Speaker 1: Attention Bechdel Cast listeners.
Speaker 2: We're going on tour, baby, and it's not just any tour.
Speaker 2: It's the Shrek Tannic Tour. That's right. Shrek and or
Speaker 2: Titanic are the movies recovering on this tour at the
Speaker 2: demand of us, and you question mark, see you there,
Speaker 2: We'll figure it out.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Our first leg of the tour is in London on
Speaker 1: May twenty second. There are two shows that night, a
Speaker 1: six point thirty show on Shrek and a nine o'clock
Speaker 1: show on Titanic.
Speaker 2: Next, on May twenty fourth, we are going to be
Speaker 2: in Oxford as a part of the Saint Audio Podcast Festival.
Speaker 1: Then we're scooting up to Edinburgh. On May twenty sixth
Speaker 1: we are covering Shrek.
Speaker 2: Then on May twenty eighth we are in Manchester once
Speaker 2: again covering Titanic.
Speaker 1: And finally a show that we recently added in Dublin
Speaker 1: on May twenty ninth that is also a Titanic show.
Speaker 2: We're so excited to meet everybody. We chose two of
Speaker 2: our favorite movies so that we can celebrate the community
Speaker 2: and just have a good time. So please come out.
Speaker 2: You can get all of the tickets over at our
Speaker 2: link Tree, which is in the description link Tree slash
Speaker 2: Bechdel Cast, and we hope to see you there. We
Speaker 2: have such ridiculous outfits, oh my gosh, and exclusive merch
Speaker 2: and everything else.
Speaker 1: So all right, we will see you there.
Speaker 2: See you there.
Speaker 4: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 4: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 4: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zeph and
Speaker 4: Vast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 1: Gool Googga, I'm horny, Hi, Caitlin, Daddy, God, are you there.
Speaker 1: It's me Bella Baxter.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's me. God. Let me rationalize why I'm going
Speaker 2: to be treating you this way for the whole movie.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. When you entered with google Gaga, I thought,
Speaker 3: since we had just done a sink that required us
Speaker 3: to count to five, I thought you'd just like run
Speaker 3: out of numbers, that you know, and started entering sounds.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that was me starting the podcast.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you said that, because this is actually
Speaker 2: how we start every episode. We always start with a
Speaker 2: goog go gaga. Oh, just to make everyone feel safe,
Speaker 2: I mean Google Gaga is kind of one of the
Speaker 2: great equalizers we still have. We've all been there.
Speaker 3: True, that is so true. We all are just human
Speaker 3: beings during the babbling stage.
Speaker 2: It's true. I mean, what is a podcast if not
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of Google Gaga. We are just in.
Speaker 3: A prolonged babbling stage.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bexel Cast. My name's Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Droonte. This is our show where
Speaker 1: we examine movies through an intersectional FELM this lens, using
Speaker 1: the Bechdel test as a jumping off point. I'm like
Speaker 1: sort of over explaining what the Bechdel test is. I
Speaker 1: feel like people can just look it up. I'm just tired.
Speaker 2: Wow, Caitlyn is taking no prisoners today.
Speaker 1: Google Goga.
Speaker 2: I'm tired Google Gaga. Look it up, read a book.
Speaker 2: I guess this is an aggressive way to start the show.
Speaker 2: There are like three hundred episodes, so if you don't know,
Speaker 2: you can listen to the beginning of a different episode.
Speaker 2: We're really eager to get today's episode started, is the thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and also we talk about the Bechdel test basically not
Speaker 2: at all, sup.
Speaker 1: Right, And there's so much else to talk about with
Speaker 1: this movie, which is poor things. Yes, that we just
Speaker 1: have to save all the time we can.
Speaker 3: Yeah, cut the foreplay right.
Speaker 2: The only quick disclaimer we want to give it the
Speaker 2: top is that if you're listening to this, I feel
Speaker 2: like when we cover a movie shortly after it comes out,
Speaker 2: it always ages a little weird because it just came out.
Speaker 2: So if you're listening to this, it just came out
Speaker 2: recording it the day after Emma Stone won the Best
Speaker 2: Actress Oscar. Chances are if you listen to this episode
Speaker 2: a year from now, I at least will probably feel
Speaker 2: different about this movie. Name yeah, probably so Yeah. If
Speaker 2: you go back and listen to us talk about a
Speaker 2: movie shortly after it comes out, usually our feelings change.
Speaker 2: But we've decided today and two hours or less, we
Speaker 2: are going to be the three people to crack this movie.
Speaker 2: God damn it.
Speaker 3: You know, our takes will age. I'm not gonna say
Speaker 3: like a fine wine, and I'm not gonna say like milk.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say like a cheese cause, you know, like
Speaker 3: a fresh guda. It tastes different than like a twenty
Speaker 3: four month age guda. I don't know how long you
Speaker 3: should age Gouda.
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, a lot of knowledge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so much fucking cheese knowledge. I do love Dary,
Speaker 3: despite what my tummy tells me. But I do think that,
Speaker 3: like you know, this is just like the fresh gooda
Speaker 3: version of an opinion about poor things.
Speaker 2: That's all I think. That's a beautiful way to put it. Yes,
Speaker 2: this is the Poor Things episode. Literally hundreds of you
Speaker 2: have asked for this episode. Okay, here it is. Hope
Speaker 2: you're happy.
Speaker 3: You're really dumbing your listeners today.
Speaker 2: I know, I don't know. I think it's when we
Speaker 2: record more than one episode in a day, the second
Speaker 2: episode gets like needlessly agro But you can say that
Speaker 2: of this movie as well. Okay, we're covering poor Things.
Speaker 2: It just came out and we have an incredible guest
Speaker 2: to figure it out with us.
Speaker 1: Yes we do. She is the author of Cultish and
Speaker 1: the forthcoming book The Age of Magical Overthinking. She's the
Speaker 1: host of the podcast sounds like a cult It's Amanda Montelho.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome. Before we get into it, tell us a
Speaker 2: little bit about the new book.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, that's so nice of you to ask. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's called The Age of Magical Overthinking Notes on modern irrationality,
Speaker 3: and it's about cognitive biases in the information age modern
Speaker 3: day do Lulu. So every chapter of the book is
Speaker 3: dedicated to a different cognitive bias. Confirmation bias, sunk cost fallacy.
Speaker 3: These are some of the most famous, but there are
Speaker 3: some other really interesting ones called like the Ikea effect
Speaker 3: and the Halo effect. And I use each of these
Speaker 3: as a lens to explore some mysterious irrationality plaguing the
Speaker 3: zeitgeist and my own life, from celebrity warship to weaponized
Speaker 3: nostalgia to Instagram manifestation Gurus, So check it out.
Speaker 2: Amazing. That is so exciting. Huge fans of your work
Speaker 2: Here on the pod, we simply are so excited that
Speaker 2: you're doing the show.
Speaker 3: H mutual fandom all around, Yippie Google, Gotga Goo Goga.
Speaker 2: We're just like excited little babies. That's my favorite part.
Speaker 2: I started going to yoga classes in the last year.
Speaker 1: Whoe brag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not to flag, but almost every morning I like
Speaker 2: go and then at the end of class you get
Speaker 2: to be a little.
Speaker 3: Baby, happy baby. I know that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just get to roll around on your back
Speaker 2: and goo goo gaga and some beautiful person teaching the
Speaker 2: class comes and like moves your foot a little bit
Speaker 2: and it's like a little horny, but you're like, whatever,
Speaker 2: I'm a baby. That's my poor things. Is beautiful yoga
Speaker 2: teacher adjusting my foot while I'm a little baby. Well,
Speaker 2: let's get into it, folks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Amanda, what is your really? I mean, the movie
Speaker 1: just came out. Did you see in theaters? Preliminary thoughts?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I saw it under really iconic circumstances. I
Speaker 3: was living in the woods and I watched it in
Speaker 3: like the one room movie theater that they have in
Speaker 3: this tiny Woodland town. They pour like the most generous
Speaker 3: movie pores of wine I've ever seen in my life
Speaker 3: at this tiny Woodland movie amazing. They were just like,
Speaker 3: you know what, We're gonna even give you a little
Speaker 3: extra because this film is wacky. Girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean poor things, generous, poor.
Speaker 2: Heavy, poor thing.
Speaker 3: Hello, yeah, they poor things, they did, they poor things.
Speaker 2: I love that system of like we'll give you as
Speaker 2: much wine as the movie requires.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. It was very that, which I appreciated so much.
Speaker 3: And they also like provide blankets at that movie theater
Speaker 3: so in case you got a little chilli, you can
Speaker 3: cozy on up. So I was cozy as hell watching
Speaker 3: this film and buzzed. And I went in with low
Speaker 3: expectations just because like your Ghosts is a masturbatory fellow
Speaker 3: and like I don't love masterbatory fellows h. So I
Speaker 3: was going in with low expectations but high hopes a
Speaker 3: good attitude. I also, like have a slight bias against
Speaker 3: Emma Stone as an ongenu, which we can get into,
Speaker 3: like I don't love her in an aure new role.
Speaker 3: I like her as a character actor, and this was
Speaker 3: kind of both. So I loved it. I mean, we'll
Speaker 3: just I mean, this is the whole point of this podcast,
Speaker 3: in this episode is to talk about it and get
Speaker 3: into it. But I felt like I went in with
Speaker 3: the right attitude to enjoy the film, and indeed I did.
Speaker 1: Jamie, how about you.
Speaker 2: I have seen this movie three times now. I saw
Speaker 2: it right when it came out. I saw it in theaters,
Speaker 2: and I don't know, I think that in part like
Speaker 2: this was a movie where I saw it, I think
Speaker 2: the week after it came out, and almost certainly the
Speaker 2: discourse that I was avoiding still ended up coloring my
Speaker 2: first viewing of the movie because I like your goes.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen all of his work, but he has
Speaker 2: hit or miss for me, and there's certain I think,
Speaker 2: just in general, and we've talked about this on the
Speaker 2: show for years at this point, there are a lot
Speaker 2: of movies that I think are like technically good, but
Speaker 2: it's always going to be hard for me to be
Speaker 2: sold on work from a man adapted from another man's
Speaker 2: work about a woman discovering and being liberated by her body,
Speaker 2: Like it always just feels, even when it's really well done,
Speaker 2: it's like hard to get me in the door for that.
Speaker 2: That was like a big conversation we had around Carrie.
Speaker 2: A movie I quite like, but it's like a man
Speaker 2: adapted by a man viewed by a man, like you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean you can't get something good out of it,
Speaker 2: but like I always come in a little bit leery
Speaker 2: on it. And so the first time I saw it,
Speaker 2: I left really conflicted, like conflicted leaning on not enjoying it.
Speaker 2: And then the second time I watched it, I had
Speaker 2: done some research on the author, I learned a little
Speaker 2: bit more about the adaptation, and the second and third
Speaker 2: viewings I'm liking it more and more each time, which
Speaker 2: turns out I have a very complicated relationship with this movie.
Speaker 2: I think that there's a lot that it's doing that's
Speaker 2: really interesting, not all of it hits for me, And
Speaker 2: then there's like Jerrod Carmichael's performers, there's just like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, I don't know. I'm hoping to figure out
Speaker 2: how I feel about this movie today. I have thousands
Speaker 2: of worts of notes, and I feel no. I know
Speaker 2: that when I first saw it, I didn't like it,
Speaker 2: but I felt that way about almost every Yorgo slanthemost
Speaker 2: movie that I end up coming around on, except for
Speaker 2: the Favorite, which I just liked every single time. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Actually, your story of your journey reminds me of the
Speaker 3: most important piece of backstory that I failed to mention,
Speaker 3: which is that I wasn't even gonna see the movie
Speaker 3: because I felt already like it was so fucking proud
Speaker 3: of itself, which irked me right. But then several people
Speaker 3: who I know to varying degrees of well but since
Speaker 3: computes independently texted me being like, Amanda, you must see
Speaker 3: it because of the clothes, Oh, I mean yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and everybody should see it because of the clothes. But
Speaker 3: I mean it was like a perfect manifestation of what
Speaker 3: I aspire to dress. Like I was shook by it,
Speaker 3: And people who don't even know me very well, we're
Speaker 3: texting me like, Amanda, this movie's clothes, it's you, it's you,
Speaker 3: especially because like I'm recently engaged. I did the proposing,
Speaker 3: which I always feel the need to Ooh, I love
Speaker 3: that disclaim and I want to wear like a super
Speaker 3: colorful surrealist look on.
Speaker 2: My Gonnabella Baxter dress.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, so people were like, watch the movie for
Speaker 3: your bridal inspo basically, and not her bridle gown. The
Speaker 3: rest of it, like the mini buttery yellow shorts and
Speaker 3: the puffy.
