Ginger Snaps with Olivia Woodward

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy,
zeph and best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Jamie, Kaylin, I just got the curse. What's that I'm bleeding?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
I just got my period.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
It's the curse.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
I'm your little sister in the big old Wig. I'm pissed.
I'm pissed. I have to like, Hi, my, I know, Kaitlyn.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
No, yeah, I don't worry. It's not contagious though.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
This is the audio media. But I'm just all my
hairs in my face. I'm like, this sucks, This sucks.
How could you do this to me?

Speaker 3 (00:45):
That was a great re enactment. I think, thank you
so much for a naturals for a natural Yeah, oh
my gosh. Well, anyway, this is the Bechdal Cast, and
my name is Caitlin Toronte.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
My name's Jamie Loftus, and I have a tail.

Speaker 5 (01:00):
And this is our podcast where we talk about your
favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel
test as a jumping off point for discussion.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
But Kaitlyn, what the.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Hell is that? Oh my gosh, it's.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
When what in the Ginger Snaps is that? I sort
of was like, why is this movie called that?

Speaker 5 (01:22):
But in a way, Ginger snaps and it makes it's
actually kind of an incredible it's an all timer title.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
It's actually really a good title.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
It all makes sense. But what is the Bechdel Test?

Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel,
sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test, as it was co
conceived of with Alison Bechdel and her friend Liz Wallace,
and it has many versions. Ours is this, do two
characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak

(01:56):
to each other? And is there conversation about something other
than a man? And we like it when it's a
narratively substantial conversation. So for example, I just got my
period and it's a horrible curse.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Oh okay, let's kill this dog.

Speaker 5 (02:13):
Okay, Like those are all narratively consequential in this world.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
No need to worry about the Bechdel's house in this movie.

Speaker 5 (02:21):
All right, that's the jumping off the boinfe But there's yeah,
so much more to talk about today, so I want
to just jump.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
Right into it.

Speaker 5 (02:27):
But this is again, I think we're just kind of
on an all timer streak recently of covering movies that
we've been getting requests for for.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
Over half a decade, and we've just been.

Speaker 5 (02:38):
Waiting for the right moment for the right guest, And
today we are covering Ginger Snaps with an amazing returning guest.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
That's absolutely right. She is the cultural education coordinator for
Texas Native Health. She's a citizen of the Cat Donation
as well as a horror connoisseur. And you know her
from our episode on Smoke Signals. It's Olivia Woodward.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Hello, now we know.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
We welcome back. What is your poster? I feel like
horror fans have the best bedroom walls.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
You know, it's so funny. This is not my bedroom.
Me and my partner are so progressive. We have separate
bedrooms and the recording stuff is in his area of
the house.

Speaker 4 (03:22):
Incredible, So this is his room.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
That is a poster. It's a metal poster.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
If it's him, we don't care. Oh okay, unmort the
business of discussion, and you know that's so amazing.

Speaker 5 (03:36):
That is truly my dream and because of like I
don't know, it says hetero programming.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
I didn't even know. I'd never even considered that.

Speaker 5 (03:45):
Until my friends got married and they're like, yeah, of
course we have our own rooms so that we still
love each other.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
You're like, yeah, honestly, it kind of makes me love
him more having my own space. Yeah, it's really under
a full I'm also a crazy sleeper. I don't keep
a good sleep schedule. I always joke on a rotisserie
chicken in bed because I just kind of like move
around throughout my sleep. I wake up making the hungry
because I think I'm burning calories so much to my sleep.

(04:13):
So anyway, it really helps our relationship. Honestly, I think
it makes us closer. Being physically a distant.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, for sure, people need distance, people need boundaries and
their own space. I've been saying for years that if
I ever end up with a partner, which we'll see,
but if that were to ever happen, I would want
separate apartments. And I know that like who can afford that?
But also like but if you can, but you can, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(04:42):
I did.

Speaker 5 (04:43):
I mean it's like it's of course, it's like depends
on how you can make this face work. But it's
I like the idea of when you live with someone,
it is still a choice to be physically together, Like,
it's not the like, not necessarily the compulsory thing to do.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Thank you well.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
And now Ginger Snaps.

Speaker 5 (05:04):
Holy cow, what a damn movie, Ollivia, thank you for
being our guests. I know that we've been meaning to
do this for a while. It's the perfect time of year. Absolutely,
so tell us about your history with this movie.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, this is a movie I've really enjoyed. It's definitely
near and dear to my heart as far as horror
movie goes, it's definitely one of my top five. I
don't know if y'all know this. This is a trilogy.
This is the first of three. There's Ginger Snaps. Ginger
Snaps Unleashed is the sequel, which takes place right after
the first one, like the next day, I think. And

(05:38):
then there's a third one. It's a prequel called Ginger
Snaps Back, and that one is set two hundred years
in the past, and like the eighteen hundreds, it's the
same actresses playing sisters again. I feel like there were
ancestors I'm assuming, and rather than being set in like
a Canadian suburb, it's set at a fort and they're

(06:00):
being like hunted by a wolf pack. And I bring
this up, I go into detail because back in what
twen twenty eleven, I was being left home alone a lot,
and the third one, the prequel, was being shown on
some cable like channel all the time. So I kind
of got weirdly obsessed with the third one for years,

(06:21):
not knowing there were two more before it. And I
was actually talking to my sister about this the other
day and I thought she told me about the first one.
She says, I told her about the first one, So
at some point, because she's also a horror connoisseur, this
is a huge thing we bond over either way. At
some point in high school I rented it from Red
Box and loved it and show it to all of

(06:43):
my friends. There aren't a ton of good were wolf movies,
because you know, there's horror, and then there's like all
the sub genres, right, and there's creature feature but separately
specifically were wolf. And this is not my most like
favorite werewolf design per se. Definitely other movies with scarier werewolves,

(07:03):
but the story itself is so unique and strange and
different from other Werewolf movies, and I come back to
it every couple of years. And then separately too. A
few years ago I decided to start screenwriting, and part
of that journey was joining a mentorship and so it

(07:24):
was online one with an organization called bipoc TV slash
film and they pair you with it. Turns out it
was a Canadian organization. I don't think I was supposed
to apply, but whatever. They pair you with a mentor
and you get like online coffee with them. And I
got paired with Karen Walton, who wrote this movie.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
WHOA.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
It was such a crazy coincidence.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
Do not know that? That's amazing?

Speaker 1 (07:50):
It was so hard not to fangirl over her. And
she's done some really cool work since Ginger Snaps, and
she gave me like really great advice and added me
to a Facebook group that she runs for up and
coming screenwriters. One day, someone put in the like a
post up asking about their favorite film podcast, and several
people commented the Bechdel Cast, and I was like, this

(08:11):
sounds right up my alley. And look at look at Roboto,
look at you.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Now you're here with us.

Speaker 4 (08:19):
Wait, that's so oh.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
I love that Ginger Snaps in a very roundabout way
brought you to the Ginger Snaps episode of this show.

Speaker 4 (08:27):
That's so cool.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
It's so cool. I would have never guessed it, you know.
So I'm very Ginger Snaps has really done a lot
for me apparently.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
True. So very excited to be here, very excited to
talk about it.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
And not to brag, but you, to some degree, have
continued your screenwriting journey in a certain class top by
a certain someone who has a certain master's degree in
screenwriting from Boston University that I would never ever mention.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
I gotta to say. The screenwriting classes are amazing, and
if y'all haven't picked it up, they're taught by Caitlin.
She's a fantastic teacher and I will continue to take
her classes whenever I can.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
So everyone should take her classes if you want to
be a screenwriter.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Yeah exactly.

Speaker 4 (09:14):
Well I didn't know you had a master's degree.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Oh well.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
The thing is, I don't ever talk about it. I
never mentioned it.

Speaker 4 (09:20):
Very humbul very humpful.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
So anyway, this episode is just a commercial for my
screenwriting classes. Bye, I love what a wonderful, full circle
history you have with this movie.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
It's so cool.

Speaker 5 (09:39):
It's always just like so lovely to hear when people
are active late, like successful people are actively involved in
mentoring and building community and stuff like that. Karen Walton, like,
just based on what I've read about her, it just
seems great. I'm glad to know that she also is
great and it's like, actually a cool person.

Speaker 4 (09:58):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah. I still have her email and every once in
a while reach out and she's pretty good at getting
back and she's just a very very cool person. Also,
through her I learned some really major differences between the
film industry and Canada versus the US, good and bad.
But the way people get started with screenwriting in Canada
is fairly different than here in the United States. I

(10:20):
feel like that's another day though. That's like a forty
minute rant for me.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Yeah, yeah, well, awesome, Jamie. What's your history with Ginger Snaps?

Speaker 4 (10:31):
I had never seen this movie before.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
I wish I had.

Speaker 5 (10:34):
I wish that this movie had found me at the
exact right time, but I don't know. I was like,
I had an interesting experience watching this movie where I
watched it. I mean, this is my first time watching it.
I like horror, very into horror. I've never really taken
to wear wolf movies specifically, which might have been just
why I never happened to see this, because I.

Speaker 4 (10:55):
Just I'm not a were wolf girly. I don't know
what to say.

Speaker 5 (10:59):
But the first time I watched this movie, I like
sat with it for a day and I was like, WHOA, Like,
I don't. I almost like didn't know what to make
of it because there's so much going on.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
I was like, did I like that? I do like
what it was like. It was a slow burn for me.
I don't know, it was weird.

Speaker 5 (11:15):
And then I went back to rewatch it the second
time to prepare, and by the end, I was.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
Like, no, this is like the coolest movie.

Speaker 5 (11:23):
It's like it's I mean, it has its fault, it
has its tricky points, which we'll talk about, but I yeah,
it was a movie that I really had to kind
of sit with.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
And once I watched it again, like a full two
days later, I was like, no, this fucking rules. I
can't wait to talk about this. I'm really excited to.

Speaker 5 (11:41):
Hear everyone because it is like a movie that really
begs to be talked about with other people, and so
I am really excited to talk about it.

Speaker 4 (11:50):
I feel like there's probably points of view I haven't considered.

Speaker 5 (11:53):
I really enjoyed reading queer and trans writer's views on
this movie because, you know, like I think on my
first few I was like, it's all about defining womanhood
by periods.

Speaker 4 (12:03):
But then reading other.

