Speaker 1: On the pick Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies
Speaker 1: have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
Speaker 1: and husbands, or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef
Speaker 1: In best start changing it with the beck del cast. Hi,
Speaker 1: welcome to the backdel cast. Already sounds so excited. I
Speaker 1: guess this isn't really so uh bonus episode alert. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're doing an episode that's and it's a bonus, but
Speaker 1: it's it's grim. It's a grim. It's a grim bonus.
Speaker 1: It's it's still the scariest month of the year, true
Speaker 1: and truly the news has been proving it is the
Speaker 1: scariest month of the year. So we are doing a
Speaker 1: bonus episode. Obviously, if you're cooking on it, you know
Speaker 1: what it's about about the nine Woody Allen movie Manhattan,
Speaker 1: And why have we chosen to do this movie? I
Speaker 1: mean we really dug deep inside. No, we literally woke
Speaker 1: up and looked at the screens that we sleep next to,
Speaker 1: and it said that, you know, everything is a nightmare,
Speaker 1: which we knew Harry Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, dozens
Speaker 1: of others. Right, it's been it's been, I mean obviously
Speaker 1: a deeply traveling a couple of weeks. For all the
Speaker 1: allegations that are coming out, it's it's very positive that
Speaker 1: they're being brought out to the world. But it's hard, right,
Speaker 1: especially because the victims who are coming forward are perceiving
Speaker 1: some backlash, especially Woody Allen saying things like, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't support what Harvey Weinstein did, but you know, let's
Speaker 1: not start a witch hunt, you know, which hunts those
Speaker 1: things that men used to do to women for no
Speaker 1: reason other than they were threatened by women existing in
Speaker 1: the world around them. Right, So we thought it would
Speaker 1: be perhaps useful to look back on an example of
Speaker 1: a very predatory movie made by an allegedly very predatory
Speaker 1: person and talk about it, because it is wild watching
Speaker 1: this movie now came out what thirty eight years ago
Speaker 1: now is while watching this movie and ever thinking that
Speaker 1: this was, like this is amazing, Like this isn't a
Speaker 1: hard movie to watch at all. Right. I saw it
Speaker 1: for the first time probably in college, probably around ten
Speaker 1: years ago, and that was the only time I had
Speaker 1: seen it, But I didn't remember even what it was about.
Speaker 1: I didn't remember that a forty two year old man
Speaker 1: was in a relationship with a seventeen year old girl.
Speaker 1: I just didn't remember that that's what the story was
Speaker 1: because ten years ago, you know, I guess I just wasn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, I probably was like, oh, that's that's weird,
Speaker 1: and then I just forgot about it. Whereas today, well,
Speaker 1: and I think that a lot of work is done
Speaker 1: by the movie itself to really glaze over any problems
Speaker 1: that are there where I mean, we'll get into that too,
Speaker 1: where no one at the movie really raises a stink
Speaker 1: other than a passing joke at the fact that their
Speaker 1: crimes happening in front of them. So I think that
Speaker 1: the world Woody Allen creates, and I mean, we weren't
Speaker 1: alive for it, but it seems like the general society
Speaker 1: at that time did not point stuff like this out,
Speaker 1: and so the movie doesn't point it out, and that's bad.
Speaker 1: I first saw this movie in college as well, but
Speaker 1: it did bother me quite a bit because I saw
Speaker 1: this movie. This would have been the Lateen, which is
Speaker 1: when allegations about Woody Allen were first starting to surface,
Speaker 1: like really exploded in early but late there was rumblings
Speaker 1: and I had to take a class to graduate school
Speaker 1: and so I ended up having to take this class
Speaker 1: about Charlie Kaufman, Woody Allen, and Billy Wilder films. So
Speaker 1: we had to watch a lot of Woody Allen films,
Speaker 1: and I recall not liking them, not doing well in
Speaker 1: the class, and getting in trouble for specifically being like,
Speaker 1: this is gross. Why is he fucking a kid? Like
Speaker 1: that in particularly got me in trouble at that class. See.
Speaker 1: I So I took a directing class because you know,
Speaker 1: I did go to film school twice, and I was
Speaker 1: given like the script to a scene in Manhattan to
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, let's see how you would direct this.
Speaker 1: And it's the scene between Woody Allen's character and Tracy's character,
Speaker 1: the seventeen year old girl kidding, the one we're they're
Speaker 1: in bed and he has just moved into his new
Speaker 1: apartment and he was talking about like the water being
Speaker 1: brown and the noises from the his neighbors and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and like at the time, I was just like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll just direct this scene. Like it didn't really occur
Speaker 1: to me, like how gross and problematic, And that was
Speaker 1: a school assignment, Like that's great. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I what was my professor thinking. I
Speaker 1: had literally had no choic but to watch these money
Speaker 1: or I couldn't graduate. Like it's just great. And also
Speaker 1: I I not to say this was a benefit in
Speaker 1: any way, but I was armed with a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot more information in latee of like this guy
Speaker 1: was basically being I mean not that there was no
Speaker 1: way to tell, as he had already married his daughter,
Speaker 1: but there there were serious allegations coming out, and it
Speaker 1: just felt wrong to be idolizing this work in anyway,
Speaker 1: especially when it's just like he he it's why he
Speaker 1: really is just laying it out in front of you
Speaker 1: of like I'm a predator. I fun kids, I did,
Speaker 1: like you're just like he's unapologetic about it, and it's nuts.
Speaker 1: Not even unapologetically he's victimizing himself about like it's just okay.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the movie. Manhattan comes out in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine after Annie Hall, after he's sort of
Speaker 1: said that I guess we're doing this now, you know,
Speaker 1: or watching way Allen do the same fucking things. Great, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll do the recap. Manhattan is about a Woody Allen
Speaker 1: type character about one Allen. His character though, is named Isaac,
Speaker 1: and he is in a relationship with a seventeen year
Speaker 1: old funny and everyone's like, wow, she's beautiful, and he's like,
Speaker 1: she's seventeen in public, she's in high school, she's seventeen.
