Female Trouble with Roz Hernandez

This week, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Roz Hernandez ask for cha cha heels for Christmas and discuss Female Trouble (1974)!

Follow Roz on Instagram at @rozhernandez and check out her podcasts, "Tickled to Death" and "Ghosted"!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Caitlyn, Yes, Jamie. If there's one thing I've always said,
it's this. Here's a list of things there's no need
to know anything about. There's no need to know to
know anything about the president's war numbers, science or intersectional feminism.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
And I've always said.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
That, Yeah, I'll just listen to you and I'll know
everything I need to know.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
This is this is the most quotable movie of all time.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Caitlin, you little bitch, Let me out of this bird cage.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
Look look, my favorite line is we rarely eat any
type of noodle, but I'll have a small portion to
be polite.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm a Steven a ship kicker, and I'd like to
have a podcast called the Bechdel Cast. Name what's your
favorite line? Listener, Pretend we opened the episode with it.
This is one of the only movies where every line
is quotable and every.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Line is screamed.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
It is the Female Trouble episode of the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I am a shit kicker and I would also like
to be famous.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
My name is Caitlin Durante. I am a little bitch
and I would also like to be famous. Yea, this
is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional
feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping
off point to get a conversation going. But Jamie, what
in the hell? I'm gonna scream the entire episode just

(01:40):
like divine? What in the hell is the Bechdel Test?
Jamie love, keep bitch?

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Oops, all screamed? Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
The Bechdel Test is a media metric created by cartoonist
Alison Bechdel, friend of the show, originally made in her
comic collection Likes to Watch Out For as a one off,
a joke to sort of draw attention to the fact
that there were never lesbian romances in movies. It hasn't
been adapted to a more mainstream way. There's a million

(02:10):
versions of it. The version of the test we use
as this to characters with names of a marginalized gender
speak to each other about something other than a man
for two lines of dollog or more. That is somehow,
you know, plot relevant, really not something we're going to
have to split hairs with on the movie we're discussing today.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
It's maybe the least.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Interesting thing about the movie we're discussing today, because the
movie we're discussing today is Female Trouble from John Waters
and Divine not necessarily in that order, from nineteen seventy four.
And we have an incredible guest to discuss this wonderful
movie with.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
We certainly do. She's a comedian and host of the
podcasts Ghosted and Tickled to Death, a horror movie game
show podcast from Paramount. It's Roz Hernandez Female givel hi Hi,
thanks for being here.

Speaker 5 (03:05):
Oh my god, I'm so excited to be here. When
I got the list of potential movies and I saw
this one, I had to I had.

Speaker 6 (03:14):
To go with this one.

Speaker 5 (03:15):
It's it's it's it's a fave of mine. I'm a
John Waters lady.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
Well tell yeah, tell us all about your relationship to
John Waters. Ouvra to this movie specifically.

Speaker 5 (03:30):
So my life changed in two thousand and three. I
was right at a good age where I was very
impressionable and trying to trying to find my tribe and
trying to find what I was really interested in. I
just I was preteen at the time, and I was

(03:54):
just sort of, I don't know. I wanted to find
my people. I wanted to find my thing. And I
had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly and they released a
entire issue that was ranking the best I think it
was fifty cult movies of all time. And I didn't

(04:15):
have that word meant or anything, but I was just
looking at all the movies and just based on the
pictures and the descriptions, I was like, I gotta see
all these and it was like Faster pussycag Kill Kill,
and Rocky Horror and just so many of these movies
that just completely shaped me and showed me really strong

(04:38):
women and gender variant people and drag queens and just
all of these things. I didn't know about it. I
learned so much from that. And Pink Flamingos was on
the list, and that movie was technically unrated, like the
DVD of it was unrated, so I could to the

(05:00):
movie rental plays and rent technically because.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
As Apprett, that's genius.

Speaker 5 (05:07):
Yeah, I love that. So I watched that movie when
my parents were out of town because I wasn't I
honestly wasn't sure if it was like a porn or
what it was. But I was just like, I can't
have my parents though I'm watching them. And I was
so fascinated by it. And then that led me to
exploring John Waters and Female Trouble, which I think Female

(05:29):
Trouble is his best movie. It's definitely like his most
John Waters the It's definitely a big divine Uh.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
God, this is I know that this is. This is
his movie, but it's divines movie. It is just like
one of the most performances I've ever witnessed. It's so good.

Speaker 4 (05:53):
Yeah, Jimmie, what's your history with John Waters and this movie?

Speaker 3 (06:00):
So I'm embarrassed to say this is.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
I was worried this was going to happen. I thought
I had seen this movie. I had, in fact seen
Pink Flamingos. Yeah, what can I say? I got it wrong.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
I hadn't seen this movie before.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Weirdly, my relationship with John Waters, I'm like very slowly
making my way through his filmography at my advanced age.
But when I was a kid, I really liked reading
his memoirs because he's written a lot of books too,
and I remember really enjoying it, Like I would get
his memoirs from the library and they're so funny, and

(06:32):
I like felt I had like a similar experience with
David Lynch, where I like fell in love with like
watching interviews and like reading their stuff. But I like
was very slow to watch the movies, no real accounting
for it, but I'm slowly making my way through his work.
I saw Pink Flamingos in college and really loved it,
and it has, you know, shares a lot of similarities

(06:53):
with Female Trouble, but I don't know, Female Trouble is
so special, it's just like its own thing. So this
was my first time seeing Female Trouble. But I really
liked the Academy Museum John Waters exhibit that I think
was last year.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
That was amazing.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, and that like inspired me to go back and
watch stuff that I hadn't watched, which is how we
recently covered Serial Mom, which is one of my eavorites.
Kathleen Turner John Water together is such a powerful combo.
But yeah, this was this was one of the few
that I for some reason hadn't gotten around to you,

(07:34):
probably because I thought I'd seen it already. And holy shit,
I just I just can't wait.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
To talk about it.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
And I'm very excited to go back and reread some
of his books because I just have such nice memories
of reading them.

Speaker 5 (07:46):
They're amazing. I yes, I have all of his books.
And one really fun thing is Provincetown in Massachusetts is
one of my favorite plays in the world.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
It's great.

Speaker 5 (08:01):
And he lives there, and there's a bookstore there that
sells all of his books and he just goes in
when he has the time and signs them and they're
all no markup or anything like, there's the same price.
And so I rebought all of his books autographed, because

(08:21):
why god, yeah, why not.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
I'm from Massachusetts and my family or my cousin's family
goes every year.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
And I don't know if I brought this up. In
the serial one.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Episode, my niece, who's like five, has this awesome picture
with John Patters.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
It's so cute.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
I was like, Oh God, she's gonna be so thrilled
when she knows what this picture means when she's older.
I just it was but for her it was like
a nice man who she saw after.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
A drag brunch or whatever.

Speaker 5 (08:50):
Sure, but my cousin was.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Like, you're not going to believe what we did today. God,
that's so nice.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
He's such a community person too. I love hearing stories
about his like how you know how great he is
at keeping up with friends and like sending out the
Christmas cards and.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
The and the book collections.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
And then I just he's just such a good vibe.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
Well, he stays busier than ever, which I think personally
it's like another thing I learned from Joan Rivers. Just
I completely understand retiring and just sort of relaxing and whatever,
but also these people with these creative ideas and they

(09:33):
have to keep making and I'm sure there's that that
can be its own hell of trying to constantly top
yourself and whatever. But they keep going. And John Waters,
who's in his eighties, is sharper than ever. Yeah, and

(09:53):
he is doing events all the time, just like a
couple of weeks ago he was doing is screening here
in la. He has his camp that he does where
adults come and do John Waters themed events. So he's
always traveling around doing different I actually saw the screening
of serial Mom during that Academy show that they had

(10:15):
and he was there doing a Q and A. Like
he's just he's all.

