Speaker 1: On the Dog Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bell Cast. Hey, hey, Jamie, Sorry,
Speaker 1: I wasn't expecting that, But could you look? Did you
Speaker 1: look out the window? It's it's us out there. There's
Speaker 1: evil doppelgang er Caitlin and Jamie outside. Oh no, but
Speaker 1: they're cute. But I like computer than us. What if
Speaker 1: they're nicer than us? What if they're actually not evil?
Speaker 1: What if we're the evil ones? It's open to interpretation. Well,
Speaker 1: guess what. Here's the twist. I am the other. I
Speaker 1: am the one outside is the one that you thought
Speaker 1: was me? Oh my goodness. That was an effective opening.
Speaker 1: That was our best on ye yet I think. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante, names
Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast about the representation
Speaker 1: of of of of a lot of things in movies.
Speaker 1: We we come to some of your favorite movies using
Speaker 1: an intersectional lend, using the Bechtel test as a jumping
Speaker 1: off point for a discussion, and the Bechtel Test, of course,
Speaker 1: being if you're not familiar, if this is your first
Speaker 1: episode ever and you've never heard I think this will
Speaker 1: be a fun point of entry this. This would be
Speaker 1: a fun first episode. Yeah, so welcome. The Bechtel Test
Speaker 1: is a media metric uh sometimes known as the Bechtel
Speaker 1: Wallace Test, was created by cartoonist Allison Bechtel, and it
Speaker 1: requires for our purposes, this is our rendition of it,
Speaker 1: because there are various versions of the test, but ours
Speaker 1: is that two people of any marginalized gender, they have
Speaker 1: to have names. They have to speak to each other
Speaker 1: about something other than a man for at least two
Speaker 1: lines of dialogue. That's our bar, my favorite, and I
Speaker 1: suppose so this is just a jumping out point for discussion.
Speaker 1: So I can already say this movie passes the Bechtel test.
Speaker 1: But one of my favorite passes is when it's Lupete
Speaker 1: and Younga and Elizabeth Moss talking to each other about
Speaker 1: how Lupide doesn't really want to talk to her, and
Speaker 1: Elizabeth pass is like, oh okay, totally, like that's a past.
Speaker 1: She's like, are you okay, Lupeta, and She's just like,
Speaker 1: I'm not good at talk I don't really want to
Speaker 1: talk to you right It was one of my favorite
Speaker 1: passes of this movie, or really of the cast at all. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, two women agreeing that they don't really want
Speaker 1: to talk right now, that's a pass um. And we're
Speaker 1: so excited to bring back a a much beloved guest
Speaker 1: for a movie that she was really excited to talk
Speaker 1: about that is a much requested movie on the cast.
Speaker 1: The movie, of course being US Jordan peels us from
Speaker 1: and the guest, of course being writer, actor, co host
Speaker 1: of the podcast Popcorn Book Club and recent guest on
Speaker 1: our Cheetah Girls episode It's Karamadonqua. Hello and welcome back.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you so much for having me back. Um,
Speaker 1: I am so excited. Like Jamie said, I was very
Speaker 1: excited to talk about this movie. I think I sent
Speaker 1: you an email with seven different us is on it.
Speaker 1: I was like, I can talk about any of these movies,
Speaker 1: also US and this movie and also US and I know,
Speaker 1: I don't know US. Maybe it's and it's been a
Speaker 1: movie that has been requested by listeners since before it
Speaker 1: came out. So we are we are so excited that
Speaker 1: you're back. Welcome back. How are you I am good.
Speaker 1: I am you know here, which is more than a
Speaker 1: lot of people can say. And I'm very happy for
Speaker 1: that have not been killed by an evil doubelganger or
Speaker 1: a coronavirus yet, So knock on wood, knock on wood.
Speaker 1: That keeps being true. So tell us what is your
Speaker 1: relationship with the film US? Why of the list that
Speaker 1: you provided was it on their seven times? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: I saw US. I would just like to shout out
Speaker 1: my friend Mike. He took me with him to an
Speaker 1: advanced screening of US, so I got to see it
Speaker 1: before it was officially released to the public. He works
Speaker 1: at BuzzFeed, so they had like a little screening thing
Speaker 1: for BuzzFeed people and he was like, do you want
Speaker 1: to be my plus one? And I'm like, good because
Speaker 1: if you would ask one of your white friends, I
Speaker 1: would have felt funny. So I got to see I
Speaker 1: think it was like a couple of weeks before it
Speaker 1: was released to the public, and I was just struck
Speaker 1: by And I love horror and growing up as a
Speaker 1: black person not seeing myself in a ton of horror
Speaker 1: or seeing myself as like definitely never a final girl
Speaker 1: in horror. Uh sucked? Um Like I think Screen. I
Speaker 1: love Scream. That's one of my favorite horror franchises. I'm
Speaker 1: so excited they're making a new one because I've seen
Speaker 1: all four Screen movies, all three seasons of the television show,
Speaker 1: which no one watched. I was like, I totally forgot
Speaker 1: that was the thing, yeah, for multiple seasons. So um.
Speaker 1: I think Scream Too was the movie that was the
Speaker 1: only Screen movie that had any black characters in it.
Speaker 1: And they killed Jada Pinkett Smith in the cold open
Speaker 1: in the movie theater. It was a beautiful scene, love her.
Speaker 1: Like after acknowledging, they're like, wow, horror movies always killed
Speaker 1: the black characters right away, and then the black characters
Speaker 1: get killed right away immediately, like four seconds after they're
Speaker 1: done saying that sentence. So just Jordan Peele bringing black
Speaker 1: horror sort of to the forefront of the horror conversation
Speaker 1: is exciting and like, I feel like this much more
Speaker 1: than Get Out, leans into horror more than comedy, though
Speaker 1: he is sort of on the line of both, which
Speaker 1: I think is great, and I love that tradition, which
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons I like the Scream franchise
Speaker 1: so much. So I'm excited about talking about black horror
Speaker 1: and I love Lupe Tonyongo just always forever, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I just love everything about this movie. And it's there
Speaker 1: they have matching jumpsuits. I mean, it's fashioned forward, it's
Speaker 1: got everything. Yeah, the I mean the tethered I think.
Speaker 1: I mean from a well we'll talk about all the complexities,
Speaker 1: but from a fashion perspective, I mean, hands down, you
Speaker 1: gotta admire it. We deserve to die for not coordinating
Speaker 1: our outfits, just like on that basis alone, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys underground and they got it together? Yeah, how
Speaker 1: how did they do that? Where they get them? That
Speaker 1: is my main question, Like, I have a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: I do think that it's hard to talk about this
Speaker 1: movie without talking about get Out because it was like
Speaker 1: everybody's comparing it to get Out and get Out with
Speaker 1: so critically acclaimed, and I think that it is not
Speaker 1: as good of a movie as get Out in terms
Speaker 1: of it's not as tight, but I like it better. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really excited. It's it's weird because it's like
Speaker 1: because especially when it's like a director's second movie, it's
Speaker 1: impossible to not be tempted to compare it to the first,
Speaker 1: but in terms I mean the conversation surrounding the two
Speaker 1: movies were also very, very different in ways that I
Speaker 1: think are really interesting and excited to get into it. Kimmy,
Speaker 1: what's your Wow, We're us, It's us. I saw this
Speaker 1: movie shortly after I came out. I saw it in
Speaker 1: theaters twice because I was really confused the first time,
Speaker 1: and then did a little bit of reading, a little
Speaker 1: bit of research, and then was really excited to go
Speaker 1: back and see it again. And then when it hits streaming,
Speaker 1: I think I've seen I think this was the fourth
Speaker 1: or fifth time I've watched this movie. It is a
Speaker 1: very rewarding movie on the rewatch. I think, like it
Speaker 1: really is watched in theaters three times, I think, and
Speaker 1: then I've watched it again like four or five times since,
Speaker 1: so I've seen it almost ten and it's like free time.
Speaker 1: It is. So I don't know, like I I really respect,
Speaker 1: especially like a director that can put a lot of
Speaker 1: references in their work without like feeling like they're being
Speaker 1: like thrown at you and you're being back show Like
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like a Gilmore Girls episode kind of
Speaker 1: level of we're just like, Okay, I love the Chudd
Speaker 1: reference right right, Like but they're but they're so subtle,
Speaker 1: and like there's a Goonies reference, but if you haven't
Speaker 1: seen the Goonies, you don't really lose anything, Like I
Speaker 1: just I don't know. I think his style of writing
Speaker 1: in this movie in particular is really layered and cool,
Speaker 1: and I like saw stuff on this viewing I didn't
Speaker 1: realize on the first and yeah, I'm a big fan.
Speaker 1: What about you, Caitlin. I also saw it numerous times
Speaker 1: in theaters. The first time was with Jamie, our mutual
Speaker 1: friend Bryant. We had to go to one of my
Speaker 1: favorite bars that I haven't been to in what feels
Speaker 1: like years now for obvious reasons. But afterwards we were like,
Speaker 1: there's so much to talk about. So we went to
Speaker 1: this bar and uh talked about the movie for like
Speaker 1: three hours and we were just like, what did we
Speaker 1: just watch? What did it all mean? No? No, I
Speaker 1: missed doing that, I know. And then I saw it
Speaker 1: again in theaters with my friend Nolan, and you know,
Speaker 1: we had a similar like hours long discussion afterward and
Speaker 1: both times, and I've also seen it about I think
Speaker 1: four times. Now Here's the thing. I'll be completely honest
Speaker 1: about this. I really really liked this movie for the
Speaker 1: first of it, and then the last ten fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: or so. And this is completely from a screenwriting standpoint,
Speaker 1: it loses me. I think some choices were made in
Speaker 1: the writing. I think this is a movie that you
Speaker 1: didn't need to explain where the tethered come from or
Speaker 1: what the origins are in like different like like. I
Speaker 1: think it would have served the story a little bit
Speaker 1: better if we had just not been given any explanation
Speaker 1: of the origin. And and maybe that actually does something
Speaker 1: to mess up the intent of the allegory and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. I'm not totally sure, because I also don't
Speaker 1: really know what the allegory is supposed to be entirely
Speaker 1: not don't exactly because there's so many interpretations. Um. But
Speaker 1: from a strictly screenwriting point of view, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I don't like that they tried to explain
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that I felt could have just
Speaker 1: been left unexplained. But for the first again, ninety percent
Speaker 1: of the movie, I'm like, this is awesome. I love
Speaker 1: this family, I love their journey. I've come I've come
Speaker 1: around on the ending, This was the first viewing where
Speaker 1: I'm like, I think the because I felt the same
Speaker 1: way that you did. But then I like, weirdly turned
Speaker 1: a corner at some point where maybe I was reading.
Speaker 1: I read a lot of new analysis that had come
Speaker 1: out since I last was seeking out analysis on this movie,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, I'm excited to talk about it
Speaker 1: because I've turned a corner on the ending of the
Speaker 1: movie and now I'm pro, Wow, I'm fifty fifty. I
Speaker 1: think it's depends on the day. I'm like, on a Tuesday,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, this is a great ending, but catch
Speaker 1: me on a Thursday. Who knows, who know exactly. This
Speaker 1: was also the first viewing of the movie too where
Speaker 1: I like, I had never really sought out any information
Speaker 1: on the music of this movie, but the story of
Speaker 1: like how the music was composed as really interesting as well.
Speaker 1: Michael Abels is an incredible composer. I loved him. I
Speaker 1: think he's great. One of my friends actually wrote a
Speaker 1: movie that Michael Labels did the music for that came
Speaker 1: out in April. Yeah, it's called Bad Education. It's on HBO.
Speaker 1: I've seen that movie. Yeah, Yeah, my movie is awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my friend Mike different Mike than took me to this
Speaker 1: movie though, I did he get out with the mic
Speaker 1: who wrote Bad Education? Uh? Yeah, my friend Mic wrote it.
Speaker 1: He's incredible. Love him to death. Oh that's so everyone
Speaker 1: should watch Bad Education. I really enjoyed it. That's so cool. Nice.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Michael Abels is just like a genius. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. Like where I don't know, Like I we
Speaker 1: don't talk about scoring very often on our feminist movie podcast,
Speaker 1: which I guess fair enough, but there is like there's
Speaker 1: just so much to talk about about. How where he
Speaker 1: was pulling from And like I was, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: what are they saying in the in the theme and
Speaker 1: it's nonsense, it's nothing. He made he made it up.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, there's so much cool stuff. Well
Speaker 1: shall we dive in with the recap? It? All right?
Speaker 1: So we open with text on the screen saying that
Speaker 1: there are thousands of miles of underground tunnels in the US.
