Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
Speaker 1: in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zeph and Best
Speaker 1: start changing with the Bechdel.
Speaker 2: Cast, Game Match Point, Love Tennis podcast, fucking touching fingers, Oh,
Speaker 2: sweaty hugs.
Speaker 3: What do you think Tashi majored in? I was wondering
Speaker 3: that what did Tashi major in? Because okay, sorry for
Speaker 3: just starting the episode. I just I can't stop thinking
Speaker 3: about what was Tashi majoring in. Was it genuinely an
Speaker 3: athlete style journey where she was doing general studies? Or
Speaker 3: my guess, I feel like Tashi is she a woman
Speaker 3: in stem? Is she?
Speaker 2: I think she was a psych major?
Speaker 3: I was gonna guess anthropology, Okay, something like that. I
Speaker 3: don't know. Well, wait, let's start the episode. Okay, this
Speaker 3: is I I have true clearly cannot wait to start
Speaker 3: talking about challengers. Welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name's
Speaker 3: Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Deonte. 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, Jamie, what
Speaker 2: the heck is that test? Well?
Speaker 3: The Bechtel test is a media metric created by friend
Speaker 3: of the show queer icon Alison Bechdel, originally for her
Speaker 3: comic collections to watch out for Our way back in
Speaker 3: the eighties as a one off joke, as a way
Speaker 3: of discussing something that is relevant to our conversation today,
Speaker 3: why there was not more queer women depicted in movies,
Speaker 3: and has since been you know, sort of transformed into
Speaker 3: a more generalized media metric. So our version of the
Speaker 3: test is it requires that two characters of a marginalized
Speaker 3: gender with names speak to each other about something other
Speaker 3: than a man for more than two lines of dialogue,
Speaker 3: and the dialogue should mean something.
Speaker 2: We think so, we think so, and.
Speaker 3: What that means to you? Look, we only have one life.
Speaker 3: I once had the dog in me to argue about
Speaker 3: the pedantics of the Bechdel Test, But frankly, we've got
Speaker 3: bigger fish to fry today because we have.
Speaker 2: Got bigger balls to hit with a racket, We've got
Speaker 2: bigger tennis balls to hit.
Speaker 3: I will say I watched Challengers with my dog bravely,
Speaker 3: and he was locked in and I was like, Wow,
Speaker 3: he doesn't usually sit for movies, and it's because there's
Speaker 3: tennis balls everywhere. I was, literally honest, like, why is
Speaker 3: Sunny so into this movie? And it's because there's tennis
Speaker 3: balls in almost every scene and that's his past a dog.
Speaker 3: He is a dog.
Speaker 2: Wow, makes so much sense.
Speaker 3: But yes, we have an incredible returning guest, so let's
Speaker 3: get her in here.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: Yes, she's a video essayist. You remember her from our
Speaker 2: episodes on Wild Things, Space Jam Gone Girl. It's Princess Weeks.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Speaker 4: Everyone, I'm so happy to be back. And I think
Speaker 4: Tashi was a marketing major.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because we do see her do marketing me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally makes sense. I do feel like Tashi was
Speaker 3: taking college. Seriously, we just didn't get to see it
Speaker 3: happening exactly.
Speaker 2: The movie was not interested in that. It was like,
Speaker 2: what if she is a tennis dom Yes, and that's
Speaker 2: what the movie's about.
Speaker 3: Thank god, And that is a compelling question.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Princess, tell us what your relationship with this
Speaker 2: movie is.
Speaker 4: Wow. I mean I just was so excited to see
Speaker 4: Zendaya in a movie that had nothing to do with
Speaker 4: anyone from Euphoria. That was initially the big draw, and
Speaker 4: I grew up loving tennis. You know, I think every woman,
Speaker 4: but especially every black girl grew up just loving the
Speaker 4: Savina and Venus Williams, and so I have a lot
Speaker 4: of just love for watching you know, black women in tennis,
Speaker 4: and then you know the hint of bisexual men. It's
Speaker 4: a siren song that'll get me every time. We didn't
Speaker 4: know we were gonna have heated rivalry. So I was
Speaker 4: just very much invested in, like, finally, after this sexless
Speaker 4: drought that we were dealing with, with contemporary films that
Speaker 4: actually have something that was erotic and interesting and like
Speaker 4: for adults specifically, And so it just was this moment
Speaker 4: of like, oh my god, an adult movie starring Zenda
Speaker 4: that got pushed back during the pandemic. We're here, We're
Speaker 4: back cinemas. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like Challengers walked so that heated rivalry could run.
Speaker 3: It's true. It's true. Yeah, Challengers could kiss, so heated
Speaker 3: rivalry could absolutely raw.
Speaker 4: Fuck Thank god for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jamie, what about you? What's your relationship with Challengers?
Speaker 3: I really like it. I really like it. I saw
Speaker 3: it in theaters in Boston when it first came out.
Speaker 3: Which was kind of fun because a lot of this
Speaker 3: movie is shot in Boston. Yeah, this was a movie
Speaker 3: that from the second I saw the trailer, which I'm
Speaker 3: very excited to talk about, and I was reminded of
Speaker 3: because of Princess's wonderful video essay about Challengers and about
Speaker 3: Tashi Duncan.
Speaker 2: She's and yours sort.
Speaker 4: Of like is she?
Speaker 3: But from the second I saw the trailer, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: this is I'm in. I'm a horny. This was a
Speaker 3: trip where I think I saw both Love Lives Bleeding
Speaker 3: and Challengers.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, which are That's a horny day.
Speaker 3: It was a horny, horny time for me. I was
Speaker 3: looking to escape and there were horny movies out. It
Speaker 3: was great. And I feel like these two movies are
Speaker 3: weirdly in conversation with each other in a way I'm
Speaker 3: excited to talk about. Anyways, I love Challengers. We'll be
Speaker 3: talking about it critically today.
Speaker 2: But man, I turned this movie.
Speaker 3: On and I've blackout.
Speaker 2: I'm fucked up.
Speaker 3: I get horny. And that shot of Zendia watching the
Speaker 3: boys kiss oh really goals a generational a generational image.
Speaker 2: I'm very excited to talk about it.
Speaker 3: Also, I didn't know shit about tennis really outside of
Speaker 3: watching Venus and Serena growing up until like two days
Speaker 3: ago when I started getting ready for this episode, also
Speaker 3: thanks in part to Princess's video, So I'm very excited
Speaker 3: to live, laugh, Learn, Kitlin, what about you.
Speaker 2: I also saw this movie in theaters in Oxford, England,
Speaker 2: because I was there during the Shrektannic tour that Jamie
Speaker 2: you tragically were not able to join me for.
Speaker 3: I was in Boston witnessing death and seeing Horney movies
Speaker 3: and see and those are sort of the two things
Speaker 3: I was doing at that time, the.
Speaker 2: Spectrum of life exactly, and so I just had sort
Speaker 2: of like a free day that I didn't really have
Speaker 2: anything else going on, and everyone was talking about Challengers.
Speaker 2: So I went to go see it and I enjoyed
Speaker 2: it a lot. I love the soundtrack, the score like
Speaker 2: the music does a lot. I remember thinking that it
Speaker 2: ended too abruptly and I wanted I kind of wish
Speaker 2: the movie had the guts to like put them into
Speaker 2: a throttle at the end or something, and I'll talk
Speaker 2: more about that, but overall, I enjoyed it. This is
Speaker 2: one of those movies where so sometimes when we watch
Speaker 2: a movie for this podcast, and I'm prepping, and after
Speaker 2: my first watch, I have pages and pages of notes
Speaker 2: because it's such a cut and dry, like problematic things
Speaker 2: that are very clear, and I have a lot to
Speaker 2: say that is like exactly what you would expect us
Speaker 2: to say on the podcast. And then there were other
Speaker 2: movies where I've done my first watch and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know what to make of this.
Speaker 3: That's how you know he got a good one on
Speaker 3: our hand?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this was this movie. And then so I
Speaker 2: had that experience where I watched the whole movie and
Speaker 2: then I looked at my notes and I had not
Speaker 2: written a single thing down. And I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: you were too horny. I was too horny. You're shaking
Speaker 2: vibrating with horniness. And then I went out last night
Speaker 2: with a friend. We got some drinks, we danced. I
Speaker 2: haven't danced in ages, and I forgot how to fun
Speaker 2: dancing is Wait, where'd you go this bar in? I
Speaker 2: think I was in Cypr's park called Footsies.
Speaker 3: Oh Footsies is so fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow. I came home. I was tipsy. I was like,
Speaker 2: I know exactly what I'm gonna say now, it was
Speaker 2: just I just had to kind of loosen up, I think,
Speaker 2: and now I have so many thoughts.
Speaker 3: So this is a fascinating, Like you can watch this
Speaker 3: movie with your brain fully on or your brain fully off,
Speaker 3: and I feel like it's a good experience either way.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's here's the hilarious thing. I was gonna say,
Speaker 2: it's kind of you know, this movie is challenging. I
Speaker 2: was to discuss I was challenged. I felt challenged by
Speaker 2: this one.
Speaker 3: And I also like the deep lore of this movie
Speaker 3: is so fascinating in a very parasocial way. I'm so
Speaker 3: curious about Selene's Song and Justin Kuritzky's as a couple,
Speaker 3: Like what is going on with those two? Because this
Speaker 3: is Justin Kurskis, who wrote this script, has been married
Speaker 3: to it is I think most famously Selene Song's husband,
Speaker 3: as it should be. But he's a great writer as well,
Speaker 3: and he is like sort of we're led. I think
Speaker 3: like he's he's kind of portrayed in Past Lives as
Speaker 3: the writer of Boner. Remember yeah, the husband in Past
Speaker 3: Lives writes a book called Boner. Justin Kritzky's also wrote
Speaker 3: a novel. So I think you know, one plus one
Speaker 3: often equals too equals too.
Speaker 2: I mean we see a Boner in Challengers boner representation.
Speaker 3: And you're like, okay, yeah, genuinely Boner was on his
Speaker 3: mind exactly at this time.
Speaker 4: It's giving bisexual and I and I say that as
Speaker 4: a bisexual. I'm like, there's something just very like because
Speaker 4: he also wrote queer, I believe, right, and so there's
Speaker 4: just something kind of algebras a quah about his work
Speaker 4: that I'm very like intrigued ry and I'm like, tell
Speaker 4: me more.
Speaker 3: Me too, Yeah, I just I'm very I don't know.
Speaker 3: There's few marriages that I'm I want to know more about,
Speaker 3: quite honestly, but this is one of them. Also, he was,
Speaker 3: did either of you I remember watching this in like
Speaker 3: high school or college.
Speaker 2: The Potion Sellar video. What what is that? What is that?
Speaker 3: It's like it's a very like lo Res viral video
Speaker 3: from twenty eleven. It's so silly and it's justin Kurtzky,
Speaker 3: he like went viral in twenty eleven for being wait.
Speaker 3: I do think you should both watch it.
Speaker 4: It makes me love it.
Speaker 3: So it's literally it's so twenty eleven that it's a
Speaker 3: joke that is based on a filter on photo booth.
Speaker 4: Oh oh, photo booth. I kept so many nudes in there.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, yes, I used to love this video. It's
Speaker 3: so old that he wrote challenges.
Speaker 4: You know what. This is why we say that, like
Speaker 4: men's rights do matter, because imagine a while. Every once
Speaker 4: in a while you need a man who can just
Speaker 4: do something like this for you.
Speaker 2: It's true, it's true.
Speaker 4: I love that we have more subscribers than him, though
Speaker 4: that's also reassuring, very true.
Speaker 2: One day anyway, So should we take a break and
Speaker 2: then come back for the recap? Let's do it. Okay,
Speaker 2: So here's the recap. We are in New Rochelle, New York.
Speaker 3: Ever heard of it? I hadn't.
Speaker 2: I had because someone who I dated in college briefly
Speaker 2: was from there. Also, speaking of okay, I forgot the
Speaker 2: other part of my history with challengers. With tennis. I
Speaker 2: bought a tennis racket my freshman year of college because
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm going to get into tennis. I
Speaker 2: took a few lessons from a sophomore student who was
Speaker 2: on the men's tennis team. I took a couple lessons,
Speaker 2: and I was like I'm not good at this. I
Speaker 2: like it, but I'm not sure if this is the
Speaker 2: sport for me, because if I'm not automatically great at something,
Speaker 2: I immediately quit me too. But I kind of kept
Speaker 2: taking lessons with him because I thought he was very hot.
