Double Indemnity with Anita Sarkeesian

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Dog Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef and
best start changing it with the bec Del Cast. Caitlin, Yes, Jamie,
I've got a problem and it needs solving. Okay, I

(00:22):
only have ninety minutes to record a podcast. Okay, see
mine was going to be. Whoever hears this, I suppose
you'll think it's a confession. I recorded this podcast me,
Caitlyn Durante. I did it for the money and a woman,
and I didn't get the money and I didn't get
the woman. Okay, I like that way better. I like

(00:44):
that way better. Because what is Walter Nev doing at
the beginning of this movie and throughout besides recording a
true crime podcast? He literally, yes, I wrote that the
same thing. I was like, Wow, what's her name? I
wrote down, Um, who's the whatever? The serial person? I'm
blowing it. I'm blowing it this morning. Oh my gosh,

(01:07):
I don't remember either. Why we I feel like everyone
I can hear her voice, I can hear her cadence.
It's iconic, like I oh my god, I was very
into it when it came out. What it? What was it?
Sarah Kanig, Sarah Cadi, Yes, yes, he's Sarah kaneging out
at the beginning of the show. Well, we well, that

(01:30):
was one of our best intros. Perfect. See this is
and if people are listening right now, this is why
we don't record this early in the morning, because this
is gonna be that you're gonna feel a sort of
waking up as the podcast proceeds. We're not like Walter
nep recording in the dead of night with a with
an injury the gunshot wound. Yeah, this is It's ten.

(01:52):
I am I've been up since seven because I needed
to rewatch this movie sa morning. Same. So I think
that we're doing a really good job so far. Welcome
to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus, my
name is Caitlin Durante, and this is our show where
we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the

(02:13):
Bechdel Tests simply as a jumping off point, an inspiration
for us to get a conversation going. Jamie, tell me
what the Bechdel test is? Please? No, okay, the Bechtel
test has many permutations. That's sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace test,
originally created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel. We require that

(02:36):
two pass. You have to have two characters of a
marginalized gender with names speaking to each other about something
other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue.
I think this movie passes, which is funny, um, because
I went in thinking there's no way there's even a
second woman in the movie. Well, guess what, there is

(02:58):
exactly one second. So egg on my face. There's two
women in the movie and they talk about checkers. Um.
So if that's why you listen to the podcast, I
guess you could turn it off down because but stick
around because we've got a lot of exciting stuff to

(03:19):
talk about, recovering a film noir today from nineteen four
called Double Indemnity, And we have an amazing returning guest.
Let's get her in the mix. We certainly do. She
is a media critic. You remember her from our episode
on Point Break. It's Anita Sarcasian. Okay, just so everyone knows,

(03:44):
I try to get them to do another surf movie
with me, so that I only do surf movies on
the back pelcast and they were not going for it.
Caitlyn like just looked at me, being like, nobody requests
surf movies. We should I don't think that's true, so
please right in and let them know that I'm right.
I didn't know about this conversation, and I would have

(04:07):
made a strong argument for Blue Crush. That made really
gave me some body problems. So, yeah, I forgot about
Blue Crush. How good you forget about Blue Crush. I've
never seen Blue Crash, so I like this would be
a great opportunity because I'm like, I want to watch
all of them now, so I will. I'll come back.

(04:27):
And apparently it was formative for a lot of young
queers too. There's a whole I need to need to
get in on this. I remember there was such a
frothing culture around Blue Crush because all the girls that
I would watch it with were like, isn't it amazing
that Kate Bosworth has one blue eye and one brown eye?
We were just like all lusting after her, like, wow,
her bikini is so low cut. Yeah, there's a whole

(04:48):
there's a whole thing exactly. But we're talking about double
indemnity eight. We're talking about a different kind of um
interestingly exploited female character. Today it's fatal Day on the
factel cast It's sure, is so Anita? What is your
relationship history, etcetera with this movie with film no war

(05:13):
in general, Um nothing. I have no history at all.
I chose it, or like, I, you know, kind of
agreed to do it because I've been curious about going
back and watching older films, so I was like, why
not have an excuse to do it. I sort of
regret that choice. So this is gonna be a great episode. Um,
but I don't um, I don't know. I didn't know

(05:35):
anything about this movie going into it. I loosely knew
that it was like kind of quintessential in terms of
establishing the film fatale or film noir ish kind of vibes.
So I was curious about that. But I don't have
a long history of like, you know, it's not like
I've watched a bunch of noirs. I kind of get
the sense of them. I find current or more modern

(05:55):
films that pull noir themes really interesting. But but that
makes it like every time I watch a movie that's
like this was the thing that changed everything, I always
feel a little bit of We will never be able
to know what that feels like because I've seen every
iteration since then, or I've seen every like derivative. I've

(06:16):
seen everything that is like derivative from the original source.
And I don't mean that in a disparaging way. It's
just it's so hard sometimes to put yourself in the
mind of the viewer at the time and the creation
process at the time. Right. I'm sure that if I
had seen Citizen Kane in whatever nineteen forty one when

(06:37):
it came out, I'd be like, Wow, this movie is
so cool. Look at how groundbreaking it is, look at
how it changed cinema. But I didn't see it in
ninety one. I saw it in the mid two thousand's
and I hate it. Well, that was your first mistake,
not being alive in one. I do want to cover

(06:57):
Citizen Cane someday so I can just talk about how
it's a turd. But that's edge Lord Caitlin peeking her
little head out. But I do think kind of before
we get into this a little bit um So, I
just watched Liquorice Pizza, which has of extremely racist a
couple of moments of like deep racism, right, And I

(07:20):
was thinking about I don't have anything really insightful to
say about this, but that it can be very hard
for modern progressive viewers to go back and watch older films, right,
because you do have to kind of in order to
do that and to appreciate the craft of the time,
we have to acknowledge, sit through, deal with, ignore, like

(07:42):
whatever it is that you do when you watch older movies.
It's just there, right, and you can't unsee what you know.
And I was thinking about what that means in contemporary films,
especially contemporary films that are of a time, so like
including pieces that are super racist or sexist in a
movie that comes out to contextualize the moment that it

(08:07):
takes place, Like, I have a lot of thoughts about that,
And I think that there's something interesting about like kind
of me ping ponging back and forth in right now
and what I'm watching and seeing, like cool, I gotta
like deal with, you know, you've got to deal with
the like all the sexist representations and the like light
misogyny that's just like a part of the environment. And
then also we still have to you know, like it's

(08:31):
still being justified as relevant or a part of the
craft or a part of the art or whatever. Yeah, right,
because it's like a period piece, right, yeah, it's it's
not the only you know, I'm not like specifically calling
out Pta, but just the you know, like Tarantino and
like they all fucking do that, right, right. Yeah. And
I think sometimes like period pieces are used as an

(08:53):
excuse to like bring that back in a way of
like isn't this funny, and you're like, it's really not.
But I think film fatal is like such an interesting thing,
and I totally agree with what you guys are saying
of it's so difficult to watch a movie and put
yourself in the mindset of an audience member at the time.
It's like almost impossible unless you're like really really really

(09:17):
trying to. And that's like part of what's hard about
this show sometimes. But that's the thing is like what
audience is watching it as well. I think it's another
used to that absolutely, Jamie, what's your relationship to Double Indemnity?
I saw this movie in college. I think that like
any person that went through a bad film program, like

(09:39):
there was a unit on Noir, I saw a bunch
of them. I generally do like I I like Noir,
and I really like noir, like parody and like comedy.
I'm I'm like into the vibe of Noir and the
because the like the characters are so clear, and so
I enjoy watching Noir. Also, my friend friend of the
show guest on our Glie episode, Josh fatum Um just

(10:05):
observed Noirvember, which is something he does every year for nobody,
but this year I was paying attention and um, so
I had Noir in the brain anyways, So I was
excited to revisit this movie because I feel like this
movie is often kind of presented as like the blueprint
for a lot of Nora tropes, and particularly like the

(10:27):
fum Fatale character. And it was kind of interesting to
come back to because by coincidence, I was working on
the The Capy podcast this year and so was going
through the history of like American women's rights, and so
it's like interesting to have a few things click about,
like why why the fum Fatale trope tends to pop

(10:49):
at certain moments. It makes total sense that it would
pop during World War Two because it's a time where
women are taking on men's jobs quote unquote and are
presenting a more act to threat to the status quo,
and so some fetals like popping in the forties and
fifties makes total sense. Any time that there's like a
period of time where uh, there's a backlash to a

(11:12):
popular feminist movement, you get these characters that are like
variations on witches and like evil women luring people with sex.
And I don't know, I had I had a and
I genuinely like moviewise. I hear like Walter nev is
such a dufus, like he got a boner one time

