Speaker 1: On the beck Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies
Speaker 1: have women and um are all their discussions just boyfriends
Speaker 1: and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef
Speaker 1: invest start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hi, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to the Beck del Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
Speaker 1: my name is Caitlin Darante, and today we are unlocking
Speaker 1: an episode from our patreon a k A Matreon feed.
Speaker 1: Ever heard of it? And if you haven't, it's time
Speaker 1: to get wise or not. We won't know. Uh. And
Speaker 1: and maybe you're like, oh cool, they unlocked one now
Speaker 1: I don't need to pay for it again. We won't know,
Speaker 1: but you know, don't do that. But don't do that. Also,
Speaker 1: there's still like dozens and dozens and dozens of episodes
Speaker 1: that will never unlock. There's like almost a hundred at
Speaker 1: this point. This show has been on for six hundred
Speaker 1: years at this point. It's true, we're unlocking the Lolita
Speaker 1: episode from our patreon ak matreon today, which we will
Speaker 1: get to in a second. But if you're interested in
Speaker 1: more episodes that are just Caitlin and myself kind of
Speaker 1: having a loose fun, this is not actually not a
Speaker 1: good example of that. But but having normally though having
Speaker 1: like a one on one discussion about a movie, you
Speaker 1: can get two episodes on top of the regular feed
Speaker 1: there every month for simply five bucks a month, that's all.
Speaker 1: And there's like there's like seventy or eighty episodes in there.
Speaker 1: If you've run out of main feed episodes, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot. We should probably the like we should, I
Speaker 1: guess we should say what the Bechtel Cast is because
Speaker 1: we are in the main feed. Yes, so if this
Speaker 1: is your first episode tuning into Lolita, we should go
Speaker 1: off and next we'll tell you what the show is. Yes,
Speaker 1: So the Bechtel Cast is our podcast in which we
Speaker 1: discuss films through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel
Speaker 1: test merely as inspiration for a jumping off point to
Speaker 1: initiate larger, more in depth conversations. And Jamie, what on
Speaker 1: earth is the Bechtel test? Well, the Bechtel test is
Speaker 1: a media metric invented by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel, sometimes
Speaker 1: called the Bechtel Wallace test, that requires that, for our purposes,
Speaker 1: multiple interpretations of this damn thing. Uh, but for our
Speaker 1: purposes requires that there be two characters with names of
Speaker 1: a marginalized gender talking to each other about something other
Speaker 1: than a man for simply two lines of dialogue. It
Speaker 1: doesn't happen in movies quite a bit, not enough. And furthermore,
Speaker 1: if it does happen, it doesn't even mean that the
Speaker 1: movie is good to women. Sometimes it just happens by
Speaker 1: mistake accident. But it's it's aren't jumping off point for
Speaker 1: for a larger discussion, and uh, today we are talking
Speaker 1: about Lolita because well, first of all, I guess we
Speaker 1: should say this. This episode was recorded about three months ago,
Speaker 1: was recorded like towards the beginning of August. I think, yes,
Speaker 1: it was one of your birthday month picks on the Matrion.
Speaker 1: And normally you would choose your favorite movies for your
Speaker 1: birthday month and the Matreon, but that is not the
Speaker 1: case here. The reason the reason we covered Lolita is
Speaker 1: because throughout the summer and into the fall and now
Speaker 1: it's winter and just time keuthes continuing and things just
Speaker 1: don't get any better. But we've I've been working on
Speaker 1: a show that comes out. If you're listening to this
Speaker 1: on the day of release, starting November twenty three and
Speaker 1: working on a podcast that tracks the history of the
Speaker 1: story of Lolita. So I say this story because the
Speaker 1: adaptations are just out of control, bad and just misrepresenting
Speaker 1: what the story is really about. I feel what You
Speaker 1: can listen to the show for for for nine hours
Speaker 1: of expansion on that. But uh, basically, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: the first attempt to adapt Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov to
Speaker 1: a um to a larger medium, and there's just it's
Speaker 1: so okay. First of all, plug Lolita podcast comes out
Speaker 1: on November twenty three, and then it's released every Monday. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be ten episodes. We're we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: with I keep saying it's so, I keep saying we
Speaker 1: because I'm so used to like not being alone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not involved in this. It is just me. It's
Speaker 1: just it's I say we. And then I'm also just
Speaker 1: like me and just all of uh my my friends
Speaker 1: that live inside of my brain. But uh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm talking to a lot of people about just
Speaker 1: kind of like tracking this story and analyzing the book.
Speaker 1: And then I talked to several psychologists who have worked
Speaker 1: with victims of child abuse, Um, I talk with people
Speaker 1: who are involved in some of these adaptations. I talked
Speaker 1: to people who really like the book, people who really
Speaker 1: don't like the book. But as far as the movies go,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty uncontroversial opinion to feel that they all
Speaker 1: aggressively suck and push just really harmful messages that are
Speaker 1: very of the time and also by of the time.
Speaker 1: I mean still now this is like still, like you
Speaker 1: know are our calls were Still has a gigantic issue
Speaker 1: with sexualizing young girls specifically, but also just young people
Speaker 1: in general. So that's what the show is about. It's
Speaker 1: it's a little heavier than the Bechdel cast, but um,
Speaker 1: if that's something you're interested in, I try to really
Speaker 1: examine it from all perspectives and bring in a lot
Speaker 1: of different voices to discuss it, and I hope you'll listen.
Speaker 1: Uh So that yeah Monday is starting November twenty three.
Speaker 1: And Oh the reason I was saying all of that
Speaker 1: is first of all, because I should. Second of all,
Speaker 1: because I think that a lot of my thoughts on
Speaker 1: this movie have like not changed entirely. I still think
Speaker 1: the movie absolutely sucks eggs, but but for like way
Speaker 1: more specific reasons than I did four months ago. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I I don't necessarily stand by to the word everything
Speaker 1: I say in this episode, but uh, the movie is bad.
Speaker 1: Well that's that's the beauty of just being alive and
Speaker 1: being a person. Here you can learn more things and
Speaker 1: your mind can change and oh you growth. You love
Speaker 1: to see it. And that's what the Bechtel Cast is
Speaker 1: all about. Growing, changing, acknowledging faults from the past, and
Speaker 1: moving forward in a healthy and productive way. Who um,
Speaker 1: so yes, I was just really listening back to the
Speaker 1: episode and we you know, there's mentions to I Frankenstein.
Speaker 1: Why because it's the other the other episode we did
Speaker 1: on the Matren for your birthday month, so there will
Speaker 1: be references to Jamie's birthday and I Frankenstein and whatnot.
Speaker 1: So if you're just like, what, that's why my birthday
Speaker 1: was in August. And I honestly think and this is
Speaker 1: like not even I know that there's no way for
Speaker 1: me to say this in a non biased way, but
Speaker 1: the I Frankenstein episode alone is enough reason to sign
Speaker 1: up for the Matreon, in my opinion, one of our best.
Speaker 1: It's not Jamie. This is not opinion, this is fact.
Speaker 1: Very viable. Um so yes, if you, if you, I
Speaker 1: mean just what this is all to say, folks, that
Speaker 1: you should get on get on the Matreon train, you know,
Speaker 1: for I Frankenstein alone, among many other films that again
Speaker 1: will remain locked. We're not gonna just keep unlocking episodes
Speaker 1: all willy nilly. Some of them are in the vault.
Speaker 1: This is a rare occurrence. Yeah, so yeah, enjoy our
Speaker 1: Lolita episode to the extent that you're able. Lolita podcast
Speaker 1: I recommend, and again I'm completely unbiased. It's just, you know,
Speaker 1: just a recommendation, and I haven't been sweating about this
Speaker 1: for half of the year. Well it's someone who is
Speaker 1: again not involved in Little to podcast. I also recommend.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, without further ado, here is our unlocked Matreon
Speaker 1: episode about Stanley Kubrick's Lolita. Hate that run of words.
Speaker 1: Enjoy del cast high Matre. Jamie, it's your birthday. It's
Speaker 1: Jamie's Chaos month on the Matreon, and boy do we
Speaker 1: have a chaotic month for you this year. We just
Speaker 1: made a last minute adjustment to my birthday month in
Speaker 1: a way that I really think makes the whole feed vibrate.
Speaker 1: It's it's so today obviously we're We're doing Lolita, a
Speaker 1: very heavy, serious movie with a lot of heavy serious
Speaker 1: things to discuss, and then at the end of the month,
Speaker 1: as a palate cleanser, we're going to be doing I Frankenstein,
Speaker 1: which is a movie that you don't even need to
Speaker 1: watch because it's more fun for us to tell you
Speaker 1: about it than to watch it. You should still watch
Speaker 1: it because Bill and I he and I also feel like, genuinely,
Speaker 1: if it came down to it, Aaron Eckhart would pay
Speaker 1: you human dollars to not watch it, which is a
Speaker 1: reason to watch it. It's a gritty Frankenstein movie. But
Speaker 1: here's a twist. It's about do you remember I know,
Speaker 1: I know this movie so well. I Frankenstein markets itself
Speaker 1: as a movie about I callma Frankenstein, but it's actually
Speaker 1: about the war of demons versus gargoyles. I vaguely remember that.
Speaker 1: But all the gargoyles, the gargoyles are the heroes, which
Speaker 1: I also like kept being like, wait, gargoyles are heroes.
Speaker 1: They are in this movie, and if you've seen the
Speaker 1: animated series Gargoyles, you know that they are. I saw that.
Speaker 1: Everyone roasts me for not, I just didn't see it.
Speaker 1: I was watching Powerpuff Girls. I don't know what I
Speaker 1: was doing. But for me, I was like, wait, I
Speaker 1: thought gargoyles were supposed to be mean to you, but
Speaker 1: the been in this one. They're the heroes and they
Speaker 1: are all royalty and they're dressed like they went to
Speaker 1: ye party. So by party, I Frankenstein, I exactly, it's
Speaker 1: all connected. Um. So we're gonna start with heavy episode
Speaker 1: and we're gonna end with a light episode, and that's
Speaker 1: going to be my birthday month because I contain multitudes.
Speaker 1: But today we are talking about the nineteen sixty two
Speaker 1: adaptation of Lolita by feminist icon Stanley Kubrick. We should
Speaker 1: just at the very top here, since we're attempting to
Speaker 1: be better at given content warnings for the content of episodes.
Speaker 1: There's obviously a content warning here for statutory rape, child
Speaker 1: sexual abuse. Yeah. There there's I mean, general predatory behavior
Speaker 1: and also murder. Um so there there is just the
Speaker 1: general brutalization of women and children is going to come
Speaker 1: up in this episode. Um. And I guess if you
Speaker 1: weren't familiar with the content of Lolita, that it's that's about.
Speaker 1: So if you'd rather skip this one. We totally understand
Speaker 1: if you'd like to hang around. There's so much to
Speaker 1: talk about that I think is very revealing about our culture. UM,
Speaker 1: so let's get started. I guess I'll contextualize this a
Speaker 1: little bit by saying I chose this movie. I am
Speaker 1: very curious as to what compelled you do want to
Speaker 1: do this for your birthday? Of times, Well, I'm doing
Speaker 1: it for I mean, I'm not doing it as a
Speaker 1: gift to myself. This is very painful material to go through. Um,
Speaker 1: but I'm doing it because I've been thinking about it
Speaker 1: quite a bit lately. Because advertisement forthcoming, I am um
Speaker 1: writing and producing an entire podcast that is about the
Speaker 1: cultural impact of the book Lolita, because that's something that
Speaker 1: I've always had a fixation on. I think it's very
Speaker 1: telling and an interesting if disturbing obviously, but that it
Speaker 1: was a book that I because I guess we should
Speaker 1: just kind of talk about the property versus the movie,
Speaker 1: because this is a movie that is not particularly remembered,
Speaker 1: But that's going to be the jumping off point for
Speaker 1: our discussion. In any case, Lolito was a book that
Speaker 1: I came across when I was twelve because not good
Speaker 1: because it had been recommended to me by Lemony Snicket
Speaker 1: in a magazine and like, take a second with that. Uh.
