Mommie Dearest with Izzy Custodio from Be Kind Rewind

This week, Jamie Dearest, Caitlin Dearest, and special guest Izzy Custodio Dearest from Be Kind Rewind chat about Mommie Dearest (1981)! No wire hangers ever!

Follow Izzy on YouTube at www.youtube.com/@bkrewind

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Jamie dearest, Caitlin, dearest, thank you. I just wanted to
show you my cool new wire hangers.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
I got, oh, yes, yes.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
Was this a known thing about wire hangers where people
talk or was this specifically a movie thing? Is it
like low rent to have wirehangers?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
I would say we were a.

Speaker 4 (00:38):
Heavily wirehanger household, so was mine, I think. And the
hangers in question, which are like those plushy hangers I
think are like kind of stinky and smell like mothballs.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
But what do I know?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Sure, yeah, I don't know. Like I have a few
wooden clothes hangers that I like to hang my heavier
coats on and stuff, and I feel so classy when
I'm like, you know, putting my wood hangar on the rack.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
And really with the with hangers, there's always the floor,
which is where most.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Of it is going to end up.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
Anyways, it's the hangers that I buy are is like
it's a performance piece that I do every time I
move is acquirer. Okay, well that was a That was
a classy opening to the Mommy Dearist episode.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Agree to the Bechdel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
My name is Caitlin Dronte. This is our show where
we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
Bechdel test as a jumping off point. But Jamie, what
on Jamie dearest? Yes, what on earth is that?

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well?

Speaker 4 (01:39):
It is a media metric created by Alison Bechdel, friend
of the show originally, and actually it is like pretty
relevant to talk about the context today. Originally was made
as a one off joke in her comic collection Dix
to Watch out For back in the eighties. Has since
been adapted to a sort of mainstream metric a lot

(02:01):
of versions of it. The version we use requires that
two characters of a marginalized gender with names speak to
each other about something other than a man, and that
conversation can really be about anything narratively relevant, And so
the movie Mommy Dearist, you know, it doesn't have to
be a positive conversation.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
That's what I'll say it does not it can be abuse.

Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yes, you so you can you know know that it
passes the Bechdel test, And we would probably call the
podcast something else if we started it today. But today
we have kind of a behemoth of a movie because
it's a request we've been getting since this show has existed.

(02:46):
I'd say so for nearly a decade. We have been
avoiding covering this movie because it seemed difficult to prepare for. Yes,
and that is in fact true. But we have the
perfect guest to come and talk about Mommy dear'st with us.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Let's get it right in here.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
She is the creator behind the YouTube channel be kind Rewind.
It's Isy Cstadio. Welcome, Thank you, Thank you guys for
having me. I'm very excited. It is a daunting task
to talk about this movie.

Speaker 4 (03:14):
Thank you so much for being I mean, just to
get the fangirl moment.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
Out of the way.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
I guess like we cite your work truly like every
other episode, you are so present on this show.

Speaker 5 (03:27):
Oh, thank you. No, I'm so excited to be here.
I love this podcast.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah, we're so excited to have you. Yeah, so much
of what I've learned about this movie specifically and also
just Joan Crawford as a cultural figure is from your work.
I mean we I think we were talking about we
recently covered Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, and so that
I mean, I just I still have the I bought

(03:54):
the shirt with the seas and Desist from.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Olivia to havilin that you put out like just so
much lore.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
But to get people up to speed, what is your
history with I guess Joan Crawford as a cultural figure
and mommy dearist, I would say, I mean, Whatever Happened
to Baby Jane was my introduction into Joan Crawford.

Speaker 5 (04:17):
I remember renting that at the library as a child.
I don't think I knew anything about it amazing, but
I was captivated by it. It's just one of those
things that kind of hits to a core part of
your personality that you haven't recognized yet. And so for
the longest time, I just remembered it as like, what
is that movie with those two crazy ladies who have
a doll?

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Like?

Speaker 5 (04:39):
I couldn't remember what it was called, and I kept
trying to find it again at the library, but it
just became such an integral part of my pop cultural consumption.
And then from there as I sort of developed my
interest in Hollywood history and stuff. I mean, Joan was
a really natural way for me to get into that
through Joan Crawford and Betty Davis. So I guess I

(05:01):
have like a strong relationship with Joan Crawford from my
early days as a sinophile. And then I don't know
exactly how Mommy Dearest got into my life. I'm pretty
sure my mom introduced it to me. Actually, I think
she had seen it at some point and sort of
understood it as this sort of important camp classic, and

(05:25):
we would watch it together and we would quote it together,
and she would always jokingly say, aren't you glad I'm not.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
This bad.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
Great yardstick to pull out as a parent, exactly exactly
like you should be grateful.

Speaker 5 (05:39):
Yeah, So we just have little, I guess inside jokes
about that. But yeah, and then you know, I made
that video about it, and so I've just kind of
dug into it later on in life as well. But yeah,
it's just it's been part of my life for as
long as.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
I can remember.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Wow, amazing, incredible, Jamie, how about you?

Speaker 4 (05:58):
I had not seen in this movie all the way
through before, which I was kind of surprised for It's
one of those movies, a huge movie, very different movie.
But two movies that I was like hoping to, like
wait to see in theaters for the first time were
Mommy Dearist and two thousand and one of Space Odyssey.
I still have similar perfect double feature. I still haven't

(06:22):
seen two thousand and one A Space Odyssey because I
really want to see it in the theater, and every
time it's in theaters here, I magically get the flu
or whatever. So similar deal where I wanted to experience
this like it. I think of this movie in the
same vein as like Rocky Horror, where I wanted the experience,
but this was my time, and so I watched Mommy Dearist,

(06:45):
and holy shit, I mean I don't it is like
a full experience. I still would love to see it
in an audience.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Very brief history.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
I went and read the first hundred pages of the book.
I didn't have time to read the whole thing, but
I was just trying to get a feel of, like
what the tone of the book was versus the movie,
and it is very different, even though a lot of
the set pieces are the same.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
I'm kind of surprised that this book wasn't brought up
in conversation more with I'm glad my mom died because
I think if this movie or if this book came
out thirty or or whatever forty years later, it would
have been treated quite differently. But yeah, I don't know.
I really enjoyed learning about how I don't know. I'm
interested in how like abusive dynamics, especially with kids, are

(07:32):
like portrayed in movies and this is like such a
huge example of it. And yeah, I don't know, there's
so much to talk about. I'm interested to get into it.
Kitlyn w's her history with Mommy dearis had you seen
it before?

Speaker 2 (07:44):
I had? Okay, I watched it during the Great Kitlyn
movie binge of two thousand and five, huge, thank you
so much. And at that point, I don't think I
had much of a handle on who Joan Crawford was
because I was only starting to make my way through
classic Hollywood cinema. I remember it being a difficult watch.

(08:08):
I am sure I perceived it as being like very
over the top and campy, but I more remember being like, oh,
my god. So this is hard to watch, but since
then I forgot most of it, except for I remembered
the wire hanger scene.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
I mean, yeah, I feel like that's almost a cultural
osmosis thing.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
I get a lot of TCM memes in my algorithm,
which is great, but they like recently, I don't know
on what grounds, but I learned from via a TCM
meme that there was briefly like an AJAX, like the
bathroom bleacher that was a Mommy Dearest tie in AJAX.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Wow, just.

Speaker 4 (08:58):
Which we'll we'll talk about, but that was the most
recent time I was thinking about Mommy DearS before we
settled on this episode.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
When when was that marketing?

Speaker 3 (09:07):
I think it would have been for the original run
of the movie.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
Yeah, yeah, I think I think there were. There was
kind of a pivot in the advertising where they sort
of lean into the grotesque miss you know, and with
wire hangers and things like that, so which I've liked.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
That was part of it.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
I was really surprised.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
I mean, we could talk about it later as well,
but like, I was really surprised at how instantly the
pivot was and being like, oh, this is a camp movie, Okay,
We're like, I assumed that that happened over a period
of years, but it seems to have happened like inside
of the first week or so of release.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, kind of like how Cats was just immediately true it. Yes,
I did compare Mammy Dear's to Cats, but I.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
Don't know, like which production is like catching astray in that.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
But yeah, I I'm excited to talk about it. I
feel like I'm I said this off Mike too, but
I feel like I'm mostly here to learn from the
two of you. So I'm I'm ready to learn a
lot that I think I don't already know. But yeah,
let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
for the recap. Hell yeah, and we're back. Okay, So

(10:33):
obvious trigger warning at the top.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Really for.

Speaker 5 (10:38):
Child abuse just from Beat one.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah, yeah, so beware of that.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Also, this movie was rated I mean, this movie is
rated PG, which just isn't not crazy?

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Is it because it was before they implemented PG thirteen.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
Oh that's a good question.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
I honestly don't know.

Speaker 5 (10:58):
But I mean she drops an F bomb too, which
I was like, that's a little surprising, Like I don't
think you'd be allowed in PG, right, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Oh my god, you.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Were definitely not. Yeah, the F word, okay, I think
you're allowed one F word in a PG thirteen movie,
and if it's more than that, it becomes an R rating.
So PG thirteen ratings were introduced in eighty four. So
this is a few that's why shy, but also just
like really great indicator because I think the reason it
got PG is because there's no like sex proper in it.

Speaker 5 (11:29):
Parental guidance needed. Indeed, I think we can.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
Say if anyone needs some solid parental guidance, everyone in this.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Movie, yeah, yes, okay. So we meet Joan Crawford played
by Faye Dunaway, who, of course was a famous star
during the classic Hollywood era. We see Joan doing a
very elaborate morning beauty routine.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
We all just something you could see a fourteen year
old do on TikTok today.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
Also the fact that this was received so poorly, they're like,
what a vain woman? And now it's like everyone on
earth is doing that. Yeah, it's like a challenge to
put your face in ice.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
You know. Oh yeah, she she has so many like
elastic bands on her head.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
And I'm like, normal, now, the like taping the mouth
shut of it all.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
I mean you could say she's a pioneer.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
Trail laser. God forbid a woman have a morning routine.