(11:32):
and it was ready to just throw his entire life away,
which is kind of funny. But I'm excited to talk
about this movie. I I genuinely enjoyed watching it. And
Barbara Stanwick is such a such an icon, and she's
wearing such a such a bizarre wig is very distracting.
The bangs on her bangs are out of control. They're

(11:55):
like a hard they look like you could like knock
on them. They're like a perfect cylinder just resting a
top her forehead. I don't understand how you accomplish that. Unbelievable,
but yeah, I I I generally, I mean, there's misogynist
tropes abound in this genre, but I think it's like
in context, it's it's pretty interesting and the movies are

(12:18):
fun to watch. Yeah, I too saw this movie in
college at least a couple of times, and then also
in grad school where I did get a master's degree
in screen running from Boston University. I hate to mention it,
but they made you watch it again. Yeah, I mean
because I took like enough like film theory or film

(12:40):
history classes that touched on film noir, and this is
kind of like one of those like quintessential film noir movies.
It's cited as having set the standard for film noir,
so you know, it's kind of one of the ones
to study if you're developing the curriculum for a very standard,

(13:01):
boring film class because they always show the same damn
movies over and over again. I've seen it several times
in school, and this is like, I feel like the
one that they show in school. Yes, which is also
why I've seen Citizen Kane eight hundred times. I hate
it more and more every time I see it. Anyway,

(13:22):
else I'll stop bringing up the Citizen Kane maybe, but yeah,
so I've seen this movie a number of times usually
and that probably like maybe I I saw it once
just of my own volition before I saw it for
a class, because I was like, oh, yeah, this is
one of those like famous movies that's in all the textbooks.
I have to see it so I can, you know,
be smart and understand references so you could go to party.

(13:48):
Sometimes I just watch things so I can comfortably attend
a party. Same same, Um, I get it, but I don't.
I don't hate the movie. I like the snappy dialogue.
You know, the aesthetic is fun. Yeah, I like. I
generally like film noir. I like neo noir especially, But

(14:08):
who framed Roger Rabbit Baby? I mean, come on, the
noir golden standard. I think I'm serious too. I think
I'm serious. I don't think you're wrong. We covered that
movie a while back on the Matreon, so if you
haven't heard it listeners, go check it out. But anyway,
should I do the recap and then we'll discuss let's

(14:31):
do it. Okay, Actually, let's take a quick break first,
and then we will be right back. And we're back,
so Double Indemnity. We meet Walter Neff played by Fred McMurray.

(14:51):
He is an insurance salesman who stumbles into his office
and starts recording a podcast. Basically, he starts recording a
confession to Mr Keys, who we will later learn is
a colleague of Walter Nefts. He confesses that he murdered
someone named Dietrichson. He did it for the money and

(15:13):
a woman, but he didn't get either. He mentions a
double indemnity, and we're like, wow, that's the name of
the movie. I was like, I hope he defines that
in dialogue at some point, and then he does, which
is genuinely needed, so thank you. Yes, and then he
starts to tell the story about how all of this transpired,

(15:34):
and then we flashback to Walter paying Mr Dietrichson a
visit at his Los Angeles home to talk about his
expired car insurance policy. Mr. Dietrichson is not home, but
his wife. His wife, his wife, Mrs Dietrichson A. K.
Phillis played by Barbara Stanwick, is home. She comes out

(15:58):
all sexy and not fully closed. She's got like a
towel draped on her. Yeah. They they really need to
signal to you what's going on right away. I did
like that. They like just like old tiny ways of
objectifying a woman are funny, where he kept being like
her anklet, You're like, you're a pervert. Stop talking about

(16:21):
her anklet. In that moment too, when he first meets
her and she was sunbathing, he says, I hope there
aren't any pigeons like lines that. I was like, what
the fuck is this comedy? Like, yeah, it's like this.
I would almost rather someone. I mean, I would rather
Walter never speak to me. But if he had to have,

(16:43):
I does that roundabout it's just creepy. He's like, oh,
I hope there's all pigeons, just like I hope birds
aren't shipping on you. Is that what I guess? So,
and then right right after the housekeeper says like, the
living room is where they keep the liquor sucked up,
which is also a weird thing, and he says, that's

(17:03):
all right, I always carry my own keys. Like some
of the dialogue in this, I kept being like, what
the fuck. I don't understand it. It's another I'm adjusting
the name of this test. I need to figure it out.
But it is an example of if the person if
the actor saying that line wasn't extremely conventionally hot. You'd
be like, this guy is weird. Why is he acting

(17:24):
like this? Yes? Yes, I think part of it is
like the writer's attempt to have like really quippy, clever
dialogue in a way that might have made more sense
to like audiences, but you know, many decades later we're like,
what are you talking about? I think it's a combination
of that, and a lot of the dialogue has to

(17:47):
be euphemism to skirt the restrictions of the production code.
So I like it. I like it. I think it's
it's just so bizarre to hear characters talk like that
to each other and um, feel like it's just another day,
another day talking like a weirdo. Uh yeah, So Phillis

(18:09):
Dietrichson agrees to chat with Walter Nef and uh he
spends that entire conversation hitting on her in a very
nies way, and then she asks if he handles accident insurance,
which he does, and she tells him to come back
at a different time when her husband will be home.

(18:30):
Then we see Walter at his office. We meet Keys,
who is Walter F's colleague. His whole thing is that
he's a skeptic and he can always sniff out a
fraudulent insurance claim because he feels it right here, and
he like basically like points to his like tour. So
it was I was like, what are you doing? It's

(18:51):
is this the weird dick thing? Like? It was very
I was like, oh, your heart, like your heart and
your heart it was so it's like, okay, buddy, Yeah,
he keeps referring to the little man who lives inside him. Yes,
that was the thing. You're like, is this like is
this a euphemism? What's happening here? I don't understand. He's like,

(19:11):
I always know when someone's lying to me. I can
feel it in my dick. Well, my dick starts to
the thrub. That's when you know someone's not telling the truth.
I really liked that moment with him. I mean that
that who is that character? I don't think I've ever
seen that character actor before. Um Edward g Robinson. Yeah,
apparently he was quite famous back in the day, but

(19:33):
I don't really know him. Oh no, oh. He he
named people during the Red Scare little as he named
Dalton Trumbo. Wow. Okay, this bitch, okay, So all right,
you and your little band and this Wikipedia page. Yeah,
go fuck yourself. Oh your digs throbbing and out good

(19:54):
hearted communists jesus um okay Keys the character. I really
enjoyed that scene where kind of like apropa of nothing,
he just is like, yeah, I almost got married once.
Didn't work out though, Like he just starts going off
about how he's never been loved in his life and
that's why he's so good at an insurance I was like,

(20:15):
oh my god. Also, the reasons he lists for like
not going through with that marriage are so wild. And again,
you know, the standards of the time were very different.
But he's like, she I found out that she used
to dye her hair or that she's been dyeing her
hair since she was sixteen, and also she was married

(20:35):
once before. And then he also like makes a reference
to how there's like mental illness in her family. So
he's like and then and then Walter's like, yeah, I
get it. She was a tramp. Everyone in her family
is a tramp. Blah blah blah, and it's just like, yikes,
your standards are very mean. This guy was so dirty

(20:56):
at the House of Un American Activities Committee. What a
what a piece of ship, What an asshole? He thought,
and again of the time, I'm sure he's like, this
is we don't have time to talk about this today.
I'm disappointed Edward also r I P. He died like
years ago. Fun fact, at sometime next year, I'll be

(21:17):
releasing a video series and one of the episodes is
about the Hollywood Blacklist, So tune into that whenever the
funk that appears, keep your keep your eyes peeled, listeners,
please filet a fish our boy Edward because he fucked up.
He fucked up big time. All right, so we we've
met keys. Then Walter nef goes back to Phillis Dietrichson,

(21:40):
who tells him that she wants to take out an
accident insurance policy on her husband, who works a dangerous
job in the oil fields, but she doesn't want her
husband to know about it, and Walter automatically assumes that
it's because she's trying to find a way to get
her husband killed so that she can collect on the

(22:01):
insurance money. But she's like, no, I decay what you're
talking about. But even so he storms out, but then
he's like, oh wait a minute. Though she's so hot,
I mean she wears an anklets a I mean, he
brings it up like four or five times. It's like

(22:22):
really weird. It's like, yeah, the way the anklet was
cutting into your leg, Like okay, So he comes back
and like, I'm just using this as a cue to
talk about the like the dialogue e banter. Right, that's
very not the way that people talk. And I haven't
watched a lot of movies from the forties, but it

(22:42):
is very much the sort of stereotype that I think
we think of when we think about like older films. Sure,
I found it really hard to watch, you know, and
you both expressed that, like you enjoyed it and like
thought it was kind of a fun thing and for me,
like it it got really exhausting after a while. Oh definitely,
you know, like it was just too I was like,

