Speaker 1: On The Bechdelcast.
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have women and them, are
Speaker 2: all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they
Speaker 2: have individualism the patriarchy? Zeffn best start changing with the Bechdelcast.
Speaker 3: Hello Bechdel Cast listeners. We've got a little plug at
Speaker 3: the very top of this episode.
Speaker 4: It's a double plug. Who wants to go first?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, you go first, Jamie.
Speaker 4: Okay. So I'm really really excited to announce that Wevian House,
Speaker 4: which is a show created and hosted by Theo Henderson
Speaker 4: that I also have been executive producing for the last
Speaker 4: two years, is nominated for a Webbee and we need
Speaker 4: your help. There is a portion of the web is
Speaker 4: where you vote. Voting is only opened until April seventeenth.
Speaker 4: We are in the public service and Activism category. I
Speaker 4: know we've plugged it on the show before, but if
Speaker 4: you haven't listened, way to vote and a way to
Speaker 4: listen to the show will be linked in the description.
Speaker 4: And the show is hosted by THEO, who has previously unhoused.
Speaker 4: Started the podcast while living on the streets of LA
Speaker 4: in twenty nineteen and has since grown into the only
Speaker 4: podcast in existence that talks about issues that affect the unhoused,
Speaker 4: told by and centered on unhass people. It is like
Speaker 4: such a pleasure to work on this show, and I'm
Speaker 4: really excited. So if you have a second, literally, they
Speaker 4: made us a link where you can just click and
Speaker 4: go to our category. You don't have to vote in
Speaker 4: anything else if you don't want to, And it's a
Speaker 4: tight race right now, so we'd really appreciate your vote
Speaker 4: and listen to me the end house.
Speaker 3: It's great, yes, And we'll put that link both on
Speaker 3: our link tree and in the description of this episode,
Speaker 3: so easily accessible. Awesome for my plug, it is the
Speaker 3: shows that I have coming up on the East Coast.
Speaker 3: One of them is like Tomorrow. If you're listening to
Speaker 3: this episode on the day it comes out, it's on Friday,
Speaker 3: April eleventh in State College, Pennsylvania. It's me headlining a
Speaker 3: stand up show plus a lineup of a bunch of
Speaker 3: fun local comedians, So come check that out if you're
Speaker 3: in the central Pennsylvania area. Also same spot, which is
Speaker 3: the Blue Brick Theater. On Sunday, April thirteenth, I am
Speaker 3: teaching a stand up workshop. So if you're like wait
Speaker 3: a minute, I want to I'm interested in stand up,
Speaker 3: but I don't know how or I don't know how
Speaker 3: to do it. I'll tell you about it, and then
Speaker 3: I'm scooting over to New York City. Ever heard of it?
Speaker 3: Because on April fifteenth, which wait a minute, isn't that
Speaker 3: the day Titanic sank?
Speaker 4: Whoa?
Speaker 3: And isn't that also the day that I'm doing a
Speaker 3: Titanic themed stand up show. It's all commemoracted such an occasion. Well,
Speaker 3: it's all true. So on April fifteenth, I'm doing a
Speaker 3: show called A Night to Remember with Caitlin Dorante wow
Speaker 3: at Union Hall in Brooklyn, and it's me headlining, and
Speaker 3: then a lineup of many past Bechdel Cast guests, so
Speaker 3: familiar faces.
Speaker 4: They have Murderer as well.
Speaker 3: Oh, such a good lineup. And there's gonna be some
Speaker 3: other you know, Titanic trivia and little bits here and there.
Speaker 3: So come out to that. I'd be so grateful. The
Speaker 3: ticket links are also on our link tree.
Speaker 4: So lots of things to click on, so many.
Speaker 3: Links to click on, So go to link tree slash
Speaker 3: Bechdel Cast and check out all of that and otherwise
Speaker 3: enjoy this episode on baby girl, cast Hey Jamie, Hey Kaitlyn,
Speaker 3: drink this full glass of milk that I sent over
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 4: Is the milk weirdly thick for effect?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Will you later give me a saucer of the same
Speaker 4: very thick, cumelike milk.
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right, Oh my god, I'll.
Speaker 4: Do it, good girl, thank you, Oh my good Listen.
Speaker 1: I'm lactose intolerant. That scene was super hot to me,
Speaker 1: so I don't know what that says.
Speaker 3: I like, just the convulsing my body did is I
Speaker 3: watched her drink a full glass of milk.
Speaker 4: That was a bigger ask than anything else that happened
Speaker 4: to me. I was like, a glass of full milk
Speaker 4: at ten pm. It was. It wasn't the milk, it
Speaker 4: was the timing of the milk. A glass of milk
Speaker 4: at ten pm was like, I'm like, it's nice, it's nice.
Speaker 4: My dad. That feels like a very okay, we're already
Speaker 4: off track, but like that feels like a very boomer
Speaker 4: coated thing, like my dad would drink milk at night.
Speaker 4: I stopped drinking milk at night when I was twelve,
Speaker 4: because it turns out it's actually not that good for you.
Speaker 4: That was like, big milk.
Speaker 3: We should not be drinking milk after infancy.
Speaker 4: I mean, as you can. It's not gonna kill you,
Speaker 4: Like I know, it's gonna killy. Darry is fine, but
Speaker 4: it's the bodies weren't.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Our bodies are not made to digest it.
Speaker 4: The food pyramid is fake. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Should we just do this episode about dairy instead?
Speaker 3: Forget Baby Girl. We're talking about dairy.
Speaker 4: We are the anti dairy. We're the oat milk Lobby. Okay,
Speaker 4: welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: My name is Jamie, my name is Caitlin, and we
Speaker 3: are here to talk about baby Girl.
Speaker 4: We are here doing.
Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast. This is our show where we examine
Speaker 3: movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test
Speaker 3: as a jumping off point. But what on earth is that?
Speaker 4: Well, Caitlin, I'm glad you asked. The Bechdel Test is
Speaker 4: a media metric originally created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechtel
Speaker 4: for her comic collection Dikes to Watch Out For, and
Speaker 4: over the years, has turned into a more general media metric.
Speaker 4: Our version of the test requires that two characters with
Speaker 4: names of marginalized gender must speak to each other about
Speaker 4: something other than a man for more than two lines
Speaker 4: of dialogue, and it should be relevant dialogue that will
Speaker 4: happen in this movie.
Speaker 3: But just so you know, just so you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So the movie today is Baby Girl twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Our guest today is for a friend of this show.
Speaker 3: We're very excited to have her. She's a designer and
Speaker 3: maker of size inclusive leather bondage harnesses, which you can
Speaker 3: find at Emmaalimo dot com. It's Emma Alamo.
Speaker 4: Hello, Hello, and welcome Emma. What's up.
Speaker 1: So excited to talk about this movie with y'all?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, simply so happy to have you here.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that y'all have viewed it very
Speaker 1: differently than me.
Speaker 4: No, No, I mean I think you'll be a surprise.
Speaker 4: I think that they'll definitely be a diversity of opinion,
Speaker 4: but like, yeah, I guess that it might be as
Speaker 4: long as everyone's comfortable when we're talking about our experience
Speaker 4: with this movie. Also like our level of familiarity with
Speaker 4: Kink in general, because I think that that definitely colors. Yeah,
Speaker 4: just the amount of informantness you come at this movie
Speaker 4: with which is important, and I feel like we've kind
Speaker 4: of neglected it as a show to do that in
Speaker 4: previous episodes that address kink, because we haven't done it
Speaker 4: in a while. We grew up exactly.
Speaker 3: So, Emma, tell us about your experience with the movie,
Speaker 3: with kink in general, tell us everything, tell us more
Speaker 3: about your business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm obviously into kink. Otherwise it would be kind
Speaker 1: of weird if this if I was just running this
Speaker 1: business as a full outsider.
Speaker 4: You're just a neutral You're a neutral party. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But I started actually getting into like power play,
Speaker 1: like subdom stuff with a partner when I was like
Speaker 1: twenty two, and I was into it like on an interpersonal,
Speaker 1: like one on one basis. I had never been a
Speaker 1: part of the community or gone to any events around
Speaker 1: it until I started making bondage harnesses. Okay, but now, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm we sell at various kink events around the country,
Speaker 1: so I am at wild kink events all the time,
Speaker 1: and my threshold for what is normal is very different
Speaker 1: than most people. Yeah. I was hesitant to see this
Speaker 1: movie at first, because, first of all, I was like,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be like fifty shades of gray. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be like really unrealistic and corny and the bad depiction
Speaker 1: of what subdomn relationships are. And then also I was
Speaker 1: afraid it might be triggering because I had I had
Speaker 1: a relationship with a superior at a previous job that
Speaker 1: ended up being really traumatic, and I was delighted to
Speaker 1: see that it was neither of those things for me.
Speaker 1: I loved it so much.
Speaker 4: Oh great, I mean, this seems to be a pretty
Speaker 4: well loved movie among sex therapists and kink experts.
Speaker 1: For the most part. I've it has been kind of
Speaker 1: divisive in the kink community.
Speaker 4: I'm excited to hear about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for a number of reasons we can get into later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, well I'll jump in. And So I have
Speaker 3: never been very immersed in the kink community, specifically like
Speaker 3: any kind of dom sub dynamic. I've experimented lightly, never
Speaker 3: full immersion, but like a little bit of experimentation here
Speaker 3: and there. And I've had a lot of interactions like
Speaker 3: conversations with straight dom men, particularly on field, which for
Speaker 3: anyone who is not familiar.
Speaker 4: Is a I know where this is going, I know
Speaker 4: where this I know this one.
Speaker 3: This is a dating app that is geared toward various
Speaker 3: communities I would say specifically and particularly the kink and
Speaker 3: the polyamory community. There's other, you know, bubbles that it
Speaker 3: appeals to, but I feel like those are kind of
Speaker 3: like the primary communities that tend to use field and
Speaker 3: for me, it's like the polyamory aspect of it. That's
Speaker 3: why I am on and off that. But I've with
Speaker 3: a lot of men from that app and have like
Speaker 3: had some experiences with them that are you know, me
Speaker 3: experimenting with me being a sub, which I've learned that
Speaker 3: I am not. I am not that at all. If anything,
Speaker 3: I am a dom, although for me I prefer just
Speaker 3: like a more kind of balanced to distribution of power
Speaker 3: in any kind of like romantic or sexual situation. But
Speaker 3: what I've learned, and I was going to talk about
Speaker 3: this later, but it's just gonna come up now. I
Speaker 3: really so a lot of the interactions and experiences I've
Speaker 3: had in this little journey of figuring out where I
Speaker 3: am on this spectrum has been me talking to men again,
Speaker 3: like straight men who consider themselves to be doms, who
Speaker 3: with evidence I've seen, it feels like many of them,
Speaker 3: not all of them, of course, but many of them
Speaker 3: are using kink as a cover to simply be abusive
Speaker 3: to women. Yes, either physically or sexually, or emotionally or verbally,
Speaker 3: or any type of abuse that feels like a common thing.
Speaker 1: I've seen that, Yeah, so much so that it.
Speaker 3: Put me off a field for a while because I
Speaker 3: was just having so many I was like matching with
Speaker 3: people and then they would just like immediately be really
Speaker 3: inappropriate and.
Speaker 4: Like without checking in with your boundaries first.
Speaker 1: Kind of Yeah, and that's not how it's supposed to work,
Speaker 1: supposed to have a conversation and make sure you're on
Speaker 1: the same page about stuff exactly.
Speaker 3: So I I've noticed this trend, and it's just it's
Speaker 3: a it's a bummer because for those people who are
Speaker 3: in this community, who are actually doing it respectfully and
Speaker 3: responsibly in the way that it's meant to be done.
Speaker 3: It's just I hate that there's all these like abusers
Speaker 3: out there who are like getting mixed up in that.
Speaker 3: So that's been kind of my experience with it. And
Speaker 3: then so I saw this movie in theaters and I
Speaker 3: couldn't help but feel like there are glimpses of that
Speaker 3: in Samuel's character. Or maybe it's just that I'm not
Speaker 3: understanding kink enough hard to say, but I couldn't help
Speaker 3: but like feel that there was like some degree of that.
Speaker 3: But we'll we'll talk about that further. But you know,
Speaker 3: I saw the movie. I it's not really the type
Speaker 3: of movie that I tend to gravitate toward. It's not
Speaker 3: very much of a romp, so it didn't really speak
Speaker 3: to me. I think there's a lot of interesting things
Speaker 3: about it. I think I didn't really understand what the
Speaker 3: director's intentions were the first time I saw it, and
Speaker 3: then I went back and watched some interviews with her,
Speaker 3: and I came away like with a better understanding and
Speaker 3: appreciation for what she was trying to do. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I have mixed feelings about the movie in general. Jamie,
Speaker 3: what about.
Speaker 4: You, you know, bringing another experience to the table here.
Speaker 4: I am, I think pretty fairly naive when it comes
Speaker 4: to kink. I've done some stuff. I'm a monogamy head,
Speaker 4: uh so, I you know, like with trusted partners, I've
Speaker 4: done some shit. I don't need to get into it,
Speaker 4: but I've enjoyed myself. I've played many parts in my day,
Speaker 4: and I don't mind being submissive as long as I
Speaker 4: have more money than them. What does that mean. I
Speaker 4: don't know.
Speaker 1: I have classic I know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 4: I think that it's it's like it kind of scares
Speaker 4: me because you're seeing that at the highest possible level
Speaker 4: in this movie. Yeah. But anyways, I will say I'm
Speaker 4: very naive when it comes to the king community. I've
Speaker 4: never really taken part. And if it's okay for me
Speaker 4: to say so, Emma, you have actually we it was
Speaker 4: almost two years ago now, or maybe exactly two years ago. Wow, Yeah,
Speaker 4: we broke bread aka hot dog buns, and then you
Speaker 4: fit me for a harness in your shop, which was
Speaker 4: like such a cool experience for me. I'd never had
Speaker 4: an experience like it, and it's a really great thing
Speaker 4: and I love it. And so while I consider myself
Speaker 4: i've I feel like fairly neutral in this area because
Speaker 4: I you know, most of my experimenting has been I think,
Speaker 4: kind of vanilla. I think by most people's yardstick. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I guess I was coming in naive and tried to
Speaker 4: explore kind of the widest breadth of opinion I could find.