Speaker 1: They're abandoned subways, service routes, mine shafts, and then others
Speaker 1: that have no known purpose at all to be where
Speaker 1: the tethered live. Every time I watched the movie, I
Speaker 1: forget that that's the beginning, because my brain has to
Speaker 1: forget that so that I can walk around on top
Speaker 1: of these times. Yeah. Uh, now, it's like that. Every
Speaker 1: time you watch it. It's like you think about that
Speaker 1: non stuff for a week and then it just kind
Speaker 1: of leaves you until the next time and you're like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: the tunnels, because is that true? Yes, Oh my gosh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a lot. I actually did some reading on tunnels,
Speaker 1: and right around the time the movie came out, there
Speaker 1: was a book that was released. I can't remember the author.
Speaker 1: I didn't write it down because I was like, i'll remember, sure,
Speaker 1: but it's called Underground and then it has a subtitle
Speaker 1: and it talks about all of the various tunnels that
Speaker 1: exist under major cities that are not being used and
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say are not being used. A lot of
Speaker 1: them are actually being occupied by people who are experiencing homelessness,
Speaker 1: and some some of them are in New York City,
Speaker 1: some of them are in Chicago. There's some in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and I was like, no, oh, don't tell me that,
Speaker 1: Like in downtown Los Angeles there are tunnels that were
Speaker 1: possibly used by bootleggers, but were the original subway in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles before it shut down, and then they made
Speaker 1: a new subway, so the original Redline tunnels are just
Speaker 1: abandoned and I didn't know that. I'm so curious how
Speaker 1: one would even to one of these tunnels and figure
Speaker 1: that out. Right, right, you go down an escalator that
Speaker 1: is on the other side of the door at a
Speaker 1: fun house of mirrors, well maintained escalator. I love the
Speaker 1: escalator shot so much goodness. That's the opening. Then we
Speaker 1: cut to a close up on like an eighties style TV.
Speaker 1: We see an ad for hands across America, and then
Speaker 1: we meet a little girl, adelaide A k Addie, the
Speaker 1: cutest child. Shout out to all the child actors in
Speaker 1: this movie because they all do a terrific job. Incredible,
Speaker 1: so good and and it also made me just appreciate
Speaker 1: Jordan Peel's directing again, where I know that he pulls
Speaker 1: a lot from Kubrick, who is like so notoriously a
Speaker 1: shitty person towards actors. But you can just tell, like
Speaker 1: there were even certain shots because I think I've just
Speaker 1: seen this movie enough times to notice the shot changes
Speaker 1: and stuff where you're like, oh, if that was Kubrick,
Speaker 1: he would have just let that kid walk into a mirror.
Speaker 1: But Jordan Peel cuts to another shot and it's like,
Speaker 1: don't hurt yourself. It's okay, Like, I don't know that
Speaker 1: was I don't know why I'm an extra notice that
Speaker 1: this time. Yeah, so we meet Addie. It's nineteen six,
Speaker 1: which is the year I was born. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much everybody. Um. Yes, actually hands across America happened like
Speaker 1: a week after I was born. Um, I've just remembered
Speaker 1: how close you were born to Robert Pattinson as well.
Speaker 1: When I was just googling Robert Pattinson last night. Wait,
Speaker 1: is he my age? Yeah? I think he's born like
Speaker 1: the week the same week as you. Oh my god. Robert. Also,
Speaker 1: Winston Duke is like, is my age? He's actually a
Speaker 1: few months younger than me, So you should hang out.
Speaker 1: I will say that was the one thing for me
Speaker 1: where Winston Duke and Lupete and Youngo do not seem
Speaker 1: old enough to have a teenage daughter. Yet I agree
Speaker 1: on the first like four watches, I didn't think about it,
Speaker 1: and then afterwards I was like, wait a Seger, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we Robert Pattinson, Ma, whoa, he's like four days older
Speaker 1: than me. Then oh my gosh, Robert, let's get married,
Speaker 1: because that's how you know if you're compatible someone you
Speaker 1: have similar birthdays. Okay, So Addie is with her parents
Speaker 1: at like the boardwalk like carnivali area in Santa Cruz, California.
Speaker 1: She wanders off and goes into this creepy house of
Speaker 1: mirrors where she encounters another little girl who appears to
Speaker 1: look exactly like her, and we're like, and then smash
Speaker 1: cut to a close up of a rabbit and there's
Speaker 1: like this creepy chanting uh, and then we pull out
Speaker 1: to show hundreds of rabbits. That was the coolest scene
Speaker 1: to see in the theater ever, because you do you're
Speaker 1: not expecting it, and you're just like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: there's there's more rabbits, and then there's even more rabbits,
Speaker 1: and then it's and then so long and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like they're telling you you're going to go down a
Speaker 1: rabbit hole. Wow. I had a lot of fun looking
Speaker 1: for like this really deep layered symbolism of the rabbits,
Speaker 1: which I did find. There's been a lot of writing
Speaker 1: about it, but all I've been able to find from
Speaker 1: Jordan Peelee is He's just like, I am personally afraid
Speaker 1: of rabbits, and you're like, oh cool. It doesn't always
Speaker 1: have to mean something sometimes sometimes Alfonso Korn is like,
Speaker 1: the reason that green is a prominent color in The
Speaker 1: Little Princess is because I like the color green. At
Speaker 1: the end, you're like, oh yeah, it's dear a movie.
Speaker 1: I guess you could do whatever you want. Um okay,
Speaker 1: the rabbits and then we cut to adult Adelaide who's
Speaker 1: played by Lupida and Yongo, and she has a husband
Speaker 1: Gabe that's Winston Duke, a teenage daughter, Zora, and a
Speaker 1: younger son, Jason. This family, the Wilsons, arrive at their
Speaker 1: summer home that is not far from Santa Cruz, California.
Speaker 1: Then we flashed to Addie as a child. Her parents
Speaker 1: have brought her to a child psychologist because she hasn't
Speaker 1: spoken since she went into this House of mirrors, but
Speaker 1: we don't know why. We assume she's been traumatized by
Speaker 1: this interaction with this other doppelgang or girl. Then we
Speaker 1: cut back to the present um the family goes to
Speaker 1: the beach in Santa Cruz against the same one where
Speaker 1: this incident happened. They meet their friends Kitty and Josh,
Speaker 1: played by Elizabeth Moss and Tim Hidecker, who you don't
Speaker 1: think are going to work as a couple until they do.
Speaker 1: Until they do, it just does it, just does work.
Speaker 1: But also I'm like, they have teen Elizabeth Moss can't
Speaker 1: have a seventeen year old daughter. I don't huh whatever,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I guess I don't know how old. I
Speaker 1: mean she has, she's had work done, so I guess
Speaker 1: maybe we're supposed to think that she's older than she looks.
Speaker 1: That's true, not the character Kitty has had work done.
Speaker 1: I am not. No one sued me for accusings of
Speaker 1: having worked on because she's thirty eight. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess if she and which means she would have been
Speaker 1: like thirties six or seven. It doesn't matter. They have
Speaker 1: teenage twins, is true. Becca and Lindsay are their names.
Speaker 1: So they're on the beach. Jason sees this scary guy
Speaker 1: on the beach is like hand is dripping with blood.
Speaker 1: Adelaide freaks out because she thinks Jason has gone missing.
Speaker 1: And there's all these other like weird coincidences that are
Speaker 1: happening with like spiders and frisbees, and eleven eleven make
Speaker 1: a wish, and I know eleven eleven is bad, and
Speaker 1: this I was like, wait, it's not a junior high
Speaker 1: school student making a wish. I can't relate because it's
Speaker 1: a biblical reference that I don't remember the exact Jeremiah
Speaker 1: eleven eleven, and I believe it was Jeremiah. Again. I
Speaker 1: was like, I'll remember that. I don't need to write
Speaker 1: that one down. I'm I'm over to I've got a
Speaker 1: little analysis section on the on the bable versus because
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not very Bible literate myself. That someone was, um,
Speaker 1: someone on the Great White Internet was kind enough to
Speaker 1: break it down. Well, yeah, I think that I'm not
Speaker 1: super vible literate. I will say my favorite translation is
Speaker 1: definitely King James because I think it slaps and like
Speaker 1: the new International version, I'm just like, this is boring.
Speaker 1: Where's the poetry? Where's the moving? King James keeps it
Speaker 1: moving and I appreciate that. But I think the gist
Speaker 1: of the Jeremiah eleven eleven passage is y'all are going
Speaker 1: to cry out and I'm not gonna do ship. Love
Speaker 1: you God. That is yeah, that the cliffs notes and
Speaker 1: then if you go back averse to Jeremiah eleven ten,
Speaker 1: there it's all like sins of the ancestors, sins of
Speaker 1: the Father, and it's like for certain reads of this movie,
Speaker 1: like if you're like, oh, I think Jordan Peele may
Speaker 1: have read back a verse or two. Who knows Jeordan
Speaker 1: Jordan Okay. So that night they're back at home and
Speaker 1: Adelaide tells Gabe about the night that she saw a
Speaker 1: little girl who looked just like her when she was
Speaker 1: a child, and that how her whole life. She felt
Speaker 1: that she's been coming for her, and that all these
Speaker 1: little coincidences that have been happening to her, it feels
Speaker 1: like this person is getting closer and closer, and then
Speaker 1: suddenly they lose power. And then Jason is like, by
Speaker 1: the way, there's a family in our driveway, And sure enough,
Speaker 1: there's a family in their driveway, and this family invades
Speaker 1: the Wilson home and they realize that it's them. It's Adelaide, Gabe, Zora,
Speaker 1: and Jason. But it's like scary doppel ganger versions of
Speaker 1: them who are wearing red jumpsuits and carrying scissors. Now,
Speaker 1: scary doppelganger Adelaide ak Red explains that Adelaide and Red
Speaker 1: are tethered together. Every thing that Adelaide did in her life,
Speaker 1: Read also did, but like a horrible version of it.
Speaker 1: So instead of eating warm meals and playing with nice toys,
Speaker 1: she ate rabbits and had sharp toys. Instead of falling
Speaker 1: in love and getting married and starting a family, Read
Speaker 1: was forced to do these things. And now she wants
Speaker 1: to become untethered, and the way to do that is
Speaker 1: by killing Adelaide and her family. The pairs of the
Speaker 1: Doppelgangers kind of break off. There's fighting, there's chasing their injuries.
Speaker 1: There's the boat scene. I love them. I'm obsessed with
Speaker 1: the boat. I love that the boat is called the Crawdaddy.
Speaker 1: All the boats have great names in this um. Josh's
Speaker 1: boat is called the b Yacht but with ch in
Speaker 1: the middle. Um. And then I love how Winston Duke's
Speaker 1: character gave when he's like, oh, this is a home invasion, Okay,
Speaker 1: just give them what they want, protector bodily stuff, and
Speaker 1: then just give them whatever they want, Like you can
Speaker 1: have the boat and the daughters like dad, no one wants.
Speaker 1: It's so good. Yeah, She's like, like, tears are streaming
Speaker 1: down her face and she's like, shut up, dad, no
Speaker 1: one wants your boat. Okay. So there's all these altercations,
Speaker 1: but the Wilson's eventually managed to get away in the
Speaker 1: boat and they head over to Josh and Kitties, who
Speaker 1: surprise also have scary doppelgangers who have killed that whole family.
Speaker 1: So when Adelaide and her family show up to Josh
Speaker 1: and Kitties, they have to fight scary Tim Hidecker and
Speaker 1: scary Elizabeth Moss. But do they think are the character names? Yes,
Speaker 1: they do. They have been given names like on I
Speaker 1: AMDB and like in the script, but I don't think
Speaker 1: we ever hear those ones. It's like texts and Dahlia
Speaker 1: and something else. So the Wilson's managed to kill them
Speaker 1: and the twin daughters and stuff, and then they turn
Speaker 1: on the TV and they learn that there are many,
Speaker 1: many more of these doppelgangers. Basically, everyone alive on Earth,
Speaker 1: or at least in the US, seems to have a
Speaker 1: doppelganger in the US or the US. Think about it.
Speaker 1: It makes you think. And so the doppelgangers have been
Speaker 1: killing there above ground counterparts and then gathering and holding
Speaker 1: hands not on like hands across America. So the Wilson
Speaker 1: family takes off. They head to back to the boardwalk
Speaker 1: area because they're going to like drive. The plan is
Speaker 1: to drive to Mexico along the coast, but they get
Speaker 1: interrupted because Jason scary. Jason is their a k a. Pluto,
Speaker 1: But it's a trap that enables Read to kidnap Jason.
Speaker 1: She takes him underground via the House of Mirror, so
Speaker 1: Adelaide goes in after him and she ends up deep underground.
Speaker 1: We see the dwelling, you know, these tunnels where the
Speaker 1: tethered have been living. She finds Red, who explains that
Speaker 1: the tethered are like clones or copies of people, but
Speaker 1: they don't have souls. They were created. There's like the
Speaker 1: illusions of this sort of like science experiment gone wrong,
Speaker 1: but it was failed and the clones or the copies
Speaker 1: were abandoned, but they kind of just had to live on,
Speaker 1: remaining tethered to their above ground counterparts. As this is happening,
Speaker 1: we get flashbacks where we see getting into the twist
Speaker 1: is moment. But yes, yes, we're seeing like Addie as
Speaker 1: a kid and Red as a kid, and the carnival
Speaker 1: and how they sort of came together and met up,
Speaker 1: but the tethered were like, oh, look at the little girl.
