party, including
Preston and Denise, and Preston feels really good about his
chances at getting with Amanda Beckett, partly because he hears
a Barry Manilow song Mandy on the radio and he's like,
that's basically the same name as Amanda, so he takes
it as a sign that he should give her a letter,

(25:54):
like a love letter that he wrote for Amanda. When
we finally see Amanda on screen for the first time,
she's played by Jennifer Love Hewitt. She shows up at
the party and Preston's like, Okay, I'm gonna go give
her my letter, but he's still trying to work up
the nerve. He keeps missing opportunities. Then Amanda talks to

(26:16):
her cousin about her breakup and how oh yeah.

Speaker 5 (26:21):
Yeah, yeah, it's just I don't know if this is
where the cousin stuff started, like you know how it
ends up in Mean Girls Too, but like, oh yeah, no,
thank you please.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
That I mean, first of all, fuck this guy because
he full on assaults her, and also fuck Preston because
Preston walks in.

Speaker 5 (26:38):
And does not nothing, do anything, nothing.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
And I know I know that he's like assuming that
they're hooking up, but it's like she's visibly struggling and.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
He's like and he's like, oh, she doesn't like me.
I was like, you don't like her, she's gotta assault it.
You're not doing anything, you fucking lose her.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, So what happens here is that her cousin, Amanda's
talking to him about her breakup and how it has
like affected her sense of identity and who is she
if she's not Mike's girlfriend, and then he responds by
like surprise, incest kissing her and she's like, what the fuck, dude,

(27:18):
And then Preston walks in at the exact wrong moment.
He assumes that, you know, she's just kissing another guy,
and then he's hurt by this and Preston throws the
letter away.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Then Preston leaves the party and he's like moping about
how she isn't supposed to be with someone else, She's
supposed to be with him because he believes in fate
and how there's like one person for each of us.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
Right, and all of his stuff basically boils down to like,
she needs to be with me because I said so, Like,
that's all it is.

Speaker 5 (27:50):
Because I fell in love with you when you walked
in one time. In over four years, that love has
simply just grown. And I know I could have talked
to you at a locker or like a game or whatever.
I've never been through this many rewrites in my entire
life that he has in this like letter.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, because he says he's rewritten it like a thousand
times or something like that. I don't know if that's
hyperbole or what, but I'm just like, you've never talked
to her, How do you even know if you like
her anyway? All Right? So then there's a scene where
Preston crosses paths with a stripper dressed as an angel

(28:31):
played by Jenna Elfman.

Speaker 5 (28:33):
Incredible.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
She loved the sentence. Love the scene.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Yea She tells him about this time when she missed
her opportunity to talk to Scott Bao.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
And very nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, and how she's always regretted it, and Preston doesn't
want to make that same mistake, so he heads back
to the party to try to talk to Amanda. Meanwhile,
the valedictorian kid William is getting drunk and letting loose
for the first time. Mike Dexter is annoyed that none

(29:11):
of the other jocks have broken up with their girlfriends yet.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
He's He does not realize how bizarre he seems, just
marching up to couples actively making out and being like, I.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Need to talk to you.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
It's like you are the weirdest man in the entire world.
The movie knows that, but yeah, Mike Dexter doesn't.

Speaker 5 (29:30):
Yeah, he like starts to see hisself getting sadder by
like couple three I think, and then he's like, h
wait a minute, wait.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Did I make a mistake?

Speaker 3 (29:41):
Sometimes I've like when you see just like men do
shit like that, You're like, give me that confidence for
one second. Let me do something that sucked up and
like have no idea.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yep, Okay, So Meanwhile, Denise is wandering around by herself,
having trouble like connecting with anyone. Seth Green is trying
to hit on different girls, mostly to no avail, until
he finds a girl who is willing to go to
the poolhouse with him, so he goes to the bathroom
to like get ready for sex, but then Denise bursts

(30:18):
in and they get stuck in the bathroom together because
the door is broken, and so we see some scenes
with them in the bathroom. Denise calls out Seth Green
what's his character's name, Kenny Kenny Kenny, for being fake,
and she's like, look in the mirror, you're white, and

(30:39):
he's like, what crazy, And then we learn that they
used to be friends, but ever since, like high school
or middle school, they've kind of drifted apart and they
don't talk to each other anymore. Also, Preston's letter to
Amanda kind of fatefully makes its way back into the
house because it's like getting stuck on people's shoes and

(31:02):
like flying around the air, and it ends up right
in front of Amanda, so she picks it up and
reads it and then she's like, wait, who's Preston Myers?

Speaker 5 (31:12):
So she started like exactly exactly who indeed, I like
how They're like, how could you not remember him?

Speaker 3 (31:18):
I'm like, name one memorable quality about it? Sorry about
this child.

Speaker 5 (31:23):
I will say that, like, that scene of the letter
passing has been one of to me, one of like
the coolest scenes I've ever seen in like a seen movie,
because it's just so like I don't know something about it.
I was just like, this is so cool. And I
vividly remember rewinding that scene so many times, like I

(31:45):
just thought it was so cool. I was like, this
is creative flow.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
It's like slightly a Rube Goldberg machine kind of thing
ish or adjacent. Anyway, it is. It's visually fun. And
so she gets the letter and she starts going around
asking people who and where Preston Myers is, but no
one gives her a clear answer. Right Meanwhile, Mike Dexter
talks to Jerry O'Connell, who's in the movie for a

(32:12):
few minutes, and Mike Dexter realizes that maybe it was
a mistake to break up with Amanda based on Jerry
O'Connell being this like former high school stud but now
that he's a college freshman. None of the girls one
a day.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
I'm a dozen, so I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 (32:29):
He is not a freshman. He is thirty thirty.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Well I looked it up. He and he and Seth
are the same age. I think that he just looks more.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
I don't know, he just looks like, uh, he looks
older than he is.

Speaker 5 (32:45):
He looks grown as shit. Yeah. Like because when they
said that, I was like, what, No.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
But the name Trip McNeely again, incredible. Now that isn't
a teenager MCA high school kind of name, like that
kid never existed, but he exists in high school movies exclusively,
Trip McNeely.

Speaker 5 (33:08):
Wasn't there another Trip in another movie? Like a teen movie?
Trip was like two p's. Wait, I'm pretty sure, but
I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
I wrote Trip character. What that's not helpful? Trip Fontaine
from the Virgin Suicide.

Speaker 5 (33:26):
That's who it is, because I am obsessed with the Virgin.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
That was nice, jeeus we did ladies, we did.

Speaker 5 (33:35):
It was that was solid.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
Wow, Josh, that's even the Josh Hartnett character in the
Virgin Suicide.

Speaker 5 (33:43):
Virgin Suicide.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah, we got there. Wow, here's what I did, Trip character.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Then I clicked on the Wikipedia page for Trip. Then
I went to the subsection fictional characters.

Speaker 5 (33:54):
For trip it was that easy, You didn't.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Trip McNeely does not appear on this list.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Unfortunately, Okay, trip erasure much the way. Okay, So Mike
Dexter realizes it was a mistake to break up with Amanda,
so he goes and tries to get back together with
her by surprise kissing her, and she's like ooh, no,
like we're through and you're an egotistical asshole. And then

(34:23):
after that, because like everyone was watching this whole scene
play out, a bunch of boys go up to Amanda
and try to get with her and she's like, ooh,
get away from me. And this is also when Preston
returns and like rushes over to Amanda, and he finally
works up the courage to tell her that he loves her.
But because she's so fed up with all of this

(34:45):
unwonted male attention, she's like, what you think I'm just
gonna have sex with you? Think again you lose her?
And you're like, yeah, fair, I mean fair.

