The Love Witch with Alyssa Onofreo

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Doodcast, the questions asked if movies have women
and um are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
start changing it with the bec del Cast. Hey, Caitlin, Yeah, Jamie.
Do you feel like podcast hosts are supposed to please

(00:22):
each other? Do you think it's one podcast host responsibility
to bring pleasure to the other podcast host? Or am
I just thinking too binary about our media? Sounds to
me like you've been brainwashed by the patriarchy bike podcast
gotten or should I say the pod triarchy? Wow? How

(00:48):
about that? It's true? It's true. It makes you think,
it makes you think. I hope, I hope Jack is
listening to this because we've been brainwashed by the patriarch
a k a. Jacob Bryan with little devil ears on
top of him. Oh my gosh. Well that was what

(01:09):
I had for the intro. I was I was like,
maybe we'll start debating, like Trisian Elaine being like, I
don't know, I don't care if my podcast co host
feels pleasure, and then I would be like, but you
have to bring your podcast co host pleasure. That's our
that's why I was put on this earth, Jamie, I

(01:29):
want you to feel all the pleasure that you want
to feel. Now it sounds like work for me, and
I don't want to do it. Well, we already have
a lively debate going Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My
name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Durante, and

(01:49):
this is our show about movies in which we look
at them through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel
Test as a jumping off point. There's a lot more
to discuss, but we kick it off. Actually we end
the episode on the Bechdel test, so what are we talking?
And then sometimes we don't even remember to do it.

(02:11):
As as we've said multiple times, it's so fun to like,
and not in a way that it's got your ass,
but in a way that you're like, oh, okay, just
like you know how people will tell like simple social
wise before, like oh I love your pig whatever, you know,
But when someone says that about the Becktel Cast and
then they're like, yeah, that's such a cool idea figuring

(02:32):
out if movies past the Bechdel test, I was like, oh,
so you have not actually have not actually listened. And
then I go to their little cabin upstate and I
kill them because they fall in love with me so
hard that they die. Yeah, and then you piston ship
and put your tampons in a jar, and then there's

(02:55):
voice over about like, this is actually really cool that
I'm doing this, and I did that was one of
my favorite parts when she's doing like the grossest thing
I can think of, and then there's a voiceover that's like, actually,
this is people need to chill out about the fact
that I'm putting my pisth and ship in a jar.

(03:15):
And I'm like, wow, makes you think, makes you think? Yeah?
So what is the Bechtel Test? Though? Oh yeah, okay,
So the Bechtel Test is a media metric created by
queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel. Is sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test.

(03:35):
There's many versions of the test, but the version we
use is that a piece of media should feature at
least one exchange between two people of a marginalized gender
with names, and they must speak to each other about
something other than a man, and for our purposes, it
has to be a meaningful exchange. I won't even get

(03:57):
into it too much, because this movie passes pretty handily.
I feel like we don't need to like split, maybe
not as handily as I would have expected it does,
but like, yeah, okay, Caitlin is gonna be hard on.
It's gonna be Caitlin did not like the movie. I
don't know how I feel about the movie. I'm in

(04:17):
too chaotic a headspace. But that is why we bring
a guest on, because we don't know shit about ship
at times, and I feel like in the horror genre,
we that is, that's where we've been, that's where we're at,
and so we have to bring on extra special experts
in the genre to explain to us what the funk

(04:40):
is going on. So let's bring guests. I love this movie.
Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Unemasginedly love this movie.
I've seen it definitely more than six times. I was
trying to count last night when I watched it this
past time. So at least six maybe minimum, tin maybe
like at least in Yeah, I don't know. Okay, Well, okay,

(05:02):
so the voice you just heard is that of director
of social Media at Crypt TV, where there's an there's
a new show coming out this fall called Girl in
the Woods. It's streaming on Peacock TV. It was co
executive produced by our guest from last week's episode, Jasmine Johnson,
so be sure to check out The Girl in the Woods.

(05:22):
This week's guest is Alyssa and not Freyo. Hello, Welcome, Welcome,
Thank you so much for having me. A big fan
of the longtime listener. Yay, thanks, thanks for coming on.
We're so stoked to have you. And we're like because
you're you and also because you know so much about horror,
and as we were just alluding to, it's not a

(05:44):
genre either of us have a huge history with so
before so we're covering the Love which at twenty sixteen movie.
And so Alyssa, let's start by just talking about like
your history with horror, because I'm interested in, like what
draws you to the genre, what got you in, and
then we'll kind of get into the movie. So, growing up,

(06:07):
I was not into horror. I was Disney movies only childhood,
Like my parents did not allow anything beyond that. And uh,
I think I saw The Shining in college, which I
really liked. But my foreign of horror experience was my
freshman year of high school. At a boy girls sleepover,
they played Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the remake, and it was

(06:30):
the scariest fucking thing that's ever happened to me, and
it was Yeah, it was horrible. I was like, I
never want to see another horror movie again. That was horrible.
And also everyone was pranking each other all night, so
it was like extra spooky. So I saw I swaw
off horror for a while. And then college, I liked
the Shining that I took a class where I had
to watch The Ring. Walked out of that screening straight up,

(06:54):
was like, no, this is too scary. I saw The
Ring probably I don't remember when that movie came out,
but I saw it at my cousin's house shortly after
it came out, and I like pissed myself and had
to go home. That movie is very scary. It's so scary.
I can't watch that. I have not gone back to
Texas Chansaw. I tried to watch the seventies one. I'm

(07:16):
still like, it's not about it. It's too scary. It's
just like, yeah, trauma, memory's scary. Then I saw Alien
and Aliens and I was like, wait, what the funk
this was a movie in the eighties and no one
told me about it until I'm fucking furious. Uh. And
then I also saw the Thing that year and I

(07:37):
was like, wait, this was here the whole time and
no one told me. And then I also saw Evil
Dead too, and I just loved all of that, like
super extreme creature and like, I really love campy horror stone. Also,
I've been and so I've been working at krypt since.
So I'm coming up on my four year anniversary. Um

(08:00):
can't but yeah, the company has come a long way.
But we we make we're digital multimedia companies. We've started
by making short films on Facebook and YouTube and now
we have show on Peacock. I make TikTok's with our
monsters and they do a bunch of really silly stuff.
There's there's a TikTok of the Looksie, one of our monsters,

(08:20):
with this guy Johnny bridge Hold and they're like flirting
with each other and Tricy Mittel liked it on Twitter,
so like that's like one of my things that I
was part of, and I'm like, you've made it my dream,
I've made it, Yeah, exactly, That's so cool. Okay. And
then so so you like know your ship. It does
bring me some comfort that you're also a latecomer to

(08:43):
the genre, because I feel like there's a lot of
the horror horror fans I've spoken with in the past,
they're like, I was born, I was born into horror.
There definitely is some like gate keepiness about some of
the community. There are other people I've found that the
crypt community has definitely built themselves around are the people

(09:03):
who are just lovers of horror who want to share
it with other people and want to welcome people in
wherever you know that ends up being. So I have
another friend of mine, this guy dead Meat, who does
a kill Count YouTube channel, and yeah, I think about yeah,
oh yeah. So for a lot of kids who don't
watch the horror movies, they can watch the kill Count
and it's like a silly way of like getting into

(09:25):
horror or like watching something that is too scary for you.
So yeah, there's a lot of horror fans that are
more welcoming and want to get people in. Nice Oh
my gosh. So then as far as your relationship with
the Love, which you said you love it and you've
seen it several times. I love this movie. Yeah, so

(09:46):
it came out in sixteen. I saw it. I think
it was because they were doing a screening of it
at the New Beverley and they had a bunch of
Annabeller's original paintings hung up in the theater. So there
was a night where she was there, I think, but
I didn't see her in person, but I did get
to see all of her original paintings because she directed, wrote, produced,

(10:08):
made the costumes, made the sets, the score. Yeah yeah,
everything she did everything that blew me away, because yeah,
I was like, it took her like, what like seven
years to make this movie. Yeah, so wild. Yeah. So,
So another friend of mine had seen it at the
New Beverley and was like, Melissa, this is exactly your ship.
You need to go, Like do you love spooky stuff

(10:31):
and like sixties mud horror, campy like CULTI And so
I went and I saw and I was like, It's
just the best thing I've ever seen. I just also
seeing it in a theater with people, everyone was laughing.
And so there have been other times since then. I'm
now showing it to people and I've been like looking
at them expectedly and they're like, I don't know how

(10:52):
to react to this, like, I'm kind of freaked out, hello,
because Caitlin and I had like different degrees of reaction
to that, and it does. I can't see how seeing
this movie in a theater would have made a difference,
because it does feel like especially with part of my
so my history with this movie is I have no
history with this movie, and I was very excited that

(11:14):
you brought it to us because they had heard of
it several times. But I just had no I didn't
know anything because this movie is streaming and a lot
of places, and I was really stoked to watch it,
and I felt like I didn't have the pre existing
knowledge of what was being like pastiche to understand some

(11:36):
of the references. So I'm excited to go through them
because I think that, like I mean, in terms of
like if you showed me this movie and I did
not know when it came out, would not have been
like I feel like she nailed making it seem like
a movie from the seventies, Like in every single respect,
I never would have guessed that this came out in

(11:57):
the last ten years. You know, it's shot on thirty
five millimeter film and she's done. She did a lot
of collecting of vintage items, furniture and clothing and a
lot of stuff she remade herself. There are several tells though,
because there are modern cars and literally opens a cell phone.

