Speaker 1: On the bed Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and um are all their discussions just boyfriends and
Speaker 1: husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef in
Speaker 1: best start changing it with the Bedel Cast. Hello and
Speaker 1: welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus,
Speaker 1: my name is Caitlin Darante, and this is our podcast
Speaker 1: in which we discuss the role of women in famous
Speaker 1: movies you've seen before. Today is a special one to
Speaker 1: This is a special one. I mean, you're hearing us
Speaker 1: on a Tuesday. You don't usually hear us on a Tuesday,
Speaker 1: and it's it's okay. First of all, actually I'd like
Speaker 1: to do a p s A right at the tippity.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this on election day and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just kicking back listening to the Betel Cast and
Speaker 1: you have not yet voted, turn us the funk off
Speaker 1: or listen to us on the way. Sorry, I I
Speaker 1: couched it a little. Get on your bird scooter, get
Speaker 1: in your car, get on your public dancy, get on
Speaker 1: your free can, burn it on your you know, whatever
Speaker 1: mode of transit you want. Just get out there and vote.
Speaker 1: Hope you did your research. Yeah, well, okay, so so
Speaker 1: that that a side. Welcome to the Beck dol Cast.
Speaker 1: If you're not listening to this on election day, sorry
Speaker 1: for coming in so hot, but the message rings true.
Speaker 1: You should always vote every next opportunity you have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where that do ag in? Hey quick plug. At the
Speaker 1: top of the show, we're gonna be doing a live
Speaker 1: becktel Cast show here in Los Angeles, so hopefully you'll
Speaker 1: live here. But if not, just travel, get with the program.
Speaker 1: No big deal, just just you know, by flight. Didn't
Speaker 1: come on down. But we're doing a show on Saturday,
Speaker 1: November tenth at nine pm at the Ruby. This time
Speaker 1: we'll be covering the Fifth Element, one of My Thieves,
Speaker 1: with our guest and dear friend, Danielle Radford. Hell yeah.
Speaker 1: For tickets, go to our website becktel cast dot com,
Speaker 1: click on the live appearances tab and we will see
Speaker 1: you there. It's a small venue, so grab your tickets asap. Wow, yes, queen,
Speaker 1: go off. Okay, So this is our podcast about the
Speaker 1: portrayal of women in movies. Um. We use the Bechdel
Speaker 1: test as are jumping off point for discussion. Of course,
Speaker 1: a test invented by cartoonist Alison Bechdel that for our
Speaker 1: purposes requires that a piece of media has a scene
Speaker 1: in which two female identifying characters with names talk about
Speaker 1: something other than a man for two or more lines
Speaker 1: of dialogue. Shall we demo? Yeah? Demo? Hey, Hey Jamie,
Speaker 1: Hey Caitlin. Did you vote today? Yes, bitch, of course
Speaker 1: I did? Well, me too. Wow, We're great. I only
Speaker 1: voted for women, and that passes the Bechdel test. Okay,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, but what if something? But also
Speaker 1: this still goes. Some female candidates might have some horrible ideas,
Speaker 1: so it's good to do your research at advice as well.
Speaker 1: Darn Tuton, what a productive Bagel pass test passing conversation.
Speaker 1: So that's where. But but we obviously expand the conversation
Speaker 1: to cover many different topics related to how women are
Speaker 1: portrayed in the movie. Today, we've got a great movie
Speaker 1: and a great guest. Yes, indeed, let's introduce her. She
Speaker 1: is a producer, writer, actor, and host of the Kind
Speaker 1: of Dating podcast Natasha Shandel. Hello, I was just listening
Speaker 1: to you in THEE. I hope I said something half decent.
Speaker 1: It was an uplifting one. Yeah, great, then I'd take
Speaker 1: full credit for it. So we're talking about Election, the
Speaker 1: movie from director Alexander Payne, adapted from a novel by
Speaker 1: Tom Peroda. I used to have a doctor named Dr Payne. Oh,
Speaker 1: and I had it, and and I had a dentist
Speaker 1: named Dr Vagenie, which is hilarious, which is horrible. Why
Speaker 1: did my dentist Why was my dadists last name of Vagina?
Speaker 1: We don't know. If Dr Vagenice gives me a root canal,
Speaker 1: it does that pass? Then these are the real questions.
Speaker 1: So Natasha tell us about your your history, your relationship
Speaker 1: with this movie. I watched it around when it first
Speaker 1: came out. I really have a horrible memory, so I
Speaker 1: won't be the person who ever remembers me watching something
Speaker 1: in a movie theater. But unless it was Titanic, I
Speaker 1: oh my god, Titanic. Yeah, that's remember watching in the theater.
Speaker 1: Everything else after that just is gone. Usually threepisodes like
Speaker 1: usually Jamie, let's do another and I yeah, let's scratch election.
Speaker 1: This is a Titanic podcast. Now, Usually it's one of
Speaker 1: us to bring up Titanic, and our guest is always like,
Speaker 1: why are they talking about Titanic? Well, I was just
Speaker 1: gonna say we could bring it back to an election,
Speaker 1: because really, if they were to have voted off, who
Speaker 1: should have got off that fucking vote? It would not
Speaker 1: have been half of those people who actually got off.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine, like what a better world it would
Speaker 1: be of some of those rich motherfucker's had drowned? Hot takes? Yep,
Speaker 1: but and some working class women survived. Yes? Great, but yes,
Speaker 1: I so I watched I watched Election again around when
Speaker 1: it first came out. I thought it was hilarious. I
Speaker 1: thought Reese Witherspoon was a great antiher, like it's the
Speaker 1: kind of characters I like a lot um and I'm
Speaker 1: still not sure. When I watched it again, I'm like,
Speaker 1: do I like her? Do I not like her? Likes?
Speaker 1: And I love that about her just as an actor,
Speaker 1: And honestly, like, who thought when that movie came out?
Speaker 1: Was that twenty something years or less than twenty years later?
Speaker 1: I feel like it's the exact thing happening or happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the parallels between this movie and the Clinton Trump campaign
Speaker 1: are There's a lot to unpack there because I think
Speaker 1: I think that I mean, we can get to this
Speaker 1: in a bit, but I think that Tracy Flick is
Speaker 1: already partially inspired by Hillary Clinton in this movie because
Speaker 1: this is at the end of the Clinton administration, the
Speaker 1: public is always already well aware that Hillary Clinton has
Speaker 1: ambitions beyond what was the quote of making cookies and
Speaker 1: right Also, I have some Wikipedia trivia for us hit
Speaker 1: that the novel that this movie is based upon. The
Speaker 1: novel was inspired by two key events. The first one
Speaker 1: was the nine two Bush v. Clinton election campaign, this
Speaker 1: of course being Bill Clinton and not Hillary, but I
Speaker 1: think that that's when that quote may have first come
Speaker 1: out though, like that she was not going to be
Speaker 1: your average first lady if he was elected UM. And
Speaker 1: then in that campaign Ross Perrot entered as a third
Speaker 1: party candidate UM, which is echoed in the movie by
Speaker 1: Tammy Metzler. Showing up was Tammy Metzler, the literal Green
Speaker 1: Party is she like fucking Nager. That's crazy, well, Gary Johnson,
Speaker 1: but if you fast forward her now, she'd be Trump.
Speaker 1: She I started that that. That's what I was a disrupter, right,
Speaker 1: like the one who's like, don't she's not really care
Speaker 1: about this. You do this, don't do that. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: drain the swamp. I'm going to get rid of this
Speaker 1: no more student body whatever. I was crazy, right, That's
Speaker 1: what I think I was thinking along those lines. But
Speaker 1: that totally makes sense that she, I guess in this
Speaker 1: context would be third party like Green Party. Yeah, whoa,
Speaker 1: This movie is crazy, so I really liked it. The
Speaker 1: other thing that the novel was inspired by was a
Speaker 1: incident at a high school in Wisconsin where a pregnant
Speaker 1: teenager was elected homecoming queen, but the staff announced a
Speaker 1: different winner and burned the ballots to cover it up.
Speaker 1: Horrible that that's so crazy, would so not work in
Speaker 1: today's social media world. Absolutely, but in pulled it off.
Speaker 1: I mean, thankfully homecoming doesn't define our lives. Speak for yourself.
Speaker 1: We just did carry so a lot of very true
Speaker 1: once your history with election. I didn't see it until
Speaker 1: I think I was in college, so it would have
Speaker 1: been like the mid two thousand's, so not that long
Speaker 1: after it came up, but certainly not right away. But
Speaker 1: I remember really enjoying it. But it was one of
Speaker 1: those movies that I liked but just was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've checked that off my list, move on to the
Speaker 1: next one on our list. Didn't ever go back and
Speaker 1: re visit it, but I'm kind of bummed that I didn't,
Speaker 1: because upon rewatching it to prep for this episode, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is like a really this is
Speaker 1: a fun movie. The Tammy character, especially, I I'm like,
Speaker 1: so here for and uh yeah, I really I enjoy
Speaker 1: this movie quite a bit. I saw this movie yesterday
Speaker 1: for the first time, which listeners of the show will
Speaker 1: not be shocked to hear. I've never I've only seen
Speaker 1: the movie Doubt, plus any Titanic and Titanic plus all
Speaker 1: the movies we've done here. Mine is The Majornks, which
Speaker 1: I didn't actually watch, which is so often brought up
Speaker 1: in our iTunes reviews. If you're leaving us it tuned reviews,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to mention that as a plus as
Speaker 1: a meta textual thing. I saw this movie the first
Speaker 1: time yesterday, and I really really like it, especially like
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many great performances in that but
Speaker 1: this is the only movie that I've seen anyways of Also,
Speaker 1: Matthew Broderick playing like a really despicable guy that you're
Speaker 1: supposed to hate, but he plays it so like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I really enjoyed his performance, especially, and I
Speaker 1: just want to talk about how Reeseaway's potent. I think
Speaker 1: it's like she's so, she's so talented and she's so
Speaker 1: interesting where I feel like she's played a care her
Speaker 1: that has kind of the same description every time, but
Speaker 1: she plays this character so many different ways over the
Speaker 1: years that it's just like, yeah, like making fifty different
Speaker 1: recipes out of the same basic ingredients, right with her.
Speaker 1: So including a couple of movies that we've covered, which
Speaker 1: is our most recent episode of Cruel Intentions, where she's
Speaker 1: like in high school, she's like the virginal but she's smart, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like very smart, ambitious young woman going to a private
Speaker 1: school and then getting tricked into having sex with Ryan
Speaker 1: Philippi and usually men are like threatened by her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then l Woods of course, on our Bonus Matron
Speaker 1: episode doing Legally Blonde, kind of a variation on this character,
Speaker 1: but so entirely different all the way up to Big
Speaker 1: Little Lies, like that was sort of like a like
Speaker 1: returning to form a little bit of like that's a
Speaker 1: more mature version of the characters she got famous for playing.
