Don't Worry Darling with Payton McCarty-Simas

On this episode that feels like an episode, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Payton McCarty-Simas talk about the movie that feels like a movie... Don't Worry Darling (2022). Here's the piece we mention, "Don’t Worry Darling Is Peak White Feminism (As Expected)" by Haaniyah Angus -- https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/dont-worry-darling-white-feminism 

Follow Payton on Instagram at @paytplace and grab a copy of out her book, That Very Witch: Fear Feminism & The American Witch Film

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdelcast.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
The questions asked if movies have.

Speaker 3 (00:04):
Women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn bast
start changing with the Bechdelcast.

Speaker 4 (00:16):
Welcome to the podcast that feels like a podcast where
we discuss movies that feel like movies.

Speaker 5 (00:21):
Because they are movies and sometimes it's not that complicated. No,
my name is Caitlindante, my name is Jamie Loftus, and
we are the podcasters who feel like podcasters because we
are podcasters. Yes, this is the Bechdel Cast podcast where
we take a look at your favorite movies or just movies.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Uh, using it like using an intersectional feminist lens, using
the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for discussion.
But Caitlyn, what the hell is that? I don't remember
because I'm being trapped by an incell.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
Oh no, well, it's a media metric created by our
best friend Alison Bechdel, first appearing in her comic Dikes
to Watch Out For in the eighties. It has since
become a media metric that is used to determine do
women interact in a movie? And if so, do they
talk to each other about something other than a man?

(01:18):
Our version is, do two characters of a marginalized gender
have names speak to each other? And is the conversation
about something other than a man? Ideally it is narratively
meaningful dialogue and not just throw away nonsense. This movie
doesn't really have a problem with the Bechdel test.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
It just has a problem with a.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
Lot of other stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
I'm very excited to talk about this movie. Yes, this
was a movie that when it came out, it's don't worry, darling,
We're not trying to withhold this information.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
Yeah, there's no big twist at the end.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
End, no big twist that the director. Upon revisiting the
press cycle, the director spoilers the movie in almost every interview,
which is wild. She's like, yeah, ye, so I based
Chris Pine's character on Jordan Peterson. Like you really should
not have said that. That's like that ruins it. Anyways.
I don't even remember what I was saying, because it
just this movie is so silly. Oh oh, this is

(02:14):
a movie that we got a ton of requests for
when it came out, and we've been trying to for
the most part not cover movies right when they come out,
because it's hard to have any sort of objectivity, especially
when a movie was as discussed to death as this
one was. Oh yes, but it feels like it's been
enough time. And also we have an incredible guest, so

(02:34):
let's get them in here.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
They are an author, programmer, and film critic and their
new book That Very Witch, Fear, Feminism and the American
Witch Film is something that you should get and read.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
I'm halfway through it. It's terrific.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
It's Peyton McCarty, Semas welcome, Hi.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to talk
about this real go to the theater movie.

Speaker 4 (02:57):
Oh my gosh. We come to this place for movies
that feel like movies, come to.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
This place for discourse.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
So first of all, tell us about your book.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yes, please, absolutely so. Basically, this book traces the evolution
of the witch in horror films as a vector for
the state of feminism at any given point in time
in history in America specifically. So as I go through,
basically what I do is I give you a little
bit of a history and the politics of the moment,
a little bit of the history of the feminism of

(03:28):
the moment, the history of the cinema of the period,
and then I tile of that together through the witch
films of that particular era. And what I figured out
was that, well, you know, witches have always been a
symbol of feminism, but at peak feminist activism in America
at these moments like the sixties and the twenty tens,
whiches in the horror film are depicted as super powerful,

(03:51):
which is, you know, intuitive in a certain sense, but
how they're depicted as powerful changes and can tell you
a lot about what's going on, and in moments of
something else very interesting occurs.

Speaker 6 (04:03):
So I researched this book for a little over half
a decade and it was basically my therapy for where
we are when the election happened.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
I didn't really have to change anything. I emailed my
editor and was like, I'm going to add two sentences
and then we're ready to go. So it definitely helped
me figure out how we got here. But it's also
I hope it's a fun time, you know, so gosh, so.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, can confirm it absolutely rocks. Thank you for writing it,
And it looks also just like I don't know. I
was like, that must have been such a fun book
to research.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Oh my god, it was such a blast because you
get to you know, it's like the arc of American history, right,
So I got to spend a lot of time like
rocking out in the sixties and learning about acid and
the CIA, and then you know, you go to the
eighties and you're thinking about like punk subcultures and yuppies
and the nineties. You've got right, girl. It was. Yeah,
it was a complete blast. That rocks amazing.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Thanks, we come to this place to discuss the movie.
Don't worry, darling, So follow up question, different question. What
is your history with this movie? I know it's pretty recent,
but no.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, when we were talking about what films to discuss today,
I saw that was an option, and I was so
excited because this movie made me so just flamingly livid
when it came out, Like I was all there, I
was all in right, like I love I just wrote
a piece. This is gonna I promise this will make sense.

(05:37):
But I just wrote a piece for Remorgue this year
called wah It's all connected, about a fake genre that
I made up of, like particularly conspiratorial kind of New
agey movies typically about men right, and like, whenever I
see a woman making like a seventies inspired parallax view
type movie, I'm there. I'm like, let let us do Grolboa,

(06:00):
you know. But then watching it, it's so failed in
its politics, it so boggles the mind, and it has
so many script problems, like it's it's failed top to bottom.
So I was so pissed and I was excited to
just take it down. But rewatching it from twenty twenty five,
it really felt like more in sorrow than an anger,

(06:22):
Like there's so much here that speaks to the moment
that had the potential to be really salient. And I
think even some of the angles that frustrated me the
first time, I actually found like some potential poignancy in,
particularly in the wake of the Charlie Kirk things. So
I think there's so much to unpack here. I'm still pissed.
I am still pissed, but it's like it's like pissed

(06:42):
because I'm disappointed, you know, I'm angry and disappointed.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
Fair.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, no, it's it is so funny for a movie
that is like, ultimately I also am like, let women
make b movies like, but I feel like it was
hard to not have a very particular relationship with this movie.
If you were remotely plugged into pop culture at the time,
you could not escape it. And it was interesting even

(07:07):
just three years later because of the rate that society
is deteriorating. I guess that you're like, the criticisms I
had three years ago are some, some remain consistent, but
there's also yeah, like you're saying peyton things I feel
a little gentler on now, and then things that I'm
even madder about then when I saw it the first time.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
It's interesting, Jamie, what's your relationship with the movie?

Speaker 1 (07:32):
I saw it. I saw it in theaters and I
was like, well, I did not like that at all.
But but I mean I do think, like, I don't know.
I think that the more recent example of this that
is far darker is this is a movie who, I
think for most people who are like keeping eyes on
it at the time, like has a more famous press
cycle than a plot. The press cycle for this movie

(07:55):
was absolutely inescapable in a way that it seems like
only helped the movie's box office a little bit. I
think the darker version of that was last year, two
years ago, with the the like Blake Lively justin Baldonia
of it all with it ends with us. Yeah, and

(08:15):
then you have pre cycles like Wicked where nothing went wrong,
but you're like, what the fuck happened? And that's just fun.
So I was like, I think I was gonna see
this movie either way because I enjoyed BookSmart. It was
a fun little movie. It was nice to have a
whatever rising comedy director who is a woman, which is
something that still is pretty rare. And yeah, this movie

(08:39):
really just like does not come together in ways that
are infuriating sometimes and like funny. It's just like this
movie's like very naive in a lot of ways, like
if someone explained white feminism to an alien, which could
have been what happened? Who knows? Yeah, Yeah, I've basically

(09:01):
my definitive statement here is that the second, like there's
a one of many profiles of Olivia Wilde around the
time this movie came out was her saying explicitly the
inspiration for this movie is the feminine mystique, which makes
so much sense because the feminine mystique is a valuable,
famous text that only concerns itself with the white middle class,

(09:23):
which is very much what this movie is, and it
feels kind of like a semi like not really a
coherent criticism that also feels both early and late. It's weird.
This movie's a weird one. That's what my That's what
I have to say. Caitlin, what's your history with this movie?
I didn't see it in theaters. I saw it maybe
like six months after it had come and gone from

(09:46):
its theatrical release, and by that point I had heard
all of the all the reviews that were not favorable
of this movie and all the people just being.

