Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy. Zephyn bast
Speaker 1: start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Bad Bechdel Cast. I'm bad, Caitlin.
Speaker 1: And I'm bad Jamie. And this is our podcast. That's
Speaker 1: not I was. This is our bad podcast. This is
Speaker 1: this is our good podcast about bad movies about bad
Speaker 1: well you know, not every week, but.
Speaker 2: Uh, but a lot of theme.
Speaker 1: So this is our podcast where we take a look
Speaker 1: at your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens, using
Speaker 1: the Bechdel test as a jumping off point for a discussion.
Speaker 1: Which is going to be hilarious this week because I
Speaker 1: think the main interaction between women in this movie is
Speaker 1: lorlike Gilmore stealing Grandma's socks. I think that that is
Speaker 1: that is about the beginning, middle, and end, but we'll
Speaker 1: talk about it. It is the Bad Santa episode. I think,
Speaker 1: continuing the trend on the show recently of now that
Speaker 1: we've been around for almost ten years, like movies that
Speaker 1: you would think we would have covered by now, but
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, it never quite wins in a poll.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, we are covering Bad Santa. But first, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: what the hell is the Bechdel Test? So we can
Speaker 1: be certain this movie doesn't pass it, which it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't, certainly. It is a media metric created by our
Speaker 2: very best friend in the whole wide world, Alison Bechdel.
Speaker 2: We've met her twice. Yeah, different versions of the test.
Speaker 2: The one that we use is this, do two characters
Speaker 2: of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to
Speaker 2: each other? And is the conversation about something other than
Speaker 2: a man? And then we also like it when it's
Speaker 2: a narratively meaningful conversation and not just throw away dialogue.
Speaker 1: Which I don't even think. The saw the SoC thing
Speaker 1: is kind of just a side gag that doesn't really
Speaker 1: serve a narrative purpose, does it? I would say no,
Speaker 1: A lot of things in this movie don't serve a
Speaker 1: narrative purpose. It's very a vibes it's a vibes based film.
Speaker 1: But we so to bring on Bad Santa. We have
Speaker 1: an incredible guest who is an expert in this field,
Speaker 1: not in being Bad Santa, but in holiday movies specifically,
Speaker 1: so let's get him in here.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. He's a film critic, podcast host, and author of
Speaker 2: the book Have Yourself a Movie, Little Christmas. It's Alonso
Speaker 2: de Aldi.
Speaker 3: Hello, welcome, Thank you for having me. I once did
Speaker 3: a Comic Con panel with Alison Bechdel.
Speaker 2: Actually, oh, oh gosh, so she's your best friend too, that's
Speaker 2: how that works.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, you've spent probably a comparable amount of time
Speaker 1: the exactly we love her here obviously. Yes, I I'm
Speaker 1: so curious to hear about the book and updating the book.
Speaker 1: But to ask you a question I'm sure everyone does
Speaker 1: all the time. What is your favorite holiday movie? Oh?
Speaker 3: Man, it's hard for me to pick one. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think it's sort of inescapably. You know, It's a
Speaker 3: Wonderful Life is a movie that has become kind of
Speaker 3: a cornerstone of American cinema in general. That is also,
Speaker 3: you know, a Christmas movie. But so much of it
Speaker 3: depends on kind of what mood I'm in, Like if
Speaker 3: you look at the book, you know, I've got chapters
Speaker 3: about tearjerkers and about you know, horror movies and action films,
Speaker 3: So it sort of depends on you know, I think
Speaker 3: what's great about the idea of Christmas movies is that
Speaker 3: whatever you're in the mood for and whatever kind of
Speaker 3: film flows your boat, you will find something that dovetails
Speaker 3: with you know, Christmas.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: It is such as you were saying that, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I actually don't. I had to think for a second
Speaker 1: to figure out my answer to that question. Caitlin, do
Speaker 1: you know what your favorite holiday movie is?
Speaker 2: Yes? I have two. Muppet Christmas Carol.
Speaker 1: That's tied for my first one too. Yeah, and Batman Returns.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, I think's Muppet Christmas Carol. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is an embarrassing one or not, but
Speaker 1: I love Jim Carrey Grinch. I love it.
Speaker 2: No, that's that's great.
Speaker 1: That's a good Okay, Okay, I'm sensing a tepid reception
Speaker 1: and the chat that's fun. That's fun.
Speaker 3: Not my favorite. It's hitting twenty five this year and
Speaker 3: they're actually doing I think it's going to be back
Speaker 3: in theaters and they're putting out like a four K.
Speaker 3: It's a whole thing.
Speaker 1: We saw it in theaters last year as well. I
Speaker 1: think like at the end of the day that movie
Speaker 1: came out when I was seven, and that is probably
Speaker 1: why I still love it so much.
Speaker 3: We have a recurring thing on Breakfast all Day called
Speaker 3: was it great? Or were you eight?
Speaker 1: Very much what this wants, which, weirdly, I think comes
Speaker 1: into play for a lot of people with the movie
Speaker 1: we were talking about today, Bad Santa. But before we
Speaker 1: get there, Alansa, what was it like revising the book
Speaker 1: and the re release? Tell us more about it?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's funny. I think if you have
Speaker 3: like a website or a podcast, you can constantly be
Speaker 3: updating it and bringing it, you know, up to speed.
Speaker 3: But once you've written a book, it's just dunk. It's there,
Speaker 3: you know, and it's sitting there and there's nothing you
Speaker 3: can do to change it. So pretty much from the
Speaker 3: moment the first edition came out back in twenty ten,
Speaker 3: I've been thinking in my head, Oh, I got to
Speaker 3: add this. I want to add this. I hope I
Speaker 3: can do this again so I can put in these
Speaker 3: other movies, and not just the many new films that
Speaker 3: have opened since twenty ten. But I'm constantly finding things
Speaker 3: that I had missed before, Like thanks to TCM, I
Speaker 3: was introduced to the whole world of Christmas Noir, which
Speaker 3: I had just completely missed the boat on. So now
Speaker 3: I've got films like Blast of Silence and Cash on Demand.
Speaker 3: You know, I got to circle back and put in
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was It was a treat because it
Speaker 3: sort of allowed the book to be a living document
Speaker 3: again that I could sort of update and talk about
Speaker 3: certain things, and you know, never mentioned the movie about
Speaker 3: the boy Wizard again and you know, all of that
Speaker 3: stuff to kind of bring it to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Amazing.
Speaker 1: Oh that is amazing. Thank you for Like the second
Speaker 1: you said that sub genre, You're like, yeah, of course
Speaker 1: that exists, but occurred to me. I'm excited to get
Speaker 1: a copy of the book. I'm stoked.
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1: And we come to this place today for magic, and
Speaker 1: by that I mean a discussion of the two thousand
Speaker 1: and three movie Bad Santa, which I think is I
Speaker 1: do feel like Caitlin. Over the years we have covered
Speaker 1: truly a staggering amount of movies that came out in
Speaker 1: the year two thousand and three. Again, I think probably
Speaker 1: just a youth bias of the time. Alonza. We'll start
Speaker 1: with you, what is your history with the movie Bad Santa?
Speaker 1: And I guess at this point, the Bad Santa cinematic universe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Weirdly, I can't remember if I saw it in
Speaker 3: theaters or not. Surely I must have, if only because
Speaker 3: I was a huge fan of Ghost World, which was
Speaker 3: Terry's Waggoff's previous film, which is a total Bechdel Test passer.
Speaker 3: I want to say it is as a non expert,
Speaker 3: but I don't remember vividly seeing it, but I know
Speaker 3: it was certainly when I when I wrote the book
Speaker 3: the first time around it it was one that I
Speaker 3: knew had to go in there. And it's a film
Speaker 3: that I appreciate, and I get why people like it,
Speaker 3: and I get why people need that kind of Christmas
Speaker 3: movie in their diet in December, if they're just like
Speaker 3: oding on sugar plums and they need a little, you know,
Speaker 3: a little saltiness in there. I get the role that
Speaker 3: it plays in a balanced, you know, holiday diet. And
Speaker 3: I remember kind of not hating Bad Santa two as
Speaker 3: much as most people did. Not that I'm not going
Speaker 3: to die on the hill of that movie, but I
Speaker 3: was kinder to it, I think than a lot of
Speaker 3: other critics were. But generally speaking, these have been ones
Speaker 3: where there are a lot of films in the book
Speaker 3: that was like, I knew I had to include them
Speaker 3: because they have a following, because they have spawned you know,
Speaker 3: Christmas tree ornaments, and you know they get screened every year,
Speaker 3: you know your National Lampoon, Christmas vacations. You know. I
Speaker 3: was way too old for the home alone phenomenon. I
Speaker 3: was in my twenties when the first one came out,
Speaker 3: so I don't have the attachment to it, to the
Speaker 3: people who were you know, seven when it came out
Speaker 3: have but you know, I get why they're there. I
Speaker 3: get why people love them. And this is in that
Speaker 3: category of like if you like Bad Santa, I get it.
Speaker 3: I understand what it's bringing to you every December.
Speaker 1: Right, it is definitely I guess I'm like, where would
Speaker 1: I put I would put this in the same category
Speaker 1: as National landpun. I think I would also include Eight
Speaker 1: Crazy Nights in like the Edge Lord Christmas Cannon that
Speaker 1: this is firmly a part.
Speaker 2: Of Yeah, yeah, Winter Holiday, Like Edge Lord, highly problematic
Speaker 2: movie or subgenre.
Speaker 1: So like a lot of broad comedies, it doesn't age
Speaker 1: particularly well.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, weirdly a Christmas story. When it first
Speaker 3: came out in nine eighty three was designed to be
Speaker 3: kind of an anti Christmas Christmas movie. It was designed
Speaker 3: to poke holes in nostalgia and the idea of looking
Speaker 3: back on this sort of rosy Norman Rockwell past and
Speaker 3: sort of showing that it was actually a lot messier
Speaker 3: than we give it credit for. But over the years
Speaker 3: that movie has it's self become this object of nostalgia
Speaker 3: that I think it's kind of dulled the original intent
Speaker 3: of being sort of spiky.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I, as a self proclaimed grne, like
Speaker 2: the idea of a movie that subverts the notion that
Speaker 2: Christmas is this sweet, joyous time where everything is nice
Speaker 2: and wonderful, Like I don't like super saccerin holiday movies typically,
Speaker 2: so something like Bad Santa.