(23:03):
can you all just fucking like and again, film history
like has changed so much in terms of what we
expect of actors and storytelling and all of that. But
I was just getting really like okay enough already with
the performativeness in this conversation. Right. It definitely gave me
whiplash after a while, because there's that scene where he's like,
suppose I am speeding and she's like, well, suppose I

(23:25):
give you a ticket and suppose you leave me off
with a warning, And I'm just like, see that just
makes me laugh. Where they're like flirting and you're like
this is this is I barely recognize this as the
English language, Like what are you guys talking about? And
then at the end they're like, we have a crush
on each other? Like from basically that interesting. Okay, So

(23:45):
it also reminds me and like, okay, Josh Weeden's a
piece of ship, so acknowledging that before I go into this,
but it reminds me of how like Buffy and some
of the work that he did in the nineties and
two thousands sort of popularized that kind of like and
and I'd say, you're more girls to kind of popularize that,
Like it feels like a remnant of that time, but

(24:08):
but kind of normal like that I didn't have a
problem with, like I liked, I didn't like more girls,
but so it feels a little bit like that. Um,
I'm just like, it's not like we don't do that anymore,
but it but it's it's modernized in a way that's
like our jokes and our communication and our you know,
like sort of hyper communication of of the moment. But man,

(24:29):
I just I was really by the end of it.
I was like, can you just stop talking? I'm a
sucker for people talking real fast, and so other times
I was talking real fast, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, cool,
what uh? But that's also YouTube life, right, Like the
joke about YouTubers is that they all talked super fast
because we used to have time constraints, so we're trying

(24:49):
to like shove everything in. So I don't I think
it's just interesting how like that kind of maybe like
Ebbed and Float a little bit in terms of the
way that what we accept as like witty dialogue and
speed of of talking um changes or our perception of
it in the past changes to right, and it's all
like the mid Atlantic kind of fake fucking accents and
ship where you're like, I mean, there's also like there's

(25:16):
like movie dialogue that you like, read it on the
page or you hear it, and you're like, this is
dialogue versus something that feels more realistic and organic and conversational,
which like also can be very well written. But I
don't know, I I'm kind of a sucker for dialogue
that no one would actually say in real life because

(25:37):
it's like very clearly written. It's like too clever and
too quickly, like the West Wing kind of I know,
I know that's the flavor. I don't, but I'm saying
it's that kind of thing where you're like, this isn't real,
but also like you kind of like a lot of
people really vibe with it, right sure, Yeah, yeah, I
feel like, yeah, there's there's probably like a fast talking

(25:58):
genre or like piece of work for every like generation
that it's like either you're into it or you're not,
or I don't know. I do also want to add
that if I literally in my notes, I wrote, if
he says baby one more time, oh my gosh, Like
I here's the thing is Walter Neff Fred McMurray, Like

(26:21):
it's just so unlikable in every conceivable way. There's nothing
about you feel that way because I was like, I'm
not interested in this man at all. He's yeah, not
for me. I think I would have liked the movie
more if I gave any fox at all about this guy.
But he just seemed so unlikable and so uninteresting in

(26:42):
such a piece of ship in every way that like
I don't feel bad that he's being manipulated. I don't
feel bad that he is like he like, he's like
I want you to fail and I want you to
get like, you know whatever. And so I think that that.
I don't think as an audience member, we're supposed to
feel that way about him. No, I think the movie

(27:03):
because he was prior to this, like a rom com star,
and he almost turned down the role because he's like,
this role is going to tarnish my reputation as a
like an America's sweetheart, you know, like rom com guy.
But then he went for it anyway. But yeah, I
think he he as an actor, people liked him, and

(27:24):
we are meant to be endeared to him. But yeah, again,
by like my standards today, I'm just like, oh, quick
calling her baby eight hundred times. Yeah, I I didn't really,
I don't know what it was. And I'm like, maybe
this is just me being annoying. But I'm like if maybe,
if there was a different actor in that role. But
but the other thing is with noir characters in general,

(27:47):
I guess I don't understand from a writing perspective why
you wouldn't give the audience more information about who waltern
f is or like what because it just seems like
he's living this like steak less life. Like he's a
single guy. We don't know anything about his family. He
seems like he's financially comfortable enough, but we don't really

(28:09):
know anything about him, and so it's hard to like,
like if you just if they just added one or
two details of like and he has a sick cat
or like just something to like endear you to him
or just to give information, but he's just like a guy.
And so yeah, I was like, well, I don't really
care what happens to this guy. He's just some guy.
When in the history of film noir did it become

(28:32):
kind of attached to the sort of hard boiled detective,
because that so this movie is this like fem fatale
manipulating this guy, right, is kind of the vibes that
are happening. But in my mind, being very uneducated in
this space, I'm like, well, shouldn't he be a little
more hard boiled and a little more like gruff? Right?

(28:54):
I think that ordinarily that is the case of like
there's more gruffness, you'll have a little bit more information
about the character, which kind of just like, well, there's
a whole character kind of strikes me as a little
bizarre because I'm just like, I feel like I don't
know who this person is, so I can't even like
from a like oh, I feel bad for this guy,
Like I don't really feel bad for him because he

(29:16):
seems to know exactly what's going on outside of the
fact that she is manipulated, like that's the only thing
he doesn't know. But everything else, there's so many plot
developments in this murder plot that are like his idea,
So I'm like, yeah, he's gonna get what's coming to him.
Like it's not like she's like, oh, we should do
this or we should do this, which she does sometimes

(29:37):
she's obviously an active participant in this plot, but his
whole thing where they're like, oh no, we actually have
to throw your husband off a train and then we'll
get twice the money, and I was like, okay, So
he's just like a full on which collusion, like goof us,
and I don't care what happens to him. And I
don't think that they and you already said this, Jamie,

(29:57):
but they don't do a good enough job of showing
that they fucking care. About each other, and I know
that there's the bit, there's the bit at the end. Well,
we're not there yet. We'll deal with it when whatever.
But but like we're not supposed to think that she
really cares that much about him, right, We're supposed to
like she's she's manipulating him, and she's like going along
with it, and he's in love with her, but like

(30:19):
they don't do anything to really build that relationship or
the emotional stakes of it in any way. And so
he calls her baby. So that's how we know that
her question mark. There's those long montages. Yeah, there's all
these opportunities, and I get, like story logic. I'm like, okay,
that makes sense. But also I wouldn't have been bothered
as an audience member. But there's just like they'll have

(30:41):
one conversation and then they'll be a montage where he's
like and then I didn't see her for two weeks,
and I kind of just went back to what I
was doing and I was like, well, that's boring, that
doesn't right, I don't really care. Yeah, there's a whole
conversation we had about like his motive or lack thereof,
it's wild. His I think his motive is that he's horny,

(31:02):
Like here's a bit, yeah, which I mean, I've had
a horny motive in my day, but not sure, you know,
not to this extent doesn't drive you to murder. And
I've got a personality unlike Walter, So it's interesting when
I have a horny motive. Yeah right, um okay, So
where did we leave off? Um? I like when he
goes bowling on the way home, I was like, that

(31:24):
is that is again like just a creepy, bizarre thing
to do, Like I think I gotta blow some steam out. Hey,
that's character development, Yeah, he likes. I also wondered if
that was a euphemism for something like if that was
understood that if you know, if you go bowling after work.
It's really like, did he go to a bar and
get king, I don't know, you have a beer and

(31:46):
and uh and go bowling alone? Yeah that's you get
drunk at your house and jerk off right. Um okay.
So he's kind of having conflicting thoughts because he's like,
I don't wanna, you know, be involved with her, but
she's so hot, so I don't know. And then she
pays him a visit and basically confirms that his suspicions

(32:06):
were correct about her wanting to have her husband killed,
and she reveals that it's because her husband is abusive
toward her. Walter and Phyllis kiss. Then Walter is like,
you know, you probably won't get away with this, but
with my help and know how as an insurance guy,

(32:28):
maybe you will get away with it. So then they
start to scheme. First, they need to trick Mr Dietrichson
into signing the policy, and they need a witness, which
ends up being Dietrichson's daughter from his first marriage, Lola,
So he signs the policy. Then Walter's like, oh, by

(32:48):
the way, if we do a double indemnity, which is
when and then we go the title, which is when
the insurance pays out double on certain accidents. For example,
if someone is killed on a train, in which case
for this policy, they would stand to make one thousand
dollars in the event of Mr Dietrichson's death. So they're like,

(33:11):
let's cash in on that, which is like a bajillion
dollars in money, right, yes, So they arrange for Mr
Dietrichson to take a train on his upcoming trip to
Palo Alto. But before that happens, Mr Dietrichson falls and
breaks his leg and calls off the trip. So Phillis
is freaking out, but Walter's like, it's cool, we just

(33:32):
got to be patient. And then also Walter and Phillis
are having an affair throughout this whole thing, and he
keeps calling her baby in its growth. Yeah, that's how
you know that they're in love because they kissed two
times and he calls her baby one million times, And
that's that's love. That's how love works. Yes, So Walter

