Speaker 1: On the dol cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in um, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Speaker 1: Or do they have individualism the patriarchy? Zef In best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the Bell cast. Um, Hi, I
Speaker 1: just wandered into this house and I'm in the shower.
Speaker 1: Who am I? Oh my gosh, let me help you.
Speaker 1: I'm so nice. I just moved here and I'm going
Speaker 1: to be a big star. Cool, just kidding, And that's
Speaker 1: the summary of Holland. Yeah, you're not gonna hire a
Speaker 1: hit man to murder me, are you know? Okay, I
Speaker 1: would never do that. I'm so nice. Look at me.
Speaker 1: I'm so nice. I just got off a bus and
Speaker 1: everyone believes in me and I'm an amazing actor. Cool.
Speaker 1: Let's kiss. I did have this thought. Okay, does this
Speaker 1: whole movie pass because okay, spoiler alert. No, we haven't
Speaker 1: even told you what the movie were, the podcast or
Speaker 1: who we are yet, but I'm going to spoil the
Speaker 1: whole movie right now in Mholland Drive. Does the whole
Speaker 1: movie pass the Bechdel test? Because it all takes place
Speaker 1: inside of one woman's head, and so, in a way,
Speaker 1: they're all extensions of one woman's brain, and therefore every
Speaker 1: exchange in the entire movie is just a woman talking
Speaker 1: to herself and rationalizing the events that have for the
Speaker 1: first two hours. I think you could make that argument
Speaker 1: and then right, right, because this movie is two and
Speaker 1: a half hours long. But I think, yeah, for for
Speaker 1: the majority of the movie, it's it's a woman talking
Speaker 1: to herself through different conduits, but it's all in the
Speaker 1: same person's mind. I don't know if you if you
Speaker 1: take that interpretation of the movie, because famously David Lynch
Speaker 1: is like, I'm not telling you what my movie is about.
Speaker 1: He's like that, He like, look, I'm taking the most
Speaker 1: basic one, and I feel fine with that. In that
Speaker 1: read though, I think that it's it's a good hack,
Speaker 1: and yet we have so much to talk about. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Jamie Loftus, my
Speaker 1: name is Caitlin Dronte, and this is our podcast where
Speaker 1: we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
Speaker 1: Bechtel test as a jumping off point. But oh no,
Speaker 1: I have amnesia and I don't remember what the Bechtel
Speaker 1: test is. Jamie, tell me, well, this is all my dreams,
Speaker 1: so I have all the information. Great. The Bechtel Test
Speaker 1: is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel,
Speaker 1: sometimes called the Bechtel Wallace Test. A lot of permutations
Speaker 1: of the test. The one we use is this, we
Speaker 1: require that there be two characters with names of a
Speaker 1: marginalized gender talking to each other about something other than
Speaker 1: a man for more than two lines of dialogue. And
Speaker 1: it should be some sort of narratively impactful exchange. Not
Speaker 1: really a problem for this movie, so I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get much more into it than that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: today's movie, as we said, and as the title of
Speaker 1: the episode would indicate, its Mulholland Drive. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because it's we have This has happened, I guess a
Speaker 1: couple of times over the years, but we have prepared
Speaker 1: for this episode previously for a show we were going
Speaker 1: to do in Philadelphia, and then we I forget what happened.
Speaker 1: But then we're like, we're not doing that, and I
Speaker 1: think we we found a guest that we were like,
Speaker 1: you can do whatever movie you want. We were going
Speaker 1: to do Mulholland Drive, but you don't have to do that.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to, and she was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do something else. So that's why we changed it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think, I don't. I mean, this is an amazing story.
Speaker 1: No matter what, our listeners are probably really engaged in
Speaker 1: this story of scheduling from three years ago. I don't
Speaker 1: really remember. I just remember that we ended up. If
Speaker 1: this is so boring. Anyways, we're covering the movie now
Speaker 1: and we've got an amazing guests, so let's get them
Speaker 1: in here. We certainly do. She is the host of
Speaker 1: the Real Podcast. She's a contributor to Cinema fem magazine.
Speaker 1: It's don Borchart. Welcome. Hi, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me. Oh, we're so stoked to have you, and
Speaker 1: thank you for bringing us. I think this is this
Speaker 1: has definitely been a request for the entire time this
Speaker 1: show has existed, and we've been putting it off. How
Speaker 1: you've been reluctant. I'm happy to be talking about it today.
Speaker 1: I'm the guest for you. Well, let's get started there then.
Speaker 1: What is your history and connection with the movie Mulholland Drive. Well,
Speaker 1: I've seen it a few times over the years, probably
Speaker 1: first in college would be my guess. Um, and then
Speaker 1: I watched it again in preparation for this podcast, and
Speaker 1: I think mainly I just love David Lynchen was a
Speaker 1: big fan of Twin Peaks Um, and so I was
Speaker 1: excited to choose this film, and you guys sent me
Speaker 1: a couple of options. I was like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to do this one. And a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago I went to the Twin Peaks town and so
Speaker 1: that's just kind of like further my like nerd um,
Speaker 1: I don't know what, I can't remember what the town
Speaker 1: is actually called, but where you can see like the
Speaker 1: waterfalls and the diner and all that, and like the
Speaker 1: area where the sign is, so that's not Maholland Drive.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm excited to talk about this one today.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah we have Okay, this is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite episode dynamics we have coming up, because I feel
Speaker 1: like this is I'm trying to think of another example
Speaker 1: this has happened where we've had a guest who is
Speaker 1: very into the director. We've had a Caitlin who is
Speaker 1: very not into the director, and then we have Jamie
Speaker 1: scrambling around the centrist of the operation. Not in life,
Speaker 1: hard left in life, but sometimes on the podcast, I
Speaker 1: take a centerstance because Caitlin, what is your history with
Speaker 1: mholland Drive? Oh gosh, yes, I have seen it a
Speaker 1: number of times. Also for the first time in college,
Speaker 1: so it would have been like mid two thousands that
Speaker 1: that I saw the first time once again sometime after that,
Speaker 1: maybe like you know your early and then uh, probably
Speaker 1: three times. I watched this movie so many times to
Speaker 1: prep for this recording, because again the movie is famously
Speaker 1: difficult to interpret. So he was like, what is this about? Again?
Speaker 1: And I kept rewatching it, hoping that I would come
Speaker 1: to a better understanding at any point, and that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: So generally, Okay, here's a little story time, UM hit
Speaker 1: it yesterday. I think I tweeted something, which is mistake
Speaker 1: number one. Never good start to a story. I tweeted,
Speaker 1: I resent all the years I felt pressure to pretend
Speaker 1: that David Lynch is any good. Now I do wish
Speaker 1: I had reworded that. I wish I had you fired
Speaker 1: to take into the Internet. I did, which is a risk.
Speaker 1: It is a risk, but I wish I had said
Speaker 1: I resent all the years I felt pressure to pretend
Speaker 1: that I like David Lynch's work. Because there's a big
Speaker 1: difference between I like something or I don't like something,
Speaker 1: and something is good or something is bad. So I
Speaker 1: recognize that I agree. However, I will say Twitter is
Speaker 1: a website for adults that should know that and and
Speaker 1: perhaps um not attack you based on a very simple,
Speaker 1: easy to understand the way of like, you know, I agree,
Speaker 1: I agree, Okay, Okay. I was like, I don't be
Speaker 1: too hard on yourself in this situation because people know that.
Speaker 1: But that's not what Twitter. That's just not how people
Speaker 1: act on Twitter. Sure, So basically what happened after that
Speaker 1: is dozens and dozens of people, uh got into my
Speaker 1: mentions and insulted me in various ways because I forgot
Speaker 1: something that I should have remembered, which is that and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even this doesn't just apply to David Lynch fans.
Speaker 1: I feel like this applies to a lot of things
Speaker 1: that have a like cult following status, where some of
Speaker 1: the fans sometimes take it personally when you don't like
Speaker 1: the thing that they like. So a lot of David
Speaker 1: Lynch fans did not like what I had to say,
Speaker 1: and they started bullying me online. That's what I've been
Speaker 1: dealing with so I've been, you know, just um trying
Speaker 1: to ignore all of my Twitter notifications for the past
Speaker 1: several hours. Um. So this is all to say that
Speaker 1: my and I don't even I don't even dislike all
Speaker 1: of David Lynch's work. I find twin Peaks to be
Speaker 1: generally enjoy a I like The Elephant Man. Other of
Speaker 1: his films not so much. I do deeply, deeply, deeply
Speaker 1: hate Erase Your Head. And I also I am not
Speaker 1: a fan of Mulholland Drive, but I do think it'll
Speaker 1: generate some interesting conversations that we will have soon on
Speaker 1: this podcast. Um. But yeah, I generally I have a
Speaker 1: tumultuous relationship with David Lynch's work Drama the End, Jamie,
Speaker 1: what about you? Uh no real saga or lore to
Speaker 1: go with it. I I think, like my my whole
Speaker 1: ethostards David Lynch. I don't love Mulholland Drive. I've seen
Speaker 1: a couple of times before. It's not my favorite. I
Speaker 1: just I find David Lynch to be a very like
Speaker 1: I'm glad he exists because I do feel like there
Speaker 1: is a dearth of a tours who are just fu
Speaker 1: in weirdos. And I think that slowly this is happening
Speaker 1: more and more that there was more diversity in uh,
Speaker 1: that category of filmmaker of just like Carte blanche weirdos. Um,
Speaker 1: he's not a weirdo. That lines up exactly with my interest.
Speaker 1: And I do think that there's a lot of interesting
Speaker 1: discussion around his work and whiteness and his work as
Speaker 1: it pertains to women, because he's just like I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm interested in him as a cultural figure. He seems
Speaker 1: like a lovely man. Every every interview I've seen with him,
Speaker 1: he seems like a sweet old man, right true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I also have done some of his meditation stuff
Speaker 1: and it's pretty fucking good. Uh, But that's not what
Speaker 1: we're talking about. We're talking about the movie. I think
Speaker 1: that it is like interesting to kind of look at,
Speaker 1: especially how it's it's most male oturs that we talk about.
Speaker 1: You know. The issue is that they underdeveloped female characters.
Speaker 1: They never you know, feel like centering them, They never
Speaker 1: feel like really explore boring their motivations, their ideas, where
Speaker 1: they're coming from. That isn't David Lynch's problem at all.
Speaker 1: But he's still weird with women, where Like it's just
Speaker 1: like he seems to in his work that I've seen,
Speaker 1: and I have not seen all of it, so take
Speaker 1: everything I'm saying with a grain of salt, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure everyone's gonna be so fucking mad. Is is that?
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that there's a mail artor who
Speaker 1: seems uniquely interested in psychologically torturing female protagonists because he
Speaker 1: has women as protagonists all the time, but they are
Speaker 1: always under this like extreme mental distress, and this movie
Speaker 1: is not an exception to that interest, like Laura's Vontrier like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. Yeah. And I have to say, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen all of his films, so I'm not like
Speaker 1: as intensive a die hard, but I do love him
Speaker 1: and I agree with what you're saying, Jamie, Like his
Speaker 1: him as a person just seems so likable and goofy,
Speaker 1: Like I want him to be like my grandpa. The
Speaker 1: documentary that I saw what was what was it on?
Speaker 1: There's a documentary about him because he has this whole
Speaker 1: and we'll get into this too, I mean, and like
Speaker 1: he has this whole ethos of like art life and
Speaker 1: that's his whole, like the way he lives his life.
