March 19, 2024 • 67 mins
It mu5t be found…it being a realistic portrayal of women
For this episode of Deep Thoughts, Emily dives into the valiant, vulnerable, and very very sexist portrayal of “perfection” in the 1997 Luc Besson film The Fifth Element. Milla Jovovich’s Leeloo is the poster child for the trope of Born Sexy Yesterday, wherein a childlike but fully adult woman who is both profoundly wise and unutterably naive needs the protection and guidance of an ordinary man. But the weird gender values don’t stop with Leeloo. Tracie and Emily also talk about the hyper-masculinity of Bruce Willis’s Korben Dallas and the “unmanning” of virtually every other male character.
Also: How exactly did Plavalaguna plan to get the stones out? REALLY?
Grab your Multi-pass and your headphones and take a listen with us.
Mentioned in this episode:
https://youtu.be/0thpEyEwi80?si=hV0MKtjaSnNrOduI
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep
Thoughts About Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
On today's episode, I will besharing my deep thoughts about
the 1997 film the Fifth Elementwith my sister, tracy Guy Decker
.
End with you, let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Have you ever had something you love dismissed
because it's just pop culture,what others might deem stupid
shit?
You know matters, you know it'sworth talking and thinking
about, and so do we.
So come over, think with us aswe delve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
So, trace, I know you've seen this movie, but tell
me what you remember about theFifth Element.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, it has been a minute since I've seen this
movie.
I've definitely seen it morerecently than 97, but it's been
a while since I've seen it.
I remember liking it a lot.
So, and we've talked about itbefore briefly, when we talked
about different sort of tropesand feminist analysis of
different tropes, and we talkedabout Born Sexy Yesterday, which
I'm sure we'll get into withLelou.
(01:06):
So the things I remember.
I remember Bruce Willis is likehard-boiled cab driver.
I remember Lelou as this littleslip of a thing, in less than a
slip of a thing in terms ofwhat she was wearing, and the
priest who had like a monk'stuncher and he was the only one
(01:29):
who could communicate with herat first because she was
speaking like the ancientlanguage, but she's super smart
so she like picked up on modernlanguage quickly.
I very clearly remember hercrying, as she's like watching,
learning all of the history ofthe world and learning about war
.
I remember enjoying theannouncer, the TV announcer,
(01:52):
chris Tucker.
Chris Tucker playing Ruby.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Rod.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, I remember really enjoying that character.
And Eve Salville very brieflymakes an appearance in this film
.
She was a runway model who woreher head shaved and has, like a
big dragon all the way aroundher scalp, and she was the
inspiration for my tattoo.
Listeners, I have a tattoo of aChinese dragon on my scalp
(02:16):
which you will never see, butSalville was like what I was
thinking of.
Mine is much, much, much moremodest than Salville's tattoo,
but that's a thing that Iremember of the fifth element.
So it's pretty disjointed, Iguess, is what I'm trying to say
.
But talk to me, why are wetalking about the fifth element
(02:38):
today?
What's the stake?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
So I saw this movie in the theater.
This came out when I was inhigh school.
When I was in high school, Isaw nearly every film that came
out.
I was a regular moviegoer.
I really enjoyed it and alsowas troubled by it at the same
time and this was at a time whenI felt like a humorless,
(03:00):
scolding feminist anytime Ibrought up things I was troubled
by, so I often didn't bring itup One of them being that there
are no quote unquote normalwomen in this film.
There are either women whosecleavage is out to here, who are
absolutely gorgeous becausethey are like runway models,
(03:22):
literally, or actresses, orthere are women who are
completely androgynous or butch,to play up that they're not
real women.
So there's two examples.
One is when the military comesto Bruce Willis's Corp and Alice
(03:43):
to say, hey, we need you to goon this and this is Sergeant
Ingborg or Iceborg excuse me,iceborg.
And it's this woman with likePrincess Leia Buns who is like
she's got a shelf of a bosom andshe's like really beefy and she
doesn't speak and it'sconsidered humorous that she
would pretend to be Corp andAlice's wife.
(04:04):
And then there is a veryandrogynous woman who is the
president's aide.
So you see her, she seems to bevery competent at her job, but
she doesn't have a name, she'sbackground, like she's not
sexualized and she's not madefun of for her body, she's just
background.
(04:24):
And so I remember as a kidseeing this film being like why
are the women at the McDonald'sdrive through being sexualized?
Why are the flight attendantsso sexualized?
Like, what are the hiringpractices that we can do to
overthink it?
And then the other aspect thatreally bothered me at the time,
(04:49):
and I didn't have quite thearticulation for it, but my high
school boyfriend, I remember,said like I can't believe that
supreme being has a dye job, andI was like her hair is the
problem you have with that.
That's the problem with thisbeing the supreme being who's
perfect?
Her hair, her hair.
But saying that Milo Jovovich isperfect and her body is
(05:14):
gorgeous.
But holding that up is an ideal.
I have a poster hanging up inmy office.
It has a picture of Medusa andunderneath it says beauty must
be defined as what we are, orelse the concept itself is our
enemy.
And that resonated with me.
(05:36):
I have that poster for the veryreason why it bothered me that
they kept reinforcing that MiloJovovich is perfect, and
specifically when seeing hernaked body.
Because if Milo Jovovich iswhat is beauty, is what is
perfect, then none of us canever even approach perfect.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Even Milo Jovovich, presumably later in her life.
I mean, what was she like, 20or 25, when she made that movie.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
She was the same age as you, so she was 22 at the
time, or 21.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I'm sure we'll get into this.
It's very interesting too tothink about.
You just used perfect andbeauty in kind of
interchangeably.
It'll be interesting to talkabout differentiating those two,
but I interrupt you.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So this movie has always had this weird, like
uncomfortable spot in myliterary DNA, like it was the
way we describe it, thefurniture of my brain, because
it is fun.
It is a fun movie.
Whenever we make paltry of anykind, I go check on good, check
(06:57):
on good, same thing with, likemulti pass, multi pass, you know
, like there's, there's fun init.
I also I didn't even rememberthat this is where it came from,
but there's a point where GaryOldman, zorg, the bad guy, he's
showing off all the differentthings on the, on this gun that
he's he's giving to the bad guys.
I came one of the bad guys Ican't remember what the aliens
(07:19):
were called and he's like, oh,and the flamethrower, my
favorite.
So these things that are justpart of my, my lexicon.
And it is a visually delightfulfilm.
Like it is so fun to watch andpart of it is women are scenery
(07:39):
in this.
So like, even as I wasuncomfortable with the way that
women are sexualized, it looksgood.
I understand why the male gazeis there, because it's very
pretty.
I enjoy looking at it too, butit's, it's a part of that kind
(08:02):
of not like other girls feminismand like, hey, she kicks ass.
So therefore, it's totally okaythat she's useless Kind of go
girl feminism of the 90s that wegrew up with in our teen years
and it's it's worth untangling.
(08:24):
It's very much worth likeunpacking all of the weirdness,
the assumptions about gender,the assumptions about gender
roles, the assumptions aboutother and whiteness, the
assumptions about age.
Bruce Willis was 42 to.
Mila Jovovich is 21 or 22.
(08:46):
Yuck, ew, yeah.
And watching it this timearound, seeing like when they
meet and like he's smiling andhe's got these you know like
laugh lines around his, you knowhis crow's feet and he looks
great.
I mean like I'm older than hewas.
I am now older than he was thenand he is very handsome man and
(09:07):
those laugh lines are charming.
But looking at him, and thenthe camera pans over to Mila
Jovovich and she is completelysmooth like an egg because she
is.
She's like she's this tiny baby.
I mean like she's not,obviously, but she has no laugh
lines because she has not livedlong enough to to grow them.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Really interesting.
I'm sure we'll get into this,but it's really interesting to
point that out when thecharacter is meant to be ancient
, right?
So it's like having your cakeand eating it too.
He's not a pedophile becauseshe's not 22.
The actresses, so we get tostill have our like huge age gap
.
This is the perfect body.
(09:52):
You know fantasy without thecreepiness of you know the big
age.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
He's old enough to be her father.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah literally, Because in fact she's ancient.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And yet even like, even so, I watched it relatively
recently.
So my family does a familymovie night.
We try to do it weekly and weeach take turns choosing the
movie.
So my spouse chose fifthelement to show the kids
sometime in the last six, eightmonths.
And so, watching it then withthe kids, I was like ooh.
And then I watched it againlast night so that I was ready
(10:30):
for us to talk about it, becausewithin the last eight months
was not quite recent enough forme to be able to talk
intelligently about it.
And I had fun watching it againlast night, even as I was like,
oh yeah, that ain't okay,that's not okay.
Oh, I'm not okay with that.
So it is a very fun movie butugly messages can be wrapped in
(10:54):
pretty packages.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, yeah, well, I'm looking, I'm excited to like
really unwrap that package.
But let's start.
Can we start with a synopsis ofwhat happens?
I'll try.
Let me explain.
No, it's too much.
Let me sum up.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
So film starts in Egypt in 1914.
We learn that there is a templein which there are stones
representing four elements earth, air, wind and fire and then,
like a sarcophagus, with thefifth element in it, which is a
supreme being, and togetherthose five elements work to
(11:37):
defeat an unknowable evil thatcomes about every 5,000 years A
race of aliens called theMandeshuans come and take the
elements away from the temple inEgypt because they do not trust
humanity, but they will be backto help humanity fight off this
horrible evil in 300 years,when it comes back.
(11:57):
So in 300 years it comes back.
The president of the Federationwhich it's not really clear
what he's president of, who isplayed by an actor named Tiny
Lister, who is like six foot sixinches tall.
He's a very commanding blackman which was considered
extremely progressive at thetime to have him cast as the
(12:21):
president is telling hismilitary to attack this ball of
something that's speeding up.
It is the terrible evil.
The descendant or well, thepriests who was guarding the
five elements in 1914 is told bythe Mandeshuans to tell his
(12:43):
successors what to expect.
So the 300 years latersuccessor, played by Ian Holm,
is there explaining what it isand that they should not attack.
What they need to do is get intouch with the Mandeshuans, try
to find the five elements.
The military tries to blow upthe dark planet is what they end
up calling it, or Mr Shadow isanother name for it are
(13:05):
unsuccessful and get killed.
The Mandeshuans come into thefederated space and they are on
their way to earth to try tobring the five elements to earth
, to defeat this thing, and thatship is destroyed by a ship of
other aliens it's likeMambaowens or something, I don't
remember, but they're kind oflike dogfish face things and
(13:31):
they destroy the Mandeshuanship.
There are no survivors, butthey have a few cells left over
from what was in the sarcophagus, which is the fifth element,
the Supreme being.
So they basically 3D print theSupreme being back into life,
based on the couple of cells,and that is Mila Jovovich.
(13:53):
Her name is Lelu.
This character's name is Lelu,whose character's name is Lelu,
yes, which we don't know yet.
She escapes from the facilitywhere she was 3D printed and
ends up in the cab of CorbinDallas, played by Drus Willis,
who helps her despite the policecoming after her.
(14:14):
She tells him the name of thepriest, vito Cornelius, and he
goes to the priest brings her,she has conveniently passed out.
Oh gosh, shenanigans ensue.
The reason for the aliensdestroyed the Mandeshuanship was
because a human namedJean-Baptiste Zorg, who was
(14:39):
played by Gary Oldman, and hedeserved better.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
He had like a weird, like plastic thing on his head.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, and he apparently hated it.
He did this because he owed LucBesson.
Luc Besson, who wrote thescreenplay and was director, had
helped him to get a passionproject done, and so he felt
like he had to do it, and heapparently hates the film.
I don't blame him, because GaryOldman deserves better.
So does Ian Holm, quite frankly.
Anyway, so he is like extremecapitalist, he's only in things
(15:14):
for profit.
He is purely evil.
So, anyway, he wanted to getthe four stones and sent these
other aliens to get them.
