Hustlers with Siouxsie Q

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the bed Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women and um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in
best start changing it with the Bell Cast. Hey, Caitlin, Yeah, Jamie,
thanks for meeting me up on this roof. You look cold.

(00:22):
Oh my gosh, I'm so cold. Hey, can I bomb
a smoke? Yeah? I'm a known smoker, and I'm also
wearing a gigantic fur as unethically sourced as a humanly
could fine? Would you like to get would you like
to get on in? Yeah? I'm so chilly. Okay, Well,
now that you're here, I have an idea. It's called

(00:42):
a podcast, and we're gonna make a funk load of money.
Are you in? I mean, famously podcasters make a hundred
thousand dollars per weekend. So yeah, I'm in. In two
thousand and seven, if you're a podcaster, the money podcasters

(01:04):
were pulling prerecession. It's what they don't want you to know.
We'll see how We'll see how this goes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
there's what could possibly happen. We'll definitely be speaking in
five years. Yeah, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna betray
our trust and take a deal when we both get
arrested after having an illegal podcast. And I really hope

(01:28):
that one of those exists. I don't know what you
would need to be do, I mean, I'm not sure anyways,
I feel I feel confident about that. Intro. Welcome, Welcome
to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My
name is Caitlin Darante, and this is our show where
we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the

(01:53):
Bechdel Tests simply as a jumping off point to initiate
a larger conversation. Jamie, what is the Bechdel test? Though? Okay? So,
the Bechtel test is a media metric invented by queer
cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace test, that
requires the following. There must be for our purposes. There's

(02:17):
different versions of it. This is our version. For our purposes.
We require that there be two named characters of a
marginalized gender that talk to each other about something other
than a man for two lines of dialogue. And it
has to be a recent update. It has to be
a meaningful exchange. We can't define what that is, but

(02:39):
you know it when you hear it. Uh. And fortunately
this is not a movie where I think we will
struggle to find them, so we won't need to really
split hairs on it this week, because this week we're
covering I think one of our more popular requests ever.
We've been getting a ton of requests for this movie
since it came out, before it came out, maybe even

(03:01):
before the trailer dropped, basically, and we were kind of
waiting for the perfect guest to come along and guess what,
she's here, baby, it happened. It's the Hustlers episode and
our guest today she is a writer, performer, and activist.
It's Susie q Wo. Hi, Louise, thank you so much

(03:23):
for being here. Thank you so much for a having
this podcast super duper important, um and be like doing
this movie super duper important, and see having me thank you,
this is the most important part. We're so excited to
have you on the show and to talk about this
movie the same. I have been hearing about this movie

(03:45):
and thinking about this movie since long before it was
ever even released, let alone I actually ever been watched it,
which was only this week, So thank you for giving
me the final excuse to like, you know, I am
of the adult industry. I was doing adult work in
strip clubs around the same time that this movie happened.
Um So, I was really reluctant to watch it. You know,
it's like, oh, yeah, you never know. Yeah, So, I'm

(04:09):
so you had only just seen this very recently, very recently.
Yeah wow, what were You're just kind of like initial thoughts. So, okay,
I have a relationship with it. I feel like every
person doing adult entertainment during this time has a relationship
with this movie somehow. Like, um, so I opened for

(04:30):
jack Is stripper a k. Jacqueline Francis a k a. Jackie,
the cute blonde who's Jennifer Lopez is grabs her boobs, which,
by the way, I can't believe Jacqueline was not shouting
that from the rooftops as soon as it happened until
for the rest of her life. I'm like, why isn't
that like the main part of your brand? Now? I
don't understand. Maybe she had to like sign a boob
grabbing n DA is the kind of famous that I'm like,

(04:54):
there could be an n D A for anything. Sure,
so I knew that Jack was in aolved in the
process of making this film, I did not realize she
had as much screen time as she did, which was
really freaking cool. It's just in and of itself, that
movie existing and what happened to get it made, and
the fact that real sex workers were involved and real

(05:15):
strippers were involved in the making of this movie is important.
And I was worried that that sort of policy and
procedural element of which I am very into all of
those things, particularly as an activist, would somehow not translate
to a good movie that I was that I was
stoked to watch, I was. I was worried, but it

(05:36):
sure did. It sure did to me. Yeah, to me,
this felt like the dirty dancing for adult entertainers, Like
the It was like, it's not a coming of age story.
It is that, but it's it's more than that. It's
a love story about love that is so meaningful and
so unspeakable that like, I can't even like, unless we

(05:57):
had this movie to be to talk about and look at,
I feel like I would not be able to communicate
the type of relationship between women that the adult industry
can create. And that's what this movie is about. I think, Oh,
I'm so glad you liked it. Yeah, Jamie, what's your
relationship with it? I've seen this movie a couple of times.

(06:18):
I was really really excited for it to come out
for a lot of reasons. I mean, because it's the
subject matter is not something you get to see addressed
in depth, much less in like I don't know. I mean,
I remember seeing the trailer for this movie and being like,
this movie is going to be like heavy, but it's
gonna be a fucking blast too. And I really like

(06:40):
movies that address class and inequality and in a way
that doesn't feel like they're bashing you over the head
with it, and also in a way that isn't just
like and here are the white guys that made the
whoopsie Like it's it's so cool to see. I don't
think I've ever seen a movie about this period of
time that focused on first of all, women, much less

(07:05):
New York strippers Like it's such it just takes every
box for me. And I was really excited that it
was written and directed by Lorraine Scafaria too, because she's
so talented and she's been at it forever and um,
I'm excited to talk about the production of this movie
because she really had to fight to be able to
even they wanted Martin Scorsese torect direct this movie, like

(07:28):
all this ship that I'm just this is the kind
of movie where you're like, it's I'm just so happy
that it got made, and it seems like it got
made the way that the creators and the consultants wanted
it to be. So I'm stoked. It was such a
pleasure to rewatch it. What about you, Caitlin, Yeah, I've

(07:48):
seen it a couple of times. On two I saw
it in theaters with my AMC a list thing that
is not a sponsor of our show, but it might
as well be. They really should give us three memberships
they you hear that, Mr AMC. Anyway, AMC is a
girl boss. It's miss ms ms AMC, Abigail Mallory Christian

(08:15):
is her name, and she and she's her nightmare. It's
a metaphor um. So, yeah, I saw in theaters and
then I've watched We watched it twice to prep for
this episode, and I also can't wait to watch it again,
Like this is going to be in my rotation. It's

(08:36):
an instant classic, like instant classic, it's so entertaining, it's
so watchable. The soundtrack is soundtrack. Just I woke up
with all of those songs in my head this morning,
like and I loved how of the time it was,
even though those are like very recent oldies like the
Lord the Lord album and just like the two back

(08:58):
to back Frankie Valley song by the way, I think
he Valley is like one of the first concerts like
in real life of freaking love that moment. But yeah,
the soundtrack is lit. It's so good. I feel like
it's I don't know, this movie is doing so much right,
but I feel like it's so hard to make a
period piece where it doesn't feel like either it's it's

(09:20):
either like kind of unclear when the movie is taking place,
or it's so clear that it feels condescending, where I'm like,
I understand what was, But like with this movie, it's
it's like the recent past, but I feel like they do.
Like I felt like the most ham fisted thing out
of everything, which I still liked, was like panning to
like the first season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Like, okay,

(09:43):
get it, but that places us very specifically, not only
in the place, but also in our understanding of sex
work at the time, and our understanding of like performance
and reality TV, and like we didn't have only fans yet,
we didn't have like this, but we did have Kardashians,
and that honestly change things. I really liked what what

(10:04):
the creators of this movie, and I'm guessing I guess
primarily Lorraine Scafaria chose to tell us where we are
and what and when it is. I thought it was
like just so many cold choices. Yeah, for sure. All right, Well,
should I dive into the recap and we'll go from there?
Yea and Susie feel free to jump in whenever. Alright,

(10:27):
so we open. It's two thousand seven. We meet Dorothy
a k A. Destiny. That's Constance Wu. She is a
stripper at a club called Moves in New York City.
Ever heard of it? She's new there. We see her
on a typical night. Um she's giving some private dances.

(10:49):
She is not making as much money as she had hoped,
especially because she has to hand over a lot of
her earnings to various men who work at the club.
We see a little bit of her home life. She
takes care of her grandmother. One night at the club Ramona,
that is, Jennifer Lopez is dancing. She's very very good.

(11:11):
Wait wait, we have to say what she's dancing too.
She's dancing to Criminal by Fiona Apple. It's one of
my favorite scenes in the movie. It's also, may I say,
don't ever choose that song as your stage song unless
it's like, you know, two pm on an afternoon in
Portland and you're like doing your thing and you've got

(11:32):
But like that, there were the two things about the
movie that like we're like cringe e to me, but
not enough to be mad in any way. It's just
like it's like your mom who's really trying very hard
to accept you as you are and be into your
new life. Like that is the performance that Jennifer Lopez
gives us as Ramona, right, Like she's like her the

(11:53):
pole trick sequence and like everything she does is technically perfect,
and like like not, I'm so curious to hear what
because to me, to me, no, I mean I'm curious.
I mean it's like, yeah, the fun the funeral Apple
Tics was like this might just be a song that

(12:13):
the director likes, but and I also really like as
I was stoked, it's a song that like sex workers like,
and like at the Lusty Lady, which is where you
know where the dancers can control the music and such
like absolutely put on that song, but like the type
of reaction that Ramon was getting with like the money
going every right. I mean, if you can get that
kind of reaction with a stage dance to Criminal, like

(12:35):
do it of course, but that like it did not
ring true to me in the same way that like
propol tricks did not ring true. And someone's like, yes,
that is how you do that dance move? Is that
how you extract money out of a human? I know
it's not in my opinion. In my opinion as someone
who has extracted money out of many humans, like you

(12:55):
know better than such moves, and like I don't do
moves that good, but I made plenty of I will
say about, like you know, whether or not Criminal is
a good good choice. I'm sure there will be plenty
of strippers that listener like, yeah, that's that, I'm so
much money with that song, please go for it. But
I do think that that moment when we see Ramona,

(13:16):
we see her through Justiny's eyes. It's that moment when
like the reality of what was actually happening in that moment,
whether she chose Criminal or whether like and that's possibly
why it was Criminal. That's a song that like I
would choose for like the girl I like to dance
for me, you know, and so like we see her
through those eyes of like, oh man, this is the way,

(13:38):
this is what the fantasy fulfilled. She's like mesmerized by
Ramona's performance. I really love movie moments like that where
you just see like it's just fun to see like
women looking at each other and really just being like
completely taken in by like another woman's persona or just

(14:00):
like what she can do. And I was thinking about
it because this is like different contexts mostly, but we
just did an episode on Chicago and you kind of
get like a similar moment where it's like I want
to be your best friend, but I also want to
be you, Like how do you do what you do?
Like they're just can we exist in the same realm
without destroying each other? Like let's try. So she is

(14:24):
dancing to Criminal by Fiona Apple and people are throwing
tons of money at her, and Destiny is like idolizing
her and her moves. So then we've got that rooftop
scene that we alluded to in our amazing introduction to
this episode, where Destiny goes up to Ramona asks for

(14:48):
some pointers and then Ramona is like, yeah, I'll show
you the ropes and maybe we could even work together.
Then we cut to seven years later where Destiny is
being interviewed by a journalist named Elizabeth played by Julia Stiles.
Was not I always forget that she's in the movie,
and every time I see it, I'm like, oh, yeah, same.