Speaker 4 (10:18):
Over the place.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
He loves to yap.

Speaker 5 (10:21):
Yes, and he keeps his ideas going. He's got a
lot to say.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
I really I this is like unrelated, but it's something
I've been on my mind recently where it's like retirement
is a good thing because of labor laws. But I
do think there's certain people, there's a certain personality of
profile where retirement like quickens your death.

Speaker 5 (10:43):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
I just believe that.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
I think about I've been thinking about that, and he's
one of those people. Like some people just need to
keep making stuff, and I like that, Like John Waters
specifically is a great person to keep making stuff because
he's not precious about everything like some creatives are. Like
he's still steems down to experiment and try new stuff
and like be open to failure, which after a career

(11:07):
like the career he's had.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
I think that's so amazing. I don't know if I
would be able to do that.

Speaker 4 (11:11):
Like it's it's just awesome.

Speaker 5 (11:13):
Well, I think from from the start he had a
lot of failure and he was just sort of like, well, Yeah,
there's gonna be people that are gonna hate everything I do,
but there's also gonna be people that really love it. Yeah,
I think I think it's all people LISTA. I think
we all need to have purpose or we have to

(11:37):
contribute to the universe in some way, and if we're
not doing that, Like I do think that if you
retire and then you just sit and watch TV, you're
gonna die and it's gonna be bad. Like you you
just have to even if it's like take up knitting
and make things that you can give to people. Like
it doesn't have to be financial or whatever, but it's

(11:59):
like you just have to keep those you have to
keep the juices flouid.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, there's I volunteer with a lot of retirees who
are like, they're like, this is my new job, and
you're like, yeah, like it's just purpose.

Speaker 5 (12:12):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
Well also for artists, yea. You know, it's like it's
one thing to work as a CPA for whatever forty
years and then retire, But if you're inherently a creative
person or you've always been an artist, you're not gonna
just like stop making art because you're sixty five.

Speaker 5 (12:33):
Now I have to keep going.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
You got to keep going, Caitlin.

Speaker 5 (12:37):
What's your relationship with John Waters?

Speaker 4 (12:39):
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for asking. I
like John Waters as a persona, as a public figure,
and I like the campiness and the subversive nature of
his work more than the actual work itself.

Speaker 5 (12:57):
Fair, I get it.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
I saw Pink Flamingos in college. Also is during the
Great Caitlin movie binge of two thousand and five.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
I feel like Pink Flamingos is on every list, regardless
of what the list issue.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
On every single list.

Speaker 4 (13:12):
If you're a film student, you have to see Pink Flamingos.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
You're gonna see this damn movie.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
And I did it, and I was like, M, this
is not for me. I understand why it's a cult classic.
I understand why it has like it has such a
huge cult following. I'm just not I think I'm too straight.
I'm just not the audience for it. It's not for me,
and that's okay. But I do love John Waters again

(13:37):
as a public figure and as an artist. I just
every movie of his that I've seen, for the most part,
I'm like, M, this is not the one for me.

Speaker 5 (13:47):
Exactly did you feel that way.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
With Serial Mom not as much, because that, as we
discussed on that episode, is probably the closest thing he
has to a mainstream Hollywood movie, right. And then I
like the hair Spray, like the two thousand and seven
hair Spray musical that's an adaptation of his original Hairspray

(14:09):
from the eighties, but he didn't direct the two thousand
and seven to one, so it's not that's not a
John Waters movie. I did see Crybaby also in college.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
I haven't seen Crybaby.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
It's also main's like more mainstream, but maybe that's just
because like Johnny Depp is in it. But I don't
remember that one very well. And there's several other of
his movies that I haven't watched, so I don't have
like the full idea of every single one of his films,
but what I have seen, I'm like, yeah, I'm not

(14:41):
sure that one was for me, and that includes Female Trouble,
but I'm excited to talk about it. Oh my god,
it's a rich text. Yeah, there's lots to discuss.

Speaker 5 (14:51):
I completely understand that I don't think that it's for everyone,
and there's I have known gay people that I do
not like John Waters, so it's you don't necessarily have
to be gay or straight to enjoy it. It's a type.

(15:12):
It's a type that I think by humor and deviancy,
and it's it's definitely something that outsiders are attracted to.
It's a lot of taking down. Taking down the man
vibe can be a thing sometimes.

Speaker 6 (15:34):
Which a theory I like, yeah, yeah, And it's like
at the end of the day, John Waters is he's
an edgelrd, Like that's his whole thing, and like, in
some ways it ages in this really fascinating way and
then another way is maybe not as much, but another
thing I appreciate about him, or like just watching him

(15:54):
do because he's done, like you're saying, ro he's done
like a million Q and as about most of his
movies now watch a recent one, and he's also pretty
open to being like.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yeah, I wish I hadn't.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
You know, I understand why I was so wanting to
engage with the Mansons, but I regret it, you know,
like he's not above you know, doubling down on stuff.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
Reflecting.

Speaker 5 (16:20):
Yeah, sure, but like when you put it into context,
like when you put a movie like Female Trouble, it's
a context to think this is nineteen seventy four, Like
that is these people were. It's not just like a
drag queen, which at the time would have been more

(16:41):
female impersonator, more of like a classy thing, I think
is more what they were going for a lot of times,
at least when it comes to straight audiences seeing these
kinds of performers, it would be going to a female
impersonator cabaret and the's like, wow, I can't believe that's
really a man. But then you have like Divine with

(17:03):
prosthetics on her face and injecting liquid eyeliner, Like it
is so punk. And by the way, punk rock wasn't
really even a term or a subculture the way we
know it until later. Yeah, she's Copers after this.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
And she's got a mohawk in this movie.

Speaker 4 (17:28):
It's like, yeah, a trailblazer.

Speaker 5 (17:29):
So to think like where would those where does that
come from? And to find a group of people that
are on the same page to just make these things,
not to make money. They're just like making these things
and it's just with their friends. They are all people
that knew each other in Baltimore and not it's not

(17:51):
brilliant filmmaking per se in a technical sense, but they
just wanted to put these together and make people laugh
and it's wild. I don't know that they would have
ever thought people would be talking about it years and
years later.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
I also I didn't I didn't do enough research into
this side of it, but I thought it was like
so sweet and cool that, like it seems like there
was a lot of like Baltimore community support from like
Normy's where, like he was, they were able to shoot
in all these different places. They were able to like
shoot in a church, in a jail, and like all

(18:33):
of these places that you would expect to maybe not
be open to a John Waters movie filming.

Speaker 4 (18:39):
True, but you know, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
I was like that.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
It's just it's so cool that like all especially like
all of his early movies are just like full on
community projects where you're like, oh yeah, who is this
random person and it's like someone's mom or whatever.

