Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
Speaker 1: in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy. Zephy and
Speaker 1: Beast start changing with the Bechdelcast.
Speaker 2: Kitland, what are we going to do in forty minutes?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, talk and kiss? Well, probably not kiss
Speaker 3: because they're in public, but they definitely talk about our feelings.
Speaker 2: Okay, I was I thought, maybe record a scintillating conversation
Speaker 2: on a podcast, the least sexual thing you can do.
Speaker 2: I think podcasting is one of the least sexually charged jobs.
Speaker 2: I beg to differ for who, for who? I you
Speaker 2: know what.
Speaker 3: I'm horny all the time when we're talking.
Speaker 2: Wow, oh my gosh, wow wait, I'm realizing we need
Speaker 2: to take this off bike.
Speaker 3: Oh let's get a hotel room.
Speaker 2: Let's get a hotel room. Oh my god. In Reno,
Speaker 2: I just this movie so beautiful. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: My name is Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 3: My name is Caitlin Dronte. This is our show where
Speaker 3: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the
Speaker 3: Bechdel test. Simply as a jumping off point a very
Speaker 3: relevant test, and the origins of this test are also
Speaker 3: very relevant for today's movie and discussion. So Jamie tell
Speaker 3: us all about it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was gonna say the same thing, because this
Speaker 2: movie and the Bechdel Tests are in direct discussion and
Speaker 2: also are released the same year the Bechdel Test, as
Speaker 2: first mentioned as we as we talk about all the time.
Speaker 2: The bechel Test was created by friend of the show,
Speaker 2: Alison Bechdel, who originally did not seek out to make
Speaker 2: a media metric, but basically wrote this as a one
Speaker 2: off joke in her wonderful comics collection Dice to Watch
Speaker 2: Out For in nineteen eighty five, Interestingly, the same year
Speaker 2: of Desert Hearts, and the precise origins of the test
Speaker 2: are very relevant to our episode today. She co created
Speaker 2: it with her friend Liz Wallace, which we Bechdel Class
Speaker 2: exclusive learned met each other in karate class and fell
Speaker 2: out of touch. So I was expecting a whole, sweeping,
Speaker 2: beautiful story, and it turns out sometimes you just take
Speaker 2: a karate class with a lady and move on with
Speaker 2: your life. But I'm so glad they took that test
Speaker 2: because it changed the course of history in some ways,
Speaker 2: So shout out to that karate class in I think Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: In any case, this test has since been adapted to
Speaker 2: a more mainstream media metric, the version that we use,
Speaker 2: and then I'll get back to how it started. The
Speaker 2: version we use requires that two characters of a marginalized
Speaker 2: gender with names speak to each other about something other
Speaker 2: than a man for more than two meaningful lines of dialogue. However,
Speaker 2: the actual, more specific origin of the test in a
Speaker 2: single strip of text to watch out for that is
Speaker 2: basically poking fun at and pointing out how few lesbian
Speaker 2: romances there are in movies and and how that creates
Speaker 2: the need for queer people to you know, ship characters
Speaker 2: that may not be intended to actually be romantically involved
Speaker 2: by the text. It's something we've talked about on the
Speaker 2: show many times before and is very like kind of
Speaker 2: fun way that Alison Bechtel was pointing out that there's
Speaker 2: basically no lesbian representation in movies in nineteen eighty five
Speaker 2: and then until until Desert Hearts, which was released I
Speaker 2: think it was formally released in nineteen eighty six, but
Speaker 2: it first came out at the Locarno Film Festival in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five, directed by the iconic Donna Ditch, screenplay
Speaker 2: by Natalie Cooper and based on a novel that was
Speaker 2: actually written at the time that the movie takes place
Speaker 2: in the fifties, Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule,
Speaker 2: who I'm so excited to talk about because I didn't
Speaker 2: know anything about her before yesterday, and so yeah, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of fascinating history with this movie, and it
Speaker 2: is I think maybe more than any other movie we've
Speaker 2: covered in direct conversation with the Bechdel Test. So exciting stuff,
Speaker 2: very exciting. Jane Lynch has seen this movie fifty times,
Speaker 2: I learned today. Wow, she's moderated multiple interviews with Donna
Speaker 2: Ditch and Donna Deitch is like, I haven't seen this
Speaker 2: movie fifty times, and Jane Lynch was like, well, someone
Speaker 2: had to do it, and it was me.
Speaker 3: Wow, it's like us and Titanic vibes.
Speaker 2: I mean it truly, like sometimes the right movie finds
Speaker 2: you at the right time. And obviously Jane Lynch speaks
Speaker 2: on this beautifully and hilariously, but she was the age
Speaker 2: she was Vivian Bell's a or No, she was wait,
Speaker 2: how old is Jane Lynch. She was one of the
Speaker 2: main characters age when it came out, either k or Vivian.
Speaker 2: I honestly don't know. Okay, it would have been it
Speaker 2: would have been k Okay.
Speaker 3: So she was like twenty five, Okay.
Speaker 2: Yes, and just got absolutely swept up by this movie.
Speaker 2: She said her VHS tape broke so classic shout out Jane.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And we have an incredible guest, and I just like,
Speaker 2: we just got to jump into it.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited, we really do. They are a Madison
Speaker 3: based writer, musician DJ editor of Our Lives, which is
Speaker 3: Wisconsin's only and longest running LGBTQ media outlet. They are
Speaker 3: a longtime listener, first time guest.
Speaker 2: Yay, it's Emily Mills. Welcome. Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: I am thrilled to be here, truly.
Speaker 3: Oh, we're so delighted to have you. You wrote a
Speaker 3: piece about this movie, which is how we found you
Speaker 3: and reached out to you. And who better to talk
Speaker 3: about this movie with us than you.
Speaker 4: I was curious. I'm like, has no one written something
Speaker 4: more recently? I mean, this is just me being self effacing,
Speaker 4: but I was so happy you found that piece it's
Speaker 4: for a local Madison outlet that had really great film
Speaker 4: coverage called Tone, which unfortunately shuddered just this last year.
Speaker 4: But it gave me the excuse to talk about this
Speaker 4: movie when they were doing a special screening of it
Speaker 4: in town alongside an art exhibit that went a lot
Speaker 4: kind of thematically along with it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I am.
Speaker 4: I'm so delighted that you found it. I really delighted
Speaker 4: to be here to talk about this movie that I
Speaker 4: that I love, especially for Pride Month. I've been having
Speaker 4: a Pride packed weekend, so this feels like a really
Speaker 4: great way to top it off.
Speaker 3: Tell us more about your relationship with this movie.
Speaker 4: For sure, So I always think of you talking about
Speaker 4: your great movie Binge, and I similarly had a great
Speaker 4: movie Binge in when I first moved to Madison for
Speaker 4: school in two thousand, I discovered a local gem called
Speaker 4: four Star Video Heaven, which still exists.
Speaker 2: We still have our friend Alex works. Yeah, yes, I
Speaker 2: was gonna say, I was just I've spent two months
Speaker 2: in Madison this year. I wish that if we'd met sooner.
Speaker 2: I love Madison.
Speaker 4: Yes it's a good town. And yeah, we still have
Speaker 4: this brick and Mortar Video rental place, which.
Speaker 2: Is feel shout out for us, so miraculous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was bigger and it was like much more
Speaker 4: of a central place. When I first moved here in
Speaker 4: two thousand and I was like a little baby queer.
Speaker 4: I was coming from Oklahoma, was where I'd been in
Speaker 4: high school, and all we had there was a Blockbuster
Speaker 4: where I would like, you know, rent movies in like
Speaker 4: threes so that the one that was maybe a little
Speaker 4: gay would be in the middle and hidden from the clerk,
Speaker 4: you know, real classic. But I went to Forstar and
Speaker 4: like most of the people who worked there were queer,
Speaker 4: so they and they had this incredible selection, you know,
Speaker 4: curated by the people who worked there, and I would
Speaker 4: just go in and ask for like what do I
Speaker 4: need to see in the queer cannon because I was
Speaker 4: just so hungry for representation. And yeah, so Desert Hearts
Speaker 4: eventually came along, and I don't remember where in this,
Speaker 4: you know, there was some time when I was in
Speaker 4: college in undergrad so between two thousand and two thousand
Speaker 4: and four was the first time I saw it. And
Speaker 4: it's funny, like, I feel like this movie has definitely
Speaker 4: grown on me and revisiting it for this to join
Speaker 4: you all today was really fun to just I think
Speaker 4: I appreciate it a lot more on a lot more
Speaker 4: levels having seen it more recently. I remember liking it,
Speaker 4: but thinking it was a little cheesy and like, maybe
Speaker 4: it just it didn't quite hit me in the same
Speaker 4: way at the time because I was just watching so
Speaker 4: much other queer media that had come out since all
Speaker 4: at once, you know, so that comparison. But I did
Speaker 4: think it was you know, it was really cool to
Speaker 4: see something from the eighties that has what this movie
Speaker 4: has in it. Yeah, and it stuck with me, and
Speaker 4: I have sort of since become for a lot of
Speaker 4: my friends who have come out later on or when
Speaker 4: we're interested in queer cinema, like I'm a really big
Speaker 4: nerd about let me recommend movies for you. So this
Speaker 4: is one that I often recommend because I feel like
Speaker 4: it still flies under the radar for a lot of people,
Speaker 4: younger folks. It just doesn't come up as often. So
Speaker 4: I frequently find myself recommending it and then getting a
Speaker 4: chance to revisit it, and yeah, I just I was
Speaker 4: really fun to watch and just see all these other
Speaker 4: levels that I had. I had missed the first time around.
Speaker 4: There's a lot here and I really adore it and
Speaker 4: I'm really grateful that it exists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's so much to talk about with them.
Speaker 2: And I love how Corney it gets. It's kind of
Speaker 2: you're like, oh man, it's it's just so it's so beautiful.
Speaker 2: I love I love a little bit of corn. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it is there.
Speaker 4: It's exactly what it needs to be, is how I
Speaker 4: feel about it at this.
Speaker 3: Point, totally Jamie, what's your relationship with it?
Speaker 2: Fairly recent? I this has been on my to watch
Speaker 2: list forever, but I just hadn't yet watch it. I
Speaker 2: really wish I had sat myself down or been sat
Speaker 2: down to see it sooner. But I think that the again,
Speaker 2: like the catalyst for watching this movie was and I
Speaker 2: know it's part of why so for listeners if you're
Speaker 2: a member of our Patreon aka Matreon, this was originally
Speaker 2: the pole winner for our Divorce Bewery theme where I
Speaker 2: just like, I've been so interested in divorce cinema and
Speaker 2: like Desert Hearts is est here because the divorce is
Speaker 2: very incidental, but also it's in Reno, so it's like
Speaker 2: divorce is also the setting and it's just I got
Speaker 2: very interested in divorce cinema after we covered The Women
Speaker 2: with fellow Madison Luminary. Yeah, So after covering that, in
Speaker 2: which in the last act of that movie there is
Speaker 2: a Reno divorce ranch heavily featured, and it sort of
Speaker 2: feels like a queer paradise as presented in The Women,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to learn more about them and see
Speaker 2: more movies that take place in Reno, and Desert Hearts
Speaker 2: is far and away the one that is recommended. So
Speaker 2: I was in my divorce cinema bag when I watched this,
Speaker 2: and I just like I watched it earlier this year,
Speaker 2: and just completely fell in love with it. I love
Speaker 2: what a sweeping love story it is. I love that
Speaker 2: it's like shot in Reno. The historical detail is so cool.