Speaker 3: In theory, you should be the target Audioce is.
Speaker 2: More aligned with what I would like. But just I
Speaker 2: guess to say my history with this movie, I saw
Speaker 2: it around the time it came out, and I hated
Speaker 2: it then and I hate it now. I did not
Speaker 2: think it was funny. I don't like the humor of
Speaker 2: this movie at all, for the same reason back then
Speaker 2: as I do like that's how problematic so many of
Speaker 2: the jokes are in this movie that even in two
Speaker 2: thousand and four or whenever I saw it, I was like,
Speaker 2: you can't say that, so so I really don't care
Speaker 2: for this movie. What about you, Jamie, what's your relationship
Speaker 2: with it?
Speaker 1: I'd never seen it before. I yeah, I'm also coming
Speaker 1: in as a hater. But it's a rich text. It
Speaker 1: is a rich text that we and there is I
Speaker 1: think a lot of like production information about this movie
Speaker 1: that I was kind of interested in that Like, once
Speaker 1: I learned it, I was like, oh, I guess this
Speaker 1: is like a worse Coen Brothers premise, Like if the
Speaker 1: Coen Brothers had actually written this movie, it could have
Speaker 1: maybe been not quite what it is, but like it
Speaker 1: was almost so many different movies that I found learning
Speaker 1: about the production history interesting. You know, is it shocking
Speaker 1: to find out the Weinsteins have fingerprints on this? Certainly not.
Speaker 1: But I remember, I mean I was too young to
Speaker 1: see it when it came out, But I also remember
Speaker 1: I remember them marketing very clearly because I was not
Speaker 1: too young to be watching Gilmore Girls, which I was
Speaker 1: very much watching in two thousand and three, and all
Speaker 1: of the children and their mothers watching Gilmore Girls. It
Speaker 1: was kind of a scandalous thing that Laura, like Gilmore
Speaker 1: is in Bad Santa licking Billy Bob Thornton on TV,
Speaker 1: and you're like, that's an upstanding citizen of Stars Harlow, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: Like she would not be caught dead saying fuck me
Speaker 1: Santa in a car. But that's the range that Lauren
Speaker 1: Graham has. I love Lauren Graham does exactly what would
Speaker 1: Rory Rory would be just Rory's home. You have to imagine, like,
Speaker 1: especially because her character exists in this like fuck void,
Speaker 1: as many women in broad comedies do that, I feel
Speaker 1: like you can be like, this is like Laura, like
Speaker 1: Gilmore on an absolute bender like Rory's home studying and
Speaker 1: she's fucking Santa. I just I understand now why Lauren
Speaker 1: Graham did this at this point in her career to
Speaker 1: be like, hey, I'm not just Laura like Gilmore, I
Speaker 1: can also fuck Santa. I also understand why I have
Speaker 1: sounded like a good idea to do this movie at
Speaker 1: the time, and it was successful, so you know, you
Speaker 1: could argue, and you know Bernie Mac smoking a cigarette
Speaker 1: and mixing a laxative. I was laughing. I wasn't laughing
Speaker 1: very much, but I was laughing. Then, Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: not like the movie. I did not, but I am
Speaker 1: interested to talk about it because it is like, it's
Speaker 1: an interesting subgenre that I like and I wish like
Speaker 1: I think there is like a version of this movie
Speaker 1: I would like or this premise.
Speaker 3: I guess there's a thing we get into with comedies
Speaker 3: of I think, certainly in this era. And yeah, I
Speaker 3: think Edge Lord is a fair descriptor, at least in
Speaker 3: terms of the audience, where I think that maybe people
Speaker 3: set out to portray behavior that was appalling and audiences
Speaker 3: were like, ooh yeah, like I'm down for this, Like
Speaker 3: the generations of dudes who had to be explained that
Speaker 3: Swingers was not a how to, that Swingers was not asked,
Speaker 3: but they took it that way anyway. And I think
Speaker 3: it's telling that the Cherry's Wygoff director's cut of this
Speaker 3: movie is the shortest of all the cuts, and it's
Speaker 3: the cut that makes the Billy Bob Thornton's character the
Speaker 3: least appealing, like everything, where he's sort of nice to
Speaker 3: the kid he takes out, so he is not interested
Speaker 3: in making his protagonist like appealing to the audience or
Speaker 3: somebody that we root for or empathize with. And but
Speaker 3: so I mean, yeah, I think you're right. A lot
Speaker 3: of it is on paper, and it's in the film,
Speaker 3: and it's in the text, and we have to deal
Speaker 3: with that. But I think there is also that thing
Speaker 3: where the audience decides, oh, hey, you know Freddy Krueger,
Speaker 3: he's so funny, you know, like that they they imbue
Speaker 3: a character who is to be a hero with heroic
Speaker 3: tendencies because they feel like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was. That was another thing that I was
Speaker 1: really interested to talk about with you both, is how
Speaker 1: wildly different the various cuts of this movie seem to be.
Speaker 1: I watched a bad Er Santa, which I think is
Speaker 1: the longest version of this movie. Yes, and that is
Speaker 1: the version that somehow the movie Joker is going to
Speaker 1: become relevant in a moment because Todd Phillips was brought
Speaker 1: in to direct a couple of scenes Terry's Wygoff. So
Speaker 1: Terry's Wygoff. We've covered ghost World on the show. You
Speaker 1: can go to that episode. We've got takes on ghost World.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like I mean, he directs infrequently, and so
Speaker 1: it is it is kind of I didn't know he
Speaker 1: had directed this, and I was like, Wow, this really
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like the movie he directs, and it's clear that,
Speaker 1: like everyone had a slightly different creative vision here, like
Speaker 1: Terry's Wygoff wants to make a movie about a despicable
Speaker 1: person and does not want you to feel you know,
Speaker 1: bad for him, which I think is like most clearly
Speaker 1: illustrated by basically cutting out the relationship between him and
Speaker 1: young Roger his young Ward Thurman. Oh my god, wait
Speaker 1: did someone calls him Roger?
Speaker 3: Roger is Thurman's dad?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, see this okay, and also a monologue at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the movie. I don't think is in
Speaker 1: this wygof cut that basically gives you a framework for
Speaker 1: why bad Santa is the way he is, where it
Speaker 1: implies that he had an abusive upbringing and you know,
Speaker 1: you're given a framework that doesn't justify the behavior but
Speaker 1: contextualizes it. Terry's Wygoff has no interest in that. The
Speaker 1: theatrical cut, and then even more so, the longer cut,
Speaker 1: has more of an interest in doing what you know,
Speaker 1: like commercial movies do, which is give him a redemption arc,
Speaker 1: give him a you know, I gotta get this selevant
Speaker 1: to this little kid then blah blah blah, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I honestly don't know which version of it I that.
Speaker 1: I couldn't really decide. I'm like, I don't really want
Speaker 1: a redemption narrative for this guy, but I also like
Speaker 1: it's you know, zwygov Has will disagree, but I don't
Speaker 1: like watching a terrible person for eighty five uninterrupted minutes,
Speaker 1: nor I So I don't know. It's a It's a
Speaker 1: sticky wicket this one.
Speaker 2: It really is. And we'll get into it, but first
Speaker 2: let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
Speaker 2: for the recap. We're back, ho ho hoick.
Speaker 1: Quick question before we get into the recap. Do we
Speaker 1: think that John Ritter would want this movie to be
Speaker 1: dedicated to him? Oh? Rip. I love John Ritter, and
Speaker 1: I understand why it was dedicated to him, it's his
Speaker 1: last film appearance. But I'm like, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I would be like, yeah, slap my
Speaker 1: name at the end. I want to be forever associated
Speaker 1: with this.
Speaker 2: Well in the same way that Clorus Leachman is in
Speaker 2: this movie but uncredited, and I have to imagine it's
Speaker 2: because she's like I don't want my name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's like, oh, I'm so sorry. I thought I
Speaker 1: was in a Cohen Brothers movie.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's how a lot of these people
Speaker 1: get involved because it's a great cast, and some people
Speaker 1: think that they're going to be in a Terry's Wygoff movie.
Speaker 1: That's going to be allowed to be a Terry's Wygoff movie.
Speaker 1: Some people think they're in a Cohen Brothers movie, and
Speaker 1: kind of like they're in a Weinstein Brothers movie, which
Speaker 1: is the worst case scenario.
Speaker 3: I think there's an onion piece that's written from the
Speaker 3: point of view of somebody who had an episode of
Speaker 3: Ironica's Closet dedicated to them. So yeah, I think it's
Speaker 3: just one of those things where you never know when
Speaker 3: you're gonna go. So like any any project could be
Speaker 3: your last.
Speaker 1: That's a really that's a very harsh reality because I
Speaker 1: mean John Ritter was also I mean he was he
Speaker 1: was in his fifties. I feel like he, you know,
Speaker 1: if he knew he was living on borrow time, this
Speaker 1: maybe would not have been the one, but who knows,
Speaker 1: We'll never know.
Speaker 2: In any case, here's the recap of the movie. So
Speaker 2: we meet Willie played by Billy Bob Thornton. He works
Speaker 2: as a mall Santa, but he's not very good at
Speaker 2: his job. You might even say he's a bad Santa
Speaker 2: because he's mean to children. He gets drunk on the job,
Speaker 2: he pisses himself. He also works with Marcus played by
Speaker 2: Tony Cox, who is a little person who dresses up
Speaker 2: as an elf. And then we get a reveal that
Speaker 2: Willy and Marcus break into the mall after hours and
Speaker 2: that their Santa slash Elf jobs are just a cover
Speaker 2: so that they can steal stuff on Christmas Eve, where
Speaker 2: Marcus takes a bunch of merchandise. Willy is a safe
Speaker 2: cracker by trade and he steals a bunch of cash
Speaker 2: from the safe and we find out they've been doing
Speaker 2: this every Christmas Eve for the past seven or so years.
Speaker 2: And after they successfully pull off this heist, they go
Speaker 2: out to celebrate and Willie contemplates trying to get his
Speaker 2: life together. He's like, oh, maybe I'll stop drinking, maybe
Speaker 2: I'll open up business and settle down and get married.
