Speaker 1: Burn attention Beck to Gast listeners.
Speaker 2: We're going on tour.
Speaker 1: We really are. And it's not just any tour. It's
Speaker 1: a tour in the UK and it's a tour where
Speaker 1: we are covering Titanic and.
Speaker 3: Shrek, brilliantly titled the Shrek Tannic Tour.
Speaker 2: Yes, Shrek Tornic. We're working on it.
Speaker 3: There's a couple there's a couple months before the tour,
Speaker 3: but yes, we're really excited. We're currently doing five shows
Speaker 3: in the UK, with more shows to be added.
Speaker 2: Stay tuned at the end of May.
Speaker 1: Yes, starting with two shows in London on May twenty second.
Speaker 1: On's at six point thirty that's a Shrek show, one
Speaker 1: at nine pm that is a Titanic show. Then we
Speaker 1: are scooting over to Oxford on May twenty fourth we
Speaker 1: are covering Titanic. Okay, that show is a part of
Speaker 1: the Saint Audio Podcast Festival in Oxford, so be sure
Speaker 1: to check out our show as well as other shows
Speaker 1: at the festival. Then we're scooting up to Edinburgh on
Speaker 1: May twenty sixth and doing Shtrek.
Speaker 3: If you're a Scottish Titanic fan, you are going to
Speaker 3: have to commute and I know that that's not but listen, yeah,
Speaker 3: you live in Edinburgh recovering Shrek.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but also you're welcome. And then
Speaker 1: if you do want to see Titanic, you can head
Speaker 1: down to Manchester. We're doing a show on May twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: and that's a Titanic show. So yeah, you're just gonna
Speaker 1: want to come to kind of all of them if
Speaker 1: you live in the UK, if you live kind of
Speaker 1: anywhere in Europe, or sort of just anywhere in the world.
Speaker 3: As your Bechdel Cast allies in the US can attest to.
Speaker 3: Our live shows are super fun. It is like a
Speaker 3: live episode plus a bunch of fun stuff. We dress up,
Speaker 3: we bring audience members on stage sometimes we do. It's
Speaker 3: just it's big and goofy and silly, and we're covering
Speaker 3: two of our favorite movies that are Bechdel Cast can
Speaker 3: and so we want to have a good time. We'll
Speaker 3: be bringing exclusive merch and we will be doing meet
Speaker 3: and greets before and after the show.
Speaker 2: We want to meet everybody.
Speaker 3: And we're really really excited and tickets are already going
Speaker 3: fast because we released it to Matrons first, plugging the
Speaker 3: Patreon really quick.
Speaker 1: Little perk for the matrons. Yep.
Speaker 3: So if you live in those areas, get those dang
Speaker 3: tickets because these shows will sell out.
Speaker 1: Yes they will. So head over to our link Tree
Speaker 1: Link Tree slash Bechdel Cast, grab your tickets for the
Speaker 1: Shrek Tanic.
Speaker 2: And enjoy the episode.
Speaker 4: On the Doodcast, the questions asked if movies have women
Speaker 4: and are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or
Speaker 4: do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy and bast start
Speaker 4: changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 1: Jamie Caitlyn, I wrote you a letter because I'm in
Speaker 1: love with you? What? And do you know why?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: You don't even know me. No, I do, and you don't.
Speaker 1: I know that you love strawberry pop tarts and that
Speaker 1: I love strawberry pop tarts and that's enough fun what.
Speaker 3: I unfortunately not to break the bechel test immediately, but
Speaker 3: I sent that scene to my boyfriend and I was like, wow,
Speaker 3: we sort of had that conversation at one point. It
Speaker 3: was like the first night he stayed over at my
Speaker 3: house and I was like, oh, do you want any breakfast?
Speaker 2: I have three pop.
Speaker 3: Tarts and he's like, wow, that's all I have at
Speaker 3: my house meant to be. We should keep this thing
Speaker 3: going and never improve as individuals.
Speaker 2: It's kind of nice.
Speaker 3: Uh so all that to say teenagers are swart. Actually,
Speaker 3: this movie is so bizarre. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Derante.
Speaker 3: This is our show where we examine movies through an
Speaker 3: intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test as a jumping
Speaker 3: off point for a larger discussion. The Bechdel Test is
Speaker 3: a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, often
Speaker 3: called the Bechdel Wallace Test since she collaborated on it
Speaker 3: with her friend Liz Wallace.
Speaker 2: That makes it.
Speaker 1: Sound like it was like this big project. It was
Speaker 1: not that it was just a throwaway Joe.
Speaker 2: It was just kind of a day that they had.
Speaker 1: In Alison Bechdel's Ducks to Watch out for from the
Speaker 1: mid eighties. There are many versions of the test. The
Speaker 1: one that we use is this, do two characters of
Speaker 1: a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each
Speaker 1: other about something other than a man? And ideally for us,
Speaker 1: is it a nice, meaty conversation and not just throwaway Dialogue.
Speaker 3: Today we are covering a much requested movie and I'll
Speaker 3: say it, but a much requested guest.
Speaker 2: I feel that I'm just excited to bring her in.
Speaker 3: The vibes on our episodes with this guest are just
Speaker 3: sort of unmatched.
Speaker 1: It's like chaotic good yes. And also I would say
Speaker 1: very Shrekian.
Speaker 2: And not for nothing, not for nothing. Read the byline.
Speaker 1: It's right there, it's right there. She's a culture writer.
Speaker 1: You can see her work on Substack at High Shelley
Speaker 1: as well as Architectural Digest and Vogue. You know her
Speaker 1: from episodes on Buffaloed and Empire Records. It's Shelley Nicole.
Speaker 5: Hi. I'm so happy I'm back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, I hike.
Speaker 5: You forget about the Shrekian How could I? I mean,
Speaker 5: I need to put the mic down now because that's
Speaker 5: so rude for me.
Speaker 2: Has that not become your professional byeline?
Speaker 5: It is? It is. Now Now that I'm solo and
Speaker 5: on my own, I'm changing my substack from Hi Shelley
Speaker 5: to exactly.
Speaker 1: That, Hi Shreky, Hi Shreky exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean theoretically, I mean, you know, Shrek five is
Speaker 3: allegedly in production, so if you're pitching yourself for reviewing it.
Speaker 3: I mean, you're like, well, who who are you gonna
Speaker 3: hire over Shreky.
Speaker 5: Herself better than me? I would love to go to
Speaker 5: a premiere of that. Wow, that would be so great.
Speaker 5: Oh my first interview. Guys, I'm gonna do it now
Speaker 5: that I know it exists. You're gonna make substacks send me.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna.
Speaker 3: I'm currently spending so much like not it. I mean
Speaker 3: I haven't done anything, but I just think about it
Speaker 3: a lot of Like Despicable before comes out July third,
Speaker 3: How hard could it be to get invited to that?
Speaker 3: Like I have, I like, I do have to go.
Speaker 3: I have Shrek news for everyone.
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, tell us I was at the mall
Speaker 3: the other day, right brag.
Speaker 5: I love that sentence. I love that very nineteen ninety
Speaker 5: eight of you. I love this sentence. It's true.
Speaker 3: I'm studying the scene. I was at a store called
Speaker 3: box Lunch.
Speaker 2: Who knows.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know it's it's sort of like hot topic, but.
Speaker 2: Like a little but I think it's like quieter.
Speaker 1: Quiet it's not quite so hot.
Speaker 2: I guess it's like a warm topic kind of thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought that this was literally
Speaker 5: gonna be like a sweet green or something like that.
Speaker 5: I didn't know, like hot topics, like conservative sisters.
Speaker 2: Kind of yeah, like it's it is. It's it's like
Speaker 2: a hot topic. Got a desk job.
Speaker 3: But it's still all like weirdly like merchandisee like merchandized stuff.
Speaker 3: And they had a Shrek section and they had this
Speaker 3: a Shrek instruction, you could say, And there was this
Speaker 3: unbelove believable sweater that was like a full cable knit
Speaker 3: sweater with like huge knit onions all over it, and
Speaker 3: then on the back.
Speaker 5: Was Shrek like three D onions.
Speaker 2: Three D onions, like huge onion like pom poms.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it was really wait, jamis for the Shrek.
Speaker 2: And with like a huge amount of disposable income.
Speaker 1: Was this at the Glendale Galleria? Yes, okay, good, let's
Speaker 1: go there and buy it.
Speaker 3: It's called a business expense. Gosh, I'm looking for Okay, here,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna put it in the chat. It is sixty
Speaker 3: five dollars, I guess for it A.
Speaker 2: Nice five dollars. I'm like for a sweater you'll wear
Speaker 2: every day for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: Maybe I mean small price to pay.
Speaker 3: Maybe there's also a Shrek hockey Tracy.
Speaker 5: Okay, see, this isn't as bad as I thought it
Speaker 5: was gonna be.
Speaker 3: I think it's tasteful. I think you could wear it
Speaker 3: to like parent teacher conferences.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like, yes, I'm the parent, and people will be like,
Speaker 5: I feel like someone should call the FEDS because this
Speaker 5: child is not okay, this child is not in a
Speaker 5: happy home.
Speaker 1: Oh well, okay, let's talk about well that we're all
Speaker 1: caught up. So today we're talking about can't hardly wait
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety eight. Now, I didn't mean for that
Speaker 1: to rhyme.
Speaker 5: I was gonna be like, that was very cool, your kid,
Speaker 5: It was very cool. Yeah, it was very nice.
Speaker 1: Anyway, So Shelley, what is your relationship with this movie?
Speaker 5: I saw this movie when I was in middle school
Speaker 5: because it made me want to go It made me
Speaker 5: excited to go to high school, or you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying, Like I think I had seen a lot
Speaker 5: of movies that year because I was looking it up,
Speaker 5: like when this movie came out, what else came out?
Speaker 5: A Dead Man on Campus came out this year or too,
Speaker 5: which a lot of people don't believe me. When I
Speaker 5: talk about it that it is a real movie, s
Speaker 5: like Zach Morris, Yeah, and it's got quite a plot.
Speaker 5: One of my favorite teen movies came out. The Faculty
Speaker 5: came out, featuring like usher disturbing behavior with like a
Speaker 5: bad girl crop top Katie Holmes. So all of those
Speaker 5: were like I was like, oh, it's kind of like
Speaker 5: bad high school or scary high school or whatever. But
Speaker 5: this one was so sweet and had like I know,
Speaker 5: it's a bunch of silliness in it, but it had
Speaker 5: like a cute little love story and stuff. And I
Speaker 5: saw it. I rented it a blockbuster, of course, and
Speaker 5: when I did rent it, it became one of the
Speaker 5: movies that I always rented, like because I would rent
Speaker 5: like two or three movies at a time, and I
Speaker 5: would try to get a new one and then like
Speaker 5: one where I'm like, I'm just going to watch this
Speaker 5: all weekend and I'm gonna fuck this DVD up, like,
Speaker 5: but I love this movie, yeah, And then that's my
Speaker 5: relationship to it. Nothing really queer based, really, because I
Speaker 5: was trying to think of that. I will say this
Speaker 5: is one of the first movies I all that I
Speaker 5: knew my answer to like do I want to like
Speaker 5: be her, kiss her. I knew I wanted to be
Speaker 5: Amanda Beckett and and a lot of the other movies
Speaker 5: I saw. I was like, very confused this one right
Speaker 5: out the gate. I was like, I just want to
Speaker 5: be her, loved her tank top, love the hair I wear.
Speaker 5: Hair sounds like this to this day. But yeah, I
Speaker 5: just like, I love this movie so much. I love
Speaker 5: also stand by it. I stand by the fact that
Speaker 5: I think that this movie has one of the greatest
Speaker 5: soundtracks I have ever heard in a teen film.
Speaker 3: It's good, the boldness require to do the same smash
Speaker 3: mouthed needle drop twice.
Speaker 1: You're like, yes, what is this a Shrek movie?
Speaker 5: Shrek wait?
Speaker 1: Is Shrek ad opening on a.
Speaker 3: Smash shrekd It's like it was Shrek before. I feel
Speaker 3: like Shrek Saw can hardly waves. Like here's how my
Speaker 3: feels like has to open.