They got the case, but it wasempty because the Mandeshuans
did not trust humans and theyentrusted the stones with
someone else.
Turns out, they entrusted themwith an opera singer, a diva
(15:34):
named Plava Laguna, who is goingto be at this planet, called
Flostin for a major concertShenanigans.
I'm just trying to sum up.
Once the president and themilitary understands what's
going on, they want to sendCorbin Ballas who, though he is
(15:58):
a cab driver now retired fromthe military about six months
prior, and he is the best manfor the job to go undercover to
meet with Plava Laguna.
There are several people whotry to take his identity.
There are several differentways, people trying to get there
by trickery and he ends upgoing with Lelou, gets on the
(16:22):
plane because the way that theygot him there is they rigged the
contest so it made it look likehe was the winner of the
contest and so because of that,the DJ, ruby Rod, played by
Chris Tucker, is consistentlytrying to get him to talk and
stuff like that, even thoughhe's trying to do a discreet
private operation.
(16:43):
There's a lot of humor in thatand in the way that Ruby Rod
presents himself and the waythat Corbin Ballas responds to
him Once they are at the hotelat Flostin Paradise.
There is another attack by thesame.
I wish I could remember thename of the kind of monster
(17:04):
headed aliens.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
You want to look them up.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, mangalors, mangalors.
I don't know why I have troubleremembering that.
Okay so, once they get toFlostin Paradise, plavillaguna
is having her concert and thereis an attack by more Mangalors.
They want to get back at Zorg.
(17:28):
They also want to get the fourelement stones because they know
that Zorg wants them.
Plavillaguna is shot.
She reveals that the stones arein me.
I never understood how is shegoing to get them out Like
Musenex?
No, musenex, musely.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Musenex is not, she'll snot it out.
Musenex is Musenex is.
I mean it's a possibility, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Like there's, I mean, and she's not that big and
they're not small stones anyway.
So Corbin breaks her open andgrabs the stones.
There's a shootout.
Meanwhile Lelu is kicking theasses of multiple other
Mangalors who very hilariouslysay it was an ambush when it was
, you know, 120 pound woman.
(18:21):
So Zorg also ends up coming tothe hotel to try to get the
stones.
He sets a bomb.
They manage to escape rightbefore the bomb goes off by
stealing Zorg's spaceship.
So Corbin Dallas, the priestwho stowed away on the plane,
lelu, and then Ruby Rod, playedby Chris Tucker, they head to
(18:43):
Egypt, to the temple, and theyare able at the last minute to
save everyone once they figureout how to get the stones to
open.
And Lelu at that point is likehas given up and has decided
like why is the point ofprotecting life when you see
what you do with it?
And Corbin Dallas is able toconvince her that there are some
(19:05):
things worth saving and she'slike, oh, like love.
And he's like, yes, and she'slike I don't know love.
And he's like, well, I love youand that fixes things.
And then you end with them backin the same pod that she was
3D-printered in having sex.
When the president shows up tocongratulate them, he's so weird
(19:26):
, like, seriously, if youhaven't seen this movie, like
you kind of have to see it.
And Luke Basson wrote itoriginally when he was 16, which
explains a lot.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
All right.
So that was the not quiteconcise summary, but as concise
as one can get, perhaps withthis film.
So you named a few things thatyou wanted to talk about.
I would really love, if youdon't mind, if we get to start
with gender, and something thatyou said which I don't know if
(20:06):
you said it just now, but yousaid it to me before we started
recording was about theperformance of gender, not just
women not just female gender,but also masculinity.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yes, so it is really interesting looking at this from
the lens of what is masculine,because the exception of the
president, corbin Dallas, is theonly completely masculine man
(20:38):
in the entire film.
So early on there is a generalwho is the one who says, like we
need to shoot and destroy this,and he gets himself and the
entire ship killed and so he haslike a kind of like
warmongering masculinity, butit's shown to be dead toxic.
Then there is not going toremember his name the major who
(21:05):
we see over and over and overagain, who was Dallas's previous
commanding officer and is theone who comes to tell him about
the mission.
He's played by Brian James.
He is there when they createLee Lu and he goes to the pod
where she's being created and hechecks before he gets closer to
(21:26):
say, like is that, you know?
Was that safe?
Like.
And they're like yeah, it'sunbreakable glass.
And she punches through it,grabs him by the balls and, like
, brings him forward, breaks hisnose, so he is unmanned by her.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Yeah, Then literally grabs him by the crotch Yep, and
remember that.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Okay.
Then there is the priest, whois considered generally to be a
good person, but he is veryasexual and kind of like lacking
in any kind of power.
He's shown to be kind ofridiculous, like when Corbyn,
dallas and Lelouch show up, heimmediately is like, okay, I
(22:11):
need to, I need to wearsomething.
Like what am I gonna wear?
It's like it's got to lookdignified and what he ends up
wearing looks ridiculous and hisconcern with what he's wearing
is kind of made fun of by the,by the film.
Then he's got his like acolyteI'm not sure what you'd call him
, but this is his like priest intraining who's working with him
.
David, who is shown to be kindof like Weasley, is a little too
(22:34):
strong, but he's.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
He's also shown to be kind of weak and he's the one
that has the monks tonsure.
David yeah, my recollection isthat he's shown to be cowardly.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yes, yes, and then actually I'm gonna come, I'm
gonna do Ruby Rod last on theHotel at Flossin Paradise, we
very briefly meet the head ofsecurity and he and all of the
people who work there them, themen who work for the hotel are
wearing shorts and Like kind ofa sailor kind of outfit which
(23:11):
actually doesn't, doesn't, notmake sense, considering Like
it's a pleasure cruise, like youknow, it's a reasonable uniform
, but it very much makes himlook childlike.
And he is the one who I don'tknow if you recall the
mangalores have the priest as ahostage, with a, with a gun to
(23:34):
his head, and Says anyone wantsto negotiate, negotiator, will
start killing castages.
And Corbin Dallas says, becausehe's the head of security, says
to him like do you want to dothis?
He's like I don't, I've never,I don't, I don't negotiate, I've
never known.
And so Dallas goes in, justshoots, shoots the one in the
head that has the priest in achokehold and the head of
(23:54):
security goes when did he learnto negotiate like that?
So like it's very much Unmanly.
And then there's Ruby Rod.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Wait, what about?
What about Zork?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Oh, thank you.
Yes, zork is also interestingBecause he now this is something
I had never occurred to me.
I read, I read something, andI'll include the link in the
show notes it was a, an academicpaper talking about othering in
in this film.
One of the things that theytalked about is that Gary Oldman
, who was a white actor is, isothered in this film in a way
(24:33):
that is subtly Asian coded, inthat he's got that black hair
that's kind of like Long andlike glossy and then it sort of
flops like, almost like a like Ican't think of what it's called
, but the Chinese.
Well, like cultural cut, yeah,no, no.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I'm thinking of the, the one long grade.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yes, yeah, and that had never occurred to me,
because I just didn't read itthat way.
I Entirely get how it could beread that way, but that it's
just.
I don't carry those culturalassumptions.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, it's also just presented as so bizarre mm-hmm.
And, and he is a white actor.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, and he's wearing like a Coat that almost
reads as a dress yes, yeah soWell, and it's also like his.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
His accent is so weird.
He has this weird kind ofsouthernish accent and Oldman is
British, isn't he?
I don't know, I don't know.
He was in the Harry Potter film, so I believe he was, because I
think that they were.
Really they tried very hard tocast British actors and he
played serious black, so, likethat, that's part of it too,
(25:45):
because that that accent is justso bizarre.
But he wears like you're right,it's something kind of like
it's long and flowy Jacket, andthen underneath of it he's
wearing this like iridescentrainbow tunic, and so he is
another Character who's kind ofcoated as not manly and
(26:05):
dangerous in this case, yes.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
So we have the not manly, who are ineffective and
Cowardly and weak, but here wehave this not manly man who's
actually very dangerous, yes,who is potentially Asian coded
and also potentially queer coded, because dress, yes.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
What's interesting is he and Dallas, who are like
they're they're basically the,the hero and villain of the Film
are never share screen time.
They never act against eachother, they never meet each
other.
Interesting, yeah, which Ihadn't noticed until, like I was
reading about it and I was justlike, oh, that's true.
There's like there's a secondof screen time where Dallas and
(26:51):
his crew are getting in anelevator to leave the hotel when
Zorg is arriving, and so likejust a Fraction of a second
where one elevator doors closingand another one's opening.
So it's interesting becausethey are Paired as opposites.
You know, there is somethingvery asexual about Zorg.
There is no sense of him havingany interest in anything other
(27:17):
than money and power.
And Then he also he has a limp,which is another aspect.
Oh so like the Abelism in theidea that someone who is like a
proper man has a fullyfunctioning legs.
So let's get the Ruby rodbecause he's interesting.
(27:42):
Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
So he's played by Chris Tuckerand In some ways he's my
favorite part of the movie,partially just because Chris
Tucker is having a ball.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
That is my recollection of that character.
Is that he's just having somuch fun?
Not Ruby Rod, but Chris.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Tucker yes, yeah, it was like.
They were like what do you wantto do?
Do it, go, go?
And he's like, yes.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I will.
And then they were like no more, more, more.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, and what I read was he.
Apparently they had thecostumes, and so the first time
we meet him he is wearing a skintight, like Unitard, like it's
like pants and and like it comesup and like his shoulders are
bare and it's in leopard print.
(28:33):
And Then the rest of the moviehe is wearing something that
you'd wear to an opera, which isthe same sort of like unit hard
pants, but it's it's black,with roses around the collar and
again like his shoulders arebare.
It's very feminine coated and,and Chris Tucker, apparently,
upon seeing His costumes, thathelped him decide on how he
(28:58):
would play the character.
They have also said I've readthat the character was based
partially on both Prince andMichael Jackson and the part was
offered to Prince, and I'llhave to see if I can find this
because I wasn't in my researchtoday, but I previously heard
that Luke Basson accidentallyreally offended Prince at a
(29:18):
meeting and he was just like no,I won't have anything to do
with that, which is how ChrisTucker got the job.
What's interesting?
So he is very feminine coatedand kind of Queer coated in a
lot of ways.
So he's wearing very much so,yes, very much so.
He's wearing lipstick.
He's wearing very femininecoated clothing.
He has a very high-pitchedvoice.
(29:38):
Now, part of that is ChrisTucker has a high-pitched voice,
but he plays it up and he doesa lot of like screaming like
when he's terrified and thingslike that in a very, very
Feminine, coated Dan's Londondistress kind of way.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
He also has three like people who work with him
who are very Queer coated, whohe like how was it?
And they're like oh, it's sogreen, so green, which is his
like Word for good, or cool, andthere, when they can't find him
, they're like very queer coated, distraught yes, distressed.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah, yeah, so so we have that.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
But we also have that women describe him as sexy.
Yeah, he is shown multipletimes to be heterosexual or at
least interested in women,because when the plane is taking
off he is deducing one of theflight attendants.
And then there's another pointwhere he talks about a woman.
(30:37):
She is the, the daughter of aof a king or emperor or
something like that, and he'slike oh, she told me recently
she loves to sing, and then heplays a like I have a recording
of her voice and plays the soundof a woman moaning which so
gross like, so gross anyway.
So he's shown to be interestedin sex with women.
(31:00):
But I found this interesting itis Suggested that he is going
down on the flight attendant, sohe's performing oral sex on her
, and I think that's interestingbecause a manly man Would only
(31:22):
accept oral sex or be interestedin penetrative sex interesting.
Because I like it's and it'splayed for laughs.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah.
You know it's knowing thatPrince was the Target for that
role Really changes in my mind.
Like deepens the, the sexinessto all genders, because You're
(31:55):
reminding me of the evidencethat Ruby Rod is interested in
and has sex with women, but likein my memory he's he's just
Like a queen, you know.
Like in my memory he's a gayman.
