Pin (1988)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdel Cast. 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
best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Happy birthday, Jamie.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
It's me pin my lips flapping, my lips flapping, my
teeth showing. Don't say anything. Oh oh oh, listeners, you're
in for it today. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My
name is Jamie Loft. My name's Jamie loved this.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
My name's Gaitland Durande and.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
This sorry you should you should know. Actually behind me,
I kind of have my pin my Barbie. I have
a my size Barbie that I've used on stage many times. Yeah,
she's kind of my pin in that she's real and
she killed my parents and it was her. Had nothing
to do with me. It was her. Yeah, I would

(01:05):
have grocery shopping. That's one of the There are so.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Many things with Leon in this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Room. Like Leon, we got to be a better liar.
If we're going to be committing so many murders.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
He's gonna be a better liar. His sister needs to
be more discerning. I would say it's really important not
to start blame her.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
I was like, let's start by blaming the victim, and uh,
leave my friend Ursula alone. She's doing her best well.
Coach to defessional casts. My name is Jamie pinn Loftus.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Wow. My name's Kate pinn Durante.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yeah Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
What a way to start a Monday. And this is
our podcast where we take a look at your favorite
or in this case, I think just my favorite movies
using an intersectional feminist lens.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
I'm not sure most people know about pin nineteen eighty eight.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
I mean, that's kind of why we're doing this, to
spread the good word. The pin pin exists. Imagine clapping
emojis between those words.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Are there any pin Heads in the in the crowd?

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Not that kind of pinhead. I don't like those ones.
I like psychological horror pin Wait.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
I don't even know what pinhead refers to. I'm I
just know that there was a fake band in Back
to the Future called the Pinheads.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
But Pinhead, well, it's the main character in hell Raiser.
The hell Raiser Ah that franchise, right, And you'll never believe.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Why he's called that because he has pins in his
head because.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
He has pins in his head? Caitlin, what's the Bechtel test?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
It is a media metric created by our good friend
Alison Bechdel. There's there's a lot of backstory behind it,
but we've we've just got to get into Pin today,
so I'll do the abridged version. Sure, there are many
versions of the Bechtel test, but the one that we
use is, do two characters of a marginal gender have names?

(03:02):
Do they speak to each other? And is there conversation
about something other than a man or a male? Coded?

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yeah, I would all Pin he him? Pin?

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Is he him all the way down? Hear him?

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah? If you've seen I don't really think there's other
no other interpretations. Let's just leave it at that.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Let's leave it at that.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Some real heat him behavior coming from from Pin and
for sure, and also his various you know, if you
subscribe to the Pin Isn't real theory, all of his
ventriloquists are also men, toxic men, toxic toxic men. Absolutely,
so Pin is an agent. He's a puppet of the patriarchy. Wow, yeah, yeah,

(03:51):
So we are here to talk about the feminist implications
of the movie. Pin nineteen eighty eight. I think that
we both saw this movie under the while we were
not physically together, we were in community when we first
saw this. Yeah, what's your history with Pin?

Speaker 2 (04:08):
You're referring to the annual twenty four hour horror movie
marathon aka Horror Thon that our friend Alex does every year.
I think we saw this during the Horrorthon that was
like four or five years ago. Okay, So for me,
I was only loosely paying attention as Pin was being

(04:34):
streamed before my very eyes, and so I had different
I had a different impression of it than is actually
the case. So when I rewatched it to prefer this episode,
I was like, Oh, it's like it's like kind of
higher budget than I thought. I was remembering like student
film vibes, Like.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
No, I mean this was supposed to be a theatrical release,
as it got kind of got the shaft. I mean
it definitely as TV movie and energy. Yeah, which makes
sense when you like, that's a lot of what this
director did. It's like Canadian like many, you know what
I should have done this year creating remlos Aar I

(05:14):
like many, Like many of my favorite movies, it is
basically a TV movie in vibes in I feel like
in the way that it's shot, in the way that
the music sounds, even the performances, it's like it's very
and I say this while feeling the performances in this movie,
especially the two center well let's and let's throw a

(05:36):
pin in there. The three central performances I think are
really good, like kind of better than they have any
right to be. I agree, but it is like a
mellow drama. Everyone seems to know the movie they're in.
It is a very intense. But the lead perform like Leon,
really he reminds me he's giving like young Robert Pattinson
to me.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Sure, especially when he's playing a creep like Edward Cullen.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
A weird well, he's playing like a very stoic weirdo
and I just yeah. British Canadian actor David Hewlett, who
I guess is most famous for being in the Stargate franchise,
which I have not seen, but he was also in
He's one of the villains in the Shape of Water,
which is a fave of mine. He's like one of
the corporate Cold War guys, so he's like a Del

(06:25):
Toro like all of these actors have like pretty pretty
cool resumes. I mean not to mention literally literally.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
John Locke of Lost fame.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
John Locke is in this movie, and he's maybe Terry O'Quinn.
If he's gonna do one thing, it's play the weirdest
bitch in the movie, Like he is always the weirdest
bitch on screen. He's so good at it. Yes, I
just my god, Sorry, I'm already getting distracted by pen

(06:57):
so Yes horror thon.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yes, so we saw that you. I remember you really
latching onto this movie. I was not quite so enamored
by it.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Me and Bryants were really into it.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yes, for me, I think I don't remember like where
it was in the order of this again twenty four
hour marathon, so I might have been tired. I might
have just been kind of distracted, but I was sort
of checked out during Pin. But I do remember you
and our friend Bryant being like locked in, John locked in.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
We were John locked in. And this is before I
found Lot, before I watched Lost. So now rewatching Pin
and knowing weird bitch John Locke is in it. Everyone.
Check out my favorite John lock clip, which is him
in group therapy, yelling at a woman saying, you want
your thirty dollars back. I want my kidney back because

(07:49):
his father stole his kidney.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Oh, I forgot about that.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
He's so funny, dude, He's so funny. He's the most
put upon character in all of television, and he's got
the scars to show for it because he's a weird,
weird man.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yes, So anyway, that's my history with PIN. I had
never heard of it before that.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Neither had I.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
I've never seen it referenced since it is sort of
it's kind of lost media. It feels like it is
for free on YouTube, but otherwise you can't rent it
or stream it or anywhere.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
I think it's like sort of one of those those
movies that's being like single handedly kept alive by like
horror fans, which is cool. Yeah, like Alex right, Alex.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yes, But yeah, that's that's my relationship to it, Jamie,
tell us more about yours.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Well, it started at the very same horror thon. I
think it also had to do with, first of all,
where I was at in my life and like what
I was doing and how much I was paying attention
because I don't expect you to remember this, because I've
never disclosed it, but this was this would have been
Horror on twenty twenty one when I was going through
a rather gnarly breakup and as I was watching horrorson

(09:01):
this year, I was repainting the walls in my old apartment.
So two critical things, which is leading up to a
very embarrassing reveal. Two critical things about me getting really
locked in on Pin is Number one, my house was
full of paint fumes because I was repainting the house,
being like I have to change my life. So first

(09:23):
of all, I was maybe a little bit high on
paint fumes. Number one. Number two, I was not fully
paying attention to some crucial shots in Pin. I missed
a few crucial shots in Pin, okay because I was
painting my bathroom at the time, which means that I thought,
on this first viewing that Pin was real, and I didn't.

(09:47):
I didn't realize Pin wasn't real. And that said, I
fully thought, because they don't. I mean again, and this
fads to like the netflixification of how we watch movie now,
because you are clearly given the information if you're looking
at the screen the whole time, like movies are supposed
to go, but I was just hearing Pin and I

(10:09):
was like, this is so wild. I love this real character.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
There's a sentient medical dummy. Although I think that the
movie keeps you guessing about whether or not Pin is
real or slash sentient for a little while. It becomes
clear the further into the movie you get that Pin

(10:33):
is only seems to be talking and moving because of
ventriloquism and because of a live human people manipulating him
and his movements and things like that. But for a
little while, I feel like you're not totally sure one
way or the other.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
Well, there's one sequence in particular where I'm like, the
car cried the.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Car, yeah exactly.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
Leon is certainly not in there, so I don't under Yeah,
there's one scene where and I think I was going
with that, but I think for like kind of every
other sequence, Leon's always.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
There Leon or the yeah or the dad.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Something I thought was interesting, and this isn't even a criticism,
is that the voice doesn't change for Pin, even when
the person being Pins ventriloquist changes. I think I like that.
But anyways, I fully was high on paint fumes. I
thought Pin was real on the first viewing, But I'm
thrilled to report that I've seen it two or three

(11:30):
times since then and it's still so awesome. I mean,
I think what I missed in. I mean, even if
you watch the movie Pin believing Pin is real high
on paint fumes, it is still a very intense psychological thriller.
But once you know that he is being used a
ventriloquist dummy, the psychological thriller stuff really amps up. So Yeah,

(11:51):
and then Alex Jacob's iconic film editor of movies like
In a Violent Nature, In a Violent Nature too, Night Nurse,
which just came out.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Is there another one? Maybe Jamie my.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
Movie that hasn't come out but hopefully will. But he's
I feel like he's because he programs this and is
also a horror fan. Who would know about Pin brought
Pin to the People in twenty twenty one. Yes, I
also own a copy of the book, which I considered
reading for this, but then I read that it really

(12:28):
leans into the incest subplot and decided I don't need
to read it. I don't need to read it. Actually,
there's enough of an incest subplot in the movie for me. Yeah,
it's it's a psychological thriller. These kids they never stood
a chance because their father was John Locke and so,

(12:52):
but yes, I think I have like such an affection
for this movie. I think part of it is connected
to like how and I saw it. But I also
think it's like again, like you're saying, like better than
you would think like because it's basically lost Media. I
feel like that means either lost at media, Oh my god,
sr John Locke, Oh my god. If Lost ever got lost,

(13:16):
I'd be pissed. I'm looking at my John Locke doll
over there. Wait what you know?

Speaker 2 (13:22):
I see him? Do you have an I know? Okay, well,
I already know how many dolls you have.