Speaker 1: So I came across this book really really early on
Speaker 1: because I was obsessed with Lemony Sicket books. I thought
Speaker 1: they were the best in the world. I still pretty
Speaker 1: much do. Uh. The author I have some issues with,
Speaker 1: but the But when I was twelve, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to read what he was reading, and know what, you know,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like him. And so I read
Speaker 1: in an interview in two thousand and five what his
Speaker 1: favorite book was, and he said in a children's magazine,
Speaker 1: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is my favorite book. And so
Speaker 1: I went to the library and I got the book,
Speaker 1: and I read the book, and I didn't understand the book,
Speaker 1: and I took all the wrong messages away from the book.
Speaker 1: And it's been a point of fascination for me ever since.
Speaker 1: Because now obviously I am an adult and I have
Speaker 1: read the book many times. I wouldn't say it is
Speaker 1: my favorite book by any stretch, but I think it
Speaker 1: is a very good book. And I reread it just
Speaker 1: recently to like prepare for this podcast that I've been
Speaker 1: working on, and what I find this interesting about Lolita
Speaker 1: is that it seems like it's cultural legacy is just
Speaker 1: taken completely out of context with what the story is about,
Speaker 1: because you think, like I guess, when I was going
Speaker 1: back to reread it, I was like, I wonder if
Speaker 1: you know, just from because I hadn't read it since college.
Speaker 1: I was like, is there any ambiguity about what the
Speaker 1: nature of how Humberd Humberd is treating Lolita is? Is
Speaker 1: there any way? Because I feel like our culture has
Speaker 1: either framed it as a like doomed love story or
Speaker 1: kind of just like a fashion aesthetic for young girls
Speaker 1: that you see pop up in a lot of Japanese
Speaker 1: fashion lines and also in Lana del Rey's music are
Speaker 1: the two main places you will find it. But that's
Speaker 1: like the Lolita brand now is it's clothing and it's
Speaker 1: associated with this tragic love story, which is how I
Speaker 1: think Humbritton Lolita are framed, and no small part because
Speaker 1: of how this movie does it. But in any case,
Speaker 1: I went back to read the book and I was like,
Speaker 1: I wonder if the book is contributing to this problem?
Speaker 1: And I would say pretty firmly that it is not.
Speaker 1: The book could not be more. I mean, it is
Speaker 1: horrifying what you're reading and it and it does. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot of arguments to be
Speaker 1: had that I'm still working through my own feelings about it,
Speaker 1: like well what is this adding like what you know,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot to talk about. Well, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about it. But um, I find it kind of not
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it's it would be naive to
Speaker 1: find it shocking. But given the fact that I've recently
Speaker 1: read the book and it is very explicitly while the
Speaker 1: narrator of his manipulative they you know, it's humbrid narrating
Speaker 1: his own story, trying to get you to empathize with
Speaker 1: him and trying to get you on his side because
Speaker 1: it was, you know, in theory written in during his court,
Speaker 1: uh like during his trial. That's what I'm saying. Um,
Speaker 1: so it's him trying to manipulate a group of people
Speaker 1: to get on his side. But he also is very
Speaker 1: explicit about what is done. He refers to himself as
Speaker 1: a predator and a number of other terms to that effect,
Speaker 1: many many times constantly. The book, I feel like is
Speaker 1: very clear at while it while it is a narrator
Speaker 1: trying to manipulate you into being like, well, maybe it's okay,
Speaker 1: but it's regardless, it's very clear. Yeah, there's no ambiguity.
Speaker 1: I think in the movies and the other adaptations there is.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if ambiguity is the word. It's
Speaker 1: like just interpreted completely differently. And I feel like this movie,
Speaker 1: this is the first major adaptation of Lolita, and it
Speaker 1: just really gets us off to a horrible start and
Speaker 1: it gets weirder and worse from there. So I'm very Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been attached to this book for a long time.
Speaker 1: I think it is like an interesting case study, like
Speaker 1: how American culture specifically takes a story that is very
Speaker 1: explicit about being a story about the abuse of a
Speaker 1: child and turning it into a sexy story that there
Speaker 1: are fashion lessons to learn from. I find it fucking infuriating,
Speaker 1: but it's also like, yeah, there's there's not a ton
Speaker 1: of things where I feel like you can trace that
Speaker 1: journey so directly. So that is why I chose it,
Speaker 1: because I had been thinking about it NonStop. Got it?
Speaker 1: What about you? So I believe if my memory serves
Speaker 1: me correctly, I think I saw this movie before I
Speaker 1: read the book. I saw the movie for the first time,
Speaker 1: I think as a freshman in college. It was one
Speaker 1: of those you know, like, I'm a film student, I
Speaker 1: need to have seen right. Yeah, So I remember it
Speaker 1: making me uncomfortable when I saw it, and uh not
Speaker 1: ever feeling compelled to watch it again. Then a few
Speaker 1: years later, still in college, I took an English class
Speaker 1: my senior year, and it was like a banned books
Speaker 1: class that taught literature that had been banned in different
Speaker 1: capacities throughout history, and Lolita was one of the banned
Speaker 1: books that we studied. So I read the book then, um,
Speaker 1: And then I read the book a second time, or
Speaker 1: at least I more skimmed it that time. During another
Speaker 1: class I took in grad school. I would hate to
Speaker 1: bring up that I haven't spreading from Boston University, but
Speaker 1: we took a class specifically on adaptation. So Lolita got
Speaker 1: taught in that class. That's exciting. And the kind of
Speaker 1: discussion around Lolita being taught in this adaptation class was like, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe some things shouldn't be adapted to film. Um. So
Speaker 1: that was that many So that's kind of my history. Um.
Speaker 1: I the whole. The property as a whole makes me
Speaker 1: very unsettled and uncomfortable for obvious reasons. I don't remember
Speaker 1: the book that well. I remember, like, I think the
Speaker 1: discussion we had in like my English class around it
Speaker 1: was everyone's like, oh, it's so well written. It's such
Speaker 1: a well written book. And I remember being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but why are we reading a story from the point
Speaker 1: of view of a predator, pedophile, child molester, Like what's
Speaker 1: the value in that? And I that's like still where
Speaker 1: I land on the entire higher property as a whole.
Speaker 1: So that's where I'm coming from. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that we're not going to reach a conclus I mean,
Speaker 1: there's never going to be a conclusion reached on whether
Speaker 1: this is the sort of thing that should be written
Speaker 1: about at all. And everyone, I mean it is, like
Speaker 1: I think it's everyone is going to feel a slightly
Speaker 1: different way about it. And it depends on what your
Speaker 1: own experiences are, it depends on what your views are
Speaker 1: and and all this stuff. I truly don't know where
Speaker 1: I fall. I do, like, I think that there is
Speaker 1: in the same way that there are like Red Flag
Speaker 1: movies for guys to be like, I mean, not necessarily
Speaker 1: always guys, but like nine times out of ten, uh,
Speaker 1: but but where people will be like, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: that it's problematic, but look at it. There's good parts
Speaker 1: of it. And I am always kind of like my
Speaker 1: antenna goes up for that. I agree that it's a
Speaker 1: beautifully written book. I don't. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 1: I guess that's like the whole discussion of every band
Speaker 1: books class, right, like, is this uh taboo that we
Speaker 1: know happens in real life that should be discussed and
Speaker 1: if so, who gets to be the narrator? Um? I
Speaker 1: think that every adaptation of Lolita, and I am now
Speaker 1: intimately familiar with all of them. There's been well, all
Speaker 1: but one. I'm still trying to get my hands on
Speaker 1: the Russian opera, but I've studied four of them pretty closely.
Speaker 1: I think that they're all failures to different degrees in
Speaker 1: different ways. It's it's hard because it's like this to
Speaker 1: this topic of an abusive relationship, especially towards a child,
Speaker 1: it's never like it's never going to be a comfortable
Speaker 1: palatable subject for for everyone. And that's just I mean,
Speaker 1: because it shouldn't be. It's a fucking horrific thing to happen. Um.
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of opinions on it, obviously, I've
Speaker 1: also seen uh survivors of this type of abuse who
Speaker 1: have felt very seen and have found the work to
Speaker 1: be sort of healing by and I can direct you
Speaker 1: just some blogs that I've found. I've done a deep
Speaker 1: dive into the Lolita blog a sphere, but there there
Speaker 1: are some people who feel, as you do, Caitlin, that
Speaker 1: it's like there's absolutely no value in giving the abuser
Speaker 1: a voice, and I agree with that, But then I
Speaker 1: also have read the perspectives of survivors of this abuse
Speaker 1: who feel seen through the character of Lolita and appreciate
Speaker 1: who she is, appreciate feeling like this is a topic
Speaker 1: that's even being discussed at all, and so well, I
Speaker 1: don't feel that it is the best approach. I think
Speaker 1: it is a bit of a not a bit like
Speaker 1: it's whatever the nineteen fifties version of edge lord is
Speaker 1: that Nabokov is doing. I mean, it's a very edge
Speaker 1: lordy thing to try to do, and fortunately he's a
Speaker 1: great writer. Otherwise there we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
Speaker 1: No one would have adapted it. But that said, I
Speaker 1: I don't. I agree that certainly the predator's point of
Speaker 1: view is not the priority, but I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a valueless work because so many people, and especially a
Speaker 1: lot of young women, have found value in it that
Speaker 1: relates to their own experiences of abuse. I think that
Speaker 1: abuse should be something that is discussed in art um
Speaker 1: But this is a very imperfect and fucking complicated as
Speaker 1: hell way to do it that there was clearly no
Speaker 1: way to do in nineteen sixty two. But there's I
Speaker 1: don't think that we've done it successfully yet. I think
Speaker 1: that it's I feel like if this movie was ever
Speaker 1: going to be if this book was ever going to
Speaker 1: be adapted into film, it would have to be animated.
Speaker 1: I don't think that there is a safe, healthy way
Speaker 1: to adapt this work that is live action. I just
Speaker 1: they it's been attempted so many times. I also think
Speaker 1: it's directly related to who is adapting the work. The
Speaker 1: people who have been chosen to adapt this work are
Speaker 1: just it blows my fucking mind of like, Stanley Kubrick
Speaker 1: is your first Like seriously, the guy who's notorious for
Speaker 1: like abusing his power as a director. I mean, he
Speaker 1: wasn't at this time quite yet, this was his early
Speaker 1: one of his earlier movies. But but the fact that
Speaker 1: you would hand it off to a young man or
Speaker 1: like a man similar like not that far off from
Speaker 1: humbert Age. It's just you repeatedly see this work put
Speaker 1: into someone who is going to inherently prioritize Humbrid's voice
Speaker 1: above Lolita's The first time I have seen this work
Speaker 1: put into a woman's hand was literally last year. Like
Speaker 1: this movie was given to Stanley Kubrick first, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that today. It fails, is given to Adrian Line.
