Steel Magnolias with Ashley Blaine Featherson-Jenkins

This week steel hosts Jamie and Caitlin plus steel special guest Ashley Blaine Featherson-Jenkins discuss Steel Magnolias (1989). 

(This episode contains spoilers)

For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast

Follow @ashleyblaine on Instagram.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
The questions asked if movies.

Speaker 3 (00:03):
Have women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy,
Zeph and bast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 4 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is
Caitlyn Dronte. And I was like, we can't do it
silly intro for this because this movie's too sad. No wow,
So I just went into the normal thing.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Well, I was gonna say, Kaitlyn, get in front of me,
Sally Field, punch Kaitlin in the face. You'll feel better.
This is your one opportunity to punch a host of
the Bechtel Cast. Will that not cure your incurable grief?

Speaker 5 (00:41):
Give it a try? And then we all start laugh And.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
I would let Sally Field punch me in the face.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
One yeah, yeah, And I think that that's a really nope.
If your friend's going through it in a way that
it's impossible to truly offer comfort, I'm going to keep
that in the back of my mind to be like,
I know you're going through a difficult time and nothing
I can say will really help. But if you would
like to punch me in the face. I would understand.

(01:12):
Maybe it would help. Welcome to the back. I'll offer
that sometimes. Please. Yeah, I'm sure it would be cathartic
if you punch me in the face. I don't know.
I don't know. We'll never know. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
We'll find out maybe someday.

Speaker 5 (01:24):
My name is Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
I'm the other host of the Bechel Cast, the one
that just made it sound like I have a kink.

Speaker 5 (01:29):
We're about getting punched in the face.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
Hey, which I don't wrong, but.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
No shame if you do. Uh well, cool opening. This
is the really pro kink beginning. This is our first
episode with a new addition to the.

Speaker 5 (01:47):
Bechel Cast family.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Little kitten Casper is sitting behind me right now, and
I have to remember not to lean back or I'll
kill him. He's so small.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
Bechdel Cast more like Bechdel Cast. Asper more like Bechdel Cats.

Speaker 5 (02:02):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Now we have the Bechdel Cats Fleas in the other room.
Fleees really having a series of come to Jesus moments
about the new guy. He kind of keeps staring into
the distance, contemplating about how he used to be the
center of my world, and now.

Speaker 5 (02:20):
Things are exactly the same. He just doesn't realize it yet.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, talking about my two boy cats great example of
something that would not pass the Bechdel test, except spiritually,
in which it does well.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
I mean cats don't have gender, so I feel like
talking about cats does pass the Bechdel test.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
I'll take it. I'll take it. Yeah, But we use
a really amazing opening today. We use the Bechdel test
as a jumping off point for discussion in a larger
intersectional feminist analysis of your favorite movies in the world. But, Caitlin,
what the hell is the Bechdel test tella?

Speaker 4 (03:00):
It is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel,
sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test. It first appeared as
a kind of one off bit in her comic Dykes
to Watch out For in the eighties. Examining how women
hardly ever talk to each other in movies and there's
very little representation of queer women was the origins of

(03:22):
the test. It has since been used more widely and
there are many versions of it. Our version is, do
two people of a marginalized gender with names speak to
each other? About something other than a man, and we
especially like it when it's a narratively substantial conversation and

(03:42):
not just like throw away dialogue.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Which we will find. There's no issues with today's movie,
at least in that department, although there's plenty of stuff
to talk about where. Finally doing an episode on Steel
Magnolius before we bear our guest in, I just wanted
to shout out because people have asked us like where
is it seems like a glaring hole, woman centric movie.

(04:06):
We did record an episode over two years ago on
this movie.

Speaker 5 (04:12):
With iconic guest Aaron Haynes. Shout out Aaron Haynes.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
The audio corrupted, the podcast God said no podcast Zeus
sent a lightning bolt, and we said, well fine, we'll
just have to wait, and when we know, we know.
And now we know because we have an incredible guest
and we have a lot of thoughts that we've been sitting.

Speaker 5 (04:33):
On for years at this point, which you're Steel.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
Magnolious, it is very true. And our guest is an actress.
You've seen her on Netflix's Dear White People. She's the
host of the podcast Trials to Triumphs on the Oprah
Winfrey Network. And you remember her on our episode on Misery.
It's Ashley, Blaine, Feathers and Jenkins.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Welcome back, Hi, thank you.

Speaker 6 (04:57):
I have like a raspy, deep tone to my voice
these days. I don't know what's happening, but I've been
getting a lot of compliments on it.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Honestly, Okay, I just wow. But it's not my normal voice.

Speaker 6 (05:10):
So people that do know my voice are probably like, oh,
is that Ashley.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
It's me, everybody, it's me.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
Not an imposter.

Speaker 5 (05:19):
The strike has changed us all the strike changed my voice.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Actually, yes, that's what's happened.

Speaker 6 (05:25):
I'm so fatigued from the strike that my voice has
been altered.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Let's go with that. I feel it. Well, welcome back.
We're so excited to have you, and we're really excited
to be covering this movie. I guess I needed two
years to think more about it because I had a
very different viewing experience this time. But actually, to start,
what is your history with this movie?

Speaker 5 (05:48):
What's your connection to it?

Speaker 6 (05:51):
Okay, So I was born in December of nineteen eighty seven,
so this movie came out in nineteen eighty nine. You know,
so I was really young, but I have a sister
who's nine years.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
Older than me. My house was really my mom, Me.

Speaker 6 (06:07):
And my mom, my sister, and my dad and I
come from a small family, but it's mostly women. So
I grew up watching a lot of women's centered films
and shows. And you know, Lifetime was always on. We
were watching Lifetime movies, like I have such fond memories
of like sitting in between my mom's legs she's braiding
my hair, or watching something on Lifetime.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
But because I have a sister who's almost.

Speaker 6 (06:30):
A decade older than me, and my mom, they always
were showing me movies that they had watched.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Obviously you know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (06:38):
But I was too young to watch and they were
so excited to show them to me as I grew up.
So in a lot of ways, I grew up on
Still Magnolia's, Like I, if I look back, it was
probably a movie that was playing when I was really
young and like not able to understand what it was,
but then it was a.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Movie I watched many times over my lifetime.

Speaker 6 (06:57):
And when I think of the movie, I think of
my mom, and I think of my sister and my
nana and us watching it together and crying every time.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
And you know, I think of.

Speaker 6 (07:08):
Me too as a young kid who wanted to be
an actor, And it also was a movie although there
wasn't anybody that looked like me in the movie necessarily,
it was definitely a movie where I thought, even at
a young age, this is the type of movie I
would want to be in though, where it's about love
and it's about family, and it's about togetherness and it's

(07:29):
about tragedy and it's about healing and you know, all
of those things.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
So it was a movie that I was really drawn to,
and the performances are just so good.

Speaker 6 (07:38):
So when I think about my history with this movie,
I think about being deeply inspired by just like the
actors in the movie, like no one missed, everyone was
knocking it out of the park. And as a young
woman who always wanted to act, it's a movie that's
always been on my list as one that's like nobody
can say anything bad about it.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
I mean, God, this cast is act sacking. Holy shit,
It's so I was surprised that no one on this
cast won in Oscar Wild. In my mind, Sally Field
won an Oscar for this, and then I double checked
it and she did not.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
Ridiculous, Oh was this not the you like me, you
really like me?

Speaker 1 (08:19):
No? I think that was like, wait, what was that for? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (08:23):
Because what is that?

Speaker 2 (08:25):
I'm confused?

Speaker 1 (08:26):
She has like an iconic Oscar's speech in which she says, Kate,
she's just like you like me, you really like me?

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Oh, I got it.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Oh that was for Norma Ray, which we are another
popular across we haven't covered.

Speaker 5 (08:42):
I still haven't seen Norma Ray.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
And I'm obsessed with Sally Feels and I need to
see it.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
She's awesome and she's Oh my god, she kills it
in this movie. That's Oh, that's so sweet that you
have such a strong connection to that.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, so cool, Like I truly grew up on it.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
Yeah, Jamie, what about you? What's your relationship with it?

Speaker 1 (09:00):
I did not have an extensive relationship with this movie
until we first watched it a couple of years ago,
and I have returned to it. It has become kind
of like a comfort movie because it's usually streaming somewhere.
I think I've watched it. I watched it once with
my mom over the summer because she hadn't seen it,
and then I watched it again to prepare, and I

(09:22):
also watched the twenty twelve Queen Latifa version of of Steel.
Magnolias also liked that one. And there's so much to
talk about with this movie, but I really enjoyed it.
I think that it's obviously rare to get, especially a
story written by a man that is so generous to

(09:43):
showing such a wide variety of like types of women,
so many different personalities. Obviously, this movie is far from
diverse in spite of where it takes place, which is nuts,
but a wide, you know, variety of ages classes, just
more than your condition to expect from a movie that
came out in nineteen eighty nine. And I find this

(10:06):
movie very comforting. This movie is like soup.

Speaker 4 (10:12):
You know, it's kind of chicken noodle soup.