Speaker 3 (13:26):
I have a lot of dolls.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
The life size Barbie you have you famously have an
American girl doll boy looy.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
And two girls unfortunately and two girls like this is
John Locke. It's like a whoa little it's for kids.
And there's there's Hurley, Jack and Kate. Where's Sayed? You know,
where's Sun? Where's a lot of good characters missing from that.
But I but I bought it because John Locke is
my number one? Where's Walt? Where's Michael? Come on? Folks,

(13:58):
where are the good characters making anyways? John Locke one
of our best men being Bitch's canon characters indeed. But anyways, Yeah,
like I think, because Pin is so hard to find,
you're like, either.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
It's a hard pin point, it's I'm.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Really setting myself up with this. You would think that
it's like not good, but it is good.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
It is like better than you'd think.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yeah, And I think it's doing a lot of like
horror tropes in ways that I like haven't really seen
come together quite in this way.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
So I may say, if.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
You haven't seen Pin, I would recommend watching in a group.
Don't it's weird. Now we can both attest. It feels
weird to watch Pin by yourself.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
It does. And I would recommend before you listen to
the rest of this episode and hear the recap if
you have not already seen Pin. Oh yeah, don't get
it spoiled by the recap and our discussion. Just take
just take some time, pause this episode. Watch Pin on YouTube.
It's an hour and forty three minutes or something like that.

(15:11):
It's a pretty quick watch, and then come back and
listen to the rest of this episode, because like, it
gets so nuts so fast that I want people to
experience it for themselves.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
I agree, you deserve to have the optimal Pin experience.
Will leave the YouTube link because like there literally is.
I don't think that you could pay to watch this
movie if you wanted to, which feels kind of evil.
I want I want Pin to get residuals well.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
We want to financially support Pin.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
I want Ursula, Ursula, God and Stan. Ursula and Stan
one iconic couple. Top ten most iconic couples in film.
Ursula and Stan, Stan, I think is such an iconic character.
We'll get to stand.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
I'm a stand fan. I'm a stand Stan of Stan.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
I was standing Stan. It's so and it's so hard
to get us on board with a boyfriend character, but
I'm like, Stan has some great boyfriend qualities, and that
every time we cut to him, he's trying to learn
how to read.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
He's like, okay, he's trying to learn how to read
a language that is not his first line French, right,
I think Italian?

Speaker 3 (16:19):
Italian?

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
But I just was like Stan, He's he's a jock
with a dream, and he's so nice to Pin. It's
wild out nice.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
At to Pin. People are too nice to Pin in
this movie. It's true, it's true, and therein lies the problem.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
But you see, if you see Pin out in the streets,
do not be nice to him. Kick his ass, dude.
He's the one, He's he's maybe the one. The one
guy that really has it coming is Pin. And then
when Pin get oh god, okay, truly stop. If you
haven't seen Pin, please stop, please and go watch and
watch it, because what I'm about to say is one

(16:58):
of the best parts of the movie. When Pin gets skin.
Oh my god, Oh my god, it's so wild. I
remember it, do you remember. I'll never forget where I
was the first time I saw Pin with skin. It
was in a bathroom.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Pink ingesting paint fumes.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
This is a great breakup. This is a great breakup
movie for reasons I can't quite articulate, because that has
nothing to.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Do with the movie.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
But you just leave your body watching Pin.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
No, of course, Well, let's take a quick break and
give people the opportunity to go and watch Pin, and
then we'll come back for the recap. So a content
warning before we delve into the recap, for there are

(17:52):
mentions of rape and incest, which will also come up
in our discussion, so that listeners are aware of that.
Here's the plot of Pin. We open on some kids
who are outside of a house looking at something in
the second story window.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
This which, mind you of a movie, because another one
of my favorite movies starts with this said.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Oh wait, it does seem familiar, but I can't. This
just happens. Endpoint it again with that pun.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
This is how Casper begins.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Oh yeah, right, okay, weird. So these kids are looking
at something in the window. It might be a man
sitting very still, or it might be a dummy. We're
not sure. One of the little boys climbs up to
get a better look, and it's hard to tell exactly
what he's looking at. But then we see a face

(18:50):
and eyes that blink, and so we're like ah, and
the boys are scared off and run away. We cut
to fifteen years earlier. We meet the Lyndon family. The
father is doctor Lindon played by Terry O'Quinn aka John
Locke from Lost Ah.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
He's being weird. I will say I think they had
for particularly, I think for both of the siblings they
found appropriate young like baby Leon and adult Leon. I
think are equally creepy, which had to have been difficult
because that's a respect. That child is probably like fifty
years old. Now that's a very creepy kid.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah for sure. Also, okay, so I didn't catch this
the first time, but we see the kids as two
different ages before they become teenagers, or at least Ursula
the sister, she's like maybe like a five year old
in a couple scenes, and then they age her up

(19:55):
and they have another actor who is probably like ten
or so.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
Yeah, there's some ethical I have some ethical questions about
how these kids are directed and what they're talking about and.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
And the need.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
Oh god, now's a good time to say that. In
the movie Pin nineteen eighty eight, getting horny is called
the need. Everyone calls it that. There's no other word
for it.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yes, it reminded me of have you ever read The Giver? Yes,
when they call like sexual desire stirrings, I think is
the term they use.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Wow, I haven't thought about The Giver in a very
long time. That was one of my favorite books as
a kid.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Same, same interesting, but yeah, they're like, oh, tween, kid,
you're starting to feel sexual feelings. Those are stirrings, And
I remember reading that as a kid and being like,
oh my god, what the hell, what.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
The hell it's it's a little bit nasty to call
it that, but if you get the immediately, this family
is the kind of family that would call it the
need versus yes anything. This family sucks so bad.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
They're all very creepy. So we meet the father, doctor Lindon.
He is super like uppity, in formal, and creepy. He
makes his small children Leon and Ursula do math before
they go to bed. Meanwhile, their mother, Missus Lindon, I'm

(21:29):
not sure if we ever get a first name for her.
She's also very like prim and uppity. She's obsessed with cleanliness.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
She's also physically violent.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
She's also physically and verbally abusive. Yeah, so this is
not a happy family. No. We cut to doctor Lindon's
medical office and while he is treating a child, he's
also talking to a life size medical dummy named Pin, who.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
We learn later is anatomically correct. Yes, and in the
pediatrician's office. I mean, it makes sense that a medical
dummy would be anatomically correct, Yeah, but it doesn't make
sense it would be in the pediatrician's office.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
I don't know it was the eighties. I know, I
can say.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
I was like, it's so yeah, you have to sort
of wonder, You're like, I mean, obviously, I don't think
it was ever normalized for an anatomically correct medical dummy
that speaks via ventral equism to be normalized in you know,
Western society. But I have to imagine that creepy. I mean,
I think about like behavior that my pediatrician was doing

(22:39):
in the like late nineties, early two thousands, and you're like, hmmmm,
I probably would not fly today. I would not let
my child. You know, my doctor was weird.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
I feel like my doctor, my pediatrician, was pretty not weird.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
My pediatrician. I've been thinking about it a lot because
I just read essay about scoliosis and my pediatrician a
totally missed my scoliosis, which was so bad and advanced
that it's kind of shocking that he missed it for
what would have had to have been years. And then
when he when my gym teacher found it instead of him,
he was so embarrassed that he spent years just like

(23:20):
kind of freaking me out into like like telling me
I had various illnesses. I didn't have because he was
so like, yeah, he told he told me I had
he's he thought that I had more fan syndrome like
I got. I mean, I'm glad that like if he
suspected that, he sent me to get tested and like
all this stuff. But it just felt like he was
overcompensating for a clear failure and then sent me on

(23:43):
all these really scary tests that never ended up being anything.
But it just like, but he was like our family doctor.
All my cousins went to him too, and so we're
just like he has a Looney Tunes tie. He's probably
a good doctor. Anyways, he was.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Not okay, and neither is doctor Lindon.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Oh I mean, I guess I should be counting my blessings. Pin,
was it at least? Oh my god?

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Right, yeah, be grateful, Jamie. So doctor Lindon is talking
to this medical dummy named Pin, and Pin is quote
unquote responding because doctor Lindon is throwing his voice and
doing ventriloquism to make it seem like Pin is talking
back to him. Also, doctor Lindon's children are in the

(24:32):
room as he's performing like a medical examination on a child.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
And it doesn't seem like a child they know, not
that that would make it appropriate, but I'm like, if
it's a cousin, maybe, but like it's just that that's
not the situation.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, no, it's it's uncalled for any way you look
at it. So all this creepy stuff is happening, including
the way Pin looks and sounds, because he looks like
something out of a night I don't know if that's
just how medical dummies looked at the time.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
But I think they went out of their way to
make him scarier because he has these like empty blue eyes, right.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
But otherwise, like other medical dummies, they would basically look
the way a human would look if you removed their skin,
so you see like their muscles and stuff.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
But he's also did you watch Breaking Bad and or
better call Saul, because I did not.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
I've seen the first season and change of Breaking Bad,
But like many many TV series, even if they're good
and I'm enjoying them, I still fall off pretty quickly.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
I just I just haven't seen it. But yeah, I'm
sure many of our listeners have, and so it's worth
mentioning that the voice actor for Pin is one Jonathan Banks,
who plays a huge character on both Breaking Bad, and
better call Saul Hitman and fixer Mike Erman Trout. Okay,

(26:04):
so he's been in I think like basically every breaking
bad thing you could possibly be in. He was nominated
for an Emmy for this role a number of times.
He was nominated for a SAG Awards Saturday Awards. So anyways,
if you saw any breaking bad media, I'm assuming that
you would recognize this actor and you would be shocked
to find that he also played Pin. I was able

(26:26):
to find an interview, but like, there's so little meat.
So a few people have acknowledged they're in Pin. David Hewlett,
you cannot find a single acknowledgment, and he does a
lot of interviews. He pretends he doesn't see Pin, even
though he's giving the performance of a lifetime whatever whatever.
But Jonathan Banks did give one errant interview about Pin,

(26:48):
and he was like, I don't remember really doing that,
but I never got any residuals were in my residuals
And it's like bad bad news, Pal Pin didn't really
come out. Oh, I think residuals are on the way. No,
they should give him YouTube ad rup. How can we
get Mike? How can we get breaking bads? Mike erman

(27:08):
Trout paid for Pin. I think The Pin Boys is
so effective and.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
So very creepy. Yes, yeah, And despite Pin sounding and
looking extremely creepy, the children think that Pin is cool.
Especially Leon is really into Pin.

Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah, and the children, I mean Leon, I feel like
Pin is the only quote unquote adult sized creature that
seems to show Leon any patience, even though I wouldn't
say kindness.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Feels like a stretch, right because Pin isn't like warm. No,
He's very clinical and again creepy.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yeah, but he isn't like cruel, which is how Leon's
parents are. So I think that he gets attached for
that another reason.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Right, So Leon is obsessed with Pin, and the kids
have a quick conversation with Pin, and once again it's
pretty clear that doctor Lyndon has Pin quote unquote respond
via ventriloquism, and Penn tells the children that they shouldn't

(28:22):
be talking to him when their father isn't around, and
this is something that Leon really like takes to heart.
One day, Leon goes into his dad's office to talk
to Pin, partly because Pin seems to be Leon's only friend.
The kids at school don't like Leon, and they bully him,

(28:45):
So Leon goes to confide in Pin, but then a
nurse is about to come into the room, so Leon
hies and then watches as the nurse has sex with Pin.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
This scene is so it's wild weird. It's one of
It's not the first thing that happens in Pin that
makes you go yuck, what, but it is the first
thing where you're just like wow, truly, anything could happen
in the movie Pin, because this nurse spoiler alert, we
never see her again. The fact that she fox Pin

(29:21):
is not relevant to the plot at all. It's just
something that, like, I mean, I guess the way that
it I wouldn't say it moves the plot forward, except
that like it does, I guess further complicate Leon's relationship
to sexualourages, how he conflights various things because he doesn't
have an adult in his life to have an honest

(29:42):
conversation with him about this. But the way they choose
to get that information Cross is just by saying, so
this nurse we met at the beginning of the movie,
who don't get comfortable, she will not be coming back.
She fox Pin on her break, She fox Pin at
work at work on her break, and that's why it's

(30:02):
important that Pin is anatomically correct, because he is this
nurse's sex doll.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
Apparently Pin has a constant erect penis. Otherwise I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
I guess I don't know enough about medical dolls to
be like, I miss Yeah, I guess you don't get
them aroused. Wow, I didn't think about that. That's another
argument for Pin real? Right if Pin has a boner
unless but then it's like, if Pin is real, he's
also getting assaulted.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Right is Pin consenting to this? Can?

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Pin? Can?

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Can? Alternatively, if we go with the read that Pin
is not alive, which is okay, some dissenters may make
this claim. Perhaps the sex that the nurses having with
Pin is not penetrative. Maybe he's just sort of rubbing,

(31:02):
rubbing up on Pin, rubbing up on Pin, rubbing pins
flaccid anatomically correct penis, that's against her.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
We don't know, and it's we don't know. I I
think you know the nurse. I can't say nurse innocent
necessarily because you shouldn't be having sex with Pin at
a pediatrician's office with the door ajar. I might add, also,
she does not close the door, so I would say
that is a bit diabolical. I cannot stand that this

(31:32):
is a woman's wrong.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
I think this is a woman's wrong.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
Having sex with Pin not my business. Having sex with
Pin at work and you worked at a pediatricians office
and the door's open, Well that's good, that's a red flag.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Okay, seek treatment, yes, And Leon is witnessing this all happen,
and he seems quite horrified, understandably, so then we cut
to Ursula's birthday. Pin has gone her a present as
if he is one of the family. Oh my god, and.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
It's so thoughtful. I love I don't know why this
line stuck with me. But when Leon goes, oh, he's like,
this is the exact kind of present Pin would get
because he's just like Pin is such a classy, a
classy guy.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Oh he is Pin's number one fan.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Penn has taste.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
And then that night Leon and Ursula are talking. She
insults Pin, so Leon strikes her, and then their mother
catches them with a magazine that contains nudity and she's appalled.
The next day the kids get the sex talk, but

(32:43):
guess who it's from. It's from Pin.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
Unfortunately from Pin. Why did they get the talk from
Pin and why well, I think this is this brings
up a lot of questions about the doctor character. I
think that the doctor character it's interesting and I'm using
the word interesting liberally here, and I don't it's tricky
because it's like this movie and also like a lot
of movies in this genre, like the way that that

(33:09):
horror film address abuse can sometimes be like overt right,
but I think that this movie kind of it's just
the stuff. There's a lot of questions left with the doctor.
I think that like the doctor is sort of using
Pin as a grooming tool to some extent here, but

(33:30):
also it seemed like I think, at least towards his daughter,
I think he behaves very inappropriately towards his daughter with
regards to her body, like especially when she gets older,
but I also think when she's younger, like the way
that he talks to the kids about their bodies is inappropriate,
and that that's like a behavior that Leon repeats toward

(33:52):
Ursula later in the movie, like talking with talking to
Ursula about her body and her autonomy in a very
I mean with Leon, it gets pretty extreme, but like
in a very invasive and shamey and inappropriate way, but
I was kind of surprised at how and maybe people
are like, Jamie, your brain has officially died, but like,

(34:13):
I'm surprised at how kind of like not banging you
over the head with it, they are in the father's
behavior because you're so focused on how weird Pin is
conceptually right, but like, what he's having Pins say is
so creepy, and it's something that I don't think an
adult man could get away with saying. Not to say
that giving your children the talk is creepy. Obviously it

(34:35):
isn't it's the way he's doing it. When he's says it,
and then he says, take the towel off my lap.
You're like, that's not how that goes. And also does
anyone hose Pin downy Pins esexually active dull.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Pin has juices on him from the nurse.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
Oh my god, yes, it's well.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
I also think that the movie frames the mother character
as more overtly abusive because she strikes her son. She
I read her as just being sort of more overtly
abusive versus.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Yeah, certainly physically. Yeah, But I also think that the dad, Yeah,
the dad is abusive in again, like in a more
shades of gray than you would expect in a movie
like this, Right, the dad is definitely I mean, they're
both emotionally abusive towards their kids, but like their dad
is emotionally abusive in this very and then I think
you could argue he's physically abusive, but in this very

(35:33):
like detached way where the mother's abuse comes through a
lot I think, like just through anger and rage, but
the dad's abuse, I do. And maybe I'm like overstating.
I don't want to like use this word irresponsibly, but
I do feel like Penn is kind of being used
to like groom the children to think about their bodies

(35:54):
a certain way. I agree that entitles their father to
their bodies.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yes, yes, I also think that the ways in which
the dad character is abusive was very normalized for the
time and might not have even been read as abuse
for audiences who were watching this in the late eighties.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
Oh God, I have to believe that my dear friend
Terry o'quinnin was aware. But this scene is also interesting
because this is where Ursula the smartest person in the movie,
and this is the scene that I guess I was
painting and not looking at the screen because you can
see John Locke clearly being ventriloquist and Ursula noticing it

(36:38):
and then turning back to Pin and engaging. But the
way that Ursula engages with Pin is out of fear
versus belief. And then that's like something that remains true
for the rest of I don't know, who knows, I
guess the rest of her life. You see how Pin ends.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
And just you wait, listeners, but you should have already
watched it. You should already know.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
If you're still here, you we trust the And also,
oh my gosh, wait, this would be so fun if
you watched Pin on YouTube, leave a comment saying the
Bechtel has brought me here.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Oh a comment on YouTube?

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Yes, yes, I want to see. Yes, please, Let's let's
get the Pin video and let's get engagement up. Halloween's
right around the corner. We need people watching Pin.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yes, yes, oh okay. So the kids are getting the
sex talk from Pin. He tells them about the urge
people get to have sex, and we will talk more
about this scene in our discussion. But that's the vibe
of the conversation. And then Pinn is like, look at

(37:46):
my genitals, and afterward Leon and Ursula talk about kind
of what just happened, and it seems as though Ursula
is more curious and comfortable talking about sex ruality, while
Leon seems much less comfortable with it.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
Yeah, which is another interesting, like it's hard to put
yourself in like nineteen eighty eight mindset, because I think
that there's a read of Ursula's behavior early on that
is like a very normal curiosity for a young girl
to have, and that is the intent of how it
was written. And then I think there's another read of
it is like she is like hyper sexual and this

(38:25):
is abnormal. I'm not really sure what what read the
movie intends you to take, but I like that both
are available. I think, well, just because I like the
movie PIN, I want to say that it's presented as
normal because Ursula is like our final girl and kind
of the survivor. Like I think that if she and

(38:45):
we've all watched Pins, so this is safe to say,
if she like died in a horrible way, I feel
like the other read is more.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
Likely, right because it would probably seem like the movie
is punishing her for having sexual.

Speaker 3 (38:58):
Needs exactly need exactly Yeah, Yeah, but she I mean,
she is punished for having the need. But then our.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Foot by her brother, not by the movie.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yes, that is true, And she meets She's she meets
the only nice movie boyfriend I've ever seen. She meets
a sweety pie stand the man, a little sweetie, I
love Stan.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yeah, yes, okay, so the kids have gotten the sex talk,
and then we cut to a few years later. Leon
and Ursula are now teenagers. Leon is super straight laced.
He seems to take after his parents quite a bit.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
He's got kind of a proud boy haircut, let's be honest.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
For sure, Yes, he's like wearing a suit to school
kind of thing. But Ursula, she seems to be a
proud slut. She is sexually liberated and she's wearing it proudly.
And Leon finds her having sex with a guy in
a car, but.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
We also know that she's being bullied for it.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
True. Yes, yes, yeah, there's like graffiti on the lockers
because saying that she's easy or whatever.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
Girls and women famously can't win, right yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Yes, anyway, Leon discovers her having sex in a car,
so he intervenes, beats up the guy, and then ruthlessly
slut shames Ursula and basically says, like, if you ever
have sex again, you can forget that I'm your brother.
He's like threatening to disown her, and so she promises
not to do it again, but uh oh, it's too late.