Speaker 4: And it's really interesting because I mean, there couldn't be
Speaker 4: a more you know, personal way to come at a
Speaker 4: movie than like, how do you feel about sex? I
Speaker 4: also at some points felt like I wasn't old enough
Speaker 4: to understand some of the dynamics of this movie. And
Speaker 4: I wonder if I revisited this movie in ten, fifteen,
Speaker 4: twenty years, if I would view it differently, you know,
Speaker 4: because I would say a lot of you know, again,
Speaker 4: like younger letterbox reviewers being like, who would cheat on
Speaker 4: Antonio Banderas, And I'm like, well, I think that's a
Speaker 4: fundamental misunderstanding of marriage, not about that. Yeah, yeah, like
Speaker 4: you know things even if even Antonio Banderas, you know,
Speaker 4: he's been divorced. So the point is, I, yeah, I
Speaker 4: even among like writers and people who I really respect
Speaker 4: their opinions, there's been a huge breadth of opinion, and
Speaker 4: so I'm very open. I generally liked the movie. I
Speaker 4: understand where you're coming from, Caitlin. I'm excited to talk
Speaker 4: about that. I was more. I mean, what really gets
Speaker 4: me turned on is talking about class. I think that
Speaker 4: my core issue with the movie is the class setting
Speaker 4: of it and the motivation for the class setting. I'm
Speaker 4: interested to talk about that because I can see pros
Speaker 4: and cons for it, but I think of all the
Speaker 4: things I appreciated about this movie, some of which might
Speaker 4: have been under informed, right. I am very sick of seeing,
Speaker 4: you know, explorations of the absolute richest people in the
Speaker 4: world and being like they actually are quite complicated people.
Speaker 4: I'm very frustrated with that, and as a viewer of
Speaker 4: The White Lotus, I'm kind of pretty burnt out on it.
Speaker 4: So that setting, because it's like there's kinky people absolutely everywhere, Like,
Speaker 4: why do we need to choose the number one girl boss?
Speaker 4: I think I understand why. It just wasn't my favorite choice.
Speaker 4: But anyways, Yeah, I enjoyed the movie, and I will
Speaker 4: say one of the things that I was really hung
Speaker 4: up on, as I always am in Nicole Kidman movies,
Speaker 4: her wish. She starts this movie with an Australian accent.
Speaker 4: She does and she and it gets fucked right out
Speaker 4: of her. It's wild. I literally because I didn't go
Speaker 4: back and watch because I was like, I'm gonna stand
Speaker 4: in my truth here. And I know she because you
Speaker 4: always have to pay attention to the first two scenes
Speaker 4: of Anicle Kidman movie because it's never this I mean,
Speaker 4: and I love her, and I actually I think that
Speaker 4: there is like some really interesting commentary on her career
Speaker 4: and life that's going on within this movie that sort
Speaker 4: of echoes what dem Moore got a lot more attention
Speaker 4: for in the substance this year, where you know, Nicole
Speaker 4: Kidman has been constantly, you know, if not criticized, speculated.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, why you know she's a woman over fifty,
Speaker 4: why does she have work done in bubble? And this
Speaker 4: movie directly interfaces with that question in a way that
Speaker 4: I thought was like really cool. It's like possible to
Speaker 4: watch this movie and not think about her performance in
Speaker 4: Eyeswise Chut, Like I think she's just like, yeah, she's
Speaker 4: so fucking cool. I and I also have some thoughts,
Speaker 4: so I'm excited to talk about it.
Speaker 3: I made a letterbox list after I watched this movie
Speaker 3: entitled movies set around Christmas time in which Nicole Kidman's
Speaker 3: husband feels emasculated by her sexuality, and on that list
Speaker 3: is Baby Girl and Eyes Wide Chut.
Speaker 1: Yes, a great pairing.
Speaker 4: I love that, right.
Speaker 1: I love that The like indie movie theater here in
Speaker 1: Chicago did like a Christmas special and one week the
Speaker 1: two Christmas movies that they showed were Eyes Wide Hut
Speaker 1: and Mup at Christmas Carol, And I've never felt more
Speaker 1: seen by a pairing of movies.
Speaker 4: Oh Wow, Chicago Forever.
Speaker 3: Oh mup at Christmas Carol, Best Christmas movie classic.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The other thing I find interesting about this movie, Baby Girl,
Speaker 3: is that it is one of two movies that came
Speaker 3: out in twenty twenty four in which Nicole Kidman plays
Speaker 3: a woman who gets involved with a much younger man,
Speaker 3: the other one being a Family Affair, that movie where
Speaker 3: she starts dating Zac Efron's character.
Speaker 4: I mean that was a really hot thing. I mean, like,
Speaker 4: this is a twenty four percent mommy porn. Let's make
Speaker 4: no mistake of like what's happening here? And I say
Speaker 4: that with unwavering support. But that was a big thing
Speaker 4: last year because there was also that like Amazon Prime
Speaker 4: movie with Anne Hathaway that I thought was kind of cute.
Speaker 4: I think it's called like the Idea of you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who was the man in that?
Speaker 4: They're all the same man basically, And I say that
Speaker 4: again with love. But it's like a very white boy
Speaker 4: of the Month. I don't know who it was. He
Speaker 4: did a good job, and Harris Dickinson does a great
Speaker 4: job in this movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, let's take a quick break and
Speaker 3: then we'll come back for the recap, shall we. All right,
Speaker 3: and we're back. Okay, this recap might be see, we'll see.
Speaker 1: It's a messy movie.
Speaker 3: It's a messy movie.
Speaker 4: I'm a feel free to jump in whenever you know
Speaker 4: this show. Okay.
Speaker 3: The movie opens mid coitus. A married couple are fucking.
Speaker 3: This is Romey mathis played by Nicole Kidman, and her
Speaker 3: husband Jacob played by Antonio benderis of Puss and Boots
Speaker 3: slash Shrek fame, and.
Speaker 4: I think that that's his entire filmography. Basically, that's what
Speaker 4: he's known for. Yeah, yeah, I noticed that, and then
Speaker 4: I refuse to investigate it further. That both of the
Speaker 4: men in this movie that are the sexual interests have
Speaker 4: biblical names. And then I was just sort of like, huh,
Speaker 4: and then I just kept watching. So maybe that means something.
Speaker 4: If it does, I don't know what it means, but
Speaker 4: there it is for you Bible heads out there. Tell
Speaker 4: me what it means. Who's Jacob, Who's Samuel? I don't know.
Speaker 4: I didn't get confirmed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have no idea who those people are in
Speaker 3: the context of the Bible. But anyway, Romy and Jacob finish,
Speaker 3: and Romy immediately goes into the other room and masturbates
Speaker 3: in secret, as if the sex she just had wasn't
Speaker 3: entirely satisfactory.
Speaker 1: Little wild concept.
Speaker 3: Let's put a pin in that, shall we? And maybe
Speaker 3: we even put we thrust a rock card. Pin's that's
Speaker 3: absolutely naughty of you.
Speaker 4: Sorry.
Speaker 1: I do feel like it's important that the porn she
Speaker 1: watches is like bed sound porn. It's like daddy dom porn.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't notice. I couldn't really tell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you know, I feel like the guy's calling
Speaker 1: the woman he's fucking little girl and making like asking
Speaker 1: her to beg for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I was paying too much attention to how
Speaker 3: she was masturbating because I was like, I feel seen
Speaker 3: here in this moment, and then I won't say any
Speaker 3: more about it.
Speaker 1: The most upsetting thing about the whole movie to me
Speaker 1: is that after she comes, she just shuts her laptop.
Speaker 1: She doesn't clear her browser history, she doesn't exit out
Speaker 1: of incognito mode. Who does that?
Speaker 4: Oh I don't. Who's so powerful? Oh? Really, well, I
Speaker 4: guess I just no one else has the password. No
Speaker 4: one else has my fingerprint. God. So I'm just it
Speaker 4: is kind of funny to jump scare yourself later in
Speaker 4: the day by being like, oh right, that's where I
Speaker 4: was at at four am for some reason. It's a
Speaker 4: fun little game you can play with yourself. That's my
Speaker 4: BDSM when I leave up on my computer for myself later.
Speaker 3: Wow. I chalked it up to someone so powerful and
Speaker 3: riches her has to have so much hubris that she's like,
Speaker 3: there's no there are no consequences to my actions.
Speaker 4: Oh like she just like lights her laptop on fire
Speaker 4: at the end of every day. Yeah, just buys a
Speaker 4: new one, like disposable contacts. Yeah, it is that they
Speaker 4: are in that level of wealth, which Nicole Kibben, you know,
Speaker 4: that's her thing, beige wealth with somehow a bad wig.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's a really bad wig.
Speaker 4: It's kind of her signature at this point.
Speaker 3: Well, that's what I thought you were going to talk about,
Speaker 3: and instead you talked about her Australian accent. But we've
Speaker 3: also thought at length about Nicole Kidman's wigs.
Speaker 4: I support her wigs.
Speaker 3: Anyway, we learn more about romy She is the CEO
Speaker 3: of a huge Amazon like corporation, automation, warehouse delivery AI
Speaker 3: something something don't really understand, and we're sort of like, yes, exactly,
Speaker 3: go off girl. It's very pink pussy hat of her
Speaker 3: to do that. She's also the mother of two teenagers,
Speaker 3: Isabelle and Nora, played by Esther McGregor and Von Riley, respectively.
Speaker 3: On Romy's way to work, an aggressive dog is about
Speaker 3: to attack her on the street, until a young man
Speaker 3: manages to get the dog under control. This is Samuel
Speaker 3: Will officially meet and shortly played by Harris Dickinson. Now
Speaker 3: at work, we meet Romy's assistant as May, played by
Speaker 3: Sophie Wilde, who introduces Romy to a group of company interns,
Speaker 3: one of whom is this Samuel guy. And he asks
Speaker 3: this like bold and like condescending question about the company,
Speaker 3: and Romy's like, what the fuck?
Speaker 4: Well, it's like he also is like do you think
Speaker 4: that he and Amazon? Intern is like is Amazon ethical
Speaker 4: or what? This never comes back to be clear, Like
Speaker 4: this is right, never comes back. I think it is
Speaker 4: just supposed to. This was one of the clunkier writing
Speaker 4: moments for me where I was just like, I think
Speaker 4: that's just supposed to endear his character to the younger
Speaker 4: audience watching because everyone knows Amazon is bad, but his
Speaker 4: character doesn't really care.
Speaker 3: I mean, I didn't know what to make of it, right,
Speaker 3: And to be clear, it's like it's condescending in the
Speaker 3: For Romy, I was like, yeah, exactly, Samuel, great question,
Speaker 3: but she's like, oh you gross, who is this?
Speaker 4: This a whole?
Speaker 3: But they make eyes at each other, They're like really
Speaker 3: perceiving each other. A little later they run into each other.
Speaker 3: They chat briefly about how he got that dog to
Speaker 3: calm down, how she shouldn't drink so much coffee, and
Speaker 3: we're like, hmm, wonder what dynamic is going to emerge here.
Speaker 3: Then that night at home, Romy very shyly asks Jacob
Speaker 3: if they can try some new things in bed, but
Speaker 3: he's not very receptive to it, and they just end
Speaker 3: up having like pretty regular vanilla hetero sex. Cut to
Speaker 3: the company party. At one point, Romy steps outside and
Speaker 3: Samuel comes out as well, and he tells her he
Speaker 3: chose her to be his mentor for this like company
Speaker 3: intern mentorship program, and she's like, that's not possible. I'm
Speaker 3: not a part of that program. And he's like, yes
Speaker 3: it is, and yes you are my mentor and she's
Speaker 3: like okay. The next day at the office, Romy finds
Speaker 3: Samuel's discarded necktie on the floor that he like tossed
Speaker 3: aside at the party, and she goes into her office
Speaker 3: and like rubs her face and lips. She kind of
Speaker 3: like she kind of has like mouth sex with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she goes from like sniffing it to like trying
Speaker 1: to snort it to shoving them helping in her mouth.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's very horny. Then it's time for Rommy
Speaker 3: and Samuel's first meeting for this mentorship program. Rommy doesn't
Speaker 3: really have the time for this. She doesn't want to
Speaker 3: be there, and she makes that pretty clear to Samuel,
Speaker 3: but he, like dominantly, stands his ground and they get
Speaker 3: to talking about power and whether or not Romy likes
Speaker 3: having power, and Samuel says, I think you like to
Speaker 3: be told what to do, and then they both kind
Speaker 3: of acknowledge that that was in a appropriate But when
Speaker 3: she goes to leave, he stops her from leaving. Their
Speaker 3: faces are like hovering around each other, and then they
Speaker 3: kiss for a few moments, but then Romy's like, sorry, this,
Speaker 3: this shouldn't happen, and she leaves, maybe like a week
Speaker 3: or some a few days past.
Speaker 1: Time is confusing.
Speaker 3: Time is so confusing in this movie because it seems
Speaker 3: to be Christmas the entire time. Yeah yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 3: it never seems cold because they're like outside swimming. But
Speaker 3: they're New York, right, and they're in New York. We
Speaker 3: don't know, we just don't know how time works in
Speaker 3: this universe.
Speaker 1: It's a heated pool.
Speaker 4: Oh, the pools are always steamy. Yeah, you're just like,
Speaker 4: I guess that that's sometimes. I'm just like, I'm sure
Speaker 4: that billionaires have that. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a house in the Hampton because it
Speaker 3: took me forever to figure out that they have like
Speaker 3: probably an apartment in Manhattan and then a separate house,
Speaker 3: probably in the Hampton's or maybe upstate. I don't know,
Speaker 3: but like a whole estate with a huge pool and everything.
Speaker 3: I was like, where do they live? But it's like
Speaker 3: two separate places, you know, rich people stuff. Okay, So
Speaker 3: they've just had their little meeting and she like runs off.
Speaker 3: Some time passes and Samuel approaches her. It seems like
Speaker 3: romy hasn't responded to a request to like schedule another
Speaker 3: meeting between them, and she tells Samuel that his behavior
Speaker 3: is totally out of line, but she's like, hmm, but
Speaker 3: I'll still think about meeting with you again. Then Romy
Speaker 3: goes out for drinks with like some company staff. Her
Speaker 3: assistant esme is there. She has been wanting to talk
Speaker 3: to Romy about a possible promotion, but Romy keeps kind
Speaker 3: of blowing her off.
Speaker 4: This moment I thought was really fascinating, where like the
Speaker 4: movie makes it clear where she's at, where Esmey is
Speaker 4: asking for, you know, basically professional affirmation and for advancement
Speaker 4: in his career, that she's clearly busting her ass at
Speaker 4: and Romy is on autopilot giving her affirmations while not
Speaker 4: listening to her at all and thinking about something totally different.
Speaker 4: Which I do think that this movie does have things
Speaker 4: to say about girl boss feminism, but maybe just doesn't
Speaker 4: quite stick the landing in the way I would want.
Speaker 4: But I thought that that was interesting that they made
Speaker 4: that very clear, that it's like, oh, she's you know,
Speaker 4: she says she's for women, but it's because that's what
Speaker 4: you quote unquote had to do to be a successful
Speaker 4: woman and not be called evil. Right.
Speaker 1: I feel like Esmey is second wave feminism incarnate, right.
Speaker 3: Because she's like, I want to help other women get
Speaker 3: to the you know, climb the corporate ladder. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: suck on capitalism's dick along the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, she's lucky. She's lucky. Esme is pulling from
Speaker 4: the playbook that she is. It's very yeah, it's all
Speaker 4: very nihilistic, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So anyway, they're at this like drinks thing and Samuel
Speaker 3: is also there and he sends over a glass of
Speaker 3: milk to Roamy and she drinks it while make eye contact,
Speaker 3: and then as the night is winding down, he walks
Speaker 3: past her and whispers good girl.
