Taken

On this episode, Caitlin and Jamie use their very particular set of skills to discuss the movie Taken. Here's the Polaris Project guide we mention in the episode -- https://polarisproject.org/telling-the-real-story-of-human-trafficking/ 

 

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
vest start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hey, Jamie, what, Caitlin.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
I have a very particular set of podcasting skills, well,
skills I have acquired over a very long career in podcasting,
skills that make me a blessing for people like you,
my co host of the past.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah wow.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
I mean, if charisma were a defense mechanism, maybe we'd
stand a chance. But unfortunately, in the world of Taken,
we're fucking cooked. What are his skills exactly? Not that sorry,
finding people and killing people? Really, I guess that's what

(00:57):
he promised. I guess in that way he does deliver.
It is frustrating that even when you're like this movie
is a force of evil face, or at least a
force of like foolishness, the monologue still hits, you know,
like you're just like, what is with that? Why is

(01:19):
it such a good monologue? Like even in the middle
of your like oh hate it, no, stop, no, no,
And then the monologue stars and You're like, all right,
let's hear him out. Let's hear him out.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
You're like, Okay, this guy's kind of a thing or
two to say, and I'm listening.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
He has a particular set of what you know, like,
let's let's hear him out. It's too bad anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
It's the taken episode of the Bechdel Cast. Hello, my
name is Caitlin Durante.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
My name is Jamie Loftus. And yeah, we have a
very particular set of skills that would not get us
out of any emergency situation, because this is the podcast
where we take your favorite movies and look at them
using an intersectional feminist lens. And we have chosen a
movie that I feel is both on an easy and
high difficulty level, depending on the way you look at it.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah, but we're
gonna use our particular set of skills to really analyze
the shit out of this movie.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
It's true. We are talking about the two thousand and
eight thriller Action Ba Bah taken Yes this week, But first, Kaitlyn,
could you let me know what the hell the Bechdel
test is? And by the bechel test, I mean, of course,
spoiler alert. A media metric this movie has no interest
in none whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Uh. Yes.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
The Bechdel Test is a media metric created by queer
cartoonist Alison Bechdel disappearing in her comic dex to Watch
Out for It was a test that appears to kind
of examine how women don't really talk to each other
and a lot of media or often there's just not

(03:03):
two of them. There just aren't two women. And if
there are two women, they're talking about men usually, So
that's the test. There are many versions of it. The
one that we use is do two characters of a
marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other?
And is there conversation about something other than a man?
And yeah, this movie even if it like passes on

(03:25):
a technicality which I honestly was not even paying attention to,
because it doesn't, okay.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
I absolutely was keeping track. Was like, wouldn't it be
funny if this movie somehow passed? No. I think that
there is one arguable past At the end, when Kim
is untaken and she's back from the airport, parentheses not
reported to the authorities, and she says mom, and then

(03:51):
her mom says Kim and you're like, You're like, I
guess that. I mean that is important because that means
she got home. But we can't. We can't know on
vibes alone. This movie completely and utterly fails.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
So very true.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Well that's the episode, bye, Yes, we were talking about
Taken this week. I did not realize who some of
the primary players in this movie are, which I feel
like is revealing as to perhaps why it is the
way it is the first. Caitlin, what is your history

(04:28):
with the movie Taken?

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well?

Speaker 3 (04:30):
Take Can is a movie I have seen before once,
though not when it came out. I slept on it
for a long time because as much as I do
like action movies, this is a subgenre of action that
I don't give a shit about at all.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
How would you qualify this sub action.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Well, I guess just like toxic dudes saving a woman
question mark, I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Is sort of like I guess you could put it
under a revenge movie.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah, like kind of thing, and I'm fine with some
revenge stories. I don't like inherently dismiss all of those.
The action movies I do like are ones that are
like action adventure or I love like a kind of espionage,
you know, Mission Impossible, James Bond kind of thing generally,

(05:26):
and ones that have some degree of like comic relief
or fun or rompiness to them. This movie is not
a romp because it's just it's not light at all.
It's not fun.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
It's too dark.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Now, the parts of this movie that are funny are
completely by accident. Yes, my biggest laugh of this because
I will talk about my history with it in a second,
but like, I just hadn't seen this movie in a
long time, and I forgot the inciting act is that
a seventeen year old girl in two thousand and eight
is going to follow you too around Europe. I was like,

(06:01):
these fucking like also Luke Beason screenplay and we'll get
to him. I mean, but like a known sex criminal
co wrote this. Yes, but the fact that they couldn't
even bother to look up act more women are tempested
in like they're like, who would have who would I
have followed around twenty years ago?

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Oh? You too?

Speaker 1 (06:22):
I guess I just can't imagine a world where and
now there's like one millennial YOUTWO fan shaking their fists.
But I'm just like, statistically unlikely, right, especially because we're
introduced with like, she's a huge fan of this pop singer,
but she's willing to put her life on the line
to see you too.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
In multiple cities, following you two around Europe.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Crip, young women these days see you two strictly by accident,
Like it's just so, that's the funny part of the bit.
But no, Yeah, this movie takes itself very seriously. That's
a non starter. With a lot of action movies for me,
I don't like but it's just one guy. I prefer
a group. I prefer a little bit of levity adventure. Yeah,

(07:07):
this is not an adventure. This is very punishing, for sure.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
So I didn't see it for many years, but I
kept seeing the meme the I have a particular shutter
skull as blah blah blah, and I was like, should
I see this movie? I guess, And then I watched
it and I was like, well, that was fucking racist
and shitty and sexist and all the horrible things. So
I didn't ever revisit it. What is your relationship with

(07:35):
the movie, Jamie.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Shockingly, I saw this movie in theaters when it came
out because I was in I mean, primarily because I
was in high school when this movie came out, sure,
and it was Friday. I think that that's the extent
of it. I remember going to see this movie with
my friend Kim, which was a source of fun because
the girl who's taken his name is Kim. Yeah, and

(07:57):
so for you know, weeks, months years after, you'd be like,
where are you? So that's my primary association with this
movie is just like sort of a pleasant night out
with friends. But having lived it, I can say this
movie I didn't remember because I'd only seen it once,
because even in eight I was like, this is not

(08:18):
my kind of movie. I just like, am I'm here
for the ride? Whatever? Yeah, But I do vive more
so than any detail in the movie. Besides the monologue,
I remember like people were the theater was absolutely packed.
This movie was wildly successful in spite of what it is,

(08:38):
which is like, also, I feel like it is interesting
to revisit movies from like this specific set of years
right now because we're heading into I think a similar
era in movies where it's just like recession era movies
and movies that have Bizarrely, I think we're like disproportionately
right wing y themes are becoming, you know, like critically

(09:02):
and commercially successful in a way that they might not
be outside of my recession. Anyway, I saw this movie
during the recession, and yeah, the crowd was freaking loving it.
I just remember like every line, like every monology Lineleamnising
gave the crowd was like like it was just it
was a very the vibe was electric the movie, I

(09:26):
thought then and more so now. At the time, I
was just like, ugh, this is boring, depressing, and I
don't like it. And now as an adult feminist, just like,
this movie is boring, depressing and also racist and pro
military and hates women. So yeah, I didn't like it then,

(09:48):
but I do vividly remember seeing it. And I don't
mean this as a positive, this is a neutral statement,
but I understand why this movie was successful when it
was successful, and because we're going into another era of
procession era movies, I think it's interesting to revisit. I
also knew I was aware of the sequels. I can't
say I ever took interest, but I was like, I

(10:10):
wonder if they first of all get rid of Lucas
on at any time they did not or like what happened.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
I was also curious. I was like, does the daughter
just keep does she get taken? I can tell you,
please indulge me.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Taken to Leonor is taken, Yes, and then it seems
that Kim sort of helps during the second act, but
then she's removed from the help by the end of
the movie. So I feel like Taken two might be
the closest to women being involved in the plot just
off of Wikipedia. Kim is helpful at some points, yes,