Speaker 2: But he's forgetting that he's a bad Santa. And eleven
Speaker 2: months pass of him being a drunken degenerate.
Speaker 1: Bad off season Santa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's bad off season and off season.
Speaker 1: It is very I mean, he's a bad dude. But
Speaker 1: this man is just he's just so actively in despair.
Speaker 1: From frame one where you're just like it's I'm worried
Speaker 1: about him. I'm thinking of him like an uncle.
Speaker 3: There's a John Cassavetti's version of this movie where it's
Speaker 3: just about a guy who's an alcoholic who also is
Speaker 3: a Santa you know, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it seems like that sounds like it's
Speaker 1: closer to what Terry's Waygoff wanted and they're like, oh no,
Speaker 1: we have to give him. He needs to be a
Speaker 1: father by the end of the movie.
Speaker 2: Like does he well also to speak to like the
Speaker 2: Coen Brothers conceit of it all because originally the Coen
Speaker 2: Brothers developed the concept for this movie, and then they
Speaker 2: brought on another writing team to write the script, but
Speaker 2: the Coen Brothers were still involved to some degree in
Speaker 2: the development of the script. It seems like they added
Speaker 2: some crass jokes seemingly not too far from what ends
Speaker 2: up in the movie, and then the Coen Brothers stay
Speaker 2: attached as executive producers, but any of the cleverness and
Speaker 2: tact that I think usually appears in a movie that
Speaker 2: the Coen Brothers are involved with, is mostly absent from
Speaker 2: Bad Santa. But like if this was maybe like The
Speaker 2: Big Lebowski but the dude Moonlight says as Santa Claus
Speaker 2: or something like that. So if it's like a character
Speaker 2: like the dude who is way more redeemable than this
Speaker 2: Willy character, like that's a movie I can get behind.
Speaker 2: But Willy is so I guess intentionally despicable, but also
Speaker 2: just by virtue of like having him be the protagonist,
Speaker 2: and like this is the character we're following and laughing at.
Speaker 2: We're laughing at all the joke he says, and like
Speaker 2: so many people love this movie for the wrong reasons,
Speaker 2: like you were saying, Alonzo. So like it's just it's
Speaker 2: so hard to get behind for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But anyway, So about a year passes and then Willie
Speaker 2: gets a call from Marcus. It's that time of year again,
Speaker 2: and they show up at a department store in Phoenix, Arizona,
Speaker 2: in their Santa and Elf costumes. Willy is once again
Speaker 2: horrible at his job. He's drunk, he's cruel to the children,
Speaker 2: he swears in front of his boss played by John Ritter,
Speaker 2: who goes to the security manager of the store, Bernie Mack,
Speaker 2: and asks him to keep an eye on Willie.
Speaker 1: Bernie Mack is funny in everything. Yes, he's just never
Speaker 1: not amazing.
Speaker 2: I know, he's too good for this movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Then we meet a child named Thurman Merman. Although we
Speaker 2: won't learn his name for a really long time.
Speaker 1: It's so it's I clocked it at least in the
Speaker 1: Batter Santa cut. It's thirty two minutes in where you
Speaker 1: get a name for this character, which doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: a strategic reveal. It just I kept writing down child
Speaker 1: question mark because it just takes a really long time
Speaker 1: to learn what his name is.
Speaker 2: Well, the idea is that Willie doesn't bother to find
Speaker 2: out his name for we know, and then finally he's
Speaker 2: like toward the end of the movie, he's looking at
Speaker 2: Thurman's report card and he's like, Thurman, who is that?
Speaker 1: Is that you? Merman?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we don't really know what his name is
Speaker 2: for a long time, but I'll call him Thurman because
Speaker 2: that's his name. He's played by Brett Kelly.
Speaker 1: Who reprises the role in Bad Santa too, and also
Speaker 1: has a really funny paragraph in his Wikipedia page I
Speaker 1: would like to share. Oh please, I don't know who
Speaker 1: has it in for this guy and included this on
Speaker 1: his Wikipedia page. He was a contestant on the October
Speaker 1: twenty third, twenty twenty four episode of Jeopardy. He ended
Speaker 1: Double Jeopardy with zero dollars, thus did not qualify for
Speaker 1: Final Jeopardy and therefore finished in third place. Someone hates
Speaker 1: this guy? Why would you put that on that? It
Speaker 1: is such a short Wikipedia page, and that's one of
Speaker 1: the things I have.
Speaker 3: I have a nice Brett Kelly thing to add to.
Speaker 3: So he appears in another Christmas comedy that I like
Speaker 3: quite a bit called Unaccompanied Minors. Oh yes, Paul fig directed,
Speaker 3: and Lewis Black plays the sort of harried airport manager
Speaker 3: in that movie. And he actually said, he goes, I
Speaker 3: took the movie because I wanted to work with the
Speaker 3: kid from Bad Santa.
Speaker 1: Oh that's really sweet.
Speaker 3: So you actually told him on set, Yeah, you're the
Speaker 3: reason I'm here, kid, I wanted to work with you.
Speaker 3: So you know, that's that's a Brett Kelly positive.
Speaker 1: True, That's that must have been so exciting. God, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's he he's adorable in this movie, He's not, you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's just a boy.
Speaker 2: I know. And he is frequently bullied by other kids by.
Speaker 1: Literally like bullied dot like jpeg, like like he's just some.
Speaker 2: Kid, yeah bully TM. He's also bullied by Willie when
Speaker 2: Thurman comes into Santa's workshop at the department store and
Speaker 2: sits on Willy's lap, and Thurman asks him a bunch
Speaker 2: of questions about being Santa because he thinks that Willy
Speaker 2: is the real Santa Claus and is enamored by him.
Speaker 2: Later that night, Willie meets a bartender named Sue I think,
Speaker 2: but that's the Lauren Graham character, and she has a
Speaker 2: Santa kink, so she buys him a few drinks and
Speaker 2: then has sex with him in his car in the parking.
Speaker 1: Fuck me Santa, Fuck me Santa, Fuck me Santa. Correct,
Speaker 1: and then we are introduced to for the little screen
Speaker 1: time she has. All of it is just completely like irrational.
Speaker 1: I'm so curious at what point this love story became
Speaker 1: like I'm curious if this is a studio mandated romance,
Speaker 1: because it just wasn't. I don't know, like her whole
Speaker 1: thing where it's like, okay, it's one thing to have
Speaker 1: a Santa cank, Fine, okay, But then at the end
Speaker 1: she's like, I like you, I think you're You're like, no,
Speaker 1: you don't.
Speaker 2: Come on, what do you like about him? He is
Speaker 2: the most despicable person imaginable.
Speaker 1: He's mean, any stinks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyways, I know, we'll talk about it. But so
Speaker 2: they have sex in the car, and then right after this,
Speaker 2: a man who was at the bar aggressively approaches Willie.
Speaker 2: And it's unclear exactly what is going on here, but
Speaker 2: we do know that it's homophobic.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, we we see this person again. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: we will not see this person again. He's here to
Speaker 1: be a I don't know plot device.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so he attacks Willie, but Thurman intervenes and
Speaker 2: kind of saves Willy. So he gives Thurman a ride home,
Speaker 2: where he lives in a big house with his grandma
Speaker 2: played by Chloris Leachman, who seems completely oblivious to her surroundings.
Speaker 2: And Thurman again is incredibly naive and he still thinks
Speaker 2: Willy is the real Santa Claus. So Willi takes advantage
Speaker 2: of this situation and steals money and a car from them,
Speaker 2: and Thurman's just like, whatever you need, Santa. Then Willy
Speaker 2: continues to be bad Santa. He has sex with a
Speaker 2: woman in the dressing room at work, and he gets
Speaker 2: caught by John Ritter, but he manages to weasel his
Speaker 2: way out of getting fired. Then he thinks maybe a
Speaker 2: cop is snoop around his motel room, and he worries
Speaker 2: that the police are onto him and Marcus for their robberies.
Speaker 1: I did think it was very funny. I don't know
Speaker 1: if this was a joke or just like how the
Speaker 1: scene ended up. But he's like loudly making a phone
Speaker 1: call about this like basically hotel. He's like, hey, I
Speaker 1: think they're onto us, yeah, which is just like, ah,
Speaker 1: movies are fun.
Speaker 2: Also, Octavia Spencer's in this scene and we're like.
Speaker 1: Oh, they really be the Octavier. The early roles of
Speaker 1: Octavia Spencer like she deserves.
Speaker 3: Peace, seven pounds, seven pounds.
Speaker 1: It's gracious. And then she came back for the sequel
Speaker 1: and we're just like, she's too nice. She's too nice.
Speaker 2: I did watch the sequel to prep for this.
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, and thoughts.
Speaker 2: I have regrets. I'll share my thoughts when we get
Speaker 2: to the discussion.
Speaker 1: But okay, I did not watch. I did not watch
Speaker 1: the sequel.
Speaker 3: Also, by the way, speaking of Gilmore Girls, Alex Borstein
Speaker 3: pops up in here as well, yes.
Speaker 1: Which also feels like a two thousand and three comedy requisite,
Speaker 1: like she has to be there and I'm always happy
Speaker 1: to see her.
Speaker 2: This is like peak mad TV era.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's Lois for crying out loud. I'm always
Speaker 1: happy to see her.
Speaker 2: Okay. So Willy's like, oh no, the cops are onto us.
Speaker 2: So he decides to go back to Thurman's house and
Speaker 2: hide out there for a while, and Thurman is all
Speaker 2: too happy about this. He keeps asking more questions about
Speaker 2: Santa and the North Pole and the reindeer and everything else.
Speaker 2: And sometimes it seems like Willy and Thurman are hanging
Speaker 2: out because they're like playing checkers and stuff. But mostly
Speaker 2: Willy just treats Thurman horribly and has Lauren Graham's character
Speaker 2: over for sex in one of.
Speaker 1: I think the most baffling seeds. It just I don't
Speaker 1: know the Lauren Graham character, like you have you gotta
Speaker 1: laugh or what can you do? But this scene where
Speaker 1: we've established because she is a woman. She loves kids
Speaker 1: and she wants kids, and you know, true of a
Speaker 1: lot of women, but I think it's a default mode
Speaker 1: for women in movies. You know, she loves kids, but
Speaker 1: she's totally fine with being caught having sex in front
Speaker 1: of a kid. Does not make any effort to move,
Speaker 1: She just sort of passively watches the conversation as if
Speaker 1: the writer for baby It's just it just pisses me.
