Speaker 1: On the Beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies
Speaker 1: have wen minuum? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Speaker 1: What do they have? Individualism, the patriarchy, Zef and best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the bec del Cast. Goshness, no familiar,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the factel Cast. That was a close one.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, we were were sure, are fast, We're fully already.
Speaker 1: We're the Fast and the Feminist more like ha ha
Speaker 1: ha ha new t shirts. My name is Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Drante. This is the Bectil Cast,
Speaker 1: our show about cars. This is basically car talk today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I drive, not to brag a Toyota Prius from two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten. I don't have a driver's license. Peeple,
Speaker 1: what's up? So what we really do is talk about
Speaker 1: movies from a feminist perspective and discuss how a movie
Speaker 1: treats and represents women. So this is our Fast and
Speaker 1: the Furious episode. It has been requested quite a bit before.
Speaker 1: We're lining this up with the release of feminist text
Speaker 1: Hobbs and Shaw. I'm sure and yeah, I'm I'm so.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to dig into it and to be clear,
Speaker 1: this is about The Fast and the Furious parentheses two
Speaker 1: thousand one, the first installment in the franchise, because at
Speaker 1: least four of the eight movies have basically the same title,
Speaker 1: and it's confusing. We're talking about the first movie, and
Speaker 1: then our very well informed guest, we'll give us some
Speaker 1: insight into subsequent installments. Indeed, Tokyo Drift anyone I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, And for those who are perhaps new to
Speaker 1: the podcast, we use the Bechtel test as a jumping
Speaker 1: off point to initiate a larger conversation about overall representation
Speaker 1: of women and the Becktel Test, of course, is a
Speaker 1: media metric created by cartoonists Ellison Bechtel that requires that
Speaker 1: a movie or an entire franchise must have two named
Speaker 1: female identifying characters who speak to each other about something
Speaker 1: other than a man. Oh here's an example, right ready,
Speaker 1: Hi Caitlin, Hi Jamie Beep, who's there? You know? And
Speaker 1: that passed the Betel christ but what it passes? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: we're doing good? Yeah? Um? With how much further do
Speaker 1: I say we introduce our guests? I think, yeah, she
Speaker 1: really is the authority here. Indeed, indeed, she is an artist.
Speaker 1: She is the owner of Junior High, a feminist art
Speaker 1: space right here in Los Angeles. And you know her
Speaker 1: from our Josie and the Pussycats episode. It's Fay or
Speaker 1: love Babe, y'alle, Hong Kong. I don't think they honk
Speaker 1: once in the movie. Why aren't they Why it's already
Speaker 1: such a loud movie. They may as well hunt? Is
Speaker 1: that like bad form? I don't know much about street racing.
Speaker 1: You didn't learn everything you needed to know from those
Speaker 1: ninety minutes there was there was street racing in my
Speaker 1: hometown between the burger king in the high school. How
Speaker 1: many miles is that at a quarter mile? It's about
Speaker 1: a quarter mile. It's a quarter so you can live
Speaker 1: in a quarter mile at a time since high school.
Speaker 1: That monologue is wild. He's like, I don't give a
Speaker 1: fuck about anything. I don't care about family. For girls
Speaker 1: ten seconds that makes me feel alive. Also, we should
Speaker 1: mention that Faye drove up here on her motor site.
Speaker 1: Oh my croptrock it as referred to in the film lovingly,
Speaker 1: I think, y'all. I don't know if it does have
Speaker 1: a horn? I think does it for safety? No one's
Speaker 1: using their horns enough. I think I didn't know you
Speaker 1: didn't have a license. I thought you were just poor there. Well,
Speaker 1: it can it be both there. I'm a complex female character.
Speaker 1: I was really trying to kind of make you in
Speaker 1: a box. Heay, what is your relationship with this movie?
Speaker 1: And then the whole Fast and Furious franchise? These are
Speaker 1: my favorite movies of all time. Um, that's where my
Speaker 1: relationship begins. No, I guess I've always loved them. And
Speaker 1: then my college roommate shoutout Katie. It turned out she
Speaker 1: loved them too. It was just a real moment when
Speaker 1: we realized that we had these in common, and as
Speaker 1: they came out, we would see them together and we
Speaker 1: developed a dre thinking game to them that does have
Speaker 1: to somewhat adapt per I did not play it this
Speaker 1: morning when I rewatched Fast and Furious around nine am.
Speaker 1: You did not drink. I did not. But it actually
Speaker 1: is a little bit more applicable to the later movies.
Speaker 1: I did realize upon rewatch of this first one, which
Speaker 1: I normally skip in my rewatch, that um, it harshly
Speaker 1: did not pass the Bechdel test. Well, I have a
Speaker 1: case for it passing, but well, we'll save it. We'll
Speaker 1: save it to the end. I'm curious because I was
Speaker 1: very unpleasantly surprised upon my rewatch um. But I like
Speaker 1: what you said towards the beginning that maybe we can
Speaker 1: sort of analyze these movies franchise wide, because I do
Speaker 1: think they develop a stronger ethos well skipping Tokyo, but
Speaker 1: two and three and onward that I do find them
Speaker 1: way more feminist driven interesting. Did you did you see
Speaker 1: these movies like in theaters growing up and stuff like that. Yes,
Speaker 1: I do think. I went home after the first one
Speaker 1: and told my mom I wanted a thong. After saying
Speaker 1: Michelle Rodriguez emerged from a very low from a car
Speaker 1: from what I was going to say, from a thong
Speaker 1: shaved egg, she hatched. Okay, so you're you're a resident
Speaker 1: expert on this franchise. What's your what's your history? My history?
Speaker 1: I saw the first movie in two thousand, probably two.
Speaker 1: I was in high school, probably like a sophomore or junior,
Speaker 1: and I did not feel compelled to see any of
Speaker 1: the other ones after that, or we watched that movie
Speaker 1: at any point. Don't get me wrong, I like a
Speaker 1: lot of toxic male driven franchises. It's sort of my thing. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there is nothing about these movies that I hate cars.