Speaker 5 (18:53):
Oh yeah, I mean that's where Edith Massey, for example,
who's who's in the film as aunt Ida, She was
a bartender at a local place that they went to,
and he was just like, she's this woman needs to
be on films, This woman needs to be in a

(19:13):
bird cage yelling and he was not wrong.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yeah. Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll
come back for the recap. So I'm gonna place a
content warning here at the top for you name it,

(19:44):
it happened, assault, rape, incest, child sex abuse, like it.
It sort of is all there. But we meet Don
Davenport played by Divine when she's a teenager in nineteen sixty.
She's at school. She's chatting with a couple of her girlfriends,
chick Lit and Consetta about shoes that she wants for Christmas,

(20:08):
a pair of chaw chaw heels. And I think it's
so funny that this is basically the catalyst of the
entire rest of the movie. But she wants these chaw
chaw heels as a Christmas kids.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
We never hear from her loving, doting parents again after
the chaw chaw heels incident.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
Well, this sets her on a life of crime.

Speaker 5 (20:27):
It was a very simple ass She wanted chaw chaw heels,
and this is why you get your kids chaw chaw
heels if that's what they asked for.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
That was my favorite letterbox review of this. It was
like a haunting reminder that you should always get your
daughter chaw chaw heels.

Speaker 4 (20:45):
Absolutely, It's true. So she and her friends they're very
disruptive at school. Then it's Christmas morning and she still
desperately is hoping for this pair of chaw chaw heels
from her parents. But she opens her presence and discovers
that she did not get the shoes she wanted. She
got a pair of shoes, just not the black chasha

(21:05):
heels that she asked for, so she lashes out. She
throws her mother around.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Her mom not on christmassess.

Speaker 5 (21:17):
Her mom's like lifeless body under the Christmas tree is
something that I think about every day.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
I feel bad for laughing, but it's a very funny
image what you're.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Supposed to laugh She she I thought she had killed her,
but then it's funny when she's just moaning not on Christmas.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
So don she attacks her parents and then she runs
away from home. She hitches a ride from a man
named Earl Peterson, also played by Divine Shocking. They pull
over on this side of the road and go into
the woods and have sex, during which steals his wallet.

(22:03):
This sex scene is wild. First of all, I was like,
is this It's hard to tell if it's consensual or not.
It right, it's very murky, and then the a d
R and the slurping sounds during this I got.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
The slurping sound reminded me of what you like your
noise every time people.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
You make the scary slurp.

Speaker 5 (22:24):
But what is so wild is that it's Divine as
a male playing the man who is impregnating Divine.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
It's just like a level of camp here heretofore an unknown.

Speaker 5 (22:40):
And they're doing it on a just random mattress out
in the woods. And you know, because it is like,
is this consensual? She said to it.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
I think I came down on the because I was
also like unclear on that.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
Because at one point she's like, yeah, eat me, eat it,
give it to me and she but I think at
first you can't tell because it just randomly starts happening
to fucking yeah in the woods. Then it becomes clearer
that they're both into it.

Speaker 5 (23:17):
So they're making taffy, yes, which sounds like a term.
They're making taffy.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
It cracked me up, the like I don't know.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
One of the one of the many great anecdotes on
the Divine Wikipedia page is that like later when she
was like primarily performing music. There was like an audience
member told her to go fuck herself, and.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
Divine was like, I have. It's in Female Trouble.

Speaker 5 (23:47):
There's a great documentary about Divine by the documentarian Jeffrey Schwarz.
I think it's just called I Am Divine.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
Oh yes, I haven't seen it.

Speaker 5 (23:58):
It's very well done and it gives you a lot
of insight on who Divine was.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
I need to check that out.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, yeah, it's streaming on Roku TV. I just didn't
have Oh hell yeah.

Speaker 5 (24:10):
I think it's not to be too.

Speaker 4 (24:12):
I was gonna say it's to be.

Speaker 5 (24:14):
We love a to be is everyone obsessed with to be?
Because I think to b is like one of the
best things that's happening right now.

Speaker 4 (24:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
I think to be genuinely is like preserving movies in
a way most people, like most places are not preserving.
I don't know how they make money, but I hope
they stay.

Speaker 4 (24:35):
I like to be.

Speaker 5 (24:36):
I know, I'm like, there has to be some kind
of dark thing going on here, but for the time being,
I'm enjoying the fact that every time I go to
tub I'm like, what the fuck is this? I'm like Anana,
it's free.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
My my dad was really into uh two B. I
know I've talked about this on the show before, but
like I loved visiting home and seeing what my dad's
recently watched on tub's were, because I was.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
Like, you're a freak man.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Where it was like he would watch all these B
movies from like the sixties and seventies, and I was.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
Like, all right, what are you watching?

Speaker 2 (25:06):
And he's like, I saw this movie called Pregnant by
Mistake and it's from nineteen seventy two and it was terrible.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
And I was like, great, I can't.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Only on TWOV, only on TOOV, can you find a
movie that everyone hated fifty years ago?

Speaker 3 (25:21):
I love it?

Speaker 5 (25:22):
That sounds like what I watch. It's very similar.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
It's great.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Or like every famous actor's worst movie is on Twodays.

Speaker 5 (25:30):
Yeah, yes, oh absolutely.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
Okay. So we have the sex scene and then we
cut to several months later, Don is living on her
own and she is gregnant as hell, and she gives
birth on her couch to a girl who she names Taffy.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Oh my god, her severing her own chord with her teeth.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
It's just it's just disgusting.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yeah, she bites the umbilical cord. I read that that
was I think a condom filled with chopped liver.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
Oh god, I really.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
It reminds me of because Pink Flamingos is the one
where Divine is the filthiest person on earth and everyone
is like competing to also be the filthiest person on earth,
and I just love, I just love how gross these
movies are, Like, people.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Are not making gross.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
It's not actually safe to do what they're doing at
any point.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
It's awesome.

Speaker 4 (26:28):
And Pink Flamingos, Divine eats dog shit. Yes correct, yes, okay,
she do look And it was at that point when
I was watching that movie, I was like, yeah, this,
I'm not sure this is for me.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
I support I think by by comparison, Female Trouble is
tamer on like the grossometer.

Speaker 5 (26:48):
It is, I mean, Pink Flamingos. I love Pink Flamingos.
But there's also like there's a scene with a live
chicken that is hard. Yeah, there's a couple of things
in there that are I mean there's a singing anus,
a person's anus is shown up clothes.

Speaker 4 (27:11):
I did not remember that one.

Speaker 5 (27:13):
Yeah, it gets wild.

Speaker 4 (27:15):
I guess, well, Okay, well, well, I don't know if
I'll revisit Pink Flaming Goes. Maybe someday, but either way,
Don is now a single parent to Taffy, and we
see her at a series of jobs. She works at
a diner, she does sex work. She robs men like

(27:36):
she's like mugging them on the street, with the help
of her friends chick Lit and Consetta. Then we flash
forward to nineteen sixty eight. Her daughter, Taffy is eight
years old. I guess, and Don is not a good parent.
She refuses to let Taffy have friends or go to school.

(27:58):
She's very physically abusive.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
She's my favorite line, there is no need to know
about the president's war numbers or science.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
It's just so good there. I also think, and we'll.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Get her to the This movie's fast and loose approach
to child abuse. But the way that like I don't know,
like John Waters has seen every movie on the planet,
it seems like and I was, I think that the
way the dot that Taffy is dressed is supposed to
be a reference to The Bad Seed, which is like
one of my favorite scary movies when I was a kid.

