Transformers with Teresa Lee

As Caitlin and Jamie's personal protest against the forty five hundredth Transformers movie being released this week, we had fellow hero Teresa Lee come in to discuss pissing cars, Megan Fox's feud with Michael Bay and, bear with us, Jerry Bruckheimer's well-documented love of veneers.

(This episode contains spoilers)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Doe 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 and best start
changing it with the cast. Hey, welcome to the Beck
Dol Cast. My name is Jamie, my name is Caitlin,
and this is our podcast where we talk about the

(00:20):
role of women in movies. Sometimes it is okay, wait,
I just got really sidetracked, okay from what we haven't
even I don't know. I just you know, like my
brain just went off in forty five different directions and
only one is the correct one. Well, a lot about
fourteen of my thoughts right now are in reference to
your braids, which, at the time of this recording, this

(00:43):
is your last day of being thirty years old. A lot, right, Yeah,
your last day of three How do you feel? I
feel fine. As I've mentioned before, I am a woman
of advancing years. I hate you round. You make it
sound like your Jane fond like. No, I feel fine

(01:07):
about it. I'll be thirty one tomorrow, although by the
time this episode comes out, I will have been thirty
one for a few weeks, so much wiser. Right, What
was the correct way for remember, oh, this is our
podcast about the role of women in movies. It is
based around the Bechdel test, which movie must have a
scene between two women who have names and they talk

(01:32):
about something that is other than a man. Almost never
happens or sometimes barely happens. Yes, sometimes it passed this
by the skin of its teeth, and we're like right.
And then sometimes it's like you have these convers like
sometimes we'll have a conversation and I'll leave it like, yikes,
that didn't pass either, which is like we were just

(01:52):
complaining the whole time about man, which I which maybe
you should count if it's like a very negative if
you're talking about like murder ordering men, I would argue
an amendment to the rule. You can't be talking about
men or you can be talking about killing them due
to the fact that they've wronged you, or for sport,
or filling men for sport. Surely for sport. Yeah. So

(02:16):
it's like if we're talking about our hunting trips, we
we go out and kill problematic men, that does pass
our vision, We're going to be arrested. That's okay, cool,
that's okay. I was it as long as we're in
jail together. I think that there should be a police
officer outside of all open mics, just waiting to arrest

(02:37):
man who say dangerous thing open mics. You've got an
open can of Mike's hard lemonade. Whoa holy ship? Yeah,
you're not wrong, You're not wrong. And now today I'm
the only person with alcoholic Yeah, I meant to four pm.
I feel like a real clown. I had every intention
of bringing a small bottle of wine. I know, and
I totally forgot it. But I feel like it was

(02:57):
my best performance on an episode ever, the one one
where I was drinking wine. It's like, you know, you
like hit a point where you drink a little bit
and then it makes you better at everything. That sounds
like a dangerous message to spread. Oh yeah, like driving,
not like operating heavy machinery. But like remember when um

(03:19):
guitar Hero was popular like a decade ago. I know you,
I know you're good at guitar Hero. There's bragging about
it at Bengo last week. Oh man, that's embarrassing. We
went to Bengal last week and and I was Caitlin
was bragging about how good she is a guitar which
which of those things is more embarrassing that we were

(03:39):
at Bengal. I had a great time at Bingo, but
only because I won. Yeah. True, we got to go
back to that place and use our ten dollar gift certificate. Hey,
we should introduce our guests before we yea we got
rid of So I'd love to go to Bingo with
our guests. Yes, addation to the table. Awesome our guest today,

(03:59):
she were a Cracked dot com. Also, she runs a
monthly comedy show in Los Angeles called Very Forward Teresa Lee.
I was trying to be really good about not speaking
before my intro um you podcast etiquette. We heard you
guys all at people we went element, That's the rule.

(04:22):
I also like to think that Mike's Hard has a
surge in sales just because of this pot. I hope
who else is drinking Mike's Hard at all? I don't know.
I don't know, but my local seven elevens I was
just I have a great screenshot on my phone right now.
My friend and I are hanging out at a seven
eleven tonight and plans to hang out that we're try Yeah,

(04:44):
we're texting trying to figure out like which one to
go to. Seven elevens are actually in Taiwan, like a
really cool I mean that's not like a cool hangout,
but they're much better. They're just like better food. It's
like I can't describe. It's just like a happier vibe
when you walk in. They have like tea, eggs and
good food and there's like, my, it's really cute. Yeah,
it's just like a cute place to go. It sounds

(05:05):
like a wah wah yeah a little bit. It's a
really nice, pleasant experience, whereas here I always think of
just like drunk high school students. Yeah. And then me
as someone who grew up in western Pennsylvania, I'm a
sheets girl myself. I don't even what It's like a
worse version of wah wah. As to say, I went
to Philly recently and I was like, all I have

(05:26):
to do is see the Liberty Bell and go to
wa wa. What was cool? Well, it is cool, it
was it was happened. I felt a little bit unsafe there,
but it was also late and but you know, Walla rules.
What else were we talking about? It seems so we're
doing anything to talk about the movie. We're here, Yes,
one more thing in regards to Duncan Donuts, which is

(05:48):
my bread and butter. Having come from a town, I
would call it your donut and frosting, but my and
my donut and old frosting. The Duncan DUTs in Los
ange Lists are they kind of sound like the Seven
elevens you were describing, where people don't realize that they're
supposed to be disgusting havens for society's forgotten yet and

(06:12):
they're still pretty clean. There's a WiFi signal, people don't
seem unhappy to be there. It's like it's amazing. I'm
looking forward to about the year or so that we
have left at the West Coast Los Angeles Duncan Donuts,
God blessed. Shout out to my crew in that water
village cool. Anything else we need to cover before we

(06:32):
jump into the really great movie we're talking about feminist
Michael Bays two thousand seven Transformers, and boy are we
not happy about it. Three days to watch it because
I had to keep stopping it so hard to watch
it really is. Have you seen it before but a

(06:54):
long time ago? Yeah? When did you first see it?
I saw it at a drive in with my brother
and my dad, which is like the two worst people
at a drive in in Maine. There used to be
they do double features. I saw it in the theater,
then I watched it again for a paper that I

(07:15):
wrote in college, which I brought and intend to read. Yes,
I'm so excited. Then I watched it again to prep
for this episode two times, and I'm I'm furious. First
of all, it's an assault to all of my senses,
including my sixth sense where and able to see dead people,

(07:37):
and Hale, I'm gonna pass out, Hayley Joel Asmond will
not respondent once that next to him off Broadway play.
He's so cultured, so cultured, he's so smart, he's so small.
I can fit him in a backpack. Why doesn't he

(07:57):
hang out with me? I'm upset? This movie is just
I hate this movie so much. And people are like, Okay,
where are you doing an episode on this? Why is why?
Who picked this? Why why are you doing it if
you hate it so much? And yes, I picked it
because this podcast is all about synergy. You know, there's
a new Transformers movie coming out. We have to stay relevant.

