Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zephynvest start
Speaker 1: changing with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Hepple, hepple, send, hepple, Jamie, what I misspelled?
Speaker 3: Help?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Wow? Men really do be misspelling four letter words, don't they. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that's sort of a taste of what this movie
Speaker 3: is like. Yes, welcome to the Bexel Cast. My name's
Speaker 3: Jamie Loftis.
Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Derante. This is our show where
Speaker 2: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
Speaker 2: Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point. And what
Speaker 2: might that be? Jamie?
Speaker 3: Well, I can tell you. It is a media measure
Speaker 3: created by friend of the show and namesake of the show,
Speaker 3: Alison Bechdel, that was originally created in her comic strip
Speaker 3: I Used to Watch Out for Beck in the eighties
Speaker 3: as a one off joke, has since become more of
Speaker 3: a mainstreamified media metric. The version we use requires the
Speaker 3: two characters of a marginalized gender speak about something other
Speaker 3: than a man. For more than two lines of relevant dialogue.
Speaker 3: They should also have names, and you know does this?
Speaker 3: This is tricky because I feel like this movie exists
Speaker 3: in if I'm like breaking down all the asterisks to
Speaker 3: the bechel test that we've had to use, difficult to
Speaker 3: pass in a two hander that involves a man as
Speaker 3: one of the two, exactly this and nonetheless, nevertheless this
Speaker 3: movie persists. But also that's just our jumping off point.
Speaker 3: I guess I've just told you it does pass the
Speaker 3: Bechdel test, but not by a lot. There you go.
Speaker 2: You can turn off the showd let's lock in.
Speaker 3: Let's lock it in, do it and get our amazing
Speaker 3: guests in the chat.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. She is a writer, an adventurer, and host of
Speaker 2: the podcast that's about survival stories, What to Carry, What
Speaker 2: to Burn? It's Blair Braverman. Welcome.
Speaker 5: Hello, I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 3: Welcome, We're like to have you.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about Send Help, which came out earlier
Speaker 2: this year, right, yeah, twenty six. Sam Raimi directed.
Speaker 3: Feels Like Longer, and boy did this movie choose its
Speaker 3: moments to remind you it's a Sam Raimie movie.
Speaker 2: It sure does.
Speaker 3: If any other person had directed it, those moments would
Speaker 3: be so very confusing. But because it's him, You're like, well,
Speaker 3: I guess contractually he has to do four or five
Speaker 3: of these.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're fun moments.
Speaker 3: For I mean, I'm I'm pro, I'm pro the Raymie
Speaker 3: scary Rami isms, jump scare thing. But yeah, it just
Speaker 3: came out, So I guess it's hard to have a
Speaker 3: storied history with this. But I know, Blair, you were
Speaker 3: like truly the perfect guest for this movie. We were
Speaker 3: talking about all the different survival based movies that's out there,
Speaker 3: and this is the one that centers around a woman.
Speaker 4: So this is this is what we get. We get
Speaker 4: this in Baby Island.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Wait what is Baby?
Speaker 2: I don't know that one either.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 4: So, I'm obsessed with survival stories. But I'm also obsessed
Speaker 4: with survival stories like how we tell the stories about survival,
Speaker 4: like in kids books and in movies and in all
Speaker 4: these different things. And I went through a couple of
Speaker 4: years ago and I tried to find every story for
Speaker 4: kids about survival in the wilderness, and it's pretty much
Speaker 4: all about boys.
Speaker 5: Because I was a kid, I was a little girl.
Speaker 4: Who loved like hatchet and yes, survival books. I love Hatchet,
Speaker 4: and it is very hard to find a book for
Speaker 4: kids about a kid in the wilderness, my side of
Speaker 4: the Mountain type story where the kid is a girl,
Speaker 4: And you'll get these very weird genres when there's a
Speaker 4: girl in filve So either she's like fleeing sexual assaults
Speaker 4: or abuse, right like Julia the Wolves. Or you have
Speaker 4: a book like Baby Island, which is an incredible work
Speaker 4: of literature, and it is a survival story about two
Speaker 4: little girls who are stranded on an island, a desert island,
Speaker 4: and have to survive, except for they also get stranded
Speaker 4: with four babies no.
Speaker 5: So at the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So as they're learning how to like eat bananas
Speaker 4: for food and try to like send messages and bottles,
Speaker 4: they're also learning how to deal with colic and like
Speaker 4: what to do if a baby is slow to walk,
Speaker 4: and how to get these four babies to keep the
Speaker 4: Lord's day, oh my desert Island. And it's this amazing
Speaker 4: sort of confluence of genres that I truly think is
Speaker 4: like progressive in a way because the authors like little girls,
Speaker 4: like desert islands, and they like babies, so I wanted
Speaker 4: to give them both.
Speaker 3: Just seems like so much work for these kids. I
Speaker 3: love that there's I'm looking at this the cover right now.
Speaker 3: I feel like there is a very fun modern adaptation
Speaker 3: of this story. And also like, because it came out
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty seven, they're like, Okay, we can't just
Speaker 3: have girls on an island. They have to be doing
Speaker 3: some sort of sort of parenting as well. That's why
Speaker 3: I'd never heard of that before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like motherhood is hard for these girls. It's even
Speaker 4: harder because they're stranded on a desert island. But like,
Speaker 4: I recognize the absurdity of the book, but I really
Speaker 4: do think like I'm for it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it's very bizarre.
Speaker 4: And I also feel like survival stories about women tend
Speaker 4: to like, Okay, this is my theory going into this
Speaker 4: before I even saw the movie, is like, when someone
Speaker 4: is stranded in the wilderness in some way and we're
Speaker 4: telling a story about it, they either tame the wilderness
Speaker 4: or they go feral. So they either turn the wilderness
Speaker 4: into like a functioning society allah Robinson Caruso, or they
Speaker 4: go feral and become wild themselves. And that's what happens
Speaker 4: to women in these stories. Interesting okay, which I would
Speaker 4: say that Send Help fits into that category if she
Speaker 4: sort of becomes a wild beast herself, or like they
Speaker 4: become like witchy or just sort of like I don't know.
Speaker 4: It was interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean, farrell is a good word for it.
Speaker 3: I feel like, yeah, totally, that's so interesting because I
Speaker 3: was thinking so much about this movie compared to have
Speaker 3: you seen Triangle of Sadness?
Speaker 5: No, I haven't.
Speaker 3: I was thinking a lot about Triangle of Sadness, same movie.
Speaker 3: It's a very similar movie. I think Triangle of Sadness
Speaker 3: a little matter. But yeah, but I feel like it's
Speaker 3: because well we can talk about it in the discussion.
Speaker 3: I feel like this movie holds back in these like
Speaker 3: weird ways that feel kind of gendered. And also, I
Speaker 3: guess it's worth saying that Send Help is a movie
Speaker 3: that centers around a woman that is written by two
Speaker 3: men and directed by a man, which I do feel
Speaker 3: like you can feel in certain moments and choices. But
Speaker 3: that's so fascinating that like Blair, that makes so much,
Speaker 3: that makes so much sense. It's almost like you've spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time thinking about this. That's wild. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because I mean, and then compared to I guess, what
Speaker 3: are the directions when the survival story centers around a man.
Speaker 3: How does that manifest differently with like the response to
Speaker 3: the environment in these stories usually with men.
Speaker 4: You see the pattern of them quote unquote taming the wilderness,
Speaker 4: you know, sort of creating a functional society, like having
Speaker 4: it's very dominance over nature. So you know, the phrase
Speaker 4: you'll hear on survival shows is like, I'm gonna make
Speaker 4: nature my bitch is a phrase you'll hear a lot,
Speaker 4: which is an absurd It is such an absurd concept
Speaker 4: to begin with. Truly, Yeah, nature is definitely gonna.
Speaker 5: Make you her bitch. That's how these things.
Speaker 3: Work, kind of undefeated.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's nature is indifferent, like it's these things.
Speaker 4: These concepts don't translate onto wilderness. We are trying to
Speaker 4: take our human concepts and project them onto something that
Speaker 4: is so utterly indifferent that it reduces them to absurdity.
Speaker 5: But yeah, normally you would see.
Speaker 4: I mean there's an interesting way in this movie that
Speaker 4: she also is is a very competent survivor, yeah, and
Speaker 4: is able to sort of create like a survival version
Speaker 4: of an executive desk on a beach, on a Tropical Island,
Speaker 4: so she's kind of doing both. I don't know, we'll
Speaker 4: get into.
Speaker 3: It, right, but then at the end, I mean I
Speaker 3: also on this viewing, I was like, I don't like
Speaker 3: the end of this movie, but well, we'll get into it.
Speaker 3: So did you see this movie when it came out
Speaker 3: or is this your first time?
Speaker 5: I just saw it now.
Speaker 3: Ooh, I'm excited.
Speaker 5: I've been interested in it, but I hadn't.
Speaker 4: I hadn't. Dug in Caitlyn.
Speaker 3: I think we might have the same history with this
Speaker 3: movie because we saw it together.
Speaker 2: We sure did. We saw it in theaters. I'm trying
Speaker 2: to think who else was with us? Was it Bryan
Speaker 2: Bryan Grant Grant Okay.
Speaker 3: Yes, three amazing key hymns at the AMC with us?
Speaker 3: Really cool?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so yeah, we saw it in theaters. It
Speaker 2: came out in late January, right, so, but I hadn't
Speaker 2: seen it since then. But it came onto streaming. I
Speaker 2: forget which platform, Disney Plus. Yeah, and it was like
Speaker 2: one of the most streamed movies ever or.
Speaker 3: Something which actually does scan for me, and I still
Speaker 3: didn't understand how like streaming they assisted translates to money
Speaker 3: through subscriptions. But I'm like, no one's signing up for
Speaker 3: a movie for Send Help. But I feel like Send
Speaker 3: to Help being success successful and streaming makes sense to
Speaker 3: me because it feels so very much like a movie
Speaker 3: you would watch on a plane, even though it heavily
Speaker 3: features a plane crash. And I feel like movies that
Speaker 3: are successful on streaming are plane movies. We were talked
Speaker 3: about that that's a theory I have.
Speaker 2: No I think you're onto something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a good streaming movie. Unfortunately you should be able
Speaker 3: to kind of fall asleep during it. And this is
Speaker 3: a good movie, but this is a plain movie, I feel.
Speaker 2: I'm with you. Yeah, yeah it was. It was like
Speaker 2: heavily streamed, so but also I'm like, is it one
Speaker 2: of those things where like people actually watched it or
Speaker 2: was it just the next thing that came on, whether
Speaker 2: or not you were sitting in front of your TV
Speaker 2: actively consuming it or not. Who knows?
Speaker 3: The algorithm moves in mysterious ways. I mean, this is
Speaker 3: a really good movie and it was like successful, it
Speaker 3: was successful financially. I'm glad it's successful, and streaming it's whatever.
Speaker 3: I'm the bar is so low right now that it's
Speaker 3: like original story that centers around a woman being successful,
Speaker 3: no further questions, like, fine, we'll take it. But it's
Speaker 3: also our job to look at it very carefully because
Speaker 3: it is so like speaking to your point that it's
Speaker 3: sent help in Baby Island, a book that is almost
Speaker 3: ninety years old. It's like, this is this is rare
Speaker 3: in a way that I don't think was really a
Speaker 3: part of this movie's narrative as it came out, well.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about I was like, wasn't there a
Speaker 2: Reese Witherspoon wilderness survival movie Wild, Although I'm not sure
Speaker 2: how much of it is, Like I haven't seen it,
Speaker 2: so I don't know how much of it is her
Speaker 2: like trying to survive, but it's about a woman who
Speaker 2: takes an eleven hundred mile solo hike through I'm guessing
Speaker 2: the wild, hence the name of the movie, as a
Speaker 2: way to recover from a recent personal tragedy according to
Speaker 2: the log line of the movie. So I don't know
Speaker 2: much about that. And if it really if it falls
Speaker 2: into this camp of stories we're talking about.
Speaker 4: I would hear I'm going to be such a survival nerd, please,
Speaker 4: I would categorize those differently because to me, there's a
Speaker 4: difference between going into wilderness recreationally and being stuck there
Speaker 4: for sure, And so for me it becomes to me
Speaker 4: like it fits into the category of survival story if
Speaker 4: someone can't get out, yeah, and so for her going
Speaker 4: on a hike, it's like a wilderness story.
Speaker 5: But it's not.
Speaker 2: It's very intentional.
Speaker 5: It's not quite part of.
Speaker 4: The same genre. It's a different genre, fair sort of
Speaker 4: a tracker and adventure story as opposed to survival.
Speaker 3: Got it, So Send Help, Baby Island.
Speaker 5: Those two are definitely the same genre.
