Ingrid Goes West

Caitlin and Jamie *log on* to chat about Ingrid Goes West! Check out Jamie's new podcast, Sixteenth Minute on Cool Zone Media, and grab tickets to our Shrektanic Tour at linktr.ee/bechdelcast 

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Podcasting It's a way of life. Hashtag living, hashtag blessed.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hashtag podcast life.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh this is me posting a screenshot of our zoom
call right now. Podcast co hosts were like siblings hashtag
podcast life.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Wow beautiful hashtag sisters.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
We are hashtag sisters. Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Anyway, hello and welcome hi to the Bechdel Cast. My
name is Caitlin Daronte.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
We're definitely not going to kill each other. No, my
name's Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where we
take a look at your favorite movies using an intersectional
feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test as a jumping off
point for discussion.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
But Caitlin, my sister. Hashtag sisters, podcast sister. What is
the hashtag Bechdel Test? Oh my gosh, hashtag cinema hashtag discourse.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
The hashtag Bechdel Test is a hashtag media metric created
by at Ilison Bechdel. Actually I don't know if that's
her handle or not off the top of my head,
but anyway, it is a media metric that requires our
version that two characters of a marginalized gender have names,

(01:33):
they speak to each other, and their conversation is about
something other than a man. And ideally, for our sake,
we like it when it's a narratively substantial conversation and
not like throwaway dialogue.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
And today we are covering a movie that we got
a lot of requests for when it first came out,
and we said no, But now we're saying yes. And
here's why I am starting a podcast hashtag Brave whoa
hashtag another podcast, another hashtag podcast. It started releasing on

(02:11):
May seventh, and it's a weekly show where I profile
a character of the day on the Internet. So think
for the first couple of episodes, we're talking about Antoine Donson,
we're talking about the dress, We're talking about the Boston
slide cop who slip slapped, flip flopped down the damn slide.
So it is a half reported, half interview show where

(02:33):
each week we take a look at not just the
character and what happened and why they were so notorious,
but also getting into internet history, why did the algorithm
serve you this person at this time, and a little
bit of like a look or an attempt at a
look into why did this person suddenly enter your life
to try to upset you on social media even if

(02:56):
they didn't usually completely unintentionally. So yeah, it's a little
internet history show. I'm really really excited about it. It's
also produced by Sophie Lichterman. We've been cooking on it
for a while and it started to come out. I'm
really excited. Yay me too, Thank you. The trailer has
dropped in our feet already. But if you haven't subscribed,

(03:19):
hashtag subscribe, hashtag like and subscribe, I'll say it. Hashtag
like and subscribe and follow me on Instagram for weekly
updates about the new episodes. And so we wanted to
put together an episode that would sort of jive with
the idea of the show about being extremely online. And

(03:43):
there are not as many movies about this as I
thought there were, I'll be honest. So this was certainly
the movie we've gotten the most requests for that is
about the Internet. There's a few others. A lot of
them are like do you remember that documentary that came
out on Netflix in it might have been twenty twenty
scary that was called like the Social Dilemma. I remember that.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
As I didn't watch all of it. I started it
and then I was like, I don't feel good about this.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
It was so corny. I feel like there's like always
sort of this overly simplistic message with movies like this
where they're like phone bad and person who use phone
bad as well, and you're like, so, anyways, there's like
some documentaries about it. There's a movie I haven't seen
called Not Okay that came out a couple of years

(04:32):
that also touches on this theme, but we had not
seen it and we got a request for it. So
we are covering today a movie that it was really
interesting to revisit for me, Ingrid Goes West, which came
out in twenty seventeen. Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen both
firing on all cylinders. Yes, Caitlyn, what's your history with

(04:58):
Ingrid Goes West twenty seventeen.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
I didn't see it in theaters, but I saw it
within a year of it coming out, and I will
say that and this is just a kind of personal
taste sort of thing. But I tend to really struggle
with movies where every single character is unlikable and just

(05:24):
like you're cringing at them the whole time. And I
know that that's the point of this movie, and we'll
talk a lot more about it, and I think there
is some interesting commentary on social media and its effects
from this movie. But it's such a stressful movie for
me to watch.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
It's so like it's like a thriller, Like, yeah, truly,
I think it is. Like when the movie ended, I
felt like I didn't realize how tight my chest had gotten.
Uh huh, Which, even though I don't love everything about
this movie, I was like, well, I guess it was
effective in making my body hurt, like WHI is wild.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
Yeah, to the point where I watch every movie at
least twice to prep for every episode we do. And
after my first watch of this, I was like, I
don't think I can watch this again. I'm too stressed out.
But I did anyway, So you're welcome, listeners. Brave hashtag
brave hashtag's so brave. But yeah, it's a very stressful

(06:22):
movie for me, So I didn't revisit it after seeing
it that first time, back in either twenty seventeen or
twenty eighteen, even though I think it has like good
performances and you know, it's a good script and things
like that. But yeah, too stressful. But prepping for this
episode was interesting and I'm excited to talk about it too.

(06:45):
What is your relationship with the movie.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
I saw this when it came out ish, same deal
within a year. I don't think I saw it in theaters,
but I am an Aubrey Plaza fan. She was like
working a lot during this time. But I wanted to
see it because I was like, oh, I've never seen
a movie about this before, and I feel like it
is kind of doing a talented mister Ripley thing but

(07:10):
for the internet, you know. I was like, Okay, this
is a cool concept. But I really didn't like it
the first time I saw it, and as I was watching,
I was trying to remember exactly why. And I do
think there's still things I don't like about this movie,
and there are still things that feel very like, yeah,
two men wrote this movie, for sure, But I liked it.

(07:34):
But when I say I liked, I mean it's like
hard to enjoy this movie because it is trying to
give you a panic attack in the same way that
I feel like Uncut Gems is trying to give you
a panic attack. Yes, yes, which you know means that
they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, and you know,
the whole time, I was like, I remember what happens
with Ingrid, but I'm so scared for literally everyone on

(07:56):
screen at all times.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Right.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
But I liked it more this time, and I feel
like this movie is aging in an interesting way. I
feel like at the time, outside of the criticism that
I think is still valid of like la la la,
women are so petty. On the revisit, I like the
script more. Everyone in this movie is petty to some degree,

(08:21):
and I think I hyper focused on that at the
time and it makes me feel like old. But I
think that at the time I saw this, I was like,
this is so cynical about the Internet, and I think
I just had more faith in the Internet when I

(08:42):
saw this movie for the first time than I do now,
Like I think that that was a big thing. I
was like, yeah, of course everyone is lying on social media.
It was true then, it was true. Now It's not
like I didn't know that, but I just felt like
I still felt some kind of optimism about the Internet
that I no longer feel. So I think that the
story just in general kind of worked better for me

(09:05):
this time. Yeah, but yeah, it's a tricky little movie.
I uh sure is. I really enjoyed writing for this,
especially like, yeah, because I've been spending the last couple
of months thinking about, you know, like what makes an
Internet character of the day, how do these conversations online go.
I was going back to like letterbox reviews at the time,

(09:28):
and I was not alone in thinking that this movie
was like maybe dismissive towards millennials in general, of like, oh,
a lot of the reviews I was seeing from people
I know people I didn't know were like, we get it,
phone bad, too much Instagram blah blah blah. But it
felt easier to brush off then. And maybe that's just

(09:50):
because social media has gotten so much worse since twenty seventeen,
and this movie has obviously a very uncharitable opinion of
social media. I feel like people I know who didn't
like this or like rolled their eyes at it at
the time might like it better now. I think, I
don't know, Yeah, yeah, I would be curious because I

(10:13):
don't think that. I mean, it wasn't a popular enough
movie that I don't think anyone has really revisited it.
But it's weirdly like one of the only movies of
this genre at least that I've seen.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Same. Yeah, it's quite unlike most things. Yeah, I said
brilliantly hashtag brilliant.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Hashtag genius. I also think I didn't know who Whyatt
Russell was the last time I saw this movie. I
think the main thing this movie did for me at
the time is made me a fan of Oh Jackson Junior.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yes, I think this was also the first thing I
saw him. And I can't remember if I saw when
did Straight Out of Compton come out?