Speaker 5 (12:28):
God for better woman looks Max's geez.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
This sequence reminded me of the like grooming sequence in
American Psycho, and I was like, Wow, if you have
like a beauty routine in a movie, it's to indicate
that that character.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Is crazy, like a vain, freaking nightmare person. Yeah, is
the logic that this movie appinds by?

Speaker 5 (12:53):
Yeah, I do think, Yeah, there's some sort of connection here,
not just with whatever happened to Baby Jane, but like
the substance even you know, just kind of like the
desperation we cast on these women to remain young, and
pressure from the industry and all of these things, right,
and then like use it as a shorthand for mockery

(13:13):
and all this other stuff where I don't know.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
Like there as we'll discuss. There's so many reasons to
criticize Joan Crawford having a facial routine. Uh, that was
intense for an aging woman in Hollywood. I wouldn't say
crocs the top like five hundred right, exactly, but it
is a shorthand for like, this woman is unhinged.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, look at this ridiculous woman for trying to adhere
to rigid beauty standards that society enforces upon her.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
Like I've done worse than everything in the oh absolutely, yeah,
and will and planned to.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Okay, So we see her doing that. We also see
her scrubbing her floors and berating her house. I think
it's her housekeeper Malan and her cleaner Helga for not
doing a thorough enough job. So we start to realize
that she has very intense standards for hygiene and cleanliness,

(14:14):
and she's just a very intense person overall. A male
suitor of hers comes over. This is an entertainment lawyer
named Greg Savat. She tells him that she plans to
adopt a baby, and Greg tells her that she will
likely be denied by adoption agencies since she's a working woman,

(14:36):
she's currently unmarried, and she's twice divorced, which this and
it's I understand why the movie doesn't get into like
the business of this, but I just think it's interesting.

Speaker 4 (14:47):
Was definitely true because in California at that time, a
single woman could not legally adopt a child at all,
like she had to go to per Christina Crawford. Joan
Crawford had to go to Nevada to adopt Christina, which
is definitely true. But for Christina, she had to do
it through a mafia guy, like through the Jewish mafia

(15:08):
in Miami.

Speaker 5 (15:09):
Yeah, there's like illegal baby markets basically for adoption.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
It's human trafficking.

Speaker 4 (15:15):
Yeah, yeah, I mean to the point where and another
thing that got again understandably cut from the movie. But
the Christopher, her brother, is not even the first Christopher.
She adopted a baby named Christopher that the birth mother
returned for unclear what the situation was, but she was
very upset. It seems like the baby had definitely been

(15:38):
trafficked to Joan Crawford. So Christopher one point I was
taken back by his birth mother. Another kid shows up
that not shows up, is trafficked to Joan Crawford that
she names after her husband at the time, Philip. And
then Joan Crawford and Philip break up and Joan Crawford

(15:59):
changed just baby Phillip's name to Christopher. Whoa And so
there is a Christopher Crawford, but it's the second.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
One second Christopher.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, oh my gosh, I did not know that.

Speaker 5 (16:11):
And then there are twins who are adopted in nineteen
forty seven who aren't even in the movie, completely erased
from the movie. Well, and I think that's kind of
intentional because they both very much believe that Christina is
full of it. They have a very different experience growing up,
and so I think not to get into the details

(16:33):
of that, but I think, you know, that would have
complicated the directness of the movie, shall we say, to
have a yes, yeah, to have an opposing.

Speaker 4 (16:41):
View, definitely, And so for like all of those things
to be sort of like compressed into the line you're
too vain to be a mother Joan. Yeah, Like, yeah,
that's that's how this movie works.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
So, as we were hinting at, she is denied by
an adoption agency. The movie does not make it clear
exactly what happens, but it seems like Greg pulls some
strings quote unquote and arranges this adoption, and so this
is baby Christina. We cut to a few years later.
Joan has also adopted Christopher by this point, and Christopher too.

(17:20):
We skipped over Christopher one point zero, Yeah, we did.
And then I'm also like, Okay, we have a child
named Christina and another child named Christopher. That's too many.
Those names are too alike.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
Well, Christina was originally named Joan Junior. Yeah, and then
Joan was like, now, I don't.

Speaker 5 (17:39):
Know what the logic was for switching, yet, I think
she had done something along lines of like it would
just be confusing if she also wanted to be an actor,
because she had been married to Douglas Fairbanks Junior, whose
father was Douglas Fairbanks Senior, and that caused some confusion,
and so I think she was just like, well, maybe
I was wrong about.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
That and changed her to Christina. Yeah. So when the
maybe gets to Nevada, never mind, it's Christina now.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
So she's just changing her kids' names right and left
that It's very bizarre, Okay, Christina. At this point, I'm
not sure how old she's supposed to be because the
movie keeps jumping ahead in time, but they use the
same child actor, Maara Hoble for that whole time, even

(18:24):
though she's supposed to advance an age, So I think
she's probably around like five years old. At this big
birthday party that Joan throws for her and Joan seems
like a loving, doting mother, but maybe that's just because
there are a lot of photographers and publicity people around,

(18:46):
because things are very different when they're out of the
public eye. Not all of the time, but sometimes Joan
is very controlling. She is hypercritical of Christina. There's a
scene by their swimming pool where Joan makes her daughter
over exert herself in the pool and then be rates

(19:08):
her for losing their swimming race, which.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
That my grandma had.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
Uh not to put my dead grandma on blast, but
my grandma had a I don't know, an undiagnosed personality
disorder because she didn't believe in treatment mental health, and
that was it was such a weird scene to like,
I hadn't been in that exact situation. But my grandma
was frequently challenging the kids to rigged contests that only

(19:36):
adults could win, more more mind contests like I was
losing trivia to my grandma.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
Constantly get alive, rest and piss to Grandma.

Speaker 4 (19:51):
I do think that is one of my favorite line
deliveries in the movie, though, is when she goes you
lost again, just like damn it's and.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
She's like, I'll always be bigger and faster than you,
and I'll always win.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
It's crazy. I love it.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
It's hard not like I I get why people are
obsessed with Faye Dunaway's performance in this, Like totally there
was no they They must have used every unhinged because
I read there was a lot of coverage of this movie.
There was like a ton of footage shot and maybe
they just used the most unhinged take of every single angle,

(20:28):
like she'd it's relentless, It's intense, very.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Much so this. In this moment of the film, Joan
becomes very physically abusive toward Christina. She's pushing and striking her.
There's another scene where Joan finds Christina playing with some
of Joan's things and like hair products and things like that,

(20:53):
and she's furious and cuts off Christina's hair. Meanwhile, Joan
does sperately wants a part in a film that she
has not yet been offered, and it seems like Greg
once again pulls some strings and Joan thinks she's gotten
the part. But and I'm not totally clear what happens here,

(21:16):
but there's a dinner with MGM studio head Louis B.
Mayer and some bankers ueby.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Mahra gets off so easy in this movie. It was
like genuinely shocking.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah yeah, but whatever their interaction is, Joan is humiliated
by and she and Greg get in a huge fight
about it, and he basically says like, you're all washed
up actor, you're getting old and your career isn't what
it used to be, and she's devastated. They break up.

(21:49):
Some time passes. Little Christopher is now several years older,
but Christina has somehow not aged. I think it.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
Reminds me of mad Men The Brother. The brother could
be any age. Nobody really ages in this movie. It's like,
I think they only put old people make up like
on them on Carol Anne that and that's it. Cal
ages twenty years and like I think six story days.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Oh in a jump cut.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
Yeah yeah, it's wild.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to Ritania Alda who played Caroline.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
She really she really uh had to deal with a lot.

Speaker 4 (22:28):
It sounds like on that shoot yeah, where Faye done
Away just kept being like make her uglier.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
To me. Part of the camp is the fact that Christina,
until she's played by a different, much older actor, does
not age, but her younger brother like becomes taller than
her at some point, and I'm just like, how how
is this? How is this happening?

Speaker 3 (22:51):
The wig too, The wig is is a lot that
they put on that child.

Speaker 5 (22:55):
Oh yeah, some brutal wigs in this movie, I will say, definitely.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
So the children are a little older, but Joan continues
to be incredibly vindictive and abusive toward them, especially toward Christina,
berating her taking away her baby dolls. We find out
at some point that Joan straps I think maybe both children,
but definitely Christopher to his bed at night, which is yeah, fine,

(23:25):
which is true? Yeah, Oh my gosh. Then Joan has
a meeting with Louis B. Mayer, who fires her from
MGM because her last few movies have lost money.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
And he's such a nice guy about it.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
He's doing her a favor by firing her.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Just the Louis B. Mayor edit on this is really
something else.

Speaker 5 (23:46):
Although I do my impression of her leaving is that
it is pretty much like a mutual my understanding of it.
I could be misremembering, but I don't recall it being
like a brutal firing in the same way that it's
kind of portrayed here, although I don't think she was
happy about it obviously, because she was kind of she
understood what was happening to.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Her basically right well, in the movie version of.

Speaker 4 (24:11):
It, it's like she just has to be the most
unhinged person in every scene, right, So it's like, yes, yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
She lashes out. She destroys her garden in the middle
of the night and makes her children get out of
bed and help her. And this is the like Tina,
bring me the acts scene. Yes, great read, great read,
thank you so much, Thank you so much. I've been
taking improv classes, so my performing abilities.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
Are really nice.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Through the root, we cut to some time later, Joan
has signed with another studio and I lost track which
one that warners okay, and she is preparing for her
role in Mildred Pearce. Then there's a scene where Christina

(25:01):
does not want to eat her lunch because it's a
steak that's cooked very rare, And we're seeing Christina becoming
more defiant toward her mother as she gets older, although
again she is visibly not aging, so it's impossible to
tell how old she's supposed to be. In any case,
Joan refuses to feed Christina anything until she has finished

(25:25):
this steak. And this goes on for like a day
or two. Cut to Joan and her children listening to
because also like the moments this movie cuts away from
and the time jumps, Yeah, we're giving me such bad whiplash.
Like I was like, oh, okay, now it's two years later.