Speaker 4: And we're like and we're kind of like, I mean,
Speaker 4: come on, come on, that was good.
Speaker 3: That was good.
Speaker 4: That was good.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Romy is managing her life at home. Her daughter Isabelle,
Speaker 3: seems to be dating a couple different people where she's
Speaker 3: in love with someone, but she's also fooling around with
Speaker 3: the neighbor girl and Romy's like, hmm, interesting premise, maybe
Speaker 3: I'll try that. And her husband, Jacob is directing a play.
Speaker 3: Romy goes to see it, but she leaves right after,
Speaker 3: even though Jacob is like, hey, I need you by
Speaker 3: my side, and she's like sorry, I'm too busy initiating
Speaker 3: an affair with someone else.
Speaker 4: And also like I couldn't fully tell what the play
Speaker 4: was about, but it seems like that is like his
Speaker 4: zone of projection is like through his work is where he,
Speaker 4: like Rejas, whatever's going on with him, and she is
Speaker 4: like not present enough to see what his I don't know.
Speaker 4: He's an interesting character, I think like his in his
Speaker 4: flavor of internalized misogyny is interesting for sure.
Speaker 1: The play that they're doing head a Gabler seems very intentional.
Speaker 4: It was like the modern like that whole you're like
Speaker 4: okay with this screen, like what's going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when she comes in when they're rehearsing, it's
Speaker 1: the scene where a man is like pointing a gun
Speaker 1: at a woman and she's like leaning into it.
Speaker 3: And this shows you how much I know about theater
Speaker 3: because I don't really know what that is. I'm not
Speaker 3: familiar with the play.
Speaker 4: I read it in high school. It's a great play.
Speaker 4: It's a great play. I don't know there. I mean,
Speaker 4: I know that there's been plenty of adaptations, like film
Speaker 4: adaptations of it. I don't know that I've ever seen
Speaker 4: one though, But yeah, it seemed like a very like
Speaker 4: it reminded me of like the current adaptation of Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 4: That's like playing on Broadway with Nicole shirt Singer. It's
Speaker 4: like a similar thing. Not that play exactly, but like
Speaker 4: the modern Like now we're using screens and you're seeing
Speaker 4: it from I think you're seeing had a Galbler from
Speaker 4: like the point of view of the gun, and you're like, ohhh,
Speaker 4: you know, he was doing a hashtag modern hashtag theater piece.
Speaker 3: So true, so true. Yeah, but Romey's too busy for
Speaker 3: his to be interested in his career.
Speaker 4: His theater kid bullshit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And she gets a note from Samuel to meet
Speaker 3: her at a hotel the next day. So she goes
Speaker 3: to the hotel and she's like, I'm here to tell
Speaker 3: you that your behavior is unacceptable and we need to
Speaker 3: put an end to this. But an end is not
Speaker 3: put to this. He you know, kind of assumes this
Speaker 3: role of dom and he tells her to get on
Speaker 3: her knees. This all seems to be quite new to her,
Speaker 3: and you can kind of see her confusion and inner turmoil,
Speaker 3: but she's turned on by the fact that he has
Speaker 3: power over her because he could make one phone call
Speaker 3: and her career, her family, you know, he could turn
Speaker 3: her life upside down. And he says this, and she's
Speaker 3: like hubba hubba, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Oh And then he's like, does that turn you on
Speaker 1: when I say that? And the whole audience is like.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes it does to her, which to me again,
Speaker 4: I was like I thought that was going to go
Speaker 4: somewhere where it was like, oh she I mean, she's
Speaker 4: clearly aware that what she's doing is not good, but
Speaker 4: then it turns out it might just be a kink
Speaker 4: thing and she doesn't care.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So feel like it's important to say that Samuel
Speaker 1: is not like physically threatening in any way he has.
Speaker 1: He acts like a little boy in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: and like she when she goes to leave, she gets
Speaker 1: to the door and then turns around and runs back
Speaker 1: to him, like she clear I feel like the whole
Speaker 1: movie she's going back and forth between I want this,
Speaker 1: this is unacceptable, and she just kind of doesn't know
Speaker 1: what she wants. No, she doesn't, so unrelatable right, So.
Speaker 3: Eventually she starts doing what he tells her to do.
Speaker 3: She gets on all fours, She eats candy out of
Speaker 3: his hand, then spits it back out all for his instructions,
Speaker 3: and then he jerks her off and she has an orgasmic.
Speaker 4: Laptop style too, not that he knows the way that
Speaker 4: she works her off laptop style.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, And the like gutt roll that she
Speaker 3: lets out.
Speaker 4: I was like, you know what, she was robbed of
Speaker 4: an Oscar nomination.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I tell me about it. She was, and uh,
Speaker 3: I loved that my nipples, I already know that's where
Speaker 3: my nipples are going. Guttural orgasm sound.
Speaker 4: She had to dig deep to find that. I hope
Speaker 4: she did. I hope she did a lot of research
Speaker 4: at home for that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Wait, who's her husband in real life?
Speaker 4: Hebb and Fell.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hope. I hope he gives her orgasms like that.
Speaker 4: I mean that has to be the great part of
Speaker 4: of you know, being a famous actress is like coming
Speaker 4: home and being like, guess what you have to make
Speaker 4: me come so much? Or I'm going to do a
Speaker 4: bad job at work. It's R and D Gauntlet Throne.
Speaker 4: Figure it out.
Speaker 3: Okay, So then we cut to a montage of Romy
Speaker 3: and Samuel's torrid affair. Romy is also balancing her home life.
Speaker 3: She comes home one day and Samuel is there. He
Speaker 3: had brought her laptop from work because she forgot it. There,
Speaker 3: he's hanging out with her husband and two kids, and
Speaker 3: then when they're alone, Romy tells Samuel to never show
Speaker 3: up at her house again, and then she effectively ends
Speaker 3: their relationship. Reasonable, I think, yeah, quite scary. When he
Speaker 3: does that, he does not behave reasonably. He has a
Speaker 3: very angry outburst and he storms off. Then at work,
Speaker 3: he tells her that he doesn't feel comfortable working for
Speaker 3: her anymore and that he's going to request to be
Speaker 3: transferred to a different department. And she's like, you can't
Speaker 3: do that. They'll invest the gate why and I could
Speaker 3: get fired, But he doesn't.
Speaker 4: Care and he leaves again. Kind of fair reasonable, yeah,
Speaker 4: because every time I felt myself starting to be on
Speaker 4: Romy's side, I'm like, wait, a second, tremendous abuse of power?
Speaker 4: What am I? Yeah, it's like he's he's welcome to
Speaker 4: do whatever the fuck he wants, but then also scary
Speaker 4: of him to show up at her house. I don't know,
Speaker 4: we'll talk about it. I think they're both they're both
Speaker 4: maybe quite scary, well, but that doesn't make what she's
Speaker 4: doing appropriate whatever.
Speaker 3: Right, totally. At home, romy confesses to Jacob that she
Speaker 3: has never had an orgasm with him. He's like what,
Speaker 3: and then she leaves and goes to the bar where
Speaker 3: Samuel works to try to talk to him, but he
Speaker 3: refuses and basically has her kicked out. The next day,
Speaker 3: Jacob is like, did you mean that thing you said
Speaker 3: when you've never had an orgasm with me? And she's like,
Speaker 3: JK no, because she lies a lot.
Speaker 4: I was tired. I was tired. I mean that is
Speaker 4: that is hard to bounce back from.
Speaker 1: I mean, not to walk going back, yeah.
Speaker 4: Right, nineteen years no coming, it has to be said,
Speaker 4: but impossible to take back. I really, I mean, I
Speaker 4: do appreciate that this movie has some sort of just
Speaker 4: whatever a good marriage in some ways, but like, if
Speaker 4: you're sexually incompatible, that is going to inevitably come up
Speaker 4: at some point in your marriage, and that's like a
Speaker 4: reasonable request. I don't know, it's interesting, it's interesting totally.
Speaker 3: So then at work, Romi has another meeting with Samuel.
Speaker 3: They discuss like picking their relationship back up, but setting
Speaker 3: some ground rules, such as the rule is he tells
Speaker 3: her what to do and she does it consensually because
Speaker 3: they talk about consent and trust, and by the end
Speaker 3: of the meeting, she says, I'll do whatever you tell
Speaker 3: me to do, and he's like good and he leaves
Speaker 3: mid playing with her pussy because he started playing with
Speaker 3: her pussy during this conversation, and then he says good
Speaker 3: and then runs out, and we're like, we're like ah.
Speaker 3: Cut to a fancy hotel room. Samuel has Romy take
Speaker 3: her dress off. She's feeling insecure. He tells her she's beautiful,
Speaker 3: that she's his baby girl. That's the name of the movie.
Speaker 3: Cheering cue another horny montage. They kiss and fuck and stuff.
Speaker 3: He also has her lap milk out of a saucer.
Speaker 3: There also seems to be some you know, cuddling and
Speaker 3: aftercare and a lot of dancing, and and lots of dancing.
Speaker 4: Which is the most vulnerable thing they do with each other.
Speaker 4: In my opinion, it feels like, right, that would be
Speaker 4: the hardest thing for me to do, because I was like,
Speaker 4: I'm weird. Sorry anyways.
Speaker 3: They also establish a safe word, Jacob aka Romy's husband's name,
Speaker 3: which is.
Speaker 1: An unhinged choice for a safe word.
Speaker 4: I was like, she was nasty for that. She was
Speaker 4: nasty for that. Meanwhile, he's directedly had a gabbler minding
Speaker 4: his own business, like, come on, not nice.
Speaker 3: I also find it interesting that they don't establish a
Speaker 3: safe word until an hour and fifteen minutes into the movie.
Speaker 3: I'm like, shouldn't this have happened earlier?
Speaker 1: But it absolutely should have. But also like I feel
Speaker 1: like I have said this over and over again every
Speaker 1: time I'm talking to like a kinky person who didn't
Speaker 1: like this movie. But this movie is not an instruction manual.
Speaker 3: On how to do king right, which is what I
Speaker 3: didn't understand it first.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: When I saw this, I was like, oh, is this
Speaker 3: supposed to be like good representation of kink? And I
Speaker 3: realize now that like that's not necessarily true.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, I think that that's like a conversation that
Speaker 4: we should have in generally. Yeah, because it's just like
Speaker 4: this is a big third fourth wave feminist thing that
Speaker 4: we have to get through.
Speaker 1: We'll circle back, yesh, we'll circle back.
Speaker 3: Okay. So sometime later, Romy is throwing a party at
Speaker 3: her house and she has invited her assistant Esmey, who
Speaker 3: brings Samuel because surprise, Esmey and Samuel are dating diabolical.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was not expecting that one twist.
Speaker 3: Of the century.
Speaker 4: As May innocent girl boss, girl boss.
Speaker 3: Down, Yeah, and Romy says to Samuel, She's like, I
Speaker 3: don't want you seeing other women your mine. But before
Speaker 3: they can continue that discussion, es May walks in on
Speaker 3: them and they're like kind of mid embrace, if you
Speaker 3: can call it that.
Speaker 4: Yes, And of course this makes Samuel's peepe hard hearing
Speaker 4: that you know, he belongs to her, and I'm just
Speaker 4: like my poor girl boss catching astray. But as revenge,
Speaker 4: she will become presumably the most evil person in the world.
Speaker 4: So what can you do?
Speaker 3: Seems like she's really on that path.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Later at work, Romy pulls esmander office and Esmey thinks
Speaker 3: they're going to talk about her promotion, like her future
Speaker 3: at the company, but instead Romy asks esme about Samuel
Speaker 3: and tells her to be careful because she's in a
Speaker 3: position of power over him since he's an intern. And
Speaker 3: we're like, hello, like pot calling the kettle black much?
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, Caitlyn, that was feminism that you witnessed. That
Speaker 4: was think about it, really, think about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, sorry, sorry, I was villain behavior wild.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That night, Romy meets up with Samuel at a nightclub
Speaker 3: because he's like, I want to see you. And I
Speaker 3: know that I'm getting old because the scene at this nightclub,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, sensory overload.
Speaker 4: I was also very stressed out, so stressful. I think
Speaker 4: there is there is not an age where I would
Speaker 4: have been comfortable in that situation, but I celebrate that.
Speaker 4: I mean, they exist, so there for somebody, There there
Speaker 4: for people.
Speaker 1: I did shit like that in my early twenties and
Speaker 1: now I'm like, oh, my earplugs wouldn't be strong enough
Speaker 1: for the music in there. I'd have a migraine the
Speaker 1: next day. I'd have to stay up past my bedtime.
Speaker 4: I guess My thing is like it's very possible that maybe,
Speaker 4: like I mean, we don't we know very little about
Speaker 4: Romy's background. We know that she was like grew up
Speaker 4: in possibly some sort of like very restrictive religious cult
Speaker 4: like environment. Yeah, so I'm like, maybe these are experiences
Speaker 4: that she was deprived of when she was younger that
Speaker 4: she's like that she's wanting to experience. That's the only
Speaker 4: way I can get there, being like I can't, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm thirty one, and I wouldn't be caught dead, But
Speaker 4: what can you do? I don't know, different strokes, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, anyway, they're at this night club and they
Speaker 3: eventually go somewhere quiet and talk about Samuel and how
Speaker 3: he is with Romy versus how he is with Esme,
Speaker 3: and like the different versions of himself and his conduct.
Speaker 3: The next day, as May approaches Romy to be like,
Speaker 3: Number one, you keep blowing me off every time I
Speaker 3: try to talk about my promotion. Number two, I know
Speaker 3: what's going on between you and Samuel. Number three, I'm
Speaker 3: not blackmailing you, but you can never see Samuel again
Speaker 3: and bailing you.
Speaker 4: But if you don't promote me, your life is gonna
Speaker 4: blow up in ways you couldn't possibly imagine. And you're
Speaker 4: just like, oh, no, she's really built for the job.
Speaker 4: Like that I thought was a very sinister twist when
Speaker 4: you're just like, oh, osme is not for other women.
Speaker 4: She's she's sort of it like she thinks she is.
Speaker 4: I think she thinks she.
Speaker 3: Is right, because the other point she makes is number four,
Speaker 3: you're not an ally to other women, Romy, and you
Speaker 3: need to do more to lift up other women at
Speaker 3: the company, because that's as May's whole thing. She like
Speaker 3: wants to start this initiative that like helps women rise
Speaker 3: to the top.
Speaker 4: But this was also an issue I had with what
Speaker 4: was the Zoe Kravitz movie Don't blank Blank twice I
Speaker 4: was don't look up. I like they al blunt to
Speaker 4: get accept but yeah, that it's like more women should
Speaker 4: have access to the villain space. And you're like, I
Speaker 4: get like, no, have we not moved? Can we move past?
Speaker 4: More women should have access to the villain space? But
Speaker 4: you know, I think this movie is trying to say
Speaker 4: something about that.
