Desert Hearts with Emily Mills

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy. Zephy and
Beast start changing with the Bechdelcast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Kitland, what are we going to do in forty minutes?

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Oh my god, talk and kiss? Well, probably not kiss
because they're in public, but they definitely talk about our feelings.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Okay, I was I thought, maybe record a scintillating conversation
on a podcast, the least sexual thing you can do.
I think podcasting is one of the least sexually charged jobs.
I beg to differ for who, for who? I you
know what.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
I'm horny all the time when we're talking.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Wow, oh my gosh, wow wait, I'm realizing we need
to take this off bike.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Oh let's get a hotel room.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Let's get a hotel room. Oh my god. In Reno,
I just this movie so beautiful. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
My name is Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
My name is Caitlin Dronte. This is our show where
we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the
Bechdel test. Simply as a jumping off point a very
relevant test, and the origins of this test are also
very relevant for today's movie and discussion. So Jamie tell
us all about it.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yes, I was gonna say the same thing, because this
movie and the Bechdel Tests are in direct discussion and
also are released the same year the Bechdel Test, as
first mentioned as we as we talk about all the time.
The bechel Test was created by friend of the show,
Alison Bechdel, who originally did not seek out to make

(01:43):
a media metric, but basically wrote this as a one
off joke in her wonderful comics collection Dice to Watch
Out For in nineteen eighty five, Interestingly, the same year
of Desert Hearts, and the precise origins of the test
are very relevant to our episode today. She co created
it with her friend Liz Wallace, which we Bechdel Class

(02:04):
exclusive learned met each other in karate class and fell
out of touch. So I was expecting a whole, sweeping,
beautiful story, and it turns out sometimes you just take
a karate class with a lady and move on with
your life. But I'm so glad they took that test
because it changed the course of history in some ways,
So shout out to that karate class in I think Portland, Oregon.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
In any case, this test has since been adapted to
a more mainstream media metric, the version that we use,
and then I'll get back to how it started. The
version we use requires that two characters of a marginalized
gender with names speak to each other about something other
than a man for more than two meaningful lines of dialogue. However,
the actual, more specific origin of the test in a

(02:50):
single strip of text to watch out for that is
basically poking fun at and pointing out how few lesbian
romances there are in movies and and how that creates
the need for queer people to you know, ship characters
that may not be intended to actually be romantically involved

(03:11):
by the text. It's something we've talked about on the
show many times before and is very like kind of
fun way that Alison Bechtel was pointing out that there's
basically no lesbian representation in movies in nineteen eighty five
and then until until Desert Hearts, which was released I

(03:32):
think it was formally released in nineteen eighty six, but
it first came out at the Locarno Film Festival in
nineteen eighty five, directed by the iconic Donna Ditch, screenplay
by Natalie Cooper and based on a novel that was
actually written at the time that the movie takes place
in the fifties, Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule,

(03:52):
who I'm so excited to talk about because I didn't
know anything about her before yesterday, and so yeah, there's
a lot of fascinating history with this movie, and it
is I think maybe more than any other movie we've
covered in direct conversation with the Bechdel Test. So exciting stuff,
very exciting. Jane Lynch has seen this movie fifty times,

(04:15):
I learned today. Wow, she's moderated multiple interviews with Donna
Ditch and Donna Deitch is like, I haven't seen this
movie fifty times, and Jane Lynch was like, well, someone
had to do it, and it was me.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
Wow, it's like us and Titanic vibes.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
I mean it truly, like sometimes the right movie finds
you at the right time. And obviously Jane Lynch speaks
on this beautifully and hilariously, but she was the age
she was Vivian Bell's a or No, she was wait,
how old is Jane Lynch. She was one of the
main characters age when it came out, either k or Vivian.
I honestly don't know. Okay, it would have been it

(04:52):
would have been k Okay.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
So she was like twenty five, Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yes, and just got absolutely swept up by this movie.
She said her VHS tape broke so classic shout out Jane.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
And we have an incredible guest, and I just like,
we just got to jump into it.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
I'm so excited, we really do. They are a Madison
based writer, musician DJ editor of Our Lives, which is
Wisconsin's only and longest running LGBTQ media outlet. They are
a longtime listener, first time guest.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yay, it's Emily Mills. Welcome. Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (05:31):
I am thrilled to be here, truly.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Oh, we're so delighted to have you. You wrote a
piece about this movie, which is how we found you
and reached out to you. And who better to talk
about this movie with us than you.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
I was curious. I'm like, has no one written something
more recently? I mean, this is just me being self effacing,
but I was so happy you found that piece it's
for a local Madison outlet that had really great film
coverage called Tone, which unfortunately shuddered just this last year.
But it gave me the excuse to talk about this
movie when they were doing a special screening of it
in town alongside an art exhibit that went a lot

(06:07):
kind of thematically along with it.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
But yeah, I am.

Speaker 4 (06:10):
I'm so delighted that you found it. I really delighted
to be here to talk about this movie that I
that I love, especially for Pride Month. I've been having
a Pride packed weekend, so this feels like a really
great way to top it off.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Tell us more about your relationship with this movie.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
For sure, So I always think of you talking about
your great movie Binge, and I similarly had a great
movie Binge in when I first moved to Madison for
school in two thousand, I discovered a local gem called
four Star Video Heaven, which still exists.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
We still have our friend Alex works. Yeah, yes, I
was gonna say, I was just I've spent two months
in Madison this year. I wish that if we'd met sooner.
I love Madison.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
Yes it's a good town. And yeah, we still have
this brick and Mortar Video rental place, which.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Is feel shout out for us, so miraculous.

Speaker 4 (07:02):
Yeah, it was bigger and it was like much more
of a central place. When I first moved here in
two thousand and I was like a little baby queer.
I was coming from Oklahoma, was where I'd been in
high school, and all we had there was a Blockbuster
where I would like, you know, rent movies in like
threes so that the one that was maybe a little
gay would be in the middle and hidden from the clerk,
you know, real classic. But I went to Forstar and

(07:25):
like most of the people who worked there were queer,
so they and they had this incredible selection, you know,
curated by the people who worked there, and I would
just go in and ask for like what do I
need to see in the queer cannon because I was
just so hungry for representation. And yeah, so Desert Hearts
eventually came along, and I don't remember where in this,
you know, there was some time when I was in

(07:46):
college in undergrad so between two thousand and two thousand
and four was the first time I saw it. And
it's funny, like, I feel like this movie has definitely
grown on me and revisiting it for this to join
you all today was really fun to just I think
I appreciate it a lot more on a lot more
levels having seen it more recently. I remember liking it,
but thinking it was a little cheesy and like, maybe

(08:06):
it just it didn't quite hit me in the same
way at the time because I was just watching so
much other queer media that had come out since all
at once, you know, so that comparison. But I did
think it was you know, it was really cool to
see something from the eighties that has what this movie
has in it. Yeah, and it stuck with me, and
I have sort of since become for a lot of
my friends who have come out later on or when

(08:26):
we're interested in queer cinema, like I'm a really big
nerd about let me recommend movies for you. So this
is one that I often recommend because I feel like
it still flies under the radar for a lot of people,
younger folks. It just doesn't come up as often. So
I frequently find myself recommending it and then getting a
chance to revisit it, and yeah, I just I was

(08:47):
really fun to watch and just see all these other
levels that I had. I had missed the first time around.
There's a lot here and I really adore it and
I'm really grateful that it exists.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, there's so much to talk about with them.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
And I love how Corney it gets. It's kind of
you're like, oh man, it's it's just so it's so beautiful.
I love I love a little bit of corn. Yeah,
it is there.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
It's exactly what it needs to be, is how I
feel about it at this.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Point, totally Jamie, what's your relationship with it?

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Fairly recent? I this has been on my to watch
list forever, but I just hadn't yet watch it. I
really wish I had sat myself down or been sat
down to see it sooner. But I think that the again,
like the catalyst for watching this movie was and I
know it's part of why so for listeners if you're

(09:40):
a member of our Patreon aka Matreon, this was originally
the pole winner for our Divorce Bewery theme where I
just like, I've been so interested in divorce cinema and
like Desert Hearts is est here because the divorce is
very incidental, but also it's in Reno, so it's like

(10:02):
divorce is also the setting and it's just I got
very interested in divorce cinema after we covered The Women
with fellow Madison Luminary. Yeah, So after covering that, in
which in the last act of that movie there is
a Reno divorce ranch heavily featured, and it sort of
feels like a queer paradise as presented in The Women,

(10:23):
and I wanted to learn more about them and see
more movies that take place in Reno, and Desert Hearts
is far and away the one that is recommended. So
I was in my divorce cinema bag when I watched this,
and I just like I watched it earlier this year,
and just completely fell in love with it. I love

(10:43):
what a sweeping love story it is. I love that
it's like shot in Reno. The historical detail is so cool.
I love the performances, I love the music. It's just beautiful.
I wish I had seen it years and years ago,
but I'm very grateful I saw it now and for
this viewing, also getting the chance to learn a little
bit more about the work that it's based on and

(11:06):
the author, the original author, Jane Rule, so lots to
talk about.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
I'm so excited. Yeah, Caitlyn what's your history? Well, as
the terminally straight person on the zoom call, I had
never seen it until a few days ago, nor was
it really on my radar, which I think is pretty
telling because a lot of my film knowledge comes from

(11:31):
my not one, but two degrees in film, including a
master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
I know you hate talking about that.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, I hate bringing it up.