Speaker 2: And then also, I mean you mentioned it already, Jamie,
Speaker 2: but Triangle of Sadness, and I guess like skip ahead
Speaker 2: about two minutes if you want to avoid spoilers for
Speaker 2: Triangle of Sadness. But the whole time I was watching
Speaker 2: Send Help the first time, I was like, I've already
Speaker 2: seen this movie and this and it's Triangle of Sadness
Speaker 2: in the sense that the main characters include a man
Speaker 2: who has a set of qualities that a like western
Speaker 2: capitalist society values and a woman whose qualities are not
Speaker 2: nearly as valued by said society. Then they are stranded
Speaker 2: on a tropical island and suddenly the woman's qualities and
Speaker 2: skills are necessary for survival, and the man has no
Speaker 2: wilderness survival skills, so the dynamic between them significantly shifts,
Speaker 2: where the woman now holds all the power, and then
Speaker 2: also that it turns out the uninhabited island is actually inhabited,
Speaker 2: and then some murders happen along the way, partly because
Speaker 2: the woman doesn't want to give up her power and
Speaker 2: go back to her life where she was undervalued, which
Speaker 2: is basically the premise of both movies.
Speaker 3: Yes, but I will say that where sendh Help, I
Speaker 3: mean I like Send Help because I think what it
Speaker 3: has going for it is it is like way more
Speaker 3: broadly comedic than Triangle of Sadness, definitely a different tone,
Speaker 3: and that it is like firmly centered on Linda, where
Speaker 3: Triangle of Sadness is more of a like I mean,
Speaker 3: I forget the name of the character who she becomes
Speaker 3: very important, but she's not like the protagonist for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more ensemble cast vibes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but there are a lot. I mean it is
Speaker 3: if you've seen both movies, it is a very like
Speaker 3: similar similar to the back half of that movie. And
Speaker 3: I think does a lot of what this movie does
Speaker 3: a little more. I think it was just like a
Speaker 3: little less afraid of some of the themes I think
Speaker 3: this movie is. This movie is very and then we'll
Speaker 3: take a break and talk about what happens in the movie.
Speaker 3: But my as I was rewatching it for the show
Speaker 3: and not just for fun, what was sticking out to
Speaker 3: me was like it for a very long time. It
Speaker 3: was like it seems like the story was afraid to
Speaker 3: let Linda do something like morally bad, like they hold
Speaker 3: out so long, including like this movie is for starring
Speaker 3: two tremendously hot people stranded on an island completely sexless.
Speaker 3: We have to play by thirty rock rules where we're like, right,
Speaker 3: Rachel McAdams is fugly. I hate to see her coming.
Speaker 3: She's certainly not one of our most beautiful people. Sure, fine, Right,
Speaker 3: movies will ask us to do this and we have
Speaker 3: we have to, we have to comply. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't know. They were like a few themes that they
Speaker 3: do address, and triangle of sadness. Sex does become part
Speaker 3: of the equation in an icky way, and triangle of
Speaker 3: sadness and the way that power is explored just feels
Speaker 3: a little less like oh, we're not gonna you know,
Speaker 3: we'll deal with the violence around this plot, but we
Speaker 3: won't deal with sex or desire or anything like that,
Speaker 3: which I thought was like just kind of weird. And
Speaker 3: then the good for her ending is something we've seen many, many,
Speaker 3: many times at this point. But well, we'll get there,
Speaker 3: we'll get there. Should we should we take a quick break.
Speaker 2: Let's do it, and we're And here is the recap
Speaker 2: of Send Help. We meet Linda Little played by Rachel McAdams.
Speaker 3: She's she's ugly, she's hideous, ugly, ugly, ugly.
Speaker 4: Her hair is greasy, and I the first moment she
Speaker 4: came in, I was like, I'm calling now her hair
Speaker 4: is going to be less greasy on the desert island
Speaker 4: than it is in her office, And that was true.
Speaker 2: We're right, I do.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I want to give the movie a pass
Speaker 3: on the like, the two main characters are such stock
Speaker 3: characters that you kind of just have to roll with it,
Speaker 3: but the fact that they go out of their way
Speaker 3: later for Rachel McAdams to realize she's beautiful. Actually, when
Speaker 3: she looks at her reflection, I'm like, al right, she
Speaker 3: literally takes her glasses off, you know, two very broad
Speaker 3: gendered types are appearing in this movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she takes her glasses off, lets her hair down,
Speaker 2: she's all that style, and suddenly she's gorgeous. But it's
Speaker 2: also implied that like the eye lind makes her hotter.
Speaker 3: This is where, okay, this is where it kind of
Speaker 3: got into like lost vibes, and I'm like, ooh, I
Speaker 3: love it. There's there are similarities between the character of
Speaker 3: Linda Little and the character of John Locke on Lost
Speaker 3: in that she really comes alive when hunting Bore and
Speaker 3: everyone's like, what the hell, why how are they hunting bore?
Speaker 3: And magical properties on the island making it so that
Speaker 3: you don't need glasses and or don't have cancer anymore.
Speaker 3: It's kind of Lost vibes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 4: I really appreciate the costume designer who figured out what
Speaker 4: she should be wearing to look like she was frumpy
Speaker 4: in an office that would then turn into an outfit
Speaker 4: that looked cool on a desert island. Yes. Yes, as
Speaker 4: she gradually took the layers off like that, that is
Speaker 4: some costume design.
Speaker 3: By the end, she's in a she's like washboard abs
Speaker 3: in a crop top and you're like, why the hell not,
Speaker 3: why the hell not? Yes, this this the ugliest woman
Speaker 3: at work.
Speaker 2: Sure, right, So this is her character. Her hair and
Speaker 2: her clothes are unkempt. She's like socially awkward and generally tuna.
Speaker 2: It's stuck to her face and she works in this
Speaker 2: office surrounded by a bunch of like dude bros. And
Speaker 2: everyone is undermining her at work. We also learn that
Speaker 2: she is obsessed with the show Survivor and with like
Speaker 2: survival stuff in general, where she has all of these
Speaker 2: books on how to survive in the wilderness and there's
Speaker 2: all these pictures of her camping or otherwise outside doing
Speaker 2: something in the wilderness. So back at work, when the
Speaker 2: boss's son, Bradley Preston played by Dylan O'Brien, takes over
Speaker 2: the company for his dad, Bradley gives the promotion to
Speaker 2: VP that his father had promised to Linda. He gives
Speaker 2: it to this guy named Donovan instead, who's another like
Speaker 2: Fratborough guy who had taken credit for this big report
Speaker 2: that Linda had prepared, and he takes all the credit
Speaker 2: for her work. Linda confronts Bradley about not getting the promotion,
Speaker 2: and he basically says that she is not likable enough
Speaker 2: to get the job and that she eats too much
Speaker 2: stinky tuna. Yeah, but he does invite her along to
Speaker 2: this meeting about the Bangkok merger.
Speaker 3: She it seems like she is the only person I
Speaker 3: mean whatever, Like the movie does go way out of
Speaker 3: its way to show that, like she obviously is the
Speaker 3: person for the job, She's the only person that seems
Speaker 3: to have cracked how this merger could take place. Who
Speaker 3: knows how the hell that shit works. This is the
Speaker 3: first of many times I don't know why, Like it
Speaker 3: didn't bug me when I was just like watching it
Speaker 3: in the theater. But both both lead characters in this
Speaker 3: movie are so frustratingly gullible at every turn. Linda is like, yeah,
Speaker 3: when you work at a company for seven years, they
Speaker 3: then treat you well. I'm like, what year is it, Linda,
Speaker 3: wake up? Wake up? Uh? And then when later when
Speaker 3: these two just are obsessed with accepting food from each other,
Speaker 3: I'm like, guys, guys, we have to stop accepting food
Speaker 3: from each other. Anyways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're two back to vaccines where they poison each other,
Speaker 2: But we'll get there.
Speaker 3: There is parody in in gullible decision making here right, Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 2: So Linda Bradley, that guy Donovan, a couple of other
Speaker 2: of like Bradley's bro buddies board a private jet to Thailand,
Speaker 2: and on the plane, the men find Linda's audition tape
Speaker 2: for Survivor, in which she's talking about how she knows
Speaker 2: how to survive in the wilderness and she knows all
Speaker 2: of the ways that you can make fire and has
Speaker 2: all these other skills. But the guys are laughing at her,
Speaker 2: and so she's humiliated.
Speaker 4: God, it's such a good audition tape, though, She's like,
Speaker 4: she's like scaling playgrounds, like doing ridiculous.
Speaker 5: It's so good it would get.
Speaker 2: Her on the show.
Speaker 3: I know, I thought they were covering. I also like,
Speaker 3: how dare you make fun of someone's uh survivor audition
Speaker 3: tape that is a that is a grand tradition.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, because Blair, you you've been on survival shows before,
Speaker 3: and so it's like if you if you approve it's good.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I never had an audition tape. I was recruited.
Speaker 5: You're but I I.
Speaker 4: Mean, it's just gonna be ridiculous. You're just like they're
Speaker 4: gonna make me look ridiculous. That's that's what you sign
Speaker 4: up for. It's it's the game. It's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. There are a lot of like iMovie transitions,
Speaker 2: silly like wipes and stuff between shots. But the point
Speaker 2: is we know she has survival skills and that's about
Speaker 2: to be very important because what happens next is they
Speaker 2: hit some very violent turbulence and then the plane starts
Speaker 2: like imploding and the door rips off. Several of the
Speaker 2: guys are sucked out of the plane.
Speaker 3: It's a very Sam Raimi way to crash a plane.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yes, lots of like gory violence happening along
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 4: So Donovan, the guy who was going to get the
Speaker 4: VP job over her, dies like gruesomely.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 4: And I was watching this yesterday with my family, My
Speaker 4: kid's grandma, my mother in law's watching this and she
Speaker 4: just shakes her head. She goes, Linda, you shouldn't have
Speaker 4: come on the trip. You'd be VP right now.
Speaker 3: That's so true. Oh my god, Sam, she could have
Speaker 3: I mean, she could have been CEO. I mean because
Speaker 3: Dylan O'Bryan would not have made out without her. Now,
Speaker 3: I would have been dead. In five seconds. I also
Speaker 3: loved that even in the middle of that like gruesome,
Speaker 3: great flane crash, there are like character moments for both
Speaker 3: of our our weird little guys where you know, Bradley
Speaker 3: is like, get the fuck away from me, like immediately
Speaker 3: just like tosses his best friend's question mark off a plane,
Speaker 3: and Linda is like ultimately does choose to like save herself,
Speaker 3: but also like thinks about it for a second take.
Speaker 3: It is sad, it is not necessarily thrilled that they're
Speaker 3: getting sucked into the ether, which feels.
Speaker 2: She does try to help the men who are being
Speaker 2: sucked out of the plane, but then when she realizes
Speaker 2: that they're going to like sacrifice her for their safety,
Speaker 2: she's like, never mind, fuck you.
Speaker 3: Guys, exactly. Yeah, but I just I liked that that
Speaker 3: that sets up their vibes on the island quite.
Speaker 2: Well until the movie gets confused about the Linda character
Speaker 2: and then and then they're like, wait, now I say
Speaker 2: Linda is a murderer. At the end, at the end,
Speaker 2: there's Linda's sort of like Jigsaw and you're.
Speaker 3: Like, what there is they she does kind of go
Speaker 3: Jigsaw and you're like, wait, this was her little Game.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that makes sense given the movie
Speaker 3: I just watched, but whatever, we'll talk about it.
Speaker 2: Talk about it anyway. The plane crash lands in the
Speaker 2: ocean near a remote uninhabited.
Speaker 3: Island or is it?
Speaker 2: Or is it? The only survivors are Linda and her
Speaker 2: boss Bradley, who wash ashore on the island. Bradley's leg
Speaker 2: is injured and he's unconscious at first, so Linda gets
Speaker 2: to work on using all of her survival skills to
Speaker 2: build a shelter from the raw materials on the island,
Speaker 2: as well as to collect rain water for them to drink.
Speaker 2: The next day, Bradley wakes up. He is so sad
Speaker 2: that all of his broskies have perished, but Linda seems
Speaker 2: excited to be there. She's kind of living out her
Speaker 2: dream of being on Survivor. She builds a fire, she
Speaker 2: catches and roasts some fish, which Bradley very reluctantly eats, because,
Speaker 2: as we recall, he hates the smell and taste of fish,
Speaker 2: and he is still repulsed by Linda, and he is
Speaker 2: still undermining her and not appreciating all that she has
Speaker 2: done to keep them alive so far. So she leaves
Speaker 2: him stranded on the beach all day and night to
Speaker 2: show him that the power dynamic has shifted. They're not
Speaker 2: in the office anymore, he is no longer her boss,
Speaker 2: but he is completely reliant on her for survival, and
Speaker 2: she now holds all of the power in this situation.
