Pleasantville with Jessie and Leonard Maltin

Caitlin and Jamie are transported to another time and place so they can discuss Pleasantville with special guests Jessie and Leonard Maltin.

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef
in best start changing it with the beck Del Cast.
Hello and welcome to the beck Del Cast. My name
is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Dronte, and this

(00:21):
is our podcast about the representation of women in movies.
Is that correct? That's correct, Jamie. Would you say that
the representation of women in movies is like generally like
pretty good? I would or would interesting? In general? Very
very bad. How many episodes have we been going for? Now?
Five million? Yeah? I think the general consensus in surprise

(00:44):
to me, but I'm interested to hear more. Okay, I
have to fifty first dates you every morning? Mind you
that the why don't we done that movie? Oh God,
that mood. I've never seen it. It's very funked up.
But what I really loved it when it came out.
I thought it was the most romantic thing ever. It's

(01:05):
spoiler alert. Adam Sandler has to show Drew Barrymore this
like weird DVD he made to like tell her it's
two thousand and six or something every morning, and he's like,
so all this stuff happened. The Clinton administration is over.
Also nine eleven happened. Also, Arnold Schwartzenegger is in office,

(01:25):
like it's the the events he chooses to cover and
the order is So it's an insane movie. But I
really liked it when it came out, but almost I
almost never want to see it again just so I can. Well,
you gotta cover it, So sorry, but you gotta see
it again. Oh no, shout out to all my fifty
first dates and for you, it'll be exactly two laps

(01:50):
of first dates. So we used the Bectel test as
as a as a way to initiate a larger conversation
about women in film and the to test if You're
not Familiar, is a media test created by Alison Bechdel.
It requires that a piece of media has two female
identifying characters. They have to have names, they must speak

(02:11):
to each other, and their conversation couldnot be about men.
And for our standard, it's a just a two line exchange,
very low bar, and yet it still does not happen
nearly enough. So that's what we're working with here. I'm
excited for the movie we're talking about today. It's one
of your favorites, and I yeah, I would say that
it's one of my favorites. Although upon this rewatch I

(02:33):
was like, oh boy, oh something's happened. But before we
get into it, let's introduce our guests. We've got today
very exciting the host of Malton on Movies podcast. It's
Jesse and Leonard Malton. Hello. Can I tell you when
I first became aware of this? Yeah, it was as
apparent when I started taking Jesse to movies when she

(02:56):
was a little girl, and I became alarmed at the
lack of role models for her. I don't know how
enlightened you would rate me as being. I like to
think I am. And so when Jesse was growing up,
we go to these Saturday morning or Sunday morning screenings
that they have here in l A for family friendly movies.

(03:18):
That's how they have their media screenings. One time we
went to see the Karate Kid Part three, classic film
that no one would call a classic, and they got
generally poor reviews. But Hilary Swank is a key character
in that along with Mr Miagi, and I came out

(03:41):
with a different point of view about that movie than
almost any of my critic colleagues, because I was watching
it through her eyes, and I said, well, it's not
a very good movie, but it has a nice lesson,
a nice moral for her. I like to take away
from that movie. That was my first kind of I

(04:03):
don't know if you call it an antiphany, but it
was a realization that if you're trying to be a
responsible parent, an enlightened parent, and especially in this case,
the parent of a daughter, there are other considerations besides
is a great writing, is it outstanding cinema? It's the
takeaway And and I refer to that all the time

(04:27):
because it made such an impression on both of us
cretic at three, who knew a monumental film. But it's
so funny because it's like, yeah, as recently as you know,
when we were growing up, there were still like relatively
slim pickings for positive role models for girls outside of
you know, the Disney princesses that we've talked to death

(04:48):
on this show, but you know, finding active young girl roles,
Like I think almost everyone I grew up with was like,
oh yeah, Harry at the Spy and Matilda, like those
were the Two Little Girls. Okay, so pleasant. What are
each of your history in relationship with this movie? It's
one of my favorite movies ever. I loved it ever

(05:11):
since the first time I saw it. I remember seeing
it and obsessing with it, you know, over it. But yes,
it's one of my favorites. I know, damn near every word.
I love it. My parents, though I had not seen it,
I think since it's since it came out. And so
I said to my dad, do you remember it? I said,
I do, but not not as well. And my mom

(05:33):
was the same thing. She couldn't remember exactly. So we
sat down, the three of us one evening and watched
the film. And the best part for me was watching
the two of them and they were really enjoying it
because I didn't need to watch it again. I know it,
but but I liked watching them watch it. So you
as a family watch each other watch movies because you're

(05:53):
watching a karate kid. That's true, but it is true.
It's it's I'm I'm very much I'm a people watcher anyway.
I'm an only child, so I'm very much like the
I sit in corners and stare at people. So with this,
for me, I kept watching the two of them, and
when it ended, my mom said, I can't believe I
don't remember this movie. I love this, this is so good.

(06:15):
She was really really pleased with it. I think you
and you had a similar reaction. I did really pleasant
rediscovery for me because I had not seen it since
it came out. I come to it from a slightly
different perspective than any of you, just kind of the
fact I'm older. I grew up watching Leave It to
Beaver and Father Knows Best At, Ozzie and Harriet and

(06:38):
all of those TV shows that didn't take place in
the past. That was my present, that was my present day.
So I lived my life and absorbed what they were
telling me was the ideal, the ideal of American life.
I was a baby boomer and these were baby boomer

(06:59):
shows the post World War two era, and they were
hugely popular and it all had long runs those three
shows I just named, and then endless reruns, so they
were always there. They were part of the fabric of
American life. Jamie, what's your history? Um, I think that

(07:20):
this was a movie that I feel like it was
on i f C or the Sundance Channel, like constantly
when I was in high school. So I saw this
movie a bunch of times in high school, aided by
my Toby McGuire crush, which really maybe, uh, you know,
very likely to watch this movie more than once. Um,

(07:40):
and I always really liked it. I hadn't seen it
in I think four or five years, and there were
some things that stood out to me at this point
that I feel I feel almost a little silly for
not registering for me sooner. But I mean, in general,
I still think it's a really fun movie. I've forgot
how emotionally affected I was by it, and um, yeah,