Speaker 2: Blue the blue dress nonsense, Yeah, unbelievable. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: the technical elements of this movie I really love. Like
Speaker 2: the movie is beautiful. Yorgos Anthemus knows how to make
Speaker 2: a gorgeous movie. I don't know. I feel bad now
Speaker 2: being like I didn't come in on this movie side
Speaker 2: because I just get so I was talking about it
Speaker 2: with my boyfriend afterwards, like I just get so irked
Speaker 2: at going into a movie and having mostly male critics
Speaker 2: say like this is the feminist movie of the year,
Speaker 2: and it's like, well, how would you know that? And
Speaker 2: then's made by like seven hundred men. I think what
Speaker 2: I've come around on and this is something that I
Speaker 2: feel like has not been super discussed, I guess with
Speaker 2: this and with Barbie, because also this movie was existing
Speaker 2: in conversation with Barbie, which I'm like, just let them
Speaker 2: be separate movies. But a lot of the things I
Speaker 2: had concerns about with this movie I was put more
Speaker 2: at ease with upon learning that Emma Stone was an
Speaker 2: executive producer on the movie, and so she was very
Speaker 2: much in control of every high level decision, and that
Speaker 2: made me feel better about a lot of stuff that
Speaker 2: seemed to be an ongoing discourse, which we'll get around
Speaker 2: to anyways. I think I like it. I don't know, Caitlin,
Speaker 2: what's your history of this.
Speaker 1: I also saw it when it came out in theaters
Speaker 1: and maybe like a week after it opened, and then
Speaker 1: watched it twice. To prefer this, I've also seen it
Speaker 1: three times. I would say I think I like it
Speaker 1: less and less every time I see it.
Speaker 2: Wow, we all have different trajectories.
Speaker 1: The things I like about it, I maintain liking about it.
Speaker 1: For example, a lot of Bella's dialogue and the way
Speaker 1: she speaks, and just kind of her general character arc
Speaker 1: I enjoy. For the most part, there are certain scenes
Speaker 1: that I think are really funny, Just like the shot
Speaker 1: where it's a close up of Bella Baxter, a closeup
Speaker 1: of Max mccandle's and then a close up of a
Speaker 1: goat is the funniest thing I've seen in a movie
Speaker 1: in a while. I think the movie is like very
Speaker 1: well cast and well acted, Like, oh my gosh, Mark
Speaker 1: Ruffalo's performance, Hello, I loved it. He's gifted around. Obviously
Speaker 1: his character is despicable, but everyone's doing a great job acting.
Speaker 1: The production design is interesting, the fish eye lenses, sure,
Speaker 1: But generally I hate Yorgoslanthemos. I don't like these movies.
Speaker 3: He's so polarizing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, Dog Tooth and The Lobster and a handful
Speaker 1: of others. Generally I don't mind the Favorite, but like
Speaker 1: a lot of his earlier work really upsets me. And
Speaker 1: he has this fixation on showing cruelty to animals and
Speaker 1: he does it and every single one of his movies.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean that is The Lobster that's the whole
Speaker 2: movie of the Lobster. And then it also just appears
Speaker 2: in all of his other movies, either as like a
Speaker 2: joke or as just something that's there for no reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I can't stand it and it makes me hate.
Speaker 3: It is very contrarian because I don't know if anyone
Speaker 3: else received this as a literal piece of like creative advice.
Speaker 3: But I remember a college writing instructor sort of problematically
Speaker 3: announcing to the class that a way to make a
Speaker 3: character and you're writing more likable was to have a
Speaker 3: scene where they're nice to an animal.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the whole premise of the screenwriting books save
Speaker 1: the Cat.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, got it all right, So that's like conventional wisdom.
Speaker 3: But I feel like your ghost this is a part
Speaker 3: of what makes him frustrating and like masturbatory and all
Speaker 3: of these things that irk us is that he's performing
Speaker 3: so many stunts, and he's doing it with like extreme
Speaker 3: pride in himself. Right, And I think the animal cruelty
Speaker 3: as like a bit. It's very much like a little
Speaker 3: kid who might grow up to be a sociopath setting
Speaker 3: caterpillars on fire, but like make it.
Speaker 2: She sid from toy Story Coded Behavior.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fortunately the animals are CGI And I do think
Speaker 2: that the Freaky like at least like a narrative place
Speaker 2: of why he's doing it in this movie, because yeah,
Speaker 2: like when it's for no reason, it feels kind of
Speaker 2: like self satisfied and edge Lordy, which I think edge Lordy, Yes,
Speaker 2: a lot of his movies can feel anyways, like I
Speaker 2: don't know, I almost like hesitate to say that because
Speaker 2: I just know that that causes an avalanche of similar
Speaker 2: people to be like no, but like it's just how
Speaker 2: I feel. I don't know. Yeah, there's Caitlyn. I feel
Speaker 2: like we've talked about this before, but it's now more
Speaker 2: common for like male O two is to center women
Speaker 2: in their work. I think this has been an increasing
Speaker 2: trend of the last ten years. But there's like when
Speaker 2: it's done in a certain way, it feels very like
Speaker 2: you're saying me like very self satisfied and very like
Speaker 2: well I get it, ladies, and it's like.
Speaker 1: Self congratulatory, and it's just like let women make movies,
Speaker 1: please and thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I am put a little idiots that Emma
Speaker 2: Stone had a huge creative voice in this.
Speaker 3: You're right, that makes a difference. You know, if I
Speaker 3: could make a prediction, I'd say that if I were
Speaker 3: to see this movie thrice the way that you each have,
Speaker 3: and forgive me for my underachievement, but I think I
Speaker 3: would probably like it less. Well, I would like it
Speaker 3: less in some ways and more in some ways. I
Speaker 3: think I would like it more because like again, I
Speaker 3: just want to keep seeing that fashion and like force
Speaker 3: feeding it to myself, like fucking fashion foie gras. But
Speaker 3: I think I would like it less because I would
Speaker 3: start to like actually scrutinize it. Whereas when I saw it,
Speaker 3: the element of surprise was really a factor for me
Speaker 3: because I hadn't read much about it. I was just
Speaker 3: like ugh, based on vibes, I don't want to go,
Speaker 3: and so there was so much novelty, there was so
Speaker 3: much surprise. Again, I was tipsy, I was letting it
Speaker 3: wash over me. I was giggling. I mean, there are
Speaker 3: some like really funny frames as you were mentioning, you know,
Speaker 3: I like laughed so hard at certain points, like there's
Speaker 3: this one just like very quick cut of Bella going
Speaker 3: from like partying to like pasted out drunk in a corner.
Speaker 3: That's just like the timing of it was so funny
Speaker 3: and like those sort of like silly self unseerious moments
Speaker 3: just like cued my little laughing machine and I was
Speaker 3: just like Tee all the way through. But I think
Speaker 3: if that element of surprise and the novelty were not
Speaker 3: there anymore, I would actually start to apply my slow
Speaker 3: thinking to the film, and in those ways, I would
Speaker 3: like it less.
Speaker 2: That's what we're here to do. Yeah, wreck it for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm starting to say that like the
Speaker 1: things I like about the movie, I think I'll like
Speaker 1: stay liking. But the things I don't like about it,
Speaker 1: the more and more I see it, the.
Speaker 2: More and more I'm really that excited by them. M Yeah.
Speaker 2: Learn more about the production of this movie made me
Speaker 2: feel both better and more ambivalent. But the thing that
Speaker 2: I was yelling at my boyfriend on the phone about
Speaker 2: when I was taking the bus back at like one
Speaker 2: in the morning, after saying, this damn movie, Oh god, look,
Speaker 2: I'm committed to seeing this movie for some reason. But
Speaker 2: my favorite, Your Girl's Anathemist movie is probably the most
Speaker 2: accessible of his the favorite. I really loved the favorite
Speaker 2: and it's like the movie of his centers women that
Speaker 2: tracks for me. I think the reason that may be
Speaker 2: is because it is We talked about this when we
Speaker 2: covered The Favorite. It's based on a story written by
Speaker 2: a woman, Deborah Davis, and she adapted it with Tony McNamara.
Speaker 2: This movie is based on source material by a man
Speaker 2: and adapted by just Tony McNamara, which I think was
Speaker 2: a mistake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, Like, when I think about the gaze
Speaker 3: of those two movies, it really manifests so clearly in
Speaker 3: the film itself, because I feel like The Favorite is
Speaker 3: a movie about women from at least somewhat of a
Speaker 3: female gaze, and this movie feels like a movie about
Speaker 3: a woman from a male gaze, with the female gaze
Speaker 3: like trying so fucking hard to bust out, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, it's weird. I'm excited to talk
Speaker 2: about it, But first we should talk about what happens
Speaker 2: in the movie.
Speaker 1: After this break, yes, and we're back. I'll place a
Speaker 1: content warning here at the top. Four.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Everything, there's suicide, there's sexual and domestic abuse that will
Speaker 1: get brought up either in the recap and or the discussion.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff going on in this movie. Okay,
Speaker 1: we are in Victorian era London. We see a woman
Speaker 1: from behind who jumps off a bridge, presumably to die
Speaker 1: by suicide. Then we meet Bella Baxter played by Emma
Speaker 1: Stone google Goga. But then I'm also like, okay, Bella, Bello.
Speaker 2: Bello minions exact exactly. We're back way back.
Speaker 1: So Bella Baxter is acting like a baby. She's speaking
Speaker 1: in gibberish, she's walking around erradically. She doesn't have motor skills.
Speaker 1: She spits out her food, she pisses herself, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Her caretaker slash father figure is doctor Godwin Baxter played
Speaker 1: by Willem Dafoe, also called God. He is a surgeon
Speaker 1: and professor at a medical school. He's like this kind
Speaker 1: of doctor Frankenstein type of doctor where he seems to
Speaker 1: have Frankenstein very animals together. There's like a dog's head
Speaker 1: on a chicken body. There's a duck head on a
Speaker 1: goat's body. Things like that. God asks one of his students,
Speaker 1: Max mccandle's played by Ramy Yusuf, to assist him with
Speaker 1: monitoring Bella's progress. God explains to Max that she had
Speaker 1: suffered a brain injury and her mental age and physical
Speaker 1: body are not synchronized, and that's why she's acting like
Speaker 1: a baby. But she's progressing very rapidly, and Max is
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about this project. He also thinks that Bella is
Speaker 1: very pretty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think even before Max is like I'm interested
Speaker 2: in this project, he's like, Wow, she's hot and like
Speaker 2: this is gonna go well.
Speaker 1: Like, and then we see her progressing where her speech
Speaker 1: and motor skills improve, but she's still acting very childlike
Speaker 1: for a while. Bella asks God who she is, where
Speaker 1: her parents are. He's like, oh, you're an orphan, and
Speaker 1: we just generally see her be inquisitive and curious about
Speaker 1: the world. She asks Max to teach her about different
Speaker 1: places on the world map. She's never been outside and
Speaker 1: she wants to go out and explore, so God reluctantly
Speaker 1: takes her to the woods, but she wants to be
Speaker 1: where the people are, and she starts acting out. She
Speaker 1: wants to go into town and stuff, and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: that's not possible, so he chloroforms her and Max is like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is going on? And Doctor God reveals
Speaker 1: the truth that Bella had died. She was the woman
Speaker 1: we saw jumping off the bridge at the beginning, and
Speaker 1: she was also very gregnant at the time. Yes, heavy
Speaker 1: with Greg, very heavy with Greg. So God took the
Speaker 1: brain from the baby and surgically put it into Bella's
Speaker 1: head and then reanimated her, which is why she's been
Speaker 1: acting so baby like.
Speaker 2: Now I have a quick question, and it is disgusting.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, but they go out of their way to
Speaker 2: be like a living baby, as you're like, So he
Speaker 2: did canonically, instead of raising the baby, kill the baby
Speaker 2: to steal its brain, right, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, So I'm now remembering that I actually hated
Speaker 3: like the first fifteen minutes of the movie, the whole
Speaker 3: first black and white bit. I was just like, here
Speaker 3: we fucking go. And I had a negative reaction to
Speaker 3: it in part because of my own conditioning. I am
Speaker 3: the daughter of research scientists, like laboratory scientists, and I
Speaker 3: grew up with a certain amount of disdain in the
Speaker 3: household for the trope of the evil unethical scientist, because
Speaker 3: my parents felt like it soiled the already sort of
Speaker 3: fragile reputation of scientists in this culture, Like it's not
Speaker 3: cool to be a scientist. It's not cool to be
Speaker 3: smarter than everyone else else because that's suspicious, you know.
Speaker 3: So like this trope of a scientist using his powers
Speaker 3: for evil, it's just like not something that we actually
Speaker 3: see in real life. And so when I was noticing
Speaker 3: that in the beginning of the film, I was just like,
Speaker 3: this is corny, this is damaging, this is cheap, and
Speaker 3: it's in black and white. I thought there were colors
Speaker 3: in this movie.
