Interview with the Vampire (1994) with Brooke Solomon and Jordan Gustafson

On this episode, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guests Jordan Gustafson and Brooke Solomon (of Queer Quadrant podcast!) can't stop drinking each other's blood while they chat about Interview with the Vampire. Check out Princess Weekes's video here -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT5unKXnSUk&t=1s

Follow our guests at @brookebsolomon @jordan_gustafson and @queerquadrant on Instagram!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
On the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
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, Zephi, bast start changing it
with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Well, where my mom is dead? Well, I Brad Pitt.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
At least I didn't kill her. Okay, but I will
turn you into a vampire. Wow, this is a great.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Yeah. I if I was at home, I would I
could have really performed that, but you know, it's just
not happening today. That was an attempt at introducing our
interview with the vampire. I kept saying it with different
nansas like interview and a vampire interview, but a vampire like.
There's so many fun ways too, and none of them

(00:49):
are The title Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name
is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Dronte. This is
our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens,
using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point. And that,
of course, is a media metric created by queer cartoonist
Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace test because it

(01:11):
was kind of co created with her friend Liz Wallace,
and it has many versions, but the one that we
use is this, do two characters of a marginalized gender
have names? Do those characters speak to each other? And
is their conversation about something other than a man? And

(01:31):
we especially like it when it's a nice, meaty, juicy,
maybe even bloody conversation.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, this is our food discourses, our disgusting food. When
the night falls, we can finally start adding discourse.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Right, So today's episode is Interview with the Vampire, because
I was always calling it interview with a vampire, but
it's the.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Interview where there's the vampire. Dude, where's my vampire? Frost Vampire?
What are other movies about? Interviews? Frost Vampire would actually
be a great movie. Oh my god, I don't know
if it would be. That would be a fun queer
Candon movie. Frost Vampire.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Sure, sure, I never saw Frost Nixon. That's what you're
referring to.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Right, Yeah, it take kicks it out, put in the vampire, Okay,
and then I think, now we're kind of cooking. We've
got a real TV event.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
So true, in any case, interview with the vampire. That's
did I say it wrong again? Interview with the vampire.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
With the Oh yeah, I think it's the the where
you're like the trips you up. Lestat is still a
lot like he's not like the vampire. He's like acting like, yeah,
the Beyonce of vampires, which he's not I know, easily
the vampire I like the least.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yes, they're all just one of many.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Oh, Jordan's freaking out.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Anyway. We've got two incredible guests. They are the hosts
of Queer Quadrant podcast. It's Jordan Gustafson and Brooks Solomon.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Welcome.

Speaker 5 (03:07):
I know, okay, I'm personally a fan of dude, Where's
my Vampire?

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Is pretty good?

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Thank you? Yes for me because I'm not a Louis fan.
Interview with some vampire.

Speaker 5 (03:19):
I agree that he's the weakest vampire in the film.

Speaker 6 (03:22):
Easily every vampire is better than him.

Speaker 4 (03:25):
It is just a vampire.

Speaker 7 (03:26):
He's really interviewing though, So you could say, like interview
with a vampire, but it's not.

Speaker 6 (03:31):
It's not. I feel like so.

Speaker 5 (03:33):
We we were telling Kaitlin we did this movie a
very long time ago. At the very very beginning of
our podcast, and we've been waiting for an opportunity to
resync our teeth into it. But I remember on our
podcast that interview with a vampire versus the vampire tripped

(03:54):
us up for the whole episode.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah, he's just not the vampire. I feel like if
it was Unfortunately and I'm you know, I'm not like
vampire Punt. I'm not caping for Lestat or anything, but
he's certainly a more anti. If the whole movie was
an interview with Lastat, I would buy interview with the
vampire because he has energy that is like I am

(04:17):
the vampire. He wants everyone to believe that he's He's like,
don't leave the country. I'm definitely the only vampire.

Speaker 7 (04:24):
Even like Armand would be pretty good because he's like,
I'm the oldest vampire you know, and you're like, yes,
you are the grand dom.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
He's the og vampire.

Speaker 4 (04:36):
I am Dracula.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah what No, s Feratu found dead in a ditch,
like he's the vampire.

Speaker 7 (04:43):
It's cool that this movie presupposes that vampires can be hot,
because you know the Dawn of cinema, they're like vampires
are ugly, Nos s Faratu, and this movie is like
what if Antonio banderas.

Speaker 6 (04:54):
This is kind of like the vampire movie.

Speaker 5 (04:57):
I am, well, I mean, obviously there are so much
but like, when I think about what I want out
of vampires, this is the version of vampires that I want.
I really liked that bitchy, expensive mother.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Puckers rama queens. Yes, they're they're fun, They're hot, and
they're fun. What is your history and relationship with this movie?

Speaker 5 (05:21):
I watched it for the first time for our episode
that we did. I had never seen it. I just
knew kind of like the cultural cachet of like, oh
did you know that there's this weird, campy like sort
of game vampire movie. And then I got obsessed. And
I still haven't read the book, but like, I mean,
this movie is ridiculous, but I think it's a very

(05:42):
good time and I'm loving the show on AMC Plus
right now.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
I just started it to prep for that.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
If I haven't seen this show, fabulous, I haven't either.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
It's okay, I.

Speaker 6 (05:53):
Know, okay, okay, I'm caught up.

Speaker 5 (05:56):
I think maybe I'm one episode behind, but it's like
this to me, I'm very I'm very Anne Rice pilled
at the moment at the moment, So yeah, I hadn't.

Speaker 6 (06:07):
I hadn't seen it.

Speaker 7 (06:08):
You're dipping yourself in a bowl of rice, trying I
think all of rice.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Right right, You're a rice pilled.

Speaker 7 (06:16):
So I watched for the first time for the Pot
as well, And I think I was mostly aware of
it slash interested in it because as a Tom Cruise
you know fan, as someone who has seeing every movie
of his, you know, it was something that.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
Was always lingering in the mind.

Speaker 7 (06:32):
And I think I was also just kind of aware
of it because I think like I knew about David
Geffen early because I'm such a little shop fan, and
I knew that he produced it, so and he's also
was kind of one of the first gay famous people
that I was aware of because of like the Spielberg
connection as well. So I feel like when you're like
a young burgeon and creative.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
And you're like, who are queer?

Speaker 7 (06:54):
You know people in Hollywood, it's like one of the
first names. So I think that was probably one of
the things that led to it. But I know, like
when whenever we covered it, I feel like I'm never
going to listen to that episode again because it was
so early and I don't even remember what my thoughts are.
So this feels like a whole new experience.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
It's like a rebirth, like how we feel about the
first like easily three years of our show at this point.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
We should just delete all of those episodes. But this
is the thing. You're getting a chance at a new life,
and we're gonna give you the choice that we didn't have.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
You did it to have a better opinion on interview
camire old podcast episodes are so challenging. But I do
feel like you're like, wow, a public record.

Speaker 6 (07:40):
Of bad taste you gotta learn on the fly.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Or how much smarter you eventually got.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
Sure, that's a good way to phrase it.

Speaker 5 (07:48):
Yeah, how much better we got it talking to people.
I think it's the.

Speaker 4 (07:52):
Biggest thing that's true. That's true.

Speaker 5 (07:54):
One would consider that a core tenant when starting a podcast.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
You would think, however, yeah, it's a humiliation kink mostly mostly, Yeah.

Speaker 7 (08:04):
It's kind of like being a vampire's a humiliation kink.
You know, you're just like you can't go outside. They're like,
don't you want to like come to the park with us?

Speaker 5 (08:11):
Like I do think vampires are the gayest like fictional creature.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yeah, yeah, possibly, I can't think of anything that.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
And I say that as as a compliment, but like, well,
of course, I don't think anything else comes close.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
I wonder if that's why I'm so into vampire lore,
because like, I love, not that I've like done a
deep dive, really, but I love so much just like
vampire stuff like media and who are your vampires?

Speaker 4 (08:41):
Who are your guys?

Speaker 3 (08:42):
I mean, welcome to WT with probably Buffy the Vampire
Slayer is my biggest although she's killing vampires, but they're
you know, they feature prominently. And then there's some vampires
like Angel and Spike was going to become series regulars
and stuff like that, and then Angel had his own
show which I didn't watch nearly enough of. Oh no, Actually,

(09:05):
my biggest vampire thing is what we do in the
Shadows DA. I love the movie. I love the show.
I also enjoy from Dusk till Dawn. I enjoy a
girl walks home alone at night. Then we've got Blade
Blade Rules, We've got And I haven't seen this the
whole way through, and I really want to sit down

(09:27):
with it sometime soon. But the Francis Ford Coppola bron
Stalkers Dracula like Keanu Reeves being weird, and Winona Ryder
is there and like all kinds of goofy stuff. I
also really like, what's the Willem Dafoe plays nos Faratu, and.

Speaker 7 (09:45):
It's like, is the name nos Fachu the living Vampire
or is it the other one where it's like the
the other because there both came out like in the
same year.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Hold up, and then there's a new nose for Atu
coming out right news.

Speaker 6 (09:59):
From the Bitch Guys, Shadow of the Vampire.

