Speaker 1: It's eleven thirty eight pm at a Sicilian castle and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Nightcall. Hello, and welcome to Nightcall, a
Speaker 1: college show about our dystopian reality. My name is Emily Yoshida.
Speaker 1: I am in Los Angeles and with me on the
Speaker 1: other line are Molly Lambert and Tess Lynch. Hi, guys, Hey, y'all.
Speaker 1: We are going to be joined later in the show
Speaker 1: by Hannah. George is from the Atlantic to talk about
Speaker 1: the Polish sex drama that is taking the Internet by
Speaker 1: storm through it in sixty five days. But first let's
Speaker 1: take a night email test. You want to read it.
Speaker 1: I would love to hello Nightcall. As I prefer to
Speaker 1: remain anonymous, I won't reveal my name or the venue
Speaker 1: where I work, but I can say that the measures
Speaker 1: taken to protect the staff are next to non existent,
Speaker 1: so distancing is not enforced, and one of my managers
Speaker 1: were as an N ninety five mask against company policy No. Less,
Speaker 1: which facilitates his breathing, but as you can surmise, does
Speaker 1: nothing to prevent a potential asymptomatic spread of the novel coronavirus.
Speaker 1: While everyone is required to wear face masks and wash
Speaker 1: their hands, the only social distancing is between guests. As
Speaker 1: we were returning, one of the higher ups had tried
Speaker 1: to convince us, rather poorly that any leaked candid images,
Speaker 1: which was achieved through a certain vantage point where people
Speaker 1: looked clustered. But we're standing far apart working here. I
Speaker 1: can honestly say the space situation is like sardines in
Speaker 1: a can. I don't begrudge working hard for a living,
Speaker 1: but I find myself disgusted with how little care is
Speaker 1: being provided for the staff. And and we should say,
Speaker 1: like this person, um. We won't say where they work specifically,
Speaker 1: but it is like it's a theme park, it's an attraction,
Speaker 1: which you know. Obviously a lot of them are back
Speaker 1: up and running. I think probably a lot of them
Speaker 1: never closed in the first place. I believe they they
Speaker 1: all did close because they had you UM And this
Speaker 1: is the first time, just because I follow a bunch
Speaker 1: of theme park enthusiasts Instagram's um and there's like a
Speaker 1: real schism because there are some people that are like
Speaker 1: traveling to theme parks. UM and the workers have been
Speaker 1: posting about a lot, but they're also afraid of retaliation
Speaker 1: from the companies they work for, which is why we're
Speaker 1: not going to name any companies that anybody works for.
Speaker 1: If you call in and tell us about your experience,
Speaker 1: we will keep you totally anonymous. But we would love
Speaker 1: to hear more from people that are going back to
Speaker 1: work under COVID and uh seeing the sort of chaotic situation,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't seem like anybody has a plan that
Speaker 1: is going to work, like the right and all the
Speaker 1: safeguards feel completely um, patchwork and not at all cohesive.
Speaker 1: I mean even in Japan they reopened a theme parks.
Speaker 1: This is like a big thing that was going around
Speaker 1: Twitter today that I sent to you guys, and um,
Speaker 1: they were asking guests to refrain from screaming on rights
Speaker 1: because you know, screaming exerting your vocal cords creates more droplets,
Speaker 1: uh and spreads the disease war and I believe their
Speaker 1: their their advice to guess was please scream inside your heart,
Speaker 1: which is um, yeah, note taken the slogan of the year,
Speaker 1: already doing it. But yeah, so it's just like stuff
Speaker 1: like that, like at a certain points, like well, why
Speaker 1: go on a ride that like screaming on a ride
Speaker 1: is more or less involuntary. It's like laughing at a
Speaker 1: funny joke. Um so why put yourself in a position
Speaker 1: where there's a high likelihood that you would be screaming
Speaker 1: like why do all this these gymnastics to be like,
Speaker 1: oh no, you can do it as long as you
Speaker 1: don't have the most reasonable reaction to the thing you're doing.
Speaker 1: They're all doing insane backbends to try and you know,
Speaker 1: have a reason to be reopening to make money. It's
Speaker 1: all like Joe else said last week, it's all Jaws,
Speaker 1: it's all Drassic Park. Um. And they must think the
Speaker 1: profit margins are worth it, you know, they must think
Speaker 1: the bad press isn't gonna overwhelm the influx of cash.
Speaker 1: And as we saw a lot of these big companies
Speaker 1: also got bailed out. So it's all pretty gross. Do
Speaker 1: you guys see twenty one pilots got PPP loans like
Speaker 1: like I guess as a band the stewary and money.
Speaker 1: Um so I haven't gotten anything yet, but if twenty
Speaker 1: one pilots can do it, I don't think we've talked
Speaker 1: about it on the show yet, but just to have
Speaker 1: a mini sports uh sports call nightball segment the NBA
Speaker 1: reopening that they're trying to do um around Disney World
Speaker 1: seems like extremely fraught and like everything is already going
Speaker 1: wrong and they're still going forward with it because that's
Speaker 1: how badly they don't want to lose profits on sports capitalism.
Speaker 1: And it's it's just wild to see all these companies
Speaker 1: and industries pouring all this money. I mean the bubble,
Speaker 1: the NBA bubble, you know, as jankie as it looks
Speaker 1: and as unwise as it looks from here, it can't
Speaker 1: be cheap. Like that's a very a lot of logistics
Speaker 1: in that. And you see these industries pouring so much
Speaker 1: money into this stuff. And like meanwhile here in l A,
Speaker 1: our biggest COVID testing site was shut down, uh for
Speaker 1: a holiday and also possibly I was seeing some some
Speaker 1: reports that like it would just had to like figure
Speaker 1: out its funding, and that's not something that people are
Speaker 1: like Sean Penn apparently was behind the funding for our
Speaker 1: COVID testing site, Like that was not Yeah, like truly
Speaker 1: when you have when you are relying on the goodness
Speaker 1: of Sean Penn's heart, the bars on the ground. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's just like and and and and you know,
Speaker 1: the COVID testing sites are kind of like dystopian in
Speaker 1: and of themselves. Like I don't know if you guys
Speaker 1: have gone there and not to the Dodger Stadium one,
Speaker 1: but like all this stuff that people set up as
Speaker 1: sort of these stop gaps is all a little bit dystopian.
Speaker 1: But that at least is like, you know, potentially for
Speaker 1: good and for prevention of the virus. Like I just
Speaker 1: feel like it's like there's no real escapism. So anyone
Speaker 1: claiming they're going to create a space where you'll be
Speaker 1: like totally safe from the virus and it doesn't exist
Speaker 1: there selling you a fantasy like Las Vegas just reopened
Speaker 1: as well in Sanity City. I saw some pictures of
Speaker 1: Atlantic City. All the um the slot machines have individual barriers,
Speaker 1: plastic barriers around them like little sweatboxes. Yeah, it's all
Speaker 1: just so sounds fun. Yeah, it's it's also patchwork. Like
Speaker 1: you said, it's like clearly nobody in charge has a plan,
Speaker 1: which is something we've been seeing for a lot of things. Well,
Speaker 1: I took um my son to the doctor yesterday and
Speaker 1: it was the first time he had been inside a
Speaker 1: building since March. That was not our He was super
Speaker 1: anxious about it. Uh, he wore a mask the entire time.
Speaker 1: It ended up I think being the right decision, even
Speaker 1: though it was just to check up the kids. His
Speaker 1: age only get checked up once a year, so I
Speaker 1: felt like it was important. But we were driving on
Speaker 1: like these huge lines to get into a snow cone
Speaker 1: store and also a vintage store. Yeah, and I was
Speaker 1: just like, wow, I'm like keeping my kids to the doctor.
Speaker 1: We're sweating, we're so nervous about this. And meanwhile there's
Speaker 1: like just maybe thirty five people lined up on Melrose,
Speaker 1: not distanced at all, waiting to get a snow cone.
