Speaker 1: Hello, Bechtel heads. How's everybody doing dystopia? Um, So, my
Speaker 1: my name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Darante,
Speaker 1: and you, of course are listening to the Bechtel Cast,
Speaker 1: our weekly feminist podcast where we use the Bechdel Test
Speaker 1: to analyze movies of the world. Um, but but this
Speaker 1: week is um is a weird week. So we just
Speaker 1: wanted to pulp in at the top and uh say hello,
Speaker 1: say hello. We hope everyone is safe and healthy in
Speaker 1: taking precautions and you know, it's it's a confusing and
Speaker 1: scary time and we just we hope you're all doing well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope you're taking care of yourselves, um, as much
Speaker 1: as you're able to. We are very lucky to to
Speaker 1: be all right, and we're also lucky to be able
Speaker 1: to work from home. We're in separate places right now. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're not, you know, we're here for you, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, take care of yourself. And if you have uh,
Speaker 1: you know, resources, please give to your local food bank
Speaker 1: and just you know, solidarity. We need each other and
Speaker 1: we love you. And yeah, on that front, I mean
Speaker 1: we might be were we're talking about maybe starting like
Speaker 1: a little Twitter Movie Club. We'll I'll watch the same
Speaker 1: movie at the same time. We'll figure it out. It's
Speaker 1: on the table. Everything's on the table. Who knows what
Speaker 1: tomorrow will bring in a good way. Yes, Um, you
Speaker 1: are about to hear an episode that we recorded live
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Podcast Festival on the movie
Speaker 1: Black Swan, um, which brings us also to our upcoming
Speaker 1: live shows are as you might imagine, still in flux
Speaker 1: as to be expected. So yeah, so if if you
Speaker 1: if you have tickets to our Austin shows, UM, we
Speaker 1: will keep you posted on this status of their shows.
Speaker 1: We're gonna keep it on the same side. So we
Speaker 1: will go by whatever the recommendation is. And Boston shows
Speaker 1: are canceled and LA shows TBD kind of the same deal. Um. Yes,
Speaker 1: our our l A show which is not until mid May.
Speaker 1: Is hard to say what things will be like by then. Um,
Speaker 1: so for now it's still on. Um, we will announce
Speaker 1: if anything changes. But um, we do have a show
Speaker 1: booked at Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles on May fift
Speaker 1: It's my birthday show. So of course we are talking
Speaker 1: about Titanic, which brings me to a little shout out
Speaker 1: I need to do to uh listener fan of the show, Nicole.
Speaker 1: She gave me a very large Titanic poster then that
Speaker 1: I then bestowed upon to you, Jamie for a housewarming
Speaker 1: gift because you just moved. We still don't know what
Speaker 1: to hear that it's so big, it's so big, but
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's you know, it's magnificent and just an
Speaker 1: enormous shout out to Nicole for that wonderful gift. Thank you, Nicole.
Speaker 1: UM and I suppose that brings us to um the
Speaker 1: episode that you're about to hear. Yes, So this was
Speaker 1: recorded at the Brooklyn Podcast Festival back in January at
Speaker 1: the Bell House with guest Hunter Harris. It was a
Speaker 1: simpler time. It was so much fun. It was a
Speaker 1: sold out show, UM about Black Swan, which is, as
Speaker 1: you will hear, a dense movie. So we also had
Speaker 1: a few things. We had so much to say about
Speaker 1: this movie that it didn't actually all fit into the
Speaker 1: live show, so you will hear you know, uh Dystopian
Speaker 1: Caitlin and Jamie popping in with some extra stuff we
Speaker 1: didn't have time for at the live show. Uh. And
Speaker 1: with that, enjoy the dog cast the questions asked me
Speaker 1: was happening all their discussions? Just boy, husband, do they
Speaker 1: have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef and best start changing it
Speaker 1: with the Bedel Cast. Hi, Wow, everybody, Hi, welcome to
Speaker 1: the Baktel Cast Brooklyn. How's it going? You told us
Speaker 1: it's fine. Hi Jemmy, Hi, Hi, Welcome to the Bactel Cast.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming. For everyone who isn't
Speaker 1: physically present in the future, we're at the Bell House
Speaker 1: for the Brooklyn Podcast Festival. Yeah, thank you for coming. Um,
Speaker 1: we're here to talk about the most fucked up movie
Speaker 1: of all time. I'm so bad. I'm so okay, Lena
Speaker 1: and I we'll talk about what the punkast is in
Speaker 1: a second. But Caitlin and I a while ago, we're like,
Speaker 1: we have to stop talking about funked up movies at
Speaker 1: live shows because it bums people out. But then we're like,
Speaker 1: what do you think? Social network? Black Swan and the
Speaker 1: sixth sense like, so it's fine, it's ourry dark movie tour.
Speaker 1: It's fine. Yeah. I did a palette cleanser before tonight's show.
Speaker 1: I should have done this after this, but I went
Speaker 1: to see Paddington Gets in a jam Today, Caitlin, I
Speaker 1: have a quick question because I know the answer. Were
Speaker 1: you the only adult without a child at the show? Yes,
Speaker 1: I was, go off quick, Okay, wonderful, thank you. Well.
Speaker 1: To date, the only Broadway show I've ever seen a
Speaker 1: spongebout the musical also alone, It's a really good musical.
Speaker 1: Squid word taps with all six tentacles. It's it's like
Speaker 1: how they do that, it's it's wilds well. But now
Speaker 1: none of that passed the Bechdel test because we talked
Speaker 1: about Paddington words. Squid word right, allies, but does not
Speaker 1: feminist icmm a zon squidbird. I think you'll all agree.
Speaker 1: Um so, so I'm Jamie, I Caitlin, and uh, this
Speaker 1: is our feminist movie podcast. You know that you've paid
Speaker 1: money to be here. Um, but for for all your
Speaker 1: listeners at home, is there anyone here who hasn't heard
Speaker 1: the Bechtel cast before? Who's been Oh, okay, we've been
Speaker 1: killed hostages. Interesting? Interesting, It just means we have people
Speaker 1: to convert. Yeah, So for your benefit, this is a
Speaker 1: feminist movie podcast. We use the Bechdel test sometimes called
Speaker 1: the Beckdel Wallace test to start discussion. Uh, Caitlin, what
Speaker 1: is the Bechtel test? Well, Jamie, I'm so glad you asked.
Speaker 1: It's a media metric created by cartoonists Alison Bechtel, and
Speaker 1: it requires that two female identifying characters in a movie
Speaker 1: have to speak to each other about something other than
Speaker 1: a man. Can it happen in movies? Usually not? It has,
Speaker 1: but like not overwhelmingly so correct? Do we try it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Let's try it? You start? Okay? Oh funk? I wish
Speaker 1: I had? I know? I was like, I can only
Speaker 1: think about Scuppert and pattingson. Um yeah, no, no, no
Speaker 1: you okay, Hey Caitlin, Hey Jamie, okay, uma? Do you
Speaker 1: do you identify as? Are you more of like a
Speaker 1: white swan or a black swan? Oh? Well, isn't that
Speaker 1: just the human condition? You know? I wake up on
Speaker 1: one way, I go to sleep the other way. Who
Speaker 1: knows where I start? More n it all depends on
Speaker 1: what mommy says. It depends on how mommy treats me
Speaker 1: that day. Also, we should draw attention to your outfit. Right,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, as I will not shut up
Speaker 1: about all night. I dance ballet for fifteen years and
Speaker 1: I've got ship left over. Okay, so I've been waiting
Speaker 1: for a Black Swan episode for a long time because
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of ship I'm not using and
Speaker 1: and I wanted to use again. So for the listeners
Speaker 1: at home, oh, I didn't say what it was Jamie
Speaker 1: is wearing? Is this a leotard? Is this what you
Speaker 1: call this? What do you? Don't be worried? It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I don't know. It's a later. Oh can I
Speaker 1: say something very feminine? Okay, I found out two days
Speaker 1: ago I got I like, got my actual brass eyes
Speaker 1: measured and there's an asterisk here. But I'm a thirty
Speaker 1: two C. And I okay, hold your applause, because when
Speaker 1: I told you two days ago, you got very quiet,
Speaker 1: as if you did not believe me. Doesn't believe women.
Speaker 1: It's cannon. I'm canceled. But but you got very quiet.
Speaker 1: But but including the woman who had measured my BRA's eyes,
Speaker 1: she was like, you're a thirty two C. And I
Speaker 1: was like, how is that possible? And she was just like, well,
Speaker 1: you have the largest ribbed cage I've ever seen. And
Speaker 1: so that's also factor in. You can have the smallest
Speaker 1: titties of all time and be a thirty two c
Speaker 1: we exist. Okay, we were out here. Oh we have
Speaker 1: someone who just raised her head. They're like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: all you need is a ripped cage. You're not really using,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I think I was like quiet, and then
Speaker 1: I was like what my my my boyfriend had stopped
Speaker 1: passing the baital test. But he said later he said
Speaker 1: he was like, wow, Caitlin really did not believe you. Well,
Speaker 1: it was the room in my In her defense, my
Speaker 1: titties are very small. I think we are all we
Speaker 1: were all led to believe we live in a society. Okay,
Speaker 1: we do live in a society leads us to believe
Speaker 1: that the larger the breast, the larger the cup. So
Speaker 1: that's why I was surprised. Okay, thank you for that
Speaker 1: feminist analysis of my literal titties that are out right now. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm wearing ballet, my ballet best tonight. Um
Speaker 1: because we're talking about black Swan. We're so excited. Um,
Speaker 1: it's been a long time request and I am so
Speaker 1: threat like, we have the best possible person in the
Speaker 1: entire wall to talk about it with us, So let's
Speaker 1: bring her out. Let's do it. She is wonderful. She's
Speaker 1: a staff writer at Vulture. Give it up for Hunter.
Speaker 1: Oh Fish, yes, yes, oh hi, hi, hi Hi? How
Speaker 1: are you? I I think I drink too much beer
Speaker 1: in the beer Um, never happened in my life. She's Carolina. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we brought out a full bottle of of of white wine. Um,
Speaker 1: that feels like a ballet drink. I don't know. Ballerina
Speaker 1: is gonna drink anything. They drink ecstasy. And in this movie.
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, Hunter, were so excited you're here, particularly for
Speaker 1: this movie. Um, so let's let's get into it. What
Speaker 1: is everyone's experience with Black Swan? What's what's your experience
Speaker 1: with Hunter? Okay, So when I was in high school,
Speaker 1: I was like very pretentious obviously, and I remember like
Speaker 1: when I first started like reading about movies, like new movies.
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, this movie black Swan like looks
Speaker 1: legit because it had won at Venice or something and
Speaker 1: right and so and then I dragged all my friends
Speaker 1: to see it, and they like, we all loved it.
Speaker 1: I like on Facebook when it shows you like ten
Speaker 1: years ago what your Facebook status was, they were all
Speaker 1: about black Swan. Um. Most of the time just black
Speaker 1: Swan and all caps um because I was a writer. Uh.
Speaker 1: But but um, so we saw it and like loved
Speaker 1: it and would talk about it every day. And I
Speaker 1: remember being in speech and debate and my teacher, who
Speaker 1: I guess I won't name, um was like hated it.
Speaker 1: Thought it was so like weird and bad and and
Speaker 1: that was what we got into a big fight about it.
Speaker 1: And I think, I mean I quit speech and b
Speaker 1: because I for other reasons, but that was always the
Speaker 1: back of my mind, like, did not trust this man
Speaker 1: who did not like Black Swan? Incredible? Uh, Caitlin, was
Speaker 1: your experience with the movie? I saw it in theaters
Speaker 1: and in two ten and um, I had only seen
Speaker 1: it that one time before rewatching it to prep because
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this about me, but
Speaker 1: I love a good romp. In this movie is not
Speaker 1: a romp. I thought there was gonna be a twist.
