Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bell Cast. Hey, Jamie, yes, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: I made some barbecue and also a man might be missing.
Speaker 1: But the two things have nothing to do with each other.
Speaker 1: Do you want some of my barbecue that I made?
Speaker 1: I'm going vegan? Is it vegan? It's well? Um, is
Speaker 1: there a reason it wouldn't be vegan? Well, barbecue tends
Speaker 1: to have animal byproducts. Okay, Okay, you know what you
Speaker 1: sold me. I'll try it. Okay, it's gonna you're gonna
Speaker 1: love it. It's the tastiest barbecue you've ever had taste.
Speaker 1: It's a little tough. This has been a fun role play.
Speaker 1: We could have just kept going, and why don't we?
Speaker 1: What an episode we have for you today? This is
Speaker 1: the Bechdel Test. No, no, oh my god, I fund
Speaker 1: I found like people who are reviewing us who haven't
Speaker 1: actually listened to the show, They're like, it's the Bechdel Test.
Speaker 1: Is the Bechdel Test podcast? Right, That's what it's called.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan, it's the Bechdel Test. You're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a liar, Okay, Um, how polite Southern politeness. Uh,
Speaker 1: this this is our show where um we use the
Speaker 1: Bechdel Test as a jumping off point for discussion to
Speaker 1: have an intersectional conversation about some of your favorite movies
Speaker 1: in the entire world. Truly, Yes, well what what on
Speaker 1: earth is the Bechdel test? Though? Well, if you don't
Speaker 1: know what the Bechdel test is, does that ever happen
Speaker 1: to you? Caitlin, Like, I feel like something that has
Speaker 1: happened to me many times where people don't know and
Speaker 1: I have to explain it, know that they're pretending to know,
Speaker 1: but they're calling it the Bechdel Test over and over
Speaker 1: and over, and it's very clear that they haven't listened
Speaker 1: to the show, which is fine to say that for
Speaker 1: the name of the podcast. Yeah. Yeah, all the time
Speaker 1: we've done, we've been guests on other people's podcasts where
Speaker 1: they're like, she's the host of the Bechtel podcast. I
Speaker 1: mean they're like, not wrong, but it's not right. The
Speaker 1: best one is when we did this show in London,
Speaker 1: Brag remember going places? Uh, and they put out a
Speaker 1: Marquee that said the Women in Film podcast, and we're like, well,
Speaker 1: this is all this is. Again. It's not incorrect, but
Speaker 1: it's weird to list a theme instead of a title. Um.
Speaker 1: In any case, the Bechtel Test is a media metric
Speaker 1: invented by queer cartoonist Alice and Bechtel, sometimes called the
Speaker 1: Bechtel Wallace test, that requires the following for our purposes.
Speaker 1: There's many permutations at this, but for us, UM, we
Speaker 1: need two non male characters to speak to each other.
Speaker 1: They also have to have names. I'd like to go back.
Speaker 1: They speed to each other about something other than a
Speaker 1: male character for two lines of dialogue. Does it usually
Speaker 1: happen in movies? No? Not a lot today? Yeah? Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: That's my other favorite mistake that people make when they
Speaker 1: explain my podcast to me is that they say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you and Caitlin talk about whether a movie passes the
Speaker 1: Bechdel test for two hours. I'm like, what would that
Speaker 1: conversation be? Like we go through every single minute of
Speaker 1: the movie and be like, well, does that did that scene?
Speaker 1: Did that exchange past? Yes? No, okay, let's move on
Speaker 1: to the next one, and do you have any observations
Speaker 1: on this. Okay, let's move on. What if we just
Speaker 1: did that for all of Indiana Jones and we're just like, okay, minute,
Speaker 1: no women, no women, let's move on, and only what
Speaker 1: about just like a taboo buzzer just like you know,
Speaker 1: I thought it was mostly buzzer. That's what I thought.
Speaker 1: The podcast was just dings and buzzer. Oh yeah, we
Speaker 1: should have been implementing that from day one. I don't
Speaker 1: know why we didn't think of that. So we're talking.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Fried Green Tomatoes today. And the voice
Speaker 1: you just heard is that of comedian journalist, host of
Speaker 1: news Broke on a J Plus, host of the Bituation
Speaker 1: Room podcast. It's Francesca Fiorentini. Hey, welcome, man. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to talk about this film. Thanks for being here
Speaker 1: we're site. Thank you for having me. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a treat, and thank you for bringing this movie to
Speaker 1: This has been a fairly popular request. It's been requested
Speaker 1: to us many times over the years. And it's the day.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about Fried Green Tomatoes. What is your
Speaker 1: history with this movie? Okay, so I watched this when
Speaker 1: it came out, so ninety one and I was like
Speaker 1: eleven ten around then, but kind of like, yes, I
Speaker 1: missed some of the jokes around like women examining their
Speaker 1: own vaginas and like marriage marital stuff. You know, it
Speaker 1: was me just like looking at my Teddy bear, like
Speaker 1: totally you know, like one of my I don't didn't
Speaker 1: really get that, but I definitely understood how moving, how
Speaker 1: important this film was, what it meant about female friendship,
Speaker 1: how men are trash? Um? Have you read the book?
Speaker 1: Has anyone read the book? I? We have not read
Speaker 1: the book, but I have read a lot about the book.
Speaker 1: There's there is a lot of really really interesting, complicated
Speaker 1: context between the book and the film, and I'll have
Speaker 1: a good adaptation discussion. That's that I have not read
Speaker 1: the book. Should I wish? I cool? We're all in
Speaker 1: the same boat. Um, But yes, we have a fair
Speaker 1: amount of context about the book. My document is horrifying
Speaker 1: this week. Oh we're so Southern polite, We're so polite. No,
Speaker 1: after you, after you? Oh, thank you, thank you. Um.
Speaker 1: I saw it for the first time. It was one
Speaker 1: of those movies that as a young film student in college,
Speaker 1: I was like, this is an important movie. I need
Speaker 1: to see it. I need to have seen it in
Speaker 1: my life. I watched it once as a freshman in college.
Speaker 1: I want to say I was one of those ones
Speaker 1: that I saw but don't know how much I was,
Speaker 1: like actually paying attention to it. I only remembered the
Speaker 1: cannibalism at the end. Yes, I suffered the same, only
Speaker 1: remembering that this movie. Yes, I remember enjoying it. Um.
Speaker 1: A lot of times I will remember my response, my
Speaker 1: emotional response to a movie, more than I remember the
Speaker 1: movie itself or the story or anything like that. Um,
Speaker 1: I remember enjoying it, but I just didn't I had
Speaker 1: no recollection of what the story was about, and I
Speaker 1: had only seen it that once. All you had for
Speaker 1: years was just secrets in the song right in your head.
Speaker 1: I feel like, and I'm curious to hear back from
Speaker 1: our listeners. I feel like this is actually something that
Speaker 1: pretty common in terms of just how I don't know
Speaker 1: sometimes with with movies, no matter how well done they are,
Speaker 1: and this movie does a lot of things very well,
Speaker 1: uh that there is just one completely unrelated thing taken
Speaker 1: away from the movie that people are like, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I remember. And I also only remembered the cannibalism.
Speaker 1: I saw this movie. I have like a very lovely
Speaker 1: memory associated with this movie, in spite of the fact
Speaker 1: that I don't really remember what happened obviously, But my
Speaker 1: grandma showed me this movie. Um. She was the best.
Speaker 1: She loved showing us movies that she liked and talking
Speaker 1: loudly throughout them, which is probably why I don't know
Speaker 1: anything that happened in the movie. But this was like
Speaker 1: a movie that I watched at her house in Maine
Speaker 1: when I was like maybe, I don't know, like maybe
Speaker 1: maybe around the same age like tennis, when you're allowed
Speaker 1: to start watching these movies, um, but like with your relative.
Speaker 1: So I watched it with my mom and my grandma
Speaker 1: and I didn't get along, but they got along for
Speaker 1: the duration of this movie, and it was really nice memory.
Speaker 1: And I missed my grandma. And I didn't remember anything
Speaker 1: that happened in the movie except for the cannibalism. Maybe
Speaker 1: that just has to do with being very young when
Speaker 1: you see this movie. We're so I mean, for sure
Speaker 1: a great deal of it was over my head. And
Speaker 1: also my grandma was most likely just talking at volumes,
Speaker 1: screaming about how cannibalism was going to happen. That's my
Speaker 1: I love how you're like these movies when you are
Speaker 1: allowed to watch them, and by these, I mean movies
Speaker 1: about cannibals. Remember that time when your grandma and grandfather
Speaker 1: just sat you down, like you're like, okay, honey, it's time.
Speaker 1: There is like there was like a time I think
Speaker 1: it was around the time I was like between nine
Speaker 1: and eleven, where like my mom, because my mom was
Speaker 1: very in control of like my media diet, and she
Speaker 1: would be like, Okay, we're gonna start introducing mature themes,
Speaker 1: you know, Like this was like one of those movies
Speaker 1: light petting, light petting, light petting, cannibalism, cannibals, maybe just
Speaker 1: the idea of cannib but the kind of a lighthearted
Speaker 1: cannibalism by a very villainous character. So you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: who cares, which is a feeling I uphold to this
Speaker 1: day about the cannibalism. Um. But in any case, let's
Speaker 1: talk about what happens in the movie. Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1: So we start in rural Alabama in the I believe
Speaker 1: it's set in the eighties, I think it, and when
Speaker 1: the book was written, so like, yeah, movie comes out
Speaker 1: in ninety one, but yeah, I think it's sort of
Speaker 1: a period piece by like four years um and we
Speaker 1: meet Evelyn Couch a k a. Kathy Bates or Queen
Speaker 1: Um and her her husband ed Um. They go to
Speaker 1: a nursing home to visit his aunt, who hates Evelyn,
Speaker 1: so she starts to wander around the nursing home and
Speaker 1: runs into a woman named Mrs Threadgood, but she goes
Speaker 1: by Ninny, and Ninnie starts to tell a story about
Speaker 1: a murder that took place many years ago. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a little Julie and Julia. It's a bit of
Speaker 1: a story within a story which I also fully did
Speaker 1: not remember me either. I did not remember that, but
Speaker 1: I thought Kathy Bates was right there with everyone else.
Speaker 1: I was wrong. I feel like the parallels between Fried
Speaker 1: Green Tomatoes and Titanic are many there. And you also
Speaker 1: mentioned you also mentioned at the notebook as a movie
Speaker 1: with parallels. I saw some parallels. Portrait of a Lady
Speaker 1: on Fire. Also, the poster for this movie kind of
Speaker 1: leadsy to believe that all four of the female leads
Speaker 1: are together in the movie because they all on the
Speaker 1: poster and it's kind of photoshop to make it seem
Speaker 1: like they're together. Looking at the post where you would
Speaker 1: believe that it is for women and a freight train
Speaker 1: that star in the movie. I just see a green
Speaker 1: tomato in this poster, but it does make me think
Speaker 1: that a tomato is the main character, so I would
Speaker 1: get I get the confusion. I will send it to
Speaker 1: the chat. One of the main posters for this movie
Speaker 1: is for women in a freight train, and you do
Speaker 1: have to hand it to them for not putting a
Speaker 1: single man on the poster, but also being like, we
Speaker 1: have to include the train, the murderous train. Perhaps the
Speaker 1: train keeps it's killing some teenagers, it's ripping limbs off
Speaker 1: of kids. This train hates men, this feminist dot com,
Speaker 1: this train train, this train listens to the beach dil cast.