Speaker 1: It super duper fails, horrendous. It was given to Edward
Speaker 1: Albee at one point. It fails. It was given to uh,
Speaker 1: let me get the names right, two of the most
Speaker 1: famous composers of all time in the nineties seventies. They
Speaker 1: wrote a musical about it. It was by John Barry
Speaker 1: and Alan jay Lerner. So John Barry wrote all the
Speaker 1: theme songs to James Bond, Alan jay Lerner Broadway legend
Speaker 1: did Gigi Camelot at an American in Paris. But like
Speaker 1: they were given Lolita, it's just all the wrong people
Speaker 1: have been given this property to adapt and so I
Speaker 1: feel like my personal opinion is that this this material
Speaker 1: has never been even given a chance to prioritize the
Speaker 1: character who should be prioritized, because every person who has
Speaker 1: adapted this material is going to I'm certainly not implying
Speaker 1: that they agree with Humberd. Obviously they don't, but that
Speaker 1: is the perspective they're able to plug into because there
Speaker 1: are men sis head, men in their thirties or older,
Speaker 1: and so I I let's talk about it. Yeah so
Speaker 1: so yeah, Well, like just a backpedal a little bit
Speaker 1: about the people who have managed to find value in it,
Speaker 1: particularly survivors who you know, read the work and identified
Speaker 1: with Lolita. Like that's great for them to be able
Speaker 1: to find comfort in that or find someone to identify
Speaker 1: with the character to identify with. But imagine like how
Speaker 1: more effective that would be if it was a And
Speaker 1: it's like it's not helpful to be like, well, what
Speaker 1: if the book was this instead, But like if there
Speaker 1: was a book out there that was written from the
Speaker 1: perspective of the survivor and was just as well written
Speaker 1: and was just as iconic in literature and just as
Speaker 1: influential as a literary work, Like I think we do
Speaker 1: have more books like that now and I agree that.
Speaker 1: I mean, there has been fiction about survivors of assault
Speaker 1: and of prolonged abuse that have taken you know, their place,
Speaker 1: and I think that, Lolita, I mean, it is not
Speaker 1: the perfect discussion of abuse. It just isn't. It's not
Speaker 1: the only discussion of abuse that's out there, fortunately, um,
Speaker 1: for me and for everybody. But yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: do think that there's a lot of pressure put on
Speaker 1: this singular work that was published seventy years ago to
Speaker 1: be the discussion of this topic, um, because I think
Speaker 1: it's the most and I don't mean this as a
Speaker 1: compliment it but the most iconic one in American culture.
Speaker 1: But I kind of fault that more to American culture
Speaker 1: than to the book itself. You know, Nabokov didn't go
Speaker 1: into this project thinking this is going to be the
Speaker 1: only discussion we have of this topic for half a century,
Speaker 1: but in a lot of ways it was. And so
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't think you can really fault the
Speaker 1: author of the work to anticipate how their work is
Speaker 1: going to be taken out of context over and over
Speaker 1: and over. I think that that is like a cultural problem. Well,
Speaker 1: I do think that I don't think all of his
Speaker 1: writing is you know, it's certainly not perfect and not responsible.
Speaker 1: And if I were writing this story, I would fully
Speaker 1: center Lolita. And I know that survivors of assault have
Speaker 1: interpreted this book in a number of different ways, and
Speaker 1: no interpretation of this work is invalid. It's just yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a tricky fucking thing, and it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: almost seventy years old now, and people are still trying
Speaker 1: to find what I mean, I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: know if this could be successfully adopted. What we were
Speaker 1: talking about today was not successfully adopted, and I think that, oh,
Speaker 1: it's so frustrating. I think it's interesting. So to pivot
Speaker 1: a little bit to the nine two movie adaptation of this,
Speaker 1: I feel like the general consensus on this that was
Speaker 1: made but that was like, well, it's not good, but
Speaker 1: it's just because production codes. I feel like this movie
Speaker 1: is definitely not good. It is so long, it is
Speaker 1: really boring, so tedious. It's just because of the production code.
Speaker 1: Nothing happens. But that is not why the movie is bad.
Speaker 1: I think that there's a lot of reasons the production
Speaker 1: code included, but I feel like it's letting Kuber get
Speaker 1: off a little easy to say that it's just because
Speaker 1: of the production code. I think that it's it also
Speaker 1: it's bad for other reasons. Yes, And for any listeners
Speaker 1: who aren't familiar with what the production code is UM
Speaker 1: google it for more information. But it's basically a set
Speaker 1: of censorship rules that applied to Hollywood studio films. It
Speaker 1: was enforced from the mid nineteen thirties to the late sixties,
Speaker 1: and it basically said that movies couldn't have graphic violence,
Speaker 1: you know, sex or nudity or overt sexuality, no swearing,
Speaker 1: things like that. The list goes on and on, but
Speaker 1: it's worth checking out just to see like what the
Speaker 1: limitations were, like what UM filmmakers could and couldn't do,
Speaker 1: and what they did sort of to get around production
Speaker 1: code stipulations. There's like we saw in certain genres like
Speaker 1: screwball comedies that would be like all these like double
Speaker 1: entendre innuendo type of dialogue and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting. But yeah, like informs a whole generation of
Speaker 1: movies basically, and then this movie kind of comes out
Speaker 1: at the towards the tail land that this movie had
Speaker 1: been made even a couple of years later, I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, it might have been quite different. I don't
Speaker 1: really care to know, um what Stanley Kuper would have
Speaker 1: done with this story at literally any point in time.
Speaker 1: I think that truly just like among the worst working
Speaker 1: directors you could choose for this, it's kind of astounding. Um.
Speaker 1: But that was kind of that really informed how this
Speaker 1: movie was marketed, which the tagline for this movie was
Speaker 1: how did they ever make a movie of Lolita? And
Speaker 1: the short answer, and a lot of people have said this,
Speaker 1: but the short answer is that they didn't, uh, and
Speaker 1: that's how they did. By not doing it, given the
Speaker 1: production codes, it would have been virtually impossible to even
Speaker 1: sort of tell the story, which this I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess you could. I mean, there's scenes in this movie
Speaker 1: that really lean on suggestion and then it's just like
Speaker 1: Peter Sellers for forty five fucking minutes and you're just
Speaker 1: like in very disguises like counts Off, I'm just like,
Speaker 1: this is exhausting, no wonder lemony snack it liked it
Speaker 1: so much. He's like, I'm gonna base count all off
Speaker 1: on quilty. But it's interesting. I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: he did do that in a number of ways. But
Speaker 1: then I guess that's a separate episode. But technically, technically,
Speaker 1: Vladimir and Abakoff wrote the screenplay to this movie. Once
Speaker 1: again we encounter something here that is technically true but
Speaker 1: isn't actually true, because I have read the screenplay that
Speaker 1: Vladimir Nabokov wrote, and Vladimir and Abukov wrote a fairly
Speaker 1: faithful while obviously working around quite a bit, but a
Speaker 1: fairly faithful adaptation of his book that I feel frames
Speaker 1: the story appropriately or more appropriately. And there's been a
Speaker 1: number of interviews done with him and done with basically
Speaker 1: everyone involved in this movie. Be that like, almost none
Speaker 1: of his script is used in this movie, so even
Speaker 1: though his name is on it, he thought very little
Speaker 1: of it. And I also, I'm like, I'm not here
Speaker 1: to stand for Vladimir Nabukov hardcore. He's got some weird
Speaker 1: ship going on in his life. And I don't mean criminally,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't mean anything approaching like stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but he's just I mean, look of Vladimir Nabukov's family.
Speaker 1: They were famously executing other authors, so have a lot
Speaker 1: of ship going on with that. It's a whole thing
Speaker 1: like there so Nabukov has got his own thing going on, right,
Speaker 1: He's just kind of a bizarre cultural figure. But he
Speaker 1: didn't like this movie. The draft he wrote of this
Speaker 1: movie at least resembles his book, and for me, for
Speaker 1: the movies specifically, framing is everything, and this movie and
Speaker 1: the movie are framed not at all, like basically not
Speaker 1: at all. So yeah, Stanley Kubrick hacked into this script.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he was also trying to get his movie
Speaker 1: to pass the production code so that I could still
Speaker 1: be made. But like, fuck Stanley Kubrick, Matt Like fuck him.
Speaker 1: When has he ever successfully written a female character or treated,
Speaker 1: you know, an actress with dignity? Fucking never is when?
Speaker 1: So uh fux Stanley Kubrick particularly, And I guess let's
Speaker 1: talk about what happens in the movie. Well, first let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we'll come right back.
Speaker 1: All right, So here's the recap. We open on Humbert. Humbert.
Speaker 1: He shows up to a rundown mansion belonging to this guy,
Speaker 1: Claire Quilty, who is played by Peter Sellers. They have
Speaker 1: some kind of history, but it's not clear at this
Speaker 1: point what Humbert mentions a girl named Lolita, and then
Speaker 1: he eventually shoots and kills Quilty. Then we cut to
Speaker 1: four years earlier. Humbert is a recent European transplant to
Speaker 1: the US. He arrives at a house in New Hampshire
Speaker 1: where he will be spending the summer before he heads
Speaker 1: off to Beardsley College in I think it's Ohio to
Speaker 1: um teach French literature. Now, the owner of this house,
Speaker 1: Charlotte Hayes, shows him around and played by Shelley Winters,
Speaker 1: my birthday twin oh and wow, today's your birthday, so
Speaker 1: that's amazing. So he's kind of on the fence about
Speaker 1: whether or not he wants to live here. But then
Speaker 1: she shows him out to the garden and out there
Speaker 1: is Charlotte's teenage daughter, Lolita. She is sunbathing in a bikini,
Speaker 1: and Lolita simply being really helps Humbert decide to move in.
Speaker 1: Mrs Hayes. Charlotte becomes interested in Humbert pretty much right away,
Speaker 1: but Humbert becomes interested in Lolita. There's a scene where
Speaker 1: they all go to a community dance. I suppose this
Speaker 1: is all like the scenes are so weird because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of I mean, one thing that was done
Speaker 1: for this movie to allow it to be made was
Speaker 1: to age Lolita up because in the book she is twelve.
Speaker 1: Am I read about that she is twelve? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: in the movie she's fourteen or fifteen. Yeah, not entirely sure.
Speaker 1: The actor who plays Lolita in this movie lyon, oh,
Speaker 1: fourteen at the time shooting. Okay, yeah, she's sixteen when
Speaker 1: it comes out. Got okay, yeah. Yeah. So they aged
Speaker 1: her up slightly, and they added in like a boyfriend character,
Speaker 1: I would guess to make her seem less innocent. I
Speaker 1: don't know really what to think, but this whole boyfriend
Speaker 1: think this is just like invented for the movie. Okay, Kenny, Kenny,
Speaker 1: fake fake news, fake news, Kenny. And then here at
Speaker 1: this dance, we learn that Charlotte has a habit of
Speaker 1: going after men who are not interested in her because
Speaker 1: she approaches Quilty who is there, and he doesn't really
Speaker 1: seem to remember who she is, even though it's implied
Speaker 1: that they have had sex before. This is also totally
Speaker 1: made up for the move invented. Yeah, okay, good to
Speaker 1: know he doesn't remember Charlotte, but he does remember Charlotte's daughter, Lolita.
Speaker 1: So that comes into play later. Now Charlotte kind of
Speaker 1: goes back to throwing herself at Humbert, who again only
Speaker 1: has eyes for a child, and they go back to
Speaker 1: the house. After this dance, Lolita returns and this makes
Speaker 1: Humbert very happy. But Charlotte is starting to get the
Speaker 1: sense that Humbert is interested in Lolita. So Charlotte kind
Speaker 1: of lashes out and she says, go to bed, you
Speaker 1: little pest, and then she kind of has a little outburst.