Speaker 2: I love the performances, I love the music. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 2: I wish I had seen it years and years ago,
Speaker 2: but I'm very grateful I saw it now and for
Speaker 2: this viewing, also getting the chance to learn a little
Speaker 2: bit more about the work that it's based on and
Speaker 2: the author, the original author, Jane Rule, so lots to
Speaker 2: talk about.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited. Yeah, Caitlyn what's your history? Well, as
Speaker 3: the terminally straight person on the zoom call, I had
Speaker 3: never seen it until a few days ago, nor was
Speaker 3: it really on my radar, which I think is pretty
Speaker 3: telling because a lot of my film knowledge comes from
Speaker 3: my not one, but two degrees in film, including a
Speaker 3: master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University.
Speaker 4: I know you hate talking about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hate bringing it up.
Speaker 4: But it's big of you to mention it for us today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. But you know, I had a
Speaker 3: classic like film school education, which focuses on, you know,
Speaker 3: a certain type of film. And even though as we
Speaker 3: will talk about, this film is so monumental in so
Speaker 3: many ways, so revolutionary in so many ways, it gets
Speaker 3: overlooked by your typical film history classes because that curriculum
Speaker 3: and those books are largely written by cishett white men,
Speaker 3: and unless you're taking specifically like a queer cinema class,
Speaker 3: movies like this probably aren't going to be included in
Speaker 3: the curriculum. So I just wasn't super aware of it.
Speaker 3: But I've seen it three times now to prep for this,
Speaker 3: one of them being with the director's audio commentary, which
Speaker 3: is included on the Criterion channel yeah, So I've learned
Speaker 3: a lot and I'm so excited to talk about it.
Speaker 3: And with that, should we take a quick break and
Speaker 3: then come back for the recap.
Speaker 4: Let's do it so as like a plan.
Speaker 3: So here's the recap for Desert Hearts. It's nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 3: We meet Vivian Bell played by Helen Shaver. She's this
Speaker 3: like straight laced English lit professor at Columbia University.
Speaker 2: She has five hundred thousand three piece suits that she
Speaker 2: wears everywhere, and she's got a million Bobby pins in
Speaker 2: her hair, and she's.
Speaker 4: Just buttoned up as buttoned up can be.
Speaker 3: Oh truly.
Speaker 2: She is the Wikipedia entry photograph for buttoned up. Yes.
Speaker 3: And she arrives by train in Reno, Nevada and is
Speaker 3: greeted by Francis played by Audra Lindley, who takes Vivian
Speaker 3: to a divorce ranch basically a place where women who
Speaker 3: are aiming to get divorced would live to establish residency
Speaker 3: in Reno because, as we talked about in the Women episode,
Speaker 3: the laws around divorce there were much more lax than
Speaker 3: basically everywhere else in the US.
Speaker 4: It was a whole thing.
Speaker 2: I've got more history. It's so interesting because it's basically
Speaker 2: all gone now. And like, what I didn't know until
Speaker 2: I took a weekend and just blacked out and learned
Speaker 2: everything I could about Reno is that without Reno, we
Speaker 2: don't have Vegas, which makes more sense when you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: Vegas is famous for quickie marriages, and that is partially
Speaker 2: because Reno was where you could get divorced very quickly
Speaker 2: and then you would go to Vegas and get married.
Speaker 2: But for a long time, basically the Reno is the
Speaker 2: way it is, or was because once, as we've been
Speaker 2: talking about on the Matreon, once no fault divorce became
Speaker 2: more widely accessible from state to state between nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: nine and twenty ten. Never forget, no fault divorce didn't
Speaker 2: exist in New York until twenty ten, which we get
Speaker 2: into in our c Yeah versus Kramer. So yeah, a
Speaker 2: lot of really weird straight divorces going on on the
Speaker 2: Matreon this month. But basically, Novada's economy was really bad.
Speaker 2: It is not going well, and so the two things
Speaker 2: that it developed lax laws around in order to beef
Speaker 2: up its economy was divorce and gambling. And so Reno
Speaker 2: really was like the first example of a place that was,
Speaker 2: as we've talked about in the Women and many episodes
Speaker 2: now drawing in mostly middle to upper class white women
Speaker 2: to establish residency, get those quickie divorces and get out.
Speaker 2: There's also a lot of really interesting history on I
Speaker 2: think that most of the media we see is centered
Speaker 2: on upper class white women getting divorces in Reno, and
Speaker 2: Desert Hearts definitely included in that, but there was a
Speaker 2: diverse array of people getting these divorces. There was a
Speaker 2: great article I read I had to find it in
Speaker 2: an archive from an old issue of Ebony about black
Speaker 2: women getting divorces in Reno at this time and how
Speaker 2: there was a separate infrastructure because there were still segregation
Speaker 2: laws in place in Nevada at this time, but that
Speaker 2: everyone was getting divorced. We usually only see privileged white
Speaker 2: women getting divorced in Reno, but everyone was getting divorced
Speaker 2: and everyone looked so hot doing it. And Vegas basically
Speaker 2: develops in response to how successful Reno was and sort
Speaker 2: of endured more. But like basically all of the infrastructure
Speaker 2: that exists in the state of Nevada has to do
Speaker 2: with this, like divorce industry. They popped up in Reno.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting. It doesn't exist in Reno anymore, but
Speaker 2: like that's why we have Vegas for better or for worse.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I acourage people to read about this a little
Speaker 4: bit too. I was digging in and like the economy
Speaker 4: that sprung up in Reno on the divorce world was
Speaker 4: really fascinating. Like these ranches, but just like you had
Speaker 4: male driver surfaces and like you know, guys that would
Speaker 4: stay out with the women late at night. They had
Speaker 4: like special social clubs and like classes and activities that
Speaker 4: you could take to cater to these women who were
Speaker 4: coming in. So it was a whole scene from what
Speaker 4: I can tell, which is delightful.
Speaker 2: It's like a sexy little camp. Yeah. I liked that
Speaker 2: because I hadn't done a lot of research the first
Speaker 2: time I saw this, But like, I love how this
Speaker 2: movie sprinkles in those like history moments where it's the
Speaker 2: another woman staying at the ranch. Lucille Oh heavily alludes
Speaker 2: to having a rent a boyfriend while she's there, and
Speaker 2: it's just ooh, I love it so good.
Speaker 4: I have to really quickly interject because I'm a musician
Speaker 4: and I have to shout out the soundtrack in this
Speaker 4: movie is incredible, and the opening track that you hear
Speaker 4: is such a good launching point because it is a
Speaker 4: song by Patsy Klein called if You've Got Levin on
Speaker 4: your Mind, and that's what she rolls into town on
Speaker 4: the train on and it's just that moment. The music
Speaker 4: is just so good and it's such a you know,
Speaker 4: it's that additional character in the movie.
Speaker 2: It's so good, it's so yeah that the soundtrack is immaculate.
Speaker 2: God is crazy playing when she's watching the horse. God,
Speaker 2: the horse is a lot. It's a lot. It's so
Speaker 2: like it is corny, but it's so beautiful, so good.
Speaker 3: Also, Donna Ditch petitioned. I think it was the distribution company,
Speaker 3: which was the Sam Goldwyn's whatever blah blah blah, to
Speaker 3: obtain the rights to be able to release the soundtrack
Speaker 3: as like a separate album to sell alongside the movie,
Speaker 3: and the distributor was like m pass because there are
Speaker 3: a asshole.
Speaker 4: Losers, a bunch of losers miss opportunity. Truly, truly, I
Speaker 4: did find multiple people on the streaming service that I
Speaker 4: use who have created that playlist exactly so great.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. Okay, so point is Vivian bell is in town.
Speaker 3: She's in Reno, and she meets Francis and on the
Speaker 3: way to the ranch that's like out in the middle
Speaker 3: of the desert, Francis and Vivian encounter Kaye Rivers played
Speaker 3: by Patricia Charbonneau, who like passes them on the road,
Speaker 3: speeding down the highway in her like hot sexy convertible.
Speaker 3: Then she throws the car in reverse and is driving
Speaker 3: alongside them for a moment in reverse.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite character introductions. It's so good. Maybe ever,
Speaker 2: it's so good, it's so scary to watch.
Speaker 4: It's completely bonkers and unhinged, and it's such a perfect like.
Speaker 3: This is that character. Oh, just in case you weren't sure,
Speaker 3: she's a she's a wild child, she's a free spirit.
Speaker 2: Yep. Also, the most perfect hair I've ever seen.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it's blowing in the wind. It's incredible,
Speaker 4: how the feathered, very perfect, gorgeous.
Speaker 3: I wasn't super familiar with either of these actors with same.
Speaker 2: They were relatively unknown at the time.
Speaker 3: But also and then still I feel like it still.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well my impression and you might have dug into
Speaker 4: this more, but some reading around it is. It was
Speaker 4: a huge risk for these actresses to take this role
Speaker 4: at all, and I think there was some amount of blowback,
Speaker 4: like when you when you do this sort of role
Speaker 4: your It was actually, I think genuinely hard for them
Speaker 4: to get mainstream roles afterwards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very true. I saw the same one one
Speaker 2: thing that I did I forgot. Friend of the show,
Speaker 2: Annie Rawereda aka Depths of Wikipedia, alerted be to this
Speaker 2: because she knows I love Desert Hearts. Helen Shaver, a
Speaker 2: few years after our Desert Hearts, plays Littlefoot's mother in
Speaker 2: the Land Before Time and right, so it's all connected
Speaker 2: and like it actually does. And also she's in the Craft.
Speaker 2: I don't remember who she is in the Craft.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was trying to remember she was. I remember
Speaker 4: the bit, and I can't remember who she was. She Also,
Speaker 4: she did, guess I think in two episodes of The
Speaker 4: L Word in the original series, which I thought was
Speaker 4: a really nice, nice like homage moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's lovely. I don't know. Yeah, Patricia Scharpeneau,
Speaker 2: I don't think I really saw her in very much.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing that she was in all She's all that,
Speaker 2: But every time I watched that movie and immediately leaves
Speaker 2: my mind. So I maybe don't. I just don't know,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I mean the I think that I was
Speaker 2: hearing Donna dit say in an interview that the most
Speaker 2: famous person in the movie at the time and maybe
Speaker 2: still was Audre Lindley, who was known for being on
Speaker 2: Three's Company at the time. She was like a famous
Speaker 2: TV actor. I recognized her from our episode on Troop
Speaker 2: Beverly Hills because she's in Troupe Beverly Hills and fun
Speaker 2: the fact about her her because Donna Ditch was, you know,
Speaker 2: basically like raising money to finish this movie in real
Speaker 2: time when she started it, she didn't yet have an editor,
Speaker 2: like it was very much like you know, laying bricks
Speaker 2: right behind, like right in front of you as you're going.
Speaker 2: And Audre Lindley, who had the successful TV career, became
Speaker 2: an investor in the movie when she realized that they
Speaker 2: were running low in money, so she really was like
Speaker 2: a big part of why it happened. So it just
Speaker 2: seems like there was so much love on this. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I just love seeing a great movie and
Speaker 2: then also learning that everyone liked each other. And according
Speaker 2: to Donna ditch. There was a lot of people fucking
Speaker 2: having a great time, and you do love to hear it.
Speaker 2: I do loved it.
Speaker 4: And she she like sold her house to finance this movie.
Speaker 4: It was a real passion project. Yeah, yes, incredible.
Speaker 2: Glad she did it.
Speaker 4: We're all better for it. Yeah. I hope she eventually
Speaker 4: got another house.
Speaker 2: So it seems like she's I mean, we could talk
Speaker 2: about gosh. I know, we're like two seconds into the movie.
Speaker 2: But she, like a lot of women director we've talked
Speaker 2: about recently, Donna d I mean, make no mistake, she
Speaker 2: is very much working. She has always been working. She
Speaker 2: was a documentary director before this, and she does direct
Speaker 2: one other narrative movie after this, called Criminal Passion, which
Speaker 2: I honestly don't know very much about. But I do
Speaker 2: notice this pattern of if women directors continue working after
Speaker 2: their big movie, it is generally in television and like
Speaker 2: not again, just like, I find it quite interesting and
Speaker 2: suspicious that this oteur route just seems unavailable to women
Speaker 2: and queer people so battling.