(28:32):
She's supposed to look like Roda WHOA.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
The big movie reference that I think I picked up
on was Sunset Boulevard. They like, I'm ready for my
close up?

Speaker 5 (28:46):
Oh yeah. At the end of the movie.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
Other than that, I was like, I'm not sure what
if anything is being referenced throughout this movie, but.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
Well, I think probably a lot of what he's referencing
are like horrible movies that no one wanted to revisit
to so who knows.

Speaker 4 (29:01):
But anyway, Don is again not a good parent. She
shackles Taffy to her bed, et cetera, and then Don
laments to chick Lit and Concetta about how difficult it
is to be a mother, and her friends are like,
don't worry, you'll feel better if you get your hair
done at Lipstick Salon by a man named Gator. We

(29:27):
cut to Gator and his aunt Ida, who we'll talk
about the weird incestual through line of this movie as well,
but she's acting wildly inappropriate and Gator has to reassure
her that he's straight and he likes women. Then we
cut to Lipstick Salon, which is owned by Donald and

(29:51):
Donna Dasher, So we have Don Davenport, Donald and Donna. Yeah, hilarious.
So Donald and Donna dash sure put their like potential
customers of their salon through this like interview process because
they only choose like the coolest people to be clients.

(30:15):
And Don makes it through and chooses Gaytor to be
the stylist that she wants. Then they go out and
a short time later they get married, and at the wedding,
Dawn is wearing an iconic see through wedding dress. But
married life for them isn't great. They are abusive to

(30:37):
each other. Gaytor cheats on Don with other women, and
aunt Ida and Don don't get along and they're constantly
taunting each other. We flash forward again to five years,
so it's nineteen seventy four. There's a a Don Gator

(30:57):
sex scene where it appears as though they have a
toolbox kink Yeah yeah.

Speaker 5 (31:04):
Yeah, Hammer and Meanle knows flyers.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
And they're having sex and then Taffy, who is a
teenager now comes in.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
For fourteen you don't look so good? Is such a
good line.

Speaker 4 (31:19):
Yeah. There's a lot to unpack in this scene as well,
regarding child abuse, incest ableism.

Speaker 5 (31:27):
I don't know that they were thinking about any of that.

Speaker 4 (31:31):
Thinking about it, but we on the podcast have to,
so we'll talk about that later. But shortly after this,
Don and Gaiter get in a huge fight after Gator
shoves a carrot in Don's mouth. Seems to be the
catalyst for their divorce because Don starts divorce proceedings and

(31:53):
gets him fired from his job at lipstick Salon, which
forces Gator to leave town, which devastates aunt Ida, and
she's going to retaliate, so we'll put a pin in that.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
But she's just screaming at her house for what is
an unclear amount of time.

Speaker 4 (32:12):
Yeah, right, rolling around on the floor.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
Meanwhile, the owners of the salon, Donald and Donna, ask
Don if she will be their model for a photography
project they're working on. The theme for which is crime
and beauty. Basically, they want to photograph Don robbing people
and doing other crime and Don agrees, but before they

(32:38):
can start, aunt Ida comes in and throws acid on
Don's face for like revenge for forcing Gaiter to leave.
So Don is hospitalized. Her friends gather to see the
unveiling of her new face, which has been disfigured from
the acid. But they're like, oh my gosh, you're even

(33:00):
more beautiful than you were before. They put makeup on her.
Donald and Donna still want her to be the model
for their project. This is where they inject liquid eyeliner
in her veins. They give her a makeover a bunch
of other presents, including aunt Ida in a cage. Yeah,

(33:24):
and they're like, here, chop off the hand that threw
acid on you. So Don picks up an axe and
chops off aunt Ida's hand, and.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
It's very convincing. It's really good effect.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:41):
Yeah. Then Taffy comes in to be like, mom, what
the fuck are you doing? Also, why have you never
told me who my real father is? So Don finally
tells Taffy the name and address of her father, and
Taffy goes to the home of Earl Peterson, who is

(34:01):
drunk and horrible, and he tries to rape Taffy, so
she stabs him with a knife and goes back home. Also,
I will say like, when this movie started, I was like, yeah,
I think I might have an idea of where the
plot might go, And I was so wrong. It's just like,

(34:23):
every five minutes the plot takes a wildly different turn
that you simply cannot see coming.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
Yeah, I feel like it becomes a different movie genre
every like fifteen minutes or so.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
Yeah, yes, so anyway, Taffy has stabbed her biological father
and she returns home and she's completely distraught, and she's
kind of hanging out with aunt Ida like while she's
still in the cage. But then Don comes in and
she and Taffy are screaming at each other, and Taffy
announces that she's leaving to go live with the Heart

(34:59):
heart Ry Krishna of People, which she does, and this
makes Don furious. So Don kills her own daughter, which
seems to make Don feel absolutely elated and invigorated. And
she goes on stage to perform this show at a nightclub.

(35:21):
She does a trampoline act, she.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Does her own stunts.

Speaker 4 (35:25):
Yes, yes, well, we have to.

Speaker 5 (35:27):
Keep in mind she has the liquid eyeliner going through
her vedes and this is it's really given her a high.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
Kill your dangerous, it's bad.

Speaker 4 (35:40):
So she yeah, she's she's performing in this show. She's
rolling around in dead Fish. The audience is loving it,
and then Don pulls out a gun and starts shooting
into the crowd and several people are killed. So Don
flees into the woods. Wait, there is consent there to well, yes,

(36:03):
she's like, who wants to be killed? Like, I'll make
you famous?

Speaker 5 (36:06):
Somebody does, yes, they does volunteer to take a both.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
They volunteers tribute.

Speaker 5 (36:14):
She's not evil, guys. She doesn't just kill people.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
She asks for.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Consent before she murders.

Speaker 4 (36:22):
This is true, but it does cause a frenzy, like
you know, people are scared.

Speaker 6 (36:26):
Now she does keep shooting after and then she keeps going, yes,
you are right.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
Look but like you were saying the liquid eyelander, I
just think she's innocent of all charges at the end
of the day.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
Yeah, well the jury doesn't think so. But anyway, the
cops catch her and she's tried in court for many crimes,
and several people testify against her, including Ida, who that's
a given. But then her friends or who she thought

(36:58):
were her friends, Donald and Donna Dasher also testify against
Don and so they betray her. Then Don is called
to the stand. She's ranting and raving and saying that
she's famous and she's the most beautiful woman alive.

Speaker 5 (37:13):
Look at my legs.

Speaker 4 (37:16):
The people who died actually loved being killed by her,
and the jury's like, I don't get it. So they
find Don guilty and she's sentenced to the death penalty.
She spends some time in prison before being executed, where
she meets some friends and lovers. Seems like everyone adores her,

(37:39):
and she's excited about being executed. She's treating it like
it's another big show that's giving her fame and notoriety.
And she gives a monologue akin to an awards show
acceptance speech. She's like, I'd like to thank so and so,
and then she's put in the electric chair and killed.

(38:02):
And that's the end of the movie.

Speaker 5 (38:03):
Well, in her line of work, that is the highest honor.

Speaker 4 (38:09):
Yes, as a crime and beauty advocate slash perpetrator.

Speaker 7 (38:18):
And that's the movie.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
We'll take a quick break and we'll be right back.
I ros, where would.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
You like to start where there's there's no there's no end.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
To where we could start here?