Speaker 1: She's so she's very interesting to me, yes, indeed, And
Speaker 1: this movie is great. Yeah, Yeah, I mean, the one
Speaker 1: thing that really stuck out to me were like there
Speaker 1: were so many themes that they talked about through it
Speaker 1: that you know, even like right off the top through
Speaker 1: Matthew Broderick's like narration, the talk of destiny at first,
Speaker 1: and then they and then they talked about like morals,
Speaker 1: it's just like a big one, and and then just
Speaker 1: you know how much just too ambitious. It was like
Speaker 1: so many things that are so relevant. And the ending,
Speaker 1: I think, I know that we haven't even done the
Speaker 1: recap yet, but the ending of this movie. I watched
Speaker 1: it four times because it's just like the movie is
Speaker 1: firing on all cylinders, and like the last five minutes
Speaker 1: where you know, the whole time you're experiencing the movie
Speaker 1: through unreliable narrators. But it's like in the last couple
Speaker 1: of minutes where Matthew Project's narration is still so cocky,
Speaker 1: and then you see like it's so stark at the
Speaker 1: end that I one, I wish I had the time
Speaker 1: to go back and watch the whole thing over with
Speaker 1: that in mind of like, oh, you can't trust a
Speaker 1: fucking word that comes out of this guy's mouth from
Speaker 1: the moment, but what you know, but like, I can't
Speaker 1: wait to watch this movie again. It's okay, yeah, so
Speaker 1: I'll do the recap um. We meet Tracy Flick played
Speaker 1: by Reese Witherspoon. Of course, she is in high school.
Speaker 1: She's an overachiever. She is running for student council president.
Speaker 1: We meet Mr McAllister played by Matthew Broderick. He's a history,
Speaker 1: everyday guy. He likes his wife, and he likes his job.
Speaker 1: He's just a nice Keith. Well, it starts out like
Speaker 1: it's Matthew Broderick. You like him, right, he's a teacher
Speaker 1: this time, Yeah, you like that probably, but he seems
Speaker 1: to be perturbed by Tracy Flick. And then in the
Speaker 1: back story we learned that Tracy had a sexual relationship
Speaker 1: with another teacher, Mr. Nevatney, who got fired and he
Speaker 1: moves away, but he and Mr McAllister were best friends.
Speaker 1: Locker room talk, you get. We got a whole scene
Speaker 1: of locker room talking where we'll talk about this too.
Speaker 1: But that I think the movies pay us so well,
Speaker 1: and like, you start to hate Matthew Bradgick character in
Speaker 1: such specific increments where you're given a little bit of like, well,
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything wrong, but he was complicit as
Speaker 1: something wrong happened, where he's always the moral high ground,
Speaker 1: even in that conversation where his best friends like, I'm
Speaker 1: having sex with a minor cool, right, and then Jim
Speaker 1: the Matthew Bradgick character says like, well, that's not ethical.
Speaker 1: Fucking ethics teacher. He's like, well that's not ethical and
Speaker 1: that's bad and dada, but he doesn't really do anything
Speaker 1: about it. He just kind of stands by as it happens.
Speaker 1: He's just tell me all the details, please describe it
Speaker 1: even further, and then I'll go watch my creepy VH
Speaker 1: exactly and I'll just tell you that this isn't right,
Speaker 1: but keep going and picture Everything's like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to hear that, but secretly we're pretty sure he does. Um.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the reasons this relationship between
Speaker 1: this teacher and student is one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: Jim McAllister does not like Tracy, and we'll go into
Speaker 1: other reasons, but so Mr. McAllister doesn't want Tracy to
Speaker 1: win the student council president, so he approaches Paul played
Speaker 1: by Chris Klein. What an interesting jock care I love
Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk about him. Such an interesting right.
Speaker 1: So he's a he's a popular kid. He's you know,
Speaker 1: star of the football team. He I kind of love
Speaker 1: if he's dumb as rock, but he's sweet. He's always
Speaker 1: a character too, right, Yeah, that's kind of thing. He's
Speaker 1: so good at it. What's the other Anyways, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: dig up some other Chris Clin dum dummy parts, American
Speaker 1: pie Yeah, yeah, yeah, big one. So Mr McAllister gets
Speaker 1: Paul to run an opposing campaign for president and helps
Speaker 1: that Paul will be Tracy Flick. So Paul starts campaigning,
Speaker 1: and then we meet Paul's sister Tammy, who is getting
Speaker 1: broken up with by this girl Lisa, who then starts
Speaker 1: to date Paul and then to retaliate. Tammy also starts
Speaker 1: running for student council president as Donald Trump sort of,
Speaker 1: where she promises she's like I don't care, I just
Speaker 1: want to do it to bother people. And she's literally
Speaker 1: like Kanye Maga hat like just trolling everyone because she's mad.
Speaker 1: Yeah basically yeah yeah, because she's running on the platform
Speaker 1: that student government is stupid and if she wins, she
Speaker 1: will dismantle it. Just an anarchy platform. Yeah, he's giving
Speaker 1: me chills. But the people love it. The people are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Tammy here, I love it way more than Paul's campaign
Speaker 1: because he is a terrible public speaker. But that's because
Speaker 1: so my name is Paul. Who was that equivalent? That's
Speaker 1: the one I was trying to figure out. That's like
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz or something like. The guys like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to that's way more like, you know, he was
Speaker 1: sort of the nicest Bush. And then you're like, okay, right,
Speaker 1: there's even almost at like please clap moment where no
Speaker 1: one says that allowed, but his like speech ends, there
Speaker 1: are crickets, and then Mr McCallister has to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if only we had found out, like almost twenty years
Speaker 1: later that police clap actually came from election and Jeff
Speaker 1: Bush love that well. Fun fact. According to according to
Speaker 1: director Alexander Payne, Election is Obama's favorite political movie. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm stuck. I haven't thought about police clap in a
Speaker 1: long time. Jeb Bush implored people to clap for him,
Speaker 1: and that's clap facts with Caitlin. Okay, um, so people
Speaker 1: are loving Tammy also more than trace He's campaign because
Speaker 1: she's just very you know, bureaucratic. By the book, she's
Speaker 1: too prepared. Yeah, So Tracy is very frustrated and she
Speaker 1: rips down all of Paul's campaign posters and then Tammy
Speaker 1: sees Tracy throwing them away in a dumpster. But Tammy
Speaker 1: decides to confess to Tracy's crime because that kind of
Speaker 1: helps her platform to have, like, yeah, I don't give
Speaker 1: a fuck. Yeah. The parallel to that is Bernie Sanderson.
Speaker 1: We're finding the whole just like I just got to
Speaker 1: figure out how this is all parallel to everything that
Speaker 1: fired up. So meanwhile, Mr McAllister is falling in love
Speaker 1: with Mr Nivatny's ex wife Linda, or he thinks he is.
Speaker 1: They have sex once, but things very quickly fall apart
Speaker 1: after that whenever Linda tells Jim's wife Diane, and then
Speaker 1: he gets kicked out of the house. Um. And then
Speaker 1: the next day is election day at the school, the
Speaker 1: students are casting their votes, the committee is making their
Speaker 1: count and then the chairman of this committee a student
Speaker 1: named Larry. Larry, Yeah right, he's like really advocating for
Speaker 1: Tracy because truths why is all about the truth? Because
Speaker 1: Tracy wins the election by one vote, and Mr McAllister
Speaker 1: he comply cannot allow this to help. He goes full
Speaker 1: Florida like Florida two thousand young Man, the hanging Chad,
Speaker 1: the chest, the cha chas. He pulls two of those
Speaker 1: chats off and he throws them away so that it
Speaker 1: looks like Paul wins the election. Tracy is devastated, but
Speaker 1: Larry feminist icon, he's suspicious, so you know, he apparently
Speaker 1: goes to investigate. The two ballots that were thrown away
Speaker 1: are discovered, and then Jim McAllister has to submit his
Speaker 1: resignation from Carter Hi, which I have so many thoughts.
Speaker 1: But how the exit system for male teachers work at
Speaker 1: the school too? Oh yeah, we'll get into that. Also,
Speaker 1: the side story about him getting it on with well,
Speaker 1: he's lecturing Tracy, right, huh. He's he's trying to preach
Speaker 1: morals and ethics. Meanwhile, friends, yeah, he's trying too. That's
Speaker 1: so frustrating to It's just this movie is so so
Speaker 1: that happens, and then we see something we never see
Speaker 1: it in movies usually where it's like he loses his job,
Speaker 1: he loses his wife, and then we kind of flash
Speaker 1: forward for the end, right, because he starts his life over.
Speaker 1: He moves to New York City, he gets a job
Speaker 1: at like the Natural History Museum. He is still harboring
Speaker 1: resentment for Tracy Flick and and he says he doesn't right,
Speaker 1: he says he doesn't. He lives in a basement. But
Speaker 1: he could not be more clear than that was triggering.
Speaker 1: I was like, I used to live in New York.
Speaker 1: I was like, I remember these times. Well. Um, so
Speaker 1: he still hates Tracy. And it's even though he would
Speaker 1: have you believe that his life is great, he actually
Speaker 1: feels bad for her, right right, right, right right, Um,
Speaker 1: But we'll talk all about that. But yeah, that's pretty
Speaker 1: much the end of the film. So let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break and then we'll come back to discuss woo
Speaker 1: and we're back. So this story is basically a pathetic
Speaker 1: man who ruins his life because he were since wimmen
Speaker 1: and what it blames down to. Yeah, yeah, So we
Speaker 1: see a female high school student who, unlike most high
Speaker 1: school students in movies and certainly many that we've talked
Speaker 1: about recently, Um, she has aspirations beyond wanting to get
Speaker 1: a boyfriend or beyond wanting to go to prom. In fact,
Speaker 1: we don't even know how she feels about prom because
Speaker 1: she never mentions it. But we do know how she
Speaker 1: feels about student council because the whole movie is about
Speaker 1: her wanting to win. So if we're getting into the
Speaker 1: Tracy discussion, there's there's so much about her that it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like unusual and like tricky to unpack
Speaker 1: in the context of the story, or was for me
Speaker 1: where I would argue almost every character in this movie
Speaker 1: grows and changes very little, and like their situations change,
Speaker 1: but they like I think almost part of the point
Speaker 1: of the movie is no one really changes, where they
Speaker 1: just kind of continue lying to themselves and others. And
Speaker 1: that's politics, baby, Like I get it. But Tracy in
Speaker 1: particular is is interesting because we're introduced with kind of
Speaker 1: a common shorthand to characterize a female character, which is
Speaker 1: you put her in a very fucked up, what seems
Speaker 1: to be a statutory rape relationship that clearly does even
Speaker 1: though it I think this movie avoids, certainly avoids making
Speaker 1: it the center of her story, but it clearly affects
Speaker 1: her a lot. And the way this movie plays that
Speaker 1: storyline is very bizarre. I mean in terms of the metaphor,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's like a politician that has
Speaker 1: a sex scandal or what that was supposed to symbolize.
Speaker 1: But in terms of like in this story it is
Speaker 1: an adult and a minor, I was a little confused
Speaker 1: at why it didn't seem to affect Tracy Moore. If
Speaker 1: the story is going to go out of its way
Speaker 1: to be like, here's a statutory rape that happened, and
Speaker 1: then it does seem like Tracy, to her credit but
Speaker 1: also a little bit to my confusion, continue to do
Speaker 1: everything in high school that she was going to do anyways,
Speaker 1: almost unhindered by this relationship. I thought it was a
Speaker 1: little weird. I don't know. Yeah, I had a hard
Speaker 1: time kind of processing this component of the story is
Speaker 1: well because she, as far as we can tell, as
Speaker 1: far as the story presents it, she is a willing
Speaker 1: and consenting participant of this relationship. That's that. And and
Speaker 1: this is another place where the voiceover where you know
Speaker 1: the voiceover is biased and not necessarily true. But I
Speaker 1: think movies like Do This a lot where she literally
Speaker 1: says I know what you're thinking, you know, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm thinking. You're getting raped by your teacher,
Speaker 1: And movies almost say like by acknowledging it, they get
Speaker 1: a past. But it's like, no, that's still what's happening
Speaker 1: in the movie. But she says, like, I know what
Speaker 1: you're thinking. It basically says I was a fully consenting party.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about it, did it? But like the breakup sucked.