Speaker 4 (11:42):
But it's big of you to mention it for us today.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
Thank you so much. But you know, I had a
classic like film school education, which focuses on, you know,
a certain type of film. And even though as we
will talk about, this film is so monumental in so
many ways, so revolutionary in so many ways, it gets
overlooked by your typical film history classes because that curriculum

(12:09):
and those books are largely written by cishett white men,
and unless you're taking specifically like a queer cinema class,
movies like this probably aren't going to be included in
the curriculum. So I just wasn't super aware of it.
But I've seen it three times now to prep for this,

(12:31):
one of them being with the director's audio commentary, which
is included on the Criterion channel yeah, So I've learned
a lot and I'm so excited to talk about it.
And with that, should we take a quick break and
then come back for the recap.

Speaker 4 (12:51):
Let's do it so as like a plan.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
So here's the recap for Desert Hearts. It's nineteen fifty nine.
We meet Vivian Bell played by Helen Shaver. She's this
like straight laced English lit professor at Columbia University.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
She has five hundred thousand three piece suits that she
wears everywhere, and she's got a million Bobby pins in
her hair, and she's.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
Just buttoned up as buttoned up can be.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
Oh truly.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
She is the Wikipedia entry photograph for buttoned up. Yes.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
And she arrives by train in Reno, Nevada and is
greeted by Francis played by Audra Lindley, who takes Vivian
to a divorce ranch basically a place where women who
are aiming to get divorced would live to establish residency
in Reno because, as we talked about in the Women episode,

(14:04):
the laws around divorce there were much more lax than
basically everywhere else in the US.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
It was a whole thing.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
I've got more history. It's so interesting because it's basically
all gone now. And like, what I didn't know until
I took a weekend and just blacked out and learned
everything I could about Reno is that without Reno, we
don't have Vegas, which makes more sense when you're like, oh,
Vegas is famous for quickie marriages, and that is partially

(14:34):
because Reno was where you could get divorced very quickly
and then you would go to Vegas and get married.
But for a long time, basically the Reno is the
way it is, or was because once, as we've been
talking about on the Matreon, once no fault divorce became
more widely accessible from state to state between nineteen sixty
nine and twenty ten. Never forget, no fault divorce didn't

(14:57):
exist in New York until twenty ten, which we get
into in our c Yeah versus Kramer. So yeah, a
lot of really weird straight divorces going on on the
Matreon this month. But basically, Novada's economy was really bad.

(15:18):
It is not going well, and so the two things
that it developed lax laws around in order to beef
up its economy was divorce and gambling. And so Reno
really was like the first example of a place that was,
as we've talked about in the Women and many episodes
now drawing in mostly middle to upper class white women

(15:38):
to establish residency, get those quickie divorces and get out.
There's also a lot of really interesting history on I
think that most of the media we see is centered
on upper class white women getting divorces in Reno, and
Desert Hearts definitely included in that, but there was a
diverse array of people getting these divorces. There was a

(16:01):
great article I read I had to find it in
an archive from an old issue of Ebony about black
women getting divorces in Reno at this time and how
there was a separate infrastructure because there were still segregation
laws in place in Nevada at this time, but that
everyone was getting divorced. We usually only see privileged white
women getting divorced in Reno, but everyone was getting divorced

(16:23):
and everyone looked so hot doing it. And Vegas basically
develops in response to how successful Reno was and sort
of endured more. But like basically all of the infrastructure
that exists in the state of Nevada has to do
with this, like divorce industry. They popped up in Reno.

(16:45):
It's so interesting. It doesn't exist in Reno anymore, but
like that's why we have Vegas for better or for worse.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
Yeah, I acourage people to read about this a little
bit too. I was digging in and like the economy
that sprung up in Reno on the divorce world was
really fascinating. Like these ranches, but just like you had
male driver surfaces and like you know, guys that would
stay out with the women late at night. They had
like special social clubs and like classes and activities that
you could take to cater to these women who were

(17:15):
coming in. So it was a whole scene from what
I can tell, which is delightful.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
It's like a sexy little camp. Yeah. I liked that
because I hadn't done a lot of research the first
time I saw this, But like, I love how this
movie sprinkles in those like history moments where it's the
another woman staying at the ranch. Lucille Oh heavily alludes
to having a rent a boyfriend while she's there, and
it's just ooh, I love it so good.

Speaker 4 (17:42):
I have to really quickly interject because I'm a musician
and I have to shout out the soundtrack in this
movie is incredible, and the opening track that you hear
is such a good launching point because it is a
song by Patsy Klein called if You've Got Levin on
your Mind, and that's what she rolls into town on
the train on and it's just that moment. The music
is just so good and it's such a you know,

(18:03):
it's that additional character in the movie.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
It's so good, it's so yeah that the soundtrack is immaculate.
God is crazy playing when she's watching the horse. God,
the horse is a lot. It's a lot. It's so
like it is corny, but it's so beautiful, so good.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
Also, Donna Ditch petitioned. I think it was the distribution company,
which was the Sam Goldwyn's whatever blah blah blah, to
obtain the rights to be able to release the soundtrack
as like a separate album to sell alongside the movie,
and the distributor was like m pass because there are

(18:47):
a asshole.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
Losers, a bunch of losers miss opportunity. Truly, truly, I
did find multiple people on the streaming service that I
use who have created that playlist exactly so great.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
That's amazing. Okay, so point is Vivian bell is in town.
She's in Reno, and she meets Francis and on the
way to the ranch that's like out in the middle
of the desert, Francis and Vivian encounter Kaye Rivers played

(19:22):
by Patricia Charbonneau, who like passes them on the road,
speeding down the highway in her like hot sexy convertible.
Then she throws the car in reverse and is driving
alongside them for a moment in reverse.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
One of my favorite character introductions. It's so good. Maybe ever,
it's so good, it's so scary to watch.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
It's completely bonkers and unhinged, and it's such a perfect like.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
This is that character. Oh, just in case you weren't sure,
she's a she's a wild child, she's a free spirit.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yep. Also, the most perfect hair I've ever seen.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
Oh my god, it's blowing in the wind. It's incredible,
how the feathered, very perfect, gorgeous.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
I wasn't super familiar with either of these actors with same.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
They were relatively unknown at the time.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
But also and then still I feel like it still.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
Yeah, well my impression and you might have dug into
this more, but some reading around it is. It was
a huge risk for these actresses to take this role
at all, and I think there was some amount of blowback,
like when you when you do this sort of role
your It was actually, I think genuinely hard for them
to get mainstream roles afterwards.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, yeah, very true. I saw the same one one
thing that I did I forgot. Friend of the show,
Annie Rawereda aka Depths of Wikipedia, alerted be to this
because she knows I love Desert Hearts. Helen Shaver, a
few years after our Desert Hearts, plays Littlefoot's mother in

(20:52):
the Land Before Time and right, so it's all connected
and like it actually does. And also she's in the Craft.
I don't remember who she is in the Craft.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
Yeah, I was trying to remember she was. I remember
the bit, and I can't remember who she was. She Also,
she did, guess I think in two episodes of The
L Word in the original series, which I thought was
a really nice, nice like homage moment.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's lovely. I don't know. Yeah, Patricia Scharpeneau,
I don't think I really saw her in very much.
I'm seeing that she was in all She's all that,
But every time I watched that movie and immediately leaves
my mind. So I maybe don't. I just don't know,
but yeah, I mean the I think that I was

(21:37):
hearing Donna dit say in an interview that the most
famous person in the movie at the time and maybe
still was Audre Lindley, who was known for being on
Three's Company at the time. She was like a famous
TV actor. I recognized her from our episode on Troop
Beverly Hills because she's in Troupe Beverly Hills and fun

(21:58):
the fact about her her because Donna Ditch was, you know,
basically like raising money to finish this movie in real
time when she started it, she didn't yet have an editor,
like it was very much like you know, laying bricks
right behind, like right in front of you as you're going.
And Audre Lindley, who had the successful TV career, became

(22:20):
an investor in the movie when she realized that they
were running low in money, so she really was like
a big part of why it happened. So it just
seems like there was so much love on this. I
don't know. I just love seeing a great movie and
then also learning that everyone liked each other. And according
to Donna ditch. There was a lot of people fucking

(22:41):
having a great time, and you do love to hear it.
I do loved it.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
And she she like sold her house to finance this movie.
It was a real passion project. Yeah, yes, incredible.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Glad she did it.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
We're all better for it. Yeah. I hope she eventually
got another house.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
So it seems like she's I mean, we could talk
about gosh. I know, we're like two seconds into the movie.
But she, like a lot of women director we've talked
about recently, Donna d I mean, make no mistake, she
is very much working. She has always been working. She
was a documentary director before this, and she does direct

(23:22):
one other narrative movie after this, called Criminal Passion, which
I honestly don't know very much about. But I do
notice this pattern of if women directors continue working after
their big movie, it is generally in television and like
not again, just like, I find it quite interesting and

(23:45):
suspicious that this oteur route just seems unavailable to women
and queer people so battling.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
I couldn't. I don't understand it.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
It's just interesting.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan's first movie makes like eleven dollars and
then they're like, here, make everything.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Time after time, and I'm and I'm not even knocking
him for that, and like everyone should get everyone's first movie,
should be allowed to make eleven dollars exactly and then
keep it pushing. But you know, the anyways worth mentioning
because it seems like she wants to or at one point,
like ten years ago, she was like, I'm working on
a sequel that takes place in New York in the sixties,

(24:27):
and I was like, I want that so bad.

Speaker 4 (24:30):
I want it.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Yes, all right, back to the story minute two of
the movie.