(08:19):
I do remember, not like I didn't remember not liking
it as much as I did not like it this
second time, because I remember being like, you know, a
drunk food candy movie. But I remember being like, oh,
it's fun. I remember Megan Fox was hot, and then
rewatching it, there's so many more things that I was like, whoa,
that was unnecessary? Like why did you put that line
in what? I made a list of all the things

(08:42):
that I don't like about it, which I will, well,
should I start with the recap and then going, well,
the paper that's great, I'm excited. What great did you
get on this? I got an a minus. It's not
well written. It was for an English class that I
took in college. I had to write a review of something,

(09:02):
and everyone else in the class was like they were
writing reviews on things that they loved, and I was like,
can I write a review on something that I hate?
My teachers like yes, please, I said, great, I'm going
to write about Transformers. This is this horribly written paper
that I wrote in college. Okay. I wondered if a
summer blockbuster that got a majority of fresh reviews on
Rotten Tomatoes would transform my opinion of Michael Bay's capability

(09:25):
as a director. When I watched Transformers, I was unpleasantly
surprised by the movie and pleasantly unsurprised by Michael Bay
and his inability to direct a decent film. Transformers is
an overrated, clunky movie because of its inadequate script and
poor direction. Cool thesis, thanks Caitlin. And then here's the plot.

(09:49):
Um Sam Witwicky played by shy La Buff, the main character,
gets a new car, which happens to be a transforming robot.
More Transformers arrived to Earth from the depths of space
looking for the Cube, a device that contains pure energy
and that can create life a k transform It's not clear, Um,
not super. Among the alien robots are Decepticons, evil Transformers

(10:16):
who want the Cube to transform human technology so they
can destroy the human race with it. I think the
Cube is found, and when the Decepticons try to steal
it from the US government, everyone battles. I'm not good
at writing, and ultimately the good Transformers beat the Decepticons
with the help of Sam and his friends and the

(10:37):
US Air Force and Sector seven. Sector seven Okay, let
me try to find the best part. Already sound exhausted.
Transformers like the idea, like just to clarify the cartoon
is cool, Like the movie is terrible, but the idea
of alien robots good. I should have this by saying

(10:59):
I I have not seen any I didn't play with
any transformed toys. I didn't watch the series, and I
have not seen the movie from the animated movie. From
my history was yeah, I didn't watch the original movie.
But the toys, well, I had like a family friend
who was like two years older, who was like a
guy who had all the guy toys. So I didn't

(11:20):
have myself, but I always wanted, you know, we have
an older friends. I wanted to impress him, so you'd
have transformers, and I was like, I thought, if I
could figure out how to change them, it would impress him.
I play with those toys did not impress him. I
was busy playing with mostly Legos. Okay, yeah, but we're
not talking about the Lego movie. God damn it. Okay,

(11:42):
yeah that's a fun one. I like that, right if
he would. Okay, So then I go on to say
where there should be progression of plot and character development,
there is unneeded violence, stupid jokes, and characters who, when
they aren't trying too hard to be super badass, they
are delivering absurd lines of dialogue. A cop asks Sambo,

(12:02):
my piece. A kid with a video camera runs towards explosions,
exclaiming this is easily a hundred times cooler than Armageddon.
Either Michael Bay, who also directed Armageddon, has no tax,
has no tact by alluding to himself, or he is
acknowledging just how terrible of a director he is. He

(12:25):
is certainly not. He has no idea. He has no idea.
He just strets off to that part of the movie. Right. Yeah,
Armageddon is such a stinky movie. But boy does every
parent of that era it openly admit to crying at Armageddon.
My parents for sure cried at Arma that song because

(12:51):
Live Tyler's in that movie, and so she's like, Dad,
give us a banger. He does. Why don't they make
a movie is on the Aerosmith roller coaster? It was
an Aerosmith roller Yeah, man, I've I've dropped some hot
revs to the ars throughout. We talked about it in
every roller coaster movie one and this is what they're multiple. Yeah,

(13:14):
the money the Rollercroaster movie there. I was reading something
today about just like wow, this summer is just only
reboots of things from ten years ago, and I feel
like the Bechtel cast is really reflecting that, because we've
been talking about a ton of anyways, it's called The
Rock and Roller Coaster starring Arrowsmith. So, uh, if you're

(13:36):
listening to this three or four years from now and
you just saw the movie Rock and Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith,
the movie chances are I wrote that, Oh boy. Then
I write a few paragraphs about how it's riddled with cliches,
that it failed to adhere to any sort of basic

(13:56):
laws of physics, and it's hard to suspend my disbelief
for a lot of things. And then twenty or twenty
one year old Caitlin wrote, the only leading female character
is just another sex object for teenage boys to fantasize about.
Although they tried so desperately to avoid this by giving
her a typical masculine ability, being adept at mechanics, she

(14:19):
still is just a nice body with a pretty face
and no brains behind it. So really solid analysis from
ten years ago when I was dumb. And then I
go on to say that it's poorly acted, poorly directed,
blah blah blah. The cinematography is terrible, action scenes give
you seizures, b editing a sloppy and then I say,

(14:42):
I must ignore the possibility that this movie was made
to serve as a two and a half hour commercial
for the U. S. Air Force. And then I say,
word on the street is that Michael Bay is directing
Transformers Too, to be released in two thousand nine. Even
if it's one d times better than Transformers, therefore ten
thousand times better than Armageddon, it will still be a

