March 8, 2018 • 58 mins
Your new favorite girl band, Jamie and the PussyCaits, just dropped a hot new single entitled "A Nuanced Discussion About the Portrayal of Women in the Motion Picture Josie and the Pussycats with Special Guest Faye Orlove." Podcasts are the new music!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women and them are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
If do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef and best
start changing it with the bel Cast. Hello, and welcome
to the Beckdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My
name is Jamie Loftus. Yeah, we're doing our last names
(00:21):
now because of someone who's in the room who can't
speak yet. Right, this is the power part of just
like you can't talk yet. This bothers our male guests,
and they usually don't make it. They usually don't interrupt
a lot. They're usually or sometimes as a male guest,
I'm just gonna go ahead and just call out Jack O'Brien.
We'll do it. We'll do a loud laugh while we're
doing the intro, and it's like you're not supposed to
(00:42):
be seen yet, but you're making our guest on the
micro Aggression l episode slamming the table basically through the
table at us in the first two minutes. Who else
is Hampton? For sure? But we are very excited for
our guest today. So wait, we didn't say with the podcast, Okay,
(01:03):
we're still in the Power Zone right now the Bechtel
Casts our podcast about women and how they're portrayed in movies,
and wouldn't you know that mainstream Hollywood cinema does not
portray women very well until very recently. I mean, this
year is pretty good for women in film. I think
this year is pretty good for women. I was like, sorry,
have you checked your news out? It's pretty bad out there.
(01:27):
But we've done several movies recently that came out this
year that have fared very well by our standards. Yes,
I Tanya, Ladybird Girls Trip Hidden Figures came out last year. Yeah, alright,
so you know we're there's options, it's getting a little better,
there's more options. Historically, Hollywood has not portrayed women well.
As my point, I disagree and I have a forty
(01:49):
five minute argument. So we use the Bechtel test as
sort of are jumping off point for a discussion. Becktel
Tests being the test created by Alison Bechtel and the
comic books Watch Out For and in our version of
the test, we would like to see movies have two
female identifying characters with names talk about something other than
a man for more than two lines of dialogue. Does
(02:12):
not happen a lot, not enough, but I'm very excited
for today's episode. It's a common request when we ask
for requests. I feel like we've seen this movie come
up just about as often as like we got a
lot of requests for like Legally Blonde as well, which
we did on the Patreon. So subscribe and then maybe
you can hear about what I think about Victor Garber
(02:32):
spoiler alert. This movie. Yeah, we get requests for it
because it's a it's a great movie. It's a cult classic.
Josie and the Pussycats. Yes, and I'm so excited for
our guest today. She's a friend of the cash, she's
a friend of you, she's a friend of me. She
owns and operates a nonprofit art space right here in Hollywood,
(02:52):
California called Junior High. You gotta check this place out.
It's great, it's the best. She's a wonderful visual artist.
It's fay or left for crying out loud. I can
talk now you can. Thanks for asking permission. Once you
said that men usually fail at that, I was like committed.
I said something otherwise, must prove myself some some of
(03:14):
some of our fem some of our female guests have
violated the rule. But but statistically, first of all, men
are allowed on the show simply less. But when they
when they do show up, they're talking early, they're talking right,
Like I think we may have an example of like Hi,
I'm Jamie, Hi, I'm Caitlin. Hi, I'm the guy, and
(03:34):
it's like we did not ask you to make yourself
known yet. I literally the only thing you told me
when we were about to record was that you're going
to do it two minute bit at the beginning, just
you guys, and not not to be there. You know,
I'm really good at instructions. You can take a good
direction better than my best trade, honestly, So, Faye, you
(03:55):
brought us Josie the Pussycats, and you also brought us
Josie the Pussycats. Stick to you do? They're so good? Yeah?
Just can people buy these at your art space Junior High?
Actually I don't think they're at Junior High right, and
I should bring some, but I just make a bunch
of stickers and celebrity junk that's on my website. It's
just great. So, Josie the Postycats, why did you pick
(04:17):
this movie? When did you first see it. What's your
history with this movie. I have no idea when I
first saw it, because that it was just so much
a part of me that it feels like I was
birthed and I knew every line. But I'm obsessed with it.
I know every word of every song. Kind of embarrassingly
they did that. I don't know if you guys saw
(04:37):
it at the hotel, they did, like the full cast
Q and A and the band played like from that
did all the recordings of letters from clear like the singer. Well,
it was so cool you were there, right, Yeah, I
remember that big aggressively there. I remember those inst stories. Yeah,
but like the artist was present that night. Yeah, it was.
(04:58):
That was like a dream come true. I think Joseing
the Pussycats might be my favorite band. Can you there
are very real to me? Yeah, sure, I don't. I'll
allow it. You know they're the best. And they've released
a vinyl of all the songs and then there was
a mini like seven inch djor single for Yeah, I
should have brought that. I'll show it to you later,
(05:20):
but it is good marketing. How are you familiar at
all with the comics that it was based off. Yeah,
I would read Archie all the time as a kid,
and um, that was like my big gift. I would
go to My parents would ship me away to Jewish
sleepaway camp for a month every summer and I would
just wait till like week two and a half and
I'd get a package of Archie comics. Are you into
(05:45):
Riverdale the show? I started watching it and I just
haven't had a ton of time. But I'm into whichever
Sprouse twin that is. Yeah, I personally prefer Dylan, you know.
I think Dylan's Dylan has like the longer hair, right, Yeah,
he's the thick twin. Yeah, he's cute. I'm here for
the thick twin. If there's twins, I'm going for good
(06:06):
to get that. Just call all that right off the bat,
the thin twin, all right, I'll got the thanks twin.
You get the thin twin, I'll read a song about it,
and then you don't really know I feel about twins, Jamie.
When did you first see the movie? On Christmas? At
your house? Yeah? And I do spend all major holidays together.
(06:28):
We were together on Thanksgiving and Christin just tragic and
beautiful of your family where they don't like us, they're
they're on the East coast. Is too cold, it's too
hard to get to. Yeah. So I first saw Josie
the Pussycats. It was probably it must have been like
two thousand I think it's my freshman year of college,
so like two thousand four. Friend showed it to me, instantly,
(06:51):
loved it, bought it on DVD right away, watched it
dozens of times since then. Definitely one of my favorites.
Super underrated. A lot of people don't know about this movie.
If they know about it, they assume that it's terrible. Yeah, well,
because it did not get good in views at the time.
I mean, I think this was like one of those
notoriously bad Ebert reviews, like this is the worst movie
(07:12):
movies about girl bands, because he also hated Spiceworld. Really
to be Affair is really bad, but it's it's one
of my favor It's bad, but it's it's it's question. Yeah,
I wish it was more popular, so more opportunities to
whip out the fact that I do know every dance
from that movie. Mostly I just performed solo to myself.
(07:32):
But of course, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm like in
a crazy movie. It's quite right, So, yeah, I saw earlier.
I just texted the boy this doesn't pass the fact
return to for him. Um, everything's great. I'm shifting around him.
I see it like a fucking psychopath and thinking about
the fishes but from the shape of water. All right,
(07:52):
well there it starts Sally Hawkins and she is also
in Paddington and Paddington two. So good for check out Paddington's,
the Paddington's Paddington, the Paddington's, Paddington Expanded Universe, the cinematic
universe anyway, So yeah, is it Do you think if
(08:14):
Paddington to his cannon or Paddington to believe, you would
question this? He was about to like throw up some
furniture and I feel unsafe at this time. Okay, So Joe,
what were we talking about? Okay, so I think we
can all agree that we enjoy this movie. It's so good.
This is one of those movies that I truly don't
(08:36):
know how I had not seen it, because it, like
every element of it appeals to me, especially and this
is and normally I will wax poetic about Alfred Billina,
who I think could have found a really fun bit
role in this movie. If someone had had their fucking
head on. But but for me, this movie is Alan Cumming.
(08:57):
He is the star. I had like a bet with
myself how far and we'd be untill when you mentioned
Alan coming, and I think I won. Just she's going
to bring it up and she will be she will
take a drink of water right when she says his name.
I need to love my mouth before I say his name,
to be fully slippery, so I could talk about Alan
(09:21):
Alan commy, I mean obviously feminist, icon queer. Un the
list goes on. He's amazing and this is and a
British national treasure. I'm guess scott Scottish Scottish Scottish have
a good one, because that's like the best part in
the movie when his accent goes away briefly. No, he's
Scottish's Scottish. Yeah, but I think he had a British accent.
(09:41):
Yea was pretty terrible. It was not good. Yeah, but
it turns out because he's a he's a scott Anyways,
he's the best part of the Good Wife, which I've
seen every episode after that's weird. Shall I do the recap?
Do the recap? Wait? Can we say who's in this
movie besides Alan Cumming, certainly because there's a it's a
(10:03):
kind of a star star studded roster. It star stud
So Josie is Rachel Lee Cook, Rosario Dawson plays I again.
This happens on the pot where we don't remember people's
names and characters name character name. Her name is a
Val Val and then Terror Reid is as her slash
(10:23):
uh and also Parker Posey park anything with Parker Posey
and Alan Cumming. H. Yeah, So Josie the Possycats is
about a band comprised of those three characters, Josie, Val
and Melucts. Yeah. They live in Riverdale and they're just
trying to make it. You know. They're doing small gigs.
They don't have a following yet they love music. They
(10:45):
all lived together and they live in the same trailer.
There's a boy named Alan M who Josie big old
crush on. Okay, Alan M hot or not not hot?
He literally flop thank you. He's a good fashion but
he's got a cute. I don't think anyone's attractive. If
I've seen their feet, I understand that. Yeah, Caitlin is
(11:09):
every because we've watched Josie and the pussycast together twice now,
and she stands out for for Allan M. Every time.
She's like, no, he's he's a good dude, Alan M.
He's like, he's all bangs. Is very much of that.
I mean, he can't even fix his truck. He has
to get a woman's help, like that talk one of
(11:29):
Caylin's favorite tropes, Woman who fixed the car, just so
much about cars. Allan M's fine, So she begins to
back pedal, Ellen M not hot, Ellen M. Good guy not.
I'm pretty sure he has a leather bracelet on in Pumpably.
I used to wear a sweatband all the time that
(11:51):
said I have issues. Oh my god, on sale. I
almost feel like you should legally be wearing that still
just it's basically it was a medical band. I just
didn't know. The font is crazy. There's all there's all
these pictures of me and my grandma. I'm wearing back
(12:13):
Price with my fucking things that says I have issues,
and my grandma is she has this smile on her
face where she's just smiling, but you can also tell
she is making fun of me by making me have
a photo taken in that moment in time, she's fully
attacking me. I look like shit. Listen, I was twelve
and I looked like absolute hitch. I have issues. You've
(12:35):
got issues. I have issues. Well, so did the Pussycats
because they amazing. Yeah, that was an amazing segue to
do this professional. She's wait, wait, Kaylen, have you been
in college. Yes. Not only have I been to college,
I have been to grad school where I did get
a master's degree in screen running from Boston University. I
do not like to bring it up, but here we are. Okay. Anyway,
(12:58):
So the Pussycats are having issues. You know, they're trying
to build a following their talented musicians. They've got great songs,
but no one is listening to them. Meanwhile, there is
Alan Cummings character whose name is did I say what?
Did I say? No? I did Alan Cumming as himself. Okay,
we just took that as a moment to repeat the name.
(13:19):
That's all that was happening. To do it every couple
of minutes. Sure, I'll die contract thing, especially what it
said on the inside of your sweatband. I think she is.
Do not resuscitate, just swiss for Alan Cummings. She will
pop out of it. Okay. So Alan Cumming plays this
guy named Wyat Frame and he's like helping to run
(13:39):
a label called Mega Records and they just got rid
of their front runner band. Sure can we talk about
what We'll get to this, but there is top of
the movie, Alan coming straight up jumps out of a
plane elegantly and this happens because he's sort of like
(14:00):
managing this band djor this boy band who's super popular
who is Donald's face on Meyer and then another guy Why,
which I love because when du comes back at the
end of the movie, it's only the guy because it's like, oh,
you couldn't afford the other three from more than One Day. Yeah,
they're in a full cat that's not really them, that's
(14:21):
gotta be Those are some extras. So Alan Cumming has
to jump out of a plane because this boy band
starts to figure out something fishy that's going to become
the record label. So why it basically crashes the plane
they're on. He jumps to safety and now he's on
the lookout for a new front runner band to be
the most popular, and he finds the Pussycats. So don't
(14:46):
actually could we all do together? How can I say this? Alright, fine,
So he discovers the Pussycats without even hearing them play.