Speaker 1: But it's like she almost kind of it seems like
Speaker 1: the relationship ends because her mother finds out about it,
Speaker 1: and we don't see enough of the mother in this
Speaker 1: movie either. It's very weird. Yeah, so the mother finds
Speaker 1: out about it in a scene that happens off screen
Speaker 1: because we only see the aftermath of it, which is
Speaker 1: Dave Nevatney being very broken up over the relationship ending.
Speaker 1: We don't play for laughs, Yeah you were in love,
Speaker 1: Like that whole thing is played for I mean, he's
Speaker 1: supposed to look pathetic and he's very clearly in context
Speaker 1: of the story and the wrong but just was weird
Speaker 1: that it fits the tone of the movie, but him
Speaker 1: looking like pathetic and then being like, Okay, you gotta
Speaker 1: work at a grocery store because when they bring it
Speaker 1: back later. It's also played for laughs. I just didn't
Speaker 1: like that this rape was continually played for laughs and
Speaker 1: didn't impact the story really that right. And then the
Speaker 1: way that Tracy responds to the relationship and the breakup
Speaker 1: is that, oh, he had to go and get all mushy,
Speaker 1: like I had to go with me, I miss our talks.
Speaker 1: But otherwise, like what a loser kind of thing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's not necessarily the most realistic way
Speaker 1: in which that that type of relationship would play out,
Speaker 1: especially as it pertains to how it would affect a
Speaker 1: teen girl. Well, so I think the way that they think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: my my issue was that they made it seem like
Speaker 1: she based on her voiceover that that she was consenting
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, he didn't, you know, he didn't
Speaker 1: do anything. And then clearly in the action you see
Speaker 1: he convinced her, like, you know, by playing her emotions
Speaker 1: and manipulating her. But then the scenes when they actually
Speaker 1: start like progressing and are having sex, in the moment
Speaker 1: when she's about to enter the room, she looks scared
Speaker 1: and she looks like, oh my god, I have to
Speaker 1: do this, okay, and he kind of has to pull
Speaker 1: her into that and then later for her to come
Speaker 1: back and be like, oh, well he caught feeling. It
Speaker 1: was like I was like, I thought you were. That
Speaker 1: was why I was like, I want to watch the
Speaker 1: movie over knowing that all the voice over our lies,
Speaker 1: because I guess now understanding that a little better, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: all that voiceover is not true necessarily because we see
Speaker 1: her being coerced, and I think the movie understands that,
Speaker 1: but it just like it just wasn't clear because it's
Speaker 1: so early in the movie where and then even at
Speaker 1: the end of her final scene though, when she sees
Speaker 1: the teacher character again, she's like a young politician or
Speaker 1: something and she's getting in a car with some senior
Speaker 1: male politician and her look is almost like am I
Speaker 1: fucking him? And you're just like, wait, are you what?
Speaker 1: What is he? Because it's sort of like the teacher
Speaker 1: insinuating it in a little bit with that, I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't even thought of that. That's totally yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's where I thought. I was like,
Speaker 1: is he trying to say that she's like using somebody
Speaker 1: again or you know, well, because it seems necess certainly,
Speaker 1: how Jim McAllister perceives her, and I think how you
Speaker 1: can definitely interpret this as that she will kind of
Speaker 1: stop at nothing to get ahead, and if that means,
Speaker 1: you know, sleeping her way to the top, I feel
Speaker 1: like the movie is suggesting that that's a definite possibility
Speaker 1: for her. Yeah that I mean that side of it.
Speaker 1: I think that there It's not even like that needed
Speaker 1: to be written out of the story entirely. It just
Speaker 1: felt like that was one of the few subplots of
Speaker 1: this movie that just like it wasn't handled responsibly or
Speaker 1: satirically enough, or there was just something about it because
Speaker 1: there's my kid, the teacher she was messing with, like
Speaker 1: did he add something to her life? That I think
Speaker 1: it's more for Jim than if that storyline affects Jim
Speaker 1: more than it does her, because that opens up that
Speaker 1: guy's ex wife and that's the president that, like Jim
Speaker 1: is like this complicit kind of two faced God. It's
Speaker 1: just weird that they used her as the catalyst for that,
Speaker 1: like she's the bad one when she was the kid
Speaker 1: getting or Jim resents I mean, and I think that
Speaker 1: Jim secretly resents Tracy because now he doesn't work with
Speaker 1: his friend anymore. That's to me, that's the main reason
Speaker 1: narratively why this is in the story, because he needs
Speaker 1: a reason. I mean, it's very clear that he does
Speaker 1: not respect women, and he is very threatened and talks
Speaker 1: his way around it for so long though he's like
Speaker 1: he's like, I don't blame Tracy, and then spends the
Speaker 1: rest of the people blaming her. Yeah. So to me,
Speaker 1: the reason that this part of the story exists in
Speaker 1: the movie is that he needs a compelling I guess
Speaker 1: reason that he really actively represents her and yeah, has
Speaker 1: to like it motivates him to retaliate. But I feel
Speaker 1: like by making it a situation where she is the
Speaker 1: victim of statutory rape is a weird choice and it's
Speaker 1: I mean, like we see in many movies. It is
Speaker 1: directed by a man, co written by two men, and
Speaker 1: adapted from a novel written by a man. So right,
Speaker 1: so we're three degrees of separation away from I mean,
Speaker 1: we're a million degrees because no one was talking to uh,
Speaker 1: not to get two stuck on this point, because there's
Speaker 1: so much to talk about, but there was just the
Speaker 1: way that relationship is were trayed. There was one scene
Speaker 1: especially that like made my heart hurt a little bit
Speaker 1: because I feel like there's like a lot of girls
Speaker 1: who in high school, like, even if it's not the
Speaker 1: extent of that experience, there's like a teacher who talks
Speaker 1: to you some kind of way and goes out of
Speaker 1: their way to make you feel special, and then you
Speaker 1: look back on it and you're like, wait a second,
Speaker 1: that was I literally had an art teacher who would
Speaker 1: always be very complimentary of all the girls, and then
Speaker 1: after school would be like, you should chug a bottle
Speaker 1: of cough syrup and like come back tomorrow and tell
Speaker 1: me what you did, Like just like that was that guy.
Speaker 1: And you see, I mean people wonder why women, particularly
Speaker 1: young women, have like this eternal fraud syndrome, and I
Speaker 1: think this is like a very concise The way that
Speaker 1: scene plays out, I thought was like effective to the
Speaker 1: point of being a little painful to watch, where you know,
Speaker 1: it's like here's this older man who Tracy clearly has
Speaker 1: a lot of respect for and she's a crush on
Speaker 1: him whatever, and he tells her she's smart, she's special,
Speaker 1: she's attractive, and then it's just like this coercion thing.
Speaker 1: It's basically the same speech that Jack gives Rose and
Speaker 1: Titanic where he's like, you're the most outstandingly but wonderful.
Speaker 1: It's not because he means then they're in love, but
Speaker 1: there it hits the same piece because he's like, you're
Speaker 1: the most wonderful, astounding girl woman I've ever known, and
Speaker 1: then Dave Nevatny is like you're the most smart, sensitive,
Speaker 1: attractive student person I've met. There it's just that is
Speaker 1: so like if there's a one scene in a movie
Speaker 1: I've seen in the past couple of years that concisely
Speaker 1: puts like white we'll all actually smart talented women have
Speaker 1: this kind of fraud syndrome. It's like maybe because men
Speaker 1: say that just to fuck them, and then they feel
Speaker 1: like it's not true because someone just said it. So
Speaker 1: that I'll just add the tiniest point because again I
Speaker 1: don't I don't want to see on this too long,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, but when Jim Jim, when he talks about
Speaker 1: like why he's upset, the first cut is to the
Speaker 1: Dave guy saying like her pussy gets a wet or so,
Speaker 1: and then you're like, oh, wait a minute, is he
Speaker 1: talking about this kid? And then with this whole Kavanaugh thing, happening.
Speaker 1: The headline has been you know, Trump says it's dangerous
Speaker 1: to be a young man right now, and I was like,
Speaker 1: is it dangerous to be a young man right now?
Speaker 1: Like interesting, well, welcome to our life for all of time,
Speaker 1: that it is dangerous to be a woman at all
Speaker 1: times in all of history and eternity. One one more
Speaker 1: point about this where there is such heavy and I
Speaker 1: was annoyed about it until again the very end, Where'm like,
Speaker 1: there's so much voice over in this movie, but voiceover
Speaker 1: is used to introduce the characters as well. Another movie
Speaker 1: where that where that happens that we did not too
Speaker 1: long ago, as royal Ton and Bob's, And there was
Speaker 1: a tendency in those movies where the male characters were
Speaker 1: introducing voice over with their accomplishments and the women were
Speaker 1: introduced with their sexual history. And this movie doesn't quite
Speaker 1: do that. It's it was almost an inversion of it
Speaker 1: where Tracy Flick is introduced with her accomplishments and she's
Speaker 1: introducing herself, yes, and then there's a sudden flip where
Speaker 1: it's like and here's the other stuff. I guess I
Speaker 1: don't feel any which way about it, but it just
Speaker 1: reminded me of at least at very least many facets
Speaker 1: of her life were presented out and it wasn't like
Speaker 1: here's the girl and here's who she fucked. Right. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some of that, but it's not exclusively that. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about how Jim
Speaker 1: McAllister views women. It is very clear, especially as the
Speaker 1: story goes on, that he feels extremely threatened by strong, smart,
Speaker 1: ambitious women. He says in his poice over towards the
Speaker 1: beginning that he does not blame Tracy for what happened
Speaker 1: with Dave. How could I Dave was an adult over
Speaker 1: twice her age. Sure, she got on my nerves once
Speaker 1: in a while, but I admired I admired Tracy. I
Speaker 1: really did. And as he's saying that, he's like throwing
Speaker 1: away the signatures that she got to be able to
Speaker 1: campaign for president, and it's obvious that he does not
Speaker 1: admire her. That he does blame her and resent her
Speaker 1: for the situation with Navatni being fired, but he places
Speaker 1: none of the blame on him and he places all
Speaker 1: of the blame on Tracy. Yeah, I mean, Jim, the
Speaker 1: way I interpreted that character was like a demonstration of like,
Speaker 1: here's the most average guy in the world who at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the movie, you know, he's just he's average.
Speaker 1: Is fuck, he seems relatively content ish, and then let's
Speaker 1: peel back everything. Even in the most average of people,
Speaker 1: is this deep seated hatred of certain people? Um, and
Speaker 1: then they I mean it goes up to a fucking
Speaker 1: eleven from there. But there was because he is so
Speaker 1: average and he hates women, and he doesn't think he
Speaker 1: hates women, and that I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: guys and Tracy points that out too right, and her
Speaker 1: voiceover says that, I mean, I would hate my life
Speaker 1: if I were him, and just like the monotony of
Speaker 1: what he does all the time, and she and her
Speaker 1: depiction was like on every student body, like any team,
Speaker 1: and exactly she was like in the front of everything.
