June 14, 2018 • 54 mins
This week, sisters Caitlin Durante, Jamie Loftus, and Jenny Yang all reunite to examine the representation of women in The Royal Tenenbaums!
(This episode contains spoilers)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Beck Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies
have women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef
in best start changing it with the Beck del Cast. Hi,
and welcome to the Battle Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
my name is Caitlin Dronte, and this is our podcast
about the portrayal of women in movies. That's right. We
(00:23):
measure it sort of by the Beck Dold test, or
that's our jumping off point UM, which for us is
a test that requires that a movie has two female
identifying characters who have names, they speak to each other
about something other than a man, and their conversation has
to be at least two lines of dialogue. Bar pretty
easy to do, but some movies really struggle. I would
(00:46):
say most movies great transition into the movie and really
the body of work. This is a popular request for us,
and I would just say movies of this particular filmmaker,
people get a real freshman year attachment to this is
a peak, you know, like have you ever had sex
(01:07):
with a guy that has a French poster of Oh okay?
Hard to stop in but I've I've you know, I
feel like many people have had the experience of hooking
up with someone who has a framed poster of this
filmmaker in their house, and it is a real red flag.
I mean, less of a red flag than a lot
of directors, but yeah, not the biggest red flag, but
(01:29):
a little, a little, a little waving to say, hey,
I'm gonna try to explain something to you and soon. Yeah.
So the director we're talking about, of course, is West Anderson.
The movie we're covering today is The Royal Tenenbombs. First,
before we get into our heavy discourse, let's know, some
heavy flow discourse today. Yeah, let's introduce our guest. She's
(01:55):
a stand up comic. She is an actor, she is
a writer, and she's so wonderful. Jenny. Yeah, thank you
for having me, Thanks for being here. Let's do this.
Let's do it. Okay, So we're taking taking the Wes
Anderson bullet. No one's been brave enough apparently. But you know,
The Royal Tannon Bombs was like a movie I used
to consider one of my favorites. I think that's pretty common.
(02:18):
I I, well, when did you first see this movie?
What's your history with the movie. I mean, I feel
like I saw it in the early adds like everyone else,
you know, when it came out ish like, but like
not in the theaters. I forget if I saw it
in the theaters. I just remember it made a really
strong impression on me because I feel like I was
probably already raised so basic with pop culture that, you know,
(02:39):
to me, seeing a Wes Anderson moving like royal Tannon
bombs was like it blew my mind. I was like, oh, wow,
this is so stylized and so artsy, you know, and
so I I think that was like one of my
first tastes of something that wasn't just a typical popcorn movie. Yeah. Yeah,
And it really made an impression, I think, probably because
(03:00):
there's such a melancholy in the movie and it's really
about like a dysfunctional family, which, in a weird way,
even though I'm like not white, um, I related to
them somewhat, you know. Was sort of like a messed
up patriarch kind of a storyline. And I just like
the sort of droll like irony and sense of humor
(03:22):
in it because it was still like pretty new and
like interesting at this point where I feel like a
lot of people have exhaustion with it now, but oh
one Wes Anderson, we're talking peak West Andrewson fresh and
this was one of his earlier ones. Yeah, before this,
of the features, he did Bottle Rocket and Rushmore and
(03:42):
I think maybe that's it as far as his like
notable features. Yeah, but those are like the only the
movies that like indie film nerds kind of Guilty is Charged.
But yeah, so I think I also saw this, not
in the theaters, but shortly after it came out. I
think it was my first exposure to Mr Wes Anderson.
(04:06):
At the time, I was like, Yeah, I'm into this.
I like the production design, the cinema tug, all the
meson sin. I was all for it. And now I
go back and I revisit this or I see other
Wes Anderson movies and I'm reminded that they usually story
wise for me, this I think we were because we
(04:29):
watched this movie together. I have seen this movie before,
I think at some point in college. But and I
think that this Jenny, I'm interested in your take on this.
But so far, with people we've talked to, there's a
lot of Wes Anderson movies that you know you've seen,
but you cannot remember anything that happens in the movie,
(04:50):
and you're like, oh, that's the one about camp And
then if someone's like, well, what happened. We were asking
Jack O'Brien at how stuff works. He was like, oh, yeah,
I loved I think he said like of Aquatic. I
was like, oh, what is that one? He's like, uh, Submarine.
I was like, oh yeah, I love that, and you
cannot tell me one thing that happens, but I don't
(05:11):
know what it is. Most of his movies tend to
explore kind of the same themes, but it's not like
they're totally with you. I mean, Darjeeling Limited is just
straight up a bad one, but like they're not boring movies.
There's stuff that's happening, but maybe it's just so stylized
that that's all you can retain, or it's just I
don't know. I know I've seen at least three Wes
(05:33):
Anderson movies. Couldn't tell you what happens in one of them.
It's just like, I feel like, if you've studied music,
there's not a lot of dynamics in a Wes Anderson movie.
It all kind of just the notes just kind of
center around this middle part, right, emotional notes, energy, right,
it just kind of stays right, pretty static. Yeah. Right, So,
(05:55):
so I feel like and the look of it is
all kind of in that same kind of like you know,
early Instagram filter, right and pretty wide, way too much headroom. Yeah,
like we're living. Yeah, It's it's all just that, right,
And so that's why I feel like, you know, visually,
two people will just kind of confuse one West Sanderson
(06:17):
movie with another. It's like we're living inside of like
a thrift store diorama, you know, and so and they're
just swapping out these dioramas. But but for me, though,
I feel like, maybe, you know, Bottle Rock, it might
have been a little different, but I feel like it
was Royal Tannon Bombs that really set the tone for
like the look of his more commercially successful films after that, right, absolutely, yeah,
And so I feel like I feel like, no matter what,
(06:39):
Royal Tannon Bombs might stick out a little more for
people in terms of being memorable. But yeah, after that,
it's gets kind of blurry. It's kind of yeah, the
tone is sort of set with this movie, and then
you're like visually and I'm sure you know, people who
know a lot about film know the specifics, but like,
visually frame from Royal Tannon Bombs and frame from moon
(07:01):
Rise Kingdom the same fucking things. Like it's like and
now it's not even a bad thing. It's okay to
have consistency throughout a body of work. But the Wes
Anderson theory. If you are listening and you consider yourself
a fan of Wes Anderson's work, I defy you try
to uh summarize one of his movies and not just
have it be like, that's the one about dogs, that's
(07:21):
the one about camp, that's the one about underwater, that's
the one about I don't know Bill Murray's in it.
Like that, Oh, I think that serves as a great
transition to the recap, which I will try my best
to do. I just watch the movie twice and I
still don't. Okay. Basically, we learn about this family of
Tenant Bombs. The patriarch is Royal Tenant Bomb played by
(07:45):
Jane Hackman. He's married to Ethelene. They have three kids, Chaz,
Margot and Ritchie, and they're like a bunch of baby geniuses.
They're these very accomplished kids who like do a lot
in their youth and they're very exceptional, and and that's
pulled um a bunch of different sources. Where the Magnificent
Anderson's is an Orson Wells film that's referenced pretty heavily
(08:06):
in this, and then it's also referencing J. D. Salinger's
Glass Family. I believe you're called so Wes Anderson he's
pulling from other male ahturs of note of like the
White family that's really smart but tragic, Like that's he's
clearly pulling from that sort of stock story, right. Yeah.
(08:28):
So it's this family of like exceptional young kids and
the plarents split up when they're fairly young, and they
kind of estranged themselves from Royal Tenenbaumb until a few
things happen where he gets kicked out of his hotel
room and he's broke and he doesn't really know what
to do, so he decides to reconnect with his family
under the ruse of telling them that he is dying
(08:49):
so they will basically take sympathy on him and be
more willing to reconnect with him. So this happens for
a while where the family who had kind of drifted
apart over the years, gets back together. They're all under
one roof again where Ethylene lives. Ethylene is considering getting remarried,
yes to Henry played by Danny Glover right, and then
(09:09):
all of the kids have kind of they were exceptional
in their youth, but they've kind of like leveled out
and they're not that great anymore, or they're just not
exceptional the way they were when they were kids. So
they're sort of reconnecting, and over the course of a
few days or so, um, it comes out the Royal
is not actually dying of stomach cancer like he says
(09:31):
he is. Uh, he just made that all up so
that people would take pity on him and want to
hang out with him again. So then he gets kind
of cast away again. But the family is still sort
of like working through their issues and their relationships with
each other in that like two of them are in love.
But it's fine. It's fine because Margot is adopted Paltrow.
(09:54):
So basically the story ends with the family reconnecting just
as Gene Hackman's character wanted, but under unusual circumstances, and
so flash forward, he dies, and then the movie ends
when the company Goop is is founded. Marco has a
wild idea. What is she founded the most annoying company possible?
(10:18):
Then goop starts, Wait does that happen? No, Like I'm
talking about Gwyneth two snail cream. Oh okay, I am
aware of Gwyneth and her products, Gwyneth her content. You know,
I would say live in ignorance with Gwyneth and her products.
It's a lot okay. Yeah, So yeah, that's basically the story,
(10:43):
and there are some interesting things to talk about there. Yeah,
I guess I guess so much, so much, yeah, or
so little. There's I don't know, Like I have a
lot of notes for this. It's but it's hard to
know where to star. Well, so there's two main female
characters of any note in, Margot played by Gwyneth Patro
(11:06):
and Ethylene played by Angelica Houston. Right, So the first
opening sequence of the movie is our introduction of the
young Tenembombs, and we learn a little bit about the
children and then the parents as well. So with like Ethylene,
we learned that her main concern was the children's education,
and then it pretty quickly cuts away from her it
goes to Chaz. We learned about him loving finance, he
(11:29):
bread Dalmatian mice. He was a real estate mogul as
a small child. Then we learned about Margot. We learned
that she is adopted. She is a playwright. Um. We
see her in a dark room, we see her doing ballet. Um.
She camps out in a library for a while with
her brother Richie. She's not like the other girls, right,
she smokes and she's I don't know, there's And then
(11:56):
we learned about Ritchie, who was a stark tennis player.
We see him playing with a ham radio. He has
a drum set, He paints pictures of Margo. He has
a bird named Mordecai. And then we learned about Royal
and that he was a litigator until he was disbarred
in the mid eighties. So we're getting an introduction to
all these characters. It feels as though the two women
that we learned about, I don't know, they just feel
(12:17):
more glossed over or like. The only accomplishment that is
noted for Margo is that she won like the Braverman
Grant in ninth grade for a play she wrote. But
for the boys, it's like, oh, they did this thing,
and they did this thing, and they did this thing.