Speaker 3 (10:03):
Shadow of the Vampire. Yes, I also need to rewatch that,
But there's just I don't know, there's something so alluring
about vampires anyway, Jamie, what is your history with Interview
with a Vampire?

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Well, I guess my bisexual card has been revoked because
I've never really been into vampires. Oh ever, I'm sorry,
I don't I never really connected from me. I hadn't
seen this movie before. I feel like all of my
vampire knowledge I like, I don't know, because our generation
was like pretty pummeled with vampire media. I did watch Twilight.

(10:39):
I read Twilight. My mom and I shared the book
set is gross just she would give me her soggy
copies of Twilight, but Vampire Diaries missed me. True Blood
missed me, Like I just didn't. It didn't happen for
me for whatever reason. Maybe it was probably honestly because

(10:59):
my mom liked vampire stuff, and I was like, Oh,
I'm built so different. I'm going to read a series
of unfortunate events forty times, and that's how I get
my bisexual card back to just take the edginess in
the other direction, exactly going library edgy. But no, I hadn't.
I hadn't seen this movie before, and wow, Wow, it's

(11:24):
so weird. I can't. I like, I don't know what
word I would put. I was so enthralled. I also
read about half of the book, or I listened to
half of the audio book, let's be honest at but
I did listen to half of the audio book at
one point nine speed. And so I feel like I
speak as an authority when I say that the movie

(11:46):
is like a pretty close adaptation of the book, but
what is left out is really interesting, especially because I
forget what movie we were talking about this recently, but
it's like the rare movie that was actually adapted by
the author, which you never see. And so I think
it's interesting some stuff that ends up not being there,

(12:06):
but yeah, I liked it. It's such a weird. It's
so weird. There's so many things to talk.

Speaker 6 (12:10):
About a rich text, there's so much.

Speaker 7 (12:13):
I want to quickly agree with you, Jamie on the
not being super into vampires, because vampires, we talked about
this before on our podcast, were like my lowest ranked
of monsters. And I don't know whether maybe this is
like a New England well Brooks from New England, so
never mind.

Speaker 5 (12:27):
But also I grew up a girl, and like true,
I was similarly like in the.

Speaker 7 (12:32):
Twy Haart era, I guess, but like for me, I
was just like I guess because I had maybe like
the vamp. We were so inundated with vampires that I
think I went the other way, which is why I
think I was like less into them growing up, just
because like if there is so much, you know, Yeah,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
What missed me.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
I was.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
I was trying to think of what my favorite monster is.
I think it's like sexy fish Guy. That's my favorite poster.

Speaker 6 (12:53):
I love a sexy fish Guy.

Speaker 7 (12:55):
Creature of Black Lagoon's my favorite monster movie because it's
like a weird guy, you know, but.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
He's horny and sensitive and you're like, yes.

Speaker 6 (13:03):
I could fix him. Yes, he actually doesn't need to
be fixed because he's.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
Like sweetie, right, he's perfect.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Yeah, he kind of arrives ready. Yeah, all he needs
is your acceptance.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
He loves eggs, you know, it's fine, wholesome.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
All he needed to do is flood your bathroom and
he's so he's so okay, he's ready.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what it was.
I do feel like it was like a probably like
because I also read the Twilight books in secret. I
didn't like want all of my friends who loved Twilight,
and it would have been easier to connect with them
if I just admitted I was also reading them, but
I didn't want them to know. And I also had
this whole thing about magic. I think we talked about
this in our really really old Harry Potter episodes. But

(13:44):
I always was like, I didn't like fantasy because I
love series of unfortunate events so much and they didn't
have magic, and so magic in any other book was
cheating and magic was an unfair plot device, and the
Bodler orphans had to figure it out with a pile
of rope, and so I'm not interested in magic, which

(14:04):
is ridiculous, but it was how I felt for like
fifteen years.

Speaker 5 (14:08):
I'm not going to derail this episode too much, but Jamie,
have you ever read The Mysterious Benedict Society?

Speaker 1 (14:13):
No, I've heard that it's similar a.

Speaker 5 (14:16):
Great follow up to Series of Unfortunate Events. It's so fun.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
I'm doing a reread of them because I never listened
to the audio books and they're all read by Tim Curry,
and it's they're so good.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Has Tim Curry ever played a vampire? Because he has
so much vampire energy?

Speaker 7 (14:34):
This is a huge question that is really is it?
You know, it kind of is vampire coded, but is
obviously it's a clown. But he can be like he
forms as your nightmare.

Speaker 6 (14:45):
You know, technically he's a demon, right he was?

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Okay? They say he was a vampire in The Worst Witch,
which I think is a Mary Kay Nashley movie.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, okay, Well, wandering his potential, I would say.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
Oh my god, I don't know. I look up the image.
I think he kind of kills it. Oh my god, wait,
I need to said, I'm going to put this in
the chat. He he's definitely played a vampire.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
Okay, this is exciting.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Anyway.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
My relationship with the movie is I had seen it
many many years ago, I want to say, the early
two thousands, long before I was really thinking or reading
about queer reads of this movie. So I just didn't
really think about it or it didn't really occur to
me as like a queer text or like that there's

(15:40):
like a queer subtext present in this movie. Because I
also didn't really remember it before this rewatch. And then
I started watching it again, I was like, oh, yep,
there it is, I see it now right there. And
then I just started the series last night, so I'm
not very far into it. I'm like midway through episode four,

(16:00):
but I can't wait to talk about the kind of
adaptation changes and just the different things that the show
does that the I would say movie adaptation fails to
do or just kind of mishandles. So yeah, there's just
so much to chat about. Wait, let me look at
this picture.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
Picture's going nuts.

Speaker 6 (16:19):
It's fabulous.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Oh whoa, yeah, like he I feel like probably he
had that same thought at some point caate limb wher.
He's like, why the hell hasn't anyone cast me as
a vampire. I will do it for anyone, including Mary Kate.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
Nashurally, he's like, you don't even have to pay me
my rate.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
I'll just do it for me sag minimum.

Speaker 5 (16:39):
Kind of perfect because you know nobody was telling him
he couldn't do something on that side.

Speaker 6 (16:44):
He had free rate.

Speaker 7 (16:45):
The green screen is really good, though. I think it
looks like we're actually outside at night. Like I don't
think that there's any sort of tell that it was
not shot on location, you know, so true.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
I don't know how everyone feels about the time. Cruise
was like whatever, it's very nineteen ninety four casting. If
I'm talking about people I think did a good job,
I would be down to Kirsten Dunst and Antonio Banderis
I think correct. But I was just I was looking
at because I know Anne Rice was, and then she

(17:16):
like walked to these comments back later and she's like, no,
Tom Cruise was good because she probably feared the Church
of Scientology. Honestly, if I was Anne Rice, I would
be like, I don't think that She's like, actually, he
did a good job. I think she's like, I don't
wish to die. I'm putting that on wax. She's dead.
We can't ask her, so it's the truth.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
But well, maybe she's a vampire. We don't know.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
It's if anyone is. But the people that were listed
as potentially being cast for Lestat, like all of them
were better ideas than Tom Cruise, John Malkovich, that would
have been great. Jeremy Irons terrible person, would have been
a good listat. It would have also been a good

(18:00):
count all off, if we're being honest, Yo, Rightdala supposed
to be scared. I just have it on the brain
right now. I'm like why they always cast him as funny?
He's scary anyways. Yeah, Tom Cruise is such a weird
I mean, and he goes for it in the way
that he's known too.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
That's why I like it.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
I will say, I don't hate his performance. And he's
acting circles around Brad Pitt and Kirsten Duns is acting
circles around both of them.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
So yeah, Brad Pitt bad person, bad job, Tom Cruise,
bad person, interesting job, Kirsten Dunn's great person, great job.

Speaker 6 (18:37):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (18:38):
I totally agree that we can give Tom Cruise all
the credit for going for it. Because I think that
he's honestly helped along by the fact that in the
same scenes you have Brad Pitt, who is very much
not going for it, and you're like.

Speaker 6 (18:52):
Well, I hate this. I also just I think.

Speaker 5 (18:55):
That the Cruise performance matches the over the top can
be energy because this he moves through so much so
quickly that like he has to make an impact in
about an hour, and I mean he makes the damn impact.

Speaker 7 (19:09):
The first thirty with him are like my favorite part,
just because it feels like it's bottling something so particular.
And I think if you have someone of his status
coming in because obviously he's such a big start at
this point already, and he's delivering lines like do you
still want this? Or have you tasted enough? I've drained
you to the point of death. When you transition, the

(19:30):
world becomes different. Like he's delivering all these like big
vampire queer lines. And I think if you have someone
like Cruise with his kind of like very fruity, you know, behavior,
you have to like you buy into it, and you're like,
I would also transition for Tom Cruise, this vampire, you know,
because he has to have this greater than energy versus

(19:53):
like if it was like a boring kind of maybe
sexy but not like.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
Overwhelming, guy, would you buy into it? Would you know,
become a vampire?

