January 24, 2020 • 45 mins
To continue the conversation around women, vengeance and justice, Anney and Samantha delve into the 1996 comedy First Wives Club and all of its 90s glory.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Anny and welcome to Stuff I've Never
told you production of I Heart Radios How Stuff works.
And we're back with another edition of feminist Movie Friday.
And this one is kind of a departure because we've
(00:25):
done superhero movies and horror. Yeah, so we're trying to
mix it up. Yeah. I thought this would be a
little more lighthearted, yeah, as opposed to the Revenge episodes
that we just completed. And funnily enough, even though it
is more lighthearted, I would definitely agree. We have to
put a trigger awarding in here, right for suicide and
(00:47):
very brief mention of sexual assault. Yeah, you are pretty
surprised at the very beginning. Oh yeah, I thought I
tricked you. I did, I because I've never seen this
until Samantha and I watched it together about a week ago, right,
and I had no idea what to expect. Samantha, what
you said something like it's about middle aged women having
(01:10):
or something. It is definitely one of those yeah up
becoming middle aged women movies. Right, So, so for it
to start in the way that it does with a suicide, right,
was a little surprising to story. True. True, And we'll
get more into the plot in the second UM. But
for basics, this is a nine comedy comedy es um.
(01:34):
I did. I definitely did. And it turned out to
be a pretty good choice of movie because of the
question of revenge versus justice that comes up quite a bit,
and we talked about that in our part one on
women and revenge. It was very, very gloriously nineties. I'll
say that that was a fun little flashback. You love
(01:58):
the nineties. Do you remember the first time you saw this? Oh? Yeah,
so I do not, because it's been a while from
when it's I can't remember who are what, but I
just remember seeing it. Um. But I do remember that
I watched this as well as I'll give their own
UM in preparation to the two sixteen election. Yeah, yeah,
(02:18):
and trying to get all really kind of inspired and
you know, not too deep into it, like dark, but
kind of inspiration level of Okay, we can do this. Yes,
And funnily enough, Vonna Trump is in it. Yeah, we
will discuss that more later. More you reat nice, more
cameos than I did. And I was like, oh my gosh,
(02:41):
she was like and I had I was like, was
that really was? It was? So let's go ahead and
get into it because it is a fantastic movie. To me,
your friend Marissa, great listener. She agrees, yes, I love
her taste. UM. So for plot, if you have not
(03:02):
seen this movie, or maybe it's been a while, which
for a lot of people probably has, so there. This
is a nine movie directed by Hugh Wilson with a
screenplay by Robert Harlan, based on a nineteen book of
the same name by Olivia Goldsmith. It stars Goldie Han,
Bette Midler, and Diane Keaton. Has three recently reunited friends
who decided to help each other get revenge or justice
(03:24):
they say, um against their ex husbands who ditched them
for younger women played by Sarah Jesca Parker, which, by
the way, this was made after Hocus Pocus, we did
ak that up, Marcia gay Harden who was phenomenal, and
Elizabeth Berkley you know her from Saved by the Bell
fame um. And then on the periphery we have Maggie
Smith as an n y C socialite Dame Maggie Smith
(03:45):
if you want to be nasty, and a cameo appearance
by Gloria's Dynham which I missed until you pointed this
out to me Annie and I wanted Trump, which she
is kind of the all encompassing first wife, like she's
what they call her, the original fresh wive. Also, just
to throw it out there, it had a bit of
the women the movie as inspiration. Yeah, and if you're
(04:10):
like me, and maybe you didn't get the title at first,
it because they were first wives. I don't know together
you didn't know this. I don't know why. I thought
that was obvious, but yes, it is exactly why. But
I did not put it together, so I just thought
i'd put it out there. Despite mixed reviews, this movie
(04:31):
became a box office hit, earning almost two hundred million
dollars at the box office, and it definitely got a
cult following, especially among middle aged women inspired a musical
and a television show, and a movie like this is
still unfortunately pretty rare a main cast of middle aged
(04:51):
women about their friendship, even though yes, they do spend
a lot of time talking about men um but yeah,
we don't really see that too much, right. The movie
starts off in nine with four friends, Annie played by Keaton,
Aliz played by Goldie Hawn, Brenda played by Bette Midler,
and Cynthia, who's played by Stalker Channing, who he told
(05:14):
me was in Greece. Okay, um, I was paying attention.
And they have just graduated college and are filled with
excitement about their futures. They share at champagne toast and
Cynthia presents her friends with pearl necklaces. Yeah, I know,
I said, Well, I didn't get that from many of
(05:35):
my friends. That's okay, we don't eat pearl necklaces. But
they get these pearl necklaces, and they take a picture
together and Cynthia makes them all promise that they'll always
be there for each other. And then it cuts to
present day and Cynthia is tearfully gazing at the picture,
clearly implying that they have drifted apart. They have not,
(05:55):
in fact, been there for each other. She's living in
a super fancy apartment. Through series of newspaper headlines, it's
revealed that her ex husband, a man Cynthia helped climb
the social latter married a much younger woman, I believe,
like two days before, two days after they got divorces,
the luckier what yeh wow? Um. So Cynthia gives her
(06:18):
maid her set of pearls and three letters to mail
to her once close friends. Then she puts on this
floor length fur coat. There's so much for in this movie.
There's a lot of the nineties. I guess um. She
gets a drink and a cigarette and then she jumps
off the balcony to her death. There's also a lot
of cigarette smoking. There is very nineties. So at the funeral,
(06:42):
the three friends who are shocked reunite, feeling guilty about
not being there for their friend. They go out for
lunch afterwards, and after a few drinks, they all admit
their lives aren't what they had hoped for, so they
literally just go one. It starts at the day beginning
when they're really nice to each other and just like
everything is perfect, everything's per of and then cut to
like four drinks later, everything spills. Annie and her husband
(07:05):
are separated in therapy, which, by the way she puts
those positive spends everything's okay um. And then actress Elie's
husband left her for a younger actress and she is
now an alcoholic reliant on plastic surgery. And I think
it is really kind of funny because at that point
there was this whole underlying joke about her going in
for plastic surgery. Right, so she was making it even bigger,
(07:28):
very self aware Um, and Brenda's husband divorced her for
a young woman, leaving her in a financial larch with
her son. Right. The three women each have disastrous encounters
with her exes after this this lunch. Annie spends the
night with her ex husband, believing that they're going to
get back together, only to find out that her ex's
dating her therapist played by Marcia Gayharden, and he asked
(07:52):
her instead of getting back together, that he wants a divorce.
Alice discovers that her ex is asking for alimony and
half of their marital assets, claiming she would never have
been successful without him. Brenda has an embarrassing encounter with
her ex when she confronts him at a department store,
and his new wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, an address that
(08:15):
Brenda had mocked earlier, shows up and makes fun of
her her looks and her clothes and her size. Right. Um.
And then there's Cynthia's letter which arrives at you see
at the very beginning, the maid sends it all for her,
which inspires them to form the First Wives Club. As
in the First wife left for the younger, second third
(08:36):
whatever wife to get revenge on their exes and they recoup.
They also involve Any's daughter who is a lesbian but
then but it is fun because she does get involved
to help her, as well as the Social Light new
or Social Light name Maggie Smith, Brenda's mafia connected uncle
and Brenda's boss who is the interior decorator who I
(08:56):
knew from the Perfect Strangers from the eighties sitcom I
Know what I Know and that was the original T
g I Friday lineup. They uncover that bndess X had
committed text fraud UM taking a lot of stolen merchandise
sold it off as his own than any plans to
restart her advertising company by buying out her ex's clients
(09:17):
to finance. This at least liquidates her marital assets. Um
with their exes right to where they want them, the
club decides that they want to be better than their exes.
They want to take the higher road. They want justice,
not revenge, so they coerced their ex husbands into funding
their nonprofit, the Cynthia Swan Griffin Crisis Center for Women,
(09:39):
primarily aimed at assisting abused women. The club throws this
opening party at the Center, and we we find out
Eliza is now sober and she took the play that
her friends had encouraged her to accept the role. Um
Brenda reconciles with her ex. Annie bought out her ex
and then turns him down at this party when he
(09:59):
attend is to reconcile with her. Gloria's sign him is there,
as is Avonna Trump, who says the famous line don't
get mad, get everything. When the party ends, the women
all dressed in white singing Leslie Gore's you Don't Own Me. Yeah,
one of my favorite parts because that's every time we
talk about First Wives Club, that's the song of that
(10:20):
hits in my head. And Marissa actually commented in our
stories thing, do you are you guys seeing this song?
At least she said that, Um, but yeah, it's also
good to know in this whole kind of thing, you
do have different tropes. And we're gonna talk a lot
about it. But there's definitely gas lighting when Annie's husband
A breaks up with her essentially but then trying to
(10:41):
also get back with her and then blaming her for
his failures. But it's really interesting and I we're gonna
talk a little more about it, but it's definitely like, huh,
I see what you did there, We see it, We
see it. Oh, I was so happy when she was
like nah, not getting back with you. It's also nice
to see her get finally standing up because of the crew,
she's the one that kind of just as a peacemaker
(11:03):
and quiet and submissive. Yeah, and we're gonna we're gonna
talk about that um in a little bit as well.
Kind of the I feel like in a lot of
these movies, the characters represent this one kind of magnified trait, right, um.