(12:18):
Oh my god, I call in the restaurant. That's so.
There are two other references. There's a Stepford Wives References
which comes out in two and they referenced DNA testing,
which does not come into practice until So those are
the tales. So yeah, it's like I feel, I I
have a lot of questions and things I want to

(12:39):
like talk through and then criticisms as well. But I
do I mean, on its face, the like, I feel
like I'm gonna skew towards giving this movie the benefit
of the doubt in a lot of areas because it's
such a labor of love, and it's like I feel,
you know, it's like almost no directors get the chance
to do every single part of a movie and work

(13:01):
on it for the better part of a decade. And
the fact that a like a woman whose entire mission
statement for her whole career has been to see things
through the female gaze and and channel that I think
is so admirable and just really fucking cool. So I'm yeah,
I'm excited to talk about it. UM. Caitlin, what's your
history with The Love Which? I had never seen it either,

(13:25):
It's only been the past three or four days since
I first saw it. I will similarly have to talk
through my feelings. Caitlyn hated it. She hate this movie.
I'm sorry everybody, but I don't like it. Um. I
think it has a lot to do with wait for listeners.

(13:48):
Alyssa just pant over to a framed poster she has
of the Love Witch. I also dressed as a love
Which for Halloween. In no way that's as good. I
did the rainbow code. You did the rainbow The rainbow
code was gorgeous, and then knowing that Annabeller made the
rainbow coat made it better. Like, that's so cool. I'm

(14:11):
excited that Kayle hated it, though, because I'm excited to
have this conversation and this is exactly what I wanted. Okay,
this is an open forum, baby, I'm I'm a centrist. Okay, yeah,
the spectrum is represented here. UM. As far as how
you might feel about The Love Which, UM, I will

(14:32):
try not to come down too too hard on it
because there are some things that it's attempting that I appreciate.
But then there's like I have a whole other, like
monologue prepared about what it means to be a true feminist,
and that means that I can hate a feminist piece
of art and that's okay, yeah spicy, I know. Yeah.

(14:53):
I mean, well that's been we've been talking about that since.
Is like equality means that every one can be mediocre
ship and that's fine. Can bet, yeah, girl can bet?
But if I girl, oh no, must like other girl things.

(15:15):
But women support women, okay. Always. I feel like that's
what was that horrible movie. I feel like that's bombshell feminism.
That's like I have to empathize with Gretchen Carlson because
we're and you're like, no, I do not, baby, I
do not. Like, Yeah, I'm excited to get into that

(15:36):
because it's like, yeah, it's like if it's not your thing,
it's not your thing. Like that's fine, yeah, all right,
should we should we get into it? Let's get into it. Yeah,
you want to recap she want to recap it. I'll
be recapping it. Here we go. So, as we said,
the movie is very visually stylistic and homage and perhaps

(15:57):
even parody of like pulp novels and like technicolor B
movie melodramas of the nineties sixties. Down to the acting style,
to which I appreciate. I wasn't expecting that. I felt
like that was, like, the visuals are beautiful. Knowing that
the director made all the visuals is really cool to know.

(16:19):
But I felt like it was like kind of the
act the B movie acting that sold me on it. Weirdly,
I don't know, because I don't know how to describe
what kind of acting it is that they're doing. It's
not great. It's very stilted dialogue and like you can see,
at least for me, like I feel like I can
see the directing and I can like hear what directions

(16:41):
she gave the actors. And also there are many there
are a few points. I can't remember the woman's name
who's like the Queen of the Witches or whatever, but
she's like clearly looking at a card off camera, Barbara Barbara.
She's like very clearly like reading off of a card,
being like whiches have always been burned, and keeps looking

(17:01):
back and forth. And there's like no big names in
this movie, so it's hard, like it was kind of
fun to be Like, I wonder if that actor legitimately
has no talent or if they're playing a game of
four d ches. I don't know about hard to say,
but I thought Samantha Robinson was really, really, really good
in this part. It's I don't know how many actors

(17:23):
can but I okay, well we disagree on that. Like
I think she was in terms of like what it
seems like they wanted her to do, she did it.
I think she nailed this part. I think she fucking
was perfect for it. I don't think that anyone else
could have done it and sold it this way. But
I've never seen her in anything before. She's also in
this movie called Cam. She's not the main character of it,

(17:43):
but it's about a cam girl and like a competing
we've we've had Issa on the Pot before. Oh yeah, okay, yeah,
I think I definitely listened to your episode. Yeah. I
think that she came on for easy A Yes anyway, yes, okay,
So we meet that character Elaine. She's driving in a
red convertible. Her voice over tells us that she's starting

(18:07):
a new life. We see shots of a man drinking
something that seems to be poisoned. It turns out that
this is her ex husband Jerry, who she may or
may not have murdered. Then Elaine gets pulled over by
a cop. We'll put a pin in that guy. But

(18:28):
then she continues on her way. Her voice over continues
and she basically is saying, like, when Jerry left me,
I devoured everything I could about how to get your
man back. So she's on a mission. She arrives at
this house she's moving into. This woman Trish lets her in,

(18:50):
and then she and Trish go to this Victorian tea
room where they have a conversation about love and romance
and please using men love Trish rooting for Trish um.
Elaine tells Trish how the day her husband Jerry left

(19:10):
her was the day that she died, but then she
was reborn as a witch. Uh. Then we see Elaine
making a love potion and she sort of like praise
to the goddess to be sent a beautiful sweet man.
Then she meets this guy Wayne, and she has him

(19:34):
take her to his house in the woods, where she
gives him her potion and mesmerizes him with some dancing
and also the lining of her coat and also this
hallucinigenic herbs. Yes, I figured that was part of the potion.

(19:55):
Wayne is I mean, you know r I p in
a second. But Wayne is such a piece of work
where I just never knew how he was, Like just
such a what was what was the word he used
to describe himself. That was just a way of saying horny,
like a libertine Like yeah, I was just like, okay,
so you're a horny Like it makes me laugh so

(20:18):
much when horny people use fancy words to describe themselves.
I'm like, you could just say your horny and we'll
all know what you're saying. And it doesn't make you
a genius to be horny. Sorry, Like you're not like
galaxy horny nous what people intellectualize being horny. It cracks
me up. Um, So he has drink this potion that

(20:42):
he doesn't know is this love potion, and then he's
all like, ah, I feel so weird, and then they
have sex, and then he seems to very painfully fall
in love with her to the point where he dies.
It becomes from it. It's like he it almost like
he almost like Benjamin Buttons, where he becomes more and

(21:03):
more baby like and then he dies. Yeah, he's like
screaming and crying. Yeah, like he's calling for his mom
and then he and then he dies and then he dies.
That was fascinating. So he dies, and then she buries

(21:23):
his body, along with a witch bottle that she makes
that she puts her urine and a used tampon into.
Then she meets up with some witch friends at a
burlesque show, Barbara and gayan I'm not sure. Um. They

(21:44):
talk about love spells and how Elaine should be careful
with using them, and they talk about how they as
women need to approach love and sex and it's mostly
gay and being like this is how women should have love,
this is how women should sex, and dancing sexy is

(22:04):
actually good chicken soup for the for the lady, you're
just like, shut up, okay. And again it's like that
actor I thought did a really good job of making
me want them to stop talking just being real nasty,
just being a gross person. Yes, then we get what

(22:26):
might be a flashback but also just might be the
next scene, which is a just kind of like ceremonial
ritual where a lane I think it's like inducted into
the witch coven or there's some induction type ritual. Okay,
got it. Then we cut to the cop that had

(22:49):
pulled a lane over at the beginning of the movie.
This is Sergeant Griff Meadows. He has been promoted and
now he's a detective who starts investigating the death of Wayne,
the guy who died after taking Elaine's love potion. They
find his buried body and the witch bottle that Elaine

(23:13):
left behind with her tampon and urine. I was like,
Elaine really does leave behind a lot of evidence, evidence
for an evidence like that was I was like, Okay,
it's very campy because she has just left like so
many different ways to identify her on the scene, a
very shallow grave with you everything that belongs to her

(23:36):
bodily and physically right on top, like just a pile
of different DNA samples, and here's my driver's license, and
here's my birth want, here's my actually my phone number,
and feel free to text. So, like, the cops find
the body because the teacher that works with Wayne is

(24:00):
kind of seeing what's happening and she reports him missing,
and so that's why the cops go up there. Right
that woman also saw Wayne leave with Elaine, so the
mountain of evidence just keeps piling up real stacked against her.
So this investigation is happening. Meanwhile, Elaine has dinner with Richard.

