RRR with Ritesh Babu

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
On the Bechdecast, the questions asked if movies have women
in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
Beast start changing it with the Bechdelcast.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Oh it was worth it, thank you? Oh oh oh.
It's the big day, Caitlin.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
It's the Big Days, it's the.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Big show, and it's Caitlin's birthday episode. We come to
this place, We come to this podcast to celebrate Caitlyn
Duranta's birthday, and on their birthday, we of course cover
one of their favorite movies. But first, this is the
Bechdel Cast. It is which means that, yeah, what does

(00:55):
it mean? I'm Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
It doesn't mean that you're Jamie loftas, it means I'm
Caitlin Derante, And it means that we talk about movies
through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test simply
as a jumping off point. Jamie, what is that?

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Sorry, my mouth's full of biscuit.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
That's what you are, the baiscuit gobbler, as we've established
five minutes ago.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Yeah, I proudly self identify there's a biscuit. It's complicated. Listeners,
there's a really gentrified biscuit place that opened down the
street and I've been I've been gobbling it up. I
don't feel good about it.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Gobbled those biscuits, Jamie, but.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
I do get so hungry. Here's what the Bechdel test is.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
That passed. The Bechdel to us talking about gobbling biscuits,
that passes.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
It's true because biscuits are famously genderless. So the Bechel
test is a media metric created by queer cartoon as
Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test. Lots of
versions of this test was originally made as a bit
as a joke for Alice Bechtel's Amazing comic collection Likes

(02:04):
to watch out for a lot of versions of the test.
Here's the one we use. We require that therapy two
characters of a marginalized gender with names speaking to each
other about something other than a man for more than
two lines of dialogue. And sometimes and I'm just like
spitballing here. There's movies that could be three hours long

(02:27):
and not past this test. It's true, but yeah, that's
the one we use. And then we also use a
more important metric, which is the one that we made
up called the nipple.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Scale, perfect, flawless.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
I don't know what I would want the nipple scale
to be called if we started the podcast today. I
feel like we could a bunch.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Of disagree if we had to do it all over again.
That's the one thing.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
No regrets, no regrets that I keep. Well, Happy birthday, Caitlin,
it's your birthday, it.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Is my birthday, and as such I have selected one
of my a recent favorite, but one of my favorite
movies are R R, which is a Telugu language movie
from India, so it's Tollywood, not a Bollywood film that

(03:21):
I saw last year. So it was released in March
twenty twenty two. It had a release in the US
and kind of by word of mouth, it grew in popularity.
I saw it in July or maybe June or July
of twenty twenty two. A friend of mine was like,

(03:42):
what you haven't seen rr You'd love it? So I
went to the theater.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
I mean, it is a ramp.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
It is it is a romp. Yeah, romp.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
It's a round ron ramp.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
And I was in not a super full theater because
it was just sort of like a regae the screening,
but it was a rowdy crowd. The best way to
experience this movie is in a theater with a crowd
who is cheering and clapping. And that's how I saw
it the first time. And then I've since seen it
six times in theaters total.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Often in Q and A settings, right, yeah, the.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Director with the director in like huge theaters, you know.
I think the biggest one was a like a fifteen
hundred seat theater in downtown Los Angeles. I saw it
at the Chinese Theater a few months before that.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
We saw it on the West Side at some point.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yeah, we saw it in Santa Monica.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Because Caitlin did. And I enjoyed the movie. But you
dragged every single person in your expanded universe to this movie,
to a screening at one point or another's, and it's
not to a screening, then to your personal home where yes,
it is true, and Sammy would show it you were
you were working full time, unpaid You're in a full time,

(05:01):
unpaid intern for the movie. R r R.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
This movie really spoke to me because and we'll talk
about its many issues later on, but there's also I
think a lot to love about this movie. I think
probably most people are at least familiar with it if
they haven't yet seen it. It is on Netflix. The
version on Netflix is the Hindi dub, so it's not
in its original language. And then it won a Golden

(05:26):
Globe and an Oscar for Best Original Song. Yeah, so
I think it's like on people's radars for the most part.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
If you're if I think even if you're like a
casual movie fan, this has probably come across your desk
at some point, right, But yeah, it did feel like
kind of a rare And we talk about this with
our guests in a bit, and I guess we're formatting
our episode a little bit different today where most of
the discussion will be with Caitlin and myself and we
have an amazing guest coming in later to give us

(05:55):
more historical context. And the reason I say that is
because there are very few Indian movies that cross over
into the West in the way our r R has right.
And I think honestly, like in preparing for this episode
and watching this movie through the Bechdel test lens and
Rebctel cast lens, rather it's just recurring. I mean, it's

(06:19):
I know so little about Indian film, and yeah, I mean,
I don't know it. It made me, It made me think,
made me think. And also RR is such a fun movie,
and if you don't know any historical context for it,
maybe watch it once without knowing and then listen to
the second half of the episode and then go back

(06:39):
and watch it again and watch responsibly. But it was
really like because you insisted making it so like I
was under duress, but I did. It was a it
was a car load of Bechdel cast luminaries because it
was you and me went and we're the hosts of
the show.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
It's true, there's no doubt about it.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
There's never been any others. And then also guest Sammy
Junio and Catherine Leon were also with us. Katherine and
I had not seen it before you and Sammy had
seen it maybe fifty billion times at that point.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, that sounds right.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
And so it was exciting, I mean, like watching people
react to the movie in real time, and like, I mean,
it was a bit scary at times, sure, but you know,
it was very we come to this place vibes. I
really liked it.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
It's a movie that feels like a movie.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yes, I truly. I'd never seen a I mean, I'd
seen Indian movies before, but never like a big epic
the way that this is. And it's I think it's
kind of interesting for Western audiences because we're just like
not used to it to have a movie that changes
genres several times when like it's almost it's like a

(07:49):
really pleasant creative jump scare where you're like, oh, I
guess you could just start singing too, like And I
know that that is like pretty commonplace in a lot
of Indian movies. And also there's such a huge diverse
film community because there's so many languages, there's all of
these different industries. But I know in the East that
that is a more common sort of film filmic language.

(08:11):
But for a crowd full of people in Santa Monica,
they're like, oh my god, it's a rom com Oh
my god, it's an action movie. Oh my god, it's.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
Like buddy comedy.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, it's like there's so much happening. I looked up
the budget for this movie. What would you guess the
budget for this movie was.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
I don't have to guess, I already know.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Oh shit, Well, it's the highest budget movie I believe
ever made in India.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
I think that's true, Yes, but it made.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Me laugh at Hollywood movies because there there can be
such slops where it's like the last Star Wars movie
costs like two hundred and seventy five million dollars, is
like running on absolute fumes. Babu Frick truly the only
shock of life that exists in that movie. Meanwhile, this
movie is on all cylinders whole fucking time, and it

(09:01):
was seventy two million dollars. Yeah, USD.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
It really makes you wonder what Hollywood is spending money
on with these wildly inflated budgets.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
I hope they paid Babu Freak one hundred million the poppit.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, and it's the third highest grossing Indian film worldwide
and the second highest grossing Telugu film worldwide, the highest
grossing one being another of this director's movies, Bahu Bali.
Oh shoot. I don't know if it's part one or

(09:38):
two because there's like the beginning and then the conclusion.
All this to say that this is a huge movie globally,
Like you said, Jamie, one of the few movies from
India that crossed over and had and has like a
huge following in audience in the US. It also has
a huge following in Japan. And I'm kind of speculating here,

(10:02):
but I think something that might account for that is
that and I'm not super familiar with a lot of anime,
but everyone I know who does know a lot about
anime and who has also seen RRR, They're like, yeah,
RRR is just an anime feel like a live action anime.
Oh interesting, So I think that might account for at

(10:23):
least partly why it was so successful in Japan. And yeah,
so it's like this global phenomenon.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
I mean, this is the kind of movie where it's
like there's fucking something for truly everyone. It's like, if
you're not loving this movie, just like, wait twenty minutes,
like and yeah, probably something totally different that you might
like a lot better will probably be happening at that point.
It's pretty like, it's pretty amazing. I really hope that.

(10:50):
I mean I know that there are there are well,
actually I don't, I don't know. I don't know what.
I don't know, but I am very pro and now
we're doing this, but it still feels like it's all
cohesive enough. There are sometimes where we were like hmm,
that guy just changed rather quickly. They're like, I think
right there. I do think that there is a moment
in them. And this isn't even a criticism, but there's

(11:12):
a moment in the movie where Beam goes from being
such a dufus to like the most bloodthirsty man in
the world. He has a good half hour of just
full on dufus and then he's like, actually, now I'm
hard as fuck for the rest of the movie, and you're.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Like, yeah, all right. His love for Jenny made him doofy.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
He's kind of like Hillary duffing a little bit. I not,
He's kind of just like, oh, like, you know, yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
Then he's like, wait a minute, I remember the mission
that I'm on I have to save a little girl,
and then yeah, he does that.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
I mean, I would love to see Hillary Duff on
a rescue mission movie. It's just not what. It's just
not yet. At the time of this recording, Hillary Duff
has not headlined a blockbuster action franchise. But but never
say never.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Well, that's because we have yet to write it.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
She uh, I mean, my unproblematic queen. I think hard
to say. I think, as far as we know, haven't
heard a bad word about her. I just know she's
like married a lot of hockey players, which I think
is just like a fun habit.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Good for her.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
It's not the sort of thing you would think would
happen more than once anyway. True.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
Okay, so let's take a quick break and then I'm
back and do the recap.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
Okay, we'll be right back, and we are back a
little context before I even begin the recap. So this
movie is loosely based on two Indian freedom fighters who

(12:52):
I don't think ever collaborated in real life. But basically
this movie like re envisions history and is like what
if they did collaborate and what if they were best friends?

Speaker 2 (13:05):
And also is a very it's funny. I don't again,
I don't think I've ever seen a movie framed this
way precisely where there is a lot of and we
talk about this a little bit with our guest as well,
but there's a lot at the beginning of like, hey,
this is these are real people, but the story is
not real. So like you cannot get upset and you

(13:27):
can't be mad, and you can't see me and you
can't yell at me because it's not it's not real.
It's made I made it up. It's real people, but
I made it up, right, Okay, And you're like it
almost like I don't know not to keep I just
love to compare things because I'm judgmental, but it almost
reminded me. But this like doesn't happen in inglorious bastards,

(13:48):
but it almost feels like an inglorious bastard's level of like,
for sure none of this shit happened. Yeah, I didn't.
I honestly didn't look in to see if these two
people had ever collaborated and Raju, but I also know
that it's like a very like overly simplistic, almost like
a mythic view of these figures versus being super based

(14:12):
in their actual politics or critical of any of their
political legacies, which we'll talk about later in the episode.
But yeah, it's like I was honestly surprised to see
that they were using actual historical figures for this because
it feels so like mythic.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
I don't know, right, Yeah, because it takes again these
two real life Indian revolutionaries Aluri Sita Rama Raju and
comoram Beim and envisions them as superheroes.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Basically, right so, and especially after doing some research and
speaking with our guest, this movie is also very centered
on Hindu figures and is pretty exclusionary of Muslim figures,
which is something that we talk about in our interview
because I think that a lot of Westerners who just

(15:06):
like who went to this movie and got fucking pumped, like,
we don't all have that context. So if you don't
have that context, don't feel bad.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
But you know, I certainly didn't the first time I
watched it, and had to do a lot of my
own just sort of research and digging to learn about
just a lot of things regarding Indian history, the current
political climate of India, and how this movie fits into
all of that. And that's something, yeah, we'll get into.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Later, yet another way that the American schooling system failed us.
I don't think I learned anything about India in school
for the most part, honestly, sight of British colonization that's
all I knew about.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
I mean, when I was a kid, my major frame
of reference for India and Indian culture came from watching movies,
and many of those movies, yeah, were horribly racists, such
as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, or they
were told from a colonizer's perspective, like I watched The
Little Princess a lot, and.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Right, yeah, I mean, we're we're exposed to so much
colonizer perspective in media. And then also even with I
feel like I keep foreshadowing this interview because this is
in our normal format, right, but also with r r R,
it's like r R is very anti colonial and anti
imperial on its face, but also excludes a lot of

(16:33):
contexts that it's like not quite as radical as it appears.
And so it's so I don't know, I think we've
been we also listeners, you'll know that we recently covered
The Woman King, and so we've just been like covering
a lot of like loosely historical epics recently that are
obviously going to influence people's views of the time and

(16:57):
the people that are being discussed in the movie. I mean,
and even for us watching r R for the first
time last year, it gave us kind of a skewed
view of of I mean a lot of different issues,
and so I just I don't know, I don't know
what to say. I just it's it's a very tricky
problem because it's like it shouldn't be the job of

(17:19):
movies to educate you. But it's also like willfully kind
of ignorant to say like, well, I don't know, I
don't I'm I'm just I'm just a creative goofy goof
messing around, and you're.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Like, well, but but you also kind of have a
responsibility to represent things responsibly.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
Right, And it doesn't mean that every movie has to
be a documentary like but I don't know, uh, complicated,
ongoing discussion. I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of
it and the changes will be permanent.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
Yeah, and we will fix society because of it.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Surely, this isn't an unknowable question anyways, So let's talk. Okay,
So for this first chunk we are going to be
talking about the movie and the story, and then we
will return to the historical context because otherwise my brain
will explode.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Yes, so here's the recap. The movie is very long.
It's not as long as Titanic, No, it's ten minutes shorter.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
But they and at the theater, they give you a
they give you an intermission, which I think is so fun.
I love that. Yes, oh felt good.