(10:45):
but it seems like mainly through executing what her dad
tells her, but she does do things. Taken three is
a return to form, but even worse because Leonor is murdered. Yeah,
Brian aka Liam Neesai, I'm not gonna call how this
character Brian liam Neeson is accused of her murder. Now
Kim is pregnant, she's heavy with Greg.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Pregnant.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, she's pregnant and Taken three and then she's taken again.
So Taking three feels just like, what can we do
to these women? We can get them pregnant and we
can kill them. And I do feel like that is
ultimately the politics of this world is what are women
good for? Sex and property? Because that's the thing. Like,

(11:30):
when it comes down to it, I don't know this movie.
It reminds me of a lot of a lot, a
lot a lot of movies, and some of them are
better than others. But it's just like I kept hearing
the like Sean pen read of it from Mystic River
where he's like my daughter, Like, it's like, that's all
this movie is is. It's like taking all of the
tropes around, specifically the relationship of fathers being possessive and

(11:55):
overprotective of their daughters, and creating a world in which
this is the most rational behavior that could possibly be.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, I think it's like a pretty like four DHS
vile kind of movie. But it was, I mean, yeah,
I didn't really remember much about it, so I was
coming in pretty fresh.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Here.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Well, let's take a quick break and then come back
for the recap. Let's take in.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Let's take it.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
No cale, Yeah, don't get taken during the BAK going
to take you to an ad break. Describe the products
and services well, quite frankly, we don't know what's about
to play, but say it as loud as you can
on the phone.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Okay, BRB, and we're okay.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
We're back.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
We're back.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Don't you think it's funny that? I mean, I understand
the I guess, I sort of. I don't understand. I
don't even if the writers understand. But when Kim is
taken and then Leam Neeson goes to France that he
gets under the same bed and is like my daughters
under this bed, it's.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
A little goofy.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah, it's an extremely goofy movie. This horrible movie. But anyway, sorry,
welcome back. Let's find out what happens and taken. Let's
rip the band aid off.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yeah, first all place of content Warning four things like coercion, abduction, sex, trafficking,
things of that nature.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Liam Neeson is a guy named Brian Mills, and he
has a seventeen year old his daughter named Kim played
by Maggie Grace, who I recognized from Lost I believe.
Oh yeah, I didn't watch she's in Lost. Anyway, Brian

(14:02):
doesn't see his daughter Kim that often because he was
a bit of an absentee father. He had this very
demanding job for a long time. And now he and
his wife or his ex wife, Lenore played by Famka Jansen,
are divorced and Kim lives with Lenore and her new husband,

(14:23):
this uber rich guy named Stuart, not to be confused
with Stuart the.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Minion, Although you know, we can't rule out that that
is who he's inspired by.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
We cannot roll it out at all.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Unlikely but not impossible. Hm.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
So, Brian is now retired and trying to reconnect with Kim,
but he's not making much progress. Like he tries to
go to her birthday party and give her a karaoke
machine because she's always wanted to be a singer. But
she's like, that's cool, But what about this horse that
my stepdad Stewart just gave me.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
I was like, was she younger in the original draft
of this right? The way she acts and I know
she's given I'm like, it's giving thirteen, like it's not
being seventeen at all.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Ten Like, yeah, it's right.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
I think these men who made this movie just don't
know what seventeen year old girls are. Like.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, because I was like, if I met this girl,
I'd be like, sure, Kim, Like I wouldn't be like
she's so cool, She's so.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Like, she's weird.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
She's weird.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yeah, why is she acting like a ten year old. Yeah,
so the point is Brian is trying to kind of
reconnect with his daughter.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
Then Brian has a boys night with three of his
his little buddies, who are all former CIA operatives or something.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
I have no idea, like, I just listeners are gonna
have to under I don't understand who they're working for.
I know it's the government and it's bad and they
think it's good. And that's as far as I was
willing to reflect.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yes, yes, And he agrees to do a job with
his buddies. I love calling adult men and their friends' buddies.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Well, that's what the minions do. That is that's why
you love it, buddies, they say, buddies. The whole minion
you gave me. I keep it on my desk.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Ah, it's really cute.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
It's my security minion.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Well, speaking of security.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
He is a security minion.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Brian agrees to do a job with his buddies being
security escorts for this pop star at a concert, and
we're like, wait a minute, lady Raven wrap Alard.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
I was like, wow, how cool would it be like
in the world where this followed the rules of trap,
like Bono would end up untaking Liam Neeson's daughter like
he would be on FaceTime, being like, girls, you've got
to get me out of this bathroom. Everyone go see Trap,

(17:10):
whether you like it or not, I just want to.
I'll give m Night Shimalan money forever. I know he
doesn't need it, but I'll keep giving it to him.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Well, that's your prerogative. So in this movie, it's not
Lady Raven, it's a pop star named Shira.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
And after the concert, a man tries to attack Shira
with a knife and Brian steps in and saves her.
He fights the attacker off in a highly trained combat
kind of way, and we're like, hmm.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Very particular set of skills.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
Vibes exactly, And Shira is very grateful to Brian for
saving her life and she wants to help his daughter, Kim,
become a singer. The following day, Brian, his daughter, Kim,
and Lenore have where Kim reveals that she's going to
Paris with her friend Amanda and Amanda's cousins and she

(18:07):
needs Brian's written permission, but he isn't comfortable letting her
go because it's just going to be a bunch of
you know, teens and young women traveling around Europe on
their own. But he does give permission eventually on the
condition that Kim let him know where she is and

(18:28):
who she's with at all times.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
It's very much implied that he is pressured into doing this.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
By Lenore, his ex wife.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
Yeah, yes, yeah, because Lenor is framed as being.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
She's made out to be like and this is his
bitch ex wife, yes, which we'll talk about, which is
absurd if you go through what we know about Leonore
in no way, Like I feel like the way that
she's written is to seem overly severe. But there is
a read of this movie multiples almost every scene where
the two parents are talking, like if this was a

(19:04):
movie that was marketed towards women, she would be the
hero of the story and Liam Neeson would be the deadbeat,
dead antagonist basically right, Like, she's not doing anything overtly unreasonable.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
Not at all. Yeah, it's him who's unreliable, unstable, scary,
and she seems to be doing a pretty good job.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
And regardless, it's not like she is, Like I feel
like the movie treats it like she's forbidding him from
being close with his daughter, where it's like she's not.
She's clearly not thrilled to be spending all this time
with him, but it's not like she's preventing him from
being around her. She's just trying to enforce healthy boundaries,
understandably because he was so negligent towards her and Kim

(19:51):
by both of their accounts, She's like not thrilled, but
she's like, Okay, well, if Kim wants it, it's fine.
But especially that one line where it's like you're talking
about at the cafe where she says something like she's
going to you know, like you have to let her
grow up or she's going to push you away like
that is a line in an independent coming of age

(20:14):
movie of a teenage girl where the mother is completely correct,
Like it's just so weird that it's presented like, ugh,
how could she? But it's because we know she's going
to be taken. And then Liam Neeson cannot be wrong
in the world of this movie. He's never wrong, right, Yeah, it's.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Very frustrating to watch. So Kim and her friend Amanda
head to Paris, and when they arrive, this man named
Peter asks them if they want to share a cab
ride with him. From the airport. They get to the

(20:54):
flat where they'll be staying and this guy, Peter is like, wow,
nice place, and Amanda is like, yeah, TIHI, we're staying
here all by ourselves.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
And he's like.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
Cool, want to come to a party tonight and Kim
is like, we don't know this guy, but Amanda is like.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah, let's party.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
And then as Peter is walking away, he makes a
very suspicious phone call giving someone the address of this
flat and he says like two girls around eighteen years old,
and we're like, oh no, what's happening now. Shortly thereafter,
some men come into the flat and abduct Amanda nar