And did, and then Ethelene is like basically just described
in the context of her being a mother in that sequence.
So right away, I feel like it's sort of that
(12:39):
whole thing lays the groundwork for how the female characters
will be treated throughout the rest of the movie. It's
interesting because it's it's like the story has like the
skeleton of female characters that could be well developed if
the movie was going to like invest time in it.
Like we know that Ethleene is an archaeologist and a
really good one, Like she has this career, and and
(13:02):
there's enough there that we could explore something outside of
how she behaves as a mother and a wife. But
that's all the movie really chooses to explore it, which
is frustrating because she's like, well there's more, there's more there,
but it just we just don't really get to see it. No,
we don't, you know. When I was watching, I kind
of like looked at like when the women said lines,
(13:24):
and it really wasn't until like a third of the
way in that, like Ethelene finally talked to her daughter. Yeah, everyone,
it was like a while, and even before that, each
of them got maybe one or two lines, right because
in terms of like the Bechdel tests, like you're like, well,
that's going to be the scene that would pass if
(13:44):
we get to see these characters together at all, Like
and it's just kind of the question of like will
we get to see them together? And it takes a
long time, which is kind of a bummer too because
Ethelene and well, I guess if we start with Royal,
Royal has medi substantial scenes with all three of his children,
(14:06):
with some of them more than once. Evelyne kind of doesn't.
We see her interact with all three of her children,
but it's not with the same amount of depth. It
doesn't reveal as much about her character. It sort of
exists more to tell us about her kids and not
really anything about her, where the Royal scenes are either
(14:27):
like equal of like we're learning about him and his
child or we're just learning about him and like why
he is a liar or why you're something about his past,
Where I mean we learn a lot about Royal Tenan
bombs past, we don't really learn we learned about Ethelyne's
past as it pertains to Royal. I think that's what's
messed up about this is that it is about a
(14:49):
dysfunctional family that is dysfunctional primarily in response to how
messed up Royal is, right, the patriarch, and so this whole,
this whole story is surround being sort of royal driving
what's happening. Right, So he's like wants to get back
in with the family so that he can intervene and
really have a relationship. So he's always the one trying
(15:11):
to instigate something or call one of his kids out,
whereas Ethylene only serves as like a typical female counterbalance,
kind of patriarchal counterbalance to that, which is like she's
the one to soothe, to coax to like yeah, exactly,
she's to clean up the messer. And obviously that's probably
(15:32):
reflective of their relationship. And I think that it poses
the same question I always have, which is, if say,
we do want to talk about how messed up the
patriarchy is, you know, and we write a story about it,
how much is that just simply continuing to put a
spotlight on the men to reflect to you know what
I mean, rather than really dismantling it or in doing it.
(15:53):
And I think that's what's tough. You know. On the
one hand, like if I have a similarly messed up
kind of patriarchal dad, and I want to write about
that to dissect it. Does that mean I'm giving more
power to that person's voice, you know what I'm saying,
Like like because we're because we're still saying Royal is
the one taking the action. He's he's getting protagonists. Yeah,
(16:14):
he gets all the fun scenes. I think, Yeah, I
think that that is part of it. Yeah, Like the
movie isn't critical enough of him where he is, Like
the way that like misogyny is displayed through Royals is
like lighthearted and you can imagine a giggle in the
movie theater cheeky. Yeah, and the same with when he's
like being racist against Danny Glover's character is like, oh,
(16:38):
just an old guy being an old guy, and it
normalizes it pretty quickly in the context of the movie.
And and then at the end, what what I mean,
I forgot literally everything that happened in this movie, But
I definitely forgot the end where I feel like we
we get close to criticizing Royal when he's kicked out
of the house and they're like, no, fuck you, you
(16:58):
can't lie to us anymore. You're you're cast out. But
then in the end, you know, he does sort of apologize,
but that was even that was like, did he really
And then at the end he dies and sort of
the takeaway of the movie is like, well, if he
hadn't a lot all those times, the family wouldn't be
back together. And I was just like, oh, so we should.
(17:21):
So it ends up being completely uncritical of the patriarchy
and the patriarch in that they're like, well, yeah, mistakes
were made, but families chill now, And it wouldn't have
been if he hadn't like faked cancer and gas light
his whole family. Like I was just like, no, what
they're like the consequences of this, Uh, the Shenanigans actually
(17:45):
was kind of good if he worked out. If we
end this movie with like and we've cast out the
patriarch who clearly has no respect for us or himself,
and uh, well we're all here, so let's hang out
and keep him out of our lives. That's a maybe
less movie. I mean, it's one of those we talked
(18:05):
about this. Uh. I think on our How the Grinch
Stole Christmas episode and on our Muppet Christmas Carol episode
about the male redemption stories that we see so much
of where it's like, like, sure, if you want to
make a movie about a dysfunctional family and how everyone
is messed up as a result of at least one
(18:26):
of the parents disservicing their children in some way, great,
that's an interesting story, but like, why do we have
to hear it from the point of view of the
person who did the messing up? Like why can't we?
I mean, you know there are movies that explore it
from different points of view, but it's just like, yeah,
I just I have so little patience to the point
where the movie is named after the yeah, like yeah,
(18:50):
it it ends up. There are moments where it approaches
being critical, but ultimately he's a redumable character. He ends
up think everything he wanted, which was the relationship with
his family, which he got after years of lying, and
then kind of a half past apology. So that's all.
It takes great lifetime of trauma and therapy. No, no way,
(19:16):
like just a sorry maybe just like might be like
what are you talking about? I don't know, Yeah, the
male redemption story and then there's a lot of men
who are redeemed in the course of this story. Royal
is the main one. But I think also with Richie,
there's sort of like a redemption story told there. Should
(19:37):
we jump into him and Margot? Now, yeah, this very
bizarre romantic relationship is established between Ritchie, who is a
biological tenenbomb, and Margot, who is an adopted Tenan bomb.
This is the premise of the most searched porn on porn. Okay, yeah,
(20:00):
like you see that, You're like, this is this is
a Wes Anderson thing. There must be a Wes Anderson
Richie and Margot. I'm gonna go search after this CP incognito.
I'm gonna do it in plain sight. I don't care
who knows. I'm going to Starbucks right now, gorgeous symmetrical pornography.
(20:27):
A Kink song is playing in the background this time tomorrows.
I mean, they have face flopping technology, so who knows.
Maybe it's you know, kind of a joint. Okay. So
this this relationship is established where for the most part
we see Richie like pining over Margot. He's painting pictures
(20:50):
of her, he's waiting at the bus stop for her. Yeah,
but then whenever it comes out finally that they basically
confess their love for each other, and at this point
we don't really know that Margot had loved him. We
only find out in that moment because we're seeing most
of the nature of their relationship through Richie's point of view.
(21:13):
So one, I find it weird that we don't know
how she feels about totally. That's her reaction whenever he's
like I love you, and she's like, I love you too,
and then they kiss, and then they lie down and
a tent together, like we didn't know because she is
married to Bill Murray's character Raleigh, and then also was
(21:33):
having an affair with Eli Rock and not Eli Rock,
like so yeah, so she was. She's engaged in multiple
relationships with men, which means that she is the object.
I feel like Margot's main purpose in the story is
to be the object of several men's affection. The same
(21:54):
for Ethelene, where it's the push and pull between like
is Royal gonna rope her back in? Or is she
going to marry Henry? There's no option presented where she
can be single. Kind of the same for Marco. And
there's those two montage scenes in regards to those characters
(22:14):
that I wanted to talk about where there's a lot
of montage scenes in all of wes Anderson's work, and
and these aren't the only ones that appear, but the
two montage scenes that are specific to Marco and to
Ethylene are almost exclusively about their sexual history. Yes, well,
(22:35):
in Margot's case, not all meant but mostly right, where
Like we see highlights from Margot's life and it's like
she starts to smoke, she leaves school. The rest is
for sexual right, and then for Ethylene, it's here are
the men that she's dated since she and Royal tennan
(22:55):
bomb broke up, and then we get finally to Henry,
who is the new man in her life. So there's
no there's really no ambiguity about like what matters to
the story with these characters, where there are other elements
of their lives. But that's not what wes Anderson and
co writer Owen Wilson really want your attention on, right,
(23:17):
because we don't see any such montages like that of
characters romantic or sexual histories with any of the male characters,
noticed only with Ethylene and Margot, which is a very
deliberate choice and a very glaring they do give. They
give Ben Stiller's character a different trope, which is the
good old fashioned dead wife his wife, and they do
(23:41):
go to see her gravestone, much like in The Rock
his favorite movies. Yeah, Ben Stillers and the and his
wife who we never meet, but her death is the
main thing that defines his character is dealing with and
how that has manifested in him being extremely overprotective of
(24:04):
his two sons and being like very overly concerned with
their safety. That's a part of the movie I didn't dislike.
I thought it was like kind of nice and a
little unusual to see a single father definitely being overbearing,
but being a pretty solid parent throughout the movie, Like
definitely overprotective, but usually like if you see a single father.
(24:27):
You don't see a lot of single fathers in movies
at all, um, but especially like if you do see
a single father, he's fucking up and he you know,
he doesn't get it, can't relate with his kids or whatever.
And I mean to like the Chad's tennem bomb character
is a good dad who clearly is suffering from PTSD.
But but I agree, Yeah, but also Ben still is
(24:50):
just really good at playing nervous. He's great and yeah,
and then the best visual pun in the whole movie
is a the end when Royal tenan bomb does Ben
still learn his son's show up in black track suits
to the funeral because they have been in red Adida's
track suits up until that point. They switched it up
(25:12):
out of respect. These characters do not stray far from
their costume design solid aesthetic um. Back to the relationship
between Margot and Richie, I mean, why was the choice made.
I mean, it's not technically an incestual relationship because they're
not related by blood, but it's weird. I mean, I
(25:33):
feel like it it introduces, like, in theory, if we
paid a little more attention to the Marco character outside
of how she relates to the men, you know, or
how she furthers the male stories, we don't need that
romance at all. Really, Like, if if you took the
time spent on Margot and Richie's not incestual relationship and
(25:58):
put that into flashing out the background of Margot and
of Ethylene a little more, you almost like don't really
need it. I don't hate that it's there, but I
do think that it just, yeah, it kind of takes
away from Margot's character quite a bit because it's like
even the first time you see Margot as an adult,
(26:19):
it's such a male, like a kind of a comically
male gazy shot where she gets off the bus and
it's like slow motion and he loves her, and you're like, wait,
but he's her brother, and you know, I don't know.
