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Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions asked if movies have

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Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and

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Speaker 1: husbands or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy. Zeph

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Speaker 1: and bast start changing with the Bechdel Cast.

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Speaker 2: Whatever happened to baby Jamie?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever happened to you Jamie?

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Speaker 3: Well, here's what I did. I locked you in a

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Speaker 3: room and started feeding your rats. That's what That's what happened.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.

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Speaker 3: It's it's we're sort of two sister coded people who

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Speaker 3: live in Los Angeles. Maybe this could be maybe we

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Speaker 3: are you know, it's not aspirational, no, but it's nice

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Speaker 3: to have options. It's just nice to have options.

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Speaker 2: You know. We might have to move in together. Someday.

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Speaker 3: I could see. I think more likely I could see

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Speaker 3: like us, you know, doing more of a Gray Gardens situation. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I would really enjoy it. I know we have never

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Speaker 3: really covered well, I guess we've covered a few documentaries

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Speaker 3: on the show over the years, but that would be

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Speaker 3: that would be an interesting one to talk about.

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Speaker 2: Indeed, isn't that a mother daughter pairing? It is mommy?

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Speaker 3: No, I guess I don't know which Edy I more

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Speaker 3: identify with. I'm sure it changes as you as you age.

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Speaker 3: I've got to revisit it. Anyways, speaking of two women

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Speaker 3: in a house having a difficult time, we are we

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Speaker 3: are doing a long awaited episode of the bechel Cast today,

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Speaker 3: another movie that I'm like, I can't believe it took

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Speaker 3: us nine years to get to it, but I'm so

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Speaker 3: glad that we're here. But first, what the hell is

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Speaker 3: this show? Caitlin?

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Speaker 4: What is this?

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Speaker 3: What are we doing here?

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Speaker 2: I'll tell you well, first of all, my name is Caitlin,

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Speaker 2: my name is Jamie, Baby Jamie, you're baby Jamie, and I'm.

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Speaker 3: Old, old Kaitlyn brutal.

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Speaker 2: This is the Bechdel Cast, our podcast where we examine

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Speaker 2: movies through an intersectional feminist lens. Using the Bechdel test

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Speaker 2: simply is a jumping off point, just a way to

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Speaker 2: get the conversation going, a conversation among women, perhaps.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And this movie really is a great example of

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Speaker 3: how women can talk about so many things. The Bechdel test,

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Speaker 3: of course, created by now friend of the show, Alison Bechdel,

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Speaker 3: originally as a one off joke in her comic strip

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Speaker 3: Likes to Watch Out For that has since become a

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Speaker 3: mainstreamified media metric. The version of the test we use

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Speaker 3: requires that two characters of a marginalized gender speak to

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Speaker 3: each other about something other than a man, which, as

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Speaker 3: becomes clear in this movie immediately, is.

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Speaker 2: Not a problem that this movie has not at all.

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Speaker 3: But let's get our wonderful returning guests into the mix.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely. She is a pop culture critic for New York

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Speaker 2: Magazine's site Vulture. You can find her at her substack

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Speaker 2: Mad Women and Muses. And you remember her from our

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Speaker 2: episode on Miss Juneteenth. It's Angelica Jade Basti.

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Speaker 4: Hey, go bye, Hey. I am so happy to be

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Speaker 4: here talking about some of my favorite dames. You know,

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Speaker 4: I love the classic Hollywood brads, what fascinating fascinating women actually, Like,

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Speaker 4: just watched Marty Supreme a screener of it the other day,

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Speaker 4: and so I've been thinking a little bit about like

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Speaker 4: the idea of a classic Hollywood star and the actual

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Speaker 4: reality of a classic Hollywood star, because obviously, in the movie,

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Speaker 4: which takes place in nineteen fifty two and stars everybody's

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Speaker 4: favorite young, very online man, Timothy Shallowy, Gwyneth Paltrow plays

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Speaker 4: a former Hollywood star who was really big in the thirties,

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Speaker 4: and it's like really interesting because it's like I was, like, Howl,

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Speaker 4: who would she be? Who would be like sort of

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Speaker 4: a reflection of the character she's playing, but like was

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Speaker 4: an actual star in the thirties, and I couldn't pinpoint

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Speaker 4: anyone it would make sense to compare her to. But

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Speaker 4: it sort of made me think that, like, Hollywood really

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Speaker 4: loves to terror form its own past and history in

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Speaker 4: a way that's very dishonest about it and like sort

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Speaker 4: of softens a lot of things and makes a lot

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Speaker 4: of the narratives around these people like simple and also

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Speaker 4: mythic in a way that doesn't recognize the complexity of

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Speaker 4: their humanity. And you know, a lot can be said

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Speaker 4: about whatever happened to Baby Jane, But I really do

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Speaker 4: feel both performers, Joan Crawford and Betty Davis are really

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Speaker 4: really keeping in mind the humanity of their characters and

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Speaker 4: the humanity underneath this like very arch, brutal, violent circumstance.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm well, I'm curious what your history with this

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Speaker 3: movie is as well, because it does feel like so

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Speaker 3: directly in conversation with the history and obviously with the

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Speaker 3: careers of its stars, and as we were talking about

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Speaker 3: before we started recording, there is a lot of misinformation

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Speaker 3: around this movie, around this production specifically, And I also

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Speaker 3: feel like the more I was sitting with it and

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Speaker 3: doing some reading, like with this genre in general, which

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Speaker 3: we've talked about on the show before. But I'm I'm

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Speaker 3: excited to hear your thoughts about it. Yeah, what's your

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Speaker 3: history with this movie?

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Speaker 4: So I would say in high school, I went to

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Speaker 4: an art high school. They called it a strand, but

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Speaker 4: basically it's like a major, and my major was film.

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Speaker 4: And so in that time period, as I'm really starting

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Speaker 4: to get into feminism, like I remember reading Belle Hooks's

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Speaker 4: you know, book on Black feminism from like Margin to Center.

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Speaker 4: And I was also getting into Betty Davis at the time,

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Speaker 4: like she you know, because we're watching like a lot

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Speaker 4: of different films in film class, and so I got

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Speaker 4: into classic Holleywood that way. But the first time I

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Speaker 4: watched this movie was thanks to my college class star

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Speaker 4: a tour on Betty Davis. So it was a whole

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Speaker 4: class just on Betty Davis.

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Speaker 3: That's really cool.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, like those I really credit my college professor, Jeffrey

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Speaker 4: john Smith with sparking criticism as something that actually really

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Speaker 4: interests me because I never really thought about it. I

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Speaker 4: was going to college for screenwriting. It was a few

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Speaker 4: years after college I like genuinely gave criticism a shot.

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Speaker 4: And I think the classes I took with him, which

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Speaker 4: were year as a tour on Betty Davis, star as

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Speaker 4: a tour on Carrie Grant, and a whole class on

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Speaker 4: Gone with the Wind, which is crazy to do.

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Speaker 2: I still have never seen that movie. It's like one

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Speaker 2: of my big.

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Speaker 4: You know, I'm it's very complicated that movie where because

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Speaker 4: on one hand, I'm like, this is one of the

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Speaker 4: most racist movies to ever exist, that has really fueled

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Speaker 4: the Lost Cause, the mythology that exists in the South

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Speaker 4: about itself that's like very inaccurate and glorify. But also

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Speaker 4: Scarlett O'Hara is like you can draw a clear line

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Speaker 4: from Scarlett O'Hara and Vivian les Lee's performance of her

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Speaker 4: to like Rosamund Pike playing Amy Dunn and Gone Girl,

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Speaker 4: like I really think I see you kind of.

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Speaker 2: She's Gone with the Wind girl.

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Speaker 4: Kind I mean, Scarlett O'Hara is a crazy woman, like

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Speaker 4: very intense, fascinating fucked up character. And if you look

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Speaker 4: at the movie Gone with the Wind as a movie

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Speaker 4: about white people telling on themselves, it becomes like very

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Speaker 4: interesting of a thing of a work to study. But yeah,

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Speaker 4: I got introduced to Whatever Happened to Baby Jane in college,

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Speaker 4: and I was so struck by it and got really

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Speaker 4: into the exploitation or sometimes called psycho biddy genre that

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Speaker 4: really started or coalesced with this movie and then became

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Speaker 4: a thing where classic Hollywood actresses who had gotten a

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Speaker 4: little older, which is like really just their forties and fifties,

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Speaker 4: were now called to play these like very intense archetypal

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Speaker 4: like sometimes violent, deranged, usually completely mad women and horror

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Speaker 4: thrillers or like just intense psychological dramas, and like the

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Speaker 4: genre starts to form and like really coalesces with Whatever

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Speaker 4: Happened to Baby Jane, which was released in nineteen sixty two.

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Speaker 4: My own mother wasn't even born yet.

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Speaker 3: Its kind crazy, that's yeah, there's I mean, I was

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Speaker 3: really struck by how I mean, obviously, especially the Betty

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Speaker 3: Davis character is played to look much older, but yeah,

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Speaker 3: they're in their fifties.

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Speaker 4: They're in their like fifties. Yeah, it's kind of crazy

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Speaker 4: because you like, on one hand, we also have to

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Speaker 4: keep in mind, like people were drinking and smoking in

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Speaker 4: ways that people don't drink and smoke now. So I

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Speaker 4: also think people get way too obsessed with the idea

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Speaker 4: of what does it mean to like look your age,

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Speaker 4: what does it mean to look younger? We should value

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Speaker 4: looking younger and remaining forever youthful, which I think has

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Speaker 4: led to some weird phases in Hollywood where like now

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Speaker 4: everybody's face they can't move in the movies that they're

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Speaker 4: supposed to be emoting in, and it's like, I'm like,

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Speaker 4: I don't believe in like talking shit about individual people's

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Speaker 4: classic surgery. I do not think that's the move. But

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Speaker 4: there is like a very We're in a very interesting

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Speaker 4: place with the face of women in Hollywood, and it's

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Speaker 4: like nobody knows how to really talk about it because

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Speaker 4: it is a very sensitive thing to talk about and

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Speaker 4: like hardline to tread, where you're like, hey, this is

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Speaker 4: a thing that's just kind of like happening overall, and

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Speaker 4: it's also affecting the art, like for all of classic

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Speaker 4: Hollywood's BS, which I mean racist, sexist in ways that

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Speaker 4: are like violent and astounding. Yeah, and even with like

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Speaker 4: Arita Hayworth having such a transformation because of you know,

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Speaker 4: the studio system wanting to make her into a more

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Speaker 4: accessible star, you know, all those sort of and that's

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Speaker 4: also very racialized. They weren't doing the kind of work

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Speaker 4: we see today because that kind of work didn't wasn't refined,

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Speaker 4: didn't exist in the same way.

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Speaker 3: They would have if they could have, but they couldn't.

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Speaker 4: Probably, But like what that means is that there is

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Speaker 4: an individuality to the beauty you see in classic college

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Speaker 4: or I think in Hollywood and just in general, before

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Speaker 4: like the you know, two thousand and twenty tens, people

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Speaker 4: look even the beautiful stars, they still look like people.

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Speaker 4: They still had some touching imperfections that in a way

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Speaker 4: kind of heightens oh, like the beauty elsewhere. Like I

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Speaker 4: always think of, like how Elizabeth Taylor's so gorgeous, but

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Speaker 4: she has such a high pitch like range voice when

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Speaker 4: you like listen to her. And I always thought that

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Speaker 4: like contradiction was so interesting. Now stars don't have contradictions.

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Speaker 4: They're very smooth and algorithmically perfect, and it's like that

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Speaker 4: really takes something away from the performances, you know, Betty

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Speaker 4: Davis would say, you need your characters to be larger

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Speaker 4: than life. But also she was very very keen on

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Speaker 4: like the psychology of her characters and adjusting how they

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Speaker 4: look to reflect that, which is why she She's the

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Speaker 4: one who decided upon the makeup for Baby Jane, which

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Speaker 4: is like really fascinating to me.

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Speaker 3: She is I love with Betty Davis specifically. I know

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Speaker 3: that this has been said about her a lot, but

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Speaker 3: it's just like, I just love especially in that time

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Speaker 3: that she wasn't like she insisted on looking like shit

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Speaker 3: if that is what the character required, Like I think

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Speaker 3: of I think it's that like that scene that I

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Speaker 3: think it's dark Victory, where like starting you know, very

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Speaker 3: early her career, she's like, you know, no, I'm not

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Speaker 3: going to like make a performance pretty if that is

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Speaker 3: not what the performance requires, and you know, it's like

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Speaker 3: that's the job. But also even at the time like

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Speaker 3: that that was unusual to be doing and I just yeah,

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Speaker 3: it is not something that has improved with time, and

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Speaker 3: and I agree, I mean I don't I don't know

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Speaker 3: how to properly have the conversation around it, but it

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Speaker 3: but we've got to figure it out because it does,

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Speaker 3: I mean whatever. I mean even seeing period pieces, watching

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Speaker 3: period pieces is different now because you whatever, the expectations

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Speaker 3: in Hollywood require you have a face that could not

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Speaker 3: have existed past a certain year.

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Speaker 4: Right exactly exactly. It just makes me like sad because

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Speaker 4: I think, like, honestly, expectations for women's looks have always

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Speaker 4: been bad, Like it's just always been bad, right, But

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Speaker 4: this is like a new level of like like self

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Speaker 4: optimizing to the point that you're almost superhuman, like you

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Speaker 4: look like modeled after a cyborg rather than like it's

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Speaker 4: like they made cyborg versions of these stars, And I'm like,

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Speaker 4: what's what's going on? I just find it. I think

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Speaker 4: I'm also feeling very affected because it's like I'm noticing

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Speaker 4: actresses who are like my age, you know, the Lindsay

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Speaker 4: Lohans and you know, well, Anne Hathaway's like a couple

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Speaker 4: of years she's in her early forties, but like in

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Speaker 4: my age range, doing very specific work like facelifts and

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Speaker 4: stuff like that. And I'm like, wait a minute, this

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Speaker 4: is way is this really what's expected of women at

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Speaker 4: like in their mid thirties early forties. That's like, also,

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Speaker 4: how are people's faces going to look in ten years,

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Speaker 4: I like really wonder that too, because it's like there's

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Speaker 4: trends in the plastic surgery too, And that's what I

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Speaker 4: find like most interesting is like people are getting like

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Speaker 4: work done that makes them all sort of blend in

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Speaker 4: more with each other, which I think is more like

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Speaker 4: it's the more like, well, I don't really know how

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Speaker 4: to take this and how am I you know, like

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Speaker 4: and you'll notice with like you know, when people get

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Speaker 4: like botox in their upper lip, it causes them to

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Speaker 4: kind of purse their lip in a certain way. And

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Speaker 4: Emma Stone was doing it so much in Begonia. I

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Speaker 4: was like, this is so this is so fascinating to me,

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Speaker 4: But how do we actually talk about this without like

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Speaker 4: putting a new expectation onto these actresses? Like and I don't.

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Speaker 4: I don't think we're there yet.

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Speaker 2: It's complicated, it is.

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Speaker 3: It is very complicated, particularly like the I think what

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Speaker 3: now that like I now that there's like working actors

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Speaker 3: ten fifteen years younger who are also like it just

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Speaker 3: concerns me. I think the first time I knew of

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Speaker 3: someone who is like a friend of mine, who is

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Speaker 3: not even an actor, getting like preventative botox beginning when

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Speaker 3: she was I think like twenty six or something like that.

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Speaker 3: Like I mean that is like unbelievably common now, is

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Speaker 3: like preventive work being marketed and sold.

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Speaker 4: I don't know.

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Speaker 3: And it just feels like the age where that is

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Speaker 3: expected keeps getting younger and younger and younger, and uh

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Speaker 3: and it I think, yeah, like echo your sentiment, Angilicay,

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Speaker 3: it makes me sad, like it makes me sad for everyone,

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Speaker 3: and that it even extends beyond entertainment now because of

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Speaker 3: like the culture of self surveillance exactly, we.

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Speaker 4: See our faces so damn much now, like we're yeah,

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Speaker 4: like do I need to see my face that much?

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Speaker 4: My grandmother wasn't seeing her face that much.

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Speaker 2: I'm looking at my face right now or it's like

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Speaker 2: zoom call.

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Speaker 3: And I just like it. Yeah, like the culture that

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Speaker 3: we live in. It just like there are pictures I've

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Speaker 3: seen of myself that I didn't know I was being photographed,

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Speaker 3: And then I think those are the moments that I

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Speaker 3: was like, oh, should I should I think about it?

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Speaker 3: Should I? Because our moments where I wasn't even able

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Speaker 3: to like participate in you know, consenting or like whatever

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Speaker 3: it is. It's just I feel for especially you know,

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Speaker 3: like younger people whose brains are still developing and like having.

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Speaker 2: That be locked in.

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Speaker 3: All that to say, I mean, like I guess getting

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Speaker 3: back to this movie specifically, this movie feels I mean

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Speaker 3: in this genre, I like it interacts with these ideas

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Speaker 3: directly and with mixed results. So there's some shit in

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Speaker 3: this genre.

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Speaker 4: I think a problem with the genre is one a

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Speaker 4: lot of male directors, and not all of them were

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Speaker 4: the kind of male directors that you know, like a

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Speaker 4: George Kukor who had like genuine intimate friendships with women

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Speaker 4: and saw them as people worthy of study and like care,

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Speaker 4: keyword study and care, because I think the exploitation genre

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Speaker 4: can really fall into gawking at these women. Yeah, and

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Speaker 4: even the performances by the actresses can sometimes seem like

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Speaker 4: brittle and ostentatious in a way that you can feel

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Speaker 4: they're remove from the character, like they look down upon

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Speaker 4: that character and her desires of being wanted and like Yeah,

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Speaker 4: and so it can be a really rough genre to

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Speaker 4: watch sometimes, but it's also it can be really really

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Speaker 4: interesting and I think says a lot about how we

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Speaker 4: think of women aging, and like I think a lot

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Speaker 4: of representations of womanhood in Hollywood believe that as a

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Speaker 4: woman ages, her life becomes less interesting and she has

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Speaker 4: less to live for, and that I think is very galling.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, This to me is like the ultimate example

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Speaker 3: of or one of the more interesting examples of whatever.

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Speaker 3: The thing that we're still told now, which is that

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Speaker 3: it is too risky to have a movie centered on

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Speaker 3: older women be released, and that is almost never true.

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Speaker 3: There's I mean, I think of it like spanning genres

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Speaker 3: of like what a surprise hit The First Wives Club was,

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Speaker 3: like all of these movies that feature older women that

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Speaker 3: you're told are you know, not supposed to be successful?

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Speaker 3: And then are this is another example of that, like there,

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Speaker 3: and I feel like the reason that we're told that

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Speaker 3: is because you're just being told how you know, Hollywood

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Speaker 3: as an industry feels about the target audience, which is

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Speaker 3: other women and queer people generally. So I was I

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Speaker 3: didn't actually know much about how successful this movie was

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Speaker 3: and it's time, but it makes total sense that it was.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it was pretty successful, Like it was made for

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Speaker 4: a little less than a million because like Robert Aldridge,

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Speaker 4: who it actually let let me give a little paint

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Speaker 4: a little picture because the getting this movie made was

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Speaker 4: very hard for people because no studio wanted to fund

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Speaker 4: this and they were like, these women are just some

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Speaker 4: old bras. No one cares about these women, and it

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Speaker 4: was actually surprisingly Joan Crawford came to Betty Davis with

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Speaker 4: the book Yes, and was like, I think you would

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Speaker 4: be really fireing this, and I think we need to

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Speaker 4: do it to get and that's why this movie has

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Speaker 4: so many meta layers, and it's very like if you

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Speaker 4: know the actual history of these women, there's like a

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Speaker 4: humor about playing with the image you expect of them

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Speaker 4: as stars. So it was really hard for Robert Aldrich

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Speaker 4: to get it made, but it eventually was picked up

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Speaker 4: for distribution by Betty Davis's former studio, Warner Brothers, and

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Speaker 4: it made back its entire budget the first weekend over

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Speaker 4: that so like it was in the black very quickly,

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Speaker 4: and both Joan Crawford and Betty Davis had points on

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Speaker 4: the back end. They got paid very little for the

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Speaker 4: actual movie, like fifty thousand dollars or something. I was

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Speaker 4: rereading Betty Davis's This and That, her second memoir, but

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Speaker 4: the points on the back end many meant they actually

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Speaker 4: ended up making a nice coin from the movie, but

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Speaker 4: it shows how much they had faith in the project,

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Speaker 4: even though these women did not get along, but were

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Speaker 4: very professional in a lot of on the set, even

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Speaker 4: though and that's sort of nice nasty, like I'm being cordial,

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Speaker 4: but I actually don't like you. But we both know

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Speaker 4: this is a good project, so let's like not let's

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Speaker 4: not rock the boat. Let's try to like make this

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Speaker 4: work as much as possible.

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Speaker 2: It's like the end of Chicago when the women approach

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Speaker 2: each other and they're like, we don't like each other,

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Speaker 2: but what if we work together and people will love

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Speaker 2: it exactly?

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Speaker 4: That's yeah.

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Speaker 3: It really is just a powerful link up between two

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Speaker 3: women who probably hate each other. I liked, I mean,

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Speaker 3: I really enjoyed going back through history and that. There

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Speaker 3: is also a great two part series that be kind

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Speaker 3: Rewinded on YouTube that sort of like recaps this whole

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Speaker 3: story that I think she released in response to how

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Speaker 3: much misinformation was in the Ryan Murphy feud show. That's

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Speaker 3: good a show that, yeah, like we were talking about

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Speaker 3: before we started recording, has a ton of misinformation but

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Speaker 3: does have Alfred Molina. So it's challenging for me.

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Speaker 4: It is I think he's really good in that role,

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Speaker 4: and like I think the you know, Jessica Lang as

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Speaker 4: Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Betty Davis is like

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Speaker 4: good casting. But it's like, I think the show has

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Speaker 4: such a limited imagination about these women, and I have

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Speaker 4: like kind of a really big rant that have gotten

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Speaker 4: me a lot of heat when I like published a

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Speaker 4: piece on this, like in twenty sixteen or so like

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Speaker 4: a while ago on Vulture, where I like, I get

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Speaker 4: really angry when like actresses like Joan Crawford and Betty

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Speaker 4: Davis are looked at as primarily camp figures, because I

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Speaker 4: think in some ways, looking at women as these sort

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Speaker 4: of like glorious divas with all these like specific like

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Speaker 4: vocal and physical tics who are just so arched they're

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Speaker 4: meant to be parodied by or beloved by a drag

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Speaker 4: queen figure is so limiting to their artistry and story,

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Speaker 4: and it like can sometimes be backhanded praise. And I

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Speaker 4: think it's very important to like keep in mind, like

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Speaker 4: they weren't always looked at like this. This is something

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Speaker 4: very late, like late in their career they started being

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Speaker 4: looked at like this, especially Betty in the eighties, like

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Speaker 4: has like, you know, she has a huge gay following.

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Speaker 4: Joan did too. But I sometimes worry about the way

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Speaker 4: we talk about the legacy of women like this through camp.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true. I mean I think John Crawford is

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Speaker 3: a particularly interesting example. And like we'll do a separate

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Speaker 3: episode on Mommy Dearest, another movie you think we would

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Speaker 3: have covered by now, but we haven't.

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Speaker 4: But you know how you know.

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Speaker 3: Mommy dearist is a camp movie versus what the subject

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Speaker 3: matter is. I don't know, I've only seen the movie once,

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Speaker 3: but I feel like, yeah, particularly kind of the further

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Speaker 3: you go back in Hollywood history. It's in one sense,

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Speaker 3: like with one hand, I'm like, yeah, like, you know,

402
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Speaker 3: the drag performances are great, and they are intended to

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Speaker 3: honor them. But in the other sense, it's like, well,

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00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 3: there's more to these women that isn't really discussed or

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Speaker 3: thought about. And both, I mean Joan and Betty were

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Speaker 3: both and I know that the Mommy Dearest conversation is

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Speaker 3: a very, very very complex one, but they were sort

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Speaker 3: of accused of similar behavior by their respective daughters. And

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Speaker 3: Betty Davis's daughter is in Baby Jane.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she plays the neighbor woman's daughter, I believe. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: And speaking of Mommy Dearest. To get into my history

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Speaker 2: with this movie, with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, I

413
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:42,720
Speaker 2: had never seen it before prepping for this episode, but

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Speaker 2: I knew some imagery from it, particularly the image of

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Speaker 2: Betty Davis in her like vaudeville makeup that just looks

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Speaker 2: kind of weird in the context of nineteen sixty two.

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Speaker 2: Had that image in my head, and I associated that

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Speaker 2: image with Mommy Dearest because there's an image from that

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Speaker 2: movie where the Joan Crawford character, because it's a movie

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Speaker 2: about Joan Crawford, who is in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,

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Speaker 2: But there's that image of her with like the colon. Yeah, yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 2: And so I just associated these two movies together. But

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Speaker 2: point is, I had never seen Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,

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Speaker 2: and there's so much to talk about. I liked it

425
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Speaker 2: as much as my brain allows me to enjoy a

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Speaker 2: very stressful movie. But yeah, I can't wait to dive

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Speaker 2: in further. Jamie, what is your history with this movie?

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Speaker 3: It had been a few years since I've seen this,

429
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Speaker 3: but I've seen it many times over the years. I

430
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Speaker 3: was as as many of us were. It was TMC child.

431
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Speaker 3: I was a child of the or TCM TCM. I

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Speaker 3: was a child of the TCM channel. I was later

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Speaker 3: to appreciate Betty and Joan. They weren't my favorite those

434
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,359
Speaker 3: kids I was. I was a Judy Garland girl. That

435
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:16,679
Speaker 3: was where my bread was buttered at the time. But

436
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:22,119
Speaker 3: I do remember seeing this as a kid and enjoying it,

437
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 3: maybe closer to the way it was intended to be

438
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 3: enjoyed at the time, in a gawky like scary kind

439
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 3: of way, and so then returning to it years later,

440
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:33,880
Speaker 3: and just like how frequently this movie comes up in

441
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 3: feminist circles and how it you know, inspired a very

442
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:41,119
Speaker 3: trouble genre. It feels like such a I'm trying to

443
00:25:41,119 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 3: think of, Like I've been struggling all morning to connect

444
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 3: like what I want to compare this to. But for

445
00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 3: a movie that has sort of set off this genre

446
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 3: that is still with us, the Substance came out last year.