(21:36):
which Kim sees from a different room while she's on
the phone with Brian, and he's like, Okay, they're going
to take you, but I need you to shout out
any details that you notice about them because he's going
to use those details to track them down and find
them and kill them. So the men grab Kim and

(21:58):
she yells out like six foot beard tattoo on hand
of Moon and Star, and then one of the abductors
picks up the cell phone and this is when Liam
Neeson delivers the line, I have a very particular set
of skills and d D.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
I'm making the fart noise. But also maybe this is like,
unfortunately like a millennial sleep or cell where I hear
the speech and I was like, I did, like really
lock in because there are certain sequences of this movie
where it's just hard to pay attention. Sure, but yeah,
this speech I was there. I mean, to this day,

(22:38):
I feel like it is a cultural osmosis moment at
this point where you can quote sections of this speech
and not even fully know what you're quoting or the
context you're quoting it in. It is for sure, for
better or worrese iconic.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
A similar speech for me is the Bill Pullman president
speech in Independence Day, Like I have the same visceral
reaction when I hear any segment of that.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
See, Okay, so it is maybe it is like a
microgeneration because I think I couldn't tell you what that
speech says, but if you gave me a line from it,
I'd be like, oh, yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
That right anyway, So you know, Brian delivers this whole
monologue and the man on the other end says good luck,
and then the line disconnects. Thus starts Brian's search to
find his daughter, and based on the dialect of Albanian

(23:35):
that the kidnappers were speaking and the hand tattoo that
Kim had noticed, Brian learns that this is a group
of organized criminals who abduct and sex traffic women. And
based on the data, Brian learns that he has about
a ninety six hour window from the time they were

(23:56):
abducted to a point where they'll never be found. So
Brian arrives in Paris and he breaks into the flat
where Kim and Amanda were going to be staying. He
finds the SD card or whatever from the smashed phone
of Kim's.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Good two thousand and eight detail yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, And he looks through the photos that were on
the phone and finds a picture that Peter took of
Kim and Amanda at the airport, which shows a reflection
of Peter and the whole action movie thing of enhance,
you know, zooming into a very pixelated photo that suddenly
magically becomes very crystal clear, a.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Lot of like, yeah, hacker, who coudes YadA YadA. Yeah,
it's kind of fun.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
M hm. And so now Brian knows what Peter looks like,
and he finds Peter at the airport, trying the same
taxi sharing trick on another woman. Brian attacks him and
chases Peter, who gets hit by a truck and killed.
So then Brian links up with a friend slash colleague

(25:07):
slash French cop named Sean Claude who tells him about
a specific area, Porte de Clichi, Frenchy, where these traffickers
are known to hang out. So Brian goes to this
area and talks to a woman who has been sex

(25:30):
trafficked and asks her a bunch of questions. Basically, he's
stalling knowing that a trafficker will come up and hassle him,
which is what he wanted so that he can plant
a microphone on freight sky.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:46):
And so then Brian has a translator interpret the conversation
that these traffickers are having in Albanian, which is about
a construction site and a problem with the quote unquote
new merchandise cut to this construction site. We don't know
how Brian figured out where it was or anything like that,

(26:08):
but he conveniently and magically find.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
A very particular set of skills, which is his particular
set of skills is that he actually has a copy
of the script.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
Takes yeah, and he knew exactly what location to go
to yeh. So he goes there and this construction site
turns out to be a derelict brothel and he's looking
around and he finds the jacket Kim was wearing when
she flew to Paris. But the woman in this like
enclosure is not his daughter. He takes this woman with him.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
He takens her.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
He takens yes, but not in a bad way. He
takens her in a good way.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah, question for good.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
After he fights off several of the traffickers and he
gets to a hotel room and provides medical care to
the woman. She seems heavily drugged, and she eventually comes
to and tells Brian that Kim gave her the jacket
while they were in the house with the red door,
and she remembers what STREETA was on. So Brian goes

(27:17):
to the house with the red door, pretending to be
a cop who is there under the guise of negotiating
an extortion deal. Basically, the traffickers will pay law enforcement
to keep quiet about the illegal things they're doing, but
what Brian is actually there to do is to find

(27:37):
which guy he spoke to on the phone who told
him good luck. It's this boss named Marcos.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
They play the voice and I was like, it honestly
doesn't sound doesn't sound the same, it's similar. I was like, what,
uh huh. I guess yeah, if you say so, But
I was like, that could have been most guys.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
But somehow he identifies Marcos and he kills the dozen
or so other men in the house. He finds a
bunch of trafficked women there, one of whom is Kim's
friend Amanda, who is dead from an apparent drug overdose,
but he does not find Kim, so Brian tortures Marcos,

(28:25):
who reveals that they don't keep women who are virgins. Instead,
they traffic them further to different traffickers, this particular boss
named Patrise Saint Clair, but Marcos doesn't know where to
find this guy. Then there's a scene where Brian goes

(28:46):
back to his cop friend Jean Claude to his house,
suspecting that he might be involved in actual, you know,
extortion and collusion that the French police are doing with
the traffickers, and Brian is correct in this assumption, so
he shoots Jean Claude's wife in the arm to show
him that he means business, and then he has Jean

(29:09):
Claude look up Patrise Saint Clair in the police database
and get an address for him. So Brian goes to
this address. It's a mansion. There's some kind of party happening,
and there's also an auction happening where this Patrise guy
is auctioning off these trafficked women for hundreds of thousands

(29:31):
of dollars. Brian goes into this private room of one
of the buyers and forces him to buy Kim, and
he thinks this is going to be how he rescues Kim,
but then Brian is knocked out by one of Patrese's minions.
Brian wakes up, he fights back. He finds out where

(29:52):
they're taking Kim. She's being loaded onto a yacht, so
he kills Patrise and then goes after this that belongs
to a sheikh who had bought Kim. Brian jumps on board,
kills everyone, and saves his daughter, and then the movie
ends with Kim safe at home with her family and

(30:16):
Brian surprises her by taking her to the home of Shira,
the pop star from earlier. So that she can help
Kim with her music career.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
The oh my god, it's stressful.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.
And we're back from having taken a break.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, we're back at lax after narrowly escaping our doom
where she begins. I mean, I want to say, like,
I just want to lead with the fact that I
felt like there was no amount of research that I
could have done that was going to be a propriate
for this episode. This is a deceptively complicated movie to

(31:14):
talk about, yes, because of all of the various heavy
themes that it is attempting to address. Not a heavy
lift to say that maybe it's not sufficient, you know,
I feel like this movie suffers from a lot of
the tropes were used to seeing in action thrillers. That

(31:36):
being a really you know, pro military, pro masculine, sidelining
women characters, marginalizing any non white character. This is all
part and parcel to action thrillers, and this movie is
not pushing back on any of those very common problems.
But on top of that, it's adding the deeply complicated

(31:58):
issue of sex traffic. Yes, in a way that I
honestly I mean, it's an issue that I am under
educated on and is particularly for a group of writers
that include a known sex criminal.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
Known sex criminal Luke Basson, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
Using sex trafficking in what appears to be a very
callous plot driven way, like just add sort of an
extra layer to this movie where you know, I feel
like at this point, you know, you can talk about
the tropes that surround action thrillers, and we have on
this show quite a bit, and we will again today,

(32:39):
but like, and I guess I would be curious of
what I was struggling to find. I don't know if
you found anything to this effect, and I'd be curious
if listeners have thoughts on this is like, is there
a reason that that layer is being added in this
particular moment, you know where It's like there's plenty of
action thrillers that have come out before and since that