Speaker 2 (10:52):
That came out in twenty fifteen.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
Okay, so maybe I had already seen him in that.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
I had seen him in that, But that movie is
just like what isn't very good? Yeah, I love f
Gary Gray, but I've liked them. I don't think anyone
thought that movie was very good. In any case, this movie,
I just wanted to shout out and oops, all nepotism
cast with You've got Osha Jackson Junior.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah, an ice cube, you've.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Got Elizabeth Olsen the older younger ooh, younger sister, I
think of the Olsen twins.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yes, she's younger, younger, she's born in nineteen eighty nine. Wow,
she is younger than I thought. And then Wyatt Russell,
who's double NEPO Kurt Russell and Goldie Hans.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
Oh, I did not realize that.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, so this is majority NEPO cast. No judgment. I'm
just saying it's funny. And I don't think I knew
that at the time. I knew who Osha Jackson Junior was.
I don't really care about Marvel movies, so this might
have been the first movie I saw Elizabeth Olsen in
as well.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
Well. Other her Marvel connection is the actor who plays
Harley Chung. Her name is Tom Clement type it is
maybe how you U say it. She plays Mantis in
We'll see in the Other.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, boy does she I did not connect that at all. Wow.
So we've got a lot of Marvel, We've got a
lot of NEPO. We've also got Billy Magnuson, who I
think is neither but I like him. But boy, is
his character a piece of shit? I was like, horrible,
sort of rooting for Ingrid to finish him off. But yeah, anyways,

(12:37):
the movie. The movie.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
Well, let's take a quick break and we'll come back
to recap.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
And we're back, all right.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
So here's the recap. I will place a content warning
at the top here for suicide. We meet Ingrid Sorburne
played by Abby Plaza. She is crying and scrolling through
Instagram photos of a wedding of someone named Charlotte. Then
we get the reveal that Ingrid is at the wedding,

(13:17):
crashing it, and she walks up to the bride, Charlotte,
and Pepper sprays her and says like, thanks for inviting me,
you fucking kunt, which does pass the Bechdel test.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
I thought that too, yay, okay.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
So then we see Ingrid in a psychiatric hospital and
she's still attempting to contact Charlotte via a letter I think,
in which we learn that Ingrid's mom has recently passed away.
Then Ingrid is released from the hospital and we see
her continue to obsessively scroll through Instagram. Then she sees

(13:58):
a magazine article about someone named Taylor Sloan played by
Elizabeth Olsen. Taylor is an influencer with over two hundred
and fifty thousand followers on Instagram. She lives in LA
She's very attractive, she has cute stuff, and she posts
photos of her life on Instagram, of her clothes, her meals,

(14:22):
her husband, her dog. You know, typical influencer stuff.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
I remember vaguely, and listeners, let us know if you
agree that it felt a little dated even in twenty seventeen.
I feel like it's like sort of like early early Instagram,
where it's like heavy on the filters, a lot of food,
a lot of hashtags, and like even by twenty seventeen
that wasn't really happening, but it did feel like going

(14:48):
in like a little social media spaceship into the past,
because people don't really do that now. They're like conspiracy
theorists or podcasters or both or both.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
I can't super speak to it because I've never been
very active on Instagram and I only started using it
around the time this movie came out. What if this
movie inspired me to start on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
I think I started using it like in Earnest in
like twenty fifteen. Okay, but even that was like a
little bit after. I feel like this peak kind of influencer,
but it's interesting.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah, it is interesting. Yeah, I was not, and I'm
still not a big user of the platform, and mostly
I just use it to get news and look at
cat videos. So those are my influencers.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
I mean same.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Okay. So Ingrid is reading about Taylor Sloan and scrolling
through her Instagram and she is mesmerized by what she sees,
you know, this glamorous southern California life. And Ingrid comments
on a post of Taylor's which is a photo of
avocado toast.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Hashtag millennials, that's how our generation ruined the economy. I
loved that storyline.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
That's why we aren't paying back our student loans because
we're spending all of our money on avocado toast.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yeah damn, We're so messy anyways.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
Right, So then Ingrid is out getting groceries and she
overhears one of Charlotte's friends talking about Ingrid saying that
she and Charlotte weren't even friends. That Ingrid basically instagram
stocked Charlotte and we're like, hmm, that's interesting. And Ingrid
is crying about this, But then she sees that Taylor

(16:51):
has responded to her comment, recommending that she try out
a particular restaurant the next time she's in LA, and
Ingrid is thrilled, and this seems to prompt Ingrid to
move to LA, especially after she receives somewhere around a
like sixty thousand dollars inheritance or like life insurance payout

(17:15):
or something of that nature after her mom passed away.
So she arrives in LA and rents an apartment from
Dan Pinto played by oh Jackson Jr. He is an
aspiring screenwriter who is obsessed with Batman. Hilarious Yeah, I mean, great.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Character and also oh my god, like again just another
anxiety inducing person. Yes, like aspiring screenwriter slash landlord as
such a stressful m description.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
The thing though about all of these characters is they
are not even really caricatures of a lot of LA people.
Like everyone in this I'm like, yeah, I've encountered someone
pretty much exactly like that here in La.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
So so there's that anyway. So Ingrid is now living
in LA and she starts going to the shops and
restaurants and salons that Taylor posts about on social media.
She reads the same books as Taylor, she buys the
same stuff. All of that I like that.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Taylor is so us in the sense that she lies
about reading books.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
I was like, Oh, we're supposed to be mad about
that she's busy.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
Yeah, we find out that she's never She claims that
The Deer Park is her favorite book, and then we
find out she's never read it, and we're like.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Wow, oh well, oh well, we.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
Don't read books either, Taylor. It's okay. So then one
day Ingrid bumps into Taylor at a store, and Ingrid
is trying to act cool but also like trying to
get Taylor to notice her, and Taylor definitely does notice her,
but it's because Ingrid is not acting cool. She's being
very awkward. She almost like absent mindedly shoplifts, you know,

(19:10):
stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
She's doing Aubrey Plaza. This is what Aubrey Plaza characters
do at this time, and I'm still kind of yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
So then Ingrid stalks Taylor to her house and stays
there all day, and then when Taylor leaves to go
out that night, Ingrid kidnaps her dog so that she
can return the dog to Taylor and seem like a hero,
which works. Taylor and her husband, Ezra played by Wyatt

(19:42):
Russell are so grateful and they're like, oh my gosh,
let us make you dinner. So Ingrid stays for dinner.
They're having a nice time, and Ingrid does whatever she
can to endear herself to them. She buys a piece
of Ezra's art, which is ugly.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
She it's bad.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
It's not good.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
If we can't say that men's art is bad on
this show, why do we even start it? Yeah, this
is where she goes full mister Ripley mode, because even
though she's socially awkward, she's really great at intuiting. Although
at some point I will say, I mean, it's just
it's not a feminist criticism of the movie. But at

(20:26):
some point during the middle of this movie, I'm like,
would she continue to get away with this? Like, if
I'm Elizabeth Olsen, once I see that she has a
gun with her, I'm like, I'm gonna get out of here.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
I'm gonna leave, you would think yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
But anyways, she's ripleying. She's working on another level.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Because she also offers to haul their trailer to the
house they have in Joshua Tree because they need someone
with a truck. Only Ingrid doesn't have a truck, but
her landlord Dan Pinto does so she asks to borrow
it and he is reluctant, but he also has a
crush on her and agrees to lend Ingrid the truck

(21:08):
if she plays Catwoman in an upcoming table read for
his unauthorized Batman screenplay.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
They are so stressful, as like, she does him dirty
time and time again. She's the worst, But it is
also so mean to ask someone to do a Batman
table read with you.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
True, although I was kind of taking inventory of all
of the characters, and then I was trying to think, like,
of these people, if I had to be friends with
one of them, Oh, who would it be? And it
would be him and we would just talk about Batman.
I guess it would be him.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, you would see him like once every three months
and be kind of exhausted at the end of the hang,
but be like he's a nice guy. Whatever. Yeah, I
wish it wasn't a landlord, but times are tough. I
guess it's like, yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Well, he's not selling his illegal Batman scripts that he's writing,
so he's got to make money somehow.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
It's true. God, landlords with dreams.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
Gross anyway, So Ingrid gets the truck and takes Taylor
and her trailer, which I think should be the name
of a hashtag podcast.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Maybe a Taylor's Swift the podcast.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
She takes them to Joshua Tree, except that she pretends
it's her truck slash that she's borrowing it from her
boyfriend Dan. She makes up a story about how Dan
is actually her boyfriend.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
I do like this is just like something I think
is fun in movies where for no reason at all,
a character is almost always referred to as their full name,
And like Dan Pinto, just like it just trips off
the tongue, and people just love to say. They don't
want to just say Dan, They want to say Dan Pinto.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
Dan is not enough syllables. You need the whole thing,
Dan Pinto's true.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
You need to keep the momentum going exactly. He doesn't
seem bothered by it, so.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
Whatever, Yeah, okay. So on the way to Joshua Tree,
Taylor is like, oh my god, Ingrid, you're so funny.
I love you. You're my favorite person. Let's take pictures together.
And obviously Ingrid is loving this, and Ingrid bails on
Dan Pinto's Batman script. Table read in favor of spending