Speaker 3: Though at least yeah, ish, okay. So then Romy tells
Speaker 3: her husband Jacob that she was with someone else, but
Speaker 3: she's lying a lot through this whole thing, saying that
Speaker 3: it was only one time. It's someone who Jacob doesn't know.
Speaker 3: Even though Jacob does know this person like he and
Speaker 3: Samuel of met a couple times. Romy says that it's
Speaker 3: someone who she doesn't really even know either, she doesn't
Speaker 3: know this person's name, but that she's always had these
Speaker 3: like you know, quote unquote dark thoughts and desires and
Speaker 3: like she has this fantasy in which, like, you know,
Speaker 3: things have to be at stake for her and all
Speaker 3: this stuff, and Jacob is furious that she jeopardized their
Speaker 3: family and their kids. Then I think this is where
Speaker 3: she goes to the like the big fancy house and
Speaker 3: the Hampton's or.
Speaker 1: Whatever, exiles herself to their mansion in the Hamptons.
Speaker 4: This and this is also Nicole Kidman cannon, except when
Speaker 4: she is you know, and I say this with love,
Speaker 4: and when she's playing poor to get an Oscar nomination,
Speaker 4: she doesn't do this, but your stock Nicole Kidman character
Speaker 4: always has a second house to retreat to, and usually
Speaker 4: a second wig kept at the second house.
Speaker 3: Of course, yeah, because the first wig gets wet in
Speaker 3: the swimming pool whenever Samuel pulls her into the pool.
Speaker 4: There's the pool wig in the shed, there's the transit
Speaker 4: wig on the on the private jet, and then there's
Speaker 4: the vacation wig in the Hamptons. So she's you know,
Speaker 4: she's exiled, but you know, she still has five thousand
Speaker 4: square feet. She's good.
Speaker 3: She's good because like Samuel has showed up at her
Speaker 3: her Hampton's house and he's just in her pool. So
Speaker 3: they're like, you know, lightly stalking each other throughout the movie,
Speaker 3: and she's like, you can't be here because Jacob might
Speaker 3: come in and that's exactly what happens. Jacob walks in
Speaker 3: on Samuel and Romy just when they're talking, but like.
Speaker 1: Maybe having the first honest conversation with each other they've
Speaker 1: had the whole.
Speaker 3: Movie, right, because they're talking about how they've like kind
Speaker 3: of played mind games with each other. Jacob comes in
Speaker 3: and sees this, and so he and Samuel have a
Speaker 3: little scuffle. Things calm down a bit. After a while
Speaker 3: they talk some. Jacob has a panic attack, which Samuel
Speaker 3: comforts him through, and it's very touchy and intimate and
Speaker 3: I'm like, you guys should kiss?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? Right, they don't like, can this please
Speaker 1: turn into But.
Speaker 4: Then you're like, yeah, I get that it's not the time,
Speaker 4: but how interesting would it be? But what if? Because
Speaker 4: at that moment, like Antonio Banderis is the wounded dog,
Speaker 4: like he's the baby girl. Karis Dickinson can't stop helping
Speaker 4: the baby girl. He was born to help the baby girl.
Speaker 3: Yes, but after this Samuel leaves for good because we
Speaker 3: cut to Romy's office as May has been promoted. Samuel
Speaker 3: has been transferred to Japan, another like higher up at
Speaker 3: the company. I think his name is Sebastian, Yes, he
Speaker 3: hints to Romy that he knows what was going on
Speaker 3: between her and Samuel and that he's like gonna hang
Speaker 3: that over her head, and then Romy says, don't ever
Speaker 3: talk like that to me again. If I want to
Speaker 3: be humiliated, I'll pay someone to do it. Now, get
Speaker 3: the fuck out of my office.
Speaker 4: God like whoo, which which is yea. But then at
Speaker 4: this at this point, for me, every empowerment moment very
Speaker 4: much ends in a question mark. She's like, woo, Like,
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously you're not rooting for a sabat, but
Speaker 4: you're also like impossible for me to root for Romey
Speaker 4: at this point. But i'd I don't object to her cubbing.
Speaker 4: It seems like that would have solved a lot of
Speaker 4: her problems. I don't know, I don't know, there's much
Speaker 4: to be said.
Speaker 3: Right, And then the movie ends with Romy and Jacob
Speaker 3: rekindling their relationship. They're trying a sex thing that she
Speaker 3: wants to try, which is basically the thing that Samuel
Speaker 3: did to her in the first hotel room, which is
Speaker 3: also similar to the way that she masturbates. So that's
Speaker 3: how the movie ends. So it opens and ends with
Speaker 3: you know, sexual contact between Romy and Jacob, that's the movie.
Speaker 3: Let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss.
Speaker 4: And we're back, and we're back where you begin. Emma,
Speaker 4: we're gonna let you take the reins here. We're giving you.
Speaker 4: Will you dom us you can and will you dm
Speaker 4: us with your knowledge because I'm really.
Speaker 1: More than a more of a sub, but I'll do
Speaker 1: my best.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, right, I'm the dam I'm I'm most comfortable
Speaker 4: as a sub, so I'm happy to take a back
Speaker 4: seat here.
Speaker 1: Caitlyn is daddy.
Speaker 4: Daddy girl, You're my baby.
Speaker 3: Girls.
Speaker 1: I guess, like the first thing that really stood out
Speaker 1: to me about this movie is the way that it
Speaker 1: focuses on her pleasure. I have never seen that in
Speaker 1: like a Hollywood mainstream movie. I never thought I would
Speaker 1: be sitting in a movie theater watching a high budget
Speaker 1: movie where there are sex scenes that only focus on
Speaker 1: the woman's face. Yeah, it's just about her pleasure. Like
Speaker 1: there's a scene where you see her like unbuckling Samuel's
Speaker 1: pants and it's implied that she's about to give him
Speaker 1: a blow job, and then it cuts away because it
Speaker 1: really just focuses on her pleasure and also just the
Speaker 1: fact that she's an older woman. Granted she has been
Speaker 1: she's had a lot of plastic surgery to make her
Speaker 1: look younger, which is confusing because I'm like, part of
Speaker 1: me wants to see a more typical, like fifty something
Speaker 1: year old woman, but also it fits her character so well.
Speaker 1: She's the kind of person that would have all of
Speaker 1: the plastic surgery that Nicole Kidman.
Speaker 4: Has had, and that it was acknowledged in text in
Speaker 4: a way that I see you're getting botox, yes, And honestly,
Speaker 4: I wish that was more fully explored. One of the
Speaker 4: dynamics that I do wish was more fully explored was
Speaker 4: the one between her and her teenage daughter, which comes
Speaker 4: up a few times throughout the movie, and you know,
Speaker 4: there might not have been space between It's already pretty
Speaker 4: long movie, but like, there is one moment where her
Speaker 4: witch daughter is it. I couldn't remember the names of
Speaker 4: the daughters.
Speaker 3: Isabelle is the one that she has a lot more
Speaker 3: interactions with.
Speaker 4: Yes, Isabelle who who they're they're like our bond is
Speaker 4: weird cheaters. But Isabelle early on when they're having Christmas
Speaker 4: pictures taken basically explicitly criticizes her mom for getting botox
Speaker 4: and shames her for it in a way that like,
Speaker 4: my mom never had botox, But I remember, you know,
Speaker 4: like as a teenage girl criticizing my mom's appearance in
Speaker 4: a way that must have been very painful for her,
Speaker 4: in a way that to me at the time, for
Speaker 4: whatever reason, felt empowering to me, you know, of like,
Speaker 4: and I think that that is a pretty common you know,
Speaker 4: not prescriptive, but like a common thing between mothers and daughters,
Speaker 4: is that criticism of each other's bodies throughout your life
Speaker 4: and seeing that presented, especially in a way that like
Speaker 4: if you know anything about I mean, you don't need
Speaker 4: to know about Nicole Kidman's career trajectory to understand that moment.
Speaker 4: But I did think it was impactful, like in the
Speaker 4: context of her career, because she has been you know,
Speaker 4: publicly scrutinized quite a bit for the plastic surgery she's gotten.
Speaker 4: I don't think she's really spoken on it extensively, not
Speaker 4: that she's she has to, you know, but I thought
Speaker 4: it was interesting that she, you know, chose this project
Speaker 4: where that interaction takes place where she is being you know,
Speaker 4: shamed by her own daughter for having this work done.
Speaker 4: But also it's clear that this is a part of
Speaker 4: the role that she feels like she needs to play
Speaker 4: in order to succeed, which you know, thankfully, Nicole Kidman
Speaker 4: is not Jeff Bezos, but she lives in a society
Speaker 4: and it fits the role. I totally agree. But I
Speaker 4: feel like that's part of the convenience of the class
Speaker 4: setting of this movie, which is like a part of
Speaker 4: the sort of myth miss I have. Anyways, anyways, sorry
Speaker 4: I interrupted you on a Okay, I started damming.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I'm getting back on my knees. We're all
Speaker 3: We're just we're switching. We're switches for switching on this episode.
Speaker 1: In the substance episode, y'all did the other day, I
Speaker 1: think Jamie said something about how an older woman's naked
Speaker 1: body is never shown unless it's a horror movie or
Speaker 1: unless it's supposed to be a scary moment, and I
Speaker 1: was like, not a baby girl.
Speaker 4: Yeah, true, we did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I love that you see. Yeah, Like the
Speaker 3: focus on a woman's pleasure, the on screen representation of
Speaker 3: a woman orgasming, of a woman masturbating like this has
Speaker 3: been historically so rare to see in mainstream media that's
Speaker 3: not like porn.
Speaker 4: Yeah, especially seeing like true true blue lapstop laptop style
Speaker 4: masturbation is like maybe I've seen it in a movie before,
Speaker 4: but if so, maybe once or twice like true lapstop
Speaker 4: style masturbation. It's a classic. Is a classic for a reason,
Speaker 4: and it's nice to see it in a movie. I
Speaker 4: don't think that a male director would have known be like,
Speaker 4: just do it laptop style, you know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, he doesn't know.
Speaker 1: It works a lot of the To go back to,
Speaker 1: like the criticisms from people in the king community, a
Speaker 1: lot of people have said, like, it would be better
Speaker 1: if consent was established earlier, it would be better if
Speaker 1: they communicated more clearly, or if like either of them
Speaker 1: knew what the fuck they were doing. And while like, yes,
Speaker 1: I agree with that, they're also essentially saying like this
Speaker 1: movie would be better if there was no conflict, and
Speaker 1: that's not how movie works, right, And again, it's not
Speaker 1: an instruction manual. It's a story about to fucked up
Speaker 1: people figuring their.
Speaker 3: Shit out right, So I've every time I watched this,
Speaker 3: I just can't help but become hyper focused on Samuel's behavior,
Speaker 3: and part of me was like, maybe this is just
Speaker 3: not me knowing enough about this dom sub dynamic, and like,
Speaker 3: particularly when it's like the dom is a man, the
Speaker 3: sub is a woman. I was like, maybe I'm just
Speaker 3: like misunderstanding. But what I do know is like there
Speaker 3: does need to be more open communication right off the bat.
Speaker 3: There does need to be very clear boundaries and safe
Speaker 3: words established, and obviously consent throughout the whole experience every
Speaker 3: time is vital, and we just don't see very much
Speaker 3: of that, at least not as much as I would
Speaker 3: have liked to see. And what we see instead, at
Speaker 3: least as far as I'm interpreting it, is Samuel exhibiting
Speaker 3: various signs of abusive behavior. He's often ignoring her boundaries.
Speaker 3: He often barrels past her saying no. There's like a
Speaker 3: whole list I wrote out of all the times where
Speaker 3: she tries to establish a boundary or she says no,
Speaker 3: or she says stop, or she says I can't do this,
Speaker 3: and he just like completely ignores it and barrels.
Speaker 4: Through it prior to their being rules established.
Speaker 3: Exactly like because that sets a really bad precedent that
Speaker 3: no means yes, And then if you just keep blowing
Speaker 3: past the no, you'll wear the person down until they
Speaker 3: do agree and consent, because that's what happens in a
Speaker 3: lot of these scenes where he barrels past her saying no.
Speaker 3: She eventually relents and then it does seem like she's
Speaker 3: consenting to what happens next. But like, that's not how
Speaker 3: this dynamic now should go. And so I mean, I
Speaker 3: think that is when I said earlier, like that this
Speaker 3: is not good representation of a dom sub dynamic. I
Speaker 3: think it's probably authentic in many cases. Again, like a
Speaker 3: lot of what I've experienced, what we see in this
Speaker 3: movie is emblematic of that, but it's not representative of
Speaker 3: a like healthy dynamic. But also like I wish, I
Speaker 3: just I guess I wish that the movie. To me,
Speaker 3: the movie didn't make it as clear as I would
Speaker 3: have wanted it to be that this is an unhealthy,
Speaker 3: toxic example of this dynamic. But curious to hear your
Speaker 3: thoughts on that, Emma.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, first of all, I get the impression that
Speaker 1: Samuel also came into that relationship with no background understanding
Speaker 1: of kink. It seemed like he he picked up on
Speaker 1: the fact that romy was into that and was sort
Speaker 1: of stepping into that role, right, a pleasure dom you
Speaker 1: might call it. So I think they're both figuring it out,
Speaker 1: which is not how you're supposed to do it, But
Speaker 1: I don't know. I also feel like Romy, I feel
Speaker 1: like they're both really toxic in the way they behave
Speaker 1: to each other because Romy is constantly.
Speaker 4: She is his boss's bezos, like.
Speaker 1: And first of all, like the power dynamic is so
Speaker 1: like carefully constructed in this movie because like she's as
Speaker 1: high above him at work as she could possibly be,
Speaker 1: but she's the sub and you know, he's a man,
Speaker 1: so he has that privilege over her. Like it's just
Speaker 1: all of these checks and balances that is really helpful, Whereas,
Speaker 1: like the relationship I was in that was fucked up
Speaker 1: with someone at work he was in addition to like
Speaker 1: being my superior, he was also the dominant one and
Speaker 1: that was terrible. There needs to be like some kind
Speaker 1: of balance there. But also don't fuck people at work
Speaker 1: who are above or below you is the main thing.
Speaker 4: Right, It's part of why this movie was so thorny
Speaker 4: for me, and I honestly don't feel like it's been
Speaker 4: out long enough for me to have my head fully
Speaker 4: around it, because I had to keep reminding me myself
Speaker 4: that while I do think that Samuel makes big mistakes
Speaker 4: and has internalized misogyny of his own to work through that,
Speaker 4: first off, ROMY not that this means she should be
Speaker 4: open to abuse of any kind. But I think if
Speaker 4: you gender swap this dynamic, it resolves itself pretty quickly,
Speaker 4: like if Jeff Bezos is being hit on by a
Speaker 4: young woman. In turn, I think that this conversation would
Speaker 4: be quite different, Yes, because Whataomi is doing from a
Speaker 4: power stance, you know, however, you feel about monogamy because
Speaker 4: that is like, you know, that's a personal journey, but
Speaker 4: professionally what she's doing is wrong and it is predatory
Speaker 4: on paper what she's doing by engaging with this, you know,
Speaker 4: and and that was I mean, I think it's like
Speaker 4: an interesting thing to bring up that the movie doesn't
Speaker 4: fully resolve. But that also brings me to I think, Ema,
Speaker 4: what you were sort of getting to, where it's like,
Speaker 4: what is the job of a movie and what is
Speaker 4: the intended audience?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: Because this is you know, if this movie was rated PG,
Speaker 4: I would be like this even if it was rated
Speaker 4: PG thirteen, honestly, because then an eighth grader can go
Speaker 4: see it, right, and not to say the eighth graders
Speaker 4: don't see R rated movies. I famously saw Lord of
Speaker 4: the Rings Part three in theaters when I should not have. Okay, brag,
Speaker 4: is that R rated? It weirdly was or maybe it
Speaker 4: was PG three.