Speaker 2: Wow, that is really interesting. Like that's something I'm aware of,
Speaker 2: that sort of stock character and like to I don't know,
Speaker 2: encourage like incuriosity and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like being smart as evil and like knowing things
Speaker 3: that other people don't know, yeah, or don't want to know,
Speaker 3: is evil. Like I actually do bump up against that
Speaker 3: fair in large part because I was brought up to
Speaker 3: but like, yeah, I didn't like that.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll just point out that Bella Baxter is not
Speaker 1: unlike Adam Frankenstein of I frankens Stein fame.
Speaker 2: Our favorite bad movie. Yeah, it's true. Well, she can't
Speaker 2: do nun Chuck's like Adam Frankenstein, which is actually my
Speaker 2: biggest criticism of the movie. Exactly, there's no nun Chuck Sequins.
Speaker 2: Where's the war of Demon's versus Gargoyles? I was sort
Speaker 2: of waiting for that to start.
Speaker 1: Shame.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Ultimately I would would I rather watch
Speaker 2: Ey Frankenstein than Four Things? Probably not, but like I
Speaker 2: don't know. When friends are over, I'm turning on I
Speaker 2: Frankenstein every time, absolutely, and that's misogynist of me.
Speaker 3: Have either of you seen the film Franken Hooker?
Speaker 2: No, No, what's that?
Speaker 3: That's a really good, bad movie. That movie came out
Speaker 3: and I want to.
Speaker 2: Say ninety one perfect.
Speaker 3: And I think you both would like it. It's really it's
Speaker 3: so bad. It's good for sure, but it's about this
Speaker 3: aspiring mad scientist whose girlfriend is tragically killed in a
Speaker 3: lawnmower accident. So he goes yes, and he blows up
Speaker 3: a bunch of sex workers and uses their parts to
Speaker 3: assemble a new girlfriend. Holy shit, Okay, it's really camp.
Speaker 3: It's really wacky. It's a pleasure to watch, and it's
Speaker 3: like a tight ninety.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, oh love that.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the just the poster. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I would watch this. I would watch.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, and the Franken Hunker in the film. It
Speaker 3: has some things in common with Mella Maxter now that
Speaker 3: I think about.
Speaker 1: It, Okay, I'll watch it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bella Baxter is a part of a long legacy
Speaker 2: of Frankenstein's.
Speaker 3: Fucked up experiments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh this is so I'm excited to talk
Speaker 2: about the science angle of it. I haven't seen that
Speaker 2: written about it all. All right, sorry, I'm true. Continue.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we left off where God reveals to Max
Speaker 1: what he actually did with Bella as far as like
Speaker 1: surgically putting the baby brain into her adult body, and
Speaker 1: Bella has no idea about any of that, and when
Speaker 1: she wakes up after being chloroformed, she discovers masturbation and
Speaker 1: she starts doing it all the time. But other characters
Speaker 1: have to be like, no, in polite society, we do
Speaker 1: not do that. And then God is like, hey, Max,
Speaker 1: you should marry Bella, and He's like, yeah, great idea.
Speaker 2: I love my baby girlfriend Gaga, and I'm the nice guy.
Speaker 1: Somehow, and I'm actually nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Max asks Bella to marry him, but God has
Speaker 1: some conditions, mainly that Max and Bella live at God's
Speaker 1: house and always like be under his supervision, which would
Speaker 1: essentially make Bella a prisoner, which she already is, and
Speaker 1: then God hires a lawyer to write up a legal
Speaker 1: agreement to this effect. The lawyer is Duncan Wedderburn played
Speaker 1: by Mark Ruffalo, who immediately takes a liking to Bella
Speaker 1: and he's very horny and he wants to free Bella
Speaker 1: from this imprisonment, so he invites her to accompany him
Speaker 1: to Lisbon, and she recognizes that Duncan is pretty sleazy,
Speaker 1: but she wants to go and explore the world and
Speaker 1: explore her blossoming sexuality. God is not happy about this,
Speaker 1: nor is Max, but Bella goes on this trip nonetheless,
Speaker 1: So she and Duncan arrive in Lisbon. He introduces her
Speaker 1: to new food and sights and experiences, and they have
Speaker 1: a lot of sexy.
Speaker 2: She goes full hedonist in Lisbon, Yes, which is fun.
Speaker 2: I feel like there's a lot made of the emphasis
Speaker 2: on sex that this movie has. But she is truly
Speaker 2: like pleasure chasing in every conceivable way, Like she's pleasure
Speaker 2: chasing with clothes, with her body, with food, with everything,
Speaker 2: and then eventually with books.
Speaker 3: And thank god we're in color by now.
Speaker 1: Yes, we're finally in color. It's true, so you know
Speaker 1: they're traveling together, but they're soon getting on each other's nerves.
Speaker 1: Duncan is annoyed by Bella's behavior and that it doesn't
Speaker 1: line up with polite society, and he's annoyed that he
Speaker 1: can't seem to like control her. He's getting jealous. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Bella just wants to be able to go off and
Speaker 1: explore and have adventures, and he's like trying to prevent
Speaker 1: her from doing that. At some point in the trip,
Speaker 1: a woman comes up to Bella being like, Victoria Blessington,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen you in years, and Bella is like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. I'm Bella Baxter,
Speaker 1: which is gonna pay off later. Then Duncan, who is
Speaker 1: becoming more and more possessive, abducts Bella by putting her
Speaker 1: in a trunk and bringing her on a boat.
Speaker 2: The only thing you can say for that is he
Speaker 2: does ultimately admit that he did it, which is more
Speaker 2: than most men who kidnap women in movies.
Speaker 1: You do, that is true?
Speaker 2: Yeah, how's that for a yard stick? Do we like
Speaker 2: that yard stick? Oh?
Speaker 1: The bar is so low. So she is understandably upset
Speaker 1: by being abducted, but she makes the best of it,
Speaker 1: I guess, and she makes a couple of friends on
Speaker 1: the ship, Martha and Harry, which Duncan doesn't like, and
Speaker 1: he's basically like Bella, you have to marry me or
Speaker 1: I'll throw you overboard. And also Duncan doesn't like that
Speaker 1: Bella is less interested in having sex with him, and
Speaker 1: she has taken more of an interest in reading and
Speaker 1: learning about different philosophies and expanding her mind. She's uncertain
Speaker 1: how to view the world and the people in it.
Speaker 1: She's talking to Harry about it and Martha, but Harry
Speaker 1: is a cynic. He keeps saying that life and people
Speaker 1: are cruel, and Bella doesn't want to believe it. But
Speaker 1: when the ship docks in Alexandria, Harry shows her people
Speaker 1: who who are living in poverty and who are suffering
Speaker 1: and starving, and she's devastated and she feels compelled to
Speaker 1: help them, so she takes all of Duncan's winnings from
Speaker 1: him gambling at the casino and the ship, and she
Speaker 1: tries to give them to the poor, but she unknowingly
Speaker 1: gets swindled by a couple of sailors who take the money.
Speaker 2: Whoops, the Cynic. Okay, the Cynic is my least favorite character,
Speaker 2: and I love Girod Carmichael. Yeah, oh yeah, the Cynic
Speaker 2: cracks me up because it feels like this is like
Speaker 2: a pretty solid adaptation just from like translating from book
Speaker 2: to movie. But the Cynic feels like such a booky
Speaker 2: character that you're just like, oh my god, like, do
Speaker 2: we have to call him the Cynic? Because it just
Speaker 2: feels very no offense cal It feels very grad school
Speaker 2: to have a character name the Sinnel.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, no offense taken. But thank you for mentioning.
Speaker 1: You basically mentioned my master's degree in screenwriting.
Speaker 2: I know you don't like to bring it out, but
Speaker 2: I like to bring out that you And maybe I'm
Speaker 2: just resentful because it's kind of beyond me what's going
Speaker 2: on with the senec Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sorry, you don't have a master's so you wouldn't really
Speaker 1: get it.
Speaker 3: I also famously do not have a master's degree, despite
Speaker 3: the number of blazers I wear.
Speaker 1: No But anyway, so either way, Duncan is furious that
Speaker 1: Bella took his money and now they have no money,
Speaker 1: and they wind up in Paris, and Bella tries to
Speaker 1: procure a hotel room for them, and she approaches a
Speaker 1: woman outside a hotel which turns out to be a brothel,
Speaker 1: and the woman, Madam Swiney, played by Catherine Hunter, offers
Speaker 1: Bella work.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize at first until my second viewing that
Speaker 2: Catherine Hunter plays the witches in the new Cohen Brothers Macbeth.
Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't see that one.
Speaker 2: It's really good. Yes, it's Denzel Washington Macbeth, and she
Speaker 2: plays all three witches. And I only recognize her voice
Speaker 2: because she is like shape shifting, like no one's business
Speaker 2: in that. But would recommend she's so good it's wild.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah, I like her character a lot in
Speaker 1: this way.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, she offers Bella work, and so Bella has sex
Speaker 1: with a man for money, and this makes Duncan furious
Speaker 1: and he leaves to go back to London. Bella continues
Speaker 1: doing sex work. She's repulsed by most of her clients,
Speaker 1: but she also tries to make the best of that situation.
Speaker 1: She befriends another woman at the brothel, Twinette. They eventually
Speaker 1: develop a sexual slash romantic relationship.
Speaker 2: I think it's important representation that she starts having sex
Speaker 2: with the person who introduced her to socialism. I felt
Speaker 2: seen by that.
Speaker 1: I like that a lot you could resist. Also, Twinette
Speaker 1: is played by Susie Bemba. One day, Bella here yelling
Speaker 1: outside the brothel and it's Duncan, who never left, and
Speaker 1: he's there to quote unquote save her.
Speaker 2: He's literally a street car name desiring, which I foolishly
Speaker 2: did not pick up until my third viewing, which is
Speaker 2: brave of me to admit. But he's at the bottom
Speaker 2: going balla.
Speaker 1: Right because instead of saying Stella, he's saying Bella.
Speaker 2: Wow. So for everyone else listening with three brain cells,
Speaker 2: that was a reference.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that was the movie. Poor I missed that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was yeah. I'm happy to blame it on
Speaker 2: my previous movie, Porus. But in the third one, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, okay, okay, you're got seen another movie.
Speaker 3: Chris has watched a movie other than his own. Whoaee.
Speaker 1: So Duncan like wants to save her from this life
Speaker 1: that she's living, and she's like, go home, you lose her.
Speaker 1: We also are periodically cutting back to God and Max
Speaker 1: in London and they are back on their bullshit because
Speaker 1: they have made a new baby lady and named her Felicity,
Speaker 1: played by Margaret Qualleyno.
Speaker 3: They're raven haired hotty.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, it's true. It's true. All the greats they
Speaker 2: got the gen Z raven haired Hotti.
Speaker 3: Is she properly gen Z?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like she's gen Z marketed.
Speaker 3: She's cuspy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just found out that she's Andy McDonald's daughter because
Speaker 1: I went to go see you drive Away Dolls, and
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh.
Speaker 3: The fact that they masked that well enough for you
Speaker 3: to miss it reflects well on the like anti NEPO
Speaker 3: baby sort of like pr campaign.
Speaker 2: It is interesting that it's like NEPO baby Praxis that
Speaker 2: appears to take the last name of the less famous parent.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's why I'm like, there are NEPO babies
Speaker 2: where you're like, you know what, good for Jack Quaid,
Speaker 2: although Dennis Quaid is somehow his less famous parent.
Speaker 3: Wait, who's his mom?
Speaker 2: Meg Ryan? Oh shit, but then his name would be
Speaker 2: Jack Ryan and that would suck.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, not to get too far away from
Speaker 3: the topic at hand, but I actually was in class
Speaker 3: my freshman year of college with Jack Quaid in an
Speaker 3: essay writing class.
Speaker 1: I'm not God.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we were paired once. Wow, I didn't know
Speaker 3: who the fuck he was. I had no idea. It's
Speaker 3: probably because his last name wasn't Ryan.
Speaker 2: Now that I'm thinking about it, Jack Ryan would actually
Speaker 2: like fly You under the Radar a little better. But
Speaker 2: either way, Yeah, if you're a Nepa, you gotta have
Speaker 2: the obvious last name.
Speaker 3: You have to.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyway, So God and Max make Felicity, presumably because they
Speaker 1: were trying to fill some void when Bella left. Also,
Speaker 1: we learn that God is dying and Bella receives a
Speaker 1: letter about this, so she returns to London, and Bella
Speaker 1: has noticed a C section scar, and so she asks
Speaker 1: God about it, and he finally tells her that technically
Speaker 1: she is her baby. She is both her own mother
Speaker 1: and her own daughter. And she's like, what the fuck?
Speaker 2: I hate that? That's like her the.
Speaker 3: Talk I know, right, that's the birds and the bees Formellobaxer.
Speaker 2: She figures out the birds and the bees on her
Speaker 2: own like many of us, right.
Speaker 3: I also like that, like I am my own baby.
Speaker 3: Completely sounds like the name of a TLC special.
Speaker 2: I would watch totally or just like a true life episode,
Speaker 2: Like there's so many delicious, exploitative meeting.