Speaker 1: Isn't this funny? Isn't this weird? And the characters responded
Speaker 1: by saying, yeah, that is weird, that is funny, where
Speaker 1: it's just like, you know, we weren't there in ninety nine.
Speaker 1: But I find it very hard to believe that there's
Speaker 1: two characters responding, oh, that is so weird, like it's
Speaker 1: just because it was a crime. Towards the end, she's like,
Speaker 1: I turned eighteen, so I'm legal now, acknowledging that the
Speaker 1: sex they were having before was not legal, which it wasn't,
Speaker 1: and no one gave any shit about it. So not
Speaker 1: even the movie that, not even not even the characters
Speaker 1: in the movie who won And another straight white guy
Speaker 1: whose name eludes me at this it's Yale. No, like
Speaker 1: the co writer for the movie Marshall Brickman. Marshall Brickman,
Speaker 1: So they write this movie together. They're writing all these
Speaker 1: female characters, meaning they're directing, you know, like Diane Keaton's
Speaker 1: character who on paper and then I think several parts
Speaker 1: of the movie is a good character I would agree
Speaker 1: to given a background. And it's like, man, I hate
Speaker 1: that there's a good female character in this movie. But
Speaker 1: I mean, she has, she is armed with all the information,
Speaker 1: she is intelligent, she is she's very outspoken, very outspoken,
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to care, doesn't seem to care, And it's like,
Speaker 1: how fucking convenient that you're very empowered female character just
Speaker 1: also doesn't seem to notice that you're fucking a kid.
Speaker 1: And if she mentions it, mentions it as like so
Speaker 1: weird that this is going on. At one point, so
Speaker 1: there's a character named Yale, which is what EN's character's
Speaker 1: best friend, and he's married to Emily. At one point,
Speaker 1: Emily says, oh no, I don't think seventeen is too young.
Speaker 1: That's like in the first fifteen roots of the movie.
Speaker 1: And I know, and to tell you you flame and
Speaker 1: hot trolls out there who were like the women in
Speaker 1: the movie. Yeah, but that the women in the movie,
Speaker 1: those words weren't put there by a woman. They were
Speaker 1: put there by two men. So it's like these relatively
Speaker 1: realized female characters spouting nonsense like it's just yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: I love how it worked up. We are It is
Speaker 1: infuriating movie watch at times, deeply uncomfortable. We laughed at
Speaker 1: two different parts and that was upsetting too. Were like,
Speaker 1: I hate that, I found that funny. I hate the chuckle.
Speaker 1: I hated it. It's just oh god, okay, anyway, so okay.
Speaker 1: So Isaac is dating a seventeen year old woman. His
Speaker 1: friend Yale is married, but he starts seeing this woman,
Speaker 1: Mary played by Dan Dane Keaton. Woody Allen meets Mary
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh, I actually, I like there's another
Speaker 1: thing in here where it's It's like, oh, Wh're gonna
Speaker 1: forgive him for these hanous crimes he's committing because he's awkward. Again,
Speaker 1: the use of an awkward personality as an excuse to
Speaker 1: do fucking insane things. I'm gonna go ahead and coin
Speaker 1: the term stutter corps. This is a stutter corp movie.
Speaker 1: All Woody Allen movies are stutter corps, and which just
Speaker 1: is you can shave fifteen minutes off the top of
Speaker 1: the movie. Right. So he meets Mary and they get
Speaker 1: off to a rocky start, but then he starts to
Speaker 1: like Mary, and Mary starts to like him, so he's conflicted, Oh,
Speaker 1: do I stay with this seventeen year old girl or
Speaker 1: do I hang out with Mary even though she's also
Speaker 1: dating my friend Yale. There's like kind of all this
Speaker 1: back and forth. He's writing a book, he's writing a book,
Speaker 1: he quits his job and is a writer. He's an artist,
Speaker 1: which comes into play later. He surrounds himself with affluent, white,
Speaker 1: fucking pretend just people, which is dumb, which I know,
Speaker 1: but it's very intentional what Woody Allen chooses to satirize
Speaker 1: in this movie and what he does not just satirize
Speaker 1: in this movie, because I think he is satirizing bullshit
Speaker 1: intellectualism quite a bit by being like, look at these people.
Speaker 1: They're so smart, threat museums and observatories and planetariums all
Speaker 1: the time, but they don't have it together. Like it's
Speaker 1: you know, he's commenting on that. The things he is
Speaker 1: not commenting on are just as glaring, such as he
Speaker 1: is sucking a kid. This is barely commented on, and
Speaker 1: and and in the way it's commented on. Tracy Mariel,
Speaker 1: Hemingway's character is being developed at the expense of the protagonist,
Speaker 1: which is like another continued I mean, I'm almost done.
Speaker 1: I don't really know what else happens. It's not an
Speaker 1: exciting movie. So at some point he breaks up with Tracy,
Speaker 1: the seventeen year old girl. He starts to go in
Speaker 1: sort of full force with Mary in their relationship, and
Speaker 1: then Mary meanwhile it's like, actually I think I still
Speaker 1: love Yale. So she and Yale kind of get back
Speaker 1: to together, and then Woody Allen's character is like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm lonely, so I better go back the girl to
Speaker 1: the child. But here's a twist. She's not a child now.
