Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have women and them, are
Speaker 2: all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they
Speaker 2: have individualism? The patriarchy Zephyn Beast start changing with the
Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: Hello Bechdel Cast listeners, Jamie and Caitlin. Here we are
Speaker 3: re releasing one of our favorite episodes this week that
Speaker 3: we recorded what two years.
Speaker 4: Ago or so that sounds possible.
Speaker 3: About the classic Real Women Have Curves directed by Pittric
Speaker 3: Shikurdo So, written by and based on the play by
Speaker 3: Hosafina Lopez. So the reason we're doing this may be evident.
Speaker 3: But if you are international or live in a cave,
Speaker 3: this is a movie that is about East Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: It's a movie about the immigrant community in Los Angeles
Speaker 3: and in Los Angeles at the moment, there have been
Speaker 3: all of these horrific media narratives claiming that there are
Speaker 3: riots in the streets, when the riots are in fact
Speaker 3: being perpetrated by Ice and by the National Guard and
Speaker 3: by the LAPD. No matter what Mary Karen Bass says
Speaker 3: at this podcast, we say, fuck mayor of Karen Bass.
Speaker 4: Yes, and Karen is a Karen is a Karen is
Speaker 4: a Karen.
Speaker 3: I mean, Los Angeles has always been a city of immigrants,
Speaker 3: it has always been a city of unions, and I
Speaker 3: think the dual threat has really caused the city to
Speaker 3: come together in this amazing way. But there is still
Speaker 3: so so so much going on across the country, but
Speaker 3: particularly in LA is where this all sort of kicked
Speaker 3: off by ICE. To be clear, around a week ago
Speaker 3: from when we were recording this, ICE showed up at
Speaker 3: a home depot in Paramount, California, which is another thing
Speaker 3: that seems to be widely misunderstood how massive LA is
Speaker 3: targeting specifically immigrants, which led to it impromptu protest, which
Speaker 3: has led to protests across the country as ICE continues
Speaker 3: to essentially occupy the city. So we thought it would
Speaker 3: be a good moment to re release an episode that
Speaker 3: is about the immigrant community in LA And.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this movie is about a family that could very
Speaker 4: likely be torn apart by the types of raids that
Speaker 4: are happening right now, and that, to be clear, have
Speaker 4: been happening.
Speaker 5: Yes, this happens all the time.
Speaker 4: There is an escalation of it right now, but you know,
Speaker 4: during the Biden and Obama administrations, lest we forget there
Speaker 4: were raids like this happening.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and you know, if you're a listener in the
Speaker 3: US and you went to a No King's protest this
Speaker 3: past weekend, good on you.
Speaker 5: But we also wanted to talk about, you know, something
Speaker 5: we've talked about over.
Speaker 3: The years of if you are feeling helpless and how
Speaker 3: the privilege to be able to do more, please do more.
Speaker 3: We're gonna link some resources in the description of places.
Speaker 5: To donate, and also, I think.
Speaker 3: Like a critical part that we've talked about before is
Speaker 3: finding your mutual aid practice to support vulnerable communities, so
Speaker 3: we'll add in we'll add some links for that as well.
Speaker 4: We'll add those to our link tree too.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and just so you know that we're keeping ourselves accountable,
Speaker 3: we are also going to be making a donation to
Speaker 3: and I'll.
Speaker 5: Include more information about this.
Speaker 3: But in case this is actionable in your community, LA,
Speaker 3: there's a ton of incredible street vendors here who are
Speaker 3: from immigrant families or immigrants themselves, and there are a
Speaker 3: bunch of mutual aid efforts going on in our community
Speaker 3: to basically pay these employees to stay home so that
Speaker 3: they can stay safe from this horrific escalation of ICE
Speaker 3: as they continue to occupy our city. So if they're
Speaker 3: similar efforts in your community, donate to them. If there
Speaker 3: are not similar efforts in your community, I've watched through
Speaker 3: a series of you know, signal chats over the course
Speaker 3: of the weekend, people just going and speaking with their
Speaker 3: community members, speaking to street vendors in their community to
Speaker 3: see if this is something they would be interested in. So,
Speaker 3: you know, there's numerous ways to stay involved in to
Speaker 3: protect your community, and so we wanted to re release
Speaker 3: this episode just to acknowledge that, you know, this is
Speaker 3: a podcast that is engaging.
Speaker 5: With the world.
Speaker 3: It is the very least we can do, and that
Speaker 3: we're staying engaged as well. To all of our listeners
Speaker 3: who are immigrants or have family who are immigrants, we
Speaker 3: stand with you. We will do anything and everything we're
Speaker 3: able to.
Speaker 5: To continue to do.
Speaker 3: So The Buchtal Cast is an inclusive show. It is
Speaker 3: for fucking everybody and well. I also wanted to mention
Speaker 3: that hosts Pheno Lopez, who wrote this show, has also
Speaker 3: been doing a lot to draw attention to actions and
Speaker 3: notifying where ICE has been showing up, because that's also
Speaker 3: a lot of community work we'll link in the description,
Speaker 3: but know how to identify an ice vehicle and know
Speaker 3: where to call if you identify an ice vehicle, so
Speaker 3: people can be notified as quickly as possible.
Speaker 4: Other ways to get involved and stay engaged and support
Speaker 4: your communities, you can distribute Know your Rights cards red cards,
Speaker 4: which include information about the rights that immigrants and that
Speaker 4: people in general have, and distributing those two your neighbors,
Speaker 4: your community so that people can be as informed as possible.
Speaker 3: And that's another thing as well, where I think that
Speaker 3: there's all of these popular narratives that people who aren't
Speaker 3: citizens don't have rights. That's not true. There's this thing
Speaker 3: called human rights that still exist. It's just like drives
Speaker 3: me fucking wild. If you are able to get cards,
Speaker 3: they're also more and more widely available. I think that
Speaker 3: they're available at most public libraries if you are looking
Speaker 3: to acquire some.
Speaker 5: I also think.
Speaker 3: That a community that has sort of been left behind
Speaker 3: in this discussion are the unhoused. There is a tremendous
Speaker 3: amount of overlap between the undocumented immigrant community and the
Speaker 3: unhoused community, particularly here in LA but also everywhere. We
Speaker 3: will be linking a number of resources in the description
Speaker 3: we are still.
Speaker 5: Learning as well or not you know, coming on here
Speaker 5: to be like.
Speaker 3: Fuck, you do better. We're all doing our best, but
Speaker 3: just we're asking our listeners who have the privilege to
Speaker 3: do so as we do, to stay involved, staying for
Speaker 3: and really show up for your community in ways that
Speaker 3: might not always be comfortable.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a couple talking points I wanted to touch on
Speaker 4: as well, kind of emphasize a talking point that there
Speaker 4: are some people who are like, yeah, we shouldn't detain
Speaker 4: or deport immigrants because of their contributions to the workforce,
Speaker 4: like they grow our food.
Speaker 3: Right, This hasnt been and this is something that like
Speaker 3: politicians who have been speaking out against ice raids have
Speaker 3: used as their justification and it's such horseshit. Way, I
Speaker 3: wanted to actually quote my friend Albert, who's terrific Los
Speaker 3: Angeles organizer and a huge Bright Eyes fan, and these
Speaker 3: are wow, two of the many reasons that I and
Speaker 3: he was actually that our most recent factal Cash show
Speaker 3: in La Albert is the best. And he yeah, he
Speaker 3: tweeted on June ninth, just a little note, stop trying
Speaker 3: to justify someone's existence in this country by saying their
Speaker 3: quote unquote heart working. Literally, who gives a shit. The
Speaker 3: government is kidnapping people in broad daylight. Whether they work
Speaker 3: hard or not is irrelevant and beside the point. No
Speaker 3: one should be defined by their labor.
Speaker 5: It's people.
Speaker 3: It's people being kidnapped from the like, from their homes
Speaker 3: and from the streets. That is what matters. It's a
Speaker 3: kill the cop in your head moment.
Speaker 5: Do not define people by their labor.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Another thing is people are also talking about how
Speaker 4: this is connected to Palestine, and people are like, but why,
Speaker 4: but how that's happening over there. There's a direct correlation
Speaker 4: in the sense that law enforcement in the US are
Speaker 4: trained in the fake state of Israel. They learn tactics.
Speaker 3: Yea, the idea of colludes with American policing systems constantly.
Speaker 4: Constantly, and then just the larger context of all of
Speaker 4: this is happening because of white supremacy, pro imperialism, pro
Speaker 4: settler colonialism, like it's it's all connected. Not to sound
Speaker 4: like a conspiracy theorist, but it.
Speaker 3: Is, well there, I mean, yes, the intersections are infinite.
Speaker 3: I mean there's yes. Also will also link in the description.
Speaker 3: There's an episode of We the En House that just
Speaker 3: came out on Tuesday. That also speaks to the way
Speaker 3: that these communities and these atrocities intersect. And yeah, check
Speaker 3: out the links in our description. Get involved in your
Speaker 3: community specifically, you are needed, and stay safe. We love you,
Speaker 3: We love you, and enjoy this episode about real women
Speaker 3: have curbscast.
Speaker 4: Jamie, it's so hot in here. Can you please turn
Speaker 4: the fan on in this recording studio?
Speaker 5: Well, it gets, it gets the podcast. Dusty can't can't
Speaker 5: turn on the fan? The podcast will be covered. Does
Speaker 5: it'll be a catastrophe for us?
Speaker 4: Sorry, well fine, I'll just take off all my clothes then, all.
Speaker 5: Right, that's not my business. I guess I'll do the same. Oh,
Speaker 5: the same.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that sounds great. Actually, the only.
Speaker 5: Person that's gonna piss off is Mommy.
Speaker 4: Mommy podcast. Cool. Well, I'm glad we sorted that out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that idea that resolved very cleanly.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Caitlin Derante.
Speaker 3: My name is Jamie Laftus, and this is our podcast
Speaker 3: where we take a look at your favorite movies using
Speaker 3: an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as a
Speaker 3: jumping off point for discussion.
Speaker 4: Which of course, is a media metric created by Creeer
Speaker 4: cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace test, whereby
Speaker 4: two people of a marginalized gender have to have names,
Speaker 4: they have to speak to each other, and their conversation
Speaker 4: has to be about something other than a man, and
Speaker 4: ideally for our sake, it is a meaningful, substantial conversation
Speaker 4: and not just like a hay.
Speaker 5: Keep this going, this feels this sounds good, this feels good.
Speaker 4: How's your soup? And then the other person says.
Speaker 5: I'm not listening to you.
Speaker 3: Go away, and then the first character disappears forever and
Speaker 3: they're like, wait, my name is Crystal as they're leaving.
Speaker 4: But it's too late. We didn't hear it on screen.
Speaker 3: That's an example of something that is great writing, but
Speaker 3: not great to pass it. Look anyways, it's a flawed
Speaker 3: metric because that was an amazing scene we just did.
Speaker 4: I'm going to base an entire screenplay around it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's called it's gonna be called a soup, an extremely
Speaker 4: soupy movie, an.
Speaker 3: Extreme No, no, it's not. And I can't engage with
Speaker 3: this joke any further. I can I draw a line.
Speaker 5: Look, look, in the.
Speaker 3: Case of today's episode, Uh huh Bechdel test, not a problem.
Speaker 5: Let's just say that right now, No problem at all. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 5: and so I said, let's get to it.
Speaker 3: Let's get our incredible returning Bechdel cast guest into the room.
Speaker 5: Let's get her in the mix.
Speaker 4: We simply must. She's a comedian, podcaster, creator and host
Speaker 4: of Mere Juanera, a podcast for potheads, and do you
Speaker 4: remember her from our episode on Selena. It's Mala munnos.
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, thank you for having me. It feels great
Speaker 1: to be back. It's our pleasure and it is also mine.
Speaker 5: We've brought you back. In one thousand degree heat, it's.
Speaker 1: You know what, There's literally nothing else I would rather
Speaker 1: be doing than podcasting about this film in a heat wave.
Speaker 1: It's apt it makes sense. Yeah, I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: in the movie.
Speaker 5: It's true.
Speaker 4: We were joking about how by the end of the
Speaker 4: episode we will all be taking our clothes off, hopefully
Speaker 4: because of the heat.
Speaker 3: Look, pr Nightmare. Maybe will hr get involved?
Speaker 5: Maybe possibly? Am I open to it? Yes?
Speaker 4: Yes, so fucking hot today it is one hundred or
Speaker 4: like ninety seven degrees in where I'm at in La
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 5: Unpleasant, but you know it's not unpleasant.
Speaker 1: The movie, Oh my god, very fun watch, very enjoyable.
Speaker 4: Real women have curves, Molla. What's your relationship, your history
Speaker 4: with this film?
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like my relationship with the film
Speaker 1: starts with my relationship with America Ferrera because she was
Speaker 1: like a Disney Channel darling. She was in Gotta Kick
Speaker 1: It Up about the Latina Dance Team, and that's where,
Speaker 1: like I was born in ninety two, that's where I
Speaker 1: was first introduced to America Ferrera. So when Real Women
Speaker 1: Have Curves came out, it was like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: a recognizable actress who we love and she had this
Speaker 1: like incredible like role. And I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: a movie that a lot of people have seen, but
Speaker 1: in like little Latina Circles, Gotta Kick It Up, real
Speaker 1: women have curves super just iconic, like staples of our media.
Speaker 4: Diet nicely, So did you see Real Women have Curves?
Speaker 4: Like right when it came out, you.
Speaker 1: Know, so two thousand and two. I don't remember where
Speaker 1: I was or where I saw it. I just remember that,
Speaker 1: like it was like this standout movie to me because
Speaker 1: of Loop Anti Vettos is in it, George Lopez is
Speaker 1: in it, America Frere is in it, and there are
Speaker 1: others throughout the film who are iconic actors and actresses.
Speaker 1: But I remember thinking like, oh my god, like this
Speaker 1: little movie is like has all these recognizable faces that
Speaker 1: I've seen in all these other projects, like you know,
Speaker 1: Loop Aunt, the Vetols played Yea in the Selena biopic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So so for that reason, it was like, wow, like
Speaker 1: I've seen these faces in all these other projects, Disney Channels,
Speaker 1: George Lopez, and now they're all here in this one movie.
Speaker 1: Like that's fucking sick.
Speaker 4: What a great cast and like really amazing performances across
Speaker 4: the board.
Speaker 3: And learning about the I mean, we'll get into it,
Speaker 3: but like learning about the production history of this movie
Speaker 3: is like very frustrating and very fascinating, and I just
Speaker 3: like can't wait to.
Speaker 5: Get into it.
Speaker 4: Truly agreed, Jamie, what is your relationship with this movie?