Speaker 3: I love this like it's I think, my favorite choice
Speaker 3: in the movie, because I do feel like it kind
Speaker 3: of goes off the rails towards the end. It just
Speaker 3: feels so like Linda in like the ways that I
Speaker 3: personally love Linda that like she is undercut, she is
Speaker 3: treated like an employee, and she's like, Okay, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to kill you, but I'm going to do something
Speaker 3: that forces you to acknowledge my value. And it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, women shouldn't have to do that, but she
Speaker 3: did what she had to do, yes, And of course
Speaker 3: he didn't learn his lesson. She's Here's okay ultimately, and
Speaker 3: we're going to get to it soon. But I'm just
Speaker 3: I'm still I forgot how strongly I felt this when
Speaker 3: we left the movie the first time, and how strongly
Speaker 3: I feel it now. Why couldn't she just have cut
Speaker 3: his dick off? Why can't we just let her cut
Speaker 3: his dick off? Why does it have to be a rat?
Speaker 3: Why are we doing the hard candy thing? Just cut is?
Speaker 3: Come tell me about it. We paid twenty dollars to
Speaker 3: see this.
Speaker 5: And it's a rat.
Speaker 3: Come on now? I agree anyways, I agree anyway, But
Speaker 3: you know two men wrote it, so they're like, there's
Speaker 3: a rat.
Speaker 2: Then did could never be cut off? Yeah? Okay, so
Speaker 2: the power dynamic has shifted. Then she hunts a wild
Speaker 2: boar for them to eat. The boar puts up a
Speaker 2: fight and there's some classic Sam Raimi gore and blood splatter.
Speaker 2: The scene is awesome, it's really fun. And then she
Speaker 2: manages to kill the boar because again she is thriving
Speaker 2: in this environment. And this is also when she starts
Speaker 2: to get hotter, her hair and her skin look better. Again,
Speaker 2: she's like figuring out how to wear her clothes to
Speaker 2: make it so that they're more flattering.
Speaker 3: But I mean, speaking to your point, Blair, I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is like the Secuens where she's becoming She's not
Speaker 3: conquering nature in the way that like men's stories tend
Speaker 3: to go, but she's like becoming one with nature and.
Speaker 4: Like right, and he accuses her of being Susie homemaker,
Speaker 4: which I just that cracked me up because if Bear.
Speaker 5: Grills was doing the things right he was doing.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh my god, you're so cool. I can't
Speaker 2: believe you know how to do this stuff. You're so valuable.
Speaker 4: But it's okay, So like, I mean, this is something
Speaker 4: when I've been researching real survival stories, like a lot
Speaker 4: of times women in real quote unquote real survival situations
Speaker 4: will like go out of their way to make things beautiful,
Speaker 4: and men too, like they will make things beautiful. We
Speaker 4: need beauty to survive, and so like these like a
Speaker 4: rays of fish that look like you get them in
Speaker 4: a fancy sushi restaurant with flowers, or like cups of
Speaker 4: flowers on the table, or things that are decorated and pretty.
Speaker 4: That's a very realistic thing for people to do when
Speaker 4: they're stranded on a desert island. But for him, he's like,
Speaker 4: not that as life affirming. He's just completely dismissive of
Speaker 4: everything she's.
Speaker 2: Doing, not even just the like making things esthetically pleasing,
Speaker 2: but also just her like gathering water and food for them.
Speaker 2: He's like, this is a fuck a waste of time.
Speaker 2: You should be sending out a distress signal blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And she's like, I'm feeding us, I'm keeping us alive.
Speaker 2: Like what are you talking about.
Speaker 5: She's making a fire plow. You know how hard it
Speaker 5: is to make fire with a fireplow.
Speaker 2: I can only imagine.
Speaker 5: It's basically impossible.
Speaker 4: It's basically impossible to do. And she just is like casually,
Speaker 4: like she just has all of these skills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3: I was so curious. Yeah, from your perspective, because I
Speaker 3: know you've like you've done it yourself, You've studied somebody's
Speaker 3: survival stories. Does this feel plausible like the way that it?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 4: I mean yes and no, Like I thought it was
Speaker 4: very interesting, Like clearly someone writing the script or someone
Speaker 4: doing the set design like has really researched. There's these
Speaker 4: little details like when it starts raining, and she's like,
Speaker 4: cover the fire.
Speaker 5: Because it is so hard to get a coal.
Speaker 4: As long as you have a coal, you can rebuild
Speaker 4: a fire from a single coal, but it takes so
Speaker 4: much labor to get that coal that once you have
Speaker 4: a fire going, your goal is to like always keep
Speaker 4: a hot coal in it. Twenty four to seven for
Speaker 4: like months at a time. So I'm like that detail.
Speaker 4: It starts raining and she's like cover the fire with leaves,
Speaker 4: like people aren't.
Speaker 5: Going to catch that.
Speaker 4: But that is like deep into understanding of what it
Speaker 4: would actually take to be on a desert island.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 4: And then there's these other moments like the spear that
Speaker 4: she uses to hunt the bore is fire hardened at
Speaker 4: the tip. Oh okay, so like the end is black,
Speaker 4: which means that she like in between sharpening it was
Speaker 4: hardening the wood over coals so it would become much
Speaker 4: harder and be able to pierce the bore's skin. And
Speaker 4: so you have this like sharpened piece of wood, but
Speaker 4: it's very black at the end because of the like
Speaker 4: painstaking process of blackening it. And I was just like, oh, somebody,
Speaker 4: somebody did that, somebody who made this movie, like I see,
Speaker 4: I see you, and not to be like too, I
Speaker 4: personally have made a fire hardened spear and hunted a.
Speaker 3: Whoa, uh huh, this is not surprising to hear.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh my god, Linda, like I see
Speaker 4: your girl, Like I know how many.
Speaker 5: Days it took to make that spear.
Speaker 2: Have you also stabbed out the boar's eyeball.
Speaker 4: No, no, the boar actually had like left its home
Speaker 4: and I did not succeed, but and like, yeah, you can't.
Speaker 4: Like then at the end when the boar like impales
Speaker 4: itself and that's the way she kills it, that's what
Speaker 4: you got to do, because you're not strong enough to
Speaker 4: impale it. But if its force is coming toward you
Speaker 4: and you have the spear toward it, So like a
Speaker 4: really good way to impale a boar actually is if
Speaker 4: you can like find it's dead and then really deeply
Speaker 4: bury a spear outside it so it's pointing toward the
Speaker 4: opening and it has to be a fire hardened spear
Speaker 4: and then smoke it out so it comes out running good.
Speaker 2: Whoa wow, good to know. Thank you. Any other survival
Speaker 2: tips you would like to share on this episode by
Speaker 2: all means.
Speaker 4: So, I was like nerding out over these, like there
Speaker 4: were some things that were so unrealistic and some things
Speaker 4: that were so like inside Baseball, and I was really
Speaker 4: enjoying those.
Speaker 3: That's so cool. I was. I couldn't find an answer
Speaker 3: for this. I was looking to see if they had
Speaker 3: like a survivalist consultant on this project.
Speaker 4: They did they and they ignored them at times, but
Speaker 4: they definitely was a consultant. Okay, it comes through.
Speaker 3: That's so fascinating. Yeah, because I guess it's I don't know.
Speaker 3: I guess, well, now I'm totally derailing. But is there
Speaker 3: a movie that feels like is there a movie that
Speaker 3: is like thought of by survivalists to be the closest
Speaker 3: to an like authentic experience.
Speaker 4: I don't know. Actually, I haven't seen all the movies,
Speaker 4: and I also I'm not part of a survivalist culture.
Speaker 4: I'm just an independent enthusiast.
Speaker 3: And that does actually kind of make sense given the
Speaker 3: whole thing.
Speaker 4: So I think that there's probably a lot of like
Speaker 4: communal wisdom among survivalists that I am.
Speaker 5: Not privy to because I'm just sort of like at.
Speaker 4: Home reading books survivalists or like going out in the woods.
Speaker 4: It's like people just go out in the woods on
Speaker 4: their own. I don't know if they really commune.
Speaker 5: There's conferences. I guess I've never been to one.
Speaker 3: I guess that that it is kind of a it
Speaker 3: is a solo thing. That's kind of the point. But
Speaker 3: that's so interesting that I mean, I'm glad that they
Speaker 3: had a consultant. I'm sure that that's like where those
Speaker 3: authentic details come from. And I guess we can also
Speaker 3: tell the moments where they were like, well, this needs
Speaker 3: to happen in the script.
Speaker 2: So so back to the story. Tropical island survivalism is
Speaker 2: really working out for Linda. She's thriving. The island has
Speaker 2: given her a makeover somehow. And then she sees a
Speaker 2: little boat by the shore and she's about to flag
Speaker 2: it down because it seems like, oh, they're saved. But
Speaker 2: then she says, hmm, no, not yet. It seems like
Speaker 2: she wants to ride out this power trip that she's
Speaker 2: on a bit longer. It has already been two weeks.
Speaker 2: Bradley is very frustrated that they have not been found
Speaker 2: and rescued yet.
Speaker 3: Yes, while contributing nothing at all, nothing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, his idea is to build a raft and try
Speaker 2: to sail out to sea on it in the hopes
Speaker 2: that they'll find a boat or a shipping route or
Speaker 2: something like that. But Linda is like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: we need to stay on the island.
Speaker 3: This iconically also happens and lost, and it also iconically
Speaker 3: does not work. Yes, Walt burns it.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, wow, I forgot Membo Walt anyway.
Speaker 4: Id.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Linda shuts down Bradley's idea about the raft, so
Speaker 2: he is furious and he fires her and then goes
Speaker 2: off and tries to build his own camp in a montage.
Speaker 2: That is so funny because he's terrible at it.
Speaker 5: He's actually average or good at it, I would.
Speaker 2: Say, compared to Linda.
Speaker 4: These things that she's making look easy are so hard
Speaker 4: to do. Actually, I mean he's in there's some ways
Speaker 4: he's like except like he can't like lean a stick
Speaker 4: against a tree trunk, he like struggles to do that.
Speaker 5: But like, he's not cartoonishly bad.
Speaker 4: He's actually just sort of how a lot of people
Speaker 4: would do. Like he can't make fire with a fireplow.
Speaker 4: No one can make fire with a fireplow.
Speaker 5: Like, no one can.
Speaker 4: It's a waste of energy.
Speaker 5: Don't even try use a bow drill if you must.
Speaker 5: But like he's actually just very realistic.
Speaker 4: He's not even cartoonishly bad.
Speaker 2: I mean, right, I think about what I would do
Speaker 2: if I were in this situation, and I would not
Speaker 2: accomplish anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I would die.
Speaker 2: I think I would die pretty immediately me. But compared
Speaker 2: to Linda, I guess is the point he does not
Speaker 2: seem very good at it because she seems exceptional at
Speaker 2: these skills.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do appreciate your saying that this is probably
Speaker 3: just what an average person would do, though, because but.
Speaker 4: It's great, Like she's just watching him like that was
Speaker 4: one of the most enjoyable seeds.
Speaker 2: She's watching him, she's like crafting baskets and sun hats
Speaker 2: and a hammock.
Speaker 5: Because the humor isn't like that he's bad at it.
Speaker 4: The humor is that he doesn't recognize that she's so
Speaker 4: good at it, so he sees her doing things well
Speaker 4: and then presumes instead of presuming she's very good at this,
Speaker 4: he presumes it must be it might be easy, and
Speaker 4: then he fails miserably. That's very funny.
Speaker 3: Yes, I do like what like with Bradley consistently, because
Speaker 3: both of these characters are so broad. These are stock
Speaker 3: characters we have seen before in a new situation, but
Speaker 3: that like consistently. He like part of his Part of
Speaker 3: the reason that he almost dies so many times, like
Speaker 3: on his own, is because he is like freakishly incurious
Speaker 3: about his surroundings and he refuses to treat Linda as
Speaker 3: a peer. He would rather do almost anything, including anchoring
Speaker 3: significant physical pain before he will treat Linda as someone
Speaker 3: deserving of respect and not as an employee, which definitely
Speaker 3: works well in the story for.
Speaker 2: Sure, and then he eventually gives up, although his last
Speaker 2: ditch effort is to write out help on the beach
Speaker 2: using a bunch of leaves and sticks, but he misspells
Speaker 2: it and writes out hepple, and then Bradley gives up.
Speaker 2: He on fires Linda. He apologizes for how he has
Speaker 2: treated her and underrested her. He begs her to let
Speaker 2: him come back to her camp, and she eventually agrees
Speaker 2: and shares her lunch with him. She has made this
Speaker 2: lovely spread of sushi and flowers and fruit, and meanwhile,
Speaker 2: his leg has healed a lot. So Linda takes Bradley
Speaker 2: on a walk through the wilderness up a mountain, and
Speaker 2: then she shows him a spot on the other side
Speaker 2: of the island where two rocks are like crisscrossed to
Speaker 2: look like an X, and she says, don't go to
Speaker 2: that part of the island. It's all poisoned vines and
Speaker 2: thorn bushes. And then on their way back Linda almost
Speaker 2: falls off a cliff where this like loose bit of
Speaker 2: ground falls out from under her, but Bradley saves her.