(40:35):
She is pregnant. Ursula reveals to Leon that she believes
that she is pregnant, and they debate whether or not
they should tell their father or go to a different
doctor in town, or how to maybe keep this under wraps.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
But as in all things, Ursula is just absolutely trapped
in this web of horrible men, and Leon pertally correctly
points out that they live in a small town and
it would get back to her father anyways, and.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
So they should just tell him, right, because I guess
the doctors in this town don't give a shit about
hippa violations.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
I mean, that is definitely true because that happened to
when my mom. That happened to my mom when she
got an abortion in the eighties, where a doctor violated
hippa roles. So I do think that that concern is
well placed, Yeah, for sure. But then it's like, oh,
now I have to get an abortion from fucking John
Locke this and po and pinh my god.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Okay, so yes, here's what happens. Because they don't know
exactly what to do, Leon suggests they go to Pin
for advice, and Ursula is like, uh, that's not going
to work. Pin won't slash, can't talk when our father
isn't there. But Leon is like, no, no, no, no,
Pin is going to help us. So they go to

(41:57):
their dad's office and talk to Pin, and it seems
at first like Pin is not going to respond because
doctor Lindon is not there ventriloquizing him, but then twist,
Pin talks to them in his creepy voice. So this
is where we're starting to be like, Okay, is Pin
sentient or is it Leon throwing his voice and ventriloquizing

(42:24):
and Pin.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
Ursula is pretty sure it's the latter. Yes, poor Ursula. There.
Ursula is always in a horrible situation, and then Pin
comes in and makes it twenty times worse, like.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
It just yeah. So Pin tells them that Ursula should
definitely see a doctor if she is pregnant.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
Soles Pin, she wouldn't have known that otherwise, right, So.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
Ursula and Leon end up telling their father, and then
doctor Lindon gives his own daughter an abortion, presumably a
surgical abortion via her vagina.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
She's so I don't I don't know where to begin.
It's it's so clear that like this is, but this,
this I feel like is I don't mean to sound
callous by saying payoff, but like I think does sort
of pay off on how the doctor talks to his
kids about their bodies earlier, so that by the time
this happens later, he feels very comfortable asserting autonomy and

(43:24):
control over his daughter's body in a way that feels
very inappropriate.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Because he also slept shames her before performing.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Everyone slut shame a portion. Yeah, she doesn't even I mean,
we have no reason to believe that a conversation with
her mom would go well. It seems like we're led
to believe it would go worse than any of the
other conversations. But she doesn't even get the opportunity to
consider it. Like, both her brother and her father are
like that, can't. We're protecting you by slut shaming you

(43:52):
and putting you in this awful position, which is just
yeah horrible.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
Uh Okay. So sometimes passes after the abortion, and one
night their father catches Leon asking Pin for advice, and
his father is horrified that Leon is talking to Pin.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
It looks like he catches it. That whole scene plays
out like he's been caught having sex, which I thought
was like very like a fun directorialist raice where it's
like he walks in on Leon and Pin basically yeah,
and it's like get out of here, you slut.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
He's basically like, Pin is mine. You can't have him.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
That's my dirty boy.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
So he sends Leon home and then doctor Lindon and
his wife speed off to some conference or something. It's
it's very urgent and they have to get there on time.
They can't be late. Yeah, and doctor Lindon brings Pin
with them.

Speaker 3 (44:51):
He says, curtains on Pin, like mm hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
But because doctor Lindon is driving so recklessly, he crashed
the car and it's maybe because he's distracted by Pin,
or that Pin does something to cause the accident. It's
all very murky here to your point earlier of like
there is Pin sentient? What's happening?

Speaker 3 (45:16):
This is as close as we get to being invited
to believe Pin is sentient, I think, But like they
do add An, I wonder if it's ad R two,
Like the mom is like, oh my god, why are
you driving so fast? And then she turns around and
she's Pin and she's like ah. Then he's like he's
like he just well, I took the quarter too hard,
Like they give you an explanation as to how Pin

(45:38):
could have been setting up, but you're just like, I
don't know if Pin is real. Then I also love
the movie. There's no version of Pin that I'm like,
this movie sucks.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Right right and again this scene is like, what are
you suggesting? Because after this it starts to become clearer
and clearer that Pin is not and has never been.
Cindi in so but this scene really complicates things. In
any case, doctor Lindon and missus Lindon die in the

(46:10):
car accident. There is a funeral, Leon and Ursula's aunt
Dorothy tell them that she's going to come and stay
with them for a while to care for them now
that their parents have passed away.

Speaker 3 (46:25):
I love that. I love Aunt Dorothy for many reasons,
one of them being I also read that this movie
was shot absurdly out of order, to the point where
the actress playing Ursula, whose name is Cindy Preston, but
she she had to like keep the storyboards with her
whenever she was performing, because they would just have them

(46:46):
jumping around so wildly, like in the space of a day. Anyways,
the actor playing Aunt Dorothy is not saying Leon's name
correctly the whole time. She's just Leyon Layon because she's
so she's so.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Fancy, so chic.

Speaker 3 (47:02):
You're not eating your food, Leon, Oh she's cooked.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
She's dead. Yeah. So before she moves in, Leon and
Ursula are alone in the house and Ursula wakes up
in the middle of the night to discover that Leon
is talking to Pin. That like he has brought Pin
home and they're having a conversation.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
He's pinterested, he's.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
He I get it too, Okay, I love it. It's good.
Thank you. Also, Leon has dressed Pin in a suit,
and honestly he should have put him in a pinstripe suit.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
But that would have been Leon doesn't have a sense
of humor like that, and it comes to Pin and
also in his life when we get to hit Leon's poetry,
oh god, that is I think viewed in the right way,
a like sketch, like it's so fucked up. Yeah's poetry imminent.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
But in the meantime Pinn is now wearing a suit
I think it's the late doctor Lindon's clothes, and Leon
insists that Pin is part of the family, more so
than Aunt Dorothy, who Leon ominously says she's not gonna
stay with us for very long because she's going to

(48:22):
realize that she's not wanted here.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
And also Pen needs his own room, so yeah, Pin's
slumming it in the attic and that's not okay now.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Ursula meanwhile, is very freaked out by Pin and doesn't
want him around, but Leon reassures her that Pin is fine,
he's one of us, He's part of the family, and
then Aunt Dorothy moves in. Leon is being very rude
to her. Also, the conversations with Pin that he's having

(48:55):
are getting creepier and creepier. Penn's voice is also starting
to say even creepier. So things are not going well here,
certainly not. One night, Aunt Dorothy wakes up to discover
that Pin is in her bed and like slowly sitting upright.

(49:15):
She tries to run out, the door is locked, and
then she collapses and dies, presumably from a heart attack.

Speaker 3 (49:23):
Yes, which is foreshadow She's like, maybe being here will
help my heart Leon.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Yeah, it doesn't.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
It's also implied. I think that I read that this
she's given slightly more of an arc in the book. Okay,
but unfortunately it seems like, you know, Ursula, it's kind
of hard to I think Ursula's it seems like she's
okay with her being around because it protects her from
Pin being front and center. But it is also clear

(49:52):
that like every potential guardian or like ally that Arsula
comes into contact with prior to meeting Stan, she has
an ulterior motive where she wants the house and she
like wants to sell their stuff and like wants access
to their money.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Sort of like Count oll Off.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
She's I mean, she's not Count O. I feel like
there is a Count all Off energy about this, but
like but yeah, she's like when she's like, oh, keep
the furniture covered, it's so valuable. I guess I was
getting the feeling that she wanted to stick around long
enough to like get stuff. Sure, she also doesn't seem
to be mourning her her bitch sister, not really no,

(50:30):
which is like, okay, you know she wasn't a great lady,
but anyways.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
Aunt Dorothy, she's got issues of her own.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
Yeah, and she'll know she will never resolve them.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
Because right, yeah, not the least of which she she
she got killed by pin pin induced heart attack. And
then and then Leon pops out from behind Pin. So
it seems as though Leon was controlling Pin maybe, but again,
I feel like we're still not totally sure at this point.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Yeah, I which again, I'm like, I worked for me.
If you're high on paint fumes and aren't really paying attention,
you're like Pin is a real guy, for sure. Yeah, sure,
he's my friend. Okay.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
So Leon brings Pin back down from the attic and
moves him into the room that Aunt Dorothy had been
staying in, and the next thing we know, Leon has
put Pin in a skin suit, which you alluded to earlier.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
Pin Pin skin reveal. I will never forget it is
so like it is a it's a great it's such
a great production design job too, because it's really hard
to say whether the skin makes him worse or better.
To like, I think he just looks equally scary, but
it just like a totally different.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Way, right right. I I think I'm gonna land on
the side that Pin looks even creepier than he because
before least Tea resembles, you know, a medical dummy, which
you might see in the real world. Pin in skin
looks like it's not okay. Nothing you've ever seen before.

(52:14):
It's not okay.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
It's not okay. And also, I mean, this movie is
not being subtle about what's going on with Leon. He's
wearing John Locke's clothes. I'm so curious how he did
the skin situation. I'm like, I assume here that was
a solo job. You can't really like get on.

Speaker 2 (52:31):
Task rabbit for that, right, right? Did he make it?
Did he buy it somewhere to know what is going on?
Either way, Ursula is like, what the fuck is this?

Speaker 3 (52:47):
And Ursula She's like, yeah, sure, A likely thing for
Leon to do is put skin all over Pin.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
M hm. And this leads to a fight between Ursula
and Leon. Leon again, do any thing? Oh no, and
he threatens to kick Ursula out if she does not
accept Pin as being a member of the family, so
she sort of has no choice.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Does he have the right to do this? I honestly
am not sure because I'm like, unless their parents were like,
we're giving everything to Leon, I'm like, can.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
You even do that? Anyways, I don't know, well, because
she's she's a miner, she's a oh.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Maybe that's it, and Leon is canonically eighteen. We find
out that he's he's an adult.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Right do we? I forge we do?