(15:05):
stupid Pecia ship. I didn't say that, but yeah, so
that was my really cool paper, um my review of Transformers.
Well done, Thank you, well done. I think you should
have gotten a higher grade. I think I should have
gotten a lower grade. Honestly, I could see it both ways.
I think if we're grading on terms of passion, I

(15:29):
was very passionate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The recount, I
don't even want to say it. I don't even want
to go there. Of what happens, yeah, I mean, I'll
do it as quickly as possible. Chila buff has a
character with a very stupid name, Sam went Wicky. I
would argue, this is where we lose him. This is

(15:49):
where we lose him, because we had him. We had holes.
We had holes. We had holes. I love holes, you know,
even Stevens he made that misstep in that kind of
offensive Disney Channel original movie called True Confessions. I won't
get into it here, but this is where we lose him.
Sam Whitwicky gets a car and it turns out that

(16:10):
it's an alien space spot. There's a pair of glasses
that belonged to his great grandfather and somehow they have
important information and printed on them. Don't even they don't
even come. They have the coordinates, but then the government
is just like, oh, we know where it is, and
then they just go away. It just goes Wait, are
you suggesting that this story isn't very good? They just

(16:34):
hired off and he was like, I already called make
it where God, there's the bad Transformers, the bad guys. Yeah,
one of them names Star Scream Starscream Scream. Really wait,

(16:57):
it must sounds like a good guy blanked out. Yeah
school name. He sounds like the legal Oh yeah, that
does sound like a ruler name. That's good. But Mary
fu Kill Optimus Prime, Megan Tron Star Scream love it,
I love it anyway, who knows what the story is.

(17:17):
There's big robots and they fight other big robots and
Sam went Wick he's there with Megan Fox. He wants
to fuck her. She's good at fixing cars the end,
but she's a criminal and he gets mad when he finds.
He's like, I can't believe you're lied about your criminal past,
and she's like, I would have told you, but I
was trying to protect my day. She's mad about this.

(17:38):
He like the criminal part really disturbed me because when
the agent John to her open, it's like yelling at
Megan Fox, who's an underage high school girl, about being
a criminal. He's like, criminals are hot. What are you training? Bra?
Like he's like yelling at her. It's so disgusting And
then he and the whole part disturb me so much.

(17:59):
And then she makes a take off his clothes as
a punishment. But that scene is so creepy because it's like,
why is she still He's clearly getting off on this
like that she made him take off his clothes and
he said, you're going to go to DOT for this,
and it's like, no, girl just made you take off
your like and like totally forgot about that scene, like

(18:21):
that was something I must have just blocked out he
calls her training bra. He's like, to preserve my view
of John Turtuot, I had to imagine at the end
of every take of that him just being like, I'm
so sorry, so sorry, and then explaining that he needs
the money to like pay for his son's doctorate or something.

(18:43):
I was like, surely John Turtuot must have had a
noble reason for accepting. I'm just I mean, I'm just
glad that it wasn't Alfred Molina. You know, there are
worse men who could have gone down with this film,
and Alfred he was good. He was coasting on his
dock dock money. He was his reputation remains intact. Yeah,

(19:03):
and that's hey, that's saying something. Yeah. That scene. There's
also like a what I think is an attempt at
a joke, where like he's wearing this like Sector seven
like Superman T shirt, which is like, ha ha, look
at him. He loves Sector seven so much he wears
it an undershirt about it, and it's like, I think,

(19:25):
an attempt at comedy, but it's not funny. I wasn't
sure what they were going for. I think it was
a joke. I think another huge thing about this movie.
I forgot was like how integral the government is in it?
Like when I thought of this because I did see
it and presumably watched the whole thing, but like I

(19:46):
just remember, like, oh yeah, Shyla buff cars, Megan Fox
is treated like trash, like those are the three things.
But I forgot there's so many yeah, like extended military sequences.
So the point where it's like, I is bad. I
didn't do correct research, but I'm like, were they receiving
money from the military to make this? Because I mean

(20:06):
so much of this movie is product placement, Like you
know the cars are it's a commercial for General Motors, Right,
it's like SD car too, Right when they pulled the
drive out the verbi on it that one of the
transformers picks up in like throws, which is weird because
it's two thousand and seven, Like that's way fast, but sure, great. Yeah,

(20:30):
there's a there's also like a Burger King image you see,
there's a There's so much. I mean, it's it's insane.
But I'm like, DoD they is that first of all?
Is that would that be legal to take money from
the US government to say like, hey, the U S
government is great? Or is that just something you do
because you're Michael Bay and you want attention. I don't know,
I'd have to. I'd also have to do research about it. Yeah.

(20:51):
I found a list of brands that are advertised in
this movie. It is incredibly long. I'll read off as
many as I can in a break through. Two Burger, King, Cadillacs, CBS, Chevrolet, Cisco, E, Bay,
Gilmore Oil, gmc Hewlett, Packard, Hummer, iPod, MacBook, Mountain, dew

(21:12):
of No, Kia, Panasonic, PayPal, Petal, Bismol, Pontiac, Porscha, Taco Bell,
which is you know, too bad? I love Toyota, USA, Today, xbox, XM,
Satellite Radio, Yahoo, and one fictional brand, Bolivia's Auto Sales.

(21:35):
And that's it, right, just right. That is run by
Bernie Mac's run by Bernie Mack write, not his character
by Still. It's a little break of the fourth wall
from the Grave Rest in Paradise Bernie Mac. That seems
weird too, because there's he waves his mom across the

(21:56):
hall and they're just like like just super slips him off,
and then he says, he says, if I had a rock,
I'd bust your head, bitch. That's a line that's spoken
in this movie a male character to a female character,
I mean Bernie Mack and any other person of color.