Speaker 1: And and it's kind of hard to know, I guess,
Speaker 1: because this was because it's so steeped in politics, like
Speaker 1: the Monica Lewinsky scandal is a few years before this,
Speaker 1: and so it's almost hard to know exactly how the
Speaker 1: writers of this movie want these lines to come off,
Speaker 1: which is interesting. I mean, I'd be interested in hearing
Speaker 1: what Alexander Pain thought in verses now, because I think
Speaker 1: the reading of this movie is very open to in
Speaker 1: interpretation in a good way where you can kind of
Speaker 1: see what you want in it. But they're really quick.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to my buddy feminist icon
Speaker 1: Roger Ebert, who almost always has the worst take and
Speaker 1: the most stupid Like everyone was like he was the best,
Speaker 1: but go back and read his stuff. He wasn't his.
Speaker 1: His summary of the movie is so telling, where he
Speaker 1: gave it a good review, but he says, here's a
Speaker 1: movie that's not simply about an obnoxious student, but also
Speaker 1: about an imperfect teacher, a difficult administration, and a student
Speaker 1: body that's mostly just marking time until it can go
Speaker 1: out into the world and occupy valuable space. That is his.
Speaker 1: So all that to say, the reading of this movie
Speaker 1: in the twenty years after it's probably changed a lot,
Speaker 1: oh for sure. The next thing I want to say
Speaker 1: about Jim McAllister and how he views women, specifically Tracy Flick,
Speaker 1: is it not only does he resent her for you know,
Speaker 1: his best friend getting fired, and not only does he
Speaker 1: feel threatened by her ambitiousness, He has a bunch of
Speaker 1: sexual fantasies about her. We has a lot of sexual
Speaker 1: fantasies about a lot of people. Yes, every woman who
Speaker 1: is not his wife, everyone next of the woman who
Speaker 1: loves him, Well, is that anyone else besides Linda, because
Speaker 1: I feel like Linda and Tracy, Linda Tracy, and then
Speaker 1: he watches porn and but and it was also like
Speaker 1: a teacher student porn, yes, or wasn't I thought it
Speaker 1: was a football player and cheerleader, that they were both students,
Speaker 1: and then he projects dave on Yeah, that's what I
Speaker 1: thought it was. Yeah, it is mostly Tracy and Linda
Speaker 1: who he takes stuff out on. But even based on
Speaker 1: there's like a few shots and I kind of want
Speaker 1: to compare this shot later on to a shot we
Speaker 1: see of Tammy versus a shot of Jim, because those
Speaker 1: characters balance each other out in this very bizarre way.
Speaker 1: But there's a few shots where we see Jim's direct viewpoint,
Speaker 1: so you know, some some male gazy shit. Some of
Speaker 1: it's more obvious where that time, you know, like you
Speaker 1: see that shot of like Linda's boobs. Oh yeah, he's
Speaker 1: like hanging a fruit. She's framed sexually. His wife is
Speaker 1: not framed sexually. Even during sex scenes, she's not framed sexually.
Speaker 1: And then any time Jim's voice over is going and
Speaker 1: we get those really unflattering shots of Tracy um So
Speaker 1: the like the visual even the visual language is telling
Speaker 1: you how Jim feels about the women around him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then he's the type of person that after that
Speaker 1: day that he spends with Linda, you know, he takes
Speaker 1: her to the mall to go shopping, and he's like
Speaker 1: helping her out around her house. He's like driving her back,
Speaker 1: and then they see like a motel on the side
Speaker 1: of the road and he's like, should we get a room?
Speaker 1: And she's like, that's not funny. So he's like making
Speaker 1: a sexual advance. She rejects it. And then when he's
Speaker 1: back home and talking to his wife, she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: how is your day? His wife? His wife, she's like,
Speaker 1: how's your day? And he's like, oh, you know, Linda's great,
Speaker 1: but she can be a little much sometimes. So he's
Speaker 1: the type of when his advances are like rebuffed and
Speaker 1: rejected by a woman, he starts talking shit. Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: So he's a feminist title. There's I mean I think
Speaker 1: that there's this is the same year American Beauty comes out.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that also came out in ninety nine.
Speaker 1: There are a few I like this movie a million
Speaker 1: times more than I like American Beauty. I can't stand
Speaker 1: up moving, but there are a few like recognizable qualities
Speaker 1: in him. And then Kevin Spacey's character in that movie
Speaker 1: where the small like micro punishments of the women around
Speaker 1: them when he feels reduced or rejected or just in
Speaker 1: that that line about Linda is so great because I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can picture almost any guy I know saying something
Speaker 1: about someone else that way and not even having a
Speaker 1: barely registered without getting personal. But my one, my exes,
Speaker 1: who I've often talked about on my podcast Crazy One,
Speaker 1: we'll just go with that. Um, he when he was
Speaker 1: cheating on me, he would talk about the girl he
Speaker 1: was cheating on me with, but he would keep saying
Speaker 1: like shitty things about her and like always being like
Speaker 1: she was she was. And then I didn't even know
Speaker 1: that they were friends. And then when I found out,
Speaker 1: I was like huh, And I was like, wait, so
Speaker 1: all this time I had a grand do that? Fuck man? Well,
Speaker 1: now you know I was trying to throw you off
Speaker 1: the scent. Sometimes another fun thing happens where later on,
Speaker 1: when Jim McAllister ruins his own life by cheating on
Speaker 1: his his wife, he calls Linda and blames her for
Speaker 1: ruining his life. So he is the type of person
Speaker 1: who's not willing to accept any blame or to take
Speaker 1: accountability for anything that he's done. He's always looking for
Speaker 1: other people to us to blame onto, or he's resenting
Speaker 1: everyone else for things that he is complicit in, or
Speaker 1: that other things have done, other people have done wrong.
Speaker 1: I think almost at the top of that is like
Speaker 1: any woman exerting power over him, he's going to retaliate
Speaker 1: against because even I mean, part of the reason I
Speaker 1: thought he didn't he wasn't even being affectionate towards his wife, uh,
Speaker 1: even though you know she certainly didn't do anything wrong,
Speaker 1: was because she really wanted a baby. And that like
Speaker 1: almost like, first of all, that's lazy writing for his
Speaker 1: wife kind of character, but also just like the fact
Speaker 1: that he wasn't the primary focus of her desire I
Speaker 1: think is a pretty clear reason why he'd want to
Speaker 1: retaliate against her. He wants to be the center of everything,
Speaker 1: and he's so threatened and this is like fucking pathetic.
Speaker 1: He's so threatened by Tracy wanting to be student body
Speaker 1: president that he brings an election where there's that line
Speaker 1: where he's like the sight of Tracy at that moment
Speaker 1: affected me in a way. I can't explain who knew
Speaker 1: how high should climb in life? How many people would
Speaker 1: have to suffer because of her? I had to stop
Speaker 1: her now, Like he's so afraid of female power in
Speaker 1: any way that he and it just gets so pathetic.
Speaker 1: And I love when he gets stung by a bee
Speaker 1: and just like the fact that like he's saying, like
Speaker 1: how many people would she affect in her life? And
Speaker 1: it's like, while you know, you stay quiet while your
Speaker 1: best friend was sucking a minor and her life is ruined.
Speaker 1: His life is ruined, The wife's life is ruined, Your
Speaker 1: wife's life is ruined, your baby's life that he Paul's
Speaker 1: life is ruined. Well, also his wife never gets pregnant, right,
Speaker 1: not that we see in the story. I think that
Speaker 1: that's another parent he's impotent. I think that that was
Speaker 1: like what that message. They were having baby sex every
Speaker 1: night and head they were trying for a year and
Speaker 1: ye never conceived. He's an impotent man. Yeah. Hey, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we'll be back for more.
Speaker 1: And we're back. I just wanted to read some quick
Speaker 1: stats about women in politics and then we can, you know,
Speaker 1: talk about some more specific characters. Let's just use Congress
Speaker 1: as an example microcosm of politics. If you will, well,
Speaker 1: tell me more about this Congress in two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: the year that we are currently living in, unless you
Speaker 1: are listening to this podcast from you know, because this
Speaker 1: podcast is gonna last and really hold up to Yeah,
Speaker 1: this will be the last thing people here. Four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this podcast, you do have seven
Speaker 1: days to look okay. So in two there are seven
Speaker 1: women in Congress, making up only twenty of members of Congress.
Speaker 1: Hot in nine, the year that this movie comes out,
Speaker 1: there were only sixty three women in Congress. One hundred
Speaker 1: years ago, guess how many were women were in Congress?
Speaker 1: We couldn't vote, so that there was one, there was one.
Speaker 1: There was not a Congress when we couldn't vote. How
Speaker 1: did that happen? Who is that? I don't I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I need to do research. But Rutgers
Speaker 1: dot E d you gave me some some hot info. Anyway. So,
Speaker 1: m much like in movies, women are wildly underrepresented in
Speaker 1: politics do wouldn't you know it? Except if you're listening
Speaker 1: to this right now, a record number of women are
Speaker 1: running for political positions this year mid terms today right now. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: if you combine movies and politics to things that are
Speaker 1: so good to women historically, the results are even worse.
Speaker 1: A quick Google search of political movies will yield results
Speaker 1: that show nearly every movie in that sort of sub
Speaker 1: genre of political movies is about men, except for that
Speaker 1: Sarah Palin movie Game Changer, and maybe a few others,
Speaker 1: which for wild cards here and there is awesome in
Speaker 1: rules I have seen to say, the one time wherever
Speaker 1: like Sarah Palin fucking literally she's awesome. Her movie was
Speaker 1: just about her. I loved her talk show about moose
Speaker 1: or whatever it was literally what it was, it was
Speaker 1: like Sarah Palin goes to the woods and French as
Speaker 1: a moose. Remember where she could have been all heart
Speaker 1: beat away from the presidency whatever. Um, I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's almost one of those like ripple effects things where
Speaker 1: if you're basing movies on real life events, would be
Speaker 1: really hard to make movies about women, uh if, but
Speaker 1: only if you're making movies about very high level politicians,
Speaker 1: Like there's where where's the hidden figures of women working
Speaker 1: in like women doing the actual work while Mr Guys
Speaker 1: wearing his Mr suit and he's like that was me. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's like one of those things where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard to find. You have to really look for
Speaker 1: those stories. But if there were more movies about women
Speaker 1: in politics, little girls could have seen them and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I see myself represented on screen. That's going to influence
Speaker 1: my decision to go into politics. Because there was not
Speaker 1: the representation, it perpetuates the cycle, right, And this this movie,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting because I mean, just based on
Speaker 1: that Ebert review alone, I think that people's view of
Speaker 1: Tracy tends to be all over the place, and I
Speaker 1: was sort of having trouble placing how the movie feels
Speaker 1: about her at times the same and I think that
Speaker 1: that is intentional anyway, where I don't even think the
Speaker 1: movie is totally okay with female power. And I think
Speaker 1: that the movie wants you to feel like she's kind
Speaker 1: of annoying and she's overly ambitious. I don't read that
Speaker 1: character that way at all, but it seems like just
Speaker 1: based on the time this movie came out and listeners,
Speaker 1: if you have any opinions or more information, please let's know.