But yeah, this song you know, only has been stuck
in my head since we've done it, and I thought
it was from Suicide Squad and you kept singing it
(11:24):
from this like, oh, it makes sense that's existed for
a long time. Yes, yes, yes, because obviously he's been
around for a while. But they do it as a trio.
I guess they did it as a quartet because they
had Cynthia with her with them, because it was they
performed it in college, they did, and so this was
them kind of reclaiming it at the end. And every
(11:45):
time we talk about it, I also sing it. Yes,
you do, and I may have sing throughout the movie
as we were watching it, Yes you did so. Yeah.
This song was recorded in nineteen sixty three and was
adopted as a part of the Second Way feminist movement.
It has been covered many a time, as you can
tell because any I was from Two Side Squad, Well
(12:05):
that's where I heard it from. It has not it
hasn't come out yet, but it was on the ads,
all right, the trailers. And we do wanna look into
each of these characters a bit more in depth, but
first we're going to pause for a quick break for
a word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you, sponsor.
(12:35):
So yes, I feel like in a lot of movies
like these are even books, um, the characters are distilled
into one basic thing, the pretty one, the goofy one,
the nice one, and that always leads to a BuzzFeed
quiz like which one are you? Um. Through these main characters,
you can see different stereotypes about women personified, right um.
(12:59):
And I think it also each one of them that
they play is kind of a stereotype of them as
as individuals that they are known for. Beth Midler is
known for being sarcastic and sassy in real life. Diane Keaton.
I don't know if she's ever been like just nice nice,
but she's definitely the quieter, seemingly submissive one. And then
you have Goldie Han who has always been but kind
(13:21):
of treated as a dumb blonde type of thing. Um.
And then again I think often applies with women who
are getting back at people. The Witches of Eastwick, which
we talked about. I forgot about that movie for a
while and I had to go back and read the
plot because it's been so long since I've watched it.
The craft even hocus pocused and oddly applied to which
is maybe I don't know that just happened to be
(13:42):
my theme. I guess. Um it hasn't changed even in TV.
If you think about like Sex in the City and
speaking of Sarah Jessica Parker and that kind of trope
as well, there's four of them. They all represent very
specific types of women. And then um, you also have
the new show Doll Face, which I've talked about for
on Hulu. Um, and I think that has that same
(14:03):
persona as well. You've got the down to eart sassy
one versus the you know, over the type stereotypical Asian woman.
That's the whole thing in itself. I think that's another
episode that we should get into, is why do we
have to represent when women so monotone one dimensionally. Yeah.
I can talk about that for a long time. It
is interesting because you really can't see this everywhere. And
(14:27):
one thing to get really nerdy for a second, when
you're creating a character in Dungeons and Dragons, one thing
they say is pick a treat, and that's your thing.
And that's gonna make it easy for you to know
what this character would do, So it can be something
as small as I'm afraid of blood or I get
(14:47):
not just really easily. It's just funny. I feel like
writers do this a lot, where we pick, Okay, you're this,
it's gonna be easy to write you then. But okay,
let's look at our cast, starting with Anne Keaton's Annie,
who provides kind of sporadic voiceover for the film. Um. Yeah,
and I would say she's the nice one. She's what
(15:10):
I would call the middle child, the peacekeeper. Yeah, yeah,
you said that. I would I was most closely really
into her, Like if I took the test, this is
the one I would get Yeah, I definitely did not
think as I said, I would definitely be bet Middler.
Well I would be Brenda said, not Jewish. But you know,
as there you go. This is the update the reboot. Um,
(15:36):
She's Annie a shy, She's plagued by low self esteem.
She doesn't really speak up for herself, she doesn't really
express her emotions. And Cynthia's letter to her, she said
she most admired Annie's strength and present day Annie's daughter,
yes is a lesbian. Did she like this is the
first thing you learned about her? Um anyway calls her
(15:56):
a doormat, pointing out that she lets her ex walk
all over her. That's why her daughter was so ready
to help her with revenge. By the way, is her
father yea, she just could not stand her own father exactly. Meanwhile, Um,
Annie's mom keeps pushing for her to get back with
her ex and on the surface and is ring up beeat.
I was actually confused at first because I was like,
(16:17):
she's so happy, but what she's saying is so sad.
But she just yeah, exactly, but she plays it so well.
I was like, is she really happy with this situation? Um?
But yeah, she is in therapy, and that's one of
the first signs you get that all might not be well,
where her therapist urges her to get angry and hit
(16:38):
her with like what looks like a toy bat filled
with air or something. It's a star film the kids
played with. It's kind of like the nerve version of
a bat, but it's just a large yellow and blue Yeah, okay,
the safe colors. Yes, um. And at first Annie can't
do it like she does it, but she's sort of laughing.
But then with the continued shring of her therapist, she
(17:01):
snaps and starts whacking at her with all this pent
up anger. That's foreshadowing too, it is. I never guessed that.
Um yeah, she's always apologizing and taking the blame that
I did notice really quickly that she's constantly saying I'm sorry.
Um with the three front when they when three friends
(17:22):
reconnect over lunch, she maintains everything with her relationship is perfect,
even when she reveals they are separated and Brenda and
allies are like the start laughing. That is like, by
the way, would be kind of not that that's not
the nice reaction, but it could definitely sound like that's cute. Yeah,
they Brenda and Elies have a more like oh we've
(17:45):
seen it, you know, kind of cynical view. Um. She
believes her husband is going to get back together with her.
She's super excited about it when she gets the phone
call Um, but yeah, he instead after they have sex,
asked for a divorce. And then her therapist shows up
and it's revealed that she is, yes, the new girlfriend. Um,
(18:06):
the same her this therapist. By the way, I've been
telling her she needed to work on herself esteem, like
m m. So Annie flips out. Her voice gets super
right pitched. She storms out, crying. Throughout the film, we
see her struggling with fear and expressing herself when they
have to escape an apartment via window washing scaffolding. Yes,
that that happens in this movie. She's the one that's terrified,
(18:29):
although I do think that is fair. When the group
drunkenly sings randition if you Don't Own Me the first
time in the movie, Um, she is tentative. She stops
out of shyness when the other two attempt to let
her sing by herself, but she does grow into herself
with the help of the women in her life. When
she becomes a majority shareholder and her husband's her ex
(18:50):
husband's company. She does it confidently. When her husband tries
to reconcile with her, she tells of himself. At the end,
her mom says, you know, you need absolutely nothing, And
during the final music number, she sings it joyously and confidently, right,
And I think that was part of the thing. She
didn't want to be seen, and so when they would
(19:12):
let her beat seen, she would freak out because it
was so embarrassing for her. She wanted to be the
perfect whatever, so she can't seem perfectly. She didn't want
to sing out loud. Um. I think it's interesting because
it is she's one of these characters that does have
the mother who is continually pressuring her to stay married.
It didn't matter what was happening, it's just you should
(19:32):
be together with this man. I think that she mentioned
about her being older not being able to find someone
else she does yeah, which is absolutely kind of a
stereotype of the mother. Okay, so let's hop into Goldie Han,
whom I love. She plays a struggling actress Alice, who
was you know, very very famous for a long while,
and then she comes at an age where she realizes, Oh,
(19:55):
I'm in between, which I know. We've had many discussions
on you're too old to play does, but are too
young to play this? So what do we do with you?
You're just the pasture? So she she once was an
Oscar winning actress, but has now been relegated to be
movies due to her unprofitable age quote unquote, now getting
roles for the mother. And when they talk about the mother,
(20:17):
they say the words grotesque. But that's how he describes
the character Um as opposed to the the young hot daughter,
which YAH know that doesn't happen anymore. I guess I
don't know. I don't know. I've seen many actresses now
who don't age. It's phenomenal. I'm like, how do you
look like this? Angela Bassett she is one of those
(20:41):
has never aged. I can't figure her out. She says
in the movie there are only three ages for women
in Hollywood, Babe, District Attorney, and driving Miss Daisy. And
right now, I want to be young, she says, science
fiction young UM. And the first time we see President
day Last, she's getting classic surgery for what is implied
to be one of numerous previous times Um and her
(21:05):
plastic surgeant says something like, if you get any more
plastic charritory, you're going to be able to blink your lips,
which is funny. Um. She's also an alcoholic and a smoker,
in part to deal with the fact her ex left
her for a younger actress, again played by Elizabeth Berkeley.
Her husband is asking for alimony and half of their assets,
to Alsee's fury, which rightly so. Elise is insecure, van
(21:25):
and consistently drunk. We do get to see her have
phone with taking her husband's stuff, or her stuff, as
she would say, selling for one dollar to any and
giving him half or all in the end because he poudered.