Speaker 4 (24:37):
Yeah, I'm doing great.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
So we've met Vivian. She is buttoned up. We've met Kay,
she is loosened up, and so the contrast between them
is palpable, as is the sexual tension. Okay, so Vivian
arrives at the ranch, she gets settled in, she has
a drink with Francis, who tells Vivian about her past,

(25:02):
how she used to have a love of her own
with this man named Glenn, who is Kay's father and
who was married at the time of Francis's affair with him.
So like she wasn't really Kay's stepmother or anything, but
she still feels a lot of affection for Kay. Francis

(25:23):
also has a son by Glenn, a young man named
Walter who we've met. He works at the ranch. He
seems like a pleasant young man.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
He's a sweetie. I love when he's like, want a
chick lit. I'm like, I like this guy, yep, yep.
And also, I, just because I went weirdly defaid this
played via this actor named Alex MacArthur, who just feels
profoundly eighties based on these two facts about him. A
he plays the boyfriend in the Madonna Papa Don't Preach video.

(25:56):
She's keeping her baby and it's this guy's baby. And
also he was a bartender at Studio fifty four, And
so I'm just like, oh, this.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
All tracks so hard because I had to look him
up because I felt like he looked really familiar. It's
probably the Papa Don't Preach video, which definitely holds a
place in my childhood obsession with Madonna. He kind of
looks like Jake Gillenhall, like he does yeah, like a
little bit. But I was like, I didn't really recognize
a ton that he'd been in. But also he is
very attractive to me. Anyway, I was just like, he's

(26:27):
a very handsome young man, and so I'm like, yeah,
Studio fifty four and a Madonna Vie. I feel correct.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
It's just a very eighties resume. Its beautiful, that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (26:37):
Yeah, okay. So meanwhile we get more acquainted with Kay.
She works at a nearby casino. She lives at the ranch,
although she is living there permanently, like she's not in
the middle of a divorce like everyone else. This is
just her permanent residence. And she's also seeing a guy

(26:58):
named Daryl, who will learn more about eventually, but she
doesn't seem very thrilled to be with him.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Boo Darryl. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
One day, Vivian offers to bring Kay's mail to her cottage,
and Kay invites Vivian inside to like hang out and
look at her pottery.

Speaker 4 (27:19):
This is such a move. This is such a move.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
Insets, do you want to come in? Oh?

Speaker 4 (27:25):
The Georts?

Speaker 2 (27:26):
The Georts Georts game is off the charts.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
Yeah, and there's a naked woman in Kay's bed, No
big deal. This is Gwen played by Gwen Wells, who
would later go on to become best friends with director
Donna Ditch and Vivian sees her and is very taken aback.
She's clutching her pearls.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
And she leaves.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
But now she knows, and we know the audience that
Kay is queer and pretty open about it.

Speaker 4 (28:01):
I do love also that as Vivian is approaching the cottage,
you see this like strapping young man ranch hand who's
like loading hay and he's clearly noticing her, and she
is not looking at him at all. And then as
she leaves, he makes this great comment to Kay about
I don't know how you get all this action without
any equipment, and it's just like moving on away.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
For this guy. And I love that. I like that too.
Yeah it was great.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Yeah, Okay. So sometime later, Ka offers Vivian a ride
into town for an appointment that Vivian has with a
divorce attorney. Gwen is also in the car, and the
whole situation is quite awkward for Vivian. And then when
Kay drops Vivian off at the lawyer's office, Ka offers

(28:50):
to wait for her, but Vivian is being kind of
standoffish and cold and she says, no thanks, I'll find
my own way back. And then at Vivian's meeting with
the lawyer, he asks what are the grounds for her divorce,
and she has trouble articulating it exactly, but basically she
says that she longs for something she.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
Doesn't yet have.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
What could it be? What could it be?

Speaker 3 (29:18):
Then we learned that the Daryl guy that Kate has
been seeing is her boss at the casino, who professes
his love for her, but again, she doesn't want any
future with him. He seems to know that she has
relationships with women, and he says something like.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Giving her a hard pitch on a like a lavender marriage,
and she's like no.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
She says, pass, I'm waiting for someone who counts. And
someone who counts is not this guy, Not this Tim
Heidecker looking ass dude.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
He was like, yeah, flesh colored hair looking ass.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
That night, Vivian runs into Kay in the kitchen and
they're trying to be covert to avoid Frances coming in
and like talking their ear off, but then Kay spills
something and they're giggling and vibing and it's really cute.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
I'm trying to figure out what the heck k is
even doing in the middle of the night with like
a whole thing of like cream and Bulbert and yeah,
I'm like, I don't know what's going on there.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
I feel like they must have dropped to a scene
or something. I was like, what is she up to exactly?

Speaker 3 (30:26):
She's feeling snacky.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what they snacked
on in late fifties, but that seemed like a lot
for the middle of the night.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
A lot of dairy for that late in the day, truly.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
But anyway, Francis hears them and asks Kay to bring
her a drink, and Francis is kind of in the
middle of a meltdown. She has always latched on to
Kay because Kay and her son Walter are all that
frances has of her past lover Glenn. Clearly, she's you know,

(30:59):
lonely and grieving Glenn because he passed away. And Kay says, well,
one of these days I'm gonna find someone who counts.
And sorry, Francis, but you can't stand in my way,
because it seems like Francis knows that Kay has sex
with women and she doesn't approve of it, but she
seems to like tolerate it. And then Kay returns to

(31:23):
the kitchen to see if Vivian is still there and
seems disappointed that she isn't. The next morning, Kay asks
Vivian to go horseback riding with her, and they do,
and they talk about why Vivian's marriage fell apart, their
plans and ambitions, and that seems like they're really hitting

(31:44):
it off.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
I said, I want to note that they're not actually
riding the horses. They know they are awkwardly walking them
through the brush.

Speaker 3 (31:51):
So, according to the audio commentary, Donna Ditsch says that
she's like, I love looking at horses faces as much
as human faces. So to have them both at the staate,
like at eye level, because if they're up on the horse,
you can't see the horses faces us. It's like a
really long, really wide shot.

Speaker 4 (32:11):
That is the gayest horse girl thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
I respect her commitment to the horse girl Again, I actually,
controversially do not want to be that close to a
horse's face. That's that's frightening to me.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
Fair.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
I know I've talked about this on the show a
million times. So when I went to horse camp when
I was a kid, they they made us watch the
horse get a dental procedure, and I've never watched Wait, no,
I forgot about this. I don't know why. At Jesus
Horse Camp in New Hampshire, they make you watch the
horse get a dental procedure. Maybe it wasn't everyone, but

(32:48):
it was definitely my year. We watched the horses get
and it's so scary. It's like you have to the
teeth are too big. They have to like jackhammer the teeth.
It's scary.

Speaker 4 (32:58):
Wow, yeah, that would that would make depression.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
You just once you know what's in the horse's head,
it's just hard. It's just hard to get close like that.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
We're going back, so we see Vivian and Kay hitting
it off near the horse's faces. Then we cut to
Kay telling her friend and colleague Silver that she thinks
that she has found someone who counts love Silver.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
Silver is the best. Yeah, yeah, big fan.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
She's the best.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
Silver Rocks.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
Take baths with your friends also, yes, take baths with
your friends. Truly.

Speaker 4 (33:35):
Have a bathtub big enough to fit two people in
it in the first place.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
A drink ideally, and then have your your man fiance
serve you drinks.

Speaker 4 (33:44):
I oh he was so good too.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
I like that. I like them both a lot. I was.
I was so happy for Silver because even though we
don't get a ton of background. And in the book,
Silver and Kay who is and in the book like
casually hook up from time to time, they.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
Do kiss on the mouth. In the movie, that was
the vibe I got.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Yeah, yeah, like they're they've they've hooked up before, but
they're ultimately best friends. And I just I loved, Like
you just get the feeling that Silver has been through
a lot of shit and that she found someone who
can like actually meet her where she's at is so beautiful.
It's really beautiful. Yes, I know, so yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Ka tells Silver that she has found someone who counts
aka Vivian, but Silver warns k that Vivian is only
here temporarily, just long enough to see her divorce through
and then she's off to return to New York. Then
Kay and Vivian go clothes shopping together. They're hanging out

(34:49):
at a casino. They're they're just again continuing to vibe
and have a nice time, and everyone who senses what's
going on between them keeps saying that Vivian and Ka
have nothing in common. It's never going to work out.
This woman, Lucille tells Vivian to stay away from k
because she's queer, but like using the term pejoratively. But

(35:11):
Vivian is basically like, I don't care, fuck off Lucille,
but in a very like polite and academic way, which.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Is a very like style.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
Kind of cutting New England y, a little passive, aggressive, condescending.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
I do, I do love how I don't know. I
would just not want to be on on her bad side,
like Vivian Is can go ice cold in this space
of an instant if you disrespect her, girl, and I
think that that is beautiful and vice versa. Oh my god,
when she shuts Francis down, when Frances tries to talk

(35:50):
shit about k behind her back, and Vivian's like, I
have to go good night. I'm tired. I've seen this,
I've seen this movie before. Yeah. I was like, oh,
I love her. Okay.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
So then we see some more moments of longing between
Kay and Vivian, where Kay is being pretty overt about
it as is her style, and Vivian is being very
like suppressive about it as his her style. Then at
breakfast one morning, everyone is talking about Silver and her

(36:23):
fiance Joe's engagement party that's happening that night, and Vivian
says that she's not going because she has lectures to
prepare for her upcoming classes, and then Kay like stands
up and makes a scene and she's like, I want
you to come to the party, and then she storms.