Speaker 1: It's very strange. I mean, as long as they weren't
Speaker 1: going into a snow cone store, I guess I think
Speaker 1: I think they were, But I think with a vintage store,
Speaker 1: it's just that they have to wear a covering in
Speaker 1: their can't pill in there. But it just shows you,
Speaker 1: like when the priorities and I'm not faulting any small
Speaker 1: business owner at all, like I I think it's the
Speaker 1: problem is is much higher up the chain than what
Speaker 1: an individual store owner is doing. Right. They should have
Speaker 1: paid They should have paid everyone to stay home from
Speaker 1: the beginning. They paid everyone to stay home, and they
Speaker 1: should still be doing that, we should still be under
Speaker 1: like the first lockdown, but they like open back up,
Speaker 1: and immediately everything got real bad. One thing that nobody
Speaker 1: knows for sure if it's going to open back up
Speaker 1: is schools school. Let's take a break, and when we
Speaker 1: come back, Emily will enchant and amaze us with details
Speaker 1: of dark academia. Welcome back tonight call today. Emily is
Speaker 1: the professor and we are all her students, and her
Speaker 1: specialty is something called dark academia. Well, academia has gone dark, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously in the last several months, but now
Speaker 1: it's going figuratively dark on TikTok and Instagram. I want
Speaker 1: to reiterate, and I think this might come up later
Speaker 1: when we're talking to Hannah. But like, I don't know
Speaker 1: a single thing about what's going on with TikTok. I
Speaker 1: don't have a TikTok account, So this is not firsthand knowledge.
Speaker 1: This is not something I've observed. I read a New
Speaker 1: York Times trend piece about it. I'm an old person. Uh,
Speaker 1: but they're also if you want us to do a
Speaker 1: night called dark Academia TikTok, you know, let us know. Sure,
Speaker 1: I don't. I would not know how to go about that.
Speaker 1: But there's this article by Christin Bateman called Academia Lives
Speaker 1: on TikTok and it is about the recent uh TikTok
Speaker 1: and Instagram and and I think it also kind of
Speaker 1: started on Tumbler aesthetic project what what whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it, U called dark academia, which has taken
Speaker 1: on some you know, particularly interesting meaning right now as
Speaker 1: most of the teens and early twenty someomethings that are
Speaker 1: participating in this trend are not in actual school and
Speaker 1: don't know when they will be back in actual school. Um.
Speaker 1: But the article, uh, the article kind of describes what,
Speaker 1: you know, what the vibe is, and it's very you know,
Speaker 1: it's it has images to which you can instantly kind
Speaker 1: of get the vibe from the images. But um, Kristen
Speaker 1: Babman writes, a typical post may involve teens showing off
Speaker 1: There are gyle sweaters to classical tunes, followed by a
Speaker 1: series of photos of leather bound books, handwritten notes, a
Speaker 1: page from Weathering Heights, and a shot of a class
Speaker 1: and a shot of class Greek architecture. It's not unusual
Speaker 1: to see fans dressing up as their favorite book characters
Speaker 1: are posting vintage photos of the novelist Donna Tart, author
Speaker 1: of the Secret History Dark Academias Essential text Um. She
Speaker 1: also kind of pitches it as an alternative to cottage core,
Speaker 1: which I can't remember if we have talked about specifically
Speaker 1: on this podcast, but we didn't end up talking about
Speaker 1: cottage core. The cottage core is big right now. Can
Speaker 1: you describe what cottage core is a little bit and
Speaker 1: why it's like possibly problematic? Um, cottage core. The reason
Speaker 1: cottage core is possibly problematic is it's like being into
Speaker 1: home studding kind of. It's like a little house on
Speaker 1: the prairie kind of you know, rustic pioneer ship. Um,
Speaker 1: but you're like wearing cute sweaters and stuff. And is
Speaker 1: it more pioneer or is it more I kind of
Speaker 1: understood it. It It was almost like a like I was thinking, like, oh,
Speaker 1: is Miyazaki cottage core because Miyazaki is super into like you.
Speaker 1: It's a type of like a girl that's like into yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of like a European forest uhal fairytale, more apesthetic,
Speaker 1: maybe mixed in with some Japanese pop culture. I learned
Speaker 1: about it recently because I learned about I was just
Speaker 1: reading about the girls and going down a hole about
Speaker 1: cottage core. But there was a thread recently where somebody
Speaker 1: was like, watch watch out for the next wave of
Speaker 1: like e girl fascists that are all really into cottage core.
Speaker 1: And somebody was like the sentences inscrutable, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I know what they're talking about, which is just any
Speaker 1: kind of like back to the Homeland movement, even a
Speaker 1: virtual one can definitely veer into like nationalism at a
Speaker 1: certain point. But couldn't it also just be people who
Speaker 1: like don't can't buy groceries in and now like I
Speaker 1: should grow my own food. It could be totally benign.
Speaker 1: I guess they're like a reaction against what we think
Speaker 1: of as being the most like mainstream Instagram social media aesthetic.
Speaker 1: Like right, it's like an aesthetic that wouldn't have social media,
Speaker 1: but then you're using social media to film it. Um.
Speaker 1: I learned about it because I was reading about Belle Delphine,
Speaker 1: who is a gamer who sold her bath water and
Speaker 1: then recently reappeared on the internet with an only fans
Speaker 1: and like YouTube video. I just like learned a lot
Speaker 1: about what's going on on the internet now. And she
Speaker 1: had it was like she's now like now she hasn't
Speaker 1: only fans and she does like sexy photo shoots, but
Speaker 1: she started as sort of just a cause player and
Speaker 1: her thing was totally cottage core. Um, not in a
Speaker 1: fascist way, just in like sort of a Miyazaki way
Speaker 1: like you were saying. It was like her she does
Speaker 1: a tour of her room and she has all these
Speaker 1: like dollhouses stacked up dollhouses and like some sort of
Speaker 1: like leaves hung from the ceiling and stuff. Uh. I think, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we watched Shirley Last Planning. Yeah. To me,
Speaker 1: it just makes me think of like when you're a
Speaker 1: teenage girl and you're like, I'm going to make my
Speaker 1: room so cool and like beautiful and I'll want to
Speaker 1: hang out and all the time. And maybe you don't
Speaker 1: actually end up doing that, but you're like, what if
Speaker 1: I could just decorate my room like exactly drawing your
Speaker 1: plans for your dream room. It's a very big activity
Speaker 1: of being like a tween. I feel like, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: well so so like okay, so if cottage core is that,
Speaker 1: which is like kind of it feels from from what
Speaker 1: I've seen from your description of it feels a little um,
Speaker 1: like goop adjacent again. I feel like it's all kind
Speaker 1: of like training for planning your wedding. Like it's like
Speaker 1: that kind of um right, it's like party planning for
Speaker 1: your house. Yeah, like like at a at some foliage. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, run through some flowers in a mock Malick
Speaker 1: type shot or whatever. Right, because it's still like a
Speaker 1: lot of things. It's about like accumulating things, like getting
Speaker 1: new things to be part of your aesthetic. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: so in this article about the dark academia, the author says, like,
Speaker 1: to be a part of dark academia, you don't have
Speaker 1: to have access to a country house, a field of flowers,
Speaker 1: a big kitchen for baking, or an expensive prairie dress.
Speaker 1: Most of the most of the clothing and dark academia
Speaker 1: fans where is vintage and can easily be found in
Speaker 1: second hand stores or sites. Um. And this like worms
Speaker 1: to be very dark academia. It warms the cockles of
Speaker 1: my heart. I I just like the the vibe that
Speaker 1: these kids have and will link to the article is
Speaker 1: like very It's exactly where I was when I was
Speaker 1: that age, and all these kids are like so much
Speaker 1: more put together and hotter than I was then, but
Speaker 1: like it's still like I the the the aim and
Speaker 1: what what is romantic to them? Feel I'm very sympathetic
Speaker 1: to uh. And I think that that kind of egalitarian
Speaker 1: aspect of it is is like super important because like
Speaker 1: I was into that at a public school. Like I
Speaker 1: think that most of these kids who are participating in this,
Speaker 1: like if they like they're not they're not the like
Speaker 1: kind of Ivy League, Like they're not a part of
Speaker 1: the academy. They are taking the aesthetics of the academy
Speaker 1: and molding it to their own purposes, which I think
Speaker 1: is like a very good thing, because I think one
Speaker 1: thing we've learned over um at least the past few months,
Speaker 1: if not longer, is that the academy is more or
Speaker 1: less broken, uh, And so why not just take the look,
Speaker 1: especially if nobody's going to be going to school anyway,
Speaker 1: like public, like the average American public school public high
Speaker 1: school is like the least romantic place in the world
Speaker 1: if you're a teenager. And so if you're going to
Speaker 1: not be going to that specific physical place, like why
Speaker 1: not build this school of the mind that you live in.
