Slums of Beverly Hills with Broey Deschanel

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdelcast.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
The questions asked if movies have women and them, are
all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they
have individualism, the patriarchy, zeph and best start changing it
with the Bechdel.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Cast, Get a Good get Away, Get a good to
the This is the words, right, I'm trying to speak
your I'm trying to speak the secret language I know,
but I can't speak it.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
It was reminding me of I did you ever watch
Zoom on PBS? No, because it's one of the shows
you could have watched, So I was curious. Zoom was
like this kid's show that actually friend of the show
Taylor Garren was on when I was a child. Sure
where they would speak they would speak pig Latin. Maybe no, wait,

(00:51):
because I can do that, And also like that sounds weird.
I couldn't understand what they were saying. I really appreciated
in their secret language that they're subtitles. There were subtitles.
I thought that was like so charming. What is our
what is what is our secret langue? I feel like
our secret language is like trying to get out of
a social situation as a group, but you're usually just

(01:14):
like we should go.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
I'm leaving now bye.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Yeah, you're really good at leaving your room. I'll all
be there three hours longer than necessary.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Thank you so much. I was gonna say our secret
language is maybe a dialect of minionies, but.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Oh my god, yes that is below below below. Oh uh, well,
banana is an English word. I guess there's there's so
there's so many options for us. How do you feel
about I know we have a lot to talk about today,
but are you do you want to go see Minions
and monsters at midnight? I know that everyone I just

(01:51):
wanted to. I was going to text you about this
off pod, but everyone did seem upset with me when
I brought them to just we all fell asleep. A
despicable for at midnight. But I think it's worth a shot.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
It was a midnight screening. Yeah, I'm not gonna say
I'm too old for that, but I'm definitely not young
enough for it.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Okay, so you're bowing out, you're bowing out.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
I won't say that. Okay, I'm just gonna be a
little wishy washy about committing. At the moment, I'm building
my day around it.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
I'm planning the next day so that I can go
to bed and sleep till like elevens I can I
can really like drink a Celsius and see minions and monsters. Sure,
but unfortunately all the minions are men, and that didn't
pass the Bechdel test, which brings us to Welcome to
the Bechdel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
My name is Caitlin Derante. This is our show where
we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point, which is
what now, Jamie.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Well. The Bechdel test is a media metric created by
friend of this show Carteonus, Alison Bechdel, originally a one
off joke in her comic dex to Watch out For
in the eighties to draw attention to the fact that
there was never a queer romance between women in movies.
It has since been adapted into a more generalized media metric.

(03:13):
The version we use requires that two characters of a
marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something
other than a man for a meaningful exchange of dialogue,
and today's movie really kind of puts this to the test.
In a really interesting way. But there's also just so
much to talk about, because yeah, this is another I

(03:36):
think the trend of this year, our tenth year. I
don't know what anniversary that is.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Oh, like is it like gold or there's like also
shitty wooden.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, if you don't last very I think I've only
ever made it to like the paper, the paper, and
like the bad ones. Anyways, for our tenure, we've been
covering a lot of movies that have been on our
requestless for most of those ten years, that for whatever reason,
we just haven't covered. And today is one of those movies.
It is Slums of Beverly Hills, which was released in

(04:10):
nineteen ninety eight, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. And
we have an incredible returning guest, one of the best.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
I would say, we sure do. She is a YouTuber
and video essayist host of Rehash podcast, and you remember
her from our episode on Forrest Gump. It's Maya aka
Broie da Channel.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
Welcome back. Thank you for having me. I didn't I
never thought I'd make it back a second time. Here
I am again. Oh my god, I'm so pleased to
be here with the both of you.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
You're welcome to come back anytime you want.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
The honor is all ours, truly. Yes, two wildly different
nineties movies we've covered.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
You could not be more different, And I can't stop.
I couldn't stop thinking about in the run up to
those how hilarious it was that this is the movie
we we're covering on the techdelcast. It is. It is
one of the most complicated movies I've ever seen, so
it'll be fun to dissect.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah. Absolutely, tell us your history, your relationship with this movie.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
Yeah. So I watched this movie for the first time
during the pandemic my roommate and my podcast co host,
actually Hannah suggested it and we had this like nightly
ritual of knitting and eating a treat and watching a
movie like almost every night that or six episodes of
Love Island. Of course, this night was this movie, and
I kind of fell in love with it, and I

(05:33):
think on the second watch, I fell a little bit
less in love with it, but I still like it
a lot. I think I just have a lot of
nostalgia for like seventies movies, but I also feel like
it also occupies this place of like nineties indie fascination
with like pathetic families, like the downwardly mobile imaginary that
I find so fun, kind of like Todd Salon's style filmmaking.

(05:57):
I think it has this kind of like nineties like
indie absurdity and like Matt or a Fact tone that
I also really like. And every day of my damn life,
I'm trying to look like Marrissa Tome in this movie.
And you know, God, oh, one day maybe we will.
She's hilarious. Yeah, I think I think generally was just
struck by how like morally difficult it is of a movie,
and like that I couldn't really wrap my head around

(06:18):
how I felt about what the characters get up to.
But yeah, yeah, it was on my favorite movies list
for a while and then I kind of like swapped
it out over time. But yeah, I'm a big fan
of this movie even still nice.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah, there's lots to unpack, truly. Yeah, Jamie, what's your
relationship with it?

Speaker 1 (06:38):
I had not seen it before. I'd seen another Tomorrow
Jenkins movie. I'd seen Savages before, which I believe was
her next movie in two thousand and seven. Because I
really enjoyed listening to and reading Tomorrow Jenkins interviews and
getting ready for this. I think she has a lot
of really necessary stuff to say about how difficult it

(07:01):
is for women to be otur's. But anyways, i'd seen Savages.
I don't remember why. I think it was on IFC
or something when I was in high school and really
enjoyed it. But this has been on my list to
watch forever. And I mean casting wise, it's like made
for me. The cast in this movie. David chrome Holts,

(07:23):
isn't it for crying out loud?

Speaker 3 (07:25):
I mean Bernard the Elf himself.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
One of my most formative crushes. And Kevin Corgan, which
indicates the kind of choker that I have, Kevin every
I saw a letterbox review for this movie that said
every man in this movie deserves at least a fork
to the leg, and that is definitely true. Yeah, I
really enjoyed this movie. I found it challenging. It's interesting.

(07:51):
I think, probably because we're in this like ten year
space that I think I would have reacted to this
movie very differently to it's the beginning of the backdal
cast versus now.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
I had the same thought.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, I think that there's a period in my life
where I would have rejected a lot of what this
movie is discussing, however messily, but I think that there's
a lot of interesting stuff going on. I like it
a lot. There are moments where I think, honestly, the
biggest thing that bumped me in this movie that wasn't

(08:25):
like super specific in a way we'll talk about is
the score in this movie is so funny to me
where there's something that I just want to have a
word with the composer because there would be a like
a crime that would be presented as like or like
what is on paper a crime would be presented on

(08:45):
screen with I thought like a lot of kind of
nuance and lack of like how was I supposed to
feel about this? And then like accordion music will start
to play, and I found it so out oft with
what I thought the director was doing. The music was
so silly to me. The tuba music following the assault

(09:07):
of a minor was really something else, especially when Kevin
Corgan was like I assaulted a minor just now, and
I'm aware of that, and then tuba music starts playing immediately.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
It's wild.

Speaker 4 (09:18):
It's a generic clusterfug for sure, Like there's like it's
it's something's happening on screen, and then the movie's kind
of like atmospherically throwing something else at you, and you're.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Like, it's so yeah, there were so many scenes I
had to be like, I have to take that back.
But like you're saying, Maya, I think it's like it's
a look into both the seventies and the nineties and
the sensibilities in both of those decades in a very
specific way that I think is going to be interesting
to talk about. Caitlin, what's your history?

Speaker 3 (09:48):
I had never seen this movie either. I've known about
it for a long time, and I was familiar with
what the poster looked like. But I was mistaking Natasha
Leone for Brittany Murphy. So I spent my whole she
does kind of look like her on the poster. Yeah,
not in the movie, but on the poster.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
She looks like Natasha Leone.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
Otherwise Yeah, right, she said her most Natasha Leoni for sure?

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yeah, Oh is it Leoni?

Speaker 4 (10:18):
Or I don't? Oh no, no, I meant like Leon
and then dash, why Leoni?

Speaker 3 (10:23):
I see, I see, I see the flavor, the flavor
of Leoni. So I spent many years thinking that a
different actor was the star of this movie, and then
I was like, oh, it's Natasha Leone and I was
excited to watch it. And I similarly found it challenging.
Still don't know quite what to make of it. I'm

(10:45):
gonna rely heavily on our conversation to process it, but yeah,
I can't wait to dive into it.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
I will say this movie keeps you on your toes
until the very last second, and I think a lot
of that is thematic. But also it's a jump scare.
Rita moreno appearance that no one could have seen come
that I certainly didn't see coming.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
Wait, who is it? I missed it.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
Rida Morano plays the aunt at the end.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
Oh my god, yeah, the end, Yeah, Rida Morano. She's
like the wife of Carl Ryan. Gosh, yeah in the
airport lounge.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Oh my goodness. Yeah, did not catch that?

Speaker 4 (11:27):
Oh my god, were you fright? How did you feel
when you saw Rita Morena? Like, what was the feeling
that overcame you, Jimmy.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Oh, ease, comfort, safety.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
It was like a jump, a jump soothe.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yes, a jump. It wasn't a scare, it was a
sooth yes.

Speaker 4 (11:43):
Yeah. Also, Mino Souvari. Mina Souvari is also in.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
This as a tiny baby Jessica Walter.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
Oh my god, what a cast. And Jessica Walter does
the Lucille blue scream and everything.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
Yeah, that's actually how she got her role in Arrest
of Development. I'm just making that.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Up, Yeah, I know. But because when she sees the
blood though, that's a lucile scream.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
Yeah, she goes the way that she screams right before
she sees Jeane Parmesan. Yeah, when she's like exactly exactly.

Speaker 4 (12:16):
I love the way that the kids are kind of alsome.
Just don't think that she's good enough for the dad
because she's kind of old. Like when she's talking about
metopause and stuff, and I'm like, this dad is a scrub.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
I don't know, I know, it's.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
I think she might be too good for him.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, there's so much going on. Yeah, and then you
like check the I had to do a quick like
birth date check, and you're like, no, Alan Arkin is
indeed half a decade older than Jessica Walter's. Let's focus up,
let's be serious, let's be real.

Speaker 4 (12:44):
Yeah, I do like when she starts pulling the pads,
I'm sorry, we're about to discusses. But when she starts
pulling the pads and they're like archaic, ancient pads.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
This movie did something that I kind of forget to
do sometimes, which is empathized with my mother, where I
think my mom would have been around this age at
this time, and you're like, you know she was really
in the trenches.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
Oh yeah, Well, the.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Way I understood it is that the reason she has
this very archaic menstrual pad with the belt is because
that's what Jessica Walter's character would have used she when
she was menstruating. I feel like by the mid to
late seventies when this movie takes place, pads had like
adhesive bottoms that like stick to your underwear the way

(13:31):
they do now. But I think so, but like those
are just the pads that Jessica Walter had left over.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
Yeah, it was like a primitive pad. Yeah, yeah, from
her like from the ancient times of like nineteen fifty.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Empathize with those older ladies they're going through it. Every
time I see one kind of acting of a public
I don't know if this is misogynistic, but I'm like,
she might be overheating, like let her cooks like she's
probably so misalis it's coming from a place.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Of empty I was like, there's empathy in there.