(33:00):
do not include this element. Is this a unclear why
this is the moment where sex trafficking is being introduced
into the action thriller space or is there a particular
reason why the late two thousands, like there was a
I mean, obviously not interest, but like a market for
this particular theme. I really like I mean, if I

(33:22):
had had several days to get ready, I would maybe
understand better. But yeah, that layer added to again just
all of the things that we are used to pushing
back on in this genre was very jarring.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
I didn't find anything about possible like cultural context that
might have informed why that layer was added. It could
just be well, we haven't seen many movies yet where
this is the thing, so let's try it. I have
no idea. What I do know is that they horribly

(33:59):
misred present what sex trafficking is. Yes, I found something
from the Polaris Project, which is a nonprofit organization that
is leading a survivor centered and justice and equity driven
movement to end human trafficking.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Hi.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Everyone, it's Caitlin from the future. Wanted to jump in
right here and say that. After we released this episode,
a few listeners pointed out that the Polaris Project has
a history of problematic behavior, such as they have been
known to spread misinformation, Their hotline doesn't respond to tips

(34:44):
related to people doing consensual sex work. They've lobbied for
policies that harm sex workers, things of that nature. We
did not realize that at the time. We absolutely should
have investigated this organization more closely to say there's no
merit to the work they do, but it is not

(35:04):
the best resource we could have consulted, considering Jamie's and
my stance on being pro consensual sex work is legitimate work,
pro workers' rights of sex workers. So, as you're about
to hear, we quote from the Polaris Project a few times,
mostly in relation to what they say about this specific movie.

(35:28):
But we just wanted to acknowledge that we now know
more about this organization and we apologize for not researching
them more carefully before recording this episode. Thank you so
much to those listeners who provided more information to us.
We always appreciate listeners doing that. We're always wanting to
learn and grow, so thank you again. So again, just

(35:52):
wanted to pop in here and provide that additional context
acknowledge some of the shortcomings of this organization. And we're
about to cut back into the original episode now talking
about something that this organization published on their website regarding
the movie. So here we go back to the original episode,

(36:17):
and they put out a like an online guide entitled
telling the Real Story of Human Trafficking, and it basically
gives a bunch of information about what human trafficking actually.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Is, like, right, because this movie is so frequently conflates
sex trafficking with sex work, which is like one of
the more dangerous things that it does.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
Right, And this guide offers guidance imagine that, oh, on
how to make content and tell stories about human trafficking
if that's something you're interested in doing in an accurate
and responsible way. Saying that quote in the anti human

(37:01):
trafficking world, Taken has become a shorthand for how not
to make content about human trafficking.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yes, I saw this piece as well.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, so this guide starts by saying about the film
Taken quote. Unfortunately, it has the unintended effect of completely
miseducating the public about what human trafficking is, how it happens,
and who it happens too. Nearly fifteen years later, those
of us who work in the anti trafficking field are

(37:30):
still managing the consequences. Indeed, we often start out saying
things like, you know that movie Taken, Well, that's not
really how trafficking happens unquote.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Right, I mean, and I remember that being a conversation
at the time the movie came out. I don't know
as we're talking about it, because I'm also seeing that
there was. It's interesting because I feel like this is
sort of side to take in. But I guess just
in terms of the issue of sex trafficking and miseducation
around sex trafficking being prevalent in American culture at this time,

(38:02):
there were congressional laws passed around this time, but it
had to do more with cyber sex trafficking, which is
really not what Taken is talking about it all, which
I think is interesting, like it is off of a
real world encounter. Just I don't know. This is like
bring I wonder if I've ever brought it up on
this show. I know I've talked about it previously, but

(38:24):
like I remember as a kid having cyber sex trafficking
cautionary tales told to me a lot at school, Like
there was a computer game in like computer class. I
feel so old, but like this is I'm wondering if
there's like any other young millennials listening that, Like we
had computer class and we would play three games in

(38:46):
the course of class. It would be like a math game,
a literacy game, and then an anti cyber sex trafficking
game and the game was called Oh Gosh, I believe
it was called Stolen. This was before and came out.
But you are playing as the father of, or like
an investigator working with the father of a child who

(39:09):
has been abducted and is being cyber sex trafficked, and
it is your mission, as a twelve year old computer
game player to save this child and learn about what
was at least purported to be the common showings of
cyber sex trafficking at that time. So, for example, the
character met a man who lied about his identity on

(39:32):
a message board and then was flown out to Also,
California is a big thing with the game, where they're
like California, the world whatever. It was not a good education,
but I do remember like this being something that was
like pushed to me at a public school, of like
a fear of technology, which makes more Again, you know,

(39:55):
Americans are just miseducated on this subject wholesale. I'm not
saying that I'm so glad I played this computer game
and it kept me safe. It was I remember being
quite afraid of it, but sowing a fear of technology
at least that holds a little like more consistently than
I don't know again, taking it just seems so random

(40:16):
and based in just like the various prejudices and interests
of the writers. It's not even like like there's a
million horror movies about AI right now, because that is
the technological development that people are afraid of, and at
the time it would have just been the internet conceptually
would be like what you would say is going to
kill you or sex traffic you, or do the worst

(40:38):
thing you can think of. Right, I don't understand why
this movie was so popular, right.

Speaker 3 (40:44):
I wonder if because the movie Hostile came out a
few years earlier, and that was the movie about If
I'm remembering correctly, it's a movie about American tourists going
to Europe. And I also don't remember exactly where they go,
but it's a place in Europe that the movie is like, actually,

(41:06):
this area is really unsafe and if you stay in
a hostel you'll be murdered. So I wonder if Taikan
was almost kind of using that playbook of like beware
of travel to Euroine, beware of Eastern Europeans because they're
so scary.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
Which in some ways is like hearkening back to the
Red Scare, which has also never really left us, and like,
I don't know, I would be curious if Alicitor has
a clear concise reason why the two thousands were littered
with this particular kind of story. I mean, and I
also think we were you know, came up in the
age of like the Elizabeth Smart abduction. And another thing

(41:46):
that I think this movie is very guilty of and
doesn't examine at all is missing white girls syndrome and
how you know, to expand a little bit on our
discussion of how sex trafficking and human trafficking in general
is used as a plot point in this movie, and
again we are not experts, but that how this movie

(42:10):
intentionally centers a privileged young American sis white girl, not yeah,
she's still a child in this story, when it is
statistically far more likely for young people and particularly young
women in films of color and indigenous people to fall
victim to this specific type of crime. But I like,

(42:33):
as is very often in media, both fictional media like
this and just who receives attention from local and national
media when they are taken missing whatever. It is far
more statistically likely since the beginning of mass media for

(42:54):
white women to receive priority in terms of who gets
the attention for during after, And I mean there is
infinite media to this extent. We've talked about it on
the show of how many Indigenous women regularly go missing
or are killed and it never, it rarely, if ever,
breaks into mass media, whereas if a white woman experiences

(43:20):
the same horrific event, it is far more likely to
be discussed. Again, it is horrible when this happens to anybody, Yes,
but in terms of yeah, where priority is given, in
terms of even acknowledgment, if not resources to be assisted
and rescued and preventive measures. I mean, the human trafficking

(43:42):
world is no exception to that, to the point where
I mean again not to say that well, I guess
I can't say that taken would not happen, But it's
just I don't know. It's like a wealthy white young
tour like, it's of course someone's going to come looking.
She's like a millionaire's a billionaire's stepdaughter.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
And yeah, while it's not impossible that a wealthy white
girl would be targeted for trafficking, it's far more likely
that a person more marginalized than someone like Kim would
be targeted.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Right, And it's not to say that we have no
empathy for this character. Of course we do, but it
is Yeah, I mean, given the fact that again this
is a Lupusson co write, even outside of his personal crimes,
go back and listen to our lean on the professional episode,
you know, someone with a notoriously bad track record on

(44:40):
women and also on the issue of sex work and
sex trafficking. It's just really hard to take this story
at face value because it's bringing in a very serious issue,
completely misunderstanding it and not really acknowledging at all how
the people who do suffer this are disproportionately marginalized, and

(45:02):
that is not an interest, Like this story has nothing
to say about human trafficking, certainly not. Furthermore, the protagonist
doesn't really care about the issue outside of how it
affects his daughter.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
Okay, so that was one of my big things.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
He literally says repeatedly, I don't care, I will not
report you, just give me my daughter back.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
Yeah, it's confounding. I kept having this question, like, by
the end of the movie, does he make any effort
to save all of the women who have been trafficked or.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Just his daughter?