Speaker 1: We don't indoors killing beloved brothers and sons. I think
Speaker 1: that the actions of the train weren't rather ruthless, and
Speaker 1: especially because the men and boys who get killed or
Speaker 1: injured in the story seemed to be perfectly nice and respectful.
Speaker 1: She doesn't choose her targets very well, that I'll say
Speaker 1: about this train. She needs to like there are men
Speaker 1: in this community who deserve to be hit a train.
Speaker 1: I mean, we there are many members of the KKK
Speaker 1: who should have been there's the clan, and there's cops,
Speaker 1: and there's racists. Yeah, but they're just hitting people. In fact,
Speaker 1: this train seems to have a very specific fvendetta against
Speaker 1: people named Buddy. That's true. This train. I'm quickly not
Speaker 1: on board for the train anymore. What was she thinking? Bad?
Speaker 1: Bad train? Bad trad? Okay? Also, I was like, is
Speaker 1: it progressive for the sudden death of a teenage boy
Speaker 1: to change everyone's life? Because in every movie it's we
Speaker 1: have to kill Shaleene Woodley, or how is this guy
Speaker 1: going to learn a lesson? And we have to kill
Speaker 1: Mandy Moore in a Walk to Remember? Or how is
Speaker 1: this guy going to learn a lesson? In this one,
Speaker 1: we kill Chris O'Donnell with a train right away, and
Speaker 1: then she learns the lesson of I'm a lesbian. I
Speaker 1: don't know if Chris o'dollig getting hit by the trade
Speaker 1: teaches her that, but it does move things in that,
Speaker 1: you know, it keeps these characters together. Okay, So what's
Speaker 1: happening in the story? Um Ninny. Ninny starts to tell
Speaker 1: a story from her past to Evelyn Ak Kathy Bates,
Speaker 1: and we cut to a flashback as she's beginning to
Speaker 1: tell the story. We are now in post World War
Speaker 1: One era. We meet i g Thread Good, she's a
Speaker 1: little girl, she 's a tomboy, and then we also
Speaker 1: meet her beloved older brother Buddy. Buddy is in love
Speaker 1: with Ruth Jamison, who is playing what from the Bug?
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um. That is not the
Speaker 1: case in the book, um, but in the movie they
Speaker 1: are little love birds. Ruth is played by Mary Louise Parker,
Speaker 1: and one day they're all out for a stroll and
Speaker 1: Buddy gets his foot caught on the railroad track and
Speaker 1: he is struck and killed by this bad train. It's
Speaker 1: extremely old timey and sad, especially because you see a
Speaker 1: very quick shot of him finally pulling his foot out
Speaker 1: of his boot, and I think he's gonna survive, but
Speaker 1: then he's still killed, and I was very confused on
Speaker 1: the physics of that. It was a strange editing choice
Speaker 1: to incuture him getting out of the boot. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that was a part of the book the
Speaker 1: way it was edited. I thought that he had survived
Speaker 1: and maybe would be like injured but okay, but they
Speaker 1: were like, Nope, he didn't. He's dead rip yes, and
Speaker 1: he's on the train tracks because he's trying to get
Speaker 1: Ruth's hat is starting to blow away, and you're like
Speaker 1: in either like this is bad. This is bad. What
Speaker 1: if the train and the hat are working together and
Speaker 1: it's like collusion and they're trying to kill all the
Speaker 1: Buddies of the world. Yeah, crime, green tomatoes, this is
Speaker 1: this is the most things named Buddy, I feel like
Speaker 1: our dogs. Let's just be yeah, Airbud, Yeah, exactly, Airbud.
Speaker 1: Because we just roasted the editing on this movie. I
Speaker 1: just did a very the quickest Google of my life.
Speaker 1: Brag uh. And so there is a female editor on
Speaker 1: this movie. Deborah Neil Fisher. Her resume is so extensive.
Speaker 1: She edited Sonic the Hedgehog this year. She she edited
Speaker 1: two thirds of the Fifty Shades of Gray franchise. She
Speaker 1: edited every Hangover movie, she edited Baby Mama, she edited
Speaker 1: all of the Austin In Powers. She she's just She's
Speaker 1: edited You, Me and Dupre She's edited all sorts of movies.
Speaker 1: So just if you were worried that she lost work
Speaker 1: because she showed Buddy getting out of his boot and
Speaker 1: confusing us. Um, she did not fine, She's fine. In
Speaker 1: every single one of those films, someone is hit by
Speaker 1: a train. I think if the Common Thread, that's her
Speaker 1: signature thing, even if it has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the movie. She edits it into the movie. She right, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: editors are often you know, the real authors. It's weird.
Speaker 1: I don't remember Sonic the Hedgehog ever getting hit by
Speaker 1: a train, but in this movie he does. I think
Speaker 1: of all the movies, that's the one I would definitely
Speaker 1: assume it happened. Dupre for sure get hit by a train.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you me and what name a fifty Shades
Speaker 1: movie were to go to? Johnson doesn't get hit by
Speaker 1: a train. It's it's her trademark. It's okay. So back
Speaker 1: to the movie. Um, he is He's killed by the train,
Speaker 1: and g is heartbroken over this. Um. It's also around
Speaker 1: this point in the story where we formally meet Big
Speaker 1: George um, as well as less formally meet his mother
Speaker 1: Sipsy Yep. They are two black people who work for
Speaker 1: the Thread good family because they're like a rich, wealthy
Speaker 1: white family who has help, and Big George does a
Speaker 1: lot to look after a g specifically. Um. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the story is unfolding, but just then Kathy Bates his
Speaker 1: husband comes in and interrupts typical man, and we see
Speaker 1: them go back home a little bit. Evelyn Couch has
Speaker 1: been going to these marriage counseling classes. I think she's
Speaker 1: kind of trying to connect with Ed better, but he's
Speaker 1: not into it. He does not appreciate her. This whole
Speaker 1: plot point will come back to it and only counseling
Speaker 1: women all together, not couples. Yes, the husbands are not present.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, Ed is asked nothing, which I appreciate
Speaker 1: that commentary, but they I feel like the movie kind
Speaker 1: of goes out of its way to make women trying
Speaker 1: to get in touch with their sexuality better to seem
Speaker 1: ridiculous and perhaps hysterical. I didn't like how those were framed.
Speaker 1: Sure anyways, Yeah, we'll talk about it. Um. So then
Speaker 1: sometime later, Evelyn goes back to the nursing home and
Speaker 1: here's more of the story from Ninny. So we flashback
Speaker 1: to i Gy, who is all grown up now, and
Speaker 1: she is Mary Stuart Masterson and she has not really
Speaker 1: recovered from the loss of her brother Buddy and Ruth
Speaker 1: who again was Buddy's young love, comes around and befriends her.
Speaker 1: We see them getting into all kinds of high jinks.
Speaker 1: They're giving out food to poor people. There's a scene
Speaker 1: with Honey and Bees, they play poker, they get drunk
Speaker 1: to other things like that. I love the b scene
Speaker 1: so much it truly I was brimming with anxiety. And
Speaker 1: though the movie never makes this explicit, it's pretty clear
Speaker 1: that Igy is a lesbian who is falling in love
Speaker 1: with Ruth, and Ruth also loves her well. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk about all of this later. But um Ruth gets
Speaker 1: married to a man named Frank Bennett, and we already
Speaker 1: know from the beginning of the story based on what
Speaker 1: Ninny said, this is a murder mystery about ig being
Speaker 1: accused of murdering Frank Bennett, but we don't yet know
Speaker 1: how or why or when or anything like that. And
Speaker 1: then we meet Frank Bennett and we're like, thank god
Speaker 1: he got murdered. Yeah, he is a truly, truly a
Speaker 1: piece of ship. So she goes off newly married. They
Speaker 1: moved to Georgia, and after a few years, ig drives
Speaker 1: to Georgia to pay Ruth a visit and discovers that
Speaker 1: Ruth's husband is physically abusive, so Ig gets Ruth out
Speaker 1: of there with the help of Big George and says
Speaker 1: to Frank, if you ever touch her again, I'll kill you. Ruth,
Speaker 1: who was pregnant when she left her husband. I'm sorry. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Ruth who was gregnant? That's right. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: don't mean. I don't mean to like tone police, but
Speaker 1: you did say that word. I said the word in correctly.
Speaker 1: She was gregnant with a greg named Buddy Um. Right,
Speaker 1: that's just his nickname, though his name is Gregg Um.
Speaker 1: And then g and Ruth open a restaurant, the whistle
Speaker 1: Stop Cafe, where they served fried green tomatoes. I love
Speaker 1: the name of the movie and barbecue that Big George makes.
Speaker 1: This becomes important. Frank shows up a couple of times
Speaker 1: trying to get his baby. His baby. One night we
Speaker 1: see him. One night, we see him being knocked out
Speaker 1: by a shovel I think, which he then presumably dies
Speaker 1: from because, yeah, he's trying to kidnap a baby. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got baby basket in the hands. He's about to
Speaker 1: make away with the baby. He's also a member of
Speaker 1: the KKK. We find out so we are not sad
Speaker 1: that he dies. Later, some police from Georgia show up
Speaker 1: to the cafe to see if Ig or Ruth know
Speaker 1: anything about Frank's disappearance, and they're like no, and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't trust you, but I do love your barbecue,
Speaker 1: Nom nom nom. And then Ig tells Ruth like you
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about Frank coming around anymore, and
Speaker 1: is like, well, did you kill him? And she's like, no,
Speaker 1: I didn't know, but I know he's for sure dead,
Speaker 1: and yeah, but I definitely know he's dead, but I
Speaker 1: want I felt for Ruth in that moment because she's
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, I don't think you're a murderer, but
Speaker 1: you're saf doing an awful like a murderer and Mary
Speaker 1: Stuart masters and it's like, just be cool, please stop asking.
Speaker 1: Then several years passed and one day Frank's pickup truck
Speaker 1: is found in a river, so I Gy and Big
Speaker 1: George are arrested for his murder and she has tried,
Speaker 1: but the judge throws out the case because he's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Frank just probably got drunk and drove into
Speaker 1: the river by accident and got eaten by river creatures,
Speaker 1: which it seems like i Gy is such a beloved
Speaker 1: person in this community that the judge kind of just
Speaker 1: didn't want anything bad to happen. Like that was my reader.
Speaker 1: It was the role of the priest, remember, right, because
Speaker 1: the priests kind of lie and then the judge kind
Speaker 1: of did a bad job. But it like worked out
Speaker 1: the way it should have, right, it works out well
Speaker 1: for the characters who we are rooting for. But I'm
Speaker 1: also just like, is this how the justice system worked
Speaker 1: in nine? Not at all? Definitely, if there was a
Speaker 1: black man accused of killing a white man, he probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't have gotten enough. And especially if there was a
Speaker 1: white woman who everyone knew was gay, that's not what
Speaker 1: would have happened. But look, this is Hollywood, all right,
Speaker 1: this is fantasy. This is amazing. That's why this movie rules.
Speaker 1: Things turn out the way they should. Yeah, and like
Speaker 1: human flesh breaks down into a great sauce somehow that
Speaker 1: no one can taste. You know, we don't know, we
Speaker 1: have we ever tried to ask the train We don't um,
Speaker 1: But yes, justice was served to the characters who we like. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: back in the present, Evelyn has begun this journey of
Speaker 1: kind of self liberation. She's knocking down walls in her house,
Speaker 1: She's crashing her car and other people's cars. She goes
Speaker 1: back to see Ninny, who continues the story about Egene Ruth.