Speaker 3: I definitely watched a TLC special called I Am My
Speaker 3: Own Twin, which brings me to another point that I
Speaker 3: wanted to make, which is like, despite disdaining the evil
Speaker 3: scientist trope, I love any scene that takes place in
Speaker 3: an operating theater.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yes, I remember. I first learned of the
Speaker 2: operating theater from a series of unfortunate events nice and
Speaker 2: I was like, now they were onto something there. It's fun.
Speaker 2: It's a perfect set piece.
Speaker 3: So spooky and cinema.
Speaker 2: I like that Bella thrives in the operating theater. How scary.
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, because it's right around this point
Speaker 1: of the movie where she says that she plans to
Speaker 1: become a doctor, following in her daddy God's footsteps. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so she confronts God ann Max about lying to her
Speaker 1: and trapping her, and to God for creating her in
Speaker 1: the first place, and they're all like whoopsies. But then
Speaker 1: Bello goes forward with marrying Max, and during the wedding,
Speaker 1: a man comes in and interrupts to be like Bello Victoria.
Speaker 1: This man is her husband in her former life. His
Speaker 1: name is General Alfred Blessington, and Duncan had helped the
Speaker 1: General find Bella because Duncan is very bitter and he
Speaker 1: thinks that Bella is a succubist from Hell and stuff
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: Now, if you think you've met Patriarchy, the guy in
Speaker 2: this movie, you haven't, You haven't yet.
Speaker 1: He shows up at the very end, but Bella is
Speaker 1: intrigued by the General and wants to go with him,
Speaker 1: so she returns to his estate, only to discover that
Speaker 1: the General is horribly abusive and cruel, and apparently so
Speaker 1: was she in her former life, and he wants to
Speaker 1: hold her prisoner, and he threatens to shoot her if
Speaker 1: she tries to leave, and he intends to have a
Speaker 1: doctor remove her glitteris that night, so she fights back.
Speaker 1: She manages to chloroform the General and shoot him in
Speaker 1: the foot, and then Bella has Max perform surgery on
Speaker 1: the General and it is revealed that the brain of
Speaker 1: a goat was put into the General's head, and so
Speaker 1: that's like the big cathartic end of this movie. Also,
Speaker 1: God dies Antoinette comes to live with Bella and Max.
Speaker 2: It's a very clean and good for her ending to
Speaker 2: the movie that deviates significantly from the book.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's the story, and let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break and we'll come back to discuss. And we are back,
Speaker 1: and where shall we start on this movie that will
Speaker 1: break my brain? And there's so much to talk about.
Speaker 2: Just a fun fact really quick. So Tony McNamara, he
Speaker 2: also collaborated with mister Yorgos on The Favorite, but his
Speaker 2: credit before this was a different Emma Stone vehicle. He
Speaker 2: also wrote the screenplay to Cruella, so he also kind
Speaker 2: of is now a specialist and good for her style.
Speaker 2: Emma Stone movies of varying quality. So that's just a
Speaker 2: fact about Tony. I don't know. Should we start with
Speaker 2: talking about the source material a little bit?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, please educate me because I did not deep
Speaker 3: dive into the source material and I'm so curious to know.
Speaker 2: That's what we're here, fool. So yeah, this is based
Speaker 2: on a nineteen ninety two novel by Alistair Gray.
Speaker 3: Okay, ninety two birth year.
Speaker 2: Yes, you're the monkey, solidareity?
Speaker 1: Okay, young people.
Speaker 2: Yes the youth.
Speaker 3: I am my own baby Google.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, we are all babies at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: We're all baby. Honestly, I bravely had no idea who
Speaker 2: Alistair Gray was. Turns out he's very famous. He is
Speaker 2: a Scottish or was a Scottish writer. Who is I
Speaker 2: don't know, a postmodern writer. That could mean anything. He
Speaker 2: wrote weird speculative novels. He also did a lot of painting.
Speaker 2: He was also a visual artist, very well loved, and
Speaker 2: also in a way that the movie sort of skilled
Speaker 2: back a little bit. Was also famously a socialist and
Speaker 2: put socialist themes and ideas in basically all of his work.
Speaker 2: So that's sort of the overarching what you need to
Speaker 2: know about him. He passed away in twenty nineteen, but
Speaker 2: met Yurgoslanthemo's and like had his blessing to make this movie.
Speaker 2: I don't think he ended up seeing the script before
Speaker 2: he passed, but I do always kind of like that
Speaker 2: when it's possible to happen, when there is like a
Speaker 2: nice two writers usually men hanging out love that, so
Speaker 2: you know yourgo's got the blessing and when ahead to
Speaker 2: make the movie. The main difference is in Kitlyn. Please
Speaker 2: let me know if I missed anything. Ooh, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: I have the book on my Libby app. Wow, for
Speaker 2: all you libby heads out there, I have it, but
Speaker 2: I have not read it yet.
Speaker 1: Well, that's because we don't read books on this podcast famously.
Speaker 2: I know, but then I'm trying. I'm trying.
Speaker 1: You're trying to read books, Jamie, what the heck?
Speaker 2: And even though people seem to like, the general consensus
Speaker 2: is this movie is good, but also general consensus is
Speaker 2: the book is better. Differences between the book and the
Speaker 2: movie include that all of the book takes place in
Speaker 2: Scotland and Glasgow specifically, this has changed to London. I
Speaker 2: don't really know why. The book is far more overtly socialist,
Speaker 2: which I kind of alluded to. I'm pulling from a
Speaker 2: piece from Polygon that sort of breaks this down. That
Speaker 2: Bella which we see it in the movie. We see
Speaker 2: Bella's political awakening when she goes to Alexandria and basically
Speaker 2: just witnesses capitalism. I don't like the visual choices made here.
Speaker 2: I think it really leans into some like savage tropes
Speaker 2: that like really don't sit well with me. Agreed. In
Speaker 2: the book, Bella talks to people and that scene is
Speaker 2: far longer. Is it better? I don't know I haven't
Speaker 2: read it, but you know, what is basically reduced to
Speaker 2: a shot for the movie is a whole sequence in
Speaker 2: the book, and so it is clearer. Even though I
Speaker 2: think it is clear in the movie that like Bella's
Speaker 2: political awakening becomes increasingly important as the movie goes on,
Speaker 2: it's far more explicit and specific in the book, and
Speaker 2: that sequence in Alexandria is far longer. Lanthamus gave an
Speaker 2: interview to Polygon and was asked about this and said
Speaker 2: the following quote, I didn't find that it could be
Speaker 2: as much a part of the film we were making,
Speaker 2: which is following her story, that story about a woman,
Speaker 2: which is a much more universal thing than political awakening.
Speaker 2: I disagree, but anyways, he says, the book is also
Speaker 2: a huge essay about a lot of political things, and
Speaker 2: especially about Scotland and its relationship with the rest of
Speaker 2: the world, and so yes, that aspect couldn't be an
Speaker 2: equal part in the film, which does make more sense
Speaker 2: to me. I don't know. I feel like every Russian
Speaker 2: novel includes three hundred pages about like agrarian law of
Speaker 2: that decade, and you're like, yeah, I don't want to
Speaker 2: see that. In any case, the final large change is
Speaker 2: the ending, which instead of the kind of the ending
Speaker 2: to this movie is so weird to me where it's like,
Speaker 2: I'm not upset that she, you know, fox over her
Speaker 2: former husband great, but this whole very complex, weird movie
Speaker 2: coming down to like a wine glass clink like dun Dunn.
Speaker 2: Like I didn't really love it. Yeah, it just felt
Speaker 2: like very neat and it's because it's not the end.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, it was very much like a nineties rom
Speaker 3: com based on a Shakespearean play kind of ending.
Speaker 2: It felt like fried green Tomatoes, Like it just felt
Speaker 2: like from a different movie. I don't know. I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna read directly from this polygon piece here and I
Speaker 2: want to shut out. It is written by Oly Welsh.
Speaker 2: We'll link to it in the description of the episode
Speaker 2: through its extended code and framing devices. The book presents
Speaker 2: a much more ambivalent account of the rest of Bella's life.
Speaker 2: She and Archibald I guess he's not Max mccandle's put
Speaker 2: their medical skills to better use in the book, serving
Speaker 2: the people of Glasgow with a women's clinic and a
Speaker 2: public health initiative, but mccandal's is ineffectual and Bella's socialist
Speaker 2: ideals are eventually thwarted by political reality. She's last seen
Speaker 2: as an eccentric old woman whose only patients are dogs.
Speaker 2: It's a much sadder but arguably a less bitter one.
Speaker 2: So yeah, very very different ending, which I kind of think.
Speaker 2: I prefer the book to the kind of prescriptive movie ending.
Speaker 2: So that's adaptation stuff.
Speaker 1: Yes, I have a couple additional things. I also saw
Speaker 1: the polygon piece. These are a few examples of differences
Speaker 1: between the book and the movie from a people dot
Speaker 1: Com piece.
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, watch out.
Speaker 2: That's the grad school bump.
Speaker 3: Okay, masters great, exactly know.
Speaker 1: I only find the best sources, so this one is
Speaker 1: called poor things. The biggest differences between the book and
Speaker 1: the Emma Stone movie iconic Wow, Okay, such things as
Speaker 1: the wedding plays out a little differently. The novel includes
Speaker 1: a variety of characters who don't make it into the movies,
Speaker 1: such as an American professor named doctor Hooker. I don't
Speaker 1: know exactly where Bella meets him on her travels, but
Speaker 1: there's this American professor guy. We also meet her father,
Speaker 1: or rather like Victoria Blessington's father. I think he shows
Speaker 1: up in the wedding scene, stuff like that. The movie
Speaker 1: eliminates those characters, but it adds the character of Felicity,
Speaker 1: the woman who god in Max like Frankenstein together while
Speaker 1: Bella is traveling. So there are those examples, and then
Speaker 1: the novel is structured in such a way where it's
Speaker 1: like letters the memoir from the Max character, right from
Speaker 1: the Max character. Yeah, and he's like talking about his
Speaker 1: friendship with the scientist Godwin Baxter and his creation Bella.
Speaker 1: So it's like more from his point of view, whereas
Speaker 1: the movie largely focuses on Bella and her point of
Speaker 1: view and her view of the world and things like.
Speaker 2: That works for me, right. I also feel like historically,
Speaker 2: like unreliable narrator novels are not usually well adapted. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: just give us a streamlined version.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, indeed.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's the book versus the movie. So let's
Speaker 2: get into the movie, Amanda. Is there anything that stands
Speaker 2: out to you that you want to get into right away?
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, I mean, like, something that I thought was
Speaker 3: very unique about this movie, and that was just like
Speaker 3: candy for me personally, was the evolution of Bella's language skills.
Speaker 3: And her idiolect, as it's called, her very unique and
Speaker 3: personal way of speaking. I don't think I'd ever seen
Speaker 3: like a real time representation of someone's like totally wacky
Speaker 3: mastery of the English language, from googo gaga to you know,
Speaker 3: like multi polysyllabic words. But I was like thoroughly entertained
Speaker 3: by the way that she spoke. And I think, Caitlin
Speaker 3: you mentioned that being a highlight for you as well,
Speaker 3: because I could just really relate as an extremely like
Speaker 3: verbose lover of ten dollars words for no actual reason.
Speaker 3: I loved how quickly she went from actual goo goo
Speaker 3: gaga bella hungry too. I mean, I don't have like
Speaker 3: one of her lines memorized and at the ready, but.
Speaker 2: But she's like quoting like political theory.
Speaker 1: It has a master's degree basically, she does. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: has a PhD.
Speaker 3: Even, But the way that she talks is like so
Speaker 3: authentic to her, like it's so bananas. No one talks
Speaker 3: like that. No one that she meets talks like that,
Speaker 3: you know, like nobody in her world talks like that.
Speaker 3: And I thought that and her style were like true
Speaker 3: individuality to me, and I really I felt very seen
Speaker 3: by it because like, I feel like I talk funny.
Speaker 3: My word choices are funny. That's pointed out to me
Speaker 3: from time to time. So I felt like the representation
Speaker 3: for like girlies who talk funny, it was like really appreciated.
Speaker 2: Even though I said earlier that I was like frustrated
Speaker 2: by the comparisons between Four Things and Barbie, I did
Speaker 2: enjoy it. Someone like was like poor Things is sort
Speaker 2: of like if weird. Barbie had her whole movie that
Speaker 2: happened in the Victorian era, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I kind of see it. I mean, Emma Stone won
Speaker 2: the Best Actress Oscar yesterday at the time we were
Speaker 2: recording this, and it is like an incredible performance, Like
Speaker 2: she's she like really goes for it. Her performance is
Speaker 2: so good, and I like that they give her the
Speaker 2: space to kind of cook.
Speaker 1: And I mean, not to be bitchy, but Lily Gladstone
Speaker 1: should have won.
Speaker 2: But I mean sure, I mean no, I mean I
Speaker 2: think everyone agrees that, remember.
Speaker 1: But I know what you're saying, like she gives an
Speaker 1: excellent performance.