Speaker 1: It's like vaguely like goth and and and and nerdy,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, I'm I'm supert late. I feel
Speaker 1: like that aesthetic is just so prevalent in fiction. Um Again,
Speaker 1: I'm a little concerned that maybe the thing cottage core
Speaker 1: and dark academia have in common is sort of like
Speaker 1: a fetishization of like England, like British, you know, school
Speaker 1: uniform aesthetics. And then I was like many of the
Speaker 1: things you are describing also described Caroline Callaway, who is
Speaker 1: very into the academia aesthetic um and has also done
Speaker 1: cosplaying as a bunch of like literary characters recently. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like it's like movie Twitter for books or something.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it's the it's the fetish as they
Speaker 1: sh of the objects and signifiers of like being a
Speaker 1: smart person, which is like I think when you're a teen, fine,
Speaker 1: like do not hang onto that as you go into adulthood.
Speaker 1: Like I think that that can be very stunting in
Speaker 1: a way, but I'm like fine, like whatever, Like it's
Speaker 1: it sucks to be a teenager right now, and it
Speaker 1: sucks to like do school right now as a young person,
Speaker 1: whether that's college or high school. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think the other thing is that like this is all
Speaker 1: coming at a time when like Harvard, for example, I'm
Speaker 1: sure other you know, some of the other most expensive
Speaker 1: schools in the country are you know, all moving to
Speaker 1: online for next year and still charging their same tuition.
Speaker 1: And Harvard is still charging fifty dollars a year for
Speaker 1: online school. So if you were going to Harvard for
Speaker 1: like the vibes, like, you don't get those vibes anymore.
Speaker 1: You might as well just do the vibes part for
Speaker 1: free and go to like Phoenix University or whatever for
Speaker 1: like it doesn't like don't go to college and just
Speaker 1: editing or whatever or just or like, you know, if
Speaker 1: you need to get a specific degree to get a
Speaker 1: certain kind of job, like an associates degree or whatever,
Speaker 1: do that. But like it can be you know, you
Speaker 1: can some of the stuff can be democratized. You can
Speaker 1: find that you can find the excitement and like romance
Speaker 1: of learning in in your own way, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be this like classest thing. I also think
Speaker 1: as a test will say you have to not live
Speaker 1: in New England in order to romanticize New England. It's true,
Speaker 1: But I also I think I have to say though
Speaker 1: that I think it's wonderful to you know, I think
Speaker 1: what Emily saying is wonderful, and I definitely think that
Speaker 1: it's great to try to like see some of the
Speaker 1: plus sides in this. But every time I think about
Speaker 1: UM kids who were hoping to go to any college
Speaker 1: in the fall not being able to, and honestly, when
Speaker 1: I think about what kids in general are going through
Speaker 1: right now, it makes me so depressed. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: hard to even talk about like embodying the aesthetic of UM,
Speaker 1: the school that you hope to go to. Even I
Speaker 1: think it's absolutely insane that Harvard is charging fifty dollars
Speaker 1: with the size of their endowment for online classes. But
Speaker 1: I also just think of, like, you know, a kid
Speaker 1: who's who just was so excited to move away from
Speaker 1: home and go to school, and I, I, my heart is,
Speaker 1: like I've rarely used like this earnestly the words like
Speaker 1: my heart breaks for someone, but just all of the
Speaker 1: when you think about like all of the kids who
Speaker 1: really like needed to to get out on their own
Speaker 1: and who are living in bad situations. Sorry to take
Speaker 1: it down a dark path, but you know, I I
Speaker 1: just it's so so heavy, and I guess, like if
Speaker 1: the kind of like cause playing you know of like
Speaker 1: you're still going to college and you can kind of
Speaker 1: like play pretend makes them happy, that's great. But I'm
Speaker 1: also just like god, I wish that people could get
Speaker 1: it to gather, to figure out a safe way to
Speaker 1: like allow kids to like be able to to continue
Speaker 1: on going to school. Yeah, I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: just like they're trying to find the bright side and
Speaker 1: things and and that's wonderful. I mean that that's like
Speaker 1: with many things that are going on right now. It's
Speaker 1: like you there's like this glimmer of goodness and like happiness,
Speaker 1: but then you just kind of zoom out and you're like, man,
Speaker 1: it's so depressing, Like it's it's just really hard to
Speaker 1: think about being in that position. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: also a lot of the people who are doing this
Speaker 1: who you know, and I don't know how much of
Speaker 1: an overlap there is with somebody who was going to
Speaker 1: go to a respected American institution or you know, your
Speaker 1: Oxbridge or whatever um and people who participate in dark academia.
Speaker 1: I don't actually know, like I can't really really get
Speaker 1: a handle on what that overlap is. But like a
Speaker 1: lot of the people who are doing it are not
Speaker 1: living in the US. Like one of the main, uh,
Speaker 1: main originators of the whole vibe is a Brazilian girl. UM,
Speaker 1: and I think that at a certain point, like it's
Speaker 1: it's like I think that it has nothing, has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with like what what those places actually are, Like,
Speaker 1: I think it is it. It exists on its own.
Speaker 1: After a while, it's like it becomes its own sort
Speaker 1: of um like point of inspiration that's almost like divorced
Speaker 1: from the institution. And I think and I think like
Speaker 1: and and and Harvard is going to let some people
Speaker 1: on campus this year, not everybody. I think that they're
Speaker 1: going to be like thirty percent of UM their enrollment
Speaker 1: is going to be allowed to live on campus, but
Speaker 1: everybody is going to be UM online and uh. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, a ton of people who have student visas
Speaker 1: international students, and those a lot of those students are
Speaker 1: the people who really were counting on having an on
Speaker 1: campus experience at a school, more so than like somebody
Speaker 1: in the U S who's like you know, whose parents
Speaker 1: are paying their whole way to go to Harvard or whatever. Like,
Speaker 1: those those people are like in a position to do
Speaker 1: a romanticize Harvard the most and be be most the
Speaker 1: most affected by school not being in session, and so
Speaker 1: like and and and ice is going to be now
Speaker 1: like not honoring these student pisas so like kids who
Speaker 1: are planning on living here, whether it was on campus
Speaker 1: or like in in a near campus apartment, like they
Speaker 1: might not be you know, safe in the country anymore,
Speaker 1: and that should have super fucked up. Um and so
Speaker 1: I I do. There's a part of me that just
Speaker 1: like it feels very kind. It is it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a bummer, it sucks and it's sad, but it's also
Speaker 1: like I like that this like the Internet finds a
Speaker 1: way somehow to like persist. Yeah, that's what I mean though,
Speaker 1: I mean it's like it just makes you think that
Speaker 1: people you're like, that's very plucky during a time when
Speaker 1: it's hard to be. And I think like, in a way,
Speaker 1: I guess the thing that's the saddest to me no
Speaker 1: matter what situation. But I thought you brought up great points, Emily,
Speaker 1: is you know, I think the whole like aesthetic is
Speaker 1: really just so tied to being a young adult and
Speaker 1: being independent and like being able to have a style
Speaker 1: that matches a place that you chose ideally to go
Speaker 1: to school or whatever. Like, you know, there's many different
Speaker 1: college aesthetics and I like pretty much all of them
Speaker 1: because I just remember, like I don't know, just just
Speaker 1: the feeling, the like excitement of being of reinventing yourself.