(22:16):
The portrayal of those characters horribly racist and offensive. Holy
sh It's just like they're screaming, they're loud when the
cops break into the house or the FBI. And there's
that scene where um, Anthony Anderson's house. Ye, brother just
runs this, why is this happening? And um the character

(22:41):
in the beginning who's speaking Spanish to his fellow air
forces and they're like, don't fucking speak Spanish a piece
of ship and he's like, no, I'm gonna keep it
and they're like, don't English. Yeah, we're like to imagine
that in like two thousand seven movie theaters. And was like, Oh,
it's just it's like the subsect of people this movie

(23:03):
does not fucking hate is so small that it's practically
just shy al above and the government like and that's
about it. And even certain people inside of the government
through like this guy because he's not a white guy.
Even like I feel like the movie tries to, like
it'll kind of try to do something where're like, Okay,
we're gonna give this woman a role and then they

(23:25):
like shut it down, like the blonde Australian analyst, like
we're gonna, you know, give a you know smart, make
her smart and make a really knowledgeable. But then she
has that theme where she figures out the Transformers thing.
She walks in the room and the guys just like
was she in here? And then for whatever, for no reason,
like they hired her and then they who's she in here?
And she's like They're like, oh, she figured it out,

(23:47):
and the guy's just like she did it, like she
probably had some help from her team. He says, why
would I don't unders like waste of time and then
they say something they're like, you stop using that brain
mouth of yours, like what the fox You've hired her
to help you and she did the thing and they yeah,

(24:08):
they undermine her at every chance that yeah, and like
she is arguably the most competent female character in the movie.
Although like I had to look up her name because
I like and she was Maggie. She did was like yeah,
she didn't have one, right, Yeah, I think Anthony Anderson
says her name like once. Other than that, like if

(24:28):
you miss that, you don't know her name. Um, any right,
But yeah, I mean she is one of pretty much
two main female characters, the other one being Megan Fox.
I would say that Sam what Wicky's mom is like
more of a secondary character. She sucks. They all suck Megan. Okay,
so let's talk about Megan Fox in her character boy

(24:53):
Her character's name is Mikayla Tayla Babe. Here are the
different things that are said to her throughout the movie.
Her boyfriend toward the beginning is like, you can't drive
my car. You're gonna set my wheels? Why doesn't my
little bunny hop in the back seat? She does respond
by saying, I can't even tell you how much I'm

(25:15):
not your little bunny. So like his sexism is used
as a marker to be like, this is a bad character,
and then like same thing with like John Tuturo calling
her like you in the training Brock. These are indications
that like, oh, these are bad characters who we're not
really supposed to like, but you don't get to do that,
and then also treat that character like ship as the

(25:35):
movie to treat her like so the scene where she
like pops the hood and it's like seeing what's wrong
with this like shitty camaro. It's just like lingering male gaze,
headless women of Hollywood style, just like, oh, look at
her hot abs, look at her nice little boobs, look
at her ass, Just like a very objectifying several seconds

(26:00):
worth of screen time where you're just like, yeah, I
remember that scene. It's dark. It's pretty much the only
scene from the movie. I think maybe that's why I
was like, oh, I feel like it was a good Yeah. Yeah,
it's kind of the only thing from the movie that
I remember, like the only actually visual thing that I'm like,
the car, yeah, totally. And and there's like, oh boy,

(26:24):
I mean, if we're going into Michael Bay is history
with women that's several hours long. But Megan Fox ended
up leaving the Transformers franchise after the third movie, and
she cited specifically because Michael Bay was such a verbally
abusive piece of garbage, and Kate Beckinsale said very similar

(26:47):
things about him when she was in Pearl Harbor. He's
also a Bay joint. Um well she you guys know
how or did you hear about her audition? I think
for her audition for this movie, he had her his
car and uh, but I was reading an article about
it where yeah, they had or washed the car, and
then I said, in fact, there were even rumors the

(27:08):
director filmed the entire audition. I'm like, I hope so
like it's not an audition, like right, I mean, but
like so Lea's film it if that's the point, but
then if you're just going to do it, then it's
just just for you. Also, yeah, then it was like
as evidence to incriminate him as being a horrible piece
of ship. But then how many women auditioned for this
and didn't get it that had to wash his car?

(27:30):
And uh, for those girls, I hope they're doing okay.
So here a few I'll give you some quotes from
Kate Beckinsale and then from Megan Fox pertaining to this
movie specifically. But Kate Beckinsale was in Pearl Harbor in
OH One. She said, I don't think I fit the
type of actress Michael Bay had met before. I think

(27:51):
he was baffled by me because my boobs weren't bigger
than my head and I wasn't blonde. I just had
my daughter and had lost weight. But I was told
that if I got the part, I'd have to work out,
and I didn't understand why in nineteen forties nurse character
would do that, which is totally fair. And Michael Bay
said at the time when this movie came out, and

(28:13):
also this is our Titanic reference of the episode on
Good fortunately because it is coming out of Michael Bay's mouth,
but he says, I didn't want someone who was too
beautiful in reference to Kate back in Sale, who is beautiful. Uh,
women feel disturbed when they see someone who's too pretty.
When you look at Titanic, Kate Winslett is pretty but

(28:33):
not overwhelmingly beautiful. That makes it work better for women.
You're just like, I just want to cut off my
She's insane and then furious it's bad. Here's what Megan
Fox said. She first describes what you're talking about, the
having to watch her car. She then says, the first

(28:53):
time I ever met him, I was fifteen and an
extra on Bad Boys Too. She said, we were doing
this club scene and they brought me in and I
was wearing a stars and strap bikini and a red
cowboy hat and six inch heels, which amazing Bat Boys Too.
And they took me to Mike Bay and he approved it,
and they said, you know, Michael. She's fifteen, so you
can't consider at the bar, and she can't have a

(29:15):
drink in her hand. So his solution to this problem
was then having me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet.
My god, And I was in the tenth grade. And
that's a microcosm of how Michael Bay's mind works. So yeah,
there's a lot of stuff on him. There's like a
good oral history of Michael Bay being terrible. Unfortunately it

(29:39):
only goes up to two thousand and eleven. It is
more than enough, you know how, Sometimes we're like, you're
on notice. I was gonna say we should put him
on bay Watch. Michael Bay name, Yeah, I like good.