Speaker 1: He has his home life, he has his art life
Speaker 1: and art life is very important to him, and it
Speaker 1: sounds like a lot of his previous spouses have been
Speaker 1: shirked and perhaps um mistreated in the interest of art life. Right,
Speaker 1: but there was a whole movie made about his view
Speaker 1: on art and now it's like very all encompassing for him.
Speaker 1: But also, I guess we'll get there. Um. I just
Speaker 1: am like, you know, then you know, but truly here
Speaker 1: we are and that's okay. That is okay. Um. Should
Speaker 1: I do the recap and we'll go from there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good luck the cap and then we'll run it back
Speaker 1: and then recap it in order. You know. I guess
Speaker 1: what I'll say before you start the recap was I
Speaker 1: don't know the exact quote, but I read some quote
Speaker 1: from David Lynch that just said, like I don't understand,
Speaker 1: like what the problem is. It's a totally cohesive story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw that too. I think he trolls, though I
Speaker 1: do think that he is like somewhat of a something
Speaker 1: of a something of a troll. What the funk am
Speaker 1: I talking about? I think he trolls in interview, Like
Speaker 1: in interviews, it seems like he has fun being like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean this movie makes total sense, like
Speaker 1: pinus Yeah, hard, hard to say. Um. Okay, So the
Speaker 1: movie opens on a bunch of people swing dancing and
Speaker 1: then we see a car driving a windy street. It's
Speaker 1: Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. Whatever heard of it? I've
Speaker 1: been my I will say this is this is not
Speaker 1: a flattering portrayal of David Lynch fans. My first sten
Speaker 1: worst roommate in l A drove me up to Mulholland
Speaker 1: Drive on my birthday, two weeks after I moved to
Speaker 1: l A. And in spite of the fact that I
Speaker 1: told her I've seen Mulholland Drive before, she essentially held
Speaker 1: me hostage on Mulholland Drive and recapped the entire movie
Speaker 1: to me. Didn't love her, moved out three months later. Yikes.
Speaker 1: I had a comedian friend, or like someone who I
Speaker 1: was friendly with reply when I told him I wasn't
Speaker 1: an enormous fan of David Lynch. He called me stupid
Speaker 1: and said I just didn't get it because I wasn't
Speaker 1: smart enough. So he's not your friend. Not after that.
Speaker 1: Good riddance, right. Okay, So in the backseat of this
Speaker 1: car that's driving on Muholland Drive is a woman played
Speaker 1: by Laura Harring. The two men in the front seat
Speaker 1: stopped the car. They point a gun at her. We
Speaker 1: don't really know what's going on, and before we can
Speaker 1: find out, two cars full of why old youths, it's
Speaker 1: the best way I can describe them, come racing down
Speaker 1: the street and crash into the car that Laura Herring
Speaker 1: is in. Everyone presumably is killed in this accident, except
Speaker 1: for this woman who stumbles away from Muholland Drive to
Speaker 1: Sunset Boulevard, which is like roughly two and a half
Speaker 1: to three miles by the way, so she stumbles there
Speaker 1: on foot. I've stumbled. I've stumbled down further length of
Speaker 1: Sunset Boulevard, and it was not as sexy as it
Speaker 1: is in the movie. Pretty ugly. That's how I get
Speaker 1: from your place to my place. But you're not stumbling. No,
Speaker 1: I look so beautiful when I do it. It reminded
Speaker 1: me of when I asked directions from this really buff
Speaker 1: guy one time to go to Runyon Canyon and he
Speaker 1: pointed me in the direction of the very wrong, very
Speaker 1: hard path. And I was trying to be like a
Speaker 1: cute girl with like an outfit on walking on Runyon
Speaker 1: and ended up like with just like leaves and sticks
Speaker 1: in my hair and was like sweating profusely and hated
Speaker 1: every second of it. I love hiking now, but that
Speaker 1: time I was like, no, honestly brave of you to
Speaker 1: hike at all. Okay, So she stumbles to the Sunset
Speaker 1: Boulevard and sneaks into an apartment. The woman who lives
Speaker 1: there she sees leaving town, so she starts squatting in
Speaker 1: her apartment. Then we get a scene where a man
Speaker 1: at a diner's telling another guy about a nightmare that
Speaker 1: he had about a man with a scary face. Then
Speaker 1: let me see a scary swamp monster. And you're like,
Speaker 1: I know this is a metaphor, but I guess I
Speaker 1: just have to wait two and a half hours to
Speaker 1: find out what it is for. And I still don't
Speaker 1: get it. It's failure. I think it's failure in guilt
Speaker 1: and shame. Anyways. Uh. Then we get a quick scene
Speaker 1: with a guy whose name is Mr Roke. I think
Speaker 1: he's like, the girl is still missing, and this is
Speaker 1: presumably about the woman from the car crash. Then we
Speaker 1: meet Betty played by Naomi Watts, Naomi Watts is. I
Speaker 1: view her performance in Mulholland Drive as her preparing for
Speaker 1: her best role, which is the next year in The Ring.
Speaker 1: Oh right, I have not seen that movie in such
Speaker 1: a long time. We should do it at some point,
Speaker 1: only because it's I don't even know if it's good.
Speaker 1: I just know that I it's the thing that has
Speaker 1: scared me most in my entire life. It was very frightening.
Speaker 1: So Naomi Watts has a special place in my heart
Speaker 1: for scaring the ship out of me. That movie came
Speaker 1: out when the Lord of the Rings movies were coming out,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, the one ring is the
Speaker 1: only ring I care about. Wow, Well I guess well,
Speaker 1: I mean I guess that the Lord of the Rings
Speaker 1: ring is a little better because it's like, yeah, absolute
Speaker 1: power corrupts absolutely, but you at least get the life
Speaker 1: longer than seven days once you haven't money. That's not
Speaker 1: enough time. Dolla lived for five years hanging onto the
Speaker 1: damn thing. True any way, Okay, So Betty has Betty
Speaker 1: has just arrived in l A to try to be
Speaker 1: an actor. She's very starry eyed, she's very sweet and bubbly.
Speaker 1: She heads to her aunt Ruth's place where she will
Speaker 1: be staying, which is the same apartment that the woman
Speaker 1: from the beginning went into. So Betty finds the woman
Speaker 1: in the shower and assumes that she's a friend of
Speaker 1: her aunt Ruth. The woman tells Betty that her name
Speaker 1: is Rita after she sees a poster for a Rita
Speaker 1: Hayworth movie, and it becomes clear that this woman has
Speaker 1: amnesia after being in this car crash and doesn't remember
Speaker 1: her actual name. Meanwhile, Adam Kesher played by Justin Thorrea,
Speaker 1: is a film director who is so spiky, is soot
Speaker 1: it You can tell that you're like, oh, this this guy,
Speaker 1: this is a bad sort of guy. Like how spiky
Speaker 1: its hair is so fun little anecdote, um, So, David
Speaker 1: Lynch always has actors like meet with him for like
Speaker 1: a kind of interview rather than audition him. So anyone
Speaker 1: he's seriously considering, he'll just sort of meet with and
Speaker 1: like get to know a little bit. So when he
Speaker 1: met with Justin throw, Justin throwe had just gotten off
Speaker 1: of an airplane. It was a long flight. He didn't
Speaker 1: get any sleep. He was dressed in all black, he
Speaker 1: had untidy hair, and then Lynch was like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: this is such a cool look for you. Um, and
Speaker 1: then he basically mimicked the clothes and the hairstyle he
Speaker 1: saw him in that day in real life and um
Speaker 1: put that in the movie. By contrast, Naomi Watts arrived
Speaker 1: for her interview wearing jeans and little to no makeup,
Speaker 1: also direct off of an airplane, like a long flight
Speaker 1: from New York City, and David Lynch asked her to
Speaker 1: return the next day quote more glammed up. Look, there
Speaker 1: there's a whole I got a whole little section on
Speaker 1: how David Lynch treats women that he works with, because
Speaker 1: that is so oh my god. I'm just like Naomi Watts.
Speaker 1: That's Jesus Christ right justin Thorow's plain clothes. He's like, king, Wow,
Speaker 1: I love what you're doing, changing the narrative around clothes
Speaker 1: and looking like, oh my god, like put it in
Speaker 1: the movie cut print, that's a rap, and we're like, sure, okay.
Speaker 1: So Adam Kesher is a film director who some like
Speaker 1: producers or some industry people are demanding that he cast
Speaker 1: a specific actress in his movie, someone by the name
Speaker 1: of Camilla Rhodes. Then we see a scene where a
Speaker 1: hit man shoots a few people then steals someone's famous
Speaker 1: black book that's full of phone numbers. If you're one ring.
Speaker 1: If that will ever come into play at any point
Speaker 1: in the movie, it does not. Um, it is a
Speaker 1: metaphor for Hollywood. Ever heard of it? For Hollywood gate keeping? Right,
Speaker 1: there's anytime I don't know what's happening. I'm like a
Speaker 1: metaphor for Hollywood. I just am not famous enough to understand. Right.
Speaker 1: Then Betty talks to her aunt Ruth and realizes that
Speaker 1: Rita is not a friend of her aunt's. And then
Speaker 1: Rita confides to Betty that she doesn't know who she is.
Speaker 1: She doesn't remember anything. So then they go through Rita's
Speaker 1: purse to try to figure out who she is, but
Speaker 1: all they find is several stacks of money and a
Speaker 1: peculiar looking kind of triangular blue key. And we're like,
Speaker 1: it's a metaphor, but for what I guess I have
Speaker 1: five more hours of the movie to find out. Um.
Speaker 1: And this doesn't really jog Rita's memory, except that she
Speaker 1: does remember Mulholland Drive. Meanwhile, Adam the director goes home
Speaker 1: after production has been shut down on his movie and
Speaker 1: finds his wife. His wife in bed with another man.
Speaker 1: So who is played by come on, wait, who is that?
Speaker 1: What Billy ray Cyrus? Are you for real? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: the pool boy Billy ray Cyrus. I just guess I
Speaker 1: don't know what Billy ray Cyrus looks like. Well clear
Speaker 1: like that, Caitlin. I do think this is like another
Speaker 1: micro generational thing where it's like I've seen so much
Speaker 1: Billy ray Cyrus because if you you had to watch
Speaker 1: Hannah Montana, it was the law. Oh he was on
Speaker 1: Hannah Montana because he's Miley Cyrus's father. I've actually never
Speaker 1: seen that show. Well I I saw. I saw so
Speaker 1: much of that show. And he plays Miley Cyrus's father,
Speaker 1: pulling from his own experience as Miley Cyrus's father. And
Speaker 1: he's not a good act dir He's the worst actor
Speaker 1: on the show. It's like, actually funny how bad he is.
Speaker 1: Like it's kind of a perfect role in a way
Speaker 1: for him because it's so ridiculous, but it's he's terrible.