Speaker 1: She sure does. Um. Then Humbert starts writing in a diary,
Speaker 1: or maybe he has been already, but he basically started.
Speaker 1: He's like writing in his diary about his affection for Lolita,
Speaker 1: who he starts to call his nymphete and barf um.
Speaker 1: But Charlotte reveals that she is sending Lolita away for
Speaker 1: the summer to camp because she wants to keep sas
Speaker 1: a free up her schedule to be hitting on Humbert
Speaker 1: all summer, right, we are to believe, and Humbert is
Speaker 1: very disappointed by this. There's a scene where Lolita comes
Speaker 1: in the house and wishes him a farewell and says,
Speaker 1: you know, don't forget me. Then Humbert gets a letter
Speaker 1: from Charlotte professing her love for him, saying, one of
Speaker 1: my favorite lines in fiction. I saw that you had
Speaker 1: changed your Twitter bio to this. It is such a
Speaker 1: fun line. I mean, in a very depressing work, it
Speaker 1: is a fun line. I'm a passionate and lonely woman
Speaker 1: and you are the love of my life. I'm like, okay, drama,
Speaker 1: Like I Charlotte's letter is so over dramatic, and I
Speaker 1: love it. Yeah. She's basically like, get out of my
Speaker 1: house because I love you unless you also love me,
Speaker 1: and then you have to stay and be my lover forever.
Speaker 1: You're like a Charlotte like I just I I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about but like that letter is always fun
Speaker 1: for me. I hate that he laughs at her. I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is the this is the best writing in the
Speaker 1: movie is Charlotte's letter. But I love Charlotte's letter. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so he reads this letter and then he marries her,
Speaker 1: and the implicate Asian here is that he marries her
Speaker 1: so that he will have the opportunity to see Lolita again.
Speaker 1: But then Charlotte says that she has decided to send
Speaker 1: Lolita from camp straight to boarding school and then straight
Speaker 1: to college from there, meaning that Humbert probably won't really
Speaker 1: ever see her again, so he freaks out. He starts
Speaker 1: to premeditate him murdering Charlotte loudly and all the time
Speaker 1: like there I know. And it's so it like adds
Speaker 1: to it that it's James Mason, just like the most
Speaker 1: British person ever, being like maybe I should kill her,
Speaker 1: Like you're just like shut up, man, like what are
Speaker 1: you doing? This is also this is really deviated from
Speaker 1: what happens in the book as well. But anyways, got it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't remember it well enough. But Humbert
Speaker 1: decides against killing his wife Um, and we're supposed to
Speaker 1: be like, wow, awesome, like hero cool. But Charlotte has
Speaker 1: just discovered Humbert's diary, in which he has insulted her
Speaker 1: and expressed his love for Lolita, so she is distraught,
Speaker 1: runs out into the street, and is killed when she's
Speaker 1: hit by a car. Humbert is mostly unfazed by this.
Speaker 1: He then leaves to go pick Lolita up from camp Um,
Speaker 1: telling her that her mother is sick and in the
Speaker 1: hospital and they just kind of have to bide their
Speaker 1: time before until she's well. So they're just going to
Speaker 1: travel around a little bit until then. So they check
Speaker 1: into a hotel and there's only one room left with
Speaker 1: one bed. Quilty also happens to be there. There's a
Speaker 1: scene where he is acting, he's like very high strung.
Speaker 1: He and Humbert talk for a little bit about Lolita,
Speaker 1: and then Humbert returns to the room where he tries
Speaker 1: to get into the bed with Lolita, but then ends
Speaker 1: up sleeping on the cot that has been brought in
Speaker 1: right but the next morning it is implied that they
Speaker 1: do something sexual together off screen a k a. A
Speaker 1: statutory rape happens. Then they set off again in the car,
Speaker 1: Humbert finally tells Lolita that her mother is dead, so
Speaker 1: Lolita is very upset, but eventually Humbert and Lolita kind
Speaker 1: of settle into a life together. And again by that,
Speaker 1: I mean he's a predator and he regularly again and again.
Speaker 1: This is like so wildly deviated from the book where
Speaker 1: they're they're still traveling together, but she is constantly trying
Speaker 1: to escape, and she is constantly trying to get away
Speaker 1: and devise different ways to get away from her abuser
Speaker 1: who's continually manipulating her. In the movie. It is kind
Speaker 1: of portrayed as a mostly fun road trip when yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a lot to say about the tone of
Speaker 1: this movie, which is horrible. Um Okay. So now they're
Speaker 1: living in Ohio and he starts his job as a
Speaker 1: professor of Beardsley College. Lolita's seems to be getting bored
Speaker 1: with their relationship. He doesn't like that she hangs out
Speaker 1: with other boys at school. She wants to do the
Speaker 1: school play, but he won't let her, so then Quilty
Speaker 1: comes in. He has written this play. He shows up
Speaker 1: pretending to be the school psychologist and convinces Humbert to
Speaker 1: let Lolita be in the play. But Humbert finds out
Speaker 1: that Lolita has been lying to him about where she's
Speaker 1: been and who she's been hanging out with. They getting
Speaker 1: a big fight, but eventually she's like, okay, Humbert, let's
Speaker 1: go away again, so they set off. There's a car
Speaker 1: that's been following them for a while, and then Lolita
Speaker 1: gets sick and has to be hospitalized. But when Humbert
Speaker 1: picks her up from the hospital, the staff says that
Speaker 1: another man has already picked her up, so he freaks out.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know where she is he loses contact with
Speaker 1: her for I believe a few years, and then Humbert
Speaker 1: after some time receives a letter from Lolita asking for money,
Speaker 1: so he goes to see her. She is married to
Speaker 1: a young man, she is regnant with his baby, and
Speaker 1: she reveals that she had been having a relationship with
Speaker 1: Quilty during this time that she was in the school play.
Speaker 1: And then I think also before because basically Quilty follows
Speaker 1: her around wherever she goes, it seems, and it was
Speaker 1: him who had picked her up from the hospital. Lolita
Speaker 1: says that she was always in love with him, but
Speaker 1: she did care about Humbert. Humbert gets her to try
Speaker 1: to run away with him, but she refuses, so then
Speaker 1: he goes to Quiality's mansion, which is the scene we
Speaker 1: see in the beginning, and then he murders him and
Speaker 1: then we find out that he dies of coronary thrombosis
Speaker 1: before the trial prison. Yeah, so that is the end
Speaker 1: of the ninety two movie. Again, I mean we will
Speaker 1: continue to repeat this. This is unequivocally a story of
Speaker 1: a child being repeatedly abused by a guardian. Like there
Speaker 1: is no if sandswer buds about it and this movie. However,
Speaker 1: I don't know what this movie thinks is going on,
Speaker 1: because it seems like it is mishandling everything at every turn.
Speaker 1: And where I like to start is it's sort of
Speaker 1: like for SNA like not fortunate, but like alluding to
Speaker 1: this a little earlier of the way that this story
Speaker 1: is framed. If you're going to attempt to tell it,
Speaker 1: which I agree you don't have to, it exists as
Speaker 1: a historical moment of this topic attempting to be discussed
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, that is very worthy of criticism,
Speaker 1: and that's in one place if you're trying to adapt
Speaker 1: this responsibly. I feel that the framing of the story
Speaker 1: is very important because for you know, the book, and
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm like the book, but it is
Speaker 1: important for this friend. The way that the book frames Humbert.
Speaker 1: Humbert is that he is narrating his own story. He
Speaker 1: is doing so from prison, trying to convince a jury
Speaker 1: to let him get off from these crimes that he's
Speaker 1: committed a murder. But also he is admitting that he
Speaker 1: um is a rapist of an m minor, So this
Speaker 1: is something he's acknowledging over and over. So he is
Speaker 1: perhaps not is he perhaps an unreliable narrator, but not
Speaker 1: just that Kate there is. The book starts with a
Speaker 1: um an introduction by a different fictional character who basically
Speaker 1: tells you not to trust a word you're about to hear.
Speaker 1: And so, just based on my own research and experience
Speaker 1: with the like, the book is intended to be an
Speaker 1: experiment of You're told very explicitly at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the story, do not fall for this person ship. They're lying,
Speaker 1: and then the book becomes well will you fall for it? Anyways? Basically, um,
Speaker 1: this is completely absent from every movie adaptation, and it
Speaker 1: is so important into like if you're going to adapt it,
Speaker 1: this has to be included, Like, it absolutely needs to
Speaker 1: be included. There's another thing that Humbert again, it's like
Speaker 1: he's a fucking liar, so you don't know really. I
Speaker 1: also think it's weird that it's like commonly accepted that
Speaker 1: Charlotte just happened to walk into traffic. I always I'm like,
Speaker 1: I think he's lying about that, but whatever, Yeah, he
Speaker 1: probably pushed her, he probably killed her, like why but
Speaker 1: even like literary scholars are like, wow, he really looked
Speaker 1: out there I'm like, I'm I've like he killed he
Speaker 1: was just premeditating her murder. I don't know if that
Speaker 1: is in the book. Well that hasn't happened. But but like,
Speaker 1: like on her way to report him for being a
Speaker 1: criminal of the highest degree, she happened to get hit
Speaker 1: by a car. I mean, give me a fucking break.
Speaker 1: But in any case, this framing is so important and
Speaker 1: humber this is included in the movie, but also in
Speaker 1: the worst stupidest way possible. He also mentioned at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the book that he had loved and lost
Speaker 1: a young woman who was about Lolita's age when he
Speaker 1: was that age and I and he uses that as
Speaker 1: a manipulative narrator to get you to say, well, this
Speaker 1: is why I did this horrible crime is because something
Speaker 1: bad happened to me when I was that age, which
Speaker 1: is a very manipulative tactic that is used by a
Speaker 1: lot of abusers. Again, this is completely omitted from this.
Speaker 1: I feel like this movie. I mean tell me if
Speaker 1: you I feel like this movie pretty much just events
Speaker 1: Humbert's narrative as fact as this is what happened period, Like,
Speaker 1: there is no the movie does not question him at all.
Speaker 1: At all. It's ridiculous. There's no implication that he might
Speaker 1: be an unreliable narrator. They're like, these are the events
Speaker 1: of the story. This is exactly how they played out. Explicitly,
Speaker 1: he does voiceover like I guess he is the narrator,
Speaker 1: but there's no I mean, like for your average viewer,
Speaker 1: an unreliable narrator is like a concept that you need
Speaker 1: to make pretty fucking clear. Like you can't just be like,
Speaker 1: here's James Mason, a very established movie star who you
Speaker 1: probably like, don't believe him, Like that is a difficult
Speaker 1: that's a difficult concept. You have to make that super
Speaker 1: duper clear. And I wonder, I mean, I've really tried
Speaker 1: to follow the thread of like, well, who thwarted this
Speaker 1: from happening? Because nabokov screenplay includes everything I just talked about.
Speaker 1: It includes the character at the beginning that is like,
Speaker 1: don't believe anything you're about to hear. It includes, if
Speaker 1: you're going to try to adapt it, the necessary things
Speaker 1: I think. But I'm like, well, who does Kuber say
Speaker 1: don't bother? Does the production code say, like who is
Speaker 1: the person that says no, it bothers me? It's and
Speaker 1: it just dooms the movie too. I mean, any live
Speaker 1: action interpretation of this that is translated faithfully I think
Speaker 1: is not even worth trying and is just is irresponsible.