(30:00):
I like. I was just like, so what I want
to see Baywatch? What? I also want to see Baywatch?
But yeah, we're gonna. I was attempting to make a
really great pun. It clearly went over very well, you're welcome.
We're gonna go to the bag Watch. It's like to
go to the Baywatch. Can't wait? Oh, I forgot about
the line where um miles which is sad what Wiki's

(30:23):
friend called Megan Fox an evil jock concubine I love,
which is my new bag. That's my stripper name to
this day. So yeah, women are treated generally very terribly
in this scene. Um, I mean Megan Fox is one

(30:44):
of the lead characters, but she has almost no dialogue.
She has a decent amount of screen time, but most
of the time she's wearing like gotta make sure your
middrift is showing, like really objectified. The entire time, doesn't
have a lot to contribute to the story. There is
a moment where I was like, Okay, cool that this happens,

(31:05):
doesn't redeem anything. But she saves Sam from like the
little Decepticon. It's like going out. This is like right
the scene right after Bumblebee his yellow Camaro transforms and
starts battling another like a Decepticon, and there's like a
little Decepticon that's like attacking Sam and she like takes
this saw tool and like kind of hacks away. So

(31:26):
like she saves him. Okay, great, we get this little
role reversal of that. And then towards the end she
has a moment that sort of contributes to this story
kind of where she hooks Bumblebee up to a tow
truck and she's like, I'll drive you shoot and it
lasts for maybe thirty seconds and that's it. But even

(31:48):
that scene I remember because at the beginning of that scene,
there's just like a minute of her like open mouth
breathing on like close upshot of her breathing onto the
wheel right before, and I was like, what is her?
She's like holding onto the we like and she's like,
it's like, what's happening? And I'm like, if she fucking
a transformer? And then we zoom out and then he's
like being hooked up to the thing and then she's

(32:10):
hold on panting, panting. There's an insane amount of panting.
I've got a ton of quotes that people have said
about Michael Bay cute up. It's just, uh, they all
seem very passive, aggressive, and then some of them are
so nice that it's upsetting. John turturo says he likes

(32:32):
blowing things up. George Lucas says Michael's films are immediately identifiable.
He's a tour. Well that's what Ben Affleck says. Oh no,
I think Michael isn't actually an autour in the truest
sense of the word. Every movie he makes reflects his

(32:52):
personal creative vision. You may like it, you may not,
but those movies are him without compromise. There's something to
be said for sticking to your guns. I that's a
hard disagree for me. There's something to be said for
flipping a table at Michael Bay. Steven Spielberg says he
has the best eye for multiple levels of pure visual adrenaline.
That seems a little too nice. Michael Bay says about

(33:15):
himself and always says, I'm like a true American. I
feel he just like writes like a like a teenage boy.
Like I had a screen a class in college with
a guy who would all his screen players were just
I don't think I don't think you'd ever made out
with a girl, but it would always like have a
scene where it was just like hawk girl walks down
the hall, her thong is showing and it's just like

(33:37):
she bends over the water. I fountain like every time,
like everything he wrote haw to something like that and
you can just imagine that his laptop is just caked
in jizz just like but yeah, I feel like that's
Michael Bay is like like he's influencing people to write
show like your screenwriting class Utain College reminds me of
my I do have a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston.

(34:00):
I hate breaking I hate bringing it up, but you know,
you leave me no choice but to mention it. So
I just had to throw that out there. Oh. The
other thing that I both alluded to in the Wonderful
Cool paper that I wrote and in previous episodes is
that there's that trope where when writers of movies don't
know how to portray a woman, so they're like, I'm

(34:21):
going to give her this one trait that makes her
not like the other girls, and that's almost always to
make her good at fixing cars, which is like sex car, Laney,
our car is like an extension, like are they sort
of like an allegory to guy's dicks? Is that a thing?
Like you know how guys want the cars? So it's like,
if you're working on a car, you're like good with dicks.

(34:42):
Like She's like, I'm fine touching you can make your
car go. Well, there's a there's a line where she says,
guys hate it when you know more about cars than
they do, and then Shaia says, actually, I don't mind
it at all. I want to se I prefer which

(35:03):
um as maybe the most progressive moment in this movie,
and that's it, But I mean Jesus Christ. The other
main female character, Maggie, who's like the signals analyst, who
like really doesn't end up doing anything because then she
has to go to Anthony Anderson, who's like the best

(35:25):
hacker in the world character. Why don't they just make
her right? Question? It would be great because she needs
help from her team. As a no, she walked in. Well,
she had help her team, so yeah, that was god disappointing.
But she is technically a woman in STEM. I would

(35:46):
argue she is. She's a long suffering woman's Australian woman
in STEM. God forbid, there's woman she's like, Halla, I
I'm a woman stamp, she's a one in stand. But
I mean, like, god forbid, there'd be a woman on
screen who's not like a ten Like. Yeah, there's also

(36:08):
the I was in saying, well, she's also hot. But
there's the wife of the oh Josh, yeah, yeah, the
military and she does have a daughter, so there's a
scene with two women, but they do talk about how
he's gone, So I guess it's a man, but it
would have to be her. Yeah, maybe it would have
to say something back that baby is not of an

(36:29):
age where I have another Michael Bay anecdote interruption by
Michael Bay got Ben Affleck a new set of teeth
because he thought Ben Affleck's teeth were too small. He

(36:49):
got him a new set of teeth. Him and Jerry Bruckheimer.
It was a joint effort to get affle like those
new teeth. Per Michael Bay, Jerry had a problem with
bench teeth. Quote, he's got baby teeth. We're going to
fix his teeth. So Ben got a beautiful set of teeth.
Out of that film. That reminds me of the scene

(37:10):
where there's a small child and like all the transformers
are starting to come to earth and she wakes up
and she's like, that must be the tooth Fairy. So
she gets her little tooth in her little tooth bag
and comes out and there's a giant robot and she's like,
and what is maybe the worst example of child acting
I've ever seen in my life? She's like, are you
the tooth Fairy? It's because Michael Bay had a knife

(37:33):
to pointed at her the whole time. Leave her alone.
Haley Joel Osmond had aged out of that role. He
wasn't available. He was like, twenty, are any of the
robots woman? They all have do they have genders? They're
all male voices seem to identify it. Yeah, this recause,

(37:59):
I peete a p out of their dicks. There's that
scene where they got lubricant leakage loop. It's upsetting. Its gross.
I made a list of all the man characters versus
the very very few female characters. We've got Sam what Wicky.
We have the autobots, which is Optimist, Prime, Bumble Bee, Jazz, Ratchet,

(38:21):
and Iron Hide. That we've got the main Decepticons who
are named at least Megatron, Bone Crusher, I think one
named Frenzy. I don't know they were, and Star Scream.
I love the name Star Scream. Sam's dad, Miles, Sam's friend,

(38:42):
the hacker Anthony Anderson. John Voight plays a Secretary of Defense.
John Tuturo is the head of Sector seven, and then
the various Air Force guys Josh how do you say
his last name? Him? And Tyrese Gibson Um, who looks
great and he does look he's a very attractive man.