Speaker 3: I think it was PG.
Speaker 4: I think it was. No, No, they're PG thirteen and
Speaker 4: I was eleven. Never mind. The point is theoretically adults
Speaker 4: should be saying this movie. That doesn't mean that they won't.
Speaker 4: But I'm just with a critical eye, right, and so
Speaker 4: I you know, and this is something that I have
Speaker 4: mixed feelings on how I've talked about this dynamic on
Speaker 4: the show in the past, and I feel like my
Speaker 4: feelings have sort of evolved with time, where it is
Speaker 4: not the job of the movie Baby Girl to teach
Speaker 4: me what BDSM is. It is the job of the
Speaker 4: movie Baby Girl to tell me the story of Baby Girl.
Speaker 4: Whether I like that story or not, it's totally up
Speaker 4: to me. And I do think that there has been enough,
Speaker 4: you know, not a ton, but there has been discussion
Speaker 4: of BDSM in the public consciousness enough that I feel like,
Speaker 4: as an adult, you know, I'm able to view this
Speaker 4: movie as a pretty vanilla person and decide what I
Speaker 4: want to take and what I don't you know, I
Speaker 4: I guess yeah, like I. The more time goes on,
Speaker 4: the more it's like, especially when it's a movie directed
Speaker 4: by a woman who is the age of the character,
Speaker 4: you know, navigating her own feelings around sexuality, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, anymore than it's Coraley Frsha's job to explain
Speaker 4: to me how an aging person's body is perceived by society,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know. I do think that their
Speaker 4: relationship is unquestionably messy, yes, but I almost view when
Speaker 4: we've talked about this in the past with fifty Shades
Speaker 4: of Gray, where fifty Shades of Gray does attempt to
Speaker 4: tell you this is how this works, and it tells
Speaker 4: you wrong, you know, just yeah, it's like this is
Speaker 4: BDSM one oh one, and it's like wrong, wrong, wrong, abuse, abuse, abuse,
Speaker 4: and something with Secretary Yeah, which I was gonna point out.
Speaker 4: There's a piece by friend of the cast, Jordane Searles,
Speaker 4: who loved this movie in the LA Review of Books
Speaker 4: that sort of contrasts these I have a quote from
Speaker 4: it to use later. But Secretary, we were not big
Speaker 4: fans of because it lays out BDSM just fundamentally incorrectly,
Speaker 4: Whereas I feel like what we're seeing here and Emma,
Speaker 4: let me know how you feel about this, because I
Speaker 4: don't know what I'm talking about fully, but just based
Speaker 4: on experience of viewing this and talking about it in
Speaker 4: the past, this movie is not telling you how BDSM works.
Speaker 4: It's showing you how these characters who are fundamentally uninformed
Speaker 4: are working it out in real time. And it's messy
Speaker 4: and it's not correct. And I do think that there
Speaker 4: are Caitlin speaking to your point, like there are abuse
Speaker 4: dynamics at present on not to be like Donald Trump
Speaker 4: on both sides, but on both sides there are I
Speaker 4: think abuse of dynamics present. It is deeply messy, which
Speaker 4: makes the conclusion feel a little weird to me, especially
Speaker 4: on Samuel's side, where he's like, you don't understand how
Speaker 4: sex works today, and here I go to Tokyo and
Speaker 4: you're like, well, that doesn't feel quite right. But I
Speaker 4: don't know. I felt like this movie at very least
Speaker 4: is not trying to tell you this is the right way,
Speaker 4: or even this is the way, because every other movie
Speaker 4: I think we've talked about that covers BDSM in gender
Speaker 4: has tried to give you a prescriptive version that was
Speaker 4: ultimately harmful. Yeah, I don't know. Also I didn't.
Speaker 1: I think this one is, as much as it's toxic,
Speaker 1: is more realistic than other depictions of it that I've seen,
Speaker 1: because most people aren't like, hmm, I'm curious about being dominated.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read up on it and then go
Speaker 1: to a dungeon where they teach classes on it, and
Speaker 1: then find a vetted dom.
Speaker 4: I feel like a lot of yah, I would do that, but.
Speaker 1: Okay, Ki, and there's nothing wrong with it. That's again,
Speaker 1: that's probably the healthiest way to do it. It would
Speaker 1: make a boring movie. Yes, Yes, I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of people, especially women, are ashamed of these desires.
Speaker 1: And I know it took me a while to come
Speaker 1: to terms with because I'm you know, I'm like an
Speaker 1: outspoken feminist and I'm a strong independent woman or whatever
Speaker 1: romy says she is, and it's weird to square that with.
Speaker 1: And I like being told what to do and I
Speaker 1: want to be bossed around and I want to be
Speaker 1: like not in control, when really it's just that I
Speaker 1: think the things that we're afraid of often turn into
Speaker 1: the things that turn us on. It's a subversion.
Speaker 3: I think it would not that would not necessarily make
Speaker 3: a boring movie. If it's someone who like wants to
Speaker 3: do things the healthiest and the most appropriate way. It's
Speaker 3: just that you'd have to find conflict elsewhere. The conflict
Speaker 3: couldn't come from.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dealing with a toxic, abusive partner. It would just
Speaker 3: have to be like whatever the person's own insecurities and
Speaker 3: coming out of their shell, and you know, any other
Speaker 3: number of things that could provide tension in the story.
Speaker 3: So I guess, I guess I would actually really be
Speaker 3: interested in a story.
Speaker 1: Like that in that movie.
Speaker 3: Because for this again, I just like I was. It
Speaker 3: was so hard for me to root for anyone y
Speaker 3: because I like to watch my movies where I could root
Speaker 3: for someone and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think this movie is fairly at
Speaker 4: least for me, it was impossible to root for any
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 1: Rooting for the dog.
Speaker 3: I was rooting for Isabelle the Daughter, and that was
Speaker 3: like low key it because it's hard to root for
Speaker 3: romy since she's like missus capitalism girl boss who's exploiting
Speaker 3: her power over her subordinate. It's hard to root for
Speaker 3: Samuel because again he's pushy and abusive. Like there are
Speaker 3: other examples of abuse that Samuel is doing besides the
Speaker 3: ones I mentioned earlier. You know, there's like him saying
Speaker 3: things like, well, you show up dressed like this and
Speaker 3: you expect me to not do anything, you know, the
Speaker 3: way that men have often claimed something like well, she
Speaker 3: shouldn't have been wearing that short skirt if she didn't
Speaker 3: want to be assaulted. Or when he has that like
Speaker 3: angry outburst in the car and he says like, you're
Speaker 3: making me feel this way. I'm screaming and having an
Speaker 3: am albers because you made me do that.
Speaker 1: But that's also in response to her not letting him
Speaker 1: get out of the car. He's trying to leave and
Speaker 1: she locks the door and he's like, let me out,
Speaker 1: and she says no several times. Totally fair, yeah, which
Speaker 1: I'm not saying either of those are the correct thing
Speaker 1: to do. I'm just like they're constantly bouncing off of
Speaker 1: each other in their in their toxicity.
Speaker 4: For sure, right, And I think that that speaks, I mean,
Speaker 4: to both of your points in a way. I feel
Speaker 4: like I'm like the ping pong net that. But but
Speaker 4: I see what you're both saying is the fact that
Speaker 4: for a lot of the scenes between them in the
Speaker 4: first half of the movie is I felt myself as
Speaker 4: if you were being like, are there rules in this?
Speaker 4: And I think that they don't know, and that is
Speaker 4: a very very risky, kind of scary space to be
Speaker 4: in in an intimate setting, especially with the power dynamic
Speaker 4: that they have, and the car I feel like is
Speaker 4: sort of like the most extreme of those scenes where
Speaker 4: they're doing this, and I was like, are you guys
Speaker 4: fucking with each other? I don't know, And if I
Speaker 4: don't know, probably you don't know, yeah, because it's not
Speaker 4: like this movie really revels in keeping things from the viewer,
Speaker 4: and so you know, it is extremely, extremely messy for
Speaker 4: the first half of the movie, and then once rules
Speaker 4: are established, things still spiral out of control, but they
Speaker 4: have an understanding, and so as if you were I
Speaker 4: weirdly could feel more relaxed in the back half of
Speaker 4: the movie because I'm like, whatever happens to these motherfuckers,
Speaker 4: they have an understanding, you know, But I don't. I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't know. I I guess I don't. I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't have experience in this world, but it seems
Speaker 4: like I mean, Emma, would you say that this is
Speaker 4: like a fairly realistic like navigation of this to people
Speaker 4: who are unfamiliar with I mean.
Speaker 1: It's not the way that it should be. And my
Speaker 1: perspective is skewed because I'm basically into the exact same
Speaker 1: shit that Romey is into, and I was also like
Speaker 1: ashamed of it for a while and like uncomfortable generally
Speaker 1: telling partners how to even get me off. And a
Speaker 1: big part of me like coming to terms with what
Speaker 1: I'm into was through a very toxic relationship at work.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so my perspective on this is going to
Speaker 1: be it feels very realistic to me, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But I yeah, I think a lot of people, I mean,
Speaker 1: just like with regular non kinky relationships, sometimes you have
Speaker 1: to learn, you know, sometimes you have to make mistakes
Speaker 1: totally to learn. And again, this is not the way
Speaker 1: it should be. This is not healthy, But I do
Speaker 1: think it's realistic.
Speaker 4: I just I mean, yeah, I guess it brings me
Speaker 4: to just like a general question that I'm like navigating
Speaker 4: that I think when we started the show versus now
Speaker 4: I have a different feeling on which is like, what
Speaker 4: is the role of a movie to help a viewer
Speaker 4: on this journey? And I think that a lot of
Speaker 4: people who I've you know, and I am truly not
Speaker 4: singingly anyone out, but just over the last decade that
Speaker 4: we've been doing this show, basically, there's been plenty of
Speaker 4: media critics that are, like, it's not the movie's jab
Speaker 4: to you know, justify doing something very harmful. But I
Speaker 4: don't think that that is an irrational line of thought,
Speaker 4: you know, And so it is just an absurdly gray area.
Speaker 4: And I think that I used to skew far more
Speaker 4: to like, if not portraying something completely in a black
Speaker 4: and white clear way could pose harm, then it's not
Speaker 4: worth making. I don't necessarily feel that way now, but
Speaker 4: I don't have a solution to it, and so it's
Speaker 4: quite messy.
Speaker 1: I don't either. Yeah, Like the classic example of that
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of is Fight Club, which was a critique
Speaker 1: of masculinity and then the boys really took it and
Speaker 1: ran with it, like.
Speaker 4: Written by a gay man, Yeah, yeah, and like it's
Speaker 4: just and what do you do with that? Yeah, it's
Speaker 4: really you know, if we had an answer, this show
Speaker 4: wouldn't exist, but.
Speaker 3: It still exists. We would just keep talking about Shrek every.
Speaker 4: Episode, so we just do that. We would just air
Speaker 4: this Shrek episode, would be the Shrektal cast, the cast
Speaker 4: I mean, and that is the show's truest forum. That
Speaker 4: is us at our peak. But but for this, like,
Speaker 4: these movies are very challenging in a way that I
Speaker 4: appreciate because there isn't an answer for that. And I
Speaker 4: also feel like it tends to be the movies that
Speaker 4: are made by women that bring these questions up the
Speaker 4: most saliently, where it's like, you know, who am I
Speaker 4: to fight with a director who is making this for
Speaker 4: her peers? You know, I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I'm interested to watch this movie down the line and
Speaker 4: see how my view of it changes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wanted to share some quotes from writer director
Speaker 3: Helena rain Is maybe how you say her last name?
Speaker 3: She is a Dutch director.
Speaker 4: Yes, and we both really loved Bodies, Bodies Bodies.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it.
Speaker 3: I need to rewatch that. I don't know if I
Speaker 3: would like it as much on the second viewing. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I just need to revisit it.
Speaker 4: Okay, misogynists, that's fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hate women.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I'm kidding. I endread it. I saw it in
Speaker 4: the movie theater on a day where it was one
Speaker 4: hundred and ten degrees outside.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: So maybe I just loved it because I was cool,
Speaker 4: not dying. Yeah, but I remember really liking it.
Speaker 3: Nice. So I watched a few interviews with Helena and
Speaker 3: I wanted to share some quotes. Some of them are
Speaker 3: kind of along, so bear with me. She did an
Speaker 3: interview on The Daily Show. I'll paraphrase part of what
Speaker 3: she said. She spoke to how this movie is like
Speaker 3: a letter to herself to encourage herself to become more
Speaker 3: unapologetically her authentic self without shame, because she had spoken
Speaker 3: about feeling shame over her various desires and fantasies and
Speaker 3: was trying to reconcile that partly with this movie. She
Speaker 3: also talks about how she wanted it to be funny,
Speaker 3: how it was marketed as an erotic thriller, but she
Speaker 3: classifies it more as a comedy of manners. She talks
Speaker 3: about how she loves the erotic thrillers of the nineties,
Speaker 3: such as Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Unfaithful, nine and a
Speaker 3: half weeks, but that they tend to punish the female lead,
Speaker 3: the fem fatal, etc. She didn't want to punish her characters.
Speaker 3: She was more interested in exploring their humanity. And I'm
Speaker 3: also like, well, does a billionaire have humanity? No? But yeah,
Speaker 3: She's like, you know, we all have a dark side,
Speaker 3: and if you suppress, you know, your deepest, darkest desires.
Speaker 3: Allah what romy is into the kinks that we see
Speaker 3: she's into in the movie. She kind of describes this
Speaker 3: movie almost as like a cautionary tale of like, this
Speaker 3: is what can happen if you don't more openly explore
Speaker 3: those things and you suppress them for so long. She
Speaker 3: also talked a lot about how a big priority of
Speaker 3: hers on set was making sure that her actors felt
Speaker 3: safe during any scenes, and particularly like the intimacy and
Speaker 3: sex scenes. She wanted them to feel safe both physically
Speaker 3: and emotionally. We talked about that on the Rylay episode,
Speaker 3: how that director was like.
Speaker 4: I do want to talk more about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'll keep going with these couple more quotes. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then we can kind of dive in. So now
Speaker 3: I'm quoting her. She says, quote I wanted to make
Speaker 3: a comedy of manners about power, consent, sexuality and femininity.