I guess I don't know where I fall in that
well for me. So after the family discovers that Royal
had been lying about having cancer, that's like halfway through
(26:43):
the movie, which means there's a whole half of the
movie to go. And where the plot goes from there
is basically focusing on Richie and Margot's relationship, with a
few of the subplots like weaved into that, but that's
largely what the narrative focuses on. Three big things that
evanced the narrative in this movie are Royal lies to
(27:04):
his family. That's the first phase. Second phase, which I
think is done pretty irresponsibly by this movie, is Ritchie
tries to kill himself. That's what brings the family together
the second time after they disperse. And the third thing
that brings everybody together is Ethylene decides to marry Henry,
and there's a wedding. Those are the three things that
(27:25):
bring the family together. All of them are pretty intrinsically
connected to either men or marriage. That's all there is
the boys. The boys are back in town, or we're
marrying the boys, right, Because the way that the male characters,
(27:47):
including the narrator, talk about Margot or the way that
she serves a purpose in the narrative, well like, for example,
Richie attempts suicide because he has just learned that she
had been having an affair with his best friend Eli,
which I mean, we can get into a whole discussion
(28:07):
about how this movie does not handle suicidality and mental
illness well at all, but setting that aside, So him
discovering that she was having an affair with his friend
prompts Ritchie to attempt suicide. Then her husband, Raleigh played
by Bill Murray, goes on this whole tirade where he
(28:29):
blames Margo for Richie's suicide. This is shortly after he
has called himself a cook and then he gets up.
Earlier in the movie, Royal confronts Margot because she doesn't
he doesn't like the way that she's treating her husband rally,
because she's so secretive. The different montages that the narrator
(28:53):
is describing, it's often in the context of who she's
married to or who she used to be married and
divorced too, and then we focus on things about her
husband when we should be learning more about her. So
even when she's on screen or even when she's being
talked about, it's still usually in the context of her
(29:14):
relationship to the men in her life, which is stupid.
That's my hot, very academic take on that. Marco kind
of like with athletes character, there's like a glimmer of like,
why why don't we look at that a little more
(29:35):
instead of making her marry someone or making her fall
in love with something like you get that flashback scene
where Margot looks for her birth family and finds them
and then is unsatisfied, and you know, like kind of
a trophy approach to the adopted child story where they
go to find their origin and then it doesn't answer
(29:57):
the question that they actually had and like doesn't end
up solving all their problems. Fine, a pretty interesting scene
and shows us more of that character and kind of
like where she's coming from, but then it's kind of
really not touched one again and and I mean, I
can't say this with certainty, but it seems like part
(30:17):
of the reason that I mean, she's made to be
adopted so that it's weird as an audience, are okay
with her kissing Luke Wilson, but it goes largely kind
of unexplored where you see like a little piece of
it and you're like, oh, that's interesting. But then the
main takeaway of that is like she's still sad and
(30:38):
it's actually fine if she makes out with Luke Wilson,
and that's all really all we're given. I feel like
the way that the semi incestuous relationship is covered is
such an indication of how Wes Anderson portrays the depth
of true relationship dynamics. It's almost like, fundamentally, this family
(30:59):
is a codependent, dysfunctional family with a very mean and
narcissistic father figure, right, and that has all of these
consequences with like all the kids being depressed and probably
self critical and in some way self harming. And that's
really deep and like sad and awful, and that's like
what happens in like a family dynamic like that. But
(31:22):
like what Wes Anderson does is he like takes a
story like that, but only skims really the like the
cute and the quirky and the delightful parts for us
to look at, you know, which is entertaining, But there
is something to be desired when it comes to really
(31:42):
getting into why the relationships are the way they are
totally right, Like, it's like, oh, we have this sort
of surface level presentation of this really dysfunctional family. The
jokes are cute, the casual racism chuckle chuckle, you know,
and so and so I think in the end, I've
heard about dynamics where step children might grow way way
(32:05):
too close, or even regular children grow way too close
because the parents are like not really there for kids,
you know. But and maybe that could be an explanation
for Margo and Richie, but we don't really get that,
you know. Yeah, it's not like and the fact that
Wes Anderson, you know, really goes out of his way
to be like they are not related is a very
(32:29):
deliberate choice in his part. And I think that the
choices like I want this movie to make a lot
of money and be successful, and I don't want people
to feel weird about it. I wanted to be quirky
and like not like the other relationships, but I don't
want it to be outside of what is conventionally acceptable,
and you know with in the law and all that stuff.
(32:50):
So yeah, and then and then I really like and
we don't really have time to fully unpack it, but
just the way that this movie treats Richie's suicide attempt
is very sudden and more graphic than I remembered, and
beautifully shot though guards of symmetry, gorgeous shot of this
horrifying act that is really barely commented on after it happens,
(33:16):
and it's just I mean, it's scared to see, like
he literally slits his wrists on camera, which I mean,
we can argue the ethics of that. I just don't
think that that's like a responsible thing to do in
what you're trying to have be a mainstream movie. And
then really it just serves the narrative purpose of you know,
getting Margot to talk to Ritchie again and to get
(33:38):
the family together again. And outside of that that like
very drastic upsetting action is not really addressed that much
after that, except of like, well Margot is talking to
me again, so shrug, Like it's just it's very bizarre.
I mean, the gorgeousness of the art direction and the
cinematography risks rising suicide and depression, you know what I mean.
(34:03):
It's like that was pretty well yeah, yeah, like why
did that look so nice? Right? And then the scene
after so you see he kind of like lays his
arms onto the sink and then you see the blood
kind of rushed down and then that cuts immediately to
it's not comical, but it's such a juxtaposition against what
(34:25):
we just saw that it's almost like, I don't know
exactly how to describe it, but it's like a bunch
of doctors and nurses and stuff like that rushing him
the hall and it's like suddenly this bright colors and
it's like the music, the music and the and just
the movement on the screen almost makes that seem amusing. Yeah, well,
(34:49):
I think that the especially with the music there is
communicating is like and we're all back together again because
this thing happened. Either that or saying like oh it's
all gonna be okay, like he won't die from this,
but it's still yeah, just if that felt handled irresponsible, Yeah,
I mean the way that that that that shift communicated
(35:09):
what it communicated to me was Wes Anderson saying, Oh,
isn't it cute that Richie tried to commit suicide, but
he's not going to be successful ha ha because he
got found before. He can't get that right exactly, but
that's how that felt because because the way he was
found was pretty soon after he you know, started bleeding
and he was on the floor of the bathroom and
(35:30):
like the random test subject of Rally st Clair finding
the teenage, Yeah, a lot of hair, a lot of
hat I'd like to throw in here. Um. You know,
if I were to rewrite the Royal Tannon bombs from
a different perspective in order to fulfill the Bechdel test,
I would write it from the perspective of Sing Sing
(35:51):
Oh okay, yeah, Sing Sing with this the character in
the very beginning, that's the masseuse. Uh. You know, in
the scene where you find out that Royal is going
to get kicked out of the hotel that he's been
seeing in and you pan up and you see Sing
Sing is uh, you know, his his masseuse looks kind
of asian e and Sing Sing is like what an
(36:12):
elementary school bully would call me in order to make
fun of my Chinese name. Yeah, so I'm just like okay,
and so I would I would rewrite the royal tannem
bombs from Sing Sing's perspective. You actually see Sing Sing
later on um do you do? She's in the background.
And I think this is very indicative of the people
of color characters that in this movie. For Wes Anderson,
(36:36):
you have Pagoda, which is it's a Japanese word for
a Chinese architectural detail. That is the name that is
given to the Indian man in Calcutta, that he is
his sort of man servant for the royal for royal,
So very bizarre, and and and and so you know,
because of the sort of wide angle shots that we
(36:58):
get of every scene, the sort of quirkiness and the
benefit of the color and the texture of of these
shots is that you get to see side characters and
background actors and background movement right while the foreground is happening.
And so so often it's either Pagoda or Sing Sing
or other sort of people of color or servant type
characters in the background being quirky and moving uh to
(37:21):
to sort of be like animated gifts of delightfulness in
the back and so and so I think Sing Sing
would be Apparently Sing Sing showing up later probably indicates
they had a really close relationship. I don't know what
the nature of it. She didn't say one word, but
I would rewrite that would be my wicked musical. I
would rewrite Royal tannem Bombs the musical from Sing Sing's perspective. Uh,
(37:44):
hell yeah, I'll buy it. I would watch We'll see
and then she has like a secret relationship with Pagoda,
you know, I mean, yeah, it's a non white characters
are largely used for comic relief in this movie, with
with the exception of Danny Glover's character, who's really the
only non white main character in the movie, and even
(38:08):
then he's like a bi character pretty much. Yeah, I
think it just it just hints to the sort of
orientalist problem that Wes Anderson tends to have, as we
saw with Isle of Dogs recently. Because you know, you know,
I noticed the Asian ship all the time in any movie,
and so in what in this movie, the first time
we see Asian ship is Sing Sing the Masseuse. The
(38:31):
second time we see Asian ship is actually um when
Royal confronts Ethylene to get back into her life, and
you see they actually have in a street argument and
it's in front of some kind of embassy that has
Chinese words, you know, and so but it's very prominent
because it's you know, it's it's ethylene and royal on
the right hand side of the screen and three quarters
(38:52):
of the rest of the screen is the sort of
wall of this and you see the sign, and it's
the sort of little details that tell me like it's
very deliberate, because there is no scene that is not
deliberate for Wes Anderson. And you know in the way
that he also uses sort of essentially orientalist things as
set dressing and people as set dressing. So um to me,
(39:13):
the setting in front of a Chinese language sign of
an embassy in the street of New York is no
different from the fact that Sing Sing was in the
background for another scene and pago to access set dressing
for other scenes. I mean, Wes Anderson is an example
of one of these odd toward directors that has his
little like Darling's where he keeps recasting a handful of
(39:35):
actors in his movies over and over again. You're Wilson Brothers,
You're Jason Schwartzman's your Bill, Murray's maybe a couple of others,
a ton of white actors exactly, mostly men um Wes
Anderson on race is just a deep sigh. How do
you spell that on a script? It's just like a
(39:57):
bunch of us and yeah, but like repeated into infinity
of like also a common not really a through line
but basically just an image that you keep seeing. Is
this cab that shows up all the time, Gypsy cab
gypsy again being a slur for roma people. Not okay,
(40:19):
I feel like this is this is another male utor
issue and probably a white director issue as well, of
like by thinking that the mere presence of something like
makes it okay. I'm trying to articulate this correctly, but
I think I know what you mean. Where he's like
cute defying all this stuff that he cannot possibly understand
(40:40):
or and and cannot represent on screen responsibly. But he's like,
well it's there, so that's good. You know. I didn't
ignore that because it's in my movie, So I'm doing
a good job. I acknowledged that people who aren't me
exist at all. So Trophy please like that cuteify ying
is a good word. For the Wes Anderson filmmaking filter. Yeah,
(41:05):
that's the name of his insta filter, slip Slipe cut.