Speaker 1: She's she's crazy having gas let her throughout the entire
Speaker 1: movie because she's like, why might want to go and
Speaker 1: study in London and he's like, yeah, you should. Actually
Speaker 1: we probably shouldn't be together you're young, but like not
Speaker 1: to any point where he's going to really do anything
Speaker 1: about it. And then at the end she's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to London like you said I should,
Speaker 1: and he's like, actually, no, not on, I don't have
Speaker 1: anyone to validate me. And then she you know, but
Speaker 1: what a six month matter if we're in love, which
Speaker 1: is you know, a very eight, your old thing to say,
Speaker 1: and it ends with him like smiling, and we're like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, maybe there's no there's never even the looming
Speaker 1: threat of a consequence for treating this situation where he does,
Speaker 1: for committing a crime over and over and over. It's
Speaker 1: openly discussed between the two characters. You can't even call
Speaker 1: it an open secret. It's not a secret. He's taking
Speaker 1: her out in public. We don't know that much about
Speaker 1: her parents or or where, nothing, nothing. I really know
Speaker 1: nothing about her character apart from her age and that
Speaker 1: she apparently is interested in acting. We're going abroad to
Speaker 1: study that, right, and she goes to high school. This
Speaker 1: this trope we've talked about before and it applies more
Speaker 1: to sci fi characters generally, but it did want to
Speaker 1: bring up the born Sexy Yesterday and that with Tracy
Speaker 1: and Isaac. It's like this dynamic and what we sort
Speaker 1: of are led to believe as a feeling about it
Speaker 1: for ISAA because that he's teaching this girl, he's teaching
Speaker 1: her intellectually, he's teaching her, teaching her, he's raping her,
Speaker 1: but he's teaching her sexually or that's his impression or whatever.
Speaker 1: Just the fact that there's there's no point in the
Speaker 1: movie where it's brought up as anything but a funny thing.
Speaker 1: It is never addressed it as a crime. It's indirectly
Speaker 1: addressed as a crime, where it's a joke that she's
Speaker 1: legal now, and there's no there's no threat that he
Speaker 1: will receive any punishment, and in fact he doesn't and
Speaker 1: he still has it. So great for Woody Allen funk Off.
Speaker 1: I was at a bar last night and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: brag and I was like, oh, sorry, I'm late. I
Speaker 1: had to watch Manhattan. We're doing it tomorrow on my podcast,
Speaker 1: and my friends were like, what why, And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: what better way to introduce all the fucking problematic ship
Speaker 1: that's happening in Hollywood right now and that has always
Speaker 1: been happening. Then a widely regarded movie where a major
Speaker 1: platfoint is repeated. Rape. Amazing there for anyone who is like,
Speaker 1: but wait, okay, let's think top of the Dome cinematography. Sure, great,
Speaker 1: there's a seed in the planetarium where lights are used.
Speaker 1: George Gershwood very talented man, also deeply problematic. You can
Speaker 1: go into that Google hole yourself. New York a city
Speaker 1: that exists. The technical merits of this movie is not
Speaker 1: what we're here to discuss. So if that's where you're
Speaker 1: coming from in terms of like, but the rapes look
Speaker 1: so good, uh no, funk off enjoy your life. Also,
Speaker 1: I don't like this movie, Like it's not it's I
Speaker 1: hate I hate it, say I haven't. I have a
Speaker 1: deep mistrust for anyone who's like, yeah, Manhattan's a great film.
Speaker 1: Got goodbye. We have to we have to be going.
Speaker 1: So we've discussed Tracy is obviously the glaring, major, major,
Speaker 1: major issue in this movie. But the other two main
Speaker 1: female characters are Mary, Diane Keaton's character and Jill, who
Speaker 1: is Woody Allen's second ex wife. Correct, I didn't mention
Speaker 1: her in the recap. She's played by Meryl Street and
Speaker 1: she's depicted as this like greed true character. So the
Speaker 1: plot point there is if, unless I'm mistaken, she is
Speaker 1: writing a memoir about her Mary what a shitty partner
Speaker 1: Woody Allen was like, I tell all kind of memoir thing.
Speaker 1: She is also now living with her girlfriend and raising
Speaker 1: Woody Allen's son. That's she has primary custody of Woody
Speaker 1: Allen's and her son, and Woody Allen is very uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with two women raising his son, which is brought up
Speaker 1: as a joke, and sort of there's the scene we
Speaker 1: see like one longish scene between Isaac and the Sun
Speaker 1: where you mentined he hits his Sun as his son
Speaker 1: because his sons trying to get his dad to buy
Speaker 1: him like a toy boat, very pointing to the bigger,
Speaker 1: more expensive one, and then Woody Allen just like strikes
Speaker 1: him in the head. So there's that, And then in
Speaker 1: the next cut there at some sort of it's a
Speaker 1: rest restaurant and Isaac is saying like, oh we could,
Speaker 1: like you know, basically presents his son with like I
Speaker 1: know you're being raised by two women, but don't forget
Speaker 1: about toxic masculine. It like it's just where he talks
Speaker 1: about picking up women as like a joke to his kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's like, if you were quicker, we could have picked
Speaker 1: those women up, just you know, teaching him just like
Speaker 1: fucking creep t he Also, it doesn't take too much
Speaker 1: of a leap to say that Woody Allen is kind
Speaker 1: of villainizing Jill Meryl Streep's characters sexuality as well. He's
Speaker 1: just saying like this shrewish gay woman, and it's also presented,
Speaker 1: and I thought this was interesting. I was reading Roger
Speaker 1: Ebert went back and watched this movie and had more
Speaker 1: come about it. In two thousand and one, he writes
Speaker 1: about this character specifically in a way that I think
Speaker 1: was weird, where he says Isaac's former wife Meryl Streep
Speaker 1: left him the live with a woman and writes the
Speaker 1: bestseller ridiculing her marriage and love life. We doubt her
Speaker 1: new relationship is sound if it leaves her so obsessed
Speaker 1: with the previous one. That is I mean, and I'm
Speaker 1: maybe that is how that reads to another straight white man,
Speaker 1: but that I mean, and I mean that's also just
Speaker 1: pure speculation because you don't see that much of their
Speaker 1: relationship on screen. But I think we are led to
Speaker 1: believe that. You know, it's like, well, Jill can't get
Speaker 1: over it, and she's trying to capitalize on what a
Speaker 1: shitty partner he was and now she dates a woman
Speaker 1: where I feel almost the implication is Woody Allen was
Speaker 1: such a bad husband that he turned her gay. That
Speaker 1: was what I took away. That's sort of how he
Speaker 1: I think he can character. Yeah, I think that that's
Speaker 1: what the movie thinks, you know, regardless of the integrity
Speaker 1: of this character, who deserved better. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: mean and and that is an individual's read. But I
Speaker 1: think the fact that a professional movie critics read was like,
Speaker 1: well she was so she's still so hung up on him.