Speaker 4 (09:57):
Like that sucked so bad, that was trash and blah
blah blah. So I went in thinking it was going
to be like incoherent drivel, which I don't think that's
the case obviously. I think that it has a lot
of problems and it falls short in the commentary it's
trying to make. But I was expecting some like really

(10:17):
incompetent filmmaking, and I was like, oh, it's you know,
it's basically the plot of the Stepford Wives, but you know,
it's it's not horrendous. But I also wasn't watching it
specifically through a Bechdel cast lens that first time, and
now rewatching it which I was like, oh god, do
I have to for this episode? I noticed many many

(10:41):
more of the problems and I'm excited to discuss. So
let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
for the recap.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
And we are back, shall we shall We get into
the plot and Peyton feel free to jump in whenever
if you have a pressing thought, which this movie is
so many. I have so many intrusive thoughts about this movie.
And I was like re remembering the Harry styles memes
of his acting, which isn't as bad as people said,

(11:22):
but it's not good.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
Okay that too. Everyone was like he did gives the
worst performance ever. And I was just like, it was.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Fine, he gives he gives up performance.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Okay, he's trying his best.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
It feels like he's I know. I was like, am
I coddling him?

Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yes, which, like you know, girl Boss Sleigh, you can
anyone can put their younger attractive bow in the movie,
you know, like the ingenoeu of it all was really good.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
I was. It was kind of funny where I was like,
okay for Olivia Wild to some extent, she's like girl
bossing Osha violations. She's like women should violate HR contracts
and you're like, yeah, yeah, exactly. I also forgot about
do you guys remember the spit thing. I just was like,
oh yeah, having all of these like things that I

(12:09):
thought I would never have to think about again, And
here we are talking about Spitgate in the year twenty
twenty five.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Here we are just I'm so convinced that, like that
was a glitch in the matrix, like we're all living in.
Don't worry, darling, because that was the media simulacrum that broke,
and like that's just every day in this universe now,
Like you can just ai that actually having happened if
you want to.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
But like, oh man, there's so many funny parts. Harry
Styles looking ugly is hilarious. Like it's just it's it's great.
It's great that wig. It's camp This movie is I
feel like we will We just covered a movie neither
of us had seen before yesterday, The Devil's Advocate, which
I feel like has a lot of similarities plot wise
and also how campy it is because it's so deeply

(12:54):
sincere in what it's trying to do. This movie is
really trying to define feminist thriller and it doesn't, and
that's kind of why I feel a little like, oh
I don't hate it.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
This could have been a cult classic if it were
any better or worse, Like I kept thinking about Zaradas,
you know what I mean, Like, if it weren't mostly
medium close ups, and if the mcguffins were either a
little bit weirder or a little bit better explained, we
could all like cherish, don't worried? Are they?

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah? Like really go for it, like we need girl
ed Wood?

Speaker 2 (13:30):
Come on, yes, yes.

Speaker 4 (13:34):
Okay, here's the story. It is the nineteen fifties or
easy Tavy we think it is at first, and we
meet a young married couple Alice and Jack played by
Florence Pugh and Harry Styles as well as they're friends
and neighbors who are other married couples Bunny and Dean.

(13:55):
That's Olivia Wilde and Nick Kroll. And then there's Peter
and Peg played by comedian pals of ours Asif Ali
and Cap Perland. And they all live in a cul
de sac. I was calling them the cul de Sac
Crew to borrow a cougar Town reference.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Really, wow, I got to watch Cougartown.

Speaker 4 (14:14):
Oh yeah, I watched it. I would say against my will,
but kind of like it's almost like I was put
in a simulation against my will to watch Cougar Town.
So true anyway, So they live in what appears to
be a typical American suburb at first, but then we
realize it's this small isolated community called Victory in the

(14:38):
middle of a desert, and all of the husbands work
for something called the Victory Project, which is some company
or entity doing vague classified work.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Which not for nothing do we ever fear what they're doing.

Speaker 4 (14:55):
They call it the development of progressive materials.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
It's like, but like, what are they Well of the
biggest problems with the movie is that it's just a
red herring. Like it literally is just a red herring.
They go do normal jobs in real worlds, right, and
they set it up like what's the Victory Project? And
I guess theoretically the Victory Project is is the spoiler
of the movie, like in the real world, But ultimately

(15:22):
it's so dissatisfying because they don't do anything with that.
And it also felt like the development of progressive Materials
was supposed to be like a real deep commentary, like
the women are the progressive materials, but like.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
You're like, yeah, they're so Like I kept writing down
like Florence goes to touch the plot stone so that
the plot can continue. Yeah, it was under one one
of the many kind of that was like one of
my least. There are some red herrings that are so
funny to me, like the Gema Chan fake out. I'm like,

(15:55):
what do you mean?

Speaker 4 (15:56):
Oh, I get there, doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
Sorry, we'll get there.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
I like seized. I've been wanting to talk about that
since the movie came out.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
I'm ready, it's her try now sure.

Speaker 4 (16:14):
To me, it felt like the work they were doing
was like nuclear weapons manufacturing coated.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
I think that's like what we're supposed to think.

Speaker 4 (16:23):
But again, it's just a red herring. Who knows. Yeah,
so that's what the men do. The women, meanwhile, live
very typical nineteen fifties white American housewife lives. We see
Alice cooking and cleaning with a smile and a dress
and her hair done perfectly, and she and Jack are

(16:45):
also very horny for each other and they're constantly having sex. Yeah,
but soon Alice starts noticing some weird things.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Iconically, the eggs aren't eggs like so many of the
like thriller imagery is just so like it cracks me
up because it's so vague, like you're just pulling on
like things you're supposed to be but don't.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
You get it? Her life and the eggs are hollow.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
But then she cooks the eggs and she's like, the
eggs aren't eggs. Minutes later they were, in fact eggs.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
They're different eggs.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
I guess, Oh, man, I love I love when the
eggs aren't eggs. I watched I kept rewinding it and
making Grant watch it with me. I was like, one
day we're gonna wake up and the eggs aren't gonna
be eggs anymore, and what are you gonna do?

Speaker 4 (17:31):
And wow? Makes you think?

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (17:33):
The sound design on the egg cracking scene was also
un like, you did too much here? Whoever did that?
But anyway, how.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Old are you gonna know? That the eggs are? The
eggs are and eggs? And Florence's is acting the hell
out of that scene.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Oh, Florence is trying so hard and all of the
dialogue is so bad, and she's holding this thing together
with her little oven mits.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
I swear she really is. I think like her performance
is genuinely good, Like she's selling me on this, Like
I'm I'm also confused, Florence, what is going on here?
I wish we knew?

Speaker 4 (18:09):
Hmmm, So yeah, we get the We get some weird things,
such as the eggs aren't eggs. She's seeing some quick
flashes of things that she doesn't know what they are.
She's constantly humming a song that's stuck in her head,
but she doesn't know what the song is, and something
is going on with her neighbor Margaret played by Kiki Lane.
Alice sees her behaving weirdly. Then everyone goes to a

(18:34):
party hosted by Frank played by Chris Pine and his
wife Shelley played by Jemma Chan and Frank is the
founder of the Victory Project and he's giving a speech
about how awesome it is, but Alice's neighbor, Margaret, interrupts
to be like, why are we here? What is going on?