Speaker 1: But it seems like this character, to an extent, I
Speaker 1: mean down to the way she's styled, is supposed to
Speaker 1: be a Hillary Clinton style character, where from so early
Speaker 1: to her being in the public eye, whether you like
Speaker 1: her or dislike her whatever, we're not even going to
Speaker 1: get into that. But she was portrayed from moment one
Speaker 1: as a power hungry woman who whose very existence was
Speaker 1: emasculating her male counterpart, and like almost no matter what side,
Speaker 1: didn't know, whether you were on the left or the
Speaker 1: right or whatever, that was the general view was that
Speaker 1: she was she wanted too much, she was trying to
Speaker 1: be too powerful, and it seems like that is supposed
Speaker 1: to be the exact same values that we see in Tracy,
Speaker 1: even though with the benefit of time there's so much
Speaker 1: more there. But it was I don't know, it just
Speaker 1: seems like a weird, inconclusive commentary on something that I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how Alexander Paine feels about her, right,
Speaker 1: I think he likes her but thinks she's annoying and
Speaker 1: should go away right and then but there's some moments
Speaker 1: where Tracy expresses different frustrations about, you know, working really
Speaker 1: hard for something and saying stuff that really resonated with me,
Speaker 1: where she says, uh, she's talking about her mom. She
Speaker 1: says she likes to write letters to successful women like
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dole and Connie Chong and ask them how they
Speaker 1: got to be where they are and what advice they
Speaker 1: have for me, Tracy her daughter. Nine times out of ten,
Speaker 1: they say, you have to hold on to your dreams
Speaker 1: no matter what the pressures women face me, and you
Speaker 1: have to work twice as hard and you can't let
Speaker 1: anything or anyone stand in your way. So on one hand,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, she seems like she's willing to kind
Speaker 1: of like try to pull on some people to climb
Speaker 1: her way to the top but up. And on the
Speaker 1: other hand she's saying, yeah, like, as a woman she
Speaker 1: has to work twice as hard, gets not nearly as
Speaker 1: much of the recognition, and you know, it's always an
Speaker 1: uphill battle for her. Well. I was also such a
Speaker 1: mirror again of the election, where it was clearly out
Speaker 1: of the two final candidates, the more experienced one who
Speaker 1: had less of a personality but more you know what
Speaker 1: I mean in terms of a magnanimous kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Came off as a little bit yeah, you know that,
Speaker 1: not as personable the way people perceived it. And then
Speaker 1: the other person are less qualified. But this big person
Speaker 1: who spoke in layman language and used you know, short
Speaker 1: word words and descriptions for everything that related to a
Speaker 1: lot of people, your name of George W. Bush a
Speaker 1: few times where it was like he's simple, and that's like,
Speaker 1: that's such a big part of elections nowadays, right, It's like,
Speaker 1: is it about the quality of the candidate and their
Speaker 1: policies and their experience or is it personality? Is this
Speaker 1: who do you want to get a beer with? Like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get a beer with political candidates.
Speaker 1: Please give me the best policies and then do your job.
Speaker 1: Don't don't drink with me, don't come to the chachat
Speaker 1: lounge with me, Senators go to work exactly um. And
Speaker 1: then Tracy expresses this very sentiment and fairly long monologue
Speaker 1: that I will paraphrase, but basically she's saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you might think I'm upset that Paul Metzler decided to
Speaker 1: run he doesn't have the qualifications that I do. Yet
Speaker 1: it sucks that some people are just handed everything to
Speaker 1: them and while other people like me, who have worked
Speaker 1: very very hard for their entire lives, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to get what they want. Blah. And she's like, it
Speaker 1: doesn't bother me at all, And obviously it does, because
Speaker 1: every every person who delivers any sort of voiceover narration
Speaker 1: this movie is not unreliable to themselves and others. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that I mean that. I'm sure that resonated with
Speaker 1: all of us hearing that. And the reason, I guess
Speaker 1: the reason I say it because it's weird, because stuff
Speaker 1: like that is so clearly written, where you're like, whoever
Speaker 1: is writing this story must you know, feel for tracing
Speaker 1: and at least to some extent, understand her. But then
Speaker 1: where that character is left, like you're saying a little
Speaker 1: earlier in Natasha, it's like it's a little bit weird
Speaker 1: where the last line I think we hear her speak
Speaker 1: is like when she's at college and she's still the
Speaker 1: implication at the end of like because she is intelligent
Speaker 1: and has ambitions that she will be alone Forever was
Speaker 1: a weird place to leave that character because that's one
Speaker 1: of the few moments where you know, in the voice
Speaker 1: sober she's like and it's totally fine, and that's the lie.
Speaker 1: But you see reflective in the voiceover, and what happens,
Speaker 1: that's what the movie thinks happens to her, is that
Speaker 1: she doesn't really have friends in high school and people
Speaker 1: point that out to work a few times, and it
Speaker 1: clearly does affect her in small ways. And then we
Speaker 1: see her flash forward to college and there's that voiceover line,
Speaker 1: if you want to be great, you've got to be lonely,
Speaker 1: and we see her alone and it's just like such
Speaker 1: a weird It's like, then, how do you feel about
Speaker 1: this woman movie? Because that is, you know, not necessarily true.
Speaker 1: It's not I mean, it seems like it's like, this
Speaker 1: is the truth for this kind of woman. And I mean,
Speaker 1: my my guest would be that the writer, whoever, at
Speaker 1: what point the like line of men that wrote this movie,
Speaker 1: that must have been something that felt true to them
Speaker 1: because it's presented like it's true. Well can I say so? Uh,
Speaker 1: we've done two episodes of this in our pod cast
Speaker 1: that we did one on the Science of Relationships and
Speaker 1: another one with the author of a book called The
Speaker 1: Love Gap of Why Smart Women Are Single? Yeah, okay, cool, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think in that one she references the psychologists
Speaker 1: from Signs of Relationships who is on our podcast, and
Speaker 1: they talk about um their case studies that say, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to funk up the ratio or the percentage,
Speaker 1: but a large percentage if you ask guys what kind
Speaker 1: of woman do you want of them say they want
Speaker 1: a smart, independent, ambitious woman who like can think on
Speaker 1: her own all that stuff. And I think it's like
Speaker 1: less than fifty seven percent or something like that percent
Speaker 1: of guys actually end up with a dependent woman and
Speaker 1: they don't actually end up with the independent woman. And
Speaker 1: so this is the whole book in case study around
Speaker 1: the fact that like, theoretically you love the idea of this,
Speaker 1: but when you're actually faced with this person, they make
Speaker 1: you feel less then, which is like the a mechanistic character, right,
Speaker 1: like he felt whenever he was around somebody like Tracy,
Speaker 1: a reminder that he is living this monotonous life when
Speaker 1: she chose to take steps to you know. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: there's a line that he has in the very end
Speaker 1: whenever he talks when he's seeing her in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: And he said something like, I feel sorry for her.
Speaker 1: She's probably still waking up at five am every day
Speaker 1: pursuing her stupid little dreams. And it's like and he's
Speaker 1: like holding a fucking slurpee cup, no disrespect, but you know,
Speaker 1: I love slurping nation. But he's out there, you know,
Speaker 1: denigrating the visual of holding a slurpy cup. It's like
Speaker 1: a forty five year old dude lying in a basement
Speaker 1: in New York. But like, you know, he looks soap
Speaker 1: and then he throws it, throws the slurpie at the lima.
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm so mad. You mean me, I volunteer,
Speaker 1: I'm a doze in. And he's got this like clinically
Speaker 1: depressed new girlfriend, like she's recently out of her relationship,
Speaker 1: and he in that shot. I don't know if you noticed.
Speaker 1: She's talking about something and he stares at her tits
Speaker 1: and so he just didn't even know. It's so like,
Speaker 1: fuck this guy. But there's millions of him, yeah, and
Speaker 1: we know some of them. Yeah. So as far as
Speaker 1: Tracy goes, I liked her as a character quite a bit.
Speaker 1: I identified with her because I feel like I was
Speaker 1: not exactly like her in high school, but I was
Speaker 1: like way too ambitious and taking things way too seriously,
Speaker 1: and like my thing was like I want to graduate
Speaker 1: in the top five percent of my class, and like
Speaker 1: I was, you know, joining, I was doing mock trial.
Speaker 1: I was, you know, playing the sports and doing all
Speaker 1: the stuff. Pay for a VHS if you do. So,
Speaker 1: I you know, related to her, And there were some
Speaker 1: moments in high school where I also felt like a
Speaker 1: loner because I was like, man, no one's taking their
Speaker 1: studies as serious me, so I I can't let these
Speaker 1: people slow me down. And like any case, this is
Speaker 1: all to say that, um, I generally like the way
Speaker 1: that she's written, and I find her to be, you know,
Speaker 1: a fairly multidimensional, interesting character. We often don't see that,
Speaker 1: especially in you know, kind of teen high school movies
Speaker 1: like this. There's just a few blind spots exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. One of the blind spots that I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's a timing thing, but I feel like
Speaker 1: we're kind of set up like Tracy's mom is going
Speaker 1: to be an important character in this story, but then
Speaker 1: she never really becomes that like she only actually speaks,
Speaker 1: and I think like one scene, which is weird because
Speaker 1: we she's introduced in voiceover, is like, my mom is awesome.
Speaker 1: She raised me on her own, she contacts powerful women,
Speaker 1: she's like supports me. It's a paralegal. You know, we
Speaker 1: don't know what she does for a living. And then
Speaker 1: the lazy writing of like I know what you're thinking.
Speaker 1: I grew up without a dad, so I hate men,
Speaker 1: And it's like, Okay, this is horrible writing. Why are
Speaker 1: we doing this? But then the mom character there's blind
Speaker 1: spots there too, because the mom gets so mad she
Speaker 1: finds out that, you know, like her daughter's being taken
Speaker 1: advantage of, to say the least, by her own teacher,
Speaker 1: but then doesn't demand something beyond him being fired. Like
Speaker 1: there's just a few weird like that were like a
Speaker 1: mom that seems as on it as this mom is
Speaker 1: presented to be. She would be trying to get this
Speaker 1: dude and fucking jail. He would not be working at
Speaker 1: a grocery. Maybe she did try to sue Jim. She
Speaker 1: did at the end that they had like the newspaper
Speaker 1: that said that she but not but not Dave, the
Speaker 1: one who actually write assaulted home. Maybe it's a commentary
Speaker 1: on how when women come forward about you know, abuse
Speaker 1: and assaults, not there's no consequences, nothing happens, but it's
Speaker 1: I don't think it is a credit. No, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's active commentary on definitely, But yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1: I used to I when I first watched the movie.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I didn't like Tracy when I was young.
Speaker 1: I didn't know enough, and I was like, she's just
Speaker 1: not nice, and I like the nice guy, and the
Speaker 1: nice guy should have won, and I can't believe. And
Speaker 1: then as I've grown older and become more obviously grown,
Speaker 1: immatured to my own and I though I've always been ambitious,
Speaker 1: I think the part of her that was very like
Speaker 1: I would do anything to get their part never related
Speaker 1: to me UM, and so I think I sort of
Speaker 1: blacklisted her in that way. And this time when I
Speaker 1: watched her, I really appreciated the passion she had and
Speaker 1: and you know her actually not getting brought down by
Speaker 1: the stupid teacher who did this horrible thing to her, um,
Speaker 1: but to like not have lost all of her zeal
Speaker 1: for it. Like I appreciated that part, UM and like
Speaker 1: I mean at the end, even when she lost, for
Speaker 1: a second, she was like, Okay, I accepted defeat. She
Speaker 1: cries a lot, butrple pants suit the world wepped. It
Speaker 1: was a tough morning for everyone, even though she did
Speaker 1: she won the popular vote, but that damn electoral college.