(23:36):
more time with Taylor. They do cocaine, they go out dancing,
they're bonding, and on the way to the Joshua Tree house,
Ingrid fucks up Dan's truck because they're so distracted by singing.
Casey and JoJo's all my life to each other, and

(23:58):
so the truck is all fucked up, and Taylor's like,
don't even worry about it. Everything's gonna be fine. And
then Taylor tells Ingrid a secret that she plans to
buy the house next door in Joshua Tree and open
up a boutique hotel where everything inside is for sale,

(24:18):
which sounds I hate it, but yeah, well no, it
sounds horrible.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Horrible, I mean horrible. Yeah, that's like something that changed
between my first view the first time I saw this
movie and now you're like, oh, everyone in this movie
is horrible. Yes, because maybe I felt like the writing
was on the side of her, her husband, but on
a rewatch, I actually think this movie is on the

(24:45):
side of nobody. It's a pretty cynical. Yeah, like everyone
sucks Her idea for an influencer hotel is horrible. Truly,
it's gross, but I'm sure it would have worked. I
mean for sure. I mean like that feels very like
Joshua Tree gentrification vibes, you know, for sure.

Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah, and Ingrid is like, oh my god, it's the
best idea of ever Taylor. And Taylor doesn't want her
husband Ezra to know about this because of financial reasons,
so now they have this little secret. The next day,
they return to La and Ingrid drops off Dan's truck.

(25:26):
He's furious at her for bailing on the table read
and leaving this huge scratch on the truck.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
This is the point where you're just like, does she
really get out of this scrap in real life? But
I guess I never underestimate a horny straight guy, Like
maybe I don't know.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
Right, it causes like he says, eight thousand dollars of
damage to his truck, and he forgives her because she's like,
let's go on a date and he's like, Okay, I
like you and I want to have sex with you.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
So dude's rock.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
But he's like yelling at her in this scene, but
she doesn't even freaking care because she has just gotten
a notification that Taylor tagged her in a photo on Instagram.
So Ingrid is on cloud nine and she keeps hanging
out with Taylor. She's spending a lot of her money
on clothes and home decorps to impress Taylor. Then Ingrid

(26:24):
meets Taylor's brother, Nicki played by Billy Magnuson, who comes
to La for a visit, and Ingrid is jealous that
he's commanding a lot of Taylor's attention, especially when Taylor
bails on plans that she and Ingrid have to hang
out in order to go to a party with Nicki
and this fashion influencer Harley Chung played by Palm clement Tyfe.

(26:50):
Ingrid tries to go to this event but then like
can't get into the VIP area and they're like, ooh,
sorry about that, but hey, why don't you come to
a pool party this weekend that Harley is throwing and
bring your boyfriend Dan because they were joking behind Ingrid's

(27:11):
back that her boyfriend is imaginary.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Oh god, one of the many scenes that oh, like
just made my chest tighten. I can't write like that
to like find a moment like that where it's like
Taylor is caught in a lie being like, oh, I
didn't say your boyfriend doesn't exist, and like, Ingrid knows
people are talking shit around her back, but she's just like,
I gotta make it through this interaction. And you're like, oh,

(27:36):
it's just so painful.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
It is, and they're not even wrong because Dan isn't
her boyfriend.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
No, it is wild how easy it is for Ingrid
to be like, you're my boyfriend. He's like totally okay, yeah,
yeah right.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
So now Ingrid has to make amends with Dan Pinto,
who is still pissed for the truck fiasco and the
table read thing. But she buys him some Batman gifts
and some weed, and she takes him out to dinner
and it's like kind of a date and then they
start making out and then they go to his place
and have sex and they're doing like batman catwoman role

(28:16):
play and he's like whoo. And she invites him to
this pool party and he agrees to go. So at
the pool party, Ingrid is being very unchill because she
keeps feeling like Dan is embarrassing her. Dan is bonding

(28:37):
with Nicki, who Ingrid still hates, and most importantly, it's
obvious that Taylor is less enthusiastic about her friendship with
Ingrid because Taylor has clearly moved on to Harley as
her new like bff of the moment, and Ingrid is
very jealous. So she betrays Taylor and tells Ezra about

(29:00):
that secret they had the you know, boutique hotel idea yeah,
and Ezra is like, oh, so typical because his wife
has become so phony recently, not like me. He's an artist.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, there's somebody interesting, like yeah, how he talks like
his wife like that Taylor bullied him into being I'm like,
you have agency here as raw yeah okay, yes, and
he sort of resents her for being supportive.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
I don't know, yeah right, but he's also like pretentious
and yeah he's shitty in his own way. They're the worst, yes,
but in different ways.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
So then Ingrid can't find her phone because Nikki had
swiped it, and he finds all of these photos that
Ingrid took of stuff in Taylor's bathroom and photos of
Taylor sleeping and no of all of Taylor's favorite things,
and Nicki is like, what the fuck, you creep, and

(30:07):
he claims to be looking out for his sister, but
then he's like, I won't tell Taylor if you give
me five thousand dollars a month, so he's trying to
extort her, and she then pays some guy to punch
her in the face so that it's more believable when
Ingrid tells Dan that Nicky assaulted her, so that Dan

(30:31):
will help her scare Nikki off because she knows that
Dan has a gun, so they kidnap Nicki and drive
him out to the desert. Nicki fights back, but then
Ingrid hits him over the head with a crowbar or
something and leaves him there.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
It's very like hijinksy. This movie sort of deviates into
hijinks occasionally.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
For a moment here and there.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, do we know why Dan Pinto has a gun?

Speaker 3 (30:56):
It's not a real gun. It is a paintball gun.

Speaker 2 (30:58):
Right right right?

Speaker 4 (30:59):
Right?

Speaker 2 (30:59):
Okay, yeah, because I was like, he is a dorc
why is he? M? M okay it's painpal gun. Yes, yes.

Speaker 3 (31:07):
So Dan ends up in the hospital after this altercation
with Nicki, and Taylor calls Ingrid and she's like, hey,
do you know where my brother is? And she's like,
definitely not, but I'm sure he's fine.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Let's get avocado toast.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Girly, and then Ingrid finds out that Taylor has taken
another trip to Joshua Tree, so Ingrid drives there to
stalk her. Yeah, but then finds out that Taylor is
not actually there and that she doesn't want to see
or talk to Ingrid anymore because she found out what
Ingrid did to Nicki her brother.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
And I think kind of like massively underreacts. Yeah, not
that I would advise involving the police, but it just
didn't make sense to me. It seems like Taylor would
have no issue calling the police, you know what I mean, right.
I was surprised at how generous she was in that situation,
because I'm like, if I were Taylor, I would be like,

(32:07):
I don't feel safe for sure. That's scary.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
There's some comment that I think Ezra makes to the
effect of, if Nicky didn't try to extort you, you'd
be in jail right now. So I think that because
Nicky did something illegal, that's why they don't go to
the police. But I don't know the logic of these choices.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
It's confusing.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
In any case, Ingrid makes this situation even worse by
calling Taylor many times and leaving a bunch of voicemails
then Ingrid puts a down payment on a house in
Joshua Tree, the house next to the one that Taylor
owns aka the house that Taylor wanted to buy to

(32:54):
turn into the boutique hotel. But this is the last
of Ingrid's money, so now she broke. She's living in Squalor.
She sees then that Taylor's having a Halloween party next door,
so she puts on like a white sheet to pretend
to be a ghost and crashes the party, and Taylor

(33:16):
and Ezra and Nikki are all like, what the fuck
are you doing here? Leave us alone? So then Ingrid
goes back to her house and records a video of
herself saying that everything she's posted in the past few
months has been a lie. She has not been living
this glamorous la life. She's a loser. She knows that