(18:57):
And she's pulled out of the party and Frank brushes
it off, And then some of the women gossip about
Margaret and we learn that they used to be friends
with her until she quote unquote lost her mind and
took her young son out into the desert where he
apparently disappeared. Then one day, Alice is feeling restless.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
She has less.

Speaker 4 (19:24):
Pep in her step as she's doing her household chores,
So she goes out and takes a ride on the
local trolley and she witnesses a plane crash in the
distance by the Victory Project headquarters.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Would you like to know what that means? Well, you're
never gonna find out. We don't know. Well, you're never
gonna get it.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
But the driver won't go out there to the crash
site to help, because there's this whole thing in Victory
where everyone has to stay in town. Leaving isn't safe.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
Right, because the the simulatres the simulation. There's also like
another one of the thriller things we were like is
there's occasionally like small earthquakes that are very normal for
the community. You don't really know what that was.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
I think that was part of the like are they
testing nuclear weapons or whatever the fair Like project is.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
But it's her brain like, right, it's the simulation, right.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
I mean, if we go back to like screenwriting one
oh one, Like we're sitting down with notebooks and it's
a college class, right, Like one of the main questions
that you have to ask in a script is why today,
Like what is the inciting event? Why is this happening
to her today? And like why is she unhappy today?
There is simply no reason. There's no reason this started happening.

(20:42):
And that's one of the major problems with the movie
is that there's no like real escalation, and there's no
motivation for her. She's just suddenly confused and discontented and
you know, like the feminine well, I have a whole
like there's so many problems, but like she's not actually
cause you were saying Kaitlin earlier, like they normal fifties
housewife lives, but they don't like they live in a

(21:03):
racially integrated, very happy, very sexually fulfilling community, which is nonsense,
and she loves it and that's part of the politics
thing that I'm sure we'll return to. But like, she
has no problem with her life and thus the fact
that she suddenly does doesn't make any sense. Like, yeah,
she's realizing that she's in the Stepford Wives, but it's
not because she doesn't actually enjoy drinking martiniz and playing

(21:24):
tennis like which you need to have that right, Like
in the Stepford Wives. The main character is a photographer
and she's like, you're not letting me do my art
or my work and I hate it. But here she's like,
I love getting hat on my kitchen table. And also
I think something's wrong.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
Like one of the many things with this where I
was like, why because we whatever. If you haven't watched,
don't worry darling, then do or don't whatever? When people,
our listeners don't complain about spoilers, but when people, I
was like, you clicked on it, it's not. But anyways,
when it's later revealed that Florence Pugh's character is a doctor,
You're like, why could that not become plot relevant?

Speaker 4 (22:02):
Right?

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Why could there not be? Because theoretically, with Margaret, there's
a medical emergency. Why isn't there a part in the
back of her head that is like I know what
to do? But the past version of herself has absolutely
nothing in common with Like there's no like part of
herself rattling in the back of her head, which I
feel like could have at least given you a why

(22:24):
right of like, right, oh, I know how to help?
Like why and I don't know. There's just so many
things this movie could have done that, it doesn't for
sure whatever.

Speaker 4 (22:33):
So there's so she's on the trolley, she sees the
plane crash, and she ventures out into the desert on
foot and ends up at HQ of the Victory Project
and has some weird dream vision thing at the plot
stone at the plot building, and the next thing she knows,

(22:54):
she wakes up at home and she asks Jack how
she got there, and he's like, I don't know anything
about that or about this supposed plane crash, you silly goose.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, and then he does what Keanu Reeves also does
in The Devil's Advocate, where well it's not I think
it's like the beat after this, but he's like, I'm
going to be extra nice to you so you don't
notice something terrible is happening, or let me get you pregnant.
I'm assuming that's what you want, even though she says
she just doesn't.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
Right anyways, men always be trying to distract women with
a pregnancy.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
Yeah, but like, please have a kid that I will
see occasionally neglect y.

Speaker 4 (23:37):
Yeah, okay, So then more weird stuff happens. For example,
the walls of her house seem like they are closing
in on her for a brief moment something compels Alice
to put saran rap around her head and nearly suffocate herself.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
I kind of dug that image as like a visual metaphor.
I think in a better movie, I would have been
like that that cooks, But.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
Right here it just kind of feels like it's coming
out of nowhere.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
The esthetic, I mean, this movie looks good. It looks good.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
Production design is solid. Yeah, okay, so those weird things
are happening. There are a couple more things with Margaret,
including Alice seeing Margaret take her own life, and Alice
tries to run and help her, but two men in
red jumpsuits come out of nowhere and drag Alice away.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
Which every single time reminds me of Monsters Inc. I
can't see men and haz matts suits and not be
like which obviously Monsters Inc. Didn't invent that, but to me,
it did, and I'm not interested in further context.

Speaker 2 (24:44):
Okay, they look just like the orderlies in her hospital,
which made me think about that one episode of the
Twilight Zone with the woman who thinks that she's already
dead and she ends up in the Morgan her dreams,
but again, because she doesn't seem to have any relation
to her normal life self. That image I don't think
read well.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
And my least favorite, my biggest plot hole on the
first viewing, which is this like talented doctor disappeared question
mark and no one is looking for her.

Speaker 4 (25:14):
Yeah, does she have a family that wonders.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Where she is? She's probably five hundred hours a week
and people are like, well, I don't know, Like what
do you mean.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, our top surgeon is gone, but they're the schedule,
like the shifts are fine, someone else will take it.

Speaker 4 (25:27):
Yeah, right, did Jack have to like fake her death
so that no one would question where she is? There's
a lot of world building that goes unexplored.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
But like I don't know. At this point, I'm like,
I'm laughing, Yeah, sure, sure, why not?

Speaker 4 (25:41):
Why not?

Speaker 1 (25:41):
It's feminism for this movie to suck. I yes.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
So Alice witnesses this traumatic event with Margaret, and she
starts asking Jack a bunch of questions about his job
and what the Victory Project is actually doing, and he
gets furious and also does some very textbook gaslighting. And
then the town physician, doctor Collins played by Timothy.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Simmons Jonah from Veep, He comes.

Speaker 4 (26:12):
By to examine Alice, and she's like, hey, doc, what
the fuck is going on? What happened with Margaret? But
doctor Collins insists that Margaret is alive and she just
needs some psychiatric help, so she and her husband left Victory,
but Alice gets a sneak peek inside the doctor's briefcase

(26:34):
and sees a file on Margaret which is like mostly
blacked out.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
That made me cackle, Like when she opens it and
it's literally all redacted, like why are you carrying that?
That's not helping you as a doctor.

Speaker 4 (26:47):
Right, And then she burns it for some reason, like
wouldn't that be evidence that something is going on, that
they're hiding something and trying to cover things up? Why
wouldn't she like hang.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
On to that. Don't worry, darling.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
We don't know.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yeah, I don't exactly.

Speaker 4 (27:02):
If you have questions about this movie, just don't you worry, darling.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Just remember what the title is, Yes, just the movie.
The movie feels like a movie. Harry was trying to
get ahead of these criticisms.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
It feels like a movie. But is it?

Speaker 1 (27:18):
But is it?