Speaker 1: Ruth has gotten sick and dies of cancer, which is
Speaker 1: so sad, heartbreaking. I was bawling. It was, yeah, story
Speaker 1: of the ducks. Yeah, the duck story. I'm like, this
Speaker 1: story is so boring and I don't get it, but
Speaker 1: I'm crying. Um. And then back in the present, Evelyn
Speaker 1: thinks that Ninni has died, but it turns out that
Speaker 1: it was just Ninny's roommate at the nursing home who died.
Speaker 1: So Evelyn goes to find Ninny, who tells Evelyn the
Speaker 1: final bit of the story, which is that it turns
Speaker 1: out it was Sipsy who killed Frank Bennett and I
Speaker 1: Gy and Big George. Do they barbecue his body or
Speaker 1: do they turn his body into the sauce? I was
Speaker 1: not super clear about that. There is a long night
Speaker 1: of like Robert Durst style dismemberment that takes place that
Speaker 1: we don't see, but they go full dirsk that night,
Speaker 1: and we just don't have to watch it, and I'm
Speaker 1: fine with that totally. In any case, they feed his
Speaker 1: remains to the cop who had been investigating his disappearance.
Speaker 1: So that's like the big reveal at the end of
Speaker 1: the movie. Hence the cannibalism that Jamie and I remembered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the story. Let's take a quick break and then
Speaker 1: we'll come right back and we're back. Uh. That sounded like, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's that movie? They're back? What we're back? A dinosaurs?
Speaker 1: Oh that's Poultergeist. We're here. No, No, we're so young,
Speaker 1: so we just don't know. Um, yeah, I think it's Poltergeist.
Speaker 1: Sounds right, but she says something like they're He's I
Speaker 1: think a good place to start talking about this movie
Speaker 1: is the way it was adapted, because I feel like
Speaker 1: that leads into a lot of the discussion that kind
Speaker 1: of needs to be had about this movie. So there's
Speaker 1: there's so much context for this movie, and a lot
Speaker 1: of it is very interesting and some of it is
Speaker 1: kind of frustrating. So we have the very rare example
Speaker 1: here of the author of an original work co authoring
Speaker 1: a screenplay that is amazing. Fannie Flag who I wasn't
Speaker 1: familiar with her, but now that I learned more about her,
Speaker 1: she's awesome. She is. She is a queer writer and
Speaker 1: comedian who like got started in the sixties went on
Speaker 1: to become a really popular game show personality on Match Game.
Speaker 1: If you grew up watching Game show Network with your grandparents, Uh,
Speaker 1: that was a thrill. And later in her career was
Speaker 1: openly uh an out lesbian who had I mean just
Speaker 1: a murderers row of girlfriends. She dated Rita may Brown,
Speaker 1: another really famous queer writer, and a fit really famous
Speaker 1: soap opera star named Susan Flannery. If you want to
Speaker 1: look up the relationship between the three of them, it's
Speaker 1: very interesting. Not necessarily not relevant to the podcast, but
Speaker 1: I was hooked in any case. She wrote this novel
Speaker 1: in and then was approached by the director of this movie,
Speaker 1: John Abnett, to write the movie herself. She had never
Speaker 1: written for the screen. I feel like this is very
Speaker 1: rare for any marginalized writer to get an opportunity to
Speaker 1: go from zero to writing their own screenplay of their
Speaker 1: own work. Um, so that's incredible. She enlists her friend
Speaker 1: Carol Sobieski, who also wrote the script for Annie. Uh.
Speaker 1: They work on it together. Carol unfortunately passes away before
Speaker 1: the movie comes out, but they are both honored with
Speaker 1: an Academy Award nomination, so it's a it's a beautiful
Speaker 1: story in that way. What I do think is interesting
Speaker 1: is um. And again we haven't read the book, So
Speaker 1: if you have read the book and you have a
Speaker 1: more detailed, nuanced take, I'm just going off of the
Speaker 1: academic pieces I was able to find about the adaptation
Speaker 1: of this. And although Fanni Flag is an openly queer writer,
Speaker 1: there seems to be a lot of debate on UM.
Speaker 1: I mean, for sure, in the movie it is coding, coding,
Speaker 1: coding till the end of time, coding. In the book,
Speaker 1: there does seem to be a little bit of debate.
Speaker 1: It is definitely less coded, but it is also never
Speaker 1: explicitly stated. There are some fans of this book who
Speaker 1: say it is not coded. It is very clear, but
Speaker 1: the wording that Fannie Flag uses is a little obscure,
Speaker 1: so there are some people that argue that it's still coded.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I have read the book. It's my
Speaker 1: understanding that the word lesbian never appears in the book,
Speaker 1: but other pretty specific indicators that we'll explicitly say that
Speaker 1: they are a couple who are in love and romantically
Speaker 1: involved are very present in the book. So there's again
Speaker 1: the debate gets kind of really nuanced because people who
Speaker 1: are fans of this book are like, go super hard
Speaker 1: and I was like in some forums and yes, so
Speaker 1: from just what I read, it seems to me like
Speaker 1: it is not coded in the book. But they also
Speaker 1: like people who are like, well, they never like kiss
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of physical interaction or affection shown
Speaker 1: in the book, and so some people are like, it's
Speaker 1: not it's not explicit enough because they are not like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're a married couple that aren't kissing. Hello,
Speaker 1: you know. So there, there's all that. But there are
Speaker 1: these very like to me, like very romantic passages that
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, read this book. Um, there here's
Speaker 1: a quote from the book. Oh and also the word
Speaker 1: like wife, girlfriend, partner that never comes up. Uh. They
Speaker 1: are pretty exclusively called friends and business partners in the book.
Speaker 1: So you know, if you're a fan of the book,
Speaker 1: let us know. So, okay, when Igy this is from
Speaker 1: a scene when ig Um is upset that Ruth is
Speaker 1: leaving to go Mary Frank Bennett towards the beginning of
Speaker 1: the book and she says, oh, no, you don't love him,
Speaker 1: you love me, you know you do. So it is
Speaker 1: it is way more explicit of like, don't marry him,
Speaker 1: stay here, be my girlfriend. But so, wow, that's very
Speaker 1: different than the movie. Yes, yes, so I think it's
Speaker 1: really interesting, like an interesting case study that Fannie Flagg
Speaker 1: wrote both that passage and this movie where the relationship
Speaker 1: is presented very differently. Ver that said, this movie did
Speaker 1: win a glad Award for portraying a lesbian relationship. So
Speaker 1: it was I think clear to queer audiences what this
Speaker 1: movie was. But it isn't explicitly stated, even less so
Speaker 1: in in the movie than in the book. But it
Speaker 1: also it's I don't know, it's kind of it's it
Speaker 1: was an interesting watch because like watching it, you're just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're obviously in love and they're like, you know, this
Speaker 1: is like this longstanding you know, marriage, they have a
Speaker 1: child together, like it's they raised a child together, they
Speaker 1: run a business together. Very yeah, but but it, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's coded. I couldn't remember looking back, and when I
Speaker 1: rewatched it, I couldn't remember whether they ever kissed and
Speaker 1: the time when they would have kissed. I think is
Speaker 1: when they were like drunk and lying by the river
Speaker 1: bank and talking about how she's going to probably have
Speaker 1: to get married soon and they know yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean she kisses around the cheek and then Ruth
Speaker 1: does and then jumps into the water and it's all
Speaker 1: very oh my god, it's it's lovely, but but the
Speaker 1: relationship is so deep even though there is i mean
Speaker 1: physical they're like they have a food fight, and that
Speaker 1: food fight was the director, director John Avnett saying I
Speaker 1: think on the DVD commentary that he wasn't he intended
Speaker 1: for that food fight to be seen as symbolic of
Speaker 1: love making yeah, which which I do think is first
Speaker 1: of all, it's like, um, sir, how are we supposed
Speaker 1: to know that it is? It is like a really
Speaker 1: sweet scene, and I love Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary
Speaker 1: Louise Parker plays so well off of each other. I
Speaker 1: like fully by that they are in love and they're
Speaker 1: like it's so sweet. But it's like, if you're a viewer,
Speaker 1: in're like they were in a food fight. That was
Speaker 1: not It wasn't. They weren't like, you know, like, it
Speaker 1: wasn't that was him like, that's sex. You're like, sir,
Speaker 1: have you heard of sex before? In any case, if
Speaker 1: you view if you know that that is how he
Speaker 1: was thinking of that scene. It is kind of interesting
Speaker 1: to watch because right after they are like caught having
Speaker 1: a food fight, the cop friend comes over who is
Speaker 1: pursuing Igy and says like, this isn't right. Women shouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing stuff like this. And if you're reading the
Speaker 1: scene as a food fight, it's a very strange comment
Speaker 1: to make. But but if you're reading it as, uh,
Speaker 1: they have a relationship with each other, I do believe
Speaker 1: that that's how he viewed that scene. I just think
Speaker 1: that it's weird that he thinks that that that is
Speaker 1: an extremely clear read for a viewer, because I don't
Speaker 1: think it was. But I love that scene. It's very sweet.
Speaker 1: I love I love them. I just think all the
Speaker 1: all the language in the film that refers to ig
Speaker 1: is both it's like ninety nine one and then very
Speaker 1: Jim Crow South like forties fifties language around like she's different,
Speaker 1: she's a little weird, she's not like other girls. You know,
Speaker 1: she wears pants, Like there's just a lot of like hilariously,
Speaker 1: you know, skirting around the fact that she's gay and
Speaker 1: pretty much everyone knows it. It is funny. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of elements of Igy's character that reminded me
Speaker 1: of Katherine Hepburn characters. Um where, like so many Katherine
Speaker 1: Hepburn characters were just thoroughly, thoroughly thoroughly queer coded, and
Speaker 1: it was through like the tomboy aesthetic. It was through
Speaker 1: like all these coded phrases that yeah, that are just
Speaker 1: frequently used to just avoid letting a queer character be
Speaker 1: a queer character. I also found an interesting Mary Stewart
Speaker 1: Masterson apparently is the realist one of all time, because
Speaker 1: I was able to find an interview that he did
Speaker 1: in with queer writer Kate Arthur, who also wrote a
Speaker 1: really great piece about this movie and just breaking down
Speaker 1: what it meant for its time. But she does a
Speaker 1: great interview with Mary Stuart Masterson and it straight up asks,
Speaker 1: like you know, she says, because she loves this movie.