(33:38):
something is wrong with her, but she doesn't know how
to fix it or how to change. She feels lonely,
she feels despair, and she posts this video to her
followers on Instagram, which she's accumulated I think like a
few thousand, I'm guessing because of her proximity to Taylor
and like being tagged in photos of Taylors and things

(33:59):
like that. This video is effectively a suicide note. She
posts it and then she attempts suicide. She wakes up
in the hospital having survived because Dan had seen the
video and called nine to one one, and so she survives,
and she learns that the video she posted went viral,

(34:22):
and now she has tons of followers and people who
care about her and who have sent her gifts and
all of this stuff. She's even a hashtag. And so
the movie ends on this note, or at least my
interpretation of it, is that she has learned nothing and
she'll continue to seek validation from social media and other

(34:46):
kind of like superficial sources.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
The end.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
So that's the movie on.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
That awesome note. Let's take a quick break and we'll
be right back, and we're back. Okay, Yeah, this movie
is really challenging. Okay, So I want to talk about

(35:16):
some of the criticism of this movie that came out
at the time, because I think a lot of it
is valid, and I also kind of want to revisit
it a little bit because I think that this movie
does not do great on the subject of mental health.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
Agree.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
I think that that is like one of its major flaws,
but the way that it fumbles it. I think I
feel differently than I did when I first saw it,
because it feels like Ingrid is a destructive She's struggling
with mental illness and grief the entire movie, and we
know this about her, and she is unable to get

(35:55):
the help that she needs, and it feels like she
is stuck in this. I think I originally was like
my first viewing at this, I was like, Oh, we're
supposed to hate Ingrid, but I didn't really feel that
way this time. I felt like it. And maybe I'm
giving the movie too much credit, but it was It's like,
because social media was and is such an under explored

(36:19):
addictive process, It's like every time like she has the
drug in her hand at all times, and no one
really acknowledges it as an addiction and as a drug
that can exacerbate and make the mental illnesses that she's
struggling with even harder to deal with. And so I

(36:40):
don't know, it's tricky because she does so many unforgivable things.
But I did find myself like empathizing with her because
I've struggled with mental illness and like OCD specifically, and
social media is designed to make that worse and designed
to encourage that and attach social currency and the concept

(37:01):
of acceptance to that. So, like I, while I cannot
relate with kidnapping Billy Magnuson and like, you know, completely
uprooting my life, I did feel like it was interesting
to see a character who is struggling with obsessive thoughts
and compulsive behaviors and how social media is absolutely designed

(37:25):
to make that worse. The way it's handled from moment
to moment, I feel like is all over the place
for me.

Speaker 3 (37:33):
Right, because, like the movie's agenda is very clearly to
examine what social media can do to people's mental health,
how it can encourage an impulse for people to compare
themselves to others, how it can breed loneliness. And then

(37:54):
on the kind of influencer side of things, it shows
how their job is to hawk stuff, whether that's like
food at a restaurant, apparel, accessories, makeup whatever, or just
like a general like image or lifestyle almost and how

(38:14):
doing that basically encourages that impulse to compare yourself to
others and feel insecure and feel lonely, and how it's
just like this cyclical mess, and the movie acknowledges that
and explores it. But like you were saying, as far
as how it handles it, and especially handles mental health.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
As well as like suicidality, I've felt.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
Like I'm not thrilled with it.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
On one hand, I do think the movie could be
a lot more judgmental of people who are like influenced
by influencers, especially for a movie that was written and
directed by men, because men often have a habit of
observing women and kind of misinterpreting what is going on.

(39:08):
So I feel like it would have been very easy for,
you know, most male filmmakers to observe women who are
on both sides of the like influencer social media phenomenon
and cast a lot of judgment on them, the way
that men constantly cast judgment on women for things like

(39:29):
feeling pressure to adhere to societal expectations that men largely reinforce. Right,
the movie doesn't quite do that, but it does not
seem to have very much empathy for the mental health
issues that Ingrid is dealing with.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yeah, I feel the same way. I feel like, in
the effort to get their message across about social media.
The way that mental health is treated is undercooked in
service of that point, which sucks because I think it's
a really hard needle to thread and one that I

(40:11):
would rather I mean this honestly, this movie just maybe
want to see movies about social media addiction, not by men,
and not to say that men can't be addicted to
social media. They absolutely can and are. But this was
like talking about a very particular gendered form of plucking
the show again, sixteenth minute on cool Zone Media. I

(40:33):
was just talking with friend of the cast, Bridget Todd
this morning, yes, of course, who hosts There Are No
Girls on the Internet and talks about these topics a lot,
and you know, she was speaking to the point that
I think is done more thoughtfully in this movie, which
is that social media is designed to make women feel
like shit, and the content that the algorithm favors tends

(40:56):
to be very aspirational to make women feel like shit
about their body, about their class, about their lifestyle, about
any number of things. And I do like that. Again,
the easy choice here would have been to make Taylor
the influencer be a super villain who is lying in

(41:18):
a less complicated way than she's actually lying. But it doesn't,
and I do appreciate that, you know, like Taylor is
in sort of this trap of maybe not of her
own making, but sort of of her own making, where
it's become her job to perform feeling great, and she

(41:38):
doesn't like she has any number of problems like normal
people would, but can't say that. I am interested in,
like the monetizing yourself and your personality, and I think
that that is just like always a more slippery slope
if you're marginalized in any way, especially like before there

(42:00):
were any conversations around it, like so easy to get
trapped in like a rigid self, and if you act
outside of this self, you're acting off brand, and that's bad.
And like, I think this movie does do some stuff
to acknowledge that, you know, the influencers are also in
a different kind of mental prison, right, And it doesn't

(42:24):
mean that the actions of influencers are universally forgivable, because
you know, Taylor is still not great, right, But I
like that she is not great in a way that
still feels very human. And I just feel like her
character was generally better thought through than Ingrid's at times,
which is frustrating because I think Ingrid is We're given

(42:47):
the ingredients to have a lot of interesting discussions in
this movie around grief, around mental health, and around how
you are with a tiny computer all the time that
says it's helping you with these exact things, and almost
always isn't like, but it's an interesting movie to go
back to because you're like, they didn't quite get it.

(43:10):
But I think it's aging better than I expected.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
Right, I mean again, the thing that it's always gonna
boil down to for me is that the Ingrid character,
it's not necessarily unsympathetic or unempathetic toward her, especially when
you learn the directors and the writers' intentions with the character.

(43:39):
So I will share a quote from what I think
might be a press release. I don't really know what
this was, but it's possibly a press release from Mongrel Media,
which is the film distribution company that I believe distributed
Ingrid Goes West. And in this document is a an

(44:00):
interview with Matt Spicer, who directed and co wrote the movie,
and he was asked how did this project originate and
he says, quote, my co writer, David Branson Smith and
I have been friends for many years and we're looking
for something to work on together. We were having lunch
and talking about our mutual obsession with Instagram and how

(44:21):
it brings out the worst in us, making us feel
bad about ourselves while also being wildly entertaining and addictive.
He asked me if I thought there was a movie there,
which I did. The obvious choice was to make single
white female for the social media generation, with Taylor as
the helpless victim in Ingrid as the obsessive, cold blooded stalker.

(44:42):
But the more we talked about it, I actually found
myself relating more to the Ingrid character. The quote goes
on and there's a bunch of other questions, and he
talks quite a bit about developing each character and the
thought that went into it. And so they are approaching Ingrid,
the writers and director, with a sense of empathy, like

(45:06):
they do kind of understand what it is to be
addicted to social media and how that does affect your
mental health. And so they're not necessarily not approaching the
character with any intentional malice or anything like that. But
the fact remains that Ingrid, though it is unidentified, is

(45:31):
dealing with a mental health crisis, and I mean not identified,
like by specific name she's never.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Right, which which I'm not mad about, right, but yeah,
something that Foster's compulsive behaviors.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
Right, And on top of that, she's dealing with grief
over the loss of her mother, and the movie, I
think is pretty much constantly assuming that you will or
encouraging that the audience will be cringing at her behavior

(46:07):
and laughing at her. And so for that to be
the case, and people might disagree with me, but I
feel like the movie is like constantly like, oh God, no, Ingrid,
don't do that, not again. Oh you're so cringey. Oh,
or she's doing something that you're laughing at or that's
supposed to be funny. And for that to be true
of a character who is again dealing with a mental

(46:29):
health crisis. That's the thing that rubs me the wrong
way about this movie.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
That makes sense to me, And that was like, so
what I didn't like about it the first time, And
I think that that makes a lot of sense. And yeah,
I'm unclear on exactly what they want us to feel
about her at certain points because I feel like, and
maybe this is just grounded in Aubrey Plaza's performance, but
like I want to be on her side, like I

(46:57):
want her to be okay, and it's like scary and
sad and frustrating to watch her not get the help
that she needs. Yeah again, it just yeah, I felt
undercooked and under explored because we see that she has
spent some time in inpatient treatment, but that doesn't seem

(47:19):
to have been especially helpful for her, which can be
very true, but like again, it's just like that's there
and she goes to I mean, yeah, if you're having
a mental health crisis, definitely don't move to Los Angeles.
It's like the worst possible place you could be. Take

(47:39):
it from me, But it's hard because I feel like
I can't exactly put it into words. I think that
that read is so there of like it's funny that
this is happening, but I also felt like going back
in this time, I just felt terribly for her. Yeah,
and part of why it's such an anxiety inducing movie.