There's a scene after the First Wives Club is formed
where she was working out on a stair climber and
Brenda asks her, doesn't it bother you that you're never
(21:46):
getting anywhere? You climb and you climb and you climb
and never reach the top, so something like that, and
of course she says, no, I love it. I get
this is when I can think, which I think, yeah,
I think a lot of us think that way, because
then when I've been when I used to run, that's
how I felt. But by the end of the movie,
she accepted a role in a play which is supposed
(22:07):
to be really phenomenal, aging gracefully I think, and she
starts dating her coworker and gets sober. Yeah. And I
did want to include that thing about the stair climber
because it does remind me I might have been reading
way too much into it. But like of putting in
all of this work and just constantly keeping yourself busy,
but you're not going anywhere, nothing is changing, um, which
(22:30):
I thought was interesting. And then yeah, we have Bette
Midler as Brenda, the goofy one, always ready with a
wise crack. She is financially strapped after she helped her
husband succeed and then he left her for a younger woman,
Sarah Jessica Parker. That is a recurring theme in all
of this too, is that, um, these women helped their
husbands get to where they are and then once they
(22:52):
couldn't I guess you could say, in a very bad
light use them anymore, then they left them, right, I mean,
essentially they do say this is their midlife crisis. Brenda
is the one that talks about him going through the
midlife crisis with an airing in a car and all
of that. That's right, that's right, And I guess part
of that is Sarah Jessica Parker's character um Brenda definitely
(23:12):
has the best one liners in the film in my opinion.
Goodbye Love Hello Pop Darts was a favorite. Yes, she's resentful,
beauty standard. She complains about anorexia and Bulie macwomen um
able to wear trendy fashions, UM and clothes. She is
the most in your face, She says it like she
means it, and perhaps has the least growth of any
(23:34):
of them. At the end, she does end up reconciling
with her ex after he is contrived. Not that that
doesn't mean she hadn't didn't have any growth, but I
feel like she's sort of I'm less sure of what
her arc was. It's compared to the other the other two. Um.
She is the butt of a lot of jokes, whether
it's her frumpy clothes or her weight. At one point
in the movie at least shouts at her, yeah, what
(23:56):
did you ever win a piating contest best digestion? Um
And although admittedly Alize's plastic surgery is also a source
of a lot of mockery, so it's kind of like
we're making fun of women for doing looking beautiful or
being the dumb blonde as you say, and then not
doing those things and just kind of at the end,
(24:17):
one of the things that Brenda feels like she's accomplished
is that she has lost some weight. Yeah, yeah, she
does say that, which again, yeah, I'm with you. It
doesn't seem like it's a big change as everyone else.
But I think one of her stories were the fact
that they weren't villainizing men. They were trying not to
villainize men. So Morty or someone she cared for and
(24:40):
still loved and just felt like he turned the wrong way,
So that is I think that's kind of part of
the reasoning behind less gross for her um Again, so
we do want to touch on Stockard Channing's Cynthia for
a second, who kills herself three days after her husband
left her and married a younger woman once again had
their a cleer who was in it very briefly. These
(25:02):
were definitely like mainstay nineties women, by the way. Before
she dies, she jumps to her death a Swan dive
flash Swan song since her last name was Swan, and
she puts on all these trappings of her life, like
she's wrapping herself in all the superficial stuff that ended
up being meaningless um, including the fact she's wearing hills,
(25:23):
you know, in her pajamas and her for and her drinking.
Her character represents a lot the danger of defining yourself
and your partner, getting your self esteemed to the relationship.
In this case, the husband she helped build up um.
Apparently her fortune actually helped his business, as they do
say that, and how we teach women that their main
(25:43):
goal is to get married again, very nineties values, that
we were slowly flipping the idea at that point, and
how women's values in their looks as well as their age,
and that without these things their values go down. And
I think a lot of this also, I talked about
how opportunities for women diminished as we age. I'm starting
to get a little anxious about that, and the difficulty
(26:05):
of starting over and the importance of female friendships and
support and agree. I think that's part of the reason
I do love this film so much. It does rely
more on the friendships, and for me, I think we've
talked about this. You and I both talked about this.
We're not relationship people. That's never been a thing for me.
I've never needed to have a relationship, didn't have that
(26:25):
many boyfriends. My relationships did not ever last too long.
But my friendships have been consistent. Um And I'm I've
been fortunate to have really good friends in my life,
and I know that if I need someone, they'll still
be there. Even at almost forty, where we're coming up
on middle age. Me, I'm coming up on middle age.
(26:46):
Everybody else is younger. I can still see them on
a weekly basis. I can still hang out with them
and consistently call them. As where my mother she lost
contact with all of her friends because it was a
different I'm an age and as if I was concentrating
on family, no one had the access like the internets.
Um And I think that's a really different But I
(27:07):
do love that even in the nineties, they saw it
as an important conversation to be had about things all
apart helptentimes, friendships outlast most of these things obviously. Yeah,
um And I'm glad to see stories like this because
we don't see that many of female friendships where that's
like the first and foremost thing of the story. And
(27:27):
for me, my my friendships with women in my life
have been so valuable, like more than anything, and I'm
so so lucky that I have that. UM and the
support is hard to to overstate. And speaking of supporting women,
we did want to talk about some of the main
(27:49):
shops and this movie, including that one. But first we're
gonna pause for one more quick break for word from
our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsored. And we
(28:11):
did wanna get into some themes of this movie, some tropes,
and perhaps the biggest one being women supporting women. UM
and the power in that, because that, I mean, that's
the whole thing, is that their relationships shall apart, their
lives fall apart, but they have the supportive group of
friends who not only are they trying to get revenge
(28:33):
and get justice, but like in the case of Als,
where they are like, no, you should take this play,
they're trying to help each other make healthier and more
successful life decisions. UM. And I love seeing how Annie's
daughter supports her and ultimately her mom does too, that
there's three generations of women supporting each other and all
(28:54):
the stuff that, Yeah, these women are able to accomplish
with each other's help, and they for the most part
are building each other up and giving advice, believing in
each other and helping each other succeed. So that is
the idea behind this, that they can't accomplish their glow
up or groove back, you know, as we would throw
it back without the help of each other, which is
(29:15):
only highlighted by the fact that their downfall, their loss
of self, was partially due to the loss of each other.
I think that's really important to talk about, not necessarily
that it hinges on other people, but the fact that
we do have to have support and others to push us,
and a lot of times it's we do grow apart.
I mean, that's the reality. What the friends I had
(29:36):
twenty years ago I may not have now, but the
friends I've had, you know, in this past, have remained
friends because we were able to grow up together or
change together. And even though things can separate you a
lot of the times, when you find those people, that
core group of people, your people, it is just an
amazing thing. The things that you can do, these things
(29:57):
that you can get support from just being year or
was you know, being able to do this is everything
to do with the type of the people I know
are supporting me or have pushed me to say, yeah,
these are important things to talk about, let's do this.
So I mean, it's a very significant part of who
we are. And again we would have to say this
has to do a lot with privilege. So this was
(30:18):
very wide perspective, obviously white rich perspective, because we don't
have an actress who's going to sell millions of dollars
of worth of things to us for a dollar would
be lovely. I think of us their fortune. But at
the same time, the main idea of it's a nice
(30:40):
feel of being able to see a group of friends
who have been there for each other before come back
together now yeah, and the argument they have. I also
think it was really enlightening because there is a layer
of oh, yeah, we've been trained to tear down other
women because but the things they're picking out on each
other are largely looks based. But like, underneath it all,
(31:05):
there still is a layer of I don't know, caring
because Brenda was worried about um Aliza's drinking, and they
definitely said things that were not supportive at all, but
there there was this sort of at the core of
it that they still did care and speaking of women
tearing down their women. We got to talk about the
(31:27):
other woman, the trip of that, yeah, because we see
that play out big in this movie. And and yeah,
we were talking about this after the movie ended, and
how much blame we could place on these other women.
So in the case of Sarah Jessica Parker's Shelley, she
(31:49):
is a gold digger. She's a stereotypical gold digger. She's
manipulative but unintelligent, the beautiful dits many many jokes play
out at her expense, um as the club, along with
the sociolite Vanilla Goldberg, which is Maggie Smith trigger multiple times, right,
And I think for me, I keep going back to
(32:11):
the fact that it's so hocus pocus like her same
character almost Yeah, yeah, I kind of is. But then
you also have Marcia gay Harden's Dr Leslie Rosen, Annie's
and her exes therapists who claims to be helping with
Annie's self esteem, which to me is definitely the idea
of gas lighting, not necessarily from Marcia, not necessarily from
(32:33):
the therapist perspective, maybe because we don't know the conversations
other than get your self esteem, you need to be
stronger type of perspective, but her husband once again continually saying,
you always do this to me. You always make me
feel this way. You always did it. Uh, and you're
like nobody does not, which is yeah, token definitely idea
(32:53):
of gas lighting the beginnings of and her taking that
blame and her believing that blame and believing that up
until she exits after finding out the therapist is the
new woman and starts screaming her non apologies. That was
a great thing. Yeah, I'm so sorry. I cared for
you and I did. Everything is imported. I'm so sorry,
(33:16):
Like she just inside you gotta love her doing that.
I love her, I love her, I love to have
the therapist is like, you've got to let her express herself.
And then we have the cameo by Elizabeth Berkeley, a
young naive actress, and you can really see the power
dynamic between her and Elsa's ex husband, who is offering
her all of these lead roles. Um she's actually a
(33:39):
fan of the Leason is that her play at the end,
So she really does seem just like a super young
naive and maybe flattered that an older man is interested
in her who is also going to help her excel
in her career and believing that she is. And maybe
she is, but he is telling her she's good at
all these things and if you continue to be these things,
you know, I'll help your care rear, whatever what not.