Speaker 5 (10:16):
Yeah, you're like, I know what happens.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
I know Julia Roberts, Well, spoiler alert, she's not gonna
make it. I've seen this movie three times and she
never makes it.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
She does not.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
But what I got out of this feeling experience that
was a little different was I just learned more about
the context of why this movie exists. And it was
based on a play by Robert Harling, who also wrote
the screenplay, and it's about his sister, like his sister
is the Julia Roberts character, and so we could talk

(10:48):
a little bit about that and sort of this journey
in which like a total non writer wrote this really
famous movie. Yeah, Caitlin Win's Your History was still mcnilia's.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
I had seen it once before in college, just because
again I was making a point to see notable movies.
Didn't really matter what genre or what era. I was
just like, this is a movie that people have talked about.
It's on lists of notable movies, so I've got to

(11:20):
see it.

Speaker 5 (11:20):
The Eternal Student.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
Oh my gosh, such a student of phlim.

Speaker 7 (11:25):
Yeah, and I will say it's not exactly my type
of movie, slice of life, real world dramas.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
You hate women also, I hate women famously, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:42):
And their stories, and I just don't want.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
To see it.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
I don't, well Kaylen sees a woman having an arc,
They're like.

Speaker 4 (11:50):
Enough, I'm like, boo, where are the explosions? And that's
actually kind of sadly true. But you know, my tastes
are my tastes, and I cannot even hope it. But
I appreciate this movie for what it is, and as
a stoic, I'm always like a movie is probably not
going to make me cry. And every time I watch
this movie, I cry so many times. It's just so

(12:13):
heart wrenching.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
It's like genetically engineered to make you cry, you know,
like you are made of stone. It felt like it
was basic made of steel. It's true, you don't cry,
but everyone maybe Weezer doesn't cry, but almost everybody cries.

Speaker 4 (12:30):
I think Weezer's got tears in her eyes. I mean,
she's crying.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
She's made of steel, but she's not made of stone. Oh,
this movie is too much. I just yeah, I'm really
excited to talk about it.

Speaker 4 (12:43):
Let's take a quick break and then let's come back
and do the recap, and we're back. Okay, So here's
the recap. So I'm going to focus on the main storyline,

(13:05):
which is Julia Roberts' character's story, but each of the
main characters have little subplots that oh pretty much just
like gloss over in the recap, figuring that we will
talk about them in a lot more detail in the discussion.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Gotcha.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
So we are in a small town in Louisiana. The
movie begins on the wedding day of Shelby Eatonton that's
Julia Roberts. She and her mom, Malin played by Sally Field,
are scrambling around preparing for the wedding. Shelby's dad, Drum,

(13:40):
played by Tom Scarett, is trying to scare birds out
of a tree by shooting a gun at them.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Sure. We are also following Annell played by Daryl Hannah,
who goes to a salon owned by Truvy that's Dolly Parton,
and Truvie gives Annell a job in the salon as
a glamour technician. But there's also like discussion about like
Annelle seems to have a.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
Past, Vannelle and Truvie are the best characters to me?

Speaker 2 (14:15):
To me, Oh, okay, I'm gonna hear about.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
Okay. So then we also meet Shelby's groom to be, Jackson,
played by Dylan McDermott, who, by the way, we meet
because he sneaks into Shelby's room and bathroom while she's
in the middle of a bath without knocking on the
door or anything.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
It's nineteen eighty nine, so we're like, aw romantic home intrusion.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
By yeah, and not like ooh, invasion of privacy is
so sweet Okay. We also meet Weezer Uh played by
Shirley McLain, the grumpy neighbor of the Eatonton family, as
well as Clarie played by Olympiadcaucus. She is recently widowed,

(15:03):
and it seems like Weezer and Clarie are like best
buds but also kind of frenemies but BFFs.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Also kind of queer codd There's a few moments with
Weezer and Clary where I'm like, hmm, maybe it's just me,
but I would like for them to kiss.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
Yeah, no, I agree.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
I never thought that.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Maybe I'm just my perverted little But there are a
few bombs where is is like, maybe it was just
forbidden at the time, but clearly they belong together because
they treat each other like it's a school yard crush.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
They do looking.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Back to.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
So I'm for it.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
The layers, there's.

Speaker 4 (15:46):
So many, so many layers. It's like an onion.

Speaker 5 (15:49):
Such as feminist scholar.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
Sure okay. So Shelby and Malin go to get their
hair done at Truevi's salon, during which Shelby has a
medical emergency. It turns out that she has diabetes. They
give her juice and we just get kind of more
information about her condition, and she recently received news that

(16:16):
having children isn't possible due to her condition. Shelby had
been having second thoughts about marrying Jackson because she's afraid
she would be denying him the chance to have children,
but she and Jackson go through with the wedding and
we see the reception at the Eaton House.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Everyone's armadillo cake with gray frosting grape wine.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
Then we cut to Christmas time where Shelby reveals to
her mom that she's pregnant. Akas pregnant, and she does
she has a little Greg and she has a little
Greg soon. But Melinn is not happy about this pregnancy
announcement because our Gregnancy announcement, because shell be carrying a

(17:03):
baby is very dangerous to her health. But Shelby really
wants to have a child of her own. And the
other women also learn about the pregnancy and they realize
it's not necessarily happy news because of this risk associated
with it. We cut to a year later, after the

(17:23):
baby the Greg if you will Yes, Jackson Junior has
been born patit Greg yep. They celebrate his first birthday.
Then Shelby and maln returned to Truvi's salon. A lot
of scenes take place there. Shelby gets her haircut very short,
making her the baldest woman in charge.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yes, you know, and for newer listeners to the show,
the baldest woman in Charge rule real old hold over
from the show in which in movies, very often the
woman with the shortest haircut has the most narrative pathwer
Why is this? We don't know, but it's something we've

(18:05):
Why is Leonardo DiCaprio fully submerged in water in his
clothes in so many movies? We don't know. It's just
something that you see happening and you have to speak up.

Speaker 4 (18:16):
Yeah, you have to maybe make a letterboxed list about it.
I'm going to make a letterbox list. I want to
make one for the Bechdel Cast, by the way, I
don't know if people know that we're on letterboxed, but
we are, so you should follow us and I'll make
a list of all the movies in which Leonardo DiCaprio
is fully submerged in water wearing his clothes, because it's

(18:37):
so many.

Speaker 1 (18:38):
I haven't seen Killers of the Flower Moon yet, but
I would say it's honestly a safe bet that he
will be fully submerged in all his clothes, never copless,
always in the clothes. Yep, let's continue, Yes, Okay.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
So they're at this lawn and as Shelby is getting
a manicure, Truvy notices some severe bruising on Shelby's arms.
Turns out it's from dialysis because having a baby put
a lot of strain on her kidneys, and she is
in need of a kidney transplant, and her mother, Milin
is donating one of her kidneys to Shelby.

Speaker 5 (19:15):
Moinn truly mother of the Century. Yeah, yeah, at Molinn.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
And the surgery is the following day, and everyone gathers
at the hospital. They're nervous, but the surgery goes well
and everything seems all right at first. Some time passes,
and one day Shelby is at home taking care of
Jackson Junior, and she collapses. We cut to the hospital.

(19:43):
Her body is rejecting the kidney transplant and she is
in a coma. Milnn stays with Shelby day and night
trying to get her to wake up from the coma.
More time passes, she isn't waking up, She doesn't show
any signs of ever waking up, so they make the
decision to take her off life support and she dies.

(20:07):
We see the funeral, We get the iconic monologue from
Sally Field She's just so mad she wants to hit
something hard. This is when Clary is like, hit weezer
puncher in the face. And they all end up laughing
about it because.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
That scene makes me cry like a fucking baby. I mean, like,
obviously Shelby dying makes me cry, but the funeral seed, Oh,
it's so good.

Speaker 5 (20:36):
It's so good.

Speaker 4 (20:37):
Yeah, it really is, so this kind of moment of levity.
They're all laughing about it, and the movie ends with
everyone accepting that life goes on. And then Annelle, who
has a pregnancy of her own by the way, she

(20:57):
goes into labor and everyone to the hospital the and.

Speaker 5 (21:04):
It always kind of cracks me up.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
I think we maybe talked about this the first time
we discussed this movie. The last shot of this movie
is so bizarre to me because you see like all
of the women that we've gotten to know and love,
and we're like, this is so cool. And then you
see like Annell's husband and I think one of Shelby's brothers,
and he's wearing a bunny suit. Oh yeah, and they're
on a motorcycle.

Speaker 5 (21:27):
And that's the last shot.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
You're like, what I mean, it makes sense that he's coming,
but I don't know this.

Speaker 6 (21:34):
Classic we have to end this movie about all these
women with the man that we don't know.

Speaker 5 (21:41):
In a like menacing looking rabbit suit. I was like,
what is this?

Speaker 2 (21:45):
It's weird?

Speaker 5 (21:45):
What am I looking at?

Speaker 1 (21:47):
Anyways? Weird last shot? But yes, so so so much
to talk about.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
Yeah, let's take a quick break and we will come
back to discuss.

Speaker 5 (22:07):
And we're back.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
Before we get into the nitty gritty here, I do
want to know who are your faves? I would say,
because there's so many women in this story who kind
of come in pairs. Because you've got Mellyn and Shelby,
You've got Weezer and Clarie, You've got Annell and Truviy.
Who's your favorite pair of gals? I'm team Truvia in

(22:30):
a Noell, I really like their relationship.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
Why do you love their relationship?