So If it were Prince, though,like, if I think of that
character as Prince has playedby Prince Mm-hmm, that sort of
(32:19):
Sexy to all genders and like whoknows and why the hell not?
Like that actually Jibes for mewith Prince.
Like the way like in my, in mymind, culturally, the man just
sort of like oozed sexualitywhich appealed to everyone and.
I don't know what.
(32:40):
I don't know what Prince did inPrince's bedroom and it's none
of my business and the and thepersona that he kind of gave us
was that, you know, the more themerrier.
Maybe not all at once, butcertainly there wasn't.
It didn't seem like there waslike a Genital check, yeah, or
(33:04):
at least for the persona, yeah.
So so that's really like Givingit texture in a way that I
didn't have for that character.
So that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
What's interesting, and it's that that's a same
academic article that I readthat I mentioned earlier.
I Coding Ruby, rod, now, andRuby's first name, is, is
feminine and Rod is a.
Is is a synonym for Alec.
Alec, by Coding him in thatlike both and kind of way also
(33:43):
is an othering that has to dowith the way that our culture
looks at black men, in that theyare both, you know, considered
less than white men, but alsohypersexualized.
Hypersexualized, which is alsofascinating.
(34:06):
And then also thinking of thatcharacter, had he been played by
Prince, what that would mean,you know, it brings in other
strange things, because Princelived in this, because he was
black, but he lived in this kindof, since he was Multiracial, I
(34:28):
feel like there there was asense of like, okayness.
In white culture there wasn'tnecessarily for yeah, yeah,
interesting so.
It was very weird watching, likebecause you you also see,
because Corbin Dallas is ouraudience stand-in in responding
(34:51):
to Ruby Rod and and he gets towhat kind of he does?
He never actually rolls hiseyes, but he's basically rolling
his eyes the whole time.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, and he's not attracted to Ruby Rod.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
No, he actually at one point, when there's a hotel
employee, a woman is showing himthe room and she's telling him
he's asking if he can gettickets to the the opera because
he needs to meet with the diva,and she's like, oh, you have a
ticket, and with Ruby Rod, Ilove him, he's so sexy and you
(35:24):
can see him going like what,what, what.
That doesn't make any sense.
It's a really weird,interesting portrayal,
particularly since for so manypeople, he's the best part of
the movie.
Mm-hmm and like there issomething like.
In some ways, I feel like itmade that kind of over the top
(35:48):
queer-coded queen behavior, likewhen he goes and and like it's
stuff like that you know part ofyou is just like can I do that?
I love that.
It's very, very interesting,but it definitely is like Besson
very intentionally wanted toshow that comparison between
(36:14):
Ruby Rod and Corbin.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Dallas Corbin.
Dallas is a real man.
Yes, yeah, and we know he's areal man because he gets to have
sex with the perfect being.
Yes, mm-hmm, yeah, and that'syeah, yeah, okay, all right.
How about, then?
Performance of female gender,then.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
So, oh goodness.
So we talked a little bit in aprevious episode about orn sexy
yesterday, and that is the tropethat Lelu basically embodies,
which is a woman-shaped creatureor being who is unutterably
(36:56):
wise and yet profoundly naive atthe same time.
Lelu is a perfect example ofthis because when she first is
born, basically she knowsnothing of English language, she
knows nothing of what Earth is.
She knows, she does notunderstand how things work and
(37:17):
she is coded as being very goodat something masculine fighting
but otherwise being so fragileand needing the guidance of
someone who understands theworld.
I can remember other examplesof this.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
We talked about it when we did our Wonder Woman
episode, where there's andactually these of you wore in
particular.
I think we get that from bothWonder Woman and from Lelu where
the outsider who's very wisebut naive can look and say but
why would you do that?
(37:55):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yes, yes, and this is a common trope in science
fiction.
It was only named in the past,like 10 years I think, less than
that.
The first one was named in 2017is when it was named, but I can
remember in the original Planetof the Apes, the Charlton
Heston Planet of the Apes, thewoman he goes around with I
(38:17):
think her name he called herViga, but I don't remember for
sure is like this passive,beautiful woman he has to
protect, who doesn't understandthings that seem clear to him.
So, like she's born sexyyesterday, without any skills,
she's just someone for him toprotect.
They're similar things likethat.
(38:39):
So, because of this, lelu istreated like a child by everyone
.
I mean, dallas treats her likea child constantly when she
first gets to the pre, whenDallas brings her to the
priest's apartment, the priestsays to Dallas like please wake
(39:00):
her, but gently, she ismankind's most precious
possession, ew, ew.
And like Yiconna said, humanity.
I mean not that that makes itmuch better Her performance of
(39:23):
gender.
Now, like the first thing Ithought this time around
watching it was they recreatethis creature who is not human
but looks human, and they keepreferring to this creature as he
until they have, like you know,completely reprinted her and
(39:45):
you know she is there and theycan see her naked body and
they're like oh, it's a woman.
And I'm like this is not ahuman.
Why would you assume?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
it's gender.
Well, in 97.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I know, but she's wearing basically just bandages
for the first.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
But even when they give her clothes, it's like a
seat belt that's across hernipples and across her genitals,
right.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yes, that is so.
She's wearing bandages.
I mentioned before we startedrecording.
The costumes were designed bythe French designer, jean-paul
Gaultier, I think.
I think that was his first name.
Who was you know is.
I don't know if he's stillalive.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
I don't know if he's alive, but Gaultier is a major
brand.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Major brand.
Yeah, and in hiscontemporaneous review, roger
Ebert mentioned that he did thedesign and he said, yeah,
gaultier, he starts by coveringthe essentials and then stops.
That's how he described hisdesigns, which, yeah, certainly
what Lilo is wearing.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
But she is treated in a feminine way.
So when David goes out to getclothes for her, he brings back
clothes and he's like I didn'tknow your size and, like you
said, there's it's this asweater that stops right
underneath her breasts and thenthis like orange plastic rubber
thing that like goes over hershoulders and then like connects
(41:20):
down, like like it's like a Vthrough her crotch and then
she's wearing, like these,silver leggings.
First of all, I don't think youcan get back those clothes for
someone if you didn't know theirsize.
Like these, these clothes arenot going to fit if you don't
know someone's size.
So he gets that for her andshe's very excited.
(41:41):
Oh, thank you, thank you, mila,thank you.
And then he got her a it's amakeup box that honestly, I
would love it if they inventedthis, because it's really cool
where, like, you put it to youreyes and it immediately it puts
on the makeup for you or wearmakeup every day.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
I would wear makeup every day if they made that
little box.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
But she's super excited by these things, by
these trappings of femininity.
Well, how does she know whatthey are?
Why is she excited by them?
Similarly, when she is likerecovering in between the hotel
and going to Egypt, and she'sshe has been learning English by
(42:25):
watching these screens andlearning about the history of
the earth by watching thesescreens and she's going through
it alphabetically and she's likeI'm on V, which, for one thing,
luc Besson, really I'm on V andDallas says like oh, there's
some great words in V, likevaliant, vulnerable, very
(42:46):
beautiful, and she smiles.
I know To be feminine.
She is vulnerable.
I mean she's valiant,vulnerable and very beautiful.
Like that says it right there.
But her being valiant is kind ofa it's not a joke exactly, but
(43:13):
they get when they get into theplane.
Corbin says to her like we'renot really going on vacation.
I'm like this is beforemansplaining was coined, but
that is such rinse planning.
She's the supreme being.
And he's like you know, you gotto stay out of trouble because
I have to protect you.
(43:34):
And she's like no, you knowtrouble, I protect you.
And he's like uh-huh, yeah,sure, honey, and even the fight
scene, which is really cool.
Like she has a very, very coolfight scene, but it's one of
those and some of this is just Idon't know like fight
choreography has gotten betteror what, but even 20 years ago,
I remember noticing that theMangalore's wait and attack are
(44:01):
one at a time.
Yeah, and it's just like therehave been much better versions
of that, like atomic blonde,which came out a few years ago
and has Charlie's Theron in itand has similar sorts of like
fight dynamics where becauseCharlie's Theron is another one
who's like just tiny and upagainst these very big men, and
(44:25):
one of the things I liked aboutthat film was the fact that they
show her fighting the way a 120pound, five foot seven woman
would fight a 250 pound, sixfoot two man by using things in
the area Like there's one pointwhere she takes a lamp out of
the wall and uses the cord andlike she fights quote unquote
(44:49):
dirty, because that's the onlyway that you can win if you are
fighting against someone who isso much bigger and stronger than
you.
So, like I think some of this isthat I have, in you know, the
past, so many years gotten likeno, seriously, can you do a
choreography that looks morerealistic and, like you know
this is a ridiculous film.
Yeah, it just.
(45:13):
It undercuts the one thingshe's supposed to be good at, is
undercut by the fact that theMangalors wait and attack her,
one at a time.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah, While we're on that, so she's mankind's most
precious possession.
The thing that she's reallygood at is fighting.
She's perfect.
Let's unpack that perfection,especially vis-à-vis beauty and
ageism and gender.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah.
So the thing that I noticed andI tried to say something to my
kids when we watched it, likesix or eight months ago is that
every time they refer to her asperfect, it is when you can see
her naked body.
It is not about her brain.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
It's my recollection that it's not like while they're
watching her fight.
No, they're lying there nakedlike lying down.
So it's very much about herbeing the perfect object, the
perfect sex object specificallyyeah, now to be fair the head
(46:23):
scientist in charge of 3Dprinting her.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
So what happens?
She punches through the glass,she grabs Brian James, manages
to get herself out and runs andleaps through the wall that is
made of gold, aluminum foil.
For some reason it's seeing herleap through the wall.
He goes perfect.
(46:49):
So it could be argued that itis about what she has just done,
Right?
Except lying there naked.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Except that it's also like oh, now seeing that body
in action, but it's then thatshe's described as perfect, is
that?
Speaker 2 (47:05):
how it's delivered to , the way you just sort of
whispered it.
Perfect, yeah, just like that.
Oh yeah, that's not like.
That's not like.
That's not an engineer admiringan elegant solution.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
So the other times, when she gets changed, when
David brings the clothes that hecould not possibly have gotten
the right, she starts to startgetting changed because she is
so naive as to not realize thatyou can't just get naked in
front of other, in front of men.
David and the priest turnaround so they're not facing her
and David says she really isperfect.
(47:45):
Yes, I know, that's what thepriest says.
And then Dallas has someone Ithink it's his immediate boss at
the cab company it's notentirely clear named finger, who
he has two different phoneconversations with.
The first one is in theestablishing scene when we first
first meet Dallas and finger istalking to him about his
(48:06):
ex-wife.
He's like you're not stillpining for her.
You know that's slut, you knowcheated on you, and there's
millions of women out there,yeah.
And Dallas says I don't wantmillions of women, I just want
one, the perfect one.
And then later on, after he'smet Lelou and delivered her to
the priest, and his cab iscompletely destroyed and he's
(48:29):
lost the remaining points on hislicense which allow him to
drive, and so he's in troublewith finger Finger calls and
he's like I've been waiting allday for you to come for the
overall hall, for your cab.
He's like oh, you ever have oneof those big fairs, just land
in your lap.
He's like yeah, how big.
And so he starts describing her.
He's like five foot seven, blueeyes, perfect skin, or I don't
(48:51):
remember what else is like, andall physical descriptions you
know perfect.
So him loving her is entirelyabout how she looks.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah, eww.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Eww, the other aspect that I did not really
articulate, like it alwaysbothered me that Dallas is in
the center with her when sheactivates the weapon that
destroys the Great Evil, becausehe's like you know, you have to
(49:30):
do whatever it is and I loveyou, and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And so something I read thismorning was saying that we are
left to believe that the fifthelement is love, which means
Lelu is incomplete withoutDallas.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, mm-hmm, mm-hmm 16-year-old male fantasy.
Yeah, yeah, well, this is, weoverthink here.
That's what we do, right?
Yeah, we thought so.
I just was.