(34:01):
But she comes in very naively, not even understanding, it seems,
the relationship between Alice and the ex husband, Like she
just kind of, oh my god, I'm so glad you're here.
It doesn't even occur to her that police might not
be super happy to meet her exactly. And I feel
like that's definitely a trope. At the same time, at
least it's not versus woman versus woman, and that that
(34:24):
that didn't make me feel a little better because we
were not talking about them, Like, I hate that whole
idea that when there's a downfalling relationship that it is
the other woman's fault instead of seeing, hey, that dude,
yeah Coleman denominator in this whole scenario. Um, and again,
she is supposed to be sixteen, so you can talk
(34:45):
about the how in the world is she has sixteen
year old as living with this man and no one notices.
That's whole other conversation it is. I did really appreciate
that she showed up at the playing Yeah. I thought
that was a nice touch. Yeah, and she seemed to
be really into it. Um, there is still the sense
that they're playing. These women are playing the game that
(35:06):
the only avenue from women to succeed is by using
their youth and their beauty to attract a man. It's
not great that they play into it and tear each
other down. And one day they'll be competing with younger,
prettier women too, they'll be like second wives. But at
the same time, it's kind of hard to blame them.
And I'm not condoning it at all, but the patriarchal
system we live in, it really does hit us against
(35:28):
each other. I guess I can see. I can see
why it happens. I mean, that's the whole idea of
behind anti feminists in general. I don't think tars sue. Yeah. True. Um. Also,
as the audience, I'd argue were meant to tear down
these women at least a little bit. We're poking fun
at Annie's weakness, Adelie's plastic surgery, at Brenda's rumpiness. Yeah. Absolutely,
(35:51):
it's supposed to be the obvious of why they were left. Again,
something we see in society, we have to find a
reason to blame. What did you do wrong? Why he
leave you? And don't get me wrong, there's definitely two
that tangoes. It definitely takes two to tango. Try that
one again, did it um? And there's a whole other
(36:11):
perspective that we met not see, we don't see. But
then there's also that whole keep yourself together, keep like
all of these things, make yourself presentable, be desirable, whatever.
And I have seen more and more of people flipping
that switch two men or the other partner. And I've
seen people you say that to them as well, And
(36:32):
I think that's unnecessary in just in general, it's traumatic
in itself to try to blame whatever. It's something maybe
you can't help or something that you don't like about
yourself either, it's not something that you want as a
part of the reason that they left. So right, I
think it's the kind of transitions into our next thing
(36:52):
we wanted to talk about, which is having it all right,
which is a huge theme of the nineties for a
lot of women. Another thing, Yeah, because the whole idea
of having it all is it's impossible. It doesn't it's
not gonna happen. Um. They start out so hopeful for
their future, having just graduated college in the sixties, which
I'm sure it was a big fee. But again, these
(37:13):
were very privileged women, once again white women, so we're
able to get their education pretty easily, it seemed, with
their pearls and champagne to celebrate. But then we see
them as adults, and they obviously do not have it
all um. As a whole scenario of the young, naive
idea of what it is to dream for the end
(37:33):
all um to have perfect family lives with the princess
like marriage. Obviously, you see that dwindling away, and then
you do see a lot about divorce raised in general,
and the falling apart of the American family, whether it's
set up by lies that's a that's a movie or
something no, no, but it should be it should be
(37:55):
let's go, let's go right when now um, or whether
it's just this level of expectations that you're not meeting
in front of other people, so kind of like, whether
it's obviously about mom but I don't want to be,
but I'm supposed to be, or I am while I
am a career woman, but I don't want to, you know,
any of those perspectives that they're supposed to have it
(38:15):
all and be all running that perfect home, being the
perfect wife, having a perfect career. Yeah nah, yeah, And
it's it's a double edged sword too, because you're gonna
get blamed for being at work too much or not enough,
for being at home too much or not enough. Um. Yeah.
So they were all successful, they all got married to
(38:39):
some had kids, and they helped their husbands succeed, only
for these husbands to go and go for a younger
woman once they had been established with the help of
their first wives. One tries to keep everyone happy at
the expense of herself. One tries to hold onto youth
at the expense of herself. One lashes out at everyone
at the expense of women. Everywhere, they all define themselves wives.
(39:00):
So when that was gone, after everything, they've given up
the best years of their lives. As is said in
the movie, more than once, they didn't know what to
do with themselves. They lacked purpose. Their happiness had always
been second. To see them reclaim themselves, to take what's
theirs and to find happiness and success in themselves and
their friendships is really rewarding. They can't have it all,
(39:22):
but with the help of each other, they get closer
to having what they truly want. Is that jagline. I mean,
I'm here to write, I can write things, and we
did want to talk about revenge versus justice as well,
because it's interesting how at the end they turn their
desire for revenge outward, they make it into something to
(39:44):
help other people. They keep emphasizing this is not revenge,
this is justice, and their decision to start a nonprofit
is a way of turning their desire for revenge into
justice and honoring their friend that started this whole thing
that brought them back together, which is especially interesting in
light of what we talked about in our Women and
Revenge said about how women are more likely to channel
their desire for revenge into altruistic purposes, right, And I
(40:05):
think there is a lot to be said when it
comes to the female perspective of revenge and justice. Revenge
is than all out, maybe balls out, hell and brimstone,
while justices were storing the balance. I think if we
look more deeply into it, for a feminist take, is
trying to get balanced, as we would say, that's what
we're storing implies like you're giving it back to what
(40:25):
it was. But I think if we know that it
isn't there, there's a tip of the scale that changes
the perspective. And if we look at it for the
first time, it's not that they're getting balance. It's just
they're trying to find balance and put justice into place
because they never had that balance to begin with, right,
So it's a whole different level. Yeah, it was always
an unequal situation. Um. And to close out here, because
(40:48):
we've haund a surprising amount to say about first Wives,
but maybe not, I don't know. We did want to
touch on some real world stuff, including a Vonna Trump,
because after we watched this, we were curious about her
being in the movie and what she said, and we
looked it up because I do remember the whole trope
about the fact that she was the original first wive
and that it was a huge tabloid extravaganza when the
(41:13):
divorce went down and what was happening and and the
new mistress, Marlon Maple's coming in, and yeah, a small
bit of history because honestly, again I forgot about the
whole mass. I just remember it being a big deal.
I was really young at the point you weren't born yet,
probably a deposition relating to the divorce. She accused Donald
Trump of rape and pulling out handfuls of her hair,
(41:35):
and in a book written by Harry hurt Um Lost Tycoon,
The Mini Lives of Donald J. Trump, Ivanna Trump confirmed
that she had felt violated quote unquote. However, in a
statement provided by Donald J. Trump and his lawyers, Ivanna
Trump stated that she did use the word rape, but
that she did not want her words to be interpreted
in a literal or criminal sense, which this isn't very
(41:58):
comforting in any way. And the divorce was great in
nineteen ninety on the grounds of cruel and inhumane treatment
by Mr Trump, so that was actually written into the
reasoning and for divorce. The condition of the settlement was
that she wouldn't talk about their marriage without his permission,
so not to say too much. But this has obviously
(42:19):
a lot of indications of all the accusations we see today.
It's been happening, it's been said, it's been said since
nineteen ninety in official court documents. And I think it
was important to remember, unfortunately, that that this happened, because
I completely did not realize that statement was even written
out as a part of the reason for their divorce.
(42:41):
It was kind of funny at that time because everybody
was making jokes about the fact that Donald was leaving
her for a younger woman, Marlin Maples, and all of
these things came out about how he cheated and what
he wanted and feeling like a failure because I think
this was the beginning of him losing everything and so
again kind of having a breakdown and going for the
(43:01):
younger woman. That's exactly that trope. But then how serious
the situation was at the time, and everybody was able
to disregard it. Kind of forgot about that history until
I believe it was brought up again during the elections,
But it was a small blip that everybody ignored. Yeah,
and then another person we want to talk about very briefly,
(43:23):
it's Harvy Wise Stude, just because it's really hard not
to see some disturbing parallels between him in the situation
with the young actress in the movie. So it is
odd to watch that movie now with our eyes are
modernized and knowing what happens um and it was treated
(43:47):
at so lightly at that point time. Just the both
of those situations were treated so lightly and then today
you're like, oh, yeah it's bad. Yeah. Um, and then
Gloria steinem was I think Gloria steinhum me, come on.
That's That's about what we have to say on First
(44:07):
Wives Club. If you haven't seen it, it's on Netflix. Um,
and we would love to hear from you what should
be our next movie? For finmness movie Friday we're doing next, Yeah,
get excited for that. I'm excited over that one. Um.
But after that, what should we do? We definitely are
definitely gonna come back for Heathers, Yes, and I think
(44:29):
I'm gonna do one over, which is in together, like
all together with the Craft, which is a focus, possibly
because I feel like there's going to be a lot
of inter weaving True and the Witches. There's a lot
of movies we can talk about in there. Yeah. I
guess i'd see that as such a because there's yeah,
they're all women. Yes, interestingly, I love it too. But
(44:55):
in the meantime, you can email your suggestions to you
as at our email at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at
i heeart media dot com. You can find us on
Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast or on Instagram at Stuff
I've Never Told You. Thanks as always to our super
producer Andrew Howard, and thanks to you for listening. Stuff
I've Never Told You. The production of iHeart Radios How
(45:16):
Stuff Works. For more podcasts from IHAR Radio, visit the
iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows
Hey, this is Anny and welcome to Stuff I've Never
told you production of I Heart Radios How Stuff works.
