Speaker 1: On the Dog Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy zef invest start
Speaker 1: changing it with the bec Del cast. Hey Jamie, Hey Caitlin,
Speaker 1: it's your birthday, So I brought you some hard boiled eggs.
Speaker 1: Do you want to kiss and then have sex in
Speaker 1: my bathroom? Um, let's see where things go. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a lot to ask. I appreciate. I appreciate. I
Speaker 1: think people should be a little more direct. Um. And
Speaker 1: I'm just being clear with my intentions, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I will say like, I just want to make sure
Speaker 1: that me, like accepting the egg isn't like a metaphor
Speaker 1: in your eyes. And it's just a validation that I
Speaker 1: am hungry and and I'm never gonna turn down a
Speaker 1: free egg. That's so fair, honey, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: turn it out a free I go to any circumstances
Speaker 1: someone for set sweet. That's like a disgusting free food
Speaker 1: to offer. Oh, I got I got eggs with the
Speaker 1: brain recently. Oh I heard a wild story about eggs
Speaker 1: the other day. Okay, but that's what I'll tell you
Speaker 1: off pod. Well, you listeners can just wonder what jabel
Speaker 1: egg story was. The intrigue friend told me a really
Speaker 1: long story about eggs and it was disgusting, disgusting. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear about it. Well, anyway, this
Speaker 1: is our podcast in which we should we that past,
Speaker 1: that past. Oh my gosh, look at us passing the
Speaker 1: Bectel test on your birthday to have been talking about
Speaker 1: an egg anecdote because I wasn't specific about the gender
Speaker 1: of the person who had the egg experience. True, and
Speaker 1: eggs are feminist icon eggs, so icon the egg. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a great I'm a big fan of YouTuber Jenny
Speaker 1: Nicholson and she made a video about the Lamb Before
Speaker 1: Time movies and singles out this song in like Lamb
Speaker 1: Before Time forty seven where they ran out of ideas
Speaker 1: and like the fourth one, and so in the one,
Speaker 1: the villain is like a raptor who loves eggs and
Speaker 1: he sings a song about eggs. Okay, yeah, I love
Speaker 1: that egg culture. Culture is really strong. Um. Okay, so
Speaker 1: this is our podcast. It's my birthday, It's your birthday,
Speaker 1: Happy birthday. Jamie thinks a few things right at the top.
Speaker 1: So this is our show in which we examine movies
Speaker 1: through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel test as
Speaker 1: a jumping off point. We can chat about that in
Speaker 1: a moment, but I just want to point out that
Speaker 1: this is our second attempt at doing this episode on
Speaker 1: the shape of water. What if we failed again? That'd
Speaker 1: what if the egg thing was what took first? It
Speaker 1: was the three eleven. Yeah, let's tell let's let's tell
Speaker 1: them what happened because it was I think as it
Speaker 1: was happening, we were having so much fun, but we
Speaker 1: were also like a little we're scaring ourselves a little
Speaker 1: bit because it's never happened, unprecedented truly. So what happened
Speaker 1: is that we were all set to record an episode
Speaker 1: on the shape of water, totally prepped. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: matrix situation. The intentions were clear and we were going
Speaker 1: to do it. We however, both had a heart out.
Speaker 1: We only had about ninety minutes to record, and so
Speaker 1: we start recording. We started talking and we were silly.
Speaker 1: We were feeling silly. We hadn't recorded an episode in
Speaker 1: a while because I am on tour in Europe, so
Speaker 1: you know, we were just catching up. The vibes were loose,
Speaker 1: and they were so loose that you got an email
Speaker 1: about a three eleven the music group cruise, which I
Speaker 1: still don't quite know what this could be. Three eleven
Speaker 1: the band? Yeah, yeah, and so are they do they
Speaker 1: perform on the cruise? Is it three eleven Themes? Okay,
Speaker 1: all of you above, Okay, Yeah, they're definitely there. I
Speaker 1: don't think that they have anything anything else going on.
Speaker 1: Needlessly cruel, needlessly cruel. They're on the cruise, as the point, right,
Speaker 1: So this, like this alert that you got about this cruise,
Speaker 1: sent us on a spiral in which we did not
Speaker 1: recover from and we spend a full hour and may
Speaker 1: never we will never recover from it. So I believe
Speaker 1: at the time of the release of this episode on
Speaker 1: the Shape of Water, Matrons will have been exposed to
Speaker 1: the episode that we are talking about right now. This
Speaker 1: kind of we went off the rails and had a
Speaker 1: silly time episode. I don't think, and and and just
Speaker 1: to plug the Matrion while we're while we're here, hello,
Speaker 1: I think it's been a while since we've had truly
Speaker 1: off the rails Matreon episode. It's that's not usually how
Speaker 1: it goes. We usually, you know, use the Matrion to
Speaker 1: cover popular requests. We don't usually have guests on the Matreon.
Speaker 1: It's a more loose format, but it's the same Bechtel
Speaker 1: cast flavor. But occasionally, I would say, maybe once a
Speaker 1: year there's an episode that is just like what's happening,
Speaker 1: and this is that episode, and we hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 1: But but nonetheless, we had prepared for an episode, so
Speaker 1: we're doing it now. So I don't know, I know,
Speaker 1: I feel focused, I feel good. The egg thing, we
Speaker 1: were in danger for a second, but I I texted
Speaker 1: you the egg anecdote, I think, and so now you
Speaker 1: have it, and now I released that perfect So from
Speaker 1: my mind, we can move on to talking about what
Speaker 1: the Bechtel Test is, which is a media metric created
Speaker 1: by Queer cartoon is Alison Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel
Speaker 1: Wallace Test. Our version is this, two characters of a
Speaker 1: marginalized gender must have names, they must speak to each other,
Speaker 1: and their conversation has to be about something other than
Speaker 1: a man, and ideally it's a substantial, meaningful conversation. Yes,
Speaker 1: so that's the criteria, Like two women discussing eggs exactly
Speaker 1: is an example that's not the Let's be clear, there's
Speaker 1: other ways that That's not the only way the test
Speaker 1: can work. Yes, absolutely, um So, today's episode is on
Speaker 1: the Shape of Water and this is your big birthday episode, Jamie. So,
Speaker 1: why don't you tell me, tell us all the listeners
Speaker 1: out there in the world your relationship with this movie. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I am mostly telling newer listeners of the
Speaker 1: podcast because you you were there for my Shape of
Speaker 1: Water face, and um so were many of our Day
Speaker 1: one rider dies I had a whole thing. I did
Speaker 1: a stand up joke about it for years. Really loved
Speaker 1: the Fisherman for the Shape of Water, was like, why
Speaker 1: is this horny? Slash? I love how horny this is?
Speaker 1: Slash Wow. Doug Jones like, that's a Pandora's box of
Speaker 1: my favorite thing in the world, which is obscure details
Speaker 1: about character actors, Like, there was just a lot of
Speaker 1: elements of this movie that was tick tick tick tick ticking.
Speaker 1: For me. Um. I love del Toro, and I also
Speaker 1: love like I'll tend to skew more towards um del
Speaker 1: Toro's sentimental side of his catalog mainly just because not yeah,
Speaker 1: mainly just because I'm not much of an action person,
Speaker 1: so I'm very excited. It's like, oh, this is maybe
Speaker 1: the most sentimental one. Yeah, I really enjoyed this movie
Speaker 1: when it came out. I didn't think about it critically
Speaker 1: very much. I know, I feel like when it came out,
Speaker 1: I feel like it was like people generally liked it,
Speaker 1: but it was I think maybe considered to be a
Speaker 1: bit overrated in terms of how much awards attention it generated.
Speaker 1: But I didn't really care. I mean, I was like,
Speaker 1: Del Toro won an Oscar for this, and I feel
Speaker 1: like people never win the Oscar for the movie they're
Speaker 1: supposed to the point is that they get it, So
Speaker 1: would it maybe have made sense for him to win
Speaker 1: for another movie? Sure, La Brenth Pansla exactly. Um, I
Speaker 1: remember seeing a lot of takes and that I'm like,
Speaker 1: you're not even wrong, but I just, you know, leave
Speaker 1: Leaf Deltara alone. Where they that was all the same
Speaker 1: year to get Out came out. They're like, get Out
Speaker 1: should have one best picture that's the most impactful, memorable,
Speaker 1: good picture. You might be right about that, I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly cultural impact and good okay, but we're
Speaker 1: not here to talk about I don't want to hit
Speaker 1: the boys against each other. I love Shape of Water.
Speaker 1: It makes me cry. It was It was interesting too
Speaker 1: prepare this episode because I do think that there is
Speaker 1: a lot to talk about in terms of the subjects.
Speaker 1: It doesn't do well on or or UM. I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, in the five years, I can't believe it's
Speaker 1: been five years since I was seeing Titania and or
Speaker 1: Shape of Water in theaters every day. I guess also,
Speaker 1: I do think that this is a thing like where
Speaker 1: end of a bit of a low for for your girl,
Speaker 1: you know, Jim, and I feel like, you know, the
Speaker 1: movies that you become attached to when you're at a
Speaker 1: bit of a low in this era, Shape of Water,
Speaker 1: in Titania, they're just always a little special to you.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, well, I think that there's a huge
Speaker 1: um conversation about disability, in particular in the portrayal of
Speaker 1: disability in big movies that needs to be had About
Speaker 1: this movie, I'm excited to get into it, and I'm
Speaker 1: excited to get horny for the fish Man again. It's
Speaker 1: been a while. I remember how much you loved his
Speaker 1: fish but and fish abbs, I think you were really
Speaker 1: isolating certain parts of his fish body and I was
Speaker 1: objective hying him fish thigh gap, I want to say
Speaker 1: as well, he did have it. Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: forgot not the thigh gap. I forgot that. I was
Speaker 1: really fixated on the thigh gap. Yes, wow, I wonder
Speaker 1: what's happened to because I wasn't. Maybe maybe I'm making
Speaker 1: progress on my own body issues because the thigh gap
Speaker 1: didn't leap out at me this time, so progress question mark.
Speaker 1: We don't know. Could be that said, yes, the sexty
Speaker 1: fish does have a thigh gap, um, and that's just
Speaker 1: those are beautiful truth. I don't think that they ever
Speaker 1: ended up making an action figure of him, which I
Speaker 1: feel like I need to check. But I feel like
Speaker 1: it was that was amissing. It was kind of just
Speaker 1: like much like I was waiting for the Babu Frick
Speaker 1: Plushy to come out. You're guess it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of time. I thought that the
Speaker 1: having the fishman in my home would be inevitable, but
Speaker 1: it hasn't happened. Well, maybe you have to open your
Speaker 1: birthday present from me just kidding. Life Dug just pops
Speaker 1: out of a cake. I don't want to make any
Speaker 1: promises I can't keep. So maybe what's your history with
Speaker 1: the Shape of What Terror? I saw it in theaters
Speaker 1: I think only one time. Unbelievable. I think my favorite
Speaker 1: thing about this movie is the production design, and I
Speaker 1: like the story generally, but it's not my favorite of
Speaker 1: Del Toro's and I just didn't feel that much of
Speaker 1: an attachment to it. I was kind of flabbergasted that
Speaker 1: it one best picture. Yeah, I thought there were other
Speaker 1: movies that were far more deserving, and I was so
Speaker 1: I kind of like ended up having some resentment toward
Speaker 1: it because of that, and then I never engaged with
Speaker 1: it again. So I don't I like this movie. I
Speaker 1: don't love it. It's just I feel kind of maybe
Speaker 1: even neutral, I suppose about it these days. Um, but
Speaker 1: it was interesting revisiting it. I noticed, Um, do you
Speaker 1: remember when we covered a little princess and there was
Speaker 1: like this green motif and everyone was like, what does
Speaker 1: green mean in this movie? A Fonso Koran, what are
Speaker 1: you What are you trying to say with the green?