Speaker 3 (45:37):
And the answer is his daughter plus that one other
woman who he only saves in order to get information
about his daughter.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
But I think that we're supposed to Yeah, we'll get
into Liam Neeson in a second. The other thing I
wanted to say, as it pertains to human trafficking again,
I feel icky. I hope that we're not completely missing
the mark here, but the fact that they're is an
emphasis put on Kim's virginity in terms of what makes
her valuable that is based in some truth. I did

(46:11):
some background research we can link to it that of
course it is. This is all immoral and very fucked up,
but virginity is brought up as a plus in this
very twisted world. So it's like it's reflecting something what
bothers me besides everything in the movie. But it's like,

(46:34):
I feel like the writing rises to agree with the
sex traffickers in this where there is a morality attached
to virginity and a slut shaming between the characters, specifically
of Kim and Amanda, the two friends that go to
Europe together. Amanda is presented as hornier basically where for sure,

(46:57):
yeah she's more rebellious. She says like, oh should I
hook up with this guy and Kim when they first arrive,
it's like, but you don't even know him, Oh my gosh,
blah blah blah, which is like whatever teenage girls, you
can feel whatever way you want, but there is by
the writers a moral application because Amanda we are sort
of indicated she she is not a virgin, and so

(47:20):
she dies and Liam Neeson does he call her parent?
Like what happens? Does anyone get in touch with this
girl's family?

Speaker 2 (47:29):
We don't know.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
Maybe maybe it's referenced and taken to, but like there
is almost say like it is again like her death
is a plot thing where Liam Neeson's like, Okay, Kim
was here, but now she's not because here's Amanda and
she's dead, and Amanda seems like she died because she
was not a virgin. Essentially, like that I think is
the internal plot logic, and that it's the morality that

(47:54):
is attached to Kim's virginity that keeps her alive long
enough to be resky. It's just so fucking dark. So
even though it's like, even if that is based in
a reference point that does take place in the real world,
it's written to I think like reinforce, it in this

(48:16):
weird way where it's like horror movie logic of like
a girl who has sex is going to die and
deserves it.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
There are other implications that we'll get into, because this
is a whole separate conversation about the racism and xenophobia
in this movie. Yeah, the implications revolving around a very
reductive view of Islam, but we'll get to that in
a second. The other thing I wanted to say about

(48:44):
this movie misrepresenting sex trafficking is that, and again this
is according to that piece from the Polarist Project saying, quote,
people in sex trafficking situations almost always know and to
even trust or love their traffickers. Traffickers target vulnerable people

(49:05):
who have needs that the traffickers can fill. Sometimes they
offer material support, a place to live, clothing, a chance
to get rich quick. Other times they offer love, emotional support,
or a sense of belonging. Kidnapping victims and forcing them
into the sex trade through violence is rare, unquote. So
this movie presents it is like, Oh, these scary boogeymen

(49:28):
from Albania who just target people kind of at random.
That's who sex traffickers are. So this is just another
way in which this movie doesn't really understand sex trafficking.
And as you already alluded to, it's media like this

(49:51):
that conflates sex trafficking with like consensual sex work, and
it's movies like this it position sex work as something
that people are doing against their will and it only
happens because they have been trafficked, and things like that
and just the things that contribute to the stigma and

(50:14):
negative perception of sex work. And of course there's a
huge difference between people who are coerced and sex trafficked
and adults who are doing the legitimate work that is
sex work, and they're doing so consensually, by their own
accord and on their own terms. All this to say,
the movie kind of it doesn't directly conflate these two

(50:35):
things necessarily, but it does, I think, contribute to this
larger stigma of a just kind of misunderstanding of sex
work being separate from being the victim or the survivor
of sex trafficking.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Just having seen this movie when I was a teenager,
I would say it does directly conflate the two because
I can tell you seeing this movie as a like
fifteen year olds, I did not understand the difference. As
a naive kid that did not understand what human trafficking

(51:12):
nor sex work really was outside of the scope of movies,
I think that this movie actually kind of does dangerously
conflate the two because even in the scene where Liam
Neeson is approaching who I thought was a sex worker,
she is reacting with the same amount of fear and
coercion as we see people we know to be human

(51:34):
trafficking victims are.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
And so I can.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Say for sure, like if you're cause I mean, this
is I mean, I wouldn't even say that majority teenagers
are going to see movies like this, but this is
a genre that does touch from teenagers to old heads.
And I can say for sure that like when I
first saw this movie, I did not understand the difference,
and the movie did nothing. Not that it is the

(51:59):
job of any movie to like educate you on the nuances,
but it is the job of the movie to be clear.
And I just don't think that this movie really was
at all because otherwise, like this movie takes place in
a vacuum where sex work does not exist, you know,
I think it is like tacitly saying that all sex

(52:20):
work is human trafficking, which is like a very dangerous
and wrong thing to imply.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
I feel like I had a similar perception of it
for at least some amount of time in my youth.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
I mean, I'm talking about when I was a kid.
Like I was, I had no fucking clue about right.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
And it's because of media depictions like this that don't
understand the distinction absolutely and just again contribute to this
horrible stigma and assume that people who engage in sex
work consensually are not actually doing so consentially, they are

(52:59):
being forced and coerced into it. And that also comes
with a lot of like victim blaming and shaming of
people struggling with addiction issues, and you know, a whole
slew of things. But yeah, this this movie is very
guilty of just painting things in a very broad way

(53:21):
and ignoring all of the nuance when it comes to
this topic.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
And again, it's not a shocker from a co writer
who's an accused sex just absolutely horrific woman although he
was not formally.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
Convicted, that doesn't mean shit.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
That's something that we can take up with France.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
Yeah, well, France is also fucking harboring Roman plan Ski
and shit like that.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
So that's what I mean. Yeah, France is famously bad
of this issue, not that America is any better anyways, right, Yeah, So,
I mean I think that that was all I had
to say on the sex trafficking versus sex where conflation front.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
The one last thing I have is just to go
full circle on the does Liam Neeson attempt to save
any of the other people who have been targeted for
sex trafficking? And the answers pretty much know no, which
is a version of that patriarchal value when a man

(54:23):
says I love and respect women, but that only extends
to the man's wife, his wife, or his daughter or
maybe his mother. Basically only women that they know personally,
and usually women that they feel some type of ownership over. Absolutely,
because men like this like never care about women's issues.