Speaker 5 (34:55):
Fair, Yeah, she was right, but also she's that's who
she's been.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
Looking for, Yeah, exactly. She doesn't realize that. She does
not realize that he's Preston Meyers, the guy who wrote
the letter and who she's been asking around about, and
she's rejected him nonetheless, and so Preston is so so
so sad, and he runs away. We cut back to

(35:20):
the bathroom, and now Denise and Seth Green are kind
of vibing, and then he surprise kisses her, because there
are so many surprise kisses in this movie.

Speaker 5 (35:32):
So many surprise kisses.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, in the nineties in general.

Speaker 5 (35:37):
The nineties, Yeah, in general, especially teen film.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
Yeah. But she actually likes it, and then they start
making out and then they have sex using the various
memorabilia from his weird back pinky back.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Cut back to Amanda for Denise, who looks up Preston
in the yearbook and she realizes that he's the guy
who she just lashed out at and she's like, oh no,
So she goes around trying to find him, but the
cops show up at the party and it breaks up
the party. Everyone scatters and Preston has already left. So

(36:17):
the next day, Preston and Denise are hanging out. She
tells Preston that she had sex with Seth Green, and
he's like, why'd you do that, yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
Which also like who are you I mean right again
talking a big game and for what it took you
four years?

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (36:39):
Right?

Speaker 1 (36:40):
And then Preston tells Denise that things didn't work out
with him and Amanda. I guess it just wasn't meant
to be. And he's about to leave for college slash
a Kurt Vonnegut workshop in Boston, so he's like leaving
that day.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
And he's also at like Union Station. I was like,
you're about to be on the train ride of a
lifetime if you're taking a train to Boston whatever. I
know that that's not where the movie takes place, but
it is visibly Union Station.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
And then we tie up some other loose ends with characters.
We get some text that tells us what their future holds.
For example, William goes to Harvard and forms a multimillion
dollar software company, and it's like, okay, Mark Zuckerberg vies.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah, not rooting for him.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
And then also I thought, like a pretty harsh ending
for Mike Dexter, both William and Mike. You're like, it's
very like Revenge of the Nerds era, like geekshell inherit
the Earth?

Speaker 5 (37:45):
Yeah right?

Speaker 1 (37:46):
And then yeah, because Mike Dexter's he like becomes a loser.
But there's a lot of like body shaming and.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Like class light class shaming.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, class shaming, making light of alcohol addiction, all of
this stuff to like, you know, imply that he's a loser.
Now we see a little text about Denise and Seth
Green and they're like on again, off again relationship. And
then the movie ends with Preston at the train station
and who shows up but Amanda with the letter he wrote,

(38:20):
and she's like, damn, you're leaving. Huh, well maybe this
is how it was supposed to be. Bye, And he's
like damn, yeah, bye. But then he's like, wait a minute, No,
that's the love of my life. So then he turns
around and he runs after her, and then they kiss
and they're still together to this day. And she writes

(38:42):
him letters or something and.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
You're like, oh, we not do we not know what
she's gonna do with her life? No, we don't.

Speaker 5 (38:50):
She writes him letters. That's what she does. She writes letters.
That's her literal life.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Wow, feminism, another wind for feminism.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.
And we're back Shelly, is there any particular place you
would like to start.

Speaker 5 (39:19):
Yes, I definitely want to start with Kenny in his
Kenny's introduction, right, Okay, So when I was watching this movie,
like when I first watched it, I'm in middle school, right,
I don't think I had the words for like what
cultural appropriation was. I just knew that he was like

(39:42):
pretending to be black, right, So I don't know how
at the time, with my young mind, young age, how
offended I was, because I was just like, he also
wasn't the main part of the story that I was
that I cared about, you know. So I was just like,
this is weird because every time he came on, the

(40:04):
music in the background switched to like hip hop or
like something R and B and all that stuff. So
what I rewatched it like a few years ago, I
was like, uh oh, Like I was just I remember
being like, oh shit, this is so bad. And then
as I watched the movie more, I realized that when

(40:27):
I originally watched it when I was a kid, this
movie was the first time I started realizing pairings of
black people, right, like even in something like Clueless, which
it's so obvious, like you know, Dionne is with her boyfriend,
you know what I'm saying. I was like, oh, that's
like fine. But then I started realizing the purposeful pairings

(40:48):
of like the black characters, and I just thought that
was so interesting because obviously I saw him this movie too,
because they are the only two black people in the
school and the popular group like Mike Dexter's friends and
Amanda's friends. Like her name is Tamara, she's also in
the Wood and stuff like that. I realized her character.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
Yeah, but like I.

Speaker 5 (41:09):
Don't know, I think it's just so interesting that young
me did it not clock that about Kenny but didn't
wasn't fully like upset, like I think gen Z would
be like if this happened, if this movie came out now,
so many things obviously, but if that part of the
movie happened, I think a young eleven year old watching
it would still be like a young black eleven year

(41:32):
old watching it would be like, ah, this is terrible,
like he shouldn't be doing that. But at the time,
I just remember being like, this is weird, but he's
not my focus. So I just thought it was so
odd that that was such a choice of a character. Yes,
it was and I wonder, like you said, like there

(41:53):
was let you know, especially as like a middle school
age person, there wasn't quite the same length whige around
cultural appropriation as there is now, and you know, it's
not something that necessarily tweens are thinking about that much.
But also I wonder if it has anything to do
with the fact that, like this was like a pretty

(42:15):
like white people appropriating black culture and like speaking in
aave and like wearing fubuu and listening to exclusively hip
hop and stuff like that. Like this was a movement.
It was a horrible movement. Yeah, Like it was a
thing that for the time felt normalized quote unquote, just
because like a lot of people were doing it and

(42:37):
you saw characters like this on screen and movies from
this era. It was such a thing.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
It was again, it was a horrible thing to have
been normalized. But yeah, it was a thing.

Speaker 5 (42:48):
Yeah. I think the reason I didn't like maybe the
reason why I did. I knew that it was a
thing because I did see it. But in my everyday life, right,
Like I went to a mostly black school and stuff
like that, so it was it was kind of like
if there was a white boy in our school and
was acting like that. It kind of was like, that's
who he is versus A few years later, I went

(43:10):
to a school called Oak Park High School, and then
there was Cranbrooke High School not well sorry, Seahome, Birmingham,
Seahome or whatever, and they were a fancy school and
we would do this is so weird to talk about now,
but we would once a year they would have a
select group of students come to our school and we

(43:31):
would go to theirs for like a few days.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
That sounds like a movie, it.

Speaker 5 (43:36):
Is, And it was like to us, it was cool
to go see their shit because they had like a
really fancy school and all. But to them it was
like what were they learning, you know what I'm saying,
Other than being like, oh, they're here a bunch of
poor kids. So I remember like going there and stuff.
People would be like, there's white boys doing this weird
shit over there, like like and it was like they

(44:00):
were the Kennis and shit like that. But at our school,
if the white boys were doing it, it was kind
of just like, I don't know, a product of the environment.
It was a little bit. It wasn't as fake, you
know what I mean. So when I was watching this.
It kind of made me be. When I was younger,
I just didn't clock it, you know what I mean.
But now I was even today when I was rewatching

(44:21):
it again, I was like, oh my god, this is
so bad. This is it's so bad.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
It's like I first of all that high school switch thing.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
That's gonna stick with me because what.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Yes, well that's kind of the premise. Have you seen
that show jam or Jama? Is that what it is?
It's a spin off of Summer Heights High. It's an
Australian comedy show.