Speaker 1: It's like, you can't conflate trauma with being in love,
Speaker 1: right and still being hung Like being angry about someone
Speaker 1: abusing you does not equal she's still in love with him, Like,
Speaker 1: but I think that that is what the movie would
Speaker 1: have you believe in that bobble Well, I made a
Speaker 1: list of all the things, or not even I probably
Speaker 1: didn't even hit all of them, but many of this
Speaker 1: you have a comprehensive list, Let's not sure, but I'm
Speaker 1: saying that there were so many that I probably missed.
Speaker 1: Some says this is such a fucking against stutter core
Speaker 1: movie that I can't even not to shame people with stutters.
Speaker 1: She was stutter shaming. No stutter shaming here, I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that Woody Allen should fall off the edge of
Speaker 1: the planet. So I made a list of all the
Speaker 1: things that he says either to or about women in
Speaker 1: the movie. The first one is he's talking to Tracy.
Speaker 1: This is after she's like, I think I'm in love
Speaker 1: with you for the first time pretty early on in
Speaker 1: the movie, and he says, don't get carried away, you're
Speaker 1: a kid. As long as the cops don't burst in,
Speaker 1: we're going to break a couple of records. And then
Speaker 1: later he's like, get dressed, like I'm going to fund
Speaker 1: a kid more than anyone who ever a kid, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: And then he's like, get dressed because you've got to
Speaker 1: get out of here. I don't want you to be
Speaker 1: comfortable here. You can't stay here, right does all he
Speaker 1: can to make Tracy's character not feel like she is
Speaker 1: a permanent fixture in his life totally. That And this
Speaker 1: is like sort of the beginning of him gaslighting her
Speaker 1: because constantly throughout the movie he's saying, you're too young,
Speaker 1: you don't under stand what love is, because she keeps
Speaker 1: being like, I love you. She literally says over and over,
Speaker 1: take me, seriously, listen to me. But and then he's
Speaker 1: just like, you're not old enough, Like you don't know
Speaker 1: what love is, You're too young. Yeah, that, but that
Speaker 1: criticism has never turned inward of like maybe this is
Speaker 1: the wrong thing to be doing, because it ends with
Speaker 1: maybe I we'll get to fund this kid again, like okay, sorry, continuous.
Speaker 1: Later he says to Jill, his ex wife Meryl Streep,
Speaker 1: of the two of us, I was not the immoral, psychotic,
Speaker 1: promiscuous one. Oh is that a reference to her sexuality?
Speaker 1: I think probably so excellent? Later on to Tracy, and
Speaker 1: this is after she's like, oh, you know, maybe people
Speaker 1: aren't meant to just like be with one person forever.
Speaker 1: It's kind of gone out of date. Again, more gasline,
Speaker 1: because he's like, don't you tell me what's gone out
Speaker 1: of date. You're seventeen. You were brought up on drugs
Speaker 1: television in the pill gas lighting bullettling her experience. He
Speaker 1: knows Benner because he has less hair. And then after
Speaker 1: this is after he meets Mary, he says about her,
Speaker 1: what a creep. She was overbearing, she was terrible, she
Speaker 1: was all cerebral. If she said one more thing about Bergmann,
Speaker 1: I would have knocked her other contact lens out. So
Speaker 1: I don't like that she's smart. I want to hit her. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll just I'll just talk to translate. Please, this is
Speaker 1: this is good. Shortly After that, he says about Jill,
Speaker 1: I got a divorce because my ex wife left me
Speaker 1: for another woman. Mary says, that must have been really demoralizing.
Speaker 1: Isaac says, I tried to run them both over with
Speaker 1: a car. Mary says, that's incredible sexual humiliation. And I
Speaker 1: think that's enough to turn you off of women, which
Speaker 1: I found to be a very bizarre scene because Mary
Speaker 1: has been set up and later on the movie continues
Speaker 1: to be the smartest and most rational in her thinking
Speaker 1: and all of that. But because this character was written
Speaker 1: by two men, she's just reinforcing what what he Alan
Speaker 1: actually thinks, which was, Yeah, for me to have been
Speaker 1: left by a woman for another woman, how humiliating. Well,
Speaker 1: I think I think that this is sort of something
Speaker 1: that comes up in a lot of Woody Allen's movies
Speaker 1: where I wish I had a snappier title for it.
Speaker 1: But a feminist character written by a man, So not
Speaker 1: really a feminist character, but one that in appearance and behavior,
Speaker 1: in profession, there's enough there that you're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, like you you would trust Diane Keaton's character,
Speaker 1: but she's still being written by a villain basically, and
Speaker 1: so when she glosses over the fact that when Allen's kid,
Speaker 1: when she glosses over villainizing queer people. As an audience member,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're not you know, you're sort of
Speaker 1: being told don't think about it. The character you trust
Speaker 1: thinks that, you know, queer people's lives don't matter either,
Speaker 1: and and stupid people with no critical thing skills would
Speaker 1: just be like, yeah, great, right, or people who have
Speaker 1: not encountered alternate ways of thinking. Because Woody Allens, all
Speaker 1: of his work is, We're told, is so intellectual and
Speaker 1: so smart that it's like, where are you supposed to
Speaker 1: be questioning? Where you not supposed to be questioning? He
Speaker 1: directs your focus in very deliberate ways and also directs
Speaker 1: your focus away. Okay, translation, I tried to kill gay
Speaker 1: people who hurt my feelings. Response. That sucks for you,
Speaker 1: and I can understand why you would have done that.
Speaker 1: I get it, would have done the same thing myself.
Speaker 1: Fuck that. Moving on later on, he says to Mary, well,
Speaker 1: first Mary is talking about Tracy and she's like sixteen
Speaker 1: years old, no possible threat at all. Isaac says, she's seventeen.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes you have a losing personality Mary, what
Speaker 1: do you want. I'm honest, I say what's on my mind,
Speaker 1: and if you can't take it, then funk off. I
Speaker 1: I like the way you express yourself too. It's pithy
Speaker 1: yet degenerate. You get many dates, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: A very witty exchange in which women being smart is
Speaker 1: stupid and people calling Woody Allen out on his bullshit
Speaker 1: is stupid. Yeah, there's more. Don't worry. This is about Jill.