(54:46):
They never care about like the devastating effects of rape
culture or anything like that. They just care about women
who they feel belong to them. And this movie is
very much giving those nasty vibes.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
So and it seems like the entire franchise does, because yeah,
I think it wouldn't have improved the movie meaningfully, But
like even a cliffhanger if you're trying to make this
into a franchise of like, Okay, I have liberated my daughter,
and now I'm gonna go back and liberate the rest

(55:22):
of the victims of this human trafficking ring. Something some
indication that he has an interest in anyone who is
not married or blood related to him, but there isn't
and it doesn't seem like that ever really changes.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
From there, should we get into the racism and xenophobia
of this movie, because this was something that while I
did not have the education to understand the completely incorrect
messaging around human trafficking and sex work that this movie provides,
I was able at fifteen to understand that this movie
is extremely racist.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
Yes, absolutely, All the good guys are white Americans and
all the bad guys are non American and or not white.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Which is wild because this is like a half French movie,
and even the French guys are generally bad people. The
white French guys.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
Yeah, there's an exception, which is Patrise Saint Clair, who
is a white American man, or at least he speaks
English with an American accent. We don't know his nationality necessarily.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
Yeah, the guy, it's like it's just business. And then yeah,
you're like all right, but.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
By and large we have a group of Albanian characters,
and then later on in the movie there are Arab characters,
and both of them, in some overlapping in some different ways,
are portrayed in just awful ways where they're criminals, they're

(56:55):
the human traffickers, they're violent, they're barbaric. There's a whole
town in Albania that is characterized as being a breeding
ground for like the scum of the earth that would
become human traffickers, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
It is just like a like comical lack of nuance
to anything anything at all. Yeah, it is like deeply xenophobic,
where the second they meet someone who is an American,
within moments of arriving, they haven't even walked in the
door and they're already being targeted by Like it's just

(57:30):
it's absurd. Even the first interaction in this movie as
Leam Neeson like interacting with a I don't know what
his nationality is, but it's like a very stereotyped character
who's working at the karaoke machine business.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
The electronics store.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
Yeah, where where at very least there are a few
lines in this movie that it doesn't make it worth
the journey, but it is fun to hear Liam Neeson
say the line, who is Beyonce just kidding? Just kidding
because you're like two thousand.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
And eight, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
No, she's been really famous since the nineties, so yeah,
he's like, JK JK, really why put that in there?
There are there are a few lines, I mean, and
then at the point where it's like they're following you
two around the country, the script has already given up
on interacting with youth culture in any way, shape or form,
because a seventeen year old girls acting ten years old
and man, yet she also wants to follow you too,

(58:25):
like nonsense. I feel like Beyonce was added by a
punch up writer. I don't think that either credited writer
would have known to include Beyonce as a then actually
successful artist among young women.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
Well, also, whoever wrote that line of dialogue because they're
talking about a karaoke machine and the electronic salesman is like, yeah,
this is the karaoke machine that all the professionals use,
examples Beyonce, and then he.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Listens like to you others karaoke machine yep.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
Pop stars aren't using karaoke, like they just don't understand
what pop music is. And I have a whole shpiel,
which I'll say for later, just about the way the
buddies talk about the pop star who's not Lady Raven
though she should be. But anyway, Yeah, the way non
white and non American characters in general are portrayed in

(59:22):
this movie is heinous, to the point where in twenty nineteen,
the Albanian Tourism Board produced an advertisement in order to
kind of counter the negative perception of Albanians that this
movie like directly caused.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
So they created this.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
Kind of movement. You can sign a petition. It's called
be Taken by Albania where they are challenging.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
I would maybe change the name, but sure, I get
I get that, I appreciate the message, but I.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Guess they were like it's a pun. But anyway they're asking.
They're inviting Liam Neeson to visit Albania and explore the
beauty and the culture and the food and the tourist hotspots.
There's a video that I watched that the actor who
plays Marcos is in briefly at the end, Oh wow,

(01:00:18):
But it's mostly like people in Albania being like, see,
we're a really nice country and we have all these
beautiful things and we're really nice people.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Which is like absurd that they even have to do that.
It reminds me of our conversation around Kazakhstun's reception of Borat,
where it was like, wow, it did not irreparable, but
significant harm to the global perception of the country because
of this like dullbass movie that was successful, Like it's yeah,

(01:00:47):
anyone who's like it's just a movie, You're like.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
Well, wow, why do we have so many examples of
movies influencing perceptions of things on a global scale. Then
if it's quote unquote just a movie.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
And then again, the way the Arab characters are portrayed
in this movie is the way they often are in
Western media, which is being violent and hostile and corrupt
and uber wealthy. They covet women who are virgins, which
again is just a very incredibly reductive portrayal of Muslim

(01:01:25):
characters and Arab characters, and again has real world consequences
and contributes to like anti immigration rhetoric and policy that
is still affecting so many countries around the world.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
The line I wanted to draw attention to to sort
of illustrate what the internal politics of this movie appear
to be. It's said by leam Nisid and the scene
where he's like, oh, you're the guy from the phone,
and you're like, first of all, you don't recognize a
guy's like at International I'll call on a razor phone

(01:02:01):
in two thousand and eight, be serious, But he is
lecturing the group of Albanian men in a country where
he does not live, but says, you come to this
country and think because we are tolerant, we are weak
and helpless. Your arrogance offends me, which just implies all
of these really ugly narratives around immigration in general, where

(01:02:23):
I think the word tolerated is doing a lot of
heavy lifting there, where it's like you are being permitted
to live here so long as you do A, B
and C to basically, I mean, it just feels like
assimbilation tactics. It feels like anyone who immigrates to a
country does not actually have a right to live there.
It's conditional and just I mean all of these really,

(01:02:45):
I mean, this movie is a conservative movie, and that line,
like in particular, which is weird because I think if
we saw a comparably conservative movie today, that language would
probably be much harsher. But even so, it's like you
can read between the lines where it's like, this movie
is clearly anti immigration and it is clearly deeply xenophobic, which,

(01:03:07):
not for nothing is wild because Liam Neeson is from
Northern Ireland, so but he's whatever. I mean, the same
thing happens with Bondo a lot. I've been working on
a story for sixteenth Minute about the super Bowl and
how like you two was the super Bowl act after
nine to eleven and they were wearing American flag jackets

(01:03:29):
and You're like, they're Irish? What anyways? Very weird And
Liam Neeson, I know we've I think we talked about
this in our episode on Widows also has had his
share of controversies around talking about race. So unfortunately, it
is not shocking to me that he ends up in
this very conservative action thriller written by sex criminal.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
Also, Liam Neeson's saying that line about you know, we
tolerate you being here, da da da, that's in response
to the Albanian characters saying, oh, you think that just
because we're immigrants, you can exploit us and take advantage
of us and all this stuff, which fair point that

(01:04:14):
does often happen to immigrants, but it's undermined by the
fact that what they're doing is illegal trafficking. It's like, well, point,
not well taken because of what. But it's of course
like these filmmakers writing these Eastern European characters in this way,

(01:04:36):
and it's just such a mind fuck.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
It's hard to talk about this movie because there are
so many major consequential issues being conflated with each other
that it just feels like an intentional way of like, well,
the only immigrant characters in this movie are going to
see are going to be engaged in the most horrific
crime you can think of, So how can you have

(01:04:59):
a common versation around immigration when that is the puzzle
box that a sex criminal has put in front of you?
And you're like, well, I guess I don't know. I
guess I don't know the answer to that question, and
I resent being asked. Right, Yeah, it's all horseshit, LIKEE
is horseshit is. The other co writer of this movie

(01:05:21):
co wrote movies in the Karate Kid franchise and The
Fifth Element, and now owns a vineyard in Sonoma, and
that is all I know about him. His name is
Robert Mark came in. Anyways, both men who wrote this
movie were pushing fifty, if not over fifty when writing
this movie about teenage girls. Which is why they're following

(01:05:43):
you two around Western Europe.