Speaker 5 (12:04):
People's opinions on it, You're like, Okay, this movie is
like complex in a way that it maybe wasn't even
intending to be, but has like prompted all of this discussion,
and that's a special kind of movie.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
I'm excited to talk about it. Caitlyn, had you seen
this movie before?

Speaker 3 (12:20):
I had once before. It was during the Great Caitlin
Movie watching Binge of two thousand and four. I think
it was my friend who I mentioned recently on the
Job Breaker episode who had introduced me. She was a
big horror buff, so she showed me a bunch of

(12:42):
horror movies that I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise, and
I believe one of them was Ginger Snaps. I think
that's how I came to see this movie, and I
thought it was cool in the sense that it was
a version of the werewolf story unlike anything I had seen.
But I'm similarly not much of a werewolf person. I

(13:04):
far prefer vampires. Not that it's a competition, but I.

Speaker 4 (13:11):
Was like almost on basic.

Speaker 5 (13:13):
But I do like zombies and vampires and most of all,
I love a scary ghost and I.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
Love the whatever the Babaduck is.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
I like that. Yeah, the Bobbadok is its own genre.

Speaker 4 (13:26):
Yeah, it's more like a hat based villain.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
I love a jigsaw villain.

Speaker 4 (13:32):
I love a jig saw, I love a little oh
I do it. Yeah, I'll haunt it.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Doll.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
That's definitely in my.

Speaker 5 (13:38):
Top four right right, right right. Every horror fan in
the world wants to They murder me right now. Like, Hi,
there's doll movie, there's scary dre there's Babaduk movie.

Speaker 4 (13:50):
Yes, there's Babaduk genre. Doll genre.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
I think vampires, but I almost have never like scared
by a vampire movie. For like horror that actually scares me.
The thing that I gravitate towards the most, I think
is like a cult type stuff or like Satan worship,
like and I'm sorry to invoke a movie made by

(14:14):
a horrible person, but like Rosemary's Baby is.

Speaker 5 (14:18):
Oh, I thought you were gonna say, I'm sorry to
invoke Bielsa Bob.

Speaker 4 (14:24):
Never mind, never.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Mind, we're making our own horror hooting right now.

Speaker 4 (14:31):
Yeah, no, I'm with you there.

Speaker 5 (14:32):
I also was realizing as I was watching, I'm like,
why have I been avoiding I've been avoiding werewolves recently,
and I know the reason is because my friend was
getting really into it. There's a very popular werewolf erotica genre.
Boy that my friend sent a recommendation to me, and
I'm down to try anything, you know. I was like, whatever,

(14:54):
I've read the occasional erotica brag. It's a very sophisticated
way to experience. It's like, also hard, I'm reading a book.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Just as reading intellectual.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
It was.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
I mean, it's it's a fun way to whack off.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
But I just really did I was.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
Not vibing with the wearful genre.

Speaker 5 (15:17):
It was actually quite freaking me out due to the
whole dog of it all.

Speaker 4 (15:23):
So I did I'm going to call it that.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
If you love this.

Speaker 4 (15:26):
Genre, I'm not shaming you at all. I just it
wasn't for me.

Speaker 5 (15:29):
I read a book called The Tyrant Alpha's Rejected Mate
which is so many words.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Oh my gosh, you've brought this up before.

Speaker 5 (15:36):
I really struggled with the tyrant Alpha's rejected mate. It
took me months to finish. I didn't get horny one time,
but I was just like really.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
Trying to finish it.

Speaker 5 (15:46):
And so I think uniquely this year, I was like,
I'm done with werewolves for a while.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
They're too a horny, there's too much going on. This
was recent, This was this year. Yeah, I read that
book this year. And if you've read it, and you,
I mean, I understand.

Speaker 5 (16:01):
It's like it's always weird when you're like experiencing erotica
that is not for you, where you're like I get it,
I get it, I get it, but I but I'm
not feeling anything. So anyways, that's why I was avoiding
were Wolves. We could take this out of the show
if we want.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
Now, I think we should leave it. And I'm gonna
add something to it really quick here, which is that
when I was in the UK on the Shrek Tannic tour,
I met up with a listener of the show shout
Out to Day's. We went to Shrek's Adventure together in
London and they gave me a horny book. What are

(16:38):
they called erotica novel? Yeah, erotica entitled Get in My
Swamp colon, an ogre love story, and I started reading it.
I have to finish it, but I think maybe you
would enjoy it a lot more than you enjoyed the
werewolf erotica.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
I would wager, so I.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
Would wait for so.

Speaker 5 (17:02):
I just didn't like when they're like, let's fuck his dogs,
I'm like, I just don't want to read about dogs
fucking anyways.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
Yeah, I think that's some people's issue or not issue,
about why there aren't a ton of werewolf fans out there.
It's so close to beat reality, right, it like really
toes the line, which I think is what makes it
all so kind of like interesting and fascinating. Also, to
your credit, it is hard to find good werewolf movies.

(17:30):
I had the opposite, like two or three years ago.
I was like, sat down. I was like, I want
to watch every werewolf movie ever, right, because one of
my favorites is Ginger Snaps, and I do love an
American werewolf in London, and I spent like months and
a lot. Unfortunately they suffer from both not enough budget
to dedicate to the Werewolf Transformation and not enough budget

(17:51):
to get good actors, you know what I mean, Like
they can they can't. Really, a lot of them can't
balance both. The only other like really good werewolf movie
I would ever recommend, well, I mean I'd recommend several.
But the other big one aside from American Werewolf and
Ginger Snaps is one called Dog Soldiers, and that one's
closer to action horror than American Werewolf or Ginger Snaps.

(18:12):
I feel like Ginger Snaps American Werewolf are very layered
and have a lot to say about the topics that
they're covering because they're very different topics, right. American Werewolf
interprets werewolf ism in a very different way than Ginger
Snaps does. But Dog Soldiers is like good fun. It
almost feels like watching like action romp. There's just werewolves

(18:33):
thrown in there and then you're in like the background.
The backdrop is Scotland. But it's again one of the
few that had a good enough budget to like. The
Werewolf Transformation is cool. The werewolves are scary.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
Wait I've seen this movie. Yeah, now that I'm looking
at the images of it.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
During my Werewolf kick, it was the only one that
stuck out to me. I was like, huh, this was
pretty good, and I rewatched it recently just to make
sure my opinion was right, you know, because you watched
something the first time enamored, and then you watch the
second time you're like, oh no, that one of dog
soldiers does take a really bizarre misogynistic turn at the end,
and I feel like some scenes got edited out that
maybe would have explained it. But aside from that, it's

(19:13):
a fun were wolf movie, but it's a hard genre
to I think, pull off successfully. And then on a
personal note, Twilight kind of ruined my life with were
wolves because everyone started associating werewolves and animalism with native
people and the amount of like questions like God, and

(19:35):
the amount of people like that. I feel like the
type of racism I face increased after the movies. In particular,
the book's release was hard enough, and then the movies
just like took it over the edge. So I feel
like Werewolves has also just not gotten good p R
in the last couple of years. Yeah, so I totally
get not being into were wolves or werewolf movies.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
It's a hard one for sure.

Speaker 5 (20:00):
Want to recover Twilight we absolutely, because there's I like,
there's so much we didn't talk about or even know
to talk about the first time we talked about it.
But yeah, I mean, they're just werewolves in general.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
There are a tough cell.

Speaker 5 (20:12):
I think that's an excellent point to make too, is
that the most recent popular adaptation of werewolf stories was
done in an incredibly racist and harmful way. And unless
I'm missing something, there really hasn't been a popular piece
of werewolf media since.

Speaker 4 (20:30):
I mean, I'm coming in so called I'm coming in
at like werewolf bar.

Speaker 5 (20:34):
Mitzvah, Like that's where I'm at with werewolf media.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
Spooky scary boys becoming men, men becoming wolves.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
And I was like, well, it's not going to get
better than this, you know.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
I like the werewolves in what we do in the Shadows,
and that's kind of it. I would say, Yeah, any way,
a quick brain and then we'll come back and recap
the movie. And we're back and here is the recap.

(21:17):
Although first I will place content warning for things like suicide,
sexual assault, animal abuse, and graphic violence toward dogs.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
It really is kind of a you name it of
is a lot of stuper warnings.

Speaker 5 (21:35):
Yeah, I will say before we start, just because I've got.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
Werewolf ber mitzvah on the brain. It is kind of
like relevant the narrative of wear Wolf.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
I mean, like girls.

Speaker 5 (21:48):
Becoming women, women becoming wolves. That is kind of the
theme of Ginger snaps.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
That's sort of the log line.

Speaker 5 (21:57):
Like a werewolf bot mitzmore Wow, wonderful observation makes you thank.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
You, thank you. That's all those are. That will be
all my contributions for the day.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Yeah, fine, fun, Okay. So we open on the town
of Bailey Downs, Canada Ever heard of it? A place
that is being terrorized by vicious attacks from some unknown
animal that people are calling the Beast of Bailey Downs.
We then meet two teen sisters who are like goth

(22:32):
not esthetically but like attitude wise in the sense that
they're obsessed with death and they have a suicide packed
since they've been kids. This is Bridget played by Emily
Perkins and Ginger played by Catherine Isabelle.

Speaker 5 (22:52):
It's so interesting because I feel like when we meet them,
I interpreted them originally as at first glance as like
goth in the hot topics sense, and then it's like
they you yes, but also there's.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
More going on right, Okay. So at school, Ginger and
Bridget are in gym class, playing field hockey, and Bridget
says a bunch of mean things about this popular girl,
Trina Sinclair, the.

Speaker 5 (23:20):
Most popular girl name of all time, Yes, Terrina.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
And she overhears Bridget talking shit about her, and so
she pushes Bridget down into the carcass of another dismembered
dog that has been attacked by the beast of Bailey Downs.
And it really makes you wonder why there's just this
dog carcass in the middle of a playing field at

(23:47):
a school, just out in the open, has not been
cleaned up, and.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
No one has an appropriate reaction to it.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
I watched this movie so many times and every time
I get to that part, I'm like, this just you
would smell it, right, Yeah, for sure, I know it's
Canada and cold, but it's not that cold like you
would notice it before you face plan it to it.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
Like that part never makes it.

Speaker 5 (24:08):
We had to have been cut there, right, Because I've
rewatched that.