447
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:55,440
Speaker 3: I thought your piece about it was very, very interesting,

448
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 3: but like, this is a genre that's been with us

449
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 3: for you know, over half a cent now, But it

450
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:03,879
Speaker 3: feels like a case of like when you watch the

451
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 3: movie that inspired it. You're like, oh, and then, as

452
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:10,199
Speaker 3: happens so frequently, all of the wrong lessons were learned

453
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:15,679
Speaker 3: from What makes this movie work? Because I really like

454
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:18,399
Speaker 3: this movie. I think that the you know, it doesn't

455
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 3: work without the two leads, like there is a very

456
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 3: bad version of this movie that could have existed. But I, yeah,

457
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:28,119
Speaker 3: I have a lot of love for this movie. The

458
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 3: performances are just like unreal and it was.

459
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 1: Yeah.

460
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 3: I hadn't watched it in a few years, and I

461
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 3: feel like every time I rewatch it, I remember the

462
00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 3: importance of how how many side characters there are. I

463
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:41,919
Speaker 3: think I think of this as like two women in

464
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 3: a house, which it mostly is, but I don't know,

465
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:49,919
Speaker 3: like every performance and every new character that's introduced is important.

466
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 3: So I'm excited to get into it.

467
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back

468
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 2: for the recap. Cool, and we're back, and we'll place

469
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 2: a content warning here for all of it domestic and

470
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 2: familial abuse and violence. This is not a tonally light movie.

471
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 2: We'll say, Okay. The story opens in nineteen seventeen. We

472
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:37,119
Speaker 2: meet Baby Jane Hudson, a child vaudeville performer who is

473
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 2: a big star, she's doing sold out shows.

474
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:44,040
Speaker 3: She's singing in a damn earworm that I also remembered

475
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 3: every time. I'm like, great letter to Daddy's gonna be

476
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 3: stuck in my head.

477
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 4: For this song.

478
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 2: It's creepy.

479
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 4: So I just this is like not a great association.

480
00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:02,440
Speaker 4: But I just like watched the Demi film Donkey Skin,

481
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:04,679
Speaker 4: which of course made me think more about the fairy

482
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 4: tale because the movie doesn't really deal with the center

483
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 4: of that fairy tale, which is like basically a king

484
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 4: who is married to a wonderful queen. She gets sick

485
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 4: before she dies. She's like, yeah, you can only marry

486
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 4: someone who's more beautiful than me. Then he's like distraught

487
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 4: and terrible, and then he looks at his daughter and

488
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:27,239
Speaker 4: is like, hmm, what if I marry It's yeah, So

489
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 4: it's that, And so I kept thinking, like, does she

490
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 4: want to screw her dad? Like like Betty Davis, Like,

491
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:35,239
Speaker 4: especially when you see her older singing it, You're like,

492
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 4: this is some weird psycho sexual, obsessive weirdness.

493
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 3: But I think that that is what we're supposed to

494
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 3: because feel like that's almost like mirrored with Edwin Flagg

495
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 3: and his mom, where it's like dacine and what's going

496
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 3: on here? Who? Also, I always kind of forget about

497
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 3: Evan Flagg and not to be slept on such a

498
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 3: weird performance. But yeah, anyways, Letter to Daddy two thousand

499
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 3: down but made very catchy, very catchy. I like that,

500
00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 3: you know whatever. She sings it much later in the movie,

501
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 3: and we're supposed to be like, oh my gosh, she's

502
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 3: such a bad siggert. I'll say that the kid didn't

503
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 3: have the sauce either. No, that kid couldn't.

504
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 4: Sing at all, And like, yeah, we'll obviously get into

505
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 4: the sequence of her singing it as an adult, because

506
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,880
Speaker 4: I think there's multiple ways we're supposed to like take

507
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 4: her singing this and like her obsession with that damn

508
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 4: doll she gets in the nineteen seventeen her my.

509
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 2: Sized Barbie very yep, yeah, yeah, because the venue that

510
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 2: she performs at sells these lifelike they're so large, two

511
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 2: big dolls of baby Jane. And because of all this,

512
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 2: because of her child's stardom and the doting that she receives,

513
00:29:56,080 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 2: she's quite spoiled and entitled, because children do not know

514
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 2: how to navigate this type of fame and child stardom

515
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 2: should be not allowed. But anyway, we get all this

516
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 2: information established. We meet her father as well. He is

517
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 2: her manager and fellow performer sometimes. And then we meet

518
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:21,360
Speaker 2: Baby Jane's sister Blanche, who is not in the spotlight

519
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 2: and perhaps resents this or at least resents that her sister,

520
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 2: Baby Jane is a spoiled brat. We cut to I

521
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 2: think like eighteen years later. It's nineteen thirty five. The

522
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 2: tables have turned. Blanche is now the successful movie star,

523
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 2: and Jane is also an actor. But the Hollywood big

524
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 2: wigs think that she stinks and she only gets cast

525
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 2: in movies because Blanche's contract states that for every film

526
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 2: she stars in, her sister Jane also gets a film role.

527
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 3: I forgot to look this up. This is like actual

528
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 3: older footage of the actresses. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, because

529
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 3: I recognized the John Crawford when I didn't recognize the Betty.

530
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:12,959
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was trying to figure it out. Let me

531
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 4: bring up.

532
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:20,160
Speaker 2: They pull footage from So for Betty Davis's younger roles,

533
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 2: they're from a movie called Parachute Jumper and Ex Lady

534
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 2: they're both from nineteen thirty three.

535
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 4: Ex Lady, I have seen, Yeah, and.

536
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 2: Then the Joan Crawford footage they pull from a movie

537
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 2: called Sadie McKee from nineteen thirty four.

538
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 4: I love that dress she wears in that, but that's

539
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 4: how I always recognize it. Yeah, it's interesting thinking about

540
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 4: where their careers were actually at at the time, because

541
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 4: like Betty Davis was in her blonde phase in the

542
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 4: thirties where like nobody really knew exactly what to do

543
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 4: with her yet. But as you get like deeper into

544
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 4: the decade, especially with like of human bondage, she's like

545
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 4: the thing about Betty is she was known as being

546
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 4: an actor's actor versus Joan Crawford was considered like the

547
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 4: glamour girl who's very beautiful and has a loure, but

548
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 4: she's not. You don't go to her movies for acting.

549
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 2: Right sure?

550
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And John, I mean I feel like

551
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 3: speaking to and be kind every one, like sort of

552
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 3: makes this point repeatedly in her video essay about it.

553
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 3: Like Joan played the game, yeah, and played it well,

554
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 3: And Betty Davis was more known for resisting the game

555
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 3: and suing the studio and like pushing forward in a

556
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 3: very different way. But like Joan Crawford for her many faults,

557
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 3: she was really good at being famous, and like I

558
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 3: mean the fact that she she's a good producer for

559
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:52,600
Speaker 3: getting this movie made in the first place and seeing

560
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 3: that there was both an advantage for both of these

561
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 3: actors and that people wanted it in a way that like,

562
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 3: of course every man around them would not believe.

563
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 2: Right. So yeah, so it's the nineteen thirties, Blanche is

564
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 2: now the famous star and Jane is kind of like

565
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 2: riding her coattails. One night, we see someone driving Blanche's car,

566
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 2: we see another woman in a driveway of a house,

567
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 2: and the woman driving the car seems to deliberately speed

568
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 2: toward the woman in the driveway and mow her down.

569
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 2: But we never see anyone's face, so we don't know

570
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:37,880
Speaker 2: who has done what, but we can assume that it

571
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 2: was Jane who drove into Blanche because we cut too

572
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 2: many years later. Blanche, played by Joan Crawford, is disabled

573
00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 2: and uses a wheelchair. She and Jane played by Buddy

574
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 2: Davis live together in a house and Jane takes care

575
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:01,840
Speaker 2: of Blanche. However, they're really relationship is very contentious, and

576
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 2: they seem to deeply resent each other. We meet a

577
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 2: woman named Elvira played by Madie Norman, who comes to

578
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: the house a couple times a week to help with

579
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 2: housekeeping and caring for Blanche, and Elvira shows Blanche fan

580
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 2: mail that she's received that Jane apparently intercepted, opened, and

581
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 2: then threw away, and this is only the beginning of

582
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:32,320
Speaker 2: Jane's bad deeds.

583
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:35,760
Speaker 3: Well, it also felt like, just like with the parallels

584
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 3: between these two women and their characters, my understanding is

585
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 3: this was also something that was happening for about these

586
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 3: actors at the time because movies were televised now, and

587
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 3: like older movies were being televised, and so there was

588
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:50,760
Speaker 3: sort of this researched interest in both of these actors

589
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 3: and just I don't know, I I generally really like

590
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 3: the kind of mirror images that are introduced between them,

591
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 3: because that would have been happening for, you know, a

592
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:03,359
Speaker 3: new generation of John Crawford fans at the time.

593
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:06,280
Speaker 2: Right, Because I think when we cut to years later,

594
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 2: it's like contemporary for the time, like the movies shot

595
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:13,399
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty two, and I think it's also taking

596
00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 2: place in the early sixties.

597
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah.

598
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:19,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we start to get a sense that Jane

599
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:25,759
Speaker 2: is maybe not behaving well, especially because the next thing

600
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 2: she does is let Blanche's pet bird escape from its cage.

601
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 2: She like does this on purpose. Alvirah senses this. Alvira

602
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 2: does not trust Jane at all. Then Jane calls a

603
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 2: liquor store to place an order and they refuse to

604
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 2: fill the order at first, So Jane pretends to be Blanche,

605
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 2: and we find out that Jane is able to do

606
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:54,239
Speaker 2: a spot on impression of her sister, and we'll put

607
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 2: a pin in that because that's basically like Chekhov's vocal impression.

608
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 3: I also forgot to I kept I like wrote down

609
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 3: look this up, and then didn't. Was that Betty Davis

610
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 3: doing that? Or was she lip syncing Crawford?

611
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:10,920
Speaker 4: I think she's lip synching Crawford because it just sounds

612
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 4: so the first time she does it, it looks like,

613
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 4: straight up like she's just doing I mean, maybe she's

614
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 4: just the best lip syncer, which could be the truth,

615
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 4: because it does sound like it just sounds like Crawford's

616
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 4: manner of speaking is very light. But I'm also like

617
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:33,480
Speaker 4: it's Betty Davis. Maybe she just has practiced making fun.

618
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 3: Of John Crawford was like, yeah, she might have had

619
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 3: a lot of know thy enemy sort of reps before.

620
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,839
Speaker 3: I okay, yeah, I was curious either way.

621
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell one way or the other. But yeah,

622
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 2: but we the audience are to understand that Jane can

623
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:54,839
Speaker 2: do a spot on impression of Blanche. Meanwhile, we learn

624
00:36:55,400 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 2: that Blanche intends to call a doctor about Jane because

625
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 2: because Jane has been a bit mentally unstable recently. And

626
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 2: we learned that Blanche intends to sell the house they

627
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 2: live in and Blanche will move out and live with Elvira,

628
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 2: seemingly to distance herself from Jane. And Blanche tries to

629
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 2: talk to Jane about this about you know, like selling

630
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:28,359
Speaker 2: the house, but she's not honest about why, and she

631
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 2: like kind of puts the blame on their business manager.

632
00:37:31,800 --> 00:37:34,839
Speaker 2: But Jane sees right through this, and she realizes that

633
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:37,760
Speaker 2: Blanche is trying to get rid of her, So things

634
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:42,840
Speaker 2: like kind of escalate from here. Jane retaliates by taking

635
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 2: away the phone that Blanche has access to. So Blanche

636
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:50,799
Speaker 2: lives in the like second story of the house, and

637
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 2: her limited mobility means that she can't go downstairs. There's

638
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 2: no sort of like elevator or anything that gives her

639
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:01,560
Speaker 2: access to the first floor, So she's kind of trapped

640
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 2: on the second floor.

641
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:06,200
Speaker 3: Which does appear to be by design, ye, Jane, so

642
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:08,480
Speaker 3: that Jane remains in control exactly.

643
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so Jane takes away Blanche's phone, and then

644
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 2: Jane serves Blanche the dead bird that she let escape

645
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 2: and then apparently killed for lunch.

646
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 4: Yeah, she just killed that bird and was like, she

647
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 4: killed that bird. Oh, this is gonna be perfect for

648
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:28,760
Speaker 4: her lunch.

649
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 2: It's like so so she's like, here's a dead bird,

650
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 2: and we're like, uh oh.

651
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:38,319
Speaker 4: I mean she has it on a silver tray. She

652
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 4: like serves tea and she hides it, so like she

653
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 4: doesn't know immediately that her lunch is her dead pet bird,

654
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 4: which also means like it cues you in early on, like, oh,

655
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,920
Speaker 4: Jane isn't just a little kookie. She's actually violent and

656
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:57,760
Speaker 4: diaball with dangerous and she has the capability to kill

657
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,080
Speaker 4: a bird just to get under her sister's skin.

658
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 2: Yeah.

659
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 4: Yes.

660
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 2: Then Jane leaves the house for a bit to place

661
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:14,719
Speaker 2: an advertisement in the newspaper looking for a musical accompanist.

662
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:17,360
Speaker 2: I can never say this word. A companies melt it

663
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:23,760
Speaker 2: for performances that she wants to put on, and while

664
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:28,759
Speaker 2: Jane is running this errand Blanche takes this opportunity to

665
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 2: try to ask her neighbor, missus Bates, for help. So

666
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 2: Blanche writes a note instructing the neighbor to call the doctor.

667
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 2: And Blanche throws this note out the window, but before

668
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 2: missus Bates can pick it up and see it, Jane

669
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:48,799
Speaker 2: comes back home and sees the note, reads it, and

670
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:52,439
Speaker 2: then taunts Blanche about it, being like, oh, you want

671
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 2: me to see a doctor? Huh, well, screwed.

672
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 4: You get it.

673
00:39:57,719 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 3: I think something that is done. I again like I

674
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 3: because I sort of I don't think about the side

675
00:40:04,719 --> 00:40:07,880
Speaker 3: characters in this movie as much is whatever in a

676
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:12,239
Speaker 3: movie that can be very over the top. I thought that,

677
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:17,359
Speaker 3: like in this abusive, clearly abusive relationship, the ways in

678
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:20,719
Speaker 3: which everyone around them is sort of aware of it,

679
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 3: but no one knows, either doesn't know what to do,

680
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:31,680
Speaker 3: or worries about seeming impolite or like socially inappropriate by

681
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 3: drawing attention to it. I thought was like, because we

682
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 3: see that in certainly in Elvira's character, but also in

683
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 3: the neighbors repeatedly, like everyone knows something is off, and

684
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 3: they're also like unsure or unwilling to do something about it,

685
00:40:47,080 --> 00:40:49,880
Speaker 3: and that that I don't know just like rang very true.

686
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:55,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're like, I can't disrupt social etiquette even

687
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 2: if someone is trapped in their house and being abused

688
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 2: by a family member.

689
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 3: And to some extent Blanche as well. I mean, like

690
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 3: one of the scenes that really broke my heart this

691
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 3: time that's coming up in a bit is that when

692
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 3: there is another person in the house with Jane, when

693
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:17,279
Speaker 3: Edwin is in the house, like a part of you

694
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 3: is like scream Blanche, Like, but I think she's so

695
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 3: afraid of her sister, and I also think, I don't know.

696
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:26,800
Speaker 3: I guess this was just my read of it this time,

697
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 3: the social fear of like not being believed or looking vulnerable,

698
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,760
Speaker 3: and that would you know, she values how she's perceived

699
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 3: by others, and I don't know it just like it

700
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,759
Speaker 3: broke my heart on this view of like definitely, because

701
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:45,920
Speaker 3: she's holding herself back from getting the help that she

702
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 3: needs as well.

703
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 2: For sure. So now Blanche is horrified, she's afraid to

704
00:41:53,239 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 2: eat the food Jane brings her, especially because the ars

705
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:00,359
Speaker 2: to meal has a dead rat in it, and it's uge.

706
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 4: It is so funny because it's like, okay, So she

707
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 4: gets a pepper for lunch and then Jane like, you

708
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 4: know something's up, because Jane was like.

709
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 2: Do you know we have rat rats in the basement.

710
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 4: You know we're dealing with rats, and you know, I

711
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 4: remember when I first watched it, I was like, oh, laurd,

712
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 4: how's a rat gonna pop up?

713
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:22,799
Speaker 3: And it popped up for dinner, it popped up. I

714
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:28,280
Speaker 3: do love how Betty Davis's Din Din very funny.

715
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 2: He didn't eat to Din Din. Okay, So Blanche again,

716
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 2: she's trapped upstairs with no way of calling for help,

717
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 2: no way of leaving the house. Meanwhile, we meet Edwin

718
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 2: Flagg played by Victor Rubuano, who is a musician who

719
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 2: sees Jane's ad in the paper, so he and his

720
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 2: mother contact Jane to set up an audition of sorts,

721
00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:02,160
Speaker 2: kind of like a meeting in interview, and he shows

722
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:06,280
Speaker 2: up at the house. He's desperate for work and income,

723
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:11,040
Speaker 2: so he flatters Jane and pretends to know who she

724
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:14,839
Speaker 2: is and does all this stuff to kind of patronize

725
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 2: and humor her, and she gladly accepts it and she

726
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 2: really likes Edwin as a result, and she's super excited

727
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:25,799
Speaker 2: about working with him. So we find out that she's

728
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 2: hoping to revive her vaudeville act, and she's dressed in

729
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 2: a similar outfit and hairdoo as when she was a

730
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:39,880
Speaker 2: little girl performing in nineteen seventeen. And while they're meeting,

731
00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 2: Blanche rings her buzzer to alert Jane that she needs something,

732
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 2: and Jane is furious that Blanche is interrupting this meeting.

733
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:55,919
Speaker 2: She strikes Blanche and accuses her of preventing Jane from

734
00:43:55,920 --> 00:44:00,840
Speaker 2: ever having any friends. Blanche is desperately pleading with Jane,

735
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 2: but Jane storms out and the two of them. Jane

736
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:09,719
Speaker 2: and Edwin leave a short time later, so Blanche once

737
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 2: again takes this opportunity to try to get help. She

738
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 2: climbs out of her wheelchair and slowly makes her way

739
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:19,280
Speaker 2: down the stairs and to the telephone that's down there,

740
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:24,360
Speaker 2: where she manages to call doctor Shelby, saying that Jane

741
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 2: is very unwell and he needs to come over right

742
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 2: away to tend to the situation. But Jane walks in

743
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:38,439
Speaker 2: on this phone conversation. She starts beating Blanche and then

744
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:43,760
Speaker 2: calls doctor shelby back, imitating Blanche's voice saying never mind,

745
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 2: we don't need you after all. Jane actually went to

746
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:52,800
Speaker 2: another doctor, so Blanche's plans are thwarted. Then Elvira shows

747
00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:56,360
Speaker 2: up and Jane is like, we don't need you today

748
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 2: or ever again. Actually you're fired. Then Jane leaves again,

749
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 2: but Elvira is very skeptical of this situation, so she

750
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:11,240
Speaker 2: sneaks into the house and discovers that Jane has locked

751
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 2: Blanche in her room and Blanche is not responsive on

752
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:18,880
Speaker 2: the other side. So when Jane returns home, Elvira is like,

753
00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 2: what have you done, you monster? Give me the key

754
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:26,840
Speaker 2: to the door, and she does so. Elvira unlocks the

755
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 2: door and sees that Jane has tied Blanche up in

756
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 2: her bed, so Elvira goes to help, but then Jane strikes,

757
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:38,760
Speaker 2: and I believe kills Elvira.

758
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 4: She kicks a hammer hammer to the head. It's also

759
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:46,759
Speaker 4: pretty clear when you see Blanche is like, oh, she's

760
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 4: probably not getting any food or water. This woman is

761
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 4: literally starving to death. And there's actually something very very

762
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 4: interesting to me about the exchange between Elvira and Jane.

763
00:45:57,719 --> 00:46:01,239
Speaker 4: When Elvira confronts her because you're like, okay, so how

764
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:03,840
Speaker 4: is this going to go? Because Jane is obviously unwell,

765
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 4: there's going to be some sort of violence, but like

766
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 4: how quick are they going to go to the violence?

767
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:11,440
Speaker 4: And I thought it was interesting because Elvira is a

768
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 4: black woman and like this you know maid who comes

769
00:46:16,560 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 4: in and cleans and all this stuff. But what happens

770
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 4: in their argument is that Jane revers to being very

771
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:27,760
Speaker 4: girlishly immature and child like and kind of cowering, while

772
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:31,239
Speaker 4: Elvira says something that I thought was super fascinating, which is,

773
00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 4: you've got to be a grown woman like everyone else.

774
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 4: And there was something about that that I don't think

775
00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 4: the movie's like aware, but on a racial level, there's

776
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:44,080
Speaker 4: something very interesting about a black woman telling this white

777
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 4: woman so lost in her own past you have to

778
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 4: grow the fuck up.

779
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:48,279
Speaker 2: Yeah.

780
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 4: There's something just so rich and meaty in that moment.

781
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:54,359
Speaker 4: And I think the Elvira character like really stood out

782
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:55,400
Speaker 4: to me on this watch.

783
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, she also has so much more discernment than any

784
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:03,400
Speaker 2: other character, where she's the one who's like, hey, Blanche,

785
00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:07,920
Speaker 2: your sister's acting really weird, and don't you think it's

786
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 2: weird that you've never seen this fan mail. She's throwing

787
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 2: it away. She's the one to realize that. When Jane's like, oops,

788
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,359
Speaker 2: the bird flew out of its cage, sorry about it,

789
00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:21,760
Speaker 2: Elvira is like she let that bird go on purpose,

790
00:47:21,800 --> 00:47:24,879
Speaker 2: Like that was no accident. Like she's able to read

791
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:28,800
Speaker 2: Jane for exactly who she is and what she's doing.

792
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:32,759
Speaker 3: The Madie Norman performance is really cool. I mean, just

793
00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 3: like how this movie. I mean, it's good on its

794
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:38,760
Speaker 3: own terms, but like the performances really make it where

795
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 3: you know, there are sometimes where Elvira is sent away

796
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:45,759
Speaker 3: basically for plot reasons. Yeah, but you can see, like

797
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 3: I believe it because of Madie Norman's performance where you

798
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 3: can see her thinking in a way that actually like

799
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 3: does make sense, where she's like, ooh, is this do

800
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:56,040
Speaker 3: I want to get involved with this right now? Is

801
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:58,560
Speaker 3: this something that I okay, I'll come back next week,

802
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 3: Like she keeps coming back. She is concerned, but it

803
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 3: takes a little bit of time, as I feel like

804
00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 3: it very often does in these situations, and that there

805
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:12,040
Speaker 3: is I mean, I hate that she dies via Betty

806
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:15,919
Speaker 3: Davis Hammer, but that the again just like the we

807
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 3: you know, the reason that Jane is caught is because

808
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:23,680
Speaker 3: Elvira's family is looking for her, which in movies that

809
00:48:23,719 --> 00:48:27,480
Speaker 3: I expect loose ends. This movie doesn't really have very many.

810
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 3: And yeah, Elvia is such a great character, and to.

811
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:35,799
Speaker 2: Your point, Jamie about Elvira's family looking for her. A

812
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 2: short time after this, Jane gets a call from the

813
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:43,400
Speaker 2: police about Alvira because her cousin had reported her missing.

814
00:48:44,200 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 2: So Jane freaks out. She runs into Blanche's room. She's crying,

815
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:52,480
Speaker 2: She's saying that everything is falling apart and no, she

816
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:55,840
Speaker 2: didn't mean to hurt anyone. Yeah, she can't believe that

817
00:48:55,920 --> 00:48:58,719
Speaker 2: she ran her own sister over with the car all

818
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 2: those years ago, and Blanche is like, hmmm, actually I

819
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 2: have something to tell you about that accident, but Jane

820
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 2: is like, shut up, I don't want to talk about it,

821
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 2: and then they're interrupted when Edwin shows up. He has

822
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:16,959
Speaker 2: found out from his mother that his new employer, baby

823
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:21,720
Speaker 2: Jane Hudson, had tried to murder her sister many years prior.

824
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 3: Or so people say, or so people say. Uh.

825
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 2: Then he comes into the house and he discovers Blanche upstairs,

826
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 2: tied up and trapped by Jane. So he's like, oh

827
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,919
Speaker 2: my god, my mom was right, So he runs out

828
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:37,799
Speaker 2: looking for help. Presumably.

829
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:40,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, the second Edwin sequence this movie does very much

830
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 3: stick to the fact that men don't know anything and

831
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:48,360
Speaker 3: can into it absolutely nothing for the entire runtime, because

832
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 3: Edwin has to be told by his mother like, hey,

833
00:49:51,239 --> 00:49:53,319
Speaker 3: maybe this is not a safe environment, even though she

834
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:54,160
Speaker 3: has bad info.

835
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 4: You know, he's not I don't know.

836
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:58,360
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess he is picking up red flags.

837
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 3: But Edwin carrying himself through the world like I can

838
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 3: fuck anyone I want. I walk into room and she's mine,

839
00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:07,479
Speaker 3: Like he fully intends to go and do the same

840
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:08,840
Speaker 3: exact thing to Blanche.

841
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:12,880
Speaker 2: And well, there's also a class thing happening where he's

842
00:50:13,040 --> 00:50:16,239
Speaker 2: desperate for income, so he's just willing to kind of

843
00:50:16,400 --> 00:50:19,680
Speaker 2: look the other way when it comes to red flags

844
00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:23,439
Speaker 2: he might be picking up on. But he's just like this,

845
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 2: you know, these rich women, this rich woman or this

846
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:29,719
Speaker 2: woman I perceived to be rich, is going to pay me,

847
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:33,800
Speaker 2: and I desperately need income. But anyway, that whole.

848
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:37,360
Speaker 3: Scene between him and Jane, where for very different reasons,

849
00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 3: they are just lying to each other.

850
00:50:39,239 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 2: The entire scene, Yeah.

851
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 3: Is so good. It's so good.

852
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:46,200
Speaker 2: They're lying to each other, they're also interrupting each other

853
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 2: because they just are not literally want to talk about themselves.

854
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 3: They're not listening to each other's I that was another

855
00:50:53,239 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 3: scene that really stuck out to me on this on

856
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,360
Speaker 3: this watch, because I feel like that the whatever cultural

857
00:50:57,400 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 3: takeaway is her performing you know, Daddy again, which is

858
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:05,440
Speaker 3: an important part of the scene, but like not even

859
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,080
Speaker 3: in kind of like the top parts of what I

860
00:51:08,160 --> 00:51:09,440
Speaker 3: think is interesting about it.

861
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Okay, So now the jig is up, basically,

862
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:18,960
Speaker 2: and Jane is like, I need to flee from the law.

863
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 2: So she puts Blanche in the car and they drive

864
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:26,960
Speaker 2: to the beach because that's their hiding spot, I guess,

865
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:28,840
Speaker 2: and they just think hang out there for a while.