Speaker 5 (38:38):
Oh my god, I think it's just brilliant. I don't know,
I don't know. Lead me in a direction. What do
you want? Where do you want me to what do
you want me to analyze?

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Well, let's I guess. I mean Don is the obvious place.
But like, if someone doesn't like this movie because it
is like upsetting to them in some way. There's like
truly every single possible content warning like you had to
do at the top of the episode, exists for this movie,
so you know, there are so many ways in which

(39:11):
it's not going to be for everybody.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
But I feel like I like it.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Even though there's like individual lines or plot lines I
don't love like. I just feel like Don and Divine
are so perfect to me because it's just I like
the kind of character that is, like she's behaving so
absurdly badly that you're like, you know, this is not

(39:37):
a there's no world where people see this and they're like,
this is my role model, Like you know, it's it's
it feels like someone acting out in the most horrible
way possible in a way that is like cathartic, right,
where like she's just like a walking intrusive thought and
like every intrusive thought anyone's had in history, Don does

(39:57):
with like pride and no scruples. And I watched this
past guest of the show, Matt Bom did a really
good video about the like John Waters trash trilogy, which
includes Pink Flamingos and oh my gosh, what is the
third one, the movie that came.

Speaker 5 (40:14):
After this, Multiple Maniacs or Desperate Living. Oh, Desperate Living, Okay, I.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Guess that that that is the Trash trilogy.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
So this is the second one.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
And he sort of analyzes all of Divine's characters and
also counters it by being like, there's a lot of ableism,
Like it's you know, it is not it is not
a politically correct movie in any way, shape or form.
But like the core of a Divine character is that
she like lives for pleasure, is quick to anger, and

(40:44):
is never dishonest about it, Like.

Speaker 3 (40:47):
She always says like yeah I did it and I don't.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Care, And that the villains of these movies tend to
be people who do horrible things and then lie about it.
So like that was something that I think really like
pulled the movie into focus in an interesting way that like,
while I have like individual scruples or whatever, you're like, oh, yeah,
like Donald and Donna, they suck for so many reasons, right,

(41:12):
Like they're like these rich people exploiting others for no reason.
But like Don is just like in for all she
can get and is not shy about saying that. But
Donald and Donna the second, it doesn't become convenient for
them to exploit people anymore. They're the victims and they're
crying in court and all this shit. Like I don't know,

(41:33):
I just I really liked looking at it from that,
Like just Don is like the ultimate in like unapologetic
and like ways that are really beautiful and ways that
are quite evil, and I don't know, there's just like
not a lot like it.

Speaker 5 (41:47):
Yeah, I think when you hit play on one of
these movies, you very quickly learn what the rules are
in this universe, or at what right and wrong is
to these people, Like it's it's different than normal everyday life.

(42:08):
And you're also going in with it the understanding Okay,
that is a man that's playing a teenage girl right now,
Like we know that, and it's it's absurd, it's all absurd.
And then like her twelve year old daughter is really
played by a grown woman, and like we kind of
get that going into it. So I think that's where

(42:32):
they get away with a lot of things that are
not PC because you're kind of like, Okay, these aren't
these characters. Yes, that this was a child, it would
be more realistic and we would look at it in
a different lens I think is the goal maybe.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
Right, because, like I mean, I was kind of coming
into this episode being like, I don't really know how
to talk about this movie, or probably any early John
Waters movies, at least through the lens of this podcast,
exactly because they're so campy and so intentionally trashy, which

(43:17):
I do think separates separates a movie like this from
other movies that we've covered on the show that have
similar problematic elements of you know, fat phobia and ableism
and playing abuse for a laugh, that kind of thing.
But other movies that do that tend to be more like, well,

(43:40):
this is just a movie that's coming out in the nineties,
and it's a reflection of what society thought was funny
or thought was tolerable or whatever. Versus John Waters. When
he's doing it, it's almost like he's kind of making

(44:00):
a mockery of those things. I mean, I don't think
a lot of the things in this movie are above criticism,
but his movies are transgressive in a way that sometimes
at least thoughtfully comments on the status quo of you know, heteronormative, patriarchal,
white supremacist society. Although I will say that this movie

(44:23):
is aggressively white, but there's so much being subverted and
like mocked. Yeah, but also it's including triggering and problematic things,
so it's complicated, right.

Speaker 5 (44:36):
I think it's definitely commenting on mainstream society as anything.
Drag typically is where you have to give in mind.
These are all gay men, there's one trans woman, and
cis women that are all a part of this, and

(44:58):
I think that this women queer on the queer spectrum
in some way. But these are not people with children.
These are not people that are participating in mainstream culture
of nineteen seventy three when they were filming it. These
are people that are just like that world is not

(45:19):
something that we are a part of, and so here's
our take on it exactly.

Speaker 4 (45:24):
Yeah. John Waters is the group of actors he consistently
worked with, the Dreamlanders, right, Yeah, totally. I think it's
best summarized in kind of a monologue that aunt Ida
gives when she's talking to Gator and she wants him
to be queer, and he insists that he's straight and

(45:46):
he's only attracted to women, and aunt Ida is like, ough,
I worry that you're going to end up working in
an office, and you'll have children, and you'll celebrate wedding anniversaries.
The world of heterosexual is a sick and boring life.
Like it's that's kind of the thesis of John Water's work. Overall,

(46:09):
it just feels like.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Like for the most part and like, again, not completely.
There are a few I think, especially like the ablest jokes.

Speaker 5 (46:18):
In this like really just like did not.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah, I don't really see any excuse for it other
than like, I mean, like John Waters has admitted like
kind of just being an edge lord, right, But I
think more often than not, this movie and like this
sort of trilogy appears to be like not punching down
very frequently.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
It's like usually.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
Punching up or sometimes across question mark or like poking
fun at their own community in a way that is
like I don't know, I think like part of the
reason that it holds up is because because of that,
and like that makes the moments where it does feel
like they're punching down to feel not great. But in
the context of like also I mean not that this

(47:02):
is an excuse, but like they're so young relatively when
they're making these movies. They're in their like twenties, and
who among us was not edge lordy in a way
that they are embarrassed about and regret at different points
in their twenties.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
I certainly was.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
Yeah, so there are definitely things to talk about, but
I think like, by and large, especially when it comes
to the portrayal of fatness and queerness, like it all
is so tongue in cheek and also like I don't know,
I feel like you can you can feel that it
comes from a place of like subversiveness. But also just
like this movie is like stars Divine, who like embodies

(47:47):
herself in every single frame and every single choice she makes.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
Are there fat phobic.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Lines, yes, but like they're delivered from Divine to Divine,
and it's so funny, like you're that distant.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
It's like that weird sex seed is between Divine and Divine.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
The child abuse, while like I understand what that's going
to be like a stopping point for some viewers, I
think that like John Water's intentionally casting a visibly twenty
seven year old woman to play a child helps you
create that distance and it feels more like yeah, like
elevated in Drag World.

Speaker 5 (48:24):
Yeah. Well, also Divine, on the topic of her size,
she's never not owning it and feeling so proud of
her body. I mean the scene where she's stripping and
she's fully like in a g string and just dancing
around and you can't tell her anything like she is.

(48:46):
She is owning her body size and very proud about it.
And I think I think that's especially at a time
like the seventies where you know, being fat was so bad,
you know, like in in media. She's just like, I
don't give a fuck, like I feel great, And I

(49:06):
love that about Divide totally.