Speaker 1: And then at the end she's like, Wow, he's such
Speaker 1: a great kid. I was like, what is this? What
Speaker 1: is this? Does she like kids or not?
Speaker 2: She also sees Willie be horrible too, thermin and says.
Speaker 1: Nothing, and she's like, I can fix him, question Mark.
Speaker 1: But ultimately she like, you know, the reasons that Willy changes,
Speaker 1: at least in the theatrical cut of this movie, have
Speaker 1: little to nothing to do with her. They have almost
Speaker 1: everything to do with Thurman Merman, which I'm not upset about,
Speaker 1: but like, also, you're just like, what is the function
Speaker 1: of this character other than this is a comedy and
Speaker 1: therefore we need a hot woman in it.
Speaker 2: Right. I should have mentioned also that I believe the
Speaker 2: version that I watched and am doing the recap on
Speaker 2: is the theatrical cut. Okay, so anyway, we see Willy
Speaker 2: and Thurman hanging out. There's also a scene where Thurman
Speaker 2: badly cuts his hand and Willy kind of helps him
Speaker 2: and kind of shows a little concern and maybe Willy
Speaker 2: is growing and changing question mark. He even cooks dinner
Speaker 2: for Thurman and his grandmother. But then Thurman gets beaten
Speaker 2: up by his bullies and he goes to Willy for help,
Speaker 2: and Willy's like, well, what do you want me to
Speaker 2: do about it? Leave me alone? So I guess he
Speaker 2: still has some growing and learning to do. Meanwhile, John
Speaker 2: Richard has asked Bernie Mack if he can help him
Speaker 2: get Willy fired. So Bernie Mack starts doing some digging
Speaker 2: on Willie and Marcus, and he tells John Ritter's character
Speaker 2: that their track record is clean, but he knows actually
Speaker 2: that they are thieves, and he approaches Willy and Marcus
Speaker 2: to blackmail them and be like, give me half and
Speaker 2: I won't turn you in.
Speaker 1: See, And now it's feeling like a Coen Brothers movie again.
Speaker 2: Right right, And they have no choice but to agree
Speaker 2: to this. The next day, Willie shows up to work
Speaker 2: as Santa Drunker than ever he makes a scene. It
Speaker 2: seems like he has hit rock bottom, especially when he
Speaker 2: attempts suicide. But then Thurman comes in and Willy sees
Speaker 2: that his face is bruised, so Willy decides not to
Speaker 2: end his life, and instead he beats up the children
Speaker 2: who have been bullying Thurman because Willy is feeling parental
Speaker 2: towards Thurman now or something. So now Willie feels like
Speaker 2: he has helped Thurman and he feels good about himself,
Speaker 2: and he gets Marcus to help him teach Thurman how
Speaker 2: to defend himself, and so he's like doing all of
Speaker 2: these what he thinks are nice gestures. And then a
Speaker 2: little while later, Thurman gives Willie the Christmas present he
Speaker 2: made for him, a wooden pickle, which is how he
Speaker 2: cut his hand in the previous scene.
Speaker 1: Literally gives a phallic item with his blood in it,
Speaker 1: and you're like, huh, okay, wow, the themes are so subtle.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but.
Speaker 2: Willy seems really touched by this.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Then Thurman reveals that he has not received any presence
Speaker 2: from Santa for the past couple years, and he thinks
Speaker 2: maybe it's because he's a no good loser and Willy
Speaker 2: is like, well, look kid, I'm not Santa. In fact,
Speaker 2: there is no Santa, and Thurman is like, well, I
Speaker 2: know that. I just thought maybe you'd want to give
Speaker 2: me a present because we're friends. And Willy's like, oh
Speaker 2: damn so true.
Speaker 1: And you can tell that same was added in because
Speaker 1: shortly after Thurban just goes back to calling him Santa
Speaker 1: and trading him like he's real Santa.
Speaker 2: Right then, Willy has Lauren Graham's character over to spend
Speaker 2: Christmas eve Day with him and Thurman and they do
Speaker 2: lots of Christmas e things. Meanwhile, Marcus and his girlfriend
Speaker 2: who we see occasionally, but don't worry, we won't learn
Speaker 2: anything about.
Speaker 3: Her for your wife, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some Romanta partner.
Speaker 1: I also there was a shot in at least I
Speaker 1: think this might differ tween cuts. There's a shot that
Speaker 1: I was like, I guess confused by in the longer
Speaker 1: in Batter Santa, where I thought she was gonna like
Speaker 1: egg on my face. I thought she's gonna do something
Speaker 1: that was her idea, but it turned out I was wrong.
Speaker 1: But there there is a scene where you know they're
Speaker 1: in the mal cafeteria and Tony Cox calls Bad Santa
Speaker 1: a scumbag. His girlfriend is there, and then she's like
Speaker 1: taking notes as Billy Bob Thornton is making a confession
Speaker 1: about the details of what's being done, and I was like,
Speaker 1: is she gonna blackmail him? Is she gonna? Is she gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, go off on her own and do something?
Speaker 1: But then she doesn't, so never mind, So never mind
Speaker 1: she does A woman almost had an idea, but then
Speaker 1: it was like, oh wait, I misunderstood.
Speaker 2: No note, that would never happen in a movie, Jamie. Sorry.
Speaker 2: So Marcus and his partner killed Bernie mack by run.
Speaker 1: I did not see that come over with their van
Speaker 1: kind of signs style that I associate that kind of
Speaker 1: death was signed.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, yeah, And I guess the idea is that
Speaker 2: they won't have to give him half of whatever they steal.
Speaker 2: And then Marcus and Willie get to work on their
Speaker 2: usual robbing the department store on Christmas Eve, and Willie
Speaker 2: cracks the safe and then he's like, oh wait, one
Speaker 2: last thing, and he grabs the stuffed elephant toy that
Speaker 2: Thurman mentioned he wanted. But then Marcus pulls a gun
Speaker 2: on Willie.
Speaker 1: The heel turn of Marcus is so like this ten
Speaker 1: minutes is a journey for I was like, this is
Speaker 1: not who I understood this man to be. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like the screenwriting is not very.
Speaker 1: Good, written by forty five different people. Yeah, kind of fun, but.
Speaker 2: But Willy's like, I can't count on you anymore. You're
Speaker 2: drunk and unreliable Willie. And then he's about to shoot
Speaker 2: him and take all the money for himself, but then
Speaker 2: a bunch of deis X security guards pop out and
Speaker 2: Willie manages to get away, and he's hell bent on
Speaker 2: giving Thurman the Christmas gift, so he goes back to
Speaker 2: Thurman's house with the stuffed elephant, but the cops are
Speaker 2: chasing him and they shoot Willy on the stoop of
Speaker 2: the house, but Willy survives somehow, even though he had
Speaker 2: like eight bullet wounds.
Speaker 1: Does he die in this Terry's wyof cut?
Speaker 3: I oh, I don't think he dies on any of them,
Speaker 3: but it's been a while since I've seen it, so
Speaker 3: don't quote me on that.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: It would be wild if he died in that cut.
Speaker 2: And then there's still somehow a sequel where he's.
Speaker 3: Good point.
Speaker 1: Well, Terry's Wagoff also had nothing to do with the sequel,
Speaker 1: and he also says that they kind of wait, he's
Speaker 1: something that was kind of bitchy that I thought was
Speaker 1: funny in a piece I read it. He said something
Speaker 1: like I will not be seeing it, the best of
Speaker 1: luck to all involved, kind of thing. He said, I'd
Speaker 1: like to see the sequel Shore. So far, I've only
Speaker 1: seen the trailer. Tony Cox looks hilarious in it. The
Speaker 1: rest not so promising, but I wish of luck.
Speaker 4: I was like, wow, bitchy it well, and he had
Speaker 4: to sorry, just real quick. He had to fight for
Speaker 4: Tony Cox. The Wine scenes did not they were. They
Speaker 4: wanted like Mickey Rourke or something, you know, to play
Speaker 4: that role.
Speaker 3: So they didn't. They didn't appreciate the Tony Cox casting.
Speaker 3: They really didn't appreciate the Brett Kelly casting. They wanted
Speaker 3: like a sort of Zach Efferny Disney kid, and so
Speaker 3: that they actually came up with a kid who looks
Speaker 3: like a genuine, you know, kid on kind of nerd. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a regular looking kid. Uh, you know. These were not
Speaker 3: the not the movie the Wine Scenes had in mind,
Speaker 3: and they obviously wanted something softer and kinder and gentler,
Speaker 3: which is why I did not want to give them.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because it feels like, yeah, this is uh.
Speaker 1: I always find like production notes on movies like this interesting,
Speaker 1: where it's like there's so many cooks in the kitchen
Speaker 1: and everyone wants something that is like pretty wildly different,
Speaker 1: and so it ends up so it ends up being
Speaker 1: like a little bit of all of it, and it
Speaker 1: just is is a weird thing, and you're just like, well,
Speaker 1: what version of this? So you just have to be like,
Speaker 1: what version of this movie would I have liked to see?
Speaker 3: Choose your adventure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, to go back to the sequel really quick. That
Speaker 2: movie was directed by Mark Waters of Mister Mengl Mean
Speaker 2: Girl's Fame, Freaky Friday Fame, another like huge departure from
Speaker 2: what he normally does, Like why are all these guys
Speaker 2: directing bad Santa movies when they had previously done like
Speaker 2: movies about teen girls, Like.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's it's weird, it's a pivot. It's
Speaker 1: not my least favorite pivot. I feel like my least
Speaker 1: favorite pivot was like twenty nineteen ish, when every guy
Speaker 1: who directed a broad comedy like an offensive broad comedy
Speaker 1: of the early two thousands was like I'm making a
Speaker 1: me too movie and I was like, no, you're not.
Speaker 1: Why are we letting you do that?