866
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:32,279
Speaker 4: I think it's a safe place for Jane because there's

867
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:35,759
Speaker 4: like a little exchange where she's like, Oh, we'll just

868
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 4: go away and then we can get ice cream and

869
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 4: then we can be in the suchon row. Oh, and

870
00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:41,759
Speaker 4: then the sun is gonna come up and it's gonna

871
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:44,600
Speaker 4: be so nice. And I was like, oh, she's like

872
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:50,239
Speaker 4: degrading into being pure child like yeah, and so it's

873
00:51:50,280 --> 00:51:54,640
Speaker 4: like she it's very interesting her crackup is drifting further

874
00:51:54,760 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 4: further into childhood and like making these very rash, like

875
00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:02,320
Speaker 4: nonsensical decisions that you can see is like her reaching

876
00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 4: for some sort of comfort, but she doesn't really know

877
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 4: how to get it properly.

878
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 2: Right, record, right, So they're hanging out on the beach,

879
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 2: Blanche is baking in the sun and lightly dying.

880
00:52:16,239 --> 00:52:19,360
Speaker 3: It's dire. Yeah, yeah, that's how I feel at the

881
00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:22,759
Speaker 3: beach though. I was like, I called grant of her.

882
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:24,319
Speaker 3: I was like, this is what we look like when

883
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:28,160
Speaker 3: we go to the beach in the trenches.

884
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:34,760
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Blanche confesses to Jane that during that fateful

885
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:39,040
Speaker 2: night with the car and the collision, it was actually

886
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 2: Blanche who was driving. She was the one who tried

887
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 2: to hit Jane with the car, but Jane dove out

888
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:51,440
Speaker 2: of the way and instead Blanche hit a gate and

889
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:55,640
Speaker 2: that's what caused the injury that disabled her. And then

890
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:59,880
Speaker 2: Blanche crawled out of the car and framed Jane for

891
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:04,640
Speaker 2: running Blanche over. And Jane was very drunk that night,

892
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:08,440
Speaker 2: so she apparently had no recollection of what actually happened,

893
00:53:08,680 --> 00:53:11,279
Speaker 2: so she believed that it must have been her who

894
00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:15,840
Speaker 2: was driving and caused the collision, and so after hearing

895
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:22,880
Speaker 2: this this like confession of what actually happened, Jane fully dissociates.

896
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:25,919
Speaker 4: Well. Right before then, though, she says like the most

897
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:29,160
Speaker 4: banger line of the ending, which is, you mean all

898
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:32,359
Speaker 4: this time we could have because been in France. Like

899
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 4: She's like like this dawning realization, like oh, like there

900
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 4: was a moment where like we could have gone in

901
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:42,880
Speaker 4: an actually different direction as sisters and like had a

902
00:53:42,960 --> 00:53:46,400
Speaker 4: much more stable relationship. And I thought it was interesting

903
00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:49,320
Speaker 4: that Blanche said I made you waste your whole life

904
00:53:49,719 --> 00:53:53,480
Speaker 4: thinking you know, you did this to me and like that, Yeah,

905
00:53:53,760 --> 00:53:58,000
Speaker 4: was like the first step into her becoming so childlike

906
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:00,839
Speaker 4: and like reverting to a past self that she felt

907
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:03,200
Speaker 4: had some control and happiness.

908
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:09,640
Speaker 3: Right, it's yeah that that conversation is so loaded, Betty

909
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 3: Davi is so good. It's like it's ridiculous.

910
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's.

911
00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:16,240
Speaker 3: A good it's a good to I almost I almost

912
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:20,799
Speaker 3: like that moment as an ending more than the actual ending,

913
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:23,360
Speaker 3: which felt very similar to Sunset Boulevard to me in

914
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:25,439
Speaker 3: a way that I feel like undercut what we just saw.

915
00:54:25,520 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 4: I don't know, I I agree like the twirling just completely.

916
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 4: I'm fully mad, like I think what Betty is doing

917
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 4: is interesting. But the flip side is it, like you

918
00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:39,280
Speaker 4: have the ending between the sisters, you know, and Blanche

919
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:41,960
Speaker 4: also says you weren't ugly, then I made you that

920
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:44,239
Speaker 4: way and it's just so, and then like you know,

921
00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:47,520
Speaker 4: she's obviously dead. But then it's like, oh if you

922
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:50,680
Speaker 4: end there like and you could end just like on

923
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:53,719
Speaker 4: Betty's face and we could like read like both the confusion,

924
00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:56,360
Speaker 4: the sorrow and the eventual just I'm going to retreat

925
00:54:56,360 --> 00:55:00,959
Speaker 4: into myself so far that I'm just completely I think

926
00:55:01,040 --> 00:55:05,040
Speaker 4: that sort of ending would have been more intelligent and

927
00:55:05,120 --> 00:55:09,320
Speaker 4: more caring towards the characters. By having the like twirling

928
00:55:09,440 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 4: while the police and everyone is looking at her and

929
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:15,480
Speaker 4: she's holding these ice cream cones and thinking like people

930
00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:18,360
Speaker 4: are really interested in her, it turns her into a

931
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 4: spectacle again. So it undercuts the emotional resonance of that

932
00:55:23,719 --> 00:55:26,839
Speaker 4: exchange between the sisters in a way totally. Yeah.

933
00:55:26,880 --> 00:55:29,279
Speaker 2: So basically what happens is she's like, I'm gonna go

934
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 2: get us ice cream. As she's doing that, a couple

935
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:36,879
Speaker 2: of cops find her because I guess Edwin had reported

936
00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:38,960
Speaker 2: what was happening to the police.

937
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:42,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it's on. It's on like the ratio. Yeah,

938
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:45,399
Speaker 4: And they're like looking for her specific car, and that's

939
00:55:45,440 --> 00:55:48,520
Speaker 4: what like cues the cops in because someone mentions, oh,

940
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 4: like there's like this car that's like kind of in

941
00:55:50,680 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 4: the way. Yeah exactly.

942
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:55,680
Speaker 3: I also, like, I think it's really like another just

943
00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:59,879
Speaker 3: little thing that I never noticed before. That Jane would

944
00:55:59,880 --> 00:56:02,960
Speaker 3: have maybe ben happier to be arrested if at least

945
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:06,359
Speaker 3: someone recognized her. But they recognize her car, it's not her.

946
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:13,160
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, right right, So the cops approach Jane and

947
00:56:13,239 --> 00:56:19,280
Speaker 2: this causes a crowd to gather. In the crowd thrills Jane.

948
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:21,480
Speaker 2: You know, she's finally back in the spotlight. So she

949
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:25,719
Speaker 2: starts twirling and dancing around, you know, very child like.

950
00:56:26,360 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 2: And then the movie ends with the cops seeing Blanche

951
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:34,319
Speaker 2: and running over to her, unclear if she's alive or not.

952
00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:37,680
Speaker 2: But that is the end of the movie. So let's

953
00:56:37,719 --> 00:56:50,760
Speaker 2: take another break and we'll come back to discuss.

954
00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:55,880
Speaker 3: And we're back where to begin?

955
00:56:56,360 --> 00:56:59,960
Speaker 2: Where, Angelica? Do you have any place you want to

956
00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:03,719
Speaker 2: We've already I mean we've already started the discussion.

957
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:11,319
Speaker 3: Yeah no, no, no, and demands discussion. I guess I mean,

958
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:14,320
Speaker 3: just to sort of close the loop on, and I

959
00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:16,760
Speaker 3: would love to hear other thoughts. And I know you

960
00:57:17,160 --> 00:57:18,960
Speaker 3: very likely know far more about it than we do,

961
00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:23,640
Speaker 3: with the whole idea of the feud and how these

962
00:57:23,720 --> 00:57:29,760
Speaker 3: characters were very intentionally meant to mirror the careers of

963
00:57:30,200 --> 00:57:33,400
Speaker 3: the lead actors. Just speaking to like, if you're a

964
00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:37,200
Speaker 3: listener that's like not super familiar with the actual history

965
00:57:37,200 --> 00:57:39,760
Speaker 3: behind it, or like maybe watch the Ryan Murphy series,

966
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:43,400
Speaker 3: like you know in twenty seventeen, and I don't know,

967
00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:46,880
Speaker 3: I think it is very funny objectively that you know,

968
00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:49,440
Speaker 3: now in twenty twenty five we know for a fact

969
00:57:49,560 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 3: we are not to trust Ryan Murphy with history, but

970
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:55,200
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen people were still like, I don't know,

971
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:56,840
Speaker 3: should we let him do it again? And now he

972
00:57:57,000 --> 00:58:01,480
Speaker 3: you know, is doing something completely different, But that there

973
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:04,520
Speaker 3: were it's from what I was able to gather, these

974
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:07,120
Speaker 3: two actors didn't like each other, but it like yours

975
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 3: saying Angelica, it wasn't she. She may not have even

976
00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:16,640
Speaker 3: cracked Betty Davis's top five of actors that actors or

977
00:58:16,720 --> 00:58:20,760
Speaker 3: institutions like. Betty Davis was famously in conflict with institutions

978
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:24,360
Speaker 3: and I always think it's interesting when the feud with

979
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:26,520
Speaker 3: the institution is like, well, we don't talk about that

980
00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:31,040
Speaker 3: because we want to celebrate and monetize Betty Davis's image,

981
00:58:31,080 --> 00:58:34,560
Speaker 3: So we shouldn't say that she really had an ax

982
00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:39,560
Speaker 3: to grind with Warner Brothers for years, but that like, yeah,

983
00:58:39,560 --> 00:58:42,920
Speaker 3: these women didn't like each other. There are false narratives

984
00:58:42,960 --> 00:58:46,920
Speaker 3: that date back to production that have been mostly debunked,

985
00:58:46,960 --> 00:58:51,320
Speaker 3: but are persistent about them, you know, getting into physical

986
00:58:51,360 --> 00:58:56,960
Speaker 3: altercations on set, them had like steal, like fucking the direct,

987
00:58:57,080 --> 00:59:00,160
Speaker 3: like doing all like seducing to get back at the other,

988
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:02,720
Speaker 3: and you know all this stuff that like you know,

989
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:07,200
Speaker 3: plays into a lot of you know, negative tropes around

990
00:59:07,560 --> 00:59:11,880
Speaker 3: women in general. And also was I think intended to

991
00:59:11,920 --> 00:59:15,000
Speaker 3: some extent to sell the movie. Selling the feud also

992
00:59:15,080 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 3: sold the movie. So I don't know, I mean, I

993
00:59:17,840 --> 00:59:22,080
Speaker 3: would be curious. I know that certainly Betty Davis commented

994
00:59:22,120 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 3: on this repeatedly throughout her career, and she's like a

995
00:59:26,320 --> 00:59:31,080
Speaker 3: famously very dynamic interview subject who kind of sometimes will

996
00:59:31,320 --> 00:59:35,440
Speaker 3: repeat rumors as fact. And but yeah, there by by

997
00:59:35,440 --> 00:59:38,400
Speaker 3: all accounts, including the director and other people close to

998
00:59:38,440 --> 00:59:41,120
Speaker 3: the production, there was you know that over the top

999
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 3: thing wasn't happening. It seems like it was a psychological

1000
00:59:44,840 --> 00:59:49,000
Speaker 3: or I love the I was just like, ooh, that

1001
00:59:49,120 --> 00:59:52,680
Speaker 3: is that is diabolical, the oscars it is.

1002
00:59:53,240 --> 00:59:56,520
Speaker 4: It is so fucked up what Joan did, and it's

1003
00:59:56,600 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 4: like really dark. Okay, just for some interesting context, if

1004
01:00:00,120 --> 01:00:02,920
Speaker 4: you've watched Feud, you would think that like Betty and

1005
01:00:03,080 --> 01:00:07,200
Speaker 4: Joan like were really competing as actors in a way,

1006
01:00:07,240 --> 01:00:09,440
Speaker 4: they weren't at the height of their career. At the

1007
01:00:09,480 --> 01:00:12,080
Speaker 4: height of their career, you know, first of all, Joan

1008
01:00:12,120 --> 01:00:15,520
Speaker 4: Crawford came to the industry before Betty. She was established

1009
01:00:16,480 --> 01:00:19,920
Speaker 4: before Betty came to the scene. And Joan was like

1010
01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:25,920
Speaker 4: the queen of MGM, while Betty was considered like the

1011
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:29,960
Speaker 4: like another Warner Brother That's how important she was to

1012
01:00:30,080 --> 01:00:34,160
Speaker 4: Warner Brothers bottom line. And she you know, she was

1013
01:00:34,200 --> 01:00:37,880
Speaker 4: a performer who liked to play old. She like played

1014
01:00:38,240 --> 01:00:41,840
Speaker 4: you know, characters that most people would find unsympathetic. She

1015
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:46,440
Speaker 4: like really pushed limits of female representation on screen. While

1016
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:52,160
Speaker 4: Joan really craved a sense of glamour, beauty and admiration.

1017
01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:56,360
Speaker 4: Betty almost liked people to not like her character in

1018
01:00:56,400 --> 01:00:59,600
Speaker 4: a way that's like she's she was a very abrasive woman.

1019
01:01:00,360 --> 01:01:04,840
Speaker 4: But what's like interesting about also them coming into the

1020
01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:07,200
Speaker 4: making of this movie, Like I said earlier, like Joan

1021
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:12,560
Speaker 4: Crawford brought her the project, and I think like they

1022
01:01:12,760 --> 01:01:16,240
Speaker 4: you know, eventually Joan Crawford did go to Warner Brothers

1023
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:19,200
Speaker 4: and like did like Mildred Peers, which she won, like

1024
01:01:19,240 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 4: her Oscar Force. So like there there's like professional issues,

1025
01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:26,560
Speaker 4: But there's something Betty Davis says and her memoir This

1026
01:01:26,680 --> 01:01:30,520
Speaker 4: and That that I think kind of exemplifies the differences

1027
01:01:30,600 --> 01:01:33,880
Speaker 4: between these women. And like I think issues they had

1028
01:01:33,920 --> 01:01:36,840
Speaker 4: on set were as much these women come to acting

1029
01:01:36,920 --> 01:01:40,160
Speaker 4: in a very different way as it was oh this,

1030
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:42,880
Speaker 4: Oh she's so much better than me, or actually I'm

1031
01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:46,320
Speaker 4: better than I think. It was like like a professional

1032
01:01:47,000 --> 01:01:49,880
Speaker 4: mismatch in a way, they like create in a very

1033
01:01:49,880 --> 01:01:54,200
Speaker 4: different way. And like one issue Betty had with Joan

1034
01:01:54,520 --> 01:01:57,360
Speaker 4: was like why is she making her character look so

1035
01:01:57,600 --> 01:02:01,120
Speaker 4: pretty like and and her and Robert Aldrich were like

1036
01:02:01,160 --> 01:02:04,560
Speaker 4: telling Joan, like, hey, don't wear this beautiful red nail polish,

1037
01:02:04,600 --> 01:02:06,880
Speaker 4: but obviously it's in black and white, which, by the way,

1038
01:02:07,160 --> 01:02:10,760
Speaker 4: they were originally going to shoot in color. Betty convinced

1039
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:15,000
Speaker 4: the producers to shoot it in black and white. Queen auteur,

1040
01:02:15,160 --> 01:02:16,600
Speaker 4: I would say, anyway.

1041
01:02:16,520 --> 01:02:18,880
Speaker 3: I'm gonna say that is the right choice for this.

1042
01:02:19,360 --> 01:02:23,320
Speaker 4: So the right choice. But Betty and Joan just had

1043
01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:25,920
Speaker 4: like just a very different approach to things, and like

1044
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:28,920
Speaker 4: Joan really wanted to still look glamorous because that's like

1045
01:02:29,120 --> 01:02:31,200
Speaker 4: very important to her to look good. So they had

1046
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:34,360
Speaker 4: to like really encourage her to, like, hey, like let's

1047
01:02:34,440 --> 01:02:38,480
Speaker 4: pare down the glamour and play up the vulnerability. And

1048
01:02:38,520 --> 01:02:41,080
Speaker 4: I do think Joan eventually did that well. But there's

1049
01:02:41,080 --> 01:02:43,560
Speaker 4: this passage that I'm gonna read from this and that

1050
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:46,280
Speaker 4: Betty Davis the second memoir that I think is really

1051
01:02:46,920 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 4: useful for how she sees herself and how she sees Joan,

1052
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:53,520
Speaker 4: which she's actually like she admits, like, yeah, there are

1053
01:02:53,560 --> 01:02:55,880
Speaker 4: things about this woman I didn't like. Like Joan tends

1054
01:02:55,880 --> 01:02:58,200
Speaker 4: to give gifts to like win people, and she was

1055
01:02:58,240 --> 01:03:01,560
Speaker 4: giving gifts to Betty and Betty Kip like sending them back,

1056
01:03:01,720 --> 01:03:03,400
Speaker 4: and like Betty was like, I don't want to be

1057
01:03:03,400 --> 01:03:04,600
Speaker 4: friends with you, Like what we?

1058
01:03:04,720 --> 01:03:04,960
Speaker 3: What do?

1059
01:03:05,160 --> 01:03:09,160
Speaker 4: Are we? Is this a joke? But Davis writes in

1060
01:03:09,200 --> 01:03:13,080
Speaker 4: her memoir quote where the producers were uneasy about how

1061
01:03:13,160 --> 01:03:16,360
Speaker 4: outrageous I wanted Jane to look. They had a problem

1062
01:03:16,400 --> 01:03:18,880
Speaker 4: of another kind with Joan. It was a constant battle

1063
01:03:18,920 --> 01:03:21,480
Speaker 4: to get her not to look gorgeous. She wanted her

1064
01:03:21,520 --> 01:03:24,240
Speaker 4: hair well dressed, her gowns beautiful, and her fingernails with

1065
01:03:24,320 --> 01:03:27,240
Speaker 4: red nail polish. For the part of an invalid who

1066
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:29,600
Speaker 4: had been cooped up in a room for almost twenty years.

1067
01:03:29,600 --> 01:03:34,280
Speaker 4: She wanted to look attractive. She was wrong, like Betty,

1068
01:03:35,440 --> 01:03:37,920
Speaker 4: and she continues, I understood why she did not want

1069
01:03:37,960 --> 01:03:41,000
Speaker 4: to look unattractive. She had been famous for her glamour

1070
01:03:41,080 --> 01:03:43,800
Speaker 4: all through the years, and there's no question that the

1071
01:03:43,800 --> 01:03:47,320
Speaker 4: glamour actresses made Hollywood the famous place it is today.

1072
01:03:47,840 --> 01:03:51,520
Speaker 4: The glamour's actresses at that time were Geene Harlow, Rita Hayworth,

1073
01:03:51,680 --> 01:03:55,720
Speaker 4: Joan Crawford, Lona Turner, Hetty Lamar, and of course, eventually

1074
01:03:55,760 --> 01:03:59,640
Speaker 4: Marilyn Monroe. The non glamorous types in which I group

1075
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:06,080
Speaker 4: myself were Hepburn, Tracy Cagney, Fonda Bogart. The non glamorous

1076
01:04:06,120 --> 01:04:08,440
Speaker 4: group were all from theater and had been brought to

1077
01:04:08,440 --> 01:04:11,680
Speaker 4: Hollywood at the beginning of talking pictures. At present Hollywood

1078
01:04:11,680 --> 01:04:14,840
Speaker 4: made lament the lack of stars as glamorous as those

1079
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:18,000
Speaker 4: I have just listed, So it's like sort of backhanded,

1080
01:04:18,000 --> 01:04:20,680
Speaker 4: but also like she's like, no, I admit, it's the

1081
01:04:20,720 --> 01:04:23,840
Speaker 4: women like Joan who built the image of Hollywood that

1082
01:04:23,960 --> 01:04:26,840
Speaker 4: we continue to kind of chase. And she talks about

1083
01:04:26,840 --> 01:04:31,160
Speaker 4: throughout the chapter that she finds Joan like very professional,

1084
01:04:31,280 --> 01:04:33,480
Speaker 4: She's always on time, she knows her lines, like she

1085
01:04:33,600 --> 01:04:41,080
Speaker 4: cares about the picture like very very much. But a

1086
01:04:41,160 --> 01:04:45,880
Speaker 4: big problem was the Oscar thing. So Betty gets nominated

1087
01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:48,200
Speaker 4: for Best Actress for her role and whatever happened to

1088
01:04:48,240 --> 01:04:53,080
Speaker 4: baby Jane, Joan ain't having that, so this.

1089
01:04:53,160 --> 01:04:54,080
Speaker 3: Was all her idea.

1090
01:04:54,360 --> 01:04:58,440
Speaker 4: I was like, I, you know, yes, which is cuckoo bananas. So,

1091
01:04:58,600 --> 01:05:03,240
Speaker 4: like Joan decided to base basically okay, I'm just gonna

1092
01:05:03,280 --> 01:05:06,200
Speaker 4: read it. She reached out to all the other Oscar

1093
01:05:06,240 --> 01:05:09,760
Speaker 4: nominees and offered, if you can't come to the ceremony,

1094
01:05:09,840 --> 01:05:14,400
Speaker 4: I will gladly pick up your Oscar for you, dampholic.

1095
01:05:15,160 --> 01:05:18,600
Speaker 4: I will accept on your behalf, and then Betty kind

1096
01:05:18,600 --> 01:05:21,640
Speaker 4: of sets the scene. That year, each nominee sat in

1097
01:05:21,680 --> 01:05:24,880
Speaker 4: a separate dressing room backstage, equipped with a TV monitor.

1098
01:05:25,200 --> 01:05:28,200
Speaker 4: I was with my publicity man and Michael and b

1099
01:05:28,400 --> 01:05:32,120
Speaker 4: d her children were out front. When Anne Bancroft's name

1100
01:05:32,880 --> 01:05:36,439
Speaker 4: was announced. I am sure I turned white. Moments later,

1101
01:05:36,520 --> 01:05:39,479
Speaker 4: Crawford floated down the hole past my door. I will

1102
01:05:39,520 --> 01:05:42,640
Speaker 4: never forget the look she gave me. It was triumphant.

1103
01:05:42,960 --> 01:05:46,280
Speaker 4: The look clearly said you didn't win. And I am elated.

1104
01:05:46,640 --> 01:05:50,040
Speaker 4: And like, you know, Betty like really valued the Oscar.

1105
01:05:50,120 --> 01:05:53,640
Speaker 4: She's one of the most nominated actors in Oscar history

1106
01:05:54,040 --> 01:05:55,800
Speaker 4: U ten nominations.

1107
01:05:55,880 --> 01:05:58,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, so she's like she would have been the first to.

1108
01:06:00,280 --> 01:06:03,320
Speaker 4: Three can Yeah okay, And so she really wanted that,

1109
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:06,200
Speaker 4: And like I firmly believe she should have won for

1110
01:06:06,680 --> 01:06:10,360
Speaker 4: all about Eve or whatever happened to Baby Jane, and

1111
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:14,120
Speaker 4: that caused like genuine animosity between them. So I find

1112
01:06:14,120 --> 01:06:17,640
Speaker 4: it interesting that so much a feud and the reputation

1113
01:06:17,800 --> 01:06:21,720
Speaker 4: of their like animosity is born from like Betty wasn't

1114
01:06:21,880 --> 01:06:24,360
Speaker 4: glamorous and no one wanted to fuck her, but everyone

1115
01:06:24,400 --> 01:06:27,120
Speaker 4: wanted to fuck Joan. But Joan was jealous of this

1116
01:06:27,240 --> 01:06:29,200
Speaker 4: and did it, and they like rooted in like the

1117
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:32,360
Speaker 4: male relationships they had sometimes like them trying to curry

1118
01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:34,520
Speaker 4: favor with men. But I really think a lot of

1119
01:06:34,520 --> 01:06:38,640
Speaker 4: their issues were like these are very different women and

1120
01:06:38,800 --> 01:06:41,920
Speaker 4: professional things, where it's like now they are in a

1121
01:06:42,080 --> 01:06:46,080
Speaker 4: more of a competitive thing they previously were, because now

1122
01:06:46,120 --> 01:06:49,080
Speaker 4: they're like this woman is actually affecting her Oscar chances,

1123
01:06:49,520 --> 01:06:53,440
Speaker 4: and like Joan was like actively helping other people's campaigns,

1124
01:06:53,840 --> 01:06:56,760
Speaker 4: so she really really did not want Betty to win,

1125
01:06:56,840 --> 01:06:59,280
Speaker 4: and like Betty says in her memoir, like, hey, I

1126
01:06:59,280 --> 01:07:01,520
Speaker 4: actually think this was really dumb because it's like we

1127
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:03,920
Speaker 4: have points on the back end if I won the Oscar,

1128
01:07:05,040 --> 01:07:08,920
Speaker 4: that would have like raised the profile of the movie exactly.

1129
01:07:09,000 --> 01:07:14,840
Speaker 4: But she so petty and so like venomous towards Betty

1130
01:07:15,080 --> 01:07:18,920
Speaker 4: that like she old Trump what would actually be useful

1131
01:07:18,920 --> 01:07:21,760
Speaker 4: for her in the long run, which is really sad.

1132
01:07:21,880 --> 01:07:25,400
Speaker 4: I think what's very interesting about reading about women in

1133
01:07:25,400 --> 01:07:29,320
Speaker 4: classic Hollywood is like how they had to navigate other

1134
01:07:29,440 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 4: women because the world around you is putting you in

1135
01:07:32,120 --> 01:07:35,919
Speaker 4: competition with other women. And like Betty was always told

1136
01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:39,000
Speaker 4: you're not attractive, you don't have sex appeal, Da da

1137
01:07:39,040 --> 01:07:42,640
Speaker 4: da da da, And of course that would affect any

1138
01:07:42,680 --> 01:07:47,840
Speaker 4: woman hearing that like consistently, and like Betty was sometimes

1139
01:07:47,960 --> 01:07:51,600
Speaker 4: like she had, you know, friendships with people like Olivia

1140
01:07:51,680 --> 01:07:55,880
Speaker 4: de Haviland, who ends up taking on Joan Crawford's role

1141
01:07:56,160 --> 01:08:01,600
Speaker 4: in Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, another Hackstation movie that Robert

1142
01:08:01,680 --> 01:08:05,760
Speaker 4: Aldridge directed that was supposed to re teem her and Joan,

1143
01:08:06,000 --> 01:08:08,560
Speaker 4: but Joan pretended to be sick to get out.

1144
01:08:08,440 --> 01:08:10,640
Speaker 2: Of her contract. Oh wow.

1145
01:08:10,920 --> 01:08:13,160
Speaker 4: Like they started filming and Joan was like, I can't

1146
01:08:13,160 --> 01:08:16,200
Speaker 4: be and Betty was like, you can't be around me.