(08:05):
I really like it. Yeah, it is a movie that
I really love as well. Although as you said, Jamie,
there are some beats that happened, especially like towards the
end of Act two where I'm like, oh, you're introducing
this metaphor, oh and then okay, we'll talk about Then
Miles Grady is upstairs and we're like, oh, yeah, we'recovering

(08:27):
Pleasantville today. He's like, oh, yeah, the movie about racism
with only white people in it. And we're like yes,
and he was like, oh cool, yeah, so we'll we'll
dig into that in a bit. But um, yeah, I
I first saw this, I think, and probably I mean
it came out in ninety eight. I think I saw
it in like two thousand and have been watching it
pretty subtily since then. But yeah, I'm excited to dive in. Yeah,

(08:52):
I'll run through the recap and then uh, and then
we'll go from there. So we meet David. That is
Toby McGuire's character. He is a teenager, he's in high school.
He's a I think they're seniors I had imagine in
high school. Um, he's he's a bit of a nerdy type,
and he's obsessed with a show called Pleasantville, which is

(09:14):
this old timey black and white, very wholesome. And in
this show pleasant Ville, it's about a family with a
mom and a dad and a teenage son named Bud
and his sister Mary Sue. Very nuclear, very nuclear family unit. Um.
And then we meet David's twin sister, Jennifer. She's played

(09:36):
by Reese Witherspoon. She is this popular girl in school.
She likes this bad boy, and she has made plans
with him to watch this concert on MTV that night,
but it's at the same exact time as this pleasant
Ville marathon is happening. That David wants to watch. This

(09:58):
is a great problem. There's a lot of problems at
the beginning of this movie that I very much enjoyed.
So they're fighting over the remote and it flings against
the wall accidentally and shatters. So this TV repair man
shows up magically right then, and he sees how big

(10:18):
of a fan David is of the show Pleasantville, and
he gives him this special remote control. You just said
Don Knots. I would say Donna Barney Fife from that show,
The Nervous Man, from the Steve Allen Show. I grew
up with Don. Gary Ross. The filmmaker very candily and

(10:44):
deliberately cast Don not Sure in that role because he
knew it would get the kind of reaction I just
heard from aging boomers. All the knots heads are coming out. Yeah,
that's what but I interrupted, Oh, that's that's what the
recaps all about. So they've got this special remote control now,

(11:06):
and David and Jennifer continue to fight over it, and
they accidentally hit this button that sucks them into the
world of pleasant Fills. I like to wonder what happened
to the two actors in pleasant Right, Like, where did
they go to the nineties nineties, that would be fun,
but we do know what happened to unpleasant film. They're

(11:31):
just horrified by nineties culture the all time right, because
David becomes Bud and Jennifer becomes Mary Sue. So they're like,
what the frick? What get us out of here? Like
what's happening? And the don Knots character is like, no,
you're staying. It begs the question why this man is

(11:52):
going around looking for teenagers to replace the current cast
of pleasant Ville, Like he's just like I've been looking
for people to do this for years. You're like, why,
don Knots, Why wouldn't that ruin the show, which as
we see it does. Why would he do that? I
kind of I'm like, you know, I don't have to know,
but I am curious why that was his I never

(12:13):
really questioned the logic of it until this recent rewatch,
but I was like, why does he do that? I
just don't question them. Yeah, that's the whole meeting on
meeting on the movie's terms. It's like, if you're saying
that you want to send them back there, then that's
where they go. I trust to move the plot forward,
that's right. So they realize that they have to play
along existing in the world of Pleasantville until don Knots

(12:37):
shows up again and is willing to like discuss sending
them back to their actual time. And so then they
meet their mom and dad, Betty and George Parker that's
played by Joan Allen and William H. Macy. So David
has an easy time fitting into Pleasantville because he knows
the show so well. But Jennifer is like, this place

(12:57):
fucking sucks because it's like this utopia of like wholesome purness.
No one has sex, like books or blank nothing burns,
like all this eating meat and cheese and gigantic stacks. Right.
But then this character, Skip Martin played by Paul Walker,
is like, hey, Mary Sue, I like you, Let's go

(13:20):
on a date. Palmer is great in this movie. He
is such a little cutie pie. Watching him be all
bamboozled and what was the part where he's just like,
I don't know what's happening to my body. I was like,
oh my god, Paul Walker has a boner and he
doesn't know what's going on. It's a great scene. So
she takes him to Lover's Lane and they get into

(13:42):
some heavy petting, and I know, I'm so sorry. Oh
my god, I'm so sorry. The family chew, which is
all new to Skip, as you just hinted at Jamie
Um because like again, everyone in Peasantville is basically a sexual.
So at the end of the night, Skip drives past
this like rose Bush and one of the roses. It's

(14:04):
no longer in black and white, it's red, and we're
like the color sin, are this new? Bud and Mary
Sue perhaps changing things in Pleasantville. So now this sort
of incites these changes where teens are making out, they're
listening to rock mu there's that great scene where Paul

(14:24):
Walker tells all the other teenage boys about sex, and
then no one can shoot a basketball anymore. It's great.
And then more things are showing up in color. And
then Bud's boss at the diner, Mr Johnson. That's Jeff
Daniels character. He is like learning to be more independent
and he's enjoying the changes, and he's like, I love painting,

(14:45):
I want to paint more. But Bud is sort of
like resistant to things changing. He's like, let's maintain the
status quo here, h And all this Bud's family life
is terrible. His parents are divorced, they fight all the time,
so for him, pleasant Ville is the escape exgreens of
So the reason he doesn't want things to change because
he says, I love the idea of having my mom

(15:05):
and dad home and loving each other and dinner on
the table every night, whereas Rie Swedishman's character is saying,
why the hell am I in this horrible bra and
I'm not allowed to talk to boys? There are no
toilets here there you know, all those sorts of things,
all of which were true in Father Knows Best and
leave it to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet. There are
no toilets. No, you never saw a bathroom. Well, to

(15:28):
see a bathroom, you see a mirror, man of the
sink in a mirror, but there was. It was kind
of a joke. You never saw a toilet and the
beds like marys. I don't think that is the same era,
in the same ground rules. Yeah, you may know that