Speaker 3: Well, I remember in the two thousands it was a
Speaker 3: definite like queer Indie to mainstream teen girl pipeline, Like
Speaker 3: you know, Jim Fall went from Trick to the Lizzie
Speaker 3: McGuire movie, and you know, Tommy o'hager did get over it,
Speaker 3: and the guy who did kissing Jessica Stein did like,
Speaker 3: you know, legally Blonde two. Like that was that was
Speaker 3: the segue.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, Yeah, like these bizarro pipelines that you're like,
Speaker 1: I guess it made sense to them. I don't know
Speaker 1: really well in the same way that like, for at least,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's kind of winding down now. But
Speaker 1: it's like, if you made a really good A twenty
Speaker 1: four movie, you would then make a really horrible Marvel movie.
Speaker 3: What did the director of Minari just do? It was
Speaker 3: something like it's like not a fast and furious movie,
Speaker 3: but something like that. We're like, really, oh wait, that's
Speaker 3: you're okay. Oh Twisters, Twisters?
Speaker 1: Oh I kind of liked Twisters.
Speaker 3: I gotta say no, it was fun, but it was
Speaker 3: just like, this is who we're Okay. I mean, I
Speaker 3: guess you understand small town America, you.
Speaker 1: Know, like Barry Barry Jenkins mufassa like that. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: kind of good example. It is weird, it is. I
Speaker 1: don't know why it feels particularly weird for Terry's wagoff
Speaker 1: to have made this jump, but it does.
Speaker 3: He's just I think again, and I think we're grappling
Speaker 3: with the movie they thought they were making and the
Speaker 3: movie that different people wanted to make. In the movie
Speaker 3: that wounds up happening, and I can see a through
Speaker 3: line of Terry's wygof and the kind of sort of
Speaker 3: archly bitter observational humor of Ghosts World, and of his
Speaker 3: documentary work. I mean, this is the guy who did
Speaker 3: the Crumb documentary, Let's not forget. I can see that
Speaker 3: segueing into a version of Bad Santa, which is bleakly
Speaker 3: funny and no way trying to make its lead character huggable.
Speaker 3: And I think he's up against the Cohen brothers and
Speaker 3: the Weinstein brothers having different visions entirely, and so we're
Speaker 3: left with this sort of mulligan stew of everybody's different
Speaker 3: flavor profile thrown in, and then it comes down to like, well,
Speaker 3: who's cut are you watching?
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, it's it's interesting. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: it's hard to know where to start with this movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well there's a couple of minutes left.
Speaker 1: Oh god, Oh yeah, there's e Bilog right right.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, So he survives all these gunshot wounds. Willy
Speaker 2: does and recovers kind of off screen in a hospital,
Speaker 2: but we're seeing Thurman at home. He's opening a gift
Speaker 2: from Willy as well as a letter which explains that
Speaker 2: Willy is off the hook for the crimes he committed
Speaker 2: because the cops shouldn't have opened fired on an unarmed
Speaker 2: Santa and because he rated out Marcus or something.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I was like really barely following this point. But then
Speaker 2: there's a final beat of the movie where Thurman's bully
Speaker 2: shows up to harass him again and Thurman, per Willie's
Speaker 2: fatherly guidance, kicks the bully in the nuts the end
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas.
Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, I guess that that should happen in
Speaker 1: this movie at some point. I guess they make you
Speaker 1: work for it.
Speaker 2: So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and
Speaker 2: we'll come back to discuss.
Speaker 1: We're back, okay, really quick. I found a hopefully this
Speaker 1: IMDb user. It seems like they were thorough, but this
Speaker 1: is my source. There is an IMDb us or who
Speaker 1: wrote out all of the differences between the three versions
Speaker 1: of this movie. Oh wow, okay, so thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. So that was how I sort
Speaker 1: of started figuring out what I saw versus what actually
Speaker 1: happens in the theatrical cut, which I guess we have
Speaker 1: to sort of take his cannon, but I think that
Speaker 1: he so just to read the end of the director's cut,
Speaker 1: I think we are to believe that he's dead. All
Speaker 1: scenes of Willy trying to teach the kid to stand
Speaker 1: up for himself, including the boxing scene which Terry's Weggoff
Speaker 1: didn't even direct, are removed. The car death scene is
Speaker 1: the same as on the unrated version, which I think
Speaker 1: is just like more violent.
Speaker 2: The Bernie mac One no no, the bad Santa car chase,
Speaker 2: oh okay, when he dies and alternate car chase scene.
Speaker 1: Also, Willy does not say this is Christmas and the
Speaker 1: kids getting as fucking present, because this is the version
Speaker 1: with no moral. The ending is changed to the kid
Speaker 1: scrubbing Willy's blood off the front porch, so I think
Speaker 1: he is cooked in the Terry's Wagoff for which is
Speaker 1: like a version that it wouldn't be my favorite movie.
Speaker 1: He's not my favorite director, but like, I think that
Speaker 1: that at least has like there's a vision there, you know,
Speaker 1: to like, here is this despicable piece of shit. I
Speaker 1: would be surprised if all of the not that there
Speaker 1: would be a lack of offensive jokes in that version,
Speaker 1: but there is such a commercial version of these jokes
Speaker 1: that I think we hear. I don't know, it's just
Speaker 1: it's puzzling. Where should we start because this is obviously
Speaker 1: I mean, we've talked about movies like this on the
Speaker 1: show before. This is a movie whose objective is to
Speaker 1: be offensive to as many people as possible, Like that
Speaker 1: is part of why this movie exists. So it's not
Speaker 1: shocking that it happens, but it is uh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it again not my favorite and also still no
Speaker 1: matter when that kind of movie comes out, it's very
Speaker 1: reflective of like what is considered shocking and also but
Speaker 1: like not so shocking that you can't do a huge
Speaker 1: you know, commerci movie around it that I think would
Speaker 1: be very different now.
Speaker 3: Well, I think, for instance, the whole you know, Lauren
Speaker 3: Graham has a Santa Kink thing is a thing that
Speaker 3: we hadn't seen in a Christmas movie up to that point.
Speaker 3: And so just having it there, having her yell that out,
Speaker 3: and having that be the thing that drives her character
Speaker 3: was you know, enough of a novelty that that was like, well,
Speaker 3: we're gonna do that, of course, you know. And does
Speaker 3: it say much for her character? Does it make sense
Speaker 3: in the larger context of who she's supposed to be
Speaker 3: and how her relationship with him grows over the course
Speaker 3: of the film. I mean not really. They didn't. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they didn't give much thought to that, But I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: it is a thing where when you saw that add
Speaker 3: on Gilmore Girls in two thousand and three, it was
Speaker 3: shocking because you'd never heard anybody say that before, much
Speaker 3: less America's Sweetheart, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's I guess if we're starting with her,
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't even feel like a particularly long
Speaker 1: conversation because it's like, I don't think I know enough
Speaker 1: about her character to know if her character changes at
Speaker 1: all throughout the movie. It seems like kind of from
Speaker 1: the jump, she has a Santa kink, She's gonna show
Speaker 1: up every once in a while out of context. Why
Speaker 1: does she have no one in her life to spend
Speaker 1: Christmas with? We don't know, we don't care.
Speaker 2: Why does she completely ignore all the times in which
Speaker 2: Willie says something horrible, does something.
Speaker 1: Horrible in front of a child, but she loves children?
Speaker 3: Like if she has a Santa kink, wouldn't this be
Speaker 3: like a busy time of year for her? Like, wouldn't she,
Speaker 3: you know, she'd have something lined up for her Decembers right, gorgeous?
Speaker 1: She should be making the round Like why Santa?
Speaker 3: I think it's safe to say like this. The women
Speaker 3: in this movie are essentially an afterthoughts in terms of
Speaker 3: their their participation in the story and in the you know,
Speaker 3: overall character arcs of the men, like they're set dressing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, each woman is basically some caricature of a person
Speaker 2: where you have like Marcus's girlfriend or wife or whatever
Speaker 2: partner played by Lauren Tom she uh, I don't even
Speaker 2: know if we learn her name in the movie, like
Speaker 2: her character's name.
Speaker 1: And she's like she's so accomplished and you're.
Speaker 3: Just she's Lois.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh okay, okay, she's her characters name is Lowis.
Speaker 1: She's Lowess And now it doesn't make any sense, but
Speaker 1: like she's in the Joy Luck Club. She's like a
Speaker 1: big stage actor. Like I was just like, I hope
Speaker 1: that they paid her well for this because this is
Speaker 1: beneath her.
Speaker 2: I don't imagine they did, but we can hope. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, like it's her character is almost presented as
Speaker 2: Marcus's sidekick, like she kind of helps with the robberies sometimes,
Speaker 2: like she seems to be the getaway driver maybe, but
Speaker 2: like why isn't she more integrated into the like the
Speaker 2: robbery crew or not that I'm like, but I'm also like,
Speaker 2: well maybe women should steal more.
Speaker 1: But I mean, if we're gonna have a robbery crew,
Speaker 1: let's get her involved, let's get her involved.
Speaker 2: But mostly her character is there to display a series
Speaker 2: of racist stereotypes and that's pretty much.
Speaker 1: It, yeah for her. Yeah, I mean whatever we could.
Speaker 1: Cinema sends this to death. But like in the in
Speaker 1: the like logic of I I don't know why Marcus
Speaker 1: is it, like she's my main conspirator, Like why is
Speaker 1: Beds I know that you need I guess for this
Speaker 1: scheme to work, you need a Santa. But again, why
Speaker 1: this Santa? The same I'm asking the same question as
Speaker 1: the Lauren Graham. Why this Santa?
Speaker 3: Well, because he's a safe cracker. I think that's I mean,
Speaker 3: he's not a Santa who is a safe cracker. He's
Speaker 3: a safe cracker who pretends Santa to get inside. And
Speaker 3: I think Lois is mainly there to sort of give
Speaker 3: Marcus a shopping list of specific consumer items that she
Speaker 3: wants him to take from the department store while while
Speaker 3: Marcus is draining the safe of the cas.
Speaker 1: Because women be shopping, maybe they truly be. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it's like I don't think it would have
Speaker 1: changed things very much to have her like a little
Speaker 1: more actively involved in those schemes. And I also feel
Speaker 1: like she's well, let me know what you think. I
Speaker 1: also feel like she's kind of there to make Marcus
Speaker 1: seem like a better person, Like she serves kind of
Speaker 1: another function where bad Santa, he can't hold down a relationship,
Speaker 1: he's a mess, blah blah blah. Marcus says explicitly at
Speaker 1: one point, like I am in a monogamous relationship. I'm
Speaker 1: very happy blah blah blah. And it's like she I
Speaker 1: think she's there as set dressing. She's there to be
Speaker 1: this broad you know, stereotype, and she's also there to
Speaker 1: like make us feel a certain way about Marcus. Like
Speaker 1: everything about her has very little to do with her.