So I couldn't help but notice that towards the end,
Eli crashes the wedding by literally crashing a car into
the wedding. And I just wonder if that's the inspiration
for the movie Wedding Crashers that he would later star in.
(41:25):
You know, I'm just here to ask the important question.
It's Wedding Crasher is a part of the expanded Wes
Anderson universe. Does anyone have any final thoughts about the movie?
You know, there's still a part of me that appreciates
the craft and the storytelling that happened in the movie, Like,
you know, I liked it back then, prewoke viewing days
(41:48):
for a reason, you know, And I think I think
there's a lot I can learn about storytelling. But but
I think we're in this moment where flipping the script
talking about the Begdel Test, seeing it means to hear
from the voices of people you don't usually here in
a more popular conversation. That means that we're all going
(42:09):
to figure out what it might mean to like create
more mainstream accessible stories right, that are more critical the patriarchy,
that are gonna, you know, have us drive the story.
You know, your future Broadway musical, yes string, you know
(42:29):
the sing Sing Tannerballs featuring Pagoda. That's that's my takeaway
that I want to write my wicked yeah. Yeah. And
that's not to say that every single movie that comes
out has to be this like hard hitting, deep analysis
of the patriarchy and how to dismantle it. Because as
(42:49):
much as I love to watch movies like that, I
also love to watch just sort of mindless popcorn movies
sometimes and there ye like Wes Anderson is the king
of these kind of fun, quirky movies that start to
maybe explore some themes that tend to go unexplored in
his movies, but he really only kind of touches on
(43:11):
the surface of them and doesn't really do much in
the way of anything like that. But if you are
going to have just a fun kind of mindless movie,
I think that you do still have the responsibility to
treat your characters well. And if you are going to
have women in your movie, which you should, which which
I mean rolling my eyes, but sometimes it has to
(43:35):
have women because what if the proton, what if the
male protagonist wants to have heterosat who is he going
to have sex with? But right, So, if you're going
to make a fun, quirky, offbeat movie, then have your
female characters still not be entirely defined by their relationships
to men, for example, Or have the people of color
(43:57):
in your movie not only be the help of the
white characters. So yeah, just a lot of just a
lot of missteps in this movie, as you can expect
from a mainstream movie. I had one other little note
that it was just like but both a missed opportunity
writing wise and just like come on, uh, the only
(44:19):
writer character in this movie is Margot Tannenbaum, and yet
the movie Framing Device is a book written by a man.
Why we have a writer character, we have a writical Well,
Eli is also a true he is a novelist, and
Margot's husband, Raleigh is he is a psychologist neurologist. I think, um,
(44:43):
but he has also written books. I want a female narrator, yeah,
but also this story would make no sense coming from
a female narrator because it makes nice it's female characters
a lot of the time. Also, I'm sure the narrator
Ali Baldwin has some me two stories. That's oh yeah,
I mean we've it's you know, the time, the when
it culture has come where we finally need to hear
Alc Balbin out here what he's got to say. I
(45:06):
think that just speaking to because Wes Anderson is such
a common request from our audience, and a lot of
tour directors are that because Wes Anderson's work does tend
to be in its positiveness and its negative so consistent
that we can take a movie like this in sort
of view it to an extent as a reflection of
(45:28):
the filmmaker's values and interests. So you know, it is
a little bit of a reflection on Wes Anderson where
he is, you know, the creative driving force behind this.
Where it's like this is probably a reflection at this time,
at this point in time, how Wes Anderson views women
and views non white people as you know, not the
(45:49):
primary focus and thought of more in a utility way
than in like, here's the character we really want to
explore and give time to. It's all about Okay, they're
allowed to be there, but only to further the story
of the person he's really interested in which is almost
always one of his friends. Yeah. Yeah, and also reflective
(46:14):
of the way he uses depression and mental health issues
for utility. Absolutely. You know, we can judge him according
to this movie, but it also is a judgment on
his Yes, each of you used a French word to
talk about film, and I felt left out, so I
wanted to use a French word. I loved it. I
don't know. It's very well good, it's beautiful, it's very symmetrical. Gang,
(46:42):
We're real smart. Wow. Think about us is where Genius says,
does this movie pass the Bechdel test? Yeah? I would
say it does there by the skin of its teeth.
At there's a few conversations between Ethylene and Margot. There's
a scene early on where um Margot is in the
(47:03):
bathtub and he's like, Raleigh says, you have been spending
a lot of time in the bathtub. Margo is like,
I doubt that. Shout out to the movie doubt, doubt,
And then they're talking about She's like, I don't think
that's very healthy. What if what if the TV falls
into the tub And she's like, I tie it to
the radiator and she's like, wow, it can't be very
(47:23):
good for your eyes. And then she says Chaz came home.
So there is a two line exchange that does technically
pass within that, but the conversation starts talking about Raleigh
and with talking about Chaz and then Ari and Uzy,
and the chunk that passes is the only part of
that conversation that really has no narrative implications. It's just
(47:44):
like that. It's it's a little joke. That's I think
that almost every part of this movie that does barely
pass the back to test has nothing to do with
what is actually happening in this story. Yeah. Um. The
scene after that where those two women interact again is
when they're talking about Eli Cash sending Ethelene his like
(48:05):
clippings and his grades from college. That doesn't pass because
they're talking about Eli. And then there's a scene at
the end between the two of them again where Margot
is chewing on her nicotine and hailer and she's like,
what are you tring? And she's like, oh, it's supposed
to help me quit smoking. Is it working? Not really?
And then a car crashes into the building and it
was Eli wedding crashing with Vince Vaughn as he's always
(48:27):
doing aleating moment, so that scene I think also technically
passes because that's a four line exchange. Also, I didn't
realize until you said it that way that one of
the only Bectel test passing sceneson has literally ended because
a man drives a car into that scene. So poetic, Yeah, beautiful,
(48:47):
just a real representation of And but you're right, like
all the scenes that do are, all the moments that
do pass the Bechtel tests have no bearing on the narrative.
They could easily be cut in. The story would not
be changed one bit to like, well, maybe that's because
we're always trying to figure out ways to modify the
test to make it a little more effective for our purposes.
And that, I mean that might be a new thing
(49:10):
of like, what is the narrative implication? If if there's
only exchanges between women and movies that have no bearing
on what happens, then maybe if that shouldn't pass, right.
I think in a recent episode we were saying something
to the effect that we're hoping that the conversation is meaningful.
So because oftentimes it's like, hey, server at a restaurant,
(49:31):
do you have any pie? And they're like, yes, my
name is Marie, and you're just like, well, I guess,
and that's not a meaningful conversation. So yeah, I mean,
this movie could have easily done better. It did not
capitalize on any of the opportunities to pass the Bechdel test. More,
I still don't hate it. I mean, I hate myself
(49:53):
for that, but also I still know it's okay. I mean,
I don't hate I don't I don't hate this movie.
I don't think it's especially regret astive. It's not progressive,
but it doesn't necessarily set us back any further than
we already are. So like, yeah, I mean, which says
what I guess. That just means like all right, and
(50:15):
it's allowed to continue existence. Which, by the way, if
you do want to change the test that this podcast
is based on, maybe you don't have to change the
name of the podcast, just called the Bechtel Plus and
then you can start modifying the test. Let what we
do also talk about other tests that come up, the
Rito Russo test, the EVA Done tests, um, which I
(50:38):
don't think this movie would pass. No, no, no, anyway.
So yeah, yes to passing the Bechtel tests, but that
does not make it a feminist text. Unfortunately, um, let's
write the movie on our nipple scale. We have a
scale of zero to five nipples, and we write based
on its portrayal of women. I'm going to have to
(50:59):
give it like a one and a half, I think,
because I mean a little time is spent characterizing Margot,
and that she's established as a secretive person. She's a playwright,
she likes the arts, she likes photography. I mean, we
only see a glimpse of that in a montage that
lasts for one second. But we do learn certain things
(51:21):
about her character that a lot of movies wouldn't even
take the time to establish. But for the most part,
her character exists in the narrative to be either the
object of men's affections or to basically further characterize the
men around her. So she is not actually characterized that
well at all, I would argue. But then there's also Ethylene, who,
(51:45):
similar to Margot, it is pretty much only defined and
characterized by her relationships to the men in her life.
So I would say overall, the female characters are disserviced
by the filmmakers and the narrative. So it gets one
and a half nipples. One to Margot and the half
nipple will go to sing sing one nipple more singing
(52:09):
hashtag more sings. I'm gonna go on nipple two. And
this is uh something we didn't really touch on, but
just going on a A lot of people who are
fans of Wes Anderson, I think are teenagers, and I
think that's for a reason, whichause that he is very
visually appealing style that is, perhaps if you have lived
(52:31):
a little bit, only appealing to an extent. But the
reason I bring that up is because I think Margot
Tennenbaumb is kind of a very commonly cited female like
role model into in the Wes Anderson's BuzzFeed quizzes about her,
we took it disticals all kind Yeah, regretfully, I was
a Margot, you were a chass. I was a chass.
(52:52):
Ten I'm gonna look at you completely differently. It's because
I'm pretty neurotic and extremely concerned about children's safety. You're
an amazing father. Yeah so much. You're welcome. I uh suck, no, no, no,
I mean, but Margot Tennenbaum is the central female character,
and I think she's very often referenced and cited as
(53:15):
like an early you know, female avatar for for young
female viewers, and the fact that we are really only
given a glimpse of what we could be given and
she's still largely defined by her relationship to men is
disappointing and I missed opportunity to give young women character
of a little more substance. So one nipple and uh,
(53:39):
I'll give mine a sing sing to Jenny, thank you
so much for being here. We've had a great time
with you. Is the best deep dives into pop culture.
Where can people find you online? At Jenny Yang dot
tv and every user name Jenny yngg tv. Yeah, follow Jenny.
Check out our stand up She's great. You can follow
(54:01):
us the Bechel Cast on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook,
all the social media is. Subscribe to our Matreon. It's
five dollars a month and you get to bonus episodes
and otherwise. Um, we just encourage you to, just like
I don't know, be critical of the art you're consuming,
you're guying, especially when you really like it. Yeah, bye,
(54:24):
love you, Bye bye.