Speaker 5 (25:48):
I guess I don't know anyway, So I was wondering
how you were gonna do this segment because I was like,
I feel like it's very hard to even there's no
real plot either, you know, so it is just like
it's hard.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
It's a series of scene.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
Yes, it's a series of unfortunate literally, yes, yes, Okay,
So we cut to Joan and her children listening to
a radio broadcast of the Academy Awards.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
I think Joan has faked having pneumonia to avoid going
to the ceremony. She wins the oscar for Mildred Pearce,
and there are paparazzi outside taking pictures of Joan when
she opens the door, and Christina seems to enjoy some
of this limelight and so maybe that will inform her

(26:35):
career choices later on. Following that, we get the very
famous scene of the movie Joan comes into Christina's room.
There's cream on her face that makes her look very scary.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
She's joker mud.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (26:50):
Well, the scene is shot like a horror film totally,
I think.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
And Joan finds an article of clothing I think a
dress of Christina's on a wire hanger her and she
loses it. She starts screaming and ripping all of Christina's
clothes from her closet. Joan then beats her, forces her
to scrub the bathroom floor, forces Christina to call her

(27:14):
mummy dearest, which we've seen prior, but we weren't sure.
I think up until this point if this was like
just what Christina happened to be calling her mom, or
if this was like an enforced thing. Anyway, it's absolutely
horrible to watch. And obviously this child is completely traumatized.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
And and like you're saying, is he like fully shot
like a slasher movie kind of?

Speaker 5 (27:40):
Yeah, she's kind of like backlit by the closet light. Yeah,
it's it's pretty haunting in a way.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, definitely, it's I mean, there's a reason I remembered it.
Everyone remembers that. Like it's not subtle. Nope. And then
asked that scene with the next scene, which is Joan
and her children calmly sitting for a televised interview at

(28:09):
their home at Christmas time, where they appear to be
a happy, loving family. Then we meet a new suitor
of Jones, Ted Gilbert, and we barely see him on
screen except for Christina is responsible for serving him drinks
as a child, and Christina interrupts Joan and Ted canoodling

(28:35):
by bringing her mother a beverage, and this apparently infuriates
Joan so much that she sends Christina to boarding school for.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
This was the wildest ever.

Speaker 4 (28:47):
Both times Christina goes to school a wild time jump,
yes happens. It's either a new person or a confusing
wig new wag stop. The crazy one for me is
when she leaves the convent school later and she's in
her new wig and she's like, thank you for like
sticking with me through this trying time and we haven't
seen her at all since since I'm what was happening

(29:11):
to you have no idea? Well, it's like, among other things,
that's totally understandable why Christina comfort hated this movie because
it's not about her, Like it's no exactly Yeah, it's
just like the gnarliest abuse scenes adapted in the broadest
possible way.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
I wonder if there was ever any I don't know, do.

Speaker 4 (29:32):
You remember Izzy from Like I know that there was
like a bajillion versions of this script, if there was
ever more of a focus on Christina's life away from
Joan or well, I know Christina had wanted to write
the script originally.

Speaker 5 (29:47):
I don't know if she ever actually turned in a draft,
but that would be my guess if there ever were one,
because I think the other versions that I'm aware of
did more to contextualize Joan or at least give more
show time to Joan's life than is already in the film,
Because even that, I feel like doesn't even do justice

(30:08):
like what was happening with Joan either, So I think
it just sort of ends up doing a disservice to
both of them. As you're saying, like, Christina's not benefiting
from this at all, I think no, no, And at
both schools there is like one woman teacher and or
Nunn who clearly sees that something bad is afoot but

(30:29):
we never find out. We never find out if they
ever talk about it or what happens it seems like
Christina definitely likes being away at school better than she
likes being at home, which matches with her story.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
But right although, when Joan sends her away, initially Christina
is crying and begging her mother not to send her
away to no Avail. And then this is a big
time jump. We cut to many years later. Christina is
now a teenager played by Diana Scarwood. She's still at

(31:06):
boarding school studying acting. Then we see a scene where
she and her mother go out for lunch. Their relationship
is still very contentious. Where Christopher is we have no idea.
He disappears.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Christopher got He's.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
Gone, and then Joan reveals that she's having financial difficulties.
She has lost her contract at Warner Brothers, so Christina
will need to do a work scholarship program to be
able to stay in school. But some time later, her
mother is humiliated and pulls Christina out of school after

(31:45):
she is caught making out with a boy, but she
tells everyone that Christina was expelled, followed by Joan being
similarly humiliated when a reporter comes from Redbook to do
a cover story on Joan and she's Barbara hard to
improve this is barbar Barbara Barba.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
That's Barbara Please.

Speaker 4 (32:06):
Yeah, okay, okay, one of the one of the five
lines from this movie. Yes, exactly, Barbara Please, who is
played by Marlon Brando's sister, which is I thought was
kind of a fun facter egg.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
Yeah, because I saw.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
Joscelyn brand out, I was like, surely not of the
Marlon Brandos. But it is.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Interesting. Joan is trying to impress this reporter, but she
absolutely blows it and then lashes out at Christina. Things
become incredibly violent, with Joan strangling and nearly killing Christina.
We then cut to Christina at a con convent I

(32:48):
wrote covenant, but that is not a convent where she
has been sent to finish out her schooling, where she
will have no privileges or contact with the outside world.
We skip over more years and cut to Christina has
finished school and returned home.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
She has a new wig, new wig.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
Most importantly, yes, I don't even know how I'd like,
we're not even yeah, Like, I have no idea how
old she's supposed to be at this point.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
I think by the.

Speaker 4 (33:21):
Time she's in the soap opera, in reality, she was
twenty eight. Yeah, and Joan was like sixty three, but
Faye down Away looks the same the whole movie. So
it's it's just unclear. It's really tough.

Speaker 5 (33:33):
Yeah, I mean, this is one of the things that
I think is really interesting about this film is like
I think when we're talking about biopics kind of of
this nature now, what we're so used to seeing is
these references that are kind of winks to the audience
to be like, remember this and this film. It's not
even trying to give you those little touchstone moments to

(33:56):
be like, oh, the film that she is desperately trying
to get is this film, Like they'll just not mention
what it is. I think Mildred Piers is one of
the only movies they actually name, I believe so in
the film, and it's like you never see It's like
you don't see her like hanging out with Barbara Stanwick
or like any of her friends, or like directors or anything.

(34:17):
And these kinds of like world building things that we're
so used to seeing in modern biopics just like doesn't
exist here in a way that makes this story feel
so like isolated and prison like totally and very bizarre,
Like it's just kind of it's hard to keep track
of is I think one thing that it happens.

Speaker 4 (34:35):
Yeah, it like just happens out of time, and yeah,
like it's you never to hold anyone, is what you're
supposed to be? I don't know, I mean it will.
Like part of the reason that this movie is, as
you illustrate in your video, like the definition of camp,
is because it doesn't seem like this is necessarily intentional,

(34:58):
like they really thought they were do something with this movie,
but it is. I mean it like it's a weird
disservice to everyone too, because it's like showing that Joan
had friends doesn't only like give you a better idea
of who Joan Crawford was, which I'm imagining young audiences
in the early eighties may have needed, but it also,
like I don't think does a very good job of

(35:18):
like explaining how someone might be getting away with such
abuse the entire time. It's not like she was a
like unhinged person locked up in her house. Like part
of the reason that abusive parents can thrive is because
they are perceived as a good person by the people
around them and all this I don't know, it's very complicated,

(35:41):
but just every choice in this movie is so weird.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
The scene where she nearly strangles Christina in front of
a reporter seemingly has no consequences, Like and I don't
know if that happened in real life, but like you
would think that Barbara would have written about that or

(36:05):
I don't. I don't know, but I don't know about it.
I don't think that happened.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (36:12):
Well, it's like that also like really makes it seem that,
like Hollywood columnists have such fealty. I'm like, no, that's
a that's a story. You would definitely print that totally.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, yeah, okay. So Christina has returned home from her schooling.
She meets her mother's new husband, Alfred, who is a
big wig at Pepsi.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
Oh yeah, the late stage Pepsi.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
Every letterbox trophy of this movie is like, Wow, didn't
know Pepsi was gonna feature so heavily.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
That's so I forgot about that. And Christina has gotten
into acting. She's financially struggling and her mother refuses to
lend her any money, but Joan is frivolously spending money
on other things like a New York City apartment, and

(37:03):
then off screen, Alfred dies and leaves Joan with a
bunch of debt. PEPSI tries to fire her from the
board of directors, but she refuses to leave. She threatens
them this is the.

Speaker 4 (37:19):
Don't Fuck with Me Fellas, which I'm also pretty sure
is not how that went down.

Speaker 5 (37:24):
But yeah, I would say like ninety percent of this
movie is not as Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
But like another great example of like, she always has
to be the loudest, most unhinged person in the world,
at every second of every day, right for however long
this movie goes on unclear Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, twenty years question mark. More, basically, she bullies them
into letting her stay on the board. Meanwhile, it seems
like Joan and Christina are maybe getting along a little better.
Christina lands apart in a soap opera, but then has
to take time off after being hospitalized for an ovarian tumor,

(38:07):
and while Christina is in the hospital, Joan swoops in
and steals Christina's role on the soap opera, even though
her character is twenty eight years old and Joan is
this in her sixties or fifties.

Speaker 5 (38:23):
This did happen, Yeah, this did happen?

Speaker 4 (38:25):
That yeah is wild yeah, if that happens, you of
course have to include it in Mommy Dearest. I wish
she saw more of the fallout. I guess that Christina
in the hospital reaction shot is pretty pretty good. Yeah,
turn it off. That is that's nuts. That was I

(38:48):
had never heard about that before.

Speaker 5 (38:50):
Yeah, it's it's wild that she really thought she could
get away with it.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
But yeah, and that she was like, no, I just
didn't want Christina to lose the part.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
No, you wanted that.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
I'm not buying it, Joan, I'm not buying it.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
But yeah, like you said, Jamie, there's not really aftermath
of that, because the next scene is Joan receiving I
guess like a Lifetime Achievement type award, and Christina accepts
it on her mother's behalf because Joan is ill. And
at the end of Christina's speech, she says, I love you,

(39:26):
mummy dearest, and she's crying, and Joan watching it home,
is crying and it seems like a very tender moment.
I don't really know what the takeaway is meant to
be there. Then we cut to Joan has passed away all.