Speaker 1: She's going to be the one to save us from
Speaker 1: this misery. And Red explains how, you know, she had
Speaker 1: orchestrated this whole movement where they would rise above and
Speaker 1: kill their above ground counterparts, the untethering, she calls it
Speaker 1: the untethering. And then you see this cool montage where
Speaker 1: they get their suits, and you're like, where they get
Speaker 1: the suits? Where they where they get the scissors? Where
Speaker 1: did they get where they get the shoes? There might
Speaker 1: be manufacturing down there. We don't we don't really know
Speaker 1: what the what the system is like could be. And
Speaker 1: then Adelaide and Red fight most of the time Red
Speaker 1: has the upper hand. The score really shines here, and
Speaker 1: then Adelaide finally kills Red and rescues Jason. Their back
Speaker 1: above ground, the Wilson family reunites, and then we get
Speaker 1: a flashback where the big twist is revealed. We see
Speaker 1: Adelaide and Red when they have met in the House
Speaker 1: of Mirrors as children, and we see that Red caps
Speaker 1: Adelaide switched places with her, so that Addie has actually
Speaker 1: been a tethered this whole time. And Red was actually
Speaker 1: little Addie the whole time. And then we zoom out
Speaker 1: and we see that the Tethered are holding hands across America.
Speaker 1: And then that is the end of their helet afters
Speaker 1: what are they doing? Who? Pilot? Who? Who is it? Tethereds?
Speaker 1: I don't know, they don't know all that and more
Speaker 1: will discuss, but first we're going to take a break,
Speaker 1: and then we'll come right back and we're back. Where
Speaker 1: to begin? Where to begin? Here's here's here's a fact
Speaker 1: that's just pure fun. Sure, I get you know, you
Speaker 1: know how at the beginning, Um, they're talking when they're
Speaker 1: on the boardwalk in the eighties, they're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: think a movie is shooting around here. It's the Law
Speaker 1: Lost Boys. Yes, it's The Lost Boy That is fun.
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, that's it. That's Jordan Peel hides
Speaker 1: so much cool stuff in here that I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: that's the Last Boys. His little Easter eggs, which the
Speaker 1: little rabbits. What if? What if those are just a
Speaker 1: bunch of little Easter bunnies hiding all the Easter eggs
Speaker 1: around his movies to find them. So that's that, Um,
Speaker 1: anything else we want to discuss or Nope. At the end,
Speaker 1: I find it interesting this time rewatching it. I rewatched
Speaker 1: it twice before we talked, because why not. And I
Speaker 1: realized on the second rewatch for this discussion that it
Speaker 1: was ADDIE's birthday when they were at the board walk,
Speaker 1: which was not something I had picked up on any
Speaker 1: other viewing. Yes, because he wins her, her dad wins
Speaker 1: her the Thriller shirt right, or she's like having to
Speaker 1: pick what prize and then her mom's like, it's your birthday,
Speaker 1: you do whatever you want. Yeah, it was like what
Speaker 1: a day? What an intense birthday? Bad birthday? They made
Speaker 1: me wonder do the tether to have any concept of birthdays?
Speaker 1: Like they have to understand what they are because there's
Speaker 1: it's a mirror, So whatever we're doing above ground, they're
Speaker 1: doing underground. So it's like they're just doing the like
Speaker 1: worst case scenario version. So I guess that they would
Speaker 1: have worst case scenario birthdays. Yeah, I guess. So I
Speaker 1: mean red mentions Christmas. She's like, on Christmas, I opened
Speaker 1: my toys and they were sharp and cold and cut
Speaker 1: my fingers when I played with them. So I think
Speaker 1: they get the concept of holidays. Yeah, but Red also
Speaker 1: wasn't above ground person before, so that also who knows.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. I don't know anything,
Speaker 1: And I love that I don't know anything. It's so
Speaker 1: much to explore. It's like tunnels of movie reference and
Speaker 1: so many tunnels. Also in that um that sequence on
Speaker 1: the boardwalk, there's so I'll just go back and hit
Speaker 1: the Bible verse really quick, well, because we were just
Speaker 1: talking about it anyways. So you see an unhoused man
Speaker 1: on the pier holding a sign that says Jeremiah eleven eleven,
Speaker 1: which says, I mean charma. I think you honestly, uh,
Speaker 1: summarize it pretty well, says Therefore, thus say it the Lord.
Speaker 1: I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape,
Speaker 1: although they will cry out to me, I will not
Speaker 1: listen to them. Then, if you go back a verse,
Speaker 1: it says in Jeremiah one ten, they have returned to
Speaker 1: the sins of their ancestors, who refused to listen to
Speaker 1: MY words. They have followed other gods to serve them.
Speaker 1: Both Israel and Judah have broken the covenant I made
Speaker 1: with their ancestors. Don't know what the last sentence is,
Speaker 1: but the read that I feel closest to on this view,
Speaker 1: and again it's like changed over time, but the view
Speaker 1: I've the read of the movie that I feel closest
Speaker 1: to on this day, I felt like finding out that
Speaker 1: verse was really helpful and kind of solidifying that interesting. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think before we maybe dive into the nitty gritty
Speaker 1: of all the readings and the symbolism and allegories and things,
Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to touch on the way that
Speaker 1: horror movies have historically treated black people and black characters
Speaker 1: because you wouldn't believe it, but it's been terrible. Um
Speaker 1: there's a really good documentary called Horror Noir, A History
Speaker 1: of Black Horror. That's a Shutter original documentary. UM So
Speaker 1: I would recommend watching that to the listeners, but it
Speaker 1: does a deep dive of this, but basically a very
Speaker 1: brief overview of the representation of black characters in cinema historically,
Speaker 1: again has been terrible. There's a long history of black
Speaker 1: men in particular being shown as villains who brutal lies
Speaker 1: white women. A lot of that was white actors in
Speaker 1: black face. There is a long history of the magical
Speaker 1: negro trope being used in horror films. There's the widely
Speaker 1: known trope that we referenced earlier that gets called out
Speaker 1: in screamed too and then acted out anyway, and then
Speaker 1: and then and then followed through on where in an
Speaker 1: ensemble horror movie where there's a bunch of people who
Speaker 1: die throughout this story, there's often one black person in
Speaker 1: the cast, and they are often the first to die.
Speaker 1: So there's different things like that. That's only kind of
Speaker 1: the tip of the iceberg. So a movie like Us,
Speaker 1: a movie like get Out, a movie like the upcoming
Speaker 1: Candy Man, I'm very excited for. While they're not that
Speaker 1: I know, I'm so excited for it. While they are
Speaker 1: not the first movies to subvert all of these problems,
Speaker 1: they are pretty unique and that they don't fall into
Speaker 1: all these tropes, and you'll never guess why. It's because
Speaker 1: they are made by black filmmakers. So I just wanted
Speaker 1: to again just acknowledge the really reprehensible history in terms
Speaker 1: of representation of black characters in horror films, because it's
Speaker 1: been real bad. Uh. Not that non white filmmakers have
Speaker 1: been forced to enact these tropes, they have just continued
Speaker 1: to make the choice. And I think it's also marketing.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't know, are people gonna go for
Speaker 1: a black final girl. Who's to say it's like I would? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like those movies. I mean yeah, it's like Us
Speaker 1: and get Out where enormous box office successes. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's and Karama, you probably have more thoughts than
Speaker 1: we do because we every year when we do our
Speaker 1: Month of Horror, where like we don't know enough about horror.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say I'm like a horror expert.
Speaker 1: I am, and I'm an enjoyer of horror and I've
Speaker 1: loved it since I as a kid. Uh. It is
Speaker 1: not something that was handed down to me. Neither of
Speaker 1: my parents enjoy horror films. I was like, Mom, will
Speaker 1: you watch Us with me? And she was like no,
Speaker 1: I'm good because she saw she saw get Out and
Speaker 1: that was scary for her. She was like, I heard
Speaker 1: this one scarier and I'm like, oh much, and she
Speaker 1: said no, thanks. So it's interesting that I just sort
Speaker 1: of adopted that on my own and was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is cool. I love the creepy Crawley's and the
Speaker 1: killing and the monsters. I think the horror as a
Speaker 1: genre is great because it allows and I think that
Speaker 1: there's a really big love of horror in a lot
Speaker 1: of black communities, despite the treatment of black people on
Speaker 1: screen in horror, because it is a safe space to
Speaker 1: be afraid and you know two hours this is what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. And it's very it's almost like law
Speaker 1: and order and procedural television where you know what the
Speaker 1: beats are going to be and it's like very safe
Speaker 1: and formulaic, but still good and still fresh and interesting
Speaker 1: in various ways. Is and like the different monsters that
Speaker 1: are going to come and kill you, like, oh, this
Speaker 1: one's a haunted lake man, and this one is a
Speaker 1: child molester that's been burned, and this one the one
Speaker 1: that we see all the time, something that has a
Speaker 1: vagina for a head. Uh, always has a lovely little
Speaker 1: little vul the head. And it's like, I'm coming for you.
Speaker 1: Women are scarier. It's like, oh my god, take movies
Speaker 1: away from men today. Um, no vulva heads in this movie.
Speaker 1: And so you do have to you do have to
Speaker 1: hand it to the restraint of Jordan Peel. That's true. Um,
Speaker 1: but I mean, but what is going down into underground
Speaker 1: into tunnels, but going into a vagina going into the
Speaker 1: Earth's womb. The makes you think what I liked because
Speaker 1: this is the way that this movie plays out does
Speaker 1: inspire so much conversation, and I feel like it is
Speaker 1: almost one of those movies that and it seems like
Speaker 1: an interview is that and people kind of wanted it
Speaker 1: to be like this, that how you read the ending
Speaker 1: kind of like says more about you than it says
Speaker 1: about the movie, which is always kind of fun and
Speaker 1: terrifying to engage with. But in terms of like flipping
Speaker 1: horror tropes here where horror, like you're saying, chroma is
Speaker 1: so built around I don't know what what scares the filmmaker,
Speaker 1: and in theory for horror movies to do well, what
Speaker 1: scare the audience at a certain point in time and
Speaker 1: taking the idea of the other. And I watched a
Speaker 1: there's a really good analysis of this movie from the take,
Speaker 1: which is just like an analysis YouTube channel where it
Speaker 1: basically they make the point that the general horror UH
Speaker 1: formula is to take the other and reoppressed them by
Speaker 1: the end of the movie. So with the example of
Speaker 1: like Michael Myers, he is the other villain of this movie.
Speaker 1: And then the victory at the end is to oppress
Speaker 1: him further than he was at the beginning of the
Speaker 1: movie because he's bad and so what's cool and like
Speaker 1: also like scrambles your brain about this movie is that
Speaker 1: you it's unclear who, like who deserves what in this
Speaker 1: where it's like the surface read of the movie is, Oh,
Speaker 1: we love this family. They're not doing anything wrong that
Speaker 1: we're seeing that is like they're not outwardly bad people,
Speaker 1: but their existence is like it's just it it fox
Speaker 1: with your head. But I do like messing around with
Speaker 1: that there is not a clear cut hero or villain
Speaker 1: to these families. Yeah, I find the more I watch it,
Speaker 1: the less I'm sure. In that scene, um, which I love.
Speaker 1: I love the sort of dance read of it because
Speaker 1: as I've told you too, I love dance movies. I
Speaker 1: love them so much. And it's like, look at a
Speaker 1: little mini dance movie and the and my little scary movie.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful too. Yeah, it is gorgeous. And the orchestration
Speaker 1: of this sort of classical version of I Got five
Speaker 1: on it is just Chef's kiss. But I don't know
Speaker 1: who should win. And at the end, I'm like the
Speaker 1: first time watching it, I was like, Yes, amazing, we
Speaker 1: beat the bad person. And then I was like, oh no,
Speaker 1: because you get that reveal at the end, and then
Speaker 1: watching it every subsequent time and like, I don't is
Speaker 1: this good? Who's good? I never know how to feel
Speaker 1: I at this point, I'm like, I'm like team Tether.