Speaker 1: That's an excellent point I would. I mean, for any
Speaker 1: listener who hasn't seen this movie in a while, particularly
Speaker 1: since the last election, probably go back and watch it
Speaker 1: and see how your opinions of the characters have changed,
Speaker 1: because if, especially if you saw it when it first
Speaker 1: came out, chances are your brain has been scrambled upwards. Certainly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Tammy and the queerness that's
Speaker 1: represented on the screen, because when we first are introduced
Speaker 1: to Tammy Metzler, she and Lisa are kissing. Lisa's not
Speaker 1: really into it, she leaves, and then we hear Tammy's
Speaker 1: voice over, which is that it's not like I'm a
Speaker 1: lesbian or anything. I'm attracted to the person. It's just
Speaker 1: that all the people I've ever been attracted to happen
Speaker 1: to be girls. She's yeah, she's struggling with company closet,
Speaker 1: figuring it out. Yeah, I really liked Tammy. I appreciated
Speaker 1: her whole like anarchy thing, where obviously that doesn't translate
Speaker 1: well into like current politics or like our actual situation,
Speaker 1: but as you know, as a high school student body,
Speaker 1: where what even is in my school at least, like
Speaker 1: the student body government got nothing accomplished, like didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: It was really just a title and in a popularity
Speaker 1: contest and that was it. So I kind of I
Speaker 1: like that she recognizes that. I like that she advocates
Speaker 1: for herself, she stands up for herself. She does call
Speaker 1: Tracy a kunt. That's Tammy's kind of a mixed baggie.
Speaker 1: There's I mean, it is so rare, I mean, especially
Speaker 1: in a movie at this time, to see any queer
Speaker 1: representation in a teen movie, as we kind of note
Speaker 1: based on I mean a lot of movies we've been
Speaker 1: doing recently, um our teen movies of this era, and
Speaker 1: very rarely see a fleshed out queer character who we
Speaker 1: know something about them other than they're queer. But a
Speaker 1: lot of I mean, it's there are some really good
Speaker 1: moments that she has, and then there's other stuff that
Speaker 1: it's like, really this is the I mean, this movie
Speaker 1: first of all, has no recognition of bisexuality. It's a
Speaker 1: very simplistic view of even I mean that line that
Speaker 1: you just said that, like I fall in love with
Speaker 1: the person, uh, could be interpreted to be kind of
Speaker 1: a forward thinking you know, that's a statement of like
Speaker 1: not recognizing the binary in that way. But the way
Speaker 1: we're supposed to read it is that she is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, strictly attracted to women and just doesn't want
Speaker 1: to admit it to herself or isn't right ready. The
Speaker 1: fact that she only enters the race for revenge against
Speaker 1: another woman who I don't totally understand the Lisa character
Speaker 1: was very confusing to me. Of like Wise, Lisa retaliating
Speaker 1: against Tammy so hard if we are supposed to believe
Speaker 1: that she is not queer in any way. But Lisa's
Speaker 1: motivations are not clear well defined or explained all, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, the only thing you hear is Paul's like
Speaker 1: and then Lisa just came over and like it was like,
Speaker 1: I mean, the only way I pieced it together was
Speaker 1: she was using Tammy to get to her brother. But
Speaker 1: they should have just added some some line in that
Speaker 1: that like that's what she was doing and was like
Speaker 1: sort of experimenting with her and was like, I'm not
Speaker 1: really into this, really actually into but then she gets
Speaker 1: so into running Paul's campaign, and I'm like, maybe there's
Speaker 1: some political reference I'm not getting in this, like there
Speaker 1: was for every character that confused me, and like maybe
Speaker 1: this is a reference to a nineties politician that I
Speaker 1: just like, I'm not as aware of. But the fact
Speaker 1: that Tammy enters the race as kind of like a trumpy,
Speaker 1: rogue candidate that's like burn it all down because I
Speaker 1: want to get revenge against someone. And it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what else do we get Tammy? Like what else? And
Speaker 1: uh steins where she's stalking Lisa. She is stalking for love, hiding,
Speaker 1: hiding in trash cans, the whole fucking montage We've seen
Speaker 1: a million times. I was like, Okay, what else we
Speaker 1: get Tammy? And she yeah, he calls uh, I forget
Speaker 1: if it's a Tracy A bitch, Lisa A count Tracy
Speaker 1: ac count Lisa A bit that exchange is made U
Speaker 1: And then you're like, Okay, it's not like women aren't
Speaker 1: allowed to dislike other women. What else do we got?
Speaker 1: And the one scene with Tammy a character I do
Speaker 1: genuinely like and seeing like representation and her being there
Speaker 1: is powerful in itself, but the way the movie treats
Speaker 1: the character and the choices that she makes, I feel
Speaker 1: like villainizes her in a way that's not necessary. The
Speaker 1: one moment I really liked of hers that to me,
Speaker 1: I'm as stand and then like direct opposition to the
Speaker 1: way we see Jim all the time is that scene
Speaker 1: where I forget what motivates her leaving the house. I
Speaker 1: think it's when like Tammy finds out she has to
Speaker 1: go to Catholic school or something, she's going to have
Speaker 1: to drop out of the election, and she sees a
Speaker 1: soccer field full of girls and she's looking at them,
Speaker 1: and so it is a gazy shot that it's not
Speaker 1: an exploitative shot, right, There's like she's standing far away
Speaker 1: and she's looking, you know, and you can tell like
Speaker 1: she's interested and possibly attracted, but it's not creepy and
Speaker 1: it's and then you see anytime Jim looks at a woman,
Speaker 1: it's very creepy and cropped and whatever. And I was like,
Speaker 1: that was my favorite scene with Tammy where you saw
Speaker 1: like that felt like, I mean, I would be interested
Speaker 1: in what our listeners think, that felt like the closest
Speaker 1: thing to like positive progressive representation of just like a
Speaker 1: girl recognizing her own sexuality and you know, being semi
Speaker 1: okay with it. But I feel like that character is
Speaker 1: is weird in a lot of ways. Well, she's just
Speaker 1: as kind of it seems as unreliable of a narrator
Speaker 1: is everyone else where you know, she at the end,
Speaker 1: she goes to Catholic school and she meets another girl
Speaker 1: whose name I forget, but just a little alright, Jennifer
Speaker 1: Junith right where she's like, we're soulmates and we're never
Speaker 1: going to be a part, and we're you know, best
Speaker 1: friends and we love each other. And you can kind
Speaker 1: of imagine that that story will play out a very
Speaker 1: similar way as her relationship with Lisa, because she keeps
Speaker 1: seems like she's kind of chasing after girls who may
Speaker 1: be open to experimenting who or who may be questioning,
Speaker 1: but ultimately end up you know, identifying as had to
Speaker 1: row and that like lines her up with all the
Speaker 1: other characters who basically end where they started at the
Speaker 1: end the movie too, where it's like this could have
Speaker 1: been an opportunity for her to you know, learn and grow,
Speaker 1: but she simply does not. The only yeah, the only
Speaker 1: thing I felt with like the three candidates was the
Speaker 1: girl's all seem angsty and like the one Paul goes
Speaker 1: just so cool and laid back, and he's just like
Speaker 1: wants to be this cool dude and like, man, I
Speaker 1: just just became Homecoming King and everybody loves me. And
Speaker 1: you know, Lisa one will have to find somebody else.
Speaker 1: But I guess that's life. Like he's so cool and
Speaker 1: and like the girls are like she's like the the
Speaker 1: angsty lesbian trying to figure her life out, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: why is it? Like her whole thing is like anger?
Speaker 1: And but then he also turns to camera at the
Speaker 1: end and he's like maybe my life would have been different,
Speaker 1: He's like, or maybe i'd be did Why did they
Speaker 1: choose to because he's the only person that does that, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I don't know if that line even like me, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the character there's something cognitive dissonance there. I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's a whole other movie in that line. Its like
Speaker 1: is he secretly very deep and like nihilistic and things there?
Speaker 1: I do. I totally see your point of Tammy is
Speaker 1: just as fucked up as anyone in the movie. I
Speaker 1: guess it's just the main person we have to compare
Speaker 1: her to is Tracy, who is not as conniving she is,
Speaker 1: I think, just as frustrated and angry. But I think
Speaker 1: it just gets back to the problem of like, well,
Speaker 1: because Tammy is the only queer character we see represented
Speaker 1: everything she does, it's almost hard to keep an individual
Speaker 1: because queer people are never represented, and so when you
Speaker 1: do see like the one queer character doing all these
Speaker 1: like this petty bullshit, you're like, man, yeah, yeah, that's dangerous.
Speaker 1: I guess I just like looking at it on the
Speaker 1: surface and not analyzing her after any deeper than that,
Speaker 1: like what we've just done, but just kind of very
Speaker 1: surface level, like her speech that she gives and then
Speaker 1: the scene where she's like praying and saying like, hey God,
Speaker 1: I know I don't believe in you, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to Catholic school soon, so like, I guess a bit
Speaker 1: of practice, and then you know, her speech is all
Speaker 1: like who cares, Like I don't even want to be
Speaker 1: running for this, you know, I'm just going to dismantle
Speaker 1: this institution, and like, don't vote. I don't care, and
Speaker 1: I was just like, she's cool, right, don't don't listen
Speaker 1: to Tanny. You should vote and you should care counts.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about Paul? Where to begin with Paul? Well,
Speaker 1: he can start by saying that he unlike many jock
Speaker 1: football player type characters that we see in teen movies,
Speaker 1: he is not this like gross misogynist, toxic masculinity poster child.
Speaker 1: It's a blank slate. He's he's sweet and he's sensitive,
Speaker 1: and he like loves his sister and he like is
Speaker 1: originally opposed to running against Tracy and her and he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna run against her. You know that's she's
Speaker 1: good at that and I'm not gonna, you know, interfere.
Speaker 1: And there's a few lines where he approaches his sister Tammy.
Speaker 1: He says, it's kind of weird that you're running against
Speaker 1: me and you haven't told me why you're doing it,
Speaker 1: But that's okay. I respect your privacy and I want
Speaker 1: you to know whoever wins you or me, there's no
Speaker 1: hard feelings. Were still brother and sister. Also, the weird addition,
Speaker 1: like that weird moment where he's like, well you are adopted.
Speaker 1: I was like, why is that there that It's like,
Speaker 1: I guess that's just another thing we know. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then you know, when he's praying for her, he's asking
Speaker 1: God to make Tammy happier because she's so smart and
Speaker 1: sensitive and I love her so much. Like but then
Speaker 1: also he's clueless because he doesn't seem to realize that
Speaker 1: his sister is queer. There's like some moments where I
Speaker 1: was like, Paul, you missed that, and he's like, and
Speaker 1: I don't know how he send it up here. I mean,
Speaker 1: she got in a fight with Tanny and next to
Speaker 1: the next thing, I know, she's a I was like,
Speaker 1: Paul read the room. Yeah, So he's just clueless and stupid.