I just was reading this articleabout the science of love and
scientists are breaking it down.
(50:10):
They say there are threeelements to love now there's
lust, there's attraction andthere's attachment, because
there's the science of oxytocinand all the different chemicals
and things as well.
Like, we can have attachmentand attraction without lust.
Thank God for familialrelationships and we can have
(50:32):
lust and attraction withoutattachment, but without
attachment I'm not sure it'sactually love and that's what
we're seeing here, right?
Like Dallas has lust andattraction.
Does he have attachment to thisperson, you know?
Or does he even have attractionwithout lust?
(50:55):
Like, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Well, it's a condescending attraction, it
feels like, because, as I said,he treats her like a child the
whole time, and even there's apoint where he tries to wake her
gently, and so he goes to kissher and she grabs his gun and
puts it to his head and says inher language she says never
without my permission.
And so she's holding him atgunpoint and he's trying to
(51:23):
introduce himself like I'mCorbin, corbin, dallas, what's
your name?
And the priest comes back inand so and it gets in between
them and he's like waving at herwith one finger like you would
to a baby.
Do you remember the movieBarton Fink?
Yeah, so listeners who haven'tseen it, it's a very weird con
(51:47):
movie.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Yeah, weird.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Yeah, so the main character, he is a writer who is
contracted to write a wrestlingscreenplay, and so it's about a
wrestler, and they're tellinghim all the elements and so have
him meet a woman or a kid thathe needs to protect, and the
character ends up having thisamazing experience I don't even
(52:12):
remember exactly how it cameabout and he wrote the most
transcendent thing he's everwritten in his life, and the
studio is not interested.
It's like no, no, no, god, havea dame or a kid that he has to
protect.
I am thinking about thisbecause, basically, what we have
in Leluy is both oh yeah.
And I'm thinking about, like howcommon that trope is that there
(52:34):
is a hard-bitten, you know,cynical man who learns to have a
heart again because a woman ora child needs his help.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah yeah, it's kind of cliched.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
So it's, there's a lot that's ugly, I mean it's
it's and to the point where,like even 18-year-old me
watching it was like I'm reallyenjoying myself.
But oh, yeah, yeah, this is.
This is not great.
Like, why were there any womeninvolved in making this film?
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Yeah Well, we've actually been talking for a long
minute now.
Are there any other key pointsthat you want to make sure that
you make before we wrap us up?
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Just that there is.
I mentioned how casting TinyLister as the president was
considered progressive, but itis also undercut and though he
is not a man like the other menin the film, you never see him
being decisive.
You never see him.
He is always anxious, concerned, confused.
(53:48):
You overall end with a goodimpression of him I have always
liked him as as as president butyou also don't get to see him
being the hero that CorbinDallas is, and in fact Dallas
like hangs up on him at onepoint, which that's that's
(54:08):
pretty telling about who has thepower.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Yeah, yeah.
And you know, I think thatscene when she says not never
without my permission, I feellike that's another one where
there's like there's a certainprogressiveness in this sort of
consent matters, and then it'scompletely undercut by the
structure in which that messageis given.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Yeah, yeah, in the same way that you know it's it's
amazing seeing Lelu fight, butit's I mean, for one thing, it's
undercut by the fact that youknow she immediately like shuts
down after like Zorg comes inand she escapes into the ceiling
and he's shooting at her andlike, yeah, that's terrifying.
(54:49):
There's also a suggestion thatshe is psychically linked to a
plava Laguna and feels when shedies I didn't necessarily get
that, but that was another thingthat I read this morning I was
like, okay, I can see that andthat that also would be part of
her, her grief and why she shutsdown.
But then I was thinking aboutit this time.
I was like, so she doesn't knowwar, but she knows how to fight
(55:13):
and that's all she knows.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
And like, presumably she killed the Mangalors that
she disabled in those in thatfight I mean maybe not all of
them, but why?
Speaker 2 (55:26):
But there are other, there are other, yeah, I mean,
and that's that, and that'sreally like the tragedy of war.
We're doing it to ourselves,yeah, right If we do it to
others, and that's how we sellourselves on war as well.
Yeah, it's, it's like uh, yeah,I'm not, I'm not saying it
makes sense, it's kind ofcircular, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
It's interesting how we give that naivete is like, oh
well, you know, she understandsbetter than than than we do,
but at the same time like, ohhoney, you just don't understand
.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
Right, right, we want it both ways.
Yeah, that's, yeah, that's whatthe wisdom and the naivete,
yeah, okay.
So I'm going to try and reflectback some highlights from what
I heard.
Number one this is a very cleartextbook example of born sexy
yesterday, the trope in which wehave a unbelievably wise and
(56:25):
yet also very naive woman who isa sex object who needs to be
cared for.
Sometimes we get what you justdescribed.
She's smarter than all of usand, oh honey, you just don't
get it.
We had really interestingconversation about gender.
So both masculinity, where wesee really a range from toxic
(56:50):
masculinity that is punished.
It leads to destruction ofthose who exhibit it through a
very effeminate masculinity inRuby Rod, which is sort of kind
of lampooned.
It's a laugh, it's anopportunity for us to laugh.
And then we get Corbin CorbinDallas in the middle, who's like
(57:12):
a typical.
He's a man, he's a man's man,not toxic, but not one of those
girly men, just competent.
Speaker 1 (57:21):
Yeah, like, and that's that's what makes him a
man, is that he is, he iscompetent and he is reward, he
gets the ultimate reward, whichis the perfect being as his
girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
And then we talked about femininity and performance
of femininity.
Femininity which is all aboutthin, white, young, beautiful in
the in Lelu, who we hear overand over again when we see her
naked body, that she is indeedperfect, this 22 year old child
(57:58):
who is actually an ancient being.
We talked about the ways thatothering comes in in ways that
maybe escape notice on firstview.
I'm thinking of Zorg and hispotentially Asian coded
appearance, and also, like theways in which this villain was
(58:23):
othered, with the sort ofpotentially Asian influence and
the way that he looks.
Also the weird American accent,also the ableism of the fact
that this man has a limp.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Oh, one other thing.
I watched it on Amazon Primeand in you know the X-ray they
have like trivia.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
One of the pieces of trivia is that Zorg is
consistently framed with acircle, whereas Dallas is
consistently framed with arectangle, and I found that very
interesting because to me thatthat seems like there's feminine
and masculine.
And then considering the factthat the the dark planet, mr
(59:01):
Shadow, like the evil thing is asphere, and then the, the
stones are, they're, they're,they're square, they're square,
I mean they're triangular so,but they're, they're square.
So there's, there's almost so,there's, there's like a, like a
phallus and and vulva type thinggoing on there in, in a way.
Speaker 2 (59:23):
We also have fashion from Jean-Paul Gaultier, which
covers the essential bits andthen stops On the women, on the
women, on the women.
Yeah, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
And Although, to be fair, bruce Willis spends most
of the movie in this orange tanktop that is form fitting and in
the back has vents, so it's, Iwouldn't say revealing, but it's
not what most 42-year-old menwould choose to wear.
Speaker 2 (59:55):
In my mind, some of the most damning of your
analysis here is in thinkingabout Corbin's role in the final
moment in the day-new-mott,when Lelou is having a crisis
and it's kind of like justdespairing, like why bother, why
should I bother, saving life?
And he's like no, there arethings worth living for, like
(01:00:15):
love, and I love you.
And then the implication thenthat love is the fifth element,
which means that Lelou isincomplete without this washed
up cab driver who she justhappened to fall into his cab.
What's interesting we didn'tsay this, but I'm trying to
articulate this here what'sinteresting about Dallas is that
(01:00:36):
in some ways he is an everyman.
He is an audience stand-in.
He's not meant actually to beparticularly exceptional, but in
other ways he's completelyexceptional.
He's the right man for the job,for this crazy, dangerous and
high stakes mission we're shownthrough your analysis of
masculinity, he's the only onewho gets it right of everyone
(01:00:59):
that we see on screen.
So there's this push and pull.
This whole movie is about pushand pull.
There's this push and pull withDallas that hurts even more in
my mind that Lelou is incompletewithout him because she is
exceptional In every way.
In yucky ways, we're told thatshe's exceptional, and so this
(01:01:22):
exceptional woman, who's noteven a woman because she's not
human, is incomplete withoutthis washed up, 42-year-old,
who's balding and has bleachedhis hair blonde, I mean I don't
want to be ages.
I'm older than this dude, but hehas no ambition.
(01:01:48):
He's not trying to make theworld a better place.
Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
His apartment is horrifyingly small.
Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
He's not even like it doesn't.
We're not even given this guy,as he's making the best of a not
great situation.
He's just surviving and seemsfine with that, and that she
could be incomplete without thatfeels all the more painful that
she's incomplete.
So I don't know if I fullyarticulated that without
(01:02:24):
denigrating sort of whatever.
A middle-aged dude just doinghis best.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
It's not that it's a middle-aged dude, because
middle-aged dudes are great orcan be, and this is conflating
actor and part but he's 20 yearsolder than her and that's what
feels gross.
Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Well, to me that's actually not it, because he's
not supposed to be Within theactual story.
He's not 20 years older thanshe is.
I think what bothers me is thatwe're given this not like other
girls' exceptional feminism inLelue and then sort of any man
(01:03:14):
will do.
I think that's kind of andthat's not quite fair to the
character of Corbin Dallas, butit's not completely unfair
either, and I think that's whatI'm grappling with with that
pairing and within the universethat was created with Fifth
Almond.
What did I forget?
I'm watching the time andfeeling.
Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
The only other thing that we didn't end up talking
about was there's a little bitabout class distinctions.
That it was interesting,because that's another way that
Dallas and Zorg are opposites,because Dallas is blue collar.
He lives in this tiny dirtyapartment.
Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Yeah, he's hand to mouth, clearly.
They make that clear with theconversations with finger.
Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
And then Zorg is an unrepentant capitalist who is so
bent on profit and power thathe makes a deal with Mr Shadow,
which doesn't even make sensebecause everyone would be dead,
including him, presumably.
So there's that.
And then there's the scene inthe airport.
There's trash everywhere.
It got cut out of the actualdialogue of the movie, but the
(01:04:17):
reason there's all this trash isbecause the workers are on
strike.
So the world of 24th centuryNew York is pretty stratified.
Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Yes, yes, that is very clear.
And also police state in aterrifying way.
That stayed with me.
Yeah, okay, so there's a lot.
This movie has a lot.
We would probably do a part two, because I feel like there are
things we didn't even get to.
(01:04:48):
I haven't seen it that recently,and I feel like there are
things we didn't quite.
I think there's probably moreto say about race than what we
did.
We talked about the fact thatthis thin child is the perfect
being, who is also white.
So, anyway, I'm sure we couldkeep going, and I'm going to be
(01:05:15):
thinking about this one for aminute.
So also just really fun towatch, despite some of the
ugliness.
Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
Yeah, I would love to hear what listeners think about
this movie, about our analysisof it.
Yeah, what do we miss?
Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
How, filling the gaps for us.
You can reach us atguygirlsmedia at gmailcom, or
you can find us on social andpost a comment, or go to our
website, guygirlsmediacom, andgo to the listener forum and let
us know what you think Nexttime.
(01:05:52):
Next time, you're bringingsomething to me, aren't you?
Yes, next time I'm going tobring my deep thoughts about
Michael Jackson's thriller.
Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
Darkness falls across the land.
Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
Yeah, I'm thinking about watching it with dad at
the apartment in Carriage Hill.
I don't know if you remember.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
So I'm going to bring Michael Jackson's thriller to
our next episode and I think youhave maybe one listener comment
.
Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
I have a listener comment from Livia on the Rocky
Horror Picture Show episode.
She writes oh, my memoir ofwasted youth so many hours spent
in theaters all over thecountry with that movie Because,
oh man, seeing it at a midnightshow is so much fun.
Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Yeah, audience participation.
All right, well, until nexttime, em, until next time.
Do you like stickers?