Speaker 5 (39:43):
Of a sudden, just like cut to corpse Deead The
jump cuts in this film are.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Brutal, suge whiplash. It's wild.

Speaker 5 (39:53):
It's like literally straight from like her taking her firing
on the chin to being like the most insane person
you've ever seen.

Speaker 3 (40:02):
There's like no no rhyme or reason.

Speaker 4 (40:05):
I'm like, I have to imagine a lot of stuff
that was shot isn't included, but like there's just no
gentleness to any transition.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
But she's dead and Christopher's back. Welcome back, Christopher to.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Christopher's back, played by I didn't look up this actor's name,
but I was like, I recognize him from something? What
do I recognize him from? And he plays the foster
dad of John Connor and Terminator too.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
Whoa wow?

Speaker 5 (40:32):
And that's the only other that's such a poll that
you remember that.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
I mean I've seen that movie one hundred times.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
I love that Xander Berkeley, good name.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Ye. Anyway, that's Christopher. He and Christina are at the
wake or funeral or something, but they're but Christina is
like next to the casket and she's crying and she's saying,
the pain is final over and then Carol Anne comes.

Speaker 3 (41:03):
In saying Carol Ann suddenly a hundred.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yes, She's like your mother always loved you. And Christina
is like, I need so much to believe that.

Speaker 5 (41:15):
Joan is snatched in her coffin.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Oh yeah, never looks better. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Then a lawyer reads Joan's will to Christina and Christopher,
saying that Joan left them nothing. The quote is from Joan.
It is my intention to make no provisions herein for
my son Christopher and my daughter Christina, for reasons which
are well known to them. It is a gut punch,

(41:47):
and Christopher remarks, as usual, she has the last word,
and Christina is like, oh does she? Because I'm about
to write a book about what a horrible her she was.
The end, the end. So let's take another quick break
and we'll come right back to discuss. And we're back,

(42:19):
all right. Where where to begin? Is he that they
were jumping out to you to? I mean, man, it
would really be anywhere.

Speaker 5 (42:27):
I mean, I guess what I would say about it.
Just like, having having made that video about it and
just observed the response to it, I do think this
is such a complicated, like deceptively complicated film to talk about,
because there's so many ways that people react to it
and all of them I think are valid in a
way sure, Like my experience through it my primary the

(42:51):
way that I react to it is through the camp lens,
where I see it as very over the top. It
does make me laugh, I can't help it. But there
are other people who see it as like legitimately terrifying abuse.
There are other people who can't even stand the mention
of this film because they feel it besmirches Joan Crawford's memory.

(43:11):
There are people who believe word for word what Christina
claims happened to her, and it just becomes this really
strange rarshack test. I guess of like where people are
landing and thinking about like abuse and legacy and all
of these things coming together at once, And I think
like that is very difficult territory to tread in because

(43:32):
on the like, you want to give people grace, but
I think it devolves very quickly into like a morality competition.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
It's just like who are we believing.

Speaker 5 (43:42):
And why and all of these things that are just
so difficult that we can never really answer. So I
guess like I would just acknowledge that off the bat,
which is like if anyone hears my take or like
our take and is just appalled by Like that's fine.
I think there's a lot of ways to react to.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
This, right, Absolutely, It's into such tricky territory when it
comes to who do we believe and what is to
be believed because it's this is based on a book
which is based on a real life account of someone
experiencing abuse, which you should believe if someone says I

(44:19):
was abused, but especially with a film adaptation, where some
things are likely embellished, some things are likely sensationalized because
that's what like Hollywood studio movies tend to do. It's
just it gets into such murky territory, very tricky. Yeah,
I totally agree that.

Speaker 4 (44:40):
It's like there's no it's like not a productive discussion to.

Speaker 3 (44:44):
Like break down like well what do we believe in?
What do we because we'll just never know, yah know
for sure.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
But what is interesting is like tracking their reaction and
like and I guess like where this movie's priorities ultimately
like lie and how that sort of seems to have
changed over time.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, I was.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
Thinking about because it I don't know, it's it was interesting,
Like I was just like digging around on Reddit at
two am last night because.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
People still talk about this movie a lot. Yeah, and
just seeing like you're saying.

Speaker 4 (45:16):
Is he such a wide Like it's because it's a
movie about first being abused as a child, second about
having a mother, like of course, and that you can't
notot have a personal reaction to it. But you know,
here like reading accounts of kids that were like, I
really connected with this movie because my you know, it's

(45:37):
super over the top, but I experienced something similar and whatever.
It's not perfect, but I didn't see it anywhere else.
And then there's the you know, huge camp following and
the queer embrace of this movie. And I still really
want to go to a screening of it, Like you
got a common New York City head of Lettuce does

(45:58):
talk back screenings or she'll she'll talk during the screening
and like point things out with laser pointer.

Speaker 5 (46:03):
It's really funny. I highly recommend if you're ever around
for that.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
I would love to, Like, I don't I don't know
if I've ever seen an LA proper screening of it.
Like it's just yeah, like every reading of this is valid.
I was also reminded of there's a recent video essay
from Sarah z about sort of trauma memoirs and like
their sort of history, and this is an example of that.

(46:27):
And I don't mean to sound dismissive in saying that,
but just in how those works are marketed and monetized,
like follows a very specific pattern, and that like I
think part of the reason it's like almost impossible to
talk about is because of the time it was written
and released too, where like the way that abuse was

(46:50):
discussed and received in the public, specifically like maternal abuse,
like it was just a completely different landscape, and I
feel like there was just like a lower cultural understanding
or tolerance for understanding what maternal abuse could look like
it sounds it. I didn't go super deep on it,

(47:10):
but like this book was both very successful and widely
dismissed as exploited it, like exploiting her mother's memory, as
being like trashy, as being even like as far as
as far as like saying that she's ungrateful, like all
of these really blamey narratives that like don't don't serve anything,

(47:33):
And I think would be really unusual to see in
a similar book published now.

Speaker 5 (47:39):
Yeah, I mean if you think about it too, like
Joan Crawford. Speaking of the timing, Joan Crawford died in
nineteen seventy seven, so she died this is a very
freshly made film, like after her death, when there would
presumably still be a lot of affection for her. If
we think about like when Joan Crawford was peaking, this
was in the nineteen forties, let's say, like early nineteen forties.

(48:03):
So imagine like somebody who is really big in the
nineties died and the next year we find out like
they were actually very different than we presumed, Like of
course you would see some I think defensiveness. I think
is part of the the reception to this film as well,
trying to understand and reconcile how your kind of parasocial

(48:26):
relationship with this movie star is challenged by like what
we're discovering. And I think you do have to take
that kind of sentiment into account when I certainly feel
that myself, like I have to check myself and be
like how much of how much of my beliefs or
like dismissals of Christina, you know, have to do with

(48:48):
the fact that Joan Crawford is an important actress to me,
you know what I mean? Like, I think that's you
have to take that into account when you're thinking about
this kind of stuff totally.

Speaker 4 (48:57):
I mean, it's I'm you know, it's extremely complicated. I'm
generally inclined to I mean, Christina Crawford appears to have
been pretty.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Consistent on what she's said.

Speaker 4 (49:09):
Not everyone likes the way she said it or the
amount of time she said it, but it seems like
Christina and Christopher have been pretty consistent.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
And I guess that's the last I'll say about it,
but it does.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
I mean, like the fact that this book was written
so soon after her mother's death, Like it's like a
really raw book. I can't imagine having to promote this
book while you're still like kind of processing the fact
that she's got like whatever. I don't know how many

(49:43):
people have had an experience like that. But I think
also about like the power dynamic of it right where
it's like she is, Christina Crawford is essentially an unknown,
like she was on a couple of soaps. Like you're saying,
is like really challenging this carefully this image that was
carefully constructed over the course of like fifty years. And
then yeah, and like how she's sort of starting at

(50:05):
a it's a difficult hill to climb to, you know,
even if she's being one hundred percent honest, because I
don't know, like your average reader, you're not going to
be inclined to sympathize with her because you don't know
who she is. Yeah, which is like not a pleasant thing.
But that's just like sort of how people work. Like

(50:27):
you don't want to believe the worst in this person
that you grew up with.

Speaker 5 (50:30):
But I think it's also really easy on the other
side of that, It's it's really easy to like quickly
demonize a bad mother. Yes, like culture kind of Gidaly
wants to blame every woman. It's like, are you doing
formula or like breastfed? Like that'll get you demonized, you know,
Like then that's the least of it. It's like, so

(50:52):
to find out that this perfect woman was apparently some
hysterical monster, it's like just ripe for kind of dismissing
or just completely reshaping her as a cultural figure and
her cultural legacy as well.

Speaker 4 (51:08):
Right in a way that like you're saying, like does
a disservice to definitely Christina, but also Joan and what
the movie seems like it wants to do but ultimately
doesn't because in the chunk of the original book that
I read, because this movie takes place in this like

(51:29):
weird contextless void kind of of like what Joan Crawford's
life was actually like prior to the movie starting. Christina
is like acknowledging pretty consistently in the book and like
including those I think like necessary benchmarks of like this
is where she was at in her career, this is
the way that she felt about it, and also that

(51:52):
and I don't remember if it's like maybe sort of
mentioned offhand once or twice in the movie, but that
like Joan Crawford was the product of a very broken
home as well, and like grew up in extreme poverty
and had all of these traumatic experiences growing up. So
there's like a psycholopopous narrative that Christina doesn't seem to

(52:13):
be shying away from in her book, but the movie
like doesn't even really attempt to get into because it's
more fun if Joan is just evil, Right.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
There's one or two lines where Joan will say, like
I had to do a work scholarship program too, but
we we don't know the.

Speaker 3 (52:29):
Exciting what do you mean by like her backstory.

Speaker 5 (52:31):
Well, it just it sounds like that thing where like.