Speaker 1: You know, They're like, oh, the turbo and the nitrous
Speaker 1: and the NAS which is also an energy drink that
Speaker 1: I was into in college. And so for a while,
Speaker 1: I'm like, are they started putting monster energy beverage? In essential?
Speaker 1: Without getting too scientific, yes, have you ever had a NAZ? No? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I was actually shocked you didn't supply some. As I
Speaker 1: walked in there, I should have gotten a can of
Speaker 1: NASA figuous episode, but there that isn't existing. I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a lady, must watch her figure because
Speaker 1: society be like that. But I saw I was a
Speaker 1: diet NAS you were. Let's keep it classy. I've never
Speaker 1: heard of this. NAZ is essentially jet fuel you put
Speaker 1: into your body. But anyway, so yeah, I I something
Speaker 1: about this franchise just does not appeal to me at all.
Speaker 1: So I've I've seen the first one. I rewatched it
Speaker 1: obviously to prep for this episode, and then I started
Speaker 1: to watch too fast, too furious, just to see how
Speaker 1: I intended to get as far into the franchise as
Speaker 1: I could, just to have some more informed, and I
Speaker 1: got halfway through too fast, too furious, and then had
Speaker 1: to stop. So that's my relationship with this franchise, Jamie,
Speaker 1: what about you? Uh well, I would say that I
Speaker 1: have seen only Tokyo Drift. It's like the one that
Speaker 1: isn't even like Cannon. I know, it's like, isn't that
Speaker 1: like a prequel or so that's when they have the
Speaker 1: four year old playing a high school. Yeah, I liked
Speaker 1: that one. It's a good movie, but it's like, not
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with anything I saw. I
Speaker 1: saw that at a drive through. Um there, I mean
Speaker 1: appropriate exactly. Yeah, we were all Hong hongk and beep
Speaker 1: beep and uh there. Yeah. I mean this is like
Speaker 1: a franchise that is not my genre really at all.
Speaker 1: I also, like have a little bit of noise sensitivity,
Speaker 1: and it was just like I just can't, Like it's
Speaker 1: even hard for me to see like a Star Wars
Speaker 1: movie in the theater because it's so loud. And this movie,
Speaker 1: even on my humble Roku TV was so very loud.
Speaker 1: It is feeling that they probably have some sort of
Speaker 1: warning on diet nas for noise sensitivity. It's just like
Speaker 1: I don't know, yeah, it was just never my thing.
Speaker 1: I Mean, everyone I grew up with saw all of them.
Speaker 1: So I it's like one of those franchises that, even
Speaker 1: though I wasn't really engaged in it, I felt like
Speaker 1: I saw them all because everyone would be so excited
Speaker 1: about it. And this is a huge It's Universal's highest
Speaker 1: grossing franchise. There are It's It's eight movies now, including
Speaker 1: Hobbs and Shaw. There's I think Fast and Furious nine
Speaker 1: coming out in like they've grossed over four billion dollars,
Speaker 1: like It's it is. It is a think about two
Speaker 1: billion of that is just from me alone. There. You're
Speaker 1: a very wealthy woman, and I like to spend it
Speaker 1: on You're in literally a golden roly chair right now.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so I I this was my I think
Speaker 1: my first time seeing this movie at least paying attention
Speaker 1: to it, and oh man, there's just there's just so
Speaker 1: much happening. There's so much, you know, and it's like,
Speaker 1: I really love the power of the first time you
Speaker 1: see a woman on screen she is making a sandwich
Speaker 1: for a man, and I think that that is really
Speaker 1: that's my feminism. This is also one of the many
Speaker 1: movies that came out like a few months before nine eleven,
Speaker 1: and it shows like there's cover we've well, we've covered
Speaker 1: so many movies that come out like right before nine eleven,
Speaker 1: and it's always it's kind of like a weird mix
Speaker 1: of of genres. But this movie came out in the
Speaker 1: summer of two thousand and one, and it's just, I
Speaker 1: mean truly based strictly on the fact that after nine eleven,
Speaker 1: movies were not fun for a while. You didn't get
Speaker 1: a good romp for a while, and this movie is
Speaker 1: so like truck sized plot holes, like but that's not
Speaker 1: that's not what it's for. It's just supposed to be
Speaker 1: like a fun movie that you're not supposed to be
Speaker 1: thinking about whether it makes sense or not, which is
Speaker 1: a very pre nine eleven or just in general kind
Speaker 1: of like a nineties Well we just recorded an episode
Speaker 1: on Independence Day where it's like that movie is the
Speaker 1: steaks are deathly high, and yet it is like this fun,
Speaker 1: goofy movie. Um, I must have never fully processed nine
Speaker 1: eleven then, because I lived my life for fast cars
Speaker 1: and fast one they're going to say a quarter mile
Speaker 1: at a time. Yeah, Like, because it comes without SAE
Speaker 1: should I just dive right into the recap. Your recap. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: so all your listeners get revved up. Put your car
Speaker 1: into neutral, iron or some forward. Yeah, put slam on
Speaker 1: the brakes, you know the gas. I know how to
Speaker 1: weird red switch that every car in these movies as
Speaker 1: that turns on the knob. Turn up your boom box
Speaker 1: in the car, and turn on your green hacker lights.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's a hacker in this movie. We're really
Speaker 1: we're really playing to female stereotypes of not knowing what
Speaker 1: a car anyways, proceed we open. We see three black
Speaker 1: cars robbing a tractor trailer truck that's carrying a bunch
Speaker 1: of electronics DVDs, dv The highest of this movie the
Speaker 1: stakes are DVD players and that is so two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, So that's very personally. That's as high as
Speaker 1: the stakes yet. So DVD player crime, yes, and you
Speaker 1: wouldn't believe it. But the black cards they're driving around,
Speaker 1: they're fast and they're furious. They're so mad. I would
Speaker 1: agree with that characteristic. But they're also feminist, which is
Speaker 1: not included in the title. They're faster, furious, they're feminist.