He offers them a record deal and they're just like,
what's all this about? And he's like, it doesn't matter,
just sign with us and we'll make you stars. And
they're like okay, and then they go, they get makeovers,
(15:07):
they start recording some music. There's this ominous machine. It's
like this recording device. They're like, what's all this and
he's like, don't worry about it. Meanwhile, we meet Fiona
played by Parker Posey, and we learned that the record
company that they are running is actually just sort of
this way to insert subliminal messages into music to get
(15:28):
teenagers to buy a bunch of crap. So there's product
placement all over this movie. We did the count. We
made a note, so I think there's upwards of eighty
products being hawked throughout the course of this movie. It's wild.
Some of them are so like some of my favorite
ones are the ones that only come up once of
like tidy Cats do five dollars because we'll put you
(15:49):
in our movie. Like there is a weird, very small
tidy Cats they actually did during that Q and A.
They said they did not get paid by any of
those brands. Really, a lot of brands didn't want to
be involved, Like I think Gap pulled out, Like they
had a big Gap thing, like the girls were going
to be in a Gap commercial and they had to
pull it. They filmed and everything. Yeah, they got no
(16:11):
money for product placement. For that, I think no one
would have knew. Yeah, well, because the movie sends a
very anti corporate message of like, hey, consumerism is bad,
product placement is bad. Caps every Wednesday night. Hey, but
speaking of tidy cats, so did you know that cats
have eight nipples? This has been cat facts with Caitlin.
(16:34):
Oh my god, I need more sentences to start with,
speaking of um new mood. So yeah, this whole record
company is basically just a whole scam to insert subliminal
(16:55):
messages into music to get teenagers to buy things. And
then that's what do your figured out? And that's why
they died. But then the great at the end with
the Metallica concert joke is so good, Thank god, every
day I knew the lyrics to enter stand Man. Every
joke in this movie is the best joke ever. So
(17:18):
it's the perfect satire and it's so funny. Meanwhile, so
they make the Pussycats these huge stars, except that they
changed their name to Josie and the Pussycats. Josie, because
she's the lead singer, becomes kind of the front woman
of the band and say, you can find a similar
story and sorry in my mouth is a little tooluped down,
started to drown. Uh. Similar themes are explored in the
(17:41):
Cheetah Girls Extended Universe. Oh I'm not I'm familiar with
the Barcelona that's the second one, Chee Cheeta Girls too.
Speaking of sequels, Paddington too anyway, Patty Cats. So as
the band gets more popular, why it starts to insert
(18:02):
these subliminal messages into songs that only she's listening to
this because like Val and Mel are starting to realize
something's fishy, like something's not quite right here. So they
try to break the band apart by getting Josie to
turn on Val and Mel, but it doesn't work. They
figured out they figure out this whole subliminal message scam.
(18:25):
There's this great, very long climactic sequence at the end
where they confront Wyatt and Fiona. There's like a fight
that happens there there like happens backstage at a concert
that everyone's waiting for. Alan Cumming has a middle part
for this entire movie. Yes, okay, that's as you're going
to lose up again. Just love my mouth. I can
(18:49):
handle that fact. That was Alan Facts with sponsored by
tidy Cat. I also my second favorite product placement in
this movie. I think it would be Adville. The climactic
scene takes place basically on the floor that's covered in
(19:09):
Adville logos. Oh yeah, my my favorite is the McDonald shower.
I don't want that. That's a perfect scene. Yes, that's
a perfect scene I made, which is crazy because terror Read.
Oh my god, yeah, be were of right. Terry Read
is the only person in that scene. And terr Read's
character that I hate that character. She's very annoying and
(19:30):
I we'll get into it, but I can't stand that character. Anyways.
Fan service for Carson Daley, who I say, I've said
it before, I'll say it again. Truly the world most
mediocre man. Right, couldn't be a more I'm like that
is someone's dead with frosted dips. Anyways, So the movie
(19:51):
ends with they confront the record company. The Feds come in,
they shut them down, even though they were in on
it the whole time. They're like, actually, sublime messaging works
much better in movies, and there's great, the best movie ever.
And then so they play the concert and Josie and
hot L and m get together at the end and everything.
(20:15):
I do like that scene at the end because it's
so goofy and weird. Like the joke is that they're
screaming across the stadium and they can both hear each
other and it's so long and they're like, I love you,
I love you too. I'm like, no, I don't know
if I okay. Sure, great, So that's the story. Let's
talk about the female characters in it, of which there
are several. Who who's your favorite perker posey, Oh for sure.
(20:38):
Fionna is amazing. Yeah. She has like a real desperation
to be popular that I just also relate to in
a very sad way, and I think consistently has the
best looks for sure, Like she gets the looks. It's
she's the best. And she's just like, hey, girls, is
a hot gossip, Like she just like wants to hang
out with a bunch of cool girls. She was like
the ugly girl in high school, you find out and
(20:59):
just one so like I'm popular and hang out with
Alan Conard, spend an albino guy that the whole time
is that joke insensitive? Probably so seeking your tidy Cats
allan coming as an albino man also has a metal part.
Speaking of tidy Cats, yes, um, yeah, no, I think
that joke is insensitive to people with albinism. I think
(21:23):
the joke of Fiona's character having a lisp is also
insensitive to people with lisps. It's not it's not a
perfect unfortunately, but also and it's of tidy Cats perfect movie. Okay,
that was it. It was spot on. Thank you, nothing
but respect anyway, So Fiona, that character is amazing. The
(21:47):
very best moment of my entire life. I was thirteen
and at the mall with my mom in a Jay
Crew and a random person told me I looked like
Perker Posey and I remember, like what the leather gloves
next to me looked like like I was just shaking,
and I was like, and I don't look like her
as the print the best moment. I still think about
it when I'm sad. It's my happy place. That crew.
(22:09):
Once when I was little, my family went to Martha's vineyard.
We would we can only afford to go for two
days every two or three years because it's rich people ship,
but we would go. And one time, when I was
very young, like five years old, I grabbed onto what
I thought was my mom's leg in an ice cream
shop and it was Uma Thurman's leg, and she was
straight up disgusted with me. Whose poor child is this?
(22:33):
Can it? Can I kill it? Like there it was
my We still talk about it sometimes where my dad
was like, remember when my adorable daughter touched him with
Thurman and she looked like she wanted to kick her,
like there did not want a kid touching her by
total accident. So anyways, that's my happy moment, violating with
(22:53):
Urman's space and being punished. Sure, okay, So Josie and
the pussy Cats is a movie about a band of
all women. You don't see that many rock bands that
feature even just a single woman, let alone all of
the members of the band or women. So that's cool.
So yeah, it's it's I mean, this is not a
perfect movie. There are some flaws which we'll get to,
(23:15):
but as far as the portrayal of women, it's a
movie where the female characters are driving the story. They
are flawed. They've got lots of different like there's there's
a lot of different types of women, and it's movie
not enough different types of and the characterization is it's
not the strongest we've ever seen. But terror Read does
seem like she learned how to drum though, and for
(23:36):
that she talks about she does you and I because
I was like, they go out of because you don't
see any rachel Leak. I mean, I don't think that
it's not her singing, No, it's not her voice. I
didn't know. It's the girl from Letters to Cleo whose
name I can't remember. And oh, okay, that makes sense.
But also I don't know why I feel like a
(23:57):
little bit betray and it's fine. It does ruin a
little bit of the magic. Yeah, that it's it was
all fake, the whole story with fake, well not the
corporate greed that's very real. Cling to that. That was
like I wanted to talk about. On the second viewing
of this, I thought it was so just like a
(24:19):
weird story point that Josie and Melon val from moment one.
Anytime they're talking about the band, they never say like
we play music because we love music. They say, we
play music that we want a record deal, like they're
fucking capitalists from the moment when which was like, I mean,
that's just like a choice, but it was it was interesting.
(24:40):
I mean, and I think that pays off later when
they're like corporate greed is actually bad. But like for
a moment when they not only are very they're like,
we want to be famous and we want a record deal,
and that is the objective a little more so than
the music at first, but they also viewed and they're
playing bowling alleys, and they say a few from times
(25:00):
that they viewed du Jour as their direct competition. It's like,
I'm sorry, you were playing a bowling at like you're
check out. But there's that scene when they're on the
airplane and because they're like taking a flight to go
and get famous, that's the plane that has all of them,
like the target plane or is it the one that
has all the phones on the Motorola plane? That one
(25:24):
um So in that scene they have this like nice
conversation about how we're going to be friends first in
a band. Second, like they're prioritizing so not necessarily prioritizing
their music over anything, but like they're prioritizing their friendship
over being in a band. So I mean that to
me redeems them for maybe being a little bit too capitalist,
(25:44):
and the fact I don't even think that that's bad.
I just thought that that's like kind of weird, like
not something I noticed at first, because I feel like
usually when we're introduced to these stories, it's like, and
we just like love playing music so much, and it's
about the art. And but for like, I mean, like
iviously they care about the music. But the reason we
have that whole like scene at their house is I
(26:05):
think we're supposed to understand that they live together and
they're broke, and I think that's driving like this capitalist
need more so than like the fame aspect, because they
don't seem to really care about that. They just want
to be able to like not eat raman like they're
specifically like eating. They're sharing and they say they're the
only people in the history of Riverdale to share a
(26:26):
bus pass. There are all three of them in their
bus pass. I just broke. It's more of a commentary
on how artists don't get paid who good point taken Wow,
the guest. Uh it really overstaying interesting? Interesting choice. Fine,
(26:47):
I've been displaced and I quit And actually this is
the first time in my life I've ever been wrong.
The hard day for me. Um. There's a couple of
things I want to mention, things that I did not
enjoy way about the movie. One is the trope that
drives me nuts. Where a movie to show that the
girl is not like the other girls. She's good at
(27:09):
fixing cars. We see it in that stupid Julie Roberts
movie about running away from your wedding and Pretty Woman
of her Cars. Really, I haven't seen it in a
long time. I need to rewatch Pretty Woman, Megan Fox,
Megan Fox and Transformers. Although there's a good case to
be made there or whatever there's there's sometimes when it happens,
I am totally fine to accept it, like in Titania
(27:33):
when that happens, or in Hidden Figures when it happens.
But to me, they're like nothing about her skill to
being good at fixing cars doesn't pay off at any
point in the story, or it just it just feels
intact on to this movie. It's weird and I don't
think ever comes back and I feel like that that
is like kind of cinematic shorthand for like, she's a
(27:53):
guy's girl, can hang and uh, And I think that
that's all that we're supposed to take away from that,
And it's just because that suns d's Alan M's car
and he's like, well, my truck died, you gotta help
me fix it. And they're sort of like kind of
flirting and bonding during that scene while she's fixing, straight
up playing guitar acoustic guitar, barefoot a car. He's awful. Yeah,
(28:16):
And anyone shows up and starts playing the acoustic guitar
at me, I'm fully upset at me. You can't just
play it near me, You're playing it at me directly.
I would love to link in this episode the band
camp extension for my ex boyfriend who wrote the full
album Your Body Is Dumb after I broke up with them.
Never play the guitar around me, I'll scream, I'm sorry.
(28:38):
The boy you texted earlier was a drummer, so I listen,
you can do that facet of his personnel. You can
drum around me. That's fine, okay. I've never had an
issue with drummers. People it's acoustic guitar. No, I had
the same guitar ex boyfriend thing. It was like and
the kind of the base went home from college, saw
him over this summer. Literally asked if while we were
like hanging out, just sitting like bias her in a
(29:00):
suburban town in Maryland, if he could take out his
acoustic guitar and play something. And I was like, I guess, oh,
I'm bone dry. I'm basically a eunuch. If you play that,
I've never if you wouldn't make someone less horny than
they've ever been in their life. And I would say
I'm pretty on a pretty high horny percentile. If the
(29:23):
country you're constantly loved, I will say him at all times.