Speaker 3 (01:05:46):
Yeah, which is why she squeals when she's given a horse,
and she loves milkshakes with extra cherries. Not to say
that seventeen year olds can't love horses and can't love milkshakes,
but the way she's framed in this movie feels like
writers just like infantalizing this girl slash, having no idea

(01:06:07):
how a seventeen year old girl actually behaves.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
Well's skin just talking about Kim and Lenore, because it's like, yeah,
the way that Kim has introduced clearly she's very wealthy.
We have Nisson's character is not as wealthy. He lives
in an apartment. We don't really know what his financial
status is. But she, you know, Leonore has remarried a
very very rich man and Kim lives with them. But

(01:06:30):
it's made a point to make Lenore look rude, to say, like,
why did you get her a karaoke machine? She was
really into that when she was twelve, as if to say,
you don't know your daughter very well because you were
not around for all of her formative years, which becomes
clearer as the movie goes on, not that it really
goes anywhere, but it has made clearer that, like Kim

(01:06:53):
agrees with this, Kim felt very estrange from her father
while growing up. But then to say for leonor to
say that and then have her be like what she
really wants is a pony, You're like, well, is she an.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
Adult or not?

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
Like especially because the movie opens with like video camera
footage of Kim's like fifth birthday where she's given a
toy horse and she's like, tie, he look at my.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
Little horse, Like okay, so you're all infantilizing her and
she's she appears to love it, like poor Kim like
that or I mean the actor that plays Kim, because
it's just like so divorced from an existing like she's
very much like a daddy's girl character. I have, yeah,
some just some notes again in the like conflating things

(01:07:40):
and airtight logic that this movie has a vested interest
in creating. Is Yeah, the relationship between fathers and das
and like the like overprotective father trope, which we see
in movies constantly. Depending on who the movie is centering,
it can be framed as like a force of oppression,

(01:08:02):
and then in other movies it's made to seem very reasonable.
This movie, it is made to seem almost as reasonable
as I've ever seen it, to the point of absurdity
of like and connects to like if you want to
go back hundreds of years, connects to you know, how
fathers are trained to see their daughters as their property
and as a bartering tool. And you know, I don't

(01:08:25):
think that they're thinking that hard about it. But there
is a clear reason why this trope exists. It is
rooted in something real. But this movie just doesn't want
to talk about anything. But yeah, it's like he you know,
she is his property. It's tricky because in some ways
it's like, Okay, he wants to right some wrongs. He's retired,

(01:08:47):
he wants to have some sort of connection with his daughter.
He's relocated to do it. I don't even object to
that as long as Kim feels okay about it, which
she appears to, and that they're trying to make it work.
But like again, it's just his overprotectiveness, which is made

(01:09:08):
to seem so wildly correct, and like the idea, like
any of Lenore's boundaries are made to seem cruel or
ridiculous as it folds out. Well, the first time we
meet Lenora, she's setting a boundary with him, saying like, hey,
this is we agreed that this was going to be
the way this was gonna go. And he's like, oh, well,

(01:09:28):
I don't care. And then Kim shows up and she's like, oh,
I don't care either, and then Lenor looks mean for
having set the boundary. And then the next time we
see her, she is encouraging Liam Neeson to let Kim
go on this trip to Paris and like, give her
a little bit of freedom. She's you know, she's a teenager.
She's going to push you away if she feels hyper

(01:09:49):
surveilled by you, and he says okay. And the one
time he gives in to something she recommends, she who
it appears, has in entirely raised her daughter, she is
dead wrong and is not able to participate in the movie. Further,
she doesn't I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:10:08):
Think she she doesn't have a particular set of skills
Jamie has she to do.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
Her skills are wife, but we also don't know that
did she ever have a career, We don't know. I mean,
I guess the most I can say for that is
that at least they bothered to explain why the marriage
fell apart and why his relationship to them is so tenuous.
But even so, it is just made to seem like
there's no point where leam Neisum is not correct, and

(01:10:37):
that the world revolves around his feelings about people and
boundaries and relationships to be correct, like the world will
shift on its access to meet his logic, and that's
at the expense of the two women.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
In the story.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
Yeah, and this reminds me of a trope that we
talk about from time to time, where in any story
where there's a woman who ends up as a damsel
in distress and the man protagonist saves her, by the
movie's logic, that entitles him to that woman because he's

(01:11:17):
saved her, this is the prize he gets in return
for saving her, and she's obligated to be with him
and to kiss him because he saved her. I feel
like a similar logic applies here, where because he's saved.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
His daughter, his daughter.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
He has redeemed himself as a father, and now he's
gonna be allowed to be an active participant in her
life and he's entitled to her time and all that
kind of stuff. And that is not necessarily true. Just
because a person does one good thing does not redeem

(01:11:55):
them for a lifetime of wickedness. And yes, that is
a quote from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
But I wow, I'm problematic king. Yeah, no, it's true.
And it again, it's like the way that these issues
and dynamics are proposed makes it hard to talk about
in an analytical way because you know, like if I'm
putting myself in a parent character's head, like both of

(01:12:22):
the parents to me are acting weird, where it's like
Lenore has no concerns about this whatsoever. That also feels weird.
Like I of course, like if my kid was like
I want to go to Europe alone with people you
basically don't know, I would I would be worried. I
don't think it's unreasonable to express concern and express like, Okay,

(01:12:45):
here is where you know, like, here is how we're
going to approach safety. Here's how we're going to approach
communication and blah blah blah, like in a way that
feels pretty healthy, but like neither of them are proposing that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
Yeah, they're both on opposite ends of the spectrum, like, well,
she's too aloof and he's too overprotective.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
Yeah. So if that's the case, whose logic does the
story favor and it's leam Neeson, it makes Leonora look
negligent and foolish for feeling any other way. This is
why I find action movies like kind of eye rolly
in general, where it's just like it's just creating, you know,

(01:13:26):
a structure in which one guy is the coolest guy
on the planet, and so of course it's not gonna
make any sense. It sounds like the stepdad is at
least you know, I don't know what he's like as
a father, but he's certainly you know, he's like an
oil he deals with shell. I was like, I here's
something where in my brain wasn't working where leam Neeson

(01:13:46):
was talking so fast, like, well, you have a bunch
of deals with shell corporations, as like shell corporations or
the shell corporation.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
Good question, what is his job?

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
What is he doing? It doesn't sound good. It definitely
does sound good. You don't get a house like that
doing good things generally, but like certainly not. But it
feels like that character is there and behaving like that,
just again in service of making leam Neeson the cooler
of like this, like you know, suit fucking sucks and

(01:14:18):
like he doesn't know what he's talking about, and she
should have stayed with me. I'm awesome even though I
was negligent and a horrible husband and a horrible father,
which actually is at least acknowledged by the story. And
then we have how Jean Claude's what his wife is treated,
which is goodness, so absurd.

Speaker 3 (01:14:40):
Leem Neeson shoots her for no reason other than to
send the message.

Speaker 1 (01:14:46):
Also, her job is dinner. Yes, her job is dinner.
She lets a strange like you would think someone who
is his wife of someone this high profile would know
maybe to not let a random stranger into the house,
but that is like literally not the case.

Speaker 3 (01:15:04):
Here knows him because they go way back, so that
I can kind of buy it like that he's a
family friend. It seems like they already know each other,
but that doesn't excuse any of the other ways she's portrayed,
which is like, yeah, she's like here, have dinner, and
then again he shoots her. She is not involved at

(01:15:27):
all in this situation, but he needs to send a
message to his new enemy, Jean Claude, and he does
that by shooting her in the arm, threatening to shoot
her in the ess wounds.

Speaker 1 (01:15:40):
You're like, oh, oh shot her king.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
Then after he gets what he wants from Jean Claude,
which is like the information on that Patrice guy. The
scene ends with Brian saying, please.

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
Apologize to your wife for me.

Speaker 3 (01:15:56):
Then the exits and then we never know what happened
beens to the wife Isabelle.