Speaker 1: He's talking to Mary. He says, my son is being
Speaker 1: raised by two women. Mary says, I've read studies you
Speaker 1: don't need a man to Mothers are absolutely fine. Isaac says,
Speaker 1: I feel very few people survive one mother. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is what Allen saying. Probably something happened to me a
Speaker 1: very long time ago that was emasculating, and now for
Speaker 1: the next sixty plus years, I will take it out
Speaker 1: on any woman I come into contact. Yes, and then
Speaker 1: again about his mother. Later on, Isaac says, I wrote
Speaker 1: a short story about my mother, the castrating Zionist. This
Speaker 1: is what he Allen saying. I'm trying to make this
Speaker 1: seem like a fun Jewish caricature, but what it actually
Speaker 1: is is I hate every woman I've ever met. All
Speaker 1: these exchanges, by the way, happened in the first half
Speaker 1: hour of the movie. Yeah, and then this, So this
Speaker 1: is when I got very frustrated and maybe stopped paying
Speaker 1: as close attention. But there's a few more later to jail.
Speaker 1: He is gaslighting her and saying I did not try
Speaker 1: to run you and your lover over with my car,
Speaker 1: even though he's exactly and she's like, well, what were
Speaker 1: you doing by the cabin anyway? And he's like, I
Speaker 1: was flying on you. Uh, there's no there's no words.
Speaker 1: I think he just he just really hit the nail
Speaker 1: on the head on that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no
Speaker 1: translation needed. We talked about this one. We talked about
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, that was the one where he's next
Speaker 1: to two women in the restaurant and he's explaining to
Speaker 1: his son how they should have picked them up and
Speaker 1: fletched them. You know, his son a six year old boy,
Speaker 1: and and like and honestly again hate hers. It is
Speaker 1: written as a joke, but I would argue that that
Speaker 1: is just as much of a problem that he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: here's a terrible way to think about women, and then like, well,
Speaker 1: winky to the audience. Like this is funny. He's never
Speaker 1: going to learn, like is that funny? And then later
Speaker 1: on to Jill, this is after her book has come
Speaker 1: out about their relationship. He opens the door and says,
Speaker 1: I came here to strangle you. Well, sure, very funny,
Speaker 1: great joke. Um. So the three main characters, Tracy is
Speaker 1: just told like, you're you're right. I didn't even realize
Speaker 1: how little we know about her other than she and
Speaker 1: she sometimes has exams which we which we are to believe,
Speaker 1: you know, probably Willy Alan's character doesn't know a lot
Speaker 1: about her either because they don't discuss parts of her
Speaker 1: life very often, or like he's never asked. Um. Then
Speaker 1: we have Diane Keaton's character, who is just maybe the
Speaker 1: most troubling of all because she's just a bunch of
Speaker 1: smoke and mirrors in terms of a fully realized female character.
Speaker 1: We're all, you know, all the all the elements are there,
Speaker 1: but it's hollow and rings, totally hollow and and it
Speaker 1: just sucks. Yeah. There are a few moments where I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that she did this thing or says this thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about that. Well, she there's a moment where
Speaker 1: she's talking to a director friend of hers, and he's
Speaker 1: talking about this movie he's directing about a man who's
Speaker 1: such a sexual dynamo. Anytime he brings a woman to orgasm,
Speaker 1: she dies. And she's just like, this is horrid. So
Speaker 1: she calls him out. She calls out Yale for saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: does your love for me always need to express itself sexually?
Speaker 1: Because he's all like, let's go to do a how
Speaker 1: talent fuck and well to be fair, really, and he
Speaker 1: says make love. Oh, He's sorry love anyways, And then
Speaker 1: she's just like, what about other values like warmth and
Speaker 1: spiritual contact? So she's like, value me in other way
Speaker 1: besides you being able to have sex with me make love?
Speaker 1: But again, I I feel these like which I agree
Speaker 1: that like, her character is right in all of these issues.
Speaker 1: But even though she sees the more aggressive behavior of
Speaker 1: men as something she doesn't want to deal with, the
Speaker 1: world totally writes out any of the predatory behaviors with
Speaker 1: the person that she. You know, with Woody Allen's character
Speaker 1: where okay, so this character is written to see very
Speaker 1: aggressive masculinity, you know where it's like when I fuck
Speaker 1: a woman, she comes so hard. She dies great, but
Speaker 1: but there's a total blind spot set up for that
Speaker 1: same character of someone she's close to fucking a kid.
Speaker 1: You know, Like it's just and that, and that's what
Speaker 1: traveling to be about it is with this, and I
Speaker 1: think it extends to a lot of like Woody Allen's
Speaker 1: female characters, even the very well written ones are the
Speaker 1: ones that are hailed as well written. He directs your
Speaker 1: focus in such a specific way, and I feel like
Speaker 1: these moments of like, oh, she's smart, she knows what
Speaker 1: she's talking about, they're put there very deliberately for for
Speaker 1: the sake of the story in the movie, but also
Speaker 1: so that you notice less when she's ignoring things. And
Speaker 1: that and her whole pursuit. I mean, she's working on
Speaker 1: things professionally, she's a journalist. We know what she does
Speaker 1: for a living. That's good. She's writing things, she's working
Speaker 1: on different projects, but her seems like her main pursuit
Speaker 1: throughout the whole movie is landing a man that she wants.
Speaker 1: You know, it's between Yale and Woody Allen's character, and
Speaker 1: she just keeps like going back and forth, and she
Speaker 1: keeps saying, like I saw better, but like she's trying
Speaker 1: to stand up for herself, but like, really she's insecure.
Speaker 1: But it blows down to like her pursuit in this movie.
Speaker 1: If you're just like looking at her character and her
Speaker 1: character's goals and what she's trying to achieve, it's romance.