On the Beck Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies
have women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef
in best start changing it with the Beck del Cast. Hi,
and welcome to the Battle Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
my name is Caitlin Dronte, and this is our podcast
about the portrayal of women in movies. That's right. We
(00:23):
measure it sort of by the Beck Dold test, or
that's our jumping off point UM, which for us is
a test that requires that a movie has two female
identifying characters who have names, they speak to each other
about something other than a man, and their conversation has
to be at least two lines of dialogue. Bar pretty
easy to do, but some movies really struggle. I would
(00:46):
say most movies great transition into the movie and really
the body of work. This is a popular request for us,
and I would just say movies of this particular filmmaker,
people get a real freshman year attachment to this is
a peak, you know, like have you ever had sex
(01:07):
with a guy that has a French poster of Oh okay?
Hard to stop in but I've I've you know, I
feel like many people have had the experience of hooking
up with someone who has a framed poster of this
filmmaker in their house, and it is a real red flag.
I mean, less of a red flag than a lot
of directors, but yeah, not the biggest red flag, but
(01:29):
a little, a little, a little waving to say, hey,
I'm gonna try to explain something to you and soon. Yeah.
So the director we're talking about, of course, is West Anderson.
The movie we're covering today is The Royal Tenenbombs. First,
before we get into our heavy discourse, let's know, some
heavy flow discourse today. Yeah, let's introduce our guest. She's
(01:55):
a stand up comic. She is an actor, she is
a writer, and she's so wonderful. Jenny. Yeah, thank you
for having me, Thanks for being here. Let's do this.
Let's do it. Okay, So we're taking taking the Wes
Anderson bullet. No one's been brave enough apparently. But you know,
The Royal Tannon Bombs was like a movie I used
to consider one of my favorites. I think that's pretty common.
(02:18):
I I, well, when did you first see this movie?
What's your history with the movie. I mean, I feel
like I saw it in the early adds like everyone else,
you know, when it came out ish like, but like
not in the theaters. I forget if I saw it
in the theaters. I just remember it made a really
strong impression on me because I feel like I was
probably already raised so basic with pop culture that, you know,
(02:39):
to me, seeing a Wes Anderson moving like royal Tannon
bombs was like it blew my mind. I was like, oh, wow,
this is so stylized and so artsy, you know, and
so I I think that was like one of my
first tastes of something that wasn't just a typical popcorn movie. Yeah. Yeah,
And it really made an impression, I think, probably because
(03:00):
there's such a melancholy in the movie and it's really
about like a dysfunctional family, which, in a weird way,
even though I'm like not white, um, I related to
them somewhat, you know. Was sort of like a messed
up patriarch kind of a storyline. And I just like
the sort of droll like irony and sense of humor
(03:22):
in it because it was still like pretty new and
like interesting at this point where I feel like a
lot of people have exhaustion with it now, but oh
one Wes Anderson, we're talking peak West Andrewson fresh and
this was one of his earlier ones. Yeah, before this,
of the features, he did Bottle Rocket and Rushmore and
(03:42):
I think maybe that's it as far as his like
notable features. Yeah, but those are like the only the
movies that like indie film nerds kind of Guilty is Charged.
But yeah, so I think I also saw this, not
in the theaters, but shortly after it came out. I
think it was my first exposure to Mr Wes Anderson.
(04:06):
At the time, I was like, Yeah, I'm into this.
I like the production design, the cinema tug, all the
meson sin. I was all for it. And now I
go back and I revisit this or I see other
Wes Anderson movies and I'm reminded that they usually story
wise for me, this I think we were because we
(04:29):
watched this movie together. I have seen this movie before,
I think at some point in college. But and I
think that this Jenny, I'm interested in your take on this.
But so far, with people we've talked to, there's a
lot of Wes Anderson movies that you know you've seen,
but you cannot remember anything that happens in the movie,
(04:50):
and you're like, oh, that's the one about camp And
then if someone's like, well, what happened. We were asking
Jack O'Brien at how stuff works. He was like, oh, yeah,
I loved I think he said like of Aquatic. I
was like, oh, what is that one? He's like, uh, Submarine.
I was like, oh yeah, I love that, and you
cannot tell me one thing that happens, but I don't
(05:11):
know what it is. Most of his movies tend to
explore kind of the same themes, but it's not like
they're totally with you. I mean, Darjeeling Limited is just
straight up a bad one, but like they're not boring movies.
There's stuff that's happening, but maybe it's just so stylized
that that's all you can retain, or it's just I
don't know. I know I've seen at least three Wes
(05:33):
Anderson movies. Couldn't tell you what happens in one of them.
It's just like, I feel like, if you've studied music,
there's not a lot of dynamics in a Wes Anderson movie.
It all kind of just the notes just kind of
center around this middle part, right, emotional notes, energy, right,
it just kind of stays right, pretty static. Yeah. Right, So,
(05:55):
so I feel like and the look of it is
all kind of in that same kind of like you know,
early Instagram filter, right and pretty wide, way too much headroom. Yeah,
like we're living. Yeah, It's it's all just that, right,
And so that's why I feel like, you know, visually,
two people will just kind of confuse one West Sanderson
(06:17):
movie with another. It's like we're living inside of like
a thrift store diorama, you know, and so and they're
just swapping out these dioramas. But but for me, though,
I feel like, maybe, you know, Bottle Rock, it might
have been a little different, but I feel like it
was Royal Tannon Bombs that really set the tone for
like the look of his more commercially successful films after that, right, absolutely, yeah,
And so I feel like I feel like, no matter what,
(06:39):
Royal Tannon Bombs might stick out a little more for
people in terms of being memorable. But yeah, after that,
it's gets kind of blurry. It's kind of yeah, the
tone is sort of set with this movie, and then
you're like visually and I'm sure you know, people who
know a lot about film know the specifics, but like,
visually frame from Royal Tannon Bombs and frame from moon
(07:01):
Rise Kingdom the same fucking things. Like it's like and
now it's not even a bad thing. It's okay to
have consistency throughout a body of work. But the Wes
Anderson theory. If you are listening and you consider yourself
a fan of Wes Anderson's work, I defy you try
to uh summarize one of his movies and not just
have it be like, that's the one about dogs, that's
(07:21):
the one about camp, that's the one about underwater, that's
the one about I don't know Bill Murray's in it.
Like that, Oh, I think that serves as a great
transition to the recap, which I will try my best
to do. I just watch the movie twice and I
still don't. Okay. Basically, we learn about this family of
Tenant Bombs. The patriarch is Royal Tenant Bomb played by
(07:45):
Jane Hackman. He's married to Ethelene. They have three kids, Chaz,
Margot and Ritchie, and they're like a bunch of baby geniuses.
They're these very accomplished kids who like do a lot
in their youth and they're very exceptional, and and that's
pulled um a bunch of different sources. Where the Magnificent
Anderson's is an Orson Wells film that's referenced pretty heavily
(08:06):
in this, and then it's also referencing J. D. Salinger's
Glass Family. I believe you're called so Wes Anderson he's
pulling from other male ahturs of note of like the
White family that's really smart but tragic, Like that's he's
clearly pulling from that sort of stock story, right. Yeah.
(08:28):
So it's this family of like exceptional young kids and
the plarents split up when they're fairly young, and they
kind of estranged themselves from Royal Tenenbaumb until a few
things happen where he gets kicked out of his hotel
room and he's broke and he doesn't really know what
to do, so he decides to reconnect with his family
under the ruse of telling them that he is dying
(08:49):
so they will basically take sympathy on him and be
more willing to reconnect with him. So this happens for
a while where the family who had kind of drifted
apart over the years, gets back together. They're all under
one roof again where Ethylene lives. Ethylene is considering getting remarried,
yes to Henry played by Danny Glover right, and then
(09:09):
all of the kids have kind of they were exceptional
in their youth, but they've kind of like leveled out
and they're not that great anymore, or they're just not
exceptional the way they were when they were kids. So
they're sort of reconnecting, and over the course of a
few days or so, um, it comes out the Royal
is not actually dying of stomach cancer like he says
(09:31):
he is. Uh, he just made that all up so
that people would take pity on him and want to
hang out with him again. So then he gets kind
of cast away again. But the family is still sort
of like working through their issues and their relationships with
each other in that like two of them are in love.
But it's fine. It's fine because Margot is adopted Paltrow.
(09:54):
So basically the story ends with the family reconnecting just
as Gene Hackman's character wanted, but under unusual circumstances, and
so flash forward, he dies, and then the movie ends
when the company Goop is is founded. Marco has a
wild idea. What is she founded the most annoying company possible?
(10:18):
Then goop starts, Wait does that happen? No, Like I'm
talking about Gwyneth two snail cream. Oh okay, I am
aware of Gwyneth and her products, Gwyneth her content. You know,
I would say live in ignorance with Gwyneth and her products.
It's a lot okay. Yeah, So yeah, that's basically the story,
(10:43):
and there are some interesting things to talk about there. Yeah,
I guess I guess so much, so much, yeah, or
so little. There's I don't know, Like I have a
lot of notes for this. It's but it's hard to
know where to star. Well, so there's two main female
characters of any note in, Margot played by Gwyneth Patro
(11:06):
and Ethylene played by Angelica Houston. Right, So the first
opening sequence of the movie is our introduction of the
young Tenembombs, and we learn a little bit about the
children and then the parents as well. So with like Ethylene,
we learned that her main concern was the children's education,
and then it pretty quickly cuts away from her it
goes to Chaz. We learned about him loving finance, he
(11:29):
bread Dalmatian mice. He was a real estate mogul as
a small child. Then we learned about Margot. We learned
that she is adopted. She is a playwright. Um. We
see her in a dark room, we see her doing ballet. Um.
She camps out in a library for a while with
her brother Richie. She's not like the other girls, right,
she smokes and she's I don't know, there's And then
(11:56):
we learned about Ritchie, who was a stark tennis player.
We see him playing with a ham radio. He has
a drum set, He paints pictures of Margo. He has
a bird named Mordecai. And then we learned about Royal
and that he was a litigator until he was disbarred
in the mid eighties. So we're getting an introduction to
all these characters. It feels as though the two women
that we learned about, I don't know, they just feel
(12:17):
more glossed over or like. The only accomplishment that is
noted for Margo is that she won like the Braverman
Grant in ninth grade for a play she wrote. But
for the boys, it's like, oh, they did this thing,
and they did this thing, and they did this thing.
And did, and then Ethelene is like basically just described
in the context of her being a mother in that sequence.