Speaker 1 (20:01):
No? I guess yeah. When you put it like that,
it's like you are supposed to think. And also just
like having listened to half of the book really fast,
so again, scholar.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
You are scholar.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
I feel like you are supposed to get the feeling
that like less that is scary, but also yeah, critically,
he is also unhinged and unpredictable, and Tom Cruise in
that frame is kind of.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
Exactly the right casting.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Like actually, I know, I know, we have to recap.
There is like a bizarre foreshadowing of Tom Cruise and
Oprah Winfrey's history happening here where Oprah Winfrey saw an
early screening of this movie and she left ten minutes
in because she said, I believe there are forces of
light and darkness in the world, and I don't want

(20:44):
to be a contributor to the force of darkness. And
we're like, wa, larious. There's plenty of like valid reasons
to want to leave this movie, but Oprah not wanting
to be allied with the forces of darkness I'm like,
I'm pretty sure you're like friends with like Bill Gates,

(21:04):
like you're fully out, you are kind of the you're
inactive member of the force of Darkness. Anyways, Yeah, I
liked that. She was just like, this movie is evil
and I'm leaving.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
I don't want to be a part of it.

Speaker 5 (21:17):
For you.

Speaker 3 (21:19):
On that note, let's take a quick break and then
we'll come back for the recap. And oh, we're back. Okay,
so I'm going to do my best with this recap.

(21:42):
I will place a content warning at the top here
for suggestions of suicidal ideation as well as violence against women. Okay,
So we meet Daniel Molloy played by Christian Slater. Yeah,
he's in a room with Louis played by Brad Pitt,

(22:05):
about to interview Louis, and he's like, tell me about yourself,
and Louie's like, I'm a vampire tih and Molloy doesn't
believe him at first, but then.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Already right at the top, it like, I feel like
the fact that Brad Pitt appears in the present and
the past just draws more attention to the fact that
he just has a face that does not belong in
the past. It's so distracting to see him in the past.
He just doesn't whatever that thing is where it's just
like some actors just don't make sense in period pieces,
and he is one of them.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
He's one of them. Also, you're telling me he never
updates his haircut in the two hundred years.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Oh yeah, he cannot.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Oh when you cut, your hair just grows back immediately.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
True nightmare, Like what if the day he became a vampire,
you were like dirty, like you're just dirty forever. Yeah,
you look like shit, or like.

Speaker 6 (22:59):
You just got of a terrible cut and you were
waiting for it to grow back.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
Okay, Well, then explain though the so when when Kirsen
duns when Claudia at first her hair is like straggly
and stringy and it's it's not cute, sorry to say.
But then the second she becomes a vampire, now it's
curly and lush and she's got these beautiful, lush curls.

Speaker 5 (23:22):
So like, I think the universe explanation is very Twilight,
where it's like being a vampire just gets you the
honest version of yourself or the most the kind of
like most alluring, like attractive version of yourself.

Speaker 6 (23:36):
Because that's part of your way.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
That you that's one of your weapons deduce people.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Yes, okay, which makes the later Anne Rise Stephanie Meyer
debacle all the more hilarious, where it's like, ladies, ladies, ladies,
you are doing the same thing.

Speaker 6 (23:52):
Right right, It's all okay.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah, it's horny vampires. Yeah, summer just Mormon.

Speaker 6 (24:00):
But there's space forout everybody, Okay.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Anyway, so Molloy doesn't believe Louis at first that he's
a vampire, but then Louis does some vampire tricks, he
moves really fast, and then Malloy is like, okay, cool, cool, cool,
I believe you.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
Now that's what I'm like at the Magic Castle, just like, Okay, no,
I guess you're a magician.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Okay, I believe you. And then Louis begins to tell
his story. Basically, he's like, it's been eighty four years,
except it's more like it's been two hundred years. We
flash back to the late seventeen hundreds and we learned
that Louis was an enslaver and he owned a plantation

(24:41):
in Louisiana.

Speaker 5 (24:42):
It's the it's it's sae hard cut to him being
like and I owned a plantation.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
It's you're like, oh, we will get to that, because
it's it's weirdly like discussed more in the book, but like,
I don't know. I I'm not going to accuse the
book of having any sense of nuance, but it's at
least addressed more clearly that the book is anti slavery,
which the movie I don't think does an adequate job

(25:11):
of even remotely I agree.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
So Louie is mourning the death of his wife and
his child who passed away recently, and he's grief stricken
and he wants to die himself. And this is when
he meets Lastat played by Tom Cruise, a vampire who
has been stalking Louis and who bites him and he's like,

(25:38):
I'll give you the choice I never had to become
a vampire and it'll be awesome actually, and Louis agrees,
so Lestat turns him into a vampire. Which the lore
here is that Lestat drains most of Louie's blood and
then makes him drink some of Lastat's blood and that's

(26:01):
how you become a vampire. We cut back to the
present with this interview where Louie dispels some myths about vampires.
He doesn't mind crucifixes, and the stake through the heart
thing is nonsense. Though he does sleep in a coffin.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
And the son will kill him like and the sun.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
The sun will kill you, Like.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Some stereotypes are true.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
I mean, that's one of the main tenants of the
Bechdel casts. No, I'm kidding, But so we also learned
that different vampires have different powers. For example, Lestat can
read people's thoughts, and so we flash back again. Louie
is trying to like get into the groove of being

(26:44):
a vampire. Lestat moves in with him, and they're biting people.
They're drinking their blood, although Louie refuses to kill anyone,
so he survives mostly off of drinking animal blood. And
it's like, Okay, someone read Twilight, Anne Rice plagiarism much Lastat,

(27:04):
on the other hand, loves killing people, and he has
an insatiable appetite. He prefers killing young women and girls,
and like high society aristocrat types, especially ones who are
evil and who do bad things. And so I was like, okay,
dexter vibes sort of. But one night they go after

(27:25):
this rich woman who had her husband murdered and then
blamed an enslaved person for the murder. But even then
Louis can't kill her, so Lestat is becoming kind of
increasingly annoyed with Louise's refusal to kill people, and so
he leaves. We then briefly meet a character named Yvette

(27:47):
played by Sandy Way Newton, an enslaved person at Louise's plantation,
and she's like, Hey, what's going on. Everyone is afraid
of you and your freaky friend. You please ask your
scary friend to leave. To get out of here. Louis
bites her and kills her in I guess, a moment

(28:09):
of weakness, but then he realizes what he's done and
that this place is cursed, so he frees all the
people he is enslaved, and then he burns down the plantation,
presumably trying to end his own life in the process.
But Lestat shows up again and saves him, and he's
just like, this is what it is to be a vampire.

(28:31):
You just gotta embrace it. So they moved to New
Orleans together. Although Louis is still unwilling to kill anyone
one night, Lestat pressures Louis into killing a woman, but
again he refuses, and then he like runs away and
on his little journey he finds a little girl, Claudia

(28:54):
played by Kirsten Dunst, whose mother has just died of
a plague of some kind. So Louis bites her, and
then Lestat walks in just then and he's like.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Whoooo laughing his you go girl, little ass off. M
these guys, these guys, these guys.

Speaker 5 (29:14):
They're so silly. There's he canonically baby traps.

Speaker 7 (29:20):
Yeah, yes, you know the best way to fix a
relationship is to have a baby or get married to
have a child.

Speaker 4 (29:25):
You know, it fixes everything.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
My favorite letterbox trophew of this movie was like Louie
says I'm leaving, and then Listat says I'm pregnant and
it's yours, which is basically what he does. Yeah. God,
they're just the whole movie improves in my mind one
thousand percent when you know that it ends with stapping

(29:52):
like what a fucking baby? Right, Like you're just like, yes,
that's the coolest thing I've ever heard. I wish every
book ended like that. I wish Twilight ended like that.
It would have improved the whole series.

Speaker 6 (30:04):
This is one of my favorite eddings. Well we'll talk
about it.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
When we get to it, but it's so awesome.

Speaker 6 (30:08):
It's one of my faves.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
Okay, So what happens basically is that Lestat turns Claudia
into a vampire. Her hair gets so curly. She then
immediately wants so much blood, and they take her in
as their daughter. They like teach her how to be
a vampire and how to feed on people. You know,
just two gay vampire dads and their adopted child. She's

(30:33):
very spoiled, and she's always killing her piano teachers and
her dressmakers and basically anyone else who's around. Then many
years past, obviously none of them have aged, and one
day Claudia sees a naked woman through a window and
she's like, I want to be like her and have

(30:53):
boobs like that, and they're like, oops, sorry, your body
will always be that of a child. And then Claudia
is resentful for them turning her into a vampire and
making her this devilish creature who will never grow up,
and for taking her mother away from her. She especially

(31:16):
hates Lastat for this, so she kills him by tricking
him into drinking the blood of people who are already dead,
which is like kind of poisonous to vampires, and then
slitting his throat, or at least they think that she
has killed Lastat, because one night after Louis and Claudia
have I think they're either about to move to Europe

(31:37):
or they have already moved to Europe, something, Lastat shows up.
He's all decaying and gross and he's so mad, and
Louis and Claudia set him on fire and escape, and
now they're in Europe, and they spend many years traveling
the world searching for other vampires, but they can't find

(31:59):
any until it's eighteen seventy there in Paris, and then
Louis finds this goofy little clown vampire doing a jig.
He's doing some antics.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
It reminded me of that in Sync music video where
they're all in the box. He's dance.