Speaker 3 (18:23):
So the movie is very long, and I'm going to
leave out some details and characters, but this is the
gist of it. We open on a village in the
Adela bad forest in India. It's the nineteen twenties. The
GND people who live in the village are playing reluctant

(18:44):
host to Governor Scott and his wife, Lady Buxton, whose.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Name is Kathy Too.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:52):
I was like, wow, I'm sensitive to Kathy slander, but
this Kathy is the worst Kathy in the world.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
She's really bad. So Governor Scott makes it seem like
his last name is Scott, but it's Scott Buxton, so
Scott is his first name. So that would be if
people were like, oh, Governor Jamie, that's.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
So her president Joe, Yeah what, But.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Everyone calls him Governor Scott, so that's great his name.
So they are British imperialist colonizers. A young girl, Malay,
is painting skin art on Lady Buxton. She's singing a
song and Lady Buxton decides that she wants to keep Malay,

(19:34):
so they abduct her from the village. Her mother is
obviously crying and devastated.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
That first, I mean, yeah, it's absolutely brutal. She's kidnapped,
She's kidnapped right in front of her, and then her mom.
I thought the first time I saw the movie that
her mother was killed, but fortunately she's not killed, but
she was her I mean a yeah. In the opening sequence,
there is a young girl who is abducted and another

(20:01):
woman who is beat brutally. Yes, so right out the gate,
it's very intense. Also, I just wanted to shout out
the young actor who plays Molly's name is Twinkle Sharma,
which is my favorite name I've ever heard. Love that
like Twinkle. I love it. I love it, I love her.
Will continue to follow this young star's career, We.

Speaker 3 (20:20):
Sure will, so we see this devastating opening sequence. Then
we cut to the outskirts of Delhi, where we meet
Rama Raju played by Ramcharan, a police officer working for
the British government who is tasked with arresting a protester.

(20:40):
We then see a long sequence of him beating his
way through a crowd of hundreds of protesters and eventually
reaching and arresting the guy.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
And it's like, it is, it is why, it's it's wild,
it is really you. It's hard to describe how many
things happen, because so many things happen.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Yeah, if we didn't make this clear yet, this movie
is like everything is dialed up to an eleven. Yes,
the action sequences, the there's also almost constant music happening
and like.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
And it's big music.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
Yeah, big epic music.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
As musicians, the music big.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
The music is big. We are scholars. It's one of
my favorite scores of all time. It's such a beautiful
arrangement of music. But yeah, everything is just like cranked
all the way up in this movie. There's no subtlety whatsoever.
Everything is just like.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
There's no boom boom boom, there's no rest. So if
something sounds really intense.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
It is. That's what it's like.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
But yeah, huge, huge fight scene to establish the strength
and will of ram Right and also that he is
working for the British at the beginning of the movie.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
Yes, and we will come to understand Rom's particular motivation
for being an officer later on. And even though he
like accomplishes this like Banana's feat of like beating his
way through this crowd and arresting this person, he is
still not promoted to special officer, which upsets him so

(22:22):
much that he punches a hole in a punching bag. Oh,
because he really wants to be special Officer for again,
reasons we will understand later. Then we see a meeting
where this guy Edward, who is Governor Scott's right hand man.
He is being advised to return Malay, the girl who

(22:46):
was taken from the village, because there is a man
from her tribe who will stop at nothing to hunt
down her captors and find her.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
Oh. And then there's a really thrilling intro shot unlike
anything you've ever seen.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
Just oh.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Shot, it's really good.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
Yes, we meet camaraan Beam played by Nti rama Ro
Junior aka NTR Junior, while he's chasing wolves and tigers
in the jungle to capture them for reasons that will
also become clear later. And then Beam heads to Delhi
where he and his brother Lachu and a couple of

(23:29):
their friends are trying to figure out how to get
into the palace to rescue Maley. They notice this woman Jenny,
who lives in the palace, and she seems nice.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
So Jenny's whole thing is every I mean. And again
it's like part of this really broad storytelling of like
she is the one British nice she's the nice colonizer.
Yeah you like her? Okay, I guess no, we like her.
She's Governor Scott's niece. But sometimes she's like, hey stop that.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
That's literally the extent of her allyship is hey cut
that out, don't do it. Yeah, that's how we meet her.
She's saying, hey, cut that out.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
When an officer is beating a man for no reason,
she says, hey cut that out.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
Yes, And then so Beam is like a woga who's that.
She's pretty and she's nice, and they figure that if
they can befriend her, she could be their ticket into
the palace. Meanwhile, Edward and Lady Buxton are like, hm,
I guess we should be worried about this guy who
is going to come for the girl, but we also

(24:45):
know nothing about him, his name, what he looks like,
anything like that. But whoever is able to capture this
man will be promoted to special officer. So Rom is like,
I'll do it. I want to be special officer. So
he and his uncle figure that this guy will probably

(25:06):
be going to revolutionary meetings, So they go to one
such meeting, and sure enough they meet Beam's brother Lachu,
and so Rom and his uncle pretend to be Lachu's ally,
but Lachu figures out that Rom is an undercover police officer,
so he runs. There's a chase and Lachu escapes into

(25:29):
a huge crowd nearby. A train is like leaking oil everywhere.
It explodes and derails.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
And there's a little boy in the middle of the waters.
It's like the steaks are always like a million guy high.
This little kid is going to explode if Rom and
Beam don't become friends right now, right.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
So what happens is there's this little boy who's about
to die. No one seems to want to risk their
life to save him, except for Beam and Rom. So
they team up, not realizing that the other one is
their enemy. They save the boy, and this is the
beginning of them becoming best friends, because we get this

(26:18):
montage of something.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
That's usually reserved for like falling in love, like falling
in love, you know, but it's just like them having
a fun time together. They're eating, they're going on little
day trips.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
Oh, they're riding horses and motorcycles. Oh they're frolicking through field.
Oh they're playing tug of war.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Pretty nice. Oh.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Beam is doing squats with Rom on his shoulders. Also,
while this is happening, there's a song playing called Dosti
and the lyrics are like, Wow, it's pretty wild that
these two guys have become friends and that they don't
know that they're actually enemies. This is probably gonna end
in bloodshed and betrayal. Huh.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
And we're like, hold on, what I'm kidding? I do
I do love and I know that this isn't this happened,
but it's just like the exposition montage was really delivering
for me. I loved it.

Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, it's like a Greek chorus kind of thing. Because
also this movie is like a Greek tragedy. It's just
it's everything. So one day Ram helps Beam meet Jenny.
We will talk about this meet cute later. There's no time.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
It's egregious. Yeah, this movie is a lot of things,
particularly interested in women. Nope, it is not.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
But basically the movie becomes a rom com for a while.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
And a half hour.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
So yeah, Beam meets Jenny and spends the afternoon with her,
and even though they don't speak the same language, they
hit it off and she invites him to an upc
party So Beam and rom get all dressed up and
go to this big fancy party in a scene that
was giving me because there are some Titanic parallels. But

(28:11):
there's a scene where like Rom is giving Beam a
little makeover and like putting him in a suit because
he's like, what are you gonna wear to the party?
And Beam is like this and he's like, no, you
have to wear a suit. And it's very much like
Molly Brown being like Jack, what are you gonna wear
to dinner?

Speaker 2 (28:25):
And you shine up like a new penny y. Yeah,
that was that was very sweet. And then they got
to the party and they look great.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
Oh, they look so great.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
And now they're at the big Colonizer party and yeah,
we're about to have a dance off. This is the
iconic Oscar winning song.

Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yes, because there's this British guy at the party who's
super racist and he's like, you don't know anything about
art or finesse or dance, and they're like, have you
ever heard of natu? And then they do the na
to na to song and dance and they win an
Oscar about it, or rather, mm Kiravani does because he's

(29:03):
the one who composed the music. For Flim.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
That scene is so just exciting, it's so good and
also especially like I don't know seeing it for the
first time, you don't see it coming, like you're like, oh,
this is going to be like a rom com, comedy
of manners, more stuff with like Beam and Jenny. But
then it's like, no, it's a huge dance number. It's

(29:27):
it's gigantic. It's just like so terrible. It's my favorite scene,
no contest. It rocks the best.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
Jenny also loves it and she's like, wow, Beam, it
was so cool when you danced. Do you want to
come to the palace with me? So he goes to
the palace where he finds Molly and she's locked up
behind bars. She's treated as a prisoner and Beam is like,
I can't rescue you now, but don't worry, I'll come

(29:56):
back for you. So he and his friends plan their
siege of the palace, but oh no, Ram has captured
Lachu and he's like, where's your brother, still not realizing
that the man who Ram is looking for is his
own best friend Beam. Then we cut to Ram's home

(30:19):
village where we meet his lady love Cita, and all
of the people are like when is rom coming back?
He's been gone for years and she's a flaw. He's
a flop and he doesn't even remember you. And she's like,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
But Cita is like she's like Christ like in her
faith and patience in her fiance. And I mean, I know,
like everyone in this movie is a huge star, but
I think she in particular. I want to make sure
that I'm saying her name right Alia Bot. She's like
a huge, huge star, and I feel like she gets

(31:00):
like the star reveal shot when she's because you turn
around and then there's like a pause for applause and
she's great. I just I would just wish that we
had more. I mean, I don't know, I don't know.
I just I was like, Wow, she's so virtuous, awesome.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah, she's really just sort of passively waiting around for
her fiance.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah. I was like, Wow. If I was Cita, I
would be getting a nosebleed fucking daily, being like probably
like walking around being like he's probably dead, Like.