(15:49):
when Lucille Ball became pregnant in real life, they wrote
it into the show, so Lucy Ricardo was they couldn't
use the word pregnant. Yeah, I didn't know whoa what
did they say? Gnant's expecting. Those shows were even at

(16:09):
the time, but we didn't criticize them for that. They
were not just idealistic, they were antiseptically idealists. And there
were no four letter words, there were no double entendres,
there was no violence, there's no irony, no iron It
was all straight faced and sincere and America loved. America

(16:32):
embraced these shows. America of that time embraced these shows
fully and wholeheartedly because they represented what was considered the ideal.
And yes, they were all white, they were whiter than white.
And this black and white TV show presents a world
that he would be very comfortable living in. Yeah, it

(16:56):
would bring him happiness, he feels. So the next major
thing that happens in the story is that Mary Sue
teaches her mom about sex and masturbation, and then her
mom gets into the bathtub has a little fun, little
time with theirselves. That's what I call masturbation. I know,
I'm so sorry. And she has an orgasm that causes

(17:20):
a tree to spontaneously combust outside, which is what happens
every time a woman comes how you know she is
not more people should be talking about that. I know,
I know, I know, that's why there are so many
forest fires. So then Bud goes to the fire department
and then how has to teach them how to put

(17:40):
out fires. But this uh incites a curiosity in people
where they're like, well, uh, fires and all, but also
what's outside of Pleasantville and what are these books about?
And this girl named Margaret shows an interest in Bud
and they end up going out and then starts to
like open up to things changing. Meanwhile, Betty is vibing

(18:05):
with Mr Johnson, Mary Sue is turning down sex with
Skip to read instead um, and then the first time
for the first time in her life pretty much yeah.
And then George, their dad, is freaking out about his
dinner not being ready on the table for him. Yeah.
He's freaking on about change, as is the mayor and

(18:26):
a bunch of other like old men in the community,
and they are very resistant to all this change. Meanwhile,
like the TV repair man is like, what do you
guys doing to Pleasantville, and Buds like, screw you, this
is what you wanted, don knots You've made your bed.
So basically, the mayor is like, make pleasant Ville grade

(18:47):
again and tries to enforce like segregation because all these
people are turning to color and there. Yeah, they they
hit you over the head with with what they're metaphor. Yeah,
well they're they're afraid of the other, the others, and
they I mean they go so far as to say
like coloreds, like they write and will unpack that. There's

(19:12):
like proud boys who are like burning books and vandalizing
storefronts and stuff like that. Also Betty and um Mr
Johnson and Mr Johnson fall in love. They're they're beautiful
out there freaking, and the mayor creates this code of
conduct that prohibits all the stuff that has been changing

(19:33):
about Pleasantville. And then, in an act of defiance, it's
like no more dancing and fun music only John Phillips
Susan marches for are you kids? Um? So, in an
act of defiance, Bud and Mr Johnson paint a mural,
depictively ugly mural, but because I like the message. It's

(19:56):
depicting all the everything that's been happening, Like, yes, there's
a copy of my favorite part that I thought was
silly on the mural was a copy of Catcher in
the Rye flying to Heaven. It's like, oh my god,
but sure, why not. So the two of them are
put on trial, but is defending them against the mayor,

(20:19):
and he's trying to prove the point of like, well,
maybe some things are better than pleasant, like stuff like
being silly or being sexy. And then he gets his
dad to turn to color, and then the mayor gets
so piste off that he turns to color. And then
everyone goes outside and the whole town is in color,
and everything's changed for the better is the message of

(20:42):
the movie. And then Toby McGuire goes back to the
nineties nineties to spread the message of I like to
picture him going to his friend after me because I've
been stuck in a TV. They're like, oh my god,
he's on d MT. But and then Reese Weatherspoon decides
to stay yes, and that is she starts to stay

(21:06):
in Pleasantville and pursue her studies. Yes, she says, I've
done this slet thing. Yeah, and now she wants to
try something different. It is also worth unpackaged. She's done. Yeah.
One word you haven't used in your in your description repressed. Yeah. Yeah.
That may be the ultimate adjective to describe all the

(21:26):
people and the society in which they live. It is
holy and resolutely repressed, not just sexually repressed, but repressed
in other other ways, to which seems to be what
makes it so appealing to David in the first place,
where there's that scene that I mostly liked, where when

(21:47):
they're still in the nineties and his mom is on
the phone and she's having an argument about custody and
all this stuff, and he's just watching Plauseanville and totally
ignoring it and repressing any of that, and you're like, oh,
it makes sense that of very repressed environment would be
appealing to him. It's like, oh, no, one has problems,
and if they do, it's not discussed. It sounds like

(22:08):
the kind of place I wanted. And he goes there, um,
where we know from the beginning that that's not Jennifer's
deal at all. She's very forward about what she wants
to do, and so of course you would hate it there. Right. Um,
we got to take a quick break, but then we'll
come right back after these messages and we're back, Okay,

(22:32):
So the big thing about this movie, my big issue
with it, and then we can talk about some of
the other stuff. And we've already touched on this a
little bit, but the movie attempts to become this metaphor
for because it's borrowing like language and imagery and other
socially relevant things from civil rights Sarah. The race subplot

(22:54):
on this viewing didn't didn't do much for me, even
though I I understand and you know, contextually what they
were trying to do. I just didn't feel like this
set up lend itself particularly well to making the point
that they were trying to make um. And also that's
introduced so late into the movie, where it's like the
movie is almost over and they're like, no, now it's

(23:15):
about race, and you're like why, Like what what? Because
it's that's been established, which makes sense for the context
of what the show Pleasantville would be, which would be
an entirely white cast. But then that means that the
world that everyone's existing in is made up entirely of
white people. And then to introduce this race metaphor using

(23:38):
only white people just doesn't work when we're watching it
through the lens of two thousand nineteen. Yeah, that that
part of the movie did not age well for me. Well,
I see, it's it's all it's all a matter of
perspective having grown up then there were no black people
on TV in those sitcoms that I can recall, certainly