(15:10):
I would say, it's like, what makes this a dance
movie is Julia Stiles. She's a little throwback. She is
Shannon and that like that with like the neon pink
and also the fundamentally all of the dancing in the film.
I'm gonna say this is a dance movie, which is
like possibly my favorite genre film. The casting of this

(15:31):
movie is so I guess it took two years to
cast this movie. They like really took their time, and
I feel like it shows like the casting choices. And
Julia Stiles was like hell bent on being in this movie.
She was like, I don't care what role I'm in it,
I will do anything to be in this movie Saved
the Last Dance from Me. So this journalist is interviewing

(15:55):
Destiny about this kind of former life she has because
when we see her in or whenever it is, she's
like has a haircut and it's like wearing like a
more conservative outfit and she's in like an h G
t V. Living. Yeah, so she seems to be living

(16:16):
like a different lifestyle now. And Elizabeth, the journalist, asks
about when things got out of control. So then we
cut back to two thousand seven, but the movie periodically
cuts back to this interview that's happening. So back in
two thousand seven, Ramona teaches Destiny some moves. They start

(16:36):
dancing together, they get very strategic about the men they
target at the club. They start making a lot more money,
mostly from rich Wall Street guys, and then one night
from Usher okay, wait, okay, stop again that So that
scene is so wild. I mean, I guess that, like,

(17:00):
if you were to think of the most two thousand
seven scenario you could, this would be it. I love
that there's no other like she describes it as like
that was the last night it was good, and that
is the like the point it serves it within the plot,
but other than that, no, we never see Usher again.
It's just like sometimes celebrities coming to the strip club

(17:21):
and spend tons of money and it's an unforgettable night.
I remember when Tears back to back at Avien, Little
Wayne performed and then Cardi B performed and like I
got to dance on stage with both of them, with
like all of my peign star friends, And I was like,
and Cardi B is a fictional stripper at this club Diamond.
I wonder if that was like her name? Do we
know if that was her name? I would assume anyway, Um, yeah,

(17:46):
I love that. The Usher sequence is a fever dream
that is It's true. I'm sure that happened, you know, Yeah, totally.
I just love that. I don't know. You just never
expect to see Usher. You just don't. It's it's a
thrill every single time. And he isn't a lot of
He makes cameos in a lot of movies, sometimes as himself,

(18:09):
such as Hustlers, and sometimes as the DJ from Oh
my God, which movie is it? Is it? Um, she's
all that, she's all that, Yeah, she's all that. Yeah.
I was like, wait, his heart So it's like twenty
years apart, but still same energy. He popped back up.

(18:29):
He's it's so interesting. I wonder because I know that
it was Jennifer Lopez who talked to Cardi B and
was like, you gotta be in this movie. I love
this movie. I wonder how many music stars were like, oh,
it's a j Lo movie. Okay, fine, I well it's
also a Will Ferrell movie, right. That's it's so funny

(18:50):
because I always forget that this is like a Will
Ferrell Adam McKay like produced joint. But then when you
know that, you're like, oh, it is like a movie
about the recession with like a very particular framework. I
guess Adam McKay's involvement makes sense. I always have to
learn who Adam McKay is, and then as soon as

(19:10):
I do, I promptly forget him and everything he's done,
and then I have to learn it again like six
months later. So sorry, Adam, but I still don't know
who you are. He's listening. I like Ercoat, but he's
just like I mean, I feel like he's most known
as like big short guy. That's basically oh so he
like makes movies about the very stylized movies about this

(19:32):
specific recession. So yes, love but the recession he's obsessed. Okay,
I did like that movie. Um, all right, so they're
making a lot of money. Destiny and Ramona have become
very good friends. We learn that Ramona has aspirations to
design swimwear. Um. We learned that she has a like

(19:55):
tween age daughter who she'll do absolutely anything for. We
learned that Destiny decides to go back to school. On
the side, she's she's still working at the club, and
everything is going great. Her grandma's taken care of, she
has her own place. Then the economic crisis of two
thousand eight happens, which obviously significantly affects Wall Street, which

(20:20):
in turn significantly affects how Destiny and Ramona and everyone
at the club will be able to make money because
their clientele is largely Wall Street guys. I guess, like, technically,
if you wanted to, you could pause Hustlers there, watch
the entire movie The Big Short, and then pick it

(20:41):
up and it would kind of almost be an unbroken story. True, smart,
that's it. That's an entire his death. That's if I
were a history professor, I'd be like, I'm just going
to sit in the back today and we're going to
learn about the recession, and I'm not going to say
a damn word. So Destiny stops dancing for a while.

(21:03):
She has a baby with her boyfriend Johnny. A few
years past. She is struggling financially this whole time, she
tries to get a job in retail. She calls former
regulars of hers to try to get them to give
her money. Um She's unsuccessful, so she eventually goes back
to the club, but isn't able to make the same

(21:25):
kind of money that she was making with Ramona before,
until she runs into Ramona one night, who catches Destiny
up on what she's been doing, which has mostly been
going fishing, where she and a couple other dancers at
the club, Annabelle, who's played by Lily Reinhardt, and Mercedes

(21:49):
played by Kiki Palmer. Palmer, I love I have an
Adam McKay as she with Lily Reinhardt, and that every
time I see her, I'm like, I've seen this woman before,
but who is she? Kki Palmer, I don't have that problem.
I'm a Kiky Palmer stand for life. She's great and
she's so good in this movie. She's so funny. So

(22:10):
these women go to a bar, they find a rich guy,
get him drunk, take him to the strip club, where
he does not realize they work at knowing that he
will spend a lot of money there, and then they
have negotiated a percentage of his spending with the club.
So this is something they regularly do, although it doesn't

(22:31):
always work. So to kind of streamline this process and
ensure it's success more often, Ramona comes up with a
slightly different version of the plan where they will give
the guys that they meet a mix of ketamine and
m d M A the most illegal version of the plan.

(22:53):
It's like everything's going well and then we're just going
to ramp it up a little bit through poisoning by crimes. Yeah,
like Ramona walking and be like okay, slight, tweak and
no one panic. I mean that's what it was like
in two thousand eight like one And also like in
two thousand eighteen, postessed a fasta of just which is

(23:15):
a piece of legislation but limited speech about sex on
the internet and shuttered a lot of ways for people
to uh So, I mean, like this movie is one
percent about what happened to strip clubs after the recession.
Like I said, after I watched it, I feel like
the entire thing can be like summed up in that
moment um when she sees this the house mom um

(23:35):
working the front at the bar, and she's like, oh, there,
you're out here again. The house mom says, yeah, these
are all Russian girls and they're charging three hundred dollars
for blow jobs in the back. And like that was
North Beach in San Francisco when I was dancing in
two thousand nine at the Lady one Percent. And then
like the fall out of what happened, I mean like
I started doing escorting and born and like went on

(23:57):
to creat my own content and what I'm doing now.
But the fact that women moved from the club outside
and had to like ramp up what they would do
and what they were willing to do and take legal
work and you know, start turning it into criminality out
of desperation is the story that we were all living

(24:20):
during this time. So it was while to watch it
played out by celebrities. Yeah, there's a quote I was
going to share at some point. Seems like now it
is a good time from Jacqueline Francis, who consulted on
the film, and who uh you opened for? You, said
Susie Jack. Sanna jacka stripper. She says in this oral

(24:41):
history of the movie Hustlers quote, when I read the
story a couple of years ago, meaning referring to the
article that this movie is based on. Um, when I
read the story a couple of years ago, I was like, damn,
this is an amazing story. And yeah, it's problematic. Surviving
under capitalism is problematic for everybody, and it's important to
just talk about it, unque. And I feel like that's

(25:05):
a lot of what this movie accomplishes, talking about and
showing what it can look like to have to survive
under capitalism, and the lengths some people in certain professions
have to go to in order to survive under capitalism.
And you know, we can talk more about that later,
but okay. So Ramona pitches her plan of drugging people

(25:32):
without their consent as a way to get the men
to spend more money and faster, and Destiny is reluctant
to join them. She thinks people will get hurt, but
eventually she agrees, so they start implementing this plan on
these rich guys they find it bars, they take them
to the club, they rack up their tab, often having

(25:54):
them spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in
a single night. We seem perfect their drug cocktail, and
like the ratios of the drugs that cook scene is is,
oh my gosh, extra special. The most wholesome babysitters club
version of cooking drugs in your apartment that the world

(26:17):
has ever seen. Warm your heart. I know it was.
I was like a friendship is amazing. Wow. To take
away from that scene of cooking drugs basically in an
easy bake oven, like it's not not it's a hot plate,
but it's not not an easy you know, so funny.
I love it. Okay. So they're perfecting their methods. They

(26:37):
also start outsourcing to other women to bring in more
clientele and kind of like cast a wider net. They're
making tons of money and they're working is this kind
of big, happy, rich family. Then they realized, they're like,
wait a minute, why are we splitting our earnings with
the club, But we could just be taking everything we make.

(27:00):
So they start meeting the men in hotel rooms, um
without security because like clearly the security guards at the club.
We're not providing them enough assurance to think that they
should hire outside security when going to a motel. Just
just wanted to point that out. And then Ramona brings
in this woman, Dawn, to help them out, but Dawn

(27:22):
is very sloppy. They end up burning through their regulars,
which leaves them having to find strangers who are unpredictable.
One night, Destiny has to deal with this guy who
had jumped off his roof, thinking that he would like
jump in his pool, but he doesn't and he really
badly injures himself, so she has to take him to

(27:43):
the e er. Then, like immediately after that, has to
get her daughter to school. She's got blood all over her.
Everyone's looking at her, and Ramona is nowhere to be
found while this big fiasco is happening, so you know,
everyone's kind of freaking out. This is also when Destiny's
grandmother passes away, so things are falling apart. Then during

(28:07):
one of the interview scenes, Elizabeth the journalist brings up Doug.
This is someone who they had stolen money from. But
he wasn't this like gross Wall Street guy like the
other ones. He seemed nice. He was going through a
really rough time, but even so they manipulated and stole
from him. So he goes to the police, who then

(28:32):
start to investigate these goings on. A sting operation gets
set up with Don, who had betrayed Ramona and Destiny Don,
but they are too smart to get fucking caught. Yeah,
that was one of my favorite parts. It's just like, yes,
there was a sting, and like these girls right here

(28:54):
are not new right and like that, and that bitch
was not only sloppy with aunts, she was sloppy with
cops in a sting. So nothing became of it. But
they had a very scary drive home across the bridge,
so funny in my head, and like that that was
the Bay Bridge. There was no other way that could
be any other bridge in my mind that they were
driving home over being followed by the by the car,