(48:02):
And maybe it's just like where I am now versus
where I was then, but like watching her be around
people who don't necessarily have bad intentions towards her, but
they just are not equipped to be able to give
her what she needs. And yeah, I think the mental
health point that really didn't sit well with me. Again,
I understand from the message cautionary message about social media

(48:27):
point why the character makes a suicide attempt, but I
really don't. That's just a personal preference thing. Maybe I
just don't like that. I especially don't like when that's
put on screen. That was what gave me pause. I
feel like you can end the movie the same way,
maybe not, you know, with that same really stomach churning impact.

(48:53):
But I feel like you could end the movie with
the same like feeling without having done that. But that's
kind of a personal preference. But I just don't like
when attempts are put on screen. I feel like it's
usually unnecessary, especially because it's an Oprey Plaza movie. A
lot of young people are gonna see it, and I
just don't like it. I wanted to go back to

(49:14):
original criticism of this movie, yeah, because I just wanted
your take. I really I don't know what to make
of it now, especially because we were already doing movie
criticism in twenty seventeen when this movie came out. But
I feel like it was very different.

Speaker 3 (49:28):
We were hashtag babies back.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
Then, tag podcasting toddlers, but it was an interesting, like,
look at what the criticism of this time was like.
So this is from a Miss magazine piece from when
the movie came out in twenty seventeen. While the film
has been heralded as a timely warning against social media,
this so called warning is only possible because of the
filmmaker's representation of Ingrid as unstable, obsessive, and quote unquote

(49:55):
hysterical depictions, which have historically all been used to devalue
and control women. Taking a cue from Single White Female,
the film relies on the trope that women's friendships are
toxic and unstable, Taking another from films like Swim Fan
and Black Swan, it predicates its entire plot on the
tired notion that women are jealous, irrational, and obsessive by nature.
The film's investment in these depictions paints mental illness into

(50:18):
an inherently female danger. Indeed, it seems that Ingrid is
a stark and visual warning about the mentally ill woman
we should make sure to never become. As Sarah Kahn
writes in a piece that no longer exists on the Internet,
the film's unresolved ending is particularly harmful. In that quote,
it only reinforces the incorrect and ignorant narrative that people

(50:40):
only talk openly about mental illness to seek attention unquote.
I think this is interesting. I don't totally agree with
it now, honestly, but I do I think agree with
that last part a little bit. Again. I think that,
like from the year twenty twenty four, I cannot comfortably
say that everyone on the internet discussed mental health is

(51:01):
doing so in great faith. I feel like that is
not necessarily true. However, the majority are, I think, and
I feel like if this movie wants to make this point,
we should maybe see other examples of how people are
good faith engaging.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
See, But now saying that, I'm like, do you feel
that Ingrid made this attempt for attention? I sort of
didn't read it that way. I didn't well, I don't know.
I mean, like, maybe that's me being naive and like
I don't see the game of like seven thousand d
chests she was playing. But I guess I read that
attempt as sincere, so that kind of negates that point

(51:45):
for me. I don't know. I do think that it
would have been helpful to clarify whatever they were trying
to say around mental health to have another character navigating,
if not the same issue, because you know, everyone has
their own mental health journey to go on, right, but
navigating those same issues in a different way from Ingrid.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
Right, I do think it was not like an attention
seeking attempt.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
I didn't think so either.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
Yeah, I do think that she was legitimately attempting suicide.
And what she says during that video seems I mean,
it's devastating because she's acknowledging how her life has been
a lie and how she feels so lonely and she
feels like a loser and pathetic and all of these things.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
She misses her mom and like, see now, I'm like,
but now this movie review doesn't believe women. I'm confused.
I'm confused. Yeah, I didn't read that. I mean, and
listeners like, obviously open season on if you did read
it that way. But yeah, it felt like if that

(53:00):
was the intended read of the movie, then yeah, Ingrid
is being shown as essentially a super villain. But I
guess I just didn't. Yeah, I didn't read it that way.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
My read is that she was intending to die by suicide,
that her words in the suicide note video were earnest,
but The point is that she will fall back into
the same cycle because once she survives this attempt and

(53:33):
learns that she has a following now that people are
reaching out to her, and chances are she'll never meet
any of these people and not actually form any lasting
or meaningful connections with any of them. But she's addicted
to this internet validation, and it seems as though, because

(53:55):
of like the grin on her face when she's seeing
all of these expressions of love and support from people
commenting on her Instagram, that she again will have learned
nothing and will fall back into the same cycle what
I wish would have happened. Maybe I'm talking through this

(54:18):
in real time, but like we see her being hospitalized
in the beginning of the movie, but it's in like montage, right,
and we don't get a whole lot of sense of
what is going on, and like is the system failing her?
Like is the healthcare system the thing that's right?

Speaker 2 (54:39):
And it kind of seems I guess again, that was
like the conclusion that I jumped to, but we're not
given that explicit reason.

Speaker 3 (54:46):
Right, because she makes a comment of I know something
is wrong with me, but I don't know how to
fix it, I don't know how to change, and I'm curious,
like what was the care like that she did receive
in this hospital?

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Right, right, because it's like it's totally conceivable to get
bad mental health treatment, absolute surely, but it's yeah, I
agree like that it's important I think to yeah, demonstrate
like why it didn't quite work. Otherwise I feel like
it is a viable read for it to be like,
you know, in patient treatment doesn't work, which is obviously

(55:25):
not true. Right Yeah. Again, it's just like, because it's
like this satirey feel, it sometimes feels like there's too
broad of a brush with certain issues. But anyways, I
just wanted to share that because I thought it was interesting.
I'm like, I feel like I would have really wholeheartedly
agreed with that criticism at the time, and you know,

(55:46):
time keeps moving, and it's just interesting because I feel like, yeah,
I was able to have a little bit more of
a generous read of this movie than I did six
or seven years ago. I do want to say that
Elizabeth said joined Instagram right after this movie came out.
There is a funny, kind of iconic her kind of

(56:07):
fucked up but kind of iconic. This is from the Cut.
In twenty seventeen, Elizabeth Olsen recently joined Instagram for the
first time. She learned the ropes while playing an Instagram
influencer in her upcoming film Ingrid Goes West, But in
an interview with The La Times, she reveals that her
newfound social media savvy isn't simply because she needed to
share photos of her breakfast with the world. She's just

(56:27):
in it for the cash, so she said, it's so
funny that people, this is Elizabeth Olsen speaking, It's so
funny that people like to pretend that there may be
or maybe not getting paid to post something financially, it's
a brilliant opportunity. Like I'd really love to be a
brand ambassador. I'd love to do a campaign. I think
sometimes working with brands or different cosmetic companies that can
help people recognize your face and then they go see
your movie. I was only hurting my opportunities by not participating, which,

(56:51):
honestly I think that that is Like, even if you
don't agree with it, I appreciate that she's just being
honest about it because I feel like that's the fault
that the movie is trying to criticize, is that influencers
and this happened. I mean, it's worse now, even though
there are disclosure laws in place that there didn't used
to be about and saying when you're doing spawn versus
when you're not. There are some influencers that like their

(57:14):
whole account is spawn. You're like, how do we even
get interested in you in the first place? Like you're
just selling shit. It's weird.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Yeah, I've never quite understood that, but I do find
it interesting that the way Taylor describes herself and her job,
because ingrid very blazonly, is like, what do you guys
do for money? You know, on the first night that
she meets them. But people should be more transparent, I