Speaker 1 (22:36):
I love it because I just like a mentorship story
that isn't necessarily a mother daughter story. And I really
like Annelle's story of you know, coming from an impossible circumstance.
She's like ashamed of her own poverty, She's ashamed of
having been in an abusive relationship. And then meets Dolly Parton,

(22:58):
who is like, here's a solution to your problems. Just
be more like Dolly Parton, and it changes Annelle's life
and she just becomes baby Dolly Parton.

Speaker 5 (23:09):
And I love that. I love their relationship.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
I sort of wish, like, if I could have my way,
I would have Annell remain Dolly Parton and not you know,
be like I want to be a mother and a housewife.
But I really like Annelle in act too of this
movie so good where she's she's like, I have a boyfriend.
I don't even know if I like him. My hair
looks great. I'm happy. I just I love Anel and

(23:35):
I love how good Truvia is.

Speaker 6 (23:37):
It's a good transformation. She has a good like through
line in the story.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
I think it's really good.

Speaker 6 (23:42):
I think my favorite I do love a mother daughter.
It just gets me every time. So, you know, Shelby
and Milinn and in a lot of ways, they are
the heart of the movie, and like it's their love,
their relationship, their commitment.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
To one another, that is like really just beautiful to me.

Speaker 6 (24:08):
And then I think like a close second is honestly
like Clarie and Weezer, And it's because like this is
a big cast, but you need characters like that, like
you need the juxtaposition of characters like that in a cast.
And I think they're so well done, like it's like
done to perfection for me, So they are a close second.
But yeah, Malyna and Shelby are just it's just beautiful
watching this mother.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
It's weird because it's like you're watching her.

Speaker 6 (24:33):
You're watching a mother allow what she thinks is almost
like allow her daughter to make decisions for herself, even
though she's a grown woman. But you also see the
mother intuition of her, like instinctively knowing like this isn't
gonna be good, Like you can see that she knows
like it's not gonna end up well, and you can

(24:54):
also see I think that Shelby knows it's not gonna
end up well, but they both are committed to life,
loving each other and just hoping that maybe there's an
outcome that isn't worst case scenario it ends up being.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
That, but also just the blessing of.

Speaker 6 (25:10):
You know, Shell be still having her son and like
it's the lesson of like she wanted more life with
her son, but she also got to experience it, and
maybe that was enough for her, you know what I mean, Like,
maybe that was okay. And sometimes that happens, and I
think it's the people that are left behind that are
grieving the most. But for Shelby, I thought maybe she was, like,

(25:34):
I'm just grateful that I had the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
I mean, it's so well first, can't who's your favorite parent?

Speaker 4 (25:41):
Oh? And I'm not just saying this to be like
to say a different answer from everyone else, but I'm
I'm Weezer and Clari all the day that we all
have a different parent. Yeah, Weezer's my gal. I want
to be exactly like Weezer when I get older. And yeah,
I just I love that friendship to I love this

(26:02):
scene where Clarity is like Anne Berlin had six fingers
on one hand. I'm telling you this to make you
more cultured and broaden your horizons and then we users
just like I don't give a shit about that. I
hate plays and movies and blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
So I mean and just so so so well played
to like, I love Shirley McLean so much. What a
legend truly. Okay, so let's go back to Molin and
Shelby for a second, because I agree that they are
like as close to protagonists as this movie can get,

(26:41):
because the you know, main beats of the story go
around Shelby's life and death. Basically, yes, So what I
didn't know and I think that we didn't talk about
this very extensively the first time we discussed this movie
is you know, I think that it viewed out of context.
There appeared to be some kind of trophy things at

(27:01):
play here where I always feel like hyper tuned to
like motherhood is the most important thing that anyone with
a uterus can do and blow blah, and like, I
think that that's true. But when I learned more about
the context of why this movie exists in the first place,
it's all very based in the author's life and the
author's sister, Susan. So there is a as close as

(27:27):
this movie has to an oral history.

Speaker 5 (27:29):
In a magazine called Garden and Gun.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
Question Mark, I saw that and as soon as I
was like, you, you don't want to read this, and.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
I just unfortunately the article is quite good. I think
it is like a southern magazine, so it makes sense
that they would write about Steele Magnolius. It's very saving
movie either way. I was put together by a writer
named Julia Reid in twenty seventeen. There's interviews with Shirley
maclain as well as Margot Martindale, who is the original oh.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah in the play love Margo. Also wow, didn't know
that back.

Speaker 4 (28:07):
Here director Margot Martindale. Yep.

Speaker 6 (28:10):
So only heavy hitters can participate in anything that has
to do with Still.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Magnolias, right, So it's primarily the writer Robert Harling, Margot Martindale,
who played Mullin off Broadway, and Shirley McLain are the
three main sources for this story. But it's a lot
of Robert Harling talking about how his sister was a
Type one diabetic who really wanted to have a baby
and died very young. Like her story lines up pretty

(28:35):
closely with Shelby's. And he was an actor.

Speaker 5 (28:39):
He was Viga New York.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
He is from the South, he was queer like, he
had all these separate struggles with his family because he's
a boomer, you know, then lost his sister really young.
Who was always so supportive towards him, and so he
wanted to, even though he wasn't a writer, wanted to
memorialize her in some way, and so wrote a play

(29:02):
version of this, which makes Once you know this movie
was originally a play, it totally makes sense because the
set pieces are so like the parlor, the wedding, the funeral,
the hospital. But he originally wrote it off Broadway and
was afraid to tell his family because he was afraid

(29:23):
that they would find it disrespectful. And so I have
a quote from him here speaking to that where he
first showed his mom the script. It's so sad. He's like,
you don't have to read it. It's about you and
Susan and the whole thing. But she's a steel magnolia.
She was going to read it. I gave her the
script and I'd walk past and she'd be sobbing, and
I felt terrible. Afterward, I said, Mom, will just kill it.

(29:44):
I can't put you through this, and she said it's
wonderful because it's true. She just closed it and that
was it. End of topic. And they saw the show.
They were very supportive of it. The show is very successful.
And then it was turned into this gigantic movie. And
the only other things I think that are notable about
the production, other than it being based on a true story,

(30:06):
is that the.

Speaker 4 (30:07):
Director of this movie nasty.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
He was mean, and Shirley McLain yelled at him. But yes,
the director, Herbert Ross, who also, I mean, directed a
bunch of famous movies, and I guess was a shitty
person and was cruel to Julia Roberts and Dolly Parton,
like what kind of person must you be? But Shirley

(30:34):
McClain got wind of it, and she said, then one day,
I basically told him to go fuck himself, and everybody
heard it and things got better after that. So Shirley
McLain just simply not fucking around. Never has been some.

Speaker 6 (30:48):
One had to say it, apparently, and it would make
sense that it was hard it literally, if someone was
like guess who in the cast said that, I would
be like, gave me the million dollars easily.

Speaker 5 (31:00):
So those are the sort of main production beats.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
But I think that it was sort of helped me
work through my feelings on Shelby's character, at her relationship
with Mullyann, knowing how close it was to the author.

Speaker 4 (31:13):
Yeah, Yeah, I'll add to that just a little bit
by sharing some kind of like quotes and paraphrasing of
what Robert Harlan has said. I'm pulling from a daily
Mail dot co dot UK.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
You're like, I won't read the Garden and Gun piece,
but let me take faith Brustworthy.

Speaker 4 (31:35):
Yeah, our sources today are really good. But they did
an interview with him. Robert Harling was talking about his
choice to write this. He obviously did it to honor
his sister's memory and kind of keep her metaphorically alive,
so to speak. He wrote the first draft in like

(31:57):
ten days or something like that. It came out very quickly,
and he speaks about trying to kind of capture the
language of how the women around him spoke. And he says,
I don't care what people say. I wrote down what
I heard. The women in my town talked in bumper stickers.
They were funny, funny people. And I'm like watching this

(32:20):
and I'm like, is this how people talk? Is this like? What? Like?
They're so quippi and I love the quippy dialogue. And
he was saying, like, no, this is authentically how the
people in my town spoke.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
And I also loved He had a quote in that
oral history piece about how he was really nervous he
would never admit who he based Weezer on because he
was afraid that she'd be offended. Oh yeah, but that
his mom saw the play, it was like, oh, it's
obvious who that is. And he was like, oh, well,
I guess I'm not as sneaky as I thought.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
Cats out of the bag.

Speaker 6 (32:56):
I just love that, like Weezer is described as a
town ground and like it's just so funny because like
every town has one, everybody knows one, you.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Know what I mean? And I think that there needed
to be one in this movie and.

Speaker 5 (33:11):
Play yeah, and they're always beloved character.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
I also I wish that this movie had the courage
to let Weezer and Clary be queer. I will die
on this hill. I think that that is the ultimate
what should happen. But I also do think it's powerful
that they gave her a boyfriend that she hated who
was shorter than her. I was like, wow, representation matters.

(33:35):
As a six foot TALLOVID who has dated many shorter
men that she did not like, I felt seen in
that moment. But Okaya, back to Molina Shelby. Yeah, their relationship.
I think I didn't respond to it as well the
first time I saw this movie.

Speaker 5 (33:51):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
I think it's more just like because their relationship is
so entrenched in the idea of maternal sacrifice, right like
on both ends, where Molynn is not just willing to
physically do anything she can to support her daughter, but
emotionally we see her really struggle with accepting her daughter's

(34:15):
decisions because she knows that it's going to hurt her.
But the more I watch this movie, the more I
appreciate it. And maybe it's just like getting a little
older myself, where you know, I don't think it is
fair that this is an expectation of women or of
mothers in general, where we see we see fathers throughout

(34:36):
this movie, but they're mostly like hindrances, incidental. Yeah, they're
like blowing up trees, They're like leaking your pregnancy in public,
Like they're not being super helpful, which is you know,
authentic to a lot of parents. Is like the mom
is carrying the physical and emotional burden of her children's lives.

