The Rock with Miles Gray

Jamie and Caitlin escape the prison that is the patriarchy and meet up with special guest Miles Gray to discuss The Rock.

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women and them are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best start
changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hello and welcome to
the Becdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Rante, my name
is Jamie Laftas, and we're here to talk about how

(00:21):
women are represented in the movie and are awesome? Women
are the best? I love women too. Okay, Well, as
long as we've got that out right at the topic,
that's critical. Yeah, our listeners need to know that we
are allies to women. What if they came in, like,
what if they're not allies to women? I think that'd

(00:43):
be kind of like an insidious fun place to start. Oh,
like you know that podcast Analyze Fish. Like it's like, yeah, oh,
this is a podcast where you convince me to like fish.
Where this is a podcast where you, Caitlin convinced me
Jamie to like and respect women. I'm like, you know what,
I not sold, Well, they kind of seem like idiots. Well,

(01:04):
the movie we're talking about today, I know we're we're
recording in a different space with different I think you
should just address what's going on. We are recording in
our normal building, right, normal structure of Meltdown Comics, But
we're in a uh not normal space right because a
bunch of things have happened. We haven't recorded in a while. Um,
some things have happened since then where Maltdown Comics. The

(01:25):
historic comic book store in Hollywood, California is closing down,
which also means the comedy venue that I do the
programming for is also closing down. So yeah, we're recording
in a different podcast studio which is adjacent to our
normal space. But an Aristotle is not here. He's not

(01:45):
here today. Did you and ours have fun last night
at the movies? Yes, we saw a Pacific room too.
Oh that's so. I liked it better than the first one.
That's good. What was better about it definitely more women, um,
a more streamline story that was easier to follow, not
a billion characters who all looked the same and therefore
you don't know who's doing what. That's good. And John
Boega is a much more charismatic leading man than Charlie Huntum,

(02:09):
I mean, John Beega is very hot, John Bayoga, listen,
let me just go off the rails very unpopular opinion JK.
John Beaega very high well cool, full body paralysis every
time John Beega is visually in front of me in
any resolution. Hey, folks, this is an example of a

(02:30):
conversation that would not pass the Bechtel tests. Interesting because
we're talking about a man in the Bechdel Tests, which
podcast is inspired by. I have a lot of for
the movie we're talking about today, I have a lot
of asterisks to the Bestel test. What would you kind
of have to I think even in a movie where

(02:51):
women are certainly not the focus, and if they are,
they better be pregnant as well, I think that that
is Yeah. So the Actel test requires that a movie
has two female characters. They have to have names, they
have to talk to each other, and with our version
of the Bechtel test, they have to have a at

(03:11):
least two line exchange. So one woman says one thing,
another one woman responds to her, and neither of those
can be about a man. Shall we demo? Yes? Let
us demo? Okay, Jamie, what's your favorite flavor of soup? Hi, Caitlin,
I think soup is hot water and it is a
big old racket and I don't believe in it, Jamie.
I agree, hot water with flavors in it? What are

(03:34):
you vitamin water but left in the sun? Stupid? That
passes the back to Certainly, it doesn't have to be
good writing. We have to say over and over and over,
it doesn't have to be good. So we'll figure out
whether or not this movie passes the Backtel test well
talk about is portrayal Lemon infuriating, infuriating to This movie
is infuriating to me at a number of levels, so many,

(03:56):
but on this level specifically, because it just this movie
is the ultimate proof that the Betel test is flawed.
Is flawed. Yeah, you can pass it and horrendous showing
up a lot of things. And we'll get to that
discussion later on. But first let's introduce our guest. He's

(04:16):
wearing a great jacket. It's so soft, it's so tanned.
Can I just say it is a hand me down
of a Frenchman. I'm wearing a Frenchman's hand me downs
and that's the only way to live. I mean, there
couldn't be a better backstory for this very nice jacket.
We're thrilled to have him. Yeah, the voice you just
heard is that of the co host of The Daily

(04:37):
ZiT Guys, Oh my God, how stuff works Network, Miles Gray. Hi, Hi, welcome.
Thank you so much for having me. I am really
excited when you first asked me to do this. I
was just sure what movie we would do when you
were like, what movies do you like? Like in jes
like I love The Rock also knowing full wether this
is a terrible movie, but I'm so glad we picked it.

(04:59):
I'm because I rewatched it with a critical eye because
I think I was telling Caitlin before, like every time
I've watched it, it's just kind of been like on
and that was the last time. My thought was maybe
like eight years ago. So to watch it now with
the critical eye in this is like a t n T,
Like you turn on t n T and this is
on in the middle of it. I think by law

(05:20):
it had to be on at some point at least
twice in one weekend, like whether it's t NT or
f X, it was always on. And it's one of
those movies. It's one of my favorites, where you do
I've seen Bits and Peace. This is the first time
I've seen the movie all the way through I will
say thirty six hours ago. I'm improving. But this is
one of those movies that I've seen chunks of over

(05:41):
the years, and it's always the T n T edit
where it's like, that's not what Sean Connery said in
the movie, but I'm not quite sure what he actually said.
Think I know what you're talking about. I love a
t NT edit. My name's Buck, and I came here
at a party. That's all. This is happens when you
meet a stranger in the Alps. The other one from

(06:03):
Big Lebowski a stranger in the in the what does
the original met a stranger in the Alps? That's I mean, truly,
the ultimate creative challenge is to be the one who
edits for T T. Yeah, and then but even though that,
you have like the freedom to just be like, honestly,

(06:24):
I think meet a stranger in the Alps is the
only thing that's gonna work. And they're gonna like, alright,
fuck it. You know what. He's a pro. Yeah, he's
a pro. He knows how to make words sound like
other words without context. Whoever did kill bo One did
a real bang up job and I love them there.
I have not seen that part. That's that it really is.
I came here to party. My name is Buck, and

(06:44):
I came here to party. Feminist icon Buck, lots of
lots of feminist icons in The Rock, which is a
movie that for all you idiots out there like me,
the Rock does not appear one time I was waiting
for a Rock cam. Oh, he does not come. Dwayne
Johnson not in this movie. Dwayne Johnson absent, which already

(07:06):
is like, do I like this movie? Hard to see?
So you hadn't seen bits and pieces of this before?
I mean very bits and pieces. I knew that Nick
Cage and Sean Connrew were in a movie together and
found that to be interesting. I didn't remember that it
was a Michael Bay joint and that that adds a
lot peak. This is well, this is a peak Bay.

(07:33):
Stop that right now, Thank you so much. My coat
and I have to go Jean Paul's coat and I
have to do and I must go some miles. When
did you first see so sorry, when did you see
The Rock? Oh my god, I'm sorry. I had to
get high after watching the movie because I was so
fucked up. I was like, I need weed after seeing this.

(07:54):
So you're catching me there, and I also have a
piece on the way here. Um. But the first time
I saw it was in the theater, so I'm like
twelve years old. This was like in the period when
there were blockbusters in the summer and you were like, movie,
these are like the big tent pole movies come out,
and it didn't matter what the funk it was, you
just need to see it because it was such a
spectacle and the movie like that, It's effect on me

(08:16):
was like pretty profound. At the time, I thought I
wanted to be like a Navy seal because of the movie,
Like it indoctrinated me very well. That is something I
had a question about because I was I was too
young to see this movie when it came out. I
And also it's like even if I was old enough,
it wouldn't have been aligned. Like I don't think that
this is a movie in the nineties you would have
taken a young girl to see, right. Well, you know,
it's weird that people would just take their whole families.