Speaker 5 (44:45):
Oh oh, I know it're talking about in incredible It's
one of my favorite shows of all time. But yes,
it's similar to that, and we would do it like
Oak Park, Hi, I would do it with Birmingham Seahome
and you know we would see their fancy pool and
like their top like of the line of computer lab
and like. But thinking about it now, it's like when

(45:07):
they came to us, they were what being grateful for
what they had, like you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Right, it's like not and I don't.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
I'm like, and what is the supposed takeaway from that
supposed to be like other than like systemic anger? But
it's like, do kids have language for that at that time?

Speaker 5 (45:26):
No, because we were in high school at that time.
This is like early two thousands, you're just like, oh shit,
they have a computer lab with all colorful max. You
know what I mean? Right, Like we weren't at least
I wasn't taken away anything from it other than being like,
I want a computer room with colorful.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Max, right right, I mean it's like, yeah, I think
when I was in high school, might take away would
have been like, oh fuck these rich kids, fuck them,
I'm mad at them, I hate them, and not like
why do we not get access to this exactly?

Speaker 2 (45:57):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (45:59):
It's almost like children are not operating. But I feel
like I hope maybe today's kids are are a little
different or at least like are a little more.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Conditioned to think that way for sure.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
With Kenny, yeah, I'm interested to talk about him because
Kaitlin and I agree that it's like this. It's not
like this movie invented this stock character. This was definitely
I mean I knew versions of this kid. Yeah, And
I feel like a lot like if you went to

(46:29):
I don't know, can't speak to high schools now bravely,
but in the span of time that we were growing up.
It's like these kids existed. I guess that it's like,
and I'm not I don't necessarily object to an attempt to,
but it just felt like there's no real comment happening.
There's like it approaches, like Denise calls him out, yes,

(46:52):
but that kind of doesn't go anywhere.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
I don't know, that doesn't go anywhere because she has
sex with him too. Such she had sex with.

Speaker 5 (46:57):
Them, Yeah, she with Denise.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
How do we feel about how that play is out?
Because I was, I was. I was honestly surprised that
it was called out at all.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Same. Well, then, the other thing that sort of is
approaching commentary but not really is the scene where Kenny's
friends are standing among god black kids, Yes, and one
of them says the N word.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
I think he's attempting to use it as a term
of endearment, but the black kids are like, what the
fuck you can't say that? Yeah, and then they chase
him away.

Speaker 5 (47:32):
Yeah. And I think that's the only kind of commentary
that was ever in nineties and early two thousands teens
film while you're talking about race. It was like they
had to have a white person say the N word
or like they had to, they had to make that
person like make black people angry. And that was the
only way to include black teens in a film was

(47:53):
if you were using them to like again further the
plot of a white character that probably should not have
been created in the first place, and those black kids
don't get any lines, like you know what I mean,
Like it's not even Rewatching nineties and twenty teens film
always makes me realize, like, because how much we weren't

(48:14):
in the movies, you know what I mean, how much
like a black present unless it's like a Save the
Last Dance, But like again, that is pushing forward the
plot of Julia styles like that's she for sure everything
was around around that, but it was what I had
access to. It's what I wanted to see and like
all that kind of stuff. But in this movie, specifically,

(48:34):
the amount of like fake blackness or attempt to like
put black people black teens in a teen film, it
was so bad.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
It's so it's like just unbelievably at best misguided, because
it's like, yeah, we have two white writer directors, and
I mean I feel like it says everything that they
include Kenny, and I would say, like he's a I
don't know, he's a more memorable character than like, yeah,
he's I knew about this Seth Green character.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
I did not know about the Ethan Embry character.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
And so for him to have such a large portion
in the story and for his character to be so
defined by how much he's appropriating black culture, and then
also like seeing him effortlessly you know, like take it
on and off as as needed.

Speaker 5 (49:24):
Like in the bathroom that was the switch, right, It
blew my mind.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
And then it's like, so to put that much energy
into bringing that character to life while making no effort
to characterize any of the black teenagers.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
That or black twenty four year olds whatever.

Speaker 3 (49:41):
That populate this party, because it's not a like it's
it's more diverse than I you normally.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
See in a nineties teen movie. But but the focus
is all on the white characters.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Yeah, even though you have so many famous nineties black
actors at this.

Speaker 5 (49:59):
Party, especially, and it was really wild too, like even
when they were talking to Donald Fazon when he was
he called him a hoodie, you know what I mean,
Like the bandmate called him HOODI after he called him,
like the white artists formerly known as Prince. And it's
always something like like that, like a black person has
to be like agitated in order to be included. Sorry,

(50:20):
a black teen fake as they may be age wise
in these movies, has to be agitated in order to
be included. Same thing for even bigger movies like Bring
It On, like that whole situation they were stealing from
them and it had to be a whole you know
what I mean. It's just still a great movie. But
it's always been like that in teen films, even mean Girls,

(50:44):
the unfriendly black hotties. Are they unfriendly or do they
like not want to fuck with you because you're like boring,
like you know what I mean, like.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
Sky or like directing micro or macro aggressions at them constantly.

Speaker 5 (50:58):
Like constantly, like you're putting that label on them, and
they have to be agitated in order to get a
reaction or to be included in these narratives. And it
was it's less now because everybody's so focused on like
DEI and all this kind of stuff like that, like
the New Main Girls and all that. But in the
nineties they were like, no, let's just make black people mad,

(51:19):
like it was mask off.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
Yeah, Like, and even on top of like it relying
on agitating black teenagers in order for them to participate,
anything that was said to or by a black character
was connected to race, like because and I think that
that is just an extension of like these two white
writers cannot conceive of what the inner.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Life of a black teenager would be.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
And it's like, well, no, maybe they just discuss their
own race in every interaction.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
I'm like, what.

Speaker 5 (51:53):
Even in the scene too, And I mean, this might
be a little bit of a reach, but even in
scene where Mike pulls away the two guys when they're
dancing with their girlfriends and Jamie Presley and I think
her name is Tamara, I don't.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Want to, I really Tamala Tamala Jones.

Speaker 5 (52:12):
Tamala Jones. Yeah, where Tamala Jones and Jamie Presley start
dancing together while they're all the boys are having a conversation. Ye,
Like I said, this may be a reach, but they're
dancing to wild things and then essentially, like the black
girl starts to like pretend to tap Jamie's ass while
she's like twerking on her a little bit. I don't know,
you feel me, like it's something like yea, even that
kind of micro like, oh, this is how black girls

(52:35):
be dancing, like and then.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
There's I'm trying to remember the last time we had
this discussion. And again it does feel and like correct
me if I'm wrong, but like it does feel like
it's very inherent to this era too, where it's it
just feels clear that it's like casting wise, this movie
is not going to make an interracial couple happen, not

(52:59):
like it's the black teens state black teens, the white
teens date white teens, and that is like the movie
is not gonna attempt no anything else, which actually kind
of like if you consider the fact that it's gonna
be another three years until Save the Last Dance comes out,
which like whiffs this same that like it attempt at

(53:19):
an interracial teen couple tremendously, which she could listen to
our episode that either just came out or was about
to come out about Save the Last Dance.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
It's just like a it's a bad era. It's a
bad era for sure.