(35:02):
And I think when I take it into context of
we have so many other characters who are women in
this movie that are not in their story is not
entrenched in motherhood. I mean, we got Weezer, We've got Truviy,
We've got you know, there's plenty of other people to
look to for different kinds of stories, and Mulnn especially.

(35:22):
I love Shelby, but I just I feel for Malyn
so much. She's put in this horrible position to have
to kind of like grin and bear it through knowing
what is going to happen, and it's I think it's
just like so well performed, and like what else can
you do not have a relationship with your daughter when
you know you're gonna lose her. It's just so sad.

(35:45):
And then she has to raise Shelby's damn kid for her.
I was like, Mulin, give this woman a break. Oh
my god, I don't know.

Speaker 6 (35:53):
I think I really I think part of it is
getting older that.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Allows me to connect with it even more. I mean,
I always, I always.

Speaker 6 (36:00):
Have loved a mother daughter's story, but I think, especially
as I get older, I'm like, ooh, this is really
it's just real.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Like my mom.

Speaker 6 (36:09):
Said to me once, it's just me and my sister.
But she said to me once and it made so
much sense. She was like, you're only as happy as
a mother. She was like, you're only as happy as
your least happy child, And that applies to happiness, that
applies to health, that applies to.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Anything, like right, some mothers really.

Speaker 6 (36:28):
Struggle with like being able to kind of like be detached,
for a lack of a better term, from their children,
like not taking everything that's going on with their children
on for themselves. And I think that's what we saw
with Malynne. But like I said, it makes me think
about what my mom said, Like Moline is struggling because
her daughter's struggling. And I think there's even a point
in the movie where she almost there's this this feeling

(36:51):
of where she's like, don't you see, like there's no
other way for me to be, Like I can't enjoy
my life if my daughter is dying.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
It's impossible for me to do, Like I don't know
what you all expect from me, you know what I mean?
Like I wish I felt differently too.

Speaker 6 (37:07):
I'm paraphrasing all this obviously, but like that was the
energy of like I can't enjoy my life when my
daughter's losing hers I can't. And I just think it's real,
Like it's very very, very very real.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
And you know, in the end.

Speaker 6 (37:25):
Like you were saying, you know she you know, Shelby dies,
she has to raise Jackson Junior. And I think that
Malynn looks at it as like, thank you God, like
I still have a piece of my daughter with me.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
This is not how I wanted it to go, but
like I get.

Speaker 6 (37:43):
This, Like I think she almost saw it as like
a gift, like, oh my God, like she truly is
always with me and I get to have a piece
of her with me for the rest of my life.
And I just think that's really beautiful and like the
thought that, like life does go on, no parent wants
to lose their child. But with her knowing that she

(38:06):
has to keep living for her daughter's child, it just
shows that like she still has a purpose in her life.
She still is able to keep going on loving and
giving that love she gave Shelby giving it to Jackson Junior.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
And she's going to be okay.

Speaker 6 (38:20):
There's a spirit of like she's going to be okay,
especially because she has all of these women around her
who love and support her and are going to make
sure she's lifted through it. And so I also love,
you know, the messaging of like sisterhood and community. If
you were to throw all these people together, they don't
really fit right, Like you would be like, why does.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
This person know that person? Why is this person hanging
out with?

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Like, but when you.

Speaker 6 (38:44):
See what they all experience together and how they held
each other through it, then you're like, oh wow, Like
the only way that Melinne could have gotten through this
was with community. The only way and now takes the
shield was through community. And it truly is this all
Louisiana town, But it's a community and it's a village
and it's powerful.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
And that's a big takeaway for me in the film too.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
I think that's so beautifully put Ashley, Like how the
community of women, even though we know that there are
men in this community and that they're important to the community,
but this story is so clearly focused on like Maln
couldn't have made it through this experience without the women
in her life, because I feel like often in stories

(39:28):
about mothers and daughters, like one of the two gets
lost in the shuffle. Kind of Yeah, I like that
this movie, and I'm sure it's partially because the author
was writing and thinking about his own mother. We get
moments to like really see Milinn process and like struggle
with it. There's that scene at the party where her

(39:51):
dufus husband is like, Shelby's pregnant without seeming to it
seems like he cannot engage with the stakes of that
situation and he's sort of bull dozing through it because
he's like, we have to be happy, so we're going
to be happy. We don't really know what his journey is.
I don't really care what his journey is. But we
see Melynn like she feels like shit in the other room,

(40:11):
and all of the other women, you know, they're like,
why are you acting this way? And she's like, because
I'm going to lose my daughter, like I think, and
I like that. They Yeah. You get those moments to
see her really struggling with it, and through having those
conversations with the other women, get the compassion that she
needs to move forward, and also the reminder that, like

(40:34):
as horrible as the situation is, Shelby needs you. And
Shelby gets those moments too where you know she is
making a very informed decision, she knows what she's doing.
She knows what the stakes are and it's what she wants.
And I feel like it's very built into her character,
is that, like, it's what she wants. She wants to

(40:56):
have a biological child, and I appreciate that the alternatives
are brought up repeatedly and she's like, no, I don't
want that, because I think sometimes it's like there's yeah,
like a biological child.

Speaker 5 (41:07):
It's the only way.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
But everyone's like, Shelby, you could adopt a baby, and
she's like, no, it's not what I want. This is
what I want to do. And you know, I think
that that is as much as you want to be, like, Shelby,
come on, you'd be a great mother to an adopted baby, Shelby,
come on. I do appreciate, though, that her character is

(41:31):
very clear on what she wants, is not being naive
about what the stakes of that are, and is doing
what is right for her, and that you see that
tension between Jackson and Malynn that kind of results in
that because I think Malynn is wanting Jackson to push
back on it more and Jackson sort of like, I

(41:53):
have to accept what she wants.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:58):
I also appreciate that I feel like Generally speaking, a
lot of people's kind of immediate reaction to learning that
someone is pregnant is like, oh my god, that's amazing, congratulations,
best news ever, And rarely do you see people being
pragmatic about that type of news, and like, is this

(42:21):
the best choice financially? Is this the best choice for
your health? And I appreciate that Malinn is like being
very pragmatic about this, like do you know the risks
because the first time you hear that, oh, it's not
possible for Shelby to get pregnant, and so we think, oh,
there's something about her physiology that will make getting pregnant impossible.

(42:46):
But then we learn that what was meant by that
is like, if you do get pregnant, this could be
potentially lethal to your health. And later in a conversation
when Mali and it's revealed to the other group of
women that Shelby is pregnant. I can't remember if Millenne
tellism or not, but again, their a gut reaction, Oh

(43:08):
my god, amazing, this is wonderful because we thought she
couldn't get pregnant, and it's like, no, it's not that
she couldn't get pregnant. It's that she shouldn't. There's a
big difference, and so they have this discussion about it,
and people realize like, oh, this is this is a
huge risk. And I just appreciate like the pragmatism that
goes into discussing that, because I feel like that is

(43:31):
often left out of those conversations, and I just appreciated
seeing it.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
I also wanted to just touch on really quickly how
this movie because I feel like I cannot think of
many movies where there's a character who has diabetes. I
don't know a lot about diabetes as a condition, so
I wanted to do a little research into it to
see if, because it is such a common thing, to

(43:58):
see how people who have to type one diabetes felt
about how it's portrayed in the space of this movie.
And again with the knowledge that this is a dramatized
version of what happened to the writer's sister. But there
does seem to be a sort of split.

Speaker 5 (44:15):
Opinion in the community.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
I think some people find it to be over dramatized,
and you know a way that it's like, you know,
type one diabetes is certainly not a death sentence in
the way that I think this movie, you could read
this movie presenting it. There's a writer named Rachel Kerstetter
who wrote in Healthline about watching this movie after getting

(44:38):
diagnosed with type one diabetes. She says, I know, Steel
mcnulias brings up a lot of different opinions and feelings,
especially among US ladies. I mentioned to my best friend
I was going to watch it, and she recommended very
strongly that I shouldn't, but of course I did.

Speaker 5 (44:52):
She said.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
The reality is that Steele mcnuliaus portrays a time when
diabetes management was much different from today, a time before
continuous glue, the coast monitors existed, and even insulin pumps
were really mainstream, before the A one C test was
established as a gold standard for diabetes management, and prior
to factor acting insulins and analogs being introduced. Today's reality

(45:13):
is thankfully different, even though economic and cultural gaps certainly
exists that prevent people from getting ideal treatment. But basically,
she felt that it was somewhat dramatized because Shelby's character
is so specific. I think there's a world and we
talk about this with a lot of conditions we've seen
portrayed on screen. You know, presenting a condition and presenting

(45:36):
it in a pretty prescriptive way that like, if you
didn't know anything about type one diabetes, this movie would
probably scare you. And I just thought it was interesting
that there was a fair amount of diversity of opinion,
although everyone seems too that. I mean, the few pieces
that I read, there was a general agreement that this
scene where Shelby's character has a hypoglycemic attack and her

(46:01):
mother gives her juice, that that was pretty authentic and
well done, and other parts were a little more divisive.
But I really, I mean, I thought that was a
wonderful scene from the mother daughter perspective too, of just
like I feel like it's really it's like this dynamic
that I'm like, oh, that's been me and my mom

(46:23):
at some point where like Mullin is like, you know,
being kind of bullish and it's kind of like come on,
like drink the fucking juice, dude, and you know, Shelby's
being combat of it. Just like the steaks of the
scene are very high, but there's still this just like
vaguely combative mother daughter dynamic existing within that high stake

(46:44):
scene that I thought was really good.