Speaker 1: I guess as like a young adult was very powerful
Speaker 1: and it it you know, it's really hard to think
Speaker 1: about the different layers of like how this kind of
Speaker 1: affects people's psyches. But those people get to put their
Speaker 1: new identities online. Yeah, And I think one thing I
Speaker 1: have learned from the little that I've been exposed to
Speaker 1: TikTok is and especially when you're talking about these aesthetics,
Speaker 1: is that they are so mutable and that people are
Speaker 1: changing their identities all the time in very very conscious
Speaker 1: ways that they announce and they show how they are
Speaker 1: changing their looks. There are a lot of the dark
Speaker 1: academic videos are this. They are like, I'm I'm being
Speaker 1: dark academia. Now here's my here's my wardrobe. Um, here
Speaker 1: are all the like slubby sweaters I got from Goodwill. Um,
Speaker 1: it's very cute like and like, and I think that
Speaker 1: there I I think that there is a lot of opportunity,
Speaker 1: especially with the Internet, for people to try on those
Speaker 1: new identities, whether they're living at home or whether they're
Speaker 1: going out into the world on their own. Like I think,
Speaker 1: I think that kids are result teens, especially with social
Speaker 1: media accounts, are very resilient right now. Fores um, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but yeah, I would uh, I would recommend
Speaker 1: checking out the article at least because it's just sort
Speaker 1: of a trip. It's just like we're now at a
Speaker 1: place where this is this is what school is now.
Speaker 1: I'm just imagining like if we had had TikTok and stuff.
Speaker 1: I guess we had YouTube, but like during the recession
Speaker 1: and we're all just making videos that were like I
Speaker 1: thought I'd be a grown up now oops, here comes
Speaker 1: a recession. I mean that was me in high school anyway.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, like I think that this look was
Speaker 1: sort of more my core. But like then I would
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, it's goth day to day, Like I'm
Speaker 1: going to get my goth stuff out and like I
Speaker 1: would have, you know, these specific look days and be
Speaker 1: like I'm doing this this week or whatever. In a
Speaker 1: very kind of tiki taki homespun way. Tiki talkie and
Speaker 1: I And that's like some of the stuff I'm most
Speaker 1: nostalgic about about being young is like even if you
Speaker 1: don't have money or resources, like it feels like the
Speaker 1: idea of the self that you're building is so endlessly mutable.
Speaker 1: It's like very I don't know, it feels it feels fun.
Speaker 1: It feels like anything is possible. But yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: also just like it's funnier to cause play the secret
Speaker 1: history than like Harry Potter. And I'm sure that all
Speaker 1: these kids who like also according to this article, are
Speaker 1: like super super progressive, like very like gender queer, like
Speaker 1: like you know, are very very woke, uh are I'm
Speaker 1: sure that they're all abandoning their their child love of
Speaker 1: Harry Potter right now, and they're all like kind of
Speaker 1: all over like be careful with referencing classicism and stuff,
Speaker 1: which is like hilarious. It's like they're already doing it,
Speaker 1: like right, I read it a great There's like a
Speaker 1: quote from Ursula Kyla Gwen about how Harry Potter was
Speaker 1: kind of a rip off of the Earth Sea books
Speaker 1: that she wrote, but she was like, but they have
Speaker 1: no class consciousness, so they're like not good they're like,
Speaker 1: I guess she was. She was really funny. She was like,
Speaker 1: I guess they made someone a millionaire. Yeah, like not me.
Speaker 1: She also like apparently stole from some um like Neil
Speaker 1: Gaiman book that look looked like really bad. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: like look up like Google and Neil game in Books
Speaker 1: of Magic at the covers look exactly like Harry Pottery
Speaker 1: Painter books are like not well written, picular. I would
Speaker 1: just like I would disagree with that. They're like they
Speaker 1: move along. Yeah, that's what a why book has to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's better, there's better magical young fantasy. Y A.
Speaker 1: You know what I really liked this was my dark
Speaker 1: Academia was the worst witch. You love the worst witch,
Speaker 1: get into the worst. I definitely seen the worst, which
Speaker 1: wasn't that. Um what was that actress was from? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: there we go. Yeah for all that's phenomenal. There was
Speaker 1: also it was like a series of books, and there
Speaker 1: was also a I believe it was a British show
Speaker 1: that they then dubbed in with either American or Canadian voices,
Speaker 1: So it had a super weird feel to it that
Speaker 1: I didn't pinpoint until later. Yeah. Yeah, that was like
Speaker 1: a made for TV movie or something. Yeah. Yeah, Witch
Speaker 1: Academies always always, which you watched a good animey about
Speaker 1: a witch academy too, right, me? Yeah, it was magical Modocca,
Speaker 1: not a it's not it's not now. But there's like
Speaker 1: Little Witch Academia, which is very possitive. Watched it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we're all we're all graduating summa kum laude from Little
Speaker 1: Witch Academia. Um. Well, we're gonna take a break and
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're gonna bring Hannah Georgis on
Speaker 1: to talk three sixty five days. Welcome back to Nightcall.
Speaker 1: We are now joined by Hannah Georgis. She's a staff
Speaker 1: writer at the Atlantic and she's here to take a
Speaker 1: very special night call with us. Hey, guys, a long time,
Speaker 1: long time. I just watched three D sixty five days. Uh,
Speaker 1: the erotic film that's kind of sweeping TikTok and is
Speaker 1: currently number ten on trending movies on Netflix. Um, and
Speaker 1: I'm very curious to hear your guys thought as kind
Speaker 1: of the resident erotic thriller, you know, experts. All right,
Speaker 1: thank you, by wow. I feel very honored right now. Um.
Speaker 1: I have to say though, as maybe uh, not exactly
Speaker 1: a erotic thriller expert, not in the way that this
Speaker 1: collar says that we are. I did not know about
Speaker 1: three D sixty five days until I read Hannah's Peace
Speaker 1: in The Atlantic about it, um, which had you know,
Speaker 1: a headline I'm sure just like was caddip to me
Speaker 1: like why is everybody watching this mysteriously awful erotic thriller
Speaker 1: on Netflix? And I was like, click right now, why
Speaker 1: why was everybody watching this mysteriously terrible erotic thriller on Netflix? Well? Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's a bunch of things. It's
Speaker 1: like Netflix and their algorithm being mysterious, as they always are. Um,
Speaker 1: but also it's just so weird and outlandish and I
Speaker 1: think removed from what kind of sex, if any, is
Speaker 1: happening right now in the world, and so there's something
Speaker 1: like ha ha, like this is just outrageous. Look at
Speaker 1: these people they're having sex outdoors, and like there's something
Speaker 1: like fabulous and wild about it. Um. But I think
Speaker 1: appealed to people right now in this moment where human
Speaker 1: beings are not really touching each other. Yeah, there's something
Speaker 1: like that's the opposite about COVID and lockdown, about like
Speaker 1: the drone shots of like right, the opposite of where
Speaker 1: we are right right, Like that's always a ridiculous thing
Speaker 1: for most people, and now it's just like, what an
Speaker 1: outrageous concepts They're outdoors having sex. It's like, no, this
Speaker 1: would always be weird. But yeah, any human contact is
Speaker 1: now science fiction. That's true. Yeah, I do think like
Speaker 1: in your piece you also touched on this thing that
Speaker 1: I want to like dig into more about this movie
Speaker 1: and about like anything that can even vaguely be called
Speaker 1: an erotic though or erotic drama that comes out now,
Speaker 1: which is it Like it's sort of inevitably about like
Speaker 1: luxury and stuff like like that's the big thing with
Speaker 1: fifty Shades of Gray, which is this Obviously there's a
Speaker 1: kind of spiritual resemblance too. In a lot of ways
Speaker 1: it inspired it. So did the book was inspired by
Speaker 1: it directly because these are based on Polish books, correct
Speaker 1: Polish books. The woman who wrote the trip it's a trilogy,
Speaker 1: and the woman who wrote them was formerly a cosmetologist
Speaker 1: and then a therapist and a hypnotist. Uh And she
Speaker 1: said she was inspired by Gotta Have Her On Total
Speaker 1: nightc material. She said she was inspired by fifty Shades
Speaker 1: of Gray and a personal holiday trip to Italy Sicily specifically,
Speaker 1: which obviously but yeah, I was like, I mean the
Speaker 1: fifty Shades is very, very baked in fifty shades was
Speaker 1: was itself Twilight fan fiction exactly. It's just a lot
Speaker 1: of iterating yeah, yeah, And it's like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: funny because like I'm like a very I'm like a
Speaker 1: big lurker on like Archive of our own and like
Speaker 1: all fan fiction forums and like what pad and ship
Speaker 1: like that, and it's very funny because like if you look,
Speaker 1: if you search Twitter for people talking about three in
Speaker 1: sixty five Days, there's like a meme going around where
Speaker 1: it's like like, uh, like people watching through in the
Speaker 1: sixty five Days for the first time, like Wow, it
Speaker 1: would be so cool to have a dangerous mafia boyfriend.