Speaker 5: I need that. I mean, it's aligned. I mean, I'm
Speaker 5: just saying, but this movie is like fucking incredible, and
Speaker 5: I think it's the first time I also saw hazy
Speaker 5: moments in movies, like for some reason, when Amanda or
Speaker 5: Jennifer Love Hewitt, famous three named actress.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean this was the era.
Speaker 5: Yeah, she got like RuPaul Season one drag race lighting
Speaker 5: in a lot of the moments where she was like
Speaker 5: monologuing her ass off. But yeah, I love this movie
Speaker 5: so much. I love this movie.
Speaker 1: Oh Jamie, how about you? What's your history?
Speaker 3: I'd never seen it. I'd never seen this movie before.
Speaker 3: I jealous. I don't know, like why, because I found
Speaker 3: I had seen a lot of the ninety teen movies.
Speaker 2: This is just one that I hadn't seen for whatever reason.
Speaker 3: My personal connection to it is that I was employed
Speaker 3: by Seth Green for two years. Wow, so i'd certainly
Speaker 3: and I've written with well, I mean, Breckenmeier's not in
Speaker 3: this movie very much, but like we were in the
Speaker 3: same writer's room for a chunk of time. So I
Speaker 3: have like an attachment to two of the guys in
Speaker 3: the movie. And then also like without this movie is
Speaker 3: you know, and I guess it wasn't a success at
Speaker 3: the time it came out, but without this movie, we
Speaker 3: wouldn't have Josie and the Pussycats, And so I knew.
Speaker 2: It was Like, even if I don't love.
Speaker 5: It, I have to honor its place in history because
Speaker 5: the director directors, Harry Elphont and Deborah Kaplan, who wrote
Speaker 5: and directed this movie also wrote and directed Josie and
Speaker 5: the Pussycats. Yeah that's so cool, right, I did not
Speaker 5: know that.
Speaker 3: I Yeah, I really enjoyed this movie. I thought it
Speaker 3: was I think, like, you know, the places where it's
Speaker 3: dated is really you know, dated obviously. But I like
Speaker 3: this movie, especially because we've covered a lot of teen
Speaker 3: movies of this era.
Speaker 2: I think it's.
Speaker 3: Doing a lot more than I expected in terms of
Speaker 3: like showing it giving its characters some depth and some grace,
Speaker 3: and like, I don't know any teen movie that ends
Speaker 3: in a somewhat gray area I'm really intrigued by because
Speaker 3: it's just like, not what happens. It's like it ends
Speaker 3: with like a kiss and you will die with this teenager.
Speaker 5: Like smash cuts. It's twenty five years later, they're.
Speaker 2: Still together, right or like or a bet or a
Speaker 2: lie or whatever it is.
Speaker 3: Right, So it's like there, this movie's you know, trafficking
Speaker 3: heavily in like stereotyped high school characters. But I feel
Speaker 3: like it's doing a little more in terms of like
Speaker 3: showing us the shades of gray to these characters.
Speaker 2: I think if I had seen this.
Speaker 3: As a teenager, I would have been like wow, Preston
Speaker 3: and Amanda. As an adult, I'm so underwhelmed by President
Speaker 3: and Amanda. I'm like, Amanda, what are you doing? What
Speaker 3: are you doing? Yeah, the reality hasn't like I have.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think, well, we probably all feel the
Speaker 3: same way. But like she was so right and the
Speaker 3: way she like cut him down to size and then
Speaker 3: she read. I was like, well, sure he wrote a
Speaker 3: nice letter because he's a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut,
Speaker 3: question mark, was he famous for love letters?
Speaker 2: No, but like he has the.
Speaker 3: Romantic stylings of Kurt Vonnicut, but like nothing, he still
Speaker 3: doesn't know her.
Speaker 5: She was right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, anyways, I thought this movie was fun
Speaker 3: and good and I love Lauren Ambrose.
Speaker 5: Literally love Lauren Ambrose. I was gonna talk about how
Speaker 5: like Dyke coded this movie and that character is she's
Speaker 5: going to NYU. She's like wearing all black, she's giving
Speaker 5: like Clea Duval light. You know, it's also in this movie.
Speaker 5: He's also two second movie. It's great, everybody's in this movie.
Speaker 5: Everyone is in this movie. Everyone.
Speaker 3: And I say this with love I feel, but it's
Speaker 3: like I think the in teen comedies today because we
Speaker 3: have covered like some modern teen movies.
Speaker 2: Everyone does look so perfect and I.
Speaker 3: Like that, Like, I mean, even though some of them
Speaker 3: are kind of maybe visibly in their twenties, it's still
Speaker 3: like I'm like, how do I say this in a
Speaker 3: way that feels respectful, But like I like when they're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: they're playing teenagers, they can kind of look like shit
Speaker 3: and like be wearing confusing outfits and.
Speaker 2: Like be sweaty, and.
Speaker 3: Like it feels like such a cool like because this
Speaker 3: is Debora Kaplan and Harry Elphont's first feature, and it's
Speaker 3: like you can tell they're not working with a lot
Speaker 3: of money, so sometimes people.
Speaker 2: Are just sweating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Jason Siegel's there, and I guess we'll allow it.
Speaker 2: Yeah why not? Yeah, I don't know. I'm excited to
Speaker 2: talk about it. Uh, Cantlee, what's your history with this movie?
Speaker 1: I had seen it a couple of times before prepping
Speaker 1: for the episode. It wasn't something that was like in
Speaker 1: heavy rotation for me. But I saw it, I think
Speaker 1: for the first time in probably college. I don't think
Speaker 1: I saw it when I was still in high school,
Speaker 1: so I was by the time I saw it for
Speaker 1: the first time. I was just like high school, I
Speaker 1: already did that, I'm not impressed. And then I feel
Speaker 1: like I saw it again within the past five years.
Speaker 1: I don't know what would have necessarily compelled me to
Speaker 1: rewatch it. Maybe just because I was like, I love
Speaker 1: Josie and the Pussycats and I want to be more
Speaker 1: familiar with those filmmakers work. So I watched it again,
Speaker 1: and I was reminded that it's like, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: Jamie a more I would say, a slightly more subversive
Speaker 1: version of like a teen ensemble cast movie.
Speaker 2: I was reading because I was having like.
Speaker 3: A half baked version of this thought. And then I
Speaker 3: was reading the big retrospective of this movie that was
Speaker 3: published in The Ringer like five years ago or so.
Speaker 3: And Deborah and Harry because we're friends and so let's
Speaker 3: just call them Deborah and Harry. They said, they're like
Speaker 3: our inspiration for this was what if the party scene
Speaker 3: from Say Say He was a movie? And I was like,
Speaker 3: this movie has so much say anything energy to it,
Speaker 3: like the the friendship between Preston and Denise felt very
Speaker 3: say anything, because that's like another thing teen movies famously
Speaker 3: can't do is like friends of the opposite gender not
Speaker 3: getting married at.
Speaker 5: The end of the movie. That's so cool to know.
Speaker 3: Preston and Denise are so cool. Like it reminds me
Speaker 3: so much of friendships that I had where it's like
Speaker 3: there's like not not any sexual tension.
Speaker 2: Between them that part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's clear they're never going to act on
Speaker 3: it and like it's never gonna happen. I was like, ooh,
Speaker 3: I definitely was friends. I had those friendships where.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you're like stop and then you're like, oh.
Speaker 1: I hate it.
Speaker 5: I love the extra like puh, Like it's very that
Speaker 5: and I think so too, because it's super like you know,
Speaker 5: it's not not there, but they're never gonna act on
Speaker 5: it for the sake of like we're such friends. Like
Speaker 5: this would was so weird. It would have quite literally
Speaker 5: ruin and I'm going to n yu. So I can't
Speaker 5: like deal with.
Speaker 3: That, like and honestly, like, you don't want to Kurt
Speaker 3: Vonnaget boyfriend going into college dead way, don't.
Speaker 5: No, not when you already wear like leather jacket and
Speaker 5: lace like unronically to a teen party with your like
Speaker 5: haircut and no, it's just no, no, I love that
Speaker 5: character though.
Speaker 1: She's so cool. Right, all right, let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break and then we'll come back for the.
Speaker 2: Recap and we're back.
Speaker 1: Okay, Ready, here we go. It's high school graduation and
Speaker 1: all the teens are talking about a huge party that night,
Speaker 1: and there's a rumor going around that Mike Dexter also.
Speaker 5: I was like, okay, oh my god, the last Lennon boyfriend. Yes,
Speaker 5: astronaut Mike Dexter from thirty Rock.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, unbelievably distracting, so distracting, incredibly because I was like,
Speaker 3: why do I Why do I know that name?
Speaker 5: Why do I know this name? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is there any real I'm like, did they just pick
Speaker 2: two first names?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: Or is that?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 3: Was there a writer at thirty Rock, like a fan
Speaker 3: of this movie? Really bizarre?
Speaker 1: We don't know, but you know, one of the main
Speaker 1: characters is named basically astronaut Mike Dexter. He has dumped
Speaker 1: Amanda Beckett and it's a big deal. All the teens
Speaker 1: are talking about it. And then when Preston Myers played
Speaker 1: by Ethan Embry, learns this, he is elated because he
Speaker 1: has a huge crush on Amanda and he is his
Speaker 1: best friend Denise played by Lauren Ambrose, that he wants
Speaker 1: to finish what he started with Amanda four years priori,
Speaker 1: which turns out to be nothing.
Speaker 3: And if that sounds like a threat, it kind of really.
Speaker 2: He's not not stalking her.
Speaker 5: Very sinister retelling of the plot.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we see a flashback where Preston like misses
Speaker 1: his chance to give her a tour of the school
Speaker 1: on her first day of school because she moved there
Speaker 1: freshman year, and Mike Dexter gives her the tour instead,
Speaker 1: which led them to getting together. So Preston missed out
Speaker 1: on his chance, but now that Amanda is single, Preston
Speaker 1: is going to make a move. Meanwhile, we meet astronaut
Speaker 1: Mike Dexter, who is played by Peter Fatchinelli aka Carlisle
Speaker 1: Cullen from Twilight.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but this movie is so rooted in like teendum,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? Because also the teacher in
Speaker 5: like the flashback scene when he was me she was
Speaker 5: one of the og pink ladies from Greece. She's one
Speaker 5: of the ones who sings like the toothbrush song in Grease.
Speaker 5: This movie is like rooted in teen film history and
Speaker 5: to then have this Cullen come on Hello.
Speaker 3: I'm really like fascinated by like, and I don't I'm
Speaker 3: sure that it's like rarely intentional, but like an actor
Speaker 3: that is just like a mainstay of like coming of age,
Speaker 3: like through their career, like Luke Perry comes to mind,
Speaker 3: like through his career he was always in teen stuff,
Speaker 3: even when he was fifty, and you're just like, it's
Speaker 3: just where he thrives.
Speaker 2: Who knows why, It's just where he thrives.
Speaker 1: You know, we all have our little.
Speaker 3: Niche yes, And I feel like, you know, Peter Facinelli's
Speaker 3: same energy he was on he was on Supergirl, like oh.
Speaker 2: He yeah, he's for the teens who can.
Speaker 5: Say why, oh well, Mike Dexter, he's this like jock
Speaker 5: bro dude, asshole type and he encourages his other shitty
Speaker 5: jock friends to break up with their girlfriends like he
Speaker 5: just did, and they're.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, that's a great idea. These girls are holding
Speaker 1: us back. Also, one of the jock friends is Sean
Speaker 1: Patrick Thomas from Save the Last Dance, which we just covered.
Speaker 3: So that was a nineties jump. Scarrow wasn't prepared for it,
Speaker 3: but I was like, of course.
Speaker 1: He's there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then we meet William Lichter played by Charlie Coursmo. He's
Speaker 1: the class valedictorian. He hates Mike Dexter for bullying him
Speaker 1: for years, and so William and his like quote unquote
Speaker 1: nerd friends are plotting this like revenge scheme, Revenge of
Speaker 1: the Nerds.
Speaker 2: Much. It does have like a little bit of Incelli.
Speaker 5: Agy, yeah very much. That. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, they're planning this scheme against Mike Dexter and his
Speaker 1: jock friends at the party that night. Then we meet
Speaker 1: Kenny Fisher, that's Seth Green and his friends. And the
Speaker 1: thing about them is that they are white kids who
Speaker 1: are appropriating black culture.