(57:43):
think about their income and how they get it. But anyway, yeah,
she's like, what do you do for money? And Taylor's like, oh,
I'm a photographer right right, And then we find out
that she's like, well, you know, it's not as glamorous,
is it seems? Sometimes brands pay me to like post
photos on the thing. And so she's basically like she's

(58:03):
describing being an influencer in very creative ways because we
don't ever see her with a camera any other camera
besides her iPhone camera, she's not doing the type of
photography that.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
Yeah, it feels very like prior. I think that those
disclosure laws they might have existed by the time this
movie came out, but maybe not when it was written.
I forget exactly when, but yeah, like it almost feels
like I honestly used to feel this way when I
would tell people that I hosted a podcast for a living,
I actually would not say that, and I was actively like, oh,
this is a career that is still like not quite

(58:41):
a thing, and I'm kind of embarrassed to say I
have a job that I'm not sure is considered to
be real or you.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
Know, huh.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
And it feels like that's kind of what Taylor's doing
with an influencer, Like she's trying to make it sound
like a respected job where influencer clearly at the time
this was written or filmed or I don't know what
the production timeline was, wasn't considered a job, whereas now,
like most influencers are pretty straightforward about what it is

(59:12):
they're doing because it's considered a legitimate job. I mean
the same as podcasting, Like it's considered a legitimate job now,
and so people are just like, yeah, this is my job,
but she's like, oh well, it's not what it seems like.
And also like, clearly at this time she didn't have
to disclose anything, which is scary, and that like whether

(59:33):
the influencers doing this were especially cognizant of this or not,
because I do think that there's like a lot of
naivete around social media usage at this time. They're like, yeah,
selling you a fake, it's advertising, it's lying, it's lying,
it's making stuff up.

Speaker 3 (59:49):
And we see her lying about other stuff such as
like she never read the books she's claiming to have read.
She loved that, claims that her husband is a very
the popular artist, and we find out that the only
sale he's ever made is that one two ingrid And
basically we just see every character lying or manipulating or

(01:00:12):
thinking that the Jewel Schumacher Batman movies are good.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Okay, what the greatest sin of all? I loved Joel Schumacher.
I was very surprised to hear a Jewel Like, you
just don't expect to hear his full name spoken in
a movie.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
You don't.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
But yeah, I mean I thought this movie did a
better job than I remembered both clearly pointing to the
fact that the kind of influencing that Taylor is doing
is lying. But there is like a gradient of like
it doesn't make her the world's worst person, but it doesn't.
I feel like there was at least some fairness with

(01:00:53):
how that was shown, Like she wasn't completely demonized, but
she wasn't made out to be like, oh, I'm just
a girl, I don't know what I'm doing, Like she
does know what she's doing, yeah, and she seems a
little ashamed of it, but not enough to not do
it right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
There is more nuance to I would say pretty much
every character we get to know to some extent, there's
more nuance to them than, again, I would have expected
from filmmakers who are men writing about women. I'm not
saying they did.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
An amazing job, but they did something.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
There's something, and there's more nuance there because again, I
think it would have been very easy and the kind
of default for men to write female characters and female
influencers and people who are susceptible to influencers in a
way more judgy way. But I am curious as to

(01:01:55):
why these men, and again I'm talking about director Matt
Spicer and his co writer on the script, David Branson Smith,
why they chose women as the main characters when they
could better speak to the experience of men being affected
by social media because they are men affected by social media,

(01:02:18):
as they say in that interview.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
Which is interesting because we like we do get a
feel for that. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like,
I don't want to be like people could only write
their own experience. Yeah, but I would just be curious
to know, and I would also at a note and
I wasn't able to really find anything on this to
like to what extent they spoke to women about their
experiences on social media in building out these characters, because

(01:02:42):
that feels like it would be a very important component
of building out this relationship. Because I don't really agree
with the Miss magazine criticism that sort of indicates that,
like Taylor in Ingrid's Dynamic, is indicative that these writers
think that all women's French are dysfunctional and toxic. Like,
I think that that's kind of an overstatement. I feel

(01:03:06):
like we understand why this friendship isn't working. It's because
they're both lying and one to a wild degree. Yeah,
and that you know one is in mental health crisis
and the other is not equipped to handle that, and
Taylor is like a people pleaser to the extent that

(01:03:26):
it's dishonest, and like, I feel like you're given maybe
my brain is broken. It didn't feel especially gendered, because
you do get a taste of like how social media
affects men, but not as I don't know, Like, I
think that the shared quality across the cast is that
everyone is in fake it till you make it mode,

(01:03:49):
which is I think just how LA characters are very
frequently written. But like Dan Pinto is a fake screenwriter,
and Taylor is a fake photographer, and Wyatt Russell is
a fake artist, and you know, Billy Magdison is a
fake I don't even know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
He's like a real con artist, and he's very racist.
We should point.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
Out, yes, there is a horrific racist joke in this
that clearly turns you on this character. I don't think
it was necessary at all to turn us on this character.
And it also makes it clear that Taylor is okay
with this totally in a room full of white people,
She's very okay with laughing at an extremely racist joke.

(01:04:38):
And I think that the only person in the room
who really says something is her.

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
Husband, her husband Ezra.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Yes, so a single point for him there, But he
also like I don't know what did you make of him,
because I think he definitely sucks. He's a pretentious asshole, yes, right,
And he seems very resentful towards Taylor for the way
that she's making money.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
For sure, And it's not clear if he is like
intimidated by her success the way a lot of men
in relationships with women who are like making more money
than them is very threatening to those men. It's not
clear if he's feeling that or if he's just like

(01:05:24):
on his high horse about you know, self promotion and
being super online, because those things are clear, but we
don't know if there's like an underlying like misogyny thing
happening or.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
I guess it kind of seems to me like there
definitely was like, yeah, he's like the kind of person
that sucks. Even when he's saying the right thing, you
just feel like he's saying the right thing for the
wrong reason, which I guess a lot of people in
this movie are true, and that is a very common
internet behavior, right, But like, yeah, he's acting like he's
too good, like he's trying to have everything both ways

(01:05:58):
and resenting no matter what the situation is. He resents
Taylor as a result, And I don't even like Taylor,
but I feel like he is an asshole because he's like, oh,
self promotion is so gross, blah blah blah, But why
aren't I making money as an artist? Like he just
wants everything to be handed to him because he is

(01:06:19):
a man, and look at my art, and everyone's a
poser and a faker except for me. And meanwhile, you
know his wife is paying all the bills because she
is working, but he doesn't consider what she does. I mean,
this is maybe me getting defense, but like he doesn't
consider what she does real even though what she's doing

(01:06:39):
is funding his lifestyle. So right, he can shut up
or like not be in this relationship if you're not
comfortable with that, But you can't just like be angry
and passively benefit from it all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
True. Also, and I'm not criticizing all like upcycled art
because because I think some of it is very very cool, but.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
His art is it's right up there with Magic Mike.

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):
It's bad, Magic BIG's awful. Furniture, Yeah, all that Ezra
is doing is taking existing paintings that he bought from
thrift stores and then painting text on them that says
like hashtag blessed or hashtag squad goals or any of those.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Which was a thing like I remember that shit, and
like they were right to make fun of it. It
was ridiculous. Yeah, but yeah, he's a poser. He's a
faker for sure, like the worst kind of poser, where
his whole personality is predicated on the fact that he's
definitely not a poster, which is like the worst, the
worst kind of person.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
The movie is recognizing the irony of him being like,
I'm a real artist. My art speaks for itself. I
do art. And then you see his art and it's
something that someone else made and then he just painted
some letters on it. It's like, Okay, are you good
at art? Question mark.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
I do think that, like, at very least, like his character,
because I did not remember. It's a very very racist
joke about virtually any Asian person because it is that
vague and cruel, and I still don't think it was
necessary because it does happen. I'm glad that his character
calls it out, said something Yeah, yeah, and I understand.