Speaker 1: It's like, how could you have interpreted this? This movie
Speaker 1: makes me feel terrible, and I don't like watching movies
Speaker 1: that make me feel terrible. So I saw it. I
Speaker 1: walked out of the theater. I was with my best friend,
Speaker 1: and I was like, funk that movie. I feel so horrible,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm never watching this again, but
Speaker 1: I did. Yeah, so that's my I'm excited to talk
Speaker 1: about it. But I find this movie very challenging. Wow, Brave,
Speaker 1: I know, thank you, m Jay. This movie is one
Speaker 1: of my favorite movies of all time, but I cannot
Speaker 1: watch it too often because it's like trigger It like
Speaker 1: is triggering in every single possible way a movie. Like
Speaker 1: after I watch it, I'm like, I remember why Mental
Speaker 1: Illness was kind of fun, uh, like maybe we should
Speaker 1: revisit it. And then you're like wait wait wait wait, no, no,
Speaker 1: and then you watch and then I watched the end.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh right, that's why we don't do that anymore.
Speaker 1: But I really I love this movie. This movie came
Speaker 1: out at like I was like very into dance growing up,
Speaker 1: and this came out at like the peak of that.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know it when in two
Speaker 1: thousand kind of came out. So I was like either
Speaker 1: a senior in high school where I had just entered college,
Speaker 1: and I saw it with my dance friends and we
Speaker 1: were all we all took away the wrong message from it.
Speaker 1: We were like, Wow, her pursuit for greatness paid off
Speaker 1: like were we were so thrilled about it, Like I
Speaker 1: love this movie. It makes me and I think, like
Speaker 1: the more I watch it, the older I get, the
Speaker 1: more anxious it makes me. Um. But but I but
Speaker 1: I feel like that's like almost a testament to the
Speaker 1: movie where there were mental illness symptoms portrayed in this
Speaker 1: movie that I hadn't even begun to display when I
Speaker 1: first said. And then I watch it, you know, six
Speaker 1: or seven years later, I'm like, oh, the scratching right,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, like there's there's a lot going
Speaker 1: on in this movie, and it weirdly specifically appealed to
Speaker 1: me at the exact moment it came out. And so
Speaker 1: I'm going to defend it too much? Okay, Yeah, well
Speaker 1: should we do the recap and go from let's recap?
Speaker 1: So we meet Nina. That's Natalie Portman. Nina sayers. Yes,
Speaker 1: she's a very dedicated ballet dancer in New York City.
Speaker 1: Ever heard of it? Uh? For I believe? Is it
Speaker 1: just called the New York City Ballet Company? I think?
Speaker 1: So where is it real? I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it's real. It's real. Okay, Okay, I'm not a dancer. Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: I wasn't that good. We opened on a scary dream
Speaker 1: she's having, and then strange things start happening to her
Speaker 1: right away, like she sees a woman on the subway
Speaker 1: who looks exactly like her, and it's like doing the
Speaker 1: same little hairtuck behind the ear. I like the immediately
Speaker 1: in this movie, you're like, oh, mirrors a metaphor like
Speaker 1: and it keeps going, it doesn't stop. It's assuming that
Speaker 1: you're not getting it the first time. Something that I
Speaker 1: didn't realize until I was on Wikipedia like four hours ago,
Speaker 1: is that she's supposed to be twenty years old in
Speaker 1: this movie. Yeah, she's clearly thirty. Interesting. We meet Lily
Speaker 1: that's me Lacunas, she is a new dancer to the company,
Speaker 1: and then we also meet toma Um that's Vincent Castle. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's like the director of the company. Who is Vincent Castle?
Speaker 1: Am I supposed to know who he is? And if so,
Speaker 1: why some stuff? Yea, he's like a famous French movie
Speaker 1: star and he's married like a beautiful younger woman, so
Speaker 1: I should I mean, that's grounds fair enough, okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1: He announces that they'll open their season with Swan Lake.
Speaker 1: Um but a more like a gritty version of it
Speaker 1: this time there like it's Chris Nolan's uh, and he
Speaker 1: needs a lead who can dance the Swan Queen, which
Speaker 1: is means to do both the white Swan and the
Speaker 1: Black Swan. He basically just like raises his hand. He's like, um,
Speaker 1: I need the Madonna whore complex represented in this movie.
Speaker 1: Can anyone? So Nina is auditioning, but Lily barges in
Speaker 1: and throws Nina off, so she does get cast in
Speaker 1: that role. Also because Toma only sees her as being
Speaker 1: right for the white Swan because she's like very innocent
Speaker 1: and controlled, And she goes to ask him for the part,
Speaker 1: and then he forces himself on her and kisses her
Speaker 1: and she bites back, and this convinces him that she
Speaker 1: is dark and edgy enough somehow. God, it's that like
Speaker 1: he's like, you passed the text. It's like I assaulted
Speaker 1: you and you assaulted me back, like you're just like okay,
Speaker 1: ballet is the most fucked up thing in the entire world.
Speaker 1: But also in that scene, she's like her big transformation
Speaker 1: is that she's just wearing lipstick like like and he says, oh,
Speaker 1: you're so dulled up like the lipstick ice over my
Speaker 1: note a writer. Yeah yeah, and that literally is what
Speaker 1: oh that's great. So she now it has been cast
Speaker 1: is the Swan queen and Toma shows her off at
Speaker 1: this is that a gala. I don't know what a
Speaker 1: gallet is. There's a staircase. There's a staircase. It's a
Speaker 1: galas fancy and um. This woman Beth When On a
Speaker 1: Writer's character is there and she used to be the
Speaker 1: prima ballerina of the company, but she's being forced into
Speaker 1: retirement because she is aging and right and and just
Speaker 1: to be clear, aging in this movie is like ballet aging.
Speaker 1: And when When On a Writer was thirty eight when
Speaker 1: this movie came out. She's there like this old hag
Speaker 1: and like she is like she's still got eggs, Like
Speaker 1: she's fine, you know, I think she says that too.
Speaker 1: She's like, no, I still have eggs were talking about
Speaker 1: because they're like, oh, she's hitting menopause, and she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm actually not, like I'm in my sexual prime. Uh.
Speaker 1: And at the end of this night, Toma has Nina
Speaker 1: back to his place and he's very he's being very creepy.
Speaker 1: He's asking about her sexual history, and then he gives
Speaker 1: her a homework assignment, which is to touch herself, and
Speaker 1: we're all like appropriate silence. Yeah, yikes. Has a male
Speaker 1: teacher ever given you a creepy homework assignment? Not that creepy,
Speaker 1: I'm happy to say, congratulations. I had a sure in
Speaker 1: high school who was once. It was not like Vincent
Speaker 1: cassel Castle or whatever France. I don't know. Um. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like go home and jerk off, but he was
Speaker 1: like I had an art teacher. He told you like
Speaker 1: to chug. He told me to chug robotesting. He was like,
Speaker 1: do you have cough medicine in your house? I'm like yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's like is it robotest And I'm like CBS
Speaker 1: brand clothes and he's and he was like, you should
Speaker 1: drink it. And then I did and I took. So
Speaker 1: he says drink it and you're like and I said
Speaker 1: walking home, like yeah, let's let me go do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Because he was twenty six and I was fifteen, and
Speaker 1: so I was like, I better do what he says.
Speaker 1: And then I went home and I drank the robotestin
Speaker 1: and I was like, I feel sick. And then I
Speaker 1: took a picture on my sony digital camera. Unfortunately that's
Speaker 1: where the story ends. But um, you know, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: that happened. Very well, I'm fine, Okay. So the following morning,
Speaker 1: after being given this creepy homework assignment, she follows through
Speaker 1: and starts masturbating. But oh, her overbearing mother is in
Speaker 1: the room. Does everyone remember where they were the first
Speaker 1: time they saw this scene. It's like so alarming. Uh,
Speaker 1: And then other weird stuff keeps happening. Um, there's scratches
Speaker 1: on her back, there's like some other body horror stuff
Speaker 1: happening with her fingernails. I just want to speak about
Speaker 1: the nails for one moment, because the thing that just,
Speaker 1: you know, really grinds my gears is that in this movie,
Speaker 1: the mom takes out scissors and clips her fingernails and
Speaker 1: just acts like this is normal, Like my god. And
Speaker 1: then later in the movie when she like the body
Speaker 1: horror increases and she's like, okay, enough of this nail ship,
Speaker 1: she takes scissors herself and does it. Like there's nothing
Speaker 1: else in the home. Who has nail scissors. We all
Speaker 1: have nail clippers, right, These are like children's scissors. No,
Speaker 1: they're not They're like, they're like sewing scissors, like they're sharp. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're just like so clearly not meant for human nails. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just think that needs to be discussed, thank you.
Speaker 1: There's no context given for why there are no nail
Speaker 1: clippers in the house. It takes place in the present day.
Speaker 1: They live near a Dwayne read like they could have them.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be hard. Okay, So does anything else happened?
Speaker 1: That's the end of the movie. Um, And then we
Speaker 1: find out that Beth has had a horrible accident that
Speaker 1: leaves her legs badly disfigured. And meanwhile, Nina is practicing
Speaker 1: and working very hard on the upcoming show. And then
Speaker 1: Toma is like, you're not fuckable enough when you're dancing.
Speaker 1: It's we're like, oh jeez um, that's what she says.
Speaker 1: And Lily is showing up more and more trying to
Speaker 1: be friends with Nina or is she We don't know.
Speaker 1: It's almost like there's an unreliable narrator in this movie.
Speaker 1: But they all go out for drinks, Lily and Nina,
Speaker 1: and then Lily gives her um, is this ecstasy? I
Speaker 1: don't know how drugs work. I think like, Cale and
Speaker 1: I were talking about this backstage. Caleb was like, okay,
Speaker 1: So then she takes an ecstasy, she has one unit
Speaker 1: of ecstasy, she has an ecstasy based on the ecstasy,
Speaker 1: and then that's the line. That's the line. And then
Speaker 1: the night progresses and then uh, Nina and Lily go
Speaker 1: home together, they make out and they have sex or
Speaker 1: do they the queer painting of a generation someone's cheering
Speaker 1: the ground. Um. Then the following morning, Nina is like,
Speaker 1: is late getting to rehearsal and Lily is there dancing
Speaker 1: in her place. Lily's like, yeah, I didn't stay over,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? So either she's like gaslighting
Speaker 1: Nina or Nina just imagine them having sex. Um. And
Speaker 1: then she finds out that Lily was made her alternate
Speaker 1: for the Swan Queen and she thinks that Lily is
Speaker 1: trying to steal her role. And then on the night
Speaker 1: of the performance she shows up, but she's like all
Speaker 1: disoriented to her mental state, which has been unraveling this
Speaker 1: whole time. Is an all time worse. That's not the
Speaker 1: name of the band came in. It's an all time love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know why I said it, Like that Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's definitely not an expression. Okay. But so she's like
Speaker 1: seeing visions of herself on other people's faces during the show,
Speaker 1: and then between acts she's growing feathers. Also her feet
Speaker 1: or webs. Her feet are web her eyes are blood
Speaker 1: shot or are they? Oh? And then and then during
Speaker 1: the show she is dropped. That's like, I just think
Speaker 1: we need to take a moment for that, because that's
Speaker 1: like a big She's dropped and starts freaking out, and
Speaker 1: then she's like, okay, fuck this puts on the Black
Speaker 1: Swan makeup and she's like, let's get it popping right.
Speaker 1: But I think before that she gets in a fight
Speaker 1: with Lily in her dressing room or does she and
Speaker 1: stabs her with a piece of broken mirror or does she?
Speaker 1: And then Nina like drags her body into the bathroom
Speaker 1: and then goes out as the Black Swan and like
Speaker 1: does she does great as the Black Swan? Everyone loves
Speaker 1: do ye uh? And then there's another act break and
Speaker 1: Nina comes down to a dressing room, but Lily's body
Speaker 1: is not there and it never was or was it?
Speaker 1: So didn't she stab She has stabbed herself? Is what happened?
Speaker 1: Can I okay, I've as someone who has never stabbed themselves,
Speaker 1: it seems like a pretty little stab. Maybe she punctures
Speaker 1: an organ or something. I don't know, but she pulls out.
Speaker 1: She's like, it's deep, but it's little. No, that child
Speaker 1: of glass was like an in twide. Someone was like
Speaker 1: and like, I was like, I feel like you could.