Speaker 5: And they are like called Homeboy number one in Homeboy
Speaker 5: number two in the like oh yeah.
Speaker 2: The character titles on this movie. It's a mess. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a mess.
Speaker 1: It's messy. And then the other thing with Kenny Fisher
Speaker 1: is that he is like desperate to have sex with
Speaker 1: basically any girl at the party, and he has this
Speaker 1: whole backpack full of like lube and condoms and candles
Speaker 1: and all this like sex paraphernalia.
Speaker 2: He's got like the sex equivalent of a go bag.
Speaker 2: Like it's just really.
Speaker 5: The fact that it like flaps open to like it
Speaker 5: en zips all the way. Something about that never sat
Speaker 5: right with me because I was like, book bags don't
Speaker 5: do that, so that must be for something naughty.
Speaker 3: Another bizarrely sinister element of this movie.
Speaker 5: Yes, the boys in this movie are scary kind of.
Speaker 3: Across the board, like I'm not rooting for a single
Speaker 3: one of them.
Speaker 1: Nope. Okay. So people start arriving at the party, including
Speaker 1: Preston and Denise, and Preston feels really good about his
Speaker 1: chances at getting with Amanda Beckett, partly because he hears
Speaker 1: a Barry Manilow song Mandy on the radio and he's like,
Speaker 1: that's basically the same name as Amanda, so he takes
Speaker 1: it as a sign that he should give her a letter,
Speaker 1: like a love letter that he wrote for Amanda. When
Speaker 1: we finally see Amanda on screen for the first time,
Speaker 1: she's played by Jennifer Love Hewitt. She shows up at
Speaker 1: the party and Preston's like, Okay, I'm gonna go give
Speaker 1: her my letter, but he's still trying to work up
Speaker 1: the nerve. He keeps missing opportunities. Then Amanda talks to
Speaker 1: her cousin about her breakup and how oh yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it's just I don't know if this is
Speaker 5: where the cousin stuff started, like you know how it
Speaker 5: ends up in Mean Girls Too, but like, oh yeah, no,
Speaker 5: thank you please.
Speaker 3: That I mean, first of all, fuck this guy because
Speaker 3: he full on assaults her, and also fuck Preston because
Speaker 3: Preston walks in.
Speaker 5: And does not nothing, do anything, nothing.
Speaker 3: And I know I know that he's like assuming that
Speaker 3: they're hooking up, but it's like she's visibly struggling and.
Speaker 2: He's like and he's like, oh, she doesn't like me.
Speaker 2: I was like, you don't like her, she's gotta assault it.
Speaker 2: You're not doing anything, you fucking lose her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what happens here is that her cousin, Amanda's
Speaker 1: talking to him about her breakup and how it has
Speaker 1: like affected her sense of identity and who is she
Speaker 1: if she's not Mike's girlfriend, and then he responds by
Speaker 1: like surprise, incest kissing her and she's like, what the fuck, dude,
Speaker 1: And then Preston walks in at the exact wrong moment.
Speaker 1: He assumes that, you know, she's just kissing another guy,
Speaker 1: and then he's hurt by this and Preston throws the
Speaker 1: letter away.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then Preston leaves the party and he's like moping about
Speaker 1: how she isn't supposed to be with someone else, She's
Speaker 1: supposed to be with him because he believes in fate
Speaker 1: and how there's like one person for each of us.
Speaker 3: Right, and all of his stuff basically boils down to like,
Speaker 3: she needs to be with me because I said so, Like,
Speaker 3: that's all it is.
Speaker 5: Because I fell in love with you when you walked
Speaker 5: in one time. In over four years, that love has
Speaker 5: simply just grown. And I know I could have talked
Speaker 5: to you at a locker or like a game or whatever.
Speaker 5: I've never been through this many rewrites in my entire
Speaker 5: life that he has in this like letter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because he says he's rewritten it like a thousand
Speaker 1: times or something like that. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: hyperbole or what, but I'm just like, you've never talked
Speaker 1: to her, How do you even know if you like
Speaker 1: her anyway? All Right? So then there's a scene where
Speaker 1: Preston crosses paths with a stripper dressed as an angel
Speaker 1: played by Jenna Elfman.
Speaker 5: Incredible.
Speaker 2: She loved the sentence. Love the scene.
Speaker 1: Yea She tells him about this time when she missed
Speaker 1: her opportunity to talk to Scott Bao.
Speaker 2: And very nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and how she's always regretted it, and Preston doesn't
Speaker 1: want to make that same mistake, so he heads back
Speaker 1: to the party to try to talk to Amanda. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the valedictorian kid William is getting drunk and letting loose
Speaker 1: for the first time. Mike Dexter is annoyed that none
Speaker 1: of the other jocks have broken up with their girlfriends yet.
Speaker 3: He's He does not realize how bizarre he seems, just
Speaker 3: marching up to couples actively making out and being like, I.
Speaker 2: Need to talk to you.
Speaker 3: It's like you are the weirdest man in the entire world.
Speaker 3: The movie knows that, but yeah, Mike Dexter doesn't.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he like starts to see hisself getting sadder by
Speaker 5: like couple three I think, and then he's like, h
Speaker 5: wait a minute, wait.
Speaker 1: Did I make a mistake?
Speaker 3: Sometimes I've like when you see just like men do
Speaker 3: shit like that, You're like, give me that confidence for
Speaker 3: one second. Let me do something that sucked up and
Speaker 3: like have no idea.
Speaker 1: Yep, Okay, So Meanwhile, Denise is wandering around by herself,
Speaker 1: having trouble like connecting with anyone. Seth Green is trying
Speaker 1: to hit on different girls, mostly to no avail, until
Speaker 1: he finds a girl who is willing to go to
Speaker 1: the poolhouse with him, so he goes to the bathroom
Speaker 1: to like get ready for sex, but then Denise bursts
Speaker 1: in and they get stuck in the bathroom together because
Speaker 1: the door is broken, and so we see some scenes
Speaker 1: with them in the bathroom. Denise calls out Seth Green
Speaker 1: what's his character's name, Kenny Kenny Kenny, for being fake,
Speaker 1: and she's like, look in the mirror, you're white, and
Speaker 1: he's like, what crazy, And then we learn that they
Speaker 1: used to be friends, but ever since, like high school
Speaker 1: or middle school, they've kind of drifted apart and they
Speaker 1: don't talk to each other anymore. Also, Preston's letter to
Speaker 1: Amanda kind of fatefully makes its way back into the
Speaker 1: house because it's like getting stuck on people's shoes and
Speaker 1: like flying around the air, and it ends up right
Speaker 1: in front of Amanda, so she picks it up and
Speaker 1: reads it and then she's like, wait, who's Preston Myers?
Speaker 5: So she started like exactly exactly who indeed, I like
Speaker 5: how They're like, how could you not remember him?
Speaker 3: I'm like, name one memorable quality about it? Sorry about
Speaker 3: this child.
Speaker 5: I will say that, like, that scene of the letter
Speaker 5: passing has been one of to me, one of like
Speaker 5: the coolest scenes I've ever seen in like a seen movie,
Speaker 5: because it's just so like I don't know something about it.
Speaker 5: I was just like, this is so cool. And I
Speaker 5: vividly remember rewinding that scene so many times, like I
Speaker 5: just thought it was so cool. I was like, this
Speaker 5: is creative flow.
Speaker 1: It's like slightly a Rube Goldberg machine kind of thing
Speaker 1: ish or adjacent. Anyway, it is. It's visually fun. And
Speaker 1: so she gets the letter and she starts going around
Speaker 1: asking people who and where Preston Myers is, but no
Speaker 1: one gives her a clear answer. Right Meanwhile, Mike Dexter
Speaker 1: talks to Jerry O'Connell, who's in the movie for a
Speaker 1: few minutes, and Mike Dexter realizes that maybe it was
Speaker 1: a mistake to break up with Amanda based on Jerry
Speaker 1: O'Connell being this like former high school stud but now
Speaker 1: that he's a college freshman. None of the girls one
Speaker 1: a day.
Speaker 2: I'm a dozen, so I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: He is not a freshman. He is thirty thirty.
Speaker 2: Well I looked it up. He and he and Seth
Speaker 2: are the same age. I think that he just looks more.
Speaker 3: I don't know, he just looks like, uh, he looks
Speaker 3: older than he is.
Speaker 5: He looks grown as shit. Yeah. Like because when they
Speaker 5: said that, I was like, what, No.
Speaker 3: But the name Trip McNeely again, incredible. Now that isn't
Speaker 3: a teenager MCA high school kind of name, like that
Speaker 3: kid never existed, but he exists in high school movies exclusively,
Speaker 3: Trip McNeely.
Speaker 5: Wasn't there another Trip in another movie? Like a teen movie?
Speaker 5: Trip was like two p's. Wait, I'm pretty sure, but
Speaker 5: I can't remember.
Speaker 2: I wrote Trip character. What that's not helpful? Trip Fontaine
Speaker 2: from the Virgin Suicide.
Speaker 5: That's who it is, because I am obsessed with the Virgin.
Speaker 2: That was nice, jeeus we did ladies, we did.
Speaker 5: It was that was solid.
Speaker 3: Wow, Josh, that's even the Josh Hartnett character in the
Speaker 3: Virgin Suicide.
Speaker 5: Virgin Suicide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got there. Wow, here's what I did, Trip character.
Speaker 3: Then I clicked on the Wikipedia page for Trip. Then
Speaker 3: I went to the subsection fictional characters.
Speaker 5: For trip it was that easy, You didn't.
Speaker 2: Trip McNeely does not appear on this list.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, Okay, trip erasure much the way. Okay, So Mike
Speaker 1: Dexter realizes it was a mistake to break up with Amanda,
Speaker 1: so he goes and tries to get back together with
Speaker 1: her by surprise kissing her, and she's like ooh, no,
Speaker 1: like we're through and you're an egotistical asshole. And then
Speaker 1: after that, because like everyone was watching this whole scene
Speaker 1: play out, a bunch of boys go up to Amanda
Speaker 1: and try to get with her and she's like, ooh,
Speaker 1: get away from me. And this is also when Preston
Speaker 1: returns and like rushes over to Amanda, and he finally
Speaker 1: works up the courage to tell her that he loves her.
Speaker 1: But because she's so fed up with all of this
Speaker 1: unwonted male attention, she's like, what you think I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna have sex with you? Think again you lose her?
Speaker 1: And you're like, yeah, fair, I mean fair.
Speaker 5: Fair, Yeah, she was right, but also she's that's who
Speaker 5: she's been.
Speaker 1: Looking for, Yeah, exactly. She doesn't realize that. She does
Speaker 1: not realize that he's Preston Meyers, the guy who wrote
Speaker 1: the letter and who she's been asking around about, and
Speaker 1: she's rejected him nonetheless, and so Preston is so so
Speaker 1: so sad, and he runs away. We cut back to
Speaker 1: the bathroom, and now Denise and Seth Green are kind
Speaker 1: of vibing, and then he surprise kisses her, because there
Speaker 1: are so many surprise kisses in this movie.
Speaker 5: So many surprise kisses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the nineties in general.
Speaker 5: The nineties, Yeah, in general, especially teen film.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But she actually likes it, and then they start
Speaker 1: making out and then they have sex using the various
Speaker 1: memorabilia from his weird back pinky back.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Cut back to Amanda for Denise, who looks up Preston
Speaker 1: in the yearbook and she realizes that he's the guy
Speaker 1: who she just lashed out at and she's like, oh no,
Speaker 1: So she goes around trying to find him, but the
Speaker 1: cops show up at the party and it breaks up
Speaker 1: the party. Everyone scatters and Preston has already left. So
Speaker 1: the next day, Preston and Denise are hanging out. She
Speaker 1: tells Preston that she had sex with Seth Green, and
Speaker 1: he's like, why'd you do that, yeah.
Speaker 3: Which also like who are you I mean right again
Speaker 3: talking a big game and for what it took you
Speaker 3: four years?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: And then Preston tells Denise that things didn't work out
Speaker 1: with him and Amanda. I guess it just wasn't meant
Speaker 1: to be. And he's about to leave for college slash
Speaker 1: a Kurt Vonnegut workshop in Boston, so he's like leaving
Speaker 1: that day.