(33:53):
tries to take his mind off the whole thing. A
week or so passes, and then one day he gets
a call from Phillis saying that her husband is taking
the train that night. So this is their chance. Another
thing that I just I thought was like bizarre and
finding when I was reading about the just the way
that this movie was written, because Raymond Chandler was a
co writer on this, was that he, like I guess,

(34:16):
he spent a lot of time in l A trying
to like get a feel for like this this movie,
a lot of the moments feel like that as an
l sketch where they can't stop talking about traffic and intersections,
because there's so many times where the characters are so
specific about like what street in l A they're going
to to, like go roller skating, or it's like, yeah,
I'm going to Formosa and Santa Monica that blah blah

(34:38):
blah blah and her houses on those fields boulevard. I
was like, this is not That's not what that looks like.
It's like I was like, did it look like that?
But yeah, it is very like this is l A,
but it doesn't like I wouldn't put it in an
l A category of like if you want to watch
movies about l A, because it didn't feel like l
A in any way other than the names of streets.
I just thought it was funny that they like felt

(34:59):
that it als like a self conscious reflects to be like,
we're definitely here and we know the names of the
streets too. Okay, So that night, Walter does a bunch
of things to establish his alibi. Then Walter kills Mr
Dietrichson as Phillis drives him to the train station, and

(35:19):
then Walter gets on the train pretending to be Mr
Dietrichson and jumps off the train and fakes the accident,
and then they put Mr Dietrichson's dead body on the tracks,
and it seems like everything went according to plan, but
Walter can't help but feel something's wrong or they like,
you know, he's going to be found out or something.

(35:40):
In the days that follow, the police find Mr Dietrichson's body.
They rule it an accidental death. But then Walter's boss,
whose name is Edward Norton by the way, um I
also was like he's pissed that the company is going
to have to pay out all the money on Dietrichson's policy,
and he's certain the death was not an accident. He

(36:03):
thinks it was a suicide. So he calls in Phyllis,
who says like, that's ridiculous. My husband didn't die by suicide.
And Keys, who again is a skeptic, believes that the
death was an accident at first, so it looks like
Walter and Phyllis are going to get the one thousand

(36:24):
dollar pay out. But then Keys is like, wait a minute.
If Mr Dietrichson knew he had accident insurance, why didn't
he do anything when he broke his leg? So then
Keys gets to thinking the whole thing was a set up. Meanwhile,
Phillis and Walter are freaking out. The whole situation is
tearing their relationship apart. Then the daughter Lola pays Walter

(36:50):
visit and tells him that she suspects Phillis murdered her
mother several years back. I like Lola. She's a smart cookie.
People gotta take Lola more seriously. Oh my god, the
amount that she gets gas lit by Walter in this movie,
and then he starts dating her basically to distract her.
I know, is it ever stated how old she is?

(37:13):
I feel it's heavily applied that she is a teenager,
Like she's in school, so she's going roller skating, she
needs permission from her dad to go places. I was
really curious about this, so I found the screenplay that
was written in the forties to see if it's said.
And it does say how old she is. She is
nineteen according to the screenplay. That's convenient. I guess that is.

(37:37):
I loving creepy movies where they're like, Hi, I'm eighteen,
so this creepy thing that's about to happen is totally legal.
And then she turns to the camera she's like, I'm eighteen.
Recently and like you're just like, oh my god, um,
that is interesting that that they felt the need to specify.

(37:57):
And by interesting, I mean we aired right. Yeah, so
either way, he I meat, whatever there's I mean, it's
still creepy because they start dating and he's thirty five
and she's nineteen, and and it's under false pretenses, like
there's so much about it, and there's this whole other
boyfriend to Zaketty right is in the is in the
works here, who's not looking particularly in nineteen years to me.

(38:21):
And also speaking of like male toxic behaviors. When we
meet Zaketty, he is just like, who's this guy? You
can't when you're with me. You can't be with this guy.
He can't know about me, I like. And it was
just like really aggressive and she's like no, no, baby,
I love you, and you're like I know, like you
just worry for this poor girl and she's been through

(38:42):
so much and like the it did make me laugh
when the Zaketty guy was like, I don't have friends
and like, well we can see why. Y. Yeah, you're
you're a little abrasive, right, Yeah, I don't know. I
mean that when he starts dating her. I was like,
this can't be happening, and like we've had age gap
conversations on the show before. I don't think we need

(39:04):
to get into it today, but like this one, there's
a pretty obvious uh no, thank you. Right, So Lola
thinks that Phillis killed her father now too, so Walter
is like gaslighting her and distracting her so that she
doesn't tell anyone else about it. Keys, meanwhile, is piecing

(39:25):
things together more and more. Basically, he has the whole
crime figured out, except for who pulled it off. He
doesn't yet know that it was Walter, and because Keys
is like getting so close to the truth, Walter wants
to distance himself from Phillis, especially because he also continues
to see Lola, and especially because he finds out that

(39:48):
Phillis has been having an affair with Lola's former boyfriend,
Nino's a Ketty, so he does have a friend he right,
So then Walter goes to confront phil this. She shoots him,
but he doesn't die right away, and he gets the
gun and shoots her and kills her, and then he
goes to his office and starts the confession that we

(40:11):
saw him recording at the beginning, except Keys comes in
and overhears so Walter tries to leave. He wants to
escape across the border, but he dies from his gunshot
wound before he can even get out of the building.
And that's how the movie ends. So let's take a
quick break and then we will come back to discuss

(40:40):
and we're back, Okay, Can we talk about the Fatales
just for a minute? Oh yeah, yes please. So I
dragged Caitlin out to watch Batman Returns, the best movie
that's ever been made recently, And when I left the movie,
I was thinking about how my feminist analysis has become
much more nuanced and more open to things like Catwoman. Um,

(41:04):
whereas I, like ten years ago, I would have been
like this sexist piece of ship Da da da da da. Right,
So I was thinking about this with fem fay twels
because like on the surface, and maybe not the surface,
but this is kind of what I wanted to chat
with you about, is like they seem incredibly sexist representations, right,
And Jamie, you started us talking about like films and
and like narrative media often bring out these anxieties that

(41:27):
are coming around at the times that they're they're being created,
and so you know, like it's exhausting to be like
this manipulative woman who's just trying to get money and
kill her husband and like a lot of fem fay twels,
is that kind of like women are sneaky and duplicitous
and they use their sexual whiles to like get men
to do things for them. Right, Is there like in

(41:50):
your minds, is there any nuance to this? Is there
any way in which that is like salvageable as not
fucked up? I think that it's like it depends. I mean,
I don't I don't have like I don't know how
you feel it, but I don't have like a hard
answer to that. I think that the more context I
had for why these characters were so popular when they

(42:11):
were so popular, um kind of clarified how I felt
about it, because I do think it's like, ultimately it
is a I think it's like the kind of misogynist
trope that is easily reclaimable, but it was not intended
to be reclaimable. It's like very much a clear like
the most heterosexual white dudes in the world are writing

(42:32):
this at a time where women were, I guess, unusually
able to access money and capital and power during World
War two, and so I feel like it's it's just
like calcifying that anxiety and selling it back to men
who are feeling the same way. I do think that
there is an angle to reclaim the fim fatale that

(42:55):
has been kind of reclaimed in some neo noir movies
because and I think, like, I didn't remember this particular
detail about this movie, but the fact that Phillis, you know,
they include the detail that Phillis is being abused by
her husband, and so I feel like there's an in
right there for like that, well, we got to get revenge,
Like but that's the thing is she's so manipulative that

(43:17):
why would you believe that I had that? I thought
too where I was like, is that part of Because
so in addition to like using her sexual wiles and
you know, her feminine wiles and her sexuality and exploiting
that to deceive and seduce men, the fem fatale archetype
also is just like flat out lying and using deceit

(43:37):
to get what she wants. And I it did occur
to me, like is that the case, Like when she
reveals that her husband is abusive, is that actually true,
which very well could be the case. But because we
don't see it on screen, we don't see the abuse.
It does make you wonder like is that part of
her deceit? We don't really know for sure. I mean,

(44:00):
I guess that I believed it. Maybe I'm a Walter too,
but I believed it because you saw all of the
other behaviors that she was describing in that conversation. You
did see him like he was drinking a lot during
the day, He was dismissive of her, he was belligerent
towards her, he was dismissive of his daughter. And so
because that was sort of where I was going where
I was like, well, you it seems like you know,

(44:22):
it wasn't like she was like, he's this awful piece
of ship. And then you met this very sweet husband
who was very in love with her, Like it did
seem like he was I mean, didn't deserve to be
thrown off a train, maybe, but but I don't know.
That was where I saw the end for this was
buying into the story of this woman who is unhappy