Speaker 4 (52:34):
Your grandpa is like I walked three miles to school
and you like just don't really it's like okay, grandpa,
you know, And it's not like that's not the reality
of what she was going through, you know.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
And so it's sort of.

Speaker 5 (52:46):
Exactly like you said, it's not it's not a serious
exploration of the way that trauma cycles. And ultimately, like
the thesis of this film is, isn't she a crazy bitch?

Speaker 3 (52:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (52:58):
And that's that's like sad to me because it doesn't
say anything really about like what abuse is or what
it means or how it comes about. It doesn't do
Christina any favors because it's not from her perspective. But
then it also just completely tears down Joan. Not to
say that there's a way to excuse abuse, but to
understand how it arises is I think valuable and maybe

(53:22):
like at least giving a little sympathy to this person.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
I feel like two of the truths, and there are
I'm sure more you can hold for this movie, but
at least two of them are that there's an abusive
parent situation happening, and movies and society love to demonize

(53:48):
women and make them seem nuts. Because I feel like
this movie is in conversation with movies like Sunset Boulevard
and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane in the sense that
it's like, look at these washed up aging actors that
have gone hysterical, and you know, some of the like

(54:09):
exploitation movies of this nature do a better job of contextualizing, well,
why would an aging woman, especially in an industry like
Hollywood be so concerned about her appearance or her legacy.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Or how she's perceived as a mother too.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
For sure, but with this movie, it mostly just seems
hell bent on like look, how fucking nuts this woman
is a mess?

Speaker 4 (54:44):
I mean, yeah, there are ways that we were talking
about this from like moment one of the movie where
like the ice however drug craff are taking the ice
bucket challenge, but like her complicated morning routine, like there's.

Speaker 3 (54:59):
It's not again.

Speaker 4 (55:00):
Nothing in this movie is subtle, but like the ways
that it's telegraphed that she is unwell is so all
over the place, because it can be as extreme as
overt physical extreme abuse, and this is sort of presented
on the same plane as like being very conscious of
what she looks like, which we understand is because that

(55:20):
is like what her living hinges on the way they.

Speaker 5 (55:24):
When she's jogging, Oh yes, all the way Fae Done
Away jogs makes me laugh so that she's like punching
the air. Her form is wild hilarious, yes, but it's
like it's like she kind of yes, sweating through sweats
is in la. That's crazy the way she kind of
snaps and like starts off in a sprint like she's like,

(55:47):
I'm the biggest star he's ever headgotten dammit that she
just starts like sprinting as what is she repeating to herself?

Speaker 2 (55:55):
She's like, I don't know if it's something like I'm
a winner, I'm a winner. I will Yeah, I forget
what it is, but.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
I wrote it down.

Speaker 4 (56:01):
Yeah, it's she's she's doing she's doing a very like
cursed affirmation, right, And it's.

Speaker 5 (56:09):
Just I have such trouble imagining even a person as
extreme in personality and Joan as Joan Crawford doing something
like that right in the way that it does become
it leads into that camp territory of being you know,
quote unquote Joan you know, yeah, yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 (56:28):
Well, I it's it's really interesting reading. There's another if
there's a book about this that came out a couple
of years ago called We Love Mommy Dearist by a
Ashley Hoff, which I did some rapid libby scanning in
preparation for this. But just like pulling from how and

(56:50):
you talk about this in your video as well as
you of like how you know, John Waters said that
this was the first drag performance of a woman by
a woman, and that this is you know, I think
that it weirdly feels like and again we can't know
if it's intentional or not, but the fact that she
looks physically the same the whole movie that covers twenty

(57:14):
years where it's like this isn't this is like, that's
a clear indication that that is like not supposed to
be actual Joan Crawford. It's like the idea, like the
salacious idea of these you know, secretly evil Joan Crawford.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Yeah, yeah, and you touch on this in your video
as well, but that Faye Dunaway wanted to be involved
and play Joan Crawford because she wanted to humanize her
partly because she felt so much kinship with Joan Crawford.

(57:50):
And you know, after all these drafts of the script
and it finally went into production and the filmmakers thought
they were making this serious film about child abuse.

Speaker 4 (58:02):
But it becomes more about Joan than Christina very quickly,
it seems, for sure, because that's what sells. Like, no
one knows who Christina is, so she's always going to
be at a disadvantage.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
And I feel like, I mean, also speaking to sorry
to just regurgitate your video back at you. But I
learned so much. It seems like critics of both the
film and the book were like, well, there's kind of
no attempt to contextualize why Joan Crawford was behaving the

(58:38):
way she was. There's no attempt to sort of understand
what was going on, which.

Speaker 4 (58:43):
I kind of disagree with. Based on even the short
section of the book I read, I thought that Christina
was like, I don't know, I mean, especially if we're
grading on a curve for mother very recently died. I
thought that she was going out of her way to
contextualize the story of Joan's life as Joan told it

(59:04):
to her, Like I don't know, I think I get
kind of like antsy around criticisms like that too, where
it's like she that it's the responsibility of one person
to completely give full context for someone they are alleging
was extremely abusive to them. But even with that in mind,
I think that she does do Like I wonder what
would have constituted enough, like if not complete forgiveness or something.

Speaker 3 (59:31):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (59:32):
Yeah, it's so tough because I agree with you. It's like,
why is it my responsibility to give context to my
abuser humanize my abuseif Like, I think it goes back
to kind of what I was talking about before, where
we're dealing with a very personal relationship that is being
told in the context of like a societally parasocial relationship. Yeah,

(59:53):
so it's sort of like you're coming to us with
this information about someone that we feel like we know,
and so what do we need as an audience to
make sense of this? And so like, no, it isn't
her responsibility, but I also think it probably would have
been a better told story if that world building did
exist to kind of understand who either of these people are,

(01:00:17):
because we don't really like, yeah, as we kind of
keep saying is like, I don't really know anything about
Christina either, tell me one thing other than that she
wanted to act and we don't know why other than
like that her mother did it. Maybe that's all she knew.
Maybe she was never interested in anything else. Like there's
a lot of conjecture.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
I mean, she had a pretty interesting life. Yeah, it's
like it's it doesn't really do very much to I mean, well,
whatever she goes on to have like an interesting life
after this and like works as an entertainment lawyer. She
worked on the Clinton campaign in ninety two, Not that
they could have known that then, but whatever, when to
have on when to have a whole life. But I
mean all loved to Diana Scarwood. But I feel like this,

(01:00:57):
like I don't know, Christina doesn't seem to have a
lot of like personality or there's just not much for
you to like hold on to in a movie that's
like almost allegedly she's supposed to be the co lead of,
but she's not even credited as the co lead. It
seems like Greg is second built, which is wild.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Yeah, which is so weird.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:20):
I it's impossible to unpack in the space of a
single back to cast episode, but I it does like
the way that abuse and like specifically maternal abuse is
like talked about and shown to us like over time
is so interesting and does still fall into like I
think your sympathies are always going to You're going to

(01:01:41):
be encouraged to sympathize with whoever was the more well
known or powerful person culturally in that relationship. And having
read Jeanett mccurty's memoir, which is wonderful and also a
very like personal story of maternal abuse. First of all,
it's coming out over forty years after Mommy Dearest and

(01:02:05):
is extremely and like rightfully well received, and I think
it's being adapted into a movie or TV show, And
I think that you know, Jeanette McCurdy is the narrator
and the well known person, which I think for readers
it's easier to say I believe her based on how
we're like trained to believe people and Christina, so in

(01:02:28):
that way, it's like it's not surprising to know that
like Christina was having a hard time from the jump,
regardless of the veracity of the allegations because she's not
the known person, and like Joan I don't know. It's
interesting seeing how she talks about it now too. She's
also still alive, she's in her eighties. In like twenty nineteen,

(01:02:50):
she was trying to stage a musical of Mommy Dearest.
Question mark, Oh, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
How I feel about that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
No, I would up the camp factor even more, would
imagine for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:03:02):
Yeah, it seems like she came around to accepting that
it was camp. But someone asked her if she thought,
like what she thought Joan would think about Mommy Dari's,
just like the phenomenon in general, and I just thought
her answer was very interesting. She basically says that she
thinks that like whatever, Joan was like shrewd and understood

(01:03:24):
how to play into cultural narratives, and like she didn't.
She thinks that Joan would be showing up at Mommy
Dari's screenings and being like, huh I get it totally, yeah,
and then like freaking out about it behind the scenes.

Speaker 5 (01:03:38):
I mean that would have been my personal hypothesis as well,
because yeah, she was incredibly smart, and that's what I
think is So, I don't know, interesting about this too,
and the way it kind of frames Joan. I think
you're right. Like, I think it's really interesting too what
you're saying about how we're kind of more primed to
be sympathetic toward the person we know more because I

(01:04:01):
think like this narrative of abuse is also competing against
a very well known narrative abuse of abuse, which is
like the abuse of the studio system specifically. So it's
like we know just kind of anecdotally from like every
actress that went through that was being you know, drugged
or like not given food or you know, sexually assaulted,

(01:04:24):
like all of these things that they would have experienced
on a day to day basis. And so it's like
we have already done a lot of work to gin
up a lot of sympathy and like understanding of that
kind of abuse, that kind of systemic abuse that Joan
would have been suffering, and so now to have like
a competing narrative that shows her like in a kind

(01:04:45):
of monstrance light. But also I think as part of
that conversation about the way that abuse cycles is really
interesting to me and how those kind of compete with
each other, especially from someone like Joan, who you know,
a lot of these women who were famous during that
time were not they didn't come from good places, like

(01:05:06):
they were working up from extreme poverty in many cases,
and in the cases of someone like Joan, like they
weren't parented. So they were kind of the first generation
of these like ultra famous career women who had no
experience of what that kind of fame would look like,
put on a you know, pedestal that like they were

(01:05:26):
terrified to fall off of. So I think like the
whole context is like you're just not being set up
to succeed at all with your personal life, and then
you have society breathing down your neck to have children
when like by rights, many of them like probably didn't
actually want to, Like we know that story. That story
is very familiar, and so it's hard to kind of
like further complicate that as you're saying.