Speaker 1: And he was like nothing, I just like green and
Speaker 1: I found I think maybe del Toro was doing the
Speaker 1: same kind of thing because so much of this movie
Speaker 1: is green or like little objects are just little flourishes
Speaker 1: in the movie are green, and it has a very
Speaker 1: similar like yeah, just like color palette and like lighting
Speaker 1: scheme as a little princess. And I guess other of
Speaker 1: his movies. I mean, he's like pretty consistently like visually
Speaker 1: consistent in his work, and yeah, I think that's a
Speaker 1: major strength of his Again, but um, I was like,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of green in this movie. What does
Speaker 1: the green mean? And I just want I'm hoping that
Speaker 1: someone asks Garmo about it and then he's just like nothing,
Speaker 1: I just like green. We can't get into it here
Speaker 1: because this is another yet another, I think, the other
Speaker 1: major derailer of our last episode. But the timing of
Speaker 1: this episode is kind of fun, not intentionally, but because
Speaker 1: the new trailer for Garamos, why am I okay, I'm
Speaker 1: not on a first name. Garmo dels Horos Pinocchio movie
Speaker 1: just came out. We can't talk about Pinocchio anymore, No,
Speaker 1: we cannot today, And if you don't know why, it's
Speaker 1: because we accidentally talked about Pinocchio instead of the Shape
Speaker 1: of Water for four to five minutes. Yes, wow, I
Speaker 1: it's like genuinely like my chest tightened a little bit
Speaker 1: because I still want to talk about Pinocchio Gate. Look
Speaker 1: it up out of the Pinocchio is coming to the
Speaker 1: Matrian this November. Okay, shape before Okay, so we both
Speaker 1: saw it in theaters. I really was attached to it
Speaker 1: at the time. I haven't watched it in a couple
Speaker 1: of years. Honestly, the moment passed for me. Unlike Titania,
Speaker 1: which I still watch constantly, I don't watch The Shape
Speaker 1: of Water constantly, So it was interesting to revisit it
Speaker 1: with a few years distance. Still, I mean, the cast
Speaker 1: of this movie is rather wild. Character actor after character
Speaker 1: actor just top marks across the world casting wise. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the movie. Let's do it. Let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break first and then come back and talk
Speaker 1: about the movie. Okay, we'll be right back. Splash blash,
Speaker 1: and we're back. So shall we get into what's going on?
Speaker 1: And what do we ever figure out? Do we figure
Speaker 1: out what the shape of water? Oh? Like what literally
Speaker 1: like the answer to that question, like, what is the
Speaker 1: shape of water? Is it just the shape of Doug
Speaker 1: Johns oh with his butt and abs and is it
Speaker 1: just that shape? Because I'm fine with that? Could be
Speaker 1: that it could be something a little more poetic, like
Speaker 1: what isn't the shape of water or something? You know?
Speaker 1: Whoa what it? And the shape of water could be?
Speaker 1: Didn't ask that question? The shape of water is an
Speaker 1: idea to lie? You tell here? Oh my gosh, okay, sorry,
Speaker 1: what happens in the movie? Okay, So we open on
Speaker 1: an image of like the interior of an apartment that's
Speaker 1: completely underwater. We're also getting voice over from someone who
Speaker 1: tells us about yes, uh this tale of love and
Speaker 1: loss and a monster. And then we meet Eliza. That's
Speaker 1: Sally Hawkins k Mrs Brown from Paddington. It is so
Speaker 1: wild we forget. I think we mentioned this in our
Speaker 1: Paddington episode with Demio di Jui bay Um, that you
Speaker 1: get to see Mrs Brown's nipples in this movie. It's
Speaker 1: very alarm mantelis Paddington. Imagine Paddington seeing shape of water.
Speaker 1: I don't think he's allowed. Oh my god, how old
Speaker 1: is Paddington? Paddington is a child? Question mark? And why
Speaker 1: does he have the voice of an adult man because
Speaker 1: bears and why can't you? And then he can't be
Speaker 1: a child. Wait, hold on, he can't be a child
Speaker 1: because he goes to adult jail and he has the
Speaker 1: voice of an adult man. He's an adult, he's but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean he should see his mother's nipples. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying, Yeah, these are some interesting questions, much like
Speaker 1: what is the shape of water? How old is Paddington's
Speaker 1: will never know? They should have sent Paddington, They would
Speaker 1: have sent him to Juvie, which I also would have
Speaker 1: been interesting. Okay, we're getting into derailing territory. We're gonna
Speaker 1: focus up again. Okay, Okay, So we meet Eliza. We
Speaker 1: are in I don't know if it's like the late
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, early nineteen sixties, it's like Cold War era USA. Yeah,
Speaker 1: post World War Two. It seems like we're in the
Speaker 1: trenches because there's a lot of Eastern European space race
Speaker 1: specific stuff. Yes, yes, and we are in Baltimore, Maryland.
Speaker 1: Ever heard of it? Oh? With nineteen sixty two sixty two?
Speaker 1: Okyonically got it. So we see Eliza wake up and
Speaker 1: go about her morning routine, which is that she boils
Speaker 1: an egg, she draws herself a bath, she jerks herself off,
Speaker 1: and then she pays a visit to her neighbor Giles
Speaker 1: played by Richard Jenkins, and all of his cats as well.
Speaker 1: A lot of cat visibility in the movie, a lot
Speaker 1: of cat nipples as a result, a lot yes uh,
Speaker 1: and then one cat casualty, which is the worst part
Speaker 1: of the movie. Can't believe that's in the movie. Okay,
Speaker 1: of all the things to cut that could be it, Yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: It becomes clear that Eliza does not speak with like
Speaker 1: verbal language. She uses sign language to communicate. She then
Speaker 1: gets on a bus and heads to work. She and
Speaker 1: her co worker Zelda played by Octavia Spencer, work the
Speaker 1: night shift cleaning some kind of like science slash government facility.
Speaker 1: And then, while Eliza and Zelda are working the kind
Speaker 1: of like scientists and lab technicians, various other personnel bring
Speaker 1: in this super secret, super important asset that is going
Speaker 1: to be housed at this facility, and whatever it is,
Speaker 1: it's alive, and it's in a large tank of water,
Speaker 1: and it's a sexy fish guy. And then it turns
Speaker 1: out to be a very sexy fish guy. Eliza is
Speaker 1: very curious about Eliza is very curious about what this
Speaker 1: might be, and she kind of like makes a ton
Speaker 1: of little bit of contact with it. We like see
Speaker 1: its hand, but then it's kind of like whisked away
Speaker 1: and the crowd goes wild. I saw this in theaters
Speaker 1: several times, and you know, like you could tell who
Speaker 1: was there for certain reasons. And I guess that's all
Speaker 1: I have to say about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 1: we also meet Dr hoff Stetler, who's played by Michael
Speaker 1: Stallbarg And I don't know if we have covered a
Speaker 1: movie with Michael Stallbarg in it, but now I know
Speaker 1: that cat friend of the cast, Katherine Leon, yes um
Speaker 1: of This by Kids episode. Of course. Yeah, she had
Speaker 1: like a Michael stallbarg newsletter for a while, Is that correct? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Daily Barg in which she would just stick to
Speaker 1: Daily Bark send out a photo of Michael Stallberg to
Speaker 1: any subscribers of this newsletter just to say, hey, here's
Speaker 1: another photo. Is it still active? I don't think so. Ah, yeah, sad,
Speaker 1: there's I mean, the this movie's Michael game is very strong,
Speaker 1: because we're about to get Michael Shannon playing his in
Speaker 1: his iconic role Patriarchy the one guy, which is a
Speaker 1: role he plays often and well, yes, yes, indeed, So
Speaker 1: Michael Stallberg is Dr. Hoff Stetler, who is the kind
Speaker 1: of lead scientist overseeing this asset, and Michael Shannon plays Strickland,
Speaker 1: who is a very sinister man overseeing the security of
Speaker 1: this asset. Yeah. Then we cut to the next day
Speaker 1: and Eliza and Giles go out for some pie. Is
Speaker 1: mostly so that Giles can try to flirt with the
Speaker 1: cute guy who works at the pie place. Then the pie.
Speaker 1: I love how the pie is disgusting, like no matter,
Speaker 1: like the pie is objectively bad and the only reason
Speaker 1: that he's getting businesses because there's a crush and there's
Speaker 1: a there's a crush. I mean, how much money have
Speaker 1: we all spent because of a crush? I don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about it. Oh my god, I went to WrestleMania.
Speaker 1: What anyways? Okay, another story for another time because now
Speaker 1: just chew on that. But the pie is green. The
Speaker 1: green motif is starting green green chemical Google. Yes, So
Speaker 1: we see Eliza at another day at work. Something happens
Speaker 1: in the lab and Strickland rushes out with some of
Speaker 1: his inger's missing, and Eliza and Zelda are called in
Speaker 1: to clean up the bloody mess. And in this lab
Speaker 1: there's a large pool of water that the asset is
Speaker 1: maybe living in, swimming in um. And then Eliza meets
Speaker 1: this quote unquote asset, which turns out to be a
Speaker 1: sexy fishman played by Doug Jones, and the crowd goes wild. Yes,
Speaker 1: we love him, he's so handsome. What a review. It
Speaker 1: is a great reveal. That is such an iconic scene.
Speaker 1: I feel like, even if you don't like the movie,
Speaker 1: or you think the movie is like a little bit
Speaker 1: forget well whatever, some of the common criticisms of this movie,
Speaker 1: that's just like not his best. The little peak that
Speaker 1: the fish guy does when he's looking at the egg
Speaker 1: and they're logan eye and you're like, this rocks. That
Speaker 1: happens in a in a couple of scenes from now okay,
Speaker 1: sorry with sorry, I getting ahead of myself, because it's
Speaker 1: my favorite scene in the whole movie when they I
Speaker 1: love a meat cute and this is a real this
Speaker 1: is a stressful beat cute, but it's good. Michael Shannon
Speaker 1: is a Leo that I guess that makes sense. He
Speaker 1: know comes his birthday. By the time you're hearing this,
Speaker 1: he'll be it'll be his birthday. Yeah, it's and it's
Speaker 1: Leo season. I was going to make a hilarious joke
Speaker 1: that it's not a meat cute, it's a fish cute,
Speaker 1: because in this case, meat is like an e a t.
Speaker 1: It's a past paste cute, and Leo something to think about,
Speaker 1: something you think about. So in this first little encounter here,
Speaker 1: Eliza and the Fishman have kind of a little moment,
Speaker 1: but they are interrupted when someone comes in and he
Speaker 1: disappears into his tank of water. Um. So, the next day,
Speaker 1: Eliza goes back into the lab and comes used to
Speaker 1: face with the fishman. This is the scene you're talking about.