But man, if you're considering playing the acoustic guitar, it's
you're doing it for you, and it's so clear when
you're doing that. I play my guitar and it's like, no, No,
you know who doesn't do that drummers because they would
(29:44):
also look crazy, that would I thought, if I just
bring my little rupert pad out and I have I
have a great track record with drummers. My high school
boyfriend was drummer, and you are a clarinetist shout out, yes,
it's okay, you can was a clarinetist. Okay, we're clarinet really,
(30:05):
that's why I got confused. I was a double read girl.
Not to sorry, just the one single reads for me.
We should probably be in a band to clarinets A
reality of the pussy Cats, Jamie and the Tidy Cats.
It's perfect good clarinet like that kind of physical response
(30:30):
my blood pressure just like a wow. Okay, So anyway,
more about the movie. Another thing that I didn't necessarily
pick up on that much until this sort of watching
this movie through the Bechtel cast lens was the fact
that the band so Josie, Val and Mel are all
really mean to their manager's sister, whose name is Alexandra.
(30:56):
So they have a there's a character named Alexander, he
is their band manager, and then his sister played by
Missy Pyle, Alexandra, like they do a lot of like
body shaming to her. They're like she comes in and
they basically call her fat. They're like, oh, did you
lose weight or something like that. She's at one point
like putting on lip glass and values like, oh that
(31:17):
lip glass won't hinde your mustache, like they're doing. They're
like really cruel to her in a way that I
don't understand why this is, and it feels really unneeded
and bizarre. It's a very bizarre. But like I would
almost to the parade almost rather and I know that
this is like Archie Cannon or whatever, but I would
almost rather that character not even be there than her
(31:38):
be there and only be used for the things that
she's used for, because it really is like she there's
no consistency with her other than like she hates, like
she's like jealous. She doesn't even like work for them.
She's just around and around and mean and like her,
she's only driven by and I mean, listen, I can
relate to living a life driven by spite. But it
(32:02):
just it does doesn't make sense with the story. It's weird.
They do like kind of bring it and they're like
they said to her, why are you here? And she
says I was in the comic books. It's very fourth Wake.
But the fact that the way they treat each other,
like yeah, but if you're that aware of how you're
adapting it, then it's like, do a better job with
that character. Yeah, I mean, there's two thousand one, the
body positivity movement wasn't popular yet, so there was lots
(32:26):
of body shaming in this movie. And it's I don't know,
it's just a glaring thing in an otherwise perfect movie.
Um no, yeah, so I it's so easy to insert
the trope in a movie of like girls being petty
and caddy towards each other. And it really liked me
this time around seeing it. I I'm interested in your
thoughts on this late days. Uh. For Vale's character played
(32:50):
by Rosario Dawson, I feel like, and it made me
think about because she's the only woman of color in
this movie, I think, is that true? Well, that's depressing,
and I feel like her character is like underdeveloped in
in comparison to the other two in the band. Obviously,
Josie is going to be the most characterized, she's the protagonist,
(33:14):
but it's I feel like there is a tendency, especially
when she's already being presented as a token character like
she's you know, she's the only woman of color we
see on screen, that the movie kind of like sabotages
characters like this. I think it happens in The Craft
a lot as well, where the one woman of color.
We see she gets less to do, and mainly what
(33:36):
we know about her is that she is supportive of
the white people around. Like that's really all we know
about that, Like, and she's integral to the plot obviously,
but like Terror read like she has a very distinct
character and it's like she's ado fist, She's all you know,
We're gonna get a forty five minutes scene with her
in Carson Dalia and I'm going to love every second
(33:57):
of it. Josie has like very distinct personality trades. Val
does not really have that, and I feel like what
she mainly has is that she is supportive of the
other two. And uh, that's just something that I thought
about the characterization there. Yeah, she's definitely robbed in terms
of like having a developed character. Yeah, it does feel
(34:17):
a lot like usually if there's a movie with mostly
white women and then one woman of color, that character
often we know the least about her background, her backstory,
her family life, anything like that. We know the least
about that, We know the least about her personality. And
I think that where a too hazard to guess. I
would think that because there are so many white writers
(34:40):
in you know, Hollywood working. I feel like there might
be like a feeling of like, oh, well, there's only
one person of color in the entire cast. I don't
want to fuck it up because but then the result
is they just don't really write a character for that person,
and that is also not a good result, and that
just means that we should have people are writing a
movie exactly. I think that's what Sophia Coppola said when
(35:02):
she wrote and directed that Beguiled adaptation, where she's like,
I don't know how to I am not a person color,
so I don't know how to write character. Yeah, I
didn't know what the Bechdel test was. Who the consequences
of that, Like, I understand the hesitancy to misrepresent a
character if you do not have that same experience, right,
but then like talk to something exactly, it's give someone
(35:24):
else work, you know, it's or let that like co
write something with someone. If you want to write a
movie where some of the characters are people of color, excellent,
bring on a co writer, bring out consult with people.
Like it is not hard, I mean, and it's not
it's not egregious in Josie and the Pussycats, but it
is just like something that I was thinking. She also
has the worst makeover. I mean it's like every highlights
(35:49):
on a shadow, she's just like, we'll brush your hair
for a minute. And I feel like they dress her
in outfits that are not flattering to her, which is
crazy because it's like, what is not going to hang? Well,
she's a babe Rose. Sorry, I know, it's just really bizarre.
She's perfect. That make over scene is speaking of tidy cats.
That make over scene is so blue? Why was that
(36:14):
was that whole scene shot in like fluorescent lighting? Because
there it's so it's that scene makes me laugh because
it's blue in a way that most is usually reserved
for action movies, right, sci fi kind of stuff, very blue.
And then they're they're so uncomfortably improvising through this scene.
Were like at one point, Terror is just like holding
a brush and she's like, yeah, you're like throw some
(36:36):
cotton balls at each other. It'll be hilarious. Just like
interpretation of the Blue was that it was supposed to
be kind of like surgical, like they were supposed to
be like going through this very like regimented like idea
of beauty and marketing and branding to like because it
felt very like it does look sterile. Yeah yeah, yeah,
(36:56):
everyone's wearing like lab coats and ship Yeah. But it
also maybe one of their key lights broke ye. Maybe
they're like, we have all these blue gels, what seemed
to use them in I just inherited a bunch of
blue gels to my ground, like twenties cents. I'm fat
with blue gels right now. We have got to use it.
(37:18):
And I also, do you think and do we know,
because you know so much about Cannon, were they friends?
They don't seem like they ever spent a moment together
outside of the set of Jesse the Pettycats actors. No,
they made that very clear during the Q and X
incredibly drunk or incredibly something and just kept bringing up
(37:40):
like she was like, we haven't really seen each other
since then, but that was such an incredible time, just
like over It's like that was your time. Oh God,
can we just talk about her character for a second,
because I mentioned she's just I don't even know what
they're going for. She's very I mean, she's this characters
like she loves rainbows and puppies and she you know,
(38:02):
just wants everyone to get along. And you know she's
got a heart of gold, but she's also just extremely
annoying and stupid, and it's like, don't why why write
a character like that? I think I've had a Yeah again,
I'm not I'm not familiar with the Archie comics, so
I don't know how that character is represented in those,
But I don't know. She's just and maybe it's just
(38:23):
because it's terror Read bringing that role to life, and
I don't necessarily think she's very talented. Wow. Yeah, sorry guys,
we're going to go there hot take terror Read maybe
not the most talented actor. I am not a feminist icon. Sorry. No.
(38:45):
I do think a lot of that is like stories,
because when in the comic book world you literally have
like this is the dumb friend because you have talk
bubbles to work with. It wasn't like really fleshed out.
But I'll always make the argument with that, when you're
adapting something, you can take the liberty to change or
turn it down a little bit. I mean, I think
with the casting choice, they made it clear what they
(39:06):
wanted the character to be, not to keep piling on
terror Read. Anyways, the scene between her and Carson Daly
is great. It should be put in the museum. Carson
Daly is so boring. And in that scene too, this
is one of my favorite, Like there's all these cardboard
cutouts of like TRL guests and if you watch it
(39:27):
you can really spot out. It's like, can't how many
predators are in frame right now? A lot of what's
that word you use when we talked about the Gride, Oh,
stuff that's in the frame. That that's a film degree. Yeah,
I recognize it for my own film degrees. That word
speaking of, I also have a film I was wondering
when you were going to ask me on send the
(39:52):
means on send and the Carson Daily scene is full
of what we now know to be sexual. There's no
less than for Johnny Depps in that there's a ton
of There's a ton of Matt Damon's also, Arie Spears
problematic guy. There are a number of like peers of
ours comedians. He was on Man TV for a while.
There are several he did a Cosby impression that was
(40:13):
like he did Causby impression. Yikes, doesn't talk well at all,
of course, and then as a person comedian friends of
ours will like post something on Twitter and he will
then troll them a lot for like stuff that they've
said he's not a good airy spears, Yeah, slide right
into our mentions. Spears, Yeah, I dare you. I'm kidding. No,
(40:36):
I really don't want any come place, don't, don't, don't,
don't talk to us. I just want to quickly talk
about the Alexander character. Their band manager. One, he physically
strikes his sister apparently more than once in a day
because he kicks her in the shin or something like that,
and she's like oh. He's like, oh, I'm sorry that
my bad. I was an accident, but that was twice
(40:57):
since one day. Huh, so he's like heated lee hitting
her Another weird choice. Why do we see this choice
being made of a man physically striking a woman and
then later on this guy's a piece of ship because
later on they're all in the bathroom after Alan Cumming
has been like here have a record deal, and they're
like the Starbucks back there in Starbucks and they're like
this is suspicious. This is all happening really fast, and
(41:19):
Alexander comes in and he's like, what if you're like
having a band meeting, I should be here, and they're
like this is the ladies room, which like, why do
we have to have separate Russian and two one? Speaking
of tidy? You thought I was gonna so And then
they're like, we'll get out of here. This is the
(41:40):
ladies room, and he's like, what it is? Nothing I
haven't seen before, And then I think val In an
attempt to get him to leave, she's like, anyone have
changed for a tampon? And he's like, bye, gross, So
no comments. He can't, he can't hang. He cannot. He's
not just one of the girls. He's not Joe's even
bet he's I bet he's probably probably because he's fixing
(42:01):
too many cars, something I definitely has to do with
a car. He is fucking the tail type of a
car and it's not a damp on insight, No, no tampons.
I think if we just saw had you know, if
men hung none used hampons around their rooms kind of
like dreamcatchers, that would be nice, that would be nice.
(42:23):
And then if you wake up and there's a bloody
tampon hanging in a man's room, it just means that
they had a dream. What I think that like like
mobiles that go of our baby's cribs should actually just
be dirty, damp on, not dirty. Although maybe, let's why
are we shaming women for bleeding? Free bleed all the time?
(42:44):
On your baby? This is a final way of feminism,
the last way. It's just like stick it, okay, if
we can get back on track the point and I don't,
I also might be reaching, but please, the movie isn't
making a comment on this, which is you know, not
(43:05):
the biggest deal because there's a quick scene and like,
that's this is not what this movie is about him
being grossed out by bodily functions. But I feel like
we almost never see representation of a man not being
grossed out by a woman bleeding, And it would have
been a nice opportunity for him to be like I
don't care about tampons, and then I don't see it,
and I'm just like, you missed an opportunity movie, yeah
(43:28):
for him, or maybe you know, maybe win some points
back and be like I have a quarter yeah, And
I don't think we should have to be paying for
these right? Why are we not giving amazing moment icon?
Why are we paying for there's a public health issue
there anyways, there's a few oh you mentioned Jamie. The
(43:51):
scene when they're recording in the studio for the first time,
wind blowing. Where's it coming from? Why do we have
to see women's hair blowing around? I think that that
was a joke, Like because Cook's hair is going it
is like, I want to bear a breeze. It was
(44:13):
designed and knowing a breeze would just survive design for
a breeze. Yeah. Yeah, And so it's like I want
to hear the recordings of that session because it would
all be like, it's just hard. And then terror Reid
hitting a symbolic it's a full on. That's like, if
that is a joke, it's one of my favorite jokes
(44:34):
in the whole time. I think it's I don't know
if it's a joke. I feel like if it was
a joke, they would have played up the wind more.