(24:25):
This is Tricia's husband while Trish is out of town.
Elane feeds him some love potion. Is what I think
we're meant to understand happens. She's seducing him and he's like,
who are you and she's like, I'm the love witch
and we're like that's like, She's like, yeah, I'm the

(24:51):
love witch. And then we see another witchy ceremony where
Elaine tells Barbara that she broke things off with Richard
and so she's now back in the dating pool, and
she does like that classic thing where she's like, yeah,
things didn't work out, Like every time someone definitely dies,

(25:11):
she's like, I don't know what happened. I guess it's
just didn't work out. I was like, wow, been there,
That's why I identified worth about yeah. Um. So then
Sergeant Griff continues to investigate. He speaks to a professor
who specializes in the occult and then he speaks to

(25:35):
the owner of this witchy apothecary type store and she
tells Griff about Elaine. So he pays Elaine a visit
to ask her some questions about what might be a homicide,
and he's like, are you a witch? And she's like yeah,
I'm like okay, she's honest. And then he's like, do

(25:56):
you know Wayne Peters And she's like nah, and we're
like just kidding, but then he gets all like wooed
by her and she's like, we're meant to be together,
and then they start dating and he takes her horseback riding,
and while their horseback riding, they happened upon a Renaissance

(26:18):
fair where they're kind of like ca noodling and they
do this like long scene at the lone really long
scene at the Renaissance fair, and it's like, once again,
it's like, on my first watch of this movie, I
wasn't aware that the director had made every single piece,
And I'm like, I guess if I had made all
of those Renaissance clothes, I would have made that scene

(26:40):
last longer too. But that's also why I would hire
a costume designers so I would be less precious about
about it. That scene was really long. Yeah, she spent
a year on the costumes for that scene. A loan
I can't, but I mean, they were gorgeous. But I
was like, wow, we sure are spending a lot of
time here. But then in retrospects, second viewing, I was like, Okay,

(27:01):
I get it, I understand. I will say that this
scene did traumatize me a bit because a renaissance fair
is where I had my sledge attack, and so it
really brought back some some bad memory you know, if
you know, you know? Um? Okay. Anyway, so they go
to this ren fair and they have this kind of

(27:24):
like fake marriage ceremony, and then we hear Griff's voice
over about how love makes a man soft and how
an ideal woman doesn't exist. But it also seems like
he's falling in love with her. I do not think
he is. She has like fed him any potion, but
he is like smitten with her, to the point where

(27:45):
he refuses to investigate Wayne's death any further because he
no longer suspects Elaine of killing him. She's to his
girlfriend to be guilty. Then Trish discus over's her husband
Richard dead, having died by suicide. Then we cut to

(28:05):
a scene where Trish and Elaine have tea again and
Trish talks about how she blames herself for Richard's death
and how she suspects Richard was having an affair she
doesn't know with whom, but she wants to kill whoever
it was with. Then Trish discovers that it was Elaine
who had the affair with Richard, and Elaine comes home,

(28:30):
Trish is there, and then they fight at she's there
wearing a we like looking like late, I feel like that.
We gotta mention that. Yeah, I really did enjoy that part.
It's like, what is this like single white female, like
little road we're pulling up on. But I was like,

(28:51):
all right, let's see where this goes. And it kind
of didn't go anywhere, but whatever. It's fun to watch
because then Trish there's like a dagger involved, but no
one gets injured. And then Trish just like runs out
and then goes to the police um and like gives
Griff even more evidence. And then Elaine and Griff meet

(29:11):
up at the Burlesque Club and he's like, hey, Elaine,
the DNA testing came back and it's your DNA and
she's like, so, She's like, I didn't kill anyone. They
died because they were so in love with me and
he's like, um, you're still under arrest. And then all

(29:32):
the patrons at this burlesque club attack her and they're like,
burn the witch, Burn the witch. Griff helps her get away.
Then they're back at her place and she's like, Griff,
everything's going to be okay. I love you so much,
and then she tries to give him a love potion
but he tosses it aside, so she stabs him to

(29:56):
death in the chest. Lived happily ever after. The one
thing that killed and I were like, oh, she killed
the cop at the end, because there was so much
of this and I'm like, oh, this is playing out
like Lana del Ray's life. I hate it. But she
does kill the cops. She does kill the cop a
dand but then she has a fantasy about them getting

(30:19):
married and riding away together on a white horse, just
the way she described her like fantasy fairy tale. So
that is the story. Let's take a quick break and
then we'll come right back to discuss and we're back

(30:40):
so okay. So that where I wanted to start with with.
I want to kind of like get the bigger criticisms
out of the way so we can jump into like
movie discussion. So one of the things that really jumped
out to me about just like the premise of this
movie without even getting into what is really actually happening,

(31:00):
is getting into just like white Girl, which culture which
I feel like has always been a thing, but has
been kind of steadily on the rise in the past,
I want to say, like five to ten years, and
if it feels like something that this movie is very
much interacting with, and I feel like it's not. I know, Caitling,

(31:21):
you you have some stuff on this as well. It's
it's not something that you know, it's really within our
purview to completely unpack in the space of an episode,
But I just wanted to sort of acknowledge it because
it is so I mean, if I feel like it.
It follows so many kind of frustrating and unfortunate media
trends that are essentially white women co opting black and

(31:45):
indigenous culture in order to center themselves in narratives or
cultural practices or or whatever it is. Um and it
feels like, especially in particular, like the idea of Witchcraft,
most of the famous quote unquote like which is in
popular media are white ladies. And I wanted to shout

(32:08):
out one essay in particular that I thought was like
just so incredibly good. Well, we'll link it in the description. Um.
It's by a Navajo writer named Leu Cornum in The
New Inquiry, and it's called White Magic. That interestingly, uh,
their thesis kind of centers around another another movie we've

(32:29):
covered on this show, and so it's not in conversation
with The Love Which directly because I do think that
The Love Which is so campy that it kind of
manages to skirt some of this conversation, whereas the Vivich
is taking itself very seriously, so that the criticism feels like, Okay,

(32:51):
we really have to tell what is the name of
that director again? Who's like I went to the library?
Is it Robert Egger's Is that? Am I getting that right? Yeah?
I always want to say Robert Evans, but like that's
just my friend, Like that's not That's not who made
the Vivic at all. Yeah, Robert Eggers. And then he

(33:12):
has that iconic quote that was like I went to
the library, like and that was how he learned about
women and indigenous culture, and it's like, why did you
make this movie? Anyways? Luke Horner wrote this really good
essay that discusses the Vivich and also discusses other really
popular movies that have come out that center around white

(33:34):
women as witches. So think, I mean a lot of
movies we've covered on the show, Think the Craft, Think
Practical Magic, like Pincus, Pocus, pocus Pocus. Yes, like these
are all name checked in in the essay, But essentially
I mean, I I would really recommend that listeners read.
It's kind of a long essay, so you should also

(33:55):
read it for yourself. I want to quote a little
bit of it. But they're making the argum meant that
while it's not untrue that white women have practiced witchcraft
for a long time, no one saying that that isn't true. However,
it is often at the expense of, or the erasure
of black or Indigenous people. So I'm going to quote

(34:20):
a little bit here. They talk a lot about the
Salem witch trials, which is again a true event that
happened that specifically centers white women in the historical retelling
of it, even though there are many black and Indigenous
women who are affected by witch trials. So okay, Luke
Horton says, quote actual witch hunts of the past, such

(34:40):
as the Salem witch trials, followed from a fear of
Indigenous women and their role in forms of governance alternative
to those of the Foundling country, along with genocidal tactics
of sexual violence. Early settlers also worked through their fear
by projecting it elsewhere, the hyper visibility and necessarily spectacular
aspects of which trials a white women were an arena

(35:01):
to handle physically and politically the threat of indigenous societies
where women were in power. Beyond the events at Salem
historical spectacle as formative to America as the Thanksgiving myth,
unruly women, be they Native, black, or white, have continuously
been post as savage and placed outside the enclosed boundaries
of civilization and nation, and a move towards symbolic enclosure.

(35:23):
Both witches and Indigenous women have been reduced to accessorized
signifiers hawked by urban outfitters or Forever twenty one available
for the care free to adorn themselves with at Coachella
and express their pagan predilections for living ever so briefly
outside time unquote. So essentially, the argument that Luke Arnum
is very effectively making here is that it's just yet

(35:47):
another example of centering white women where the issue is
much much larger, and it is in some ways, uh
costume that white women can very easily take on and
off in almost like a cosplay kind of way, where
when black and Indigenous women engage with um with, I

(36:11):
guess it's like I don't even have the correct language
for it, but witchy shit, Um, it is not as
easily separated taken on taken off, and the consequences are
are more severe and pervasive. So I just wanted to
touch on that because we haven't talked about that in
a while, and I think we covered we covered the
craft so long ago that I feel like we we

(36:33):
didn't even really fully understand that stuff at the time. Totally. Yeah,
that was kind of before we were getting we were
doing like deep dives into context and things like that.
So um, but look at us having grown our old geniuses. Um, yes,

(36:56):
thank you for for doing the research and for sharing that,
and yes we'll definitely link that article. Um, some of
the context that I did but didn't get very far
into because it's a book and we famously famously don't right.
I tried my very hardest. Wow, in Unison, we killed

(37:17):
it Um. The book is entitled, which is Sluts Feminists
by Kristen J. Sol it Is, And again I did
not get very far into it, um, but I would
recommend it nonetheless because it seems like it's very cool
and well researched and has a thesis statement that very