Speaker 6 (32:19):
He is doing the bye bye bye music video.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yeah, he's in the bye bye bye box.

Speaker 4 (32:24):
You know, he's definitely in a bye box, if you
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Well, a lot of people in this movie are in
the bye bye bye box.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
It's something weird to talk about.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
Yes, yes, anyway, this vampire is name is Santiago and
he's played by Stephen Ray, who I didn't recognize or
realize I was him at first. I mostly know him
from V for Vendetta, but anyway, he's there. But the
more important vampire in this situation is his daddy, the
leader of the Paris Vampire clan.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
He's actually the oldest vampire ever, oldest vampire.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
This is Armand, played by Antonio Benders.

Speaker 6 (33:05):
A truly special wig.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
He's wearing a wig, so Armand invites Louis and Claudia
to his play, which is vampires as the actors pretending
to be humans pretending to be vampires.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
I love when they're watching it and Claudia is like,
it's so avant garde. He's like, oh, she's so right.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
This is art.

Speaker 6 (33:28):
It's dinner theater.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
I'm playing within a movie.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
It was a play that felt like a play it did.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
And sometimes when people say avant garde, they do just
mean like not very good, and I think that that's
also true.

Speaker 4 (33:41):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
So then Armand shows Louis and Claudia around his Phantom
of the opera, ass Underground Layer full of many vampires
and Louis asks Armand, like, what are we? Who are we?
Who's the original vampire? Because he still has all these
questions about his identity, his vampire identity and what this

(34:06):
all means. But Armand doesn't really answer him. But as
far as he knows, he's the oldest living vampire at
four hundred ish years old.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Also, they're in Paris at this point, right, yes, so
for what it's worth, I also made the Phantom of
the Opera connection due to candles in a basement, and
this would have been happening like around the same time
that the Phantom would have been phantoming nearby, because the
events of Phantom of the Opera were in the eighteen
eighties and this is I believe the eighteen seventies, so

(34:39):
he would have been lurking around. He could have been
at that play.

Speaker 7 (34:45):
Fan fic idea crossover of the centuries.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
That meets Gerard Butler Phantom.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
Yes, I would pay money to actually watch this.

Speaker 6 (34:57):
Oh, I see it. I see it.

Speaker 5 (35:00):
And Christine and Louie can go be sad together. That's
on a balcony somewhere.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
I could just go be the most bummer part of
their respective movies.

Speaker 7 (35:10):
Right, No one really like likes. When they're back on screen.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
You're like, well, I guess they are the main character.
Why do I hate them so much?

Speaker 3 (35:21):
Anyway, So at this underground Vampire Layer, Louie is thinking
about how they may have actually wronged Listat by killing him,
because oh what if he's just like a product of
his circumstances. And then the vampire Santiago, who can read
people's thoughts, is like, just so you know, the only

(35:41):
crime a vampire can commit is killing another vampire, and
Louis is like, oh, okay, that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Oh I love their faces.

Speaker 5 (35:51):
We're like, oh, so we committed the crime and you
can read our minds.

Speaker 6 (35:57):
That's really great.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
Oh that's actually good because I haven't done that, so.

Speaker 6 (36:02):
Definitely have it.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
So now Claudia is worried that Louie is going to
leave her to like hang out with Armand, especially because
Louis thinks that Armand could be the teacher that Lestat
never was to him. So he's like very allured by
Armand And we can talk about the adaptation difference from

(36:27):
the book to the movie in a bid but he
he's like very into Armand. But he goes home to Claudia,
and Claudia has a woman there, Madeline, who wants to
become a vampire, and Claudia wants her as her kind
of like companion slash mother figure, so Louis does it.
He turns her into a vampire, but just then they

(36:49):
are all kidnapped by Armand's vampire minions. They steal Louis
in a coffin, and then they put Claudia in Madeline
in a like dungeon of sorts where they will be
exposed to sunlight, and that happens. They burn to a
crisp They die.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Now Armand, who.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
Didn't realize that his minions were doing this, he rescues Louis,
who then enacts revenge on Santiago and the other minions,
and Armand still wants Louis to join him, but Louis
declines because he still has this like conscience that he's
had throughout the entire movie of Oh, it's so wrong

(37:32):
that we kill people and blah blah blah, and Armand
has no such conscience. So Louis leaves, but not before
they almost kiss each other on the lips. Close then
Louie wanders around for like a century or so, grieving
the death of Claudia, and then he returns to the US.

(37:56):
He becomes a huge film buff.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
Kind of reminded me of the end of Babylon, where
I'm like, oh, they're just using clips. They're just using clips.

Speaker 6 (38:06):
He discovers the power of cinema.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
That's what happens when you get a David Geffen budget.
They're like, yeah, just put in a clip from the movie.
You got the money.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
Superman.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
Sure, Avatar should have been in there.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Avatar should have been in there.

Speaker 5 (38:20):
No, gone with the Wind, which is a little surprising,
could remind him of his roots.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Oh god, yeah, but they just had the Babylon approach.
So ye. It was kind of like, oh, m okay,
I'm god sure. Kind of fun.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
Anyway, one night in New Orleans, Louis catches the scent
of a vampire and he follows it into an abandoned
probably plantation where Lestat has been squatting for who knows
how long, you know, rotting, still looking like shit. He
somehow didn't die after being burned and all the other

(38:57):
things that they did to him. You know, he's been
living off of rats the way Louis used to. And uh,
Lestat is hopeful that he and Louis will be together again,
but Louis is like, na, dude, bye, And then we
cut back to the present with the interview with Christian Slater,
and Louis is like, I don't know what happened to Listad.

(39:19):
I never saw him again, and Christian Slater's like, well,
that's a terrible ending. Come up with something better. He's
also just like mesmerized by the idea of like being
a vampire.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Yeah, And also it is like a lot is very
audacious of Christian Slater at the end of this multiple
hour story to be like, so what's the angle? You're like,
shut up, like what are you talking about?

Speaker 3 (39:46):
And Louis is like, have you not been listening? I
just told you how like cursed of a life this is.
And then he disappears. So Christian Slater goes chasing after
him because he's just so obsessed with vampires now. But
guess who catches up with Christian Slater. It's Lastat, who
is still looking like shit until he bites and drinks

(40:09):
from Christian Slater, which like revitalizes Lestat and he's like,
I'm going to give you the choice I never had,
which is again exactly what he said to Louis two
hundred years earlier, but.

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Not before calling Louis annoying as shit. And then it
sort of like ends like a CSI Miami style or
it's like this, Yes.

Speaker 6 (40:28):
That's a sympathy for the devil.

Speaker 4 (40:32):
A cover, right, It's great.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
He's like, oh god, is he still whining about stuff?
I had to listen to this for two hundred years.
Blah blah blah. And then he presumably turns Christian Slater
into a vampire.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
Yes, the end.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and
we'll come back for the discussion.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
And we're back.

Speaker 6 (41:04):
What a recap?

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Oh thank you?

Speaker 4 (41:06):
I did my best.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Where to begin?

Speaker 7 (41:09):
I feel like it's I have a quick thing on
Christian Slater just right up top.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
Sure.

Speaker 7 (41:15):
My read is that he's so you know, Anne Rice
lived in San Francisco growing up, lived in the Castro,
lived in the Hate during like the Summer of Love.

Speaker 4 (41:23):
So she's like surrounded.

Speaker 7 (41:25):
By gay men basically, and her son obviously is gay.
My read on Christian Slater is that he's literally cruising
for like a vampire or a guy, and he ends
up like with Brad Pitt, in this it becomes because
like in the end, he's so in love with him,
and the like idea of vampiresm that I'm like, oh,
you got a taste of like what you wanted and

(41:45):
now you're like, yeah, give.

Speaker 4 (41:47):
Me the whole thing.

Speaker 7 (41:48):
So my like macro arc is that he's like cruising
for his first time and ends up with like either
A a vampire or b is just like a gay
man for a hookup.

Speaker 4 (41:57):
But that's just was my read and why not.

Speaker 6 (42:00):
Yes, exactly, why not both?

Speaker 5 (42:02):
I agree because at the end, he doesn't just want vampirism.
He wants to become Louise companion, and louis like ultimate
curse is that everyone who he meets falls in love
with him for some reason must be the baby Blues,
and he doesn't want to be with any of them
because he's too MOPy. And every single person is like,

(42:22):
I would give you everything if you would come and
be my companion, and he's always just like, no, I
can't because reasons. And I think it's it adds a
really interesting like thematic layer to the whole movie because
it happens over and over again. It's the idea that
he's constantly running from himself and he shouldn't be because
he's never going to escape it, and that like his

(42:43):
self loathing is all tied up in being a vampire,
i e.

Speaker 6 (42:47):
Being queer.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
Yeah, yeah, yes, so yeah, should we kind of start
there as far as the queer readings of this movie.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah, when it makes sense to go through like the
different adaptations and like how overt things, because I feel
like the movie, to my understanding, is the least gay
version of this story. I think, so the book one
of the major differences. And I'm sort of just getting
into this part. But Armand's character is way way bigger.