(08:36):
I remember, like I went with a group of people
and like the Little Sister Games, she was like six,
and it's just like, hey, the big movies out, let's
go to the all see it. By the time I
was in middle school high school, there was such a
reputation for all the boys who were like getting into
the military and the idea of going into the military.
It was always Navy, Sales and Marines and like these

(08:57):
are the badass branches of the military. And I feel
like it's movies like this that really pushed that agenda.
And that's such a Michael Bay thing to push a
very specific view of very specific branches of the military
that like really took hold of young people's brains. And
it's weird to watch now and be like, oh, this
is why all the boys I went to school with

(09:19):
thought Marines were like the fucking coolest is because Ed
Harris and his baldass head were doing their best and
n like it's just crazy. And the Navy seals too,
like the technology they were using and they're just like
this superbero type ship. To me as a twelve year
old kid, was like very appealing and god like. I
remember right after I like begged my parents to buy

(09:40):
me like Urban Camel, like that gray and white, like
those fatigues that Ed Harrison those guys were, because I
was like, that's I'm gonna dress forever. Because of this moment,
I feel like you're touching on something very important, which
is when young people see movies like this, they're like, Oh,
I want to be like that person. So if a
young girl saw women being in the military, they'd be like, Oh,
I can be in the military. Very two but so little.

(10:01):
But I would argue that this is such an inaccurate
representation of the military. It's basically like, I'm not saying
about this movie specifically for women, but I'm saying there
were movies that made like women in stem seem cool,
or women in like computer science, or like women in
law seem really cool, we would see more women trying
to do jobs like that is like a laser guided

(10:24):
missile for testosterone. This is film which is kind of
like an overarching theme in all of Michael Basbok where
even if you get into the Transformers franchise and again
I feel like I do this every other episode, but
I will direct people to friends of the cast. Lindsay
Ellis is really great video essay series on the Transformers series,
but there's very strong pro military themes in the Transformers

(10:48):
series to where like this is just like a big
overarching theme of Michael Bay's work, which is always kind
of regarded as like, well, these movies are not good,
but everyone's going to see them, so they are very
relevant and from what I could tell, and I tried
to backtrack and do some research on how this movie
was reviewed at the time, which was pretty well. I

(11:09):
mean it got three and a half stars from Ebert.
It got like this movie was well reviewed, right, which
is crazy to watch it now and be like, oh, yeah, great.
But but this was like peak block. This is the
same year that Mission Impossible comes out. This is like
peak action dudes, military adjacent shit is like this specific
years when all the big ones come out, and this

(11:29):
is the most successful of that year. But even now,
just last year, the A V Club wrote this big
piece on How the Rock, which is sort off, I
feel like I've forgotten Michael bay movie. Now, I don't
think so. I see, I had never heard of it.
I thought it was a vehicle for the Rock, the
rock stars in the Rock. But the movie is so well,

(11:51):
it's well. I read a few different pieces of saying
like this is Michael Bay is technically, structurally, ETCETERA best movie,
maybe not most memorable, but best in terms of putting
a movie together with a story that makes sense. Is
the closest he's gotten to making a cohesive narrative. But
I've never heard of it. See I've heard of it

(12:12):
for you. So my backstory with this is I only
saw it for the first time almost exactly a year ago,
because I remember posting on Facebook because for years I
was always like, fuck Michael Bay. I hate him. He's
a horrible director and he sucks. And everyone's like, well,
have you seen The Rock? And I'm like no, people
would be like, that's the one you would like The Rock.
The Rock is actually a good movie. So I like

(12:33):
heard all the stuff I Caitlin, you will like The Rock,
And I think, like, I genuinely think that that is
a thing when we're looking at male directors versus female
directors or male directors, if you have one good one,
they're always like, no, he's actually good, because have you
seen this movie that came out twenty two years ago, right,

(12:53):
But if it's a female director, if she makes one
bad one, it's like all her previous successes are completely
but yeah, that this seems to be the one that
people direct you to have, like, well, Michael Bay was
at one point semi competent. But I wouldn't. I wouldn't
like cape for it, like then be like, you know,
you would really like the word to say that. I've

(13:14):
had no less than ten different people said that exactly
to me, Well, yeah, it kind of sucks, but the
rocks pretty good, and I think you'd like it. And
then I watched it and I fucking hated it. I
think maybe it's terrible unless it's like the caveat of
like it's the most brainless peak nineties action film. But
I wouldn't. I would be I would attached so many caveats,
wouldn't be like you're going, you know what, I peaks

(13:34):
cinema there once I found out this was a Michael
Bay joint, and also reading the behind the scenes stuff
for this movie is wild and that like there's who's
the guy Don, what's his name? Producer? Okay, so Don
Simpson in the middle of production for this movie. He's
like the big producer who works with Bruckheimer and works
with Michael Band. This movie dies of a coke over

(13:58):
a few months. Not to laugh at someone's cooke overdose,
but this is peak nineties, like toxic male, like we're
gonna make a movie about seals, and then one dies
of a coke overdose and then like the twist at
the end is it's dedicated to this guy who had
a coke overdose. There's also I'm getting way ahead of myself,
but I do need to say now, Nick Cage is

(14:20):
the protagonist technically one of two in this movie. I
would say, yeah, I would say technically like the poster protagonist,
where you know Sean Connery is like the villain, but
not really, Like there's no there's a lot of straight,
white male heroes, but are they villains? But there's so nuance.
But if they weren't like white and straight, probably they

(14:41):
would just be villains. But anyways, Nick Cage at the
end of this movie, the last line he delivers is
basically a prequel to National Treasure, where he's like, Babe,
did you know who the real killer of cas? I
was like, are you reading the fucking back of the
Declaration of Independence right now? Dude? Like, are you it
was for good? MAUI? Before the way he looks at

(15:06):
that microphone is so amazing too. What about Nick Cage?
Just like we have to give him a Chekhov's gun
style prop that reveals in that scene that we haven't
seen yet in the Do they not even have a
dog at their house? Don't? At the end, it's like, oh,
I guess they got married, but like and then pretending

(15:27):
to be like broke because they're like, we're in this
shitty VW. Beetle Right, Kansas, Kansas, Walton, Kansas. Oh okay,
I'm sorry. I was not watching this movie. I just
watched it, and I have a picture graphic memory. I
was remembering that do you really front pew right leg?
You know? That's awesome? No, it's only for The Rock,

(15:48):
though it's asking about any other it is. Remember, I've
been going to a lot of therapy and I'm being
to see it as a strength. Yeah. Sorry, I won't
know that. Fine triggered. Um, you're actually activating my coping skills.
That's a great way to look at the should do

(16:09):
the recap, Okay, I'll do. I'll do this so freaking fast.
So The Rock is about so as you said, not
the Rock, not Dwayne the Rock Johnson. But the protagonist
is Nicolas Cage. His character's name is Stanley good Speed,
good Speed. What a reveal He is a like chemical expert,

(16:29):
chemicals weapons expert for the FBI. He gets called in
to help with this hostage situation that takes place where
and Harris's character, whose name is Frank Hummel, is a
which is a weird choice. Hummel is a German porcelain statue,
was interested in what the deal with the whole hummele

(16:50):
thing was. But I crack, yeah, my grandma would like
collect hummels. They're like these weird German porcelain, very commercial
statues where it would be like Christian horribles in porcelain.
And then okay, I know we interrupt, I know we
interrupted the thing constantly. But the two writers credited on
this movie, who are not, thankfully I think for their

(17:12):
own reputations, not visually credited and also because of writer's
guilt rules, Sorkin and Tarantino contributed to the script for
The Rock. Yeah, so it's impossible to say where these
names come from or what these specific things I find
interesting comes from. But there are a lot of good
writers involved in this movie, but few of them are
actually credit. There's like a quote about how Sorkin like

(17:32):
wrote quote most of the good dialogue or something like that.
I mean, of course there Simpsons. You know, Sorkin loves
Coke too, so they're probably all just like flying off code.
So it was apparently Aaron Sorkin Tarantino. And then the
three credited screenwriters were David Weiseberg, Douglas Cook, and Mark Rosner.
So a bunch of freaking men wrote this movie. Cool alright.