Speaker 3: And he's also at like Union Station. I was like,
Speaker 3: you're about to be on the train ride of a
Speaker 3: lifetime if you're taking a train to Boston whatever. I
Speaker 3: know that that's not where the movie takes place, but
Speaker 3: it is visibly Union Station.
Speaker 1: And then we tie up some other loose ends with characters.
Speaker 1: We get some text that tells us what their future holds.
Speaker 1: For example, William goes to Harvard and forms a multimillion
Speaker 1: dollar software company, and it's like, okay, Mark Zuckerberg vies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not rooting for him.
Speaker 3: And then also I thought, like a pretty harsh ending
Speaker 3: for Mike Dexter, both William and Mike. You're like, it's
Speaker 3: very like Revenge of the Nerds era, like geekshell inherit
Speaker 3: the Earth?
Speaker 5: Yeah right?
Speaker 1: And then yeah, because Mike Dexter's he like becomes a loser.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of like body shaming and.
Speaker 2: Like class light class shaming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, class shaming, making light of alcohol addiction, all of
Speaker 1: this stuff to like, you know, imply that he's a loser.
Speaker 1: Now we see a little text about Denise and Seth
Speaker 1: Green and they're like on again, off again relationship. And
Speaker 1: then the movie ends with Preston at the train station
Speaker 1: and who shows up but Amanda with the letter he wrote,
Speaker 1: and she's like, damn, you're leaving. Huh, well maybe this
Speaker 1: is how it was supposed to be. Bye, And he's
Speaker 1: like damn, yeah, bye. But then he's like, wait a minute, No,
Speaker 1: that's the love of my life. So then he turns
Speaker 1: around and he runs after her, and then they kiss
Speaker 1: and they're still together to this day. And she writes
Speaker 1: him letters or something and.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, we not do we not know what
Speaker 2: she's gonna do with her life? No, we don't.
Speaker 5: She writes him letters. That's what she does. She writes letters.
Speaker 5: That's her literal life.
Speaker 3: Wow, feminism, another wind for feminism.
Speaker 1: Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.
Speaker 1: And we're back Shelly, is there any particular place you
Speaker 1: would like to start.
Speaker 5: Yes, I definitely want to start with Kenny in his
Speaker 5: Kenny's introduction, right, Okay, So when I was watching this movie,
Speaker 5: like when I first watched it, I'm in middle school, right,
Speaker 5: I don't think I had the words for like what
Speaker 5: cultural appropriation was. I just knew that he was like
Speaker 5: pretending to be black, right, So I don't know how
Speaker 5: at the time, with my young mind, young age, how
Speaker 5: offended I was, because I was just like, he also
Speaker 5: wasn't the main part of the story that I was
Speaker 5: that I cared about, you know. So I was just like,
Speaker 5: this is weird because every time he came on, the
Speaker 5: music in the background switched to like hip hop or
Speaker 5: like something R and B and all that stuff. So
Speaker 5: what I rewatched it like a few years ago, I
Speaker 5: was like, uh oh, Like I was just I remember
Speaker 5: being like, oh shit, this is so bad. And then
Speaker 5: as I watched the movie more, I realized that when
Speaker 5: I originally watched it when I was a kid, this
Speaker 5: movie was the first time I started realizing pairings of
Speaker 5: black people, right, like even in something like Clueless, which
Speaker 5: it's so obvious, like you know, Dionne is with her boyfriend,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. I was like, oh, that's
Speaker 5: like fine. But then I started realizing the purposeful pairings
Speaker 5: of like the black characters, and I just thought that
Speaker 5: was so interesting because obviously I saw him this movie too,
Speaker 5: because they are the only two black people in the
Speaker 5: school and the popular group like Mike Dexter's friends and
Speaker 5: Amanda's friends. Like her name is Tamara, she's also in
Speaker 5: the Wood and stuff like that. I realized her character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like I.
Speaker 5: Don't know, I think it's just so interesting that young
Speaker 5: me did it not clock that about Kenny but didn't
Speaker 5: wasn't fully like upset, like I think gen Z would
Speaker 5: be like if this happened, if this movie came out now,
Speaker 5: so many things obviously, but if that part of the
Speaker 5: movie happened, I think a young eleven year old watching
Speaker 5: it would still be like a young black eleven year
Speaker 5: old watching it would be like, ah, this is terrible,
Speaker 5: like he shouldn't be doing that. But at the time,
Speaker 5: I just remember being like, this is weird, but he's
Speaker 5: not my focus. So I just thought it was so
Speaker 5: odd that that was such a choice of a character. Yes,
Speaker 5: it was and I wonder, like you said, like there
Speaker 5: was let you know, especially as like a middle school
Speaker 5: age person, there wasn't quite the same length whige around
Speaker 5: cultural appropriation as there is now, and you know, it's
Speaker 5: not something that necessarily tweens are thinking about that much.
Speaker 5: But also I wonder if it has anything to do
Speaker 5: with the fact that, like this was like a pretty
Speaker 5: like white people appropriating black culture and like speaking in
Speaker 5: aave and like wearing fubuu and listening to exclusively hip
Speaker 5: hop and stuff like that. Like this was a movement.
Speaker 5: It was a horrible movement. Yeah, Like it was a
Speaker 5: thing that for the time felt normalized quote unquote, just
Speaker 5: because like a lot of people were doing it and
Speaker 5: you saw characters like this on screen and movies from
Speaker 5: this era. It was such a thing.
Speaker 1: It was again, it was a horrible thing to have
Speaker 1: been normalized. But yeah, it was a thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I think the reason I didn't like maybe the
Speaker 5: reason why I did. I knew that it was a
Speaker 5: thing because I did see it. But in my everyday life, right,
Speaker 5: Like I went to a mostly black school and stuff
Speaker 5: like that, so it was it was kind of like
Speaker 5: if there was a white boy in our school and
Speaker 5: was acting like that. It kind of was like, that's
Speaker 5: who he is versus A few years later, I went
Speaker 5: to a school called Oak Park High School, and then
Speaker 5: there was Cranbrooke High School not well sorry, Seahome, Birmingham,
Speaker 5: Seahome or whatever, and they were a fancy school and
Speaker 5: we would do this is so weird to talk about now,
Speaker 5: but we would once a year they would have a
Speaker 5: select group of students come to our school and we
Speaker 5: would go to theirs for like a few days.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a movie, it.
Speaker 5: Is, And it was like to us, it was cool
Speaker 5: to go see their shit because they had like a
Speaker 5: really fancy school and all. But to them it was
Speaker 5: like what were they learning, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: Other than being like, oh, they're here a bunch of
Speaker 5: poor kids. So I remember like going there and stuff.
Speaker 5: People would be like, there's white boys doing this weird
Speaker 5: shit over there, like like and it was like they
Speaker 5: were the Kennis and shit like that. But at our school,
Speaker 5: if the white boys were doing it, it was kind
Speaker 5: of just like, I don't know, a product of the environment.
Speaker 5: It was a little bit. It wasn't as fake, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean. So when I was watching this.
Speaker 5: It kind of made me be. When I was younger,
Speaker 5: I just didn't clock it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: But now I was even today when I was rewatching
Speaker 5: it again, I was like, oh my god, this is
Speaker 5: so bad. This is it's so bad.
Speaker 3: It's like I first of all that high school switch thing.
Speaker 2: That's gonna stick with me because what.
Speaker 1: Yes, well that's kind of the premise. Have you seen
Speaker 1: that show jam or Jama? Is that what it is?
Speaker 1: It's a spin off of Summer Heights High. It's an
Speaker 1: Australian comedy show.
Speaker 5: Oh oh, I know it're talking about in incredible It's
Speaker 5: one of my favorite shows of all time. But yes,
Speaker 5: it's similar to that, and we would do it like
Speaker 5: Oak Park, Hi, I would do it with Birmingham Seahome
Speaker 5: and you know we would see their fancy pool and
Speaker 5: like their top like of the line of computer lab
Speaker 5: and like. But thinking about it now, it's like when
Speaker 5: they came to us, they were what being grateful for
Speaker 5: what they had, like you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Right, it's like not and I don't.
Speaker 3: I'm like, and what is the supposed takeaway from that
Speaker 3: supposed to be like other than like systemic anger? But
Speaker 3: it's like, do kids have language for that at that time?
Speaker 5: No, because we were in high school at that time.
Speaker 5: This is like early two thousands, you're just like, oh shit,
Speaker 5: they have a computer lab with all colorful max. You
Speaker 5: know what I mean? Right, Like we weren't at least
Speaker 5: I wasn't taken away anything from it other than being like,
Speaker 5: I want a computer room with colorful.
Speaker 3: Max, right right, I mean it's like, yeah, I think
Speaker 3: when I was in high school, might take away would
Speaker 3: have been like, oh fuck these rich kids, fuck them,
Speaker 3: I'm mad at them, I hate them, and not like
Speaker 3: why do we not get access to this exactly?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's almost like children are not operating. But I feel
Speaker 3: like I hope maybe today's kids are are a little
Speaker 3: different or at least like are a little more.
Speaker 2: Conditioned to think that way for sure.
Speaker 3: With Kenny, yeah, I'm interested to talk about him because
Speaker 3: Kaitlin and I agree that it's like this. It's not
Speaker 3: like this movie invented this stock character. This was definitely
Speaker 3: I mean I knew versions of this kid. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: I feel like a lot like if you went to
Speaker 3: I don't know, can't speak to high schools now bravely,
Speaker 3: but in the span of time that we were growing up.
Speaker 3: It's like these kids existed. I guess that it's like,
Speaker 3: and I'm not I don't necessarily object to an attempt to,
Speaker 3: but it just felt like there's no real comment happening.
Speaker 3: There's like it approaches, like Denise calls him out, yes,
Speaker 3: but that kind of doesn't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: I don't know, that doesn't go anywhere because she has
Speaker 1: sex with him too. Such she had sex with.
Speaker 5: Them, Yeah, she with Denise.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: How do we feel about how that play is out?
Speaker 2: Because I was, I was. I was honestly surprised that
Speaker 2: it was called out at all.
Speaker 1: Same. Well, then, the other thing that sort of is
Speaker 1: approaching commentary but not really is the scene where Kenny's
Speaker 1: friends are standing among god black kids, Yes, and one
Speaker 1: of them says the N word.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: I think he's attempting to use it as a term
Speaker 1: of endearment, but the black kids are like, what the
Speaker 1: fuck you can't say that? Yeah, and then they chase
Speaker 1: him away.
Speaker 5: Yeah. And I think that's the only kind of commentary
Speaker 5: that was ever in nineties and early two thousands teens
Speaker 5: film while you're talking about race. It was like they
Speaker 5: had to have a white person say the N word
Speaker 5: or like they had to, they had to make that
Speaker 5: person like make black people angry. And that was the
Speaker 5: only way to include black teens in a film was
Speaker 5: if you were using them to like again further the
Speaker 5: plot of a white character that probably should not have
Speaker 5: been created in the first place, and those black kids
Speaker 5: don't get any lines, like you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: Like it's not even Rewatching nineties and twenty teens film
Speaker 5: always makes me realize, like, because how much we weren't
Speaker 5: in the movies, you know what I mean, how much
Speaker 5: like a black present unless it's like a Save the
Speaker 5: Last Dance, But like again, that is pushing forward the
Speaker 5: plot of Julia styles like that's she for sure everything
Speaker 5: was around around that, but it was what I had
Speaker 5: access to. It's what I wanted to see and like
Speaker 5: all that kind of stuff. But in this movie, specifically,
Speaker 5: the amount of like fake blackness or attempt to like
Speaker 5: put black people black teens in a teen film, it
Speaker 5: was so bad.
Speaker 3: It's so it's like just unbelievably at best misguided, because
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, we have two white writer directors, and
Speaker 3: I mean I feel like it says everything that they
Speaker 3: include Kenny, and I would say, like he's a I
Speaker 3: don't know, he's a more memorable character than like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's I knew about this Seth Green character.
Speaker 2: I did not know about the Ethan Embry character.