Speaker 4 (49:08):
Yeah. Also in that scene, the audience that she's dancing
for is loving it. Yeah, they are whooping and cheering,
And it would have been easy to well because you
do see in the scenes where she's in high school,
like at the beginning of the movie, her classmates are
bullying her for being fat, and teacher and.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Teach, but it's like that everyone who bully is divine
for being fat. Are characters that we're supposed to hate
for sure, So I'm kind of I mean, I don't know,
that's my perspective on it anyways, is like, you know,
and especially when it's fat phobic bullying from the other
divine character earl to down. You're just like, yeah, we

(49:52):
hate this guy. We hate this guy so much, and
even though Dawn is despicable, we don't hate Well, I
don't know, I don't know how we're supposed to feel
about Don, but like she's iconic, Yeah, no doubt about it.

Speaker 5 (50:06):
She's an anti hero.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
She's a Don Draper type, a despicable me if you will, she's.

Speaker 3 (50:14):
A little despicable me.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
She's opinion.

Speaker 4 (50:17):
Yeah, yeah, I think the one thing that there's really
no excuse for, and we already touched on this, but
is the ableism a child Because for listeners who aren't
familiar with this movie, Don keeps talking to her daughter
Taffy in a very ablest disparaging way, calling her the

(50:39):
R word, saying that she was diagnosed by mental like
medical professionals, as you know, having some sort of intellectual disability.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
And it's clear that she has never brought this.

Speaker 4 (50:51):
She's this girl has like never been to the doctor.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
She's never been to a doctor and has been abused
her whole life, which is like the movie does not
shy away from, you know, it's obvious that that's the case.
Even in context, that just felt more like edgy for
the sake of being edgy versus like other choices that
the script makes that have like a point of view
or like.

Speaker 3 (51:12):
A tongue in cheek that just didn't feel as much.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
I think that again, the portrayal of like child abuse.
It's the movie isn't portraying it as like right or
anything like that or justified. But I feel and guessing
and like, let me know what you both think that,
like that was sort of an attempt on the on
the movie's part to you know, like one of the

(51:38):
very you know, stereotypical parts of like hetero society at
this time and still is like raising children and raising
them right and blah blah blah. And like the whole
point of Dawn is she does everything contrary to what
typical society does and so she is a terrible, neglectful parent.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
What are we supposed to make of that?

Speaker 2 (52:00):
I don't really know, but like I'm guessing that was
sort of the energy behind it. It's like she is
the anti you know, missus Claver or whatever.

Speaker 5 (52:10):
Hmm, Yeah, I think so. I think it would be
shocking if she was this amazing mother, But it's still
robbing men.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Kind of funny because like, there are various I guess
representations of incest or suggested incest also that I didn't
know quite what to make of, because part of.

Speaker 4 (52:36):
It is sort of like there's a scene I don't
even want to describe it, really, but there's a scene
where Don suggests that her daughter commit an active incest
with Gaitor. And even though Taffy and Gaiter aren't biologically related,
like Gaitor is in Taffy's life theoretically as a stepfather,

(52:58):
we don't really see any.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
We it's safe to assume he doesn't.

Speaker 5 (53:03):
He's not good at it.

Speaker 4 (53:04):
He's not really doing much right.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
It's a bad vibe that gives I think, a very
funny line if you're not thinking about it in the
context of the scene, which is I wouldn't suck your
lousy dick if I was suffocating and there was oxygen
in your balls. That is that's a good line, a
good line.

Speaker 5 (53:22):
And I mean, does it help the case at all
that the little girl says things like that and is like,
fuck you, you're not doing it, you know, I think
that maybe I.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
Think it does help.

Speaker 5 (53:37):
I think I help Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
It's like she's saying stuff that like probably for I
don't know. I wish I could strig a sentence like
that together when I was fourteen.

Speaker 5 (53:47):
But yeah, and then when her father tries it, she
kills them. I mean, yeah, there's something there, right, that's something.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
There's something. Yeah, she stabs him with a knife covered
in mannise. Question mark.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
We don't think about it too hard, uh, Taffy, You know,
I think maybe the tragic because Don is not a
tragic hero.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
She goes out on top according.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
To her, so she's not she's not heroic, and she
doesn't find her death tragic, so I guess she's doing
something else. I feel like Taffy is kind of the
tragic hero of the movie because she does her damnedest
to get out of that situation. She finds Inner Piece
and then dies immediately rip right.

Speaker 4 (54:31):
Yeah, She joins the Hari Krishnas and is murdered by
her own mother about it.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
She's tried to like kill and punish her oppressive upbringing,
and eventually, you know, unfortunately you can't get one over
on Don Davenport.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
That's just kind of the.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Rules of this world.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
So she was always doomed.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
Certainly, not when she's high on liquid I eyeliner.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Yeah, so it's like what we're saying since is like this,
it is very it's very hard to I don't know,
this is a movie designed to break our show, but.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
I'm gonna keep trying. Yeah, I agree that.

Speaker 8 (55:07):
Like I think for me, it was like primarily the
ablest stuff that it just felt like it was doing
something to just because you're not supposed to say this,
and not because the movie really has any sort of
perspective or like alternate representation.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
To it, So it's like it's not really saying very much.

Speaker 5 (55:27):
Yeah, I definitely think that there was a shock element
that they were going for. I mean, this is after
Pink Flamingos, right, yeah, two years after and that was
such a huge smash hit in the midnight movie Underground
and became something that everyone talked about. So this is

(55:50):
following that and that movie of course, like the thing
that everyone really took away from that was she ate
poop that came out of a dot, but we see
it on camera come out of the butt into her
mouth and it's like, how.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
How do you heighten from there?

Speaker 5 (56:07):
Yeah, and people are coming expecting shock and this movie
doesn't really have a lot of those moments that are
like that in teds with there's not a singing anus,
there's not you know, there's not any of that stuff.
But then you know, knowing your audience of people that

(56:27):
are coming to see your follow up movie, there's gonna
be some moments that are just for the sake of
taking it, taking it someplace.

Speaker 7 (56:37):
One of the things I liked about this movie is
it's I do think it's like saying some like fun
interesting stuff about class, because.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
There is a read of it where it's like these
characters are with the exception.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
Of the what are their names, the rich.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Couple, Don and Donald and Donna, the Dashers, most everyone
in this movie is like working class or poor, and
you know, like there's a read of it where you're like, okay,
leaning hard into stereotypes around poor people that we were
talking about in recent what was the episode recently we

(57:16):
were talking about sort of like just stereotypes around ale
that are just sort of presented of whatever, that they're
bad parents, that they're criminals.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
Blah blah blah.

Speaker 4 (57:25):
Oh overboard, overboard. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
A movie that genuinely sucks, which I don't think this
movie does even remotely. This movie rocks uh So, I
like the inclusion of the Dashers because you see that
these like these rich characters are also completely depraved in
a way that is different, where like there's this like
it's not harped upon, because nothing is really harped upon
in this movie, but like that these rich characters are

(57:51):
sort of out to like exploit, exploit the poor people
who come to their business and present them as art,
and like that that is something that still happens and
certainly happened then, and you know, there is an element
to like they're encouraging Dawn to do all this horrible
stuff or just encouraging, you know, bad behavior. They're witnessing

(58:13):
child abuse and taking pictures of it and being like
you're a diva, You're incredible, Like it's so over the top,
and they're encouraging it almost as like a social experiment,
like they're they're detached from it. They're like, this is
my little art project, when it's like other people's lives.
And and that is like thought, I thought, like a
really cool way of framing how a lot of like

(58:34):
wealthy benefactors view art and view outsider art. And I'm
like wondering if John Waters had experiences like that, we're
like rich weirdos are like, hey, John, we really like
what you're doing. Keep doing all that gross shit. I
totally get it, like that.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
Kind of vibe.