Speaker 1: But this one in particular, I mean it's like you're
Speaker 1: not even fucking trying. I know, I know the code,
Speaker 1: and like, don't go in the comments about the code.
Speaker 1: We know about the code. But in that case, what
Speaker 1: cat fighting outside? There's no a bunch of cats that
Speaker 1: fight in the alley next to my house. I live
Speaker 1: in a cartoon. Uh so, I'm right. So what happens
Speaker 1: in this adaptation in the sixty two one is the story.
Speaker 1: Because there's no mention of like, don't believe anything this
Speaker 1: man says, don't fall for his manipulation tactics, etcetera. The
Speaker 1: movie gets framed as being like almost like a rom com,
Speaker 1: like there are there's a lot of visual jokes about
Speaker 1: like his attraction to Lolita. The inclusion of Peter Seller's
Speaker 1: at all, like a famous comic actor of this era
Speaker 1: takes up way too much screen time in this movie.
Speaker 1: But like that aside, that's a that's a very specific
Speaker 1: decision you're making by putting a famous comic actor like
Speaker 1: second build in this movie. What are you saying, Like, Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: like the tone that this movie takes I absolutely think
Speaker 1: is horrendous because it frames a lot of what happens
Speaker 1: as comedy and as jokes, like in cite some examples
Speaker 1: at some point. But and while the movie ends tragically
Speaker 1: for Humbert, like he kind of gets his come up
Speaker 1: and I guess to like the not degree that he
Speaker 1: should have, but like he does. That is how they
Speaker 1: end his story in Nabakrov's book, but it omits. I mean,
Speaker 1: the the one thing that this movie does that I
Speaker 1: think is at least interesting and not just like Blanket
Speaker 1: I hate it is that it gives Lolita a happy
Speaker 1: ish ending, which is not how any other adaptation nor
Speaker 1: the source material ends in the book. Canonically, she dies
Speaker 1: in childbirth and as I mean, uh, it's just a
Speaker 1: track like she has a tragic life and and passes
Speaker 1: away very young, which and I was reading it at
Speaker 1: the time, like I really loved Lolita as a kid,
Speaker 1: and I kind of like looked up to her in
Speaker 1: a way that was unhealthy because I was misinterpreting what
Speaker 1: was happening. But I cared a lot about the character
Speaker 1: and like to know that she dies at the end
Speaker 1: at least helped me understand a little bit that she
Speaker 1: had been done this huge disservice in her life, that
Speaker 1: her life had literally been, you know, taken from her.
Speaker 1: This movie does not go this way. It kind of
Speaker 1: ends kind of optimistically for her, which I would suspect
Speaker 1: has something to do with the code of like, well,
Speaker 1: don't kill our titular character who never did anything wrong.
Speaker 1: It's the only choice this movie makes that is remotely interesting,
Speaker 1: is not. It is allowing lowly as character to live on,
Speaker 1: which you know, I don't know. I guess I don't
Speaker 1: feel one way or another about it. It's interesting, it's different. Um.
Speaker 1: There are two things I do remember from the book.
Speaker 1: It's been a while. It's been fifteen years since I've
Speaker 1: read the book, so I don't remember it very well.
Speaker 1: Let me know if I'm remembering this correctly, jam May,
Speaker 1: since you've read it more recently. Is there a component
Speaker 1: of the book where Humbert as he's like writing in
Speaker 1: his diary and describing his relationship with Lolita. I feel
Speaker 1: like he's often saying that like she is coming onto
Speaker 1: him by, like she's like he's always like she's a nymphete.
Speaker 1: She's like a nymphomaniac. She's always trying to initiate like
Speaker 1: sexual contact with me, Like he's kind of blaming it
Speaker 1: on her. Is that something? And I remember a lot
Speaker 1: of the tone of and that's a lot of what
Speaker 1: his character does in the book. I think intentionally by
Speaker 1: the author is that he oscillates between blaming his victims
Speaker 1: and a deep hatred of himself. So it pends on
Speaker 1: what part in the book you were in. At certain
Speaker 1: parts he blames her whole sale in a way that
Speaker 1: reading it as an adult, you know is not true.
Speaker 1: Um and is him offloading all of his own baggage
Speaker 1: onto a child and saying, I mean the thing that
Speaker 1: people have said about victims since the beginning of time
Speaker 1: of like they were asking for it is basically what
Speaker 1: he's saying by inventing this vocabulary word at all. And
Speaker 1: then in other sections of the book, which we really
Speaker 1: don't see in any of these adaptations, he kind of switches.
Speaker 1: When Lolita shows extreme like an example would be when
Speaker 1: she finds out that her mother is actually dead and
Speaker 1: not sick. She grieves her and is really upset and
Speaker 1: cries for days and days and at this point in
Speaker 1: the narrative, he starts to go to like step zero
Speaker 1: point one of introspection and starts to feel a lot
Speaker 1: of guilt and his like, oh my god, I'm doing
Speaker 1: this horrible thing to this child. What am I doing?
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a monster, I'm a horrible person. He calls
Speaker 1: himself like a pentapod monster, like he called There's sections
Speaker 1: where he seems completely aware of what he's doing but
Speaker 1: continues to do it anyways, which makes him even work right,
Speaker 1: And then there's other sections where he's just blaming his victims.
Speaker 1: So it's different headspaces of just a wholesale abuser. This this,
Speaker 1: it's not even so it doesn't cross James Mason's mind
Speaker 1: that he's doing anything wrong. And I think that that
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with setting the code aside,
Speaker 1: the view of that Hollywood has of women and girls
Speaker 1: at this time of I think that the you know,
Speaker 1: the way that it's like you're saying, Caitlin, it's so
Speaker 1: often framed as a joke that this man who's almost
Speaker 1: forty and James Mason was over forty, uh is having
Speaker 1: a relationship with a child, a person who cannot consent
Speaker 1: to them and kind of joking around, like you know,
Speaker 1: which was a real culture and that was a real
Speaker 1: thing that happened in in mid century America, and there's
Speaker 1: countless examples of it, and certainly, I mean, we don't
Speaker 1: have time to recap the history of how Hollywood has
Speaker 1: treated child stars and how and the legacy that continues
Speaker 1: to this day of abuse that happens to young people.
Speaker 1: But it is I feel like it's treated as a
Speaker 1: joke because in this time you could just treat it
Speaker 1: as a joke, like it you didn't even need to
Speaker 1: explain where you were coming from. It was just culturally
Speaker 1: accepted as a joke. The movie frames again his attraction
Speaker 1: to her as like, isn't it so fun and cute
Speaker 1: that he's attracted to an underage girl? Like and she
Speaker 1: and she's also interested in him and all this stuff
Speaker 1: of it's so it's and it does lead I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like, yeah, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: not a hot take. I wish to god I had
Speaker 1: not found out about this property when I was twelve
Speaker 1: years old, when I was like Lolita's age, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's for most twelve year olds at that time,
Speaker 1: and for most young people, it's not You're just not
Speaker 1: going to have the frame of reference to understand what
Speaker 1: you're reading. I don't think it should be a book
Speaker 1: that's banned outright, Like, if you don't want to read it,
Speaker 1: definitely don't. And I absolutely understand why you wouldn't want to.
Speaker 1: But when it's presented to like who is this movie for?
Speaker 1: Is my question like, who the fuck is is even for?
Speaker 1: This also extends to I mean, Lolita is I think,
Speaker 1: to an extent, demonized and made to say, well, this
Speaker 1: was a very like sexual fourteen or fifteen year old.
Speaker 1: So I think at the movie frames that of like, well,
Speaker 1: can you really blame him? And it's like, yeah, you can,
Speaker 1: and you should and you should but this but but
Speaker 1: I think that this movie has such a nothing view
Speaker 1: of of Lolita. She's she's barely written at all. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure that that again I mean code code code, right,
Speaker 1: but I mean she's robbed of any element that made
Speaker 1: her a character, because I mean a lot of what
Speaker 1: you encounter with her in the book and to some
Speaker 1: extent in other adaptations is it making it very clear
Speaker 1: that she's a kid and she has the interest that
Speaker 1: a kid does and she's like a really she's like
Speaker 1: a twelve year old with a big personality, who likes
Speaker 1: who's like very rebellious and has a complicated relationship with
Speaker 1: her mom and all this stuff. Like, you know, people
Speaker 1: didn't identify with this character. I didn't identify with her
Speaker 1: when I was twelve for no reason. She had a
Speaker 1: personality that you can recognize. But this is that this
Speaker 1: is just the kind of another thing that's taken from
Speaker 1: her in this movie. We know really nothing about her
Speaker 1: right and the movie has no interest in getting to
Speaker 1: know her, which is just going to make it that
Speaker 1: much harder for a viewer to empathize with what she's
Speaker 1: going through. Let's take another break and then we'll be
Speaker 1: right back for a more discussion. Going back to the
Speaker 1: kind of use of visual comedy to set the tone
Speaker 1: of this movie. Like there's a scene where after Humbert
Speaker 1: has moved in, they all go to a drive in
Speaker 1: movie theater and there's like a scary moment in the
Speaker 1: horror movie that they're watching, and both Charlotte and Lolita
Speaker 1: each put a hand on one of Humbert's knees, and
Speaker 1: he takes off Charlotte's hand because he's not interested in her,
Speaker 1: and he like puts his hand on Lolita's hand, and
Speaker 1: then like Charlotte realizes what's happening, and he realizes that
Speaker 1: she realizes, so then everyone kind of like retreats into
Speaker 1: themselves and like pulls their hand away, and it's like
Speaker 1: this this like kind of oh, and then the whole
Speaker 1: cot seeing there's like a three minute slapstick comedy scene
Speaker 1: about like, oh shucks for him that he doesn't get
Speaker 1: to sleep in a bed and he has to set
Speaker 1: up a cot. It's made to want like it's the
Speaker 1: fact that this is a predatory, statutory rapist. It's a joke.
Speaker 1: It's a long and it's a long joke, and no
Speaker 1: matter like how fucking like brainless you were in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two, no one could laugh at this joke. It
Speaker 1: is not It's just horrible in every single one like
Speaker 1: it also another thing that frustrates me in these adaptations,
Speaker 1: and this one is no different. And no disrespect to
Speaker 1: Shelly Winters. She is not given really the tools to
Speaker 1: succeed here, Nor was Melanie Griffith, who gives my favorite
Speaker 1: at Charlotte performance in the un though she was really good,
Speaker 1: having been given nothing right, But again, Charlotte is just
Speaker 1: because these movies take Humbert's word as law. Charlotte is
Speaker 1: portrayed as this as this very shrill, clueless, like not
Speaker 1: particularly intelligent, hyper sexualized monster, like pathetic, desperate, hysterical, jealous,
Speaker 1: like every negative trick her own child. And and again
Speaker 1: this has taken his law. I and again it's like
Speaker 1: you can't know. Also, these people don't exist. I know that,
Speaker 1: but there's just again, even in literary analysis, this interpretation
Speaker 1: of Charlotte is taken very wholesale of like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: annoying woman who you know presents herself as an obstacle
Speaker 1: in the first active of this story, but she obstacle.
Speaker 1: But again, it's like, if you think about the fact
Speaker 1: that you're told at the beginning, this person is going
Speaker 1: to misrepresent everything to make himself look better. Would he
Speaker 1: not benefit by making her look like a horrible, incompetent mother.
Speaker 1: Would he not benefit from portraying her this way? Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not claiming that this character would have been a
Speaker 1: perfect person. It sounds like from the jump she and
Speaker 1: her daughter have a very contentious relationship. Lots of twelve
Speaker 1: year olds do with their mothers. They also, like she
Speaker 1: in in the book, this is I don't remember if
Speaker 1: this referenced in this movie. I've seen so many versions
Speaker 1: of this, so I apologize if I'm getting this wrong.