Speaker 1: Now we cut two iron that's Paul Walker's character. He
Speaker 1: is driving a green car. He's fast, he's furious. What
Speaker 1: we don't know? He does like shit, he doesn't like
Speaker 1: why are you mad? I don't know what happened. He's furious. Yea,
Speaker 1: he is trying to flirt with a woman named me.
Speaker 1: And that's Jordana Brewster's fame, the sandwich making fame as well.
Speaker 1: There yeah, an icon in Cressless Tuna Sandwiches. Women be
Speaker 1: making sandwiches, yeah, for Paul Walker. And also it's not
Speaker 1: like it's like a weird like grocery store. It's not
Speaker 1: even like it looks like a bar, but they like
Speaker 1: market items where this woman is making. It's obviously a
Speaker 1: front for the crimes. Everyone is keeping the DVD player eyes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but she's still running the business by herself, and she
Speaker 1: does have a name. In the first scene she does
Speaker 1: have a name, an first seen just to set the
Speaker 1: bar where this franchise is about at For me, it's
Speaker 1: just like, well, at least she's getting paid for this.
Speaker 1: At least it's I think it's like a family business.
Speaker 1: So I don't think she's It's called Toretto's, which is right,
Speaker 1: she I mean I'm like, at least she's at work
Speaker 1: and it's not just like some random guy being like
Speaker 1: make me a sandwich, and she's like, okay, cress or
Speaker 1: no Crest, no Christ. Yeah. She is the sister of
Speaker 1: Dom Toretto Vin Diesel, and he is an important fast carboy,
Speaker 1: and he and his buddy room rooms better than anyone,
Speaker 1: and certainly does he and his buddies show up to
Speaker 1: the bodega again if we don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: and you wouldn't believe it, but all of them are
Speaker 1: fast and furious too. We meet Letty that's Michelle Rodriguez.
Speaker 1: She is Don's girlfriend. We meet Vince, he's got anger
Speaker 1: choose Leon, and then Jesse is the hacker. He's the
Speaker 1: hacker who comes and he's so confused, like Tom, I'm
Speaker 1: so fucked up. I don't know what he's just like
Speaker 1: the I don't understand. I think it's because I don't
Speaker 1: fully understand Jesse's character. And also multiple people in the
Speaker 1: movie don't seem to know what Jesse's role isn't everything.
Speaker 1: They're like, why is he around? And Don's just like,
Speaker 1: he's my friend, and I guess that's relatable of just
Speaker 1: like one one guy who you're just like, why is
Speaker 1: he here all the time? Does anyone like him in there? Like?
Speaker 1: And then one guy is just like, leave him the
Speaker 1: funk alone. You're like, Okay, Jesus, I guess Jesse's our friend.
Speaker 1: Is that some of the characters are described as being
Speaker 1: they just sort of showed up one day and then
Speaker 1: never left. The main character like the way, isn't that
Speaker 1: the scene with Brian and Mia or like Brian's trying
Speaker 1: to it's I mean, it's suggests he's doing it for
Speaker 1: his job, but it's also just exposition, and yeah, Mia
Speaker 1: gives him not the answer. She's like, well, we all
Speaker 1: just sort of lived in the same neighborhood and some
Speaker 1: people just gotta wandered in. And anyways, twenty five years later,
Speaker 1: here we are here. Because they're so against Paul Brian
Speaker 1: coming into the group, yet it seems like the rest
Speaker 1: of them did sort of just waltz in. Is he
Speaker 1: not just the latest random hottest guy. They're threatened by something,
Speaker 1: something to ponder. Maybe they're like, Okay, these frosty tips
Speaker 1: too far, those glacier blue eyes, I can't look away.
Speaker 1: So Vince in particular is upset that Brian is hanging
Speaker 1: around and they get in a fistfight. He's wearing a
Speaker 1: mesh shirt and then Dom is like, don't come around,
Speaker 1: you're a good Vince says, what's up with this fool?
Speaker 1: He's sandwich crazy or something. Another great line, A lot
Speaker 1: of crazy, an incredible burn. Then Brian enters into a
Speaker 1: street race. Dom is also there to Mr Firefest himself
Speaker 1: a k A. Jaw Rule. Jaws there Jaws, you know,
Speaker 1: dreaming up a scam in real time. Billy is ten
Speaker 1: years old at this point, I mean Jaws texting him
Speaker 1: hand just straight up on a boob. Yeah, she is empowered.
Speaker 1: She is the one who puts his hand on her boobs.
Speaker 1: So so she just that's just like a thing where
Speaker 1: she just regrets that later on, Come Firefest, right, Come Firefest,
Speaker 1: I Come Firefest. We all really had to reckon with
Speaker 1: feelings about and maybe the one good thing about the
Speaker 1: fact that jaw Rule was the musician implicated and Firefest
Speaker 1: was there's like so few jaw Rules stands that no
Speaker 1: one was like, no, like everyone was pretty willing to
Speaker 1: be like, well, I guess there's not that really loud
Speaker 1: song at the end of the fest in the serious one.
Speaker 1: No one was like, but he makes such good music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no art versus there's no dear the artist. So
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's at least something. So they're all
Speaker 1: gathering for this race. This guy Johnny Tran is also there.
Speaker 1: The race happens, it's pretty touch and go for a while,
Speaker 1: but eventually Dom beats out Brian. Trouble is Brian bet
Speaker 1: his car, but before Dom can collect this new car
Speaker 1: that he now owns, the cops show up and chase
Speaker 1: down everyone, and they chased on Dom on foot, but
Speaker 1: Paul Walker Brian swoops in, picks him up, and gets
Speaker 1: him away from the cops. Then Johnny Tran and some
Speaker 1: fast motorcycle boys show up and they shoot up Brian's
Speaker 1: car and he's like, no, that was my first in
Speaker 1: furious car. That's a direct. So then he and Dom
Speaker 1: get back to Dom's place, and Dom trusts Brian now
Speaker 1: because he saved him from getting arrested. It's also implied
Speaker 1: that they walked twenty miles, but then you see them
Speaker 1: getting out of a cab, so I don't know how
Speaker 1: far they walked and how far the cab ride was unclear.