Speaker 1: And at first he's like raw, but then she offers
Speaker 1: him one of her hard boiled eggs and then he's
Speaker 1: like raw. He's like what now, and he grabs it
Speaker 1: and then he dives off into the pool. Yeah. Then
Speaker 1: Strickland has a talk with Eliza and Zelda. He points
Speaker 1: out the scars on Eliza's neck and we learn that
Speaker 1: they are from an injury she sustained when she was
Speaker 1: a baby and it's why she is not able to speak. Right. Then,
Speaker 1: Eliza continues to visit the fish Man under the guise
Speaker 1: of like cleaning the lab, but basically there's a montage
Speaker 1: where she brings him a bunch of eggs, she plays
Speaker 1: music for him, she teaches him some sign language. They're
Speaker 1: falling and it gets pretty flirty. You're falling in love.
Speaker 1: She dances and he's like, who, good dance. It's getting
Speaker 1: it's getting pretty spicy in the lab. And who sees
Speaker 1: this but Dr Hoffstetler. And then it's revealed that he
Speaker 1: is a Russian spy who gives information about the Fishman
Speaker 1: to his Soviet comrades. But his helpful thing is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a spy, but also I love science, and I
Speaker 1: think this fishman should be protected and like studied, and
Speaker 1: you know, he's not like other spies. He's not like
Speaker 1: the other spies. And we'll I don't know if I
Speaker 1: like figured out a way exactly to work this into
Speaker 1: the recap. But the whole reason that they have captured
Speaker 1: this fish man is that he is able to kind
Speaker 1: of switch his breathing mechanisms from like breathing with gills
Speaker 1: underwater to breathing presumably with lungs above water like the air.
Speaker 1: And they're studying this because again, both the US and
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union are in this space race, and they're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, oh, can we like use the
Speaker 1: anatomy of this fish man and kind of replicate that
Speaker 1: so that we can like kind of use like how
Speaker 1: do astronauts breathe in space kind of thing? So they're
Speaker 1: like studying that. Any Way, I didn't really recognize that
Speaker 1: that was what they were studying. And I've seen this
Speaker 1: movie ten times. There's a lot of things that just
Speaker 1: kind of whoop right over your head, and that's okay,
Speaker 1: I don't go kinda come to this movie for science, alright.
Speaker 1: So one day Eliza sees Strickland torturing the Fishman and
Speaker 1: then some military personnel come in, and oh, this is
Speaker 1: when we find out that, like they're studying him to
Speaker 1: give the Americans an edge again the Soviets in the
Speaker 1: space race. So Strickland wants to basically kill the Fishman
Speaker 1: and dissect it. Dr Hoffsettler is like no, and Eliza
Speaker 1: overhears all of this, so she starts to hatch a
Speaker 1: plan to rescue the Fishman because she feels this very
Speaker 1: intense connection with him. Not only have they been like
Speaker 1: flirting romantically, but she feels that they are very similar
Speaker 1: in that they can't speak with like verbal language, but
Speaker 1: they can still communicate with each other, and she feels
Speaker 1: that he sees her for what and who she truly
Speaker 1: is in a way that she doesn't feel other people
Speaker 1: see her exactly. So she begs for Giles to help
Speaker 1: her with this rescue mission, which he refuses at first,
Speaker 1: but then he changes his mind and agrees to help.
Speaker 1: So they start to plan out this like high slash rescue,
Speaker 1: and then it's time to execute it. Dr Hoffstetler realizes
Speaker 1: what Eliza is doing and decides to help her get
Speaker 1: the fishman out of his tank, but Strickland starts to
Speaker 1: figure out that something's going on, as does Zelda, who
Speaker 1: was like, Eliza, what are you doing? But then she
Speaker 1: helps Eliza. Yeah, Strickland does the opposite. Meanwhile, Michael Shannon's
Speaker 1: fingers are rotting off of his body and you're like,
Speaker 1: it's a metaphor of it's still nasty to look at
Speaker 1: yucky yucky, and then you're just like, Wow, who's the
Speaker 1: real I mean, it's like this movie you very much
Speaker 1: like know where it's going and what I was trying
Speaker 1: to tell you but I kind of enjoy a lot
Speaker 1: of parts of it. When you see the fingers start
Speaker 1: to fall off, you're like, he's the bad guy. Wait
Speaker 1: a second, is this say and he's the monster? This
Speaker 1: is this a version? Yes? Yeah. So Eliza and Giles
Speaker 1: successfully get the Fishman into this van that Giles is
Speaker 1: driving and they escape, but Michael Shannon is like, who,
Speaker 1: what is what's happening? Bang bang, and he's like firing
Speaker 1: after them, but he doesn't know who has committed this
Speaker 1: robbery of the fishman. It reminds me very much. Did
Speaker 1: you ever know you you wouldn't have watched Hainold's right, Um,
Speaker 1: I know of I know, I know it, but I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't really watch it. The scene where they're getting
Speaker 1: the fish Man out of the lab reminds me very much,
Speaker 1: and I doubt that this was an inspiration at al
Speaker 1: Toros is just similar. But one of my favorite episodes
Speaker 1: of Hey Arnold, Shout Out, Hey Arnold Heads is when
Speaker 1: Arnold's grandma, who's like kind of this renegade, they go
Speaker 1: to the aquarium and they see a a big sea
Speaker 1: turtle and like there's graffiti all over Michelle. He's not
Speaker 1: being well taken care of. He's really sad, and then
Speaker 1: they helped the sea turtle escape into the sea, and
Speaker 1: it's a similar heist and it's also a similar like
Speaker 1: he was read to be captive, how is he going
Speaker 1: to survive in the wild? That TV show is capturing
Speaker 1: heavy themes for children. Seriously, there's a whole section on
Speaker 1: Wikipedia scholarly journal Wikipedia where it's like various people accusing
Speaker 1: del Toro of plagiarism because apparently there are several existing
Speaker 1: movies or plays or things like that that have very
Speaker 1: similar stories to what degree to like people having sex
Speaker 1: with a fish, because that might just be parallel thinking, right,
Speaker 1: And I mean every everything was like concluded as it
Speaker 1: was just parallel thinking and that like he didn't played
Speaker 1: wise anything, but like one of them, for example, is
Speaker 1: I think it was a movie about a cleaning lady
Speaker 1: who helps a dolphin escape from a facility. I forget
Speaker 1: what the other ones were, but helping helping any captive
Speaker 1: animal escape zoo aquarium type situation, that's a pretty common theme.
Speaker 1: It's just that you're not usually like dating them. I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of the X factor. Yeah, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure no one had sex with Willie in the movie
Speaker 1: Free Willie. But that's what that movie. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: that Willie escape, but we don't know. I forgot. I
Speaker 1: forgot about Free Willy, who's in Free Willie. I feel
Speaker 1: like there's like, you know what I will It's probably
Speaker 1: like Devin saw Wall or something. I actually never saw
Speaker 1: Free Willie. I feel like, probably see me. I've probably
Speaker 1: been in the room and Free Willy was on, but
Speaker 1: Free Willy was like not really my jam And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I'm saying when I say that,
Speaker 1: I don't know where I got stars Jason James Richter,
Speaker 1: who Dad Lori Petty is in it? Um, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know where I got Devin Salwa. I feel like
Speaker 1: anybody was probably just like and with all due respect
Speaker 1: to Jason James Richter, Um, you know a young man
Speaker 1: with banks, I feel like that's Devin Sawa Codd. I
Speaker 1: understand where you were going. It was the nineties, after
Speaker 1: all that Infinity bang, that Cowlick. Where did that go?
Speaker 1: How did everyone suppress? Now? I still have mine? I
Speaker 1: still have mine. It's a problem that I also wanted
Speaker 1: to say really quick on the topic of um fish
Speaker 1: sex stories. There was another piece of popular media that
Speaker 1: came out around the same time about a woman falling
Speaker 1: in love with the fish. I Believe a fish Man
Speaker 1: the Pisces, which is a book by Melissa Broder. I
Speaker 1: haven't read it, but it was like a pretty popular
Speaker 1: novel that came out a couple of years ago. So,
Speaker 1: for for whatever reason, this is on the minds and
Speaker 1: hearts of the collective. Beautiful. Yeah, that's a beautiful story.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I didn't write um when are they? Oh no,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say something, but it's going to derail
Speaker 1: the episode. Wait and say it really quick though, Okay,
Speaker 1: and then we just have to move on. When is
Speaker 1: the biopic coming out about me watching the animated movie
Speaker 1: Legend of Titanic and falling in love with tentacles, the
Speaker 1: giant optoples, not tentacles. You can't just bring up tentacles.
Speaker 1: You're soul, right, That does derail everything. Tentacles. Okay, really
Speaker 1: really really really really quick again. Listeners of the Matreon
Speaker 1: will already know Tentacles is kind of fatal pass cannon.
Speaker 1: So there's an animated movie about Titanic. It was made
Speaker 1: in like five different countries. It's very kind of dissonant
Speaker 1: in terms of it is like a mix of an
Speaker 1: American tale because there's there's mice on the Titanic. Then
Speaker 1: there's also the plot of the movie Titanic sort of
Speaker 1: happening as well, and then what's the third movie. There's
Speaker 1: like a third it's like sort of vaguely Little mermaid
Speaker 1: ish but like not really, but you do see a
Speaker 1: lot of like the Tentacles part. Yeah, yes, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of underwater characters, like major characters like sharks and
Speaker 1: the sharks bullies. Look, they weren't thinking too hard, like okay, yes,
Speaker 1: So it's like the Little Mermaid story, the American Tales story,
Speaker 1: and then just regular Titanic and it's all taking place
Speaker 1: on the Titanic. It is sensory overload. The bullied in
Speaker 1: this movie The Titanic. It doesn't go the way you're
Speaker 1: expecting because we've been we've been gassed up with this
Speaker 1: for the most of the movie. Seemingly unrelated story of
Speaker 1: gigantic octopus who kind of fluctuates in size throughout the movie.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he's it's the size of a regular octopus. Sometimes
Speaker 1: he's the size of the Empire state building, or let's
Speaker 1: say the Titanic or Titanic. So anyways, he's getting bullied,
Speaker 1: but then he, like Belie, learns to believe in himself.
Speaker 1: His name's Tentacles full and then he um, he whole.
Speaker 1: He's so he's Titanic sized when it suits him, and
Speaker 1: he ends up holding the Titanic together with all of
Speaker 1: his His ticles are so mostly all and he's also
Speaker 1: like fleshy colored. He's pink, yeah, he's. And so in
Speaker 1: this version of the Titanic narrative, there are no casualties.
Speaker 1: Everyone on Titanic survives because he holds the ship together
Speaker 1: after it hits the iceberg and then breaks in half.
Speaker 1: But he's like no, no, no, no, on my watch, Tentacles,
Speaker 1: and then he saves everyone. So anyway, that's legend of Titanic.
Speaker 1: It's on YouTube if you want to watch it, which
Speaker 1: you should. Back to Shape of Water, I would watch
Speaker 1: that movie if that you described, though, thank you me
Speaker 1: falling in love with Tentacles, which I have done. So
Speaker 1: where's the biopic? Alright, So Tentacles Eliza brings the fishman
Speaker 1: back to I think they're in giles apartment and they
Speaker 1: put him in the bathtub. So he's like kind of
Speaker 1: chilling there, and Eliza's plan is to release him into
Speaker 1: the ocean on the tenth of the month, when the
Speaker 1: water in the canal will be high enough from the
Speaker 1: rains to spill into the ocean. So they're going to
Speaker 1: release him when that happens. So back at the facility,
Speaker 1: Eliza and Zelda have to just like play it cool.