Speaker 3: I had kind of a similar journey. I every d
Speaker 3: com that came out was my favorite movie, and so
Speaker 3: gotta kick it up was I feel like a significant
Speaker 3: one that was like kind of in like the upper
Speaker 3: pantheon of D coms.
Speaker 5: I really, really loved it.
Speaker 3: That was definitely how I, even though I think that
Speaker 3: technically real women have curves was made before Gotta Kick
Speaker 3: It Up, definitely learned about America for and like fell
Speaker 3: in love with her through Gotta Kick It Up. And
Speaker 3: I don't remember, I know I saw real women have
Speaker 3: curves when I was a kid. I was trying to
Speaker 3: sort out in my head the sequence of events of
Speaker 3: like I might have seen like Gotta Kick It Up
Speaker 3: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and then seen real women
Speaker 3: have curves to be like we have to get into vintage.
Speaker 5: America Ferrera, right.
Speaker 3: But I definitely saw it when I was in like
Speaker 3: either late middle school early high school.
Speaker 5: Really really loved it.
Speaker 3: Have revisited it a couple times over the years, but
Speaker 3: I hadn't seen it in a really long time, and
Speaker 3: definitely not since I had moved to La And so
Speaker 3: it was like such a delight to like revisit I
Speaker 3: really love this movie, and yeah, getting to learn more
Speaker 3: about the film and kind of the the at it,
Speaker 3: Like I feel like this is such a cool example
Speaker 3: of like adapting something into a movie well, which is
Speaker 3: so often done badly or sloppily or lazily or whatever,
Speaker 3: but like, this is just like a beautiful adaptation.
Speaker 5: And I'm so excited to talk about it. Yeah, Caitlin,
Speaker 5: what's your history with real Woman? Have curve?
Speaker 4: I saw this movie in high school because I came
Speaker 4: out in two thousand and two. I think I would
Speaker 4: have seen it in like two thousand and three or
Speaker 4: four when I was about honest character's.
Speaker 5: Age in the movie.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I think, if my memory serves me correctly,
Speaker 4: my mom had heard about this movie and was like,
Speaker 4: I heard it's really good. Roger Eber gave it three
Speaker 4: and a half stars. Let's watch it. Let's rent it
Speaker 4: from the video store.
Speaker 3: The Ultimate yard Stick. This is a very like I
Speaker 3: feel like I probably watched this with my mom. It's
Speaker 3: a very mother like. There's not a lot of mother
Speaker 3: daughter movie. Yeah, I mean, and the relationship we'll get there.
Speaker 1: But and it would have required someone we had to
Speaker 1: have the DVD of this film to watch it, So
Speaker 1: I feel like I went to Blockbuster or someone recommended it.
Speaker 1: And because I don't remember seeing it in the movie
Speaker 1: theaters or on TV, like, I feel like it was
Speaker 1: a DVD situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's my recollection as well. Gosh, like yeah,
Speaker 3: like that the later Blockbuster years.
Speaker 5: What a beautiful what a beautiful.
Speaker 1: Time in It's Twilight.
Speaker 3: Does anyone remember the last DVD they got from Blockbuster?
Speaker 5: Wow? I feel like that's a fun question.
Speaker 4: My hometown was so small that we didn't even have
Speaker 4: a Blockbuster Wow. We had to go to just like
Speaker 4: the local video rental store, which I don't even remember
Speaker 4: what it was called now, it might have just been
Speaker 4: called like video.
Speaker 1: Store, the video store.
Speaker 4: Amazing anyway, So yeah, I saw it in high school
Speaker 4: as a teenager, and I haven't watched it since then,
Speaker 4: I don't think. But there were two scenes in particular
Speaker 4: that are just like seered into my memory. You know
Speaker 4: when you watch a movie that you and then you
Speaker 4: don't see it for years, but there are just like
Speaker 4: little moments that you will never forget and then have
Speaker 4: just been like logged into your memory bank forever. The
Speaker 4: scene where America Ferrara is like admiring her body. She
Speaker 4: like pulls her robe open and is like looking at
Speaker 4: herself in the mirror, and then her mom comes in
Speaker 4: and she like immediately knows that she's lost her virginity.
Speaker 4: That like was completely steered into my memory. And then
Speaker 4: the like climactic scene at the end when all the
Speaker 4: women at the dress factory are taking their clothes off
Speaker 4: and comparing bodies and Anna's mom is horrified, like what
Speaker 4: a great scene. Oh, We'll never forget that.
Speaker 3: The other scene that I did not remember her mom
Speaker 3: being like you lost your virginity and being right. I
Speaker 3: was like, Oh, I'm glad. I'm kind of glad.
Speaker 5: That didn't stick with me. I was like, oh, how
Speaker 5: did she know that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I think it was seared into my memory
Speaker 4: because I was so afraid that that would happen to
Speaker 4: me with my.
Speaker 1: Oh right, like you can tell, like I do I
Speaker 1: look different? And in that scene too, she opens with
Speaker 1: like she uses such strong language with Anna, like throughout
Speaker 1: the movie. One of the things that like really sticks
Speaker 1: out to me is like the vocabulary that Garman that
Speaker 1: Anna's mother uses, so like immediately in that scene, she's like,
Speaker 1: you tramp, and then she tells her like not only
Speaker 1: are you fat, you're a buta you know, very hard
Speaker 1: language that just really punctuates like every aspect of the scene.
Speaker 5: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: One of the scenes that stuck with me the hardest
Speaker 3: on this viewing was the scene where it's like on
Speaker 3: his first day working at the factory and her mom
Speaker 3: is body shaming her, and then the second another person
Speaker 3: enters the room, she's all of a sudden nice, And
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, no, I know that dynamic, Like that's
Speaker 3: so that I don't know how many times I've seen
Speaker 3: that like on screen, like depicted in a very straightforward
Speaker 3: way of like, well, yeah, like you know, I could
Speaker 3: be a total asshole to you when no one's around,
Speaker 3: but then the second there's a third party, my demeanor
Speaker 3: completely changes and you're like, yeah, that's I saw that
Speaker 3: a ton growing up, Like.
Speaker 1: It's just yeah, Anna's mom has this way of just
Speaker 1: like raining on her parade, like at every possible moment,
Speaker 1: like even from the opening scene of them, because like
Speaker 1: that scene where she's like talking bad to Anna, Like
Speaker 1: Anna's like admiring a dress on one of the mannequins
Speaker 1: and she's just looking at it and how pretty it is,
Speaker 1: and her mother immediately comes in with you can't fit
Speaker 1: into that, like you're way too fat. There's no way
Speaker 1: there's enough fabric to cover you, Like, look at your
Speaker 1: chee cheese, they're so huge. And then in Wox, Norma
Speaker 1: and even the very first scene of the movie, Anna's
Speaker 1: on her way to school, her last day of high
Speaker 1: school and her mom is sick in bed and asking
Speaker 1: her to stay home to make breakfast for the men.
Speaker 1: You know, she's just like a party pooper throughout the
Speaker 1: whole film.
Speaker 3: That scened like at the factory, like truly, I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, she was literally just standing there like
Speaker 3: it turned into an attack, like.
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, yeah, we will unpack that, yes relationship soon.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's wild because she's so likable. She's so lovable
Speaker 1: the mom even when she's saying all these horrible things,
Speaker 1: like yeah, she's still kind of funny when she's saying them,
Speaker 1: and like the tension between the two of them is like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's something still endearing about her even
Speaker 1: as she infuriates you, you know right.
Speaker 4: I feel like a lot of that is just like
Speaker 4: Lupe Antibo's performance as well, Like yeah, oh.
Speaker 3: Man, across the board, Like every performance in this movie
Speaker 3: is so good and like layered and full of heart.
Speaker 5: And I mean the fact that like America Frera.
Speaker 3: Was fifteen when she started this movie, and like the
Speaker 3: whole range of like she's just so fucking talented.
Speaker 4: It is such a good movie. I am sad. I
Speaker 4: like slept on it for all of those years in between,
Speaker 4: like when I first saw it and now your back, baby,
Speaker 4: I'm back baby. Shall I do the recap?
Speaker 5: Let's do it?
Speaker 4: Okay? So we meet Anna Garcia played by America Feria.
Speaker 4: She's a teenager who is about to finish high school
Speaker 4: in Los Angeles. Ever heard of it? We meet her family,
Speaker 4: her sister Estella played by Ingrid and I'm not sure
Speaker 4: how to pronounce her last name, Oliu, her dad Raoul
Speaker 4: played by Jorge Severa Junior, her grandfather her like Abulito,
Speaker 4: and then her mom, Carmen played by Lupe ante Veros,
Speaker 4: who Anna has a loving but difficult relationship with, as
Speaker 4: we've hinted at, and we'll discuss further. Carmen, we will learn,
Speaker 4: gets on Anna's case about a lot of different things
Speaker 4: and has certain pretty rigid expectations for Anna and for Estella. Yes,
Speaker 4: Anna heads to her last day of high school. She
Speaker 4: and her family live in I think East La.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Boyle Heights.
Speaker 3: But that's right, because that was like very based on
Speaker 3: the source material. This was adapted from a play I know.
Speaker 3: We'll talk about this but play by Josefina Lopez, who
Speaker 3: writes about boyle heads a ton like that is very
Speaker 3: much her background in her community and yeah.
Speaker 4: Yep, but Anna takes several city buses to get to
Speaker 4: school in Beverly Hills. Her teacher, mister Gusman played by
Speaker 4: George Lopez, asks her about her college applications, but she
Speaker 4: says she's not going to college because her family cannot
Speaker 4: afford it. He reminds her that there are scholarships, grants,
Speaker 4: financial aid, but she's like, I don't know, not that
Speaker 4: she doesn't want to, it's just she knows it's gonna.
Speaker 5: Be like an issue within the family, exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, her family throws a little congrats on graduating high
Speaker 4: school celebration. We also see Anna quit her job at
Speaker 4: a fast food joint, which upsets her mom but.
Speaker 3: Is a fun scene to watch her quinn. I loved
Speaker 3: watching her quin That was very fun.
Speaker 1: And I actually think that the cashier is Josefina Lopez,
Speaker 1: the one who hands her.
Speaker 4: Okay, she is in the movie as a character named Veronica,
Speaker 4: but I was like, who's Veronica. I couldn't remember exactly.
Speaker 4: That's so cool, all right, that's great.
Speaker 1: And she killed it. She was so great In that
Speaker 1: one scene She's.
Speaker 4: Keeping Anna's check in her bra and Anna's like, that's sick.
Speaker 1: That.
Speaker 3: Now I like that scene even more. I was just
Speaker 3: like where the character actor was was really funny. Yeah,
Speaker 3: holy shit, Oh that's great. And now that I'm like
Speaker 3: looking at her picture again, I'm like, oh, yeah, that
Speaker 3: totally was her.
Speaker 1: That's her.
Speaker 5: Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 4: So Ana quits her job, which upsets her mom, who
Speaker 4: suggests she work at the clothing factory that her sister,
Speaker 4: Estella runs, something that neither Anna nor Estella really want.
Speaker 4: But Anna needs to learn, needs to earn money to
Speaker 4: help the family, and Estella is behind on her work orders,
Speaker 4: so she will go to work at the factory. Mister
Speaker 4: Gusman pays Anna a visit to keep encouraging her to
Speaker 4: submit college applications, but her family and her mom especially
Speaker 4: are against Anna going to college right now because she
Speaker 4: needs to work and help the family. The next day,
Speaker 4: Anna and her sister and mom go to Estella's clothing factory,
Speaker 4: where they assemble dresses to be sold at Bloomingdale's for
Speaker 4: six hundred dollars, even though the manufacturer only pays them
Speaker 4: eighteen dollars per dress to assemble each dress, and Anna
Speaker 4: points out how unfair this is, how their labor is
Speaker 4: being exploited.
Speaker 3: Also, I think probably at the time, that would have
Speaker 3: been the first time I'd heard that issue discussed in
Speaker 3: a movie.
Speaker 5: Like at all.
Speaker 4: For sure. Yeah, there's an interesting class discussion around this movie,
Speaker 4: for sure. And then we meet the other women who
Speaker 4: work at the factory, such as Pancha, Norma, and Rosahli.
Speaker 4: Also on his mom Carmen body shames on us several
Speaker 4: times and tends to comment on most people's weight. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's just kind of a habit of hers.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, because there is that scene where, I mean
Speaker 3: the scene we were just talking about where she is
Speaker 3: verbally abusive towards her daughter. Someone like her employees start
Speaker 3: to arrive and then she's nice to them, but then
Speaker 3: she also turns on her employees pretty quickly and starts
Speaker 3: criticizing them as well.
Speaker 5: And you're like, oh, I guess this is just her personality.
Speaker 1: Oh everybody gets it. Yeah, yeah, she gives it to everybody.
Speaker 1: Everyone gets a slice, you.
Speaker 5: Get a polite hello, and then things take a turn.
Speaker 4: Uh huh yep. So then Anna gives her filled out
Speaker 4: college applications to mister Gooseman, but he points out that
Speaker 4: she's missing a personal statement and that she needs to
Speaker 4: write one as soon as possible. Then Anna runs into
Speaker 4: her classmate Jimmy, who seems to like her. He's got
Speaker 4: a little crush, and he gives Anna his phone number.
Speaker 4: Back at the factory, Estella is struggling to keep up
Speaker 4: with the work order, especially after several of her workers
Speaker 4: unexpectedly leave to move to Mexico. Then we get a
Speaker 4: scene where Carmen tells Anna a secret that Carmen thinks
Speaker 4: she's pregnant, but Anna is like, Mom, that's pretty unlikely.
Speaker 4: Probably not what's happening.
Speaker 3: For all the shit that Anna has to put up with,
Speaker 3: I love that she's always very quick to be like enough, stop, no.
Speaker 4: She advocates for herself exceptionally well yeah yeah, and I.
Speaker 3: Love her for it, even in situations where you can
Speaker 3: tell like I don't know, or where it felt to
Speaker 3: me like you could tell.
Speaker 5: She's like, I'm not gonna win this.
Speaker 3: Battle, but I have to say this, like, hmm, you're
Speaker 3: not pregnant, mom.
Speaker 4: So then Anna goes with Estella to speak to missus Glass,
Speaker 4: who is the owner of the dress manufacturing company to
Speaker 4: ask for an advance so they can pay the bills
Speaker 4: and keep the lights running at the factory, but missus
Speaker 4: Glass still denies them in advance. So then Anna goes
Speaker 4: to her dad for a loan. Meanwhile, Anna goes out
Speaker 4: on a date with that kid, Jimmy. They have a
Speaker 4: nice time.