Speaker 1: She's which is the story of women in broad comedies
Speaker 1: for the most part, it's just like she's there to
Speaker 1: tell you something about this guy, for sure. So I
Speaker 1: don't know, there's another there's you know, we don't need
Speaker 1: to go shot for shot, but there's you know a
Speaker 1: lot of very leering POV bad Santa gazing on women's bodies.
Speaker 1: Often that's how we meet women characters is from the
Speaker 1: bottom up. It is his POV. But again there's like
Speaker 1: it's not commenting on anything. If we then go on
Speaker 1: to not get to know this woman at all and
Speaker 1: she's just like ugh, or she's like I like that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: The fact that he is he finds sort of plus
Speaker 3: size women appealing, I think is the movie treats as
Speaker 3: being as funny as Lauren Graham having a Santa Fetters ca.
Speaker 3: Yeah totally, yes, yes, I can right, yeah, No.
Speaker 1: That's played as a joke and then bringing Octavia Spencer
Speaker 1: into it, it just makes it even worse. Leave her
Speaker 1: out of it.
Speaker 2: My takeaway from her involvement in the story. So, she
Speaker 2: plays a sex worker named Opal, and like you mentioned, Jamie,
Speaker 2: she's in the sequel for some reason, she's just.
Speaker 1: Too nice for her own good. She's in a lot
Speaker 1: of like weirdly bad movies. It seems like to do
Speaker 1: a favor to a friend.
Speaker 2: But the way that Willy is presented, basically it's like
Speaker 2: everything that Willy does or anyone who he's involved with
Speaker 2: or whatever, everything everything associated with him is bad because
Speaker 2: he's Bad Santa, and so him knowing Opal, I feel
Speaker 2: like this movie is sort of is anti sex work
Speaker 2: just by virtue of like she knows him and everyone
Speaker 2: that he knows is bad, and then she's in one
Speaker 2: quick scene and then we never see or hear from
Speaker 2: her again.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's also I think that this is only in
Speaker 1: the Badder Santa cut which makes sense because it feels
Speaker 1: very like why is this here. There is a cutaway
Speaker 1: scene towards the beginning during these like eleven last months
Speaker 1: where Bad Santa is spending all his Bad Santa money
Speaker 1: where he brings sex worker home and then just kind
Speaker 1: of like beerates her for a while and then the
Speaker 1: phone rings and it's Marcus and he's like, guess what,
Speaker 1: it's November. And then we cut to that and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad they caught that out, but it was I
Speaker 1: think kind of solidifies your your thinking there where there's
Speaker 1: another scene with I think a sex worker who's somehow
Speaker 1: characterized even less we really just meet her and then
Speaker 1: she's told that she smells and she sucks. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a movie written by so like getting into
Speaker 1: the production a little bit and then we'll definitely go
Speaker 1: back to the characters. There's a lot to talk about,
Speaker 1: but just so Terry's Wygoff was set to direct this.
Speaker 1: It was written by Glenn Fakara and John Recua, who
Speaker 1: are a team who I believe.
Speaker 3: They they did I Love You, Philip Morris, which I
Speaker 3: am a fan of.
Speaker 1: Actually it's really they They didn't. They did crazy stupid
Speaker 1: love right, and then they do the thing that these
Speaker 1: that these guys often do, which is they take a
Speaker 1: serious turn and it kind of doesn't work. They did
Speaker 1: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot later on. Oh and then they go
Speaker 1: back to comedy, and they did Jungle Cruise. I've never
Speaker 1: seen I Love You, Philip Morris. I have seen the
Speaker 1: Billy Bob Thornton Bad News Bears, which is interesting in
Speaker 1: retrospect because it sounds like that's what the Coen Brothers
Speaker 1: kind of wanted from this movie. There were almost a
Speaker 1: million different Bad Santas. It was almost James s. Gandelfini.
Speaker 1: There was almost Bill Murray, it was almost Jack Nicholson,
Speaker 1: it was almost de Niro, Like.
Speaker 2: Well, DeNiro would go on to be Bad Grandpa, I think.
Speaker 1: Yes, which is a far worse movie than this, which
Speaker 1: is wild. I have not seen Bad Grandpa, but I do.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I wonder how common that is that, Like,
Speaker 1: if you work long enough, you're gonna be bad something
Speaker 1: Bad Moms.
Speaker 3: Well it's like you know, well, yeah, no. The bad
Speaker 3: prefix definitely got very popular for a one of the
Speaker 3: run I was thinking about, like, yeah, turning down Bad
Speaker 3: Santa and then doing Bad Grandpa is like when on
Speaker 3: Connery turned down Lord of the Rings and then said
Speaker 3: yes to Leave of Extraordinary Gentlemen. You never know, You
Speaker 3: just never know.
Speaker 1: Everything is a gamble. I love I feel like there's
Speaker 1: a I can't remember what my favorite example of that is,
Speaker 1: but yeah, So anyways, just like speaking to the all
Speaker 1: over the place nature of the movie there, when the
Speaker 1: sequel came out, there was a an oral history of
Speaker 1: the first one that released that gets at what you
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier. Alonzo that Tony Cox was an
Speaker 1: actor that Terry Swagoff really had to fight for and
Speaker 1: he sort of it sounds like there's conflicting accounts, but
Speaker 1: that he kind of threatened to walk if he didn't
Speaker 1: get the cast that he wanted and really went to
Speaker 1: bat for Tony Cox and Brad Kelly, who seemed to
Speaker 1: have a lot of love for him. Billy Bob Tharton
Speaker 1: seems like maybe not as much, which brings us to
Speaker 1: I don't know, like the less said about the Weinstein's,
Speaker 1: the better they're involved, you've seen them. It's not chocking.
Speaker 1: But brings us back to Marcus, who again it's like
Speaker 1: there from scene to scene, I feel like his character
Speaker 1: is treated very differently. There is a version of this
Speaker 1: character that I think is better, but I get like
Speaker 1: there there were this movie did have me sometimes for
Speaker 1: like a scene or two where you're like, oh, that's interesting,
Speaker 1: right where I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a base level of pragmatism of like, dude,
Speaker 3: you're drunk. We have to keep it together if we're gonna,
Speaker 3: you know, do this heist, and if you are like
Speaker 3: urinating on children and having sex with women in the
Speaker 3: dressing room, that's not gonna help us. Like, you've got
Speaker 3: to keep it together long enough for us to do
Speaker 3: our thing. And I think if they had focused on that,
Speaker 3: where he's just like trying to get the job done
Speaker 3: and not tolerant of you know, Willie's shenanigans, that's a character,
Speaker 3: but they don't. They don't stay on.
Speaker 1: That, they don't quite commit to it. Yeah, I felt
Speaker 1: the same way, where it's like it is an interesting
Speaker 1: premise to me that we have Tony Cox, who is
Speaker 1: a little person. He has been in a ton of movies,
Speaker 1: but his character, unlike so many little people in movies,
Speaker 1: is not defined by that quality. He is first and
Speaker 1: foremost robbing department stores, and like it's a broad comedy,
Speaker 1: it's not a huge, you know, in depth life, but.
Speaker 3: Like he's willing to use his status as a little
Speaker 3: person to get the elf gigs, which right in another movie,
Speaker 3: I think that becomes a smarter thing of like, well,
Speaker 3: I'm a little person, you're a safe cracker. I know
Speaker 3: we'll do this, and that becomes our stick. And I
Speaker 3: think the fact that he is resentful of the fact
Speaker 3: that he's spending nearly the entire movie dressed as an elf,
Speaker 3: but he's doing it as a means to an end
Speaker 3: is an interesting way to portray a little person character
Speaker 3: that a lot of other movies weren't maybe smart enough
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 1: I guess it's the thing that really bumps for me,
Speaker 1: and I'd be curious what our listeners think as well,
Speaker 1: is that it's so often I feel like every time
Speaker 1: we get a little closer to having a fuller idea
Speaker 1: of his character, it just like the concept of his
Speaker 1: taking advantage of other people's assumptions about him to get
Speaker 1: what he wants, that's an interesting premise, But then it
Speaker 1: sometimes just devolves into jokes about little people that feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, the elements of this kind of movie that
Speaker 1: really don't work for me, where it's just like piling
Speaker 1: it on and piling it on and piling it on
Speaker 1: to the port where it feels like improvised, of like,
Speaker 1: what's the worst thing you can think of? To say
Speaker 1: about this man.
Speaker 2: You know, right, the movie waffles back and forth between
Speaker 2: scenes where other characters will be talking about him and
Speaker 2: they're not sure what language to use to describe him,
Speaker 2: and they end up using disparaging language and using slurs,
Speaker 2: and you know, Bernie mac finally comes in and has
Speaker 2: to say, like, you know, the correct languages, little people.
Speaker 2: And you could argue that there's commentary there kind of
Speaker 2: in people fumbling over the right language who use and
Speaker 2: getting it wrong and being ablest along the way, But
Speaker 2: that gets undercut when in all of the other scenes
Speaker 2: you have various other characters, namely Willie constantly insulting Marcus
Speaker 2: and being entirely ablest toward him, and sometimes Marcus pushes
Speaker 2: back on that and he calls him out.
Speaker 1: I think pretty frequently he does, which is which I did,
Speaker 1: which again I appreciate it. Yeah, of like there's multiple
Speaker 1: scenes where Marcus is like I think it's it's a
Speaker 1: scene towards the end where he's like, yeah, go ahead
Speaker 1: and say, like say something about how I'm a little person,
Speaker 1: like you're the weakest man in the entire world, and
Speaker 1: like that's kind of all you have on me because
Speaker 1: I'm a person and you're a piece of shit. And
Speaker 1: so it's like there are these moments of like lucidity
Speaker 1: that you're like, oh, now we're going somewhere. But then
Speaker 1: it like the turn that Marcus's character takes toward the
Speaker 1: end didn't really scan for me, like totally.