Speaker 4 (24:12):
Seen so many times, I'm like, I'm missing something. I'm
missing something.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
How didn't know?

Speaker 4 (24:16):
And see the open dog?

Speaker 3 (24:20):
I think it's just a goof it works whatever Ginger
and Bridget form a plan to get back at Trina
by making it seem like her dog has been attacked
by the beast. Meanwhile, there's this boy who has been
ogling Ginger. This is Jason, who to me looks so
much like Justin Trudeau. And then I found out that

(24:43):
this was a Canadian movie, and I was like, is
that secretly a young Justin Trudeau?

Speaker 4 (24:50):
Interesting?

Speaker 1 (24:51):
No, I see it, I totally see it. Maybe they're
like long distant cousins. I think did anything about that? Wow?

Speaker 4 (24:57):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
Anyway, he approaches Ginger and asks her out, but she's like,
ooh no, because she's above the idea of like being
a teen girl who likes and dates boys. That's too
like normcore for her. So at home, Ginger and Bridget
have dinner with their mom and dad, who are like

(25:20):
very speaking of norm coore, very much so compared to
their daughter's like emo gothiness. Ginger complains about back pain,
and their mom is like, maybe you're finally getting cramps.
Maybe you're finally getting your period, because apparently these two sisters,

(25:41):
as their mom describes it, are three years late getting
their period. They're fifteen and sixteen, Like you know the
age ranges for when people start menstruating, but their mom
feels like they should have gotten their periods by now.

Speaker 5 (25:57):
Yeah, which is like, I mean, we'll talk about the
mom a lot because I was sort of surprise at
where her story landed. Yeah, yeah, in a more positive
way than I was expecting, because I feel like we
just covered Jawbreaker, which one of my like criticisms of
that was that the adults were so like underthought that
it was unclear like the world that we were really in.

(26:20):
It was interesting because I do feel like there's it's
like an over the top especially for people who meant
straight like I was a super late bloomer and it
came up in the family, which is mortifying. I don't know,
I felt seen by that.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah, yeah, I love Pam of all movie horror movie moms.
She always has like a very special place of my heart.
She's so like loyal and again, we'll talk about her
more later, but I just every time I watched this movie,
I'm like justice for Pam.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
Also, I feel like there's a lot of like great.

Speaker 5 (26:56):
Of the time passion in this movie, but I feel
like Pam kind of takes it.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
She really does she's got the.

Speaker 4 (27:03):
Embroidered shirts of like others nightmares.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
And like her little pumpkin ear rings.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
I'm like, we're little poofball ear rings. And her hair
scrunches and the hair.

Speaker 4 (27:16):
Great performance. Yeah, she's just a mom who's constantly like
isn't that fun?

Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, she's great. She's played by Mimi Rogers. Mimi Rogers. Okay,
so the sisters go out that night to execute their
plan with Trina's dog, but they come upon an already
mulled dog at a playground and they're like, oh, well,

(27:44):
we'll just use this. But before they can do anything
with it, Ginger gets her period and says, I just
got the curse. Funniest Bechdel test passing exchange in the
movie for me, Yeah, because then Bridget says, oh, and
then Ginger says, it's not contagious anyway.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
It's a great exchange.

Speaker 5 (28:07):
Yeah. And then she's like, if you ever hear me
like griping around a tampon machine, frigging kill me. I
was like, yeah, just you wait, just you wait.

Speaker 4 (28:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
Okay, so maybe because she's gotten her period and there's
blood now, but the beast attacks Ginger like pops out
of the woods, drags her back into the woods. Bridget
goes after her. There's a whole scuffle with this beast
and it chases them onto the road, but then gets
hit by a van and killed, allowing the girls to escape.

(28:43):
The driver of the van is this weed dealer guy
named Sam who we've met before because the popular girl
Trina seems to have some kind of history with him.

Speaker 5 (28:56):
The Sam character, I just feel like he wants to
be Christian Slaters so bad.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Oh, yeah, I see that.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (29:03):
I feel like there's a whole slate of kind of
like bruneout style character actors that come out in the
nineties into the two thousands that are just doing a
really solid Christian Slater. In Heather's impression, a slate of
Slater wanna be a slate of Slaters, one could say, yeah,
a real bunch of mister Robots.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
So okay, the girl's hurry back home. Ginger has sustained
some pretty serious injuries from this beast attack. She's got
these big gashes on her shoulder and she doesn't want
anyone to know about this, and she's somehow already healing,
but she's not feeling great, which could either be period

(29:48):
cramps or the fact that she's turning into a werewolf
question mark because Bridget had managed to take a polaroid
of the during the scuffle, and it's not super clear,
but it looks like it might be a were wolf.
So then Bridget approaches Sam to be like, hey, what

(30:10):
did you hit with your van the other night? And
he's like, I don't know a were wolf and she's like, hmm, interesting,
that's what I think too. And then Trina comes up
with her dog and it starts barking at Ginger on
account of her now being a were wolf, so she

(30:30):
kicks the dog horrible seemed to watch and runs into
the bathroom and they discover fur growing out of the
gashes in her shoulder. Period. Blood is like gushing out
of her and snarly. Bridget's like, yeah, I'm pretty sure
you're a were wolf, and Ginger's like, that's ridiculous. Were

(30:52):
Wolves aren't.

Speaker 5 (30:53):
Real, and being a were wolf gives you awesome highlights too. Yes, yeah,
I loved the werewolf highlights. Great touch.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, I loved the gradualness of her clause too. I
clocked it more this time around, because every time I
was like, oh man, her nails look so good, and
then I like, look closer, I'm like, nope, those are claws.
I thought that was a very interesting This also, too,
is one of the few werewolf movies where it's not
a sudden transformation, which again we can talk about later,
but I can't really think of any others that imply

(31:25):
once you turn, that's you twenty four to seven. And
I feel like that's what this werewolf.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Movie implies, right, yeah, yeah, with her transformation, you're just
like extra were wolfy on the full moon, but the
rest of the time you're like just kind of were wolfe.

Speaker 5 (31:39):
I saw like a lot written about that in like
a positive way, where it was like this, like, werewolf
movies are so often beheld to moon cycles, which are
very similar to menstrual cycles, and the fact that this
movie doesn't fully lean into that is like kind of
a strength because that.

Speaker 4 (31:55):
Would be the super obvious thing to do.

Speaker 5 (31:57):
And I feel like it makes Ginger's emotion journey like
slowing it down does make it scarier.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Absolutely, because you're like, is she changing because of her
puberty or is it because of the werewolf virus? And
I think that's a relatable experience as a young person
having all of her friends have crazy hormones all the time,
you know, So I.

Speaker 5 (32:20):
Love that choice and seeing her like really struggle with
it too and be unsure about how she feels about
the changes that are happening in her, Like it's it's great.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
So the sisters get into an argument. Ginger thinks Bridget
is jealous because Gingers growing up into a woman and
Bridget still isn't. So they have this fight, and at school,
Ginger is now wearing like form fitting clothing. People are

(32:51):
noticing her and being like a wooga. She's making out
with that Jason guy and ignoring Bridget. Meanwhile, Bridget starts
researching werewolves. She's also tracking Ginger's menstrual cycle and it
seems like her next period might start.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
On the full moon.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
She also discovers that Ginger is growing a tail, and
she links back up with Sam. Bridget does so that
they can figure out what to do about this whole
werewolf thing, and Sam speculates there might be a cure.
Side note, this is like not super narratively consequential, but
like at first, Bridget tells Sam that it's her who's

(33:34):
affected by this to like protect Ginger, yah. But by
the end he figures it out.

Speaker 5 (33:39):
Which made me confused at first because I have one
brain cell. I was like, wait, what what outsmarted by
a teenager yet again?

Speaker 3 (33:48):
But anyway, he gives Bridget an earring made of pure
silver because he's like, maybe it'll purify your blood and
like rid it of this infection. In the meantime, has
sex with Jason and kind of like chomps on him
a bit, although she doesn't kill him, but she does

(34:10):
kill a neighbor's dog, Norman the Dog, and that's very sad.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
I know, the King, I love the goalie.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
The goalie I know, oh yeah, and he's like Norman.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
He's like Norman norm a hockey representation.

Speaker 5 (34:27):
That's like you're like, oh yeah, the movie takes place
in Canada because he's just like playing hockey by myself
at home. Classic between that and the stories, Oh my god, yeah,
every time she was sorry, Okay, I didn't realize I
forgot that it was a Canadian film until a while
into the movie and then someone says sorry and I'm like,
oh my god, they're in Canada. It honestly is so

(34:49):
wild seeing a teenage This is a very American observation,
but like seeing a teenager in crisis with a Canadian
twang outside of the was truly shocking to me.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
I was like, wait, when are they gonna go see Drake?
You know, but that's not how this movie goes.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
Mm hmmm, Okay. So Ginger and Bridget kind of make up,
and Ginger confides in Bridget that she has this insatiable
hunger and wants to tear everything into pieces.

Speaker 4 (35:22):
She might be snapping.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
One could say she's on the brink. She's a snap
is impending saying.

Speaker 5 (35:29):
Yeah, snap impending is That's that's sort of my status
of take very I will say the seed.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Where she's like throwing up and talking about I tried
to look at my nose if I wrote down their quote.
But any goth horror girl, that's like the favorite quote
of I thought I was craving sex, but I want
to tear everything to fucking pieces. That is one of
my favorite It's just because I feel like too, especially
by two thousand, you know, girlhood teenage girl rage was

(35:59):
so rarely explored, especially in the manner that this film
explores it. So that is one of my favorite lines
in the whole movie.

Speaker 5 (36:08):
Yeah, that was the line where I was I turned
to my boyfriend, I was like, this movie was I
guarantee very popular on Tumblr That line alone, likely this
movie did numbers on Tumblr.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
In the future.