Speaker 6 (46:46):
Yeah, I think That's one of the most memorable scenes
in the movie. I think when people think of Still Macho,
know as you think of the Orange Juice and the Punch, Yeah,
like those are two movie yes, well yeah, yeah, but yeah,
like those are like I would say, like, if you're
talking about Still Magnolia is somebody, it's bound to be like, oh, yeah,

(47:08):
the Orange Juice scene.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
That was crazy, Like that's what people are going to say.

Speaker 4 (47:12):
Yeah, for sure. It seems like Shelby is like upset.
She feels that her mom is trying to like micro
manage her, and it's like, well, she's trying to save
your life, right, yeah, but also like, yeah, you don't
want your mom interfering in all of your business all
the time. It is just like a very authentic, nuanced

(47:34):
mother daughter relationship that I think feels very familiar for
a lot of people. And it's obviously caring and loving,
but it's not without its faults and it's not There's
a scene where Shelby tells her mom that she's pregnant
and Melynn has this reaction of like, I'm not happy
for I'm not really going to congratulate you, because I

(47:55):
don't think this is a responsible choice, and all Shelby
wants is her mom support, and she says something like,
you're just pissed off because you can't control me anymore,
Like you don't. And I remember having a similar situation
with my mom where, you know, I was like a

(48:15):
full adult. My mom was still trying to micromanage a
lot of things in my life, and I was like,
you can't do this anymore. I am my own person.
I am very capable of making my own decisions. I
have my own autonomy. You don't get to call the
shots anymore, and you haven't been able to for a while, mom.
But it's just such a familiar thing, yeah, for so

(48:37):
many people, and that I.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Love that line from Shelby where she's like, don't talk
about me like I'm not here like I think, and
just that she's struggling. But it's like that is such
a dehumanizing, like feeling controlled, where Melyinn is and Melynn
is talking about her like Shelby isn't sitting in front
of her. And that doesn't mean that Melyn is bad
or wrong. She's just trying to manage the moment. But

(49:02):
of course that would be hurtful. I think that this
movie like it rewards A rewatches so much because the
first time I watched this movie, I was confused because
the exact nature of Shelby's condition is like you don't
find out for a while, like what exactly is going on?

(49:22):
And the first time you're seeing it, you're like, why
is this marriage? Like what is going on with this marriage?
Maybe happening, maybe not happening. It felt like an interesting
experience where it's just like you never know what someone's
going through, You never know what's going on in someone's life,
and witnessing a relationship dynamic isn't understanding it because with
both Shelby and Jackson and Shelby and Malin, it's not

(49:43):
immediately clear what's going on. I remember the first time
I was watching it, I was like, why is Shelby
being such a brat? Or like in different moments, I'm
like why is Jackson being so pushy? Or like, which
you could still like why why is the Lynn being
so mean to her? Like what is and being.

Speaker 4 (49:59):
Like you should quit your job? Is you shouldn't be
on your feet all day? I was like, yeah, whoa,
what decade are.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
We in the context, It's like, oh, okay, even if
you don't agree with every dynamic, the context of it
makes sense.

Speaker 5 (50:14):
And I don't know, I don't feel like there's a lot.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Of movies like that that when you watch it back,
you're like, oh, you know exactly where everyone's coming from,
whether they are being overly controlling or like you know,
bringing too much of themselves to the table or not.
Like it's just.

Speaker 5 (50:28):
It's really cool. And I you know, every single time.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
You're just like, Shelby, come on, Shelby, listen to your mother.
Mother knows best, but she's gotta she's got to do
it her way. And and I love yeah that, Like
for Molin, there is as happy an ending as is
available to her where she's still, like you're saying, Ashley
still has a piece of her daughter and has this

(50:52):
community to raise her daughter. And then there's a baby
Shelby on the way with a.

Speaker 4 (51:01):
Now oh yes, yes, can we talk.

Speaker 5 (51:03):
About it now a little bit?

Speaker 4 (51:05):
Yes?

Speaker 5 (51:06):
I love it now.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
I just think she's I.

Speaker 4 (51:10):
Don't sorry about it.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
I mean I've sort of said exactly why already. But
there's a few She's not like a super big character,
but there's a few story but it's of hers that
I really appreciated that. It's just again, like stuff you
don't see very often. She is very insecure about where
she's at in her life. She's insecure about her own poverty.

(51:33):
That's seen at the wedding where she is hungry but
doesn't have money for food and then is told like, no,
it's a wedding, the food is free, and she's like,
oh shit, Like she was hungry and was like embarrassed
to tell anybody and embarrassed that like.

Speaker 4 (51:49):
She has this torrid past quote unquote, and she was
very kind of withholding about that information because she wasn't
sure how she would be received. And oh, will anyone
hire a woman who may or may not be married,
because she like she's not sure of the legitimacy of
her marriage, if it's actually legal or not. Her husband

(52:11):
is like a criminal on the run of course, like
that you would be probably like self conscious of and
yeah it's and everyone's just like it's okay, we'll take
care of you, and you're like.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Exactly, I just I really like that. And it's like
her arc is pretty simple from there again, it's like
pretty prescriptive and unimaginative that like her happy ending is
like finding a guy who isn't evil and having a baby.
I don't think we're necessarily told exactly what Annelle wants
out of life, so maybe that is what she wanted.
I'm not totally clear. In my dream scenario, she and

(52:46):
Truvy open a successful chain of salons across the globe.
But I mean, I do like that she you know,
it's through her friendship with these women and especially through
her mentorship with Truvy that she doesn't just like improve
her life materially, but also seems to like rid herself

(53:08):
of a lot of the shame and embarrassment that we
see her experiencing when Truviy first gives her a shot.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
So I via these relationships with all these women.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
We do have the classic trope though of like, wow,
Daryl Hannah famously hot woman. If you took your glasses off,
you'd be so beautiful. Yeah, you're like sure, great.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Yeah, I also love all the names. That's just great,
so good character names.

Speaker 4 (53:37):
Weezer now which.

Speaker 6 (53:39):
Weezer is spelled with the oh, by the way, it's
not like her bad name.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
Her name is I think Louisa or Louisa, Louise, something
like that, And so her nickname is is Weezer, which
I think is kind of brilliant.

Speaker 6 (53:53):
Yeah, like, how do you even come up with that?
Is that a thing that people are doing in Louisiana?
Like I would have literally never thought.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Of that, right, And I'm going name is?

Speaker 1 (54:01):
I mean, I'm like, and when did that? Can you
imagine calling a child like Wheezer a good home.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
For Yeah, get your ass over here. The thing I
don't like about Annelle's character is when she gets like
very holier than now religious.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
It gets weird.

Speaker 4 (54:20):
But I do like that she seems to come around
a little bit on the end where someone tells her
to lighten up, and then she makes like a joke
kind of at her own expense, and then she gets
pushed cut to a few months.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
There's like one point where Annelle talks out of turn
in like I think a hyper religious guy ambulance like, yeah, no,
you're not going to get me to be a happy kid.
My daughter died, Get the fuck out of my face.
And you're like, yeah, she deserved that. She deserved that
big time.

Speaker 4 (54:48):
And so I do like that her arc is like
her lightning up and we even see her tell her
husband that he has to lighten up, so it's like, Okay,
she's starting to get it.

Speaker 1 (54:56):
Right, and she's I think also maybe the same ages
shall be But I think she's maybe supposed to be
the youngest character too, Like she's pretty young. And although
Julia Roberts was twenty two in this movie, and she's
already like fucking oh.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
I thought she was only nineteen.

Speaker 5 (55:12):
Oh maybe it was shot even earlier.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (55:15):
She might have been nineteen and missed pizza doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
And yeah, I think the companion character Tonel is Truvy.
I love Truvy. I also I don't like that she's
burdened with this like needing to reconcile with her shitty
husband storyline. I would have rather that real estate be
used for kind of anything else. What I love about
Truvia is that she's Dolly Parton. That's great. I also

(55:43):
love that she is like a business owner. She prioritizes
giving like young women in her community opportunities. She's a gossip,
she's a good friend. She's very empathetic and like the
stuff with her and her husband, which by the end
seems to be like way more important to the story
than we were originally led to believe. I just like,

(56:05):
I feel pretty ambivalent towards it. I'm just like, yeah, like,
you're not good enough for her, You're not gonna gives
me you are.

Speaker 4 (56:13):
Well, that's that's one of my criticisms about this movie.
But I'm also trying not to be too critical of
it because it is, you know, it's a very female
driven story that centers this group of women and their
lives and their relationships, and we get to see what's
important to them, and they're you know, pursuing the things
that are important to them. The things that are important

(56:35):
to them are often what you'd associate with very like
traditional womanhood or traditional femininity type of things. And again,
I don't want to be too critical of that because
many people men, some feminists will be like, oh, things
that are so hyper feminine or so traditionally rooted in

(56:59):
like what's expected of womanhood or whatever. I think it's
overly criticized.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Yeah, in a way that is that makes those ambitions
see amazing salid which obviously the point Phrasem is letting
everyone do what the fuck they want. It's safe, just.