Speaker 1: And then it's like people who live on what Pad
Speaker 1: and it's a it's like a screen grab of James
Speaker 1: Franco from The Ballad of Buster Scrugs when they're like
Speaker 1: getting hanged and he's like first time. Because it's just
Speaker 1: like the template of this movie and like the way
Speaker 1: that the plot works is like just ground level fan
Speaker 1: fic um like erotic fanfic stuff. Um, yeah, there's something.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that that there's there's some appeal
Speaker 1: in that too, right, that people can just put can
Speaker 1: graph whatever their own personal things are onto this movie
Speaker 1: because there's not actually really coconesive storyline or real characters
Speaker 1: to latch onto. Like these aren't people so much as
Speaker 1: they are like stock characters to sort of im you
Speaker 1: with your own whatever. Honestly, it makes so much sense
Speaker 1: that beloved genre tonight call softcore would come back during
Speaker 1: Lockdown because everyone's trapped at home at all times, and
Speaker 1: I feel like one thing the streaming wars have been
Speaker 1: missing is like the soft core element that made premium
Speaker 1: cable such a hit, and that maybe spawned a lot
Speaker 1: of these erotic thrillers because we've said a lot of
Speaker 1: it's like you can get away with anything if you
Speaker 1: say it's European totally. Well, I was gonna say, like
Speaker 1: also on top of that, like next to the need
Speaker 1: for softcore during during Lockdown, there's like the need for
Speaker 1: a hunk, which I think you like get into the
Speaker 1: start whose name I was trying to look up again,
Speaker 1: who's become kind of yes, yes, he also sings a
Speaker 1: bunch of the tracks which are really in its own Okay,
Speaker 1: So the audience who may not have seen this movie,
Speaker 1: such as me, can you give me a brief rundown
Speaker 1: of you know how many of the nightcall erotic, thriller,
Speaker 1: bingo things are getting checked off in this movie. I
Speaker 1: should check you know, what happens in this movie. So
Speaker 1: he's a millionaire and he kidnaps her. I want to
Speaker 1: hear Hanna try and do it and we can jump
Speaker 1: in because I feel like your piece made us watch
Speaker 1: this movie. And so to all every time you say that,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what have I done? We're grateful, We're grateful.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So this man, me Massimo, who's played by
Speaker 1: Michael Moroney, this liken car throb figure who becomes to something.
Speaker 1: Um sees his father, who's a like the Sicilian mob boss,
Speaker 1: be murdered right in front of him, like he gets
Speaker 1: flattered with his dad's blood. It's like right there. And
Speaker 1: as this is happening, he looks off into the distance
Speaker 1: and they're like on this like lighthouse structure near the sea,
Speaker 1: Like they're just kind of in the middle of the ocean,
Speaker 1: on the structure, and he looks out and as his
Speaker 1: dad gets shot, and he sees this woman in the
Speaker 1: distance and he decides like that she's like some apparition
Speaker 1: and he has to find her, and he becomes obsessed
Speaker 1: with her, and like ages later, you find out like, okay,
Speaker 1: it's just you know, Laura, the woman who's the Laura
Speaker 1: taking turns out that she this balds woman. Fast forward,
Speaker 1: and he kidnaps her and tells her that she basically
Speaker 1: has three hundred and sixty five days to either fall
Speaker 1: in love with him or he'll like release her, and she,
Speaker 1: you know, shockingly like does soon on soon into the arrangement,
Speaker 1: and then they have just a lot of really outrageous
Speaker 1: and impractical sex. But that's mostly there's like some other
Speaker 1: stuff that happens. Please describe the sex more on this
Speaker 1: spit aspect, which I feel is really the zeit geist here.
Speaker 1: I still kind of they let me do that in
Speaker 1: one scene. There is a lot of spit. Really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the first the way that the first actual sex
Speaker 1: scene when she decides that like this is going to
Speaker 1: happen comes to be is that she falls off of
Speaker 1: the side of the yacht. It kind of looks like
Speaker 1: she jumped, but she falls they're having to fight. They're
Speaker 1: having to fight, it's like almost violent. Yeah, But then
Speaker 1: he jumps in to save her and she's overwhelmed with
Speaker 1: gratitude and decides that you know, she loves him. Now
Speaker 1: they're going to have sex with the wrong So thus
Speaker 1: begins this like incredibly long sequence where they're having panoramic
Speaker 1: shots like the yacht, the wa the iseland, like anything
Speaker 1: that you and like you can see them as like
Speaker 1: tiny little blips on the yacht having sex, but they're
Speaker 1: just there. It's from so many different angles, and the
Speaker 1: kind of closer up ones one of them he's like
Speaker 1: about to go down on her and fits and that
Speaker 1: like there's a whole sort of close shot of that.
Speaker 1: People really responded to it is there is there full
Speaker 1: frontal in this movie. Not for no, not not quite.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's soft. But also I should
Speaker 1: say that I found this movie so unsexy and it's
Speaker 1: really for a few reasons, right, But okay, Hanna, was
Speaker 1: it also for you because of the soundtrack? Then the
Speaker 1: soundtrack is insane. As soon as you start to be like, hum,
Speaker 1: maybe then they play either um, Mikaela Marons like his tracks,
Speaker 1: which I think have some really goofy names like hard
Speaker 1: for Me, It's so bad. But then there's also these
Speaker 1: songs by a band called Everybody Loves an Outlaw and
Speaker 1: they're from Texas, and that's the more kind of like weird,
Speaker 1: easy listening, ish soft rock kind of thing. They're like,
Speaker 1: I think there was some streaming platform that had the
Speaker 1: Hills for a while and UM replaced. They had to
Speaker 1: replace all the songs because they couldn't have the right.
Speaker 1: They didn't have the right, So it was just like
Speaker 1: weirdly anonymous pop that sounded, you know, kind of just
Speaker 1: off a little bit because it was made in a lab.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what sounds like. Yeah, it sounds like
Speaker 1: it's supposed to. Soundtracking would be about a girl who
Speaker 1: like goes to college somewhere in like the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1: It just like like, this just doesn't fit what I'm
Speaker 1: being asked to consume. Yes, it is so far from
Speaker 1: a sexy vibe. It's like a like studying hard vibe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like we all, we all did not have
Speaker 1: like a particularly sexy reaction to nine and a half Weeks,
Speaker 1: which is another classic You didn't you mean you're saying
Speaker 1: you didn't have a sexy reaction in half weeks. I
Speaker 1: mean it felt sort of clinical. No, no, no, I
Speaker 1: had an opposite reaction on your face. Sorry, wait, Hanna,
Speaker 1: have you seen nine and a half weeks? I haven't.
Speaker 1: It's like a really good anaduct to this. I think
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of great. There's a long tradition
Speaker 1: of movies that get really bad reviews and then are
Speaker 1: really popular with people because they're so horny, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like, yeah, sometimes that's what you want. I uh
Speaker 1: So I went into watching this, you know, I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll prep to to watch a certain thing
Speaker 1: after reading your article. And then there, um, there was
Speaker 1: this sort of controversy that surrounded it. Um the singer
Speaker 1: Duffy uh pendant kind of open letter basically taking Netflix
Speaker 1: Netflix to task for what she said was romanticizing and
Speaker 1: glorifying um, what's essentially a kidnapping in a trafficking story.