(39:05):
Um sweat on Tyrese Gibson. There were no women of
color that I noticed, except for very tertiary characters like
Anthony Anderson's grandmother and Bernie Max's mother, who are right, yeah, yeah,
seen in the background and are portraying a raise this way. Yes,

(39:25):
you know, not surprising. I do have my list of
all of the things I hate about this movie. If
you will indulge me, please, I've already mentioned if you
why we're here. Okay, I'll read this as quickly as possible.
The opening line before time began, there was the cube.

(39:49):
That's a good four play lines. Also, there's a many
was there's a bunch of different mentions where optimist Prime
is like, if this doesn't go well, push the cube
into my chest, which is how I initiate sex. But
just throwing that out there, and then push your cube

(40:11):
into my yeah, all you wear my vagina, dicked men
out there, put it into my chest vagina. Than we
already talked about all the racist stuff. The scene where
for no reason a character says, remember weekends the sacks
at Finway, hot dog and a cold beer, because he's

(40:31):
I guess from Boston, true America. I get I get it,
I get it. There should just said don't get donuts
because it contrast the Spanish guy who's also American. He's
in the fucking military, right, speaking like, Oh, I love
what my mom cooks this stuff? Yeah, alligators and crickets.
He's like, Uh, There's at least ten seconds dedicated to

(40:57):
Josh Domel talking about how hot his baby is. He's like,
such a good looking kid. Baby Michael trying to put
it under a waterfall strategy. Babes like, well, we can't
have this baby holding an alcoholic beverage under water. I

(41:21):
hate Sam what Wicki's teacher in the beginning. I hate
the presentation he gives where he's talking all of his
grandfather's prize possessions. I hate the speech he gives to
his teacher to try to convince him to give him
an a. I hate all of the expository dialogue, the
movie's script, Sam what Wicki's dad, Bernie Mack's character, the
fact that all the glass bursts and the cars at
the dealership and no one wonders why that might have happened,

(41:43):
Sam what Wicki's mom, the cinematography, the air freshener in
Sam's car that says bach any attempt a comedy that's
made in the scrimp which is still relevant in two
thousand seven under the waning days of Bache all the
continuity errors, everything that Sam what Wicky says in the movie,
the flight attendant who drops a ding dong on the

(42:05):
floor that's supposed to be for the president and then
she picks it up and eats it. Uh, there's so
many individual towns the plot, so Chila bos acting Megan
Fox is acting the scene where Josh Jamal is trying
to place a college with the Pentagon and has to
find a credit card to place the call. Every other

(42:25):
part of that scene. The scene in Anthony Anderson's house,
Sam's eBay user name and photo, The fact that no
one notices a little Decepticon that's running around very conspicuously,
The idea that there's an all powerful like device that
can create life and planets and it's called the all Spark.
It's called the Female wom Bit. The scene where the

(42:50):
autobots are just hanging out in Sam's yard and no
one notices. That's the one thing I like, which is
when they're hiding in the backyard because the autobus are
so cute. When they're like getting it up and let's
get out of here. And I'm just squatting. I like that.
That was what bothered mean about it is that Sam's
parents were just like the earthquake. I guess better not

(43:14):
look out the way like I do. Also, like whenever
they go a rull up. Yeah, that that feels like
the Yeah, that was fine. Oh the fact that it's
never made clear why pushing the Cube into Optimist Primes
chest will destroy both him and the Cube details who
cares doesn't matter. The scene where Shaya La Buff and

(43:37):
Megan Fox are basically dry humping on the hood of
his car, and then the other Transformers are just they're
watching kind of Yeah, they're on bubble beees. So that's
he's like a So that's like a threesome, right, he's
a third party. Yeah, part of IM sure his hood's
getting all lubricated. Girl. I was gonna say hot, but
I guess slick ism were appropriate. You slippery, You're a

(44:01):
little slippery threesome gross No no, no, no no no,
that's how that's how I shate sex to I'm like,
I'm slippery table in the circle and the stupid Lincoln
Park song at the end, Oh my god, I'm gonna
say something about that. Too. But is there any other
band to smash Mouth that could have also worked? Right?

(44:23):
I hope the smash mont said no, too trashy. We've
got some Shrek residuals were good. Oh. To be fair,
though I did make I also made a list about
the things that I like about the movie. They are
the score. I legitimately think it's a pretty good score
for an action movie. A lot of like epic music

(44:43):
that I was able to get that time, really kind
of you, and the idea that the car chooses the
driver but only because it reminds me of Harry Potter.
And those are the only two things on that list. Okay,
but then that's not original. He's just taking that exactly. Yeah, okay,
number one, Harry Potter sucks. I've read them all, I've

(45:08):
seen them, I've gaven, I've been to the theme park.
I can't, I don't. I don't like it. Let me
sneak it forever. But here here are a few more
fun Bake quotes I found fun. Here's a just a
thought from John tur Turtle. He says, in regards to

(45:29):
the Transformers franchise, I thought Transformers Too was good. I
liked it better than Transformers one. Most people feel that way,
which is amazing that he thinks most people have seen
two Transformers movies. Here's one from Scarlett Johansson, who was
in a movie that I vaguely remember coming out called
The Island. Oh yes, I saw that in theaters. It

(45:51):
was bad but horrible. Yeah, it had a decent premise,
but of course, because Michael Bay sucks, he completely botched
the execution of it really quick. Even mcg he was
a bad actor, but he wasn't a good actor, and
he just played like a spacey dude with no emotion.

(46:12):
It fits like that was like his Keanu in the
Matrix role, where it's like, oh, we didn't notice that
he kind of sucks because this was like perfect for him.
But here's what Scarlett Johansson had to say about running
she had with Michael Bay. She said, I ran into
him leaving a party once and asked him if I
could be the easy bake oven Transformer as a joke.