Speaker 3 (36:26):
Okay, So then Bridget has the idea to pierce Ginger's
belly button and put in the silver earring in case
that cures the werewolf ism. But it doesn't seem to
do anything, and her tail by this point has grown
so much that they have to tape it to her leg,

(36:47):
so the werewolfights is getting worse. Then there's another field
hockey gym class fight with Trina scene there's at least
to it in the movie, where Ginger beats the shit
out of Trina, so they're still feuding. Meanwhile, Jason is

(37:08):
pissing blood and turning into a were wolf as well.
It's stated that he and Ginger had unprotected sex and
she passed along this because the movie treats the like
werewolf ism as a disease, like it's an infection that
can be passed on through sex. So he's becoming a

(37:30):
werewolf now. Ginger and Bridget then go to Sam's greenhouse,
where he grows all of his weed.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
And lives there. By the way, he lives at the Greenhouse.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
And get ready, yeah, yes, yes, yes, yep. He tells
them about an herb called Monk's Hood and how it
could be a cure, but it's a perennial and it
only grows in the springtime and it seems like it oh,
it's like fall. It's like Halloween time right now, So
this doesn't really help them. And Ginger, let's say her

(38:01):
snap is closer than ever before. One night, Trina, the
mean girl, comes over to confront the sisters about like
taking her dog, and Ginger attacks Trina, who trips and
hits her head and dies right when the sister's parents
come home. So they do this like clever cover up

(38:24):
and then they bury Trina in the yard and make
a plan to just like run away after they're sure
no one suspects them of killing Trina. Meanwhile, Jason is
becoming more were WOLFI he has this like intense rash
on his face, his teeth are getting sharper, he's growing

(38:46):
a tail.

Speaker 5 (38:47):
This is silly, but I was looking up the actor
who played Jason, and he plays another character named Jason
in Final Destination three.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
My favorite. He's the boyfriend that actually dies on the
roller coaster at the beginning.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, he's barely in it. But also
the wee guy is also in Final Destination three. We
really he plays the goffy guy who like gets squished
by the giant sign. It's the same act.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
Oh my god, wait with the other Canadian actor who
was on Instant Star. I remember that. Wow.

Speaker 5 (39:23):
They literally just were like, oh, can we get the
guys from Ginger Snaps?

Speaker 3 (39:27):
Are they available?

Speaker 4 (39:28):
But yes, yes, can they play the same character. Also, yeah,
that's so funny. Oh yeah, there he is Ian. I
remember him. I remember him.

Speaker 5 (39:39):
He's It's so hard because that movie is like Mary,
Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman and others.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Unfortunately, I do also like Final Destination three. As far
as sequels, I actually really enjoy the whole series. A
Final Destination I think it rocks, except for the weird
I think it's the fourth one where it's like a
racetrack one that one blows. It's not fun, it sucks.
There's like a weird racism storyline that doesn't work very well. No,

(40:05):
but the rest of them I think are super fun
and scary, and I'll watch anything. Tony Todd is in,
especially if he's representing death between that and Candy Man.
But but battle the two three is definitely one of
the one of the funner ones.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
I think that's my favorite scene.

Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, oh god, and the nail gun one because I
also work in a scene shop for a long time now.
Of course, with all the deaths, that is so extremely unlikely,
but it's not impossible.

Speaker 5 (40:34):
And that is where Final Destination succeeds every time. The
tanning Beth said in Final Destination three is the one
I think about the most.

Speaker 4 (40:41):
Yeah, all the time, all the time.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
Oh she yeah, brutal Okay. So Bridget realizes that her
mom has bought a bunch of dried monkshood, the herb
that could potentially be the cure they're looking for, from
a craft shop classic Pam. This is just in time

(41:05):
because Ginger is really on the verge of a nervous
snap down, we'll say, And Bridget locks Ginger in the
bathroom so that she can't hurt anyone, and Bridget takes
the monks hood to Sam to make the cure and
they craft this like injectable version of it. But when

(41:27):
Bridget goes home to administer it, Ginger is not there.
She has broken out of the bathroom, gone to school,
and she kills the school guidance counselor. Meanwhile, Bridget runs
into Jason, who is even more were wolfy, and I
would say he's having a adjacent snap ad.

Speaker 4 (41:48):
Jason snaps that as fun.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
A little scarier too sometimes with his Then yeah, I mean,
we're along with Ginger for the ride, and she's been
shown to be cool, but his happen is like also
like familiar too in a way that's uncomfortable. Like I've
been around teen boys who without the werewolf ism act
like right, you know, So his character was written a
little too well in some aspects.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
Yeah, it's almost like boys and men are socialized to
be overly aggressive in many contexts.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
And girls will cure them.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
Right, Because what happens is Bridget injects him with the
cure and it seems to work pretty instantly, so we're like, okay,
the cure works. So then Bridget finds Ginger and she's like, okay,
we'll just clean up the body of this dead guidance
counselor and then we're gonna run away. And by now

(42:47):
Ginger is looking quite wolfy. She's still like humanish but
also wolfish, and she's pretty evil now. She doesn't seem
to have as much remorse as she once did. I
would say it's safe to say that Ginger has snapped

(43:07):
at this point, because she attacks and kills the school
custodian for pretty much no reason, and she tries to
convince Bridget to become a werewolf like her, and Bridget refuses,
so Ginger storms off and approaches Sam, attempts to seduce,

(43:29):
slash assault him, and then Bridget comes in to save
him by cutting her hand and exchanging blood with Ginger
so that Bridget will get infected with werewolf ititis and
that'll kind of distract Ginger. So Bridget and Sam take
Ginger back home to make more of the cure, but

(43:52):
by now Ginger is like full werewolf and Bridget is
also turning into a were wolf because of this like
blood exchange thing, and Ginger is just kind of running
around the house on the loose, and Sam and Bridget
are making the next cure, but then Ginger wolf grabs

(44:15):
Sam and bites the shit out of him. Bridget finds
them and starts eating Sam's blood, but realizes, like I
can't do this. I can't. I refuse to embrace where
wolf culture. So she and Ginger have like the big

(44:35):
final showdown. They're chasing each other. Ginger lunges at Bridget,
who stabs and kills Ginger, and so Bridget is very
sad that her you know, beloved sister is dead. And
that's how the movie ends. So let's take a quick

(44:57):
break and will come back to discuss and we're back.

Speaker 4 (45:11):
Boy, are we where to begin?

Speaker 5 (45:14):
I also, I just want to talk about the ending
really quick. Where the ending may be so sad?

Speaker 1 (45:20):
I know it's a bummer. Yeah, every time I watch
it it makes me so sad. But also it just
there was no personally, no other ending to be had.
Ginger was too far gone right. And I also thought
it was interesting too because they're so death obsessed this
entire movie, and but this situation, this virus, this scenario

(45:42):
proved that, especially for Birdwate, she did not want death.
She was never she did not want to die with
her sister. So it's a very like layered and almost
makes it more.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Sad too, you know.

Speaker 4 (45:53):
Yeah, the more I thought about it, the sadder it.

Speaker 5 (45:55):
Made me because on the second feeling, I also noticed that,
you know, it almost seems that Ginger chooses death because
Bridget is holding the syringe. Also she's holding the cure,
and she's holding the knife, and Ginger lunges onto the
knife because, like you're saying, Olivia, I think Ginger almost

(46:18):
recognizes that she is too far gone and that it
gives her sister the best chance to survive if she's
not there, which is like Shakespeare and it's really brutal.
And I'm trying to remember I don't have the citation
in front of me, but I read an interpretation of
this movie that speaks to what you're saying, that how

(46:39):
they are so death obsessed in the way that I
think a lot of young people are in a world
where it still is a more nebulous concept.

Speaker 4 (46:49):
We don't really know that they've had.

Speaker 5 (46:51):
First person interactions or brushes with death really, And I
mean I know that I was like that as a kid,
where you know if you're unhappy, and it's kind of
a more like a morbid nebulous concept.

Speaker 4 (47:03):
It's almost I found it easier to interact with than
I do now. But I read sort of Ginger's character.

Speaker 5 (47:10):
Of being a meditation on suicidality in young people, where
it's revealed, you know, as time goes on that Bridget
is sort of interacting with the concept out of curiosity
and Ginger may not be.

Speaker 4 (47:24):
Because we see Ginger makes an attempt on.

Speaker 5 (47:26):
Her own life in the you know space of the movie,
and that, you know, it's sort of implied that while
their parents care about them, they're not an adequate support
system for you know, kid who's depressed. That wasn't necessarily
my read of it, but I thought it was interesting

(47:46):
and that, I mean, it's certainly a valid read of
that character dynamic.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Absolutely, And I've watched this several times. I think each
time I get really enamored with the special effects with
you know, dissent to werewolf ism. But this time I
really focused in on the relationship between Bridget and Ginger.
And I have a sister and I'm very close with her,
but our relationship is not like this where we're so

(48:15):
co dependent and at some point their relationship becomes extremely
toxic and abusive. And so because in the very beginning,
Ginger says, well, Bridget, this whole death thing was your
idea when you were eight years old. So I think
that speaks to Bridget's curiosity with it, but because Ginger
is so dependent on Bridget, it morphed into both of

(48:35):
them being obsessed with it. Yeah, so I agree with
thinking being really sad.

Speaker 5 (48:43):
Yeah, but it also just went away. I wasn't expecting
to where I don't know. I think we just again,
I'm going to call back to a jobbreaker because we
just talked about it yesterday. But how you know, when
Sam is introduced, you're like, oh my god, is this
going to be like deis ex boyfriend like we see
so frequently in movies, And it's not exactly that because

(49:03):
it's not a romantic relationship and he dies at the end,
like I feel like most movies would have him, you know, like,
and it's almost like you're set up to have that
expectation where you know, Sam's like, I'm gonna go out there,
I'm gonna I've got this blah blah blah, and then
he's like instantly dead and you're like, yeah, yeah, that
actually makes more sense. And I didn't dislike that character,

(49:26):
but I don't know, I expected him to live. So
the fact that he did die, I was kind of surprised,
and I was surprised that Ginger dies. I mean, it's
just like, like it went this really really tragic way
that I did not see it going. But I agree
Olivia that, like how else could it end? Once you
see that ending, once you embrace the beast exactly, their

(49:49):
relationship was fascinating. I mean, like there are like little
elements too that I'm guessing are coming from Karen Walton
of just like specific kind of like oldhood things, but
I mean applies across the gender spectrum. But like if
you're like I remember when my older cousins hit puberty before.

Speaker 4 (50:09):
Me, and just the instant feeling of being left behind
and the instant feeling that they had changed, And then
the same experience for my cousins who are younger than me,
all of a sudden feeling like they're kids.