Speaker 1: He's the kind of bad actor where he like, maybe
Speaker 1: I'm just giving him too much credit because I have
Speaker 1: a nostalgic attachment, but I'm like when Billy ray Cyrus
Speaker 1: acts terribly worse than I've ever seen someone perform. It's
Speaker 1: a choice. He's making a choice, and he could be
Speaker 1: doing a great job. But he's like, well, what if
Speaker 1: I did a horrible job? What if I sounded like
Speaker 1: I was reading? I love that theory. Yeah. Anyway, Adam
Speaker 1: the Director has found his wife in bed with Billy
Speaker 1: ray Cyrus, apparently so unbelievable, he ruins his wife's jewelry
Speaker 1: and then leaves. Meanwhile, Betty calls the police to see
Speaker 1: if there was an accident the night before on Mulholland Drive,
Speaker 1: which she's able to confirm there was, and then she
Speaker 1: and Rita go to a diner, this same diner where
Speaker 1: we saw the scary face earlier, where their server is
Speaker 1: named Diane, which activates something in Rita's memory Diane Selwyn,
Speaker 1: and she thinks maybe that's her name, so they look
Speaker 1: up Diane Selwyn in the phone book and find her
Speaker 1: address back in justin throw Land, Um, some dudes are
Speaker 1: after Adam the director and he is instructed to meet
Speaker 1: with a guy named the Cowboy, who tells him he
Speaker 1: needs to cast this specific actress, Camilla Rhodes in the
Speaker 1: movie he's making. So then Rita helps Betty prep for
Speaker 1: an audition. Then we see Betty do the audition. Then
Speaker 1: she is brought to the set of the movie Adam
Speaker 1: is directing, where they make eyes at each other and
Speaker 1: it seems like you know, sparks are flying, spikes are
Speaker 1: jelling right you and tell that he likes her because
Speaker 1: it likes call boying. His hair gets even point here.
Speaker 1: I also regret saying that um. Then Adam concedes and
Speaker 1: casts the woman who he has been pressured to cast.
Speaker 1: Then Betty leaves the set and she and Rita go
Speaker 1: to the address of Diane Selwyn to investigate. They break
Speaker 1: into her apartment and find the dead body of a woman,
Speaker 1: presumably Diane Selwyn. Rita freaks out. They get out of there,
Speaker 1: and then that night Betty and Rita sleep in the
Speaker 1: same bed and start kissing. Rita then wakes up in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night and takes Betty to this
Speaker 1: place called Club Salencio. They watch a performance and then
Speaker 1: suddenly Betty takes a small blue box out of her purse.
Speaker 1: It looks like it matches the blue key they found
Speaker 1: in Rita's purse. It's another metaphor so they go home
Speaker 1: to unlock it, but then Betty seems to disappear, so
Speaker 1: Rita just opens the box and then we kind of
Speaker 1: like sink into darkness. We see a few images. We
Speaker 1: see the woman's dead body again, we see the cowboy again.
Speaker 1: Then we see Betty waking up in a bed, the
Speaker 1: bed of Diane Selwyn because she seems to be Diane Selwyn.
Speaker 1: She has a blue key, but it looks more like
Speaker 1: a regular house key. Now we also see Rita is there,
Speaker 1: except now Rita is Camilla Rhodes, who again is the
Speaker 1: actress that those people made Adam cast in his movie
Speaker 1: Betty a k a. Diane And this is gonna be fun.
Speaker 1: Rita a k a. Camilla are in a romantic relationship
Speaker 1: or recently have been. They seem to be kind of
Speaker 1: on the outs, and it seems to be because Adam
Speaker 1: the director is directing the movie that they are both
Speaker 1: starring in that both Camilla and Diane are in. But
Speaker 1: now Camilla has left Diane to be with Adam. We
Speaker 1: get a scene where Diane is crying and masturbating. Then
Speaker 1: we're like, Okay, I guess this needs to be in
Speaker 1: the movie. Then Diane gets a call from Camilla saying
Speaker 1: that a car is waiting for her and she needs
Speaker 1: to go to an address on mal Holland Drive. And
Speaker 1: it's basically the same car ride as the beginning, but
Speaker 1: now Naomi Watts is in the backseat instead, but there
Speaker 1: was no crash like there was in the beginning. This time,
Speaker 1: Diane meets up with Camilla and they go to a
Speaker 1: party at Adam's house Holland Drive. Ever heard of it? Um.
Speaker 1: Diane seems to be having a bit of a breakdown
Speaker 1: throughout this party, which continues on for the rest of
Speaker 1: the movie. We smash cut to Diane at the diner
Speaker 1: that we've seen before. Um. She's talking to the hit
Speaker 1: man and she's paying him to kill Camilla. The guy
Speaker 1: with the nightmare about the scary faces. Also there we
Speaker 1: see the blue house key again. The scary face person
Speaker 1: is outside with the little blue box. Now it's so fun, Kaylee,
Speaker 1: and I just took a step outside of the knowing
Speaker 1: what you're talking about and being like she does she what?
Speaker 1: Are doing a great job to explain? Right, I know,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know. Am I leaving things out
Speaker 1: that are like super important because they're super metaphorical because
Speaker 1: I'm like focusing, I'm trying to make sense of the
Speaker 1: narrative stuff. But it's all very like symbolic and cerebral.
Speaker 1: We can get and we can get into that sure.
Speaker 1: And also we're not here to break down the extremely
Speaker 1: specific David Lynch symbols. We're here to talk about the
Speaker 1: intersectional aspects of it, so true to Then we cut
Speaker 1: to Diane at her home. She's like having a full
Speaker 1: breakdown and she pulls out a gun and kills herself
Speaker 1: and then she becomes the dead body that Rita and
Speaker 1: Betty found and that's where the movie ends more or less.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and we will come back
Speaker 1: to discuss, and we're back, so okay. Before we start
Speaker 1: the discussion, I wanted to check in with everyone and um,
Speaker 1: I just want us to all sort of be on
Speaker 1: the same page with like the read we're going with.
Speaker 1: I'm aware David Lynch fans that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways to view the sequence of events in this movie,
Speaker 1: and that that is it seems like part of why
Speaker 1: this movie is so sticky for people, because it's like
Speaker 1: it it defies interpretation in many ways. I think it's
Speaker 1: probably easiest for the discussion we're having to go with.
Speaker 1: I think the most popular interpretation, which is Diane has
Speaker 1: called out a hit on a woman she's in love
Speaker 1: with named Camilla, who she had a relationship with out
Speaker 1: of jealousy, and the majority of the movie with Betty
Speaker 1: and with Rita, is this kind of fantasy she's having
Speaker 1: making sense of, you know, rearranging events to make her
Speaker 1: the hero or at least innocent in a story where
Speaker 1: her lover lived out of guilt that she's experiencing in
Speaker 1: her actual life. I'm absolutely fine with that interpretation, especially
Speaker 1: because David Lynch, his tagline for this movie is a
Speaker 1: love story in the City of Dreams. I was just
Speaker 1: gonna say, I would just go as far as just that,
Speaker 1: and that the fantasies are happening in some sort of
Speaker 1: dream steak, because there's a sort of consistent laying down
Speaker 1: sleeping theme throughout the film, and so I feel like
Speaker 1: these I didn't watch it with like the intention of
Speaker 1: like pinpointing like scenes and the relation to like sleeping
Speaker 1: or laying down, but I feel like if you did,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe that would provide some insight it like sections.
Speaker 1: But for sure I was I mean, I'll say I'll
Speaker 1: start by saying something nice about the movie, which is
Speaker 1: like it's I do think that it's it is a
Speaker 1: really interesting set up for a movie where it's like,
Speaker 1: if you don't know how it ends going in, everyone
Speaker 1: in the first two hours or our forty five of
Speaker 1: the movie are like a stock character of some type,
Speaker 1: where it's like Betty is like just got off of
Speaker 1: pane and has these big dreams and it's kind of nepotism,
Speaker 1: but we don't talk about that, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: she's like this aspiring young actress. We have the fem
Speaker 1: fatale character in the form of Rita. We have like
Speaker 1: kind of these like eccentric older women that appear in
Speaker 1: David Lynch's work elsewhere, not in a dream state, but
Speaker 1: just you know, flat out, but in this um. I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting because because we talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: stock characters and trope characters so much on this show,
Speaker 1: but in the context of this is the dream of
Speaker 1: a failed Hollywood actress, it made a lot of sense
Speaker 1: to me, and I thought was like a kind of
Speaker 1: a cool creative decision that she's using the language of
Speaker 1: movies to reinterpret her own life. So like, in terms
Speaker 1: of the first you know, significant chunk of the movie,
Speaker 1: I thought that stock characters were used in a more
Speaker 1: interesting way. That doesn't mean that they are in problems
Speaker 1: with it, obviously, but in a more interesting way. And
Speaker 1: then when we flash to the reality, I think that
Speaker 1: stock characters are used really not very well and in
Speaker 1: a way that there is no excusing because David Lynch
Speaker 1: is like, and this is what Hollywood is really like,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to kill every queer character, right, especially
Speaker 1: because it creates this kind of weird paradox for me,
Speaker 1: where again, the first two hours of the of the
Speaker 1: movie are these very like kind of one dimensional characters,
Speaker 1: these like archetypes that again are being used to a
Speaker 1: certain effect based on what we can only imagine is
Speaker 1: David Lynch's intention. We don't know because he won't tell us.
Speaker 1: But which is fine, I mean whatever, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: I think it's like interesting that he's like, oh, here's
Speaker 1: my views on Hollywood while also still you know, very
Speaker 1: much participating system, right anyways, continuous right, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: he's using, like you said, Jamie, these um kind of
Speaker 1: stock characters, approaching them differently and and having a specific
Speaker 1: intent for them, which makes sense within the context of
Speaker 1: the story. But then the last like thirty minutes, when
Speaker 1: you see the real versions of these characters, not like
Speaker 1: a dream projection or like a you know, fantasy version,
Speaker 1: like an unconscious or subconscious fantasy version of these people.
Speaker 1: Since you spend so little time with them, what little
Speaker 1: you do see? Like you said, Jamie's like, don't really
Speaker 1: like that. And then again, it's just so little development
Speaker 1: there that it kind of reminds me of the conversation
Speaker 1: we had about Inception, where one of the women in
Speaker 1: the movie mal is a projection of Leonardo DiCaprio's subconscious
Speaker 1: or whatever. So it's like, how can you even you
Speaker 1: know what, if this movie was made ten year later,
Speaker 1: you know, Mary and Cotyard would have been punished in
Speaker 1: this movie. Poor Mary coty Art. I mean, say what
Speaker 1: you will about her, such as she doesn't believe in
Speaker 1: the moon Landing, which I just think it's an interesting
Speaker 1: fact about her, But they are killing her off in
Speaker 1: movies and treating her as like this ghost dead wife
Speaker 1: to this day. To this day, she was killed off
Speaker 1: in a net just last year. I still haven't seen it. Look,
Speaker 1: it's I can't stop thinking about it. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's good or if it's bad. But Marry and Cotyard,
Speaker 1: she she has an oscar and yet we're still dead
Speaker 1: wife in her it's not nice. But yeah, I I yeah.