Speaker 1: They have to pretend like they don't know what's going on,
Speaker 1: which works out pretty well because the people who work
Speaker 1: at the facility thing a like highly trained special forces
Speaker 1: like Soviet group of people pulled off this heist, although
Speaker 1: Strickland is like suspicious and he's like something doesn't add
Speaker 1: up here, and he's also fixated on um for for nasty,
Speaker 1: exploitative reasons. He's fixated on Eliza. Yes, So back at
Speaker 1: Giles is the Fishman ventures out of the tub and
Speaker 1: he does eat one of Giles's cats, which Giles does
Speaker 1: not really have much of a reaction to. I will say,
Speaker 1: he really takes his stride in a way that it's
Speaker 1: like I don't think it would have been inappropriate or
Speaker 1: even mean to have a bigger reaction than that. I
Speaker 1: think he's he he's great about it, but you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: did you even like, did he just kill your least
Speaker 1: favorite cat? Because he does have like five cats or
Speaker 1: something like that. Brutal, brutal, that's very like Victorian era
Speaker 1: approach to having children vibe where you're like, well, I
Speaker 1: still have enough laborers for the farm. You're like, jeez,
Speaker 1: seems a little callous. So he eats one of Giles's
Speaker 1: cats and then he scratches Giles's arm and then runs away.
Speaker 1: So Eliza rushes home and finds the Fishman in the
Speaker 1: nearby movie theater. She brings him back, puts him in
Speaker 1: the bathtub, and then they have this sexy little moment
Speaker 1: and then Eliza gets naked and gets into the bathtub
Speaker 1: with him. Cut to her on the bus with a
Speaker 1: big smile on her face, and then at work she
Speaker 1: uses sign language to explain to Zelda that the Fishman
Speaker 1: has a fish dick that comes out of a little
Speaker 1: opening in his thigh gap. Top tier reaction from Octavia Spencer, Uh,
Speaker 1: he got that, it's she's she's I wish that her
Speaker 1: role was um it's I mean, it's like pretty big
Speaker 1: at this movie, but I wish I wish it was
Speaker 1: even bigger um. But that that reaction alone, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: what can you say? It's perfect? No notes. So then
Speaker 1: Eliza goes home again, and this is when we get
Speaker 1: the famous scene where Sally Hawkins fills the entire bathroom
Speaker 1: with water and Fox the fish Man on screen, which
Speaker 1: causes all of this leaking, and Giles was like, what
Speaker 1: the fund and he opens the door and all the
Speaker 1: water gushes out, very similar to a scene in Paddington
Speaker 1: when Paddington's in the bathroom full of water high Jinks
Speaker 1: and Sue and then the door opens and all the
Speaker 1: water comes gushing out, only this time, which I'm like,
Speaker 1: in this movie, is that a metaphor for like them orgasm? Ng?
Speaker 1: Not sure, it's just to wow, makes you think it
Speaker 1: could be, could be? And then so Giles is like
Speaker 1: what And then Eliza is like hugging the fishman and
Speaker 1: then she just kind of like smiles and shrugs. She's like,
Speaker 1: it is what it is. Also, it turns out that
Speaker 1: the Fishman has healing powers, and I didn't always forget
Speaker 1: that he has healing powers. Yeah, because it's introduced kind
Speaker 1: of late into the movie, and I'm sure we'll mention
Speaker 1: this in in the discussion. But at one point we
Speaker 1: learned that some entity was like digging for oil in
Speaker 1: the Amazon rainforest. They found this fish man and brought
Speaker 1: it back to this facility. But they described that this
Speaker 1: fishman was like revered as a god by the indigenous
Speaker 1: people living in the Amazon, and it could be that
Speaker 1: he was like revered as a god because he has
Speaker 1: these healing powers. This is all kind of like very
Speaker 1: gloss stover and if like you get up to go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom during that scene, like you will entirely
Speaker 1: miss this part. But basically, he has these healing powers.
Speaker 1: He heals giles is scratch on his arm. He also
Speaker 1: grows some hair on giles bald head, which we know
Speaker 1: that he's very self conscious about. And then I forgot
Speaker 1: I always forget about that as well. And then something
Speaker 1: I always forget about. There's this like kind of fantasy
Speaker 1: scene where Eliza speaks and then she starts singing, and
Speaker 1: then there's like this whole like black and white fantasy
Speaker 1: song and dance scene between her and the fishman and
Speaker 1: they're dancing and it's like very like classic Hollywood. There
Speaker 1: are some issues with that kind of thing. That's another
Speaker 1: thing where I was just like, mmmm, there are better
Speaker 1: ways to Yeah. Anyways, um, well we'll get to that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah kind of. That was like heavily featured in the
Speaker 1: marketing for this movie, but I kind of forget about
Speaker 1: it because it's such a I think, uh huttable moments,
Speaker 1: throw away moment. Yeah, you're like, oh, this is a
Speaker 1: very expensive cutaway. Right. Meanwhile at the lab, everyone is like,
Speaker 1: where's the fish. We gotta find the fish, and the
Speaker 1: Soviets are like, hey, Michael Stallberg, where's the fish? We
Speaker 1: wanted its dead body? So everyone's looking for the fish.
Speaker 1: Hashtag where's the fish is trending in Twitter. Yeah. Then
Speaker 1: we realized that the Fishman's health is failing and he
Speaker 1: needs to be released into the ocean a sap. There's
Speaker 1: a scene where hoff Stetler's Soviet comrades shoot him, but
Speaker 1: then Strickland shows up and he kills the comrades and
Speaker 1: he's like, what the fuck, hoff Stetler, you're a spy.
Speaker 1: You were speaking Russian. And then as hoff Stetler is dying,
Speaker 1: he lets it slip that it was the cleaning crew
Speaker 1: who stole the Fishman, and Strickland realizes, oh, it must
Speaker 1: have in Eliza and Zelda. Yeah, he wanted I wanted
Speaker 1: to vibe check on this. I was sort of like
Speaker 1: feeling betrayed by Hofstetler at the end because like he's dying,
Speaker 1: why sell them out at that point? Like for what reason?
Speaker 1: I had the same thought. I feel like that was
Speaker 1: a little bit of narrative convenience of like, we need
Speaker 1: to get Michael Shannon his info. But I felt like
Speaker 1: that was like undercutting who we had grown to find
Speaker 1: that character to be like a complicated like he wouldn't
Speaker 1: give away the agendas of people who's like who he
Speaker 1: felt were good in acting towards the greater good, and
Speaker 1: that was like his whole journey because Octavia Spencer, because
Speaker 1: this movie is like really let you know how it
Speaker 1: feels about things, like Octavia Spencer literally says to his face,
Speaker 1: you are a good man, and then he does that.
Speaker 1: It was dissonant. I agree, it just felt like a
Speaker 1: plot device, almost hum Anyway, it's not the biggest deal,
Speaker 1: but I was I always like, I that's another moment
Speaker 1: that I forget about, where you're just like, couldn't he
Speaker 1: have like found some evidence instead of like undercutting that
Speaker 1: whole Because I thought that was like a really good
Speaker 1: job by Michael Stillbar too. I wonder what the Daily
Speaker 1: Bark had to say about it. I don't remember. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I'm going to guess positive. But yeah, no, I had
Speaker 1: the same thought. But this allows Strickland to like kind
Speaker 1: of figure out that it was Eliza and Zelda who
Speaker 1: had something to do with the Fishman being stolen. So
Speaker 1: first he goes to Zelda's house to question her, and
Speaker 1: her husband tells Strickland that it was Eliza who was
Speaker 1: responsible for this, you know, the stealing of the fishman.
Speaker 1: So then Strickland goes to Eliza's but she and Giles
Speaker 1: have already left to go release the Fishman into the water.
Speaker 1: But Strickland figures out where they're headed because they're going
Speaker 1: to the docks, and he goes after them. Cut to
Speaker 1: the docks, Eliza and the fishermen are saying goodbye, Strickland
Speaker 1: shows up. He shoots the fish man, he shoots Eliza,
Speaker 1: but then the Fishman uses his healing powers to heal himself.
Speaker 1: He slashes Strickland's throat, and then he takes Michael Shannon
Speaker 1: line that you're like, he's really delivering this line that
Speaker 1: you're like what he's like you are? I can't wait
Speaker 1: for Tann out of time. Do you remember how Michael
Speaker 1: Shannon was literally an eight mile Sometimes I just forget
Speaker 1: how deep his filmography is. No, I don't remember that
Speaker 1: in Kangaroo Jack and eight Mile. What a career? Wow?
Speaker 1: I know what can't he do? His early filmography is
Speaker 1: really funny because he was just in like he all
Speaker 1: over the place, CEC Will Be Demented, Pearl Harbor, Vanilla Sky,
Speaker 1: eight Mile, Kangaroo Jack, Bad Boys Too. He was in
Speaker 1: a movie Whoa because he calls they have bony Man.
Speaker 1: What a legend. Wow. It's a short film, but he
Speaker 1: played Walt the Sam bony Man. WHOA. I wonder if
Speaker 1: that's about a man and who gets bitten by a
Speaker 1: radioactive zamboni. That would be really wait wait, hold on,
Speaker 1: we have to collaborate INNA's because it gets turned into
Speaker 1: like an ice situation. Well yeah, oh my gosh wow.
Speaker 1: I was just looking at his filmography to just confirm
Speaker 1: that it was in fact him and that I remember
Speaker 1: seeing an eight years ago. Yeah, I guess you're right.
Speaker 1: Was um okay? So Strickland is murdered by the fish
Speaker 1: Man and then the fishman takes Eliza's limp body and
Speaker 1: jumps into the water with her. She seems to be dying,
Speaker 1: but he turns the scars on her neck into gills,
Speaker 1: and then she seems to come back to life and
Speaker 1: she's healed. Although so one interpretation is that she's alive
Speaker 1: and they live happily ever after underwater together. Another interpretation
Speaker 1: is that that's kind of like a fantasy and she
Speaker 1: actually dies, kind of like how Pan's Labyrinth ends, where
Speaker 1: the main character in that movie dies, but then she's
Speaker 1: kind of like reborn as this princess in Labyrinth World. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so different interpretations of the end, but that is how
Speaker 1: the movie ends. So let's take another break and we
Speaker 1: will come back to discuss. And we're back. I just
Speaker 1: had a during the break, I you know, dipped in
Speaker 1: my little pool, my little tank of water, and I
Speaker 1: had a little bath, the tank of water, the tank
Speaker 1: of water. Okay, where shall we begin? I would if
Speaker 1: it's a city, I would like to start with talking
Speaker 1: about I think the main criticism surrounding this movie that
Speaker 1: is extremely value. I even trying to like put my
Speaker 1: self in brain. I remember this being discussed when the
Speaker 1: movie came out, but it was not central discussion at all,
Speaker 1: And so I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: how disability is portrayed in this movie. As always, we're
Speaker 1: interested if, if, if we have listeners with disabilities that
Speaker 1: would like to share their perspective. I've seen kind of
Speaker 1: a wide variety of takes on it, but I mean
Speaker 1: the first the first issue is one that we've discussed
Speaker 1: on the show before, which is, you know, Eliza does
Speaker 1: not speak, she has a disability, as she's not played
Speaker 1: by a disabled actor. So this is something that happens
Speaker 1: all the time. I feel like it's very often presented
Speaker 1: as like, obviously there are many, many, many talented disabled
Speaker 1: actors that would have been more appropriate for this role.
Speaker 1: But I feel like instead there's I read a lot
Speaker 1: to this effect, and we've just gotten on the show before.