(24:02):
not in recurring roles if at all, and being pre
civil rights, which all those shows were, although some of
them drifted into the era that was for many people
a definition and an absolute snapshot of American life. Remember,
they did throw in its un silly, but they threw
in a couple of black people into the like when

(24:25):
you go to Pleasantville there, that's like two. But they're
they're really don't minimal that I sometimes, but I think
they did that. First of all, we we are not
big analyzers in general because we watched so many movies.
If we sat and went through absolutely everything, I think

(24:46):
we'd all lose our minds but also come to life
our life. But also it's it's the kind of thing
where I don't necessarily think that everything has to be
analyzed deeply. And so for me watching the movie, it
would be weird if suddenly, instead of turning the color,
they turned black, Like that's not what you want to
have happened. That's even stranger, you know, but racial. I'm

(25:09):
just saying it's to work that in since they do
choose to go down a race road. Um it would
have been stranger to suddenly have a black person pop up.
So I think the problem with this movie is that
they are introducing this like civil rights metaphor into a
sort when they didn't need to do that. If it
was just about sort of like the enlightenment of people

(25:32):
in terms of like women's sexuality, which is a thing
that gets established, and then they leave the race thing
alone because they're only they only have white people with
which to carry out whatever metaphor they're trying to carry out. Um, yeah,
it just felt like wouldn't they were taking a big
hit if they hadn't addressed it at all. I mean,
that's kind of the just that there may have been

(25:55):
a better way to do it. I don't. I don't know,
and I don't how an idea as to what that
may be. But I don't know. I just felt like
the movie bit off a little more than it could chew,
and in terms of like addressing all the evils of
this era, it didn't seem equipped to address civil rights.

(26:15):
If one of the particular things about the movie is
because it takes place in this all white sitcom. How
I don't know, it's just like it almost seems like
it's for me. It attacks the women's sexuality and women's
liberations so effectively that that seems like it was very
well equipped to do that and not so well equipped

(26:36):
to do you feeling any of those things then the
first time I sat because that's the other part of it.
And that's what is so tricky about looking back at
movies is that movie is now twenty years old, which
is crazy. First of all, that's crazy, but it's twenty
years old, and it's really hard. And I think I

(26:57):
think the reason that my dad and I are sort
of used to turning certain parts off is because we
watch old movies. I was, you know, my dad raised
me on certain things, and there's definitely stuff that will
watch sometimes that that I can't the step and fetch it.
Characters I have a really hard time with. Do you
know these are? I mean, like, so what we saw

(27:20):
Charlie Chan. There were stereotypes, common stereotypes in movies for
many decades. Every irishman was a cop, Every Chinese person
was a laundryman or woman. Every Italian was a grocer
or a fruit vendor or an organ grinder. If you

(27:41):
can believe that every Greek person owned a diner, and
every black person was a pullman porter on railroad cars
or or a personal maid to a fancy white woman.
So step and fetch it. Step and fetch it was
the name of a performer. Stay name of a Performer's
name was Lincoln Perry, who played the laziest person on

(28:06):
the planet. So because that was that was his his
stage name, that became sort of a name used for
that kind of a character. So step and fetch it,
and you know Heckel and Jekyl and Dumbo. Yeah, that's
sort of a thing. But watching those today, I sometimes
will watch something and I'll say to my dad, this
is too much, like I can't it hurts me to

(28:27):
watch this. At the same time, we watch so many
things where I mean, you name it happens, and so
I think that we are used to turning parts off
because you can't look at a movie with today's eyes.
You just kind of can't. Yeah, yeah, I see what
you're saying. And I've had to, like, I mean, when

(28:48):
I even when I go to watch movies at the theater,
I often have to, like, you know, take off my
bactel cast goggles. Just to enjoy anything. But what we
so often find when we do analyze movies for this
podcast is that the movies that we've seen, you know,
pre two thousand eighteen, you know, like I mean, and

(29:09):
and also they send messages or they have they erase
certain things, or they portray certain people in certain ways
that have negatively impacted society at large. And on this podcast,
you know, we have to be like, oh, you know,
when I watched you know, Indiana Jones growing up, like

(29:30):
that fucked me up. There's all these characters, white characters
in brown face. There's all these you know, not good
portrayals of women, uh, you know, stuff like that. So like, yeah,
I know, we have to in order to enjoy any
entertainment kind of have to shut off our analytical brains sometimes,

(29:50):
but specifically go to me when it's older that that.
I don't mean now, because if you walk in and
see something like that now, you go really, guys, really guys.
But if you're even just twenty years ago, even there,
you start to hit these kind of roadblocks. I think
there is a way to have it both ways a
little bit. Yeah, where it's it's like I when I

(30:11):
when I watch I totally agree with you where I
when I watched movies for this show, I watch it
differently than if I'm just enjoying it um because otherwise,
you know, it's just harder to enjoy things. But it does,
I don't know it. It's it's been helpful for me,
and it hasn't really Like with some egregious exceptions, most
of my favorite movies haven't necessarily changed as a result

(30:34):
of turning off my compartmentalization to watch it. It's just,
I don't know, just creates a more aware picture of
something that I know I like. And it was I
mean with this movie, which I still think is a
good movie, and you know it's still one of your favorites,
and it's just I don't know. It's it is interesting
and I think it's very yeah, entertaining movie that I

(30:58):
wouldn't call it a message movie, but it's a movie
that makes a point or two. Yeah, So with the
entertainment and the enjoyment and the past and production design
too beautiful, stunning, gene Apple walls, brilliant, and it leaves

(31:22):
you with something to chew on, right, how hard you
want to chew, It's up to you. What I mean
when I say that sort of the turning certain parts off,
it's that we won't notice something, and then if you
say this made no sense or I don't like how
that worked out for both of us will sort of
go yeah, but when we watch something initially, we're pretty

(31:45):
good at sort of not doing it. So how does
this movie fair on the Bechtel scale? Well, well we'll
find that out. There's there's still a bunch to talk
about for me. The Yeah, So basically, the I think
the biggest issue I have with this movie, and then
we can get into some other stuff that I think
we think the movie does effectively is just again to