Speaker 3 (31:36):
I'm gonna move on and kiss someone else. Oh god,
that's what that would be me.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
That's see, we're different. I would be walking around having
a panic attack.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
But she'd be like, oh, you've been gone for three days,
Well it's time to move on find another.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Lover, I feel like, but she's doing neither of those things.
She's just like, no, I believe everything is great because
he's the greatest and and I'd be like, he's probably
cheating on me. Wow, I'm stuck back here in Floptown there.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
So back in the city, Lachu throws a poisonous snake
onto Rom and he gets bitten, and so Rom is
like stumbling around and dying. Beam finds him and saves
his life and then reveals his true identity to Rom,
and Rom is still like actively dying, so he can't
do anything about it. But he's like, oh my god,

(32:31):
my best friend is the guy who I've been hunting
down this whole time. What do I do? And then
he recovers because Beam has saved him, and he's punching
his punching bag some more and he's upset. Then it's
the night of this big celebration to honor Governor Scott,
which is when Beam and his friends unleash an attack

(32:51):
so they can rescue Malay. They crash into the party
and let a bunch of animals loose, including that tiger
from the beginning. There's just like utter chaos as all
these animals are running around.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
It is another I was like, because we like Hollywood
movies have so many badly cgied animals, these are well
cgied animals.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
They look good. They look pretty good. I would say
it's not the best I've seen.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
I mean, no, cgi animal looks amazing, but like it's
certainly for Paddington, it's I don't know, we can't get
into this today. I think Paddington's looks a little scary sometimes,
but but I mean it's certainly doing don'nuts around like
the Lion King reboot and shit like that. But you're like, oh,
like you can't look at.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
It horrifying looking so all this chaos is happening. But
before Beam can reach Malay Rom shows up to arrest him,
and Beam is like, what the fuck, you're a cop,
you're my enemy, And then they fight each other for
a long time. They're beating each other up, and then

(34:01):
it culminates in Beam being captured, which is where we
get the intermission or the interval. Then Ram gets promoted
to special officer because he captured Beam, just like he
always wanted, And then we see a flashback with Ram's backstory. So,

(34:21):
when Ram was a child, his father was training their
whole village to fight back against the British, but they
don't have real weapons. So the reason that Ram wanted
to be a special officer so badly is that it
would give him access to a lot of guns, which
he would basically steal and distribute among his village. And

(34:44):
he had made this promise to his father that he
would supply everyone in the village with a gun. Because
one day, while Ram is still a child, the British
Army raids their village and kills Ram's whole family. So
he sees like his mother and his little brother and
his father killed in front of him.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
It's horrible and it's also very mythic in the way
it's presented as.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
Well, for sure. Yeah. Back to the present, Rom is
feeling very conflicted because he wants to help his people
and his village, but he realizes he's hurting people along
the way, including his new best friend. Then there's a
scene where Rom has to flog Beam publicly, and Governor

(35:32):
Scott makes everyone come to watch because he wants to
make an example of Beam, and during this beating, Beam
sings a song that empowers the crowd to riot and
revolt against all the British soldiers, after which Rom realizes
he needs to help Beam escape, especially after Beam is

(35:56):
sentenced to death by hanging. So Rom orchestrates this rescue
mission for Beam and Malay and they successfully get away.
Though Beam doesn't know that Ram helped him, he still
thinks that Ram is his enemy. So then Beam and
Malay go into hiding because the entire British military is
out looking for them, and they happen to cross paths

(36:18):
with Sita, Ram's lady Love, who tells Beam about Ram's
grand plan to become a special officer so that he
can supply his village with weapons so they can revolt
against British colonialism, but that he kind of lost his
way and betrayed his best friend, but then he got

(36:39):
caught and now he's going to be executed, and Baim
is like, damn okay, he was helping me. I have
to go save him. So Bam goes to the barracks
where Ram is being held prisoner breaks him out. There's
another like extended fight sequence where they're fighting their way

(36:59):
through the British soldiers with Ram on Beam's shoulders because
his legs were badly beaten. They escape the barracks and
go into the woods. More British soldiers come. There's another
long fight sequence where Rom and Beam kill all of them.
Beam is throwing a motorcycle around, Ram is firing arrows

(37:20):
with grenades attached to them.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
Yeah, and at this point, as we'll talk about in
a bit, Ram looks like the mythic way that Ram
is presented and like they're start or no, this is
a little bit before that happens, right.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
So after they escape the barracks, Beam yes, because he
knows medicine, he treats Ram's wounds. And then there's like
these like orange flags nearby this place of warship. So
he like takes the flags and the bow and arrow
from this like Rama god statue and then basically styles

(37:58):
Ram to look like this and do God. And then
they fight the people in the woods, and then they
are like, all right, bitch, it's time to kill Scott.
So they head to Governor Scott's palace. They steal a
bunch of guns for Rom's village. They destroy the palace
and kill Lady Buxton and Governor Scott.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
And they kill And it's a great plant and payoff
moment when they kill Governor Scott, because there was this
whole long, evil speech that he seems to make all the.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
Time, all the time about the value of a bullet.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yes, which you can imagine. I thought that that was
kind of a fun touch of like most fucking evil
colonial blowhards like that have like one speech they know
how to give, but then they're always like hot, like god.
So anyways, they give the speech to him and then
they fucking yeah kill him. Boing boying.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
It's very cathartic.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
It is very very exciting, and if you have no
context for the rest of the movie, you're like, wow,
this is a radical movie, right, and then you read
a book and then you're like, oh, oh wait, no
it's not. But it's still a good moment. It's a
good moment, yes, indeed.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
So then, having defeated the villain, Beam and Rom return home.
Rom is reunited with Tita, Jenny is there for some reason,
Malay is returned to her mother, and the movie ends
with a big song and dance number that pays tribute
to a bunch of Indian Revolutionaries, although.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
Specifics there's a lot of omissions. Yes, and the director
as as Russian movie, is in the conclusion like he
is in the final scene, and so it's like this
fourth wall break that is sort of like stating with
the thesis of the movie was, which is I guess
when you think about it, a little bit pretty nationalistic.

(39:54):
And then it's like, not only is that there's like
the big thesis song, but also the director of the
movie like joins in which again I wouldn't like, I
wouldn't hate that if Martin Scorsese started doing that. At
the end he comes out, he's like, what'd you think, Yeah, awesome.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
And then we'd be like, yes, clap, clap, cheer, cheer,
I love it.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
It's like those awkward I feel like it's only happened
since movie theaters have been opened, but every once in
a while you'll go see a movie and then it's
just like Margot Robbie being like, Hi, thanks for coming
to Babylon at the movie theater. Enjoy the movie, and
you're like, what the fuck was that? I do? Do that?

Speaker 3 (40:37):
Just yeah, So it's like we know, I mean in
the same way that why is Nicole Kidman doing an
advertisement for the theater that you're already in and about
to see.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
For the culture.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
It's for the culture, and we come to this place
for that culture.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
But those little flips that are like barely produced and
clearly in the middle of a press junk at day
and they look like they want to die. I'm like,
this is not getting me excited for the movie. I forget.
There was like a director too that was like welcome
back to them, and you're like, oh my god, just
start the movie enough.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
Yes, So let's say, well that's our yes, and let's
take another break and we'll come back to discuss. And
we are back and we are about to include our
segment that we did with our special guest, who will

(41:38):
introduce in a moment. But we just wanted to kind
of give a little bit more context for the production
of the movie. So it was written and directed by
ss Raja Mouley aka SSR. So screenplay by SSR, Story
by vj Andre Presad who is sa are his dad dad.

(42:02):
They collaborate a lot.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
With Okay, fathers and sons. Yeah, and so SSR look
hot topic these days. He's an Eppo baby, Folks, His
dad is a very well regarded screenwriter in India who's
been working since the eighties, I believe, and now they

(42:24):
very often will collaborate together, including on this. So sometimes
movies are about fathers and sons, including this one. Other
times movies are made by fathers and sons.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
And often they are made for fathers and sons.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Those are kind of those tend to be who movies
are made for. So you know, good for you guys,
you fuckos. But no, very very famous, not just director,
but from a famous movie family.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
Yes, the two main stars, Ramcharan and Antir Junior are
also from like acting dynasties.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yes, well, as is the actor who plays Sita. Right, Like,
there's so much I mean, it's this is just entertainment
in general. But and how power works, right but yeah,
we just because we talk about it in the guest segment.
As if you already know who made the movie, what

(43:29):
you need to know is that S. S. Roja Movie
is a very successful film director who collaborates frequently with
his father. His politics. He doesn't like to talk about politics,
which usually means something and and he makes these I mean,
especially in this phase of his career. It seems like
he makes big, big blockbuster movies for sure.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
And with that, let's bring on our guest, who is
a writer critic. You've seen their byelines in Vox, Panel
by Panel, Polygon, among others, and they were the author
of a particular piece in Vox that we found and
really loved entitled R R R is an incredible action

(44:15):
movie with seriously troubling politics. It's reveish Babu. Hello, Hello, Hello,
thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 4 (44:23):
Happy to be here, Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Oh, it's our pleasure, so pleasure.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Oh sorry, okay, I feel like I'm contributing.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Yes, tell us, you're just kind of general thoughts on
the film? Are are are? What's your relationship with it?

Speaker 4 (44:43):
Yeah? So the film is, you know, the latest entry
by the filmmaker South Indian filmmaker from Natalia wood industry,
which is, you know, the Deli wood language speaking cinema
industry of India. It's the latest film by the biggest
filmmaker of that industry who is now also India's film naker.
And I grew up with his films, like I think

(45:03):
I remember watching his first movie as a kid, and
I've kind of always known his films like I watched
everyone as it came out because like my father would
make me watch them, and so they were like a
thing that I always pretty much knew. And so it's
been a weird, interesting experience to watch, like the guy
your dad talks about at your home suddenly become like
the guy everybody and their mom talks about, you know, globally.

(45:26):
That it's kind of a weird experience, but it's been interesting.
So this is the latest film he's made, and it's
kind of like the biggest explosive porsion of what he does,
and my relationship to it is it's complicated, is definitely
the word I would use, because it's a film that
is a great, big spectacle that works as a big

(45:47):
action spectacle, but is also reflective of all the flaws
and like the limitations of the filmmaker and the kind
of space that remoiches from end. So there's a weird
sit there that is kind of like, yeah, this is fun.
But like I remember walking out of theater, I had
a great time at the theater. I went to watch
my dad and it was like it was a blast

(46:08):
to watch, but I sat there with it not in
my chest. Throughout, Like even as I walked that, I
was like, there was that not until I actually sat
down a road it read about it. It was kind of
like it was a weird experience where I just untangled
that not and kind of like think about it. So
that's kind of where even wedding but it came from, right.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
I think that that's so because this was very much
my entry point to his catalog. Reading your work and
others work on just their relationship with this director in
addition to this movie and sort of all of the
baggage that comes with it is so interesting because I think, like,
as you have witnessed, it's sort of like in Western

(46:52):
movie culture, it's like, oh, you know, it's like a secret, like, oh,
you've seen this movie that is one of the hugest
movies in the world, But here it's sort of relegated
to like really enthusiastic letterboxed users filling a movie theater
on the West Side. And so honestly, when I first
saw this movie, I did not know that the story

(47:14):
was rooted in any sort of political ideology at all
until I read your.

Speaker 3 (47:19):
Work and just to speak to your kind of complicated
relationship with the movie, that's also, like so many of
the movies we cover on this podcast, especially ones that
we grew up with or have some kind of nostalgic
attachment to or love in any way, we sort of
have to reconcile that, like, oh yeah, it was a

(47:42):
really entertaining movie to watch, but oh no, there's all
these things that you have to unravel.

Speaker 4 (47:51):
Art isn't always once, and that's internal struggle for sure.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
So we've been kind of hinting at this sort of
political and cultural context that again if you're not pretty
intimately familiar with already, which like Jamie, I was not
either I only I mean, I of course know of
the caste system in India, but I don't know or
I didn't know really any of the nuances of it.

(48:19):
I didn't There's just a lot of things about it
that I didn't fully comprehend. And also it was only
very recently that I learned about the far right like
Hindu centric government that exists in India right now, and
how that informs quite a bit of media and like

(48:41):
there's a lot of like propaganda and a lot of
people are calling RRR like Hindu castist propaganda. So and
this is what your piece. The writing that you've done
about this movie is largely about that. So we're just
curious kind of your thoughts on all that.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
Regarding the cast thing, you know, the guy and get
at the white guy, and get at who's like I
would have voted for Obama a third time or whatever. Yeah,
like that kind of vibes where people are like Obama won,
Racism is defeated, it's over, and like people act like that,
but like reality is, it's like absolutely not. Castism is
kind of life everywhere, and castism is built into a

(49:21):
little sect of like the white things work. So that's
kind of how that works. But regarding the movie itself,
it's genesis is in the very specific who speaking region
in South India weren't there was one state. It was
called entrepredaesh Andra is the place Brebace essentially means place
or state andreprebaish And what happened was a few years

(49:43):
back in the mid twenty tens, they divided the state
into you know, a state called Andra and like you
had under the state formed called Langhana, which was a
long thought, you know struggle like that state being formed
was a long movement and one of the he figures
out that sort of movement was comer Empin, who's you know,

(50:04):
one of the figures in the movie, and the other
figure in the movie, Sidramaraju, is like the under figure.
So essentially, the movie, as Roger Mole tells, it, began
with the idea of watching this one state become two
states boats speaking essentially the same language but like the
same language but like in different dialects for the most part,
and trying to make a movie to kind of like

(50:25):
showcase their unity essentially. And so Flangana's symbol being pen
and like under symbol being ram and they're sort of
like imagined constructive brotherhood on screen as a way of
like symbolizing that sort of imagined friendship and unity of
the states. And this is right through sort of like
you know, Roger Molly's big sort of mythic influences, where

(50:48):
like he grew up reading you know, some directors, like
if you're in America, you grew up reading I don't know,
some Spider Man comics, Orman comics or stuff like that,
right because those are American pop culture. But like for
someone like Roger Mole, he up on comics which are
like essentially Amara means immortal ship, Throm means you know,
picture Kata means stories, so immortal picture stories. He grew

(51:09):
up on those comics, which are largely about retellings of
like Hindu mythology and like stories about gods and like
demi gods and figures like that. So those kind of
informed his work and so and that's you see that
evidently as prior film. Most evidently they're inbopability, which is
two parts and it was a huge thing a few
years back. But you've also see here where like his

(51:31):
mythic influences and like all of those films are into
the film where you know, Ram is framed at the
end of the movie, like the mythic Ram god, right,
you know, and Pim is like almost framed in the
context of like the films like Pen from the Mahavaratha.
So there's a lot of stuff like that where and
it's like you see his influences and the way the
film works is essentially it's a big rallying cry. It's

(51:55):
like celebratory and nationalistic. But the problem is in the
way it is. See this is interesting because like when
you see a movie like this, like you when the
West first discovered RRR, A response was largely kind of
like almost built in, like a sort of hyperbolic reaction like,
oh my god, this is the greatest nope I've ever seen.
I've never seen anything like this. There's a tiger and like,

(52:17):
you know, it's kind of like over the top response, right.
And also there's the kind of like and I think
that there's a certain I understand that on a certain
level because like when you look at Call of You,
what what all of these movies are made in is
a sort of like white Western hegemony, and so everything
kind of exists and comes out through that mechanism, and
that machine means certain kinds of films just don't get made.