Speaker 5: He's got big, that kid Jimmy energy too.
Speaker 4: Like I was like, who is this Elijah Wood? Ass
Speaker 4: looking kid?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Elijah Wood wasn't available, slash, he's too old, too old,
Speaker 3: this kid, that kid Jimmy. He was only in movies
Speaker 3: for a couple of years and then he who knows,
Speaker 3: he tapped out and he's done.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I liked his character though, you know, he said
Speaker 4: some things that made me gough, but overall agree with that.
Speaker 4: He seemed like a sweet kid.
Speaker 1: He's he's very like her first nice white boyfriend. You know.
Speaker 1: It's it's an experience, it's a type. It's oh I
Speaker 1: had a nice white boyfriend like back home, like and
Speaker 1: that's him right right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So she goes out with Jimmy. Anna then turns
Speaker 4: in her personal statement to mister Gooseman. We see another
Speaker 4: day at work. It's hard, it's hot. Anna admires the
Speaker 4: dresses she steams at the factory and is sad to
Speaker 4: remember that they're not for her. But then Estella surprises
Speaker 4: Anna with a dress that she made especially for Anna
Speaker 4: in a very sweet moment part.
Speaker 5: And it is a beautiful dress too, mm hmmm.
Speaker 1: And I always wish there was like a dress reveal moment,
Speaker 1: like an occasion for her wear that dress.
Speaker 3: I was like, is there a cut scene because it
Speaker 3: felt like Chekhov's dress?
Speaker 1: Exactly where is the dress? Where's she wearing it?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I hope she wore it at like some I don't know,
Speaker 3: some New York event.
Speaker 4: Yeah. She goes to a.
Speaker 1: Mixer at Columbia.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, She's like, I just wore a gown to orientation?
Speaker 5: Is that normal? Can you do that?
Speaker 4: Then mister Guzmand stops by to let Anna know that
Speaker 4: she's been accepted to Columbia University with a full scholarship,
Speaker 4: but her parents are still like now is not the
Speaker 4: right time for Anna to go to college, which is
Speaker 4: extremely disappointing to Anna. She then goes out with Jimmy again,
Speaker 4: they have sex. Her mom senses that she has lost
Speaker 4: her virginity and like we were saying earlier she calls
Speaker 4: Anna a tramp and a putta, And.
Speaker 3: One of the biggest mysteries of the movie, how did
Speaker 3: she know?
Speaker 5: How did she know?
Speaker 4: It?
Speaker 3: Was?
Speaker 5: It because America Frere was like looking in the mirror
Speaker 5: being like, go meet, Like.
Speaker 4: Why how does she know? Yeah? My guess is that
Speaker 4: she was just like confidently admiring her body.
Speaker 1: Body for the first time ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, so she's like, I better put an end
Speaker 3: to this confidence.
Speaker 5: My daughter's feeling.
Speaker 3: That was more the Spidey cent going off was I
Speaker 3: think my daughter's having a good feeling.
Speaker 1: It's like her favorite refrain. She's always like a mother knows,
Speaker 1: a woman knows.
Speaker 4: She just knows, and this time she was right. She
Speaker 4: turns out to not be right about being pregnant because
Speaker 4: she goes to the doctor, take.
Speaker 3: A hundred shots, and you're gonna make one eventually.
Speaker 4: True. The reason that Carmen has missed several periods in
Speaker 4: a row is a bit is because she is going
Speaker 4: through menopause, not because she is pregnant. So then we
Speaker 4: see another day at the dress factory. It's a particularly
Speaker 4: hot day and Estella won't turn on the fan because
Speaker 4: it blows dust on the dresses. So Anna takes off
Speaker 4: her shirt and her mom freaks out, but Anna is like,
Speaker 4: what's the big deal. We're all went here, we all
Speaker 4: have the same parts. And then all of the other
Speaker 4: women at the factory take their clothes off. They compare bodies,
Speaker 4: they compare cellulite and stretch marks, and they're like, we're beautiful,
Speaker 4: We're awesome. But Carmen is looking on in horror and
Speaker 4: Anna is just like, this is who we are, mom,
Speaker 4: real women, and Carmen storms out while the other ladies
Speaker 4: continue working and dancing and celebrating themselves and their bodies.
Speaker 3: I'm interested in talking about the shooting situation around that scene.
Speaker 5: There's a lot to talk about there too.
Speaker 4: Ooh, I'm interested to learn more. And then finally Anna
Speaker 4: heads off to Columbia University. She tries to say goodbye
Speaker 4: to Carmen and to get her mom's blessing, but Carmen refuses,
Speaker 4: so her dad and grandpa take Anna to the airport,
Speaker 4: and then we see Anna walking down the streets of
Speaker 4: New York City. I ever heard of it, And that's
Speaker 4: how the movie ends. So let's take a quick break
Speaker 4: and then we will come back to discuss and we're back.
Speaker 3: I feel like a little bit of context for how
Speaker 3: this movie came to be is a good place to
Speaker 3: start before we get into the characters. So this, as
Speaker 3: we've sort of hinted at already, this is a movie
Speaker 3: that is based on a play by jos Afina Lopez.
Speaker 3: Her background is she was born in Mexico and then
Speaker 3: immigrated to Los Angeles. A lot of her work surrounds
Speaker 3: that experience and sort of reflections of her experience. This
Speaker 3: play is very much a part of that. She started writing.
Speaker 3: I reading about her career, I'd never like gone down
Speaker 3: this Wikipedia hole, and she's like, so fucking cool. She
Speaker 3: wrote her first play in high school while the rest
Speaker 3: of us were doing god knows what, she was at
Speaker 3: work and she wrote a play called Simply Maria or
Speaker 3: the American Dream. She then went on to write Real
Speaker 3: Women Have Curves. The play was very well regarded, it
Speaker 3: was very successful. It's my understanding is it's pretty close
Speaker 3: to what happens in the movie because she co writes
Speaker 3: the screenplay and.
Speaker 6: Is apparently one of my favorite characters.
Speaker 5: I just learned.
Speaker 3: But anyways, Real Women Have Curves is her biggest hit
Speaker 3: so far, and people want to adapt it in one
Speaker 3: way or another originally, and I didn't know any of
Speaker 3: this before reading this kind of retrospective piece. So at
Speaker 3: the time it was going to be adapted for television
Speaker 3: by Norman Lear, who who is first of all, one
Speaker 3: hundred years old and still alive, which you got handed
Speaker 3: to him.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 3: But he had a reputation in Hollywood for being one
Speaker 3: of the only producers who championed diverse stories for television,
Speaker 3: and so most diverse families you saw on television in
Speaker 3: the seventies, eighties, and nineties into the two thousands he's
Speaker 3: still working were a result of his champion He is
Speaker 3: a white producer who was known for championing women's stories
Speaker 3: and diverse stories. So he seemed to host of Pheni
Speaker 3: Lopez to be kind of a natural fit for getting
Speaker 3: this project adapted into television.
Speaker 5: However, he did.
Speaker 1: One Day at a Time right, like the more recent adaptation, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the first one was also him, right, and
Speaker 3: he did I'm trying to as like God, older TV
Speaker 3: is truly not my strength, but let me get let
Speaker 3: me get a few of his hits on the board.
Speaker 3: Samford and Son was his One Day at a Time.
Speaker 3: The Jeffersons Good Times Modu one of my favorite shows ever.
Speaker 3: Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman like he had, he did he could.
Speaker 3: He got stories on TV that no one else was
Speaker 3: trying to.
Speaker 5: Very cool.
Speaker 3: So hose Fina Lopez was excited that he wanted to
Speaker 3: help adapt it, but even with the Norman Lear Co sign,
Speaker 3: they could not sell Real Women Have Curves as a
Speaker 3: TV series two networks. Networks said it was not relatable
Speaker 3: a story enough, which we know is absolute hoorseshit.
Speaker 4: Porshit, but very typical of Hollywood.
Speaker 3: Of TV yeah to this day. So Josefina Lopez is discouraged.
Speaker 3: She's like, one of the biggest TV producers in the world,
Speaker 3: can't get this produced. Who's going to there's a second
Speaker 3: wind with this project as a film script. So she
Speaker 3: meets a writer named George Levu, which is what a
Speaker 3: what a fun name.
Speaker 4: But.
Speaker 5: I just like to say it, George Levu.
Speaker 3: She meets Levu and they decide, they decide to collaborate
Speaker 3: on a screenplay together, and finally they find an executive
Speaker 3: who wants to fund the project. And it's a I
Speaker 3: have a quote here, So this project was funded by HBO,
Speaker 3: which I don't think I knew, not that it matters,
Speaker 3: I just didn't know it was an HBO movie. So
Speaker 3: Hosephina Lopez says this, I believe in twenty seventeen, in
Speaker 3: this retrospective, HBO's maud Nadler had the power to say Yes.
Speaker 3: It came down to a female executive saying, women's stories matter.
Speaker 3: Stories about mothers and daughters are important to me because
Speaker 3: I love my mother. And I remember asking mad after
Speaker 3: we made the film why she said yes, she said,
Speaker 3: because I love my mother. Took a woman in a
Speaker 3: position of power to find value in the story, which
Speaker 3: is I thought, I don't know.
Speaker 5: That was like, that's really nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And none of those men love their mothers. They
Speaker 1: all hate their mothers. I love my mother not enough
Speaker 1: to fund a story on woman.
Speaker 5: Let's not. Let's not cary away. Look look, I'm women
Speaker 5: to a point, very like us. The father of a
Speaker 5: daughter energy. Yes.
Speaker 3: So the project gets funded. They find director Patricia Cardoso,
Speaker 3: who I believe is raised in Columbia. She signs on
Speaker 3: for the project. Luvu and Lopez become the hottest writing
Speaker 3: team in Hollywood.
Speaker 5: The movies.
Speaker 3: Oh and then another huge thing that happens is George
Speaker 3: Lopez signs on as a co producer, which also was
Speaker 3: like a big hand and getting this movie in front
Speaker 3: of people. It goes to sun Dance and the rest
Speaker 3: is history. But it was a huge I mean, I
Speaker 3: think we see this a lot of times in projects
Speaker 3: that are not centered around the white experience and the
Speaker 3: white male experience. Like it was a huge uphill battle
Speaker 3: to get this project made, even though it was already
Speaker 3: like a proven successful entity through the play right right.
Speaker 1: And it really has aged so well. I was watching
Speaker 1: it this morning and like the jokes land, the writing
Speaker 1: feels like still very like charming and fresh and it's
Speaker 1: just a fun watch and like nothing in that movie
Speaker 1: is standing out in a bad, cringey way unless it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be. You know, it's just like so well written,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's like, yeah, the work speaks for itself.
Speaker 3: It's funny and like it's just like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: this movie has so much going.
Speaker 4: For it, so charming. Sorry, there's like a trash removal
Speaker 4: truck right outside my window making loud noises my air
Speaker 4: conditioners on because it's eight million degrees. Sorry for all
Speaker 4: the noise.
Speaker 5: Is past my house and I smell fire.
Speaker 1: Oh no, there's a lot going on.
Speaker 7: Oh everyone, everyone is okay, Okay, let's go back to
Speaker 7: talking about the movie that takes place in la around
Speaker 7: like literally this exact time of year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, during a heat wave in the summer, the sweltering heat.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh. But yeah, this movie does age so well.
Speaker 4: And we've talked about there's like a span of time
Speaker 4: for movies, and honestly it ranges for a long quite
Speaker 4: a long time. But you know, if you're from a
Speaker 4: certain generation, especially the movies of like the late nineties,
Speaker 4: early two thousands, like if that's when you're coming of age,
Speaker 4: and those are like the movies and the media that
Speaker 4: you were like most exposed to, which is the case
Speaker 4: for me at least, that era was just such a
Speaker 4: crap shoes for most media because it was like just
Speaker 4: steeped in sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, like you name it.
Speaker 4: Marginalized communities were punched down to in media. So it's
Speaker 4: just so refreshing to see a movie that's twenty years
Speaker 4: old from the early two thousands to be a movie
Speaker 4: that is like so I mean feminist. Masterpiece Number one
Speaker 4: has so many strong impactful messages, the exact type of
Speaker 4: thing that like young people need to see to be
Speaker 4: influenced in the right direction, because it has such strong
Speaker 4: themes and messaging about like body positivity, sex positivity. It
Speaker 4: showcases a complicated relationship between a mother and daughter, but
Speaker 4: one that's this very authentic and familiar to a lot
Speaker 4: of people. So it's just like it's doing so much.
Speaker 5: And fast commentary.
Speaker 3: There's something that honestly like didn't even didn't connect for
Speaker 3: me until I saw it, like explicitly kind of said
Speaker 3: by the creators of the movie because I didn't have my.
Speaker 5: Proper two thousand and two goggles on.
Speaker 3: I guess was just showing Boyle Heights as the community
Speaker 3: that it is, versus how East LA and Latin people
Speaker 3: from La were shown in media at this time. That
Speaker 3: like this movie had a huge hand in, you know,
Speaker 3: offering a counter to the really prejudiced, like overly simplistic
Speaker 3: narrative that was being shown and everything else, which is
Speaker 3: like such a big part of Josafina Lopez's work.
Speaker 1: It's awesome, it's very wholesome.
Speaker 5: It is, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and like, yeah, just think about all the movies
Speaker 4: that you see that are like set in LA about
Speaker 4: rich white people living in wealthy neighborhoods, living in huge houses,
Speaker 4: that basically just ignores huge swaths of the population of LA. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there's a huge LATINX community that is not often represented
Speaker 4: in movies here in LA and often not represented favorably
Speaker 4: if it is represented at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just gonna say that Real Women Have
Speaker 1: Curves is markedly youthful and feminine when compared to other
Speaker 1: La Chicano Mexican American films. Like literally the other movies
Speaker 1: that we can compare it to in the same sort
Speaker 1: of genre or cultural space is like Blood and Blood
Speaker 1: Out American Me. And then you know, My Familia has
Speaker 1: more of a family dynamic at the beginning. But these
Speaker 1: films and then zoot Suit, and these are all iconic films.
Speaker 1: Zoot Suit is a musical, you know, it's a piece
Speaker 1: of theater. But all of these films also have a
Speaker 1: lot of violence in them. There's a lot of trauma.