Speaker 1: I don't know everyone, it doesn't matter, um, but Don's buds,
Speaker 1: especially Vince still or like, we don't know this guy,
Speaker 1: we don't trust him. And to be fair, they are
Speaker 1: right not to trust him because the big reveal happens.
Speaker 1: He's a cop. He is a cop? Are they right?
Speaker 1: Because he's a good guy? I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: that's one of the many fallacies of this movie. Undercover
Speaker 1: Cops actually your friend. So Brian has gone undercover using
Speaker 1: his same first name but different last names in the
Speaker 1: street racing world because the cops the FBI think that
Speaker 1: the people who are hijacking the trucks full of DVD
Speaker 1: players are street racers also. And this is where we
Speaker 1: realized that Fast and Furious is basically Point Break but
Speaker 1: with racing instead of surfing. Oh I haven't seen point break,
Speaker 1: so stop right there with the references. Just stop it, jeez. Anyways,
Speaker 1: So back undercover, Brian brings a car to Dom's place
Speaker 1: since he owes him a fast carve the ten second
Speaker 1: car thing. This is like that whole thing. I was
Speaker 1: just like, I don't understand how men bond with each other,
Speaker 1: but I'm I'm glad that they do. I like that.
Speaker 1: I feel like this movie is like relatively strong with
Speaker 1: like male male friendships, which I think we should see
Speaker 1: more in movies, But the way that they do it,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, is this how that happens? I think
Speaker 1: they know you a ten second car, I'm like, just
Speaker 1: say I care about you, like there, we don't need
Speaker 1: to speak in this code, right uh. And then they'll
Speaker 1: have a cook at together. Brian's really getting into this
Speaker 1: friend group and he asks out Mia, who says no
Speaker 1: at first. She's like, I don't date my brother's friends
Speaker 1: until two minutes later when she does. Well then because
Speaker 1: she's trying to piss off Vince, and she's like, I'll
Speaker 1: go out with you to the restaurant that Vince wants
Speaker 1: to take me to. I will say, I like that.
Speaker 1: I mean that, I mean that's your kind of woman,
Speaker 1: with my with my with There's a few moments with
Speaker 1: the female characters here that I'm like that really appeals
Speaker 1: to my like bitterness, my note, but thank you so
Speaker 1: much for acknowledging it and really making it more visible.
Speaker 1: Um visibility is critical, but like this is like sort
Speaker 1: of the tail end of like girl power kind of characters,
Speaker 1: which I think that like Letty and Mia in certain
Speaker 1: moments are meant to fall into and even though it's like, no,
Speaker 1: that's not how that, but there's still like that tiny
Speaker 1: like nineties girl power chip that was put in my
Speaker 1: brain by this Ice girls, specifically that it asks for
Speaker 1: a while longer and even some movies today. Yeah, like, well,
Speaker 1: it's just like the cheap corporate like you're you're a
Speaker 1: good woman as long as you purchase the soap or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I liked I liked that moment with Mia being like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go a date with you. You're
Speaker 1: in a mess shirt. I'm gonna date with frosty tips.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, she's gotta go a date with someone.
Speaker 1: She's also washing dishes. She is washing dishes, and she
Speaker 1: has also cooked the entire meal for them, So this
Speaker 1: pisses off Events even more, and he already hates Brian enough.
Speaker 1: So the next day, their fast boyfriend, Hector, comes into
Speaker 1: the auto shop that Brian works at and buys a
Speaker 1: bunch of parts for three Honda Civics, which is the
Speaker 1: same make and model of the cars that have been
Speaker 1: hijacking the trucks. Is fast, but I wouldn't say that
Speaker 1: he's furious he's a pretty agreeable, nice guy. Yeah he's
Speaker 1: the fast and the friendly. Yeah T shirt idea another
Speaker 1: So Brian breaks into Hector's garage, but he sees that
Speaker 1: they're not the same car, so he's like, okay, they're
Speaker 1: not the hijackers. But just then Vince finds him knocks
Speaker 1: him out, and then Vincent dom Or like, hey, Brian,
Speaker 1: you seem like a cop, and he's like no, and
Speaker 1: then he makes up a story and then they go
Speaker 1: and break into my hair. A cop have this hair?
Speaker 1: This bad? His arguments are very weak, but they they're like,
Speaker 1: what do you what do you wear? T shirts? Just
Speaker 1: baggy is mine? No, a cop wouldn't do that in
Speaker 1: a jaw rule? How could I be a cop? So
Speaker 1: then they all go to Johnny trans garage and they
Speaker 1: see a bunch of boxes of DVD players. So that's
Speaker 1: gotta be like four hundred dollars worth of DVT fare.
Speaker 1: Your stomach drops when you see the DVD players. You're like, now,
Speaker 1: I thought the steaks right, Well, doesn't like you can
Speaker 1: buy a DVD player now for like thirty dollars into
Speaker 1: thou one. DVD players were so expensive, so I guess
Speaker 1: it makes sense. My family paid off our DVD player
Speaker 1: in installments because we should have just gone to Johnny
Speaker 1: Tran's garage. But we've paid it off over like eighteen
Speaker 1: months or they were very pricey. So now Brian suspects
Speaker 1: that Johnny Tran and his team are the hijackers, but
Speaker 1: he's like, there's not enough evidence. But the FBI moves
Speaker 1: in on them anyway, and it turns out that Johnny
Speaker 1: Tran and his fast Boys are not actually the hijackers.
Speaker 1: Fast fast boys, what do you mean? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we're not. So we're certainly not about to call them
Speaker 1: the slow boys. I mean, yeah, they're fast. They're fast.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have brought it up fast furious friendly feminist. Okay.