It's almost a subtle to be a joke. I don't
know either way. He's not known for its subtlety. No,
it's not shout in a weird scene when I don't
know what to make of this, but you see him
like he's giving this instructional, like here's what we do
(44:55):
with this company. We trick teenagers into buying a bunch
of crap. He's like, we live the most ass kicking
country in the world. And then this woman in a
bikini like stands by him in like way of the
American flag, which is a joke. But I think that
that's commentary because he's wrong, and all we all know
that they're they're weird. Money fuck Dungeon is wrong. There's
no way around it. I feel like we haven't talked
(45:17):
that much about Parker Posey's character. I love female villains.
I like that we have a male and a female
villain in this movie. Mainly, I feel like, probably just
to let Alan coming in, Parker Posey be together, and
they're so great together, and it's like can you kiss?
They do? I know they do, and but but it's
like not in every scene, and I love My favorite
(45:41):
moment is when I think they do like a laugh
off in in her creepy bedroom like a villain so good.
I love it. Any other two actors, that's the worst
scene of all time. It's insufferable. The main thing I
want to say about Josie the Pussycats is that it's
a It's not a movie that's seeking to dismantle the
(46:03):
patriarchy necessarily it's a fun movie. It doesn't necessarily have
an agenda, except it has the like anti corporate, anti
capitalist agenda, but that also feels weird in a movie
that has so much product placement. Although it makes me
feel better that those companies did not pay because like
it could have been like really cheap for them to
be like, oh, well, yeah, we can just make a
(46:25):
bunch of money of this movie. That we're saying is
at they did that too, though, it's like taking the
money of these big corporations and making fun. Yeah, that's true.
I'm kind of there for that. Yeah, but I think
it's they could work either way. Yeah, so that's that's
more the agenda of the movie than necessarily be Well,
I don't know, like I totally agree that. It's like
(46:45):
it seems like the you know, whatever, the objective of
this movie was decided and then you know, other areas
were not given as careful consideration as we would help
where it's like we basically see of the female characters,
especially we see like one body type of across the board.
It's a very thin movie. It's a very white movie.
It's you know, like there's obviously places where it could
(47:07):
be doing much better and that should be acknowledged. But
also it is like such a good money so and
it like, God, did you see Alan Comming? Oh, we
didn't talk about the most important scene in the movie,
which is when Alan Cumming is driving his car sponsored
by Ray Band. So he's looking for his new band
and I'm already like, oh, Alan Comming is on screen right,
(47:31):
and then he almost hits Josie and the Pussycats with
his car. And then it's like this moment where Meat
loaves Paradise by the dashboard light. Is meat Love one
of the greatest actress of our generation. Sorry, one of
the currently one of the worst singers in the entire world. Sorry,
And then Alan Comming breaks the fourth wall turns and
(47:54):
doesn't he like wink or something. Yeah, he gives like
a slide, little like smile. No one does a better.
He should have gotten an oscar just for that. My
favorite Alan Coming performance ever is like one second in
an HBO commercial where it's like, I don't even know
what they pulled from, but I've watched the commercial a
(48:15):
lot where there's it's Alan coming on stage. I think
it's like a tape live performance and he just goes Broadway,
and you're just like, there it is. We don't need
to make art anymore or porn, or we can all
retire that's beautiful and sexual beings. We can retire Broadway
by speaking of tiny cats. Let's talk about that. Whether
(48:37):
or not this movie passes the Bechdel test, I think, yes, yeah,
sure it does. I like how we pause, like we've
done a lot of movies lately where there's like not
even a discussion to be had about it. We're just like, yes,
of course it does. They talk about their music a
lot in Friendship Friendship, and and there's a lot of
female characters, but we didn't really talk about the friendship aspect.
(48:59):
But I do like think that it is great to
see female friendship portrayed in a way that is like
very supportive and loving throughout because it's you know, like
the corporate Alan Cumming and Parker Posey try to drive
a wedge into the friendship and they can't because well
they do for like a quick moment, right, But I
(49:20):
mean that's like with weird science. But it's like, but
if there's never there's never a moment, and then like
even when there's never a moment, which is not manufactured
by these villains that tears them apart. It's a very
strong friendship. Cheetah Girls a little bit different. I have
no idea what Cheetah Girls is really the Disney movie.
(49:40):
Is it a like Disney original even Simone? Yeah, and
the girl who went on to date Rob Kardashian from
three and then the other girlfriend three and then the
white girl. But is it a Disney Channel movie? Yeah,
it is. It is a d com. Okay, that's why
I've never seen a single Disney Channel never seen. I
don't think I've ever missed one. I just started my
(50:01):
own podcast. Is me watching decom? Would I have to
skip Smart House? I'm still scared of it? Are you
still scared? Has so much power over them. I think
about that House is that it was very smart. By
the way, Aristotle was in the corner giggling his little
face off. All right, you can take over hosting a
Smart House episode. Who is who is the male star
(50:23):
of Smart House? Wasn't it this? No? No, it was
a white family. I thought it. I thought it was
the boy from Smart Guy for a second now anyway,
So yeah, the female friendship. We see a similar thing
in like Spice world where they're you know, they're Do
you think there would be conflict in a in a
band scenario where there's always you know, there's egos, and
there's all kinds of stuff that might come between them
(50:45):
as a band and as friends. But the only thing
that does briefly come between this band, enjosing the Pussycats,
is manufactured by the villains. It's literal brainwashing, brainwashing, and
she barely succumbs. She's comes to it, but then she
quickly figures out like, hey, like this is weird, and
she figures out what's happening. And that's to say that again,
(51:07):
the female characters of this movie are driving this story.
Sometimes in movies, even if there is a female protagonist,
like she doesn't even get to like figure out the
big mystery or like even participate in the climax of
her own movie, which is what we saw. And like
snow White in The Seven Word or in Aladdin where
Jasmine is literally physically thrown out of the screen while
(51:27):
the conflict is resolved. Yeah, she's also wearing she's also
a sex slape. There's a lot going on. Goods can't
wait to sit forward? Are you going to do that? Oh?
For sure. For sure that that red bikini. I mean
that was a large part of my child as far
as a queer icon any miago iago. So yeah, the
(51:51):
female characters in this movie are without question participating in
the story, driving this story. Uh, their friendships are solid.
It's a fun movie. You know it's you gotta watch it.
You gotta watch it. Check it out. It's great to
see women being funny and contributing to the comedy of
the movie. A lot of times in a comedy, female
characters are robbed of any opportunity to be funny. So
(52:14):
that's great for this movie. Um, should we write the movie.
Let's write it. Yeah, let's write it. Let's write the movie.
On our nipple scale of zero to five nipples based
on its portrayal of women, I'm gonna give it four
because I think the main characters, especially Val and Mel,
could have been more fleshed out. Especially Vale, like you said,
(52:36):
being the only person of color, she feels a bit sidelined.
Her character doesn't feel as developed as the others. And
I don't know, you can still, you can have a
dumb character and have that not be so annoying. And
maybe this is just my personal thing. But Male's character
to me is insufferable, and anytime she's on screen, I'm
just like, she doesn't bother me. I like when I
(53:00):
hate that, I like, I don't know, and especially like
what a boon for terror read to literally play two
type exactly and make a lot of money doing that's true.
Yeah again, I guess in this episode, I say, you go, girl,
I guess it all right, say so. Yeah, the characterization
(53:20):
isn't as great as we would hope. They're also the
parts when the women of the band are body shaming
Alexandra and vice versa. That's a weird choice. So there's
just some kind of weird choices. But overall, I like
the message of like the all the anti corporate stuff.
I like just the fact that it's a fun movie
starring women. You get a woman villain who's a great character.
(53:42):
Yeah that's a four nipples, three for each of the
members of the band, and the fourth one goes to
Parker Posey cool faye, what say you? I'm gonna go
a full five nips on this. It is just like
my all time favorite movie, and I know it is
a portrayal of women, but I did watch a when
I was like eleven and did you feel empowered? I
(54:03):
think I don't. I didn't. I think it was so
subtly a movie about girls that were friends that only
looking back on it now, I'm realizing it's like the
only movie I watched when I was like a kid
that I was that was about girls that were friends
and in a band. And I think it affected me
a lot in a way that wasn't like it wasn't
like hit over at ahead with it, which I think
is it was a movie ahead of its time for
(54:24):
a lot of reasons, I think, And yeah, I totally.
I mean, I agree with everything we've been saying about
body types, diversity, and like there's a lot of complexities
to being a woman that aren't you know, showcase. But
I think just for this being a two thousand and
one a movie that's literally about a band of girls
that are best friends is like special, pretty cool? Who
are you getting your nippies too? Sorry for making eye
(54:46):
contact when I said that, I mean I feel like you.
I feel like you. Ever, I don't know Ross is
in there. I'm gonna get five five straight nipples to Jamie.
Thank you. I hope you use them wisely. I'm going
to I'm as someone within a regular number of nipples already.
(55:07):
Just please use those five and I need spirit tires.
Keep my back pot, keep them in the trunk, keep
your nips in the Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna give
it three and a half. Guys. I'm sorry. I love
this movie so much. It's an unreasonable expectation to be
like every movie has to be perfect in every single way.
(55:27):
But I just especially because this is a movie that's
marketed to young girls, there was there were a lot
of missed opportunities that I would have liked to see
capitalized on. But I mean, I don't have anything to
add in terms of like you pretty much covered it,
but I do love that there was a major film
release directed at kids that was about how corporations suck.
(55:49):
And it's also so funny. I would argue that any
scene Alan comming isn't with anyone does pass the back
delt test um. I think we should make good across
the board because option for that, I've already made that
exception for Alfred Willina. People are flooding my damn, Jamie.
Will you pardon Alfred Molina for for not being able
to pass the desk. Does that mean if Alan Coming
(56:13):
and Alfred Millina speak to each other in a movie
that passes the back of course it does, and they
could be talking about their own penises and it would
still pass the backdel test if Alan a scene were
Alan Coming and Alfred Billina are like they both whip
out their dicks and they're like, let's go straight up
care they're measuring. They're measuring a full pass. It's like
(56:35):
it's very like just like a nice, calm, peaceful They're like, well,
how much is yours instead of like these like normal
dick measuring contests where they're like there's there's seuna be
gentle motivated by curiosity basically an an s m R video.
I hope that happens for you, Jamie. I just want
that out in the world for you. And AMR video
(56:56):
of Alan Coming Gena measuring each other's peece we all
we all want that, but I really want it for you.
That is, I will have to make a cartoon of that.
And uh, I have to go to this is my
own personal smut stash for just me. Well, uh, we've
(57:19):
had a blast, charny wait, I didn't give my nipples
to anyway. Yeah, I guess who've given him to tidy Cats.
I'm gallant. Oh I'll give to to Alan coming and
one and a half two tidy Cats. Well, speaking of
tidy Cats, Faye, thank you so much for being here.
What what would you like to plug? Where find good
(57:41):
at fayor love on everything? And then, um, I was
going to plug. I thought of it while we were
doing this that at Junior High. We're in a vent
space for women and we're starting a new series of nights.
It's gonna be once a month. My friend Derby's hosting.
We came up with like a really clever name that
I can't remember, but it's movies that are not only
featuring women, but may by women. So we're gonna be screening.
(58:02):
I think it's like a trailer and then a short
and have whoever made the short? They're like female directors producers,
and then um, watch a movie. I think we talked
about doing Josie in fact, but because that it was
made by a woman team. Yes, yes, yes, this movie
was written and directed by Harry Elphont and Deborah Cappie
and they're really cool. But yeah, so just look on
Welcome to Junior high dot com. We have a whole
(58:24):
calendar that's not up yet, but just keep your eyes
out or on Instagram at Welcome to Junior High and um.
If you have ideas for similar things, please reach out. Awesome.