Speaker 3 (53:30):
Okay, Okay, we do, okay, so actually that does make sense.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Okay, Well, anyway, things seem to calm down a little
bit after this, and this is when Ursula meets a
nice young man named Stan.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
She also gets a job. I really love like the
moments where like Ursula has like autonomy or like tries
to exert control of her life even though she doesn't
have any opportunities. But like, yeah, she gets a job
at the library. She's really excited about it, and that's
where she meets Stan.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
She meets Stan. We can call into question because it's
established that Stan is a college student and we know
that Ursula is I think sixteen sixteen.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
So.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
I mean, yeah, I guess I'm not going to comment
on that. That's that's a tricky one. But in any case,
it's not an egregious age gap, is what I'll say.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
No, because it's he's maybe a freshman. It seems like
he's the same age.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
I was gonna say, it seems like their age gap
is small enough that I'm just particularly in Ursula's case,
I'm like, I'm not gonna take Stan from her. I
cannot good conscience take the first person to be nice
to Ursula in her entire life in a sincere way.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
Yeah, from her right. So he approaches her at the library.
He has a little crush on her. Ursula tells Leon
about it, and he creepily says, well, it's no wonder
You've become a beautiful young woman, and you're like, give
it a rest man, and it'll get worse again.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Wait till the poetry, Wait till he which reminded me
of a movie that I should have put on my Matreon.
Our listeners would hate it, but it would be really fun.
Get well, I'll get to it when we do the
poetry part.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Okay, got it? So Stan asks Ursula out to dinner
in a movie. They go, They have a nice time.
Leon seems jealous about this whole situation. Again, he is
very sexually repressed. He insists that he doesn't have quote
unquote the need. When Ursula comes home from the date,

(55:45):
Leon berates her again, but then he starts wondering maybe
he does have the need. So he goes out with
this young woman named Marcia, who who.

Speaker 3 (55:57):
We have seen referenced by Leon many times at this
point in the movie, going back to when they were children,
and he fat shamed her.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Yes, this poor character.

Speaker 3 (56:06):
Again, it's like a character that I don't think that
the movie lacks sympathy for. But Leon is just like
such a mask off misogynist throughout, and you get the
feeling that you know, it is a learned behavior, right.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
And to your point, yes, she had already been referenced
before via Leon, first fat shaming her and then later
on slut shaming her the way he tends to do
to women. Yeah, but he is now on a date
with Marcia and she's kissing all over him, but he's

(56:42):
still so repressed that he puts a stop to it,
and he's like, I have to go check on my
friend Pin. So so Marcia, you know, gets dressed and
comes out and oh, Spaghettio, there's Pin and he's chasing
Marcia somehow, And it turns out that Leon has put

(57:04):
Pin on some sort of like remote controlled real apparatus.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
I'm just like, should Leon just be an imagineer, Like,
can we find a productive Can we find a productive
use of this ingenuity that isn't quite so scary. It
is impressive what he's managing to do. He's making basically
a pin animatronic.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
He's building a man he is.

Speaker 3 (57:28):
He's Doctor Frankensteining Pin. But in this case, luckily Ursula
is alerted in time.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
Well, yeah, Ursula comes in and saves Marcia. We don't
know what would have happened if if Ursula didn't come
to the rescue. But the tension is diffused for a
bit here.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
I think another nice touch on this movie too, where
it's like you are very conditioned to expect one thing
to happen because it is a horror movie. But the
quote unquote Final Girl, which I feel like La fills
in many ways. And a sexually active woman is like
actively spared by the narrative, which I think is like
unusual totally and saved by another woman.

Speaker 2 (58:12):
I mean, we've talked at length about the and this
is I mean not just us. This is a very
commonly known trope as far as in horror movies. If
a young woman is has sexual desires or has sex,
she's often punished by the plot by being murdered. But yeah,

(58:34):
this does not happen no in this movie. And even
another trope that is spared is we've been talking about
this going back to our Indiana Jones episode like eight
years ago, that when women do defend themselves in these situations,
they usually use household objects, and as we'll get to later.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
That is not what our does.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
Oh yeah, yeah, let's put a pin in that. Okay,
So Ursula has come in and saved Marcia. The next day,
Leon is like, oh, I'm sorry, Ursula, I overreacted. Why
don't you invite Stan over for dinner? And she's like,
I don't know if Stan is ready to meet Pin,

(59:15):
But what she means is, h, I'm not bringing Stan
home to see the likes of whatever creepy my scarin. Yeah. Yeah,
but Leon insists. So Stan comes over. Leon introduces him
to Pin. Stan is clearly disturbed, but he's playing along

(59:37):
the best he can.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
So nice about it, and and and that like, Ursula
is like, obviously briefed him, yes.

Speaker 2 (59:45):
And this is when we learn that Pin is short
for Pinocchio, I.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Know, which You're like, how the hell did I not notice?
I mean?

Speaker 2 (59:56):
And this leads us to realize that we could have
the movie Pin during the Pinocchio Wars, because Pin is Pinocchio.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
It's true, he is Pinocchio. But yet he's like, so
he's so his own, He's so his own.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
This is true.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
Pin is his own man father, I want to be
on my own. That's kind of the Pin kind of
like is happy in his situation? Pin?

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Yes, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Let's explore that further. It's true, okay, so be happy.
It's not the right word, well, Pin, because I mean
Pin is only being projected onto so we don't sure.
We don't know how Pin really feels.

Speaker 3 (01:00:42):
Leon doesn't seem to be having a great time in
his life.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
No, okay. So Stan is over for dinner. He's playing
along with the Pin of it all. He wants to
hear some poetry that Leon, who is in aspiring writer,
has written, and Leon reads it and it's it's about

(01:01:07):
sexual violence. It's about a mans raping his sister, and
Ursula and Stan are like.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
This reminds me of a Seed that is not quite
as bad but is a fascinating movie that Sarah Marshall
showed me. I think I told you about. It's called
Mister Wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Remind me, okay it is a wait, is this the
Ellen DeGeneres movie? Yes, but I still need a refresher. Okay,
so this is pre coming out Ellen. Let me just
verify that. Yes, Okay, this came out the year before
Ellen came out publicly. So it's It's an interesting concept
in many ways because it is a I mean, not

(01:01:48):
that Ellen cannot play a straight character, but as we
conceive Ellen. And also there's all the other workplace abuse stuff.
It feels in twenty twenty six bizarre to watch Ellen
headline a straight rom com called Mister Wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
But this is what happened in nineteen ninety six. No
one talks about this movie. I'd never heard of it
before Sarah showed it to me. Shout out Sarah Marshall,
who was honored Devil's Advocate episode same author as Pin. Yes,
but it starts Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Pullman, and the
plot is fascinating. I feel like it could be adapted
into like a neon psychological thriller, but it's a rom

(01:02:28):
com in this case.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
It's alarming how the plots of these two genres really
could go one way or the other.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
It's just all about performance and scoring. Those are really
the only differences. But yeah, I want the pin rom com.
Oh my god, should we do that?

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Well, it got me thinking about Lars and the real girl.

Speaker 3 (01:02:48):
Sure, sure, I've never seen that. Actually, but in Mister Wrong,
Ellen meets and also it is like fun to reflect
on because it's like right before she came out and
it's her meeting a guy and realizing she don't want
to be with him, which is fun. Yeah. Anyways, Bill
Pullman like really kind of like love bombs ellen degenerous character,
and then she quickly figures out he's like the worst

(01:03:10):
guy ever. He's in fact, mister Wrong. And one of
the first tip offs that he's mister wrong is he
reads her his poetry and it's it is, actually, I
think a very funny scene in Mister Wrong. Bill Pullman
is putting his whole Bill Pullman ussy into this like
very funny, Like it's not sexually violent poetry like Leon's.

(01:03:30):
It's more just like a string of adjectives. And then
it cuts back to Ellen winsing at like he's like
I'm a sailor in the blue, in the depth in
the ocean, and like it just keeps going. I just
love when men are discouraged from becoming writers. I think
that there should be more scenes in film where men

(01:03:52):
try to write and our humiliate. As her soult, I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
It kind of reminds me of the scene in Barbie
when all the Kens are totally Matchbox twenty on their
acoustic guitars at the Barbie's and they're just like, oh God.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
But then yeah, I mean, never forget that Barbie didn't
get a song at Barbie and Ken got a banger.
I love that song, but why did Barbie not get one?

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
Anyway? Okay, so we've heard Leon's very scary and sexually
violent poetry. He goes upstairs to put Pin in his room,
and as he's coming back downstairs, he overhears Ursula and
Stan talking about getting psychiatric help for Leon, and Leon

(01:04:37):
does not like this. He goes back to Pin, who
tells Leon that Stan is trying to turn Ursula against
him and something needs to be done about it. So
Leon invites Stan over under the guys that he needs
help planning Ursula's surprise birthday party. Stan comes over, Leon drugs,

(01:05:00):
attacks and kills Stan. Pin is in the room. Of course,
as all this is happening, and he tells Leon to
hide Stan's car, put his body in the woodpile, and
then come back and clean up the blood off of
the rug. Ursula then comes home from work. Leon tells
her that Stan called to cancel a date that he

(01:05:23):
had with her that night, and Ursula is worried. She
can tell that something is off, but Leon pretends everything
is normal.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
Leon is gaslighting, like his life depends on it, which
he does. He does, Oh, do you think Stan's cheating
on you?

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
And why don't you trust him if you love him
so much?

Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
Yeah, and she's like, Sam would never cheat on me,
and that's so true.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
He would, I know. So they're having dinner, the siblings,
and then Leon goes off to grab his poetry to
read more of it to her, and while he's in
the other room, Ursula hears Stan's watch beep, a watch
that she had given him as a gift, a Chekhov's

(01:06:04):
watch if you will, which I forgot to mention earlier.
So she hears the watch beep and then she finds
it on the floor, and then notices the wet spot
on the carpet where Leon had scrubbed away the blood,
So she knows something horrible has happened, and she asks
Leon what did he do? And Leon's like it was

(01:06:27):
Pin who did it. He and Stan started arguing, and
then Stan fell and hit his head and died. So
Ursula freaks out and runs off and then comes back
in with an axe, which is what you were alluding
to earlier.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
Hey, woman, you use a weapon in a horror movie
that isn't a kitchen.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Knife, yay, or a frying pan or something yea. And
she is about to chop Leon, but we don't exactly
know what happens because we cut immediately to a bunch
of police are at the house. Ursula is in the
back of a cop car, and Stan's body is found
in the woodpile. But wait, he's alive still, which is

(01:07:13):
you're like sure, sure, And then we cut to some
time later, Ursula and Stan, who seems well again, visit
the house that she grew up in but apparently does
not live there anymore. Ursula goes inside and talks to

(01:07:33):
a figure who's sitting at the window. We only see
him from behind at first, but it seems to be
Pin because he's sitting perfectly still and it's Pin's voice
and they're talking about Leon. But then the final shot
of the movie is a reveal Leon with frosted tips.
It is Leon who has apparently dissociated and is now

(01:07:58):
living as Pin. Yes, the end, So let's take a
quick break and then we'll come back to discuss and

(01:08:18):
we are back. Yeah, where to start about to Pin boy?

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
I feel like we've touched on a lot of themes
that just we need to dig into a little further here.
I mean, I think obviously the issue of mental illness
is brought up in the year, which we've talked about
a number of times in the context of how mental
illness is invoked in horror movies, that it's like such
a difficult conversation to have because of course it shouldn't

(01:08:44):
be off limits in any genre of movie, but this
movie does do something that always bothers me. I think
the biggest example of it that I always think of
is at the beginning of Midsomar, Yeah, where you see
mentally unstable behavior, which is like so much of horror,

(01:09:05):
you cannot extract that from the genre, right, But the
issue is that it is like given a specific it
is attributed to a specific mental illness and then serves
to stigmatize people with that illness and usually is wildly
inaccurate and implies that anyone who has said mental illness

(01:09:26):
is murderous and right, which is what happens towards the
end of PIN. I forgot that it happened because we
get so far in without it, because I think it
just as easily reads, and maybe if it was made
today would read as like Pin is this you know,
certainly like Leon is not mentally well. But I feel

(01:09:48):
like PIN to me kind of clearly embodies this generational
trauma that like, this trauma around perception of self and
repression and attitudes around sex that is inherited from his
father who originally voiced PIN, And I feel like that
explanation it makes more narrative sense, and it doesn't stigmatize

(01:10:10):
anyone who has schizophrenia. And it's so frequently schizophrenia that
is attributed to any charcutory board of behaviors, most of
which have nothing to do with schizophrenia, which is a
treatable illness. But yeah, I guess I was sort of
confused at how it comes up here, because it's towards

(01:10:31):
the end makes very little. I mean, I guess it's
spoken in the context of Ursula say I don't want
my brother to be institutionalized, which I think is complicated
because you don't because that, you know, suggests that getting
help with mental illness is only a bad thing or
like will ostracize you from your family. But there are

(01:10:53):
enough examples of that being the case that it's like,
I understand why she's concerned about that, especially in the
context of an institution.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
I mean totally, especially in the I mean in the
late eighties where like psychiatric help was still not the
best in most cases still can.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
Be a wildly misogynist race, I mean, like homophobic. There
are so many ways that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
Ablest like go down the list. But but yeah, I
almost read that is like she doesn't want him to
be in an institution where he would likely be further
abused and mistreated and things like that, but we don't
know for sure. Also, it's her who diagnoses him, and

(01:11:39):
it's her who it's Ursula who like mentions the specific
mental illness, so which she says based on having read
books about it at the library. So she's not a
she's not a mental health expert or at least certainly
not a professional. Not to say that people you know
who do their own research can't be correct in a

(01:11:59):
diagnosed as they give themselves or give someone else. But
either way we have to take what she's saying with
a grain of salt. I would say it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:06):
Does feel like very of the time and would continue
to be of the time for decades after, because Midsommar
comes out what thirty years after Pin? But like, is
this process of ascribing any mental illness to murderous behavior? Yes,
it's very unnecessary, and I wanted to point that out.

(01:12:27):
It's so funny because you're like, well, this is sure.
Is that harmful?

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
Has anyone seen pin unclear? Unclear this had the opportunity
to do harm? But as worth mentioning, well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
I also feel like the movie sort of suggests, and
I'm curious what you think about this, but it feels
like the movie sort of suggests that the mental illness
that Leon has is part of what leads to his
intense sexual repression. Sure, some of it is environmental, some

(01:13:02):
of it is his father's behavior and his father things
that their dad says about sex, and like the bizarro
sex talk that Penn gives the kids, which we'll talk
about further. But I feel like based on what we
hear the parents say or don't hear the parents say,

(01:13:26):
because they're not they're definitely abusive and cold and cruel
as parents, But I felt like they weren't like super
super driving home a need to repress sexual desire. So
I kind of, I mean a little bit. But also
and I know that the dad slut shames ursula, but

(01:13:50):
I didn't really get any strong indication that he was
saying to Leon like repress any need you might have.
No conversation felt a bit more just like clinical, And
it was definitely weird.

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
The sex talk, I guess I don't I don't think
that there's in my opinion, there's not enough information to
suggest that they're placing it on the mental illness. If anything,
I think it's like a mix of things, because I
do feel like the father encourages both children to have
disordered relationships to sex and their bodies, not in the
same way. But I think that just Pin alone, giving

(01:14:31):
you the talk like that that gives you a disordered
relationship to how bodies are talked about, how sex is
talked about. The and the nurse fucking Pin seems to
really do a number on Leon.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
As well.

Speaker 3 (01:14:42):
So I feel like it's a combination of Like, clearly
whatever is like the environmental stuff is exacerbated by the
mental illness. But I don't know. I didn't think it
was suggested that that it was solely that fair, But
I don't know. It so hard to tell what we're
supposed to believe after watching Pin right, well, so.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
To talk more about the sex talk that Pin aka
their father gives them via Pin, it starts out by
saying that, like, people have a biological imperative to reproduce
and that creates the quote unquote need. And of course

(01:15:26):
the way that this is framed is like very gender essentialist,
it's very heteronormative. It also erases a sexual people because
at one point, Ursula asks if every person will have
the need or has the need, and Pin responds with
if they're normal, they do so.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
It just like I think, yes, I agree, I think
that this is attitude of the time. And also Pin
is not a character who we're supposed to be, Like,
if Pin said it, it must be true.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
Right, But when you can consider that it's doctor Lyndon
saying these things, who is a medical doctor. No, he's horrible,
but that's my point. My point is that his attitude
toward sex and human sexuality, even though he is a
man of science, he is a medical doctor, he still

(01:16:20):
has a very regressive and repressive way of looking at
human sexuality, which again reflective of the time. But also
just to share a little anecdote of a doctor's appointment
that I had in recent years that demonstrates that so
many doctors harbor whatever like biases they have from whatever

(01:16:44):
that they bring that into their medical practice. Because this
was a few years ago when I was trying to
get my tubes tied pre hysterectomy. I had gone to
a doctor. I had said I want to go off
of birth control has made me more or less completely
lose my libido. The particular birth control I was on.

(01:17:05):
The doctor, who was a woman by the way, asked
if I had a partner and I said no, and
she said, well, then how do you know that you
don't have a libido? I've probably shared.

Speaker 3 (01:17:20):
This story before this, but you're just like man, and.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
I'm just like you are like And then then I
had to explain human sexuality to a doctor, which was
absolutely nuts. But uh, I feel like this movie actually
does a good job of showing the ways in which
like sexual repression and misunderstandings of sexuality can permeate medicine

(01:17:44):
and can influence certain doctor's attitudes and can affect the
way they treat patients totally.

Speaker 3 (01:17:50):
I mean, it's like they're everyone in this. It doesn't
stop at the doctor, look at the nurse, everyone at
the in this doctor's, this Pia Patrician's office has a
disordered relationship to the way they think of sex and bodies.
And again, not shaming using a sex doll, I'm shaming
using a sex doll at your place of work with

(01:18:11):
the door open with a child outside. Don't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):
Don't do it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:15):
That's a good point. Yeah, it's like that. There is
so much because of how, because of how we're socially
conditioned to view doctors, which in a best case scenario
wouldn't be harmful, as like someone who is not going
to bring their own social conditioning into a work setting,
but they so often do, especially if you are marginalized

(01:18:38):
in any way.

Speaker 2 (01:18:40):
Exactly. The issue of biases affecting medical professionals goes beyond
the topic of sexuality and it extends to you know,
there's a lot of racism in medicine, there's sexism, there's
fat phobia, there's transphobia, there's again ableism and agism, like

(01:19:00):
all of this stuff that often significantly harms patients. And
then the irony is that when Ursula finds out she's
pregnant and wants to avoid the shame that's going to
come along with like being teen pregnant and who do
we tell and how do we maybe keep this a

(01:19:21):
secret from our parents kind of thing, Pin says, Pin
and Leon say, like telling a doctor, even if it's
your father. You know, that's an objective person of science.
They're not going to bring morality into it, which is
not what happens because in the next scene, doctor Lindon,
who is about to perform an abortion on his own

(01:19:44):
daughter again, I cannot stress enough how fucking horrifying and
horrible that is. He says, like, Wow, after all the
time that Pin took to explain sex to you and
give you a better start than I ever had, I
still end up with a pregnant, teen pregnant daughter. It's

(01:20:08):
but then it goes back to like sex ed and
the sex talk that pinnaka doctor Lindon gave the kids,
which is like, Okay, well doctor, did you talk about
contraceptives and safe sex? Did you talk about consent?

Speaker 3 (01:20:25):
Like, clearly not based on how like he and Leon,
I mean, Leon, you can see he takes a very
judgmental approach to That's why I'm like, I think that
there's stuff going on with the father that we don't see.
And this is again me kind of projecting, but like,
the way that Leon talks to his sister does not

(01:20:45):
come from nowhere, and he has such a shame forward
approach even when they're very young, like it and in
their approach, like where she's interested. She's like looking at
a Playboy issue, which you're like, I hope those are
inserts from the child actors, but like, but either way
that he's like horrified by her. Like he has a

(01:21:08):
very armslength relationship to sex and bodies from the time
he's very young, And I do feel like that is
sort of connected to how he's fought because his father
is so disconnected emotionally from others that he can't have
a discussion with bodies with his own children without a mannequin.