Speaker 1: So now one of Brian's cop friends is like, Brian
Speaker 1: Dom and his ask boys of the hijackers, you dummy,
Speaker 1: and Paul Walkers like, no, he's my friend. He's my friend.
Speaker 1: We had so many intense conversations about NA on those
Speaker 1: tweet about the energy drink that we put in our
Speaker 1: gas tank. But Brian goes to Dom and he's like, Hey,
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing, I want in on it. So Dom
Speaker 1: tells him to go to the race Wars and then
Speaker 1: if he does well there, they'll talk about, also, are
Speaker 1: you going to rain? It sounds and we should just
Speaker 1: acknowledge that we're going to be saying race and it
Speaker 1: will not pertain to any It doesn't sound like just
Speaker 1: gonna sound like I like, I straightened. I was like,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's what you're calling it. And
Speaker 1: I was like, let's go down to the Race Wars.
Speaker 1: And you're just like, where is this going? But of
Speaker 1: course it's a fathom So it's just going somewhere completely stupid.
Speaker 1: And they're going to the desert and they're going to
Speaker 1: Colla there they they're so they're just going to a
Speaker 1: fast and fury location. But it is called the Race
Speaker 1: Wars and sure, yeah, maybe in the new one they'll
Speaker 1: be like, we're doing this big event it's called the
Speaker 1: Gender Wars, and it does not have anything to do
Speaker 1: has nothing to gender. It's just what we're calling the
Speaker 1: Genocide Wars. It's actually just us racing each other, just
Speaker 1: us like hanging out and driving our cars from us. Uh.
Speaker 1: So they're at the Race Wars, yes, and Brian takes
Speaker 1: his like newly pimped out car there. But then Dom
Speaker 1: leaves abruptly with his team to go pull another job.
Speaker 1: So Brian goes up to Mia and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm a cop. I like me as reaction because she's
Speaker 1: like man like, She's just like are you serious? Like
Speaker 1: she's just pissed and like, I'm also exhaustive with at
Speaker 1: this point, would you, I mean, would you rather date
Speaker 1: a cop or an illegal street racer? I just think
Speaker 1: mea can do better in general. Sure, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that she like she's I mean, she's Jordan Brewsters when
Speaker 1: this is filmed, so it's like, you know, she's just
Speaker 1: sort of she's she's maybe this is her gap year.
Speaker 1: We don't know. Also noticed in the party scene when
Speaker 1: she comes in and sort of breaks up a fight
Speaker 1: and tells us it's like, Brian, come get me a
Speaker 1: drink once kind of split it up. She just grabs
Speaker 1: it a snapple she does, so she's got good sensibilities.
Speaker 1: She she doesn't drink right because she drives him home then,
Speaker 1: so she hasn't been drinking and driving has up. She
Speaker 1: probably knows some facts. Um yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: in two there were facts facts there there. It is
Speaker 1: so funny, like the snapple, like there's so much I
Speaker 1: love Blockbuster product placement because it is completely unsubtle, Like
Speaker 1: I don't know if NAS was if NAS was an
Speaker 1: energy drink back in two thousand one, holy sh it,
Speaker 1: Like that's if like unobtainium was called, like diet sprite,
Speaker 1: Like they're just like, we can't let anyone get their
Speaker 1: hand on the diet sprite, the most important thing in
Speaker 1: the world. Like there, So there is another. I have
Speaker 1: a few listed that we'll get to. Also, just to
Speaker 1: set the record straight, Corona is not a sponsor. Really
Speaker 1: just loves Corona. That was That was an artistic choice.
Speaker 1: I mean, I almost only drink Corona these days if
Speaker 1: I'm getting in like a cheap beer because of it,
Speaker 1: because because it's a drink of familia. Sure I want
Speaker 1: to pop that top and that I'm supported by my
Speaker 1: family and friends. You're right, Okay, we keep doing movies
Speaker 1: with you that have a bunch of product placement. Remember
Speaker 1: remember the Tidy Cats. Josie is like, there's no more
Speaker 1: movie that has more product, more target recognition anyway. So
Speaker 1: so Ryan's like, hey, Mia, I'm a cop, I'm undercover.
Speaker 1: We gotta go help out Dom and the Fast Boys
Speaker 1: and she's like, oh, ship okay because and then on
Speaker 1: the other side, like Letty is having like there's that
Speaker 1: great scene where they're pulling off this last heist, and
Speaker 1: Vin is like, it's all good. I had a dream
Speaker 1: that we went to Mexico at the beach, and Marchella
Speaker 1: Rodriguez is like, okay, Like I still there's three different
Speaker 1: characters that are like I don't know, like I don't know, Dom,
Speaker 1: this doesn't feel right, I don't know if we should
Speaker 1: do this, and it's and and turns out they are correct,
Speaker 1: correct because everything goes wrong. Never died a Fast Boys
Speaker 1: intuition right, Another shirt ideas the guy who's driving the
Speaker 1: truck that they're trying to steal from has a shotgun.
Speaker 1: Ship's fallen apart, Letty crashes, Vin gets stuck to the truck,
Speaker 1: so then Brian and Me catch up with them. They
Speaker 1: save Vince. He's badly injured. So then Brian makes a
Speaker 1: call right in front of Dom and he's like, Hi,
Speaker 1: it's Officer Brian, please stand help. Then Tom is like,
Speaker 1: why I oughta The way he looks at him, I mean,
Speaker 1: my heartbreaks, it shutters. That's his bro that he trusted him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now he can't trust are you cop? No? And
Speaker 1: then they he never says no, he just he sort
Speaker 1: of skirts around it. So, actually, I love Paul Walker.