(52:37):
There are films that do sometimes get made are kind
of exceptions. So when you see something where like you know,
the bridish of like the white people are kind of
largely twitted, like the way you know, I say, Indiana Jones,
Sweet's the Nazis, they're like, oh my god, this is
so cool. This is kind of like radical and like
all of that because like this is anti colonialness, anti imperialists.
But the reality is when you look at post colonials

(53:00):
sieties and push bolomul nations. What happens is like when
they're taken over and inflicted with all of that they're
inflicted with across time, and when the oppressor is kind
of like left and there's the independence, what's left is
the sense of like there's a kind of whole of
like what we were, what we became and we aren't,

(53:21):
and what we are going to be, and so the
sense of a lost past, but a lost what we
could have been that is sought and seen. And so
a lot of the times it's with stuff like that
that nationalism is built. And when there's when you're a
colony and when you're oppressed, that sort of nationalism is
a very powerful revolutionary radical act to like you know,
fight against the oppressor. But after the oppressor's gone in

(53:44):
like decades have passed on and like it's almost been
a century, right, that nationalism can sort of take on
a different sort of flavor or fervor, and like it
can feel of a different because like at that point
it's kind of all internal mechanicians and politics, and so
that's kind of what you're dealing with. Because like the
Hindu nationalism and hindusw it animates a lot of the

(54:04):
stuff that you see now about India and rooted in India.
It goes back to the early nineteenth century when India
was still occupied by the British, where in like you know,
the Hindu right wing figures like literally went over to
like Mussolini's Ghetaly and like toured all of that fascist
nonsense and we're like, yeah, you know, this is pretty
fucking cool. We should like we should get into this.

(54:26):
And so it's kind of like taken from that and
like combining it with like the worst aspects of like
old school Hinduism and you get this very right wing
ideology which forms the RSS, which is a stupid death
cult of like fascist idiots. And that cult is what
the members of that cult is the person that killed
and shot Gandhi and so that cult got banned very

(54:50):
early on for ages. But later on in the twentieth century,
what happened is essentially you have figures like I think
it was exactly the nineteen eighties when like the RSS
kind of came back and like you know, made a
kind of big thing, and they made a party called
the BJP, and then the BGP would slowly grow and
you know, now it's kind of it kind of runs

(55:11):
the country much like the RSS ones everything. It's they're
bigger than ever, and it's kind of a distressing affair. Yeah,
back to the movie, it's kind of is it's very
much a status pro movie in the sense of like
the most average you know MCU or like an American
blockbuster is kind of like it. You don't go to
these movies for radical politics, right because, like in the

(55:33):
context of a film like this, even though for a
Western audience this might seem radical because it's like, you know,
all the white people are not kind of great, and
you know, it's kind of like anti colonial, anti imperialist,
the reality in the context of post colonial societies is
like when you look at a film like this, being
anti imperialist and anti colonialist can still very much be
a conservative position as opposed to a radical position when

(55:55):
you're dealing with liasis, where like naturalism and all of
that is used to your writing purses.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
Right because again, like on the surface, just for like
a you know, average American viewer watching this movie, it's like, Wow,
here's a big, fun spectacle with music and dancing and
over the top action and it's got these themes of
anti imperialism and anti colonialism and also friendship and the
British people are.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
The bad guys. Friends defeat imperialism together, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
Yeah, so it's just like again, the first time I
saw it, I was just like, woohoo, I'm cheering in
the theater. I'm having so much fun. And then, you know,
I started to do some digging about the like context
from which this movie comes out, and as you outline
in your vox piece and there's another piece you wrote.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Yeah, one of the words that you use in your
vox face that really stuck with me is that this
movie decontextualizes a lot of history, which I mean seems
absolutely true, and also does it under sort of false pretenses,
because if you don't know the history, it does seem
like either this is made up if you're not familiar

(57:12):
with the figures, or you're receiving some sort of grand
historical epic context. Because we were. We just covered the
Woman King as well, and there's a not a similar issue,
but a historical figure who is represented as being abolitionist
who absolutely was not, but that's how it's presented in

(57:32):
the movie. And unfortunately, you know, and this is like
an issue with historical epics across everything, but that's often
about as far as people will, you know, take an interest.
And so this movie breaking through with this specific viewpoint.
It's a bit scary.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
Because you talk in your piece about how there's a
lot of Indian media that again it's coming out in
this pro Hindu is it pronounced? Which is this political
ideology that is like reinforced by militant groups that's just

(58:15):
like pro Hindu anti Islam.

Speaker 4 (58:19):
That it is the idea that it is the idea
that India is essentially a Hindu state and should always
be a Hindu state.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
And it's kind of just it's repellent, right which and
it's and it's leading to, you know, extreme oppression and
violence toward Muslim people who live in India. And then
it's also reinforcing the caste system, which is, you know,
a very elitist and oppressive system.

Speaker 4 (58:45):
Idea of a hierarchy, which is kind of always there.
And it's interesting. It's like you look at this film
and because we're you know, we're we are on the
Bechtel cast So let's talk about that aspect of it.
I'm not sure this movie actually past the adult test
because like this movie is rife with a male centrism
that is like very indicative of Roger Mally's work, and like,

(59:06):
in fairness to him, I think it's also just like
the kind of space humor just from so it's not
just specific to his work, but definitely the movie is
a glaring display of like limitations in that sense, because
you look at them female characters in the movie and
it's like it's Jenny and you know, it's Seetha, and
both of them are kind of just framed in relation
to these man and kind of all they do is

(59:28):
kind of in service of the great Man's story. Like
I remember recently there was a great interview with The
New Yorker, you know, conducted by Simon Abrams with Roger Moully,
the director, and Roger Moull completely imprompted, brings up the
fact that he loves Iron Rand and like the fountain
Head and shit like that. Yeah, and suddenly everything kind
of makes perfect sense. It's like it fits, and like

(59:49):
I think that kind of helps contextualize for Western audience
in some regards.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Yeah, So I've been to multiple screenings of this movie
where SSR was is like there to do a Q
and A. It's when he he was coming to the
US a lot to campaign for like awards, to like
try to get nominated for oscars and stuff like that worked.
And so I've seen him in the flesh four times

(01:00:15):
brag and people would always ask, like they would try
to like get him to say that this was like
a political film making political statements, and he would always
refuse to say that. And and at one point he
was like, oh, some of my influences in like American
cinema are Mel Gibson. And I was like, no, yeah, funny.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Oh I was so fun there for that one. You're like, oh, okay,
we're having like a nice time.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
No Ill that interview, that very same New Rope interview,
he talked like, Okay, So his dad is a screenwriter, right,
and that's kind of how he broke him. His dad
was a screenwriter. Establish screenwriter he got him working, like
that's where he broke into the industry and and all that.
His dad is a seasoned screenwriter and he's currently working
on a big RSS movie for this fascist stupid death

(01:01:08):
cult you know runs every He so the dad who
wrote Coro, you know, worked on RR with me because
like Roger Old. Every movie Roger Mullien makes mostly with
his dad, that dad and his writer and closest collaborator
is working on this RSS movie for the RSS is
hired by them, and having done the research and work
on that movie, he came out of it with a

(01:01:28):
very favorable view towards this organization. And when asked about this,
Roger Mulli in that interview is like, well, I don't
really know what the RSS is, but I read the
script and I cried, and it's an amazing script and
it's so emotional and it's it would be a beautiful movie.
And it's kind of like, that's what the exact moment
of Like okay, one, saying he does not know much

(01:01:49):
about the RSS is like total bullshit in the context
in the modern India he lives in, that's kind of
just disingenuous.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
It was, that sounds like a lie.

Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
And like two, it's kind of like it lays there,
the bullshit, like I'm a political filmmaker, Like no, what
even your supposed quote un a political stance is a
clearly political stance because his stance is essentially a bare
minimum basic statistical forming stance. And the thing about the
status real forming stances is that like it largely affirms

(01:02:17):
the systems and the way things are as opposed to
any actual radical change. It doesn't actually have an imagination
imagine beyond what it is. They can only see what.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
Has been right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
That's something I've read that New Yorker interview as well,
and it's really interesting, and that you mentioned that about
seeing as SR speak in person, Caitlin, where it does
seem like any time he is confronted with a political question,
there's this tendency to be like, well, I'm just an entertainer,
which is definitely a pattern that I recognize, and people

(01:02:53):
who are clearly making political stuff but don't want to
necessarily label themselves as such, because that even that I
rand question. He says, I understand parts of her philosophy,
but that goes over my head when she gets into it.
I'm not such a deep thinker. I'm more of a
dramatic thinker. So I like the drama part of it,
and it's like yeah, but.

Speaker 4 (01:03:12):
You know, yeah, it's it's the essential like decontextualize. It's
the idea of decontextualizing something and making a pure character drama.
But you he does not seem to realize, or maybe
he doesn't. He's not, you know, willing to admit it
openly that you can't really decontextualize certain ideas in certain
fantasies from their nature when you're you know, his essential

(01:03:36):
problem then it's a problem that you'll see acrosss work
is that he takes things and you know, presents them,
but he never actually critically engages with them or is like, hey,
maybe wait a minute, what does this actually mean? What
does this choice or what does me packaging or representing
this kind of thing implicate. He does not really think
about that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
He's just like, wow, cool, right, there's no interrogation of
oppressive structures and systems that he has to be well
aware exists, even though he's having deniability about it. So, like,
the thing with R r R is that it's not

(01:04:15):
like obviously and outwardly hateful toward marginalized groups in India
such as Muslims and people who belong to lower casts,
but it is centering and uplifting already privileged groups of
people and subtly or maybe not so subtly, promoting this

(01:04:37):
existing Hindufa ideology. Because as you say, in your vox piece.
There's a number of Indian films that have come out
just over the decades that frame a Muslim character as
like the evil villain or or.

Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
More likely like there's things like the christianir Filds, which
are l like vile, evil and kind of like this is.
You can't even stand to watch this fucking frame of it.
It's like it's so wild and heinous. It's kind of
just disgusting and repugnant on site. And that's like a
very clear for right wing extremist film. But like something
like rr Is, I think something like it's a much

(01:05:17):
more it's a quote unquote liberal film and that you
have you know, Muslims, but like or even when like
he is kind of like portrayed as a Muslims, he's
kind of like the simpleton, or like it's very much
the idea of like it's liberal and then like everybody
and everything is subservient to this sort of like the
Super Hindu Hero, which is kind of rom like right,

(01:05:37):
everything is kind of like there's a hierarchical perspective is
kind of what it highlights, even as it does not
necessarily want to demonize anything, if.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
That makes sense, exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:05:46):
Yes, that's that's what I mean, the status pro yeah, right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
And another example is Beam is an indigenous person in
real life, and the character is indigenous and comes from
the Gond tribe, and the movie kind of like rewrites
who that character was. Yeah, calmar On Bim was a
well educated person who could read and write, but the

(01:06:11):
movie paints him as this sort of like uncivilized simpleton
along with the entire community he comes from.