Speaker 1: I love the family, But I'm like, if this is
Speaker 1: so like the read of the movie that I feel
Speaker 1: closest to right now, is the story being like this
Speaker 1: allegory for basically like the unacknowledged guilt of living in
Speaker 1: a colonial society and in America specifically, which the more
Speaker 1: I watched this movie and the more I read said
Speaker 1: the hints of that are everywhere, not just in interviews
Speaker 1: Jordan Peele has done about it, where he says, literally quote,
Speaker 1: one of the central themes in Us is that we
Speaker 1: can do a good job collectively of ignoring the ramifications
Speaker 1: of privilege, and he's referencing the privilege of being a
Speaker 1: modern American. But even from like really early in the
Speaker 1: movie when she walks into the Hall of mirrors, that
Speaker 1: hall of mirrors, when you look at and listen to
Speaker 1: what's happening in there is the basically Cowboy American presentation
Speaker 1: of false history that we all learn um as it
Speaker 1: pertains to indigenous people in America, where it's like every lazy,
Speaker 1: harmful stereotype is being laid out just in the background
Speaker 1: of this scene. Yeah, it's called like Shaman's Vision Quest
Speaker 1: and its imagery of like a native and you'll you'll
Speaker 1: if you're fine intentional. Also at the end of the
Speaker 1: movie that has been changed. It's now Merlin's Forest or
Speaker 1: something like that, but it's still the same thing and
Speaker 1: you can. Yeah. And when you when we see Adelaide
Speaker 1: walk in, we hear this audio. And I always watch
Speaker 1: everything with subtitles. Drag me. I love subtitles, um And
Speaker 1: I don't understand why people hate subtitles so much. Like,
Speaker 1: if you don't want them, that's fine, but don't hate
Speaker 1: on me for using them, because I get extra layers.
Speaker 1: But you get information about these hopie like mythological characters,
Speaker 1: and so they're like, oh, we're gonna roote this and this,
Speaker 1: and yeah, if we use these names that we barely researched,
Speaker 1: it'll be fine. And while I was doing research because
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, who are these names and where
Speaker 1: did they come from? I read something that said that
Speaker 1: all Hopie mythology that has been shared with non Hopie
Speaker 1: people might just be big stuff that they tell us,
Speaker 1: which I love. They're just like, yeah, this is what
Speaker 1: we believe, um, and that there is a sort of
Speaker 1: layered level of mythology where there's what's shared with outsiders
Speaker 1: and then there's stuff that's never shared with outsiders. So
Speaker 1: I find it interesting that these characters are from the
Speaker 1: like foreigner friendly version of Hope mythology. That's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't know. I mean, and I honestly
Speaker 1: on my first I think like at least on my
Speaker 1: first two viewings of this, I didn't really pick up
Speaker 1: on that. But this time it's like another one of
Speaker 1: those things where like the subtext is there and if
Speaker 1: you engage with it, it's like a more a better
Speaker 1: way to engage with the movie. Yeah. So yeah, if
Speaker 1: we're if we're reading it, so I guess coming at
Speaker 1: it from the idea of it being from this entrenched
Speaker 1: basically like they're being more than one America and what
Speaker 1: we're presented with the at the beginning of the movie
Speaker 1: is a very comfortable middle class life. Um. And then
Speaker 1: what is happening, and so I'm trying to think of
Speaker 1: the way to like articular late this correctly, but essentially
Speaker 1: it seems like this movie is playing on for every
Speaker 1: person that has it that comes with a cost. You
Speaker 1: don't just get that. And the direct allegory happening here
Speaker 1: is like for us to have what we have, someone
Speaker 1: that we don't know and very possibly are willfully ignoring
Speaker 1: the existence of entirely are suffering for us to have
Speaker 1: the lifestyle that we have, which is true and horrifying
Speaker 1: to consider. And I really like that Jordan Peel wrights
Speaker 1: likable characters so that it's not like, oh, well, like
Speaker 1: these characters are like awful and suck and it's like, no,
Speaker 1: they're good people. They love their family, They're like living
Speaker 1: their lives, but just like us a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: just in complete ignorance too. Well, how do you have
Speaker 1: this lifestyle and who upholds it and whose labor um
Speaker 1: affords you to have what you have? Yes, I too,
Speaker 1: That is my read of the film, because there's a
Speaker 1: few different ones that have been posited. You know, people
Speaker 1: are like, okay, is it about you know, the socio
Speaker 1: economic class and privilege divide, which is like what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. There's the is it about, like the duality
Speaker 1: of one's self as an individual? Is it about you
Speaker 1: know how Americans are so polarized politically at this moment
Speaker 1: during like the Trump presidency. There's a plenty of reads,
Speaker 1: and I see like merit and all of them. But yeah,
Speaker 1: as far as the one that I am closest to,
Speaker 1: like you said, Jamie, is the one that we've just described,
Speaker 1: I am also on board that. I I think that
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. I feel like you have to
Speaker 1: look at what Peel is giving us, and it's there's
Speaker 1: so much stuff about that native imagery. Like even when
Speaker 1: they're on the beach and kiddies and looking at a magazine,
Speaker 1: there's an ad with a native headdress and she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's so pretty and just moves on from it really quickly.
Speaker 1: But I just like that stuck out to me the
Speaker 1: first time I watched it. I was like, wait, you
Speaker 1: can't ignore that it has to be about that, especially
Speaker 1: knowing that The Shining is a movie that Jordan Peele
Speaker 1: just absolutely adores, draws a lot of influence from, And
Speaker 1: the whole thing about that was this sort of haunted
Speaker 1: Indian burial ground trope, and this feels like a reversal
Speaker 1: of that, where instead of being cursed because you're living
Speaker 1: on top of dead Indigenous people, the bad luck comes
Speaker 1: from living on top of alive people who are just
Speaker 1: like you but speak another language that you can't understand.
Speaker 1: And we are tethered to these Indigenous people whose land
Speaker 1: we've built on top of. Right, Jordan Peele, I'm realizing
Speaker 1: everything I just said. Jordanville has obviously said a much
Speaker 1: more intelligent version of so I just wanted to read
Speaker 1: a quote from him that there's a few different reads.
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny because it's I wonder if you
Speaker 1: both feel same way. I felt like when the movie
Speaker 1: first came out, it was a little harder to find
Speaker 1: quotes where Jordan's Peel was explicitly saying like, well, this
Speaker 1: is what I was trying to do, because he seemed
Speaker 1: to want the audience to have the discussion. And then
Speaker 1: but there are like, in the year since I have
Speaker 1: read about it, he's talked about it pretty extensively, and
Speaker 1: now it feels like his um his thesis statement is
Speaker 1: out there where it kind of wasn't at the beginning.
Speaker 1: But to continue the quote I was reading from earlier,
Speaker 1: which is from UH the Like DVD of Us. So
Speaker 1: he says, one of the central themes in US is
Speaker 1: that we can do a good job collectively of ignoring
Speaker 1: the ramifications of privilege. I think it's the idea that
Speaker 1: we that what we feel like we deserve comes, you know,
Speaker 1: at the expense of someone else's freedom or joy. You know,
Speaker 1: the biggest disservice we can do as a faction with
Speaker 1: a collective privilege like the United States is to presume
Speaker 1: that we deserve it and that it isn't luck that
Speaker 1: has us born where we're born. For us to have
Speaker 1: our privilege, someone suffers. That's where the tethered connection I
Speaker 1: think resonates the most is that those who suffer and
Speaker 1: those who prosper are two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 1: You can never forget that we need to fight for
Speaker 1: the less fortunate. So that is kind of his thesis statement,
Speaker 1: which also makes the doppelganger even more resonant and cool,
Speaker 1: and it like really hits on that point of like
Speaker 1: we are no different. It's like what made uh Lupete
Speaker 1: who lives above ground and Lupeta who lives below ground different?
Speaker 1: Not much, to the point where when they swapped, no
Speaker 1: one knew, like, no one noticed, and it was like
Speaker 1: the circumstance that they were born into that shaped who
Speaker 1: they became in so many ways. Right, you get the
Speaker 1: sense that it it just took red after emerging back
Speaker 1: above ground. And sorry, yeah, I keep saying upstairs, lupetea downstairs.
Speaker 1: I get what you mean. Um, she basically it seems
Speaker 1: like it takes her maybe a few weeks or months
Speaker 1: to assimilate, but she starts dancing, and she starts like
Speaker 1: I suppose, learning to speak, and and then she is
Speaker 1: indistinguishable from all the other upstairs people, the nontethered you know. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just commentary and like if you were in a
Speaker 1: position of privilege, if you have access to things that
Speaker 1: you need to be a boat called the bet the
Speaker 1: what is it? The crowd beyond? Yeah, I always forget.
Speaker 1: That's another thing that I just like always forget. And
Speaker 1: then I see it again. I was like, oh, right,
Speaker 1: that's the name of Tim Hidecker's boat. I love the
Speaker 1: competition that sort of happens between Winston Duke and Tim
Speaker 1: Hidecker and these two families, and just even above ground,
Speaker 1: before we really get to the underground people the levels
Speaker 1: of privilege between them, and they're both these middle class families,
Speaker 1: Like there's no no one can argue that the Wilsons
Speaker 1: are not doing well. They have a summer home, their kids,
Speaker 1: they drug the Mercedes, their their kids are doing after
Speaker 1: school activities and magic tricks and fun things like they're okay.
Speaker 1: They have I love the sticker that they have on
Speaker 1: the back of the car. That's like their little family sticker,
Speaker 1: which I don't understand what anybody has those, because then
Speaker 1: people know they can follow you and then murder your children.
Speaker 1: That's how I think that's how the Tethered found them.
Speaker 1: They're like that this this is the family. They have
Speaker 1: the sticker, and this is how we know that they
Speaker 1: live here. They shouldn't have been giving away their coordinates
Speaker 1: like that. I think about that every time I post,
Speaker 1: Like back in the before times when you would post
Speaker 1: as like a comic, you would just post your location
Speaker 1: every single night. I'm just like, this would be a
Speaker 1: great way to get killed, like just thinking out out
Speaker 1: or like the blame ring. That's how the blame ring
Speaker 1: happened in real life because celebrities would be like going
Speaker 1: on vacation, and then those teenage kids from the valley
Speaker 1: were like, what if we robbed Paris, they'll to him anyway.
Speaker 1: I digress um. I think that I love, though, the
Speaker 1: difference between this white family and this black family that
Speaker 1: are ostensibly the same in that they're both living these privileged,
Speaker 1: middle class American lives, but we see the sort of
Speaker 1: slight disparities and the jealousy and like the nicer boat
Speaker 1: and the newer car and stuff like that, and how
Speaker 1: Winston Duke is just like, well, I really wanna one
Speaker 1: hup him and get to him. It's like I got
Speaker 1: a boat that he has flares on his boat and
Speaker 1: I don't have flares on my boat. And I thought
Speaker 1: it was kind of also a fun touch that it's
Speaker 1: like the families get along, but they don't seem to
Speaker 1: actually like each other that much, Like, yeah, they don't.
Speaker 1: They're not close that you get the sense that they
Speaker 1: see each other once a year when they're both vacationing
Speaker 1: together and that's it. And also, Okay, so I was
Speaker 1: thinking about this where the Wilsons seem to own their
Speaker 1: family home, but I think the other family of Kitty
Speaker 1: and Josh, they're like air being being or like they
Speaker 1: have a time share something because he says like, we
Speaker 1: need to get out of here. So even though it's
Speaker 1: a nicer house, it's like it's almost like the illusion
Speaker 1: of them doing better because they have their only renting
Speaker 1: this nicer house for a short amount of time because
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, we have to be out of here
Speaker 1: by ten am tomorrow, as if it's a rental versus
Speaker 1: the Wilson's owning that. So it's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's like there's a there's this illusion that they're doing better,
Speaker 1: but maybe they aren't even interesting. I didn't read that
Speaker 1: as an Airbnb rental. I read that as a kids
Speaker 1: take too long, I have a meeting I need to
Speaker 1: so less is a checkout time, and more as a alright,
Speaker 1: Gremlins could be that, but I didn't think about it
Speaker 1: that way, and I think that could be true. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I suppose open to interpretation. Like much of the movie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like the kind of like subtle freak shin that
Speaker 1: you see between these families where especially between the two
Speaker 1: uh fathers, where I don't know, I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like it's something you see, but especially because it's between
Speaker 1: a white middle class family and a black middle class family.
Speaker 1: That friction there's like kind of another dimension to it
Speaker 1: as well, and it's not one I've ever you really
Speaker 1: see in movies that much at all. That's to me.
Speaker 1: Gabe is a very interesting character because, like was mentioned,
Speaker 1: when the Tethered first show up and invade their home,
Speaker 1: Gabe he's like trying to reason with them and saying like,
Speaker 1: we don't have much here. This is our summer home.
Speaker 1: But you can have my wallet, you can have my money,
Speaker 1: we can go to an a t m. You can
Speaker 1: have the car, you can have the boat. You know.
Speaker 1: He's trying to like his values are these like material possessions,
Speaker 1: and that's what he thinks is going to be valuable
Speaker 1: to the Tethers, and they're just like, I don't give
Speaker 1: a ship about your money, Like we're here to kill
Speaker 1: you know. We want to end this connection that's been happening.