Speaker 4 (14:06):
Yes, it's within.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yes, Yes, Well, why don't we take a quick break
and we'll come back for the recap and we're back.
Before we dive into the recap, I will provide a

(14:29):
content warning. This movie is mostly a comedy and it's
tonally light generally, but there are moments of sexual assault
and incest.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, the tube of music doesn't always know where it's dropping.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
No, it doesn't. Okay, So it is nineteen seventy six.
We meet Vivian Abramowitz played by Natasha Leone. She is
about to be a freshman in high school. Her dad,
who is a single father, Murrie played by Alan Arkin,
is taking her shopping for her first ever bra and

(15:08):
the experience is very uncomfortable and humiliating for Vivian. And
this will be a motif and theme throughout.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
I do like that the Vivie isn't shy about what
it's about, because it starts with them talking about her
breasts literally behind her back, as if she isn't there,
and that is kind of most of the movie as well.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Yes, and we are about to see a different pair
of breasts, because what happens next is we cut to
a woman running barefoot along the road at night. We
will eventually learn that this is Rita played by Marisa Tome,
and we'll find out that she is Marie's niece and

(15:56):
Vivian's cousin, but we don't know that quite yet. Anyway,
she is trying to hitch a ride to Beverly Hills,
and she flashes her breasts to a truck driver to
get him to stop and give her a ride. So
again the motif is present early on.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
I'm assuming that there are a number of I mean,
I know, for Natasha Leo and their body doubles for
reasons that we'll discuss, which is that she's wearing prosthetic
boobs the whole time. I don't know how I feel
about the word breasts. We can talk about it.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
It has always made me feel weird.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
They use them exclusively in the movie, too, Like every
time I'm going to say something so much grosser, actually
I go to say memory gland every time, like your chest,
the chest is discussed, breast is the word it's used,
and I actually kept putting it in my notes too,
but that's a good flag, right to try and swap
that out.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Or it's like an absence where it's like, oh, she's stacked,
and it's like just implied is stacked. I'm sure that
this is period accurate, but it was like breasts, I've
just always associated more with illness than with boobs, and
breasts feel different to me and I and someone can
write a doctoral thesis about why that is.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
But and tits feel different than both of those things
to me.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Well, it depends on who's saying it though, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Context is important and who's around.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
It's so context dependent. But yeah, breasts, I feel like
an old creepy man when I say breasts. I don't
like it. But also boobs feels.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Like kind of juvenile boy, Yeah, kind of like boobs.
You know what was well, okay, because this is kind
of the theme of the movie. What word were you
brought up with? Because I think I was just brought
up with boobs.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
My mom said breasts constantly.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
She was always talking about breasts, my god.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
But I was like, I cannot say that word. To
this day, I still say boobs or tits or titties.
Titties is fun, but boobs is my default. I will
talk about my boobs as my boobs.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
I think my mom said boobies, and I don't like
that either, really really don't like it.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
That really sounds like a twelve year old boy.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
Yeah, and it was mortifying.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
As a child, like it really is, like I mean.
And then I was also I think that, well, this
is also relevant, and so I'm just gonna survey the
class and you don't need to answer. I did not
grow up with the word vagina. I grew up with
the term peep area, which was which which I'm like,

(18:44):
really like makes my body contract to think of how
long I was like your peep area, of course, like,
which kind of just felt like something that my mom
kind of made up.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
I've never heard that before.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, I've never I And imagine my surprise when I
learned that this is not a term that.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
Is used peat area. My mom was referred to it
as a pummy and I not send shivers on my spine,
but in my head I called it a vagina because
I thought your butt and your vagina were the same thing.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
And were you wrong? You know you're wrong. Yeah, Their neighbors,
their neighbors, their.

Speaker 4 (19:24):
Friends, their friends.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
I don't remember exactly what I called I think I
called it my crotch a lot.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
That's very vague. Yeah, sex education is so important. Listeners
weigh in in the comments.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yes please anyway. So the point is breasts, boobs, tits,
whatever you want to call them. They feature heavily in the.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Movie, and they heavily feature mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
Okay, So we cut back to Vivian. Her dad wakes
her up in the middle of the night and tells
her they're moving like right now, and to gather her
things so that they can high tail it out of
this apartment. It's clear that Murray is trying to skip
out on paying rent. They live in Beverly Hills, but

(20:19):
they are not rich, unlike many people who live in
that neighborhood, or like the associations with Beverly Hills and wealth.
They are lower income, working class. Murray is a struggling
car salesman, but he wants to keep his kids. Vivian,

(20:40):
her younger brother Ricky, and her older brother Ben played
by David Crumholtz keep them in Beverly Hills because of
the good schools. Now. Before they arrive at their new apartment,
they go out to Eat Shout out Sizzler. Strong Sizzler
representation in the film, which I wonder if this was

(21:02):
before because I associate Sizzler with like a buffet style restaurant.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
This made me want to because because we go to
the Olive Garden together and like we should have a
Sizzler night.

Speaker 4 (21:14):
So what is Sizzler as someone who is Is this
like a West coast it changed?

Speaker 3 (21:18):
I think it's a West coast I think so. I
never saw it on the East coast. Yeah, me either.
It is a restaurant where you go in from from
my recollection because I've been there a few times. Parentheses brag.
You can opt to like order a steak or a
slab of meat or something like that, and then with
that you get the buffet so it's like a salad

(21:41):
bar and soup and all that kind of stuff, or
you can just do the buffet style without the slab
of meat.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
I just did a quick fact check and I think
that that was what it was like in the seventies
as well, and I think that like with that context,
I feel like the comp for it today would be
kind of an Olive Garden where where it's I feel
like it's a signifier for the lower middle class right
where it's like it's not you know, gas station food,
it's not drive through food. But it also kind of is, right,

(22:11):
like it's an aspirational venue to be consuming what is
ultimately kind of cheap food.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
When I was growing up in a working class family,
to eat it alive garden was to have a fancy,
exact dinner.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
I mean, but that's how they view Sizzler. That's what
I mean. It's like for like the lower middle class.
I think that that like signifier kind of shifts, but yeah,
like I associate it with like in New England, it
was like there's this place called like the ninety nine
or like Old Country Buffet, and yeah, places that were
like it's a sit down meal, it's nice. You know.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
In Toronto we have a place called Mandarin. It's also
like it's like a like a buffet, a Chinese restaurant,
a chain and similar. It's it's kind of like an
outing for the downwardly mobile. Like you wear your nice clothes,
you go there and you're like we're at Mandarin tonight,
like but it's not like outrageously expensive.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
It's like accessible, right, I think of it as because
I think we're all from like somewhat similar like socioeconomic
backgrounds of like it's like a report card restaurant or
a like yeah, your cousin just got baptized kind of restaurant.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
Totally.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yeah. So they go to Sizzler, where Vivian is humiliated
once again because her dad is being racist. Her brother
Ben is making gross remarks about her appearance and about
women's bodies in general, and so is her dad, and
so is her dad. He's, you know, he disapproves of

(23:43):
what she's wearing. She's wearing this halter top. He tells
her to put on the bra he just bought her
because she's like spilling out of her top and says
all these horrible things about her body. Then Murray calls
his rich brother Micky to ask for a loan, and

(24:04):
Mickey is like, I can't. My daughter, Rita escaped from
a rehab center. And so then we connect the dots
that this is the Mursa Tome character we saw earlier.
And Mickey mentions that he would pay someone if they
knew what to do with Rita, and Murray is like,
what's that you say? You would pay someone? So Murray

(24:28):
hatches a plan. He picks Rita up from jail and
now she's going to be staying with Murray and his kids.
But they need to show Murray's brother Micky that Rita
has a plan for her future so that Mickey will
continue to support her financially and basically support the entire family.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Yeah, that's definitely. He's never in it just to be
kind to his niece.

Speaker 4 (24:56):
No, certain, he's a scammer of the nth degree to
the Instagram, yes for sure.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
And so Rita and Murray decide that she will go
to school to be like a nurse slash medical assistant. Meanwhile,
the family has moved into their new apartment in Beverly Hills. There,
Vivian meets the next door neighbor, this guy Elliott, played

(25:23):
by Kevin Corrigan.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
I love Kevin Corrigan so much. He's such a nasty
piece of shit in this movie that which we'll talk about,
But I just have always smiling my head off when
I see Kevin Corrigan.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
His characters are usually like despicable but also likable in
ways I can't entirely explain. I also love his character
in the show Community. I don't know if anyone remembers his.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
I remember watching reruns of Grounded for life and being
and because he's the scumbag uncle in that show and
being like something happening.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
He's so some guy that a girl who's a tween
would be so into.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yes, and he takes advantage of that from every way
you could possibly imagine. But I just I love Kevin Corgan. Okay, yeah,
that was not a feminist observation. We can continue.

Speaker 3 (26:20):
It's quite all right. We contain multitudes. Yeah, so anyway,
this is Elliott. He is a weed dealer. He's I guess,
like kind of an anarchist type. He loves Charles Mayers.
He's a poser though. He's such a poser. So they're
hanging out. Vivian is still trying to figure out what

(26:44):
it is to have breasts, and she asks him if
he wants to touch hers, and he really really does,
so he touches them. They have a moment in the
laundry room, and then she's like, Okay, get away, this
is a building thing. We're containing this to the building

(27:05):
kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
I have a question, Jin, because I was not I
was seeing different answers and very vague answers. Maybe intentionally.
So we know that Vivian is about to start high school.
I've seen her characterize as either fourteen or fifteen. We
know that she is firmly a minor, it's stated in
the movie. Do we know how old Kevin Corrigan is

(27:26):
supposed to be? I know that he's an adult, but like.

Speaker 4 (27:31):
I think it's twenty But I could be wrong because
like the actor is like thirty.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
But I didn't know how old he was supposed to be.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
Okay, Wikipedia is telling me twenty something.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, that was what I was seeing, and so you're like, Okay,
it doesn't make a difference in terms of the power dynamic,
but I was having a difficult time tracking how old
everyone was supposed to be throughout.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, they never make it explicitly clear in the movie.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Except for Vivian, right, Vivian. I feel like it is
the only character in the movie that we definitively know
how old she is.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Which, oh oh, and Murray is sixty five.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
And that Rita is twenty nine. We only know how
old women are because that's the only age metric that
is actually relevant in this world.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, well, yeah, we know, I mean Murray A lot
is made of Murray's age of sixty five.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, sure he's over the hill.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
But yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Mostly women and girls, but yeah, okay, So we get
the scene where Elliott touches Vivian's breasts in the laundry room,
and then there are once again more boobs in the
scene directly following that, because Vivian walks in on Rita

(28:48):
taking a shower, and we get this shot of Rita's
boobs again, and then the two cousins start to reconnect.
We learn about their secret language that I was attempting
to do at the top of the episode, which they
did when they were younger. And the thing about Rita

(29:09):
being there now is that she offers this feminine presence
in Vivian's life that she was lacking before, and it's
a nice change of pace from her constantly being around
only her dad and brothers. And with all the money
that Mickey, Rita's dad is giving the family, the family

(29:30):
moves again, this time into a luxury building across the
street with better amenities, more space, a swimming pool, etc.
And the family talks about what this means for them
class wise. They're like, are we rich? Are we middle class?
You know? They talk about Mickey being a business owner

(29:51):
and that's how he has amassed wealth. And then Murray
tells a story slash. We get a flashback from when
he was a business owner. He owned a restaurant where
they served these expensive steaks, and he suspected that one
of his employees was stealing steaks and smuggling them out

(30:12):
in his pants. So Murray stabbed the guy in the
thigh with a fork to confirm his suspicions that there
was a steak in his pants. And this is going
to be Chekhov's stab in the thigh with a fork.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
Yeah, that calls.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
Then there's a scene where Vivian and Rita are hanging
out where Rita is unpacking her stuff and she pulls
out a vibrator. Vivian has never seen one before, so
they start kind of goofing around with it and tossing
it around and dancing, and then Murray walks in and

(30:54):
Vivian doesn't know how to turn it off. So it's
another humiliating moment that her father's involved in.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Which is kind of thrilling to know that that particular
area of vibrator technology has made stunningly little progress in
the ensuing half century since this movie is set where
you're like, yes, yeah, it is still kind of difficult
to just turn one off and they're loud. There's like

(31:24):
this and like laser jet printers, Like how have we
not made more progress in these areas? But the scene
was so we'll talk about it, but it was. The
scene is such a puzzle to me because I find
it cathartic and fun and silly in one reading of it,
and then very bizarre, like it's so long, they're dancing

(31:48):
for so long, and the joy.