Speaker 1: You don't have you don't have to convince me. I
Speaker 1: just the heartbreak I feel when it comes to Vin
Speaker 1: Diesel in the way his eyes just look at the park,
Speaker 1: just dreams right out. Yeah, you know, I mean their friendship.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm excited to talk about. Yes. So now
Speaker 1: we're back at Dom's house. Brian shows up because he
Speaker 1: has confirmed that his new bff Dom is a criminal,
Speaker 1: and they're yelling at each other. They're pouring guns at
Speaker 1: each other. You might even say they're furious. They're so mad.
Speaker 1: The Fast and the soul Man. When Jesse shows up,
Speaker 1: who had taken off because he lost a race earlier
Speaker 1: against Johnny Tran, and he's like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: to do. And then Johnny Tran shows up and shoots Jesse,
Speaker 1: which we don't deal with at all in the story,
Speaker 1: just like why no one in the movie knows why
Speaker 1: Jesse was included. He's killed. It's just like what removed
Speaker 1: Jesse from the movie. Well, because he's the inciting incident
Speaker 1: for Vin then to run off and chase Johnny Tran
Speaker 1: and then kill him to be more furious. So because
Speaker 1: it's kind of showing more his loyalty, the overlaying thread
Speaker 1: with all of these movies, and I think a big
Speaker 1: reason why I love them so much is like loyalty
Speaker 1: and friendship. Believe it or not, it's beautiful at the
Speaker 1: fast and the friendship friendship and fury fast in the
Speaker 1: front and the friendliest friendships, the fast in the family friendships.
Speaker 1: For me, that's and familia so great. Then Dom and
Speaker 1: Brian go after Johnny Trent and his cousin and they
Speaker 1: like stop them, but then they're like, we should race
Speaker 1: each other one last time, and they do it, and
Speaker 1: who wins. I'm not sure. I can't tell, but there's
Speaker 1: a train that almost hits him, and then Dom crashes
Speaker 1: and he's like, I gotta get away. The cops are coming,
Speaker 1: and then Brian is like, hey, I still ow you
Speaker 1: attend second car, so he gives him his car. He
Speaker 1: gets away, and he's a bad cop because he didn't
Speaker 1: arrest the criminal. But in his defense, even the criminals
Speaker 1: are friends. Their friends friendship is more important than laws.
Speaker 1: So that's this moral of this story. Which you know
Speaker 1: often true after true, let's take a quick break and
Speaker 1: then we'll come back. We're bad. That was a boat.
Speaker 1: Do they ever ride boats? Oam no, but um, you
Speaker 1: should watch The Italian Job. What about a train? There's
Speaker 1: a lot of train related scenes, but they're never directly
Speaker 1: driving the train, but there's like cars on a train
Speaker 1: that they have to get off a train. They're alongside trains.
Speaker 1: The physics get It's kind of funny to look back
Speaker 1: and realize it started with DVD players because towards the
Speaker 1: end it is like matters of national security. They there's
Speaker 1: literally like an entity called God's Eye that can overlook
Speaker 1: every single human and what they're doing. And you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you just rob some DVD players and now you're gotta
Speaker 1: raise the stakes. From movie to movie they get raised
Speaker 1: so exponentially. I'm like, what is nine going to be? Like?
Speaker 1: That's all I think about. I mean, the whole Solar
Speaker 1: System is at stakes. Honestly, you're you're kidding, But I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if they go to space like something
Speaker 1: it's going to be. I mean, space ships are fast
Speaker 1: and probably furious. There's some sort of space war from
Speaker 1: Race War to Space War, The Fast and the Furious Journey. Well,
Speaker 1: they should get you writing me. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they started it ten, but they would never let a
Speaker 1: woman write these movies. I'm actually kind of curious. The
Speaker 1: same man has written at least six of them. If
Speaker 1: you get kind of wonky, and then they come back
Speaker 1: to the older director, who's incredible. Okay, yeah, let me
Speaker 1: figure out the writer of this movie. The Fast and
Speaker 1: the Furious three credited writers Gary Scott Thompson, Eric Bergquist,
Speaker 1: and David Air. It looks like David Air also wrote
Speaker 1: Suicide Squad and Bright Yikes are talented. Gary Scott Thompson
Speaker 1: also wrote Too Fast, Too Furious. It looks like there's
Speaker 1: a different man writing like the most recent one. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: here you are just assuming gender, so really, that's on you.
Speaker 1: It is truly a man named Mark would not I
Speaker 1: cannot tell a lie. A man named Mark writes The
Speaker 1: Fast and the Furious movies. And are you shocked? No?
Speaker 1: So where do we want to start here? I guess
Speaker 1: let's start with the female characters. That's a good place
Speaker 1: to start. There are two, so it'll be there are two.
Speaker 1: We'll just zip through this. Your cot. Okay, it should
Speaker 1: be mentioned, Faye, you have a cat named Letty. I
Speaker 1: do a male cat. Well, both my cats are named
Speaker 1: after Fast and Furious characters. My girl cat is Dwayne
Speaker 1: the Cat Johnson. Um she is, she's furious. That tracks
Speaker 1: with what I know. But um, you know, it's so
Speaker 1: funny watching the movies now and just thinking about my
Speaker 1: cat instead of Michelle Rodriguez. But yeah, I can't overstate
Speaker 1: how much I love these movies. And I really kind
Speaker 1: of wish we watched like the third one or fourth
Speaker 1: because this one they just get so good. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll do another episode and bring you back fully
Speaker 1: available for when the next next one comes. And there's
Speaker 1: always going to be the next one. Is everyone in
Speaker 1: the Curse on the Fat of the Fast franchise? Well
Speaker 1: they actually I do think they're ending at ten because
Speaker 1: they got like budgeted for Fast X. Otherwise they're going
Speaker 1: to have to start paying Vin Diesel in like planets
Speaker 1: like they make. That's what the Space World about? The
Speaker 1: Space War one. That's the final one. Um, okay, let's
Speaker 1: talk about Mia. Let's start with Mia. She's the first
Speaker 1: female character that we really see on screen. She is
Speaker 1: Dom's sister. She manages the front business sort of, but
Speaker 1: it seems like she kind of just makes food for
Speaker 1: whoever asks, is something we see her do a lot.