Speaker 1: And then also a line that he need delivers I
Speaker 1: think in voice over pretty early on in the movie,
Speaker 1: he says, you know, Mr McAllister changed my life, and
Speaker 1: whatever they say he did or didn't do, I believe
Speaker 1: he's a good man. So he almost just like sees
Speaker 1: the good in people to a fault because he's never
Speaker 1: like it's sort of like that, you know, there there's
Speaker 1: guys out there like this, who are you know, they
Speaker 1: have a good heart, they mean the best, they're generally
Speaker 1: respectful of women, but nothing bad has ever really happened
Speaker 1: to them, and so they're not going to assume that
Speaker 1: anyone would do anything against anyone's better interest because I
Speaker 1: just don't have that experience. I mean, the one thing
Speaker 1: that he did that was very poignant was at the
Speaker 1: end when they were voting, He's like, everybody says that
Speaker 1: you should vote for yourself, but I don't think that
Speaker 1: that's what I think. That's just he literally was the
Speaker 1: one who voted Tracy in. She won by Paul's vote. Oh,
Speaker 1: he's a good guy. And then he wants to have
Speaker 1: a fund a carnival that fundraises for muscular distrophe at
Speaker 1: the and that scene kind of broke my heart too,
Speaker 1: of like he does end up caring, like you know,
Speaker 1: and not supposed to be like a funny moment where Mr.
Speaker 1: Mcallaster's stooge ends up being motivated and does want to
Speaker 1: make a difference. But you're like, man, that like seems
Speaker 1: like pretty true to how you know, like when men
Speaker 1: usually only choose to support younger versions of themselves and
Speaker 1: bring them in and it just perpetuates this Oh god,
Speaker 1: that whole scene was like, oh Paul, baby, Paul won't
Speaker 1: drop the ball, and I loved that smogan. It's a
Speaker 1: little defend. Another one was Paul Metzler, you Betsler, precious,
Speaker 1: But oh one another this is just a quick thing
Speaker 1: and we hardly know anything about this character. But the
Speaker 1: student who was running for vice president Jerry Um. We
Speaker 1: see representation on screen of a person with a disability.
Speaker 1: I love Jerry and he's running on a freaking post
Speaker 1: and opposed. He cracks jokes, he's anyways, yeah, Jered basically
Speaker 1: gets a standing uh yeah yeah, because what he says
Speaker 1: like I can't stand, but I stand for you, and
Speaker 1: everyone's like, this are Jerry. Another character we see for
Speaker 1: like two seconds that was like, oh, there's a whole
Speaker 1: other thing in there. Uh Tammy's mom. There's that scene
Speaker 1: where the parents find out that she's been election tampering
Speaker 1: and she's been disrupting coming down the escalator with Mulanni
Speaker 1: and the whole ship. But there's a scene with the
Speaker 1: parents where it seems pretty point. The mom's sitting there
Speaker 1: like with a martini. I think she's supposed to be like,
Speaker 1: oh wine, mom who is exhausted with her blow hard husband. Um,
Speaker 1: and he's you know, yelling He's like, where where are
Speaker 1: you sucking? You're going to a new school, and Tammy's
Speaker 1: mom keeps almost saying something's cut off, and then eventually
Speaker 1: she finally does say something and is you know, not
Speaker 1: a dumb person at all. Is very well spoken and
Speaker 1: starts to say make a cogent point, and then the
Speaker 1: dad cuts her off again. You're just like interrupting, You're
Speaker 1: going to Sacred Heart or whatever the spot just like
Speaker 1: whoa oh. They say something like yeah, we're gonna straighten
Speaker 1: you out, and then she's like giggling because I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's because of like right like I'm pants
Speaker 1: sexually and it's like all right, Tammy, we okay. Does
Speaker 1: anyone have any other thoughts about the film? Whof there's
Speaker 1: a there's a lot just The last a Shotover really
Speaker 1: liked was the shot of the dick at the end.
Speaker 1: He's like, what happens when a man loses everything? It's
Speaker 1: like literally a straight up castration shot. Um oh, I
Speaker 1: guess The last thing I wanted to say in terms
Speaker 1: of just like you know, unwrapping a pretty clear commentary is, uh,
Speaker 1: the idea of second chances where Jim's character at the end.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like and then I moved to New
Speaker 1: York and I got dissed and it's not perfect. Clearly
Speaker 1: his life kind of sucks, but you know he's not
Speaker 1: really punished. He just has to start over. That is,
Speaker 1: I mean clear political allegory of like, hey, just I mean,
Speaker 1: I think applies to what a lot of guys are
Speaker 1: trying to do after their me too moment, to like
Speaker 1: I just gotta go somewhere else or wait a little
Speaker 1: while and then I can just keep on. Louis k
Speaker 1: keeps doing drop in sets at the Comedy Cellar. He's
Speaker 1: addicted to it. He won't stop. And yeah, so that
Speaker 1: that was like a moment that I think feels like
Speaker 1: especially timely right now to just like and I just
Speaker 1: went somewhere else and did the same ship forever. Awesome.
Speaker 1: So I do appreciate the one kid, the truth kid
Speaker 1: who looks spits on this Larry feminist Larry, and Larry
Speaker 1: wants women when on Jim is like still driving on
Speaker 1: the streets after all of this has happened. He's divorced,
Speaker 1: he lost everything. He's in the car and he sees
Speaker 1: Larry and they both just like lock eyes and He's
Speaker 1: like tries to give him a little smile. Larry's like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, much like what Rose does to Billy
Speaker 1: Zane in the end of Titanic Tooey, Yeah, where was
Speaker 1: Billy's and in this movie? Where was the Boba duke
Speaker 1: in this movie? Where in this movie? Yeah, there's a mistake.
Speaker 1: Not everyone's always available. But I hope that I love
Speaker 1: I love Alfre Billina to you know, to my dying day.
Speaker 1: I think Matthew it is so good in this movie.
Speaker 1: This movie was excellently cast. It's like a perfect inversion
Speaker 1: of who people perceived him to be. Oh, I would
Speaker 1: be remiss not to just remind everyone, as I do
Speaker 1: every time we mentioned Matthew Brodrick. Matthew Broderick did hit
Speaker 1: two women with his car once and killed them both.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I didn't know that about him, guys,
Speaker 1: Matthew Brodercks. I mean, he didn't do it on purpose,
Speaker 1: but he was in a car with Jennifer Gray in
Speaker 1: Ireland and uh so, just yeah, enjoy Matthew brodjeckts never water.
Speaker 1: It's uh, you know videos Matthew Brodicks. So nothing happened.
Speaker 1: M just a fun fact about Matthew Broderick, he'd killed
Speaker 1: the lady. Well, that really sucks. Well to bring that note, Yeah,
Speaker 1: well a fun to to uplift our spirits again after
Speaker 1: hearing that, I just wanted to point out. I don't
Speaker 1: know if anyone else noticed, but um, whenever you first
Speaker 1: are introduced to Paul and he's like tumbling down a
Speaker 1: mountain as he's skiing, you see two different shots of
Speaker 1: what is obviously stock footage of a skier because they're
Speaker 1: wearing different coats. And then when it cuts to a
Speaker 1: close on Paul, he's wearing a different coat from both
Speaker 1: of the previous two shots. So it's so funny. I
Speaker 1: didn't see that. I love that. That's great continuity, and
Speaker 1: it's clear that they didn't try to do they didn't
Speaker 1: do anything to try because I easily just could have
Speaker 1: taken the one stock footage shot and then matched the
Speaker 1: coat with whatever that person was wearing. But it seemed
Speaker 1: like an almost deliberate joke for like it to be
Speaker 1: three different coats, because those shots are so long that
Speaker 1: you could have just used the one so anyway. And
Speaker 1: then finally, for anyone who's keeping track of the name
Speaker 1: anagrams of what Caitlin Durante anagrams too relevant to this movie.
Speaker 1: Caitlin Durante anagrams to run lit candidate if you misspell
Speaker 1: candidate and only spell it with one D. So for example,
Speaker 1: you know, if someone's like, hey, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I should run or not, I would say to you,
Speaker 1: run lit candidate, because you're lit and you're a potential candidate,
Speaker 1: you should. Right in my sub rating now, I'm rating
Speaker 1: things twice an episode. Uh and and that's a two
Speaker 1: for me, a two out of five. Wow, Jamie harsh
Speaker 1: as a stretch. No, listen, there's been there's been great ones,
Speaker 1: and I hold them to that gold standard. Okay, I understand, well,
Speaker 1: I think this is one of my better ones. So like,
Speaker 1: I guess we're there's we can you know, disagree from
Speaker 1: time to time. But um yeah, that's that's the one
Speaker 1: I got for this one. The last thing I wanted
Speaker 1: to mention to this movie's credit, this is one of
Speaker 1: the few because we didn't discuss Jim's wife, Diane really
Speaker 1: at all, because we're not given much other than her
Speaker 1: husband's a sucking asshole and she would like a baby
Speaker 1: and she uses a sex phrase clearly written by a
Speaker 1: man film what woman in her right? It wouldn't happen. Ever,
Speaker 1: I say that every day, what if? What if? Caleb
Speaker 1: was like, I'd like to come out in strong opposition.
Speaker 1: That's my only sex phrase. It's my campaign slogan really
Speaker 1: for when I when I a lit candidate, run filed
Speaker 1: me up. The one thing I wanted to say to
Speaker 1: that point, other than the fact that you just lost
Speaker 1: my vote, is that that this is one of the
Speaker 1: rare movies where, you know, Linda tells Diane your husband
Speaker 1: and I had sex, and Diane breaks up with her husband,
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to actively punish the other woman, which I
Speaker 1: think is usually well so I appreciated that. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: see them having presumably just interacted and probably not passing
Speaker 1: the Bectel test because it's probably talking about Jim. But
Speaker 1: it seems like they are consoling each other. They're you know,
Speaker 1: they're crying and comforting each other, and they are placing
Speaker 1: the blame rightfully on Jim, who I don't know if
Speaker 1: this happens right before right after when he has a
Speaker 1: conversation with Linda and is like, you ruined my life
Speaker 1: and she's like you, like you took advantage of me, like,
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, you took advantage of me, you
Speaker 1: kiss me, you hugged me, and like, I think that
Speaker 1: they should have acknowledged that they both had a partner.
Speaker 1: There was one thing I was like, Linda was an
Speaker 1: active participant in that. But I think that that also
Speaker 1: spoke to her not being a very well written character,
Speaker 1: because she pretty clearly rejects him and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden seems not just on board to have sex
Speaker 1: with him, but on board to have sex with him
Speaker 1: in front of her baby, which is such a leap,
Speaker 1: and the character were introduced to that, it seems like
Speaker 1: that character was sold out at some point, right, But
Speaker 1: we're Linda Land. She should definitely own some of the blame.
Speaker 1: But she's right. I mean, I think she's right to
Speaker 1: not for like, obviously she didn't ruin Jim's life, but
Speaker 1: she was an active participant. She literally fund the guy
Speaker 1: in front of her baby. No, I should do that
Speaker 1: with with Linda. There's no catalyst for the audience to
Speaker 1: understand why she suddenly changes her mind about wanting to
Speaker 1: sleep with Jim. Why does she even invite him over
Speaker 1: after he hit on her? And right he would think
Speaker 1: that that would put an end to that friendship. Well
Speaker 1: she said that, She's like, I was just lonely and
Speaker 1: made a mistake and you know, and that's the thing
Speaker 1: again about this moral ethics, and it does happen. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing I liked about this, Like I like
Speaker 1: in general about this movie so much is I think
Speaker 1: the overarching message is also about like how so much
Speaker 1: everything is gray. There isn't so much of like black
Speaker 1: and white, and there is a lot of gray space.