Speaker 4 (01:05:48):
Yeah, and it's like so much just left on the
table when you cause, I mean, even you describing those
two competing narratives of abuse, it's like in a very
different movie.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
It's like, oh, it's like they're so close to.

Speaker 4 (01:06:01):
Being able to connect how whatever in conversation, those cycles
of abuse are where I again this is from mommy, dearist,
and I did not do any sort of further background
on this, but I guess per Joan telling Christina in
Mommy dearis that there's like another bizarre layer too, like
why Joan did not have children in earlier marriages. Her

(01:06:28):
first husband was Douglas Fairbanks junior, as you mentioned Izzy,
whose mother was Mary Pickford, and there was a narrative
that Joan shared that she did get pregnant but was
told to have abortions because Mary Pickford didn't want to
be perceived as a grandmother. So it's another like agist
Hollywood narrative that like the cycle of abuse is like

(01:06:49):
trickling down, so that she wanted children earlier but wasn't
allowed to have them because it would make a different
I mean, an older actress experienced the savings that Joan
eventually experiences of like appearing old.

Speaker 5 (01:07:03):
Absolutely, I mean the politics of motherhood for that generation
of women is extremely complex and like scary to think
about because the studio was like in many cases, for example,
Judy Garland was mandated to have an abortion by the studio.
Many of them experienced abortions at young ages that rendered
them barren basically or unable to have children. Two of

(01:07:26):
Joan Crawford's best friends were like that Barbara Sama couldn't
have children because of an abortion, Marta Lloyd couldn't have
children because of an abortion. These are all, of course
back alley performances of abortion. And then the studio is like,
you can't have children at this age or with this person,
so you have to have these procedures, or once you have,

(01:07:49):
when you'll look too old, so that changes the cut
things we can give you. Like it's all so timed
out and bizarre and you have no choice at all,
and it's ter fine to think about. Yeah, and then
the flip side of that, or just a different branch
of that misogyny is because Joan cannot have children of

(01:08:11):
her own and chooses to adopt, but as we touched
on a little bit, already can't because of these incredibly
misogynistic standards for oh, you're a woman with a job.
Oh you're not married and there's no father, so you
can't have a nuclear family unit like all these like.

Speaker 3 (01:08:32):
Legally either like, yeah, you cannot win.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Yeah, I had no idea because again the movie does
not make it clear that there was like a mafia
component to her adopting these children.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
Yeah, I mean the American adoption system and most adoption
systems are like disturbingly broken, which yes, it's like almost
an entirely different another one of the many things that
this movie doesn't have much interest in touching, but I mean.

Speaker 4 (01:08:59):
Specific like the Hollywood it it feels one of I guess, well,
I don't know, let me know what you think.

Speaker 3 (01:09:06):
Getting rid of the studio abuse component is one of
the few things that does feel kind of intentionally left out,
because if you include it, then Joan is less scary.

Speaker 5 (01:09:17):
And I think also Hollywood at that time might have
been a little reluctant to tell on itself in that way.
It's like, we'll tell on her, right, But us is different.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
We absolve all responsibility. We never exploit people or abuse them.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
I mean that like that.

Speaker 4 (01:09:36):
I think you mentioned in your video that there was
an earlier version of the script that began with Joan
Crawford as a young actor being physically like assaulted.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
By Louis b. Mahor in his office, which was like
his whole thing, if you can call it that, and
that that is like foregone in favor of the Louis
by Maher scene we get is just like, oh, this
movie has no interest in they're not going to touch
any of it, Like it's not even implied, right, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:10:07):
And then it just like brings you back to like
that that same kind of circular argument, which is like
do we need it to tell Christina story? You know
what I mean, like like you just it's you just
get caught setting traps for yourself. I guess along the
way of like trying to make sense of this story
in a way that feels fair totally that isn't fair

(01:10:27):
to anybody.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
No, I know, like I don't know where to land
on this because I mean, and maybe the solution is
what was to just center the survivor of the abuse
far more than the abuser, because by centering the abuser,
it's doing that thing of like women are horrible see

(01:10:51):
and kind of not undermining the abuse. But I mean,
as this movie does like campify it in a way
that abuse shouldn't be campified, and that wasn't the intention
of the filmmakers. But you know, it was directed by
a man, it was written the many mini drafts were

(01:11:13):
either mostly or entirely written by men, and you just
can't really trust them to handle something like this subject matter.
It's not these ones well.

Speaker 5 (01:11:26):
And one thing that I do kind of regret about
this is like Frank Perry, I think has really great
subtle films, like you know, Diarrhya of a Mad Housewife
is incredible. Like one of his films that I recently
became obsessed with is called Last Summer, which is like
one of the most fucked up movies I've ever seen.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
It's a coming of age.

Speaker 5 (01:11:47):
Story about how this Yes, it's like it's kind of
I guess obscure because it's been unavailable for so long,
but they just restored it and so I'm hoping a
lot of theaters are gonna get access to it in
the coming months, so look out for that. It's called
Last Summer. But it's just a really fucked up, like
coming of age story about these teenagers who are kind
of like abusive toward each other, but in a way

(01:12:09):
that I think is really mature actually, And I'm just like,
I know he has that story in.

Speaker 2 (01:12:14):
Him, you know what I mean.

Speaker 5 (01:12:16):
I'm like, I've seen you tackle similar things really beautifully
and really subtly. It makes me wonder what this film
could have been like if his ex wife had also
been a collaborator on this one as she had in
his previous works, because maybe like a female sensitivity or
something like that could have aided in telling this story.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
It's hard to say, but yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:12:42):
It's like he's not a bad filmmaker, and that's what sucks.
It's very unclear who to point the fingerhet for this.
I think Fay also should take some of that responsibility, sure,
because I think, like she obviously is a great actress,
but I think in some ways, I don't know, I
think people are also really torn on this performance as well,
Like I don't think of camp as a derogatory term,

(01:13:05):
so to me, like the commitment of this is extraordinary,
but undeniably is not a humanistic portrayal, Like she is
not trying to make her anything other than the cartoon
in the screenplay, Right, So I'm sort of like, I
don't know that that was your choice, and I kind
of find it an entertaining choice, but it seems counterproductive

(01:13:26):
to her goals for the role.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too, because again, her
her intention was to humanize Joan Crawford, but all of
the most memorable moments of this movie are fade down
away playing Joan Crawford as the most unhinged person imaginable.

(01:13:50):
So I'm like, well, say then, which is, why why
do you do that?

Speaker 4 (01:13:53):
My operating theory that does take some of the heat
off of fade underway, because that's my agenda. But also, oh,
she does deserve some smoke for this is that they
did ten takes of everything, and on the last take,
Frank Perry said, go big, go big, go big. Let's
do a silly one. Yes, he said, just do a

(01:14:15):
silly one, go full joker mode on this, and then
he just used all of those takes. I don't know,
because it's like she won't. She hasn't really, at least
that I was seeing. She like, she's definitely She went
on that like press tour years later to sort of
illustrate that she felt that it had hurt her career
and that like the part had stuck to her in
a way that she felt was like not fair or

(01:14:37):
reflective of who she is or her abilities. But it
seems like most anecdotes I've found about her being asked
about this are met with a fair amount of hostility,
which is a common Fay done away reaction. Yeah, but
I am curious I'm like, I would. I know, she's
like also method, so, which is like a shorthand for

(01:14:58):
like annoying and so hard to work with.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:15:02):
I feel like she's the one female actor who gets
pinned with the negative connotation of method, you know, kind
of right because when men do it, people are like, wow,
he's so awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
Well that's the performance is bad, and then you know
it depends.

Speaker 5 (01:15:16):
Or it's like it's like, oh, Daniel d Lewis lived
as a penny to like prepare for Abraham Lincoln. You know,
it's like it's like all these crazy stuff that they're
trying to like make these actors seem like they're really extreme,
and often what they'll say, they'll use like examples of
them being assholes to say like this is method.

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
Isn't that wild?

Speaker 3 (01:15:39):
Yeah? As a positive Yeah, but.

Speaker 5 (01:15:41):
I feel like, you know, nobody's talking about Sally Sally
Field is method. Nobody says anything about it because she's
behaving like a person, because she's not abusing people around her.

Speaker 4 (01:15:52):
Yeah, there's upper limits to what she's not mailing.

Speaker 3 (01:15:56):
What was the Jared Letta thing like mailing dead rats
to people or whatever?

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
Oh god?

Speaker 3 (01:16:01):
Yeah, And I think especially when it like not a
well received performance. It just it's people catch a lot
of smoke.

Speaker 4 (01:16:07):
But it's I mean, I'm just I'm just objectively so
like what was going.

Speaker 3 (01:16:12):
Through her head because she had like very successfully played
real life people before with a lot of like sensitivity,
like she played Bonnie Parker.

Speaker 5 (01:16:21):
Do we think am I remembering this correctly? You might
have come across this in your research, but I feel
like I remember her saying she felt like she was
haunted by Joan or something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:16:31):
She said in a clip that I think was in
your video. She said that she felt like it took
her months to get Joan out of her body, and
like use the word possession, which is like great method
talk totally, But I just I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
I can see that.

Speaker 5 (01:16:47):
I mean, I feel like that sometimes when I'm writing
about a person where I'm just so focused on that
person's life or their filmography, where it just feels like
you're so in it, they can't they can't get out
of your head, right, And like I could see something
when you're pushing it to that extreme, when you have
to live that life and inhabit that body in such

(01:17:10):
like nightmarish scenes as that I can't imagine pushing that
out quickly that that would seem like it'd be really
hard to get rid of mentally totally.

Speaker 4 (01:17:18):
I mean, it's like in technically it is like the
job of her director to like guide this performance to something.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:29):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:17:29):
It's like hard to say, Like I was going to
be mean and say something like more coherent, but like
so many people love this performance.

Speaker 3 (01:17:37):
It's I don't know. Maybe it was just made too soon.
Maybe all this happened too soon. I don't I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:17:44):
I mean, oddly enough, I'm like, this is something that
would actually be a good mini series. I don't want
to put that idea in the world. I don't want
to see it, but I think the scale of the
story is big enough.