And we're back with another edition of feminist Movie Friday.
And this one is kind of a departure because we've
(00:25):
done superhero movies and horror. Yeah, so we're trying to
mix it up. Yeah. I thought this would be a
little more lighthearted, yeah, as opposed to the Revenge episodes
that we just completed. And funnily enough, even though it
is more lighthearted, I would definitely agree. We have to
put a trigger awarding in here, right for suicide and
(00:47):
very brief mention of sexual assault. Yeah, you are pretty
surprised at the very beginning. Oh yeah, I thought I
tricked you. I did, I because I've never seen this
until Samantha and I watched it together about a week ago, right,
and I had no idea what to expect. Samantha, what
you said something like it's about middle aged women having
(01:10):
or something. It is definitely one of those yeah up
becoming middle aged women movies. Right, So, so for it
to start in the way that it does with a suicide, right,
was a little surprising to story. True. True, And we'll
get more into the plot in the second UM. But
for basics, this is a nine comedy comedy es um.
(01:34):
I did. I definitely did. And it turned out to
be a pretty good choice of movie because of the
question of revenge versus justice that comes up quite a bit,
and we talked about that in our part one on
women and revenge. It was very, very gloriously nineties. I'll
say that that was a fun little flashback. You love
(01:58):
the nineties. Do you remember the first time you saw this? Oh? Yeah,
so I do not, because it's been a while from
when it's I can't remember who are what, but I
just remember seeing it. Um. But I do remember that
I watched this as well as I'll give their own
UM in preparation to the two sixteen election. Yeah, yeah,
(02:18):
and trying to get all really kind of inspired and
you know, not too deep into it, like dark, but
kind of inspiration level of Okay, we can do this. Yes,
And funnily enough, Vonna Trump is in it. Yeah, we
will discuss that more later. More you reat nice, more
cameos than I did. And I was like, oh my gosh,
(02:41):
she was like and I had I was like, was
that really was? It was? So let's go ahead and
get into it because it is a fantastic movie. To me,
your friend Marissa, great listener. She agrees, yes, I love
her taste. UM. So for plot, if you have not
(03:02):
seen this movie, or maybe it's been a while, which
for a lot of people probably has, so there. This
is a nine movie directed by Hugh Wilson with a
screenplay by Robert Harlan, based on a nineteen book of
the same name by Olivia Goldsmith. It stars Goldie Han,
Bette Midler, and Diane Keaton. Has three recently reunited friends
who decided to help each other get revenge or justice
(03:24):
they say, um against their ex husbands who ditched them
for younger women played by Sarah Jesca Parker, which, by
the way, this was made after Hocus Pocus, we did
ak that up, Marcia gay Harden who was phenomenal, and
Elizabeth Berkley you know her from Saved by the Bell
fame um. And then on the periphery we have Maggie
Smith as an n y C socialite Dame Maggie Smith
(03:45):
if you want to be nasty, and a cameo appearance
by Gloria's Dynham which I missed until you pointed this
out to me Annie and I wanted Trump, which she
is kind of the all encompassing first wife, like she's
what they call her, the original fresh wive. Also, just
to throw it out there, it had a bit of
the women the movie as inspiration. Yeah, and if you're
(04:10):
like me, and maybe you didn't get the title at first,
it because they were first wives. I don't know together
you didn't know this. I don't know why. I thought
that was obvious, but yes, it is exactly why. But
I did not put it together, so I just thought
i'd put it out there. Despite mixed reviews, this movie
(04:31):
became a box office hit, earning almost two hundred million
dollars at the box office, and it definitely got a
cult following, especially among middle aged women inspired a musical
and a television show, and a movie like this is
still unfortunately pretty rare a main cast of middle aged
(04:51):
women about their friendship, even though yes, they do spend
a lot of time talking about men um but yeah,
we don't really see that too much, right. The movie
starts off in nine with four friends, Annie played by Keaton,
Aliz played by Goldie Hawn, Brenda played by Bette Midler,
and Cynthia, who's played by Stalker Channing, who he told
(05:14):
me was in Greece. Okay, um, I was paying attention.
And they have just graduated college and are filled with
excitement about their futures. They share at champagne toast and
Cynthia presents her friends with pearl necklaces. Yeah, I know,
I said, Well, I didn't get that from many of
(05:35):
my friends. That's okay, we don't eat pearl necklaces. But
they get these pearl necklaces, and they take a picture
together and Cynthia makes them all promise that they'll always
be there for each other. And then it cuts to
present day and Cynthia is tearfully gazing at the picture,
clearly implying that they have drifted apart. They have not,
(05:55):
in fact, been there for each other. She's living in
a super fancy apartment. Through series of newspaper headlines, it's
revealed that her ex husband, a man Cynthia helped climb
the social latter married a much younger woman, I believe,
like two days before, two days after they got divorces,
the luckier what yeh wow? Um. So Cynthia gives her
(06:18):
maid her set of pearls and three letters to mail
to her once close friends. Then she puts on this
floor length fur coat. There's so much for in this movie.
There's a lot of the nineties. I guess um. She
gets a drink and a cigarette and then she jumps
off the balcony to her death. There's also a lot
of cigarette smoking. There is very nineties. So at the funeral,
(06:42):
the three friends who are shocked reunite, feeling guilty about
not being there for their friend. They go out for
lunch afterwards, and after a few drinks, they all admit
their lives aren't what they had hoped for, so they
literally just go one. It starts at the day beginning
when they're really nice to each other and just like
everything is perfect, everything's per of and then cut to
like four drinks later, everything spills. Annie and her husband
(07:05):
are separated in therapy, which, by the way she puts
those positive spends everything's okay um. And then actress Elie's
husband left her for a younger actress and she is
now an alcoholic reliant on plastic surgery. And I think
it is really kind of funny because at that point
there was this whole underlying joke about her going in
for plastic surgery. Right, so she was making it even bigger,
(07:28):
very self aware Um, and Brenda's husband divorced her for
a young woman, leaving her in a financial larch with
her son. Right. The three women each have disastrous encounters
with her exes after this this lunch. Annie spends the
night with her ex husband, believing that they're going to
get back together, only to find out that her ex's
dating her therapist played by Marcia Gayharden, and he asked
(07:52):
her instead of getting back together, that he wants a divorce.
Alice discovers that her ex is asking for alimony and
half of their marital assets, claiming she would never have
been successful without him. Brenda has an embarrassing encounter with
her ex when she confronts him at a department store,
and his new wife, Sarah Jessica Parker, an address that
(08:15):
Brenda had mocked earlier, shows up and makes fun of
her her looks and her clothes and her size. Right. Um.
And then there's Cynthia's letter which arrives at you see
at the very beginning, the maid sends it all for her,
which inspires them to form the First Wives Club. As
in the First wife left for the younger, second third
(08:36):
whatever wife to get revenge on their exes and they recoup.
They also involve Any's daughter who is a lesbian but
then but it is fun because she does get involved
to help her, as well as the Social Light new
or Social Light name Maggie Smith, Brenda's mafia connected uncle
and Brenda's boss who is the interior decorator who I
(08:56):
knew from the Perfect Strangers from the eighties sitcom I
Know what I Know and that was the original T
g I Friday lineup. They uncover that bndess X had
committed text fraud UM taking a lot of stolen merchandise
sold it off as his own than any plans to
restart her advertising company by buying out her ex's clients
(09:17):
to finance. This at least liquidates her marital assets. Um
with their exes right to where they want them, the
club decides that they want to be better than their exes.
They want to take the higher road. They want justice,
not revenge, so they coerced their ex husbands into funding
their nonprofit, the Cynthia Swan Griffin Crisis Center for Women,
(09:39):
primarily aimed at assisting abused women. The club throws this
opening party at the Center, and we we find out
Eliza is now sober and she took the play that
her friends had encouraged her to accept the role. Um
Brenda reconciles with her ex. Annie bought out her ex
and then turns him down at this party when he
(09:59):
attend is to reconcile with her. Gloria's sign him is there,
as is Avonna Trump, who says the famous line don't
get mad, get everything. When the party ends, the women
all dressed in white singing Leslie Gore's you Don't Own Me. Yeah,
one of my favorite parts because that's every time we
talk about First Wives Club, that's the song of that
(10:20):
hits in my head. And Marissa actually commented in our
stories thing, do you are you guys seeing this song?
At least she said that, Um, but yeah, it's also
good to know in this whole kind of thing, you
do have different tropes. And we're gonna talk a lot
about it. But there's definitely gas lighting when Annie's husband
A breaks up with her essentially but then trying to
(10:41):
also get back with her and then blaming her for
his failures. But it's really interesting and I we're gonna
talk a little more about it, but it's definitely like, huh,
I see what you did there, We see it, We
see it. Oh, I was so happy when she was
like nah, not getting back with you. It's also nice
to see her get finally standing up because of the crew,
she's the one that kind of just as a peacemaker
(11:03):
and quiet and submissive. Yeah, and we're gonna we're gonna
talk about that um in a little bit as well.
Kind of the I feel like in a lot of
these movies, the characters represent this one kind of magnified trait, right, um.