Speaker 3: Kitlyn, you have a pattern of doing this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not wrong.
Speaker 3: You're a bit of a challenger yourself.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of a challenger in this way.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then I eventually was like, uh, I'm busy, I
Speaker 2: can't anymore. Flash forward to four years later, I see
Speaker 2: this guy at a bar and I was like, oh, hey,
Speaker 2: remember me. I took tennis lessons from you, and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember, And I was like should we kiss or something?
Speaker 2: And then and then I started a torrid affair with
Speaker 2: this man. And when I say that, I mean we
Speaker 2: had really bad sex because he was really bad at
Speaker 2: sex a couple of times. And then I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: I also quit this because this time, this time, you're
Speaker 2: the one who's bad at the thing, and I'm out
Speaker 2: of here. And so that's my hero Tennis.
Speaker 4: Thank you for many reasons, But I just find that
Speaker 4: that's very tashy duncan of you.
Speaker 3: I feel like Hashi Duncan does not have time for
Speaker 3: someone who well, actually, I don't know. Do do we
Speaker 3: think our Donaldson is good at sex?
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 2: I feel like he's a tender lover.
Speaker 3: I think he's a giver. I think he's definitely a giver.
Speaker 4: He can find the clip, but he finds it so
Speaker 4: quickly that the appeal gets lost, you know, because she
Speaker 4: likes the challenge. Yeah, exactly, Yes.
Speaker 3: It was really it was really interesting like watching this
Speaker 3: movie not just to get horny, but to really pay
Speaker 3: attention to the relationship dynamics because I think, like, Mike
Speaker 3: is it Mike Feist? Feist?
Speaker 2: Is that how we say it? Fist.
Speaker 3: I feel like his performance was talked about the least
Speaker 3: and I understand why, but I think he's really cooking
Speaker 3: in this he is. He plays he plays the cock
Speaker 3: very well.
Speaker 2: I find his relationship dynamic with Tashi very compelling and
Speaker 2: again goals because I want to be a domb to
Speaker 2: a man.
Speaker 4: Sub Yeah, as my friend Sidy would say, all blonde
Speaker 4: men should be submissive. And he has like perfect bottom face,
Speaker 4: like it's just like it's just like you look at it,
Speaker 4: your like absolutely, it's the big eyes his open face,
Speaker 4: but he's like very masculine still, but there's this like
Speaker 4: tenderness where it's like, yes, open.
Speaker 3: He's kind of like a diabolical bottom too, because he's
Speaker 3: always like best kind, he's scheming. I kind of Yeah,
Speaker 3: I was so taken in by the Patrick of it all,
Speaker 3: which is always the case. You get taken in by
Speaker 3: the Patrick, and then, like Tashi, you dump him.
Speaker 2: You come for the Patrick, you stay for the art.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but then you get bored of art, you know,
Speaker 3: it's like it's it is, and then you maybe start
Speaker 3: dating women. And that's maybe Tashi's story. We don't know.
Speaker 3: We don't know. We just know that at the end,
Speaker 3: she's still blue baled. She's like, when are these men
Speaker 3: gonna play real tennis? Yeah, they're hugging like losers. She
Speaker 3: does not care about their relationship being resolved. She's like,
Speaker 3: play tennis. I love her.
Speaker 2: Okay. So we're in New Rochelle right right, it's twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: We are at a tennis competition sponsored by Phil's Tired Tone.
Speaker 3: It's so random that we're in twenty nineteen, by the way,
Speaker 3: like it is a period piece by way of like
Speaker 3: three years. It's weird, but I thought it was kind
Speaker 3: of fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it's just so that they could do hot
Speaker 3: in here in the flashback. That's the only that's the
Speaker 3: only reasoning I could find.
Speaker 4: And that's worth it.
Speaker 3: That's worth it.
Speaker 4: Apparently that's not the song that was playing and the
Speaker 4: scene happened because everyone was like, why isn't Day of
Speaker 4: Dancing so like off beat offat high here? And then
Speaker 4: she was like, it wasn't me, guys. Apparently, like when
Speaker 4: they were filming, it was like a Bowie song or
Speaker 4: something melodic and dreamy, and then they just put in
Speaker 4: hot in air and close, so sday I can dance, guys,
Speaker 4: don't let them fool you.
Speaker 2: I love movie. Wow, that's great movie magic. Anyway, So
Speaker 2: there it fills tire Town Challenger, and I will mention
Speaker 2: Phil's tire Town one hundred times throughout this throughout this
Speaker 2: recap because we keep cutting back to this match. Anyway,
Speaker 2: we meet Patrick Zwag played by Josh O'Connor and Art
Speaker 2: Donaldson played by Mike fight story however you se it, yeah,
Speaker 2: who play each other in a series of matches and
Speaker 2: watching them in the stands is Tashi Donaldson formerly Tashi
Speaker 2: Duncan played by Zenda, who is married to Art, and
Speaker 2: then both men look at Tashi meaningfully and we're like, hmm,
Speaker 2: what's that all about? This movie?
Speaker 3: Is the male gaze is back and it's in the
Speaker 3: movie Challengers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are seeing men.
Speaker 3: Gaze and not respectfully, but I'm into it.
Speaker 2: I don't I kind of don't mind it. We also
Speaker 2: see tennis ball gaze. We are seeing things from the
Speaker 2: point of view of a tennis ball. At one point,
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: Trying to track that because I do think that we
Speaker 3: generally see Tashi play tennis from the male gaze, but
Speaker 3: we do see the guys play tennis from the female gaze.
Speaker 3: It's not like it's exclusively the male gaze. And then
Speaker 3: occasionally we switch to the tennis balls gaze, which I
Speaker 3: had never even considered.
Speaker 4: It's the pan sexual gaze. Everyone is getting their own
Speaker 4: vision of like what makes them horny, and the tennis
Speaker 4: ball just wants to be held, you know, it wants
Speaker 4: to be at the center of the passion.
Speaker 3: That's where my cocker Spaniel really locked in. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: what about the tennis ball.
Speaker 4: Finally, someone talking about the main character.
Speaker 2: A protagonist of challengers the tennis ball. Okay, Then we
Speaker 2: cut to two weeks earlier. We learn more about Art
Speaker 2: and Tashi. Tashi is a former tennis champ but had
Speaker 2: to retire and end her career early after a knee injury.
Speaker 2: She is now Art's like coach slash manager. They also
Speaker 2: have a daughter together who loves into the Spider verse,
Speaker 2: so you know she has great taste.
Speaker 3: I love that was a great child representation.
Speaker 2: Yes, we see Art play a match and lose. He
Speaker 2: is apparently rusty after recovering from a recent injury. Tashi
Speaker 2: tells him to get his shit together and start winning,
Speaker 2: which is why she suggests that he plays something that
Speaker 2: he's sure to win, such as this Phil's Tired Town challenger.
Speaker 2: And I don't exactly know enough about tennis to know
Speaker 2: specifically what a challenger is or what the parameters of
Speaker 2: it are.
Speaker 3: My understanding, because I really tried to understand tennis for this,
Speaker 3: and I did. I stayed up late last night watching
Speaker 3: one of many Venus and Serena docs, and I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just like anyway, I was trying to get caught up.
Speaker 3: A challenger I think is like a low rung pro match.
Speaker 3: But like harder to be a lower rung. It's kind
Speaker 3: of JV but it's still technically pro tennis.
Speaker 2: And is it the type of thing that, depending on
Speaker 2: how you rank in it, it can like qualify you
Speaker 2: for one of these US open kind of things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because Patrick says that on his very depressing date
Speaker 3: that poor woman, I know, but yeah, we're I think
Speaker 3: he's saying that, like this is something that could, you know,
Speaker 3: if you perform well, it could sort of get you
Speaker 3: into one of those top one hundred and twenty whatever spots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So then we cut to Patrick Zwag who
Speaker 2: is trying to get a room at a hotel so
Speaker 2: that he can rest before this tire Town Match Challenger
Speaker 2: thing that he is also playing and it starts the
Speaker 2: following day, but he's completely broke and he can't afford
Speaker 2: to pay for the room, so he sleeps in his car.
Speaker 2: He's hoping to win the Challenger because the winner gets
Speaker 2: seven thousand dollars, so he's in kind of dire straits,
Speaker 2: although we learn later that he comes from a very
Speaker 2: well to do family, and it seems like he could
Speaker 2: ask his family for money and then he just chooses
Speaker 2: not to, so One of the most frustrating personality types
Speaker 2: is rich guy. Cosplaying as poor guy is exhausting.
Speaker 4: And it's like it's like pure early hobosexual representation. It's
Speaker 4: just like, how does he where does he live? Underneath people?
Speaker 3: That's how he like kind of a guy. I feel
Speaker 3: like I met a lot of guys like this in college.
Speaker 3: A guy that you are like, oh wow, I feel
Speaker 3: like I have stuff in common with him, and then
Speaker 3: later you see what his family is like, and you're like,
Speaker 3: I cannot believe I've lent this person money. He's really frustrating,
Speaker 3: which of course means that he's probably great at sex.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Also, I just love Josh O'Connor, Like, I know,
Speaker 4: hot man, hot politics, hot girlfriend.
Speaker 3: Like yes, wait, what's her? I just saw her out
Speaker 3: the Saving Grace of Wuthering Eye.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, she's so they're so good together, Irish love. And
Speaker 4: I'm just like, that's a third I would be in between.
Speaker 4: It's just like, I will, I'll sign up for that
Speaker 4: challenger events.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's your challenger.
Speaker 2: So Patrick checks in for this tournament, where by the way,
Speaker 2: there is Duncan Donuts representation because the woman that he
Speaker 2: checks in with is eating a Dunk's egg and cheese
Speaker 2: and bagel sandwich.
Speaker 3: I was doing the same thing just this morning.
Speaker 2: I was like, yes, we're so.
Speaker 4: Wow is what the culture is feeling, you know.
Speaker 2: Dunce is back. Yeah. Then we flash back to thirteen
Speaker 2: years prior. Patrick and Art are eighteen years old. I
Speaker 2: think they're best friends. They are playing doubles tennis together
Speaker 2: at the Junior US Open. They win their match, and
Speaker 2: then they watch Tashi Duncan play. They do not yet
Speaker 2: know her, but they know of her and they're like
Speaker 2: hubba hubba a wooga, both at how attractive she is
Speaker 2: and also her amazing tennis skills. Because she is a champ.
Speaker 2: They spot her at a party that night where she
Speaker 2: is dancing offbeat too hot in here. They sprint up
Speaker 2: to her. It is comical how they just rush her
Speaker 2: and they're like, hey, what's up? Where Art and Patrick?
Speaker 3: They also humiliatingly call themselves fire and Ice when they're
Speaker 3: I know, I do feel like they capture a beautiful
Speaker 3: like men being embarrassing together like as teenagers. It's really
Speaker 3: captured Fire and Ice. And she's like, so, who's who
Speaker 3: and they're.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, It's like it's one of those things where
Speaker 4: it's like there are moments for like, I am attracted
Speaker 4: to men, and it just it's like it was one
Speaker 4: of those moments where it's kind of like as painful
Speaker 4: as it is, I'm so I would be so lost.
Speaker 4: I would be like this would work on me. And
Speaker 4: I hate that.
Speaker 3: I mean especially the moment where yeah, I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: I've pit alone in this cabin for too long, where
Speaker 3: clearly like they're just gonna wait for her as long
Speaker 3: as they need to for her to pay attention to them,
Speaker 3: and it seems like they wait for hours hours, and
Speaker 3: it is just like God being on the receiving end
Speaker 3: of that. Even if you're like not particularly attracted to
Speaker 3: the person doing it, it can just be like I'm
Speaker 3: so powerful, this rocks now go away, Oh so beautiful.
Speaker 4: It's like it's one of those things where like I'm like,
Speaker 4: I love this. I just love I just love her power.