Sure, we all do.
If you head over toguygirlsmediacom slash, sign up
and share your address with us,we'll send you a sticker.
It really is that easy.
(01:06:58):
But don't wait, there's alimited quantity.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
Incompetechcom.
Full music credits in the shownotes.
Until next time, remember, popculture is still culture.
And shouldn't you know what'sin your head?
I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep
Thoughts About Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
On today's episode, I will besharing my deep thoughts about
the 1997 film the Fifth Elementwith my sister, tracy Guy Decker
.
End with you, let's dive in.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Have you ever had something you love dismissed
because it's just pop culture,what others might deem stupid
shit?
You know matters, you know it'sworth talking and thinking
about, and so do we.
So come over, think with us aswe delve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
So, trace, I know you've seen this movie, but tell
me what you remember about theFifth Element.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, it has been a minute since I've seen this
movie.
I've definitely seen it morerecently than 97, but it's been
a while since I've seen it.
I remember liking it a lot.
So, and we've talked about itbefore briefly, when we talked
about different sort of tropesand feminist analysis of
different tropes, and we talkedabout Born Sexy Yesterday, which
I'm sure we'll get into withLelou.
(01:06):
So the things I remember.
I remember Bruce Willis is likehard-boiled cab driver.
I remember Lelou as this littleslip of a thing, in less than a
slip of a thing in terms ofwhat she was wearing, and the
priest who had like a monk'stuncher and he was the only one
(01:29):
who could communicate with herat first because she was
speaking like the ancientlanguage, but she's super smart
so she like picked up on modernlanguage quickly.
I very clearly remember hercrying, as she's like watching,
learning all of the history ofthe world and learning about war
.
I remember enjoying theannouncer, the TV announcer,
(01:52):
chris Tucker.
Chris Tucker playing Ruby.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Rod.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, I remember really enjoying that character.
And Eve Salville very brieflymakes an appearance in this film
.
She was a runway model who woreher head shaved and has, like a
big dragon all the way aroundher scalp, and she was the
inspiration for my tattoo.
Listeners, I have a tattoo of aChinese dragon on my scalp
(02:16):
which you will never see, butSalville was like what I was
thinking of.
Mine is much, much, much moremodest than Salville's tattoo,
but that's a thing that Iremember of the fifth element.
So it's pretty disjointed, Iguess, is what I'm trying to say
.
But talk to me, why are wetalking about the fifth element
(02:38):
today?
What's the stake?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
So I saw this movie in the theater.
This came out when I was inhigh school.
When I was in high school, Isaw nearly every film that came
out.
I was a regular moviegoer.
I really enjoyed it and alsowas troubled by it at the same
time and this was at a time whenI felt like a humorless,
(03:00):
scolding feminist anytime Ibrought up things I was troubled
by, so I often didn't bring itup One of them being that there
are no quote unquote normalwomen in this film.
There are either women whosecleavage is out to here, who are
absolutely gorgeous becausethey are like runway models,
(03:22):
literally, or actresses, orthere are women who are
completely androgynous or butch,to play up that they're not
real women.
So there's two examples.
One is when the military comesto Bruce Willis's Corp and Alice
(03:43):
to say, hey, we need you to goon this and this is Sergeant
Ingborg or Iceborg excuse me,iceborg.
And it's this woman with likePrincess Leia Buns who is like
she's got a shelf of a bosom andshe's like really beefy and she
doesn't speak and it'sconsidered humorous that she
would pretend to be Corp andAlice's wife.
(04:04):
And then there is a veryandrogynous woman who is the
president's aide.
So you see her, she seems to bevery competent at her job, but
she doesn't have a name, she'sbackground, like she's not
sexualized and she's not madefun of for her body, she's just
background.
(04:24):
And so I remember as a kidseeing this film being like why
are the women at the McDonald'sdrive through being sexualized?
Why are the flight attendantsso sexualized?
Like, what are the hiringpractices that we can do to
overthink it?
And then the other aspect thatreally bothered me at the time,
(04:49):
and I didn't have quite thearticulation for it, but my high
school boyfriend, I remember,said like I can't believe that
supreme being has a dye job, andI was like her hair is the
problem you have with that.
That's the problem with thisbeing the supreme being who's
perfect?
Her hair, her hair.
But saying that Milo Jovovich isperfect and her body is
(05:14):
gorgeous.
But holding that up is an ideal.
I have a poster hanging up inmy office.
It has a picture of Medusa andunderneath it says beauty must
be defined as what we are, orelse the concept itself is our
enemy.
And that resonated with me.
(05:36):
I have that poster for the veryreason why it bothered me that
they kept reinforcing that MiloJovovich is perfect, and
specifically when seeing hernaked body.
Because if Milo Jovovich iswhat is beauty, is what is
perfect, then none of us canever even approach perfect.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Even Milo Jovovich, presumably later in her life.
I mean, what was she like, 20or 25, when she made that movie.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
She was the same age as you, so she was 22 at the
time, or 21.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I'm sure we'll get into this.
It's very interesting too tothink about.
You just used perfect andbeauty in kind of
interchangeably.
It'll be interesting to talkabout differentiating those two,
but I interrupt you.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So this movie has always had this weird, like
uncomfortable spot in myliterary DNA, like it was the
way we describe it, thefurniture of my brain, because
it is fun.
It is a fun movie.
Whenever we make paltry of anykind, I go check on good, check
(06:57):
on good, same thing with, likemulti pass, multi pass, you know
, like there's, there's fun init.
I also I didn't even rememberthat this is where it came from,
but there's a point where GaryOldman, zorg, the bad guy, he's
showing off all the differentthings on the, on this gun that
he's he's giving to the bad guys.
I came one of the bad guys Ican't remember what the aliens
(07:19):
were called and he's like, oh,and the flamethrower, my
favorite.
So these things that are justpart of my, my lexicon.
And it is a visually delightfulfilm.
Like it is so fun to watch andpart of it is women are scenery
(07:39):
in this.
So like, even as I wasuncomfortable with the way that
women are sexualized, it looksgood.
I understand why the male gazeis there, because it's very
pretty.
I enjoy looking at it too, butit's, it's a part of that kind
(08:02):
of not like other girls feminismand like, hey, she kicks ass.
So therefore, it's totally okaythat she's useless Kind of go
girl feminism of the 90s that wegrew up with in our teen years
and it's it's worth untangling.
(08:24):
It's very much worth likeunpacking all of the weirdness,
the assumptions about gender,the assumptions about gender
roles, the assumptions aboutother and whiteness, the
assumptions about age.
Bruce Willis was 42 to.
Mila Jovovich is 21 or 22.
(08:46):
Yuck, ew, yeah.
And watching it this timearound, seeing like when they
meet and like he's smiling andhe's got these you know like
laugh lines around his, you knowhis crow's feet and he looks
great.
I mean like I'm older than hewas.
I am now older than he was thenand he is very handsome man and
(09:07):
those laugh lines are charming.
But looking at him, and thenthe camera pans over to Mila
Jovovich and she is completelysmooth like an egg because she
is.
She's like she's this tiny baby.
I mean like she's not,obviously, but she has no laugh
lines because she has not livedlong enough to to grow them.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Really interesting.
I'm sure we'll get into this,but it's really interesting to
point that out when thecharacter is meant to be ancient
, right?
So it's like having your cakeand eating it too.
He's not a pedophile becauseshe's not 22.
The actresses, so we get tostill have our like huge age gap
.
This is the perfect body.
(09:52):
You know fantasy without thecreepiness of you know the big
age.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
He's old enough to be her father.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah literally, Because in fact she's ancient.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
And yet even like, even so, I watched it relatively
recently.
So my family does a familymovie night.
We try to do it weekly and weeach take turns choosing the
movie.
So my spouse chose fifthelement to show the kids
sometime in the last six, eightmonths.
And so, watching it then withthe kids, I was like ooh.
And then I watched it againlast night so that I was ready
(10:30):
for us to talk about it, becausewithin the last eight months
was not quite recent enough forme to be able to talk
intelligently about it.
And I had fun watching it againlast night, even as I was like,
oh yeah, that ain't okay,that's not okay.
Oh, I'm not okay with that.
So it is a very fun movie butugly messages can be wrapped in
(10:54):
pretty packages.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, yeah, well, I'm looking, I'm excited to like
really unwrap that package.
But let's start.
Can we start with a synopsis ofwhat happens?
I'll try.
Let me explain.
No, it's too much.
Let me sum up.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
So film starts in Egypt in 1914.
We learn that there is a templein which there are stones
representing four elements earth, air, wind and fire and then,
like a sarcophagus, with thefifth element in it, which is a
supreme being, and togetherthose five elements work to
(11:37):
defeat an unknowable evil thatcomes about every 5,000 years A
race of aliens called theMandeshuans come and take the
elements away from the temple inEgypt because they do not trust
humanity, but they will be backto help humanity fight off this
horrible evil in 300 years,when it comes back.
(11:57):
So in 300 years it comes back.
The president of the Federationwhich it's not really clear
what he's president of, who isplayed by an actor named Tiny
Lister, who is like six foot sixinches tall.
He's a very commanding blackman which was considered
extremely progressive at thetime to have him cast as the
(12:21):
president is telling hismilitary to attack this ball of
something that's speeding up.
It is the terrible evil.
The descendant or well, thepriests who was guarding the
five elements in 1914 is told bythe Mandeshuans to tell his
(12:43):
successors what to expect.
So the 300 years latersuccessor, played by Ian Holm,
is there explaining what it isand that they should not attack.
What they need to do is get intouch with the Mandeshuans, try
to find the five elements.
The military tries to blow upthe dark planet is what they end
up calling it, or Mr Shadow isanother name for it are
(13:05):
unsuccessful and get killed.
The Mandeshuans come into thefederated space and they are on
their way to earth to try tobring the five elements to earth
, to defeat this thing, and thatship is destroyed by a ship of
other aliens it's likeMambaowens or something, I don't
remember, but they're kind oflike dogfish face things and
(13:31):
they destroy the Mandeshuanship.
There are no survivors, butthey have a few cells left over
from what was in the sarcophagus, which is the fifth element,
the Supreme being.
So they basically 3D print theSupreme being back into life,
based on the couple of cells,and that is Mila Jovovich.
(13:53):
Her name is Lelu.
This character's name is Lelu,whose character's name is Lelu,
yes, which we don't know yet.
She escapes from the facilitywhere she was 3D printed and
ends up in the cab of CorbinDallas, played by Drus Willis,
who helps her despite the policecoming after her.
(14:14):
She tells him the name of thepriest, vito Cornelius, and he
goes to the priest brings her,she has conveniently passed out.
Oh gosh, shenanigans ensue.
The reason for the aliensdestroyed the Mandeshuanship was
because a human namedJean-Baptiste Zorg, who was
(14:39):
played by Gary Oldman, and hedeserved better.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
He had like a weird, like plastic thing on his head.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, and he apparently hated it.
He did this because he owed LucBesson.
Luc Besson, who wrote thescreenplay and was director, had
helped him to get a passionproject done, and so he felt
like he had to do it, and heapparently hates the film.
I don't blame him, because GaryOldman deserves better.
So does Ian Holm, quite frankly.
Anyway, so he is like extremecapitalist, he's only in things
(15:14):
for profit.
He is purely evil.
So, anyway, he wanted to getthe four stones and sent these
other aliens to get them.
They got the case, but it wasempty because the Mandeshuans
did not trust humans and theyentrusted the stones with
someone else.
Turns out, they entrusted themwith an opera singer, a diva
(15:34):
named Plava Laguna, who is goingto be at this planet, called
Flostin for a major concertShenanigans.
I'm just trying to sum up.
Once the president and themilitary understands what's
going on, they want to sendCorbin Ballas who, though he is
(15:58):
a cab driver now retired fromthe military about six months
prior, and he is the best manfor the job to go undercover to
meet with Plava Laguna.
There are several people whotry to take his identity.