Speaker 2: I think they're both incredible performances and very different performances.
Speaker 2: And for sure, the oscars are racist and it's not
Speaker 2: a meritocracy. Yeah yeah, yeah, but it's a great performance
Speaker 2: for Mamma Stone. I like that. I mean, I'm glad
Speaker 2: to hear that you like as someone with a background
Speaker 2: in linguistics, like that you you like it.
Speaker 3: I loved it.
Speaker 2: It's cool and it does still feel like particular to
Speaker 2: that character. One of the things that I liked about
Speaker 2: the movie because I do feel like the criticisms around
Speaker 2: the emphasis and some people have like said over emphasis
Speaker 2: on sex with men as a way of understanding yourself,
Speaker 2: Like I understand why those are. I feel like that
Speaker 2: has a lot more to do with the visual choices
Speaker 2: in the movie than the story itself because for me,
Speaker 2: at a story level, like she is growing constantly at
Speaker 2: a rate that makes sense, and so much of the
Speaker 2: story or like where we end up is influenced by
Speaker 2: like like you do when you're coming of age, where
Speaker 2: you're like trying to understand your body. You're trying to understand,
Speaker 2: like what are the rules? I think, like the big
Speaker 2: thing we come up against is that the thing that
Speaker 2: is gross and unavoidable in this story is that she
Speaker 2: has a baby brain and a grown woman's body, which
Speaker 2: comes up against a version of a trope we've discussed
Speaker 2: a million times, like the Born Sexy Yesterday, which is
Speaker 2: been around forever. But I do think that Bella is
Speaker 2: an interesting variant of this trope because I feel like
Speaker 2: a lot of the baby lady tropes that we get
Speaker 2: are still somehow intuiting, the make yourself smaller rules and
Speaker 2: defer to men rules that exist within society that takes
Speaker 2: years of conditioning to sort of soak in for a
Speaker 2: lot of people. But Bella is fully a blank canvas
Speaker 2: and like if a social norm doesn't make sense to
Speaker 2: where she says it and does not abide by it,
Speaker 2: and I feel like that is far rarer and it
Speaker 2: almost like like challenged how I understood that stock character
Speaker 2: because you're like, it's not a baby lady really, because
Speaker 2: babies say what's on their mind, and those characters very
Speaker 2: rarely say what's on their mind, or if they do,
Speaker 2: it is like in a very particular way that is
Speaker 2: still deferential to the man that is teaching them what
Speaker 2: the world is. So I do feel like she is
Speaker 2: different in that way.
Speaker 1: Yes, your cat has arrived into the chat.
Speaker 2: Casper's in the mix. He's got thoughts.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, he's so huge.
Speaker 2: Talk about a little baby with big ideas. Oh he
Speaker 2: just fell. Oh he's good, he's good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I agree that the because the first time I saw
Speaker 1: this movie and you see her with her baby brain
Speaker 1: and her adult body and she's having sex with adult
Speaker 1: men with adult brains, and I was so grossed out
Speaker 1: by it.
Speaker 2: It's gross.
Speaker 1: And then I started to realize that, Okay, it seems
Speaker 1: like the director is making some intentional commentary that seems
Speaker 1: to suggest that, like, men are so preoccupied with their
Speaker 1: own sexual desire that they don't eat noticed that the
Speaker 1: woman they're physically attracted to has the mind of a
Speaker 1: small child, or if they do notice, they don't seem
Speaker 1: to care. And so I was like, Okay, that seems
Speaker 1: to be what your gross is getting out.
Speaker 2: Including the guys that were like theoretically rooting for like
Speaker 2: that's yeah. I think like Max is a tricky character
Speaker 2: for me in that regard, because I feel like the movie,
Speaker 2: in the way that it ends ends up being like
Speaker 2: Max is a pretty good guy. Yeah, sure, he made
Speaker 2: some choices that weren't the best, and he justifies it
Speaker 2: usually by being like, you know how charismatic Willem Dafoe is.
Speaker 2: I'm like, that doesn't mean that you should have sex
Speaker 2: with a baby, marry a baby. You can't just be like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, he's just like when you're in his orbit,
Speaker 2: it's hard to not marry a baby. And you're like,
Speaker 2: I just don't believe that's true. I am always sort
Speaker 2: of responsive to like even the quote unquote good guy
Speaker 2: that you're told is the good guy is still you know,
Speaker 2: adhering to this fucked up logic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he is very much to make a
Speaker 3: Sex in the City reference the Burger, the Jack Berger
Speaker 3: in the equation, you know, like maybe the evil general
Speaker 3: that's maybe you know, that's mister big a little bit,
Speaker 3: and who is Mark Ruffalo and the Sex in the
Speaker 3: City universe, you know, maybe God. Fortunately I don't think
Speaker 3: she fucks anyone like that, but good for her, I think.
Speaker 3: But yes, obviously there is something sinister that I don't
Speaker 3: know if the movie itself recognizes about treating that character
Speaker 3: as a good guy in the end. However, my experience
Speaker 3: of the movie, and I was fully done with my
Speaker 3: movie poor by this time, so my opinion can't entirely
Speaker 3: be trusted. I was like, so team Bella Baxter by
Speaker 3: the end of the movie that I was just like,
Speaker 3: whatever she wants, you know, like, yeah, she was so
Speaker 3: smart and badass by that point. I was just like,
Speaker 3: they'll probably get to worse later. It's clear that this
Speaker 3: movie is just like trying to wrap itself up because
Speaker 3: it's twenty minutes too long like most movies. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: so like, I'm just gonna kind of gently ignore this
Speaker 3: ending slash take it with a grain of salt because
Speaker 3: I'm still looking at Emma Stone's outfits and I love
Speaker 3: her character period.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that the ending just like felt weird. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like by the ending, I wasn't like I wish themooviie
Speaker 2: was still happening, but it like just feels funky because
Speaker 2: I also am like fully team Bella Baxter, and I
Speaker 2: don't know, I guess just like sort of close the
Speaker 2: loop on the extensive criticism of this movie's sex scenes.
Speaker 2: I don't think that it takes up undue narrative space.
Speaker 2: I think that visually it feels like it's obsessed over
Speaker 2: more so than any other developmental stage she has. I
Speaker 2: think that that's like, yeah, where that controversy comes from.
Speaker 2: No matter where you land on it, you can't argue
Speaker 2: that the movie is more visually interested in her mental
Speaker 2: awakening than her physical one. It gives a lot of
Speaker 2: real estate to her physical awakening.
Speaker 3: But doesn't that just make for like a more fun, sexy,
Speaker 3: interesting movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm not even saying that I don't like that,
Speaker 2: but I think that that's like why, because as I
Speaker 2: was like watching it, I was like, I do think
Speaker 2: that it is like fairly well paced and like where
Speaker 2: her priorities are and where her developmental stage is. But
Speaker 2: like visually, the like really intense visual scenes are when
Speaker 2: she's having sex and not when she's reading a book,
Speaker 2: because that's technically more interesting to watch. So that's sort
Speaker 2: of my theory on that. But I also think that
Speaker 2: like that is a perfectly fair criticism to have of
Speaker 2: this movie because it is objectively like icky that she's
Speaker 2: a baby fucking adult.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. But when I think of
Speaker 3: like the best sex scenes in the movie, what does
Speaker 3: she call it? Vigorous jumping? Furious furious jumping? I mean
Speaker 3: that's a great example of like I love the little
Speaker 3: constructed phrases that she comes up with. They're so funny
Speaker 3: and like visceral. But I don't know, like the sex
Speaker 3: scenes that I remember the most are I guess ones
Speaker 3: where she's maybe in the like slightly post adolescent phase.
Speaker 3: She's not literally a baby anymore, so she's like furious jumping.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: It's not great, but I don't know. We're all just
Speaker 3: like going on intuition when we're trying to figure out
Speaker 3: how creepy any one of these given sex scenes are,
Speaker 3: and like, yeah, at a certain point pretty soon into
Speaker 3: the movie, actually, once thank god, we transitioned into the colors,
Speaker 3: I was like, I am not so creeped out on
Speaker 3: this anymore. Like I think I really believe that, like
Speaker 3: this woman is horny.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that that's what helps is like she
Speaker 2: does initiate most of the sex in the movie.
Speaker 1: So I have two problems with the way like the
Speaker 1: exploration of female sexuality is handled. And I think it
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with the fact that this
Speaker 1: movie is again adapted from a book by a man screenwriter,
Speaker 1: man director man. Because the things that it mishandles, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure I could come up with more if I
Speaker 1: watched the movie again or mauled on it longer. But
Speaker 1: two things that really bugged me was that the movie
Speaker 1: equates sexual curiosity and sexual feelings with being emotionally ready
Speaker 1: to have sex with other people, because like children can
Speaker 1: feel sexual feelings, they can masturbate, they do masturbate, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that they are emotionally mature enough to
Speaker 1: start having sex. But this story suggests that Bella when
Speaker 1: she still has a baby brain, because when she leaves
Speaker 1: to go on that trip with Duncan in the early
Speaker 1: days that trip, like she still is a child cognitively
Speaker 1: and emotionally, but she's like, I'm having sex, I'm ready
Speaker 1: to have sex. And it's like that doesn't track with
Speaker 1: how children actually cognitively and emotionally developed. So I just
Speaker 1: it's one thing if she just like masturbates a lot
Speaker 1: and she's exploring her sexuality with herself, but I was
Speaker 1: just like, why are you equating that with her being
Speaker 1: ready to have sex with other people and like adult men.
Speaker 1: So that's one thing that really bugged me. And then
Speaker 1: the other thing was that the more mature and like
Speaker 1: intellectually enlightened Bella becomes, the less horny she becomes, which
Speaker 1: kind of suggests like, oh, well, smart and educated women
Speaker 1: will not be horny, They'll cease to be horny. Because
Speaker 1: this is also reinforced by the Martha character, who's like,
Speaker 1: I haven't had sex in twenty years, and I never
Speaker 1: masturbate hardly. And she's like, I'm more concerned with what's
Speaker 1: you know, between my ears her brain than what's between
Speaker 1: my legs her sex organs.
Speaker 3: So but could that be like a menopausal thing?
Speaker 1: I mean maybe sure, But also I'm just like smart
Speaker 1: women can be so horny.
Speaker 2: I was sort of thrown by that shift. It felt
Speaker 2: like weirdly conservative. Yeah right, yeah, and what the movie
Speaker 2: is say otherwise, And that is before she starts working
Speaker 2: as a sex worker, which I think that that is
Speaker 2: like this movie's attitude towards sex work is better than
Speaker 2: most movies attitudes towards sex work is the only thing
Speaker 2: I wish And I don't know if this is more
Speaker 2: fleshed out in the book, but like I do wish
Speaker 2: that we got to know the women who work there better.
Speaker 2: It felt like they were very like there at the
Speaker 2: last second, and they are it seems like very important
Speaker 2: in Bella's developmental growth. That is like where I start
Speaker 2: to understand the criticism, even though I don't totally agree
Speaker 2: with it. That like there's quote unquote too much said
Speaker 2: in this movie is like you see a lot of
Speaker 2: the sex. You hear that she's going to these meetings,
Speaker 2: you hear that she is like doing a B and C.
Speaker 2: You hear that she's connecting with the women who work
Speaker 2: at the brothel, But you don't really see a lot
Speaker 2: of it. You just know that it's happening. But when
Speaker 2: it comes to having sex with men, you see, yeah,
Speaker 2: and you hear about it. So it does feel like
Speaker 2: it ends up being like more emphasized by the movie,
Speaker 2: even if it's not more important in this story. I
Speaker 2: don't know, it's like it is tricky, but I love
Speaker 2: that that happens, and I love that, like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, you think about how sex workers are stereotyped
Speaker 2: in movies in any number of ways that we've talked
Speaker 2: about on this show over the years, and for the
Speaker 2: most part, that is pretty swiftly avoided in this movie,
Speaker 2: where the only shame put onto sex workers in this
Speaker 2: movie are by characters we don't like. I mean, Bella
Speaker 2: is very frank in her life, even when she's like
Speaker 2: not loving her job. She's like, I am my own
Speaker 2: means of production. Like she's like very clear about like
Speaker 2: why she does what she does. She likes it, even
Speaker 2: on the days she doesn't. She's not unhappy to be
Speaker 2: doing it. It's not made out to be coercive. It's
Speaker 2: like it's a job. It's presented as a job, which
Speaker 2: I feel like sex work almost never is in movies.