(29:16):
but not set It's not your life, Susie, other people's
lives in New York. But just like anyway, that feeling
of like knowing something is up and then like every
car that you see is potentially the one that's going
to just stop and destroy your life. Totally. I think
that that that sequence in particular is pulled pretty closely

(29:38):
from the real story that this was adapted from to
where it was like the real life person who was
the inspiration for Dorothy was like also was like, something's
not right with this already very messy person tonight and
like tried to tip off the Ramona of the story,

(29:59):
and it's it's and that their realized story of this
is pretty interesting. And also where it deviates this, well
we'll get there. Yeah. Um, So they don't get caught
and arrested right then after this staying operation, but they
do eventually get arrested. Destiny, Ramona, Mercedes, and Annabelle are

(30:19):
all arrested. Destiny takes a deal to avoid jail time
because she doesn't want to be away from her daughter Lily,
and then the movie ends with Destiny calling the journalist
and her being like, what did ramonas say about me?
And Elizabeth is just like, you know, why don't you

(30:41):
just give her a call? Sounds like you really want
to reconnect with her. And then I think the final
thing is Ramona, who now works at Old Navy, talking
to Elizabeth saying like the entire world is a strip club,
and some of us are tossed the money, and some
of us are doing the dance. I was like, Okay,

(31:03):
we're gonna end the movie on the moral. Got it?
I think like that move when it's like and in
case you weren't paying attention, here is the thesis, David.
If these shadows have offended, but again, like not mad
about it at all. It's so perfectly executed. It's like

(31:24):
nobody's mad when like Dominiquecio sticks the landing, like it's
just good cheer. There's nothing to be mad about. There's
nothing mad about. Let's take a quick break and then
we'll come right back to discuss and we're back. Where

(31:47):
do we want to start? I don't know. I mean,
I am Susie. You were talking about this at the
top of the episode as well. I was curious to
know what, ye know, what elements of this movie stuck
out to you as particular really authentic. Was there anything
that like didn't hit or felt kind of off Um?
Oh gosh, it hit on so many levels. And I

(32:08):
think more than anything, I was just so ecstatic to
be seeing a story about adult entertainment and adult industry
workers that was not necessarily something I had seen before,
and it was a story I mean, I've lived it
one percent. So it was like very exciting to see
things that felt so true and like my partner and

(32:28):
I were sitting in My partner has been in the
industry as long as I have. He's never been a stripper,
but he's been around a lot of us, and um,
we're just like clutching each other because you know the
stakes that we're seeing these like you know, new girls
make and the toxic fem for fem kinetic energy that
like contrauma bond to people, and like the desperation of

(32:53):
the world of economics. I mean, like two thousand seven
was when I shot my first porn scene in Eugene, Oregon.
It was a great time for me too, and I
and two dozen nine, I was dancing on Broadway in
San Francisco and entering the adult industry at the height
of the recession was a trip. You know, it's um,

(33:13):
you really had to believe because the wisdom of the
time was that there's there's no money in this everything's
doom and gloom, and it was a very one was
sure what was going to happen. You know, the way
that people had made money in the strip club was
changing the things that were doing in the strip clubs
were changing, the way that people made money online was

(33:33):
rapidly changing, and the way that adult industry workers made
made money from people who made money online. So really
really exciting. And then it was so obvious that sex
workers had been a part of creating this movie because
of some of the like symbols, like that I was
I was telling you earlier about the fur coat um
component like you at the top of the show. You

(33:55):
guys were acting out the little the scene where Destiny
goes up on the roof and Ramona as they're smoking
a cigarette in her massive floor length for coke and
when she like climbs inside that I was like, oh no,
it's over, It's over. And like I remember one night

(34:15):
I went to work this was it was not in
a strip club but something close um, and I met
a girl. I was like, I didn't really want to
go to work that night, Like I had a couple
of drinks and I got there and it was just
like like not really feeling it. And then I met
this girl and she was like, it looks like pretty
you should put And she had this like furs. It
wasn't real fur, but she had this like furs like

(34:37):
you should wear this night, and I was like, it
was over. It was over. I made no money that night,
not no money, but I like, but like, you know,
someone was like trying to talk to me. I'm like, yeah,
I know what you I was just enamored of this girl,
and like, I mean, Graham, I'm gay. But like I've
seen that happen to straight girls in the industry because
it's like it's that mother wound, you know that like

(35:00):
so many of us have it because of the schism
in feminism around the sex industry. Um. I was just
watching highly recommend Live New Girls Unite, which is a
documentary about the Lusty Lady Keep Show, which unionized in
the late nineties and then the workers bought the peep
show from the people who owned it and had been,

(35:21):
you know, so such bad business owners that they had
to unionize. They eventually bought the place. It's now defuncted
it closed in But that is where I got my
first strip club job. Was this unionized worker own Peach
Keep Show in two thousand and eight. It was really
struggling during the recession. I mean, like when they talked
about going fishing, I mean, we had our own version

(35:41):
of that, but we just not involved drugging anyone. We
would just like put on cute outfits and go down
to UM the ball game Giant Stadium because that's when
the Giants were having their like resurgence of success and
they've been to the World Series twice and so their
success was tied to our success, and so like on
game nights, we would go down and pass out flyers

(36:02):
at the game, like, hey, it's just a short walk
up the beach a dollar. You can see all the
naked chicks that you like. And um, you know, we
were doing everything that we could to stay afloat during
during a really a really rough time. But that fur
coat is such a just like symbol of opulence and
wealth and like old money. Um. Lily Berna who wrote

(36:23):
Strip City UM an incredible book about when the O'Farrell
Brothers theater the workers there sued the theater about their
independent contractor employee status. So if you like this type
of movie, like two recommendations, UM Live New Girls Unite,
which is such a like rinky dink Riot Girl nineteen
nineties mixtape of a documentary. It's so it's so good

(36:47):
if you if you like if you like a zine
You'll Love This. And then um, Strip City, which is
a book by Lily Berna, who occasionally it contributes to
The Atlantic New York Times and stuff. She's amazing, But
the equence in that book about the first time she
could afford a fur coat, and it's like an extravagant expense.
But like a nineties girl in San Francisco probably doesn't

(37:10):
really even need, right, but a strip a stripper and
Sanmons in New York certainly does. But it's such a symbol.
And then when again in the film Hustlers, when Ramona
gives Deskin a fur coat for Christmas, along with red
lu red bottom lubit Hans for Kiki, Like these are
symbols that are deeply meaningful to our community. Like I'm
getting goose bumps just thinking about. It's so stupid, um,

(37:34):
you know, in the same way that the glass slipper
or magic lamp. For like, these things hold meaning beyond
what they are, beyond the money that they cost. Um.
And so that I have a song that I wrote
a long time ago, like when I first had my
my first heartbreak, the first other sex worker that broke
my heart. Um, I wrote a song called homemance about

(37:56):
this very feeling. Even if you're not into girls, if
you enter the adult industry, the likelihood that you will
fall head over heels and this like deep promantic way
promantic way um with someone, the likelihood that she will
become your pimp and exploit you in some type of way.
It's very high. But and like the moral of the

(38:17):
story is that like this love is different and it's
unlike anything else, and it will probably destroy you. And
once you love in that way, like when you violate
the terms of that love and you violate that deep trust,
that like when you have to have someone's back because
like everybody out in the world wants to get you,
including the cops, including the manager of the place you were,

(38:39):
including the man that you're taking money from. The only
person that has your back is that other girl in
the room. And if you turn around and you exploit her,
or if you turn around and you rat on her
to the cops and you betray her, you never get
that back. And it's the most sacred thing in the world. Ah,
that's beautiful. Is that song is still available? Yeah? Check

(39:02):
it out? I can, I can send you the link. Yes,
that's just the link I would love to to share
it with our listeners. That's oh my god, that was
like so beautifully put. Thank you, thank you. It's very
to talk about it. I'm just so glad that there's
a movie about it, Like we needed this. Yeah, And

(39:22):
like you've said, this is so much of what this
movie is about. This like female friendship and camaraderie. There's
a line of voiceover from Destiny where she says, like
Ramona wasn't looking for friends, but it happened. Yeah. This
movie is just I mean, it's mostly about women looking
out for each other, helping each other out, lifting each

(39:45):
other up, knowing what circumstances they are in, because she's
also in the same boat kind of thing, and just
supporting each other. And while there is conflict between the
characters at different points in the movie, like I don't
agree on everything, they take different approaches to things, you know,
Ramona has this tendency to kind of take in strays

(40:07):
as as Destiny puts it with like Dawn and this
woman Coco keeps up. But the conflict that does exist
between them from time to time, like it always makes sense.
There's the context for it, and it's just beautiful to
watch that unfold, especially because and I want to pull

(40:30):
a quote from the article that this movie was based on,
which is entitled The Hustlers at Scores by Jessica Pressler,
originally published in The New Yorker. Quote, while evolutionary theory
and the Bachelor would suggest that a room full of
women hoping to attract the attention of a few men

(40:54):
would be cut throat competitive, it's actually better for strippers
to work together because while most men might be able
to keep their wits and their wallets around one scantily clad,
sweet smelling self, they tend to lose their grip around
three or four end quote. So and I feel like
this is actually something we talked about on the Mulan

(41:16):
Rouge episode, which was from like a million years ago.
But um, there's this really antagonistic relationship between Satine and
one of the other cortisans in that movie. And how
oftentimes relationships between sex workers are portrayed that way in movies,
where there's the idea that they are competing for the

(41:39):
attention of one man, so they have to be very
cutthroat and antagonistic towards each other. But how that is
often not the case in real life among real sex workers. Yeah,
interested if you have any like additional insight about that, Susie. Absolutely,
I mean like I mean, I shot horn, you know,

(42:00):
in college back in two thousand and seven. But I
consider my first real job in the adult industry at
the Lusty Lady, which is where workers literally banded together
to unionize, fight for their rights, um get represented by
s c IU Local seven ninety and eventually by the place.
And if that isn't proof empirical evidence of what's possible

(42:24):
when sex workers band together, and like a huge part
of I remember my very first day walking out on
to the stage, which was like a little fish tank,
you know, because the Keep Show is not a strip club.
It's like an enclosed stage with little tiny windows. If
you watch the Madonna Open Your Heart video or Real
Live New Girls Unite, you will get to see what

(42:44):
it's like. But you know, it's surrounded by mirrors, and
just this idea that like if the window went up
and the guy looked at me and I wasn't what
he wanted, the idea that the girl he wanted next
to me was maybe what you wanted. And at the
end of the day, because we all had collective ownership
of the business. It didn't matter. I was like, oh,

(43:06):
you want to you want to blind? Wasn't blonde at
the time? You want to blonde? Absolutely, Let me at
Princess real quick. She's so nice and they're that feeling
was always a part of that workplace. And I wish
that we saw more of that the adult industry, But
I think I think we are. I think that um,
the way that the workers now can own the means
of production in terms of like creating content online. We

(43:30):
see that there is a customer for every person, you know.
And and while white supremacy still exists, able ism still exists,
classes and sizes, and still exists. The ability for us
to find our niche and find the people who respond
to that niche is there, and it always has been.
It's just been like oppressed by management and um, you know,