Speaker 5 (50:21):
And I'm at, like, look, they don't get you know.
And I mean, I think, like Emily Perkins gives such
a great performance in this movie too, if like she's like,
I don't know far in the way the performance of
the movie for me, but you can instantly feel how
like disorienting and hurtful it is when her sister is
not you know, when they're not peers in quite the

(50:44):
same way or that, like there's a change in their
bodies that makes it I don't know, like I get
that feeling of disoriented and.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
Also a bit of betrayal too, especially when you go
from them kind of rejecting being a girl. Right, they
don't necessarily want to be the opposite, but they definitely
reject girlhood because everything is well, that's curly. If I
complain about tampons blah blah blah, and then also not
wanting to hook up with guys at that age, transitioning

(51:14):
from having no romantic interest to a romantic interest and
your friend, your sister hating it before you, it feels
like a betrayal almost, And you read that so well
in Bridget. She's a very relatable character, and I think
she's written pretty well too.

Speaker 4 (51:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
I love when she goes, you're doing drugs with boys? Now? Yes, Oh,
it's like because this movie, I guess, I mean, this
is like emblematic of the time, but like weed was
considered like, oh my god, drugs, this person is dealing weed.

Speaker 5 (51:47):
And yeah, like the age of like because I got
high like that, you know, early odds.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
One of my favorite Bridget lines I wrote down is
when her and Ginger are fighting and and Ginger is
becoming hairy puberty wearalism, who knows why? And she says,
at least I'm not hemorrhaging and hairy, and I don't
know that's just I was like, wow, that would hit
me so deep at that age.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
You know it's hilarious now, right it?

Speaker 1 (52:15):
But I thought that was so funny.

Speaker 5 (52:17):
My favorite Ginger read in the movie is like when
she's like making out with Jason or whatever, she's she's
doing her thing and Richid goes Ginger a word and she.

Speaker 4 (52:27):
Goes, is it sorry? And I was like oooh, just
like such a teenage interaction.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Well, another thing I find really interesting about this dynamic
the Again, because sisters are so rarely explored in movies,
you get so few examples of interesting sister dynamics. One
thing that I thought was presented compellingly about this movie
is the like power dynamic also between the and like

(53:00):
the imbalance of power, where like Ginger because she's slightly older,
because she reaches puberty first or gets her period first,
because she is more I suppose, sought after by like
boys at this school, and she has more like social status.

Speaker 5 (53:21):
Which is a different kind of like unspoken pain that
can exist between sisters or friends or whatever. Like sure,
navigating that sucks.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Especially because a lot of people will look at Bridget
and be like, what a little dweeby weirdo, but her
sister's hot, So like right, there's all these things that
are informing this imbalance of power, which, like Ginger exploits
more and more throughout the movie, you know, after she

(53:51):
becomes a werewolf, but even before where she's like doing
very like sisterly manipulative things to Bridget, and I don't know,
it just it felt like a familiar thing to me
that you again don't often see in movies. So yeah,
I just like I'm like, wow, this was written by

(54:11):
someone who understands sisters.

Speaker 5 (54:14):
And like cares about it, because yeah, I mean, and
it is cathartic and cool to I don't know, I
feel like it like speaks to how well written it
is that by the end, it is like really cathartic
to see Bridget stand up to Ginger and be like
you cannot control me, you cannot like make me do
like bend to your will. But even that doesn't make

(54:37):
us hate Ginger, which I feel like is really hard
to do that the fact that even when Ginger, I mean,
she is a full on monster by the end, she's
horrible and like so little of herself remains, but you
still are very invested and it's still horrible seeing her
die because of how connected you know they are and

(54:57):
how it's going to affect Bridget and yeah, I don't know.
And then anyone who's been through puberty is just like,
oh no, yes, it's the time in puberty where your
brain just isn't in your body anymore and you have
to let your sisters stab you to death.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
I do have a lot of thoughts about the movie,
likening certain evil things like being a werewolf to certain
other things that I don't feel aged very well about
this movie. I'll get to that in a moment, but
I did want to first just share a few quotes
from the press kit of this movie just that will

(55:38):
kind of add some context as far as like the
development of the story. So, this movie was directed by
a man named John Fawcett. It was written by a
woman again, Karen Walton shout out, and then the story
they both have story by credits, so they conceived of
the story together, it seems, and then Karen wrote the script.

Speaker 4 (56:01):
Yeah, they work together a lot, I think.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
Yeah. John Fawcett is like the person behind Orphan Black,
Is that right?

Speaker 4 (56:09):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (56:09):
Yeah, and I think they both work. She was an
executive producer on Some quite a few episodes and she
wrote a few episodes too.

Speaker 4 (56:15):
Yeah, which I never watched that show, but I've never
heard a bad word about. I know people love it.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
I've seen I think season one, and then I forgot
to keep watching very classic Caitlin behavior.

Speaker 5 (56:27):
And then I know that she also wrote on Queerisfolk
and read on a lot of that TV.

Speaker 4 (56:32):
Karen Walton did so.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
Anyway from the press kit of this movie quote. In
January of nineteen ninety five, John Fawcett approached screenwriter Karen
Walton with a premis for a screenplay. As Fawcett tells it,
I knew that I wanted to make a metamorphosis movie
and a horror film. I also knew that I wanted
to work with girls. That's basically how it all started.

(56:54):
Walton recalls, John and I talked a lot about working together.
We just had to try and find and idea that
appealed to us. Both Initially, I didn't want to get
involved in writing a horror movie at all. I generally
find them very disappointing as stories and pretty predictable and
frustrating in terms of the depiction of females. However, conversations

(57:16):
with Fawcett led Walton to realize that it was a
genre ripe for reinterpretation. Ginger snaps presented an opportunity to
make something sophisticated, to create real characters with real problems,
characters that are human beings whose struggles are based on relationships.
I found the horror element in the nightmare of trying
to figure out who you are and who it is

(57:38):
that you love that was attractive to me. The opportunity
to put a twist on the subject matter, explains Walton.
Right from the start, we wanted to make a movie
that would entertain. So yeah, I feel like in at
least again the relationship with the sisters and that being
a huge focus of the movie, and that being an

(58:00):
aspect that I think works very well, and again like
a reinterpretation of the werewolf subgenre.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
Well and before so this is a two thousand movie, yes,
and before this werewolf was so masculine, right, masculine, animalistic.
I think really the only depiction of women with werewolfism
before was The Howling, But even then it leaned more
into like sexy werewolf versus what being a woman and

(58:31):
being a were wolf. And then there's another movie called
The Company of Wolves that's a little similar to Ginger
Snaps and that it's kind of an exploration of growing up, right,
but it's not. It's more Alice in Wonderland type of
interpretation of growing up versus this very brutal version of
of growing up. So this was a very for two thousand,
a unique opportunity to lend werewolfsm to specifically female puberty.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Right.

Speaker 5 (58:59):
One of the things I had a really hard time
with on the first viewing of this movie that felt
immediately very dated was the likening of womanhood strictly to menstruation.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
And while obviously there's a.

Speaker 5 (59:16):
Ton of women who do menstrate, that that's not a
universal experience. So in that way, I was like, I
don't know how to feel about that. I have since
looked into you know, there are I'm going to share
some of it in a bit, but there was a
trans analysis of Ginger Snaps that really embraces the movie

(59:37):
and is like, yes, it is very you know, prescriptive
in how it presents coming of age as a woman,
But there is a lot to love if you are
looking for a transread of the movie. Here's what I
connected to as a young person. And I still think that,
like it works in the bloody sense and in the
sense that puberty is horrific regardless of who you are,

(01:00:00):
and it's painful and it's confusing, and your brain doesn't
work anymore and your hairy, and it's scary and all
your friends are being weird poetry.

Speaker 4 (01:00:08):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:00:09):
Yeah, I just start snapping, ginger snapping, and start ginger snapping.
But that that did stick out to me as a potentially,
like kind of overly prescriptive thing.

Speaker 4 (01:00:22):
What if we think about that watching the movie in
twenty twenty four.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
I feel that. And I also feel that because the
movie like pretty intrinsically ties menstruation with becoming a werewolf,
because like Ginger becomes a werewolf the same day she
gets her period, and her cycle seems linked up with

(01:00:46):
the full moon, like the cycle of werewolf dumb. I
was like, okay, because of the history of like people
with uterses and people who men straight being like shonned
from their communities for that, and like you know these
dark ages, patriarchal standards that would like put menstruating people

(01:01:10):
like cast them away while they were menstruating, and that
there's so much shame attached still to this day to menstruating,
and people who mensrate are conditioned to think like, oh,
keep this a secret, and.

Speaker 5 (01:01:26):
Yeah, don't talk about it, don't complain about it, right,
and it's killing you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Which the day that I did my first watch of
this movie, and this is perhaps TMI, but I am
trying to normalize like talking about uterus stuff, talking about menstruation.
I talk to like my cisman friends all the time
about my period because I'm just like they need to
hear this and they need to understand what the fuck

(01:01:51):
is happening. Yeah, But the same day that I did
my first watch of this movie, I had an IUD
inserted because my periods are so painful and I've been
on this like ongoing journey of just like how can
I not have periods anymore? So with that like personal experience,

(01:02:11):
I'm like, yeah, I do get to some degree that
there could and maybe should be like horror movies and
body horror movies about menstruation, because like it can be
a very horrific experience, to the fact that I'm like,
when can I have a hysterectomy so I don't have
to deal with this anymore? It is like ruining my life.
But because there's all this history with shame surrounding menstruation

(01:02:36):
and then like likening that to this evil hunger in
you of where wolf is, I don't know. I'm kind
of all over the place with how I feel about it.
What I feel more certain that I don't like is
the movie also likening being an evil were wolf to
contracting an SDI. Yeah, that's the problem I think I

(01:03:01):
have with the movie. But it's sort of all over
the place.

Speaker 5 (01:03:05):
This movie is doing a lot, and I say that
in appraising way, Like I think it is like horror
movies are the best place to do a lot. It's
the best place to like explore themes like shame and
fear and you know, all this amazing stuff. I think that, Yeah,
where the like werewolf metaphor diverted in certain points I

(01:03:28):
thought got a little bit muddled and was like because
they were trying to do and because they were doing
so much the metaphor was representing like three or four
different things at certain points. Yeah, and some of the
angles worked for me, The puberty angle works for me,
you know. But the STI think felt very dated and

(01:03:49):
shamey and just like sort of extended to a shame
around sex, the conflation of assaults, and like a lot
of the like sex base metaphors really kind of fell
flat for me and were uncomfortable to watch in the future.