Speaker 2: It's always like bogged down by shame. And I love
Speaker 2: that about Bella. I love how she like at any
Speaker 2: turn when someone tries to entrap her or like projects
Speaker 2: shame onto her, She's like, that doesn't make sense to me,
Speaker 2: so I reject it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right that we hear from her lover, her
Speaker 3: female lover. I forget the character's name, Twinette. Yeah, Twinette
Speaker 3: significantly less than any of the male lovers, which it's
Speaker 3: true I didn't love, but in the grand scheme of things,
Speaker 3: like what a treat for her to like have that
Speaker 3: character in her life at all? Yeah, I'm back on
Speaker 3: like some of the exchanges we've just had about like
Speaker 3: her mental age and how that may or may not
Speaker 3: be treated appropriately by these men in her life, and
Speaker 3: in this moment blaming your ghosts once again for this
Speaker 3: like edge lord fuckery, because like Frankensteining a character that
Speaker 3: is like provoking us to have this conversation about like
Speaker 3: when a woman is old enough to be able to
Speaker 3: like give sexual consent by like putting a baby brain
Speaker 3: in the body of an adult person. It's just like
Speaker 3: it's such fuckery, you know what I mean. It's like,
Speaker 3: what a stupid conversation whose like resolution will not be
Speaker 3: applicable to literally anything else ever, you know, right, It's
Speaker 3: like we will spend like the next however long figuring
Speaker 3: out how we really feel about this, and then we
Speaker 3: won't be able to use that consensus on anything at
Speaker 3: all because women, grown women don't have baby brains famously,
Speaker 3: and babies don't have grown women bodies, like.
Speaker 2: Except in the movies where they do. There, it is weird.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like I can see a lot of
Speaker 2: different I don't know. This movie does feel unique in
Speaker 2: like it seems like a lot of people's takeaway. It
Speaker 2: is like very entrenched in personal experience. There's certain things
Speaker 2: where like Kily and I agree with you, like that
Speaker 2: implying that thinking about sex and discovering your body means
Speaker 2: that you are ready and able to consent to sex
Speaker 2: is like a really really slippery slope that this movie
Speaker 2: I think takes several steps back from. It doesn't even
Speaker 2: really want you to think about because I don't think
Speaker 2: it's like prepared to engage with that question, right. But
Speaker 2: also it's like, I don't know, the sex scenes that
Speaker 2: are there are centered on her. You do see men,
Speaker 2: but they're not focused on But I still like, maybe
Speaker 2: I'm a fucking prude. And I know, like your Guslanthemus
Speaker 2: is like contemporary audiences are prude, and I was like,
Speaker 2: maybe you're just European. I don't know, like maybe I
Speaker 2: am like an American prude.
Speaker 3: I have question as old as time.
Speaker 2: Truly, like maybe I'm an American prud like I didn't
Speaker 2: need all of it, but like I wasn't outside of this.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's so tricky because it's like in
Speaker 2: the criticism, you're describing Caitlin like it is gross in
Speaker 2: terms of like do I have an issue a see
Speaker 2: a naked actor if they are fully consenting and fine
Speaker 2: with it, And Emma Stone was because she is an
Speaker 2: executive producer in the movie, then yeah, I don't really care.
Speaker 2: I just wish that there was if I could have
Speaker 2: the exact perfect movie that I wanted. I wouldn't have
Speaker 2: minded sacrificing some of those sequences in favor of, like,
Speaker 2: even if it's like sex in the context of her
Speaker 2: intellectual awakening, because I like how like I mean we
Speaker 2: were joking about earlier, but like fucking the first person
Speaker 2: you meet who has good politics, Like that's cool. Like
Speaker 2: I would have liked to see more of that relationship
Speaker 2: in her life, because it seemed like for Bellet it
Speaker 2: was really important, but for the movie it wasn't really important, right.
Speaker 1: I think the movie handles some things well in its
Speaker 1: examination of things such as male fragility and how men
Speaker 1: perceive and treat women, and other things it doesn't handle
Speaker 1: so well, such as its exploration of female sexuality, for example.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like maybe a woman should have co written, yeah,
Speaker 1: or directed the movie.
Speaker 2: I really think that that would have helped a lot
Speaker 2: of the problems.
Speaker 3: I agree. I think we wouldn't feel such cognitive dissonance
Speaker 3: about like enjoying aspects of the movie and cringing aspects
Speaker 3: of the movie if simply the female gays were prioritized
Speaker 3: on the back end when it obviously wasn't, you.
Speaker 2: Know, right, yeah, because it's like I think, like that
Speaker 2: the male fragility plot stuff is handled really well, probably
Speaker 2: because it's written and adapted by people who have that experience.
Speaker 2: Like that, clearly that makes sense. Like I think it
Speaker 2: works really well, and like Mark Ruffalo is like really
Speaker 2: good in that role of like the more Bella rejects,
Speaker 2: you know, falling into these like various traps he's presenting,
Speaker 2: whether it be being kidnapped, her on a boat, getting
Speaker 2: married like whatever Victorian trap he's trying to get her in.
Speaker 2: The more she outsmarts him, the more he becomes a baby.
Speaker 2: I like that like sort of parallel when she's maturing,
Speaker 2: he's devolving, and like that all works. I think one
Speaker 2: thing that we haven't done too yet that I want
Speaker 2: to talk about because I don't know how to feel
Speaker 2: about it. I wasn't thinking about it as much on
Speaker 2: my first viewing, but the way that she relates to
Speaker 2: God is really interesting to be and I want to
Speaker 2: hear your thoughts that Amanda is talking about the sort
Speaker 2: of scientist trope where I wasn't honing in on this,
Speaker 2: I think because I was annoyed with other stuff on
Speaker 2: my first viewing. But how there is this cycle of
Speaker 2: abuse taking place in this freaky mansion that they live in,
Speaker 2: where we see that God is disabled as a result
Speaker 2: of abuse he experienced being experimented on by his own father,
Speaker 2: and he is then perpetuating similar abuses onto people and
Speaker 2: animals instead of processing his own pain and anchor and resentment.
Speaker 2: Which is really interesting, But like, I feel like the
Speaker 2: movie kind of bails on dealing with it like it's
Speaker 2: not nothing, because Bella does return to say I am
Speaker 2: upset with you for deceiving me about the circumstances that
Speaker 2: I was born. It's so weird. I feel like everyone
Speaker 2: has a more normal version of this conversation with their parents,
Speaker 2: where you're like, well, I didn't ask to be born,
Speaker 2: but being alive is pretty sick. But I truly didn't
Speaker 2: ask to be born, you know, like that whole thing.
Speaker 2: But she does, like, you know, pretty clearly, say like
Speaker 2: I'm angry with you, but like hating your parents for
Speaker 2: certain things that are totally fair, but wanting a relationship
Speaker 2: with them anyways is a very common experience. I thought
Speaker 2: it was like well handled, but I still get I
Speaker 2: like can't shake on every viewing that, Like Williem Dafoe's
Speaker 2: character ends up like getting off too easy like he does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I gotta say I found that stuff harder
Speaker 3: to take than the sort of quessifying sexual dynamics that
Speaker 3: we're discussing, because yeah, it's the thing that I've said
Speaker 3: where like I don't appreciate this god complex mad scientist trope.
Speaker 3: I like I literally think it's like not good for
Speaker 3: the culture. But uh yeah, like I just don't buy it.
Speaker 3: I like, don't buy perpetuating that kind of mad scientist
Speaker 3: abuse because you experienced it, like I don't. I don't
Speaker 3: buy it as an excuse and I certainly don't buy
Speaker 3: it as an explanation. So yeah, I think we were
Speaker 3: supposed to. We were supposed to say, like, oh, all
Speaker 3: this makes sense because of what he's been through and
Speaker 3: like he's not as bad as these other motherfuckers, So
Speaker 3: like now we're supposed to re embrace him by or
Speaker 3: embrace him at all by default. But I couldn't. I
Speaker 3: couldn't get there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, glad that Bello was able to forgive him, but
Speaker 2: like I personally was not. Like that didn't work for me,
Speaker 2: and I feel like going into this last few with
Speaker 2: that on my mind, it made me dislike the ending
Speaker 2: even more because the Bella of the book breaks that
Speaker 2: cycle of abuse and uses what she's learned in medicine
Speaker 2: to help people, which ties into her socialist awakening of
Speaker 2: like take what you have and distribute it to other people.
Speaker 2: But the Bella of the movie does what her father
Speaker 2: did and continues this cycle of abuse, and you know,
Speaker 2: is her target far better chosen?
Speaker 3: Like yeah, like she's like Dexter.
Speaker 2: That guy is the most evil guy in the world,
Speaker 2: so she's not a villain. But I just felt like
Speaker 2: she was participating in the cycle of abuse in a
Speaker 2: way that the movie was like, this is awesome. It
Speaker 2: just felt like a little overly simplistic, And once I
Speaker 2: found out how the book ended, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that does seem more in line with like what she's
Speaker 2: been building towards in her development. It almost feels like
Speaker 2: a step backwards to do exactly what her father was doing,
Speaker 2: because she spent all this time finding out who she
Speaker 2: was and wanting to be different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, do I find it cathartic to see
Speaker 1: the general bleeding like a goat Hell? Yeah, yeah I do.
Speaker 1: But also it's like you could have just let him
Speaker 1: bleed out from his wound and die like it's so
Speaker 1: much extra effort to perform surgery on them.
Speaker 2: Turn him into your chihuah Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, you know, sometimes death is too kind.
Speaker 2: It's true. My mom says that all the time.
Speaker 1: Some people deserve a freakier fate.
Speaker 2: Life sentence of being a goat. Honestly, it sounds better
Speaker 2: in this Dan and Age.
Speaker 3: I'm like, someone go me. Honestly, I want to walk
Speaker 3: around and bleed, eat grass and just not worry about shit.
Speaker 1: I know, but I think that speaks to the strength
Speaker 1: of this movie, or one of the stronger aspects of it,
Speaker 1: which is the examination of the way and I'm speaking
Speaker 1: generally here, you know, hashtag not all men, but the
Speaker 1: way that like men tend to perceive women, the way
Speaker 1: men tend to deceive women, what men tend to value
Speaker 1: in women, how men want to control women physically and
Speaker 1: or behaviorally, how men resent women having free will and
Speaker 1: minds of their own, and sexual autonomy and sexual desire,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Because we see that displayed
Speaker 1: in one way or another in each of these men.
Speaker 1: Where like with God, it's like an extreme example of
Speaker 1: a man like taking away slash manipulating the autonomy of
Speaker 1: a woman as far as like bringing her back from
Speaker 1: the dead and then putting her own baby's brain in
Speaker 1: her body and then not telling her he did any
Speaker 1: of that until the end of the movie. You've got
Speaker 1: as we've discussed a little bit already, like knowing pretty
Speaker 1: early on that she has the mind of a child
Speaker 1: and also doesn't tell her that and falls in love
Speaker 1: with her despite you know, knowing that she is a baby.
Speaker 2: Right then You've.
Speaker 1: Got Duncan, which is a whole Schmorgas board of stuff
Speaker 1: where like the first time he meets her, he assaults her,
Speaker 1: he grows increasingly jealous, and he's trying to control her,
Speaker 1: constantly control her behavior. He resents that she has sexual
Speaker 1: desire outside of him, all this stuff, and then he's
Speaker 1: like driven to the brink of madness because of his
Speaker 1: resentment toward her.
Speaker 2: All of this is like there is a really like
Speaker 2: wide gradient of like types of fragile men available in
Speaker 2: this movie, and I feel like they're all you know,
Speaker 2: they're like over the top because it's a fantasy movie,
Speaker 2: but it feels distinctive, feels like rerack disable oh, sure enough.
Speaker 2: I just wish that you got like more of a
Speaker 2: gradiot outside of Bella with women, Like, there's just not
Speaker 2: as much not that I necessarily have confidence in this
Speaker 2: specific team to like show a wider gradient of women,
Speaker 2: but I did like the sort of running theme of
Speaker 2: like Bella is a person when it behooves a guy,
Speaker 2: and then she's property when it behooves them too, where
Speaker 2: she like has to shout at the captain at the
Speaker 2: end like I am not She doesn't say property. What
Speaker 2: does she say territory? I am not territory. Yeah, Like
Speaker 2: she has to remind different men in different ways that
Speaker 2: she is a person, and I feel like that plays
Speaker 2: really well. And anytime she reminds someone she's a person,
Speaker 2: generally something bad happens to her, which is I mean
Speaker 2: even more typical of that time, but still obviously happens, right.
Speaker 2: I thought, Yeah, this movie does really well with showing
Speaker 2: like all of the different ways that male possessiveness and
Speaker 2: insecurity can manifest. But there's just really the one woman,
Speaker 2: which is like the problem of so many movies.
Speaker 1: It's so weird, I know, because you do have these
Speaker 1: different relationships that she forms over the course of the movie.
Speaker 1: You know, Martha is like teaching Bella to enrich her
Speaker 1: mind and that there's more to life than satiating our
Speaker 1: most carnal desires, which is like, I guess true, but
Speaker 1: like you can also be horny and read about philosophy, Martha.