(37:39):
closely aligns with the ideology that we promote on this show.
But it's basically about how the sexuality and sexual liberation
of women and fems has historically been feared and demonized,
and that fear has been used to justify condemning women,

(38:00):
accusing them of witchcraft and like accusing them of being
demonically possessed, burning them at the stake, all that stuff
from history, and then how that fear and condemnation has
never gone away but has evolved over the years into
what we recognize today as modern day slut shaming, UM

(38:21):
shaming of sex works, shaming of queerness. So that's what
the book is about. UM. I plan to read it
more one day when I have time to read a book,
one day when we're back to the book reading. But
but I feel like this movie is trying to say
a lot of what this book says. I would argue

(38:43):
more effectively. And this book is also way more inclusive
and its approach to that because we'll talk about how
this movie is very white, very heteronormative, very gender normative,
very body normative, like the list was on, and maybe
that'll bring us into the discussion about like what this

(39:06):
movie is trying to say. Um, but I feel like
hitting the trying really hard. But yeah, I recommend the
book for anyone who wants to check it out. I'll
check it out. Yeah, okay, so yeah, let's let's get
into the Let's get into the movie. Um, so, this
movie is definitely talking a lot about patriarchy, is talking

(39:29):
I feel like it. It presents a lot of I
don't know some of the moments, and it is absolutely
we'll get into how gender and heteronormative the approach is,
and and how the characters are. There were some conversations
so that I enjoyed watching characters go back and forth
about like I thought, all of the conversations, even though

(39:52):
they're not, you know, test friendly, but the conversation between
Elaine and Trish on both sides of the movie, I
thought were really interesting and just presenting different approaches to
dealing with patriarchy. Sure, yeah, I mean for me, I

(40:14):
mean I think there's an argument to be made that
this movie is about a woman who reclaims her power
and becomes sexually liberated by way of being a witch
and by way of murdering men, which is funny, but

(40:37):
it is very funny. I don't hate that. Now it's
fun again. For me, it's just like the execution, it
just didn't feel very effective to me. I feel like
the movie is setting her up for a character arc
that never happens. What did you think was going to happen?
I'm so curious. I thought that she was going to
start out. So she starts out being very much like

(40:59):
So the conversation she has with Trish at the very beginning,
I like transcribed it because I was just like, what
is happening here? Okay? So she's you know, she's all like,
you know, we may be grown women, but underneath, we're
dreaming about being carried off by a prince on a
white horse. And then she's like, men are like children.

(41:19):
They're very easy to please as long as we give
them what they want. And what men want is a
pretty woman to love and to take care of them
and to make them feel like a man and to
give them total freedom and whatever they want to do
or be. And then Trish is like, well, what about
what we want? What like, how are we going to
be equals if we keep catering to men and like

(41:42):
all of their needs. And I'm like, yeah, good point, Trish.
And Elene is like, if you want love, you have
to give love. Giving men sex is a way of
unlocking their love potential. And then this is when Trish
is like, sounds like you've been brainwashed. Elene, sounds like
a bad self help book at many points, like and
nineteen eighties self help Look for Women written by a

(42:03):
man exactly, That's exactly. And then this is when Trish
is like, it sounds like you've been brainwashed by the patriarchy.
Your whole self worth is wrapped up and pleasing a man.
So at the beginning, like at the beginning here, Elaine
has these very regressive ideas about like catering to men's needs,
and then Trish calls her out on it, and so
that's why I'm like, oh, there's this, you know, maybe

(42:24):
Trish is going to kind of help her see her
worth outside of how men value her and all this stuff.
And you could argue that that maybe happens again because
she just keeps killing men, but to me, it felt
like the voice of reason character Trish leaves the story
and it is absent from it for most of the time,

(42:46):
and then when she does show up again towards the end,
she's like, oh, maybe you were right, Elaine, maybe you
should give a man his fantasy and cater to his
desires and all that stuff, and I'm just like, huh.
I felt like, okay, So, like I I'm going through

(43:06):
an extremely heterosexual breakup right now. So I was sort
of just like, I mean, I don't mean to laugh
at that, but the way you framed it was sorry,
I framed it like it was an extremely goofy movie. Um,
and that's on me. I'm realizing why it is funny.
But I don't know, like there were I agree with

(43:29):
these structurally that where Trish lands isn't satisfying. And maybe
I'm giving the director too much credit here, but I
felt like Anna Biller is such an outspoken feminist that
she has to be aware of what she's doing there.
And it's kind of a matter for us of whether
we agree with that approach or not, because it's like

(43:51):
because because I feel like, if you know, if this
was actually a movie from the seventies that would have
most likely been written and directed by men, if a
conversation like that happened, there's no four D chest going on,
Like it's not like like that's just literally what they think.
But Annabeller's body of work very much indicates that that's

(44:12):
not what she thinks, and interviews that she did around
this movie indicate that it's not what she thinks. And
so where I was sometimes hitting a wall, but like
where where I kind of landed on was like, I
don't know, I'm curious what you think about this as well, Allissa,
of clearly there's a lot of dissonance in a Lane's
mind about men, because I feel like she's almost trying

(44:36):
to present this fantasy so hard, and it's not like
she's really presented to us as like an aspirational character,
like she's like whatever, but she's trying to present this
fantasy so hard in a way that is clearly so
psychologically destructive to her that she like kills the people

(44:56):
that she's working so hard to bring this fantasy to.
And on Trish is and I felt like Trish like
I was also bummed out that Trish ended by being like,
maybe I was wrong, Maybe I shouldn't have like had
thoughts about like my own agency and independence, And it
felt to be like Annabella kind of left it in
this place where it was like fighting the patriarchy is

(45:19):
really hard and doesn't always like work, which is so
depressing and like not really the message I'm seeking in
a movie. This is why I think it's so clever. Okay, yeah,
please please, you didn't hit it hit us because Annabella
is a feminist and she is aware of what she's doing,
and I think the conversations between Elaine and Trish clearly

(45:41):
show that, because like when Elaine is talking cuckoo, then
Trish is literally yeah the voice of reason, being like, um, hello,
here's reality, what are you talking about? But Elaine is
such a surreal and otherworldly character, and I put her
solidly in the good for her universe, like she wanted

(46:02):
love and she took it and she whatever, but I did.
I did also want to mention that Annabular was reading
a bunch of self help books and that was what
inspired her to write the movie, and the character was
like echoing those and that's what I think is so
cool is that it like the look of it being
so solidly sixties and it feeling like a sixties movie,

(46:24):
Like you could look at a frame of it or
a scene of it and think it's from the sixties.
And I think that's what the juxtaposition of all of
these things playing together, Like I'm not explaining it right,
but no, I feel like it it adds up to
something that is very funny and very clever to me,
because I think she's pointing out so many things while

(46:47):
staying so true to the campy sixty horror genre and
saying a new feminist message. Like I see Trish's like, well,
I guess feminism didn't work out for me after all.
And she's kind of doing this robotics. It's like this
robotic like I don't know what to do, and she's
just kind of like it's like she's standing at a

(47:08):
wall and she's like walking into it and like she's
malfunctioning almost. It's like, well, I don't know what to
do now. It's like the Stepford Wives moment where she's like,
come have some coffee. Comes Well, It's like when she's
supposed to she's supposed to be the good wife. She's
supposed to be the one who has emotions and and
earned her husband or whatever, or like, has her own

(47:28):
agency and feelings and blah blah blah. But then as
soon as she's without her husband, she's like, what what
do I like? That makes sense to me? I found okay.
So Annabeller has an interview about this movie posted on
her website that I found very clarifying in I don't know.

(47:52):
I had a lot of questions, especially when I was
leaving my first viewing of this movie, which I went
into completely cold, and then was like, hold on, who
is who made this movie? Because it makes it makes
all the difference. And speaking to your point, Elissa, yeah,
I I I found her perspectively helpful in wrapping my
head around like what she's trying to do. So the question,

(48:16):
I also am not clear on who's asking these questions.
It might be her asking frequently asked questions to herself unclear,
but on her. So the question is which character should
be identify with Elaine or Trish? Annabella replies, quote, our
identification flips depending on the scene. I'm trying to talk
about how difficult it is to be a woman in

(48:36):
today's culture and how all of the options for creating
an identity are problematic. For instance, Trish is comfortable with
herself and happily married, and Elaine feels she has to
tie herself in knots to please a man. So Trish
is the quote unquote normal one and Elaine is desperate
and has self esteem issues. But in the end, Elaine
uses her fantasy doll tactics to steal Trish's husband and

(48:56):
destroy him, and Trish is left widowed and broken. When
we see what Elaine has done to Trish, we hate
Elaine and identify with Trish. But at other moments, as
when Elaine is flashing back to her abuse by men,
we identify with Elaine. I tried to create a Junkian
animus for Elaine. First of all, Okay, you've read a book. Okay,

(49:18):
she went to the library. Who are you, Robert Eggers?
Robert Eggers went to the library. If we never made
that t shirt? Um, I tried to I think it's
I've never said Carl. Is it Carl Young? I think
Young the psychologist? Right? Yes, Okay, I tried to create
I'm continuing her. I tried to create a young Gian