(46:33):
He looked at me in all seriousness and said, there
is no easy bake up and Transformer, which testament to
how seriously he takes his terrible movies and how little
he understands jokes. In comedy, but he was probably like,
he's a woman, she must be serious. She's too dumb

(46:54):
to make a joke. Oh boy, I just imagined that.
Like Michael bays directing style is that he goes to
the actors and he's like, listen, I want you to
just be screaming all of your lines in this scene.
And they'll be like, I don't know that it really
warrants me screaming, and he's like, no, trust me on this.
Just make sure you scream all of your lines. And

(47:16):
that is every scene in Transformer. And then he pulls
out he just shows the hint of a gun he has.
He's like, I think you should scream. I feel like
he directs from within a giant Transformers robot. It's just
like where it's like a huge intercom system like shy

(47:36):
yell louder. Also, I could have told anyone not to
give Michael Bay a job because he is one of
the greatest fears of my entire life, which is an
adult blonde male. Never a trust an adult blonde male.
That's a rule. Yes, we can all benefit from that rule.
Think of an adult blonde male who has bettered your life.

(48:00):
It's hard there are exceptions to the rule, but it's
like one and two. Yeah, new rule. Does anyone have
any final thoughts about the movie? At least we spent
most of the time just hating it and discussing how
much we hate it. Not a ton of time dedicated
to the treatment of the female characters. But I mean

(48:21):
they didn't give us a ton of female characters to
talk about. True. Yeah, yeah, how would you fix it?
Is there a way to do Transformers? I mean, make
sure do not direct it like having more. I mean,
there's no reason why every single basically every single character
needed to be a man, Like there are women in
the military, there are women working in government. And is

(48:44):
Michael Bart aware that this is true? Does we know
that women are allowed in the military now and have
been for a long time? I don't think so. I
think that, Yeah, there's a lot of potential that they
could have done with the story, like the whole idea
of the all spark and you know, creating life, like
you really can go so many weights like motherhood, like
you know, mother nature. There's so much like feminine energy

(49:07):
in life, and then they just were like no robots
with it. Yeah, there's like, yeah, there are ways to
take because you're just given. I mean, it's I guess
originally it was a toy franchise pushed at boys. But
there's a way to take that and do something not
completely irresponsible with it. But yeah, I don't know if
there's any way to make this movie fair to anyone

(49:30):
vote white guys who are very mad with without just
scrapping this whole movie. Right, But these movies are so
high grossing, so many people go to see these. Did
you watch the other I only watched? I think I
watched is the second one when he goes to college.
I watched there was like I do remember that there

(49:52):
was like a really hot blonde girl who ended up
being a robot, Rosie Hunting. And I will say, like
I that was maybe early Teresa discovering her sexuality that scene,
because I was a straight girl in high school. She
was that like girl. She was well, she was like

(50:14):
a Victoria's secret model, and she was the She was
the girl who was brought in to replace Megan Fox
when Megan Fox was like I and she does say
several times Michael Bay is Hitler and apparently that's his
line um. And then they brought in Rosie who is beautiful,
and I think, I mean I saw Dark of the Moon.

(50:39):
Is that the second one? Yeah, there's it's called Dark
of the Moon, Dark of the Moon, we don't need side.
And then there's also one called The Last Night, and
that's the one coming out, which sounds so much like
The Dark Night that it's just like, do you need
to name this? It's so confusing. Why would you name
something Dark of the Moon or The Last Night? It's

(51:02):
just it's okay. Age of Extinction vaguely sounds like it
could be a Jurassic Park movie. Um, but um, darker
the Moon grows one billion dollars, So what the funk
do we know? As did Age of Extinction? Yeah, I
don't remember if I saw any of the sequels. I
want to say that I saw at least the second one,

(51:24):
but I have no memory of it. I saw the
first one with Rosie Huntington quickly in it, because I
also remember that white outfit she wore in the movie.
I was just like, yeah, she was really cute, and
but then she's because she's like an evil robot, right right,
so she's like a little bit little bit not that
she's treated fairly, but you know, something, something happens to her.

(51:48):
There's a plot point that has to do with her,
which is more than we can say for Megan Fox,
who really just I'm glad that she like later was
just like I recognized that as bullshit because she's hunting
so much. Yeah, and she's like seventeen, right team when
this movie is being shot, it's just like, I don't
know in retros, like at the time, I remember being like, Ah,

(52:09):
she's so dumb for being in this movie. But now
and just like I feel bad for her, Like I
can't like, if you're seventeen and someone's like, let me
give you a million dollars to pant at me, I
don't know. I don't know if you've already posed under
a waterfall for the same great I don't know where
you know. I felt poor Megan Fox because it seems
like a promotion. Yeah, it seems like she's doing well.

(52:32):
So let's talk about whether or not the movie passes
the Bechdel tests, shall we shall? The only scene that
I noticed where there are two women interacting is the
scene where Megan Fox is in Sam Whitwicky's house and
his mom is all like, oh my god, are you
master being in here shy all about and he's like, no, no, no,

(52:58):
And then I think his character pops up and she's
like hi. She's like, I'm I'm a friend of Sam's
and his mom says, you're gorgeous? Are you just the
prettiest girl? Which pretty similar to the scene and Julie,
where all the scene is Julie at least is very funny,

(53:19):
where she's just like where ben Affleck's character Apparently at
this point ben Affleck has his Michael Bay teeth because
after a certain point, ben Affleck's teeth are huge, very
big teeth. Does she just take out all his teeth?
Maybe there, I'd imagine there, but his teeth I'm like, well,
I guess his teeth are kind of big, and I

(53:40):
want to go back and be like when we're his
teeth small when Michael they give him his Hollywood teeth.
But there's the scene in Julie where ben Affleck's like, mom,
don't get any bright ideas she's gay, and then her
mom's like, well that can change. You're handsome, and Jelo
was like, I don't know, maybe I don't know. Yeah,

(54:02):
but this is a very similar scene where his mom
is just like, oh my god, you're so hot, You're
so pretty engorgeous, and Megan Fox is like thank you,
and then his mom's like, sorry, you had to hear
our little family discussion and that's the conversation. So I
totally don't they have to have no men present for
to pass or is it just to think it just

(54:22):
needs to be two women talking and their conversation has
to not be about a man. There's no way that
I'm going to give this scene the benefit of the
death that doesn't about Sam but if you, I mean,
he's in the room number one and which isn't technically,
but like I feel like it may as well be
not allowed for a man to be there and they're not. Again,