Speaker 1: People could stabbed a lot of times and they're okay, um,
Speaker 1: according I don't mean to challenge, but I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't think. But I think you're assuming that she's like
Speaker 1: a reliable narrator in this moment. I don't think we
Speaker 1: know necessarily how much because she breaks so much glass
Speaker 1: and it's like gone the next time she comes back,
Speaker 1: and so I don't think we know exactly how deep
Speaker 1: the injury is it. And also the costume itself is
Speaker 1: so lush and there's so much tool t U L
Speaker 1: L E that just you it was the other kind
Speaker 1: of tool all so looks like gauze, Like her costume
Speaker 1: is made of gauze, Like is this common? And also
Speaker 1: we see in the previous scene that she goes to
Speaker 1: see Beth in the hospital and Beth stabs herself, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of clear that that isn't actually what happens,
Speaker 1: or is it, but like it's maybe it's like there's
Speaker 1: a million she's she looks at Beth stabbing herself, and
Speaker 1: then she turns back and it's like suddenly her face
Speaker 1: stabbing her, Nina's face stabbing Nina. So she could have
Speaker 1: been stabbing herself for several hours before this happens, and
Speaker 1: it's like no one caught this, even even at the
Speaker 1: end when Vincent Castle Cassel is looking over and it's like,
Speaker 1: you were so great, and then everyone's like, oh, and
Speaker 1: there she's covered in blood. Right, How does no one
Speaker 1: notice for like two minutes? I get why the audience
Speaker 1: hasn't noticed because she's really far away, but everyone's congratulating
Speaker 1: her for like seconds, but where they're like, oh, she's dead.
Speaker 1: She can't hear us, right, which is how the movie ends.
Speaker 1: So Lily, so sorry, Nina has apparently stabbed herself and
Speaker 1: then she dies at the end of the performance, and
Speaker 1: that's the end of the movie. So let's talk about it.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, there's so much. There's a there's a lot
Speaker 1: to talk about with this movie. I I'm gonna cut
Speaker 1: this movie. A lot of slack for a movie that
Speaker 1: we have to say right at the top. It was
Speaker 1: directed by Darren Aronovski. As most people know, it was
Speaker 1: written by three men who aren't Darren Aronovsky. Um, which
Speaker 1: is somehow miraculous they managed to is he is he
Speaker 1: Darren Darren I did invite him, Darren I just tweeted
Speaker 1: Darren Arnovsky, please come. I do hope you're wearing about
Speaker 1: this scarf thing? Yeah? He in do you know what
Speaker 1: the scarf thing? Okay, let me get that. My very
Speaker 1: about Darren Aronofsky is that he loves wearing scarves and
Speaker 1: he's like rarely spotted without a scarf, and they're always
Speaker 1: like just so ostentatiously large. Um. And I think it
Speaker 1: was Huffington's Postum. A reporter asked him, like, why do
Speaker 1: you always wear scarves? And he was like the weakness
Speaker 1: of my body is my throat, which, you know what,
Speaker 1: what a way to say a thing. It's all I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say about that. That's also like, oh, something anyone
Speaker 1: could say, but he says as if it's specific to him.
Speaker 1: What does he say? You know how someone's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't like my you know, arms? Like is he
Speaker 1: insecure about it? Or is he saying like someone might
Speaker 1: slash my throat and I have to cover it up.
Speaker 1: What if that said? What if he's like the knives
Speaker 1: are out, I like, I have to keeper buttoned up.
Speaker 1: My favorite Aronofski fact is that Jennifer Lawrence broke up
Speaker 1: with him because he wouldn't shut up about Mother's reviews.
Speaker 1: He's just a fragile person. Um, mother, mother, exclamation point too,
Speaker 1: that's important. Um, wow mother, what a moment. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So where's there? Where should we start? Uh, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of ways we can start. I mean I think that. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the big things for us to talk about
Speaker 1: is I I feel like something where this movie really
Speaker 1: is like cool and succeeds is in kind of encompassing
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways where it seems like Nina's
Speaker 1: downfall and like some of the specifics of this kind
Speaker 1: of miss but Nina's downfall seems to be this big
Speaker 1: pile up of expectations of women where she's trying to
Speaker 1: be everything at once and there's no way anyone can
Speaker 1: be everything at once and when she tries to be
Speaker 1: the second she succeeds, she died. So, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: there's so much being asked her, and I feel like
Speaker 1: him choosing ballet is like a very deliberate in doing so,
Speaker 1: because it's so over the top of those expectations where
Speaker 1: her body has to be a very particular way, and
Speaker 1: we see, you know, she has an eating disorder and
Speaker 1: she has to like suffer to look a certain way,
Speaker 1: and um, her director is demanding the Madonna whore complex
Speaker 1: from her, where like you have to be a virgin,
Speaker 1: but you also have to be a slut and like
Speaker 1: and if she isn't both at once, he's mad at
Speaker 1: her and he retaliates against her, and like she's she's
Speaker 1: trying to be all these things at once while also
Speaker 1: being told by everyone around her, like if she has
Speaker 1: a thought or like any sort of like problem or
Speaker 1: mental illness of her own, there's no time for it,
Speaker 1: and she can't deal with it. And it's just like
Speaker 1: every single thing piles up on her to the point
Speaker 1: where her like what happens to her makes sense or
Speaker 1: that's how I I'm just I'm just like, you know,
Speaker 1: justice for Nina. But she was perfect, so was it
Speaker 1: worth it? She was really good? So for me, Okay,
Speaker 1: Darren Aronofsky, he loves an allegory. We've all seen Mother,
Speaker 1: No we haven't. It's the most popular movie. No, And
Speaker 1: I think he handles like metaphor better in Black Swan.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, right this the narrative is sort
Speaker 1: of like an allegory or metaphor for you know, a
Speaker 1: woman's role in society and uh, the expectation to be
Speaker 1: a certain way and to be perfect and to be
Speaker 1: striving for that perfection, and also coming up against different
Speaker 1: things like sexual predators and just the sort of different
Speaker 1: relationship dynamics that are in some ways like women competing
Speaker 1: against each other or idea of aging right here, yes,
Speaker 1: so all these different things that the movie handles well,
Speaker 1: watch your words, be very careful, my okay. My whole
Speaker 1: thing is that I think one of the reasons this
Speaker 1: is so challenging for me, this movie to to talk about. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: it addresses a lot of things, and you could argue
Speaker 1: that like the Ballet Company is sort of like a
Speaker 1: microcosm of the patriarchy and all this stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but the movie, again, the movie makes me feel horrible.
Speaker 1: So while it's like, yes, addressing things and it's like
Speaker 1: here's how society be, uh, I there's this I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's just like there's so few like I don't feel
Speaker 1: empowered by this movie, and that's not the intention. It's
Speaker 1: not the intention, But I'm just like, where are the
Speaker 1: movies that like I can feel empowered by? Where are
Speaker 1: the prompts? I know? So like I'm coming at it
Speaker 1: with like this bias of like it makes me feel
Speaker 1: bad and I don't like it, but there's value to
Speaker 1: it and I'm going to try to I'm gonna check
Speaker 1: my feelings anyway. Okay, let's move Okay. Um, I don't
Speaker 1: know a hunter. Is there any like any particularly like them?
Speaker 1: This movie addresses that like stands out to you especially. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing that I always come back to is like
Speaker 1: this idea of Nina being like a child. She lives
Speaker 1: with her mother on the Upper West Side, which is
Speaker 1: you know whatever, but um, but even I feel like
Speaker 1: it's kind of like one of the bigger reveals in
Speaker 1: the movies when she's masturbating and then you like pants
Speaker 1: out and you see like how pink her bedroom is.
Speaker 1: It's like she sleeps with stuff, animals, g everything, Like
Speaker 1: she has like a music box that her mom talks
Speaker 1: her in at night and all of this stuff that
Speaker 1: it's like a woman has raised her to be sort
Speaker 1: of infantile in a way, to be like molded by men.
Speaker 1: But at the same time the men in her life,
Speaker 1: the man in her life is like, that's not what
Speaker 1: I want you to be. He's like asking her to
Speaker 1: present differently, to be more salacious and sexy and sexual.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because a lot of like I was
Speaker 1: reading about this today that Natalie Aportman, like Danna Knoski,
Speaker 1: was like trying to figure out who could be the
Speaker 1: Lily character, who could look enough like Natalie Portman for
Speaker 1: it to be like a convincing double that's not just
Speaker 1: her playing this other part. And it's like some of
Speaker 1: the some of the ways the camera shoots Mila Kunas
Speaker 1: and Allie Portman is like identical, and you get the
Speaker 1: sense that like these are sort of like one can't
Speaker 1: exists without the other. Harry Potter, Um wow, so sorry,
Speaker 1: um no, keep going, that's like the second Harry Potter.
Speaker 1: Everyone's I've made today, Like I'm done, Um cut the
Speaker 1: cameras that has sorry, uh. But I think like that
Speaker 1: sort of duality is really interesting, and I think the
Speaker 1: way that visually they sort of exploit their likeness is
Speaker 1: really cool. Um. And also just that like even there's
Speaker 1: somethings about Natie's performance of this movie, although I do
Speaker 1: think she should have wanted her oscar for Jackie, But um,
Speaker 1: thank you the same way. Wow, Okay, no, I mean
Speaker 1: that in a good way. Um. The way that like
Speaker 1: Natalie Portman changes her voice throughout the movie I think
Speaker 1: is really like cool. And the scenes with her mom
Speaker 1: she's like, I just want to dance and then sorry
Speaker 1: about that, and then and then later she's like, I'm
Speaker 1: the Swan queen. It's like, okay, okay, raise your voice.
Speaker 1: That stuff I think is really cool, like how she
Speaker 1: is playing with just like femininity and like womanhood in
Speaker 1: terms of aging. Yeah, I mean, I like one of
Speaker 1: the things that I like, didn't I definitely didn't catch
Speaker 1: on the first few because in the first few I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is good mental health and how I should act. Um.
Speaker 1: But the you know, media is complicated. But um, you
Speaker 1: were like what a romp. I'm like, wow, can't wait
Speaker 1: to go to Balarie rehearsal tomorrow. But like the the
Speaker 1: idea of um Melik, like Lily's character is the only
Speaker 1: person in the entire movie, who ever calls out Thomas's
Speaker 1: behavior for what it is, which is like creepy, manipulative, predatory.
Speaker 1: She's the only person that ever explicitly says like what
Speaker 1: he's doing is wrong and it's very obvious that it's wrong,
Speaker 1: and the and and the fact that that is kind
Speaker 1: of twisted. And then we see like his character, you know,
Speaker 1: like Lily warns her, and there's a lot of warnings
Speaker 1: for Nina that kind of goes unheeded in this movie,
Speaker 1: but like Lily warrant her, Oh, he called Binoda Ryder
Speaker 1: little princess. He'll be calling you a little princess any
Speaker 1: day now, and not only important. And it's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not like the other girls. I'm different. And Mila
Speaker 1: Kunas is like she's like here ecstasy. And then and
Speaker 1: then like twenty four seconds before Natalie Portman dies, he
Speaker 1: calls her little princess. And so you see that the
Speaker 1: only like male relationship that Nina ever has in this
Speaker 1: entire movie is not about her at all, Like it's
Speaker 1: just about his perception of what a woman and like
Speaker 1: what the woman he needs to do this job should be,
Speaker 1: and not who the person actually is, because he just
Speaker 1: conflates when a writer with Natalie Portman and when Wina
Speaker 1: Wrider turned thirty eight, he's like, okay, you have to
Speaker 1: walk in front of a car. Now I need a
Speaker 1: quote unquote twenty year old, you know like that, It's
Speaker 1: it's it's very clear where he's coming from. And and
Speaker 1: so I don't know, Yeah, I just I think this
Speaker 1: movie is all time. But with that, I think something
Speaker 1: that there's like a hint in the movie that Lily
Speaker 1: is sleeping with Toma. There's one part where he's where
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, I ran in him this morning, and
Speaker 1: it's like it's six o'clock. What time was this morning? Um?