Speaker 2: But we'll put a pin in that, because that's like
Speaker 2: Chekhov's loose ground on the cliff. And then at the
Speaker 2: camp they get drunk off of fermented fruit alcohol that
Speaker 2: she made. They share their backstories, where Bradley says that
Speaker 2: his parents were distant and abusive and hm, maybe that's
Speaker 2: why he's the way he is now. Linda tells him
Speaker 2: that she was married before, but her husband, who was
Speaker 2: also abusive, died in a car accident because she let
Speaker 2: him get behind the wheel when he was drunk. And
Speaker 2: then she also is like, ha I love it here.
Speaker 2: I never want to leave the island, sweetie, And we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: something's happening there. The next day, a violent storm hits
Speaker 2: the island, so they head inland to a cave. They're
Speaker 2: all cold and wet, and they huddle together for body heat,
Speaker 2: and again it seems like there's a vibe shift where
Speaker 2: maybe something romantic is going to happen between them. And
Speaker 2: then they make a plan to rebuild their camp that
Speaker 2: washed away in the storm together almost like they're a
Speaker 2: couple or their.
Speaker 3: Mother and son, like that's sort of the dynamic that
Speaker 3: is being I think sort of played around with in
Speaker 3: this and I felt like, I don't know if I'm
Speaker 3: like pro or con I'm saying this neutrallly. It felt
Speaker 3: like at some point the movie kind of like wouldn't
Speaker 3: make up its mind about which direction they wanted this
Speaker 3: dynamic to go in, or like how exactly the characters
Speaker 3: were feeling about it. This is but maybe this is
Speaker 3: just me comparing it to Triangle of a Sadness, which
Speaker 3: makes a hard decision where the women in Triangle of Sadness,
Speaker 3: I have to just look up the character name. The
Speaker 3: woman who was previously an employee on the cruise ship
Speaker 3: and then you know, is the only person with survival
Speaker 3: knowledge basically takes the hot guy like it breaks up
Speaker 3: a couple and has says like, Okay, hot guy, you're
Speaker 3: going to live with me now and we're going to
Speaker 3: have sex and you will be protected by me in
Speaker 3: sort of exchange for this arrangement. And so you know,
Speaker 3: Triangle of Sadness does not shy away from explicitly sexual
Speaker 3: dynamics that develop in this survivalist community. But I mean
Speaker 3: in scent help. There's only two of them, and so
Speaker 3: I don't know. I guess I don't have like I
Speaker 3: didn't want something to happen. It just felt like the
Speaker 3: movie was like ignoring what felt like claro dynamics. I
Speaker 3: don't know, but what do we think? What do we think?
Speaker 2: It feels messy to me because it feels it seems
Speaker 2: like it's hinting that Linda is attracted to Bradley, she
Speaker 2: might potentially be romantically interested in him, but then it
Speaker 2: kind of walks that back different times, but then it
Speaker 2: happens again at the very end, which we'll talk about
Speaker 2: out in a scene that was very frustrating to me
Speaker 2: when they're like professing their love for each other. But yeah,
Speaker 2: to me, it just feels like quite messy and that
Speaker 2: the movie doesn't really know what's going on and that
Speaker 2: it describes it's like abscribing frustrating qualities to the woman
Speaker 2: character like this this single, unmarried woman character.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, well to construct this, But yeah, I guess
Speaker 3: it was like I I the actors have I thought,
Speaker 3: like really great chemistry and could have got like committed
Speaker 3: to either direction of the like weird, like the messy
Speaker 3: dynamic of like she is acting basically in a maternal
Speaker 3: capacity to them, but there does seem to be some
Speaker 3: sort of attraction, but the movie just sort of is
Speaker 3: like shrug anyways, anyways, anyways.
Speaker 4: But she's acting in a maternal capacity but also an
Speaker 4: abusive capacity, right, it presumes always that, Like I feel
Speaker 4: like the presumption here is like if a woman has
Speaker 4: more than a man, she will be abusive with that too. Yeah, right,
Speaker 4: Like that's sort of the logic within the film.
Speaker 2: Which is fair. I mean, the concept of like absolute
Speaker 2: power corrupts absolutely is like not gender specific, but right, it's.
Speaker 3: Not like Bradley would have done more with, like better
Speaker 3: by that power if he had the ability to hold it.
Speaker 3: But I also I feel like we're given some and
Speaker 3: now I'm like, maybe there are like lynkers to it.
Speaker 3: I haven't considered. I'm not sure where the information we're
Speaker 3: given about the two of them in the toilet wine
Speaker 3: scene is like really interesting because like we're told that
Speaker 3: Bradley like speaking to like what we were just saying Blair,
Speaker 3: like she is acting as a caretaker, but an abusive caretaker,
Speaker 3: and that is Bradley's background is he grew up with
Speaker 3: abusive caretakers. But I feel like that doesn't if that's
Speaker 3: meant to come out in their dynamic. I feel like
Speaker 3: it was like it could have maybe been clearer. And
Speaker 3: then Linda's story is like wildly charged of like I
Speaker 3: guess I wasn't I wasn't sure with her character if
Speaker 3: this is like because she was also abused and then
Speaker 3: knew that her husband was going to be, you know,
Speaker 3: risking his and other safety and you know whatever, that's
Speaker 3: a whole ethical myer that this movie's not equipped to handle.
Speaker 3: And that's fine, but I don't know, like it felt
Speaker 3: like that was such a like specific, intense piece of
Speaker 3: information and I don't know if she feels a type
Speaker 3: of way about it. I don't know if she really
Speaker 3: feels remorse about it. And then it kind of just
Speaker 3: like this we learned that kind of right before she
Speaker 3: like quote unquote goes off the deep end in terms
Speaker 3: of like violence and grabbing at everything to make sure
Speaker 3: that they stay on the island, and yeah, don't I
Speaker 3: don't know. I really liked that scene of them opening up.
Speaker 3: And then I feel like, ultimately I didn't really do
Speaker 3: too much with their revelations because like if the revelations
Speaker 3: are meant to say, here are these two stock characters,
Speaker 3: but they're actually way more nuanced than you thought. But
Speaker 3: then they kind of just go back to acting like
Speaker 3: the stock characters through the rest of the movie.
Speaker 5: I found her background.
Speaker 4: I read it as having explanatory power for her being
Speaker 4: a survival buff right, Like her husband of a decade
Speaker 4: is abusive, was abusive, so her home was a site
Speaker 4: of survival, and a way to deal with that is
Speaker 4: to become obsessed with like survival as a sort of
Speaker 4: isolated concept and prove to yourself that it's something you
Speaker 4: can tolerate.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, one of my big theories about survival in
Speaker 4: general is that, like wilderness, survival is not a separate
Speaker 4: category from other survival in life.
Speaker 5: It's just sort of like a distilled version of.
Speaker 4: All the survival challenges we have that allow us to
Speaker 4: sort of look at it head on. And so, I
Speaker 4: don't know, I just interpreted when she's talking about that,
Speaker 4: I was like, Oh, that's why she got into survival
Speaker 4: is because it's something that she was doing on a
Speaker 4: daily basis in her household. So, like, her response to
Speaker 4: trauma is partly reflected in the fact that like all
Speaker 4: of her bookshelves are like that we see in her
Speaker 4: apartment early on, are like how do you survive when
Speaker 4: a situation in which it's very hard to do?
Speaker 2: How to survive? And how to talk to your bird?
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly Like to me that felt linked, Yeah, implicitly
Speaker 4: linked in her character.
Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: I hadn't thought about it from that angle, but that
Speaker 3: absolutely makes complete sense. Yeah, Linda is so there's so
Speaker 3: much there. I guess I just get frustrated with where
Speaker 3: this story lands for her because it feels like kind
Speaker 3: of a contrived ending to like this very nuanced or
Speaker 3: this like deceptively nuanced character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, In any case, Linda and Bradley are now working
Speaker 2: together to build a new shelter. They seem to be
Speaker 2: on decent terms at the moment. And also Linda has
Speaker 2: a knife that she has been using for different things
Speaker 2: that she said had washed up on shore, but she
Speaker 2: used the one with a knife. She never lets Bradley use.
Speaker 3: It, which, unfortunately, I feel like the reveal later kind
Speaker 3: of stands to kind of undercut a lot of like
Speaker 3: what it seems like Linda like these amazing things Linda
Speaker 3: is doing as a survivalist at the ending causes you
Speaker 3: to be like, well, she kind of wasn't doing a
Speaker 3: lot of that, was she. But we'll get there a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 2: But we do see her in the very first sequence
Speaker 2: where she's like building the initial shelter.
Speaker 3: The initial stuff, like her.
Speaker 2: Bashes a rock to like create a jagged like piece
Speaker 2: of a rock, and then she kills that boar when
Speaker 2: she caused a bore. And also like, I mean, correct
Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong, Blair, But survivalists, like they have tools, right,
Speaker 2: such as knives and other.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like if someone is in a shipwreck or a
Speaker 4: plane goes down, they often have the contents of the
Speaker 4: entire ship, right, But that doesn't mean they're not don't
Speaker 4: have to be extremely creative because they can't get out,
Speaker 4: and they have to take the tools they have and
Speaker 4: use them in every way possible to meet every one
Speaker 4: of their needs. Like to me, that didn't diminish her
Speaker 4: survival skills.
Speaker 3: At all, totally.
Speaker 2: I could have a well stocked kitchen and I would
Speaker 2: still die in the wilderness. Okay, So Bradley then offers
Speaker 2: to make Linda dinner the following night. Again, the vibes
Speaker 2: are unclear. You could read this as like, are they
Speaker 2: on a date?
Speaker 3: She's got a flower, she's got a flower in her hair,
Speaker 3: that's the that's alway.
Speaker 2: It seems like she thinks it's a date, that's all
Speaker 2: we know. But then she starts to feel very woozy
Speaker 2: and it turns out that he has poisoned her. And
Speaker 2: when she becomes incapacitated, he gets on a raft that
Speaker 2: he secretly built and tries to escape, but his raft
Speaker 2: almost immediately breaks apart, and then Linda, who is still alive,
Speaker 2: saves him, but she's also like barfing on his face
Speaker 2: from that was.
Speaker 3: Supporting big old Sam Raimie bar the worst scene.
Speaker 4: I couldn't I couldn't watch.
Speaker 2: It, but classic Sam Raymie. Yeah. And then and then
Speaker 2: the next day, to retaliate, she poisons him with an
Speaker 2: octopus that she had caught that contains like neurotoxins that
Speaker 2: paralyze him, and while he's unable to move, she pulls
Speaker 2: out her knife and acts like she's castrating him, but
Speaker 2: just kidding. She was slicing a dead rat. But she
Speaker 2: like threatens him that the next time to chop off his.
Speaker 3: Nuts, which is actually not true because the next time
Speaker 3: she has the opportunity to physically harm him, there's no
Speaker 3: bullets in the gun, So I just am like, let
Speaker 3: Linda kill this guy. Why are we putting all of
Speaker 3: these narrative ideas away? But and again, maybe this is
Speaker 3: just like a scene in this movie that I think
Speaker 3: is like pulled from almost like copy pasted from a
Speaker 3: better movie, which is like this is the scene from
Speaker 3: Hard Candy where Elliott Page says that Patrick Wilson is
Speaker 3: being castrated, but in fact that's not the case, and
Speaker 3: it is. I mean, it's super effective, but like this,
Speaker 3: I don't think Scent Help is doing anything really new
Speaker 3: with that scenario. Yeah, I don't know, maybeybe it's just
Speaker 3: as a Hard Candy head, I was like, hey, you can't,
Speaker 3: can't fucking do that?
Speaker 2: Do that? You can also and also just cut off
Speaker 2: his balls. He like poisoned you and was about to
Speaker 2: abandon you. Pop his stick off.
Speaker 3: There's this state between the two of them where it's
Speaker 3: like you get the feeling that she wants him to
Speaker 3: do better, or like wants to believe he's capable of better,
Speaker 3: but like there's no evidence to really support that. So
Speaker 3: I don't I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I'm
Speaker 3: just a sadist, and I think, like, but but if
Speaker 3: this movie is like supposed to be a like, like
Speaker 3: a woman who has been mistreated and ignored in her
Speaker 3: place of work getting the greatest revenge opportunity of all time,
Speaker 3: I think, I'm like, just let her have it, Let
Speaker 3: her do it. Why does she have to show him
Speaker 3: mercy this deep into the movie? But you know, cynically,
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, two men wrote it, so that's why.
Speaker 3: But who knows. I don't know. Yeah, I wish they'd
Speaker 3: just let her have it.