(43:51):
other forces that be totally I really appreciated and that
it was just immediately in establishing this dynamic between Ramona
and Destiny of how immediately like Ramona does not gate
keep any information she doesn't get I mean, and and
it sounds like not only because she seems to really

(44:14):
get a lot out of taking younger strippers in under
her wing, but also because it's like she wouldn't benefit
from gatekeeping information in that scenario anyways, and and establishing
that really smoothly and simply at the beginning. I that
was just so cool because I think for like you're saying,
caulin a lot of movies about strippers and also just

(44:38):
about you know, how it's perceived that women fundamentally interact
with each other is like inherently competitive, when that is
most often not the case. We talked about this all
the time, even dance movies. If we think of this
as a dance movie, there's always that part of the
movie of just like, oh, you think that you're this,
well you're not, sister, let me tell you. But like

(45:00):
we don't. We don't get that moment. And until she
comes back at the very end, and it's even it's
not that it's just that the whole place has changed.
It's not that these women are hazing her in any
particular way. She's just not part of it anymore. There's
only one tiny moment that I clocked where there felt
like there was a little bit of competitiveness where Destiny
is trying to get a guy early on in the

(45:21):
movie to buy a private dance and Cardi B. It
is like, back off, bitch, but that's kind of that
only a quick moment. And then later, like a few
scenes later, Cardi B Is helping Destiny and like showing
her how to give a lap Dancey that that's just
learning that, that's just your training wheels. I remember my again,
my very first moment stepping onto the stage. I was like, oh,

(45:41):
when a window came up, I'll go, I'll go talk
to that window. And this girl being like, hey, just
so you know, so like these are my windows, but
this is my dance space. That is your dance space.
Like you have to learn those those ins and outs
of the club because you can't funk with somebody else's
money if they're in the middle of sale. Just if
you were a hot tub salesman and like somebody came

(46:03):
up and you're talking to a nice family at the fair.
They're gonna buy a great hot tub, and this other
guy comes in, it's like, you know what, let me
show you this hot tub. Fuck that guy, you know,
like right, it's the same same thing I wanted. I
wanted to talk a little more about the I mean,
it's the Ramana, destiny, friendship, and dynamic, and I mean,
it's it becomes so many things. It becomes a friendship,

(46:26):
it becomes this like really intense, almost romantic, emotional connection.
They become business partners for a good portion of the movie.
And it's just it's so complicated in a way that
you I feel like, almost never see between characters in
a movie of any kind of total of like you

(46:47):
were saying, Caitland, they're they're in conflict, or they're they're
disagreeing with each other. They're not necessarily in conflict, but
they disagree with each other on almost everything, and their
approaches to the world and to money and to work
are fundamentally different, but they are still able to I

(47:09):
don't know, like exist in so many different ways to
each other. And I thought it was really interesting that
the writing of the movie, I like that you're kind
of given that opening at the end of like, maybe
they will reconcile and maybe this will be, you know,
something that could be rekindled down the line, because what
did they have to lose by being in each other's
lives at this point. But but going back to that,

(47:33):
going back to the real story, it that's a little
less clear, or at least at the time of writing,
it sounds like that they were still very much the
two women that these are based on, these characters are
based on, We're still very much on the outs, which
is like makes me sad. It does seem like by
the end, it's like, well, what, it's totally fair, But

(47:53):
it's totally fair. She ratted her out to the cops
and she like himp handed her. You don't get to
come back from that. You don't get to kids and
be like I'm fine. Those are those are deep transgressions
that you don't heal from. It's it's such a complicated
like it's I don't know, and it's like beautifully acted
and written and shot, and especially because they both have children,

(48:17):
you know what I mean, It's just like if it
was just them and they were still single girls. But no,
like when you when you established that somebody that you
once saw as safe is actually not safe, like you,
you hope that you hope the best for them, and
you are a mother and you cannot let that person
in your life because you will lose your child, or
you will have or you are yourself or that child.
You will be in an exploitative situation that risk. Nope,

(48:40):
so like I completely understand it's sad. But and that's
scene with Ramona and Destiny as well, when when Ramona
learns that Destiny has taken the Plea deal and she's
you know, not aligning at any point. At this point,
Ramona is furious. I mean, it's like it's such a
hard Ultimately she knows why Destiny made that decision, even

(49:02):
if it's the last worst possible thing for her. I
don't know. That scene was just like so good but
like terrible, yeah, yeah, good bit terrible yeah, And like
the the scene that I think parallels that because that
was like the breaking point for Ramona, but the breaking
point for Destiny happened months before when Ramona like hit

(49:22):
her basically tried to get the phone away from her
and like for good cause, like Destiny was about to
suck it up and like essentially did. But um that
was that was the pimpand coming out and like once
that comes out, that girl's not your friend anymore. Yeah.
The justification that Destiny uses when she's like, this is
why I took the Plea deal was she's like quoting

(49:45):
what Ramona had said earlier. But she said, you know,
motherhood is a mental illness. I'm doing this for my daughter.
I'm curious what everyone thinks about. That just kind of
as a bit of a through line in the movie.
And I don't know if I don't Sometimes I forgot
that Destiny even had a daughter, because she comes up

(50:06):
so sparingly in the movie. So I would have I
almost would have liked to see her relationship with her
daughter a little more because when she says that, I'm like,
all right, you have a daughter, and I did. I
did feel like, yeah, Ramona's relationship. I feel like they
probably get about the same amount of screen time. But
it's just like telegraphed way clearer that Ramona and her

(50:27):
daughter are like very very close, and like Ramona says repeatedly,
like I would do anything for her, like motherhood is
a mental illness in the whole bit, and we it's
I mean, I don't know, I mean, I guess that
that didn't really stick out to me too. It made
sense to me story wise that that was the decision
that Destiny made, not just logistically, but because of what

(50:51):
we know about her and because of her personal history.
That's where it made the most sense to me, where
like she was struggling as a single mother, and we
know that throughout this story, but we also know that
she was struggling with how she was abandoned by her
own mother, and it sounds like she would do almost
anything to prevent that from happening to her daughter, even

(51:12):
if it screws someone else over or that was how
I was interpreting that totally. Let's take another quick break
and then we will come right back, and we're back.
I would love to talk a little bit more about

(51:34):
police and how police are portrayed in this movie, and
like the interaction of the industry and the cops. Um,
you know, I've never really done sex work in New
York little and danced um there, so I'm not like
as familiar with with the nuances of that relationship between
like strippers and cops and strip clubs and cops as

(51:54):
we saw in the film, Like we know that police
frequent these places, and like think one of the most
like biting moments of the film is when the reporter
I guess it's po V Julius Styles at this point,
is talking to the cops that like put together the
investigation that eventually took these women down, and like the
takeaway for them was like, yeah, I really spooked some

(52:15):
of the guys. We stopped going to the clubs altogether.
Like that's what he wanted her to know. Like, yeah,
oh okay, cool sir, that was on the record, right.
So um, But just in general, I think that it's
important to we hear Jennifer Lopez's characters say like, what

(52:38):
what are these guys gonna do? Are they going to
call the cops and say, please, officer, helped me? I
spent five thousand dollars at the strip club last night.
The inverse of that, though, is what are they going
to do? They can't call the cops? Oh please help me, officer. Uh,
this guy that we gave ketamine an M D m
A to is now you know, and if he wasn't,

(53:01):
Like what if we know that kenemine and M D
m A have different effects on different people, you know,
Like the likelihood that a person could have gotten violent
or had a weapon or sexually assaulted one of those
girls in one of those hotel rooms is just so high,
And then what is the police recourse there? Um is
the question that we don't get into in this film.

(53:22):
Because it is like, even though it's eighteen and up,
somebody says something about like that ends the PG thirteen component,
But it is a PG thirteen stripper movie, Like even
though it's very like there's full nudity, it's there's something
even it doesn't like even their sentences. Right. I don't
know how true to life these are, but it was

(53:42):
satisfying that at the end of this movie about the
industry that usually ends with protagonists who work in this
industry being punished, like severely punished within the the world
of the Felm, either through death, dismemberment, or like lifelong
stigma or heartbreak. Right, um, is usually what we see
in and these these women all were able to serve

(54:03):
their time and move on. At least that's what the
film that was wants us to believe. As far as
I know, that was also true of of their real
life story, that the sentences that were like put on
screen at the end were reflective of what actually happened.
So you know, it's a rare in that you know

(54:24):
somebody and get out of a police encounter alive, especially
if they're a woman of color and a sex worker.
So um, I think that those arrests. Sequences were handled
really well by the filmmakers because in a time right now,
like I don't want to see Keiki Palmer, you're a cop,
And like that sequence was like just brief enough that

(54:45):
like I didn't I don't know, perhaps it was traumatizing
for a lot of viewers, um, but they it was
very cinematic. It was very like the end of the
heist with all the cops like waiting at the line,
but you know, like where I'm sure the reality was
a lot uglier, you know, right, Yeah, Yeah, I do
appreciate that the movie doesn't dwell on those moments or

(55:06):
like you know, make too much of a meal on it,
because we're not on even though these women are, you know,
engaging in some very morally questionable behavior, we're still rooting
for them, Like we're not rooting for the cops in
this story. So so many movies ask you to do

(55:27):
every single one. I feel like, I feel like growing
up is realizing that like every person you've liked in
a movie is actually a cop. I this happens to
me all the time, Like oh my gosh, wow, um
silence and the lambs, Oh wait, she's a cop. Yeah, yeah,
oh my god speed. Oh wait, he's a cop. Everybody's
a sucking copy. Um okay here really quick. I have

(55:51):
been trying to get this movement, this going for like
years and years. Nobody wants it, nobody asked for us,
but I'm gonna. I'm gonna so like go for it,
shoot your shot. I had the privilege of like getting
a little taste of like the Time's Up moment. I
definitely got to spend like Valentine's Day two thousand and
seventeen or eighteen with like Leese, Witherspid Liver and Cox

(56:12):
and like on the Warner Brothers Law, like the top
of people started to get together and talk about and
it was all like very exciting and YadA YadA, like
you know, it's some things have happened, but we all
know where we are. But yeah, what I would like
to see for Times Up to move forward, Like the
next step in Times Up is Time's up cops. Hollywood

(56:32):
has to stop doing this. Hollywood has to stop glorifying
police and the bucked up work that they do. Like
obviously we have to stop seeing I think it was
really exemplified in the Central Park five series on Netflix
when we saw that this like the way that prosecutors

(56:53):
and police and investigators abused children and you know, other
suspects that they have in custody, and the way that
that has been glorified through like nineteen nineties drama and
like SPU and law and order and all of this
glorification of literal police misconduct and violence, and Hollywood needs
to be responsible for that and like put together a

(57:16):
resolution to fucking stop it. Just stop it. We don't
need to see any more stories about quote unquote good
cops or bad cops who turn good or good cops
or bad or just bad cops. We don't need any
more stories about cops, like except Wellington Paranormal and that's fine.
Oh my god, yes I love that show. But yeah,

(57:37):
I'm fully on board with your movement, and what can
we do to help just hashtag times up cops, Like
anytime you are are having a moment where you're like,
oh my god, I thought that I could watch twin Peaks,
but actually it is just a story about an FBI agent.
It's more compaganda. Yeah, Like it's it's just capaganda, fucking
pop patrol. Like you're indoctrinated at such a young age

(57:59):
oh my gosh, to cop media. But it's like it's
it's the fact that pop patrol exists and is wildly
popular is and this maybe sounds over but I think
it's I think that that's really disturbing that that is
like something that exists. And I totally yeah, I totally
agree with you that there should be in the same
way that the times of movement, which it sounds like

(58:21):
we all have some criticisms of perhaps but the yeah,
like is it, but the way that there was at
least some push to be like here is like a
tangible like result that we want and not just like
we don't like this and you should stop, because I
feel like that almost never yields something. It's like, like

(58:42):
this is exactly what we want. We want to see
cop media like decreased by like seventy by two thousand
and twenty seven, and like have that like a tangible
results because otherwise it feels like, I mean, this was
so recently, like copaganda was understandably so recently a huge discussion,

(59:04):
and in terms of the media discussion at least of
how it appears how cops appear in media, I feel
like that discussion did not last for very long and
didn't I mean definitely didn't really move the move the
dial very much. And I think it's a key part
of how we move forward with imagining a world beyond police.
We have to first imagine it and make movies about it.