So right away, I feel like it's sort of that
(12:39):
whole thing lays the groundwork for how the female characters
will be treated throughout the rest of the movie. It's
interesting because it's it's like the story has like the
skeleton of female characters that could be well developed if
the movie was going to like invest time in it.
Like we know that Ethleene is an archaeologist and a
really good one, Like she has this career, and and
(13:02):
there's enough there that we could explore something outside of
how she behaves as a mother and a wife. But
that's all the movie really chooses to explore it, which
is frustrating because she's like, well there's more, there's more there,
but it just we just don't really get to see it. No,
we don't, you know. When I was watching, I kind
of like looked at like when the women said lines,
(13:24):
and it really wasn't until like a third of the
way in that, like Ethelene finally talked to her daughter. Yeah, everyone,
it was like a while, and even before that, each
of them got maybe one or two lines, right because
in terms of like the Bechdel tests, like you're like, well,
that's going to be the scene that would pass if
(13:44):
we get to see these characters together at all, Like
and it's just kind of the question of like will
we get to see them together? And it takes a
long time, which is kind of a bummer too because
Ethelene and well, I guess if we start with Royal,
Royal has medi substantial scenes with all three of his children,
(14:06):
with some of them more than once. Evelyne kind of doesn't.
We see her interact with all three of her children,
but it's not with the same amount of depth. It
doesn't reveal as much about her character. It sort of
exists more to tell us about her kids and not
really anything about her, where the Royal scenes are either
(14:27):
like equal of like we're learning about him and his
child or we're just learning about him and like why
he is a liar or why you're something about his past,
Where I mean we learn a lot about Royal Tenan
bombs past, we don't really learn we learned about Ethelyne's
past as it pertains to Royal. I think that's what's
messed up about this is that it is about a
(14:49):
dysfunctional family that is dysfunctional primarily in response to how
messed up Royal is, right, the patriarch, and so this whole,
this whole story is surround being sort of royal driving
what's happening. Right, So he's like wants to get back
in with the family so that he can intervene and
really have a relationship. So he's always the one trying
(15:11):
to instigate something or call one of his kids out,
whereas Ethylene only serves as like a typical female counterbalance,
kind of patriarchal counterbalance to that, which is like she's
the one to soothe, to coax to like yeah, exactly,
she's to clean up the messer. And obviously that's probably
(15:32):
reflective of their relationship. And I think that it poses
the same question I always have, which is, if say,
we do want to talk about how messed up the
patriarchy is, you know, and we write a story about it,
how much is that just simply continuing to put a
spotlight on the men to reflect to you know what
I mean, rather than really dismantling it or in doing it.
(15:53):
And I think that's what's tough. You know. On the
one hand, like if I have a similarly messed up
kind of patriarchal dad, and I want to write about
that to dissect it. Does that mean I'm giving more
power to that person's voice, you know what I'm saying,
Like like because we're because we're still saying Royal is
the one taking the action. He's he's getting protagonists. Yeah,
(16:14):
he gets all the fun scenes. I think, Yeah, I
think that that is part of it. Yeah, Like the
movie isn't critical enough of him where he is, Like
the way that like misogyny is displayed through Royals is
like lighthearted and you can imagine a giggle in the
movie theater cheeky. Yeah, and the same with when he's
like being racist against Danny Glover's character is like, oh,
(16:38):
just an old guy being an old guy, and it
normalizes it pretty quickly in the context of the movie.
And and then at the end, what what I mean,
I forgot literally everything that happened in this movie, But
I definitely forgot the end where I feel like we
we get close to criticizing Royal when he's kicked out
of the house and they're like, no, fuck you, you
(16:58):
can't lie to us anymore. You're you're cast out. But
then in the end, you know, he does sort of apologize,
but that was even that was like, did he really
And then at the end he dies and sort of
the takeaway of the movie is like, well, if he
hadn't a lot all those times, the family wouldn't be
back together. And I was just like, oh, so we should.
(17:21):
So it ends up being completely uncritical of the patriarchy
and the patriarch in that they're like, well, yeah, mistakes
were made, but families chill now, And it wouldn't have
been if he hadn't like faked cancer and gas light
his whole family. Like I was just like, no, what
they're like the consequences of this, Uh, the Shenanigans actually
(17:45):
was kind of good if he worked out. If we
end this movie with like and we've cast out the
patriarch who clearly has no respect for us or himself,
and uh, well we're all here, so let's hang out
and keep him out of our lives. That's a maybe
less movie. I mean, it's one of those we talked
(18:05):
about this. Uh. I think on our How the Grinch
Stole Christmas episode and on our Muppet Christmas Carol episode
about the male redemption stories that we see so much
of where it's like, like, sure, if you want to
make a movie about a dysfunctional family and how everyone
is messed up as a result of at least one
(18:26):
of the parents disservicing their children in some way, great,
that's an interesting story, but like, why do we have
to hear it from the point of view of the
person who did the messing up? Like why can't we?
I mean, you know there are movies that explore it
from different points of view, but it's just like, yeah,
I just I have so little patience to the point
where the movie is named after the yeah, like yeah,
(18:50):
it it ends up. There are moments where it approaches
being critical, but ultimately he's a redumable character. He ends
up think everything he wanted, which was the relationship with
his family, which he got after years of lying, and
then kind of a half past apology. So that's all.
It takes great lifetime of trauma and therapy. No, no way,
(19:16):
like just a sorry maybe just like might be like
what are you talking about? I don't know, Yeah, the
male redemption story and then there's a lot of men
who are redeemed in the course of this story. Royal
is the main one. But I think also with Richie,
there's sort of like a redemption story told there. Should
(19:37):
we jump into him and Margot? Now, yeah, this very
bizarre romantic relationship is established between Ritchie, who is a
biological tenenbomb, and Margot, who is an adopted Tenan bomb.
This is the premise of the most searched porn on porn. Okay, yeah,
(20:00):
like you see that, You're like, this is this is
a Wes Anderson thing. There must be a Wes Anderson
Richie and Margot. I'm gonna go search after this CP incognito.
I'm gonna do it in plain sight. I don't care
who knows. I'm going to Starbucks right now, gorgeous symmetrical pornography.
(20:27):
A Kink song is playing in the background this time tomorrows.
I mean, they have face flopping technology, so who knows.
Maybe it's you know, kind of a joint. Okay. So
this this relationship is established where for the most part
we see Richie like pining over Margot. He's painting pictures
(20:50):
of her, he's waiting at the bus stop for her. Yeah,
but then whenever it comes out finally that they basically
confess their love for each other, and at this point
we don't really know that Margot had loved him. We
only find out in that moment because we're seeing most
of the nature of their relationship through Richie's point of view.
(21:13):
So one, I find it weird that we don't know
how she feels about totally. That's her reaction whenever he's
like I love you, and she's like, I love you too,
and then they kiss, and then they lie down and
a tent together, like we didn't know because she is
married to Bill Murray's character Raleigh, and then also was
(21:33):
having an affair with Eli Rock and not Eli Rock,
like so yeah, so she was. She's engaged in multiple
relationships with men, which means that she is the object.
I feel like Margot's main purpose in the story is
to be the object of several men's affection. The same
(21:54):
for Ethelene, where it's the push and pull between like
is Royal gonna rope her back in? Or is she
going to marry Henry? There's no option presented where she
can be single. Kind of the same for Marco. And
there's those two montage scenes in regards to those characters
(22:14):
that I wanted to talk about where there's a lot
of montage scenes in all of wes Anderson's work, and
and these aren't the only ones that appear, but the
two montage scenes that are specific to Marco and to
Ethylene are almost exclusively about their sexual history. Yes, well,
(22:35):
in Margot's case, not all meant but mostly right, where
Like we see highlights from Margot's life and it's like
she starts to smoke, she leaves school. The rest is
for sexual right, and then for Ethylene, it's here are
the men that she's dated since she and Royal tennan
(22:55):
bomb broke up, and then we get finally to Henry,
who is the new man in her life. So there's
no there's really no ambiguity about like what matters to
the story with these characters, where there are other elements
of their lives. But that's not what wes Anderson and
co writer Owen Wilson really want your attention on, right,
(23:17):
because we don't see any such montages like that of
characters romantic or sexual histories with any of the male characters,
noticed only with Ethylene and Margot, which is a very
deliberate choice and a very glaring they do give. They
give Ben Stiller's character a different trope, which is the
good old fashioned dead wife his wife, and they do
(23:41):
go to see her gravestone, much like in The Rock
his favorite movies. Yeah, Ben Stillers and the and his
wife who we never meet, but her death is the
main thing that defines his character is dealing with and
how that has manifested in him being extremely overprotective of
(24:04):
his two sons and being like very overly concerned with
their safety. That's a part of the movie I didn't dislike.
I thought it was like kind of nice and a
little unusual to see a single father definitely being overbearing,
but being a pretty solid parent throughout the movie, Like
definitely overprotective, but usually like if you see a single father.
(24:27):
You don't see a lot of single fathers in movies
at all, um, but especially like if you do see
a single father, he's fucking up and he you know,
he doesn't get it, can't relate with his kids or whatever.
And I mean to like the Chad's tennem bomb character
is a good dad who clearly is suffering from PTSD.
But but I agree, Yeah, but also Ben still is
(24:50):
just really good at playing nervous. He's great and yeah,
and then the best visual pun in the whole movie
is a the end when Royal tenan bomb does Ben
still learn his son's show up in black track suits
to the funeral because they have been in red Adida's
track suits up until that point. They switched it up
(25:12):
out of respect. These characters do not stray far from
their costume design solid aesthetic um. Back to the relationship
between Margot and Richie, I mean, why was the choice made.
I mean, it's not technically an incestual relationship because they're
not related by blood, but it's weird. I mean, I
(25:33):
feel like it it introduces, like, in theory, if we
paid a little more attention to the Marco character outside
of how she relates to the men, you know, or
how she furthers the male stories, we don't need that
romance at all. Really, Like, if if you took the
time spent on Margot and Richie's not incestual relationship and
(25:58):
put that into flashing out the background of Margot and
of Ethylene a little more, you almost like don't really
need it. I don't hate that it's there, but I
do think that it just, yeah, it kind of takes
away from Margot's character quite a bit because it's like
even the first time you see Margot as an adult,
(26:19):
it's such a male, like a kind of a comically
male gazy shot where she gets off the bus and
it's like slow motion and he loves her, and you're like, wait,
but he's her brother, and you know, I don't know.