(17:56):
So anyway, the story is Frank Hummel is like a
Marie like black Ops. He was doing things commanded by
the government that we're technically illegal and then not compensated
fairly or you know, just various injustices were done to
like him and his fellow Marines and their families and
things like that. A lot is done to humanize the

(18:16):
villain in this and which is I think Michael Bay
thing that is normally not thought about, right. He well,
he literally sets his stakes up in the first thing
by talking to his wife's grave. I would say, he
screams that his wife, I'm so sorry. His wife's grave
says Barbara Hummels, his wife. I was like wife. And secondly,

(18:41):
it's the first thing his wife I guess because they're
already pre like designing the plots. So he'll be there,
and then I'll be Yeah. She she is only defined
on her gravestone by her relationship. Yeah, maybe they'll finally
listen to me. There. God, when this movie starts with
like a Jerry Bruckheimer joint, a Michael Bay joint, You're like, Okay,

(19:04):
so there's gonna be a lot of men with veneers
in this movie. Crazy. Then you find out the movies
about Alcatraz, You're like, great. And then you find out
about poor fucking Barbara Hummel. Ed Harris, who is I
will say, doing his very best in this whole movie.
I love it. I mean, I have such a soft
spot for character actors, and Ed Harris has been sidelined

(19:26):
his entire life and I love him. But he, I mean,
there's only so much you can do. He screams at
his wife's grape. He says, I miss you so much.
Everyone screams. Movie. Michael Bay's directing style is more screaming,
Please scream louder, like, yeah, it's a lot. Hey, the
rain is really loud. Imagine she can't hear you through
the rain, Ed, you're screaming at her ghost Dad, You're

(19:49):
dumb bitch, right, like you know he's like just screaming profanity.
Is that everyone at all times, and so no one,
no single actor, could be held accountable for whatever atrocities
take places in the movie. Okay, so it hare's his
character Um. In response to the injustices that he feels
has been directed at him, he takes a bunch of people,

(20:11):
like tourists hostage in Alcatraz. So eight one tourists are
taking hostage. It's the most diverse group of people we
see in the entire movie, where there's a lot of
there's young people, there's old people, there's black people, there's
Hispanic people. There's all sorts of people we'd never see,
never check in with them. Yeah, I don't need to.

(20:31):
Except for the crying father white hostage death exactly, we
see a series of racist caricatures. We see a crying
white hostage and then we basically forget that the most
diverse seen just reinforces the crazy stereotypes because one cell
is like the clueless elderly Asian people and like the
angry black dude who's like, man, this is a tour

(20:53):
and then they go to like, Okay, well so we
have angry black man. Now let's go to sassy black
woman and gun. Yeah, it's like and then this film,
like you know, that's why I says like peak nineties
of sort of like this completely. You know, this was normal,
and it's almost like like you could tell people almost
had to write these like and then you know we're
gonna have to have like a sassy black woman say

(21:14):
something here, you know what I mean. It was like, yeah,
this movie has all of the great tropes in it.
Oh and then like the character who is coated as gay,
the stylist who comes in shot. We'll get we'll get
to that. But you can't. You can't just bring in
a stereotype for two minutes and then discard the character forever.

(21:35):
More concisely than this movie, yeah, and truly emasculate the character. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. Okay.
So Ed Harris is holding all these people hostage and
has these missiles filled with this the most deadly chemical
ever to be known by a man, and he's threatening
to fire these missiles on the city of San Francisco
if the government does not comply with his demands, which

(21:57):
is that he and his group of probably like I
don't know, fifteen or so Marine black ops people like him, right,
these like rogue marines. They all want to be paid
one million dollars each and you have forty hours to
do it. So everyone, like people at the White House,
the Pentagon, military people, they all gather in this conference room,

(22:19):
almost entirely men. They gather up a team basically of
I think also Marines, Seals. They're the good guys. They're
the good guys. And then they get Nick Cage because
of his chemical weapons expertise, and they're like, but we
don't know how to get in and save these hostages.
We need someone who has been to Alcatraz because like

(22:40):
the places, there's like no blueprints and all this stuff
has died. No one knows anything, right, So they're like, well,
we have one last chance with this guy named John
Mason played by Sean Connery, who is the only person
to have ever successfully escaped Alcatraz. So they find him,
they bring him in. They like through Alcatraz, they get

(23:01):
into the prison ed Harris is all like, Candy here,
I'm doing my best. He's doing his best. But so
most of the Navy seals get killed in the standoff,
and the only people who are left of the good
guys is good Speed and Mason. So they have to
figure out a way to find all the missiles because

(23:24):
there's fifteen in them, I think, and Nick Kge has
to disassemble them or like make it so the like
destroy the tracking chips or whatever, sort of vaguely like
a video game directive. Like at some point this movie
missiles and take guidance chip, right, and then every time
that they do that like a new challenge. I'm like this,
at some point the plot of this movie does begin

(23:45):
to feel like a bad video again, right, What did
you notice? One of the last Navy seals to die
is the actor Danny Nucci, who is Fabrizio. He's texted
me about this so good I missed it. I straight
I straight up slip oh. I. I was like, that's
Fabrizio from is Iconic. He's like, it's silver Fox now

(24:06):
he is very hot. It's like, yeah, anyway, I thought
you'd appreciate that because I know Titanic is. I was
genuinely very upset with myself because I went back and
I was like, of course that's Fabrizio. But there are
so many random b characters. I would say that there's
three maybe four in this movie that when their their
Navy seals and when they're killed, you heard the little

(24:28):
like and you're like, wait, who's that character for they're
bleeding out, You're just like, wait, but who is that?
Have you heard them speak? It's like senseless killing of
Americans killing Americans right, and it's just like, oh, he

(24:50):
was a hero. All those scenes. There's like three different
scenes where three characters I could not tell you who
they were if you had a gun to my head.
There's a two minute scene about how sad it is
that they died. Dude, just like, whom is that? Well?
Speaking of guns, there's a ton of them in this movie,
and a lot of them are being shot and fired
into other people. So like a bunch of people are dying. Um,

(25:12):
good speed and Mason managed to find most of the missiles,
but there's like one left and then the green almost yeah,
I mean they're all like that. They're all the they're
all the missiles and I don't know, I listen, I
don't know about missiles. Do I think that they actually
look like Nickelodeon slime? I'd be surprised, surprised. I think

(25:34):
the art department had a good time with that. Really,
they look like like those like, yeah, like a huge colander,
major league, they're major league anile beans. These are not
for weekenders, do you have Yeah, this is for this
is for an ass. Yeah, this is for a real as.