(32:05):
radio reiterate the fact that it's equating white people who
have turned from being in like black and white to color,
equating them to actual people of color, and then trying
to make this metaphor just doesn't work when we're looking
at it through today's lens. So yeah, it's just a
case of false equivalence. And then sort of a weird

(32:26):
victory lap at the end of like we saw racism
in pleasant Ville, It's like, well, that would be pretty
easy to do if there are no people of color,
it's only white people. Um, but with that we're going
to take a quick break and then talk about the
betrayal of women. They we're back. So in terms of

(32:50):
the female characters in the movie, one of the first
things that I noticed upon this rewatch that I, I
guess was like kind of subconsciously but like hadn't given
it much thought until watching the movie for the podcast,
but I was like, Oh, a woman's sexuality is what
incites all the changes in pleasant Ville. Like that's the

(33:11):
catalyst that gets things to start happening. That's the catalyst.
I mean, I think that there are some other things
I think, I mean, women seem to prompt most of
the changes inside and and there. It was pretty sexually
heavy at the beginning, where Jennifer is the one who

(33:32):
I thought pretty effectively, you know, meet Skip and is
forward and like this is what I want to do
and oh you don't know how to do this. Here's
how you do it? Want to do it? Great? Uh?
And they do it. I should say, do it more?
Yeah uh. And then the same with Betty's character, who
literally sets the town on fire by masturbating once. But

(33:55):
but then that that word repression, Yeah, I mean, that's
how repressed she was. It's it's it's almost like a
cartoon exaggeration, right, But that's why it's such a funny moment, right,
It's a great I mean, I love that I forgot
that moment happened because I just hadn't seen it in
a few years and I was like, Oh, my god,
I guess what that is, like the scene I remember

(34:18):
from this movie because it is I think the first
movie I've ever seen where you see the suggestion of
a woman masturbating. Incredible suggestion of a woman having having
an orgasm in a movie like that was the first
time I had ever seen that, and I was like, Oh,
what a difference can make. H Yeah, I mean, and

(34:40):
it's still I mean, it's still not super common, but
that this was definitely one of the first movies where
female masturbation was suggested and visually implied as well, in
a way that didn't see him like talking down to
it of like it literally is a catalyst. Yeah, hich
I love I love the way that the thing that

(35:01):
will drive us both nuts is anything gratuitous, and that
is whether it's foul language where someone saying fun every
five seconds and somehow that's supposed to be let you
know the script, it's lazy, same kind of thing nudity.
When nudity fits and makes sense, none of us react
to it, not in a big way. When someone is

(35:21):
standing there naked and you understand that it's because they
want them to stand there naked, that's when I say
I don't like this. So what I appreciate about that
scene especially is we all understand no one needs to
see what she's doing. We all get it. And whether
it's you know, whether it's just that she's pampering herself.
That's the other part. Two is that if someone didn't

(35:43):
know what she was doing, let's just say someone younger
watching it didn't know what she was doing, they may
just think that that she's pampering herself. And she's never
does that. She's drawn a bubble back, which narratively doing
something for herself. She handles, she like candles. There, she's
she's in that bathtub having her time. So it could

(36:04):
work either way. I wouldn't have minded that. But I
think the good thing about the I mean I think
it fits with the story to or like in what
world of pleasant Ville the TV show are you going
to see? Like Titti's not uh, and also it just
allows it to be PG. Thirteen and so, I mean,
I think this is like a cool movie for young

(36:26):
women to see. I mean, and like, gratuitous female nudity
is something that we come up against a lot on
this podcast where we're like, and the other thing is
that oftentimes female sexuality is something that's villainized in a
movie where a villain, a female villain will be like
overly sexual, and that's something where we use the audience

(36:46):
are meant to think like, oh no, she's like loose
and that's that's part of what makes her evil or whatever.
But in this movie, the female sexuality change, it's what
leads to an increased curiosity from like different people in
the know to be like basically like, what's a fire
and why does it? What's the word? My favorite thing,

(37:07):
honestly is fire. Yeah, fire, fire cat every time. It
makes me laugh every single time. Cats do have eight nipples.
This is kind and I think it would have been
such an easy, lazy choice for the men to become
sexually aware of first and sort of gone in a

(37:29):
more fratty direction with it. And the fact that Jennifer's
character is basically the sex said teacher for this entire
world was really cool. And and the fact that I mean,
and they were like little moments where I thought Jennifer
was it was maybe the character was sort of talked
down to and made to be like, oh, she's like

(37:50):
a high school slut like that was sort of, but
she's so in charge of her own sexuality and so
calling the shots at every point in the narrative. And
then where her character goes where it seems like, I mean,
the rules for what makes you technical or aren't caught it.
I mean, it's just like some emotional response or something

(38:11):
new that is fulfilling to you. Because at first it
seems like, oh, if you have sex, now you're in technicolor.
But then that doesn't happen for Jennifer because she's been
having sex, so it's like not new and exciting, And
what is new and exciting is education and learning stuff,
which was the one thing I was waiting to happen
because I had never watched this movie with this lens

(38:34):
before of like, oh, it would be a bummer if
it was only sex that you know, activated women, But
but then you do see a few different things, and
Jennifer's story was really I don't know. I forgot that
that was her. The Mayor turning color is that he
gets angry, but angry in such a serious way. He

(38:55):
becomes unpleasant. But that's it each person, did you say,
it's it's something within them. So it depends on what
you need. It depends on yeh who they had been
established previously, and then there once they undergo their character arc,
whatever it may be. That's sort of what is the
catalyst for their changing of colors. And then for David,

(39:19):
he changes colors when I'm just I keep whenever say
it changes colors. I think of the horse from the
Wizard of Oz. But he changes colors when he has
to defend his TV mom from the Pleasantville Proud Boys
who are lunging at her because there was a nude
painting done of her by Jeff Daniels, which I don't

(39:40):
Does he ask her if that's cool? Or does he
just do that? We don't That all happen happens off screen,
and I have to she's consenting to it. Yeah, it
doesn't feel like he's done something terrible, clear because she's
not wanted. And then she's there with him painting, which
is true, going off of like, um, the Mary Sue