1147
01:08:16,320 --> 01:08:19,040
Speaker 4: You cost me the Oscar and I was getting over

1148
01:08:19,080 --> 01:08:20,920
Speaker 4: it to do this movie and you can't even do

1149
01:08:21,000 --> 01:08:24,400
Speaker 4: the movie. And so Betty reached out to Olivia to

1150
01:08:24,439 --> 01:08:27,320
Speaker 4: havelind and like convinced her to take on like this

1151
01:08:27,520 --> 01:08:30,479
Speaker 4: very villainous role that isn't typical for Olivia to havelin.

1152
01:08:30,720 --> 01:08:34,160
Speaker 4: Actually like Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte because it is very

1153
01:08:34,240 --> 01:08:38,479
Speaker 4: Southern Gothic, so it has a very different energy to

1154
01:08:39,040 --> 01:08:42,000
Speaker 4: Baby Jane, which feels like such a Hollywood movie steeped

1155
01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:47,840
Speaker 4: in Hollywood ideas and Hollywood as a sort of landscape.

1156
01:08:48,439 --> 01:08:50,679
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's a big reason why Joan and Betty

1157
01:08:51,000 --> 01:08:53,400
Speaker 4: don't get along. And like Betty, just like I think,

1158
01:08:53,400 --> 01:08:57,720
Speaker 4: also was tired of people always associating them together, because like,

1159
01:08:57,760 --> 01:08:59,800
Speaker 4: if you read about both of their lives, there's like

1160
01:09:00,760 --> 01:09:04,439
Speaker 4: far more important figures that were like instrumental to them

1161
01:09:04,680 --> 01:09:08,840
Speaker 4: or they had feuds with. Like Betty Davis was like

1162
01:09:09,240 --> 01:09:11,840
Speaker 4: a lot of the directors in classic Hollywood feared her

1163
01:09:12,240 --> 01:09:15,320
Speaker 4: because she would take control over projects and was like,

1164
01:09:15,400 --> 01:09:17,920
Speaker 4: this line is bad, your shot setup sucks. I can

1165
01:09:17,960 --> 01:09:20,599
Speaker 4: direct this better than you. The thing is she was

1166
01:09:20,640 --> 01:09:25,040
Speaker 4: typically right, So like our instincts as an artist are

1167
01:09:25,080 --> 01:09:29,200
Speaker 4: really really sharp and fascinating, Betty was also far more

1168
01:09:29,280 --> 01:09:35,400
Speaker 4: politically engaged. Like one of the most interesting things I

1169
01:09:35,520 --> 01:09:39,400
Speaker 4: like to tell people about her is that she was

1170
01:09:39,439 --> 01:09:42,599
Speaker 4: the first woman president of the Academy of Motion Picture

1171
01:09:42,720 --> 01:09:44,760
Speaker 4: Arts and Sciences, and that was all the way back

1172
01:09:44,760 --> 01:09:47,400
Speaker 4: in nineteen forty one. But they just wanted her to

1173
01:09:47,439 --> 01:09:51,080
Speaker 4: be a figurehead. She wanted to make actual changes for

1174
01:09:51,120 --> 01:09:55,400
Speaker 4: the industry, and she ended up leaving because the men

1175
01:09:56,080 --> 01:09:59,000
Speaker 4: did not want to listen to her. And the next

1176
01:09:59,040 --> 01:10:03,840
Speaker 4: person who who took up that position implemented the same

1177
01:10:03,880 --> 01:10:06,240
Speaker 4: thing she was trying to implement, So it was like, Oh,

1178
01:10:06,280 --> 01:10:09,360
Speaker 4: you don't have a problem with what she was trying

1179
01:10:09,360 --> 01:10:11,640
Speaker 4: to do to make this industry better. You had a

1180
01:10:11,720 --> 01:10:15,679
Speaker 4: problem with her actually saying anything, because she's a woman

1181
01:10:15,680 --> 01:10:20,200
Speaker 4: who's very abrasive. Someone like There was an interesting article

1182
01:10:20,320 --> 01:10:26,080
Speaker 4: that's quoted in sam Stad's book All About Eve, which

1183
01:10:26,160 --> 01:10:30,400
Speaker 4: at the end says Betty's bluntness and impatience, her refusal

1184
01:10:30,439 --> 01:10:33,800
Speaker 4: to compromise surely helped alienate many whom she might later

1185
01:10:33,880 --> 01:10:37,439
Speaker 4: have persuaded. She's kind of like a force to be

1186
01:10:37,560 --> 01:10:41,000
Speaker 4: reckoned with. I think she's very interesting. Both her and

1187
01:10:41,080 --> 01:10:44,400
Speaker 4: Joan Crawford are also aries women's so I don't know

1188
01:10:44,439 --> 01:10:50,960
Speaker 4: why I find that. So I think, like, you know,

1189
01:10:51,840 --> 01:10:55,000
Speaker 4: in a lot of ways, like Betty did it her way,

1190
01:10:55,040 --> 01:10:57,160
Speaker 4: which some people saw is the hard way, But I

1191
01:10:57,200 --> 01:11:00,160
Speaker 4: actually like, for all her faults, I actually think she

1192
01:11:00,240 --> 01:11:06,920
Speaker 4: was a really really fascinating, dynamic woman who holds a

1193
01:11:07,000 --> 01:11:10,200
Speaker 4: lot of very interesting contradictions because this on one hand,

1194
01:11:10,240 --> 01:11:13,600
Speaker 4: you hear some of her relationships with women were like

1195
01:11:13,680 --> 01:11:16,160
Speaker 4: good and she had respect for them. But then on

1196
01:11:16,200 --> 01:11:18,400
Speaker 4: the other hand, you hear how she treated like Marilyn

1197
01:11:18,439 --> 01:11:22,360
Speaker 4: Monroe on the set of All About Eve, and you're like, oh,

1198
01:11:22,520 --> 01:11:25,880
Speaker 4: but Marilyn Monroe was treated like shit by so many

1199
01:11:25,920 --> 01:11:29,160
Speaker 4: women in the industry, like Joan Crawford was like notably

1200
01:11:29,320 --> 01:11:33,519
Speaker 4: nasty towards Marilyn and was publicly saying some really horrid

1201
01:11:33,880 --> 01:11:37,719
Speaker 4: things about her. And so that's something Betty and Joan share,

1202
01:11:37,960 --> 01:11:42,960
Speaker 4: like a sort of discomfort with the industry moving past them,

1203
01:11:43,000 --> 01:11:47,639
Speaker 4: and so they turned towards animosity that like builds towards

1204
01:11:47,720 --> 01:11:51,519
Speaker 4: younger women who actually are just as brutalized as they are.

1205
01:11:52,200 --> 01:11:57,800
Speaker 4: An interesting contrast would be Lana Turner, who, while Joan Crawford,

1206
01:11:58,520 --> 01:12:01,160
Speaker 4: you know, had this whole to give you advice, Marylyn

1207
01:12:01,240 --> 01:12:03,080
Speaker 4: come over my place, but then she just sort of

1208
01:12:03,120 --> 01:12:07,320
Speaker 4: read her to filth like and like was completely disrespectful

1209
01:12:07,640 --> 01:12:11,519
Speaker 4: to her. Lana Turner when she like when Marilyn was

1210
01:12:11,520 --> 01:12:14,040
Speaker 4: coming up, she invited her to her house and gave

1211
01:12:14,080 --> 01:12:18,639
Speaker 4: her genuinely, really good and caring professional advice both about

1212
01:12:18,680 --> 01:12:21,360
Speaker 4: how you should carry yourself, how you should dress, how

1213
01:12:21,400 --> 01:12:23,160
Speaker 4: you need to move, how you need to navigate a

1214
01:12:23,160 --> 01:12:25,920
Speaker 4: lot of these men in the industry. And it's like

1215
01:12:26,400 --> 01:12:29,040
Speaker 4: Lana Turner was someone who dealt with a lot of

1216
01:12:29,080 --> 01:12:32,120
Speaker 4: shit that Marilyn also dealt with. There's an interesting story

1217
01:12:32,120 --> 01:12:35,639
Speaker 4: a friend of mine was talking about about, like Lana

1218
01:12:35,640 --> 01:12:38,280
Speaker 4: Turner on the set of a movie and she had

1219
01:12:38,439 --> 01:12:42,320
Speaker 4: just dealt with a miscarriage and was back on set

1220
01:12:42,439 --> 01:12:46,360
Speaker 4: like two weeks later, and she was having trouble working

1221
01:12:46,439 --> 01:12:50,760
Speaker 4: up emotions for a scene when the director got so

1222
01:12:50,920 --> 01:12:54,519
Speaker 4: angry with her he decided keep the camera just on

1223
01:12:54,560 --> 01:12:56,960
Speaker 4: her face and I'm gonna be twisting her arm till

1224
01:12:56,960 --> 01:12:59,360
Speaker 4: it almost breaks to force her to cry. This is

1225
01:12:59,400 --> 01:13:01,439
Speaker 4: the kind of shit that women were dealing with in

1226
01:13:01,479 --> 01:13:05,960
Speaker 4: classic Hollywood. Things have never been like great for actors,

1227
01:13:06,000 --> 01:13:10,439
Speaker 4: but like now, it's like you can't imagine like someone

1228
01:13:10,560 --> 01:13:14,120
Speaker 4: treating a star of like Lana Turner's stature, who was

1229
01:13:14,200 --> 01:13:18,920
Speaker 4: like a huge important start at MGM, Like you can't

1230
01:13:18,960 --> 01:13:23,479
Speaker 4: imagine like her like contemporary being treated in that same

1231
01:13:23,520 --> 01:13:26,639
Speaker 4: way because that's like a labor violate. This is happening

1232
01:13:26,680 --> 01:13:28,920
Speaker 4: on you know what I mean. So it's like these

1233
01:13:28,960 --> 01:13:33,120
Speaker 4: women were like so unprotected. And what makes me sad

1234
01:13:33,280 --> 01:13:35,519
Speaker 4: with how we talk about the feud between Betty and

1235
01:13:35,560 --> 01:13:39,400
Speaker 4: Joan is we totally miss out on the more structural

1236
01:13:39,439 --> 01:13:42,160
Speaker 4: issues around them that would lead women to kind of

1237
01:13:42,160 --> 01:13:44,000
Speaker 4: feel uneasy with each other.

1238
01:13:44,320 --> 01:13:48,200
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, I mean, from what I understand about

1239
01:13:48,240 --> 01:13:51,120
Speaker 2: this feud, this alleged.

1240
01:13:51,320 --> 01:13:52,320
Speaker 4: You know it exists.

1241
01:13:52,479 --> 01:13:55,799
Speaker 2: It exists, but it was blown so out of proportion

1242
01:13:56,120 --> 01:13:59,040
Speaker 2: exactly by the media, and it's.

1243
01:13:59,000 --> 01:14:01,840
Speaker 4: Less of feud and more like, oh, I just don't

1244
01:14:01,880 --> 01:14:05,640
Speaker 4: really care for you, and we're just professionally different, Like

1245
01:14:05,680 --> 01:14:08,360
Speaker 4: you cannot like somebody and it not be a few.

1246
01:14:08,439 --> 01:14:10,200
Speaker 4: There are people I don't like and I just don't

1247
01:14:10,200 --> 01:14:14,080
Speaker 4: think about them.

1248
01:14:12,640 --> 01:14:17,280
Speaker 2: Right, But like journalists would grasp at straws and then

1249
01:14:17,479 --> 01:14:21,840
Speaker 2: like print stuff about, oh, this big feud between these

1250
01:14:21,920 --> 01:14:27,000
Speaker 2: two actors just to pit women against each other basically.

1251
01:14:26,880 --> 01:14:29,000
Speaker 3: And of course that that's something that the studio is

1252
01:14:29,000 --> 01:14:31,599
Speaker 3: never gonna fight with because it sells tickets, it sells

1253
01:14:31,640 --> 01:14:35,280
Speaker 3: the movie if it like all plays into it. I feel, yeah,

1254
01:14:35,280 --> 01:14:38,840
Speaker 3: I thank you for that background, Angelica, because I just

1255
01:14:38,960 --> 01:14:44,760
Speaker 3: I everything I've learned about Betty Davis as a labor figure, specifically,

1256
01:14:45,040 --> 01:14:49,320
Speaker 3: like that area of her life, it just feels very

1257
01:14:49,439 --> 01:14:53,640
Speaker 3: intentionally removed from how we talk about her and talk

1258
01:14:53,720 --> 01:14:57,599
Speaker 3: about her as a political figure, which you know, on

1259
01:14:57,760 --> 01:15:00,880
Speaker 3: the Joan Crawford side, Joan Crawford is is playing the

1260
01:15:00,960 --> 01:15:07,719
Speaker 3: game and the game involves not getting very political, and I, yeah,

1261
01:15:07,760 --> 01:15:11,639
Speaker 3: I just I wish that there were elements, especially because

1262
01:15:11,680 --> 01:15:13,439
Speaker 3: I don't know. Yeah, Feud a show that is well

1263
01:15:13,439 --> 01:15:16,560
Speaker 3: casted but ultimately just pisses me off, where it's it's also.

1264
01:15:16,400 --> 01:15:19,120
Speaker 4: Not fun to watch, Like it's not like a fun

1265
01:15:19,360 --> 01:15:23,559
Speaker 4: interesting watch. It's more like you get frustrated, like this

1266
01:15:23,600 --> 01:15:26,600
Speaker 4: is the story you're telling about these like titans of

1267
01:15:26,640 --> 01:15:31,200
Speaker 4: the industry. Can you imagine like a similar work about

1268
01:15:31,240 --> 01:15:33,960
Speaker 4: like a Laurence Olivier, you know, like he you know

1269
01:15:34,080 --> 01:15:37,919
Speaker 4: Betty Davis, she used to say, I was Brando before Brando,

1270
01:15:38,320 --> 01:15:42,599
Speaker 4: Like she's an actor's actor. Why are we forgetting about

1271
01:15:42,600 --> 01:15:45,760
Speaker 4: that or forgetting about like really interesting political things like

1272
01:15:46,080 --> 01:15:49,479
Speaker 4: her starting the Hollywood Canteen with people like John Garfield

1273
01:15:49,600 --> 01:15:54,040
Speaker 4: during World War Two that allowed white and black servicemen

1274
01:15:54,120 --> 01:15:57,080
Speaker 4: to hang out with each other, like black people were welcome.

1275
01:15:57,160 --> 01:16:00,840
Speaker 4: That's like very interesting how cool she was with like

1276
01:16:00,880 --> 01:16:04,160
Speaker 4: certain racial things that you would expect her not to be,

1277
01:16:04,720 --> 01:16:08,439
Speaker 4: but she was. She was very liberal Democrat, but like

1278
01:16:08,560 --> 01:16:12,400
Speaker 4: she really had like a genuine care for the world

1279
01:16:12,439 --> 01:16:15,320
Speaker 4: that I find interesting and politically was like it doesn't

1280
01:16:15,360 --> 01:16:19,400
Speaker 4: make sense to like be entertaining only white servicemen. They're

1281
01:16:19,400 --> 01:16:21,439
Speaker 4: not the only people who are dying for this country

1282
01:16:21,520 --> 01:16:23,240
Speaker 4: right now, and I'm like, I start doing that in

1283
01:16:23,280 --> 01:16:25,679
Speaker 4: the nineteen forties is pretty notable.

1284
01:16:26,240 --> 01:16:30,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, I wish that that was I mean,

1285
01:16:30,320 --> 01:16:33,240
Speaker 3: going back to your earlier point, Angelica like elements of

1286
01:16:33,479 --> 01:16:37,880
Speaker 3: her legacy that were, you know, talked about. I get

1287
01:16:37,920 --> 01:16:39,960
Speaker 3: her persona was huge. I don't think she would be

1288
01:16:40,000 --> 01:16:43,720
Speaker 3: upset to know people are still discussing her persona, but like,

1289
01:16:44,520 --> 01:16:47,839
Speaker 3: but that there, she was such a complex person who

1290
01:16:48,640 --> 01:16:52,840
Speaker 3: I didn't know about the circumstances of her leaving as

1291
01:16:52,920 --> 01:16:56,320
Speaker 3: president of the Academy. It's like, Yeah, having that sort

1292
01:16:56,360 --> 01:17:00,840
Speaker 3: of recontextualized how much there was to push against and

1293
01:17:00,880 --> 01:17:06,280
Speaker 3: how impossible it generally was, even for someone as influential

1294
01:17:06,520 --> 01:17:12,320
Speaker 3: and persistent as Betty Davis. And I mean, to some extent,

1295
01:17:12,360 --> 01:17:16,000
Speaker 3: it's because of how those narratives are shaped, which gets

1296
01:17:16,080 --> 01:17:19,759
Speaker 3: us back into the content of the movie of Yeah,

1297
01:17:20,000 --> 01:17:24,360
Speaker 3: I'm curious how you both feel about how aging women

1298
01:17:24,439 --> 01:17:31,000
Speaker 3: and specifically aging women performers are framed, because I feel

1299
01:17:31,040 --> 01:17:33,400
Speaker 3: like there's so many different ways to look at it

1300
01:17:33,920 --> 01:17:36,800
Speaker 3: that I was trying to. I don't know. I've my

1301
01:17:36,920 --> 01:17:41,799
Speaker 3: feelings on how Jane and Blanche their dynamic has definitely

1302
01:17:41,880 --> 01:17:44,799
Speaker 3: changed over the years and I'm sure we'll continue to change,

1303
01:17:45,400 --> 01:17:48,720
Speaker 3: but in terms of like the exploitation genre developing and

1304
01:17:48,720 --> 01:17:51,839
Speaker 3: taking I think a lot of bad lessons away from

1305
01:17:52,120 --> 01:17:56,839
Speaker 3: this movie. There are certain things that I've seen framed

1306
01:17:57,000 --> 01:17:59,519
Speaker 3: in the past, and I probably would have myself framed

1307
01:17:59,520 --> 01:18:04,519
Speaker 3: in the past as like just full on misogynist slop

1308
01:18:04,960 --> 01:18:08,480
Speaker 3: that I have a slightly easier time with now because

1309
01:18:09,200 --> 01:18:12,920
Speaker 3: we are looking at siblings, which I think sometimes women,

1310
01:18:13,040 --> 01:18:15,920
Speaker 3: I mean women are very very often pitted against each

1311
01:18:15,960 --> 01:18:20,479
Speaker 3: other in this absolute void where the assumption is like

1312
01:18:20,880 --> 01:18:23,960
Speaker 3: women hate each other because they're in competition for men,

1313
01:18:24,600 --> 01:18:27,120
Speaker 3: But that is very much not what's happening here, and

1314
01:18:27,160 --> 01:18:32,000
Speaker 3: I do feel like the table is set for why

1315
01:18:32,360 --> 01:18:37,360
Speaker 3: this dynamic exists, And on this viewing, it really sat

1316
01:18:37,400 --> 01:18:39,640
Speaker 3: with me at the end that the twist at the

1317
01:18:39,760 --> 01:18:43,800
Speaker 3: end that Blanche was angry and resentful enough of Jane

1318
01:18:44,000 --> 01:18:47,559
Speaker 3: to want to kill her, and also that that being

1319
01:18:47,920 --> 01:18:50,360
Speaker 3: true and that lie being at the center of their

1320
01:18:50,400 --> 01:18:55,920
Speaker 3: relationship doesn't excuse how horrifically Blanche was treated by her sister,

1321
01:18:56,040 --> 01:18:58,559
Speaker 3: regardless of what she believed. It's just like it's it.

1322
01:18:59,320 --> 01:19:01,719
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think a far more complex dynamic

1323
01:19:01,920 --> 01:19:05,479
Speaker 3: than its cultural legacy would lead you to believe.

1324
01:19:05,479 --> 01:19:09,280
Speaker 4: I guess I agree. I also like kind of touching

1325
01:19:09,320 --> 01:19:12,559
Speaker 4: on that and building upon that. One thing I thought

1326
01:19:12,640 --> 01:19:15,639
Speaker 4: was like interesting with the idea of the story and

1327
01:19:15,680 --> 01:19:20,600
Speaker 4: like Betty's approach to playing Jane was that in Haxploitation

1328
01:19:20,760 --> 01:19:23,639
Speaker 4: a lot like that follows a lot of times it's

1329
01:19:23,720 --> 01:19:29,040
Speaker 4: women trying desperately to like reclaim or latch onto being young,

1330
01:19:29,160 --> 01:19:32,360
Speaker 4: beautiful and sexually desired, like that's the thing they fear.

1331
01:19:33,160 --> 01:19:36,800
Speaker 4: But Betty and her character Jane is instead like going

1332
01:19:36,840 --> 01:19:41,560
Speaker 4: into childhood and like before any sort of sexual identity

1333
01:19:41,920 --> 01:19:46,200
Speaker 4: would arise. And I find that like really really interesting,

1334
01:19:46,280 --> 01:19:48,760
Speaker 4: as if to say, this is the only time I

1335
01:19:49,000 --> 01:19:52,439
Speaker 4: felt like some sort of control over my life. And

1336
01:19:52,479 --> 01:19:54,960
Speaker 4: that's like, I don't know. Something about that on a

1337
01:19:55,040 --> 01:19:59,000
Speaker 4: gender level really interests me. Like the lie or the

1338
01:19:59,040 --> 01:20:03,240
Speaker 4: belief that innocent childhood is the safest place a girl,

1339
01:20:03,280 --> 01:20:07,519
Speaker 4: a woman could be. It's sort of like, which isn't

1340
01:20:07,520 --> 01:20:10,960
Speaker 4: true because we know how heinously young girls are treated

1341
01:20:11,240 --> 01:20:13,400
Speaker 4: in and out of their families, right, So it's an

1342
01:20:13,400 --> 01:20:18,280
Speaker 4: interesting delusion to have a character play and it's also

1343
01:20:18,520 --> 01:20:20,960
Speaker 4: I don't know, it sort of made me think weirdly

1344
01:20:21,120 --> 01:20:25,599
Speaker 4: of how people talk about like womanhood as being hard

1345
01:20:25,840 --> 01:20:30,320
Speaker 4: and difficult and unruly, but girlhood is what we want

1346
01:20:30,360 --> 01:20:32,559
Speaker 4: to be, the state we want to be in. And

1347
01:20:32,600 --> 01:20:37,160
Speaker 4: I think about how many people talk about girlhood and

1348
01:20:37,240 --> 01:20:40,120
Speaker 4: like refer to themselves as girls, this sort of int

1349
01:20:40,439 --> 01:20:43,880
Speaker 4: you know, like infertilization of themselves even though you know,

1350
01:20:43,960 --> 01:20:46,360
Speaker 4: like I'm a thirty seven year old baby, or I

1351
01:20:46,520 --> 01:20:49,760
Speaker 4: was twenty nine yesterday, but I just turned thirty two

1352
01:20:49,880 --> 01:20:52,479
Speaker 4: or what, you know what I mean. And it's it's

1353
01:20:52,479 --> 01:20:56,400
Speaker 4: sort of it sort of interests me how we render

1354
01:20:56,920 --> 01:21:00,639
Speaker 4: like womanhood and like what kinds of womanhood is rendered,

1355
01:21:00,760 --> 01:21:04,960
Speaker 4: especially in a visual medium like film. You know, I'm

1356
01:21:05,000 --> 01:21:08,839
Speaker 4: thirty six now. And if there's anything I've noticed recently,

1357
01:21:08,920 --> 01:21:12,800
Speaker 4: it's like we do not have a really dynamic range

1358
01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:17,439
Speaker 4: of movies being made about women's midlife, the movies we

1359
01:21:17,520 --> 01:21:20,320
Speaker 4: get made that are getting made about women's mid life

1360
01:21:20,360 --> 01:21:24,320
Speaker 4: at this point, which US millennials are pretty much in,

1361
01:21:24,600 --> 01:21:28,320
Speaker 4: like we are in you know, late thirties into our forties.

1362
01:21:28,040 --> 01:21:30,600
Speaker 2: On the cusp of forty, yeah, exactly.

1363
01:21:30,800 --> 01:21:33,800
Speaker 4: And it's like I've noticed, oh, the movies we're kind

1364
01:21:33,800 --> 01:21:36,400
Speaker 4: of getting that are in that range are all about

1365
01:21:37,400 --> 01:21:41,120
Speaker 4: women as mothers or women and they're like not great

1366
01:21:41,200 --> 01:21:44,560
Speaker 4: relationship with their husband and kind of realizing that midlife.

1367
01:21:44,800 --> 01:21:47,320
Speaker 4: And I think there is totally a place for those stories.

1368
01:21:47,360 --> 01:21:49,960
Speaker 4: But like I've been talking to other friends, like, is

1369
01:21:50,000 --> 01:21:53,599
Speaker 4: it weird that we're actually seeing like that's the vision

1370
01:21:53,680 --> 01:21:56,840
Speaker 4: of a woman's mid Like the millennial woman's mid life

1371
01:21:57,000 --> 01:22:01,960
Speaker 4: is only through motherhood or her relatetionationship to men. Because

1372
01:22:01,960 --> 01:22:04,880
Speaker 4: that's a little weird considering we're the generation that has

1373
01:22:04,960 --> 01:22:08,599
Speaker 4: now like really staved off marriage or we're like many

1374
01:22:08,680 --> 01:22:11,080
Speaker 4: of us are just not having kids, Like I don't

1375
01:22:11,120 --> 01:22:14,360
Speaker 4: want kids and will not be having them, but we

1376
01:22:14,400 --> 01:22:17,160
Speaker 4: don't see that represented. So it ends up adding to

1377
01:22:17,280 --> 01:22:21,320
Speaker 4: this history of like what makes a woman most important

1378
01:22:21,520 --> 01:22:25,800
Speaker 4: is like her either her fertility or her youth, or

1379
01:22:25,840 --> 01:22:29,599
Speaker 4: her beauty or how she cares for others. But I like,

1380
01:22:29,960 --> 01:22:32,200
Speaker 4: I don't know. It's very frustrating. So when I watch

1381
01:22:32,240 --> 01:22:34,599
Speaker 4: a movie like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, even though

1382
01:22:34,600 --> 01:22:41,479
Speaker 4: it's so sad and rough emotionally to watch, I find

1383
01:22:41,520 --> 01:22:44,720
Speaker 4: it like really interesting on a level that I think

1384
01:22:44,760 --> 01:22:48,679
Speaker 4: other exploitation doesn't touch, which is so layered and it's

1385
01:22:48,760 --> 01:22:51,760
Speaker 4: understanding of who these women are and like how they

1386
01:22:51,840 --> 01:22:54,240
Speaker 4: fit in the world and certain structural things that are

1387
01:22:54,240 --> 01:22:59,519
Speaker 4: shaping them. Especially structural for Blanche is her disability. And

1388
01:23:00,240 --> 01:23:04,519
Speaker 4: I just want more prickly observations of like what it

1389
01:23:04,640 --> 01:23:07,160
Speaker 4: means to be a woman today, and I don't think

1390
01:23:07,240 --> 01:23:09,960
Speaker 4: we're getting it, and I feel like I'm losing my

1391
01:23:10,160 --> 01:23:11,439
Speaker 4: mind over it.