Speaker 5 (53:31):
It's bad. And that's what I mean by like that
was the first time that I like notice the pairings
of like, oh, black teen, black teen black teen, black teen,
you know what I mean? So, and it's like, then
what happened was we started getting movies like what's the
one with Christina Milian Love Don't cost a Thing, where

(53:52):
it's like there are two per characters. Yeah, it's like
there are two black characters as in a teen movie,
but she fair skin and like got soft hair, you
know what I mean, And like it's that whole vibe
and we get it. And that's in two thousand and three.
The only one that I can think of that even

(54:13):
I think, has done so well with a mono racial,
dark skinned black couple and they aren't even teenagers is Rylane.
Rylane is one of my favorite movies of all time.
And if y'all haven't watched it, you should watch it.
It's like it just came out last year. It's yes,
I saw it at Sundance. I'm sorry to throw out
that conversation, but we have to watch it. It's done so well,

(54:35):
and it's black and it's British and it's incredible and
you should just watch. It's on Hulu.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
So nice, Okay, Yeah, but yeah, I mean the reluctance
to put anything on screen besides like a very rigid,
very stereotypical scenario when it comes to representation of race
on screen across all movies, across all genres in this

(55:00):
era and beyond, in teen movies, when they often have
like a big ensemble cast or like groups of friends,
like the boy has his popular guy friends and then
the then there's the group of popular girls. So you
have like a lot of characters and therefore a lot
of opportunities to show a lot of different types of people.

(55:22):
But the boxes that people get put in, and it's
often again like favoring whiteness or light skin in general.
It's you know, not exploring relationship dynamics that exist in
the world, such as interracial couples. It's just like, well,
obviously only the black kids would date the other black kids,

(55:45):
or you know, stuff like that, and it's it's just
still rigid. We still see these weird, rigid boxes that we.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
Were talking about that off mic before before we started recording,
where it's like still very much an issue, and I
think it's like, it is freaky to.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
See it laid out so unquestionably.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
Clear, especially with a character like Kenny in as prominent
a role as he is.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
It's just like kind of unbelievable.

Speaker 5 (56:17):
Because it's a huge role. It's also there was like
an interracial couple in this movie. I just realized that
that one guy that was kind of a creep, the
black guy in Melissa Joanhart's character. They end up linking
up at the end true in the cafe because they're
both like just hyper. They love most school, they love memories, remember.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
That time that blah blah blah, and they're like, wow,
I love having a memory, which.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
He was kind of a creep, but I was like,
I don't hate that end game because she was like
not a creep.

Speaker 2 (56:49):
But they're definitely both weirdos and you're always part of of.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
Like it may be the coupling that ultimately makes the most.

Speaker 5 (56:59):
And it's just like they were the ones who, like,
I mean, you just couldn't leave the movie without having
an interracial couple. They were like, we do it too,
And maybe that was the start of all of them
in teen movies. Maybe it was Melissa jo and Hard
and maybe that's what it was.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
I kind of forgot that I did. I watched this
movie twice and I totally forgot it. Also, like if
you blink, you miss it. Yeah, that's I mean, it's
like they're not. Yeah, I think that it's like the
amount of real estate, and it's like I think Seth
Green does great with what he's given, but it's like
he does though it's not going I mean, if it
was going somewhere, I don't know. I mean we'll never know.

(57:36):
We'll never know if that was ever going to go
somewhere because it's just like this movie, for all the
things I like about it, it's like not not only
not built to have that conversation, but has no interest
in any meaningful commentary.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
Well, because the whole movie hinges on tropes and stereotypes
and clicks of high school students. You know, you got
the jock kids, you've got the nerds, you've got the
popular girls, and none of that is particularly challenged. I
would say, like Preston, he like doesn't really fit into

(58:10):
a group.

Speaker 5 (58:11):
But other than that, because he's not like unpopular, he's
just not he's just he's just kind of coasting, forgettable.

Speaker 2 (58:19):
Yeah, that's my issue with him, is he is just
like he is.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
I feel like he's the stereotype of like teenage everyman,
Like he's just there. I mean, it's not Ethan Embry's fault,
but it's just like he's just there.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
He's just there. And then again, stereotypes about jocks are
like put there and not questioned or challenge. You know,
their their meatheads, they're bullies, they don't have any interests
outside of sports and sex.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
But again, you get like a little like glimpse into
like maybe this is going somewhere, and it's super over
the top. I'm not saying it's necessarily like super well done,
but in those moments where it's like the jock and
the nerd are hanging out together and they're having this
like real kind of like intense conversation, You're like, oh,
this is kind of cool where it's like they're kind

(59:08):
of attempting to reconcile. He's trying to drunkenly acknowledge that
he's been horrible to William, and like they're having a
conversation that you're like, oh, this is like moments like that,
I'm like, oh, I wouldn't have expected that in this movie,
and I wasn't even really upset by how that resets

(59:29):
at the end. That felt unfortunately kind of true to
life of like, oh that was just one time and like, technically,
Mike Dexter did do him a kindness by not endangering
his scholarship and like making sure he didn't get in
trouble and taking the fall for him, and like that's
a really kind thing.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
To have done.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
And then when they see each other the next time,
the dynamic is reset, Mike Dexter doesn't and that felt
like unfortunately, like I didn't hate that beat because it
felt more realistic than.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Mike Dexter being like, wait, you guys, like that's not.

Speaker 5 (01:00:02):
Who he is. We're friends. Yeah, I bought it, Yeah,
I definitely bought it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
The thing that I thought was really cruel was like
learning what happens to Mike Dexter after that, that felt
like the movie being like he deserves this, this like
very again. It's like it felt like there was that
whole sequence where it felt like the jock nerd stereotypes
were being challenged, but where we leave, both of those

(01:00:27):
characters are both very in line with what those stereotypes are.
He grows up to like, you know, he's a cool
nerd now and he's a supermodeled girlfriend. Meanwhile, this guy
like it's all of these prescriptive, like his life didn't
turn out as well.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
He peaked in high school the way.

Speaker 5 (01:00:44):
Right, And that's what I was gonna say, Yeah, you
would think that he would like high school was all
that they had. And I think that goes to like
the writers too. You can always tell how a writer
feels or felt about somebody in high school, you know
what I mean, And like, so you can't tell me
that these people aren't sort of either writing Jennifer love

(01:01:06):
Hewitt's character in a way of like, oh I wish
I wasn't Amanda Beckett, and then writing what happens to
Mike in a way of like somebody that really fucked
them over, that probably made it and whatever made it
sense means to them. But in this movie that I'm writing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Like they lose, Yeah, you lose.

Speaker 5 (01:01:26):
You know. You can always tell that in movies. And
what I was gonna say about the whole like Mike
and the nerdy guy situation was rewatching. Like honestly, a
few years later this time I remembered it. I was like, Oh,
that happens is all of the like queer shit that

(01:01:46):
was just that is bad, like because when they the
pictures were supposed to be him getting caught out not
just like in a kinky thing, but like with the
guy is the thing that is so bad? And then
like Kenny's friends, they dropped the F bomb twice in
ten minutes into the movie. They call Kenny one when

(01:02:07):
they're on the store, and I think again at the
party when they're like eating chips, So yeah, that kind
of stuff. And then I saw Claire Duval and I
was like, wait, we all know who she is, Like
it's so I think this was one of the first
movies where I like couldn't really pick up on anything
that I was like queer coded. I think the only

(01:02:31):
thing I reacted to was when the girlfriends were dancing together.
When I was younger, I was like, hmm, wait a minute,
that's that looks fun, like you know what I mean,
where it's the whole girls trying to get attention from
the guys sort of thing. But that was the only
sort of because I always like think and look back

(01:02:51):
to like is there any queerness in these movies that
I was like attached to, But this one I kind
of was like no, not really.

Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
Not really, which is wild because this is the team
that goes on to make Josie and the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
Pussycats, which is so wild to be they're just forming up.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Hello Caitlin from the future. Jumping in here with a
little editing note. So, in the original episode that we released,
we have a discussion right here about Denise based on
me misunderstanding and mishearing a line of dialogue in the movie.
Some listeners pointed out this goof of mine, and we

(01:03:29):
just decided to cut that part of the conversation from
the episode because it's based on something that's not at
all canon to the movie, and it's based on me
not hearing dialogue very well, So we didn't want to
mislead listeners, So you know, we just thought it best
to remove that part of the conversation. But it did
bring us back to the topic of the Denise character,

(01:03:52):
so we'll just jump back in where that conversation picks
back up. So back to the episode.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
But it just, I mean, I think it just at
my core pains me. I've mean in the same way
where anytime you see a cool girl who deserves the
best end up with the Kenny Fishers of the world,
it just like it really and I feel like the
movie is at least a little more self aware about that.
Because it references the fact that like they're not gonna
stay together I hope forever where they're like they broa gout,

(01:04:25):
they got back together. So it's like it seems like
it's a summer before college kind.

Speaker 5 (01:04:29):
Of thing situation.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
Yeah, but it's still it hurts to see a girl
like Dedise Fleming who just really has everything going for her.

Speaker 5 (01:04:37):
Quite literally, like truly.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
Well, also like it feels to me like the movie
is kind of setting up some arc for her where
she goes to the party that she's reluctant to go to.
You see her just kind of like walking around by herself.
She retreats into herself the way that you know many
introverted people do. She has a hard time, you know,
striking up conversations. And so I'm hoping because I didn't

(01:05:04):
totally remember how the different events of this story played out.
As I was prepping for this episode, I was like, oh,
hopefully like she meets a friend. It would be nice
if she had a female friend who she could connect to.

Speaker 3 (01:05:18):
And it stinks because I do like how the structure
of this movie allows for like B and C plot,
Like it feels like, in a way just kind of
like a really long TV episode, because like what's going
on with Denise and Kenny.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Is just like an episode of something.

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Yes, it's just a bottle episode happening in the middle
of this larger narrative, and I like that, but I
just don't like the stories.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
That they're choosing to plug in there.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
Because even if we're talking about, like, say anything, a
movie that I'm not like over the mood about, but
we talked about it recently and I think that like
its influencers are really clearly felt in this movie. But
like the friendship between Lloyd Dobbler and his best friend
Corey is like we we'd talked about. I mean, it's

(01:06:01):
weird to the extent that like his like best friend
is just like it seems like her whole thing is
talking about how much how awesome Lloyd Doppler is. But
it's clear you get a lot of moments with them
where it's like, this is a very warm friendship that
is platonic, and like you never see that in teen movies,
and theoretically that's what we're getting with Preston and Denise,

(01:06:23):
but we don't actually see them together very much. And
I feel like that was another thing with Denise, that
just goes under explored where you It sucks because I
think the two actors have really good chemistry and you
can feels like a real high school friendship, but they're
separated for so long in these like romantic entanglements that
it are not I'm bored by one kind of grossed

(01:06:44):
up by the other.

Speaker 5 (01:06:46):
Yeah, and it's like I really do wish we had
And also what's is uh Evan Embury's character like for
the if you really look at watch the movie, he's
also not in it like them, Like his story is
not super focused. I feel like they thought like they
wrote it in a way where they were just like, oh,
you know that he's trying to do this thing, so
we don't really have to like fully focus on him.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
And we know it's gonna happen, and it's.

Speaker 5 (01:07:10):
Going to happen, so we don't have to really tell
you all that. But I do think that you're right, Jamie.
Their friendship was like he knows the ins and outs
of who she is, Like she didn't why she didn't
really want to go, she knew about this fucking letter
he's been writing. And then like we don't get to
see them really interact other than something that's a little
bit like angry because she don't want to be there.

(01:07:32):
She's dragged there and all that ditches her.

Speaker 3 (01:07:34):
And he ditches her so like immediately, and she doesn't
even get the opportunity to, like, which would fill in
stuck with her character be like fuck you, Yeah, I
didn't want to be here and then you bailed on
me to go talk to someone who doesn't know you exist.

Speaker 5 (01:07:47):
Fuck you, Like no, yeah, And I don't think that.
I don't think in like new routine films either, that
we really like I mean, there are more like platonic
friendships between like people of like the opposite and stuff
like that, but it's always I still feel like it
gets still very like slapsticky where they're like somebody has
to be queer, and like that is why, like it

(01:08:10):
still falls into the whole like I'm straight and this
is my queer best friend, and that is why we
are platonic, not just because we are just fucking friends,
you know what I mean. It's always something else, like
there's another reason why of course they wouldn't be dating.
Of course they're just friends.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
So yeah, it's really frustrating. And then and then in
the other corner we have Preston and Amanda and I
I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
Know, So we've sort of touched on this a little
bit already, where I like, don't dislike Amanda as a character. Again,
we get more from her than I was expecting it
just the plot ultimately, I think kind of bails on
her because I thought that in the scene before it
turns into cousin ins. But this scene where she's like

(01:09:02):
explaining for like, I, you know, wasn't a popular girl
in middle school. It wasn't until I moved to this school,
and like was sort of like selected quote unquote to be.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
A popular girl.

Speaker 3 (01:09:14):
And I don't want to end this relationship because I
don't know how to define myself.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Outside of it. Like it was pretty like I was
like into that. I like that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
I mean you could argue in comparison to the other
popular girls, she's very not like other girl types because
the other women are really like bimbo stereotyped, and they
like very vapideously turn on each other if male attention
is on the table, and so I found that frustrating.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
Although it is subversive that one of the popular girls
has seen the movie twelve monkeys and can speak to
it like.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
It's true she hasn't in her life let her speak.

Speaker 5 (01:09:58):
I don't I hate Amanda. I do hate that she's
like I always, like I said, I always was like
she was the one where I was like, oh, I
want to be her, you know, And I think I
hated the only thing I hated now, But I probably
really wanted that she was like hot but secret smart,
you know what I'm saying, Like she secretly is like

(01:10:20):
aware of literally everything that's going on, which we get
in this monologue that she does where she's like hyper aware,
but she couldn't because, like you said, she didn't have
her own she was not ready to be who she
was on her own. So that was one of the
only things I really was like after rewatching, being like

(01:10:40):
we made her like stupid for no reason or not stupid,
but just being like, I'm just pretty and that's it,
like airy, because it was very clear that she was
aware of her popularity, but like of a bunch of
other things, but she never put it out there because
she was like, this is not what these people care about,
and I need to keep being this person while in

(01:11:01):
high school anyway, So yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
Right, and then that gave her an identity crisis, and
she's like, I don't know who I am if I'm
not dating Mike. But then that, to me sets up
an arc where she's going to then discover something about herself,
maybe shoes.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
And not just jump into another relationship.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
But yeah, exactly with.

Speaker 5 (01:11:23):
A guy that's kind of worse than Mike, because this guy, like.

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
I read it in different ways, but at very least
a lateral move. Yeah, it's just that that's what I
found frustrating. It's like in because she is very clearly typed,
not like other girls. I wouldn't say that's a fault
of the Amanda character as much as how the other
girls are written. It does feel very regressive to be like,
only one girl could be hot and nice and can read.