Speaker 3: Of course is my priority. I'm a woman, so I
Speaker 3: write from the female gaze. I do anything from the
Speaker 3: female gaze. But the movie is just as much about masculinity.
Speaker 3: It's not a classical story about a sub and a
Speaker 3: dom at all. They are both vulnerable. They're both interested
Speaker 3: in what is power, what is surrender, what is giving
Speaker 3: up control? What is taking control? They're both in crisis.
Speaker 3: She's in a full on midlife crisis where she sees
Speaker 3: the horizon is over there, what am I doing? Where
Speaker 3: am I going? And she thinks she can be this
Speaker 3: perfect creature. If she does enough ice baths and botox
Speaker 3: and therapy, she can become a perfect woman. And she
Speaker 3: has to accept through meeting Samuel, that she has to
Speaker 3: connect to her inner beast. But him as well. He's
Speaker 3: in a crisis in the sense that he's taking his
Speaker 3: first steps into the world as a man and he
Speaker 3: doesn't know how to behave He doesn't know how to
Speaker 3: be around power, or how to be around an older woman.
Speaker 3: And I wanted to show that vulnerability. And I think sexuality,
Speaker 3: to me, it can sometimes be very hot, of course,
Speaker 3: but it can be very vulnerable and weird and clunky
Speaker 3: and uncomfortable. And I wanted to show all of that
Speaker 3: because when you see that, you relate to it, and
Speaker 3: in the end, when it does work, then it becomes
Speaker 3: way more sexy than if you just show this perfect
Speaker 3: Hollywood fairy tale. I didn't want to do that. Unquote Okay,
Speaker 3: so flood.
Speaker 4: This is where I felt like the movie kind of
Speaker 4: pull her me and bid off more than it could chew.
Speaker 4: Where it is trying to tell a story about BDSM
Speaker 4: and those power dynamics and contrast it with real life
Speaker 4: class power dynamics. And that was where it fell flat
Speaker 4: for me in a big way, and it like almost
Speaker 4: undercut what I thought it did. Again, and this is
Speaker 4: coming from a place of relative in experience, but you know,
Speaker 4: I wish this movie was set in a different class.
Speaker 4: There are power dynamics within every class. I don't know
Speaker 4: why we needed to choose literally Amazon dot Com to
Speaker 4: set this, because that makes romy so fundamentally unlikable from
Speaker 4: moment one. I think that you could have I mean,
Speaker 4: and again, if that's her intent, that's her intent. This
Speaker 4: is just my opinion, but I think that this would
Speaker 4: have been a sort of like more little piece of
Speaker 4: gristle to chew on if it took place in like
Speaker 4: an independently owned, like a woman owned small business that
Speaker 4: it was big enough and was growing and had interns,
Speaker 4: and you know, it had sort of like an upstart
Speaker 4: woman in charge that was all of a sudden, you know,
Speaker 4: attracted to an intern. I almost think that that's more
Speaker 4: interesting because first of all, it's easier for audiences to
Speaker 4: connect with, and it's less fundamentally polarizing because no one
Speaker 4: is this movie is I feel like trying to get
Speaker 4: you to be like, what if Jeff Bezos was girl
Speaker 4: and just couldn't come? And that's another thing that I
Speaker 4: kind of resent about, And again, like, feel free to
Speaker 4: correct me. I think that this is something internalized I
Speaker 4: have as well. But I always get a little bit
Speaker 4: frustrated when it's even vaguely implied that the reason that
Speaker 4: a woman is abusing power is because she's sexually frustrated.
Speaker 4: I don't like that as a trope, and I think
Speaker 4: it is not often this, you know, told that that
Speaker 4: is because we are I think through this movie that
Speaker 4: a part of the reason she does what she does
Speaker 4: is she plays the role that is most advantageous for
Speaker 4: her to play, and that is because she lives in
Speaker 4: a society. But that includes faking orgasms and being Jeff
Speaker 4: Bezos and that sucks in some ways, but in other
Speaker 4: ways is quite evil and is killing us, and so
Speaker 4: it is hard for me to sympathize with her. Really
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, like it was hard
Speaker 4: for me to connect with her. But I just also
Speaker 4: I think that that has been subtly implied in rom
Speaker 4: comms throughout time. If like we're talking Sandra Bullock two weeks,
Speaker 4: notice she's quote unquote uptight. She just needs to be
Speaker 4: fucked right, and then she will no longer be Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 4: you know, Like and I felt like, again the because
Speaker 4: I am I don't feel qualified to speak on the
Speaker 4: kink issues. I do feel qualified to talk about the
Speaker 4: class issues, where I think that this movie chooses a
Speaker 4: very specific class and then under examines it to a
Speaker 4: pretty wild read. To me, esmey is the closest we
Speaker 4: get to any sort of examination of this. But I
Speaker 4: just felt like, you know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: and I do think this is really I don't even know.
Speaker 4: I'm curious what you both think where ultimately she is
Speaker 4: the CEO, she does not experience a consequence for doing this.
Speaker 4: That is very normal, right, But is it normal for
Speaker 4: her to get a Schwarzenegger style one liner over on
Speaker 4: a male coworker who is just below her level and
Speaker 4: be able to get away with it. I'm not even
Speaker 4: sure that that's true, you know, Like, I just I
Speaker 4: feel like at the end, it's like, oh, she got Sebastian,
Speaker 4: good because if she wants to be humiliated, she'll pay.
Speaker 4: I'm like, she's still Jeff Bezos, like yea for you know,
Speaker 4: her morally hasn't resolved. That's fine because, like we were
Speaker 4: talking about, is not the job of the movie Baby
Speaker 4: Girl to tell me that Amazon dot Com is bad.
Speaker 4: I just don't understand why it was set there, because
Speaker 4: it does feel like the end note of like and
Speaker 4: now she can come with her husband because she fucked
Speaker 4: her intern. I'm like, what are what's going on here?
Speaker 4: Like what is the class I don't I don't I understand.
Speaker 4: I just don't understand where it falls class wise, because
Speaker 4: I feel like it was trying to say something and
Speaker 4: where it fell was either inconclusive or too European for
Speaker 4: me to discern is where I fell.
Speaker 3: My guess is the idea was like, let's create this
Speaker 3: extreme contrast. Sure again, I'm speculating here, but I wonder
Speaker 3: if it was like, what would it look like if
Speaker 3: one of the most powerful women in the world is
Speaker 3: submissive sexually.
Speaker 4: Fine, like whatever you have to do to not be
Speaker 4: Jeff Bezos, do that, Like, just do that. I don't know,
Speaker 4: I don't care.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: I was reminded of your character Jamie from Boss Huma's
Speaker 3: Girl Shell Gasoline Sandwich actually when watching the scenes where
Speaker 3: she's doing her self care routine, because I'm like, what
Speaker 3: the fuck is this? She like goes into this weird
Speaker 3: ice chamber wearing nothing but like ear muffs and mittens
Speaker 3: and like a swimsuit, and then she's doing like oh
Speaker 3: that's how women's ice plunges and botox and then she's
Speaker 3: doing this. I was not familiar with what type of
Speaker 3: therapy this is where you're just like watching a bunch
Speaker 3: of quick flashes of images and then the therapist is like, dr,
Speaker 3: just make you feel what is it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, emdr, emdr.
Speaker 4: I need to research that I have done that. I
Speaker 4: haven't done it. That I haven't done it. With the screens.
Speaker 4: I've just had it with my therapist reading tweets back
Speaker 4: at me. But you know, I just.
Speaker 1: Like, while you stimulate one side of your body and
Speaker 1: then another because it does something to your brain.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I did CVS em DR mostly auditory anyway, that's
Speaker 4: so funny.
Speaker 3: You know, she's this, it's someone who, like I think,
Speaker 3: on the very very surface, people in general would be like, wow,
Speaker 3: this is a this is someone who we should celebrate
Speaker 3: because she's a strong and powerful woman who has succeeded
Speaker 3: in an area largely dominated by men. But we know
Speaker 3: that it's only because she's like trampled on women along
Speaker 3: the way while like again sucking on the dick of
Speaker 3: capitalism and AI, you know, all the stuff that's ruining
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: But that is a good criticism of twenty ten's feminism,
Speaker 4: I think is that, like so much of girl Boss feminism,
Speaker 4: you know, going back to whatever lean in was, what
Speaker 4: twenty eleven, twenty twelve, but that whole era of feminism
Speaker 4: was whatever is keeping you from your success is wrong
Speaker 4: with you, So step on any woman's head you need to,
Speaker 4: and then you'll be Jeff Bezos And that's feminism. And
Speaker 4: like that was the whole idea, and that is clearly
Speaker 4: where Romy is coming from. And that's also like Esme
Speaker 4: aspires to a version that which I found kind of
Speaker 4: like that was one of the more devastating and the
Speaker 4: movie intends that. I'm not saying, like how dare the movie,
Speaker 4: but like that was devastating to see that, Like as
Speaker 4: May of course she's successful, she's as conniving as Romy
Speaker 4: would be in that situation twenty years earlier. Is that
Speaker 4: you know, as Ma is a fan of feminism as
Speaker 4: far as it goes to giving women access to evil
Speaker 4: as well, right, Like.
Speaker 3: I love corporate feminism.
Speaker 4: Right, And that it's also acknowledged, I think, probably not
Speaker 4: as overtly as it should be, but that you know,
Speaker 4: Esbae is ignored not only because of her youth, but
Speaker 4: because of her race. She's put in this subservient role
Speaker 4: to Romy. She's the only black woman we get to
Speaker 4: know remotely well, and she is used by everyone around her. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And the reveal quote unquote with her is that she
Speaker 4: is well aware of this, and you know, she's like,
Speaker 4: I know that it is impossible to get the promotion
Speaker 4: that I know I deserve through you know, marriage, moral
Speaker 4: means yeah, because it's like she does deserve it, but
Speaker 4: who deserves to be Jeff Bezos, you know, like, so
Speaker 4: it is it introduces this really I think interesting question,
Speaker 4: but it just doesn't feel like I just wasn't happy
Speaker 4: with where the movie landed because it did. I don't know,
Speaker 4: did it feel like a happy ending for you both?
Speaker 4: Like I felt to me too happy of an ending
Speaker 4: for her, of like now she can come, I can't,
Speaker 4: and you're like.
Speaker 1: Okay, decide how I feel about that ending.
Speaker 4: I thought the I felt like the last I found
Speaker 4: the last fifteen minutes quite frustrating.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I don't think it like and it's a like
Speaker 1: necessarily a happy ending for her, although it is technically
Speaker 1: a happy ending because she's coming, but because she's she's
Speaker 1: like found a way to work some of her desires
Speaker 1: into her life, but it's largely by fantasizing while she's
Speaker 1: having sex with her husband. So she's like her desires
Speaker 1: aren't like a secret anymore, but she's not fully embracing them.
Speaker 1: She's just finding a way to make it work. And
Speaker 1: also by the implication that she might be like paying
Speaker 1: for sex.
Speaker 4: Mm, I mean I would rather that she do that
Speaker 4: than like fucking her own interns. Absolutely she has the money,
Speaker 4: Like I guess, yeah, I guess. I do appreciate that
Speaker 4: it wasn't like as explicit as and now because all
Speaker 4: of the events of the movie Baby Girl. Yeah, when
Speaker 4: Antonio Banderas fucks me, I just come normal, Like I
Speaker 4: appreciate that there is at least like there is always
Speaker 4: gonna be these layers of complication. But I don't know,
Speaker 4: I just I felt like the movie in general, because
Speaker 4: of the class setting, ultimately felt too kind of like
Speaker 4: myopically focused on Romi in a way that really and
Speaker 4: maybe this was the intention, but it really made me
Speaker 4: work as a VI You're to have to constantly pull
Speaker 4: out to be like, wait, why am I rooting for
Speaker 4: this woman's happiness?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Why am I rooting for this woman's happiness? Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't even know, like if I was rooting for
Speaker 1: anything in particular in this movie, I was just so
Speaker 1: taken by the way it shows.
Speaker 4: Power okay, yeah, and.
Speaker 1: The way that like that evolves throughout the movie. There
Speaker 1: are several scenes that like where a scene will happen
Speaker 1: in the first half and then a similar scene will
Speaker 1: happen in the second half, and the power's totally reversed,
Speaker 1: like like as May like meeting with Romy in the
Speaker 1: beginning and Romy has all of the power, and then
Speaker 1: at their meeting towards the end, as May has all
Speaker 1: of the power and is calling the shots, or the
Speaker 1: same with the meeting that Samuel and Romy have, or
Speaker 1: even in the sex montage towards the beginning, Samuel breaks
Speaker 1: a cup and has Romy clean it up, and towards
Speaker 1: the end, Romy drops a plate and Samuel cleans it up.
Speaker 1: I feel like they're just like toppling over what is power?
Speaker 1: Which is which? Is like a really interesting question within
Speaker 1: the BDSM context, because most people will say in a
Speaker 1: subdom relationship, the sub is the one who has.
Speaker 4: The power, right.
Speaker 3: I remember like learning this when we were researching for Yeah,
Speaker 3: the Fifty Shades of Gray episode. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: I'm surprised, but now it makes perfect sense to me.
Speaker 1: That was really cute. You had like a book report
Speaker 1: on kingk.
Speaker 3: Wow, humiliating for me our old episodes simpler times similar times.
Speaker 1: I also, I guess I want to say that I
Speaker 1: feel like there would be more context for a movie
Speaker 1: like this to not have a negative influence if there
Speaker 1: was more context for kink and media in general exactly,
Speaker 1: like if there was the movie where it's someone getting
Speaker 1: into kink and maybe like that isn't the focal point,
Speaker 1: That isn't the struggle, like if it was just a
Speaker 1: thing about someone instead of the central struggle of the movie.
Speaker 3: I'm going to write this, okay, please do yeah, my
Speaker 3: screenwriting degree that I would never talk about, and.
Speaker 4: Make it PG thirteen so that everyone has to see
Speaker 4: that movie. Like I mean, it would be hard to
Speaker 4: make it PG thirteen because you know, the ratings board
Speaker 4: is so Protestant. But I believe in you.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that like media literacy does set complicated
Speaker 4: movies like this backwards, and yet I still do feel
Speaker 4: like it's biting upward, that it can chew. Something I
Speaker 4: wanted to talk about, yeah, was something that because we
Speaker 4: recently or two weeks ago, we did our big Oscars show,
Speaker 4: and I wanted to talk briefly about intimacy coordinators because
Speaker 4: it was a big conversation around the Oscars this year,
Speaker 4: primarily because the sort of Oscar sweep movie of the year, Anora,
Speaker 4: did not use intimacy coordinators. It was a sort of
Speaker 4: big talking point of you know, just because intimacy coordinators are,
Speaker 4: at least in big budget productions, are relatively new normative thing.