Speaker 1: There's prison and gangs, and the ethos is very masculine
Speaker 1: and it's very much like a lot of men on
Speaker 1: screen and what they're going through in their lives. And
Speaker 1: then you have real women have curves with like I
Speaker 1: was on ho Sephina Lopez on her website and reading
Speaker 1: about her like about Me, which seems like she wrote it,
Speaker 1: which is awesome, and she's talking about how she started
Speaker 1: writing this play when she was eighteen, you know, and
Speaker 1: how like yeah, and how the sensibilities of an eighteen
Speaker 1: year old girl have everything to do with why the
Speaker 1: film is everything that it is and it's it's I
Speaker 1: think it feels so fresh because it is because like
Speaker 1: such a young person wrote it. And it feels very
Speaker 1: like like fresh too, because it doesn't look or feel
Speaker 1: like steeped in super trendy stuff of the time, Like
Speaker 1: it doesn't really look like a two thousand's film, I guess,
Speaker 1: like it's not super stylized like their wardrobe or their
Speaker 1: makeup or their hair or the music. You know. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: very wholesome and like a zoomer today who like goes
Speaker 1: thrifting might end up pulling some of the out so
Speaker 1: that America Ferrera is wearing in real women have curves,
Speaker 1: you know, Like it just feels very like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: feels like young.
Speaker 5: I was thinking that so much of it has come
Speaker 5: back around.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, I have.
Speaker 3: A quote from mister Levu himself, let's say his name,
Speaker 3: but yeah, like speaking to you know, like drew attention
Speaker 3: to the fact like this is based on hose Afina's
Speaker 3: experience so much, as told through the soft, warm, humorous
Speaker 3: tone of her experience. Hopefully that's what you're seeing when
Speaker 3: you see the city as different from the gangs and
Speaker 3: the grittiness of other films from this time. Ho Safina
Speaker 3: wanted to show the city as a vibrant place where
Speaker 3: women can have full lives and grow. And I feel
Speaker 3: like this movie pulls that off a million percent.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I want to share a quote from the director, Patricia
Speaker 4: Patricia Cardoso says quote, I wanted to show a part
Speaker 4: of Los Angeles we don't usually see in a beautiful way,
Speaker 4: not a CD neighborhood filled with stereotypes of East LA.
Speaker 4: It was important to expand the concept of beauty for women,
Speaker 4: but also for the city and the neighborhoods. So it's
Speaker 4: like in this vision from the director, from the writer,
Speaker 4: all comes through very clearly, in very satisfying ways.
Speaker 3: I had one other behind the scenes thing I wanted
Speaker 3: to and I know this well, this will come in
Speaker 3: and out for the rest of the episode. But I
Speaker 3: was happy that this article, like as I was so
Speaker 3: curious of like the sequence of America Ferrera lore So
Speaker 3: I guess that she had already shot Gotta Kick It
Speaker 3: Up before she shot Real women have curves, and I
Speaker 3: just like, I love this story. It was like when
Speaker 3: she got her check from Gotta Kick It Up, she
Speaker 3: got a car and wanted to go to drama Camp
Speaker 3: and like those are that's what she used her money for,
Speaker 3: as like, she's so great, Wow, they wanted her to
Speaker 3: tion for this movie. She was like, well, I'm going
Speaker 3: to drama Camp. So if you're still casting when I'm
Speaker 3: done at drama Camp, like hit me up basically, and
Speaker 3: like listening to her talk about that in her thirties
Speaker 3: and she was like that was a bold move for
Speaker 3: a seventeen year old to do. But fortunately they still
Speaker 3: wanted me to be in the movie. So I love
Speaker 3: America Frer so much. I was curious about like what
Speaker 3: scenes in this retrospective they would talk about, and there
Speaker 3: was a fair amount of discussion around I feel like
Speaker 3: the scene that people remember best from this movie when
Speaker 3: they're in the factory at the end and they take
Speaker 3: their clothes off and they talk about their bodies and
Speaker 3: it's like this really celebratory, cool moment. So I guess
Speaker 3: America Frere was yeh. I said she was fifteen. I
Speaker 3: was wrong.
Speaker 5: She was seventeen when this movie was being shot.
Speaker 3: But she's still a kid, and I guess that on
Speaker 3: the day that this was being shot, she decided that
Speaker 3: she didn't want to take her pants off. So this
Speaker 3: was sort of this was hashed by a few people,
Speaker 3: I mean, and it seems like, you know, fifteen years later,
Speaker 3: she's fine, everyone's relationship is fine. But at the time,
Speaker 3: so the scene had been blocked, they were ready to
Speaker 3: shoot it. I think prior to the scene being shot,
Speaker 3: America Farah said.
Speaker 5: Okay, that's okay, I'll do that.
Speaker 3: But I just wanted to share a few quotes from
Speaker 3: her because kids acting is like such a such a miyer,
Speaker 3: and she was uncomfortable during that scene. So she says,
Speaker 3: I was seventeen years old and it was only my
Speaker 3: second job. I'd never had to take off my clothes
Speaker 3: in front of a two hundred person crew, most of
Speaker 3: them men. I'm sure I was incredibly intimidated by that.
Speaker 3: I remember wearing a robe between takes, and as the
Speaker 3: day went on, it was too much of a hassle
Speaker 3: to get the robe on and off. So I was like, whatever,
Speaker 3: I'll stand here without the robe. But basically, the crew
Speaker 3: tells this story about how she decided she wasn't comfortable
Speaker 3: taking her pants off, and then I believe.
Speaker 5: The director.
Speaker 3: Faked getting a phone call from an HBO executive. She
Speaker 3: was like, you know, well, you know, this is a
Speaker 3: really important part of the script. We need you to
Speaker 3: do this, and America Frere was like, I'm not comfortable
Speaker 3: with that. I don't want to do it anymore. And
Speaker 3: she's like, well, let me call HBO. The director goes outside,
Speaker 3: fakes a call. So this is from George Levu is
Speaker 3: recapping this, okay, so no, sorry, this is George Levou
Speaker 3: making the call. Levu canceled owt okay, George Levu harsh
Speaker 3: turn in his narrative. I don't like him anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not, Levu's not.
Speaker 3: It's always It's always Levu, though, isn't it. So Levu
Speaker 3: says I made an excuse. I said, let me call
Speaker 3: Colin Callender, who was the head of HBO Films at
Speaker 3: the time. I said, let me see what he wants.
Speaker 3: So I took my phone outside and I pretended to
Speaker 3: call Colin. I came back and said, Colin said you
Speaker 3: have to do it, and she said, okay, we'll do it.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what we were going to do. I
Speaker 3: couldn't imagine the movie without that scene. Hopefully they're happy
Speaker 3: it happened that way. Then Patricia Cardoso jumps on this
Speaker 3: train and says, America was mad at me the whole day.
Speaker 5: It took two days to shoot.
Speaker 3: That scene, and she was so mad she wouldn't even
Speaker 3: look me in the eyes. The next day she came
Speaker 3: running to me and said, you know, now I understand
Speaker 3: why it was important for the character to take off
Speaker 3: her pants. Can we please shoot the scene again? I said, no,
Speaker 3: you did it perfectly. America Ferrera, now in her thirties,
Speaker 3: this is in twenty seventeen, kind of puts a pin
Speaker 3: on this discussion that I was like, I'm mad at
Speaker 3: them personally, But she says, I clearly see how this
Speaker 3: film empowered others to feel seen, liberated and beautiful. But
Speaker 3: I was a child playing everything, but a typical child.
Speaker 3: More than saying, oh that's my body. People watched it
Speaker 3: and said Oh yes, that's how my mom responds to
Speaker 3: my body. That's how my culture responds to my body.
Speaker 3: That's how the world responds to my body. For me,
Speaker 3: being a young woman going through my own journey with
Speaker 3: my body, having seen and talked, having it seen and
Speaker 3: talked about and projected upon by people watching this movie,
Speaker 3: if anything, sort of stunned me for a while, because
Speaker 3: that in and of itself sent a strong message about
Speaker 3: how I should feel about my body, and it was
Speaker 3: a much longer journey for me to get to a
Speaker 3: place where I felt empowered about my body. The way
Speaker 3: that film helped others feel dang. So, I mean it's
Speaker 3: levels for sure, it's complex. I mean personally, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: production wise, I don't think that that was a very
Speaker 3: that was like a dishonest and irresponsible way to handle that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially with someone who's underage, who's a minor.
Speaker 3: Right right, I mean she's seventeen in this situation, and
Speaker 3: like that was the one production thing that I learned
Speaker 3: that didn't sit super well because it's like, yeah, this
Speaker 3: like she's an incredible performer, she's but it's I mean,
Speaker 3: a teenager talking about their body on screen is so
Speaker 3: I can't imagine how excruciatingly difficult that, oh yeah must
Speaker 3: have been. And so to have like pressure put on
Speaker 3: top of her, like you have to do this, like
Speaker 3: that sucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's like this period of your life where
Speaker 1: irl teenagers are still wearing T shirts in the swimming
Speaker 1: pool and like not showing their bodies to anybody, like
Speaker 1: if they feel uncomfortable. And I think what's interesting too,
Speaker 1: is like America Farara, like in that quote, nowhere is
Speaker 1: she saying that she didn't like her body, or she
Speaker 1: felt fat, or she felt not proud of her body,
Speaker 1: or uncomfortable in her body, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like there's all these projections, and it has so
Speaker 1: much to do with like of course, it's literally the
Speaker 1: plot and it's the movie, and it's the character and
Speaker 1: it's the storyline. So that's all baked in there, Like
Speaker 1: she's cast in this role because the main character, Anna
Speaker 1: is a Gordadita, she's chubby, so she's got to look
Speaker 1: the part, you know. And then I think about the
Speaker 1: fact that like all the levels right, because has that
Speaker 1: script was written by somebody Josefina who probably experienced this
Speaker 1: exact same like type of body shaming that goes on
Speaker 1: in our families, and then those actresses, being Latinas probably
Speaker 1: have all experienced something similar in their own lives and
Speaker 1: I don't know that in their particular families or lives
Speaker 1: that just because we have this awareness in the script
Speaker 1: and in the movie that you know, everybody is beautiful
Speaker 1: and that fat is beautiful, that those actresses when they
Speaker 1: go home their families are not necessarily on board, like
Speaker 1: that script is probably still there, you know, like that
Speaker 1: is still happening in the outside world.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's just I just think about the compounded levels of.
Speaker 4: It all in a movie like this, right, Yeah, And
Speaker 4: you hear about stories where like a scene like this
Speaker 4: is in the script and calls for nudity, partial nudity,
Speaker 4: you know, people wearing underwear.
Speaker 3: I didn't feel like inappropriate or exploitative, but I also not, like,
Speaker 3: no can totally understand why a seventeen year old actor,
Speaker 3: when the moment comes to take your clothes off in
Speaker 3: front of two hundred people, no matter how safe you are,
Speaker 3: it's like that's you can feel amazing about your body
Speaker 3: and be uncomfortable with that, Like that's yeah.
Speaker 4: So that's what I was gonna say. You hear stories
Speaker 4: about like some productions being like, Okay, I know this
Speaker 4: is going to be a potentially very uncomfortable scene for
Speaker 4: the actors, so we're going to take a bunch of
Speaker 4: precautions to make it as comfortable as possible. And that
Speaker 4: it ranges from like hiring like choreo if it's like
Speaker 4: a sex scene, like a sex choreographer will basically be hired,
Speaker 4: or like there will be like social workers or other
Speaker 4: kind of like mental health professionals on set or like
Speaker 4: nearby to consult with if the actors need like to
Speaker 4: consult with somebody or touch with someone, there will be
Speaker 4: a reduced crew where like normally the crew might be
Speaker 4: two hundred people, but on a shoot day like that,
Speaker 4: you scale it way back. I've heard of like let's
Speaker 4: say the DP is a man, but they will like
Speaker 4: temporarily hire a woman. I mean they could have just
Speaker 4: hired a woman anyway, but they.
Speaker 3: They did say that, like it wasn't actually two hundred people.
Speaker 3: It was that was like I think America Frere was like.
Speaker 5: Hype. What is hyperbolic?
Speaker 1: Hyper hyperbolic?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I went to school, I swear.
Speaker 3: So per Levu there were like dividers up so that
Speaker 3: not every member of the crew had access to the
Speaker 3: shooting of this scene. So I don't have the number count,
Speaker 3: but it was like America decided she didn't want to
Speaker 3: take off her pants in front of the crew, and
Speaker 3: I guess she told her director that she was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't think that the character would actually do that
Speaker 3: or all this stuff, and it just I mean, also,
Speaker 3: I don't envy the director's position and that situation either,
Speaker 3: because that's a really true especially on a on a
Speaker 3: like a lower budget movie, that's a really really difficult
Speaker 3: position to be put in.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure, but it could have been handled better.
Speaker 5: She's a kid.
Speaker 1: I wonder too that scene. I wish that I could
Speaker 1: see it like how it was staged for the theater
Speaker 1: and for the stage, because I can imagine that. You know, obviously,
Speaker 1: on camera you see a certain you can only see
Speaker 1: so much and things are kind of far away, you know,
Speaker 1: And I feel like on the stage and in the
Speaker 1: theater you're much up close and personal, and I can
Speaker 1: just imagine that the row of like the factory scenes,
Speaker 1: and the row of sewing machines and the women sewing
Speaker 1: and the sounds and the visual is probably very striking
Speaker 1: and dynamic on stage. And I'm sure that when it
Speaker 1: gets to that part about them taking off their clothes
Speaker 1: and showing off their stretch marks and their cellulite, that
Speaker 1: that's very impactful on stage and very dynamic, you know,
Speaker 1: in a different way than in the movie. And like
Speaker 1: I wonder how it was handled even like for the
Speaker 1: stage and the taking off the clothes and the lead
Speaker 1: actress and those pieces. Is because it's a scene that
Speaker 1: everybody loves. It's like a standout scene for everyone.
Speaker 6: I would love to see a stage production of this.
Speaker 3: I also didn't know that I guess Hosafina Lopez opened
Speaker 3: a theater in Boyle Heights.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's Gasa zero zero one, I want to say, yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand on First Street, she has a
Speaker 1: restaurant also called Gasa Fina. Oh way on First Street
Speaker 1: in Mariachi Plaza and then so so, and Mariaci Plaza
Speaker 1: is featured in the movie throughout like you see it right,
Speaker 1: and Anna goes on her dates in Mariachi Plaza and
Speaker 1: she walks through Mariachi Plaza to catch her bus to
Speaker 1: high school. So right there on First she has her restaurant,
Speaker 1: Gasa Mama, Gasa Fina, Gasa Fina, and then the theater
Speaker 1: down the street.
Speaker 5: That's a cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was all.
Speaker 5: That was all the behind the scenes stuff I had.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, so let's let's take a break and then
Speaker 4: we'll come back and discuss the story, the movie, the characters,
Speaker 4: et cetera. And we're back.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's get into talking about the actual what happens
Speaker 3: in the movie.
Speaker 5: I really liked. I know, I feel like every.