(01:11:53):
And you're like, it's it's actually most of them, not
all of them, you know, but it is many, many
of them. But any case, as far as like what
Amanda's character, I like most of what she says, but
then what she does is often in direct opposition to it.
I really liked that speech of yeah, like how to
like the identity crisis, but then what happens after that,

(01:12:16):
She's assaulted by her cousin. It's this weird, horrible nineties joke.
And then she finds this letter. I understand why you
would be charmed by whatever the fuck is in that letter.
But but but it then it just like it's always
in contradiction because I really like her speech shouting down Preston,
like we were talking about where she was just like

(01:12:38):
you don't know me. We see her receive a lot
of male attention she doesn't want. She has to like
be literally physically pushing people away from her. The outburst
makes total sense, and she's right, Preston doesn't know her,
and that doesn't change. It's not like all of a
sudden they like, I don't know, I don't know if
you if these characters absolutely have to end up together.

(01:13:01):
I feel like there has to be some sort of
like time passes or they have like a long talk
or like they can't not talk.

Speaker 5 (01:13:08):
Because it was literally the next day. It was the
next day, not even day, like it was like the
party ended probably like.

Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
What twelve hours later.

Speaker 5 (01:13:18):
Yeah, and she shows up with her angel shirt on
and like, hey, let's be the g you know me now.
It's just like there needed to be some time passing.
But at that point we were already like, what eighty
some minutes into the movie, so they were like, we
all wrapped this up, like.

Speaker 3 (01:13:34):
Yeah, so it's like I like everything she says, but
it doesn't match up with what she does, and she's
still just like tossed from one man who doesn't understand
her and wants to define her based on what he's
projecting at her to look guy, a guy that's gonna
do the same thing in a new and interesting way,
in a new way.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
Yeah, and we also don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
What her dreams are.

Speaker 5 (01:13:56):
Which was so crazy because her high school quote too
was first of all, it was Jewel, which was very
aligned with me and I was kind of middle school
because Pieces of You, I was like, I wore that
song out as though I was previously an unhoused Alaskan
person like I ate like, but they made her so,

(01:14:19):
I mean, I don't know, but it was something about
her using Jewel as her like quote of being like
I don't know who I am. It was always something
more to who she is, but we don't get to
ever figure out what that is.

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
We learn zero things about her because like it says
like her future plans colon undecided, but that doesn't mean
she still can't have interests or like the avenues she
might pursue. But instead we just know nothing about her,
nothing about her.

Speaker 3 (01:14:50):
And I think that that like would really help the
conflict that the movie is always sort of like restoking
and abandoning about, like her kind of crisis of self. What, Okay,
you don't want to be missus popular? What do you
want to be? Or like what parts of yourself did
you have to suppress to be in this relationship successfully?
And that's that's maybe an in for Preston of like

(01:15:14):
you know, and it would be the most hokey teen
movie thing eve ever. But she's like, you know, I
just really love reading kurvonic it, you know, just like
it's not that complicated, like it's like give them something,
but it's like they don't. There's there's nothing keeping these
two together except that she knows that he is infatuated
with her, but we were just told that she's kind

(01:15:35):
of put off and disgusted by that, Yeah, because that's
not based on who she is.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
It's just kind of a mess.

Speaker 5 (01:15:42):
Yeah, And we don't know anything about her ever, and
he doesn't know anything about her, her friends don't really
know anything about her. Mike never really knew anything about her.
So it was kind of the setup of being like,
we're gonna learn some shit about her, right like, and
then you're right, we get that monologue, but then we
ultimately nothing. But I don't know. I think maybe I

(01:16:04):
wanted to, Like, I think I was so attached to
her because this is gonna sound little hokey myself, but
I was very misunderstood, and I was like, oh, she
and I And ultimately she is misunderstood, right, whether it's
like teen drama situation or not, she just is. And
I think she was the first teen girl character that
I had seen in a movie that was all the

(01:16:25):
way throughout like she was just misunderstood. She didn't really
have any like growth or change or like come into
the person she would like disturb her behavior Katie Holmes
like she fucking figured her shit out by the end
of the movie. All these movies, even Jennifer Love hewittt
and I Know What You Did Last Summer, which I
think also came about that, yeah, same year, same year.

(01:16:45):
She ultimately figures out who she like, she comes into herself,
And I think this character did it and at the time,
like I wasn't. So it was a very clear cut
case of like, yes, I'm gay, but I don't want
to kiss her. This one girl in this movie, I
just want to like be her, you know. It was crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:17:04):
It's I don't know, I mean, and it's I wouldn't
say that. I mean, I think we've covered a lot
of movies kind of like this recently.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
I wouldn't say that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:12):
She's like significantly less written than other.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
Characters, which is sad and the bar is low, something
we're always reminded of.

Speaker 3 (01:17:23):
And I also think it's like that's kind of what
tends to happen in a movie with five thousand characters,
Like that's just kind of like what happens in an
ensemble comedy. But it's if we're what we are told
about her is underdeveloped and not really paid off in
like how she acts. But I like but it sucks
because I like I do like her.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
Yeah, I like her.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
I like her, I like Denise, and neither of them
are given that much characterization beyond the very surface level thing.
And meanwhile, I feel like we know multiple things about
each of the major male characters.

Speaker 5 (01:18:03):
Yeah, and that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:04):
Same characterization isn't lent to the only like two girls
who have major roles in the movie.

Speaker 5 (01:18:13):
So, yeah, peepee poop poo, also peepee poo poo, are
uh please, I've got some more pepee poo pooh. Okay,
we've touched on a few of these already. But just
the way that, like the teens talk to each other
and treat each other, it's stuff that's very common for

(01:18:34):
this era, both in like real life, because you know,
I was I was a little younger than these kids
were in nineteen ninety eight, but I remember the stuff
that people were saying to each other and how they
were treating each other very common for that era. But
as we were saying earlier, the movie just doesn't want

(01:18:55):
to challenge any of that behavior. It's more just like
presenting it as a noise normal part of late nineties
high school culture. The way that you know, several characters
body shame each other, say ablest things to each other,
call each other homophobic slurs. The nerds like revenge plan
against the jocks is like homophobic revenge porn. That one was, Yeah,

(01:19:19):
that was the bust.

Speaker 3 (01:19:20):
I think I just like I really detest a revenge
of the Nerds scenario.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
They age so.

Speaker 3 (01:19:27):
Unbelievably poorly because now they're billionaires and ruining the world,
Like I'm not. I'm simply not rooting for him, even.

Speaker 5 (01:19:37):
Like my first watching, Like when I first watched this movie,
I kind of probably fast forward. After the first or
second watch, I probably fast forward. It passed a lot
of their plot. And that was one movie too. That
was one like range of movies that I never really touched.
I only needed one was like Revenge of the Nerds,
and there's so many of them. That was one because
there was a time I was obsessed with like an

(01:19:58):
eighties comedy teen. I saw one of those and I
was like, this is enough, Like this.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
Is They're all the same.

Speaker 5 (01:20:05):
They are all the same.

Speaker 3 (01:20:07):
They always involve something like it's either a deeply homophobic
or misogynist revenge plan.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
That involves a gadget, and you're just like this fucking sucks.

Speaker 3 (01:20:17):
And it also like sucks for like actual nerds, Like
it's not fair to actual nerds because they it makes
them out to be like villains and it's like no.