Speaker 4 (01:06:17):
Yeah, Like at the end the end of the movie, right,
the big sort of like climax has him ask Peam,
you know this figure for like the gift of education,
when like in reality, Pem was an educated man. I
think that kind of is illustrative of like the sort
of hierarchical view the movie has and presents, which is
kind of like the baked and casts of like gragernalized

(01:06:39):
films you'll see again and you know if you watch
Baba Belie, which is the big, you know, metaological blockbuster film,
and the castism is kind of also rife there. So
that it's the hierarchical perspective idea of why hierarchies and
who gets to be on that and the way stereotypes
derived from that perspective, that's.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
What you see it here, right, it does. And like
if we are viewing this as a propaganda film, to
some extent, it's very effective because you don't really realize
it's happening. It's not good propaganda if it feels like propaganda.

Speaker 4 (01:07:15):
Right, it's kind of like you know a lot of
American blockbusters, right, like the politics, you're like you kind
of just accept that they're going to kind of be
fucked in a lot of words. Like you watch Top
Gun and like, I was just gonna it's a fun,
cool movie if it's like a fun sports movie, like
the first one is a fun sports movie, the second
ones but like the dads and sons and stuff, and
it's fun. But like if you stop for second to

(01:07:38):
think about it, it's like, yeah, you know, this is
really fucked the American imperiless propaganda absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
And it's bought and paid for by the American military.
Like Top Gun invented that whole of the system. Yeah,
And I mean that's certainly not what everyone I know
thought the first time they saw Top Gun, and and
the numbers sort of bear that out. There was like
a spike in air force after that.

Speaker 4 (01:07:58):
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:08:00):
Guess this is maybe an extremely oversimpl like overly simplistic question,
but for our listeners, what do you feel are kind
of the most glaring oversimplifications or changes that really makes
two history for the for the sake of this.

Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
Movie, well, definitely the one I mentioned about being and
like not being educated, having to ask for the gift
of education from a sort of Rom who is presented
as like the war tragic. You know, Beam is not
afford of the interiority of like Ram. If you watch
the movie, Ram is like this complex, tragic figure, burdened

(01:08:39):
and like all of these things, whereas Being kind of
isn't a Beam is kind of like the simpleton who's
kind of in response and reaction to the great complex
figure of Rom. And so there's definitely that aspect of it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
You also get a long sequence of Rom's backstory, and
you get no information about Beam's backstory. The movie doesn't
care to contextualize his character.

Speaker 4 (01:09:03):
That's it's the thing of like everything and every everybody
kind of becomes subserving into the story of this great figure.
And it's kind of very much like that. And it's interesting.
It's like I look at this film and there's a
lot of it is about like people talk about history
and like history isn't just an assembly of facts, right,
History is something that is constructed over and over and

(01:09:23):
over again, and how it is presented, how it is
like built and curated. And that's kind of like when
you look at the end credits of this film, it
is very much a specific curation of history with the
historical figures, and he chooses to show like, for instance,
it'll on you will not see you know a bit
burn and the end of the film, who's a legendary
Delta activist and is kind of like a father of

(01:09:44):
the Indian constitution and possibly the greatest Indian figure that
like the West probably should know over Gandhi, but somehow
Gandhi is the one people know anyway. But like you
don't see figures like that, but you will see I
don't know Shivaji and those credits, and like it's baffling
because like Shivaji was like had nothing to do with
fighting against the British, like that was kind of after

(01:10:04):
his time. The guy is kind of now a figurehead
in like the modern kind of HINDUO discourse, so like
he's in there. It's very much a kind of like
I'm not being political, but I also I totally am
by just like.

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
Just creating things, right, Yeah, yeah, it sounds like a
lot of it is by omission versus by explicit rewriting.

Speaker 4 (01:10:25):
He's more a product of like being a very uncritical
and unthinking creator and artist. And at some points, like
when the guy says, oh, I don't know much about
the RSS or anything, that's sort of dishonesty.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
Right right, right, because when he's backed into a corner,
you just have to start lying at some point.

Speaker 4 (01:10:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:47):
Also in the end credits, he omits a number of
Muslim revolutionaries revolutionaries from casts that are considered to be
quote unquote lower it's secular revolutionaries.

Speaker 4 (01:11:02):
Also, to add to another aspect of the film, I
think it's interesting, like one of the things that I
found people who are really calling too is just the
idea of like this film finally portrays like you know,
these white Brits is like the total bad guys and
like absolute monsters caricatures, or like the Nazis and Indiana
Jones are like, you know, these terrible monsters, and that

(01:11:23):
as being about choice and like being something very cool.
But what I found fascinating and telling is that, like
the movie's conceptualization and presentation of whiteness is so simplistic,
so it's very much all the white people are bad,
and then there is this one white person who is good.
It's Jenny, as opposed to actually thinking or reckoning with
the idea of a complicity and system and like Jenny

(01:11:44):
has complicit and the privileges for being who she is
and her relation to that. It's kind of never really
the movie has no conception of that. It's just simple,
there's good, there's bad. It's a simple idea, so there's
not much actually radical or interesting things. It doesn't actually
think of complete in terms of systems or complicity. It
just thinks in terms of like these sole individual figures

(01:12:05):
doing things. And it's kind of it's the limitation both
Roger Willi and the film.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
Right yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):
I at the end when like Beam reunites with Jenny
and everyone claps in the theater every time, I'm just like,
what are we clapping for? This woman is so complicit,
Like her family are literally the governor's she lives in
the palace with these imperialist colonizers, Like, what what are
we celebrating here?

Speaker 4 (01:12:30):
It's the case of like a film not really having
capacity to think or like really do anything. It's kind
of just a very simplistic piece of work in that sense.
Now that every you know, big super action blockbuster needs
to you know, really reckoned with complicity and avoidance of
all of that income. But like, if you're actually saying
this is radical, I think it has to actually be
radical as opposed to like being you know, really simplicity.

Speaker 3 (01:12:53):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Yes, I wanted to ask about because this stuck with
me the first time I saw this movie. That disclaimer
at the beginning of the movie is really intense and
in pretty long, and it's i mean, like going in
with little to no context. You're like, ooh, what is this?
Like this feels defensive. I wonder what like this is

(01:13:15):
kind of going up against. But you know, like this film,
apart from showcasing the culture and geography of India, doesn't
imitate or imply any person, whether living or dead, doesn't
indicate any race, cast, creed, or tribe. Any resemblance whatsoever
is purely coincidental. The producer, the director, or the technicians
of the movie have no intention whatsoever of hurting anyone's
sentiments or disrespecting any traditions or maligning the beliefs of

(01:13:37):
any individual or group. What do you make of that?

Speaker 4 (01:13:41):
I just think it's kind of like it's indicative like
a film rather, isn't it. It's kind of like this,
don't think of this as anything except cool character drama. Guys,
don't think of this as anything meaning anything. It's like,
it's not political. I'm just a cool dramatist, right.

Speaker 3 (01:13:56):
Like, don't yell at me. I'm not doing anything bad.
And it's like, yeah, well you are, though, And I
still I can't not love this movie. Like it's it's
a fun time.

Speaker 4 (01:14:08):
It's a fun movie, and like I think that's okay.
It's just a case of like you can like like
I love hop and I love hopkuin Maverick and like
the key is knowing, Hey, these are fun movies about
like fathers and sons and like tool sports, action ship,
but also like it's kind of fucked and like you
kind of have like look with that complexity.

Speaker 3 (01:14:26):
That's our the I mean, the whole ethos of our
show is you're allowed to love whatever you love, just
be critical of the media you consume.

Speaker 4 (01:14:34):
Yeah, interesting, and that's.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
What we're doing which you think, but uh, you know,
most people don't do it. And this makes this I've
been thinking so much about just historical epics in general.
It makes me want to go back and revisit more
of them because no, I'm kidding, Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:14:52):
My god, that's actually a big influence on the guy,
is it?

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
That makes sense?

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
I mean, because they're whatever they historical genre and I
think I would put this movie in that category for
at least big chunks of the movie, and almost every
single time they have a very loose grasp on history
and are often sort of the only interaction that a
lot of people have with the with the history at all.

Speaker 4 (01:15:20):
Yeah. And it's interesting because like you look at art, right,
art is Art's purpose isn't exactly, you know, to recreate
history necessarily, But it's a case of you judge art
on the merit of like, Okay, what is this trying
to say? And what is this constructing? And what is
this construct for and what does it mean? So even
if it isn't necessarily historically accurate, you look at Okay,
what is this trying to tell me? Yeah, and you

(01:15:41):
judge it on bat merit, And like I think a
lot of the films kind of when they do construct history,
they kind of struggle with not thinking certain things through,
and that's kind of where the pitfall is. But if
you actually think things through, like can do something with it,
I think you're kind of like more okay with that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
Yeah, absolutely, this is my last question, but I I
guess yeah, with any historical epic, it's like, well, why
are we choosing this story to produce on such a
large scale at this moment? Do you have an opinion
on that of why SSR would choose this story in
this moment?

Speaker 4 (01:16:14):
Yeah, I definitely like to go back to the original point.
He talked about the genesis of the film being, you know,
the separation of those two states, and like so I
kind of understand why because like in Andre Ram is
kind of a big figure who's known, like you'll see
if you go around a street, you will see like
big you know, statues of the guy around the streets
and stuff like that, and so, and he was a

(01:16:36):
huge figure for that film and kind of movement. So
there's a kind of sense of like, oh, he would
of course he would make that movie, And that kind
of makes sense, especially because there was a tradition of
like having made films on you know, Ram before. There's
a big classic movie based on Ram two before like
eight years ago, was starting a big iconic star back
in the day. So it's not new essentially, So he's

(01:16:57):
just kind of part of that tradition and making films
that no, and like even the interesting thing is like
you look at a lot of the lugucinema and like
there is a lot of it that draws on mythology
and constructions frames its heroes or figures through that divine
lens or like frames and Makinder goods and stuff like that.
So he is part of that lineage and tradition. So
I think there's a sense of oh, of course he

(01:17:19):
would make this movie, Like it makes sense to me
in that sense. But then you hear something like yeah,
we're working on our r R two now, and like
we're like we're working on a script and they're like
but why though, why it's kind of baffling.

Speaker 3 (01:17:35):
Yeah, who's that gonna be about?

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
Right? Yeah, I mean I wasn't able to find a
lot of information on it outside of just like anytime
something is successful, they're like, do it seven more times?
But it's like, though, this is these are these were
people like, what are you what are you intending to add?

Speaker 4 (01:17:52):
Everything is IP now truly?

Speaker 3 (01:17:56):
Do you have any final thoughts anything else you'd like
to share.

Speaker 4 (01:18:01):
On the film itself? The way I think about it
is just like it's a fun movie and I think
people can like have whatever feelings they have about it.
But it's just a case of like I would like
people just think through and like kind of like understand
what they're watching and kind of if anything, see's the
saddest thing about the movie. For me, it was just
like watching people watch this and kind of watching the response, going, Man,

(01:18:23):
people really know nothing about Indian cinema at all, huh,
because like we're India is a huge country with like
hundreds of languages, and each state is almost into a
nation of itself in the sense of like each state
has its own language, it's its own like whole thing. Yeah,
And it's kind of like it's it's comparable more to
Europe in the sense of like it's a big thing,

(01:18:45):
where as I as opposed to just one you know
thing that's like it's a hugely diverse place and there's
like almost twenty industries that are separate for each language.
To make separate movies in those languages, and there's a rich,
long tradition of movies all of them. And I was
really strufy the idea of, like, wow, people know nothing
about this, and it was kind of like, so, if

(01:19:05):
I have any last thing, it's I guess just like
I would like people to explore Indian cinema more, and
just like, rather than going, okay, I watched this, and
it kind of I would like people to like engage
with and like see more movies in general, and kind
of like, I don't know, develop a taste a sense
for it as opposed to just kind of like making
this one hit thing, right, I would like people to

(01:19:25):
watch more movies period.

Speaker 3 (01:19:27):
Do you have any recommendations of films to check out
that don't like uphold a troubling status quo the way
that R R R does well.

Speaker 4 (01:19:37):
So the interesting thing is, I've really been liking the
sort of recent tunnel movement in the tunnel in film
industry has recently, in the few years, seen a movement
of like delict filmmakers and like artists who have been
making their own art, and so I would really recommend
people check out stuff like that. So, like prune it
and folks like that. I've been doing some interesting work.