(43:23):
In the book. He and Louis are in a relationship
for decades. They love each other. It is like overtly
a queer relationship, and they like have I mean they
they sound like a drag honestly, but they're very in love.
They're like always talking about like they're talking about philosophy,
they're talking about the meaning of eternal life. They're you know,

(43:44):
they're like traveling the world together. They're trying to figure
out what it all means. And so there are like
overt protracted relationships in the book, which came out in yeah,
seventy six.

Speaker 3 (43:58):
Yes, yeah, that as far as like our discussion goes,
that's I think the biggest adaptation change which was obviously
left out of the movie. And when Anne Rice was
writing the screenplay for this, she was very hyper aware
of homophobia present everywhere and including Hollywood. So at one

(44:22):
point in the development of the script, she changed Louie
to be a woman in order to kind of like
heterosexualize the relationship between that character and Lestat, because in
the movie, that's the relationship that gets most of the
screen time, and there are obviously like many queer under

(44:46):
if not overtones in that relationship, and so she was like, oh,
this movie's not going to get made if like straight
audiences are watching this and perceiving this, and you know,
Hollywood producers are perceiving this. So she considered straight washing
her own story, but at the end of the day,
like didn't end up doing it, and then the movie

(45:07):
was made the way it was, portraying that relationship the
way that it is. And I think at the time,
in you know, the mid nineties, when this came out,
I don't know if people were just like, oh, yeah,
that's just how vampires be. They're just sort of like
sucking on each.

Speaker 7 (45:24):
Other and like stuff flying to the sky with an
orgasmic face as they change into a vampire.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
Yeah, it seems like a lot of straight audiences didn't
really pick up on those, like those tones, but obviously
queer audiences did.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
And I like, if you can't pick up on it,
that's on you.

Speaker 4 (45:44):
So that's right there.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
I was, I would say, surprised at how queer this
movie did get because I just wasn't but I wasn't
aware before. Yeah, doing their research for this episode that
Ann Rice said considered straight washing her story, which especially
with like, you know, David Evan being one of the
most prominent gay men in the world. He's a billionaire.
We don't even like him. He did make Shrek possible.

Speaker 6 (46:09):
He did do that.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
He made Shrek and Little Shop of warr If possible,
and like he did, do you get a pass for that?
You're a billionaire, but you made.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Nine point one billion Shortan so much money. But but
you know, like he is like one of the I
would assume, most powerful gay men in the world, and
even he is not able to you know, get the
armand you know, even having him committing I mean, he's
very much the reason that this movie had the budget

(46:39):
it did because vampire movies were not, you know, really
popping off at all of this time. But this movie
had a seventy million dollar budget, of which Tom Cruise
got ten million of which is absurd. He's not even
in the whole movie, but whatever. Yeah, they could have
hired Jeremy Irons for twelve dollars and he would have
done it. But yeah, the fact that even like that

(47:02):
amount of power and money and influence cannot get a
explicit gay relationship into the story feels very nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 5 (47:14):
It's pretty wild to me that. Well, there's kind of
the famous Norm MacDonald review of Interview with the Vampire,
which is currently my Twitter header, which says, here's my review,
not gay enough. And I agree that it's not gay enough.
But at the same time, it is very surprising how
gay it is given this was such a blockbuster, is

(47:36):
starring two of the biggest stars in the world at
the time. Is this kind of big, sweeping, epic story
like all of the people that Anne Rice suggested for
lestatt Allah, the Jeremy Irons of the world.

Speaker 6 (47:50):
Like you said, Jamie, she could have gone them for
twelve dollars.

Speaker 5 (47:52):
But this, like the cruise pit casting puts such a
spotlight on this movie that makes it both more impressive
and also more frustrating that it's not explicit.

Speaker 6 (48:06):
It's so close to be explicit.

Speaker 5 (48:08):
Like we said, he canonically baby traps this guy and
says Louis was gonna leave us, and now he's not.

Speaker 7 (48:16):
It Louis beautiful so many times, I mean Claudia.

Speaker 6 (48:20):
Calls like many times the.

Speaker 7 (48:21):
Claudia armand thing where she tells Louis armand wants you
as you want him, and there's just so many like
longing glances between them. It's impossible to watch this movie
and think that it's not queer. Right, It's just so textual.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
Right, it is textual. It's so because it's it's textual,
like visually, it's textual script and I'm just like amazed
that it exists in the way that it does.

Speaker 7 (48:49):
She's just talked about it so much too, you know,
I think like since her son came out, she's obviously
been more outspoken about it, but she's talked about how
it is gay allegory and how like honor she is
by that, and like the quote that like I think
rings the most truth or like so funny to me,
is like it's just interesting. She goes, I think I
have a gay sensibility, and I feel like I'm gay

(49:10):
because I've always transcended gender and I've always seen love
as transcending gender. And she, I think just has such
a queer sensibility. Whether or not that's because just how
she grew up where she was, whether or not it's
her son's influence on her, whether or not it's herself
that she maybe like never got to express, but like

(49:30):
there is such a clear queerness to how she writes everyone,
and especially like queer men, which I think is super fascinating,
especially coming from like someone who was identifying as a woman.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
So right, yeah, you know, I have some kind of
I guess questions I'd like to pose because I was
reading this as like obviously, you know, seeing the these two
handsome men sucking on each other and you know, rolling
around together and all that stuff. But then more from

(50:05):
like an allegorical point of view, I think you could
read this as like, oh, this is a metaphor for
Louis realizing he's gay or bisexual or queer in some
manner and struggling to accept this about himself and having
a hard time like him refusing to embrace his vampire

(50:27):
ways and drink people's blood. I feel like could be
seen as like kind of a metaphor for someone struggling
to accept their sexuality and you have this other character
who has like fully embraced it and is like, just
do it. This is what this is the life.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Come on.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
But I also find it interesting that that character, Lestat
is an abuser. He's a manipulator, he's an enabler. You know,
he's like, he's not a good partner.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
He's a murderer. He's a murderer.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
So I'm just like, I wish that if that was
like kind of an intentional allegory on Anne Riis's part,
I'm not sure if it is, but if it was intentional,
I'm just like, well, you know, that's not great that
that's like the central relationship that you know, this person
who's like helping or encouraging this character to embrace who

(51:26):
he really is is also someone who is extremely manipulative.
Not to say that that can't and doesn't happen, because
of course it does, and I'm sure that's a familiar
experience and relationship dynamic for many people, but because there
was so little queer representation in movies at this time,
either overt or more coded, it would have been nice

(51:48):
to see a healthier relationship dynamic on screen, especially since
the other queer relationship in the book between Louis and
Armand is basically completely erased from the movie. Also, I
was reading different interpretations of this movie that sort of
treats vampurism as an allegory for HIV and AIDS, oh

(52:12):
always in a way that of course demonizes queerness and
demonizes HIV and AIDS, And I feel like that's a
totally fair interpretation of that. Again, the movie is based
on source material that was published before and also, like
vampire Law in general, existed long before this. But like,

(52:33):
I can see that as like a read of like I.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Can see that as a read of the movie.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
But yeah, right, yeah, So I don't know if I
actually posed a question that I said I was going
to it at that point, but I just wanted to
share some of my thoughts around.

Speaker 5 (52:48):
That it's interesting to think about. I won't talk about
the show too much because I do think it's very
much its own thing, but I think in the film
armand is sort of meant to be the tethered version
of Lestott.

Speaker 6 (53:03):
He's the better version of Lustot.

Speaker 5 (53:05):
He's the more kind of like teachable, interested party who
could be with Louis, but it eventually doesn't work out
because Louis like never can get over the death of Claudia.
I think where the show really takes the themes that
you pose, Caitlin and makes them significantly, I think, more

(53:25):
layered and more interesting and obviously they have more time,
is that Louis is canonically a gay man and Lestott
is canonically I think he describes himself as non discriminatory,
like he's canonically by a slash pan sexual. He's pan
and that is something that gets brought up and is
basically like played back and forth between them. Is that

(53:48):
one of the main reasons that Louis is staying with
Lestott is because he knows that it's pretty rare that
he's going to be able to find a relationship with
another man where the other man is fine with not
hiding it and how important that is to him. And
I think they're sort of shades of that of the movie.

(54:09):
I mean, they do live together, they move in together,
everyone thinks of them as an item of platonic or not.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
They're raising a child.

Speaker 6 (54:18):
They're raising a child together.

Speaker 5 (54:22):
I love that scene where they're trying, God, they're having
Claudia try on dresses, and they're just like running around
with all the fabric and the lights and the plants,
like they're living their best lives. But I think that
that sort of that sort of softens the read. In
my opinion is that like it starts out as a

(54:43):
usually beneficial relationship that descends into a very toxic, abusive relationship,
but that at the beginning they do both give something
to each other that the other one that they can't
have alone.