(54:45):
I feel like we've I forget what movie we came
up against a similar problem where it's like I think
it's Pirates of the Caribbean, where it's like they are
indirectly talking about a man, but they are not. They
never use a man's name or heat or like use
the pronouns or anything. But it's like I feel like
conversation is indirectly about like, oh, sorry, you thought I
was talking about my son jerking out, Like it just

(55:08):
that it's definitely like a sexually charged right, it's like
sexually charged, but like a hetero and hetero blockbuster sexually
Like if they were that would be fucked up. If
they were like, hey, we should hook up Mega Fox
and Sam's mom because that's an age problem, but that

(55:29):
would pass the test. Well, that's the other thing. The
only really notable thing that either of them say to
each other is his mom being like, you're so gorgeous,
You're so pretty, which is essentially just objectifying her. So like,
even if that somehow did pass the back to test,
it's really it's like like the subtext to that is like,
you should suck my son exactly right. Yeah, I'm gonna say,

(55:53):
based on what we know about the movie and Sam's character,
she's like, I want my son to have a little
girl friend. And oh, you're a good candidate. You're hot,
you look how cute. I'm so impressed that my son
had you in his bedroom. Like, have you ever had
an exchange like that with with someone's parents where they're
indirectly like you want my kids? Like, there is no

(56:15):
I had. I had an exchange like that in high school. Yeah,
with my saxophone boyfriend. His old dad came in one
night to you know, we were like teenagers and like
hanging out. We're watching this Zach Gelfanak is special on
his very old laptop in two thousand and eight. But
his dad came into the room and he was just like, hey, kids,

(56:38):
what's going on? And we're like nothing, We're watching TV.
And he was just like, hey Jamie, because he was
like A, I don't know what he did, but he
worked at like concerts, and he's like, hey, Jamie, do
you know why they call the band Pearl jam And
I was like no. He's like think about it. And
then I thought about it and I was like, oh, come,

(57:00):
program is come. I didn't realize that. And then and
then he threw us paper towels and said have a
great night. Whoa. So he was just like in a
weird series of comments, was just like everything about come,
here are some things to clean up, come with gotta go,
and then just like shut the door. I was like

(57:21):
I want to go home, like everyone wanted to go home.
It was the least sexually charged moment of my entire life,
although that is also how I initiate sex. I say,
put your cube in my chest. Everything about what program
really means. There's paper towels while you figure it out.

(57:44):
So gross. Yeah that's bizarre. Yeah man, anyways, cool, should
we write the movie? Hey, let's do it. Wait, so
we just we determined that this does not pass the test.
I'm not willing to give it a path. Yeah, I mean,
if we're going by this super super super for super
technical rules. But even then, I just know there's no

(58:05):
way that we could say, well, technically, Transformers like passes
the Victal test, Like no, no. Uh, So we write
the movie on our nipple scale, uh, zero to five
nipples based on its portrayal of women. I'm gonna give
it a half nipple. Interesting. I mean, what very very
little any of the female characters do contribute to the

(58:27):
story is usually undermined by the male characters or it
doesn't like bear any significance on the overall story. And yeah,
like I get that Sam is the protagonist, so like
most of his decisions are gonna but then there's just
there no women do anything. There's just hardly any female
characters contributing anything to the story, and when they are

(58:50):
on screen, they're often especially Megan Fox's character is just
heavily objectified. So yeah, half nipple. I think it treats
women horribly, and I think it's a terrible movie. What's
the highest nipple you've given out? We've even think Moanna
definitely nipples? What else was there? Elm and Louise and

(59:11):
Louise got five nipples there. I think the only ones
that we've given like five across the board have been
to Mowanna and Elma Louise. It's great. I was just curious.
Uh yeah, I think i'd have to give it. Well,
I'm gonna give it one nipple because I agree that
women are treated horribly, but I also think the men
look bad in this movie. I mean, there's except with

(59:34):
the exception of Tyres except. And also I love Optimist,
so he gets that nipple. Yeah, to be fair, there
are no redeemable characters in this movie. Even Sam what
Wicki is the most insufferable character I've ever seen on screen.
I'm like, I'm sorry, we're supposed to identify with this guy.
His last name sounds like a DJ scratch. I think

(59:56):
about it, like, I do love Robot a lot. I
really like when the robots take over, I'm joining them,
so I mean the robots so much, and that's why
I give it nip. Yeah. I love sci fi like
I love a good sci fi action movie, but this
movie just like missed the mark on opportunity. Um, I

(01:00:17):
give it. I give it no nipples. However, I would
like to very clearly stay at what these nipples look
like John Trull John Turtruo. So first he's got a
half nipple on the right side, and it's like, oh,
he's got as kind of a small nipple because there
are women in the movie, right, But then his left
nipple is inverted about halfway. Yeah, it's kind of like

(01:00:44):
this very unsavory, very dry vagina nipple that he has
on the left side, so it evens out to zero,
but it's technically once tiny pokey nipple because there's women
in the movie, and then an inverted nipple because of
everything else. I love it, right, So a negative nipple,
and then it goes out to if you put, okay

(01:01:08):
in theory, if you put John t turles right nipple
into his left nipple, it would be like there were
not I mean, I'll illustrate this reminding me of my
chest vagina. So I get it. I already get they
ca tube the nipple. So yeah, that's been our great

(01:01:33):
discussion about the movie Transformer. See the sequel or don't.
It'll make a billion dollars no matter what you do. Man, Teresa,
thank you so much to be here. Where can we
find you online? How can people follow? You can find
me on the Twitter, Theresa t wonderful cool. You can

(01:01:55):
follow me at ladies man two one seven. You can
find me on eBay or driving around. Was gonna say
Ferbie truck, I'm in my Frbite round. I'm mostly cruising
around my Ferbie truck, just like look for a pus
my furbie truck. Um. But you can find us on Instagram.

(01:02:18):
Caitlin has been managing or Instagram like a champion. Thank you,
yeah of course. Um. Happy birthday to Caitlin birthday, thank
you retroactively as a gift to her, please do not
see the new Transformers. You can find me at Hamburger Phone,
you can find me at Caitlin Durante and you can
go to my website Caitlin Dronte dot com. And uh yeah,

(01:02:40):
thanks for tuning in autobots rollout. Bye,