Speaker 1: And it does come to moral ambiguity. Like with every
Speaker 1: character there's like they're all you could see the good
Speaker 1: side and then you're like, oh, we did this shitty
Speaker 1: thing and that literally everybody totally poor filming up, she
Speaker 1: did nothing. Hey does this movie pass the Bechtel test? Yes? Yes.
Speaker 1: Women do not interact nearly as much as I was expecting,
Speaker 1: considering there are a fair number of female identifying characters.
Speaker 1: I only clocked one scene where it passes, which is
Speaker 1: between Tammy and Lisa in the beginning. Whenever they are kissing,
Speaker 1: Lisa pulls away. She says, I told you, and she's
Speaker 1: like what She's like, it doesn't feel right anymore, and
Speaker 1: she's like Tammy's like, but I love you. And then
Speaker 1: a few seconds later, Lisa is getting into a car
Speaker 1: and starting to drive away and Tammy's like, where are
Speaker 1: you going? And she's like, I'm not like you. I'm
Speaker 1: not a insert homophobic slur here. Yeah, we're not in love.
Speaker 1: We were just experimenting. So nothing is called into question
Speaker 1: here in terms of hey, is this is a man
Speaker 1: mentioned here? Like this is about women kissing each other
Speaker 1: an interesting past? Did you not have Tracy and her
Speaker 1: mom passing at least once in that scene? No, because
Speaker 1: unless I am just misremembering something. But the only scene
Speaker 1: I noticed where Tracy and her mom interact on screen
Speaker 1: is after Tracy finds out she loses the election and
Speaker 1: she's crying, and then her mom comes in and she's
Speaker 1: when she's stuff to her right. She's like, uh, there there,
Speaker 1: lie down, take my pill, you know, and then she's like,
Speaker 1: maybe you needed more posters or you should have taken
Speaker 1: my suggestions about your speech, But Tracy never verbally responds
Speaker 1: she's crying. Yeah, I wish that mom. I don't understand
Speaker 1: why that mom character wasn't more present, And that was
Speaker 1: like a weird thing for me. So yes, this movie
Speaker 1: does pass the Bechdel test, but as far as I
Speaker 1: can tell, only in one scene. Unless I'm missing something,
Speaker 1: it's not okay. That's that's the way the cookie crumbles
Speaker 1: will take one for Yeah, now we rate on our
Speaker 1: nipple scale, where we rate the movie based on its
Speaker 1: portrayal of women based on a scale of zero to
Speaker 1: five nipples. This is another like kind of landing right
Speaker 1: in the middle for me, where to me, it's not
Speaker 1: especially progressive, it's not especially re aggressive. It has interesting
Speaker 1: female characters, more time and care was spent to develop them,
Speaker 1: certainly more than other similar kind of teen movies, especially
Speaker 1: of this era. But also there are choices that were made,
Speaker 1: like the statutory affair that happens between the teacher and
Speaker 1: the student, and I don't know, this is just like
Speaker 1: it's a hard this is a hard one. This is
Speaker 1: some of them are it's very easy, and this is
Speaker 1: a hard one because as you were kind of touching
Speaker 1: on Natasha, it's like there's a lot of ambiguity and
Speaker 1: gray area that is honestly are realistic. I mean, we
Speaker 1: as as people find ourselves having to make difficult decisions
Speaker 1: and and being faced with things that we don't exactly
Speaker 1: know what the right and moral and ethical thing to
Speaker 1: do is in the moment, and maybe making mistakes here
Speaker 1: and there. So I think all of those aspects of
Speaker 1: the film are interesting. Um Worth noting that this is
Speaker 1: an extremely white movie that could be um maybe explained
Speaker 1: away the fact that this takes place in a suburb
Speaker 1: of Oh Maha, Um, where do we share? But we're everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: replace the Indians. I'm sure we found our way somewhere there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, every major speaking role, in fact, maybe even
Speaker 1: every speaking role period is spoken by a white person. Um.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate that there is clear and not code
Speaker 1: did because if there is queer characters in movies, usually
Speaker 1: they're just coded that way. But we do see someone who,
Speaker 1: even though she perhaps is not totally sure how she
Speaker 1: identifies at this stage in her life, she is queer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although as we discussed, you know, she kind of falls
Speaker 1: into a sort of trophy character of like kind of
Speaker 1: the angry lesbian type. So you know, more care and
Speaker 1: time could have been spent to develop these characters just
Speaker 1: a little bit more. Um Yeah. So overall, this was
Speaker 1: a very long winded way to say that I give
Speaker 1: this movie. I'm going to give this movie. I think
Speaker 1: two and a half nips. I'll give one to Tracy Flick,
Speaker 1: I'll give one to Tammy, and I will give my
Speaker 1: remaining half nipple too Diane Jim's wife and then ex
Speaker 1: wife because I feel like we should have his wife,
Speaker 1: because I feel like we should have learned more about her,
Speaker 1: and more about the mom character, more about many characters.
Speaker 1: But you know, you only have so much time in
Speaker 1: a movie, so I'm gonna go. I'm very close to
Speaker 1: wanting to do with three and a half for this one. Natasha,
Speaker 1: you made a great point at the end for all
Speaker 1: the like nitpicky things they have about this movie, by
Speaker 1: and large, every character in this movie is presented as flawed,
Speaker 1: and that is, I think, in general, a positive in
Speaker 1: that we have female characters that we know well enough
Speaker 1: to know that they're flawed. Usually it's the only thing
Speaker 1: we know about them, or we know nothing at all.
Speaker 1: So where where I do have like certain like thoughts
Speaker 1: of like, I think that Tammy's character could have been
Speaker 1: handled better, You're totally right. She's a very flawed character,
Speaker 1: as is the entire main cast. And for any criticism
Speaker 1: of like everyone like, it's not just the female identifying
Speaker 1: characters in this movie. That and where they started. Everyone's
Speaker 1: in a vicious cycle that they made themselves, and that's
Speaker 1: you know, suppressing, but it feels real and at least
Speaker 1: is uniformly applied to almost every character you know. There
Speaker 1: there are a few misses with I absolutely agree that
Speaker 1: the statutory rape storyline is mishandled, and there's I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that there's space inside of it this movie
Speaker 1: for it to be handled well, but it's not. And
Speaker 1: then there's a few uncanny valley characters like Linda where
Speaker 1: I could understand where you're coming from, but we just
Speaker 1: haven't spent enough time with you to understand why these
Speaker 1: sudden switches were made. Uh, And just that I don't
Speaker 1: see any reason why Tracy's mom couldn't have been more present. Uh,
Speaker 1: little stuff like that. Obviously, it is a very white movie,
Speaker 1: and there's no reason in a high school setting for
Speaker 1: their now, although my high school had white people in it.
Speaker 1: So I don't like not to defend this choice at all.
Speaker 1: It might be a regional thing, who knows. But also
Speaker 1: in movies you can make choices to you know, misrepresent things,
Speaker 1: because movies do it all the time. Right. And also
Speaker 1: it's like, how would it have affected the story negatively?
Speaker 1: Like it it wouldn't you know? You could have the
Speaker 1: movie happen the exact same way and have included people
Speaker 1: of color at any point. But I'll go three three
Speaker 1: and a half because it's hard to find. It's hard
Speaker 1: to find complicated depictions of women in movies at all,
Speaker 1: and we've got we've got a few here, and I
Speaker 1: really really enjoyed this movie and I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: seeing it again. Um, and also sorry, what I was
Speaker 1: gonna say is not just a complicated woman, but the
Speaker 1: kind of character you can keep revisiting and take something
Speaker 1: new away every time. I think that that is something
Speaker 1: very commonly applied to male characters. Um, I go right
Speaker 1: to TV. But like you know, you're don drapers of
Speaker 1: like revisiting this guy we all thought was so fucking cool.
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of female characters that are written
Speaker 1: well enough to be able to go back and have
Speaker 1: new takers. So I'll go three and a half. M
Speaker 1: I mean to give two to Tracy flick uh, and
Speaker 1: I give that half to Diane, and I'm given the
Speaker 1: last of that poor baby who had to see Matthew
Speaker 1: brodack of sex. Um, you guys said everything. Now, I
Speaker 1: would give it three also because I appreciate that they
Speaker 1: were telling a female sort of driven story. I appreciate
Speaker 1: that there were multiple female characters. I mean, we talked
Speaker 1: about well five or so, and you know the reason
Speaker 1: I wouldn't give it a full five is because they
Speaker 1: were portrayed to be like the parts of us that
Speaker 1: could be embraced. We're sort of underappreciated, so even and
Speaker 1: I get it. I mean, as a writer, like, when
Speaker 1: you're writing a character, you just gotta go like all in.
Speaker 1: You can't be like, oh, the um, you know, the
Speaker 1: ambitious student, and the log line has to be the
Speaker 1: over ambitious student, um, the obnoxious student. Like it has
Speaker 1: to do. And I get it, Um, but I wish that,
Speaker 1: you know, if we had the platform, we weren't portrayed
Speaker 1: as that. Otherwise I feel like all your points are valid. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm always an advocate for diversity. Um. That's that. I
Speaker 1: completely get that. I'm from Canada and and uh, I see,
Speaker 1: I think it's a lot more common there, um to
Speaker 1: see all sorts of people. But I've learned as I've
Speaker 1: come to America, that there are cities here where people
Speaker 1: didn't have people of color um at all, like until
Speaker 1: college and stuff. So I understand that. And I'm just
Speaker 1: kidding sometimes and sometimes not um that everybody should have diversity,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, back it was, it's all good. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So three, I'll give two and a half to Tracy
Speaker 1: just because she's a bull buster and she you know,
Speaker 1: didn't let anybody stop her, and she had a lot
Speaker 1: of ship happened to her and she pushed on. She
Speaker 1: was also a human being who was flawed, and I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot to take away from her. Um,
Speaker 1: and fucking Reese Witherspoon plays her, so you have to
Speaker 1: love her. The other quarters I'll give to Tammy because,
Speaker 1: like you said, it's it's great that they had um
Speaker 1: an openly queer character on camera, and and her depiction
Speaker 1: was honest in the beginning of her struggling, you know,
Speaker 1: and trying to figure it out. Um, Diane, I feel
Speaker 1: bad for her. I feel bad for her, and so
Speaker 1: I don't think the math added up. Guys, don't judge me.
Speaker 1: I'm Indian. I should have known the math, but they didn't.
Speaker 1: I think that I'm also half hungover, but I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm just really sleepy. Well, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being here. Much fun. What would you like to plug?
Speaker 1: Where can people find you? On mond um, you guys
Speaker 1: can check out the Kind of Dating podcast. We are
Speaker 1: everywhere you find podcasts, and we're also on YouTube. You
Speaker 1: can follow us on social media where at Kind of
Speaker 1: Dating across the board. Um, I'm at Natasha Chandel on
Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram and Natasha underscore Chandel on Twitter because
Speaker 1: some other bitch took my name. I'm getting unbelievable. Never
Speaker 1: use this Twitter, give me my handle that I'm kidding awesome.
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