Speaker 1: Uh And and she herself had been a victim of
Speaker 1: this kind of crime, I guess a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: so she was just so. I I kind of went
Speaker 1: into it being like, oh, no, is this like more radioactive? Then?
Speaker 1: I thought, I like, like it was more radioactive thing
Speaker 1: than I thought I was getting myself into UM, and
Speaker 1: I think, like, and so it made me more tuned
Speaker 1: to the kind of um, the kind of violence and
Speaker 1: like fucked up psychology that was going on in this
Speaker 1: like in a way that I was for nine and
Speaker 1: a half weeks UM just because I think that that's
Speaker 1: like just a good movie about that that's like depicts
Speaker 1: that stuff. But this is a bad movie that depicts
Speaker 1: that stuff. But I was still very like attuned to
Speaker 1: it and thinking about, like, I think especially we watched
Speaker 1: we watched UM Starship Troopers last week, which is a
Speaker 1: great movie and perennially relevant especially now, and I was
Speaker 1: thinking about, like how much that movie is about like
Speaker 1: violence and force and taking things by force and like
Speaker 1: a culture built around force. And there's so many times
Speaker 1: in this movie where, like, especially in the first half,
Speaker 1: where she's like where he's like kind of getting in her,
Speaker 1: like getting in her personal space, like kind of threatening
Speaker 1: her sexually, and she always says like, or what you're
Speaker 1: gonna kill me? And I always thought that was so
Speaker 1: interesting because there's this thing where it's just like this
Speaker 1: guy is so aggro, but all he can threaten is
Speaker 1: violence and in a way that's like constantly questioned by
Speaker 1: the female character in a way doesn't feel like he
Speaker 1: might actually kill her, That's my question. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: like a murder. He kills other people, like that's the
Speaker 1: whole mafia boyfriend trope. If he's sexy and he like
Speaker 1: keeps his secrets. Yeah, yeah, I definitely felt like he
Speaker 1: is capable of violence for sure, But I do think that,
Speaker 1: you know, at least for me, I never felt like
Speaker 1: he was actually going to kill her, right, like, because
Speaker 1: the whole, the whole thing of it is like here's
Speaker 1: this like a guy who kills people and he does
Speaker 1: all this bad stuff, but like, really he has this
Speaker 1: intense for you. It's like that's so messed up on
Speaker 1: like a million different levels. And also like he does
Speaker 1: kind of hold to having a thing, however messed up
Speaker 1: it is. I feel like everyone litigated this a lot.
Speaker 1: When Fifty Shades of Gray came out, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of like, well, if it's fantasy, like can it
Speaker 1: show something that's really fucked up, you know, and we
Speaker 1: acknowledge that it's fucked up? Or does just the act
Speaker 1: of showing it always like fetishize it. I still don't
Speaker 1: know what I think. I think it's case by case.
Speaker 1: Um obviously, like I understand why Duffy doesn't want to
Speaker 1: watch it, you know. Um, I feel like something like this.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's a this is a bad movie, but
Speaker 1: I'm kind of grateful for like there is something that
Speaker 1: a movie like this is uniquely positioned to be able
Speaker 1: to expose about, like attitudes about sex and violence. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Pulverhoven said that about Start Ship Troopers, who is like,
Speaker 1: you can, yeah, you can show as much violence as
Speaker 1: you want, but you can't show a Tit can't show
Speaker 1: a titty in American movies or they'll give you like
Speaker 1: an m C seventeen, which is totally true. So I
Speaker 1: think also just having a movie that has a lot
Speaker 1: of semi full nudity uh and sex in it is
Speaker 1: is always how they've marketed a certain type of European
Speaker 1: art movie to Americans. And yeah, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people it's like it's not so much the Europeans.
Speaker 1: You know, if a movie is like high salutint enough
Speaker 1: obviously as you can put lots of sex in it
Speaker 1: and it will get Oscars. But like this seems like
Speaker 1: it's kind of trashy and tremendously trash, and that the
Speaker 1: dissonance is all between like how sexy it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be and how like skin Crawley it actually is. Well,
Speaker 1: it also makes no sense, and I think Hanna brought
Speaker 1: that up like really well in your piece when you
Speaker 1: kind of said that it it reflects our surreal reality
Speaker 1: and and how things feel very off, and this movie,
Speaker 1: everything about it feels very off. We were talking earlier
Speaker 1: about how it has a lot of like The Bachelor
Speaker 1: kind of baked into it as well. I was like
Speaker 1: ninety Day Fiance, which I've been watching a ton of
Speaker 1: of the like you know this kind of weird the
Speaker 1: like the ticking clock of on the romance, these kind
Speaker 1: of contrived, weird meetings with like um, he meets her
Speaker 1: parents at a wedding and like we're very strange. Strange. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what's so weird about Fifty Shades of Gray too.
Speaker 1: And I think this entire genre is, like it's not
Speaker 1: really about sex. It's about this like deep soul connecting
Speaker 1: romance that like starts with sex but then becomes like
Speaker 1: an all an, all consuming obsession. It's like Wuthering Heights style.
Speaker 1: You know it's fucked up, but everyone involved just into
Speaker 1: how fucked up it is, which is what makes it okay.
Speaker 1: It's like the movie. I feel like most of these
Speaker 1: movies make it clear that it's like a little consensual
Speaker 1: and in fifty Shades of Gray. They like sort of
Speaker 1: interrogated whether it is at the end of the first
Speaker 1: one at least, and then walked it back. How did
Speaker 1: do you think this would be popular without COVID and
Speaker 1: without lockdown? Like obviously that the appeal of a cheesy,
Speaker 1: globe trotting sex movie is is one thing, But do
Speaker 1: you think that, like there's something that's still in the air,
Speaker 1: regardless of if we're all locked up at home in
Speaker 1: our own prisons, where uh yeah, where this would still
Speaker 1: like take off. I can see it being really big
Speaker 1: around the holidays, like you know what I mean, Yeah,
Speaker 1: being trapped in someone else's house. Yeah, there's just some
Speaker 1: stuff going on where people look to entertainment that is
Speaker 1: sort of slightly outside of what they might normally consume
Speaker 1: and also against at least a real slightly bizarre and
Speaker 1: not necessarily made. They're just like obvious sidelines. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that all humors have that ability to like
Speaker 1: have a curveball hit. It just makes sense that, you know,
Speaker 1: after rom comms would come erotic thrillers. Is this movie
Speaker 1: erotic or a thriller? I don't think it's a thriller. Really,
Speaker 1: it's an erotic and erotic drama, which is the same
Speaker 1: genre as uh nine and a half weeks. So what
Speaker 1: movies do you guys think are legitimately sexy? Well, it's
Speaker 1: it's funny because I think that a lot of the
Speaker 1: stuff that sticks out in our memories when it comes
Speaker 1: to like sexy movies, like sexy mainstream movies are like
Speaker 1: stuff that left a big impression on us as young people. Right, no,
Speaker 1: you could show that in a movie. But but yeah, there,
Speaker 1: once you become an adult, I feel like it's less
Speaker 1: about just the pure shock or titilation and and like okay,
Speaker 1: but what's actually sexy in a movie? Like how do
Speaker 1: you compose? Like you know, the work of intimacy coordinators
Speaker 1: and stuff like how do you make something hot? I'll
Speaker 1: give my answer to step Up Eat Mama Tambian. M hmm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds kind of sad though. That one always bums
Speaker 1: me out a little bit. Though we're not mutually exclusive
Speaker 1: exactly that you can play that game. So that's a
Speaker 1: great movie, I mean honestly, because I think anything with
Speaker 1: Marsh Chestnut and it is like by default just gonna
Speaker 1: be sexy, especially that era. But I do think that
Speaker 1: they there was a particularly interesting thing that they did
Speaker 1: with like the gender dynamics and that like in retrospect,
Speaker 1: not always perfect, but like there was interesting kind of
Speaker 1: play between the two of them, and I enjoy it
Speaker 1: back and forth, um like that. Yeah, it's totally. That
Speaker 1: is like a great screwball comedy. Yeah, like nineties screwball comedy.