(44:42):
with her wife getting revenge, which of course like changes
when you find out that she also killed his wife,
which is. So that's where for me, it's like it
kind of falls apart where it's like this witchy stereotype
where you have no what like why why why does
she start killing people? What is the motivation? What does
she get out of it? Who is she like? What
is her background? And all of these things I feel

(45:05):
like would make her a much more accessible character, but
it feels like that information is withheld from you by
the writers intentionally, So you're just like, this woman is
evil in a in a vacuum. We don't trust her,
and she's using sexuality to get what she wants. I
don't know. I'm very conflicted about it. Um same, yeah,

(45:25):
like it's I do I do understand why them fatale
trope has been reclaimed and why it hasn't like disappeared,
because it's also like I feel like in in the nineties,
this is like a kind of an unusual role where
it's an active female character right that she is involved,

(45:45):
like so deeply involved in the plot, and she moved
things forward. Everything is her idea for the most part,
and it's not like there were a lot of movies
at this time where you could just you could see
a woman do anything except be mommy or wife. Right, Yeah,
the fim fatale character, by nature of the narrative that's
being told, usually means that that character has way more

(46:08):
agency than a lot of female characters that we've seen
in like cinema or literature before or since, like, and
then you can make the argument that it's representation on
screen of like a sexually liberated woman and a woman
that has sexual autonomy over her own evil to be
sexually And that's that's always where I diverged from a

(46:31):
lot of the feminist analysis of this stuff, because I
was like, but is it, like if she's evil and
manipulative and we're supposed to think of her like as
a bad you know, like as a bad person and
because women are evil, just because she has like is
in tune with her sexuality. I don't think that that's

(46:52):
a pro for us as a movement, right as like
feminisms you know, in general. But I think that there
has been a push in feminist film theory specifically to
try and kind of wedge in this like sort of
positive angle on some of these films that I just
don't think works. Like, I don't think that analysis really

(47:13):
right because when things that we are hoping to see
such as like women having autonomy over their own sexuality
when that is being vilified. Obviously that's not it's not
a plus for us. And I definitely don't think it's
like a movement pushing trope at all. I just understand
why people I feel like it almost maybe I'm off here,

(47:36):
but I feel like it kind of the impulse to
reclaim a sexually liberated woman who's clearly enjoying being evil,
It like almost scratches the same edge of reclaiming queer
coded Disney villains where you're like, Okay, this was done
with like not a kind intention to the community, Like
this is like it's clearly vilifying this care but they're

(48:00):
having so much fun and it's like they're so active
that and and also like I feel like it's very
important that it's like and this was the most you
could get at this time. I think that that has
a lot to do with it as well. Yeah, where
like there just weren't options. Yeah, I want to just
reiterate and agree with you on that of like, marginalized

(48:23):
folks have been desperate for representation at all, and we
take the scraps we can get right, and we and
we left read, and we queer code, and we do
all kinds of things to feel seen and and recognized
in a medium in entertainment in general. Um, so yes,
but also like, but also it's a problem. Um related

(48:44):
to this is I think there's also the other piece
of this is around complexity and allowing marginalized characters to
be evil or to be messy, or to be complicated,
because historically we don't we don't really have that right
that you like, queer folks are always villainized and black

(49:04):
folks always die, and you know, like we have all
these tropes that don't come out of nothing. That there
is something to be said about the fact that, like, yes,
it's kind of cool to be able to see to
see women in a character that is more complex than
the housewife or the love interest, but it's still detrimental, right,
And so holding those two truths in some way, I

(49:26):
think is what makes these conversations so rich and and interesting, right,
I totally agree, because this character could have been made
to be more complicated in a way that we as
the audience could have conflicting feelings about, Like, yes, I
understand her motive for wanting to get rid of her husband,

(49:49):
and I see where she's coming from, Like I would
identify with that also, But you know, murder also isn't good.
So I don't know. But the movie and and many
of these movies just paint the fum fatal character in
these very broad strokes of like, well, no, her her
motivations aren't complicated, her backstory isn't complicated. She wants to steal,

(50:11):
she wants to cheat, she wants to She's evil for
the sake of being evil. And to me, it comes
back to intent as far as like the people who
were writing these characters, because you know, the fem fatale
character in film noir specifically, because this archetype has existed
in literature for centuries, right, right, but for film no

(50:36):
war specifically, Like you said, Jamie, it was in response
to like men's anxieties over you know, empowered women and
sexually liberated women like the Flappers of the twenties, and
how men felt threatened by that voting now right, And
because in a patriarchal structure that is designed to disempower

(50:58):
women in all capacities of their life, including their sexuality,
a sexually empowered woman with agency and autonomy is going
to be a threat to a lot of individual men
and a threat to the larger structure. So because because
that's the reason that film fatales were written that way,

(51:18):
and these like broad strokes of like they're evil because
women are scary and I'm I feel threatened by them.
And also contextually to remember the early like the turn
of the century was like there was a he like one.
There was the fight for women's right to vote, which
obviously complicated and I don't want to erase the racism

(51:39):
and everything around that um, but also there was a
huge like huge battle for birth control and like reproductive
rights was happening at the time, and there was a
huge attempt to squash it. It's I mean, it's so
exactly what's happening right now. It's like nothing has changed.
But you had around that time, well the postman ster guy,

(52:01):
the guy that is really famous guy in the early
nineteen hundreds who decided to make it illegal to mail
any anything in the mail that is like sexual in nature,
so like not even sex toys or birth control, but
also like love letters and photos and all of that
kind of stuff. I didn't know that, Yeah, And so
there is a whole like through legal means, a pushback

(52:24):
against the rising tide of women's sexuality and sexual ownership
and you know, rights to birth control and all of
that that's happening. So that is also informing some of
what I think we're seeing in the film Fatale as well. Yeah,
that makes sense. That's really interesting. I didn't. I wasn't.
That is such a fuck up thing to do. Holy

(52:44):
sh it, it isn't. Another one of the episodes coming
into and I'm like, what is this guy's fucking name.
I'm totally like, yeah, I don't know. Um, Jamie, you
started to touch on something as far as like Walter's
character goes and how his motive is so flimsy, and

(53:04):
to me, like he's saying that that was like written intentionally,
which I also find confusing, maybe in an effort to
like just lean into the idea that, oh, women are
so scary and be aware of any woman who is
sexually liberated because she's going to get you and she's
gonna kill you. I wonder if Walter's character was written

(53:27):
the way that it was to just further emphasize that,
because again, he doesn't seem to have much of a
motive to commit murder. It just seems that he's kind
of like under the spell of this woman and her
quote Feminine Wiles, where you know, it's just like this
idea that don't be a weak man. Weak men are

(53:47):
tempted by these temptresses and you'll succumb to the temptation,
which like, yeah, Further is the argument that she's literally
like a variation on a witch right and like has
her anklet has him like wouldn't normally do. I was
also reading that they, I don't know, just a few

(54:09):
things were done in this movie intentionally that I guess
I just assumed we're not done intentionally, including her bad wig.
They're like, we chose a bad Billy Wilder said that
they chose a bad wig on purpose to underscore what
a sleazy phony she was, and like, I know, it's
like measures were taken to really make you hate Phyllis,

(54:32):
which I think is fun because I watch it and
I don't. I don't hate her, And I wonder how
if there were women in the audience at this movie,
because women have always been the majority movie goers throughout history,
and I wonder if there were women in the audience
at this movie that we're like good for her, you know, right, right,
you know, but yeah, Walter, I mean, I feel like

(54:54):
it is kind of inherent to the noir genre in
a way that's kind of frustrating, And I feel like
some neo noir's have course corrected this because it doesn't
need to be this way. But like all of the
characters are kind of mysterious, or that's what you're told.
They're like, oh, everyone's kind of mysterious. You don't know
what's going on with anybody, you can't trust anybody. But
then what you lose there is like you don't know

(55:15):
anything about anybody. So it's really hard to get attached
to any particular character because you're like, well, I guess
we'll see what happens, but I don't know, like what
this person's deal is. I would have loved to understand
what drove Phyllis to kill his wife. I like that
is like such an important piece of context that would

(55:35):
have drawn me into that character's story so much more.
But they're just like, well, she's evil, so of course
she would do this. Yeah, I'm interested in So, like,
what we've been saying is that neither of them have
very good character development at least to the standards that
we would expect of today. And I think that there
is such a reliance on stereotypes of the time. So,

(55:58):
like this guy nef Right, the actor who plays him,
Fred McMurray, like we're like, oh, you're fucking awful and
terrible and I hate you. But he's probably coming in
with all of this like goodwill from the audience that
makes them like him more than we have any context for, right. So,
and I know we've covered this, but I'm just thinking
about the fact that, like there's no character development in

(56:20):
this whole fucking movie at all for anybody, right, Like,
nobody really you know, you don't really get their motivations.
You only get them because of the plot, right, like
the like moment to moment plot of it all, and
and and so what are we bringing as the audience
to attach to that? Also, I say this as someone
who's like obsessed with character development, and if you don't
fucking have it in your movie, I'm just like, get

(56:41):
the funk out of here, because like, and I do
this all the time, and important I'm like, I don't
understand why these people love each other. I have no
you did not give me a reason for it, right,
And so in the same way in this I feel
like it didn't matter because like what an interesting concept,
this is? What a why like what interesting lighting choice
is were made? And what you know, all of that

(57:01):
kind of stuff that would suck at audience in at
the time. But why do we still hold onto this
as the quintessential epic? You know, like you both talked
about how you watched it several times in film school,
how it's like the movie and like this is the
thing that we're teaching young filmmakers is really really important, right?
You know it also and this is something we've talked

(57:23):
about on the podcast too, But it's a matter of
like who is designing these curriculums in film schools. Who
is curating the lists, like you know, like the best
movies of all time lists that this movie is on,
like every fucking one of Like who are it's like
members of the academy, like all of that. Who are
the critics historically? Who have you know, hailed movies like this?