Speaker 1: That you've been bullissfully unaware of the friction between these
Speaker 1: two families. Makes me wonder how they know each other
Speaker 1: because I don't think it's from college, which is kind
Speaker 1: of the generic assumption, because Winston Duke's character gave he
Speaker 1: has a Howard university sweatshirt on, and something about Tim
Speaker 1: Heidecker's character just doesn't read to me as white person
Speaker 1: who went to Howard. It just I'm not getting that vibe.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine that wasn't the case. I would be
Speaker 1: fascinated to see that first semester, just that one. I
Speaker 1: don't want to see anything beyond that, And I hope
Speaker 1: there's a transfer after that, not because of white people,
Speaker 1: because of that particular white person. Um So, I was
Speaker 1: curious because, like you said, it seemed like they see
Speaker 1: each other annually, because there's that line that Addie has
Speaker 1: where she says, you look the same as you did
Speaker 1: last year when the plastic surgery is discussed. So it's like,
Speaker 1: who are these people to each other and what is
Speaker 1: the positive of their relationship because it just seems like
Speaker 1: they're there to compete. That is Yeah, like it, I
Speaker 1: really I never really, like thought about their relationships to
Speaker 1: each other too too much before preparing for this episode.
Speaker 1: And even it's like the kids, clearly they have no
Speaker 1: interest in each other, Like the twins only talk to
Speaker 1: each other. They're like Jason's weird. Yeah, they're they're clearly
Speaker 1: not even like Summertime friends. And Zora like has her
Speaker 1: headphones and she has no interest in the chaotic high
Speaker 1: Decker twins or whatever. Uh so it is like it is.
Speaker 1: And also it's kind of she does not hesitate to
Speaker 1: kill the ship out of them when they're She definitely
Speaker 1: was like getting some Catharsis from killing these twins. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, based on what we see of those twins,
Speaker 1: I get it. Yeah. Yeah. And and the relationship between Um,
Speaker 1: Adelaide and Kitty I also think is pretty interesting where
Speaker 1: I mean again, it's like they don't have I think
Speaker 1: Kitty is like kind of doing a fakey attempt to
Speaker 1: connect with Adelaide Um, and I kind of appreciate Adelaide's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't Yeah, we don't have to be chatting right now.
Speaker 1: But I like, I thought it was kind of cool
Speaker 1: that there was some commentary into how particularly Kitty story
Speaker 1: plays out. I feel like, more so than anyone else
Speaker 1: than anyone else in the Tyler family, I feel like
Speaker 1: Kitty is the one character that you kind of see
Speaker 1: something in her tether that is like reflective of like, oh,
Speaker 1: if we're seeing this as like the haves and the
Speaker 1: have nots on which America is built, the scene where
Speaker 1: Kitty's tether whose name is Dahlia, pretty name. Uh so
Speaker 1: Dahlia has this moment where we heard earlier that Kitty
Speaker 1: has had like some work done. Whatever judgment isn't passed
Speaker 1: either way, but it just is a fact um. But
Speaker 1: then um, Dahlia, who has been playing out the actions
Speaker 1: of Kitty her entire existence were assuming like, finally has
Speaker 1: that moment of like holding that lip gloss and it
Speaker 1: looks really scary, and like Elizabeth Moss is scary as
Speaker 1: hell in this role, and I just I love her.
Speaker 1: She I really like her in this movie as well.
Speaker 1: But you get that moment of like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: what I have been suffering for, is for this other
Speaker 1: woman to look like this, And then you see her
Speaker 1: cut her face open, which I'm pretty sure it's a
Speaker 1: reference to Kitty's procedures, and like it all every time
Speaker 1: I look at that seeing I'm like, okay, girl Joker,
Speaker 1: we get it, but like, uh, do you want to
Speaker 1: know how I got these guys? But it is a
Speaker 1: little bit girl Joker the way it plays out, yea, oh,
Speaker 1: it is very girl Joker, like very dark knight girl Joker.
Speaker 1: But I yeah, noticing the scars on her face. The
Speaker 1: second time I watched the movie, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: she had to do her own plastic surgery underground. That's terrifying, right,
Speaker 1: And I always get a little like if he around
Speaker 1: uh male filmmakers making comments on women getting plastic surgery.
Speaker 1: But it didn't feel I don't know, I certainly I
Speaker 1: don't know. I didn't end up being really bothered by it.
Speaker 1: In this particular movie. It didn't feel to me like
Speaker 1: a judgment of plastic surgery. It felt more of a
Speaker 1: judgment on these layers and how if you choose to
Speaker 1: do this to yourself, do you think about the consequence
Speaker 1: to the other person. So it was less about like
Speaker 1: objective surgery bad surgery good, and more um consequences that
Speaker 1: thinking and conscientiousness good. Good. Right, let's take another quick
Speaker 1: break and then we'll come right back. I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk a bit about just kind of like the characters
Speaker 1: as individuals, starting with Addie, coming at it just from
Speaker 1: a what do the characters do in the story as
Speaker 1: it pertains to like their actions in the context of
Speaker 1: being in this horror movie, because and we've talked about
Speaker 1: this on various episodes in the past, where women in
Speaker 1: horror movies will kind of be stripped of agency a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, or they'll be and again I'm
Speaker 1: always like worried about sounding victim blaming when I talk
Speaker 1: about this, but they'll they'll be like kind of flailing
Speaker 1: around and there's a killer right there, and they seem
Speaker 1: completely oblivious of their impending doom and just like different
Speaker 1: things like that where female characters were often just written
Speaker 1: to seem oblivious of their surroundings for whatever reason, and
Speaker 1: then they get killed about it. So this is sort
Speaker 1: of here what we're used to seeing as horror going audiences.
Speaker 1: So that you have Addie taking charge and making active
Speaker 1: choices and knowing what danger she's in and knowing anticipating
Speaker 1: what's going to happen, and we see her fighting and
Speaker 1: we see her, you know, knowing that there there's this
Speaker 1: scary family outside, let's call the cops immediately. Meanwhile, Gabe
Speaker 1: is like, no, I'm gonna go out there. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: exert my you know, masculinity at them and maybe scare
Speaker 1: them off. And then that doesn't work, so then he
Speaker 1: goes out again, this time with a weg Bin breaks
Speaker 1: his leg and gets his knee broken, right, So like meanwhile,
Speaker 1: like ADDIE's like I've already called the cops and we
Speaker 1: know that that's not going to do anything, of course,
Speaker 1: and then of course that they cops never show up
Speaker 1: in this movie. Well, I think they all got stabbed
Speaker 1: by Tether's in the cops defense, Like there was a
Speaker 1: lot happening. I think that all if it had just
Speaker 1: been one family that had Tethers to come, and I
Speaker 1: think the cops maybe would have come eventually eventually, like
Speaker 1: two later perhaps, But I do think it is cool,
Speaker 1: and especially the dynamic between Gabe and Adelaide, where I
Speaker 1: think that he has and we were kind of talking
Speaker 1: about it with how he relates to Tim Heidecker's character,
Speaker 1: but he definitely has like this need to appear to
Speaker 1: be the dominant figure in the family, when if you know,
Speaker 1: the second you want to the family interact, you know
Speaker 1: that Adelaide is the one that makes the decisions, and
Speaker 1: the way their relationship is is like she doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: need the credit for making the decisions, but she's making them,
Speaker 1: and that is like how how the story plays out
Speaker 1: down to like those subtle moments that happened between Gabe
Speaker 1: and Adelaide, and then also happens right before the Tethers
Speaker 1: arrived at the other house, at the Tyler House, where
Speaker 1: wife goes to her husband and says, something isn't right.
Speaker 1: I know, something isn't right. Something is going to go wrong,
Speaker 1: and then the husband is like, baby, baby, baby, relax,
Speaker 1: everything's fine, everything's great, it's good. Let's listen to the
Speaker 1: beach boys, and or let's just go to sleep or
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And which is I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: kind of like a horror classic of like don't believe
Speaker 1: women and then immediately get killed or injured, which I
Speaker 1: think there's a converse of that between Adelaide and Gabe,
Speaker 1: which I found was I thought was really interesting and thoughtless,
Speaker 1: handled better than what we see in most movies where so,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of movies will have something that
Speaker 1: happens out of this world and that would be difficult
Speaker 1: to believe, probably by most people. It happens to the character,
Speaker 1: the character tells someone else about it, and then because
Speaker 1: it is difficult to believe, the other character is always
Speaker 1: like I don't believe you, and I and classic yep,
Speaker 1: amazing performance by me, Thank you so much. This happens
Speaker 1: with Adelaide where she's like, Gabe, I, as a kid,
Speaker 1: I had this experience. I feel like this person is
Speaker 1: coming after me. She's I feel like she's getting closer,
Speaker 1: and he's a little dismissive where he's like, well, you
Speaker 1: know you were in a house of mirrors. Are you
Speaker 1: sure it wasn't your reflection? And she's like, no, it
Speaker 1: was real. She's explaining all this stuff and then she realized.
Speaker 1: She's like, you don't believe me, and he's like I do.
Speaker 1: I'm just processing and I can't believe you kept this
Speaker 1: inside for so long. And then he makes a really
Speaker 1: joke in bad taste about it, like a domestic violence joke,
Speaker 1: and then he's like, oh, that was a bad joke. Sorry,
Speaker 1: just trying to lighten the mood. And I feel like that.
Speaker 1: I just liked that exchange because in most cases you
Speaker 1: just get like you'd be like, I don't believe you.
Speaker 1: You're being hysterical or whatever, and then there's no possible
Speaker 1: way that happened. What are you crazy? Should I call
Speaker 1: the doctor? Yeah? But then Gabe, Gabe comes at it.
Speaker 1: I feel like kiss. Caitlin and I have talked about
Speaker 1: this a bunch of like how sometimes when male character
Speaker 1: is being dismissive towards a woman or being kind of cruel,
Speaker 1: whether they mean to or not, that it's presented in
Speaker 1: a very broadway that male viewer could not really see
Speaker 1: themselves in. But in this it's like, I mean, I've
Speaker 1: been in that type of situation recently of just like
Speaker 1: someone being like that's okay, No, it's like what, I
Speaker 1: don't know what it's a soft nag. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I would call this situation, sure, but but something
Speaker 1: that is certain the recognizable behavior. So he's not dismissive,
Speaker 1: but he is. He's like he says, he's processing, he's
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what this could have been. And
Speaker 1: then two seconds later he would have to realize that
Speaker 1: she is was telling the truth and this did happen
Speaker 1: to her because who shows up on their doorstep but
Speaker 1: a family that looks exactly like them. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: just I thought that was interesting that way that was handled.
Speaker 1: It felt like it was handled with a lot more
Speaker 1: nuanced than it normally is. So I appreciated that. And
Speaker 1: Vincent Duke just is great. He's so he's like the
Speaker 1: funniest perform Like it just he's great, he's amazing. But
Speaker 1: in terms of Adelaide making decisions and not needing credit
Speaker 1: for them, I thought that was spot on. And we
Speaker 1: see sort of a reversal from that when they're in
Speaker 1: Josh and Kitty's house and he's like, we should stay here.
Speaker 1: We've got the backup generator, we've got food, We're safe,
Speaker 1: and she's like, really, are we safe? You don't get
Speaker 1: to make the decisions anymore. And she's like, I've been
Speaker 1: making decisions, and I've been fine with letting you think
Speaker 1: that it's happening. But she's just like, this is enough.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to die for your masculinity. We're going
Speaker 1: to take my advice and we're going to Mexico. Because
Speaker 1: his pitch was like, let's do home alone. Let's set
Speaker 1: some traps, do home alone thing. And she's like, really,
Speaker 1: did you just really reference home alone right now? And
Speaker 1: then of course the kids are like, what's home alone?
Speaker 1: What are micro machines? The kids are like, we are young,
Speaker 1: that is old. What is reference? It's like, really, you
Speaker 1: don't know what home alone is? Everyone knows what home alone.
Speaker 1: I was working with the kid once who was in
Speaker 1: I think ninth grade, last year. So he's like sixteen,
Speaker 1: had never seen The Little Mermaid, had never heard of
Speaker 1: the Little Mermaid. So yeah, and I was astonished. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, one, this is a classic, but it's
Speaker 1: also very old. At this point, it's stated, yeah it's generating. Damn,
Speaker 1: we are simply old. So I believe they didn't know
Speaker 1: what Hamelan was there there is. And then I on
Speaker 1: the inverse of that, I like how I mean. I
Speaker 1: I think the child actors in this movie are really
Speaker 1: really talented and well directed. But even the way those
Speaker 1: characters are written, I felt like was unusual in a way.
Speaker 1: I really liked where I feel because you sort of
Speaker 1: get to know who Adelaide and Gabe are pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: I liked that it seemed like their daughter kind of
Speaker 1: took after Gabe a little more, and that Jason took
Speaker 1: a little more after Adelaide. I feel like that is
Speaker 1: not something you see in movies a lot. It's usually
Speaker 1: like daughter is like mother, son is like father, because
Speaker 1: gender binary where you can see I think, especially in Zora,
Speaker 1: you can see like both of her parents um, and
Speaker 1: then in in Jason, to have a younger son character
Speaker 1: who is like very sensitive and seems like resembles a lot.