Speaker 4 (27:20):
Then there's a big Victory Project event where Frank gives
Jack a promotion but Alice still feels very distraught about
everything that's been going on, and she tries to confide
in Bunny, the Olivia Wilde character, who turns on her
and acts as though Alice has lost her mind. The

(27:43):
next night, there's a dinner party at Alice and Jack's
house to celebrate his promotion, and Frank shows up and
approaches Alice privately to be like, I know that you're
on to me and I don't even care. Keep trying
and good luck with that.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
Another dynamic that is not paid off on in any way.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Nope, no, on this rewatch. I actually really noticed that,
in terms of the beat for beat of this movie,
there's supposed to be sexual tension between Alice and mister
chris Pine Jordan Peterson, and there simply isn't. Oh Like,
there's that earlier scene where she and Harry Styles are
having sex and he walks in and watches, and then

(28:26):
in all of the rest of the scenes, I think
it's supposed to be like, not only is he the
moriarty to her homes with this totally out of pocket
villain monologue, but also they're supposed to be having chemistry
and chris Pine theoretically good casting choice absolutely failed. He's
so flat, it's just not working.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
I didn't notice that at all. I didn't realize that that.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Was dude, I think when you look through it, because
then at dinner he basically implies that he and Alice
have been having sex this whole time, and Harry Styles
is like, guess we won't address that one. But I
think that would have helped the story a lot, because
if the metaphor is that this way of life is
seductive for women, which is what I think is actually
most salient to the present, Like let's talk about tradwives

(29:08):
and the appeal. Let's unpack that, right. But if that's
the idea, then the erotic tension between those two is
essential because for me, my biggest issue with this movie
is that it's having its cake and eating it too,
where this is a movie where Olivia Wilde was both like,
we're supposed to be exploring what it's like for women
who are living in a system that actually works really

(29:29):
well for them without actually unpacking how that system works,
like all of the paternalism is really benevolent, and all
of these women are getting so much head Like none
of these women, like she said on a podcast when
she was like, no man comes in this movie, and
I'm like, Okay, you're right, yeah, like that that is
how that works. Like nineteen fifty's Integrated non racist America
where the women are having orgasms, Like the height report

(29:52):
was not released until the late sixties, Like the idea
that women had orgasms generally speaking, like sodomy laws were
still a thing, like this was not like.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
Like you know, it wasn't socially acceptable for women to
come like I in our lifetimes, like it has it
Like it's just I don't know, I I agree with you,
like she I appreciate what she's trying to do. It's
kind of I mean in a different way because obviously
Olivia Wilde Shonda rhymes different people. But it reminds me

(30:23):
of a lot of the criticism that you often see
around Bridgerton, where it's like very nostalgic and like weirdly
celebrating a very regressive time in the visuals and like
all this stuff and like quote unquote corrects the past
to make it more comfortable when it's like well but
theoretically less so in Bridgerton, which is like really just

(30:44):
turn your brain way down, which is fine, I watch it,
but like this movie is trying to be smart and
it's like, okay, then well we'll talk about keek Elen's
character Margaret too, because it's like, yes, I would be
so curious what because Keekulane was pubblicly like when this
movie came out, because every every actor, I think once

(31:04):
Florence Pugh went nuclear and showed up at wherever with
the apparol sprits. Everyone was like, oh, we're allowed to
talk shit about the movie. Great, and Kiki Lane was like,
all our scenes were cut, we had a storyline where
to go. I'd be very curious what that was. I'm
not confident that it would have been markedly better, but
like this movie's refusal to engage with race in any

(31:28):
way is so glaring.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
Well, this her character is so racist, Like she's just
the wise black foil to Florence Pew. Like there's that
scene in the dance studio where it's literally Kiki Laane
looking sad and knowledgeable and Florence Peugh staring at her
in a way it's like this basically like reductive, like
the help levels of reductive for this character here.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Right, and like her really wild body, really like her
dead body being like really harped upon in spite of
the fact that we like we don't even have time
to become endeared this character, Like we don't know her
at all. She is being used to, Like you're saying
this very racist plot device. I would be curious what
those scenes were. I don't feel confident that they that
it would approve what we're talking about very much. But

(32:12):
it just like, in a movie that is trying to
say something about feminism, you cannot refuse to engage with race.
That is like been at the absolute core that and
homophobia and tresphobia have been at the core of the
problems with every feminist movement ever, like you have to
engage with it. It makes me feel nuts. That's literally

(32:32):
the problem with the feminine mystique. Did no one tell
her that?

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Wow?

Speaker 4 (32:37):
And we can get into this later too, But the
Margaret character was originally supposed to be played by Dakota Johnson,
so it was originally supposed to be a white woman,
and then I didn't they cast Keiki Laane instead, but
like didn't do anything to adjust the story to accommodate
that character now being a black woman. So like it's
a it's a mess.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
But I don't know if if either of you have
seen I just saw After the Hunt over the weekend.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Oh, not yet.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
I didn't like it. Whatever it's but like, I feel
like it has like kind of a similar issue where
Iowa Debois is playing a college student who is allegedly
that's the whole point of the movie, assaulted by a
white professor, but it does not engage with race in
any way to the point where it's like distracting. This

(33:27):
movie has a similar problem for sure. All right, where
are we in the story? Oh, we're in the middle
of this dinner party. Alice confronts Frank at the dinner
table in front of everyone, being like, you're lying to us.
We don't even know what the victory project is? What
even is this place? Where does our food come from?

(33:49):
The eggs? Aren't eggs, Chris Pine, Why aren't the eggs eggs?

Speaker 4 (33:53):
And he's like, no comment, And she's like, you disappear
people who ask any questions and he he's just like you,
silly little girl. And everyone does not like Alice's behavior,
so they all leave, and Alice, realizing that she's in danger,

(34:14):
begs Jack for them to leave. Victory for good that night,
and he agrees, or at least he seems to, because
as they're about to drive off, the men in the
red jumpsuits show up and abduct her, and it's clear
that Jack is complicit in this, and Alice is taken
to a medical facility, put in restraints, and given electroshock therapy,

(34:37):
which prompts a flashback of Jack and Alice. Although it's
not the nineteen fifties in Victory, California, it's modern day
and she's a modern woman with a job even she's
a surgeon. Jack on the other hand, is unemployed and

(34:57):
resentful of her, and he spends his time listening to
this like Men's rights podcast hosted by Frank and it's
giving Jack some ideas. We then cut back to Victory.
Alice returns home from the medical facility and she seems
to be doing much better, aka she is once again

(35:21):
blissfully ignorant of what's actually going on, and they go
back into the routine of Jack going to work and
Alice being a quote unquote perfect housewife. But then Jack
puts on a record and plays the same song that
Alice has been humming the whole movie, and that triggers

(35:43):
another flashback slash memory, where we learn that the Victory
Project is actually a fucked up black market computer simulation
where people are hooked up and put into this world
that we've been seeing this like idyllic nineteen fifties community,

(36:05):
and Jack has put Alice into this simulation against her will.
We cut back to the simulation and again this song
is triggering all of these memories of Alice in the
real world, and now she fully realizes what's going on,
and she's like, what the fuck, Jack, You took my
life away from me. You've trapped me here along with

(36:28):
all of these other women who are trapped.

Speaker 1 (36:30):
This is the scene where I think that the very
funny Harry Styles acting meme comes from where oh, you
can't like I can't. It's not a visual medium, but
where he's sort of like the whole time, he's like,
the vocal performance is there, but his face is sort
of doing like the angry emoji. It's cute.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Well, it's funny because he and Florence Q can both
make that same cartoon front of you, Yes, and they're
making it at each other in the scene. It's awesome.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
You're like, I don't like it. I don't think Harry
Styles is that bad.

Speaker 4 (37:02):
I don't think so either.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
No, And then Jack becomes violent, so she strikes him
over the head and kills him, which means he dies
in the real world too, which will cause her no
problems in the future, No, none, whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
She'll be fine.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, don't worry. The movie's about to just end abruptly,
so it's all good, right, But first, it's my turn now, right.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
Well, then Bunny shows up and reveals that she has
known all along that this is a simulation, and she
actually chose this life because her children, who she lost
in the real world are with her in Victory. But
now Bunny wants to help Alice leave and to save herself.

(37:49):
I don't know why this switch suddenly happened, but Bunny
is helpful now. So Alice gets in Jack's car and
drives toward the head quarters, which actually is the like
the plot stone exit portal.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yea, it's the plot stone. She has to touch the
plot stone, and literally, when she touches the plot stone,
the movie ends.

Speaker 4 (38:08):
You're like so abrupt. So she's driving out to this location.
The men in the red jumpsuits are chasing her, Frank
is freaking out because if Alice escapes back to the
real world, theoretically she would be able to expose the
Victory Project. But he doesn't actually like explicitly express that
as a concern, and that was just like my head cannon.