Speaker 2 (58:53):
And then at the end that the Dashers, I know
we talked about it earlier, but that like the Dashers
turn on Don once they're like, oh no, we're going
to get in trouble for this. Actually we're the victims
of this thing that we funded and encouraged one thousand percent.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
Like I just I liked that.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
Element of the movie that was really good.

Speaker 5 (59:12):
Yeah, and I feel like you come away going, oh yeah,
they're they're the slimy ones, like they're the whole time.
It's like Dog's doing horrible shit. But you know, ain't
her defense. She didn't start out poor. I think that
she is. She is not a criminal because she's poor.
I think she's poor because she's a criminal. And she's

(59:38):
a criminal.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
It's a criminal because she didn't get those chachachacha exactly.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
That's true. That's true. They do go.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
She is like a firmly middle class girl who chooses
a life of crime, and in a way that is
on her parents.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
I blame the parents.

Speaker 4 (59:55):
Ultimately must she was she was a teenager, she was
a she needed guidance.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
It was a child. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:02):
I also think it's really funny that the Dashers put
their potential clients through an audition process, and a group
of women like waiting for their audition, and one of
them is dismissed, I think, based on her appearance alone.
And then another one is like, I'm a stripper and

(01:00:23):
this is I heard, this is where all the strippers go.
And they're like, yeah, that's fine, you're in. And then
another woman is like, I work at the post office,
getting the fuck out and get the fuck out of here. Hilarious.
And then Dawn, who I think is the only one
who ends up making it through, She's like, I'm a
thief and a shit kicker, and they're like, that's exactly

(01:00:43):
what we're looking for.

Speaker 5 (01:00:44):
Uh huh, she's great.

Speaker 4 (01:00:47):
Hilarious.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
I let My other favorite thing that happens at the
hair salon is when one of the women thinks her
haircuts too extensive and they take the hairdew back.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
They just threw it everything they just did. It's so funny.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Yeah, yeah, I'm like I'm trying.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
I surely I have more to say about us.

Speaker 4 (01:01:04):
Well, I mean to your original point, Jamie again, John
Waters set out to make the trashiest movies that have
ever existed. He wanted to make these very subversive, transgressive,
campy trash films. And when you're doing that in the
nineteen seventies, you're bound to, you know, make some mistakes.

(01:01:28):
Things that seem subversive at the time are actually just
like punching down or being edged lordie or stuff that
we can very easily look at in twenty twenty five
and be like, yeah, shouldn't have done that. Yeah, but
it's fifty years ago, Like it's right, and even us like,

(01:01:49):
as you said, like, there are jokes that I used
to tell as a comic in my twenties where I
was like, I I should have never said that, And
it's because at the time I was like, oh, oh,
this is subversive, this is fun, you know, I'm being edgy,
And that's not what that was. That was just whatever
shitty joke I was making. But yeah, so there's there's

(01:02:12):
an element of leeway that we can extend to people. Obviously,
context is important and the severity of what they do
is important to consider, but so much of you know
John waters work again when he is commenting on the
status quo and making fun of it and being like,

(01:02:35):
straight people are so fucking boring. The line where on
Ida This happens a little bit later in the movie,
where she's now trying to set Gator up with a
man because she's so hell bent on Gator being gay,
and this random man is like, well, well, how do
you know that Gator likes men? And Ida says, I
just use common sense. If they're smart, they're queer. If

(01:02:58):
they're stupid, they're right. I'm laughing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Or she's like, if you ever decide to like leave
the Hari Krishna and come be a lesbian, you can
live with me. She is a one issue voter, Ida,
and everyone needs to be gay.

Speaker 5 (01:03:16):
And I don't even know. I mean, is aunt Eida?
Do we know her sexuality or she just really just
wants to be around gay unclear?

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
She really seems like she her Yeah, her sexuality is
being around gay people.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
We actually don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
She could be a self hating straight We don't.

Speaker 4 (01:03:35):
Know which relatable for me. But yeah. The point is
like this movie and other of John Waters' works are
doing a lot. As we've talked about to examine the boring,
the ridiculous, the very rigid gender roles and heteronormativity of

(01:03:58):
mainstream America in society, and he's just like, ooh, let
me do the exact opposite of that. And sometimes it
ends up being this hilarious, subversive, awesome thing. Sometimes it
is punching down, but overall it's why we're able to
like still love John Waters and his body of work
despite some of the stuff that doesn't age very well. Yeah,

(01:04:23):
but yeah, I don't think I have much else to say.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
Which feels wild.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Yeah. Yeah, like this movie, it's like you like it
or you don't. I will be returning to this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
I'm like, this is the kind of movie I've like.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
I don't know why. Then like I can't wait to
be sick and watch this movie and eat soup.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
Well, you need to eat spaghetti and then throw it
at the wall.

Speaker 5 (01:04:46):
Yeah, we're Taffy, I'll have two chicken breasths.

Speaker 4 (01:04:53):
Well we're not having chicken breast, we're having spaghetti.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
And then I'll have a small portion to be polite.

Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
And then Don is like, Taffy, there's not enough for you.
I didn't make enough for you. I Meanwhile, she brings
out this huge bowl of so much spaghetti that could
have easily fed like eight people.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Yeah, I'm very curious what our listeners think of this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
I really like it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
There are elements of it that don't age well, but
I feel like it's heart is so like it's just
like you can tell where this movie is coming from.

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
It's fifty years old, so there are issues with it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
And also just like the divine Divine's performance in this
movie is like wild. It is just like how much
we were saying this at the beginning, but like every
line in this movie is screamed.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
Like it's just it's awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
It's a lat Also, there aren't a lot of cuts,
so there'll be like a pretty wide shot that'll last
for a few minutes, and the actors are just exchanging
dialogue back and forth for minutes at a time, So
the memorization you have to do, yeah, when you're shooting
like that is no And they're just like, I don't

(01:06:02):
know how much improv or if any was involved on
any of these sets, but if it is all like
very meticulously written and then performed as written, it is
then like those exchanges of dialogue and monologues that had
to be memorized and without like cutaways. Yeah, very impressive.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
No, he I in the Q and A I watched,
he said it was all like he is like I
am anti improv, which I saw it bright.

Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
I love that for him.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
He was like, I'm anti improv and so like people
have like criticized the skill level of actors I've worked
with over the years, but like they're memorizing twenty pages
of dialogue, so your move. Yeah, So it's great these
like I love characters that are like I live for
pleasure and anything that is not pleasure I reject and

(01:06:55):
will react with violence. It's cathartic. It makes me want
to like stomp around.

Speaker 4 (01:07:00):
Totally like it. There's something very refreshing about seeing a
female character do whatever the fuck she wants. Yeah, and
you know it's not awesome when that includes child abuse
and chaining your daughter to a bed and.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
No, but it's like this movie isn't pro child abuse.

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
You know, it's just a keeps place.