But yeah, this song you know, only has been stuck
in my head since we've done it, and I thought
it was from Suicide Squad and you kept singing it
(11:24):
from this like, oh, it makes sense that's existed for
a long time. Yes, yes, yes, because obviously he's been
around for a while. But they do it as a trio.
I guess they did it as a quartet because they
had Cynthia with her with them, because it was they
performed it in college, they did, and so this was
them kind of reclaiming it at the end. And every
(11:45):
time we talk about it, I also sing it. Yes,
you do, and I may have sing throughout the movie
as we were watching it, Yes you did so. Yeah.
This song was recorded in nineteen sixty three and was
adopted as a part of the Second Way feminist movement.
It has been covered many a time, as you can
tell because any I was from Two Side Squad, Well
(12:05):
that's where I heard it from. It has not it
hasn't come out yet, but it was on the ads,
all right, the trailers. And we do wanna look into
each of these characters a bit more in depth, but
first we're going to pause for a quick break for
a word from our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you, sponsor.
(12:35):
So yes, I feel like in a lot of movies
like these are even books, um, the characters are distilled
into one basic thing, the pretty one, the goofy one,
the nice one, and that always leads to a BuzzFeed
quiz like which one are you? Um. Through these main characters,
you can see different stereotypes about women personified, right um.
(12:59):
And I think it also each one of them that
they play is kind of a stereotype of them as
as individuals that they are known for. Beth Midler is
known for being sarcastic and sassy in real life. Diane Keaton.
I don't know if she's ever been like just nice nice,
but she's definitely the quieter, seemingly submissive one. And then
you have Goldie Han who has always been but kind
(13:21):
of treated as a dumb blonde type of thing. Um.
And then again I think often applies with women who
are getting back at people. The Witches of Eastwick, which
we talked about. I forgot about that movie for a
while and I had to go back and read the
plot because it's been so long since I've watched it.
The craft even hocus pocused and oddly applied to which
is maybe I don't know that just happened to be
(13:42):
my theme. I guess. Um it hasn't changed even in TV.
If you think about like Sex in the City and
speaking of Sarah Jessica Parker and that kind of trope
as well, there's four of them. They all represent very
specific types of women. And then um, you also have
the new show Doll Face, which I've talked about for
on Hulu. Um, and I think that has that same
(14:03):
persona as well. You've got the down to eart sassy
one versus the you know, over the type stereotypical Asian woman.
That's the whole thing in itself. I think that's another
episode that we should get into, is why do we
have to represent when women so monotone one dimensionally. Yeah.
I can talk about that for a long time. It
is interesting because you really can't see this everywhere. And
(14:27):
one thing to get really nerdy for a second, when
you're creating a character in Dungeons and Dragons, one thing
they say is pick a treat, and that's your thing.
And that's gonna make it easy for you to know
what this character would do, So it can be something
as small as I'm afraid of blood or I get
(14:47):
not just really easily. It's just funny. I feel like
writers do this a lot, where we pick, Okay, you're this,
it's gonna be easy to write you then. But okay,
let's look at our cast, starting with Anne Keaton's Annie,
who provides kind of sporadic voiceover for the film. Um. Yeah,
and I would say she's the nice one. She's what
(15:10):
I would call the middle child, the peacekeeper. Yeah, yeah,
you said that. I would I was most closely really
into her, Like if I took the test, this is
the one I would get Yeah, I definitely did not
think as I said, I would definitely be bet Middler.
Well I would be Brenda said, not Jewish. But you know,
as there you go. This is the update the reboot. Um,
(15:36):
She's Annie a shy, She's plagued by low self esteem.
She doesn't really speak up for herself, she doesn't really
express her emotions. And Cynthia's letter to her, she said
she most admired Annie's strength and present day Annie's daughter,
yes is a lesbian. Did she like this is the
first thing you learned about her? Um anyway calls her
(15:56):
a doormat, pointing out that she lets her ex walk
all over her. That's why her daughter was so ready
to help her with revenge. By the way, is her
father yea, she just could not stand her own father exactly. Meanwhile, Um,
Annie's mom keeps pushing for her to get back with
her ex and on the surface and is ring up beeat.
I was actually confused at first because I was like,
(16:17):
she's so happy, but what she's saying is so sad.
But she just yeah, exactly, but she plays it so well.
I was like, is she really happy with this situation? Um?
But yeah, she is in therapy, and that's one of
the first signs you get that all might not be well,
where her therapist urges her to get angry and hit
(16:38):
her with like what looks like a toy bat filled
with air or something. It's a star film the kids
played with. It's kind of like the nerve version of
a bat, but it's just a large yellow and blue Yeah, okay,
the safe colors. Yes, um. And at first Annie can't
do it like she does it, but she's sort of laughing.
But then with the continued shring of her therapist, she
(17:01):
snaps and starts whacking at her with all this pent
up anger. That's foreshadowing too, it is. I never guessed that.
Um yeah, she's always apologizing and taking the blame that
I did notice really quickly that she's constantly saying I'm sorry.
Um with the three front when they when three friends
(17:22):
reconnect over lunch, she maintains everything with her relationship is perfect,
even when she reveals they are separated and Brenda and
allies are like the start laughing. That is like, by
the way, would be kind of not that that's not
the nice reaction, but it could definitely sound like that's cute. Yeah,
they Brenda and Elies have a more like oh we've
(17:45):
seen it, you know, kind of cynical view. Um. She
believes her husband is going to get back together with her.
She's super excited about it when she gets the phone
call Um, but yeah, he instead after they have sex,
asked for a divorce. And then her therapist shows up
and it's revealed that she is, yes, the new girlfriend. Um,
(18:06):
the same her this therapist. By the way, I've been
telling her she needed to work on herself esteem, like
m m. So Annie flips out. Her voice gets super
right pitched. She storms out, crying. Throughout the film, we
see her struggling with fear and expressing herself when they
have to escape an apartment via window washing scaffolding. Yes,
that that happens in this movie. She's the one that's terrified,
(18:29):
although I do think that is fair. When the group
drunkenly sings randition if you Don't Own Me the first
time in the movie, Um, she is tentative. She stops
out of shyness when the other two attempt to let
her sing by herself, but she does grow into herself
with the help of the women in her life. When
she becomes a majority shareholder and her husband's her ex
(18:50):
husband's company. She does it confidently. When her husband tries
to reconcile with her, she tells of himself. At the end,
her mom says, you know, you need absolutely nothing, And
during the final music number, she sings it joyously and confidently, right,
And I think that was part of the thing. She
didn't want to be seen, and so when they would
(19:12):
let her beat seen, she would freak out because it
was so embarrassing for her. She wanted to be the
perfect whatever, so she can't seem perfectly. She didn't want
to sing out loud. Um. I think it's interesting because
it is she's one of these characters that does have
the mother who is continually pressuring her to stay married.
It didn't matter what was happening, it's just you should
(19:32):
be together with this man. I think that she mentioned
about her being older not being able to find someone
else she does yeah, which is absolutely kind of a
stereotype of the mother. Okay, so let's hop into Goldie Han,
whom I love. She plays a struggling actress Alice, who
was you know, very very famous for a long while,
and then she comes at an age where she realizes, Oh,
(19:55):
I'm in between, which I know. We've had many discussions
on you're too old to play does, but are too
young to play this? So what do we do with you?
You're just the pasture? So she she once was an
Oscar winning actress, but has now been relegated to be
movies due to her unprofitable age quote unquote, now getting
roles for the mother. And when they talk about the mother,
(20:17):
they say the words grotesque. But that's how he describes
the character Um as opposed to the the young hot daughter,
which YAH know that doesn't happen anymore. I guess I
don't know. I don't know. I've seen many actresses now
who don't age. It's phenomenal. I'm like, how do you
look like this? Angela Bassett she is one of those
(20:41):
has never aged. I can't figure her out. She says
in the movie there are only three ages for women
in Hollywood, Babe, District Attorney, and driving Miss Daisy. And
right now, I want to be young, she says, science
fiction young UM. And the first time we see President
day Last, she's getting classic surgery for what is implied
to be one of numerous previous times Um and her
(21:05):
plastic surgeant says something like, if you get any more
plastic charritory, you're going to be able to blink your lips,
which is funny. Um. She's also an alcoholic and a smoker,
in part to deal with the fact her ex left
her for a younger actress, again played by Elizabeth Berkeley.
Her husband is asking for alimony and half of their assets,
to Alsee's fury, which rightly so. Elise is insecure, van
(21:25):
and consistently drunk. We do get to see her have
phone with taking her husband's stuff, or her stuff, as
she would say, selling for one dollar to any and
giving him half or all in the end because he poudered.