Speaker 4 (01:17:55):
Ryan Murphy just like his eyes just I know, like, well,
don't do it again, let's do it again.

Speaker 5 (01:18:00):
No, Oh my god, that's just like the most cursed
thing I've ever imagined in my life.

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
Wow, he.

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):
Needs to be stopped.

Speaker 4 (01:18:11):
It would be really I mean, it would be interesting
to see how like an adaptation of this would work,
or how it would reflect the way that we've talked
about abuses like change or I don't know. I feel
like it would be hard to get this version of
the movie again. But we're like regressing as a society
pretty quickly, so maybe we would get this.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
I don't know, it's true. I think Ai could write.

Speaker 4 (01:18:32):
This for sure, but AI could not do what Fayton doesn't. Absolutely,
You're right, that's it's it's a hollow argument for humans,
but it's true.

Speaker 3 (01:18:44):
Well what is what is for sure?

Speaker 4 (01:18:46):
And we've like referenced this earlier in the episode, is
that you know whether this movie intended to be a
more like thoughtful portrayal of the people in themes involved.
Paramount Studios did not care. They going to change courses
to whatever was going to get people in seats, and
this was I mean, you talked about this in your video.

(01:19:07):
It's also expanded on kind of like moment by moment
in with Love Mommy Dearest.

Speaker 3 (01:19:13):
Of how like there's a series of.

Speaker 4 (01:19:16):
Test screenings for this movie that, like an anonymous executive
said that as they were screening it more the first
time they screened it, people started laughing about three quarters
of the way through. The second time they screened it
was halfway this third time it was like a quarter
of the way, and they realized very quickly that they

(01:19:37):
should be marketing it as a comedy.

Speaker 3 (01:19:41):
So it's which is wild, really brutal for all parties.

Speaker 4 (01:19:48):
But yeah, mel Brooks went to an early screening of this,
which I guess makes sense because Anne Bancroft almost starred
in it. But there's just like all of these And
I was talking about him earlier, Harvey, Who was I
talking about Bruce Bruce Belane, Yeah, Bruce Bruce Flanche was
at an early screening of that. Like everyone saw an

(01:20:09):
early cut of this and was like, this is funny. Unfortunately,
and so the studio pivoted basically right away. It was
allegedly given the green light by Barry Diller to start
marketing this. Like the competing taglines, it's marketed as a
serious biopic that centers Faye Dunaway's performance and then quickly
changes to no more wire hangers. Ever, they call her

(01:20:32):
the biggest mother of them all. They've got the Ajax
spawn like Paramount was very, very very down to trivialize
all of the themes that the filmmakers, and I guess
to Frank period or no, I think Frank Joblondz's credit Yeah,
he was really upset about this and tried to I
was kind of unclear on how it shook out, but

(01:20:55):
like tried to sue the studio for pivoting on the
marketing so quickly. But another thing I was surprised about
is that this movie was financially successful. It made twenty
five million on a ten million dollar budget, so regardless
of the intention, it was marketed as a sort of
how we think about it now.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Right, Yeah, that is. It is fascinating to see a
movie that almost instantly becomes a camp classic, because I
feel like it usually takes a little while, but it's
this and again cats.

Speaker 5 (01:21:30):
Yeah, yeah, I do think it helps. I think just
the presence of Joan Crawford as a cultural figure, you
could imagine a lot of she just would have been
in like a cultural vocabulary that maybe like smooths the
route toward camp classic because everybody kind of has these
touch points with her and their memory, you know, or

(01:21:51):
which is interesting. I do think it's it's interesting. I
always think about this movie when I think about films
like Wuthering Heights or something where it's like there's sort
of a narrative going around on the internet. I guess
about a film that people then enter the film with.
Does that make it like you hear about what people
are saying about it first, and then you go see

(01:22:13):
it and your interpretation is kind of informed by that
general consensus, you know, So I could I could imagine
or what's like another example of that, or the one
that Harry Styles was in kind of recently that everyone
was like, he's the worst actor ever.

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):
Oh don't worry Darling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 5 (01:22:30):
It's these kinds of things where you're kind of responding
to the response. And I wonder if Mommy DearS was
kind of like that, if people just kind of heard
it as you know, a can't be funny movie, and
then you go in expecting to laugh. You're going to
see a different movie than you would have if you
weren't told that.

Speaker 3 (01:22:49):
Yeah, for sure. Nothing illustrated that for me.

Speaker 4 (01:22:55):
Like last year, I don't know what anniversary was, but
AMC released Rocky Horror Picture Show into a theater for
like one night at AMC's, but with none of the
Rocky Horror frills. So I just saw and and my
fiancee had never seen it, so we went together and
I was expecting the rocky horror experience and if you're

(01:23:16):
not watching it with the experience.

Speaker 3 (01:23:17):
He was like, what He's like, that was all right?
I don't know. I was like, yeah, it's really not
as fun without all the other stuff. It's weird.

Speaker 4 (01:23:25):
Yeah, I And that's I just like, and I still
want to go to a Mommy Jaris screening.

Speaker 3 (01:23:30):
I mean, the one of the one of the.

Speaker 4 (01:23:34):
Rituals that you cited in addition to this, like I
mean Joan Crawford's connection to drag performers, but also like
Fade Unaway's Joan Crawford's connection to drag performers, but the
like dragging effigies of Christina in the street was something
that was we were like, well, if we need a

(01:23:56):
further proof this movie missed the mark.

Speaker 5 (01:23:58):
Yeah, the thing I could see if that movie came
out today and someone did that, I could see myself
at that performance laughing. It's so hard, you know, And
I'm just like, am I a horrible person?

Speaker 3 (01:24:09):
Maybe? No, though, I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:24:12):
Maybe it's that like we I mean, we don't know,
but it would appear on the surface that Christina Crawford
like turned out okay, Like she went on like again
we don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:24:25):
Well, she's like an ultra Christian, like isolated on a farm,
so yeah, there is also well.

Speaker 4 (01:24:31):
Much of much of her whole guild now involves living
in Florida.

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
I see, you see, But yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:24:39):
It's impossible to because we were talking about Carrie Fisher
recently about how like some of her writing about mental
health was like not necessarily well received by everyone who's
like suffering from the same mental health diagnoses that she was,
and especially when she was like fictionalizing that work, which
is like another thing that you discussed in a recent
video of yours and her screenwriting career. But that doesn't

(01:25:03):
I don't know. I mean, like that doesn't mean that
whatever people can receive work, however, feels right to them.
And also if Christina Crawfor is upset about that, that
is also completely valid and couldn't make more sense totally.

Speaker 5 (01:25:16):
I mean the way the reason I think it's funny
is because, like, I take it so seriously that to
see it portrayed in this way is almost like, oh,
I recognize this as minimalizing something very serious, and that's
so off base to me that I cannot help but laugh.

Speaker 4 (01:25:34):
You know right, Like it's like this is like if
a if like horrific triald abuse.

Speaker 3 (01:25:40):
Had been like explained to like an alien. I don't know.
There are parts that are genuinely funny and we have
to live with that. Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
It's bizarre, but true.

Speaker 5 (01:25:52):
I do think one thing that does interest me about
Fay Dunaway's performance is like, I think that Joan maybe
got some caught some strays for was that. I think
people think Joan Crawford acts like that in her films now.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
But she doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
I would She's a much subtler actor than that.

Speaker 5 (01:26:09):
So I would say, if this movie hasn't completely thrown
you off of the idea of watching or engaging with
jen Crawford's work, you will find a better actress than
you might assume based on this performance.

Speaker 2 (01:26:23):
Yeah, go back and watch Mildred Peers for example.

Speaker 4 (01:26:27):
Or or I think that Baby Jane, I mean I
think that she's showing a lot of hers straightened.

Speaker 3 (01:26:33):
Baby Jane, she's a lot bigger.

Speaker 5 (01:26:34):
Yeah, I mean she's letting Betty Davis steal the show.
I think, Yeah, And I think that's that's a good performer.

Speaker 3 (01:26:42):
Yeah. Yeah, Is there anything else that you'll wanted to touch.

Speaker 2 (01:26:46):
On not especially No, I think I'm good. Yeah, we covered.

Speaker 3 (01:26:51):
It, We did it. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:26:53):
My last thing was this was a quote from Christina
Crawford I found in with Love My Mommy Dearist that
sort of touches on what you were just saying. Is
he about like, ultimately, how much did this movie affect
how we think of and talk about Joan Crawford as

(01:27:14):
a cultural figure and how much does that matter?

Speaker 3 (01:27:19):
And like people's mileage are going to vary there.

Speaker 4 (01:27:22):
I think Christina's perspective on it is interesting, But also
I agree with you that, like, undeniably this is like affect.
I think that you know, if you're not like well
versed in Joan Crawford's work, and you're like, there are
probably people who picture Faye on Away before they picture her.

Speaker 3 (01:27:40):
But she so.

Speaker 4 (01:27:41):
Christina Crawford was asked about this specifically, which again it's
like if you're being asked this about your abuser, it's
a very frustrating question.

Speaker 3 (01:27:48):
Oh sure, yeah, but she takes it in stride.

Speaker 4 (01:27:51):
When asked about how Mommy Dearist and having published it
affected Jones's legacy or if it did, and she said
that's not true. True, her public image is preserved on film.
Nothing will ever change that. The work she did as
a professional, the image she created on screen, will live forever.
Mommy Dearest is not about that, and doesn't in any
way touch that. In fact, I deal very briefly with

(01:28:12):
her career, and in each and every case I think generously,
But it is not about Joan Crawford's career as a
public person. As far as her behavior as my mother
and my life with her, that belongs to me. That
is my right and it is not my responsibility, nor
was it possible for me to change how she behaved
during the time she was alive. So not only do
I have an absolutely clear conscience about the information in
the book, but I believe I have the right to

(01:28:33):
my own life, and that's all. I took the right
to my own life, which I think is completely fair.
But and I feel like we've sort of circled around this.
That's the book.

Speaker 3 (01:28:44):
The movie is able.

Speaker 4 (01:28:46):
To do things that the book kind of can't, and
it chooses not to for all these different reasons.