Speaker 4: I couldn't. I don't understand it.
Speaker 2: It's just interesting.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan's first movie makes like eleven dollars and
Speaker 3: then they're like, here, make everything.
Speaker 2: Time after time, and I'm and I'm not even knocking
Speaker 2: him for that, and like everyone should get everyone's first movie,
Speaker 2: should be allowed to make eleven dollars exactly and then
Speaker 2: keep it pushing. But you know, the anyways worth mentioning
Speaker 2: because it seems like she wants to or at one point,
Speaker 2: like ten years ago, she was like, I'm working on
Speaker 2: a sequel that takes place in New York in the sixties,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I want that so bad.
Speaker 4: I want it.
Speaker 3: Yes, all right, back to the story minute two of
Speaker 3: the movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm doing great.
Speaker 3: So we've met Vivian. She is buttoned up. We've met Kay,
Speaker 3: she is loosened up, and so the contrast between them
Speaker 3: is palpable, as is the sexual tension. Okay, so Vivian
Speaker 3: arrives at the ranch, she gets settled in, she has
Speaker 3: a drink with Francis, who tells Vivian about her past,
Speaker 3: how she used to have a love of her own
Speaker 3: with this man named Glenn, who is Kay's father and
Speaker 3: who was married at the time of Francis's affair with him.
Speaker 3: So like she wasn't really Kay's stepmother or anything, but
Speaker 3: she still feels a lot of affection for Kay. Francis
Speaker 3: also has a son by Glenn, a young man named
Speaker 3: Walter who we've met. He works at the ranch. He
Speaker 3: seems like a pleasant young man.
Speaker 2: He's a sweetie. I love when he's like, want a
Speaker 2: chick lit. I'm like, I like this guy, yep, yep.
Speaker 2: And also, I, just because I went weirdly defaid this
Speaker 2: played via this actor named Alex MacArthur, who just feels
Speaker 2: profoundly eighties based on these two facts about him. A
Speaker 2: he plays the boyfriend in the Madonna Papa Don't Preach video.
Speaker 2: She's keeping her baby and it's this guy's baby. And
Speaker 2: also he was a bartender at Studio fifty four, And
Speaker 2: so I'm just like, oh, this.
Speaker 4: All tracks so hard because I had to look him
Speaker 4: up because I felt like he looked really familiar. It's
Speaker 4: probably the Papa Don't Preach video, which definitely holds a
Speaker 4: place in my childhood obsession with Madonna. He kind of
Speaker 4: looks like Jake Gillenhall, like he does yeah, like a
Speaker 4: little bit. But I was like, I didn't really recognize
Speaker 4: a ton that he'd been in. But also he is
Speaker 4: very attractive to me. Anyway, I was just like, he's
Speaker 4: a very handsome young man, and so I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 4: Studio fifty four and a Madonna Vie. I feel correct.
Speaker 2: It's just a very eighties resume. Its beautiful, that's amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay. So meanwhile we get more acquainted with Kay.
Speaker 3: She works at a nearby casino. She lives at the ranch,
Speaker 3: although she is living there permanently, like she's not in
Speaker 3: the middle of a divorce like everyone else. This is
Speaker 3: just her permanent residence. And she's also seeing a guy
Speaker 3: named Daryl, who will learn more about eventually, but she
Speaker 3: doesn't seem very thrilled to be with him.
Speaker 2: Boo Darryl. Yeah.
Speaker 3: One day, Vivian offers to bring Kay's mail to her cottage,
Speaker 3: and Kay invites Vivian inside to like hang out and
Speaker 3: look at her pottery.
Speaker 4: This is such a move. This is such a move.
Speaker 2: Insets, do you want to come in? Oh?
Speaker 4: The Georts?
Speaker 2: The Georts Georts game is off the charts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's a naked woman in Kay's bed, No
Speaker 3: big deal. This is Gwen played by Gwen Wells, who
Speaker 3: would later go on to become best friends with director
Speaker 3: Donna Ditch and Vivian sees her and is very taken aback.
Speaker 3: She's clutching her pearls.
Speaker 2: And she leaves.
Speaker 3: But now she knows, and we know the audience that
Speaker 3: Kay is queer and pretty open about it.
Speaker 4: I do love also that as Vivian is approaching the cottage,
Speaker 4: you see this like strapping young man ranch hand who's
Speaker 4: like loading hay and he's clearly noticing her, and she
Speaker 4: is not looking at him at all. And then as
Speaker 4: she leaves, he makes this great comment to Kay about
Speaker 4: I don't know how you get all this action without
Speaker 4: any equipment, and it's just like moving on away.
Speaker 2: For this guy. And I love that. I like that too.
Speaker 2: Yeah it was great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay. So sometime later, Ka offers Vivian a ride
Speaker 3: into town for an appointment that Vivian has with a
Speaker 3: divorce attorney. Gwen is also in the car, and the
Speaker 3: whole situation is quite awkward for Vivian. And then when
Speaker 3: Kay drops Vivian off at the lawyer's office, Ka offers
Speaker 3: to wait for her, but Vivian is being kind of
Speaker 3: standoffish and cold and she says, no thanks, I'll find
Speaker 3: my own way back. And then at Vivian's meeting with
Speaker 3: the lawyer, he asks what are the grounds for her divorce,
Speaker 3: and she has trouble articulating it exactly, but basically she
Speaker 3: says that she longs for something she.
Speaker 4: Doesn't yet have.
Speaker 2: What could it be? What could it be?
Speaker 3: Then we learned that the Daryl guy that Kate has
Speaker 3: been seeing is her boss at the casino, who professes
Speaker 3: his love for her, but again, she doesn't want any
Speaker 3: future with him. He seems to know that she has
Speaker 3: relationships with women, and he says something like.
Speaker 2: Giving her a hard pitch on a like a lavender marriage,
Speaker 2: and she's like no.
Speaker 3: She says, pass, I'm waiting for someone who counts. And
Speaker 3: someone who counts is not this guy, Not this Tim
Speaker 3: Heidecker looking ass dude.
Speaker 2: He was like, yeah, flesh colored hair looking ass.
Speaker 3: That night, Vivian runs into Kay in the kitchen and
Speaker 3: they're trying to be covert to avoid Frances coming in
Speaker 3: and like talking their ear off, but then Kay spills
Speaker 3: something and they're giggling and vibing and it's really cute.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to figure out what the heck k is
Speaker 4: even doing in the middle of the night with like
Speaker 4: a whole thing of like cream and Bulbert and yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't know what's going on there.
Speaker 2: I feel like they must have dropped to a scene
Speaker 2: or something. I was like, what is she up to exactly?
Speaker 3: She's feeling snacky.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what they snacked
Speaker 4: on in late fifties, but that seemed like a lot
Speaker 4: for the middle of the night.
Speaker 2: A lot of dairy for that late in the day, truly.
Speaker 3: But anyway, Francis hears them and asks Kay to bring
Speaker 3: her a drink, and Francis is kind of in the
Speaker 3: middle of a meltdown. She has always latched on to
Speaker 3: Kay because Kay and her son Walter are all that
Speaker 3: frances has of her past lover Glenn. Clearly, she's you know,
Speaker 3: lonely and grieving Glenn because he passed away. And Kay says, well,
Speaker 3: one of these days I'm gonna find someone who counts.
Speaker 3: And sorry, Francis, but you can't stand in my way,
Speaker 3: because it seems like Francis knows that Kay has sex
Speaker 3: with women and she doesn't approve of it, but she
Speaker 3: seems to like tolerate it. And then Kay returns to
Speaker 3: the kitchen to see if Vivian is still there and
Speaker 3: seems disappointed that she isn't. The next morning, Kay asks
Speaker 3: Vivian to go horseback riding with her, and they do,
Speaker 3: and they talk about why Vivian's marriage fell apart, their
Speaker 3: plans and ambitions, and that seems like they're really hitting
Speaker 3: it off.
Speaker 4: I said, I want to note that they're not actually
Speaker 4: riding the horses. They know they are awkwardly walking them
Speaker 4: through the brush.
Speaker 3: So, according to the audio commentary, Donna Ditsch says that
Speaker 3: she's like, I love looking at horses faces as much
Speaker 3: as human faces. So to have them both at the staate,
Speaker 3: like at eye level, because if they're up on the horse,
Speaker 3: you can't see the horses faces us. It's like a
Speaker 3: really long, really wide shot.
Speaker 4: That is the gayest horse girl thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 2: I respect her commitment to the horse girl Again, I actually,
Speaker 2: controversially do not want to be that close to a
Speaker 2: horse's face. That's that's frightening to me.
Speaker 1: Fair.
Speaker 2: I know I've talked about this on the show a
Speaker 2: million times. So when I went to horse camp when
Speaker 2: I was a kid, they they made us watch the
Speaker 2: horse get a dental procedure, and I've never watched Wait, no,
Speaker 2: I forgot about this. I don't know why. At Jesus
Speaker 2: Horse Camp in New Hampshire, they make you watch the
Speaker 2: horse get a dental procedure. Maybe it wasn't everyone, but
Speaker 2: it was definitely my year. We watched the horses get
Speaker 2: and it's so scary. It's like you have to the
Speaker 2: teeth are too big. They have to like jackhammer the teeth.
Speaker 2: It's scary.
Speaker 4: Wow, yeah, that would that would make depression.
Speaker 2: You just once you know what's in the horse's head,
Speaker 2: it's just hard. It's just hard to get close like that.
Speaker 3: We're going back, so we see Vivian and Kay hitting
Speaker 3: it off near the horse's faces. Then we cut to
Speaker 3: Kay telling her friend and colleague Silver that she thinks
Speaker 3: that she has found someone who counts love Silver.
Speaker 4: Silver is the best. Yeah, yeah, big fan.
Speaker 2: She's the best.
Speaker 3: Silver Rocks.
Speaker 2: Take baths with your friends also, yes, take baths with
Speaker 2: your friends. Truly.
Speaker 4: Have a bathtub big enough to fit two people in
Speaker 4: it in the first place.
Speaker 3: A drink ideally, and then have your your man fiance
Speaker 3: serve you drinks.
Speaker 4: I oh he was so good too.
Speaker 2: I like that. I like them both a lot. I was.
Speaker 2: I was so happy for Silver because even though we
Speaker 2: don't get a ton of background. And in the book,
Speaker 2: Silver and Kay who is and in the book like
Speaker 2: casually hook up from time to time, they.
Speaker 4: Do kiss on the mouth. In the movie, that was
Speaker 4: the vibe I got.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like they're they've they've hooked up before, but
Speaker 2: they're ultimately best friends. And I just I loved, Like
Speaker 2: you just get the feeling that Silver has been through
Speaker 2: a lot of shit and that she found someone who
Speaker 2: can like actually meet her where she's at is so beautiful.
Speaker 2: It's really beautiful. Yes, I know, so yeah.
Speaker 3: Ka tells Silver that she has found someone who counts
Speaker 3: aka Vivian, but Silver warns k that Vivian is only
Speaker 3: here temporarily, just long enough to see her divorce through
Speaker 3: and then she's off to return to New York. Then
Speaker 3: Kay and Vivian go clothes shopping together. They're hanging out
Speaker 3: at a casino. They're they're just again continuing to vibe
Speaker 3: and have a nice time, and everyone who senses what's
Speaker 3: going on between them keeps saying that Vivian and Ka
Speaker 3: have nothing in common. It's never going to work out.
Speaker 3: This woman, Lucille tells Vivian to stay away from k
Speaker 3: because she's queer, but like using the term pejoratively. But
Speaker 3: Vivian is basically like, I don't care, fuck off Lucille,
Speaker 3: but in a very like polite and academic way, which.
Speaker 2: Is a very like style.
Speaker 4: Kind of cutting New England y, a little passive, aggressive, condescending.
