Speaker 1: On the Bedel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the beck Del cast. Hey, Jamie,
Speaker 1: Hey Kitlin, ask me how much student debt I'm in?
Speaker 1: How much student debt are you in? And how can
Speaker 1: I liberate you from it? Well, I think I'm somewhere.
Speaker 1: I honestly haven't checked in years because I obviously have
Speaker 1: no intention of paying it. But I think I'm somewhere
Speaker 1: around eighty or ninety thousand dollars in student loan debt
Speaker 1: for the master's degree I got from Boston University in screenwriting,
Speaker 1: which I would never mention. I can't believe this is
Speaker 1: coming up so early in the episode. This is never
Speaker 1: It's like borderline aggressive. I love it. Yeah, well, God
Speaker 1: bless thank you, thank you. Um. Well, look today I've
Speaker 1: been sent here, I'm pivoted hard and now I'm a
Speaker 1: debt collector and you just admit it to something pretty
Speaker 1: serious On Mike Yes and Me. Officer Jermaine Fowler though,
Speaker 1: the world's most ethically confusing person. I am going to
Speaker 1: have sex with you and then send you to jail. Actually,
Speaker 1: I was like, that does sound kind of sex hot,
Speaker 1: that is a kink of mind. So I wasn't because
Speaker 1: there's been so much talk around I mean student that's
Speaker 1: specifically recently because of the like ongoing failure to actually
Speaker 1: relieve student debt, the way that people have been saying
Speaker 1: that it was going to. I want to shout out
Speaker 1: former guests in the show. Julia Claire, one of the
Speaker 1: people closest to my heart. She had She had a
Speaker 1: viral tweet recently, m yeah, where she said, watching banks
Speaker 1: get bailed out for the second time in my adult
Speaker 1: life while also paring to watch the Supreme Court tell
Speaker 1: us that canceling a paltry ten k and student loan
Speaker 1: debt per borrower is government overreach. And then there's a
Speaker 1: picture of Scarlett Johanson and marriage story crying. It's a
Speaker 1: banger of a tweet, and I just wanted to shout
Speaker 1: I was thinking about that tweet this whole damn movie.
Speaker 1: Love it well well, Shelley. Oh wait, we should say
Speaker 1: what the show is. We should say what the show is.
Speaker 1: This is Hello, it's us, this is the Bechtel cast.
Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Dronte, and I have a voice
Speaker 1: that sounds like this today. My name's Jamie Loftus, and
Speaker 1: I have a voice that sounds like this today. Not
Speaker 1: to brag. And this is the Bechtel Cast, our podcast
Speaker 1: where we take a look at your favorite movies with
Speaker 1: an intersectional feminist lens. Today, we have a movie that
Speaker 1: came out in twenty nineteen called Buffaload. And you're never
Speaker 1: gonna believe where this movie takes place. It is directed
Speaker 1: by Tanya Wexler, written by Brian Socca. And this movie
Speaker 1: is brought to us by a returning guest. That's so true.
Speaker 1: We don't need to say what the Bechtel test is.
Speaker 1: Not to say breeze right path. It's women's, honestly and women's.
Speaker 1: It's Women's History month, and I feel like we don't
Speaker 1: have to this month. We don't figure it out to
Speaker 1: look it up table flip. My voice sounds like this
Speaker 1: because I've just been screaming at men all months. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I haven't been using my voice. I've just been stealing.
Speaker 1: Perfect next year, just steal and burn things. Yes, save
Speaker 1: your voice, babe. Yes, we should be silent more than ever.
Speaker 1: No more than ever just burned down their house like
Speaker 1: banshees a ved sheering style. Okay, okay, that's my favorite
Speaker 1: joke that I've ever come up with. That is really funny.
Speaker 1: I are not to be pro men, but that movie rips.
Speaker 1: I loved that damn movie. I was laughing. I was crying.
Speaker 1: Jenny the Donkey, Are you kidding? Feminist icon Jenny the Donkey.
Speaker 1: Everyone in that movie rocks. Colin Farrell being like mister
Speaker 1: Derp is so cute. He's like, would why not you
Speaker 1: be my friend? I loved it. That's great. Okay, we
Speaker 1: were about to introduce our guest. Yeah, it's always going
Speaker 1: to be chaos when this guest is here. I feel
Speaker 1: like she's a culture writer and critic. You've seen her
Speaker 1: work on Architectural Digest, Vogue, Autostraddle, and you know her
Speaker 1: from our episode on Empire Records. It's Shelley Nicole aka
Speaker 1: the Return of Shreky Shrecky Too. I was like, are
Speaker 1: we not gonna say Shreky because I will close this
Speaker 1: zoom so fast. Also, I'm very happy that it's chaotic
Speaker 1: when I'm on all the time. It makes me so happy.
Speaker 1: I love it. It's so fun. We're so excited to
Speaker 1: have you back. Truly, it's so hard not to talk
Speaker 1: throughout that part, especially when it's like not to be
Speaker 1: on the side of men. But I have this, well,
Speaker 1: the floor is yours. If you have anything you want
Speaker 1: to say in response to what we've said, like three
Speaker 1: minutes ago, No, just the path that I don't want
Speaker 1: to be on the side of men, and I just
Speaker 1: thought that that was funny and that, I mean, we'll
Speaker 1: probably get into it because I was going to talk
Speaker 1: about my student loan that too, but yeah, mine's like
Speaker 1: not that much. But yeah, I'm excited. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about money and buffalo and ill fitting suits and
Speaker 1: bad hair color. I'm so excited. There's so much. This
Speaker 1: movie is truly a buffet of things to talk about.
Speaker 1: It's a lot, and it isn't a lot. It was
Speaker 1: a little stressful to watch, thinking of like various debts
Speaker 1: that I have, just like there is a low, humming
Speaker 1: anxiety to watching this movie where I paid off my
Speaker 1: student debt. But they're sarious. Well, I went to school
Speaker 1: on a scholarship and only went to school once, but
Speaker 1: it was I'm very, very lucky that I paid off
Speaker 1: my student debt. I took forever. It took over. I
Speaker 1: think it took ten eleven year or something like that.
Speaker 1: But but I have a ton of hospital bills I
Speaker 1: have not paid off, and I hear about them all
Speaker 1: the time. Well, yeah, I'm not going to do it,
Speaker 1: and we but like, I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 1: But I get you know, every there was a hospital
Speaker 1: bill I have from New York like five years ago
Speaker 1: where I didn't I went to the er and they
Speaker 1: were like, you're having a panic attack. Go home, And
Speaker 1: there's still like, but that will be five thousand dollars, Like, no,
Speaker 1: it won't be. It will not be, or it will be,
Speaker 1: but I'm not giving it to you. I'm not the
Speaker 1: best of luck to you and getting that absolute horsh Anyways, Um,
Speaker 1: it's always fun to talk about various debts. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the movie is buffaloed. Yeah, Shelley, what is your history
Speaker 1: with this movie? I mean it came out pretty recently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I came out super recently. I um, because what was
Speaker 1: it came out in twenty nineteen. Yeah. I didn't discover
Speaker 1: it until the first Lockdown because I was just watching everything.
Speaker 1: I was watching everything. If you hear someone in the background.
Speaker 1: My partner is watching a basketball game right now. But
Speaker 1: I discovered it like through it first part of Lockdown
Speaker 1: because I was literally watching anything and everything I could
Speaker 1: get my hands on because I had ran through all
Speaker 1: of my rewatches, like my New Girl Rewatches the Office
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. And then I fell in love
Speaker 1: with Zoe Dutch. Like I started watching stuff with her
Speaker 1: and I was like, who is she? She's funny, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think she's a really really, really really
Speaker 1: good actress. She's one of my favorite like white woman actresses,
Speaker 1: which of which I have like a few, But so
Speaker 1: I started watching it because of her, and then I
Speaker 1: fell in love with it because she's hustling, Like it's
Speaker 1: about money, it's about debt, it's about scamming a little bit,
Speaker 1: and it's all from a girl's perspective, which I thought
Speaker 1: was really cool. And I mean, I didn't grow up poor.
Speaker 1: Grew up like maybe lower middle class and Detroit. Both
Speaker 1: of my parents are. My dad like worked death a
Speaker 1: factory and my mom worked in an office. But I
Speaker 1: learned about debt before I learned about earning, you know,
Speaker 1: And I learned about hustling before I learned about nine
Speaker 1: to five's, which is in all honesty probably why I'm
Speaker 1: so success were like freelancing and why it doesn't like
Speaker 1: like if you owe me money for my I'm going
Speaker 1: to email you seventy three times at net sixty one.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like, hello me again, there's money, me again,
Speaker 1: the return of Shrek thing I wrote for me to
Speaker 1: turn in on time, just Shreky seven because I've emailed
Speaker 1: you fifty times. But yeah, I learned about debt before
Speaker 1: I learned about earning. My parents didn't teach me like
Speaker 1: a lot about money, but they taught me a lot
Speaker 1: about debt, and I saw my parents paying stuff off
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. So I think I
Speaker 1: just connected with this movie through that. Um Because I
Speaker 1: might not know a lot about things like investing, and
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like NFTs and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, I know a ton about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that this is actually a finance podcast. That's
Speaker 1: why I want to come on here, um finance bros.
Speaker 1: But I um, so, I might not know a lot
Speaker 1: about that stuff, but I know about hustling. I'm always
Speaker 1: going to make a work. I can always get, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, and this feels very similar to
Speaker 1: the story in the film. And I just thought it
Speaker 1: was dope, Like is it chaotic and is it kind
Speaker 1: of breaking apart at a lot of things. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: for the main part, I just thought it was a
Speaker 1: really dope movie to talk about like debt collecting from
Speaker 1: a girl's perspective, and from the inside it was just dope.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I do appreciate that it's a movie about
Speaker 1: like hustling, slash doing shady shit to get money from
Speaker 1: a woman's perspective, because there are so many movies about
Speaker 1: that centering men, yea, all that Wolf of Wall Street
Speaker 1: type shit and all that kind of stuff money, but
Speaker 1: all of these movies about men scamming and getting money,
Speaker 1: but it's never And also I liked that it was
Speaker 1: from the point of view of her, like she was
Speaker 1: trying to pay off student loans, like she wasn't trying
Speaker 1: to like I guess in those other movies and other
Speaker 1: films they're always trying to just like make a buck
Speaker 1: to stay ahead and get on top. But she was
Speaker 1: doing it because she was literally just trying to like
Speaker 1: pay off her ship and then wanting to do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So I just thought it was dope.
Speaker 1: I thought it was great. It's one of like the
Speaker 1: dopest films that I was seen about, like Debt and
Speaker 1: Debt Collecting, that is from a real something I could
Speaker 1: connect with, like that kind of perspective. Yeah. Nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had not heard of this movie until you brought
Speaker 1: it to us, so my relationship with it is very brief.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think it posits some interesting things for
Speaker 1: us to discuss. I love that side to side to Babbo.
Speaker 1: It's like I have a lot to say, but not
Speaker 1: right now, but I guess I'll just have to wait
Speaker 1: and find out. I did. Like I mean, there's I've
Speaker 1: not spent a ton of time in Buffalo, and I'd
Speaker 1: be curious, like for people who are from Buffalo, like
Speaker 1: how they felt their city was portrayed, because I always,
Speaker 1: I don't know, every time I see something that specific,
Speaker 1: I remember how like flamingly angry I get when I
Speaker 1: feel Massachusetts has been misrepresented in television or filmed, and
Speaker 1: so I am curious, especially in like a comedy. Usually
Speaker 1: I feel like there were I don't know, Buffalo heads
Speaker 1: sound off because they were talking so much about wings
Speaker 1: and I'm like you know, there's a lot of wing talk.
Speaker 1: It's like if it's a movie about Boston and we're
Speaker 1: only talking about beans. I didn't know that about Buffalo either,
Speaker 1: So I would like for someone to be like, is
Speaker 1: it really that big of a because I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I didn't know the Buffalo was known for wings. I
Speaker 1: did not know that Buffalofalo. I was like, wait, who's
Speaker 1: gonna tell you? Oh my god, I don't know why
Speaker 1: I didn't connect that to the city, but just the animal,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's like a super I don't know.
Speaker 1: I like, did hotdog research in Buffalo, so I spent
Speaker 1: That's why I've spent time there. Oh my god. They
Speaker 1: keep referencing Anchor Bar, which is like, technically I think
Speaker 1: the birthplace of Buffalo wings. Buffalo wings also invented by
Speaker 1: a woman. Happy Women's History Month. Wow, Yes, yes, girl bosses, rejoice.
Speaker 1: I'm learning so much about wings today. I hate that
Speaker 1: I know so much. I love that you know so
Speaker 1: much about that. Wow. Look at that Women's History Month.
Speaker 1: Everyone look at that truly. I mean, what can't we do?
Speaker 1: While you were discovering that buffalo wings come from Buffalo,
Speaker 1: I was googling the writer of the movie, Brian Socca,
Speaker 1: who is from yes Lockport, New York. And then based
Speaker 1: on a quick little Google Maps search, I discovered that
Speaker 1: it appears to be a suburb of Buffalo. So so
Speaker 1: the writer is he's a Buffalo head. He's a Buffalo head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we let Matt Damon write movies about Boston, you know,
Speaker 1: so you're just not It's you can't just trust a
Speaker 1: single I just want to know what the Buffalo heads
Speaker 1: are saying. Sure, I've been. I've been to Anchor Bar,
Speaker 1: I've gone to the source. You're just bragging so much,
Speaker 1: Jamie on this episode. I'm sorry. Yeah, And I had
Speaker 1: Buffalo one day and I tried to get jealous. I
Speaker 1: was about to say that I've never been to Buffalo,
Speaker 1: but then I am lying because I'm realizing how close
Speaker 1: it is to Niagara Falls, where I have been. And
Speaker 1: then I was like, all right, Oh, who's bragg great
Speaker 1: uncle who lived in Buffalo, and I have been there.