You can follow the Bechtel Cast on all the social
media platforms at Bechtel Cast. You can write and review
us on iTunes. That helps us out a lot. What
also helps us out is going to our Patreon and subscribing. Yeah,
(58:45):
it's it's great. Give us five dollars in oils. Thank you,
Thank you so much. Well. Speaking to tidy cats spy
On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women and them are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
If do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef and best
start changing it with the bel Cast. Hello, and welcome
to the Beckdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My
name is Jamie Loftus. Yeah, we're doing our last names
(00:21):
now because of someone who's in the room who can't
speak yet. Right, this is the power part of just
like you can't talk yet. This bothers our male guests,
and they usually don't make it. They usually don't interrupt
a lot. They're usually or sometimes as a male guest,
I'm just gonna go ahead and just call out Jack O'Brien.
We'll do it. We'll do a loud laugh while we're
doing the intro, and it's like you're not supposed to
(00:42):
be seen yet, but you're making our guest on the
micro Aggression l episode slamming the table basically through the
table at us in the first two minutes. Who else
is Hampton? For sure? But we are very excited for
our guest today. So wait, we didn't say with the podcast, Okay,
(01:03):
we're still in the Power Zone right now the Bechtel
Casts our podcast about women and how they're portrayed in movies,
and wouldn't you know that mainstream Hollywood cinema does not
portray women very well until very recently. I mean, this
year is pretty good for women in film. I think
this year is pretty good for women. I was like, sorry,
have you checked your news out? It's pretty bad out there.
(01:27):
But we've done several movies recently that came out this
year that have fared very well by our standards. Yes,
I Tanya, Ladybird Girls Trip Hidden Figures came out last year. Yeah, alright,
so you know we're there's options, it's getting a little better,
there's more options. Historically, Hollywood has not portrayed women well.
As my point, I disagree and I have a forty
(01:49):
five minute argument. So we use the Bechtel test as
sort of are jumping off point for a discussion. Becktel
Tests being the test created by Alison Bechtel and the
comic books Watch Out For and in our version of
the test, we would like to see movies have two
female identifying characters with names talk about something other than
a man for more than two lines of dialogue. Does
(02:12):
not happen a lot, not enough, but I'm very excited
for today's episode. It's a common request when we ask
for requests. I feel like we've seen this movie come
up just about as often as like we got a
lot of requests for like Legally Blonde as well, which
we did on the Patreon. So subscribe and then maybe
you can hear about what I think about Victor Garber
(02:32):
spoiler alert. This movie. Yeah, we get requests for it
because it's a it's a great movie. It's a cult classic.
Josie and the Pussycats. Yes, and I'm so excited for
our guest today. She's a friend of the cash, she's
a friend of you, she's a friend of me. She
owns and operates a nonprofit art space right here in Hollywood,
(02:52):
California called Junior High. You gotta check this place out.
It's great, it's the best. She's a wonderful visual artist.
It's fay or left for crying out loud. I can
talk now you can. Thanks for asking permission. Once you
said that men usually fail at that, I was like committed.
I said something otherwise, must prove myself some some of
(03:14):
some of our fem some of our female guests have
violated the rule. But but statistically, first of all, men
are allowed on the show simply less. But when they
when they do show up, they're talking early, they're talking right,
Like I think we may have an example of like Hi,
I'm Jamie, Hi, I'm Caitlin. Hi, I'm the guy, and
(03:34):
it's like we did not ask you to make yourself
known yet. I literally the only thing you told me
when we were about to record was that you're going
to do it two minute bit at the beginning, just
you guys, and not not to be there. You know,
I'm really good at instructions. You can take a good
direction better than my best trade, honestly, So, Faye, you
(03:55):
brought us Josie the Pussycats, and you also brought us
Josie the Pussycats. Stick to you do? They're so good? Yeah?
Just can people buy these at your art space Junior High?
Actually I don't think they're at Junior High right, and
I should bring some, but I just make a bunch
of stickers and celebrity junk that's on my website. It's
just great. So, Josie the Postycats, why did you pick
(04:17):
this movie? When did you first see it. What's your
history with this movie. I have no idea when I
first saw it, because that it was just so much
a part of me that it feels like I was
birthed and I knew every line. But I'm obsessed with it.
I know every word of every song. Kind of embarrassingly
they did that. I don't know if you guys saw
(04:37):
it at the hotel, they did, like the full cast
Q and A and the band played like from that
did all the recordings of letters from clear like the singer. Well,
it was so cool you were there, right, Yeah, I
remember that big aggressively there. I remember those inst stories. Yeah,
but like the artist was present that night. Yeah, it was.
(04:58):
That was like a dream come true. I think Joseing
the Pussycats might be my favorite band. Can you there
are very real to me? Yeah, sure, I don't. I'll
allow it. You know they're the best. And they've released
a vinyl of all the songs and then there was
a mini like seven inch djor single for Yeah, I
should have brought that. I'll show it to you later,
(05:20):
but it is good marketing. How are you familiar at
all with the comics that it was based off. Yeah,
I would read Archie all the time as a kid,
and um, that was like my big gift. I would
go to My parents would ship me away to Jewish
sleepaway camp for a month every summer and I would
just wait till like week two and a half and
I'd get a package of Archie comics. Are you into
(05:45):
Riverdale the show? I started watching it and I just
haven't had a ton of time. But I'm into whichever
Sprouse twin that is. Yeah, I personally prefer Dylan, you know.
I think Dylan's Dylan has like the longer hair, right, Yeah,
he's the thick twin. Yeah, he's cute. I'm here for
the thick twin. If there's twins, I'm going for good
(06:06):
to get that. Just call all that right off the bat,
the thin twin, all right, I'll got the thanks twin.
You get the thin twin, I'll read a song about it,
and then you don't really know I feel about twins, Jamie.
When did you first see the movie? On Christmas? At
your house? Yeah? And I do spend all major holidays together.
(06:28):
We were together on Thanksgiving and Christin just tragic and
beautiful of your family where they don't like us, they're
they're on the East coast. Is too cold, it's too
hard to get to. Yeah. So I first saw Josie
the Pussycats. It was probably it must have been like
two thousand I think it's my freshman year of college,
so like two thousand four. Friend showed it to me, instantly,
(06:51):
loved it, bought it on DVD right away, watched it
dozens of times since then. Definitely one of my favorites.
Super underrated. A lot of people don't know about this movie.
If they know about it, they assume that it's terrible. Yeah, well,
because it did not get good in views at the time.
I mean, I think this was like one of those
notoriously bad Ebert reviews, like this is the worst movie
(07:12):
movies about girl bands, because he also hated Spiceworld. Really
to be Affair is really bad, but it's it's one
of my favor It's bad, but it's it's it's question. Yeah,
I wish it was more popular, so more opportunities to
whip out the fact that I do know every dance
from that movie. Mostly I just performed solo to myself.
(07:32):
But of course, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm like in
a crazy movie. It's quite right, So, yeah, I saw earlier.
I just texted the boy this doesn't pass the fact
return to for him. Um, everything's great. I'm shifting around him.
I see it like a fucking psychopath and thinking about
the fishes but from the shape of water. All right,
(07:52):
well there it starts Sally Hawkins and she is also
in Paddington and Paddington two. So good for check out Paddington's,
the Paddington's Paddington, the Paddington's, Paddington Expanded Universe, the cinematic
universe anyway, So yeah, is it Do you think if
(08:14):
Paddington to his cannon or Paddington to believe, you would
question this? He was about to like throw up some
furniture and I feel unsafe at this time. Okay, So Joe,
what were we talking about? Okay, so I think we
can all agree that we enjoy this movie. It's so good.
This is one of those movies that I truly don't
(08:36):
know how I had not seen it, because it, like
every element of it appeals to me, especially and this
is and normally I will wax poetic about Alfred Billina,
who I think could have found a really fun bit
role in this movie. If someone had had their fucking
head on. But but for me, this movie is Alan Cumming.
(08:57):
He is the star. I had like a bet with
myself how far and we'd be untill when you mentioned
Alan coming, and I think I won. Just she's going
to bring it up and she will be she will
take a drink of water right when she says his name.
I need to love my mouth before I say his name,
to be fully slippery, so I could talk about Alan
(09:21):
Alan commy, I mean obviously feminist, icon queer. Un the
list goes on. He's amazing and this is and a
British national treasure. I'm guess scott Scottish Scottish Scottish have
a good one, because that's like the best part in
the movie when his accent goes away briefly. No, he's
Scottish's Scottish. Yeah, but I think he had a British accent.
(09:41):
Yea was pretty terrible. It was not good. Yeah, but
it turns out because he's a he's a scott Anyways,
he's the best part of the Good Wife, which I've
seen every episode after that's weird. Shall I do the recap?
Do the recap? Wait? Can we say who's in this
movie besides Alan Cumming, certainly because there's a it's a
(10:03):
kind of a star star studded roster. It star stud
So Josie is Rachel Lee Cook, Rosario Dawson plays I again.
This happens on the pot where we don't remember people's
names and characters name character name. Her name is a
Val Val and then Terror Reid is as her slash
(10:23):
uh and also Parker Posey park anything with Parker Posey
and Alan Cumming. H. Yeah, So Josie the Possycats is
about a band comprised of those three characters, Josie, Val
and Melucts. Yeah. They live in Riverdale and they're just
trying to make it. You know. They're doing small gigs.
They don't have a following yet they love music. They
(10:45):
all lived together and they live in the same trailer.
There's a boy named Alan M who Josie big old
crush on. Okay, Alan M hot or not not hot?
He literally flop thank you. He's a good fashion but
he's got a cute. I don't think anyone's attractive. If
I've seen their feet, I understand that. Yeah, Caitlin is
(11:09):
every because we've watched Josie and the pussycast together twice now,
and she stands out for for Allan M. Every time.
She's like, no, he's he's a good dude, Alan M.
He's like, he's all bangs. Is very much of that.
I mean, he can't even fix his truck. He has
to get a woman's help, like that talk one of
(11:29):
Caylin's favorite tropes, Woman who fixed the car, just so
much about cars. Allan M's fine, So she begins to
back pedal, Ellen M not hot, Ellen M. Good guy not.
I'm pretty sure he has a leather bracelet on in Pumpably.
I used to wear a sweatband all the time that
(11:51):
said I have issues. Oh my god, on sale. I
almost feel like you should legally be wearing that still
just it's basically it was a medical band. I just
didn't know. The font is crazy. There's all there's all
these pictures of me and my grandma. I'm wearing back
(12:13):
Price with my fucking things that says I have issues,
and my grandma is she has this smile on her
face where she's just smiling, but you can also tell
she is making fun of me by making me have
a photo taken in that moment in time, she's fully
attacking me. I look like shit. Listen, I was twelve
and I looked like absolute hitch. I have issues. You've
(12:35):
got issues. I have issues. Well, so did the Pussycats
because they amazing. Yeah, that was an amazing segue to
do this professional. She's wait, wait, Kaylen, have you been
in college. Yes. Not only have I been to college,
I have been to grad school where I did get
a master's degree in screen running from Boston University. I
do not like to bring it up, but here we are. Okay. Anyway,
(12:58):
So the Pussycats are having issues. You know, they're trying
to build a following their talented musicians. They've got great songs,
but no one is listening to them. Meanwhile, there is
Alan Cummings character whose name is did I say what?
Did I say? No? I did Alan Cumming as himself. Okay,
we just took that as a moment to repeat the name.
(13:19):
That's all that was happening. To do it every couple
of minutes. Sure, I'll die contract thing, especially what it
said on the inside of your sweatband. I think she is.
Do not resuscitate, just swiss for Alan Cummings. She will
pop out of it. Okay. So Alan Cumming plays this
guy named Wyat Frame and he's like helping to run
(13:39):
a label called Mega Records and they just got rid
of their front runner band. Sure can we talk about
what We'll get to this, but there is top of
the movie, Alan coming straight up jumps out of a
plane elegantly and this happens because he's sort of like
(14:00):
managing this band djor this boy band who's super popular
who is Donald's face on Meyer and then another guy Why,
which I love because when du comes back at the
end of the movie, it's only the guy because it's like, oh,
you couldn't afford the other three from more than One Day. Yeah,
they're in a full cat that's not really them, that's
(14:21):
gotta be Those are some extras. So Alan Cumming has
to jump out of a plane because this boy band
starts to figure out something fishy that's going to become
the record label. So why it basically crashes the plane
they're on. He jumps to safety and now he's on
the lookout for a new front runner band to be
the most popular, and he finds the Pussycats. So don't
(14:46):
actually could we all do together? How can I say this? Alright, fine,
So he discovers the Pussycats without even hearing them play.