(38:32):
But Frank's wife, Shelley stabs him for reasons.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
It's her turn now, it's her turn before you have
a time fighting for her life in that scene, because
it's like you can sort of see in her eyes somewhere.
I don't know what I'm saying either, right.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
I just can't believe that Erica Kirk did that to
Charlie Kirk.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
That's what happened. It was just her. It just happened
to be her turn. Now, Like can we just talk?

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Can we please? Because how does that mean? Does that
imply she's gonna take over simulation Land? Does that mean
that she wants a career? Does that mean we needed
her to say something?

Speaker 4 (39:08):
Does that mean she finally found out that the Victory
Project is what it is? And she's also.

Speaker 1 (39:14):
Feels like she's very much in on it. The whole
ride you get from her is that she knows, like
she's introduced visually as if she knows everything, right, but
we actually don't ever really learn about anything about it.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
I don't know, which is agonizing because like the in
terms of going back to Olivia Wilde's character and the
fact that this is ostensibly about the reasons that women
become tridwives or participate in conservative misogyny, right, Like, each
character should have some element or thing that teaches you something.
That's how scripts work, that's what characters are for. And
so Olivia Wilde's character theoretically is like the load star

(39:50):
of the film because she knows and she chose this,
and it's such a cowardly cop out to be like, oh,
it's because of my tragic backstory and not because I
like Martiniz and hanging out with my husband, you know
what I mean. She's not actually fully leaning into it.
And then if you don't tell us why Erica Kirk
is like this either, then we get nothing, which is
why this movie is not good.

Speaker 4 (40:12):
Right, Yes, it's true. So Frank gets stabbed. Meanwhile, Alice
is still trying to make her way to the exit.
She's being chased by all of the men in the community,
but she finally makes it to the exit portal and
then off screen wakes up in the real world, and

(40:33):
that's the end of the movie.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
So there's that little apple ad at the end though,
where she's dancing on her own it slashes of her.
She's fine, she's not sad.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
Oh my gosh. I apparently stopped watching the movie immediately
after it like fades to black because I was like,
I can't handle another second of this.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
There is that little don't worry. It's not anything that clarifies, No.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
It's just a don't worry darling moment. Like she doesn't
have PTSD, she can walk even though she's been bedridden,
and there are no legal consequences for the murder of
her intel husband.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
She's good, She's good, right, And also like, this is
a world in which Jordan Peterson just died under mysterious circumstances.

Speaker 4 (41:16):
Too, Yeah, because we learned that if you die in
the simulation, you die in the real world. So Frank
Chris Pine's dead in the real world. Well, let's ponder
these questions and more after this break, and we're back,

(41:42):
and don't worry, don't worry, darling, We're back.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
I'm honestly, I'm worrying, Darling.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
I'm worrying I'm stressed, Darling, Darling, I don't feel good. Yeah,
if it's okay, let's start with because we already sort
of started talking about Kihi Laine's character. I feel like
that's a good place to start because it's also, like
we've been hinting at, is like such a central issue
with the movie of like this movie's and I think, like, again,

(42:10):
this gets to this movie, I feel like is pretty
clearly written in conversation with the me Too movement. It's
also why I'm thinking about it with After the Hunt,
even though After the Hunt, like I'm like, why is
it coming out now? It's been alost ten years whatever.
But like again, I think what we've talked about pretty
thoroughly on this show at this point is the failures

(42:31):
of that moment are sort of the failures of every
feminist movement, which is that it is very myopically focused
on how misogyny affects privileged CIS white women, which it does,
but like when it like I don't know, yeah, like
Olivia Wilds says that she's made this movie about complicity,

(42:55):
but that's not true, Like the movie has no oh
criticism of Florence Pugh's character, like she is our final girl.
From moment one, we are not really We're just fully
on her side the whole time. I feel like a
better movie would ask the questions you were saying, Peyton
of Like, I don't know, it would be interesting to

(43:17):
see a thriller movie interrogate, like a lot of why
these women are engaging with this world is because it's comfortable,
and even when they're seeing other people be subjugated, they
would rather ignore other people's subjugation than sacrifice their own comfort.
Like that's an interesting thing to bring up, but it

(43:39):
was just very dissonant, like looking back at the press
junker for this outside of all of the personal drama,
because it's like it just feels like the team keeps
saying that they made a movie that like they didn't.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yeah, I mean, I think part of the problem here
in terms of the nuts and bolts, which I think
we have to always start with with this movie, for
like why it's not working? It's like why is my
car broken? Like why am I worrying? Darling? I think
part of the problem I kept thinking about, did you
guys actually watch Suicide Squad when it came out way
back when.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
Which one first one or the second one, yeah, the
first one, no, yes, I've seen it, Okay.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Suicide Squad is a nightmare mess for one reason above
all others, and that's the editing of the movie. The
first scene starts, the soundtrack starts, and every scene is
cut like a trailer, and the soundtrack never stops, and
you get no access to any characters, and the pacing
is brutal, and I think that don't worry Darling should
have probably been two and a half hours long to
get what they actually wanted from it, And the soundtrack

(44:38):
never stops, and so you never get any like actual
interiority or subjectivity from Florence Pugh because eighty percent of
the movie is a montage. So there's not even space
to criticize her character because she doesn't have a character,
because she is a beautiful piece of window dressing, cleaning
beautiful things and having a really good time except when
she's not. So that's really hard to make a nuanced

(45:00):
critique out of. And like that's not just say. You
can have a montage that's very effective and tells you
a lot, that's actually what they're for, but when you
do it like this, it just simply doesn't work, And
there's also the element of like, you know, the elephant
of misogyny in the room and the fact that they're
too scared to actually show people being misogynistic, Like yeah, right,
where there's that scene with Dita Bantes. It's the one

(45:22):
scene where they're like, we're gonna we're gonna do some
locker room talk, like we're gonna actually show women being
objectified and not just as housewives who also get to
have sex. And even then it's like so clean and
nice and stylistic and like objectifying of Dita Buntes that
you're still not it's still too slick to let you
be like, oh, the men are right right, it's about boobs,

(45:45):
like right, So so that's a big problem.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 4 (45:49):
There's so much dissonance in Frank being the creator of
the Victory project, him being like mister misogyny. He has
created this whole simulation that's akin to like make America
great again ideals like the good old days when men

(46:09):
worked in women stayed home and cooked and cleaned. But
it doesn't examine like MAGA ideals any like beyond that
at all, as far as like as far as racism,
as far as homophobia and transphobia, anything like that. And
so we just see this world in which like the
men are really nice to their wives and there is

(46:33):
like racial integration into this community that if this was
the real like nineteen fifties America, black families would have
been breadlined out of a community like this.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Right, I mean it doesn't even have to be the fifties.
Like Christian nationalists, they're trying to create that kind of community.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
Right, right, Yeah, Yeah, It is interesting watching this movie
when with the not benefit but knowing that things can
you need to get worse. This movie did not in
fact solve society like we hoped, which is the job
of every single movie ever, and if it.

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Doesn't, especially if it's made by women, yes then they
have to.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
I do feel kind of bad that Olivia Wild appears
to be in director jail over this, but which I
do think, as we've talked about on the show, this
is a very flawed movie, but happens to women way
more than otherwise. Women cannot direct b movie. It's literally
not allowed, except for Emerald Finnell for some reason. But

(47:33):
good for.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Her because she makes bank every time. She knows what
the girlies want and they want period sex, she puts.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
Butts in seats. Yeah, this is like a very common
criticism of this movie, but feels worth mentioning just because
it echoes everything we've been talking about, which is like
the dissonance of what Olivia wild. And again, also the
writer of the movie, I always forget she did not
write this movie, Katie Silberman, who also wrote BookSmart and

(48:01):
a Netflix movie called Set It Up.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Did you know it was a spec script by the
by Dick Van Dyke's kids.