Speaker 1: There's sometimes like disabled parts are taken by able bodied
Speaker 1: actors as like a challenge and it's kind of an
Speaker 1: Oscar It's been sort of framed as like an Oscar
Speaker 1: baity thing to do, definitely, and I think that in
Speaker 1: the case of Sally Hawkins, that's um exactly how it
Speaker 1: played out right, And I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: have commented on her good performance. I don't know, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the right word, but I mean,
Speaker 1: I do think that she does a good job in
Speaker 1: the movie. But although a lot of people have also
Speaker 1: pointed out that it's pretty obvious that she is not
Speaker 1: fluent or even very good at sign language, I was
Speaker 1: also having trouble confirming if she uses American Sign language.
Speaker 1: I saw some people saying that the sign that she
Speaker 1: uses in the movie is not entirely a s L,
Speaker 1: but like some of it is. But then other people
Speaker 1: have confirmed that she is using a s L. I
Speaker 1: don't know enough about it to know firsthand, so I
Speaker 1: couldn't confirm if that is the type of sign she's using.
Speaker 1: I was also, yeah, I was saying criticism around it,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't find specificity. So if there's if there's
Speaker 1: anyone listening that could answer that, I mean, I'm very curious.
Speaker 1: I just wasn't. Yeah, I wasn't able to find it. Yes,
Speaker 1: So that's the first problem of and again we've talked
Speaker 1: about this a lot on the show, of a non
Speaker 1: disabled actor being cast to play a character who is disabled,
Speaker 1: And I think that is one of the problems because
Speaker 1: basically everyone who worked on this movie is an able
Speaker 1: bodied person and as far as like consultants being brought in,
Speaker 1: that didn't really happen. So it was like I wasn't
Speaker 1: I was looking for any indication that that had happened,
Speaker 1: and it had, which is I mean, I think for
Speaker 1: in particular, I was pretty surprised at that seems like
Speaker 1: a really glaring mistake. You would have thought, right, So
Speaker 1: I'm pulling this from a huff Post piece entitled how
Speaker 1: the Shape of Water makes People with disabilities feel less
Speaker 1: human by at least Juan Shell. It basically says that
Speaker 1: huff Posts reached out to Fox Searchlight to ask whether
Speaker 1: there were any disabled consultants involved with the film, and
Speaker 1: a representative of the film said that, like basically in
Speaker 1: response that question said that to a s L coaches
Speaker 1: were involved during the production, but that appears to be
Speaker 1: the only consultants so right, which this seems like a
Speaker 1: pretty clear cut case of um, there should be that,
Speaker 1: like you, you would need to have consultants involved from
Speaker 1: the very very beginning, not just as it pertains to
Speaker 1: working with actors, which is definitely important. And it sounds
Speaker 1: like maybe Sally Hawkins didn't have enough time to even
Speaker 1: get to where she needed to be on that front, um,
Speaker 1: which I wasn't aware of because I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know as L, and so I that seems really frustrating
Speaker 1: for someone who who does speak as L to see
Speaker 1: it presented in this kind of like sloppy way, which
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's the fault of the consultants, who knows,
Speaker 1: but it's like, you know, if del Toro wants to
Speaker 1: have a disabled protagonist, great, but even you need to
Speaker 1: bring in a consultant or even better, a co writer
Speaker 1: who can shape that story from the jump and not
Speaker 1: just you know, the script shouldn't be locked without consulting,
Speaker 1: like yes, And because that did not appear to happen,
Speaker 1: there are some issues with the way disability is represented
Speaker 1: in the movie. Um. Yeah, there seemed to be a
Speaker 1: lot of conflicting feelings from a lot of members of
Speaker 1: the disabled community, because on one hand, there's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're seeing um, a disabled woman with sexuality
Speaker 1: on screen that never happens. But then there's a whole
Speaker 1: a lot of other criticism that we will get into. Um.
Speaker 1: I would recommend everyone read a piece by Elsa yes,
Speaker 1: Johnson Henry, I'm I'm not sure if pronounced that correctly. Yes. So,
Speaker 1: she's a speculative fiction author and editor who is legally
Speaker 1: blind and deaf. She wrote a piece about this movie
Speaker 1: entitled I Belong Where the People Are Disability in the
Speaker 1: Shape of Water on tour dot com t o R
Speaker 1: dot com tours my pub the publisher of the Hot
Speaker 1: Dog book famously Oh my gosh, no way, wow, congrats.
Speaker 1: So she wrote this great piece and I want to
Speaker 1: pull some quotes from it. I have. I feel like
Speaker 1: I basically copy pasted the assay into my notes because
Speaker 1: it's really really like thoughtful and comprehensive. It's great, for sure.
Speaker 1: Let's exchange quotes, shall we see it? So? The first
Speaker 1: one I wanted to share is this Elsa says, quote
Speaker 1: the first time in years that I have seen a
Speaker 1: disabled woman sexually desired and indeed sexually active and loved
Speaker 1: in a film is by a monster. Monster. Hood and
Speaker 1: disability are an extra. And oh no, this word, I
Speaker 1: never can say it. And inextricably inextricably yeah it's it's
Speaker 1: you gotta really enter it with coxtricably inextricable. Killed it. Wow? Okay,
Speaker 1: so inextricably linked in our genre. Characters like Smoke are
Speaker 1: barely human. Smoke from Star Wars are barely human, their
Speaker 1: faces marred by scars, which signal that they are evil.
Speaker 1: Disability and disfigurement are tied together. As one, Elsa's scars
Speaker 1: on her neck have been read as gills by some,
Speaker 1: a hint that her disability is in fact monster hood
Speaker 1: all on its own unquote. So that's and this is
Speaker 1: something that we've talked about a fair share on the podcast,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to horror movies, because horror is
Speaker 1: a genre that it's very very guilty of this. But
Speaker 1: it's not limited to horror movies, like you know that
Speaker 1: genre at all. This is something that spans across genre
Speaker 1: where disability or disfigurement will be linked to a villainous behavior. So, um,
Speaker 1: that's kind of like where the movie, and it depends
Speaker 1: on how you interpret things, but like, this is definitely
Speaker 1: one kind of reading of the film. Yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to share a quote from that essay as well, because
Speaker 1: I I do think that it's like the core issue
Speaker 1: because I and I do want to, like, yeah, acknowledge
Speaker 1: that a lot of what I was reading around this movie,
Speaker 1: and I think we should talk about this more in
Speaker 1: detail when we get to talking about sex anyways, But
Speaker 1: you know, having uh, like, I think that it's Elsa Shenson,
Speaker 1: Sir Johnson Henry who wrote that like she had never
Speaker 1: seen a mainstream movie where a woman with a disability
Speaker 1: was centered as being sexually desirable, as like initiating sex
Speaker 1: and like, which I think is kind of a cool
Speaker 1: element of their relationship is it is very motivated by Eliza.
Speaker 1: Kristin Lopez wrote a piece in The Hollywood Reporter in
Speaker 1: which this is like a a big talking point of
Speaker 1: her piece of like the sexuality of disabled characters and
Speaker 1: how it's very rare to see. So yeah, but yeah
Speaker 1: we can. We'll we'll cover that more when we talk
Speaker 1: about sex, babyc sex. Let's talk about fish sex baby. Um.
Speaker 1: But I just want to share that, Yeah, Like the
Speaker 1: the use of Eliza's disability seems to be strictly not strictly,
Speaker 1: but a lot of it is used as a metaphorical
Speaker 1: purpose versus just representing a disabled character in the world,
Speaker 1: which is patronizing. As many writers as have um mentioned,
Speaker 1: you know, I I'm not saying that I think that
Speaker 1: del Toro intended it that way, but it's definitely you know,
Speaker 1: he presents this movie as a fairy tale, and fairy
Speaker 1: tales very often do this kind of stuff, So I
Speaker 1: want to share a little more of elsa stunts and
Speaker 1: Henry's as a that you know, sort of lands on
Speaker 1: like it's ultimately you know, Eliza isn't loved by a
Speaker 1: member of her own species, and the only way that
Speaker 1: she's able to find acceptance is through possibly dying and
Speaker 1: definitely being with someone who is not other own species.
Speaker 1: So she writes, quote, society says that disability makes us lesser,
Speaker 1: makes us uneven humans. The worst of humanity looks at
Speaker 1: me with my one clouded eye and my one hearing year.
Speaker 1: It looks at me and says, I am half of
Speaker 1: what I could be. This isn't a projection. I don't
Speaker 1: feel less than whole. I've had people tell me that
Speaker 1: I am lesser than them, that they couldn't imagine what
Speaker 1: it would be to inhabit my body, that they would
Speaker 1: rather die than experience what it is like to live
Speaker 1: in a disabled body unquote. And it does feel to me.
Speaker 1: And this came up in a couple of essays that
Speaker 1: I read that Eliza says that directly in that speech
Speaker 1: that she gives to Giles of why she loves the
Speaker 1: fish span so much, is like she says, he doesn't
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing, but it's something like he doesn't know what
Speaker 1: I lack. So she's explicitly saying that she views her
Speaker 1: own disability as her lacking something versus that being this
Speaker 1: is the messaging that society has projected at her her
Speaker 1: whole life. But it's like the way that it's written
Speaker 1: makes it canonically she views her own disability as being deficient,
Speaker 1: a lack she also, I think in in the movie
Speaker 1: Eliza says that she is incomplete, which, again, if you
Speaker 1: had consultants disabled consultants on the movie, a line of
Speaker 1: dialogue like that, I don't think would be in the movie.