Speaker 1: Kate Arthur is like, this is a like a movie
Speaker 1: for lesbians, like don't you agree, essentially, and Mary Stewart
Speaker 1: Masterson responds with like some kind of like righteous frustration
Speaker 1: and says that okay, so I'm just reading from Kate
Speaker 1: Arthur's piece here. The movie is, as Masterson once told me,
Speaker 1: quote unquote redacted. So Mary Stuart Masonson says, quote it
Speaker 1: wasn't a love scene, but they were like clearly a
Speaker 1: love relationship type of fight or jealousy. There was some
Speaker 1: more sensual kind of stuff in there. We were clearly
Speaker 1: playing that. So they're deleted scenes from this movie that
Speaker 1: make the relationship more explicitly clear, even though it seems
Speaker 1: like much like in the book the language of you
Speaker 1: are my wife, this is our marriage that was certainly
Speaker 1: not going to be in the movie, but like relationship
Speaker 1: scenes were in this movie and then later cut. She
Speaker 1: goes on to say, at that time it was just
Speaker 1: about friendship. I think at the time when it was released,
Speaker 1: if it had been labeled frankly that way, I think
Speaker 1: the fear was maybe that it would have alienated all
Speaker 1: the people, older Southern women who had those kinds of permanent,
Speaker 1: lifelong friendships, the aunts who lived together but never married,
Speaker 1: would have been alienated from watching it and allowing themselves
Speaker 1: to love the characters. I think I think that they
Speaker 1: might have been afraid. So that was Mary Stuart Masterson's take,
Speaker 1: and she is just generally frustrated that they weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to be in a relationship, because she says, Mary Stewart
Speaker 1: Masterson and Mary Louise Parker were like, yeah, we were
Speaker 1: the characters were in a relationship, and we played it
Speaker 1: that way right. So I don't know though that responds
Speaker 1: from Mary Stewart Masterson, like I appreciate her frustration, but
Speaker 1: her thinking it's going to alienate like old southern aunts
Speaker 1: who lived together romantically. That threw me a little bit,
Speaker 1: like I don't think that's who it's going to alienate, Like,
Speaker 1: if anything, they would be the people who would potentially
Speaker 1: connect most to this movie. Like, if it's going to
Speaker 1: alienate anyone, it would be homophobes, which in was a
Speaker 1: large portion of the population. So like, to me, it's
Speaker 1: clear that the movie was trying to play it safe
Speaker 1: and appeal to a larger audience by making the relationship
Speaker 1: between it Gy and Ruth way more like subtextual and implicit.
Speaker 1: The movie is very feathered edges. I mean it sounds
Speaker 1: the story is cool. I bet the book is way
Speaker 1: better because the movie version is super hollywood ified, like
Speaker 1: you know, que music and yeah, We're not going to
Speaker 1: get too deep. We don't know the relationship. Like, it's
Speaker 1: just it's not edgy. It's probably not what would have
Speaker 1: even though it's igy, but not edge um, not what
Speaker 1: might have done to the story exactly. So going even
Speaker 1: deeper on what so, I was like, Okay, well, how
Speaker 1: does Fanny Flagg feel about this? Because she wrote a
Speaker 1: queer novel that does you know, goes all the way
Speaker 1: up to the line of saying, these are this is
Speaker 1: the relationship, this is a marriage that takes place. How
Speaker 1: does she feel about the changes that were made to
Speaker 1: the movie? We know movies get written all the time
Speaker 1: and ship gets cut out, and so it's not like
Speaker 1: this is you know, her complete script that was shot, right,
Speaker 1: But she again kind of surprises you with what her
Speaker 1: answer is. She she has said kind of throughout that
Speaker 1: she was basing ruthan Igy partially on relatives in her
Speaker 1: own life. She's from the South. She said it was
Speaker 1: based at least the idea for them having a business
Speaker 1: and running a business came from her family and not
Speaker 1: a queer relationship. But she's she's a queer writer writing
Speaker 1: about a queer relationship. So in any case, Uh. Someone
Speaker 1: asked her this question, like, how do you feel about
Speaker 1: the relationship being far less explicit, and she says to
Speaker 1: Entertainment Weekly, quote, it's a mainstream movie. People are taking children,
Speaker 1: they're taking old people. It speaks to everybody. That's why
Speaker 1: it's wonderful. They can make up their own minds. Which
Speaker 1: is very much the vibe of the reviews of this movie,
Speaker 1: because I was curious about, like, well, how did an
Speaker 1: audience receive it was your average you know, film bro
Speaker 1: Journalists just kind of like not picking up on it,
Speaker 1: like what was the vibe? Almost every review I read,
Speaker 1: we're well aware they're like, oh, this is a queer relationship,
Speaker 1: but they kind of tow the line in the same
Speaker 1: way that Fanny Flag does and says, well, you can
Speaker 1: see this as a relationship or not. Either way. I
Speaker 1: liked the movie, but it's very like wishy washy in
Speaker 1: the way that it's approached. Um, you would think that
Speaker 1: would have just dropped after they didn't win an oscar
Speaker 1: and feel like, you know what, fuck you, it was
Speaker 1: gay the whole time. Yeah, there's like this review from
Speaker 1: thy Ber that says, uh, it's also an Entertainment Weekly.
Speaker 1: He says like in the novel Tomatoes, uses female friendship
Speaker 1: as a metaphor for something taboo. But the story is
Speaker 1: in no way diminished if you choose not to buy
Speaker 1: into it. There are hints of earthly desires. Nevertheless, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: the most virginal thing I've ever read in my whole life.
Speaker 1: But but, but, like that is kind of the tone
Speaker 1: of how this movie was received by critics. Of like,
Speaker 1: I really liked it. It seems like there's a queer relationship.
Speaker 1: I didn't think about it too hard night night, Like
Speaker 1: that was just I had. I have a couple additional
Speaker 1: quotes from Fannie Flag about the movie, saying that quote,
Speaker 1: it's not a political film at all. It's about the
Speaker 1: possibilities of people being sweet and loving each other. Another quote,
Speaker 1: It's a story about love and friendship. The sexuality is unimportant.
Speaker 1: So but even outside of the queer relationship, it's very explicit.
Speaker 1: We have political film, like and a book. So yes,
Speaker 1: on a number of levels, Yeah, exactly. I'm the most
Speaker 1: interested in what this queer relationship meant and means for
Speaker 1: Evelyn in the eighties, Like what Evelyn if Ninny told her,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, so then we slept together, you know, would
Speaker 1: she be like you, you know, when she freaked out? Like,
Speaker 1: I'm curious in the book how they play it for Evelyn.
Speaker 1: You know, is Ninny sort of dampening down that part
Speaker 1: for Evelyn? Does it say anything about Evelyn's sexuality and
Speaker 1: her relationship with Ed? I have to be honest, I
Speaker 1: kind of like don't care that much about Evelyn or
Speaker 1: her life. I do. I'm like a fan of that character,
Speaker 1: and we can we can talk about her and a bit.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, that is that is something I hadn't
Speaker 1: fully considered because like Evelyn does go through this sort
Speaker 1: of like liberation, and like, is that due in part
Speaker 1: to kind of learning about this queer relationship and because
Speaker 1: a lot of what I G does in addition to
Speaker 1: having a woman as her lover, Um, she's challenging the
Speaker 1: status quo in many other ways as well, Like you know,
Speaker 1: how she presents herself, how she dresses, she doesn't go
Speaker 1: to church, she drinks, she gambles, she plays baseball, she fishes,
Speaker 1: She does a lot of things that would have been
Speaker 1: considered unladylike by like polite society and especially in this
Speaker 1: era and especially in this region. But yeah, she's like,
Speaker 1: she's like funk all that, I'm gonna do whatever the
Speaker 1: hell I want. I'm cool. That is an aspect of
Speaker 1: her character that I really appreciated. I love her, I
Speaker 1: love she reminds me of a Katherine Hepburn character. But
Speaker 1: the twist is she doesn't have to marry any old
Speaker 1: guy at the end, like she doesn't have to marry
Speaker 1: Carrie Grant, I mean even down to the and this
Speaker 1: is like a trope that I'm kind of less fond of,
Speaker 1: but it does kind of line up with that Katherine
Speaker 1: Hepburn parallel I'm trying to draw her of, Like she
Speaker 1: is like the wealthy daughter of a white family that
Speaker 1: understands like the working man, and that that is like
Speaker 1: another hallmark of that kind of character archetype that I
Speaker 1: g kind of plays to a t here where she
Speaker 1: does come from a lot of privilege, but she's she's
Speaker 1: not like the other girls. It's very is yes. Well,
Speaker 1: what I also what I think is particularly interesting about
Speaker 1: this whole situation and adaptation and what gets omitted and
Speaker 1: not is that like if this movie was like almost
Speaker 1: made like twenty years from now and it was the
Speaker 1: exact same thing, we would almost. I think we could
Speaker 1: like look at it, like, wow, look how normalized their
Speaker 1: lesbian relationship is. Like, look, they're just their beloved members
Speaker 1: of the community. Everyone loves them right like and like
Speaker 1: by not identifying, like not being like and they're definitely
Speaker 1: lesbians together kind of normalizes it. But it's not what's
Speaker 1: happening in the movie because in the context of when
Speaker 1: this came out in nine, audiences were so conditioned to
Speaker 1: expect hetero relationships between assists Hett Man and cis hette
Speaker 1: woman in mainstream Hollywood movies, like, audiences were not at
Speaker 1: all conditioned to expect queer relationships. We were so starved
Speaker 1: for queer visibility on screen that like media needed to
Speaker 1: then and still needs to actually identify characters as queer
Speaker 1: so that we have that clear visibility and we can
Speaker 1: we as audience members, know that about those characters. Again,
Speaker 1: we're hopefully we will move to a place at some
Speaker 1: point down the road where there is more normalization. But
Speaker 1: but that's a really interesting thing that you that that's
Speaker 1: a really interesting point right there, because here you have
Speaker 1: this queer women woman writing the story that she she's like,
Speaker 1: I want this to be universal, and we're talking about
Speaker 1: it on a podcast about the Bechtel test, which never
Speaker 1: gets past in movies, and now it's like, well, can
Speaker 1: it only be past if two women are in a
Speaker 1: romantic relationship with one? Like, is that is that the minus?
Speaker 1: You know in the mathematic equation. It's like unless they're fucking,
Speaker 1: it doesn't count, you know what I mean? Like, well,
Speaker 1: the context of the Bechtel test, which first appeared in
Speaker 1: Alison Bechdel's comic Dikes to Watch Out for Her, characters
Speaker 1: were talking about how they saw so little visibility of
Speaker 1: lesbians on screen and movies that they had to imagine
Speaker 1: that two women talking to each other about something other
Speaker 1: than a man. If that happened in the movie, they'd
Speaker 1: be like, well, now we can ship them together as lovers.
Speaker 1: And that's what spawned the Bechtel tests, which is so
Speaker 1: why Yeah, It's like, is maybe one of our only
Speaker 1: movies we've ever covered that connects it pretty exactly of
Speaker 1: like this is what the fact was actually supposed to
Speaker 1: be about. This is also like a kind of a
Speaker 1: big cultural moment for movies of this nature and this
Speaker 1: exact framing of like friendship, friendship, friendship, it's just friends
Speaker 1: because Delmott Louise comes out just I think a few
Speaker 1: months before Fried Green Tomatoes. So ninety one is huge
Speaker 1: for movies that have a huge cult following today and
Speaker 1: pretty significant queer following that. At the time, We're very
Speaker 1: framed of like friends friends, which well, it is interesting
Speaker 1: because I think that the framing device is truly just
Speaker 1: two women becoming friends in a way that I found
Speaker 1: to be like really effective and like lovely and sweet
Speaker 1: of like, oh these are it's an intergenerational friendship. They're
Speaker 1: able to help each other through different phases of life
Speaker 1: and struggling with aging and all this stuff, and like
Speaker 1: that was so beautiful, But it is like frustrating to
Speaker 1: see what is pretty clearly a queer relationship kind of
Speaker 1: not not that like friendship is a reduct but like
Speaker 1: when you're in a relationship with someone, you don't want
Speaker 1: someone to be like that's your friend, that's your business partner,
Speaker 1: Like no, this is my I'm raising a child. All
Speaker 1: you do is fry tomatoes together. We're doing We're rearing
Speaker 1: a child. We're not just frying tomatoes here, Like uh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to bring up the haze production code.