(40:01):
character like having all of her agency and being sex
positive essentially and like spreading the gift of sex to people.
That then inspires the Betty character to also like have
her agency when it comes to her sexuality, because she's
the one who keeps approaching Bill Johnson. That's his name, right,

(40:24):
and she keeps like going to him and saying, like,
let's let's experiment. I mean, we can presume a lot
of this kind of happens off screen, but we do
see her approaching him kind of with the intent of, like,
let's get naked. The women in this movie are forward
and state what they want, and usually the men are like,

(40:44):
oh sick. But then, but that would be a great
line of the film. Daniels just goes, someone says cool
in this movie and it's a big But then where
the Mary Sue character leaves off, I don't know quite
how to feel about this. Well, even before that, where

(41:08):
first she's the one whose sexuality like sets the wheels
in motion for the whole town of Pleasantville, but then
later when she chooses like reading and studying over sex,
and then she says later on like I've tried the
slept thing. It got kind of old. It's great that
she's like trying to enrich her life intellectually, but then
that means she ends up sacrificing her sexuality, which kind

(41:34):
of a mixed message. I don't think that. I think
I think that her saying I've done the slept thing
is her sort of saying that I've tried different parts
of myself. I've looked at different parts of myself. So
now it's the sort of thing where you feel like
she'll do it when she wants to. I think that's
the difference, is as opposed to doing something because she
has a reputation or she wants trying to be more popular,

(41:57):
you know, she wants she she has that she's leading
the women in and stuff like that. It's it's in
this case, she's sort of saying, this is what I
want to do right now, in the same way that
when Skip comes to her window is like hey, hey,
and she's I'm studying, so I thought we could go
and I'm studying and she closes it. So that's sort
of to me. It's more so that that it's her saying,

(42:19):
I've made the decision that this is my focus now.
I don't think she's saying and I'll never have and
the Nunnery is now because we do see a shot
of her at the very end at university and she's
like flirting with a man and she's got a book
open in her lap in front of her, So she's
having that she's having at all at all. Another thing

(42:41):
that kind of not necessarily rubbed me the wrong way,
but it is at least worth mentioning, is that the
thing that gets Jennifer to want to play along in
Pleasantville is a man so like and that makes sense
for her character, like she had been established as this
kind of like boy crazy teen. But the fact remains

(43:02):
that a woman is motivated in a movie to engage
with what's happening in the story by a man. Oh,
I think you could say the same thing as the
Betty character if if that's they are stuper using because
she I yeah, I mean Betty gets It's interesting because
I love the relationship between Jennifer and Betty, and I
almost wish we saw a little more of that because

(43:23):
the scene that we the scenes we see them together
in are so like they're great and they're talking to
each other about stuff that women were not supposed to
talk to each other about and learning and educating each other.
But then I mean, I guess this would probably be
realistic for that time. But Betty, you know, goes from
one man to another man, and so it's a combination

(43:45):
of you know, she gets some of the motivation from
what she learned from Jennifer. But would she have left
her husband if there weren't a Jeff Daniel's waiting in
the wings? We don't know. But see, we don't know
that they get together. They were talking about this interesting
because you see that she goes to him, but we
don't see her with him, and at no point do

(44:06):
we see her because I say that we were just
talking about this in the car. She does what she
wants to do, and if she did, what I feel
like is if she did just go straight to Jeff Daniels,
everything would sort of be lost because then you go
all the stuff you just did, you just went from
one man to the other. We don't know that, and
that's why the very end where you see the three

(44:27):
of them sitting on the mark, and it's sort of like, yeah,
she can do whatever she wants. So we don't really
see anything. But that's you don't really see anything that
tells you that now she's with him. We understand that
they sort of had a romantic night, but we don't
know what they're going to do from there. He really
Jack Dawson's her, right, he does a Jack Dawson glass

(44:47):
to paint Hello. That's that is a relief, I guess. Yeah.
I sort of was like projecting that foregone conclusion. I hope, yeah,
that these character. You know, she explores her options. If
she wants to get together with Bill, she can do that,
but the difference is wanting, right, she wants to choose

(45:10):
this person, and that is a big difference to everything else. Yeah. Right,
Because her arc basically goes from her starting out as
this like cheery housewife who's making the meal she's eat up, yeah,
subscribing holy to the to the status quo of Pleasantville.

(45:33):
And then she learns about sexuality and she knows her
husband won't go for it, so she masturbates and pleasures
herself or William when they cut back to him when
she's in the bathroom and he's trying to get comfortable
and in his twin sized bed, like and then shortly
after that she turns to color, but she's too ashamed

(45:53):
and she's not really ready to embrace this. Another repression moment, right,
So she covers herself all up with makeup. That's a
very sweet moment though, Yeah, with her in turn McGuire,
that's a very sweet It's a very tender because on
the one hand, obviously she's trying to hide that she's
turned color. But at the same time, that's a really
sweet moment with them. And then of course later on

(46:15):
when they when Jeff Daniels ropes off the makeup, that's
the other weeping right, Yeah, I can't beautiful just the
way you are, which she's like. I loved, I loved
that scene with her and Toby McGuire, especially because it
was I mean, she you could see the repression in
the shame of like I've changed and I'm not ready
for people to know that. And he, you know, even

(46:38):
though he knows, you know, she'll probably she may be
happier if she, you know, it's just herself in the world.
He like accepts that she's not ready and that's not appropriate.
She will be she knows she will be ostracized. Yeah,
if not burned at the steak Yeah, right by the pleasant,
feel proud boy yeah um, and then where her are

(47:00):
ends is well before the kind of conclusion of her
character arc, we see William H. Macy's character being like,
where's Mari dinner, like, still expecting her to be like
the homemaker caregiver role, and then whenever he confronts her
about it, she's just like, no, I'm not going to
do that anymore. Because he's like, he lays down some
like terms and conditions, like you're going to go to

(47:22):
this tom meeting you every day. Yeah. I like that.
He's made out to be like the du fust idiot
who were not supposed to like in that stand and
she's just like, no, I'm going to do whatever I
want and you can't do anything about it, right, and
I mean, and then you get the like sincere growth
of his character too, where he I mean, we see