Speaker 3: I love yeah, just.
Speaker 4: The way that she like sits in her own will.
Speaker 4: And I think that's what makes Tashi such an interesting character.
Speaker 4: And I think just from like a character's standpoint, it's
Speaker 4: such an interesting thing for Zendeia to do because I
Speaker 4: think that this is something that her career really needed,
Speaker 4: because she was going in that space where she's been
Speaker 4: paying like young adults and like teenagers for such a
Speaker 4: long period of time, even though she isn't like she
Speaker 4: is thirty, and it felt like her first truly adult role.
Speaker 4: And I just want her to find her Ryan Kugler
Speaker 4: or her Naya da Costa who will like really take
Speaker 4: all of her acting potential and start curating movies around
Speaker 4: her for that potential, which I think this movie really
Speaker 4: well does.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm very excited for the drama for that reason.
Speaker 3: I'm like very curious if that utilizes her the way
Speaker 3: she deserves to be utilized.
Speaker 2: Is that the one that she's in with Robert Pattinson?
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, which as soon as I saw that casting,
Speaker 4: I was like inspired, especially because especially because now you know,
Speaker 4: Tom Holland is now Tom Zendaya and like locking her
Speaker 4: down as you should, and that's he's got that art
Speaker 4: energy in real life, Oh for sure. Yeah, and we're
Speaker 4: rooting for it.
Speaker 3: He really does. Yeah, It's just I love their relationship.
Speaker 3: I love that I know basically nothing about it, and
Speaker 3: I love they're seeing like little bits and pieces of
Speaker 3: her and Robert Pattinson in conversation with each other. Is
Speaker 3: so funny because she is like so clearly the adult
Speaker 3: in the room in spite of the fact that he's
Speaker 3: I think, like ten years older than her. Where she's
Speaker 3: just she's so poised. I love her.
Speaker 4: She's amazing. Actually I think she's older than him.
Speaker 3: No, the same age, No, the same age really with
Speaker 3: her and Tom Holland, I was talking about Robert Pattinson.
Speaker 4: Oh, Robert Pattinson.
Speaker 3: Yes, Oh my god, sorry, Robert Pattinson's like forty yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: oh my gosh. He's really close to your age. He's
Speaker 3: born on May thirteenth.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. We always figure this out. I always look,
Speaker 2: this has happened on the podcast several times. I find
Speaker 2: out his birthdays right next to mine and that we're
Speaker 2: the same age.
Speaker 4: I love that. Well, he's gen z emotionally, so that's why.
Speaker 3: Yes, right right, right, right right.
Speaker 2: Okay. So they're at this party. They wait for her
Speaker 2: because their conversation gets cut short. They're desperate to talk
Speaker 2: to her, so they stick around. They invite her to
Speaker 2: hang out. She agrees. They talk about tennis, and she's
Speaker 2: basically like, you guys are not tennis players. You think
Speaker 2: you are but you're not. Tennis is a relationship and
Speaker 2: that's not what you're doing when you're playing. And then
Speaker 2: they're like, by the way, we both want your number,
Speaker 2: and we also want you to come to our hotel
Speaker 2: room later tonight, and she's like, yeah, okay, but she
Speaker 2: does show up then, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Such a great sequence that, like you see everyone's perspective
Speaker 3: in this where they're like, she's not coming, and then
Speaker 3: there's a knock on the door and I think Mike
Speaker 3: does a flip over.
Speaker 2: Himself, yeah, to get you some resaults off the bed.
Speaker 3: But the underrated part of that sequence is when you
Speaker 3: see Zendia hearing all of this happening and like laughing
Speaker 3: from behind the door and then pulling it together in
Speaker 3: time for the door to open.
Speaker 2: It's so good cinema, so powerful.
Speaker 4: I just I just love how thirsty they are for
Speaker 4: her the entire time. It's just like it's just like, yes,
Speaker 4: actually you should be thirsty for her.
Speaker 2: One of the hottest people ever to be alive.
Speaker 4: And just cool. Like I think also what makes the
Speaker 4: Tashi character work is that Zandia is cool. Like Zendeia
Speaker 4: has like that quality of her that makes her seem
Speaker 4: intense and then also just like high glamots like, yes,
Speaker 4: this totally makes sense.
Speaker 2: An icon, Yeah, it's true. Okay. So she's in their
Speaker 2: hotel room. They're kind of flirting. She asks if they've
Speaker 2: ever hooked up with each other, and they're like, well, no,
Speaker 2: but no, we learned that Patrick taught Art how to
Speaker 2: jerk off.
Speaker 3: Okay, so we have the top bottom established, got it,
Speaker 3: got it, got it?
Speaker 4: Just just boys being boys, you know.
Speaker 3: Yep, I love being a teenager who does not yet
Speaker 3: realize you're bisexual. You're just like, no, that was just
Speaker 3: like a weird thing that happened.
Speaker 4: Was I just taught my homeboy how to jerk off,
Speaker 4: Like someone has to do it, right, So.
Speaker 3: I was like no, me and my best friend would
Speaker 3: just practice kissing to Madonna's American Life, Like it's just
Speaker 3: sort of like so we would know how to kiss
Speaker 3: when boys wanted to kiss us.
Speaker 4: We just trying to keep warm in the wintertime, and
Speaker 4: you keep warm by snuggling and making out like obviously obvious.
Speaker 2: Just girls being girls, Yes, Okay. So then Tashi sits
Speaker 2: on the bed and beckons for them to join her,
Speaker 2: and they leap at the opportunity. She kisses Art, then Patrick,
Speaker 2: then back to Art and back and forth, and then
Speaker 2: there's a three way kiss which she backs away from.
Speaker 2: So now it's just Art and Patrick making out and
Speaker 2: she's loving this again. The look on her face, Oh oh,
Speaker 2: it's gorgeous. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 3: And I did not know so that is not in
Speaker 3: the original script written by the potion Master. The potion
Speaker 3: Master himself, the Passion Master himself. This was insisted upon
Speaker 3: by queer icon Luca Guadnina, who said, who had a
Speaker 3: very Italian way of describing why this needed to happen.
Speaker 3: This is from an interview with the potion Master. Luca
Speaker 3: felt it was very important that in any love triangle
Speaker 3: all the corners touch, and I quickly realized.
Speaker 2: He meant it literally.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, that's so Italian, that's beautiful.
Speaker 4: Let him remake the Twilight movies.
Speaker 3: Let the tips touch, is what Luca said.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So they're making out and Tashi is loving it,
Speaker 2: and then she goes to leave and they're like, well,
Speaker 2: what about your number? And she says, whoever wins the
Speaker 2: match they're competing against each other in the following day
Speaker 2: will get.
Speaker 3: Her number, because at the end of the day, what
Speaker 3: Tashi Duncan wants to have sex with is Tennis's tennis. Yes,
Speaker 3: and that is why she can never fully be satisfied
Speaker 3: and it is an incredible it's so cool.
Speaker 2: Okay, Then we cut to their match. They are both
Speaker 2: desperate to win so as to get Tashi's number, but
Speaker 2: before we know the result, we cut back to Phil's
Speaker 2: tire Toalne Challenger. Although it's a few days before the
Speaker 2: match where Patrick and Art each other. Patrick is on
Speaker 2: Tinder swiping right on everyone because we learn that he
Speaker 2: needs a place to sleep. That night, he gets a
Speaker 2: match and goes on a date. He surprise kisses this date,
Speaker 2: and I do not like the way that is handled.
Speaker 2: But at the bar he sees Tashi and she's like,
Speaker 2: what the fuck are you doing here, so we learn
Speaker 2: that oops, they're not on good terms. We flash back
Speaker 2: to thirteen years prior after the one on one match,
Speaker 2: which apparently Patrick won, because now Art is prying for
Speaker 2: details about whether or not Patrick and Tashi have had sex,
Speaker 2: and Art says, if you do serve the ball like
Speaker 2: I do, because he has this specific serving habit, and
Speaker 2: if they didn't have sex, Patrick should just serve it
Speaker 2: like himself because the whole thing here is Tashi was like,
Speaker 2: I don't tell anyone that we're fucking because I'm embarrassed
Speaker 2: to do what seems Yeah, I do.
Speaker 3: Think it's kind of funny that she does seem to
Speaker 3: be like a deal is a deal. I guess you're
Speaker 3: my boyfriend now, Like, well, you didn't have to honor that,
Speaker 3: but you.
Speaker 2: Did date the fuck boy first. She well, she I
Speaker 2: think she uses men to vicariously have sex with them
Speaker 2: so that she can feel like she's having sex with
Speaker 2: tennis with tennis. So she keeps Patrick around.
Speaker 3: And this is where Tashi Duncan and my Sonny have
Speaker 3: a lot in common in that way. Yeah, you can't
Speaker 3: just have sex with a tennis ball, so you have
Speaker 3: to figure out how else can you satisfy exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to find a human conduit by which
Speaker 2: you can have sex with tennis. And that's what Tashi
Speaker 2: is doing the whole movie. Okay, then Patrick serves it
Speaker 2: like Art serves the ball, indicating that Patrick and Tashi
Speaker 2: did indeed have sex, and Art is jealous.
Speaker 3: No, he's fine, He's fine, that's this whole thing. He's like,
Speaker 3: that's fine. Actually, he's so like clenched spiritually.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. Then it is twelve years prior to the present,
Speaker 2: so it's like a year after the boys have met Tashi.
Speaker 2: Tashi and Art are both at Stanford on tennis scholarships.
Speaker 2: It seems they're pals, though Tashi and Patrick are still dating,
Speaker 2: much to Art's dismay because it's clear that he is
Speaker 2: absolutely in love with her. Then Patrick comes to campus
Speaker 2: to visit Tashi, but first he's hanging out with Art.
Speaker 2: They're sitting very close to each other eating churros parentheses phallic. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're they're not.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not subtext, it's just text text. Anytime
Speaker 3: these guys are eating there, it's it's a full dick.
Speaker 2: Oh it's bananas. Oh, it's true's I'm surprised they don't
Speaker 2: eat a hot dog.
Speaker 4: And they take a bite out of each other, like
Speaker 4: like that's love, that's that's an indirect kiss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's them making out again. Basically, Patrick senses that
Speaker 2: Art is still into Tashi and that he's trying to
Speaker 2: get in between them and like kind of break them up.
Speaker 2: And Patrick is like.
Speaker 3: He's kind of like turned on by this.
Speaker 2: He's like he's like, honestly, this is hot and it's
Speaker 2: making you a better tennis player. Tashi is also turned
Speaker 2: on sexually and athletically by this love triangle situation. There's
Speaker 2: a scene where she's trying to coach Patrick, who seems
Speaker 2: to have just like I don't think he's in college.
Speaker 2: I think he went straight to pro. And then we
Speaker 2: start to see this the beginning of this sort of
Speaker 2: like domb sub dynamic that she's projecting, where she is
Speaker 2: the dom and she wants to coach men, tell them
Speaker 2: what to do, tell them how to play tennis, and
Speaker 2: she wants a submissive man to be receptive to that.
Speaker 2: Trouble is, Patrick is not into it, so they argue
Speaker 2: and then he leaves. Tashi goes to her match, where
Speaker 2: she's playing great until this is when she very badly
Speaker 2: injures her knee and Art, who is at the match,
Speaker 2: runs to her side. Patrick shows up once he has
Speaker 2: heard what happened, but Tashi and Art send him packing,
Speaker 2: and now it's Tashi and Art together.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting how like, I don't know on this
Speaker 3: rewatch there whatever in this specific way that like someone
Speaker 3: who knows you as you're growing up can just clock
Speaker 3: you and clock your intentions in ways that people you
Speaker 3: meet as an adult kind of can't no matter how
Speaker 3: close you are to them. Patrick, while a huge asshole,
Speaker 3: is really good at knowing what people are up to and.
Speaker 2: Just saying it.
Speaker 3: Because what he says to Art a few scenes earlier
Speaker 3: of like, I know, it's like not your style to
Speaker 3: just make a move. You're just gonna hang out in
Speaker 3: the sidelines until I fuck up, and then you're gonna
Speaker 3: swoop in, which is exactly what happens.