Speaker 4 (57:13):
Do whatever the fuck they want. And yeah, this is
a movie made in the eighties that seems to very
much reflect the values of like southern white women in one.

Speaker 6 (57:25):
Very eighties it's like very eighties Louisiana, Like, yeah, they're
in a parish, like.

Speaker 4 (57:32):
Mmm mm hmmm. And in that way, it doesn't like
those things don't interest me personally. So that's one of
the reasons I have a hard time connecting with this movie.
But there's something to be said for a movie that
centers women and allows women to talk about what's important
to them, even if it doesn't reflect my exact experience.

Speaker 6 (57:53):
Yeah, it definitely doesn't reflect my experience, but I like,
couldn't be any further.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
But again, I think what helps me is.

Speaker 6 (58:03):
That I am a daughter of a mother, so I
can connect to that and community and sisterhood has two
saved my life in a lot of ways. And so
again that's something that I have a different perspective of
it at the older I get, and I think it's
the portrayal of that in this movie is actually really beautiful. Yeah,

(58:26):
And can I also add I think something else I
really like about the movie is that it highlights how
in your tribe or in your community, there's a lot
of diversity and I don't mean.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Ethnic diversity.

Speaker 4 (58:43):
Do they not know as single black or brown person?

Speaker 6 (58:46):
Yikes, one in one thousand percent. They were avoiding the
black people in the town. It's fine, I know it.
We don't even have it.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
We're in Louisiana.

Speaker 6 (58:54):
They were on the other side of town. They never
saw them, never interacted with black people.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Probably, But.

Speaker 6 (59:00):
There's a lot of diversity. There's a lot of personality diversity,
and I think that you know, when you look at
your friend circles or your community, it's the same for you.
Like you have to have different characters in your story
because you never know which one you're gonna need to
call on, and if everybody's the same, then that's not
really helpful or productive. So I love that they're all

(59:22):
such distinct characters, which again it happens in movies, but
I think they're very distinct because it was a play,
like to your point, like you know, there's a wedding,
there's a funeral, there's a hospital.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
But anyway, I do like the diversity and personality in.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
The movie for sure, because even though we get you know,
with Annell and Truvi's subplots, they're pretty centered around the
men in their lives and those different dynamics. Then you've
got Clari and Weezer, and their subplots are more focused
on the friendship among themselves and they're like kind of

(01:00:00):
love hate relationship where they're always getting on each other's cases,
but it's out of a place of love. And again,
I love the Clary trying to like broaden their cultural
horizons and Weezer being like I don't like to watch
movies because they only have naked people in them, and
I hate books, and I hate.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
I love Clary and Weezer. I mean, like, again, this
movie is so glaringly excessively white in Louisiana. And we'll
get to in a second how there was a remake
of this movie with an all black cast in twenty
twelve that I believe aired on Lifetime. We'll get there
in a second. But Clary and Weezer, I don't want

(01:00:41):
to know how they vote. However, I do, like, I
just love a couple of broads saying fucking whatever.

Speaker 5 (01:00:52):
It is so fun to watch.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
They both seem like pretty wealthy as well, where it's
like there's that great line from Weezer where it's like
people are only nice to me because I have more
money than God, and I was like, whoa okay, or
like Clarie doing the like you know whatever, girl bossing
the fuck out, Yes a radio station so she could
like be a sports commentator question Mark. Like they're on

(01:01:15):
these side quests. We get those moments together and we
also see I think it's like with Clary that Weezer
is most comfortable showing her gentler side, even if Clarie
is only going to give her shit for it. But
I always think of the scene of the two of
them in the grocery store where Weezer said, you know,
sort of something casual and offhand about death in front

(01:01:38):
of Shelby, not realizing what Shelby was going through, and
then saying to Clarie when they were alone, like I
shouldn't have said that, that was wrong. I had no idea.
And it's just nice to see like they are the
more cartoony characters of the cast, which I think older
women are often written to be more cartoonish, But it
doesn't bug me because we have the context for who

(01:02:01):
they are and we see other sides of them. They're
not just acting out these like stereotype older women characters.
They get moments to be together.

Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
I don't even think they're written cartoonishly. I think they're
just extentially I.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
Mean, whos are getting dragged around by a horse of
a dog for the better.

Speaker 5 (01:02:20):
Part of it?

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Yeah, that's truth I love.

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
But also I'm just like, I don't know, I feel
like some people just be doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Yeah, it all tracked for me. It didn't. No one
felt too big or too small to me.

Speaker 6 (01:02:33):
Actually it all worked, and I think the small town
of it all helps that. I think that if this
like took place in Los Angeles that like it wouldn't
work in.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
The same way, you know what I mean, or like
Seattle or something. I don't know it, but there is
something that made it really believable for me. And it didn't.

Speaker 6 (01:02:53):
It didn't bump me, and I tend to get bumped
very easily when watching things.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
I'm always bumped.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
Yeah, I think they all feel it. And I think
that like the story really takes time for every character
at some point to have a moment that we see
either like a more vulnerable part of them or have
more information about them to contextualize why they're acting the
way they are. And I just I mean, I could
have watched different arrangements of these six characters for another hour,

(01:03:24):
like I really wanted, I wanted to touch really quickly on. Yes,
there was a remake of this movie in twenty twelve.
It was directed by Kenny Leon, who was most noted
before then for directing a Broadway production of A Raisin
in the Sun. A black director and a black leading cast.

(01:03:45):
We had Queen Latifa, Jill Scott, Alfred Woodard at Apero Adouye,
Felicia Rossad, and Condola Rashad. It was I think the
movie got kind of mixed reviews when it came out,
and it was only broadcast on television in spite of
I mean, that's like an unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (01:04:04):
Cast, truly.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
And I watched it two years ago when we first
covered it. I haven't rewatched it same. It is the
same movie, right made with I think like a far
lesser budget, which seems to be very pointed, right.

Speaker 4 (01:04:22):
And we've had similar discussions about like all female reboots
of like originally male casted movies, So we've seen kind
of an uptick. Especially I feel like twenty eighteen or
so was like the peak of I guess the all
black reboot for lack of a better term, where you

(01:04:44):
got movies like Death at a Funeral, what women want
instead of what men want.

Speaker 5 (01:04:50):
I blocked that out.

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
You got little instead of big. So in a lot
of these cases, they were not only like black reboots,
but all female reboots. The point being like with these reboots,
they take an existing marketable property with either a predominantly
white cast or male cast or both, and then reboot
it with like, oh, now it's all women, or now

(01:05:15):
it's black people or both, rather than giving women and
black people a chance to just tell their own original stories.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
Yes, and this was in twenty twelve, so I feel
like it's even a little bit ahead of that trend. Yes, yeah,
I mean my feeling on it, it's kind of twofold
where the reboot culture, I mean, I think at this
point it's played out to the point where it's no
longer even financially successful.

Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
But I think it just like.

Speaker 1 (01:05:43):
Sets marginalized creatives and performers up for failure by like
not giving anyone the opportunity to tell an original story.
It's like, no, actually this like we know that this
story works, so maybe people will like, you know, It's
just it feels condescending and shitty and to be given

(01:06:04):
such a smaller budget and platform than the original Steel
Magnolias on top of that feels insult to injury.

Speaker 5 (01:06:12):
Even though the cast is fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Yeah for sure. I mean the cast is stacked.

Speaker 6 (01:06:19):
Kenney Leon is a very well known director, especially in
the theater world. You know, I think for me, I
as a black woman, as a black artist, I always
like feel bad basically, like when I don't connect with

(01:06:39):
the black version of something, it almost feels like I
have to or I should.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
I don't know if that's making sense.

Speaker 6 (01:06:47):
Hopefully it does, but there's this like guilt associated with it,
like if I don't like love it, And I think
for me, the biggest issue. I thought the cast was fantastic,
but I think the biggest issue from me when we
do this, when we do the black version of something,
or the you know, LATINX version of something or whatever
the Asian version of something, is that oftentimes it's trying

(01:07:13):
to be too much like the original version that's already
too white. So it's almost like it has to be
more different, and it wasn't different enough for me to
resonate with it, if that makes sense, Like it was
like you, I think you said, like it was basically
the exact same thing. It couldn't be the exact same

(01:07:33):
thing because now we're dealing with black women. We don't
live the same experience and even kind of the same way.
So I needed more of a differentiation outside of just
we're in a black hair salon doing black hair. It's
not enough, you know. And another like this is like

(01:07:55):
a small note, but kind of a big note to me,
is that like I think for a short shot and
Condola shots should have played the daughter. Yeah, they should
have been Melin and Shelby.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
That would have to me. I don't know why Queen
Latifa was Milan.

Speaker 6 (01:08:09):
I'm very confused by love Ql, but like I just
needed And so it makes me like think like we're
Felicia and Condola, like we by no means want to
play mother and daughter. Like I'm just like, why why
didn't she do it with her actual mother?

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
I just don't understand that's her actual mother.

Speaker 6 (01:08:28):
I just think that would have been It would have
been beautiful, I think, And because for me it was
Quinn Latifah and Condola that I kind of didn't really believe.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
I just was kind of like, it's not your mom.