Speaker 1: There's Twinette who becomes Bella's ally and then later lover,
Speaker 1: and she like helps Bella learn about socialism and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, but we kind of learn next to nothing
Speaker 1: else about Twinette. And I do appreciate representation on screen
Speaker 1: of like, you know, a queer sex scene, but I'm like,
Speaker 1: who is this person again? Like can we learn more
Speaker 1: about Twinette? And then Madam Swiney. There's a number of
Speaker 1: scenes that are pretty significant between Bella and Madam Swiney,
Speaker 1: where you know, she's admiring Bella for wanting to carve
Speaker 1: her own path to freedom, and she's like, let me
Speaker 1: help you on that journey. But then she's also like,
Speaker 1: but I need money, and I need you to make
Speaker 1: money for me, because that's just how it works.
Speaker 2: I think she's interesting for that reason. Yeah, I'll go
Speaker 2: to bat for Madam Swiney. I feel like she's like
Speaker 2: this weird socialist writer stock character where she's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: my politics are great. But you gotta play the game, Bella,
Speaker 2: you gotta play the game. And she's like, do I
Speaker 2: And then at the end she's like, I do.
Speaker 3: A relatable internal battle. We all fight every day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it felt at least like intentionally dissonan, like that
Speaker 2: was of why she was there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. True. And then there's finally missus prim the like
Speaker 1: housekeeper at God's house, and at first she hates Bella
Speaker 1: and thinks she's a nuisance, but then at the end
Speaker 1: she's like, no, I'm cool with you now that all
Speaker 1: these men are dead or goats.
Speaker 3: So you know what's weird about these men too, is
Speaker 3: that why are they all identical? Like it's insane how
Speaker 3: they're shade of black hair is all exactly the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're all very similar.
Speaker 3: It is fascinating to me that they're all just these
Speaker 3: like identical horrible dudes who are like a slightly different flavor.
Speaker 3: It's like Rocky Road. And then I don't know, whatever, whatever,
Speaker 3: it's a similar flavor to Rocky Road. I don't eat
Speaker 3: that much ice cream, I dad, we can't handle it.
Speaker 3: I eat cheese though. We went over Then, Yes, I
Speaker 3: did think that it was funny that, like, I almost
Speaker 3: like scramble the male characters because they all look the
Speaker 3: same and they're all awful. But I couldn't forget Bella
Speaker 3: if I tried.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, true, And.
Speaker 3: I do think to be optimistic about this whole thing.
Speaker 3: The one place where Bella and all these men can
Speaker 3: absolutely agree, there is no fighting. Everyone has the same
Speaker 3: take on it is her fashion.
Speaker 2: True, everyone's like the looks are solid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, no one's trying to control what she wears.
Speaker 3: They're like she can clearly handle that. She looks great.
Speaker 1: And again, the movie just one best costume design, Yeah, earned.
Speaker 3: Fully because I love that about the looks because they
Speaker 3: are sexy, but they're wacky. They're like whack a doodle dandy,
Speaker 3: which I really I really appreciated that. Again, I just
Speaker 3: I will forgive so much about this movie because of
Speaker 3: what she wore.
Speaker 2: The last thing I have, I think is just like
Speaker 2: a little where and like the way that the source
Speaker 2: material kind of shines through is on the idea of
Speaker 2: like labor and what constitutes labor and how Bella's view
Speaker 2: on labor evolves over time, because I do feel like
Speaker 2: miss prim is connected in that conversation, even though I
Speaker 2: don't think the movie really sticks the landing on it.
Speaker 2: But like Bella doesn't understand a world in which she
Speaker 2: her needs are not constantly met because she grows up
Speaker 2: with this immense privilege in her like question Mark, who
Speaker 2: knows the amount of time this movie is supposed to
Speaker 2: take place over, I have no fucking clue, But like
Speaker 2: it's not until she has her political awakening and which
Speaker 2: again I think is really badly done in this movie
Speaker 2: with just like a shot of poverty, the cinematic shot
Speaker 2: or whatever, but like that shot that like changes her
Speaker 2: view of labor moving forward, and like I feel like
Speaker 2: that culminates in like she has a job, she's a
Speaker 2: sex worker. She understands the highs and lows that comes
Speaker 2: with working in the service industry, and that culminates to
Speaker 2: like when she sees her mom's ex husband, question Mark,
Speaker 2: her father, her father, when she's married to her father.
Speaker 1: Again, Yeah, her husband father.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of daddies in this movie. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: like her husband is also her daddy, and her daddy
Speaker 2: is also gone, so there's like there's a lot going on.
Speaker 1: The TLC specials and the tale is oldest time when
Speaker 1: your dad is your god and your dad is also
Speaker 1: your husband.
Speaker 3: Who among us, and you are also your baby, and.
Speaker 1: You were also your own baby and your own mother,
Speaker 1: but with.
Speaker 2: Her biological dad technically Captain Blessington whatever the fucking Dave
Speaker 2: is is like holding his employees at gunpoint and essentially
Speaker 2: torturing them, and then she learns that her mother and
Speaker 2: her body did the same thing. Like, I like that
Speaker 2: is like a full circle on the labor discussion. And
Speaker 2: I thought like in general, like it wasn't super dwelled on,
Speaker 2: but I liked it on like further viewings, it's like
Speaker 2: over the top and ridiculous, but you know, her views
Speaker 2: on labor definitely evolve and change along with everything else,
Speaker 2: which is again like why the more the more I
Speaker 2: watch the movie, the more I'm like, I don't really
Speaker 2: agree with the sex criticism. I could see a lot
Speaker 2: of the visual criticism, like I get it if it's uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: and like you think that that time can be better
Speaker 2: used elsewhere, but like she's on a lot of journeys,
Speaker 2: just they're not all visually.
Speaker 1: As interesting as sex and naked bodies. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: do think that the movie and we I think already
Speaker 1: said this to some extent, but that the movie SU
Speaker 1: spends too long on that chunk because there's no forward momentum.
Speaker 1: For a while, is just like her learning about sex
Speaker 1: and exploring her sexuality, and then by the time she
Speaker 1: starts to like learn about philosophy and learn about socialism
Speaker 1: and has her like political discovery.
Speaker 2: It's like two hundred books later. But you see every
Speaker 2: sexual encounter.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm just like, uh, why spend so much time
Speaker 1: on that, because to me, it would make sense if
Speaker 1: it was like not in montage necessarily, but a few
Speaker 1: minutes are spent on her sex life, and then a
Speaker 1: few more minutes like it, but it just again, that
Speaker 1: momentum comes to a screeching halt for like twenty minutes
Speaker 1: while she's like out there fucking a bunch of people
Speaker 1: or I guess mostly just the one guy. But in
Speaker 1: any case, I just I feel like there was a
Speaker 1: better way to use that time, and I wish that
Speaker 1: there was more about her ARC that has her learning
Speaker 1: about other things and expanding her mind starts happening sooner,
Speaker 1: But instead it's like, no, she's having sex with a
Speaker 1: shitty person, which also relatable. Who among us hasn't.
Speaker 3: That's what I was gonna say is like, weirdly, I
Speaker 3: felt fine with the amount of time that was spent
Speaker 3: on her fucking this awful person, because like, it's fun
Speaker 3: to watch people have sex. It's even fun to watch
Speaker 3: people have sex that they probably shouldn't be having within certain.
Speaker 2: Boundaries, right, which just like debatable within this movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is debatable with this movie. For sure. I
Speaker 3: didn't long to spend more time with her like book
Speaker 3: in hand, Like here's a montage of her like reading,
Speaker 3: you know, like I didn't. I don't know if I
Speaker 3: necessarily would. I mean sure, actually, like that sounds aesthetic
Speaker 3: and amazing, and I would love to see like her
Speaker 3: reading outfits. But I do think that more time could
Speaker 3: have been spent kind of confronting head on the stuff
Speaker 3: with God and like the stuff with her ultimate husband.
Speaker 3: And how again, we mentioned that we just like forgave
Speaker 3: all those people so immediately we were expected to, So
Speaker 3: if anything, I think we could have cut away some
Speaker 3: of that stuff, not because it's like offensive or whatever,
Speaker 3: but because like there was so much that went unaddressed. Again,
Speaker 3: despite the movie being twenty minutes too long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Like it's not that I want to see
Speaker 2: montages of her reading it's that I would have preferred,
Speaker 2: but more scenes where you see the result of that reading,
Speaker 2: because that felt way more rushed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, you're right. I mean I heard it linguistically
Speaker 3: and I wasn't mad at it. I was like surprised
Speaker 3: and delighted by it. But with more thought, and indeed,
Speaker 3: I am becoming the madder at it. It's like she
Speaker 3: went overnight from Goo Goo Gaga to like, I read
Speaker 3: Nietzsche and you know, I am incorporating that vernacular into
Speaker 3: the way that I talk every day. It was, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was overnight the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, also to speak to the like why does she
Speaker 1: so readily forgive these awful men, namely God and Max,
Speaker 1: to the point where she agrees to marry Max. And
Speaker 1: there is that exchange of dialogue where she says something
Speaker 1: like I've been a whore, you understand Cox for money
Speaker 1: inside me, which is a hilarious way to phrase that,
Speaker 1: And she's like, are you okay with that? Does that
Speaker 1: challenge the desire for ownership that men have? And Max responds,
Speaker 1: I find myself merely jealous of the men's time with you,
Speaker 1: rather than any moral aspersion against you. It is your body.
Speaker 1: Bella Baxter yours to give freely, and I'm like, okay, good,
Speaker 1: good attitude to have. But that doesn't mean you have
Speaker 1: to marry him because you said that. But it's kind
Speaker 1: of suggested that that's her train of thought because the
Speaker 1: scene after that is them getting married. So I'm like, right,
Speaker 1: you don't have to marry him.
Speaker 2: I can get on fervid that as far as like,
Speaker 2: the first time that marriage is floated, she has no
Speaker 2: say in it, right, She's presented with like the illusion
Speaker 2: of choice because she is not able to consent to
Speaker 2: marriage nor sex because she's.
Speaker 1: Like five, a toddler.
Speaker 2: But when it comes back around, yeah, I think that
Speaker 2: there could have been another way to get that across,
Speaker 2: and ultimately she doesn't go through with it, But like,
Speaker 2: I do like that the second time it is very
Speaker 2: firmly her choice. That's true, but again it is like
Speaker 2: choosing something somewhat conventional. But again it makes more sense
Speaker 2: for me in the book ending, where like the advantage
Speaker 2: of being married to him in Victorian times is that
Speaker 2: he is also a doctor and they can work together,
Speaker 2: and like, just based on what we see of Bella Baxter,
Speaker 2: I'm assuming that any marriage she's in would not be monogamous.
Speaker 2: I don't think that she's the closed marriage type. So
Speaker 2: like I wasn't super bothered by it. I just was
Speaker 2: more like bummed out by but also felt like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the thing where it's like you marry the first
Speaker 2: person who like kind of respects you, which totally you know,
Speaker 2: like that certainly does happen.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, yeah it's happening left right and center.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was. It did give Stockholm syndrome a little bit.
Speaker 3: Another b protagonist, miss Bell from Beauty and the Beast,
Speaker 3: it was a little bit a little bit that, but
Speaker 3: that dude was less hot than the Beast.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I think Max, like God, is also sort
Speaker 2: of let off the hook, like we were talking about
Speaker 2: this earlier where he's just like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, right right.
Speaker 2: But like I feel like the movie forgives him for
Speaker 2: willingly and with full understanding, participating in trapping her and
Speaker 2: treating her like property. Yeah yeah, and lusting after her
Speaker 2: when she was a baby. It doesn't just feel like
Speaker 2: Bella says, I forgive you. It also feels like the
Speaker 2: movie is like, and this is the guy for her,
Speaker 2: and I just like, again, I'm like, I just think
Speaker 2: maybe if you have a woman co writer that is
Speaker 2: not the result.
Speaker 3: Agree.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I also wish that because we see Felicity at
Speaker 1: the end too, when they're like in the little courtyard
Speaker 1: and the General goat Man is like bah.
Speaker 2: General goat Man is a great character name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then missus prim is being nicer and Max
Speaker 1: is there just sort of like chilling, and then Felicity
Speaker 1: was also there, and I'm like, Okay, well, what's going
Speaker 1: on with Bella and Felicity? Are they friends? Is Bella
Speaker 1: Felicity's mentor? Like I want to know a little bit
Speaker 1: more about that too, Okay, Anyway, is there anything else
Speaker 1: anyone wants to talk about?
Speaker 2: I feel like we cracked it, We figured it out,
Speaker 2: we cracked it.
Speaker 1: I also feel like we've barely scratched the surface of
Speaker 1: this very complex movie.
Speaker 2: But actually, the last thing I wanted to say is
Speaker 2: like I tried to research. I mean, it would be
Speaker 2: an infinity project to try to track down all of
Speaker 2: the analysis of this movie, and there's just too fucking
Speaker 2: much of it. Like we've talked about, there was a
Speaker 2: fair amount of backlash to the protracted sex scenes with
Speaker 2: a presumably underage character and all of the stuff that
Speaker 2: came with that. I also found a number of trans
Speaker 2: writers that were very pro this movie, reading it as
Speaker 2: a resurrection within a familiar but new body and like
Speaker 2: navigating identity inside of a new body and a new
Speaker 2: identity inside of a body that is familiar but new
Speaker 2: and like. So I just wanted to acknowledge that read
Speaker 2: of the movie, which I had heard about but I
Speaker 2: hadn't like, actually spent any time reading before prepping for
Speaker 2: this episode. So we can link to several of those
Speaker 2: essays as well.