Speaker 3: And so for him to have such a large portion
Speaker 3: in the story and for his character to be so
Speaker 3: defined by how much he's appropriating black culture, and then
Speaker 3: also like seeing him effortlessly you know, like take it
Speaker 3: on and off as as needed.
Speaker 5: Like in the bathroom that was the switch, right, It
Speaker 5: blew my mind.
Speaker 3: And then it's like, so to put that much energy
Speaker 3: into bringing that character to life while making no effort
Speaker 3: to characterize any of the black teenagers.
Speaker 2: That or black twenty four year olds whatever.
Speaker 3: That populate this party, because it's not a like it's
Speaker 3: it's more diverse than I you normally.
Speaker 2: See in a nineties teen movie. But but the focus
Speaker 2: is all on the white characters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even though you have so many famous nineties black
Speaker 3: actors at this.
Speaker 5: Party, especially, and it was really wild too, like even
Speaker 5: when they were talking to Donald Fazon when he was
Speaker 5: he called him a hoodie, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: Like the bandmate called him HOODI after he called him,
Speaker 5: like the white artists formerly known as Prince. And it's
Speaker 5: always something like like that, like a black person has
Speaker 5: to be like agitated in order to be included. Sorry,
Speaker 5: a black teen fake as they may be age wise
Speaker 5: in these movies, has to be agitated in order to
Speaker 5: be included. Same thing for even bigger movies like Bring
Speaker 5: It On, like that whole situation they were stealing from
Speaker 5: them and it had to be a whole you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. It's just still a great movie. But
Speaker 5: it's always been like that in teen films, even mean Girls,
Speaker 5: the unfriendly black hotties. Are they unfriendly or do they
Speaker 5: like not want to fuck with you because you're like boring,
Speaker 5: like you know what I mean, like.
Speaker 1: Sky or like directing micro or macro aggressions at them constantly.
Speaker 5: Like constantly, like you're putting that label on them, and
Speaker 5: they have to be agitated in order to get a
Speaker 5: reaction or to be included in these narratives. And it
Speaker 5: was it's less now because everybody's so focused on like
Speaker 5: DEI and all this kind of stuff like that, like
Speaker 5: the New Main Girls and all that. But in the
Speaker 5: nineties they were like, no, let's just make black people mad,
Speaker 5: like it was mask off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, and even on top of like it relying
Speaker 3: on agitating black teenagers in order for them to participate,
Speaker 3: anything that was said to or by a black character
Speaker 3: was connected to race, like because and I think that
Speaker 3: that is just an extension of like these two white
Speaker 3: writers cannot conceive of what the inner.
Speaker 2: Life of a black teenager would be.
Speaker 3: And it's like, well, no, maybe they just discuss their
Speaker 3: own race in every interaction.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what.
Speaker 5: Even in the scene too, And I mean, this might
Speaker 5: be a little bit of a reach, but even in
Speaker 5: scene where Mike pulls away the two guys when they're
Speaker 5: dancing with their girlfriends and Jamie Presley and I think
Speaker 5: her name is Tamara, I don't.
Speaker 1: Want to, I really Tamala Tamala Jones.
Speaker 5: Tamala Jones. Yeah, where Tamala Jones and Jamie Presley start
Speaker 5: dancing together while they're all the boys are having a conversation. Ye,
Speaker 5: Like I said, this may be a reach, but they're
Speaker 5: dancing to wild things and then essentially, like the black
Speaker 5: girl starts to like pretend to tap Jamie's ass while
Speaker 5: she's like twerking on her a little bit. I don't know,
Speaker 5: you feel me, like it's something like yea, even that
Speaker 5: kind of micro like, oh, this is how black girls
Speaker 5: be dancing, like and then.
Speaker 3: There's I'm trying to remember the last time we had
Speaker 3: this discussion. And again it does feel and like correct
Speaker 3: me if I'm wrong, but like it does feel like
Speaker 3: it's very inherent to this era too, where it's it
Speaker 3: just feels clear that it's like casting wise, this movie
Speaker 3: is not going to make an interracial couple happen, not
Speaker 3: like it's the black teens state black teens, the white
Speaker 3: teens date white teens, and that is like the movie
Speaker 3: is not gonna attempt no anything else, which actually kind
Speaker 3: of like if you consider the fact that it's gonna
Speaker 3: be another three years until Save the Last Dance comes out,
Speaker 3: which like whiffs this same that like it attempt at
Speaker 3: an interracial teen couple tremendously, which she could listen to
Speaker 3: our episode that either just came out or was about
Speaker 3: to come out about Save the Last Dance.
Speaker 2: It's just like a it's a bad era. It's a
Speaker 2: bad era for sure.
Speaker 5: It's bad. And that's what I mean by like that
Speaker 5: was the first time that I like notice the pairings
Speaker 5: of like, oh, black teen, black teen black teen, black teen,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? So, and it's like, then
Speaker 5: what happened was we started getting movies like what's the
Speaker 5: one with Christina Milian Love Don't cost a Thing, where
Speaker 5: it's like there are two per characters. Yeah, it's like
Speaker 5: there are two black characters as in a teen movie,
Speaker 5: but she fair skin and like got soft hair, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean, And like it's that whole vibe
Speaker 5: and we get it. And that's in two thousand and three.
Speaker 5: The only one that I can think of that even
Speaker 5: I think, has done so well with a mono racial,
Speaker 5: dark skinned black couple and they aren't even teenagers is Rylane.
Speaker 5: Rylane is one of my favorite movies of all time.
Speaker 5: And if y'all haven't watched it, you should watch it.
Speaker 5: It's like it just came out last year. It's yes,
Speaker 5: I saw it at Sundance. I'm sorry to throw out
Speaker 5: that conversation, but we have to watch it. It's done so well,
Speaker 5: and it's black and it's British and it's incredible and
Speaker 5: you should just watch. It's on Hulu.
Speaker 1: So nice, Okay, Yeah, but yeah, I mean the reluctance
Speaker 1: to put anything on screen besides like a very rigid,
Speaker 1: very stereotypical scenario when it comes to representation of race
Speaker 1: on screen across all movies, across all genres in this
Speaker 1: era and beyond, in teen movies, when they often have
Speaker 1: like a big ensemble cast or like groups of friends,
Speaker 1: like the boy has his popular guy friends and then
Speaker 1: the then there's the group of popular girls. So you
Speaker 1: have like a lot of characters and therefore a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunities to show a lot of different types of people.
Speaker 1: But the boxes that people get put in, and it's
Speaker 1: often again like favoring whiteness or light skin in general.
Speaker 1: It's you know, not exploring relationship dynamics that exist in
Speaker 1: the world, such as interracial couples. It's just like, well,
Speaker 1: obviously only the black kids would date the other black kids,
Speaker 1: or you know, stuff like that, and it's it's just
Speaker 1: still rigid. We still see these weird, rigid boxes that we.
Speaker 3: Were talking about that off mic before before we started recording,
Speaker 3: where it's like still very much an issue, and I
Speaker 3: think it's like, it is freaky to.
Speaker 2: See it laid out so unquestionably.
Speaker 3: Clear, especially with a character like Kenny in as prominent
Speaker 3: a role as he is.
Speaker 2: It's just like kind of unbelievable.
Speaker 5: Because it's a huge role. It's also there was like
Speaker 5: an interracial couple in this movie. I just realized that
Speaker 5: that one guy that was kind of a creep, the
Speaker 5: black guy in Melissa Joanhart's character. They end up linking
Speaker 5: up at the end true in the cafe because they're
Speaker 5: both like just hyper. They love most school, they love memories, remember.
Speaker 1: That time that blah blah blah, and they're like, wow,
Speaker 1: I love having a memory, which.
Speaker 3: He was kind of a creep, but I was like,
Speaker 3: I don't hate that end game because she was like
Speaker 3: not a creep.
Speaker 2: But they're definitely both weirdos and you're always part of of.
Speaker 3: Like it may be the coupling that ultimately makes the most.
Speaker 5: And it's just like they were the ones who, like,
Speaker 5: I mean, you just couldn't leave the movie without having
Speaker 5: an interracial couple. They were like, we do it too,
Speaker 5: And maybe that was the start of all of them
Speaker 5: in teen movies. Maybe it was Melissa jo and Hard
Speaker 5: and maybe that's what it was.
Speaker 3: I kind of forgot that I did. I watched this
Speaker 3: movie twice and I totally forgot it. Also, like if
Speaker 3: you blink, you miss it. Yeah, that's I mean, it's
Speaker 3: like they're not. Yeah, I think that it's like the
Speaker 3: amount of real estate, and it's like I think Seth
Speaker 3: Green does great with what he's given, but it's like
Speaker 3: he does though it's not going I mean, if it
Speaker 3: was going somewhere, I don't know. I mean we'll never know.
Speaker 3: We'll never know if that was ever going to go
Speaker 3: somewhere because it's just like this movie, for all the
Speaker 3: things I like about it, it's like not not only
Speaker 3: not built to have that conversation, but has no interest
Speaker 3: in any meaningful commentary.
Speaker 1: Well, because the whole movie hinges on tropes and stereotypes
Speaker 1: and clicks of high school students. You know, you got
Speaker 1: the jock kids, you've got the nerds, you've got the
Speaker 1: popular girls, and none of that is particularly challenged. I
Speaker 1: would say, like Preston, he like doesn't really fit into
Speaker 1: a group.
Speaker 5: But other than that, because he's not like unpopular, he's
Speaker 5: just not he's just he's just kind of coasting, forgettable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my issue with him, is he is just
Speaker 2: like he is.
Speaker 3: I feel like he's the stereotype of like teenage everyman,
Speaker 3: Like he's just there. I mean, it's not Ethan Embry's fault,
Speaker 3: but it's just like he's just there.
Speaker 1: He's just there. And then again, stereotypes about jocks are
Speaker 1: like put there and not questioned or challenge. You know,
Speaker 1: their their meatheads, they're bullies, they don't have any interests
Speaker 1: outside of sports and sex.
Speaker 3: But again, you get like a little like glimpse into
Speaker 3: like maybe this is going somewhere, and it's super over
Speaker 3: the top. I'm not saying it's necessarily like super well done,
Speaker 3: but in those moments where it's like the jock and
Speaker 3: the nerd are hanging out together and they're having this
Speaker 3: like real kind of like intense conversation, You're like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is kind of cool where it's like they're kind
Speaker 3: of attempting to reconcile. He's trying to drunkenly acknowledge that
Speaker 3: he's been horrible to William, and like they're having a
Speaker 3: conversation that you're like, oh, this is like moments like that,
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, I wouldn't have expected that in this movie,
Speaker 3: and I wasn't even really upset by how that resets
Speaker 3: at the end. That felt unfortunately kind of true to
Speaker 3: life of like, oh that was just one time and like, technically,
Speaker 3: Mike Dexter did do him a kindness by not endangering
Speaker 3: his scholarship and like making sure he didn't get in
Speaker 3: trouble and taking the fall for him, and like that's
Speaker 3: a really kind thing.
Speaker 2: To have done.
Speaker 3: And then when they see each other the next time,
Speaker 3: the dynamic is reset, Mike Dexter doesn't and that felt
Speaker 3: like unfortunately, like I didn't hate that beat because it
Speaker 3: felt more realistic than.
Speaker 2: Mike Dexter being like, wait, you guys, like that's not.
Speaker 5: Who he is. We're friends. Yeah, I bought it, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I definitely bought it.
Speaker 3: The thing that I thought was really cruel was like
Speaker 3: learning what happens to Mike Dexter after that, that felt
Speaker 3: like the movie being like he deserves this, this like
Speaker 3: very again. It's like it felt like there was that
Speaker 3: whole sequence where it felt like the jock nerd stereotypes
Speaker 3: were being challenged, but where we leave, both of those
Speaker 3: characters are both very in line with what those stereotypes are.
Speaker 3: He grows up to like, you know, he's a cool
Speaker 3: nerd now and he's a supermodeled girlfriend. Meanwhile, this guy
Speaker 3: like it's all of these prescriptive, like his life didn't
Speaker 3: turn out as well.
Speaker 1: He peaked in high school the way.