Speaker 4: This third eye is so open. It's like he's like
Speaker 4: he's like he only uses it for evil, evil and sex.
Speaker 4: That's it's like, I can do two things, three things
Speaker 4: really well, and none of them are constructive to my
Speaker 4: men's wealth.
Speaker 3: Right, But like he he at different points, like especially
Speaker 3: with Art, because they're you know, the boner boys from boarding.
Speaker 2: School or whatever. The Jerkoff Brothers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Jerkoff Brothers, disgusting brothers. They're the disgusting brothers. Farness,
Speaker 3: they're the disgusting brothers. But with Tashi too, like he
Speaker 3: much later in the movie pretty much states the state
Speaker 3: of her marriage after witnessing it for like twelve seconds,
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, well, you're not wrong.
Speaker 2: It's all true.
Speaker 4: And that's the worst part. There's nothing worse than your
Speaker 4: ex being right about your life. You're like, shut up,
Speaker 4: you don't know me, hot dog man.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, meanwhile, sometimes you get clocked.
Speaker 3: You get clocked by the hot dog man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Then we get another quick glimpse of the Phil's
Speaker 2: tire Town match between Art and Patrick, because the movie
Speaker 2: again keeps periodically cutting back to this. Then we flash
Speaker 2: back to the aftermath of Tashi's injury. She is recovering,
Speaker 2: she's practicing with Art, but her game is not what
Speaker 2: it used to be. It's pretty clear that her tennis
Speaker 2: career is over, as is her relationship with Patrick, and
Speaker 2: again Art is there to console her. Then we to
Speaker 2: three years after that. Tashi is now coaching tennis. Art
Speaker 2: is a rising star. He suggests she be his assistant
Speaker 2: coach and she's like, well, what about how you're in
Speaker 2: love with me? And he's like, TIHI, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Also, this all happens at an Applebee's, which is great.
Speaker 4: Yes, we love the representation of the working classes, like.
Speaker 2: We sure do. And then he's like, hey, what if
Speaker 2: we kiss? And she responds by going and they're making out.
Speaker 2: Then we cut back to tire Town timeline. A little after,
Speaker 2: Tashi and Patrick have run into each other and he
Speaker 2: approaches her to be like, will you be my coach?
Speaker 2: And she says, okay, here's my coaching. Quit tennis, you bitch.
Speaker 2: And they talk a little bit about her relateationship with Art,
Speaker 2: how she clearly resents him, and then Patrick asks if
Speaker 2: Art knows about Atlanta and we're like, hmm, what happened there?
Speaker 2: We flash back to eight years prior in Atlanta, where
Speaker 2: Art and Tashi are because he's competing in the Atlanta Open,
Speaker 2: as is Patrick. And during the tournament, Patrick runs into
Speaker 2: Tashi late at night when she's having a drink at
Speaker 2: a bar.
Speaker 3: And he's also wearing her shirt because it's a shirt
Speaker 3: she is wearing in college that he's clearly hung onto,
Speaker 3: the shirt that says I told you, oh wow, shows
Speaker 3: up at the hotel wearing on her shirt and you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: he's such a slug. Yeah, he really is. He's really
Speaker 3: testing the boundaries. I love him. He's so easy, Like
Speaker 3: the fuck, I hate him, love it, I hate him,
Speaker 3: but I love him.
Speaker 4: Oh God, I'm so powerful.
Speaker 2: They start kissing, and then a little later Art sees
Speaker 2: the two of them, not while they're kissing, but they're
Speaker 2: like close and cozy. He gets distracted for a moment
Speaker 2: and when he looks back, they are gone. It seems
Speaker 2: like they've left together. And I believe the implication is
Speaker 2: they go to have sex with each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Art pretends he does not see it. He's
Speaker 3: that's kind of his mode.
Speaker 2: He's like my femdom wife or I think fiance at
Speaker 2: this point can do whatever she wants and I can't
Speaker 2: say a damn thing about it.
Speaker 4: And it's true, you really can't.
Speaker 3: That's the arrangement.
Speaker 4: You get what you pay for.
Speaker 2: We cut back to the night before the Art Patrick
Speaker 2: match at the tire Town Challenger. Art tells Tashi that
Speaker 2: he wants to quit tennis soon, that he's tired and
Speaker 2: worn out, but he also wants thealidation one way or
Speaker 2: another from Tashi, because again, that's his whole thing, constantly
Speaker 2: seeking validation from her. He's like, hold me until I
Speaker 2: fall asleep, mommy.
Speaker 3: And she does kind of the opposite of that.
Speaker 2: She does for a little bit, but this makes her
Speaker 2: absolutely despondent. So after Art falls asleep, she links up
Speaker 2: with Patrick to tell him that she wants him to
Speaker 2: lose tomorrow so that Art will have the confidence to
Speaker 2: keep playing. And Patrick is like, fuck you, I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure you came here tonight to have sex with me,
Speaker 2: and she's like, no, I didn't. And then he's like, yes,
Speaker 2: you did, and she's like maybe. And then as they're
Speaker 2: sort of arguing about this, and also she spits in
Speaker 2: his face.
Speaker 3: Yeah. She also has like slapped him earlier this like
Speaker 3: earlier in the day, like for the week. Everyone is
Speaker 3: getting off on all of this.
Speaker 4: It's so toxic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. So she spits in his face. She storms away,
Speaker 2: but then she turns back around and they start passionately
Speaker 2: making out. They have sex in his car, and it
Speaker 2: seems like the agreement is basically because she fucked him,
Speaker 2: he will agree to lose the following day to Art.
Speaker 2: We cut back to the end of the match. It
Speaker 2: is neck and neck. It's unclear who will win. It's
Speaker 2: unclear whether or not Patrick will honor this agreement. Patrick
Speaker 2: is about to serve and then he does the callback
Speaker 2: to the thing that we saw earlier in the movie,
Speaker 2: which is that he serves the ball like Art does,
Speaker 2: indicating that he and Tashi recently had sex.
Speaker 4: Everyone in my theater gasped when this happened. It was
Speaker 4: like a miseral line.
Speaker 2: And Art is shook to his very core. Yeah, Patrick
Speaker 2: stars again. He wins the match, but there's one match left,
Speaker 2: a tiebreaker.
Speaker 3: I do love the Wikipedia summary for this. They say
Speaker 3: during the tie break, Art and Patrick furiously trade ground strokes.
Speaker 3: And you're like, oh, yeah, okay, the strokes.
Speaker 2: The jerk off brothers strike again, you know when you're
Speaker 2: you know, and the discussing brothers are furiously trading strokes.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, they put they put a little dot
Speaker 4: on each other's head to be like, I choose.
Speaker 2: I I would describe it as them volleying back and forth.
Speaker 2: But what do I know.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a hornier way to say that. And
Speaker 3: one and one disgusting Wikipedia user did sound.
Speaker 2: The way yeah, and I U. They're doing this. They're
Speaker 2: getting closer and closer to each other, and eventually they're
Speaker 2: so close that Art jumps up and then kind of
Speaker 2: lands on Patrick and they're hugging. And then also Art
Speaker 2: won the match. Just now because we cut to Tashi
Speaker 2: and she's very, very happy, and that's how the movie ends.
Speaker 2: So let's take a quick break and we'll come back
Speaker 2: to discuss.
Speaker 3: And we're back, and we're back, I mean hard to
Speaker 3: beget princess guests choice, Where would you like to start?
Speaker 4: Oh my god?
Speaker 3: So we furiously trade ground strokes throughout this discussion.
Speaker 2: What is podcasting? What is a conversation if not.
Speaker 4: But groundstroking over the air into your ears? You know.
Speaker 4: I think one thing I was thinking about in preparation
Speaker 4: for this specific conversation. I know we'll get into, like
Speaker 4: if it passes the Bechdel test later, but I wonder
Speaker 4: what you guys feel about Tashi being often the sole
Speaker 4: woman in the room aroung these two men, because I
Speaker 4: feel like that in itself is like this interesting conversation
Speaker 4: because she is arguably the most talented of the three
Speaker 4: of them, but she's also the most marginalized, and that
Speaker 4: really sort of plays into her relationship to both of them,
Speaker 4: because she is sort of between these two white men,
Speaker 4: who are, you know, gonna get more opportunities than her
Speaker 4: no matter how talented she is, And then with her injury,
Speaker 4: she kind of ends up having to almost lean on them.
Speaker 4: It's like an interesting dynamic between her and the two boys.
Speaker 4: And I find that, besides the sexiness of it. I
Speaker 4: find it just like narratively compelling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, I feel like I And this was
Speaker 3: something that I was like because I watched your video,
Speaker 3: did a bunch of tennis research, and then rewatched Challengers
Speaker 3: because I was trying to like take the horny gauze
Speaker 3: off of my previous viewings of it. And you said
Speaker 3: something in your video that really stuck with me, which
Speaker 3: is that we really only see Tashi once that isn't
Speaker 3: in a scene with one of the guys. This is
Speaker 3: definitely not true for the guys. We see the guys
Speaker 3: together alone a number of times, which is why I
Speaker 3: think they are ultimately kind of the protagonists of the movie,
Speaker 3: even though Tashi is the central figure. But the only
Speaker 3: time I think that we see Tashi without one of
Speaker 3: them is when she's alone on campus after she's been injured.
Speaker 4: The tree crying. Yeah, yes, that's.
Speaker 3: The only time we see her certainly alone, but also
Speaker 3: like without one of the guys. That and like the
Speaker 3: moment she gets back from having sex with Patrick. But
Speaker 3: that's only a couple seconds really, And it's interesting because
Speaker 3: it's it's I don't know, I she's such a compelling
Speaker 3: figure and because the focus of the movie is so
Speaker 3: on the triangle, we don't really get an idea of
Speaker 3: I don't know like that. I think it comes through
Speaker 3: in the performance who she is outside of this dynamic,
Speaker 3: but we don't get to see very much of that.
Speaker 3: Although I guess you could say the same for the guys,
Speaker 3: but they have the pre existing relationship. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it really struck me that that is the only
Speaker 3: time we see her by herself.
Speaker 2: It does make you wonder does she have any friends
Speaker 2: who are women, any tennis players, like athletes who are
Speaker 2: women that she is buds with. Makes you wonder what
Speaker 2: she's like as a mother. We see a tiny, tiny
Speaker 2: glimpse of it when they're talking about Spider verse, but
Speaker 2: aside from that, we see very very little of her
Speaker 2: interactions with her daughter. We see a few interactions with
Speaker 2: Tashi and her mother, who seems to be present in
Speaker 2: the story because she is the caretaker of their daughter, right,
Speaker 2: But yeah, we really don't see I mean, this movie
Speaker 2: is just so hyper hyper focused on tennis and this
Speaker 2: love triangles, the threuple situation or what should be a thruple,
Speaker 2: and it just doesn't really dedicate any time to anything else,
Speaker 2: And there's nothing inherently wrong with that, Like a lot
Speaker 2: of stories are very hyper focused on a specific thing.
Speaker 2: But I feel like there was still room for giving
Speaker 2: us a little bit more of a glimpse into like
Speaker 2: what else, Like even if it just told us is
Speaker 2: something something as simple as what was her major? Because
Speaker 2: she even says like, I'm going to college because I
Speaker 2: want to learn things and I want to take classes
Speaker 2: and I don't want my only skill in life to
Speaker 2: be hitting a ball with a racket. But then the
Speaker 2: movie doesn't bother to tell us, well, what is she pursuing?
Speaker 3: Well, I do think, so I'm so on the fence
Speaker 3: about this, and I want to know what you think
Speaker 3: about it, Princess, because it's like that's that is definitely true.