(49:41):
animus for Elane, a group of judging, manipulating male characters
that she hears in her head or paints in her paintings.
It's in her attempts to escape this animus that she
becomes dangerous to herself and to others. It will be
interesting to see how many women will relate to this unquote.
So I get it, Like, that's that totally makes sense

(50:01):
to me of of like different perspectives on trying to
navigate patriarchy, navigate abusive relationships, because that is a lot
of what Elaine is actively processing throughout the movie is
like trauma inflicted on her by men from her past.
Whether it's I think that you like hear the echoes

(50:23):
of her father at one point, you hear certainly a
lot from her ex husband. She talks about it with
other characters. It's clearly like a big defining trauma that
like informs all of her behavior. So yeah, I mean,
I I'm having this thought in real time, so bear
with me here. But I feel like something this movie,

(50:47):
especially upon hearing that quote from Anna Biller, I feel
like part of what this movie is attempting to comment
on is something that we've kind of grappled with on
the podcast and even in my own personal life, this
navigating and reconciling as as a hetero woman. How how

(51:13):
do I reconcile being a militant feminist while also wanting
the hetero romantic companionship of a man. This is something
I have a conversation with myself about daily, and I
wonder if, like, that's part of what this movie is

(51:35):
dealing with, because we have Elaine, who is very emblematic
of this like old school sixties era and earlier ideology
of like, well, a woman exists to please a man,
to cater to his every whim, to be sexual, not
because you want to be sexual or explore yourself sexually,

(51:56):
but to sexually please a man. You know, all all
of this stuff that for all of history had been
what was expected of women by the patriarchy. And then
you have a character like Trish who is saying, like, no,
this is sixteen or the sixties. We don't know what

(52:20):
the decade it is that we're in, but we don't
think like that anymore. You're you've been brainwashed, like life
isn't a fairy tale, Husbands aren't Prince Charming's like get
with the program, So you have these like conflicting things
that and again I don't know what even point I'm

(52:41):
trying to arrive at here, but no, I I totally Again,
this is like watching this movie and at a very
interesting time for me personally. It's like, yeah, I think
that that's something that a lot of tragically straight with
it are grappling with, you know, is is And and

(53:04):
also like I think that that exists, you know, across
the spectrum of sexuality of like, well, I want to
be empowered, I want to be independent as a person.
Why am I still feeling like I want a partner?
But it's like that's part of and not everybody feels
that way. I'm not trying to over generalize, but but
it's like that's such a part of being human. And

(53:25):
the more I watched it, the more I engaged with
Anna Biller's commentary on like what she was trying to do.
I thought it was like kind of a really brave
thing to do in some ways. Again, it's like the
whole it's a very white cast, and Anna Biller is
is um half Japanese, half white, but the cast itself

(53:47):
is extremely white. I feel like this is you could
argue that it because it's interacting with sixties and seventies
B movies, it's extremely heteronormative and binary as it pertains
to gender. But I also feel like, like what you're describing,
it feels like almost like a feminist elephant in the
room for some people, where there's so many beliefs that

(54:10):
I hold very firmly that I cannot apply to my
own life to save my own life, Like you know,
I feel like, and this is maybe a reach, but
like I feel that way about like a lot of
body issues and a lot of like I'm an extremely
body positive person. I feel like I actively recognize how

(54:30):
our bodies are policed and mistreated and we're told to
look a certain way and I'm still anorexic. Like it's
so like it it is like such a personal journey
on you know, holding your beliefs and holding them very authentically,
which it seems like Annabillard does as well. And also
I don't know acknowledging through a piece of art that
it's like but yeah, when it's you like fucking good luck,

(54:55):
you know, it's yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know, I
feel the same way. I find so in that way,
maybe this movie is far more relatable than I'm giving
it credit for. For me, Okay, here's what I think
it is. Again. I see what the movie its intentions are,
and I honestly think it's because I think it has

(55:17):
a screenplay that I do not think is well written.
The execution just like kind of falls flat for me.
I think it's very largely like a screenwriting thing, an
editing thing. The movie is like a half hour longer
than it needs to be. And I feel bad dumping
on these things because I know Annabeller did all of it,
but that will bring me to my monologue that I'll

(55:40):
get to eventually. But so I think it's just kind
of like a personal preference thing where the execution falls
flat because the story is just sort of like meandery
and at times unfocused, and I think something's happen that
are probably like symbolic or allegorical of something, but it's

(56:01):
not totally clear to me what or things aren't totally
tracking and and I don't know if it's because it
was intentionally Okay, this is gonna be so mean, but
I have to say it was it intentionally poorly written
because it's paying homage to the like these pulpy b
movies of that era that are also poorly written. I

(56:23):
sort of thought, so, I don't know, what did you think?
Was that? In my opinion, yes, in my opinion, yes,
if it's is. If it is not, then in my opinion,
she like if you didn't do it on purpose, she
was geniusly riding the line of and just like stumbling
into the perfect like wrongness. But also so that's why
I think she had to have done it on purpose.

(56:44):
Like I think it's so stilted in the way that
it is written, and like, yet other lines are so
clever and like the stuff about the tampon, like must
men have never seen a used tampon? And then later
when he's like and I found an old hot dog
under the bed, it was like, so I didn't get that.
Tell my second viewing stuff like that is so clever

(57:05):
that I think that the moments where it is like,
I think it is just a perfect homage to sixties
movies and like using all of the parts that are
like using them as paper dolls, almost like sixties movies,
being like, Okay, these are the these are the pieces
that I have, so I'm going to use them to
tell more messed up, slightly different story, but it's these

(57:25):
are the what I have, and people recognize the roles
that these people are in, so I'll I will use them. Yeah,
I suppose I land on. Okay, Well, a poorly written
movie and kind of modeled story does then not lend
itself very well to a clear message for me? Sure,

(57:47):
clearly other because I read so many reviews that are like,
this movie is genius, it's brilliant, it's amazing people, we're
foaming for this movie. But to be fair, a lot
of the reviews I read, we're hailing the visual style
and all of the artistry that went into the movie,
but saying like you should just ignore the plot. The

(58:09):
plot you just don't even notice it, just like kind
of don't even watch the plot, but just be sure
to really look at the movie though, But it looks amazing.
So so for me coming from like a very like
story centric screenwriting background, I would obviously never mentioned my
master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University, but I just

(58:30):
feel like there could be a much clearer, more like
sex positive more. Here's why I think she did this way.
I think that the visual style of it is so
effective and it just burns into your brain. That's and
you can't not look at it. And I think the
poster is just so eye catching and like it looks
like the six season in such a way that you're like,
I have to see if this was real, Like I

(58:51):
have to know if this was from that time, And
the way it glues you into it that way, I
think is part of the app of it. And then
it also like is using this yeah, meandering type of stuff,
but in like these dreamy styles, because I think that
it's supposed to be when you realized later like oh,
that was the movie that was not really from the

(59:13):
sixth season, like these parts of it stick out to you.
So I think it's supposed to like parts of it
stick with you later where you're like, oh, an old
hot dog he he meant he found a tampon under that.
I think that's why it is affected. I don't think
it's supposed to be Like if it were more straightforward
about the message, I don't think it would be as
fun or interesting or catchy. That it uses that style

(59:38):
to its advantage, and like it has it does a
bunch of silly and possibly meandering stuff in terms of
like other films, but I don't think that it would
work any other way. And I think the campiness of
it is what makes it so weird and special and
why that the real cool feminist messages of it are
so special, because it's just like they're dropped in there
among this, like glittering just play, like, oh, I didn't

(01:00:01):
expect to find this in here, but this is fun. Yeah.
I suppose if it was more straight forward, it would
feel too preachy and just to like, we get it.
Women are people who deserve to be sexually liberated and
like all that stuff. So yeah, yeah, because because I I,

(01:00:24):
I don't know, Like I I run very hot and
cold on art movies, where like if I like it,
I love it, and if I'm like not vibing with
the style or the script, I'm like, this is the
most annoying ship I've ever seen in my entire let
Like that's whatever the nature of the genre. But yeah,
I don't know, it does feel like it comes down

(01:00:46):
to personal preference. I like that. She I don't know.
I just like I can't in good faith dump on
this movie too much because it's just so much work
and so many like risks, and I feel like making
very simple feminist points in movies is such a thing
to do right now, Um, where it's very like and

(01:01:07):
that's how I am and I'm and girls actually rule,
and like as time goes on, there are and this
this kind of brings me back to the essay from
Luke Cornum I was talking about earlier, where it's like
straightforward movies about which is that come out now are
operating on like a higher level in terms of social

(01:01:30):
commentary than they were twenty years ago, because if you
think about The Craft, the Craft starts as a story
of his sisterhood that devolves into teen girls blackmailing each
other over various guys, like it ultimately becomes and you
could say the same thing for Practical Magic, where it's
like it's about sisterhood but also is inherently tied to
heterosexual relationships and doesn't really end up making a point

(01:01:53):
about anything in spite of marketing itself like it is
saying something which it kind of isn't, even though it's
still fun to watch, right whatever. But I I am
finding myself more drawn to like unusual ways of making
points like that because there's just so many movies right
now that's like women are good, and it's like, yeah,

(01:02:14):
I know, it's that I just find that exhausting it
to like be bashed over the head with it. And
I think the scene that really solidifies is that the
last scene of the movie really solidifies that it is
a self aware of parody. To me, is like when
they go back to the Renaissance fair the mock wedding scene,
and all of the sound, all of the music is gone,

(01:02:34):
but you hear all of everyone's like start strustling and
like people breathing weirdly. So you hear like all of
these just like gross unsettling noises that are like okay,
there's people here, but there's all of the music is gone,
and like it's just very unsettling and weird. And so
that to me says like she is aware that, like
this is a really ridiculous fantasy and like obviously you

(01:02:58):
should not be like I'm going to be like when
I But also it's like that girl literally yeah, Mrs
Mrs girl Boss, Mrs Elizabeth Holmes, the Witch, but like yeah,
but also it's like I don't know, there were parts
of it I didn't like. There are parts of it
I did like but I do feel like now having

(01:03:20):
watched it a couple of times and like reading where
the director's coming from, I do feel and just like
through this conversation, I'm like, Okay, I understand what she's
trying to say. And then it's like, you know, no
no harm, no foul as far as I'm concerned, Let's
take another quick break and then we'll come back for
a more discussion and we're back. I agree with listen.