There are several differentways, people trying to get there
by trickery and he ends upgoing with Lelou, gets on the
(16:22):
plane because the way that theygot him there is they rigged the
contest so it made it look likehe was the winner of the
contest and so because of that,the DJ, ruby Rod, played by
Chris Tucker, is consistentlytrying to get him to talk and
stuff like that, even thoughhe's trying to do a discreet
private operation.
(16:43):
There's a lot of humor in thatand in the way that Ruby Rod
presents himself and the waythat Corbin Ballas responds to
him Once they are at the hotelat Flostin Paradise.
There is another attack by thesame.
I wish I could remember thename of the kind of monster
(17:04):
headed aliens.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
You want to look them up.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, mangalors, mangalors.
I don't know why I have troubleremembering that.
Okay so, once they get toFlostin Paradise, plavillaguna
is having her concert and thereis an attack by more Mangalors.
They want to get back at Zorg.
(17:28):
They also want to get the fourelement stones because they know
that Zorg wants them.
Plavillaguna is shot.
She reveals that the stones arein me.
I never understood how is shegoing to get them out Like
Musenex?
No, musenex, musely.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Musenex is not, she'll snot it out.
Musenex is Musenex is.
I mean it's a possibility, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Like there's, I mean, and she's not that big and
they're not small stones anyway.
So Corbin breaks her open andgrabs the stones.
There's a shootout.
Meanwhile Lelu is kicking theasses of multiple other
Mangalors who very hilariouslysay it was an ambush when it was
, you know, 120 pound woman.
(18:21):
So Zorg also ends up coming tothe hotel to try to get the
stones.
He sets a bomb.
They manage to escape rightbefore the bomb goes off by
stealing Zorg's spaceship.
So Corbin Dallas, the priestwho stowed away on the plane,
lelu, and then Ruby Rod, playedby Chris Tucker, they head to
(18:43):
Egypt, to the temple, and theyare able at the last minute to
save everyone once they figureout how to get the stones to
open.
And Lelu at that point is likehas given up and has decided
like why is the point ofprotecting life when you see
what you do with it?
And Corbin Dallas is able toconvince her that there are some
(19:05):
things worth saving and she'slike, oh, like love.
And he's like, yes, and she'slike I don't know love.
And he's like, well, I love youand that fixes things.
And then you end with them backin the same pod that she was
3D-printered in having sex.
When the president shows up tocongratulate them, he's so weird
(19:26):
, like, seriously, if youhaven't seen this movie, like
you kind of have to see it.
And Luke Basson wrote itoriginally when he was 16, which
explains a lot.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
All right.
So that was the not quiteconcise summary, but as concise
as one can get, perhaps withthis film.
So you named a few things thatyou wanted to talk about.
I would really love, if youdon't mind, if we get to start
with gender, and something thatyou said which I don't know if
(20:06):
you said it just now, but yousaid it to me before we started
recording was about theperformance of gender, not just
women not just female gender,but also masculinity.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yes, so it is really interesting looking at this from
the lens of what is masculine,because the exception of the
president, corbin Dallas, is theonly completely masculine man
(20:38):
in the entire film.
So early on there is a generalwho is the one who says, like we
need to shoot and destroy this,and he gets himself and the
entire ship killed and so he haslike a kind of like
warmongering masculinity, butit's shown to be dead toxic.
Then there is not going toremember his name the major who
(21:05):
we see over and over and overagain, who was Dallas's previous
commanding officer and is theone who comes to tell him about
the mission.
He's played by Brian James.
He is there when they createLee Lu and he goes to the pod
where she's being created and hechecks before he gets closer to
(21:26):
say, like is that, you know?
Was that safe?
Like.
And they're like yeah, it'sunbreakable glass.
And she punches through it,grabs him by the balls and, like
, brings him forward, breaks hisnose, so he is unmanned by her.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Yeah, Then literally grabs him by the crotch Yep, and
remember that.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Okay.
Then there is the priest, whois considered generally to be a
good person, but he is veryasexual and kind of like lacking
in any kind of power.
He's shown to be kind ofridiculous, like when Corbyn,
dallas and Lelouch show up, heimmediately is like, okay, I
(22:11):
need to, I need to wearsomething.
Like what am I gonna wear?
It's like it's got to lookdignified and what he ends up
wearing looks ridiculous and hisconcern with what he's wearing
is kind of made fun of by the,by the film.
Then he's got his like acolyteI'm not sure what you'd call him
, but this is his like priest intraining who's working with him
.
David, who is shown to be kindof like Weasley, is a little too
(22:34):
strong, but he's.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
He's also shown to be kind of weak and he's the one
that has the monks tonsure.
David yeah, my recollection isthat he's shown to be cowardly.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yes, yes, and then actually I'm gonna come, I'm
gonna do Ruby Rod last on theHotel at Flossin Paradise, we
very briefly meet the head ofsecurity and he and all of the
people who work there them, themen who work for the hotel are
wearing shorts and Like kind ofa sailor kind of outfit which
(23:11):
actually doesn't, doesn't, notmake sense, considering Like
it's a pleasure cruise, like youknow, it's a reasonable uniform
, but it very much makes himlook childlike.
And he is the one who I don'tknow if you recall the
mangalores have the priest as ahostage, with a, with a gun to
(23:34):
his head, and Says anyone wantsto negotiate, negotiator, will
start killing castages.
And Corbin Dallas says, becausehe's the head of security, says
to him like do you want to dothis?
He's like I don't, I've never,I don't, I don't negotiate, I've
never known.
And so Dallas goes in, justshoots, shoots the one in the
head that has the priest in achokehold and the head of
(23:54):
security goes when did he learnto negotiate like that?
So like it's very much Unmanly.
And then there's Ruby Rod.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Wait, what about?
What about Zork?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Oh, thank you.
Yes, zork is also interestingBecause he now this is something
I had never occurred to me.
I read, I read something, andI'll include the link in the
show notes it was a, an academicpaper talking about othering in
in this film.
One of the things that theytalked about is that Gary Oldman
, who was a white actor is, isothered in this film in a way
(24:33):
that is subtly Asian coded, inthat he's got that black hair
that's kind of like Long andlike glossy and then it sort of
flops like, almost like a like Ican't think of what it's called
, but the Chinese.
Well, like cultural cut, yeah,no, no.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I'm thinking of the, the one long grade.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yes, yeah, and that had never occurred to me,
because I just didn't read itthat way.
I Entirely get how it could beread that way, but that it's
just.
I don't carry those culturalassumptions.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, it's also just presented as so bizarre mm-hmm.
And, and he is a white actor.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, and he's wearing like a Coat that almost
reads as a dress yes, yeah soWell, and it's also like his.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
His accent is so weird.
He has this weird kind ofsouthernish accent and Oldman is
British, isn't he?
I don't know, I don't know.
He was in the Harry Potter film, so I believe he was, because I
think that they were.
Really they tried very hard tocast British actors and he
played serious black, so, likethat, that's part of it too,
(25:45):
because that that accent is justso bizarre.
But he wears like you're right,it's something kind of like
it's long and flowy Jacket, andthen underneath of it he's
wearing this like iridescentrainbow tunic, and so he is
another Character who's kind ofcoated as not manly and
(26:05):
dangerous in this case, yes.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
So we have the not manly, who are ineffective and
Cowardly and weak, but here wehave this not manly man who's
actually very dangerous, yes,who is potentially Asian coded
and also potentially queer coded, because dress, yes.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
What's interesting is he and Dallas, who are like
they're they're basically the,the hero and villain of the Film
are never share screen time.
They never act against eachother, they never meet each
other.
Interesting, yeah, which Ihadn't noticed until, like I was
reading about it and I was justlike, oh, that's true.
There's like there's a secondof screen time where Dallas and
(26:51):
his crew are getting in anelevator to leave the hotel when
Zorg is arriving, and so likejust a Fraction of a second
where one elevator doors closingand another one's opening.
So it's interesting becausethey are Paired as opposites.
You know, there is somethingvery asexual about Zorg.
There is no sense of him havingany interest in anything other
(27:17):
than money and power.
And Then he also he has a limp,which is another aspect.
Oh so like the Abelism in theidea that someone who is like a
proper man has a fullyfunctioning legs.
So let's get the Ruby rodbecause he's interesting.
(27:42):
Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
So he's played by Chris Tuckerand In some ways he's my
favorite part of the movie,partially just because Chris
Tucker is having a ball.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
That is my recollection of that character.
Is that he's just having somuch fun?
Not Ruby Rod, but Chris.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Tucker yes, yeah, it was like.
They were like what do you wantto do?
Do it, go, go?
And he's like, yes.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
I will.
And then they were like no more, more, more.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yeah, and what I read was he.
Apparently they had thecostumes, and so the first time
we meet him he is wearing a skintight, like Unitard, like it's
like pants and and like it comesup and like his shoulders are
bare and it's in leopard print.
(28:33):
And Then the rest of the moviehe is wearing something that
you'd wear to an opera, which isthe same sort of like unit hard
pants, but it's it's black,with roses around the collar and
again like his shoulders arebare.
It's very feminine coated and,and Chris Tucker, apparently,
upon seeing His costumes, thathelped him decide on how he
(28:58):
would play the character.
They have also said I've readthat the character was based
partially on both Prince andMichael Jackson and the part was
offered to Prince, and I'llhave to see if I can find this
because I wasn't in my researchtoday, but I previously heard
that Luke Basson accidentallyreally offended Prince at a
(29:18):
meeting and he was just like no,I won't have anything to do
with that, which is how ChrisTucker got the job.
What's interesting?
So he is very feminine coatedand kind of Queer coated in a
lot of ways.
So he's wearing very much so,yes, very much so.
He's wearing lipstick.
He's wearing very femininecoated clothing.
He has a very high-pitchedvoice.
(29:38):
Now, part of that is ChrisTucker has a high-pitched voice,
but he plays it up and he doesa lot of like screaming like
when he's terrified and thingslike that in a very, very
Feminine, coated Dan's Londondistress kind of way.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
He also has three like people who work with him
who are very Queer coated, whohe like how was it?
And they're like oh, it's sogreen, so green, which is his
like Word for good, or cool, andthere, when they can't find him
, they're like very queer coated, distraught yes, distressed.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Yeah, yeah, so so we have that.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
But we also have that women describe him as sexy.
Yeah, he is shown multipletimes to be heterosexual or at
least interested in women,because when the plane is taking
off he is deducing one of theflight attendants.
And then there's another pointwhere he talks about a woman.
(30:37):
She is the, the daughter of aof a king or emperor or
something like that, and he'slike oh, she told me recently
she loves to sing, and then heplays a like I have a recording
of her voice and plays the soundof a woman moaning which so
gross like, so gross anyway.
So he's shown to be interestedin sex with women.
(31:00):
But I found this interesting itis Suggested that he is going
down on the flight attendant, sohe's performing oral sex on her
, and I think that's interestingbecause a manly man Would only
(31:22):
accept oral sex or be interestedin penetrative sex interesting.
Because I like it's and it'splayed for laughs.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yeah.
You know it's knowing thatPrince was the Target for that
role Really changes in my mind.
Like deepens the, the sexinessto all genders, because You're
(31:55):
reminding me of the evidencethat Ruby Rod is interested in
and has sex with women, but likein my memory he's he's just
Like a queen, you know.
Like in my memory he's a gayman.
So If it were Prince, though,like, if I think of that
character as Prince has playedby Prince Mm-hmm, that sort of
(32:19):
Sexy to all genders and like whoknows and why the hell not?
Like that actually Jibes for mewith Prince.
Like the way like in my, in mymind, culturally, the man just
sort of like oozed sexualitywhich appealed to everyone and.
I don't know what.
(32:40):
I don't know what Prince did inPrince's bedroom and it's none
of my business and the and thepersona that he kind of gave us
was that, you know, the more themerrier.
Maybe not all at once, butcertainly there wasn't.