Speaker 2 (01:20:27):
It's just you can you can just watch Star Trek
like it's truly all good.

Speaker 5 (01:20:33):
It's totally fine. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
Yeah. The way those movies characterize nerds is characterizing them
as being as toxic as the jocks, just like in
a different way. And again it's just putting people into
boxes and you know all that stuff. A few other
of these Pepe Poopoo things is there's a foreign exchange
student and a bunch of jokes are made at the

(01:20:56):
expense of someone who doesn't speak English as their first language.
Like some of the kids are teaching him phrases that
like they're like, yeah, just say this to people. And
one of them is like, would you like to touch
my penis? And then he says that to Preston and
Preston's like, oh yuck.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
And you're like, yeah, that is a gross thing to
say to someone. But it's all you know, Like it's
all you know. It's the same old bullshit.

Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
It's the same thing. Also, there's the kid who steals
stuff in the.

Speaker 5 (01:21:24):
Favorite character for some reason, I don't know why.

Speaker 3 (01:21:27):
Unfortunately, I do have to say I was this kid
at parties. I once went to an mi I t
frat party my freshman year of college and I got
in big trouble because what the one of the boys
that lived on my floor. His brother was in the frat,
and so we got like the plug, we got to go,
and I drank a ton of vodka and stole two

(01:21:48):
pool balls. Whoa, and just I was like, I'm not
going to steal them all. I'm just gonna make it unusable.
I was just like feeling really diabolical, and then I
was some I was traced back to me. Shockingly, I
probably wasn't that slick. Yeah, I felt connected to the
kid that goes to a rich person party and steals things,

(01:22:09):
just takes things.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
Yeah, fair, Yeah, I mean we all should be stealing
from the rich. But I feel like what's happening here
in this movie is like a joke being made of kleptomania,
or like the media's interpretation of that, which is like,
you know, a real condition.

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):
Certainly a real thing.

Speaker 3 (01:22:28):
I guess I was just interpreting it more as like
I'm at a party at a rich guy's house.

Speaker 1 (01:22:34):
No, because you see him like steal from the convenience store,
you see him steal from the dining.

Speaker 5 (01:22:39):
He takes the gumball machine.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
Yeah, he steals a cop car, which also we should
be stealing from Kimos as well.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
I just like, I think that that character.

Speaker 3 (01:22:48):
I'm sorry, I appreciate, like I don't want to make
light of kleptomania. And also I'm like, this kid's generally
doing good practice by me.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
I don't see you know the problem.

Speaker 5 (01:23:01):
To me, he like was just like very background. But
that guy his name is Chris Owen. He's from Rour. Look,
so he's from a city in Michigan that's like five
minutes after Detroit. And he's also like just been a
weirdo in so many he's an American pie.

Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
Like, he's all, he's just kid, an American pie. I'm
pretty sure. Who like keeps pretending that he's the terminator.
I feel like he's is He also the kid in
a different teen movie where there's something about pubes on pizza.
I think this is why does that sound familiar? She's
all that.

Speaker 5 (01:23:41):
Oh yeah, he's like the kid who has to eat
pubes on it's his pubes that get put on the
pizza or something.

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):
I have mercifully wiped this from my memory because.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
That came up.

Speaker 5 (01:23:54):
She's all that came I gotta watch she's all that
again tonight. Anyway, that's what that's happening. For us. But yeah,
so I kind of just was like, this guy is
just background to me, and I think like it was
supposed to be like a Kitschy teen thing.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. A few other they're
not really cameos because these people weren't famous yet, but
it's like people who would we would go into it
on to recognize. You see Melissa Joan Hart, she has
one of the bigger roles of these like minor characters.

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
I think she's killing it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:23):
Yeah, you've got Clay Duval, You've got Amber Benson aka
Tara from Buffy.

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
Oh see, I didn't watch Buffet.

Speaker 1 (01:24:32):
She's there. Selma Blair has a tiny little appearance Blair
Jason Siegel does. And then breck and Meyer and Donald
Faison are in a band together, and I think that
they also recruit Seth Green and then form jo from
Josie and the Pussy Kids.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
Oh that's so cool.

Speaker 1 (01:24:50):
I'm sure I'm missing people.

Speaker 5 (01:24:52):
But there's also mine that I pulled because this movie
is stacked. Right. This movie is wildly Leslie Grossmith, who
I fucking loved. So she's the girl that the original
girl that Seth Green is going to hook up with.
She's the one who's talking to her friend. And Leslie
Grossman is did you watch The Good Place a little bit? Yes,

(01:25:14):
she's the main character's mom. She's also in Popular from
the nineties, which is one of my favorite shows from
the nineties, is Popular, And Sarah Rue is in this too,
who was also Unpopular. She's the sheep girl who's like,
you're all sheep. There's Jamie Presley, Selma Blair, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:25:33):
Oh.

Speaker 5 (01:25:33):
Leslie Grossman was also an American horror story. Maybe you
know from that, but she is. But my favorite part
of the little cameos and stuff is just that I think,
did you all remember Popular or watched Popular or ever
heard of Popular? To me, it feels like a fever dream.
But I know it's real because i Wikipedia tells me so.

(01:25:58):
But Sarah Rue and Leslie Grossman and the show called Popular,
and it's like two sisters who parents they're well their
parents get married, so they become stepsisters, one popular ones not.
It's just so it's so good, and I suggested everyone
fucking like try to get your hands on Popular if
you can. But Sama Blair, yeah, she's in it. And
then Cruel Intentions comes out the next year, so yeah, this.

Speaker 3 (01:26:17):
Is like she's she's on the cusps on it. Yeah,
this is just a deeply, profoundly ninety spoofy head to
toe for good reasons and bad.

Speaker 5 (01:26:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
Does anyone have anything else they want to talk about?

Speaker 5 (01:26:32):
I know, oh yeah. The only other thing that I
have is that the song that Amanda walks into like
Sneaker Pimps six Underground has always been one of my
favorite songs, and it's because of this movie. And I've
always loved that song. And I like had a little
trivia thing where I was able to name that song
and people were like, why do you know that song?

(01:26:53):
And I was like, can't Harley wait? And it was
like one of the best experiences in my.

Speaker 2 (01:26:56):
Life, Like way all that rock.

Speaker 5 (01:26:58):
I like did a Yeah, it was so cool.

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
I was like, yeah, this is.

Speaker 5 (01:27:03):
Like all right. I was like, yeah, I stayed in
my room a lot when I was a kid.

Speaker 3 (01:27:08):
But I love that when the indoor kid, when you
have like an indoor kid jump out, it's just it's
really there's so few, but we get so few opportunities.

Speaker 2 (01:27:18):
It's great to see. Yeah, yeah, I wanted to.

Speaker 3 (01:27:22):
Yeah, the the double smash mouth, You're not like walking
on the Sun.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
Yeah, but what about walking on the Sun twice? And
I was like, that is an interesting question. Uh, it's tricky.

Speaker 3 (01:27:34):
Busta rhymes blank twenty two thirty blind, Missy Elliott.

Speaker 2 (01:27:39):
It's just like, yeah, it feels good, it feels good.

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
Anyway, does this movie past the Bechdel test?

Speaker 2 (01:27:46):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
I would say no. I think the popular girls talk
to Amanda about Gwyneth Paltrow, but the context is still
about Mike Dexter. And also, we don't really know those girls' names.
They're label as like girlfriend number one, girlfriend number two,
et cetera. And then like Denise doesn't really talk to
any other women. There's a few women who approach her,

(01:28:10):
or there's like a girl who approaches her, but again
we don't know these characters' names, and the conversations are
not that narratively important. So I would say yeah, spiritually
no to passing the Bechdel test.