Speaker 4 (01:21:26):
Pressent having a pin there, right, So it's like I
do feel like that there's a pretty like well mapped,
like you're saying, like there's medical bias and abuse layered
onto it, and these kids are just like raised to
be so like I just have a disordered relationship to

(01:21:48):
their body that it seems like Ursula spends a lot
of her life trying to like understand and reclaim, but
doesn't have anyone to talk to about it because she
the only person she has to go. I mean, I
guess she does have the friend, but we don't really
see them talk or that relationship build. We just know
they've been friends for a long time, and she clearly
doesn't know her friend, clearly doesn't know enough to know
not to go on a date with Leon. So I

(01:22:09):
can't imagine they're especially close because if my best friend's
brother was Leon and I knew all that Leon and Penn,
I wouldn't be like, yeah, let's go on a date.

Speaker 3 (01:22:20):
Frankly, but it just seems like she goes to Leon
for emotional support and he cannot give it to her,
and I just feel so poor Ursula. Ursula is trying
so hard to and it also seems like she's trying
to live up to other social expectations of her, which

(01:22:41):
include that of being a caretaker to her brother and
shielding him from the judgment of the world and like
taking that on, which does feel like a very feminine expectation, right,
is that she defaults to caretaker when her mother dies,
she defaults to I clean the house now. And I
do feel like it's like intentionally done in the movie

(01:23:03):
where there's like a moment where Leon sits down after
their parents die and Ursula sort of lingers for a
second and then starts to clean up, and it just
feels like they're It felt like a moment where it's like, oh,
they're starting to like click into these roles because they don't.
There's just like a void of order.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
That's not about that too. But then it's Leon who
seems to cook all of the meals, so he's okay, prettysive,
so actually feminist icon.

Speaker 3 (01:23:33):
Don't worry about all the woman murders. Actually, and then
he does try to kill stands, so you know he's
open to killing people of alt true, But yeah, I mean,
and then I think it's I almost I don't feel
like we have time to get into this as fully
as maybe we I don't know if should is the

(01:23:55):
right word, but like the themes of incest that I
hear come up far more in the book, which kind
of scans to me because the writer Andrew Niederman, who's
still living and also wrote the original screenplay to The
Amityville Horror and The Devil's Advocate, but he was the

(01:24:16):
talk about feminist icon. He was the ghost writer for
horror writer VC Andrews after she died for decades, and
her work when she was alive, and then the ghost
written work after she died. This was a frequent theme
that would.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
Appear in her horror incest was.

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
Incest or like disordered, like disordered relationships to sex, growing
up with a family. So while I didn't read the
book because it just did not sound like a fun
way to spend a weekend, and I like the movie,
I hear that that seems to come up far more.
But the change made for the movie is that that
set of I don't know how to properly describe it,

(01:25:00):
that set of disordered feeling and thinking that manifests an
abusive behavior towards his sister is sort of kept exclusively
to Leon. I guess in the book they're both struggling
with this, But in the movie, which I think sort
of plays to like you're saying of how heavily emphasized

(01:25:21):
Leon's mental illnesses, specifically where I think the book even
though Leon is the pin Enabler in the book of
the Pinnabler the Penultimate but that they both sort of
fall into this mental health crisis after their parents die

(01:25:43):
where in the movie, And I think I prefer this
like that Ursula is more focused on trying to move
forward with her life and being met with nothing but
expectations that are far more than should be expected of
a teenage girl, that protecting her brother from what she
fears will be an abusive institutionalization, navigating her own relationship

(01:26:09):
to her body and sex, which is very disordered because
she is forced to vow abstinence to her brother brother
and not to mention all of the weird stuff with
her father as well, and it seems like the total
void of a relationship with her mother. So she goes
from you know, being like a sexually active teenager, which

(01:26:31):
we don't really have enough information to know, like is
she just like doing what teenagers do? Is she like
acting out? We like don't know. It could be some
column a columbe CALLM C. Whatever but she makes a
pretty severe one eighty on that and goes to being
completely complicit to what her brother says she should do,
sort of as a punishment for having gotten this abortion.

(01:26:54):
It seems like they're like, well, the way to avoid
getting pregnant again is to completely cut yourself off from
the need, so that the fact when she meets Pin
and quote unquote, the need comes back. Even though I
think for Ursula they when she meets oh my god,
our boyfriend Pin, what does she fall in love with
the Pin? Oh my god? And then it's and it's

(01:27:15):
so love triangle.

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:27:17):
Oh, But when she meets Stan, oh, I my argument
for Ursula is the need for her is actually just
a need for genuine connection with someone, where I think
that the need as it manifests, actually is something that
affects almost everybody you know, and she's coming of age
and all of this stuff. But like by the time

(01:27:39):
we're at like the midpoint of this movie, I think
the need for Ursula like it is sexual. It seems
like she and Stan are sexually active. We see him
topless opening a watch at some point like relatively if
they have sex, which I also think is a really
good plot point for Ursula because that shows that she's
directly going against what her brother has demanded of her,

(01:28:00):
and that where I normally don't whatever, we tend to
be pretty ambivalent towards like a love interest shoehorned in.
But I think like Stan serves because Ursula pursues and
gets a job that she likes. I think Stan serves
like a narrative purpose that is very active for her,
where it's like she is standing up to her brother,

(01:28:21):
she is seeking out emotional safety that she's never had before,
and she's you know, not buying this the horror movie
trope that if I have sex, I won't survive the movie,
because she does, and so I like the stand relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:28:39):
She seems to be realizing more and more that perhaps
her brother is not right about a lot of his
views on sexuality, imagine that he's perhaps a bit unstable,
and that she shouldn't listen to him yet. And then
she starts kind of breaking away from the stronghold he

(01:29:03):
has on her behavior, particularly as it relates to her sexuality,
and kind of in an act of defiance, says, well,
I'm going to just do my own thing and pursue
what I want and fulfill my need if I so choose.

Speaker 3 (01:29:22):
I agree, and yeah, and I like on Stan's and
that Stan is it seems like because sometimes this is
like a good and this could be a relationship of
any kind, like it doesn't need to be romantic, but
that like he is articulating things that she needs to hear,
and it makes sense that she hasn't been able to say.
But like, I mean, do I wish for for Stan's

(01:29:45):
sake that he maybe waited until they were in a
second location to bring up all the like, clearly your
brother needs help and is scaring me? Why he looks
like that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
What's that skin suit he's wearing?

Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
But that has it's so funny when we're talking about
this seriously because you're like, oh, right, we're talking about Pin.
But like that has to be affirming for Arthula because
that's something that she's had in the back of her
mind for years but can't talk about with anybody out
of fear of the consequences of talking about it, and
that like Stan, it seems like is the first person
that can just I mean, that's such a powerful thing

(01:30:25):
to be like, hey, I also see Pin, and I'm
also scared of Pin.

Speaker 2 (01:30:30):
That's powerful for sure, But that makes me think of
the one scene where their mother and Pin are in
close proximity to each other, which is the car scene.
But it's clear that their mother thinks Pin is freaky
and weird and doesn't like Pin. So why so I'm wondering, like,

(01:30:52):
why wasn't there may be a conversation between Ursula and
her mother where they're talking about how uncomfortable makes them.
You're not wrong, And my guess is that because this
is written and directed by men, and men tend not
to think about women interacting, can you believe it, So

(01:31:14):
they can't really conceive of what a conversation between two
women or a woman and a girl or whatever would
look like. So that's why we don't have that. But
it's established that both of the women in the family,
like have a lot of uneasiness around Pin.

Speaker 3 (01:31:33):
Women do not trust Pin, and with good reason except
for that nurse. Except for that, nurses are closest She's
right or die for. Look, sometimes we are attracted to
toxic people and even toxic pins.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
Toxic pins, toxic pins.

Speaker 3 (01:31:53):
Anyways, Yeah, Pin is scary. I like the stand relationship.
I will say I think that there was equal opportunity
for this to happen with Ursula with a friend, particularly
the friend who ends up going on a date with Leon.
I do feel like that character is well used, but

(01:32:13):
I sort of was wondering why Ursula wouldn't have had
a more open relationship with her that too. Yeah, but
I think that where Stan gets the edge there is
like if everyone in this movie absolutely has to be
straight or pin because it's nineteen eighty eight, that like
the sexual component of her relationship with Stan is also
kind of like important to why they're being together. Makes

(01:32:36):
sense in the story because it's like she's getting that
emotional closeness and she's like not falling into the Leon
superstition that having sex means that your life is over
or whatever, you're damaged or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:32:49):
Yeah. I mean, ultimately, this is a movie about how
being sexually repressed, which is a learned behavior. This is,
you know, Leon learned this, How detrimental that can be.
It can lead to people dying, getting chopped with an axe.

Speaker 3 (01:33:12):
Pinned, crash your car. H Also, it seems like maybe
John Locke starts to realize this ten seconds before.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
He dies, that Pen is maybe bad news.

Speaker 3 (01:33:25):
No, well not the Pin is bad news. But that
like the way that he has conditioned his children to
think is unsharpy to them. You know, based on what
we know about the character, I don't think we're led
to believe he's going to have a positive change to
his life as a result. But it did seem like that,
like register that, like, oh, the me doing this like

(01:33:48):
hurts Leon, right, because.

Speaker 2 (01:33:50):
He's horrified to learn that. Leon goes and has full
dialogues with Pin, and it seems like he realizes, like, oh,
oh no, what have I done if I had only
just talked to my son directly for once in my
life and not only communicated him via making him count
backwards from one hundred by sevens, which, by the way,

(01:34:13):
that scene, so it seems like Leon and Ursula are
like two or three years apart in.