There's a scene after the First Wives Club is formed
where she was working out on a stair climber and
Brenda asks her, doesn't it bother you that you're never
(21:46):
getting anywhere? You climb and you climb and you climb
and never reach the top, so something like that, and
of course she says, no, I love it. I get
this is when I can think, which I think, yeah,
I think a lot of us think that way, because
then when I've been when I used to run, that's
how I felt. But by the end of the movie,
she accepted a role in a play which is supposed
(22:07):
to be really phenomenal, aging gracefully I think, and she
starts dating her coworker and gets sober. Yeah. And I
did want to include that thing about the stair climber
because it does remind me I might have been reading
way too much into it. But like of putting in
all of this work and just constantly keeping yourself busy,
but you're not going anywhere, nothing is changing, um, which
(22:30):
I thought was interesting. And then yeah, we have Bette
Midler as Brenda, the goofy one, always ready with a
wise crack. She is financially strapped after she helped her
husband succeed and then he left her for a younger woman,
Sarah Jessica Parker. That is a recurring theme in all
of this too, is that, um, these women helped their
husbands get to where they are and then once they
(22:52):
couldn't I guess you could say, in a very bad
light use them anymore, then they left them, right, I mean,
essentially they do say this is their midlife crisis. Brenda
is the one that talks about him going through the
midlife crisis with an airing in a car and all
of that. That's right, that's right, And I guess part
of that is Sarah Jessica Parker's character um Brenda definitely
(23:12):
has the best one liners in the film in my opinion.
Goodbye Love Hello Pop Darts was a favorite. Yes, she's resentful,
beauty standard. She complains about anorexia and Bulie macwomen um
able to wear trendy fashions, UM and clothes. She is
the most in your face, She says it like she
means it, and perhaps has the least growth of any
(23:34):
of them. At the end, she does end up reconciling
with her ex after he is contrived. Not that that
doesn't mean she hadn't didn't have any growth, but I
feel like she's sort of I'm less sure of what
her arc was. It's compared to the other the other two. Um.
She is the butt of a lot of jokes, whether
it's her frumpy clothes or her weight. At one point
in the movie at least shouts at her, yeah, what
(23:56):
did you ever win a piating contest best digestion? Um
And although admittedly Alize's plastic surgery is also a source
of a lot of mockery, so it's kind of like
we're making fun of women for doing looking beautiful or
being the dumb blonde as you say, and then not
doing those things and just kind of at the end,
(24:17):
one of the things that Brenda feels like she's accomplished
is that she has lost some weight. Yeah, yeah, she
does say that, which again, yeah, I'm with you. It
doesn't seem like it's a big change as everyone else.
But I think one of her stories were the fact
that they weren't villainizing men. They were trying not to
villainize men. So Morty or someone she cared for and
(24:40):
still loved and just felt like he turned the wrong way,
So that is I think that's kind of part of
the reasoning behind less gross for her um Again, so
we do want to touch on Stockard Channing's Cynthia for
a second, who kills herself three days after her husband
left her and married a younger woman once again had
their a cleer who was in it very briefly. These
(25:02):
were definitely like mainstay nineties women, by the way. Before
she dies, she jumps to her death a Swan dive
flash Swan song since her last name was Swan, and
she puts on all these trappings of her life, like
she's wrapping herself in all the superficial stuff that ended
up being meaningless um, including the fact she's wearing hills,
(25:23):
you know, in her pajamas and her for and her drinking.
Her character represents a lot the danger of defining yourself
and your partner, getting your self esteemed to the relationship.
In this case, the husband she helped build up um.
Apparently her fortune actually helped his business, as they do
say that, and how we teach women that their main
(25:43):
goal is to get married again, very nineties values, that
we were slowly flipping the idea at that point, and
how women's values in their looks as well as their age,
and that without these things their values go down. And
I think a lot of this also, I talked about
how opportunities for women diminished as we age. I'm starting
to get a little anxious about that, and the difficulty
(26:05):
of starting over and the importance of female friendships and
support and agree. I think that's part of the reason
I do love this film so much. It does rely
more on the friendships, and for me, I think we've
talked about this. You and I both talked about this.
We're not relationship people. That's never been a thing for me.
I've never needed to have a relationship, didn't have that
(26:25):
many boyfriends. My relationships did not ever last too long.
But my friendships have been consistent. Um And I'm I've
been fortunate to have really good friends in my life,
and I know that if I need someone, they'll still
be there. Even at almost forty, where we're coming up
on middle age. Me, I'm coming up on middle age.
(26:46):
Everybody else is younger. I can still see them on
a weekly basis. I can still hang out with them
and consistently call them. As where my mother she lost
contact with all of her friends because it was a
different I'm an age and as if I was concentrating
on family, no one had the access like the internets.
Um And I think that's a really different But I
(27:07):
do love that even in the nineties, they saw it
as an important conversation to be had about things all
apart helptentimes, friendships outlast most of these things obviously. Yeah,
um And I'm glad to see stories like this because
we don't see that many of female friendships where that's
like the first and foremost thing of the story. And
(27:27):
for me, my my friendships with women in my life
have been so valuable, like more than anything, and I'm
so so lucky that I have that. UM and the
support is hard to to overstate. And speaking of supporting women,
we did want to talk about some of the main
(27:49):
shops and this movie, including that one. But first we're
gonna pause for one more quick break for word from
our sponsor, and we're back, Thank you sponsored. And we
(28:11):
did wanna get into some themes of this movie, some tropes,
and perhaps the biggest one being women supporting women. UM
and the power in that, because that, I mean, that's
the whole thing, is that their relationships shall apart, their
lives fall apart, but they have the supportive group of
friends who not only are they trying to get revenge
(28:33):
and get justice, but like in the case of Als,
where they are like, no, you should take this play,
they're trying to help each other make healthier and more
successful life decisions. UM. And I love seeing how Annie's
daughter supports her and ultimately her mom does too, that
there's three generations of women supporting each other and all
(28:54):
the stuff that, Yeah, these women are able to accomplish
with each other's help, and they for the most part
are building each other up and giving advice, believing in
each other and helping each other succeed. So that is
the idea behind this, that they can't accomplish their glow
up or groove back, you know, as we would throw
it back without the help of each other, which is
(29:15):
only highlighted by the fact that their downfall, their loss
of self, was partially due to the loss of each other.
I think that's really important to talk about, not necessarily
that it hinges on other people, but the fact that
we do have to have support and others to push us,
and a lot of times it's we do grow apart.
I mean, that's the reality. What the friends I had
(29:36):
twenty years ago I may not have now, but the
friends I've had, you know, in this past, have remained
friends because we were able to grow up together or
change together. And even though things can separate you a
lot of the times, when you find those people, that
core group of people, your people, it is just an
amazing thing. The things that you can do, these things
(29:57):
that you can get support from just being year or
was you know, being able to do this is everything
to do with the type of the people I know
are supporting me or have pushed me to say, yeah,
these are important things to talk about, let's do this.
So I mean, it's a very significant part of who
we are. And again we would have to say this
has to do a lot with privilege. So this was
(30:18):
very wide perspective, obviously white rich perspective, because we don't
have an actress who's going to sell millions of dollars
of worth of things to us for a dollar would
be lovely. I think of us their fortune. But at
the same time, the main idea of it's a nice
(30:40):
feel of being able to see a group of friends
who have been there for each other before come back
together now yeah, and the argument they have. I also
think it was really enlightening because there is a layer
of oh, yeah, we've been trained to tear down other
women because but the things they're picking out on each
other are largely looks based. But like, underneath it all,
(31:05):
there still is a layer of I don't know, caring
because Brenda was worried about um Aliza's drinking, and they
definitely said things that were not supportive at all, but
there there was this sort of at the core of
it that they still did care and speaking of women
tearing down their women. We got to talk about the
(31:27):
other woman, the trip of that, yeah, because we see
that play out big in this movie. And and yeah,
we were talking about this after the movie ended, and
how much blame we could place on these other women.
So in the case of Sarah Jessica Parker's Shelley, she
(31:49):
is a gold digger. She's a stereotypical gold digger. She's
manipulative but unintelligent, the beautiful dits many many jokes play
out at her expense, um as the club, along with
the sociolite Vanilla Goldberg, which is Maggie Smith trigger multiple times, right,
And I think for me, I keep going back to
(32:11):
the fact that it's so hocus pocus like her same
character almost Yeah, yeah, I kind of is. But then
you also have Marcia gay Harden's Dr Leslie Rosen, Annie's
and her exes therapists who claims to be helping with
Annie's self esteem, which to me is definitely the idea
of gas lighting, not necessarily from Marcia, not necessarily from
(32:33):
the therapist perspective, maybe because we don't know the conversations
other than get your self esteem, you need to be
stronger type of perspective, but her husband once again continually saying,
you always do this to me. You always make me
feel this way. You always did it. Uh, and you're
like nobody does not, which is yeah, token definitely idea
(32:53):
of gas lighting the beginnings of and her taking that
blame and her believing that blame and believing that up
until she exits after finding out the therapist is the
new woman and starts screaming her non apologies. That was
a great thing. Yeah, I'm so sorry. I cared for
you and I did. Everything is imported. I'm so sorry,
(33:16):
Like she just inside you gotta love her doing that.
I love her, I love her, I love to have
the therapist is like, you've got to let her express herself.
And then we have the cameo by Elizabeth Berkeley, a
young naive actress, and you can really see the power
dynamic between her and Elsa's ex husband, who is offering
her all of these lead roles. Um she's actually a
(33:39):
fan of the Leason is that her play at the end,
So she really does seem just like a super young
naive and maybe flattered that an older man is interested
in her who is also going to help her excel
in her career and believing that she is. And maybe
she is, but he is telling her she's good at
all these things and if you continue to be these things,
you know, I'll help your care rear, whatever what not.