Speaker 3: Time we see public transportation in a movie, I get
Speaker 3: so excited.
Speaker 5: But I really like.
Speaker 3: I feel like we've covered five trillion movies where it's
Speaker 3: like New York is kind of a character ra ra rare.
Speaker 6: But this movie, I think like La is On is like.
Speaker 5: Really strutting its stuff in this one.
Speaker 3: It is so beautiful and so like well done, and
Speaker 3: I love that you sort of navigate the city with
Speaker 3: public transit and I just.
Speaker 5: Really liked it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, heart agree.
Speaker 4: That is again like something you don't see when you want.
Speaker 4: Except for the iconic film Speed nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 5: Could it have happened that the La Metro certainly not.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean there's there's so much this movie
Speaker 4: is doing as far as representation goes, as far as
Speaker 4: just like again, powerful messaging. You know, it's a predominantly
Speaker 4: LATINX cast. I love that Spanish is spoken frequently among
Speaker 4: the characters because I feel like a lot of Hollywood
Speaker 4: executives would cite that as a thing like that will
Speaker 4: make this movie too inaccessible for a mainstream audience.
Speaker 1: But it's funny too, because you already had so many
Speaker 1: like okay, like we had tons of Star Wars movies
Speaker 1: already at this time, and they're speaking all kinds of
Speaker 1: different made up alien languages like in those films. But
Speaker 1: Spanish is too much, that is too inaccessible, right, Like.
Speaker 3: Oh no, a language that most people in the US
Speaker 3: speak to some degree can't have that well like not that.
Speaker 5: Meanwhile, Elvish is.
Speaker 6: Making a huge comeback at this same time.
Speaker 4: All right, because Lord of the Rings two Towers comes
Speaker 4: out the same year.
Speaker 1: There you go. I feel like the movie sometimes I
Speaker 1: feel like a movie like real women have curves, especially
Speaker 1: at this time, is almost like a crossover situation, even
Speaker 1: though it's Mexican Americans, like in La, like her character
Speaker 1: ostensibly is like you know, first or second generation, like
Speaker 1: Mexican American. And part of why I love the bus
Speaker 1: conversation and the travel conversation is because there's this crossover
Speaker 1: that happens in La. It's this east side west side crossover,
Speaker 1: and you see them. She's crossing the bridge via bus
Speaker 1: and via her dad's pickup truck to go from her
Speaker 1: east side neighborhood pass through downtown to work or to
Speaker 1: end up in Beverly Hills on the west side for
Speaker 1: school or for the dad's job. And I think that's
Speaker 1: almost like the story of the movie. It's like born
Speaker 1: here on the east side, she was taking meetings and
Speaker 1: she was on the west side ho Safina. I'm sure
Speaker 1: a lot Becau's trying to get this movie made, and
Speaker 1: it's like a journey that I think, like if you're
Speaker 1: in La local, Like we joke about this, me and
Speaker 1: my co host Yosa, because we live I live sort
Speaker 1: of in the mid City area, which is a little
Speaker 1: more west, but it's close to downtown, and the USA
Speaker 1: lives sort of southeast, and our community is sort of
Speaker 1: here west of Librea and beyond, and we hear so
Speaker 1: many people like Transplant saying, oh La, like I never
Speaker 1: go east of Librea anything east of Librea is the
Speaker 1: east side, Downtown is the east side, silver Lake is
Speaker 1: the east side. There's this disconnect in what LA is.
Speaker 1: I've we've heard this so many times. So anytime that
Speaker 1: we have to go to the west side and leave
Speaker 1: our little enclaves, it's a thing. It's a journey. It's oh,
Speaker 1: we're going to the west side, you know. So I
Speaker 1: feel like Kosefina was going to the west side, and
Speaker 1: in this movie they traveled to the west side.
Speaker 5: It's like ivan.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: For for listeners who do not understand truly, the grand
Speaker 3: trek that Anna was taking to get to school every day,
Speaker 3: it's I was I was trying to do the math
Speaker 3: in my head. I'm like, that's at least an hour
Speaker 3: and a half if the bus comes on time.
Speaker 1: Because she's like transfers. She like goes from like Boil
Speaker 1: Heights to Hollywood and Vine. She's taking transfers, which.
Speaker 6: Is a yeah, that's uh.
Speaker 3: The buses here look pro. But we could use some
Speaker 3: more routes, could use some more routes, use some more frequency,
Speaker 3: because yeah, sometimes you're like, why am I doing a
Speaker 3: yo yo act to get somewhere that is objectively three.
Speaker 5: Miles from where I'm sitting unclear, look.
Speaker 3: Right, but but but I loved that the movie took
Speaker 3: that time to show you that journey because it like
Speaker 3: it effortlessly communicates the class struggle that Anna is dealing
Speaker 3: with without having to like bop you over the head
Speaker 3: with it. It's just like an effortless part of the story.
Speaker 3: I love how you're just told visually. And also like
Speaker 3: when you see that kid Jimmy come to the east
Speaker 3: Side and like, clearly it sounds like he's like one
Speaker 3: of the people you're talking about, Malla.
Speaker 5: Where's it's He's like what what?
Speaker 4: Like there's a part where he's like because she knows
Speaker 4: him from school, and he goes to school in Beverly Hills,
Speaker 4: so you can presume that he probably lives in Beverly
Speaker 4: Hills as well.
Speaker 5: It's like Shar's little brother or something.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, he's Elijah Wood's son.
Speaker 1: No, he's like he's of the Wood family for sure.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, summering with the Wood family.
Speaker 4: He's like, I wanted to go to Europe with you.
Speaker 4: Things are just too easy here. You know, you're handed everything,
Speaker 4: You're handed school, your hand, a car. That's why I
Speaker 4: want to teach, and it's like, Okay, you're saying this
Speaker 4: to Anna, who comes from a working class, blue collar
Speaker 4: family where most of her family works in a clothing
Speaker 4: factory where their labor is for sure being exploited because
Speaker 4: they're assembling dresses for eighteen dollars.
Speaker 3: To be sold at the Bloomingdale's that his family probably
Speaker 3: shops at.
Speaker 1: And Anna takes the bus. She's like, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about?
Speaker 5: I take the bus and he's like, we have buses here,
Speaker 5: like right.
Speaker 1: What I love about that scene is like Anna doesn't
Speaker 1: say any of that, you know, she just like listens
Speaker 1: to him and she's like, okay, sure, Jimmy, you know,
Speaker 1: she doesn't have to. It's so fascinating to me she doesn't.
Speaker 1: She doesn't feel compelled to tell him he's wrong or
Speaker 1: that he has it easy, or that her life is
Speaker 1: so hard, or well here's what's She's on the bus.
Speaker 1: She doesn't have a car. It's not easy for her.
Speaker 1: And I always find those choices really fascinating of like
Speaker 1: how much Anna is like sharing with him or not,
Speaker 1: you know, right, because I think that in and that
Speaker 1: sex scene that they have where he's like, I'll right you,
Speaker 1: I'll call you, and she's very kind of cold and
Speaker 1: says no, like for what she knows, Like this guy
Speaker 1: is for for the now, but this is not He's
Speaker 1: not my future and he doesn't need to know all
Speaker 1: of me. And I think that's so interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's just like that just like felt so
Speaker 4: real to me, and just like it just shows how
Speaker 4: she is a very like multi dimensional complex character where
Speaker 4: you know, she has no qualms about challenging her mom,
Speaker 4: challenging her sister, you know, challenging Missus Glass, the owner
Speaker 4: of the clothing manufacturer, like, but she isn't quite so
Speaker 4: challenging to some of the things that Jimmy says, because
Speaker 4: he says something like, uh, and you know, we'll talk
Speaker 4: all about like the body and fat shaming she experiences,
Speaker 4: but he says something like you're not fat, you're beautiful,
Speaker 4: and as if those two things are mutually exclusive.
Speaker 1: Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy Jimmy.
Speaker 4: And she doesn't challenge that. But it's just a much
Speaker 4: more different dynamic that she has with this kid. She's
Speaker 4: this like rich white kid she's just getting to know
Speaker 4: versus her mom, who she's lived her entire life with.
Speaker 4: And that just like felt like said, you know, we
Speaker 4: all kind of switch our behavior and you know, based
Speaker 4: on who we're interacting with, and so that just like
Speaker 4: felt very familiar relatable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is just such a cool character where
Speaker 3: every time I don't know, like you can see even
Speaker 3: in that scene with Jimmy, I really like when she
Speaker 3: was like, we're not gonna have anything to talk about
Speaker 3: in three months, like don't.
Speaker 6: Bother, blah blah blah, Like that was so cool.
Speaker 3: And then but in the scene right after you do
Speaker 3: see that, like there is some insecurity attached to her
Speaker 3: setting that boundary in that.
Speaker 6: Way where she's like, well, you're.
Speaker 3: Gonna have some like skinny white girlfriend in a couple
Speaker 3: of months anyways, So like, why would I the subject
Speaker 3: being like, why would I emotionally invest in a Jimmy
Speaker 3: of the world?
Speaker 1: And here's my question. Jimmy says that he's got into
Speaker 1: Teachers College, which leads me to believe he's enrolling at
Speaker 1: Columbia University. She gets into Columbia University, she ends up
Speaker 1: in New York. Is there a real woman Have Curves
Speaker 1: sequel where she wears the red dress in New York
Speaker 1: and they reunite somehow is that why there loose ends, Well.
Speaker 3: This is becoming a what oh my gosh, it's becoming
Speaker 3: a to all the boys I loved before style saga.
Speaker 6: Yes, yeah, a whole thing.
Speaker 1: I have to wonder it's not too late.
Speaker 4: Yes it's twenty years later, but you know, I'm.
Speaker 5: Still waiting for that red dress payoff.
Speaker 1: I'll be on Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: The other thing that I thought was interesting as it
Speaker 4: relates to the kind of class commentary is Missus Glass.
Speaker 4: So again, she's the owner of the dress manufacturing company
Speaker 4: that Estella is a contractor of. And there's that scene
Speaker 4: where Estella she's like at first trying to write an
Speaker 4: email to her, and Anna is like, you gotta go
Speaker 4: down and like talk to her. You're never gonna get
Speaker 4: anywhere with an email. So Anna goes with her, you know,
Speaker 4: ends up like advocating pretty hard, far more than Estella can.
Speaker 4: But it's also like, you know, more is at stake
Speaker 4: for Estella, so you don't you know, you get why
Speaker 4: she's a bit intimidated by Missus Glass. But there's that
Speaker 4: moment where Missus Glass is like, you know, I believe
Speaker 4: a woman like me should help a woman like you,
Speaker 4: but I can only help you so much and basically
Speaker 4: tells her she has to pick herself up by her bootstraps. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because she despite also being like a Latina woman who
Speaker 4: you know, like saw something in Estella and like that's
Speaker 4: why she wanted to help her out. But she's also
Speaker 4: a capitalist who is for sure exploiting Estella's labor. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you hate to see it, but that shit also does happen.
Speaker 5: It does happen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I find the Missus Glass character so fascinating because that
Speaker 1: character can be open to so many interpretations, Like we
Speaker 1: can create so many storylines behind her life. Is this
Speaker 1: like an Argentinian Latina with the last name Glass? Like
Speaker 1: is she like a third gen like Mexican American who
Speaker 1: like went to like Harvard Business School? Like who is
Speaker 1: this woman? And why is she the way that she is?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: And I love the tension there too with like you
Speaker 1: have Anna, who like went to Beverly Hills High School
Speaker 1: and is college bound and is very kind of she
Speaker 1: feels like she knows a lot of things right, And
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a lot of like power trips
Speaker 1: in this movie about what we know and what we
Speaker 1: don't know. So I think Anna feels like among her family,
Speaker 1: she knows more things than like her mom, and her
Speaker 1: mom feels like, well, a woman knows, and a mother knows,
Speaker 1: and that's her favorite saying, you know, because she's a mom,
Speaker 1: so she knows, and she's a married woman, so she knows.
Speaker 1: And Anna went to Beverly Hills High, so she knows,
Speaker 1: you know. And so Anna thinks. Anna thinks that she's
Speaker 1: about to help her sister out and like negotiate with
Speaker 1: this business lady. But Anna is way and over her
Speaker 1: head and this lady is way out of her league,
Speaker 1: and Anna's actually doing more harm than good. And she
Speaker 1: thinks she's helping, you know. And so it's like, maybe
Speaker 1: there's a reason Estella has been kind of moving the
Speaker 1: way she's been moving, because maybe Estella knows something that
Speaker 1: Anna doesn't know, right, And I love all of that,
Speaker 1: that kind of merry go round, I.
Speaker 3: Don't think in my I think I got I was
Speaker 3: so caught up in the Anna of it all in
Speaker 3: my earlier viewings because it's like that is, especially if
Speaker 3: you're like a teen girl, you're plugging yourself into Anna,
Speaker 3: like end of story. I didn't think as much as
Speaker 3: I probably should have about Estella's character, and on prepping
Speaker 3: for this episode, I was like kind of blown away
Speaker 3: by how much there is in Estella's character, even though,
Speaker 3: like I mean, she's a main character, but she doesn't like.
Speaker 5: Actually speak that much.
Speaker 3: She doesn't take a ton of like action action or
Speaker 3: because it's so Ana's story and the relationship between Anna
Speaker 3: and her mother is so focused on. But I really
Speaker 3: love Estella, and I don't think I like had the
Speaker 3: tools to understand what she was up against when I
Speaker 3: first saw this movie, because Anna is so headstrong and
Speaker 3: like pushes back on everything and in a way that
Speaker 3: it's like really cathartic and cool to see, and and
Speaker 3: I think in my mind at the time, I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: why doesn't Estella stand up for herself more? And like
Speaker 3: not understanding there the dynamic there where even watching like
Speaker 3: how like it's clear that ten years prior Estella was
Speaker 3: treated the way Anna's being treated now by her mother,
Speaker 3: which is I f like represented in that scene where
Speaker 3: their mom basically says, like, well, it's too late for Estella.
Speaker 3: I'm going to focus on Anna, And it seems like
Speaker 3: Estella has put so much energy and like her life
Speaker 3: into pleasing her mom. And doing what she thinks is
Speaker 3: the right thing and trying to like meet the bar
Speaker 3: that their mom is setting that no one can ever
Speaker 3: actually reach. Yeah, and then ten years later be blamed for.
Speaker 1: It, and she's still not the mom's favorite.