(47:43):
him be like I don't know how to I'm eating olives,
which relatable as someone who can't cook and lots of
lots of them. The scene went in the courthouse where
Toby Guyer's talking to William H. Macy and in that
moment saying doesn't she look beautiful? Don't you love her?
And he's crying and you're just like, oh my god,

(48:07):
so beautiful because there too, it's a nice thing they
don't make Will you make Macy's character evil? No, he's
not a bad man. Where the mayor is sort of seen,
is this, oh fish, I think he's as close to
a villain. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah, but will you
h Macy? If he was terrible, then you would have no, yeah,

(48:27):
leave him? Why would you want to be with that guy?
But he's not that. Yeah, but this is also what
he knows well. It's like the in the courtroom scene
where Toby McGuire is trying to basically get Macy to
turn to color. He's saying, like, it's not just the
cooking and the cleaning that you enjoy. Maybe it's because

(48:50):
you actually like her for her personality, and it's like
and it never occurred to it, which like is a
very cartoonish thing. But also these are cartoonish characters. Yeah.
I really ended up appreciated, like the William Macy character.
Something that I don't think is super common in movies

(49:10):
even now is to see a male character who has
entirely the wrong idea about women, who is you know,
spoken to directly and then is made to seem capable
of change. I feel like that is something I'd like
to see more of in movies because it is like

(49:30):
cathartic and exciting for me to see a guy be
you know, punished for being an asshole. And I'm all
for seeing that. But also I think for like male
movie cars, especially like young male movie cars, that can
be a positive thing to see some someone who is
not treating women the way they should be and then

(49:51):
seeing them be called out and then begin to change
and making that seem like a viable course of action
is thing that like younger boys should see more of.
As much as I was concerned for Jesse growing up
not having a good female role models, I was also

(50:12):
just as a person aware that there weren't very many
good male role models. Yeah almost none. Yeah, which is
crazy because there's so many you know where were again nuance, Uh,
three dimensional characters something to pattern yourself, pattern your life after.
Oh that that guy really has his act together, you know,

(50:34):
and he is he's smart, he's capable, he's I don't
want to keep using the word enlightened, but that's the
one that seems to come to mind. And uh, and
there are a damn few of those. Yeah then or now? Yeah,
absolutely something I love And I thought about this then
and I think about it now. But the whole thing
of both Jeff Daniels and William H. Macy being good

(50:58):
people means that it's not an easy decision. And the
film that I always relate that to is The Notebook. Now,
I'm not a die hard Notebook person. I like the
movie fine, but I do know it. But I've always
really appreciated that the two men she had to choose
from from We're Good Men, Ryan Casson and James Mars

(51:19):
James margin. But the whole thing is, you know, normally
there's the there's like the Jack Dawson and you know
and Rose where she's with a terrible man. So there's
no question, you know, she should go to to the
other guy. It's much more complex to say both of

(51:40):
these are good options, and so with Joan Allen. But
that's if Joan Allen. You know, if William and Macy's
character was one dimensional and just like I don't care
about you, I just want my food, then there's no
question go go to go to the other guy. But
when you layer it and you say no, it's not
cut and dry like that. It's not that simple. I

(52:02):
appreciate that. I appreciate doing something different absolutely. And then
I think with like the Toby Maguire character in his
different like whether he's being David or whether he's being Bud,
Like he's a sensitive guy who is like there's a
whole scene where he puts makeup on his mom, like

(52:23):
how many But then the last scene with him and
jenekas Merrick right exactly where where he's comforting her because
you know, she's having romantic problems with her boyfriend or whatever,
please clean up her makeup. So that's it's obviously a
callback that you see, you know, you see with Joan
Allen doing it now he's doing with his real mom.

(52:43):
But that makes that moment so much more tender because
you believe, I feel like and his character doesn't go
from like bad too good. He just goes from repressed
to less repressed, which is like a cool, a cool
arc to see someone got through. Um. Any other final

(53:04):
thoughts about the movie. I think it holds up really
well in general. I think it holds up really well.
The performances still all feel real. Um, that's the thing.
The pieces even if the whole is not perfect. To me,
the pieces are absolutely worth it, and if you can

(53:25):
sort of deal with the other stuff, of course, someone
watching it for the first time going to have a
completely different experience. And that's true all movies. If you
love something, you love it. And so I can't look
at it now and say, we'll let me be completely objective.
I can. I love the movie. I've seen it a
million times, but I do think compared to some especially
it holds up well. Yeah. I think aside from like

(53:47):
the very like late nineties idea of like progressive ism
of like white people who turned to technicolor is the
same thing as a civil rights movement. But aside aside
from that, like, yeah, I do genuinely think this movie
holds up pretty well. I still enjoy it. I'll still
watch it. Um. I just have to point out that

(54:07):
there's like trivia in the beginning where David's like practicing
for the marathon, and one of the questions is what
did Bud and Mary soon na the cat that they
found in the gutter. The answer is marmalade, which I
have to pay for that. You know, Paddington is his
favorite food, so just have to mention just shout out
to Paddington. Is there a part you feel like Alfred

(54:30):
Molina would have played well in this movie? Oh? I
think he would have been a good mayor because he's,
oh you know what, he plays basically well, he plays
basically that same character in Chako La. I know I'd
like to see with Mr Johnson. I was gonna say,
I was as I love I love Jeff Daniels, but
I love Alfred Molina in a romantic role. Sure, yeah,

(54:50):
that would be my pick. Okay, Yeah, that's great. That's
that's my final thought. Does this movie pass the Bechdel tests? Yes,
it does does a couple of times. A few of
them are just like very throwaway moments where Joan Allen
is like, I just love that sweater on you, Mary Sue.
It's so flattering. He says, thanks, thanks um, And then

(55:12):
there's a couple other like have breakfast now, or like
get off to school okay, and she's like, I'm not hungry.
But the big scene is the one where Jennifer as
Mary Sue is teaching Joan Allen's character about sex. And yeah,
they're they're doing household chores, but they're talking about masturbation,

(55:35):
which begs the question where did Mary, Sue and Bud
come from? If Joan Allen's character has never had sex,
they did, Well, they live in in a universe where
uh story started. They started with two people going into
a TV show where why are they having sex? Yeah?