Speaker 1: They've got good dogs. Shows you what I know? Well,
Speaker 1: shut out Buffalo. I'm a Buffalo fan, fan, fan of
Speaker 1: the buff I had not seen this movie before. I
Speaker 1: have like a lot of mixed feelings about this movie
Speaker 1: because I think you're like, I totally agree with you, Shelley,
Speaker 1: where it feels like this is like and I feel
Speaker 1: like it's probably like intentionally done where it feels like
Speaker 1: a working class female perspective take on the big short format,
Speaker 1: because there's a few different moments where she big shorts
Speaker 1: and is like, here's how money works, and you're like,
Speaker 1: she's big shorting, she's wolfing of Wall streeting. She is
Speaker 1: definitely wolfing of Wall streeting. Yeah, she's wolfing out. And
Speaker 1: I do like, yeah, like the how like the whole
Speaker 1: framework of this movie is about how she becomes this
Speaker 1: like huge hustler, kind of like super villainous character but
Speaker 1: started by just trying to like get by, and there's
Speaker 1: all this emphasis on how the system is set up
Speaker 1: to fail her and the only way that she can
Speaker 1: survive is by becoming a girl boss super villain. I
Speaker 1: don't know. But then there's other stuff about this movie
Speaker 1: that I was like, huh, but I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: talk about it. I think it's I've never seen a
Speaker 1: movie like it. And I also like, don't think that
Speaker 1: there's like what you're you're saying, like there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of movies that even attempts to have this discussion.
Speaker 1: And I'm really glad that this movie is like a
Speaker 1: really clear agenda of like wanting to talk about it.
Speaker 1: And it felt like cathartic and cool to see stuff
Speaker 1: like that addressed, because yeah, I grew up in like
Speaker 1: a lower middle class family and I can't relate to
Speaker 1: PEG's life directly. And I also didn't eat that many
Speaker 1: wings and so it's kind like we were I was
Speaker 1: too busy eating beans. But yeah, like the pressure to
Speaker 1: like you have to figure out how to get by
Speaker 1: in a system that's set up to ruin your life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad. I'm glad it's discussed. I'm glad that this
Speaker 1: movie exists. Also, um, I did want to say the
Speaker 1: other thing that brought me to this movie was Judy
Speaker 1: Greer in the trailer, I was like, oh, for sure.
Speaker 1: Ever since Job Breaker, I've just been like I will
Speaker 1: follow you anywhere. And also I am really sad to
Speaker 1: talk about this, but Reboot being canceled really made me
Speaker 1: pretty upset. I loved that shows. It was really good
Speaker 1: and I don't think it got the fair chance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really smart, it was really funny, really witty.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Judy also bought me to this movie. I
Speaker 1: was like, yes, Like, what the fuck we still haven't
Speaker 1: covered job Breaker show? And that's classic wilds. I don't
Speaker 1: know how we even well, Shreky, come on back anytime,
Speaker 1: job Breaker the return of the Turn to talk about
Speaker 1: job Breaker of all films, Oh listen, absolutely Clueless Gone wrong,
Speaker 1: just for clueless, Clueless gone bad. As I like to say,
Speaker 1: let's do it, let's get it on the books. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime, well, let's take a quick break and
Speaker 1: then let's come back and recap buffaloed and we're back back.
Speaker 1: I just keep cracking myself up. You're at how my
Speaker 1: voice is cracking so much? Anyway, here's the plot of
Speaker 1: Buffalo We open in media rez Okay, master's degree in
Speaker 1: screenwriting coming up again. That's that's a five figure term.
Speaker 1: Baby yeah, um where peg Doll played by Zoe Dutch.
Speaker 1: I think it's Deutsch? Is it Deutsch? Oh? Is it Deutsch?
Speaker 1: I never I never know. I want to say Dutch,
Speaker 1: but I think it might be Deutsch. But whenever that happens,
Speaker 1: I think I'm when I'm thinking it's like supposed to
Speaker 1: be fancier. I always hear when they're just like, no,
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's Dutch. It's just Dutch. It's just Dutch.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I would love for her to
Speaker 1: yell at me. It's just Dutch. Like it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know what, sure, no problem, it is okay fine.
Speaker 1: Zoey Dutch or Deutsch is running through Buffalo, New York.
Speaker 1: She stops in front of a building. She fires a
Speaker 1: gun into the air and screams, I'm gonna kill you,
Speaker 1: you fucking jag Off. And we're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: what's happening to get a gun? And it's like gold, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. It's a lot, it's intense. It's a
Speaker 1: good opening. Then we cut two peg as a child,
Speaker 1: she's giving a presentation to her brother j J and
Speaker 1: her mom played by a Judy Creer. Did either of
Speaker 1: you ever do that when you were kids, like give
Speaker 1: a presentation of like why I should be able to
Speaker 1: sing slutely? Okay? Sam? A thousand percent? A thousand percent.
Speaker 1: I kind of wonder. I'm like, I feel like I
Speaker 1: must have seen that convention happen on TV at some
Speaker 1: point and been like, oh yeah, amazing idea, and like
Speaker 1: why I should be able to stay over Samantha's house
Speaker 1: this Week by Jamie Mine. I did it for I
Speaker 1: Saw a Camp Nowhere, which another classic classic film, Saw
Speaker 1: a Camp Nowhere on Repaint, rented it so many times,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm going to fucking sleep away
Speaker 1: camp and I'm going to do a presentation as to why.
Speaker 1: And that was what I did, like one of my
Speaker 1: many presentations too, to my family. And I went to
Speaker 1: camp that summer like it were. It was like for
Speaker 1: the summer of eighth like after eighth grade, like right
Speaker 1: before going into high school. And honestly, it changed my
Speaker 1: life for the best. But yeah, I was like, if
Speaker 1: I were a parent right now and a kid gave
Speaker 1: me like took the time and I could do it,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, yeah, I gotta hand it to you,
Speaker 1: Like look at this slip, at this damn power point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd been so proud of them, the effort that Mercedes bends.
Speaker 1: You want it, Yeah, he got it. He got a kid. Well.
Speaker 1: Peg is pitching peg Ink, which is her company something Something.
Speaker 1: She wants to invest money to grow a college fund
Speaker 1: so that she can go to an Ivy League school,
Speaker 1: and she wants a one thousand dollars loan from her mom,
Speaker 1: but her mom says, I don't have that kind of money.
Speaker 1: I'm already in a ton of debt myself. And then
Speaker 1: she gets a call from a debt collector. But Peg
Speaker 1: is hyper focused on making as much money as possible
Speaker 1: to secure financial freedom for her future. So throughout her
Speaker 1: youth she does various griffs. She's selling buffalo wings as
Speaker 1: if she's at a lemonade stand, she's selling cigarettes to teenagers.
Speaker 1: She starts selling counterfeit buffalo bills, tickets all to pay
Speaker 1: for and this Ivy League education that she does get into.
Speaker 1: She gets accepted into a prestigious school, but she realizes
Speaker 1: that she probably won't be able to pay for it.
Speaker 1: The scene where she gets into college, I thought was
Speaker 1: so that was like one of my favorite moments in
Speaker 1: the movie of like how well it handled the idea
Speaker 1: of debt even like generationally, because like between our generation
Speaker 1: and our parents generation that wherever, like I know we
Speaker 1: all know this and so to our listeners, but like
Speaker 1: the you know, the way that college educations were monetized
Speaker 1: changed so significantly, and so it's like when I was
Speaker 1: trying to go to college, like My parents also, similar
Speaker 1: to the Judy Greer character, were like you got in.
Speaker 1: That's awesome, you should go, and then like I couldn't
Speaker 1: go to the school I wanted to go to because like,
Speaker 1: once we looked at it, it was like, oh, just kidding,
Speaker 1: false alarm, this is impossible and you can't do it.
Speaker 1: And Judie Grew's character's reaction where she's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know how this ship works, like you got in,
Speaker 1: yeah you should go, and like it's like there's almost
Speaker 1: so many people in our generation that experienced that and
Speaker 1: then got completely fucked like yeah, yeah, yeah, no, the
Speaker 1: same thing that happened to me, Like when I accepted
Speaker 1: into the college that I originally wanted to go to.
Speaker 1: But the thing is both my parents that are very
Speaker 1: like different. My dad is very like, I mean, we'll
Speaker 1: figure it out, and my mom is very like, um,
Speaker 1: yeah we will, but still no, you can't go there.
Speaker 1: And so I had the same situation Like I got
Speaker 1: accepted to this college. I was super excited, but then
Speaker 1: the realization hit was like, oh, we cannot afford that.
Speaker 1: And because my school, my high school, like didn't teach
Speaker 1: us a lot about like scholarships and stuff. My dad
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, you get a scholarship or grant. It
Speaker 1: was too late to start doing all that, you know,
Speaker 1: So I ended up going to another their school that
Speaker 1: still was like fucked me over, like yeah, like huge,
Speaker 1: and I was like, shit, I should have just went
Speaker 1: to school I wanted to go to if I was
Speaker 1: going to be fucked anyway. Yeah. So, and I think
Speaker 1: you're right about that generational ship too, because my parents
Speaker 1: didn't know half of the stuff that these people, these
Speaker 1: loan officers and stuff were talking to them about, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So of course they just wanted
Speaker 1: me to be able to go to school, so we
Speaker 1: signed so much shit, and like it is just I
Speaker 1: think that was definitely the start of me being like
Speaker 1: this is predatory and I need to like just I
Speaker 1: would rather hustle my ass off and like pay for
Speaker 1: quarter for quarter versus doing the ship that I ended
Speaker 1: up doing. Yeah, it's so fresh, and it's like we
Speaker 1: were lucky that we even got to do that, which
Speaker 1: is ridiculous, like it Yeah, I remember, like the movie
Speaker 1: doesn't go into this much detail on like student loans specifically,
Speaker 1: and it did make me want a movie about student
Speaker 1: loans specifically, because there was like I remember, like this
Speaker 1: was like early twenty times, but like the huge there's
Speaker 1: a huge confusion in my household about like what is
Speaker 1: a federal loan and what is a private loan and
Speaker 1: like what does that mean? And I think we were
Speaker 1: sort of like confused into believing that a federal loan
Speaker 1: was like good and like they're not gonna give you shit,
Speaker 1: which is not true at all. They all fucking suck
Speaker 1: like private loans or maybe like worse, but federal loans
Speaker 1: are not working for you in any way, and like
Speaker 1: the way that we I don't know, like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think like part of the reason I was able to
Speaker 1: pay down my student debt was because, like you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't go to the school I wanted to go to.
Speaker 1: I went to the school that offered the most money.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, like because of the
Speaker 1: way that like we fucked up the loans that we
Speaker 1: chose and so I had to start paying it back
Speaker 1: right away and worked full time through college because they
Speaker 1: were like, well, you signed one thing one time, so sorry,
Speaker 1: like go fuck yourself, like get a job, time to
Speaker 1: start cool thing. Yeah, yeah, you're a freshman in college.
Speaker 1: But anyway, you want us money already? Yeah, figure it out, bitch.
Speaker 1: And it just like it drives me nuts because it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I don't know the way people talk
Speaker 1: about it, even people our age sometimes where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like proud that I was able to make that
Speaker 1: impossible situation work, but like I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
Speaker 1: And there's that's that's the other generational thing where people
Speaker 1: are like, well, I had to do it, so you
Speaker 1: should have to. And it's like, no, I shouldn't want
Speaker 1: to do that. I don't want anyone to have to
Speaker 1: do I don't want anyone to have to do this,
Speaker 1: so I don't want Yeah, it's fucking terrible. It's terrible,
Speaker 1: and there's so much to talk about, but I'll wait.
Speaker 1: We're only ten minutes into the movie. But anyways, I
Speaker 1: thought that scene was really well done. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: And then what happens next is she gets arrested for
Speaker 1: selling the counterfeit tickets. She goes to court where her
Speaker 1: lawyer gets in a fight with the judge while the
Speaker 1: prosecuting attorney, Graham played by Jermaine Fowler, just like watches
Speaker 1: this unfold, and then Peg is thrown in jail and
Speaker 1: starts hustling in jail selling go Gurt. I love it.
Speaker 1: She really can't be stopped. She cannot be stopped. And
Speaker 1: I'm telling you that. I'll get into it later. But
Speaker 1: her hustle mentality is what makes me made me fall
Speaker 1: in love because it's me. It's me. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm in this situation. Cool, So I'm going to figure
Speaker 1: this out. This it's just always in me, and I
Speaker 1: get it from my mom, like it's insane. I'm excited. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because there are so many Wolf of Wall Street parallels
Speaker 1: here where she just I do respect a character that's
Speaker 1: like I refuse to improve. Okay, cool, I'm going to
Speaker 1: meet you where you are. Yeah, understood. One's proceeds. She's
Speaker 1: selling Gogert in prison because she's still fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in debt from all of her legal fees. Also, debt
Speaker 1: collectors are still after her mom, so she's just trying
Speaker 1: to alleviate this debt. After around three years in prison,
Speaker 1: she gets out PEG's brother, JJ, now played by Noah Reid,
Speaker 1: who I think a lot of people would recognize from
Speaker 1: Shit's Creek gives her a job at the bar that
Speaker 1: he bought, where Peg runs into Graham, that prosecutor or
Speaker 1: more like prosecute because he's trying to flirt with her.
Speaker 1: I love Jermaine Fowlers so much. He's like saying the greatest.
Speaker 1: His character is so confusing to me. He's just all
Speaker 1: over the place. It's not his fault, I don't Understand's
Speaker 1: the one thing that I did not dig because when
Speaker 1: were I'm like trying to scam a system just a
Speaker 1: little bit, and you're just like not going to go
Speaker 1: to dinner with me? What? Well, it's like his whole day.
Speaker 1: I just look like he is so like weirdly inconsistent,
Speaker 1: where it seemed like in every scene he discovered she
Speaker 1: was a debt collector, and I was like, you know this,
Speaker 1: like I just saw you learn this in the last scene,
Speaker 1: But up until like the end of the second act,
Speaker 1: he's like you do what. I was like, like, you
Speaker 1: know this man? She keeps telling you. Yeah, confusing, but
Speaker 1: it's Deny. I think he recognizes her as the person
Speaker 1: that he like put away, like put in jail three
Speaker 1: years earlier. Yeah, but he's like, oh, let me buy
Speaker 1: you dinner and she's like, um, you put me in
Speaker 1: jail by I don't want to hang out with you.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get wings with you, mister Powler.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do this with you. And it's
Speaker 1: not like I don't believe that, you know, people who
Speaker 1: work for the DA's office can get away with all
Speaker 1: sorts of shit, like I'm sure that's true. But I
Speaker 1: was just like, is you know what? How is this allowed?
Speaker 1: They're like, I'm clear, I don't know. It's so confusing,
Speaker 1: but you know, I love I love to see your
Speaker 1: maid Fowler. I was like, cool. I thought they had
Speaker 1: like fun chemistry too, but the relationship was like I
Speaker 1: just don't understand. And then at the very end, he
Speaker 1: was like, well, guess what peg my grandfather like was it?