1392
01:23:13,280 --> 01:23:17,960
Speaker 3: I totally agree where there even when it's movies that

1393
01:23:18,160 --> 01:23:23,160
Speaker 3: I like, often movies directed by women. Yeah, it feels

1394
01:23:23,200 --> 01:23:27,000
Speaker 3: like we're very often interfacing with women who are around

1395
01:23:27,000 --> 01:23:30,800
Speaker 3: our age, who we have so little in common with.

1396
01:23:30,880 --> 01:23:33,519
Speaker 3: And I also don't know a lot of women going

1397
01:23:33,560 --> 01:23:35,600
Speaker 3: through the same things. And then sometimes I'm like, I

1398
01:23:35,640 --> 01:23:38,599
Speaker 3: think the way that I like go like coping mode.

1399
01:23:38,640 --> 01:23:41,040
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, uh, it's because I live in a

1400
01:23:41,160 --> 01:23:43,320
Speaker 3: city and it's less but it's like it is less

1401
01:23:43,320 --> 01:23:46,160
Speaker 3: common everywhere, and I feel like.

1402
01:23:46,160 --> 01:23:49,040
Speaker 5: It is just like a what is it that we

1403
01:23:49,080 --> 01:23:52,479
Speaker 5: see that when we do see movies about women in

1404
01:23:52,520 --> 01:23:55,360
Speaker 5: their late forties into like early fifties, a lot of

1405
01:23:55,400 --> 01:23:58,439
Speaker 5: it is surrounding like I want to have a kid.

1406
01:23:58,479 --> 01:23:59,920
Speaker 3: I actually I change my mind, I want to have

1407
01:24:00,200 --> 01:24:03,479
Speaker 3: or like it's like rooted in this anxiety. Yeah, and

1408
01:24:03,560 --> 01:24:06,679
Speaker 3: not just people living and doing stuff.

1409
01:24:07,200 --> 01:24:11,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, like women do things, Yeah, we do things like

1410
01:24:11,479 --> 01:24:15,960
Speaker 4: what Yeah? Like I saw some like podcast clip I

1411
01:24:16,000 --> 01:24:19,439
Speaker 4: hate when like someone someone was doing some little real

1412
01:24:19,479 --> 01:24:22,479
Speaker 4: on Instagram and they were responding to some stupid podcasts

1413
01:24:22,479 --> 01:24:25,360
Speaker 4: where this woman said like, like what do women do

1414
01:24:25,479 --> 01:24:28,000
Speaker 4: in once they're in their mid to late thirties but

1415
01:24:28,080 --> 01:24:30,080
Speaker 4: they don't have kids? Like what are they doing?

1416
01:24:30,800 --> 01:24:33,720
Speaker 3: What are they all too? I'm like, oh, you.

1417
01:24:33,439 --> 01:24:36,879
Speaker 4: People like really think women who don't have kids.

1418
01:24:36,760 --> 01:24:38,920
Speaker 2: Are just like we just shrivel up and die.

1419
01:24:39,160 --> 01:24:42,240
Speaker 4: Sh Yeah. Either we're literally just in a dark room

1420
01:24:42,360 --> 01:24:45,000
Speaker 4: staring at something because there's nothing to do and we

1421
01:24:45,040 --> 01:24:49,000
Speaker 4: don't have any friends or hobbies, or like we're perpetually

1422
01:24:49,040 --> 01:24:52,240
Speaker 4: on vacation and life is just so easy because you

1423
01:24:52,240 --> 01:24:55,120
Speaker 4: don't have kids. And I'm like, do you see the economy?

1424
01:24:55,200 --> 01:24:58,439
Speaker 4: Do you see how for our generation, our parents are

1425
01:24:58,479 --> 01:25:01,919
Speaker 4: now fragile and dealing with health issues, Like the caretaking

1426
01:25:01,920 --> 01:25:04,599
Speaker 4: stuff is something very much on my mind at you know,

1427
01:25:04,800 --> 01:25:06,479
Speaker 4: at this point in my life. And I just feel

1428
01:25:06,479 --> 01:25:09,479
Speaker 4: like I love films so much as a medium, but

1429
01:25:09,560 --> 01:25:14,200
Speaker 4: I feel very disappointed in certain aspects of like American

1430
01:25:14,200 --> 01:25:17,839
Speaker 4: film history like how much is not seen on screen,

1431
01:25:18,280 --> 01:25:21,839
Speaker 4: which leads people to think like a very limited idea

1432
01:25:21,840 --> 01:25:25,040
Speaker 4: of how human beings are based on pop culture, you

1433
01:25:25,080 --> 01:25:27,439
Speaker 4: know what I mean, Like feels very limited, and it's

1434
01:25:27,520 --> 01:25:32,200
Speaker 4: understanding of how contradictory and weird and wonderful being alive is.

1435
01:25:32,360 --> 01:25:35,439
Speaker 4: I don't feel life in a lot of movies I

1436
01:25:35,560 --> 01:25:38,920
Speaker 4: watched that are contemporary American movies these days.

1437
01:25:39,040 --> 01:25:44,200
Speaker 2: Totally yeah, same, yeah. And then I mean, going going

1438
01:25:44,240 --> 01:25:47,200
Speaker 2: back to the women in this movie, I have very

1439
01:25:47,240 --> 01:25:51,360
Speaker 2: complicated feelings about it because, on one hand, I think

1440
01:25:51,360 --> 01:25:55,960
Speaker 2: you could argue that tropes about older women are present

1441
01:25:56,000 --> 01:25:58,120
Speaker 2: in the sense that both of these women, for sure,

1442
01:25:58,560 --> 01:26:02,559
Speaker 2: are clinging on to their quote unquote glory days, and

1443
01:26:02,640 --> 01:26:05,280
Speaker 2: for both of them, their glory days are different eras

1444
01:26:05,280 --> 01:26:08,200
Speaker 2: of their life. Again, for the Jane character, it's when

1445
01:26:08,240 --> 01:26:12,280
Speaker 2: she was seven years old or something. For Blanche it's

1446
01:26:12,320 --> 01:26:13,200
Speaker 2: when she's.

1447
01:26:13,080 --> 01:26:16,560
Speaker 3: Skin her early twenties. It seems like twenties or thirties.

1448
01:26:16,720 --> 01:26:20,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then, and this is affecting Jane in a

1449
01:26:20,560 --> 01:26:24,559
Speaker 2: different way than Blanche, where Jane is like losing touch

1450
01:26:24,600 --> 01:26:30,800
Speaker 2: with reality versus Blanche who seems to be just like

1451
01:26:30,960 --> 01:26:34,519
Speaker 2: you know, watching her old movies that are now, like

1452
01:26:35,040 --> 01:26:40,160
Speaker 2: in television syndication, kind of reminiscing about these days and

1453
01:26:40,439 --> 01:26:44,320
Speaker 2: doesn't seem that interested in her life in the present.

1454
01:26:45,200 --> 01:26:48,720
Speaker 2: There's also some ableism I think surrounding her character, which

1455
01:26:48,760 --> 01:26:49,400
Speaker 2: we can get into.

1456
01:26:49,479 --> 01:26:52,000
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, that she is, she's all part of the

1457
01:26:52,120 --> 01:26:55,040
Speaker 3: era that she's romanticizing. Is the last time that she

1458
01:26:55,240 --> 01:26:57,560
Speaker 3: was able bodied exactly.

1459
01:26:57,240 --> 01:27:01,400
Speaker 2: Right, right, and we you know, we have these older

1460
01:27:01,439 --> 01:27:06,640
Speaker 2: women who, by the way, the studio originally did not

1461
01:27:06,840 --> 01:27:10,080
Speaker 2: want Joan Crawford and Betty Davis to play these characters

1462
01:27:10,080 --> 01:27:13,040
Speaker 2: in this movie because the studio felt that those actors

1463
01:27:13,040 --> 01:27:17,240
Speaker 2: were too old quote unquote They were both in their

1464
01:27:17,280 --> 01:27:21,719
Speaker 2: mid fifties I believe at the time. But director Robert

1465
01:27:21,760 --> 01:27:25,639
Speaker 2: Aldrich was like, this is what the story calls for,

1466
01:27:25,920 --> 01:27:30,040
Speaker 2: Like I'm casting these actors, and then the studio relented.

1467
01:27:30,120 --> 01:27:36,360
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's these older women clinging on to their youth,

1468
01:27:36,840 --> 01:27:40,720
Speaker 2: which is a very kind of trophy and stereotypical thing.

1469
01:27:40,720 --> 01:27:42,960
Speaker 2: But this is also not happening in a vacuum. There's

1470
01:27:43,479 --> 01:27:48,920
Speaker 2: context for this where society values youth in women, and

1471
01:27:49,080 --> 01:27:51,840
Speaker 2: so if these women have been conditioned to think that

1472
01:27:52,560 --> 01:27:57,519
Speaker 2: youth is important and that's what's important about them, then

1473
01:27:57,760 --> 01:27:59,920
Speaker 2: it stands to reason that they would try to cling

1474
01:28:00,160 --> 01:28:00,880
Speaker 2: to that.

1475
01:28:01,280 --> 01:28:06,280
Speaker 3: I also feel like with their father coming up a lot,

1476
01:28:06,640 --> 01:28:12,640
Speaker 3: including in the World's Most Annoying Song, like it is

1477
01:28:13,000 --> 01:28:14,760
Speaker 3: telegraphed to us, And again it's like, I think that

1478
01:28:14,880 --> 01:28:18,680
Speaker 3: if I also understand how I totally believe that when

1479
01:28:18,680 --> 01:28:21,360
Speaker 3: this movie came out, and still now, if you're watching

1480
01:28:21,400 --> 01:28:24,759
Speaker 3: this movie with your brain turned off, it's just tropes

1481
01:28:24,800 --> 01:28:27,840
Speaker 3: all the way down if you're not looking for more.

1482
01:28:28,400 --> 01:28:32,080
Speaker 3: But yeah, that like we're told kind of right away

1483
01:28:32,200 --> 01:28:35,240
Speaker 3: and then get a little more information as the movie

1484
01:28:35,240 --> 01:28:37,080
Speaker 3: goes on of like, oh, I guess the dad passed

1485
01:28:37,080 --> 01:28:38,960
Speaker 3: away when they were very young, Like we don't really

1486
01:28:39,479 --> 01:28:42,400
Speaker 3: get a ton of information there. But but that, especially

1487
01:28:42,439 --> 01:28:45,479
Speaker 3: with Jane, that not only is it the world telling

1488
01:28:45,520 --> 01:28:50,639
Speaker 3: her this, it's like her father manager telling her that

1489
01:28:50,680 --> 01:28:54,760
Speaker 3: this is where your value comes from. And and then

1490
01:28:54,800 --> 01:28:58,599
Speaker 3: it sounds like he dies while she's young and never

1491
01:28:58,680 --> 01:29:03,160
Speaker 3: really like that validation comes from him and the world,

1492
01:29:03,280 --> 01:29:05,439
Speaker 3: and so when he and the world are no longer

1493
01:29:05,920 --> 01:29:10,200
Speaker 3: you know, either present or interested, like that, they're I mean,

1494
01:29:10,200 --> 01:29:10,880
Speaker 3: these women are like.

1495
01:29:10,920 --> 01:29:14,880
Speaker 2: Left behind for sure. I mean, I think the other

1496
01:29:15,439 --> 01:29:20,799
Speaker 2: surface level trope that maybe permeates deeper, maybe it doesn't.

1497
01:29:20,800 --> 01:29:25,519
Speaker 2: But the jealousy between the two sisters and the two women,

1498
01:29:25,600 --> 01:29:31,160
Speaker 2: where Jane is jealous of Blanche seemingly because Blanche was

1499
01:29:31,200 --> 01:29:34,320
Speaker 2: able to have success as an adult and Jane didn't.

1500
01:29:35,120 --> 01:29:37,479
Speaker 2: Jane got this taste of fame as a child but

1501
01:29:37,520 --> 01:29:41,919
Speaker 2: couldn't cross over into being a star as an adult,

1502
01:29:41,960 --> 01:29:44,800
Speaker 2: and she resents Blanche for being able to do that,

1503
01:29:45,240 --> 01:29:47,400
Speaker 2: and we're to believe that Jane was so jealous of

1504
01:29:47,439 --> 01:29:50,400
Speaker 2: that that that's why she runs over Blanche with the

1505
01:29:50,439 --> 01:29:53,559
Speaker 2: car allegedly. Then we find out that that's not what happened.

1506
01:29:53,920 --> 01:29:56,799
Speaker 2: We find out that Blanche was the one who tried

1507
01:29:56,840 --> 01:30:01,599
Speaker 2: to kill Jane with the car because Blanche was upset

1508
01:30:01,680 --> 01:30:04,519
Speaker 2: that Jane was making fun of her at a party.

1509
01:30:05,479 --> 01:30:08,160
Speaker 4: I look at that as like a breaking point because

1510
01:30:08,160 --> 01:30:12,280
Speaker 4: there's an interesting like after you see the footage of

1511
01:30:12,360 --> 01:30:15,040
Speaker 4: thirties Betty Davis, and like the studio head is like,

1512
01:30:15,080 --> 01:30:18,360
Speaker 4: oh god, she so sucks. We need to get Blanche

1513
01:30:18,400 --> 01:30:22,040
Speaker 4: to take this clause out of her contract. I think

1514
01:30:22,080 --> 01:30:25,680
Speaker 4: it's like him with like an agent or some representative

1515
01:30:25,720 --> 01:30:29,320
Speaker 4: for Blanche, and there's just something very interesting about how

1516
01:30:29,360 --> 01:30:35,040
Speaker 4: they're like describing Jane and Blanche's relationship, which Blanche feels

1517
01:30:35,080 --> 01:30:38,559
Speaker 4: like she owes something to Jane to some degree, but

1518
01:30:38,680 --> 01:30:42,320
Speaker 4: she like it's clearly resentful that her sister is like

1519
01:30:42,479 --> 01:30:45,960
Speaker 4: so wedded to her. And then also the studio head

1520
01:30:46,040 --> 01:30:48,600
Speaker 4: makes a mention that one day that like Jane is

1521
01:30:48,640 --> 01:30:52,240
Speaker 4: gonna be committed or something, so actually that actually kind

1522
01:30:52,280 --> 01:30:56,040
Speaker 4: of subverts Blanche's thoughts on things. Jane has had problems

1523
01:30:56,040 --> 01:30:59,680
Speaker 4: for a very very long time, but Blanche has like

1524
01:31:00,320 --> 01:31:04,120
Speaker 4: almost like adopted a parental role of feeling responsible for

1525
01:31:04,160 --> 01:31:08,160
Speaker 4: his sister, so that like really weirdly complicates things in

1526
01:31:08,160 --> 01:31:10,960
Speaker 4: a way. And then also, like the studio ahead was

1527
01:31:11,000 --> 01:31:14,200
Speaker 4: talking about Jane's drinking, like this woman's an I've been

1528
01:31:14,200 --> 01:31:18,960
Speaker 4: an alcoholic for a long time. So there's like the

1529
01:31:19,040 --> 01:31:22,960
Speaker 4: tropes are all like very there, but then like there's

1530
01:31:23,120 --> 01:31:25,920
Speaker 4: set a skew in these certain ways that at like

1531
01:31:25,960 --> 01:31:29,240
Speaker 4: a certain texture, and I think the performances are doing

1532
01:31:29,400 --> 01:31:33,439
Speaker 4: enough to kind of sometimes almost contradict the gaze of

1533
01:31:33,520 --> 01:31:36,240
Speaker 4: the movie, which is really interesting to me.

1534
01:31:37,000 --> 01:31:40,479
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think with like we were talking about earlier,

1535
01:31:40,600 --> 01:31:44,680
Speaker 3: like the in less capable actors' hands, I think that

1536
01:31:44,760 --> 01:31:48,800
Speaker 3: the tropes would just read me pretty one to one, yeah,

1537
01:31:48,800 --> 01:31:50,680
Speaker 3: because I mean this is also a movie, you know,

1538
01:31:51,439 --> 01:31:55,160
Speaker 3: And then it seems like, you know, Robert Aldrich I've

1539
01:31:55,360 --> 01:31:58,200
Speaker 3: like wanted to do right by his actors in this,

1540
01:31:58,280 --> 01:32:00,559
Speaker 3: but but it's a movie that's written in direct by men,

1541
01:32:01,040 --> 01:32:04,680
Speaker 3: and like whenever there's a story about women that is

1542
01:32:05,080 --> 01:32:07,320
Speaker 3: told in that way, you know, you have to enter

1543
01:32:07,360 --> 01:32:12,120
Speaker 3: it with the like les let's see, and more often

1544
01:32:12,160 --> 01:32:16,080
Speaker 3: than not we do. But but yeah, it feels like

1545
01:32:16,840 --> 01:32:19,759
Speaker 3: certainly Betty and Joan is what like they're really thinking

1546
01:32:19,800 --> 01:32:21,960
Speaker 3: about this because to some extent, that's like what makes

1547
01:32:22,000 --> 01:32:26,879
Speaker 3: the movie interesting is that they have either lived versions

1548
01:32:26,920 --> 01:32:30,040
Speaker 3: of these experiences or seen it happen to other people.

1549
01:32:30,120 --> 01:32:33,160
Speaker 3: I think that this movie also has something to say.

1550
01:32:33,240 --> 01:32:35,120
Speaker 3: It is not the most nuanced thing. I think it

1551
01:32:35,160 --> 01:32:36,920
Speaker 3: is like it has its own tropes as well, but

1552
01:32:36,960 --> 01:32:41,640
Speaker 3: about child stardom and like child's stardom out of vaudeville

1553
01:32:42,200 --> 01:32:46,040
Speaker 3: into it, like a vaudeville child who sort of fails

1554
01:32:46,120 --> 01:32:51,080
Speaker 3: to make the transition to film, and how that would

1555
01:32:51,280 --> 01:32:54,439
Speaker 3: affect you if that is where your you know, like

1556
01:32:54,680 --> 01:32:57,439
Speaker 3: where your entire sense of self is derived from. I

1557
01:32:57,479 --> 01:33:00,280
Speaker 3: think we like we still see examples of that now.

1558
01:33:00,280 --> 01:33:04,000
Speaker 3: It is still a huge issue, but certainly more so

1559
01:33:04,560 --> 01:33:07,519
Speaker 3: in the era where you know, the kids that did

1560
01:33:07,560 --> 01:33:12,479
Speaker 3: make it into the studio system were abused horrifically. So

1561
01:33:12,600 --> 01:33:15,759
Speaker 3: it's I think what's I guess what's tricky about it

1562
01:33:15,960 --> 01:33:19,519
Speaker 3: for me is like I think the performances, like you're saying,

1563
01:33:19,560 --> 01:33:24,080
Speaker 3: Angelica do enough to not make it seem that they've

1564
01:33:24,120 --> 01:33:27,120
Speaker 3: brought this fate on themselves, but I understand that there

1565
01:33:27,280 --> 01:33:30,800
Speaker 3: is a very clear way to read it that way.

1566
01:33:31,120 --> 01:33:35,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally, I totally agree. I think it's the actresses

1567
01:33:35,360 --> 01:33:37,560
Speaker 4: that saved this movie from feeling.

1568
01:33:37,439 --> 01:33:40,080
Speaker 3: Cruel to its characters, because.

1569
01:33:39,840 --> 01:33:42,840
Speaker 4: In a I think it could read as very like

1570
01:33:43,160 --> 01:33:46,960
Speaker 4: mean and nasty, and like, I also think the movie,

1571
01:33:47,760 --> 01:33:50,840
Speaker 4: and like how Betty plays things is smart enough to

1572
01:33:51,040 --> 01:33:55,520
Speaker 4: let Jane be very nasty and unsympathetic and like the endnotes,

1573
01:33:56,160 --> 01:33:59,519
Speaker 4: you can be like, this is a very broken person,

1574
01:33:59,800 --> 01:34:04,640
Speaker 4: but they're also a very monstrous in their actions. Like

1575
01:34:04,680 --> 01:34:07,080
Speaker 4: I don't think you're meant to like ever forgive her

1576
01:34:07,200 --> 01:34:10,160
Speaker 4: so much as like take a peek behind the curtain

1577
01:34:10,200 --> 01:34:14,000
Speaker 4: and understand the roots of things a little more clearly.

1578
01:34:14,479 --> 01:34:17,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, because there's that scene toward the very beginning

1579
01:34:17,760 --> 01:34:20,519
Speaker 2: of the movie, when I think it's the only moment

1580
01:34:20,560 --> 01:34:24,880
Speaker 2: when we hear Blanche and Jane's mother speak. But their

1581
01:34:24,920 --> 01:34:32,080
Speaker 2: mother pulls aside little Blanche and says, she says something like,

1582
01:34:32,680 --> 01:34:36,960
Speaker 2: I hope you are able to forgive your father and

1583
01:34:37,000 --> 01:34:40,960
Speaker 2: your sister, baby Jane, for you know, being so cruel

1584
01:34:41,000 --> 01:34:43,439
Speaker 2: to you, and that you won't treat them with the

1585
01:34:43,520 --> 01:34:47,200
Speaker 2: same cruelness that they have shown you. And then little

1586
01:34:47,240 --> 01:34:50,960
Speaker 2: Blanche says something like, I won't forget as if like

1587
01:34:51,160 --> 01:34:54,880
Speaker 2: she's going to harbor this resentment for the rest of

1588
01:34:54,920 --> 01:35:00,559
Speaker 2: her life and perhaps that's what motivates her to, you know,

1589
01:35:00,640 --> 01:35:02,760
Speaker 2: try to mow down her sister with the car. Am

1590
01:35:02,800 --> 01:35:04,519
Speaker 2: I remembering that correctly? Is that how that?

1591
01:35:04,800 --> 01:35:05,040
Speaker 4: Yeah?

1592
01:35:05,680 --> 01:35:09,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And maybe I'm misregatt but I don't Their

1593
01:35:09,280 --> 01:35:11,200
Speaker 3: mother really doesn't come up.

1594
01:35:11,080 --> 01:35:17,360
Speaker 4: Again, No, I thought, I don't care, very bizarre.

1595
01:35:17,520 --> 01:35:20,080
Speaker 3: I mean, I know that their father had this very

1596
01:35:20,080 --> 01:35:22,760
Speaker 3: specific role in their life because he was running the

1597
01:35:22,960 --> 01:35:26,559
Speaker 3: child's star farm, you know. And and and that slept

1598
01:35:26,600 --> 01:35:32,320
Speaker 3: on conversation between Edwin Flagg and Jane. Later on, we

1599
01:35:32,360 --> 01:35:36,360
Speaker 3: get a little bit more into like what what motivates

1600
01:35:36,479 --> 01:35:39,280
Speaker 3: a lot of parents of child stars is that he

1601
01:35:39,320 --> 01:35:41,559
Speaker 3: wanted to be on stage. He was a musician, and

1602
01:35:41,640 --> 01:35:44,479
Speaker 3: Jane kind of repeats the story he told her of

1603
01:35:44,520 --> 01:35:47,400
Speaker 3: like I was misunderstood my artistry. People didn't get it,

1604
01:35:47,479 --> 01:35:51,120
Speaker 3: and like, you know, it is certainly reflective of things

1605
01:35:51,120 --> 01:35:55,240
Speaker 3: that happen of like stage parents. I thought I was

1606
01:35:55,640 --> 01:35:58,440
Speaker 3: kind of curious that the mom doesn't come up again.

1607
01:35:58,280 --> 01:36:02,000
Speaker 4: Because that's a very male written mistake, you know what

1608
01:36:02,080 --> 01:36:05,679
Speaker 4: I mean, Like, because because I feel like the mother

1609
01:36:05,920 --> 01:36:08,760
Speaker 4: should be some they have, should have some sort of

1610
01:36:08,760 --> 01:36:12,479
Speaker 4: feelings for her, whether it's like they feel betrayed or

1611
01:36:12,600 --> 01:36:14,320
Speaker 4: angry or like.

1612
01:36:14,400 --> 01:36:17,639
Speaker 2: Is there a contrast between the way their father treated

1613
01:36:17,680 --> 01:36:20,160
Speaker 2: them pertectly the way their mother treated them, Like there's

1614
01:36:20,200 --> 01:36:21,360
Speaker 2: there would have been something.

1615
01:36:21,520 --> 01:36:23,720
Speaker 4: There would have been something, And I think, like, you know,

1616
01:36:23,880 --> 01:36:27,760
Speaker 4: I like love this movie for the performances and so

1617
01:36:28,120 --> 01:36:31,000
Speaker 4: like for me, I feel like, yeah, if like a

1618
01:36:31,040 --> 01:36:35,360
Speaker 4: woman wrote this, that mother character would also cast a

1619
01:36:35,479 --> 01:36:39,240
Speaker 4: shadow over their lives for one reason or another, but

1620
01:36:39,320 --> 01:36:43,120
Speaker 4: she doesn't. What's also interesting about these women is you

1621
01:36:43,160 --> 01:36:46,519
Speaker 4: don't hear anything about however their romantic lives were.

1622
01:36:47,400 --> 01:36:49,080
Speaker 2: I noticed that too, Yes.

1623
01:36:48,960 --> 01:36:53,080
Speaker 4: And their romantic lives like for Joan Crawford, like hers

1624
01:36:53,120 --> 01:36:57,760
Speaker 4: in life were very important to people's understanding of her,

1625
01:36:57,920 --> 01:37:00,920
Speaker 4: and like what men she was with and with Betty.

1626
01:37:01,080 --> 01:37:05,360
Speaker 4: Betty was mostly marrying men not in the industry, except

1627
01:37:05,360 --> 01:37:08,960
Speaker 4: for her last husband, Gary Merrill, who was a co

1628
01:37:09,040 --> 01:37:12,000
Speaker 4: star of hers in All About Eve. That's how they met.

1629
01:37:12,520 --> 01:37:15,960
Speaker 4: But it's so interesting because if you read anything written

1630
01:37:15,960 --> 01:37:18,559
Speaker 4: about these women, they do think they were thinking a

1631
01:37:18,560 --> 01:37:23,240
Speaker 4: lot about their relationships to men and romance in general,

1632
01:37:23,320 --> 01:37:27,000
Speaker 4: and like really craving romance. And I wondered that with

1633
01:37:27,160 --> 01:37:31,160
Speaker 4: both Jane and Blanche, have they craved affection? Because if

1634
01:37:31,200 --> 01:37:34,919
Speaker 4: you watch Blanche, the only sort of awe and affection

1635
01:37:35,040 --> 01:37:38,200
Speaker 4: and care she wants is to just watch herself on screen.