Speaker 1: And then also Nina has like a hallucination where Toma
Speaker 1: and she's like walking in on them having sex, but
Speaker 1: then he turns into like the Rothbart thank you, um,
Speaker 1: And it's almost like that. I mean, the thing I
Speaker 1: don't like about this movie is that it's such a
Speaker 1: like strict binary like Nina goddess, Lily whore. But I
Speaker 1: think in a in a different way, it's like really
Speaker 1: doesn't believe the things Thomas says about any of them.
Speaker 1: She she understands inherently, like she's succeeding for reasons I
Speaker 1: don't have anything to do with her, because he finds
Speaker 1: her sufficiently fuckable, and that's something that like Nina never understands.
Speaker 1: She believes everything that everyone tells her and tries to
Speaker 1: meet everythinger perfection, and that is why she dies, but
Speaker 1: also why she was a great Pallorina. So it's yeah,
Speaker 1: like in terms of survival, this movie comes down firmly
Speaker 1: like you've gotta be horror to live like pretty only
Speaker 1: like only exactly when a man wants to have sex
Speaker 1: with you, and then like the rest of the time,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, I mean, it's just like Lily is
Speaker 1: the only one who sees through his act and is
Speaker 1: able to like thrive above it because she sees it
Speaker 1: for what it is. She kind of, I guess, meets
Speaker 1: him on his terms when she feels like she needs to,
Speaker 1: and then when she doesn't, she's like, yeah, he's a
Speaker 1: fucking like idiot, Like I I'm gonna do an extasye.
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't care where where, Like you know,
Speaker 1: like Nina's character is the like the virginal you know,
Speaker 1: she still lives with her mom, and that's a whole
Speaker 1: other discussion and and so this is like her first
Speaker 1: male relationship, and so she's entering it from this kind
Speaker 1: of like Disney Princess, like, Oh, this is he cares
Speaker 1: about me. He must that this is everything that I've
Speaker 1: been taught that this will be. And that like sort
Speaker 1: of leads to her downfall is her thinking that he
Speaker 1: would genuinely care about her. What I like is that
Speaker 1: at the end she hears that he really never cared
Speaker 1: about her the whole time when he calls her little princess.
Speaker 1: But by that point she doesn't care because she has
Speaker 1: succeeded in the way that she wanted to succeed, partially
Speaker 1: for her. And then when you see her make like
Speaker 1: eye contact with Barbara hershey, I'm like, and I guess
Speaker 1: for her weird mom. H And so it is like,
Speaker 1: as devastating as it is that she dies at the end,
Speaker 1: you know that at least she is succeeded on her
Speaker 1: own terms, and the only way that she could succeed
Speaker 1: on her own terms, by this movie's logic, is to
Speaker 1: collapse under all the pressure she's been under the whole time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: bum bummer. We were talking about her and her mom
Speaker 1: a little bit because I think that that is like
Speaker 1: a really interesting dynamic. I mean, you don't get to
Speaker 1: see a ton of like in depth mother daughter relationships
Speaker 1: on screen really at all, and so you know, when
Speaker 1: you get one, you're like, I hope it's really fucked up,
Speaker 1: you know, I hope it's unhealthy, and I can't learn
Speaker 1: anything from it. Um. That said, first of all, the
Speaker 1: real star of the mother daughter dynamic in this movie,
Speaker 1: I feel is that cake that she gets. Okay, I disagree,
Speaker 1: but I like that. Oh, I like that cake. That's
Speaker 1: when Barbara hers she gets, um, the two of them
Speaker 1: sheet cake. When so Nina's mom gets Nina and her
Speaker 1: the only people who live in that house, a gigantic,
Speaker 1: like star market sheet cake when Nina okay, regional reference wrong, um,
Speaker 1: but they get her a huge sheet cake when she
Speaker 1: gets the part of a Swan queen. And then Nina's like,
Speaker 1: as we know, everyone in this household is annarexic, and
Speaker 1: Nina's mom says, well, fine, I'll throw it away and
Speaker 1: like dramatically is about to whisk this fourteen dollar cake
Speaker 1: into the trash and like that's the first gaslight we
Speaker 1: see of this relationship. But I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: like it would be kind of an easy read of
Speaker 1: this relationship, because it's later revealed that Nina's mom was
Speaker 1: also invested in being a ballerina, but had to drop
Speaker 1: out of being involved in ballet when she got pregnant
Speaker 1: with Nina. Therefore some very specific inherited trauma of I
Speaker 1: can't be ballerina, so you am ballerina. Um, and we
Speaker 1: don't deal with mental illness. We don't talk about it. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Her solution is stay in your room until you feel better. Well,
Speaker 1: she's like, let me cut your nails too, with scissors,
Speaker 1: with whatever is around. Um, And I thought I And
Speaker 1: it's like I feel like like I originally when I
Speaker 1: was rewatching this, I'm like, oh, I hope she's just
Speaker 1: not reduced to I am like a jealous stage mom.
Speaker 1: But I feel like the movie does do a little
Speaker 1: more than that, where it is clear that she resents
Speaker 1: her daughter for taking quote unquote and this is like
Speaker 1: another commentary I feel like on the way the movie
Speaker 1: deals with aging and how women are treated in this
Speaker 1: specific world. But when you're a woman who's pregnant, you're
Speaker 1: not useful to ballet, and so you're taken out and
Speaker 1: she resents her daughter instead of the system that creates
Speaker 1: that narrative. And then from there, what I like is
Speaker 1: you like it would be easy to be like, why
Speaker 1: is Nina's still there? You know, she's making her own living,
Speaker 1: she's a ballerina, Like why wouldn't she stay? But we
Speaker 1: learned because of Nina's past mental health problems, which is
Speaker 1: like alluded to through the scratching and all these other
Speaker 1: indicators that on top of being stage mom and resentful,
Speaker 1: she's also trying to be a good mom by knowing
Speaker 1: that her daughter has had these mental health breaks before
Speaker 1: and feeling like someone needs to keep an eye on her.
Speaker 1: And so I was worried on the rewatch that there
Speaker 1: would be no grounded reason for Nina to stay and
Speaker 1: no grounded reason for the mom to want to keep
Speaker 1: her there. But I feel like that is kind of
Speaker 1: provided of she She wants to protect her daughter, but
Speaker 1: the way she protects her makes it more likely for
Speaker 1: her to have a mental health break again, which I
Speaker 1: don't know. Someone should call my mom about that, We
Speaker 1: don't know. I love how much you're interrogating that that
Speaker 1: specific choice, because I was like, oh, it's New York,
Speaker 1: Like I bet it's too expensive for her to live
Speaker 1: anywhere else. Um. But no, all of that is absolutely
Speaker 1: true too. What I so your favorite set piece between
Speaker 1: them was the cake? My favorite is when Nina walks in.
Speaker 1: It's like sort of an open like living area where
Speaker 1: Nina practices ballet. And then her mom has just like
Speaker 1: all these portraits that she's painted of Nina. They're all
Speaker 1: so and all that different styles. Did she take a class?
Speaker 1: And and at one point the mom she like walks
Speaker 1: into her mom just like sobbing and like painting a
Speaker 1: photo of her, and it's like what okay, um? And
Speaker 1: then later when she's like having another hauslation, she sees
Speaker 1: all like these images of herself like done impost like
Speaker 1: sobbing too, like streaming at her, and it's like, what
Speaker 1: if if my mom painted anything, I'd be like stop
Speaker 1: just I don't know who's no more? Um. But I
Speaker 1: do think that that's like one of the most interesting
Speaker 1: like frictions in the movies between it and her mom,
Speaker 1: because later she says to when whenever her mom brings
Speaker 1: up like, oh, I could have been a ballerina as
Speaker 1: like as I could have been good as good as
Speaker 1: you are, but I got pregnant and then under her
Speaker 1: breath and just like okay, but you never made it
Speaker 1: out of the core. And she's like, and you were
Speaker 1: twenty eight because twenty eight is so old twenty year
Speaker 1: old guys like, oh my god, right, and we're like okay,
Speaker 1: Natalie Forman, Sure, I don't know. I feel like and
Speaker 1: maybe this is just me, but I felt like the
Speaker 1: mother character was characterized as being like pretty cartoony, like
Speaker 1: like overbearing mom. I know, I know she is, but
Speaker 1: they're also you have the reason, like you have the reasons,
Speaker 1: and you also have the unreliable like I guess like
Speaker 1: one of the things with this movie is you can
Speaker 1: justify almost anything that happens in the movie of like, well,
Speaker 1: Nina is an unreliable narrator, so it makes sense, like
Speaker 1: you don't like the way she's seeing every character is
Speaker 1: a little bit heightened. I guess you're supposed to assume
Speaker 1: to what is actually happening true, And that's the case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean right, that's the case for all of her,
Speaker 1: all of the female relationships in this movie. Because on
Speaker 1: one hand, it might just be that Lily is trying
Speaker 1: to reach out and be like, hey, I want to
Speaker 1: be your friend. You seem cool. Uh, let's hang out.
Speaker 1: But through Nina's kind of unraveling lens, she thinks that
Speaker 1: Lily is trying to steal her part and replace her
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. So still never quite clear to
Speaker 1: me what is true there and what isn't It's not
Speaker 1: clear right And then does everyone think, Okay, what do
Speaker 1: you think Lily is trying to do? I feel like
Speaker 1: she was just like being nice, but she didn't have
Speaker 1: any of their friends because she was also so cool
Speaker 1: with like the girls in the Core that were like
Speaker 1: in the very first scene like mean to Nina, and
Speaker 1: Nina was like she was and you why is she test?
Speaker 1: There's so many there's so many scenes even at the
Speaker 1: that Gallow, like Nina's in the bathroom, Lily comes in
Speaker 1: and she like slips off her underpants. Why did she
Speaker 1: do that? Because she's about to funk that guy? Oh
Speaker 1: wait what guy I miss? Oh wait? Oh wait. Sebastian
Speaker 1: stand is in this, but that was not Sash and
Speaker 1: another that was a different that was a different, but
Speaker 1: anyone could be Sebastian and really like I every time
Speaker 1: Sebastian stands on screen, I'm like, is that who that is? Like?
Speaker 1: I've never fully identified who that is. Did you did
Speaker 1: you watch Girl? Do you wtch a gossip Girl when
Speaker 1: you were younger? I did? Yeah, I did watch Gossip Girl.
Speaker 1: And I still don't know who he is, like I
Speaker 1: says abashion Stand and probably the majority of his projects,
Speaker 1: and every time he shows up, I'm like, who, like?
Speaker 1: That's his name? Is what? Like? And Caitlin texted me
Speaker 1: today like, oh wow, did you spot Sebastian Stand? Because
Speaker 1: I Tanya is my favorite movie and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: I have no fucking clue who that man is there.
Speaker 1: Sebastian Stand could be in the audience right now and
Speaker 1: I could sebash him on my way to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I have no idea Christian are here, They're in the back,
Speaker 1: their friend there's there? Who is Sebastian Stand? I'm sorry?
Speaker 1: But then, okay, so we've got that we have the
Speaker 1: mother daughter relationship, we have uh Nina and Lily, and
Speaker 1: then we have like the Nina and Beth relationship, and
Speaker 1: all of these relationships are poised as being antagonistic. But
Speaker 1: like you said, can we write that off as just
Speaker 1: being as Nina being an unreliable narrator? Or is this
Speaker 1: movie written by men. Yeah, I do think Beth is pissed,
Speaker 1: Like come on. Also, I like this sort of meta
Speaker 1: idea that if this movie were made like twenty years earlier,
Speaker 1: went on a ride would be like in the Nina role, right,
Speaker 1: that's like such anti thing, um but I love that,
Speaker 1: Like what is what does she say whenever they're at
Speaker 1: the galup, like everyone is gone? Beth is like he
Speaker 1: always thaid you were so frigid, and he was like what,
Speaker 1: who didn't say that about me? It's like okay, but
Speaker 1: then okay, so in that okay, uh, this relationship. Sorry,
Speaker 1: let me find this in my copious notes here. Well,
Speaker 1: but Beth is I feel like Beth Beth and Nina's
Speaker 1: mom are used as the Like they're both used in
Speaker 1: a way to comment on how age is perceived in
Speaker 1: the ballet world. And then this movie, the bow let
Speaker 1: world is supposed to be the world. Um so in
Speaker 1: like Nina's mom's case, like she became pregnant and that's
Speaker 1: what halted her career, and then in Winnoda writer's case,
Speaker 1: she became thirty five and that's what halted her career.