Speaker 1: It's a romantic relationship, and it's I mean, sure, this
Speaker 1: is like a romantic movie where I mean with every
Speaker 1: character in this movie, every main character is bouncing between
Speaker 1: two people at least, But I think her character is
Speaker 1: is a little different in that the two male characters
Speaker 1: to Isaac and then Yale, which like, God, hit me up,
Speaker 1: we get it, he's smart, they both spend a lot
Speaker 1: of their movie trying to break up with women, where
Speaker 1: the women spend a lot of time in the movie
Speaker 1: trying to convince the man that they are worth staying with.
Speaker 1: That was what was more of an issue for me,
Speaker 1: because everyone it is going between multiple people, and I
Speaker 1: think that in theory, that's a part of the point
Speaker 1: of like, oh love is a cloak. But there are scenes.
Speaker 1: There's a scene between Yale and Mary where Mary is
Speaker 1: basically just like, no, this is fine, I'm totally fine,
Speaker 1: it's great, and then we sort of see her try
Speaker 1: to convince him that she's worth staying with, and in
Speaker 1: the end he does end up staying with her well,
Speaker 1: and then as soon as they break up, she bounces
Speaker 1: right back to right where they are each other's second
Speaker 1: choice pretty pretty decisively, which is whatever plot point, but
Speaker 1: that there's two different scenes where Wody on I mean
Speaker 1: Woody is trying to break up with Mariel Hemingway pretty
Speaker 1: much every single scene, and then she especially is constantly
Speaker 1: trying to convince listen to me, I these are the
Speaker 1: reasons that you should stay with me, and he's constantly
Speaker 1: trying to leave her. So even though it's like every
Speaker 1: character here's bouncing between multiple interests, there's never a pressure
Speaker 1: on the man to prove to the woman what his
Speaker 1: worth is. It's assumed that they have value, where the
Speaker 1: female characters are kind of constantly trying to prove themselves,
Speaker 1: which is not all surprising from a movie that is like,
Speaker 1: I mean, Woody Allen is the king of like self
Speaker 1: indulgent on the writer, director, actor, hero of my own
Speaker 1: stories every single time, and he makes a point to
Speaker 1: say like several times, and I'm sure you could argue
Speaker 1: that these are like these are the jokes. But he's like, look,
Speaker 1: how could I am fucking His character says it in
Speaker 1: this movie, and I'd imagine I think it's a joke.
Speaker 1: If Ryan Gosling says it, it's not a joke literally,
Speaker 1: like you know, not as stereotypically alpha male is constantly
Speaker 1: like it just doesn't read, especially if you're writing those
Speaker 1: lines for yourself, like it's a joke if someone writes
Speaker 1: that line for Woody Allen maybe, And there's also a
Speaker 1: few different There's like that scene with Mary where she's like,
Speaker 1: you have a pretty good sense of humor. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: you don't have to tell me that. I know that, right.
Speaker 1: He's like, I make a living off it. You dumb, right, right,
Speaker 1: And it was like but yeah, so anyways doing a
Speaker 1: faul like there's just like I'm great fun too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's no pressure on the male characters to prove themselves
Speaker 1: really any regard excellent point, and there's no consequences presented
Speaker 1: to them except that they won't get fucked. Those are
Speaker 1: the only consequences, right, There's no well there's a joke
Speaker 1: about going into jail, but that's never never a present threat.
Speaker 1: Another female character, I wanted to talk about who doesn't
Speaker 1: get much screen time at all, but Emily yells wife
Speaker 1: basically every time she's on screen, she's like, how about
Speaker 1: we have kids? So our whole little whole thing is like,
Speaker 1: once that kids, I want to have kids, which it's
Speaker 1: all women can think about. I mean, if a woman
Speaker 1: wants to have children, so much power to her. But
Speaker 1: when you write a female character that that is apparently
Speaker 1: the only thing on her mind and we know virtually
Speaker 1: nothing else about that character, and is also presented as
Speaker 1: this is why I want to leave this lady because
Speaker 1: he's cheating on his wife. With Diane Keaton's character, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's like, nad kids, kids, kids, and he's like, how
Speaker 1: about I going fuck other women instead? Number one sexist?
Speaker 1: Number two bad writing, which is how you could really
Speaker 1: characterize this whole movie if you wanted to. It's sexist
Speaker 1: and it is bad writing. Do we have anything else
Speaker 1: to say about the movie? Another thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about is how Manhattan and I would guess a
Speaker 1: lot of Woody Allen movies based on the ones I've seen,
Speaker 1: are extremely white. Yeah, Woody Allen's characters always seem to
Speaker 1: be friends with only white people. There are no people
Speaker 1: of color with any you know, significant screen time or
Speaker 1: story beats or lines of dialogue in this movie. I
Speaker 1: think you only see two people of color in the
Speaker 1: entire movie who are helping him move into his new apartment,
Speaker 1: but they don't have any lines or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And Woody Allen is Jewish, so he's not you know,
Speaker 1: your waspy, Protestant Anglo Saxon type of white. And I
Speaker 1: want to acknowledge the persecution and prejudice that Jewish people
Speaker 1: have faced throughout history and also today, but the fact
Speaker 1: remains that Woody Allen has a habit of populating his
Speaker 1: movies with only white people, and it's especially crazy for
Speaker 1: this movie called Manhattan, set in Manhattan, New York City,
Speaker 1: where are all the people of color. The other thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up is the age gap that
Speaker 1: exists in this movie and then all cross most Hollywood movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, this one is egregious, But then I think
Speaker 1: is almost the only pro that we could say for
Speaker 1: the massive age gap between Tracy and Isaac is that
Speaker 1: at least it is pointed out, where in most movies,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's even pointed out. You're yeah, absolutely right.