Speaker 6 (54:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
A couple of other things I wanted to point out
about the series versus the movie, at least is in
the series, the Louis character is black played by Jacob Anderson,
and Lestat turns him into a vampire in nineteen ten Louisiana.
So the show explores a lot of themes surrounding race

(55:18):
and racism during Jim Crow era South in a way
that I think is a smart update from the way
the movie handles huge enslaved people and race in that regard,
because I mean, just shout out to Sandy Way Newton,
who plays Yvette and is credited in such a way

(55:38):
that I thought she was going to be a much
more significant character. But she's only in two quick scenes
and then she's killed, and then she's killed, and before that,
it's like a portrayal of an enslaved person who seems
to like love her enslaver and is concerned about his
well being. And then he she's the first person that

(56:02):
he kills. I believe because prior to that he's like, no,
I'm not going to kill anybody.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
That was pretty despicable. The way that the movie frames
race in general, like there's it's I would guess they
were going for ambiguity, which feels so and that is
not successful either, because all of the enslaved characters are
presented as like we like Brad Pitt, You're like, there's

(56:29):
no one who has actually characterized. This is also true
of the book. We have no indication in the present
or the past that any of the white characters or
any of the vampires have any issue. Like it's just
presented very matter of factly in a way that feels

(56:49):
just like deeply gross and unnecessary. Obviously, you cannot make
a movie or any work of fiction in this place,
in this time that doesn't acknowledge slavery. But it's so
extraordinarily poorly that in the movie, Like when I was
reading the book, the fact that there there was like

(57:09):
a passage where Louis basically says I was wrong to
have He never even says he was wrong to have
enslaved people. He's just like I was wrong to have
underestimated enslaved people's intelligence. Like that's as close as you
get to an outright condemnation of slavery. And there's I

(57:30):
don't know the way that this movie both presents slavery
in some of the most stereotypically harmful ways that you
could draw a direct line back to Gone with the Wind.
And this also reminds me, hasn't anyone have ever seen?
There is a really great video essay from Princess Weeks
about Confederacy vampires.

Speaker 6 (57:48):
Yes, also I love Princess Weeks so much.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
He's fan.

Speaker 5 (57:54):
It is an excellent video because why is it so pervasive?

Speaker 1 (57:58):
It's really Yeah, we'll in the description it's I've rewatched it.

Speaker 5 (58:02):
I think it's it's True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Twilight. Yes,
you can group this if you're talking about the Confederacy
as not like the actual Confederacy army, but like so interesting.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
All of these vampire franchises feature vampires who are sympathetic,
lovable characters who are white vampires who fought for the
South in the Civil War. It is a wild through line,
and Princess in rewatching this video sort of speculates that

(58:35):
at least some of this has to do with the
popularity of Interview with the Vampire, and she includes the
same passage that I'm talking about, where you know, the
absolute barest minimum is done by Anne Rice in text
to be like, well, slavery was bad, obviously, and Louis

(58:56):
knows that now, but that's it, and you know, then
goes on to make the argument that future vampire adaptations
did even less and very much presented like Jasper Cullen
bravely fought for the South, you know, in the Twilight franchise,
and so that future adaptations got even more regressive. It

(59:17):
is a very fucked up and bizarrely consistent trope that
appears in vampire media of at least the last fifty years,
and it seems to at least have some roots here. Yeah,
I like this. I'm glad that the series has made
serious changes and changes also has changed the time period

(59:41):
that it's taking place in pretty significantly.

Speaker 5 (59:44):
Yeah, and it brings out the themes in such a
more interesting way. Like similarly, the Louis character. He finds
this newfound power in being a vampire, but also still feels,
of course like the same imbalance of power in Jim
Crow New Orleans, with him still being a black man,

(01:00:06):
but then has the power to overpower people that are
being racist to him, but also can't give away the
fact that he's a vampire. It just makes it so
much more complicated and makes his kind of like sad
boy demeanor what's more textured and layered than this movie,

(01:00:27):
because I think this movie does dirty by the character
of Louis, not necessarily by like Brad Pitt, but like
by his character because he's who we got, He's who
we got to tether ourselves to. I mean, as a result,
I think that Kirsten Dunst is unquestionably the standout performance
of the film. And I almost can't even watch the

(01:00:49):
scene where she gets burned to Chris because I love
her so much and I think that she's like the
best character in the movie, and she's probably will of course,
she has the advantage of being a child, so we
let her show tantrums and not understand what's happening. But
she's the one who I'm like, I feel I feel
like you're really really dimensional.

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
She's like kind of the most nuanced to her as well.

Speaker 7 (01:01:13):
It's like, even though she is a baby girl, she
does like love killing and she loves murdering, and I
think that's puts a fun dynamic because you have Lestat
who is even a little bit like Simmere down like
you're going too far, and that kind of interplay there
is really fun. But then she has the more close

(01:01:33):
tether to Brad Pitt as a father, So like the
intersection there is interesting, like the tug of war at
her as a character.

Speaker 5 (01:01:40):
Brad Head has that line where it's like I saw
her as a daughter, but Lstat saw her as a pupil, right,
but that she also doesn't want to be thought of
as a child. The age thing is interesting because I
think in the book she's really young.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
She's like five vibe.

Speaker 5 (01:01:54):
Yeah, so she is a demon toddler and in the
terrifying in the show, I would soon because they don't
want to cast someone who's under eighteen. She's probably like fifteen, fourteen, fifteen.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
Yeah, they age her up in the show. They cast
an actor who's a teenager, although she's kind of acting
more like a ten year old, So I don't know
if they're like trying to convince the audience that she's ten,
the way that Little Women tried to convince us that
Florence Pugh is twelve.

Speaker 4 (01:02:24):
But holding a sign.

Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
Twelve I'm twelve saying there was I was getting really
nervous about the relationship between Claudia and her two father
figures where I was like, oh, no, are they going
to start? Is this movie going to start? Because I
again I didn't really remember much about it, but I
was like, are they going to start to suggest that
like they're like grooming her to be their lover or

(01:02:49):
is there going to be some really disgusting, like child
sex abuse kind of thing happening. And there is a
moment where Armand is like, oh, Claudia is your lover, right, Louie,
and He's like, no, she's my daughter.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
Well, but also Kirsten Dunst kisses Brad Pitt on the
Lifts as an eleven year old in this movie, which
she later took severe public issue with and a lot
of people gave her shit about. But there was I
was going back and watching the press tour, which is
like normal to do.

Speaker 6 (01:03:21):
But yeah, I do think it's normal to do.

Speaker 5 (01:03:24):
I think it's so odd because I think that, like
I would interpret that as like a kind of just
fatherly kiss, but then it that's not how AWAYS interpreted.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Yeah, I guess I would. I would say I do
think that. Maybe it's like because the book also seems
to be playing on what the movie is playing less on,
and I think smartly so. But like in the book,
he like Louie is like I love her like a
daughter and I'm in love with her. It's leaning into that,

(01:03:53):
and you know, I don't, to my not fifty four
percent of the way into the book at one point
nine speed, there is no it's it's all coded as
an emotional attachment and it's not physical, thankfully, but that
is that's not shied away from that. It's like, well,
what is this relationship? Because I think and the book

(01:04:14):
really you know, reminds you, well, actually she's been alive
for sixty five years. Anyways, I want to just shout
out the Yeah, the Kirsten Dunst interviews, because I watched
like a lot of the original press run for this movie,
and even like as a kid, like they were like,
what was your favorite part? And she's like killing people
and they're like, what's your wan his favorite part? And

(01:04:35):
she was like kissing Brad Pit. But she she said,
I hated the kiss so much because Brad was like
my older brother on set, and it's like kissing your brother.
It's weird because he's thirty one and I had to
kiss him on the lips, so it was gross and
you're like, yeah, don't make an eleven year lad do that.
Don't do that, And which was like further made weird
in on the press tour because everyone she said that

(01:04:56):
to as a twelve year old was like, you should
love kissing Brad Pitt. She was like, oh my god.
To her credit, she was like, well I don't because
I'm twelve, and they were like good. Oh.

Speaker 6 (01:05:07):
People were so weird to her on this press stur What.

Speaker 7 (01:05:10):
A horrible time for press conferences like that era too,
specifically is like the nineties through early two thousands of
people's views on like what they can and shouldn't say
in press stuff is just.

Speaker 5 (01:05:22):
Kids, especially child Yeah, I feel like Natalie Portman went
through it a lot during Phantom Menace and I.

Speaker 6 (01:05:32):
H yeah, even earlier.

Speaker 7 (01:05:34):
Yeah, even with it's interesting with the Claudia too, because
she is so clearly based in like An talked about
it being based on the death of her daughter, and
like the book originated as like a form of grieving
the loss of.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
Her daughter, who died of a blood related disease, right,
So it's.