(55:55):
I guess it's just like the story the Baby. They
all show that when season one started, and they were
the way they were. So but yeah, there's there's a
fairly long scene where she's like, yeah, again, what they're
talking about hetero sex. So whether or not that passes
the Bechtel test is up for debate because you're talking

(56:17):
about like having sex with a man, but then but
then it turns to masturbation. I would give that scene
a pass for that reason. Yeah, so like it. The
context for me is like sex for pleasure and like
sex for female pleasure. Yeah, it's not about minutes about them. Yeah,

(56:38):
the man is the tool literally, but he's the vessel. Yeah,
but yeah, I'll give us a pass for sure. Yeah,
so that I mean that. I just loved that scene
in general. Same shall we shall we write the movie?
Let's write it on our nipple scale zero to five
nipples based on its portrayal of women. Um, I think

(57:02):
I'm gonna go with a three. Um, I'm gonna take
some nipples off because of the the whole discussion we've
already had regarding like, oh, white people solving racism. That's
my big problem with the movie. But then, um, looking
at Yeah, I mean the female characters who have agency,

(57:23):
especially in terms of their own sexuality. The Margaret character
we didn't really talk about a lot or at all,
but that's the teen woman who Bud ends up, yeah,
ends up dating. She kind of really only exists in
the story to kind of like further developed Bud's character,
and she doesn't really have any bearing on this story,

(57:46):
so she's just kind of like one of these sort
of flat, one dimensional characters. But yeah, of the characters
we do get to know, Betty and Mary Sue slash Jennifer, Yeah,
I really like the the message that they help perpetuate
in the story. And yes, so I'll give it three nipples,

(58:07):
and um, I'll give all of them to the cat
named Marmalade who we never meet on screen, although maybe
that's the cat that gets saved by the fireman in
the very beginning. Marmalade visibility is high. I'm gonna go
I'm gonna strictly do this writing based on how this
movie treats women, because I mean, I also did not

(58:30):
care for the way that this movie tried to throw
in civil rights, uh in the kind of this bizarro way,
but strictly based on how the movie treats women, I'm
gonna give it a four, only docking it really for
the b characters that are kind of a little bit tropy,
like the the you know, the friends in the nineties
and the fifties are kind of you know, like reductive

(58:53):
bimboie characters. Uh. And then I sort of agree with
you about Margaret's character. It seemed like there was more there,
but there just wasn't time or real estate given. But
they were very sweet together. Yeah, they were definitely sweet.
I just I don't know anything about that character outside
of she's sort of you know, there to his his star.

(59:14):
Is there also like a Garden of Eden reference where
she's like here takes yeah, biblical milical imagery. I mean,
the Bible is, of course if feminist text, but yeah,
in general, I really like that women becoming less repressed

(59:34):
and challenging norms is the catalyst for really most of
the change in the movie, and I thought it was
really well done. I still I still enjoy it. So
I'll do four. I'll give Wonder Race two to Joan
and one to Paul Walker because why not? Why not?
R I p Yeah, four nipples, Yeah, cool, solid, Yeah,

(59:59):
I'm good to sell Forward two on that basis. Yes,
it sounds great. Well, thanks so much for coming on
the podcast. I appreciate it. I'm having you. Is there
anything you would like to plug? Where can people follow
you online? He is at Leonard Walton. I'm at Jesse
Malton on Twitter and Instagram, and he has a Facebook page,
and there's Leonard Walton dot com and he writes movie

(01:00:19):
reviews there and does book ground ups in that type
of stuff. And then May ten eleven twelve is Malton
Fest first film festival. It's a hidden gem film festival,
so we're not showing new stuff. We're showing recent movies
that flew under the radar, recent but also some older
ones just to keep things interesting. But yeah, it's it's

(01:00:41):
the idea of just it's it's film appreciation and our
our goal always in kind of everything we do is community. Um,
the internet does not treat people, don't treat each other
very nicely. Uh, and I think that it's really important
to continually get them away from the computer into real
We want to we want to bring people together. You

(01:01:02):
want to take them out of Pleasantville the show. They're
stuck in the world. We want to bring people together.
We're gonna do it in the heart of Hollywood Egyptian Theater.
So we're very exciting. And it's over Mother's Day weekend.
So on the Sunday, my mom we're having like a
Mother's Day thing for her and bring your mom's cool

(01:01:26):
check that out and listen to Mountain Lawn movies and
uh yeah, thanks again for being here. You can follow
us on social media at Bectelcast. You can go to
our website bactelcast dot com. We've got our episodes there,
We've got our merch store there. Merch Yeah, what's on
what you're wearing? Jecame correct. I thought this right after

(01:01:51):
we first met No no Dave meltdown when we had
Alfred Molina on our show, which now the day we
met you guys that that is actually necessary. Gunt for
this episode was, Yeah, Aristotle the world's best engineer. The
World's Best Engineer a shared engineer as a table found
out through Jesse that Alfred Molina was going to be

(01:02:11):
on Moltena Movies. So I took the day off. Caitlyn
and I went to meltdown and I was I totally
whipped out and I was too afraid to talk to him.
Fast forward a year and a half he was on
the show and our best being he's probably adore him.
I absolutely adore him and of course an astonishing act

(01:02:33):
one of the greatest actors honestly living. He's incredible, totally
a friend of the show, and it was speaking of
You can get feminist icon Alfred Molina merch, which he
was low key horrifying. I think he loved it. You

(01:02:53):
can get other merch designs like queer icon, feminist icon,
um Strong Female protagonistist, as well as a few newer ones.
The whole bit. Yeah, so check out our Tea Public
story as well. We have merched on Tea Public. Grab
some of that up. And also don't forget about our
Patreon aka Matreon. You can go to patreon dot com

(01:03:15):
slash spectel cast. It's five dollars a month and you
get to bonus episodes every month, including all of the
backlog of all of our past Matreon episodes. We'reted to
creating content we simply can't st addicted, So check that
out and we'll be here next week. Bye bye,