Speaker 1: It's not the most applicable thing to this movie, but
Speaker 1: I think we see remnants of it in movies long
Speaker 1: after the code was lifted. So just a little background
Speaker 1: from someone who has not one but two degrees in film,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I hate to bring it up.
Speaker 1: I feel eighteen again and I was like, oh, the
Speaker 1: haze cut. So the Production Code was a set of
Speaker 1: censorship rules more or less that films had to abide
Speaker 1: by in order to get any kind of wide theatrical release.
Speaker 1: This was enforced from four to I believe nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight um and the rules where such things as like
Speaker 1: there could be no graphic violence, there could be no swearing,
Speaker 1: there could be no overt sexuality. When it was lifted
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight, it was replaced by the mp
Speaker 1: A rating system, which is like the rated G rated PG,
Speaker 1: rated r PG thirteen came later, etcetera. This is according
Speaker 1: to again our our favorite scholarly website Wikipedia, it says
Speaker 1: in terms of homosexuality, while the code did not explicitly
Speaker 1: state that depictions of homosexuality were against the code, the
Speaker 1: code bar the depiction of any kind of sexual perversion
Speaker 1: or deviance, which homosexuality fell under at the time, gay
Speaker 1: characters on screen also came to be represented as villains
Speaker 1: or victims who commit crimes due to their homosexuality. So
Speaker 1: I feel like part of it is just kind of
Speaker 1: the cultural climate around queerness. I mean, during this era,
Speaker 1: as well as many years before and after this, most
Speaker 1: filmmakers who have historically been since white men, either had
Speaker 1: no interest in including queer characters or felt like it
Speaker 1: was too big of a risk to include queer characters
Speaker 1: because of the rampant queer phobia in our society. Even
Speaker 1: Fanny Flag is referencing like this movie is for everyone,
Speaker 1: and the subtext being well, like a queer relationship can't
Speaker 1: be in a movie for everyone because it is something
Speaker 1: that is other. I don't want to dig into her
Speaker 1: personal life. It does seem because she dated another really
Speaker 1: famous lesbian writer who did not could anything. It seemed
Speaker 1: like this was kind of a tendency in her work
Speaker 1: of wanting to write in a universal way, but the
Speaker 1: definition of universal kind of ended up mothering her own experiences, um,
Speaker 1: which isn't fair And yeah, I mean like could have
Speaker 1: been her also caving to societal pressures to con form
Speaker 1: to heteron normative standards. Or maybe she did try to
Speaker 1: push back more and just wasn't able to get results. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, And in that same really good BuzzFeed essay
Speaker 1: that I'll refer you to again, it's called why Fried
Speaker 1: Green Tomatoes as a lesbian classic? Yes, lesbian that's the title.
Speaker 1: I read that too, but um Kate Arthur is also
Speaker 1: putting this in francesk you also kind of references because
Speaker 1: it applies in a number of ways in this movie.
Speaker 1: But like, this was a movie that came out like
Speaker 1: at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and when you know,
Speaker 1: the first Bush administration was completely uh completely ignoring an
Speaker 1: epidemic that was ravaging queer communities. And this was a
Speaker 1: queer story, however, coded that essentially outside of the whole
Speaker 1: cancer death ended well and ended beautifully and they were
Speaker 1: accepted by their commune nity and on I mean, and
Speaker 1: we haven't even started to talk about the race plot
Speaker 1: line of this movie. But you know, black Man is
Speaker 1: brought to court and he is successful and in beloved
Speaker 1: by the community and like just it's societally speaking kind
Speaker 1: of like a fairy tale, especially for when this hotal
Speaker 1: fairy tale, like where and when this takes place, you
Speaker 1: have to imagine none of this would go the way
Speaker 1: it goes. But but I wasn't framing it, and like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, is especially for like in a movie market
Speaker 1: where there are is not certainly no like lesbian relationships
Speaker 1: being released in on a massive scale, and to like,
Speaker 1: this movie was so successful it made its budget back
Speaker 1: thirteen times or something like that, and it kind of
Speaker 1: like frames everything in this like and it all basically
Speaker 1: ended well and everyone had a beautiful relationship and except
Speaker 1: for Ruth went on to Live Lovely Live, and they
Speaker 1: met Kathy Bates. Maybe because Jessica Tandy is Mary Stewart Masterson.
Speaker 1: That is definitely not in the book, and that is confusing.
Speaker 1: That twist ending I thought was excellent. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: just like that layer of the plot of Ninny being Igy,
Speaker 1: Igy being Ninny is so good And I just want
Speaker 1: to sequel where we find out what happened to Igy
Speaker 1: in between all that time after Ruth dies, but before
Speaker 1: we meet her in the retirement home. Yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: definitely it's made. It's there's a clear distinction in the
Speaker 1: book that ig is not Ninny. The fact that it's
Speaker 1: suggested at in the movie is something that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the fans of the book absolutely hate,
Speaker 1: but not all, but readers aren't better than watchers, everybody.
Speaker 1: Just the Titanic reference, I thought the second I saw
Speaker 1: that like reveal of like, it was like, the woman
Speaker 1: in the picture is me? That is so what happens?
Speaker 1: It's the woman in the picture here was her? Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: she has a picture of Mary Louise Parker on her
Speaker 1: desk whatever. Like it didn't bother me. But I also
Speaker 1: if I had read that book and was a big
Speaker 1: fan of that book, I would have been really bothered
Speaker 1: by that change, for sure. I don't know. My main take, Like,
Speaker 1: there's my takeaway from this movie is I still have
Speaker 1: a crush on Mary Louise Parker after all these years. Uh,
Speaker 1: she is so beautiful and so funny, and I am
Speaker 1: in love with her. We got to take a quick
Speaker 1: break and then we'll come right back and we're back. Uh,
Speaker 1: one quick thing and then and then we'll move on that.
Speaker 1: The one other movie change that they very explicitly made
Speaker 1: for the adaptation that I'm like, are you serious was
Speaker 1: that they changed the introduction of Ruth is She's introduced
Speaker 1: as a love interest of doomed brother Buddy who gets
Speaker 1: hit by the train. In the book, I think in
Speaker 1: a way that takes a layer of coding, a way
Speaker 1: she is not introduced as like, you know, a girl
Speaker 1: who is interested in a guy she's She's introduced as like,
Speaker 1: here's a girl who's staying with us for the summer,
Speaker 1: and that's just it. But in the but the movie
Speaker 1: kind of goes out of its way to say that
Speaker 1: she is interested in men uh the first time we
Speaker 1: see her. So yeah, I guess according to the movie
Speaker 1: she is bisexual but also straight, but also question mark
Speaker 1: because it's for everyone, it's annoying. I read too that
Speaker 1: in the book we have a clear understanding of why
Speaker 1: she marries Frank Bennett, which is that she and her
Speaker 1: mother needed his financial support or else they would have
Speaker 1: probably had to experience homelessness. Because this part of the
Speaker 1: story takes place during the Depression, so a lot of
Speaker 1: people had fallen on very hard financial times. So Ruth
Speaker 1: in the book marries Frank because she needed a financial
Speaker 1: support system. Another titana parallel. Yeah, they could have given
Speaker 1: I think Ruth a little bit more backstory. Iggy had
Speaker 1: so much backstory and Ruth was just kind of appeared
Speaker 1: in the movie. Um, and that would have been a
Speaker 1: nice I love when Iggy is fishing and Ruth is like,
Speaker 1: come on, spend time with me. It'll be fine, and
Speaker 1: it's like fine, and then they fall in and she's like, fine,
Speaker 1: get on a train with me. We're gonna be socialists
Speaker 1: redistributing the well. And then Mary Louise Parker gets all
Speaker 1: wet and it's just a good movie. Um yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so uh this will sort of bring us into the
Speaker 1: next area of discussion. Is another thing that is done
Speaker 1: in the book that is very Hollywood whitewashed in the
Speaker 1: movie is in the book. And again I was not
Speaker 1: able to find a ton of hyper specific details. Caitly,
Speaker 1: let me know if you have more than I do.
Speaker 1: But in the book, the black characters in this community
Speaker 1: and in the lives of Ruth and Igy have actual
Speaker 1: stories and there I mean, they just are more characters
Speaker 1: than they are in this movie. Because there are so
Speaker 1: many scenes in this movie where black characters are actively
Speaker 1: involved in present where they do not have dialogue, where
Speaker 1: you are not really given a look into what they're thinking,
Speaker 1: how they're thinking. There is at least one character from
Speaker 1: the book that doesn't even end up in the movie
Speaker 1: at all. And yeah, I was just I mean, especially
Speaker 1: when it's like you cast Cecily Tyson and you're not
Speaker 1: gonna you're not gonna give her anything to do when
Speaker 1: she can do anything. It was. Yeah, so this this
Speaker 1: movie is like heavily whitewash. Yeah, the one thing she
Speaker 1: does ends up happening off screen for the most and
Speaker 1: the best. Yeah, this is kind of a classic case
Speaker 1: of a story that is about white people in which
Speaker 1: there are a few black characters who are kind of
Speaker 1: there to serve as scenery or to help and serve
Speaker 1: the white characters. We never learn anything about their lives
Speaker 1: in the movie. I don't think we even learn Sipsy's
Speaker 1: name until like an hour into the movie. Yeah, you don't,
Speaker 1: it's not I don't think it's established that Sipsy is
Speaker 1: Big George's mother until the very end, Like, so we
Speaker 1: don't even know what their relationship is exactly. She's his
Speaker 1: adopted mother. And then there's also a sister in law
Speaker 1: who doesn't appear in the movie. There there's like a
Speaker 1: whole family They have a whole family dynamic in the
Speaker 1: movie and they're sorry. In the book that is just
Speaker 1: kind of done away with in the movie entirely. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is annoying that it's not actually more present, but
Speaker 1: like they are pivotal in the actual like what happens,
Speaker 1: the killing, the sauce eating, the cannibalism, it's pretty cool,
Speaker 1: which makes it even more frustrating to me that they
Speaker 1: are in spite of the fact that, like it's clear
Speaker 1: that the material being adapted, Big George and Sipsy are
Speaker 1: really active characters, but in movie you don't actually get
Speaker 1: to see them doing much. It's a plot point that
Speaker 1: you don't see what what Sipsy does. It's a really
Speaker 1: weird storytelling choice to make an extremely pivotal moment in
Speaker 1: the story of of like Sipsy killing Frank Bennett. So
Speaker 1: have her be, have her character be very important in
Speaker 1: that regard, but prior to that, barely. I mean, she
Speaker 1: will be in the background, she'll be she's present, but
Speaker 1: she's not she's ever given the focus. They're putting Cecily
Speaker 1: ti Uson in the background too many so much. There
Speaker 1: is one scene in particular where I feel like these
Speaker 1: problems are especially on display, and again we want to
Speaker 1: hear from our black listeners of of what you made
Speaker 1: of every choice this movie made as well. Um, but
Speaker 1: there is the sequence where basically we we find out
Speaker 1: that Frank, Ruth's ex husband is in the KKK and
Speaker 1: that KKK is inciting violence against Big George, also right
Speaker 1: outside the store, but it takes Mary Supermasters in a
Speaker 1: very long time to hear it for some reason. It
Speaker 1: is happening literally right outside the window. But whatever. Uh,
Speaker 1: so we it's just this whole scene that is pivoting
Speaker 1: around KKK violence that somehow ends up becoming about the
Speaker 1: relationship of the white women in the story. Like our
Speaker 1: our takeaway from a KKK Violet scene is that we
Speaker 1: are very concerned with the personal lives of these white women.