Speaker 3: And then I also kept like second guessing myself because
Speaker 3: there is a lot we learn in passing and through
Speaker 3: the performance, where like that line I don't want to
Speaker 3: just only know how to hit a ball with a
Speaker 3: racket is called back later when she's at the Apple
Speaker 3: Bees with Art and she says, well, it turns out
Speaker 3: all I know how to do is hit a ball
Speaker 3: with a racket. And so it's like she does eventually
Speaker 3: kind of resign herself to the idea. And I don't
Speaker 3: think like unhappily, but like she is like that tennis
Speaker 3: is the thing she cares about. It's not like she's
Speaker 3: being forced to remain there. She wants to be there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think that there's almost like a classic film quality
Speaker 4: to the movie in a sense where like the actor
Speaker 4: is giving backstory through their performance of it all. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And I think that is effective. And I think also
Speaker 4: if you know anything about women's tennis, there's a lot
Speaker 4: of just sort of like a lot of things happening
Speaker 4: up beneath the surface because the reality is that like
Speaker 4: you don't really see a lot of women tennis friendships
Speaker 4: that are like of the same generation. Like there usually
Speaker 4: is like the older person is kind of like the
Speaker 4: mentor figure and then the younger person's like the up
Speaker 4: and comer, and that's the dynamic.
Speaker 3: Like I was thinking about how like Billy Jean King's
Speaker 3: relationship with the Williams Sisters and like stuff like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like more of like a mentor mentee kind of deal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like in the Williams Sisters with like you know,
Speaker 4: Cocoa Golf, and like Maioi Osaka, it's like there isn't
Speaker 4: a lot of like general like rivalry tends to be
Speaker 4: the thing that gets the more attention than like and
Speaker 4: ship heated rivalry, and so there's this aspect of in
Speaker 4: a certain way, it makes sense that Tashi has no
Speaker 4: female friends because everyone is her rival, because there is
Speaker 4: no room to like, she doesn't have like a sister
Speaker 4: to be her doubles partner, and she's not doing doubles,
Speaker 4: so there is no space for her to be And
Speaker 4: it's also just very white in general, and so there
Speaker 4: isn't there's always going to be contrasting things happening, and
Speaker 4: I think that is like the subtext of a lot
Speaker 4: of Tashi's experience, and it's clear from reading interviews that
Speaker 4: that is what they were bringing to that character. But
Speaker 4: what I do think is always an interesting question and
Speaker 4: not necessarily criticism, is like how much of that is
Speaker 4: known can be absorbed by the audience that doesn't have
Speaker 4: this background knowledge of this sport, right because.
Speaker 2: The movie doesn't delve into any of that explicitly. I mean,
Speaker 2: I learned so much about it from your video where
Speaker 2: you talk about like the context of a character like
Speaker 2: Tashi coming up in the era that she does as
Speaker 2: a black woman tennis player in the wake of Serena
Speaker 2: and Venus Williams before them Althea Gibson. But if you
Speaker 2: don't already know that context, it's not like the movie
Speaker 2: tells you any of it.
Speaker 3: So right, and it's like and it's hard because it's like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, like I was having. It's part of
Speaker 3: why this movie is so challenging because it's not like
Speaker 3: the movie is giving you that context for men's tennis.
Speaker 3: It's not giving you any context. It's just throwing you
Speaker 3: in and being like, so you've seen a tennis match, YadA, YadA,
Speaker 3: it's a metaphor for sex. But but yeah, I feel
Speaker 3: like with Tashi specifically because potion Master did say specifically
Speaker 3: that he he wrote, you know, like this was not
Speaker 3: written for a white woman, and was later you know like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: Zenda is interested, so now Tashi Duncan is a black woman.
Speaker 3: Tashi Duncan was always written as a black woman. I'm
Speaker 3: going to quote Postmaster Harry said, Tashi was always a
Speaker 3: black woman. Patrick was always a well to do Jewish guy,
Speaker 3: and Art was always a somewhat well to do wasp,
Speaker 3: and so these characters were very clearly specified in the
Speaker 3: original script, and I think that that does again like
Speaker 3: come through. But like you're saying, princess, I think primarily
Speaker 3: in the performance, there's a few lines of dialogue that
Speaker 3: could give you some insight into it that I think
Speaker 3: you shouted out in your video as well. Of when
Speaker 3: they're about to have the big awesome kissing scene, the
Speaker 3: two guys are talking about how they were boarding school roommates,
Speaker 3: and they're like, did you go to boarding school trying
Speaker 3: to be like just rich kids hanging out? And she
Speaker 3: was like, well, no, we couldn't afford it, and even
Speaker 3: if we could have, my parents wouldn't have wanted me
Speaker 3: in that environment. There's one offline where she's talking about
Speaker 3: the girl she was playing tennis against when we first
Speaker 3: see her, who she says pretty offhand, she's like, oh,
Speaker 3: she's you know, don't feel bad for her. She's a
Speaker 3: racist bitch.
Speaker 2: It's fine.
Speaker 3: And like her character is.
Speaker 2: Very both very specific and very left open to interpretation.
Speaker 4: And I think that's interesting because it kind of reminds me,
Speaker 4: in like an odd way of like Pacific rim and
Speaker 4: how like when you have a woman of color in
Speaker 4: a role that is not traditionally where we see women
Speaker 4: of color. How then, does that change the way that
Speaker 4: we operate in terms of like traditional feminist critical lens,
Speaker 4: which while should be all encompassing, does tend to lean
Speaker 4: towards white womanhood because I think if Tashi were a
Speaker 4: white woman, we might be having different conversations about it,
Speaker 4: but she isn't, and that's intentional, and that creates other
Speaker 4: layers of conversation between everyone involved, which I just think
Speaker 4: it is just inherently interesting, Like I think that it's
Speaker 4: interesting to deal with the film that doesn't want to
Speaker 4: tell you everything, but has so much in the background
Speaker 4: of its intentionality that you can't help but want to
Speaker 4: pull on more threads of it. So I don't think
Speaker 4: if it is like a failing of Challengers, but I
Speaker 4: do think it's something that I think got overlooked to
Speaker 4: a certain degree, and that's why it got ignored when
Speaker 4: it came to like a lot of awards stuff, because
Speaker 4: it is a really rich film, but I feel like
Speaker 4: people only saw the horniness and all of the kind
Speaker 4: of like even within that holiness, any sort of like
Speaker 4: commentary of like it's not as if Patrick is openly bisexual,
Speaker 4: you know, like it's not as if he's flamboyant about
Speaker 4: it and how that would impact his career and all
Speaker 4: those other things are there, but they're not the main
Speaker 4: focus in the way that the relationship.
Speaker 3: Is absolutely yeah, like rewatching it with my hornygog off
Speaker 3: and my context goggles on there. Again, it's just like
Speaker 3: a passing moment with Patrick where he's on Tinder or
Speaker 3: whatever app like swiping, and it's like people of all
Speaker 3: genders are showing up, but he hesitates before swiping right
Speaker 3: on a man. So it's like it just in a
Speaker 3: gesture communicates like he is bisexual, but he still hasn't
Speaker 3: like really come to terms with that. And then with Tashi,
Speaker 3: one of the things that I really appreciated was left
Speaker 3: open ended, and I'm curious what you both think about
Speaker 3: it is that she is a mom who seems like
Speaker 3: a caring mom, but her role as a mother is
Speaker 3: not harped upon, and it seems like she is like
Speaker 3: not her child's primary caretaker. And I didn't feel that
Speaker 3: the movie was judging her for that. And I've very
Speaker 3: rarely seen, you know, a central woman who has kids
Speaker 3: that like motherhood isn't a main element of her character,
Speaker 3: and this movie does not really prioritize that for either
Speaker 3: of them. I mean, we see that, like clearly they
Speaker 3: love their child, you know, Lily. I don't know what
Speaker 3: kind of kid does Lily grow up to be growing
Speaker 3: up in hotels with her grandma. I don't know, but
Speaker 3: I appreciated that, you know, in a societal landscape that
Speaker 3: is very quick to judge mothers and rarely, if ever
Speaker 3: judges fathers, it seems like this is just a dynamic
Speaker 3: that is presented without judgment, and then you, as the viewer,
Speaker 3: can just make of it what you will.
Speaker 2: I think there are many examples of Tashi being presented
Speaker 2: in a way that we do not often see women
Speaker 2: represented on screen, in a way that the movie does
Speaker 2: not pass judgment on her, similar to what you're talking about, Jamie.
Speaker 2: A few examples are there's the scene where she and
Speaker 2: Art are at Stanford. She is dating Patrick, but Art
Speaker 2: is clearly in love with her. He's trying to break
Speaker 2: them up, and he says something like he's not in
Speaker 2: love with you, and she stops in her tracks and
Speaker 2: kind of slowly turns around and comes back, and we
Speaker 2: are conditioned to think that a woman being told that
Speaker 2: a man isn't in love with her will make her
Speaker 2: be like, oh my god, oh no, this is devastating.
Speaker 2: I can't be with someone who doesn't love me. But instead,
Speaker 2: she says, what makes you think I want someone to
Speaker 2: be in love with me? Did I ever say I
Speaker 2: was in love with him? And he's like, no, you didn't,
Speaker 2: And she's like, well, so why would I give a
Speaker 2: fuck if he loved me or not? And he says like,
Speaker 2: don't you think you deserve it?
Speaker 3: Like, which is he's being so I never like really
Speaker 3: listened to that line in contacts before. He's being so
Speaker 3: manipulative there, he's doing a thing that like male feminists
Speaker 3: do or they're like you deserve better, girl, and by
Speaker 3: better I mean me specifically.
Speaker 4: It's so manopulia, And that's the thing. I think. That's why,
Speaker 4: like there's a lot of bias between like people who
Speaker 4: like are and people who love Patrick. You know. Unfortunately
Speaker 4: the dirt bag with the huge penis Lend's out like
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, like at least he's a dirt bag. He
Speaker 4: lives in his car, but he's funny and he's not
Speaker 4: and he's not trying to like soft launch a relationship
Speaker 4: while I'm with someone else through myn emotional manipulation. He
Speaker 4: just won the tennis match like an adult.
Speaker 3: I get it. I get it, like it's I don't know,
Speaker 3: you can't win right where it's like having because in
Speaker 3: Tash scenes with Patrick, it's like he is not on her.
Speaker 3: I mean, neither of these guys are on her level remotely,
Speaker 3: but Patrick, I think, is able to like scratch an
Speaker 3: itch that she needs, which is someone who is going
Speaker 3: to like challenge her and challenge her. Yeah, challenge her.
Speaker 2: Wow, challenge hers.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're actually recording this on International Women's Day and
Speaker 3: that was really impactful. Challenge her.
Speaker 4: Wow, I'm with, challenge her.
Speaker 2: I'm with.
Speaker 3: But he is like willing to have an argument with
Speaker 3: her in a way she seems to want, but not
Speaker 3: in a long term way. She does want a sub
Speaker 3: at home, but she does want to have a guy
Speaker 3: to argue with who has a huge dick and is
Speaker 3: a mess And you're like, yeah, which hard to have
Speaker 3: all these things at once.
Speaker 2: It's a woman trying to have it all. But these
Speaker 2: are also all of the ways in which we almost
Speaker 2: never see women represented on screen. The fact that she
Speaker 2: is way better at the sport that she plays than
Speaker 2: the men around her, that she's like the best of everyone,
Speaker 2: including all the men. The fact that she is kind
Speaker 2: of using men to like live vicariously through them so
Speaker 2: that she can still do tennis things. And I'm not
Speaker 2: praising that as a good quality to have. Obviously you
Speaker 2: should not use people. But my point is she has flaws,
Speaker 2: she has layers. She can be messy, she can be calculating,
Speaker 2: and we usually do not get to see a woman
Speaker 2: portrayed in these types of ways in movies because normally
Speaker 2: we see women who are either like perfect little angels
Speaker 2: who would never make a mistake or do anything wrong,
Speaker 2: or women who are given so little characterization that you
Speaker 2: don't even know what choices they would make. So even
Speaker 2: though Tashi is like not behaving well a lot of
Speaker 2: the time, it's more interesting than the like nothing characters
Speaker 2: we so often see with women in movies. So there's that.
Speaker 2: There's the fact that she loves tennis more than she
Speaker 2: will ever love any man, and like the men around
Speaker 2: her do not know what to do with that exactly.
Speaker 2: The fact that again, and I'm gonna keep harping on this,
Speaker 2: like dom sub dynamic thing. It's not how we traditionally
Speaker 2: think of dom sub dynamics in like the kink sphere,
Speaker 2: but she is in her relationship with Art, the dominant
Speaker 2: figure who is always telling him what to do, how
Speaker 2: to play tennis, which tournaments he's gonna compete in. He
Speaker 2: never pushes back, he just says, whatever you want, babe.