Speaker 4 (36:41):
Out, which a friend of mine compared to how her
eight year old acts by the way, Kay's is very wilful.
ITA's like, yes, I know she's standing up for what
she wants, but like sometimes it's very like it's a
little much.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
It feels very like in your early mid twenties that
Kay is. And it does speak to like the more
like Corneier aspects of the movie that sometimes she does
just make a speech before leaving the room where she's like,
I no one's getting get in the way of my
life and be like leaves. It happens like three or
four times. I'm like, yeah, exactly did I do that

(37:16):
when I was twenty five?

Speaker 3 (37:17):
Probably yeah, same, yeah, same, Okay. So it seems like
Francis doesn't want Vivian going to the party if it
means that she'll be hanging out with Ka there, and
Vivian asks Walter why Francis resents Kay for being friendly
to Vivian, and it seems like Francis doesn't want Kay

(37:41):
to leave her again. She's lonely, She's desperately missing her
former lover Glenn. At some point, she tells Kay that
Glenn reached in and put a string of lights around
her heart.

Speaker 4 (37:55):
No.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
Then we cut to this engagement party. Vivian decides to
go after all, and she and Kay are making eyes
at each other. And then after the party, they drive
out into the desert and they're strolling around as the
sun comes up. Kay tells her that she likes women,

(38:17):
and Vivian is like, oh, no, do you like me?
I hope I haven't misled you in any way because
I care about you, But I'm not, And.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Then she runs away. She sprints away.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
She gets she gets interrupted by a crash of thunder
and a downpour of rain.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
She runs to.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
The car and Kay follows her and through a rolled
down window, they kiss, but then Vivian pulls away because
she's uncomfortable.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
Oh but where does she learn to kiss like that?
What a scene?

Speaker 2 (38:51):
What a scene? Love it.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
Then they return to the ranch to discover that Francis
has decided to kick Vivian out because Vivian and Kay
left the party. Together, and they stayed out all night
and people started talking about what they must be up
to and Francis can't have that, and Vivian is like, okay, fine, bye, bitch,
I'll leave.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
I'm really annoyed that she doesn't get her refund check, though,
because Kay throws it on the ground and then she
never picks it up right.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
And then she is once again being pretty cold and
stand offish to Kay as Vivian leaves, and now Kay
is furious at Francis for trying to interfere in her life.
She tells her she's moving off the ranch. Meanwhile, Vivian
has checked into a nearby casino slash hotel. She's not

(39:46):
doing great. Kay is not doing great. And then sometime later,
Kay pays Vivian a visit in her hotel room. Vivian
reluctantly lets her in and Kay is like, so weakest,
let's talk about it. And Vivian is like, ar kiss
was me having a momentary lapse in judgment and it's

(40:08):
not gonna happen again. I'm a respected scholar.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
She iconically. I was like, wow, if this isn't me,
when I retire, I will simply write a short story.
For my revenge.

Speaker 4 (40:18):
I was like, oh, I lost my mind. I had
forgotten that bit and I was rewatching this with friends
and yeah, we were all just like, oh my god,
the most waspy.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Like revenge you're gonna imagine.

Speaker 4 (40:30):
I'm gonna wait thirty years simmering of resentment, and then
I'm gonna write a nasty short story about how mean
you were to me, and that's my revenge.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
And you'll all definitely be alive and reading literary journals
to watch me get you. Incredible, Such a good character line.
I loved it. Oh, it's perfect, It's amazing.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
And so Vivian is protesting and goes to make herself
a drink and then when she comes back into the room,
Kay is in her bed naked.

Speaker 4 (41:06):
It is the fastest undressing you could buy. Like the
time it takes for her for Vivian to turn around,
say her piece about the short story and then turn
back is like a Kay had to start undressing immediately?

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Would she she needed like Lightning mc queen's pit crew
to get undressed that quickly?

Speaker 4 (41:27):
She was motivated.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
I wish I had been paying more attention to what
she was wearing when she came in because like, it's
one thing if you have.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
Like were there buttons, and God, were everything she wore
had buttons on it. It's all complicated late fifties stuff.
There's no T shirts here, so it would have taken
some work to get undressed, well into bed, set up
all pretty with you with your boobs out. But that
takes work.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
And very particularly just like a production note, I believe
that Patricia Sharpeneau is using a body double for much
of this scene, partially because that was in her contracted
partially because she was pregnant during the production of this spoofie.
She found out she was pregnant right as they began shooting. Wow,
I just I don't know why that is like always

(42:13):
fun to be like, Oh, it tastefully placed blanket, the
tits are out.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
I mean, she wouldn't have been that far into her
pregnancy though by that point she wouldn't have I don't
think she even would have been showing that much, if any,
but probably not.

Speaker 4 (42:26):
But you know, it could still just be a comfort
thing or yeah, if it was in her contract. But yes,
it is a very artfully placed blanket right below.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
Yeah, yes, indeed, so she's naked. She got undressed super fast.
I mean, as we've said, she's wearing her buttons loose
pussy cat doll's style. She's loosening up her buttons. Baby.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Yeah, so did not see that coming.

Speaker 4 (42:52):
That was yeah, good reference, Thank.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
You so much.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
Anyway, so she's naked now, and Vivian is like, I
want you to put your clothes on and leave, and
Ka is like, no, you don't. And Vivian is like, okay,
you're right, but I don't even know what to do.
I don't know how to have sex with a woman.
And Kay is like, don't worry, I won't be your guide.
And they start kissing. It gets hotter and heavier, and

(43:21):
they have sex for what seems like hours because eventually
Kay is like, we need to like leave this room.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Go.

Speaker 4 (43:29):
It is something the classic like queer sapphic sex k
hole that you go into when you woke up with someone.
It's it feels very accurate. You just lose track of
time and space for goodie days.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
This is the only and I did we'll talk about
because there was like a difference of opinion when this
movie first came out about how the sex scene was staged. Yeah,
but it did crack me up. I think this is
the only example I can think of of sex scene
fading to black and then fading up to kind of
still a yeah, just kind of just like later in

(44:03):
the day. Right.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
Can we just also talk real quick about how incredible
this would have been to see, especially as like a
lesbian or you know, the queer person at.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
The time, like that only imagine.

Speaker 4 (44:17):
I know there were like some lesbians who had issues
with it, felt like the dynamic of the characters was
too heterosexual in some ways. But I feel like this scene.
I think it's beautiful. I think it's beautifully shot. I
think there's this wonderful moment where Vivian basically flips her
over and is on top, kind of like taking charge
and like showing that she really wants this, which is
really important. But just seeing a sex scene between two

(44:38):
women filmed by a gay woman, not for the male
gaze on screen at all, you know, like a positive light.
I don't know what would have come before this at
all in any sort of bigly mainstream cinema, so it
would have been just absolutely nothing. This is why Jane Lynch,
you know, not just for the scene, but I mean,
this is why Jan Lynch must have watched it fifty times,
like it's a.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Huge deal, huge deal totally. Yeah, Jane Lynch concurs based
on my research.

Speaker 3 (45:08):
Yeah, no, I mean again, this was a revolutionary film.
It's considered the first feature film to present a positive
and like desensationalized portrayal of a lesbian romance. It's the
first lesbian themed feature film written and directed by a woman,
because ones prior to that had been made by men.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
And I did like to hear and again, I'm just like,
this is why women should direct all movies. Even though
you know it's nineteen eighty five, intimacy coordinators have not
yet been normalized. Weird that has only happened in the
last five to ten years, really, But that there was

(45:49):
care taken in the sex scene. There's information about and
Kitlin I don't know if she like talks about it
during the commentary as well. But everyone who was not
essential to being the room was gone. It was just
the director of photography, the boom operator and the actors
and Donna Ditch, which is how that should be. And ye,

(46:11):
I mean it's so wild. How far into movie history,
like including recent history, that like that care is not
taken and there's still really not of time industry standards
around it, so I was also I don't know it
just again, it's like so nice to know that a
wonderful movie was also ethically made, I think, especially because
we're coming off of the Kramer Versus Kramer episode, which

(46:33):
sounds like it nearly killed Meryl Street.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
Yeah, Dustin Hoffman was such a piece.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
Of shit, really flexing his history's great at monster muscles
in that one. But yeah, I just I really appreciated
that that like production detail as well.

Speaker 4 (46:50):
Yeah, and I feel like I read something too that
I mean, again, for these actresses taking this role, it
is kind of a big deal, and I think the
Helen Shaver talked about she's sort of trembling initially in
that She's like, I was kind of real because I
was really nervous to do this scene and it was
a big deal and it was a bit nerve wracking.
So yeah, I'm also glad to hear at least the
setup and the scene was pretty private and comfortable.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
With the director because that's it.

Speaker 4 (47:15):
Yeah, you just always want that, and I think it
really comes across in the scene, like in the acting
and in the scene you could always get a sense
when it's almost always can get that sense of like
there was a healthy environment on set, like yeah, feeling okay,
like supported and safe, and it really comes through and
it makes it makes a big difference.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Sure it does, it does. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Anyway, they've been having sex for hours and they eventually
leave to go to a bar or restaurant or something
where they have a little chat. They say that they
love each other. But Vivian is freaking out this whole time.
She's feeling exposed. She's worried about her future and her reputation.

(47:57):
What if the university and her students find out that
she's having an affair with a woman one who's ten
years younger than her no less, so her career is
potentially in jeopardy. And this discussion turns into an argument
and they're about to storm away from each other, but
then they very quickly make up, and we cut to

(48:18):
them nakedly embracing in the hotel room again.