Speaker 2: I do, I do love how I don't know. I
Speaker 2: would just not want to be on on her bad side,
Speaker 2: like Vivian Is can go ice cold in this space
Speaker 2: of an instant if you disrespect her, girl, and I
Speaker 2: think that that is beautiful and vice versa. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: when she shuts Francis down, when Frances tries to talk
Speaker 2: shit about k behind her back, and Vivian's like, I
Speaker 2: have to go good night. I'm tired. I've seen this,
Speaker 2: I've seen this movie before. Yeah. I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I love her. Okay.
Speaker 3: So then we see some more moments of longing between
Speaker 3: Kay and Vivian, where Kay is being pretty overt about
Speaker 3: it as is her style, and Vivian is being very
Speaker 3: like suppressive about it as his her style. Then at
Speaker 3: breakfast one morning, everyone is talking about Silver and her
Speaker 3: fiance Joe's engagement party that's happening that night, and Vivian
Speaker 3: says that she's not going because she has lectures to
Speaker 3: prepare for her upcoming classes, and then Kay like stands
Speaker 3: up and makes a scene and she's like, I want
Speaker 3: you to come to the party, and then she storms.
Speaker 4: Out, which a friend of mine compared to how her
Speaker 4: eight year old acts by the way, Kay's is very wilful.
Speaker 4: ITA's like, yes, I know she's standing up for what
Speaker 4: she wants, but like sometimes it's very like it's a
Speaker 4: little much.
Speaker 2: It feels very like in your early mid twenties that
Speaker 2: Kay is. And it does speak to like the more
Speaker 2: like Corneier aspects of the movie that sometimes she does
Speaker 2: just make a speech before leaving the room where she's like,
Speaker 2: I no one's getting get in the way of my
Speaker 2: life and be like leaves. It happens like three or
Speaker 2: four times. I'm like, yeah, exactly did I do that
Speaker 2: when I was twenty five?
Speaker 3: Probably yeah, same, yeah, same, Okay. So it seems like
Speaker 3: Francis doesn't want Vivian going to the party if it
Speaker 3: means that she'll be hanging out with Ka there, and
Speaker 3: Vivian asks Walter why Francis resents Kay for being friendly
Speaker 3: to Vivian, and it seems like Francis doesn't want Kay
Speaker 3: to leave her again. She's lonely, She's desperately missing her
Speaker 3: former lover Glenn. At some point, she tells Kay that
Speaker 3: Glenn reached in and put a string of lights around
Speaker 3: her heart.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: Then we cut to this engagement party. Vivian decides to
Speaker 3: go after all, and she and Kay are making eyes
Speaker 3: at each other. And then after the party, they drive
Speaker 3: out into the desert and they're strolling around as the
Speaker 3: sun comes up. Kay tells her that she likes women,
Speaker 3: and Vivian is like, oh, no, do you like me?
Speaker 3: I hope I haven't misled you in any way because
Speaker 3: I care about you, But I'm not, And.
Speaker 2: Then she runs away. She sprints away.
Speaker 3: She gets she gets interrupted by a crash of thunder
Speaker 3: and a downpour of rain.
Speaker 2: She runs to.
Speaker 3: The car and Kay follows her and through a rolled
Speaker 3: down window, they kiss, but then Vivian pulls away because
Speaker 3: she's uncomfortable.
Speaker 4: Oh but where does she learn to kiss like that?
Speaker 4: What a scene?
Speaker 2: What a scene? Love it.
Speaker 3: Then they return to the ranch to discover that Francis
Speaker 3: has decided to kick Vivian out because Vivian and Kay
Speaker 3: left the party. Together, and they stayed out all night
Speaker 3: and people started talking about what they must be up
Speaker 3: to and Francis can't have that, and Vivian is like, okay, fine, bye, bitch,
Speaker 3: I'll leave.
Speaker 4: I'm really annoyed that she doesn't get her refund check, though,
Speaker 4: because Kay throws it on the ground and then she
Speaker 4: never picks it up right.
Speaker 3: And then she is once again being pretty cold and
Speaker 3: stand offish to Kay as Vivian leaves, and now Kay
Speaker 3: is furious at Francis for trying to interfere in her life.
Speaker 3: She tells her she's moving off the ranch. Meanwhile, Vivian
Speaker 3: has checked into a nearby casino slash hotel. She's not
Speaker 3: doing great. Kay is not doing great. And then sometime later,
Speaker 3: Kay pays Vivian a visit in her hotel room. Vivian
Speaker 3: reluctantly lets her in and Kay is like, so weakest,
Speaker 3: let's talk about it. And Vivian is like, ar kiss
Speaker 3: was me having a momentary lapse in judgment and it's
Speaker 3: not gonna happen again. I'm a respected scholar.
Speaker 2: She iconically. I was like, wow, if this isn't me,
Speaker 2: when I retire, I will simply write a short story.
Speaker 2: For my revenge.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, I lost my mind. I had
Speaker 4: forgotten that bit and I was rewatching this with friends
Speaker 4: and yeah, we were all just like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: the most waspy.
Speaker 2: Like revenge you're gonna imagine.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna wait thirty years simmering of resentment, and then
Speaker 4: I'm gonna write a nasty short story about how mean
Speaker 4: you were to me, and that's my revenge.
Speaker 2: And you'll all definitely be alive and reading literary journals
Speaker 2: to watch me get you. Incredible, Such a good character line.
Speaker 2: I loved it. Oh, it's perfect, It's amazing.
Speaker 3: And so Vivian is protesting and goes to make herself
Speaker 3: a drink and then when she comes back into the room,
Speaker 3: Kay is in her bed naked.
Speaker 4: It is the fastest undressing you could buy. Like the
Speaker 4: time it takes for her for Vivian to turn around,
Speaker 4: say her piece about the short story and then turn
Speaker 4: back is like a Kay had to start undressing immediately?
Speaker 2: Would she she needed like Lightning mc queen's pit crew
Speaker 2: to get undressed that quickly?
Speaker 4: She was motivated.
Speaker 3: I wish I had been paying more attention to what
Speaker 3: she was wearing when she came in because like, it's
Speaker 3: one thing if you have.
Speaker 4: Like were there buttons, and God, were everything she wore
Speaker 4: had buttons on it. It's all complicated late fifties stuff.
Speaker 4: There's no T shirts here, so it would have taken
Speaker 4: some work to get undressed, well into bed, set up
Speaker 4: all pretty with you with your boobs out. But that
Speaker 4: takes work.
Speaker 2: And very particularly just like a production note, I believe
Speaker 2: that Patricia Sharpeneau is using a body double for much
Speaker 2: of this scene, partially because that was in her contracted
Speaker 2: partially because she was pregnant during the production of this spoofie.
Speaker 2: She found out she was pregnant right as they began shooting. Wow,
Speaker 2: I just I don't know why that is like always
Speaker 2: fun to be like, Oh, it tastefully placed blanket, the
Speaker 2: tits are out.
Speaker 3: I mean, she wouldn't have been that far into her
Speaker 3: pregnancy though by that point she wouldn't have I don't
Speaker 3: think she even would have been showing that much, if any,
Speaker 3: but probably not.
Speaker 4: But you know, it could still just be a comfort
Speaker 4: thing or yeah, if it was in her contract. But yes,
Speaker 4: it is a very artfully placed blanket right below.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, indeed, so she's naked. She got undressed super fast.
Speaker 3: I mean, as we've said, she's wearing her buttons loose
Speaker 3: pussy cat doll's style. She's loosening up her buttons. Baby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so did not see that coming.
Speaker 4: That was yeah, good reference, Thank.
Speaker 2: You so much.
Speaker 3: Anyway, so she's naked now, and Vivian is like, I
Speaker 3: want you to put your clothes on and leave, and
Speaker 3: Ka is like, no, you don't. And Vivian is like, okay,
Speaker 3: you're right, but I don't even know what to do.
Speaker 3: I don't know how to have sex with a woman.
Speaker 3: And Kay is like, don't worry, I won't be your guide.
Speaker 3: And they start kissing. It gets hotter and heavier, and
Speaker 3: they have sex for what seems like hours because eventually
Speaker 3: Kay is like, we need to like leave this room.
Speaker 2: Go.
Speaker 4: It is something the classic like queer sapphic sex k
Speaker 4: hole that you go into when you woke up with someone.
Speaker 4: It's it feels very accurate. You just lose track of
Speaker 4: time and space for goodie days.
Speaker 2: This is the only and I did we'll talk about
Speaker 2: because there was like a difference of opinion when this
Speaker 2: movie first came out about how the sex scene was staged. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it did crack me up. I think this is
Speaker 2: the only example I can think of of sex scene
Speaker 2: fading to black and then fading up to kind of
Speaker 2: still a yeah, just kind of just like later in
Speaker 2: the day. Right.
Speaker 4: Can we just also talk real quick about how incredible
Speaker 4: this would have been to see, especially as like a
Speaker 4: lesbian or you know, the queer person at.
Speaker 2: The time, like that only imagine.
Speaker 4: I know there were like some lesbians who had issues
Speaker 4: with it, felt like the dynamic of the characters was
Speaker 4: too heterosexual in some ways. But I feel like this scene.
Speaker 4: I think it's beautiful. I think it's beautifully shot. I
Speaker 4: think there's this wonderful moment where Vivian basically flips her
Speaker 4: over and is on top, kind of like taking charge
Speaker 4: and like showing that she really wants this, which is
Speaker 4: really important. But just seeing a sex scene between two
Speaker 4: women filmed by a gay woman, not for the male
Speaker 4: gaze on screen at all, you know, like a positive light.
Speaker 4: I don't know what would have come before this at
Speaker 4: all in any sort of bigly mainstream cinema, so it
Speaker 4: would have been just absolutely nothing. This is why Jane Lynch,
Speaker 4: you know, not just for the scene, but I mean,
Speaker 4: this is why Jan Lynch must have watched it fifty times,
Speaker 4: like it's a.
Speaker 2: Huge deal, huge deal totally. Yeah, Jane Lynch concurs based
Speaker 2: on my research.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I mean again, this was a revolutionary film.
Speaker 3: It's considered the first feature film to present a positive
Speaker 3: and like desensationalized portrayal of a lesbian romance. It's the
Speaker 3: first lesbian themed feature film written and directed by a woman,
Speaker 3: because ones prior to that had been made by men.
Speaker 2: And I did like to hear and again, I'm just like,
Speaker 2: this is why women should direct all movies. Even though
Speaker 2: you know it's nineteen eighty five, intimacy coordinators have not
Speaker 2: yet been normalized. Weird that has only happened in the
Speaker 2: last five to ten years, really, But that there was
Speaker 2: care taken in the sex scene. There's information about and
Speaker 2: Kitlin I don't know if she like talks about it
Speaker 2: during the commentary as well. But everyone who was not
Speaker 2: essential to being the room was gone. It was just
Speaker 2: the director of photography, the boom operator and the actors
Speaker 2: and Donna Ditch, which is how that should be. And ye,
Speaker 2: I mean it's so wild. How far into movie history,
Speaker 2: like including recent history, that like that care is not
Speaker 2: taken and there's still really not of time industry standards
Speaker 2: around it, so I was also I don't know it
Speaker 2: just again, it's like so nice to know that a
Speaker 2: wonderful movie was also ethically made, I think, especially because
Speaker 2: we're coming off of the Kramer Versus Kramer episode, which
Speaker 2: sounds like it nearly killed Meryl Street.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Dustin Hoffman was such a piece.
Speaker 2: Of shit, really flexing his history's great at monster muscles
Speaker 2: in that one. But yeah, I just I really appreciated
Speaker 2: that that like production detail as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I feel like I read something too that
Speaker 4: I mean, again, for these actresses taking this role, it
Speaker 4: is kind of a big deal, and I think the
Speaker 4: Helen Shaver talked about she's sort of trembling initially in
Speaker 4: that She's like, I was kind of real because I
Speaker 4: was really nervous to do this scene and it was
Speaker 4: a big deal and it was a bit nerve wracking.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I'm also glad to hear at least the
Speaker 4: setup and the scene was pretty private and comfortable.