(57:47):
It's again historically been siss white men with like curriculum too.
I feel like there is such a like copy paste
effect where it's like if if and this varies, but
like if professors were paid, you know, more for their
labor and had time to put together their own curriculum
and actually like watch ship and and like build their

(58:11):
own stuff, I feel like you wouldn't. You wouldn't have
every single college freshman in a film program watching Double Indemnity.
But it's just like, oh, yeah, I guess this is
a movie you watched during the noir section, and so
every kid being extorted for money by this big e. Anyways,
I wish I couldn't gone to college waste of time.
It's also self fulfilling, right, because you were taught that
this was really important. Therefore you're going to teach that

(58:33):
it's really important, right. And I also was thinking about
how we often look at film, um and media in general,
music whatever, from time periods as representative of the time,
but they're really not, Like this is such a good
example of that where not sorry, I'm gonna temper that
a little bit. Whereas like film up until very recently

(58:56):
was not something you could just fucking go do, right,
Like it's not something that you could us like film
on your phone and make movies and be like I
have a story to tell and I want to tell it,
so we're not getting we don't have the alternative perspectives
of in film media, specifically of that time period, of
all the women who are like fuck yeah, we're like
taking over and like doing all of this stuff. Right,

(59:17):
We're only getting the impressions of the dominant powerful in
the moment, right, right. And I think that I'm just
thinking about this now as we're talking, But like how
that makes us think that this is what the past was, right?
We erase all of the histories of everything else and
every other culture and every other like subculture and like

(59:39):
groups and that aren't represented in what they were doing.
And it makes us in a lot of ways not
understand the history of activism, not understand the history of uprising,
how change actually happens, because we only have these movies
to tell us what it was like. But not only
but you know what I mean, Like right, I mean,
it's it's like movies like this that like are the

(01:00:01):
status quo, they maintain the status quo, and then yeah,
everything else just gets pushed to the side and a
race and then we don't learn about them unless we're
like we take it upon ourselves to like dig and
find this stuff. I think that that's that's a that's
an excellent transition into the case that this that Double

(01:00:25):
Indemnity the book was based on, which I did a
little bit of light googling on and found it to
be pretty interesting. I feel like we actually had like
a recent ish conversation about this when we did Chicago.
It's kind of dealing with the same era, so and
and just kind of like how the adapt like when

(01:00:45):
men are adapting the ideas of men are adapting the
ideas of men. It's just this like funked up game
of telephone that ends up with like I have to
kill someone because she's got a sexy little anklet. And
then it's like, well, let's trace this back to the
source of what was actually happening. Um. So this is
a screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler. There's a

(01:01:06):
bunch of interesting drama that's not relevant to this show
that I just enjoyed reading about. So it's a screenplay
by them based on a novel called Double Indemnity by
an author named James mc kane who wrote that book
when he was a reporter writing about a double indemnity
case that he attended as a reporter, and and so

(01:01:29):
I was like, okay, well what was that crime? And
was James Caine. My my little hunch was that James
Caine made it sexy for no reason, and that there
was probably something going on. Jimmie, did you have a hunch?
Did you have a do you have a little man
living inside you? That tells I have a little man?
And I took up a little magnifying glass and said,
let's go to Wikipedia dot org and see what's going

(01:01:51):
on here. And so that's what I did. Um. So
it's a case of a woman named Ruth Snyder from
the late twenties who did do the double indemnity thing
and and killed her husband, Albert Snyder, and went to jail.
It's also a case of how brutalizing marginalized people is

(01:02:11):
always going to get a lot of press attention and
really exploitative press attention, because she was eventually killed in
the electric chair, and they published the photo of her
being executed on the front page of the newspaper and
it was one of the most famous pictures of the
nine twenties. So it was absolutely horrific. The reason she

(01:02:32):
committed the crime was not because she was a witch
or uh sexy little anglet have her um it was
because of and this actually, I guess I I feel
darkly vindicated, even though I don't know what you know,
what the writers of the movie thought. But her husband
was very physically abusive and emotionally abusive, and he abused

(01:02:54):
her because she had a daughter instead of a son, which, um,
gender is a construct and no one has fucking control
over that. He had like pictures of his ex fiance
hanging up around their house and refused to take them down.
Like it just sounded like an extremely emotionally and physically volatile,

(01:03:14):
abusive relationship. And so eventually she she doubled indemnity did
and she and she killed the motherfucker. And and I
just thought that that was such a It's it's frustrating,
and I think it's interesting that you can take a
story that tragic and upsetting and turned it into well,

(01:03:36):
of course she was evil, and we can't even take
her at her word that her husband was being abusive
because she can't be trusted and she's you know, like,
you know what if it is based on that, I
bet you the her husband abusing her is actually real
in the movie. But they didn't do any due diligence
of making that established. Right, Yeah, you you sort of
like brushed upon this. But this idea of sensationalizing marginalized

(01:04:00):
as grief and bodies and um. And I think that
that's a really critical piece of all of this is
that like, well, women are dainty and non violent and
don't do these things, and therefore, holy shit, they did
this thing. Isn't that like sensational and cool and interesting
and newsworthy? Right? And that is also gender essentialism, right,
we're talking about um, you know, like all humans are

(01:04:23):
capable of all things, right, we all have the same
I mean not all, you know what I mean generally speaking,
But because patriarchy says that women aren't these things, it's
really interesting if we imagine women to be all of
these you know things in terms of violent and murderous
and whatever what have you, not not to erase the

(01:04:43):
fact that there is already patriarchy dictating that women are
manipulative and conniving and all of that. But you know
that it's just another piece of how why I think
these these stories get sensational and they still do. They
still do, Like we love women as victims, we love
like rutalized, like true crime. You know, we're not even
going to get into the nightmare that is true crime currently,

(01:05:05):
and we love a female villain because it seems it
still seems like something outside of the norm, right, Yeah,
I think writers justify continuing to like use the tropes
because it's like, well, it's interesting, it's it's cinematic, it's
these are interesting characters. It also makes you, it makes

(01:05:28):
me wonder, at least how much more sexualized and sinister
fem fake tale characters in film noir would have been
during this era if it weren't for the restrictions of
the production, Like, how much like how much worse could
it be? Right? Yeah, I mean, but the answer is

(01:05:49):
the women in the nineties like action heroes, female nineties
action heroes. Right. I've been rewatching all the Terminator movies
because we're doing an episode on the Terminator franchise at
Feminist Frequency Radio you can check out on my podcast.
And you know, Terminator three had a female terminator and
like there's a scene where she sees a billboard with

(01:06:12):
a woman with larger breasts, so then they like pant
to her boobs and she makes them bigger, so she
can like get so she can manipulate the cop into
letting her go when she was speeding, and you're just like, one,
this is such a product of its time. But that's
what this would have been. It would have been some
kind of equivalent to the sexy, you know, hyper sexualized
using feminine wiles to get what you want, right, that's true,

(01:06:35):
or like basic instinct. Yeah, where like Sharon Stone's just
like here's my vagina. Now You'll never you won't even
notice that I'm a murderer yea. And again it's like
it's interesting to me historically that the trope makes that
big comeback in the nineties because it's like a similar
era of feminist backlash. And so it's like that is

(01:06:58):
when this trope pop, says, when women's rights are being
actively set back, So you know, look out for that.
If a FM fatale starts to pop, guess what, we're
about to lose some rights, which we're doing anyways, that
whole like mid nineties to time period was all the
like ironic sexism and ironic racism time period. So it

(01:07:20):
was part of the backlash of like coming off of
the eighties the conservative family values messaging that was being
pushed by the conservative establishment, and then you had all
of this like but we're beyond all, We're beyond sexism.
So now you get those Carl's Jr. Commercials where women
are like eating the burgers and like come is running
down their faces and all that ship it all that

(01:07:42):
all comes out of that moment, and that's funny. Remember this,
You're like, I don't remember that. Like, so I made
a really really early Phonus frequency video. I'm sure it's
embarrassing as fun now about ironic sexism and how like
South Park is this and so it all that was
when we got all of those female act heroes that like,
you know, the reboot of Charlie's Angels and um, you know,

(01:08:05):
like all of that stuff where you're it's they're so
cringe e and hard to watch. But it was women's empowerment,
the Spice Girls and all that ship you know, Oh yeah, feism, Um, yeah,
this is I'm so glad. I was really hoping that
this would be the way that this episode would go.
When we would just get into it, I'm very excited.