Speaker 4 (48:08):
First, okay, what, sorry, I have to take a detour
about this. Yes, uh so Katie Silberman wrote the screenplay,
but it was originally a spec script that I think
was circulating on the Blacklist, which was written by Carrie
Van Dyke and Shane Van Dyke, who are brothers and
who are grandsons of Dick Van Dyke and Shane Van

(48:30):
Dyke wrote and directed Titanic two stop. So oh, if
that's any indication of the quality of the storytelling.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
Oh my, well, it's always I mean with that as
very clarifying, because you're like, of course two guys came
up with this story, it doesn't make any sense. I
love that I also learned through just going back and
back clicking all the blue links on Olivia Wilds Wikipedia page.
She's like I would she has like famous parents, but

(49:02):
it's like not direct nepo. Her parents are like famous journalists. Also,
her name is Olivia Cockburn. She changed it for maybe reasons,
you could guess, but her parents are Andrew and Leslie Cockburn,
who in the nineties like wrote this very famous book
about that basically that is deeply critical of Israel, and

(49:26):
like did a lot of original reporting about the military
relationship between the US and Israel. Going back to the Neckbob.
So I was just like, well, that's interesting about Olivia
Wild's heritage and her grandfather was like a famous socialist leader,
and you're just sort of like hm. So it made
me more sympathetic to her to be like, she's I
do think she's trying to get it, but she's maybe

(49:48):
just been famous for too long and she's very white.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah, that makes me less sympathetic. Where she's like like
you had the tools, Yeah, you had the Master's tools
and the Master's house at your disposal at all times.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
But the quote that actually I think sums up the
whole problem with the movie was she was doing a
Q and A and she said that it was a
really seductive lifestyle in the fifties end quote, though I
could kind of judge the lack of autonomy at the time,
i e. The fifties, it also said like a really
fabulous life. I mean Martini's for breakfast, Like why not?

Speaker 1 (50:22):
So she just like is saying shit. Yeah. And the
thing I was going to bring up is that, like
in the press tour where she's kind of like shooting
herself on the foot quite a bit, she is talking
about how like men don't come in this movie, women come.
But then if you watch the movie, you're like, well,
there's no consent being given, so why are there these

(50:44):
sort of like long languishing scenes on Like isn't it
cool say Harry's styles go down on a woman? And
you're like, well, sure, in theory, I guess the song
Watermelon Sugar is in fact about her, but the plot
is that all of this is happening against the women's will,
so like, and they don't interface with that at all,
Like the movie refuses to engage with that. So yeah,

(51:07):
it just was very bizarre seeing this, as you know,
making it out to be this movie of sexual liberation
when the plot does not allow that. Florence Pew appeared
to kind of like push back on this framing. Also,
she just hates Olivia Wild So maybe she's being petty here,
but I think it's a useful quote, she said in
an interview. When it's reduced to your sex scenes or

(51:28):
to watch the most famous man in the world go
down on someone, that's not why we do it. It's not
why I'm in this industry. Obviously, the nature of hiring
the most famous pops are in the world. You're going
to have conversations like that, but I'm not going to
be discussing it because this is bigger and better than that.
So again, it does feel like not pushing back against

(51:49):
norms by harping on non consensual sex in your pressed horror, right,
it just doesn't quite make sense. Like women coming, sure,
but not in this movie. Well, if you women don't
come in this movie, we cannot rectly.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Yeah, if you come in the simulation, do you come
in real life?

Speaker 1 (52:07):
Oh it's true, if you die? Yeah, do you Harry
Stylls coming in his pants in their dirty little bed,
in their literal like insul Den Because also, she like
she's a surgeon. Why do the their apartment suck?

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Anyway, That's what I noticed was rewatched the most. Actually, like, no, yeah,
I think that the thing that I found most compelling
in the wake of the Charlie Kirk, thing that made
me find more use potential and failed use of from
this movie was the whole like because you know, conservative
like trad cats and conservative guys who follow Charlie Kirk, Like,

(52:44):
one of the things that comes up all the time
is a sense of economic decline and instability. It's like
you know, the all on a single income memes that
circulate in those bases, right, it's the sense that the
economy is getting worse, the world is stratifying, and in
order to fix that, we need to go back to
a time and emulated time when a man could take
care of his family on a single income and provide

(53:05):
for his family. Because that's what masculinity is, it's being
a provider, right, And this movie, I actually thought because
the first time I saw it, I saw the stringy
wig and I just cackled really hard and couldn't see
past it or at all. It's really hard where he's
like make me a sandwich, like baby girl put the
wig in the Smithsonian Institution that the wiggest camp the Yeah,

(53:28):
the Academy Museum needs to buy that right now. But however,
I think the angle here that he felt that he
couldn't provide for his wife and he felt insecure in
his masculinity and literally bankrupts himself to provide this fantasy
in the most perverse, like serial killer way, to ostensibly
provide for his wife, like speaks to something that's going

(53:52):
around in the culture, you know what I mean, Like,
there's something kind of poignant in a perverse and tragic
way about the fact that he moves from their nice
apartment to a literal like den of an you know, iniquity.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
So to do this, yeah, yeah, like rather than be
comfortable with his wife making more money than him, like
that is it is wild to me how much we
are still dealing. I mean, it's not surprising, but it's
just infuriating in the day to day sense. But just
how like again, it's like there's interesting ideas presented in
a very silly and weirdly and curious way, for sure.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
I mean, it reminds me of you know, the conversation
we had surrounding a recent episode and movie that we
covered Companion, which has similar themes and vibes as far
as like, it's a man who he feels as though
his masculinity is being threatened either by like modern feminism

(54:48):
or specifically his partner, and then he like does something
very drastic to try to like make himself feel better.
And both Companion and Don't Worry Our call attention to
and start to examine this misogyny and male fragility, which
is important. But both movies focus on the plight of beautiful,

(55:13):
thin cis white women and the like individual liberation of
one of them. Right, Alice saves herself, but the movie
ends before we get any sense of whether or not
she would go back and try to like liberate the
other women.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
I mean, I think the post credits scenes indicates absolutely
it's not right.

Speaker 4 (55:34):
The one that I did not watch at all. Yeah,
Like the movie doesn't care at all about collective liberation.
It just cares about the liberation of this one woman.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Which is like another classic like misstep of feminism is
like a hyper focus on individuality or like your specific group,
although Flow doesn't even care about her group. It's just
a mess.

Speaker 4 (55:56):
I just had a thought and it's gone well to
go back to the Margaret character who's played by Kiki Lane.
I wanted to pull from a piece in Refinery twenty
nine entitled Don't Worry Darling is peak white feminism as
expected by writer Honia Angus says, quote victory is a

(56:18):
simulation created by Frank to keep women locked away in captivity,
and the severity of that idea is never fully explored.
Frank's continuous chanting about regaining control of your life and
wanting men to return to a time when everything seemed
right is clearly tied to white supremacy and its relation
to protecting white femininity. The in cells Wild is attempting

(56:40):
to discredit are not just hurt men who need wives
or women to have sex with. They are raging racists
and bigots. And then the piece goes on to say
having Margaret die off to kickstart Alice's journey feels disgusting
in hindsight, especially when you realize Lane has been snubbed
from most of the film's press run, cut from a

(57:02):
lot of the film itself, and barely even mentioned amongst
the drama circling the movie. The film cuts back and
forth from shots of her dead body in some poor
sense of building up suspense and grief. But it just
feels like it's taunting its viewers with how little it
respects its singular black character who is pivotal to the
story yet had little to no screen time unquote. Because

(57:26):
it's true, like Margaret is like part of the catalyst
that gets things going for Alice, but she ends.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Up being basically like a glorified prop as far as
the movie is concerned.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
For sure, we know nothing about her. Most of the
time we see her, it's either like from another character's
point of view, like she's off in the distance, or
it's like the white women in the community gossiping about her.
It's just like a really bleak characterization of the only
black woman in the movie who gets any sort of dialogue,