Speaker 1: It would be Yeah, Eliza's feelings about her disability, I
Speaker 1: think would be framed very differently if it were coming
Speaker 1: from the perspective of actual disabled people, who would have
Speaker 1: just a more informed perspective on how disabled people view
Speaker 1: and feel about their disabilities. So there's a quote from
Speaker 1: h writer named Amy Lowe in CBC Shout Out Canada
Speaker 1: um that I thought sort of like tied that together
Speaker 1: pretty well. She said, quote I found that really unfortunate
Speaker 1: because it sort of reproduces the stereotype that nonverbal people
Speaker 1: can't express themselves in a way that's actually comfortable or
Speaker 1: natural for them. And then it also reproduces the stereotype
Speaker 1: that disability is like a cage unquote. So I think
Speaker 1: that the I mean, alliwes this whole storyline kind of
Speaker 1: lends itself to viewing her disability as a metaphorical storytelling
Speaker 1: tool rather than an element of who she is as
Speaker 1: a person. And the other moment that seems to draw
Speaker 1: the most criticism we've already talked about briefly, which is
Speaker 1: the like old Hollywood flashback thing, which I would hazard
Speaker 1: to guess was like del tour. I feel like, you know, like,
Speaker 1: oh tour is often like romanticized past Hollywood stuff by
Speaker 1: a lot, and it's probably just like, oh, wouldn't this
Speaker 1: be cool? But the text of that scene is that
Speaker 1: Eliza is sitting across from the fish man, overcome with
Speaker 1: how much she loves him, and then for one scene
Speaker 1: she quote unquote sheds her disability and is able to
Speaker 1: use her voice to sing, and they dance and like
Speaker 1: it's this like fantasy sequence, but the core of the
Speaker 1: fantasy is like romanticizing her shedding her disability instead of
Speaker 1: I feel like you can still have that same unmemorable
Speaker 1: sequence of them in a way that doesn't right exactly
Speaker 1: like it without it romanticizing like, oh she would be
Speaker 1: I feel like it implies that she would be so
Speaker 1: much happier if she could speak. But yeah, and and
Speaker 1: that was on. I mean, that's not something that occurred
Speaker 1: to me the first time I saw the movie, but
Speaker 1: it's like absolutely true. And again, like you're saying, like
Speaker 1: if there had there been consultants or co writers and
Speaker 1: during the writing process, I think that that would have
Speaker 1: been a very very easy thing to catch. And again,
Speaker 1: like another good reason to cast actors who have the
Speaker 1: disabilities that you're portraying on screen, because then, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's not to say that like because oftentimes when actors
Speaker 1: try to advocate for themselves, they're labeled as difficult and
Speaker 1: then they might get fired. But at least you would
Speaker 1: have yet another perspective saying, well, that doesn't really jive
Speaker 1: with how people actually feel about things. So and I
Speaker 1: want to believe that, like del Toro is an empathetic
Speaker 1: enough filmmaker to be able to receive that, right. I'm
Speaker 1: just fort in my mind, but I'm like, I feel
Speaker 1: like he would be up to I just am like,
Speaker 1: but it's it is so so wild that I feel
Speaker 1: like this is you know, it's it's theotour thing again,
Speaker 1: you know where it's just like some people, no matter
Speaker 1: how iconic incredible, need to be given notes, and people
Speaker 1: don't give them to them because they're um special directors,
Speaker 1: too many yes men out there. Um. I would argue
Speaker 1: that the way the movie ends is also just kind
Speaker 1: of very telling of the representation of disability in this story, because,
Speaker 1: as I often tell my screenwriting students who, the way
Speaker 1: a movie ends does a lot to say how this
Speaker 1: movie feels about like the story it was telling, or like,
Speaker 1: you know, the kind of the theme of the movie
Speaker 1: is usually very clearly communicated in the final images and
Speaker 1: final moments of the movie. So like, what you're trying
Speaker 1: to say with your narrative usually is like very clear
Speaker 1: at the very end. So what happens at the end
Speaker 1: is Eliza is well maybe dies but also maybe is
Speaker 1: turned into a fish person and then lives hapfully ever
Speaker 1: with her fish boyfriend under the sea, So, um, let's
Speaker 1: see do let's go with that interpretation, which, going back
Speaker 1: to Else's piece in Towards dot Com, she kind of
Speaker 1: comments on how the end suggests that like disabled people
Speaker 1: should go and be with their own kind and says quote,
Speaker 1: I wish that I could just say, well, that's fantasy
Speaker 1: and move on, but I can't. Not when I've literally
Speaker 1: never seen a movie in which a disabled woman is
Speaker 1: desired by a non disabled partner. Not when I know
Speaker 1: that my body is seen as less than desirable. Not
Speaker 1: and I know that subconsciously this film it means she
Speaker 1: deserves a freak like her, not a human like her unquote.
Speaker 1: And then, um, just to share one more quote from uh,
Speaker 1: this piece also says quote, The conflict for me is
Speaker 1: here that, on one hand, I have always known in
Speaker 1: my soul that able bodied people see me as half
Speaker 1: of them, that they see me as less than whole,
Speaker 1: which is why I hate that in media such as this,
Speaker 1: we can only be desired by those who don't know
Speaker 1: any better unquote. So the way the movie ends, the
Speaker 1: whole romance between Eliza and the fishman, these are the implications. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the ending. And also this is kind of a
Speaker 1: movie that, like I don't always remember how it ends,
Speaker 1: and like, after not saying it for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh yeah, oh no, they die like
Speaker 1: it's it kind of reminds me. I feel like it
Speaker 1: that is a atronizing ending for a disabled character, and
Speaker 1: it also is giving me a little like another like
Speaker 1: classic tragic fairy tale element where like the Little Mermaid
Speaker 1: turns to foam at the end of the story, where
Speaker 1: it's just it also feels like there's maybe a whiff
Speaker 1: of misogyny mixed in there as well, which is again
Speaker 1: like a confusing thing to happen in a movie that
Speaker 1: seems to be really wanting to present itself, and the
Speaker 1: way it was marketed and the way it was like
Speaker 1: Awards seasoned, was as a progressive reimagining of a fairy tale.
Speaker 1: So if that is the tack you're taking in promoting
Speaker 1: your movie, um, a glaring kind of turning turning away
Speaker 1: when it comes to disability, is I think, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of irresponsible and worthy of further discussion because it is,
Speaker 1: I mean, and we've been guilty of this in like
Speaker 1: the early backdel cast days. Disability is so often left
Speaker 1: out of film criticism and discussion, and for a movie
Speaker 1: that's marketing itself as like, you know, because this movie
Speaker 1: does try to, and I think successfully in many cases,
Speaker 1: address a lot of society's prejudices. And I think it does.
Speaker 1: Think it's saying something about disability, but it rings patronizing
Speaker 1: because it's like, oh, look, she got accepted by somebody,
Speaker 1: and like by a big old fish, and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: fuck you kind of and but like this this movie does,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm kind of transitioning into a different bucket
Speaker 1: of discussion. This movie does at least touch on racism
Speaker 1: because this is happening in nineteen sixty two, around the
Speaker 1: Civil rights era that we see an example of just
Speaker 1: in general, I mean, like people of color in this
Speaker 1: movie are treated as lesser than and then most explicitly
Speaker 1: in that scene in the pie shop that just all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, like what I mean, I'm not I
Speaker 1: don't even mean this as a criticism, but like it
Speaker 1: turns out like Pieman is evil, um like really abruptly
Speaker 1: like he because we've just seen him as like, hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to the pie shop. I'm that hot guy who
Speaker 1: sells pies. And then it was like, I'm homophobic, and
Speaker 1: then he's like, and I'm racist, and then the scene
Speaker 1: is over and it's I mean nineteen sixty two, and
Speaker 1: now there are certainly people like that. I was just like, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: and then the scene is over and it doesn't come back. Um,
Speaker 1: I have so here here are my thoughts on the matter.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people point out when discussing this
Speaker 1: movie that like, yeah, it's it's an inclusive movie where
Speaker 1: you know, you have Uh, the protagonist is a disabled woman. Um,
Speaker 1: her best friend is a black woman, her other best
Speaker 1: friend is a queer man. And I think the movie
Speaker 1: is suggesting it like these are people who were on
Speaker 1: the fringes of society in the sixties. Like these are
Speaker 1: marginalized people who became friends because of the kind of
Speaker 1: this common ground they share of being marginalized by you know,
Speaker 1: like white, able bodied just had to row Michael Shannon patriarchy.
Speaker 1: Mr Michael Shannon in the case of this movie specifically
Speaker 1: Michael Shannon. Yes, so that you have this like quote
Speaker 1: unquote diverse cast of main characters. However, I felt that
Speaker 1: the way some of these characters were portrayed and characterized
Speaker 1: in the movie felt like it was leaning into some
Speaker 1: stereotypes where if you look at Zelda played by Octavia Spencer,
Speaker 1: I mean, she's doing an incredible job and she's you know,
Speaker 1: doing as much as she can with what she's given.
Speaker 1: But I like this very much falls into the like
Speaker 1: black friends supporting a white protagonist, and also I would argue,
Speaker 1: like the sasty black friend stereotype. Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: this movie like attempts to give her a little bit
Speaker 1: more characterization with a subplot with her husband, which I
Speaker 1: feel like doesn't really cut cut the mustard in that case,
Speaker 1: Like the only background you're going to be given is
Speaker 1: that she appears to be in an emotionally volatile relationship
Speaker 1: with her husband. Um right, Like that's all you're going
Speaker 1: to give us for a background for a character that,
Speaker 1: as you're saying, like does not as aggressively as many movies,
Speaker 1: but does fall back on some tropes. This movie feels
Speaker 1: very like because I mean because it was released early
Speaker 1: into the Trump years, and you can like I can't
Speaker 1: quite like put my finger on like how but you
Speaker 1: can you can feel that right in a way that
Speaker 1: like I don't even need to be like disparaging towards
Speaker 1: the filmmakers, but it's just like they're trying to be inclusive.
Speaker 1: They want to like make a statement, but it's like
Speaker 1: not really quite there, but they really think they're doing something.
Speaker 1: It just it feels like a lot of early into
Speaker 1: the Trump years media, especially because this was trying to
Speaker 1: say everything at once and kind of saying not much
Speaker 1: and not executing it very well or very like intersectionally.
Speaker 1: Um right, because like this movie came out in but
Speaker 1: it would have been shot, you know, over the course
Speaker 1: of many months, if not like a full year before that.
Speaker 1: It would have been written and developed probably a couple
Speaker 1: of years even before that. So like but by the
Speaker 1: time the movie comes out, Del Toro is like speaking
Speaker 1: with specificity about this where um, I think he presented
Speaker 1: also because um as like a story with parallels to
Speaker 1: the immigration experience, he said in an interview for this,
Speaker 1: which I think was like a lot of what he
Speaker 1: was touching on and was had to do with his
Speaker 1: personal connection to the story as well as you know,
Speaker 1: the really clear parallels between old monster movies Creature from
Speaker 1: the Black Lagoon specifically obviously, but so he says, quote,
Speaker 1: I feel it as an immigrant that has been received
Speaker 1: by this country, but I feel there is a sort
Speaker 1: of the demonization of the other very present. I needed
Speaker 1: to talk about the beauty of the other. So the
Speaker 1: way that he talks about this movie, I think he
Speaker 1: leans more on Doug Jones Fishman versus Eliza and Zelda
Speaker 1: and Giles, which I think is perhaps part of the
Speaker 1: reason that they are kind of softly stereotyped in some ways,
Speaker 1: where it's like the focus is we want the audience
Speaker 1: to empathize with the Fishman because he represents the monster
Speaker 1: the other that has been used throughout cinematic history. To
Speaker 1: look at me saying cinematic is happy birth the Yeah, mensa,
Speaker 1: it's kind of not. But and I get and I
Speaker 1: and I like it. Seems like it was at the
Speaker 1: core of his mission to take this monstrous quote unquote
Speaker 1: character that has been used as coding for a lot
Speaker 1: of marginalized groups over the years, and to flip that
Speaker 1: and use this group of marginalized characters who see that
Speaker 1: in the Monster empathize with him and encourage audiences to
Speaker 1: do the same. So he's encouraging people to look at
Speaker 1: media from the past a little more critically, even if
Speaker 1: you love it, always supportive of that like, I feel
Speaker 1: like I understand what his core mission is. I think
Speaker 1: it's like a good, righteous mission to have that fits
Speaker 1: into his body of work really well, because you could
Speaker 1: even you could argue that for a fucking hill boy, right,
Speaker 1: Like this is like a through line in his work
Speaker 1: that I think is really cool. But it's like we're
Speaker 1: saying it's it's in the execution of like that message
Speaker 1: is kind of ring a little hollow if you're falling
Speaker 1: back on trope for the marginalized characters that are like
Speaker 1: surrounding the fish guy, right, Because like, again going back
Speaker 1: to Zelda, you have, like I feel like she's pretty
Speaker 1: one dimensional, and then the kind of one attempt to
Speaker 1: give her a little bit more dimensionality is with this
Speaker 1: like subplot with her husband, which also just ends up
Speaker 1: playing into stereotypes of kind of like a deadbeat husband.