Speaker 1: The the use of tropes in some part to the
Speaker 1: movie I think makes narrative sense, and then um, towards
Speaker 1: the end doesn't. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, So character
Speaker 1: development wise, it's a really tricky movie to analyze, right
Speaker 1: because of that, which is like by design, because it's
Speaker 1: like I mean, in the in the Betty Rita dynamic,
Speaker 1: you have very much this kind of like this fem
Speaker 1: fatale and this a genue like you could you could
Speaker 1: paint that as a madonna whore to some extent and
Speaker 1: then feel like, oh, okay, I know how I feel
Speaker 1: about this. But then when you see the reveal, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh no, this is just you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: that it's even really reductive or unrealistic to think that
Speaker 1: this is how an actor who is not in a
Speaker 1: good mental state would try to interpret the world of
Speaker 1: any gender of just like because even and I think
Speaker 1: people of all genders. In the first part of the movie,
Speaker 1: our stock characters, including like the incompetent hit man and
Speaker 1: like the detective and totally the psychic woman and just
Speaker 1: all of this stuff that is very David Lynchy and
Speaker 1: but but contextualizes it in a way that some David
Speaker 1: Lynch projects maybe don't but okay, So so in that way,
Speaker 1: it's it is hard to to analyze because in some ways,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so interesting because like Laura Elena Harring Harring,
Speaker 1: Herring Harring, we don't get to know her character really
Speaker 1: at all, because we get to see two different perspectives
Speaker 1: of her, Like we don't really see anyone in this
Speaker 1: movie even when we flash forward. My interpretation of it
Speaker 1: was like, even when we flash forward to Diane's quote
Speaker 1: unquote reality, we're still seeing things through her perspective, and
Speaker 1: so people are still acting in this very bizarre way
Speaker 1: that I find it hard to believe people would actually
Speaker 1: be acting, like in like in that reveal towards the
Speaker 1: end of the movie, that's like Adam, you know, justin
Speaker 1: throws hair gel And and Camilla are going to get married,
Speaker 1: and the way that they reveal that information is like
Speaker 1: they're like mocking her, which is probably not how that
Speaker 1: would have happened, but that's how she perceives it, and
Speaker 1: like everything is through Diane's slash Betty's perspective throughout the
Speaker 1: entire movie, to the point where it's like kind of
Speaker 1: hard to attribute, like, oh, well, Camilla was doing this,
Speaker 1: because I think that a lot of and this gets
Speaker 1: into a lot of the issues or criticism at least,
Speaker 1: are around how queerness is interpreted in this movie. Of
Speaker 1: like how Camilla behaves at the end of the movie
Speaker 1: is made to seem very antagonistic and to like rub
Speaker 1: Diane's face in this new relationship she has with a man.
Speaker 1: But as a viewer, I'm like, I'm not even necessarily
Speaker 1: sure that that's what the character was doing. That is
Speaker 1: how Diane interpreted that behavior because she was hurt that
Speaker 1: she was left. But it's like, but you can also
Speaker 1: if you interpret that behavior straightforward, then there's a lot
Speaker 1: of trophy problems like it's and we've talked about this, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: so like it keeps coming up because we keep like,
Speaker 1: for some reason, recently, don we've been covering a lot
Speaker 1: of movies that have like fem fatale adjacent energy to it,
Speaker 1: and this is another like more modern example of that
Speaker 1: of and most of the time when fem fatals come
Speaker 1: up in more modern movies, there are these bisexual tropes
Speaker 1: that come into the mix as a result, which is
Speaker 1: I think very much what is being put onto Camilla's
Speaker 1: character towards the end of the movie. V Do we
Speaker 1: want to get into that? Now? Let's get into it. Well,
Speaker 1: I heard you guys talk about it, and I think
Speaker 1: it was your a simple favor episode. So I was
Speaker 1: when you were talking about that, I instantly started thinking,
Speaker 1: thinking how you guys were talking about the it was
Speaker 1: like dangerous bisexual character, which isn't something that I had
Speaker 1: ever thought about before, but it does apply here. And
Speaker 1: then I guess I just wanted to add thinking back
Speaker 1: to like thinking about things from Diane or Betty's perspective,
Speaker 1: taking it even a little bit of a step further.
Speaker 1: I guess I feel like that scene is almost through
Speaker 1: like the lens of when you're really high emotions and
Speaker 1: remembering something even the way like people are sitting around
Speaker 1: the table sort of like and looking at her the
Speaker 1: way that you would just remember something when you're really hurt,
Speaker 1: and like maybe it doesn't even totally make sense. You're
Speaker 1: just like reading off of everyone's emotions instead of like
Speaker 1: their actual words or announcement. You're thinking about how someone
Speaker 1: you like was like cuddling and kissing and giggling with
Speaker 1: someone else instead of like their actual what they're actually saying, right,
Speaker 1: And just like, yeah, that was kind of my read
Speaker 1: of that whole elevated emotion scene. It's like everything happening
Speaker 1: in that scene is happening at Diane, which is not
Speaker 1: how the world works. But because like you're saying that
Speaker 1: she's at that elevated emotional state, she's really hurt, she
Speaker 1: feels betrayed, she's take and off guard because she goes
Speaker 1: to that party. It's clear from her perspective, she goes
Speaker 1: to that party as still very much a viable romantic
Speaker 1: prospect for Camilla, only to find out that Camilla is
Speaker 1: engaged and she had no idea Like that betrayal obviously
Speaker 1: feels very personal to her, and I feel like that
Speaker 1: I didn't even dislike how that was played out in
Speaker 1: like the way that scene plays out. It's just I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: it's just hard to talk about David Lynch movies on
Speaker 1: the show, specifically because you can never be sure what's happening.
Speaker 1: But I didn't want to speak a little bit too.
Speaker 1: I think what is kind of clear in the way
Speaker 1: that and what's being telegraphed in that storyline. I read
Speaker 1: a piece on website called Global Queer Cinema that does
Speaker 1: not credit its authors for some reason. So this is
Speaker 1: from Global Queer Cinema. But really I thought broke down
Speaker 1: the way that bisexuality is portrayed through Camilla's character and
Speaker 1: how I believe we are to think that Diane is
Speaker 1: a lesbian, that she is only interested in women, and
Speaker 1: or at least that's what this piece is using. So
Speaker 1: I just wanted to read from that really quick quote,
Speaker 1: this is troubling and that the second half of the
Speaker 1: story relies on the viewers preconceptions of the tragic lesbian
Speaker 1: in order to function. We see Diane as bereft, incapable
Speaker 1: of dealing with Camilla's defection to a man. This kind
Speaker 1: of quote unquote straightening behavior fulfills the viewers expectations that
Speaker 1: the woman who is solely lesbian is someone to be
Speaker 1: pitied and ignored, while the bisexual woman is to be
Speaker 1: congratulated for quote unquote. Returning to heterosexuality, where we see
Speaker 1: the violent suicide of Diane and her rotting corpse. In
Speaker 1: the last image we have of Camilla, she is laughing, radiant,
Speaker 1: and apparently sexually fulfilled. She is not presented as a
Speaker 1: figure to provoke our discussed or scorn end quote, which
Speaker 1: I feel like kind of breaks down how and again
Speaker 1: this is speaking solely to the back half of the movie,
Speaker 1: where I feel like the more insidious queer tropes are
Speaker 1: really poking out. But but yeah, especially I mean, as
Speaker 1: it pertains to Camilla, she's a bisexual character, and she's
Speaker 1: very much portrayed and that way we were talking about
Speaker 1: on the simple favorite episode of She's portrayed a like
Speaker 1: bisexuality is conflated with being quote unquote like loose and
Speaker 1: like I love everybody and I'm not fair, I can't
Speaker 1: be faithful to anyone, and ultimately I probably belong with
Speaker 1: the opposite. And the fact that we never, I mean,
Speaker 1: we barely have bisexual men on screen. It's almost always
Speaker 1: the more Camilla storyline that is addressed, because women being
Speaker 1: intimate with other women is so eroticized by straight men
Speaker 1: on screen, so it's just like there's just a lot
Speaker 1: going on. Well, Also, the female relationship seems to play
Speaker 1: more on like temptation and they do talk about um,
Speaker 1: well Betty doesn't, but they talk about like it being
Speaker 1: wrong and like we should stop doing this, and like, yes,
Speaker 1: it's because she's with Adam the director, but I also
Speaker 1: feel like it's because she's a woman. It's like taboo.
Speaker 1: That was Yeah, I totally agree with you. And this
Speaker 1: is something that again, this is this has just been
Speaker 1: coming up for us so much recently. We discussed this
Speaker 1: in our Basic Instinct episode was the idea of and
Speaker 1: and again it was disgusting. I just will link to
Speaker 1: this article in the description because I found it very
Speaker 1: illuminating and helpful from global queer cinema that kind of
Speaker 1: unpacks the idea of in these lesbian relationships in movies
Speaker 1: of like this era, this fifteen year stretch, you very
Speaker 1: often see like the single white female trope coming out
Speaker 1: of like I'm in love with you, and being in
Speaker 1: love with you if we are both the same gender,
Speaker 1: means that I want to wear your in and it's
Speaker 1: scary and also murder you eventually and and kill you
Speaker 1: like it's it's so intense that it's dangerous and abnormal
Speaker 1: and to be avoided, you know, and it's like, oh, sure,
Speaker 1: it's eroticized, but it's never going to end well. And
Speaker 1: this movie plays on those same tropes. And I never
Speaker 1: had like language for like because we were talking about
Speaker 1: that in basic instinct of like what is this? This?
Speaker 1: This comes up a lot, what the fund is this? Um?
Speaker 1: This piece kind of attempts to unpack what the funk
Speaker 1: that is? So I just wanted to share this as well.
Speaker 1: They use it as a concept called sameness. So the
Speaker 1: author says sameness in the sense which Sarah Ahmed uses
Speaker 1: in her study refers to a kind of homophobic preconception,
Speaker 1: in which quote, the very idea of women desiring women
Speaker 1: because of sameness relies on a fantasy that women are
Speaker 1: all the same. This portrays a kind of social and
Speaker 1: sexual arrogance, as the women who choose each other are
Speaker 1: not capable of the kind of challenging diversity to be
Speaker 1: experienced in a heterosexual relationship. It also assumes that there
Speaker 1: are more differences between men and women than there are
Speaker 1: between two women or two men. This association between homosexuality
Speaker 1: and sameness is crucial to the pathologizing Someone's got a
Speaker 1: master's degree, to the pathologizing of homosexuality as a perversion
Speaker 1: that leads the body astray. So I'm curious as to
Speaker 1: like what you both think about that and what our
Speaker 1: listeners think. But that made sense to me as like
Speaker 1: something that a straight male oversimplification would be, as like, well,
Speaker 1: women are attracted to women because they're both women, and
Speaker 1: all women are the same to me, so they're probably
Speaker 1: the same to each other too, Like yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I definitely got the sense that David Lynch doesn't really
Speaker 1: nobody's talking about in terms of representing queer women on
Speaker 1: screen and relationship. I mean, definitely, yeah, I I'd have
Speaker 1: to This is kind of the first time I'm I've
Speaker 1: gotten acquainted with this kind of idea of like sameness
Speaker 1: as same here, same sameness. Um, So yeah, I I'd
Speaker 1: be interested to examine that more closely. But I mean,
Speaker 1: just as far as like the general tropes being put forth,
Speaker 1: And I don't even know if some of the choices
Speaker 1: that David Lynch is making as far as the queer
Speaker 1: characters in this movie are tropes. Maybe they are, but
Speaker 1: either way, it's definitely just like choices that are harmful.
Speaker 1: We're a marginalized group because like, ultimately both of our
Speaker 1: queer female protagonists are brutally killed. Yes, by the end
Speaker 1: of the movie. Like again, because like if if you're portrayed,
Speaker 1: it's not unheard of in storytelling, for like a scorned
Speaker 1: lover to get jealous and vengeful and then murder someone.
Speaker 1: You probably see that a lot in hetero relationships, um,
Speaker 1: which but it's in the news. It's in the news.