Speaker 6 (01:08:40):
Because your mom's sitting right there seeing it was contracting.
It was not confusing, it was distracting. I just was
watching the whole time, like, but your actual mom is
sitting there and you're both fantastic actors.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
Why couldn't Why didn't we do that?

Speaker 6 (01:08:55):
But anyway, that's kind of like my review of that.
But and I remember when this came out. I remember
auditioning for Shelby.

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
Yeah, I mean this.

Speaker 6 (01:09:03):
I moved to LA in twenty ten. You know, I
was twenty four years old at that time. Like this
was the time that they were calling all the black girls.
It was like a big deal. And again, you all
know my history and my connection to the movie, so
I was like, this is great. Condola obviously got the part,
and she's lovely and fantastic. But I remember this time,
and I remember being, you know, anticipating and watching it

(01:09:23):
with all my girlfriends and feeling exactly what I just
told you, Like, why aren't I fully connecting with this?

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
It's my truth.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
Yeah, I am very frustrated by that pattern. I am
hopeful that it seems like at least it's not happening
with the frequency that it was this time five or
six years ago, but it's still Yeah, I don't think so.
It's so clear even in like, I mean, part of
the reason that Steel Magnolius works is because it is
so specific in the story that it's telling, and so

(01:09:55):
it's like every community should have the opportunity to tell
a story with that level of sephicity instead of treating
it as a one size fits all kind of story.

Speaker 4 (01:10:05):
Yes, yeah, I just saw a mother daughter movie last
night in the theater.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
I saw X.

Speaker 4 (01:10:13):
No, I did it, well, I did see saw X,
but I did a double feature of Saw X and
the Persian version, which is a very culturally specific mother
daughter story in which, like motherhood plays a very large
role in both of their narratives, and it's just like
a very interesting examination of a mother daughter relationship. Would

(01:10:36):
recommend people see it.

Speaker 6 (01:10:38):
My favorite mother daughter movie is Oh my gosh, you
guys want to guess what my favorite mother daughter movie is?

Speaker 4 (01:10:44):
Oh my god? Can we have a hint.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
One of the actors and Still Magnolias is in it?

Speaker 4 (01:10:50):
Ooh, okay, is it.

Speaker 6 (01:10:55):
One of my favorite movies of all time? Actually, but
it's a mother daughter movie?

Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
Oh my god?

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
Is it? Dolly Garden Sally partner in another mother daughter movie.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
I don't I'm not Dolly.

Speaker 4 (01:11:07):
Is it Julia Robbers?

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
I can't tell you who it is, but she's in.
Do you want me to tell you what the movie is?

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
Just terms of endearment, surely, But Shirley McClain is the goat.
Oh my gosh, her favorite endearment forever. It's beautiful. I've
just rewatched The Apartment. She's just s t here. I
was like, what's my favorite mother daughter movie? I need

(01:11:33):
to think about it. I'm like, Freaky Friday, that's a
favorite one. But oh god, we should do we haven't done.
Terms of endearment.

Speaker 6 (01:11:43):
I was gonna say, if you guys do that one, please,
I want to come back and talk.

Speaker 4 (01:11:46):
Absolutely, you'll be coming back.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
That's one of my favorite movies of all time.

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
Absolutely, a couple of things I want to talk about.
And these are just sort of stray thought. Actually they're
kind of about the men in the movie. While brave
of me to bring up the men in the movie,
but as we've already mentioned, they're kind of not entirely
incidental to the plot. But they're certainly not the main

(01:12:14):
characters by any stretch of the imagination. And yeah, the
way that they are often talked about or just presented
on screen is like they're a nuisance, They're annoying. A
drum is like just bullying Weezer the whole time, in
like a kind of playful way but also sometimes a
scary way.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
I'm like, I don't even know if you see Milan
and him speak, I.

Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
Don't think so. But he does say He's like, I
make it a point never to deal with my wife,
and it's like, okay, feminist icon drum, Yeah, makes I
do appreciate. So Shelby has two brothers who have a
couple of lines here and there, but they're kind of
barely characters, which I think is especially interesting because the
writer who wrote this movie Your Sister is presumably one

(01:13:02):
of those brothers, and he didn't even write a character
for himself, which I think the way that a lot
of male egos are would not allow for like that
to happen in most cases. So I was like pleasantly surprised,
I'm in this icon Robert Harlan, Yes, and then yeah,
we get a few other men, like we meet Jackson
a few times, and although the way he's described Shelby's

(01:13:25):
like I thought he was a pest at first, but
then he kind of grew on me and now I
love him and it's like, okay, wow, tale as old
as time. We talked a little bit about Spud Truviy's husbands.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
Spud gets the best deal out of anyone, and I
don't understand why. At the end, they're like like, is
it just because it's Sam Shepard where they're like Spud,
you know, he was distant and rude for the majority
of the movie, but.

Speaker 5 (01:13:52):
Shell be dying.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
It almost feels like I've walck to remember sort of
thing where it's like it wasn't until this young woman
died in an untimely way that I, as a man,
learned I should be a little nicer. And you're like, whatever,
what what is that trope? It's so weird.

Speaker 4 (01:14:07):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:14:08):
It's a very tiny part of this movie, but I
was just like, great, Yeah, it's weird.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
Yeah, especially because I'm like, truth, he deserves the absolute
best and she has to accept this, this scraps of
a man.

Speaker 4 (01:14:22):
Yeah, she also has a scary son. People are like
turned out, Okay, he's just a little scary.

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
Yeah, honestly, like that'll be me one day I wanted
to also just quickly shut up. Robert Harley also wrote
The First Wives Club, Just something oh to.

Speaker 4 (01:14:38):
He also wrote soap Dish.

Speaker 8 (01:14:40):
I want to say, Okay, I also I hate to
add this in there, please, but Pa, he's Presbyterian and
he's gay, which I'm Presbyterian as well.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
But he also owns a plantation.

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
I saw that, yes in Louisiana.

Speaker 6 (01:14:57):
Which says was built in eighteen thirty, who held as
many as one hundred and four enslaved people.

Speaker 2 (01:15:06):
On the property.

Speaker 6 (01:15:07):
Okay, well, yeah, so he he owns a plantation. So
I gotta say it's it's knocking it down on my
list a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:15:16):
I gotten fuck that guy.

Speaker 1 (01:15:18):
Yeah yeah, Robert as someone to whose bread and butter
is writing stories of wealthy white women, not the plantation.

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):
Robert, like I guess Jesus doing it took a turn.
It took a turn for me, everybody, it's taking a turn.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
Yeah, yeah, take a wrecking ball to it, Robert.

Speaker 6 (01:15:40):
For Fox's sakes, it's great, but writing it in the
living room of the plantation is stressing me out.

Speaker 5 (01:15:49):
Yes, oh, for fuck's sake.

Speaker 4 (01:15:52):
Well, that's the end of the episode. I think I
want to say about like the way men are characterized
in this movie. That kind of brings it back to
the title of the movie. Moline is talking about the
moment that they take Shelby off of life support and

(01:16:13):
her being in the hospital room as Shelby passes away.
She's describing how Drum left, he couldn't take it, Jackson left.
I find it amusing. Men are supposed to be made
out of steel or something, and then meanwhile, like all
these men who are supposed to be you know, these
very hold it together. Oh nothing affects me because I'm

(01:16:33):
a big strong man kind of thing. They couldn't like
handle it emotionally, which I mean fair like it is
a very upsetting thing and devastating thing to deal with.
But I guess just kind of like the comment on
we as women, our strength is undervalue because it's emotional strength,
whereas like societally, we favor like the perceived physical strength

(01:16:57):
of men. Even though I don't want to be making
sweeping generalizations here, but I just like this. She's like,
wait a minute, men are supposed to be the strong
ones made of steel, but actually we are the steel magnolius.
So I don't know what my point is, but it's something.

Speaker 1 (01:17:20):
Is there any other stuff we wanted to touch on?

Speaker 4 (01:17:24):
This movie is very dense. I feel like we've only
kind of scratched the surface.

Speaker 5 (01:17:28):
But I could keep going.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
I feel it be covered a lot about it. I
feel good I've done.

Speaker 4 (01:17:32):
A great job here.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Today I'm reeling from this Robert Harling situation.

Speaker 4 (01:17:38):
Yeah, it really puts a damper on the whole damn thing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
It took a turn.

Speaker 6 (01:17:43):
Not gonna lie, but you know, I mean, also, what
we have to be honest about is like I had
to say it, but like, of course he probably owns
a plantation, Like it's he's from Louisiana.

Speaker 2 (01:17:54):
Like it's not it's.

Speaker 6 (01:17:56):
Not that surprising, which is the sad part really, but
like yeah, but reading it is like, oh wow, got
I gotta got, I gotta god.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
Who really don't somebody someone who has like a formative
influence on you as a kid, owns a plantation. It's
just fucking ridiculous.

Speaker 6 (01:18:13):
Yeah, but you know what not to like turn this
into that, But like it's just a part of being
black in America.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Like at any turn, you find.

Speaker 6 (01:18:24):
Out that something you've loved or something you've known or
something you've been a part of that it's connected to
slavery in some way or something that like a construct
that was meant to harm my people, and like it's
part of the trauma, you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):
Know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (01:18:43):
But it's also, like I said, part of the protection
is like having the awareness of like I'm not really shocked.
It all tracks like it tracks, but yeah, someone that
ownes a plantation can also write a beautiful movie too.