Speaker 4 (31:50):
Is centered around a big vibrating Yes.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
It's so weird and that Alan arkin Is there's like
I think that honestly, like one of my biggest things
with this movie that I felt like, and I say
this lovingly, like sometimes characters behave like cartoons and other
times they don't. And this was definitely more of a
Looney Tune scene where you're like Alan Arkins just standing

(32:17):
there for like twenty seconds wordlessly.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
He has basically no reaction.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, because that that is like a I don't know,
it's like it's more of a ViBe's scene, that.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
Vibes rader.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Scene that ends in like a protracted Looney Tunes humiliation.
It's like it's such a weird little scene.

Speaker 4 (32:41):
It does kind of feel like, oh my god. Not
to make this comparison on like a qualitative basis, but
like it does feel like when Sam Levinson does these
really indulgent musical breaks, like like musical montage breaks and
euphoria inter a character just like dancing. She's so confused
and she's in this like wood paneled basement and there's

(33:03):
music and it goes on for so long because he
just didn't know what else to do with the time.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
That he had. So but this is like like, yeah, but.

Speaker 4 (33:09):
This kind of feels like a dead art almost of
like the joyful musical break where they're like, the audience
needs a bit of levity. Let's just throw this in here.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
And I don't know how.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
Yeah, yeah, how do you guys? How do you like that?

Speaker 1 (33:23):
I mean, it's like there is a world where I
would buy into this scene like no one's business. But
it's like because at this point in the movie, and
arguably kind of threw out the movie, the relationship between
viv and Rita is so kind of vague and then
all of a sudden, very intense and then over that

(33:45):
it's like it feels like this, like this scene almost
feels like a climactic like, yes, we're hanging out, we
have a vibrator. This is so fun, question mark. I
don't know. So there were certain sequences where I was like,
where is at where is her head at? Yeah, in
this moment, and it.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
Felt like another instance of kind of and I will
talk about this, I'm sure, but teaching womanhood and like
learning womanhood and rita kind of like bestowing these elements
of like female sexuality onto her like newly quote unquote
sexual like teenage younger cousin. And I guess I kind
of read it like that, like as a triumphant like

(34:24):
here's another thing you'll just learned, you know. But then
they're being goofy with it, so it's and they're all actually,
thank God using it. So you're kind of like, I
don't know, Yeah, it's it's all it's a confusing scene.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
It's confusing. Yeah, it's just kind of there.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
Well, I also think that we're conditioned to expect the
moment that the dad walks in and oh no, she
can't turn off the vibrator, and it's humiliating that he's
gonna like have an outburst where he's shaming both Vivian
and maybe Rita for having such a device and shaming

(34:59):
them for having sexuality and sexual desire and things like that.
But if that reaction has had, we don't see it
on screen.

Speaker 1 (35:08):
No, he just looks like he's buffering there.

Speaker 4 (35:12):
I think, like what I read at the dad throughout
the movie much to discuss, Yeah, but was that. I
think as the movie goes on, he kind of starts
out kind of like on Viv's ass about everything, and
then I think the more he kind of spirals out
of control and the more he seems kind of exhausted.
Midway through when I think he just gets distracted and

(35:33):
almost stops being a father, because at the beginning you
can kind of see this attempt at being like a
single dad where he's like awkwardly trying to kind of
like talk to his daughter but like really badly about
what it means to be a woman, et cetera. But
then as the movie goes on, that relationship just kind
of dissipates a little bit, and it seems to me
like maybe the correlation between his like struggles personal struggles
and being a dad.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
I guess, yeah, maybe he also thinks that when Rita
shows up, he's like, oh, well, I'm kind of off
the hook of having to like definitely teach teach my
daughter anything.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
I felt like that and this wasn't like super clear
to me on my first viewing, but I'm on my
second That is like one of the I think kind
of very loaded, trickier through lines in this movie. Is
it does seem like that, yeah, that the dad is
looking for someone to offload having kids, but also very

(36:28):
specifically having a daughter onto. He tries that with Rita,
and Rita is a mess. It doesn't work. He tries
that with Lucille, it's a mess. Doris, Yeah, but also
come up, but also Lucille Blue, Yes, she tries. He
tries that with Doris, it doesn't work. And then the
end that we'll and we'll talk more about it. But

(36:49):
at the end it seems almost like viv resigns herself
in a way that's like framed pretty positively that she's
just going to raise herself and that is okay, and
it's an interesting way to And I'm really excited to
talk about the ending of the movie because I think
there's so many ways to look at it all of
which I find quite depressing. But maybe you're supposed to

(37:10):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
Oh yeah, I can't wait to talk more about all
of that.

Speaker 4 (37:15):
I must just say on this san yes.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
But in the meantime we power on through the recap.
So the next thing that happens, speaking of Doris, Murray
takes his family to dinner with her. This is a
woman he met when he sold her a car. She
also lives in a fancy building in Beverly Hills. It
seems like he and Doris are kind of dating, but

(37:42):
she makes it clear that she only wants a companion.
She does not want to be touched. She does not
want to have sex anything like that, and that's something
that Murray is struggling with. They're at dinner, Vivian gets
her period and has to sneak off to the bathroom.
This is the scene we're talking about where Doris gives
her this old timey pad and then Doris discovers blood

(38:06):
on her chair, which she had like crosstitched the the upholstery.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Oh, and she says, oh, Jeane, she goes, And the
way older women are characterized in this movie we could
talk about as well. But I was delighted to hear
Jessica Walters scream regardless of context.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
She's like, there's blood up my chair. So they leave
Doris's place. Then Rita reveals to Vivian that she is
pregnant from a guy she met in rehab. He does
not know this. She is freaking out because she's about

(38:49):
to start her nursing program and she has to give
a urine sample. But if the school tests her urine,
they'll know that she's pregnant and that could jeopardize her
future in this training program. So she has Vivian p
in a cup for her.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
It's a very older cousin behavior.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Yes, like this is some hijinks, some fun hijinks.

Speaker 4 (39:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
And so when Vivian is doing this and looking for
a roll of toilet paper, she finds Rita's vibrator and
uses it to masturbate. And I feel like it's implied
that she is masturbating for the first time at least
with a vibrator, and she loves it. She has the

(39:35):
best time. Then there's a scene where Vivian meets a
girl in her building. This is the Mina Suvari character
who has just gotten a nose job, and she gives
Vivian the business card of her cosmetic surgeon and mentions
that the surgeon also gave her mother a breast reduction and.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
Stay, it's that And again this is where the movie
feels both seventies and nineties and its sensibilities, and also
twenty twenties, where she's basically like, big tits are out,
big tits are considered trashy and out of style, and
I don't know, it's just a very depressing circle is

(40:22):
presented in this scene.

Speaker 4 (40:24):
Yet for sure.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
And so Vivian hears about this breast reduction surgery and
she's like, hmm, that is very interesting, and so that'll
come back later. Then Vivian takes Rita to her first
day of nursing school via Elliott giving them a ride,

(40:46):
but first Rita wants to pay a visit to the
man who got her pregnant, this guy Danny, but he's
not home, and then when she finally does get a
hold of him on the phone, he finds out she's
pregnant and it seems like he will completely bail on
her forever. Meanwhile, Elliott is teaching Vivian how to drive

(41:10):
and they end up having sex in his car and
we'll talk all about this scene. But basically, he's upset
when he realizes that she has never had sex before
and that he was the one to quote unquote take
her virginity.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah, he is the victim here.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
Yes, the sure acts like it. Then they go to
pick up Rita, but she's not at the school, so
they rush home and find her unconscious and unresponsive, and
chaos ensues. When Murray is shouting and insisting that she
just needs a cup of coffee. Doris is freaking out.

(41:51):
Ricky has called the paramedics and they come bursting in
the room. Mickey calls Murray on the phone, saying that
he will be flying to La the following day.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
This scene is tonally nuts. This scene is so like
every possible emotional interpretation of this scene is presented. David
Crumbholds gets into guys and dolls in the middle of it,
Like it's just like every tone is happening in this scene.

Speaker 4 (42:22):
True. Yeah, it's only like the havoc of this like
claustrophobic family life. Yeah, you're like you're really like, oh
you're done. Yeah, it's nuts, You're done with these folks.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
It's yeah, truly it's wild.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
And then the medics revive Rita, and a little later,
as she's recovering, she and Murray are kind of consoling
each other and he gropes her chest, which Vivian, sorry,
there's a loud machine happening now right outside my window

(42:56):
the way, and.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
Looked was that someone was like, don't say gropes chests,
yelling at you off camera like you were.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
Kind of shy.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
Okay, So he assaults her, which Vivian sees through a
crack in the door, and of course we will talk
about this as well. We cut to Vivian at the
cosmetic surgeon, who the girl in her building had recommended.
Vivian resents her breasts and wants to get breast reduction surgery,

(43:28):
but then she chickens out and runs out of the
doctor's office. Meanwhile, Mickey has arrived. He's played by Carl Reiner.
He and his wife, who I just learned at the
top of this episode is played by Rita Moreno are
at a diner with the rest of the family, and

(43:49):
Rita is about to make this big entrance to surprise
her dad in her nurse's uniform.

Speaker 4 (43:55):
I think they're actually still at the airport. Oh, because
I think they're like, they're like musch meet up at
the airport. We're not gonna. I don't wanna. I have
nothing to do with you.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
This family.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
Yeah, they're like airplanes in the background. I think the windows.
I could be wrong.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
No, I think you're right. They don't go to a
second location because they Yeah, when this scene ends, as
we're about to fight out, they are leaving, like on
the tarmac.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
Yeah right, yes, okay. So so Rita is about to
make this big entrance in her uniform, but she's in
the bathroom freaking out. Vivian comes in and confronts Rita
about what happened the night before between her and Vivian's dad,
and Vivian is furious at Rita again. We'll talk about

(44:44):
how her anger is misplaced, but they eventually reconcile and
they go back out to the table. It's a tense
meal at the airport diner, and then Murray offers to pay.
He wants to look good in front of his kids,
but Mickey is like, what difference does it make. It's
my money. You never learned how to handle your finances

(45:08):
or budget or anything like that. I've been paying for you,
for your whole life, and you're sixty five, so grow up.
And Murray is humiliated, so Vivian stabs her uncle Micky
in the thigh with a fork, a callback to the
story that Murray told earlier. So Mickey is like, fuck this,

(45:32):
and he and his wife and Rita leave and head
back to the East Coast. Mickey cuts off Murray financially,
So now Murray and Vivian and her brothers have to
move out of that expensive building and back into the
slums of Beverly Hills. But this time Vivian feels less

(45:54):
humiliation and a greater appreciation and fondness for her family
and their situation.

Speaker 4 (46:03):
The end. I loved the incorporation of the title Wow,
thank you, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Approach a press.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
So let's take another quick break and we'll come back
for the discussion and we're back.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Where to start here, my let's stuck out to you.
Where would you like to start? Guests? Privileged, guest burden.

Speaker 4 (46:37):
Well, I broke my thoughts up into themes, so I
guess I'll just begin with the first thing theme that
really sticks out, but kind of the concept of sexual agency. Yeah,
so this movie really reminds me of another movie that's
set in the seventies, another movie directed by a woman.
Do you guys know Diary of a Teenage Girl?

Speaker 1 (46:56):
Yes, yeah, I know of it.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
I've never seen it.

Speaker 4 (46:58):
Oh, that would be a good to talk about it
on sectual cast. Actually, so yeah. It's this twenty fifteen
movie by maryel Heller, and it basically is depicting I
find it's similar because it's depicting kind of like a
sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies and the way
that that kind of tipped over into like sexual exploitation
of women very much paralleling like the time that it

(47:19):
came out, and in twenty fifteen it was like the
SlutWalk era and stuff going on.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Then.