Speaker 1: Love a Battle, Yeah, literally, just keep thinking of movies
Speaker 1: where people fight. It's just not even going to go there.
Speaker 1: It's also I mean, it's it's interesting when you think
Speaker 1: about in terms of directors who are good at it,
Speaker 1: Like I do think the car Own is really good
Speaker 1: at at at sex scenes. Um like two Momcomb and
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, one of the more memorable examples,
Speaker 1: but I think in general he's just like good at
Speaker 1: intimacy in movies. And I think that's such an interesting
Speaker 1: thing too, because I think it's really important to have
Speaker 1: directors who can who are like smart and sensitive about
Speaker 1: that stuff. But it also like sometimes you end up
Speaker 1: with a name to your line who I think is
Speaker 1: really good and depicting that stuff. But when you learn
Speaker 1: about how the sausage sausage was made, it's sometimes a
Speaker 1: little bit like, oh, sounds like it wasn't a fun
Speaker 1: set to be on. Sounds like people are really uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: So you know that's not always and that's not always
Speaker 1: apparent from from watching the thing itself. Like I can't
Speaker 1: imagine that the Three five Days director, whose name don't
Speaker 1: even have in front of me right now, but like,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that they that this was a particularly
Speaker 1: nuanced or like progressive set, just because it's not a
Speaker 1: particularly nuance to progressive movie. But um, maybe it was.
Speaker 1: I don't know, we don't know, we don't know. I
Speaker 1: tell you who directed this movie, by the way, it's
Speaker 1: Barbara and Thomas Mandy's yes, and and and I like
Speaker 1: that it was written the writer's name is Blanca Lipinska.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that kind of lends it a
Speaker 1: little bit of I don't know, not insulation. Like Duffy's
Speaker 1: letter was really obviously it was important to read that perspective.
Speaker 1: She had only recently talked about this publicly, about her
Speaker 1: experience of being kidnapped and abused and everything, so it
Speaker 1: was you know, I definitely respect that she took everyone
Speaker 1: to task for this, and it was something that I
Speaker 1: felt it was important to keep in mind, uh watching
Speaker 1: the movie. But I do think the fact that, like
Speaker 1: fifty Shades, it was written by a woman and it
Speaker 1: has like there's knowing that it kind of does inform
Speaker 1: like how you can choose to view the movie. Well,
Speaker 1: this is interesting though, because my big takeaway from this
Speaker 1: movie is that it is a girl boss porn for
Speaker 1: women to write a movie about sex. It is not
Speaker 1: necessarily like chill. Joel Just our producer Joel just chimed
Speaker 1: in on chat to suggest Bound by the Witchowski Sisters.
Speaker 1: The witch Howskis are also really really good at that stuff.
Speaker 1: I was just like going on and on about cloud
Speaker 1: Cloud out lists recently, which like for all its faults,
Speaker 1: I think is really good. It's just like intimacy. I
Speaker 1: just realized none of us have mentioned Portrait of a
Speaker 1: Lady on Fire. Everybody was what are horny for? I
Speaker 1: seen it and what I want to say. Also the Handmaiden,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, m extremely good horny movie from recent times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's you know, people were really into
Speaker 1: showing saliva on screen when I went to a Vienne
Speaker 1: and like twenty whenever. Um, and a lot of like
Speaker 1: women especially we're very into like I want to show
Speaker 1: like crazy rough sex and like just because I'm a
Speaker 1: woman doesn't mean that I don't want to see that. Um,
Speaker 1: And so I think that, Yeah, I think this movie
Speaker 1: is like it's intended probably it's just sort of like
Speaker 1: a fantasy. Uh, it doesn't seem like a realistic depiction
Speaker 1: of maybe anything. Right. It's when you should see teens
Speaker 1: respond to it, especially on the TikTok Yeah, yeah, they're
Speaker 1: so Betty tik talks about this movie, um, and a
Speaker 1: lot of them are just about how Masson was like
Speaker 1: super hot or which like fine, but there's so many
Speaker 1: that are like you know, or tweets that are like
Speaker 1: it's always like you know, what are you doing? Never
Speaker 1: like want to recreate the gaps? And do you actually
Speaker 1: want to recreate you know? But it's just like it's
Speaker 1: just good joke for me. And I am also curious
Speaker 1: about like what a teen audience thinks of essentially like
Speaker 1: right now or with with other stuff that's kind of
Speaker 1: out there in this moment, like how do you necessarily
Speaker 1: watch normal people and then watch through sixty five days?
Speaker 1: Like where where does this fit kind of in that graph. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that even though that you know, porn is
Speaker 1: accessible now and you can see like hardcore sex, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of Like the thing about erotic thrillers was
Speaker 1: like these were movies you would see on premium cable
Speaker 1: late at night, and that was like, especially for girls,
Speaker 1: probably like your main access to anything pornographic unless you
Speaker 1: wanted to go to the store and buy something. But
Speaker 1: it's interesting that like even with as much access as
Speaker 1: kids have now that they still Yeah, it's like people
Speaker 1: like the romantic sex scenes um or the sex scenes
Speaker 1: is just a part of a narrative, you know, and
Speaker 1: then like the slow burned thing and everything. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: like they like raphoria, you know, the zooms, and then
Speaker 1: it's again like bring it back. But this is also
Speaker 1: a movie about wealth and like conspicuous wealth, and it's
Speaker 1: not just like somebody cannots you and takes you to
Speaker 1: their basic and it's like you're going to fall in
Speaker 1: love with me here and my like you know, dingy whatever,
Speaker 1: it's like fall in love with it. Honest, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't have to be here, but we're on and up.
Speaker 1: Isn't that cool? Yeah? Yeah, no, and it's it's it's
Speaker 1: I mean I end up thinking, I mean, I ended
Speaker 1: up thinking this about fifty shades. I end up thinking,
Speaker 1: I think it's really hard to have like for what
Speaker 1: I guess the erotic photos that are getting green light
Speaker 1: right now, it's it's hard for them to not feel
Speaker 1: like they're inevitably about capitalism and like working within it
Speaker 1: and like negotiating with a captor, like negotiating with like
Speaker 1: a system that you actually can't get out of. But
Speaker 1: then it tricks you into thinking that you have made
Speaker 1: a choice. Okay, we should definitely do show Girls sometime, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I think it's about that. I think that's another
Speaker 1: movie that's like not at all sexy, but it's like
Speaker 1: it's not really about sex, it's about capital. And they're
Speaker 1: is this idea built into everything that like if you
Speaker 1: have enough money, you can buy anything you want, including people,
Speaker 1: as you know, sex objects. Uh that these movies are
Speaker 1: not critiquing. These movies are just like and that's great.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be like a sugar baby. Well,
Speaker 1: I actually like it. Maybe it's just like the confluence
Speaker 1: of watching these things at the same time. But like,
Speaker 1: just because I've been watching I made a story you
Speaker 1: right now. Um, I was just thinking about the like
Speaker 1: the weird kind of territory that these two work share oddly,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to like, yeah, like what you
Speaker 1: think are your choices within a given set of parameters,
Speaker 1: and like what um like the idea of lost time,
Speaker 1: like she has in in in in three to sixty
Speaker 1: five days. She has some sort of heart conditions, so
Speaker 1: she's constantly swooning. And at first I'm like, oh, that's
Speaker 1: so goofy, like the swooning lady who keeps having to
Speaker 1: get rescued by this gangster. But then I was like,
Speaker 1: there's this weird sort of non linear feeling to it
Speaker 1: where it's just like and then I passed out and
Speaker 1: I woke up and I was on a yacht like,
Speaker 1: which is very like also Ebsteini too in a weird way. Like,
Speaker 1: but this idea of just like losing like truly losing
Speaker 1: agency at times and not even realizing it is really creepy.