Speaker 4 (48:22):
And a beautiful shot the lighting and the silhouette and
the lights from the Reno street. Like that shot and
also the shot of them when they're making up. I
really love that it's at a distance, they're getting into
the car together, and it's this lovely beautiful shot and
like we don't see the moment they have together when
it happens. You just kind of see them at a remove,
and I think that's I think that was really beautiful.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
I also, I mean I love their argument too, weirdly enough,
where like, yeah, absolutely, they're like talking as adults, They're
like freely expressing their concerns, and then at one point
Vivian is like, does it always unravel this quickly? Like
almost like providing commentary on the fight that they're having,
and then Kay says, comes with the territory.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
It's such a good I agree that, Like it is
a really good argument, especially coming from like two queer
women at like a different stages of their lives too,
where it's I don't know, Vivian is so thoughtfully characterized
that it's like, I like that the movie doesn't bonk
you over the head with period specific details, but like

(49:27):
this is still a time where being out or being
anything but straight was considered a mental illness and would
like absolutely ruin your life. It wasn't just cultural stigma.
There was still like significant legal stigma. And you know
that Kay is able to sort of be out sort
of not. But the reason that that's true is because

(49:47):
her options are so limited and that like it feels
like you have to make a choice between pursuing your
passion or not because of all the stigma. And I
don't know, I just felt like that was all encapsulated
in that argument without them having to state it, because
their relationship is so real. And then also just the
like twenty five year old talking to a thirty five

(50:07):
year old where there are certain moments whereas ever, like
you know, you could feel Vivia kind of holding back
of like all right, all right, get it out of
your system.

Speaker 4 (50:18):
But I mean, I'm glad you brought that up too,
because I think something I've come across, like I've had
to learn a lot of my own queer history coming
up when I did. But just I think, especially younger
people watching this, I hope they dig into the context
because I think it is important to understand what was
happening at the time. Like you know, same sex attraction
wasn't removed from the mental health classification until nineteen seventy three. Like,

(50:39):
you would absolutely be fired from your job, You would
absolutely lose your career, You could be kicked out of housing,
you could be thrown into an institution. All these things
that were happening up until fairly recently looming large over
this entire scenario. Yeah, and I think this is a
I'll just agree, like the conversation, this argument is such
a great without hitting you over the head and being
really obvious about it, it's such a this is this

(51:01):
is what they.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
Were dealing with.

Speaker 4 (51:01):
This would be very realistic to that time, not just
the age gap, but just the Vivian has a career,
she has this whole life, whereas Kay's making pottery and
on her her what she calls her hideout. You know,
she's sort of this like swaggering Western figure in some
ways and like a little freer, but like you said,
with limited options.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
So totally, Yeah, it's great.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
I really appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
There's also an.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
Interesting power dynamic between them, because while Vivian is ten
years older and has more just like life experience and
maturity under her belt career, that Kay is far more
experienced and just like having queer relationships and having sex
with women versus this is Vivian's first time with anything

(51:51):
like that. We are to assume, so Vivian is out
of her element in that regard, which sort of offsets
the power dynamic of Vivian being quite a bit older
than K.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
I feel, right, and it's like power as I or
at least I think in this relationship, almost as a
neutral term, because I don't think that either of them
abuses the power that they have over each other, right,
which is rare to see and like any kind of relationship.
But I also like noticed that we're they do at

(52:24):
different points. I think the K like has quite a
bit of power in this relationship. But even if it's
not like explicitly discussed. I think even especially prior to
the sex scene where Vivian is like so unsure of herself,
she is like, I don't know how to I don't
know how to end K He's like, I do all good,

(52:48):
Like let's you know. I just I think it's really
lovely that they're able to just communicate, you know, and
that no one is like lording the power they have
over the other, which is how a healthy relationship should work. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:05):
Well, I think the interesting too to think about some
of the criticisms that came out of particularly the lesbian community,
when this movie came out was like, oh, you know,
Kas this like dominating, you know, sort of masculine figure
to Vivian's more like submissive, you know whatever. And I'm like,
I don't read it that.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Way at all.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
But I think that was sort of a big conversation
happening in the community at the time in the eighties
is sort of getting away from the original quote unquote
original bushfem dynamics in queer women community and sort of
trying to like, hey, actually, we don't want to just
replicate heterosexual patriarchal relationships, which is a good and important
conversation we continue to have, and I don't think this

(53:43):
movie does that. And I think exactly to your point
that the power dynamics, they're mixed, but it feels pretty
even in the end that they're both bringing something to
the table and ultimately have agency to make these decisions
in a way that feels like relatively healthy. You know,
one needs to get pushed a little bit, the other
one needs to like have an understanding of what she's
dealing with, like what the world is, and try to

(54:05):
figure out a middle space that works out for them.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
But I really like that.

Speaker 4 (54:09):
I don't read either of them as any one thing
masculine or formula or passive or doc.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
There's sort of that vibe.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
But again, like they let Vivian in the end like
show that she wants this and like is making this
effort and it's just been hard. But like, yeah, I
don't know, I think that's I think that's great, And
it's just interesting to think about that in the context
of the time it was made in particular, and then
now how it plays now, given where we're at as
a as a as a society, as a culture.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
I do have some thoughts about the lead up to
the sex scene.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Yes, there's a bit.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
Of pushiness and boundary disrespecting.

Speaker 4 (54:49):
Dubious consent.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Yes that I think we're supposed to be coasting on
vibes that if this were guess we're a straight sex seed,
we would definitely feel like, well, really just get naked
while the other person is talking about why this cannot happen,
and you.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
Know, she does say like I want you to put
your clothes on and leave, and she says.

Speaker 2 (55:11):
She don't, and you don't know, you don't twice.

Speaker 4 (55:14):
Yeah, in any other context, yeah, yeah, fair to call
that out one.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Yeah, and then there's a part of me that's like, well,
what she doesn't. But then you're like, now sick, we'll
talk more about it. Okay, yes, yeah, that just to
we all we all run the nineteen eighty five elements
of this.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
Yes, okay, the movie's almost over. So they've had sex
and had a fight and then made up, and then
they have sex again. Then it's Silver and Joe's wedding.
Kay and Vivian are both there, as is Francis, who
tells Kay that she will never accept her liking women.
She can't understand two women being together. And then Kay

(55:57):
repeats one of Francis's lines back to her that Vivian
reached in and put a string of lights around her heart.
And so now Francis maybe seems like she's starting to understand,
and they seem like they kind of reconcile a bit.
Then Vivian's divorce goes through, so she's about to head
back to New York. Kay wants for them to be together,

(56:21):
to stay together, to live together or near each other,
but Vivian is like, I can't do that. I'll come
back and visit for Christmas. But that's not good enough
for Kay, and she's hurt and she leaves, but then
Kay sees Vivian off at the train station.

Speaker 2 (56:39):
Vivian, I know.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
Vivian invites Kay to come with her to New York,
saying that she deserves to live with someone who knows
how wonderful she is, who sees her for who she is, and.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
You know, sobbing, she just wants another forty minutes with her,
and we're like happy ending.

Speaker 3 (57:03):
Right, because Kay is hesitant. She's like, I've got loose ends.
I have to tie up in Reno and you know,
maybe she's feeling trepidacious. And then the train starts moving
with Vivian on it and Kay isn't on it. But
then Kate gets on the train, but just to ride
to the next station, or maybe to go all the

(57:25):
way back to New York.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Kay is so impulsive she's staying on that.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
It reminded me of the end of this and sorry,
this is a heterosexual relationship, but the end of I know,
so I apologize. But the end of Before Sunset, when
Ethan Hawk's character goes up to Selene's apartment.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
And the Nina Simone record Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
And then she's like, you're gonna miss your flight and
He's like, I know, no, anyway, beautiful, Ah, that's the movie.
So let's take a quick break and we will come
back to discuss.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
And we're back, and we're back, Emily, where would you
like to start? What's jumping out to you?

Speaker 4 (58:22):
Oh my goodness, that's such a big question. I feel
like we've already started talking about a lot of it.
I guess what I'll start by saying is and we
would love to hear your thoughts. And I know you've
talked about this on the show before, but just the
fact that we had a relatively happy ending. No one dies,
no one takes their own life, no one gets up,

(58:42):
put it into institution, Like there is this moment of
we think, you know, you can be like these two
crazy kids are going to make it work, because you're
left with that possibility. They're getting on the train together.
Maybe it's just another forty minutes, maybe they work it out.
But again, I cannot overstate how revolutionary that was for
nineteen eighty five, And honestly, we still deal with the

(59:03):
barrier gaze trope so much. And I can't imagine, because
I was four years old when this movie came out,
like the impact it would have had on a person,
a gay person going to see it after a lifetime
of crumbs for representation, and when you did have it,
you knew that that person was going to suffer in
some way thanks to the Hayes Code, and you know,
you had this sort of long tail the Hayese code,

(59:24):
which only I think stopped in.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Sixty nine, sixty eight, sixty nine.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
So it's still not that long after that, not a
long after Stonewall, and plenty of movies were still doing
exactly that. So it's just incredible to have this movie
period and then to have that ending. It was such
a gift. And I still feel like it holds up.
You know again, I kind of like that it's a
little ambiguous, but still generally a pretty happy ending. Yeah,

(59:53):
like it feels it feels earned.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
You know.

Speaker 3 (59:56):
One of the first things that Donna Ditch says in
the audio commentary is I wanted to make a film
about a love relationship between two women that didn't end
in a bisexual triangle or a suicide. I wanted to
see something much more authentic than that. So she set
out to do that, and she accomplished it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:17):
She did well.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
But let's okay, this Actually, I all love and respect
to Danna Deetch, but we have to talk about our
good friend Jane Rule. Yes, so I did not. I
was not aware of her as a cultural figure before
doing research for this episode, but she wrote the book
that this movie is based on Desert of the Heart,
and I wanted to go through it a little bit.