Speaker 2: Also that scene, so there's a scene at the very
Speaker 2: beginning where she's like, you're humiliating yourself. You need to
Speaker 2: get your shit together, Like, let's have you do something
Speaker 2: that you can win so that you can stop being
Speaker 2: such a loser.
Speaker 4: Yea.
Speaker 2: And that scene ends with her han soloing him where
Speaker 2: he's like, I love you and she's like, I know, and.
Speaker 3: He kind of loves that though he kind of love that.
Speaker 4: If it was easy, he wouldn't be there. And I
Speaker 4: think that's sort of like what's interesting about their dynamic.
Speaker 4: And I also love like to what you're saying, Caitlin,
Speaker 4: I definitely feel like she resents the fact that, like,
Speaker 4: I literally physically can't play this game anymore, and if
Speaker 4: I could, I would, but I can't, and like and
Speaker 4: now you're here crying about Oh, I think I want
Speaker 4: to retire early I didn't get a chance to retire early.
Speaker 4: You know, I didn't get a chance to even go
Speaker 4: as far as I knew I was capable of. And
Speaker 4: so I think part of why she finds both of
Speaker 4: them frustrating is like, these are two guys who cannot
Speaker 4: use their privilege to do the thing that she could
Speaker 4: do well with less of it. Yeah, it's like it's
Speaker 4: like it's like it's exhausting. It's like, you guys have
Speaker 4: money and ability and the physicality, and yet you just.
Speaker 2: Won't right and your men and you're white.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and they're both from like well off families, and like,
Speaker 3: I mean that is something that again like comes up
Speaker 3: between Tashi and Art very early that I am able
Speaker 3: to see how that is like dysfunctional for both of them,
Speaker 3: where she is putting a lot of pressure on him
Speaker 3: to do something he doesn't want to do anymore. He
Speaker 3: says later, like bluntly, like I'm I know that I'm
Speaker 3: playing for both of us. But there's a moment where
Speaker 3: Tash is so understandably frustrated and she's like, I would
Speaker 3: have killed for a recovery like yours, like, and she
Speaker 3: is to some extent projecting onto him of like you recovered,
Speaker 3: so you have to keep going. And it's I don't know,
Speaker 3: like I if there was one thing I wish I
Speaker 3: we had more of in this movie is like Tashi
Speaker 3: is having to fight against so much. She's not just
Speaker 3: fighting against massage noir that exists within this sport, She's
Speaker 3: also fighting against her own body and like the frustration
Speaker 3: that comes with that, and how that clearly that is
Speaker 3: such a big turning point in her life, that and
Speaker 3: and and in that same opening sequence again, it's like
Speaker 3: all these like little things that they add in that
Speaker 3: could be a full movie, but it's just like a
Speaker 3: shot in Challengers where she is it kind of was
Speaker 3: like giving Victoria and David Beckham to me where there's
Speaker 3: like that we're work what but that we're like that
Speaker 3: big like ad, that billboard ad that she's editing to
Speaker 3: reflect that she is a part of it. So she
Speaker 3: even though it is like not a central focus, you
Speaker 3: can tell that the world is trying to frame her
Speaker 3: as someone's wife and not Tashi Duncan, and she is
Speaker 3: like having to quietly or loudly push back against that.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, there's just like so.
Speaker 3: Many little things that come through and like Zendia should
Speaker 3: have been nominated for everything for this, but no one
Speaker 3: gets nominated for erotic thrillers, so it didn't happen. But
Speaker 3: it just like she's doing so much and the script
Speaker 3: is doing so much too of just like these little
Speaker 3: moments that you're like, of course she is like a
Speaker 3: ticking time bomb. It's all so fucking frustrating.
Speaker 4: No, And I definitely feel like I think it's interesting
Speaker 4: because like when did Baby Girl and like all those
Speaker 4: kind of movies start coming out, because I feel like
Speaker 4: now we're in this place.
Speaker 3: Where everyone around the same time, right.
Speaker 2: Around the same time, right, yeah, late twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: was when Baby Girl came out, I think, yeah.
Speaker 4: And I feel like we're just getting into this place
Speaker 4: with the erotic thriller but also this ability to understand
Speaker 4: eroticism and affection, and I think where like it's I
Speaker 4: don't think it's a lazy comparison to be like, you know,
Speaker 4: Heated Rivalry and Challengers like exists in a similar timeline,
Speaker 4: and I think the Challengers came out a little bit
Speaker 4: closer to Hated Rivalry. People might appreciate it a little
Speaker 4: bit more because of how like sexually earnested. It is, like,
Speaker 4: I think what's really sweet about Art. I think there's
Speaker 4: a sweetness to Art and Patrick's relationship that makes it
Speaker 4: also really captivating. Like I love Tashi in between both
Speaker 4: of them. But I also think like that that three
Speaker 4: way kiss is so compelling because it's like it goes
Speaker 4: on for a while. It's not like it's not like
Speaker 4: they see it happen. They're like, oh that's good. They're
Speaker 4: like they're going forward, they lean into it, they're going
Speaker 4: into it, and it's just like the potential.
Speaker 2: And they have to know that they are kissing each
Speaker 2: other and that Tashi is not involved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I also had canon. I think they're lying in
Speaker 3: that earlier in the scene where they're like they you know,
Speaker 3: it's convenient to have the disgusting Brothers jerk off story
Speaker 3: to support it, but I'm like, they've kissed before. That
Speaker 3: wasn't the first kiss I was looking at over there.
Speaker 3: It was phenomenal these boys and they're basically sort of
Speaker 3: kissing at the end, and Tashi is sort of like whatever,
Speaker 3: as long as because you're playing good tennis while doing
Speaker 3: whatever you're doing, I'm not bothered by it.
Speaker 2: Again, they they should just be in a thrupple. I
Speaker 2: mean you mentioned this in your video, Princess, about how
Speaker 2: all of these characters like should have read the Ethical
Speaker 2: Slut and didn't. But like if they just embraced the
Speaker 2: fact that Tashi wants to have sex with both of them,
Speaker 2: because that's how she has sex with Tennis. Art and
Speaker 2: Patrick want to kiss each other and maybe more because
Speaker 2: there's all these moments of homo eroticism throughout the movie.
Speaker 2: There's a part where like Patrick puts his hand on
Speaker 2: Art's knee.
Speaker 3: While it's awesome, there is.
Speaker 2: There's like the mutual stretching that they do where they're
Speaker 2: embracing each other. There's the truro eating scene where they're
Speaker 2: sharing churros and everything they eat is phallic. Yeah, just
Speaker 2: like all all these moments of physical closeness between them.
Speaker 3: Well, and it's also not a mistake that like their
Speaker 3: big confrontation at the Challenger is where they're both completely
Speaker 3: naked and a sauna, Like the movie is not subtle.
Speaker 4: And apply a towel over it. It's like, we know
Speaker 4: you guys are doing.
Speaker 2: Patrick comes in dick out, He's like, you know what
Speaker 2: this is?
Speaker 3: So he's like, so about how I'm fucking your wife, Like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, they're such babies. I think that that
Speaker 3: is like, I think all three of them kind of
Speaker 3: do treat these relationships like a game, but the way
Speaker 3: that they do is so specific to who the character is,
Speaker 3: where Patrick is still kind of being a teenager, Like
Speaker 3: it's I don't know these three, these three who knows
Speaker 3: what the hell is going on with them? But I
Speaker 3: but I love that.
Speaker 2: I love to watch it.
Speaker 3: I love whatever the hell's going on here.
Speaker 4: I wish I could just trade like Aporia season three,
Speaker 4: Let's just do Challengers season one, Let's just go right there.
Speaker 3: Oh it would be so good. Another I mean, just
Speaker 3: speaking to it is all these like little moments, but
Speaker 3: how it does seem like Patrick in art genuinely in
Speaker 3: different ways want Tashi's validation. Another moment that I picked
Speaker 3: up on in this most recent watch was after she
Speaker 3: and Patrick have sex in his car the night before
Speaker 3: the Challenger or like the finals, he starts getting very
Speaker 3: like postcoital affectionate with her, and he's like, I miss
Speaker 3: watching you. Do you play tennis? You're so beautiful? And
Speaker 3: she's like, so anyways, tennis, Like, let's talk about my
Speaker 3: true love speaking of what I care about, Like she
Speaker 3: just doesn't care. And I love their confrontation when she
Speaker 3: with her bob and her sweater. It's just so great
Speaker 3: where she says, to his face, you look like shit.
Speaker 3: She she calls him out directly for cosplaying as a
Speaker 3: poor person. You know, she says, like, your dreams are shit,
Speaker 3: your garbage, and he, you know, Patrick can take shit
Speaker 3: like that in stride, which I think is appealing to Tashi.
Speaker 3: He seems to kind of get off on being called
Speaker 3: a piece of shit. A lot of rich guys are
Speaker 3: like that. But he he like gives it back to
Speaker 3: her to say way they they did when they were
Speaker 3: in a relationship together, and it's like, well you don't
Speaker 3: you don't love your husband and he just wants to
Speaker 3: eat a cheeseburger and take a nap and you hate
Speaker 3: him for that, and she's like, well so what shrug.
Speaker 2: I know, like her dynamic with Patrick is that he's
Speaker 2: a brat and she's like his brat tamer. And then
Speaker 2: with Art it's he's a simp and she's just like, yeah,
Speaker 2: do whatever I say.
Speaker 3: You can't.
Speaker 4: I mean, it just so toxic. How it's just like
Speaker 4: he's he's like, you don't love your husband, and she's like, well,
Speaker 4: you should kill yourself. And I was just like, WHOA,
Speaker 4: legendary really elated. She took it. She took it to hell.
Speaker 4: He's like when they go low, I'm going to the
Speaker 4: Winter Earth. That's like, you know, if you improve your game,
Speaker 4: be in the ground. I was like, whoa.
Speaker 2: It was wild.
Speaker 3: But she and then on the other end, like another
Speaker 3: moment with Art that I kind of forgot about that
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my gosh, these three are so broken.
Speaker 3: Where she leaves to cheat on him but also sort
Speaker 3: of be his manager in a way in a like
Speaker 3: she's sort of at works, sort of not when she's
Speaker 3: having sex with Josha Connor, but she comes back and
Speaker 3: he's just like sleeping next to their daughter, and that
Speaker 3: you don't know, that really got me this time. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: he just needs to feel loved.
Speaker 4: He does.
Speaker 2: He just wants to be held tenderly until he falls asleep.
Speaker 3: And she does that. She like pats him on the
Speaker 3: back for three minutes and she's like, so I have
Speaker 3: to go. How secks with your roommate.
Speaker 2: She's like, you're not a pile of tennis balls. So
Speaker 2: I'm not really interested in holding you very much exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one thing I wanted to touch on that I
Speaker 3: do think that we do have because this movie is
Speaker 3: so hyper focused on the love triangle, and I do
Speaker 3: think we this is the love triangle. We're used to
Speaker 3: saying two men and a woman, not two women and
Speaker 3: a man. But because this happens in the world of tennis,
Speaker 3: I just wanted to touch on a Dazed article that
Speaker 3: came out around the release of this movie by Helena
Speaker 3: Jabrill that is specifically about women who are athletes and
Speaker 3: their bodies. The name of the piece as Challengers missed
Speaker 3: an opportunity to spotlight female athletes bodies, so I just
Speaker 3: wanted to share it a little bit from that. It
Speaker 3: is not a criticism of Zendeia. I think it's more
Speaker 3: criticism of the fact that because there is really just
Speaker 3: one woman athlete we get to see and know in
Speaker 3: this movie, we lose an opportunity to explore a very
Speaker 3: common criticism of women in sports, and also specifically Black
Speaker 3: women in sports, which is the hyperfixation on their bodies historically.