Speaker 1: I love those characters, but that just felt so it's
Speaker 1: the hollywood ization erasure. Also, I mean, I just think,
Speaker 1: like in the same ways that this film sort of
Speaker 1: appeals to people's homophobia and like sort of dances around
Speaker 1: it and coddles it, it's sort of caddles people's racism too,
Speaker 1: Like we're not going to have these characters say or
Speaker 1: do much more. In fact, all they're doing really is
Speaker 1: being like super ride or dive for I g and
Speaker 1: Ruth for no reason other than they're employed by them.
Speaker 1: I mean it seems right, but it's like, but would
Speaker 1: but we still will put our lives on the line.
Speaker 1: You know, Big George is beaten and whipped by the KKK.
Speaker 1: But and you kind of assume it's like, well, yes,
Speaker 1: he loves Igy and Ruth. Right. We are told constantly
Speaker 1: this great relationship that Igy has with Big George, but
Speaker 1: we're not shown it. No real estate was dedicated in
Speaker 1: the story in the movie Virgin even have a conversation
Speaker 1: that's just the two bairly, yeah, or if it is,
Speaker 1: it's just like a very impassing like you know, how's
Speaker 1: the barbecue today? You know, yeah, it's just it's not
Speaker 1: it's very inconsequential. I thought Big George got her out
Speaker 1: of trouble once, like he goes to meet with her,
Speaker 1: am I misremembering their Well, here's a troubling scene to
Speaker 1: me where after ig has discovered that Ruth's husband is
Speaker 1: abusive and she basically goes to rescue her. She brings
Speaker 1: Big George and her brother Julian, and they show up
Speaker 1: and you know, Frank is being an abusive asshole, and
Speaker 1: Julian the brother says, you know, I wouldn't do that
Speaker 1: if I were you, you might upset Big George and
Speaker 1: he's crazy. And then it cuts to Big George pulling
Speaker 1: out a knife, and that to me was like, because
Speaker 1: there's been so much propaganda perpetuated by white people throughout
Speaker 1: the centuries painting black men as brutes and as violent,
Speaker 1: like perpetrators of violence, and for them for him to
Speaker 1: like use that and be like, he's gonna kill you.
Speaker 1: Look how you know big and scary he is is
Speaker 1: basically what's being implied in this scene. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh no, right again, this, this book and movie take
Speaker 1: place in this kind of wilful fantasy version of the
Speaker 1: Depression era South, but this is the Jim Crow era.
Speaker 1: Like there are so many and it's it's lightly referenced
Speaker 1: by characters were supposed to like, Uh, there's was that guy,
Speaker 1: that guy Grady. Uh Are we supposed to like him?
Speaker 1: I think we are. I think we are supposed to
Speaker 1: like him, which is wild because he is homophobic and racist,
Speaker 1: uh and a cop? He's a cop. And then there's
Speaker 1: also a reference to like and you and your boys
Speaker 1: when you put on you you know, your sheets and
Speaker 1: you walk around, she's like, you're in the KKK and
Speaker 1: he's like shrude, like Grady's also in the KKs K. Yes,
Speaker 1: but but it's like, uh Igy hangs out with them
Speaker 1: a lot, they do a talent show together. So I
Speaker 1: don't think that we're supposed to hate him because no, no,
Speaker 1: we're supposed to like him. Yeah, they were supposed to
Speaker 1: like him, and so that is so. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess maybe that is one of the more realistic characters.
Speaker 1: But it's it's it's frustrated. I mean, and again it's
Speaker 1: the author of this book and both of the writers
Speaker 1: of this movie. Everyone, I mean, there is there are
Speaker 1: not many black people behind the camera for a movie
Speaker 1: that is trying to make a statement on race. Uh
Speaker 1: Fannie Flag is a white writer, Carol Sobieski is a
Speaker 1: white writer. And I was not able to find a
Speaker 1: ton of writing to how race is handled in this movie.
Speaker 1: But it is deeply Hollywood. It ignores the historical context
Speaker 1: in the same way that the queer storyline ignores the
Speaker 1: historical context, which is kind of seems like it's very
Speaker 1: intentionally done to give you a story book ish ending too.
Speaker 1: I mean, Alabama in the ninet thirties, not a place
Speaker 1: known for its tolerance. Yeah, if it didn't gloss over
Speaker 1: those two things, it would be a completely different story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would not have I mean, it doesn't have a
Speaker 1: happy ending, but it would have even less of one.
Speaker 1: And the catharsis of I mean it is movie was
Speaker 1: the catharsis of an evil KKK abusive husband. Like name
Speaker 1: one thing that Frank isn't He's every bad thing pat
Speaker 1: into one character. It is very satisfying to see him
Speaker 1: get turned into sauce, right, so, which so and or
Speaker 1: not see him but imagine right, So in every way
Speaker 1: it's satisfying to see him, like really defeated. There's no
Speaker 1: doubt that this movie wants him dead. But in order
Speaker 1: to get there, there is so much context that is
Speaker 1: just ignored, skimmed over, and it happens kind of at
Speaker 1: the expense of us getting to know the black characters
Speaker 1: in this movie. I feel like it is like a
Speaker 1: problem that starts foundationally with the book. Even though the book,
Speaker 1: you know, we know more about them, we know more
Speaker 1: about their character journey, but it's you know, everyone involved
Speaker 1: in the telling of this story for the most part,
Speaker 1: is a white person, so they do seem it's very
Speaker 1: much like uh, backdrop, hey, backdrop characters, and even though
Speaker 1: they're pivotal and what happens in the story and kind
Speaker 1: of a comfortable second class citizen ship, you know, not
Speaker 1: they're not comfortable, but like the story is comfortable with
Speaker 1: the second class citizenship, which which is I would say
Speaker 1: probably historically accurate for that moment. Like, I'm not the
Speaker 1: idea that some a white woman like ig would be
Speaker 1: both friends with a cop who also sometimes moonlights in
Speaker 1: the KKK. But he's not that much of a dipshit
Speaker 1: like Frank is, but he has a crush on her,
Speaker 1: right and is homies with like you know, the help
Speaker 1: quote unquote right, Like that feels real for something like
Speaker 1: I feel like there might have been many many Iges
Speaker 1: who are like, well, I'm not going to treat the
Speaker 1: person who works in my house as inhuman, but I
Speaker 1: also have to like get along in a small town
Speaker 1: with this cop who does something I don't agree with,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah, I think. I mean
Speaker 1: people contain multitudes, and sometimes those multitudes are extremely country victory.
Speaker 1: I'm not interested in the multitudes of a racist cop
Speaker 1: like I mean, I wasn't alive in the nineteen thirties spread,
Speaker 1: but I have to imagine that that wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: uncommon where it's weird because like among her things that
Speaker 1: like show her kind of challenging the status quo. In
Speaker 1: addition to you know, she dresses in like kind of
Speaker 1: masculine clothing and stuff like that. She employs black people
Speaker 1: in her cafe and has a like black section in
Speaker 1: her restaurant, and you know, Grady comments on that and
Speaker 1: he's like, well, some people around her you don't like
Speaker 1: it that you serve black people at your restaurant. And
Speaker 1: she's like, well those people can go funk off. Um. So,
Speaker 1: like she's shown as being an ally I guess by
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties standards, but I mean those standards were just
Speaker 1: you know, not enough it. Yeah, And I just I mean,
Speaker 1: I know, I keep coming back to this point, but
Speaker 1: the fact that they if you haven't had the pleasure
Speaker 1: of reading about Cecily Tyson's life, first of all, she's alive,
Speaker 1: she's ninety five years old. She is but an award
Speaker 1: away from an egot. She's like a true legend. And
Speaker 1: the fact that she is like she was so well
Speaker 1: established when this movie came out, and it was a
Speaker 1: big deal that she did the movie, and then they
Speaker 1: gave her nothing to do basically for the whole movie.
Speaker 1: Um as an injustice that I will not recover from.
Speaker 1: She's also still working, right, She's on How to Get
Speaker 1: Away with Murder? Yeah, yeah, well she was. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think that shows on anymore. But what I mean
Speaker 1: it was she she is, um, she's thriving. She was
Speaker 1: also in The Help. She wasn't The Wealth, which we oh,
Speaker 1: let's uh, we can't cover that movie ever, we probably
Speaker 1: probably probably will, But I mean it goes to show
Speaker 1: that like prolific black actors such as her have to
Speaker 1: take roles such as the one in this movie, such
Speaker 1: as the one in The Help. Is that's often all
Speaker 1: that's afforded to black actors is these underwritten or trophy
Speaker 1: black characters, which is tragic. Even though she had a
Speaker 1: really small part, is sipsy, she crushed it like she did.
Speaker 1: She did a she did a good job, ear right,
Speaker 1: she needed way more screen time, right, I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like in the movie we just truly don't know
Speaker 1: enough about her. Where Big George, what we do know
Speaker 1: about him? Is that he has worked in a service
Speaker 1: role for Iggy's family for a really long time and
Speaker 1: then he kind of just goes with her through life
Speaker 1: and is with her because it's like, if I g
Speaker 1: is at home, he's working for that family. If ig
Speaker 1: is running a restaurant, he works at that restaurant, like
Speaker 1: which is also kind of never explained. It's like he
Speaker 1: works where I Gy is. And and going back to
Speaker 1: Cicely Tyson, I she had been nominated for an Academy Award,
Speaker 1: and just I mean, there is so there. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: reference uh video that I need to pull it up
Speaker 1: and remember the name of the YouTuber. But there's a
Speaker 1: really good YouTube channel that I like that examines best
Speaker 1: Actress oscar races year to year UM that has done
Speaker 1: a lot of work in examining especially when women of
Speaker 1: color are nominated for Academy Awards. Uh, their careers go
Speaker 1: very differently than white actress who is nominated and then
Speaker 1: gets gets rules, worles, roles, world roles for abnominated, not
Speaker 1: necessarily winning, just nominated, not even necessarily winning. So Cecily Tyson,
Speaker 1: she hadn't won an OSCAR at this point, but she
Speaker 1: had been nominated and the fact that she can, you know,
Speaker 1: achieve that level of prestige and still be relegated to
Speaker 1: such a small kind of like there's not much for
Speaker 1: her to do in this movie. I don't like it.
Speaker 1: It's in conclusion. Humph uh. Yeah, I think we need
Speaker 1: to reboot once again. She's she's still around, right, Sipsy
Speaker 1: back in not a reboot? Remake is remake? Yeah? Do
Speaker 1: Sipsy justice this time? Yeah? Okay, but we haven't talked
Speaker 1: about Kathy Baits yet. No. Yes, that's the other big thing.
Speaker 1: So with I love Kathy Bates. I do like Evalence
Speaker 1: character a lot. I enjoy her evolution over the course
Speaker 1: of the movie, her character arc because she basically goes
Speaker 1: from a like polite, subservience southern woman to like learning
Speaker 1: to be empowered in learning independence, and this is happening
Speaker 1: while she is hearing this story from Ninny, So it's
Speaker 1: like learning about like becoming friends with Ninny and learning
Speaker 1: about a g and Ruth is like part of what
Speaker 1: empowers her to enact change in her own life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: take charge. There's just some great scenes. You know, the
Speaker 1: scene where she is imagining wearing all cellophane to her husband, Like,
Speaker 1: how did I not remember that? But I remembered the
Speaker 1: cannibalis of it. That was incredible. I will say standards,
Speaker 1: watching a white woman freak out in a grocery store
Speaker 1: brings up a lot of Karen images or a new
Speaker 1: continue I was like, is this the origin story of Karen? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, they too much to Wanda, too much Cathy baits. No,
Speaker 1: but uh, she's going off on other you know, younger
Speaker 1: hotter ladies, Karen's or Becky's. I guess it's kind of
Speaker 1: the next generation of Karen, but she is, Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: going up against but that that like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: the eighties feminism one, and yet I still make my
Speaker 1: husband dinner every day and he grabs it and sits
Speaker 1: down in front of the TV and doesn't pay attention
Speaker 1: to me, and there's no love in our lationship anymore.