(01:00:40):
It was published in nineteen sixty four. Jane is. I
think she's an American Canadian, but she basically moved to
Canada to escape homophobic prosecution or persecution, Sorry, not prosecution,
I don't think, and hope not in the US. But
she's just she's a fascinating figure who ends up becoming

(01:01:03):
great friends with Donna Ditch Like this movie had her
full blessing and she really loved it. She lives until
two thousand and seven. But just to get into because
something I was wondering, not knowing a lot about the
backstory of Desert Hearts, was why why choose a period
setting for this? Because it's something we've talked about with
queer film a lot, specifically movies centering on lesbian relationships,

(01:01:26):
is they're very often tragic pieces set in the past,
even ones that we've covered and loved see Portrait of
Lady comes to see like there's the list goes on
and on. They're a very in quality, but like you know,
you can take Portrait of Lady on fire from my
cold dead hands. However, the trope is present. So I

(01:01:49):
was curious, because this movie does not have an unhappy ending,
what was the function of setting it? And it's because
it's when the novel was set and written. So Jane
Rule was born in the thirties and had family in Reno,
so she was sort of witnessed this up close. Wrote

(01:02:10):
Desert of the Heart. It finished it in nineteen sixty one.
It was not published for three years after that because
no publisher wanted to publish a book that centered on
a lesbian relationship, much less one that ended ambiguous to good.
There was a lovely short doc I found about her

(01:02:33):
on YouTube dot com that was produced in the nineties.
And Jane is a hoot. She is really funny. And
also it makes total sense that her and Donna Dietch
get along. I feel like they have a very similar
sense of humor. Where Jane Rule, when talking about the book,
was saying that, like she she was so unsure of

(01:02:55):
whether she wanted the book to be adapted into a
movie first, because it had sort of turned her into
a cultural symbol in all of North America. As I mean,
she she has this quote where she was like, for years,
I was treated as if I were the only lesbian
in Canada and I just had to which was obviously
not true, but the way the media spoke about me,

(01:03:17):
you'd never know there was a second lesbian in Canada.
And so she, I mean, she was sort of tokenized
in this way that she was upset about, understandably and
did not care for. And so when Donna Ditch approached her,
she was I think her quote was something like, you know,
I did not want the Hollywood version of this movie,
which is always one person in the couple commits suicide

(01:03:39):
and the other gets married to a man. And so
she and Donna Ditch had a link up. They talked
about it. Donna Ditch apparently showed Jane Rule everything she'd
ever made, which seems excessive, but it seemed like the
meeting went well, obviously, and Jane Rule gave her blessing
and said that there were she said again, it was like, gosh,

(01:04:04):
I don't know how I if I would be able
to handle hearing this, but she told Donna Ditsch, I
don't think you are capable of adapting my story, but
you can adapt a version of it, which, first of
all I was like, whoa. But also that does seem
to be what happened because Desert of the Heart, while
I have not read it, the bones are similar. I

(01:04:24):
think that the things that are sort of softened or
changed for the movie mainly have to do with the
specifics around In the book, it's Evelin in Anne, but
around Evelin, who is still a professor, her thoughts around
her divorce, there's more more interiority, digging into her feeling

(01:04:45):
responsible for the end of her marriage, which had to
do with both her not being attracted to her husband
and also the fact that her husband was tremendously depressed
unrelated to the marriage and blaming it on her. So
that was I think more prominent in the story. I
don't mind. I actually think it's a positive adaptation that

(01:05:06):
that is not really harped upon in Desert Hearts, and
that men really have not very much to do with
what's going on, and straight people have very little to
do with what's going on. I know, I love that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Also, I learned from the audio commentary that sometime after
publishing her book, Jane Rule was approached by a studio
to option the book and adapt it into a film,
but Jane Rule refused because she feared that it would
be altered in a way that would be unacceptable to her.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Well, yeah, the one person kills themself, one person gets
married to a man.

Speaker 3 (01:05:45):
Right right. Yeah, So then she sold the option to
Donna Ditch, and then Donna went to a studio for financing.
But after a few meetings at this studio, she realized
that they would not let her make the movie the
way that she wanted to make it and honor the book.
So she had to finance the movie independently. So, as

(01:06:07):
we mentioned already, she did things like sell her house.
She sold some shares to individual investors, many of whom
were lesbians, who I imagine were very eager to see
positive lesbian representation on screen. Also, the largest single investor
was a gay man. I don't know who specifically.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
But shout out that guy. I was like, shout out
to shout out to him.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
She also got a grant from the National Endowment for
the Arts, but basically she just like had to cobble
together a bunch of like different sources of money eventually
raised one point five million dollars for the budget, which.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Is so prevalent. I mean I almost think about like
early John Waters movies of just like how much iconic
queer cinema like could not have been made in the
conventional studio system and require a lot of creativity and
like sacrifice on behalf of the people making it in
order for us to you know. And of course once

(01:07:10):
the studios are like, oh wait, people will pay for this, sure, sorry,
you know, but it is always late to the party,
always always. I'm just I'm so glad for I mean
truly everyone, but like particularly for Jane Rule that like
Donna Dietch, really committed to getting the story told the
way that it needed to be told.

Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
Yeah. Absolutely, And not to diminish the amount of hustle
it took to make it, but I believe it it
made back more than it's its budget, Like it did,
you know, it doesn't Gangbusters, but it did make more.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
It made a profit two point five million dollar box
office receipts on a one point five million dollar budget.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
Not too bad, not too shabby.

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
One of the last things that Donna Jech says in
the audio commentary is and this kind of also relates.
We can talk about like the critical reception of this movie,
but the film was playing at maybe one theater in
New York City, potentially more, but it seems like it
was maybe just this one for a time, I think

(01:08:09):
when it was like first released in theaters in nineteen
eighty six after its like festival run. And there was
a critic named Vincent Camby.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
Who famous New York Times critic right.

Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
Yes, who was known to if he gave like a
scathing review of something, especially an indie film, it would
probably not survive. It would other screenings of it in
other markets and cities and stuff like that would probably
be canceled.

Speaker 4 (01:08:36):
Too much power for one guy.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
Exactly exactly, but like films died in the water from
his reviews apparently quite often, and he gave this movie
a scathing review. So Donna Ditch was like, we can
salvage this. So she basically went to several screenings of
her film over the course of a weekend and basically
was like she told the audience, if you liked this movie,

(01:09:00):
please tell a bunch of your friends to come see it,
and that worked that all the movie came i think
six tickets away from breaking the box office record at
that cinema for the weekend, and the movie came to
be known as a can be buster, and it was

(01:09:20):
one of the few independent films of that era to
have survived his wrath. As Donna Ditch puts it, we.

Speaker 4 (01:09:27):
Got to shut a shout out the queer community too.
I mean kudas to her for like showing up and
putting in the shoe leather to just promote it and
get people to do that. But also like queer folks
will show up for the things that they love, especially
when they get the sense that that thing loves them back. Yeah,
and go hard for it. I think we have done that.
We have a long history of doing that, even when
it's maybe not the most high quality thing, but you

(01:09:49):
can tell that the thing loves you back, we will
go hard. And I think that's I think that's beautiful
and I think that this is definitely a testament to
We saw what this was and we were like, you
know what, we're not gonna let this one. And reviewer
guy tank it, I agree, it's too important.

Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
Meanwhile, Vito Russo's over here talking about he wrote in
his book The Cellular Closet homosexuality in the movies. We've
cited the Vito Russo test on the show many times,
of which he was the founder. But he said, quote,
Desert Hearts is a love story that recreates, with perceptiveness

(01:10:25):
and tenderness, what it might have been like for two
women of different generations and backgrounds to fall in love
in the fifties. Deetcha's refusal to feature the straight world's
reaction to lesbianism as her focus of the film made
all the difference in the way the relationship between the
women was perceived by audiences. And then he went on
to say, Vincent can be complained that we are not

(01:10:48):
given enough information about the quality of Vivian's broken marriage,
asking if perhaps her lesbianism was a hysterical reaction to
her divorce.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
Yay, oh god, I mean, that's kind of great for
Donna deetch to be like, well, I have proof as
to why he didn't like it. He's homophobic, Like.

Speaker 4 (01:11:10):
Yeah, tellan on himself.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
Yep. And then the final bit of this quote is
Vita Ruster saying, this is the point at which many
heterosexual critics disqualify themselves from perceptibly reviewing gay films.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
Absolutely, yeah, quote.

Speaker 4 (01:11:26):
I think that is exactly right. And you know you
were talking before about that conversation she has with the
Vivian has with the lawyer as being sort of the
only kind of the most deep dive weld get into
what happened in that, And I love, I love exactly
what it says, and it's it's not saying that this
was a terrible It wasn't a hysterical reaction. It wasn't
this huge thing where she had an abusive husband. It

(01:11:47):
was just a marriage that wasn't working and she was
not interested. It clearly wasn't interested in him, and it
was would she say it drowned in still waters, say
no more.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
You know, like that, and that's all it needed to be.