I guess I don't know where I fall in that
well for me. So after the family discovers that Royal
had been lying about having cancer, that's like halfway through
(26:43):
the movie, which means there's a whole half of the
movie to go. And where the plot goes from there
is basically focusing on Richie and Margot's relationship, with a
few of the subplots like weaved into that, but that's
largely what the narrative focuses on. Three big things that
evanced the narrative in this movie are Royal lies to
(27:04):
his family. That's the first phase. Second phase, which I
think is done pretty irresponsibly by this movie, is Ritchie
tries to kill himself. That's what brings the family together
the second time after they disperse. And the third thing
that brings everybody together is Ethylene decides to marry Henry,
and there's a wedding. Those are the three things that
(27:25):
bring the family together. All of them are pretty intrinsically
connected to either men or marriage. That's all there is
the boys. The boys are back in town, or we're
marrying the boys, right, Because the way that the male characters,
(27:47):
including the narrator, talk about Margot or the way that
she serves a purpose in the narrative, well like, for example,
Richie attempts suicide because he has just learned that she
had been having an affair with his best friend Eli,
which I mean, we can get into a whole discussion
(28:07):
about how this movie does not handle suicidality and mental
illness well at all, but setting that aside, So him
discovering that she was having an affair with his friend
prompts Ritchie to attempt suicide. Then her husband, Raleigh played
by Bill Murray, goes on this whole tirade where he
(28:29):
blames Margo for Richie's suicide. This is shortly after he
has called himself a cook and then he gets up.
Earlier in the movie, Royal confronts Margot because she doesn't
he doesn't like the way that she's treating her husband rally,
because she's so secretive. The different montages that the narrator
(28:53):
is describing, it's often in the context of who she's
married to or who she used to be married and
divorced too, and then we focus on things about her
husband when we should be learning more about her. So
even when she's on screen or even when she's being
talked about, it's still usually in the context of her
(29:14):
relationship to the men in her life, which is stupid.
That's my hot, very academic take on that. Marco kind
of like with athletes character, there's like a glimmer of like,
why why don't we look at that a little more
(29:35):
instead of making her marry someone or making her fall
in love with something like you get that flashback scene
where Margot looks for her birth family and finds them
and then is unsatisfied, and you know, like kind of
a trophy approach to the adopted child story where they
go to find their origin and then it doesn't answer
(29:57):
the question that they actually had and like doesn't end
up solving all their problems. Fine, a pretty interesting scene
and shows us more of that character and kind of
like where she's coming from, but then it's kind of
really not touched one again and and I mean, I
can't say this with certainty, but it seems like part
(30:17):
of the reason that I mean, she's made to be
adopted so that it's weird as an audience, are okay
with her kissing Luke Wilson, but it goes largely kind
of unexplored where you see like a little piece of
it and you're like, oh, that's interesting. But then the
main takeaway of that is like she's still sad and
(30:38):
it's actually fine if she makes out with Luke Wilson,
and that's all really all we're given. I feel like
the way that the semi incestuous relationship is covered is
such an indication of how Wes Anderson portrays the depth
of true relationship dynamics. It's almost like, fundamentally, this family
(30:59):
is a codependent, dysfunctional family with a very mean and
narcissistic father figure, right, and that has all of these
consequences with like all the kids being depressed and probably
self critical and in some way self harming. And that's
really deep and like sad and awful, and that's like
what happens in like a family dynamic like that. But
(31:22):
like what Wes Anderson does is he like takes a
story like that, but only skims really the like the
cute and the quirky and the delightful parts for us
to look at, you know, which is entertaining, But there
is something to be desired when it comes to really
(31:42):
getting into why the relationships are the way they are
totally right, Like, it's like, oh, we have this sort
of surface level presentation of this really dysfunctional family. The
jokes are cute, the casual racism chuckle chuckle, you know,
and so and so I think in the end, I've
heard about dynamics where step children might grow way way
(32:05):
too close, or even regular children grow way too close
because the parents are like not really there for kids,
you know. But and maybe that could be an explanation
for Margo and Richie, but we don't really get that,
you know. Yeah, it's not like and the fact that
Wes Anderson, you know, really goes out of his way
to be like they are not related is a very
(32:29):
deliberate choice in his part. And I think that the
choices like I want this movie to make a lot
of money and be successful, and I don't want people
to feel weird about it. I wanted to be quirky
and like not like the other relationships, but I don't
want it to be outside of what is conventionally acceptable,
and you know with in the law and all that stuff.
(32:50):
So yeah, and then and then I really like and
we don't really have time to fully unpack it, but
just the way that this movie treats Richie's suicide attempt
is very sudden and more graphic than I remembered, and
beautifully shot though guards of symmetry, gorgeous shot of this
horrifying act that is really barely commented on after it happens,
(33:16):
and it's just I mean, it's scared to see, like
he literally slits his wrists on camera, which I mean,
we can argue the ethics of that. I just don't
think that that's like a responsible thing to do in
what you're trying to have be a mainstream movie. And
then really it just serves the narrative purpose of you know,
getting Margot to talk to Ritchie again and to get
(33:38):
the family together again. And outside of that that like
very drastic upsetting action is not really addressed that much
after that, except of like, well Margot is talking to
me again, so shrug, Like it's just it's very bizarre.
I mean, the gorgeousness of the art direction and the
cinematography risks rising suicide and depression, you know what I mean.
(34:03):
It's like that was pretty well yeah, yeah, like why
did that look so nice? Right? And then the scene
after so you see he kind of like lays his
arms onto the sink and then you see the blood
kind of rushed down and then that cuts immediately to
it's not comical, but it's such a juxtaposition against what
(34:25):
we just saw that it's almost like, I don't know
exactly how to describe it, but it's like a bunch
of doctors and nurses and stuff like that rushing him
the hall and it's like suddenly this bright colors and
it's like the music, the music and the and just
the movement on the screen almost makes that seem amusing. Yeah, well,
(34:49):
I think that the especially with the music there is
communicating is like and we're all back together again because
this thing happened. Either that or saying like oh it's
all gonna be okay, like he won't die from this,
but it's still yeah, just if that felt handled irresponsible, Yeah,
I mean the way that that that that shift communicated
(35:09):
what it communicated to me was Wes Anderson saying, Oh,
isn't it cute that Richie tried to commit suicide, but
he's not going to be successful ha ha because he
got found before. He can't get that right exactly, but
that's how that felt because because the way he was
found was pretty soon after he you know, started bleeding
and he was on the floor of the bathroom and
(35:30):
like the random test subject of Rally st Clair finding
the teenage, Yeah, a lot of hair, a lot of
hat I'd like to throw in here. Um. You know,
if I were to rewrite the Royal Tannon bombs from
a different perspective in order to fulfill the Bechdel test,
I would write it from the perspective of Sing Sing
(35:51):
Oh okay, yeah, Sing Sing with this the character in
the very beginning, that's the masseuse. Uh. You know, in
the scene where you find out that Royal is going
to get kicked out of the hotel that he's been
seeing in and you pan up and you see Sing
Sing is uh, you know, his his masseuse looks kind
of asian e and Sing Sing is like what an
(36:12):
elementary school bully would call me in order to make
fun of my Chinese name. Yeah, so I'm just like okay,
and so I would I would rewrite the royal tannem
bombs from Sing Sing's perspective. You actually see Sing Sing
later on um do you do? She's in the background.
And I think this is very indicative of the people
of color characters that in this movie. For Wes Anderson,
(36:36):
you have Pagoda, which is it's a Japanese word for
a Chinese architectural detail. That is the name that is
given to the Indian man in Calcutta, that he is
his sort of man servant for the royal for royal,
So very bizarre, and and and and so you know,
because of the sort of wide angle shots that we
(36:58):
get of every scene, the sort of quirkiness and the
benefit of the color and the texture of of these
shots is that you get to see side characters and
background actors and background movement right while the foreground is happening.
And so so often it's either Pagoda or Sing Sing
or other sort of people of color or servant type
characters in the background being quirky and moving uh to
(37:21):
to sort of be like animated gifts of delightfulness in
the back and so and so I think Sing Sing
would be Apparently Sing Sing showing up later probably indicates
they had a really close relationship. I don't know what
the nature of it. She didn't say one word, but
I would rewrite that would be my wicked musical. I
would rewrite Royal tannem Bombs the musical from Sing Sing's perspective. Uh,
(37:44):
hell yeah, I'll buy it. I would watch We'll see
and then she has like a secret relationship with Pagoda,
you know, I mean, yeah, it's a non white characters
are largely used for comic relief in this movie, with
with the exception of Danny Glover's character, who's really the
only non white main character in the movie, and even
(38:08):
then he's like a bi character pretty much. Yeah, I
think it just it just hints to the sort of
orientalist problem that Wes Anderson tends to have, as we
saw with Isle of Dogs recently. Because you know, you know,
I noticed the Asian ship all the time in any movie,
and so in what in this movie, the first time
we see Asian ship is Sing Sing the Masseuse. The
(38:31):
second time we see Asian ship is actually um when
Royal confronts Ethylene to get back into her life, and
you see they actually have in a street argument and
it's in front of some kind of embassy that has
Chinese words, you know, and so but it's very prominent
because it's you know, it's it's ethylene and royal on
the right hand side of the screen and three quarters
(38:52):
of the rest of the screen is the sort of
wall of this and you see the sign, and it's
the sort of little details that tell me like it's
very deliberate, because there is no scene that is not
deliberate for Wes Anderson. And you know in the way
that he also uses sort of essentially orientalist things as
set dressing and people as set dressing. So um to me,
(39:13):
the setting in front of a Chinese language sign of
an embassy in the street of New York is no
different from the fact that Sing Sing was in the
background for another scene and pago to access set dressing
for other scenes. I mean, Wes Anderson is an example
of one of these odd toward directors that has his
little like Darling's where he keeps recasting a handful of
(39:35):
actors in his movies over and over again. You're Wilson Brothers,
You're Jason Schwartzman's your Bill, Murray's maybe a couple of others,
a ton of white actors exactly, mostly men um Wes
Anderson on race is just a deep sigh. How do
you spell that on a script? It's just like a
(39:57):
bunch of us and yeah, but like repeated into infinity
of like also a common not really a through line
but basically just an image that you keep seeing. Is
this cab that shows up all the time, Gypsy cab
gypsy again being a slur for roma people. Not okay,
(40:19):
I feel like this is this is another male utor
issue and probably a white director issue as well, of
like by thinking that the mere presence of something like
makes it okay. I'm trying to articulate this correctly, but
I think I know what you mean. Where he's like
cute defying all this stuff that he cannot possibly understand
(40:40):
or and and cannot represent on screen responsibly. But he's like,
well it's there, so that's good. You know. I didn't
ignore that because it's in my movie, So I'm doing
a good job. I acknowledged that people who aren't me
exist at all. So Trophy please like that cuteify ying
is a good word. For the Wes Anderson filmmaking filter. Yeah,
(41:05):
that's the name of his insta filter, slip Slipe cut.