Speaker 1: Which is like pulling from real life, you know, things
Speaker 1: that happened in real life and are very tragic. He says,
Speaker 1: like my grandfather was completely fucked over by debt collection
Speaker 1: and then was on house and then passed away before
Speaker 1: it was resolved. But I was like, but why are
Speaker 1: you bringing this up now now? Like you could have
Speaker 1: told me that so many times. Yeah, but now when
Speaker 1: things are wrapping up like it sounds like her job
Speaker 1: is a deal breaker for you. Why do you keep
Speaker 1: showing up. He's also actively investigating the company that she works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a won't work out. This is not for us,
Speaker 1: and he acknowledges that. He's like, this is going to
Speaker 1: be a conflict of interest. But they still have sex
Speaker 1: so many times. Maybe the realism is that the DA's
Speaker 1: office is unethical and incompetent. Sure, but I was confused
Speaker 1: because it seems like we were supposed to be rooting
Speaker 1: for him, and I was like, but he's doing such
Speaker 1: a bad job. He's bad. And then and then at
Speaker 1: the end, like I don't know, and she's like, I
Speaker 1: think he my boyfriend. I was like, all right, whatever,
Speaker 1: you guys are you guys deserve each other. What are
Speaker 1: you talking about? Well, then Peg gets a call from
Speaker 1: a debt collector the screenwriter of the movie too he
Speaker 1: plays sound Oh that's him. Oh gay? Yeah okay. So
Speaker 1: after talking to him for a little bit and realizing
Speaker 1: that he works in Buffalo, she realizes she can get
Speaker 1: a job as a debt collector. Because another thing that
Speaker 1: is examined in this movie is that because now she
Speaker 1: like had served time, I'm in prison. She's very limited
Speaker 1: in the jobs that she can apply for it and get.
Speaker 1: But she's like, well, debt collecting is something I can
Speaker 1: still do. She is like, this woman is a fucking bull.
Speaker 1: Like if you tell her to know and then she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm good, She's like, I'll do something fucked up. I
Speaker 1: don't care like i'd like. So she gets a job
Speaker 1: working for this guy named whiz Ji Courtney of I
Speaker 1: Frankenstein Fame. Okay, we were talking about this before the
Speaker 1: banging down the zoom door. Um, yeah, Ji Courtney. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about Ji Courtney really quick, because here's the thing
Speaker 1: about Jike Courtney. He was in I Frankenstein and we
Speaker 1: hear at the Battle Castle Love I Frankenstein Ji Courtney
Speaker 1: and I Frankenstein. He plays. Look, the man's got range.
Speaker 1: First of all, he's Australian. Oh, you wouldn't know it.
Speaker 1: In this one. He's secretly asked you do kind of
Speaker 1: you can kind of tell and I Frankenstein. But that's
Speaker 1: growth and we appreciate that from Dry Courtney because Sam
Speaker 1: Worthington is in some of the most highest grossing movies
Speaker 1: in the world and he still can't hide the fact
Speaker 1: that he's Australian. What was that? What was that like
Speaker 1: line from Avatar where he's like he's like playing a
Speaker 1: US marine and he's like when you hit wool, You're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. Come on. Nobody thought to be like,
Speaker 1: let's try that again. Can we get another take? Anyway? Yeah?
Speaker 1: One more Sam, Sam, You're supposed to be from Michigan.
Speaker 1: James Cameron was just too focused on something else on
Speaker 1: set that day. This is and I we don't like
Speaker 1: this word and the way that it's used in this context.
Speaker 1: But the best example of that in Avatar is when
Speaker 1: Sam Worthington's like at battle it's insane and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. Any Jai Courtney doesn't have that problem.
Speaker 1: He plays mister Good and I Frankenstein. He plays an
Speaker 1: angelic Gargoyle farrior who dies for Gargoyle recasts. Yeah. Yes,
Speaker 1: And this one, he's Patriarchy, the guy one of our
Speaker 1: favorite trophs, mister Patriarchy, and he's really making a meal
Speaker 1: of it. He's just like growling. The dire movie. I
Speaker 1: didn't love. The character was baffling to me, but I
Speaker 1: loved the Jai Courtney performance. He was really he was
Speaker 1: really going for it, mister patriarchy. Yeah, yeah, he was
Speaker 1: giving it a one hundred and ten percent and speaking
Speaker 1: of numbers, yeah yeah, that was good. That was good.
Speaker 1: Thank you amazing. I have a master's degree. I would
Speaker 1: never mention it. We learned how debt collecting works once
Speaker 1: she gets this job working for Wiz, where bank sell
Speaker 1: debt to like debt agents or debt brokers. I don't
Speaker 1: know what you'd call them, but they're selling. They're selling
Speaker 1: people's debt for pennies on the dollar pennies. Right. Then,
Speaker 1: debt collectors try to bargain with the debtors to settle
Speaker 1: their debt, knowing that they can kind of negotiate because
Speaker 1: their debt is actually worth far less now that they've
Speaker 1: like bought it for pennies on the dollar. But they're like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: we'll bring your fifty thousand dollars debt down to ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Little does the debt or note that settling
Speaker 1: their debt for ten thousand dollars is now profitable for
Speaker 1: the debt collectors, and all of this is barely regulated
Speaker 1: by the government. Right so Peg makes a deal with
Speaker 1: Whiz that if she can become the top collector at
Speaker 1: this agency. In one month, he will erase her debt
Speaker 1: and she does it. She again has a knack for hustling.
Speaker 1: She has a knack for debt collecting. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a hell of a montage, it is. It's just
Speaker 1: a lot of like the Zoe Deutsch reactions and writing
Speaker 1: on a chalk board or or white board. Right, She's
Speaker 1: just so Another reason why I kind of love her,
Speaker 1: especially in these montages of this is this montage of
Speaker 1: this part. It shows how slovenly she is, Like, she's
Speaker 1: just not she doesn't care. Her goal in this movie
Speaker 1: is not to like she's not trying to be this
Speaker 1: pretty girl. She's in fact, when she tries to be
Speaker 1: this girl that's like classic feminine, it goes bad for her.
Speaker 1: But I love how whenever she's at the board she's
Speaker 1: like eating, she's wearing baggy clothes. She's just her goal
Speaker 1: is to make money and get her debt erase, and
Speaker 1: I love that. In this montage it's just so dope.
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm gonna make money and I'm gonna look
Speaker 1: like shit while I do I do, I like I
Speaker 1: did you. I had that same note Shelley where it
Speaker 1: is like, oh heard cloth, like because we're told. I
Speaker 1: feel like that happens in movies a lot that are
Speaker 1: about like if you're talking about a person that not
Speaker 1: even is like living below the poverty line, but it's
Speaker 1: just like not upper middle class or above. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: they're either like cartoonishly styled to be like slovenly and
Speaker 1: filthy and gross, or they're like just wearing rich people
Speaker 1: clothes in a way that makes no sense. And it's
Speaker 1: like we see people in this movie wear the same
Speaker 1: outfit twice. We see people have stains on their clothes
Speaker 1: after eating messy food. Just like shit, that is so basic.
Speaker 1: But when you see it happen, you're like, oh, that
Speaker 1: never happens. It really never happens, especially the wearing the
Speaker 1: clothes twice. I love when it happens in shows. I
Speaker 1: love when it happens in movies, and this too. I
Speaker 1: mean it's just like I don't know, a film student
Speaker 1: trying to like reach a little bit, but I think
Speaker 1: it just showed how much she doesn't care, Like she
Speaker 1: just is trying. She has a goal. Her goal is
Speaker 1: the money. Her goal is not femininity. It's not like
Speaker 1: classiness or anything. Like that she's trying to pay her
Speaker 1: debt and she's not spending money on other stuff. She's
Speaker 1: not trying to do any of that, and it plays
Speaker 1: back into how she is as a person, just like
Speaker 1: the dudes doing all those fucking movies where they're trying
Speaker 1: to like make it and oh god, this montage part
Speaker 1: just really made me happy. Also, going back to the
Speaker 1: explaining the debt, it was wild because I knew that shit.
Speaker 1: And the only reason I knew that was because of
Speaker 1: my mom. My mom, because when I messed up in
Speaker 1: my twenties a little bit, you know, you get a
Speaker 1: credit card the mail, You're like free money, Well, I
Speaker 1: don't mind if I do. Hello, I'll take three if
Speaker 1: you have it. But then like I have to eventually
Speaker 1: tell my parents. It's like, hey, I am in a
Speaker 1: little bit debt, and I'm nervous. I was calling crying
Speaker 1: because these like debt people were calling me. I was
Speaker 1: like twenty four and they were calling me and they
Speaker 1: were telling me all this stuff, which was basically these
Speaker 1: guys Saal and his crew essentially just calling me. And
Speaker 1: then my mom would laugh at me. She would be like,
Speaker 1: they offered you what, And I would be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I paid it. She said, don't you ever to
Speaker 1: call right now and cancel that payment plan, because no,
Speaker 1: and just be like this is what I'm going to
Speaker 1: give you, and I want to let her I want
Speaker 1: And it works. It blew my mind. It worked, and
Speaker 1: I just I just thought that that scene was dope. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when she big short, it was great. It was great
Speaker 1: that big short scene there. I knew some not all
Speaker 1: of that, like some of the history of like how
Speaker 1: debt can be sold and sold and sold I knew
Speaker 1: much less about and it's good, Like this is like
Speaker 1: a I don't know, I really appreciate what they're trying
Speaker 1: to do because it's like, I don't know, like it's
Speaker 1: fun to see this it in such a like goofy
Speaker 1: format and in a way that isn't like tragedy porn
Speaker 1: or bashing you over in the head like it's I
Speaker 1: don't feels like a spoonful of sugar kind of like
Speaker 1: approach to talking about this in a way that I
Speaker 1: much prefer to, like watching people drowning. You're like, I
Speaker 1: could just do that. I can look in the mirror
Speaker 1: if my life like I don't need That's why I
Speaker 1: love romps. It's true. I mean this is a romp. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: So she's discovering that she has a real knack for
Speaker 1: debt collecting, but she also discovers some unsavory things they do,
Speaker 1: such as exploiting elderly people like this woman, missus Cooney,
Speaker 1: by collecting on debt that has already been settled multiple times.
Speaker 1: So they're just like bleeding her drive for every penny
Speaker 1: she's got because they're because she like didn't remember that
Speaker 1: she had paid that debt. So they're exploiting situations like
Speaker 1: that often, and Peg is fully dissipating. Yes at first. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then Peg runs into Graham the prosecutor again, who tells
Speaker 1: her he's investigating Whiz and his team of collectors and
Speaker 1: that Graham can't take her on a date if she's
Speaker 1: working with these guys and being complicit in their horrible tactics.
Speaker 1: And then this is sort of like a turning point
Speaker 1: where she realizes how awful they are, so Peg decides
Speaker 1: to strike out on her own and start her own
Speaker 1: debt collecting business. I do think it's worth mentioning that
Speaker 1: she like part of what I did like about PEG's character,
Speaker 1: even though I was not rooting for her. The entire
Speaker 1: movie honestly was that, Like, she is a very morally
Speaker 1: ambiguous character for lots of sections, because it's not like
Speaker 1: she realizes that like Whiz is unethical and then quits
Speaker 1: the job. She knows he's unethical, and she's wholeheartedly participating.
Speaker 1: It's when she does and get the cut up when
Speaker 1: it affects her bottom line. That's when it's not when
Speaker 1: it's fucking with other people, Like she knows it's fucking
Speaker 1: with other people and doesn't care until she I think that,
Speaker 1: Like she collected one hundred twenty five thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: he would only give her two thousand, so she was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm out of here and I'll like go find a
Speaker 1: better deal somewhere else. So she is like at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, she's like about her bottom line exactly,
Speaker 1: which I also really dig too though, because I think
Speaker 1: if I would not have loved this movie so much
Speaker 1: if at that point, like when realized she was like
Speaker 1: scamming this old lady, if she had had this moral
Speaker 1: high ground and was like, oh, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do this anymore. I'm not going to participate in this
Speaker 1: because that's not what happens to dudes in movies, Like
Speaker 1: they very much so know when they're doing something wrong
Speaker 1: and they do the same thing that she does. Peg
Speaker 1: is like, I know that y'all are doing something wrong,
Speaker 1: but now it affects me, so now I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: do it because I want my money, Like this is
Speaker 1: a out me. And I think if they had made
Speaker 1: her into this like very holier than the character, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been very realistic. First of all, because it
Speaker 1: doesn't take a lot. She's smart. She knows that it
Speaker 1: doesn't take a lot for her to set up this business.
Speaker 1: So I really I'm really glad that they just made
Speaker 1: her go out on her own versus trying to be
Speaker 1: a good person and sticking it out or something like. No, right,
Speaker 1: she built it right because in the movie just would
Speaker 1: have been over, it would have been also done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it warn my lesson, And like you said, like audiences
Speaker 1: tend to permit a morally ambiguous character who is a
Speaker 1: man far more than there's an expectation that women have
Speaker 1: to be so well behaved and we can't do the
Speaker 1: illegal thing. Yeah right, And it's like no, Peg was like, actually,
Speaker 1: I can do illegal things, and I'm going to do
Speaker 1: it really really well, and then I'm gonna get a
Speaker 1: goold gun. So though at first, when she does strike
Speaker 1: out on her own, she insists that her business is
Speaker 1: going to be legitimate with no shady stuff like clean.