It didn't seem like there waslike a Genital check, yeah, or
(33:04):
at least for the persona, yeah.
So so that's really like Givingit texture in a way that I
didn't have for that character.
So that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
What's interesting, and it's that that's a same
academic article that I readthat I mentioned earlier.
I Coding Ruby, rod, now, andRuby's first name, is, is
feminine and Rod is a.
Is is a synonym for Alec.
Alec, by Coding him in thatlike both and kind of way also
(33:43):
is an othering that has to dowith the way that our culture
looks at black men, in that theyare both, you know, considered
less than white men, but alsohypersexualized.
Hypersexualized, which is alsofascinating.
(34:06):
And then also thinking of thatcharacter, had he been played by
Prince, what that would mean,you know, it brings in other
strange things, because Princelived in this, because he was
black, but he lived in this kindof, since he was Multiracial, I
(34:28):
feel like there there was asense of like, okayness.
In white culture there wasn'tnecessarily for yeah, yeah,
interesting so.
It was very weird watching, likebecause you you also see,
because Corbin Dallas is ouraudience stand-in in responding
(34:51):
to Ruby Rod and and he gets towhat kind of he does?
He never actually rolls hiseyes, but he's basically rolling
his eyes the whole time.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, and he's not attracted to Ruby Rod.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
No, he actually at one point, when there's a hotel
employee, a woman is showing himthe room and she's telling him
he's asking if he can gettickets to the the opera because
he needs to meet with the diva,and she's like, oh, you have a
ticket, and with Ruby Rod, Ilove him, he's so sexy and you
(35:24):
can see him going like what,what, what.
That doesn't make any sense.
It's a really weird,interesting portrayal,
particularly since for so manypeople, he's the best part of
the movie.
Mm-hmm and like there issomething like.
In some ways, I feel like itmade that kind of over the top
(35:48):
queer-coded queen behavior, likewhen he goes and and like it's
stuff like that you know part ofyou is just like can I do that?
I love that.
It's very, very interesting,but it definitely is like Besson
very intentionally wanted toshow that comparison between
(36:14):
Ruby Rod and Corbin.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Dallas Corbin.
Dallas is a real man.
Yes, yeah, and we know he's areal man because he gets to have
sex with the perfect being.
Yes, mm-hmm, yeah, and that'syeah, yeah, okay, all right.
How about, then?
Performance of female gender,then.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
So, oh goodness.
So we talked a little bit in aprevious episode about orn sexy
yesterday, and that is the tropethat Lelu basically embodies,
which is a woman-shaped creatureor being who is unutterably
(36:56):
wise and yet profoundly naive atthe same time.
Lelu is a perfect example ofthis because when she first is
born, basically she knowsnothing of English language, she
knows nothing of what Earth is.
She knows, she does notunderstand how things work and
(37:17):
she is coded as being very goodat something masculine fighting
but otherwise being so fragileand needing the guidance of
someone who understands theworld.
I can remember other examplesof this.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
We talked about it when we did our Wonder Woman
episode, where there's andactually these of you wore in
particular.
I think we get that from bothWonder Woman and from Lelu where
the outsider who's very wisebut naive can look and say but
why would you do that?
(37:55):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yes, yes, and this is a common trope in science
fiction.
It was only named in the past,like 10 years I think, less than
that.
The first one was named in 2017is when it was named, but I can
remember in the original Planetof the Apes, the Charlton
Heston Planet of the Apes, thewoman he goes around with I
(38:17):
think her name he called herViga, but I don't remember for
sure is like this passive,beautiful woman he has to
protect, who doesn't understandthings that seem clear to him.
So, like she's born sexyyesterday, without any skills,
she's just someone for him toprotect.
They're similar things likethat.
(38:39):
So, because of this, lelu istreated like a child by everyone
.
I mean, dallas treats her likea child constantly when she
first gets to the pre, whenDallas brings her to the
priest's apartment, the priestsays to Dallas like please wake
(39:00):
her, but gently, she ismankind's most precious
possession, ew, ew.
And like Yiconna said, humanity.
I mean not that that makes itmuch better Her performance of
(39:23):
gender.
Now, like the first thing Ithought this time around
watching it was they recreatethis creature who is not human
but looks human, and they keepreferring to this creature as he
until they have, like you know,completely reprinted her and
(39:45):
you know she is there and theycan see her naked body and
they're like oh, it's a woman.
And I'm like this is not ahuman.
Why would you assume?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
it's gender.
Well, in 97.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I know, but she's wearing basically just bandages
for the first.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
But even when they give her clothes, it's like a
seat belt that's across hernipples and across her genitals,
right.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yes, that is so.
She's wearing bandages.
I mentioned before we startedrecording.
The costumes were designed bythe French designer, jean-paul
Gaultier, I think.
I think that was his first name.
Who was you know is.
I don't know if he's stillalive.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
I don't know if he's alive, but Gaultier is a major
brand.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Major brand.
Yeah, and in hiscontemporaneous review, roger
Ebert mentioned that he did thedesign and he said, yeah,
gaultier, he starts by coveringthe essentials and then stops.
That's how he described hisdesigns, which, yeah, certainly
what Lilo is wearing.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
But she is treated in a feminine way.
So when David goes out to getclothes for her, he brings back
clothes and he's like I didn'tknow your size and, like you
said, there's it's this asweater that stops right
underneath her breasts and thenthis like orange plastic rubber
thing that like goes over hershoulders and then like connects
(41:20):
down, like like it's like a Vthrough her crotch and then
she's wearing, like these,silver leggings.
First of all, I don't think youcan get back those clothes for
someone if you didn't know theirsize.
Like these, these clothes arenot going to fit if you don't
know someone's size.
So he gets that for her andshe's very excited.
(41:41):
Oh, thank you, thank you, mila,thank you.
And then he got her a it's amakeup box that honestly, I
would love it if they inventedthis, because it's really cool
where, like, you put it to youreyes and it immediately it puts
on the makeup for you or wearmakeup every day.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
I would wear makeup every day if they made that
little box.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
But she's super excited by these things, by
these trappings of femininity.
Well, how does she know whatthey are?
Why is she excited by them?
Similarly, when she is likerecovering in between the hotel
and going to Egypt, and she'sshe has been learning English by
(42:25):
watching these screens andlearning about the history of
the earth by watching thesescreens and she's going through
it alphabetically and she's likeI'm on V, which, for one thing,
luc Besson, really I'm on V andDallas says like oh, there's
some great words in V, likevaliant, vulnerable, very
(42:46):
beautiful, and she smiles.
I know To be feminine.
She is vulnerable.
I mean she's valiant,vulnerable and very beautiful.
Like that says it right there.
But her being valiant is kind ofa it's not a joke exactly, but
(43:13):
they get when they get into theplane.
Corbin says to her like we'renot really going on vacation.
I'm like this is beforemansplaining was coined, but
that is such rinse planning.
She's the supreme being.
And he's like you know, you gotto stay out of trouble because
I have to protect you.
(43:34):
And she's like no, you knowtrouble, I protect you.
And he's like uh-huh, yeah,sure, honey, and even the fight
scene, which is really cool.
Like she has a very, very coolfight scene, but it's one of
those and some of this is just Idon't know like fight
choreography has gotten betteror what, but even 20 years ago,
I remember noticing that theMangalore's wait and attack are
(44:01):
one at a time.
Yeah, and it's just like therehave been much better versions
of that, like atomic blonde,which came out a few years ago
and has Charlie's Theron in itand has similar sorts of like
fight dynamics where becauseCharlie's Theron is another one
who's like just tiny and upagainst these very big men, and
(44:25):
one of the things I liked aboutthat film was the fact that they
show her fighting the way a 120pound, five foot seven woman
would fight a 250 pound, sixfoot two man by using things in
the area Like there's one pointwhere she takes a lamp out of
the wall and uses the cord andlike she fights quote unquote
(44:49):
dirty, because that's the onlyway that you can win if you are
fighting against someone who isso much bigger and stronger than
you.
So, like I think some of this isthat I have, in you know, the
past, so many years gotten likeno, seriously, can you do a
choreography that looks morerealistic and, like you know
this is a ridiculous film.
Yeah, it just.
(45:13):
It undercuts the one thingshe's supposed to be good at, is
undercut by the fact that theMangalors wait and attack her,
one at a time.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah, While we're on that, so she's mankind's most
precious possession.
The thing that she's reallygood at is fighting.
She's perfect.
Let's unpack that perfection,especially vis-à-vis beauty and
ageism and gender.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah.
So the thing that I noticed andI tried to say something to my
kids when we watched it, likesix or eight months ago is that
every time they refer to her asperfect, it is when you can see
her naked body.
It is not about her brain.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
It's my recollection that it's not like while they're
watching her fight.
No, they're lying there nakedlike lying down.
So it's very much about herbeing the perfect object, the
perfect sex object specificallyyeah, now to be fair the head
(46:23):
scientist in charge of 3Dprinting her.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
So what happens?
She punches through the glass,she grabs Brian James, manages
to get herself out and runs andleaps through the wall that is
made of gold, aluminum foil.
For some reason it's seeing herleap through the wall.
He goes perfect.
(46:49):
So it could be argued that itis about what she has just done,
Right?
Except lying there naked.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Except that it's also like oh, now seeing that body
in action, but it's then thatshe's described as perfect, is
that?
Speaker 2 (47:05):
how it's delivered to , the way you just sort of
whispered it.
Perfect, yeah, just like that.
Oh yeah, that's not like.
That's not like.
That's not an engineer admiringan elegant solution.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
So the other times, when she gets changed, when
David brings the clothes that hecould not possibly have gotten
the right, she starts to startgetting changed because she is
so naive as to not realize thatyou can't just get naked in
front of other, in front of men.
David and the priest turnaround so they're not facing her
and David says she really isperfect.
(47:45):
Yes, I know, that's what thepriest says.
And then Dallas has someone Ithink it's his immediate boss at
the cab company it's notentirely clear named finger, who
he has two different phoneconversations with.
The first one is in theestablishing scene when we first
first meet Dallas and finger istalking to him about his
(48:06):
ex-wife.
He's like you're not stillpining for her.
You know that's slut, you knowcheated on you, and there's
millions of women out there,yeah.
And Dallas says I don't wantmillions of women, I just want
one, the perfect one.
And then later on, after he'smet Lelou and delivered her to
the priest, and his cab iscompletely destroyed and he's
(48:29):
lost the remaining points on hislicense which allow him to
drive, and so he's in troublewith finger Finger calls and
he's like I've been waiting allday for you to come for the
overall hall, for your cab.
He's like oh, you ever have oneof those big fairs, just land
in your lap.
He's like yeah, how big.
And so he starts describing her.
He's like five foot seven, blueeyes, perfect skin, or I don't
(48:51):
remember what else is like, andall physical descriptions you
know perfect.
So him loving her is entirelyabout how she looks.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah, eww.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Eww, the other aspect that I did not really
articulate, like it alwaysbothered me that Dallas is in
the center with her when sheactivates the weapon that
destroys the Great Evil, becausehe's like you know, you have to
(49:30):
do whatever it is and I loveyou, and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And so something I read thismorning was saying that we are
left to believe that the fifthelement is love, which means
Lelu is incomplete withoutDallas.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, mm-hmm, mm-hmm 16-year-old male fantasy.
Yeah, yeah, well, this is, weoverthink here.
That's what we do, right?
Yeah, we thought so.
I just was.
I just was reading this articleabout the science of love and
scientists are breaking it down.
(50:10):
They say there are threeelements to love now there's
lust, there's attraction andthere's attachment, because
there's the science of oxytocinand all the different chemicals
and things as well.
Like, we can have attachmentand attraction without lust.
Thank God for familialrelationships and we can have
(50:32):
lust and attraction withoutattachment, but without
attachment I'm not sure it'sactually love and that's what
we're seeing here, right?
Like Dallas has lust andattraction.
Does he have attachment to thisperson, you know?
Or does he even have attractionwithout lust?