Speaker 1: So I'm taking some stats from an article from Vulture
Speaker 1: in I'm sure things have gotten better since the better
Speaker 1: The title of the article is leading men age, but
Speaker 1: their love interests don't pointing out that, Like you know,
Speaker 1: Hollywood stars who are men get older because that's how
Speaker 1: time works. But they're female kind of parts. The love
Speaker 1: interests of their characters pretty much the same age, which
Speaker 1: tends to be late twenties, early to mid thirties. Um,
Speaker 1: Harrison Ford, he just started that new movie play runner
Speaker 1: for nine. Uh and there, Yeah, I mean it's just
Speaker 1: all the sorry it took me a second, was like
Speaker 1: what you said. And he's still allowed to start in movies.
Speaker 1: Get Harrison FOURD out of movies. He is not allowed anymore.
Speaker 1: Give out, I retire, bitch, Harrison Ford, bitch retire. I'm
Speaker 1: fine with Harrison Ford. Harrison for bitch retire. But he
Speaker 1: is listed in this article as someone who has love
Speaker 1: and test that do not get much older, and then
Speaker 1: he usually has a pretty huge age gap, with the
Speaker 1: closest one, it seems, was when he was in Writers
Speaker 1: of the Lost Arc he was thirty eight, his love
Speaker 1: interest Karen Allen was twenty nine. Harrison Ford bitch retired.
Speaker 1: Crazy age difference was when he was in Six Days,
Speaker 1: Seven Nights, and and hait was twenty nine and he
Speaker 1: was fifty five, so he got older. His love interest
Speaker 1: was still in her late twenties. Other examples, So Johnny
Speaker 1: Depp is a heinous piece of shit. But yeah, Johnny
Speaker 1: Depp bitch retired. Yeah, that one literally gonna Joel. However,
Speaker 1: he is one of my favorite movies, Shock a lot.
Speaker 1: He is thirty seven. I hate that Alfred Willina had
Speaker 1: to even meet him. I don't know if they have
Speaker 1: any do they have scenes together? Maybe they don't, I
Speaker 1: don't remember, let me watch it. But he is thirty
Speaker 1: seven in that character in his love interest, Juliet Banosh,
Speaker 1: she's thirty six, So there's only one year age difference,
Speaker 1: which is that you don't get a trophy for that. No, No,
Speaker 1: because in Transcendence he's forty nine and Rebecca Hall is thirty.
Speaker 1: So that's you know, full on, we're we're at daddy's
Speaker 1: status at that point. Totally. It's Tom Cruise also bade
Speaker 1: George pretty bad Old Brother. We aren't though, another one
Speaker 1: of my favorite movies. He's thirty nine and his wife
Speaker 1: played by Holly Hunter in that movie is forty two,
Speaker 1: so she's three years older than him. Amazing. Richard Gear
Speaker 1: is another one. Richard Gear dribble butt theory, look it up,
Speaker 1: Brad Pitt, Liam Neeson, Tom Hanks. Actually they point out
Speaker 1: that he tends to be with age appropriate women in
Speaker 1: his movies. Well there's that, there's one there, Woody Allen.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, there's no way you can spend that
Speaker 1: the relationship between he and Mariel Hemingley's character to make
Speaker 1: it good. But the age difference is acknowledged, and we're
Speaker 1: in those movies. It's not even it's it's an assumed thing, right,
Speaker 1: It's just like, of course, this handsome older man would
Speaker 1: have a young twenty or more years younger than him
Speaker 1: love interests. And then I think that in movies very commonly,
Speaker 1: if if the inverse does occur, it is immediately acknowledged
Speaker 1: and made as a point of like this is like,
Speaker 1: why would a young, handsome young man want to be
Speaker 1: involved with an older woman. I rewatched Nightcrawler. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen that. It is very good. It's in reeks of
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity, but it's it's it's I like it a lot.
Speaker 1: So Jake gillen Hall's character, who we're supposed to think
Speaker 1: is in his late twenties early thirties, is interested in
Speaker 1: Rene Russa's character, who's I think supposed to be in
Speaker 1: her forties or fifties, and he pursues her, and it's
Speaker 1: constantly their age difference is constantly brought up because she's like,
Speaker 1: why would you want to be with me, I'm too old,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm I'm secure enough to be with
Speaker 1: an older woman, where that's never the issue in the inverse,
Speaker 1: like a younger woman never has to say I'm secure
Speaker 1: enough with myself to be with an older man. It's
Speaker 1: just assumed that that it's gonna happen. Well, so okay, Cupid.
Speaker 1: You know they do all their like analytics of dating patterns,
Speaker 1: thoughts and feelings, and they compiled a graph it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: a woman's age versus the age of the men she's
Speaker 1: attracted to, and it's basically they tend to be attracted
Speaker 1: to men very close to their same age. That's generally, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, a direct correlation. Men are gross I think
Speaker 1: not true because as the and this of course is
Speaker 1: you know, very hetero. This is, you know, for hetero relationships,
Speaker 1: but a man's age versus the women he's attracted to
Speaker 1: is no matter how old he is, we don't crack.
Speaker 1: We did not crack all the way up to fifty
Speaker 1: because they ask what age of women are you most
Speaker 1: attracted to? And no matter how old a man is,
Speaker 1: they only much always say either between twenty and twenty
Speaker 1: three pretty much fucking kids, which I can't I guess
Speaker 1: I'm not allowed to say so just and it makes
Speaker 1: so I wonder, is this because men are conditioned to
Speaker 1: seeing depictions of older men in media with a younger
Speaker 1: women and also kind of a complete omission of any
Speaker 1: woman their age, right of course, Yeah, this is the
Speaker 1: thing we talked about a lot on the podcast, where
Speaker 1: rarely do we see women on the screen who are
Speaker 1: you know, forties, fifties, sixties. So often, you know, women
Speaker 1: in movies are super young. The implication we can draw
Speaker 1: from that is no one wants to see an older
Speaker 1: woman on the screen, no one cares about their stories,
Speaker 1: And of course that's not true, but we're conditioned to
Speaker 1: think that because we see so much, we consume so
Speaker 1: much media where women of a certain age are ignored ignored.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, this is deeply and to everyone who's like,
Speaker 1: oh well, men are tried to do younger women because
Speaker 1: they have a biological imperian because younger women are more
Speaker 1: fertile and they want to put babies in them. Fuck,
Speaker 1: we have population issues, bitch, retire, grow up. So basically
Speaker 1: the point we want to make is the in recent
Speaker 1: days weeks, a lot of women have come forward calling
Speaker 1: out different men specifically. So I started with Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: in this most recent sort of news cycle, although at
Speaker 1: this point I've honestly lost track. I believe the founder
Speaker 1: of Just for Laughs was forced out of his position,
Speaker 1: the sitting CEO of Amazon Studios was pushed out of
Speaker 1: his position. It's interesting because it's like, we have people
Speaker 1: like Woody On, like Johnny Depp whose names are very
Speaker 1: recognizable to us, and then there are people whose names
Speaker 1: we don't know because they're manipulating behind the scenes, whose
Speaker 1: names are coming out as well. It's a lot. It's
Speaker 1: a ton screen Dunkies. I don't know exactly who, but
Speaker 1: someone affiliated with Screen Drinkies several allegations brought against him.