(25:59):
This is a you feel an So basically, there's like
one final standoff where most of the rest of the
bad Marine dudes die, but Nick Cage has to like
fun the one last missile. There's this whole fight and
then he saves the day, he disassembles it whatever, and
then what's his name? Mason is like, oh, now I'm
going to have to go back and be in jail again,

(26:20):
and he's like, not if I tell them, you die,
so he lets him escape. The homie does right help
help you fake your friend's death. I hope you guys
have that kind of relationship. Jamie what happened to Jamie?
And you're looking at her and you're like, she's done vaporized,
She's vaporized. She she told me where the anal beads
were and then she disappeared. So, yeah, the good guys

(26:43):
save the day on the city of San Francisco safe.
None of these guys save the day, because if you
think about it, all, Ed Harris was really advocating for
it was better veteran care. Right. His whole thing was
like I want a hundred million dollars eighty three of
it for the men that I lost and discarded like
that was the thing was like, this is like a weird,
uncanny valley situation, much like I would argue the original

(27:06):
Ghostbusters the enemy being the e p A like where
you're just like, are they really the enemy? Are they? Like?
Why are why are we supposed to say that? Where
I mean ed Harrison where his practice is perfect, they were,
They weren't bad, but he knew when he lost after
he was like, I bluffed they called it. So the
mission is over right, you know what I mean? And
then the other dudes who kind of take over and

(27:28):
then Degreed takes over right, you know what I mean.
I don't this This movie is very weird and also
I mean, I think we'll get into this, but like,
there is a male friendship that co coagulates through the
course of this movie between Nick Cage and Sean Connery, right,
but everything that they are bonding over is completely toxic.

(27:51):
Where I do I think it's good to see a
movie where two men form a friendship. Yes, I don't
think we see that enough, But do I want to
see it based on like guns dislike when like you know,
they bond on every problematic, weird thing there is possible
to bond on, according to Michael Bay and then it's like,

(28:12):
but they're friends. It's kind of nice and he should
absolutely be in jail because like in the many scenes
of destruction in this movie, I would say, we've got
hundreds of casualties on our hands that are never addressed.
In the city of San Francisco when they're plowing through,
there's like a whole who are like flinging, but all

(28:34):
the stuntmen rolled away. You know, it's not get caught
under the wheels. It's just like that's what the thing
is because it reinforces like this nineties sort of like
ignorance of like it's like the most consequence free like film,
Like that's a film about people like taking hostages and
potentially like killing an entire city of people. Like there's
and that's what the nineties was, you know what I mean,

(28:55):
Like there was like cell phones weren't scary yet, you
know what I mean. We had internet enough that it
helped improve things. But like things hadn't quite turned to
like peak scary. And I think this movie like it's
such a reflection because like there's no thought given to anything.
This is like right before we get into like the
late nineties, like hacker characters of like the Internet scary.

(29:16):
Like this is like sort of maybe the last year
or so where that doesn't exist any movie. But the
three main characters we have in this movie, and hopefully
this works as an effective transition, the three main characters
we have in this movie are all grounded in or
the plot attempts to ground each of them using a
female character. So with Ed Harris, we've got his dead

(29:39):
wife script Barbara, his wife, I'm so sorry, and his wife.
So his wife is dead, so he's mad and has
nothing to lose, and that is the basis of what
we have to characterize him with. Then we see Nick Kite,
and we see first of all, an actress whom I
love because she played Brenda on General Hospital. My mom

(30:01):
watched General Hospital every night growing up, and we used
to recite the names of the characters during the intro
and it would end with Brenda and Max. So I
knew exactly like it's Brenda. But so this was supposed
to be Brenda's you know, breakout role didn't work out
because it's a bad role. She's forced to be on
top of Nicholas cause she's fucking Nicolas k She has

(30:24):
pigtails and a feather bow on, and it's like, there's
no hope for this woman. There's no there's no career
upwardness going on here. But but she is the female
character who I would say is the strongest of the movie.
I mean, she gets the most screen time, which is
maybe a combined total of two minutes. Like most of

(30:45):
it is her crying. A lot of this are crying
or being like sassy. Where the most I'll argue for
this movie is that she seems smarter than the amount
of screen time and credit she's given. She doesn't seem
like a stupid person. She's costumed like a stupid person.
But it's like, you know, there's no depiction of women

(31:06):
having jobs in this movie at all, but her depiction
is that she is Nicholas Cage's girlfriend. And to add
and to raise the stakes, not to necessarily have a
female character, but to raise the stakes, we have his
girlfriend be pregnant. So whenever Nicholas Cage needs a reason
to not be dad. He's like, oh god, baby on
the way. And then Branda's brandant right, and then Carla,

(31:33):
Carla character's name, but Branda from My General Hospital heads
out there, and Ba and Max uh, and then Sean
Connery has a daughter, Jade, and then and so there
are three female characters anchoring our three male characters, and
it's just peak example of like we're only introducing women

(31:55):
into this narrative to increase the depth of our male protagonists.
One of those three characters is dead and we never
see them on screen. We only see his wife. One
of them we only see on screen for one scene,
which takes about two minutes, a scene that passes. It
doesn't though it does. Stacy and Jane we know their names,

(32:18):
but they're talking. I mean, are you okay, well okay, yeah, okay,
yeah yeah. And then Carla isn't a number of scenes.
But the thing with Carla is that she's poises like this,
like you said, like kind of sassy, but also like Naggi,
a nuisance, like a distraction. Because there's one scene where

(32:39):
Ni Cage is like, my girlfriend's coming. She's flying into
San Francisco and she's pregnant, and and he's like, you
need to focus on the matter at hand. So like
she's poised as a distraction. She's just basically is there
to cause complications for Tripler. And they're like, oh, your
your girlfriend is pregnant. Oh no, she's greg nt. I

(33:01):
love that breaking that my present. So she's greg nant. No,
And it's funny to the way it's revealed to She's like,
how's your day. He's like, the world so fucked up
and I'm gonna sick. People would have kids anyways, can
take that. Okay, I have a lot to say about
that scene. That scene is wild. First time we're seeing

(33:23):
a woman in the movie who is not Barbara's grave.
There's one woman in the lab there there is a
woman hurried out the back of her head running away
by bitchet men. Go this, So this is the whole
first top ten minutes and Harris screams in a grave.

(33:47):
Nick Cage full has matt suit. Someone melts, and then
we got to the first speaking female role in the scene,
Nick Cage. Before she comes in. Nick Cage is shirtless,
playlistic and endless. He's almost naked. The acoustic guitar like
rough at the office someone melted when he's playing is

(34:10):
so horrible, bending the notes like damn there, and he's
like down. And this is like a magic hour for
Nick Cage where he does not yet know that he
is going to be considered a bad actor by history.
I would argue, maybe he's not the worst actor. To
be fair, he found out he was nominated for Academy
Award on this set. Yeah, he won the Academy Awards

(34:33):
leaving Las Vegas. Yeah, this is the film directly after
leaving Las Vegas. And this movie helps him get like
face off and all, like this movie made him an
action it made him that other. It's so funny because yeah,
he could have gone like that leaving Las Vegas path
possitive or he was probably always meant to be like
crazy hair plug dude. This movie sets up National treasure

(34:54):
in a crazy way. But but then so okay, So
then Brenda comes in and she says, you know, like,
how is your day? She says, I had an interesting day? Yes,
and then he ignoring her, interrupting her, not giving a
funk about what she has to say. I had an
interesting day too, And she's like, okay, you go first.