Speaker 3: Right, and then like ten years later, she's still catching
Speaker 3: shit for it and her mom has given up on
Speaker 3: her for no reason, even though Estella seems like she like, yeah,
Speaker 3: is I mean, I don't know enough about how a
Speaker 3: textile factory is run to say this for sure, but
Speaker 3: it seems like Estella is kind of like doing the
Speaker 3: bulk of the day to day stuff. She's handling all
Speaker 3: the rent issues and the checks and like a lot
Speaker 3: of the high level stuff, but is like not appreciated
Speaker 3: by the powers that be, certainly, but also doesn't seem
Speaker 3: it seems like she she's really undervalued by her own mom.
Speaker 3: And just like seeing how that because that does I
Speaker 3: don't know, like being Estella's age and not Ana's now
Speaker 3: you're like that does wear on you. And of course
Speaker 3: there's just like Anna has the energy to fight every battle,
Speaker 3: and it's like, but that changes over time, and I
Speaker 3: just love Estella and.
Speaker 1: With no Stellash, I feel like Estella's underrated too, because
Speaker 1: if I knew somebody who had their own dress manufacturing
Speaker 1: business and was selling gowns to Bloomingdale's, like was filling
Speaker 1: orders constantly, that's a big fucking deal. Like that's an
Speaker 1: accomplished seamstress designer, like business woman, Like that's nothing to
Speaker 1: sneeze at. She's being exploited. It is literally a sweatshop setting.
Speaker 1: But it's impressive when we really break it down and
Speaker 1: think about what she's doing there. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that Anna sees that.
Speaker 5: She's literally phantom thread like.
Speaker 4: It's also it's like further complicated by so you can
Speaker 4: kind of imagine that Estella took up this business because
Speaker 4: that's what her mom did. Like Carmen says that she
Speaker 4: has been sewing for thirty eight years and she started
Speaker 4: when she was like thirteen. So like you have Estella
Speaker 4: like taking in her mom, you know, like taking after
Speaker 4: her month. Let's the expression take something footsteps following, following
Speaker 4: in her footsteps. I was like, why can't I put
Speaker 4: this sentence together?
Speaker 5: It's nine degrees.
Speaker 4: Why So she's following in her mom's footsteps, possibly to
Speaker 4: impress her mom, possibly because that's the skill her mom
Speaker 4: taught her, you know, there could be any number of reasons,
Speaker 4: and was able to open up her own factory. Yeah,
Speaker 4: which I think maybe it seems to be implied that
Speaker 4: like that's something that Carmen didn't have the opportunity or
Speaker 4: the money that you need to start your own business,
Speaker 4: but it's something that Estella was able to do. And
Speaker 4: so she started her own business. And now she employs
Speaker 4: her mom, so she's her mom's boss. And then her
Speaker 4: mom mentions how from decades of sewing, she's she's become arthritic.
Speaker 4: She can't see very well, and she's like not actually
Speaker 4: able to work very well because like this hard labor
Speaker 4: has really worn on her over the years. But she's
Speaker 4: ashamed by that and is not really communicating that too Estella,
Speaker 4: but she tells it to Anna, and it's just like
Speaker 4: there's like so many such an interesting and complicated family dynamic.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of layers, and it's like
Speaker 1: you have this situation where like the mother and the
Speaker 1: sister have dignity in their work, even though it's not ideal,
Speaker 1: because that is such a step. Like she's a business owner,
Speaker 1: she is doing deals with blooming Dale's and this team.
Speaker 1: They're employing people. Right. There's this scene where Carmen and
Speaker 1: Anna's father they're talking to each other and the father
Speaker 1: is saying, she can learn a lot at Columbia, Like
Speaker 1: she's accepted, she got a scholarship, she can go get educated.
Speaker 1: And her mother says, I can educate her. I can
Speaker 1: teach her how to sew. I can teach her how
Speaker 1: to take care of children. I can teach her how
Speaker 1: to keep a house. She doesn't do laundry. She's my
Speaker 1: greatest disappointment, you know, she doesn't listen to me. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's interesting because I think there's a piece
Speaker 1: there where like the mom and the sister are like,
Speaker 1: we like our lives and we are doing work, and
Speaker 1: we are supporting ourselves, and this is a dignified life
Speaker 1: that's also worth living, you know. And so there's this
Speaker 1: like divide there where she's very young and she's pushing
Speaker 1: back on it and she's pooh pooing it, but it's
Speaker 1: what's also allowed her to go to Beverly Hills High School,
Speaker 1: you know, and she's had that familial support. So there's
Speaker 1: that push and pull there where like in their heart
Speaker 1: of hearts, they want more for her, but they know that,
Speaker 1: like this is their world and for her to step
Speaker 1: out of it, what does that mean about their world
Speaker 1: and them and all of that.
Speaker 3: I mean it's like and and again, like that whole
Speaker 3: message is conveyed in like a single scene which is wild,
Speaker 3: like the scene when mister Guzman comes back to the
Speaker 3: house and I did I know that this is like
Speaker 3: she's wrong for this, but it did always make me
Speaker 3: laugh every time Carbon saw mister Guzman coming and she's like,
Speaker 3: who is that? Let's get him out of here, like
Speaker 3: She's slamming the door, and George Lopez's face.
Speaker 6: Man, yeah man looking for You're like, that's that's her feature.
Speaker 3: But yeah, like that that whole class tension of like
Speaker 3: and I feel like you see it a little bit
Speaker 3: in Nostello's character as well, where it's it's not like
Speaker 3: mister Guzman is trying to say like one thing is
Speaker 3: more valuable than the other, but I think like his
Speaker 3: person aspective is like, well, you sent her to this
Speaker 3: like bougie high school. Do you want her to have
Speaker 3: access to what the bougie high school was supposed to
Speaker 3: have gotten her access to? And then from where Carmen
Speaker 3: and Estella are sitting, and from where the whole family
Speaker 3: is sitting, it makes total sense to be like, well,
Speaker 3: why are you telling us that the life that we
Speaker 3: have isn't enough? Like it feels like Anna is the
Speaker 3: only person in the room at any given time who
Speaker 3: understands that and like understands both sides of it, and
Speaker 3: we don't. I guess we don't know enough about mister
Speaker 3: Guzman's background. Maybe he does understand this tension and his
Speaker 3: power is just kind of very limited in this situation.
Speaker 3: Because you're totally right, Marla, Like it's so wild the
Speaker 3: way that Estella is treated and like the circumstances she
Speaker 3: has to work under because she's also I liked that
Speaker 3: you have that details. She's a brilliant designer, and like
Speaker 3: I hope that you know, in the inevitable, you know,
Speaker 3: real woman have curves to return of the red dress.
Speaker 4: Boots, she had an extremely curvy movie. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she has like her own like fashion house or
Speaker 3: like something like that, where like she's so talented, but
Speaker 3: it's like.
Speaker 1: It's got an ig boutique right exactly.
Speaker 3: It is like doing expensive custom red carpet looks yes.
Speaker 5: For America Ferrera.
Speaker 4: Question Mark.
Speaker 5: But and then the movie explodes.
Speaker 3: But but I I thought it was interesting how like
Speaker 3: there's those moments with Estella, the moments I liked most
Speaker 3: between Anna and Estella, or when Estella, I think would
Speaker 3: sometimes internalize how various systems were failing her and her
Speaker 3: business as individual failures, which is, you know, how the
Speaker 3: systems want you to feel. And I feel like, you know,
Speaker 3: even though the Missus Glass thing did not pan out
Speaker 3: and was that was kind of naive on honest part
Speaker 3: to think you could just march in and change a
Speaker 3: girl boss's mind. But like Estella, it seems like I had
Speaker 3: internalized a lot of shame about it, and like she
Speaker 3: wasn't able to talk to people about it, and you
Speaker 3: would imagine if she went to Karmen about it, Carmen would.
Speaker 5: Give her shit about it, because that is.
Speaker 3: Very inherent to how Carmen treats her daughters. And just
Speaker 3: like watching Estella this like brilliant business owner who should
Speaker 3: be you know, in Milan or whatever, like having to
Speaker 3: internalize this bullshit is it's I don't know, it's like
Speaker 3: pretty subtle in the way that it's like telegraphed in
Speaker 3: the movie.
Speaker 5: But I just I don't know.
Speaker 3: It just felt like this whole other element to what's
Speaker 3: going on in her life that I didn't take a
Speaker 3: lot of note on because I was America.
Speaker 5: For her built and just didn't understand the world as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and yet there's still so much to about Anna's
Speaker 4: character to where like, so we've been kind of dancing
Speaker 4: around the mother daughter relationship throughout the entire discussion, So
Speaker 4: let's just get into it. It's a complicated relationship. It's
Speaker 4: clear that Carmen very much loves and cares for her
Speaker 4: daughter and is coming from a place where she thinks
Speaker 4: what she's doing, what she's saying, is what's best for
Speaker 4: her daughter. She's not really doing anything out of like
Speaker 4: spite or malice. It's just this is what she knows
Speaker 4: and she's trying to pass it along to her daughter,
Speaker 4: and it's what she thinks is best for Anna. This
Speaker 4: often manifests as Carmen policing Anna's body in two pretty
Speaker 4: major ways. One is her size and the other is
Speaker 4: her sexuality. And this is obviously informed by Carmen's religious
Speaker 4: beliefs and her kind of cultural like you know, yes,
Speaker 4: she is reinforcing a lot of pa triarchal standards that
Speaker 4: were pretty par for the course for her generation her culture.
Speaker 4: Anna is from a younger, more progressive generation. She grew
Speaker 4: up in a different country and culture from her parents,
Speaker 4: and this has kind of empowered her to push back
Speaker 4: against like her mom's ideology because we constantly see that
Speaker 4: kind of tug of war of Carmen either fat shaming
Speaker 4: or slut shaming Anna, and then Anna challenging it absolutely.
Speaker 4: So again we have like Carmen constantly making comments about
Speaker 4: Anna's weight, her size. She says things like, you know,
Speaker 4: you would look beautiful if you lost weight, and constant
Speaker 4: comments about her body, and then you have Anna again
Speaker 4: constantly challenging this and pushing back and saying things like, well,
Speaker 4: I happen to like myself and yeah, maybe I do
Speaker 4: want to lose weight, but part of me doesn't because
Speaker 4: my weight says to everybody, fuck you, And she says,
Speaker 4: you know, how dare anybody try to tell me what
Speaker 4: I should look like or what I should be when
Speaker 4: there's so much more to me than just my weight.
Speaker 4: And that's such a wonderful thing to be in a
Speaker 4: movie that is targeted to I mean everyone, everyone should
Speaker 4: watch this movie. But it's like targeted to probably a
Speaker 4: younger audience, you know, teens, tweens. So you have like
Speaker 4: this young character who's like advocating for herself and pushing
Speaker 4: back against this like harmful ideology of fat shaming and
Speaker 4: body shaming.
Speaker 1: I've been watching Dance Moms and Abby Lee Miller has
Speaker 1: sort of helped me to better understand Carmen's character because
Speaker 1: interest well, yes, because Abby Lee is known for her
Speaker 1: harsh words and teaching tactics with her students, but her
Speaker 1: students also win like the sweep right, and so abby
Speaker 1: Lee at one of her competitions was like, listen, I
Speaker 1: tell you the harsh truth and rehearsal because I don't
Speaker 1: want to put you on a stage and parents and
Speaker 1: other coaches are saying nasty things about your technique and
Speaker 1: your unpointed feet in the audience and you're getting dinged.
Speaker 1: I'm saying it so you fix it, and other people
Speaker 1: are not saying it and humiliating you. And I feel
Speaker 1: like there are some older women and I know for
Speaker 1: a fact Latina mothers, because my mother kind of is
Speaker 1: of this sort of mindset sometimes like well, I'm your mother,
Speaker 1: and if I don't tell you who's going to tell you?
Speaker 1: And I feel like Carmen has this sort of very
Speaker 1: like she likes to tell cautionary tales, like if you
Speaker 1: don't listen to your mother, this is what's going to
Speaker 1: happen to you. I'm telling you because I'm your mother.
Speaker 1: Like there's that one scene where they're watching that novella
Speaker 1: and I love this title, Los pobresoran mass and the
Speaker 1: girl like it doesn't listen to her mom and gets
Speaker 1: decapitated in the process trying to run off with some guy,
Speaker 1: and Carmen is like, that's that's what happens. That's what
Speaker 1: happens when you don't listen to your mother. A mother
Speaker 1: knows the right man for her, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: like for me, that's who Carmon is.
Speaker 3: While like poor Anna's trying to write her college essay
Speaker 3: at the table, She's like stop.
Speaker 1: The decapitation comes up, like mid essay writing, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh that's perfect. And then there's also this this undercurrent
Speaker 4: throughout the movie that these women in the factory are
Speaker 4: making dresses that they can't fit into because glamorous clothing
Speaker 4: is often not manufactured for larger bodies because you have
Speaker 4: puncha saying talking about address that Estella is designing, and
Speaker 4: she says something like, yeah, I would definitely wear that
Speaker 4: if it would fit me, parentheses it wouldn't or like
Speaker 4: I couldn't probably find a dress that would fit me
Speaker 4: like this.
Speaker 5: But that's why. And real women have curves too.
Speaker 3: Estella is the most famous inclusive designer in the entire
Speaker 3: world world, like exactly.
Speaker 1: She's styling Lizzo, She's said everybody. Yeah, the script writes itself, honestly,
Speaker 1: Yeah we don't.
Speaker 3: We don't need LaVoo this time. Just get them out
Speaker 3: of the Yeah, laboo more like it more like la
Speaker 3: poo wowidding.
Speaker 4: And then that's really sweet scene where you see Estella
Speaker 4: giving the dress that she made for Anna and she
Speaker 4: says like I cut this specifically for your body and
Speaker 4: says like pretty dresses aren't just for skinny girls, and
Speaker 4: it's just such a beautiful little like button on that
Speaker 4: through line of the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the dresses are such a double a triple whammy,
Speaker 1: because it's like it costs these women money to make
Speaker 1: these dresses. Practically, like not only can they not fit
Speaker 1: in the dresses they're making, but they can't afford the
Speaker 1: dresses they're making because they cost six hundred dollars. And
Speaker 1: the constant throughout the film is I don't think we
Speaker 1: ever see the women really get paid, you know, until
Speaker 1: the very end they reimburse the dad because of the loan.
Speaker 1: The landlord is coming because she's laid on red like
Speaker 1: the dress is actually even just to work is like
Speaker 1: costing them and it's wild to see.
Speaker 3: It made me so sad, like and it made me
Speaker 3: I felt like a moment of like frustration with Estella.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, but that it's like, but she's
Speaker 3: being put in an impossible position.
Speaker 5: It's just and I feel like it.