Speaker 2: I agree anyway. A little later, when Linda is off
Speaker 2: gathering fruits, another boat approaches with Bradley's fiancee Ury played
Speaker 2: by edel Ismail, who has been looking for Bradley this
Speaker 2: whole time, but not wanting to give up her position
Speaker 2: of power. Linda leads Zuri and the boat captain along
Speaker 2: the treacherous path on the cliff side where Linda almost
Speaker 2: fell and died earlier, and it seems like Zuri and
Speaker 2: the boat captain maybe also die, but we kind of
Speaker 2: cut away to Linda returning to the camp being very depressed,
Speaker 2: perhaps from the murders that she may or may not
Speaker 2: have just committed. She has a nightmare about it. And
Speaker 2: then the next day Bradley finds Zuri's body mostly buried
Speaker 2: in the sand, and so he confronts Linda about killing Zuri,
Speaker 2: and they start fighting, and they're strangling each other and
Speaker 2: they're ripping bits off of each other, and he pokes
Speaker 2: out Linda's eye and she stabs with her knife, and
Speaker 2: again more classic Samaraimi violence. And then Bradley escapes toward
Speaker 2: the part of the island with all of the poisoned
Speaker 2: vines and thorns, except just kidding, that's actually where this
Speaker 2: like luxury beach house is located, and he breaks in.
Speaker 2: Linda follows him inside and then gets on the intercom
Speaker 2: and reveals that she has been coming to this beach
Speaker 2: house for a while. This is where she got the knife.
Speaker 2: And then we also get a flashback here that confirms
Speaker 2: that she definitely murdered Zuri and the boat captain. So
Speaker 2: she's like gone off the rails. Basically, she finds Bradley
Speaker 2: pulls a gun on him. He begs for mercy and
Speaker 2: says that she's the most incredible person he's ever met.
Speaker 2: He wants to build a life together here on the
Speaker 2: island because he loves her, and she's like, exactly, let's
Speaker 2: do it. I love you too, but he was lying
Speaker 2: and he attacks her again, though she gets the upper
Speaker 2: hand and finally kills him with a golf club golf
Speaker 2: club to the head.
Speaker 3: Which is like, ooh, great, great writing moment, Wow, the
Speaker 3: instrument of her oppression. Yeah, men golfing.
Speaker 2: Yes, And then we smash cut to Linda golfing like
Speaker 2: a year later because she has been rescued and she's
Speaker 2: a celebrity now. She has turned her survival story into
Speaker 2: a best selling book that's being adapted into a movie.
Speaker 2: And then the movie Send Help ends with Linda breaking
Speaker 2: the fourth wall several times yeah, and saying something like
Speaker 2: no help is coming, so you have to learn how
Speaker 2: to help yourself. The end. And so let's take another
Speaker 2: quick break and we'll come back to discuss and we're back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Blair, I'm so curious what your impression of this
Speaker 3: movie is. What was on your mind as you were watching, Like,
Speaker 3: what was jumping out to you.
Speaker 4: I'm not a horror movie person, so I partly was
Speaker 4: just like, oh my god, I can't I can't handle
Speaker 4: like vomiting out. So much face, and I'm squeamish about
Speaker 4: that kind of thing, but I was very excited about
Speaker 4: the survival story, and I wanted to root for Linda Moore.
Speaker 4: Like that was very frustrating to me. I think I'm
Speaker 4: just too squeamish to like let go and just be
Speaker 4: like this is a revenge fantasy. And I was just like, like.
Speaker 5: I was almost rooting. Oh, I was almost rooting for Bradley.
Speaker 4: When he's like taking taking the raft off the island,
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't know, man, you're a prisoner, like
Speaker 4: you suck, but like that doesn't mean you deserve to
Speaker 4: be like kept prisoner, Like go be a shitty person
Speaker 4: somewhere somewhere else. I guess like I couldn't quite separate
Speaker 4: just watching it, like I had trouble separating her behavior,
Speaker 4: Like I just couldn't like I couldn't suspend this belief
Speaker 4: enough to like take her behavior as cathartic revenge and
Speaker 4: separate it from the fact that it just is like
Speaker 4: super abusive to trap someone on a desert island when
Speaker 4: they like might die of an infection.
Speaker 5: And so I wanted him.
Speaker 4: I was frustrated because I wanted him to be even
Speaker 4: more hateable and her to be even more likable, so
Speaker 4: that I could sort of let go and enjoy the
Speaker 4: revenge fantasy.
Speaker 3: What could I'm so curious, like what could have gotten
Speaker 3: you there? Because that makes total sense.
Speaker 5: I mean he's bad, He's very bad.
Speaker 4: Like I don't know, I don't know, Like it might
Speaker 4: just be like I.
Speaker 5: Was too literal and watching it.
Speaker 2: Maybe now I know what you mean. I tend to
Speaker 2: feel the same way where And I think this has
Speaker 2: to do with like some strange writing choices and like
Speaker 2: inconsistency with Linda's character, because she starts out as someone
Speaker 2: who obviously she's frustrated with being undermined and underappreciated at work,
Speaker 2: and all of these men are taking credit for her
Speaker 2: labor and just being awful to her, like mocking her
Speaker 2: for the way she looks and all this stuff, and
Speaker 2: so it's not hard to empathize with her initially and
Speaker 2: then even later on, like in the toward the middle
Speaker 2: of the story, there's a moment where it seems like
Speaker 2: Bradley is starting to realize that he is utterly dependent
Speaker 2: on her for survival and that that's something he needs
Speaker 2: to acknowledge and appreciate or at least he's saying that
Speaker 2: he does, whether or not he actually feels it.
Speaker 3: It's like he never fully does. But also like you're saying, Blair,
Speaker 3: that doesn't justify. I mean, it is like a fully
Speaker 3: mutually abusive dynamic that they're in, but she's the one
Speaker 3: with more power.
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, right, right.
Speaker 2: But there's this moment toward the middle where again Bradley
Speaker 2: is like, okay, like I do need this other person
Speaker 2: to survive for the time being. It's after that montage
Speaker 2: where he's like trying to build his own shelter and
Speaker 2: he is not very successful, so he kind of comes
Speaker 2: crawling back and asks if he can stay with her
Speaker 2: at her camp, and she responds with, well, that depends
Speaker 2: on like what you're willing to do or how far
Speaker 2: you're willing to go, implying that she's asking for sexual favors,
Speaker 2: which is a reference to earlier when they were still
Speaker 2: in the office when he was interviewing like a pretty
Speaker 2: young potential assistant and he asked her how far she
Speaker 2: was willing to go for him, again implying I'm expecting
Speaker 2: sexual favors from that young woman, and then Bradley starts
Speaker 2: to unbuckle his pants and then Linda is like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: I was just kidding, Like I would never do that,
Speaker 2: I'm not like you. So it feels like she has
Speaker 2: been established as someone who, even though she's undermined, she's underappreciated,
Speaker 2: and she resents that, which of course anyone would. She's
Speaker 2: not going to abuse the power that she has, at
Speaker 2: least in this capacity, but then she proceeds to like
Speaker 2: super changes. Yeah, she proceeds to start to abuse it
Speaker 2: pretty significantly, and then it gets really violent and she's
Speaker 2: killing people, She's killing Zuri and this bolt cap, and so, like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it just feels like her character is
Speaker 2: written to be like quite inconsistent and I could never
Speaker 2: really get a handle on what's going on with her.
Speaker 2: And then we get that reveal that she had maybe
Speaker 2: murdered her husband or at least allowed him to die
Speaker 2: or enabled him to die, and we also don't know
Speaker 2: if she's being honest about.
Speaker 3: That or I also think that the dynamic around Okay,
Speaker 3: I guess not to like go in too hard on
Speaker 3: the writers, but like, I do feel like especially in
Speaker 3: the like including dynamics of abuse and background of abuse,
Speaker 3: parental abuse and spousal abuse, on both, Like I think
Speaker 3: that the movie is just like not equipped to handle
Speaker 3: having introduced those topics because I think that like I
Speaker 3: think especially on Linda's end, where we are given like
Speaker 3: pretty specific detail on the fact that she was thoroughly
Speaker 3: abused by her husband who was an alcohol and I
Speaker 3: do feel like the way that it's written and that
Speaker 3: information is delivered, that it's delivered as if she is
Speaker 3: a murderer, which to be opens up this whole like
Speaker 3: that like this is the key to like, oh, she's
Speaker 3: quote unquote psycho. It would be quote unquote psycho to
Speaker 3: do that. And it's like, is that a morally amazing
Speaker 3: decision to make? No, but to me, mainly because drunk
Speaker 3: drivers hurt innocent people, right, But that that's more the
Speaker 3: issue from my standpoint than like this abuse like this
Speaker 3: happens all the time of someone who's been abused reaching
Speaker 3: a breaking point, and it's like from what we see
Speaker 3: in this movie. And and also just sort of like
Speaker 3: the other movies that these this para writers have written,
Speaker 3: they're at a Freddie versus Jason movie. They've written a
Speaker 3: lot of franchise movies. I just am not seeing much
Speaker 3: to go on that, like this is the writing team
Speaker 3: to try to put a spousal abuse plot point in
Speaker 3: late in the movie. And then and the fact that
Speaker 3: like shortly after that information is introduced, she goes off
Speaker 3: the deep end and that information is sort of all
Speaker 3: like mixed in. I felt like we were given like that.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's after that scene that the movie really starts to
Speaker 3: lose me because I think up until that point, we're
Speaker 3: given these stock characters and then kind of stripping away,
Speaker 3: like well, who are they really? What are their backgrounds?
Speaker 3: Like how is this power dynamic going to shift? But
Speaker 3: then it turns into something far more like conventional at
Speaker 3: the end, and it's like a conventional like I don't
Speaker 3: mind watching a woman go off the deep end and
Speaker 3: kill a bunch of people. Great, this is a movie
Speaker 3: I have watched many times and I will watch many
Speaker 3: more times. But like, I don't know, yeah, that was
Speaker 3: like that scene in particular. I think it's a good scene,
Speaker 3: but it just like quickly after that, it just don't
Speaker 3: think that the movie is able to like handle the
Speaker 3: intensity of the themes they're presenting. And then they're like
Speaker 3: she's actually cuckoo crazied now and she is like an
Speaker 3: unrepentant murderer, which I think is a very It's definitely
Speaker 3: a choice after learning that there was this, that she
Speaker 3: was abused, to then have her, you know, begin to
Speaker 3: act severely like less moral than she did before we
Speaker 3: knew she was abused. I just I don't know, it's interesting.
Speaker 4: It bugged me, yeah, and it I mean it made
Speaker 4: me think, like, are we even supposed to believe she
Speaker 4: was abused necessarily? Like are we supposed to think maybe
Speaker 4: she's lying about this to justify that she got mad
Speaker 4: and maybe or maybe didn't kill her husband like it.
Speaker 4: I wasn't even sure sort of within the world of
Speaker 4: the film, what whether we were supposed to believe it
Speaker 4: or not?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, because there's like that other moment in that
Speaker 3: scene too, where again I'm like, this is so interesting
Speaker 3: if only it were going anywhere where. Like Bradley is
Speaker 3: talking about how he was emotionally neglect and physically abused
Speaker 3: by his mother, and it sounds like emotionally neglected by
Speaker 3: both of his parents, but that he knew that his
Speaker 3: mother had been abused, and so he tried to not
Speaker 3: hold like quote unquote hold it against her too much,
Speaker 3: and then they have that like conversation that you're like,
Speaker 3: this is really interesting where she's like, oh, so that's why,
Speaker 3: like you feel okay about the fact that you're a
Speaker 3: monster because you come by it honestly, and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess that is how I feel, and like that's
Speaker 3: such an interesting conversation. But I don't know. Maybe I'm
Speaker 3: like over and underthinking it about like the consequences that
Speaker 3: that conversation has. I think it just like these two characters,
Speaker 3: it seems like they're punishing each other for having been
Speaker 3: vulnerable with one another, which is interesting, is like now
Speaker 3: you know my secret and so you must die. But
Speaker 3: it doesn't feel like that's exactly what's going on either.
Speaker 3: I guess I just don't know what's going on by
Speaker 3: the end, like where the characters are at emotionally. The
Speaker 3: back to back poisonings I found like kind of bizarre
Speaker 3: and frustrating because you're like, why are we accepting food
Speaker 3: from each other twenty four hours later?
Speaker 4: At what point do you just say, like, Noah, catch
Speaker 4: my own fish.
Speaker 3: Right, like she can hunt a bore. I don't think
Speaker 3: she needs his tapas, but whatever, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I also did find Linda a strong character to establish,
Speaker 3: but it just felt like the movie didn't know what
Speaker 3: to do with her by the end, which I feel like.