Speaker 1: Like I was feeling that, you know, she's trying, she's
Speaker 1: going to these classes, she still thinks it's her and
Speaker 1: then she just stops giving a fuck, and that's when
Speaker 1: everything's wonderful, and she starts to like, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: she just kind of takes charge, you know, she's just
Speaker 1: like this is a part of who I am, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to embrace it. Um and yeah, I like
Speaker 1: the like again the evolution of what we see where
Speaker 1: at first she's taking these classes to help her with
Speaker 1: her marriage, which of course she as the woman, is
Speaker 1: expected to do all the emotional labor of fixing anything
Speaker 1: about their marriage, and then he gets to just like
Speaker 1: sit at home and watch baseball all day. Then her
Speaker 1: friend Missy is like, screw this, we need to wait.
Speaker 1: What does she say? She's like, what we really need
Speaker 1: is an assertive training class for Southern women. But for you, Evelyn,
Speaker 1: that's a paradox because you're living in the dark ages
Speaker 1: and everyone's like, oh no. So then they start to
Speaker 1: go to ease. I guess these assertiveness training classes for
Speaker 1: Southern women, and these are kind of cartoony where the
Speaker 1: woman's like, okay, now take off your underwear everyone and
Speaker 1: look at your vagin. I remember this scene from being
Speaker 1: a little kid. I was like, what that's a thing,
Speaker 1: But like, I mean, I don't know, was that a thing?
Speaker 1: I didn't I think I mentioned this really. I thought
Speaker 1: that the way that the other women in that class
Speaker 1: were characterized was like kind of cartoony and not super fair.
Speaker 1: It did feel like they were so aggro And then
Speaker 1: I think Kathy Bates's character is supposed to be the
Speaker 1: voice of reason of like, well, I'm all for feminism,
Speaker 1: but this is a bit much like that is kind
Speaker 1: of I choose to read it as because Kathy Bass's
Speaker 1: character is so repressed that it's going to feel very
Speaker 1: cartoony and absurd to like get to know your body
Speaker 1: and to learn to be empowered at first. But then
Speaker 1: she does a one e D eventually where she's like
Speaker 1: she gets a tiny like I'm going to shoot some
Speaker 1: it like yeah, I'm so glad that Frank died. I'm like,
Speaker 1: fuck all the life beaters and their genitals should be
Speaker 1: shot off. Like She's going on this tirade to Ninny,
Speaker 1: and Ninny's like, oh no, what have I done. She's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, she stresses Ninny out. I like that, Ninny. Uh.
Speaker 1: And some of it is like a little bit like uh,
Speaker 1: I feel like advice you would get from a grandma,
Speaker 1: which makes sense because that is Ninny as a grandma.
Speaker 1: But I love that there is I mean, their whole
Speaker 1: storyline is just like two women at different phases of
Speaker 1: aging being comfortable with themselves, and like Ninnie offers her
Speaker 1: wisdom about like, oh, have you considered like taking hormones
Speaker 1: if that is going to make your process of going
Speaker 1: through menopause easier? Try that? And Cathy is like, oh,
Speaker 1: going through the change, going through the change. And then
Speaker 1: she said something that sounded so much like my grandma,
Speaker 1: which she was just like, Oh, you're unhappy with your life,
Speaker 1: put on some makeup, get a job healthier. I was like, okay, Grandma,
Speaker 1: but like, but but it's your hormone, and it's very
Speaker 1: well intentioned. My mom would be a different person without hormones.
Speaker 1: Less hormones. I am not looking forward to the change.
Speaker 1: I'm going to need all the hormones I need. But
Speaker 1: I like that there's no the way they talk about it.
Speaker 1: There's no even though Kathy Bates's character is like not
Speaker 1: comfortable having these conversations at first, there's not like really
Speaker 1: any stigma around it. They're just talking about it. If
Speaker 1: Cathy Bates doesn't know something, she says so or she's
Speaker 1: like oh what, and then Ninny just explains what she means,
Speaker 1: and then Cathy Bates says, oh, and like Natty is
Speaker 1: never trying to make her feel bad about herself and
Speaker 1: she's so comfortable and who she is. That's exactly right,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's less an exploration. I mean, it is
Speaker 1: very gendered, but it also is just like, oh, just
Speaker 1: being comfortable with who you are and finding yourself off
Speaker 1: and realizing you're you don't have to be the perfect
Speaker 1: wife and it's not on you to do all that
Speaker 1: emotional labor. Super liberating. I wish she dumped Ed, but
Speaker 1: I know Ed was not gonna Do you think Ed
Speaker 1: was going to improve? No way, He's not gonna redeem himself.
Speaker 1: I like when he threw the sushi, Oh yeah, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's that's my favorite scene. He's like, what
Speaker 1: the hell is this and she's like, it's a low
Speaker 1: cholesterol meal, Happy Valentine. He's like, are you trying to
Speaker 1: kill me? And then she's like, if I was going
Speaker 1: to kill you, i'd use my hands. And she's like
Speaker 1: bouncing around on this little exercise trampoline. It was perfect.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed the guy who played her husband. I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed his performance. I've never seen him before. He's
Speaker 1: been done a lot of character acting, but I mean
Speaker 1: I thought he was last He gave a great performance.
Speaker 1: He knew exactly what he who he was playing. Best
Speaker 1: line is one of the best lines, how in the
Speaker 1: hell do you hit a car three times on accident? Accident?
Speaker 1: I really like that. I mean that scene, and that
Speaker 1: scene is like kind of a little cartoony and portrays uh,
Speaker 1: younger womenist just evil shrews that will just whip their
Speaker 1: head around and be like deal with an old lady,
Speaker 1: which I have never seen happen, but uh, you know
Speaker 1: it for for for her character growth, the caredness of
Speaker 1: it all is very present, but it is also kind
Speaker 1: of satisfying to watch her deliver that weird like that
Speaker 1: smug insurance line of like she's like, I'm older and
Speaker 1: I've got more insurance. Now you're being classics, Cathy Bates,
Speaker 1: But I get what they were going for. I was
Speaker 1: on board just because of how like Kathy Bates can
Speaker 1: just give the line read of a lifetime and then
Speaker 1: do something fun and like, I'm never not going to
Speaker 1: love that when she says, um, I'm too young to
Speaker 1: be old and I'm too old to be young, it's
Speaker 1: like I already feel I felt that so hard to
Speaker 1: And it's weird though, because when I first watched Us
Speaker 1: as a like ten year old in a way I mean, God,
Speaker 1: that an't I mean, yes, the movie does a lot
Speaker 1: of things poorly, but representing women in their forties and
Speaker 1: in their eighties, it did a pretty good job. And
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, that's interesting. Oh that's a whole
Speaker 1: stage of life. A oh marriage, not gonna do that? Oops?
Speaker 1: Did it um? Then? Undid it um? But like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of that that I think sticks with you
Speaker 1: from a younger age. As a young woman watching this,
Speaker 1: I think, uh, it's nice. We don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of that now. Definitely not in the early nineties. And
Speaker 1: I don't know now, like what if what are some
Speaker 1: solid like women in their forties films Like I didn't
Speaker 1: see Steel Magnolia's then, but I saw Beaches We'll look Back.
Speaker 1: Definitely problematic, but forty year old women centered. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, movies now are like you're just supposed
Speaker 1: to be twenty eight forever, right right? I mean book
Speaker 1: Club that's but that's women in their seventies. It's like
Speaker 1: between I I don't think that there's still not a
Speaker 1: lot of like I mean, it's like it maybe an
Speaker 1: indie movies, it's more but but a lot of times
Speaker 1: it's I think that there is I wish I had
Speaker 1: more like receipts to back this point up, but maybe
Speaker 1: maybe you'll both see what I'm saying. I think that
Speaker 1: there is a lot that there is like a lot
Speaker 1: of like we see a lot of actresses over forty,
Speaker 1: but they're very rarely playing over where they're like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is so cool, she's over forty and working, but
Speaker 1: she's playing a twenty eight year old, Like, so, you know,
Speaker 1: women being allowed to play roles their age is still
Speaker 1: I don't. I think that we're still there's a lot
Speaker 1: to be desired. I mean, yeah, they're just hardly any
Speaker 1: roles written for women characters who are forty and above.
Speaker 1: So the fact, yeah, the fact that like this movie's
Speaker 1: focuses on two of them, they should have focused on
Speaker 1: Cecily Tyson too, But whatever, where not whatever, I don't
Speaker 1: hung up. I just okay, um and and again this
Speaker 1: is and I feel like it proved every time we
Speaker 1: cover a movie featuring a first wives Club is another
Speaker 1: example of like a movie that features women over forty,
Speaker 1: and these movies always do super well because people want
Speaker 1: like older women want to see themselves represent it like
Speaker 1: and it, Like this movie did incredibly well. And I
Speaker 1: think the other trend that is connected to getting movies
Speaker 1: made about older women is that the only way a
Speaker 1: Hollywood studio will greenlight it is if there are huge
Speaker 1: stars attached where movies about older guys you can kind
Speaker 1: of have been in, like you could have played a
Speaker 1: corpse on n c I S twice and they're like,
Speaker 1: you're hired. But for these movies like and again, First
Speaker 1: Wives Club is a good exam bold like three really
Speaker 1: incredibly popular actress has had to sign onto that movie
Speaker 1: for it to be possible. Cathy Bates and Jessica Tandy
Speaker 1: had both been nominated for Oscars in the last two
Speaker 1: years when this movie was Greenland, so they were at
Speaker 1: this time especially they were like, oh, people will see
Speaker 1: a movie like yeah, and you have to imagine that
Speaker 1: if they were not kind of at the top of
Speaker 1: their game critically at this time, like, it would have
Speaker 1: been a lot harder to get a movie like this made.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's definitely not enough like good substantial roles
Speaker 1: written for older women where they can talk about that,
Speaker 1: you know, where aging can be a theme and not
Speaker 1: something that is like, Oh, it's a huge success if
Speaker 1: you're able to conceal the fact that you're aging, versus
Speaker 1: discussing it in detail the movie. So their relationship is
Speaker 1: really nice. Yeah, I wish that. Uh you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know how this would have been financially possible.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's why she doesn't dump Ed, but she s
Speaker 1: don't know. She becomes a very successful Mary Kay worker
Speaker 1: like all of my friends moms. So where's the problem.
Speaker 1: She should have kicked Ed out and then been like,
Speaker 1: all right, Ninny, you were roommates, were best friends. Ed
Speaker 1: is going to have to make his own dinner from
Speaker 1: now on. That's the ending we needed. That happens. I
Speaker 1: like to imagine that happens. Yeah, that's my head cannon,
Speaker 1: the fun. The last thing I wanna say is, uh, well,
Speaker 1: I think we would be remiss not to mention um
Speaker 1: Ninny's horrible purple hair dye job that she gets from Judgy.
Speaker 1: That was very judgy. But she's objectively living to the fullest.