Speaker 4 (01:04:07):
I don't know, Olivia, what do you what do you
make of it? As a longtime fan, I got a
lot of.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Thoughts, so I can understand the criticism and being uncomfortable
with the likening werewolf ism, especially to girl female puberty.
And I'm trying to say female specifically as a sex
term like female male, not as a gender term, just
to be very clear. I will say though, part of

(01:04:32):
what I think why this movie has such a cult
following is because we are shamed for our periods. And
the read I got from this movie was the power
in puberty. And that's how like I think, because I
totally understand I'll star interpretation. As you were talking, it
was like, yeah, that is you know, upsetting, But for

(01:04:56):
me watching and also just how clinically minstruation was talked about.
To me, the other characters, the mom, the nurse, there
was no shame in them talking about puberty and about periods,
and it feels like, even though the girls are grossed
out by it, the movie itself is not necessarily shaming.

Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
In my opinion, I tend to agree, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Yeah, the trope of the werewoll virus as an STD.
That has got a comment because not only do I
watch a lot of horror movies, I watch a lot
of horror shows with monsters, with vampires, with everything, and
I have never explored the negativity of that. It's just
always been what it is. And part of that too,

(01:05:40):
is like turning into these monsters usually means implying losing
your soul at the same time, which is how they're
able to do these horrific acts like sexual assault without remorse.
So I agree with also Jamie that the movie is
using the metaphor of verbalism a little timity directions. It's

(01:06:03):
a lot to take it, so I don't know if
I'm necessarily against using the monsterness as an STD. My
interpretation was also the emphasis on just using protection during
sex too. That's Also, this movie is somewhat felt like
an ad for safe sex as well, and I ever

(01:06:26):
wrote down too, I was like, this is more comprehensive
about menstruation than most public schools. Again though I think
that's because they're in Canada.

Speaker 4 (01:06:36):
God, but I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:06:38):
Never forget the abortion episode of Degrassi they were not
allowed to show in the States.

Speaker 4 (01:06:44):
Yep, my cousin and I had to buy a pirated
DVD off of eBay after we stole my aunt's credit card.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
Wow, beautiful story. For me, the problem is with how
historically STIs have been similar to menstruation shamed, and so
much stigma and shame is attached to having an STI.
That to Liken like getting infected with some horrible monsterism

(01:07:18):
and becoming this soul is demon being beast likening that
to having an STI and because of the context, so
much shame is attached to having an STI. That's where
therein lies the problem for me.

Speaker 5 (01:07:37):
I was leaning toward that read as well, and it
is like this movie is so tricky because there are
so many ways to see it. Where I was trying
to imagine how I would feel about like internalized shame
about periods. If I saw this movie when I was
like fifteen, and I really don't think it would have
made me feel ashamed. I think it would have been like,
I think, more just like a super like teenager.

Speaker 4 (01:07:59):
Yes, like you know.

Speaker 5 (01:08:01):
Cathartic, like first of all, seeing menstruation represented on screen,
and I think Olivia, like you were saying earlier, as
it being something that makes you, yes, unstable, but also
extremely powerful, and like seeing it not presented in the
way that you ordinarily see menstruation presented as something that
makes you like fall into these real hysterical tropes.

Speaker 4 (01:08:23):
And because we're like with these characters.

Speaker 5 (01:08:27):
It's like, I agree with you read Caitlin, and I
also like, I don't know, it's so easy to like.
I feel like I keep going back and forth on
how to feel about it, and it does feel like
a movie that really depends on like the individual, because
it doesn't feel like it's trying to shame you about it.
And I thought it was interesting how the different views

(01:08:48):
in the way that menstruation's presented. I think like one
of the things that does really well is like the
very like so.

Speaker 4 (01:08:55):
Yes, your body's going to gush and it's going to hurt.

Speaker 5 (01:09:00):
Like that sort of presented at school and at home
of like it's okay, it's all good, it's actually awesome,
and like that to me like represented the internalized shame.
I mean, they're not ashamed of it necessarily because they
are talking about it, but they're not talking about it honestly.
And I feel like, you know, the werewolf narrative is

(01:09:21):
closer to talking about it honestly, is like brutal and confusing.

Speaker 4 (01:09:26):
And bucked up blah blah blah.

Speaker 5 (01:09:27):
And but yeah, I don't know the STI I think
I just wish that it was maybe even talked about
a little differently, because it did feel like there was
some shamey language attributed to it. Yeah, and then outside
of that, yeah, I think with regards to sex, I
mean it's weird because there's like lines that in isolation
you're like, oh, that's kind of cool, where you know,

(01:09:50):
Ginger is talking about the first time she's had sex
and we'll talk about what that actually means, but like
that she's like, oh, it was like kind of disappointing, and.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
Like I loved that little monologue. I wrote it down
and I'm like, exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:10:07):
Right, Like that's like a very cathartic thing for uh yeah,
having sex with his men. It's often disappointing, and I
really like, I liked that line and that monologue, but
she's responding to she assaulted Jason and Jason while in isolation.
In those scenes where he's very aggressive and really like

(01:10:28):
acting out in the sort of the typical pubuscan teenage
boy way of just like irrational anger directed at women,
often he becomes a villain without taking into consideration the
fact that he was assaulted into this predicament in the
first place, which I don't know if it is the
time it's being written in. It just felt like the

(01:10:48):
we know that it's not right that Ginger did that,
but I just that's sat weird with me.

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's a rape scene that is not
framed as being a rape scene because I think, in
part because it's a woman being the aggressor and a
man as a victim, and that is so rarely, especially
at this time, would that have been even considered rape

(01:11:14):
or assault because the roles are quote unquote reversed.

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
I have one final thought about the STI that I
took known on, and again I think the reason because
I agree with all of your reads, and that has
actually made me think differently about it. However, the only
other thing I wanted to say is that before this movie,
both in horror and just like regular movie and TV shows,
whenever teenagers have sex, it's always the girl that suffers consequences,

(01:11:40):
whether it's being pregnant or the social aspect of being
labeled a slut or whatever. This is one of the
few times that a boy suffers actual consequences from sex now,
and I'm just saying that's a good or bad thing.
That's just an observation I made this time. And I
think if I were to guess that was the purpose

(01:12:01):
of it being presented as STI was to subvert the
trope of boys suffering no consequences when they have sex.
I don't agree with it, but I think that for me,
I think that was maybe the point of it, maybe
the intention.

Speaker 5 (01:12:14):
Yeah, I feel like that if there were some adjustments,
it would like have scanned clear, because you do you see
Jason struggle with what happened to him. I mean, he
was like assaulted by Ginger, and then you see him
do I think what he thinks he's supposed to do,
which is go to the other guys and be like, yeah,

(01:12:36):
that like she like rocked my world or like whatever
weird data slang he us is to describe sex. But
you can tell he's really upset by it, but he's
acting in the way he's supposed to it, and that
feels very intentional, and then you see it's fucked him
up irrevocably, and in one way, I appreciate that this
movie has basically no empathy for men whatsoever except for

(01:12:59):
Sam occasion, but Jason's character. I was like, yeah, I
mean I hear what you're saying, Olivia, and I think
that that makes a lot of sense in a landscape
where this would never be considered, because like centering, and
that was like an interesting part of researching. The production
of this movie was really I mean, it was up

(01:13:19):
and down, but in general, Emily Perkins has talked a
lot about it, and from the beginning was like out
there saying like this is a feminist horror movie, like
there are not.

Speaker 4 (01:13:28):
A lot of movies like it. It's like it's very
important to me.

Speaker 5 (01:13:31):
And I was talking about the onset experience as like
the two male leads kind of being weirded out at first,
because they never participated in a project where men hadn't
been centered. And it took like a couple of days
for the two lead actresses to like kind of not
like lay down the law, but like be like, this.

Speaker 4 (01:13:51):
Is our movie. It's about the stars of the movie.
And they were like, you know, and.

Speaker 5 (01:13:57):
It seems like the relationships between the actors were fine,
but they were just like they were kind of thrown
for a loop, which like really speaks to the nineteen
ninety nine of it. All other stuff I was finding
was unfortunately the difficult part of production that I found.
And this isn't something that the actor who plays Ginger,
Catherine Isabel, like looks back on as like something that

(01:14:20):
was particularly scarring, but she.

Speaker 4 (01:14:22):
Didn't mention it in interviews.

Speaker 5 (01:14:24):
Was that particularly in that rape scene because she was
seventeen when she was playing that part and there was
no intimacy coordinator. She said that she was like she
hadn't had sex before at that time and was like
pretty confused about like what she was supposed to be doing.

Speaker 4 (01:14:43):
She was uncomfortable.

Speaker 5 (01:14:44):
She like took a shot of cinnamon whiskey before because
she was so nervous and like, I don't know very
like dated. I feel like you hear stories like that
on in d sets, but it always just I don't know,
if you can't afford an intimacy coordinator, maybe way, maybe
wait to make your movie if you want to make
a rape scene that is perpetrated by a teenager.

Speaker 3 (01:15:04):
Yeah. Yeah, there's so many levels of concerning things happening there.

Speaker 4 (01:15:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:15:12):
Also, I mean, I don't know how common practice it
even was twenty five years ago to have intimacy coordinators.

Speaker 5 (01:15:21):
I don't think it like even until like the last
ten years it was popular. Yeah, I mean, so that's
not like, I mean, I don't mean to like specifically
call out this movie, but especially because it was an
underage actor, like that's yeah, that's challenging.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (01:15:35):
The other thing that I just thought was worth mentioning.

Speaker 5 (01:15:38):
It's not a criticism of the movie, but just to
like set this in time, was that this movie was
a flop at the box office, which is ridiculous. It's
an awesome movie, but they also had a lot of
difficulty getting it made in the first place. Because this
movie was being went into production around the time that

(01:15:58):
the Columbine shooting happened, and so I found a Guardian
interview from a couple of years ago that sort of
contextualizes the culture that this was coming into. So this
comes from John Fawcett. He says we were prepping for
Ginger Snaps the same year as the Columbine shooting. There
was a lot of focus in the media on how

(01:16:20):
movies made kids violent, and the idea of a bloody
film set in a high school didn't go down too
well with casting directors in Canada. Some of them joined
forces to boycott our film, and the National Post ran
an article on it. All the schools we asked turned
us down, but luckily another film production had just a
set of three tiny school highways that we could shoot on.
We sent Scarlett Johanson a script to see if she

(01:16:41):
was interested in Bridget, but her mother had read the
National Post article and didn't want her daughter involved. So
I feel like this also intersects with a lot of
satanic panic stuff and like kind of the tail end.