Speaker 5: Right, And that's what I was gonna say, Yeah, you
Speaker 5: would think that he would like high school was all
Speaker 5: that they had. And I think that goes to like
Speaker 5: the writers too. You can always tell how a writer
Speaker 5: feels or felt about somebody in high school, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean, And like, so you can't tell me
Speaker 5: that these people aren't sort of either writing Jennifer love
Speaker 5: Hewitt's character in a way of like, oh I wish
Speaker 5: I wasn't Amanda Beckett, and then writing what happens to
Speaker 5: Mike in a way of like somebody that really fucked
Speaker 5: them over, that probably made it and whatever made it
Speaker 5: sense means to them. But in this movie that I'm writing.
Speaker 2: Like they lose, Yeah, you lose.
Speaker 5: You know. You can always tell that in movies. And
Speaker 5: what I was gonna say about the whole like Mike
Speaker 5: and the nerdy guy situation was rewatching. Like honestly, a
Speaker 5: few years later this time I remembered it. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 5: that happens is all of the like queer shit that
Speaker 5: was just that is bad, like because when they the
Speaker 5: pictures were supposed to be him getting caught out not
Speaker 5: just like in a kinky thing, but like with the
Speaker 5: guy is the thing that is so bad? And then
Speaker 5: like Kenny's friends, they dropped the F bomb twice in
Speaker 5: ten minutes into the movie. They call Kenny one when
Speaker 5: they're on the store, and I think again at the
Speaker 5: party when they're like eating chips, So yeah, that kind
Speaker 5: of stuff. And then I saw Claire Duval and I
Speaker 5: was like, wait, we all know who she is, Like
Speaker 5: it's so I think this was one of the first
Speaker 5: movies where I like couldn't really pick up on anything
Speaker 5: that I was like queer coded. I think the only
Speaker 5: thing I reacted to was when the girlfriends were dancing together.
Speaker 5: When I was younger, I was like, hmm, wait a minute,
Speaker 5: that's that looks fun, like you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: where it's the whole girls trying to get attention from
Speaker 5: the guys sort of thing. But that was the only
Speaker 5: sort of because I always like think and look back
Speaker 5: to like is there any queerness in these movies that
Speaker 5: I was like attached to, But this one I kind
Speaker 5: of was like no, not really.
Speaker 3: Not really, which is wild because this is the team
Speaker 3: that goes on to make Josie and the.
Speaker 2: Pussycats, which is so wild to be they're just forming up.
Speaker 1: Hello Caitlin from the future. Jumping in here with a
Speaker 1: little editing note. So, in the original episode that we released,
Speaker 1: we have a discussion right here about Denise based on
Speaker 1: me misunderstanding and mishearing a line of dialogue in the movie.
Speaker 1: Some listeners pointed out this goof of mine, and we
Speaker 1: just decided to cut that part of the conversation from
Speaker 1: the episode because it's based on something that's not at
Speaker 1: all canon to the movie, and it's based on me
Speaker 1: not hearing dialogue very well, So we didn't want to
Speaker 1: mislead listeners, So you know, we just thought it best
Speaker 1: to remove that part of the conversation. But it did
Speaker 1: bring us back to the topic of the Denise character,
Speaker 1: so we'll just jump back in where that conversation picks
Speaker 1: back up. So back to the episode.
Speaker 3: But it just, I mean, I think it just at
Speaker 3: my core pains me. I've mean in the same way
Speaker 3: where anytime you see a cool girl who deserves the
Speaker 3: best end up with the Kenny Fishers of the world,
Speaker 3: it just like it really and I feel like the
Speaker 3: movie is at least a little more self aware about that.
Speaker 3: Because it references the fact that like they're not gonna
Speaker 3: stay together I hope forever where they're like they broa gout,
Speaker 3: they got back together. So it's like it seems like
Speaker 3: it's a summer before college kind.
Speaker 5: Of thing situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's still it hurts to see a girl
Speaker 3: like Dedise Fleming who just really has everything going for her.
Speaker 5: Quite literally, like truly.
Speaker 1: Well, also like it feels to me like the movie
Speaker 1: is kind of setting up some arc for her where
Speaker 1: she goes to the party that she's reluctant to go to.
Speaker 1: You see her just kind of like walking around by herself.
Speaker 1: She retreats into herself the way that you know many
Speaker 1: introverted people do. She has a hard time, you know,
Speaker 1: striking up conversations. And so I'm hoping because I didn't
Speaker 1: totally remember how the different events of this story played out.
Speaker 1: As I was prepping for this episode, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: hopefully like she meets a friend. It would be nice
Speaker 1: if she had a female friend who she could connect to.
Speaker 3: And it stinks because I do like how the structure
Speaker 3: of this movie allows for like B and C plot,
Speaker 3: Like it feels like, in a way just kind of
Speaker 3: like a really long TV episode, because like what's going
Speaker 3: on with Denise and Kenny.
Speaker 2: Is just like an episode of something.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's just a bottle episode happening in the middle
Speaker 3: of this larger narrative, and I like that, but I
Speaker 3: just don't like the stories.
Speaker 2: That they're choosing to plug in there.
Speaker 3: Because even if we're talking about, like, say anything, a
Speaker 3: movie that I'm not like over the mood about, but
Speaker 3: we talked about it recently and I think that like
Speaker 3: its influencers are really clearly felt in this movie. But
Speaker 3: like the friendship between Lloyd Dobbler and his best friend
Speaker 3: Corey is like we we'd talked about. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: weird to the extent that like his like best friend
Speaker 3: is just like it seems like her whole thing is
Speaker 3: talking about how much how awesome Lloyd Doppler is. But
Speaker 3: it's clear you get a lot of moments with them
Speaker 3: where it's like, this is a very warm friendship that
Speaker 3: is platonic, and like you never see that in teen movies,
Speaker 3: and theoretically that's what we're getting with Preston and Denise,
Speaker 3: but we don't actually see them together very much. And
Speaker 3: I feel like that was another thing with Denise, that
Speaker 3: just goes under explored where you It sucks because I
Speaker 3: think the two actors have really good chemistry and you
Speaker 3: can feels like a real high school friendship, but they're
Speaker 3: separated for so long in these like romantic entanglements that
Speaker 3: it are not I'm bored by one kind of grossed
Speaker 3: up by the other.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's like I really do wish we had
Speaker 5: And also what's is uh Evan Embury's character like for
Speaker 5: the if you really look at watch the movie, he's
Speaker 5: also not in it like them, Like his story is
Speaker 5: not super focused. I feel like they thought like they
Speaker 5: wrote it in a way where they were just like, oh,
Speaker 5: you know that he's trying to do this thing, so
Speaker 5: we don't really have to like fully focus on him.
Speaker 2: And we know it's gonna happen, and it's.
Speaker 5: Going to happen, so we don't have to really tell
Speaker 5: you all that. But I do think that you're right, Jamie.
Speaker 5: Their friendship was like he knows the ins and outs
Speaker 5: of who she is, Like she didn't why she didn't
Speaker 5: really want to go, she knew about this fucking letter
Speaker 5: he's been writing. And then like we don't get to
Speaker 5: see them really interact other than something that's a little
Speaker 5: bit like angry because she don't want to be there.
Speaker 5: She's dragged there and all that ditches her.
Speaker 3: And he ditches her so like immediately, and she doesn't
Speaker 3: even get the opportunity to, like, which would fill in
Speaker 3: stuck with her character be like fuck you, Yeah, I
Speaker 3: didn't want to be here and then you bailed on
Speaker 3: me to go talk to someone who doesn't know you exist.
Speaker 5: Fuck you, Like no, yeah, And I don't think that.
Speaker 5: I don't think in like new routine films either, that
Speaker 5: we really like I mean, there are more like platonic
Speaker 5: friendships between like people of like the opposite and stuff
Speaker 5: like that, but it's always I still feel like it
Speaker 5: gets still very like slapsticky where they're like somebody has
Speaker 5: to be queer, and like that is why, like it
Speaker 5: still falls into the whole like I'm straight and this
Speaker 5: is my queer best friend, and that is why we
Speaker 5: are platonic, not just because we are just fucking friends,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. It's always something else, like
Speaker 5: there's another reason why of course they wouldn't be dating.
Speaker 5: Of course they're just friends.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's really frustrating. And then and then in
Speaker 2: the other corner we have Preston and Amanda and I
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: Know, So we've sort of touched on this a little
Speaker 3: bit already, where I like, don't dislike Amanda as a character. Again,
Speaker 3: we get more from her than I was expecting it
Speaker 3: just the plot ultimately, I think kind of bails on
Speaker 3: her because I thought that in the scene before it
Speaker 3: turns into cousin ins. But this scene where she's like
Speaker 3: explaining for like, I, you know, wasn't a popular girl
Speaker 3: in middle school. It wasn't until I moved to this school,
Speaker 3: and like was sort of like selected quote unquote to be.
Speaker 2: A popular girl.
Speaker 3: And I don't want to end this relationship because I
Speaker 3: don't know how to define myself.
Speaker 2: Outside of it. Like it was pretty like I was
Speaker 2: like into that. I like that.
Speaker 3: I mean you could argue in comparison to the other
Speaker 3: popular girls, she's very not like other girl types because
Speaker 3: the other women are really like bimbo stereotyped, and they
Speaker 3: like very vapideously turn on each other if male attention
Speaker 3: is on the table, and so I found that frustrating.
Speaker 1: Although it is subversive that one of the popular girls
Speaker 1: has seen the movie twelve monkeys and can speak to
Speaker 1: it like.
Speaker 2: It's true she hasn't in her life let her speak.
Speaker 5: I don't I hate Amanda. I do hate that she's
Speaker 5: like I always, like I said, I always was like
Speaker 5: she was the one where I was like, oh, I
Speaker 5: want to be her, you know, And I think I
Speaker 5: hated the only thing I hated now, But I probably
Speaker 5: really wanted that she was like hot but secret smart,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying, Like she secretly is like
Speaker 5: aware of literally everything that's going on, which we get
Speaker 5: in this monologue that she does where she's like hyper aware,
Speaker 5: but she couldn't because, like you said, she didn't have
Speaker 5: her own she was not ready to be who she
Speaker 5: was on her own. So that was one of the
Speaker 5: only things I really was like after rewatching, being like
Speaker 5: we made her like stupid for no reason or not stupid,
Speaker 5: but just being like, I'm just pretty and that's it,
Speaker 5: like airy, because it was very clear that she was
Speaker 5: aware of her popularity, but like of a bunch of
Speaker 5: other things, but she never put it out there because
Speaker 5: she was like, this is not what these people care about,
Speaker 5: and I need to keep being this person while in
Speaker 5: high school anyway, So yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, and then that gave her an identity crisis, and
Speaker 1: she's like, I don't know who I am if I'm
Speaker 1: not dating Mike. But then that, to me sets up
Speaker 1: an arc where she's going to then discover something about herself,
Speaker 1: maybe shoes.
Speaker 2: And not just jump into another relationship.
Speaker 1: But yeah, exactly with.
Speaker 5: A guy that's kind of worse than Mike, because this guy, like.
Speaker 3: I read it in different ways, but at very least
Speaker 3: a lateral move. Yeah, it's just that that's what I
Speaker 3: found frustrating. It's like in because she is very clearly typed,
Speaker 3: not like other girls. I wouldn't say that's a fault
Speaker 3: of the Amanda character as much as how the other
Speaker 3: girls are written. It does feel very regressive to be like,
Speaker 3: only one girl could be hot and nice and can read.
Speaker 3: And you're like, it's it's actually most of them, not
Speaker 3: all of them, you know, but it is many, many
Speaker 3: of them. But any case, as far as like what
Speaker 3: Amanda's character, I like most of what she says, but
Speaker 3: then what she does is often in direct opposition to it.
Speaker 3: I really liked that speech of yeah, like how to
Speaker 3: like the identity crisis, but then what happens after that,
Speaker 3: She's assaulted by her cousin. It's this weird, horrible nineties joke.
Speaker 3: And then she finds this letter. I understand why you
Speaker 3: would be charmed by whatever the fuck is in that letter.