(34:01):
But she comes in very naively, not even understanding, it seems,
the relationship between Alice and the ex husband, Like she
just kind of, oh my god, I'm so glad you're here.
It doesn't even occur to her that police might not
be super happy to meet her exactly. And I feel
like that's definitely a trope. At the same time, at
least it's not versus woman versus woman, and that that
(34:24):
that didn't make me feel a little better because we
were not talking about them, Like, I hate that whole
idea that when there's a downfalling relationship that it is
the other woman's fault instead of seeing, hey, that dude,
yeah Coleman denominator in this whole scenario. Um, and again,
she is supposed to be sixteen, so you can talk
(34:45):
about the how in the world is she has sixteen
year old as living with this man and no one notices.
That's whole other conversation it is. I did really appreciate
that she showed up at the playing Yeah. I thought
that was a nice touch. Yeah, and she seemed to
be really into it. Um, there is still the sense
that they're playing. These women are playing the game that
(35:06):
the only avenue from women to succeed is by using
their youth and their beauty to attract a man. It's
not great that they play into it and tear each
other down. And one day they'll be competing with younger,
prettier women too, they'll be like second wives. But at
the same time, it's kind of hard to blame them.
And I'm not condoning it at all, but the patriarchal
system we live in, it really does hit us against
(35:28):
each other. I guess I can see. I can see
why it happens. I mean, that's the whole idea of
behind anti feminists in general. I don't think tars sue. Yeah. True. Um. Also,
as the audience, I'd argue were meant to tear down
these women at least a little bit. We're poking fun
at Annie's weakness, Adelie's plastic surgery, at Brenda's rumpiness. Yeah. Absolutely,
(35:51):
it's supposed to be the obvious of why they were left. Again,
something we see in society, we have to find a
reason to blame. What did you do wrong? Why he
leave you? And don't get me wrong, there's definitely two
that tangoes. It definitely takes two to tango. Try that
one again, did it um? And there's a whole other
(36:11):
perspective that we met not see, we don't see. But
then there's also that whole keep yourself together, keep like
all of these things, make yourself presentable, be desirable, whatever.
And I have seen more and more of people flipping
that switch two men or the other partner. And I've
seen people you say that to them as well, And
(36:32):
I think that's unnecessary in just in general, it's traumatic
in itself to try to blame whatever. It's something maybe
you can't help or something that you don't like about
yourself either, it's not something that you want as a
part of the reason that they left. So right, I
think it's the kind of transitions into our next thing
(36:52):
we wanted to talk about, which is having it all right,
which is a huge theme of the nineties for a
lot of women. Another thing, Yeah, because the whole idea
of having it all is it's impossible. It doesn't it's
not gonna happen. Um. They start out so hopeful for
their future, having just graduated college in the sixties, which
I'm sure it was a big fee. But again, these
(37:13):
were very privileged women, once again white women, so we're
able to get their education pretty easily, it seemed, with
their pearls and champagne to celebrate. But then we see
them as adults, and they obviously do not have it
all um. As a whole scenario of the young, naive
idea of what it is to dream for the end
(37:33):
all um to have perfect family lives with the princess
like marriage. Obviously, you see that dwindling away, and then
you do see a lot about divorce raised in general,
and the falling apart of the American family, whether it's
set up by lies that's a that's a movie or
something no, no, but it should be it should be
(37:55):
let's go, let's go right when now um, or whether
it's just this level of expectations that you're not meeting
in front of other people, so kind of like, whether
it's obviously about mom but I don't want to be,
but I'm supposed to be, or I am while I
am a career woman, but I don't want to, you know,
any of those perspectives that they're supposed to have it
(38:15):
all and be all running that perfect home, being the
perfect wife, having a perfect career. Yeah nah, yeah, And
it's it's a double edged sword too, because you're gonna
get blamed for being at work too much or not enough,
for being at home too much or not enough. Um. Yeah.
So they were all successful, they all got married to
(38:39):
some had kids, and they helped their husbands succeed, only
for these husbands to go and go for a younger
woman once they had been established with the help of
their first wives. One tries to keep everyone happy at
the expense of herself. One tries to hold onto youth
at the expense of herself. One lashes out at everyone
at the expense of women. Everywhere, they all define themselves wives.
(39:00):
So when that was gone, after everything, they've given up
the best years of their lives. As is said in
the movie, more than once, they didn't know what to
do with themselves. They lacked purpose. Their happiness had always
been second. To see them reclaim themselves, to take what's
theirs and to find happiness and success in themselves and
their friendships is really rewarding. They can't have it all,
(39:22):
but with the help of each other, they get closer
to having what they truly want. Is that jagline. I mean,
I'm here to write, I can write things, and we
did want to talk about revenge versus justice as well,
because it's interesting how at the end they turn their
desire for revenge outward, they make it into something to
(39:44):
help other people. They keep emphasizing this is not revenge,
this is justice, and their decision to start a nonprofit
is a way of turning their desire for revenge into
justice and honoring their friend that started this whole thing
that brought them back together, which is especially interesting in
light of what we talked about in our Women and
Revenge said about how women are more likely to channel
their desire for revenge into altruistic purposes, right, And I
(40:05):
think there is a lot to be said when it
comes to the female perspective of revenge and justice. Revenge
is than all out, maybe balls out, hell and brimstone,
while justices were storing the balance. I think if we
look more deeply into it, for a feminist take, is
trying to get balanced, as we would say, that's what
we're storing implies like you're giving it back to what
(40:25):
it was. But I think if we know that it
isn't there, there's a tip of the scale that changes
the perspective. And if we look at it for the
first time, it's not that they're getting balance. It's just
they're trying to find balance and put justice into place
because they never had that balance to begin with, right,
So it's a whole different level. Yeah, it was always
an unequal situation. Um. And to close out here, because
(40:48):
we've haund a surprising amount to say about first Wives,
but maybe not, I don't know. We did want to
touch on some real world stuff, including a Vonna Trump,
because after we watched this, we were curious about her
being in the movie and what she said, and we
looked it up because I do remember the whole trope
about the fact that she was the original first wive
and that it was a huge tabloid extravaganza when the
(41:13):
divorce went down and what was happening and and the
new mistress, Marlon Maple's coming in, and yeah, a small
bit of history because honestly, again I forgot about the
whole mass. I just remember it being a big deal.
I was really young at the point you weren't born yet,
probably a deposition relating to the divorce. She accused Donald
Trump of rape and pulling out handfuls of her hair,
(41:35):
and in a book written by Harry hurt Um Lost Tycoon,
The Mini Lives of Donald J. Trump, Ivanna Trump confirmed
that she had felt violated quote unquote. However, in a
statement provided by Donald J. Trump and his lawyers, Ivanna
Trump stated that she did use the word rape, but
that she did not want her words to be interpreted
in a literal or criminal sense, which this isn't very
(41:58):
comforting in any way. And the divorce was great in
nineteen ninety on the grounds of cruel and inhumane treatment
by Mr Trump, so that was actually written into the
reasoning and for divorce. The condition of the settlement was
that she wouldn't talk about their marriage without his permission,
so not to say too much. But this has obviously
(42:19):
a lot of indications of all the accusations we see today.
It's been happening, it's been said, it's been said since
nineteen ninety in official court documents. And I think it
was important to remember, unfortunately, that that this happened, because
I completely did not realize that statement was even written
out as a part of the reason for their divorce.
(42:41):
It was kind of funny at that time because everybody
was making jokes about the fact that Donald was leaving
her for a younger woman, Marlin Maples, and all of
these things came out about how he cheated and what
he wanted and feeling like a failure because I think
this was the beginning of him losing everything and so
again kind of having a breakdown and going for the
(43:01):
younger woman. That's exactly that trope. But then how serious
the situation was at the time, and everybody was able
to disregard it. Kind of forgot about that history until
I believe it was brought up again during the elections,
But it was a small blip that everybody ignored. Yeah,
and then another person we want to talk about very briefly,
(43:23):
it's Harvy Wise Stude, just because it's really hard not
to see some disturbing parallels between him in the situation
with the young actress in the movie. So it is
odd to watch that movie now with our eyes are
modernized and knowing what happens um and it was treated
(43:47):
at so lightly at that point time. Just the both
of those situations were treated so lightly and then today
you're like, oh, yeah it's bad. Yeah. Um, and then
Gloria steinem was I think Gloria steinhum me, come on.
That's That's about what we have to say on First
(44:07):
Wives Club. If you haven't seen it, it's on Netflix. Um,
and we would love to hear from you what should
be our next movie? For finmness movie Friday we're doing next, Yeah,
get excited for that. I'm excited over that one. Um.
But after that, what should we do? We definitely are
definitely gonna come back for Heathers, Yes, and I think
(44:29):
I'm gonna do one over, which is in together, like
all together with the Craft, which is a focus, possibly
because I feel like there's going to be a lot
of inter weaving True and the Witches. There's a lot
of movies we can talk about in there. Yeah. I
guess i'd see that as such a because there's yeah,
they're all women. Yes, interestingly, I love it too. But
(44:55):
in the meantime, you can email your suggestions to you
as at our email at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at
i heeart media dot com. You can find us on
Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast or on Instagram at Stuff
I've Never Told You. Thanks as always to our super
producer Andrew Howard, and thanks to you for listening. Stuff
I've Never Told You. The production of iHeart Radios How
(45:16):
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