Speaker 1: I think it's just kind of very much like how
Speaker 1: Addie was when she was a kid. I thought was
Speaker 1: really cool. You don't usually get to see a mother's
Speaker 1: son relationship that is like a mirror in in that way.
Speaker 1: Usually I feel like it's a little more gender like
Speaker 1: normative and strict about who resembles who in their actions.
Speaker 1: For sure, I think the fact that Jason is sensitive
Speaker 1: and different in many ways is one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that this big theory has come about where Jason is
Speaker 1: secretly it's heathered and um, I'm wondering if you were
Speaker 1: familiar with that theory and what you two thought about that.
Speaker 1: I read a little bit about it, but as soon
Speaker 1: I was reading in it in the same moment that
Speaker 1: I was also reading that Jordan Peel had completely dismissed
Speaker 1: that as a possibility, so I like, didn't even I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I remember that was one of
Speaker 1: the first, I think one of the first popular theories
Speaker 1: I encounter after see in the movie the first time
Speaker 1: and was like, wait, what what there? It's interesting. I think, like,
Speaker 1: if you like draw that out, it is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: But I think that yeah, it holds very little water.
Speaker 1: Jordan Peele was like, what, no, stop it. But I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting that this sensitivity and difference instead of
Speaker 1: just being like a sensitive boy was like, no, he
Speaker 1: must be a nightmare person from underground who has been replaced.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't like the applications of the theory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how little leeway we're willing to give young boys
Speaker 1: in our society to be sort of soft, right, like
Speaker 1: it has to be has to be a conspiracy. Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of some other gender normative stuff, here's like one
Speaker 1: of the few things that bumped me a little bit
Speaker 1: was so they the family has decided after killing like
Speaker 1: evil Josh and Kitty in that family, add he's like,
Speaker 1: we have to be on the move again. We have
Speaker 1: to leave, we have to run. And they realized they
Speaker 1: don't have the car keys that they need. So Addie
Speaker 1: goes back inside and she realizes that one of the
Speaker 1: twins is still alive. Now Addie is holding a fireplace
Speaker 1: poker tool that we have seen her used before as
Speaker 1: a weapon. She's right by the sink and she so
Speaker 1: she was realizing that one of the twins is about
Speaker 1: to pounce on her, so she grabs a frying pan
Speaker 1: even though she's already holding holding the poker, and then
Speaker 1: uses the frying pan to hit the twin with. And
Speaker 1: we've talked countless times on the podcast about how oftentimes women,
Speaker 1: if they are allowed to fight back or use a
Speaker 1: weapon at all, it is often some sort of domestic item,
Speaker 1: often specifically a frying pan. I will argue that it's
Speaker 1: like I thought that too, But then I'm like, but
Speaker 1: then I was like, wait a second fire poker. I
Speaker 1: mean it's not it's not like as over the top
Speaker 1: as a frying pan, But I'm like, that's kind of
Speaker 1: a household object as well, Like it is, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't have necessarily like the same it's not the gender
Speaker 1: right to me, it felt a little bit more neutral.
Speaker 1: So but then I was like, why was she grab
Speaker 1: a frying pan? She's already holding this weapon, which she
Speaker 1: continues to hold and fight like that's how she kills
Speaker 1: that's what she uses to fight red with at the
Speaker 1: end and stuff. So I think that it's interesting because yes,
Speaker 1: they are both household items, and one could argue like
Speaker 1: in terms of like Goddess of the hearth and like
Speaker 1: fires are also historically in some cultures very feminine and
Speaker 1: like keeping your house warm. But the fire poker was
Speaker 1: an item of necessity that she was able to grab
Speaker 1: while she was tethered to the coffee table, and so
Speaker 1: like that she used that to extract herself from danger
Speaker 1: and then continue to use that. So I was like
Speaker 1: fine with that. I was like, this is what you
Speaker 1: were able to grab. But then having that already, then
Speaker 1: grabbing the frying pan definitely read is weird because it's like,
Speaker 1: you have a thing in your hand, why another weapon?
Speaker 1: And it's like her signature weapon too. Yeah, so it
Speaker 1: was just like why what a weird choice, especially because again,
Speaker 1: I mean we could ratle off several movies right now
Speaker 1: where a woman uses a frying pan specifically, we see
Speaker 1: it and Tangled, we see it in Roger Rabbit, we
Speaker 1: see it in Raiders of the Last Dark, we see
Speaker 1: it in Shako La, you know, like it's always and
Speaker 1: Alfred Molina's shock. Okay, I got my little alf now
Speaker 1: in my recording area. I have my little Alfred Molina
Speaker 1: at already. I love Alfred Molina. I saw him in
Speaker 1: a play when plays were still a thing, the last
Speaker 1: the last play I ever saw a start. Alfred Molina
Speaker 1: in it. He's great. Wait the last play? Did you
Speaker 1: see the one in passive? I did, Yeah, the Father
Speaker 1: I saw it too. He was so good. He was good.
Speaker 1: Everyone else was okay, everyone else was okay. I don't
Speaker 1: see I don't see a lot of like live like plays,
Speaker 1: but I was so glad I got to see that.
Speaker 1: It was a weird play. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: liked the play. It was weird and sad, and ultimately
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I could have not seen this
Speaker 1: and felt better, but it was. It was well acted.
Speaker 1: But anyway, back to the movie, Um, I wanted to
Speaker 1: just really quickly say something that was a reference to
Speaker 1: something I said earlier. So and I because I just
Speaker 1: figured it out in real time. I was like, why
Speaker 1: does this bother me so much? And it's the my
Speaker 1: my criticism of female characters being written in a certain
Speaker 1: way in horror movies where they do seem unaware of
Speaker 1: their surroundings, or that they make questionable choices things like that.
Speaker 1: And this is almost always a male writer director presenting
Speaker 1: female characters this way. And I'll use one of the
Speaker 1: worst horror movies I've ever seen as an example. A
Speaker 1: movie called The Terror Fire, which is about a killer
Speaker 1: clown who reaks havoc around the city and is specifically
Speaker 1: trying to kill this young woman and her friend. I
Speaker 1: would watch it. I will say it would get a
Speaker 1: negative one zillion nipples on the Bechtel cast, so stopped us.
Speaker 1: In that movie, you see the protagonist, who as a woman,
Speaker 1: making countless choice after choice after choice of just you
Speaker 1: as the audience would be like, why would you do that?
Speaker 1: Why would you go back into the scary warehouse where
Speaker 1: you know a killer is Why would you do any
Speaker 1: of what you're doing besides running away and trying to
Speaker 1: find safety? And that is the thing that I take
Speaker 1: issue with because it's like, as women, we are constantly
Speaker 1: on high alert for our safety, right, we know the
Speaker 1: dangers lurking out there, and we're not just like obliviously
Speaker 1: making horrible choices all the time to go into scary
Speaker 1: warehouses where we just almost got murdered. Right. So yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I I just said I wouldn't put one of
Speaker 1: those family stickers on my car because somebody might come
Speaker 1: and murder my family, right, Yeah, we're all on the
Speaker 1: defensive now. I'm like, damn, I hadn't thought about that
Speaker 1: about the stickers, but now I'm off them for life,
Speaker 1: or I'll put a different sticker to throw them off
Speaker 1: my track, right right, Like we have eighteen kids and
Speaker 1: we all have guns, stay away. So yeah, So the
Speaker 1: point is, like I just I get so annoyed when
Speaker 1: like against specifically men who are making horror movies don't
Speaker 1: even know to take into consideration the high alert that
Speaker 1: women have to be on just in everyday life, especially
Speaker 1: at night, you know, and then make the assumption that
Speaker 1: it's irrational at its core. So that's I just wanted
Speaker 1: to clarify because I'm always like I sound so like
Speaker 1: victim blamey no. And I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that I like the Scream franchise so much, because
Speaker 1: Sidney Prescott is always very aware and hyper aware, and
Speaker 1: she's had multiple killers come after her. So as each
Speaker 1: movie gets on and she becomes smarter and more creative.
Speaker 1: But it's like basically about a woman who continues to
Speaker 1: be stalked and like how she fights against that as
Speaker 1: opposed to like, oh, Ladi da, I'm finding myself in
Speaker 1: this situation, like she becomes a target for these people
Speaker 1: who become obsessed with her, especially after a film about
Speaker 1: her life is made, So I think that that's really intriguing. Also,
Speaker 1: I love the movie Stab, which is the screen movies
Speaker 1: inside the screen movies, um, and I love that inside
Speaker 1: the movie in the fourth screen they have like a
Speaker 1: stab fest. But anyway back to us, I love screen
Speaker 1: and going off what you're saying, Caitlin, I am encouraged
Speaker 1: by seeing movies like us, and even because it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, we can't necessarily stop men from writing movies, right,
Speaker 1: so if we're going off of that, it is nice
Speaker 1: that they seem to be getting a little bit better
Speaker 1: about at least recognizing the tropes of the genre that
Speaker 1: are irrational and harmful and have everything to do with
Speaker 1: their writing versus what the reality is. I feel like
Speaker 1: another example you could point to is the new Halloween movie,
Speaker 1: where you know Laurie Laurie strode Um in the original franchise,
Speaker 1: like her actions are made to seem somewhat irrational, very
Speaker 1: like final girly, and then in the new one you
Speaker 1: see that she's been like living this life of fear
Speaker 1: and like what are the ramifications of that and examining
Speaker 1: at least and it's I will say that horror movies.
Speaker 1: Recent horror movies have done it with mixed results, but
Speaker 1: examining the PTSD aspect of being pursued by something terrifying
Speaker 1: and how that affects you psychologically, I will say that
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't. There's not a lot of
Speaker 1: horror movies that do it extremely well. The Babba Dick
Speaker 1: comes to mind of like one horror movie that deals
Speaker 1: with PTSD and and just like a fear really really well.
Speaker 1: I thought, or at least when we did the episode,
Speaker 1: wasn't I thought it was postpartum. Yeah, but I mean
Speaker 1: like a form of psychological stress and trauma here in
Speaker 1: in US. I it's kind of muddled for me. Where
Speaker 1: So we see young Addie, who actually is young Red,
Speaker 1: come up to the service and then she's put into
Speaker 1: therapy because she's not speaking. This is perceived to be
Speaker 1: a result of PTSD. It also appears to be a
Speaker 1: stressor on her parents marriage, which is every child of
Speaker 1: divorce is worst fear, although they seemed to have some
Speaker 1: issues before. Also, Oh yeah, because there's like it sounds
Speaker 1: like he you know, like there's there's some drinking going
Speaker 1: on and other other stresses on the relationship. Um, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm curious of like what you both
Speaker 1: made of that plot point. I felt I felt like
Speaker 1: it was less about developing PTSD and more about setting
Speaker 1: up for the reveal. And also I do like that
Speaker 1: it was she was gone for fifteen minutes. What can
Speaker 1: happen in fifteen minutes? And when we are in real
Speaker 1: time and the invasion is happening, Uh, they call the
Speaker 1: police and the police say they will be there in
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, and we already know what is going to
Speaker 1: happen or what can happen in fifteen minutes. If you're
Speaker 1: rewatching it, you're like, fifteen minutes is not good. You
Speaker 1: need to be there sooner. Bad things can happen. And
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that it was the dad
Speaker 1: who was like, what could have happened? It was only
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, and the mom was like, a lot can
Speaker 1: happen in fifteen minutes, Like ADDIE's mom like knows, and
Speaker 1: that's why she's so concerned for her daughter. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they have no clue what's happened to her, and it's
Speaker 1: far worse than they could have even imagined, Like they
Speaker 1: don't they never see their daughter again actually, and the
Speaker 1: other the other read that I was and this isn't.
Speaker 1: I don't have this backed up by anywhere. So maybe
Speaker 1: I'm just my brain is just turning into putting over time. Um,
Speaker 1: But I was. I was thinking, um just in terms
Speaker 1: of how it seems like ADDIE's parents want to get
Speaker 1: her help from a therapist. But the pts D, while
Speaker 1: it it's made I feel I feel like it sort
Speaker 1: of ties into what the message of the movie is,
Speaker 1: where it's they're ascribing PTSD to an individual when it
Speaker 1: actually represents something that is far larger, where it's like
Speaker 1: read is representative of this whole unseen population that is
Speaker 1: being actively oppressed and that is where this like stress
Speaker 1: and trauma is coming from. And also she can't communicate
Speaker 1: with her parents and she cannot describe what the problem is.