(01:19:57):
I would say, definitely check that out. That's interesting perspective
and like that's a lot of like I think, where
a lot of future stuff is going. But yeah, mostly
I would say I want people to understand and like
engage with film across the work. There's so much cool
history to film beyond just the sort of like okay,
there's like America, and then in dialogue with America because

(01:20:19):
of monster movies and samurai movies, there's Japan and then
there's Hong Kong as opposed to just kind of that's
kind of like, let's kind of fully grasp with that.

Speaker 3 (01:20:28):
Cool. Yeah, I'm going I have a subscription to Z five,
which is a streaming service for anyone who doesn't know,
is I think dedicated specifically and primarily to Indian film
and TV. So I have access to a lot. Yeah,
well real, thank you so much for joining us. This

(01:20:51):
has been such a delight, and thank.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
You for your work too. I yeah, it was incredibly
useful and I'm very glad doing it.

Speaker 4 (01:21:00):
Appreciate it. Thank you of.

Speaker 3 (01:21:01):
Course, Where can people check out more of your work
and follow you online? All that good stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:21:08):
Yeah. So I'm at writer pretty much everywhere and you
can find me there and I'm a newsletter. I guess
you can subscribe to that, though I haven't written more
since my r or piece com is my website, So
if you want to hit me up, that's where you
do it. And that's kind of it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:24):
Amazing cool.

Speaker 3 (01:21:25):
Thank you again so much for joining us.

Speaker 4 (01:21:27):
Thank you for having me. This was fun. Yay.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
Once again, we wanted to thank Ravesh Babu for coming
on the show giving us some context and giving us
better insight into the movie. That was so awesome, very helpful.
I like to, I mean, we like to at least
try to be honest about our biases in watching movies
and what we you know, you don't know, what you
don't know. And even after I saw R R R

(01:21:58):
with you, I read his work like that night and
it was so so helpful and I don't know, it
was really cool for him to come on the show,
look at us praising a man sickos okay, and and
now return to business, which is with that historical context
in mind, let's talk about the characters. Let's talk about

(01:22:21):
the relationships in the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:22:23):
Yes, shall we start with the representation of women. Ever
heard of it? It's bad, It's bad. Here's what I'll say.

Speaker 2 (01:22:33):
It's not good, not good oil. Honestly it was. It
was pissing me off, but in at least different flavors
of not good. But I did. There was repeat it.
Anytime man was talking to or about a woman. It
was stuff like wait, I would cover writing it down.

(01:22:53):
Anytime Rom talks to Sita, he says one thing and
he's like, you're you're my strength, baby, Like like I
am fighting for freedom and you are my strength, and
like that is how men view women. Sita, my courage
has always been my strength, but your courage will help
me succeed. It's just very it's very reductive of Cita.

(01:23:17):
But we also see Ram's father discuss Ram's mother in
that way, exactly, saying that, oh, she is my courage,
she is my strength, which you know, I think's interesting
because it's like that sounds good, but it also inherently
implies in action and implies like you hold down the
fort while I go to man stuff exactly truly what

(01:23:38):
it is where he is just asking her to and
not to say that that is unimportant or valueless. Work.
It's not, but it's very I think, very gender essential
to be like, all right, you were my strength. If
you weren't my my fucking wife, like I couldn't kill
all these guys or whatever. You know, it's just very

(01:24:00):
traditional view of gender, right, And.

Speaker 3 (01:24:03):
I know that that happened historically because of gender roles
and patriarchical nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:24:09):
In this movie happened, so you could. As we just
talked about for an hour, this movie doesn't have much
of an interest in being historically accurate. So it does
feel like a modern decision like that that was a
twenty whatever, twenty twenty whatever decision to sideline women in
this way.

Speaker 3 (01:24:26):
Yeah, women don't exist to be men's inspiration and sorts
of strength.

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
Exactly, I mean, but there are like slightly different flav
I mean, honestly, the only women that we get to
know are Sita, Kathy, and Jenny, so three very different women,
which and let's sideline Kathy for a second. The two
women we are supposed to like are Sita and Jenny. Right, Sita,

(01:24:54):
for the most part, like we were just saying, she
is waiting, she's waiting, she's waiting, she's waiting around come
home past reassuring everyone Mom's got this. Towards the end,
she does get some stuff to do. I've noticed that
Sita and Jenny both iconically do one thing. Yes. Uh,

(01:25:15):
Sita's one thing is that she thinks really quickly when
police raid the space where she has just met Beam
and Molly. Yeah, and she says that someone has what
the disease smallpox? Small pox? Yes, so she says that
someone has smallpox, and then the police get the fuck
out of there, and that is like her active, her

(01:25:37):
one thing to protect someone else, which is great, for sure,
It's one thing in three hours, but it's great. And
then Jenny's one thing happens in montage from what I
could tell. But the one thing Jenny does is she
gives Beam a map likeware to rest, which is I

(01:26:00):
think the only time we see her be like explicitly rebellious.

Speaker 3 (01:26:05):
Towards yeah, her family.

Speaker 2 (01:26:07):
We'll get to her in a second, but yeah, Like,
they both do.

Speaker 3 (01:26:10):
One thing, and the thing that Sita does is accompanied
by some violence, And so I wanted to bring up
the kind of use of violence in this movie, which
there is a lot of. This is a violent action movie, yes,
but violence is used to brutalize women in this movie

(01:26:33):
in a way that it's generally not used to brutalize men,
with a few exceptions that I'll get to, But there's
the scene where Cita like does this quick thinking and
she's like, oh, someone has smallpox, and then she is
violently kicked by a British officer. There's another scene early
on where Maley's mother is struck on the head. We

(01:26:55):
mentioned that one already. Both are moments of brutal violence
that sort of seem to imply like, look how weak
and helpless these women are, while when men do violence
in this movie it's like exciting action sequences, with a
few exceptions that I can think of, all involving Beam,

(01:27:16):
such as the scene where Beam is brutally beaten by
that one officer who brings his motorcycle to the mechanic shop,
as well as the scene where Beam is flogged publicly
by Ram, which, as we've discussed, Beam is treated differently
from Ram, where unlike Ram, Beam is not elevated to

(01:27:39):
this godlike status, He's not given a backstory. All these
different things that like create this like imbalance between these
two characters who we are supposed to like who are
supposed to be equally important, but Ram is like elevated
in this particular way, probably because Beam is Indigenous and

(01:27:59):
indigenous people in India at this time. I'm not sure
if this is still true today. Again, I only have
a pretty peripheral understanding of the caste system, but this
was definitely true at the time, that indigenous people exist
outside of the caste system because they are considered to
be below brah monoical supremacy, which is the ideology that

(01:28:22):
dictates the hierarchy and elitism of the caste system. So
I think because Beam is Indigenous, and I know we're
talking about the women, and I am sidetracking and talking no, no, no,
this is important to Beam. But I just wanted to
like point out the ways in which marginalized people such
as women and indigenous people, the way violence is handled

(01:28:46):
with them versus when like Ram is doing violence. It's like,
look at this fucking awesome superhero and like all of
his cool action.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
Well yeah, that takes it takes you to what we
were talking about in our interview, where it was presented
that Beam was not an educated man and he was
serves the purpose of this story to downplay that and
an exchange that I didn't remember to bring up was

(01:29:18):
at the end one of the last interactions, maybe the
last interaction that Rom and Beam have clearly establishes like
Rom is the guy, which the political implications of that
is Beam at the end is like, I want you
to teach me Like that is so he like they
don't really end as equals, which is so weird because

(01:29:42):
the whole thing is that they're holding each other's hands
and it looks like that fucking meme where it's like yeah,
but it's like the power dynamic between them is actually
always a little uneven because it's implied that Rom has
an education and Beam does not. Rom is bilin well,
Beam is not. Like there's all of these things that
always give Ram like quote unquote the edge over Beam,

(01:30:06):
and it doesn't nullify their friendship, but it does. But
the movie still sort of ends with that being the case,
where Beam is like, I want to be your student, Ram,
and it's like.

Speaker 3 (01:30:15):
And the movie ends with yeah, Beam saying like teach
me to read and write, and then Ram writes a
phrase on a flag that real life historical figure Comoran
Beam that was his saying, like that was his like ah,
but instead it has Ram Raju, like this movie attributes

(01:30:36):
that phrase to him. The phrase is jall jangle zamin.
I'm sure I'm not pronouncing that correctly, but it translates
in English to water, forest land, and it makes sense
that an indigenous person would value those things and have
that be their slogan for freedom. But instead this movie

(01:30:59):
tribute ttes like the coining of that phrase or that
slogan to Rom. Also, there's a scene in the movie
where Sita is explaining to Beam why Rom went into
the police force, and Beam responds by basically saying, like, oh,
my vision has been so narrow here. I am only

(01:31:23):
trying to save one person, but Ram is trying to
start this whole big revolution, like his scale is so
much grander than mine. And then Beam says the tribal
that I am, I did not understand. So again it's
positioning Beam, this indigenous person as being simple minded and

(01:31:46):
not able to see the bigger picture, which is just
so insulting and reductive to characterize an indigenous person in
that way.

Speaker 2 (01:31:56):
Do not like all right, back back to back to
the gaps. Yes, yes, so Tita, Yes, I think that
Tita is presented as kind of your classically virtuous It's
it almost it is like a you know, woman waiting
for her man to come home from war kind of character.

(01:32:17):
She does get to do one thing, she is subjected
to violence immediately, And I totally agree with what you're
saying there is like the violence is to demonstrate that
they that like.

Speaker 3 (01:32:28):
They need men to protect them kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
They cannot protect themselves. And then we have Jenny, who
has a whole different set of issues. I mean, I
just like, I don't know, I mean, Jenny and Tita
are written very differently. Jenny, as we discussed. I think
it is a big weird problem that like she is
so I don't even know. It's like whatever the level

(01:32:53):
above complicity is, Like it feels like too simple to
say that she's complicit. Her aunt Kathy is on the
other hand, like a full on fucking tyrant and is
actively I mean, there's that whole sequence when Beam is
being beat by rom It's such a hard scene to
watch where she keeps suggesting like more and more brutal

(01:33:15):
weapons to hurt him, when.

Speaker 3 (01:33:17):
She just has a spiky whip in her dress question Mark,
and she's like here, use this, Yeah, I forgot.

Speaker 2 (01:33:25):
She had it on her. So she is obviously not
the top colonizer, that's Governor Scott. But she is actively
perpetuating violence against Indian people the entire movie and is
often suggesting to her husband to turn it up to
and eleven and make the violence even more brutal. So

(01:33:49):
she is a very active character in the worst way, which,
as we were talking about, that is sort of one
of the things this movie gets really right is like
and I think is very striking to I mean all audiences,
but I think Western audiences in particular, where we're i
think kind of used to being asked to empathize with

(01:34:10):
the colonizer or to see that, like even in modern movies,
to be like, okay, so colonization's obviously wrong. But the
way that the tone of this movie makes it completely
possible for all of the colonizers to just be like
cartoonishly like as cartoonishly evil as colonizers are. Yeah, so
it's like fun and cathartic totally.

Speaker 3 (01:34:31):
Though the movie, she's the one exception of like white
colonizer woman who doesn't get let off the hook, because
the movie lets all the other ones off the hook,
and the only other one we really get to know
is Jenny. But like Jenny, there's that whole party Jenny's friends.

Speaker 2 (01:34:46):
Yeah that's exactly yeah, like which recontextualizes the party in
a way. You're like, it's such a good dance scene,
but like what are we doing?

Speaker 3 (01:34:55):
And yeah, like all the all the white women are like,
let's dance along to the not too not too song
and these men are boyfriends. They feel threatened by these
brown men, and they're trying to compete against them.

Speaker 2 (01:35:10):
Right, like every white woman is an ally.

Speaker 3 (01:35:14):
Yeah, and it's like, well, no, that's not how that happened.
So yeah, I appreciate Lady Buxton being in the movie
and like depicted the way she was in a weird way.
Because the racism and other prejudices that a lot of
white women perpetuate should not be ignored or let off
the hook, although they are too often, So I appreciate

(01:35:38):
that this movie shows like, yes, like white women can
be complicit and or actively perpetuating.

Speaker 2 (01:35:45):
Yes, Like, just because you are not the most powerful
person in the world right, does not mean that you
do not hold a lot of privilege and cannot weaponize
it against other people.