Speaker 1: She's gonna, you know, everything's gonna be above board. So
Speaker 1: she starts buying the debts from Whizzes supplier who's also
Speaker 1: Whizzes brother. Also she has are There is a like
Speaker 1: random like mister sweetey Pie brother that comes out to
Speaker 1: the story at random points, so Judy Greer can be like,
Speaker 1: I love you and don't be a bad influence on
Speaker 1: your brother, which I also thought was cool. I mean,
Speaker 1: this movie is doing a lot of like table attorney stuff,
Speaker 1: but in a way that I kind of I guess
Speaker 1: approved of or whatever. But I like the fact that
Speaker 1: her whole life she's been a bad influence on her. Like,
Speaker 1: it made me so happy that she was the one
Speaker 1: who was like, and he's older, I think too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love the fact that that she was like, you're
Speaker 1: gonna do what I say. This is bad, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna do it together. And I loved it. I loved it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk about the Judy Greer character too,
Speaker 1: because I think there's like a lot of interesting stuff
Speaker 1: going on with her and PEG's relationship, where like both
Speaker 1: of them are super in the wrong in different moments,
Speaker 1: but it's like, ooh, interesting relationship. I'm excited to talk
Speaker 1: about it for sure. Okay. So Peg is setting up
Speaker 1: her business. She hires mostly like random people who she
Speaker 1: like sees potential in as collectors, along with some women
Speaker 1: she knew from prison, such as Starla and Backer. PEG's
Speaker 1: business starts booming. Everyone is good at their job. Also,
Speaker 1: Peg and Graham are like kind of seeing each other
Speaker 1: slash sleeping together now, but you're like, yeah, I guess okay,
Speaker 1: but he keeps saying like I don't want to date
Speaker 1: you if if you're still a debt collector because of
Speaker 1: this investigation was doing. I just want to do two
Speaker 1: quick shout outs for like the character actors that compose
Speaker 1: PEG's staff, because we've got we've got some fun familiar
Speaker 1: faces in this bunch. Okay, We've got playing the part
Speaker 1: of Francis. We have Lucia Stross, who we just talked
Speaker 1: about on fifty First Dates. Better part for them. So
Speaker 1: I was thrilled to see them. Her name is Francis,
Speaker 1: not Starla. I guess that that's yeah, I'd like for whatever.
Speaker 1: Starla was her name she was using as a sexophone operator. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's credited as Frank got it. We have for all
Speaker 1: my Degrassi heads. We have Raymond Ablack, who was on
Speaker 1: Degrassi when I was in high school soft Bundari. I
Speaker 1: had a huge crush on him as I was watching
Speaker 1: this movie. Oh my gosh, oh, I mean he's been
Speaker 1: in a ton like, he's super legit. He's done a
Speaker 1: ton of other stuff. I think he was on Yes,
Speaker 1: he was on Orphan Black. But because if you're I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're a Canadian listener, you will know that it's
Speaker 1: the Canadian like it's the Canadian military. You have to
Speaker 1: serve for two years in Degrassi before and you can
Speaker 1: move on to the rest of your life. But he did.
Speaker 1: He's he's one of our bravest Canadian soldiers, um serving
Speaker 1: on the cast of Degrassi from two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: to twenty and ten. And you have Okay, my favorite.
Speaker 1: The woman who plays Ronda is in a small but
Speaker 1: memorable part in the original Santa clause Um who plays
Speaker 1: She plays Judy the waitress from from Dennis from Denny's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's an icon I mean she's also been in a
Speaker 1: ton of shit, but like iconically she is Judy the
Speaker 1: waitress from the Santa Claus And I was like, whoa,
Speaker 1: I love, isn't that amazing? I also love how excited
Speaker 1: we got about the fact that we knew she So.
Speaker 1: Ronda is the very regular client of PEG's mom because
Speaker 1: PEG's mom runs a salon out of her house, right
Speaker 1: and Ronda seems to be her only customer, also eating
Speaker 1: her out of house and home and also giving advice
Speaker 1: when it's nannied it Like, I love when she was
Speaker 1: like I could go for a fish stick, I was like, ooh,
Speaker 1: I know this lady. I know this lady. I would
Speaker 1: say no as like it was just yes, yeah, he
Speaker 1: love it so good but yes, shout out to um
Speaker 1: legend of cinema, Judy the Waitress. Just I mean, there's
Speaker 1: I love. I've got a passion for character actress and
Speaker 1: we've got we've got a real murderer's row in this
Speaker 1: movie for sure. I also enjoyed the character Backer played
Speaker 1: by Lorie odom odom Yeah, it's a it's a good batch,
Speaker 1: yeah for sure. And I love that she went for hustlers,
Speaker 1: you know, the hustlers smooth talkers, because there's so many
Speaker 1: different ways to hustle and everybody has their own sort
Speaker 1: of like niche and we keep talking about we'll see
Speaker 1: that it works out. She picked the right people. Game
Speaker 1: recognizes game, you know, absolutely, And I like that like Peg,
Speaker 1: I mean to some extent, but it's like whatever, Peg
Speaker 1: is so morally compromised that she does lie to her
Speaker 1: employees with with with regularity, and we'll like try to
Speaker 1: like be like look over here anytime they're like, when
Speaker 1: are you gonna pay me? And and I know, I know,
Speaker 1: Like again, Buffalo had sound off, would you forget that
Speaker 1: your boss hadn't didn't pay you if you got good
Speaker 1: seats at a Buffalo Bills game? Sound off in the comments.
Speaker 1: I think I would just be upset at a Buffalo
Speaker 1: Bills game. I would just be set. I would be
Speaker 1: upset in the box at a Buffalo Bills like, damn,
Speaker 1: I know that I've got some money that I'm old
Speaker 1: so because that's how I am when I don't get
Speaker 1: paid for my freelance work, right, away literally upset while
Speaker 1: I'm at the McDonald so, like, you're like, interesting, it
Speaker 1: seems like you could have used this money for anything else.
Speaker 1: It's so wild. Or I get really upset this little site.
Speaker 1: I get really upset if it's like net sixty one
Speaker 1: and then I see an article published, just like on
Speaker 1: the site, just in general, just like in general, if
Speaker 1: an article publishes, I'm like, hmm, interesting. I feel like
Speaker 1: instead of publishing that article, you could have just sent
Speaker 1: me my money. Yes wild. I was on a writing
Speaker 1: staff last year that like we were not allowed to unionize,
Speaker 1: and then they brought us to a Dodgers game and
Speaker 1: it's like, but let us unionize. Like what I like,
Speaker 1: I don't want a hot dog And that's a lot
Speaker 1: coming from me. I don't want a pretty hot dog today.
Speaker 1: I want a union. I was gonna say, come on union.
Speaker 1: Or also like, um, I don't follow like my editors
Speaker 1: on Twitter, but I know that they have one. So
Speaker 1: if it's NETS one and they're tweeting about they're like
Speaker 1: out somewhere and my money hasn't hit my account, I'm like, huh, interesting.
Speaker 1: Instead of going out or tweeting, it feels like you
Speaker 1: could have paid me my fucking money. But you know
Speaker 1: that's just me at a Buffalo's game, upset. It is
Speaker 1: my new life goal to never get on your bad
Speaker 1: side effort because at the top of the movie when
Speaker 1: Peg says like, don't fuck with my money, that brought
Speaker 1: me in because just don't like I'm a very kind person,
Speaker 1: but I think because of the industry that like I'm
Speaker 1: in and with the way that I grew up with
Speaker 1: like that, it's just very much like you could do
Speaker 1: everything else. You could publish my article late, you could
Speaker 1: do this, you could do but do not mess with
Speaker 1: like my money. It's just no, I can't handle it.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting that don't funk with my money is
Speaker 1: written on your shirt right now. It is. I didn't
Speaker 1: I really didn't want to bring it up because I
Speaker 1: know this isn't like a visual based podcast. But the
Speaker 1: photo that I'm going to send is going to beat
Speaker 1: me in this shirt. So thank you for acknowledging that
Speaker 1: an incredible shirt. I mean, it was an investment, really
Speaker 1: it marketing. I told you earlier. Started my merch is
Speaker 1: a part of my merch, your other merch being just
Speaker 1: a shirt that says shreky then on the back and
Speaker 1: it don't sue me. Yeah available now Actually I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: what a good hustle that you're running, thank you. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So Whiz is not happy that Peg has become his competition,
Speaker 1: and he's like, this is war, and he starts fucking
Speaker 1: with her, including dumping a bucket of like probably fake
Speaker 1: blood on Peg at a Bill's game, and then trashing
Speaker 1: her office and stealing their paper aka these pieces of
Speaker 1: paper that have the debtor's information on them, which is
Speaker 1: how they were able to collect the debt from people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole kid the Carrie moment at the Buffalo Bills
Speaker 1: game was like the patriarchy. The guy behavior goes a
Speaker 1: little off the rails for me for part of it.
Speaker 1: But there's a carry moment at the Buffalo Bill's game.
Speaker 1: We can't take that away from this movie. And then
Speaker 1: there's also the blow up Dow, which like, yeah, was
Speaker 1: just also which led into another moment of her telling
Speaker 1: her staff it's okay, everything are fine, things are actually fine,
Speaker 1: It's no big deal, and then trying to get another
Speaker 1: date with mister Fallon, Like I was just like, what
Speaker 1: is going? Like she they just they have they must
Speaker 1: be just like terminally horny for each other because there's
Speaker 1: so many times where it's just like anyone else, anyone, anybody,
Speaker 1: anybody else. But it also seems like one of my favorite,
Speaker 1: like very movie things. It seems like German Fowlers maybe
Speaker 1: the only lawyer in the entire city of Buffalo, because
Speaker 1: he is like working on every case all the time.
Speaker 1: He's never like, what are the chances are right chances?
Speaker 1: Because he's the prosecutor in her first trial. He's also
Speaker 1: there in court towards the end of the movie in
Speaker 1: her second trial, and then he's also running this working
Speaker 1: in the capacity of an investigative journalist, like he's doing
Speaker 1: a little lot. Sometimes he's a cop because yes, I
Speaker 1: have right minutes. Then he comes in, he's a lawyer.
Speaker 1: He comes in during the raid at the end where
Speaker 1: he's like in a bulletproof jacket. I had to course
Speaker 1: correct my notes at some point because I spent the
Speaker 1: first half hour of the movie thinking that he was
Speaker 1: a police detective and not because that's how he's acting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how he's acting exactly. Yeah. I love his ey secretary.
Speaker 1: She's great. Oh yes, oh my god, iconically finding it
Speaker 1: in all day long. I love that for her. She's like,
Speaker 1: what's happening? What there's a party? Awesome by I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's me when I have to when I work in
Speaker 1: an office. So I'm just like, what huh, I'm leaving.
Speaker 1: And she's complaining about Graham, who is asleep at his
Speaker 1: desk apparently all the time, and also like because he's
Speaker 1: drunk on a Tuesday in the middle of the day,
Speaker 1: because there's time where she's like, you can't drive home
Speaker 1: right now, you're so drunk. I mean, he's doing a
Speaker 1: lot of work, so maybe he's got he's gotta wearing
Speaker 1: a lot of hats, he's, you know, self medicating. I
Speaker 1: guess yeah, he's. Yeah, he's he's got like five different
Speaker 1: jobs depending on what the scene requires. Okay, so Wiz
Speaker 1: is fucking with Peg a lot. Wiz also has taken
Speaker 1: ownership of PEG's brother JJ's bar, because JJ had put
Speaker 1: it up for collateral on his mom's refinancing on something
Speaker 1: something debt. The answer is always debt with this movie.
Speaker 1: So then Peg retaliates by calling the cops on Whiz,
Speaker 1: and the cops raid his agency, which gives her the
Speaker 1: opportunity to steal all the paper back that he stole
Speaker 1: from her. So now she has all this access to
Speaker 1: debt or information and she's able to make a bunch
Speaker 1: of money. But then her mom is like, Peg, you're
Speaker 1: hurting people with your job, and Peg is like, nah,
Speaker 1: these people spent money they knew they didn't have. And
Speaker 1: this is when Graham is like, well, what about my
Speaker 1: grandpa who was in medical debt and then he lost
Speaker 1: his house and then he died, And Peg is like,
Speaker 1: do I decay? What about my dad? Is what I
Speaker 1: would be? Yeah, the like end of movie there, This
Speaker 1: is another like thing that I mean a lot of
Speaker 1: movies are guilty of. And it kind of makes me
Speaker 1: laugh where it's like the end to act to random
Speaker 1: information reveal that you're like, like, I mean, with with
Speaker 1: Jermaine Fowler's character, it makes sense that that would be
Speaker 1: a but I but it doesn't make sense that he
Speaker 1: would be so deep into this relationship and suddenly it
Speaker 1: matters right exactly. It's solid motivation for him. So I
Speaker 1: don't mind that that's a part of his character at all.
Speaker 1: But it's like, but why did you wait so long
Speaker 1: to tell her that you've been dating this woman for months?
Speaker 1: Like what are you like you know, you know what's
Speaker 1: going on, Like I know she's not being totally honest,
Speaker 1: but you know she's a debt collector, and even an
Speaker 1: ethical debt collector is fucked up, like you know that
Speaker 1: that's your job. Like uh. And in the same way
Speaker 1: where it's like I think, I don't know, I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know what narrative function it really served to.
Speaker 1: I guess it like helps sort of like heal, like
Speaker 1: the information about PEG's father. How do we feel about
Speaker 1: that reveal? Because I think I'm on board with it,
Speaker 1: but I just like, what what purpose did that serve
Speaker 1: other than to like bring her her and her mom
Speaker 1: like a little closer together. I guess I think it
Speaker 1: was That's what I was saying, Like some of those
Speaker 1: stories kind of like I feel like towards that they
Speaker 1: wanted to wrap it up. Well. I kind of felt
Speaker 1: like they were like, we need to do this, we
Speaker 1: need to say this, we need to make this connection
Speaker 1: with them. Also because she was not close with her
Speaker 1: mom throughout the whole movie, which was another thing that
Speaker 1: I kind of actually really liked. So I think that
Speaker 1: they were trying to be like there's this connection and
Speaker 1: then and dropping off family stuff is a really good
Speaker 1: way to like speed up a story. Not a really
Speaker 1: good way, it's a way to speed up a story.
Speaker 1: And I think, honestly that's what they were trying to do.
Speaker 1: But other than that, I can't really think of why. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: they did it so late. I also like very much
Speaker 1: saw it coming. It didn't even feel like a reveal
Speaker 1: because I'm like the dad. Yeah, I can tell based
Speaker 1: on the stories that these people are sharing that this
Speaker 1: guy is a piece of shit. Yeah, And it's also
Speaker 1: just be because of how much Peg loved him and
Speaker 1: how a verse her dad or her mom was to him,
Speaker 1: and like when it came to money talk, it wasn't
Speaker 1: a surprise that he you know, like shrug, who knows now?
Speaker 1: So PEG's mom and Graham are like ganging up on Peg,
Speaker 1: being like your job is evil. So then there's like
Speaker 1: this big argument among them, and then the cops show
Speaker 1: up all of a sudden because whizz Head tipped them
Speaker 1: off about PEG's mom running an illegal business or something.
Speaker 1: So PEG's mom and JJ are arrested, Which that's evil,
Speaker 1: evil evil to do what WI was did, Yes, for sure,
Speaker 1: But he's patriarchy. The guy that's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: he's gonna do. What do you expect? So PEG's mom
Speaker 1: is arrested. Then we cut to the opening scene with
Speaker 1: Peg running through Buffalo. She fires the gun that she
Speaker 1: got from Francis Um and then she attacks whiz and
Speaker 1: they're fighting, and then the cops show up again and
Speaker 1: arrest Peg. So she is detained with her mom and
Speaker 1: this is where they have this like heart to heart.