Speaker 1: She likes it, and that's what matters. The other thing
Speaker 1: I did, I did cackle where that happened, because you
Speaker 1: just don't see that coming. And then it's not super
Speaker 1: relevant to the plot, so you're just kind of like like, well,
Speaker 1: I think it's part of it is like showing that
Speaker 1: Evelyn is still abiding by these like this like southern
Speaker 1: politeness mentality of like, oh this is awful, but I
Speaker 1: can't say anything because I'm too polite. But also like
Speaker 1: she's not going to be like your hair looks like ship, Ninny,
Speaker 1: because it's like, I don't think anyone would say that
Speaker 1: I work for Mary Kay. Now fix your face, Ninny,
Speaker 1: deal with it. Uh. This is also high visibility for
Speaker 1: UM makeup products at home, like this stretch of years
Speaker 1: because we have we have Edward her scissor hands Avon Lady,
Speaker 1: and then a year later Mary Kay gets throws their
Speaker 1: hat in the mix and they're like, no, I guess
Speaker 1: Avon who Anyways, they're both MLMs, so whoop sees UM. Well.
Speaker 1: As we hinted at a lot, the movie definitely does
Speaker 1: pass the Bechtel test. It is passing between Evelyn and
Speaker 1: Ninny Tons, it passes between Ruth and a g Tons
Speaker 1: almost yeah, almost every I mean I feel like outside
Speaker 1: of discussing the murder or ed men do not come
Speaker 1: up that much. And so yeah, right, which is great.
Speaker 1: I love I love that for this movie. Unfortunately, though,
Speaker 1: it if we're applying like the Veto Russo test to it,
Speaker 1: it does not pass because the characters are not identifiably queer.
Speaker 1: That's one of the contingencies of that test. Um. And
Speaker 1: it certainly does not pass the Duverne test because um,
Speaker 1: black characters are just not allowed to be full characters, right,
Speaker 1: they are only there to serve the white characters. So
Speaker 1: with that in mind, let's go to the nipple scale. Yes,
Speaker 1: so zero to five nipples. Examining the movie through an
Speaker 1: intersectional feminist lens I would give this movie. I think
Speaker 1: three would have gotten higher had it not mishandled the
Speaker 1: representation of the black characters and sideline them and failed
Speaker 1: to give them any kind of interiority or deeper characterization.
Speaker 1: I think it would have gotten more had the character
Speaker 1: has been allowed to be identifiably queer. And let us
Speaker 1: see some actual kissing. Let's see them embrace, Let's see
Speaker 1: them be romantic with each other. Keep the food fight,
Speaker 1: but give us a you know, a kissing. Let the
Speaker 1: food fight turn into a steamy set scene. Don't start, Okay,
Speaker 1: but I do, I do, really like the character. The
Speaker 1: female characters that we get to know, love Kathy Bates,
Speaker 1: love the Ninny character. I love Ruth and i Gy
Speaker 1: and their relationship. Would have liked to see more Sipsy
Speaker 1: of course. Also, we didn't talk about this character, but
Speaker 1: there's a character named Smokey who seems to be person
Speaker 1: experiencing homelessness. He's characterized as like a depression era like
Speaker 1: drifter type, and while he doesn't play an enormous role
Speaker 1: in the story, I appreciated that some work was put
Speaker 1: into humanizing a person experiencing homelessness because so little media
Speaker 1: does that. Um, there's a lot to love about this movie,
Speaker 1: but it is very much of the nine Oscar bait
Speaker 1: frame of mind. Yeah so yeah, and the Oscar Bait.
Speaker 1: I feel like, really, I mean, a lot of the
Speaker 1: choices this movie makes, I feel like directly ties to
Speaker 1: the Oscar bait elemental. If the Academy is going to
Speaker 1: think that we have gone quote unquote too far, then
Speaker 1: what's the point of making it? Which is like it's
Speaker 1: like that to this day. But it's also like I
Speaker 1: probably just edgy enough for nine one that it's like
Speaker 1: like we're doing something, We're making statements here. Yea, there
Speaker 1: are a few lightweight statements being made for sure, But
Speaker 1: we look back on it almost thirty years later and
Speaker 1: we're like, well, yep, that was thirty years ago. That's
Speaker 1: just that's where we were. Yeah. Um so yeah, three nipples. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll give two to Sipsy and I'll give my remaining
Speaker 1: nipple to Cathy Bates. Uh yeah, I'll go with three
Speaker 1: as well. For this movie, I think, you know, for
Speaker 1: its time, it's doing a lot of things that a
Speaker 1: lot of movies aren't doing where I mean, I do
Speaker 1: think it's like a huge deal that a queer writer
Speaker 1: was given authorship over her own work in film adaptation
Speaker 1: and that there were like resources put behind it. I
Speaker 1: think Norman Leears production company was involved, which famously very progressive,
Speaker 1: like wonderful person, so that's great. But I do agree.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that it's like pretty clear that uh,
Speaker 1: white people are the creative force behind this movie because
Speaker 1: of what it gets wrong or what it erases or
Speaker 1: and and they Cecily Tyson and then I don't use
Speaker 1: her and they don't even show her the biggest moment
Speaker 1: for the character for like suspense that doesn't who cares
Speaker 1: about the murder mystery. Really like, that's not really why
Speaker 1: we're here. Um, like you're saying, I want, I want
Speaker 1: an actual queer relationship. I like, it's so frustrating to
Speaker 1: know that, like the actors playing these characters were like
Speaker 1: thinking that and we're this was informing their character, but
Speaker 1: the finished product is not allowed to show that. So
Speaker 1: that's frustrated. Dig But I really enjoyed this movie. It
Speaker 1: made me cry a lot. You never see women talk
Speaker 1: about aging on screen. You don't usually see a lot
Speaker 1: of intergenerational friendships. I always think that that's really nice,
Speaker 1: and it was done in this like really lovely, not
Speaker 1: condescending way. Um you also get, um, there's not much
Speaker 1: body diversity. But with Kathy Bates, you know she's she
Speaker 1: talks about kind of her insecurities with her size, and
Speaker 1: is it handled the way we would want to see exactly?
Speaker 1: Perhaps not, but the fact that the language is very name.
Speaker 1: She does a bit of fat shaming of herself, which
Speaker 1: is something I've done a lot throughout my entire life.
Speaker 1: She also has a line at some point where she
Speaker 1: says something like I just wish I had the courage
Speaker 1: to get really fat, which is another thought I've had
Speaker 1: quite a bit. Uh So you know, I just I
Speaker 1: guess I just found her her attitude toward her body
Speaker 1: to be very relatable. And then part of her evolution
Speaker 1: is like, well, I'm not gonna She's like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to start exercising. I have to change the way I look.
Speaker 1: And then she refers to her like former self as
Speaker 1: a blob from a horror movie. So like, I don't
Speaker 1: love I do. I do think that it very least
Speaker 1: it's framed that she is like doing the exercise stuff
Speaker 1: for herself and not for her husband, which is I
Speaker 1: don't like the language she uses around it. But I
Speaker 1: did appreciate that they made it pretty clear that she
Speaker 1: was making these changes for herself, and she was like
Speaker 1: happier for having made these changes for herself. So in
Speaker 1: that way, I was like, good for Kathy Baith. Yes,
Speaker 1: this movie is is lovely and and I really I
Speaker 1: mean when Ruth died, I was I was so invested
Speaker 1: in that relationship and when Ruth dies, I just cried
Speaker 1: so much. Um So I'm gonna give three nipples as well.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give one nipple to Cicely Tyson. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give one, and and then I think, I just I
Speaker 1: love Mary Louise Parker so much, I'm gonna give I
Speaker 1: I want to know what Mary Louise Parker has to
Speaker 1: say about the film. She's the one person I don't
Speaker 1: think we have heard from you, wonder Let's call her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: give her a little ringy poop. Come over, Francesca, what
Speaker 1: about your nipple rating? What do you think? I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give it four nipples, but only because I am new
Speaker 1: to this and it is Mary very much stuck in time.
Speaker 1: It is stuck in ninety one interpreting the thirties, and
Speaker 1: it is Oscar bait. And I don't expect all movies
Speaker 1: to be all things to all people. It is very
Speaker 1: problematic in a lot of ways. But I think you
Speaker 1: got four very strong and very different female characters. Evelyn, Ninny,
Speaker 1: Igy but maybe they're the three, maybe they're the same,
Speaker 1: and Ruth and they're excellent. Yeah, would a love more Sipsy,
Speaker 1: But you've got four strong female characters with backstories, with
Speaker 1: interesting lives. With all these things, you get four. They
Speaker 1: have a bunch of conversations that don't involve men. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it made me cry. Three times four times, However, many
Speaker 1: times needed to be more nipples. If they had actual nipples,
Speaker 1: you'd get the five if we had seen some steamy
Speaker 1: sex scenes. When I really boosted that, Okay, so frantastic
Speaker 1: Because you asked, I was like, has Mary Louis Perker
Speaker 1: said anything about this? Uh? She did think about it
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, so this was on Ellen. Uh,
Speaker 1: twelve years before she was handily canceled. But anyways, Mary
Speaker 1: Louise Parker goes on Ellen Ellen asked her about this movie.
Speaker 1: Mary Louise Parker says, uh, you know, I love my
Speaker 1: lesbian fans. Um. And then she talks about something that
Speaker 1: does not so she so we know that. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then she goes on to say later in the interview
Speaker 1: that um or after Ellen interviewer, I don't know who
Speaker 1: was doing interview whatever. Uh. Do you ever wish the
Speaker 1: storyline and Fred green Tom's was a little bit more?
Speaker 1: Mary Louis Parker says, yes, well, in some ways I do.
Speaker 1: I tried to make it a bit more articulated at
Speaker 1: the time, but they didn't want to go that way,
Speaker 1: And in many ways I wish it was. Then. In
Speaker 1: some ways, I think maybe the audience wouldn't have gone there.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I have mixed feelings about it
Speaker 1: because I really tried to push it at the time
Speaker 1: and they didn't want to go there with me um
Speaker 1: And then after Ellen asks who didn't want to go there,
Speaker 1: and Mary Louise Parker said no one uh. And then
Speaker 1: after Allen says not even your co star and Mery
Speaker 1: Lewis Parker says, oh no, Mary Stewart definitely did, and
Speaker 1: Fanny Flagg did, but not the director, not the producer,
Speaker 1: nobody else. But I was really trying to push it
Speaker 1: and they were like no, So none of the men,
Speaker 1: none of the none of the men who get the
Speaker 1: final say on this project about women. So I we
Speaker 1: we know that the three main you know, women involved
Speaker 1: in this storyline really wanted it, and they said no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. So maybe Fanny Flagg was being diplomatic in
Speaker 1: those interviews with those Maybe um, we should ask her.
Speaker 1: Let's let's call her to um Well. Director Jon Evnett
Speaker 1: famously said about this movie and his approach to the
Speaker 1: relationship between those two women. He says, quote, I had
Speaker 1: no interest in going into the bedroom. It's like, then
Speaker 1: get out of the movie Stinky You're gonna have sex
Speaker 1: in the kitchen, as you said. Yeah, um, so that's
Speaker 1: that's frant Thank you so much for thank you for
Speaker 1: letting me talk so much about this film. Where can
Speaker 1: people check out your stuff online? Follow your social media
Speaker 1: at Francie Feo on All the Things Twitter, Instagram, and
Speaker 1: the Situation Room podcast. Yes, listen to that. Please, let's
Speaker 1: find that and thank you guys, thank you, of course,
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