Speaker 4 (47:23):
I feel like both of these movies are capturing this
kind of like post sexual revolution eras that were like
hyper sexual and like sexually permissive but like sometimes at
the expense of women. And Diary of a Teenage Girls
about like a fifteen year old girl similarly who has
a statutory affair with her mother's boyfriend and it also
leaves you very uneasy, but it's more of a drama

(47:44):
and this is more of a comedy. But I think
the major scene like I was pulling out was just
like the idea of a teenage girl grappling with her
own sexual agency and like the constant push and pull
of navigating, like how much agency you actually have in
a world that sees you as prey. Yeah, I was
thinking a lot about how Viv doesn't have any like
positive role models. She kind of has to learn things
on her own. But yeah, I don't know. The movie

(48:06):
had me thinking a lot about the ways that, like
I have never been more sexualized in my life than
when I was age fourteen to eighteen, Like I get
cat called way less as an adult woman than I
did as a teenager, and the ways that kind of
like I related so much of this movie with the
way that like a girl's like pubescent body is kind
of made public when she enters womanhood, Like your body

(48:28):
becomes grounds for like anyone to comment on. I remember
I had female relatives who would just grab my boobs
like yeah and be like oh, like oh they're coming in,
you know, yeah, And it wasn't like malicious, but it's
like why why is my body all of a sudden
this like springboard for discourse when like I'm so uncomfortable
in it, and I don't know what to make of it.
I don't have sexual feelings yet, but like I have
a sexual body now, and I think that the movie

(48:51):
really tackles that's subject matter in an interesting way. Yeah,
and that was a major reason why I liked it. Yeah,
but obviously it's like a really difficult topic and like
very touchy. Yeah, but yeah, I was thinking I wrote
down breasts as a sight of tension.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Yes, I mean, in so many I totally agree where
I feel like one of the things that this movie
really does successfully get you too is to understand why
by the end of this movie, Vivian is like, I
don't want these breasts. I don't want them because they
have not only caused her severe discomfort and scrutiny very

(49:29):
suddenly in a way that because of how her life
is structured and her family structure, she has no real
protector from and no one to even contextualize why it's happening.
She also like the inciting reason that she actually goes
is because she sees her cousin I think, in her

(49:49):
fourteen year old mind, like sees her cousin suffer as
a result of having like boobs whatever it's I hate
that we have not settled on a word that doesn't
feel weird. But yeah, I totally feel like I think that,
like everyone has their version of this too, where I

(50:12):
think about because this is like, this is a movie
that sort of set at the time of my mom's adolescence.
The director is my mom's age, and the stories that
you know over not until I was an adult was
I sort of aware of, like how the way that
my mom perceived herself and the way that people perceived

(50:33):
her body when she was coming of age like informed
a lot of the issues I had, right, but just
how this is like very intentionally a period piece because
it's drawing directly from Tamorrow Jenkson's experience, and I think
does seem to do very well with drawing how people

(50:56):
would talk about girls' bodies specifically at this time, but
also in a way that feels so familiar where.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
Not much has changed.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yeah, I mean, like Maya, I love that you said, like, yeah,
your body is like used as a conversation topic and
you're not allowed to say anything about it. And I
feel like for her dad, it almost seems like he
thinks he's being supportive by even acknowledging her body, and
by criticizing her body, that's how he feels he's able

(51:26):
to like participate in her life in this way that
is like so dark and sad, and you can see
exactly how I mean. That scene at the sizzler at
the beginning was so frustrating, probably because it felt just
familiar enough where you could see not just her dad criticizing,

(51:46):
like you can't wear that top. I vividly remember being
told by any number of family members to put a
bra on in a top that made it one hundred
percent more embarrassing to be where that was so specific
and so good. But then but then to see her
brother mimic that behavior for the dad's approval. I think

(52:09):
that like really hit for like it, because that's the
whole David Crumhold's character. And I remember that from like
my older boy cousins, like seeing what how other men
would act and then projecting that same you know stuff
at me and my cousins or whoever else, and then
looking to their father for approval. Like I think she

(52:31):
like illustrates that cycle really well and doesn't really present
a solution for it, because yeah, we haven't figured that out.

Speaker 4 (52:42):
I think like what I do appreciate so much about
the Like I it's tricky the way the movie depicts it,
and like doesn't always necessarily work. But I do think
what I appreciate is, like it really evokes a feeling
of disgust, yeah, that you don't know what to do
with because there's nothing that can be done in the scene,
Like no one's advocating for her because it's like the
time and the place right, and so you're kind of like, oh,
like you just feel foul watching a lot of it.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
Yeah, Yeah, And I think like doesn't let other women
off the like I think whatever the kind of most
sanitized version of this story offers, Oh, she just needs
a woman in her life, and like if if she
talks to a woman, this will be resolved. But I
think that this movie does is like open to women

(53:28):
being also fucked up and having a lot of like
internalized hatred of an acceptance of behaviors, which is so
much I think, and like Rita's more lucid, less carteit
because there are moments with Rita where I'm like, I
have no idea what the hell she's doing, but in
her more like grounded moments, it's like, yeah, like Rita

(53:50):
is has a lot of internalized acceptance of how she's,
how she's been treated, and how she is, how she's
accepting of being treated in a way that isn't going
to be helpful to viv in a way that I
don't know, Like it's it's frustrating for the character, but

(54:11):
also feels very real, like there is no real off ramp,
even when people are trying. I think women try to
show up for viv but like, no one is quite
able to do it right.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Vivian having this new presence in her life of this
guardian esque, not quite mother figure, but like, you know,
a familiar person who she grew up with and who
is older and wiser than her, but is, as we're saying,

(54:46):
harboring a lot of you know, internalized misogyny and like
body image issues. There's all these There are several moments
where Rita talks about how fat she thinks she is
and how she needs to lose weight, and that's a
whole other topic of conversation. But you know, she is

(55:08):
not fully equipped to be a parent or like a
role model.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
She's Vivian like asking to be a parrot.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
Either, no you know, and then we see Vivian constantly
reconciling I have these again, breasts. It's such a It's
the same way that I hate the word penis because
it just feels so clinical. But it's like, you know,
the correct term.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
I like the way that Natasha Leone says it. It
sounds casual when she says it.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
It's that raspy voice. Can even do an impression well
I'm getting over right now.

Speaker 4 (55:48):
You can do it.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Someone smoke a cigarette and then try it.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
I'm just gonna sound like gollum if I do it
like breasts. But anyway, so Vivian is reconciling all these
conflicting feelings about, you know, I'm developing into this adolescent body.
I have breasts now. She resents that because she's seen

(56:14):
the way that women are so heavily objectified for their
physiques and for their breasts. So she resents that, but
it seems like she's also trying to figure out how
to navigate that, in the sense that, like, my breasts
aren't going to go away, So what can I do

(56:34):
about this? How can I reclaim some agency? To your point,
Maya about like can I sort of like take my
power back? And take control of the situation, which we
see in that scene in the laundry room when she
asks Elliott if he wants to touch her breasts and
he says yes, and then he starts to unbuckle his pants.

(56:57):
She was very clear about do you want to touch
my rests? He interprets that, however, as do you want
to fuck me right now in the laundry room, and
she has to say, like, no, I was clear about
what I wanted, and he completely misinterprets it in the
way that so many men willfully do in situations like this.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
Well, I don't want to like launch the conversation forward
too much, but that was one of the many scenes
where I guess I'm trying to figure out how I
feel about how this specific issue is landed within this movie.
I think the theme is definitely present of like and
this is like sort of what we've all been talking

(57:43):
about to some extent, of girls like developing bodies and
how that affects how men, how everyone, but how specifically
men treat them and talk to them, and how objectively
to be. In this scene, it is obviously on Kevin
kringan character to say no when a child offers themselves sexually.

(58:09):
We know that Vivian is canonically fourteen years old, and
he knows that too, and he's aware of this. That
is one of the first things he learns about her,
and he says, oh wow, you look older, which is
so important, and how he treats her the whole time.
What I think is interesting at a number of points
in this movie is that we do cannot It's not
a question of like, do the characters know what they

(58:31):
need to know? They always know what they need to know,
and sometimes I feel like plot wise, they get off
the hook a little bit. Where do I believe that
in nineteen seventy six that the Kevin Corgan character would
absolutely get away with this and no one would think
anything about it. Yes, but I guess I was like

(58:52):
kind of bumped and like hah a number of times
that like, why is the movie not? The movie doesn't
seem to be pushing back on it as much as
I was, I guess wanting it too. I agree, because
we know at every single step of the way that
he knows. But at the end, I don't think that
we're meant to dislike him. I don't know, well, and.

Speaker 4 (59:11):
I think this is the ultimate kind of like distinction
to me between like when let's say, Diary of a
Teenage Girl was made in this because Diary of a
Teenage Girl is like very much a drama, Like there
are funny elements, but it's like quite tragic and like
extremely disturbing as lighthearted as it sometimes maybe, whereas this movie,
like tonally yeah, really contrasts with some of its subject
matter and really does make you think about what Tamara

(59:34):
Jenkins thinks of the subject matter because you can see
what she's trying to do. But even and like I
don't know if this was gonna come up later, but
like thinking of the concept of the male gaze, Like
I've seen a lot of people online talk about how
this movie is like can perpetuates the male gaze. I
don't necessarily know if it does, but I do think
there are elements of it. Like one of my like
the ways that I diagnose a male gaze in a

(59:57):
movie is like when the camera like severs ahead of
the woman and like isolates different body.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Parts headless women of Hollywood vibe.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Headless women of Hollywood, Yeah, isolates the woman from her
personhood and like will isolate the body parts. And this
movie does do that obviously, but with the scenes it's because.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Of body doubles too.

Speaker 4 (01:00:15):
For body doubles, but then inadvertently kind of severs the
character from the personhood as well. And you're like, hmm,
And that's why I think it's so complicated, because there's
so many kind of like angles you could look at
it from, but I could. I definitely think it lets
the male characters off the hook via tone.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Yeah, yeah, like in a way that the seventies would.
But I don't understand why the director does. And I
was looking for this and I wasn't able to find it.
Maybe we'll get it for the twenty or the thirty year,
god the thirty year anniversary of this movie, but I
wasn't able to find a lot of Tamara Jenkins speaking
on this theme specifically, because I would be really curious

(01:00:55):
again because I'm projecting my mom onto her to some degree,
as like they were born the same year, and I
know that my mom's feelings on what she viewed as like, well,
that was the world then, blah blah blah in nineteen
ninety eight versus now is wildly different because she watched
me grow up and experience a lot of those same things,

(01:01:18):
and so I would I would just be really curious
if her perspective on this has shifted over time. I mean,
I'm assuming it has, but I would. I just am like,
I want more info on how she thinks about it now,
because she was in her thirties when this came out.
But like the sexual politics of the nineties, like like

(01:01:38):
you we're saying, Maya, are also really fraught and in
terms of like what women and young women are expected
to accept and internalize.

Speaker 4 (01:01:49):
Well, it was like the height of like the Nymph
you know movie, Oh yeah, Stone like that was that
was that like reaching all time peakle like you talk
about in Lalite.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
I was like, where did I learn that?