(59:26):
That is key. It's just it's not the only thing,
but it's something that we as content creator slash like
media coal miners can do to just you know, call
it out, call it out in your favorite movies. I mean,
like if you're listening to this, I'm sure you have
a social media account, Like next time you get mad
when you're watching s VU and you're like, you know what,
actually Detective Olivia Benson, you maybe Jane Mansfield's daughter, but like, no, right,

(59:50):
you can't. You can't treat that suspect that way. You
have to actually let them see a lawyer like Francis
McDorman and Fargo, don't god, I know. And it would
be it would be nice to see more popular actors
like acknowledge and distance themselves from prominent cops that they've
played I have done it imporn, yeah, like I mean,

(01:00:13):
and also just like as actors, you know what I mean.
But it's something I am constantly, you know, cognizant of
as like a performer. If someone asks me to play
a role like that, I tried to avoid it or
like switch, you know. And this is not always true
outside of the adult entertainment industry. It's like, excuse me,
I have some feedback about my role. It doesn't really felt.

(01:00:34):
It's not things that generally actors can do. But in
the adult industry we are blessed and bratty. But blessed
and braddy is a great way to be. But yeah,
I I didn't I don't want to say I didn't
mind how cops were portrayed in this film, like in
terms of just like how egregious it usually is within

(01:00:55):
the context of this film, like it was okay, like
nobody was googled horrified, but the tension and like the
real sort of risks and steaks, and like how rough
it is between sex workers, sex workers of color, specifically
Emplolice was mark I think absent was markedly absent in

(01:01:16):
this film. Yeah, that is something that I feel like
there was room to explore in this movie, especially because
several of the main characters are women of color. But yes,
the way that cops have been historically represented in movies
as heroes, and it maybe like just the best people

(01:01:36):
in the world and they're awesome and they saved the
day all the time, versus how sex workers have historically
been represented in film and meet the media of any
kind really aside from like adult entertainment. Just like think
about how many movies you've seen that are usually directed

(01:01:57):
by men, where there's a scene that takes place in
a drip club for absolutely no narrative reason, usually just
as an excuse, you have naked women be set dressing
in the movie. We never learn anything about them. They're
just objectified and dehumanized because of the way they are

(01:02:17):
just bodies that we don't know anything about versus this
movie and of small handful of others, and only in
pretty recent years that take care to show the interior
lives of women who do or people of any gender
who do adult entertainment. And we obviously learned tons of

(01:02:41):
information about the interior lives of Destiny and Ramona, we
learned some details about more secondary characters like Mercedes and Annabelle,
and then we even get a peek into the lives
of several tertiary characters. For example, there's a scene pretty
early on where they're going around like the dressing room

(01:03:01):
and like Cardi B And Lizzo and a couple other
women are like talking about their sex lives and they're
like romantic lives. They're like, I remember the first day
I walked I walked into audition, actually not my first day. Um,
I was you know, seeing if I was allowed to
dance naked, and it was very dorky. But I remember

(01:03:22):
seeing this girl in the dressing room, her name was
Dolores Park, just screaming in these like eight inch heels,
screaming on the phone to her boyfriend, just like I
had never seen a woman just like let our have
it so hard before and this was just like normal.
But that first sequence, like we felt so very familiar
of just like women usually nude, just like with their

(01:03:45):
genital yet out being there full selves. We don't get
to see that very often. And it's that that strip
club dressing room space sacred as sacred, yeah, and it's
like met with all support and like love and energy
and those scenes are so so wonderful. And I also

(01:04:07):
wanted to shout out how cinematography is handled in this
movie too, where uh, there is a there there's it's
almost it's interesting because it's written and directed by Lorraine Scafaria.
It's edited by a female editor, Kila m. There is
a male cinematographer, but I think that the way that
cinematography is handled, it's like, so, I mean whatever, I mean,

(01:04:30):
it's all these scenes and strip clubs that are focusing
on the strippers faces, and a lot of a lot
of scenes what Ramona is doing is controlling the camera entirely,
and then as the power dynamic shifts, then it's Destiny
starts to take control of the camera at certain moments.
But it's so it's still sexy when it needs to

(01:04:52):
be sexy, but it's not. I don't know, I didn't
find the camera work to be creepy or leering or
I mean, because it was you were usually seeing things
through one of these women's eyes, and if what they
were seeing was sexy, and they thought what they were
seeing was sexy, it was sexy, but it wasn't like
and then you also get kind of the reverse of this,

(01:05:14):
which I always enjoy seeing in a movie, where it
cuts over to like, you know, the patrons like goofy
faces while they're while they're like looking at beautiful women dancing,
Like I just I really thought that was like a
cool element of this movie. And it's something that is
so often I don't know, I think we take it
for granted when it's well done, because when it's poorly done,

(01:05:36):
it's so obvious. That's the thing. Like, and we talked
about women being objectified and being like the objects of
the male gaze all the time and so many movies,
and it's not as though we have a problem with
women being sexy on screen and being sexual on screen,
Like that's not where we take issue. It's all about

(01:05:57):
like it has to be on and her terms, like
how she is presented and and how she is framed
by the camera, and like again, yeah, who's point of
view or if you're doing there have been leering shots
in movies that you don't love that, But it's like
it just needs to make sense in the story because

(01:06:18):
I feel like that's a huge Michael Bay thing when
even with and like, of course that's like the most
extreme example, but like on the page, Like on the page,
a lot of Michael Bay characters are not inherently sexual.
It's just the fact that the camera is just like
for no narrative reason just like making a complete meal

(01:06:39):
of them that they become so sexualized, and it's like
it's it's in no way motivated by the story. Is
just like, well, that's just what he wanted to do. Well.
Teenage boys are the target audience for this Transformers, so
we have to show Megan Fox's ass. I'll never forget doing.
I do a lot of media advocacy and like, um,

(01:07:01):
you know, I'll talk to the press because because I
know how to do offensively. But it was I think
when my red book dot com was taken out by
the FBI, which was like a advertising website that I
actually used when I as a stripper working at The
Lefty Lady, because there was like an exotic dance section.
There was a section where we could like exchange information
about that dates and things like that. So I gave

(01:07:24):
I talked to the news and my little like red
blazer and pencil skirt, my little advocacy outfit on and
I ended up like meeting them in like a parking
lot somewhere, like Chevy's parking lot in Oakland or something,
and I gave the interview and I hit my talking points.
I talked all about you know, like the risks to
the industry and blah blah blah. And when I saw
the sequence that came out that evening on the evening news,

(01:07:46):
they literally started at my high heels and pan and
spent and used a whole shot of just my feet
on the news and then like panned up my entire
body as I was like talking about the f B
I taking down a resource that helps keep sex workers
alive on the fucking news. So like, it's not just
Mike Away, It's not just Michael Bay. It's like it's

(01:08:08):
the news, the fucking news that's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And
I think that when I'm looking back on the movie
Hustlers and like thinking about like objectification or like, you
know these things that we often critique um in films
made for the mail gaze slashed by men. Something happens,
or at least happened to me when I started profiting

(01:08:29):
off off the mail gates and like using my body
as a tool to survive under capitalism by exploiting the
mail gaze and also being gay and wanting to attract
women who were also doing this dance. Uh, something happens
to your aesthetic and like people can't see me right now,
but like I I am a cartoon character, like through

(01:08:50):
and through, and I think that there is just a
piece of alchemy that happens when you are because you're
getting dressed at the strip club to make money that night,
but you're also making sure that you like look good
to your peers and coworkers and maybe that girl you're
going to get a doughnut with after work, you know.
And if you've ever been in like them, lesbian circles

(01:09:12):
or from fem spaces, the way that we dressed to
attract each other like goes it goes into drag, right,
it goes beyond like the male gaze like a mail
gays left long ago. Honey, I'm so sorry it's not
with these like glitter eyelashes or for they're not for
the man in the room, okay, Like and that's very

(01:09:33):
much what this film felt like for me. I'm just like, yes,
we're all. I'm here at the strip club and I'm
going to make money because this healthfit is hot. But
I am looking at you, ma'am, and I'm wondering what
you're doing later, what that film feels like. That's cinematically
like cinematography was, Yeah, that is, it's it. It does
feel it's pretty. I'm like, I don't understand cinematography like

(01:09:56):
technically at all, but I'm like, they fucking pulled it
off it. Yeah, it only makes you feel the story
beats stronger. My partner is a cinematographer slash like director
of photography, and like loves like. I mean, you can
see we've got like these a weird little like colored
lights all over, so I've started to understand it more,
not unlike the lighting in Hustlers, so lots of like

(01:10:19):
pinks and purples, which it's very hot. Um. I wanted
to share another quote from Jacqueline Francis that's from the
oral history of this movie. Who it was talking about
being in the strip club that they used as like
the set of this movie. So being on set, Jacqueline says,

(01:10:42):
quote it was like a utopian strip club from days
gone by. I felt so respected for my opinion and
my expertise, coming from my background where sex work is
stigmatized and considered not real work, and that we are disposable,
and that violence against us is acceptable. It's really important
to have compassionate and authentic representation of sex workers in

(01:11:04):
mainstream media, and the only way that's going to be
achieved is by hiring sex workers to play the parts
and to consult on these films. People are constantly shifting
on me all the time about strippers being dumb bitches.
It's so toxic and it's violent. It results in literal
violence against sex workers unquote. So that's just I mean,

(01:11:26):
one of many things I deeply appreciate about this movie,
which is that strippers were consulted and paid, paid and
just had voices in terms of how strippers were represented
in the in the movie. And because yeah, like she said,

(01:11:47):
how this is the thesis of our show. How people
are represented effects kind of public opinion and cultural perceptions
of any particular. So so whyan earths would strippers not
have a say in how in shaping their own cultural persona?
Like right, it's so silly, Yeah, Jacqueline Francis is quote

(01:12:12):
like every single quote I came across that she had
ever said, I was like, she's a genius. She's so great,
Like she's so artic, like just like the I don't
know anytime someone can like get a thought into two sentences,
I'm like, how did you do that. It takes us
two hours to do that. Well, she also does these cartoons.
Have you seen her? Like that's that's the way you

(01:12:33):
have the little like words and the truth's, you know,
paired with these like adorable little like cartoons watercolors. It's remarkable.
She is one of the greatest artists for a time.
And I really liked how and I'm curious what everyone
thinks of how the Journalists is used to challenge assumptions

(01:12:57):
made about strippers as well, because I feel like using
that device and I mean, not only is it reflective
of the fact that it was, you know, a journalist
from a somewhat privileged background who wrote this story for
New York Magazine originally, but even on top of that,
I really liked that exchange between Destiny Slash, Dorothy and

(01:13:18):
Elizabeth when Elizabeth is doing the journalism thing, where she's like, well,
what about the crime, and that's you know, clearly what
she has been sent to do. And we I mean,
you barely notice as an audience member because it's so awesome,
but like you've been focused on the relationship and the
and the moment, the cultural moment for for most of

(01:13:40):
the movie, and she's like, okay, but what about crime?
And Destiny pushes back on this right away, and it's like, well,
I don't want to be a part of some larger
narrative that like I'm not quoting her exactly here, but
I don't want to be a part of some larger
stigma enforcing narrative that frames strippers as criminal a whole sale.