Speaker 1: But um, she you know, has lost a husband that's referenced. Um,
Speaker 1: she has not. She's very cruel about it in this movie.
Speaker 1: They really they're like, well, he didn't have sex with me, good,
Speaker 1: so I hate him, And you're like, that's not really
Speaker 1: anything that in the movie. In this movie she was
Speaker 1: kind of obsessed with him. Yeah, in the one she
Speaker 1: says he didn't fuck me right, and so I don't
Speaker 1: care that he died, and you're like, that's not something
Speaker 1: people say either way. She She's like in Mourning, there's
Speaker 1: also a long tangent she goes on in the book
Speaker 1: of like she had lost a baby when he was
Speaker 1: very young, and Lolita had a brother, and that he
Speaker 1: passed away very young, and that she had never quite
Speaker 1: fully grieved that, and that that informed her relationship with
Speaker 1: her daughter, was mourning this other child, and that was
Speaker 1: one of the things that made their relationship very complicated,
Speaker 1: which is really interesting and not something that is often
Speaker 1: discussed of, Like this deep depression that she would have
Speaker 1: been in and how does that affect the child who
Speaker 1: lives on and like this is a real world problem.
Speaker 1: It's I'm not saying that this is the best exploration
Speaker 1: of it, but it's just kind of like all of
Speaker 1: that is pushed aside, even though I think it's in
Speaker 1: staying in the book that you're giving that information to
Speaker 1: make of what you will. And then he's like, she's
Speaker 1: annoying and you're supposed to take that as law, Like
Speaker 1: that's whatever, that's a part of what the book's trying
Speaker 1: to do. But the movie is just they're like, Nope,
Speaker 1: she's annoying, we hate her, we don't care when she dies.
Speaker 1: It's better that that he gets Lolita away from her,
Speaker 1: Like that's what the movie wants. And it's like even
Speaker 1: I get that, like even the viewers of the movie
Speaker 1: are not going to think that because they know that
Speaker 1: he is a bad person. But I feel like the way, yeah,
Speaker 1: the way he builds up her character is to make
Speaker 1: you not feel too bad when she mysteriously dies the
Speaker 1: second she's about to report him, he kills her. I'm
Speaker 1: just like, how all these fucking literary geniuses are like, no,
Speaker 1: she walked into traffic she was confused and I was
Speaker 1: like he killed her whatever. In this movie, also, she
Speaker 1: she's given like a gun, like she's given that whole thing,
Speaker 1: like that was a whole weird that doesn't happen. She
Speaker 1: she's like, the gun isn't loaded, and he's like I
Speaker 1: did that and he looks done and it is loaded.
Speaker 1: So like every right, every way she's characterized just makes
Speaker 1: her seem so awful, Like the movie frames that whole
Speaker 1: situation as like the movie wants you to root against
Speaker 1: Humbert being with an adult woman Charlotte because of the
Speaker 1: negative way that she's characterized, and the movie wants you
Speaker 1: to root for Humbert pursuing a child. The movie frames
Speaker 1: it horrifically. And yeah, again, it all goes back to
Speaker 1: the fact that it doesn't question Humbert's interpretation of events
Speaker 1: at all, and there's no context as to why he's
Speaker 1: presenting this information this way and what he wants you
Speaker 1: to take away. And again, yeah, and every adaptation Charlotte
Speaker 1: has done a huge disservice. I feel like people don't
Speaker 1: really talk about that because I mean, obviously, because Lolita
Speaker 1: has done the biggest disserves of all where she is
Speaker 1: you know, And I think most cases erased from her
Speaker 1: own story and her at any reference in the original
Speaker 1: work to her emotions and her grief and her confusion
Speaker 1: and her figuring out what is happening to her and
Speaker 1: repeated attempts to get herself out are essentially erased or
Speaker 1: severely condensed to make her just less important to the story,
Speaker 1: right to just invalidate her feelings and her experience. It
Speaker 1: makes me so sad for her. I really really love
Speaker 1: her as a character and feel like there's a real
Speaker 1: opportunity here to examine a victims story. Do I think
Speaker 1: that a you know, an older man is the person
Speaker 1: to do this? Of course I don't, But I've been
Speaker 1: being that she is this, you know, iconic character in
Speaker 1: American literature. She's just never been given an opportunity to
Speaker 1: show even what's on the page, much less explore deeper,
Speaker 1: which is what a lot of good film adaptations of
Speaker 1: books are supposed to do, is take the important character
Speaker 1: and then give you a deeper look at who they
Speaker 1: are and what their struggle is and what their grief
Speaker 1: is and and and all of this through the performances.
Speaker 1: And it's just not allowed to happen here. She brings
Speaker 1: me to the thing that I hate the most about
Speaker 1: this movie is a problem that follows through every adaptation
Speaker 1: of this is supersizing clear qualities role in the narrative.
Speaker 1: This is a creative choice that has made literally every time,
Speaker 1: and I hate it. He is present in the book.
Speaker 1: He's not wearing Count Olaf disguises in the book, but there,
Speaker 1: but it is implied that he and um Dolores had
Speaker 1: no each other like when she was very young, and
Speaker 1: that he had already been grooming her. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of left ambiguous in the book as to what actually happens,
Speaker 1: which I just kind of can't speak to it. But
Speaker 1: he was certainly grooming her in in the book from
Speaker 1: a very young age and does follow them as he
Speaker 1: does in this and is killed at the end. But
Speaker 1: this movie just, I mean, I think because this movie
Speaker 1: doesn't know what to do with its title character and
Speaker 1: has no interest in exploring the fact that it's protagonist
Speaker 1: is a fucking criminal of the highest degree. They just
Speaker 1: supersize another male character and try to deepen the history
Speaker 1: and the relationship with Humbert and quality, and I just
Speaker 1: couldn't think of a real like a relationship between two
Speaker 1: characters and this story that I care about less. I
Speaker 1: don't care about two predators and how their enemies like
Speaker 1: who gives a funk? Like it? Just I hate it.
Speaker 1: It's such a lazy choice. It's such a like, of course,
Speaker 1: you hand off this extremely difficult, problematic story to a
Speaker 1: male director and they just kind of are like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, let's let's get the other male character in it.
Speaker 1: More so I understand what we're talking about. Like, I
Speaker 1: hate it. This happens in the movie, happens in the musical,
Speaker 1: happens in the hoodward I'll be play, which is um,
Speaker 1: it happens every single time. And I think that that
Speaker 1: choice especially has a lot to do with not the code.
Speaker 1: This is the choice where I'm like, this is not
Speaker 1: the code. This is the filmmaker making a choice on
Speaker 1: how to handle the code. It's like, oh, I know
Speaker 1: what I'll do. I will make a like male predator
Speaker 1: character way bigger, even though the lead character of this
Speaker 1: is a male predator. Why do that? I just I
Speaker 1: hate this choice so much. I think it's so lazy
Speaker 1: and bad. I hate it, especially making it what yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's like he's being Peter Seller's He's like, in every
Speaker 1: scene he's in, he's doing some kind of character, right,
Speaker 1: He's like in disguise, he's pretending to be other people,
Speaker 1: inspector cluz oing it through this horrifying, dense narrative, and
Speaker 1: it's just like, that is not, No, that is not
Speaker 1: He's do you know what movie you're in? Who do
Speaker 1: you think you are? Bill Nighy and I Frankenstein. You
Speaker 1: just didn't read the script and you showed up and
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm doing what? Like it Just he's like
Speaker 1: Dana Carvey and Master of Disguise. He's like, I can be.
Speaker 1: You need to just remove yourself. You just need to
Speaker 1: like go and read a book for one. Like just
Speaker 1: it's so infuriating that this character is and it's always
Speaker 1: done in slightly different ways. Frank Lngella plays him in
Speaker 1: and he plays the character very differently. Regardless, it's still
Speaker 1: a huge part and it is not written as a
Speaker 1: huge part. I think it is just a choice that
Speaker 1: lazy male creatives have made to handle the parts of
Speaker 1: the story that they are ill equipped to handle. And
Speaker 1: I feel like it is very clear, you know, if
Speaker 1: you have agreed to adapt this work and you do
Speaker 1: not have experience as a survivor of abuse as a
Speaker 1: young person yourself. The first thing you do is research
Speaker 1: that and speak to people and know what you're fucking
Speaker 1: talking about and adapting. So like it's just like logic,
Speaker 1: like one, yeah, like do you know what you're talking
Speaker 1: about in your work? Like, I just it makes me
Speaker 1: so mad that these mediocre fucking I don't care about
Speaker 1: Stanley Lee Krubrick so whatever dragged me. I don't give
Speaker 1: a ship. He's terrible to women, and I just I whatever.
Speaker 1: I know he's made good movies. I don't really care.
Speaker 1: I just think it's so irresponsible and so lazy. And
Speaker 1: just the fact that people have even attempted to say, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is this movie is only bad because of reasons
Speaker 1: that have nothing to do with the filmmaker, who also
Speaker 1: wrote most of the movie. It's like you can't. I mean,
Speaker 1: I agree that the code is a big part of
Speaker 1: why this movie is never going to work, but it
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with Stanley Kubrick, a whole lot.
Speaker 1: It's just so yeah, because like because when he does
Speaker 1: decide to have lowly to on screen, this is okay.
Speaker 1: So this is something I'm kind of like figuring out
Speaker 1: in real time, so bear with me here. But like
Speaker 1: even the way that she is introduced on screen visually,
Speaker 1: like the first time we meet her character in the movie,
Speaker 1: she's lying on the lawn. She is in this kind
Speaker 1: of seductive pose, or what the movie would have you
Speaker 1: think is that she like is wearing these sunglasses. She
Speaker 1: like tilts them down in a very kind of like
Speaker 1: film fatality way. I feel like she's like licking a lollipop.
Speaker 1: She's like, well, the thing is, she is not actually
Speaker 1: doing that in the movie, right, This is fascinating, and
Speaker 1: I think it's like, Okay, I know I'm prepared to
Speaker 1: do this podcast, and so I'm like really in it.
Speaker 1: But she doesn't actually do that in the movie. You
Speaker 1: remember it that way because that is what is on
Speaker 1: the poster, and that is what happens in every like
Speaker 1: it's she is presented very sexualized and male gaze in
Speaker 1: her introductory scene. But this whole image that is the
Speaker 1: I think the most prevalent image that people have taken
Speaker 1: away from any version of this story is the young
Speaker 1: girl wearing heart shaped sunglasses and licking a lollipop. That
Speaker 1: exact image does not appear in the movie. At all.
Speaker 1: It doesn't appear anywhere. It is something that exists nowhere,
Speaker 1: Like it is fucking fascinating to me that it that
Speaker 1: that I mean, that's just marketing. That is literally just
Speaker 1: marketing designed to titilate a male viewer into thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: and she's making eye contact with the camera and that image.
Speaker 1: It's strictly marketing. It has nothing to do with anything.
Speaker 1: But it's the thing that everyone took away from it,
Speaker 1: including me. Apparently. The way she's introduced in the movie
Speaker 1: is similar. Where she is lying on the lawn, she's
Speaker 1: wearing a bikini. There's a lot of people who have
Speaker 1: including the actress Sue Lyon, who I want to talk
Speaker 1: about a little bit as well, Um who she She implied,
Speaker 1: and many people involved with this production implied that she
Speaker 1: was chosen because she was more developed than many girls
Speaker 1: her age, and she's presented that way. She's presented in
Speaker 1: a bikini. Um, she's you know, hanging out on the lawn,
Speaker 1: she's sunbathing. She looks at him very seductively and kind
Speaker 1: of starts teasing him right away. This is a hyper
Speaker 1: sexualized version of how it's presented in the book. The movie.