Speaker 7 (01:05:51):
Like, it's just so interesting that the intricacies around the
character with regards to that, when you know that it
is basically a stand in for her own child, just
an interesting kind of thing to write to have like
the child then be you know, bloodthirsty.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
That's why I was expected, like when Claudia was introduced,
to have a lot more to say critically about that character.
But it's just like, I don't know. I I think
in general, do not have a child kiss an adult
man on the mouth in a movie is an easy
and correct criticism to make of any movie, particularly if

(01:06:29):
that kiss is supposed to be ambiguous gross, right, But
as far as like I just don't feel Yeah, I
don't really feel comfortable critiquing Anne Rice is writing there
because it's just so deeply personal to her own life
and like her sorting shit out that Yeah. Especially yeah,
because in the book that's why Claudia's is five years old,
because her daughter was five years old, and so it's

(01:06:51):
so personal that I just, you know, I can. I
can criticize Anne Rise all day for making a sympathetic
planation owner her protagonist, but as far as Claudia goes,
I feel like, yeah, I I have no comment. That
was her her processing one of the most traumatic things

(01:07:13):
I can imagine going through.

Speaker 5 (01:07:16):
I'm so fascinated by the character of Claudia. I love
her as a character because, like I mentioned, you forgive
a lot of the instincts that she has because she's
eternally trapped in this like arrested development adolescence.

Speaker 6 (01:07:31):
But I also love.

Speaker 5 (01:07:33):
How as her mind grows and she becomes like a
full adult mentally, she understands Lestatt and Louis arguably better
than they understand each other for themselves. When she brings
Madeline to Louis, I had completely forgotten it, and I
thought that she was like, here, you need a new companion.

(01:07:55):
So I brought you this adult woman so that we
can be a family again. And instead she like, listen, man,
I know you're gonna run away with armand so if
you could make me a new mother figure but for you,
or run off with your new man, I would appreciate that.

Speaker 7 (01:08:11):
And like, Brad can't get into turning this woman. Like
even when he does, you read on his face that
this is not an enjoyable experience, whereas everything with Lestat
or our Mond is much more entertaining for him.

Speaker 6 (01:08:24):
Yeah, erotic even.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
Yeah, he's like, Eh, this lady has cooties. Yes, I
don't want to touch her.

Speaker 7 (01:08:31):
I'm hundreds of years old and I still think girls
they have cooties.

Speaker 6 (01:08:36):
He does not.

Speaker 5 (01:08:37):
Other than the scene that we discussed, he's very much
not interested in women at all. Lestott is the one
who's like, let's meet up with some New Orleans sex
workers and we can murder them because no one will
know or care.

Speaker 3 (01:08:53):
I did want to talk about like who the victims
often are? Oh yeah, Listat and kind of by proxy,
Louis because it's mostly women, many of whom are Black women,
many of whom are sex workers. Their deaths are often
very sexualized. It kind of the movie frames like, wow,

(01:09:15):
look how sensual it is when they murder these women.
And I mean, I'm fine with the part where they
target that rich woman who had someone else kill her
husband and then she blamed it on an enslaved black person,
and then it's implied that the enslaved person was killed
because of it. Do the thing where you kill other

(01:09:36):
bad people. But the movie is like very uncritical of
any time they are targeting innocent black women, innocent sex workers.

Speaker 6 (01:09:48):
Well, I guess etc.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
I agree with you. I think I wish that if
we had seen all of these highly sexualized killings, we
had seen it across the board, you know what I mean,
because like, yeah, because it's not like I don't know,
I can't I can't safely say like I wish they
killed less people. I just wish they killed a wider
variety of people, because yeah, it did feel pointed that

(01:10:10):
there it was hyper fixated on women, specifically poor women
and often black women.

Speaker 6 (01:10:18):
There's the one golden youth who he kills. Yes, yeah,
but it's not the same.

Speaker 1 (01:10:24):
It just feels like I think in the book and
I don't it was like it felt like it was
made explicit that listat was evil and targeting people that
he found vulnerable and that was why he was choosing
his victims in the way that he was, And it
was at least written that it was like, and this
is a horrible thing that he's doing by specifically targeting

(01:10:47):
the most vulnerable people, he can find people he perceives
as people who will not be missed by society, and
then he would let himself have an aristocrat, an aristocrat,
an aristocrat, So.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
May okay, Disney movie Alert.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
We could have the little kitten from the Aristicats as
a treat, but like an aristocrat would be a treat
because that would pose a higher risk of exposure for
them in the movie, that's not made it clear at all,
and it's made more seen as just like a buffet
of vulnerable people that the camera is highly eroticizing. And

(01:11:24):
it's just like, if you're going to go for I
feel like, if you're going to go for erotic kills
in your movie, you cannot focus specifically on historically marginalized people,
Like it doesn't work.

Speaker 3 (01:11:36):
Yeah, right, not unless there's you know, active commentary being
made about those power dynamics, which this movie isn't making.

Speaker 7 (01:11:44):
I mean, there's a lot to you could also read
into it too. It's like when you have two gay
men at the center, there's the intersection of you know,
the gay male, you know, internalized misogyny or you know,
like the interplay between like a gender there. But like
obviously that's not what the movie is going for or
what the text is. But like there is again like

(01:12:04):
these implicit reads that you look at the movie just
because it is like mostly women who are the ones
that are dying, but like the two guys are like, well,
we can kill them easily, no one will care. But
we don't have that line or anything to then dig
into that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
I also just don't understand why they were specifically targeting women.
I don't know, like I guess in the movie, like
Westad's motivation for specifically focusing on women was not entirely
clear to me.

Speaker 5 (01:12:34):
I think it's a I think it's a movie thing.
It feels like, well, of course we got butts and seats,
We're going to give them some sensual bloody ladies.

Speaker 3 (01:12:45):
Yeah, let's find an excuse to show some boobs on screen. Yeah,
and again in the way that we've talked about on
the podcast before, as far as so many horror movies
sexualizing violence against women, Like we talked about this a
lot on the like Cabin in the Woods episode, but
there have been different like slasher movies and just horror

(01:13:07):
movies in general that are so guilty of this, where
it's like reveling in a sexual way in violence enacted
against women, and it feels like that's happening to a
very large degree in this movie. This is neither here
nor there, But I did want to point out some

(01:13:28):
striking similarities between Interview with the Vampire and Monsters Inc.
Which we just covered.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
On the Matren.

Speaker 3 (01:13:37):
Okay, both movies feature two men who live together who
come upon a little girl and become her surrogate parents.
And one of the dads has like a closer bond
to the little girl and like really connects with her,

(01:13:59):
and then all to they part ways again. That's pretty
much where the similarities start and stop.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
But true though, it's so pretty good, thank you so much.

Speaker 6 (01:14:12):
What I'm hearing is Monsters Inc. Queer Quadrant.

Speaker 4 (01:14:17):
It's actually it's on the list.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
I have it, Mike and Sully. I mean, I mean,
that was the conclusion we came to.

Speaker 7 (01:14:26):
Yeah, every two person podcasts is inherently a Mike and Sully,
you know, like there's two mics and two Sally as always.

Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, it's true. The other silly little
observation I'd like to point out is Louise's full name
is Louis DuPont du Lock du Lock. You mean the
Kingdom from Shrek one.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
That's the power of David geff It.

Speaker 4 (01:14:53):
It is a perfect place.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
Oh wow, it really is. I love that little song.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
It's so good me.

Speaker 1 (01:15:01):
Too, well, well spotted, well spotted, Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
Well, they don't mention his full name in the movie,
but they say it all the time in the series,
because they're always saying like mister Dulac, and I'm like, okay,
Shrek much you can't escape it anyway. Does anyone have
anything else they'd like to discuss?

Speaker 5 (01:15:23):
My only silly little observation is that this is a
movie about boys with feelings, but it is once.

Speaker 6 (01:15:31):
Not a movie about fathers andselves.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Exactly about fathers and daughters.

Speaker 7 (01:15:38):
I will say, on the horror of it all, like
the Stan Winston makeup, and like the horror design Tom
and when he's in the chair looking decrepit, af that
is really really good stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
Good stuff. I was just reading about Stan Winston because
he did the tank on Tank Girl. Yeah, for the
like the Kangaroo people. Also, when Anne Rice was considering
changing the gender of the Louie character in a draft
of the script. Also worth noting that the director Neil

(01:16:12):
Jordan wrote a draft of the script and is uncredited,
and it's not super clear. I couldn't find any sort
of clarity as far as like what draft ended up
being shot, like how much of it was Anne Rice's
original draft, how much of it was the director's. Not
super clear, but just wanted to point that out. But so,

(01:16:33):
when Anne Rice was considering having the Louie character be
a woman, Cher was considered for the role, and she
co wrote a song entitled Lovers Forever along with Shirley
Eckhart for the soundtrack of the film. Cher obviously didn't
end up getting the part, although a dance pop version

(01:16:56):
of that song was released on a share album many
years later. Twenty years later on the twenty thirteen album
Closer to the Truth. So that's a little fun fact.

Speaker 4 (01:17:11):
I have a question.

Speaker 7 (01:17:12):
Yeah, just you know, let's say we have to stratify it,
which like boo, we don't like doing that, but like, yay,
if we have to do it, I feel like.

Speaker 4 (01:17:20):
Share would be incredible in.

Speaker 6 (01:17:22):
This Share is the gayest possible.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
Right, but exacts the gayest straight you can guess, right, yeah,
but like.

Speaker 7 (01:17:29):
Imagine that flow just flying through the air, like blood,
you know, coming down her face.