Speaker 4: Anora was an independent production, they opted to not go
Speaker 4: with intimacy coordinators. You can read up on that. But
Speaker 4: I say that because in late December there was sort
Speaker 4: of uh, you know, sort of upright uprising. There wasn't
Speaker 4: an uprising, there was a social media don't want to
Speaker 4: start one. We have bigger fish to fry, honestly, Like,
Speaker 4: if you're doing an uprising over Theonora intimacy coordinator thing,
Speaker 4: redirect your energy. Truly, people are dying, Kim. But in
Speaker 4: any case, there was a conversation, a valid conversation around
Speaker 4: that where you know, both Sean Baker and Mikey Madison,
Speaker 4: who the starry director of Honora, said we opted to
Speaker 4: not go with intimacy coordinators. It got a fair amount
Speaker 4: of criticism. I don't want to comment on that. What
Speaker 4: I will say is that the crew of this movie,
Speaker 4: including I know I have to try to say her name,
Speaker 4: Helena Rashan, responded to this by saying that Baby Girl
Speaker 4: did use an indepacy coretor and got a lot out
Speaker 4: of it, and that's something that I really appreciated a god. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 4: because especially with and this speaks to your point, Emma,
Speaker 4: the amount of under education that exists in the general
Speaker 4: public and a media about kink. This is a great
Speaker 4: example of a movie that absolutely needs an intimacy coordinator.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah. So this is from a Deadline article from
Speaker 4: late December of last year called Baby Girl. Director praises
Speaker 4: intimacy coordinators for achieving quote more extreme sex scenes unquote.
Speaker 4: I just want to share a quote from the director
Speaker 4: from that. She says, I'm also against people who are
Speaker 4: saying no, my actors didn't want an intimacy coordinator. That
Speaker 4: makes no sense. It is also for your safety as
Speaker 4: a director and for everyone what if there is a misunderstanding.
Speaker 4: It's just amazing to have a person like that on set.
Speaker 4: And if you're creative and talented enough of a director,
Speaker 4: you can pull it off. Trust me, you just have
Speaker 4: to go a little through your own discomfort and then
Speaker 4: you will discover a whole new world of creativity and possibilities.
Speaker 4: I've only worked to work with an intimacy coordinator once,
Speaker 4: but I will say it makes a big difference. It
Speaker 4: is very uncomfortable pretending to fuck a stranger and having
Speaker 4: someone there who is your person. I know that. Like
Speaker 4: and again, I you know, whatever however an actor feels
Speaker 4: is however they feel. I don't want to say that
Speaker 4: anyone is wrong for feeling one way or another. But
Speaker 4: I appreciated that the cast and crew of Baby Girl
Speaker 4: very much came forward in favor of this being normalcy
Speaker 4: in the Hollywood production, because I think that the risk
Speaker 4: outweighs the benefit very much in that situation.
Speaker 1: And that kind of reminds me of just like having
Speaker 1: a conversation about a weird sex thing before you do it,
Speaker 1: Like people will be like, oh, it's just hotter if
Speaker 1: you just do it, and it's like, yes, sure maybe sometimes,
Speaker 1: but it's it can be as hot with a conversation before,
Speaker 1: and you have more potential to get more out of it,
Speaker 1: and in the grand scheme of things, it's a better
Speaker 1: practice for sure.
Speaker 4: So I do appreciate that ultimately, like knowing that the
Speaker 4: crew of this movie was very much considering the safety
Speaker 4: and comfort of their actors. That made me think higher
Speaker 4: of the movie in general, honestly, because if this movie
Speaker 4: had come out on the opposite side of that because
Speaker 4: without getting to it, but like, you know, knowing that
Speaker 4: intimacy coordinators they were like, no, thanks for Anora, Maybe
Speaker 4: think less of that movie. Yeah yeah, And knowing that
Speaker 4: there were intimacy coordinators here made me think more of
Speaker 4: this movie because I think that the clarification that I
Speaker 4: haven't really seen made in the public eye is like
Speaker 4: that an intimacy coordinator is not going to be like
Speaker 4: you can't do that, At least in my experience. They're
Speaker 4: just like, what are you comfortable doing? Where are your boundaries?
Speaker 4: And how can I help you perform around your boundaries.
Speaker 4: They're not there to tell you do not do this
Speaker 4: because it will look too horny on screen, or like
Speaker 4: they're not trying to make the scenes less hot. They're
Speaker 4: trying to manage your boundaries and your partner's boundaries while
Speaker 4: achieving the director's vision. And that is like a very
Speaker 4: important role because the director is doing fifteen different things.
Speaker 4: It is very easy to lose the actor's comfort if you,
Speaker 4: as an actor, are like, uh huh, I feel fine,
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, because you don't want to slow things
Speaker 4: down because there's twenty people to hate you and you
Speaker 4: want to put your bra back on you know, like,
Speaker 4: so it is a very I don't know. I think
Speaker 4: it's an important role to have available. If everyone chooses
Speaker 4: to forego it, that's another story again, like I don't
Speaker 4: I have We're not covering an aura. But I just
Speaker 4: am glad that the crew of this movie stood up
Speaker 4: for that role as normalcy on an erotic thriller set.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. The other thing that made me think higher of
Speaker 3: this movie is the final quote that I'll share from
Speaker 3: director Helena Ryan Range recission we're not just too sure
Speaker 3: about Dutch names, but it's hard. She did an interview
Speaker 3: with friend of the cast Manuel Bettencourt the Academy Conversations,
Speaker 3: and in this interview she says, quote, for me, making
Speaker 3: this movie is going into the areas of myself where
Speaker 3: I feel incredible shame because I'm like, I'm a strong woman.
Speaker 3: How is it then that I want a man to
Speaker 3: be dominating me or protecting me? And so I think
Speaker 3: it's very liberating to create stories about it. She goes
Speaker 3: on to say, as long as you do it in
Speaker 3: a safe space and you ask consent, there's nothing wrong
Speaker 3: with it, then you should celebrate your kink. But this,
Speaker 3: of course is happening because romy this being like the
Speaker 3: plot of the movie, this is of course happening because
Speaker 3: Romy doesn't allow that to be there, and that's why
Speaker 3: it comes out with a much younger man in a
Speaker 3: situation that is of course morally wrong unquote. So like
Speaker 3: again she's acknowledging, like, the events of this movie are
Speaker 3: not like, this is not what you should do. This
Speaker 3: is not like a guidebook. This is what it looks
Speaker 3: like when you are suppressing your desires and you're not
Speaker 3: letting yourself fully explore them, and you're just sort of
Speaker 3: like fumbling around with the first person who seems to
Speaker 3: notice that you have these desires, and they're both handling
Speaker 3: it poorly. So I'm glad that, like the director acknowledges
Speaker 3: that because again I went into this first screening of
Speaker 3: it being like, what was this takeaway here exactly like
Speaker 3: what I supposed to be rooting for these people? Was
Speaker 3: I supposed to be like a fan of their connection?
Speaker 3: Because I was not. But yeah, I'm glad that now
Speaker 3: that I have like a clearer understanding of the director
Speaker 3: and writers the writer director's vision, I'm like, Okay, then
Speaker 3: you've achieved what you were going for then, so you know,
Speaker 3: I this is what I really want is it's just
Speaker 3: like you were speaking to em. More movies that do
Speaker 3: show a healthy DOM sub BDSM dynamic in which the
Speaker 3: conflict is coming from elsewhere and not like toxicity that
Speaker 3: might be present in that dynamic.
Speaker 4: And preferably this is like, you know, the directors only
Speaker 4: have so much control over this, but like preferably directed
Speaker 4: to a younger audience, because there's only so much, you know,
Speaker 4: and a director who will only be granted and R
Speaker 4: rating can be held accountable for. It's hard because it's
Speaker 4: like you don't know until the movie's done, and then
Speaker 4: it's uh, you know, back and forth with studios and
Speaker 4: back and forth with with programmers being like, Okay, what
Speaker 4: needs to be taken out for this movie to be
Speaker 4: deemed quote unquote appropriate, which is always gonna you know,
Speaker 4: be attuned to what the sensibilities of the time are.
Speaker 4: And that makes me feel worried because the times are
Speaker 4: not good. I felt a great.
Speaker 1: I want to say that while I do think this
Speaker 1: can be an accurate depiction of how people discover or
Speaker 1: like explore their kinks on a one on one basis
Speaker 1: without knowing what they're doing, it is absolutely nothing like
Speaker 1: what the kink community looks like. Like at kink events,
Speaker 1: they are not this glamorous. They are so nerdy.
Speaker 4: They're not worrying beige and bad way.
Speaker 1: There's no beige. I've never seen beige at a kink
Speaker 1: party and it's not like you. I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of this movie is about the actual sense of
Speaker 1: danger and that's all manufactured at a BBSM party, and
Speaker 1: they are like great lengths gone to to make sure
Speaker 1: that everything is consensual. BDSM parties are really strict about
Speaker 1: alcohol and drugs. Usually, like the Dungeon here in Chicago
Speaker 1: has a bar where you can go get a diet
Speaker 1: coke because they don't want anyone being inebriated. They're usually
Speaker 1: dungeon monitors that are like checking up on things and
Speaker 1: making sure everyone seems into what they're doing. There's there
Speaker 1: will be like a safe word for the whole dungeon,
Speaker 1: so so everyone knows if something's going wrong.
Speaker 3: That's great. Yeah. I upon watching this movie and like
Speaker 3: you know, the sex parties I've been to, wo we woo,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, these these are not the same. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is not what this looks like. Yeah, was there
Speaker 3: anything else? Anyone wanted to talk about regarding a baby girl.
Speaker 1: Another thing that was a big takeaway from me the
Speaker 1: first time I saw it was when Samuel's like, I
Speaker 1: could make one call and it would be over for you.
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, That's not how it was for
Speaker 1: me when I was having a secret relationship with my manager.
Speaker 1: If I made one call, then it would everyone would
Speaker 1: assume I was lying and I would get fired. Wonder
Speaker 1: what the difference there is?
Speaker 3: Does it have anything to do with gender?
Speaker 4: Who could say, right, and the movie doesn't. That was
Speaker 4: something that I was like, I feel like the movie
Speaker 4: should have maybe because if you gender swap, and again
Speaker 4: it's like, we're over gender swapping, but this movie is
Speaker 4: gender swapping stuff we've seen in movies before. Yeah, it
Speaker 4: does feel worth acknowledging that in saying this with like,
Speaker 4: you know, girl, Jeff Bezos, whatever, shell Gaslen Sandwich style.
Speaker 4: If you haven't seen it, maybe we'll link to it
Speaker 4: in this episode on YouTube, you know. But like, just
Speaker 4: because evil is being done by a woman does not
Speaker 4: make the consequences of it less severe. It does, however,
Speaker 4: make the tightrope of consequence for the person doing it
Speaker 4: more precarious. Again, I'm not quite sure why the director
Speaker 4: chose this tightrope to examine, but because she did choose
Speaker 4: it to examine, it felt a little bit under explored,
Speaker 4: because you're totally right, Emma, where it's like, if we
Speaker 4: did gender swap this and it is a young woman
Speaker 4: saying Jeff Bezos and I are in a BDSM relationship,
Speaker 4: it does feel like it's it wouldn't go well for her,
Speaker 4: far easier to ignore, and that's not to say and
Speaker 4: we never get to the point where we even ask
Speaker 4: what would happen if this happened, because this movie doesn't
Speaker 4: even go there because it is made. And that's a
Speaker 4: little bit of the problem I had with the Samuel
Speaker 4: character in general, where we know so little about him
Speaker 4: that he's a bit of a cipher, which in the
Speaker 4: sex sense is useful.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a manic pixie dream boy.
Speaker 4: He kind of is, right. Okay, Okay, I'm glad you
Speaker 4: said that, because I didn't write that down, but that
Speaker 4: does sort of feel like what he is. Because we
Speaker 4: know the bare minimum about Romy's background, but we do
Speaker 4: know a lot about her home life. Samuel, well, we
Speaker 4: know really nothing. We know that he gave a dog
Speaker 4: a cookie and that's all we know. Like and other
Speaker 4: than that, he is kind of a manic pixie dream
Speaker 4: boy where you know, if you buschemi test this thing,
Speaker 4: it doesn't work at all. But it takes a fair
Speaker 4: amount of like vibing and movie magic to make this
Speaker 4: relationship even happen in the first place. And then he
Speaker 4: sort of just literally walks into the mist and goes
Speaker 4: away and goes to Tokyo, and we don't really know how
Speaker 4: this relationship has affected him. The line from him that
Speaker 4: affects to me the most that again I felt like,
Speaker 4: didn't really go examined in the way that the movie
Speaker 4: plays out, is that he's talking about how his relationship
Speaker 4: with romy is different from the way that his relationship
Speaker 4: with Esme is. I liked that exchange a lot, but
Speaker 4: it never comes back where he just is like, basically,
Speaker 4: he basically says the side of myself that I am
Speaker 4: with Esme is different than the side of myself I
Speaker 4: am with you, But he doesn't say that neither of
Speaker 4: those sides are invalid or not authentic. Yeah, he's just like,
Speaker 4: you know, with you, I can explore a different part
Speaker 4: of myself than I can with her, But it doesn't
Speaker 4: you know. I was very prepared for him to say
Speaker 4: I'm faking it with her. It's totally insincere, but he
Speaker 4: doesn't say that he you know, and I thought that
Speaker 4: that was like a very interesting sort of thing to
Speaker 4: be dangled that isn't really explored because as May drops
Speaker 4: him to be Missus girl boss, right, so it's like
Speaker 4: that sort of goes away. I just I do wish
Speaker 4: that this story was a little bit I mean, it
Speaker 4: lets go of because I think that this movie, the
Speaker 4: way that it was celebrated was like it's it's women's pleasure,
Speaker 4: but it's like of Missus, Jeff Bezos, can't we do better?
Speaker 4: Can't we do better? Because it feels like the consequence
Speaker 4: of that is that the younger characters go unexamined, and
Speaker 4: that also, I mean, we haven't really talked about Jacob
Speaker 4: very much, where Jacob is a whole other animal. Where
Speaker 4: I thought Antonio Banderas gave kind of like a great
Speaker 4: understated or as I call it, Dakota Johnson's stepfather.
Speaker 3: Well as I call him puts in Boots the live action.
Speaker 4: Version The Man, But I thought he'd gave a great
Speaker 4: understated performance in this where he's and also his casting
Speaker 4: is like Nicole Kidman's it's so deliberate, where it's like
Speaker 4: you're culturally led to believe who would cheat on this man?
Speaker 4: But his performance bears that out where he is a
Speaker 4: emotionally present husband, which is again a gender swap of
Speaker 4: what we normally see in this situation. He is emotionally present,
Speaker 4: she is not.
Speaker 3: She's always on her phone.
Speaker 4: Right, which is trophy, Right, that is trophy. But I
Speaker 4: do think like saying an emotionally present husband and father
Speaker 4: versus not is somewhat unusual. But then seeing like you know,
Speaker 4: even that is not necessarily enough to sustain a marriage,
Speaker 4: I think that that is like a point to be made,
Speaker 4: and also that his frustration and his hurt is totally
Speaker 4: valid as well to be because she fucks him over
Speaker 4: big time. Because in his mind, and I can imagine
Speaker 4: being in his position, he's like, what the fuck have
Speaker 4: I done wrong? All I did was direct, had a gabbler,
Speaker 4: and love our daughters. And it's like the things he's
Speaker 4: done wrong, he has not been culturally conditioned to examine.