Speaker 3: So to share a piece of that. While watching Challengers,
Speaker 3: I wondered why Tashi's body didn't resemble other young tennis
Speaker 3: stars we know from real life, from Cocoa Goff and
Speaker 3: Naomi Osaka to the young Serena and Venus Williams, all
Speaker 3: women who help shape the character of Tashi. These sportswomen
Speaker 3: have a more muscular and broader physique than Tashi. Challenging
Speaker 3: idealized notions about what women should look like, even those
Speaker 3: in Daa's portrayal of Tashi is impressive. Challengers would have
Speaker 3: been more interesting visually and textually if the object of
Speaker 3: Art and Patrick's desires was a woman who stood in
Speaker 3: opposition to idealize femininity rather than conforms to it, as
Speaker 3: so many women in sport do. From the racist redicule
Speaker 3: that was always leveled against Serena Williams because of her
Speaker 3: dark skin and muscular body, to the questioning of Olympic
Speaker 3: runner casters Men's gender because of all the high levels
Speaker 3: of testosterone in her body, all women, but especially black
Speaker 3: women athletes, have constantly been bullied and seen as less
Speaker 3: desirable when their bodies and behavior go against traditional ideas
Speaker 3: of femininity. Challengers had the opportunity to confront our normative
Speaker 3: understanding of who and what is desirable in the same way.
Speaker 3: The film presents an alternative and queer view of how
Speaker 3: relationships can work. So it is like in a movie
Speaker 3: that has three characters, it's not even like necessarily a criticism,
Speaker 3: but I did think it was like an interesting perspective
Speaker 3: to offer because women are constantly criticized for being too muscular.
Speaker 3: And that's where Love Lies Bleeding comes in, where a
Speaker 3: movie that came out the same year features a queer
Speaker 3: relationship with Kristen Stewart and Katie O'Brien, and Katie O'Brien
Speaker 3: is a you know, like a weightlifter who looks like
Speaker 3: a weightlifter, a bodybuilder. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I thought it was an Seeing Peace and we.
Speaker 2: Got to cover that movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, I love that movie. That was also something
Speaker 4: I thought about in the back of my mind because
Speaker 4: I'm like, I get what they picked Zendaya because that
Speaker 4: is like a star. And also Zindaa is not the
Speaker 4: kind of actor who you necessarily can gain like a
Speaker 4: whole amount of muscle, even though I know she did
Speaker 4: gain some for this movie, and so it's one of
Speaker 4: those things. It's like it's like one of those caveas
Speaker 4: where like I wish they had more background people that
Speaker 4: did reflect that body type.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I think that that would have been like a nice
Speaker 4: balance to have more people or like get Cocoa Golf
Speaker 4: for a cameo or something like that.
Speaker 3: Totally, totally, yeah, yeah, Like I do think there was
Speaker 3: room for in a movie that is full of small
Speaker 3: moments that really stick with you, small moments with another
Speaker 3: woman athlete who doesn't look necessarily like Zendia or like
Speaker 3: a Hollywood actor could have been cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the closest thing we get is that
Speaker 2: scene where Tashi is playing at Stanford in a match
Speaker 2: with I think a student from Pepperdine or something like that,
Speaker 2: and the other student, who I believe is a white woman,
Speaker 2: is like laboriously running back and forth and Tashi, by contrast,
Speaker 2: is pretty stationary, implying that like this is effortless for Tashi.
Speaker 2: She is like she is just crushing this woman and
Speaker 2: the other woman is like having to work so much harder.
Speaker 2: But that's kind of the only time we really see
Speaker 2: another woman play tennis in the movie, and it's a
Speaker 2: thin white woman, so it's again not doing anything to
Speaker 2: challenger what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: That said, it is cool and worth mentioning that Zendia
Speaker 3: is a top line producer on this movie. I love
Speaker 3: when women are producing their own li movies and have
Speaker 3: a say in how they are portrayed. I feel like
Speaker 3: you can really feel that in this movie because we
Speaker 3: like referenced this earlier. There is a lot and I
Speaker 3: guess I can't put my finger on exactly why I'm
Speaker 3: not bothered by this, but like there is a lot
Speaker 3: of male gaze in this movie, but like not in
Speaker 3: the way that we're used to seeing it. It's maybe
Speaker 3: it's because it's like the simping male gaze and not
Speaker 3: be like violent male gaze. I don't know what it is,
Speaker 3: but because we do see things from Zendea's perspective as well,
Speaker 3: like I mean, most iconically the shot of her watching
Speaker 3: the boys making out, but like I don't know, yeah,
Speaker 3: the perspectives, like the camera work in this is so
Speaker 3: good and like horny and weird and thoughtful and a
Speaker 3: bunch of other words as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think this is the balancing of the equal
Speaker 4: opportunity and also that Zendeia is a star that has
Speaker 4: the power to say no to nudity, like if she
Speaker 4: did not want to have that, I don't because she's
Speaker 4: one of the few juds who's never been naked in Euphoria,
Speaker 4: So I think that it kind of makes you feel
Speaker 4: like she has power in it, kind of like with
Speaker 4: poor Things, where it's like, is it a little gazy
Speaker 4: at times? For sure? But because we know Zendia has
Speaker 4: power in the industry, we can at least know that
Speaker 4: if she felt uncomfortable, that she is someone who is
Speaker 4: empowered to be like no, thank you totally.
Speaker 3: And yeah, then the fact that like the four producers
Speaker 3: credited on this movie are three women, Amy Pascal, Zendia,
Speaker 3: Rachel O'Connor, and a queer man Luca Guadnino. Like it,
Speaker 3: I don't know, you just do get the feeling that
Speaker 3: you are in good hands because the male gaze, I
Speaker 3: don't know. I think we've been so conditioned to see
Speaker 3: it to say that seeing male gaze shots is inherently
Speaker 3: a bad thing, because it more often than not has
Speaker 3: ben in movies. But this is I think an outlier,
Speaker 3: and that like it is, you know, not completely useless
Speaker 3: to see things from a male character's perspective. It's just
Speaker 3: nice to not feel attacked by it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and not everyone is getting a little bit of
Speaker 4: it because it's like we see, we see like a
Speaker 4: little hint of penin. We're never seeing anything more from
Speaker 4: her that we don't see from another.
Speaker 2: Man, right, I mean, I would argue that there are
Speaker 2: shots of the two men that are more sexualized than
Speaker 2: anything that we see of Tashi, especially in the final
Speaker 2: sequence when Patrick and Art are getting closer and closer together,
Speaker 2: they're dripping sweat. They're like, we get kind of isolated
Speaker 2: shots of like their thighs and their arms and shoulders
Speaker 2: and the muscles just pulsating and glistening, And to me,
Speaker 2: that feels way more sexualized than anything that we see
Speaker 2: of Tashi's body.
Speaker 3: And I think you could still argue that that is
Speaker 3: a male gaze because I think, to me, that's them
Speaker 3: looking at each other. That's not Tash. True, Tashi is
Speaker 3: like thinking about tennis balls.
Speaker 2: Like she's like finally, yeah, so true.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's what makes the whole movie so refreshing,
Speaker 4: and what makes it truly erotic is that it's erotic
Speaker 4: for everyone. If it's only erotic for like one participant,
Speaker 4: Like again, all those tips need to touch.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's all tips of the triangle. It's like, Wow,
Speaker 3: what a bar.
Speaker 2: They need to fold in on each other and touch exactly.
Speaker 2: Can we talk about the marketing of this movie, which
Speaker 2: is also something that you bring up in your video essay, Princess,
Speaker 2: but the fact that there were there was at least
Speaker 2: one trailer that positioned Tashi as the femme fatale, the villain,
Speaker 2: the vindictive home wrecker, and and Nelly Furtado's man Eater
Speaker 2: is playing and what a bop of a song. But
Speaker 2: then you watch the movie and you realize, oh, that's
Speaker 2: not what's happening. Maybe there are traces of it kind of,
Speaker 2: but she's a far more complicated character than that. And
Speaker 2: I think it's just that with marketing for movies, they
Speaker 2: have to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible,
Speaker 2: and this is kind of a hard movie to market,
Speaker 2: if we're being honest. So they have to figure out, Okay,
Speaker 2: what's the hook. How are we going to sell this
Speaker 2: because what we have in Tashi is simply a confident
Speaker 2: and dominant woman. But that's scary to people. Absolutely, people
Speaker 2: don't want to watch a movie about that. So how
Speaker 2: do we take the footage we have from the movie
Speaker 2: and put a spin on it so that it's more
Speaker 2: sellable and more marketable. Oh, we'll make her a vindictive,
Speaker 2: manipulative woman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's interesting. Like both times, the first
Speaker 4: time I watched a movie, I thought that she would
Speaker 4: be in it more because of how heavily she is
Speaker 4: like the face of this movie. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 4: it's surprising how much it is about the boys because
Speaker 4: of that, Which is not to say that she's not
Speaker 4: an important character, Like you don't have to be in
Speaker 4: every single shot to be important, because she's definitely like
Speaker 4: haunting the narrative, so to speak. But it definitely like
Speaker 4: surprised me that, like they're the ones who chase after her,
Speaker 4: like in a lot of the sequences, like she's responding
Speaker 4: to like like you know, they're serving the ball and
Speaker 4: she's just serving it back at them, but at her
Speaker 4: own speed. And I think it sometimes and I think
Speaker 4: also because of the way that you know, fandoms will
Speaker 4: make the female character the bad guy inherently, it's possible
Speaker 4: to really flatten all of Tashi's nuance in the narrative
Speaker 4: by just being like, well, she's in the way of
Speaker 4: these two minutes, Like, no, those two men are in
Speaker 4: the way of themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everyone is like in the way, and sometimes the
Speaker 3: world is in the way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's society.
Speaker 2: They live in a society.
Speaker 4: They live in a society, and I think, like that
Speaker 4: is what's interesting about Like, yeah, it's the man eater.
Speaker 4: Well sn M is a little bit later, but the
Speaker 4: man eater thing is definitely very funny because I don't
Speaker 4: think she's a man eater. I just think that she's
Speaker 4: like hot and confident and they're overwhelmed by it.
Speaker 3: Right, It's like I don't I mean, we are led
Speaker 3: to believe that she, in her adult life has had
Speaker 3: sex with two people, and it's the two guys in
Speaker 3: this movie. Right, I don't think she's a man.
Speaker 2: Eater necessarily, And if she is a man eater, she
Speaker 2: is eating a man who wants to be eaten.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's on a nye and it's very little carb. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because it's like it's it's it's just these two boys.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think another great Tashi and Art moment where you're
Speaker 3: just like, oh god, Art Art, Art buddy, where he's
Speaker 3: like he's trying to take a stand and I and
Speaker 3: I mean trying. He's trying to take a stand and
Speaker 3: he's like, I'm quitting tennis. I'm sleepy. I don't like
Speaker 3: it anymore. And then well and then she's like okay, fine,
Speaker 3: and then he's he like tries to walk away from
Speaker 3: the conversation.
Speaker 2: He's like, but what do you think?
Speaker 3: Is it okay?
Speaker 2: Are you mad? Do you love me?
Speaker 3: And like he ough, yeah, buddy, I do think And
Speaker 3: it's like in that way, I am kind of glad
Speaker 3: that again it feels like equal across the three of
Speaker 3: their backgrounds. We know enough to know, you know, at
Speaker 3: least have an idea of why they are reacting to
Speaker 3: each other the way that they are, but we don't
Speaker 3: get a deep look into like what are their relationships
Speaker 3: with their parents? What I mean, I think we know
Speaker 3: the most about Tashi because we see a fair amount
Speaker 3: of her mom, and it's.
Speaker 2: Very loving and care mutually respectful.
Speaker 3: It seems like a good relationship. But but that like
Speaker 3: I don't know, like you can kind of like project
Speaker 3: onto these three characters in any sort of way because
Speaker 3: you're not given too much information about them. And I
Speaker 3: think that that is something that is maybe a like
Speaker 3: peak TV over correction that sometimes and I think that
Speaker 3: like I've been guilty of this of like wanting to
Speaker 3: know more than a movie is telling me, because I
Speaker 3: think we're so used to having things over explained to
Speaker 3: us now in a lot of movies where there could
Speaker 3: be an entire side movie about one character you saw
Speaker 3: for one second and one movie ten years ago, and
Speaker 3: you know, like, this movie is not over explaining itself
Speaker 3: to you in a way that I think it helps
Speaker 3: and like is makes it better?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, does anyone have anything else they want to
Speaker 2: talk about?