(01:08:29):
I mean, like, I think he's an interesting character to
have there. It's like I recognize the type of person
and it sort of contributes to like showing what And
this is like kind of a mealy mouthed point that
we've seen made in a lot of things with like
social media is not real. But that's the point this
movie is trying to make to some extent, And their

(01:08:50):
marriage dynamic I think is like pretty interesting and unique,
and like, even though I don't love Taylor as a
character and her weird Joshua Tree gentrification hotel sounds awful,
her husband is also sexist, so there's that. Her brother,

(01:09:11):
I feel like, is character that didn't really work for me.
He felt too cartoonish, I don't know. And also they
were like, well he was struggling with or not dealing
with his addiction problems, which is referenced several times, but
really only seems to be there to add another way

(01:09:35):
in which Taylor is being dishonest about her life or
in denial about her life. But it's just like he
sort of became like a plot device at some point
where he's like he blackmails Ingrid and he gets kidd
like all the high jinxy stuff is sort of with
his character, and he's just my least favorite character. I
don't like him. That's my feminist criticism. I don't like him.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
Wow hashtag genius once again, Yeah, thank you. He is
quite cartoony, but I also feel like people like him exist,
so for sure, I DeKay, but I just don't like him.
I think the last thing I have to say about
this movie, and it kind of goes back to the
article you were referencing earlier about all of these examples

(01:10:22):
of movies that center female friendship. But it's like a
toxic stockery, obsessive kind of thing. And it's not that
I think that all friendships between or among women in
movies are portrayed that way, because obviously there are many
examples that aren't. But the article does cite several movies

(01:10:43):
that do show that dynamic, such as Swim Fan. I
saw that movie, but I can't remember much about it.
I have not seen it Swim Fan, and then Single
White Female, which we covered many many years ago the show.
But this movie wouldn't feel like, Wow, yet another installment

(01:11:06):
in this type of friendship dynamic between women. If there
were just more movies about friendship among women, because yeah,
the director was citing other movies that inspired him. One
of them was Single White Female. But he also references

(01:11:28):
The Talented Mister Ripley and The King of Comedy, which, Jamie,
have you seen that movie?

Speaker 2 (01:11:33):
I have not seen it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
Now I've seen it a couple times. It's another very
very stressful movie. Robert de Niro plays an aspiring comedian
who's trying to get on like a late night talk show,
like a Jimmy Carson kind of thing. Jimmy Carson, is
that just Johnny Johnny Carson.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
I was like that, Well, we're so young, We're so young.
Oh is this the movie that, like Todd Phillips Joker
is kind of ripping off right?

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
Okay, yeah, So he's a sessed with this talk show
host and he's trying to get like a set to
do stand up on a late night show and things
go horribly wrong. So there's like a few movies referenced,
like King of Comedy and Talented Mister Ripley that the
filmmakers of Ingrid Goes West were pulling from that, you know,

(01:12:20):
feature men. But because every other fucking movie in the
world is about men. It doesn't feel like, oh, every
movie that comes out is about men being obsessed and
scary and violent.

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
Right, I agree with you. I mean, maybe it's being older.
Maybe it's just the way that the Internet has continued
to evolve where I feel like I did have the
information I needed. Would I have liked to see Taylor
have an actual friend, sure, sure, like and see what
does a functional friendship work like for her? But again,
like across gender, it doesn't seem like really anyone in

(01:12:56):
this movie is capable, except maybe Dan Pinto. I will say, like,
you know, weird guy, and I don't really understand why
he's putting up with the consequences of being with Ingrid
to the extent that he is, but I do appreciate that,
like he wants to know her, sure, and that is
nice to see. And I feel like that's another way

(01:13:17):
in which this movie does show that it is not
openly contemptuous of Ingrid. And I understand why she is
definitely starting by manipulating him so she doesn't get evicted,
but I get why she ends up wanting to be
with him more, even though it's like this complicated, like
he is a means to an end to her as
far as access to a car, access to housing, and

(01:13:40):
access to enabling this lie. But also she needs someone
to talk to about grief desperately, and he can relate
with her about that. And I thought that that scene
was I kind of wish that there was a little
more done with that relationship to develop it, because normally
I'm like, I don't need the boyfriend's side plot. I
think it is kind of interesting here, but yeah, it

(01:14:02):
kind of tapers off, and then the way at the end,
I feel bad for Dan Pinto. I'm like, get out
of there. Dant like, no, we need to get Ingrid
into good stable care so that she can recover, and
we need Dan Pinto to like, I don't know, like
give up the ghosts and move on. Well.

Speaker 3 (01:14:20):
Yeah, the thing is every character in this movie is
characterized as someone who is like not very capable of
healthy human relationships, because Dan Pinto's thing is he's a
pushover who like lets people walk all over him, and
he's manipulated by Ingrid constantly.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
And there's plenty of Dan Pinto's in the world, I know.

Speaker 3 (01:14:42):
And then that scene where Ingrid and Dan Pinto are
talking about losing their parents. I almost read that as
she seized an opportunity to yeah, because she's again constantly
trying to endear people to her. Yeah, and he's opening

(01:15:05):
up and talking about this grief and you know, he
was orphaned as a child and that's why he's so
attached to Batman and you know, really laying it all
out there, and rather than being like she says a
couple things about losing her mom to him, but to me,
it was she sees this as an opportunity to basically
further manipulate him into dating her so that she can

(01:15:28):
continue using him, because like, she doesn't really continue the conversation,
she just kind of surprise kisses him. Really she does,
and then they have Batman catwoman sex.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
So yes, I agree with you. Maybe i'm five D
chessing because I'm like, but I also feel like it
doesn't seem like she is at a stage in her
grieving where she It made me sad to see this
opportunity for her to genuinely connect with some one, but
she's so fixated on this other thing that is not

(01:16:05):
real that she's just fumbling it because she's not able
to you know, and not that she has to connect
with this specific person, but like it's frustrating and frustrating
in a way that didn't feel uncharitable to her. But
I've been in those I think everyone's been in those
positions where you're so fixated on this other thing that

(01:16:28):
you think is going to make you happy that something
or someone who could actually provide a genuine connection passes
you by because you just like are not in a
place where you can see it. And especially because she's
an act of mental health crisis. I feel awful for
Dan Pinto, who seems to genuinely want a relationship with her,
even though that seems like it's connected to a lot

(01:16:50):
of his issues. Yeah, but that she has this opportunity
right in front of her to genuinely connect with someone
and can't see it for what it is, and that
is really sad to me. I feel bad for her.
This movie kind of fumbles other mental illnesses in the
pursuit of doing this, but like very clearly demonstrates that

(01:17:11):
social media is an addiction, and that it is an
addiction that people don't understand, that is exacerbated by any
other number of factors, and which for her seems like
some sort of obsessive tendency and grief and depression, and
like I probably talked about this on the show before,

(01:17:34):
but when I was probably around this time, it was
maybe a little sooner, like twenty sixteen, but I had
and have OCD and it was getting so bad with
specific relation to social media that I was luckily able
to find a therapist who is willing to really scale

(01:17:54):
his prices so that I could go into exposure therapy
for social media, which the time I didn't really talk
about because it is no one's business, and also I
was embarrassed by it because it didn't sound like a
thing that existed. But literally what the sessions were were
I would go on Twitter with my therapist and we

(01:18:14):
would scroll through and we would go through, like, well,
what does this bring up for you? What does this
bring up for you? And I was in such a
bad place OCD wise that everything was an active threat
and I was so spun into anxiety by looking at
these things and also could not, for the life of

(01:18:36):
me stop and it took I mean, we did this
for a couple of months until I couldn't afford it anymore.
We did it, and it really did help, and it
did I mean, I don't think anyone has a healthy
relationship to social media, but it certainly did turn a
corner for me, and then maybe some backsliding during the

(01:18:56):
pandemic who among us. I mean, I'm like, maybe I
should talk about this on the other show, but like
I had such a bad relationship with social media that
it was like actively, you know, not to the extent
that Ingrid. Ingrid is in a pretty extreme circumstance, but like,
I'm glad to know that both Aubrey Plaza and the
writer directors like empathize with her because I think everyone

(01:19:19):
has had some experience like this, and then mine like
going back, I'm like, maybe I didn't like it the
first time I saw it because I didn't like the
parts of myself that I saw in her, because it's
really uncomfortable, and also just to see it in a
time where you know, now, I still don't think that
there's really a lot of practical treatment. And I feel like,
you know, if you're having a hard time with your

(01:19:39):
relationship with social media, most people will be like shut up,
touch grass and like very unhelpful. Ugh, And I just
I can't get over like people are saying touch grass
to you on the internet, like, shut up, You're just
as bad and maybe worse. But I guess that's my
last thing I have to say about this movie. It
was interesting to revisit it because I think I is

(01:20:00):
ashamed and uncomfortable of the parts of me that I
saw in Ingrid, and also didn't like how hopeless the
end was, because I saw myself in this character and
to see her so clearly about to be sucked into
the same cycle again is devastating. I will say, for

(01:20:22):
anyone who's struggling with this or has in the past,
there are ways to improve it, a lot of it.
I mean again, like if I hadn't met I literally
met this therapist in the hospital. It was like shortly
before the podcast started. This would have been in June
twenty sixteen, when all this was happening. But like, you know,
if I hadn't met a psychiatrist in the hospital, where

(01:20:42):
I also could not afford in or outpatient treatment, this
hospital psychologist let me just sleep in the er overnight
because I was so worked up, and he really generously
offered to give me care that I would not have
had access to otherwise. And it did genuinely change, you know,

(01:21:04):
not completely fix. I don't know that it's something that
can completely be fixed, but improved my relationships. So there
are ways. Unfortunately they're almost always, especially if you live
in the US, there's significant barriers, but there's Yeah, there
are ways. So if you're struggling, babe, you could be okay.