Speaker 5 (01:17:35):
And she probably has six inches on Tom crab Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
Oh my god, love that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
Okay, Well, if we kind of gayify it in a
different direction, if it's Share, and then like Angelica Houston
as Lestat.

Speaker 5 (01:17:50):
Oh yes, yes, this is making me want to rewatch
The Hunger with Daviavill and Seusan Sarandon, which is another
great Oh it's very queer a fire movie.

Speaker 6 (01:18:01):
It's okay, It's okay. I love that. I would immediately
watch that.

Speaker 3 (01:18:05):
Oh wow, does anyone have anything else they'd like to say?
Slash the movie? Does does it pass the Bechdel test?
I didn't even pay attention.

Speaker 1 (01:18:15):
I don't think so.

Speaker 4 (01:18:16):
I don't think.

Speaker 6 (01:18:16):
I don't think so.

Speaker 5 (01:18:17):
Maybe on a technicality between Madeline and Claudia, but but
it's a maybe. I was watching and looking for it,
and I'm not sure.

Speaker 6 (01:18:27):
I'm not convinced.

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
Spiritually, No, we'll say no to that.

Speaker 3 (01:18:30):
As far as our nipple scale, though, rating this movie
on a scale of zero to five nipples based on
examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:18:40):
It's tricky because like this has such a legacy as
far as like it's it's queer reads and following and
fan base, and I think that's always a beautiful thing.
But there's also like the actual text that we're working
with leaves a lot to be desired, obviously mends the
portrayal of enslaved people really horribly. There's a quick shot

(01:19:06):
of characters practicing what I'm assuming is supposed to be
voodoo practices, but it's the very you know, stereotyped, false
version of the voodoo religion. The explicitly queer relationship between
Louis and armand that was in the source material being
erased from the movie. That's very frustrating. But also it's

(01:19:31):
a movie that explores a dynamic between two men Louis
and Lestat, who are sometimes suckling on each other and
sometimes they're raising a child together. And there's something very
interesting and like weirdly unusual about that in mainstream cinema.

(01:19:52):
Because this was a huge hit, Like it was a
box office smash. It was like pretty critically well reviewed,
but like commercially it was it was a pretty big hits.
So I don't know, I think there's something really interesting
about that. And I guess most of my nippleedge goes
to the fact that it has this like this queer following,
but I would give the series a much higher nipple rating. Again,

(01:20:15):
I'm not that far into it, but if you like
this movie and you but you want something more, I
would suggest checking out the series.

Speaker 1 (01:20:23):
I'm going to meet you at too as well. Yeah,
I think that this movie is like so like pleasantly
surprisingly overtly queer for the time it's coming out in
while still not being as queer as the source material,
which feels rare. And I always appreciate when a work

(01:20:44):
is so open to being adapted more responsibly to match
the times. It seems like for the most part it
was like really well received, which a lot of franchises
you do not get that with. And yeah, I mean,
as far as this specific goes, it is so campy
and it is about two gay vampire dads raising their

(01:21:08):
braddy daughter Like it's awesome and it also deals with race,
I think tremendously badly. It doesn't have a very high
opinion of women either outside of just Kirsten Dunst right,
And so that is why I am going to zone
in at two. I'm going to give one to Anne Rice.
I'm going to give the other to Oprah Winfrey for

(01:21:29):
leaving the movie due to the dark forces that it
was introdesting in the first ten minutes.

Speaker 3 (01:21:34):
Of course, of course.

Speaker 7 (01:21:35):
That's with all of our podcast steps, a dark force
just inherently there.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
Yeah, if you stop listening after ten minutes because of
dark forces, you know, you can't blame you.

Speaker 3 (01:21:46):
Jordan, how about you.

Speaker 4 (01:21:47):
I'm gonna go a little into the San Francisco sky.
I'm going to go with three.

Speaker 7 (01:21:52):
And I think it's just because I like the the queerness.

Speaker 4 (01:21:56):
I think just works for me.

Speaker 7 (01:21:58):
And I think that's just I think, you know what
two and a half, how about that?

Speaker 4 (01:22:02):
That feels nice?

Speaker 7 (01:22:03):
Half a nipple? You know, it's like a baby nip.
I think it's just because there is just so much
I think when we first covered the movie, I wasn't
sure how queer it was going to be, just because
I had never seen the movie. Was aware of it,
but watching even watching it again, it is overwhelming how
much there is in there. And I think just for

(01:22:24):
our podcast and just for me in general, seeing something
with that rich of a text made by a studio
at that point in time is always super refreshing. Even
if it had you know, there is a lot that
doesn't work about the movie, there's a lot that sometimes does,
and so I think, like, to be you know, true
to myself, I would have to give it that that's

(01:22:45):
how many nips, you know, maybe a nip for the
sky floating, a nip for Christian Slater cruising, you know,
why not?

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
Why not?

Speaker 6 (01:22:53):
I think that's fair.

Speaker 3 (01:22:54):
Oh beautiful, Yeah, broke, how about you.

Speaker 5 (01:22:57):
I'm also going to give this one too, because I
do think that it's it's a pretty audacious movie for
the time, and yet again Norm McDonald, he sums it
up somehow still not gay enough, and I think that
is what always held us back, Jordan from being like,
can't we can't fully stay exactly even though we.

Speaker 4 (01:23:19):
Might want to right there.

Speaker 5 (01:23:20):
But I love what this movie has done for the
vampire genre as a whole and the series that it's
led to. I totally agree Kaitlin, Like, I cannot recommend
the series highly enough. It's my favorite thing on TV
right now. It's so funny, it's so like textually rich,
everyone is beautiful, and it's extremely like sexually explicit in

(01:23:43):
a good way.

Speaker 6 (01:23:45):
It really textualizes the subtext.

Speaker 5 (01:23:48):
But I think that I do love the sort of
dramatic Koy way that the subtext is handled here. You
just wish that the movie had more of an intersectional
view too, if it's going to be like leaning into
vampires in this way, leaning into like the marginalization and
the outside, you know, sort of ideation that these vampires experience,

(01:24:11):
and it feels like it just cracks open the door,
but it doesn't really open it all the way. So
for that reason, I'm going to give it two nipples.
I give one to Kirsten Dunce's beautiful curls. I give
the other to Antonio Vanderis's wig. Whether it deserves it
or not, I just I don't know if it's good
or bad, but I can't stop thinking about it.

Speaker 3 (01:24:32):
So it's flowy, it's long.

Speaker 6 (01:24:34):
It is.

Speaker 4 (01:24:37):
Proper to describe it.

Speaker 3 (01:24:41):
Oh well, thank you so much both of you for
for coming on the show. Tell us about your podcast
and where people can listen to it, and anything else
you'd like to plug.

Speaker 5 (01:24:53):
Well, we're so honored that you had us on, especially
for ye Old Pride Month, which is currently happening. It's
month all year on the Queer Quadrant, but this month especially,
we want to be highlighting organizations that are doing things and.

Speaker 6 (01:25:09):
Making a difference to the community and also to the world.

Speaker 5 (01:25:11):
So every episode you listen to this month, you'll hear
a little extra something about the orcs we're supporting.

Speaker 6 (01:25:17):
We release episodes every two.

Speaker 5 (01:25:20):
Weeks on your favorite four Quadrant blockbusters that may not
be as straight as you think they are. I cannot,
in good conscious recommend our early interview with the Vampire episode.
I mean, like, listen at your own risk.

Speaker 7 (01:25:32):
But I can recommend Caitlin coming on for Hobbs and Shops.

Speaker 6 (01:25:36):
Hobbs and Shop pretty good. I also I have to
recommend the Titanic.

Speaker 3 (01:25:41):
Episode to Jamie was there as well.

Speaker 6 (01:25:44):
Jamie was there, It was it was a good time.

Speaker 5 (01:25:47):
But we're mostly floating around the internet on Twitter and
Instagram and letterbox. I'm at brookby Solomon and together we're
at Queer Quadrant. You can find the Queer Quadrant on Spotify,
on Apple, wherever you get your podcasts. Give us a
tweet or a DM and tell us what you might
like to see us cover in the future. We always
want to hear about your gay takes.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
Love it, Oh my gosh, thank you again. Come back anytime.
And Jamie had to leave listeners, so I'll just give
the plugs real quick. You can listen to our Matreon
episodes at Patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast, where you
get two bonus episodes every month for five bucks and

(01:26:29):
it's always centering around some hilarious, awesome theme. You can
follow us on mostly Instagram these days at Bechdel Cast,
and then you can scoot over to tepublic dot com
slash the Bechdel Cast for our merch You can check
out our link tree link tree slash Bechdel Cast for

(01:26:51):
some goodies over there, including our letterboxed and yeah, with that,
should we go fly around and look for people to yet?

Speaker 4 (01:27:04):
Yeah, because we're.

Speaker 6 (01:27:05):
Vampire, let's go vampire cruising. Let's do it tired all right?

Speaker 4 (01:27:11):
Bye.

Speaker 3 (01:27:15):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskresenski. Our logo and merch
is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit

(01:27:37):
link Tree Slash Bechdel Cast