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
I learned it from your podcasts, you see.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Yeah, this is the year. I mean, this is like
the year after the the Jeremy Irons Lolita adaptation. Like
the nineties is the verse full of this stuff, but
very rarely from women, which is why I think I
went into this expecting a little more pushback and not
quite finding it. And that's not even a criticism of

(01:02:23):
Tamura Jenkins necessarily. It's just like, I just I just
want more info.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
It is it is emblematic of the attitude of the time. Yeah,
and I also think that the movie thinks that that
relationship between Vivian and Elliott is quote unquote okay, because
it is mostly Vivian behind the steering wheel, determining what's happening,

(01:02:52):
initiating sexual contact, et cetera. Make no mistake, the scene
where they have sex in the car is statue tory rape.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Well, it's like also starts that way too, Like the
scene is initiated by him shoving weed into her pants,
Like it starts as an adult, you know, like assaulting
a kid, and then evolves into statutory rape off screen. Yeah,
this gets into like Lolita stuff quite a bit, where
it's literally fourteen year old girls regardless of like if

(01:03:25):
a fourteen year old initiates or attempts to initiate sex
with an adult, the adult says no, like it's just
it's just not And I do think that the this
is not a murky age difference between the two of us.
We're not talking about a fourteen year old and a
sixteen year old or like, you know some of the
trickier conversations here where it's like, how do we interpret

(01:03:48):
the letter of the law. This guy is like potentially
ten years older than her, you know, and Natasha Leone
and Kevin Corgan are for contacts ten years apart in age.
We don't know exactly how old he's supposed to be
in the movie, but it's old enough that like it
is absolutely on him to say no. And it's just

(01:04:11):
so I don't know, I really struggle with it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:13):
What I've like and I keep bringing up Diary of
a teenage Girl, but there's just so many parallels. But
like what that movie does is like similar to viv
Like that the main character learns sexuality from the older
women in her life who have experienced this kind of
sexual revolution, like who are hyper sexual maybe kind of
embodied some of the misogyny of the time or like
absorbed it. And it's like the younger, this like teenage

(01:04:34):
girl not fully understanding what's going on and like trying
to seize control of her own sexuality because she's like,
well everyone else is liberated, like I can be too.
But in that movie, like it's very much condemning the
mother's boyfriend for like allowing this, even though she initiates
almost all of it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:49):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
He like allows her to do so, but in slums
of Beverly Hills. Yeah, you can look at it and
be like, oh wow, that's really progressive thinking about like
the way that it's kind of like taking this lens
of viv learning from Rita this type of like hypersexuality,
and then being like, Okay, I'm going to also be
like this. But then yeah, when when it kind of
turns it around and you're supposed to kind of empathize

(01:05:11):
with the guy because she didn't tell them she's a virgin,
it's like, ooh, I don't Yeah, I don't know what
he was going for there.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
The seventies was so close, really truly like and it
feels like a weird time capsule of like thinking from
the nineties of like women of the nineties reflecting on
coming of an age and the seventies. And this is
also insanely specific, but it's also like, but that's our moms,
and like, I don't know, Yeah, it really stuck with

(01:05:37):
me where I'm sure that like women in their thirties
right now are doing the same kind of rationalization in
all of these How there's so many movies happening in
the early two thousands right now, right where it's like
everyone is meditating on their childhood, everyone's meditating on their
coming of age and trying to make art that rationalizes it.

(01:05:59):
And so I don't know, I think, I don't think
that this exact story would have come out of sis man,
Like it just wouldn't have. And it's so specific and
it almost just to me feels like her processing and
it again, it just reminds me of how I've heard
my mom talk of how I've talked in the past
about my own formative sexual experiences, where I give myself

(01:06:23):
more agency than I actually had at the time to
be okay with whatever it was, to feel like I
was maybe more in control than I was. Because there
are moments to me and I know that like everyone
is different, everyone has a different background, but there are
moments where I feel like the way that Viv is
setting boundaries very firmly and clearly felt to me a

(01:06:48):
little out of step with how fourteen year olds behave.
I mean, I don't think fourteen year olds say I'm
not looking for anything serious right now, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 4 (01:06:57):
Like, right, I think there is it's like an element
to it where she's almost like grown up, grown up
too quickly because of this like nomadic environment where she
kind of has to be like the wife and the
daughter because her dad is such a manchild and like
a mess. And I think there is that element of it,
but no, definitely.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
Yeah, well I remember several instances from my teen years
and like formative sexual experiences and feelings and things like
that where technically I was consenting, but I was only
doing that because I felt some coercion, whether it was

(01:07:35):
like directly from someone else or just like peer pressure
for societal pressure. So I feel like that's a lot
of what Vivian is experiencing, and where it lands in
the story, I guess this isn't even where it lands,
because she sees Elliott again after this as she's like

(01:07:58):
moving out of that building. But the scene in the
car and that ends with him be rating her and saying,
you didn't know I'm the victim here. You didn't even
think about me. Yeah, has put so much pressure on
is He's saying.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Like you tricked me into assaulting adizing a minor quote
unquote right, yeah, which.

Speaker 4 (01:08:21):
Is fourteen year old's a virgin.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Right. He's like, he's so full of shit, And I
do feel like the movie knows he's full of shit,
but then the tuba music hits, and I like him
dissociate because that scene was about to be so like
it feels like there are some scenes that ends like
five lines of dialogue to soon before I wanted them to, yeah,

(01:08:44):
where that scene ends. Really, I was like, my god,
like I'm.

Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
A complicit tuba.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
It's the complicit accordion player being like and let's keep
it moving, like it felt like truly the studio does
accordion coming in at certain moments before I could get
the resolution I wanted, because I do think and like
this is I'm fully guessing here, but that if the
line of dialogue was written down, it feels like it

(01:09:13):
is written that he's supposed to look like a fool
in that moment. But then the music in the movie
and the remainder of the movie seems to be fighting
with that well.

Speaker 4 (01:09:24):
And he's such a loser, like with his like Mansion
Manson shirts, and I thought it was so relatable the
way he just talks at her about Charles Manson and
his music, and like, you know, it's so the movie
is like satirizing him. He is such a like kind
of guy, but I love what you said about Tamar
Jenkin's processing through writing this, Like, I don't know if
any of these experiences within this movie are like exactly hers.

(01:09:46):
I know that she mostly just talked about like the
experience of being nomadic, growing up in Beverly Hills with
like a lower middle class family.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
And having an old dad too, because that's what having
an old savage, that's what Savage is about. It's about
having a really old dad.

Speaker 4 (01:09:58):
Having an old dad, I said, really, but yeah, she
hasn't talked a lot about whether or not these sexual
experiences are her own. But I would love to see
like a spiritual follow up to it, because I'm all
for a movie just kind of representing the culture of
its time. But yeah, but yeah, I would also be
curious to know what she would say about all of
this years later.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
Well, and then the other big scene to talk about,
or at least one of the other big scenes to
talk about, is the scene where Marie assaults his niece
and how that's written and what pans out in that
scene where you know they're having this tender moment of

(01:10:39):
consoling each other. She's coming around after having overdosed and
having to be revived by paramedics. You know, this has
been a traumatic day for her already.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
Yeah, and a lot of tonal dissonance for us the viewer. Yes, yeah,
the whole character of Rita. I felt like we were
said between like a lot of comedic beats and then
all of a sudden abject tragedy. And then in the
next scene she's back to being cookie. Yeah, which is like,

(01:11:11):
I see how that it didn't quite work for me.
I think I understood what she was going for, but
it just like it felt a little weird to me. Yeah,
but this is this is definitely one of the abject
tragedy scenes for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:11:24):
My reparative reading of this scene, like, yeah, I didn't
even know how to feel about it. The first time
I watched it, I felt complicated and I was I
was really intrigued that it was depicted. I do feel
undecided about the way that the scene happens. And then
it kind of follows up, like the next time we
see the dad, he's kind of framed within this empathetic
lens of like, you know, a father who's like struggling

(01:11:47):
with emasculation as he like struggles with class and like
the kind of correlation between those things, which you know,
like I grew up with dad who struggled on occasion financially,
and it was it was hard to watch. And so
I really really like liked that scene the dinner where
the dad's trying to pay. I think it's like a
really interesting depiction of fatherhood. But yeah, I guess am
I repairtive reading of this scene would just be like

(01:12:07):
what do we do with the people we love when
they do bad things? And I think when she confronts
Rita in the bathroom, you're kind of like I could
read it like as probably what it was, which is
the nineties kind of condemning women for quote unquote seducing
men or like driving men mix. Yeah, but I also
read it as like Viv trying to kind of reconcile
or deal with this like new image of her father

(01:12:29):
that she's just not ready to she's not ready to
kind of accept, and taking it out on Rita, taking
it out on her cousin. And I do think that
the movie really puts us in that position of like
what do we do with this man who like we
have kind of come to like as the movie goes on,
like he's funny whatever he's he can be a tender father.

Speaker 3 (01:12:46):
Elan Arkin is so likable.

Speaker 4 (01:12:48):
Yeah, Alan Arkan has mad riz so like, yeah, what
do we do with this character and the movie? I
think in the emasculation scene is kind of letting him
off the hook, which I feel complicated about. Yeah, but yeah,
it's a tough one.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
Yeah, I think for me because I know that that
scene specifically is where just having gathered some rough, letterboxed
data and going through just how this movie has been
talked about over the years, this is the scene where
the movie loses a lot of people, I have complicated
feelings about it. Similarly, I have a bigger issue with

(01:13:27):
how the movie ends than that plot point being introduced.
I think I think that what's important to me is
how the movie deals with the fallout of that. And
I thought that felt more. The ending felt so neat,
and it felt like in a way that was presented

(01:13:47):
too cleanly. Of like, and now this girl who is
still fourteen years old and more fucked up than when
she started, and her father has not changed at all.
He's doing exactly what he did at the beginning of
the movie. She has now accepted that this is how
the world is and now she understands that and she
is taking on the role of being the daughter and

(01:14:09):
the mother of this family. And I mean, we're kind
of told this in I think, pretty like straightforwardly in
the closing like voiceover, that's all, it's all good, baby,
it's life's about the journey, and you're just like that
was not my takeaway for the last half hour of
the movie. I think we're presented with a lot of

(01:14:29):
really complicated things. And now I don't know how I
would have felt half a decade ago watching it. Now,
I think that, like you're saying, by you, it's not
as if it is an option for Viv to abandon
her family. Where the hell is she gonna go? Right?
And I think in this time and the time the

(01:14:52):
movie is made, I wasn't like offended or shocked that
Viv considered her cousin Rita to be equally culpable, and
that Rita it seems like everything about how Rita's life
has gone has led her to consider herself culpable as well.
And like the fact that she apologizes to Viv like

(01:15:17):
broke my heart in a way that I think that
I don't know and maybe I'm like overthinking it. But
I felt like the movie understood that it wasn't Rita's fault.
But the way that that scene plays out from there
does not reflect how I read the performance. How I
read this scene like, to me was like Rita's saying

(01:15:39):
something pretty complicated there, like that line that she says, like,
sometimes a person gets so hungry, and she's saying this
in another in like Minionise, but she's speaking as she
says this, but she says, sometimes a person gets so
hungry he might do something not so proud of. I'm

(01:16:01):
sorry you had to see it. I love you? Do
you still love me? It's like it makes me so sad.

Speaker 4 (01:16:09):
And I thought it was kind of a sad like,
kind of tragic encapsulation of Rita's character as someone who's
absorbed kind of the comments around her, Like she is
almost I don't want to say cautionary tale because I
don't I like Rita, but she is almost like a
bit of like what Viv could be like in her
future if she kind of like believed the stuff men

(01:16:31):
were saying to her, almost, you know what I mean.
And I feel like that line almost feels like a
tragic I don't know a tragic example of that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:39):
Yeah, I mean the scene is it's so hard because
I feel like it approaches saying something and then like
kind of doesn't end up sticking the landing, because it's
like even in that dialogue, Rita is not saying this
is my fault. I think she is more saying, like,
this is how things are. I'm sorry that you had

(01:16:59):
to see how I believe in how I accept that
things are in a way that is like opening her
up to this abuse. We know that very likely her
uncle is doing this because he feels emasculated and is
taking it out by sexually abusing his own niece, and
that like none of this is okay, but like this
is Vivian's first time encountering this and she has to

(01:17:23):
decide can I accept this? And it weirdly feels like
she decides that she will accept it in a way
that I think many women of her generation did, and
that was I think what I really made me sad
about the end of this, And I hope is like
a in process either studio notes being like wrap it up,

(01:17:43):
or is like Tamar Jenkins like processing this in real time,
because again, like I think there's a lot of women
of my mom's generation who found or like sought empowerment
by accepting it and just being like, I'm going to
move through the world anyways, in spite of the fact
that this is how I will be treated in a

(01:18:07):
way that kind of like lacks you know, collectivity, and
you know, but.

Speaker 3 (01:18:13):
It's just so tough, right, I mean that we see
Vivian confronting Rita about being assaulted and placing the blame
on Rita and not at all blaming her father for
his actions. It's reflective of the pervasive attitude of the seventies,

(01:18:39):
of the nineties and largely still today that if a
man assaults a woman it was her fault, she was
asking for it, whatever. So it's reflective of the attitude, but.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
It's not really commenting on it, I guess.