Speaker 3: It's just sometimes it's eating its cake and having it
Speaker 3: tube and like we're acknowledging that this is terrible, but
Speaker 3: we're also doing it because you're going to find it funny,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also a lot of Willy saying slurs and
Speaker 2: that's played for laughs, and that's Oh, you're the audience
Speaker 2: is supposed to laugh at that. Oh, we're supposed to
Speaker 2: find that funny.
Speaker 3: So I do want to get Billy Bob Thornton credit
Speaker 3: for not trying to make this character lovable. Yeah, Like
Speaker 3: I think he is committed to the Zwygoff version of this,
Speaker 3: which is that this guy is a piece of shit.
Speaker 3: And I think there are other characters who would play
Speaker 3: it with a wink, who would play with oh I'm
Speaker 3: a scamp, but you love me, and Billy Bob Thornton
Speaker 3: just feels like he is going full on no, no,
Speaker 3: I am this is an alcoholic hitting rock Bottom in
Speaker 3: a Santa suit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like that's I think that's It's like everyone
Speaker 1: is kind of in a different movie here at different moments,
Speaker 1: because it does feel like, I don't know's there's Billy
Speaker 1: Bob Thornton performances I really really enjoy and like his
Speaker 1: his whole Like we can't even get into the Billy
Speaker 1: Bob Thornton of it all. There's just so much going
Speaker 1: on with that guy. I also didn't realize he was
Speaker 1: in his seventies. Now he's like also weirdly ageless in
Speaker 1: my mind. But but yeah, it seems like he's he's
Speaker 1: playing the version of this character who dies at the end.
Speaker 1: He's not playing the version of this character that forms
Speaker 1: a meaningful Christmas bond with a bullied.
Speaker 3: Child and.
Speaker 1: Right right, so he Yeah, that's a good point, Like
Speaker 1: he is playing an irredeemable piece of shit in you know,
Speaker 1: more of like an art housey Terry's Wygoff movie, and
Speaker 1: then it's like Frankenstein into being this other thing and
Speaker 1: it just doesn't work. And I also, I mean, like
Speaker 1: I don't know, there is a lot of speaking to
Speaker 1: your point, Heitlen, a lot of ablest dated language that
Speaker 1: was very normalized to say in a shock context in
Speaker 1: the two thousands that now just is like does not age. Well,
Speaker 1: it's weirdly making a comeback, and that's also horrible. But
Speaker 1: we see that a lot. We see that, you know,
Speaker 1: with relation to Tony Cox's character. We see that with
Speaker 1: relation to Thermimon's character quite a bit, whether it's like
Speaker 1: fat shaming or dropping the R word, which comedy is
Speaker 1: in the two thousands did constantly because that was what
Speaker 1: it was like watching a movie. Then yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's I think we keep kind of circling back to
Speaker 1: the same point where it's like this, if this movie
Speaker 1: is this tone, just just kill him, just kill the guy.
Speaker 1: But then also I'm like, there were scenes that I
Speaker 1: was like, I like Therman Merman. I don't want to
Speaker 1: get rid of Thurm and Merman. I think he's a
Speaker 1: sweet kid. I want the best for him.
Speaker 3: What's funny about steering away from the ending in which
Speaker 3: he dies is that it basically turns Bad Santa into
Speaker 3: the kind of Christmas movie that people who love Bad
Speaker 3: Santa would, on the for the most part, say they
Speaker 3: don't like you know, if you're turning to this movie
Speaker 3: as an alternative from the sort of sweetness and light
Speaker 3: or from the kind of redemption arcs of you know,
Speaker 3: it's a Wonderful life or a Christmas Carol or whatever,
Speaker 3: then you would want that character dead. But if you don't,
Speaker 3: and you want to see him improve and become a
Speaker 3: better person because of the magic of Christmas or whatever,
Speaker 3: then really you do like that kind of movie. You
Speaker 3: just can't admit it, and so we have to dress
Speaker 3: it up in this sort of like badass, you know,
Speaker 3: thing that you can feel like a tough guy about.
Speaker 3: But it's it. It has been edited to be that
Speaker 3: movie eventually, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it still wants you to like have the like
Speaker 1: warm ish fuzzies at the end where they're like, he's okay,
Speaker 1: you guys, He's okay.
Speaker 2: It's like not too far from the narrative that we've
Speaker 2: seen over and over as far as especially father and
Speaker 2: Son Redemption are Christmas stories, because that's the Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: That's Jack Frost, feminist masterpiece, Michael Keaton's Jack Frost.
Speaker 3: I mean Elf, even Elf, Like.
Speaker 1: It's so it's so many this movie coming out the
Speaker 1: same year as Elf is wild What a wild year
Speaker 1: for love?
Speaker 3: Actually yes, have y'all done a love actually episode?
Speaker 2: It was like one of our first episodes.
Speaker 3: I would hope, So Okay, yes, I think.
Speaker 1: We're due for a revisit, though, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's a long time. We just watched The Family Stone
Speaker 1: for the first time and I was I'm like, I need,
Speaker 1: I need to like go on a walk, I need
Speaker 1: to promise the event since the film. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: for this one. In the theatrical cut, it seems like
Speaker 1: and certainly in the extended cut, I mean I wrote
Speaker 1: down tells you it's a fathers and sons movie in
Speaker 1: record time, tells you in ad r in the opening
Speaker 1: shot or in narration in the opening shot. And interestingly,
Speaker 1: I've gotten in the habit of looking at some of
Speaker 1: the top letterbox reviews, especially for broad comedies that I
Speaker 1: don't like, because you can you can almost always find
Speaker 1: someone's reasoning for like why this movie means a lot
Speaker 1: to them, and I think it's interest to look into it,
Speaker 1: and a handful of them for this movie specifically references
Speaker 1: that opening monologue as like what really hooked them? So
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, probably this zygoth version of this
Speaker 1: movie wouldn't have been commercially successful, but it would definitely
Speaker 1: make more sense. But yeah, I mean that opening monologue
Speaker 1: is also like paints him out to be a despicable person.
Speaker 1: He says something racist within it. It sort of solidifies that,
Speaker 1: like we're playing into negative stereotypes around veterans. We're playing that,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly around addiction. That is the premise of
Speaker 1: the movie, right. But starting the movie by being like
Speaker 1: I was like abused by a father with anger issues
Speaker 1: and like have gone on to live this like aimless,
Speaker 1: self destructive life and I hate Christmas but I'm Santa,
Speaker 1: it like sets you up for the Weinstein version of
Speaker 1: the movie of like what his I mean, it's also
Speaker 1: the moral of Jurassic Park, where it's like this the
Speaker 1: Crouch needs to learn how to be a father yesterday.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: Which sounds like the Zwygoff cut has like no interest
Speaker 1: in whatsoever. Nope, Yeah, I don't know. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: guess I prefer like I don't really prefer one over
Speaker 1: the other. But seeing them sort of Frankenstein together is
Speaker 1: a is a very weird experience.
Speaker 3: I mean, sadly, I guess this is an example in
Speaker 3: which like studio notes and interference do make a movie
Speaker 3: more successful, because you're right. I think the Zwygoth version
Speaker 3: of Bad Santa would have been like an art house
Speaker 3: curio and it would you know, would have a tiny
Speaker 3: cult that watched every year, But it would not have
Speaker 3: become what it became because again I think it's it
Speaker 3: is a movie that stealthily is delivering the kind of
Speaker 3: Christmas movie that Bad Santa fans would claim that they
Speaker 3: were too cool for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone secretly like I feel like wants the Grouch
Speaker 1: to reform. It's the screw.
Speaker 3: The Grinch is hard to grow three sizes, right.
Speaker 2: Jim Christian for Michael Caine screwge to look at cratch
Speaker 2: It and be like, here's a Christmas goose.
Speaker 1: But it's just like beyond the pale here because the
Speaker 1: original version of this character is kind of irredeemably horrible.
Speaker 2: Well that's the thing, Like whatever, if there has to
Speaker 2: be a male redemption story like a fine I would
Speaker 2: there have rather men always redeem themselves than a bad
Speaker 2: man go on staying horrible for the rest of his life. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so like in realized like how it always happens in
Speaker 2: real life. But the movie is just so riddled with
Speaker 2: slur after slur after problematic joke after reductive stereotype after.
Speaker 1: You know it, like, which is like the two thousands
Speaker 1: right in comedy.
Speaker 2: It's just it can't. I mean, there's we could get
Speaker 2: into the representation of alcoholism, the agism with the grandmother
Speaker 2: character being so oblivious that she doesn't notice that an
Speaker 2: adult man with a balaclava is in her house about
Speaker 2: to rob her everything.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I mean, it's like it's so deeply of
Speaker 1: its time and like ven some and so to be asked,
Speaker 1: I think kind of then Anne now to be like,
Speaker 1: we love this guy, he's a lovable rogue, Like I don't.
Speaker 1: It's sell It's the it's the rule of if you
Speaker 1: were her child when you saw this movie, I'm sure that,
Speaker 1: like it is something that you carry a little torch
Speaker 1: for in your heart. But yeah, having seen it for
Speaker 1: the first time, for this, I'm like, I just I
Speaker 1: simply cannot, I cannot participate in loving this movie. But
Speaker 1: Bernie Mack did still manage to make me laugh and
Speaker 1: basically every scene he was in I mean fair, that's
Speaker 1: just kind of the rule of Mac.
Speaker 2: I'll touch on the sequel really quick because I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: if I watched it, because you've both seen it.
Speaker 3: Yes, I saw it when it came out, not since,
Speaker 3: so I don't really remember it.
Speaker 2: I watched it yesterday, so it's quite fresh.
Speaker 3: Okay. Tell me.
Speaker 2: The main reason I wanted to watch it is because
Speaker 2: it came out in twenty sixteen, and this is around
Speaker 2: the time that movies started to be less overtly problematic
Speaker 2: and slightly more conscious about how things were being represented
Speaker 2: and what language was being used and all of that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Our show came out this week.
Speaker 2: Exactly, so I was curious if you fixed everything we actually.
Speaker 1: Fixed Well, I don't know, take a survey. I don't
Speaker 1: know that we've made much of a dent.
Speaker 2: But I was curious if this sequel scaled back on
Speaker 2: any of the ableism, racism, fat phobia, agism, et cetera
Speaker 2: that we see in the original movie, because I feel
Speaker 2: like you will see sequels that come out like whatever, ten, fifteen,
Speaker 2: twenty years later that will sort of update whatever.