Speaker 2: With the director because that's it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you just always want that, and I think it
Speaker 4: really comes across in the scene, like in the acting
Speaker 4: and in the scene you could always get a sense
Speaker 4: when it's almost always can get that sense of like
Speaker 4: there was a healthy environment on set, like yeah, feeling okay,
Speaker 4: like supported and safe, and it really comes through and
Speaker 4: it makes it makes a big difference.
Speaker 2: Sure it does, it does. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, they've been having sex for hours and they eventually
Speaker 3: leave to go to a bar or restaurant or something
Speaker 3: where they have a little chat. They say that they
Speaker 3: love each other. But Vivian is freaking out this whole time.
Speaker 3: She's feeling exposed. She's worried about her future and her reputation.
Speaker 3: What if the university and her students find out that
Speaker 3: she's having an affair with a woman one who's ten
Speaker 3: years younger than her no less, so her career is
Speaker 3: potentially in jeopardy. And this discussion turns into an argument
Speaker 3: and they're about to storm away from each other, but
Speaker 3: then they very quickly make up, and we cut to
Speaker 3: them nakedly embracing in the hotel room again.
Speaker 4: And a beautiful shot the lighting and the silhouette and
Speaker 4: the lights from the Reno street. Like that shot and
Speaker 4: also the shot of them when they're making up. I
Speaker 4: really love that it's at a distance, they're getting into
Speaker 4: the car together, and it's this lovely beautiful shot and
Speaker 4: like we don't see the moment they have together when
Speaker 4: it happens. You just kind of see them at a remove,
Speaker 4: and I think that's I think that was really beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I also, I mean I love their argument too, weirdly enough,
Speaker 3: where like, yeah, absolutely, they're like talking as adults, They're
Speaker 3: like freely expressing their concerns, and then at one point
Speaker 3: Vivian is like, does it always unravel this quickly? Like
Speaker 3: almost like providing commentary on the fight that they're having,
Speaker 3: and then Kay says, comes with the territory.
Speaker 2: It's such a good I agree that, Like it is
Speaker 2: a really good argument, especially coming from like two queer
Speaker 2: women at like a different stages of their lives too,
Speaker 2: where it's I don't know, Vivian is so thoughtfully characterized
Speaker 2: that it's like, I like that the movie doesn't bonk
Speaker 2: you over the head with period specific details, but like
Speaker 2: this is still a time where being out or being
Speaker 2: anything but straight was considered a mental illness and would
Speaker 2: like absolutely ruin your life. It wasn't just cultural stigma.
Speaker 2: There was still like significant legal stigma. And you know
Speaker 2: that Kay is able to sort of be out sort
Speaker 2: of not. But the reason that that's true is because
Speaker 2: her options are so limited and that like it feels
Speaker 2: like you have to make a choice between pursuing your
Speaker 2: passion or not because of all the stigma. And I
Speaker 2: don't know, I just felt like that was all encapsulated
Speaker 2: in that argument without them having to state it, because
Speaker 2: their relationship is so real. And then also just the
Speaker 2: like twenty five year old talking to a thirty five
Speaker 2: year old where there are certain moments whereas ever, like
Speaker 2: you know, you could feel Vivia kind of holding back
Speaker 2: of like all right, all right, get it out of
Speaker 2: your system.
Speaker 4: But I mean, I'm glad you brought that up too,
Speaker 4: because I think something I've come across, like I've had
Speaker 4: to learn a lot of my own queer history coming
Speaker 4: up when I did. But just I think, especially younger
Speaker 4: people watching this, I hope they dig into the context
Speaker 4: because I think it is important to understand what was
Speaker 4: happening at the time. Like you know, same sex attraction
Speaker 4: wasn't removed from the mental health classification until nineteen seventy three. Like,
Speaker 4: you would absolutely be fired from your job, You would
Speaker 4: absolutely lose your career, You could be kicked out of housing,
Speaker 4: you could be thrown into an institution. All these things
Speaker 4: that were happening up until fairly recently looming large over
Speaker 4: this entire scenario. Yeah, and I think this is a
Speaker 4: I'll just agree, like the conversation, this argument is such
Speaker 4: a great without hitting you over the head and being
Speaker 4: really obvious about it, it's such a this is this
Speaker 4: is what they.
Speaker 2: Were dealing with.
Speaker 4: This would be very realistic to that time, not just
Speaker 4: the age gap, but just the Vivian has a career,
Speaker 4: she has this whole life, whereas Kay's making pottery and
Speaker 4: on her her what she calls her hideout. You know,
Speaker 4: she's sort of this like swaggering Western figure in some
Speaker 4: ways and like a little freer, but like you said,
Speaker 4: with limited options.
Speaker 2: So totally, Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 4: I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: There's also an.
Speaker 3: Interesting power dynamic between them, because while Vivian is ten
Speaker 3: years older and has more just like life experience and
Speaker 3: maturity under her belt career, that Kay is far more
Speaker 3: experienced and just like having queer relationships and having sex
Speaker 3: with women versus this is Vivian's first time with anything
Speaker 3: like that. We are to assume, so Vivian is out
Speaker 3: of her element in that regard, which sort of offsets
Speaker 3: the power dynamic of Vivian being quite a bit older
Speaker 3: than K.
Speaker 2: I feel, right, and it's like power as I or
Speaker 2: at least I think in this relationship, almost as a
Speaker 2: neutral term, because I don't think that either of them
Speaker 2: abuses the power that they have over each other, right,
Speaker 2: which is rare to see and like any kind of relationship.
Speaker 2: But I also like noticed that we're they do at
Speaker 2: different points. I think the K like has quite a
Speaker 2: bit of power in this relationship. But even if it's
Speaker 2: not like explicitly discussed. I think even especially prior to
Speaker 2: the sex scene where Vivian is like so unsure of herself,
Speaker 2: she is like, I don't know how to I don't
Speaker 2: know how to end K He's like, I do all good,
Speaker 2: Like let's you know. I just I think it's really
Speaker 2: lovely that they're able to just communicate, you know, and
Speaker 2: that no one is like lording the power they have
Speaker 2: over the other, which is how a healthy relationship should work. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, I think the interesting too to think about some
Speaker 4: of the criticisms that came out of particularly the lesbian community,
Speaker 4: when this movie came out was like, oh, you know,
Speaker 4: Kas this like dominating, you know, sort of masculine figure
Speaker 4: to Vivian's more like submissive, you know whatever. And I'm like,
Speaker 4: I don't read it that.
Speaker 2: Way at all.
Speaker 4: But I think that was sort of a big conversation
Speaker 4: happening in the community at the time in the eighties
Speaker 4: is sort of getting away from the original quote unquote
Speaker 4: original bushfem dynamics in queer women community and sort of
Speaker 4: trying to like, hey, actually, we don't want to just
Speaker 4: replicate heterosexual patriarchal relationships, which is a good and important
Speaker 4: conversation we continue to have, and I don't think this
Speaker 4: movie does that. And I think exactly to your point
Speaker 4: that the power dynamics, they're mixed, but it feels pretty
Speaker 4: even in the end that they're both bringing something to
Speaker 4: the table and ultimately have agency to make these decisions
Speaker 4: in a way that feels like relatively healthy. You know,
Speaker 4: one needs to get pushed a little bit, the other
Speaker 4: one needs to like have an understanding of what she's
Speaker 4: dealing with, like what the world is, and try to
Speaker 4: figure out a middle space that works out for them.
Speaker 2: But I really like that.
Speaker 4: I don't read either of them as any one thing
Speaker 4: masculine or formula or passive or doc.
Speaker 2: There's sort of that vibe.
Speaker 4: But again, like they let Vivian in the end like
Speaker 4: show that she wants this and like is making this
Speaker 4: effort and it's just been hard. But like, yeah, I
Speaker 4: don't know, I think that's I think that's great, And
Speaker 4: it's just interesting to think about that in the context
Speaker 4: of the time it was made in particular, and then
Speaker 4: now how it plays now, given where we're at as
Speaker 4: a as a as a society, as a culture.
Speaker 3: I do have some thoughts about the lead up to
Speaker 3: the sex scene.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a bit.
Speaker 3: Of pushiness and boundary disrespecting.
Speaker 4: Dubious consent.
Speaker 2: Yes that I think we're supposed to be coasting on
Speaker 2: vibes that if this were guess we're a straight sex seed,
Speaker 2: we would definitely feel like, well, really just get naked
Speaker 2: while the other person is talking about why this cannot happen,
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 4: Know, she does say like I want you to put
Speaker 4: your clothes on and leave, and she says.
Speaker 2: She don't, and you don't know, you don't twice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in any other context, yeah, yeah, fair to call
Speaker 4: that out one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then there's a part of me that's like, well,
Speaker 2: what she doesn't. But then you're like, now sick, we'll
Speaker 2: talk more about it. Okay, yes, yeah, that just to
Speaker 2: we all we all run the nineteen eighty five elements
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, the movie's almost over. So they've had sex
Speaker 3: and had a fight and then made up, and then
Speaker 3: they have sex again. Then it's Silver and Joe's wedding.
Speaker 3: Kay and Vivian are both there, as is Francis, who
Speaker 3: tells Kay that she will never accept her liking women.
Speaker 3: She can't understand two women being together. And then Kay
Speaker 3: repeats one of Francis's lines back to her that Vivian
Speaker 3: reached in and put a string of lights around her heart.
Speaker 3: And so now Francis maybe seems like she's starting to understand,
Speaker 3: and they seem like they kind of reconcile a bit.
Speaker 3: Then Vivian's divorce goes through, so she's about to head
Speaker 3: back to New York. Kay wants for them to be together,
Speaker 3: to stay together, to live together or near each other,
Speaker 3: but Vivian is like, I can't do that. I'll come
Speaker 3: back and visit for Christmas. But that's not good enough
Speaker 3: for Kay, and she's hurt and she leaves, but then
Speaker 3: Kay sees Vivian off at the train station.
Speaker 2: Vivian, I know.
Speaker 3: Vivian invites Kay to come with her to New York,
Speaker 3: saying that she deserves to live with someone who knows
Speaker 3: how wonderful she is, who sees her for who she is, and.
Speaker 2: You know, sobbing, she just wants another forty minutes with her,
Speaker 2: and we're like happy ending.
Speaker 3: Right, because Kay is hesitant. She's like, I've got loose ends.
Speaker 3: I have to tie up in Reno and you know,
Speaker 3: maybe she's feeling trepidacious. And then the train starts moving
Speaker 3: with Vivian on it and Kay isn't on it. But
Speaker 3: then Kate gets on the train, but just to ride
Speaker 3: to the next station, or maybe to go all the
Speaker 3: way back to New York.
Speaker 2: Kay is so impulsive she's staying on that.
Speaker 3: It reminded me of the end of this and sorry,
Speaker 3: this is a heterosexual relationship, but the end of I know,
Speaker 3: so I apologize. But the end of Before Sunset, when
Speaker 3: Ethan Hawk's character goes up to Selene's apartment.
Speaker 2: And the Nina Simone record Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then she's like, you're gonna miss your flight and
Speaker 3: He's like, I know, no, anyway, beautiful, Ah, that's the movie.
Speaker 3: So let's take a quick break and we will come
Speaker 3: back to discuss.
Speaker 2: And we're back, and we're back, Emily, where would you
Speaker 2: like to start? What's jumping out to you?
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, that's such a big question. I feel
Speaker 4: like we've already started talking about a lot of it.