(01:03:47):
Like anything that bashes you over the head or has
some weird I just I'm always reminded of that scene
in the last Avengers movie. We're like ten women that
they've managed to like weave into the stories throughout don't
know each other. The girls are here exactly like all
the women in the m C. You congregate on the

(01:04:09):
battlefield and start to walk alongside each other, and they're
like why feminism, Donna Exactly. That ship annoys me so
much because it's just so like performative, and it's like
whatever male director's idea of what they think women want

(01:04:31):
to see or that they think is empowering for women
or whatever, and like so anything that's like very bash
you over the head like that is similarly not effective.
I guess. I just think there were some things that
I was like, how what what is the takeaway here?
What am I supposed to be? Or how does the
movie feel about this? Or how does the you know,

(01:04:52):
how does the filmmaker feel about this? And one of
those things was um and again, maybe this is more
clearly effective comedy and parody to other people, but I
was just kind of missing it. Where so the men
would typically take the love potion fall painfully in love

(01:05:13):
to the point where they were feeling in such a
way that some of the other characters were like, men
become soft when they fall in love, and it's it's
really gross for a man to have feelings. And when
Elaine calls him a pussy and she's like, why are
you pussy, he's crying just like a little girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(01:05:33):
A lot of like equating um, men being vulnerable and
men expressing emotion to like being gross and stuff. And
I feel like, I guess because the characters who are
who don't find that appealing, our characters like Elaine, who
we are not meant to identify with, I felt guess
my take on that was that again, I do think

(01:05:55):
that Annabella knows that she's doing there where it's I
I feel like that would only happened to male characters
after they had already previously expressed that they found the
same quality when it appears in women to be embarrassing
and gross and annoying, where it's like Wayne's character before
he does begin like painfully emoting, which is like super

(01:06:19):
campy and like whatever, it's it's a bit much, but
he like they have He and um Elaine have this
discussion where he's like, oh, yeah, you know, like when
women expect things of me or like basically like I
don't know. I feel like everyone who is the like
misfortune of having sex with kind of an asshole guy

(01:06:41):
has had a version of this conversation where it's like,
you know, like I don't understand why I have to
be like nice to people that I have sex with,
Like it's it's so like corny and over the top.
But it's that I thought, because that conversation happened when
he was expressing the same overblown, clearly overstated behavior that

(01:07:03):
he was describing in an earlier scene that I didn't like.
It didn't come off to me as like men shouldn't
emote mentioned expect because some movies definitely firmly come down
on that side. But I think that it was almost
like a punishment for finding any woman he'd ever been
with two expect And it's also like he describes it

(01:07:26):
as like neediness, but what he's describing is basic respect.
Like I thought that then was really like the way
that that dialogue was written, as he's making it seem like,
can you believe someone would expect this of me when
it's kind of basic courtesy? So yeah, that didn't That
didn't bump me too much. And I like that she's

(01:07:46):
I like that she's sarcastically babing him in that scene.
She's like and then he goes in a way yes,
and you're like, oh god, I feel like they were.
She was showing like they were. They were flipping the
gender roles basically, and that like Wayne was becoming the
way women are like stereotypically portrayed ass like super emotional

(01:08:09):
and like needing whatever. And like when he does all
of that, then l And is like, oh, no, you
I didn't want you to be like that. This is
not what I wanted from love, But now you're doing
what women do and I'm not. This is not what
I asked for? Yeah, which does I mean? I think,
what what that flipped? Because it is like a clear
like the way we've been classically conditioned to view binary

(01:08:32):
gender roles flipped and then used to like weaponize against
CIS men. What that I mean? And it's like not
every movie can do everything. So I don't even know
how much of a criticism this is, but that creative
decision means that there's no room for nuance in the discussion.

(01:08:53):
Like it's like, if you're flipping traditional gender roles manufactured
by society in this sixties seventies way, then yeah, it
feels like Annabella doesn't leave herself a lot of area
to discuss living outside of like traditionally prescribed gender identities

(01:09:14):
or like so, so I I understand why, like that
is something that feels kind of glaringly missing. I don't know,
this is such a complicated discussion. Do you do you
think I'm really curious about this? Do you guys think
that it would be possible to emulate the sixties aesthetic

(01:09:36):
and theme and balance a more nuanced feminist conversation, because
I don't know, I feel like there would be room
for I mean, there's What I don't understand is like
why there's basically no non white actors in this movie,
because even for the sixties or seventies, that's not off

(01:09:57):
certainly like not off the table. So I thought that
was like definitely a bizarre choice, and I wonder how
consciously made that choice was, if at all. I don't know.
I mean, but in terms of like having a nuanced
conversation about gender, I mean, this is like the least
nuance genre available, So I don't know. I yeah, I guess,

(01:10:19):
I don't know. I feel like, I mean, you can
just like even if you wanted it to be esthetically
sixties camp technicolor melodrama B movie type thing, and still
make commentary. I feel like that's possible because you can
just take creative liberties with things and it I mean

(01:10:40):
maybe it's it'll be disson it for some people, but
I don't know, I feel like it could be effective.
And now, okay, so now I'm thinking about how there's
like long monologues because I was like, oh, yeah, I
don't you know, I don't want anything that's bashing me overhead.
But then there's like these long scenes where like Barbara
and the the Witch man, gay In or whatever are like.

(01:11:04):
And this is another example of where I'm not sure
what the movie is exactly trying to say, because gay
In and Barbara they're talking, and they're saying some things
that I very much agree with, and then two seconds
later they say some other things that I cannot really

(01:11:24):
get behind. So I'm not sure exactly where the movie
lands or if this is parody that I just don't
quite get. But to give you an example, they're talking
about how, like, you know, there's this history of witchcraft
and it's interwoven with this fear of female sexuality and
how women were burned at the stake because you know,

(01:11:47):
men feared the erotic feelings that women solicited in them
and stuff like that. But then gains like, oh, but
a woman's greatest power lies in her sex ruality. And
I just I always found it a little bizarre that
that message came from a guy and who is clearly

(01:12:07):
painted as creepy, because I'm not opposed to the message
of like anyone finding their sexuality to be a liberating,
empowering thing, but it's just like, sure, the vessel for
the message is a little DISSI it, yeah, because later
he's also like, because women's greatest power is in their sexuality,

(01:12:29):
that means that you should wear perfume and high heels
and makeup and learn to dress your hair in attractive ways,
you know, display flesh artfully and be a mother and
a lover. I'm always displaying flesh artfully as all about
about you. And I'm not like anti makeup or anti

(01:12:50):
perfume or anti explosing flesh, like I do all of
these things. Anyone can do whatever they want with their body.
But he's basically saying, do these things in order to
be appealing to men, and it's very important that you
do these things. And then he says like he's telling
women to stand your ground, but always let the man

(01:13:10):
feel like a man. And then Barbara's chiming in and
she's saying, yeah, we have to use sex magic to
destroy a man's fear of you. And so I'm like,
is this what the movie subscribing to is? I didn't
think so, Like, I I didn't think. I mean, I
don't think that the movie was necessarily getting behind what
Gan was saying because he's like, I feel like he's

(01:13:31):
like clearly like this bizarre foil who's like trying to
get women to behave the way that he wants. But
I do, I do see what you're saying. That, like,
the message of this movie can get a little like
it's so esthetically pleasing, and then sometimes the message gets
a little bit mouddled, especially in a in a scene

(01:13:52):
like this, where again it's like this constant tug of
war of like points that I agree with and that
I think are coming from a place of like, yes,
it's okay to be empowered sexually as a woman. Yes,
women have historically been condemned and persecuted for their sexuality

(01:14:14):
and perceived as being evil witches because of it. And
then two seconds later, like this guy who Barbara and
Elaine seem to agree with, is like, and that's why
you should make yourself as attractive to men as possible,
because that's how you become empowered. And I'm like, and