1636
01:37:39,520 --> 01:37:44,640
Speaker 3: And I wonder how much that plays into the ablest

1637
01:37:44,880 --> 01:37:47,599
Speaker 3: tropes that are present in this movie, if like, well,

1638
01:37:47,720 --> 01:37:50,760
Speaker 3: she's disabled, so we're not even going to have love

1639
01:37:50,800 --> 01:37:53,080
Speaker 3: and romance on the table for this character as like

1640
01:37:53,080 --> 01:37:55,920
Speaker 3: a prejudice of the writer. I wasn't really clear on.

1641
01:37:57,720 --> 01:37:57,880
Speaker 2: That.

1642
01:37:58,240 --> 01:38:03,960
Speaker 3: And yes, in general, why doesn't Blanche want more? Is

1643
01:38:04,000 --> 01:38:07,280
Speaker 3: it because of her own internalized ableism? Is it?

1644
01:38:07,360 --> 01:38:07,840
Speaker 4: Like what you know?

1645
01:38:07,920 --> 01:38:11,040
Speaker 3: I think that there's a lot of different ways that

1646
01:38:11,080 --> 01:38:15,280
Speaker 3: could go, I'd be curious what other people think, but

1647
01:38:15,720 --> 01:38:18,639
Speaker 3: I don't know. I guess going back to the mom

1648
01:38:18,720 --> 01:38:21,840
Speaker 3: for a second, I was trying to like see her

1649
01:38:22,000 --> 01:38:25,000
Speaker 3: in the performances because she's not there in the text,

1650
01:38:25,240 --> 01:38:27,679
Speaker 3: and it does feel like as close as she gets

1651
01:38:27,760 --> 01:38:32,120
Speaker 3: to going through this is me really playing head canon.

1652
01:38:32,640 --> 01:38:37,000
Speaker 3: But like I think my theory is Joan Crawford was

1653
01:38:37,040 --> 01:38:40,120
Speaker 3: thinking about that mother character and that exchange at the

1654
01:38:40,120 --> 01:38:44,519
Speaker 3: beginning of the movie, because for whatever this first half

1655
01:38:44,600 --> 01:38:48,040
Speaker 3: or this beginning of Blanche's career, she continues to resent

1656
01:38:48,240 --> 01:38:52,520
Speaker 3: Jane in that same way, but things change after this accident,

1657
01:38:52,800 --> 01:38:55,240
Speaker 3: and it almost feels like that like thing her mother

1658
01:38:55,400 --> 01:38:58,120
Speaker 3: said of like be kinder to Jane than she was

1659
01:38:58,200 --> 01:39:02,559
Speaker 3: to you, only takes whole after she has failed to

1660
01:39:02,680 --> 01:39:06,040
Speaker 3: kill her, basically, And I think that that like a

1661
01:39:06,080 --> 01:39:09,759
Speaker 3: lot of Blanche's passivity comes from, you know, protracted abuse

1662
01:39:09,800 --> 01:39:12,120
Speaker 3: and fear. But I also I also sort of feel

1663
01:39:12,160 --> 01:39:14,799
Speaker 3: like there's a part of it that is also coming

1664
01:39:14,880 --> 01:39:18,240
Speaker 3: from that line at the beginning from her mother.

1665
01:39:18,760 --> 01:39:23,040
Speaker 4: I agree. I think it's almost like she's been raised

1666
01:39:23,080 --> 01:39:27,880
Speaker 4: to accept poor treatment and like in a way that

1667
01:39:27,920 --> 01:39:29,960
Speaker 4: I think a lot of young girls are called to

1668
01:39:30,240 --> 01:39:33,240
Speaker 4: just kind of take abuse and not call it that.

1669
01:39:34,439 --> 01:39:38,280
Speaker 4: I do think they need they it's just really the

1670
01:39:38,360 --> 01:39:42,120
Speaker 4: thing is with exploitation movies is they can be really

1671
01:39:42,120 --> 01:39:45,479
Speaker 4: fascinating and really over the top, but a lot of

1672
01:39:45,520 --> 01:39:50,600
Speaker 4: times I don't think the script and story itself understands

1673
01:39:51,080 --> 01:39:54,800
Speaker 4: women and how like women relate to each other, and

1674
01:39:54,840 --> 01:39:57,280
Speaker 4: so you have like a lot of actresses have to

1675
01:39:57,560 --> 01:40:02,360
Speaker 4: almost like offset and contra predict or add in performance

1676
01:40:02,520 --> 01:40:06,760
Speaker 4: like layers that aren't there in the story, you know. Yeah,

1677
01:40:06,840 --> 01:40:09,519
Speaker 4: I think like they're both adding like layers to the

1678
01:40:09,640 --> 01:40:12,880
Speaker 4: character that's not on the page for them. And I

1679
01:40:13,600 --> 01:40:16,880
Speaker 4: definitely think the mother being such a void despite what

1680
01:40:17,040 --> 01:40:20,599
Speaker 4: she said to Blanche being so integral in her psyche

1681
01:40:21,000 --> 01:40:23,680
Speaker 4: kind of speaks to the fact that like the men

1682
01:40:23,720 --> 01:40:27,880
Speaker 4: who made this weren't interested in women period. They were

1683
01:40:27,920 --> 01:40:31,479
Speaker 4: just interested in like gawking at these like older women

1684
01:40:32,040 --> 01:40:37,040
Speaker 4: who no longer had you know, people sexually desiring them

1685
01:40:37,200 --> 01:40:40,120
Speaker 4: or desiring them for any reason. And so isn't that

1686
01:40:40,240 --> 01:40:44,599
Speaker 4: sad because what's a woman without an audience? Right?

1687
01:40:44,960 --> 01:40:45,400
Speaker 3: Yeah?

1688
01:40:45,479 --> 01:40:49,519
Speaker 2: I find it interesting that, at least as far as

1689
01:40:49,560 --> 01:40:55,160
Speaker 2: my interpretation goes, a component of the exploitation element of

1690
01:40:55,200 --> 01:40:59,920
Speaker 2: this movie is the way that the James Hudson character looks,

1691
01:41:00,120 --> 01:41:05,320
Speaker 2: particularly her makeup, because her makeup makes her look pretty

1692
01:41:05,360 --> 01:41:09,639
Speaker 2: ghoulish because it's this you know, vodvillion, very old fashion.

1693
01:41:09,840 --> 01:41:13,120
Speaker 3: She's like taking on the yeah, so much.

1694
01:41:13,000 --> 01:41:17,080
Speaker 2: Like eyeliner and mascaring and kind of stuff. But I

1695
01:41:17,120 --> 01:41:21,160
Speaker 2: think that there's context for that that at least Betty

1696
01:41:21,240 --> 01:41:23,479
Speaker 2: Davis as an actor brings out in her character in

1697
01:41:23,520 --> 01:41:27,120
Speaker 2: the sense that she I mean, we hear this thing,

1698
01:41:27,880 --> 01:41:30,639
Speaker 2: and it might be an over generalization, but we've heard

1699
01:41:30,640 --> 01:41:34,519
Speaker 2: this thing right that a child star who becomes famous

1700
01:41:35,439 --> 01:41:38,920
Speaker 2: tends to kind of like like their development gets a

1701
01:41:38,920 --> 01:41:42,080
Speaker 2: bit arrested at the moment that they become famous. They

1702
01:41:42,080 --> 01:41:46,639
Speaker 2: have difficulties sort of like maturing beyond that, And again

1703
01:41:47,360 --> 01:41:50,040
Speaker 2: not true for all child stars. I'm not trying to

1704
01:41:50,040 --> 01:41:53,240
Speaker 2: make a blanket statement here, but like see examples of this.

1705
01:41:53,560 --> 01:41:55,960
Speaker 3: I feel like, especially to the extent of like it,

1706
01:41:56,200 --> 01:42:01,439
Speaker 3: what matters is your support system and how careful is

1707
01:42:01,479 --> 01:42:05,080
Speaker 3: your support system being about allowing you to develop as

1708
01:42:05,120 --> 01:42:08,120
Speaker 3: a person, And even a good support system doesn't necessarily

1709
01:42:08,280 --> 01:42:10,520
Speaker 3: guarantee an outcome one way or another.

1710
01:42:10,560 --> 01:42:13,519
Speaker 2: For sure, And then also considering the context of this

1711
01:42:13,640 --> 01:42:19,040
Speaker 2: era where like mental health support was like barely becoming

1712
01:42:19,040 --> 01:42:22,000
Speaker 2: a thing at this point. So we have all these

1713
01:42:22,400 --> 01:42:28,000
Speaker 2: all this context for why Jane seems to constantly regress

1714
01:42:28,040 --> 01:42:33,840
Speaker 2: into this child like immaturity with her esthetic, with her behavior,

1715
01:42:33,880 --> 01:42:38,439
Speaker 2: like all this stuff, so it's contextualized. So even though

1716
01:42:38,479 --> 01:42:44,280
Speaker 2: her like ghoulish appearance like contributes to this like hag aesthetic,

1717
01:42:44,960 --> 01:42:47,559
Speaker 2: we know the context for it in a way that

1718
01:42:47,760 --> 01:42:52,000
Speaker 2: I think other exploitation movies would just ignore or like

1719
01:42:52,080 --> 01:42:54,400
Speaker 2: not pay that much attention to or not give that

1720
01:42:54,479 --> 01:42:55,040
Speaker 2: much care to.

1721
01:42:55,840 --> 01:42:59,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I'm going to actually read another past

1722
01:43:00,360 --> 01:43:04,160
Speaker 4: Betty Davis like writes and this and that about like

1723
01:43:04,560 --> 01:43:08,519
Speaker 4: how she came up with this makeup quote. I decided

1724
01:43:08,560 --> 01:43:10,800
Speaker 4: to do my own makeup for baby Jane what I

1725
01:43:10,840 --> 01:43:13,840
Speaker 4: had in mind. No professional makeup man would have dared

1726
01:43:13,880 --> 01:43:16,679
Speaker 4: to put on me. One told me he was afraid

1727
01:43:16,680 --> 01:43:18,679
Speaker 4: that if he did what I wanted, he might never

1728
01:43:18,720 --> 01:43:22,120
Speaker 4: work again. Jane looked like many women one sees on

1729
01:43:22,200 --> 01:43:27,080
Speaker 4: Hollywood Boulevard. In fact, author Henry Ferrell, who wrote the

1730
01:43:27,120 --> 01:43:30,240
Speaker 4: book is based on, patterned the character of Jane after

1731
01:43:30,280 --> 01:43:34,080
Speaker 4: these women. One would presume by the way they looked

1732
01:43:34,160 --> 01:43:37,560
Speaker 4: that they were once actresses and were now unemployed. I

1733
01:43:37,680 --> 01:43:40,880
Speaker 4: felt Jane never washed her face, just added another layer

1734
01:43:40,920 --> 01:43:44,120
Speaker 4: of makeup each day, And I think that's interesting because

1735
01:43:44,160 --> 01:43:47,560
Speaker 4: it also like just skirts past a sort of class

1736
01:43:47,600 --> 01:43:51,160
Speaker 4: thinking of like these are women who are also doing

1737
01:43:51,240 --> 01:43:54,639
Speaker 4: the same routines because that was their way of like

1738
01:43:54,760 --> 01:43:58,320
Speaker 4: literally gaining money for their labor and that sort of

1739
01:43:58,360 --> 01:44:01,280
Speaker 4: look they're now associated it so much, but not just

1740
01:44:01,360 --> 01:44:04,800
Speaker 4: their like personal worth as a woman, but they're economic

1741
01:44:05,160 --> 01:44:08,599
Speaker 4: worth as an act So there's like interesting like thinking

1742
01:44:08,680 --> 01:44:11,840
Speaker 4: behind it. And I agree, like you're not seeing that

1743
01:44:11,880 --> 01:44:16,160
Speaker 4: in other exploitation films, by and large, there there are

1744
01:44:16,200 --> 01:44:19,400
Speaker 4: some interesting ones, but in a lot of ways they

1745
01:44:19,400 --> 01:44:26,639
Speaker 4: don't do that. And I think that exploitation directly leads

1746
01:44:26,680 --> 01:44:30,160
Speaker 4: into the moment in horror we're in now, which instead

1747
01:44:30,160 --> 01:44:33,599
Speaker 4: of like the baby if Baby Jane being a central figure,

1748
01:44:34,479 --> 01:44:37,760
Speaker 4: the baby Jane is like a villainous monster in a

1749
01:44:37,760 --> 01:44:40,599
Speaker 4: lot of ways, like there's nothing more scary to modern

1750
01:44:41,320 --> 01:44:46,680
Speaker 4: male horror directors than an elderly naked woman Gladys.

1751
01:44:49,920 --> 01:44:53,240
Speaker 3: I have dissenting opinions on Aunt Gladys. It's a cultural

1752
01:44:53,280 --> 01:44:55,000
Speaker 3: figure that people aren't ready to hear.

1753
01:44:55,200 --> 01:44:56,080
Speaker 2: Oh from Weapons.

1754
01:44:56,240 --> 01:44:58,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, or at least everyone I've tried to talk to

1755
01:44:58,240 --> 01:45:00,240
Speaker 3: about it, they're like, hut up, we like her. I

1756
01:45:00,280 --> 01:45:01,000
Speaker 3: was like, all right, I.

1757
01:45:01,080 --> 01:45:03,080
Speaker 4: Had her in mind when I said that, because I

1758
01:45:03,120 --> 01:45:06,439
Speaker 4: was like once, I like, you know, you actually watched

1759
01:45:06,479 --> 01:45:09,160
Speaker 4: the movie. You're like, oh, we're doing this.

1760
01:45:09,800 --> 01:45:12,080
Speaker 3: Oh, we're doing this, and we also did it in

1761
01:45:12,120 --> 01:45:14,280
Speaker 3: the first one. We did it in Barbarian as well,

1762
01:45:14,320 --> 01:45:15,880
Speaker 3: and then we're like, let's do it again. Then let's

1763
01:45:15,880 --> 01:45:19,160
Speaker 3: get her an oscar which is nothing against Amy Madigan,

1764
01:45:19,280 --> 01:45:23,480
Speaker 3: but it's great. It's an incredible performer, an incredible performance,

1765
01:45:24,080 --> 01:45:26,040
Speaker 3: but these are the parts that are available.

1766
01:45:26,400 --> 01:45:28,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's something we need to and I don't

1767
01:45:28,920 --> 01:45:32,120
Speaker 4: think anyone has like unpacked in a really good recent piece.

1768
01:45:32,720 --> 01:45:35,960
Speaker 4: What the fuck is up with that? Like ye, cause

1769
01:45:36,000 --> 01:45:39,040
Speaker 4: it's like this is all happening with these like look,

1770
01:45:39,040 --> 01:45:42,200
Speaker 4: how terrible an elderly it's not a man an elderly

1771
01:45:42,240 --> 01:45:46,040
Speaker 4: man's body. Typically it's an elderly woman's body. Why is

1772
01:45:46,080 --> 01:45:50,320
Speaker 4: the figure of the crone so frightening to people? And

1773
01:45:50,360 --> 01:45:53,840
Speaker 4: this is happening at the same time, we're watching celebrities

1774
01:45:53,840 --> 01:45:57,040
Speaker 4: who are not even that old, like really working on

1775
01:45:57,080 --> 01:45:59,720
Speaker 4: their face and then there's no zemp so it's like

1776
01:45:59,760 --> 01:46:04,080
Speaker 4: this very weird miasma of not a fun shit that

1777
01:46:04,120 --> 01:46:06,880
Speaker 4: we're kind of in. And it's like every time I

1778
01:46:06,920 --> 01:46:09,800
Speaker 4: see a horror movie do this, I'm like, I don't

1779
01:46:09,800 --> 01:46:12,719
Speaker 4: think you guys realize what thematically you open the door

1780
01:46:12,760 --> 01:46:16,439
Speaker 4: to by by having an elderly woman's body be the

1781
01:46:17,120 --> 01:46:21,000
Speaker 4: such a figure of fear and revulsion. It's also like,

1782
01:46:21,040 --> 01:46:23,839
Speaker 4: we're disgusting because that's not what a woman is supposed

1783
01:46:23,840 --> 01:46:25,400
Speaker 4: to do and look.

1784
01:46:25,360 --> 01:46:30,000
Speaker 3: Like yeah, and it's not. And it's it's not a

1785
01:46:30,080 --> 01:46:32,639
Speaker 3: question to me of the caliber of performance, because again,

1786
01:46:32,680 --> 01:46:38,120
Speaker 3: agree it's a great performance, but to my mind, the

1787
01:46:38,280 --> 01:46:43,720
Speaker 3: substance getting the critical push that it did thematically immediately

1788
01:46:43,760 --> 01:46:47,320
Speaker 3: followed by the huge push for we've got to award

1789
01:46:47,640 --> 01:46:52,600
Speaker 3: the end Gladys like back to Beck, I have questions.

1790
01:46:52,960 --> 01:46:56,800
Speaker 4: It's also like I've, you know, bitch about the substance.

1791
01:46:56,840 --> 01:47:00,960
Speaker 4: I like wrote a piece comparing the Substance to the

1792
01:47:01,000 --> 01:47:03,240
Speaker 4: film A Different Man and how they both deal with

1793
01:47:03,280 --> 01:47:07,840
Speaker 4: like dopel gangers and like how we see ourselves and

1794
01:47:07,880 --> 01:47:11,519
Speaker 4: like identity found in the aesthetic and stuff like that.

1795
01:47:11,560 --> 01:47:15,240
Speaker 4: I like when I watched them, like pretty almost back

1796
01:47:15,280 --> 01:47:18,360
Speaker 4: to back. I was like, oh, like there's a lot

1797
01:47:18,400 --> 01:47:20,960
Speaker 4: going on here, and like the thing that upsets me

1798
01:47:21,560 --> 01:47:25,080
Speaker 4: about the substance and part is like once we get

1799
01:47:25,680 --> 01:47:29,000
Speaker 4: to me more and Margaret Qualley are actually both awakened

1800
01:47:29,000 --> 01:47:31,840
Speaker 4: in the same room. They don't talk to each other.

1801
01:47:32,479 --> 01:47:35,680
Speaker 4: They like scream and then it becomes violent and then

1802
01:47:36,080 --> 01:47:40,080
Speaker 4: murder happens. But something about that was so cowardly to me.

1803
01:47:40,600 --> 01:47:43,599
Speaker 4: I was like, no, two characters have more to say

1804
01:47:43,640 --> 01:47:46,400
Speaker 4: to each other than these women, Like why don't they say.

1805
01:47:47,320 --> 01:47:48,960
Speaker 2: I wish I could talk to my own self all

1806
01:47:49,000 --> 01:47:49,240
Speaker 2: the time?

1807
01:47:49,240 --> 01:47:51,760
Speaker 4: Oh, my God, like some I wish I could like

1808
01:47:51,880 --> 01:47:55,880
Speaker 4: talk to like like my inner child, or like the

1809
01:47:56,000 --> 01:47:59,120
Speaker 4: part of me that, like you know, is very mean

1810
01:47:59,160 --> 01:48:03,839
Speaker 4: to myself sometimes, Like imagine like actually physically be able

1811
01:48:04,080 --> 01:48:06,640
Speaker 4: to interact with yourself like that. I thought it was

1812
01:48:06,880 --> 01:48:11,479
Speaker 4: very telling that Coralie Fargiott could not imagine what these

1813
01:48:11,520 --> 01:48:15,120
Speaker 4: women would say to each other, only like it's dovetails

1814
01:48:15,160 --> 01:48:18,439
Speaker 4: directly into violence. And something about that always caught me.

1815
01:48:18,560 --> 01:48:21,160
Speaker 4: And it's also not a coincidence that all these elder

1816
01:48:21,880 --> 01:48:25,760
Speaker 4: like women figures and horror are not really talking to

1817
01:48:25,800 --> 01:48:29,040
Speaker 4: anybody too too much. They're They're almost like these weird

1818
01:48:29,080 --> 01:48:32,400
Speaker 4: little objects of spectacle that you're supposed to like always

1819
01:48:32,439 --> 01:48:35,519
Speaker 4: regard at some sort of remove. You're not supposed to

1820
01:48:35,640 --> 01:48:39,360
Speaker 4: like really know about who they are underneath things. They're

1821
01:48:39,400 --> 01:48:42,320
Speaker 4: meant to be gawned at. They're meant to be a spectacle.

1822
01:48:42,560 --> 01:48:45,360
Speaker 4: They're meant to be feared. But I'm sorry, if you're

1823
01:48:45,360 --> 01:48:49,800
Speaker 4: a woman, you keep living, you're going to age. There's

1824
01:48:49,880 --> 01:48:52,320
Speaker 4: no way around that. That's the thing about being a

1825
01:48:52,400 --> 01:48:55,679
Speaker 4: human being in alive. I know, these whack ass tech

1826
01:48:55,760 --> 01:48:59,200
Speaker 4: bros believing like uploading your freaking brain to whatever bullshit

1827
01:48:59,280 --> 01:49:03,479
Speaker 4: that they hope will have singularity. Yes, I'm like, go

1828
01:49:04,360 --> 01:49:06,880
Speaker 4: to Mars and die. Can you just live us alone?

1829
01:49:07,200 --> 01:49:10,880
Speaker 4: But like it's just something about like that is so

1830
01:49:11,200 --> 01:49:13,439
Speaker 4: fascinating to me right now, and like people just kind

1831
01:49:13,479 --> 01:49:15,400
Speaker 4: of accept like, yeah, that's just the thing we're doing

1832
01:49:15,439 --> 01:49:17,880
Speaker 4: in horror right now. But I'm like, no, I think

1833
01:49:17,880 --> 01:49:21,000
Speaker 4: we need to unpack the misogyny of this, because it's

1834
01:49:21,600 --> 01:49:24,320
Speaker 4: I think horror is in like a very interesting place

1835
01:49:24,360 --> 01:49:26,360
Speaker 4: in terms of gender right now.

1836
01:49:27,960 --> 01:49:32,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you, And I mean, yeah, I'm

1837
01:49:32,439 --> 01:49:34,560
Speaker 3: so glad that I was like, oh, she's talking about it.

1838
01:49:34,600 --> 01:49:38,680
Speaker 3: I'm glad as I know it because yeah, like I

1839
01:49:38,800 --> 01:49:42,240
Speaker 3: end whatever, I like, it's a good movie all that stuff. Yeah, yeah,

1840
01:49:42,439 --> 01:49:45,720
Speaker 3: but I think that it's it is interesting that a

1841
01:49:45,760 --> 01:49:48,639
Speaker 3: movie like Whatever Happened to Baby Jade has the legacy

1842
01:49:48,640 --> 01:49:52,840
Speaker 3: it did, had a lot of very persistent and also

1843
01:49:52,960 --> 01:49:58,599
Speaker 3: understandable like this is a fundamentally misogynist movie, while in

1844
01:49:58,680 --> 01:50:03,080
Speaker 3: the future glad a character that physically resembles this, Like

1845
01:50:03,120 --> 01:50:06,280
Speaker 3: I would be absolutely shocked if Baby Jane wasn't on

1846
01:50:06,360 --> 01:50:10,040
Speaker 3: the vision board for this character in just presentation, in

1847
01:50:10,080 --> 01:50:12,720
Speaker 3: the makeup and all of that stuff in the like

1848
01:50:13,040 --> 01:50:18,280
Speaker 3: you know, fake aunt form at least. But a huge

1849
01:50:18,280 --> 01:50:23,000
Speaker 3: critical difference is we know something about Baby Jane, we like,

1850
01:50:23,880 --> 01:50:27,719
Speaker 3: even though it is laden in tropes in certain areas,

1851
01:50:27,800 --> 01:50:31,639
Speaker 3: we know her personal history. We at least are given

1852
01:50:31,720 --> 01:50:35,960
Speaker 3: information to understand why she's presenting this way and not

1853
01:50:36,160 --> 01:50:39,680
Speaker 3: just like a kind of voidless plot, which that is

1854
01:50:39,760 --> 01:50:45,200
Speaker 3: playing on your assumed negative opinions and fear of older women,

1855
01:50:45,240 --> 01:50:48,080
Speaker 3: which is that that's just like a kick back to

1856
01:50:48,600 --> 01:50:50,920
Speaker 3: something that is I think we pretend we like we

1857
01:50:51,080 --> 01:50:53,320
Speaker 3: like to say, has gone away because we're giving it

1858
01:50:53,439 --> 01:50:56,679
Speaker 3: an award, But I don't think that that that element

1859
01:50:56,680 --> 01:50:59,559
Speaker 3: of horror, it hasn't gone away, it's like changed and

1860
01:50:59,600 --> 01:51:05,840
Speaker 3: gotten as technology develops. So that's that's my final word

1861
01:51:05,880 --> 01:51:07,639
Speaker 3: on Aunt Gladys God damn it.

1862
01:51:10,760 --> 01:51:13,240
Speaker 2: Can we talk a little bit about Alvira Oh.

1863
01:51:13,120 --> 01:51:18,160
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, stealth the one of the most fascinating like

1864
01:51:18,880 --> 01:51:23,360
Speaker 4: thorns and Jane's side, And just like again I said

1865
01:51:23,360 --> 01:51:26,600
Speaker 4: this a little earlier, but there's like a racial commentary

1866
01:51:26,640 --> 01:51:29,439
Speaker 4: thing the movie doesn't realize it's at all doing, because

1867
01:51:29,439 --> 01:51:31,160
Speaker 4: of course they would cast a black woman in this

1868
01:51:31,280 --> 01:51:34,000
Speaker 4: role and like Da Da da da, but having her

1869
01:51:34,080 --> 01:51:37,559
Speaker 4: be the one who can see through Jane so clearly

1870
01:51:38,360 --> 01:51:42,000
Speaker 4: speaks to something that I think I'm very aware of

1871
01:51:42,040 --> 01:51:44,679
Speaker 4: as a black woman, which is you have to study

1872
01:51:44,760 --> 01:51:47,600
Speaker 4: white women in order to survive, so you tend to

1873
01:51:47,680 --> 01:51:50,000
Speaker 4: know them and how they're going to react better than

1874
01:51:50,000 --> 01:51:53,520
Speaker 4: they do. And so that's also I think her trepidation

1875
01:51:53,720 --> 01:51:57,160
Speaker 4: with saying anything is like being very aware, this is

1876
01:51:57,240 --> 01:52:03,560
Speaker 4: my white employer. Yeah, like what would be the repercussions

1877
01:52:03,640 --> 01:52:07,519
Speaker 4: for me professionally if I like do this. I think

1878
01:52:07,560 --> 01:52:11,320
Speaker 4: she's a really really fascinating character in that way. And yeah,

1879
01:52:11,360 --> 01:52:14,840
Speaker 4: that line she says to Jane about you've got to

1880
01:52:14,880 --> 01:52:18,120
Speaker 4: be a grown woman like everyone else. Just like it's

1881
01:52:18,320 --> 01:52:19,240
Speaker 4: kind of haunting.