Speaker 4: I guess what I'll start by saying is and we
Speaker 4: would love to hear your thoughts. And I know you've
Speaker 4: talked about this on the show before, but just the
Speaker 4: fact that we had a relatively happy ending. No one dies,
Speaker 4: no one takes their own life, no one gets up,
Speaker 4: put it into institution, Like there is this moment of
Speaker 4: we think, you know, you can be like these two
Speaker 4: crazy kids are going to make it work, because you're
Speaker 4: left with that possibility. They're getting on the train together.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's just another forty minutes, maybe they work it out.
Speaker 4: But again, I cannot overstate how revolutionary that was for
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty five, And honestly, we still deal with the
Speaker 4: barrier gaze trope so much. And I can't imagine, because
Speaker 4: I was four years old when this movie came out,
Speaker 4: like the impact it would have had on a person,
Speaker 4: a gay person going to see it after a lifetime
Speaker 4: of crumbs for representation, and when you did have it,
Speaker 4: you knew that that person was going to suffer in
Speaker 4: some way thanks to the Hayes Code, and you know,
Speaker 4: you had this sort of long tail the Hayese code,
Speaker 4: which only I think stopped in.
Speaker 2: Sixty nine, sixty eight, sixty nine.
Speaker 4: So it's still not that long after that, not a
Speaker 4: long after Stonewall, and plenty of movies were still doing
Speaker 4: exactly that. So it's just incredible to have this movie
Speaker 4: period and then to have that ending. It was such
Speaker 4: a gift. And I still feel like it holds up.
Speaker 4: You know again, I kind of like that it's a
Speaker 4: little ambiguous, but still generally a pretty happy ending. Yeah,
Speaker 4: like it feels it feels earned.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: One of the first things that Donna Ditch says in
Speaker 3: the audio commentary is I wanted to make a film
Speaker 3: about a love relationship between two women that didn't end
Speaker 3: in a bisexual triangle or a suicide. I wanted to
Speaker 3: see something much more authentic than that. So she set
Speaker 3: out to do that, and she accomplished it.
Speaker 4: She did well.
Speaker 2: But let's okay, this Actually, I all love and respect
Speaker 2: to Danna Deetch, but we have to talk about our
Speaker 2: good friend Jane Rule. Yes, so I did not. I
Speaker 2: was not aware of her as a cultural figure before
Speaker 2: doing research for this episode, but she wrote the book
Speaker 2: that this movie is based on Desert of the Heart,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to go through it a little bit.
Speaker 2: It was published in nineteen sixty four. Jane is. I
Speaker 2: think she's an American Canadian, but she basically moved to
Speaker 2: Canada to escape homophobic prosecution or persecution, Sorry, not prosecution,
Speaker 2: I don't think, and hope not in the US. But
Speaker 2: she's just she's a fascinating figure who ends up becoming
Speaker 2: great friends with Donna Ditch Like this movie had her
Speaker 2: full blessing and she really loved it. She lives until
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. But just to get into because
Speaker 2: something I was wondering, not knowing a lot about the
Speaker 2: backstory of Desert Hearts, was why why choose a period
Speaker 2: setting for this? Because it's something we've talked about with
Speaker 2: queer film a lot, specifically movies centering on lesbian relationships,
Speaker 2: is they're very often tragic pieces set in the past,
Speaker 2: even ones that we've covered and loved see Portrait of
Speaker 2: Lady comes to see like there's the list goes on
Speaker 2: and on. They're a very in quality, but like you know,
Speaker 2: you can take Portrait of Lady on fire from my
Speaker 2: cold dead hands. However, the trope is present. So I
Speaker 2: was curious, because this movie does not have an unhappy ending,
Speaker 2: what was the function of setting it? And it's because
Speaker 2: it's when the novel was set and written. So Jane
Speaker 2: Rule was born in the thirties and had family in Reno,
Speaker 2: so she was sort of witnessed this up close. Wrote
Speaker 2: Desert of the Heart. It finished it in nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 2: It was not published for three years after that because
Speaker 2: no publisher wanted to publish a book that centered on
Speaker 2: a lesbian relationship, much less one that ended ambiguous to good.
Speaker 2: There was a lovely short doc I found about her
Speaker 2: on YouTube dot com that was produced in the nineties.
Speaker 2: And Jane is a hoot. She is really funny. And
Speaker 2: also it makes total sense that her and Donna Dietch
Speaker 2: get along. I feel like they have a very similar
Speaker 2: sense of humor. Where Jane Rule, when talking about the book,
Speaker 2: was saying that, like she she was so unsure of
Speaker 2: whether she wanted the book to be adapted into a
Speaker 2: movie first, because it had sort of turned her into
Speaker 2: a cultural symbol in all of North America. As I mean,
Speaker 2: she she has this quote where she was like, for years,
Speaker 2: I was treated as if I were the only lesbian
Speaker 2: in Canada and I just had to which was obviously
Speaker 2: not true, but the way the media spoke about me,
Speaker 2: you'd never know there was a second lesbian in Canada.
Speaker 2: And so she, I mean, she was sort of tokenized
Speaker 2: in this way that she was upset about, understandably and
Speaker 2: did not care for. And so when Donna Ditch approached her,
Speaker 2: she was I think her quote was something like, you know,
Speaker 2: I did not want the Hollywood version of this movie,
Speaker 2: which is always one person in the couple commits suicide
Speaker 2: and the other gets married to a man. And so
Speaker 2: she and Donna Ditch had a link up. They talked
Speaker 2: about it. Donna Ditch apparently showed Jane Rule everything she'd
Speaker 2: ever made, which seems excessive, but it seemed like the
Speaker 2: meeting went well, obviously, and Jane Rule gave her blessing
Speaker 2: and said that there were she said again, it was like, gosh,
Speaker 2: I don't know how I if I would be able
Speaker 2: to handle hearing this, but she told Donna Ditsch, I
Speaker 2: don't think you are capable of adapting my story, but
Speaker 2: you can adapt a version of it, which, first of
Speaker 2: all I was like, whoa. But also that does seem
Speaker 2: to be what happened because Desert of the Heart, while
Speaker 2: I have not read it, the bones are similar. I
Speaker 2: think that the things that are sort of softened or
Speaker 2: changed for the movie mainly have to do with the
Speaker 2: specifics around In the book, it's Evelin in Anne, but
Speaker 2: around Evelin, who is still a professor, her thoughts around
Speaker 2: her divorce, there's more more interiority, digging into her feeling
Speaker 2: responsible for the end of her marriage, which had to
Speaker 2: do with both her not being attracted to her husband
Speaker 2: and also the fact that her husband was tremendously depressed
Speaker 2: unrelated to the marriage and blaming it on her. So
Speaker 2: that was I think more prominent in the story. I
Speaker 2: don't mind. I actually think it's a positive adaptation that
Speaker 2: that is not really harped upon in Desert Hearts, and
Speaker 2: that men really have not very much to do with
Speaker 2: what's going on, and straight people have very little to
Speaker 2: do with what's going on. I know, I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also, I learned from the audio commentary that sometime after
Speaker 3: publishing her book, Jane Rule was approached by a studio
Speaker 3: to option the book and adapt it into a film,
Speaker 3: but Jane Rule refused because she feared that it would
Speaker 3: be altered in a way that would be unacceptable to her.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the one person kills themself, one person gets
Speaker 2: married to a man.
Speaker 3: Right right. Yeah, So then she sold the option to
Speaker 3: Donna Ditch, and then Donna went to a studio for financing.
Speaker 3: But after a few meetings at this studio, she realized
Speaker 3: that they would not let her make the movie the
Speaker 3: way that she wanted to make it and honor the book.
Speaker 3: So she had to finance the movie independently. So, as
Speaker 3: we mentioned already, she did things like sell her house.
Speaker 3: She sold some shares to individual investors, many of whom
Speaker 3: were lesbians, who I imagine were very eager to see
Speaker 3: positive lesbian representation on screen. Also, the largest single investor
Speaker 3: was a gay man. I don't know who specifically.
Speaker 2: But shout out that guy. I was like, shout out
Speaker 2: to shout out to him.
Speaker 3: She also got a grant from the National Endowment for
Speaker 3: the Arts, but basically she just like had to cobble
Speaker 3: together a bunch of like different sources of money eventually
Speaker 3: raised one point five million dollars for the budget, which.
Speaker 2: Is so prevalent. I mean I almost think about like
Speaker 2: early John Waters movies of just like how much iconic
Speaker 2: queer cinema like could not have been made in the
Speaker 2: conventional studio system and require a lot of creativity and
Speaker 2: like sacrifice on behalf of the people making it in
Speaker 2: order for us to you know. And of course once
Speaker 2: the studios are like, oh wait, people will pay for this, sure, sorry,
Speaker 2: you know, but it is always late to the party,
Speaker 2: always always. I'm just I'm so glad for I mean
Speaker 2: truly everyone, but like particularly for Jane Rule that like
Speaker 2: Donna Dietch, really committed to getting the story told the
Speaker 2: way that it needed to be told.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, And not to diminish the amount of hustle
Speaker 4: it took to make it, but I believe it it
Speaker 4: made back more than it's its budget, Like it did,
Speaker 4: you know, it doesn't Gangbusters, but it did make more.
Speaker 3: It made a profit two point five million dollar box
Speaker 3: office receipts on a one point five million dollar budget.
Speaker 2: Not too bad, not too shabby.
Speaker 3: One of the last things that Donna Jech says in
Speaker 3: the audio commentary is and this kind of also relates.
Speaker 3: We can talk about like the critical reception of this movie,
Speaker 3: but the film was playing at maybe one theater in
Speaker 3: New York City, potentially more, but it seems like it
Speaker 3: was maybe just this one for a time, I think
Speaker 3: when it was like first released in theaters in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty six after its like festival run. And there was
Speaker 3: a critic named Vincent Camby.
Speaker 2: Who famous New York Times critic right.
Speaker 3: Yes, who was known to if he gave like a
Speaker 3: scathing review of something, especially an indie film, it would
Speaker 3: probably not survive. It would other screenings of it in
Speaker 3: other markets and cities and stuff like that would probably
Speaker 3: be canceled.
Speaker 4: Too much power for one guy.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly, but like films died in the water from
Speaker 3: his reviews apparently quite often, and he gave this movie
Speaker 3: a scathing review. So Donna Ditch was like, we can
Speaker 3: salvage this. So she basically went to several screenings of
Speaker 3: her film over the course of a weekend and basically
Speaker 3: was like she told the audience, if you liked this movie,
Speaker 3: please tell a bunch of your friends to come see it,
Speaker 3: and that worked that all the movie came i think
Speaker 3: six tickets away from breaking the box office record at
Speaker 3: that cinema for the weekend, and the movie came to
Speaker 3: be known as a can be buster, and it was
Speaker 3: one of the few independent films of that era to
Speaker 3: have survived his wrath. As Donna Ditch puts it, we.
Speaker 4: Got to shut a shout out the queer community too.
Speaker 4: I mean kudas to her for like showing up and
Speaker 4: putting in the shoe leather to just promote it and
Speaker 4: get people to do that. But also like queer folks
Speaker 4: will show up for the things that they love, especially
Speaker 4: when they get the sense that that thing loves them back. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and go hard for it. I think we have done that.
Speaker 4: We have a long history of doing that, even when
Speaker 4: it's maybe not the most high quality thing, but you
Speaker 4: can tell that the thing loves you back, we will
Speaker 4: go hard. And I think that's I think that's beautiful
Speaker 4: and I think that this is definitely a testament to
Speaker 4: We saw what this was and we were like, you
Speaker 4: know what, we're not gonna let this one. And reviewer
Speaker 4: guy tank it, I agree, it's too important.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Vito Russo's over here talking about he wrote in
Speaker 3: his book The Cellular Closet homosexuality in the movies. We've
Speaker 3: cited the Vito Russo test on the show many times,
Speaker 3: of which he was the founder. But he said, quote,
Speaker 3: Desert Hearts is a love story that recreates, with perceptiveness
Speaker 3: and tenderness, what it might have been like for two
Speaker 3: women of different generations and backgrounds to fall in love
Speaker 3: in the fifties. Deetcha's refusal to feature the straight world's
Speaker 3: reaction to lesbianism as her focus of the film made
Speaker 3: all the difference in the way the relationship between the
Speaker 3: women was perceived by audiences. And then he went on
Speaker 3: to say, Vincent can be complained that we are not
Speaker 3: given enough information about the quality of Vivian's broken marriage,
Speaker 3: asking if perhaps her lesbianism was a hysterical reaction to
Speaker 3: her divorce.