(50:55):
Like, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Well, it's a condescending attraction, it
feels like, because, as I said,he treats her like a child the
whole time, and even there's apoint where he tries to wake her
gently, and so he goes to kissher and she grabs his gun and
puts it to his head and says inher language she says never
without my permission.
And so she's holding him atgunpoint and he's trying to
(51:23):
introduce himself like I'mCorbin, corbin, dallas, what's
your name?
And the priest comes back inand so and it gets in between
them and he's like waving at herwith one finger like you would
to a baby.
Do you remember the movieBarton Fink?
Yeah, so listeners who haven'tseen it, it's a very weird con
(51:47):
movie.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
Yeah, weird.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Yeah, so the main character, he is a writer who is
contracted to write a wrestlingscreenplay, and so it's about a
wrestler, and they're tellinghim all the elements and so have
him meet a woman or a kid thathe needs to protect, and the
character ends up having thisamazing experience I don't even
(52:12):
remember exactly how it cameabout and he wrote the most
transcendent thing he's everwritten in his life, and the
studio is not interested.
It's like no, no, no, god, havea dame or a kid that he has to
protect.
I am thinking about thisbecause, basically, what we have
in Leluy is both oh yeah.
And I'm thinking about, like howcommon that trope is that there
(52:34):
is a hard-bitten, you know,cynical man who learns to have a
heart again because a woman ora child needs his help.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah yeah, it's kind of cliched.
Speaker 1 (52:54):
So it's, there's a lot that's ugly, I mean it's
it's and to the point where,like even 18-year-old me
watching it was like I'm reallyenjoying myself.
But oh, yeah, yeah, this is.
This is not great.
Like, why were there any womeninvolved in making this film?
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Yeah Well, we've actually been talking for a long
minute now.
Are there any other key pointsthat you want to make sure that
you make before we wrap us up?
Speaker 1 (53:27):
Just that there is.
I mentioned how casting TinyLister as the president was
considered progressive, but itis also undercut and though he
is not a man like the other menin the film, you never see him
being decisive.
You never see him.
He is always anxious, concerned, confused.
(53:48):
You overall end with a goodimpression of him I have always
liked him as as as president butyou also don't get to see him
being the hero that CorbinDallas is, and in fact Dallas
like hangs up on him at onepoint, which that's that's
(54:08):
pretty telling about who has thepower.
Speaker 2 (54:12):
Yeah, yeah.
And you know, I think thatscene when she says not never
without my permission, I feellike that's another one where
there's like there's a certainprogressiveness in this sort of
consent matters, and then it'scompletely undercut by the
structure in which that messageis given.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Yeah, yeah, in the same way that you know it's it's
amazing seeing Lelu fight, butit's I mean, for one thing, it's
undercut by the fact that youknow she immediately like shuts
down after like Zorg comes inand she escapes into the ceiling
and he's shooting at her andlike, yeah, that's terrifying.
(54:49):
There's also a suggestion thatshe is psychically linked to a
plava Laguna and feels when shedies I didn't necessarily get
that, but that was another thingthat I read this morning I was
like, okay, I can see that andthat that also would be part of
her, her grief and why she shutsdown.
But then I was thinking aboutit this time.
I was like, so she doesn't knowwar, but she knows how to fight
(55:13):
and that's all she knows.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
And like, presumably she killed the Mangalors that
she disabled in those in thatfight I mean maybe not all of
them, but why?
Speaker 2 (55:26):
But there are other, there are other, yeah, I mean,
and that's that, and that'sreally like the tragedy of war.
We're doing it to ourselves,yeah, right If we do it to
others, and that's how we sellourselves on war as well.
Yeah, it's, it's like uh, yeah,I'm not, I'm not saying it
makes sense, it's kind ofcircular, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
It's interesting how we give that naivete is like, oh
well, you know, she understandsbetter than than than we do,
but at the same time like, ohhoney, you just don't understand
.
Speaker 2 (56:00):
Right, right, we want it both ways.
Yeah, that's, yeah, that's whatthe wisdom and the naivete,
yeah, okay.
So I'm going to try and reflectback some highlights from what
I heard.
Number one this is a very cleartextbook example of born sexy
yesterday, the trope in which wehave a unbelievably wise and
(56:25):
yet also very naive woman who isa sex object who needs to be
cared for.
Sometimes we get what you justdescribed.
She's smarter than all of usand, oh honey, you just don't
get it.
We had really interestingconversation about gender.
So both masculinity, where wesee really a range from toxic
(56:50):
masculinity that is punished.
It leads to destruction ofthose who exhibit it through a
very effeminate masculinity inRuby Rod, which is sort of kind
of lampooned.
It's a laugh, it's anopportunity for us to laugh.
And then we get Corbin CorbinDallas in the middle, who's like
(57:12):
a typical.
He's a man, he's a man's man,not toxic, but not one of those
girly men, just competent.
Speaker 1 (57:21):
Yeah, like, and that's that's what makes him a
man, is that he is, he iscompetent and he is reward, he
gets the ultimate reward, whichis the perfect being as his
girlfriend.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
And then we talked about femininity and performance
of femininity.
Femininity which is all aboutthin, white, young, beautiful in
the in Lelu, who we hear overand over again when we see her
naked body, that she is indeedperfect, this 22 year old child
(57:58):
who is actually an ancient being.
We talked about the ways thatothering comes in in ways that
maybe escape notice on firstview.
I'm thinking of Zorg and hispotentially Asian coded
appearance, and also, like theways in which this villain was
(58:23):
othered, with the sort ofpotentially Asian influence and
the way that he looks.
Also the weird American accent,also the ableism of the fact
that this man has a limp.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Oh, one other thing.
I watched it on Amazon Primeand in you know the X-ray they
have like trivia.
Speaker 2 (58:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (58:41):
One of the pieces of trivia is that Zorg is
consistently framed with acircle, whereas Dallas is
consistently framed with arectangle, and I found that very
interesting because to me thatthat seems like there's feminine
and masculine.
And then considering the factthat the the dark planet, mr
(59:01):
Shadow, like the evil thing is asphere, and then the, the
stones are, they're, they're,they're square, they're square,
I mean they're triangular so,but they're, they're square.
So there's, there's almost so,there's, there's like a, like a
phallus and and vulva type thinggoing on there in, in a way.
Speaker 2 (59:23):
We also have fashion from Jean-Paul Gaultier, which
covers the essential bits andthen stops On the women, on the
women, on the women.
Yeah, mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
And Although, to be fair, bruce Willis spends most
of the movie in this orange tanktop that is form fitting and in
the back has vents, so it's, Iwouldn't say revealing, but it's
not what most 42-year-old menwould choose to wear.
Speaker 2 (59:55):
In my mind, some of the most damning of your
analysis here is in thinkingabout Corbin's role in the final
moment in the day-new-mott,when Lelou is having a crisis
and it's kind of like justdespairing, like why bother, why
should I bother, saving life?
And he's like no, there arethings worth living for, like
(01:00:15):
love, and I love you.
And then the implication thenthat love is the fifth element,
which means that Lelou isincomplete without this washed
up cab driver who she justhappened to fall into his cab.
What's interesting we didn'tsay this, but I'm trying to
articulate this here what'sinteresting about Dallas is that
(01:00:36):
in some ways he is an everyman.
He is an audience stand-in.
He's not meant actually to beparticularly exceptional, but in
other ways he's completelyexceptional.
He's the right man for the job,for this crazy, dangerous and
high stakes mission we're shownthrough your analysis of
masculinity, he's the only onewho gets it right of everyone
(01:00:59):
that we see on screen.
So there's this push and pull.
This whole movie is about pushand pull.
There's this push and pull withDallas that hurts even more in
my mind that Lelou is incompletewithout him because she is
exceptional In every way.
In yucky ways, we're told thatshe's exceptional, and so this
(01:01:22):
exceptional woman, who's noteven a woman because she's not
human, is incomplete withoutthis washed up, 42-year-old,
who's balding and has bleachedhis hair blonde, I mean I don't
want to be ages.
I'm older than this dude, but hehas no ambition.
(01:01:48):
He's not trying to make theworld a better place.
Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
His apartment is horrifyingly small.
Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
He's not even like it doesn't.
We're not even given this guy,as he's making the best of a not
great situation.
He's just surviving and seemsfine with that, and that she
could be incomplete without thatfeels all the more painful that
she's incomplete.
So I don't know if I fullyarticulated that without
(01:02:24):
denigrating sort of whatever.
A middle-aged dude just doinghis best.
Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
It's not that it's a middle-aged dude, because
middle-aged dudes are great orcan be, and this is conflating
actor and part but he's 20 yearsolder than her and that's what
feels gross.
Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Well, to me that's actually not it, because he's
not supposed to be Within theactual story.
He's not 20 years older thanshe is.
I think what bothers me is thatwe're given this not like other
girls' exceptional feminism inLelue and then sort of any man
(01:03:14):
will do.
I think that's kind of andthat's not quite fair to the
character of Corbin Dallas, butit's not completely unfair
either, and I think that's whatI'm grappling with with that
pairing and within the universethat was created with Fifth
Almond.
What did I forget?
I'm watching the time andfeeling.
Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
The only other thing that we didn't end up talking
about was there's a little bitabout class distinctions.
That it was interesting,because that's another way that
Dallas and Zorg are opposites,because Dallas is blue collar.
He lives in this tiny dirtyapartment.
Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Yeah, he's hand to mouth, clearly.
They make that clear with theconversations with finger.
Speaker 1 (01:03:54):
And then Zorg is an unrepentant capitalist who is so
bent on profit and power thathe makes a deal with Mr Shadow,
which doesn't even make sensebecause everyone would be dead,
including him, presumably.
So there's that.
And then there's the scene inthe airport.
There's trash everywhere.
It got cut out of the actualdialogue of the movie, but the
(01:04:17):
reason there's all this trash isbecause the workers are on
strike.
So the world of 24th centuryNew York is pretty stratified.
Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Yes, yes, that is very clear.
And also police state in aterrifying way.
That stayed with me.
Yeah, okay, so there's a lot.
This movie has a lot.
We would probably do a part two, because I feel like there are
things we didn't even get to.
(01:04:48):
I haven't seen it that recently,and I feel like there are
things we didn't quite.
I think there's probably moreto say about race than what we
did.
We talked about the fact thatthis thin child is the perfect
being, who is also white.
So, anyway, I'm sure we couldkeep going, and I'm going to be
(01:05:15):
thinking about this one for aminute.
So also just really fun towatch, despite some of the
ugliness.
Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
Yeah, I would love to hear what listeners think about
this movie, about our analysisof it.
Yeah, what do we miss?
Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
How, filling the gaps for us.
You can reach us atguygirlsmedia at gmailcom, or
you can find us on social andpost a comment, or go to our
website, guygirlsmediacom, andgo to the listener forum and let
us know what you think Nexttime.
(01:05:52):
Next time, you're bringingsomething to me, aren't you?
Yes, next time I'm going tobring my deep thoughts about
Michael Jackson's thriller.
Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
Darkness falls across the land.
Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
Yeah, I'm thinking about watching it with dad at
the apartment in Carriage Hill.
I don't know if you remember.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
So I'm going to bring Michael Jackson's thriller to
our next episode and I think youhave maybe one listener comment
.
Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
I have a listener comment from Livia on the Rocky
Horror Picture Show episode.
She writes oh, my memoir ofwasted youth so many hours spent
in theaters all over thecountry with that movie Because,
oh man, seeing it at a midnightshow is so much fun.
Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Yeah, audience participation.
All right, well, until nexttime, em, until next time.
Do you like stickers?
Sure, we all do.
If you head over toguygirlsmediacom slash, sign up
and share your address with us,we'll send you a sticker.
It really is that easy.
(01:06:58):
But don't wait, there's alimited quantity.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
Incompetechcom.
Full music credits in the shownotes.
Until next time, remember, popculture is still culture.
And shouldn't you know what'sin your head?
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.