Speaker 1: She is fully a love interest character. She's basically in
Speaker 1: the story I would argue just to make you know,
Speaker 1: to like complicate Paul, like Paul Walker. There's so many
Speaker 1: times when Brian is talking to his fellow police officers
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, maybe if you didn't have such
Speaker 1: strong feelings for me, you'd be able to be a
Speaker 1: better cop and like to honor. He does. He shoves
Speaker 1: a pervert, he does, but that happens a lot. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking also in like The Rock, uh not Dwayne the
Speaker 1: Rock Johnson, but the Michael Bay film The Rock His
Speaker 1: Wife Um, where Nicolas Cage's girlfriend character, everyone keeps telling
Speaker 1: Nicolas Cage like, don't think about her, You're just gonna
Speaker 1: get distracted and confused. Like where So this is kind
Speaker 1: of an example of a woman being present in the
Speaker 1: story as sort of an obstacle almost, or like seen
Speaker 1: as being like you're clouding this man's judgment because of
Speaker 1: your feminine wiles or something an they're part of Grdanna
Speaker 1: that I love, or Mia the character of Mia is
Speaker 1: that throughout the franchise she does go from having bangs
Speaker 1: to not having bangs and then back again, which is
Speaker 1: a huge female what a character arc as a woe,
Speaker 1: I can't yeah, as a woman with a forehead, I've
Speaker 1: I've been there, and it really, I mean, does it directly?
Speaker 1: I wish I wish, Okay, one of the many reasons
Speaker 1: I wish that there was at least one credited female writer,
Speaker 1: as if you know, you could really work in story
Speaker 1: into the banks, because if you're getting banks, you're not
Speaker 1: in a good place, especially if I would you know,
Speaker 1: like Jordan and Bruser, I prefer her without the banks,
Speaker 1: but I would understand, you know, sometimes I bring out
Speaker 1: the banks, you just got your banks kind of they're
Speaker 1: pulled back right now, so are we because I'm really
Speaker 1: much better now. Because that did seem like a cry
Speaker 1: for help at the time, but it definitely was, and
Speaker 1: I so so, I mean, I just think if male
Speaker 1: writers understood women better, they could write to these banks choices.
Speaker 1: I think the banks kind of tell their own story,
Speaker 1: but to teach their own it's worth mentioning. I have
Speaker 1: sort of this lineup of things that happened to main
Speaker 1: female characters later in the franchise. I have not seen
Speaker 1: these movies, but in the fifth movie, the villain of
Speaker 1: whatever that one is threatens threatens to have her raped
Speaker 1: and killed. In the sixth movie, she gets kidnapped and
Speaker 1: held a surprise for the men to retrieve, and she
Speaker 1: eventually Where are you just getting this information as someone
Speaker 1: who has not seen the movies, like some Wikipedia synopsis
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, just like because she's not in all
Speaker 1: of them, she's in five of them. Yeah, but these
Speaker 1: are I guess in the later installments. It's weird. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in your opinion on this too. Based on
Speaker 1: strictly the Wikipedia read, it would seem that the attitudes
Speaker 1: towards women in fact may get worse over time, because
Speaker 1: I was I was pleasantly surprised that a blockbuster movie
Speaker 1: chose not to completely damsel or like hold a woman
Speaker 1: as like Collateral or to be rescued in the first movie.
Speaker 1: But it seems like that happens a bunch later on. Yes,
Speaker 1: but yeah, so with mia Um, she is in the
Speaker 1: world of street racing sort of only on the periphery
Speaker 1: where she like hangs out with the other street racers
Speaker 1: mostly makes sandwiches first. She doesn't get to participate in
Speaker 1: any races. We do see her driving fast on her
Speaker 1: date with Brian, but she's fairly past You do learn
Speaker 1: later that she's an excellent driver as well, and sort
Speaker 1: of makes it a conscious choice not to be part
Speaker 1: of that world. But um is more than like welcomed
Speaker 1: in it, and she has like every capacity to be
Speaker 1: talented in that regard. Well that we do see her
Speaker 1: at the very end whenever Bryan has caught up to
Speaker 1: the final heightst that's happening, and she's behind the wheel
Speaker 1: most of the time of Brian's car because he's trying
Speaker 1: to save Vince, and so she's doing some you know,
Speaker 1: pretty complicated, fast and furious driving. So we see that
Speaker 1: she is competent. But and that like, yeah, when women
Speaker 1: are included in the climax of the movie, like everyone
Speaker 1: is participating in the climax of the movie. There is
Speaker 1: a moment where they're like, Letty is hurt, just getting
Speaker 1: she's fine, and then she's rejoins the action. But I
Speaker 1: thought that was cool that the two female characters that
Speaker 1: we have are at least included in at least one
Speaker 1: big action scene. Their Sideline, I think a lot earlier
Speaker 1: and um, and the way that all women are portrayed
Speaker 1: earlier in this movie is like, uh, but it was
Speaker 1: cool that like the climactic scene, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: like Pacific rim woman launched out of the scene never
Speaker 1: to be seen again. Yes, I would say though, that
Speaker 1: this is another movie where a woman who is good
Speaker 1: at cars is shorthand for she's not like she's down
Speaker 1: at earth because it's like she she's got a traditionally
Speaker 1: masculine skill, so that makes her cooler and more able
Speaker 1: to hang than other girls. I'm wondering if, like the
Speaker 1: moment that you were possibly going to bring up kind
Speaker 1: of making the campaign that this does pass the backball
Speaker 1: test is when Michelle Rodriguez to another woman who's hanging
Speaker 1: over Don called him skanks and then they say okay,
Speaker 1: well back off and that is a conversation and that
Speaker 1: he is not about a guy she is okay because
Speaker 1: so here's what happens. As they're approaching dom. He goes hey, Camille,
Speaker 1: Hey Monica. Goddamn their name Camille and Monica. But that
Speaker 1: is not the only woman named Monica in this movie.