1882
01:52:19,800 --> 01:52:24,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, I yeah, I agree. I again like the performance

1883
01:52:24,400 --> 01:52:28,280
Speaker 3: from Madie Norman, who I was not familiar with, like

1884
01:52:28,520 --> 01:52:30,760
Speaker 3: her sort of body of work, but she was also

1885
01:52:30,760 --> 01:52:35,320
Speaker 3: a longtime professor at UCLA. She taught black theater history

1886
01:52:35,320 --> 01:52:38,240
Speaker 3: at UCLA for decades and decades and like had this

1887
01:52:38,400 --> 01:52:42,640
Speaker 3: very fascinating career in a longer sense as well. But

1888
01:52:42,760 --> 01:52:46,879
Speaker 3: I just she's a really I feel like she brings

1889
01:52:47,040 --> 01:52:50,040
Speaker 3: a lot of that subtext that you're describing out of,

1890
01:52:50,080 --> 01:52:53,880
Speaker 3: Like you see her having to think about like in

1891
01:52:53,920 --> 01:52:56,559
Speaker 3: the moment where it's it's so clear from she knows

1892
01:52:56,600 --> 01:52:59,160
Speaker 3: things are wrong at the beginning of the movie, and

1893
01:52:59,240 --> 01:53:02,160
Speaker 3: you can tell that she wants to push Jane Moore

1894
01:53:02,320 --> 01:53:05,800
Speaker 3: the first time she's told actually go home, here's here's

1895
01:53:05,840 --> 01:53:08,960
Speaker 3: your money. By go you could tell that like she

1896
01:53:09,080 --> 01:53:11,200
Speaker 3: wants to stay but has to do the calculus of

1897
01:53:11,240 --> 01:53:16,360
Speaker 3: like you know, this is my white irrational boss, and

1898
01:53:16,560 --> 01:53:19,120
Speaker 3: like do I is this a battle I'm good to

1899
01:53:19,200 --> 01:53:19,880
Speaker 3: choose right now?

1900
01:53:20,120 --> 01:53:20,479
Speaker 2: Is it not?

1901
01:53:20,640 --> 01:53:23,120
Speaker 3: And like it I don't know. I just I feel

1902
01:53:23,160 --> 01:53:26,320
Speaker 3: like you can see her thinking so much in a

1903
01:53:26,320 --> 01:53:29,080
Speaker 3: way that sells I think on the on the page

1904
01:53:29,120 --> 01:53:30,920
Speaker 3: something that's just like we just need this character to

1905
01:53:30,960 --> 01:53:31,360
Speaker 3: go away.

1906
01:53:31,640 --> 01:53:32,040
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1907
01:53:32,160 --> 01:53:33,000
Speaker 4: Yeah.

1908
01:53:33,040 --> 01:53:38,080
Speaker 2: And then I mean there's also just the she's only

1909
01:53:38,200 --> 01:53:42,280
Speaker 2: there to serve the white characters. Yeah, she's the only

1910
01:53:42,920 --> 01:53:46,280
Speaker 2: on screen death we see, I believe, Yeah, the first

1911
01:53:46,360 --> 01:53:50,160
Speaker 2: and only. So you know, there's those very racialized and

1912
01:53:50,240 --> 01:53:54,400
Speaker 2: racist tropes present that were which were super common for

1913
01:53:54,439 --> 01:53:57,760
Speaker 2: this time, especially as far as a black woman being

1914
01:53:57,760 --> 01:54:01,120
Speaker 2: in a service role. Yeah, we do get characterization from her,

1915
01:54:01,240 --> 01:54:03,160
Speaker 2: and you know what we were just talking about as

1916
01:54:03,280 --> 01:54:07,840
Speaker 2: far as her being discerning and then having to you

1917
01:54:07,880 --> 01:54:11,160
Speaker 2: know navigate like this is also her at least a

1918
01:54:11,280 --> 01:54:15,440
Speaker 2: source of income. It's I couldn't tell like how frequently

1919
01:54:15,520 --> 01:54:17,960
Speaker 2: she comes by or like how much.

1920
01:54:18,280 --> 01:54:21,080
Speaker 4: Seems like a like a few times a week, and

1921
01:54:21,120 --> 01:54:23,599
Speaker 4: this is probably and I just inferred, oh, she must

1922
01:54:23,600 --> 01:54:26,320
Speaker 4: be doing this for moret house families.

1923
01:54:26,479 --> 01:54:30,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I assumed as well. But this is

1924
01:54:30,320 --> 01:54:32,480
Speaker 2: at least a source of income for her, so she

1925
01:54:32,600 --> 01:54:36,520
Speaker 2: has to you know, navigate that. And but yeah, I

1926
01:54:36,560 --> 01:54:40,560
Speaker 2: found her to be a fascinating character that tropes that

1927
01:54:40,640 --> 01:54:43,640
Speaker 2: were very present at the time also very much apply

1928
01:54:43,880 --> 01:54:47,840
Speaker 2: to her as far as her sort of significance in

1929
01:54:48,280 --> 01:54:49,320
Speaker 2: the story.

1930
01:54:49,600 --> 01:54:52,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the just the lack of the complete dearth

1931
01:54:52,880 --> 01:54:56,200
Speaker 3: of things we know about her outside of her relationship

1932
01:54:56,320 --> 01:54:59,280
Speaker 3: to these sisters who are her employers.

1933
01:54:59,520 --> 01:55:01,480
Speaker 2: We know that she has a cousin.

1934
01:55:01,760 --> 01:55:05,400
Speaker 4: I know. I was like, she has a cousin. That's

1935
01:55:05,480 --> 01:55:07,840
Speaker 4: that's it, That's all there is to her.

1936
01:55:08,160 --> 01:55:11,440
Speaker 3: She has a cousin who's heard a lot about these sisters. Oh,

1937
01:55:11,480 --> 01:55:15,680
Speaker 3: I would see, I would see if she's fifteen minutes

1938
01:55:15,760 --> 01:55:18,520
Speaker 3: late coming home, I'm calling someone exactly.

1939
01:55:18,640 --> 01:55:22,400
Speaker 4: Like there's a whole I would never say remake this movie,

1940
01:55:22,440 --> 01:55:24,880
Speaker 4: Like there's no way to remake it in today's But

1941
01:55:25,480 --> 01:55:29,680
Speaker 4: there's something very interesting about like the thought experiment of

1942
01:55:30,200 --> 01:55:33,440
Speaker 4: what if I, as a woman, wrote a story like this,

1943
01:55:33,840 --> 01:55:37,520
Speaker 4: How would I change the perspective of things? How would

1944
01:55:37,560 --> 01:55:43,080
Speaker 4: I make like the Elvira character alive in a way. Yeah,

1945
01:55:43,120 --> 01:55:45,360
Speaker 4: maybe I'll just write a novel sort of inspired by

1946
01:55:45,360 --> 01:55:45,960
Speaker 4: Baby Jane.

1947
01:55:45,960 --> 01:55:48,440
Speaker 3: I don't know, Oh my god, you should the world

1948
01:55:48,520 --> 01:55:51,080
Speaker 3: is ready or I mean, we'll find out that the

1949
01:55:51,080 --> 01:55:51,680
Speaker 3: world should be.

1950
01:55:52,600 --> 01:55:55,480
Speaker 4: But it's like sort of fat, Like, you know, I

1951
01:55:55,520 --> 01:55:59,720
Speaker 4: had an interesting conversation with a friend, uh, like maybe

1952
01:55:59,760 --> 01:56:03,200
Speaker 4: like months ago, and she's more a literal she's like

1953
01:56:03,200 --> 01:56:07,680
Speaker 4: a literary critic primarily. And she said something and we

1954
01:56:07,760 --> 01:56:10,840
Speaker 4: had like it was a conversation about Jennifer Lawrence and

1955
01:56:11,200 --> 01:56:13,920
Speaker 4: and like I was mentioning Die my Love and and

1956
01:56:14,040 --> 01:56:18,720
Speaker 4: Giatolantino's like profile on Lawrence and talking to her about

1957
01:56:18,720 --> 01:56:23,120
Speaker 4: her as like she's like the biggest millennial star who's

1958
01:56:23,120 --> 01:56:26,400
Speaker 4: an actress, right, Like she's such a fixture. But all

1959
01:56:26,440 --> 01:56:29,480
Speaker 4: I kept thinking was like, oh, that makes me sad

1960
01:56:29,720 --> 01:56:32,720
Speaker 4: because it mean it like speaks to how limited portrayals

1961
01:56:32,760 --> 01:56:35,200
Speaker 4: are of like women in film, that this is like

1962
01:56:36,160 --> 01:56:39,000
Speaker 4: this is like the main chick. And she, you know,

1963
01:56:39,040 --> 01:56:41,080
Speaker 4: my friend said something that sort of upset me, where

1964
01:56:41,120 --> 01:56:43,600
Speaker 4: she was like, well, you know, like I don't have

1965
01:56:43,640 --> 01:56:47,480
Speaker 4: that problem with literature because like anyone can pick up

1966
01:56:47,480 --> 01:56:50,280
Speaker 4: a pen and start writing a novel, making a film

1967
01:56:50,400 --> 01:56:53,640
Speaker 4: requires so much capital that just by the nature of

1968
01:56:53,680 --> 01:56:57,000
Speaker 4: the industry, you're just going to have less representations of things.

1969
01:56:57,400 --> 01:57:00,720
Speaker 4: And it's so dictated by capital that that fext things.

1970
01:57:01,000 --> 01:57:02,720
Speaker 4: So I don't know, I've been thinking a lot about

1971
01:57:02,720 --> 01:57:07,520
Speaker 4: what storytelling excites me and like what I want to

1972
01:57:07,560 --> 01:57:09,760
Speaker 4: do with my own career going forward. So that's also

1973
01:57:09,760 --> 01:57:11,520
Speaker 4: why I'm like, what if I write a book that's

1974
01:57:11,560 --> 01:57:14,840
Speaker 4: inspired by Baby Jane and like, actually really give a

1975
01:57:14,880 --> 01:57:18,640
Speaker 4: shit about these women as women, And yeah, the mother

1976
01:57:18,760 --> 01:57:20,920
Speaker 4: is gonna be major in it. Because one of my

1977
01:57:20,920 --> 01:57:23,919
Speaker 4: biggest rants is there's too many movies about daddy issues

1978
01:57:24,160 --> 01:57:27,080
Speaker 4: and there's not enough movies about mommy issues. Because I'm like,

1979
01:57:27,120 --> 01:57:29,600
Speaker 4: I see y'all in the streets, y'all have mommy issues.

1980
01:57:29,680 --> 01:57:32,879
Speaker 4: Y'all need to come correct. We need more mommy issues movies.

1981
01:57:33,800 --> 01:57:37,600
Speaker 4: Mommy Dearest, Mommy dearis is a major Bomby issues movie.

1982
01:57:37,880 --> 01:57:41,760
Speaker 3: That is. Yeah, that's I guess I want to repeat

1983
01:57:41,760 --> 01:57:46,160
Speaker 3: for our listeners that like those elements to Joan Crawford

1984
01:57:46,160 --> 01:57:48,960
Speaker 3: and to Betty Davis and there are I mean, I

1985
01:57:48,960 --> 01:57:51,400
Speaker 3: almost want to save that for the Mommy Dearest episode

1986
01:57:51,560 --> 01:57:54,879
Speaker 3: And yeah, because I honestly am not like well researched

1987
01:57:54,960 --> 01:57:59,200
Speaker 3: enough in that area of their personal history to speak

1988
01:57:59,240 --> 01:58:03,400
Speaker 3: to it intelligence today, But no, we are well aware.

1989
01:58:04,480 --> 01:58:09,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's very interesting with both Joan and Betty

1990
01:58:09,600 --> 01:58:13,680
Speaker 4: where it's like the daughter had complaints, you know, especially

1991
01:58:13,800 --> 01:58:17,440
Speaker 4: Jones's daughter, like yes, b d Betty's daughter, like her

1992
01:58:17,480 --> 01:58:20,080
Speaker 4: issues with her mother are not to the level if

1993
01:58:20,080 --> 01:58:23,919
Speaker 4: she was literally beating me kind of things. But it's interesting,

1994
01:58:24,240 --> 01:58:28,200
Speaker 4: like in both families, there's some children who were like

1995
01:58:28,280 --> 01:58:30,360
Speaker 4: they were great to me, and then there's the one

1996
01:58:30,440 --> 01:58:33,320
Speaker 4: child who was like, actually, I was like the vessel

1997
01:58:33,440 --> 01:58:36,360
Speaker 4: for all their issues with things that were out of

1998
01:58:36,360 --> 01:58:38,840
Speaker 4: my control because I'm a child, And I feel like

1999
01:58:38,880 --> 01:58:41,920
Speaker 4: that's very accurate to the rest of life, where a

2000
01:58:41,960 --> 01:58:45,000
Speaker 4: lot of times you'll see within families that there's like

2001
01:58:45,200 --> 01:58:48,360
Speaker 4: a sibling who has like genuine issues with their parents.

2002
01:58:48,760 --> 01:58:51,280
Speaker 4: Well then there's the other siblings who like didn't have

2003
01:58:51,320 --> 01:58:55,000
Speaker 4: the same experience as they were growing up and how

2004
01:58:55,680 --> 01:58:58,800
Speaker 4: it's such sensitive territory and a lot of it is

2005
01:58:58,880 --> 01:59:01,920
Speaker 4: like kind of murked up by a movie like Mommy

2006
01:59:01,960 --> 01:59:05,919
Speaker 4: Dearist and like making like turning what is a really harrowing,

2007
01:59:06,040 --> 01:59:11,160
Speaker 4: sad experience of like parental abuse into this almost like

2008
01:59:12,080 --> 01:59:17,800
Speaker 4: over the top camp extravaganza which sort of like you know,

2009
01:59:18,320 --> 01:59:21,800
Speaker 4: makes the moments of abuse into like pop culture memes

2010
01:59:21,920 --> 01:59:23,560
Speaker 4: like no more wire hangers and.

2011
01:59:23,520 --> 01:59:24,320
Speaker 2: Stuff like that.

2012
01:59:25,440 --> 01:59:27,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that this might this might be the

2013
01:59:28,120 --> 01:59:31,720
Speaker 3: this this year ten, we are finally maybe going to

2014
01:59:31,760 --> 01:59:36,360
Speaker 3: have to tackle Mommy Dearist, because it is a meer

2015
01:59:36,600 --> 01:59:40,560
Speaker 3: that I've been avoiding for for some time. I wanted

2016
01:59:40,560 --> 01:59:45,640
Speaker 3: to go back really quickly to the disability conversation in SBV,

2017
01:59:45,720 --> 01:59:49,480
Speaker 3: where I mean it's I think that there's a lot

2018
01:59:49,480 --> 01:59:53,480
Speaker 3: of ablest tropes that, while frustrating, we're not unsurprising to

2019
01:59:53,480 --> 01:59:55,960
Speaker 3: see in a movie from nineteen sixty two. Obviously, you know,

2020
01:59:56,080 --> 01:59:58,560
Speaker 3: John Crawford does not have this unnamed disability.

2021
01:59:58,680 --> 01:59:59,680
Speaker 2: She is not a.

2022
01:59:59,640 --> 02:00:03,640
Speaker 3: Wheeled here a user. I think that there are certain

2023
02:00:04,360 --> 02:00:08,520
Speaker 3: moments that, uh, I mean, there's the diablest trips we've

2024
02:00:08,520 --> 02:00:10,920
Speaker 3: talked about, and there's the fact that the movie really

2025
02:00:11,280 --> 02:00:16,600
Speaker 3: delights and lingers on seeing Joan Crawford being violently abused

2026
02:00:16,640 --> 02:00:20,160
Speaker 3: by her sister at length to the point where it's

2027
02:00:20,200 --> 02:00:22,960
Speaker 3: it is both ablest and you can almost be like

2028
02:00:23,040 --> 02:00:25,840
Speaker 3: they're doing this for the trailer. They're doing this to

2029
02:00:26,640 --> 02:00:31,080
Speaker 3: emphasize that Betty Davis wishes she was kicking Joan Crawford,

2030
02:00:31,320 --> 02:00:34,080
Speaker 3: doesn't she, you know, playing into that aspect of it.

2031
02:00:34,520 --> 02:00:38,800
Speaker 3: But of course it reads as extremely able as I

2032
02:00:38,960 --> 02:00:43,760
Speaker 3: did find I found from a blog called When the

2033
02:00:43,760 --> 02:00:48,440
Speaker 3: Woman Screams by an unnamed author unfortunately, who reflects on

2034
02:00:49,280 --> 02:00:54,360
Speaker 3: how specifically their present day dynamic did have at least

2035
02:00:54,800 --> 02:00:58,600
Speaker 3: her mind something to say about how disabled people were

2036
02:00:58,600 --> 02:01:01,400
Speaker 3: treated in the sixties, So I sort to read something

2037
02:01:01,760 --> 02:01:05,360
Speaker 3: from their quote. In the nineteen sixties, people with disabilities

2038
02:01:05,360 --> 02:01:08,440
Speaker 3: had limited protections to ensure their safety. There was no

2039
02:01:08,560 --> 02:01:11,840
Speaker 3: Americans with Disabilities Act, Disabled children still did not have

2040
02:01:11,880 --> 02:01:14,320
Speaker 3: the right to a public education, and the Center for

2041
02:01:14,400 --> 02:01:17,000
Speaker 3: Independent Living was just getting ready to open its doors.

2042
02:01:17,360 --> 02:01:20,160
Speaker 3: While the decade did see a move away from institutionalizing

2043
02:01:20,160 --> 02:01:24,800
Speaker 3: people with disabilities, support services for caregivers were sporadic at best.

2044
02:01:25,280 --> 02:01:28,520
Speaker 3: Like Blanche, a person with the disability that limited independent

2045
02:01:28,560 --> 02:01:31,600
Speaker 3: movement had to hope that their caregiver was competent because

2046
02:01:31,600 --> 02:01:35,640
Speaker 3: there was simply no oversight to ensure care standards unquote.

2047
02:01:35,640 --> 02:01:38,440
Speaker 3: And it continues from there. But I think that that

2048
02:01:38,680 --> 02:01:42,680
Speaker 3: is again I highly does something the movie was setting

2049
02:01:42,800 --> 02:01:47,400
Speaker 3: out to do explicitly, but does speak to I think

2050
02:01:47,560 --> 02:01:52,160
Speaker 3: something that we've talked about in other representations of disabled characters.

2051
02:01:52,360 --> 02:01:54,800
Speaker 3: The further you go back in history, there are no

2052
02:01:55,320 --> 02:01:59,120
Speaker 3: protections in place, protections that remain very flawed to this day.

2053
02:01:59,280 --> 02:02:04,400
Speaker 3: And just to protect I mean, this is a separate conversation,

2054
02:02:04,560 --> 02:02:08,280
Speaker 3: but when I was one of my dad's primary caregivers

2055
02:02:08,360 --> 02:02:11,360
Speaker 3: leading up to when he passed. I was shocked at

2056
02:02:11,560 --> 02:02:15,560
Speaker 3: how little you are like and that's in the present day,

2057
02:02:15,920 --> 02:02:19,440
Speaker 3: how much it it was dependent on me to know

2058
02:02:19,520 --> 02:02:22,240
Speaker 3: what I was doing and to get with the program

2059
02:02:22,280 --> 02:02:26,680
Speaker 3: because the support just mostly doesn't exist and so whatever.

2060
02:02:26,720 --> 02:02:30,160
Speaker 3: There's a lot going on there, but that because of

2061
02:02:31,000 --> 02:02:34,800
Speaker 3: Blanche's unnamed disability for because of this accident that has

2062
02:02:34,880 --> 02:02:39,040
Speaker 3: left her in as a wheelchair user, she is completely

2063
02:02:39,640 --> 02:02:43,600
Speaker 3: having to because there is no law that says her

2064
02:02:43,640 --> 02:02:45,960
Speaker 3: house needs to be able to be accessible for her.

2065
02:02:46,440 --> 02:02:51,360
Speaker 3: It enables Jane's abuse because there were even fewer protections

2066
02:02:51,440 --> 02:02:55,320
Speaker 3: and consideration of disabled people at the time. So yeah,

2067
02:02:55,320 --> 02:02:57,800
Speaker 3: I appreciated that point, even though I don't think it

2068
02:02:57,840 --> 02:03:01,760
Speaker 3: is when the movie is trying to draw attention to right.

2069
02:03:01,920 --> 02:03:05,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. I think the

2070
02:03:05,600 --> 02:03:10,800
Speaker 4: movie does kind of like trip into accidentally more interesting

2071
02:03:10,840 --> 02:03:13,360
Speaker 4: ideas than what they set out to do. You can

2072
02:03:13,400 --> 02:03:17,000
Speaker 4: definitely feel like, oh, they they didn't realize they're actually

2073
02:03:17,080 --> 02:03:22,080
Speaker 4: like tapping into something worth really saying about disability. It's also, like,

2074
02:03:22,440 --> 02:03:26,040
Speaker 4: you know, important to keep in mind, like there's not

2075
02:03:26,320 --> 02:03:29,680
Speaker 4: like many actors in Hollywood history who have dealt with

2076
02:03:29,800 --> 02:03:34,200
Speaker 4: like notable physical disabilities that have had like careers, like

2077
02:03:34,360 --> 02:03:37,720
Speaker 4: at the time, the only woman I can think of

2078
02:03:38,400 --> 02:03:41,960
Speaker 4: who like she started as an actress and then had

2079
02:03:42,040 --> 02:03:46,560
Speaker 4: an accident that eventually paralyzed her, and then she went

2080
02:03:46,680 --> 02:03:48,800
Speaker 4: actually back to acting. I don't know if you've ever

2081
02:03:48,840 --> 02:03:51,960
Speaker 4: heard of her, but her name was Susan Peters and

2082
02:03:52,120 --> 02:03:54,760
Speaker 4: she did this really interesting noir called The Sign of

2083
02:03:54,760 --> 02:03:58,640
Speaker 4: the Ram in nineteen forty eight that's legitimately about her

2084
02:03:58,720 --> 02:04:03,280
Speaker 4: characters like struggle with accepting her own accident and disability

2085
02:04:03,560 --> 02:04:05,760
Speaker 4: does not end well for the character, but there's something

2086
02:04:05,840 --> 02:04:08,720
Speaker 4: really interesting about watching a movie dealing with that with

2087
02:04:08,880 --> 02:04:12,400
Speaker 4: an actual woman who was paralyzed and like in real life,

2088
02:04:12,440 --> 02:04:16,080
Speaker 4: really struggling with who am I now that this has

2089
02:04:16,120 --> 02:04:19,000
Speaker 4: happened to me, and it's happened like so early in

2090
02:04:19,040 --> 02:04:21,800
Speaker 4: my career. And this was like her last movie because

2091
02:04:21,840 --> 02:04:24,640
Speaker 4: she just kind of was in a space where she

2092
02:04:24,760 --> 02:04:27,240
Speaker 4: was like, I'm not going to get interesting roles after this.

2093
02:04:27,240 --> 02:04:30,600
Speaker 4: This is like probably it, this industry is not going

2094
02:04:30,680 --> 02:04:34,600
Speaker 4: to support me. And she ended up committing suicide pretty young,

2095
02:04:35,600 --> 02:04:38,880
Speaker 4: very sad story, but The Sign of the Ram is

2096
02:04:38,920 --> 02:04:42,960
Speaker 4: like actually a very interesting noir and speaking of aries,

2097
02:04:43,080 --> 02:04:46,800
Speaker 4: that title is obviously alluding to aries people. This is

2098
02:04:46,800 --> 02:04:50,720
Speaker 4: a whole podcast episode about aries women apparently.

2099
02:04:51,240 --> 02:04:56,400
Speaker 3: I Oh, I'm a Leah. We've got a lot of

2100
02:04:56,760 --> 02:04:58,400
Speaker 3: a lot of fire in the chat.

2101
02:04:58,520 --> 02:04:59,960
Speaker 4: There a lot of fire in the chat. I love

2102
02:05:00,120 --> 02:05:01,640
Speaker 4: I'm a Leo rising.

2103
02:05:01,440 --> 02:05:04,920
Speaker 2: Earth signs over here, I'm a Taurus and then double virgo.

2104
02:05:05,400 --> 02:05:08,080
Speaker 4: Oh I like that. Oh, I'm yeah, let's all talk

2105
02:05:08,120 --> 02:05:11,600
Speaker 4: our signs. I'm an Harry's Sun, Leo rising, Virgo moon.

2106
02:05:12,040 --> 02:05:16,480
Speaker 3: Okay, Oh my gosh, I think I'm Leo's sun, Ari's moon,

2107
02:05:17,320 --> 02:05:18,440
Speaker 3: Pisces rising.

2108
02:05:18,520 --> 02:05:21,840
Speaker 2: Oh, that's an interesting that's a really interesting man. Yeah,

2109
02:05:22,120 --> 02:05:23,360
Speaker 2: I don't know what any of that means.

2110
02:05:23,600 --> 02:05:26,360
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't actually, but I'm like, all the

2111
02:05:26,400 --> 02:05:29,360
Speaker 4: good things about Aris and Leo's and virgos are right

2112
02:05:29,440 --> 02:05:32,080
Speaker 4: about me. All the bad things I don't believe astrology

2113
02:05:32,160 --> 02:05:32,640
Speaker 4: is bullshit.

2114
02:05:33,080 --> 02:05:36,080
Speaker 3: It doesn't make sense, that doesn't resonate with me.

2115
02:05:36,280 --> 02:05:39,160
Speaker 2: The bad things they don't apply to me exactly.

2116
02:05:40,880 --> 02:05:43,960
Speaker 3: The closing on, I just wanted to shout this book

2117
02:05:44,040 --> 02:05:45,760
Speaker 3: out and we should have her back on the show.

2118
02:05:45,800 --> 02:05:48,360
Speaker 3: The past guest of the show, Kristin Lopez, just released

2119
02:05:48,800 --> 02:05:52,040
Speaker 3: a really good book about the history of disability in

2120
02:05:52,040 --> 02:05:55,600
Speaker 3: Hollywood called Popcorn Disabilities. I just started reading it the

2121
02:05:55,600 --> 02:05:57,600
Speaker 3: other night, and it's terrific.