Speaker 1: And for self preservation issues, even when she has the
Speaker 1: tools to communicate, she doesn't because she wants to thrive
Speaker 1: in ADDIE's place. And I don't know, it's dense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here's a question. Do we think that Addie when she
Speaker 1: is newly Addie, when she's come from underground, do we
Speaker 1: think that she has repressed the fact that she was
Speaker 1: originally a tethered because I felt like that was supposed
Speaker 1: to be something we were believing. Yeah, I thought that
Speaker 1: was how That's how I thought we were supposed to
Speaker 1: see it. I don't know. I was focused far more
Speaker 1: on and again, maybe this is just me trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of something too hard, but I was focused
Speaker 1: more on, well, why doesn't real Addie, who has now
Speaker 1: been trapped underground and made to live among the tethereds,
Speaker 1: even though she is not a tethered why does she
Speaker 1: never try to escape and just go all? It seems
Speaker 1: like all she would have had to do is like
Speaker 1: run up an escalator that is going in the downward motion,
Speaker 1: But it seems I was like, why doesn't she she
Speaker 1: knows where she comes from, why doesn't she ever try
Speaker 1: to leave this terrifying place? I that was curious for
Speaker 1: me too, because so the tethered are mirrors of what's
Speaker 1: going on above ground. They're doing all the things that
Speaker 1: they're above ground people are doing, and then they switch places.
Speaker 1: So when they switch places, is now underground Addie and
Speaker 1: tethered to above ground Addie. Because there is also the
Speaker 1: speculation that they're sharing one soul, so it's not even
Speaker 1: that they are soulless. It's that they're like everybody's got
Speaker 1: half a soul sort of split between them, So like,
Speaker 1: is the soul stationary and it lives above ground? Like
Speaker 1: what is what the deal? Well, that's what Red seems
Speaker 1: to explain in the when they first invade the home,
Speaker 1: and she's like, I was tethered to you, and that's
Speaker 1: why I'm trying to become untethered, so I I think,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I guess that that's why I don't really
Speaker 1: like the ending. There's so many story logic issues that
Speaker 1: come up for me, and I'm just like, oh, what well,
Speaker 1: And the dance is the big lynchpin. When she's like
Speaker 1: fourteen years old and she has this dance recital where
Speaker 1: she ends up getting injured, and my understanding of that
Speaker 1: was that Red underground version read was able to take
Speaker 1: control during that dance and that's how she was ultimately injured,
Speaker 1: because she has that line where she's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: piked at fourteen with her leg as a dancer, and
Speaker 1: that's when they realized she was special because she could
Speaker 1: control her above ground or she could break from the tethering.
Speaker 1: And I don't understand what that was because they would
Speaker 1: all have to have eventually broken from the tethering to
Speaker 1: be able to even plan this and put on these
Speaker 1: fashionable jumpsuits, so that the moment where everything switches, the
Speaker 1: ending worked for me on this viewing, going with the
Speaker 1: read of the movie that I'm currently going with, um
Speaker 1: in that way, I feel like it really works. Where
Speaker 1: if you're going off of Jordan's Peel's kind of thesis
Speaker 1: that this is a movie about, like you, you know,
Speaker 1: American exceptionalism, like I deserve this lifestyle, this is I'm
Speaker 1: entitled to this, and just kind of I don't know,
Speaker 1: like exploring that fallacy of like, oh there's enough, there's
Speaker 1: enough prosperity to go around, where the reality of what
Speaker 1: I mean, I we've gotten this far without saying capitalism,
Speaker 1: so sorry, but like the reality of like American capitalism
Speaker 1: is that it's designed so that there's not enough room
Speaker 1: for everybody, and so for one person to prosper by
Speaker 1: this movie's logic and buy a lot of reality, another
Speaker 1: person has to be oppressed and suffer. So in that way,
Speaker 1: I felt like the swap ending works if that is
Speaker 1: supposed to be the message of the core, But like
Speaker 1: logistically there's for sure, I'm like, huh what And also
Speaker 1: there every time I do have to say it's an
Speaker 1: incredible line read from Lupete and Youngo. But every time
Speaker 1: reds like we are Americans, I'm like, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: Hitn't it real hard? There? Jordan's Well, that transitions into
Speaker 1: talking point that I wanted to hit on, which is, um,
Speaker 1: the use of disability equals evil in a horror movie.
Speaker 1: This is an enormous, widespread trope because what happened here
Speaker 1: is that Lupeta revealed at some point that as inspiration
Speaker 1: for the way she made Red's voice sound, she used
Speaker 1: the symptoms of spasmodic dysphonia, which is a neurological disorder
Speaker 1: that causes involuntary spasms of the larynx um. And her
Speaker 1: revealing this received understandably backlash. And uh, I'm pulling from
Speaker 1: an article in The Guardian entitled Lupida Nyongo's under fire
Speaker 1: from disability groups for quote evil voice in us SO.
Speaker 1: Respectability is a nonprofit organization that works to fight stigmas
Speaker 1: against people with disabilities. The president of Respectability, Jennifer Laslow
Speaker 1: ms Rahi, said, quote connecting disabilities to characters who are evil.
Speaker 1: Even further marginalizes people with disabilities who also have significant
Speaker 1: abilities and want to contribute to their communities just like
Speaker 1: anyone else dot dot dot. What is difficult for us
Speaker 1: and for the thousands of people living with spasmodic dysphonia
Speaker 1: is this association to their voice with what might be
Speaker 1: considered haunting end quote. So again, this is just another
Speaker 1: movie that describes a disability or a characteristic of a
Speaker 1: disability to a character who is evil, who is violent,
Speaker 1: who murders people. And this isn't just a horror movie thing.
Speaker 1: This happens in action movies. This happens in sci fi movies.
Speaker 1: This happens fantasy a lot ton basically across film in general,
Speaker 1: where disability could be demonize. Yeah, fiction across the world,
Speaker 1: in every aspect, disability will be demonized. I will say
Speaker 1: I love How To Train Your Dragon Too, because I
Speaker 1: feel like it's sort of goes against that where in
Speaker 1: How to Train Your Dragon Too? What's his face? I
Speaker 1: just forgot his name? Hiccup the main character. He has
Speaker 1: lost the leg and he modifies his dragon so that
Speaker 1: he can ride his dragon even with the missing leg.
Speaker 1: And he has like a prosthesis, and the villain of
Speaker 1: How To In Your Dragon Too also has a disability,
Speaker 1: but refuses to accept that their disability is a part
Speaker 1: of who they are, and like that's why they're bad,
Speaker 1: not because of disability. I like, I literally wept when
Speaker 1: I saw How To Train Your Dragon Too. It's like,
Speaker 1: this is beautiful, that they're pretty good, but I mean
Speaker 1: even speaking to how disability is portrayed, and then and
Speaker 1: the fact that it's it's like the demonization of disabled
Speaker 1: people is so normalized that Lupete and Youngo didn't think
Speaker 1: twice about saying that is I mean, it goes I'm
Speaker 1: glad she was called out for that, but it speaks
Speaker 1: to something that is much larger, where it's like, this
Speaker 1: is a horror movie that subverts so many common pitfalls,
Speaker 1: but there still wasn't really thought of or discussion about
Speaker 1: how disability is presented by by the filmmakers or by
Speaker 1: the actors or kind of on any level, which I
Speaker 1: feel like speaks to just how cooked in it is,
Speaker 1: to what is quote unquote okay to do for movie.
Speaker 1: And Lupida apologized, and I have this quote here as well.
Speaker 1: She said, quote it's a very marginal group of people
Speaker 1: who suffer from this, which sidebar. It's like, well, that
Speaker 1: doesn't make it okay. It's almost like, are you saying
Speaker 1: that that makes it okay? That it's only or offended,
Speaker 1: like who are this affected? But it's like I was
Speaker 1: only going to hurt seventeen people to continue the quote.
Speaker 1: The thought that I would in a way offend them
Speaker 1: was not my intention. In my mind, I wasn't interested
Speaker 1: in vilifying or demonizing the condition. I crafted read with
Speaker 1: love and care. As much as it was a genre
Speaker 1: specific world, I really wanted to ground her in something
Speaker 1: that felt real. For all that I say sorry to
Speaker 1: anyone I may have offended. End quote. So I don't
Speaker 1: love this apology. I feel like she's it's kind of
Speaker 1: like well in my the ends, but also I'm sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's like love and care for how like that's
Speaker 1: such a weird thing to add that the aircrafted red
Speaker 1: with love and care, Like ah that Lupeta. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean it's like if we're giving I don't know.
Speaker 1: That was like not a great apology, But I do
Speaker 1: hope that, like she's, she is going to carry this forward,
Speaker 1: and I hope that, you know, other actors saw this
Speaker 1: almost we're you know, we'll think twice. It's it's an
Speaker 1: easy It's just again, it's like it's so easy to
Speaker 1: just not do this and be respectful of other people. Um,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's not like it's usually people's intention to
Speaker 1: demonize things like this, but because, like you said, Jamie,
Speaker 1: it's become so normalized that people just do it without
Speaker 1: even giving it a second thought about who would be
Speaker 1: negatively affected by these kinds of misrepresentations, which is kind
Speaker 1: of fascinating because that's like what the movie is about
Speaker 1: that she's in is like how the whatever upstairs Lupeta
Speaker 1: has nothing but good intentions and is trying to do
Speaker 1: well but is ignoring what is going on elsewhere and
Speaker 1: is willfully ignorant of what's going on elsewhere. And this
Speaker 1: is like, I guess, not a one to one example,
Speaker 1: but a microcosm, but he is not even willfully ignorant.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe, but it's is it comes down to
Speaker 1: the question of is she has she repressed all of
Speaker 1: those memories of when she did live among the tethers
Speaker 1: underground or I guess I'm guess more just like those
Speaker 1: characters in general, not not the swaps well, And the
Speaker 1: frustrating thing for me is that there's also a plot
Speaker 1: based reason for Red to have a voice like that.
Speaker 1: She gets choked, she gets choked out and dragged down there.
Speaker 1: And she also has not spoken English in presumably many
Speaker 1: many years, so she's been using this other language that
Speaker 1: is very throat based, and she has throat injuries. And like,
Speaker 1: I don't understand why it had to be, Oh, there's
Speaker 1: this disease that looks interesting for me to copy. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't make sense because there's so many things that
Speaker 1: are based in the character and in the text that
Speaker 1: would make crafting that more sense. Like I don't could
Speaker 1: have just done an Andy Circus Golemn voice or something.
Speaker 1: I love Andy Circus, Yeah, okay, Circus hive over here.
Speaker 1: It feels like he'd be so much fun to like
Speaker 1: go to a party with and just hang out with
Speaker 1: him the whole time and talk to no one else
Speaker 1: at the party. I got to interview him a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, and it was I think my favorite
Speaker 1: interview I've ever done with anyone. Just such a pleasant, smart,
Speaker 1: thoughtful I could go on. I spent one hour with him,
Speaker 1: and I just have carried it for like I don't
Speaker 1: even know how long it was. It could have been
Speaker 1: like four years ago. But I was just like he
Speaker 1: was so nice, so my taller than him, exciting. The
Speaker 1: other things I had to mention were kind of I mean,
Speaker 1: I wanted to touch on the music, not really for
Speaker 1: uh intersectional feminism, but just because I think it's really
Speaker 1: fascinating the use of music and um karama, like you
Speaker 1: were saying this composer Michael Ables, I have no idea
Speaker 1: how it's pronounced. I just made a choice and went
Speaker 1: with it. Sorry, Michael, I don't know how to pronounce
Speaker 1: his last name Ables or abouts uh. I mean, his
Speaker 1: composition is incredible. He pulls from just like learning even
Speaker 1: about the music, he pulls from Tchaikovsky for that ending,
Speaker 1: he's like blending. I got five on it with Tchaikovsky,
Speaker 1: and it's like a section of Tchaikovsky from The Nutcracker
Speaker 1: where Clara is being pulled into a mirror world. So
Speaker 1: there's like that whole thing. It's so smart and so cool.
Speaker 1: And I also really liked um that there is a
Speaker 1: black ballerina like a motif in this movie. You like,
Speaker 1: that's like such a rare thing you never get to
Speaker 1: see in movies and especially in professional ballet. That's like
Speaker 1: a huge discussion that is ongoing in the ballet community.
Speaker 1: And I just love ballet in general. The dancing in
Speaker 1: this movie, it's upstairs, downstairs, it's all beautiful. I loved it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think that that was That was just a small
Speaker 1: rant I saved for the end at least. Thank you, Karma.