(01:21:24):
You co'd be okay, Jamie, thank you for sharing that.
I love to share.

Speaker 3 (01:21:31):
It's healthy to share and demonstrates the broken healthcare system
in this country, because care that is helpful and life
saving shouldn't be unaffordable. Jamie, is there anything else you

(01:21:51):
want to talk about with this movie?

Speaker 2 (01:21:54):
I don't really think so. I feel bad, but that's
what this movie wants me to do. So it's good.

Speaker 3 (01:22:01):
Right, It's effective in what it's set out to do. Yes,
it does pass the Bechdel test quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
Yes, many times over. Yeah, it's women having complicated feelings
about how they perceive each other. Yeah, which I am
always especially when there's even an iota of thought put
into it. I'm always interested in movies about how women
view other women or how they're conditioned or whatever, because

(01:22:30):
it's like, it's very valid, and I think this movie
gets across that misogyny is so prominent among men. Wow,
amazing observation, Jamie hashtag genius, thank you. But just seeing
how people of marginalized genders have internalized and project at others.
It's very common and I feel like it is hard

(01:22:51):
to write clearly, and this movie is touch and go
on it. But I think that that is like a
worthwhile thing to continue exploring for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:23:00):
Yeah, as far as our nipple scale goes zero to
five nipples rating the movie based on examining it through
an intersectional feminist lens. I think this movie is attempting
to comment on interesting things, things that are pretty complicated
and that I feel like society and medical science still

(01:23:24):
doesn't know that much about. And because the filmmakers did
not approach this with the intention of wanting to cast
a lot of judgment on a tendency to be influenced
by influencers, they, as they describe it, were empathetic toward

(01:23:46):
the ingrid character and they related to her and they
were like, we also feel bad when we look at Instagram.
And again, there is more nuance to a lot of
the characters than I guess I've been conditioned to expect
because so many movies made by men are pretty relentless,

(01:24:07):
especially when it comes to characters who are women, and
casting a lot of judgment on them for things, again,
like things that men tend to reinforce. I'm always reminded of,
like the example of when men will be like, oh,
why are you taking so long to get ready? Like

(01:24:30):
they'll like be rate their girlfriend or whatever for taking
so long to get ready, and it's like, I don't know,
maybe it's because if a woman doesn't put on makeup
and style their hair meticulously and shave off all of
their body hair and wear certain clothes and all of
this stuff, you'll think that she's disgusting.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
Go figure.

Speaker 3 (01:24:51):
Yeah, So I appreciate that the movie isn't casting that
level of judgment on this, but the way that it's
representing mental health and someone who's experiencing a mental health crisis,
I wish it had been handled better, slash differently. And
I would have liked to see this premise written and

(01:25:14):
directed by women because I think it would have been
handled a lot differently.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
Agree.

Speaker 3 (01:25:19):
Yeah, So with that in mind, I don't know, this
is one of those movies that, like does the nipple
scale even a plot like it's challenging it's complicated.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
I mean, it's hard to do the nipple scale with satire.

Speaker 3 (01:25:33):
Yes, so maybe I'll just do a split down the
middle because I don't know what else to do. And also,
even though this is the most important metric of all time,
it also doesn't matter. So two and a half nipples,
and I'll give one to roth Coo the Dog, I'll

(01:25:53):
give one to Dan Pinto's Batman Forever Soundtrack CD, and
I'll give my half nipple to the lamp that cost
twelve hundred dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
I'm gonna go three. I'll go three on this one. Yeah,
this movie is imperfect, but better than I remembered. And
I feel maybe I'm giving it more credit because I
feel like I went on a personal journey and like
was in conversation with past Jamie by watching this movie.
But I like what it's trying to do. I don't
think that it's doing it successfully, but I think it's

(01:26:33):
doing it better than I've seen so far, which speaks
to your point is that there is a need for
a good movie about social media that is driven by
really anyone but white guys, and I think it works
in the thriller format. I mean there's so many different
ways to talk about it. But I think that there

(01:26:53):
is like an even better social media satire out there TVD.
But for what we have, I think that this movie
it's just way better than I remembered it, and it
made me think in ways I wasn't expecting to. I
do think that, Yeah, mainly for me, the way that
mental health is treated differently from sequence to sequence is challenging,

(01:27:14):
and I really don't like on screen suicide attempts im
docking it. For that, I think that that's what I
have to say.

Speaker 3 (01:27:23):
Woohoo, Jamie, tell us more about where we can listen
to and find Well, wait, I didn't get to give
my nip.

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
Sorry, sorry, Okay, I'm giving one to Aubrey, I'm giving
one to Elizabeth, and I'm giving one to Osha. Keep
it simple, nice now tell us yes. So sixteenth Minute.
The first episode of sixteenth Minute came out on Tuesday,
May seventh. It is about Antoine Dodson of the bed
Intruder song Fame.

Speaker 3 (01:27:50):
Wait was that the Hyder kids hide your wife?

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):
Mm hmmmm, I remember? And that is sort of how
every episode of sixteenth Minute works, where it's sort of like, oh, right,
that person and then we talk about it. And I
spoke with Antoine Dodson for this episode as well as
other people, and some episodes are, you know, more intense

(01:28:12):
than others. It sort of depends from story to story.
Some of it's very silly and some of it is
a little more in depth. So I think you'll enjoy it.
If you like this show and you don't hate my Guts,
I think that you will enjoy the show. And yes,
it's also produced by Sophie Lichtmann and I'm very proud
and excited about it. So please check it out if

(01:28:33):
you want to learn more about how the Internet is
poisoning the worlds yay.

Speaker 3 (01:28:41):
And then you can follow us on the normal places. Also,
you can follow me on Instagram what Kaylen Dorante Jamie
where can people follow you?

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
You can follow me at Jamie christ Superstar on Instagram
where I'm constantly not I also okay, last point, last point.
I feel like this also came out at a time
where it's like being dishonest about exactly what was going
on in your life in social media was like bad
and you're like, what do you want me to do?
Post to thousands of people that like Taylor is supposed

(01:29:17):
to post to thousands of people that she's having difficulty
in her marriage, like, what is the expectation? Anyways, No, anyways,
you can see me misrepresenting my mental health state probably
on my Instagram at jamiechrist Superstar.

Speaker 3 (01:29:31):
And you can see me not really posting anything on
my grid, but know that I am watching cat videos
and crying because of all of the stuff I'm learning
about the genocides happening across the world.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):
Got it?

Speaker 3 (01:29:52):
Follow us on social media at Bechdelcast, and we've got
a Patreon aka Matreon that is at patreon dot com
slash Bechdel Cast. You get two bonus episodes every month
on a fun little theme that we cook up. This
month is my birthday month, and so we are doing

(01:30:16):
some of my favorite Pixar movies. And you can also
grab our merchant teapublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast,
and our tour is very soon.

Speaker 2 (01:30:28):
It's very soon. It's in the UK and Dublin. You
can get tickets at linktree, which is in the description
of this episode.

Speaker 3 (01:30:39):
So with that, hey, let's hashtag log off and touch
some ground.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
Touch grass off. I go bye bye bye.

Speaker 3 (01:30:53):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Caitlin Dorante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichtermany molaboord.
Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals
by Katherine Voskresenski. Our logo in merch is designed by
Jamie Loftus and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For

(01:31:13):
more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash Bechdelcast