Speaker 3 (01:35:56):
Also, fun fact, lady Buxton is played by Alison Duty,
who is the Nazi woman from Indiana Jones and The
Last Crusade. So she is very good at playing evil
white women.

Speaker 2 (01:36:10):
What an interesting life of typecasting like wild Yes, okay,
so back to Jenny, Back to Jenny. Okay, So like
point while taken with Lady Buxton, I agree, but then
also like Jenny undercuts that same thing right where Jenny
is their niece and it's I'm not saying that, like

(01:36:30):
it's within Jenny's power to dismantle colonialism, Like that's an
unreasonable expectation. However, I feel like she's presented because she
is nice and because she is not actively individually perpetuating
harm against individuals and has I think there's like two
different instances. One is when Beam first sees her, she

(01:36:54):
tells off a police officer for beating someone for no reason,
and that is like her technically using her privilege for
good because she has more clout than he does and
so he stops good.

Speaker 3 (01:37:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
And then the other time that we see Jenny likely
likely push against a system of oppression is when she
brings Beam back to the palace or the hat whatever,
the big the big man, the big old place colonial
manner and an officer or a guard or a soldier,

(01:37:28):
what's the difference some guy, you know, some guy assumes
that Beam is the help, and Jenny says fuck off
and then apologizes to Beam and they kind of move on.
So it's like, individually, sure, you know, she does the
right thing in those moments, but I feel like those
moments are illustrated of like therefore she is totally good,

(01:37:55):
and like, I don't know, I just thought that like
her level complicity was not examined in any meaningful way,
in a way that there was room in this movie
to happen, like and it seems like I know that Beam,
you know, loves her, but it seems like he is
the sort of person because he is so smart and

(01:38:16):
because he is so motivated to dismantle the colonialism that's
affecting everyone he knows, it seems like the sort of
thing that he would want to talk about. So it's
kind of like it feels like it suggests that, like
women are so wayfish and powerless that it's like not

(01:38:37):
even worth the discussion to examine their complicity or like
I don't really know what that decision was. It felt
a little out of step with who we know Beam
to be. But the whole like Beam rom Com section
of the movie feels a little out of step with
who Beam is for the rest of the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:38:55):
Right, It's just like, I don't know if it's suggesting
like the attention of a woman softens him up a
little bit for a while or something. I don't know,
because see.

Speaker 2 (01:39:08):
The at one point when the when the tiger is
attacking everybody, he like puts Jenny in a.

Speaker 3 (01:39:15):
Car, who is dressed exactly like Belle from Beauty and
the Beast. In that moment, me.

Speaker 2 (01:39:19):
Is and she she is very bell I mean, she
looks like Belle too, But he I don't. Every time
I see that scene and he puts her in the car,
and it's supposed to be like I will protect you,
You're my GF, now whatever, But he puts her in
a car, I'm like, that could be that could be
a kiss of death. That could be so bad for her. Yeah,
that car can explode Like this, I wouldn't want to

(01:39:43):
be locked in a car in the middle of a
war zone. It just feels like you're almost more more
vulnerable than if you could move. But what do I know.

Speaker 3 (01:39:52):
It's hard to say.

Speaker 2 (01:39:54):
In any case. With the three main women that we
get to know, they are different enough. I think Sa
and Jenny have certain qualities in commons, such as passivity
and only being able to do one thing.

Speaker 3 (01:40:08):
Oh that's what I was gonna say. There's that scene
when Beam is beating Oh yeah, there's another moment where
like an indigenous character is being brutalized. When Rom beats Lachu,
Beam's brother. He's like flailing his web his like stick
around and his bacelet flies off. Men be flailing their

(01:40:31):
sticks around and his and Rom's bracelet flies off, and
we get a flashback where we see like the significance
of this bracelet because like Cita has the other half
of it, and it's sort of like, oh, they.

Speaker 2 (01:40:45):
Literally have like Claire's necklaces on that are like best friends.

Speaker 3 (01:40:51):
And he's like, wait a minute, I'm reminded that I
have a girlfriend and maybe I should be conflicted about
how I'm beating my fellow Indian. You know, Like it's
just such a weird, like the way the function of
women in this movie is, yeah, just like to be passive,
to be the.

Speaker 2 (01:41:08):
Like also to represent purity and goodness and nonviolence and like,
can't we just stop fighting? And you're like, and even
with I mean MOLLI is I feel like Mali represents
something similar to what the women of the story, or
at least Tita and Jenny represent, which is like, this
is what we're fighting for, that kind of like nationalistic

(01:41:32):
and I guess Jenny doesn't actually really factor in there,
but like Tita and Mali, I feel like definitely represent
like this is why we do what we do for
the women, which is in any nationalistic narrative. I feel
like that always comes up. I mean, it certainly comes
up in American media all the time. It comes up

(01:41:56):
in Mulan. They all want a girl worth fighting for,
and it's a very common and this movie doesn't challenge that.
This movie, I mean, honestly, once you can get past
the thrill of it, this movie doesn't challenge very much
outside of imperialism and colonialism, which is very important to
challenge obviously, But.

Speaker 3 (01:42:17):
Yeah, as we've discussed, it upholds the status quo in
many other ways. The other thing I wanted to say
about Jenny is the see the meet cute. Yes, so
there's a really wild scene where so Ram is like
I'll be your wingman. Beam, Oh, you want to talk

(01:42:38):
to Jenny? Okay? So Rom grabs a handful of nails
and throws them in front of Jenny's car to flatten
her tires so that Beam will have an excuse to
talk to her Jenny.

Speaker 2 (01:42:53):
The scene has played so goody.

Speaker 3 (01:42:56):
It's an extremely goofy scene. Jenny is completely oblivious as
to what is happening because she's driving her car, but
she is not looking at the road She's seen just
like staring off at the distance, being like do do doo.
And then when Beam realizes what Rom did, like you
would expect that reaction, his reaction to be something like

(01:43:18):
what the fuck, dude, you can't just like throw nails
in front of a woman's car to get her attention.
But instead Beam is like, thanks, bro, it was awesome
that you did that, and Rom is like, yeah, it
was pretty awesome that I did that, and Jenny is like,
what happened? My tires are flat for some reason? Hahah.

Speaker 2 (01:43:34):
Literally, it is so like it it is it seems
like it's almost like Vaudevillian in the way that it
plays out, because you're like, yeah, I mean, it is
very weird that Beam is like, oh cool, thank you.
And also it doesn't seem like Beam really notices that Rob,
like why can no one see that this is happening?
And it also presents Jenny as being like not very

(01:43:56):
smart and completely oblivious to the world around her, because
you could, like, as an audience member, you can feel
you can hear the nails fall to the ground, and
the way she's driving is like she's not looking at
the road, She's like looking at the yeads. Here's like
they're just they make her look like, oh, like she
has like two brain cells. Yeah, yeah, like it which

(01:44:20):
is again, which is like doesn't feel like a very
Again it's I know it's a different film industry than
we cover, but it's like it felt weird to me
of like twenty twenty two really.

Speaker 3 (01:44:31):
Right, Yeah, a movie like I have no doubt that
men did things like this throughout history, because men are
famous for doing scary things to get the attention of women.
But because this movie came out in twenty twenty two,
you would think that there would be a more modern
version of that where at the very least, like if
rom Is gonna throw the nails, Beam would be like

(01:44:54):
what you can't just be flattening women's tires.

Speaker 2 (01:44:56):
Bro, Like, yeah, yeah, this movie is takes so many
creative liberties that in moments where it's like, no, I
think that that is I'm not saying that this is
something that SSR has ever spoken to or as far
as I can tell, Ben asked about, because it is
like this is very much our wheelhouse of like what
we what we would talk to him about. But like

(01:45:18):
I feel like in big movies like this, this is
a very broad statement and feel free to disagree, but
like it seems like it's only in moments like that
that creatives will like who maybe are not very interested
in telling women's stories or anyone, but men's stories will
be like, well that was the history. That's that would

(01:45:40):
that's historically accurate, Like yeah, you also had a guy
like beat a tiger, Like why is your stickler? Yeah,
Like why is this the place that you are sticking to?
Like well, this is how it would have gone in
this state, and you're just like all right, man, sure
fucking sure.

Speaker 3 (01:45:58):
And speaking of not being interested in telling women's stories,
there are a number of women who fought for Indian independence,
though as per usual, their stories are usually not told
history tends to erase them, and media about Indian freedom fighters,

(01:46:18):
like RRR tends to focus on men and ignore women's contributions.
I'm pulling from scholarly journal Wikipedia, of course, but just
to just to name a few. Prita Lata Wadidar was
a member of an Indian Republican army who died after

(01:46:40):
leading a siege a successful siege on a European club
in Chittagong. Sur Genie Nadou was an Indian political activist
and poet. She was a proponent of civil rights, women's emancipation,
and anti imperialist ideas. Ronnie Lakshmibe was a leading figure

(01:47:05):
of the Indian Rebellion of eighteen fifty seven and became
a symbol of resistance to the British Raj for Indian nationalists.
I don't know if that means the same thing as well.
I think it means, but maybe I don't know anyway.
And then there is Katsturba Gandhi who was a political

(01:47:26):
activist married to Mohandas Gandhi and with her husband and son,
she was involved in the independence movement for India. So
those are just a handful I'm sure there were many
more leaders of the movement. And then also just again,
women's contributions to a movement like this in general are

(01:47:48):
still crucial, but their stories are often never told. Even
if they weren't like leaders of the rebellion, women were
still doing shit and people often ignore those narratives.

Speaker 2 (01:48:02):
So yes, and I feel like that is something that
again it's like, it's so tricky. Again. We just covered
the woman King, and it seems like there is just
now there is some or more interest in portraying women
through history like this, which I think is a really
good thing. And but then the tricky part of that

(01:48:24):
is like, Okay, I don't know, this is kind of
a discussion for another day, and this isn't about the
women King specifically, but I always worry where it's like, oh,
now we're going to show like war heroes who were women,
And then it's like, okay, but are we gonna undo
any of the really fucked up like narratives that happen
in war movies and the glarification and the nationalism or

(01:48:45):
are we just going to leave that as is? And
now it's it's like a I'm so sick of this, right,
But like it's like a girl bossy kind of thing
of like, well, now we're going to show women perpetuating
women can be war law words, right, oppressive war likes, Like,
I don't know, that's a broad just gut feeling that

(01:49:07):
I feel like we've seen that happen before in various genres,
and now it's seems like it may have become time
for this genre. So it's interesting. I don't know, I
don't know. We're all we're you know the world's can
explode in like ten years is really hard to say.
But yeah, did you have any other thoughts on the

(01:49:28):
women of that?

Speaker 3 (01:49:29):
On the women's But I do want to talk about
something that often gets discussed in movies about male friendship
or where there are men who are friends, which is
everyone is like they're gay. We've talked about this before.

Speaker 2 (01:49:48):
On It's like our Top Gun episode.

Speaker 3 (01:49:50):
We've talked about it. I think Fast and the Furious
we talked about it. It's like the Frodo and Sam
from Lord of the Rings thing. Yes, yeah, where close
male friend ships are often perceived as having queer undertones
because male platonic closeness is so foreign to people that
when people see it They often ascribe a romantic or

(01:50:12):
sexual component to it, which might be true for some
male friendships, but it's often like the default reaction where
so many people who I know who saw this movie
were like, oh, Ram and Beam like oh, they're so
gay for each other, which like that being the default
reaction is complicated.

Speaker 2 (01:50:32):
It's like an onion discussion because you might want to
be like no, no, straight, but also it's like they're yeah,
It's like I feel like that. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:50:42):
It doesn't allow for the normalization of close platonic male friendship.

Speaker 2 (01:50:47):
Exactly with any sexuality, like across the spectrum, like you
should be able to have intimacy with your friend without
it being implied as romantic, and especially with men again,
like across the sexuality spectrum men, I feel the way

(01:51:08):
men are generally socially conditioned globally with few exceptions, it
makes it difficult or there is this like implication of
you should be ashamed to have an intimate and I
mean like emotionally intimate friendship with another man or often
another person at all, because we you know of deep

(01:51:28):
platonic friendships between men and women. Is also always like oh,
you guys are in love with each other and it's like.

Speaker 4 (01:51:37):
Not.

Speaker 2 (01:51:39):
And like the shift of.

Speaker 3 (01:51:40):
This reaction I think has gone a bit from like, oh,
they're so gay and isn't that gross more to just like, oh,
there's two guys and they're gay, and like, did I
want to see Beam and rom kiss?