Speaker 3: I would love to talk about good for her endings
Speaker 3: in movies because we've covered a lot of them. They
Speaker 3: are not exclusively written by men. There are plenty of
Speaker 3: good for her endings to popular movies that some work
Speaker 3: for me, some don't. I think the maybe one of
Speaker 3: the more famous ones that does work for me is
Speaker 3: Gone Girl, right Like that's an iconic good for her
Speaker 3: ending Gillian flantcy genius. They're also good for her endings
Speaker 3: that do not work for me, like such as Promising
Speaker 3: Young Women Emerald Fanelle that and the ending to that
Speaker 3: movie is a fucking mess, But there is I feel like,
Speaker 3: and I'm like maybe being conspiratorial, but when men write
Speaker 3: this ending, it feels like they just didn't know how
Speaker 3: to end the movie in a more thoughtful way. Because
Speaker 3: we have and again, some work for me, some don't,
Speaker 3: but we have. I have like a list of them,
Speaker 3: and they're almost all by men. The Avich by Robert Eggers,
Speaker 3: Midsummar by Ari astor Ready or Not by I forget
Speaker 3: who it is, but it's a guy, there's Carrie Heathers,
Speaker 3: like the List of Knives out last night and so
Speaker 3: ho apparently I don't know that I did not see it,
Speaker 3: but I want to talk more about this on the Well,
Speaker 3: we talk about this on the show all the time,
Speaker 3: but like specifically when men are trying to write a
Speaker 3: story that is empowering to women, I feel like there's
Speaker 3: like a series of patterns that I noticed that I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: I don't know that that's what I don't It doesn't quite.
Speaker 3: It's just like a little uncanny valley the way it lands,
Speaker 3: and to me, the way that this movie just like
Speaker 3: cuts to and she's famous now and everything's fine and
Speaker 3: she's winking at the camera.
Speaker 2: She has her personality is completely different than it was.
Speaker 3: Right, It's like not putting off on the character we met.
Speaker 3: We're basically being told like you've been watching like a
Speaker 3: completely a moral person this entire movie, and now we're
Speaker 3: happy for her. But it's like, but part of what's
Speaker 3: so interesting about Linda is that she chooses to save Bradley.
Speaker 3: She has a question of like she wants to help.
Speaker 2: Several times, like yes, over and over, like three, four,
Speaker 2: five times, like it's yeah, it happens a bunch.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Is there ever a good for him ending?
Speaker 3: I feel like most every movie it doesn't.
Speaker 2: It doesn't feel framed that way though, because it's just like, well,
Speaker 2: of course, a man triumphing at the end of a movie.
Speaker 2: That's just how stories end, so it doesn't feel special
Speaker 2: or significance.
Speaker 3: I guess I'll clarify that when I say it good
Speaker 3: for her ending, I don't just mean a movie that
Speaker 3: ends well for a woman. It means that she has
Speaker 3: generally been responsible for someone's death, and then it ends
Speaker 3: on usually the same shot, which is her smiling at
Speaker 3: the camera being like, I did what I had to do.
Speaker 3: Poor things. This also happens like there's It is like
Speaker 3: very much something. I mean, it's always happened like it happens.
Speaker 3: It wasn't invented recently, but it happens in movies a lot,
Speaker 3: I think, especially post Me To. If you are a
Speaker 3: male auteur and you aren't quite sure what to do
Speaker 3: with your morally complicated female protagonist, this is how the
Speaker 3: movie tends to end, like, yeah, she's been responsible for
Speaker 3: someone's death or violence, and she ends with like a
Speaker 3: little smirk. We should have a we should make a
Speaker 3: super cut of this because it is like, truly stunning
Speaker 3: how many times it's happened in the last fifteen years.
Speaker 3: I don't think it is like net Bad or anything
Speaker 3: like that, but it is at this point. It's definitely like,
Speaker 3: if you're gonna do this at the end of your movie,
Speaker 3: you better have something new to say about it, I guess.
Speaker 3: And I just like this one doesn't really to me,
Speaker 3: and it feels out of step with It feels like
Speaker 3: it's pushing the ending of a different character onto Linda
Speaker 3: because I just don't buy this for Linda at all.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: The other thing that really flummixed me was basically the
Speaker 2: climax where they're in the luxury beach house about to
Speaker 2: kill each other, but then in an attempt to save
Speaker 2: his life because Linda has a gun pointed at him,
Speaker 2: Bradley makes this plea of like, no, no, no, no, Actually,
Speaker 2: you're so awesome. You've taught me so much. I don't
Speaker 2: want to go back to my old life. I want
Speaker 2: to stay here on this island with you because I
Speaker 2: love you. And for some reason she falls for that,
Speaker 2: and she's like, I love you too, and then a
Speaker 2: moment later, she realizes that he has like procured a
Speaker 2: weapon that he's hiding, and then he lunges at her
Speaker 2: with it, right, and then she finally kills him. But like,
Speaker 2: what the hell was that moment? I love you too,
Speaker 2: I believe you well.
Speaker 3: I don't know why she seems to be realizing in
Speaker 3: this moment that he would kill her without hesitation, because
Speaker 3: he has attempted to do so several times, but she
Speaker 3: seems so betrayed. I because she because I'm assuming she
Speaker 3: knows there's no bullets in the gun. I don't actually
Speaker 3: know if that's true now that I'm saying it out loud,
Speaker 3: But it seems like she, at least to be is
Speaker 3: like set up to be like she's just trying to
Speaker 3: scare him the same way that she only kills the rat.
Speaker 3: She doesn't actually she's not actually going to do something
Speaker 3: horrible to him. She just wants to freak him out.
Speaker 3: And then when she says, oh, he wouldn't have hesitated
Speaker 3: to shoot me, which going back to what you were saying, Blair,
Speaker 3: if we're viewing this as yeah, well he's her captive,
Speaker 3: like it wouldn't actually be out of pocket for him
Speaker 3: to do. She's quite dangerous, even if he is a
Speaker 3: piece of shit. At this point, like, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't know. I'm glad Linda makes it because I like
Speaker 3: tuna sandwiches and sometimes struggle in conversations at work.
Speaker 2: So well, that's the thing, Like I relate to her
Speaker 2: toward the beginning of the movie. By the end, I'm like, like,
Speaker 2: and maybe that's the point. I don't know. Maybe. And
Speaker 2: then to your point also, Blair, at the beginning of
Speaker 2: this episode, when you said, like, survival stories are either
Speaker 2: like you tame the wilderness or the wilderness makes you fair.
Speaker 2: And it seems as though the wilderness in this case
Speaker 2: has like any like violent impulses she may have, I've had.
Speaker 2: It seems like being on this island really brings out
Speaker 2: in her. Or was she like that already. We don't really,
Speaker 2: I don't know. But this ending where she's like, aw,
Speaker 2: you love me, I love you too, I feel like
Speaker 2: it's the movie the men who made this movie being like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: Like she's this lonely old spinster, or at least that's
Speaker 2: who she was in her previous life, so of course
Speaker 2: she's gonna embrace a good looking man who says that
Speaker 2: he loves her. Of course she's gonna like fall for that,
Speaker 2: regardless of how he has treated her in the past.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's exactly what the implication is,
Speaker 2: but like her doing this one eighty and being so
Speaker 2: gullible that feels like it comes out of nowhere, that
Speaker 2: it's like very inconsistent with her character, because yes, she
Speaker 2: is a bit gullible, but she's also not so naive
Speaker 2: that I feel like her in that moment would fall
Speaker 2: for what Bradley is saying.
Speaker 4: That just read to me as like her being unstable,
Speaker 4: which she sort of is established as being, Like, is
Speaker 4: she rational? I don't think she is acting rationally, not
Speaker 4: anymore right right, it's very unclear on whether I don't know, Like,
Speaker 4: to me, I'm just like, oh, she's not. She hasn't
Speaker 4: been thinking clearly for a while. Perhaps that was how
Speaker 4: I read that.
Speaker 3: I mean from the moment she sees the boat and
Speaker 3: chooses not to But again, I guess I read that
Speaker 3: as like I'm still with Linda in that moment, where yes,
Speaker 3: at that point, she is deciding to be keeping a
Speaker 3: prisoner versus you know, your more traditional survivalists.
Speaker 2: Set up.
Speaker 3: So that is like the moment where she sort of
Speaker 3: starts to But at that point, I feel like it
Speaker 3: still makes sense with who we met at the beginning
Speaker 3: of the movie, where she has been so demeaned, intentionally
Speaker 3: humiliated by this guy that I guess you're like I
Speaker 3: was I felt at the beginning. When she makes that decision,
Speaker 3: she's like, I'm just gonna ride this out a little
Speaker 3: bit longer, just a little bit longer until she can
Speaker 3: get the VP job secured, and then okay, I'll let
Speaker 3: them know, you know, I will pretend to come across
Speaker 3: this together. It still felt like it was a part
Speaker 3: of a larger like not admirable, but like a plan
Speaker 3: that didn't feel completely a morally like I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's still kind of at least made sense to me.
Speaker 3: It didn't seem like someone who was losing their mind.
Speaker 3: It just seemed like someone who was making a very calculated,
Speaker 3: cruel decision.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes sense actually now that I think, Like
Speaker 4: in the moment, I was just like, oh, she's sort
Speaker 4: of losing her mind. But now that I think about it,
Speaker 4: they have established her early on as someone who will
Speaker 4: sort of take any crumb that could possibly be interpreted
Speaker 4: as a romantic interest and just run with it despite
Speaker 4: all evidence to the contrary. Like she's like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: this guy, we totally had this like chemistry and flirtation
Speaker 4: at the you know, at the Christmas Day party, right,
Speaker 4: And it turns out he just like said hi to her,
Speaker 4: and she did that that thing of being like someone
Speaker 4: spoke to me civilly and therefore like they have a
Speaker 4: romantic interest in me, and so to me.
Speaker 5: Her believing when he says, you know, he wants.
Speaker 4: To make a life with her at the end is
Speaker 4: consistent with that part of her character that we met
Speaker 4: early on, where she's just sort of so like rationality
Speaker 4: goes to the side when she thinks that this particular
Speaker 4: person might possibly want to be with her.
Speaker 2: That is so fair, although I think it's still kind
Speaker 2: of like a misogynist writing choice where.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's like it's like a cheap trick, but
Speaker 4: it's it's one that's deployed multiple times.
Speaker 3: Right, Like the only way I feel like it gets
Speaker 3: out of making a misogynist writing choice there is if
Speaker 3: the person we meet at the beginning, who I think
Speaker 3: is falling into and because you have Rachel McAdams who
Speaker 3: is a genius playing her like Rachel McAdams, I feel
Speaker 3: like is doing a ultimately kind of poorly constructed character
Speaker 3: justice and like you really feel for her, but like
Speaker 3: on paper, I'm like, I see that guy's name. Damien
Speaker 3: and Mark wrote this character who as a woman who
Speaker 3: is middle aged single, and she is made out to
Speaker 3: be lonely coded, right, she's drinking too much, she's talking
Speaker 3: to her pet file pathetic, right, yeah, And so it's
Speaker 3: like they're already presenting her as like unstable and basically
Speaker 3: delusional as it pertains to how she communicates with men
Speaker 3: with her career. I think that this also weirdly, like
Speaker 3: the fact that she thinks that Dylan O'Brien is flirting
Speaker 3: with her, which also doesn't work when you're like, why
Speaker 3: is it so implausible that Dylan O'Brien would flirt with
Speaker 3: Rachel McAdams, But whatever.
Speaker 2: Like you're like, what, especially after the Island makes her
Speaker 2: so hot?
Speaker 3: I know, After the Magical Island makes her so fuckable,
Speaker 3: but like it's so it's so ridiculous, But also in
Speaker 3: the way that she approaches her career, like she's made
Speaker 3: to seem delusional that she would ever have an opportunity
Speaker 3: to get this job, and so it's like, Okay, we're
Speaker 3: presented with that stock character. So by the end, has
Speaker 3: this character been like has this stock character been meaningly subverted?
Speaker 3: And I think the answer is no, Like the answer
Speaker 3: at the end is like she's she's still like out
Speaker 3: of touch with reality, She's still delusional, and now it's
Speaker 3: just working out for her. Like there's some stuff in
Speaker 3: the middle that feels interesting. I think the fact that like, again,
Speaker 3: well going back to what we've been talking about the
Speaker 3: whole time, that Linda has a ton of agency, she
Speaker 3: has a ton of power. But I I don't think
Speaker 3: that it's really bringing anything new to what is like
Speaker 3: an unhinged, lonely woman character. At the end, she is
Speaker 3: like an amorl murderer. So I'm like, I know I've
Speaker 3: seen this one. I don't think that this is like
Speaker 3: a feminist revenge plot really, because the way that she
Speaker 3: ends up quote getting her revenge is like, I don't
Speaker 3: think she really does get revenge in the end, Like
Speaker 3: she ends up kind of killing him in self defense
Speaker 3: after imprisoning him. Like it's too messy to be a
Speaker 3: revenge story.
Speaker 2: Right, And then the quote unquote empowerment that she experiences
Speaker 2: at the end is like, Okay, now she's rich and
Speaker 2: famous because she exploited this story for personal gain in
Speaker 2: which she actively murdered several people and is obscuring that.
Speaker 2: And then she says to camera like, don't help any one,
Speaker 2: and no one's coming to help you. Be all by
Speaker 2: yourself and that's how you survive the end, And I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: that's not a good message to put out in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Also, isn't it strange that they sort of introduce her
Speaker 4: early on as sort of a mathematical savant to explain
Speaker 4: why she's really good at her job and then drop it,
Speaker 4: Like I was like, how is how is being a
Speaker 4: numbers savant gonna come to play on this desert island?