Speaker 1: Do you have anything else you wanted to discuss. I
Speaker 1: wanted to just discuss how I think Jordan Peel does
Speaker 1: a really great job of integrating visual clues and like
Speaker 1: just a lot of visual symbols and elevens coming up
Speaker 1: a lot, Like it's the first scene, the first scene
Speaker 1: on the boardwalk. Yes, we have the eleven eleven. We
Speaker 1: have the people playing rock paper scissors who keep doing scissors,
Speaker 1: which is also like a two. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of twos and elevens throughout the movie. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's her birthday. She gets number eleven, which is the
Speaker 1: thriller one, which is sort of about the like real
Speaker 1: the like good Michael Jackson turning into the bad Michael Jackson. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's just like a lot that's happening there. When she's
Speaker 1: watching the news, it's like Channel eleven news. You see
Speaker 1: the little elevens um, although they say channel seven I think,
Speaker 1: or they say channel four channel seven instead, but it
Speaker 1: says eleven on the screen, which was like I was like, huh,
Speaker 1: somebody missed that or I'm missing something. Um. And just
Speaker 1: like the ambulance, the ambulance that gets the Jeremiah eleven
Speaker 1: eleven guy at the beginning of like the current day stuff,
Speaker 1: it's ambulance number two, which is the same ambulance that
Speaker 1: they end up getting in and driving away in in
Speaker 1: the end. Um, there's there's so much just with elevens
Speaker 1: and twos that happens there. And like I said, the
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes thing that I mentioned earlier, how that became
Speaker 1: a mirror of what can happen in fifteen minutes with
Speaker 1: the disappearance at the beginning and then with the police
Speaker 1: coming in fifteen minutes. Just I think that it's really
Speaker 1: cool to see him sneak all that stuff in there,
Speaker 1: and I just think it's a pretty it's pretty tight,
Speaker 1: except for like you said, Caitlin, that last like ten
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes where it's like you explained too much, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Just like Jordan's do another rewrite of the end. Um
Speaker 1: they're just going off of because I think we like
Speaker 1: vaguely referenced it at the very beginning of the episode.
Speaker 1: But um, something that has been coming up a lot
Speaker 1: in this year's month of Horror movies is the fact
Speaker 1: that there is an unhoused person that is dead at
Speaker 1: the or really injured at the beginning of the movie
Speaker 1: as like a warning. UM. I think is something that
Speaker 1: we have been seeing pop up in a lot of
Speaker 1: horror movies, or at least two out of the four
Speaker 1: we're covering this month UM feature a story beat where
Speaker 1: an unhoused person and as UM brutalized or killed as
Speaker 1: a vague plot point to keep the protagonist story moving.
Speaker 1: We also saw this in A Girl Walks home alone
Speaker 1: at night and Uh, just right, better, you don't have
Speaker 1: to do that. Yeah, I agree. I think. The last
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to say was that I don't know
Speaker 1: if anyone noticed ADDIE's dad at the very beginning of
Speaker 1: the movie playing whack a mole and how bad he
Speaker 1: was at it. He really sucked. He didn't he wasn't
Speaker 1: moving the mallet around, he was just hitting the same
Speaker 1: empty hole over the mole hole over and over again,
Speaker 1: and nothing was popping out of it. I'm just like sir.
Speaker 1: He also stopped playing in the middle, where I don't
Speaker 1: know why I got so, but I was just like,
Speaker 1: you just gave them two tickets to play, and you're
Speaker 1: stopping in the middle. You waste You're wasting time. And
Speaker 1: oh it was too tickets. Like my inner Chucky cheese stand,
Speaker 1: it was two tickets. Also to play the game, two ticket.
Speaker 1: It was two tickets a lot of Jordan Peele is
Speaker 1: a terrific writer. I love get Out. I wish the
Speaker 1: ending of US was as solid as the ending of
Speaker 1: get Out, but most again, most of the much discussion. Yes,
Speaker 1: for sure, I just yeah, I can't wait to see
Speaker 1: more of his work. I also, I feel like US
Speaker 1: has more rewatch value than get Out. I feel like
Speaker 1: because there's so much that you notice different times. In
Speaker 1: a way, I feel like get Out is almost because
Speaker 1: it's so tight, you're like, oh, I see everything, it's there, Yep, yep, good, okay,
Speaker 1: got it, And with US it's sort of like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's so much that I don't understand, and maybe if
Speaker 1: I watch it again, i'll understand it a little bit
Speaker 1: more like I feel like there's a secret message and
Speaker 1: I don't quite have it yet, but if I watch
Speaker 1: it eighteen times, maybe i'll get it right. Yeah, it's fun,
Speaker 1: it's cool. It's weird because it's like it's the same
Speaker 1: genre as his first movie, but it's like completely different,
Speaker 1: Like it's yeah, you love to see range, Yes, you
Speaker 1: love to see the range. Uh does this movie pass
Speaker 1: the Bechdel test? We already said yes it does. Between
Speaker 1: um Addie and her daughter Zora between well, my question
Speaker 1: about that with Red? They never say Red's name on camera,
Speaker 1: So does she count as a named character if they
Speaker 1: don't say the character's name? That's my question. Well, my
Speaker 1: take on that is always like, even if the character
Speaker 1: isn't given a name, are they narratively significant enough that
Speaker 1: they matter to the story because the name the naming
Speaker 1: caveats always like, oh, are they like a barista who
Speaker 1: who you see for five seconds in the movie? Uh,
Speaker 1: and they don't have a name because they are not
Speaker 1: an important character? I think it's yeah, So I yeah,
Speaker 1: I count any interactions between Addie and Red as passing.
Speaker 1: And as far as our nipple scale goes, the zero
Speaker 1: to five nipples based on its based on an examination
Speaker 1: of intersectional feminism. UM. For this one, I think I
Speaker 1: would go like a three and a half. I do
Speaker 1: appreciate its exploration of class, uh and privilege and kind
Speaker 1: of the the what is the word that I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of, the fallacy? I think of the American
Speaker 1: dream and and things like that as sort of like
Speaker 1: an allegorical presence in the story. I do really appreciate
Speaker 1: the way that Adelaide's character is the protagonist and the
Speaker 1: most active character. Uh. We see her do things uh
Speaker 1: that are my brain is also putting. UM. I also
Speaker 1: love how active Red is. I mean, both of Lapida's
Speaker 1: characters are like the people in charge of their respective situations,
Speaker 1: which makes sense because they're tethered together, you know, they
Speaker 1: share the same soul. But they are the ones who
Speaker 1: are making the most active choices. They're the ones who
Speaker 1: are calling the shots in whatever it is they're trying
Speaker 1: to do. Zora also we see doing a lot of fighting.
Speaker 1: She attacks three different characters there. There's at one point
Speaker 1: they're talk about like their kill counts, and they're almost
Speaker 1: like kind of being like, well, I get to drive
Speaker 1: because I've killed the most people and she kills two, uh,
Speaker 1: and then she thought she killed three, but then yeah,
Speaker 1: she thought she had three, but she actually had too.
Speaker 1: That seems really funny. Yeah. I like that you see
Speaker 1: female characters in a horror movie, like knowing the danger
Speaker 1: they're in, immediately responding appropriately to that, making active choices,
Speaker 1: doing fighting that feels appropriate to what they would be
Speaker 1: capable of doing. Um. Nothing felt like how did how
Speaker 1: does she suddenly like a martial arts master with this
Speaker 1: uh fire poker? Like, we don't say anything like the
Speaker 1: Mary sus stuff. It's all it's all pretty grounded. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I I just wish the ending was a little bit different. Um.
Speaker 1: But other than that, I do really enjoy this movie.
Speaker 1: I'd give it three and a half nipples. I will
Speaker 1: give two of them to Lapita on the condition that
Speaker 1: she learns from her mistake of demonizing a characteristic of
Speaker 1: a disability. Uh. And I'll give one to the actor
Speaker 1: who played Zora, whose name is Hattie write Joseph, I think,
Speaker 1: yes exactly. And I'll give my remaining half nipple to
Speaker 1: the actor who played young Red slash Addie and her
Speaker 1: name I also wrote it down is Madison Curry. So
Speaker 1: those are my distributions. I think I'm gonna go for
Speaker 1: on this movie. Um, I yeah, I mean there's there's
Speaker 1: definitely some small things and a lot of it were
Speaker 1: had a little more to do with the production than
Speaker 1: the movie itself. But I mean Lupida marginalizing disabled people
Speaker 1: in that way, that's, uh, you gotta docket. Um and there.
Speaker 1: I mean we discussed a few things, but I think
Speaker 1: by and large, I mean, this movie does so many
Speaker 1: things that your average horror movie isn't doing in terms
Speaker 1: of like, you could not have a more complicated dual
Speaker 1: shared soul character than Red and Adelaide. There's so much
Speaker 1: being examined just within these two characters and how they
Speaker 1: interact with each other. Like it's, uh, it's slightly confusing
Speaker 1: at the end, but it's still it's I mean, show me,
Speaker 1: show me more layers. I don't think it's possible. I
Speaker 1: I I don't know. I like how I guess kind
Speaker 1: of like the reflection of a lot of family dynamics,
Speaker 1: of like Adelaide is very much in charge of her family,
Speaker 1: but has I mean, even the reflections on masculinity that
Speaker 1: this movie has I thought were pretty effective. Of Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you understand why Gabe is kind of in
Speaker 1: this standoff with Tim Hidecker whose name I never remember,
Speaker 1: uh Josh, but it is an impediment to the family ultimately.
Speaker 1: And I like the showing of masculinity in um Jason,
Speaker 1: whereby being more sensitive and more receptive to things, he
Speaker 1: sees things that other characters just don't. Uh. Zora is
Speaker 1: super active, I choose like one of the funniest characters,
Speaker 1: very able to call her dad out on his book
Speaker 1: bullshit and like, I don't know, I just like that
Speaker 1: and and I and I enjoyed most of the commentary
Speaker 1: being made with Pittie Tyler as well. I didn't really
Speaker 1: I was touch and go on the face the girl
Speaker 1: Joker moment wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but
Speaker 1: I I think, I mean, for especially for a movie
Speaker 1: that's written and directed by a man, that it's largely
Speaker 1: I mean, the portrayal of femininity and masculinity I thought
Speaker 1: was really effective and cool and used to examine a
Speaker 1: larger thing of pretty effectively. So I'm gonna go four.
Speaker 1: I'll give one to Adelaide, one to Red, one to Zorah,
Speaker 1: and then half of one to Kitty, and then the
Speaker 1: last half the little adelaide sorry for cutting a nipple
Speaker 1: and half, so it must be done. I am going
Speaker 1: to like two to others standing together, give four nipples,
Speaker 1: um two and two. They two twos everywhere nipple nipple
Speaker 1: nipple npples. Also eleven eleven is one one, which adds
Speaker 1: up to four. Yep, the number of nipples I'm giving.
Speaker 1: I like the commentary and how there's an acknowledgement of
Speaker 1: the fact that we are all living on stolen land
Speaker 1: and how that is going to bite us in the
Speaker 1: butt if we do not acknowledge it. And UH should
Speaker 1: be acknowledged because of the way that people are treating
Speaker 1: each other. And I would like to see less of
Speaker 1: the issues with the unhoused people and the the issue
Speaker 1: with the demonization of this disability. So that's automatically a
Speaker 1: nipple off in terms of not hitting the five nipples.
Speaker 1: But I will give a nipple to the shared nipple
Speaker 1: between the lupidas UH. Two nipples for Shahari, right, Joseph,
Speaker 1: because I honestly, every time I watch it, I have
Speaker 1: to remind myself that she is one person playing two
Speaker 1: characters and not two different actors. I feel like she
Speaker 1: and her were the most different for me. So she
Speaker 1: gets two nipples and then I'm going to give the
Speaker 1: last nipple to uh to Jason for the line kiss
Speaker 1: my anus, which is beautiful line or like, where did
Speaker 1: you even learn that word? He doesn't want to get
Speaker 1: in trouble for swearing, so he goes to the anatomically
Speaker 1: correct terms and I love it. So those are my
Speaker 1: four nipples. Um. Great exploration of privileged disparities, uh, and
Speaker 1: not great exploration of privilege disparities between people with disabilities
Speaker 1: and able bodied people. But you know, overall, good stuff,
Speaker 1: good story, good characters, fun time. Thank you for being here, Gramos,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. Yes, I'm so glad. Tell
Speaker 1: us Swear Bowl can check out your stuff online. You
Speaker 1: can check me out at Karama Drama k O r
Speaker 1: A m A d r A m A it rhymes
Speaker 1: for your pleasure. And I'm on Twitter and Instagram that
Speaker 1: I do not frequently post on Instagram because it makes
Speaker 1: me sad, but Twitter is great. Follow me on Twitter.
Speaker 1: I make jokes about Batman stick. It's fun. Oh yes, good,
Speaker 1: hell yeah yeah uh. You can follow us as well
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram. At becktel Cast you can subscribe
Speaker 1: to our Patreon aka Matreon. It's five dollars a month.
Speaker 1: It is UH to to wow to bonus episodes every month,
Speaker 1: including access to the entire back catalog. You can do.
Speaker 1: You can get our merge at public dot com slash
Speaker 1: the back del cast UH and we also have a
Speaker 1: face masks there. So if you're looking for a fun
Speaker 1: and fashionable way to UH live in the scariest timeline,
Speaker 1: that's a way to do it. Yes, indeed, and now
Speaker 1: we go, we scuttle back underground and stay tethered. I
Speaker 1: don't know my brain, it's tired. Fine,