Speaker 1: They talk about their dreams and they talk about finances
Speaker 1: and debt and how PEG's dad was actually an asshole.
Speaker 1: So then Peg gets out and organizes a meeting with
Speaker 1: all of the debt collecting agencies, including WHIZZZ. Don't know
Speaker 1: why he's so like amicable all of a sudden, Yeah,
Speaker 1: suddenly he's like, I did kind of call the cops
Speaker 1: on her. So he's like, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that climactic scene. I was like, oh, rewrite city going
Speaker 1: on here? Like, um, It's like I don't know, I
Speaker 1: just like I don't need to like slam them, but
Speaker 1: it's like, um, okay, we gotta wrap this up. We
Speaker 1: gotta wrap this up. What if everyone was in the
Speaker 1: bar and then they said exactly what they did wrong?
Speaker 1: And then the movie over and you're like, and then
Speaker 1: the movie is finished, then that's exactly what And then
Speaker 1: one more Buffalo bills, right, Because what happens is that
Speaker 1: Peg pitches all of these debt collecting agencies a scenario
Speaker 1: where they unite so that they can be this like
Speaker 1: huge strong force and make a bunch of money. And
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, I love making money, and here's all
Speaker 1: the shady shit I've done to make money. But surprise,
Speaker 1: Peg was recording the whole thing. It's a setup, and
Speaker 1: she now has them admitting to doing a bunch of
Speaker 1: illegal stuff. So the cops and Jermaine Fowler, who is
Speaker 1: a cop in this scene, come in and arrest all
Speaker 1: of these Honestly, I was so confused at that point
Speaker 1: that I didn't even realize that that was like it
Speaker 1: was weird, like but that he was acting in the
Speaker 1: capacity of not his job, like just not even remotely
Speaker 1: his job. He's should be there, that makes sense, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so bizarre, God bless. So Peg then like sneaks off
Speaker 1: and goes to Graham's office, where he has all of
Speaker 1: the evidence on all of these people to convict them,
Speaker 1: because he's again also an investigative journalist question mark, Um,
Speaker 1: he's a hustler too, investigator journal Everyone in this movie
Speaker 1: is hustler. Yep. So Peg torches all of this evidence
Speaker 1: because she wants to erase all of those people's debts,
Speaker 1: because she has learned a lesson debt collecting is actually evil.
Speaker 1: She has not had the opportunity to learn this lesson
Speaker 1: earlier in the movie. We get to wrap at us up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, debt collecting is evil, and you know,
Speaker 1: most people are in debt because of medical bills and
Speaker 1: student loans and other ways that capitalist institutions fuck over
Speaker 1: so many Americans. So Peg learns this. But because Peg
Speaker 1: destroyed that evidence, that's illegal. So then she gets thrown
Speaker 1: back in jail for a while. But she's released. She
Speaker 1: apologizes to her mom, she celebrates with her friends, and
Speaker 1: she shifts gears from to quote the movie selling nothing
Speaker 1: to people with less than nothing, which is what she
Speaker 1: did as a debt collector. And she moves on to
Speaker 1: the people who have everything, to the only hustle that's
Speaker 1: even more of an unregulated clusterfuck than debt collecting, which
Speaker 1: is hedge funds. Okay, and I love that. That was fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was fun. It was cathartic. I liked it because
Speaker 1: they were like, I think again, trying to be like,
Speaker 1: she hasn't really learned anything, right, right, She's just gonna
Speaker 1: like use her powers for sort of more good now, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: sort of more good. Yeah, but she's still being very selfish,
Speaker 1: like you love that for her. And then there's some
Speaker 1: text on screen about household debt in the US being
Speaker 1: thirteen trillion dollars, which is over half of what our
Speaker 1: like national federal debt is. So I can't believe that's
Speaker 1: a number. Thirteen trillion, thirteen trillion dollars. It rageous, absurd.
Speaker 1: So that's the movie. Let's take a quick break and
Speaker 1: we will come back to discuss, and we're back. We're
Speaker 1: I feel like we have actually had a lot of
Speaker 1: discussion already. Yeah, I did see. I was thinking that.
Speaker 1: Every time I interrupted, I was like, I could have
Speaker 1: saved this, finished the episode. I'm like looking at the
Speaker 1: clock too, and I was like, Shelley, you're you're a hustler. Cha,
Speaker 1: thank you? Yeah so much. So what's what's left? I
Speaker 1: think like we've had this discussion around PEG, but I
Speaker 1: think that like PEG is a really interesting character. I
Speaker 1: do like this movie kind of falls apart from me
Speaker 1: in the third act, but setting up because like you
Speaker 1: were saying at the beginning of the episode, Shelley, and honestly,
Speaker 1: you've been like selling me on this movie more the
Speaker 1: more we talk about it. It's because I'm a I'm scamming,
Speaker 1: scamming me. It's sixty one and I'm fucked god artist.
Speaker 1: But I do think that, like, yeah, we have so
Speaker 1: many male protagonists that are the scammer that we like,
Speaker 1: you know, don't morally agree with. But you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm like down to watch this guy go for the ride,
Speaker 1: even though it's like he has significantly less to like
Speaker 1: push up against. Yeah, and it's cool to see a
Speaker 1: woman put in that role and be equally fuck you,
Speaker 1: like I am bad because I think that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of an example of what we've covered on
Speaker 1: the show. But I feel like sometimes when like a
Speaker 1: female lead is doing bad stuff, the movie will go
Speaker 1: way out of its way to give like ethical reasoning
Speaker 1: for it in a way that you wouldn't for a
Speaker 1: flawed male protagonist. They'd be like, well she is mommy,
Speaker 1: or like she is not Like there's like a traditionally
Speaker 1: feminine reason. She has this huge thing that's going on.
Speaker 1: This is why she's being bad, This is why she's selfish.
Speaker 1: Even kill Bill like that is like her whole She's
Speaker 1: only murdering people because she is mommy. Like that kind
Speaker 1: of hustlers comes to mind as well, where they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're like baking drugs and feeding them to people, but
Speaker 1: it's because I have a daughter. Yeah, and even for
Speaker 1: me like promising young woman and stuff like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: love a revenge, Like this is not very revenge, but
Speaker 1: I mean she is kind of mad at the system
Speaker 1: people PEG anyway, the system. Yeah, but like I just
Speaker 1: don't I want I've always wanted films with like, if
Speaker 1: it's a revenge film with a woman, I wanted it
Speaker 1: to just be she's just mad for no reason, Like
Speaker 1: why can't she just want to be bad or want
Speaker 1: to be selfish or want to make these like money
Speaker 1: moves and all this kind of stuff because she just
Speaker 1: wants to She's not trying to like pay to keep
Speaker 1: her kids in the house or try to get someone
Speaker 1: out of the hospital. And that's what I kind of
Speaker 1: love about PEG. It's like, and she's been this way
Speaker 1: since she was a kid, right, Like, she's just wanted
Speaker 1: money and it's just something she learned from her dad,
Speaker 1: which I also thought was cool. Was something a movie
Speaker 1: where a girl inherits a trait or the characteristic or
Speaker 1: something from her father versus like her mom, which I
Speaker 1: think is was super super dope like, but I agree
Speaker 1: with you that it and towards the end, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of holes, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But I think because I was so amped about the
Speaker 1: plot and the money and just how peg is, I
Speaker 1: kind of like looked past them until right now we're
Speaker 1: like dissecting. Honestly, most of my issues with the movie
Speaker 1: are not necessarily like Bechtel cast lens related stuff. It's
Speaker 1: more just like this script could have used a second draft,
Speaker 1: Like the characters are a little like cartoonish and inconsistent.
Speaker 1: The plot could be a bit more streamlined, maybe, but
Speaker 1: as far as like examining a complicated and like morally
Speaker 1: corrupt character who is a woman, which again is kind
Speaker 1: of a rare thing for a movie to examine, because
Speaker 1: those characters that writers or that like Hollywood makes space
Speaker 1: for are almost always men, right, So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's just like interesting too. That's a little why I
Speaker 1: guess it's been like what we were just talking about,
Speaker 1: where it's like the most of the movie doesn't like
Speaker 1: we know why Peg is doing what she's doing, but
Speaker 1: it is like a self motivated thing. She's not like
Speaker 1: I'm trying to save the family. She's like family clearly
Speaker 1: doesn't want to save themselves. I'm going to save myself.
Speaker 1: Like it's not like she doesn't love her family, but
Speaker 1: she's not like, I guess, you know, using all of
Speaker 1: her time to be like, come on, mom, it's not
Speaker 1: her like major concern. Yeah, it's not even her brother's bar.
Speaker 1: She's like, you're being stupid about how you're running this bar.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna help you figure it out. But but
Speaker 1: like you're wrong. Yeah, But like I guess that that's
Speaker 1: why I felt a little like Studio notesy to me
Speaker 1: that she's like so thoroughly absolved of everything at the
Speaker 1: end and then she like I don't know, the whole
Speaker 1: like colluding with the DA's office at the end of
Speaker 1: like that whole thing. It's like this is a character
Speaker 1: who is self motivated and bad like see that does
Speaker 1: like see that through I don't know I guess that
Speaker 1: they sort of do, because she ends up just sort
Speaker 1: of like heel turning to do the exact same sort
Speaker 1: of diabolical shit in a way that's less harmful to
Speaker 1: vulnerable people. Yeah. Yeah, I just didn't like it too.
Speaker 1: Only the major thing that I didn't like I kind
Speaker 1: of liked that she had a shitty relationship with her mom,
Speaker 1: And I think that like hard to heart moment in
Speaker 1: the cell, it kind of made me a little upset
Speaker 1: because it helped her make a turn or basically make
Speaker 1: a little turn or whatever, being like, oh, you're just
Speaker 1: like your dad and Dada dad lah. It's like I
Speaker 1: wanted her to be like, yeah, I am, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep being like just like it's just who
Speaker 1: I am, Like I'm gonna be. So I kind of
Speaker 1: don't like. I didn't like that bit of it, But
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it was because the same
Speaker 1: thing is like hard to heart, learn something from your mom,
Speaker 1: This is learn why you're doing wrong. I kind of
Speaker 1: did want Pig to keep doing I wanted her to
Speaker 1: like come back out of prison and be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so now I've learned exactly what not to do and
Speaker 1: maybe take it somewhere else to another city, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like just I mean, but I yeah,
Speaker 1: I did it. I would have ended like she's she's
Speaker 1: like a little she's a little villainous and it's like
Speaker 1: but and we know why. But it's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it's like, I guess, do
Speaker 1: I want Girl Boss Jordan Belford? No, But while we're here,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like I guess I feel kind of
Speaker 1: like conflicted about it. I do like the wow, we're
Speaker 1: here part of that, though, it's like, well, if we're
Speaker 1: gonna do this, then right, like let's just do because
Speaker 1: I don't It's not like I feel like a lot
Speaker 1: of the times they do this with like black films too,
Speaker 1: They'll take a white film and like make it black.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to tell them to like take this
Speaker 1: like male censored situation and make it put a girl there.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, if we're already here and
Speaker 1: if that feels like it was kind of the plan anyway,
Speaker 1: you got to see it all the way through, like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess. It's like I'm sort of
Speaker 1: all over the place in that regard because it's also like, well,
Speaker 1: our hero is actively oppressing people and ruining their lives,
Speaker 1: and that's I mean, I guess that you what this
Speaker 1: movie does really well is contextualized that like a certain
Speaker 1: amount of this is just like who Peg is as
Speaker 1: a person. She's super fucking motivated. And but then where
Speaker 1: the society ship comes in is like she has this
Speaker 1: really intense motivated personality in the context of growing up
Speaker 1: poor and in the context of being told that she's
Speaker 1: not going to amount to shit and like can't do anything.
Speaker 1: And so it's like a little mix of like nature
Speaker 1: and nurture that like brings her to where she is,
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's that's much more effective than
Speaker 1: like in a void. Oh, she's just like this. And
Speaker 1: I also think it like connects to her relationship with
Speaker 1: her mom, which I think is really interesting and feels
Speaker 1: very like boomer like late gen X parent and millennial
Speaker 1: gen Z kid, where her mom does still have a
Speaker 1: like even though she is a single mom who is
Speaker 1: like busting her ass so that her kids can get
Speaker 1: what they want. They don't have a great relationship, like
Speaker 1: you're saying, Shelley. I liked that they didn't have a
Speaker 1: great relationship. It like made sense because Peg represents all
Speaker 1: these things and these qualities that her mom is not
Speaker 1: comfortable with. Her mom still has like a fairly traditional
Speaker 1: set of values in terms of gender. That comes up
Speaker 1: several times, and then it's like this weird, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to know what you think about this, because
Speaker 1: there's like that weird chafing argument with them that happens
Speaker 1: a few times in the movie where her mom is
Speaker 1: being pretty sexist towards her, and it is like, well,
Speaker 1: why can't you just like settle down and like, you know,
Speaker 1: cut the ship and settle down. You've met a nice guy,
Speaker 1: which is super reductive and horrible and shitty, and Peg
Speaker 1: never you know, entertains it. But then it also is
Speaker 1: like it almost I don't know. There were moments where
Speaker 1: Peg was like, no, I don't want to do that,
Speaker 1: and thus I must do crime, and you're like, surely
Speaker 1: there's some middle ground here. It's like, or you could
Speaker 1: just not pay for the dinner, because that's where I came.