Speaker 3: The movie, I guess in that moment did kind of
Speaker 3: telegraph clearly why Estella feels like this is all her fault,
Speaker 3: because she's the one that has to tell her employees,
Speaker 3: I can't pay you even though you're doing really really
Speaker 3: hard work like all the time, and I won't turn
Speaker 3: a fan on because of dust Like it's of course
Speaker 3: she feels terrible, but it's like, but yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: know this viewing, I was Estella pilled on this one.
Speaker 1: And the thing about the movie too, was like that, Ah,
Speaker 1: there's so much, so many questions because Anna goes off
Speaker 1: to New York. She's streating her stuff. But remember, like
Speaker 1: Estella stayed behind because she had to go to the factory.
Speaker 1: Like the factory continues, the dead is still there, like
Speaker 1: the turnover, that's all still, that's still going on while
Speaker 1: Anna's in New York.
Speaker 4: Right at least Estella gets her own bedroom now because
Speaker 4: they were sharing a bedroom.
Speaker 1: So true, that is she deserves she deserves.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she deserves. I mean, she deserves her own place.
Speaker 4: We could.
Speaker 5: Like I wanted to get back to mom a little bit.
Speaker 3: As well, because I really do think it's like it's
Speaker 3: such a tricky rule. I feel like it is such
Speaker 3: a testament to Lupe Antevero's for making Carmen a lovable
Speaker 3: character and like because I feel like on paper it's tough.
Speaker 3: The things she says to her daughters can be so
Speaker 3: cutting and awful, and the fact that she is able
Speaker 3: to get across, Like I do believe that she loves
Speaker 3: her daughters. But there's all these layers of and I
Speaker 3: know that there's there's so many Oh there's another fire.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I know there's so many layers of what Carmen.
Speaker 5: Is kind of projecting onto her daughters. It's a lot
Speaker 5: of cultural values that she grew up with.
Speaker 3: It's a generational value, it's it's internalized shame being projected
Speaker 3: back onto her kids.
Speaker 5: And there was an element.
Speaker 3: Of it the closest I could get to, like relating
Speaker 3: to outside of like just being a body shamed by
Speaker 3: female relatives, which happened in my family brutally and all
Speaker 3: the time. But it almost felt like there is like
Speaker 3: this part of Carmen that wants her daughters to suffer
Speaker 3: in the same exact ways she did and like to
Speaker 3: not suffer in those It almost reminds me of like whence,
Speaker 3: like with this whole student loan forgiveness debate, where people
Speaker 3: are like, well I had to be an ex dream
Speaker 3: debt for twenty years, so my kids should too, and it's.
Speaker 5: Like, no, that doesn't don't know what.
Speaker 1: No, Yeah, but on.
Speaker 3: A human level, you can understand how you know she,
Speaker 3: I mean, Carmen has had to deal with shit her
Speaker 3: entire life, and she was raised a very particular way,
Speaker 3: and you understand how she got to where she is
Speaker 3: in the way she views the world. And also be like,
Speaker 3: but you have to let your daughters, you know, you've
Speaker 3: got to want more for your kids. You've got to
Speaker 3: want them to be able to go their own way.
Speaker 3: And it's such a difficult relationship to see play out
Speaker 3: because you you, I don't know, you feel so much
Speaker 3: for everybody, but sometimes you just want to be like Carmen,
Speaker 3: come on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, There's there's a piece too where it's like Carmen,
Speaker 1: she is harsh and she can be mean. There's this
Speaker 1: really interesting layer there though, where it's like sometimes like
Speaker 1: Mexican families do speak that way to each other and
Speaker 1: it can come off as harsh and me but it's
Speaker 1: not unbelievable and it's not unrealistic, right, And I feel
Speaker 1: like sometimes like oh, it's almost like you actually can't
Speaker 1: body shame like a Latina because our families have already
Speaker 1: been doing it for years, Like we've been hearing this
Speaker 1: stuff for our whole lives, Like people speak about our
Speaker 1: bodies in very public and specific terms, like your body
Speaker 1: part isn't just the body part, it becomes like a
Speaker 1: stand in for your whole identity, Like we have words
Speaker 1: just to refer to you in relation to a body part,
Speaker 1: Like if you have a big butt, you don't just
Speaker 1: have a big butt, you are a Nalgona, Like that
Speaker 1: can be your nickname, Like if you have big chee cheese,
Speaker 1: you can be a chi choa, Like that's your nickname,
Speaker 1: that's your title, you know, Gorbita, she calls her throughout
Speaker 1: this is and I love the caption the translation because
Speaker 1: she goes, this is my Gorritha right here, and it's like,
Speaker 1: this is my fatty butter bright here right, my butterball
Speaker 1: butterball also in the captions. But these are actual terms
Speaker 1: that people actually call all girls and women like irl
Speaker 1: and so is it uncomfortable? Yeah? Are they sometimes terms
Speaker 1: of endearment?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Are they sometimes kind of cute see names? Yeah? But
Speaker 1: can they also be used like to cut? Also? Yes?
Speaker 1: So there's also like that sort of like very subtle
Speaker 1: like line that I love that hole Setina plays with
Speaker 1: with her writing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it works so well. And then again, the
Speaker 4: other thing that Carmen tends to do with Anna it
Speaker 4: mostly well part. So it's like Carmen has this idea
Speaker 4: that you know, a woman has to save herself quote
Speaker 4: unquote till marriage. She can't have sex until she's married,
Speaker 4: and it's also her duty to get married and start
Speaker 4: raising a family and to take care of that family
Speaker 4: and to take care of her husband. And she wants
Speaker 4: Anna to get married as soon as possible. And you know,
Speaker 4: she has that little the figurine of of San I
Speaker 4: forget which Saint Saint Anthony, So you know she's holding out.
Speaker 4: She's like and she's like, I've lost hope that Estella
Speaker 4: will get married, but now so now I have to
Speaker 4: really focus on this future for Anna. So that's kind
Speaker 4: of where she's coming from as far as like Anna's
Speaker 4: like sexuality and like her expectations of what Anna is
Speaker 4: going to do with like starting a family and that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. Anna does not buy into this. She's
Speaker 4: just like, I'm gonna like start dating this kid, Jimmy
Speaker 4: for the summer. She wants to have sex with him.
Speaker 4: She tells him, you know, I feel ready. She has
Speaker 4: sex on her terms, which is I think is an
Speaker 4: amazing thing to show on screen of like, you know,
Speaker 4: a young woman feeling ready to have sex for the
Speaker 4: first time, and the condom scene she buys a condom.
Speaker 4: Everything is on her terms. You know, she gives consent
Speaker 4: like this. This is all like wow, I loved it
Speaker 4: to see on screen that actual sex scene when you
Speaker 4: know she's like, she turns the lights back on. She's like,
Speaker 4: I want you to see my body. This is what
Speaker 4: I look like. That whole thing I thought was handled
Speaker 4: so beautifully. And I don't think it's like an act
Speaker 4: of protest against her mom's ideology. But it's just like
Speaker 4: what she wants to do. And it's like what she's
Speaker 4: doing despite it not wanting what her mother wants for her.
Speaker 4: And Anna pushes back on this and says, why is
Speaker 4: a woman's virginity the only thing that matters? A woman
Speaker 4: has thoughts, ideas, a mind of her own, And so
Speaker 4: Anna is like constantly advocating for like I'm more than
Speaker 4: my weight, I'm more than my size, I'm more than
Speaker 4: my virginity, you know, And it's just like a feminist
Speaker 4: icon eighteen year old Anna and.
Speaker 3: America Ferrera like performs the hell out of those speeches.
Speaker 3: I like it's so good, Yeah, I really And I
Speaker 3: liked that. I feel like a lesser movie. I don't know,
Speaker 3: like this is such a case study for like women
Speaker 3: like writing and directing stories about women, especially with the
Speaker 3: amount of specificity that Josefina Lopez does, Like it just works,
Speaker 3: Like it's amazing and I feel like a lesser story
Speaker 3: would have because I was just like, okay, other teen
Speaker 3: movie analogs, you see that, Like in a lesser movie
Speaker 3: and a lesser story, Anna would have been like, Oh,
Speaker 3: this boy thinks I'm beautiful, so I'm in love with him.
Speaker 5: Now, and like all this stuff.
Speaker 6: But she like is very in charge of her sexuality.
Speaker 3: She's I loved that they went out of the way
Speaker 3: to be like and she made sure that she was safe.
Speaker 3: She protected herself because who knows what's going on with
Speaker 3: this kid Jimmy, but also doesn't know how condoms work,
Speaker 3: which is very true of seventeen year olds, and that
Speaker 3: when she was done, she was like, you know, I
Speaker 3: don't want this to be a relationship.
Speaker 5: I feel like teen movies so.
Speaker 3: Often put young women in the situation of like the
Speaker 3: first boy that is nice to me or finds me attractive,
Speaker 3: or like sees me for who like the whatever walking
Speaker 3: down the stairs moment?
Speaker 5: What's that movie that I hate? All that?
Speaker 3: Yes, like the first the first boy that sees me
Speaker 3: for who I really am is the love of my
Speaker 3: life and blah blah blah, And Anna's like, I live
Speaker 3: in the real world. I don't want to keep seeing
Speaker 3: you and like it's just such a that happens nowhere,
Speaker 3: Like it was just so cool to see her take
Speaker 3: charge of everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love too that the movie manages to be
Speaker 1: very dramatic, hilarious, hilarious, but also very dramatic, and nothing
Speaker 1: that dramatic happens plot wise, like she graduates high school,
Speaker 1: dates a boy, and goes to college, you know, like
Speaker 1: and like works summer, Like.
Speaker 5: It feels so cinematic that you know.
Speaker 1: Very wholesome. But there's it's so cinematic and that's for
Speaker 1: me is the you know, she doesn't get pregnant, she
Speaker 1: doesn't go to jail, no one dies of an overdose, Like,
Speaker 1: there's no stabbings, like, but drama. And that's the brilliance
Speaker 1: of the movie and the writing, Like that's the storytelling
Speaker 1: because you're captivated and you're like feeling feelings and going
Speaker 1: through it with her, And I feel like that is
Speaker 1: the drama of teen angst. That's how heightened it can be.
Speaker 1: She's just being a teen girl going the fuck through
Speaker 1: it and clashing with her mom.
Speaker 4: And you know, the movie doesn't take any shortcuts when
Speaker 4: it comes to like this is a dramatic story, so
Speaker 4: someone has to die. Like it's just like life is dramatic,
Speaker 4: yeah and hilarious. Yeah, and the movie balances both very well.
Speaker 5: It's so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's yes, well you said it perfectly where you're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: like teen girl life is everything feels.
Speaker 4: Like a movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everything teen ANGSTNGST. And so this is I think
Speaker 1: just in that vein Teen Girls, you know struggle.
Speaker 6: They're in the trench. They're in the trenches twenty four
Speaker 6: to seven.
Speaker 1: Truly, if you're a teen girl listening, I salute you.
Speaker 1: It does get better eventually, it will eventually eventually its hold.
Speaker 5: On another thing.
Speaker 3: I feel like I just was so impressed and like
Speaker 3: blown away by the writing of like there's no character,
Speaker 3: however small, that you don't have some level of investment in,
Speaker 3: because the script goes out of its way to like,
Speaker 3: you know, at least something about every woman who works
Speaker 3: with Estella, Like you get to know them over the
Speaker 3: course of the movie, even like in I think again,
Speaker 3: in like a less thoughtfully written movie, it would just
Speaker 3: be like background seamstress number four, but that role like
Speaker 3: doesn't exist. You learn everyone's name, you learn a little
Speaker 3: bit about them, or at least get a taste of
Speaker 3: their personality, and I feel like that just makes the
Speaker 3: payoff of this, Like it could have been a like
Speaker 3: I Am Spartacus moment where you're like, this is kind
Speaker 3: of cool, but who are these people?
Speaker 5: But it's like you know who who.
Speaker 3: These women are, and you already have gotten to know
Speaker 3: like a little bit of their history and their relationship
Speaker 3: with their co workers throughout the movie, and so it
Speaker 3: feels like, Oh, I'm in a room full of women
Speaker 3: whose lives I know something about, and now they're finally
Speaker 3: comfortable talking about their their bodies and their insecurities and
Speaker 3: their like everything, and it just felt so yeah, like
Speaker 3: the attention to detail is so awesome.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, Uh what else?
Speaker 5: What else we got going on?
Speaker 3: Sorry, I feel like I just blacked out for a
Speaker 3: second because I inhaled.
Speaker 4: So hot hot.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I want to share one last quote from the creator
Speaker 4: of this property cos of Veena Lopez. So the play
Speaker 4: seems to be a bit more focused on the on
Speaker 4: a character being undocumented for some portion of her life
Speaker 4: and the anxiety about being undocumented and being deported, and
Speaker 4: that is a focus on the play that is eliminated
Speaker 4: from the movie. So this quote, this quote is a
Speaker 4: little bit about hose Aphina talking about being undocumented, just
Speaker 4: to put that into context. But Hosephina says, quote, I
Speaker 4: was undocumented for thirteen years. I wanted to write a
Speaker 4: play to affirm my humanity because I felt so dehumanized
Speaker 4: being undocumented. I've always had issues with my weight, and
Speaker 4: one of my teachers told me not in a mean way.
Speaker 4: She thought I was a great actress, that I had
Speaker 4: the ability to play Juliet and Lady Macbeth, but no
Speaker 4: one was going to cast me as the ingenue if
Speaker 4: I didn't lose weight, because only thing girls get the lead.
Speaker 4: Men write roles and direct the movies. So I had
Speaker 4: to adhere to those standards. Wise, I'd always play the
Speaker 4: side character. I thought, Okay, if I lose the weight,
Speaker 4: then I'm going to be told by casting people that
Speaker 4: i should change my name to a white name, change
Speaker 4: my hair color. If I do this, I'm going to
Speaker 4: have to give up who I am to be an actress.
Speaker 4: I refused to do that. The problem isn't that I'm undocumented, Mexican,
Speaker 4: working class, or overweight. The problem is society. Unquote. That
Speaker 4: sentiment feels like it comes through in this movie very well,
Speaker 4: and that that's like the core of what so much
Speaker 4: of this movie is about, and it's just such a
Speaker 4: positive thing for that to be out in the world.
Speaker 5: I hell, yeah, that's.
Speaker 3: Such a nice She's so cool. The last thing I
Speaker 3: had this is not a criticism. It was just something
Speaker 3: that I is something we've talked about in the show before,
Speaker 3: and so I wanted to sort of see what y'all
Speaker 3: felt about it.
Speaker 5: I really love that this.
Speaker 3: Movie puts mother daughter relationships front and center and gives
Speaker 3: them precedents. We get a few scenes with their father,
Speaker 3: who seems to be a very nice, affable kind of guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, real nice guy.