Speaker 3 (01:18:54):
Not commenting on it. And so when we watch this
in twenty twenty six, we long for any kind of
commentary on it, or for someone for Rita to be like, well,
you know, I don't like it didn't have to be
this big on the nose moral lesson or anything like

(01:19:14):
that necessarily, but some nuance to to that situation.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
But I guess I didn't even need Rita to recognize
what was going on. I just, I guess wanted some
indication that the movie recognized that what had happened was
not either of their faults, because I think that there
is something too, like one of the shades of gray
in this movie that you don't usually see is that often,

(01:19:43):
because women are socially conditioned to accept this kind of behavior, generationally,
they're not able to show up for people that you
would think they could exact or that they should, And that, like,
that's so clear in Rita and Viv's dynamic is that
vivi and has also just been assaulted with a very

(01:20:03):
different dynamic. But we know, based on what we've seen
this entire movie, that there's no one in her life
who would be able to recognize that or even talk
to her about it in a way that would be
constructive for her or like help her whatever it is
she needs to process there or around her body. There's

(01:20:26):
just no one there who can help her with it.
And we see that because it's like this horrific. That's
why I was like, I do feel like that moment
where I'm not and I totally understand for any number
of reasons that that's the moment in the movie where
a lot of people are going to check out. I
do think it had narrative importance and that we cut

(01:20:48):
directly from that moment to Viv saying I don't I.

Speaker 3 (01:20:51):
Want to risk reductions anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:20:53):
Yeah, is so clear and intentional that like and is
like a very you know, like a kid's conception of like,
I want to get rid of quote unquote the problem.
I want to get rid of what I'm perceiving makes
people treat me poorly and how they didn't treat me
a year ago.

Speaker 4 (01:21:13):
I do think the breast reduction is almost the movie's
attempt to kind of comment on the situation, because I
was thinking about like how it could have done so,
and I guess instead of Viv forgiving Rita as she
does in the movie, like maybe she could oh have
a moment of like, oh no, you know, I actually
like understand where you're coming from, or like or have
like a change of opinion kind of after Rita says

(01:21:33):
that thing in Pig Latin about hunger. But I do
kind of see the breast reduction as the movie commenting
on the ways that yeah, like a childlike way to
comment on female sexuality. I mean, like I've taken the
movie to really the biggest theme I've extracted from it
is this idea of like learned womanhood or like compulsorily
compulsory womanhood, and like this, you know, you get to

(01:21:54):
a certain age and you almost have you typically have
like an older woman mentor you through being a woman,
and that can mean like, oh, learning how to do
makeup and like you know, stepping your way into kind
of like patriarchal society. And I do think that this
movie is very much about that, And I don't know
what the ending is necessarily trying to say about it.
I don't think that she steps out of it at all. Yeah,

(01:22:15):
but I do think I did feel that commentary strongly
through it. And I guess like that's why I didn't
check out at that moment either, because I, to me,
it like really piqued my interest. I was intrigued. I
also think Marisa Tomei's acting in the scene with the
dad is incredible, Like the wins on her face and
the amount of like complicated emotions that just like run
across it in like a split second is unbelievable. But yeah, no,

(01:22:36):
I feel complicated about the scene but I actually appreciated
the movie for attempting to go there. I just think
it could Yeah, it could have been a little more
explicit for sure about its own yeah feelings about it.
It's so interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:22:48):
I feel like we've talked about this on past episodes.
Our episode on The Women is coming to mine. But
how so many past generations of women and like mothers
or mother figures or just older women teaching younger women
how to navigate the world. So many of those conversations

(01:23:13):
and lessons are just like, this is men, this is
how men are. Here's how to do your best to
navigate it. Because there's a scene in The Women where
her mother's just like, well, yeah, all men cheat. Rather
than like being like they shouldn't do that and we
should hold them accountable, it's more just like, well that's

(01:23:33):
gonna happen. Is here's how to navigate it, or like learn.

Speaker 4 (01:23:36):
How to like don't wear headphones at night, you know
what I mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. My mom, I remember
when I was coming up that age, she started being like,
don't sit with your legs open like that, because I
would sit in my panting with my legs wide open.
Because I was a kid and that's all I knew,
and I didn't really you know, kids are in some
ways genderless in a way, and she would tell me that,
and she wouldn't explain why. And so for years I

(01:23:57):
didn't understand why I couldn't sit with my legs open.
And then even when I came of age, she'd be like,
don't forget of a beer bottle, like in front of
your older family members. Like it just it was just
it's so many like learned gender dynamics that you're like, yeah,
but why.

Speaker 1 (01:24:09):
Right, And it's like if you ask them, but why.
I think this like kind of one of the scarier
moments of growing up is realizing that probably your mom
doesn't have a very coached answer. It just is. And
like that's so much about this movie. Something I think
this movie does really well in a way that like,

(01:24:29):
I don't know, I want to rewatch Diary of a
Teenage Girl now and we definitely should cover it. So good,
it's really good. I love Mary al Hiller, But like,
I think something this movie does really well that a
lot of movies about coming of age across the gender
spectrum don't is like presents a lot of very scary

(01:24:53):
behavior from men that you would see in your everyday life.
And like again, I am gonna take the tuba music
and the accordion out of the because that, to me
is like this movie's biggest issue as the accordion music.
But like creepy neighbor guy who is you know, like
who a teenage girl might be attracted to, who will

(01:25:15):
do absolutely nothing to do anything but take advantage of them.
This is a person who we like probably conjure someone
to mind for everybody, whether it's a father, uncle, like
male relative, usually.

Speaker 4 (01:25:31):
Friend's older brother's friend of always.

Speaker 1 (01:25:33):
It's yeah, I mean, like I feel like and it
seems I almost want to like I don't know, I
don't I don't know very much about Alan Arkin as
a person, but I think it is really cool that
he took this part on because it is like intentionally
in opposition with what his public image is in a
way that I think is like really smart, Like we

(01:25:56):
are socially conditioned to like Alan Arkin, and then he
does these horrific things and I think it really does
like do a good job of putting you in the
character shoes of like, oh I thought he was this
person and he's not. What do I do, and I
just wish that it was a little murkier at the

(01:26:18):
end of like what do I do, because it felt like, well,
I'm gonna do this, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:26:24):
Yeah. I think that's why I love the movie, Like
it is a bit of a It lets you sit
with discomfort, which I find really fascinating, But then I
also find it challenging because it's generically like a romp
kind of it's a bit of a sex romp, and
that's complicated and that is confusing as a viewer, but
it's like it I think it just gets me thinking,
which I appreciate about.

Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
It, which is a lot of like seventies movies too,
is like sex romps that when you want that are
kind of dubious when you watch them back totally. But
I also feel like this is and maybe this would
be overthinking, but like especially because that assault of Rita
happens at the very end of the movie pretty much,
very very late and already I mean I didn't know

(01:27:04):
that happened, and I was very taken off guard when
it does because to that point, I noted several times
of like, this family has very poor physical boundaries with
each other, and maybe that's me being a Republican or something.
But I was like, this family is naked around each
other so much, so much, I think specifically with Rita,

(01:27:28):
who is like every family has a different level of
naked that they are at the house. I get it,
like with your siblings, with your family that everyone's it varies, right.
I think that that reads a lot differently once we
know the kind of guy the father is at the end.
But what bumped me more than anything was Rita returning
to this extended family dynamic and just like that cartoony thing.

(01:27:54):
I felt like it undercut a lot of stuff that
happens with her later in the movie where I'm just
like what world are we in that? Like a thirty
year old cousin is like oops, I'm naked in front
of everybody all the time. Like that that confused me,
Like some early Riada moments.

Speaker 4 (01:28:13):
It's the extended familiness of it that's a little like okay,
uh yeah yeah. I think that's like where the farce
comes in. Like she does feel like a character out
of like a Monty Pipe, like I don't know something
something of that era. For sure. It's interesting though maybe
the movie is trying to kind of like critique that
archetype when it brings it into the more realism element
of it at the end, maybe not gracefully, but I'm like,

(01:28:35):
I'm curious to know.

Speaker 1 (01:28:36):
I feel really curious.

Speaker 4 (01:28:37):
Yeah, whether she's introduced as a farce or like a
romp character and then ends up being a little more
like three dimensional.

Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
Yeah, I don't know, though, I like drilled myself into
a hole trying to understand how Rita is characterized at
the beginning versus where her character goes at the end,
because I'm like, are we supposed to And I do
think I was over thinking it, but I was like,
are we supposed to think?

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):
Like be?

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
Because this woman is comfortable enough around her family to
be like seen that that is what makes the uncle
feel entitled to her later Like I but I just
like could not quite make one plus one equal to
with her, like with the through line of Rita's behavior,
specifically VIVI, I could track almost everyone else I could track,

(01:29:22):
but Rita kind of confused me at different points.

Speaker 4 (01:29:25):
I think it's like the confused line between revolution exploitation, right,
Like I think we talk a lot in my podcast
about like the twenty fifteen era. I felt like when
I was in high school there was like a mini
sexual revolution with like that whole SlutWalk era of like yeah,
I'm a slut, you know what I mean? And coming
of age during that era was really complicated because I
feel like that and like the kind of Indie Slea's

(01:29:45):
like Terry Richardson era was this time where women were
feeling sexually liberated. They were feeling like, oh, it's socially
acceptable now to like have sex. I'm not going to
get called a slut or be oustracized socially. But men
then on the other side of things really taking advantage
of that and being like, oh, well, per now is
my opportunity, you know what I mean, Like, oh, you
want to be a slut, Like, let's.

Speaker 1 (01:30:04):
Go, and now they can call themselves feminist while doing it.
What a fun period of time that way, Well.

Speaker 4 (01:30:08):
Yeah, exactly, And like in Diary of a Teenage Girl
once again bring it up, but like, actually, I don't
want to spoil the movie, but yeah, I think that's
that's a major element of it as well. Well.

Speaker 3 (01:30:19):
Just going back to how Rita is characterized and the
kind of all over the place nature of that when
she's first introduced and like running down the highway and
flashes the truck driver who's about to run her over
and where to believe would have completely plowed into her

(01:30:42):
had she not flashed him. Yeah, but she flashes. She
opens up her gown and flashes him. And then when
he stops, she's like she's doing this, like oh, she's
like making sex mone sounds as she's like running and
getting into his truck, and I'm just like, what is
what is going on with her?

Speaker 4 (01:31:03):
It's very like she's crazy, right.

Speaker 3 (01:31:05):
And then when she like when well, okay, why does
Vivian burst into the bathroom when she thinks that it's
her brother in there potentially masturbating in the shower, So
she like barges in, it's not her brother, it is
her cousin in the shower. But then Rita opens the

(01:31:25):
door and she's just like, boobs, here they are, here
are mine?

Speaker 4 (01:31:29):
She Rita does feel like some of my friends sometimes,
Like maybe that's why I love her, because I'm like
she is just like so some of my some people
I know in my life.

Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
Yeah, I always like, I don't know, I'm overthinking because
I know that we we're all like kind of projecting
our experiences not to her, but I was like, this
would make sense to be in maybe a college aged character.
It is wild to be that she's twenty nine years
old doing this, where like I think of like older
cousins who like and also being that older cousin. I
was not a rita. I was not really be quite

(01:32:00):
hot enough to be doing what she's doing. But but
the whole idea of like having a sort of like
younger sibling dynamic of like, oh, I actually have this
information and I and like getting to feel like you're
the expert in like how to be a person, especially
when you're younger, is like kind of narcotic and exciting,
and even if you're often giving kind of like toxic,

(01:32:23):
you know, like here's how you appease the male gaze,
which is sort of what she's doing with like, oh,
you have a mustache. You gotta get rid of your mustache.
And I vividly remember my mom in middle school being like,
we need to talk about your mustache. And it's fine,
every woman in the family has one, but it's gotta go.