Speaker 1: It came for me, is when she was talking about
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take you out, and then the mom kept
Speaker 1: saying who's paying, who's paying? Why would you pay? That
Speaker 1: kind of situation. And I think if instead of her
Speaker 1: being like oh, she could have just been like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to pay for this dinner, not all right, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go open up my own scamming business
Speaker 1: situation and be a girl boss so to show you
Speaker 1: that I can pay for dinners with whatever guy I
Speaker 1: want to. It just was a very intense going against
Speaker 1: what mom wants situation. Yeah. Yeah. Also that character trait
Speaker 1: of PEG's mom that she's like holding onto these patriarchal
Speaker 1: standard of a man should pay for dinner because a
Speaker 1: man should be the provider. And then like I feel like,
Speaker 1: a couple minutes later, her mom's like, Peg, would it
Speaker 1: kill you to wear a skirt every now? And then
Speaker 1: that happened so late in the movie, and it feels
Speaker 1: like it came out of nowhere. I'm like, yeah, what
Speaker 1: has her mom been this like old fashioned, like whole
Speaker 1: weird like sexist ideals, ladies. I feel like her equivalent
Speaker 1: of my grandfather was in debt And you're like, why
Speaker 1: am I learning this now? Yeah? Why am I learning
Speaker 1: this about you now? Because if if let's say that
Speaker 1: was established earlier about PEG's mom, that like if she
Speaker 1: was sort of like judgmental of Peg for wanting to
Speaker 1: be such a go getter and wanting to make so
Speaker 1: much money because she's like no, no, no, like girls
Speaker 1: and women shouldn't have to you know, you should just
Speaker 1: go and try and find a man and and like
Speaker 1: let him be the provider. Why are you so gung
Speaker 1: ho about making your own money? And maybe that was
Speaker 1: like fueled PEG's desire even more to be like I
Speaker 1: have to prove these sexist ideals wrong. Like yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It might have been like kind of corny,
Speaker 1: but at least it would have been consistent, yeah, because
Speaker 1: it also would have helped, Like again, mayked more consistent too.
Speaker 1: If why her mom like didn't really know about I
Speaker 1: guess the debt situations like in the house, Like it
Speaker 1: would have made sense if that was a part of
Speaker 1: the character. If her mom was this person and a
Speaker 1: lot of women back in her day when she was
Speaker 1: being they didn't know how the finances of the house
Speaker 1: was being ran. You feel me so because they were
Speaker 1: very much so like I am just taking care of
Speaker 1: house and home, like I make sure dinner is clipped
Speaker 1: and the house is clean and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So if they had introduced her as like more of
Speaker 1: a gen X version of that woman. It would have
Speaker 1: also made more sense throughout the film too, because I
Speaker 1: remember at one point she asked her as soon as
Speaker 1: she got home, the one of the ladies talked about
Speaker 1: her roots too, and she was like, yes, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get there taken care of and it's just like but
Speaker 1: then she was like, get a job, or I haven't
Speaker 1: seen you in a few weeks. It's just she was
Speaker 1: a little bit choppy. Yeah, that and like her being
Speaker 1: like women shouldn't like men are the providers. Meanwhile, PEG's
Speaker 1: mom owns and operates a business, like a whole as business.
Speaker 1: You would think that, like I mean, and again this
Speaker 1: is but like if I have like a movie logic
Speaker 1: helmet on, you would think that if she felt that way,
Speaker 1: she would be remarried, like she would have actively sought
Speaker 1: that up for herself. But it doesn't seem like that's
Speaker 1: been a priority for her, which is fine. I prefer
Speaker 1: that like for this story, but it's weird. I feel
Speaker 1: like there is maybe room for something a little more nuanced,
Speaker 1: because yeah, it didn't seem consistent with the character, and
Speaker 1: it's like, there are you know, intergenerational, like varying definitions
Speaker 1: of like her mom is making, you know, what would
Speaker 1: be considered like an honest living like she is, Like
Speaker 1: I guess it's her businesses and technically legal, but like
Speaker 1: she's she's not doing work that is hurting people and
Speaker 1: her job is not ethically compromised. And I feel like
Speaker 1: there's that's kind of an interesting conversation to have between
Speaker 1: a parent and a child and between a mother and
Speaker 1: a daughter of like, I don't approve of what you're
Speaker 1: doing because it's hurting people, and where is your line
Speaker 1: of compromise, like morally, Like that's an interesting conversation, but
Speaker 1: it felt more like they it became like a more
Speaker 1: basic something that's been like hashed out a million times
Speaker 1: of like put on a dress and get married, which,
Speaker 1: like you're both saying, like, doesn't really have anything to
Speaker 1: do with that character. Yeah, yeah, it just shows up
Speaker 1: similarly Whiz being so cartoonish in his sexism. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying there aren't men like this, but like, for sure,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's chicks. Yeah. Literally. Here are some
Speaker 1: quotes from the movie Wait, please perform at Gai Courtney style. Please,
Speaker 1: he says, go be my bar bitch and get me
Speaker 1: some bears. And you're like, oh, Gi, I was hoping
Speaker 1: that you were going to start off with that one.
Speaker 1: I really really really was. And then when Peg like
Speaker 1: double crosses him, he's like, this is why I don't
Speaker 1: hire bitches, And I think what he means is this
Speaker 1: is why I don't hire women, and he just thinks
Speaker 1: all women are bitches or that's exactly Oh he is
Speaker 1: a thousand percent saying because woman, And then like he
Speaker 1: dumps blood on her head and like has a little
Speaker 1: handwritten note that says something like the only thing that
Speaker 1: bitches collect is menstrual blood. It was like cartoon ish,
Speaker 1: like you're just like a cartoon character and it is
Speaker 1: called out to She didn't even know that she was
Speaker 1: going to try to Like I guess the other knew
Speaker 1: she was gonna try to get a job there. But
Speaker 1: he was like he told me, He told me I
Speaker 1: was there was gonna be like a guest, but he
Speaker 1: didn't say she was a piece, And I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he also, yeah, he aggressively sexually harasses her in the
Speaker 1: workplace multiple times. He like I was like, hey, is
Speaker 1: this buffalo's sexual harassment or is this character just using
Speaker 1: wildly outdated terms because could you just call me a piece? Like?
Speaker 1: But here is it? No? Um? There's another scene where
Speaker 1: it's when like he's really short changing her as far
Speaker 1: as how much commission she's supposed to earn, and he
Speaker 1: like puts his arm around her and is like making
Speaker 1: her uncomfortable, invading her space, and then she's like, I
Speaker 1: mean she pushes back, which I'm happy to see where
Speaker 1: she's just like, get your fucking hand off me. But
Speaker 1: I think this is all just very indicative of while
Speaker 1: the movie was directed by a woman, it was written
Speaker 1: by a man, and I feel like, yeah, it was like,
Speaker 1: what's his name, Brian Sokka, He's like, what does sexism
Speaker 1: look like? Oh my god, it's when men call women
Speaker 1: pitches one hundred times dumps and throw blood are blood
Speaker 1: on you at a Buffalo Bill's game, and often uses
Speaker 1: blow up. Thus from nineteen ninety two was very ol
Speaker 1: Bundy like very like what oh yes, like what that was?
Speaker 1: That was why he he was wild for that one.
Speaker 1: And it also just seemed like Jai Courtney is like
Speaker 1: as a man, was like doing kind of some old
Speaker 1: man stuff when he was not an old man he was, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought, like, yeah, I think that, like honestly, that
Speaker 1: as funny as I thought that character was, I feel
Speaker 1: like it sort of again, like in the same way,
Speaker 1: it's like it felt a little too broad and like
Speaker 1: there could have been a more productive conversation of like
Speaker 1: I think a lot of like discrimination in general is
Speaker 1: done at like the micro aggression level and this but
Speaker 1: this movie just like is not Ya does not have
Speaker 1: the capacity for micro anything. Like everything is like maximal
Speaker 1: all the time, so it's just maybe not the movie
Speaker 1: for it. But yeah, now everything is very, very very
Speaker 1: to the max. And I think, like when I was
Speaker 1: watching this movie too, why I like really connected with
Speaker 1: it or because, like I said, it was during like
Speaker 1: the first Lockdown and I think this was like I
Speaker 1: watched it in May or something like that. I think
Speaker 1: it was because there was so much going on with
Speaker 1: money in the world at that situation, Like a lot
Speaker 1: of people were like concerned. I mean, it's always stuff
Speaker 1: going on in the world with money, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people were like super concerned about it. We didn't
Speaker 1: know what was going on. People were losing jobs, like
Speaker 1: all this kind of shit was happening, and I think
Speaker 1: That's another reason why I was like, oh, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna watch this movie about debt and scare myself a
Speaker 1: little bit more like why not? Of course I am,
Speaker 1: but yeah, and I'm just wondering why it's so hidden.
Speaker 1: I guess, Like, but I often find films like that
Speaker 1: where I like become obsessed with this movie that was
Speaker 1: probably not really meant to be seen. Yeah, did it
Speaker 1: have a theatrical release? Because I watched it on Hulu
Speaker 1: and I was wondering, like, oh, it's just like a
Speaker 1: Hulu production, and that's the thing. I also originally watched
Speaker 1: it on Hulu and this was like three years ago,
Speaker 1: so I don't think it was even meant to have
Speaker 1: a theatrical release. Yeah, I don't remember it getting a
Speaker 1: release if it did have one. I mean, this was
Speaker 1: something we could probably easily look up. No, I mean
Speaker 1: it made like less than thirty thousand dollars at the
Speaker 1: box office, which again, and this was like pre pandemic too,
Speaker 1: so it's like not even actually really during it. So
Speaker 1: I do think it's it's frustrating because I mean I
Speaker 1: don't know like this director Tanya Wexler, who also I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, Massachusetts heads, was one of the first
Speaker 1: queer was one of the first gay marriage became legal
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. In two thousand and four, Tanya Wexler and
Speaker 1: her wife were one of the first couples to ever
Speaker 1: be legally married in the country, which I thought was
Speaker 1: really cool. It's just a fun fact. But like, she
Speaker 1: was already a well respected director. This is her fourth film,
Speaker 1: and I think it's like really frustrating that it didn't
Speaker 1: get more attention because it's like, is it perfect? No?
Speaker 1: Is it talking about stuff that no one ever talks
Speaker 1: about in movies in a smart and funny way that
Speaker 1: centers a woman who's poor, and like like that these
Speaker 1: are all things that like, very very regularly happen. And
Speaker 1: I wish, yeah, I wish I understood why it didn't
Speaker 1: get more attention, because honestly, before you pitched it, Shelley,
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard of this movie. And like, and I
Speaker 1: think too, like with the cast being so stacked too,
Speaker 1: Like it's a pretty good it's a pretty dope cast,
Speaker 1: like Trudy Greer first of all, but then you got
Speaker 1: all these familiar faces, like two smaller roles, but everyone
Speaker 1: is just like in it. But yeah, I just thought
Speaker 1: it was like a really dope movie because I movies
Speaker 1: I talk about money in any capacity is really pretty
Speaker 1: much interesting to me. But I don't know a lot
Speaker 1: of movies about like debt and student loans and women
Speaker 1: that are all kind of repped and poor, like being poor,
Speaker 1: a poor woman. It was just like that was really
Speaker 1: like drew me to it. But and then I just
Speaker 1: like started really liking Zoe Dutch as an actress, Like,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I saw her in Not Okay, which I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people did not like. But also
Speaker 1: she's she's the daughter of Leah Thompson, like the Caroline
Speaker 1: in the City, like what. It's just like she is
Speaker 1: like that is like some that nepotism did please me
Speaker 1: a little bit. That was one that actually that pleased
Speaker 1: me quite a bit, if I'm being honest. I was like, okay, wait,
Speaker 1: Leah Thompson of Back to the Future, she plays the
Speaker 1: random Back to the Future whoa Okay, And she's in
Speaker 1: that duck movie Howard. I think Howard the Duck, isn't
Speaker 1: she and Howard the Duck? We should cover Howard the Duck?
Speaker 1: That one that is a trip Duck December on the
Speaker 1: Matreon and due Howard the Duck and the Mighty Ducks. Oh,
Speaker 1: it'll be great. Ducks Ducks, Ducks, Ducks December. Absolutely. Wow,
Speaker 1: we're doing it. We will not stop until every bad
Speaker 1: theme has been done. Um. Oh you could also do
Speaker 1: duck Butter. Duck Butter? Did you already talk about that movie?
Speaker 1: What's that? Oh? My god, I know about all these
Speaker 1: movies that I've never heard of. That movie has uh
Speaker 1: maybe fuka, Oh, Chicat is in it and it's gay
Speaker 1: and it's bad to me. But it's called duck Butter. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That gay movies be bad. That's my campaign all the time.
Speaker 1: Gay movies be bad. But then you have dikes and
Speaker 1: duck December. Yeah, there is Wow. Okay, I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love a theme. Okay, keep sending
Speaker 1: pick because we we've been I it's shocking that we haven't.
Speaker 1: I mean I think that our advantages they were never good.
Speaker 1: They were always bad, and so we never had to
Speaker 1: be like we had to think of another good theme.
Speaker 1: It's never It's never happened. I love it. Um to
Speaker 1: go back to the like discussion of like finances and money,
Speaker 1: that that's like the crux of this movie or some
Speaker 1: some might even call it the thrust of the movie.
Speaker 1: I'm bringing it back. Whoa keep saying thrust? I wish
Speaker 1: everyone could see that the eyebrows, not Jamie that went
Speaker 1: up with that, Like, Okay, I know you can't funk
Speaker 1: around with Caitlin when they're saying thrust. It's just like, okay,
Speaker 1: you win. Yeah, don't try and stop me. I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not stop. So here's what has happened. I wrote
Speaker 1: down something in my notes, and I don't remember if
Speaker 1: it's because it gets examined thoughtfully in the movie or
Speaker 1: if it's just a really meaningful, amazing thing that I
Speaker 1: had to say. Excited, I'm still excited. So part of
Speaker 1: the story is that she never even ends up having
Speaker 1: student debt because she never ends up going to the
Speaker 1: Ivy League school that she got into, or any school, because,
Speaker 1: as she points out, that to go to the school
Speaker 1: that she got into would have been seventy thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in interest alone, So it's like hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars in tuition and housing and expenses that she would
Speaker 1: have incurred. So I'm glad, they say, right. And one
Speaker 1: of the reasons she's so kind of hell bent on
Speaker 1: going to college and specifically an Ivy League school. Is
Speaker 1: she as that higher education is the key to financial freedom.
Speaker 1: Now I think that, I think that's tongue in cheese,
Speaker 1: and I don't think this really gets examined or challenged
Speaker 1: in the movie. But while like a degree does open
Speaker 1: a lot more doors for people, higher education is also
Speaker 1: kind of a racket and it ends up suffocating a
Speaker 1: lot of people in student debt that they have a
Speaker 1: really hard time escaping, and it doesn't necessarily like guarantee
Speaker 1: you a magnificent job. So I don't and again, I
Speaker 1: don't think the movie is actually commenting on that. I
Speaker 1: think this is my tirade against all my higher education.