Speaker 3: I like knowing that because I don't know if I'm
Speaker 3: just in my like optimism era or what, but I
Speaker 3: think it's nice to find excuses to appreciate a piece
Speaker 3: of art that like a fuck ton of work went into,
Speaker 3: even if there are critiques that are, yeah, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, Like I think for me, the bottom
Speaker 3: line of this movie is like your ghost Land. The
Speaker 3: Moost is a little jerkin' off little boy. He loves
Speaker 3: a stunt. He is an edge lord for me. He
Speaker 3: loves to like provoke, but not in the way that
Speaker 3: he thinks he's provoking. And he's asking us to forgive
Speaker 3: a lot of nonsense because we're so like caught up
Speaker 3: in that provocation and at the end of the day
Speaker 3: like it worked because I am actually at the end
Speaker 3: of the day forgiving a lot, but not for the
Speaker 3: reasons why he wants me to make those pardons, if
Speaker 3: that makes sense. Yeah, art is so up to interpretation,
Speaker 3: Like because there was no woman in the room, I
Speaker 3: don't think the movie he intended to make is a
Speaker 3: landing in the same way on all the women viewers
Speaker 3: who are going to see it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean there was Emmastone as an executive producer for sure,
Speaker 3: but I'm talking about like in the writing of it and.
Speaker 2: Such still like overwhelmingly men.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so like, in spite of all that,
Speaker 3: I do like that there's so much to find in
Speaker 3: this movie that is positive, empowering, stylish feminists, et cetera,
Speaker 3: and that reflects well on the viewers, even if the
Speaker 3: people who made it didn't engineer those things. If that
Speaker 3: makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. For me, the bottom line is the movie
Speaker 1: would have benefited from more perspective from women on the
Speaker 1: storytelling and creative end of things, because the things that
Speaker 1: I think this movie mishandles are things that if a
Speaker 1: woman creative was involved, she would have been like no, now,
Speaker 1: let's not do that, or let's like, you know, make
Speaker 1: this adaptation change to kind of modernize this or make
Speaker 1: it more intersectional, or you know, whatever needed to happen.
Speaker 1: And instead it's just so many men making choices and
Speaker 1: in some cases like they handled things well. Again, like
Speaker 1: the way that many of the male characters are behaving
Speaker 1: in their conduct as it relates to their interactions with women.
Speaker 1: I think that all tracks very well, but other things
Speaker 1: not so much. I will say that, and I think
Speaker 1: we touched on this a little bit already, But something
Speaker 1: I really appreciated is that because of Bella's baby brain,
Speaker 1: she moves through the world with this like sense of
Speaker 1: adventure and wonder and like shamelessness and willingness to indulge
Speaker 1: that most adults, especially women, are sort of like conditioned
Speaker 1: and societally forced to unlearn because of like propriety and politeness,
Speaker 1: especially in this like Victorian era. So the fact that
Speaker 1: you see this woman and even though she's like again,
Speaker 1: baby brain for a lot of this, but someone who
Speaker 1: appears on the surface to be a woman, you see her,
Speaker 1: you know, eating whatever delicious things she wants whenever she wants.
Speaker 1: You see her fucking whenever she wants and whoever she wants.
Speaker 1: You see her just being curious and asking whatever questions
Speaker 1: she wants and rejecting the notion of the status quo
Speaker 1: a lot of the time, and challenging the power and
Speaker 1: behavior of men, and all of these things. We're just
Speaker 1: very refreshing to see because I too like to eat
Speaker 1: delicious things and speak my mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, there's like something to learn from Baby Brain.
Speaker 3: And it's like, is it baby brain or is it
Speaker 3: just unmitigated brain? You know, like, yeah, and that's an
Speaker 3: interesting question to ponder.
Speaker 2: I think that. Yeah. Like where I divert from the
Speaker 2: Baby Brain critique is that this movie is very much
Speaker 2: for adults. I don't think that this is a movie
Speaker 2: that is being marketed at kids or young people. I
Speaker 2: mean not to say that like people coming of age
Speaker 2: won't find this movie. That almost always happens, but it's
Speaker 2: an R rated movie. I think it is like safe
Speaker 2: to assume that the target audience of this movie knows
Speaker 2: not to fuck a baby. But if that creative choice
Speaker 2: is removed from the movie, everything changes and a lot
Speaker 2: of the commentary becomes impossible. I think, like what bugs
Speaker 2: me about this I think there's a lot to love
Speaker 2: about this movie. I ended up liking it. I like,
Speaker 2: the first time I watched it, I didn't like it.
Speaker 2: Now I'm like, well, I watch it again anytime soon. No,
Speaker 2: I've seen it three times. I'd like, if there's anything
Speaker 2: else to had from this movie, it will never reach me.
Speaker 2: But I ended up liking it more than I originally did.
Speaker 2: But I think like the big thing for me here
Speaker 2: that I like stand by of like original viewing Jamie,
Speaker 2: is that there is like a clear example within this
Speaker 2: director's body of work that when he is centering women,
Speaker 2: he needs a woman in the writing room for it
Speaker 2: to translate. And that's like very clear between his last
Speaker 2: movie and this movie. I think the Favorite in general
Speaker 2: is a stronger work and has more to say about women,
Speaker 2: very likely because of the one differential, which is that
Speaker 2: it was adapted by a work from a woman by
Speaker 2: a woman, not saying that you have to be a
Speaker 2: woman to have something interesting to say, but it certainly
Speaker 2: doesn't hurt. And I think your ghost laid the most
Speaker 2: in Tony mcnamaraned a woman in the room to maximize
Speaker 2: their joint male sleigh. Okay, that's all I have to say.
Speaker 2: About this movie. I refuse to say another word. It
Speaker 2: passes the Bechdel test for sure.
Speaker 1: Yes, quite a bit between a number of different combinations
Speaker 1: of characters. Bella and Martha are talking about masturbating in philosophy,
Speaker 1: my two favorite things. Ella and Twinette are talking about
Speaker 1: socialism and their C section scars. Bella and Madame Swiney
Speaker 1: are talking about various things. Yeah. So there are many
Speaker 1: conversations that pass the Bechdel test, although so many of
Speaker 1: the interactions are between Bella and men, So there's that.
Speaker 3: But it is cool that when those conversations aren't happening
Speaker 3: and she's talking to women, they're not talking about men.
Speaker 3: Mostly they almost never are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the second men are gone, Bella is not
Speaker 2: thinking about them.
Speaker 3: Out of sight, out of mind, Yeah, truly.
Speaker 2: Bella Baxter ultimately like an amazing character. I love her.
Speaker 3: I love her, and that out of sight, out of
Speaker 3: mind thing reflects another thing that's great about her, which
Speaker 3: is she is so present. Yes, yeah, which is aspirational.
Speaker 1: She's noticing things.
Speaker 3: She's realizing things.
Speaker 1: When women realize things, it's beautiful. It's huge for us
Speaker 1: as far as our nipple scale goes. So rating the
Speaker 1: movie on a scale of zero two five nipples based
Speaker 1: on examining the movie through an intersectional feminist lens, I'll
Speaker 1: go I'm somewhere around like a four nipple rating. I
Speaker 1: think the movie does accomplish a lot. I think its
Speaker 1: shortcomings are fairly obvious to me, and again wouldn't have
Speaker 1: to be shortcomings if they had more meaningfully included more
Speaker 1: women in the creative and storytelling process. But the movie
Speaker 1: has a clear agenda, which is to show the kind
Speaker 1: of growth and liberation of a woman and to comment
Speaker 1: on toxic male behavior, especially the way they perceive and
Speaker 1: treat women. So I think the movie is doing a
Speaker 1: lot of those things pretty well, and I'll give it
Speaker 1: four nipples. Pray, Pray, thank you. My nipples are going
Speaker 1: to Susie Bumba, who plays Antwinete, or just Twinett is
Speaker 1: probably a nickname for Antwinette. I'm guessing I'll give one
Speaker 1: to Martha, i will give one to Madam Swiney, and
Speaker 1: I'll give one to I'm a Stone.
Speaker 2: The end, I'm going to get fractional. I'm going to
Speaker 2: do three point seven five, partially just to kind of
Speaker 2: be a bitch. I think that like I'm gonna go
Speaker 2: three point seven five just because I don't want to
Speaker 2: give four men navigating their way around telling a story
Speaker 2: about woman's awakening. Four I refuse to do it. I cannot.
Speaker 1: That's fair.
Speaker 2: But I think with that limitation, there is still a
Speaker 2: lot going on in this movie that most movies don't
Speaker 2: even bother with. And I think that Emma Stone's performance
Speaker 2: and involvement in production, I think we should always mention
Speaker 2: when the star of a movie is also a producer,
Speaker 2: because I feel like you can really feel it in
Speaker 2: the movie and it answers a lot of questions about
Speaker 2: like we know that Emma's Stone would not be put
Speaker 2: into a situation to do a sex scene she didn't
Speaker 2: want to do because she is in charge, you know.
Speaker 2: And that's an oversimplification, but stuff like that, I think
Speaker 2: that this movie has a lot going for it, and
Speaker 2: you know, a woman's socialist awakening. You know, I can't
Speaker 2: hate that movie.
Speaker 1: And I won't true.
Speaker 2: So I'll go three point seventy five and I'm gonna
Speaker 2: just make it clean. I'm going to give all of
Speaker 2: my nipples to Catherine Hunter, who plays Swiney, just because
Speaker 2: I think she is such an incredible character actor, and
Speaker 2: you should watch the Joel Cohen Macbeth where she plays
Speaker 2: the witches.
Speaker 1: Ah, yes, Amanda, how about you.
Speaker 3: One of my best friends has a third nipple, So
Speaker 3: I think I'm gonna give three full size nipples and
Speaker 3: one third nipple nipple if that's okay?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, please.
Speaker 3: And I'm gonna give them all as well to one
Speaker 3: single person. Holly Waddington, the costume designer. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, Oscar winner Holly Waddington.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like truly life changing for me.
Speaker 1: She did a great job. Well, Amanda, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us for this discussion.
Speaker 2: What a blast we did it. We figured it out.
Speaker 1: We cracked the code.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, what a distinct pleasure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Where can we find you online? Where can we buy
Speaker 2: your new book? Tell us everything?
Speaker 3: Oh that's so nice. So my book is available April ninth,
Speaker 3: wherever you buy books and hardback ebook audiobook. I read
Speaker 3: it myself, and you can find my podcast Sounds Like
Speaker 3: a Cult on all major podcast platforms. Episodes come out
Speaker 3: on Tuesdays, and stay tuned because these two right here
Speaker 3: are gonna come on for an episode on Sounds Like
Speaker 3: a Cult whose topic we're still noodling. It's a show
Speaker 3: about the modern day cults we all follow, and we're
Speaker 3: still debating between the cult of Shrek and the cult
Speaker 3: of Leo DiCaprio. There is a right answer. So far,
Speaker 3: the listeners have voted for the wrong answer. But I
Speaker 3: got so many dms specifically requesting the right answer that
Speaker 3: who knows, we might we might have to stop in
Speaker 3: the middle of the episode and end up doing who knows,
Speaker 3: So anyway, that sounds like a cult. And then I
Speaker 3: am reluctantly on Instagram at Amanda Underscore Motel and I
Speaker 3: have a substack very good.
Speaker 2: You can find us on Instagram and some Timestell Twitter,
Speaker 2: at Bechdel Cast. Individually, we are at jamiechrist Superstar and
Speaker 2: at Caitlin Tourande on Instagram, and you can join our
Speaker 2: Patreon aka Matreon. We're for five dollars a month. You
Speaker 2: can get two bonus episodes and access to over one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty episodes of back catalog.
Speaker 1: Sleigh, that's right. You can buy our merch at teapublic
Speaker 1: dot com, slash the Bechdel Cast, and you can see
Speaker 1: us live on our Shrektanner tour in May in various
Speaker 1: cities abroad for US.
Speaker 2: Yes, in the UK and Dublin. Oh that's huge, So.
Speaker 1: Go to our link tree link tree slash Bechdel Cast
Speaker 1: for tickets to those shows. And with that a Google
Speaker 1: Goga Bye bye.
Speaker 2: Goog goga wineglass clink. We did it, ladies. The man's
Speaker 2: a goat dundu and let's go goats bye.
Speaker 1: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Speaker 1: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
Speaker 1: by mo La Boord. Our theme song was composed by
Speaker 1: Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskressensky. Our logo in
Speaker 1: merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks
Speaker 1: to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please
Speaker 1: visit Linktree slash Bechdel Cast