(35:17):
I guess and he's like, she's yeah. So rather than
taking rather than taking the time to see what her
interesting day was or let her speak, he was just like,
my thing is more important, and this is all to
set up, and we don't find out from what I
can talk, We don't find out. I have to assume

(35:38):
Carla Brenda. We have to asume Brenda has a job, right,
but we don't find out what it is. I was
listening so careful, even a hand of what she might
do for work. But he's like someone melded in in FBI.
And she is like, A'm pregnant. It's like pregnant, I'm
granted pregnant. She's like, well, what about what you just said?

(36:02):
He's like you just He's like, He's like, what it
was like about the world not needing you her babies?
Like that was seven minutes ago. Has happened? Oh God?
Do we know? Did he say her name in that scene?
I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's wild. The only
time I feel like it's not until ninety minutes into
the film I heard the words Carla, are you sure okay?

(36:23):
Because I thought maybe missed it. I thought I did too,
and I was like, did I just hear her name
for the first time? Now I think you only hear
it once and it's like half okay, okay, oh yeah,
because this movie is two and a half hours long.
It's so long, so yeah, to two hours and sixteen
minutes long. And I would say, of the times you

(36:45):
see women speaking on screen, it's probably only a minute
in thirty seconds. Does someone have a super cut of that,
because I'm pretty sure it would fit into an Instagram video. Totally, absolutely,
absolutely So this is a result of there being almost
no female characters in the movie V and almost every
single scene populated by tons of men. So for example,
the lab where Nick Cage is deactivating the bomb that

(37:09):
comes in and they think like Sara and Gas might
be in. Um, you see, like we said, the back
of a woman's head running away. Every other person in
that scene is a man. Then you see a scene
where Adheres, his character is naming the terms of like
what he wants there in like a conference room. There's
two women at the table. Only one of them has
one single wine. Granted she is talking about a man

(37:31):
being dead and other men being useless. So that's like
if a woman has to say anything, it might as
well be that men are dead or useless, and and
getting back to Brenda, I do think that, like the
one thing I was impressed about in that scene we
just talked about with the shirtless pantless cage, like everyone
melted and she's like, she she is the one who proposes.

(37:54):
Oh yes, But I thought was kind of cool that
I did make note of that, because I do like
to see a representation on screen. It's a subversion of
the trope, and not only that we see in movies,
but we see in real life as well. I don't
know how inspiring it is to aspire to be missus Goodspeed,
but I did think it was cool that she proposed.
And then also he was not like, because I feel

(38:17):
like sometimes when you see a woman proposed on screen,
the mail feels emasculated by it. He didn't seem emasculated
by it. He just seemed like, while someone just melted,
and I'm a little bit overwhelmed. And then he later
does agree to that same proposal. But he does agree
to that proposal when she has in pigtails, wearing a
feather boa and surrounded by what appears to be five

(38:38):
hundred candles and Chinese lanterns. It almost like a crazy
who set that up? And it reminds me of the
Phantom of the Opera's Lair. That's what it looks like like.
The only difference is they're not steep two ft deep
in stagnant bog water. That's the only difference. Anyways, Sorry,

(38:59):
she does for she procos yes, and I enjoy that.
But again, as we say about so many movies that
maybe try to subvert a trope for like a split second,
I feel like movies like that don't get to do that,
and then also hardly portray women or portray them poorly
like and only like on the condition that this subversion
appears in pigtails and a feather bella. Right, yeah, not

(39:22):
the best. But so back to the scenes that are
populated by entirely men or almost entirely men, um all
of them, right, pretty much because all of the men
forrest moments, I think, the only time when you'll see
a woman say something yeah, But there's so many opportunity.
I mean, like any of the people that and Harris
has with him in his like rogue troop of people

(39:44):
all men. All the Navy seals are men. All of
the government officials who are sort of in the command
center giving orders and stuff like that. They're all men.
It's just like and okay, granted you can say this
is there weren't that many women in the military back then.
There weren't that many women are own back in Yeah, population,

(40:05):
I don't think my mom was even born then. No, no, no,
women are common new thing, which is ours on the
table at the time. But like my point is, basically,
the movies about military have so little representation of women.
In the movies about people in politics, again, there's almost

(40:25):
never women in those roles. Yeah. A recent exception is
like Annihilation. I think Apportman's characters definitely military, and I
can't remember if all the rest of them were, as well,
all the rest of the scientists are, they might all
be military. It wasn't doing like some whitewashing things that
from the friendly adaptation. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, Even so, movies

(40:52):
about like the military very rarely have and don't you
can be like, what about g I Jane? Okay, cool
one example, but another one, yeah, Renaissance man. I think
that movies about the military in particular, and movies like this,
this is such a specific moment in time where we're

(41:12):
at the top of the Clinton administration of like, you know,
these movies come out when the country the movie is
putting the movie out in is doing well, flying right,
Like this movie does not come out during a recession.
This movie would not be made right now, and if
it was, it wouldn't be made successfully. You know. It's
like this is the kind of movie that comes out

(41:33):
when people are feeling nationalistic vibes and willing to accept
the kind of stuff this movie is portraying. Like this
movie would not work right now, and so like the
contexts for like this sort of movie doing well, and
why there were a million movies very similar to it
that we're doing well with similar protagonists and characters and
sidelining anyone who wasn't you know, Nick Cage, Tom Cruise, whatever,

(41:56):
this action shorting shorts and exactly and and all three
of them huge movies that come out in this is
like a very specific, weird moment in time where like
America is kind of like you know, it's it's very
like a moral kind of time, yeah, I mean yeah,
And then like I said, there was no need to
think about anything that deep because everything, so everyone's needs

(42:18):
were met I mean for the most part, like in
the country, and again were we were living in the
best of times, because I think the nineties basic straight
white men's needs were meant what I mean, like I
meant like just more from like an economic sort of
standpoint of sort of like how the sort of sentiment
in the country was Yeah, for sure. And this movie
makes back it's budget almost five times. Like, this movie

(42:40):
does incredibly well. And the only previous Michael Bay like
thing was Bad Boys, which was kind of a fluke
because it was an indie movie that ended up doing
really well. And so this is the movie that like
puts Michael Bay on the black guys. What it's a fluke,
put three white guys in a movie Michael Bays. See
what happens? Hey, it goes very well, very well. Well,

(43:03):
what I'm trying to say is that you know, you
could argue at the time, oh, it's unteen, not as
many women in the military yet, not as many women
in government positions yet. But if you put women in
those roles in movies, even if it's not necessarily super
reflective of how it's working in society, people are going
to see and they're gonna say Oh, there's a woman
in a government like a general position in the military.