Speaker 1: My view is like higher education should baseline be more accessible,
Speaker 1: because it feels like between our parents' generation and hours,
Speaker 1: it seems like you now need an expensive college degree
Speaker 1: to have access to the same level of jobs that
Speaker 1: our parents had with a high school degree, and so
Speaker 1: now there's this huge financial entry point to work at
Speaker 1: an entry level job, Like it's hard to get my
Speaker 1: I mean, my my brother is like struggling with this
Speaker 1: right now. He's trying to get a basic office job,
Speaker 1: and it's like he has a college education, but it's
Speaker 1: like it's still not enough and that wasn't as much
Speaker 1: the case with previous generations. And I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: like I don't I would never want to discourage anyone
Speaker 1: from getting higher education. I think it's more of a
Speaker 1: matter of just like I think that like I was,
Speaker 1: I'm very glad I went to college. I feel very
Speaker 1: lucky that I got to go. If I knew what
Speaker 1: I knew now, I would have chosen. I probably would
Speaker 1: have gone to a state school. I wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: as like enchanted by the like high price tag, like
Speaker 1: fancy looking like oh, you have to go here. But
Speaker 1: even that introduces this sort of thing because you're like
Speaker 1: almost buying into an alumni network and you're buying in
Speaker 1: like there are things that come I just like I
Speaker 1: don't know. I I because I feel like there's there's
Speaker 1: a discussion about this in a recent like I think
Speaker 1: it was one of the trillion bullshit New York Times
Speaker 1: opinion articles that have come out recently. I think I
Speaker 1: might be thinking of another publication. But they were like,
Speaker 1: you know, asking like well, where have all the English
Speaker 1: major's gone, and like English majors a culturally catch so
Speaker 1: much shit of like this is a useless degree, this sucks,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And I know, like I've probably made
Speaker 1: similar comments like I have a useless degree, like and
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like, but in retrospect, it's like you'd
Speaker 1: need people to be incentivized to want to study literature
Speaker 1: and study history, especially in like study history. Well, but
Speaker 1: you can't be in you know, six figure debt to
Speaker 1: study history. There's no way out of right, Like you're fucked.
Speaker 1: And then so what do you do just like lose
Speaker 1: certain areas of study because it's been made so impossible
Speaker 1: to even access it. I just I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think the movie kind of like explores it a little
Speaker 1: bit by saying by the opposite, right, Like I think
Speaker 1: that's what Peg thinks. She's like, oh my god, yeah,
Speaker 1: like this is what I need in order to be somebody,
Speaker 1: in order to get a lot of money in order
Speaker 1: to do all this shit. Then ultimately she doesn't go
Speaker 1: and she learns that that's actually not what you There's
Speaker 1: so many ways for you to be successful. I guess
Speaker 1: it just depends on what kind of financially successful you want.
Speaker 1: Because she's scamming, So it's a little bit different, right,
Speaker 1: But I think but successfully. But I think that like
Speaker 1: I was very bought or in like sold a dream
Speaker 1: when it came to like college. But I think that
Speaker 1: like goes back to what it says about like our parents.
Speaker 1: My parents were like I was the first person in
Speaker 1: my I'm the first person in my family to like
Speaker 1: go to college, right, like and to like graduate and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Like my brother went, but
Speaker 1: he went for like two semesters and was like, absolutely
Speaker 1: the fuck not, I don't do this, you know, good
Speaker 1: for him? Good for him? Right, And I think that
Speaker 1: I wish, like when we're saying looking back, Jimmy, I
Speaker 1: think like I wish that I had been told more
Speaker 1: like the options, like you said, a state school or
Speaker 1: going to community college first for some quarters and then
Speaker 1: transferring over or knowing that like I didn't have to
Speaker 1: do it in four years and wrack up all that debt,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. But I do think that
Speaker 1: that is a really big thing. And people never I
Speaker 1: would just go for fashion, Like I majored in fashion
Speaker 1: and minored in journalism, right, But when I look back
Speaker 1: at it now, like no one's ever asked to see
Speaker 1: our degree. No one's ever asked for it. I've never
Speaker 1: got I've never had to prove it. And then like
Speaker 1: I never needed it for the career that I've made
Speaker 1: for myself now, Like I really honestly didn't need to go,
Speaker 1: but I was told that that is what I needed
Speaker 1: in order to be successful, was a college degree. And
Speaker 1: then I ended up putting myself in this debt. I
Speaker 1: ended up putting my mom and dad in debt. And
Speaker 1: that's what I was going to talk about too, with
Speaker 1: like debt in general, that's why I know so much
Speaker 1: about it because, like I said, I learned about debt
Speaker 1: before I learned about earnings because my family was always
Speaker 1: paying something off for paying a bill or catching up
Speaker 1: on a bill or something like that. So I was
Speaker 1: always more focused on that. But I personally only have
Speaker 1: thirty thousand in student loans, and I only have that
Speaker 1: because my mom and dad took on the rest, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And I think it wasn't a plan.
Speaker 1: I think it's just because like they were doing that
Speaker 1: same thing of being like this is your key, so
Speaker 1: we are going to take this on because this is
Speaker 1: your key to doing all the big stuff and ultimately
Speaker 1: like rescuing or being there for us, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean too. So I think that's another thing that's
Speaker 1: kind of explored in the movie too, Like Peg does
Speaker 1: want to make money for herself, but she actually does
Speaker 1: say it when she talks about going to school. She's
Speaker 1: like it's for her and it's for her family, like
Speaker 1: she herself as a she may be, she still knows
Speaker 1: that her success equals like theirs, which is kind of
Speaker 1: like a lot of pressure. But like, right, it's just
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure, so I guess, But yeah, I
Speaker 1: wish I had just been told more about loans and stuff,
Speaker 1: like it's so and I feel like it's like intentional
Speaker 1: that it's not so intentional. Yeah, you're seventeen. You are
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. And then they're like, hey, you want
Speaker 1: to go to college show you've watched those bit of
Speaker 1: do you want to take out nine four years? Don't worry,
Speaker 1: it's four years. We're gonna give you a really good degree.
Speaker 1: You're gonna make so much money, and then we'll like
Speaker 1: just get it back from me. If we're a little bit,
Speaker 1: you're seventeen, you don't know anything, and I think we
Speaker 1: know more so if our generation um like has kids
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, I think I hope that it's
Speaker 1: a little bit better for them, just because we can
Speaker 1: now teach them more about these predatory practices and what
Speaker 1: to be looking out for and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is like pushing for like
Speaker 1: more systemic like that's I mean, like literally what's happening
Speaker 1: in the Supreme Court right now, and like how it
Speaker 1: sucks because it's like as individuals your powers, you have
Speaker 1: more power, and like telling your own child like, hey,
Speaker 1: I fucking fell for this. We are not going to
Speaker 1: fall for this. Yeah, we will not be fooled again.
Speaker 1: But then on the other end is just like continuing
Speaker 1: to push for this to be less of a problem,
Speaker 1: which is like theoretically what should be happening with student
Speaker 1: debt relief even though it's nowhere close to the amount
Speaker 1: of like ten thousand is like a drop in the bucket,
Speaker 1: like everybody, Yeah, it wouldn't even make a dent for
Speaker 1: most people, right Yeah. And to be clear, I love education.
Speaker 1: I love learning. You have so much of it. I
Speaker 1: have so much of it in learning rocks. I'm not
Speaker 1: pro ignorance, correct, What I am against is what higher
Speaker 1: education has become as far as it's a scale like
Speaker 1: odd business, and like you were saying, Jamie about just
Speaker 1: sort of the shift in the in the job market
Speaker 1: of like our generation now needs an advanced degree for
Speaker 1: entry level positions versus what our parents needed. So people
Speaker 1: noticed like, oh, there's now like this supply and demand
Speaker 1: thing that we can completely exploit. And I mean, tuition
Speaker 1: rates increase like dramatically every single year. Sometimes if I
Speaker 1: really want to feel awful, I will google like annual
Speaker 1: tuition rate for Boston University for just a lot of
Speaker 1: private schools cost fifty eight thousand dollars a year just
Speaker 1: in tuition sixty thousand, sixty four thousand, Like it's obscene.
Speaker 1: There's so much complicity, And I like, Glin, I don't
Speaker 1: disagree with your point that like, not everyone, I mean,
Speaker 1: and Shellie you were seeing not everyone, Like if you
Speaker 1: have first of all, if you don't know what you
Speaker 1: want to do when you're seventeen years old, you are
Speaker 1: normal and you don't like yeah that is so it
Speaker 1: blows my mind. It blows my mind. It's like they're
Speaker 1: you're seventeen and they're like, okay, so what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do for the rest of your life? Are you
Speaker 1: ready pick It's just like no, I don't know. No,
Speaker 1: so like you should be allowed the grace to and
Speaker 1: then like but then it creates this wild issue where
Speaker 1: it's like, well, what are you going to do in
Speaker 1: the meantime if you can't get a job without a
Speaker 1: college degree, and like it just is a fucking whatever
Speaker 1: that fancy word for sank eating its tail is, it's
Speaker 1: that But I don't know. Yeah, But then there are
Speaker 1: like I do agree with Caitlin where there's like some
Speaker 1: things where it's like, I don't know, I went to
Speaker 1: Emerson and I should be ashamed of that, and I am,
Speaker 1: but they horrible school after disgusting what I mean, I
Speaker 1: really like whenever I'm grateful I got to go to college,
Speaker 1: I would not do that again. But it's partially because
Speaker 1: it's like that school now offers like a comedy standard
Speaker 1: and they will let wait, they will let a kid
Speaker 1: go into six figure debt when the answer is go
Speaker 1: to an open mic, open mic and humiliate yourself and
Speaker 1: it's free like that kind of shit. You're like, that's
Speaker 1: just like a predatory and a them problem with sixty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year and they're like, will you speak
Speaker 1: to them? I'm like, no, no, because you all you're
Speaker 1: gonna do is get on stage and be like don't
Speaker 1: do this. But I think that's the thing too, and
Speaker 1: they'll just like cut your mic and you're just written
Speaker 1: to like no, no, no, that wasn't very funny, was it. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess I didn't learn a lot. I think that's
Speaker 1: the thing too that a lot of colleges are doing, right,
Speaker 1: Like I never kind off topic, we're not really on
Speaker 1: topic about the movie, but like that's another thing that
Speaker 1: colleges are doing. I think they're figuring out that we
Speaker 1: or people have figured out that they don't need to
Speaker 1: go to college to do certain things. Like you said,
Speaker 1: a sixty thousand dollars a year to pay to learn
Speaker 1: how to be a stand up comedian. I cannot believe
Speaker 1: that that's an actu degree. Like that blows my mind.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but like you know, you're going to be
Speaker 1: learning from exclusively failed stand up comedians. That's not gonna
Speaker 1: be But I think that's what they're doing. It's just
Speaker 1: like they're very aware that people are going other routes
Speaker 1: to do the things that they want to do. So
Speaker 1: I think a smarter kid, especially of this generation with
Speaker 1: parents who our millennials, will be like, Okay, you want
Speaker 1: to be a standup comedian. Sure, that's fine, but I
Speaker 1: would rather pay for you to go take a two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars year class at second City versus sixty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year at a major college for four years
Speaker 1: to do the same thing. So I think colleges are
Speaker 1: also they're just trying to use their names that they
Speaker 1: have at these degrees and these programs to be like,
Speaker 1: you still have to go to college to do whatever
Speaker 1: it is you want to do. You still have to
Speaker 1: go to college, because that's insane to me. I did
Speaker 1: not know that you could actually get a degree in
Speaker 1: stand up comedy from Emerson College. That's I will never
Speaker 1: shut up about it. To be clear, I do not
Speaker 1: have this degree, and I'm not used to participate. But like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like I think ultimately, like I think
Speaker 1: something that that Peg is not affected by, and I
Speaker 1: think that her character is supposed to be gen Z.
Speaker 1: Also like this movie could take place in any year.
Speaker 1: I don't really know. You don't see people using phone
Speaker 1: like cell phones anyways, But it seems like she's like
Speaker 1: sort of a gen Z coded character, and I did
Speaker 1: appreciate that, Like I don't know, like when I couldn't
Speaker 1: go to the ridiculously overpriced college that I would have
Speaker 1: been in debt forever if I had gone on. The
Speaker 1: reason I went to Emerson was because they offered me
Speaker 1: a big scholarship and so that was really lucky. But like, anyways,
Speaker 1: like the I took it so personally. It felt like
Speaker 1: a personal failure that I couldn't go where I thought
Speaker 1: I was supposed to, and like so it felt personal,
Speaker 1: and then it I also just was not educated it
Speaker 1: on my options whatsoever, and like there was so much
Speaker 1: stigma and like shame if you couldn't do the thing
Speaker 1: you thought you're supposed to do. And it seems like
Speaker 1: Peg does not suffer under that as the movie goes on,
Speaker 1: like she's just like, well, I'm not like it. It
Speaker 1: is the system, it's not me, So what can I do? Yeah? Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I wanted to just really quickly. I don't really have
Speaker 1: much to say about this other than I just think
Speaker 1: that the romance between Peg and Graham feels pretty wedged in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't mind that like Graham is there as a
Speaker 1: character kind of you know, like representing whatever some kind
Speaker 1: of like institutional like also like the failure of like
Speaker 1: the legal system in the US. I feel like could
Speaker 1: have maybe been better represented in his character. But I'm
Speaker 1: just like why it doesn't, Like the story only suffers
Speaker 1: it was weird, that character was so weird, and the
Speaker 1: story suffers from like trying to like put them together,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, none of this makes any sense.
Speaker 1: Like you're constantly talking about how this is a conflict
Speaker 1: of interest and it is, so why are you together?