Speaker 2 (01:07:22):
On a different planet as far as I can say, right, yeah,
this is a movie where if your parents don't get you,
chatcha he'll the floodgates are open.

Speaker 5 (01:07:30):
And now you're allowed to just kill people.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
You're allogic, generate, generational trauma, a perceived slight.

Speaker 4 (01:07:41):
Yeah, yeah, I love to see women behaving badly in movies,
so it's great.

Speaker 5 (01:07:46):
And honestly, like for me when I watch Divine, like
I kind of do forget that that is a male
drag queen character, Like I'm kind of just like this
is just she's a shit kicker lady, Like she's a
bad girl.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
Yeah, Divine is just like it's so good that I
because I also I had to like refresh myself on
like Divine as a drag performer and like I really
want to watch that documentary.

Speaker 5 (01:08:18):
And the most unlikely movie star of yeah, that time,
Like let's think about it. Ever, if you think about
like just the seventies again, her size, the fact that
she's this feminine man that dresses in drag, like that's
not someone that was leading movies in certain that time.
So it's this whole universe that they created for themselves

(01:08:43):
where they're already going into this breaking all the rules.

Speaker 4 (01:08:46):
Right, and it's a universe where every time Down says
I'm the most beautiful woman in the world, everyone around
her agrees. Yeah, and that's just the reality of the
society that it rocks of this alternate Baltimore.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
And this is we've like this is like maybe the
most boring thing to point out, and everybody knows it.
But for what it's worth, fifteen years after this movie,
a Disney like an iconic Disney villain is like she
becomes such a cultural touchstone and it's such a cultural
force that she's like cartoon.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
Character by the late eighties.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
It's like it's incredible, like the amount that I don't know,
like I love I love when a group of friends
makes it, Like they made a group of friends from
Baltimore made a movie and guess.

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
What it changed the world. So think about that.

Speaker 5 (01:09:37):
It's cool.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
Yeah, yeah, this movie has its issues, but I feel
like it's just so there's nothing really like it totally,
and it's kind of incredible that it's remotely good, Like
given the resources and like how they had to make these.

Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
Movies a budget of twenty five thousand dollars, yeah, which
I did.

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
I put into a little thing, so that would be
about one hundred fifty thousand.

Speaker 4 (01:10:00):
Dollars today, still super low budget.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
Still very very low. Yeah, and that yeah, it's like
through the goodwill of their own community, were they able
to like pull.

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
This off time and time again. It's just it's awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):
It's beautiful. Ross. Do you have anything else? Do you
want to talk about?

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
No?

Speaker 5 (01:10:19):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:20):
It's great.

Speaker 8 (01:10:21):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
It passes the Bachfel test a whole lot, usually about
something horrible, but like, that's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:10:26):
That it counts.

Speaker 4 (01:10:28):
Women are talking about crime, money, fame, beauty, liquid, eyeliner,
jump ropes, spaghetti, chicken, breasts, all manner of things.

Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
The list goes on. Yeah, so that no issues there?
And then what about the the ultimate metric, the Bechdel.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Cast nipples scale.

Speaker 4 (01:10:48):
Yeah, so the scale where we rate the movie from
zero two five nipples based on examining it through an
intersectional feminist lens. I might defer rating on this episode.
I feel like this, Yeah, I feel like the nipple
scale doesn't apply to a movie like Female Trouble, So

(01:11:10):
I kind of don't even want to rate it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
I give it five mmmm five plates of spaghetti for me.

Speaker 4 (01:11:20):
Yes, I'll give it five human sized cages.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
Incredible. Where the hell did they get that so good?

Speaker 2 (01:11:28):
That would be a great Halloween cost Him? Very cumbersome,
but really good.

Speaker 4 (01:11:32):
Yeah, wow, Ross, what do you think.

Speaker 5 (01:11:35):
Yeah, I'd give it five trampoline.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
I love the anecdote that like John Waters and Divine
went to the YMCA together for her to train.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
I'm just like, it's so good. It's so good because.

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
She had to do all those flips with her wig,
like staying on true and that's no easy task.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
True show girl. All right, Well that is our female trouble.
So to thank you to everyone who's been requesting this
movie for nine years.

Speaker 5 (01:12:03):
We did it. We did it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
It is and thank you so much, Raz for coming
on the show.

Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
This was so fun.

Speaker 5 (01:12:08):
Oh my god, I'm so happy that you invited me,
and I'm I'm happy to talk about John Waters. I
think it's I think again, it's like not certainly not
what they were planning up when they were doing this stuff,
but at this point it's like it serves as a

(01:12:31):
historical record I think of queer culture, and not even
just queer culture, like very subversive, transgressive, very a different,
a world of outsiders and showing what a world of
outsiders was like and what they were doing at that time.

(01:12:56):
And this is only a few years after Stonewall, which
was also those were outsider queer people. Those were gender
non conforming trans people, and they were angry and fighting back,
and I think that in a sense, that's where the

(01:13:19):
culture was at. This is very early gay rights movement,
and it's fun to see them letting their hair down
and making each other laugh. And I think everyone should
check it out totally.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
It's on the internet archive for free. If you haven't
watched it already, can It's very easy to access.

Speaker 4 (01:13:42):
Indeed, thank you again for joining us for this discussion
and tell us roz where people can follow you online,
check out your work, listen to your podcasts, etc. Plug away.

Speaker 5 (01:13:58):
Thank you well. Roshrdad does on Instagrams where you can
find everything. I'm so excited about this new podcast that
I'm doing, which is a horror movie trivia game show
type thing. It's fun. It is a podcast, but it's
a game show, so we're I'm the host of it,

(01:14:20):
and it's produced by Paramounts and it's all about horror
movies and I really hope that you can listen to
it and not necessarily be a horror movie fan. I
think that we make it still fun and funny because
there's all different kinds of improvised challenges that we put

(01:14:44):
our guests through and it's just a good time. So
that's called Tickled to Death. Go listen to that. And
then Ghosted my podcast where I talk to people about
their experiences with ghosts and aliens and bigfoots and psychics
and stuff. That's my other podcast. And I have a
YouTube channel where I go ghost hunting with guys I

(01:15:07):
meet on Grinder and we go ghost hunting in haunted
hotel rooms.

Speaker 4 (01:15:12):
Oh my gosh, that's awesome.

Speaker 5 (01:15:13):
And it's comedic and it's fabulous.

Speaker 4 (01:15:17):
I love it.

Speaker 5 (01:15:18):
Rosser Dad is the Haunts. It's all that's called hell.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
Yeah, thank you so much for training us.

Speaker 2 (01:15:24):
I'm like, I'm so excited for the new podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:15:26):
Congratulations.

Speaker 5 (01:15:28):
Thank you of course.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
And you can find us in all the regular places
we're on the Instagram. You can join our Patreon aka Matreon,
where every month for five dollars a month you get
two bonus episodes and access to our back catalog of
over one hundred episodes. I think almost two hundred at
this point. So get on there, get into it, and
we will see you next week.

Speaker 4 (01:15:53):
Yes, thank bye.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
produced by me, Jamie Loftus and.

Speaker 4 (01:16:04):
Me Caitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie
Lichtermann and edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them?
That's Me and our logo and merch and all of
our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever
heard of her? Oh My God?

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
And our theme song, by the way, was composed by
Mike Kaplan.

Speaker 4 (01:16:25):
With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Aristotle Ascevedo.

Speaker 4 (01:16:32):
For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
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