(43:26):
Oh there's a woman working at the Pentagon. Oh, I
could do that too. And basically it's just upsetting that
there were opportunities for several of these characters to be
women in this movie. None of those opportunities were capitalized on.
And then you have a whole just like the whole
whole generation of young people seeing only men being in
roles like this, no opportunities for young girls to see

(43:48):
themselves represented on screen, and then they're like, Wow, I
can't be in the military because yeah, I have complicated
feelings about not being represented in a movie like this.
I hindsight am ad that, Like, and not to say
I'm I'm glad that women are not represented in military
roles in movies. I'm glad that women are not representing
in military roles in this movie because this is such

(44:11):
a toxic, so many steps removed of what the actual
stakes of a military job actually is. Like, this is
such a false depiction of that whole lifestyle where I
feel like young boys like you miss We're seeing this,
like you get such a fake idea of what the
military is and it's all action and it's all valor,
and it's all this stuff that a lot of military

(44:31):
movies push on you that ends up kind of militarizing
youth and also giving them a total false idea of
what being a hero is. And that frustrates me on
the behalf of young boys seeing this movie is being
sold an idea that is false, and we'll put them
in danger one day. And so I'm grateful that, like,
you know, you don't see women putting themselves because I

(44:52):
would feel the same way if I if I saw
a woman putting herself in danger in a very false way.
And so it's tricky. I just think Michael Bay should
just be in prison and be allowed to make movies
because there's no there's with military movies in particular, that's
such a tricky genre because it's so rarely depicted accurately
because it's you know, it's hard to make a movie

(45:13):
about the military that doesn't want to glorify because they
all function as recruiting tools exactly. And that's probably I'm
sure like with this, like with most films, like whenever
you have like scenes depicting any kind of military hardware,
like that's with the Blessing of the military. We'll loan
you this ship for your movie. But also like we're
gonna we have script notes. You can't make it look bad,

(45:35):
you can't make it look on cool. That's the trade
of a lot of people don't realize. Like if you
see tanks and like real ship in films, that's because
the military is like they've signed off on it, and
like that's what Top Gun was to like that was
their Air Force screening tool because they were like, you
want these jets, well, let's make sure this is as
favorable depiction of the military as possible or like the
most like the best version of like, dude, I want

(45:56):
to be fucking Goose and ice man, you know what
I mean. The military movies on a base level, they
it's hard because it's like, you know, they have to exist.
They are such like the military is a big part
of a culture, but it it's it's you can't really
unless you have access to stuff that would be very
difficult to access, you can't make an accurate depiction of it.
And so every time I see like a young person

(46:17):
seeing a military movie, it just like makes me feel
very conflict because they're being sold a false narrative. And
I hate seeing young men being sold a false narrative.
I don't want young women to be sold the same
false narrative. So I don't know, Yeah, I wouldn't want
to be a ten year old girl seeing woman in
a movie like being like I'm great at military stuff

(46:40):
and then being like I should do the same thing.
But it's a fake thing. It's right because I think
we need to demilitarize our country. There's two I mean,
the military budget to see anyone billion dollars and the
education budget is like, here have two dollars for textbooks, mean,
while they're like you have eighty jillion dollars for the military,
and it's it's like, hey, let's maybe prioritize. So this,

(47:02):
I mean, this is a large cultural question, like you know,
it's like I feel like it's a very easy answer
to be like, we see so many men shooting guns
on screen. Shouldn't we see women shooting guns on screen?
And I'm like, I think we should see less men
shooting guns on screen, and that you know, like, do
I think it should be equalized? And should we see
female action heroes? Absolutely? Should we see the same amount

(47:23):
of female like violent female action heroes? As men, no,
because there shouldn't be that many, and so it's like
there's so many. I just don't. I just hate saying
children being like made to be like you know what
would be like very you go girl, cool if you
were also extremely violent, like like if you with a
fucking fire extinguisher, right, which is cathartic and cool for

(47:46):
for any gender on the spectrum. But do you want
to show that to any gender in the spectrum when
their kids. I don't probably not know. Every movie should
be very boring as what I'm saying. Honestly, Michael Bay,
you could have just made this a PS about veteran
care and say everyone the headache the villain is the

(48:08):
one who's pro veteran Care's basically saying, y'all are mistreating
the veterans, and they're like, well, and you guys aren't
listening to the point that I will fake kill Americans
to get my point across because the government isn't listening
to your needs. Wow. I mean in a way Ed Harris,
Ed Harris I think really does milk money. Milk money

(48:29):
with Ed Harrison, he's like the nature guy and like
and like his him, his son, his friends go to
this city to pay a prostitute because they want to
see a woman naked for the first time. I'm sorry,
sex worker for the first time because they're like fourteen
and they're like, we've never we've not men until we've
seen a naked woman. And then they go. Then he
wants her to be his mom and like tries to

(48:50):
hook him up with Ed Harris. But it's crazy because
I think these films came out within a year of
each other, and so on one side you have crazy
veteran Ed Harris and then like nerd like single dad
in Harrison. That's why character actors are so interesting to me.
It's like, in the space of a year, they will
sometimes do like, Okay, this is how they paid their
rent and this is how they spent the rest of
their time. Like no one has done a career retrospective

(49:12):
on Ed Harris. I bet it's fucking fast. I think
the amount of different ship was it a few years
before this that he was. The first movie I ever
saw him in was Apollo thirteen, which is a movie
I watched probably like thirty times as a kid. I
don't know why I was on so much. I used
to confuse Apollo thirteen and the movie that happens because
of the Rock, which is Armageddon, that's the next president. Well,

(49:37):
then they'll say that it was John Mason James Bond too.
There's that. Yeah, there's like I was looking at weird
sh about the movie. There's like what about this James
Bond theory? Like, no, I don't need that to be Well,
let's get back to those characters because at some point,
once it's established in the Cage and Sean Connery are
going to be friends, it gets very silly where they're

(49:58):
basically quipping at each other for like consecutive minutes through
various obstacles. There's there's one line where Nick Cage says
something and then Sean Connery replies with, Oh, my days,
aren't that exciting now because I just read a lot
of philosophy and avoid getting gang raped in the washrooms.
And then he says it's not as much of a

(50:19):
problem these days. I think I've lost my sex appeal.
And it's like, oh, you don't president about rape. God,
Like we don't even need to talk about everything that's
wrong with there's not time to unpack. But like there's okay,
So I hate this movie so much. It's horribly directed.
I hate Michael Bay. He sucks so much. Nick Cage

(50:41):
overacts every single scene he's in. Every line read of,
every line is terrible. Like there's just but I I
stand for Nick Cage. I hate him. He sucks, but
he's amazing, amazing raising Arizona and I like him Moonstruck
and I don't mind him an adaptation and every other

(51:02):
movie he's in. He needs to be used exactly. I
feel like Nick Cage can be directed very well. Well,
there are some lines that he says in this movie
that I just want to point out. And then a
few other lines from other characters. One of the dance
start very coming to theaters again. No, we're getting him

(51:25):
to do the read. So if I have a few
of my favorite lines, Nick Cage says something like, and
I'm going to try to get this line read right,
where he's just like, what do you say? We cut
the chit chat a whole volume control is all right,

(51:46):
whole And he's like, how in the name of Zeus
is but did you escape yourself? It's just oh god,
there because nerds don't curse, there is but whole so
and then Sean Connery says, he makes a really funny
joke that we all just laughed, HI laugh at where
he says, you're you're between the rock and a hard

(52:07):
case say that. I don't know at some point where
I think they thought it was the funniest joke in
the world. I think I was suffering so much my
brain just forgot about that one. I for sure missed
some stuff in this movie, so annoyed was just like, oh,
she's I had to tune up for a minute. My
favorite joke that is not a joke that needs to