Speaker 3: But but but it then it just like it's always
Speaker 3: in contradiction because I really like her speech shouting down Preston,
Speaker 3: like we were talking about where she was just like
Speaker 3: you don't know me. We see her receive a lot
Speaker 3: of male attention she doesn't want. She has to like
Speaker 3: be literally physically pushing people away from her. The outburst
Speaker 3: makes total sense, and she's right, Preston doesn't know her,
Speaker 3: and that doesn't change. It's not like all of a
Speaker 3: sudden they like, I don't know, I don't know if
Speaker 3: you if these characters absolutely have to end up together.
Speaker 3: I feel like there has to be some sort of
Speaker 3: like time passes or they have like a long talk
Speaker 3: or like they can't not talk.
Speaker 5: Because it was literally the next day. It was the
Speaker 5: next day, not even day, like it was like the
Speaker 5: party ended probably like.
Speaker 1: What twelve hours later.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and she shows up with her angel shirt on
Speaker 5: and like, hey, let's be the g you know me now.
Speaker 5: It's just like there needed to be some time passing.
Speaker 5: But at that point we were already like, what eighty
Speaker 5: some minutes into the movie, so they were like, we
Speaker 5: all wrapped this up, like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's like I like everything she says, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't match up with what she does, and she's
Speaker 3: still just like tossed from one man who doesn't understand
Speaker 3: her and wants to define her based on what he's
Speaker 3: projecting at her to look guy, a guy that's gonna
Speaker 3: do the same thing in a new and interesting way,
Speaker 3: in a new way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we also don't know.
Speaker 2: What her dreams are.
Speaker 5: Which was so crazy because her high school quote too
Speaker 5: was first of all, it was Jewel, which was very
Speaker 5: aligned with me and I was kind of middle school
Speaker 5: because Pieces of You, I was like, I wore that
Speaker 5: song out as though I was previously an unhoused Alaskan
Speaker 5: person like I ate like, but they made her so,
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't know, but it was something about
Speaker 5: her using Jewel as her like quote of being like
Speaker 5: I don't know who I am. It was always something
Speaker 5: more to who she is, but we don't get to
Speaker 5: ever figure out what that is.
Speaker 1: We learn zero things about her because like it says
Speaker 1: like her future plans colon undecided, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: she still can't have interests or like the avenues she
Speaker 1: might pursue. But instead we just know nothing about her,
Speaker 1: nothing about her.
Speaker 3: And I think that that like would really help the
Speaker 3: conflict that the movie is always sort of like restoking
Speaker 3: and abandoning about, like her kind of crisis of self. What, Okay,
Speaker 3: you don't want to be missus popular? What do you
Speaker 3: want to be? Or like what parts of yourself did
Speaker 3: you have to suppress to be in this relationship successfully?
Speaker 3: And that's that's maybe an in for Preston of like
Speaker 3: you know, and it would be the most hokey teen
Speaker 3: movie thing eve ever. But she's like, you know, I
Speaker 3: just really love reading kurvonic it, you know, just like
Speaker 3: it's not that complicated, like it's like give them something,
Speaker 3: but it's like they don't. There's there's nothing keeping these
Speaker 3: two together except that she knows that he is infatuated
Speaker 3: with her, but we were just told that she's kind
Speaker 3: of put off and disgusted by that, Yeah, because that's
Speaker 3: not based on who she is.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of a mess.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And we don't know anything about her ever, and
Speaker 5: he doesn't know anything about her, her friends don't really
Speaker 5: know anything about her. Mike never really knew anything about her.
Speaker 5: So it was kind of the setup of being like,
Speaker 5: we're gonna learn some shit about her, right like, and
Speaker 5: then you're right, we get that monologue, but then we
Speaker 5: ultimately nothing. But I don't know. I think maybe I
Speaker 5: wanted to, Like, I think I was so attached to
Speaker 5: her because this is gonna sound little hokey myself, but
Speaker 5: I was very misunderstood, and I was like, oh, she
Speaker 5: and I And ultimately she is misunderstood, right, whether it's
Speaker 5: like teen drama situation or not, she just is. And
Speaker 5: I think she was the first teen girl character that
Speaker 5: I had seen in a movie that was all the
Speaker 5: way throughout like she was just misunderstood. She didn't really
Speaker 5: have any like growth or change or like come into
Speaker 5: the person she would like disturb her behavior Katie Holmes
Speaker 5: like she fucking figured her shit out by the end
Speaker 5: of the movie. All these movies, even Jennifer Love hewittt
Speaker 5: and I Know What You Did Last Summer, which I
Speaker 5: think also came about that, yeah, same year, same year.
Speaker 5: She ultimately figures out who she like, she comes into herself,
Speaker 5: And I think this character did it and at the time,
Speaker 5: like I wasn't. So it was a very clear cut
Speaker 5: case of like, yes, I'm gay, but I don't want
Speaker 5: to kiss her. This one girl in this movie, I
Speaker 5: just want to like be her, you know. It was crazy.
Speaker 3: It's I don't know, I mean, and it's I wouldn't
Speaker 3: say that. I mean, I think we've covered a lot
Speaker 3: of movies kind of like this recently.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say that.
Speaker 3: She's like significantly less written than other.
Speaker 1: Characters, which is sad and the bar is low, something
Speaker 1: we're always reminded of.
Speaker 3: And I also think it's like that's kind of what
Speaker 3: tends to happen in a movie with five thousand characters,
Speaker 3: Like that's just kind of like what happens in an
Speaker 3: ensemble comedy. But it's if we're what we are told
Speaker 3: about her is underdeveloped and not really paid off in
Speaker 3: like how she acts. But I like but it sucks
Speaker 3: because I like I do like her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like her.
Speaker 1: I like her, I like Denise, and neither of them
Speaker 1: are given that much characterization beyond the very surface level thing.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, I feel like we know multiple things about
Speaker 1: each of the major male characters.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that.
Speaker 1: Same characterization isn't lent to the only like two girls
Speaker 1: who have major roles in the movie.
Speaker 5: So, yeah, peepee poop poo, also peepee poo poo, are
Speaker 5: uh please, I've got some more pepee poo pooh. Okay,
Speaker 5: we've touched on a few of these already. But just
Speaker 5: the way that, like the teens talk to each other
Speaker 5: and treat each other, it's stuff that's very common for
Speaker 5: this era, both in like real life, because you know,
Speaker 5: I was I was a little younger than these kids
Speaker 5: were in nineteen ninety eight, but I remember the stuff
Speaker 5: that people were saying to each other and how they
Speaker 5: were treating each other very common for that era. But
Speaker 5: as we were saying earlier, the movie just doesn't want
Speaker 5: to challenge any of that behavior. It's more just like
Speaker 5: presenting it as a noise normal part of late nineties
Speaker 5: high school culture. The way that you know, several characters
Speaker 5: body shame each other, say ablest things to each other,
Speaker 5: call each other homophobic slurs. The nerds like revenge plan
Speaker 5: against the jocks is like homophobic revenge porn. That one was, Yeah,
Speaker 5: that was the bust.
Speaker 3: I think I just like I really detest a revenge
Speaker 3: of the Nerds scenario.
Speaker 2: They age so.
Speaker 3: Unbelievably poorly because now they're billionaires and ruining the world,
Speaker 3: Like I'm not. I'm simply not rooting for him, even.
Speaker 5: Like my first watching, Like when I first watched this movie,
Speaker 5: I kind of probably fast forward. After the first or
Speaker 5: second watch, I probably fast forward. It passed a lot
Speaker 5: of their plot. And that was one movie too. That
Speaker 5: was one like range of movies that I never really touched.
Speaker 5: I only needed one was like Revenge of the Nerds,
Speaker 5: and there's so many of them. That was one because
Speaker 5: there was a time I was obsessed with like an
Speaker 5: eighties comedy teen. I saw one of those and I
Speaker 5: was like, this is enough, Like this.
Speaker 2: Is They're all the same.
Speaker 5: They are all the same.
Speaker 3: They always involve something like it's either a deeply homophobic
Speaker 3: or misogynist revenge plan.
Speaker 2: That involves a gadget, and you're just like this fucking sucks.
Speaker 3: And it also like sucks for like actual nerds, Like
Speaker 3: it's not fair to actual nerds because they it makes
Speaker 3: them out to be like villains and it's like no.
Speaker 2: It's just you can you can just watch Star Trek
Speaker 2: like it's truly all good.
Speaker 5: It's totally fine. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The way those movies characterize nerds is characterizing them
Speaker 1: as being as toxic as the jocks, just like in
Speaker 1: a different way. And again it's just putting people into
Speaker 1: boxes and you know all that stuff. A few other
Speaker 1: of these Pepe Poopoo things is there's a foreign exchange
Speaker 1: student and a bunch of jokes are made at the
Speaker 1: expense of someone who doesn't speak English as their first language.
Speaker 1: Like some of the kids are teaching him phrases that
Speaker 1: like they're like, yeah, just say this to people. And
Speaker 1: one of them is like, would you like to touch
Speaker 1: my penis? And then he says that to Preston and
Speaker 1: Preston's like, oh yuck.
Speaker 3: And you're like, yeah, that is a gross thing to
Speaker 3: say to someone. But it's all you know, Like it's
Speaker 3: all you know. It's the same old bullshit.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing. Also, there's the kid who steals
Speaker 1: stuff in the.
Speaker 5: Favorite character for some reason, I don't know why.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I do have to say I was this kid
Speaker 3: at parties. I once went to an mi I t
Speaker 3: frat party my freshman year of college and I got
Speaker 3: in big trouble because what the one of the boys
Speaker 3: that lived on my floor. His brother was in the frat,
Speaker 3: and so we got like the plug, we got to go,
Speaker 3: and I drank a ton of vodka and stole two
Speaker 3: pool balls. Whoa, and just I was like, I'm not
Speaker 3: going to steal them all. I'm just gonna make it unusable.
Speaker 3: I was just like feeling really diabolical, and then I
Speaker 3: was some I was traced back to me. Shockingly, I
Speaker 3: probably wasn't that slick. Yeah, I felt connected to the
Speaker 3: kid that goes to a rich person party and steals things,
Speaker 3: just takes things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fair, Yeah, I mean we all should be stealing
Speaker 1: from the rich. But I feel like what's happening here
Speaker 1: in this movie is like a joke being made of kleptomania,
Speaker 1: or like the media's interpretation of that, which is like,
Speaker 1: you know, a real condition.
Speaker 2: Certainly a real thing.
Speaker 3: I guess I was just interpreting it more as like
Speaker 3: I'm at a party at a rich guy's house.
Speaker 1: No, because you see him like steal from the convenience store,
Speaker 1: you see him steal from the dining.
Speaker 5: He takes the gumball machine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he steals a cop car, which also we should
Speaker 1: be stealing from Kimos as well.
Speaker 2: I just like, I think that that character.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I appreciate, like I don't want to make
Speaker 3: light of kleptomania. And also I'm like, this kid's generally
Speaker 3: doing good practice by me.
Speaker 1: I don't see you know the problem.
Speaker 5: To me, he like was just like very background. But
Speaker 5: that guy his name is Chris Owen. He's from Rour. Look,
Speaker 5: so he's from a city in Michigan that's like five
Speaker 5: minutes after Detroit. And he's also like just been a
Speaker 5: weirdo in so many he's an American pie.
Speaker 1: Like, he's all, he's just kid, an American pie. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure. Who like keeps pretending that he's the terminator.
Speaker 1: I feel like he's is He also the kid in
Speaker 1: a different teen movie where there's something about pubes on pizza.
Speaker 1: I think this is why does that sound familiar? She's
Speaker 1: all that.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, he's like the kid who has to eat
Speaker 5: pubes on it's his pubes that get put on the
Speaker 5: pizza or something.
Speaker 2: I have mercifully wiped this from my memory because.
Speaker 1: That came up.
Speaker 5: She's all that came I gotta watch she's all that
Speaker 5: again tonight. Anyway, that's what that's happening. For us. But yeah,
Speaker 5: so I kind of just was like, this guy is
Speaker 5: just background to me, and I think like it was
Speaker 5: supposed to be like a Kitschy teen thing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. A few other they're
Speaker 1: not really cameos because these people weren't famous yet, but
Speaker 1: it's like people who would we would go into it
Speaker 1: on to recognize. You see Melissa Joan Hart, she has
Speaker 1: one of the bigger roles of these like minor characters.