Speaker 1: It gives her this moment of empowerment over him because
Speaker 1: like because she stands up to him at the end,
Speaker 1: but like she has a girl boss moment. But that's
Speaker 1: also the scene where that happens is the first time
Speaker 1: we are like really meeting that character. So ultimately it's
Speaker 1: hard to like I'm rooting for Zelda to have more
Speaker 1: of a character to work with, but it's like the
Speaker 1: movie makes it hard for you to be like woo
Speaker 1: who in that moment because we've never seen this guy before.
Speaker 1: We just about him in passing. And then the other
Speaker 1: black characters in the movie are either you only get
Speaker 1: tiny glimpses of them, you really learn nothing about them,
Speaker 1: and it feels like a lot of times they're just
Speaker 1: used to show that another character is racist, or there's
Speaker 1: that there's a weird scene where Eliza is watching a
Speaker 1: newscast about civil rights protests and like violence enacted against protesters,
Speaker 1: and Giles just like turn that off, and it's like, what,
Speaker 1: why is that? Why is I was kind of curious
Speaker 1: what the message was behind that, because I'm just like, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I would hear the writers out, but I'm
Speaker 1: just like, why include that? Like it just just really
Speaker 1: I think that that was just like again, a really
Speaker 1: lazy like way to remind you, like the era that
Speaker 1: this is taking place. And but it makes Giles seem
Speaker 1: very dismissive towards the struggles of black Americans, which is
Speaker 1: doesn't appear to be canonical to his character at all,
Speaker 1: because later he is like fuck you to the home
Speaker 1: a phobic racist, right. It just feels like a way
Speaker 1: for the movie to acknowledge that that was what was
Speaker 1: happening at the time this movie takes place, because a
Speaker 1: lot of movies period pictures from that time or movies
Speaker 1: that made in that time didn't acknowledge it. So it's
Speaker 1: like this movie is like, we're acknowledging that this was
Speaker 1: taking place, but it doesn't want to like engage with it.
Speaker 1: Really it is. It does feel maybe this is like
Speaker 1: closer to the Trump era movie thing where it's like
Speaker 1: this movie I think has good intentions, but it's like
Speaker 1: biting off more than I can chew, and it's trying
Speaker 1: to like not like solve obviously, but it's like trying
Speaker 1: to address every societal ill and like especially really something
Speaker 1: that can be done in a two hour movie, especially
Speaker 1: in the Michael Shannon character, because like, my god, literally patriarchy.
Speaker 1: The guy, Yeah, he's racist, he's a misogynist. He wants
Speaker 1: his wife to be silent during a sex scene that
Speaker 1: is for some reason in the movie, also sexually harasses Eliza.
Speaker 1: He's like one of those like America number one guys.
Speaker 1: He like very clearly has a very fragile male ego.
Speaker 1: He's very classist to the point where and I think
Speaker 1: there's like interesting commentary here that like no one even
Speaker 1: considers he's amazing at playing this role. Like Michel Shannon
Speaker 1: as Patriarchy the Guy, he's very good at it. But
Speaker 1: it's like, like we've been talking about on the show
Speaker 1: four years now, beginning with Our Girl the Dragon Tattoo
Speaker 1: episode question Mark, Like that's just kind of and I
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, I can like hear defenders
Speaker 1: of this movie, which I have a lot of love for.
Speaker 1: For the record, I chose it from my damn birthday movie.
Speaker 1: I can hear defenders of this movie being like, well,
Speaker 1: it's a fair it's a fairy tale, so the characters
Speaker 1: tend to be a little broad. True, But like I
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, kind of cherry picking, like what
Speaker 1: we're subverting and what we're not. Patrio Archy the Guy
Speaker 1: is just not an effective storytelling tool. I feel like
Speaker 1: at this point that should be obviously maybe I mean,
Speaker 1: but also I think that there was an element of
Speaker 1: cathartic energy behind Patriarchy the Guy as a character early
Speaker 1: in the Trump administration. Um only because I, in my opinion, Um,
Speaker 1: this movie came out I think it came out post
Speaker 1: Me Too, but was certainly produced Prey. But you know,
Speaker 1: because there were not a ton of public discussions about
Speaker 1: misogyny that were treated as culturally serious. Seeing patriarchy, the
Speaker 1: guy taken down a peg and killed and blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: like there was some sort of I feel like there
Speaker 1: was a cathartic element to it at that time, but
Speaker 1: now that things have moved on, it's just like, even
Speaker 1: if it is a cathartic storytelling tool for some people,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of over and honestly, like, I just don't
Speaker 1: think it's a very effective way to make any commentary because,
Speaker 1: like we've talked about a million times, it's far more
Speaker 1: likely to experience, you know, discrimination of many kinds from
Speaker 1: a guy that is just kind of a guy. And
Speaker 1: that is the problem. And that's like why prejudice is
Speaker 1: so proudicious, because it's just cooked into people that you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like, I mean, there are you know, bigoted
Speaker 1: supervillains out there, unfortunately, and it seems like there's more
Speaker 1: all the fucking time, But it just doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: the most powerful storytelling tool to wrap up every single
Speaker 1: prejudice in one guy and then kill that guy and
Speaker 1: be like we did um yeah, yeah, I was. I
Speaker 1: was certing to say that, I think the most the
Speaker 1: way that his characters is or maybe not even his
Speaker 1: you can't even attribute this to his character specifically, But
Speaker 1: the most effective use of commentary when it comes to
Speaker 1: people's prejudices in this movie is that no one even
Speaker 1: suspects Eliza as being the fishman heister like Steeler because
Speaker 1: of her like class and position, and no one even
Speaker 1: considers that it could be you know, like a cleaning
Speaker 1: person could pull this off sort of thing. But other
Speaker 1: than that, yeah, I didn't. I thought that was like,
Speaker 1: that was one of the more effective Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. Everything else was like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: just feels too cartoonish. Yeah, like it's it's very broad,
Speaker 1: I think. Also, I just wanted to single out because
Speaker 1: Michael Shannon represents so much in this world, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to like single out a few things that I
Speaker 1: found particularly evil about him. He is openly racist to
Speaker 1: Zelda's character, like treats her as if she is like uneducated,
Speaker 1: to the point where she is not able to understand
Speaker 1: what is going on. Around her, or that she couldn't
Speaker 1: possibly understand what the people of higher class who are
Speaker 1: mostly white like could be doing. It's like incredibly patronizing.
Speaker 1: He fetishizes Eliza for her disability and patronizes her for it,
Speaker 1: and you know, attempts to like he he assaults multiple
Speaker 1: people throughout the movie. Um, I would say that that
Speaker 1: sex scene with his wife, I mean, it's very fucking gross,
Speaker 1: but I think it also like really tiptoes up to
Speaker 1: the fucking line of fucking marital rape because he's like
Speaker 1: bleeding on her face and she's like, can you not
Speaker 1: bleed on my face? And he's like shut up. Didn't
Speaker 1: need that scene, But I guess we just need this
Speaker 1: to be the most evil guy in the entire world.
Speaker 1: He represents America or whatever America's were on in Corpse.
Speaker 1: I don't disagree, but like I don't need to see
Speaker 1: him you know, harass, you know, like sexually mistreat his
Speaker 1: own wife. And also also she did this thing that
Speaker 1: did you catch this? She like smel his hand before
Speaker 1: she would have sex with him, which I think it
Speaker 1: means to imply that he is a serial cheater and
Speaker 1: comes home smelling like vagina. I didn't make that connection,
Speaker 1: but I can see it. It's just that marriage. I
Speaker 1: feel for his his wife. I feel for that character.
Speaker 1: We don't get to know over very well. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: like I just want to single out especially like his
Speaker 1: fetishizing Alliesa's disability. I just think it's like it really
Speaker 1: grows certainly something that I know happens in the world.
Speaker 1: But it just seems like again another like big issue
Speaker 1: to like take a bite out of and then essentially
Speaker 1: make no meaningful statement about outside of like this is wrong,
Speaker 1: which is more than a lot of movies do. But
Speaker 1: it's just I don't know, Yeah, movies that try to
Speaker 1: attack every single um problem in the world. There, it's
Speaker 1: just there's not the bandwidth. I guess not in the
Speaker 1: shape of water. Uh. Going on the continuing on that
Speaker 1: line of thinking, I wanted to touch on queerness in
Speaker 1: the movie, specifically when it comes to Giles's character Richard
Speaker 1: Jenkins icon love him, love all of his cats. His
Speaker 1: character's cats are I P the one r I P.
Speaker 1: I forget what the cat's name was, but he just
Speaker 1: like soantly. Yeah. He literally was like Richard Jenkins is
Speaker 1: like the fishman ate my cat and the cat has
Speaker 1: a name? Does that pass the back to the new dog,
Speaker 1: ate my the new dog, ate my homework, the fish,
Speaker 1: and ate my cat. I can't come to work today.
Speaker 1: What was the cat's name? It was like it wasn't Sophocles,
Speaker 1: but it was like something like that. Anyway, it was, yeah,
Speaker 1: something like that. So Giles is a queer character, and
Speaker 1: we see him be rejected. We see he's a lonely person.
Speaker 1: He constantly talks about how lonely he is all the time,
Speaker 1: and that's not coming from nowhere, you know, Like feelings
Speaker 1: of isolation and loneliness are certainly something that a lot
Speaker 1: of queer people have experienced throughout history. It's also implied
Speaker 1: that he is a recovering alcoholic covering alcoholic, and that
Speaker 1: he maybe was fired from his job, possibly for his alcoholism,
Speaker 1: but also possibly for being gay. That's yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: never made explicitly. Like his side quest, you get more
Speaker 1: with Drials than with any other secondary character, but it's
Speaker 1: still like doesn't land in a very satisfying way because
Speaker 1: you're like, was he fired for? Like why even include
Speaker 1: addiction issues? If? Like it just was confusing again, too much,
Speaker 1: too much, biting off more than it can chew. Yes,
Speaker 1: So for me, like to have your one queer character
Speaker 1: in the movie where like the movie goes out of
Speaker 1: its way to show him be rejected by crushed, and
Speaker 1: that only happens to motivate his choice to help out
Speaker 1: the straight protagonist and although like can we even call
Speaker 1: her straight when her sexuality includes being attracted to fish people?
Speaker 1: My point is I felt like his queerness was just
Speaker 1: kind of used in the way that like racism and
Speaker 1: like the acknowledgment of the civil rights movement is just
Speaker 1: sort of like used to be like, well, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: touching on these things. Yeah, we're being inclusive, but like
Speaker 1: not meaningfully or not in a way that felt like
Speaker 1: and only like tragically, like it's yeah, yeah, no one
Speaker 1: gets a satisfying romantic Like all the relationships in this
Speaker 1: movie like don't end very well because like Eliza and
Speaker 1: the fish Man have it best and they die, uh,
Speaker 1: like Giles gets rejected. Zelda gets like one up on
Speaker 1: her emotionally volatile husband who doesn't respect her, but presumably
Speaker 1: they are. She's still stuck in that marriage. Hard to say,
Speaker 1: we know, really nothing's not like she's going to leave him.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like no idea. I guess maybe the
Speaker 1: only person who wins is Michael Shannon's wife because he dies,
Speaker 1: Because he dies enough, she's free from him. But she
Speaker 1: seems to really be into him and confused in a
Speaker 1: confusing way. It seems like she well confusing. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just seems like relationship wise, um, it's all really sad
Speaker 1: at the very bleak um. But yeah, that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of all I had. Did you have anything else you
Speaker 1: wanted to discuss? Um? I just wanted to quickly. I
Speaker 1: mean we we sort of talked about it really quick.