(52:28):
be fully explained top to bottom in this movie is
the rocket man joke. Towards the end, I don't listen
to that. So Nicholas catch and another Navy cel who
he's about to Gil Nichols says, hey, ever heard a
rocket man? And then the guy says, I don't listen

(52:49):
to that soft ash ship. And then Nicholas Cage proceeds
to explain the joke. Well, I asked, because it's about
I only bring it up because it's you pause, You're
the rocket man, and then shoots him with a rocket
fence post or something. There's so many like quips in
this movie where You're just like, could have used a

(53:11):
second draft, could have paid Aaron Sorkin a day, right, No,
that was Aaron Sorkins. He's like that stays. There's a
fun line. I think. I don't remember exactly who says this.
It might be Sean Connery, but he says something like
losers are blah blah blah. Winners go home and fuck
the prom queen. I don't know if you know this,

(53:32):
but women are not actually with the people. We are rewards.
Women are rewards that men get to go home and
have sex and have sex with because they're waiting in
a bed brone for a man to enter. Candles, pigtails,
feather po ain't pregnant. I'm gregnant and I'm laying on
the bed out with my arms out, just paused. My
life is on pause, but not visually gregnant. That would

(53:55):
be gress, that'd be gross in it. You put your
gregnant in me, greg Nancy, I can't. One last thing
I got to say is that we high risk Gregory.
We don't see any cats in this movie, but a
cat dog A cat is mentioned because Nicholas Cage says

(54:18):
that he killed his cat with his chemistry set when
he was a kid. He does. So now it's a
good time to mention that cats do have eight nipples.
This is cat facts with Caitlin. Okay, eight nipples yeah,
male cats too? Yes? Wow, do you as a man
have the same number of nipples? Because I had like,
like I had a male dog that I felt like

(54:39):
I couldn't find all its nipples and I was like,
oh where these things go? Were you searching actively? As
a kid? I was curious because I was like, oh,
I was like this cat has at and I'm like
in this boy dog when I was like three, I
don't know. Well, they dragged on the ground four down
when you're just nippy and started to just dreg nip
sliding on the you're slipping on your own nips and

(55:04):
sorry I brought it up. Sorry I tripped on my nips? Here?
Can we? I do want to talk a little bit
more about the stylist character. Okay, so I do we
have time for a protein pack? He? Oh. There was
one character who I would argue is a queer icon

(55:24):
who I was shocked only appeared in one Seeing Ranger
Bob I think it was who shows around Alcatraz and
he's like, this is Alcatraz, and I was like, queer icon,
he's amazing. He says something like welcome to Broadway. Right,
he literally drops Broadway. I was like, this is such
a Michael Bay weird view of queerness. But for for
the Ranger Bob character, it really works for me. He's

(55:46):
wearing khankies, a very tight wool socks, very confident. He's like,
welcome to Alcatraz. It's basically Broadway. And I was like,
what a queer icon. I love him. You never see
him again, Like many great potential be characters, he disappeared.
What's a matter? Fells? Something wrong with the tour? And
then yeah, I mean comma fellas comma queer. I amazing,

(56:12):
loved it. Hey fella, so confusing queer icons but just
old timey people, so brag. I have a few game
ol friends. I know I have friends you guys, And
I asked them how they felt about representation of characters

(56:32):
like this stylist who are coded as being gay but
not necessarily explicitly stated. So one of one of my
friends said that, um, if a movie character is gay,
they want to know because the character explicitly states it,
not because the movies relying on like harmful stereotypes to
communicate that information. Another one of my friends said that

(56:53):
they're okay with like a feminine gay men being portrayed
on screen because that is how some gay men present,
but they would want that content to be made by
like a gay creator, like a director and stuff like that,
because when it's someone like Michael Bay, who was notorious
for treating all of his characters like archetypes and stereo antagonistic, Yeah, yeah,
I would. I would direct people to a documentary that

(57:14):
I saw a couple of years ago I really enjoyed,
called the Gay Word for a further exploration of how
gay characters are depicted by like especially straight, often male filmmakers,
and also gets really deep into the gay villains trope
that is popular for decades and decades of just like
how code gate characters appear on screen, and depending on

(57:35):
who the filmmaker is, how that affects how harmful it. Yeah, yeah,
what you called the gay Word? Great? To check it out?
I sure will. Yeah. There's a line that Ed Harris
says at some point in the movie that goes like this,
mars are his wife Menacing is a name before the

(57:57):
year she was born. His life, his fucking wife. Literally,
But again, it's like we're talking about the coding of
a movie. His wife is saying he's got nothing to lose, right,
that's it. That's why it says his wife before it
says like ninety seven. You know, it's just drives me crazy. Okay.

(58:22):
Ed Harris says, man your posts men, which is I
think the fiecest statement of this movie. It's just like
using man as a verb to do your job and
then just be like man, man, man your post men,
as long as your manage, make sure man what you're
doing it man that man cannon man life alright, his wife,

(58:44):
his wife, his life. Okay, I mean, I mean it's aggressive.
Just watching, I'm pretty sure I'm not listening, but I
felt like it was. The text was so big, it
was like the size of the right. It was like
his life, his life, his wife, Barbara. Does anyone have

(59:07):
She's she's the predicate to a sentence exactly name the subject.
Does anyone have any of the thoughts about the movie?
Shame on anyone who would try to tell you it's
a good movie. It's not a good movie. If anything,
they're conflating their nostalgia for for a time when they
were younger and couldn't have any like an adult thought

(59:27):
about or like critical thinking about the films they saw,
like the only when I think really about the feelings
I have about it, it's purely the nostalgia of it,
rather than like, man, when I fucking need to get inspired,
I watched The Rock. I'm like the last time I
watches Like I'm so hungover that the Rock is on
in the background, and even then I'm not going to
turn it off. And it's only because the remote is

(59:49):
like on the floor across the room and I cannot
get I wanted to say something really quickly. We didn't
really talk about the Jade character. I would say this
is again just a big, not surprisingly missed opportunity by
Michael Bay where we're presenting with a female character who
does not seem stupid. She we see her at her college.

(01:00:11):
You know, she's meeting up with her convict father and
brings a friend. This tracks for me. It's like, if
you're going to meet your father who's a convict, don't
show up alone. She cops to this openly. She questions
what he's telling her, which makes sense if your father
is a convict, but she's still ultimately in the space
of the one scene she really appears in is characterized

(01:00:33):
as property to the male character, to the point where
Sean Connery says to her, like, you're the only proof
that I exist, which which totally just I'm like, well,
that's all she is to the plot. And so it's
it's a bummer to see people like characters like her
and like Brenda, not Brenda, Brenda actually Carla. But it's like,

(01:00:56):
you see these these women who appear to have some
potential Jill as a character just ultimately be discarded, and
like seeing the Jade character as like, because I didn't
really know what this movie was about, I certainly didn't
remember her. I was like, oh, man, I hope she
comes back. She never never. Yeah, Well, they're like they're
mere existence or like it's sort of heightened by or

(01:01:18):
it's exactly connected to their ability to procreate as men. Exactly.
You're you're a verification that my dick works for Jade,
and because you're you're gregnant. Now I'm going to be
a hero due to your ability for gregnant. I have
to live because you're Greek net The conversation about Jade