(01:08:26):
I just feel like this movie has more for us
to talk about in terms of the relevance of what
this movie means to us today than the like actual
content of this movie and versus what's happening. Yeah, it's like, yeah,
I totally agree, and I just want to the last
thing I had about them fatals. I just like, I
don't know, it's just such interesting timing. But like how

(01:08:48):
this trope of just like an empowered woman as a
dangerous woman, We've had so many conversations about that, and
how it easily translates to like so many which characters,
even like recent Witch characters. It's just like coding a
woman as competent and therefore evil and therefore unlovable and

(01:09:11):
therefore like not the protagonist under any circumstances, which I
don't know. I mean with the fen fatal, I mean
I would argue that I don't. I guess like Walter
doesn't feel like the protagonist of this movie to me
because I don't care about him. But maybe that's just personal.
But anyways, as far as the fetal trope went to

(01:09:31):
citly new references earlier, but it goes back to ancient times,
like we are addicted to uh mothering any marginalized person,
but in in this trope, specifically women and the only
like growth in the trope in this era of Hollywood
is that the fem faetales are more active now they're

(01:09:53):
used to be. Like the earliest examples of the fan
faytal trope are like women who are just being told
they're evil just because so like you have like your
Helen of Troyes where they're like, she's so hot that
we had to have a war about it. Like they're
completely passive on top of it. So I'm like, I
guess I prefer an active and fatale. But even so,

(01:10:14):
I mean, it's just especially with the context of like
the case that trickles down to this movie, it's just like, well, clearly,
it just couldn't be more obvious that there should not
be exclusively men telling this story because if you go
back to the source, it's so much more complicated and
and and like having those two or three bits of

(01:10:36):
context completely changes the way you would view that character
or that person Ruth Snyder, who was abused and exploited
on on the other end of of being abused to
the point where her corpse was in the fucking newspaper.
Like that stuff makes me so mad just to call out,
like women will women women who have who have murdered

(01:11:02):
their partners, mostly male partners in self defense or because
of abusive relationships or what have you, like, are rotting
in jail like that. It's still not and it's disproportionately
black and brown women who are incarcerated for it. It's
just like it's but no, but no. Phyllis was anklet.

(01:11:23):
She was evil. She's bad. She just kills everybody for reasons.
But I love watching Barbara Stanwix, So it's hard. Anyways,
Can we talk a little bit about Lola? Yeah, let's
talk about Lola. I don't really know what to make
of her because we only really, we only get to
see her in a few brief scenes. We learned that

(01:11:47):
she's dating this guy, Nino's a ketty who does a
piece of work. It's a good character name. I have
no friend. He's an asshole. She's in love with him.
We don't learned her age in the movie, but again,
according to the screenplay, she's nineteen okay. Uh. Then basically

(01:12:09):
Walter gaslights her and coerces her into a brief relationship,
which seems to work because she kind of like magically
forgets all about her suspicions that her stepmother probably killed
her father, which she is right about, but because she's

(01:12:31):
being manipulated by Walter, the story has her forget about that.
So I mean that to me, just this just feels
like another just female character in the movie who's not
a fem fatale, but who is wildly underwritten and who
the story has her make some confusing choices, And again, like,

(01:12:55):
I don't want to I'm not blaming her for being
manipulated and coerced by Walter, but a lot of her
choices and just kind of the way she was characterized
didn't track for me. And also because we don't learn
anything about her, I think I kind of like have
stopped paying attention around this point in the movie, not essentially,

(01:13:15):
just in the way that that happens when you're sitting
at home. And I totally like, I don't think you're wrong,
but I did not read it as him manipulating Lola.
I just read it as like creepy, like getting away
from Phyllis, and like, because all that stuff was revealed
about Nino, that like he was just moving in that way.
But now I'm like, oh, that makes so much more
sense that he was. He literally says and his voice over. Yeah,

(01:13:39):
he was like, I couldn't let her tell anyone else
about suspicions, so I took her to the beach and
I took her for some French frien. He's like basically saying,
like I hung out with her to distract her, and
then it seems like she might have developed a crush.
It's like like it seems like she develops a crush
on him, or at very least he is presenting himself

(01:14:02):
in a position of authority, and I like he's like
not just leveraging his age and his gender, he's also
leveraging his job over her. He's like, well, I'm an
insurance guy, so that's like he's gas lighting her in
the grounds of like well I know what I'm talking about.
You're just a kid, Like what do you? What do
you know? Okay? Then, was Nino sleeping with Phyllis or
was she manipulating him to like to to sort of

(01:14:24):
put a button on this whole murder thing. My read
was that that relationship might have been a bit more
like mutually consensual, but because Phillis is characterized as this
like very textbook from Fatale, that she was manipulating him

(01:14:44):
and maybe just she was maybe just like setting up
a few different fall guys so that she wasn't so culpable.
But that didn't make sense to me, Like her relationship
with him. I didn't understand why that was happening. Maybe
we missed something and maybe like listeners are like frothing
right now, they're like it's so hot, but like, yeah,

(01:15:05):
I sort of was like I just I was like, oh,
I guess by the end of a noir you just
have to find out that everybody secretly knew each other
the whole time or something like. It just felt very
like genre e I wasn't totally clear in that either.
But also, if this is the blueprint, Like if this
movie is the blueprint, then this movie created some funked
up blueprints. You're like, it's kind of a confusing blueprint.

(01:15:29):
But I do I mean, Lola, I feel like there's
she's definitely underwritten, and it sucks because I feel like
the early scenes with Lola I was kind of like
gently encouraged by because, as I said, at the beginning,
I didn't think there was going to be a second
woman in the movie. So I was like thrilled and
I was like, oh, There's a also that cutting thing

(01:15:49):
where Phillis was like, yeah, and he just loves his
daughter so much. I was like, Phillis, give it a rest.
I assumed that they were talking about a child and so,
but they were talking about a nineteen year old whatever.
But I do like that Lola. Like when Lola is introduced.
I liked how her character was introduced. She like pushed
back and like her dad was like, who are you

(01:16:11):
going to see? What are you doing? Blah blah blah,
like doing kind of the stereotypical controlling father thing, and
she like lies to his face very calmly. She's like,
I'm this is what I'm doing. I'm going to this
intersection and like goodbye. And I was like, oh, I
like this character. She's fun. Like she's it's I feel

(01:16:31):
like it's unusual, especially in for the first interaction you
see with a female character, for them to stand up
for themselves in some way. But then it's like that slowly.
And I also like that she is the person that
sees through everything that's going on, which makes it more
disappointing and shitty to see her talked out of what
she knows is the truth. For the rest of the

(01:16:53):
movie and then she disappears. Right, I was rooting for her,
same justice for Lola, and now she's lost all of
her parents and now she's a nineteen year old orphan.
Like but I guess in a way, she's also presented
as an obstacle for Walter because she starts having suspicions

(01:17:15):
and he's got to deal with it. So she's under
characterized and she's presented as an obstacle the way that
many women are in movies. Right, wouldn't be so cool
if she like was the one that solved it, right,
I was like that, you know, like if they just
did this like spin at the end where she came
around and was like, let me tell you, I figured

(01:17:37):
it all out, and now I'm going to extore you
all for something, you know, I would have loved that.
Or I wish that she had showed up and killed
Phillis because it's like she and Phillis had such a
terrible relationship. Phillis literally killed her mother. They didn't want
to play Chinese checkers together. Like it would have been
cool if Lola came back at the end and like
killed them both and then was like all right, Zacchetti

(01:17:58):
let's go make you a friend or like whatever. But
instead the only like you know, bow you're sort of
given on her thing is like, oh and she'll probably
get to date this asshole again, because Walter tells Zaketti like, hey,
call Lola back. She likes you. And I was like,
oh great, what a what a win? I get to
date a man with no friends again. Also that whole scene,

(01:18:21):
I was like, he's gonna know that you did it.
Like the whole scene. I was like, he pops out
of the bushes and it's like, go hang out with
Lola and you're like, Wow, you just outed yourself big time.
They're so bad at planning. I also don't understand how
what Nef does to kill Mr Dietrichson. I think he
strangles him, but like, wouldn't the autopsy show that he

(01:18:45):
was strangled and not fell off of a train. So
like their their plan is just like very I don't know,
it doesn't make any sense. Also, Walter's plan to communicate
with Phyllis, as they're like creating their scheme, is for
her to go to a shop every day and quote
be buying things every day at eleven am. And if

(01:19:07):
he needs to talk to her that day. He'll just
like show up when it's convenient for him, because women
be shopping. She's to go be shopping all the time
every day, and then he'll be like and he might
not even show up. Yeah, And also part of this
is that he's like, we have to go to this
shop because we can't be seen talking to each other.
So his idea is to meet in public where people

(01:19:28):
can see them talking to each other, but they're like shopping,
so they're not really talking to each other, you know. Yeah,
that's really funny. And also I like those are really
interesting scenes too, in terms of the sterileness of it
and like the brightness of those shots and like, you know,
like we didn't really talk about any of the visuals
in the movie, but they're you know anyways whatever, right,

(01:19:50):
right right. I mean that I feel like that is
like a large portion of why these movies are still
well regarded as because they look really fucking cool, like
they're they're the shadow play and this, and yeah, my
favorite line in the movie was when Keys said Papa
has it all figured out. I jumped in my seat.