Speaker 1: And so they're both kind of being used to comment
Speaker 1: on the same issue in a different way. And I
Speaker 1: think also because Beth doesn't have a family or doesn't
Speaker 1: have kids, and she's like still sort of sleeping with Toma,
Speaker 1: It's like, well, there's literally nothing for you to do,
Speaker 1: Like there's we can't even keep you around. We have
Speaker 1: to literally create the circumstance for you to like be
Speaker 1: pushed up. Yeah, that was like the one I think
Speaker 1: relationship in the movie with Nina, Like with Nina that
Speaker 1: I didn't get everything out of that I kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to. That was the one relationship that I left
Speaker 1: being like like Beth was a little under like they're
Speaker 1: served right, because like kind of the beat by Be
Speaker 1: situation with her story is that before we even see
Speaker 1: her on screen, there are various characters being like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's going through menopause and yeah, my grandma is a
Speaker 1: good dancer to like, but talking shop on her for
Speaker 1: her like for her aging, and Nina defends her, and
Speaker 1: then we see her trashing her dressing room, presumably right
Speaker 1: after she's been told that like she has to retire,
Speaker 1: and then we see her drunk at the gala and
Speaker 1: she calls Nina a whore. She's like, you sucked his
Speaker 1: dick or whatever, and Nina's like, not all of us
Speaker 1: have to, implying that Beth did have to. So she
Speaker 1: had been defending her and now she's like, well, you're
Speaker 1: the whore. And that's like the kind of like I
Speaker 1: felt like the way that Beth acted in that scene.
Speaker 1: That was like one of the moments where I'm like,
Speaker 1: Beth more than anyone in this entire yala uh, like
Speaker 1: Beth more than anyone here. Knows what Tomas's game is,
Speaker 1: So why would she be victimizing a young woman when
Speaker 1: she knows who the person doing it is? Like that was.
Speaker 1: That was like one of the writing moments where I
Speaker 1: was a little bit confused Nina for replacing her quote
Speaker 1: unquote when she should be mad Atma, and she's been
Speaker 1: there long enough that I feel like she would know
Speaker 1: who to be mad at. So that was. But she's
Speaker 1: not a perfect person, like no, and she's drunk, right.
Speaker 1: But there's also another key moment that is, after Beth
Speaker 1: trashes her room, Nina goes in and starts like picking
Speaker 1: out her things that she takes her lipstick and like
Speaker 1: her nail file and her earrings. Those her earrings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that is like it adds another of
Speaker 1: complexity that sort of Nina's trying on this persona I
Speaker 1: think serves subconsciously she wants to be or at least
Speaker 1: have Beth's status, but doesn't understand how to use it
Speaker 1: or what it means. And that's why she's like, well,
Speaker 1: not all of us have to and best like bitch
Speaker 1: do and I like that. It's a another example of
Speaker 1: Nina like having no clue what she's actually doing or
Speaker 1: how to meet the expectations of like a man that
Speaker 1: is awful, and that's like kind of ultimately what the
Speaker 1: Beth character is. It's like narratively, she's supposed to be
Speaker 1: like a warning to Nina of like, if you're not
Speaker 1: careful and if you don't treat yourself specifically and not
Speaker 1: the craft you're in carefully, you will end up like this.
Speaker 1: If you trust Tomas, this is where you'll end up.
Speaker 1: And she kind of ignores that and blames Beth versus
Speaker 1: this like the system that made Beth the way she was.
Speaker 1: And then Nina, you know, dies ten years earlier than
Speaker 1: Beeth does. And Nina is a snob though because how
Speaker 1: she's raised by her mom, like she's been raised to
Speaker 1: look down upon Ballerina's like Beth, who are getting older,
Speaker 1: but who also didn't exist purely on talent the way
Speaker 1: that she thinks that she has, which we don't know
Speaker 1: if she I mean, it's like it's it's confusing. Um,
Speaker 1: there there's a quick So one of the I think
Speaker 1: the big things to talk about here that I just
Speaker 1: want to get out while we have time is the
Speaker 1: mental health themes going on here, because there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on and and I was trying to do some
Speaker 1: research into like how is it received at the time
Speaker 1: versus now? And it's kind of all over the place.
Speaker 1: So my view of this movie's treatment of mental health
Speaker 1: has changed as well. But um, at the time and
Speaker 1: sort of into the current day, that being now I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I have to pee. Um, it's kind of
Speaker 1: all over the place, and and it seems like that
Speaker 1: is kind of intentionally done. So the symptoms that we
Speaker 1: see Nina display are never explicitly named as any specific
Speaker 1: mental health issue, which I usually feel is a good
Speaker 1: thing because when you see a movie say this is
Speaker 1: bipolar disorder, this is schizophrenia, like this is whatever, generally
Speaker 1: what they portraying is not accurate and then like creates
Speaker 1: a stigma against that condition that isn't even based in fact,
Speaker 1: and usually like conflates it like with violent behavior or
Speaker 1: does something to demonize it. So that is one thing
Speaker 1: that this movie conflates mental illness in a general sense
Speaker 1: with violence, where like when Nina, like, the more Nina
Speaker 1: descends into mental illness, the more violent we see her
Speaker 1: become towards other people and or herself or does it
Speaker 1: like we don't know violence towards something. It's like mental
Speaker 1: illness and violence are treated kind of as one and
Speaker 1: the same as it gets worse, but it's not treated
Speaker 1: as one thing. Which is it? Which is positive? So
Speaker 1: I was looking up, um, how have mental health organizations
Speaker 1: treated this movie? And I found a couple of things. Um,
Speaker 1: the first being from the Psychological Care and Healing Center,
Speaker 1: and they said quote. While the movie does an excellent
Speaker 1: job of portraying the terror related to psychosis, there is
Speaker 1: a large amount of artistic license taken by the movie.
Speaker 1: There are simply too many psychological issues going on with Nina.
Speaker 1: She shows elements of an anxiety disorder with obsessive compulsive behaviors.
Speaker 1: She also manifests self injurious behavior and some sides of
Speaker 1: an eating disorder. She dabbles with substance of us, and
Speaker 1: she has psychotic breaks, if not outright psychosis. A case
Speaker 1: could also be made for a personality disorder. It is
Speaker 1: highly unlikely that all of these elements could coexist in
Speaker 1: one person, especially someone performing as a ballerina at such
Speaker 1: a high level. So basically all of that to say, like,
Speaker 1: the writers and directors of this movie are taking kind
Speaker 1: of like a general sampler platter of mental illness and
Speaker 1: taking appetizers as needed to serve the narrative, which I like,
Speaker 1: which I mean, it's complicated, but as long as they
Speaker 1: don't name, as long as they're not demonizing a specific
Speaker 1: mental illness, I am more a to like understand why
Speaker 1: they're doing it. And there's also been there were also,
Speaker 1: like in two thousand Tents of people like why don't
Speaker 1: we see Nina getting help? I'm like, that's a different movie.
Speaker 1: That's just who's going to get Nina help in this movie?
Speaker 1: Her support now Moronica, no right, everyone around her again
Speaker 1: with the whole unreliable narrator thing, it's either people who
Speaker 1: are gaslighting her or not or like, because I mean
Speaker 1: with Lily is she is she emotionally manipulating her or
Speaker 1: is she just trying to be a friend And we
Speaker 1: don't know because I'm with Hunter there, I think she's
Speaker 1: trying to be a friend. I think he's try friend,
Speaker 1: but I think she's also like, you know, has her
Speaker 1: own set of issues and it's like not really able.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, that's all I think the
Speaker 1: fact that this is so specifically limited to the ballet world,
Speaker 1: and like we don't really get a chance to see
Speaker 1: Nina outside of this context. It's like these are her
Speaker 1: co workers. They don't really know what was on with
Speaker 1: her outside of rehearsal. And I think that sort of
Speaker 1: has an effect too, that this girl is like trying
Speaker 1: to be this room, meaning Lily is like trying to
Speaker 1: be her friend, like friendly, but not a close friend
Speaker 1: to like really engage. She doesn't slip an ecstasy into
Speaker 1: her drink. I was gonna say she's like kiss Sebashton
Speaker 1: stand she or does she? Or who could say? We
Speaker 1: don't know. It's all very unclear what goes on with
Speaker 1: Nina and Lily, and that leads all the way up
Speaker 1: to the queer bedding of a generation, which I was
Speaker 1: very bated by. I was like, I was the worm
Speaker 1: was there. I was like, how like I the bait
Speaker 1: was there. I took the bait. Whoop. I was like, Yes,
Speaker 1: this is the best thing that's ever happened. I remember,
Speaker 1: like I that scene. You know. I feel like for
Speaker 1: every generation there's a scene that you're like, oh, like
Speaker 1: for a couple of years before us, mine was muhlland
Speaker 1: drive anyone murmuring there there the first like when Mila
Speaker 1: Kunas looks up from eating out Natalie Portman. We're like like,
Speaker 1: it's just like it's very like and it still works
Speaker 1: for me to this time, Like I know we're not
Speaker 1: supposed to do this, but like, wow, it's very exciting. Um,
Speaker 1: what were we thinking about queery queer baiting? Um, it
Speaker 1: doesn't Okay, no, this is what we were saying. Okay. Uh.
Speaker 1: The issue with with this scene is that we see
Speaker 1: it and we're like, wow, wow, Wow, you know this
Speaker 1: is I need to call my boyfriend and tell him
Speaker 1: something that's going on with me. Um. But but the
Speaker 1: issue is that this scene canonically does not happen that
Speaker 1: we know, but like we're led to believe. I want
Speaker 1: to believe it happens, but like doesn't like it seems
Speaker 1: like it doesn't happen, and that's where the baiting if
Speaker 1: word to believe Mila Kunas's character, it does not happen, right, right,
Speaker 1: and she's the more reliable of the two characters, or
Speaker 1: is she? You're right? I feel better. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: I think the movie itself, whenever Nina goes back to
Speaker 1: the apartment, we only see her talking to her mom,
Speaker 1: and her mom doesn't even acknowledge that there's someone else there,
Speaker 1: and the Lily character like like walks in and then hides,
Speaker 1: like goes into INA's room. You know, I think that's
Speaker 1: just like for the evidence that Lily is right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like they kind of do a
Speaker 1: little checking on you. They're like, oh, Bruce Willis never
Speaker 1: does talk directly to anybody, does he? Like? Yeah, like
Speaker 1: Lily never directly speaks to I mean, I guess we
Speaker 1: don't know why Nina's mom went to the door. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was like a postmate. No, She's like, where have
Speaker 1: you been? You have a thing tomorrow? Oh, I think
Speaker 1: that seems that that moment she Lily does show up, yes,
Speaker 1: but when when she comes in, But when she comes
Speaker 1: like she's not actually where and she's like she's not, like,
Speaker 1: who's this other lady. She doesn't say that because Lily,
Speaker 1: I guess, is not there is not that I'm sorry, No,
Speaker 1: don't apologize. I just I like that scene very clearly
Speaker 1: is batty and not Cannon. But I wanted to be Cannon.
Speaker 1: So there is I hit my tooth and the mic
Speaker 1: I um yeah. So so that like that whole scene
Speaker 1: is very kind of bizarre in the way that I
Speaker 1: feel like it's just one of those moments of like
Speaker 1: Aeronofski is trying to have it always of like he
Speaker 1: wants to have the trailer moment of Natalie Portman and
Speaker 1: Mila Kunas are kissing. You're gonna want to see this movie.