He offers them a record deal and they're just like,
what's all this about? And he's like, it doesn't matter,
just sign with us and we'll make you stars. And
they're like okay, and then they go, they get makeovers,
(15:07):
they start recording some music. There's this ominous machine. It's
like this recording device. They're like, what's all this and
he's like, don't worry about it. Meanwhile, we meet Fiona
played by Parker Posey, and we learned that the record
company that they are running is actually just sort of
this way to insert subliminal messages into music to get
(15:28):
teenagers to buy a bunch of crap. So there's product
placement all over this movie. We did the count. We
made a note, so I think there's upwards of eighty
products being hawked throughout the course of this movie. It's wild.
Some of them are so like some of my favorite
ones are the ones that only come up once of
like tidy Cats do five dollars because we'll put you
(15:49):
in our movie. Like there is a weird, very small
tidy Cats they actually did during that Q and A.
They said they did not get paid by any of
those brands. Really, a lot of brands didn't want to
be involved, Like I think Gap pulled out, Like they
had a big Gap thing, like the girls were going
to be in a Gap commercial and they had to
pull it. They filmed and everything. Yeah, they got no
(16:11):
money for product placement. For that, I think no one
would have knew. Yeah, well, because the movie sends a
very anti corporate message of like, hey, consumerism is bad,
product placement is bad. Caps every Wednesday night. Hey, but
speaking of tidy cats, so did you know that cats
have eight nipples? This has been cat facts with Caitlin.
(16:34):
Oh my god, I need more sentences to start with,
speaking of um new mood. So yeah, this whole record
company is basically just a whole scam to insert subliminal
(16:55):
messages into music to get teenagers to buy things. And
then that's what do your figured out? And that's why
they died. But then the great at the end with
the Metallica concert joke is so good, Thank god, every
day I knew the lyrics to enter stand Man. Every
joke in this movie is the best joke ever. So
(17:18):
it's the perfect satire and it's so funny. Meanwhile, so
they make the Pussycats these huge stars, except that they
changed their name to Josie and the Pussycats. Josie, because
she's the lead singer, becomes kind of the front woman
of the band and say, you can find a similar
story and sorry in my mouth is a little tooluped down,
started to drown. Uh. Similar themes are explored in the
(17:41):
Cheetah Girls Extended Universe. Oh I'm not I'm familiar with
the Barcelona that's the second one, Chee Cheeta Girls too.
Speaking of sequels, Paddington too anyway, Patty Cats. So as
the band gets more popular, why it starts to insert
(18:02):
these subliminal messages into songs that only she's listening to
this because like Val and Mel are starting to realize
something's fishy, like something's not quite right here. So they
try to break the band apart by getting Josie to
turn on Val and Mel, but it doesn't work. They
figured out they figure out this whole subliminal message scam.
(18:25):
There's this great, very long climactic sequence at the end
where they confront Wyatt and Fiona. There's like a fight
that happens there there like happens backstage at a concert
that everyone's waiting for. Alan Cumming has a middle part
for this entire movie. Yes, okay, that's as you're going
to lose up again. Just love my mouth. I can
(18:49):
handle that fact. That was Alan Facts with sponsored by
tidy Cat. I also my second favorite product placement in
this movie. I think it would be Adville. The climactic
scene takes place basically on the floor that's covered in
(19:09):
Adville logos. Oh yeah, my my favorite is the McDonald shower.
I don't want that. That's a perfect scene. Yes, that's
a perfect scene I made, which is crazy because terror Read.
Oh my god, yeah, be were of right. Terry Read
is the only person in that scene. And terr Read's
character that I hate that character. She's very annoying and
(19:30):
I we'll get into it, but I can't stand that character. Anyways.
Fan service for Carson Daley, who I say, I've said
it before, I'll say it again. Truly the world most
mediocre man. Right, couldn't be a more I'm like that
is someone's dead with frosted dips. Anyways, So the movie
(19:51):
ends with they confront the record company. The Feds come in,
they shut them down, even though they were in on
it the whole time. They're like, actually, sublime messaging works
much better in movies, and there's great, the best movie ever.
And then so they play the concert and Josie and
hot L and m get together at the end and everything.
(20:15):
I do like that scene at the end because it's
so goofy and weird. Like the joke is that they're
screaming across the stadium and they can both hear each
other and it's so long and they're like, I love you,
I love you too. I'm like, no, I don't know
if I okay. Sure, great, So that's the story. Let's
talk about the female characters in it, of which there
are several. Who who's your favorite perker posey, Oh for sure.
(20:38):
Fionna is amazing. Yeah. She has like a real desperation
to be popular that I just also relate to in
a very sad way, and I think consistently has the
best looks for sure, Like she gets the looks. It's
she's the best. And she's just like, hey, girls, is
a hot gossip, Like she just like wants to hang
out with a bunch of cool girls. She was like
the ugly girl in high school, you find out and
(20:59):
just one so like I'm popular and hang out with
Alan Conard, spend an albino guy that the whole time
is that joke insensitive? Probably so seeking your tidy Cats
allan coming as an albino man also has a metal part.
Speaking of tidy Cats, yes, um, yeah, no, I think
that joke is insensitive to people with albinism. I think
(21:23):
the joke of Fiona's character having a lisp is also
insensitive to people with lisps. It's not it's not a
perfect unfortunately, but also and it's of tidy Cats perfect movie. Okay,
that was it. It was spot on. Thank you, nothing
but respect anyway, So Fiona, that character is amazing. The
(21:47):
very best moment of my entire life. I was thirteen
and at the mall with my mom in a Jay
Crew and a random person told me I looked like
Perker Posey and I remember, like what the leather gloves
next to me looked like like I was just shaking,
and I was like, and I don't look like her
as the print the best moment. I still think about
it when I'm sad. It's my happy place. That crew.
(22:09):
Once when I was little, my family went to Martha's vineyard.
We would we can only afford to go for two
days every two or three years because it's rich people ship,
but we would go. And one time, when I was
very young, like five years old, I grabbed onto what
I thought was my mom's leg in an ice cream
shop and it was Uma Thurman's leg, and she was
straight up disgusted with me. Whose poor child is this?
(22:33):
Can it? Can I kill it? Like there it was
my We still talk about it sometimes where my dad
was like, remember when my adorable daughter touched him with
Thurman and she looked like she wanted to kick her,
like there did not want a kid touching her by
total accident. So anyways, that's my happy moment, violating with
(22:53):
Urman's space and being punished. Sure, okay, So Josie and
the pussy Cats is a movie about a band of
all women. You don't see that many rock bands that
feature even just a single woman, let alone all of
the members of the band or women. So that's cool.
So yeah, it's it's I mean, this is not a
perfect movie. There are some flaws which we'll get to,
(23:15):
but as far as the portrayal of women, it's a
movie where the female characters are driving the story. They
are flawed. They've got lots of different like there's there's
a lot of different types of women, and it's movie
not enough different types of and the characterization is it's
not the strongest we've ever seen. But terror Read does
seem like she learned how to drum though, and for
(23:36):
that she talks about she does you and I because
I was like, they go out of because you don't
see any rachel Leak. I mean, I don't think that
it's not her singing, No, it's not her voice. I
didn't know. It's the girl from Letters to Cleo whose
name I can't remember. And oh, okay, that makes sense.
But also I don't know why I feel like a
(23:57):
little bit betray and it's fine. It does ruin a
little bit of the magic. Yeah, that it's it was
all fake, the whole story with fake, well not the
corporate greed that's very real. Cling to that. That was
like I wanted to talk about. On the second viewing
of this, I thought it was so just like a
(24:19):
weird story point that Josie and Melon val from moment one.
Anytime they're talking about the band, they never say like
we play music because we love music. They say, we
play music that we want a record deal, like they're
fucking capitalists from the moment when which was like, I mean,
that's just like a choice, but it was it was interesting.
(24:40):
I mean, and I think that pays off later when
they're like corporate greed is actually bad. But like for
a moment when they not only are very they're like,
we want to be famous and we want a record deal,
and that is the objective a little more so than
the music at first, but they also viewed and they're
playing bowling alleys, and they say a few from times
(25:00):
that they viewed du Jour as their direct competition. It's like,
I'm sorry, you were playing a bowling at like you're
check out. But there's that scene when they're on the
airplane and because they're like taking a flight to go
and get famous, that's the plane that has all of them,
like the target plane or is it the one that
has all the phones on the Motorola plane? That one
(25:24):
um So in that scene they have this like nice
conversation about how we're going to be friends first in
a band. Second, like they're prioritizing so not necessarily prioritizing
their music over anything, but like they're prioritizing their friendship
over being in a band. So I mean that to
me redeems them for maybe being a little bit too capitalist,
(25:44):
and the fact I don't even think that that's bad.
I just thought that that's like kind of weird, like
not something I noticed at first, because I feel like
usually when we're introduced to these stories, it's like, and
we just like love playing music so much, and it's
about the art. And but for like, I mean, like
iviously they care about the music. But the reason we
have that whole like scene at their house is I
(26:05):
think we're supposed to understand that they live together and
they're broke, and I think that's driving like this capitalist
need more so than like the fame aspect, because they
don't seem to really care about that. They just want
to be able to like not eat raman like they're
specifically like eating. They're sharing and they say they're the
only people in the history of Riverdale to share a
(26:26):
bus pass. There are all three of them in their
bus pass. I just broke. It's more of a commentary
on how artists don't get paid who good point taken Wow,
the guest. Uh it really overstaying interesting? Interesting choice. Fine,
(26:47):
I've been displaced and I quit And actually this is
the first time in my life I've ever been wrong.
The hard day for me. Um. There's a couple of
things I want to mention, things that I did not
enjoy way about the movie. One is the trope that
drives me nuts. Where a movie to show that the
girl is not like the other girls. She's good at
(27:09):
fixing cars. We see it in that stupid Julie Roberts
movie about running away from your wedding and Pretty Woman
of her Cars. Really, I haven't seen it in a
long time. I need to rewatch Pretty Woman, Megan Fox,
Megan Fox and Transformers. Although there's a good case to
be made there or whatever there's there's sometimes when it happens,
I am totally fine to accept it, like in Titania
(27:33):
when that happens, or in Hidden Figures when it happens.
But to me, they're like nothing about her skill to
being good at fixing cars doesn't pay off at any
point in the story, or it just it just feels
intact on to this movie. It's weird and I don't
think ever comes back and I feel like that that
is like kind of cinematic shorthand for like, she's a
(27:53):
guy's girl, can hang and uh, And I think that
that's all that we're supposed to take away from that,
And it's just because that suns d's Alan M's car
and he's like, well, my truck died, you gotta help
me fix it. And they're sort of like kind of
flirting and bonding during that scene while she's fixing, straight
up playing guitar acoustic guitar, barefoot a car. He's awful. Yeah,
(28:16):
And anyone shows up and starts playing the acoustic guitar
at me, I'm fully upset at me. You can't just
play it near me, You're playing it at me directly.
I would love to link in this episode the band
camp extension for my ex boyfriend who wrote the full
album Your Body Is Dumb after I broke up with them.
Never play the guitar around me, I'll scream, I'm sorry.
(28:38):
The boy you texted earlier was a drummer, so I listen,
you can do that facet of his personnel. You can
drum around me. That's fine, okay. I've never had an
issue with drummers. People it's acoustic guitar. No, I had
the same guitar ex boyfriend thing. It was like and
the kind of the base went home from college, saw
him over this summer. Literally asked if while we were
like hanging out, just sitting like bias her in a
(29:00):
suburban town in Maryland, if he could take out his
acoustic guitar and play something. And I was like, I guess, oh,
I'm bone dry. I'm basically a eunuch. If you play that,
I've never if you wouldn't make someone less horny than
they've ever been in their life. And I would say
I'm pretty on a pretty high horny percentile. If the
(29:23):
country you're constantly loved, I will say him at all times.