(01:01:39):
leads us to whether or not this movie passes the
Bechdel test. It doesn't. Here's why. So there's only there's
only one opportunity where this could potentially happen, and it's
where Jade and her friends Stacy, both the characters are named,
go to meet John Mason, and Jade says to her
friend Stacy, it's okay, and Stacy says, I'll be over

(01:01:59):
there if you need me. No men are explicitly stated
or mentioned in that too long to change to the
conversation they're talking about whether or not Jade feels safe
meeting her convict father. I am beyond willing to say
this movie does not pass the Bechdel test. Yeah that
was I mean, that was the only scene where I
feel like it even comes into questions. No other women

(01:02:22):
interacted to the point where and this is how badly
this podcast and this test is jad to me from Like,
why did he even bother to give Stacy a name
if she was never going to come back? I think
they went out of their way. It was to make
the point that Sean Connery couldn't even recognize his own daughter, right, Oh, okay,
that does track. She was like, no, I'm Stacy, right, Okay,

(01:02:46):
so yeah, this movie doesn't hapend. Yeah, so she's merely
there to underline how shitty if it died. It's purely
be like, how is he going to? Oh, I'll think
this other woman is his daughter? Was her name almost Daisy? Yeah?
So movie does not pas special test And I like,
was really I almost had a panic attack, and I
was like, did that just pass? And I was like,
wait a minute. There the context of their conversation is

(01:03:08):
specifically about John Mason, so it doesn't pass. Said that.
I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh my god,
because in my mind I was like, no, there's no way.
And I was like, which is why I think sometimes
when women are talking in a movie, they can mention
a man in the movie still passes, and they can
not explicitly mentioned a man in the movie does not.
I think it's more about context than it is about

(01:03:29):
whether or not a man's name happen to be mentioned.
So we've had we've come up on this a lot.
But because the subtext is this man making you feel
insafe exactly, which if he's Sean Connery, probably not my dad,
who my my mom? And after it led Zeppelin concert.
God yeah, way, I mean, and I appreciate how realistic
Jade was about like yeah, of course, like I don't

(01:03:50):
I'm curious, but also like I don't trust you just
again the seeds of a female character that it would
be interesting to see a second time. We do not
see bad movie. I hate it, so three and a half.
That's well. Speaking of writing, let's write on our nipple scale,
I'm going to give this movie zero nipples. I think

(01:04:11):
it's a bad movie on top of it portraying women horribly.
And Jamie brought up some great points about well, do
we really want to see that much representation of like
women in the military and women in government positions when
it's a movie like this, where it's just perpetuating and
glorifying thailands and stuff like that, where like, no, I don't.

(01:04:32):
I would rather women be left out of those movies. Really,
I would rather movies like this not be made at
all because they're not good. And Michael Bays sucks and
he should be not working in Hollywood. So I mean
the fact that there are almost no women in the
entire movie, that all the female characters that do exist
are there just to basically support or provide the motivation

(01:04:54):
of the male characters. They're just flat. We hardly see
them on screen, they hardly have any lines, and it's
it's not great representation. I would give it zero also
because it's like if toxic masculinity was like a missile
from the movie, like the Rock is like the VX,
Like the Rock as a film is the green anal
beads that destroy everything. It's the kind of ship even connected.

(01:05:18):
It's like the kind of ship though that like you know,
looking back, you're like, man like, this is what we
were like inoculating and socializing like young men with and
like was just like this idea of like, yeah, dude,
the broils will get it. Go in there and just
do their ship and get it done. Yo, chill the
funk out, you're greg nant. Hang back, I'm gonna do
my thing and I'll be back in the baby be
chill like so yeah, and in that sense, and again

(01:05:40):
when I was thinking about it, the only reason I
have anything good to say about it is that it's
purely like a sensation of the time that it came
out in where I was twelve years old and my
world was only as complex as like going to like
a movie or like, you know, having a crush on someone,
so in my low stakes world is shut that. But

(01:06:01):
other than that, it's like it's like a one yeah,
I'm I'm giving this uh Sara nipples as well. I
do agree that it is an interesting time capsule to
point to. If you see any extremely toxic adult man
with a military industrial complex, now of like, how did
he get this movie? Is a great way to be like,

(01:06:22):
this is the sort of propaganda that was shoved at
them at a very young age, and that is why
people like this exist in the world, right Yeah, I
I god. I think that earlier in this podcast, just
going off of how ja did we've gotten via doing
this podcast, and I think our listeners have to um
is that it's no longer you don't get half a

(01:06:43):
nip a single nip for simply having women in your
movie because the context of how those women exists. So
there's no woman that is introduced into this plot that
isn't strictly with the intention of characterizing and giving more
shades of gray to a man. So there's nothing, there's nothing.
Every female character with any potential is completely sidelined. Half

(01:07:06):
written by Lord knows what male writer did not want
to be included in the credits of this movie. I
mean not I don't know, and ultimately where you know,
not to glorify toxic masculinity in any way, but like
there are some bad Michael Bay movie that are sort
of fun to watch, this one isn't even fun to

(01:07:27):
watch for me where I have no cultural context for it.
I'm like, it's just a mediocre movie that is saying
bad things. So didn't enjoy the movie zero nipples. I'd
be curious for people to, like, if you're ever on
a date and you're dating somebody have The Rock on
DVD and it's a man as the owner to challenge
them what they think of the film now, because I

(01:07:49):
feel like you'll find people who can either understand how
bad the movie is or some people who are still
actually holding on today. I think like it would be
very tellent because I'm sure I have a few friends
who would be like, dude, the Rocks fucking sick, like
you know what I mean, And I think like it's
very I think you can use that film almost as
a litmus test to see if you can if someone can,
we need to add it to we have a litmus

(01:08:09):
test list of films of like red flag films. Someone
tells you this is one of your favorite films and
means it earnestly and if they can't at the very
least be like, I understand it's bad. It's a nostalgia
or whatever, and you can at least acknowledge that. But
I know people who would probably fucking knuckle down and
be like, dude, it's actually like the perfect action films.

(01:08:29):
Well you think about it. It actually she's great and
that's good. Yeah, Okay, he saved a gregnant woman, so
it's all right. Whatever. I don't know what this gregnant
thing is and we don't have time. Should be the
video because the video is hilarious. That's my plug. Okay, okay,
what what is it called there? It's this video. We'll

(01:08:50):
put it in the footnotes. Okay. So across the board,
zero nipple ratings, so so bad. Michael Bay Boo Miles.
Where can be people find you? Um? Um, you can
find me on closed the Daily sie Geist, which the
two of you have been grace enough to come on

(01:09:11):
many times. Yeah, just check out that podcast. I'm on
their line on Twitter and Instagram at miles of gray
and the video is called am I Pregnant? So it's
so good pregnant. All the hot ones are hot spellings.
Yeah great. Um. You can follow the Bectel Cast on
all the social media platforms. You can rate and review
us on iTunes, you can pay more. Maybe John five

(01:09:35):
dollars a month gets you discount on merch which you
should also buy, and it gives you two bonus episodes
of the Becto Cast. Juno speaking of gregnant goodness, Signtum, Miles,
thank you so much for being here. It's been We're

(01:09:55):
a sixteen and we're impregnated by a high schooler named Greg.
This is my dad, my baby daddy, greggnant. I'm gregnan handed.
I'm sorry that we got so sidetracked and pregnant. I'm
glad you saw it.