(01:14:01):
So if that's what you're trying to do, I want
no part in this, and even goes further to challenge
Elizabeth on what her background is and like, can you
really empathize with me with you know? It's and and
I think, does something really really smart that you know,
maybe a lesser journalist would have been scared and quit

(01:14:23):
the story. And she was just like, you know, I'm
not going to be a part of a toxic narrative that,
of course she would be well aware of. And I
feel like it's almost that was almost like a clever
riting way of talking to the audience too. Yeah. I
just thought that that was like a a really cool moment. Yeah.

(01:14:44):
Part of that is also I don't know if it's
that same scene or not, but she asks Elizabeth, you know, like, yeah,
did you grow up with money, and she's like, yeah,
I'm we were comfortable my dad like people saying people
say comfortable. I'm like that shouldn't be allowed anymore. Yeah,
that's your way of downplaying the fact that you grew

(01:15:04):
up in an upper middle class or like upper class family.
So but anyway, that's that's I actually just watched Crazy
Rich Asians and that's the thing when people say, wow,
Constance Woo. Movies are full of this interaction. Uh wild um.

(01:15:25):
But then she she Destiny challenges Elizabeth a little further
and says, well, what would you do for a thousand dollars?
Because of course the answer is going to depend on
what you already have and what you need, because up
until this point there's been this kind of like probably
as objective as Elizabeth can make herself seen, but she's
still like passing some judgment in terms of, like, you

(01:15:48):
were drugging these people, and she's like, why are you
fixated on that? Yeah, we were doing that, but also
these guys were mainline and coke every day on their
way to work, so like, but it just brings up
this class conversation of a large part of Destiny's motivation
is that she wants to be completely independent. She doesn't
want to have to rely on anyone else financially. She

(01:16:10):
says this multiple times in the movie. And for someone
who grew up in what was clearly a pretty financially
unstable situation, her grandmother seems to be the sole provider
for her. She was in debt, her parents left her
when she was young. You know, you know, she's coming

(01:16:31):
from a low socioeconomic background and motivated by trying to
get out of the cycle of poverty and wanting to
be independent. And yeah, it goes back to that other
quote from Jacqueline about surviving under capitalism and how like

(01:16:52):
that's just kind of inherently problematic, and and it kind
of like doubles as a commentary on how media is
trained to view strippers and and sex workers as well,
because of how it's like, I mean, and and Elizabeth
kind of tries to do this again where I don't know,

(01:17:12):
I mean, this is this is just how I interpreted
her behavior in this scene. But later on, like I
keep wanting to just call her Julia Styles, but like
Julia Styles like leans in to destiny, and it's like, well,
you know, I know I'm supposed to feel bad for
the guys that this happened too, But I really don't.
And I kind of viewed that from a journalistic perspective.

(01:17:34):
I was like, Oh, is she trying to kind of
lead her to say something? And you know, I don't.
I'm I mean, I saw her apartment. I don't think
she really felt that way. Whatever I cannon, I don't know.
But all that to say, then Destiny doesn't take the bait.
And it's like, oh, that's interesting because there were times
where I felt not good about the situation at all.

(01:17:57):
And again it's like this supposedly objective source making an
assumption about how the person they're in interviewing would feel
based on this preconceived notion they have, and like, yeah, yeah,
those scenes are wild. I really appreciated the including that
that is a device, just because I think it is
a really important part of the coming of age sex

(01:18:19):
worker story that we're sort of approaching in this In
this movie, UM like, yes, you will meet a girl
who will like consume you and possibly destroy you. She
may exploit you, and lest you turn her into the cops,
you will never get her back. And be careful when
you talk to the media. Babes. They will make you
know like they're not your friend. They're not trying to

(01:18:42):
help you in any way. They are part of that
strip club. You know, are they doing the dance because
they're definitely not throwing money, So be mindful, be mindful.
I like that part. Shall we talk a little bit
about the production? Yeah, yes, So we referenced this a
little earlier, and I know, I mean there's a million

(01:19:06):
quotes from the oral history that supports this as well.
But I was I didn't know much about the production
of this movie, even though I've seen it a couple
of times. And Loren Scafaria prior to this movie was
she directed stuff, but she was I think better known
as a writer. She had written this script and then

(01:19:29):
it's just it's so typical, but it's like three years ago,
so it's double annoying. I was like, oh, great, this
was happening in amazing post times the time that it
was up. Anyways, So Loren Scafaria basically was like really lobbying,
like I want to direct this movie. And I believe
like three or four big name male directors had to

(01:19:52):
pass on making the movie before they would even consider her.
And on top of that this movie was origin only
with like the Annapurna production company, which they've made a
bunch of famous movies. I can't think of any of
them right now, but they're whatever. They exist. And oh,
this is a quote from Elaine Goldsmith Thomas, who is

(01:20:14):
one of the producers, and but she says of Annapurna,
who eventually pulled out from this movie. Um, she says, quote,
the male studio executives were a little uncomfortable. Everybody could
see the commercial value of this movie, but they were like,
can they just drug the bad guys? Can they just
do that to people that deserve it? And so it
just at almost every That's why I'm like so happy

(01:20:36):
that this movie does exist and was directed not only
by a woman, but by a woman who wanted to
consult strippers and consult people who could make the story
authentic in the way that it needed to be, because
it sounds like the production originally had no intention of

(01:20:56):
doing that. They're like, um, we're just going to let
Martin Scorsese walk around and kind of guess his way
through this. And it's like, thank god no one had
to see that movie. He would have done what he
did to Margot Robbie in Wolf of Wall Street the

(01:21:16):
Scorsese cut. I have no desire to see things, but yeah.
Jessica L. Baum, who is the founder of Glory of
Sanchez Productions, who had originally bought the rights for like
the article to make it into the film, had been
the one to like go out to Martin Scorsese, and

(01:21:37):
then Adam McKay was another possible contender to be the director,
but then Lorraine Scarfaria was like, no, look, I can
do this. I made this awesome sizzle reel and they're like,
oh wow, this is a great reel. Okay, fine, you
can direct the movie, which which is like, so I
would be less annoyed by that if she were like
an inexperienced director, like a sizzle real makes more sense

(01:22:00):
when you're not already a well respected director. She shouldn't
have had to do that to like prove she could
direct her own script. It's stories like that makes me
so annoyed. It's imperious. That's why do you want? Does
anyone have anything else they want to discuss? Um? I

(01:22:22):
wanted to note that I love love love, cannot say
how much I love that. We don't know anything basically
or care about any of the boyfriends in the stories.
When you said his name was Johnny, I was like,
was that his name? That I believe was his name?
But the fact that we barely know is telling is
Johnny a name. Johnny is not a name. Johnny is

(01:22:43):
just like a young john. There's John's, there's Johnny's, and
there's Jonathan. That's the name of the guy from the
room john Johnny exactly. It's not a name name, it's Johnny.
Johnny is a good right hand for like random young
man Johnny here. Yeah. No, But I love that because

(01:23:08):
I think so often when people talk about stories that
like humanize sex with hers, they're like, yeah, what's it
like when she goes home to her boyfriend fucking cares
he's a douche bag, just like all the other men
in her life, Like, sorry, my boyfriend, for the record
is but I hate seeing that. It's just like such
a boring like, oh you the fact that Destiny has

(01:23:29):
a child, and like we see this moment that we
just sort of like get sucked into, like the two
thousand eight crash happens, Destiny gets pregnant. Suddenly there's this
dude next to her. I was like, oh God, are
we about to see this movie? I don't want to
see this, but we weren't. Thank god we did not.
Thank God. I think the only boyfriend of any who
who is like I mean, I guess not extremely narratively relevant,

(01:23:52):
but that is one of Kiki Palmer's motivations is to
get her boyfriend who is in jail for I don't
know if they tell you what it's for, but that
that's the only boyfriend that I think comes up multiple
times that she's trying to get her boyfriend legal assistance
and and does end up and she's successful. Right, But yeah,

(01:24:15):
that's treated as more just like not even a subplot,
that's just like a few here and there. Yeah. Yeah,
it's like it's like wants a brain, she wants a heart. Yeah,
And I like that everyone does, even though it's like
what I mean, for for Kiky Palmer's character and oh
my god, Lily Reinhart's character definitely definitely know who she is,

(01:24:36):
but they each have a scene that explains their why
and that's all. That's all comes from the source material
as well. That's good. So I liked that. Speaking of
that really heart character, I um so from twenty I
moved to l A L. I started taking REP around

(01:24:57):
that time, which is pre exposure propyl axis UM, which
is like a daily pill you take that prevents acquiring
the HIV virus. It's like birth control for chid um.
It was really hard on my stomach. So for those
like two years eighteen, not only did I live in
a tiny apartment with my cat, I was also the
puking girl that just gone the moment when they like

(01:25:20):
pulled up next to the cop and it's like everybody
played cool. Everybody played cool, and then they finally pull
away and she just barbs in front of like I've
done that, Like that was puking. This like movie season
was big for puk and girls because it was like
Lily Reinhardt in this movie Annada Armas and Knives Out.
It was like hit Girl City. That that Christmas season

(01:25:43):
representation matters. Girls live alone with their cats and puke
for no reason. We matter. There was a small moment
that I felt very seen by where Destiny is describing
this recurring dreams she's she has or she's in the
backseat of a moving car. There's no one driving. She

(01:26:04):
has to like scramble to get to the front seat
to try to gain control of the vehicle. She can
never do it. I've had that dream probably fifty or
more times in my life. It is like one of
my recurring stress nightmares. Yes, and I'm like to see
that described and then like play out on screen. I
was like, I feel seen. Yes, that sequence was so