Speaker 5: But it almost just is sort.
Speaker 4: Of included as a way of explaining why she's so
Speaker 4: gifted at her job without giving her credit for it.
Speaker 5: Like it's not like she's.
Speaker 4: Dedicated and work hard, works hard and smart. It's like, oh,
Speaker 4: she she has this sort of savant skill that is
Speaker 4: almost a thing she's like born with, not a thing
Speaker 4: she puts effort into.
Speaker 5: And that's like, oh, she's so good at her job.
Speaker 4: But it's not even like because of choices she makes,
Speaker 4: like she just happens to be I don't know, it
Speaker 4: seems weirdly dismissive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's like not relevant to how this story
Speaker 3: ends up unfolding, Like, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 3: it's like her survival like hobby that brings all of
Speaker 3: her skills to it.
Speaker 2: Well, we're forgetting that she uses her her number skills
Speaker 2: to memorize a four digit number which is the code
Speaker 2: to the luxury beach house. So it does pay off.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, mass.
Speaker 4: The poff.
Speaker 3: That's I hadn't even connected that. Yeah, that's absolutely true,
Speaker 3: Like a lot of it, I don't know, like that's
Speaker 3: this I guess going back to like calling this a
Speaker 3: plane movie, I think we're thinking harder about This is
Speaker 3: the kind of movie we're thinking harder about than anyone
Speaker 3: who has ever watched it, including professional critics like but but,
Speaker 3: but I did see this movie talked about as a
Speaker 3: feminist revenge tale, and I see a lot of movies
Speaker 3: with this specific ending marketed as a feminist revenge tale.
Speaker 3: And I think we're throwing that around too loose. I
Speaker 3: think that it's just respectful to actual feminist revenge tales.
Speaker 3: I think this is like a fun movie, and I
Speaker 3: think Linda, even though she's inconsistent and I think falls
Speaker 3: into a lot of tropes, I still like like I
Speaker 3: like her character. I do, but I don't think that
Speaker 3: this falls into like feminist revenge cannon because I don't
Speaker 3: think she gets her revenge particularly feministly. And it is
Speaker 3: written in all these gender tropes by two guys, So.
Speaker 2: It feels to me like girl boss white feminism.
Speaker 3: Well, but that's the only setting that like male writers
Speaker 3: know how to write.
Speaker 2: It's not good for the most like these movies.
Speaker 3: For the most part, there's a few, there's like Boots Riley,
Speaker 3: but even he sometimes struggles with women.
Speaker 4: It's just this right to me, the tell that this
Speaker 4: is written by men attempting to sort of critique gender
Speaker 4: dynamics is the forms that the sexism takes very early on,
Speaker 4: which is so cartoonish. Yes, like the men in the
Speaker 4: office are literally saying.
Speaker 5: Let's go boys, and that took balls and in a way.
Speaker 4: Sort of diminishing office sexism into these like cartoonish statements.
Speaker 5: I feel like it's a way of letting men off
Speaker 5: the hook.
Speaker 4: Like then then people can be like, I would never
Speaker 4: say I know better than to say that took balls
Speaker 4: to a woman in an office, so therefore I can't
Speaker 4: be sexist or I can't be treating women differently than
Speaker 4: men because I wouldn't use that language. And it also
Speaker 4: just I feel like the sexism I see and I
Speaker 4: hear about from women is never like, ah, someone said
Speaker 4: that took balls. It's like much more nuanced and systemic
Speaker 4: and insidious.
Speaker 3: And protracted too.
Speaker 2: Right, the moment where Donovan steals her report that she
Speaker 2: worked so hard on and then passes it off as
Speaker 2: his work, is like, I'm not saying that hasn't happened
Speaker 2: before throughout history, but it has become such a trope
Speaker 2: at this point that it's like it seems like it
Speaker 2: was the only thing that the writers could think of
Speaker 2: to demonstrate. Look how sexist this office environment is that
Speaker 2: Linda has to put up with.
Speaker 3: Well, it reminds me of It's like the Stock character
Speaker 3: we refer to, and I'm surprised it hasn't come up
Speaker 3: on this episode already. But the patriarchy, the guy Stock character,
Speaker 3: which is who Bradley is. He is patriarchy the guy,
Speaker 3: which can be fun if like meaningfully subverted, but like
Speaker 3: what doing that offers to male writers is a way
Speaker 3: of ignoring what you're describing Blair, like how sexism affects
Speaker 3: people in the workplace in really specific situations, and there
Speaker 3: is this feeling around it of like, well, I can't
Speaker 3: be sexist because I don't use the top ten sexist
Speaker 3: catchphrases that you see in movies right where it's yeah,
Speaker 3: I think another case of this movie biting off more
Speaker 3: than it can chew because we are given like some
Speaker 3: insight into Bradley, and Bradley is a prisoner, but the
Speaker 3: movie doesn't really know what to do with all of
Speaker 3: these things being true at once. It certainly doesn't know
Speaker 3: what to do with Zuri, which is like something that
Speaker 3: just feels worth mentioning that, like because we have basically
Speaker 3: a twohunder with two white characters, that our only black
Speaker 3: character with any screen time is brutally murdered. Not awesome,
Speaker 3: but also that like they don't know what to do
Speaker 3: with Zuri as a character period. She is like fiance
Speaker 3: dot jpeg, Like there is nothing to her other than
Speaker 3: I love Bradley, Like where's Bradley, Where's Bradley?
Speaker 4: Say?
Speaker 3: Oh no, those are the three things she does in
Speaker 3: the movie. I love Bradley. Where's Bradley? Ah, that's what
Speaker 3: she does.
Speaker 2: And it's just like.
Speaker 3: There are opportunities to show more nuance with the gender
Speaker 3: dynamics in this movie that it just feels like kind
Speaker 3: of perhaps a skill issue. And also like when you
Speaker 3: have Sam Raimi jump scares and like all this, like
Speaker 3: if you have someone who's like a really fun director
Speaker 3: making the world interesting to watch, like it's maybe easier
Speaker 3: to get away with. But yeah, as far as like
Speaker 3: classifying this as a feminist revenge tale, it's just too
Speaker 3: much of a mess and not it's not saying really
Speaker 3: anything Like I again, I'm so cool with a woman
Speaker 3: being unhinged at the end, Like there are feminist movies
Speaker 3: that end with a woman being unhinged. Yeah, this is
Speaker 3: just simply not one of them. I don't think.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean speaking to the Sam Raimi of it all,
Speaker 2: because his style is so distinct and because his movies
Speaker 2: are as are often very heightened, like I can excuse
Speaker 2: a series of stock characters or even like stock tropy,
Speaker 2: sexism or just like kind of tropes in general in
Speaker 2: something so stylized and heightened because that almost seems like
Speaker 2: an intentional part of the style. But like to your point, Jamie,
Speaker 2: I feel like it needs to then eventually be subverted
Speaker 2: or more nuanced, has to be sprinkled in, or something
Speaker 2: else needs to happen where there's active commentary or something.
Speaker 2: There is a moment where and let me know what
Speaker 2: you both think of this, where it's the scene where
Speaker 2: Linda poisons Bradley and pretends like she's castrating him, And
Speaker 2: while she's doing that, she's giving this monologue where she says,
Speaker 2: you know, I know how hard this must be for you,
Speaker 2: not being in control. You're not used to being in
Speaker 2: this shall we say submissive position. I mean, it's natural
Speaker 2: for you to not be able to take orders from me,
Speaker 2: to have to depend on me for your survival. It's
Speaker 2: just natural. It's your biology. And I wasn't sure what
Speaker 2: she meant by that, because is she talking about gender
Speaker 2: in the sense that.
Speaker 3: Like talking about like NEPO, right is? I think because
Speaker 3: and again this is like a very binary gender approach
Speaker 3: to take, but I also think that this movie has
Speaker 3: a very binary approach to gender. I think she's talking
Speaker 3: about gender because she's allegedly cutting his dick.
Speaker 2: Off, right, because she's because if she is talking about gender,
Speaker 2: it seems like she's referring to the fact that like
Speaker 2: men tend to assume more dominant roles in society and
Speaker 2: women tend to assume more submissive roles. But that's not biology,
Speaker 2: that's socialization. But she's labeling it as biology. So that's
Speaker 2: why I wasn't I wasn't sure what she meant, because
Speaker 2: she could be talking about his parents, especially his dad,
Speaker 2: who was this big, powerful boss man who was used
Speaker 2: to being in a position of power, because so much
Speaker 2: of this movie is about power and shifting power and
Speaker 2: abusing power. But yeah, I didn't know what she was
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 3: I think I think again this is this is like
Speaker 3: tied into and I'm specifically talking about I think the
Speaker 3: men's version of a good for her ending that this
Speaker 3: is just a feature, right, Like it's you make you
Speaker 3: do a monologue and then you and you break the
Speaker 3: fourth wall at the end, and like this it almost
Speaker 3: just feels like a way to end a movie versus
Speaker 3: like the way this movie should have ended. It feels
Speaker 3: very like shoehorned in and it's it's like, yeah, that
Speaker 3: speech to be felt just again out of step with
Speaker 3: out of step with who she's and at the end,
Speaker 3: I think ending on such a clear like yay Linda,
Speaker 3: like I want to be on board, but we know
Speaker 3: too much. We know too much to just be like
Speaker 3: yay Linda. We have too much information and the dynamic
Speaker 3: is too complicated, and it feels like it's like undercutting
Speaker 3: both characters to end the movie in that binary of
Speaker 3: a way.
Speaker 2: It feels like it's intentional that she ends up being
Speaker 2: not especially sympathetic or empathetic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is fine. She hasn't just to be sympathetic,
Speaker 3: but it.
Speaker 2: Does it does make the end harder for me to digest.
Speaker 2: Fun fact, so this script was being knocked around since
Speaker 2: I think, like twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: That would make sense. That's when every movie ended with
Speaker 3: a good for her smirks.
Speaker 2: True, it didn't start to enter more of a significant
Speaker 2: like pre production period until several years later, and then
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four is when Rachel mcadam's was brought
Speaker 2: on board and she was like entering negotiations to be
Speaker 2: the star of the movie, and Sam Raimi specifically wanted
Speaker 2: her for the role because he had worked with her
Speaker 2: previously in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, of course,
Speaker 2: but he considered her character to be underutilized.
Speaker 3: In I don't even remember that she was in that movie,
Speaker 3: and I thought.
Speaker 2: She, I guess barely is. And it's like, Okay, well, Sam,
Speaker 2: you directed that movie. So whose fault is.
Speaker 3: It that she was unialized?
Speaker 4: Fair?
Speaker 3: But I also think probably Marvel. I feel I feel
Speaker 3: like the creative person involved in it a franchise movie,
Speaker 3: has any agency over what happened.
Speaker 2: This is true, but that's why he was like, I
Speaker 2: want to showcase her talent more in a in a
Speaker 2: different project where she can be the star.
Speaker 3: Right, which he did do. And so yeah, and I
Speaker 3: think it makes sense for Rachel mccadams if she has
Speaker 3: tried to, Like she doesn't often play characters like this.
Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever seen her in a horror movie,
Speaker 3: or at least not in the last decade. Like it all,
Speaker 3: like Rachel McAdams is. She's just so good. She's one
Speaker 3: of our best. I feel like she should have won
Speaker 3: an Oscar for being in Are You There?
Speaker 4: God?
Speaker 3: It to me, Margaret, she's so good in it. She
Speaker 3: could do so much. I just think that, yeah, like
Speaker 3: it has nothing to do with the characters, and I
Speaker 3: don't even really think has very much to do with
Speaker 3: the direction. It's just like the way that the character
Speaker 3: is written is just such a is so disjointed and messy,
Speaker 3: and yeah, I don't know, Yeah, is there other stuff?
Speaker 3: Was there anything else that you'll wanted to get into.
Speaker 2: I think it's worth mentioning that these types of survival
Speaker 2: stories are almost always told through a very Western lens,
Speaker 2: because so much of Western culture has been kind of
Speaker 2: built around removing humans from nature, whereas indigenous cultures are
Speaker 2: all about having a symbiotic relationship with nature and being
Speaker 2: stewards of the land. So a story like this is
Speaker 2: just like, to me, so obviously like western kind of
Speaker 2: imperial vibes, because it's like, well, you wouldn't even have
Speaker 2: to try so hard to survive in a situation like
Speaker 2: this if you hadn't been so significantly removed from nature
Speaker 2: to begin with, kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, that's definitely, that's definitely the case in terms
Speaker 4: of like people from cultures that live close to the
Speaker 4: land don't experience being trapped in the wilderness as a
Speaker 4: survival situation. In the same way, it can be more
Speaker 4: like like if someone lives a subsistence lifestyle and they
Speaker 4: I don't know, something happens with their boat and they're
Speaker 4: stuck on an island for a while, or there's a storm,
Speaker 4: they're stuck out on a hunting trip or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Like that is almost the equivalent of like, oh, man,
Speaker 4: I went into the city and I like missed the
Speaker 4: last bus home, right, and you know, it's an annoying maybe,
Speaker 4: but it's not. It's not life or death. In the
Speaker 4: same way, it's like, oh, I had to do something
Speaker 4: else or be creative or sleep in a place I
Speaker 4: would rather not have slept if I had caught the bus, right.