Speaker 1 (01:16:02):
And also Jean Claude treats his wife like garbage, you know,
like and Jean Claude also a bad guy. It's not like,
you know, there's he's being presented as like the peak
of morality. That's leam Neeson. And he shoots her, but
like you know, he tells, you know, his wife, he
tells her to shut up. He's like, you know, he's
being very rude to her when she understandably has no

(01:16:25):
fucking clue what they're talking about, and he's like shut off.
And then she shot and you're like, Wow, I don't
know what I expected from a Luke Basard screenplay, but
here I am watching it. It's just like it's like comical,
it's ridiculous. And also, yeah, this movie was produced by
Luke Basson. The director Pierre Morrell was Bison's go to cinematographer.

(01:16:49):
So this is very much the predatory racist boys Club movie.
And it made a quarter of a billion dollars. It
made almost it made its budget back almost times. It
was wildly successful. Again, had these two shitty sequels, and
I guess also a TV show.

Speaker 3 (01:17:08):
Yeah, which I missed. It's a not Liam Neeson. It's
the same character but played by a different actor. It's
kind of like a re envisioning.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
Guy named Clive stand In. Wow, what a wild last
name for an actor. Stand In sort of feels like
a death sentence. Anyways, Yeah, this movie has I mean
and speaking to like the campaign run in Albania to
reverse the misinformation of this movie. I feel like, I mean,

(01:17:37):
it's weird because I feel like a lot of times
on this show we cover like, well, it's unclear what
if any net harm resulted from this. It's rare to
talk about a movie where there is demonstrable net harm
done by the movie's success, but this is one of
those movies. Absolutely no question in my mind, this movie
did bad things for people's understanding of extremely important issues,

(01:18:03):
for sure, and written by again like truly the last
person you want weighing in on issues around human trafficking,
the last person you want, who's creative work you want
to see? Really period, end of sentence. And granted, at
this time, this you know, in two thousand and eight,
this conversation around Luke Pasan was not happening yet. That

(01:18:23):
wouldn't happen for almost ten years afterwards. But looking back
on it now, but.

Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
All you had to do was watch Leon the Professional and.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Feeling I mean what, but a lot of people like
it took a long time for the conversation around that
movie to come all the way around. It took a
really really long time. I mean not that not to
discount anyone who was having the conversation when it started,
but just in the like majority public sense, that was
a beloved movie when it came out. Is I just yeah,
lukeas On, I really wish him the worst.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
Yeah, the same, may he rot in hell?

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
The last thing I have.

Speaker 3 (01:19:01):
Is the way the buddies talk about the pop star Shira,
where the guy his name is Sam I think, calls
her a pop diva and then he's like, I don't
know if you'd call her a singer, more like a
cash cow. And it's just like demonstrating the way that

(01:19:21):
men often are disparaging about performers or media that is
targeted toward women because they.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
Was pulled from personal conversations that the people who make
this movie have probably right exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:19:36):
So it's just like, oh, these men hate art buy
and for women because they think, oh, if it's not
for me, then it must be bad.

Speaker 1 (01:19:45):
Yeah. And also in that scene the one other I
forgot to say this earlier, but the way that his
friends it's just something that we talk about on the
show all the time. But how the fact that Liam
Neeson has taken it upon himself to be an actor
presence in his daughter's life on her seventeenth birthday is
presented as like this heroic feat and just how low

(01:20:09):
the bar is for father participation in a child's life.
And they're like they literally like has she thanked you?
You're like like it really seems like he sees her
one day a year, like why would she think him?
But also the way she's written, she might, you know,
like she's like daddy, Yeah, because she's.

Speaker 3 (01:20:28):
My milkshake and my horses.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
Where's my milk? And my horsey? Classic seventeen year old behavior,
Like this movie can it can go? It can go?
Like I again, love the movies you love, but this
movie I feel like is best enjoyed ironically, and it did.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
It did.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
Just I will not be revisiting it after this. I
just I don't know rare that my fifteen year old
self was right, but she was. She was really cooking
on and having no further interest in this movie, franchise, genre, etc.

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
I love that for young Jamie.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
Yeah, it doesn't pass the Bechel desk. I don't care
if it does. It doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
It doesn't.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
It spiritually doesn't. And this movie on our nipple scale,
where we rate zero to five nipples based on examining
the movie through an intersectional feminist lens, I give it
zero nipples.

Speaker 1 (01:21:23):
I give it zero. I have nothing to give.

Speaker 3 (01:21:25):
Yeah, we haven't talked about the concept of fridging in
a while, or at least not defining it by that.
But like I just also want to point out, like
this is fridging the movie for any listeners who are
not familiar, we're talking about a common trope in the

(01:21:46):
action genre, but it also you can see it in
any genre. But it was a term coined by comic
writer Gail Simone in nineteen ninety nine. It describes a
trend in storytelling where characters who are women will face
disproportionate harm. They'll be killed, maime, dessaulted, abducted, anything like that,

(01:22:08):
in order to serve as plot devices to motivate the
men in the story. Usually it's a smaller plot point
of a larger story, but like in the Taken movies,
it's the whole story fridging the movie, the whole plot
hinges on.

Speaker 1 (01:22:25):
There's no movie if it doesn't. Yeah, yeah, there's no
active person in this movie besides sex traffickers and Liam Neeson.
Outside of that, there's not even a you know, I
think what is more common now in sexist movies where
it's like the women will maybe kick once or twice. No,

(01:22:46):
we're not even rising to that. There is nothing. It's
just shaking, sobbing, crying, and all the information that's been
conveyed is not thought about. I mean, this movie is
just like saying it's it's weird. This movie isn't saying nothing.
It is just saying a lot of wrong things in
a way that sticks with you harder than you might expect,

(01:23:06):
because there are so few movies, especially like widely released movies,
that address issues like this, and so the ones that do,
if they get it wrong, that makes a big difference exactly,
And the legacy of this movie says that. So, yeah,
zero nipples, it sucks. You know the monologue, sure, sure, sure,

(01:23:30):
but watch it on YouTube and fuck the rest.

Speaker 3 (01:23:33):
And it's a monologue that could be said by many
characters in many different movies, so it's not even though
it's specific to him.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
I think that the nice thing is most people who
know that monologue forget the plot of Taken, and that
is the best case scenario there. So with that, we're
back at lax. I guess we don't care that our
friend died and let's just go home.

Speaker 3 (01:24:00):
Yeah, I just I'm ready for my singing lessons.

Speaker 1 (01:24:02):
By this diva, Kim is also implied to be trauma free.
The second shot, You're just like, okay, anyways, we can't
we can't talk about this movie a second longer. Thank
you for listening to our back to School episode which
was taken wow. Thank you again for listening. If you

(01:24:23):
enjoyed this episode, you can follow us online follow us
or mainly on Instagram at Bechdelcast. We're still on Twitter occasionally,
and if you want more hashtag content with just Caitlin
and myself, you can go to our Patreon aka Matreon,
where for five dollars a month we cover two bonus episodes.
You also get access to our over one hundred and

(01:24:45):
fifty episodes of back catalog. We've been doing the Matreon
forever and every month we choose a special silly theme
and cover some of your popular requests. This month it
is John Hughes Bumber, and we're covering John Hughes movies
that we get a lot of requests for that we
haven't covered yet, so head on over there. It's a

(01:25:07):
great way to support.

Speaker 3 (01:25:08):
The show, indeed, and you can grab our merch at
teapublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast. You can, Hey,
why not rate and review us? Give us five nipples
on whatever podcast platform.

Speaker 2 (01:25:23):
You use, and uh with.

Speaker 3 (01:25:27):
That, Jamie, let's use our particular set of skills as Friends,
uh huh and go hang Out.

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
Okay, Okay, Bye bye.

Speaker 3 (01:25:42):
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 Vosskrosenski. Our logo and merch
is designed by Jamie Loftis into special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo.
For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash

(01:26:06):
Bechtelcast