Speaker 4: I just I just love the soundtrack as well. I
Speaker 4: think that's the one last thing I want to say
Speaker 4: is it's like just like the way it goes like
Speaker 4: like every time like the sound stops and then picks
Speaker 4: up again, it's like electrifying. It's like, yeah, I just
Speaker 4: the fact that just didn't get nominated for Best Score blasphemy,
Speaker 4: Like that is just like a crime, a literal crime,
Speaker 4: Like what were you guys doing? Were you on drugs
Speaker 4: at the time? Please share with the clouds. So that's
Speaker 4: the one thing I will say. I'm like, I have
Speaker 4: no idea how they could have ignored that aspect of
Speaker 4: anything about this film. It's so bizarre. Yeah.
Speaker 3: How many Yeah, how many soundtracks end up on like
Speaker 3: people's regular rotation, and the Challenger soundtrack has definitely remained
Speaker 3: in mind, and I think I'm very much not alone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like it's to me. It's like this year
Speaker 4: the soundtrack that I'm like a gog didn't get any
Speaker 4: nominations is like a testament of Anilee and a couple
Speaker 4: of years ago. It's so God, I am like the
Speaker 4: biggest evangelical of that movie. I'm like, mother, Anne is so,
Speaker 4: but I but I it has an amazing soundtrack, and
Speaker 4: I think so does Challengers. I'm like, these are like
Speaker 4: such great, great stories.
Speaker 2: We should start our own awards.
Speaker 4: Exactly, we'll get it right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously.
Speaker 3: Bechtel's test wise, this does pass a couple times.
Speaker 2: Obviously.
Speaker 3: There is one woman who is central to the narrative,
Speaker 3: but she talks to her daughter. She talks to her mom.
Speaker 2: She talks to her daughter about into the Spider Verse.
Speaker 3: A fun little ZiT nod to Zendia's career, also Spider
Speaker 3: Man background.
Speaker 4: Her husband does Spider things.
Speaker 3: I guess I've heard of her husband. He does spider things, right,
Speaker 3: he seems nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, there's that line in this movie where Patrick
Speaker 2: is like, I'm not some lapdog who's gonna sit around
Speaker 2: and let you punish me. I'm not Art, But maybe
Speaker 2: you need someone like that. Maybe you want someone who's
Speaker 2: gonna be mister Tashi Duncan. And that it seems like
Speaker 2: that is exactly what how she wants.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is actually exactly what she wants. And I know,
Speaker 3: just the man for the job.
Speaker 2: And she is Zendia and she has mister Zendia, and
Speaker 2: so I think that's how she lives her regular life too.
Speaker 3: I don't thank God, who knows. We don't know, and
Speaker 3: it's none of our business. And I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, she talks to her daughter, she talks
Speaker 2: to her mother, talks to her mum, mostly about childcare stuff.
Speaker 2: So yeah, these these interactions past the Bechdel test.
Speaker 3: There is one other woman in the movie that we
Speaker 3: haven't chatted out but just deserved better. And that's Helen,
Speaker 3: the woman who Art goes out a date with who
Speaker 3: for Hella, who is not treated well. And I just
Speaker 3: wanted to shout her out as a woman who I
Speaker 3: hope wherever she is in this fictional world, I hope
Speaker 3: she is well, and I hope she found someone who
Speaker 3: could listen to her finish a sentence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and doesn't surprise kiss her, which like, Okay, Patrick
Speaker 2: is a complete dirt bag. He probably is the type
Speaker 2: of man who would surprise kiss a woman. But also
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know we did did we need
Speaker 2: to see that in the movie. Couldn't we have seen
Speaker 2: him asking for consent? He can still be a dirt
Speaker 2: bag about it, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like that is almost like used as
Speaker 3: a tool to contrast him in Art in a way
Speaker 3: that almost wasn't necessary because Art is like mister consent.
Speaker 3: He like in the Appleby's Parking Lite, He's like, so
Speaker 3: I really want to kiss you, but I'm afraid that
Speaker 3: you have a feeling, and you're like he is like
Speaker 3: mister consent. That's kind of he's he's he's hot for consent. Yeah,
Speaker 3: his whole and that is like again just like sorry
Speaker 3: to like start another converence, but like it's just so
Speaker 3: thoughtfully like written and performed, where that is always who
Speaker 3: Art is, like from the moment he meets Tashi, he's
Speaker 3: always the one that's like, I really admire.
Speaker 2: Your game, Tashi.
Speaker 3: You're very you're a very tough like he even says
Speaker 3: to Patrick when Tashi's not even there. He's like, come on, Patrick,
Speaker 3: she's a very remarkable young woman, and you're right now Art.
Speaker 3: I kind of love him.
Speaker 4: It's one of those things where like I hate it,
Speaker 4: but I was like, that makes me so dry that
Speaker 4: he just said that, like, not ironically, like I was
Speaker 4: just like, no, he.
Speaker 3: Was alone with his boy and said, she is a
Speaker 3: remarkable young woman. And I'm like, I go, you gotta
Speaker 3: love art. You gotta love art.
Speaker 4: At least I didn't call her articulate. That would have
Speaker 4: really fucked me up.
Speaker 2: But yeah, what about our nipple scale? Though our scale
Speaker 2: where we rate the movie based on examining it through
Speaker 2: an intersectional feminist lens zero to five nipples. I think
Speaker 2: because this is a movie that showcases a woman who
Speaker 2: is I think, very complicated, very interesting, who is allowed
Speaker 2: to be confident and dominant, and sure does she mistreat
Speaker 2: some people along the way. Yeah, I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: she's necessarily like someone to aspire to be, but also
Speaker 2: I do aspire to achieve the level of dominance that
Speaker 2: she has over men. I think I kind of struggled
Speaker 2: with the Tashi character the first time I saw the
Speaker 2: movie but when I rewatched it and sort of like
Speaker 2: framed her character through that lens, I was like, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, she's she's cooking, she's onto something. I think
Speaker 2: I want to give this movie like I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Is it three nipples? Is it four nipples?
Speaker 2: Is it less? Is it more? This is a this
Speaker 2: is a challenging one to rate.
Speaker 4: I'm going for I'm going for too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, me too.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think I think I would give it four nipples.
Speaker 4: And I'm only taking a nipple off because she's the
Speaker 4: only woman of color and I think that, like besides
Speaker 4: her own child, and I would have just liked for
Speaker 4: her to have like another relationship to like one other
Speaker 4: person of color that's not related to her.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So because of that, it gets four from an
Speaker 4: intersectional lens. But I do think, like it's so refreshing
Speaker 4: to watch a female character who's just behaving badly, like
Speaker 4: Harper from Industry watches Challengers and just like this is
Speaker 4: my inspo, Like I really love Tashi Dugan as a character,
Speaker 4: and I think it's probably my favorite Sunday of performance
Speaker 4: thus far because she really shows that she is a
Speaker 4: movie star, but also has it in her to be
Speaker 4: like this really complicated character actress.
Speaker 3: For sure, I'm gonna go for as well. I think
Speaker 3: for the same reasons. I think that there was definitely
Speaker 3: a room for a relationship with Tashi and another woman,
Speaker 3: specifically a woman in tennis that would have been interesting.
Speaker 3: But I don't know. I mean, it's like, she's such
Speaker 3: an incredible character. I feel like Challengers is going to
Speaker 3: be thought of as a classic in the future, and
Speaker 3: it's just I don't know. I love seeing Zendaya like
Speaker 3: sort of I feel like this was her real like
Speaker 3: I I don't know, like straddling. She does technically play
Speaker 3: a teenager in this movie, but she's also like, but
Speaker 3: what you really want me to see is play a
Speaker 3: woman who is my current age, and I just know
Speaker 3: that she's gonna do so much amazing stuff. It weirdly
Speaker 3: reminds me a little bit, and maybe I'm just looking
Speaker 3: for an excuse to bring up one of my favorite movies,
Speaker 3: but it reminds me a little bit of it Tanya,
Speaker 3: which is I think, like Margaret Robbie's comparable moment of
Speaker 3: like I'm producing my own movies. Now I'm playing the
Speaker 3: character you've seen me play before and I'm doing this
Speaker 3: other thing you've never seen me do. And I just
Speaker 3: think that, like, we'll keep saying that from her and yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's it's a great movie. Thank you, Potion Master,
Speaker 3: thank you Luca, than.
Speaker 2: You well, Princess, thank you so much for joining us,
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. Obviously you're welcome back anytime.
Speaker 3: Whatever you want you bring, you bring a very different
Speaker 3: movie to the table every time.
Speaker 4: I know what how we collectic. I'm like, next, we're
Speaker 4: gonna do Barry Lyndon for the boys.
Speaker 2: We got we gotta do something for this.
Speaker 3: I still haven't seen it. I know Candle's question mark,
Speaker 3: That's what I know.
Speaker 4: I saw it in theaters with a friends with a
Speaker 4: group of friends in Houston and it had the intermission
Speaker 4: in the middle. Perfect way to see a movie. But yeah,
Speaker 4: call me friend of your coop brooking and needs. I'll
Speaker 4: I'm there for you, guys. Is emotional support.
Speaker 2: Where can people follow you? Check out your work plug away?
Speaker 4: Yay, thank you guys so much. I love being on here.
Speaker 4: You guys can find me on YouTube, Princess Weeks. I
Speaker 4: just had a recent video at about Weathering Heights. I
Speaker 4: have a video coming out by the time this is
Speaker 4: out about the Tragic Mulatto, which is really interesting and
Speaker 4: very academically and I uh am there and I'm on
Speaker 4: Blue Sky also Princess m weeks with one S for
Speaker 4: Princess because I spelled my name wrong, but I thought
Speaker 4: it gave it character, so I kept it. And uh yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm just so happy to talk. I just missed talking
Speaker 4: to you guys, so I'm just happy to do that
Speaker 4: all day long.
Speaker 3: That's why we pod that. It is so nice to
Speaker 3: used nice to hear your voice. And yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 3: I feel like I see you all the time because
Speaker 3: I have my notifications on for your channel.
Speaker 4: That's how I feel when I hear your voices. Of course,
Speaker 4: I subscribe to the Matreon as everyone should. It's all
Speaker 4: good financially forward women should do. And so sometimes I'm
Speaker 4: going to bed and listening to you guys. I'm just like,
Speaker 4: that's so right, exactly.
Speaker 2: And speaking of listeners, if you're not already a Matron,
Speaker 2: get over there the hell over there.
Speaker 3: That's where we're consistently abused by our biggest supporters.
Speaker 4: You're Tashie Duncans.
Speaker 3: Our Tashi Duncans are like talk about the Boondocks Saints.
Speaker 2: Doing and we we are ur Donaldson and we have
Speaker 2: to say, oh yes.
Speaker 3: We're like, yes, mommy, we will talk about.
Speaker 2: The Boondock Saints.
Speaker 3: Yes. That's where. For five dollars a month you can
Speaker 3: get access to two new exclusive episodes a month on
Speaker 3: a theme usually if you're choosing, and access to over
Speaker 3: two hundred episodes of back catalog. And it is true
Speaker 3: that in the month of March we are doing movies
Speaker 3: that feature Irish characters. And you all voted for the
Speaker 3: Boondock Saints and wee beer. Oh, I have no one
Speaker 3: but yourselves to blame, but not Barry Lyndon.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah, oh my gosh. Well, uh yeah you can.
Speaker 2: You can find us on our Matreon, Patreon, dot com
Speaker 2: slash Bechdel Cast. You can also follow us on Instagram.
Speaker 3: And that's that.
Speaker 2: Shall we shall we hit the tennis courts and have
Speaker 2: sex with tennis just like Tashi Doug.
Speaker 3: Yes, Bye bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production
Speaker 3: of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced by me Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 2: And me Caitlyn Durrante. The podcast is also produced by
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtermann and.
Speaker 3: 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? Oh My God?
Speaker 3: And our theme song, by the way, was composed by
Speaker 3: Mike Kaplan.
Speaker 2: With vocals by Catherine Voskrissy.
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
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