(01:26:26):
good too. I love dream sequences that are successfully pulled
off or it's the thing is happening and you don't
know that it's a dream until like right before you
It's would be so good. Yeah, I'm so sorry you
have that dream though. That sounds so stressful. Oh it's okay.
I am clearly need to work on managing my anxiety

(01:26:47):
versions of that dream. But it was I haven't had
him since I was a kid, except when I was
like I was in a station wagon and it was
rolling backwards and I was like, I wonder when my
Grandma's gonna pull the emergency brake and I was like, oh, no, no, grandma,
there's no mamma. That might have been a princess diaries
into a stream to be honest, because okay, um, can

(01:27:09):
I ask some questions of you guys. I was absolutely
I've talked to like a fair amount about like my
experience in strip club life. But I'm curious about how
much time y'all sputton strip clubs, what that's been like,
Like what what your point of rock, because like it
was very striking to me, I didn't spend I was
never in a two thousand seven strip clubs, so that
like big floor show. I've seen that when I was

(01:27:32):
like on tour in like those big states that have
like Walmart size strip clubs, but like a city strip
club that popping I had never really quite seen before.
And then the shot of the two thousand eight strip club,
it like chilled my bones. I was like, oh, this
is the strip club. I know it just like hurt inside.
But I'm curious, what if anything your friend references for

(01:27:56):
for those faces I was in a I think I
went to my first of her strip club in two
thousand nine, so not long after, because I had moved
to New York right around the time the economy tanked
and was struggling to find a job, and when I
did finally find one, it was at a literary management

(01:28:16):
company where one of the managers was like kind of
doing that part time, but her main job was that
she was the general manager of and I forget which
club it was, but it was one of the more
popular ship clubs in Manhattan. And so she would let
my colleague and I at this literary management company come

(01:28:40):
in for free. She would buy us drinks, she would
buy us lap dances. So we would go and just
like have a ball. Was it a place with food?
Would you get to like get a meal or was
it drinks? I think it was just drinks. Um. And
then I've been to few other strip clubs in Albuquerque,

(01:29:02):
New Mexico, Portland, Oregon, Los Angeles. I was with you
in Portland. Yeah, we we went to one in Portland together.
A listener of the show and worked at this club
invited us for to come in for breakfast. It was
very delightful. Wait, I'm about to go to Portland? Which
strip club serves breakfast? What was We'll get you the

(01:29:23):
name of the club. Well, yeah, we'll have to look
up to it. Let me know, a couple of years ago.
But it was fabulous. It was incredible. Strip clubs are special, yes, um,
yeah I have. I have not spent a ton of
time in strip clubs, but I think I go like
once every two years. My first time was when in Massachusetts.
It's it's like or I don't know how state to

(01:29:45):
state this is, but I'm from Massachusetts and went to
college there, and I was so excited to move to
Boston because I wanted to go to a strip club
so badly, and I just like I was especially as
it teenager. I was so like fixated on stripper personas

(01:30:05):
and like I read a ton of blogs and I
was just like, I was so excited to go. And
then I got to Boston. I was eighteen, and they
didn't let anyone in under twenty one, so I ended
up going to I ended up getting my dad to
drive me to an eighteen plus night and I went
to a strip club with my dad and oh my god,
bless your goddamn heart. And we had amazing food and

(01:30:31):
a great time. But it was my dad was way
more uncomfortable than I was. I was like, this is
this is incredible, this is the best, and everyone everything,
everyone who worked there was so nice. And then once
they figured out what our dynamic was, they were like, um, okay,
and like but that that's my most memorable strip club experience.

(01:30:52):
But it's amazing. Love that beautiful, I asked, because, um hey,
I always say that. I think it's really important, like
people when people ask, like what can we what can
we do for a sex work or rights movement to
make the world a less violent, despicable place for people
who do this type of work. I always try to
encourage people to come out about their consumption, you know,

(01:31:12):
whether it's a great Portland's strip club experience with breakfast,
or like a weird night out with you know, your
relatives compatriots um or you know, like hey, I I
subscribe to peg him dot com, or like, you know whatever,
I admire this porn star or follow her on Twitter,
just like take us out of the shadows when when

(01:31:33):
it's safe for you to do so, because it's generally
safer for you than it is for us to talk
about like the this world society does not punish the
consumer in the same way that they punish the practitioner,
right in this instance. So I love that you guys
have had positive experiences, which I fucking love a strip
club I um um. I went on tour with Stormy

(01:31:57):
Daniels when she was doing her strip club tour or
after like her book, I was about to come out,
I think. But I was registering voters in the clubs,
and so I saw strip clubs all over this world,
and just the some thing's like something shift of course,
like region to region, Like some places you have to

(01:32:18):
wear a gown if you're on the floor. Some places
you have to have like a t strap thong or
pastys or a new cover color, like all of these
weird rules, which is why I store me um was
arrested in um. Oh. This is one thing I wanted
to say about the movie. I think in that first
sequence where we see Jennifer Lopez dancing, she motor boats
somebody right or some variety. She like rubs her her

(01:32:40):
boobs and somebody's paces. That is the move that got
Stormy Daniel's arrested in Columbus. She was set up on
a sting. These white women came in as undercover cops
were hitting me up. They're like, oh I love Stormy.
They were undercovers, and they initiated that move and because
like laws very state to state, they arrested her and

(01:33:03):
a bunch of other girls, including girls I had registered
to vote that night, who were like terrified, like please, okay,
I'm gonna give you my legal name to registered to vote,
Like that's a scary thing to do in a strip
club when you're trying to keep your legal name private.
And I was like, I swear to you, only me
and the registrar of voters are going to know who
you are. Except then the cops came and arrested them,
and their names were in the paper the next day,

(01:33:23):
and that girl wasn't get to get nursed anymore. But also,
sorry to be a downer on what we were having
a very name conversation, but it's these these issues are important.
I think that like when folks watch um and consume
entertainment about this industry, it's important to know the reality
is that base even like the most privileged among us,

(01:33:47):
I mean Sworemy Daniels is like the whitest, blondest dallist
slept with the presidentist uh, you know, sex worker of
our our generation and still like a cop with an
agenda can take her out if he wants. So. Great movie, though,
it's great. Hustlers rules, Hustlers rules. Yes, I'm I like

(01:34:10):
this movie. I will watch it again. Like I said,
I think it's a dance movie, and dance movies are
like my number one, So this goes in the butt
like I will put this on before center stage and uh,
you know, make a night of it. Just drumline counter. Yeah,
absolutely awesome. Any other thoughts questions, I've I have one

(01:34:34):
more question for you, Susie on behalf of us but
also our listeners. Is there I guess for our listeners
who are just starting to learn more, what can they
do to be supportive? What can they do? Like? Yeah,
that the for for kind of the lay listener and
the lay listener, where would you suggest? Well, if you

(01:34:58):
want to stay in touch with me, I can I
encourage you to do so? I am always harassing people
who follow me about getting out the vote, um, calling
your elected representatives about you know, there's always legislation in
the works. There's always a politician with an agenda who
wants to use our communities escapegoate. So there's always work
to be done. So if you want to keep in touch,

(01:35:19):
shoot me a text at four one five five eight
nine one eight five and I'll send that to you. Guys,
you can put in the show notes. It is my
personal direct line, but it's also a way for you
to access my email list. So um email is terrible.
I never check it and I don't think you should either.
But I do check my text messages because I'm an
elder millennial UM, so that's a great way to stay connected.

(01:35:40):
But also check out pass certified dot org p a
s S certified dot org. That is the health and
Safety organization UM that focuses on health and safety and
legal industry and provides like regulatory recommendations around like what
s T I S we test for when we have
a production hole due to COVID or somebody test positive

(01:36:03):
for HIV, things of that nature. And find the adult
performer that you support and pay them, whether it's cash app, venmo,
the afternoon strip club, brunch, buffet, whatever you can do
to support individual sex workers directly. That is the most
important thing that you can do, because every one of

(01:36:25):
us is struggling. You know, even folks who are who
seem to be you live in that life on on
Instagram is one second away from losing that Instagram and
that way of making money. So find ways to support
your local sex worker directly and do so. And if
you would like to do that to me, you can.
You can follow my mostly safer work pursuits at the

(01:36:46):
forecast dot com. That's my Patreon page. Um, it'll Repute
pod is the Twitter for my podcast will Repute podcast.
I am by my friend's sovereign sire who is also
amportant star. Yeah, she is to perform at the comedy
venue that I ran at a wild Nerd medal. She

(01:37:06):
would come for different like storytelling shows and other were
just like comedics, the best storytelling performances. Yeah, so we
um take different people and figures throughout history of ill repute.
Initially it was sex workers, but now it's just like
people with reputations that are you know, history didn't get
right and so we nerd out. And this last week

(01:37:29):
where we covered Gidget, which is one of my favorite films,
definitely doesn't pass the Bechtel testum, not at all. But
so yeah, that's that's mostly where you can find me.
The Daddy Issue dot com and your American Babe dot
com is where you can find my spicy things. Very good. Yeah,
thank you for sharing all that. Speaking of the Bechtel

(01:37:51):
test oh my goodness already No, I'm not ready. Insteady drumroll,
please does this movie pass the Bactel the yes, yes,
that's a lot. What I always like to find out,
like at what point, like are we five minutes in?
Are we ten minutes? And I didn't look like it's

(01:38:11):
almost immediately yeah, I mean, for there are plenty of
interactions in this movie where men are the subtext of
a conversation, but there's also I mean, I guess whatever,
I didn't. I didn't do a math problem about it,
but I would guess that more almost more often than not,
conversations between women are not about men. They're about money,

(01:38:35):
they're about business, they're about daughters or about mothers. They're
about friendship, they're about for coats, journalistic ethics, they're like yeah.
And when they are talking about men um they're often
saying things like they're awful and degrading and possessive and
violent and they never get into into any trouble because

(01:38:59):
they think they're a of the law because they're so rich,
and all these guys tank the economy and it's their fault.
They lied and they cheated and they stole, but none
of them went to jail. These assholes blah blah blah.
Shakespearean monologues, like some some of Ramona's monologues are literally
like shakes soliloquy, Oh my god, who wouldn't be taken

(01:39:23):
in there's not a high opinion of a certain kind
of man in this movie, which is how they justify
their illegal actions. Who. I will say that the Doug
is the guy that we feel sorry for, Like, but
even before Doug, the first guy that she calls, that's

(01:39:45):
like the last on the list of regulars before she
go back to the strip club. Stephen, Stephen, I would
say that both of those guys were humanized in a
way that we don't typically get to see. Um, consumers
of sex were humanized, And I think that that's really
important because the first step when people say like yes,
sex worker rights, Okay, great, we'll just criminalize the consumer.