Speaker 2 (01:18:59):
That back. People then made a remake up Let's see.

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
I'm like, how do you How did you fucking sleep it?

Speaker 6 (01:19:05):
Like did they not know that? I didn't know that
to make right now? So maybe they didn't either, I
don't know. But like we then made a whole remake
of a man's movie who Owns a Plantation?

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):
It's you know, yeah, it's a lot of thoughts.

Speaker 4 (01:19:20):
Yeah, in the movie, you do see people of color
every so often, but they're always people working at the.

Speaker 1 (01:19:27):
West, like a few wedding guests.

Speaker 4 (01:19:29):
It's maybe a nurse. I think there's a black woman
who's a nurse who speaks to Shelby for like two
lines of dialogue, but I think those are the only
lines of dialogue spoken by a person of color in
the entire movie. Yeah, so yeah, Well, should we move
on to the Bechdel test and whether or not this.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
Movie, Yes, yes, it does for almost the entire movie.

Speaker 4 (01:19:55):
It Yeah, it does. They do once again, and I'm
trying not to be too critical this, but they are
almost constantly talking about like very traditionally feminine things, which
again is neither inherently positive or negative. Do I wish
we saw them talk about something other than weddings, babies,
relationships with men, which obviously that part doesn't pass the

(01:20:16):
Bechdel test, But you know, they're talking about the color.

Speaker 1 (01:20:18):
It's also a lot of health. Like, there's a lot
of talk about health. There's a lot of talk about like.

Speaker 4 (01:20:23):
They talk about Anne Boleyn having six fingers on one hand,
and that is the best pass of the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
I mean, they are talking about a lot of traditionally
feminine things, but I think that that is inherent to
this community. And you're getting a big range of opinions
on these issues too, Because if it would be just
more like we can all agree that wedding and baby
is awesome, Like if everyone was of the same mind,
I would maybe be more bothered by it. But because

(01:20:49):
of like this community and the fact that each character
has a pretty significantly different opinion on these issues.

Speaker 4 (01:20:58):
I think it's true they do. They gossip about other women.
In one case are fat shaming another woman, which.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
Dolly was wrong for that that woman was having the
time of her life and she looked great, so bye whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:21:13):
Yes, the movie does not really pass the reverse Spectel test,
meaning like men barely talk to each other. We see
a few interactions between Shelby's dad and her brothers, but
other than that, it is almost exclusively women talking to
each other. Sometimes they're talking about men, although I do
think that when Weezer, in response to something Annelle says,

(01:21:36):
Weezer says, men are the most horrible creatures. They will
ruin your life, you mark my words. I think that
still does pass the Bechdel tests.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
The spirit of the line passes the Bechdel test.

Speaker 4 (01:21:47):
Yeah. Oh, and then really quickly they talk about I
think it's Clari's nephew coming out is gay, and they're
all kind of like, what is what is that? What
are gay people? Nineteen eighty nine?

Speaker 1 (01:22:02):
Huh?

Speaker 4 (01:22:02):
And they have they all have track lighting in their
homes and they're all named what is it? Like Mark
Steve or something. Anyway, it was a less homophobic view
of queerness than I thought, Yeah, it's gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (01:22:16):
It didn't feel especially because it was written by a
gay writer. Like I was just like, yeah, is this
how this writer heard people talking about him when he
was growing I don't know. I sort of gave that
a pass just because the writer is from this area.

Speaker 5 (01:22:28):
It is queer.

Speaker 1 (01:22:30):
I also was like, I don't really know what they're
talking about here, if I'm being honest, I don't know
what track lighting is. And so I have no opinion
on that exchange. But what about the most important metric
in the entire world.

Speaker 4 (01:22:44):
Our nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a
scale of zero to five nipples based on examining it
through an intersectional feminist lens. I think I'll go ahead
and give this a little split down the middle, two
and a half nipples. I do appreciate that it is
a story that centers women dealing with everyday life and

(01:23:08):
also more kind of significant life moments grief and tragedy,
but also like you know, celebrations of life and having
babies and you know, getting married, and again very much
reflecting the values of the time and the values of yeah,
like southern white women in the eighties. But it's a

(01:23:30):
story that centers women and female friendships and female relationships
and mother daughter relationships and all these things that most
movies ignore. And it kind of sidelines men the way
that most movies do not, especially movies written by men.
So I thought it was a really interesting movie in
that regard, and it is I think, a very nice

(01:23:53):
way to honor that real life person memory Susan Susan.
And the movie is so so terribly white. And although
there is a little diversity among the personalities of the women,
the generations and ages, the class the women, we see

(01:24:14):
different classes, but it is they really just don't want
to be friends with any non white people. Yeah, and
that's pretty fucked up. I guess two and a half,
maybe three nipples, and I'll give one to the Armadillo cake,
I'll give one to Weezer, and I'll give one to Cleary.

Speaker 1 (01:24:37):
Yeah, I'm gonna go three. I would have gone three
and a half, but in spite of things I just
learned about, Robert Harling cannot So I'll go three. I
think that there is Yeah, just to echo it, you
said Caitlin. There is a clear lack of diversity in
terms of the races of these women. It feels pointed,

(01:24:59):
and I don't know, I'm gonna be thinking about the
conversation we had with the reboot for a while. I
think that there is an interesting kind of second act
to the way that it seems like it was attempted
to course correct when the reality is that there should
have been a widely funded, you know, ensemble movie about
black women. It didn't need to be the same story

(01:25:20):
over again. So I think that for what this movie is,
there are a lot of unique aspects to it.

Speaker 5 (01:25:27):
I like the mother daughter relationship.

Speaker 1 (01:25:30):
And just this like impossible, emotionally driven situation. And I
like that they're surrounded by women that are so different
from them who they very much need to make it through.
I think that that is like the core beautiful thing
about this movie, and that it has the good sense
to keep the men in their life very much on
the sidelines, which you never ever ever get. Like the

(01:25:51):
gripes I have with the presence men do have never
last more than thirty seconds, So I can live with that. Yeah,
So I'm going to give this movie three nipples. I'm
going to give one the Weezer. I'm also going to
give one to the Armadilla Cake, and I'm going to
give the final one to the woman dancing at the wedding.
She did nothing wrong. Mm hmmm, Ashley, what do you think?

Speaker 6 (01:26:13):
Yeah, I think I'm gonna go with three two. I'm
gonna give it three nipples. You know, just everything you
all said. I mean, I think kind of to go
back to what you said about like the lack of diversity,
I think the truth is, like I'm okay with it,
only because it wouldn't have made sense anyway, Like if
they had a random black friend, I wouldn't have believed

(01:26:35):
it would. It felt like they threw a random black
woman in there. So I mean, like I'm okay with that.
It was authentic to like these women living in the
small parish in Louisiana, Like it made sense. But yeah,
it's still a movie I love, but now a movie
that has a problematic writer.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
So there's that. And then I would give a nipple
to Malinn.

Speaker 6 (01:26:58):
I'm going to give one to Shelby, and I'm going
to give one to the black nurse.

Speaker 2 (01:27:02):
She deserves a nimple.

Speaker 4 (01:27:03):
She does, she really does I think she was given
a name too. I think Shelby says her name.

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):
I can't think of him right now.

Speaker 1 (01:27:10):
And I like that we got to see Shelby at
work too. I feel like you never get to see
who been at works, so quick shout out to that
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:27:15):
Yes, yeah, all.

Speaker 1 (01:27:17):
Right, well Ashley, thank you so much for joining us
and talking about this, and please come back for terms
of endearment, I mean please.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to get the email.

Speaker 5 (01:27:26):
That we're going to our resident Shirley McLean expert.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:29):
I love her, she's the girls.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):
Where can we find you? Where can we find your work?
Where can we find you online? Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:27:37):
You can find me at Ashley Blaine on Instagram. You
can also follow my podcast at Trials to Triumphs pod,
which also on Instagram and Facebook.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
And then you can listen to my podcast each and
every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, Trials to Triumphs.
Listen to it and get inspired.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
So and you can find us as always on an
Instagram and Twitter at Bechdel Cast. Keep your eyes peeled.
We've got some live shows being announced in the next
couple of weeks. If you live in California or Texas. Interestingly,
and yeah, you can get our merch at teapublic dot com,
slash The Bechdel.

Speaker 4 (01:28:20):
Cast, and also our Patreon aka Matreon, where you get
two bonus episodes every month. I was like, what time,
I'm fram my brain just broke all of a sudden. Okay,
it's working two episodes every month, Yes, including all of
the back catalog of bonus episodes, which is around one
hundred and fifty episodes. Can you believe it?

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
We've had the stamp Patreon going since twenty seventeen. There's
tons of content there, goodness, and yes, I am calling
it content because I'm tired.

Speaker 4 (01:28:51):
It's sort of like our content creator.

Speaker 5 (01:28:54):
Oh okay, you've gone too far. You've gone too far.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):
We're just people, okay. And with that, let's all get
on the back of some guy's motorcycle and go meet
baby Shelby. Hope you get your bunny Sudan.

Speaker 4 (01:29:08):
Yek got it right here, Okay, Bye bye. The Bechdel
Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante
and Jamie loftis produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board.
Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals
by Katherine Volskrosenski. Our logo in Merch is designed by

(01:29:31):
Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For
more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash Bechdel
Cast