So I couldn't help but notice that towards the end,
Eli crashes the wedding by literally crashing a car into
the wedding. And I just wonder if that's the inspiration
for the movie Wedding Crashers that he would later star in.
(41:25):
You know, I'm just here to ask the important question.
It's Wedding Crasher is a part of the expanded Wes
Anderson universe. Does anyone have any final thoughts about the movie?
You know, there's still a part of me that appreciates
the craft and the storytelling that happened in the movie, Like,
you know, I liked it back then, prewoke viewing days
(41:48):
for a reason, you know, And I think I think
there's a lot I can learn about storytelling. But but
I think we're in this moment where flipping the script
talking about the Begdel Test, seeing it means to hear
from the voices of people you don't usually here in
a more popular conversation. That means that we're all going
(42:09):
to figure out what it might mean to like create
more mainstream accessible stories right, that are more critical the patriarchy,
that are gonna, you know, have us drive the story.
You know, your future Broadway musical, yes string, you know
(42:29):
the sing Sing Tannerballs featuring Pagoda. That's that's my takeaway
that I want to write my wicked yeah. Yeah. And
that's not to say that every single movie that comes
out has to be this like hard hitting, deep analysis
of the patriarchy and how to dismantle it. Because as
(42:49):
much as I love to watch movies like that, I
also love to watch just sort of mindless popcorn movies
sometimes and there ye like Wes Anderson is the king
of these kind of fun, quirky movies that start to
maybe explore some themes that tend to go unexplored in
his movies, but he really only kind of touches on
(43:11):
the surface of them and doesn't really do much in
the way of anything like that. But if you are
going to have just a fun kind of mindless movie,
I think that you do still have the responsibility to
treat your characters well. And if you are going to
have women in your movie, which you should, which which
I mean rolling my eyes, but sometimes it has to
(43:35):
have women because what if the proton, what if the
male protagonist wants to have heterosat who is he going
to have sex with? But right, So, if you're going
to make a fun, quirky, offbeat movie, then have your
female characters still not be entirely defined by their relationships
to men, for example, Or have the people of color
(43:57):
in your movie not only be the help of the
white characters. So yeah, just a lot of just a
lot of missteps in this movie, as you can expect
from a mainstream movie. I had one other little note
that it was just like but both a missed opportunity
writing wise and just like come on, uh, the only
(44:19):
writer character in this movie is Margot Tannenbaum, and yet
the movie Framing Device is a book written by a man.
Why we have a writer character, we have a writical Well,
Eli is also a true he is a novelist, and
Margot's husband, Raleigh is he is a psychologist neurologist. I think, um,
(44:43):
but he has also written books. I want a female narrator, yeah,
but also this story would make no sense coming from
a female narrator because it makes nice it's female characters
a lot of the time. Also, I'm sure the narrator
Ali Baldwin has some me two stories. That's oh yeah,
I mean we've it's you know, the time, the when
it culture has come where we finally need to hear
Alc Balbin out here what he's got to say. I
(45:06):
think that just speaking to because Wes Anderson is such
a common request from our audience, and a lot of
tour directors are that because Wes Anderson's work does tend
to be in its positiveness and its negative so consistent
that we can take a movie like this in sort
of view it to an extent as a reflection of
(45:28):
the filmmaker's values and interests. So you know, it is
a little bit of a reflection on Wes Anderson where
he is, you know, the creative driving force behind this.
Where it's like this is probably a reflection at this time,
at this point in time, how Wes Anderson views women
and views non white people as you know, not the
(45:49):
primary focus and thought of more in a utility way
than in like, here's the character we really want to
explore and give time to. It's all about Okay, they're
allowed to be there, but only to further the story
of the person he's really interested in which is almost
always one of his friends. Yeah. Yeah, and also reflective
(46:14):
of the way he uses depression and mental health issues
for utility. Absolutely. You know, we can judge him according
to this movie, but it also is a judgment on
his Yes, each of you used a French word to
talk about film, and I felt left out, so I
wanted to use a French word. I loved it. I
don't know. It's very well good, it's beautiful, it's very symmetrical. Gang,
(46:42):
We're real smart. Wow. Think about us is where Genius says,
does this movie pass the Bechdel test? Yeah? I would
say it does there by the skin of its teeth.
At there's a few conversations between Ethylene and Margot. There's
a scene early on where um Margot is in the
(47:03):
bathtub and he's like, Raleigh says, you have been spending
a lot of time in the bathtub. Margo is like,
I doubt that. Shout out to the movie doubt, doubt,
And then they're talking about She's like, I don't think
that's very healthy. What if what if the TV falls
into the tub And she's like, I tie it to
the radiator and she's like, wow, it can't be very
(47:23):
good for your eyes. And then she says Chaz came home.
So there is a two line exchange that does technically
pass within that, but the conversation starts talking about Raleigh
and with talking about Chaz and then Ari and Uzy,
and the chunk that passes is the only part of
that conversation that really has no narrative implications. It's just
(47:44):
like that. It's it's a little joke. That's I think
that almost every part of this movie that does barely
pass the back to test has nothing to do with
what is actually happening in this story. Yeah. Um. The
scene after that where those two women interact again is
when they're talking about Eli Cash sending Ethelene his like
(48:05):
clippings and his grades from college. That doesn't pass because
they're talking about Eli. And then there's a scene at
the end between the two of them again where Margot
is chewing on her nicotine and hailer and she's like,
what are you tring? And she's like, oh, it's supposed
to help me quit smoking. Is it working? Not really?
And then a car crashes into the building and it
was Eli wedding crashing with Vince Vaughn as he's always
(48:27):
doing aleating moment, so that scene I think also technically
passes because that's a four line exchange. Also, I didn't
realize until you said it that way that one of
the only Bectel test passing sceneson has literally ended because
a man drives a car into that scene. So poetic, Yeah, beautiful,
(48:47):
just a real representation of And but you're right, like
all the scenes that do are, all the moments that
do pass the Bechtel tests have no bearing on the narrative.
They could easily be cut in. The story would not
be changed one bit to like, well, maybe that's because
we're always trying to figure out ways to modify the
test to make it a little more effective for our purposes.
And that, I mean that might be a new thing
(49:10):
of like, what is the narrative implication? If if there's
only exchanges between women and movies that have no bearing
on what happens, then maybe if that shouldn't pass, right.
I think in a recent episode we were saying something
to the effect that we're hoping that the conversation is meaningful.
So because oftentimes it's like, hey, server at a restaurant,
(49:31):
do you have any pie? And they're like, yes, my
name is Marie, and you're just like, well, I guess,
and that's not a meaningful conversation. So yeah, I mean,
this movie could have easily done better. It did not
capitalize on any of the opportunities to pass the Bechdel test. More,
I still don't hate it. I mean, I hate myself
(49:53):
for that, but also I still know it's okay. I mean,
I don't hate I don't I don't hate this movie.
I don't think it's especially regret astive. It's not progressive,
but it doesn't necessarily set us back any further than
we already are. So like, yeah, I mean, which says
what I guess. That just means like all right, and
(50:15):
it's allowed to continue existence. Which, by the way, if
you do want to change the test that this podcast
is based on, maybe you don't have to change the
name of the podcast, just called the Bechtel Plus and
then you can start modifying the test. Let what we
do also talk about other tests that come up, the
Rito Russo test, the EVA Done tests, um, which I
(50:38):
don't think this movie would pass. No, no, no, anyway.
So yeah, yes to passing the Bechtel tests, but that
does not make it a feminist text. Unfortunately, um, let's
write the movie on our nipple scale. We have a
scale of zero to five nipples, and we write based
on its portrayal of women. I'm going to have to
(50:59):
give it like a one and a half, I think,
because I mean a little time is spent characterizing Margot,
and that she's established as a secretive person. She's a playwright,
she likes the arts, she likes photography. I mean, we
only see a glimpse of that in a montage that
lasts for one second. But we do learn certain things
(51:21):
about her character that a lot of movies wouldn't even
take the time to establish. But for the most part,
her character exists in the narrative to be either the
object of men's affections or to basically further characterize the
men around her. So she is not actually characterized that
well at all, I would argue. But then there's also Ethylene, who,
(51:45):
similar to Margot, it is pretty much only defined and
characterized by her relationships to the men in her life.
So I would say overall, the female characters are disserviced
by the filmmakers and the narrative. So it gets one
and a half nipples. One to Margot and the half
nipple will go to sing sing one nipple more singing
(52:09):
hashtag more sings. I'm gonna go on nipple two. And
this is uh something we didn't really touch on, but
just going on a A lot of people who are
fans of Wes Anderson, I think are teenagers, and I
think that's for a reason, whichause that he is very
visually appealing style that is, perhaps if you have lived
(52:31):
a little bit, only appealing to an extent. But the
reason I bring that up is because I think Margot
Tennenbaumb is kind of a very commonly cited female like
role model into in the Wes Anderson's BuzzFeed quizzes about her,
we took it disticals all kind Yeah, regretfully, I was
a Margot, you were a chass. I was a chass.
(52:52):
Ten I'm gonna look at you completely differently. It's because
I'm pretty neurotic and extremely concerned about children's safety. You're
an amazing father. Yeah so much. You're welcome. I uh suck, no, no, no,
I mean, but Margot Tennenbaum is the central female character,
and I think she's very often referenced and cited as
(53:15):
like an early you know, female avatar for for young
female viewers, and the fact that we are really only
given a glimpse of what we could be given and
she's still largely defined by her relationship to men is
disappointing and I missed opportunity to give young women character
of a little more substance. So one nipple and uh,
(53:39):
I'll give mine a sing sing to Jenny, thank you
so much for being here. We've had a great time
with you. Is the best deep dives into pop culture.
Where can people find you online? At Jenny Yang dot
tv and every user name Jenny yngg tv. Yeah, follow Jenny.
Check out our stand up She's great. You can follow
(54:01):
us the Bechel Cast on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook,
all the social media is. Subscribe to our Matreon. It's
five dollars a month and you get to bonus episodes
and otherwise. Um, we just encourage you to, just like
I don't know, be critical of the art you're consuming,
you're guying, especially when you really like it. Yeah, bye,
(54:24):
love you, Bye bye.
The Bechdel Cast News
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Caitlin Durante
Jamie Loftus
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