2122
02:05:58,000 --> 02:06:02,959
Speaker 2: Nice. Yes, does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?

2123
02:06:04,800 --> 02:06:09,120
Speaker 4: Let female actresses be confident in an interesting way? Again,

2124
02:06:09,640 --> 02:06:13,600
Speaker 4: because Betty Davis very I think we're weirdly very uncomfortable

2125
02:06:13,680 --> 02:06:16,440
Speaker 4: as a culture with confident women. That's a whole other

2126
02:06:16,920 --> 02:06:19,919
Speaker 4: like line of discussion. But I've started to get annoyed

2127
02:06:19,960 --> 02:06:23,440
Speaker 4: because I keep coming across like people saying insert the

2128
02:06:23,440 --> 02:06:27,400
Speaker 4: blank woman character is not relatable because she's too confident

2129
02:06:27,400 --> 02:06:30,080
Speaker 4: and too good at what she does. I like, this

2130
02:06:30,160 --> 02:06:34,000
Speaker 4: is so nerdy. But I saw this, like said about

2131
02:06:34,160 --> 02:06:37,280
Speaker 4: the character jad Zia Dax from Star Trek Deep Space nine,

2132
02:06:37,360 --> 02:06:41,960
Speaker 4: and it literally pissed me off so much, Like why

2133
02:06:42,000 --> 02:06:44,800
Speaker 4: do I care this much about a character who existed

2134
02:06:44,840 --> 02:06:49,080
Speaker 4: in the nineties? But watching you know Betty and Joan

2135
02:06:49,480 --> 02:06:53,040
Speaker 4: and like knowing about their careers, and you know they

2136
02:06:53,040 --> 02:06:56,440
Speaker 4: were very dynamic women who had insecurities in some areas

2137
02:06:56,480 --> 02:06:59,400
Speaker 4: and not in others. But I like, I miss seeing

2138
02:06:59,520 --> 02:07:03,720
Speaker 4: a like body broad who really has confidence in herself

2139
02:07:03,760 --> 02:07:06,720
Speaker 4: as an artist and truly believe she has something to

2140
02:07:06,800 --> 02:07:09,520
Speaker 4: bring to the world and something to say that may

2141
02:07:09,560 --> 02:07:12,520
Speaker 4: not be pretty, but it is worthwhile. That is very

2142
02:07:12,520 --> 02:07:14,960
Speaker 4: true to a Betty Davis for sure.

2143
02:07:15,040 --> 02:07:20,680
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, well the movie does pass the Bechdel test.

2144
02:07:20,920 --> 02:07:26,240
Speaker 4: In the most cruel, nasty way possible, because yes it is.

2145
02:07:26,560 --> 02:07:30,200
Speaker 3: It passes the Bechtel I want to I I, outside

2146
02:07:30,240 --> 02:07:36,320
Speaker 3: of like mentions of Daddy, we're really not talking about men, yeah,

2147
02:07:36,440 --> 02:07:41,280
Speaker 3: very much. We're talking about mostly negative stuff. We're talking

2148
02:07:41,280 --> 02:07:45,040
Speaker 3: about two women who have a very complicated and deeply

2149
02:07:45,480 --> 02:07:49,080
Speaker 3: twisted history together. And that's what we're talking about, or

2150
02:07:49,520 --> 02:07:53,480
Speaker 3: I think most of, if not in the entire conversations

2151
02:07:53,520 --> 02:07:58,680
Speaker 3: between Blanche and Elvira Pass. I think the only other

2152
02:07:58,760 --> 02:08:01,120
Speaker 3: characters that we haven't talked about that we don't need to,

2153
02:08:01,160 --> 02:08:04,680
Speaker 3: like belabor because they're not huge characters is the mother

2154
02:08:04,720 --> 02:08:08,360
Speaker 3: and daughter who live next door, including b D Betty

2155
02:08:08,400 --> 02:08:12,000
Speaker 3: Davis's daughter, which is very I just like, I.

2156
02:08:12,000 --> 02:08:14,360
Speaker 2: Love is her name be D because those are Betty

2157
02:08:14,440 --> 02:08:15,400
Speaker 2: Davis's initials.

2158
02:08:15,920 --> 02:08:19,800
Speaker 3: HERD is Barbara I see, But but I did like

2159
02:08:19,920 --> 02:08:23,040
Speaker 3: that dynamic of I think that all of those conversations

2160
02:08:23,080 --> 02:08:25,400
Speaker 3: past the Bexel test, there was like one exchange between

2161
02:08:25,400 --> 02:08:28,200
Speaker 3: them that I really liked. Where the daughter, I know

2162
02:08:28,320 --> 02:08:31,040
Speaker 3: I did this to my mom at some point where

2163
02:08:31,160 --> 02:08:34,920
Speaker 3: you know, they're watching the Joan Crawford movie and you know,

2164
02:08:35,000 --> 02:08:37,520
Speaker 3: the daughter's like, oh, she's she's our neighbor. She must

2165
02:08:37,600 --> 02:08:40,240
Speaker 3: be so old, she must be like a hundred and

2166
02:08:40,280 --> 02:08:45,440
Speaker 3: her mom is like, actually, she's my age.

2167
02:08:43,680 --> 02:08:44,080
Speaker 1: And then.

2168
02:08:45,880 --> 02:08:47,920
Speaker 3: I know I did that to my mom, like when

2169
02:08:47,920 --> 02:08:51,080
Speaker 3: I was a kid, I just that. But they're talking about,

2170
02:08:51,280 --> 02:08:54,040
Speaker 3: I mean, whatever their plot function is that they're failing

2171
02:08:54,160 --> 02:08:57,080
Speaker 3: to act on what is a clearly abusive dynamic next door.

2172
02:08:57,440 --> 02:08:59,920
Speaker 3: But I like that their side conversations have to do

2173
02:09:00,080 --> 02:09:03,879
Speaker 3: with how does the average person perceive, you know, perceives

2174
02:09:03,920 --> 02:09:06,840
Speaker 3: these women, And I thought that was kind of cool too.

2175
02:09:07,160 --> 02:09:09,880
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think it mostly passes the Bechdel test,

2176
02:09:10,400 --> 02:09:13,480
Speaker 3: but you know, flawed metrics we discussed many times.

2177
02:09:14,000 --> 02:09:17,520
Speaker 2: There's basically conversations that are like here's Din Din, and

2178
02:09:17,560 --> 02:09:20,440
Speaker 2: it's like, is it a dead bird again? You know, yeah,

2179
02:09:20,560 --> 02:09:21,200
Speaker 2: stuff like that.

2180
02:09:21,520 --> 02:09:23,360
Speaker 3: People aren't doing this anyway, feeding.

2181
02:09:23,080 --> 02:09:27,440
Speaker 2: Me dead animals again, Well, there's a lot of meals

2182
02:09:28,040 --> 02:09:30,960
Speaker 2: two dead animals. That was why I feel like my

2183
02:09:31,160 --> 02:09:33,000
Speaker 2: one note about this movie is like it should have

2184
02:09:33,080 --> 02:09:34,840
Speaker 2: just been one, one or three?

2185
02:09:35,600 --> 02:09:38,680
Speaker 4: What is this rule of two? Yeah? It is interesting

2186
02:09:38,760 --> 02:09:41,280
Speaker 4: the two and then and then Jane is like, you

2187
02:09:41,320 --> 02:09:43,800
Speaker 4: know what, You're just not going to eat anymore, So

2188
02:09:43,880 --> 02:09:47,000
Speaker 4: you don't want the dead rat. You don't get any food.

2189
02:09:47,200 --> 02:09:48,160
Speaker 4: And it's like, yeah, I.

2190
02:09:48,200 --> 02:09:51,160
Speaker 3: Was you kind of want the horse head situation. You're like,

2191
02:09:51,200 --> 02:09:54,440
Speaker 3: because the animals got a little bit bigger each time. Yeah,

2192
02:09:54,480 --> 02:09:56,880
Speaker 3: you do need the rule of threes. Where's the third?

2193
02:09:58,760 --> 02:10:03,880
Speaker 2: Anyway? Our nipple scale where we rate the movie zero

2194
02:10:03,920 --> 02:10:07,720
Speaker 2: to five nipples based on examining the movie through an

2195
02:10:07,760 --> 02:10:14,880
Speaker 2: intersectional feminist lens. Oh, oh, that's a tricky one. This

2196
02:10:14,960 --> 02:10:16,000
Speaker 2: is a tricky one.

2197
02:10:16,280 --> 02:10:16,880
Speaker 4: Yeah.

2198
02:10:16,960 --> 02:10:20,320
Speaker 2: I almost want to differ. I almost want to not.

2199
02:10:22,480 --> 02:10:25,280
Speaker 3: Doing that more and more reasonly. I mean, there's just like,

2200
02:10:25,600 --> 02:10:28,800
Speaker 3: there's so much going on in this movie, and I

2201
02:10:28,800 --> 02:10:32,160
Speaker 3: think it is like a particularly tricky one because I

2202
02:10:32,160 --> 02:10:34,600
Speaker 3: feel like if we were, if we were rating it

2203
02:10:34,680 --> 02:10:38,720
Speaker 3: based on intent, that's a different number than from what

2204
02:10:39,120 --> 02:10:42,960
Speaker 3: I think we are generally getting out of it.

2205
02:10:43,040 --> 02:10:49,040
Speaker 2: So rather than nipples, I'm gonna rate it on a

2206
02:10:49,200 --> 02:10:53,120
Speaker 2: scale of life size baby Jane dolls.

2207
02:10:53,560 --> 02:10:56,200
Speaker 3: It's so big, it's huge.

2208
02:10:56,240 --> 02:10:57,480
Speaker 4: It looks heavy too.

2209
02:10:58,080 --> 02:11:00,480
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna give the movie four out of five

2210
02:11:01,120 --> 02:11:03,160
Speaker 2: creepy Baby Jane dolls.

2211
02:11:04,240 --> 02:11:08,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm giving it. I'm giving it five. Big bad

2212
02:11:08,440 --> 02:11:13,120
Speaker 3: Baby Jane's I what a scary doll. I know that, Like,

2213
02:11:13,680 --> 02:11:16,600
Speaker 3: but you know this this was just as the Barbie

2214
02:11:16,720 --> 02:11:19,240
Speaker 3: was taking off, so we didn't have those smaller dolls,

2215
02:11:19,960 --> 02:11:23,240
Speaker 3: and I'm glad that we decided to make the doll smaller.

2216
02:11:23,320 --> 02:11:24,480
Speaker 3: That's simply too big.

2217
02:11:24,880 --> 02:11:29,360
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really it's too much. It's scary. Imagine just

2218
02:11:29,440 --> 02:11:31,560
Speaker 4: like you know, you wake up one day in your

2219
02:11:31,560 --> 02:11:34,640
Speaker 4: bedroom and you don't like you know, your eyes are adjusting,

2220
02:11:35,200 --> 02:11:37,360
Speaker 4: and that looks like something that's going to kill you.

2221
02:11:37,720 --> 02:11:40,240
Speaker 4: Like that. I would be like that, you know, whenever

2222
02:11:40,240 --> 02:11:42,280
Speaker 4: I would see her, I'm like, that's the kind of

2223
02:11:42,360 --> 02:11:48,440
Speaker 4: doll that you know, there are goosebumps, chucky, you know, like, yeah,

2224
02:11:48,480 --> 02:11:50,240
Speaker 4: we've seen these dolls are bad.

2225
02:11:50,600 --> 02:11:54,080
Speaker 3: I love a killer doll. I like the last the

2226
02:11:54,240 --> 02:11:58,120
Speaker 3: last silly the thing that I was interested. I don't

2227
02:11:58,160 --> 02:12:01,600
Speaker 3: know the moments where Jane shows I'm like, what an

2228
02:12:01,600 --> 02:12:04,840
Speaker 3: interesting choice there where, Like in that scene where she's

2229
02:12:05,080 --> 02:12:09,160
Speaker 3: you know, telling, oh my gosh, I keep forgetting his name.

2230
02:12:09,680 --> 02:12:13,160
Speaker 3: Edwin She's telling Edwin like, oh, yeah, like I want

2231
02:12:13,160 --> 02:12:15,040
Speaker 3: to do the same songs. I know that my songs

2232
02:12:15,040 --> 02:12:16,800
Speaker 3: are a little dated. We'll have to update them. I

2233
02:12:16,840 --> 02:12:19,840
Speaker 3: was like, what would we have updated that too? How

2234
02:12:19,880 --> 02:12:22,920
Speaker 3: are we going to I would I would have loved

2235
02:12:23,080 --> 02:12:25,520
Speaker 3: to hear them bring.

2236
02:12:26,160 --> 02:12:30,360
Speaker 2: The rock and roll remix to Daddy?

2237
02:12:30,600 --> 02:12:34,840
Speaker 3: Letters to Daddy? What's the nineteen sixty two interpolation of

2238
02:12:35,880 --> 02:12:38,920
Speaker 3: Letters to Daddy? Someone someone figured that out for me? Please?

2239
02:12:39,520 --> 02:12:40,080
Speaker 4: Disturbing?

2240
02:12:40,880 --> 02:12:42,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just love that. She was like, I know,

2241
02:12:42,840 --> 02:12:44,240
Speaker 3: we have to update it. I was like, of all

2242
02:12:44,280 --> 02:12:46,240
Speaker 3: the things for you to know this is this is

2243
02:12:46,760 --> 02:12:48,400
Speaker 3: very shrewd. It's true.

2244
02:12:48,680 --> 02:12:52,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is kind of surprising. We didn't talk about

2245
02:12:52,360 --> 02:12:55,000
Speaker 2: Edwin very much, and honestly, I don't even know what

2246
02:12:55,040 --> 02:12:57,080
Speaker 2: there is to say about him. We'll be like dynamic,

2247
02:12:57,120 --> 02:13:00,400
Speaker 2: a dynamic with him and his mom. But you know

2248
02:13:00,680 --> 02:13:01,320
Speaker 2: with that.

2249
02:13:01,240 --> 02:13:03,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess that that is the mommy issue representation

2250
02:13:03,680 --> 02:13:05,560
Speaker 3: in this movie is whatever's going on there?

2251
02:13:06,000 --> 02:13:08,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, he slet shames his mom. At one point, he

2252
02:13:08,720 --> 02:13:12,080
Speaker 2: says something like, why do you care about a woman

2253
02:13:12,760 --> 02:13:15,080
Speaker 2: shacking up with a man in a hotel room, a

2254
02:13:15,120 --> 02:13:18,160
Speaker 2: strange man who she's never seen before? Isn't that how

2255
02:13:18,280 --> 02:13:20,480
Speaker 2: I was conceived, like.

2256
02:13:20,520 --> 02:13:24,000
Speaker 4: Oh oh why why is she?

2257
02:13:24,120 --> 02:13:26,240
Speaker 3: And she's and she was nothing but nice to him.

2258
02:13:26,320 --> 02:13:29,440
Speaker 3: But I think it's it's implied that like he's I mean,

2259
02:13:29,440 --> 02:13:32,280
Speaker 3: it is like explicitly implied that he's under her thumb,

2260
02:13:32,800 --> 02:13:35,360
Speaker 3: or like she doesn't want to let go or that

2261
02:13:35,520 --> 02:13:37,920
Speaker 3: like I mean again, it's like we don't. It's not

2262
02:13:37,960 --> 02:13:41,040
Speaker 3: that I necessarily wanted to spend more time with that character,

2263
02:13:41,120 --> 02:13:43,480
Speaker 3: but it does feel like there is at least an

2264
02:13:43,520 --> 02:13:48,080
Speaker 3: attempt to have the weird parent child dynamic sort of

2265
02:13:48,160 --> 02:13:52,040
Speaker 3: mirror Jane's weird parent dynamic. So it's like, I don't know,

2266
02:13:52,160 --> 02:13:56,040
Speaker 3: see seeing those two in that scene, especially with that

2267
02:13:56,160 --> 02:13:59,240
Speaker 3: like Devis, I don't know. Victor Wrotto was nominated for

2268
02:13:59,240 --> 02:14:01,600
Speaker 3: an Oscar for this, which.

2269
02:14:01,640 --> 02:14:04,080
Speaker 4: They were nominating a lot. They just they still be

2270
02:14:04,160 --> 02:14:07,360
Speaker 4: nominating some things, and I'm like, okay, yeah, sure, it's

2271
02:14:07,400 --> 02:14:09,920
Speaker 4: not a bad performance, but it's just like, oh, okay,

2272
02:14:10,000 --> 02:14:10,760
Speaker 4: maybe that one.

2273
02:14:10,800 --> 02:14:14,480
Speaker 3: Oh sure, it's a fine perferre. I honestly wasn't. I

2274
02:14:14,760 --> 02:14:17,920
Speaker 3: hadn't seen him outside of this movie, but he was.

2275
02:14:18,480 --> 02:14:20,800
Speaker 3: He died very young. He died in his early forties,

2276
02:14:22,160 --> 02:14:26,080
Speaker 3: but like had a very successful career, was closeted for

2277
02:14:26,160 --> 02:14:29,520
Speaker 3: most of his career. But I guess there's a chapter

2278
02:14:29,560 --> 02:14:32,720
Speaker 3: about him in a book about queer Hollywood history, but

2279
02:14:32,800 --> 02:14:34,640
Speaker 3: I I don't know very much about him.

2280
02:14:34,720 --> 02:14:37,480
Speaker 2: I wondered if his character was meant to be queer

2281
02:14:37,520 --> 02:14:41,480
Speaker 2: coded in some way, in like a very nineteen sixties way,

2282
02:14:41,520 --> 02:14:45,320
Speaker 2: partly because like he still lives with his mother, He still.

2283
02:14:45,080 --> 02:14:49,640
Speaker 4: Lives with his mom. Musician, the way he interacts with

2284
02:14:49,800 --> 02:14:54,360
Speaker 4: like Jane is to like he like clearly recognizes she's delusional,

2285
02:14:54,360 --> 02:14:58,000
Speaker 4: but is still willing to use her and like probably

2286
02:14:58,040 --> 02:15:00,880
Speaker 4: thinks that she wants some level of effect from him.

2287
02:15:00,920 --> 02:15:03,840
Speaker 4: So there's there's something there. I don't think it's like

2288
02:15:03,960 --> 02:15:06,800
Speaker 4: full blown queer coded, but like knowing the actor, I

2289
02:15:06,800 --> 02:15:10,040
Speaker 4: can see like that reading existing on some level.

2290
02:15:10,120 --> 02:15:13,160
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, And and and that I think we

2291
02:15:13,360 --> 02:15:14,640
Speaker 3: mentioned this once earlier.

2292
02:15:14,920 --> 02:15:19,560
Speaker 2: This movie is so dense, So back into the discussion.

2293
02:15:19,240 --> 02:15:23,480
Speaker 3: That, like with his character with Edwin, he is, you know,

2294
02:15:23,720 --> 02:15:26,919
Speaker 3: acting dishonestly every second we see him on screen basically,

2295
02:15:27,080 --> 02:15:31,400
Speaker 3: but we also do get the understanding why it's like

2296
02:15:31,480 --> 02:15:35,879
Speaker 3: that he is broke, and I think that he views

2297
02:15:36,320 --> 02:15:38,960
Speaker 3: these wealthy women as like well, who cares how I

2298
02:15:39,040 --> 02:15:39,560
Speaker 3: treat them?

2299
02:15:39,840 --> 02:15:40,400
Speaker 2: They're rich?

2300
02:15:40,640 --> 02:15:43,080
Speaker 3: Like I think that that appears to be his emo

2301
02:15:43,240 --> 02:15:45,600
Speaker 3: where he's he's like getting one over on the rich

2302
02:15:45,640 --> 02:15:49,920
Speaker 3: in his estimation. But the reality is far you know,

2303
02:15:50,040 --> 02:15:52,480
Speaker 3: is far more complicated. But it's like in a movie

2304
02:15:52,480 --> 02:15:55,400
Speaker 3: that doesn't really deal with class very much, if like

2305
02:15:55,600 --> 02:15:59,600
Speaker 3: Edwin is the little point of entry to that.

2306
02:16:02,080 --> 02:16:07,320
Speaker 2: Anyway, Five Baby Jane Dolls.

2307
02:16:07,000 --> 02:16:09,400
Speaker 4: I love it, five out of five most definitely.

2308
02:16:10,800 --> 02:16:15,560
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for returning to get into

2309
02:16:15,600 --> 02:16:19,040
Speaker 3: this incredible, wonderful, weird movie with us.

2310
02:16:19,400 --> 02:16:21,520
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, this was a lot of fun. I like,

2311
02:16:22,120 --> 02:16:25,160
Speaker 4: you know, brought my pile of books out that are

2312
02:16:25,240 --> 02:16:27,800
Speaker 4: related to Betty Davis and Joan and that's not even

2313
02:16:27,840 --> 02:16:29,280
Speaker 4: all of them. I was like, wow, I have a

2314
02:16:29,320 --> 02:16:30,640
Speaker 4: lot of books on these women.

2315
02:16:31,400 --> 02:16:36,040
Speaker 3: Incredible, this was great. Oh, thank you so much. Where As,

2316
02:16:36,160 --> 02:16:38,320
Speaker 3: as usual, where can we find Worri your work?

2317
02:16:39,320 --> 02:16:42,640
Speaker 4: As always, you can find me at New York Magazine's

2318
02:16:42,720 --> 02:16:45,199
Speaker 4: site Vulture or in the pages of New York Magazine.

2319
02:16:45,200 --> 02:16:49,160
Speaker 4: That is my job, and on my substack Mad Women

2320
02:16:49,200 --> 02:16:52,760
Speaker 4: and Muses. I sometimes post on Blue Sky. I am

2321
02:16:52,840 --> 02:16:56,200
Speaker 4: pretty active on Letterbox. It's just my name. If you're

2322
02:16:56,200 --> 02:16:58,800
Speaker 4: a little nerd who wants to see what I'm watching.

2323
02:16:58,920 --> 02:17:03,640
Speaker 4: You can check that out there. But yeah, that's how

2324
02:17:03,640 --> 02:17:06,240
Speaker 4: you can find me. I've got a lot of work

2325
02:17:06,280 --> 02:17:09,640
Speaker 4: coming out that I'm really excited about, and I've kind

2326
02:17:09,640 --> 02:17:12,240
Speaker 4: of you know, I think this conversation was really wonderful

2327
02:17:12,320 --> 02:17:16,120
Speaker 4: because it's really got me thinking about, you know, how

2328
02:17:16,160 --> 02:17:18,760
Speaker 4: I create, what I want to do as an artist,

2329
02:17:18,800 --> 02:17:21,959
Speaker 4: and like how inspired I am by like women like

2330
02:17:22,000 --> 02:17:25,760
Speaker 4: this who really had gusto when it came to their

2331
02:17:25,840 --> 02:17:28,640
Speaker 4: professionalism and their artistic desires.

2332
02:17:29,120 --> 02:17:30,920
Speaker 2: You got to write that book, I got to write.

2333
02:17:30,959 --> 02:17:32,160
Speaker 4: I got to move back into fiction.

2334
02:17:32,240 --> 02:17:32,880
Speaker 2: I miss fiction.

2335
02:17:33,440 --> 02:17:34,000
Speaker 4: I really do.

2336
02:17:34,120 --> 02:17:37,280
Speaker 2: Well. Thank you again for coming back on and please

2337
02:17:37,320 --> 02:17:39,840
Speaker 2: come back anytime. Oh I'd love to truly.

2338
02:17:39,959 --> 02:17:42,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get parasocial sometimes because I was like, I

2339
02:17:42,920 --> 02:17:43,240
Speaker 3: just love.

2340
02:17:43,160 --> 02:17:43,920
Speaker 2: Your work so much.

2341
02:17:44,000 --> 02:17:45,560
Speaker 3: It's so thank you.

2342
02:17:45,560 --> 02:17:48,520
Speaker 4: No, that means a lot. Sometimes it can be like

2343
02:17:48,760 --> 02:17:52,080
Speaker 4: easy to forget that people actually like my work because

2344
02:17:52,080 --> 02:17:55,840
Speaker 4: I get such weird blowback sometimes. So it just means

2345
02:17:55,840 --> 02:17:59,119
Speaker 4: a lot to connect, you know, with people through the writing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're big fans. We cite your work on the

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Speaker 2: show often, truly all the time.

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02:18:03,480 --> 02:18:07,760
Speaker 4: Thank you. Please subscribe to my newsletter, et cetera, etcetera,

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02:18:07,800 --> 02:18:11,600
Speaker 4: Subscribe to do your maazine, et cetera, journalism design, Please help.

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02:18:11,480 --> 02:18:16,640
Speaker 3: Us, please God please. You can find us mostly on

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02:18:17,400 --> 02:18:21,240
Speaker 3: Instagram and of course always on our Patreon aka Matreon.

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02:18:21,320 --> 02:18:23,879
Speaker 3: We're for five bucks a month, two bonus episodes a

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02:18:23,879 --> 02:18:27,439
Speaker 3: month on a theme of our communities, choosing and access

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02:18:27,480 --> 02:18:30,920
Speaker 3: to over I think two hundred back.

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02:18:31,040 --> 02:18:32,360
Speaker 2: Episodes something like that.

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02:18:32,400 --> 02:18:37,520
Speaker 3: We've been doing since twenty seventeen. And with that, Oh man,

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02:18:37,560 --> 02:18:39,320
Speaker 3: how do we dismount from this episode?

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02:18:39,800 --> 02:18:44,560
Speaker 2: I wrote a letter to Daddy is.

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Speaker 5: Address it.

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Speaker 3: Spot on impression? That is perfect? Bye, fine bye. The

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Speaker 3: Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and Pretty

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02:19:00,520 --> 02:19:02,080
Speaker 3: Me Jamie Loftus.

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02:19:01,879 --> 02:19:05,360
Speaker 2: And Me Caitlyn Drante. The podcast is also produced by

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Speaker 2: Sophie Lichtermann.

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02:19:06,680 --> 02:19:10,080
Speaker 6: And edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them? That's

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02:19:10,160 --> 02:19:13,440
Speaker 6: me and our logo and merch and all of our

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02:19:13,560 --> 02:19:17,240
Speaker 6: artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftis, Ever heard

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Speaker 6: of her?

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02:19:17,760 --> 02:19:20,760
Speaker 3: Oh My God? And our theme song, by the way,

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Speaker 3: was composed by Mike Kaplan.

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02:19:22,520 --> 02:19:24,759
Speaker 2: With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

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Speaker 3: Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only

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Speaker 3: Aristotle Acevedo.

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Speaker 2: For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree slash

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Speaker 2: spectel Cast