Speaker 2 (01:32:41):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:32:41):
I was getting bikini wax age thirteen, like because I
was in dance school. Oh oh, you know, yeah, it sucked.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
And then and then you have the brother been you know,
using an outdated term for intersex people when he finds
out that has a mustache that she's bleaching, and just like, yeah,
the way that Ben talks about his sister's.

Speaker 1 (01:33:06):
Body is but it's so clearly learned from his dad. Yeah,
Like that is almost like because that's why I wish
that there was a little more specificity with how old
other characters are, because I'm assuming that Ben is an
older teenager, which doesn't totally let him off the hook,
but like, I think we're very much given the context
for why he feels so entitled to be horrible to

(01:33:29):
his sister. It's all he's seen and just like this,
and I know that this was like to some extent
based on Tamar Jenkins' is like being raised by a
sort of single dad like this in a nomadic way
that like, it's just such a horror situation to me
to be raised by a man who does not really

(01:33:50):
have any desire to understand you or any woman, and
you're surrounded only by other young men who are going
to absorb that act like she just has no ally
and it's like there is a version. I think there's
a version of me that like wants her and her

(01:34:10):
older cousin to form a powerful bond in a way
that I think if there's a version of this movie
where if they bond more, it pay that, like last
Beat is powerful in a different way. But also Rita
is twice her age. They're not peers. It makes sense
that they're not connecting. There are completely different stages of life,

(01:34:32):
and so it's like viv is given sort of this
like maybe tease of maybe this is someone that you
can connect with, but ultimately like she can't for all
these reasons.

Speaker 4 (01:34:43):
Yeah. Can I also say we haven't mentioned one character,
which is the littlest brother, who I've tried to make
a tally in my life now of like unprecocious children
in movies because it's very few and four between. And
I thought this kid did a great job. And that
kid's kind of annoying in a good way, like that's
little boy. Yeah, And he's just there.

Speaker 3 (01:35:03):
He's mostly just there. He has a few moments in
the movie here and there where, for example, he opens
the oven and there's a dead cat inside that he's.

Speaker 1 (01:35:15):
And he just holds it up like yeah, hes a chicken.
He has a little he has he has some lucidity
around the issue of class, which is one of the
things I think this movie does really well in a
very period specific way of like class is a huge
thing in this movie that every character, even I think

(01:35:37):
like the youngest kid bringing it up in this very
like matter of fact way felt so real in a
way that like, to your point, Maya could have been
really precocious. Like I mean, it feels out, but like
a little out Abigail, I like always think of Abigail
Breslin in most of her early roles when I think
of this thing, but that he he brings it up

(01:36:01):
kind of matter of factly and they're all, you know,
I think it presents class in this kind of cool
way of like, well, yeah, what the hell do you do?
And and that my head immediately is like, well, they're
probably hanging out because of like proximity to family and
school systems, right, And he literally states that he's like
it's it's the school system, that's why. And like it

(01:36:24):
I can understand from Alan Arkins point, however, misguided, and
I think like he is flopping as a father and
it's not totally his fault, but it is a large
part his fault. And I think that murkiness is kind
of portrayed really well, but that like what do you

(01:36:45):
do in that situation? You want your kids to have
some continuity in their life. But also he is being selfish,
like it's so.

Speaker 4 (01:36:54):
And like interpolating his kids into the finances like and
not not really protecting them from from anything. Right by
way of yeah, class struggle, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:37:04):
It feels like he's still kind of striving in this
like very American way where I don't know, I mean,
the kids, it's hard to know, and maybe the kids
are just too young to really know, but it's like
they want stability more than they want to be in
Beverly Hills.

Speaker 4 (01:37:24):
It seems like right totally.

Speaker 3 (01:37:27):
I read an interesting piece about how this movie is
in conversation with the effects of gentrification. It's called Gentrification
and the Slums of Beverly Hills, but it talks about
how even though Beverly Hills is associated with extreme wealth,

(01:37:50):
there has been income diversity within that neighborhood, perhaps more
so in the nineteen seventies when this movie is set
and present day, but there has been a range of
people and families with different economic backgrounds living in Beverly Hills.

(01:38:11):
But one of the many problems with gentrification is obviously
that it tends to eliminate economic diversity within a neighborhood
and prices out and displaces people. And so it kind
of goes into that. We can link the piece, but.

Speaker 4 (01:38:26):
No, Yeah, one of the earliest thoughts I had when
I watched it was that it reminded me of the
Florida Project, just by virtue of like the intense income
disparity between like these kind of pastel like motels. Obviously,
this motel is a different function than the Florida Project,
but like the ones in that being juxtaposed to like
Disney World or Disney Disney World. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and

(01:38:47):
this being juxtaposed to yeah, like the the upper echelons
of like La and Yeah, I thought that was interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:38:53):
Yeah. I guess it's just like economic diversity anywhere is
kind of flat. And I think that, like people still
talk about Los Angeles, New York about this on a
whole to this day in a way that is not
intentional but kind of ends up serving the interests of
the very powerful. Where if you act like economic diversity

(01:39:14):
does not exist. It is almost like a self fulfilling prophecy,
and this family is kind of caught in that kind
of net where the world kind of wants to refuse
that they exist because it's not what we're told this
area is supposed to be. And so they're slowly getting
edged out and we don't really have a ton of

(01:39:35):
con Oh. The other thing that I saw referenced, but
I guess I maybe missed it in my viewings of
the movie is that part of why he's struggling as
a car salesman is because there is an it is
like a sevent yes oil crisis.

Speaker 4 (01:39:48):
Oh sure, yeah, the oil crisis.

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
And again the shades of gray that are introduced around
class and around the dad. It's not like he is
like the worst. He is a lazy asshole, like he
is going to work, but he is not. I mean,
I think, if anything, he's not like kind of willing
to accept that his situation has changed in a way

(01:40:12):
that's harming his family. Like he's in denial that things
are changing and that he's and also that he's aging.
And like all that scene with the brothers I thought
was really it's the only scene I think you get
with just the brothers, and I really liked it where
it just made I do wish that again. I'm like,

(01:40:32):
I'm being a Republican, but I'm like, let's put some
clothes on these kids. I get it, it's the seventies.
They probably didn't have air conditioning, but let's get some
clothes on these children, please.

Speaker 3 (01:40:42):
They're Oh the scene where they're eating tricks.

Speaker 1 (01:40:44):
I'm like, family, come on. But anyways, I grew up
at a closed family, so maybe this is just the same.

Speaker 4 (01:40:51):
I have a lot of friends who were definitely looser
with the boundaries.

Speaker 1 (01:40:54):
Yes, I was like, my cousins were in a naked family.

Speaker 4 (01:40:58):
Yes they're they're naked family.

Speaker 1 (01:41:00):
Out there, they're a naked family. But it's like, but
there days a creep anyways. But the scene with the
brothers where the younger brother, Ricky is kind of coming
to terms with the fact that he has an old dad,
and that is like something that is it's an undercurrent
theme in the movie that I know is like related
to Tamara Jenkins's life that I just thought was so

(01:41:23):
well done. I had never seen that like shown in
such a specific way, and I think it's it was
a really sweet moment with the Brothers where the brother
where David Cromwell's has to be like, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:41:36):
Man, that's old as shit.

Speaker 1 (01:41:38):
Yeah, and he's like no, because that means my parent
will die, which is like the scariest thing in the
world when you're you know, eight, nine, ten. I don't
know how old.

Speaker 4 (01:41:47):
I grew up with an old dad, and every day
I resent him for deciding to pull me out at
forty five or forty six, like come on, come on, man,
you're so old. I want all the time in the
world with you, sir. But you know, and now he's
like a senior citizen. God love him. I hope he
doesn't listen to with podcasts my dad. But it definitely
there's psychological effects for sure to being a child with

(01:42:08):
an old father. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:42:11):
Yeah, I've never seen it done quite in that way
where it like wasn't tragic and there wasn't an immediate
consequence to it. It wasn't like, oh no, Alan Arkin
is dead. Even though it's so hard to not compare
this movie just because it is such a sun Dance movie,
I was thinking a lot about Little Miss Sunshine when

(01:42:31):
I was watching this movie because it's Alan Arkin in
a movie that was like made in a lab to
succeed at Sundance in a motel.

Speaker 4 (01:42:39):
He's always in the motel. He's always give and what's
gonna happen?

Speaker 1 (01:42:44):
And it's maybe want to rewatch Little Miss Sunshine, which
I think is a far a complicated family presented in
a far more less complicated way. Like Alan Arkin couldn't
be a more different character, but he is in a
motel with children a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:43:03):
Yeah, I want to go back to this scene where
Vivian is in the cosmetic surgeon's office, and I want
to talk about it because we see a shot of
the character's bear breasts. Now again, the character is like

(01:43:27):
fourteen or fifteen. Natasha Leone was eighteen or nineteen when
this movie was being shot and when it came out
and stuff. And also I'm not even sure if those
are her breasts that might be a body double.

Speaker 1 (01:43:40):
They're not as far as I know from what I understood.
And this like that she's wearing, I mean, they're fake.
They're silicone breasts that she's wearing during the movie. Those
are not her natural brass and something that I again
just is a marker of both times. But I I

(01:44:00):
listened to a few retrospective interviews. To my understanding, the
reason that we get those headless women of Hollywood shots
is because their body doubles, so like you couldn't reveal
Natasha Leone's head in that shot or Marissa Tomaine's head
because it's not her, but that Just reading and listening
to Natasha Leone and the director talk about this, I

(01:44:23):
was like, Oh my gosh, I am glad that we
are living in an era where intimacy coordinators are available,
because there were. Even though Natasha Leone I think was
an adult when this was being shot, the way that
she talked about it was like it just sounded like
it might have been nice to have an intimacy coordinator
as an option, just because they're talking about very like

(01:44:46):
indie film running gunning shots. I think one thing that
specifically stuck out to me that I heard her talk
about in nineteen ninety eight and twenty thirteen that seemed
to really stick with her was the vibrator scene and
feeling little out of her depth with like not really
I mean also probably because it is like a period

(01:45:06):
appropriate prop, but like that she she wasn't really coached
on what she was supposed to have been doing. She
felt uncomfortable. Everyone was a little frustrated with her for
like not quote unquote doing it right. But also she
was like, very recently, she's still a teenager, Like, I
don't I wouldn't have known what to how to execute

(01:45:29):
that scene as a teenager, especially with like no guidance.
And there were a few anecdotes about the making of
this movie that isn't an indictment of the movie, but
more just an observation about the time where it was like, yeah,
that is a very young actor to put a very
big scene, like a sexually charged scene on and not
have anyone there to be present for them before, during,

(01:45:53):
or after, and which it sounds like, I mean, in
nineteen ninety eight, I'm not at all surprised to hear it.
It didn't sound like Nindashelione was upset about it, but
it clearly stuck with her because it came up in
almost every interview about this movie that she did across
twenty years.

Speaker 3 (01:46:09):
Right, So there's that, And then going back to that
scene in the plastic surgeon's office, we see this character's
bear breasts and even though the body double was of age,
the character is fourteen or fifteen, and we should not
be normalizing seeing nudity of a character that is a

(01:46:31):
minor on screen. I've said it before, I'll say it again.
That shot did not need to be there. You can
imply it's already implied what the surgeon is doing. We
don't need to we don't need to see actual nudity
of a child.

Speaker 4 (01:46:47):
So there's a lot of that entirey of a teenage girl. Oh,
which is fascinating because it came out almost twenty years later.

Speaker 3 (01:46:54):
Yeah, yeah, So just wanted to point that out.

Speaker 1 (01:46:57):
Yeah, I didn't know what there were a few, especially
like I know that it is like capital tees the
theme that we're talking about breasts, and there's certain I agree, Like,
I don't know. I would not have included that shot
if I were tomorrow Jenkins, And I wonder if present
day tomorrow Jenkins would include it. I struggle with it

(01:47:21):
when it's like, I don't know, it's like, at what
point are you directing a movie that you are assuming
bad actors will be consuming Like that's a tough one.
I do wonder that with the portrayal of nudity, is
like are you censoring yourself for the safety of any
like why are you not doing it? I guess this

(01:47:41):
is my question is like are you not doing it
for the safety of the actor. Are you not doing
it because you were concerned that a bad faith actor
is going to find your movie? Which I think is
definitely true here because there were certain scenes I was
just looking for commentary on and I was directed to
poorn websites. Really yeah, to pour specifically around the scenes

(01:48:02):
of like Kevin Corrigan feeling Natasha leone up and like
the more sexually charged scenes of this are definitely present
on por in sites, which I found out completely by accident.
And so I think it is like a very it.
I don't know. I don't disagree with you, Caitlin, Like
I think that it is like I cannot think of
a good reason to include it, but it's depressing the

(01:48:26):
reasons that I jump to to why that is.