Speaker 5: Right, but as is their grandfather.
Speaker 3: I just feel like, I don't know, I mean, I
Speaker 3: I don't even think that I would want anything to
Speaker 3: be changed. I just think that there are moments in
Speaker 3: movies at center around mother's and daughters where it's like
Speaker 3: the dad is always like the quote unquote nicer guy.
Speaker 3: It just felt like a little I was like, okay,
Speaker 3: so well, dad.
Speaker 1: When dads are mean, they're scary, Like we're gonna get
Speaker 1: too scary territory with mean dad, right, So it's like
Speaker 1: all all the kind of baggage is rolled into Carmen,
Speaker 1: and it just like, I don't know, I mean, I
Speaker 1: didn't really feel strongly about it. I just always feel
Speaker 1: like I noticed when there's a lot of movies where
Speaker 1: it's like the dad is quote unquote the nice parent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I would say that, yes, And that certainly
Speaker 4: is a trope that we've discussed to a large extent
Speaker 4: on the show. But I think it all depends on
Speaker 4: how the movie approaches it and how the movie actually
Speaker 4: handles it. In this movie, it didn't feel tropy. It
Speaker 4: didn't feel like it was leaning into stereotypes about a
Speaker 4: mom being.
Speaker 5: Right, what is the word I'm searching for?
Speaker 3: But she's like so, I mean, Carmen is so like
Speaker 3: contextualized and well written and like hmm, you understand, yeah,
Speaker 3: why she reacts the way she does.
Speaker 1: Right, There's all these shows like there's like I think
Speaker 1: of like the Mom, I'm like Malcolm in the Middle.
Speaker 1: Then there's like Everybody Loves Raymond, the White Debra and
Speaker 1: I love all these characters, all these women. What's the
Speaker 1: other one? But there's a bunch right like where like
Speaker 1: the mom is oh my wife and kids, the dad
Speaker 1: is like funny goofball and then the mom's kind of
Speaker 1: kind of a bitch, kind of strict, always yelling, high strung,
Speaker 1: like he's always doing stupid things to stress her out.
Speaker 1: And I feel like in this film, like Carmen is like.
Speaker 5: An anti hero.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we can't stand her and she sometimes because
Speaker 1: of the thing she says, but we still love her.
Speaker 1: And I also feel like I love that Anna's character
Speaker 1: is allowed to be kind of a brat, Like Carmen's
Speaker 1: kind of a bitch and Anna's kind of a brat.
Speaker 1: And as much as they insist that they are different,
Speaker 1: the more we see their similarities. And I feel like
Speaker 1: it's so interesting the way she pits them against each other.
Speaker 1: But it's like, oh, we're learning more about each one
Speaker 1: of them because they're the same person, you know.
Speaker 3: It is like another thing where it's like I want
Speaker 3: to see, Yeah, I feel like we're making a strong
Speaker 3: case for a sequel. I want to see what this
Speaker 3: relationship between them looks like twenty years down the line,
Speaker 3: like because I do understand like they're her parents. I mean,
Speaker 3: there's so much anxiety around on a leaving to go
Speaker 3: to college, especially across the country, and I feel like
Speaker 3: there's a subtext of like she's gonna change, she's gonna
Speaker 3: like not be the girl that we raise, and like
Speaker 3: she'll lose.
Speaker 5: Touch with who she is if she leaves.
Speaker 3: And I would love to see that relationship examined twenty
Speaker 3: years down.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah.
Speaker 4: My last observation is, so there is another movie about
Speaker 4: like a young woman who's just graduated from high school,
Speaker 4: who lives in California and has a difficult relationship with
Speaker 4: her mother. She dates a boy and has sex for
Speaker 4: the first time, and then she goes off to college
Speaker 4: across the country. I also think in New York City
Speaker 4: and that movie is Ladybird. There's a lot of parallels here.
Speaker 1: Interesting, And Ladybird's kind of a brat.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and like a lot of body stuff with
Speaker 3: the mom as well body stuff.
Speaker 4: You know, there's class commentary in that movie as well.
Speaker 4: Very similar movies.
Speaker 5: Interesting.
Speaker 4: I would say, if you like Ladybird, for sure, check
Speaker 4: out Real Women Have Curves if you haven't seen it.
Speaker 4: I think the real women have curves? Does it better?
Speaker 4: I find it to be a.
Speaker 5: More fifteen years earlier.
Speaker 4: Fifty Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I didn't make that connection, yeah, totally.
Speaker 4: So, Yeah, if you liked Ladybird. Definitely check out real
Speaker 4: women have curves if you haven't seen it.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I got caught up in my own horrible Ladybird joke,
Speaker 3: which is, instead of that boy, Jimmy, Ladybird has that boy.
Speaker 4: Timmy Oh, Timmy shallow May, Yes.
Speaker 3: Timmy shallow May, most hilarious joke of all time.
Speaker 1: And on.
Speaker 5: No, there's actually no good way to transition this, but I.
Speaker 4: Mean talking about Timothy Shalamey. I do think passes the
Speaker 4: Bechdel test. If that's where you.
Speaker 5: Were going, I don't know what is he like?
Speaker 4: You know, like this, can we even a good question?
Speaker 3: You really vouch for him? I feel like it's still
Speaker 3: kind of a miss. It eludes me, but you know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't elude me. Whether this movie passes the Bechel
Speaker 3: test or not.
Speaker 5: Yes, we did it.
Speaker 6: This movie super passes the Bexel test.
Speaker 3: It's barely even worth discussing because it passes between almost
Speaker 3: any pairing of characters that aren't men. I like we
Speaker 3: discussed before, this movie does takes a lot of care
Speaker 3: to give every character in the movie, particularly the women,
Speaker 3: a name and some information about them. So really, any
Speaker 3: interaction happening to get the factory that isn't explicitly about marriage, passes.
Speaker 5: The Bechel test.
Speaker 3: They're talking about their bodies, they're talking about school, they're
Speaker 3: talking about work, they're talking about deadlines.
Speaker 5: They're talking about taxes, they're talking about.
Speaker 3: They're just you know, dare I say it being full
Speaker 3: on people and characters the whole damn movie?
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 4: And as we also touched on in the episode, this
Speaker 4: movie has just so much focus on the female character
Speaker 4: and the relationships between female characters. And while there are
Speaker 4: you know, there's a dad, there's the grandpa, there's a
Speaker 4: couple male cousins, those characters are like pretty secondary or tertiary,
Speaker 4: and it's really so much of a focus on the
Speaker 4: women and their relationships, so still.
Speaker 5: Depicted with love.
Speaker 3: It's not like they're like left by the wrisub but like,
Speaker 3: but you know, like but yes it is. It is
Speaker 3: a women's movie, and you know women that we don't
Speaker 3: usually get focused on, women who are working class, women
Speaker 3: who are immigrants, women who are people of color and
Speaker 3: Latin specifically. So it's just this movie is doing so
Speaker 3: much that no other movie of its time is doing,
Speaker 3: and still most movies now are not doing so with
Speaker 3: that in mind, another perfect transition.
Speaker 4: And do you mean the nipple scale. Yes, the only
Speaker 4: perfect metric, and it is, of course a scale of
Speaker 4: zero to five nipples based on examining the movie through
Speaker 4: an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 1: So you know, given all possible factors to consider, every
Speaker 1: potential factor one might consider with regards to this movie
Speaker 1: and this rating, I would give it a four.
Speaker 5: Hell yeah, yeah, I think, I mean I would go
Speaker 5: like four to four and a half. It's I was
Speaker 5: really happy to see.
Speaker 3: Like especially, I mean just the fact that like women
Speaker 3: wrote and directed and produced this and like, yeah, most
Speaker 3: of them are women of color like that, I feel like,
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, still unheard of now and.
Speaker 5: It's still and it's a classic, like you can't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I feel like real women have curves kind
Speaker 3: of yet to be topped except by real women have
Speaker 3: curves two coming out next year, yeah, pending, and then
Speaker 3: and then we also you know, bequeath you the power
Speaker 3: to gift your four nipples to any character person, an actor,
Speaker 3: production person of your choice. You can distribute in pairs
Speaker 3: or not, you know, like kind of get creative with it.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is so difficult because I want to give
Speaker 1: two each to just America and Loupe, you know, just
Speaker 1: split them up half and half. But I also want
Speaker 1: to give hos Afina two, but I only have four,
Speaker 1: you know what. I'm gonna give Loop anti Vedos two
Speaker 1: because she passed away rip. I'm going to give hos
Speaker 1: Afina Lopez two because she wrote it. She's an icon,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna give America for one because she's the
Speaker 1: youngest and I think is still working on icon status.
Speaker 1: That's how we'll do it.
Speaker 6: I think that that was very judicious of you. That
Speaker 6: was very diple about it.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go forward to half and I'm gonna docket
Speaker 3: the half nipple just for making America for uncomfortable when
Speaker 3: she was seventeen. She is a living legend and a child,
Speaker 3: and I'm, you know, gonna I'm going to put that
Speaker 3: one on Lavu.
Speaker 5: No nipples for Luvu for me zero.
Speaker 3: But outside of that, I think this movie is so
Speaker 3: fucking awesome and it I mean, it was doing so
Speaker 3: many things no other movies were doing.
Speaker 5: Hosefina Lopez is an.
Speaker 3: Incredible writer and I just love every element of this movie.
Speaker 3: And I'm now an estella stand for life Hell so
Speaker 3: I'll give one nipple to Anna, one to Estella. I'll
Speaker 3: give the half to Carmen because she's doing her best.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I.
Speaker 3: Have I have love for her. Yeah, but leave Anna
Speaker 3: and Nostella alone. I'll give one to Pancha. I loved Pancha.
Speaker 3: I feel like super underrated character, and I will give
Speaker 3: one to I should give one to Hoefina Lopez, but
Speaker 3: I'm going to give it to Hosefina Lopez playing the
Speaker 3: manager of the burger joint because that is acting.
Speaker 1: Scene Steeler, scene Steeler.
Speaker 3: Exactly where was a major Oscar snub that year?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: And then the last thing I wanted to say was
Speaker 3: I guess as of last year, there's a musical being
Speaker 3: written around this, so no way. Hopefully people are listening
Speaker 3: to this episode from the future and just saw real
Speaker 3: women have curves on Broadway. I feel like this would
Speaker 3: be such a good musical. Hell yeah, I love musicals,
Speaker 3: and I love musical adaptations that aren't already Disney movies,
Speaker 3: So this seems like something I would love.
Speaker 5: Yep, Caitlin, what is your writing for this flim Oh.
Speaker 4: This flim gets I would say four and a half.
Speaker 4: I was gonna give it a five before I knew
Speaker 4: about the the sketchy things that were happening, especially in
Speaker 4: that one in that one particular scene where America Ferrera
Speaker 4: expressed discomfort and then they deceived her with like yucky.
Speaker 4: But aside from that, this is such a wonderful movie. Again,
Speaker 4: a focus on women, women's stories, women's relationships, positive LATINX
Speaker 4: representation that we so rarely see in cinema, especially in
Speaker 4: this era. Messages of body positivity, of sex positivity. A
Speaker 4: focus on a working class family in Los Angeles, a
Speaker 4: side of Los Angeles that we don't tend to see
Speaker 4: or that tends to be demonized in most media.
Speaker 3: Multi generational, which I feel like we haven't like explicitly like,
Speaker 3: there's just there's so.
Speaker 4: Much and so much is accomplished, so effortlessly, so effortless.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I'm so bad at that word.
Speaker 5: I think everyone has those words.
Speaker 4: It takes a lot of effort for me to say effortlessly.
Speaker 5: Wow, there we go.
Speaker 4: So much is accomplished in a movie that is less.
Speaker 3: Than an hour and a half, which we were texting
Speaker 3: about every movie should be less than an hour and
Speaker 3: a half long. If this movie can do what it
Speaker 3: does in an hour and a half. What's your excuse?
Speaker 5: I was about to say something flippant, annoying, and what's
Speaker 5: your excuse?
Speaker 4: Titanic?
Speaker 5: Okay, now that's straight up one exception.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, I know, I know, I know. I'm
Speaker 4: so sorry.
Speaker 5: Everyone, who are you giving your nipples to?
Speaker 4: I'm going to give my nipples to one to America Ferreira,
Speaker 4: one to Lupe ante Veros, one to Ingrid Oliu who
Speaker 4: plays Estella. I'll give one to the women who work
Speaker 4: in the clothing factory, and then my half nipple I
Speaker 4: will give to Los Angeles Public Transportation because.
Speaker 5: It's called the Metro preas owner.
Speaker 4: But generically it is public transportation. It is, and I
Speaker 4: do take it sometimes brave oky.
Speaker 5: Pray occasional red line user.
Speaker 3: Wow, I love to bully people who don't use enough
Speaker 3: public fads day. But that said, you drove me to
Speaker 3: the beach yesterday, so.
Speaker 4: It makes you think it does? It does indeed, right,
Speaker 4: So that is real women have curves.
Speaker 3: Mala, thank you so much for being here, and uh yeah,
Speaker 3: where can we find you online?
Speaker 5: Plug away?
Speaker 1: Yes, so I am on all social platforms at Mala, Underscore, Munios,
Speaker 1: m U n o Z is the last name, and
Speaker 1: you can listen to I have two podcasts out. One
Speaker 1: is called Look at Tora Radio, which is the flagship
Speaker 1: podcast that I co host with my co producer Yosa,
Speaker 1: and then my solo show, Mari Juanetta, a podcast for potheads.
Speaker 1: And we're on Apple, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, all the usual places.
Speaker 5: Hell yeah, also your stand up fucking rules.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Yes, and then you can follow us on Twitter and
Speaker 4: Instagram at Bechdel Cast. You can subscribe to our Matreon
Speaker 4: at Patreon dot com slash Bechdel Cast, which gives you
Speaker 4: two bonus episodes every month, along with access to the
Speaker 4: back catalog of over one hundred bonus episodes all and
Speaker 4: that is all for five dollars a month.
Speaker 3: Oh can you imagine? Can you imagine? It's actually sometimes I.
Speaker 5: Do reflect on the value and just I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 5: what a deal, what a steal? Whatere? Are we? Okay? Uh?
Speaker 3: You can also get our march at teapublic dot com
Speaker 3: slash the Bechdel Cast if you are so inclined. And
Speaker 3: with that, I mean I think we should mention we've
Speaker 3: been shirtless.
Speaker 5: Yeah. The last half of the episode, I mean, am.
Speaker 4: I gonna put my clothes back on.
Speaker 5: We'll see Carmen deal with it all right.
Speaker 4: Bye bye bye