Speaker 1: The story the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, things feel slightly updated and slightly adjusted for the time.
Speaker 1: Bad Santa hates woke. I just know he hates woke.
Speaker 2: This movie did not do that. This movie doubled down
Speaker 2: and even added some stuff like it was just as problematic,
Speaker 2: if not more than the two thousand and three original movie.
Speaker 1: Which is I mean, I think the only thing that
Speaker 1: is like, I don't know, I mean, yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: see it. I had it up and I was like,
Speaker 1: I cannot press play it, Like I just can't do it.
Speaker 1: But clearly an interest in this style of comedy in
Speaker 1: the mid twenty tens wasn't there, because this Is the
Speaker 1: sequel did not do well. It didn't even make its
Speaker 1: budget back.
Speaker 3: And I'm and not that I'm in any way defending it,
Speaker 3: but I think, of course, if you're gonna make a
Speaker 3: bad Sant sequel, you're gonna think, well, what do people
Speaker 3: love about the first one? What is it that keeps
Speaker 3: them coming back and rewatching it every year? The easy
Speaker 3: answer is, oh, well, the shocking humor and the you know,
Speaker 3: the the sort of bleak point of view and the
Speaker 3: no holds barred offensiveness. You know. So now let's have
Speaker 3: Kathy Bates say all that stuff. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, I guess that that is the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen twists. They're like, now, women are horrible. We wrote
Speaker 1: a woman character and she's awful.
Speaker 3: You're like equity, all right.
Speaker 2: Also, Kathy Bates plays his mother and she's only seven
Speaker 2: years older than Billy Bob Thornton.
Speaker 3: So that's the it's the Angela Lansbury condition, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she spent the entire nineteen sixties playing the moms of
Speaker 3: people she was like less than a decade older than Yeah,
Speaker 3: urion Canada. Yeah, I'll fall down. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Why, it's just like, can a woman just have a
Speaker 1: Bob in peace without it being a big, a whole thing?
Speaker 1: Evidently not? Well, thank you for watching Bad Santa, both
Speaker 1: of you and it's best of but also Lauren Lauren
Speaker 1: Graham didn't come back. She was like, I'm correct you No.
Speaker 1: I just this year I read both of her memoirs
Speaker 1: because I am a millennial woman, and I had a
Speaker 1: great time. She's a really great funny writer.
Speaker 3: Nice to check those out. She's quite good. Uh. In
Speaker 3: the remake of the Best Christmas Pageant Ever that came
Speaker 3: out last year.
Speaker 1: Oh, I haven't seen Pete Holmes movie.
Speaker 3: Yes, because she she narrates and so, you know, which
Speaker 3: gives it a little Christmas story flavor.
Speaker 1: And then she was in Twinless this year, which I
Speaker 1: didn't see, but I know you did. Caitlyn.
Speaker 2: Yes, I loved that movie.
Speaker 1: And then she's in one of the Colleen Hoover slop
Speaker 1: movies that I'm kind of play. She plays Mommy question Mark,
Speaker 1: probably in a movie called Remind Him. I'm just like
Speaker 1: the Colling Hoover movie is. It's I will never see them,
Speaker 1: but I do kind of delight in seeing the trailers
Speaker 1: aggressively shoveled at me, where it's like, nice, try nice, triasshole.
Speaker 2: You're not getting me in that room. There's a few
Speaker 2: other things with this movie, like specific things that we
Speaker 2: haven't touched on that you know, we don't need to
Speaker 2: necessarily go into a lot of detail on. I'm thinking
Speaker 2: especially of the scene in which the random man from
Speaker 2: the bar, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Tax the homophobia jumps care.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a character played by A. J. Nadou, who
Speaker 2: plays Samir from Office Space. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: that's Samir. But anyway, the scene is so bizarre.
Speaker 1: Also, the character is named Hindustani troublemaker yeah, which is like,
Speaker 1: if there was any question of how much regard the
Speaker 1: script has for the character.
Speaker 2: There there you go.
Speaker 1: But it manages to be everything at once. I mean,
Speaker 1: it manages to be so many horrible stereotypes that it's
Speaker 1: like almost impressive that it's like homophobic, it is hostile
Speaker 1: to any brown person who's ever existed. It's like, it's
Speaker 1: just so I does feel like that. Yeah, I was like,
Speaker 1: what is it?
Speaker 2: I think it's supposed to be a joke about like
Speaker 2: repressed homo eroticism, which is manifesting as homophobia in the character.
Speaker 2: But I'm just like I could barely make sense of it.
Speaker 2: It's such a bizarre scene.
Speaker 1: The character never comes back. It is based off of
Speaker 1: a look in the bar.
Speaker 2: It's just bizarre. So it's a it's a handful of
Speaker 2: things like that throughout the movie, on top of all
Speaker 2: the just slurs that are ablest, racist, sexist, fat phobic, homophobics,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And I and and it doesn't pass.
Speaker 3: The bechd.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't even come close to passing the Bechdel test,
Speaker 1: so we can got to just skip over that. Usually
Speaker 1: there's at least a spirited debate going on in the
Speaker 1: comments of Bechdel test dot com, but here for this one,
Speaker 1: everyone's pretty like, no, Nope. Lauren Graham touches clorus Leachman's foot,
Speaker 1: and that is that is as far as we got.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So let's get to the more important metric,
Speaker 1: and perhaps the most important metrics, the Bechdel Cast Nipple scale.
Speaker 2: Yes, the scale where we rate the movie zero to
Speaker 2: five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 2: I will give this movie zero nipples. Can you imagine that.
Speaker 1: It's kind of an easy one. I'm going to join
Speaker 1: you with zero nipples. Look, the movie got some chuckles
Speaker 1: out of me, but.
Speaker 2: This is a sinister movie.
Speaker 1: It does have a bit of a dark aura. I
Speaker 1: would say it's again, it's like if Terry's Wygoff had
Speaker 1: been able to commit to his vision, it's still wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a movie I liked, but it would be a
Speaker 1: movie that made sense.
Speaker 2: But maybe that was saying something that was like trying
Speaker 2: to make a statement. But this just ends up being
Speaker 2: a statementless.
Speaker 1: Because he really, like I mean, outside of I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess the change that takes place with him has
Speaker 1: to do with Thurman Merman, but it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: do with anyone else. And there are so many characters
Speaker 1: that it's bizarre that it doesn't have to do with
Speaker 1: anyone else. And I guess we touched on this, but
Speaker 1: my last thing said because I have no nipples to award,
Speaker 1: is that I felt like they really sold out Marcus's
Speaker 1: character based on who I thought he was. I felt betrayed.
Speaker 1: I was like this, he is so like I mean,
Speaker 1: he's not a genius, mastermind, criminal, but he is at
Speaker 1: least thoughtful in how these things committed to. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: for him to randomly murder someone who people are certainly
Speaker 1: going to miss, it just felt like, so.
Speaker 2: That's sloppy, that's sloppy work.
Speaker 1: It was a sloppy He's presented as.
Speaker 2: Being the far more competent of the two between him
Speaker 2: and Willie. He's on top of stuff, he's making a
Speaker 2: list and checking it twice. You might say he truly is,
Speaker 2: and then suddenly he's like a murderer, Like where did
Speaker 2: this come from? Is very bizarre, it's something else. It's yeah,
Speaker 2: so yeah, zero nipples boo to this movie. Alonso, How
Speaker 2: about you? What do you? What say you?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Well, if we're talking the scale is purely about intersectional feminism.
Speaker 3: I think a zero was the only way to go
Speaker 3: if we were rating out on like you know, a
Speaker 3: poisonous missiletoe displays or you know, empty cans of bud light.
Speaker 3: It might be something else, but yeah, on the nipple scale,
Speaker 3: it is a It is a big goose egg.
Speaker 2: Indeed. Well, thank you so much for joining us for
Speaker 2: this discussion.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: What a holiday treat. Where can people follow you online?
Speaker 2: Check out your podcasts and your books and everything else.
Speaker 3: Well, you can read my reviews of current films at
Speaker 3: the film Verdict at the film verdict dot com. And
Speaker 3: I'm on various podcasts. My husband Dave White and I
Speaker 3: do the show Linoleum Knife, which just celebrated its fifteenth anniversary. Right,
Speaker 3: thank you. Yeah, we are the literal gray old men
Speaker 3: of movie podcasting. Also, you can hear me on Breakfast
Speaker 3: All Day with Christy Lemire. The two of us used
Speaker 3: to do a show called What the Flick, but now
Speaker 3: we've started We've had Breakfast all Day going for several
Speaker 3: years on YouTube, the Maximum Fun show Maximum Film with
Speaker 3: Drea Clark and Kevin Avery, and I pop in regularly
Speaker 3: to Deck the Hallmark to talk about Chris's movies of
Speaker 3: various stripes. I'm the easiest person on earth to Google,
Speaker 3: but I'm a Duraldi on Blue Sky and Alonzo dot
Speaker 3: Duraldi at Instagram. And my new book is the revised
Speaker 3: and updated second edition of Have Yourself a Movie, Little Christmas.
Speaker 3: It's available wherever you buy books online, in person at
Speaker 3: your local library. It's a book, book and an ebook.
Speaker 3: Pick one up this holiday.
Speaker 1: Season, please do, Aliza, thank you so much. I a
Speaker 1: longtime fan of your work, so it's like its cool
Speaker 1: and surreal to talk to you about this perfect movie.
Speaker 3: No notes. If y'all haven't done Carol yet, you know,
Speaker 3: I think there'd be a lot more to dig into.
Speaker 2: We have done Carol.
Speaker 3: You have done Carol?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, that is That is the That is
Speaker 1: the Christmas movie that does follow. You can find us
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Speaker 1: a month, you can listen to two bonus episodes every
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Speaker 1: hear about. So this this month, the Matrons have voted
Speaker 1: on the Family Stone and The Original Black Christmas. So
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Speaker 1: With that, let's either die on the front doorstep and
Speaker 1: or go on to live a long, healthy life. Ho
Speaker 1: Ho ho bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: hosted and produced by Me Jamie Loftus and.
Speaker 2: Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann.
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Speaker 1: Oh my God? And our theme song, by the way,
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