Speaker 1: It's everywhere, it's everywhere. It's encouraging that women are coming
Speaker 1: forward and action is being taken against many of these people,
Speaker 1: Harvey Weinstein being fired, people losing their jobs and not
Speaker 1: being allowed to work in Hollywood anymore. Um, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of work left to do, and it's painful
Speaker 1: to have to read these accounts, but feels, you know, important.
Speaker 1: We hope everyone's looking out for yourself, taken care of
Speaker 1: yourself through all this, and we you know, obviously applaud
Speaker 1: all the victims who are coming forward because it is
Speaker 1: so hard to do, so hard to do, and all
Speaker 1: the writers who have been able to get those stories
Speaker 1: out because that's also so hard to do. And not
Speaker 1: to say that, you know, there I'm sure plenty of
Speaker 1: victims who are not ready. Things have happened, they're not
Speaker 1: ready to come forward about it, and so it's not
Speaker 1: to say that they're not brave, you know, they're like
Speaker 1: and then it drives me nuts just the emotional labor
Speaker 1: that any victims have to go through to be like,
Speaker 1: this thing happened to me, and I you know, I'm
Speaker 1: revealing it and I'm I'm coming public with it, and
Speaker 1: then just the burden shouldn't be on victims to come
Speaker 1: like the burden should be on sexual predators to not
Speaker 1: fucking be sexual predators, right, But that's never that's never
Speaker 1: going to have happened. And so it falls upon the
Speaker 1: people who are these just awful things are happening to
Speaker 1: them to also then be the ones to have to
Speaker 1: relive it over and over and over in order for
Speaker 1: any consequence to happen, Which brings me to just some
Speaker 1: food for that, because I feel like for years and
Speaker 1: years and years since the Wady Allen allegation, service, since
Speaker 1: the Bill Cosby allegation surfaces, there's always a lot of
Speaker 1: talk of like, how can we separate the art from
Speaker 1: the artists? Can I still enjoy Bill Cosby's stand up?
Speaker 1: Can I still joy this movie about Woody Allen? Fucking kid? Honestly?
Speaker 1: And I have heard a lot of mostly men, some women,
Speaker 1: mostly men, explain to me their views on why they
Speaker 1: think that, you know, but I I personally am at
Speaker 1: a point where I think separating art from artists at
Speaker 1: this point it's just like a dangerous precedent to set.
Speaker 1: It allows predators to continue making art without consequence. We
Speaker 1: are not at a lack for artists in the world.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of artists with a lot of
Speaker 1: important things to say, and I think that saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're an artist and a predator, you
Speaker 1: can't you can't. There are a lot of voices that
Speaker 1: need to be heard that will gladly occupy that space
Speaker 1: who aren't sexual predators or not predators. There should be
Speaker 1: consequences for everyone. There's no way Woody Allen should be
Speaker 1: allowed to be making movies. Uh, there's no way that
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby should be on any stage at any time
Speaker 1: unless that stage as a court and he's being sent
Speaker 1: to Yale. Don't see Louis Kan's new movie, which is
Speaker 1: the clearest homage to Manhattan that you will find just bad, bad,
Speaker 1: bad bad, Hey, Caitlin, Yes, does Manhattan pass the back
Speaker 1: to Manhattan does pass the bad? But it passes in
Speaker 1: the most disturbing exchange from All Tide. So the scene
Speaker 1: it's Mary, Isaac, Yale, and Tracy all walking down the street.
Speaker 1: Mary and Tracy when they meet, they say like hi, Hello,
Speaker 1: That barely comes as a conversation, and later on, later on,
Speaker 1: Mary says, what do you do Tracy? Tracy says, I
Speaker 1: go to high school? He really? So, you know, three
Speaker 1: adults and then one teenager are just hanging out and
Speaker 1: Mary's like, hey, what do you do for a living?
Speaker 1: Tracy's like I study for my English sucking exams? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that what a pass? Good for you? Oh well, we
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this bonus I would call I would
Speaker 1: say this is an emergency bonus. Yeah, this is an
Speaker 1: emergency episode of the Beck Dol Cast. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: if you If you want a regular bonus episode, you
Speaker 1: can sign up for Patreon at patreon dot com slash
Speaker 1: back Doel Cast, where we do to bonus episodes a
Speaker 1: month that are you know, they may be as painful
Speaker 1: as this one. They may not be You'll have to
Speaker 1: probably not sign out. They'll probably be a little less
Speaker 1: us screaming. But also if you don't like that, why
Speaker 1: are you listening to this show? Grow up bitch retire?
Speaker 1: So yeah, check us out. You can go to our website.
Speaker 1: You can pledge a five dollars a month on Patreon
Speaker 1: to get exclusive content and that helps us out with
Speaker 1: our production costs and all of that. You can follow
Speaker 1: us on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. Funk Off Willy Allen,
Speaker 1: funk Off, Willy and funk Off, Harveerty Weinstein and funk
Speaker 1: off any sexual predator in Hollywood and everywhere. If you're
Speaker 1: a man, be fucking helpful. Help everyone else. Keep your
Speaker 1: head up, listen and believe women and value women. Love you,
Speaker 1: Bye bye,