Speaker 4 (01:16:53):
Of that period.

Speaker 5 (01:16:55):
And also it was just wild to think about young
Scarlett Johansson in this movie.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
That's crazy. I can't imagine. Isabel does such a good job,
and she's also kind of gone on to be a
kind of a horror Royalty. She's in a lot of
other horror movies and she does a fantastic job on them.
But yeah, it is very interesting to think of Scarlett
Johansson in this role. Actually, recently, sorry, totally going off

(01:17:19):
the track, I recently rewatched eight like it freaks. I
don't know why I was. She is in it. It's
again a very young Scarlet Johansson, and she is hilarious
in it. Her character is mostly like fighting off her
boyfriend and she tases him and the genitals at some
point because he won't take Noah's an answer. It is
a much funnier film than I was expecting it to be.

Speaker 4 (01:17:41):
Damn.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
Okay, Yeah, I've never seen it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
It's interesting. The CTI holds up pretty well too. But anyway,
it's interesting to think of Scarlett Johansson turning into a werewolf.
I want to get back to the weird sexual politics
of the movie, because they do really feel all over
the place to me, where maybe it would have worked

(01:18:04):
a lot better for me if her becoming a werewolf
coincides with her men'st writing for the first time, and
then that also coincides with like she's embracing and being
empowered by her sexuality like she perhaps didn't before, because
we do see that to some extent where she seems

(01:18:26):
even though she describes like I thought I was really
hungry for sex, but I just want to eat dogs
or whatever. But you also see her be something that
you could interpret as like sexually liberated and embracing her sexuality,
and she's doing it in a way that is often
assaulting people because similar to the scene with Jason, she

(01:18:50):
also assaults Sam because we see neither of them consent
to it. We see neither Jason nor Sam. They're saying no, oh, stop,
like don't do that, all this stuff, and she's like
powering past them saying no. But with Sam, he like
pushes her off of him, and his not giving consent

(01:19:14):
is like respected by the movie, where I don't know
whereas like it's treated differently with Jason.

Speaker 5 (01:19:21):
Because it's like we're just supposed to think Jason is bad,
so if something horrific happens to him, it doesn't matter,
which is like, I don't I would be really surprised
if that scene was interpreted in the same way today, right.

Speaker 3 (01:19:34):
But Sam is also bad because we learn and this
kind of blink and you miss it almost because like
we're meant to feel empathetic toward him because he's helping
the sisters out with this werewolf problem, and it's not
even though he's reluctantly helping them out, because I feel
like generally you would see a male character who is

(01:19:56):
helping women or girls do so very really reluctantly, but
he's like approaching them and being like, let's figure this out,
let's find the cure. And Yeah. Then there's a scene
between Trina and Bridget where Trina tells her because Trina's like,
she thinks like maybe Sam and Bridget are dating, and

(01:20:17):
she seems jealous of it at first, but then she
confides in Bridget that Sam I think. She calls him
a cherry chaser, meaning he only goes after virgins, and
basically implies that Trina had sex with him, like lost
her virginity to him, and then he cast her aside
and she feels awful about it.

Speaker 5 (01:20:40):
We do see that scene where she tries to talk
to him and he ignores her.

Speaker 3 (01:20:44):
He's very dismissive. Yeah, for sure. So you find this
out about Sam, so then when he dies, you're like,
good riddance, But it's weird that that isn't I guess
called more attention to or that that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
So I read that similar to Jennifer's Body. Also, I
did write down our quote Ginger snapped, so Jennifer could
body Jennifer's body, like really, I mean, obviously this was
a small Canadian hit, but it was definitely a precursor
to a Jennifer's Body movie. I interpreted that similar to

(01:21:18):
Jennifer's Body, and that there are many instances throughout the movie,
even at the very beginning when Bridget is getting a
little bit of attention from the janitor and he is
so clearly just wanting to help her, there's no other pretense.
But then Ginger comes up and says, he's staring down
your shirt. We as the audience know that wasn't happening
at all, and Ginger herself more than likely knows that

(01:21:40):
wasn't happening. But because of their codependency and because of
her jealousy and almost obsessiveness with their sisters sisterhood, anything
Bridget has, Ginger has to have. So that's how I
interpreted this, particularly the Sam assault, is that because Sam
was giving Bridget a ten, then that means Ginger had

(01:22:03):
to have his attention, even though I don't think she
even wanted to sleep with him. I think at that
point she really just wanted to rip him apart. I
think too, the way that his was respected more is
because he was older technically, and there is some authority
with being older. I don't really know, but I'm with
you on that one. The reactions to it, to the
handling of both was.

Speaker 5 (01:22:24):
Interesting, especially because I mean otherwise, like, if we're supposed
to empathize with Sam more so than Jason, I mean,
it still doesn't make you Jason being assaulted, right, but
why go out of the way to tell us that
Sam is kind of a scumbag if that's the case.
I think what was interesting this connects to Karen Walton

(01:22:44):
quote is like, I think we are as the audience
because it's sort of because, like Ginger keeps saying it
that we're like supposed to maybe be perceiving some sort
of romance between Sam and Bridget because they are boy
and girl hanging out and that's how that goes in
these movies. But I do think it's interesting that they

(01:23:05):
like that does not go anywhere, and there was an
interview done with Karen Walton a couple of years ago
in Bloody Disgusting by Tatiana Tenrero, who just out and
out asks many queer fans consider a Bridget to be
a queer heroine? Do you think of her as a
character who is queer? And Karen Walton replies, you know

(01:23:26):
what's funny that question I've been asked before, but really
in the last few years people have started asking me
that again. Stories have changed and the way you're reading
that character has evolved. I always like to say about Bridget, however,
you imagine her life after this movie as absolutely true.
I don't want to overdescribe what people could in their
hearts put on her, but I definitely don't think she
was the straightest individual. She's probably a little queer. Probably,

(01:23:49):
I mean, she's so far from thinking about who she
would date at that point in her life, or like
wanting to be with or being in love. It's just
not happened for her yet. I suppose I wouldn't say
it isn't possible that she's queer. Excellent basive answer by
Karen Walton. But I mean again, I think that a
movie I would like less probably a movie written by
a man perceiving teenage girls. And again, just keeping in

(01:24:12):
mind that we just covered Jawbreaker, would default to like,
let's make this relationship explicitly romantic. That will introduce conflict
between Ginger and Bridget. But I think what is more interesting,
even though it does lead to some problematic places, is
not that a relationship is actually happening, but that Ginger
perceives a relationship as happening and retaliates anyways.

Speaker 4 (01:24:33):
And it's not like Bridget is like, do I choose
my sister or my boyfriend? Like She's always going to
choose Ginger, no doubt about it.

Speaker 5 (01:24:41):
But it's how Ginger reacts to her sister just I mean,
really just like forming a relationship outside of theirs that
I feel like causes her to retaliate in this really
violent way.

Speaker 4 (01:24:53):
It's just a more interesting choice.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
Yeah. I kept calling him weed guy in my notes
because I could not remember. Also, their relationship was barely
between Sam and Bridget, barely platonic to be honest.

Speaker 3 (01:25:05):
They weren't like hanging out as friends, right, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:25:08):
Pretty utilitarian?

Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
Right. Utilitarian is such an excellent word, and I couldn't
find it because in my notes, I was like, because
I also like to read comic books and I like
superhero movies, and it feels like there's a fun trope
sometimes in those where it's two superheroes who don't like
each other really but they have to work together. And
that's what Sam and Bridget felt to me. Like Bridget
thinks he's older and gross and doesn't want to be

(01:25:32):
around him at all, And it's so clear Sam sees
her as a child and is treating her as such.
So and it's not even like a brother sister relationship either.
So it's a very unique dynamic that is I feel
really seen of like a utilitarian made up outside of
the comic book superhero genre.

Speaker 5 (01:25:53):
Because he's he's useful to the extent that he has
weed knowledge, like he just that is his funk.

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
He knows about herbs.

Speaker 1 (01:26:02):
He has needles apparently, right.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
He's got drug paraphernalia or wolf Spain, yeah, wolf hood
or whatever it's called. Yeah. I wanted to give a
quick shout out to Ginger, acknowledging that they probably won't
get caught for this at least, you know, pre a
few other of Ginger's murders. But there's a point. It's

(01:26:26):
like right after Trina has died, and it's basically Ginger's fault,
where Ginger's like, you know, no one ever thinks chicks
do stuff like this. Girls can be a slut bitch
teas or the virgin next door parentheses, but no one
will expect us of being murderers. And then she says,
we'll just coast on the way the world works, aka,

(01:26:49):
like the double standards and the sexism and they you know,
gendered assumptions people make about women.

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
And that felt very parallel to a moment later on
when the mom discovers the body and rather than turn
her daughters in, you know, she's gonna ride or die
and burn the house down with the dad and apparently
kill her husband.

Speaker 3 (01:27:12):
Pam, Yeah, she's like, I don't give a shit about dad.

Speaker 1 (01:27:17):
Parallels with that moment because you know, you see Bridget
finally have sympathy for Pam and she says, it's not
your fault, None of this is your fault. And Pam says, well,
the world will say it is. Everyone will say it's
my fault. And I felt like you just can't escape
that sexism, whether it's in girlhood, teenagehood, or adulthood. And

(01:27:37):
I just I really liked those two moments, especially being
thirty minutes after each other pretty much.

Speaker 5 (01:27:42):
Yeah, yeah, I agree that because I was getting like
Pam is like a great comic relief character. She's such
an exaggerated like who is genuinely doing her best, but
is doing what she thinks she's supposed to do instead
of actually listening to her kids, right, which is a
lot of parents, and there is there seem to be
like some degree of internalized misogyny with her as well,

(01:28:05):
And it's like kind of made a joke of that
the parents' relationship isn't very good and whatever, like all
these like kind of goofy divorced jokes, right, But I
really liked that she got a beat at the end
of like because you know, Ginger says stuff like that,
and the way that women are perceived is so drawn
attention to. I feel like it would have really stuck

(01:28:25):
out like a sore thumb if Pam never got any
characterization outside of being kind of like a clueless mom
from a Disney.