(01:14:35):
again I'm like, this might be parody, but if it is,
I can't not really tell. And it's just not quite
working for me, just because of like the way the
scene is written, the delivery of the dialogue. There's just
like all these things that to me make it feel
very dissonant. It does I mean it just it does
seem like it's a matter of like this is just

(01:14:55):
like not definitely like not a movie for everyone, like
at its core, which like, yeah, I guess leads me
to my kind of spiel about how I tend to
feel this pressure to like media made by women and
other marginalized creators, especially media with a feminist with feminist

(01:15:19):
themes like The Love, which because I want to be
supportive to these filmmakers and this cause, but I also
don't want to feel like I kind of have to
automatically like these things based solely on this pressure to
feel supportive and because then it's just pandering, Like yeah,
I do. I do feel It's like I don't know,

(01:15:41):
everyone has a different perspective on this, but I feel
like I'm like I'm always going to like give a
marginalized creator's project and work a chance, like before I
will give some rando white guy a chance. But it
doesn't mean like I don't know. We talked about this
on this We've talked about this on the show in
the past, where it's like, you know, true true equality

(01:16:04):
means that everyone makes mediocre ship sometimes if the difference
is more in like how you know the number of
flaming hoops that are added for for marginalized creators. But
it's like exactly, it's like, this is a movie by
a woman of color, and she did have to jump
through a lot of hoops to make it, and it's
still not for everybody. I know. That's like kind of

(01:16:25):
what I'm grappling with on this entire episode, as I'm
sure listeners can tell. Where like, I want to be
able to judge things based on merit and based on
the quality of storytelling, which is the criteria I used
to judge media made by cis head white men, because again,
like true feminism is to me is that it is

(01:16:49):
okay to admit that you don't like a thing made
by a woman. But like you said, you know, I
know how difficult it is for marginalized creators to their
movies made, to get funding for their projects two strikes
if there's a flop, etcetera. Yeah, I mean right that,
you know, distribution and like have their movies seen by

(01:17:10):
a large audience. They don't. They don't even get to
do the same job. And I can't emphasize that enough
because I've seen I've seen it all different ways, and
they just don't even get to do the same job,
and it's just not fucking fair to judge them on
the same standards because it's a different ball game. Um,
that's why I am inclined to be more forgiving, or

(01:17:30):
to just to not not be more forgiving, but like
to like, Okay, what were the circumstances here, Like what
was the budget? Who else was involved in? Really like
analyze that part of the situation in context with how
I view my opinion of the movie, because I think
all of that really hugely matters. And like, like Anna Biller,

(01:17:50):
she had had experiences like that with her own crew
on this very movie. There was a piece in Indie
Wire published in late seventeen based on of a Twitter
thread that Anna Biller had made about how she felt
very frustrated by and disrespected by her own crew at
many points. And it doesn't sound like it was like

(01:18:11):
anyone high up. It sounds like the actors were all
very respectful, but um, just feeling that like that she
as a director who was a woman and also a
person of color, like she was not taken as seriously
as someone who was Like admittedly, I mean, if you've
seen the movie, she's doing some weird stuff. She's making
some like hard choices. The swings are big ones. But

(01:18:35):
it doesn't sound like her crew was as I don't know.
I mean, they weren't treating her like they would if
she was like David Lynch being like, we're doing something
weird today, everybody, and like they were just like, this
woman doesn't know what she's doing. So I wanted to.
I mean, she she we can link to this as well.

(01:18:55):
But she was saying, quote, it was so bad that
during reshoots we had different A d S Assistant directors
and they were appalled at what was going on. They said,
your own crew is sabotaging you. Why uh blah blah blah.
She said she's had quote this same thing on other films.
Some crew members seem how bent on destroying you and
the film to make sure it never gets in the can.

(01:19:16):
I think it has to do something with being a
female director, and something to do with how the line
producers said a bad vibe and then disappeared, so you know,
it's like and also it's person to person. I don't
know what Anna Biller's directing style or personality is. The
examples are too vague, but it does that's just like
painted in my head of like yeah, just like your

(01:19:37):
own crew is not aligning with your creative vision. That
has to be so frustrating as long as you are
treating your crew well, right, because you're just a different
shape and a different like, they won't see you the
same as they see a man, and so they're not
going to just intrinsically the way that things are. They
will not treat you the same and you will not

(01:19:57):
get the same respect, and so it is in earrently
a different ballgame to direct as a woman, and I'm
sure as as an Asian woman. Like it's like, um,
do you know who you're talking to? Like this is
the director of the movie? Like yeah, Like who said
do you think you're on? Yeah? Yeah, who do you
think is paying? Like who do you think your job
is coming from? Like yeah, I feel like it is

(01:20:18):
Like that's like a conversation that I hope we keep
having because it's like, I don't know, I mean, it
is kind of a difficult thing to reconcile. And I
mean I totally see where you're coming from. Caitlin's like
we don't want to like judge directors on separate scales,
like that's not fair. But then it's also like, but

(01:20:39):
not being assist white guy making a movie is going
to affect your experience totally significantly. So it's just which again,
I do want to like acknowledge and like take into
consideration as I am judging a movie. I don't want
to like ignore that or be like it doesn't matter.
I'm just going to judge a movie because like the
movie by the movie. But at the end of the day,

(01:21:01):
there were just some movies that, yeah, like that just
don't end up being for me, and all I have
to do is just not watch them. Ever again, I
think it's just like the work of asking yourself, like, well,
why isn't it for me? And if you hit a
block there, if you're like, well, I just couldn't perfectly
relate with the main character because they weren't exactly my
perspective or bah. Like if if you're hitting blocks that

(01:21:24):
are you know, based on your own biases or your
own unwillingness to learn about the experiences of others, Like yeah,
sit yourself down in your little inner brain chamber and
have a little talk like and that is a huge
and I feel like that is like kind of in
conversation with what you're talking about. And and part of

(01:21:44):
the reason it's so hard for marginalized creators to get
projects funded is because there is such a like sis
white male normative, like if a if a white guy
can't enjoy your movie, then you don't get a movie. Sorry.
Like but in this wait, it's like if you're if
you ask yourself, which it seems like you very much
have in the case of this movie, like why is

(01:22:06):
this movie not for me? And the answer is like
I didn't like the writing and I it's not my genre.
Then it's like, yeah, you're not, Like you're not going
to go to hell, Like it's totally fine. I don't know.
It's it's like it's a very It's like a similarly
hard thing to grapple with as um being a hetero

(01:22:26):
woman who likes the romantic attention of men. It's confusing,
it's all complicated. We're all on a journey here, baby. Yes,
I did want to shout out the cinematographer of this movie,
who is an icon. We've covered his work before. M

(01:22:47):
David Mullen, a Japanese cinematographer. Check out this resume, Baby
Aquila and the b Jennifer's Body and the Love Which
amongst other but those were the three that jumped out
to me as like, oh hell yeah that Debs he rocks,
he rocks. Yeah, I mean Aquila and the Bat alone,

(01:23:09):
and also a bunch of Madmen, a bunch of West
world Sarah Silverman special, just like amazing work top to bottom.
So I just wanted to shout out m David Mullen.
I just wanted to take a moment to give credit
to a man brave. Yeah, But I was like, wait

(01:23:30):
a second, the same guy who did the camera work
on Aquila and the Bat which I we have to cover.
We have to I can't believe we haven't covered Acula
Um Classic. I want to point out the heteronormativity and
gender normativity, especially in the way that the characters discuss

(01:23:53):
love and sex and romance and stuff, and again might
bee that's part of the commentary and parody of it all,
But all the love and sex that gets discussed in
this movie only refers to hetero attraction between SIS men
and CIS women. Discussions around gender are always framed in
a very kind of rigid binary of men and woman

(01:24:16):
and not acknowledging anyone else on the gender spectrum um,
which I do think that there could have been room
for in this movie in terms of diversity and race,
body type, and and I feel like, you know, I
know that queer identities were like I almost went full
boss and I was like wicked underrepresented in movies in

(01:24:39):
the sixties and seventies. But there's there was like queer
b movie cinema that existed, Like there there was, there
was definitely room for it, right, But and then well,
I also have to kind of question, like, is the
movie stylistically paying homage to that era and the movies
that came out in that era an excuse for why

(01:25:00):
I the movie looks like it does in terms of
whiteness and body normativity and gender and heteronormativity. I don't know.
I don't feel like that's a very good excuse for
a movie that comes out within the past five years.
But I don't know. I would that's again, that's something
that I would be interested in deferring to annabiller on

(01:25:22):
because I do I'm like, I trust that she has
a creative vision and if there's a question that it's
like she's truly like, oh, I guess I wasn't thinking
about that that hard and I don't have reasoning for it.
Then it's like, okay, well then I'm criticizing you for that.
But yeah, I would I would be. This is just

(01:25:42):
something that I was just like, I wish she would
answer these questions. Maybe she has and we just don't know. Um.
Does anyone have other thoughts about the movie? It's everything
that I had. I don't think there's anything I loved.
When she's burying way and her total tangent to talk