Speaker 1 (01:51:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:51:56):
Kind of.

Speaker 3 (01:51:56):
So it's complicated, but also.

Speaker 2 (01:52:00):
But yeah, I think it's like I agree with that
you're saying. It's like, just normalizing a strong, deep, platonic
friendship is like a worthy thing to do, and I
feel like this movie does. It is one of the
things that this movie does very successfully. The idea of
like loyalty to your friend is an important thing. I

(01:52:21):
think that that's really nice. I think it's good.

Speaker 4 (01:52:26):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:52:27):
Also, the last thing I want to say was anytime
I think that, like, yeah, in the movies that we
grew up with, and this doesn't really happen anymore except
if it's like still happening on like network TV or something.
But anytime there's you know, two, I'm thinking of like
peak jud Appatow movies, where it's like anytime, like men

(01:52:47):
can be friends in those movies, but they have to
constantly qualify that they're straight. Anytime they experience a moment
of like if they hug, if they if they touch,
they're like what no, like just totally not like kind
of god, what a what a distressing time that was? Anyways,

(01:53:07):
not the case for Ram and Beam. They openly express
their affection for each other by spending time together, by
going on day trips. By I mean, they are like
physically expressive with the way they love each other. And
also like, because the tone of this movie is so
soap opera, like, these men are certainly emoting, you don't

(01:53:28):
seek I think like a lot of Western movies show
like a male protagonist swallowing the pain and it becomes
a fucking brick and his stomach and you're like, wow,
that's acting. Meanwhile, Rom is like, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:53:42):
They're they're both crying at different points like this, They're
having emotions besides rage, because like rage, especially in like
Hollywood movies, is like the only acceptable or like has
been considered to be the only acceptable true emotion that
men are allowed to express and feel. But guess what, everyone,

(01:54:04):
the full range of emotions is available to people of
all genders everyone. But also Rom often expresses his emotions
by punching a punching bag. So there's that. Do you
have anything else you want to talk about?

Speaker 2 (01:54:20):
I don't really think so. Yeah. I think that that
that We've had a pretty comprehensive discussion. Also, listeners, especially
our Indian listeners, we recognize that we've probably gotten some
stuff wrong in this episode. We did our best in
terms of prep and all of that, but we are
very interested in what particularly our Indian listeners have to

(01:54:42):
say about this. Yes, please, and just in general, because
we always want to know what you think and tackling
a big historical epic with which you are not familiar
with the history can be kind of tricky. So if
there's anything that we missed, please let us know and
we will, you know, do do what we always do. Indeed, Yeah,

(01:55:02):
I think that's all I've got.

Speaker 3 (01:55:03):
Ah same. Does this movie past the Bechdel test?

Speaker 2 (01:55:08):
No.

Speaker 3 (01:55:09):
There are a few small moments where women interact or
female characters interact, such as when Jenny gives Molly a
few gifts but Molly doesn't respond. No. There's also a
scene at the party where a lady says hey Jenny.
Jenny says, hi, Maggie, how's Max. Maggie says goddamn. Oh

(01:55:33):
he's great, and Jenny says wonderful.

Speaker 2 (01:55:36):
I guess that Hi, Jenny, high Maggie. But that's not
it doesn't count.

Speaker 3 (01:55:40):
Yeah, because immediately she's like, how's Max, And it's like,
who's Max? Who cares?

Speaker 2 (01:55:44):
Like what do you? That's also with Jenny. That's another
way that Jenny is shown to be kind. She's the
only person who's kind to a child they've kidnapped. You're like,
that's not, that's not enough. I don't know. I think
I'm pretty frad I our captive address, and you're like,
fuck you anyways.

Speaker 3 (01:56:07):
Okay, well, let's move on to the perfect metric our
nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale
of zero to five nipples based on looking at the
movie through an intersectional feminist lens. Okay, let me talk
through this. So on one hand, Okay, this is a
movie about Indian people rising up against British oppression and

(01:56:29):
imperial rule in colonization and obliterating it, which is very
cathartic to see, and it's very exciting. It's a fun
movie and the music and the two men are so hot,
and well that's.

Speaker 2 (01:56:44):
An intersectional feminist win.

Speaker 3 (01:56:47):
And yes, So those are the good parts of the movie,
but as we've discussed, it upholds the status quo of
the current scale, very political climate of India, and it's
more or less serving as Indian nationalists propaganda. I also

(01:57:08):
want to be clear that our criticism of right wing
Hindu centric Indian government is not a criticism of the
Hindu religion. I'm sure our listeners understand that, but I
just want to make that abundantly clear that we are
criticizing oppressive fasci governments and political ideologies. Yes, so the

(01:57:29):
kind of like upholding of the status quo and which
again is a scary status quo, along with the movies
treatment of women and indigenous people being very abysmal. I
also wanted to point out that again Comaron Beim was
an indigenous person of the gand tribe and tr Junior,

(01:57:53):
who plays him is not a Gandhi actor. So there's that.
But then you see Governor Scott's blood splatter over the
words the Sun never sets on the British Empire, and.

Speaker 2 (01:58:06):
You're like, WHOA, right, it's I mean it is. I
think that like this movie is so unseubtle too its
strength and it's detriment. Yes, and its strength is certainly
like best shown with its attitudes towards imperialism and British colonialism,
and that all plays very well. But yeah, in terms

(01:58:27):
of it having propaganda qualities, right, if not just being propaganda,
it is kind of I don't know. Yeah, it is
kind of freaky that like this movie can come to
the come to a Western audience and like it didn't
register for I think a lot of Western fans of
this movie for sure, and so it's scary.

Speaker 3 (01:58:49):
It is scary and it's complicated. With all of that
in mind, I think i'll give it like one and
a half nipples. Still love this movie. I'm I'm gonna
keep revisiting it, knowing its issues and knowing its many problems.
But as far as like entertainment value goes, it's a

(01:59:12):
ten out of ten on the Rampo meter.

Speaker 2 (01:59:14):
Oh, I mean, it's like seven movies and one. It's
pretty fucking cool.

Speaker 3 (01:59:18):
So there's a lot to love about this movie. But
we also, as always, we are going to acknowledge the
things that must be criticized about any movie. So one
point five nipples. I'll give one to Sita because I

(01:59:38):
just wanted so much more for her.

Speaker 2 (01:59:41):
She could have done two things.

Speaker 3 (01:59:43):
She could have done two, maybe even three. Now, let's
but reason, I'll calm down.

Speaker 2 (01:59:50):
That would be one thing per hour. Caitlin, I don't
know that's too much. Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:59:57):
And I'll give my half nipple to Malley. What's her name, Twinkle,
Twinkle Sharma. Oh my god, what a name, Twinkle?

Speaker 2 (02:00:06):
Incredible?

Speaker 3 (02:00:07):
What say you, Jamie?

Speaker 2 (02:00:10):
I feel like I'm coming down kind of hard. I'm
going to give it one in terms again, entertainment value, gigantic.
Do I enjoy watching the movie? Yes, the I mean,
for kind of our classic spectel cast purposes. Women are
in no way centered and they're like you're saying, like
in like, there have been many women who have fought

(02:00:31):
for freedom in India, And you know, this movie sort
of casts a very wide, very broad, very familiar view
of women as docile, domestic waiting for men to get home.
The reason we fight certainly not the people who would
be allowed to do anything. So in that way, I
thought it was like a very kind of traditional view
of gender. The way that Jenny's character is positioned as

(02:00:56):
the one nice colonizer is weird. I don't think that
that's an intersectional win of any sort. And also I
think that I'm coming down kind of hard on it
because we've covered these historical epics recently and in terms
of intersectionality, and no movie is going to get history

(02:01:16):
exactly right. And it's not the duty of fiction movies
to be documentaries. I'm not implying that, but there is
I think, like our discussion today speaks to like when
you get history so wrong or there's a lot of
omission like that can perpetuate harm against marginalized communities, which

(02:01:39):
is what our whole contextual discussion was. And so I
feel and again I know that it's like I am
not well versed in these issues at all. I'm still
a ton to learn, and a lot of this is
new information. So if I'm coming down too hard, I apologize,
But from the information I have presently, it just seems

(02:02:00):
like this, this movie gets history or willfully emits a
lot of important history in a way that doesn't you know,
it like erases a lot of marginalized communities and uplifts
some harmful status quos, which a lot of movies do.
But because again, like we talked about this in The

(02:02:21):
Women King episode two, when you involve actual historical figures.
That's when it gets super super super messy. Yeah, and
so that is sort of where I stand on that.
It's a super fun movie to watch. It's really exciting.
I like, and the live viewing experience. Someone threw a

(02:02:41):
fucking like inflatable tiger at the screen.

Speaker 3 (02:02:43):
It was just like it was a lot people get
up and dance along with the not to not too scene. Like,
it's just an an electric viewing experience.

Speaker 2 (02:02:53):
It's intense, yeah, I mean, and so for the movie
going experience, it's fucking unbelievable. Like Russian movie is an
incredibly talented filmmaker, but a lot of the writing is
a bit concerning. And so I'm gonna give it one nipple.
I apologize if that's too harsh, and I'm gonna give
it to Sorry, I guess I'm gonna give it to

(02:03:17):
I'll split it between Molly and her mom because it
is such a brutal two punch opening scene and I'm
glad that they are reunited. I really thought that they
killed her mom, and I am. The movie is so
long that sometimes I forget that she does live between
the beginning and the end, because.

Speaker 3 (02:03:34):
You only see her in the opening sequence and then
in the credit sequence like yeah, she gets brought back
to screen after the movie has ended and they're playing
like the big credit song and dance number.

Speaker 2 (02:03:47):
Yeah. I'm just glad that Molly got to reunite with
her whole family. I think that that is very It's
what she deserved. So yeah, give it, give it one nipple. Sorry,
I love you, happy birthday.

Speaker 3 (02:04:01):
I mean I give it only a half nipple more
than you, so we're pretty much the same. But thank you.
It is my birthday.

Speaker 2 (02:04:08):
Media, it's so complicated. Well, I'm covering Minion's Rise of
Group for my birthday and we're gonna have a hell
of a time.

Speaker 3 (02:04:18):
Oh wow, Yeah, I can't wait. Yep, listeners, that's our
r r r r r r r r r r
r or thanks again to our guest with ash Baboo.
Make sure to check out there writing and you can
follow us. Hey, you know what, because it's my birthday,

(02:04:39):
you can follow me on social media?

Speaker 2 (02:04:43):
Oh such as unfollow me in observiance of Kaitlyn's birthday.

Speaker 3 (02:04:48):
Yeah, take your follow take your follow away from Jamie
and give it to me. Just kidding. You can follow
anyone you want. But especially me on my special day.
I'm trying to be more active on TikTok, which I
don't know how to feel about. I'm less active on

(02:05:08):
Twitter than I've ever been before, except to convince people
to cast me in Paddington three, which is at the
time of this recording, and we're recording pretty far out
but so hopefully this doesn't change by the time this
episode comes out. But production on Paddington three is slated
to begin in July, so there's still time to cast me,

(02:05:31):
and then Instagram and I'm at all of those places
at Caitlin Deronte, please follow me.

Speaker 2 (02:05:39):
You can also follow our Patreon aka Maatreon at patreon
dot com slash bachtel cast. Five bucks a month gets
you a number of bonus episodes.

Speaker 5 (02:05:49):
And that number is too I don't know why I
put it like that, And you also can do per
month per month, and yes, you get access to I
think close to one hundred and fifty back episode cat
logs at this point, and then we'll be covering some
of Caitlin's thaves on the Matreon this month, so check
that out.

Speaker 2 (02:06:07):
You can also follow the Bechdel Cast on Instagram and
Twitter at Bechdel.

Speaker 3 (02:06:12):
Cast, and you can buy our merch at teapublic dot
com slash the Bechdel Cast. Treat yourself to a little
t shirt, a little phone case, a little little pillow,
whatever you want. It's my birthday, so you treat yourself
in observance of the national holiday. Yes, yes, wonderful.

Speaker 2 (02:06:32):
Okay, well there's the episode We love you so much.
Go have a nice springtime day, do it. Oh, also,
my book comes out next week. Oh my god, yes,
rad Dog May twenty third. We're gonna be covering it
in our well, not the book. We're gonna be covering
sausage Party next week. Sorry, bye bye

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