Speaker 5 (01:28:55):
Yeah, I mean, I think the way that I sort
of experience it, like going off of what she said,
her legacy is preserved in these films. But I think
what's kind of sad about what this film did is
that so much of you know, if you're participating in
classic film communities online or whatever, like, like it's ever
present sort of this like defensiveness of Joan Crawford in

(01:29:17):
that way, people who are like very aggressively against this
film for reasons of their own, you know. But like
it sucks that that will always be attached to it
like it is. It is you cannot enjoy the films
without interacting with that in some way, right, And it's
it's like I don't think you should enjoy the films
and not reckon with it. I mean that's kind of

(01:29:38):
like one of the main quandaries of like all of
classic film is there you encounter situations like this all
the time. So it's not burying it. But I do
think like this strain is so predominant with her because
of this movie, when there are so many parents who.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
Are just as bad or worse right, So it is
sort of.

Speaker 5 (01:29:58):
Like it dominates in an outsized way I think with her.

Speaker 2 (01:30:03):
I mean there's also this matter of any biopic or
any movie that's about a real person, because it's a movie,
it's going to be like cinematic afide in some way.
They're gonna alter details, embellish things, just make it more cinematic,

(01:30:26):
or they'll leave things out or like any number of
things that won't do justice to what the real story is.
I would say in most cases, almost every biopick gets
some kind of backlash about well, they didn't do this,
or they didn't talk about this, or they lift this
out or they added this or you know. So it's

(01:30:47):
just it's really tricky.

Speaker 4 (01:30:49):
Yeah, and no one wants a biopic that's like a
Wikipedia page. That's like the worst kind of biopic, which
is like all of them, you know mostly these days.

Speaker 2 (01:30:57):
Yeah, it's just very it's very tricky.

Speaker 4 (01:31:00):
It's tough, yeah, because it's like they you know, there's
not to like diminish any of Christina's account, but it's
like money exchanges hands with this too. It's like that's unavoidable.
Where it's like they're you know, the timing of this matters.
Do you get as big a kickback if you sell
this ten years after?

Speaker 3 (01:31:19):
No, you don't.

Speaker 4 (01:31:20):
I don't know, the selling of like life rights and
stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (01:31:24):
I think about it. It's a it's a it's a
dirty little business. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:31:30):
And she sold the rights to her book for five
hundred thousand dollars in the late seventies. And I don't
say that as a judgment. I just say that is
a I think more is a statement, is more than that,
it's a part of it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:31:43):
I think like in total she earned from selling the
rights to these books, like more than Joan had when
she died, oh wow, or around that number. So yeah,
which is like, I don't know, that's better than the.

Speaker 2 (01:31:55):
Will Estray, Like well, the wheel hair gave her nothing all.

Speaker 4 (01:32:01):
Yeah, dealing with this movie requires what so few and
like online communities are capable of, which is like holding
many truths at once.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:32:11):
The last thing that I mean.

Speaker 4 (01:32:12):
Even including with the dispute between Christina and Christopher and
the younger siblings too, of just the concept that every
especially with like age gaps and siblings, every kid grows
up with a different parent basically, which is definitely not
a conversation that was happening in the seventies. It's just

(01:32:32):
revisiting how black and white the conversations were at that time,
Like you think.

Speaker 3 (01:32:38):
Of it go differently now, But I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:32:41):
Well, it also makes me wonder what Christopher's experience was
because this movie like really skims over it. But because
he's left out of the will at the end, I'm
just like, what was that experience like for him? And
based on the movie, we have no idea?

Speaker 4 (01:32:57):
But also like are we owed that too? Is like
that's the tricky Like I don't know, because it doesn't
it doesn't seem like well, it seems like is he
correct me? If you have conflicting information from what I
was able to gather, Like, Christopher has backed Christina on
her account, but has never wanted to get more specific

(01:33:19):
or like be a public figure because he didn't have
an easy life either, right, I mean, because.

Speaker 3 (01:33:26):
I believe he.

Speaker 5 (01:33:27):
Went to Vietnam, oh okay, and then had like several
arrests for kind of like petty crimes and things like that, which,
of course, I mean, Joan's a perfectionist, so that immediately
puts a rift in their relationship. But it's all kind
of stuff like you know, I'm reading the new Joan
Crawford biography actually that just came out, which is extremely

(01:33:51):
antagonistic towards this film. It describes this film in one
paragraph and it's like the only good thing about this
movie is that it ruined everyone who's involves reputation. That's
all he wants to say about it. Written by A Jonehead.
I see, yes, But I think like one of the
things that I've found kind of disappointing is like it
spends a lot of time kind of correcting the record

(01:34:13):
on Mammy Dearist, I guess, and the claims in the book,
which I think are valid, like these are quotes from
like the Twins and all these things which we should
take seriously, But it also doesn't want to make it
doesn't want to take the analytical view. For example, why
would a kid who was chained to his bed as
a child perhaps get arrested for stealing a car?

Speaker 3 (01:34:37):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:34:37):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (01:34:38):
Like he like doesn't want to go there, and he
doesn't want to think, like think about maybe the consequences
like happened through these kids' lives and how it affected them,
even if it wasn't as extreme as Mammy Dearist portrays it.
If it's like just very strict parenting, like that is
something to reckon with. Yeah, but like again it's like

(01:34:58):
this is a biography you know what I mean, Like
these are coming out as like factual accounts and they're conflicting,
like I've read this is probably my third Jone biography,
and they're all slightly different on this topic.

Speaker 2 (01:35:10):
And that's what's so tough, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:35:12):
And then like having written a nonfiction book, they don't fact.

Speaker 4 (01:35:17):
Check books like you can really like you get a
legal pass so that the publisher doesn't get sued, but
like if you're paying for fact checking, that's out of
your pocket, not the publishers. And so the way that
like certain information is canonized, you know, it's not surprising
there's so many different interpretations of it because you can

(01:35:38):
kind of just let loose at some point as long
as the publisher doesn't think they're going to get sued
over it. That's yeah, that's so frustrating.

Speaker 3 (01:35:45):
And it's like that is like why this movie.

Speaker 4 (01:35:48):
And so many other movies and pieces of media obviously,
like I think about Lolita a lot, but like that
they're unable to have a productive cultural conversation around abuse
and like child abuse specifically, because there's like this unwillingness
to deal with how like you're describing like how messy

(01:36:10):
and how how frequently these like cycles of abuse overlap,
and that a product of abuse can become an abuser,
and that like if you can't accept that or talk
about that, then there's like never going to be a
productive conversation about it. If someone has to be the
bad guy.

Speaker 5 (01:36:28):
Or even just to see people that you admire as
flawed is like very difficult for a lot of people, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:36:34):
Which I get.

Speaker 5 (01:36:35):
But it's like you just kind of have to live
with it, and I think that's being an adult.

Speaker 3 (01:36:40):
Yeah, most traumatized adults came by it honestly.

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, well the movie does pass the Bechdel test.

Speaker 4 (01:36:51):
Technically, yeah, in an all manner of ways.

Speaker 2 (01:36:55):
And as we alluded to.

Speaker 3 (01:36:57):
Earlier faviously genderless wire Hanger.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
And now our nipple scale, where we rate the movie
on a scale of zero to five nipples based on
examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. Boy, I know
this is funny.

Speaker 4 (01:37:17):
I'm like understanding why we avoided this one for so long.

Speaker 3 (01:37:20):
Yeah, I'm so sorry, guys, it had to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:37:23):
To know, I think I might forego the nipple scale.
I don't because I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:37:32):
Right, it's both off the charts and not and below
the charts.

Speaker 2 (01:37:36):
Yeah, exactly. It does not fall within the spectrum of
the nipple scale this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:37:42):
Okay, I'm happy to forgot. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:37:46):
Yeah, and if you want to know what we think
about it, listen to the past or in forty five
minutes that we spent talking about it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:53):
Yeah, so, IZZI, thank you so much for joining USh
my gosh, of course. Really, we're such a huge fan.

Speaker 2 (01:38:00):
Come back anytime, truly. Yes, yeah, I'd love to. I'm
always I'm always available. I love talking to you guys
about this. So this was this was fun.

Speaker 5 (01:38:08):
I hope we don't totally get canceled for our abuse.

Speaker 2 (01:38:13):
People will love this.

Speaker 3 (01:38:14):
You We're gonna love it. I can't wait. Send it.

Speaker 4 (01:38:16):
Fire off an email, see what happens. Yeah, we just
won't respond.

Speaker 2 (01:38:22):
Where can people follow your work? Check you out online,
et cetera. Yeah, you can find me. I mean, the
bulk of my work goes on YouTube, just the channel
be kind rewind and then I'm also on Instagram at
BK underscore rewind.

Speaker 4 (01:38:38):
Nice.

Speaker 2 (01:38:39):
We are also on Instagram at bechdelcast and you can
also find us on our Patreon aka Matreon, where Jamie
and I do two bonus episodes every single month. For
five dollars a month, you get access to the back
catalog of around two hundred bonus episodes and we all

(01:39:00):
do a fun little theme. We're just wrapping up Catherine
O'Hara by Tribute, Yes month, bewery Yes Yes. So check
us out over there patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast
and with that, should we.

Speaker 3 (01:39:21):
Let's let's swap wigs. Let's swap wigs.

Speaker 2 (01:39:24):
Okay, go to bus.

Speaker 3 (01:39:25):
Funeral h huh, bye bye.

Speaker 4 (01:39:33):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
produced by Me, Jamie Loftus and.

Speaker 2 (01:39:39):
Me Caitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie
Lichtermann and.

Speaker 3 (01:39:43):
Edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them?

Speaker 2 (01:39:46):
That's me and our logo and merch and all of
our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever
heard of her?

Speaker 3 (01:39:54):
Oh my God? And our theme song, by the way,
was composed by Mike Kaplan.

Speaker 2 (01:39:59):
With vocal by Katherine Voskrasinski.

Speaker 3 (01:40:02):
Iconic and especial thanks to the one and only Aristotle Ascevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:40:07):
For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash
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