Speaker 1: But when you're portraying a particularly underrepresented group in media,
Speaker 1: you have to be very careful about the decisions you
Speaker 1: make with regard to those characters. So when you have
Speaker 1: a character who is a queer woman at the end
Speaker 1: of the movie vengefully hiring a hitman to kill her
Speaker 1: ex partner for reason, like for what, we don't totally understand.
Speaker 1: And I also think there's a conversation to be had
Speaker 1: about the way mental health is represented in the movie,
Speaker 1: so you know, to suggest, oh, this queer woman is
Speaker 1: gonna freaking like have a breakdown and kill is there Ever,
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's ever a specific mental illness
Speaker 1: attributed to what is happening, right, because that was that's
Speaker 1: always like my main like cardinal sin of mental illness trips.
Speaker 1: But I do agree with you, like there, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean and just like conflating obsessive behavior with I mean
Speaker 1: specifically and again, it's like this comes up in a
Speaker 1: lot of movies in relationships with lesbians and bisexual women,
Speaker 1: and conflating obsessive and jealous behavior with a lesbian character
Speaker 1: and promiscuous and unfaithful behavior with a bisexual character is
Speaker 1: something you see in movies all the time, and this movie,
Speaker 1: it like takes it to an eleven essentially. Well, my thoughts,
Speaker 1: like when you're talking about sameness, my first thought is
Speaker 1: literally and like everyone listening, you just have to imagine
Speaker 1: I'm just showing boob hands. There's like all these shots
Speaker 1: are just like boobs, boops, and it's like comparing like
Speaker 1: these are two women and like that's what they're into,
Speaker 1: and that's like what I read from those more like
Speaker 1: sexual scenes. There's two of them, like one the bat
Speaker 1: and won the couch in both realities, and it was
Speaker 1: just like very simplified to just like lesbians boobs. I
Speaker 1: agree that, like I think David Lynch sex scenes, I
Speaker 1: don't love them. But when I was talking about same, sorry,
Speaker 1: what what I was more referring to was the wig
Speaker 1: and the like yeah, oh yeah, I was gonna talk
Speaker 1: that stuff too, so I I don't want to mischaracterize
Speaker 1: the piece that's specifically what that piece is talking about
Speaker 1: in that moment is like the single white female sequence
Speaker 1: I guess in that movie, which you can very much
Speaker 1: attribute to like dreamlike behavior, and I know in the
Speaker 1: dream analysis of this movie that that choice can be
Speaker 1: viewed very differently, but I do think that it's very
Speaker 1: valid in this interpretation as well, of like you are
Speaker 1: the same as me, and now I am attracted to you,
Speaker 1: because it's not until Rita is wearing the wig and
Speaker 1: some it doesn't even want to take the wig off
Speaker 1: that they're able to have a sexual connection. So I
Speaker 1: do think so sorry that that is like what the
Speaker 1: context in which that was coming up in it? Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I mean that it seems so like I guess, simplified
Speaker 1: in a way that you're saying, like I had never
Speaker 1: heard that theory before, but in that moment where she's
Speaker 1: like wearing that wig, I guess that like intention to
Speaker 1: me seemed so obvious that it was like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: angel sort of I guess sameness, Yeah, because this didn't
Speaker 1: come in the recap, but there's I guess maybe like
Speaker 1: halfway through the movie, but after they go into Diane
Speaker 1: Selwyn's apartment they find her dead body there. Rita kind
Speaker 1: of has a breakdown, and then we see her starting
Speaker 1: to like cut her own hair off, and then we
Speaker 1: see her now wearing a short blonde wig, which is
Speaker 1: pretty close to the same hairstyle that Betty has. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that they're supposed to be kind of doppel
Speaker 1: gangers in that moment, which didn't understand why that was happening,
Speaker 1: But okay, I'm glad you didn't because I also, God,
Speaker 1: David Lynch gives himself such a huge like margin of
Speaker 1: error for most of the movie because you can just
Speaker 1: be like, well, dreams, you know, sometimes they just have dreams.
Speaker 1: There's truth but no logic. Um. And see, I guess
Speaker 1: that's why I like him, because I'm okay to like
Speaker 1: go with the flow, right right, just be like I
Speaker 1: don't know what's happening, because most of the movie can
Speaker 1: just be like, well, dreams are wild sometimes, But in
Speaker 1: that moment, yeah, it's it's I just thought that was
Speaker 1: interesting because that is something that is presented as not
Speaker 1: dream logic in a lot of movies of like My
Speaker 1: first relationship with someone of the same gender. Was it
Speaker 1: was very you know, obsessive to the point where it
Speaker 1: was dangerous. That's a plot point, and basic instinct, that's
Speaker 1: a plot point. And single white female like that, it's
Speaker 1: just conflated with deviance like horror movie behavior. Um when
Speaker 1: it's a relationship that didn't work out, which is statistically
Speaker 1: all of them basically, right. Yeah, so that was not handled. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: let's take another break and we will come right back.
Speaker 1: We're back. The next thing I wanted to discuss is
Speaker 1: so there are two sex scenes. The first one, as
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned, presents these two women in a
Speaker 1: very male gaze way in a scene that feels like
Speaker 1: it was plagiarized directly from a thirteen year old boys
Speaker 1: erotic fan fick, where like Betty is like, oh, Rita,
Speaker 1: you don't have to sleep on that uncomfortable couch, crawl
Speaker 1: into bed with me and get good night's sleep with
Speaker 1: me where you'll be so comfortable, and then very soft
Speaker 1: Korea and then we just like okay, And then she
Speaker 1: comes over and approaches the bed. She takes off her towel,
Speaker 1: she's fully nude. She gets into the bed. Rita like
Speaker 1: leans in to kiss Betty's forehead. Betty then kisses her
Speaker 1: on the lips, she takes off her top. They start
Speaker 1: having like a pretty steamy makeout and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: who okay. First of all, look, I've had this dream
Speaker 1: I went the first time I saw this movie, it
Speaker 1: activated something in me where I was like, this is
Speaker 1: one of the hottest sex scenes I've ever seen. Let's yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it can be, it can it can be.
Speaker 1: It can be many different things. The male gaze misses
Speaker 1: a lot of the times, and then sometimes you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've had this dream. But yeah, speaking to that, there
Speaker 1: was a I mean, there's I'm so much written about
Speaker 1: this movie we couldn't possibly read it all. Sorry we're
Speaker 1: not readers. But there was a reflection quote from Laura
Speaker 1: Elena Horring or Herring years later talking about the direction
Speaker 1: of that scene, where she says when David Lynch was
Speaker 1: directed the scene, she said it was kind of cute
Speaker 1: because she said, quote one time, he went, don't be
Speaker 1: afraid to touch each other's breasts. Now, like like even
Speaker 1: the description of how he was just like whatever, Like
Speaker 1: her truth is her truth. It doesn't sound kind of
Speaker 1: cute to me. But like just to give you an
Speaker 1: idea of like how male gay is. That scene was
Speaker 1: was like a Midwestern guy being like, don't be afraid
Speaker 1: to touch each other's breasts now? Like action, no, thank you,
Speaker 1: but but yeah, so that's a I don't know, I guess,
Speaker 1: like curling away from my microphone. I know. Don you
Speaker 1: visibly recall it when I said, and I'll say it
Speaker 1: one more time just as the listener to feel hill.
Speaker 1: Imagine the next time. Okay, for for those of us
Speaker 1: with breasts, um, I mean ordering, you know, just nipples
Speaker 1: in general. The next time you're having something done to
Speaker 1: your nipple, just think of David Lynch standing inches away
Speaker 1: from you saying, don't be afraid to touch each other's
Speaker 1: breasts now. I yikes. I have a similar tidbit that
Speaker 1: I found after watching an interview with Naomi Watts and
Speaker 1: David Lynch are recounting their experience shooting Mulholland Drive. And
Speaker 1: this was like a video from it was at least
Speaker 1: published in I'm not sure if that's exactly what I
Speaker 1: was from, but it was like, definitely there was a
Speaker 1: lot that came out from this movie last year because
Speaker 1: it was like the anniversary wave of clickbait, etcetera. Totally.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a pretty recent thing where Naomi
Speaker 1: Watts in the interview was talking about the masturbation scene,
Speaker 1: because there's that scene where she's crying and masturbating at
Speaker 1: the same time. She's blinking. It mean, she's she's she's jerking,
Speaker 1: she's crying, and you're like a visibility. She's talking about
Speaker 1: how that scene made her very uncomfortable to shoot, how
Speaker 1: she had a stomach ache that day and went had to,
Speaker 1: as she puts it, makes several trips to the bathroom
Speaker 1: because she was so nervous about shooting this scene. How
Speaker 1: it was generally like an unpleasant experience for her. But
Speaker 1: the way she's framing it is um interesting, where she's
Speaker 1: describing how like, while the cameras were rolling, she was like, David,
Speaker 1: I can't do this, I can't do this, and and
Speaker 1: then she's like, oh, but the thing with David is
Speaker 1: he just keeps pushing you. And she's talking as if
Speaker 1: she's describing like, oh, what a good quality for a
Speaker 1: director to have to, you know, push me to give
Speaker 1: my best performance. But my read of that is he's
Speaker 1: not respecting boundaries and insisting that his artistic vision be
Speaker 1: carried out even if it makes his performers uncomfortable and
Speaker 1: physically ill for a scene that can easily be cut
Speaker 1: from the movie, and the movie would doesn't need to
Speaker 1: be right, I this is like behavior that is attributed
Speaker 1: to oh tour is very often and like whatever, I mean,
Speaker 1: the cart blanche of it all means that sometimes you
Speaker 1: get a very interesting movie, but it also means that you're,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of everyone who's in this movie is
Speaker 1: has to act, you know, and bow to the ego
Speaker 1: of one person and hope it works out like it's
Speaker 1: dictator logic and right, David Lynch doesn't sound like the
Speaker 1: worst dictator of them all, But that is like a
Speaker 1: funked up thing to like, I'm glad that Naomi Watts
Speaker 1: looks back on it and isn't upset, Like whatever her
Speaker 1: truth is is totally fine, But that sounds extremely unpleasant
Speaker 1: and like not a good not a good yardstick to
Speaker 1: be used for how It's also possible that she was
Speaker 1: just framing it that way because David Lynch was literally
Speaker 1: sitting right next to her. I was going to ask um, like,
Speaker 1: did you say they did this interview togegether she talked
Speaker 1: about me, and they still work together too, So I
Speaker 1: know that there is like some sort of like if
Speaker 1: you're still working with someone, you probably don't want to
Speaker 1: talk to you about them while you're sitting right next
Speaker 1: to them, right, especially if for a woman, and you
Speaker 1: could be called that Hollywood power that they're talking about
Speaker 1: in the film. That is okay, So that's let's get
Speaker 1: into that, because I do back around, right, I do
Speaker 1: think that like the Hollywood commentary being made here is
Speaker 1: not invalid. You know, there's like a whole you know,
Speaker 1: lens of this movie where you can look at it
Speaker 1: as like, look how willing Hollywood is to you know,
Speaker 1: take very talented and determined and motivated women and pit
Speaker 1: them against each other, put them in a couple of movies,
Speaker 1: and then to suppose of them like they never existed,
Speaker 1: which is something I totally agree with. And I think
Speaker 1: it's like, I mean, there's obviously a very very traceable
Speaker 1: history with how that works. But contrasted with stories about
Speaker 1: how David Lynch treats his own actors who are women,
Speaker 1: You're just like, well, it just becomes like I always
Speaker 1: think of what is it like that onion headline that
Speaker 1: it's like the worst person you know just made a
Speaker 1: great point where it's like it seems like he he
Speaker 1: has actively done this in his career, but also is
Speaker 1: making a valid point. But it's like, well, but you're
Speaker 1: not the person to hear it from. There's a there.