(57:59):
which is like two lines maybe like next to nothing.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
Oh yeah, it's something's not right and that's it.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Yeah, But they're both doing that and like refusing to
acknowledge that the women in this story are racist, Like
it totally skirts that criticism entirely, Like it's done. It
just is like, Okay, so the movie is racist because
it is doing this racist thing and its characters are
not even reacting and especially Margaret. Yeah, it's just unbelievably frustrating.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
The knowing that it was supposed to be to Cota
Johnson is really instructive, I think, because it just seems
like they were gonna just cast white people and let
that be part of the thing. It's like, it's very
clear to me that this was written to be about
all white people, right, because it's the fifties. I mean,
the fact that they didn't have the fantasy, the inceel

(58:54):
fantasy of the fact that all of these women don't
have maids, sure, even though they're existing in this very
upper middle class context, feels like they just didn't want
to touch it because that would have been hard and uncomfortable. Right,
but see these women, like, if we actually want to,
let's let's talk about the feminine mystique, right, like the

(59:15):
fun lifestyle they're describing. I'm trying to find a quote.
I read a piece about this at the time. But
the idea that, like, our lives are empty, all we
have time to do every day. Yes, here's a quote
from the feminine mystiq. My days are all busy and dull.
I get up at eight, I make breakfast, so I
do the dishes, have lunch, do some more dishes, and
do some laundry and cleaning in the afternoon. Than it's

(59:36):
supper dishes. The children have to be sent to bed.
That's all there is to my day. It's just like
any other wife's day, right, But like they have time
to do that and have parties and go swimming, you know,
like they just spend time.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
At the pool, and it's it's racist rights. It's literally
a racing people. I like, going off of your point,
Peyton Aram also sort of feels reminiscent of, oh my gosh,
what was that.

Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
Sophia Coppola movie The Beguiled?

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
The Beguiled where she is remaking a movie that does
have a black character that was racist at the time,
and she's remaking this movie and she doesn't know what
to do with a black character, so she just removes them.
And you're just like, that is like the worst possible
thing you could do is to just refuse to engage
and literally erase people, which feels like a similar thing

(01:00:24):
to do because she's not whatever the writers who I
don't even know who I'm yelling at. Sometimes, am I
yelling at Olivia Wild? Am I yelling at Katie Silverman.
Am I yelling at the Van Dykes?

Speaker 4 (01:00:34):
Shane Van Dyke?

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
I have no idea if I'm yelling at she Maybe
Titanic two, maybe I'm yelling at Shane Van Dyke. But like,
the movie is not comfortable committing to having characters like
Bunny be villains and having Jemma Chan's character be a villain,
because there's just these random girl Boss solidarity moments added

(01:00:55):
in in the end that I think, like gelled with
what a good feminist does, but these people are not
good feminists, So like what it's so bizarre also feels
worth mentioning, even though this is more behind the scenes drama.
I also totally forgot about this. The Harry Styles character
was originally played by Shila Buff.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
Yes, and first I had to talk about Shila Buff
a lot on this show. But Shila Buff was publicly
credibly accused of abuse by FKA Twigs at the beginning
of twenty twenty one when this movie was in production.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
Right, I believe we talk more about this in the
episode on Holes, But yeah, Shila Buff left. Don't worry Darling.
Seems like August of twenty twenty there are conflicting accounts
of what happened. Olivia Wilde says that she fired him
because he brought a combative energy to the set, that

(01:01:48):
his work style clashed with the cast and crew. She
was trying to cultivate a safe space for everyone and
felt like he was putting that in Jeopardy. Shila buff
denies that he was fired, saying that he quit because
he and the other actors were not given adequate time
to rehearse, and that Olivia Wilde wanted him to come

(01:02:13):
back to the project but he refused.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
We weren't there.

Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
We don't know exactly what happened. What I do know
is that I'm glad I didn't have to watch him
in this movie, and I would rather watch Harry Styles
any day.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
I'm also thinking I was thinking about another movie in
the Me Too Women Trying to Talk about Me to
School Blink Twice, which actually does have, you know, another
messy movie. But like I do think women should be
allowed to make these movies about this subject until someone
gets it right. But you know, with the Harry Styles
connection of Zoe Kravitz being trail behind the helm of

(01:02:49):
that one, that movie has a better, more nuanced depiction
of like women who are complicit in the Geena Davis character, Yeah,
they do kind of un do that because women don't
seem capable of accepting that sometimes other women are villains.
And that movie, I think is just it's my turn now,

(01:03:10):
like the crazy girl Boss ending of Blink Twice where
it's like, you know, in feminist America, like Enslave you like.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
I'm Jeff Bezos now and you're like, yeah, I still watch,
and then it's like brought to you by Amazon Movies.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Oh my god, it's that and Poor Things has the
same kind of ending.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Oh yeah, it can be cathartic.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
It can totally be cathartic to flip the script and
be like, and now the women are, you know, using
men's buddies for their own amusement. But in movies that
are ostensibly about feminist politics, like that doesn't fly so much.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Right right, It's just like, I don't know, it's it's
it was fun at first. I will say, like I'm
not above a good for her ending. Yeah, if if
it feels earned. I don't know, if it feels earned,
why not. But this movie is just like it just
doesn't feel earned.

Speaker 4 (01:04:04):
No, it does not. Does anyone have anything else they'd
like to discuss?

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
I don't think so. I was just worried, darling.

Speaker 4 (01:04:13):
So I was, we were we were feeling darling.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
I think my final thought on it is that we
the fact that Olivia Wilde is trying to be sympathetic
to what you can kind of reductively describe as the
media and Trump voter, the conservative person who's feeling economic
and cultural anxieties about their insecure position in a world
that is objectively getting worse on every level, particularly in

(01:04:39):
a class conscious way, I think is commendable. I think
presenting like trying to give some sympathy, you know, however
perverse that may sound to the what's now being referred
to as the male loneliness epidemic of it all. With
Harry Styles's character is interesting and I found that way
more engaging on this round in this current political coal

(01:05:00):
I meant that she does so at the complete loss
of nuance or coherence, and I think that we should, really,
we should all be worrying Darling, and we should all
be trying to make a better version of this movie
that includes people, and lets people be complicated and lets
Florence Pew want to have her martinis at noon, and

(01:05:20):
lets Harry styles be misogynistic, like textually as well as structurally,
you know, right, And we can do it. We can
do we can do better. We should make hard art,
we should make complicated art, we should make icky art.
And women should do all of that. And I'm waiting
and worrying, darling.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
And if you and and and if you fail, you
should it should not do me your entire career.

Speaker 4 (01:05:44):
Yeah, does it count as a character being complicated? If
Olivia Wilde's character Bunny when she reveals that she is
voluntarily in victory because in this universe she still has
her kids. But the entire movie we see her not
interacting with her children at all. We see her yelling

(01:06:05):
at them, not being affectionate with them. Instead, she's day
drinking all the time and completely neglecting her children.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
Yeah, with no babysitters.

Speaker 4 (01:06:14):
Is that complex? Is that a complex character?

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
It sort of makes you wonder what happened to her
kids and was it a result of her?

Speaker 4 (01:06:20):
Was her fault?

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
They're not real kids. I can say that. I yeah, no,
And again it's like that is another little chicken nugget
of like, oh, what an interesting potential thing to explore.
That's just like at the very end of the movie,
I don't know. Yeah, it's just it's a mess. But
I agree with you, Peyton, I think that this movie

(01:06:44):
should someone's gonna get it, Someone's gonna figure it out
one of these days. And it feels like, I don't know,
definitely a moment. It is weird that this movie has
both become more and less timely into three years since
it came out.