Speaker 4 (01:11:59):
That was the I mean, I think anybody who got
it knew exactly what that meant and that that was
the important part. And it absolutely yeah, it's not for
none of this was for the straight man and they.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
Critics, which is like why so many queer classics are
not well reviewed in their day, because they just don't
understand what the movie is for or don't care, but
I'm so glad. I mean again, it's like, I'm so
glad that Donna Ditch was able to advocate for this movie.
And I also think it's still like you were saying earlier, Caitlin,

(01:12:35):
like under taught and underdiscussed in like film education. Totally.
It is like, I'm frustrated that it took me so
long to watch this movie, and that's partially on me,
but also it's partially on the world. Absolutely, Yeah, Well,
what else would we like to talk about?

Speaker 4 (01:12:55):
I just want to shout out Silver again, but specifically.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
Because I do.

Speaker 4 (01:12:59):
I I think it's common you sort of get like
the world in the movie is very insular in things
like this where it's just like about the couple and
they don't seem to have like a world outside of
They don't have friends, they don't have a community, right,
So you know, Silver is sort of I think holding
down the role of like a community that Kay clearly
does have. She does have additional people that she's seeing
and and friends and families. So I love Silver as

(01:13:22):
a character. I love that she's sort of this writer
die friend who we don't get all the big details.
But like you said, Jamie, Like you get the sense
that she's lived a life, you know, But I just
I really appreciate you're talking about like most of the
women or most of the characters in this movie are
women talking to each other. There's you know, there's a
there's a Silver's partner who we like, who's who's great.

Speaker 2 (01:13:41):
But otherwise it's like.

Speaker 4 (01:13:42):
There's very few men with speaking roles, which is you know,
rare and a delight. But just the fact that like
they let they let Kay have friends and not just
be this sort of like singular character that with no
context and no community basically, And I like that element
of this movie as well, that there are multiple other
people that have a role to play in this That

(01:14:05):
feels like it just adds a lot of substance.

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Yeah, I think it raises the stakes at the end too,
because it's like you do get the feeling that she
would be like leaving something behind and like, yeah, there
is uh an And I appreciate. This reminded me although
it's like these movies have very little in common. But
we recently covered Appropriate Behavior on the show, and a
little bit the dynamic between Sharene from Appropriate Behavior and

(01:14:33):
her mother reminded me a little bit of the relationship
between Kay and Francis, because even though I think that
like Francis in particular is which makes sense given the
time caught up in like what is her role to Ka?
What was her role to Glenn? Because marriage was such

(01:14:54):
a marker right in the fifties and such a defining
quality of one women how women were supposed to perceive themselves.
But like, for all intents and purposes, she's Kay's mother.
Kay's mother like walked out, and it seems like Francis
essentially raised her, and Kay basically speaks to that without
overtly calling her a mother. At the end, is like,

(01:15:16):
I've known you longer than I've known anyone else in
my life, and I thought it was interesting. At the
end of Appropriate Behavior, Scharene comes out as bisexual to
her mother, who kind of just pretends she doesn't hear it,
and Sharene decides, I want a relationship with my mom.
I'm gonna step away for a while and then try again.

(01:15:36):
And it seems like Kay is sort of pursuing a
similar journey with Frances. I like that it's kept ambiguous,
but I just that dynamic ended up being more nuanced
than I expected, I guess, because frances is absolutely monstrous
in like humiliate like intentionally humiliating Vivian and Kay to

(01:15:57):
prove a point to specifically Kay, but also to herself
in this very selfish way to attempt to shame k
which first of all will never work, and also you know,
like place a flag on her and be like you
are mine because I cannot accept that Glenn is dead
and Kay is sort of like that's my problem, you know,

(01:16:19):
Like I think, you know, Francis is centering her own
grief above anyone else's. And I got the.

Speaker 4 (01:16:25):
Line that Kay has. There's some really good one liners
in this movie too. She she calls out Francis. She says,
you want things without loving them, that's greed.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Hmmm.

Speaker 4 (01:16:33):
I realized that really sums up kind of the conflicts.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
Going on, and I thought it was they leave it
in this very kind of like nuanced, ambiguous place that
again just I think like this movie shows a lot
of shades of gray. Yeah, especially with Kay's family dynamic
that I really appreciated.

Speaker 4 (01:16:52):
Yeah, it's sort of similar to how they leave it
with again that ambiguity at the end, like there's there
is a hope that something more positive will calm down
a line, but you're given the neat, tidy, buttoned up
ending like that everything is solved and you know, everything's happy.
It's and you know, that's fun. Sometimes I love that.
Sometimes it's very relieving, especially in a queer film. But

(01:17:13):
I think again, it feels like it's really true to
the story and the time and it's still. Yeah, it's
much more nuanced than I think I was expecting when
I went into this film, So that's great. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:17:24):
Speaking of great lines, my favorite one I think is
it's after they've had sex for the first time. Vivian
is freaking out not only about like what if people
find out? What if I lose my job, but she
also like can't really She's like struggling with Kay being
so fearless and self assured, and Kay says in response

(01:17:50):
to that, I don't act this way to change the world.
I act this way so the world won't change me.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
Yeah, and I'm like.

Speaker 4 (01:17:56):
Oh, bars, spit and Fire truly so good.

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
Yes, I just love how these are such two distinct
characters and how I mean kind of going back to
the casting conversation where Donna Ditch had a really difficult
time finding actors who would willingly portray lesbian characters, and
many of them refuse to audition for the film.

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
And then also just like annoying that she couldn't get
bigger names. I think also just for logistical reasons, which
is that like a lot of actors think they're too
famous to audition.

Speaker 3 (01:18:33):
True, yes, yeah. And then Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau
were told by their friends and their agents that this
film would ruin their careers, but they were like, Okay,
these are substantial roles. It's like two women who are
co leads in a feature film. The characters are interesting
and dynamic, and parts like this just like barely exist

(01:18:57):
ye for women in films, and to this day still
barely exist. Unfortunately, So these two actors like jumped at
the chance to play these characters who are just like
so distinct and relatable and compelling to watch.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
Yeah, I mean you can totally. It's it's very clear
why these characters fall in love with each other, like
it just they compliment each other so well, will it
go the distance? Well, we need to give Donald least
billion dollars to make the desert hurts too, And then

(01:19:37):
we can find out.

Speaker 4 (01:19:38):
That'd be great.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
I love it. My prediction is they end up in
like a lifelong situation ship thing. Yeah, I can see that,
okay in New York. I don't know if Ya's going
to that, that's exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:19:52):
Yeah, they're going to have to open up their relationship. Yeah,
become polyamorous.

Speaker 2 (01:19:56):
As long as the late sixties hit. Yeah, it's it's
going to be a while ride. Yeah, Yeah, Vivian's going
to need to get on board or or things change.
But that's okay. For now, we have forty minutes and
they're just they're so wellful, they're going to make it work.
I want to really quickly return to the sex scene.
As we mentioned, there are various like and especially like

(01:20:21):
the lead up to the sex scene, we talked about
how Vivian is visibly uncomfortable. She is saying, I want
you to leave, I want you to put your clothes on.
She reluctantly lets Kay in. In the first place, k
gets naked without making sure that was okay with Vivian.
You know all these things. Vivian says, I don't want

(01:20:42):
to take off my robe, and.

Speaker 4 (01:20:44):
Then Kate, we all have to draw the lawn somewhere.

Speaker 3 (01:20:48):
Yeah, and then she does not respect that boundary. Now,
as the scene goes, Vivian gets more comfortable with it,
as as we also talked about, but again, and she
is clearly stating a lot of boundaries that Kay is
blowing right past. Now, you could read this, I think
as a situation where one queer woman who is much

(01:21:12):
more comfortable and open with her sexuality is trying to
encourage the other woman to break out of her shell
abandon her fears and insecurities. But also, you can do
that and still respect someone's boundaries. Yes, So I feel
like there's like traces of the like quote unquote predatory

(01:21:34):
lesbian trope at the beginning of this scene. But then
as it goes again, Vivian comes into her own and
has the best time.

Speaker 1 (01:21:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
I don't know, I'm curious what you think of I'm like,
I'm just maybe it's just my personal love of the movie.
I'm tempted to give it a pass because I don't
I don't think that this agenda is to set in
an example necessarily. I don't know. I mean, I don't
mean to give it too much of a pass, but like,
I don't know, I think that there is a tricky

(01:22:10):
thing in movies, especially the further you go back in history,
where it's like the normalization of how consent is communicated
and verbalized I think has changed pretty considerably over time.
I don't know, I'm inclined to give this movie a pass,
even though I think on paper, you're totally right.

Speaker 3 (01:22:33):
Yeah, especially because it was so revolutionary for the time.

Speaker 4 (01:22:36):
Yeah, I mean I think watching it now, you should
feel a little icky about how it starts, right, So
that is not something we would want to follow the
example of ideally not back then and certainly not now.
And I think I'm gonna have to sign But they're like,
I have to give it a pass, even acknowledging that
and wanting to take that seriously given the context that

(01:22:58):
it was made in and also just the context of
the rest of the movie, it's just it's not it
fits the characters in a way, and Vivian would have
been that nervous and it might have required a little
bit of that kind of I don't want to say pushiness,
but like, yeah, to get there, But like, is that great? No?

(01:23:18):
Does it sort of work in the movie, yes? And yeah,
I think again, like contextually for the time, our understanding
of consent has changed. And I would also just like
I would, I would assume that like some of those
more toxic elements of how we considered consent or how
it was displayed in movies, or what we expected from
certain characters and movies certainly would have bled into this

(01:23:39):
in a way that wasn't great. Like for sure, it's
not entirely avoidable even by the best queer filmmakers. So
all those things can be true at the same time.