Speaker 4 (01:28:33):
Channel show basically.

Speaker 5 (01:28:34):
But you do get that moment from her where yeah,
she's she loves her daughters, you know, like and that
she's like willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to protect
her daughters. And you know, I'm sure Trina's family may disagree,
but but I just thought that was a cool way

(01:28:56):
without even taking a lot of time to show that,
Like it's kind of Pam putting on a show. She's
doing what she thinks she's supposed to do, and the
fact that she will be perceived by the world a
certain way no matter what she says, no matter what
she does. So I appreciated that being there at the end.
I wonder what becomes of her? And what do you
remember what becomes of her in the second movie.

Speaker 1 (01:29:17):
So the second movie picks up right after this one,
Bridget runs away and that's when you learn too not
to be a blummer. But the cure doesn't really work.
It kind of just staves off the symptoms, and she
is up. She's committed because she's a minor. She's found
in a hotel room by herself. She has no identification
on her, so the police catch her and commit her

(01:29:40):
to a mental health hospital, and that's actually where most
of the movie takes place. So most of the movies
her actually trying to escape the hospital and very young
Tatiana Maslani is in it. That one is not written
by Karen Walton. The two sequels are not written by her.
I think she gets character by credits for the second one.
I say that because the second one is not good.

(01:30:04):
I did not enjoy it. I do not rewatch it.
It also, similar to Dog Soldiers, takes a really weird
misogynistic turn at the end that doesn't quite match everything
that has led up to it. But that's what. So
nothing on the mom as far as we know, she's
still with her husband. Interesting, hasn't burned down the house yet.

Speaker 5 (01:30:24):
Bummer, Yeah, yeah, I know. I've got one more thing
to add really quickly. I just wanted to share from
an essay by a writer named Logan Ashley Kinser, who's
a trans writer, wrote about the different transreads of this movie.
We can link it in the description as well. It's

(01:30:45):
from their newsletter, but basically i'll summarize it a bit
that you know, Ginger's transformation has been perceived as a
transgender coming out story, and just I wanted to read
this specific thick line because it really hit for me.
Of reading Ginger as transgender is not the easy reading,

(01:31:07):
but it is the most common her arc is about
the trauma of puberty, and that can also be expanded
upon to be about the trauma of the wrong puberty.
So even though this is like a pretty CIS focused
metaphor that a lot of trans viewers have seen themselves
in that as well, they go on to describe that

(01:31:28):
the read that affected them the most was Bridget as
a trans masculine character, which was the read that was
not presented really in anything they'd ever seen. And yeah,
so I we'll link to that in the description as well,
but it was a really thorough, really interesting read that

(01:31:48):
you know, I don't think was the intended But also
that's like what's so wonderful about about genre movies, is
it just it really opens it up to all sorts
of reading.

Speaker 1 (01:32:00):
And yeah, guy Peace, absolutely, Yeah nice.

Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
This movie does pass the Bechdel test.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
Yeah, several times.

Speaker 3 (01:32:10):
So many times they're talking about being where wolves, they're
talking about wolf's bane, herbs or whatever the fuck the
herb is called. Yeah, there's there's lots of conversations that
pass between various characters, the sisters, the sisters and their mom,
the sisters in Trina, So lots of passes as far

(01:32:35):
as our nipple scale goes, and I feel like there's like,
there's so much to talk about with this movie. We've
just kind of run out of time. But uh so
if we missed anything, We're curious if you know, listeners
have any other thoughts. But in the meantime our nipples
scale where we rate the movie on a scale of
zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through

(01:32:58):
an intersectional feminist lene, I think I'll go three with
this one. I think there's lots of interesting things that
we haven't seen before, not only in this specific werewolf
subgenre of horror, but like horror as a broader genre,
because especially with like teen girls and their sexuality, horror

(01:33:20):
has such a sordid history with that concept, and this movie,
you could argue, is like playing into some of those
specific tropes and then other reductive, harmful tropes when it
comes to bodies and sexuality and it's not really framing

(01:33:44):
assault as assaults and things like that. There's lots of stuff,
but I like the read of if you take away
the weird sexual politics of this movie, and it's just
like a person getting their period at the same time
they become a wolf. That is almost the plot of
Turning Red. It's just a different genre. So and I

(01:34:08):
really like that movie. So I think it's just like
the sexual politics of this movie being all over the
place that kind of takes some of the nippleage off
for me. It's also a very white movie, and the
only I think character of color is.

Speaker 4 (01:34:21):
Killed is the janitor who is brutally murdering.

Speaker 1 (01:34:24):
Correct.

Speaker 3 (01:34:24):
Yeah, and that murder feels like more long and drawn
out and like reveling in the violence of it more
than other characters who get killed. So that sucks. But yeah,
I'll give it three nipples. One goes to Ginger's monologue
where she describes heterosex as it wasn't like I thought

(01:34:46):
it would be. There was all this squirming and squealing,
and then he's done, and then you're like, oh, hilarious
way to describe heterosex. I'll give my other second nipple
to her calling Jason Jeff in that scene, which either
the filmmakers didn't notice or it was just her not

(01:35:06):
knowing what that guy's names caring either way is pretty funny.
And then I'll give my third nipple to Norman the
dog Rip.

Speaker 5 (01:35:18):
I'm gonna go a little higher on this one. I'm
tempted to go closer to four. I think I'll go
three point seven five.

Speaker 4 (01:35:25):
Maybe a little too.

Speaker 5 (01:35:26):
Generous, because I do agree that that the sexual politics
angle of this movie like didn't super work for me
for all of the reasons we discussed, but I also
just have never seen a movie like this. I think that,
especially for its time, it's taking a lot of big
swings and like connecting more often than not. I wish

(01:35:47):
I had seen this movie when I was a teenager.
I think I really would have loved it. And yeah,
I mean, I think just like a really singularly good
portrayal of codependent sisterhood, which is something that I've definitely
experienced with my cousins, and something that feels like, I mean,

(01:36:08):
even when it's unbelievably toxic, you can still feel this
intense love and this kind of trauma bond that can
only exist between people who have grown up in a
dysfunctional household. And I just like more of that, please,
with less of the messy sexual politics. And just like Olivia,
speaking to your point, I also viewed werewolf movies as

(01:36:30):
kind of like a masculine subgenre that I didn't have
much interest in and this movie is a lot of things,
but masculine is not one of them. So I'm gonna
go I think three point seventy five. I'm gonna give
one to Ginger, one to Bridget, one to Karen Walton,
and the remainder to that poor goalie whose dog died.

Speaker 3 (01:36:51):
H Olivia. How about you?

Speaker 1 (01:36:55):
I would give this even more generous, and it's completely
bias because I did see this movie when I was
a teenager and it meant a lot to me, seeing
the complicatedness of puberty. Really that I don't think, you know,
because girls don't get to be angry without it being
taken seriously. A lot of our intense emotions are just

(01:37:18):
seen as freely and this movie does not do that
for sure. So I would give it four nipples, maybe
even close to four and a half. But the reason
I don't give it a full five is because of
the sexual politics, because even this time around, every time
with those sex scenes, it just feels icky. And I
think I reconcile that with the notion of the closer

(01:37:40):
you become to the monster, the more you lose your humanity.
But even then, how necessary were they And also a
very white movie. You know, I get it's Canada, and
I think when a lot of people think of Canada
they think of white people, that there's so many other
people who live in Canada. There was no reason for
this to be a completely all white cast aside from
it just being two thousand, right or nineteen ninety nine

(01:38:04):
when they were filming. And I would give one nipple
to Ginger, one to bridge it, one to Pam every
time I watched this movie, I love her even more,
and then I'll give my last one to the janitor
every time. His is so sad. Oh, and I wanted
to say one more thing too. I've watched this movie

(01:38:25):
several times, and now that I have more knowledge of
just you know, being older and being around more different people,
I also got the trans read this time. It was
really it really came out stronger this time. So I
love that every time you watch this movie, there's so
many different layers to relate to and talk about. So
I just am really appreciative that I got to come

(01:38:46):
on here and talk about a movie I love so much.

Speaker 3 (01:38:48):
Oh my gosh, We're so happy to have you come
back anytime.

Speaker 1 (01:38:53):
Thanks.

Speaker 3 (01:38:53):
Where can people follow you on social media's or anything
else you'd like to plug.

Speaker 1 (01:39:00):
Yes, I am usually doing some fun stuff. I am
in charge of the Native American cultural programming for Texas
Native Health, which is an Indian health services clinic in Dallas.
So if you're a Native creative, I'd love you to
reach out and see if we can bring you down
to Texas. So you can follow me on Instagram at

(01:39:21):
Live Native ninety three and it's the same on Twitter.

Speaker 3 (01:39:25):
Beautiful. Oh, it's always a joy to have you, and.

Speaker 1 (01:39:30):
Yeah, it's trying to be on here. Y'all are so
fun to talk to you, and you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:35):
Can follow us on social media, especially Instagram, I ever
heard of it? At Bechdel Cast, we've also got a
little thing called a Matreon Okay, ever heard And that's
at patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast, where you can
get two bonus episodes every single month, always centering a

(01:40:00):
brilliant genius theme that Jamie and I cook up. And
this month, because it's spooky movie season, we are treating
everybody with a little episode on Pearl and another little
episode on the Exorcist.

Speaker 4 (01:40:19):
I am very very very excited.

Speaker 5 (01:40:21):
Two movies we've gotten my lotter request for, especially Pearl,
to be sure to check it out. You can also
get our merch over on teapublic dot com slash the
be Bechdel Cast. Don't forget it's never too late to
get your beale juice, Team what Scavs or Team Dry
Scavs merge, and it's never too early to get your

(01:40:41):
baby Grinch sexy baby Grinch merch.

Speaker 4 (01:40:44):
So just things to consider. And with that, Kitlin, why
don't we.

Speaker 3 (01:40:51):
Get our periods, get and become werewolves?

Speaker 4 (01:40:54):
Get our period and have that signal the beginning of
the end.

Speaker 3 (01:40:57):
Wow, let's do it. Okay, Bye, Hey Thane. The Bechdelcast
is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and
Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board.
Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals
by Katherine Voskresenski. Our logo in merch is designed by

(01:41:20):
Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For
more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash Bechdel
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