Speaker 1: It's gonna make a lot of money, you know, and
Speaker 1: like don't think too hard about the themes, like give
Speaker 1: me eleven dollars, like and in that way, I think
Speaker 1: it succeeded because that's what got me there. And but
Speaker 1: but I mean those sort of baiting scenes are are
Speaker 1: rooted in in history of scenes that depict queerness but
Speaker 1: then are later majorly backpedaled on of like well that
Speaker 1: didn't actually happen, or like some other way of negating
Speaker 1: the actual scene that was heavily marketed as a big
Speaker 1: part of the movie. So that's a bummer. There's also
Speaker 1: that quick moment where Lily when they're at the club
Speaker 1: with Sebastian Stan and some other guy, she's like, Hey,
Speaker 1: these guys are gay lovers and they're like what and
Speaker 1: they kind of breeze past it. So at least you
Speaker 1: don't have like these straight guys being like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: not gay. But that's just But that's just because we're
Speaker 1: led to believe that Natalie apartment is screaming in this
Speaker 1: bar like to everybody and then like, Hi, kiss me,
Speaker 1: kiss me, you're gay? Kiss me? Like like she's just
Speaker 1: like all over. I don't know what's supposed to be happening.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Um, can we talk about that scene? Oh?
Speaker 1: And then the other like then what happens is, Um,
Speaker 1: Sebastian stands says, oh, I've never been to the ballet
Speaker 1: and then Lily goes, well, then you're definitely not gay,
Speaker 1: and it's like, why is the scene in the movie. Um,
Speaker 1: can we talk about the like the predatory relationship between
Speaker 1: Toma and Nina, because this is another part of the
Speaker 1: movie that I really struggle with because on one hand,
Speaker 1: it's depicting a predatory situation where you know, he has
Speaker 1: the power, he's making, he's calling the shots. He is
Speaker 1: who determines who gets certain roles, and she is kind
Speaker 1: of like powerless to she has to kind of succumb
Speaker 1: to his authority and power and he manipulates her based
Speaker 1: on this power dynamic or this power and balance. But
Speaker 1: what what I don't like to see necessarily, even though
Speaker 1: it might be realistic, is that she is punished at
Speaker 1: the end and he is not. She is punished because
Speaker 1: she is dead and he and that. Again, it might
Speaker 1: be a realistic depiction of how these predatory relationships often go,
Speaker 1: but it's just another reason this movie really bums me out.
Speaker 1: But I think it's I think that, like, misogyny is
Speaker 1: a bummer, men, abusing power is for sure a bummer.
Speaker 1: But it happened. Why we're sitting here, you know, Like
Speaker 1: I I just I don't know. I feel I agree
Speaker 1: with you, and I like, I don't think that there's
Speaker 1: really an empowering message to take away from this movie.
Speaker 1: But I also don't think that that's what it's trying
Speaker 1: to do. I feel like it's more trying to demonstrate
Speaker 1: if you fold to every pressure being forced on you
Speaker 1: by whatever system you're existing in, it will crush you.
Speaker 1: And and so then you have to leave the theater
Speaker 1: being like, well, what are my other options? You know?
Speaker 1: Like I just I felt like and and and some
Speaker 1: of the criticism I was reading that was like kind
Speaker 1: of when it was coming out ten years ago, was
Speaker 1: that it was weirdly revolutionary in to see a man
Speaker 1: that you knew abusing you. That was like in your
Speaker 1: workplace where so often and I feel like, um, something
Speaker 1: that came out around the same time as like Girl
Speaker 1: with the Dragon Tattoo, I think came out a year later,
Speaker 1: where you see a very clear sexual predator who's a
Speaker 1: total stranger. And I feel like that is mostly the
Speaker 1: way the predators are portrayed in fiction is like, a
Speaker 1: sexual predator is someone you don't know. A sexual predator
Speaker 1: someone who sneaks up on you and like you, you
Speaker 1: won't there's no way to prepare for it, there's no
Speaker 1: way to recognize it in the world that you live in.
Speaker 1: And black Swan very clearly places it like this is
Speaker 1: a person she knows, This is a person who has
Speaker 1: a clear motive for like weaponizing his power against her.
Speaker 1: And it's not comfortable to see, but it is realistic,
Speaker 1: like and and and I feel like, you know, you
Speaker 1: see it dealt with by a number of different women.
Speaker 1: You see that Nina is not fully prepared on how
Speaker 1: to deal with it because he is the patriarch in
Speaker 1: this situation and she, as far as we know, doesn't
Speaker 1: have any other relationships to compare it with. We see
Speaker 1: that Lily sees it and has seen it before, and
Speaker 1: it's like, this is bullshit. I'm not gonna deal with
Speaker 1: this beyond what I have to. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's an uncomfortable portrayal, but it
Speaker 1: feels like realistic, if a little melodramatic at moments, to
Speaker 1: like things that exist. And I appreciate it on that level, sure,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, as much as it's like demonstrating like
Speaker 1: the societal pressures that are happening here, like with misogyny,
Speaker 1: I think it's also Nina has been raised in this
Speaker 1: culture that makes her want to please him and want
Speaker 1: to bend herself and fit to to fit his idea
Speaker 1: that oh, the black Swan needs to be like black
Speaker 1: and white want need to be one person. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: they don't though, like this is just what he has decided,
Speaker 1: and so she is like working her very hardest to
Speaker 1: meet that you know made up expectation um. And also
Speaker 1: something that I was reading just today was that at
Speaker 1: the time it came out, Bencey Cassel was asked like,
Speaker 1: do you think that he's like trying to get late?
Speaker 1: And even though they we're talking that, we're talking about
Speaker 1: this character now, the way it has evolved in the
Speaker 1: ten years since the movie came out is so like
Speaker 1: a star honeshing, like we are able to think about Okay, well,
Speaker 1: he is obviously in power. She lives in this kind
Speaker 1: of culture like we live in society, but she lives
Speaker 1: in the core. Um. But he was asked like, oh,
Speaker 1: do you think that like he's like trying to get
Speaker 1: laid or what do you think it is? And he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I think it's like more of like an artistic calculus
Speaker 1: on his part. He doesn't really care about her. He
Speaker 1: just like wants this happened right. But I think it
Speaker 1: is like such a warped idea of art and artists
Speaker 1: and also power that we can see much more clearly
Speaker 1: now then obviously when this movie came out. That's something
Speaker 1: that I came up against. Also in the way that
Speaker 1: Aronofsky was giving interviews around this time too, of it
Speaker 1: seems like, at least at this time, and we don't
Speaker 1: know how he feels in the age of Mother, Like,
Speaker 1: we don't know how he how he's evolved, how his scarves,
Speaker 1: the colors have maybe changed, We don't know. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lawrence married a man named Cook Maroney. You know,
Speaker 1: anything could happen in this world. A lot of Cook
Speaker 1: Moroney heads. Fine, Um, but he's at the show. We
Speaker 1: invite Cook Morone to the show. Um, but no. The
Speaker 1: way that um Aronofsky talked about it at the time
Speaker 1: was very much like it almost felt like his thesis
Speaker 1: in some way. It was criticism something with things we've
Speaker 1: been talking about, but it was also that by his
Speaker 1: vision that you couldn't have art without some sort of
Speaker 1: mental you know, like something happening, like a mental compromise. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: like you can't have great art without a mental compromise.
Speaker 1: And that was sort of the way he was giving
Speaker 1: interviews at this time, and something like there there were
Speaker 1: there's a really good essay that came out about this
Speaker 1: from h Lessons from the screenplay that I really love
Speaker 1: and I've been. It came out a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: But that kind of compares the Black Swan narrative directly
Speaker 1: against whip Lash, which came out, Yeah, which came out
Speaker 1: a couple of years after. I think that compares on
Speaker 1: a gender basis, Like both of these movies are about
Speaker 1: a quest by a protagonist for artistic greatness, and in
Speaker 1: both of these movies there is a male mentor who
Speaker 1: is torturing the protagonist to become great, and the way
Speaker 1: it plays out in both movies, for better or Worse,
Speaker 1: is very different. And I feel like that the thing
Speaker 1: that Black Swan succeeds in is portraying this male mentor
Speaker 1: as like a bad and toxic influence of like he
Speaker 1: is torturing them, he is abusing them. It's very clear
Speaker 1: what he's doing, and it results in great art but
Speaker 1: like great personal sacrifice were in Whiplash if you've seen it,
Speaker 1: which is like, I mean, whatever, uh do you? I
Speaker 1: don't care about Miles teller Um. You know, he bothers
Speaker 1: me and to look at I don't like looking at
Speaker 1: Miles Teller. Uh. He and then if you read an interview,
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm just a binde. Uh. He's an annoying person.
Speaker 1: But the but in Whiplash he plays a jazz drummer.
Speaker 1: He's trying to become great. Um, and I was gonna
Speaker 1: say j J. Abrams, but I mean the other guy.
Speaker 1: Uh uh what's his name? Oh my god, j K Simmons. Yes,
Speaker 1: Jack Simmons, r JJ Abrams. I won't be able to
Speaker 1: come up with it. J K. Simmons is screaming at
Speaker 1: him the whole movie. But the climaxes of the movies
Speaker 1: are very different. Where Natalie Portman's character achieves greatness and
Speaker 1: dies because the you know, because of all the expectations
Speaker 1: that are very gendered being placed upon her, and then
Speaker 1: in the other case, um, you end up kind of
Speaker 1: receiving the j K. Simmons character is, well, yeah, he
Speaker 1: threw ship at this person. He was violently abusive towards
Speaker 1: this person, but it resulted in this great performance and
Speaker 1: he lived. So they're probably friends today. And so the
Speaker 1: man gets to live but also has the legacy of
Speaker 1: this toxic influence, whereas the woman realizes what the toxic
Speaker 1: influence was but she dies and so there's like, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know, I don't know. I like Black Swan,
Speaker 1: I mean another part of it. And I think this
Speaker 1: just has to do with like the very complicated nature
Speaker 1: of being the victim of a predator, which is you like,
Speaker 1: you see that scene. So she gets assaulted many times
Speaker 1: in this movie by him. There's the one scene in
Speaker 1: particular where he's like, you're no one wants to fuck you.
Speaker 1: Let me teach you how to seduce. And then there's
Speaker 1: this really uncomfortable moment where you know he's forcing himself
Speaker 1: on her, he's groping her. She is not really resisting
Speaker 1: and it and it probably is because she's really confused
Speaker 1: and uncomfortable and she doesn't know how to respond and uh,
Speaker 1: and he's the only person who has the power over
Speaker 1: what her dream is, right, and then the aftermath of
Speaker 1: that is that and this is a little unclear, but
Speaker 1: the narrative frames as though she she likes him because
Speaker 1: she's defending him in front of Lily because she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're hot for teacher, and she's like, you don't know him.
Speaker 1: And again, that's just maybe part of the complicated nature
Speaker 1: of that, you know, dynamic. But I can't help but
Speaker 1: think of Mother Wait, and we're in that movie which
Speaker 1: we covered it. Go back and listen to the episode
Speaker 1: if you want. But um, there's a moment in that
Speaker 1: movie where it starts out a sexual assault and then
Speaker 1: becomes a consensual sex scene. And I can't help but
Speaker 1: to wonder if, because they're both Aronofsky movies, if he
Speaker 1: thinks that might be how sex goes sometimes. I I mean,
Speaker 1: what I can say for sure what Aronowski is that
Speaker 1: he thinks of scarf keeps his head on his body.
Speaker 1: That's all I could say for a hundred percent. It's
Speaker 1: like that what was that scary stories of telling the
Speaker 1: dark story that if he took a scarf off, his
Speaker 1: head would fall off. He for sure percent believes that
Speaker 1: we have no reason to believe. He hasn't believed that,
Speaker 1: there's been no canonical reason to believe that. He doesn't
Speaker 1: think that. Um, so I don't. It's it's a it's
Speaker 1: a very complicated and I think that because this movie
Speaker 1: is directed by a man who doesn't necessarily have the
Speaker 1: best track record for certain things, and then written by
Speaker 1: several minutes. I don't know, I just can't trust I
Speaker 1: just I disagree on the grounds that we know that
Speaker 1: this is Nina's first experience with a romantic relationship at all,
Speaker 1: and just based on I mean on my first romantic
Speaker 1: experience and and possibly other people's I don't know, but
Speaker 1: like the first time, you you know, like assume the
Speaker 1: best of someone, You're gonna make a lot of mistakes,
Speaker 1: And Nina is doing this at a much later age
Speaker 1: twenty um then then a lot of other people do.