Speaker 1: In eighteen there was a piece written on Vice which
Speaker 1: is not how I want to begin a sentence ever
Speaker 1: um to be clear, but it's about It's kind of
Speaker 1: a review of book written about David Lynch that he
Speaker 1: participated in that also spoke to a number of people
Speaker 1: who were in his life. I think that this would
Speaker 1: have been the same thing that the documentary offshoot that
Speaker 1: I saw was about, but this piece specifically focuses on
Speaker 1: how he related to the women in his life professionally
Speaker 1: and personally. The writer of this piece is named Hannah Ewens.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Ewens Ewans s mcgarar. That's how you
Speaker 1: call McGregor and his clones Ewens mcgar I can't say
Speaker 1: that man's name. Wow. Okay, So David Lynch, and again
Speaker 1: it's like personal life stuff is complicated. But David Lynch
Speaker 1: is a filmmaker who is known for He certainly has
Speaker 1: a lot of women who are protagonists in his work.
Speaker 1: But usually if the woman is a lead character in
Speaker 1: a David Lynch piece, she is under some sort of
Speaker 1: extreme psychic distress. She is often assaulted or brutalize in
Speaker 1: some way. She often dies. And so it is like
Speaker 1: we were talking about at the beginning of the episode,
Speaker 1: women are are very central to his work, but also
Speaker 1: how are they being treated and how are they being
Speaker 1: treated off screen? But there's there's a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of like women who have been
Speaker 1: married to David Lynch, where it just sounds like they've
Speaker 1: been very neglected and you know, emotionally not treated very well,
Speaker 1: being told you know, basically by David Lynch upfront, like
Speaker 1: my life is my work and if you're not okay
Speaker 1: with that, then this marriage isn't going to work out.
Speaker 1: He's been married like five times, so it seems like
Speaker 1: statistically it doesn't work out. Whatever I don't that's not
Speaker 1: a value judgment. I what I'm saying is the separation
Speaker 1: of art life and work life. While it sounds good
Speaker 1: in the book sense, what that meant very often for
Speaker 1: David Lynch was that his art life involved becoming infatuated
Speaker 1: with his female stars and having affairs with his female stars,
Speaker 1: and so I think it is almost a Galaxy brand
Speaker 1: take on cheating on your wife to say, well, that's
Speaker 1: art life, so it doesn't count and home life, I'm
Speaker 1: your husband. And this seems to be a repeating pattern
Speaker 1: for him. It's not something that he's been especially taken
Speaker 1: to task with, it seems like with most of his
Speaker 1: ex wives. Even though this seems like it was a
Speaker 1: pattern for him, most of his ex wives were like,
Speaker 1: that's just what he was like, and so I divorced him.
Speaker 1: But I just do it just is it feels relevant
Speaker 1: to what we're talking about, And I can't exactly. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe that's an overstep, but I don't really think so.
Speaker 1: Because when someone when when a man who really goes
Speaker 1: out of his way to include women in his work,
Speaker 1: you know, does that I do think it's valid to ask, well,
Speaker 1: how does this man treat the women in his own life?
Speaker 1: And I mean that's a conversation that's going on very
Speaker 1: much right now with Josh Weeden. Obviously very very different situations,
Speaker 1: but you know, men who are known for centering women
Speaker 1: in their work and then being praised for it. You
Speaker 1: always got to ask a follow up question there. You
Speaker 1: definitely have to examine. Yeah, there's lots to examine. And
Speaker 1: David Lynch, I mean, has said multiple times that like,
Speaker 1: women in psychic distress are of interest to him, like
Speaker 1: he says, uh in it's hard to say exactly what
Speaker 1: it is about Marilyn Monroe, but the woman in trouble
Speaker 1: Thing is a part of it. It's not just a
Speaker 1: woman in trouble Thing that pulls you in though, it's
Speaker 1: more that some women are really mysterious, which I think
Speaker 1: is like how he writes his movies, like he writes
Speaker 1: his movies, like he doesn't completely understand women, because I
Speaker 1: don't think that he does, you know, Like, and it's like,
Speaker 1: well then just like co write a movie with a
Speaker 1: woman I don't understand. And there's also a very vile
Speaker 1: anecdote about Isabella Rosalini, who was in Blue Velvet. There's
Speaker 1: a very famous scene in Blue Velvet in which the
Speaker 1: Isabella Rossolini character is raped, and Isabella Rosselini and David
Speaker 1: Lynch were also in a relationship for five years off
Speaker 1: of that movie. So make of that way you will.
Speaker 1: But in that scene where she's being assaulted in blue velvet.
Speaker 1: Isabella Rossolini later told someone in an interview that David
Speaker 1: Lynch was laughing throughout the entirety of shooting that scene,
Speaker 1: and she said, quote, I said, David, what is there
Speaker 1: to laugh at? Are we doing something ridiculous? I still
Speaker 1: to this day don't know why David was laughing. So
Speaker 1: there's just like, no, this is not the kind of
Speaker 1: writing queer relationships between women, I think, is what I'm saying. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And then to bring it back to his tendency to
Speaker 1: brutalize women in his movies, there are a number of
Speaker 1: examples in this movie, aside from the two main characters
Speaker 1: bringing brutally killed by the end of the movie, although
Speaker 1: we don't I mean, at least we don't have to
Speaker 1: see the brutal death of Camilla. It's just implied that
Speaker 1: she was killed by the hitman. But we but I
Speaker 1: do think it's like, I think that that's really like
Speaker 1: we see the lesbian character die over and over and
Speaker 1: see images of her dead body a number of times. Um.
Speaker 1: There are other examples, such as the hitman who really
Speaker 1: fumbles the first hit that we see him do. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a woman who he accidentally shoots in her butt,
Speaker 1: I think, and then he drags her around while she's screaming,
Speaker 1: and eventually he shoots her again and kills her. They
Speaker 1: drag out that poor character's death, and then there was
Speaker 1: a part where I was like, I'm glad that she's
Speaker 1: the one that like almost gets out. It almost feels
Speaker 1: like mean that she doesn't well, because like, so this
Speaker 1: scene is very totally inconsistent with all the other scenes,
Speaker 1: would say, because because it's comedic in a way that
Speaker 1: none of the rest of the movie is um And
Speaker 1: I think that part of where this movie is trying
Speaker 1: to derive comedy from is the treatment of her body
Speaker 1: because she is a fat woman, and the movie is,
Speaker 1: as far as my read is saying, like, look at
Speaker 1: this guy dragging around this fat woman as she screams
Speaker 1: and you know, pleads for help and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I thought that too. And then we get the Justin
Speaker 1: Thorow's characters, his wife, who that character, the Adam the
Speaker 1: Director character shoves and roughs up after he finds out
Speaker 1: that she's been cheating on him, and I think she's
Speaker 1: also presented as being very shrewy and irrational, where the
Speaker 1: second he walks in on her cheating on him, she
Speaker 1: immediately blames him. She's like always yelling and lashing out
Speaker 1: at other people. And again it's like hard because it's
Speaker 1: like this is, for some reason a dream that Diane
Speaker 1: and is having. We don't know why. So it's like
Speaker 1: this isn't even a person that we're watching, but like
Speaker 1: the person presented to us I thought was like really
Speaker 1: leaning into some shrew trope. Absolutely, And then that character
Speaker 1: they're like these like big bad guys who are after
Speaker 1: Adam and they show up at her house after Adam
Speaker 1: is left. This woman jumps on this guy and just
Speaker 1: kind of telling him to leave, and then he pushes
Speaker 1: her and then punches her in the face. So there
Speaker 1: are a number of pretty tertiary characters who are women
Speaker 1: who you're not even sure why they're in the movie
Speaker 1: to begin with, because they're not really serving much of
Speaker 1: a narrative purpose. And then there seems like they're really
Speaker 1: only there to be like assaulted and brutalized. It's almost
Speaker 1: like early like nine hundreds ideas of like quote unquote
Speaker 1: mania and women and them being like uncontrollable, right, like
Speaker 1: they're so they yeah, a woman at a heightened emotional
Speaker 1: state is inherently irrational and like there's nothing that could
Speaker 1: have prompted this that would have been reasonable, like a
Speaker 1: lot of minor characters in that first large chunk of
Speaker 1: the movie who were supposed to in this read the
Speaker 1: popular read sorry is Diane's imagination, which I mean, we
Speaker 1: could really get into that. I kind of rather not,
Speaker 1: but but I do think it's interesting that if we're
Speaker 1: looking at the Hollywood criticism perspective of like this is
Speaker 1: the dream of an actor who either was very talented
Speaker 1: or certainly believed that she was very talented, because that
Speaker 1: whole scene of her audition, you know, reveals her to
Speaker 1: be like a very intuitively talented actress. Even in the
Speaker 1: in a room full of producers that are creepy and
Speaker 1: predator worry and like an acting partner who is actively
Speaker 1: hitting on her, she still manages to give this incredible performance. Again,
Speaker 1: we're seeing this through her perspective, but I I like,
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting and more effective than other
Speaker 1: sections of the movie how that stuff was portrayed, because
Speaker 1: we're looking at this from Diane's perspective in retrospect, kind
Speaker 1: of rationalizing what's happened to her, and it's clear that
Speaker 1: like she was a talented actor who wasn't getting the
Speaker 1: parts that she wanted and because of various Hollywood bullshit.
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of that she blamed on Camilla.
Speaker 1: And in another way that it's like, oh, this bisexual
Speaker 1: woman is using her universal wiles to get what she wants,
Speaker 1: like she can't have a real emotional connection because she's
Speaker 1: just using sex to get what she wants, which is
Speaker 1: another like you know, bullshit construction that revolves around bisexual characters.
Speaker 1: I think it's more effective than other characters where especially
Speaker 1: in that audition and seen that at first, I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: this scene is so long, but but there is a
Speaker 1: lot going on there where the man who is much
Speaker 1: older than her in that scene is taking advantage of
Speaker 1: her character. And it's clearly like you know, unwelcome touching,
Speaker 1: kissing where it isn't written or warranted, and it's on
Speaker 1: Betty slash Diane because she is new to this industry
Speaker 1: to pretend that isn't happening and give the best performance
Speaker 1: she can't anyways, which which is a thing that happens,
Speaker 1: and it's like fucked up and not okay, but it
Speaker 1: but it was interesting to see that kind of like
Speaker 1: cogent ly seen on screen, where you know that Betty
Speaker 1: is not comfortable and that she's trying to navigate around
Speaker 1: all of these aggressions being put towards her and the
Speaker 1: fact that through her character's mind, there are other women
Speaker 1: in the room with her, and like women who are
Speaker 1: attention is drawn to them because in that scene, Betty's
Speaker 1: brought into the audition and immediately the first person you
Speaker 1: meet is like, here's this amazing casting agent. She's great.
Speaker 1: You know, she's going to work with you. And here's
Speaker 1: her assistant who's a woman as well. And at least
Speaker 1: for me, like in situations like that, when you see
Speaker 1: two other women in the room, you're sort of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a safe situation for me because there are
Speaker 1: other you know, there's quote unquote there's allies present. Right.