Speaker 1: You get a different hyper sexualized version in the book.
Speaker 1: What it is is it's a young girl laying out
Speaker 1: on the lawn reading a magazine, and everything else is
Speaker 1: like it's a very ordinary image, but the way it's
Speaker 1: written by a narrator that you have been told not
Speaker 1: to trust is hyper sexualized, and every movie kind of
Speaker 1: adapts it the same. It's the same problem is like
Speaker 1: the framing and the male gaze that comes with this
Speaker 1: is coming from the unreliable male gaze that it's presented
Speaker 1: as in the book, and just it's just these like
Speaker 1: I don't know, like Stanley Cooper has never read a book.
Speaker 1: He doesn't under he clearly hasn't been at grad school, Kalin.
Speaker 1: I mean, he also made a movie that I mean,
Speaker 1: with The Shining that Stephen King hated. He's bad at adaptations,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, he's bad, Like he's I just
Speaker 1: don't like I know that he's making us up. I
Speaker 1: just don't care. I just don't care. I don't have time. Sorry,
Speaker 1: only so like what my point is that I'm still
Speaker 1: trying to figure out. But like, like the movie does
Speaker 1: frame a lot of what she does as being seductive,
Speaker 1: which I think kind of goes to what happens in
Speaker 1: the book where he's like, oh, this, this nim fit
Speaker 1: is tantalizing me, and like we see we see that
Speaker 1: in the movie where like she's right beside him, like
Speaker 1: doing a hula hoop, which is just a normal activity
Speaker 1: that a child would do. But because he's a predator,
Speaker 1: he is liked is right in that shot, like he's
Speaker 1: staring at her. Do you see her staring You see
Speaker 1: him staring at her? But what we need But because
Speaker 1: because this movie doesn't make it clear at all that
Speaker 1: he is an unreliable narrator, the movie just makes it
Speaker 1: seem like she is deliberately tantalizing him. I think what's
Speaker 1: in the same way Humbert does by not framing it
Speaker 1: as like it's blaming her. Yeah, I think for that
Speaker 1: to be approached differently. You okay, remember the scene in
Speaker 1: Fast Times at Regimont High where Phoebe Kates's character is
Speaker 1: getting out of a swimming pool and then you get
Speaker 1: Judge Reinhold's point of view, like fantasy version of it
Speaker 1: looks like, yeah, he's seeing her in slow motion and
Speaker 1: she's being really sexy and seductive and she takes her
Speaker 1: top off and it's like male gaze for days. And
Speaker 1: then it cuts to what actually is happening, where she
Speaker 1: like jumps out of the pool because she's like choking
Speaker 1: on water and it's like she's got hair all over
Speaker 1: in her face, and it's just like, yes, I totally agree.
Speaker 1: Like it is a very simple I mean, maybe goofy
Speaker 1: for this thing, but like it makes it clear that
Speaker 1: what he's seeing and what is happening are two very different,
Speaker 1: very different things. That's what needs to be established here.
Speaker 1: And it never is. It never is in any of
Speaker 1: these adaptations. It never is. I Caitlin, need to send
Speaker 1: you a song that from this musical. I like some
Speaker 1: people will say that the musical is the best this
Speaker 1: has ever been adapted, which is just a look into
Speaker 1: how horrible the adaptations are there. This is just so
Speaker 1: over the top that I had to laugh. But it's
Speaker 1: very fun. This lyric in the song goes like this,
Speaker 1: it's a lyric about Humbert. The town's talking about Humbert.
Speaker 1: Something's not right with this guy. That's literally what the
Speaker 1: tone of the song is. And then towns person number
Speaker 1: five says, who is this viper that loves them post diaper?
Speaker 1: That's the line in the song that he sings, he
Speaker 1: says who loves him that? And it is this kind
Speaker 1: of uncritical, like bullshit, like trying to acknowledge what is
Speaker 1: happening without with also while being completely ill equipped to
Speaker 1: do so. Yeah, I just that line really like I
Speaker 1: had to like throw my computer into the ocean after
Speaker 1: I heard that that. It's the most like if you
Speaker 1: want the soundtrack is on YouTube. It's very bizarre. But
Speaker 1: for this, I think, yeah, with the Hula group seen
Speaker 1: as a perfect example of like the movie is blaming
Speaker 1: her for what eventually happens. It is setting the viewer
Speaker 1: up to say that she's quote unquote asking for it.
Speaker 1: That thing that we have you know, heard and discussed
Speaker 1: so many different times that is lived like that just
Speaker 1: a false narrative that has leveraged against victims. And this
Speaker 1: movie is just like yep, we agreed, which brings me too.
Speaker 1: I think my last major thing for for this is
Speaker 1: talking a little bit about Sue Lion, who played Lolita
Speaker 1: in this movie. She passed away last year and she's
Speaker 1: a very interesting figure in movie history. I've done quite
Speaker 1: a bit of research on her. There's not actually a
Speaker 1: lot because and this is a kind of continuing trend
Speaker 1: that young actresses who are cast as Lovelita historically don't
Speaker 1: tend to work for very long. And I think that again,
Speaker 1: it's everyone is different. I'm not trying to loop all
Speaker 1: of these people into the same narrative, but there are
Speaker 1: similarities that I think are worth mentioning, which include the
Speaker 1: fact and I think it really speaks to Hollywood issues,
Speaker 1: not even issues with the story, it's more societal issues
Speaker 1: of Sue Lion is cast as an unknown for this
Speaker 1: part when she's fourteen. She later describes what sounds like
Speaker 1: She she frames it is like, isn't this funny in
Speaker 1: the eighties? But what she described I thought it sounded
Speaker 1: very fucked up. She she went to this audition with
Speaker 1: Stanley Kubrick, and she frames us by being like, and
Speaker 1: you know, normally when you go to an audition and
Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, turned this way, I turned this way. Ah,
Speaker 1: here's the line, thanks for coming in, Sia whatever. But
Speaker 1: she said this audition, he asked her very personal questions
Speaker 1: right when she got there, and he said, do you
Speaker 1: where do you go? What do you do? What time
Speaker 1: do you come home? What does your mom think of you?
Speaker 1: Where did you get that dress? What? What size is it? Like?
Speaker 1: Asked her all these really personal questions in order to
Speaker 1: get the role right. So already we're like, okay, if
Speaker 1: you didn't remember why you hated Stanley Kubrick, there's a
Speaker 1: fun reminder. But so she she's put into this movie,
Speaker 1: she wins a Golden Globe for playing this part, and
Speaker 1: then goes on to really not have much of a career,
Speaker 1: and then she retires from acting pretty young. She has
Speaker 1: a very tumultuous personal life that is not really relevant
Speaker 1: to our discussion. But all that to say that I
Speaker 1: do believe that there is a stigma that comes with
Speaker 1: playing a role like Lolita, especially when it is written
Speaker 1: as irresponsibly as it regularly is in these adaptations, where
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like Peter Sellers certainly didn't have a
Speaker 1: fucking problem getting work after being in this movie, James
Speaker 1: Mason's they didn't have problems. Shelley Winters didn't have problems.
Speaker 1: But it is these young actresses who are sexualized, over sexualized,
Speaker 1: playing a character that is in its essence misrepresenting and
Speaker 1: blaming them for what is happening to them. And then
Speaker 1: you see that they don't even really get to reap
Speaker 1: the benefits of having started this huge movie. They're kind
Speaker 1: of discarded by Hollywood and by the culture at large.
Speaker 1: Of yeah, I mean, there's most Sue Lion movies she
Speaker 1: was in after this, you wouldn't really know, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the there's a similar line that can be
Speaker 1: drawn for the actress who played Lolita in it is
Speaker 1: like a common trend for this character and just extends
Speaker 1: my frustration and my problems with this of like I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, with what she's given. I think Sue Lyon
Speaker 1: does an excellent job, and I feel the same of
Speaker 1: dominiques plain and the fact that they would have to
Speaker 1: in some ways it seems bear the brunt and the
Speaker 1: consequences of the people around them mismanaging the story is
Speaker 1: so frustrating to me. I mean it just truly, no
Speaker 1: one else in these productions suffer except I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't want to say that, but like, career wise, Stanley
Speaker 1: Kubrick's is fucking fine. Adrian Line. I mean, at least
Speaker 1: you can argue that Adrian Line didn't make a movie
Speaker 1: for't even talking about, thank god. But by and large,
Speaker 1: you know, reputation wise and typecasting wise, Jeremy Irons went
Speaker 1: on to play a number of roles and he's fucking
Speaker 1: the worst person ever. Like, I just I just find
Speaker 1: that trend to also be frustrating because it just extends
Speaker 1: this blame onto the person playing the character, and that's
Speaker 1: just I hate that. I hate that so much. H
Speaker 1: It's awful. It's also very telling of just where we've
Speaker 1: been culturally, where you know, we just blame women for everything. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I it really frustrates me. I'm sorry for bringing this movie,
Speaker 1: but I do. I mean, I'm very curious as to
Speaker 1: what our listeners think if if you, um, we're listening
Speaker 1: to the episode. It's such a complicated work. There's so
Speaker 1: much too obviously talk about, but also just the ways
Speaker 1: that I mean, I feel like of all the irresponsible adaptations,
Speaker 1: the adaptations of this book in particular have been egregiously terrible,
Speaker 1: to the point where I'm like, if this is how
Speaker 1: it's going to be remembered culturally, do you even want
Speaker 1: the book to have been written? If it's just going
Speaker 1: to be given to people that you can't get to
Speaker 1: step of researching it, Like, it's just so absurd to
Speaker 1: me because victims, I mean, I think victims deserve better
Speaker 1: than Lolita in general, for sure, but victims deserve better
Speaker 1: in these adaptations as well. Like there's yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: this movie is upsetting and frustrating, and historically, I guess
Speaker 1: I would say it's relevant and it marks a very
Speaker 1: specific point in time. But I also I'm just like,
Speaker 1: if you're still out here being like it was just
Speaker 1: the code. Uh, it wasn't. It definitely wasn't. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of other things at play here, none of them good. No.
Speaker 1: The one other thing I remember pretty distinctly from the book,
Speaker 1: and I only remember this because I remember bringing it
Speaker 1: up in the class discussion we had during the class
Speaker 1: I took in college, where in the book Humbert is
Speaker 1: like obsessed with Lolita's i Q. He's always talking about
Speaker 1: how she has a high i Q. So let's start,
Speaker 1: of course, by saying, and Jamie, I don't have to
Speaker 1: tell you this, but like, I'm in ment i Q.
Speaker 1: I Q tests are like bullshit based on pseudoscience, and
Speaker 1: you are in mensa. Yes, that's sorry, That's what I
Speaker 1: meant to say. Yeah, no, it's it's it's racist, sexist,
Speaker 1: you name it, pseudoscience. That yeah, he does. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think he intentionally in many points like tries to
Speaker 1: I think I think what he's trying to do there
Speaker 1: is just try to make it sound like she is.