But man, if you're considering playing the acoustic guitar, it's
you're doing it for you, and it's so clear when
you're doing that. I play my guitar and it's like, no, No,
you know who doesn't do that drummers because they would
(29:44):
also look crazy, that would I thought, if I just
bring my little rupert pad out and I have I
have a great track record with drummers. My high school
boyfriend was drummer, and you are a clarinetist shout out, yes,
it's okay, you can was a clarinetist. Okay, we're clarinet really,
(30:05):
that's why I got confused. I was a double read girl.
Not to sorry, just the one single reads for me.
We should probably be in a band to clarinets A
reality of the pussy Cats, Jamie and the Tidy Cats.
It's perfect good clarinet like that kind of physical response
(30:30):
my blood pressure just like a wow. Okay, So anyway,
more about the movie. Another thing that I didn't necessarily
pick up on that much until this sort of watching
this movie through the Bechtel cast lens was the fact
that the band so Josie, Val and Mel are all
really mean to their manager's sister, whose name is Alexandra.
(30:56):
So they have a there's a character named Alexander, he
is their band manager, and then his sister played by
Missy Pyle, Alexandra, like they do a lot of like
body shaming to her. They're like she comes in and
they basically call her fat. They're like, oh, did you
lose weight or something like that. She's at one point
like putting on lip glass and values like, oh that
(31:17):
lip glass won't hinde your mustache, like they're doing. They're
like really cruel to her in a way that I
don't understand why this is, and it feels really unneeded
and bizarre. It's a very bizarre. But like I would
almost to the parade almost rather and I know that
this is like Archie Cannon or whatever, but I would
almost rather that character not even be there than her
(31:38):
be there and only be used for the things that
she's used for, because it really is like she there's
no consistency with her other than like she hates, like
she's like jealous. She doesn't even like work for them.
She's just around and around and mean and like her,
she's only driven by and I mean, listen, I can
relate to living a life driven by spite. But it
(32:02):
just it does doesn't make sense with the story. It's weird.
They do like kind of bring it and they're like
they said to her, why are you here? And she
says I was in the comic books. It's very fourth Wake.
But the fact that the way they treat each other,
like yeah, but if you're that aware of how you're
adapting it, then it's like, do a better job with
that character. Yeah, I mean, there's two thousand one, the
body positivity movement wasn't popular yet, so there was lots
(32:26):
of body shaming in this movie. And it's I don't know,
it's just a glaring thing in an otherwise perfect movie.
Um no, yeah, so I it's so easy to insert
the trope in a movie of like girls being petty
and caddy towards each other. And it really liked me
this time around seeing it. I I'm interested in your
thoughts on this late days. Uh. For Vale's character played
(32:50):
by Rosario Dawson, I feel like, and it made me
think about because she's the only woman of color in
this movie, I think, is that true? Well, that's depressing,
and I feel like her character is like underdeveloped in
in comparison to the other two in the band. Obviously,
Josie is going to be the most characterized, she's the protagonist,
(33:14):
but it's I feel like there is a tendency, especially
when she's already being presented as a token character like
she's you know, she's the only woman of color we
see on screen, that the movie kind of like sabotages
characters like this. I think it happens in The Craft
a lot as well, where the one woman of color.
We see she gets less to do, and mainly what
(33:36):
we know about her is that she is supportive of
the white people around. Like that's really all we know
about that, Like, and she's integral to the plot obviously,
but like Terror read like she has a very distinct
character and it's like she's ado fist, She's all you know,
We're gonna get a forty five minutes scene with her
in Carson Dalia and I'm going to love every second
(33:57):
of it. Josie has like very distinct personality trades. Val
does not really have that, and I feel like what
she mainly has is that she is supportive of the
other two. And uh, that's just something that I thought
about the characterization there. Yeah, she's definitely robbed in terms
of like having a developed character. Yeah, it does feel
(34:17):
a lot like usually if there's a movie with mostly
white women and then one woman of color, that character
often we know the least about her background, her backstory,
her family life, anything like that. We know the least
about that, We know the least about her personality. And
I think that where a too hazard to guess. I
would think that because there are so many white writers
(34:40):
in you know, Hollywood working. I feel like there might
be like a feeling of like, oh, well, there's only
one person of color in the entire cast. I don't
want to fuck it up because but then the result
is they just don't really write a character for that person,
and that is also not a good result, and that
just means that we should have people are writing a
movie exactly. I think that's what Sophia Coppola said when
(35:02):
she wrote and directed that Beguiled adaptation, where she's like,
I don't know how to I am not a person color,
so I don't know how to write character. Yeah, I
didn't know what the Bechdel test was. Who the consequences
of that, Like, I understand the hesitancy to misrepresent a
character if you do not have that same experience, right,
but then like talk to something exactly, it's give someone
(35:24):
else work, you know, it's or let that like co
write something with someone. If you want to write a
movie where some of the characters are people of color, excellent,
bring on a co writer, bring out consult with people.
Like it is not hard, I mean, and it's not
it's not egregious in Josie and the Pussycats, but it
is just like something that I was thinking. She also
has the worst makeover. I mean it's like every highlights
(35:49):
on a shadow, she's just like, we'll brush your hair
for a minute. And I feel like they dress her
in outfits that are not flattering to her, which is
crazy because it's like, what is not going to hang? Well,
she's a babe Rose. Sorry, I know, it's just really bizarre.
She's perfect. That make over scene is speaking of tidy cats.
That make over scene is so blue? Why was that
(36:14):
was that whole scene shot in like fluorescent lighting? Because
there it's so it's that scene makes me laugh because
it's blue in a way that most is usually reserved
for action movies, right, sci fi kind of stuff, very blue.
And then they're they're so uncomfortably improvising through this scene.
Were like at one point, Terror is just like holding
a brush and she's like, yeah, you're like throw some
(36:36):
cotton balls at each other. It'll be hilarious. Just like
interpretation of the Blue was that it was supposed to
be kind of like surgical, like they were supposed to
be like going through this very like regimented like idea
of beauty and marketing and branding to like because it
felt very like it does look sterile. Yeah yeah, yeah,
(36:56):
everyone's wearing like lab coats and ship Yeah. But it
also maybe one of their key lights broke ye. Maybe
they're like, we have all these blue gels, what seemed
to use them in I just inherited a bunch of
blue gels to my ground, like twenties cents. I'm fat
with blue gels right now. We have got to use it.
(37:18):
And I also, do you think and do we know,
because you know so much about Cannon, were they friends?
They don't seem like they ever spent a moment together
outside of the set of Jesse the Pettycats actors. No,
they made that very clear during the Q and X
incredibly drunk or incredibly something and just kept bringing up
(37:40):
like she was like, we haven't really seen each other
since then, but that was such an incredible time, just
like over It's like that was your time. Oh God,
can we just talk about her character for a second,
because I mentioned she's just I don't even know what
they're going for. She's very I mean, she's this characters
like she loves rainbows and puppies and she you know,
(38:02):
just wants everyone to get along. And you know she's
got a heart of gold, but she's also just extremely
annoying and stupid, and it's like, don't why why write
a character like that? I think I've had a Yeah again,
I'm not I'm not familiar with the Archie comics, so
I don't know how that character is represented in those,
But I don't know. She's just and maybe it's just
(38:23):
because it's terror Read bringing that role to life, and
I don't necessarily think she's very talented. Wow. Yeah, sorry guys,
we're going to go there hot take terror Read maybe
not the most talented actor. I am not a feminist icon. Sorry. No.
(38:45):
I do think a lot of that is like stories,
because when in the comic book world you literally have
like this is the dumb friend because you have talk
bubbles to work with. It wasn't like really fleshed out.
But I'll always make the argument with that, when you're
adapting something, you can take the liberty to change or
turn it down a little bit. I mean, I think
with the casting choice, they made it clear what they
(39:06):
wanted the character to be, not to keep piling on
terror Read. Anyways, the scene between her and Carson Daly
is great. It should be put in the museum. Carson
Daly is so boring. And in that scene too, this
is one of my favorite, Like there's all these cardboard
cutouts of like TRL guests and if you watch it
(39:27):
you can really spot out. It's like, can't how many
predators are in frame right now? A lot of what's
that word you use when we talked about the Gride, Oh,
stuff that's in the frame. That that's a film degree. Yeah,
I recognize it for my own film degrees. That word
speaking of, I also have a film I was wondering
when you were going to ask me on send the
(39:52):
means on send and the Carson Daily scene is full
of what we now know to be sexual. There's no
less than for Johnny Depps in that there's a ton
of There's a ton of Matt Damon's also, Arie Spears
problematic guy. There are a number of like peers of
ours comedians. He was on Man TV for a while.
There are several he did a Cosby impression that was
(40:13):
like he did Causby impression. Yikes, doesn't talk well at all,
of course, and then as a person comedian friends of
ours will like post something on Twitter and he will
then troll them a lot for like stuff that they've
said he's not a good airy spears, Yeah, slide right
into our mentions. Spears, Yeah, I dare you. I'm kidding. No,
(40:36):
I really don't want any come place, don't, don't, don't,
don't talk to us. I just want to quickly talk
about the Alexander character. Their band manager. One, he physically
strikes his sister apparently more than once in a day
because he kicks her in the shin or something like that,
and she's like oh. He's like, oh, I'm sorry that
my bad. I was an accident, but that was twice
(40:57):
since one day. Huh, so he's like heated lee hitting
her Another weird choice. Why do we see this choice
being made of a man physically striking a woman and
then later on this guy's a piece of ship because
later on they're all in the bathroom after Alan Cumming
has been like here have a record deal, and they're
like the Starbucks back there in Starbucks and they're like
this is suspicious. This is all happening really fast, and
(41:19):
Alexander comes in and he's like, what if you're like
having a band meeting, I should be here, and they're
like this is the ladies room, which like, why do
we have to have separate Russian and two one? Speaking
of tidy? You thought I was gonna so And then
they're like, we'll get out of here. This is the
(41:40):
ladies room, and he's like, what it is? Nothing I
haven't seen before, And then I think val In an
attempt to get him to leave, she's like, anyone have
changed for a tampon? And he's like, bye, gross, So
no comments. He can't, he can't hang. He cannot. He's
not just one of the girls. He's not Joe's even
bet he's I bet he's probably probably because he's fixing
(42:01):
too many cars, something I definitely has to do with
a car. He is fucking the tail type of a
car and it's not a damp on insight, No, no tampons.
I think if we just saw had you know, if
men hung none used hampons around their rooms kind of
like dreamcatchers, that would be nice, that would be nice.
(42:23):
And then if you wake up and there's a bloody
tampon hanging in a man's room, it just means that
they had a dream. What I think that like like
mobiles that go of our baby's cribs should actually just
be dirty, damp on, not dirty. Although maybe, let's why
are we shaming women for bleeding? Free bleed all the time?
(42:44):
On your baby? This is a final way of feminism,
the last way. It's just like stick it, okay, if
we can get back on track the point and I don't,
I also might be reaching, but please, the movie isn't
making a comment on this, which is you know, not
(43:05):
the biggest deal because there's a quick scene and like,
that's this is not what this movie is about him
being grossed out by bodily functions. But I feel like
we almost never see representation of a man not being
grossed out by a woman bleeding, And it would have
been a nice opportunity for him to be like I
don't care about tampons, and then I don't see it,
and I'm just like, you missed an opportunity movie, yeah
(43:28):
for him, or maybe you know, maybe win some points
back and be like I have a quarter yeah, And
I don't think we should have to be paying for
these right? Why are we not giving amazing moment icon?
Why are we paying for there's a public health issue
there anyways, there's a few oh you mentioned Jamie. The
(43:51):
scene when they're recording in the studio for the first time,
wind blowing. Where's it coming from? Why do we have
to see women's hair blowing around? I think that that
was a joke, Like because Cook's hair is going it
is like, I want to bear a breeze. It was
(44:13):
designed and knowing a breeze would just survive design for
a breeze. Yeah. Yeah, And so it's like I want
to hear the recordings of that session because it would
all be like, it's just hard. And then terror Reid
hitting a symbolic it's a full on. That's like, if
that is a joke, it's one of my favorite jokes
(44:34):
in the whole time. I think it's I don't know
if it's a joke. I feel like if it was
a joke, they would have played up the wind more.