Speaker 2: I think she's killing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got Clay Duval, You've got Amber Benson aka
Speaker 1: Tara from Buffy.
Speaker 2: Oh see, I didn't watch Buffet.
Speaker 1: She's there. Selma Blair has a tiny little appearance Blair
Speaker 1: Jason Siegel does. And then breck and Meyer and Donald
Speaker 1: Faison are in a band together, and I think that
Speaker 1: they also recruit Seth Green and then form jo from
Speaker 1: Josie and the Pussy Kids.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so cool.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm missing people.
Speaker 5: But there's also mine that I pulled because this movie
Speaker 5: is stacked. Right. This movie is wildly Leslie Grossmith, who
Speaker 5: I fucking loved. So she's the girl that the original
Speaker 5: girl that Seth Green is going to hook up with.
Speaker 5: She's the one who's talking to her friend. And Leslie
Speaker 5: Grossman is did you watch The Good Place a little bit? Yes,
Speaker 5: she's the main character's mom. She's also in Popular from
Speaker 5: the nineties, which is one of my favorite shows from
Speaker 5: the nineties, is Popular, And Sarah Rue is in this too,
Speaker 5: who was also Unpopular. She's the sheep girl who's like,
Speaker 5: you're all sheep. There's Jamie Presley, Selma Blair, yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 5: Leslie Grossman was also an American horror story. Maybe you
Speaker 5: know from that, but she is. But my favorite part
Speaker 5: of the little cameos and stuff is just that I think,
Speaker 5: did you all remember Popular or watched Popular or ever
Speaker 5: heard of Popular? To me, it feels like a fever dream.
Speaker 5: But I know it's real because i Wikipedia tells me so.
Speaker 5: But Sarah Rue and Leslie Grossman and the show called Popular,
Speaker 5: and it's like two sisters who parents they're well their
Speaker 5: parents get married, so they become stepsisters, one popular ones not.
Speaker 5: It's just so it's so good, and I suggested everyone
Speaker 5: fucking like try to get your hands on Popular if
Speaker 5: you can. But Sama Blair, yeah, she's in it. And
Speaker 5: then Cruel Intentions comes out the next year, so yeah, this.
Speaker 3: Is like she's she's on the cusps on it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this is just a deeply, profoundly ninety spoofy head to
Speaker 3: toe for good reasons and bad.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Does anyone have anything else they want to talk about?
Speaker 5: I know, oh yeah. The only other thing that I
Speaker 5: have is that the song that Amanda walks into like
Speaker 5: Sneaker Pimps six Underground has always been one of my
Speaker 5: favorite songs, and it's because of this movie. And I've
Speaker 5: always loved that song. And I like had a little
Speaker 5: trivia thing where I was able to name that song
Speaker 5: and people were like, why do you know that song?
Speaker 5: And I was like, can't Harley wait? And it was
Speaker 5: like one of the best experiences in my.
Speaker 2: Life, Like way all that rock.
Speaker 5: I like did a Yeah, it was so cool.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, this is.
Speaker 5: Like all right. I was like, yeah, I stayed in
Speaker 5: my room a lot when I was a kid.
Speaker 3: But I love that when the indoor kid, when you
Speaker 3: have like an indoor kid jump out, it's just it's
Speaker 3: really there's so few, but we get so few opportunities.
Speaker 2: It's great to see. Yeah, yeah, I wanted to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the the double smash mouth, You're not like walking
Speaker 3: on the Sun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what about walking on the Sun twice? And
Speaker 2: I was like, that is an interesting question. Uh, it's tricky.
Speaker 3: Busta rhymes blank twenty two thirty blind, Missy Elliott.
Speaker 2: It's just like, yeah, it feels good, it feels good.
Speaker 1: Anyway, does this movie past the Bechdel test?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I would say no. I think the popular girls talk
Speaker 1: to Amanda about Gwyneth Paltrow, but the context is still
Speaker 1: about Mike Dexter. And also, we don't really know those girls' names.
Speaker 1: They're label as like girlfriend number one, girlfriend number two,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And then like Denise doesn't really talk to
Speaker 1: any other women. There's a few women who approach her,
Speaker 1: or there's like a girl who approaches her, but again
Speaker 1: we don't know these characters' names, and the conversations are
Speaker 1: not that narratively important. So I would say yeah, spiritually
Speaker 1: no to passing the Bechdel test.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's like spiritually and possibly literally really
Speaker 3: well yeah, because if it does pass, it's nothing of importance.
Speaker 3: There's no meaningful relationships between women, which which not for nothing,
Speaker 3: does echo a lot of the issues we had with
Speaker 3: say anything, where it's like, right, Andy, and still I
Speaker 3: think Say Anything did a better job of like Diane
Speaker 3: and Corey at least talk. Do they talk about Lloyd Dobbler? Yes,
Speaker 3: But do they talk yes? Yeah, It's like women don't
Speaker 3: really talk to each other in this movie.
Speaker 2: It's kind of interesting. However, it is co written and
Speaker 2: co directed by a woman, Deborah Kaplan, and so I
Speaker 2: want to be sure to that never happens. And also,
Speaker 2: two women producers are leading the top line of this
Speaker 2: Geno Topping, which is kind of an incredible name, as
Speaker 2: well as Betty Thomas.
Speaker 3: So it's not as if there's not women involved in
Speaker 3: the production. There's quite a few women involved in the production. However,
Speaker 3: very very white production on the crew side, certainly. So
Speaker 3: let's put this movie to the test of a proper
Speaker 3: metric of.
Speaker 1: A generation the nipple scale zero to five nipples, where
Speaker 1: we rate the movie examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 1: I feel like I can only give this like I
Speaker 1: think one nipple is even sort of being generous. It
Speaker 1: is a fun, enjoyable movie, but it's got a whole
Speaker 1: slew of problems, just you know, presenting teens being horrible
Speaker 1: to each other and like screaming homophobic slurs constantly without
Speaker 1: anyone batting an eye. The two main female characters are
Speaker 1: both I would say, pretty underdeveloped, and their storylines revolve
Speaker 1: around some romance with a man and the again the
Speaker 1: Kenny Fisher and his just whole thing, and the centering
Speaker 1: of white characters in general. All of that stuff also
Speaker 1: seth Green's character pease and then doesn't wash his hands.
Speaker 2: So I think that's realism.
Speaker 1: I mean, the teenage the hygiene of teenage boys is
Speaker 1: risc is certainly horrible. I do appreciate any teen movie
Speaker 1: that doesn't end in prom I appreciate that there's a
Speaker 1: character who's a sex worker and she's not shamed for
Speaker 1: her job.
Speaker 2: Now she's a little angel.
Speaker 1: She's an angel. Yes, But there's a whole slew of
Speaker 1: other problems. But there are some like kind of minor
Speaker 1: subversions here and there, but not enough to make it feel.
Speaker 2: A lot of the beginnings.
Speaker 3: I feel like we talked about this where it's like
Speaker 3: it starts to subvert something and then kind of chickens
Speaker 3: out and goes back to what you.
Speaker 2: Expect would happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'll go one nipple actually and I'll give
Speaker 1: the nipple to the movie Josie and the Pussycats.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go one nipple as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that there are moments in this movie
Speaker 3: that creep up towards saying something.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's so of its time where my I understand why
Speaker 3: there's a lot of nostalgia for this movie. There's so many,
Speaker 3: like extremely nineties things about it. But I'm okay with
Speaker 3: leaving it in nineteen ninety eight. I don't think I'll
Speaker 3: be really returning to it. I have no attachment to it.
Speaker 3: A double smash mouths drop. Why I could just go
Speaker 3: watch Shrek. You know, if I wanted to hear the
Speaker 3: same smash mouth song twice, I could go watch Shrek one.
Speaker 1: But I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think that there is certainly stuff to like about
Speaker 3: this movie. I like Amanda. I wish that there was
Speaker 3: more coherence with her storyline. I think that there And
Speaker 3: I like Denise, and I wish that there was more
Speaker 3: coherence with her storyline. There's a lot of interesting characters
Speaker 3: in this movie that I wish were talking to each other,
Speaker 3: but they're always talking to a person that I'm not.
Speaker 2: Very interested in. Yeah, and that's a shame.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ultimately very dated, and I'm going to give it
Speaker 3: one nipple, and I'm going to give it to Jenna
Speaker 3: Elfman's character because I really that I think is the
Speaker 3: one actual, like I could say, like firmly, that felt
Speaker 3: like a subversive scene to show a sex worker who
Speaker 3: has a meaningful moment in the plot, who is not
Speaker 3: shamed or blamed and moves the plot forward like that
Speaker 3: never happens and good for that scene.
Speaker 2: One nipple.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think from the lens that we're examining it
Speaker 5: from outside of and this happens with ever movie I've
Speaker 5: ever bought on this podcast, It's been like this movie
Speaker 5: in general to me, eight nipples, but from the Londons
Speaker 5: that we are, Yeah, the lens that we're examining it from,
Speaker 5: this absolutely gets like I think, I honestly one and
Speaker 5: a half. And I think it's mainly because of Amanda
Speaker 5: Beckett's character, because that's what really made me love the
Speaker 5: movie so much anyway, And I really do think we
Speaker 5: were on the cusp of like really exploring her, but
Speaker 5: like you said, they chickened out with her, and yeah,
Speaker 5: I think so. My one nipple goes to just like
Speaker 5: what Amanda could be. And then the half goes to
Speaker 5: her outfit because that's been one of the outfits of
Speaker 5: my and I had that outfit like a few years ago.
Speaker 5: I did a revamp on it, but see outfit because
Speaker 5: it's super cute and chill and simple. But yeah, so
Speaker 5: one and a half one and a half nipples, but
Speaker 5: eight Shelley nipples because it's incredible.
Speaker 1: Well, of course there's the Shelley scale, and then.
Speaker 5: There's scale, there's there's this all. Yeah, there's a whole
Speaker 5: thing going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, thank you so much for joining us again.
Speaker 3: This was, as always another welcome to the Three Timers Club.
Speaker 3: At five appearances, you get a jacket. We've been lying
Speaker 3: for years.
Speaker 2: Someday I'm so happy.
Speaker 1: I love it here, come back anytime. Where can people
Speaker 1: check out your writing and follow you online? Et cetera.
Speaker 5: I am so I'm mainly doing a lot of work
Speaker 5: on my substack. It's my weekly newsletter and it's high
Speaker 5: Shelley s H E L L I dot net. But
Speaker 5: you have to like type in the w W W
Speaker 5: dot two or else it will tell you that like
Speaker 5: it's parked, and that's a lie anyway, And I'm a
Speaker 5: O Shelley A y O s h E L I
Speaker 5: on I and Hi Shelly on x Twitter whatever that part,
Speaker 5: and yeah, so that's what I do. I love this,
Speaker 5: I love coming on here makes me so happy.
Speaker 1: We love having you come back soon.
Speaker 3: You can find us in all the normal places, Instagram, X, Twitter,
Speaker 3: whatever the fuck it is At Bechdel Cast. You can
Speaker 3: follow our Patreon akamatreon over at patreon dot com slash
Speaker 3: Bechdel Cast. That's five dollars a month for two bonus
Speaker 3: episodes a month, as well as access to a back
Speaker 3: catalog of over one hundred and fifty episodes. This month
Speaker 3: we are doing is what are we call calling this month?
Speaker 1: Oh it's Wedding Weebruary. How could you even forget?
Speaker 5: God?
Speaker 3: That was literally my genius idea. And yes, it's Wedding Weebruary.
Speaker 3: We're covering Ready or Not and twenty seven dresses. So
Speaker 3: we're just going for the range of wedding movie vibes.
Speaker 2: Yes, so check us out over there. We always have
Speaker 2: a bless yes.
Speaker 1: And speaking of having a blast, and speaking of Shreky,
Speaker 1: we've got our upcoming Shrek Tannic tour right now. We've
Speaker 1: got shows in a handful of cities in the UK
Speaker 1: in late May. Check our link Tree, link Tree slash
Speaker 1: spectol Cast for more details and to grab your tickets.
Speaker 2: And uh, that does it for us.
Speaker 3: I guess Let's go to Union Station and bord A
Speaker 3: Bust to Boston.
Speaker 2: Let's see if we make it.
Speaker 5: Bye bye