(01:20:10):
I was like, this guy is weird. I like, speaking
of Keys, the one part of the movie that I
was like, Oh, this isn't the worst thing I've ever
seen is where uh, I think once, maybe even twice,
Walter tells Keys, which is a colleague of his, but

(01:20:31):
they're also like close friends. Walter tells Keys that he
loves him, and just like a very like we have
a close relationship, and it's we're not led to believe
that it's anything more than platonic, but like, I just
really enjoyed seeing like a man tell another man that
he loves him, because that's not something you see very often,

(01:20:52):
and certainly not in this era, where you know, men
are conditioned to think that like even a platonic affection
towards another man is gross or something. Who knows, But
I was like, Wow, they were friends and they loved
each other. Too bad that Walter's the most boring man
alive and Keys participated in the Red Scare, but you

(01:21:15):
know they were friends. They were friends. Um. The last
thing I wanted to mention is something that's very typical
of this era, which is the representation of people of
color in the movie, which is that they are only
seen very fleetingly and always in like service roles like
train porters and you know, wait staff and and things

(01:21:37):
like that. Um, well, there was one character I wrote
a note being like, there's a character from Inglewood that
kind of looked like he was in brown face, and
I was like, what the fund is this? I did
wonder about that glapis or something in that early scene. Yeah, yeah,
there was. I was like, oh, this is not good. Yeah,
hard to say, but representation of people of color is scarce.

(01:21:59):
There's always been bad, and then in this era especially.
I would like to take that on in a in
a future episode as well. We should continue to pursue
this conversation for sure. Absolutely. Does anyone have anything else
they want to talk about regarding double indemnity? No, when
are we going to do it? Let's do a double

(01:22:20):
indemnity heist crew and kill someone's shitty husband, good money's
what are they gonna do? Put us in the electric
chair and then put it in the newspaper. It wouldn't happen. Yes,
that will be our claim to fame. Feminist podcasters do
the ultimate feminist podcasters get the electric chair for thought

(01:22:45):
crime feminist more like fem fatal in this nice I
think I think we're going to get the electric chair
just for that, not that we should be joking about
how awful sucking? Um, what's it called when the state
murders you? State murder? Capital coupital punishment, capital punish. This

(01:23:10):
movie does pass the PacTel tests, though, yes it does.
When Lola and Phillis are talking about how they don't
want to play Chinese checkers with each other, Lola says,
do you mind if we don't finish this game? It
bores me stiff? And then Phillis says, you've got something
better to do? And I think those are those are
the only two. That's the only example of an exchange

(01:23:33):
between two women. And don't worry they hate each other.
I mean, I guess it does. That conversation is there
to establish that they don't like each other, but the
text itself is like not narratively meaningful. So to me,
it's like a barely pass. It's a barely pass. But
I think it's a funny. It's a funny barely pass
because it's just a hostile exchange between the only two

(01:23:54):
women in the movie. As far as our nipple scale,
though on a scale of zero to five nipples based
on how well the movie fairs when examining it through
an intersectional feminist lens. I'll give it a half nipple
for the following reasons that we see a woman have

(01:24:17):
more agency than a lot of women have been able
to have in movies. Of course, that agency is vilified,
and we are not meant to empathize with this character
at all, and when instead we are meant to see
her as an evil temptress, which is how unless you know,

(01:24:39):
there are a few examples of like a subversion of
the fim fatale trope that you know have happened in
more recent films, but especially of this era, there was
no nuance. There was no complexity in general to the
fim fatale archetype. And um, even though, like we discussed,
there have been maybe some attempts to reclaim the archetype,

(01:25:03):
I don't It's not in the text of this movie though. Yeah,
and it doesn't work for me, especially with the intent
of the storytellers and villainizing and empowered and sexually liberated
woman don't like it. I'll give the movie one half nipple,
and I'll give it to Lola, who deserved more justice.

(01:25:25):
For Lola, I guess I'll give it one question mark.
I do think that this is like the most active
female character that you could find in movies at this time.
Unfortunately I am, I am a little more pro reclaiming,
and I think that it has been semi successfully reclaimed
in more recent neo noir efforts simply by giving uh

(01:25:50):
woman who does something bad context and motivation, which is like,
I feel like, what is really really missing here, especially
with the context of knowing what the source material is
and how it's like Anita was saying, like this, this
movie is presenting a reality that we are told existed
but never did, like no one was ever acting and

(01:26:11):
avoid like this, which is are not a thing. But
I do appreciate how active the villainous woman is throughout.
And also I Lola. I mean, she has a strong
start and then I feel like she's kind of like
neutered by this story, which I found frustrating and unnecessary. Yeah,
I mean like because of the era it is extremely

(01:26:33):
white and straight and and and we didn't really talk
about this, but the the whole idea of like you're
kind of told the end at the end that the
great tragedy of this story is that it turns out
that Phillis could love after all, and you're like, who
gives a ship? Like and there's like this last minute
production code style like the redemptive power of a love

(01:26:57):
between a man and a woman and blah blah blah.
Like it's just I guess I'm bumping it down to
a half nipple, and I'm giving that half nipple to
the line. Papa has it all figured out, beautiful, Anita,
how about you. I don't think I can add anything
to what y'all said, So I'm just gonna piggyback on that.
But I just, um, I'm going to give my If

(01:27:17):
I'm gonna give my rating to somebody, my non existent rating,
it's going to be to the line. I hope there
aren't any pigeons shooting on you while your son bathing,
because I can't go out for that. Oh it, zero
nipples is that way you're giving it? No, I'm I'm
just gonna I think the half nipple is a good one. Okay.
I agree with what both of you said. Nice, well, Anita,

(01:27:40):
thank you so much for joining us and having me.
Thank you come back any time. Tell us where people
can follow you on social media? Plug anything you would
like to plug. Yeah, so you can follow me on
the social media's at Anita Sarkisian. And one of the
things I do is I run a emotional sport outline
for people who make or play games. It's called the

(01:28:02):
Games and Online Harassment Hotline. So if you need a
little emotional sport and you live in the US, you
can text us. You can learn more at games hotline
dot org. Our agents are trained in understanding like internet
culture and gaming culture and online harassment as well. So
if you're you know, even if you don't play games
and you need a little bit of help around some
of this stuff, we're here for you. So games hotline

(01:28:24):
dot org. We're also in the middle of our end
of your fundraising campaign for the hotline and everything else
that feminist frequency does to try to end abuse in
the video game industry. So if you want to pitch
in a couple of bucks to that, feel free in
addition to your Patreon support of the Bechtel Cast. Right,
because we all we just share. We we've got to share.

(01:28:44):
There's no scarcity here, so um or it's all scarce
you don't one or the other, right, um So, yeah,
you can learn more at games outline dot org. You
can check me out at Nicha Sarkis and on all
the things. Oh also my podcast radio. If you like this,
you'll like what you do. Yeah, give that a listen, everybody,

(01:29:05):
and you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at
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(01:29:29):
Go really putting in the time. You better join and
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(01:29:53):
shoot each other. Let's shoot each other and kiss. No, no,
you you put you push us off a train? Oh
so right? Sorry, sorry, we definitely but not really. We're
going to just pretend. Yeah, I mean it's a pretty
good mystery, right, I mean, I know we're done talking
about it. But I'm like, that's a pretty good scheme.
I was like, cool, I'm on board with this. Yeah,
except that they executed badly the execution. The idea was good.

(01:30:17):
I maintained the idea was good. The execution they clearly
were ill equipped. Yeah for sure. All right, Well, thanks
so much for having me. It's a pleasure talking with
both of you. The pleasures all ours. Bye bye, bye bye.

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