Speaker 1: But I feel like I I thought that her willingness
Speaker 1: to forgive him was both a reflection of like, he
Speaker 1: is the gatekeeper to my dreams, but also that the
Speaker 1: fact that she's been so protected and she's been so
Speaker 1: naive and she doesn't have compare like anything to compare
Speaker 1: it to. Then her mom tucks her into bed at night,
Speaker 1: like she has no understanding of how a human like
Speaker 1: how a real adult relationship of any kind, from relationship
Speaker 1: that's romantic or platonic should or would look. I think,
Speaker 1: Prince yeah, and she. I think that that's what the
Speaker 1: swan like metaphor becomes. Like more meta to the story
Speaker 1: is that she really does cast herself as like in
Speaker 1: like such a ide actic way, and that is ultimately
Speaker 1: what is her own doing someone? I love it. I
Speaker 1: love it. The point is this movie is great. Um,
Speaker 1: we were running out of time. Do we have a
Speaker 1: single moment for audience feedback? Yeah, a little tiny bit.
Speaker 1: Let's say too, oh, oh my gosh, oh my god.
Speaker 1: We've got a mike. If you have question or comment,
Speaker 1: umase make it as quick as possible as we only
Speaker 1: have time for Like, she's here, Hello, what's your name? Yes,
Speaker 1: Kristen christ Christen Hi. Um. First off, I just want
Speaker 1: to say that Alfred Molina would have made a much
Speaker 1: better toma. Yes where I agree? Yes, maybe, like that's
Speaker 1: why she likes right, And I just wanted to comment
Speaker 1: real quick, to go back to um Nina's voice real quick,
Speaker 1: UM for a little context corner. UM. I read somewhere
Speaker 1: that apparently Natalie Portman, when she was starting out or
Speaker 1: um was getting um, you know, like acting lessons and stuff,
Speaker 1: she had been told that her voice sounded like two
Speaker 1: girls for babies and she had to kind of do
Speaker 1: vocal exercises to make it sound more like adult and
Speaker 1: more woman like. But apparently for this film she was
Speaker 1: sold to kind of like throw that at the door
Speaker 1: and then you know, it's very funny the way you
Speaker 1: hear her read certain lines like if the other girl
Speaker 1: had barged in, or just like a little like line
Speaker 1: reads like that. That just felt like that is not
Speaker 1: the way a grown ass woman like that speaks to
Speaker 1: her mother or like talks about other women, you know, supposedly,
Speaker 1: but I just want to mention that real quick and
Speaker 1: the very nice subtle thing that she does with her
Speaker 1: performance just to sound like there's just a little girl
Speaker 1: or like, you know, this is like not a normal woman.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to mention that just they're definitely like
Speaker 1: certain acting choices and certain like wardrobe choices that help,
Speaker 1: you know, enhance the theme of the movie. And I
Speaker 1: only one for her best, her best actress, Oscar for
Speaker 1: that she was great, definitely. I also read according to Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: both Natalie Portman and Mela Kunas had to work out
Speaker 1: five hours a day in preparation for this role. Ton
Speaker 1: of weight. Scary. Let's not talk about it, but thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Yeah, thank you for saying hi. Hello,
Speaker 1: what's your name? My name is Sam hi Um, longtime listener,
Speaker 1: first time callers. So my my question to you is
Speaker 1: like does it pass like the reverse spectal test, which
Speaker 1: I don't think it does at all, because I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's barely any there's like, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a very female driven story with only one main male character.
Speaker 1: The rest are pretty ancillary. But it definitely passes the
Speaker 1: backtel taste for sure. We haven't gotten there. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it passes between several different combinations of characters. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think men don't speak to each other in
Speaker 1: this movie. I don't think so that's a wind that's text,
Speaker 1: feminist text. He's like, I don't think I can't think
Speaker 1: of any movie that does do that, right, We've encountered
Speaker 1: a few, but they are they are so rare, so
Speaker 1: very rare, too rare, some would say. Yeah. And the
Speaker 1: things that they're mostly talking about, our female ambition, their
Speaker 1: relationships with each other, like their relationship to reality, a
Speaker 1: genderless concept. Um, you know, there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: that women are talking about. Ballet also a cake. Okay, cake,
Speaker 1: I'll throw it away if you don't want it, right.
Speaker 1: I love that so much. I think Elena should have
Speaker 1: been the cake. I love it. With his octo hands
Speaker 1: coming out should have been the cake. Great, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, point, thank you so much. So yes, how Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is Petra, huge fan of the pod. Um So,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to just start the pot a
Speaker 1: little bit between Jamie and Caitlin and um bring it
Speaker 1: back to the conversation about the sexual predatory behavior that
Speaker 1: was going on in the movie. Um So, I watched
Speaker 1: this last night and just thinking about it in the
Speaker 1: context of the Harvey Weinstein trials, I kind of was
Speaker 1: able to see this this dynamic between Nina and Toma,
Speaker 1: and it seemed like Darren Aronoski was trying to have
Speaker 1: her flip the situation on its head and like kind
Speaker 1: of kind of take control of it. Um. And I
Speaker 1: was just kind of wondering what you guys thought and
Speaker 1: the way that you know, those predatory relationships are seen
Speaker 1: in modern day. I think that, I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: that's a great question. Um, I can't wait to argue
Speaker 1: about it. I mean I think that, like, there there's
Speaker 1: a lot it maybe doesn't go as far as it
Speaker 1: should in two ten maybe, but I like in reading
Speaker 1: the backlog of criticism him about this, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who compared the Thomas character to a
Speaker 1: Roman Polanski type character. Of like, here is a man
Speaker 1: who creates great art depending on how you feel, aren't,
Speaker 1: But like, here's a man who creates well regarded art,
Speaker 1: who in the creation of this art, women are brutalized
Speaker 1: and punished. Right, And many considered Ronowski at the time
Speaker 1: to be making some sort of comments on this, of
Speaker 1: like asking that question, like is this art that this
Speaker 1: abusive man creates worth the consequence? And then clearly no,
Speaker 1: of course, I mean we know that, did us seriously
Speaker 1: a man just say no, there, okay, okay, but like
Speaker 1: we get it. We know we've been here for four years. Um,
Speaker 1: thank you though, thank you for telling us no Jesus Christ. Okay,
Speaker 1: my rhetorical question was answered by a man as usual.
Speaker 1: I can't fucking believe this. Um. I yeah, so I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I'm just like bringing my blood pressure down. Caitlin took
Speaker 1: my wine bottle away. Um. All that to say, I
Speaker 1: I yeah, like they're that conversation is brought up like it.
Speaker 1: I feel like it asks the audience that question and
Speaker 1: then gets us it very involved with the consequence of
Speaker 1: his great art that you know, kills its main character,
Speaker 1: who's a character we love and very much are on
Speaker 1: the side of so I don't know, I think, for
Speaker 1: especially given the fact that it was ten years ago
Speaker 1: when no one was talking about this really at all.
Speaker 1: It's doing a lot more than was asked of your
Speaker 1: average movie at that time. So I'll give him that,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to argue, so I agree. I went,
Speaker 1: thank you. Hi. What's your name? My name is Elisha. Hello. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna preface by saying that I am twenty
Speaker 1: actually ahead of you. Thanks. And I do not look
Speaker 1: anything like now the Importman. But then again, she is
Speaker 1: a ballerina living in the Upper What Side, and I'm
Speaker 1: wearing the glasses of a seventy year old librarian and
Speaker 1: I live in Nork, soa there's a bit of a
Speaker 1: difference there. And I wanted to make a comment about
Speaker 1: how people like Aeronowski, especially people I have a whole
Speaker 1: thing about all tours. We're not going to get into it,
Speaker 1: but you hear a lot that artist suffering, and to
Speaker 1: make good art you have to suffer. What mother is about.
Speaker 1: And so now the Importman, she cannot be successful, or
Speaker 1: she cannot be exceptional without so ring and being at
Speaker 1: odds with every woman in her surrounding because but just
Speaker 1: be fighting and until she writes horror across the mirror.
Speaker 1: And then once she does that, like once she's just
Speaker 1: like a little bit like exceptional and she's a little
Speaker 1: bit above everyone else. She dies. She dies, and I
Speaker 1: find that super offensive and super annoying. It's like, great,
Speaker 1: she like turls around for like two seconds and then
Speaker 1: she's dead. What the heck? But yeah, that's my car.
Speaker 1: I mean, we make art and we're thriving. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I don't know. But then it's like if you
Speaker 1: take that, if you take the scarf off our boss,
Speaker 1: his head falls off site. I guess kind of complicated,
Speaker 1: but that is that that is a really good point
Speaker 1: of just like yeah, like the the world at this
Speaker 1: story doesn't afford her, you know, the ability to live. Well.
Speaker 1: I mean there's so many movies about like how being
Speaker 1: a woman is horror and scary. I mean disagree, but
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, but that's why. And I do see
Speaker 1: the value in this movie. But I just I do
Speaker 1: wish there were more empowering stories that were just more
Speaker 1: about like, you know, women, someone Louise, they drive off
Speaker 1: a cliff at the end because there's no they die
Speaker 1: in a different women are at the end, I mean
Speaker 1: speaking of Roman Plansky fucking Rosemary's baby like she like
Speaker 1: she has to have a devil baby, like women are
Speaker 1: always being punished and again like that's part of reality.
Speaker 1: But what also, we're fucking strong and we can rise
Speaker 1: up and not die. So that was my retort to
Speaker 1: the earlier argument. There's movies that I just I like, yeah, whatever,
Speaker 1: I don't know. The more I think about it, the
Speaker 1: more I think that Nina her idea of perfection is
Speaker 1: like a masculine idea of perfection. It's Thomas's idea. And
Speaker 1: so at the end when she's like, I did it,
Speaker 1: I was perfect, she's meeting his standard of perfection, not
Speaker 1: necessarily her own, and that's why she dies. Hunter Harris,
Speaker 1: thank you, we do. We're we're getting We've been getting
Speaker 1: the light for ten minutes, so I'm sorry. We will
Speaker 1: talk to you after it. We just have to really
Speaker 1: quickly rate this movie on our nipple scale. It passes
Speaker 1: the Beetel test spoiler alert obviously, Um, but let's rate
Speaker 1: it on our nipple scale UH scale of one to
Speaker 1: five nipples based on the movie's treatment of women. Um,
Speaker 1: what do you give it? I don't want to go first.
Speaker 1: I'm scared. Why no, you go first. I haven't thought
Speaker 1: about that. I don't I don't know. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say Okay, so I'm gonna say I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: three and a half um, And someone went, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say three and a half. I think that this
Speaker 1: is a very brutal depiction of womanhood. But it's a
Speaker 1: depiction of womanhood that I at the time and unfortunately
Speaker 1: still pretty closely connected to. And I know that it
Speaker 1: is not I mean, you remove it because of the
Speaker 1: fact that it offers no real victory, Like Hunter was
Speaker 1: just saying, it's about woman's pursuit of a male's idea
Speaker 1: of female perfection. But I think that it's not an
Speaker 1: unrelatable narrative, even if it's like heightened to an eleven
Speaker 1: um and there are the drawbacks that we have discussed,
Speaker 1: but I think it's like a very upsetting, frustrating look
Speaker 1: at you know, a woman who has never been asked
Speaker 1: to do anything but try to meet a male ideal,
Speaker 1: and how that has brutally punished her and caused her
Speaker 1: own downfall and total neglect of herself and it's not
Speaker 1: fun to watch, but I do think that it is
Speaker 1: like an important thing to examine and look at. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it three and a half nipples, giving
Speaker 1: all three and a half to Alfred Molina, who had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with it. Can I give nipples to Yes,
Speaker 1: of course, I'm going to say everything you said, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to give it an extra half nipples. So
Speaker 1: for nipples for the Clintmonzel Traikowsky score, which is says
Speaker 1: that earns another half nipple for me. Um, I'll give
Speaker 1: it a three. Oh, someone validated me, should I go lower?
Speaker 1: Stop it? Stop it? Caitlin never makes up her actual
Speaker 1: mind and the live shows I am very for that.