Speaker 4: And that's not universal in every culture, of course. For sure,
Speaker 4: it's definitely a pattern in terms of, you know, the
Speaker 4: closer side, the more wilderness is part of your everyday life,
Speaker 4: the less of an emergency it is to be stuck
Speaker 4: in it.
Speaker 3: For sure, I guess this is if this is like
Speaker 3: to putting you on the spot, please feel free to disregard.
Speaker 3: But if because this is like so rare to see
Speaker 3: women in a survivalist plot, is there something that you
Speaker 3: would like to see? Is there like anything that sticks
Speaker 3: out is like, well, why the hell isn't there a
Speaker 3: movie about this person dynamic situation or I don't know.
Speaker 4: That's a really good question. I want to see more
Speaker 4: stories about girls in survival. I'm writing a book actually
Speaker 4: right now that's like a middle grade book about a
Speaker 4: girl who's lost in the woods with her dog, just
Speaker 4: because that's like that, I want it to exist.
Speaker 3: Look up Baby Island.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I think like fiction and nonfiction are different,
Speaker 4: right in terms of how these stories are told. So
Speaker 4: in nonfiction, it's always interesting to see sort of how
Speaker 4: women handle these situations, and women are often I think
Speaker 4: there's a presumption that women in a wilderness survival situation
Speaker 4: are less capable than men, and that often is not
Speaker 4: the case when it actually plays out in real life,
Speaker 4: and you will see like women surviving where men don't,
Speaker 4: or women trying to survive where men might, I don't know,
Speaker 4: immediately decide that they should just kill themselves to save
Speaker 4: themselves suffering, whereas women will sort of fight fight for longer.
Speaker 4: And that's obviously on a very case by case basis,
Speaker 4: but I think that in fictional stories you will see
Speaker 4: a lot more assumptions coming into play, where like a
Speaker 4: woman in a survival situation is sort of becoming more
Speaker 4: quote unquote manly in order to survive, and that is
Speaker 4: not necessarily the case. One of my one of my
Speaker 4: favorite survival stories is about Maurice and Marilyn Bailey, and
Speaker 4: there's an incredible book about them that came out recently
Speaker 4: called A Marriage at Sea, and this couple are stranded
Speaker 4: on a lifeboat for months and Maurice just immediately is
Speaker 4: like throwing in the towel like time to commit suicide,
Speaker 4: and Marilyn sort of saves them both. And also while
Speaker 4: she's doing it, is like sketching dresses she wants to
Speaker 4: sew in her notebook for when she gets home and
Speaker 4: planning dinner party she's gonna wear.
Speaker 3: Them at and then are so awesome.
Speaker 4: And it's these things that would be seen as dichotomus,
Speaker 4: like that being so sort of stereotypically feminine, while she's
Speaker 4: also like harnessing sea turtles to pull them through the
Speaker 4: ocean to try to like go against the current toward
Speaker 4: the land.
Speaker 5: Like the truth is that femininity is not at odds.
Speaker 4: With survival and it's not less tough, and that is
Speaker 4: a truth that is very hard to hold in fiction.
Speaker 4: For people. But it's a really interesting pattern that I
Speaker 4: see playing out, and I would love to see more
Speaker 4: of that reflected, sort of like skills that are seen
Speaker 4: as traditionally female being respected for the survival skills that
Speaker 4: they are as opposed to seeming beside the point or irrelevant, right,
Speaker 4: you know the idea that like women will get on
Speaker 4: a desert island be like I broken nail, you know,
Speaker 4: like those sort of tropes, or they like become masculine
Speaker 4: and that's how they're like becoming tough, Whereas in real
Speaker 4: life what you see is like, obviously not every woman
Speaker 4: is feminine, but like a woman who is feminine that
Speaker 4: is not in conflict with her being a really badass
Speaker 4: survivor and it can even sort of augment her skills.
Speaker 4: And I think that's like a really interesting thing I
Speaker 4: never see portrayed in stories.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that like femininity is not disqualifying to survive and
Speaker 3: can be an asset.
Speaker 5: Yeah exactly, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Well, someday, someday, you know, women will be allowed to
Speaker 3: write a movie and maybe we'll see it.
Speaker 2: I'm fingers crossed.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited for your ya book.
Speaker 4: That's incredible, Thank you, thank you that one.
Speaker 2: That one.
Speaker 4: I've been wanting to do that.
Speaker 3: For a while, absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2: Well does the movie pass the Bechdel test?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: I think on it. You could argue on a technicality,
Speaker 3: but I'm not really inclined to give it to it.
Speaker 3: But what do you think, Caitlin, Well.
Speaker 2: Okay, there's a there's a moment where Linda talks to
Speaker 2: her colleague in the office who's a woman, but they
Speaker 2: mostly talk about that guy Donovan, So that one I
Speaker 2: don't think count does she have a name? If so,
Speaker 2: we barely learn it, So let's say no to that.
Speaker 2: Linda does talk to Zuri, but I think pretty exclusively.
Speaker 2: And then Linda talks to that woman journalist at the
Speaker 2: very end who's interviewing.
Speaker 3: What I had marked as like what she I guess
Speaker 3: there might be what I'll open up for a possibility
Speaker 3: is there might be a one pass in Zuri and
Speaker 3: Linda talking the second time where she's like, oh, is
Speaker 3: it just just you? But the subtext to that conversation,
Speaker 3: I would still say, the subtext to that conversation is
Speaker 3: very much Bradley.
Speaker 2: It's where's Bradley?
Speaker 3: Yeah, where's Bradley? Ah? Yeah. So even if there's a
Speaker 3: tech I'm sure it passest a technicality somewhere, but spiritually
Speaker 3: I would say nor agree.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think it does.
Speaker 2: But what about the Bechdel cast nipple scale, where we
Speaker 2: rate the movie based on a scale of zero to
Speaker 2: five nipples. Examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens,
Speaker 2: I feel like maybe a two for this one, two
Speaker 2: two and a half. I do appreciate that it is
Speaker 2: a survival story about a woman and showcasing a woman's
Speaker 2: ability to survive and her skills that she has developed.
Speaker 2: I think that's cool, and I wish there were more
Speaker 2: stories with that basic premise. I think the movie starts
Speaker 2: to explore potentially interesting things about shifting power dynamics and
Speaker 2: abuse of power regardless of the gender of the person
Speaker 2: who holds the power. But the movie, again, as we've discussed,
Speaker 2: just like Still Employees sexist tropes, so I'm not as
Speaker 2: inclined to find it that interesting. Yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 2: two and a half and I'll give one to Rachel McAdams,
Speaker 2: one to Edel who plays Zuri, and my half nipple
Speaker 2: will go to the bore. Wow, that boar did nothing wrong.
Speaker 3: I'll go to it and a half as well. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think that this movie is fun. It is like
Speaker 3: not setting back feminism, but it's not really it's I
Speaker 3: would say it is. It is not doing anything for
Speaker 3: it either. It is kind of which is why I'm
Speaker 3: giving it a basically neutral score. I like Linda as
Speaker 3: a character, and I feel like ultimately the way that
Speaker 3: she's characterized kind of loses its way in a way
Speaker 3: that I wish it hadn't. But great performance from Rachel McAdams,
Speaker 3: and yeah, I think that's all I have to say.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna go two and a half nipples given
Speaker 3: wonder Linda, Wonder Rachel, and half to my favorite character
Speaker 3: from Lost, John Locke.
Speaker 2: Of course. Yeah, Blair, how about you.
Speaker 4: I was also independently thinking two to two and a
Speaker 4: half stars, but I think you're You're right. There's some
Speaker 4: things that's doing right, Like she has more survival skills
Speaker 4: than him.
Speaker 5: So I'll do two and a half.
Speaker 4: I'll do the higher end of that scale. And I
Speaker 4: am giving I think, all of my nipples to the
Speaker 4: fact that this island has no bugs, because this island
Speaker 4: would be so full of sandflies and fleas and mosquitoes,
Speaker 4: and like everyone would just be ab look at have
Speaker 4: like skin that looks like it's raw bumps constantly all
Speaker 4: the time, and I appreciate it that that wasn't part
Speaker 4: of the film.
Speaker 5: And it also seems like an island I want to
Speaker 5: go to for that reason.
Speaker 3: So totally let it where it is due. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: apparently it is a destination. There is a mansion there,
Speaker 3: so maybe that's why they built the freaky mansion. It's
Speaker 3: because of the buglass island.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm thinking, how did they get rid of the
Speaker 4: bugs for.
Speaker 2: The filming pesticides? The billionaire who owns the house probably
Speaker 2: just dumped a bunch of pesticides all over the island.
Speaker 4: You know what, maybe there are secret tropical places without bugs,
Speaker 4: but it's only owned by billionaires. They've snapped them up
Speaker 4: and that's why the rest of us don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, could be brutal in any case, Blair, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us for this discussion. Thank
Speaker 2: you for having me come back any time. I would
Speaker 2: love to tell us where people can follow your work,
Speaker 2: listen to your podcast, read your books, etc.
Speaker 5: So I'm the author of a couple different books.
Speaker 4: Most relevant to the topics here probably is the novel
Speaker 4: Small Game, which is about a survival reality show where
Speaker 4: the crew disappears and the survivors have to actually survive
Speaker 4: and figure out where that line is between choosing to
Speaker 4: partake in a survival game and actually being in a
Speaker 4: survival situation.
Speaker 5: And you know, the women do great in that story.
Speaker 4: And more relevantly perhaps is that I'm now hosting a
Speaker 4: podcast called What to Carry, What to Burn, and in
Speaker 4: each episode, I tell a true survival story and they're
Speaker 4: really interesting. I really loved researching them, and I was
Speaker 4: thinking about them a lot with this film, like there's
Speaker 4: you know, like an example would be this island that
Speaker 4: two shipwrecks happened on at the same time, and one
Speaker 4: of the shipwrecks the people all work together and they
Speaker 4: ended up like building society from scratch and then building
Speaker 4: a ship and sailing away to safety after several years,
Speaker 4: and every single person lived and the other shipwreck on
Speaker 4: the same island at the same time. Everyone was very
Speaker 4: stuck in their roles, like the captain of the ship
Speaker 4: was like I'm the captain, and they tried to be
Speaker 4: very hierarchical, and it immediately devolved into everyone hunting each
Speaker 4: other for cannibalism woo. So I think these stories are
Speaker 4: very interesting if you are interested in them. Also, come
Speaker 4: on over to What to Carry, What to Burn?
Speaker 2: Totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, gosh, oh Clair, you're the coolest. Thank you so
Speaker 3: much for coving on this show.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, thank you you're the best cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: You can find us in all the regular places, mostly
Speaker 3: Instagram at Patreon aka Matreon, where every month, uh, we
Speaker 3: cover a very specific topic of ours. Are your choosing
Speaker 3: this this month? It's it's me because it's my birthday month,
Speaker 3: and so we're covering a Minions movie. And if you
Speaker 3: don't like it, please don't unsubscribe. It is the best
Speaker 3: way to support the show and we need you to
Speaker 3: so badly.
Speaker 2: You never who knows how to survive the Dominions Dominions?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think the Minions are spreading the idea
Speaker 3: that men are inherently survived, like the survived. There's no
Speaker 3: women Minions until my Minion movie and then things change. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And also Minions they're cheating because they can't die, so
Speaker 3: I think that they would actually die if they could,
Speaker 3: but they can so they don't. That's glad for that.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad for that. I don't think I'd be
Speaker 3: able to handle a.
Speaker 2: Dead Menion Kevin Laimon, may he live forever and ever.
Speaker 3: I don't think we have a say.
Speaker 2: We don't have a choice.
Speaker 3: He can't die, and and thank and thank Minion God
Speaker 3: for that. All right, Well with that, let's go take
Speaker 3: our bird and good for hers all all the way
Speaker 3: down the island.
Speaker 2: Yeah, bye, bye bye.
Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
Speaker 3: produced by Me Jamie Loftus and.
Speaker 2: Me Caitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann.
Speaker 3: And edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them?
Speaker 2: That's me? And our logo and merch and all of
Speaker 2: our artwork, in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever
Speaker 2: heard of her?
Speaker 3: Oh my God? And our theme song, by the way,
Speaker 3: was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.
Speaker 3: Iconic and especial thanks to the one and only Aristotle Ascevedo.
Speaker 2: For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
Speaker 2: Spectelcast