Speaker 1: But the fishman, I love him. I do think that
Speaker 1: the criticism of like do we understand why these two
Speaker 1: characters fall in love with each other outside of metaphorical purposes?
Speaker 1: Not really, I would have to have seen more. Um.
Speaker 1: I also think it's like kind of very like fantastical
Speaker 1: and like whatever, turning one culture into like a monolith
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, he's a South American god and
Speaker 1: you're like what, um again? Like yet another of like
Speaker 1: it's clear that you know Americans are mining this area
Speaker 1: for oil. It's like the movie trying to comment on
Speaker 1: another societal ill but but not really doing much with it,
Speaker 1: glossing over it. Yeah, I do think that like the
Speaker 1: way that the Fishman is characterized is generally pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Like I know that he is supposed to be canonically
Speaker 1: a movie monster, but I don't view him that way
Speaker 1: because we are like encouraged to empathize with him so much. Um,
Speaker 1: we know that he's been through a lot. We see,
Speaker 1: you know, how brutally mistreated he is and that being
Speaker 1: treated with compassion, and I really love him. I get
Speaker 1: the issues surrounding the character. Um, but I thought it
Speaker 1: was like he and Eliza, you know, they fuck and
Speaker 1: we celebrate that, and that is that whole sexual relationship
Speaker 1: felt to me like, you know, she initiated, which is cool.
Speaker 1: You don't see that in a movie a lot. And um,
Speaker 1: you know iconic that there's an Oscar winning fish sex movie.
Speaker 1: That is really you can take that from something you
Speaker 1: simply can't forget. I do. I love the female masturbation
Speaker 1: is represented on screen because it rarely is as a
Speaker 1: normal part of a morning routine. I love how horny
Speaker 1: that character is and just to um and it is
Speaker 1: normalized and it's normalized. And again shout out to Kristin
Speaker 1: Lopez's peace in The Hollywood Reporter will link to it
Speaker 1: as well. Um But Kristen writes about how disabled characters
Speaker 1: and media are often presented as lacking sexuality or not
Speaker 1: having any sexual desires, and that media about characters with
Speaker 1: disabilities tends to focus on straight white men. So Shape
Speaker 1: of Water presents kind of an interesting subversion to these
Speaker 1: tropes because it focuses on a disabled woman and allows
Speaker 1: her to be a very sexual being. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I appreciate a horny woman on screen.
Speaker 1: I also liked that the movie didn't get like into
Speaker 1: her past sex life, because I feel like that is like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I just this movie is so chaotically
Speaker 1: trying to address everything that it's like, we don't really
Speaker 1: know what her sexual past is, but we know that
Speaker 1: like she lets when she's like interested, she's going to
Speaker 1: let you know. And it seems like consent was above
Speaker 1: the board. Again you're like, it's a fish bed, So
Speaker 1: we don't know, but if it's felt, it felt like
Speaker 1: there was some thought and care put into that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this movie is I don't know if it's if it
Speaker 1: quite goes into my guilty pleasure category, but you know,
Speaker 1: on the right on the right day and the right
Speaker 1: mood shape of water. You know, it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: movie that I'll turn on sure because the cast is
Speaker 1: so good. The score also, that's like kind of out
Speaker 1: of our purview, but I think the score is so beautiful.
Speaker 1: With the fish and the egg, yes, it's I mean
Speaker 1: it's a beauty. It's a deultura movie. It's like beautiful,
Speaker 1: and the fishman hot loves eggs and sex and has
Speaker 1: a thigh gap and really tight a little. But yeah,
Speaker 1: So ultimately I would say that it does pass the
Speaker 1: Backtel test, yes, in a way that but often don't
Speaker 1: come across on the buttle on. It passes the Backtel
Speaker 1: tests in a way that we don't often come across
Speaker 1: because we are used to seeing like verbal spoken communication
Speaker 1: and between characters of marginalized genders when it comes to
Speaker 1: a movie passing. But for example, many scenes, well, actually
Speaker 1: a lot of the conversations between Eliza and Zelda are
Speaker 1: either about the fish man, Zelda's unappreciative husband, or Michael
Speaker 1: Shannon's character. Um, so they talk about men a lot.
Speaker 1: I think there are like isolated conversations where they are
Speaker 1: you know where they are not talking about a man
Speaker 1: um but communicating in a way that again, like we
Speaker 1: don't often see on screen because we don't often see
Speaker 1: sign language being used as as a way of communication. UM,
Speaker 1: So just pointing that out that it's nice to see
Speaker 1: representation of of the Bechtel test being passed via sign language. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that that is a rare pass. I also
Speaker 1: wanted to shout out that there is um there are
Speaker 1: two writers credited on this movie, obviously Girima del Toro,
Speaker 1: but also Vanessa Taylor. She's written a ton she wrote
Speaker 1: the Divergent movie, she wrote on the new Aladdin movie,
Speaker 1: which was not her fault, ums Shape of Water, she
Speaker 1: wrote on Game of Thrones, like she's you know, cool,
Speaker 1: and she also this is they don't leave unless she
Speaker 1: wrote pabaliology likes, well, look, she's what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: I think that it is a net positive that you
Speaker 1: know there that del Toro had a woman as a
Speaker 1: co writer. So there you go. There is you know,
Speaker 1: it's not just totally men men, men, men, men, men, men, men,
Speaker 1: men across the board and that was a what is
Speaker 1: the name of that start? Two and a half men.
Speaker 1: I almost had two Broke Men two and a half men. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the name of that show Men Men Men. Admit
Speaker 1: that's like the theme song, is it. I've never watched
Speaker 1: an episode Bravely, Oh well I had. Yeah, my my
Speaker 1: grandfather would have that show on in the background sometimes.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the theme song is just saying men like
Speaker 1: twenty times. Very cool, very cool. Um, anyways, two broke Men,
Speaker 1: let's write it. Um yeah, yeah, so let's let's go
Speaker 1: to the let's hit the nipple scale, shall we. Let's
Speaker 1: do it zero to five nipples. Based on looking at
Speaker 1: the movie through an intersectional feminist lens for me, as
Speaker 1: we've discussed the del Toro's intentions are clear. He wants
Speaker 1: to He wants to subvert the traditional monster movie, especially
Speaker 1: because there's been so much kind of like racist and
Speaker 1: other prejudice coding of monsters in monster movies throughout history.
Speaker 1: There is so I don't know if you can hear
Speaker 1: this very European sounding siren because I'm in Amsterdam, barrack.
Speaker 1: Um so cool. Sorry, that's had to be awesome. I
Speaker 1: can't even hear it's so awesome. Yeah, sorry for for
Speaker 1: whatever is happening. But um, yeah, the the the intentions
Speaker 1: are clear, and it's clear that Garmo do Toro wanted
Speaker 1: to make a progressive story that subverts a lot of
Speaker 1: harmful tropes and he wanted to be inclusive in his narrative. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the execution of a lot of these things just doesn't
Speaker 1: quite land or hit the mark. You. You have various
Speaker 1: ablest implications, you have kind of a lot of tropes
Speaker 1: as it relates to race and queerness in characters. Just
Speaker 1: a lot of things that again not executed very well,
Speaker 1: which makes rating this tricky. Um because the intentions are good, Uh,
Speaker 1: the execution isn't great. I guess I would give this
Speaker 1: like two and a half nipples to me. It's one
Speaker 1: of those like split on the middles. I agree with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do two and a half as well, because
Speaker 1: because of the reasons you are describing where it's like.
Speaker 1: I do think that there was a lot of good
Speaker 1: intentions behind this movie. I think, even five years later,
Speaker 1: the kind of gaps in consulting the gap side gaps,
Speaker 1: the fish thigh gap first of all, an attack, uh
Speaker 1: fight or flight trigger activated. But yeah, like I just
Speaker 1: a movie that had good intentions that bit off way
Speaker 1: more than I could chew, and uh didn't do the
Speaker 1: consulting necessary to attempt to chew question mark. Right. But
Speaker 1: it's a sweet movie with it with a good intention,
Speaker 1: and so I feel like split down the middle makes sense.
Speaker 1: Who are you given your nipples too? I will give
Speaker 1: one to Giles's Cats, one to Mrs Brown in the
Speaker 1: movie Paddington, and I will give my half nipple. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I want to give a nipple to Octavia Spencer because
Speaker 1: she's incredible and she's often cast in roles that her
Speaker 1: full potential is like, we don't we don't see her range.
Speaker 1: We don't see what she's capable of as an actor
Speaker 1: because many of the roles that she's cast in are
Speaker 1: just kind of fish food if you will. Um, But
Speaker 1: she's great. So I'll give her one of my nipples,
Speaker 1: and then I'll give my half nipple to Mrs Brown
Speaker 1: in Paddington. Okay, um, yeah, I'm gonna give all my
Speaker 1: nipples to myself because it's my birthday. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: happy birthday, Jamie. Do you have anything that you would
Speaker 1: like to plug? I would like to plug my birthday.
Speaker 1: I would like to plug. Um. Yeah, you know, listen
Speaker 1: to Ghost Church listen a little listen A listen to
Speaker 1: my other stuff and Cathy Lolita, mensa, all the all
Speaker 1: the friends are here. I would say, priorder the hot
Speaker 1: Dog book, but it's not possible yet. But oh believe
Speaker 1: will I be harassing you about that? I would say,
Speaker 1: mainly for a birthday present for me in advance. Just
Speaker 1: remember to be kind and patient to me when I
Speaker 1: inevitably don't shut the funk up about the Pinocchio Wars
Speaker 1: in November. There's two Pinocchios coming out this year. I
Speaker 1: think that it's I can already feel a real fixation
Speaker 1: coming on, and uh, it's just gonna be something that's
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot on my mind in the coming months.
Speaker 1: So please bear with me as I really get into
Speaker 1: There's so many Pinocchio adaptations, and I can feel myself
Speaker 1: getting ready to watch maybe all of them. I want
Speaker 1: to go into the Pinocchio Wars with eyes wide open. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to be a true witness. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the legal the legal observer for the Pinocchio Wars.
Speaker 1: It's I'm on the sidelines and I'm keeping score. Wow,
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks, geppetto versus, who's the other Geppetto. Wait, no,
Speaker 1: I don't remember Geppetto, not because he's he's no, he's
Speaker 1: Giminy turny Cricket. God, damn it, I don't remember. You're right.
Speaker 1: Oh god, I'm going to have a meltdown. Was I
Speaker 1: think it's like maybe a character actor that we don't
Speaker 1: see very much, probably Doug Jones. Honestly, that would be iconic.
Speaker 1: I would not forget. It's it's a it's a British
Speaker 1: guy Garama del Toros Pinocchio versus Roberts a Mexasis. David Bradley.
Speaker 1: David Bradley is Geppetto, He's filch In Harry Potter. Okay, alright,
Speaker 1: well we gotta go. Yes. I can't wait for you
Speaker 1: to enter the Pinocchio verse. Jamie, Happy birthday, Love you
Speaker 1: so much and follow us, uh the the instagrams and
Speaker 1: stuff Matreon. You're gonna wanna listen to that just off
Speaker 1: the wall Matreon episode in which we attempted to talk
Speaker 1: about shape of Water and we never got around to it.
Speaker 1: Five dollars a month gets you tubonus episodes, merch at
Speaker 1: t public dot com, slash the Epectel Cast, and with
Speaker 1: that it's my birthday, so we have to go to
Speaker 1: medieval times. Yeah yeah, bye bye