Speaker 1: I think they thought that if they were going to
Speaker 1: make her such this kind of character, that they had
Speaker 1: to give her a romance, right, but which I do
Speaker 1: like hate, but I would have really loved if instead
Speaker 1: of making him because I agree it's one of the
Speaker 1: things about the film that I'm kind of like, this
Speaker 1: is weird. Instead of making him like a romantic interest,
Speaker 1: I think it would have been coage just to keep
Speaker 1: him as this other lawyer that it just like happens
Speaker 1: to always be around because he's involved in this debt
Speaker 1: collecting like situation, you know what I mean. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: didn't have to be romantic it could have been a
Speaker 1: little bit more comedic, and but yeah, it was kind
Speaker 1: of weird, especially because they kept acknowledging that they not
Speaker 1: and would not work out like they consistently did it,
Speaker 1: So it was really weird to me. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was kind of like thrown in there, and she didn't
Speaker 1: need a romance. I don't think Peg needed one in general,
Speaker 1: or was seeking one or wanted one. But I think
Speaker 1: when it came to the script, they were like, well,
Speaker 1: we can't make her a girl boss and single, right
Speaker 1: right pick a lane Peg, which is like wow, because
Speaker 1: that sounds like something PEG's mom would say randomly, like absolutely,
Speaker 1: I agree, Like I don't think that the love story
Speaker 1: was necessary, but also it was like it was once again,
Speaker 1: I was just like a little confusing because it seemed
Speaker 1: like at first she was like using him, which she
Speaker 1: was for most of the relationship, but then at the
Speaker 1: end it's kind of like flipped and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: but she does love him. I'm like, I was not
Speaker 1: really picking up on that. It seemed like she would
Speaker 1: go to be like, hey, do you want to have
Speaker 1: sex when she needed to steal something from the DA's off,
Speaker 1: Like that was almost exclusively what it was, and which
Speaker 1: that feels more consistent with her character, but again it's
Speaker 1: like a third act finger at the end, she's like,
Speaker 1: I think he's my boyfriend, and you're like, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you like him, Like what do you have
Speaker 1: anything in common? Like, But that would have been great too,
Speaker 1: to keep her as this selfish person who is just
Speaker 1: very much being like I need some files. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna do this, But I don't think they were gonna
Speaker 1: They weren't too keen on keep making peg that way
Speaker 1: in like every aspect of her life, which yeah, they
Speaker 1: wanted to like redeem her just enough by the end
Speaker 1: of the movie, yeah, which and I do I do
Speaker 1: like the kind of like half redemption of like she
Speaker 1: doesn't be like I'm gonna go I'm gonna like I'm
Speaker 1: a second grade teacher. Like she's like, I think that
Speaker 1: like where she ends career wise at the end really worked.
Speaker 1: But it was like the little things like that of
Speaker 1: like and now she's in a relationship and now she
Speaker 1: has a better relationship with her family, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: she can still be an asshole, like you know for sure,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. Um, the one last thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to say about this movie is so it's a
Speaker 1: comedy from twenty nineteen, and I think you can tell
Speaker 1: that it's a far like it's a more modern comedy
Speaker 1: compared to comedies of you know, the nineties and early
Speaker 1: in mid two thousands, because, as we've discussed so many times,
Speaker 1: so much of the comedy in comedy movies of those
Speaker 1: eras rely on a lot of punching down humor, yeah,
Speaker 1: whereas this one generally avoids that. The only thing that
Speaker 1: really stuck out for me was a remark that was
Speaker 1: kind of judgmental towards sex workers, where a character says
Speaker 1: something like, oh, would you trust a lawyer that pays
Speaker 1: for sex? And she's like no. There's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a little bit of body stuff as well. There
Speaker 1: are a few offhand comments about weirdly Sal's body, which
Speaker 1: is the screenwriter, so I'm guessing that he was okay
Speaker 1: with it, given that he wrote the joke, but whatever,
Speaker 1: there's like a comment about his body. And then there
Speaker 1: is also, like I think, a pretty hardshum and overly
Speaker 1: simplistic reason about why her father died. They were like, well,
Speaker 1: he ate unhealthy and so he died and they're like, well,
Speaker 1: that feels a little you know, overly simplified. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I mean in terms of like I mean
Speaker 1: even like a movie that would have come out ten
Speaker 1: years earlier, in oh nine, I mean, it's uh pretty
Speaker 1: close to Night and Day. Although you know, there there
Speaker 1: are it's still centered around a white family and most
Speaker 1: people of color are sort of relegated to smaller roles. Um.
Speaker 1: But again, it's it's better than where are we Where
Speaker 1: where we were? Which is another thing where it's like
Speaker 1: I wish people knew about it and saw it when
Speaker 1: it came out, because it would be great to have
Speaker 1: more rompy, funny broad comedies that have like some kind
Speaker 1: of conscience come out, Like it would be cool to
Speaker 1: see those movies do better. So there's more of them,
Speaker 1: for sure, you know, room for improvement, but also miles
Speaker 1: ahead of what we were exposed to in earlier years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: does this movie pass the Bechtel test? It super does. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's no way around it, folks. It passes about
Speaker 1: it passes handily. Combinations of characters we don't even need
Speaker 1: to break down how many, because it's usually like if
Speaker 1: there are two women in the script. They I believe,
Speaker 1: all are all named, and they all talk to each other.
Speaker 1: So thrill usually about money, usually about money and crimes
Speaker 1: and scams and ethics. And you know, there are conversations
Speaker 1: that reference the boyfriend, the brother, and the father, but
Speaker 1: they are, I would say, in the minority of conversations.
Speaker 1: And now to the only metric that truly matters, the
Speaker 1: nipples scale, Caitlin, what are you giving Buffalo on the
Speaker 1: nipple scale? Um, well, on our scale zero to five nipples,
Speaker 1: where we rate the movie based on looking at it
Speaker 1: through an intersectional feminist lens, I would give this I
Speaker 1: guess like a three and a half because you know,
Speaker 1: like we discussed, it's it's a movie that allows a
Speaker 1: like ethically complicated woman to exist and explore her, like
Speaker 1: all the moral ambiguities that she's dealing with in her
Speaker 1: work and her life, which most stories don't make any
Speaker 1: room for, in a way that like I didn't mention
Speaker 1: this earlier, but it's like, I feel like this could
Speaker 1: be sort of seen as like a girl Boss narrative,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it's only truly a girl Boss
Speaker 1: narrative if the movie is endorsing the crimes which I
Speaker 1: don't think this movie is this like no, so I
Speaker 1: feel like it's, um, it's all it. Yeah, I just
Speaker 1: wish it was like I mean, I wish more people
Speaker 1: knew about it and hopefully this a little I mean,
Speaker 1: this episode is gonna just freaking what a pub felicity
Speaker 1: moment for this movie now that no, I'm kidding, but um,
Speaker 1: I should send us an edible arrangement for this. I
Speaker 1: swear to god, I think you, Zoe, But I think
Speaker 1: because there are like issues with just like it's kind
Speaker 1: of a sloppy script and the characters are extremely cartoonation inconsistent,
Speaker 1: and there's just some like kind of storytelling things. I
Speaker 1: feel like it won't like stand the test of time
Speaker 1: the way that like people still revisit movies like Wolf
Speaker 1: of Wall Street and Short and these like male centered premises.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately those movies do fucking sad. Yeah, I know, and
Speaker 1: this one doesn't quite rule quite so hard just from
Speaker 1: like a quality standpoint. So I feel like it'll be
Speaker 1: kind of like yeah, yes, yes, so, but um yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll give it three and a half. Um, I'll give
Speaker 1: one two. Francis, her pal that she met in the
Speaker 1: pen in the clink Wow, I'll give one to so Yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I'm so cool. I'll give one to Backer,
Speaker 1: the other woman she befriends from prison. Um, I'll give
Speaker 1: one to Judy Greer, and I'll give my half nipple
Speaker 1: to the rotting infested buffalo. Yeah, that was a metaphor
Speaker 1: for something. I was like, Oh, okay, fine, we liked them.
Speaker 1: I'll go three and a half as well. Um. I
Speaker 1: think that this is a movie that's heart in the
Speaker 1: right place. I've never seen a movie like it. I
Speaker 1: agree that the execution is a little all over the place,
Speaker 1: is a little sloppy, but I think I mean, I
Speaker 1: really like the vibe this movie has, which is like
Speaker 1: talking about something that is serious in a lighthearted, rompy way.
Speaker 1: I feel like that is like super super super the
Speaker 1: best way to or like a really effective way to
Speaker 1: start conversations like this of like not feeling like you're
Speaker 1: going to a lecture or like you're going to school,
Speaker 1: or even like you're in a fucking cry, but it's
Speaker 1: like you learn about something that affects most people in
Speaker 1: a way that is goofy and fun and accessible. I
Speaker 1: think it's cool. I yeah, like we're just talking about
Speaker 1: I think that like Peg, you know, I'm not always
Speaker 1: rooting for her, but I feel like her predicament is
Speaker 1: contextualized and that her you know, crimes aren't endorsed, but
Speaker 1: we also know why she's doing it. But it also
Speaker 1: isn't like an overly like I am mommy thus I
Speaker 1: crime kind of thing. I just thought it was cool.
Speaker 1: I thought the Triman Fowler character was incomprehensible, but that's
Speaker 1: not his fault. He he did his job, but the
Speaker 1: character was so confusing. That Judy grig character was at
Speaker 1: times confusing, like like in terms of who she was
Speaker 1: and what she was about. But I liked the relationship
Speaker 1: between I think like this movie, it was at its
Speaker 1: best for me when it was like looking at money
Speaker 1: and um generational stuff and class like that's where it
Speaker 1: really really succeeded. M and I would love to see
Speaker 1: more movies like this and very glad we got to
Speaker 1: cover it. So I'm gonna give it three and a
Speaker 1: half nipples. Uh and I'm gonna yeah, I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: one to the rotting buffalo head. I'm gonna give one
Speaker 1: to Jermaine Fowler's dirty underwear. I'm gonna give oh, yes,
Speaker 1: one to the secretary who didn't care about anything, and
Speaker 1: then I'll give my last half to Judy the waitress
Speaker 1: and oh so iconic Danny's it's an American institution, Shelley,
Speaker 1: what do you think? Okay, I'm gonna go with three.
Speaker 1: I do want to say I gave it four and
Speaker 1: a half on a letterbox, but that's just because I
Speaker 1: was just like in such a good mood after watching it.
Speaker 1: Their first people are gonna come for you. This is
Speaker 1: a life change, this is life changing. I was like
Speaker 1: four and a half, but I would do three. One
Speaker 1: it's just for Judy Greer in general, like Judy Greer
Speaker 1: being a part of this movie in general. The second
Speaker 1: one is because I really like seeing a not so kind,
Speaker 1: super moral girl when it comes to movies about money
Speaker 1: and debt, in collecting money and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And the third one is for I'm going to say
Speaker 1: the wardrobe. I know that, so Stu, but I know
Speaker 1: it looks in the credible fits are good, So I'm
Speaker 1: going to say like three total. But I thought it
Speaker 1: was like super great and I really do enjoy that
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, we keep saying it, but Women's
Speaker 1: History Month, I really do like them. A movie about
Speaker 1: a girl who's kind of an asshole when it comes
Speaker 1: to money, and she's not. She just wants it. She
Speaker 1: wants it to want it. She doesn't want it to
Speaker 1: like sol of World Hunger or to like rebuild the
Speaker 1: community center or anything like that. She just wants it
Speaker 1: because she wants money. And I really like that. And
Speaker 1: I like what it taught about, like debt and collecting
Speaker 1: and money in general. So three yeah. I love that
Speaker 1: it had like such a clear like mission too, and
Speaker 1: like that there its main character could still be a
Speaker 1: huge asshole, and I feel like it pulled it off
Speaker 1: the mission. Like I learned shit watching this serie. She
Speaker 1: was a complete jerk, but I did learn stuff. I
Speaker 1: got verified on some information that I already knew that
Speaker 1: was very happy about, which made me want to tell
Speaker 1: people about it even more. And I also think that
Speaker 1: Zoe's just a really good actress. I think she's just
Speaker 1: like good at what she does. I think she's pretty
Speaker 1: talented too, But I dug it, I really like it.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I learned so much about Buffalo's and Wings.
Speaker 1: What the fuck? It was so fun to watch your
Speaker 1: people in real time by that, You're like, it literally was.
Speaker 1: I haven't had that feel like it's so because I
Speaker 1: was not attached to that. It was the greatest. Shelly,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us, Thank you for
Speaker 1: bringing us this movie. Um, if you're if you're looking
Speaker 1: to watch it, it's on It's on Hulu. It's easy,
Speaker 1: it's accessible Ulu. Yes, and Shelley, where can we follow
Speaker 1: your work and follow you online? Plug away? I gotta
Speaker 1: hate this part. I'm so hate part. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be great at this part. Um. But I'm on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Hi Shelley on Twitter, and then I'm on Instagram. Ao Shelley,
Speaker 1: A y O s h e O I, and then Hi,
Speaker 1: Hi s h e I on Twitter. Usually i just
Speaker 1: share all my work there on Twitter, and I'm always
Speaker 1: like having some discourse that I'm not really invited into.
Speaker 1: But or I try to start it and then I
Speaker 1: it happens and then I just leave and then you Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love to start a conversation on the mute. It's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things to do to start it
Speaker 1: and then be like, oh, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: here anymore. This was just a passing thought about this movie.
Speaker 1: I've actually fucked this by everybody, and you're like, actually,
Speaker 1: see you the fuck later. I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about this anymore. I've been a huge must. Most recently,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm on a Eurovision. I love Eurovision, and so
Speaker 1: I'm like trying. I'm mostly talking about Eurovision on Twitter
Speaker 1: right now because I've personally ranked all thirty seven songs.
Speaker 1: Oh you're that kind of on Twitter right now? I am,
Speaker 1: and I personally have ranked all thirty seven songs and um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's great. But that's mainly where I'm at.
Speaker 1: I'm never leaving Twitter, I even want it explodes. I
Speaker 1: will probably still be there in the ruins talking about
Speaker 1: some movie that no one's ever seen, like Buffalo. So me,
Speaker 1: I was like, I truly think of I'm like, we're
Speaker 1: like the Bad going to with the Titanic. You're like,
Speaker 1: look we are, We're two brain damaged to not be there,
Speaker 1: So it is that it is. We're guys, stay here.
Speaker 1: And I also love that you worked in a Titanic
Speaker 1: reference like oh, right under the wire. Right had to
Speaker 1: make it happen. Thank you for having me. I love
Speaker 1: the Big Back, and I'll be back to talk about
Speaker 1: job Breaker please. Ye. So excited. We're so overdue for
Speaker 1: a job breaker episode, so we'll have you then, yay.
Speaker 1: And you can follow us on social media Instagram, Twitter,
Speaker 1: at Bechtelcast. You can go to our Matreon at patreon
Speaker 1: dot com slash Bectelcast, where you'll get two bonus episodes
Speaker 1: every month. This month, we are wrapping up movies directed
Speaker 1: by women, so we covered big and we've got the
Speaker 1: Virgin suicidide as well, so you've got you've got change
Speaker 1: on the Matreon this month. Oh and uh, you can
Speaker 1: check out our merch store at tpublic dot com slash
Speaker 1: the Bechdel Cast. And with that, uh, don't pay your
Speaker 1: debt to do crime and don't pay your debt, never
Speaker 1: pay your bills. Bye bye