Speaker 2: Yay, oh god, I mean, that's kind of great for
Speaker 2: Donna deetch to be like, well, I have proof as
Speaker 2: to why he didn't like it. He's homophobic, Like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, tellan on himself.
Speaker 3: Yep. And then the final bit of this quote is
Speaker 3: Vita Ruster saying, this is the point at which many
Speaker 3: heterosexual critics disqualify themselves from perceptibly reviewing gay films.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, quote.
Speaker 4: I think that is exactly right. And you know you
Speaker 4: were talking before about that conversation she has with the
Speaker 4: Vivian has with the lawyer as being sort of the
Speaker 4: only kind of the most deep dive weld get into
Speaker 4: what happened in that, And I love, I love exactly
Speaker 4: what it says, and it's it's not saying that this
Speaker 4: was a terrible It wasn't a hysterical reaction. It wasn't
Speaker 4: this huge thing where she had an abusive husband. It
Speaker 4: was just a marriage that wasn't working and she was
Speaker 4: not interested. It clearly wasn't interested in him, and it
Speaker 4: was would she say it drowned in still waters, say
Speaker 4: no more.
Speaker 2: You know, like that, and that's all it needed to be.
Speaker 4: That was the I mean, I think anybody who got
Speaker 4: it knew exactly what that meant and that that was
Speaker 4: the important part. And it absolutely yeah, it's not for
Speaker 4: none of this was for the straight man and they.
Speaker 2: Critics, which is like why so many queer classics are
Speaker 2: not well reviewed in their day, because they just don't
Speaker 2: understand what the movie is for or don't care, but
Speaker 2: I'm so glad. I mean again, it's like, I'm so
Speaker 2: glad that Donna Ditch was able to advocate for this movie.
Speaker 2: And I also think it's still like you were saying earlier, Caitlin,
Speaker 2: like under taught and underdiscussed in like film education. Totally.
Speaker 2: It is like, I'm frustrated that it took me so
Speaker 2: long to watch this movie, and that's partially on me,
Speaker 2: but also it's partially on the world. Absolutely, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 2: what else would we like to talk about?
Speaker 4: I just want to shout out Silver again, but specifically.
Speaker 2: Because I do.
Speaker 4: I I think it's common you sort of get like
Speaker 4: the world in the movie is very insular in things
Speaker 4: like this where it's just like about the couple and
Speaker 4: they don't seem to have like a world outside of
Speaker 4: They don't have friends, they don't have a community, right,
Speaker 4: So you know, Silver is sort of I think holding
Speaker 4: down the role of like a community that Kay clearly
Speaker 4: does have. She does have additional people that she's seeing
Speaker 4: and and friends and families. So I love Silver as
Speaker 4: a character. I love that she's sort of this writer
Speaker 4: die friend who we don't get all the big details.
Speaker 4: But like you said, Jamie, Like you get the sense
Speaker 4: that she's lived a life, you know, But I just
Speaker 4: I really appreciate you're talking about like most of the
Speaker 4: women or most of the characters in this movie are
Speaker 4: women talking to each other. There's you know, there's a
Speaker 4: there's a Silver's partner who we like, who's who's great.
Speaker 2: But otherwise it's like.
Speaker 4: There's very few men with speaking roles, which is you know,
Speaker 4: rare and a delight. But just the fact that like
Speaker 4: they let they let Kay have friends and not just
Speaker 4: be this sort of like singular character that with no
Speaker 4: context and no community basically, And I like that element
Speaker 4: of this movie as well, that there are multiple other
Speaker 4: people that have a role to play in this That
Speaker 4: feels like it just adds a lot of substance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it raises the stakes at the end too,
Speaker 2: because it's like you do get the feeling that she
Speaker 2: would be like leaving something behind and like, yeah, there
Speaker 2: is uh an And I appreciate. This reminded me although
Speaker 2: it's like these movies have very little in common. But
Speaker 2: we recently covered Appropriate Behavior on the show, and a
Speaker 2: little bit the dynamic between Sharene from Appropriate Behavior and
Speaker 2: her mother reminded me a little bit of the relationship
Speaker 2: between Kay and Francis, because even though I think that
Speaker 2: like Francis in particular is which makes sense given the
Speaker 2: time caught up in like what is her role to Ka?
Speaker 2: What was her role to Glenn? Because marriage was such
Speaker 2: a marker right in the fifties and such a defining
Speaker 2: quality of one women how women were supposed to perceive themselves.
Speaker 2: But like, for all intents and purposes, she's Kay's mother.
Speaker 2: Kay's mother like walked out, and it seems like Francis
Speaker 2: essentially raised her, and Kay basically speaks to that without
Speaker 2: overtly calling her a mother. At the end, is like,
Speaker 2: I've known you longer than I've known anyone else in
Speaker 2: my life, and I thought it was interesting. At the
Speaker 2: end of Appropriate Behavior, Scharene comes out as bisexual to
Speaker 2: her mother, who kind of just pretends she doesn't hear it,
Speaker 2: and Sharene decides, I want a relationship with my mom.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna step away for a while and then try again.
Speaker 2: And it seems like Kay is sort of pursuing a
Speaker 2: similar journey with Frances. I like that it's kept ambiguous,
Speaker 2: but I just that dynamic ended up being more nuanced
Speaker 2: than I expected, I guess, because frances is absolutely monstrous
Speaker 2: in like humiliate like intentionally humiliating Vivian and Kay to
Speaker 2: prove a point to specifically Kay, but also to herself
Speaker 2: in this very selfish way to attempt to shame k
Speaker 2: which first of all will never work, and also you know,
Speaker 2: like place a flag on her and be like you
Speaker 2: are mine because I cannot accept that Glenn is dead
Speaker 2: and Kay is sort of like that's my problem, you know,
Speaker 2: Like I think, you know, Francis is centering her own
Speaker 2: grief above anyone else's. And I got the.
Speaker 4: Line that Kay has. There's some really good one liners
Speaker 4: in this movie too. She she calls out Francis. She says,
Speaker 4: you want things without loving them, that's greed.
Speaker 2: Hmmm.
Speaker 4: I realized that really sums up kind of the conflicts.
Speaker 2: Going on, and I thought it was they leave it
Speaker 2: in this very kind of like nuanced, ambiguous place that
Speaker 2: again just I think like this movie shows a lot
Speaker 2: of shades of gray. Yeah, especially with Kay's family dynamic
Speaker 2: that I really appreciated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's sort of similar to how they leave it
Speaker 4: with again that ambiguity at the end, like there's there
Speaker 4: is a hope that something more positive will calm down
Speaker 4: a line, but you're given the neat, tidy, buttoned up
Speaker 4: ending like that everything is solved and you know, everything's happy.
Speaker 4: It's and you know, that's fun. Sometimes I love that.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's very relieving, especially in a queer film. But
Speaker 4: I think again, it feels like it's really true to
Speaker 4: the story and the time and it's still. Yeah, it's
Speaker 4: much more nuanced than I think I was expecting when
Speaker 4: I went into this film, So that's great. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Speaking of great lines, my favorite one I think is
Speaker 3: it's after they've had sex for the first time. Vivian
Speaker 3: is freaking out not only about like what if people
Speaker 3: find out? What if I lose my job, but she
Speaker 3: also like can't really She's like struggling with Kay being
Speaker 3: so fearless and self assured, and Kay says in response
Speaker 3: to that, I don't act this way to change the world.
Speaker 3: I act this way so the world won't change me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm like.
Speaker 4: Oh, bars, spit and Fire truly so good.
Speaker 3: Yes, I just love how these are such two distinct
Speaker 3: characters and how I mean kind of going back to
Speaker 3: the casting conversation where Donna Ditch had a really difficult
Speaker 3: time finding actors who would willingly portray lesbian characters, and
Speaker 3: many of them refuse to audition for the film.
Speaker 2: And then also just like annoying that she couldn't get
Speaker 2: bigger names. I think also just for logistical reasons, which
Speaker 2: is that like a lot of actors think they're too
Speaker 2: famous to audition.
Speaker 3: True, yes, yeah. And then Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau
Speaker 3: were told by their friends and their agents that this
Speaker 3: film would ruin their careers, but they were like, Okay,
Speaker 3: these are substantial roles. It's like two women who are
Speaker 3: co leads in a feature film. The characters are interesting
Speaker 3: and dynamic, and parts like this just like barely exist
Speaker 3: ye for women in films, and to this day still
Speaker 3: barely exist. Unfortunately, So these two actors like jumped at
Speaker 3: the chance to play these characters who are just like
Speaker 3: so distinct and relatable and compelling to watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you can totally. It's it's very clear
Speaker 2: why these characters fall in love with each other, like
Speaker 2: it just they compliment each other so well, will it
Speaker 2: go the distance? Well, we need to give Donald least
Speaker 2: billion dollars to make the desert hurts too, And then
Speaker 2: we can find out.
Speaker 4: That'd be great.
Speaker 2: I love it. My prediction is they end up in
Speaker 2: like a lifelong situation ship thing. Yeah, I can see that,
Speaker 2: okay in New York. I don't know if Ya's going
Speaker 2: to that, that's exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're going to have to open up their relationship. Yeah,
Speaker 3: become polyamorous.
Speaker 2: As long as the late sixties hit. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 2: going to be a while ride. Yeah, Yeah, Vivian's going
Speaker 2: to need to get on board or or things change.
Speaker 2: But that's okay. For now, we have forty minutes and
Speaker 2: they're just they're so wellful, they're going to make it work.
Speaker 2: I want to really quickly return to the sex scene.
Speaker 2: As we mentioned, there are various like and especially like
Speaker 2: the lead up to the sex scene, we talked about
Speaker 2: how Vivian is visibly uncomfortable. She is saying, I want
Speaker 2: you to leave, I want you to put your clothes on.
Speaker 2: She reluctantly lets Kay in. In the first place, k
Speaker 2: gets naked without making sure that was okay with Vivian.
Speaker 2: You know all these things. Vivian says, I don't want
Speaker 2: to take off my robe, and.
Speaker 4: Then Kate, we all have to draw the lawn somewhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then she does not respect that boundary. Now,
Speaker 3: as the scene goes, Vivian gets more comfortable with it,
Speaker 3: as as we also talked about, but again, and she
Speaker 3: is clearly stating a lot of boundaries that Kay is
Speaker 3: blowing right past. Now, you could read this, I think
Speaker 3: as a situation where one queer woman who is much
Speaker 3: more comfortable and open with her sexuality is trying to
Speaker 3: encourage the other woman to break out of her shell
Speaker 3: abandon her fears and insecurities. But also, you can do
Speaker 3: that and still respect someone's boundaries. Yes, So I feel
Speaker 3: like there's like traces of the like quote unquote predatory
Speaker 3: lesbian trope at the beginning of this scene. But then
Speaker 3: as it goes again, Vivian comes into her own and
Speaker 3: has the best time.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm curious what you think of I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm just maybe it's just my personal love of the movie.