It's almost a subtle to be a joke. I don't
know either way. He's not known for its subtlety. No,
it's not shout in a weird scene when I don't
know what to make of this, but you see him
like he's giving this instructional, like here's what we do
(44:55):
with this company. We trick teenagers into buying a bunch
of crap. He's like, we live the most ass kicking
country in the world. And then this woman in a
bikini like stands by him in like way of the
American flag, which is a joke. But I think that
that's commentary because he's wrong, and all we all know
that they're they're weird. Money fuck Dungeon is wrong. There's
no way around it. I feel like we haven't talked
(45:17):
that much about Parker Posey's character. I love female villains.
I like that we have a male and a female
villain in this movie. Mainly, I feel like, probably just
to let Alan coming in, Parker Posey be together, and
they're so great together, and it's like can you kiss?
They do? I know they do, and but but it's
like not in every scene, and I love My favorite
(45:41):
moment is when I think they do like a laugh
off in in her creepy bedroom like a villain so good.
I love it. Any other two actors, that's the worst
scene of all time. It's insufferable. The main thing I
want to say about Josie the Pussycats is that it's
a It's not a movie that's seeking to dismantle the
(46:03):
patriarchy necessarily it's a fun movie. It doesn't necessarily have
an agenda, except it has the like anti corporate, anti
capitalist agenda, but that also feels weird in a movie
that has so much product placement. Although it makes me
feel better that those companies did not pay because like
it could have been like really cheap for them to
be like, oh, well, yeah, we can just make a
(46:25):
bunch of money of this movie. That we're saying is
at they did that too, though, it's like taking the
money of these big corporations and making fun. Yeah, that's true.
I'm kind of there for that. Yeah, but I think
it's they could work either way. Yeah, so that's that's
more the agenda of the movie than necessarily be Well,
I don't know, like I totally agree that. It's like
(46:45):
it seems like the you know, whatever, the objective of
this movie was decided and then you know, other areas
were not given as careful consideration as we would help
where it's like we basically see of the female characters,
especially we see like one body type of across the board.
It's a very thin movie. It's a very white movie.
It's you know, like there's obviously places where it could
(47:07):
be doing much better and that should be acknowledged. But
also it is like such a good money so and
it like, God, did you see Alan Comming? Oh, we
didn't talk about the most important scene in the movie,
which is when Alan Cumming is driving his car sponsored
by Ray Band. So he's looking for his new band
and I'm already like, oh, Alan Comming is on screen right,
(47:31):
and then he almost hits Josie and the Pussycats with
his car. And then it's like this moment where Meat
loaves Paradise by the dashboard light. Is meat Love one
of the greatest actress of our generation. Sorry, one of
the currently one of the worst singers in the entire world. Sorry,
And then Alan Comming breaks the fourth wall turns and
(47:54):
doesn't he like wink or something. Yeah, he gives like
a slide, little like smile. No one does a better.
He should have gotten an oscar just for that. My
favorite Alan Coming performance ever is like one second in
an HBO commercial where it's like, I don't even know
what they pulled from, but I've watched the commercial a
(48:15):
lot where there's it's Alan coming on stage. I think
it's like a tape live performance and he just goes Broadway,
and you're just like, there it is. We don't need
to make art anymore or porn, or we can all
retire that's beautiful and sexual beings. We can retire Broadway
by speaking of tiny cats. Let's talk about that. Whether
(48:37):
or not this movie passes the Bechdel test, I think, yes, yeah,
sure it does. I like how we pause, like we've
done a lot of movies lately where there's like not
even a discussion to be had about it. We're just like, yes,
of course it does. They talk about their music a
lot in Friendship Friendship, and and there's a lot of
female characters, but we didn't really talk about the friendship aspect.
(48:59):
But I do like think that it is great to
see female friendship portrayed in a way that is like
very supportive and loving throughout because it's you know, like
the corporate Alan Cumming and Parker Posey try to drive
a wedge into the friendship and they can't because well
they do for like a quick moment, right, But I
(49:20):
mean that's like with weird science. But it's like, but
if there's never there's never a moment, and then like
even when there's never a moment, which is not manufactured
by these villains that tears them apart. It's a very
strong friendship. Cheetah Girls a little bit different. I have
no idea what Cheetah Girls is really the Disney movie.
(49:40):
Is it a like Disney original even Simone? Yeah, and
the girl who went on to date Rob Kardashian from
three and then the other girlfriend three and then the
white girl. But is it a Disney Channel movie? Yeah,
it is. It is a d com. Okay, that's why
I've never seen a single Disney Channel never seen. I
don't think I've ever missed one. I just started my
(50:01):
own podcast. Is me watching decom? Would I have to
skip Smart House? I'm still scared of it? Are you
still scared? Has so much power over them. I think
about that House is that it was very smart. By
the way, Aristotle was in the corner giggling his little
face off. All right, you can take over hosting a
Smart House episode. Who is who is the male star
(50:23):
of Smart House? Wasn't it this? No? No, it was
a white family. I thought it. I thought it was
the boy from Smart Guy for a second now anyway,
So yeah, the female friendship. We see a similar thing
in like Spice world where they're you know, they're Do
you think there would be conflict in a in a
band scenario where there's always you know, there's egos, and
there's all kinds of stuff that might come between them
(50:45):
as a band and as friends. But the only thing
that does briefly come between this band, enjosing the Pussycats,
is manufactured by the villains. It's literal brainwashing, brainwashing, and
she barely succumbs. She's comes to it, but then she
quickly figures out like, hey, like this is weird, and
she figures out what's happening. And that's to say that again,
(51:07):
the female characters of this movie are driving this story.
Sometimes in movies, even if there is a female protagonist,
like she doesn't even get to like figure out the
big mystery or like even participate in the climax of
her own movie, which is what we saw. And like
snow White in The Seven Word or in Aladdin where
Jasmine is literally physically thrown out of the screen while
(51:27):
the conflict is resolved. Yeah, she's also wearing she's also
a sex slape. There's a lot going on. Goods can't
wait to sit forward? Are you going to do that? Oh?
For sure. For sure that that red bikini. I mean
that was a large part of my child as far
as a queer icon any miago iago. So yeah, the
(51:51):
female characters in this movie are without question participating in
the story, driving this story. Uh, their friendships are solid.
It's a fun movie. You know it's you gotta watch it.
You gotta watch it. Check it out. It's great to
see women being funny and contributing to the comedy of
the movie. A lot of times in a comedy, female
characters are robbed of any opportunity to be funny. So
(52:14):
that's great for this movie. Um, should we write the movie.
Let's write it. Yeah, let's write it. Let's write the movie.
On our nipple scale of zero to five nipples based
on its portrayal of women, I'm gonna give it four
because I think the main characters, especially Val and Mel,
could have been more fleshed out. Especially Vale, like you said,
(52:36):
being the only person of color, she feels a bit sidelined.
Her character doesn't feel as developed as the others. And
I don't know, you can still, you can have a
dumb character and have that not be so annoying. And
maybe this is just my personal thing. But Male's character
to me is insufferable, and anytime she's on screen, I'm
just like, she doesn't bother me. I like when I
(53:00):
hate that, I like, I don't know, and especially like
what a boon for terror read to literally play two
type exactly and make a lot of money doing that's true.
Yeah again, I guess in this episode, I say, you go, girl,
I guess it all right, say so. Yeah, the characterization
(53:20):
isn't as great as we would hope. They're also the
parts when the women of the band are body shaming
Alexandra and vice versa. That's a weird choice. So there's
just some kind of weird choices. But overall, I like
the message of like the all the anti corporate stuff.
I like just the fact that it's a fun movie
starring women. You get a woman villain who's a great character.
(53:42):
Yeah that's a four nipples, three for each of the
members of the band, and the fourth one goes to
Parker Posey cool faye, what say you? I'm gonna go
a full five nips on this. It is just like
my all time favorite movie, and I know it is
a portrayal of women, but I did watch a when
I was like eleven and did you feel empowered? I
(54:03):
think I don't. I didn't. I think it was so
subtly a movie about girls that were friends that only
looking back on it now, I'm realizing it's like the
only movie I watched when I was like a kid
that I was that was about girls that were friends
and in a band. And I think it affected me
a lot in a way that wasn't like it wasn't
like hit over at ahead with it, which I think
is it was a movie ahead of its time for
(54:24):
a lot of reasons, I think, And yeah, I totally.
I mean, I agree with everything we've been saying about
body types, diversity, and like there's a lot of complexities
to being a woman that aren't you know, showcase. But
I think just for this being a two thousand and
one a movie that's literally about a band of girls
that are best friends is like special, pretty cool? Who
are you getting your nippies too? Sorry for making eye
(54:46):
contact when I said that, I mean I feel like you.
I feel like you. Ever, I don't know Ross is
in there. I'm gonna get five five straight nipples to Jamie.
Thank you. I hope you use them wisely. I'm going
to I'm as someone within a regular number of nipples already.
(55:07):
Just please use those five and I need spirit tires.
Keep my back pot, keep them in the trunk, keep
your nips in the Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna give
it three and a half. Guys. I'm sorry. I love
this movie so much. It's an unreasonable expectation to be
like every movie has to be perfect in every single way.
(55:27):
But I just especially because this is a movie that's
marketed to young girls, there was there were a lot
of missed opportunities that I would have liked to see
capitalized on. But I mean, I don't have anything to
add in terms of like you pretty much covered it,
but I do love that there was a major film
release directed at kids that was about how corporations suck.
(55:49):
And it's also so funny. I would argue that any
scene Alan comming isn't with anyone does pass the back
delt test um. I think we should make good across
the board because option for that, I've already made that
exception for Alfred Willina. People are flooding my damn, Jamie.
Will you pardon Alfred Molina for for not being able
to pass the desk. Does that mean if Alan Coming
(56:13):
and Alfred Millina speak to each other in a movie
that passes the back of course it does, and they
could be talking about their own penises and it would
still pass the backdel test if Alan a scene were
Alan Coming and Alfred Billina are like they both whip
out their dicks and they're like, let's go straight up
care they're measuring. They're measuring a full pass. It's like
(56:35):
it's very like just like a nice, calm, peaceful They're like, well,
how much is yours instead of like these like normal
dick measuring contests where they're like there's there's seuna be
gentle motivated by curiosity basically an an s m R video.
I hope that happens for you, Jamie. I just want
that out in the world for you. And AMR video
(56:56):
of Alan Coming Gena measuring each other's peece we all
we all want that, but I really want it for you.
That is, I will have to make a cartoon of that.
And uh, I have to go to this is my
own personal smut stash for just me. Well, uh, we've
(57:19):
had a blast, charny wait, I didn't give my nipples
to anyway. Yeah, I guess who've given him to tidy Cats.
I'm gallant. Oh I'll give to to Alan coming and
one and a half two tidy Cats. Well, speaking of
tidy Cats, Faye, thank you so much for being here.
What what would you like to plug? Where find good
(57:41):
at fayor love on everything? And then, um, I was
going to plug. I thought of it while we were
doing this that at Junior High. We're in a vent
space for women and we're starting a new series of nights.
It's gonna be once a month. My friend Derby's hosting.
We came up with like a really clever name that
I can't remember, but it's movies that are not only
featuring women, but may by women. So we're gonna be screening.
(58:02):
I think it's like a trailer and then a short
and have whoever made the short? They're like female directors producers,
and then um, watch a movie. I think we talked
about doing Josie in fact, but because that it was
made by a woman team. Yes, yes, yes, this movie
was written and directed by Harry Elphont and Deborah Cappie
and they're really cool. But yeah, so just look on
Welcome to Junior high dot com. We have a whole
(58:24):
calendar that's not up yet, but just keep your eyes
out or on Instagram at Welcome to Junior High and um.
If you have ideas for similar things, please reach out. Awesome.
You can follow the Bechtel Cast on all the social
media platforms at Bechtel Cast. You can write and review
us on iTunes. That helps us out a lot. What
also helps us out is going to our Patreon and subscribing. Yeah,
(58:45):
it's it's great. Give us five dollars in oils. Thank you,
Thank you so much. Well. Speaking to tidy cats spy
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