Speaker 3 (01:28:23):
Yeah, I think it's like spiritually and possibly literally really
well yeah, because if it does pass, it's nothing of importance.
There's no meaningful relationships between women, which which not for nothing,
does echo a lot of the issues we had with
say anything, where it's like, right, Andy, and still I
think Say Anything did a better job of like Diane

(01:28:43):
and Corey at least talk. Do they talk about Lloyd Dobbler? Yes,
But do they talk yes? Yeah, It's like women don't
really talk to each other in this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
It's kind of interesting. However, it is co written and
co directed by a woman, Deborah Kaplan, and so I
want to be sure to that never happens. And also,
two women producers are leading the top line of this
Geno Topping, which is kind of an incredible name, as

(01:29:13):
well as Betty Thomas.

Speaker 3 (01:29:15):
So it's not as if there's not women involved in
the production. There's quite a few women involved in the production. However,
very very white production on the crew side, certainly. So
let's put this movie to the test of a proper
metric of.

Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
A generation the nipple scale zero to five nipples, where
we rate the movie examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.
I feel like I can only give this like I
think one nipple is even sort of being generous. It
is a fun, enjoyable movie, but it's got a whole
slew of problems, just you know, presenting teens being horrible

(01:29:56):
to each other and like screaming homophobic slurs constantly without
anyone batting an eye. The two main female characters are
both I would say, pretty underdeveloped, and their storylines revolve
around some romance with a man and the again the

(01:30:17):
Kenny Fisher and his just whole thing, and the centering
of white characters in general. All of that stuff also
seth Green's character pease and then doesn't wash his hands.

Speaker 2 (01:30:30):
So I think that's realism.

Speaker 1 (01:30:35):
I mean, the teenage the hygiene of teenage boys is
risc is certainly horrible. I do appreciate any teen movie
that doesn't end in prom I appreciate that there's a
character who's a sex worker and she's not shamed for
her job.

Speaker 2 (01:30:53):
Now she's a little angel.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
She's an angel. Yes, But there's a whole slew of
other problems. But there are some like kind of minor
subversions here and there, but not enough to make it feel.

Speaker 2 (01:31:09):
A lot of the beginnings.

Speaker 3 (01:31:10):
I feel like we talked about this where it's like
it starts to subvert something and then kind of chickens
out and goes back to what you.

Speaker 2 (01:31:16):
Expect would happen.

Speaker 1 (01:31:17):
Yeah, so I'll go one nipple actually and I'll give
the nipple to the movie Josie and the Pussycats.

Speaker 2 (01:31:27):
I'm gonna go one nipple as well.

Speaker 3 (01:31:28):
Yeah, I think that there are moments in this movie
that creep up towards saying something.

Speaker 1 (01:31:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:31:34):
It's so of its time where my I understand why
there's a lot of nostalgia for this movie. There's so many,
like extremely nineties things about it. But I'm okay with
leaving it in nineteen ninety eight. I don't think I'll
be really returning to it. I have no attachment to it.
A double smash mouths drop. Why I could just go
watch Shrek. You know, if I wanted to hear the

(01:31:55):
same smash mouth song twice, I could go watch Shrek one.

Speaker 1 (01:31:59):
But I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:31:59):
I think that there is certainly stuff to like about
this movie. I like Amanda. I wish that there was
more coherence with her storyline. I think that there And
I like Denise, and I wish that there was more
coherence with her storyline. There's a lot of interesting characters
in this movie that I wish were talking to each other,
but they're always talking to a person that I'm not.

Speaker 2 (01:32:21):
Very interested in. Yeah, and that's a shame.

Speaker 3 (01:32:24):
Yeah, ultimately very dated, and I'm going to give it
one nipple, and I'm going to give it to Jenna
Elfman's character because I really that I think is the
one actual, like I could say, like firmly, that felt
like a subversive scene to show a sex worker who
has a meaningful moment in the plot, who is not

(01:32:45):
shamed or blamed and moves the plot forward like that
never happens and good for that scene.

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
One nipple.

Speaker 5 (01:32:56):
Yeah, I think from the lens that we're examining it
from outside of and this happens with ever movie I've
ever bought on this podcast, It's been like this movie
in general to me, eight nipples, but from the Londons
that we are, Yeah, the lens that we're examining it from,
this absolutely gets like I think, I honestly one and

(01:33:16):
a half. And I think it's mainly because of Amanda
Beckett's character, because that's what really made me love the
movie so much anyway, And I really do think we
were on the cusp of like really exploring her, but
like you said, they chickened out with her, and yeah,
I think so. My one nipple goes to just like
what Amanda could be. And then the half goes to

(01:33:40):
her outfit because that's been one of the outfits of
my and I had that outfit like a few years ago.
I did a revamp on it, but see outfit because
it's super cute and chill and simple. But yeah, so
one and a half one and a half nipples, but
eight Shelley nipples because it's incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
Well, of course there's the Shelley scale, and then.

Speaker 5 (01:34:03):
There's scale, there's there's this all. Yeah, there's a whole
thing going on.

Speaker 2 (01:34:10):
Yeah, Well, thank you so much for joining us again.

Speaker 3 (01:34:13):
This was, as always another welcome to the Three Timers Club.
At five appearances, you get a jacket. We've been lying
for years.

Speaker 2 (01:34:22):
Someday I'm so happy.

Speaker 1 (01:34:26):
I love it here, come back anytime. Where can people
check out your writing and follow you online? Et cetera.

Speaker 5 (01:34:35):
I am so I'm mainly doing a lot of work
on my substack. It's my weekly newsletter and it's high
Shelley s H E L L I dot net. But
you have to like type in the w W W
dot two or else it will tell you that like
it's parked, and that's a lie anyway, And I'm a

(01:34:56):
O Shelley A y O s h E L I
on I and Hi Shelly on x Twitter whatever that part,
and yeah, so that's what I do. I love this,
I love coming on here makes me so happy.

Speaker 1 (01:35:10):
We love having you come back soon.

Speaker 3 (01:35:12):
You can find us in all the normal places, Instagram, X, Twitter,
whatever the fuck it is At Bechdel Cast. You can
follow our Patreon akamatreon over at patreon dot com slash
Bechdel Cast. That's five dollars a month for two bonus
episodes a month, as well as access to a back
catalog of over one hundred and fifty episodes. This month

(01:35:35):
we are doing is what are we call calling this month?

Speaker 1 (01:35:38):
Oh it's Wedding Weebruary. How could you even forget?

Speaker 5 (01:35:41):
God?

Speaker 3 (01:35:42):
That was literally my genius idea. And yes, it's Wedding Weebruary.
We're covering Ready or Not and twenty seven dresses. So
we're just going for the range of wedding movie vibes.

Speaker 2 (01:35:56):
Yes, so check us out over there. We always have
a bless yes.

Speaker 1 (01:36:01):
And speaking of having a blast, and speaking of Shreky,
we've got our upcoming Shrek Tannic tour right now. We've
got shows in a handful of cities in the UK
in late May. Check our link Tree, link Tree slash
spectol Cast for more details and to grab your tickets.

Speaker 2 (01:36:24):
And uh, that does it for us.

Speaker 3 (01:36:26):
I guess Let's go to Union Station and bord A
Bust to Boston.

Speaker 2 (01:36:31):
Let's see if we make it.

Speaker 5 (01:36:33):
Bye bye

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