Speaker 4 (01:48:28):
Yeah, I do think it's a slippery slope when factoring
and like like a director having to factor in like
the worst faith interpretation or like worst faith audience of
their movie. Like I do think that that can go
in negative directions or that can be like a massive
hindrance to art. Not that I agree that necessarily these
boobs should have been in it, these boobs.

Speaker 1 (01:48:47):
But whose boobs.

Speaker 4 (01:48:49):
It's a difficult conversation because you don't know how far
that can go in terms of like like every like
if your movie's intended for a mass audience, it's like
it can become kind of focus groupy or become kind
of So, yeah, it's a tough one. That's a that's
a difficult question to answer.

Speaker 1 (01:49:03):
I guess Yeah, in the case of this movie, I
think it is like not necessary and a lot of
the it felt very like of the time, And by
that I guess I mean of both times that every
opportunity we had to cut to bare breasts we did.
And you know, like that's not to say that we
don't see I mean we see a lot of like

(01:49:24):
people not wearing clothes in this movie. Again, we appear
to be in a naked family, and it's like not
like we don't see the boys in this family, you know,
presented in like they're not wearing clothes for a lot
of the movie. But I also didn't like that.

Speaker 4 (01:49:41):
I also know, definitely not maybe I just really find
that depiction to be particularly sexual, Like I think I think.

Speaker 1 (01:49:48):
That's the thing is like it's not sexualized.

Speaker 4 (01:49:50):
That's like, yeah, I think that to me didn't feel
inappropriate necessarily or just I feel like a lot of
movies around the time has like that's just what kids
to me sometimes where it seemed like it's like, you know,
they're in a a hot climate. But yeah, no, I agree.
I feel like the issue with the Natasha the unboob
is that like it feels tacked on because it almost
feels like a reveal because the whole movie they've been

(01:50:10):
discussing her boobs, and when the boobs are revealed, it's like, okay,
so this is kind of like an unveiling in a way,
and that's where it becomes kind of like, eh, like yeah, yeah,
it isn't.

Speaker 1 (01:50:19):
Like why yeah, I didn't know what the function of
it was even supposed to have been. It just felt
a little huh, I don't know, it felt edgy in
a way that like, but it's like, I don't want
to refer to like depicting breasts as edgy. It shouldn't
be viewed that way. But again, it's it's I think
that breasts are generally framed in a sexualized way in

(01:50:41):
this movie sometimes, and I think more often than not
with commentary. But in the case of this shot that
you're talking about, Kaitlin, I don't think that, Like, what
is the commentary? It seems like it's just doing it. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:50:53):
Yeah, again, this is an underage teenager. To me, there's
like no gray area there, Like we just should never
see that on screen. Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:51:04):
I mean it's like, and I guess what I'm more
talking about is like, because we know these are adult actors,
what do we do with like implied age versus actor
age and how do people internalize that? Like we've talked
about this so much on the show. Yeah, I think
we all agree that the shot is not necessary. But yeah,
it is like a really complicated thing.

Speaker 3 (01:51:25):
Yeah, does anyone have anything else they want to talk about?

Speaker 4 (01:51:29):
I just wrote down Robert Roger Ebert made a comment
on this movie that in Beverly Hill's money is not
the only currency, and I thought, true, well observed King,
well observed class and sex those are the two things
that's happening in this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:51:49):
When you accidentally said, Robert, just now, Robert Redford produced
this movie because of like the Sun Dance connection. And
Tamar Jenkins did she write the script? During this Sun
Dance the Lab, Yeah, the Lab Writer's Program.

Speaker 4 (01:52:04):
Yeah. Yeah, so rip Robert Redford, I know, r ip
Roger Ebert.

Speaker 3 (01:52:10):
Yeah, an Rip Alan and Carl Reiner and Jessica Walster
and so many people gone too soon and I'll just
put that in there and Robert anyways, Yes, it's okay.
The movie does pass the Bechdel test. Yes, quite a bit.

Speaker 1 (01:52:30):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:52:31):
It is mostly between Vivian and Rita, and they're talking
about all kinds of stuff. They're talking about their relationship
to each other, and they're speaking in multiple languages, passing
the Bechdel test.

Speaker 1 (01:52:43):
Yes, And even though there's not a ton of those
are the two main characters, and maybe kind of the
Jessica Walter character as well, are the main women in
the movie. I think that, you know whatever, the Bechdel
test is a metric that we've talked about forever that,
like the absence of women, I think is very intentional
in this movie. I think it is like intended to

(01:53:04):
further leave viv kind of out to see.

Speaker 3 (01:53:08):
I agree. But even so, we have many conversations, yes,
between women and girls. Vivian and Reader are talking about vibrators, breasts, tampons,
bleaching their mustaches.

Speaker 1 (01:53:22):
Mean a Savari's like, get a breast reduction.

Speaker 3 (01:53:27):
Doris is like, here's an enormous pad.

Speaker 1 (01:53:31):
Now that we're listing off the conversations, it doesn't sound
as great, but they happen.

Speaker 4 (01:53:36):
No, I'm like very I was coming into this being like,
oh man, my movie's gonna fail. The beck built, but
I'm very impressed by it.

Speaker 1 (01:53:44):
Passes doesn't have to be a positive conversation to pass.

Speaker 4 (01:53:48):
Yeah, I'm wow cool.

Speaker 3 (01:53:50):
But what about the nipple scale though, the Bechdel Cast
nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale
of zero to five nipples, examining it through an intersectional
feminist lene, Oh god, really tricky. I don't really know
what to do here, because it's it is exploring, you know,
what it is to be an adolescent girl, lower middle class,

(01:54:13):
adolescent white girl in the LA area in the seventies,
existing in a society that is constantly leering at women,
objectifying women. Rape culture is abound, and how she grapples
with that, and how she tries to again exercise some

(01:54:33):
control over that or try to take some power back.
And so I think the movie is doing really interesting
things regarding that. But for other things. As we've talked about.
I don't think it's not clear enough where it lands,
or there's not quite enough commentary on the situation to
my satisfaction. So I think I'll give it a split

(01:54:54):
down the middle two point five nipples, just to make
things simple. I'm going to give them all to came Jenkins.

Speaker 1 (01:55:01):
Is it Tamera?

Speaker 3 (01:55:02):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:55:03):
I think it's tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:55:04):
It is tomorrow, Tomorrow, wrong, Okay, I got scared tomorrow. Okay,
I'm gonna I'm tempted to go three and a half,
which maybe feels a little high, but I ugh, I
don't know. I'm between a three and a three and
a half. I think that there is a lot of
stuff in this movie that feels unresolved, but never means

(01:55:24):
spirited and never I feel and again this is me
judging by vibes, but I do think that this this
movie is searching for something, and maybe it's because it
is like a first time filmmaker making a very personal story.
I will say the last scene in this movie, the voiceover,
the way that the movie ends, I don't like, and

(01:55:46):
it feels like it's kind of directly fighting with the
really complicated themes that the movie is fighting, it's totally dissonant.
The character of Rita never quite comes together for me.
I feel like Rita and bodies that tonal dissonance pretty
squarely for me. But I also think that it's finding

(01:56:07):
these dynamics that I haven't quite seen before. I think, like,
the lower middle class is such a weird specific thing
that barely even exists now but did at one time,
and is this kind of precarious, delusional place to live
in that is captured really well in this movie. And
the you know, coming of age and to assist women's

(01:56:29):
body is it is horrifying in a way that I
think is also well captured without it becoming you know,
probably this premise would be a horror movie now, and
I don't. Like I'm very sick of any woman's body
and any marginalized body becoming the side of horror, and
this movie doesn't do that. It's just presenting like it

(01:56:52):
just feels like shit to be told that you're doing
it wrong all the time and also be constantly surprised
by your body and have no one to turn to, Like,
I think it captures that feeling very well. And yeah,
we talked about all of it. I think I'm going
to go three. I'm going to go three nips. I'll
give one to Tamara Jenkins, one to Natasha Leone, and

(01:57:15):
one to Rita Moreno, why the hell not?

Speaker 3 (01:57:17):
Why the hell not? Maya? How about you?

Speaker 4 (01:57:21):
Okay, maybe I'll deign to go three point five. I think, okay,
I'm knocking the one point five off because I think
that the movie has themes and plot that can't seem
to agree with one another, and that sometimes the plot
undermines the intended themes of the film, like you're saying,
you're both saying, like it's kind of unresolved, it's searching,

(01:57:42):
and sometimes that can lead to somewhat harmful depictions that
the movie seems to be trying to do the opposite of,
or trying to say something in the realm of the opposite.
But I do really appreciate, and what's always stuck struck
me is where this movie is willing to go. I
think it's pretty unprecedented in its depictions of female sexuality

(01:58:04):
and underage sexuality, which is really complicated and really difficult
to depict. And I always appreciate when a movie is
willing to do something difficult and is willing to make
me uncomfortable because that makes me think. And I think
we've talked about this for at this point such a
long so many hours that it's like, I appreciate one
of movies. Yeah, willing to raise questions even though maybe

(01:58:26):
it can't necessarily answer all of them. Sure, I also
just I'm a little maybe I have a libertarian film spirit,
but I love a movie that I'm like, don't tell
me what to do, don't tell me how to think.
And I think I love a movie that doesn't tell
me either of those things. And so this movie made
us all Republicans and libertarians. This is a Republican libertarian
zoom call.

Speaker 1 (01:58:46):
Republicans love to be told how to think. Don't worry,
they actually really love.

Speaker 4 (01:58:50):
Yeah, but maybe I do too. Yeah, but I appreciate
almost at the movie isn't trying to tell me what
to think about what it's portraying, even though I think
the ending is a little bit and I don't know,
like a definitely like that. Half stars for Marissa Tome,
who has my heart and I love her. I think
she's so funny and weird in this even if her
character is a hot mess.

Speaker 3 (01:59:12):
Yes, well, thank you so much for joining us again.
Come back anytime.

Speaker 1 (01:59:18):
Thanks guys of course.

Speaker 3 (01:59:20):
Real quick. Where can people follow you? Check out your stuff?
Plug away?

Speaker 4 (01:59:25):
You can find me on YouTube under the channel Broi Dationanel.
You can find me on Instagram at Browie Underscore Dationel.
I have a podcast called Rehash and I actually wrote
a book about Eternal Sunshine at the Spotless Mind, which
I've been really bad at promoting because I'm new to that.
So yeah, I wrote that. You can find it wherever
you get your books or on ig publishing dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:59:44):
That's amazing, Thank you, And you can follow us on
Instagram at Bechdel Cast. You can subscribe to our Patreon
aka Matreon at patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast, where
you get two bonus episodes every single month, always based
on an incredible, amazing genius theme. And Jamie and our

(02:00:07):
guest Maya had to leave right before this outro, so
it's just me signing off goodbye.

Speaker 1 (02:00:17):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
produced by me Jamie Loftus and.

Speaker 3 (02:00:23):
Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie
Lichtermann and.

Speaker 1 (02:00:27):
Edited by Caitlyn Dorante. Ever heard of them?

Speaker 3 (02:00:30):
That's me and our logo and merch and all of
our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus ever
heard of her?

Speaker 1 (02:00:38):
Oh My God? And our theme song, by the way,
was composed by Mike Kaplan.

Speaker 3 (02:00:43):
With vocals by Katherine Vosskrasinski.

Speaker 1 (02:00:46):
Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Aristotle Ascevero.

Speaker 3 (02:00:51):
For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
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