Speaker 3 (01:34:20):
Age, right, Yeah, something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:22):
Yeah, And it seems like in that scene when their
dad is like making them do counting and or math,
he says to Ursula, who seems to be about five
at the time, to count to ten, and then Leon,
who's only two years older than her, has to count
backwards from one hundred by sevens. But my point is, like,

(01:34:44):
surely Ursula can do slightly more complicated things with numbers
than simply just counting to ten.

Speaker 3 (01:34:51):
I think that that's like intentional though, right, like he
is setting Leon up to fail, and like it almost
feels that's how I read it, is like and or.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
He underestimates the capabilities of girls because he's sexist.

Speaker 3 (01:35:06):
Maybe I don't know. Yeah, I read that as like
him like enacting this. That's why I mean, like the
mother's abuse is far more direct, But I do feel
like the father's behavior is intended as abuse, but like
a far more like psychologically torturous. Like I think that
that was like a humiliation ritual, Like he doesn't even
make physical contact with Leon. He just wants him to

(01:35:28):
feel bad about himself before going to bed, which is
so horrible.

Speaker 2 (01:35:33):
That's so evil, right, because later there's a scene between
Leon and Ursula where Leon speaks to clear resentment he
has towards his parents and the psychological damage they did
to him. It's when he's like pouring wine over the
tablecloth and being like, oh, my god, mother would hate
this and father would hate that we're drinking wine.

Speaker 3 (01:35:55):
He said, let's go and let's get a little silly,
and Ursula understand. I don't know or I do I
even though it's like it freaks you out because you're like,
anytime she stands up to Leon, she's in danger, unfortunate,
and that's so many I mean, she is in a
domestic abuse situation with her brother, yes, but also it
is as a viewer very satisfying for her to be like,

(01:36:18):
I can't eat it at the table with fucking Pin.
This sucks and he's like, I'll.

Speaker 2 (01:36:24):
Take it up with Pin.

Speaker 3 (01:36:25):
Pin says it's okay. You're like, fuck you, Leah. I look,
this movie is so awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:36:32):
Uh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:36:34):
I'm trying to think of, like what else there is
to say. I mean, I think that there's opportunities for
I mean getting into I do believe it passes the
Bechtel test not often, but there I forget, Well, this
is maybe proving the point. But like her boss at
the library does have a name, and they talk about
they like do have like a few exchanges. So I am, well,

(01:36:58):
it's one of my one of my favorite movies. But
it is like a movie I really like, and I
want to give it the edge because I do think
that the movies. I think the movie has a lot
of empathy for both of the siblings, but especially Ursula.
It's like more subversive than it seems, even though I
think a big failure of it is you know, I

(01:37:20):
don't know. I don't feel qualified to decide how this
handles incest. I'm assuming not very well. But I think
that there are we were presented with a number of
women who could have had a bigger role in the story,
and don't I think, yeah, that it feels very written

(01:37:40):
by a man, directed by a man that you know,
it's the relationship to their father that is the one
that shapes their lives for better and for worse, their
mother's present, but we do not as present Ursula find
solace in a relationship, in a romantic relationship with a man,
not maybe with the friend that we know.

Speaker 2 (01:37:58):
She's close with, more Marcia. Trust more Marcia.

Speaker 3 (01:38:03):
But I also think we're presented with a lot of
classic horror setups that are like very intentionally subverted in
Ursula's favor, where she is the final girl, she's not
using a frying pan. Marcia lives and is saved by Ursula.
So I don't know, it's it's it's a very very
mixed bag. I feel this movie in terms in terms

(01:38:26):
of Bechdel cast, it is a mixed fact as a
movie to watch.

Speaker 2 (01:38:31):
You gotta watch Pin. It's it's on the pinometer. It's
a ten out of ten.

Speaker 3 (01:38:37):
That's there's so many different pin rank your favorite Pin?

Speaker 2 (01:38:42):
Look?

Speaker 3 (01:38:42):
Are you into skin pin or no skin? Pin? Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:38:48):
No skin plus suit or no skin naked like a
clothing suit not skin suit? Right?

Speaker 3 (01:38:55):
Yeah? Dead father suit on pin or maybe not?

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):
Or fully new food with an anatomically correct penis?

Speaker 3 (01:39:04):
Is that covered in skin? Or do we keep that raw?
So many questions with regards to Pin. But I do
believe it pastest. I believe you.

Speaker 2 (01:39:14):
I didn't pay attention.

Speaker 3 (01:39:16):
I do believe it does. I don't think it you know,
not handily, but I think it technically does. Okay, what
is your what is your nipple rating for the film Pin.

Speaker 2 (01:39:27):
I'll give this. I feel like it's a split down
the middle because it does feel like such a mixed bag.
I think it is doing something interesting by commenting on
like in cell slash val cell mentality and how that
sexual repression which often manifests as utter rage and often

(01:39:53):
violence toward women. The movie like acknowledges that examines it
in I think pretty effective ways. I don't know, I
think so. It's such a wild movie. But and again
to your point, the tropes that are being subverted, as
far as teen girls who are sexually interested and have

(01:40:16):
clear sexual desire not being punished by the plot of
the movie for that, they are punished by men around
them who are harboring, you know, sex negative attitudes and
misogyny and the double standards around being sexually active from
a gender point of view, and they're so quick to

(01:40:38):
slept shame teen girls and women. So all of that
stuff is pretty interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:40:43):
It's a rich text, you can rich text.

Speaker 2 (01:40:47):
Yeah, so let's say two and a half nipples, two
and a half plastic skin suit nipples that we are
to believe Pin eventually has. Yes, Okay, and I'm giving
them to Ursula, who that actor looks so much like
Taylor Swift to me, just throwing that out there.

Speaker 3 (01:41:09):
She does kind of look like eighties Taylor Swift. That's
so interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:41:12):
But yeah, I'll give them to Ursula, and I'll give
my half nipple to Marcia. She deserved more. Yeah, she
was a cutie.

Speaker 3 (01:41:20):
I am also going to go two and a half.
I think that's a fair rating for Pin. It's I
think it's it's so tricky because it's like, I think
it's doing a lot of really interesting subversa things. It's
doing a number of less so and then it's doing
a bunch of third things that I don't fully know
if it's doing a good or bad job, but it
kept my attention.

Speaker 2 (01:41:41):
Is Pin sentient in the car or otherwise shrug, just
don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:41:47):
I I I will say, I really, I really enjoy
this movie. I think this is a super fun movie
to like what it's like a sleepover movie. It's so weird. Yeah,
so bring Pin to your friend if I mean, I
guess with the appropriate trigger warnings, but bring Pin to
your friends. You'll never see a mannequin the same again,

(01:42:08):
that would actually be a good theme because there's there
is that Kim Control movie Mannequin as well that I've
seen with Briant.

Speaker 2 (01:42:15):
It's a weird one. The Real Girl size, which we've
covered on the Matreon.

Speaker 3 (01:42:22):
I think Mannikinuary, think about it, think about it anyways. Yes,
I'm going to give it two and a half nipples.
Two to ursula and have to the pile of wood
that barely hides stands apparently a live body. Yeah, and
I think that's going to do it for Pin.

Speaker 2 (01:42:41):
Happy birthday, Jamie.

Speaker 3 (01:42:42):
Yeah, I'm noticing no one's wished me a happy birthday.
Kind of interesting, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:42:46):
Pin, I wished you one at the beginning of the episode.
If you recall, remember I want happy.

Speaker 3 (01:42:54):
Oh my god, you know what. I don't think I
heard that, because when you do Pin voice, it cuts
out on the zoom it because it's too scary.

Speaker 2 (01:43:02):
You're a while zoo tracering Pin, I retract.

Speaker 3 (01:43:06):
I didn't realize you said that because your good voice disappears.

Speaker 2 (01:43:09):
That's how I opened the episode. Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:43:12):
Well, uh, you know, happy happy birthday. For my birthday,
I don't. I don't know, Caitlyn, I should text you.
I got to make some plans and then the day
after my birthday, I'm going to see my nieces and nephews.
So I'm excited about that.

Speaker 2 (01:43:27):
Yeah, what a lovely gift.

Speaker 3 (01:43:29):
I will not be showing them Pin.

Speaker 2 (01:43:33):
Good fun.

Speaker 3 (01:43:35):
But yeah, thank you so much for listening, listeners, thank
you for watching Pin. I'm assuming if you made it
this far. Also, if you made it this far, if
we haven't released it already, there are tour announcements on
the way for this fall and beyond for our ten
year anniversary tour, keep your eyes peel for that. As always,
the best way to support the show is by subscribing

(01:43:56):
to our Patreon ak Matreon, Caitlyn, you just mentioned that's
where our life Size episode is, where over two hundred
episodes are and it's been the same price for almost
ten years. Five dollars a month gets you access to
the entire back catalog as well as two new episodes
on a theme of ours or your choosing, every month,
and it is it is the way to keep the

(01:44:17):
Bextel cast afloat. So as a birthday gift to me,
become a matron or just remain a matron.

Speaker 2 (01:44:22):
Please, and you can enjoy Jamie's Birthday picks over on
the Matreon this month, which is minised too. And two
thousand and one a space Odyssey.

Speaker 3 (01:44:31):
Yeah, really really expanding what two can mean in the
title of a movie.

Speaker 2 (01:44:39):
It's so pactic.

Speaker 3 (01:44:40):
Thank you for watching Pin again, Caitlin. It's a birthday miracle.

Speaker 2 (01:44:44):
Honestly, I had a pretty good time, so thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:44:47):
It's a good time all right.

Speaker 2 (01:44:50):
Bye, Bye, Jamie Baking.

Speaker 3 (01:44:58):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
produced by Me, Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 2 (01:45:04):
And Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by
Sophie Lichtermann and.

Speaker 3 (01:45:09):
Edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever Heard of Them? 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 2 (01:45:20):
Oh My God?

Speaker 3 (01:45:21):
And our theme song, by the way, was composed by
Mike Kaplan.

Speaker 2 (01:45:24):
With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

Speaker 3 (01:45:27):
Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:45:32):
For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash
Spectel Cast

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

The Bechdel Cast News

Follow Us On

Hosts And Creators

Caitlin Durante

Jamie Loftus

Show Links

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Crime Junkie

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Pin (1988)