Speaker 1: You don't want to be in a room full of
Speaker 1: old guys at any time, never ever, right. But in
Speaker 1: that scene, those women don't say anything when she's being
Speaker 1: and it's also implied that this happened to who we
Speaker 1: later learn as Camilla, and and that this is something
Speaker 1: that you know, possibly is something that they related with
Speaker 1: each other on is like being taken advantage of and
Speaker 1: being mistreated by executives of all genders, where it's like
Speaker 1: the straight guys who are going to try to grope
Speaker 1: you in the room and no one's gonna say anything.
Speaker 1: And then kind of like the more girl boss archetypes
Speaker 1: that we see through that manager character who is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know this isn't right, but we want money and success,
Speaker 1: don't we, So we're not going to say anything. And
Speaker 1: so that stuff I thought was like a little more effective. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although there's a similar scene where the Justin Threw character.
Speaker 1: This is towards the end when Rita is now Camilla
Speaker 1: and Betty is now Diane and they're on set in
Speaker 1: the movie that they're both in together, and Justin Threw
Speaker 1: is like directing one of his actors to be like, no,
Speaker 1: this is how this kiss is going to go. And
Speaker 1: then he like gets in the car with Camilla and
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, do it like this. That is not
Speaker 1: how directing a movie you should. You don't like get
Speaker 1: into the scene with the actor and be like and
Speaker 1: this is how you kiss the woman in the scene.
Speaker 1: And then because that that kind of blew my mind though,
Speaker 1: because it's like David Lynch, who at the time of
Speaker 1: this movie had a reputation for courting and falling in
Speaker 1: love with the stars of his own movies for a
Speaker 1: decade and a half, put this commentary in where it's
Speaker 1: like the two Spider Man pointing at each other. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what's your fucking point. It seems like this is something
Speaker 1: that you actively try to do and have maybe even
Speaker 1: been successful with that you're presenting it as a criticism,
Speaker 1: and also I feel like implying that Camilla is an
Speaker 1: active participant in that and she's like enjoying, and that
Speaker 1: there's no coercion implied. Yeah, I read that. Like, while
Speaker 1: the audition scene definitely is very creepy, especially in the
Speaker 1: way that the actor acting opposite Betty and the way
Speaker 1: that the director is like, yeah, do what everyone whatever,
Speaker 1: that worked a little more effectively is commentary, or at
Speaker 1: least I felt the like creepiness and coercion of it all,
Speaker 1: but self aware at least. But then to turn around
Speaker 1: and have a very similar thing happen later in the
Speaker 1: movie in a way that doesn't seem to provide any commentary,
Speaker 1: and it is again reflective of David Lynch's own behavior.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, then that kind of nullifies the other things,
Speaker 1: like well, don't bring a bisexual woman into the into
Speaker 1: the picture, because then all of a sudden it's bad
Speaker 1: and it's somehow she is complicit in this evil plan. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great point, and I don't know the fact
Speaker 1: that it reflects on being I'm just like, so, what
Speaker 1: is the point? What are you saying, David? So one
Speaker 1: thing that's interesting about all that is, I guess like
Speaker 1: when they released the DVD, it came with a card
Speaker 1: of like ten unlocking clues to the film to figure
Speaker 1: it out, and one of them, number eight is did
Speaker 1: talent alone help Camilla? And I feel like that's like
Speaker 1: revealing to all of this, like intentionally interesting or not?
Speaker 1: Like is that almost like how do you interpret that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like accidentally revealing like oh, I don't actually just cast
Speaker 1: my actress is based on their talent alone. Well, because
Speaker 1: that's another scene that you see that I assumed was commentary,
Speaker 1: and I think was to an extent towards the beginning
Speaker 1: of the movie, where they're doing the casting for Adams
Speaker 1: movie and they don't watch any videos. They just look
Speaker 1: at pictures they don't like, and you know, that these
Speaker 1: these actresses on the other end, because we see Betty
Speaker 1: and Rita and again this is three Diane's perspective, but like,
Speaker 1: you know, Betty is really preparing for this audition and
Speaker 1: gives a great audition, but the only discussion that's had
Speaker 1: is pictures. So it's I thought, like again, like that's
Speaker 1: more effective for me. But then when you take into account,
Speaker 1: like you're saying down like that seems to be what
Speaker 1: David Lynch had done in the past, Like it's just
Speaker 1: so it's I mean, like I guess, I don't mean
Speaker 1: there's no like Hart Evans that he's you know, doing
Speaker 1: that exact thing. But to see like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: the self awareness of it all of Like, yeah, actresses
Speaker 1: work obviously really hard to get the parts that they get,
Speaker 1: and the reality that this movie is presenting is like
Speaker 1: these women can work so hard and it doesn't even
Speaker 1: matter because it's just a room full of guys doing
Speaker 1: some sort of unrelated dick measuring contest and there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of pictures and the choice has already kind of
Speaker 1: been made before you're even in the room, and so
Speaker 1: like it doesn't matter if you're talented, which is clearly
Speaker 1: how Diane feels at the end of the movie, and
Speaker 1: I think that those messages, like the fact that it's
Speaker 1: like the reality presented at the end of the movie
Speaker 1: is that she is both professional rivals with Camilla and
Speaker 1: is in love with her, gets kind of messy with
Speaker 1: the commentary the movie is making, because sometimes I feel
Speaker 1: like it's trying to make some Hollywood commentary that ends
Speaker 1: up being homophobic because they're attributing both of those things
Speaker 1: at the same Like, I don't know messy messy well,
Speaker 1: and I don't even think that, Like, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know for sure, but I don't even feel like
Speaker 1: that's what he was even talking about or whoever wrote
Speaker 1: that question on their like clue card, I feel like
Speaker 1: they were just talking about like the Cowboy said to
Speaker 1: cast her. I don't even know that they like we're
Speaker 1: intending for the answer to be all the things that
Speaker 1: we just discussed, but I feel like that's the real answer, right.
Speaker 1: But Yeah, with a movie like this, where there's so
Speaker 1: much ambiguity and so much symbolism that's open to so
Speaker 1: many different interpretations and all these metaphors that depending on
Speaker 1: who you are and how your brain works and what
Speaker 1: you notice, you're gonna interpret things differently. So with this
Speaker 1: type of movie, it's so hard to know what, if anything,
Speaker 1: was the intent as far as like social commentary. And
Speaker 1: because David Lynch refuses to fill in the gaps, it's like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I don't think that that's an artistic failure. Part it
Speaker 1: just makes our job harder and right, Yeah, so either way,
Speaker 1: I'm confused by everything in this movie. Um fun fact,
Speaker 1: the movie was originally developed and shot as a pilot
Speaker 1: for ABC, but ABC watched it and didn't end up
Speaker 1: wanting to pick up the pilot. So David Lynch basically
Speaker 1: just like wrote and shot and added a few more
Speaker 1: scenes and turned it into the future film that we
Speaker 1: now know and for me not love but I have
Speaker 1: seen it, have seen multiple times and been dragged across
Speaker 1: the internet. I feel like that's where all those like
Speaker 1: random scenes come in or I just have to assume
Speaker 1: they do right and maybe they were supposed to pay
Speaker 1: off in some way later, Like yes, I think that
Speaker 1: was like part of what Davidlynch was going for. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm setting up all these arts that are gonna like
Speaker 1: come back later, similar to what happens in twin Peaks,
Speaker 1: but they just never really do. I mean that gives
Speaker 1: me the smallest bit of peace. I mean, ultimately, I
Speaker 1: just like this makes me want to go back and
Speaker 1: Rewatch because I hadn't watched it since it came out. Rewatch,
Speaker 1: that documentary about David Lynch, because this book seems to
Speaker 1: reveal that like, basically just like the cost of what
Speaker 1: he you know, says is his art centric lifestyle took
Speaker 1: on the women in his life, where it sounds like
Speaker 1: many of his wives and children were like deceived and
Speaker 1: mistreated in the service of his art. And then on
Speaker 1: the other end of it, the women who were involved
Speaker 1: in his art were also mistreated in the interest of
Speaker 1: the art. And so it comes up as I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I just like, I know that this conversation has
Speaker 1: been had around his work, but he is such a
Speaker 1: beloved person that it's like and you see him in
Speaker 1: interviews and he's so sweet and blah blah blah. But
Speaker 1: it's like, but this is you know, this is on
Speaker 1: paper as having happened, and it it almost feels like
Speaker 1: a little as someone trying to like participate in understanding
Speaker 1: who this person is. It feels a little gas Lady
Speaker 1: media wise, because it's like Naomi Watts is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he may be perform under duress, ha ha, and Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Rosselini is like, yeah, he was laughing during the most
Speaker 1: traumatic scene in the movie. Isn't that interesting because he's
Speaker 1: such I feel like there is like that eccentric guy
Speaker 1: personality that it lets you get away with a lot
Speaker 1: of things that it's like that does actually doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like an adorable or appealing quality at all. Like no,
Speaker 1: so I mean again, speaking to his personal life, I
Speaker 1: don't want to bring it to too too into this discussion,
Speaker 1: but for someone who focuses on the psychological effects that
Speaker 1: life takes on women, it seems like his life has
Speaker 1: taken a lot of psychological effects on the women in
Speaker 1: his life. And that's not and and so that's UM.
Speaker 1: I'm on a journey. It's hard back to the movie
Speaker 1: originally being UM. But it was originally shot as a
Speaker 1: pilot and some reasons that, you know, the people at
Speaker 1: ABC said that they didn't want it after all, they
Speaker 1: thought there like UM. They didn't like it because of
Speaker 1: the non linear storyline. They didn't like it because Anne
Speaker 1: Miller's character smokes cigarettes, and I guess they didn't want
Speaker 1: that on TV. Um dare. Okay, they didn't like it
Speaker 1: because the ages of Naomi Watts and Laura Harring, who
Speaker 1: they considered to be too old. Oh my god, yet
Speaker 1: they're like thirty. And finally, ABC opposed to the close
Speaker 1: frame shot of dog feces in one scene. Okay, so
Speaker 1: that's just that. Now that's prudish put poop on screen.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember that POI race in movies. More poop, poop.
Speaker 1: Poop is a part of life. There needs to be
Speaker 1: more movies where someone's like, I'm so sorry I have
Speaker 1: to and they leave the scene like the next time.