(01:26:03):
about her cat that she misses so much, Like, yes,
it's like my best friend. I was like, wow, feelings
seen girls. Uh yeah. There were a lot of moments
in this movie that I thought were like very funny
or like just I don't know, Like the moments where
I did understand what was being referenced, I was like,
who I love this ship. Um, And then there are

(01:26:25):
other moments that I'm like, this is referencing something I'm
assuming I don't know, but yeah, does it pass the
Bachtel test? I believe it does a couple of times,
not a ton of times, because it is mostly you know,
women talking about men. What were we talking about? Oh? Yeah, men? Yeah,
but it does past a few times. It is like

(01:26:47):
more on a technicality than I was expecting, honestly. But
there is that whole I mean, there's that whole interest
scene where Trish and Elane are meeting each other. They're
talking about the house, They're talking about why did you
move there? There, They're talking about a couple of things
that are not about men, like it does is past
interior decorating. Yes, Elaine also talks to the which shop
lady about selling her weares. Yes, but most of the

(01:27:11):
conversations between Mary meeting Um, But most of the conversations
between women are either directly about men or the subtext
of the conversation is about using witchcraft to find hetero
love with a man. Which makes sense, it's a story

(01:27:32):
about a woman who is trying to find hetero love.
But also why are so many movies where a woman
is the protagonist? About that? This movie broke my brain? Yeah,
this movie, this is the movie that broke the podcast.
Congratulations Annabellair, congratulations as the podcast broken. I'm so glad

(01:27:56):
that that I got to bring this one. I am too,
I really like i I'm this movie is going to
like haunt me and I think in a in a
generally positive way. I feel like there's gonna be a
lot of listeners who are going to be like, Caitlin,
you fucking asshole with your horrible opinions about this movie.
Very hard on yourself. I mean usually I am, yes,

(01:28:20):
I don't know my again, my brain is broken, and
let's rate it. Let's rade it. Let's rade it. Our
nipple scale is zero to five nipples based on how
the movie fairs. Looking at it through an intersectional feminist lens,
here's what I'll say, Oh my god, ready, um knowing

(01:28:41):
who made the movie and Annabeller being a very vocal,
outspoken feminist and all of the work she put into
it and the care she put into it, and what
is clearly messages of the sexual of you know, women

(01:29:02):
and fems, and how that's historically been feared and punished,
and how it deserves to be empowered, and how there's
commentary on toxic masculinity and male fragility, how there's kind
of this acknowledgement or maybe this was just my read
of it, but open to interpretation, that it's exploring this

(01:29:26):
kind of tug of war of like being a sexually
liberated feminist person and also a heterosexual woman who is
attracted to men, and how that can be confusing you.

(01:29:46):
It's like, do you kill the men? Do you have
sex with them? Why not? Boy? Cannot be both? Do
you get into a relationship with them and then have
sex with them and then kill them? It could be everything,
take anything off the table, and this movie certainly does
not take any of those options off the table, right,
So I think it's attempting to do some interesting things.

(01:30:09):
I think that because the screenplay and just the way
the story was crafted is muddled and dissonant. I found
a lot of the messaging to get lost in that,
and I feel like it wasn't as um again, not
as effective commentary for me as it seems to be
for a lot of other people. And again that's probably
that's just like a personal preference art being open to

(01:30:32):
interpretation kind of thing. So I appreciate what it seems
to be doing, and because of that, I will award
the movie three nipples. Maybe that's too harsh, but that's
what feels right to me at this time. Three nipples.
I'll give one to Anna Biller's costume design. I'll give

(01:30:53):
one too, Anna Biller's score, and I'll give one to
the prop that is the used tampon that goes into
the witch bottle. I'm gonna go three and a half here.
I here's what I think boiled down. The movie is

(01:31:15):
too white and too straight even for the genre it
is parodying for my personal preference, and that is kind
of my biggest stumbling block with this movie. I don't
see why there couldn't have been more characters and also

(01:31:36):
like a body normative things we've we've discussed at this
point in the episode, but I think that there was
certainly more room even within the confines of what Anna
Biller was very clearly referencing. So that I think is
my my main critique. Outside of that, I think like
this is like a movie that I am very glad exists.

(01:31:58):
I feel like the fact that it broke all of
our brains in the way that it did actually speaks
to the movie and speaks to the fact that it
is good that that like that. I'm that I'm very
glad it exists because it's presenting, you know, in a
in a very weird way that seems very inherent to
like who this director is and how many women get

(01:32:20):
to make very like weird movies exactly how they want
to and while she, while she was certainly limited by budget,
got to do the whole thing by herself and have
it received with extremely open arms by the general public,
which I feel like it's also unusual for marginalized oh twos,

(01:32:41):
where you feel like it's a more normal reception to
be like, you know, white guy reviewers being like, well,
I don't know what the funk that was about anyway,
like you know, so I think that they're like, this
movie has a lot going on, and the fact that
like we were like like the different ways of navigating patriarchy,

(01:33:02):
and again it is a very like how heterosexual women
navigate the patriarchy. But but but even the shades of
gray within that very specific group of people who are
overrepresentative movies. But to have that and have both of
them sort of lose, it's frustrating, But it's also so

(01:33:25):
reflective of what real life can be and except everyone
is really sexy and wearing cool costumes, and so ultimately
I think that it's I think it's definitely worth a
watch if you enjoy like very I'm trying to think
of the world like whatever The intellectual word for quirky

(01:33:46):
is that, like the I like anachronistic. It's not that,
but it sounds like that. Kitchen kitchi is kind of
what has in mind kitchy kitchen. It is definitely kitchy.
I'm gonna think of this word in like three hours
and then walking into traffic. But I'm very glad this
movie because I think it's I mean, just based on
the conversation we've had here alone, I would recommend watching

(01:34:09):
and see what you think. Maybe I like it, maybe
you won't. And that's just kind of art movies. Um,
So I'll give it three and a half talking for
the reasons described. I'll give one to Elaine. I'll give
one to Trish, I will give one to Annabiller. I'll

(01:34:30):
give my last half to Elaine's cat that died, poor kitty, Melissa.
What say you? I'm going a solid four nips? Wow,
we really did the spectrum. You already gave a nip
to Gray Malkins, so I'm gonna give Grat Malkin to
just to like be extra. I think this movie is

(01:34:51):
so clever. I think it's so funny. I think that
the satire of it it works so well for me,
because there's just so much to pick apart, and it's
not straightforward and you have to kind of look at
it for longer. And I can't remember the exact quote
that Anna says um, but she said something about making
it for the feminine gays and how she did a

(01:35:12):
lot of artistry with the costumes and the sets and
all of that so that you weren't just looking at
the women's sexually being like, oh, she's a beautiful woman.
It's like there's all of this other stuff to look
at at the same time. So she wanted there to
be like that to be part of it. But they're
for they're time more to look at. So I think
it's I don't know. I just think it's such a

(01:35:33):
great movie. I do want to share a quick quote
from Annabeller from an article in The Guardian in which
she's kind of talking about what she wanted to do
with this movie and like different cinematic identities she wanted
to reclaim as far as like archetypes and stereotypes and

(01:35:53):
and and like things like that, as far as like
female characters throughout cinema, and she says, or sorry, so sorry,
this is talking about what Annabeller wanted to do. So
it's not a direct quote from her, but it says
that she quote cites other female movie types whose voices
she would like to reclaim, the sexually aggressive, confident women

(01:36:15):
of the pre Hayes Code era, when many more screenwriters
were women, film noir fem fatales such as and Savage
in Detour and Jane Grier in Out of the Past
projections of male postwar anxiety and misogyny. And then she says, quote,
I'm doing that with the Love, which reclaiming the figure

(01:36:35):
of the which the fem fatale, an old sort of
male fantasy figure, and make it a fem fatale seen
from the female side unquote. So you know, I appreciate that.
I get what she's doing. Caitlin, It's okay you didn't
like the movie with that alysta. Where can we find

(01:36:56):
your online? Where can we follow you and follow your work?
You can find me omg Chump on Twitter and Instagram,
and you can find my work at Krypt t v
on Twitter and Instagram. It's krypt t v. And you
can also watch Girl in the Woods, which is our
new show coming on Peacock this October, and the whole
show centers around a queer love triangle and a non

(01:37:19):
binary person coming out and girls kiss in the first episode.
That's all I'm gonna say. It's spooky, it's fun. I
think it's got something for everybody. Yes, everyone, be sure
to check out The Girl in the Woods on Peacock TV,
which drops October twenty one, which, depending on the release
date of this episode, might be today, So check it out.

(01:37:42):
Uh And then you can follow us on Twitter and
Instagram at Bechtel Cast. And of course there's our Patreon
a k a Matreon, which is found at patreon dot com,
slash pecktel Cast. It's five dollars a month. It gets
you to this episodes per month and also the entire

(01:38:04):
back catalog. Love it. You can get merch at t
public dot com slash v Bechdel Cast. And the last
thing I'll say is everything I didn't like about this
movie or the moments I didn't like where when I
felt like I was watching a Lanta del Rey music
video and that I feel like I'm like, well, I'm
bringing my biases to the table as well. Sure, sure, okay,

(01:38:28):
bye bye,

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