Speaker 2 (01:23:47):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, And I think that like if this
movie were made today, it is something that could be fixed, Yeah,
with slight dialogue adjustments, and the scene could play out
the exact same way, which I think is like another
reason why I'm like it. It doesn't feel like it
is the coercive language is necessary to the scene or

(01:24:11):
the dynamic like it can be removed, sure.

Speaker 4 (01:24:15):
And we could take out the what we call this
like a surprise naked instead of surprise a surprise undressed.

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
Surprise, the jumps care nudity. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:24:27):
Another thing of note to mention regarding this sex scene
is that the distribution company of this movie, the Samuel
Goldwyn Company, insisted that the sex scene be cut down,
but Donna Ditsch refused. She said, hell no, I get

(01:24:48):
final cut, and they relented thankfully, which is incredible, incredible,
Yeah right, Yeah. It reminded me of the documentary This
Film Is Not Yet Rated, which examines how films with
queer sex scenes are perceived as being more explicit and
graphic than heterosex scenes, even if the blocking the cinematography,

(01:25:13):
the amount of nudity is basically identical to the heterosex scene,
So movies with queer sex scenes will often get like
NC seventeen ratings. Now that is not the case for
Desert Hearts, it is rated are but oftentimes films with
queer sex scenes will be like rated in such a
way that it makes them a lot less accessible to

(01:25:34):
general audiences. So I just wanted to point that out
and then also point out the fact that even though
the sex scene is steamy, it's not graphic.

Speaker 4 (01:25:44):
No, like I mean, you do get you get nipple
on nipple, which.

Speaker 2 (01:25:47):
Is yes, very fun.

Speaker 4 (01:25:49):
Yes, yeah, No, it is not particularly graphic I think
as queer sex scenes, so go in terms of what
we get in movies, it is on the more graphic end,
which is to say that usually they're just super toned down.
I think for all the reasons that you stated when
they're afraid to get NC seventeen ratings, because that was
a real consideration. But no, I think it's a beautifully

(01:26:10):
blocked and shot sequence and it's definitely more than we
were getting at the time, and still more than we
get in a lot of movies in a way that
still feels tasteful. I mean as it it tasteful because
I'm like, let's, you know, bring it, do whatever, but
like in a way that feels like it makes sense
in the movie. And I think specifically of like blue
is the warmest color, which I that sex scene makes

(01:26:30):
me so uncomfortable for so many reasons. Yeah, as an
example on the far side of that, but like, I
think this one is really well done. I'm really glad
that she pushed back and had it included how she
wanted it to be done. But yeah, I mean, our
existence is queer people is red as inherently hyper sexual
or sexualized, often by sort of the straight world, and like,

(01:26:53):
you know, one of the most common retorts you get
is like, why are you shoving your sex life down
our lives? And I'm like, I'm just I'm just existence,
and I would like to exist as who I am,
but it is it is read by some people, you know,
in bad faith, I think, is being this inherently sexualized,
sexualizing thing. And so yeah, that's definitely playing out in

(01:27:13):
the in the movie world for a long time and
still to this day that that bias exists, so totally
all the more impressive that this scene ended up being
what it was.

Speaker 2 (01:27:23):
Totally.

Speaker 3 (01:27:24):
Yeah, absolutely, Uh. The movie, believe it or Not, does
pass the Bechdel test.

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
Immediately and basically for the rest of every yes, yep, yes,
nothing really more to say about it passes with flying colors,
really every pair of women that talk to each other.
It passes the bechel test. Again. The thing that I
would single out there because there is some class diversity,

(01:27:51):
there's no racial diversity present in the movie. And this
is not necessarily completely absurd given the period of time
and the amount of segregation that would have been present
in the Reno divorce culture at this time, but that
does not mean that there were no non white people

(01:28:11):
in this environment as I think we're seeing, and just
I think does play into the very general movie trope
of a fixation on the white middle to upper class.

Speaker 3 (01:28:24):
Indeed thousand percent as far as our nipple scale goes,
where we rate the movie on a scale of zero
to five nipples, examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.
I'm going to go a four point five on this one.
I'm docking it just a little bit because of that.
The scene that you can read is a little bit
too coercive for our liking. And maybe I'm grading it

(01:28:47):
on a curve kind of because this is such a groundbreaking,
important film that paved the way for later films about
and made by lesbians. And I hope that more people
watch this movie and that it becomes more a part
of the zeitgeist, because it should be a better known
film than it already is. So four point five nipples,

(01:29:11):
I'm gonna give one each to Donna Ditch, Jane Rule,
Helen Shaver, and Patricia Charboneau, and then I'll give my
half nipple to screenwriter Natalie Cooper.

Speaker 4 (01:29:24):
Love it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:25):
Yeah, I'm gonna go four it half as well. I
just adore this movie. I feel like it's on track
to become one of my faves. It's so rewatchable, it's
so beautiful. This is not to shut out a man,
but I'm gonna quickly do stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:29:38):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
The cinematographer is Robert Elswit, who, in addition to being
Jake Jillen Hall's godfather, was Paul Thomas Anderson's go to cinematographer.
This was like the beginning of his career. But he
we have covered so many movies that he shot. He
did Bogie Nights, he did Punched Drunk Love, he did Gellie.
He just wow, Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:29:57):
The last episode, well we have redo it. Who can say, oh.

Speaker 4 (01:30:02):
My goodness, please.

Speaker 2 (01:30:03):
There will be blood in her advice mission impossibilvies like
he is like shot so many reties and this is
so beautiful and I just wanted to shout out that
it's just like very beautifully shot as well. But back
to women, the only people who matter. I am going
to give it four and a half nipples for all
the reasons we've discussed, and I'm going to give those

(01:30:26):
distribute those nipples to Donna Ditsch. I'm going to give
one to Jane rule Icon she was so cool.

Speaker 4 (01:30:33):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:30:33):
And then yeah, I will distribute them between Hell and Schaeffer,
Patricia Charboneau, Audre Lindley, and Andre Akers, who plays Silver.
I love Silver.

Speaker 3 (01:30:42):
Yay, how about you, Emily.

Speaker 4 (01:30:45):
I think I'm gonna also I was. I was struggling
between like a four and a four and a half
as well. I adored this movie. I think it's fantastic.
I also think it holds up really well in general.
There was a complete lack of racial diversity in it.
That again, even given the time, like there would have
been people existing in this space that I want to
I want.

Speaker 2 (01:31:04):
To send you though, this really really really great Ebony
article from I think the sixties or seventies about the
specifically black divorce scene in Reno, which was also very
vibrant and fascinating, and no one talks about it, and
I want to see a movie about it, so I'll
then I'll send you that link to include, and.

Speaker 4 (01:31:22):
Please please also just send it to me. I want
to read this. It sounds fantastic, it's terrific.

Speaker 2 (01:31:26):
I want more. I want Reno cinema to be a
thriving subgenre. It's so interesting, it feels like a rich text.

Speaker 4 (01:31:33):
Yeah, so I think because of that, and because of
the slightly dubious consent in the sex scene, and all
the reasons you've already talked about I'll go with the
four and a half as well, because I just love
this movie too much not to get that close to
a five. And I will also evenly distribute it between
all of the women who are involved in making this
film and those beautiful horses whose faces we got to see.

Speaker 2 (01:31:56):
Oh shout outful faces horse girl representation.

Speaker 3 (01:32:02):
Well, thank you so much, Emily for joining us for
this amazing discussion. Please come back any time, truly.

Speaker 4 (01:32:07):
Oh, thank you so much. I would love to come back.

Speaker 3 (01:32:10):
For g Lee, just kidding. Tell us where people can
follow your work, follow you on social media, et cetera.

Speaker 4 (01:32:20):
Sure, I am extremely online, so it's pretty easy to do.
You can follow well, I'd say my public Instagram is
my DJ account because I'm a dirty DJ, so it's
just DJ Underscore milbot m I L L B O T.
I'm also at Emilymills dot oorg for my sort of
general professional stuff. And if you want to follow my

(01:32:41):
band or Damsel Trash, because you got you got me
coming up of a gig weekend, so I got to
shout out my band Daniel Trash, which just put out
a brand new album. People might be interested if you
like fun, silly punk rock with lots of feminism and
sex and politics. I love it at Damsel Trash pretty
much everywhere and on band camp as well. And shout

(01:33:02):
out to Megan Rose, my partner crime and Damsel Trash,
who can be with us today but is an incredible
human being as well.

Speaker 3 (01:33:07):
So yeah, we'll have the both of you back for
a different episode.

Speaker 4 (01:33:10):
We would love that very much. This has been such
a pleasure. Thank you so much. Oh my gosh, thank
you so appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:17):
You can follow us on Instagram at Bechdel Cast. You
can support us on Patreon aka the Matreon, where we
release two bonus episodes every single month, always based on
a fun little theme. Plus you get access to the
back catalog of around two hundred bonus episodes. So if

(01:33:38):
you've run out of main feed episodes, head on over
to the Matreon at patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast
and that is five dollars a month. And with that
it's me Caitlin signing off alone because everyone else had
to run, but rest assured that we are all going
to hop on a train together, maybe for the next

(01:34:01):
forty minutes, maybe to spend the rest of our lives together. Bye.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
produced by Me, Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 3 (01:34:15):
And Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by
Sophie Lichtermann.

Speaker 2 (01:34:20):
And edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever Heard of Them? That's
Me and our logo and merch and all of our
artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever Heard
of her? Oh My God? And our theme song, by
the way, was composed by Mike Kaplan.

Speaker 3 (01:34:36):
With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

Speaker 2 (01:34:38):
Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 3 (01:34:43):
For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Desert Hearts with Emily Mills