Speaker 1: He's like, well, she's smart, so that means that she's
Speaker 1: older than her age, Like just exactly trying to play
Speaker 1: that angle. Yeah, because like i Q stands for intelligence quotient,
Speaker 1: which is a number that you get when you divide
Speaker 1: again and this is all like bullshit pseudoscience, but it's
Speaker 1: when you divide your mental age, which is a number
Speaker 1: that you get from an intelligence test, divide that by
Speaker 1: your actual chronological age. So if someone scores a one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty on an i Q test, which is
Speaker 1: considered to be a high i Q, and you take
Speaker 1: that test when you're ten years old, it means that
Speaker 1: your actual your chronological age is ten, but your mental
Speaker 1: age is fifteen. So I feel like Humbred is so
Speaker 1: obsessed with her i Q because he's like, well, she
Speaker 1: might be twelve chronologically, but she's closer to It's literally,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like it's it's so yeah, he's he's
Speaker 1: just a fucking bullshit liar. Where that's for like reading
Speaker 1: levels and Matt nothing to do ability to consent, Like
Speaker 1: it's just so bad faith and ridiculous, but I do
Speaker 1: yeah that I uh, but I feel like that is
Speaker 1: like like four predators who try to justify their behavior.
Speaker 1: They'll they'll site like, oh yeah, well she was maybe
Speaker 1: technically under age, but she was so mature. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think I feel like that's very common tactic. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean humber humbert are certainly and embodies a lot
Speaker 1: of common tactics of manipulative abuser. I mean, yeah, hell,
Speaker 1: and that's something that could have been in the movie,
Speaker 1: where like if we see him trying to justify his
Speaker 1: behavior through you know, the mental gymnastics he's doing, and
Speaker 1: then we see other characters be like, well wait a minute,
Speaker 1: what So that's another I think opportunity again, if you're
Speaker 1: going to adapt this, that's an opportunity you have as
Speaker 1: a filmmaker to present these things that he is saying
Speaker 1: in this very fancy, flowery language in the book and
Speaker 1: then just having to have that character say it as
Speaker 1: dialogue when it will sound predatory and ridiculous and will
Speaker 1: scare people because it's like he doesn't have the luxury
Speaker 1: of talking his way around the topic as he is
Speaker 1: in the book. That's an I mean, that's something that
Speaker 1: you could have explored of, like how does this person
Speaker 1: try to justify himself in real time? And of course
Speaker 1: it's going to catch up with him. And also a
Speaker 1: lot of what the book deals with that I don't
Speaker 1: think that the movies are successful in is society's failure
Speaker 1: of Lolita. Not only are we seeing this predator succeed
Speaker 1: in taking her away again and again and again, we
Speaker 1: see her communities has failed her, her school system has
Speaker 1: failed her, her government has failed her, law enforcement has
Speaker 1: failed her. She's been failed at every level, and that
Speaker 1: you know, partially due to this kind of extreme passiveness
Speaker 1: that existed in the nineteen fifties in the US. And
Speaker 1: like that was a very deliberate commentary that again, it's
Speaker 1: just like this movie has no interest or ability, I
Speaker 1: don't know which, but like it has no and it
Speaker 1: just is like Peter Sellers is funny. You're just like,
Speaker 1: how is this where we are like, yeah, well, wouldn't
Speaker 1: it be funny if the hotel is all booked up
Speaker 1: and they can only have one room because there's a
Speaker 1: police convention there, and oh, the irony of a pedophile
Speaker 1: who's you know, breaking the law has to be around
Speaker 1: a bunch of cops. T he he what a funny obstacle.
Speaker 1: It's infuriating. It's so like, yeah, creating a comic situation
Speaker 1: out of it, all of it. It's just it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a waste of everybody's time, and it's worse
Speaker 1: than a ways of time. It's actively detrimental to telling
Speaker 1: a story that could be of use to anybody, to anybody,
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's I mean, that's why nobody
Speaker 1: talks about this movie is because the book is very controversial,
Speaker 1: but some people have found value in it, which is
Speaker 1: why it's such a debate. This movie. No one ever
Speaker 1: found value and so no one is like, well what
Speaker 1: about Peter Sellers? Like, no one is like, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a useless it's a useless movie, and I and
Speaker 1: I hate that Sue Lion and Shelly Winters had to
Speaker 1: deal with any part of it. Um, thank you for
Speaker 1: being willing to discuss this, this movie with me. I
Speaker 1: don't worry now I have I'll be using this as collateral.
Speaker 1: Know what's the word something to yeah to? Because you
Speaker 1: know there's some some movies that I know you don't
Speaker 1: want to do that. I'm like, where this is about? Yeah, fine,
Speaker 1: I did Indiana Jones let that that's true there, But
Speaker 1: in any case, yes, I agree, and I yeah, I
Speaker 1: just my thoughts have been very consumed with this property
Speaker 1: recently and so wanted to bring it on the Bechtel
Speaker 1: Cast and talk about it with you. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: wow wow wow um. Yeah, So feel free to leave
Speaker 1: your thoughts in the comments. Were very as always, very
Speaker 1: interested in what you have to say. I did not
Speaker 1: honestly pay attention to if this movie passed. If this
Speaker 1: movie passes the Bechdel tests, I don't give any manner
Speaker 1: of funk about that. If it does, I don't really care.
Speaker 1: I think it probably does Melita and her mom, but
Speaker 1: at I just yeah, I don't really care. It doesn't.
Speaker 1: I don't think it matters for this movie. It doesn't
Speaker 1: super matter. No, it's not really relevant to this discussion.
Speaker 1: And I honestly don't know how to give this movie
Speaker 1: nipples either. I guess I would say zero. I'm going
Speaker 1: to give it negative one million nipples. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: I'll just say negative. I guess I'll say I barely
Speaker 1: know that this even apply. I said this discussion, it
Speaker 1: is like the portrayal in this movie. There, there wasn't
Speaker 1: even an attempt. It took a flawed attempt at portraying
Speaker 1: female characters and erased not just Nabokov's problems, but the
Speaker 1: entire character. Just turned the pencil over and y or
Speaker 1: e Uri like just it. Everyone deserves so much better
Speaker 1: than what this movie had to offer. And buck Stanley Kubrick.
Speaker 1: And that's why I suck the other adaptation, the other
Speaker 1: film one. That one is just the other adaptation. It's
Speaker 1: Adrian line. He shouldn't have worked for a long time
Speaker 1: after that. I tell you what the Adrian linement in particular.
Speaker 1: I just I watched it today and I feel terrible.
Speaker 1: You know what I need to do as a palate
Speaker 1: cleanser for having consumed all this little all these Lolita
Speaker 1: movies was watch hard Candy. Hard Candy is everything these
Speaker 1: movies are not. It is a revenge that was. That
Speaker 1: was a fun episode to record. Yes, yes, I and
Speaker 1: I feel like in a way you can view that
Speaker 1: movie as kind of a response to movies like Lolita. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think someone like saw Stanley Kubrick's Lolita and they're like, well, um,
Speaker 1: I could adopt that better than this, and then they
Speaker 1: made hard candy. I just it still is so infuriating
Speaker 1: to me that the image that people take away from
Speaker 1: this movie doesn't even appear in the movie that says
Speaker 1: everything you need to know about this movie. It is
Speaker 1: just it tricked me to like I like I had
Speaker 1: mapped the poster onto that scene. I guess like almost
Speaker 1: everybody feels this way, like I thought this until I've
Speaker 1: built my life around it for no reason like that.
Speaker 1: It's so I mean manipulative, like it's it's very effective
Speaker 1: marketing that is doing bad things like yeah, it is, Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It is a very interesting case study.
Speaker 1: It's very fucked up and uh you know, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: done talking about it. And now we're done talking. Check
Speaker 1: out the podcast. Oh wow, we'll be back soon with that.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening again. We uh look forward to
Speaker 1: your perspectives or we'll see it I Frankenstein. Yes, well
Speaker 1: that was our unlocked Lolita episode and once again Jamie
Speaker 1: tell people where and when and how they can listen
Speaker 1: to Lolita Podcast. Lolita Podcast comes out on November twenty three,
Speaker 1: and then new episodes are released every Monday right here
Speaker 1: on on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast,
Speaker 1: and that's the official like edge uh but yeah, I
Speaker 1: uh that So as far as like, there is one
Speaker 1: entire episode dedicated to like deep background on this movie
Speaker 1: in particular, but at a ten episode series, so we're
Speaker 1: taking a look at the book, We're taking a look
Speaker 1: at the author, We're taking a look at the other adaptations.
Speaker 1: There is also entire episodes dedicated to talking to professionals
Speaker 1: and child psychiatry and just like other and and the
Speaker 1: ways that people have reclaimed this text over the years,
Speaker 1: and um, it's an interesting ride. I hope that people
Speaker 1: will listen. But yeah, it's just uh, it's just a
Speaker 1: podcast that will come out on Mondays soon. Excellent. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of plugs, because this was an unlocked Matreon episode,
Speaker 1: we said at the beginning of the episode, we'll repeat ourselves.
Speaker 1: Check out our Matreon and you can do that by
Speaker 1: going to patreon dot com slash pectel Cast. It gets
Speaker 1: you access to two brand new bonus episodes every single month,
Speaker 1: plus access to the entire back catalog of bonus episodes,
Speaker 1: and like we mentioned, there are upwards of eighty by
Speaker 1: now and if you're listening when this comes out in November,
Speaker 1: we just we're in the middle of Mary Kate Nashley
Speaker 1: month on an important moments in world history. You thought
Speaker 1: this episode was a critical discussion, wait till you get
Speaker 1: to two different Mary Kate Nashley movies. H too too
Speaker 1: much discourse for one episode. So but there there's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun stuff. We always cover um garbage holiday
Speaker 1: movies in December, and it's just it's a fun ride.
Speaker 1: So uh meet us over and the matron from More
Speaker 1: Yes indeed and um yeah all the other stuff. Follow
Speaker 1: us on social media at Bechtelcast on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: Check out our merch on uh public dot com slash
Speaker 1: the Bechtel Cast. The perfect time for Baby Grinch March
Speaker 1: or as I like car now, Green Baby Boy, Green
Speaker 1: Baby Boy, you need to do a whole after Lolita
Speaker 1: is over. You need to do a separate podcast about
Speaker 1: your journey with Green Baby Boy. I honestly will need
Speaker 1: the relief after after wean Lovelita for six months to
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, this this podcast is just about Baby Grinch.
Speaker 1: Let's just cut to the chase, um and well, if
Speaker 1: you'll allow me to plug something of mine. I have
Speaker 1: a still pretty new Instagram live show that I do
Speaker 1: every Thursday on my Instagram, which you can find that
Speaker 1: at Caitlin Darante. It's called Movie Talk with Caitlin and
Speaker 1: it's just me and a guest chatting about movies. It's
Speaker 1: not the Bechtel Cast because I do no preparation. There's
Speaker 1: no specific movie that gets discussed. It's just a loose
Speaker 1: convo to you were my first guest, what a what
Speaker 1: a blast? And many and and I think so far
Speaker 1: all friends of the cast have been on this so far,
Speaker 1: because it turns out the only people I know our
Speaker 1: former guests on our show. Well well, well, the way
Speaker 1: I was thinking of it is like we truly just
Speaker 1: bring our friends on our show, because that's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think I'll keep it pretty close to
Speaker 1: to to Bectel Cast friends on on Movie Talk. So
Speaker 1: check that out again every Thursday at six pm Pacific,
Speaker 1: nine pm Eastern. And that's again on my Instagram at
Speaker 1: Caitlin Darante. And I think that doesn't right, I think,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I have a have a great week, everybody,
Speaker 1: and uh, we'll see you next week with another episode.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I was gonna say with another episode, goodbye,
Speaker 1: it's true. Bye bye,