Speaker 1: Like it's very um yeah, it's and I was just
Speaker 1: thinking about, like, you know, you could watch something that
Speaker 1: deals with that in a lot more like Nuance and
Speaker 1: with I May Destroy You. But those things are on
Speaker 1: my mind, I guess going in UM. I thought. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons I'm hypothesizing wildly here that people, especially
Speaker 1: teens might have connected more with three sixty five days
Speaker 1: than if it were presented to them at a time
Speaker 1: when they weren't under quarantine is it's also kind of
Speaker 1: a fantasy about not having to make any decisions, like
Speaker 1: the decision anxiety that we all feel, particularly when it
Speaker 1: comes to travel or being in unfamiliar surroundings or being
Speaker 1: around other people. I was like, because I was wondering
Speaker 1: at one point it was like, this kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me of the trip, like the trip to Italy, the
Speaker 1: trip degrees. I've been like rewatching some of the trips
Speaker 1: over quarantine because all I want to do is just
Speaker 1: see people in like unfamiliar places, places where I'm like,
Speaker 1: will I ever be able to leave doing the exact
Speaker 1: same thing but with below decks? Oh yeah, totally. UM
Speaker 1: The greatest show in the world UM on Bravo about
Speaker 1: people who work on a yacht. It's so good because
Speaker 1: it's about the people who work on the yacht rather
Speaker 1: than like the like is they're constantly like dogging on
Speaker 1: the rich people and being like who would pay for this?
Speaker 1: Like there's a podcast on iHeart right, Yes, I think
Speaker 1: Anna is on that. Maybe I wanted to say. Also,
Speaker 1: though it seems like just in that idea of being
Speaker 1: trapped in your house with your family, unless you live
Speaker 1: in like a high house, unless you're like a fully
Speaker 1: advanced team who uh lives by themselves in a high house,
Speaker 1: is that it's like fantasy is also about privacy in
Speaker 1: your head away from other Well. One of the most
Speaker 1: fraught things though right now is the fact that when
Speaker 1: you make a decision to leave your house at all,
Speaker 1: even just for your own survival, like to get food
Speaker 1: or you know, to seek like emergency medical treatment, there
Speaker 1: is the feeling that that could be a horrible decision
Speaker 1: that you're making. And I think, like, you know, at
Speaker 1: one point, um Laura says of Massimo that you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that she really loves about him
Speaker 1: is that she feels like a little girl because she
Speaker 1: feels like protected and defended and basically she's like he
Speaker 1: makes he makes all of her decisions for her. They
Speaker 1: only fight when she like decides to make her own decision.
Speaker 1: Obviously that's a problematic thing in general, but right now,
Speaker 1: when it's so scary to make decisions, I think like
Speaker 1: the fantasy aspect of it is partially like someone shows
Speaker 1: up and they just put you here and they tell
Speaker 1: you to do this, and they tell you to do that,
Speaker 1: and you get you either enjoy it or you don't,
Speaker 1: but you don't have any responsibility for that decision making.
Speaker 1: I would pay so much money to bet for just
Speaker 1: like a man, right, And this is obviously not that
Speaker 1: very different. And also like if I could just assign
Speaker 1: somebody else's decision for a little lot, Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: sub fantasy. I think the algorithm is part of that
Speaker 1: fantasy because I think people also want to be told
Speaker 1: what they should be watching. Yeah, a little bit. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that top ten works really well as just
Speaker 1: propaganda to make you be like, what is this? Shall
Speaker 1: I dive in? Other people like this? Right at lately?
Speaker 1: That is um like that you actually really genuinely love, right.
Speaker 1: I've also been watching I May Destroy You, I watched
Speaker 1: for West Night, um, I started see you one of
Speaker 1: true Detective because a friend recommended it and it has
Speaker 1: been trying to get to get me to watch it
Speaker 1: for ages and it's amazing, and also like I need
Speaker 1: to find another show because I can't only be watching
Speaker 1: I may destrow you in True Detectives. So I'm I'm
Speaker 1: probably gonna start below Deck to kind of counter down.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because it can't. It's right now, it's pretty.
Speaker 1: It's pretty literally like those two things. And then my
Speaker 1: partner not and I watched Dexter every night, which is
Speaker 1: like lovely and also again, yeah, this is like hardcore
Speaker 1: because my preferences are so far outside of that normally,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what rom com is there? Like is there
Speaker 1: a show? Can I watch something? And now I found
Speaker 1: myself watching three like very heavy and like lightly murder
Speaker 1: slash Crimes. Yeah, yeah, always one, like one of the
Speaker 1: first shows I remember I couldn't eat while I was
Speaker 1: watching it. There was too gross, Like I'll season four
Speaker 1: and I'm like, how did I get here? I can't
Speaker 1: do I'm not good at like murders show like violence,
Speaker 1: it doesn't you know. But we watched Barry before that,
Speaker 1: and I was like, this is funny. I can maybe
Speaker 1: do another serial Pillent Show and Dexter's Bloodier. You're getting
Speaker 1: all of Emily's respect for what having like the slate
Speaker 1: I just need to read. This is not I don't
Speaker 1: think any of us are on our usual slates though
Speaker 1: right now we're all branching out in ways. I truly.
Speaker 1: I just watched Below Deck and I'm at like different
Speaker 1: points in the timeline because I go to the earlier seasons.
Speaker 1: I just watched the pilot yesterday for the first time,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's just they're always somewhere you want to be.
Speaker 1: It's always like, you know, they're in the south of France.
Speaker 1: Is that water there in can? Right? I can use
Speaker 1: another Love Island season, honestly, I would like for one
Speaker 1: to materialize. You watched that, right, Molly, You're Love Island.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I find British reality television too. But then
Speaker 1: that also, like Love Islands, some funked up stuff happened
Speaker 1: with the host and uh, nothing is like just pure
Speaker 1: escape isn't anymore? And also Toast of London. I was
Speaker 1: going to say, the opposite one of everything you've been
Speaker 1: watching is Toast of London. You know what else is
Speaker 1: what what we do in the shadows? I find to
Speaker 1: be like so silly and enjoyable. Yeah, just like silly
Speaker 1: stuff is good right now, I think, yeah, it's that
Speaker 1: weird stuff that weird. Yeah, like it's so it just
Speaker 1: makes me happy, which is like I'm trying to watch something.
Speaker 1: But I would argue that three sixty five days is
Speaker 1: that for me, especially the line that you like, I
Speaker 1: was very glad you highlighted and like, I'm not a
Speaker 1: bag of potatoes that you I cackled. I cackled during
Speaker 1: this review, So maybe it was like my friends about it.
Speaker 1: Honestly might have been my I don't remember what time,
Speaker 1: you know, conversations are anymore. But whoever responded to it
Speaker 1: like that's really European to reference potatoes and an argument?
Speaker 1: Oh my god. So it sounds like what you guys
Speaker 1: are saying is that three and sixty five days fails
Speaker 1: as an erotic thriller but succeeds as a horror comedy.
Speaker 1: That's actually maybe right, Yeah, that's true. It's in the ballpark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll give it. Sounds good. Well, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us this sweet onna. Um. Where can people
Speaker 1: find you online? Um? As we mentioned, you're on at
Speaker 1: the Atlantic as a staff writer. But yeah, yes, I'm
Speaker 1: also unfortunately still on Twitter very periodically. Often we can't
Speaker 1: help it. I know it's well everyone's while go off,
Speaker 1: but now is not one of those times. UM. So
Speaker 1: it's the open like I and any difference ending I
Speaker 1: will change it one of these days days not that day. Um,
Speaker 1: that's obviously. UM. Well, yeah, I think this is so fun.
Speaker 1: I was so glad to have you on us. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry for doing this to you. You cannot say
Speaker 1: how thankful weird. Yeah, you took us aboard your yacht,
Speaker 1: showed us your heart. Thank you getting wet probably for
Speaker 1: very long time. Well, thank you so much on it,
Speaker 1: and we will hope to have you back again soon.
Speaker 1: And thank you for listening to Nightcall. We'll be back
Speaker 1: next week. We can find us on social media at
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Speaker 1: Subscribe to us on iTunes and leave us a rating
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Speaker 1: see you all next week. By