Speaker 4: He has not been culturally conditioned to consider what his
Speaker 4: wife's pleasure should look like. You know, and like that
Speaker 4: is a very unique thing that I think a lot
Speaker 4: of men, and I'm sure of Antonio Banderaz's generation particularly,
Speaker 4: haven't been thought to consider. And women of Nicole Kidney's generation,
Speaker 4: who are you know, Basically our moms were not taught
Speaker 4: to ask for right. So I do think it's like
Speaker 4: a useful example. But I just felt like the way
Speaker 4: that Jacob's character was presented kind of petered out at
Speaker 4: the end where it was sort of presented like Jacob
Speaker 4: is the past, Samuel is the future, and then Samuel
Speaker 4: just turns into mist and goes to your pin and
Speaker 4: You're like, well, I don't know, you know, there was
Speaker 4: a little bit of gray area there, but I guess,
Speaker 4: you know, we just gotta make her come and roll
Speaker 4: the credits.
Speaker 1: I am so glad though that they specify what like
Speaker 1: that Samuel didn't get fired. He wasn't like right, he
Speaker 1: didn't take any like real professional harm from his affair
Speaker 1: with the CEO, Like she transferred him to do a
Speaker 1: really good job in Tokyo, So he was still on
Speaker 1: his career path, if not a little bit more advanced,
Speaker 1: but also very.
Speaker 4: Far away so far, which would that have happened if
Speaker 4: the gender was reversed that we know no, and also,
Speaker 4: I mean, unfortunately, would Esme's career have advanced if she
Speaker 4: hadn't made the move that she made. I don't think likely.
Speaker 4: I don't think so because the movie literally tells you
Speaker 4: that wouldn't happen, because the way that Romy is a
Speaker 4: hashtag feminist girl boss is inherently passive, and the movie
Speaker 4: goes out of its way to tell you that because
Speaker 4: she has to be put into personal peril before she
Speaker 4: will talk to or seriously consider Esme's needs or her
Speaker 4: own daughter's needs, where it's not until she sees her
Speaker 4: daughter mirroring her own behavior to some extent that she
Speaker 4: even considers it valid like we're not she's not a
Speaker 4: great mom. Like, but I also appreciated seeing not a
Speaker 4: great mom being approached by her teenage daughter and being like,
Speaker 4: you're not doing great, but we could really use you back.
Speaker 4: I'm like visibility, we really we love that. We love
Speaker 4: that you weren't doing a great job, but you're better
Speaker 4: than nothing. Get home, you know, I get it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it just comes down to this movie presents
Speaker 3: a lot of complicated things, and I wish would have
Speaker 3: examined many of them more closely, or may maybe like
Speaker 3: a clear stance on them. But there's also lots of
Speaker 3: upsides to what we see in the movie, especially as
Speaker 3: far as like representation of a woman's pleasure and orgasm
Speaker 3: and sexuality in general. I think it was interesting to
Speaker 3: see that of this couple between romy and Jacob, that
Speaker 3: the woman is the more sexually adventurous one and the
Speaker 3: man not so much. And it's it seems like the
Speaker 3: movie to some degree implies that that's why she like strays,
Speaker 3: because she's like looking to find someone who will help
Speaker 3: her bust a nut and her husband can't do that
Speaker 3: for her.
Speaker 4: What I what I wish was more emphasize is that
Speaker 4: it shouldn't be and this is a symptom of capitalism.
Speaker 4: It shouldn't be a symptom of if Nicole Kidman doesn't
Speaker 4: bust a nut, people will die, which is the concept.
Speaker 4: These are the existential sequences presented by this movie that
Speaker 4: the movie does not quite want to interact with.
Speaker 3: Right And you're also just reminded like, okay, well, if
Speaker 3: you want to bust a nut and you're already married
Speaker 3: in a monogamous relationship, then you know, try to use
Speaker 3: your words a little bit better.
Speaker 4: But I mean that that is like easier said than dine.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, we know our moms. It's easier said
Speaker 4: than done. It's a motherfucker.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 4: I don't mean to like talk her character down too much.
Speaker 4: I just well, yeah, I guess to round up how
Speaker 4: I feel about this movie, I think it is an
Speaker 4: interesting step forward in this genre of movie, and I
Speaker 4: just sort of wish it had chosen a less challenging
Speaker 4: extreme class dynamic to examine. And it's it's doing. It
Speaker 4: passes the Bechtel test for what it's worth. It does
Speaker 4: indeed a lot, Yeah, a whole lot. But what does
Speaker 4: that mean? Does anyone else have closing comments before we
Speaker 4: head into our ratings.
Speaker 1: I thought that the wardrobe designer did a really incredible
Speaker 1: job with this, just like the way that Samuel's suit
Speaker 1: never fits him right is so on point for his character.
Speaker 1: And then also for most of the movie, especially for
Speaker 1: the first half, Romy is wearing a top or a
Speaker 1: dress that looks like it's choking her to death. She's
Speaker 1: like always wearing something that ties at the neck. And
Speaker 1: then as she gets more into her sexuality, you see
Speaker 1: her like at the scene with her and Samuel at
Speaker 1: the hotel, she's wearing a strapless dress. At the rave scene,
Speaker 1: she goes in wearing a top that's like tied at
Speaker 1: the top and he helps her untie it and take
Speaker 1: it off.
Speaker 4: Right. Oh yeah, we'll spot it.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 4: I was just like, wow, it's hard for me to
Speaker 4: get past, like Nicole Kippen looks awesome. Yeah, you're so right,
Speaker 4: You're so right.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we should maybe wrap up because I could
Speaker 1: talk about this movie for three more hours.
Speaker 3: So I know, I feel like, I mean, there's it's
Speaker 3: so it's such a rich text. There's so much to examine.
Speaker 3: I feel like we haven't even scratched the surface.
Speaker 4: Truly, but we've we've almost gone the length of the text.
Speaker 4: So that is our natural conclusion classic us.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I guess that brings us to our nipple scale,
Speaker 3: where we rate the movie based on examining it through
Speaker 3: an intersectional feminist lens. Ooh, this one is a tricky
Speaker 3: one and this movie really challenged me. You know, there's
Speaker 3: things I really like about what we see on screen,
Speaker 3: especially as far as, like again, representation of a woman's pleasure.
Speaker 3: But it's like, to your point, Jamie. Why is it
Speaker 3: missus Amazon dot Com? Because that's an impossible character to
Speaker 3: root for. I really struggled with that. There's just there's
Speaker 3: lots of stuff that kind of rubbed me the wrong way.
Speaker 3: But again, now that I know more about where the
Speaker 3: director was coming from, I appreciate it more. But I
Speaker 3: feel like I'm still only gonna give it three nibles.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I'll stick with three. One goes to
Speaker 3: the glass of milk, one goes to the necktie that
Speaker 3: Romy performs oral sex on, and my final nibowl goes
Speaker 3: to her again guttural orgasm sound.
Speaker 4: Amazing, wow, really good, really good, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: I'm bravely going to forego nipples on this because I
Speaker 4: just don't feel well informed enough to give my full
Speaker 4: nipple reading here. I will say this, this movie challenged
Speaker 4: me to the extent that I don't feel comfortable giving nipples.
Speaker 4: My main criticism of this movie is that it chose
Speaker 4: intentionally to choose the highest possible steaks for this situation,
Speaker 4: which made it harder for me to engage with it,
Speaker 4: and also weirdly more like fan fiction y of like
Speaker 4: what if Jeff Bezos fucked you? Like it really does
Speaker 4: feel kind of like more fan fiction y. I wish
Speaker 4: this took place in a more grounded environment. I don't
Speaker 4: think that you would have lost the steaks, and I
Speaker 4: think you actually would have gained a lot of ability
Speaker 4: to engage with the story that I didn't feel the
Speaker 4: ability to engage with because you're like, well, I would
Speaker 4: never do it, missus Jeff Bezos does. But if you
Speaker 4: put it in the you know, like stakes of your
Speaker 4: mom's most successful friend, maybe you could put yourself in
Speaker 4: that situation. I just I don't know. I mean, I
Speaker 4: would be curious what the director's motivation was to it
Speaker 4: just felt like it was trying to do a little
Speaker 4: bit too much.
Speaker 3: For me.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna forego my nipples at this point. I also
Speaker 4: I'm gonna for the things that we didn't have time
Speaker 4: to talk about. I just wanted to link to sort
Speaker 4: of differing opinions that I both value very much from
Speaker 4: past guests of this show. Angelica Jade Bastien wrote a
Speaker 4: great piece about this in Vulture, and Jordaanine Seerles wrote
Speaker 4: a great piece about this in the La Review of Books.
Speaker 4: So I will defer to you to them Jordaane was
Speaker 4: a big fan Angelica Lesso, and I feel like I
Speaker 4: just need a little more time with this one. I
Speaker 4: don't know. If I had nipples to give, I would
Speaker 4: give them all to the pool that steams in January's
Speaker 4: pretty greatfool. The pool of infidelity, Yes, right, the cheating
Speaker 4: on your spouse pool. I love that.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, how about you? Right?
Speaker 1: This one is so hard because I feel like all
Speaker 1: of the positive things about it are so positive to me,
Speaker 1: and then all of the negative things are so negative.
Speaker 1: It's just really extremes.
Speaker 3: And that's when we do a two point five nipple,
Speaker 3: we just split down the middle.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it a three point five, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to give all of those nipples, not specifically to
Speaker 1: the scene where Harris Dickinson is dancing with his shirt
Speaker 1: off and his fuck boy tattoos, but to the directorial
Speaker 1: choice to have that scene happen to the George Michael
Speaker 1: song father figure. That was a choice.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, yes she was. They're like, okay, she is, Daddy.
Speaker 4: Now You're like, okay, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 4: Maybe daddy. Wow.
Speaker 1: Also, those are all his real tattoos.
Speaker 3: Oh, I was wondering I meant to look that up.
Speaker 3: I was like, I wonder if there's like shirtless photos
Speaker 3: of him.
Speaker 1: I came out of the first of you and being like, man,
Speaker 1: they did such a good job with the fake tattoos.
Speaker 1: They're such fuck boy tattoos and they're all real.
Speaker 4: That makes be so good for you, Harris. Good for
Speaker 4: you for living your truth. You've lived a real human life.
Speaker 4: If you have tattoos that embarrassing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: The final thing I'll say is that if this movie exists, Emma,
Speaker 3: if you know, let me know, or if listeners know.
Speaker 3: But I want to watch a movie about like a femdom,
Speaker 3: like the woman being the dominant person in that dynamic
Speaker 3: with a submissive man, because I mean, we've talked exclusively
Speaker 3: about hetero couplings on this episode. I mean there is
Speaker 3: the Isabelle character, who, you know, the teen daughter who
Speaker 3: dates other teen girls. But in the context of like
Speaker 3: the dom sub dynamics that we've discussed on this episode,
Speaker 3: it's all been hetero things. But I'd also like to
Speaker 3: see a movie about a dom sub dynamic present within
Speaker 3: a queer relationship because when a mainstream movie comes out
Speaker 3: that is about BDSM I feel like it's always the dom.
Speaker 3: It's a sishead man, the sub is a sishead woman,
Speaker 3: and that's just the pattern we see over and over.
Speaker 4: We should just do it a month on the Bexel
Speaker 4: cast of like s tier narrative porn. Honestly, like we've
Speaker 4: been on the air long enough, we should it's time I.
Speaker 3: Own on DVD brag the porn movie Pirates, which is
Speaker 3: a porn parody of Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh and
Speaker 3: there's okay, yeah, I have it and we can watch it.
Speaker 3: There's also a sequel which I've seen. And then for
Speaker 3: a time both movies, both porn films, were on Netflix,
Speaker 3: but the sex scenes were cut out, so it was
Speaker 3: just the like Pirate story rocks.
Speaker 4: That's like kill Bill on TNT.
Speaker 3: That is amazing, Yeah, because like there's story, there's like
Speaker 3: a whole plot, sure, and then like they take a
Speaker 3: you know, a little like narrative break from the plot
Speaker 3: to have a sex scene and then they just go
Speaker 3: back into the plot. So like it kind of works
Speaker 3: without the sex scenes. It's also like one of the
Speaker 3: highest budget porns ever made.
Speaker 4: Like okay, well, yeah, I'll come over to watch the DVD.
Speaker 4: I'm not interested in the non sex version. We're gonna
Speaker 4: well cool, Emma, Thank you so much for on that note.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for
Speaker 4: bringing us this very complet I wish we had like
Speaker 4: three more hours to talk about it. I feel like
Speaker 4: I could talk about it all day. Thank you so
Speaker 4: much for coming, coming on and coming to talk about this.
Speaker 4: Tell us more about where we can find you online.
Speaker 1: You can find my website at Emmaalimo dot com. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Instagram at Emma underscore Alamo. I
Speaker 1: am frequently very shadow band, so you might have to
Speaker 1: type in the whole name for me to pop up.
Speaker 3: While worth it and listeners, check out Emma's online store
Speaker 3: and buy some dang.
Speaker 1: Harnesses, buy some dang sex harnesses.
Speaker 4: Look, I'm mine's give it a whirl. I can recommend
Speaker 4: and I'm so boring and it'll make your life interesting.
Speaker 3: Vanilla does not equal boring. This is a crusade that
Speaker 3: I've been on for years.
Speaker 1: Truly, I'm on that crusade too, Like vanilla is delicious
Speaker 1: and a.
Speaker 4: Lot of the best classic for reasons, and also.
Speaker 1: A lot of the best ice creams have an element
Speaker 1: of vanilla. In them. It'll be like vanilla ice cream
Speaker 1: with cookie dough. Like vanilla is not bad. Vanilla is
Speaker 1: just one of many options.
Speaker 4: It's a great thing to add other things to Bye
Speaker 4: M's version. Dice you can find You can find us
Speaker 4: online all over the place. You can join our patreon
Speaker 4: ak Matreon for five dollars a month, where every month
Speaker 4: we do two bonus episodes just Caitlin and myself on
Speaker 4: a ridiculous theme that you often choose. We just covered
Speaker 4: roadent Tober for March, which was Ratitude and the Great
Speaker 4: Moss Detective. A lot of important feminist discussion going on
Speaker 4: over there.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yes, thank you for listening. Emma, come back anytime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll come back to do that pirate porn with
Speaker 1: Y'allieve I would I would love to cover some sort
Speaker 1: of classic porn movies on this show.
Speaker 3: W does Dallas deep Throat exactly, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm here for it.
Speaker 3: Okay, bye bye, right bye. The Bechdel Cast is a
Speaker 3: production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus,
Speaker 3: produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Moe labord Our. Theme
Speaker 3: song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskresenski.
Speaker 3: Our logo in merch is designed by Jamie Loftus and
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Speaker 3: the podcast, please visit Linktree slash Bechtelcast