Speaker 1: In the studio, I kind of want to give it
Speaker 1: a two and a half. Honestly, a go ahead. I
Speaker 1: have no attachment to this movie whatsoever, So I have
Speaker 1: been examining it through just like my lens of And
Speaker 1: while it is a female driven store worry, it's just
Speaker 1: there's so much focus on antagonistic relationships between women and
Speaker 1: a predatory situation that I don't think is necessarily handled
Speaker 1: that responsibly, and some other stuff. But I do also
Speaker 1: see the value in it, you know, there's everything that
Speaker 1: you said, but minus a nipple. Um, and I'll give
Speaker 1: my nipples to Paddington gets in a jam. So we
Speaker 1: gotta wrap up. We've got to get out of here.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much on your Harris. Uh, where can
Speaker 1: we find you online? Where can we find your work?
Speaker 1: I'm at Hunter, I just forgot my fucking name. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm Hunter? Why Harris on Twitter? Oh my gosh, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Thank you to the Bellhouse, thank you
Speaker 1: to the Brooklyn Podcast Special, thank you to all of you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. And that is our live show at the
Speaker 1: Bellhouse in Brooklyn. Uh. We before we go into all
Speaker 1: our normal plugs, we actually have a few things that
Speaker 1: we didn't have time for in the show. They were
Speaker 1: literally kicking us out of the venue. Fair. The show
Speaker 1: was long. Um, so there. But there are a few
Speaker 1: more things to talk about with this movie, so uh
Speaker 1: really quickly. Um. One thing that I thought was interesting,
Speaker 1: like an interesting discussion that you don't really see brought
Speaker 1: up in film discussions very much, is uh, the role
Speaker 1: of the dancer in a dance movie like this because
Speaker 1: Natalie Portman, you know, obviously or maybe not obviously, didn't
Speaker 1: do all of a ballet dancing in this movie, she
Speaker 1: did a lot. It wasn't that she I mean, she trained,
Speaker 1: she like did her due diligence. But she had a
Speaker 1: dance double named Sarah Lane, who was an soloist at
Speaker 1: the American Ballet Theater, one of the biggest, most fanciest
Speaker 1: ones of them all, who did kind of the heavy lifting.
Speaker 1: But there was a little controversy around that because she
Speaker 1: wasn't really credited accordingly for the amount of work that
Speaker 1: she did. Right. She also said that, um, most of
Speaker 1: Natalie's dancing on screen is actually her with Natalie Portman's
Speaker 1: face like digitally grafted onto hers, which is another thing
Speaker 1: that happens in one of my favorite movies, my favor
Speaker 1: actual favorite movie, Titania. All right, Yes, I was just
Speaker 1: thinking about that. Um. And then the production team of
Speaker 1: Black Swan responded to this by saying that the footage
Speaker 1: that was used in the final cut of the movie
Speaker 1: was mostly Natalie dancing, and that Sarah Lane was only
Speaker 1: used in a few wide shots. Sarah Lane disagrees. She
Speaker 1: says that, you know, the production team told her to
Speaker 1: keep quiet in an effort to make it seem like
Speaker 1: Natalie Portman had done more dancing than she actually did,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's worth it was just worth mentioning that,
Speaker 1: you know, a woman who put in a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, hard work into this film was kind of silenced.
Speaker 1: And it's I mean, it's super frustrating and kind of
Speaker 1: like typical too that something like this would happen. Of
Speaker 1: like you almost get the feeling that this is like
Speaker 1: an effort to be like, oh well, if we credit
Speaker 1: the Stancer the way that we're supposed to, like, we
Speaker 1: lose a little bullet point on like Nataliepportman's Oscar submission
Speaker 1: or something like that. And it's a little frustrating on
Speaker 1: the Natali Apportman's side too, of someone who generally tends
Speaker 1: to be on the right side of things being at
Speaker 1: least complicit in uh in a situation like this. So
Speaker 1: for the record, we're teams Sarah Lane And also you
Speaker 1: can kind of clearly see that it's now like they're
Speaker 1: kind of deep faking it a little bit like a
Speaker 1: social network Winkleboss style, so like, also, don't underestimate your viewers.
Speaker 1: We also see it. Um So there's I mean, but
Speaker 1: there's that's not the only controversy attributed to this production.
Speaker 1: The next one is so the film Perfect Blue, which
Speaker 1: is an anime film directed by Satoshi Khan. Yes, many
Speaker 1: people have noticed similarities between that film and Black Swan. Um. So,
Speaker 1: from my understanding, Darren Aronofsky purchased the American film rights
Speaker 1: to Perfect Blue so that he could use the bathtub
Speaker 1: scene from Perfect Blue in another of his films, Requiem
Speaker 1: for a Dream, And if you see that side by
Speaker 1: side comparison, you will see that those two scenes are
Speaker 1: virtually identical. So now people speculate that because he owns
Speaker 1: the American rights to Perfect Blue, that Aaronovsky might have
Speaker 1: borrowed some stuff from it for Black Swan. Well, So
Speaker 1: the frustrating thing there, I mean, it's like the connections
Speaker 1: between Aeronovsky and the movie are so so well documented
Speaker 1: that he doesn't have a leg to stand on. Really
Speaker 1: it's not. I mean, there is sometimes overlap in ideas,
Speaker 1: but this is like he literally purchased the home rights.
Speaker 1: There's no question that this is what it is. But
Speaker 1: I found um an interview that um Satoshi Khan's producer,
Speaker 1: Missau Mariu Yama did with Days a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago in that just further confirms this. Where Um He
Speaker 1: says that Aronofsky and Con actually had met up, they
Speaker 1: had discussed this. It seemed like they were both very
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about Aronowsky possibly just adapting the anime to the screen,
Speaker 1: and the quote is quote I met with Aronofsky alongside Con,
Speaker 1: said Mariyama. It wouldn't have been a problem with an adaptation.
Speaker 1: We thought that a director of that status could have
Speaker 1: adapted the film and done it in his own way,
Speaker 1: and that would have been fine. But I think that
Speaker 1: Aronofsky's Black Swan, including the similarities it has to Perfect Blue,
Speaker 1: is a very interesting film. So diplomatic answer from that camp,
Speaker 1: very classy, but it's like, yeah, he he totally ripped it,
Speaker 1: which is so, you know, for a you know, white
Speaker 1: male known for being arrogrant a tour stealing from a
Speaker 1: famous cult anime film director, that is an exceptionally bad look. Right.
Speaker 1: We saw the same thing with The Lion King and
Speaker 1: Um Kimba the White Lion. Right. Yeah, it's just like
Speaker 1: American productions totally erasing um the fact that they're stealing
Speaker 1: from Japanese careers. And I went and watched Perfect Blue?
Speaker 1: Did you like it? Just to check it out? I
Speaker 1: did like it and believe it or not, there are
Speaker 1: quite a few similarities in terms of so the story
Speaker 1: is that Um, a young pop star, decides to make
Speaker 1: a bit of a career shift and turns to dramatic
Speaker 1: acting instead. So she leaves this pop group that she's
Speaker 1: in to become an actor. But she because she kind
Speaker 1: of has to start of her she's not landing the
Speaker 1: type of roles that she really wants. And also while
Speaker 1: this is happening, there seems to be a man who
Speaker 1: is stalking her and sort of infiltrating her her life
Speaker 1: and then like posting about it online, which is so
Speaker 1: like wildly ahead of its time, considering this movie came
Speaker 1: out just like con No that we didn't know right,
Speaker 1: but the so, the real similarities lie in just this
Speaker 1: sort of overall idea that it's about a woman who's
Speaker 1: grasp on reality becomes more and more warped because, like,
Speaker 1: as this woman is being stalked, she keeps seeing this
Speaker 1: image of her likeness. She thinks there's another woman out
Speaker 1: there who is either trying to be her or is
Speaker 1: out to get her. Um, her mental state really starts
Speaker 1: to unravel. There's a more specific example and that there's
Speaker 1: a moment on the subway train where the main character,
Speaker 1: whose name is Mima not unlike Nina from Black Swan.
Speaker 1: Um Mims sees an image of someone who looks exactly
Speaker 1: like her, like in the reflection in a subway car,
Speaker 1: and that exact thing happens in Black Swan. Yeah, uh so, so,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it seems like a pretty cut and
Speaker 1: dry thing. And if anything, maybe you want to watch
Speaker 1: that movie. So I'm glad you got to see it.
Speaker 1: And now, I mean, now that we're in the choir,
Speaker 1: might and might as well, gotta gotta find something to
Speaker 1: do time. I was about to Caitlin, did you ever
Speaker 1: play Club Penguin? No, what's that? You should google Club Penguin.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get more specific. I feel like
Speaker 1: we might, we might thrive on Club Penguin. Okay, anyways, Um,
Speaker 1: you had one more fun piece of I mean, this
Speaker 1: is just juicy. This okay, So I hit it. So
Speaker 1: I read that while this movie was being filmed, Darren
Speaker 1: Aronofsky tried to pit Natalie Portman and Mila Kunas against
Speaker 1: each other. I guess to just like try to heighten
Speaker 1: the tension between the characters in the film, but he
Speaker 1: would do this by sending them text messages that complimented
Speaker 1: the other actors performance to make them jealous of each other.
Speaker 1: So he would be like, hey, Mila, didn't Natalie do
Speaker 1: such a good job on set today, which is so
Speaker 1: like transparent to It's like, if you're going to try
Speaker 1: to like emotionally manipulate someone, like make an effort, dude,
Speaker 1: like week week week. Well, here's the best part is
Speaker 1: that it did not work, and it had quite the
Speaker 1: opposite effect of what Aronofsky wanted because Natalie and Mila
Speaker 1: were already good friends, so whenever Aronofsky texted one with
Speaker 1: compliments about the other, they would just respond and say, yes,
Speaker 1: I agree, my friend Natalie apartment is doing a great job.
Speaker 1: Thank you for noticing. Like, oh, brother, I just yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes me so happy because it's like Natalie a
Speaker 1: Portman and mel Cunis seemed to, i mean, based on
Speaker 1: what I know, seemed to be lovely people, and um,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that they just were like all four like.
Speaker 1: And also that darrena. Ronowsky's assumption is that women don't
Speaker 1: want to support each other just like plays into so
Speaker 1: many tropes that is like, hey, maybe not assuming this
Speaker 1: would make you a better writer. Um right, Unfortunately, I
Speaker 1: still love this movie so much forever and ever and
Speaker 1: ever a man. Uh but yeah, So that that was
Speaker 1: our That was our exclusive quarantine bonus content. Um that
Speaker 1: we wanted to everyone to know. And that's the episode, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's it. So thanks for listening. Thanks to everyone who
Speaker 1: came to the live show. Thanks to our guest Hunter
Speaker 1: Harris Um, she is incredible. Thank you to the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Podcast Festival for having us, as well as the Bellhouse
Speaker 1: for hosting. Yes, thanks to again thanks to everyone who
Speaker 1: came out, who bought merch um who just supports us
Speaker 1: in any way, and um, you can also support us
Speaker 1: by you know, following us on social media, um, going
Speaker 1: to our patreon aka Matreon and subscribing four or five
Speaker 1: dollars a month. We're gonna be, yeah, trying to do
Speaker 1: more like community stuff on there. But also if you
Speaker 1: can't afford it right now, we totally understand, like it's
Speaker 1: it's a time at the time, it's a time, yes,
Speaker 1: yes indeed, but if you can't afford it, it's a
Speaker 1: great way to pass some time. And it's very true. Now,
Speaker 1: listen to those bonus episodes. So I mean, and when
Speaker 1: we got time to burn, we're gonna start making some
Speaker 1: wild pics. Right now, its share March. Um, but we
Speaker 1: have we have, we have some stuff in the mix.
Speaker 1: But UM, yeah, you can keep in touch with us
Speaker 1: there and UM in the meantime, take care of yourselves.
Speaker 1: We hope that, uh, the podcast is a good distraction
Speaker 1: from um, from all the other stuff going on. And
Speaker 1: we're here for you. We love you, yes, we love you.
Speaker 1: Take care, be safe. Bye bye