(01:40:06):
And that's what really is getting pushed in in a
lot of places these days with the Nordic model or
um Oregon. Some places are calling it the liberty or
the justice the equality model or just garbage, double garbage,
double speak. But yeah, it's nice to see that. Yeah, Okay,
not every one of these guys was a piece of ship,

(01:40:26):
Like people consume things that you are selling, and right, yeah,
you can't. You can't decriminalize and destigmatize sex work without
also having empathy for the people who want to engage
with it and consume it so or just like wholesale demonizing. Yeah,
I thought that this movie like towed the ethics line

(01:40:49):
and the consumer line pretty smart because it's also like
very location specific of like totally these are Wall Street
bankers and and it's and this this happens in that
it's referenced constantly in the article as well, where you know,
the parts of this that are criminal are as we've
been talking about, like it's a survival based thing that

(01:41:12):
is being done. And I I kind of appreciated that
the movie doesn't mire you down with like, well, what
are the ethics of this? It's like that's separate, Like
you can have that discussion on the ride home. That's
not what the movie is about. But then on the
other side, Yeah, you do see the empathetic like genuinely
caring people who we're we're at this club and actually

(01:41:35):
making like friendships and like actually talking to the dancers
and getting to know them, And I don't know's I
thought it was like well done. How you do see
the flip side of like it's not like this didn't
do harm And that also seems to be something that
Destiny was really bothered by by the end, which I mean,

(01:41:56):
it's it's so easy to see Destiny and Ramona's perspective
in that moment, and it was cool to see kind
of that split and that like dilemma represented without the
movie telling you how to feel about it totally. One
piece that about like class that was in there that
I think is maybe wouldn't stick out to someone outside

(01:42:18):
the industry. But the piece about like the folks with
the most money are the ones who are going to
push your boundaries. And I remember when I started doing
in person work outside of the club, you know, like
two thousand and ten eleven ish, you know, rates varied
between like a couple hundred on up to like closer
to you know, four figures. And I remember a friend

(01:42:40):
of mine being like, Yeah, I don't want to see
guys that will pay X amount of money. I I
like my clients who pay a little bit less. It's
just safer that way. And that's been my experience that like,
the more money someone is willing to part with, the
more they expect to be able to do whatever they

(01:43:01):
want and get away with it. Um And we see
that specter a little tiny bit, but that specter is
much larger in real life. M And I think that
like this is like a little bit of a parable
about the hustle. You know. It's just like the thrill

(01:43:22):
of and the temptation of these like massive amounts of
money is there as soon as you enter the sex industry.
But like the more money you get into, the higher
the risk goes up. And like that is why I
think it's so important that we approached discussions about sex
work with our feet firmly planted in like labor activism

(01:43:43):
practice of just like we are workers fundamentally, and like, yes,
there is the jackpot, but we are we have to
fight for, you know, like safety nets for all of us,
you know what I mean, There has to be like
a baseline of safety. Like if you get lost in
the sauce, you'll get got And that's so much what

(01:44:04):
this movie shows. But it's way easier to get lost
in the sauce when the pressures of capitalism are like
literally breathing down your neck, right. And it's like, I mean,
Ramona is like using Wall Street tactics to Robin Hood
from Wall Street guy, Like it I don't know, there's
I can talk about this movie for five years. Yeah. Well,

(01:44:29):
with that in mind, let's rate the movie on our
nipple scale zero to five nipples based on how affairs.
Looking at it from an intersectional feminist lens, I really
can't think of a reason why not to give this
movie five nipples. Yeah, I don't really have anything bad

(01:44:52):
to say about it. I mean, there are five nipples
in this film. There are at least five. There are
at least five nipples that we see so like, and
and a full frontal penis in a non erotic capacity,
which I always like. I mean, you can't really show,
but it's like a well definitely a moment. Right. Yeah,

(01:45:14):
I'm I think I'm gonna give this five nipples. Uh.
I love that this is a movie about female friendship
in that friendship is it's complicated, it's nuanced. It feels
very authentic and real and compelling. I'm like very much
rooting for them to like get back together by the

(01:45:36):
end of the story, totally get the band back together,
even though the reconciliation, like you know, it would be
a lot for Ramona to forgive Destiny for they need
to bring a mediator, get a mediator in the mix
for this, I know pro bono therapy. I love that

(01:45:56):
that friendship is at the core of this film. I
appreciate the class commentary. I appreciate you learning about the
interior lives of sex workers. We learned so much about
not only the two main characters, but several of the
other women at the club. I love that you get

(01:46:18):
to see women defying the expectation to be quote unquote
well behaved because they're such a high standard in society.
And this sixtense to movie characters where like women just
have to be perfect and they're not allowed to do
anything bad, and if they are, they get punished for it,
and usually by like being fridged in the story. And

(01:46:41):
in this movie, it is all about them engaging in
like morally questionable and corrupt behavior. Like how many movies
like not like this plot point for a plot point,
but how many movies are about does a group of
men doing extremely illegal ings, not even for a reason,

(01:47:02):
not for a reason, and and and like they're not
punished for it at all, And it's like who, yeah,
go and murder everyone who comes and across your path,
Like yeah, So I appreciate that this, you know, subverts
that expectation for for women to just always be on
their best behavior and always be adhering to what society

(01:47:25):
expects of women. And um, I appreciate that it's a
diverse cast and not just a bunch of white, waspy women. Yes,
so I'm gonna give this five nipples. And I gotta
give one to Lizzo. Good cameo, good cameo, the flute
and everything. Oh the titt fucking that I think it

(01:47:50):
was on Jacqueline not oh yeah, not only did j
Lo grab Jacqueline Francis titties Lizzou Like, how is she
even live her life? Right there? I'll give one to Jacqueline.
I'll give one to writer director Lorraine Scafaria. I will

(01:48:11):
give one to the montage where Britney spears. Give me
more is playing over it. I'll give one to Constance
Wou And I don't know how many nipples that is,
but it sounds like enough. Sounds right? Yeah, Yeah, I'm
gonna go five nipples as well. This is like, this

(01:48:34):
movie delivers on so many levels. I feel like we
could talk about it for another two hours if we
wanted to, Like I I just I mean, on on
top of what I'm really glad to hear from you.
Susie seems to be like an authentic representation of strippers,
that strippers are actively consulted, compensated, and intimately involved in

(01:48:55):
the production. That is incredible, the fact that we are
we have these really complicated stories about women disagreeing and
misbehaving and having different standards of ethics and ideas, but
but having it all come into this like really strong
relationship that you totally understand, but you're also like, oh

(01:49:16):
my god, Like even when you understand and see how
things fall apart between Ramona and Destiny, and even if
you don't, you know, I agree with everything they do,
it's like you're rooting for them to be together and
in each other's life still, and it's just like, it's
such incredible writing. I liked that there was care taken

(01:49:39):
that even the characters that aren't the main characters, we
understand what their motivations are. They have distinct personalities, they
have friendships, they have opinions, they have disagreements, and it
all just fits so seamlessly into a movie with perfect
dance scenes and perfect soundtrack and really good cinematography. And

(01:49:59):
I just loved it so I will I will give
uh nipple to Jacqueline as well. I'll give a nipple
to Cardi b I'll give a nipple to Ryin Scafaria.
I'll give a nipple to the editor of this movie,
whose work we didn't shut up but was really good
kaylea empter. And I'll give a nipple to Kiki Palmer.

(01:50:22):
Nice living legend. I love your rating system. Care to rate?
Oh sure, yeah, I mean obviously five nipples for sure. UM,
I have to give one too. I should pull up
this quote, but I just remember. Shortly before or after
this movie dropped. I remember Cardi got some like flak

(01:50:46):
for coming out and being like, yeah, Robin men, we
love to see it. I don't remember what she said,
and she was like, yes, sometimes you have to rob
a trick, right, No, okay, I didn't. I thought I
just made you see a movie. UM. I don't remember
that controversy just makes you love her so to you

(01:51:08):
so much. UM. I don't endorse committing crimes, of course,
um for legal reasons, but definitely worthy of a nipple. UM.
And I would love to know if Diamond was Cardi's
name when she was dancing us easy to find somewhere
if it's true. But yeah, five nipples, hands down a

(01:51:30):
nipple to whoever hired and got Jacqueline paid. I'm sure
that Jacqueline had a lot to do with actually making
that happen, But whoever was the gatekeeper that opened the
gate to actually make that real? Because I can't tell
you how many times all of us have been in
a situation where somebody wants to pick your brain for
a movie or ask you a couple of things, and like,

(01:51:52):
the likelihood of you getting credit paid screen time is
just so small, So major props to the folks that
that got that happening. Um. I don't know who the
rest of my nipples go to, but like everybody, redistribute
the nipples, redistribute the noble. Absolutely take that Wall Street,

(01:52:15):
all those Wall Street nipples and redistribute it back to
the people. Absolutely occupy the nipple. But yeah, I will
watch this movie again and again. I will swap this
movie out for a center stage or dirty dancing when
I like need to feel that feeling. Um, a nipple
for the training montage. A really crucial component of any

(01:52:37):
like sports or dance movie is the training montage, which
this really delivered. On. You know it's it's a very magical,
magical film, and I have to I feel like I
have to give a nipple to like the collective, problematic,
toxic them that has been in my life in different
iterations throughout my time as a sex worker and will continue,

(01:52:59):
I'm sure or until I'm dead, and is personified in
the archetypes for trade in this film. A nipple for
each of those girls that I've loved and no longer beautiful.
A nipple to all the girls I love before uh
shout out to another great movie exactly Well, Susie, thank
you so much for joining us and having this wonderful discussion.

(01:53:23):
My pleasure. Come back anytime I'm doing another dance movie.
I would love to. I I warned you like I
have despicable taste in film, and I am completely proud
of it. Like perfect. I am John Waters child and
I am here to play if I haven't done John

(01:53:43):
Waters movies. Oh please, anytime, anytime you want to talk
John Waters. My dad's from Baltimore. I it's a little
bit of a religion in my life. Here for it
remind us where people can support you and follow you
on social media and stuff. I'll repute podcast dot com,
Your American Babe dot com, Daddy Issue dot com. You

(01:54:07):
can find me on Instagram at your Americans Amazing. You
can find us on not all of the socials, the
socials that we use, which our Twitter and Instagram at
Bechtel Cast. You can support our Patreon ak Matreon at
patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast for five dollars a

(01:54:29):
myth to get to bonus episodes every single month. What
a treat couple. And we also have merch We do
have merchants at public dot com slash the Bechtel Cast.
All of it was designed by Jamie. By the way,
I don't think we shot that out enough, but it's true.
That's very cool, so all the more reason to grab

(01:54:49):
some merch and other wise, thanks for tuning in, and
um hey, let's all go to a strip club? Okay? Yes,
oh quick, quick public service announcement. When you go to
a strip club, always tip, even if you're not getting
a dance like you know, I mean, like most people

(01:55:09):
know that, I think. But in case for the lay listener,
if you're gonna go, especially if you are like a
fem presenting person, because let me tell you when you
are on that stage and you look at and you
see a bunch of girls and you think that they're
like saying mean things about you. It ruined your entire night.
So if you are a firm presenting person, you go
to the strip club, go to the front. Tip the girl,
make sure she knows you're not a girl. It'll help awesome.

(01:55:32):
But thank you for that. Thank you, Bye bye bye, y'all.

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