Speaker 1: If you're a writer and you are like, I've had
Speaker 1: this problem many times where it's like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I need someone to leave this scene, but I can't
Speaker 1: figure out how to get them out of here. There's
Speaker 1: your answer, and people will see themselves in that character
Speaker 1: in that moment to be like, oh my god, guys,
Speaker 1: I have to poop so bad, I have to leave
Speaker 1: and then boom. It does happen in Bridesmaids. Oh that
Speaker 1: is true, So it happens. It's happened once in cinematic history,
Speaker 1: and happened recently on the show where the She's Got
Speaker 1: to have an episode where I was like, I have
Speaker 1: to poop, we have to end this episode. Caitlyn was
Speaker 1: literally like slouched in her chair and then finally revealed
Speaker 1: that it was because she had to poop. Man Our
Speaker 1: Lives are a movie, there a podcast? Right, does anyone
Speaker 1: have anything else they'd like to discuss? I'm good, I
Speaker 1: don't think so. Same all right, Well, well, in that case,
Speaker 1: this movie very much passes the Backtel test. That's not
Speaker 1: a problem that this movie has even without your theory
Speaker 1: of like, well, they're all projections of the same woman's
Speaker 1: mind and they're all talking to each other. Therefore, even
Speaker 1: if even without that, women are talking for a good
Speaker 1: portion of the movie. And it's not even like I
Speaker 1: feel like sometimes there's a hack of like, well, women
Speaker 1: are talking. They're still talking about romantic relationships, but it's
Speaker 1: with other women. But but there's so much disgusted in
Speaker 1: this movie between women where sometimes it is about a relationship,
Speaker 1: sometimes it is about who am I, Sometimes it's about
Speaker 1: you know, it happens between so many characters. We haven't
Speaker 1: even really talked that much about Louise, the psychic character
Speaker 1: who comes in very distressed. We don't talk about the
Speaker 1: conversation between Betty and her aunt. There is a conversation
Speaker 1: between Betty and this metaphorical character that we didn't have
Speaker 1: time to get to that I don't want to talk about,
Speaker 1: named Irene. At the beginning of the movie. There's a
Speaker 1: ton of conversations between Betty and Rita, and also Diane
Speaker 1: and Camilla. Betty and Coco have conversations. Is another character
Speaker 1: that I didn't have time to bring up. Here's in
Speaker 1: both timelines and passes. The metel tests in both timelines
Speaker 1: like women are talking plenty. Yeah, that's not the issue,
Speaker 1: and that's why we say, you know, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a starting point for discussion exactly. Yeah. But an amazing
Speaker 1: metric by which flows analyzed movies is of course our
Speaker 1: nipple scale, where we rate the movie on a scale
Speaker 1: of zero to five nipples based on examining it through
Speaker 1: an intersectional feminist lens, just between the toxic and harmful
Speaker 1: tropes that are perpetuated as far as the queer characters
Speaker 1: go violence against women that seems to be played for
Speaker 1: laughs several times in the movie. The weird way in
Speaker 1: which mental health is represented, where the movie is suggesting
Speaker 1: if you get dumped you're going to have a complete
Speaker 1: breakdown that will lead you to murder. Yeah, usually it
Speaker 1: will just lead you to sleeping a lot. Yes, Based
Speaker 1: on that, I will give the movie. Um, what do
Speaker 1: you even give a movie that makes so little narrative sense? Again,
Speaker 1: he got you again, he got you again. I'm going
Speaker 1: to give it like one. I guess. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: leaning towards like one nipple, just for like, I guess,
Speaker 1: good job centering women in your movie when you're a
Speaker 1: male autour, but also you have the responsibility to do
Speaker 1: it well, and as far as I'm concerned, he didn't.
Speaker 1: So one nipple And I will wait, what's the part
Speaker 1: that I liked? I'll give it to the untouched plate
Speaker 1: of breakfast food that the guy who has a nightmare
Speaker 1: about the person with a scary face leaves at what
Speaker 1: was it called Twinkies Diner or Winkies Diner on Sunset Boulevard,
Speaker 1: which I don't know if that's a real thing or not,
Speaker 1: but maybe it was at the time. It could have been.
Speaker 1: Did they go to other real l A food places right,
Speaker 1: like Pinks hot dogs and stuff. Um, don't even get
Speaker 1: me started. I don't even get my stars hot dogs,
Speaker 1: I know, but at what cost? Fuck pinks? Anyways, Sorry,
Speaker 1: finished your thoughts? Oh so feminist icon plate of breakfast food.
Speaker 1: That's who gets my one nipple? Amazing? Um, I'm between
Speaker 1: a one and at one point five, whoever, whichever of
Speaker 1: you Brave Missionaries updates are Wikipedia page. I guess I'll
Speaker 1: leave that to you. I'm between a one and one
Speaker 1: point five. I can't really decide. Maybe I'll just say
Speaker 1: at one point to five. Again, it is like a
Speaker 1: very complicated thing where I do feel like there is
Speaker 1: a necessary given. I mean, you've just even given the
Speaker 1: conversation we've had today, I do think that there is
Speaker 1: a necessary there's a need to reassess behavior versus intent
Speaker 1: in David Lynch's work, because it feels like we've had
Speaker 1: and again, it's like every conversation is very individual. But
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of Melo tourists who have been
Speaker 1: seen to be very pro woman simply for including women
Speaker 1: with motivations and their work, and then you look at
Speaker 1: their personal behavior and think, oh wait a second, maybe
Speaker 1: this was actually not the feminist king that I ascribed
Speaker 1: to him. I'm not saying that that's exactly what's going
Speaker 1: on here because I just don't know enough information, but
Speaker 1: just based on this discussion, it seems like this should
Speaker 1: be of something that is worth discussing more right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that this movie is hard because I do
Speaker 1: like dedicating an entire movie to a woman processing the
Speaker 1: events of her own life and processing her own mistakes,
Speaker 1: which on its surface is technically what this movie is,
Speaker 1: and taking into account that. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of commentary about show business that I thought was pretty valid,
Speaker 1: and I think that it's supposed to be implied in
Speaker 1: the movie that the way that her industry treated her
Speaker 1: influenced her own behavior and drove her towards horrific behavior.
Speaker 1: Like there are things this movie I think. I think
Speaker 1: that this movie has it's heart in the right place
Speaker 1: with and then there's things that it very clearly doesn't like.
Speaker 1: The most generous interpretation is that David Lynch's way out
Speaker 1: of his depth and shouldn't be writing about this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff without consulting with other people or including other
Speaker 1: people as co writers. And I mean that's an otur problem.
Speaker 1: We come up against all the time. It's like, if
Speaker 1: if you have the ego that it just has to
Speaker 1: be you, then write something that you know you're what
Speaker 1: you're talking about it. Or if you want to expand
Speaker 1: outside of yourself, which I think you know, all writers should.
Speaker 1: I'm not faulting him for wanting to have women as
Speaker 1: his protagonist, but it's like, well, then talk to women,
Speaker 1: like that's just how that works. Otherwise you're going to
Speaker 1: come up with some weird ship and it's going to
Speaker 1: influence people, and then twenty years are going to pass
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna have to record a podcast about it. Like,
Speaker 1: no one wants to be doing this, so just do
Speaker 1: it right. Um. Yeah, a lot of bisexual tropes that
Speaker 1: we've talked about a lot recently that I think just
Speaker 1: hold true and are still just a shitty here. A
Speaker 1: lot of tropes about lesbians that are very much the same.
Speaker 1: And it's a very white movie. I mean, it's like
Speaker 1: an like the whole world, the whole expanded universe of
Speaker 1: David Lynch is very white, and not in a way
Speaker 1: that implies any commentary. It just implies that this is
Speaker 1: these are the stories he's interested in telling. So there
Speaker 1: it's just it's one, two five. I'm gonna I wanted
Speaker 1: to give it to the hot Dog, but I can't
Speaker 1: because it's from Pinks and and listeners of the Bechtel cast.
Speaker 1: Oh just wait till my hot Dog book is on
Speaker 1: pre sale. You're not going to hear the end of it.
Speaker 1: It's not yet. It comes out next year. But there's
Speaker 1: a whole section on Pinks because guess what, they love
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Police Department. They love it so much.
Speaker 1: They love cops and they hate street vendors even though
Speaker 1: they were once a street vendor themselves. Does it make sense, No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. The story of hot Dogs is a story
Speaker 1: of class oppression and colonialism and animal abuse. So I
Speaker 1: can't give it to the hot Dog. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give them all to Louise because she was right. Who
Speaker 1: is Louise again? She's the psychic who comes to the door.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't even know the purpose of that
Speaker 1: character was. Even she shows up at the door, she's like,
Speaker 1: something's not right, and it's like, well, yeah, obviously, but
Speaker 1: that never comes back. So um, I'm gonna give it
Speaker 1: to her. Good for her. She was right and some
Speaker 1: something wasn't right in that house. She's correct, Don What
Speaker 1: about you? Um? Well, I have to say that this
Speaker 1: conversation has been very enlightening for me, and if you
Speaker 1: would have asked me this question at the beginning, I
Speaker 1: would have had a different answer than i'll have now. However,
Speaker 1: my number of nipples, which is still higher than yours,
Speaker 1: but um, I have learned through this conversation more about
Speaker 1: the female and dressed trope and the perception on queer
Speaker 1: women specifically, and that has really tainted, um my number
Speaker 1: of nipples. So I do still appreciate the amount of
Speaker 1: female characters and the amount that they talk to each other,
Speaker 1: and that the film is shown through a female perspective,
Speaker 1: so not just that there's female characters that men interact with.
Speaker 1: So I not confidently would say three nipples, Hell yeah,
Speaker 1: who are you going to give them to? So? I
Speaker 1: live in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I've been a
Speaker 1: really big fan of big hats since I've lived here.
Speaker 1: So I just have to give it to the cowboy character.
Speaker 1: He's weird and mysterious and like my kind of guy,
Speaker 1: and he's wearing a big hat. He's a metaphor baby
Speaker 1: for what I don't know. I don't care. I kind
Speaker 1: of want to give my nipples to the to the
Speaker 1: metaphorical swamp lady, I kind of because I'm pretty. I
Speaker 1: was like, she's a metaphor for like whatever the side
Speaker 1: of you you don't want to confront failure, past mistakes.
Speaker 1: She's just all all this ship and then she's behind
Speaker 1: a diner like like, I know that lady in a way.
Speaker 1: You know, for the part of you you don't want
Speaker 1: to confront that other men have nightmares about for some
Speaker 1: which you know probably is true. Yeah. Fair, Well, there
Speaker 1: you have it, everybody. M Holland, Drive, Pepe and Poo
Speaker 1: poo don. Thank you so much for joining us and
Speaker 1: for being here. Thank you. What would you like to
Speaker 1: plug and where can people follow you on social media?
Speaker 1: Tell us about your podcast. Yeah, I have a podcast
Speaker 1: interviewing filmmakers. I'm especially interested in talking with female filmmakers
Speaker 1: that are making films that really are inspiring broader conversations
Speaker 1: and topics. Um So I'll be doing some interviews for
Speaker 1: Sundance and slam Dance coming up. So you can check
Speaker 1: out Poe Real podcast on all whatever podcast platform you're
Speaker 1: listening to you right now, and then I'm on Instagram
Speaker 1: at for real pod and then I'll also be doing
Speaker 1: some writing with Sundayance filmmakers for Cinema Fem magazine. You
Speaker 1: can find that online as well, and that's full real
Speaker 1: f A U x R e E L correct because
Speaker 1: there could be multiple spellings. Yeah, I just want the
Speaker 1: people to be able to find you, you know, thank you.
Speaker 1: The people have to know that. People must know. And
Speaker 1: you can follow us at bectel Cast on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can subscribe to our Matreon at patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash pecktel Cast, where you get too bonus episodes every
Speaker 1: month plus access to the nearly one hundred or maybe
Speaker 1: even over one episodes on the Matreon exclusively and that
Speaker 1: is five dollars a month. And then if you want
Speaker 1: some merger, she can always go over to t public
Speaker 1: dot com slash the battel cost for all of your
Speaker 1: merchandizing needs. And with that, um, let's not wake up gang,
Speaker 1: because if we do, the elderly couple is going to
Speaker 1: attack us and we will have to die so murder
Speaker 1: each other. So let's just let's just stay asleep. Dreaming
Speaker 1: is better, you know, sounds great? Night night night, night,
Speaker 1: tonight