Speaker 2: I'm tempted to give it a pass because I don't
Speaker 2: I don't think that this agenda is to set in
Speaker 2: an example necessarily. I don't know. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: mean to give it too much of a pass, but like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I think that there is a tricky
Speaker 2: thing in movies, especially the further you go back in history,
Speaker 2: where it's like the normalization of how consent is communicated
Speaker 2: and verbalized I think has changed pretty considerably over time.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I'm inclined to give this movie a pass,
Speaker 2: even though I think on paper, you're totally right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially because it was so revolutionary for the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think watching it now, you should
Speaker 4: feel a little icky about how it starts, right, So
Speaker 4: that is not something we would want to follow the
Speaker 4: example of ideally not back then and certainly not now.
Speaker 4: And I think I'm gonna have to sign But they're like,
Speaker 4: I have to give it a pass, even acknowledging that
Speaker 4: and wanting to take that seriously given the context that
Speaker 4: it was made in and also just the context of
Speaker 4: the rest of the movie, it's just it's not it
Speaker 4: fits the characters in a way, and Vivian would have
Speaker 4: been that nervous and it might have required a little
Speaker 4: bit of that kind of I don't want to say pushiness,
Speaker 4: but like, yeah, to get there, But like, is that great? No?
Speaker 4: Does it sort of work in the movie, yes? And yeah,
Speaker 4: I think again, like contextually for the time, our understanding
Speaker 4: of consent has changed. And I would also just like
Speaker 4: I would, I would assume that like some of those
Speaker 4: more toxic elements of how we considered consent or how
Speaker 4: it was displayed in movies, or what we expected from
Speaker 4: certain characters and movies certainly would have bled into this
Speaker 4: in a way that wasn't great. Like for sure, it's
Speaker 4: not entirely avoidable even by the best queer filmmakers. So
Speaker 4: all those things can be true at the same time.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, absolutely, And I think that like if this
Speaker 2: movie were made today, it is something that could be fixed, Yeah,
Speaker 2: with slight dialogue adjustments, and the scene could play out
Speaker 2: the exact same way, which I think is like another
Speaker 2: reason why I'm like it. It doesn't feel like it
Speaker 2: is the coercive language is necessary to the scene or
Speaker 2: the dynamic like it can be removed, sure.
Speaker 4: And we could take out the what we call this
Speaker 4: like a surprise naked instead of surprise a surprise undressed.
Speaker 2: Surprise, the jumps care nudity. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Another thing of note to mention regarding this sex scene
Speaker 3: is that the distribution company of this movie, the Samuel
Speaker 3: Goldwyn Company, insisted that the sex scene be cut down,
Speaker 3: but Donna Ditsch refused. She said, hell no, I get
Speaker 3: final cut, and they relented thankfully, which is incredible, incredible,
Speaker 3: Yeah right, Yeah. It reminded me of the documentary This
Speaker 3: Film Is Not Yet Rated, which examines how films with
Speaker 3: queer sex scenes are perceived as being more explicit and
Speaker 3: graphic than heterosex scenes, even if the blocking the cinematography,
Speaker 3: the amount of nudity is basically identical to the heterosex scene,
Speaker 3: So movies with queer sex scenes will often get like
Speaker 3: NC seventeen ratings. Now that is not the case for
Speaker 3: Desert Hearts, it is rated are but oftentimes films with
Speaker 3: queer sex scenes will be like rated in such a
Speaker 3: way that it makes them a lot less accessible to
Speaker 3: general audiences. So I just wanted to point that out
Speaker 3: and then also point out the fact that even though
Speaker 3: the sex scene is steamy, it's not graphic.
Speaker 4: No, like I mean, you do get you get nipple
Speaker 4: on nipple, which.
Speaker 2: Is yes, very fun.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, No, it is not particularly graphic I think
Speaker 4: as queer sex scenes, so go in terms of what
Speaker 4: we get in movies, it is on the more graphic end,
Speaker 4: which is to say that usually they're just super toned down.
Speaker 4: I think for all the reasons that you stated when
Speaker 4: they're afraid to get NC seventeen ratings, because that was
Speaker 4: a real consideration. But no, I think it's a beautifully
Speaker 4: blocked and shot sequence and it's definitely more than we
Speaker 4: were getting at the time, and still more than we
Speaker 4: get in a lot of movies in a way that
Speaker 4: still feels tasteful. I mean as it it tasteful because
Speaker 4: I'm like, let's, you know, bring it, do whatever, but
Speaker 4: like in a way that feels like it makes sense
Speaker 4: in the movie. And I think specifically of like blue
Speaker 4: is the warmest color, which I that sex scene makes
Speaker 4: me so uncomfortable for so many reasons. Yeah, as an
Speaker 4: example on the far side of that, but like, I
Speaker 4: think this one is really well done. I'm really glad
Speaker 4: that she pushed back and had it included how she
Speaker 4: wanted it to be done. But yeah, I mean, our
Speaker 4: existence is queer people is red as inherently hyper sexual
Speaker 4: or sexualized, often by sort of the straight world, and like,
Speaker 4: you know, one of the most common retorts you get
Speaker 4: is like, why are you shoving your sex life down
Speaker 4: our lives? And I'm like, I'm just I'm just existence,
Speaker 4: and I would like to exist as who I am,
Speaker 4: but it is it is read by some people, you know,
Speaker 4: in bad faith, I think, is being this inherently sexualized,
Speaker 4: sexualizing thing. And so yeah, that's definitely playing out in
Speaker 4: the in the movie world for a long time and
Speaker 4: still to this day that that bias exists, so totally
Speaker 4: all the more impressive that this scene ended up being
Speaker 4: what it was.
Speaker 2: Totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Uh. The movie, believe it or Not, does
Speaker 3: pass the Bechdel test.
Speaker 2: Immediately and basically for the rest of every yes, yep, yes,
Speaker 2: nothing really more to say about it passes with flying colors,
Speaker 2: really every pair of women that talk to each other.
Speaker 2: It passes the bechel test. Again. The thing that I
Speaker 2: would single out there because there is some class diversity,
Speaker 2: there's no racial diversity present in the movie. And this
Speaker 2: is not necessarily completely absurd given the period of time
Speaker 2: and the amount of segregation that would have been present
Speaker 2: in the Reno divorce culture at this time, but that
Speaker 2: does not mean that there were no non white people
Speaker 2: in this environment as I think we're seeing, and just
Speaker 2: I think does play into the very general movie trope
Speaker 2: of a fixation on the white middle to upper class.
Speaker 3: Indeed thousand percent as far as our nipple scale goes,
Speaker 3: where we rate the movie on a scale of zero
Speaker 3: to five nipples, examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go a four point five on this one.
Speaker 3: I'm docking it just a little bit because of that.
Speaker 3: The scene that you can read is a little bit
Speaker 3: too coercive for our liking. And maybe I'm grading it
Speaker 3: on a curve kind of because this is such a groundbreaking,
Speaker 3: important film that paved the way for later films about
Speaker 3: and made by lesbians. And I hope that more people
Speaker 3: watch this movie and that it becomes more a part
Speaker 3: of the zeitgeist, because it should be a better known
Speaker 3: film than it already is. So four point five nipples,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna give one each to Donna Ditch, Jane Rule,
Speaker 3: Helen Shaver, and Patricia Charboneau, and then I'll give my
Speaker 3: half nipple to screenwriter Natalie Cooper.
Speaker 4: Love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna go four it half as well. I
Speaker 2: just adore this movie. I feel like it's on track
Speaker 2: to become one of my faves. It's so rewatchable, it's
Speaker 2: so beautiful. This is not to shut out a man,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna quickly do stuff.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: The cinematographer is Robert Elswit, who, in addition to being
Speaker 2: Jake Jillen Hall's godfather, was Paul Thomas Anderson's go to cinematographer.
Speaker 2: This was like the beginning of his career. But he
Speaker 2: we have covered so many movies that he shot. He
Speaker 2: did Bogie Nights, he did Punched Drunk Love, he did Gellie.
Speaker 2: He just wow, Wow.
Speaker 3: The last episode, well we have redo it. Who can say, oh.
Speaker 4: My goodness, please.
Speaker 2: There will be blood in her advice mission impossibilvies like
Speaker 2: he is like shot so many reties and this is
Speaker 2: so beautiful and I just wanted to shout out that
Speaker 2: it's just like very beautifully shot as well. But back
Speaker 2: to women, the only people who matter. I am going
Speaker 2: to give it four and a half nipples for all
Speaker 2: the reasons we've discussed, and I'm going to give those
Speaker 2: distribute those nipples to Donna Ditsch. I'm going to give
Speaker 2: one to Jane rule Icon she was so cool.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, I will distribute them between Hell and Schaeffer,
Speaker 2: Patricia Charboneau, Audre Lindley, and Andre Akers, who plays Silver.
Speaker 2: I love Silver.
Speaker 3: Yay, how about you, Emily.
Speaker 4: I think I'm gonna also I was. I was struggling
Speaker 4: between like a four and a four and a half
Speaker 4: as well. I adored this movie. I think it's fantastic.
Speaker 4: I also think it holds up really well in general.
Speaker 4: There was a complete lack of racial diversity in it.
Speaker 4: That again, even given the time, like there would have
Speaker 4: been people existing in this space that I want to
Speaker 4: I want.
Speaker 2: To send you though, this really really really great Ebony
Speaker 2: article from I think the sixties or seventies about the
Speaker 2: specifically black divorce scene in Reno, which was also very
Speaker 2: vibrant and fascinating, and no one talks about it, and
Speaker 2: I want to see a movie about it, so I'll
Speaker 2: then I'll send you that link to include, and.
Speaker 4: Please please also just send it to me. I want
Speaker 4: to read this. It sounds fantastic, it's terrific.
Speaker 2: I want more. I want Reno cinema to be a
Speaker 2: thriving subgenre. It's so interesting, it feels like a rich text.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think because of that, and because of
Speaker 4: the slightly dubious consent in the sex scene, and all
Speaker 4: the reasons you've already talked about I'll go with the
Speaker 4: four and a half as well, because I just love
Speaker 4: this movie too much not to get that close to
Speaker 4: a five. And I will also evenly distribute it between
Speaker 4: all of the women who are involved in making this
Speaker 4: film and those beautiful horses whose faces we got to see.
Speaker 2: Oh shout outful faces horse girl representation.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much, Emily for joining us for
Speaker 3: this amazing discussion. Please come back any time, truly.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you so much. I would love to come back.
Speaker 3: For g Lee, just kidding. Tell us where people can
Speaker 3: follow your work, follow you on social media, et cetera.
Speaker 4: Sure, I am extremely online, so it's pretty easy to do.
Speaker 4: You can follow well, I'd say my public Instagram is
Speaker 4: my DJ account because I'm a dirty DJ, so it's
Speaker 4: just DJ Underscore milbot m I L L B O T.
Speaker 4: I'm also at Emilymills dot oorg for my sort of
Speaker 4: general professional stuff. And if you want to follow my
Speaker 4: band or Damsel Trash, because you got you got me
Speaker 4: coming up of a gig weekend, so I got to
Speaker 4: shout out my band Daniel Trash, which just put out
Speaker 4: a brand new album. People might be interested if you
Speaker 4: like fun, silly punk rock with lots of feminism and
Speaker 4: sex and politics. I love it at Damsel Trash pretty
Speaker 4: much everywhere and on band camp as well. And shout
Speaker 4: out to Megan Rose, my partner crime and Damsel Trash,
Speaker 4: who can be with us today but is an incredible
Speaker 4: human being as well.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we'll have the both of you back for
Speaker 3: a different episode.
Speaker 4: We would love that very much. This has been such
Speaker 4: a pleasure. Thank you so much. Oh my gosh, thank
Speaker 4: you so appreciate it.
Speaker 3: You can follow us on Instagram at Bechdel Cast. You
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Speaker 3: release two bonus episodes every single month, always based on
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Speaker 3: it's me Caitlin signing off alone because everyone else had
Speaker 3: to run, but rest assured that we are all going
Speaker 3: to hop on a train together, maybe for the next
Speaker 3: forty minutes, maybe to spend the rest of our lives together. Bye.
Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
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Speaker 3: And Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by
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