Speaker 4 (01:07:01):
Right As far as the Bechdel test, it does pass.
There are many scenes in which women are talking to
each other about other women because they're gossiping, or they're
or at least one of them is questioning what's really

(01:07:22):
going on with the Victory Project and da da da.
So you know, the movie passes the Bechdel test, but
we always what costs exactly exactly. But to move on
to the perfect metric by which we examine movies, the
Bechdel cast nipple scale, in which we write a movie

(01:07:46):
on a scale of zero to five nipples, examining it
through an intersectional feminist lens. I think I'm gonna go
to nipples. It is attempting to start to say something.
The movie does have an agenda. It just feels like
something that maybe would have come out in like twenty

(01:08:07):
twelve instead of twenty twenty two. It just it feels
quite behind in its intersectionality and its ability to really
thoughtfully examine.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
See I kind of disagree. I feel like this is
very twenty twenty two and it's well in its white feminism.

Speaker 4 (01:08:26):
Well especially in Hollywood certainly, where you know, this is
a mainstream studio movie made by privileged, rich white people.
So yeah, this is not going to be the radical leftist,
intersectional takedown of patriarchy and white supremacy that we'd love
to see because Hollywood isn't really in the business of

(01:08:50):
doing that, at least not at this time.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
So I guess what you're saying is that it feels
like a real Hollywood movie, like a film movie. It's
like a movie.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Wait what hold on? There is a bit someone says
something like this once.

Speaker 4 (01:09:05):
Is it is it that it's it's a it's a
movie that feels like a movie.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Very underrated. Element of that clip is Chris Pine just
shark eyed dead eyes in the background. He was so
checked out on this press tour.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
It's funny though, because that quote actually has become a
staple since this movie came out of when I'm watching
movies with my husband, Like, we will be watching a
movie and he'll be going, it feels like a movie.
And he actually did this forgetting that it came from
this movie. When we started watching this movie. For this episode,
he was like, it looks like a look, so it

(01:09:41):
all circles back around.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
Wow, beautiful look. I was not I was not a directioner,
but the Harry styles appeal, I get it. I get
it because he's just saying shit. He's saying shit, He's
minding his own business. He just ran a he's like
an incog mode right now except for fucking Zoe Kravitz,
which he wants everybody to know. And sure, but he

(01:10:07):
is like living incognito mode right now. And ran a
marathon under a fake name. Whoa Caitlin. Did we talk
about this? I we didn't. Just a fun not passing
the Bectels test thing. Yeah, he just like ran the
Berlin marathon under the name stead Surrandos.

Speaker 4 (01:10:28):
Okay, good for him, and he.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
Got a great time. So you know, he's he's just chilling.
He's doing what more absurdly rich people do, which is
just being quiet and yes, so you're going to, oh, yes,
two nipples for all the reasons we've previously discussed on
this episode, and you know that I'm gonna give my
nipples to Shane Van Dyke, writer and director of Titanic two,

(01:10:54):
my favorite movie of all time.

Speaker 4 (01:10:56):
We got it covered JKJK. But yeah, we really, oh
we you know, we haven't done a Titanic episode this year, and.

Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
It's it's not too late, but it's not too late, Okay, Okay,
something to consider.

Speaker 4 (01:11:08):
Yeah, two nipples to Shane Van Dyke to two nipples
to Titanic two, sure is more accurate.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
I'm gonna go one and a half, which is maybe
a little like, I agree this movie is trying to
do stuff. I feel like, I don't know, I feel
like I've been very inconsistent in this episode of like,
it's just it's a hard one because I feel like,
in general, we are culturally still very hard on feminist

(01:11:35):
art that does not completely like work. And I know
I've been guilty of being overly critical of a movie
that feels like a movie. But because this movie was
really aggressively marketing itself as something that had something to
say about feminism and having it sort of be this
kind of cowardly white feminist. It's basically, you know, there's

(01:11:57):
no egg inside the egg. When I see that's the
central image of the movie. I was promised an egg
and I was given a shell. And so I don't
really know, Like maybe that's a little too hard on
a movie that does seem to be doing its best,
but its best isn't great. But I agree with I'm
going to be thinking about it, like we should keep trying,
we should keep trying to make this movie, and we

(01:12:19):
should give someone who is not already a wealthy white
woman a crack at it. Perhaps, So with that, I'm
going to give it one and a half nipples, And
I'm going to give half a nipple to the egg
that wasn't an egg, and I'm going to give my
other nipple to the plot.

Speaker 4 (01:12:37):
Rock nice Peyton, how about you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
I think one and a half is right because this
movie raised my blood pressure in such a specific way
watching it fail. I think it's so compelling, and so
in a certain sense, I give it like three nipples
for like incurring my feminist rage and making me more
cont just as a feminist in that moment, but I'm

(01:13:03):
gonna give a whole nipple to it's my turn now,
and then half a nipple to the wig.

Speaker 4 (01:13:12):
The hairstyle stream wig.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
You really have to love the wig. They thought they
were doing something with the wig.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
I was just gonna say the one thing we haven't mentioned,
you're because you're so worried about the egg. As metaphor,
I was thinking, like the title don't worry Darling comes
from an ad from the nineteen fifties where there's a
woman in front of a stove and everything's burning behind
her and she has a handkerchief and she's crying on
her husband's shoulder and her husband says, don't worry, darling,
you didn't burn the beer, And like, that's how I

(01:13:39):
feel about Olivia Wilds making this movie, being like I
love Martini's like, well, don't worry, darling, you didn't burn
the beer. You know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
Wow, It's just you know, we'll get them. We'll get
them next time, question mark, we'll get them next time.
We worried Darling and Peyton, thank you so much for
worrying with us.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
Yes, oh my gosh, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
Of course, come back anytime. I would love to talk
which movies with you? Hell yeah, where can we find
your work?

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
You can find me on Instagram at pay place p
a y T place. You can pick up my book
or the previous one, which is about national treasure and
conspiracy theory. Uh wherever books are sold. And the national treasure,
the national treasure.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
I'm going to steal it.

Speaker 4 (01:14:25):
I'm going to steal the Declaration of Independence national treasure.

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):
Oh why yes, okay, there's so much. It started as
a joke and then it turns out the conspiracy theorists.

Speaker 7 (01:14:33):
Love national treasure and you would not believe the things
I found. God really, okay, I will be purchasing, but yeah, amazing,
I'm around.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
Thank you so thank you so much for joining us.
And you can find us all the regular places, mostly Instagram,
and you can follow our or join our Matreon, which
is our patreon where for five dollars a month you
can get two bonus episodes on a topic, on a
very obscure topic of our choosing over yours.

Speaker 4 (01:15:04):
Don't worry, it's not a simulation.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
It's wink.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
This is now. Caitlin does actually have me strapped in
a room somewhere. The reason that we have to like
have heart outs during our recording is so Kaitlyn can
dribble something in my eyeball, so so I don't turn
into a husk. Oh God, imagine if if I was
a podcaster in the simulation, I would be so pissed off.
Like if I'm in the simulation, I'd better have a

(01:15:29):
martini and just be day drinking all the time. Truly,
But yes, you can find us there. Five dollars a
month gets you access to two new episodes a month
and access two hundreds of back episodes.

Speaker 4 (01:15:41):
Indeed, and with that we can finally stop worrying darling, Oh,
thank God, and have a martini.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
Bye bye.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
produced by Me, Jamie Loftus and.

Speaker 4 (01:16:00):
Me Caitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie
Lichtermann and.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
Edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever Heard of Them? That's Me?

Speaker 4 (01:16:09):
And our logo and merch and all of our artwork
in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever heard of Her?

Speaker 1 (01:16:16):
Oh my God? And our theme song, by the way,
was composed by Mike Kaplan.

Speaker 4 (01:16:20):
With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

Speaker 1 (01:16:23):
Iconic and especial thanks to the one and only Aristotle Ascevedo.

Speaker 4 (01:16:28):
For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree, slash
Spectelcast