Speaker 1: There's a different Monica with ja Rule exactly, so like
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess that that's are we sure Monica
Speaker 1: wasn't just recast. I mean they're two different actors. Like
Speaker 1: it is so clearly like the screenwriters knew exactly one
Speaker 1: woman between the three of them named Monica, and they're like,
Speaker 1: we're dropping this around the scandals and they're just like Monica,
Speaker 1: like okay, wait, we need there's there's some more characters.
Speaker 1: So Monica, if you take away some of the letters,
Speaker 1: there's Mia. Okay, so there's okay, or another character names Mia,
Speaker 1: which is just sort of Letty's a wild part of name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's at least like a thoughtful name. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think though that they were like, okay, we took
Speaker 1: away some letters from Monica to make Mia letters let
Speaker 1: Letty that's how. That's how they could that possibly be
Speaker 1: short for? And then Letitia. Yes, good okay? But yeah,
Speaker 1: so like the women go to cars, The most egregious
Speaker 1: example of this that I think we've come across, at
Speaker 1: least on the podcast so far, is like the Megan
Speaker 1: Fox character and Transformers, especially because like her interest in
Speaker 1: cars is so it's like basically just used as an
Speaker 1: excuse to sexualize her. Yes, um, like she's bending over
Speaker 1: the hood, she's humping, she's measuring the tailpipe. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like portrayal of a woman who they give these
Speaker 1: sort of like masculine interests to and decide not to
Speaker 1: give them more of a personality or any sort of
Speaker 1: development because they think, oh, she has like manly interest.
Speaker 1: Is um Natalie Apportman in the first Thorror movie when
Speaker 1: like two times she goes, I'm an astrophysicist and absolutely
Speaker 1: no other like that's all we know. Yeah, It's like,
Speaker 1: but what more do we need to know? She loves
Speaker 1: such and she loves the space war. It's such a yeah,
Speaker 1: like those empty because it's like ultimately kind of like
Speaker 1: an empty gesture to do that. And also like with
Speaker 1: the with and in Mia Is, I mean, the way
Speaker 1: that women are dressed in this movie is very sexy,
Speaker 1: very hot, gorgeous, inspirational. They're dressed in very particular ways,
Speaker 1: and like I think Mia dresses on the more conservative side,
Speaker 1: which I think is supposed to be shorthand for she's
Speaker 1: a good girl. She makes you the sandwich, as opposed
Speaker 1: to if you're a woman who is at the street race,
Speaker 1: you are like a loose you're probably named Monica, and
Speaker 1: you all you're strictly there to hook up with whoever wins.
Speaker 1: The part of the drinking game that I briefly mentioned
Speaker 1: was you do drink anytime there's like a gratuitous ask shot,
Speaker 1: they get a little bit more in your face about it. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think as the film's growing, in my opinion, do
Speaker 1: become more feminists, they actually do gravitate towards just showing
Speaker 1: more butts, which I haven't really grappled with. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's possible for maybe something to both progress and regress
Speaker 1: at the same time, saying there are you're safe. It's fine, space,
Speaker 1: it's good, but it's everything I know, shattering when you
Speaker 1: really think about it. Maybe oh god, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a big part of my life. Like I'm not
Speaker 1: we haven't you know what. Feminism is a conversation, and
Speaker 1: it's I think part of this, this podcast and feminist
Speaker 1: discussion is you know, a discourse and there's there's no
Speaker 1: black and white. True I'm not going to get they're
Speaker 1: not feminist. I won't leave, Okay, So there's like me
Speaker 1: as an the car. I think that there is sort
Speaker 1: of a tendency for when a woman is presented as
Speaker 1: like you were taking like good at car, she also
Speaker 1: has to present hyper feminine at the same time because
Speaker 1: and if there's too much straddling of that line of
Speaker 1: like you can't be good at car and present like
Speaker 1: more traditionally masculine, or she does wear cargo paying, but
Speaker 1: it's two thousand one. Everyone's wearing cargo pass and she
Speaker 1: is wearing them with a very high rise thong. Yeah
Speaker 1: we're talking about Letty right, okay, because I feel like
Speaker 1: Letty is the one who's like characteristic, like into cars,
Speaker 1: like the rude kind of girl. I like Letty's character
Speaker 1: better across the board, and feel like Mia is is
Speaker 1: very much a stock girlfriend character kind of remains that way.
Speaker 1: I will say she becomes like a mom even it's
Speaker 1: like it's like good for her, but yeah, she's never
Speaker 1: really liked the focus right, like she's she's here for
Speaker 1: this movie to just keep Paul Walker in in this
Speaker 1: space and like she's good at car for a second,
Speaker 1: which at least is paid off at the end when
Speaker 1: she needs to be. But I don't know the especially
Speaker 1: because it's like I loved herd a Brewster. I wanted
Speaker 1: to have more fun stuff to do. Yeah, she she
Speaker 1: isn't given much, especially car type stuff, which is the
Speaker 1: focus of this movie. Yeah, the woman good a car
Speaker 1: thing in this movie. I would say it's not as
Speaker 1: egregious as like the Megan Fox Transformers then because it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel tacked on and their interests hasn't been like
Speaker 1: overly sexualized. But it does mean that like the women
Speaker 1: who know cars get to hang out with the fast boys,
Speaker 1: and the women who don't know cars are the quote
Speaker 1: trophies who stand who are literally so called like like
Speaker 1: Dom picks up, you're my trophy, You're like, no, Letty,
Speaker 1: we do see participate in a arace. But Mia is
Speaker 1: really just there for Paul Walker to put his arm
Speaker 1: around and help wash some dishes. And really it's kind
Speaker 1: of a show that he's like a good guy really
Speaker 1: because he defends her, he helps with the dishes. He
Speaker 1: it's kind of shows his intentions to that he falls
Speaker 1: for her and not one of the girls at the
Speaker 1: Furious Girl because those are beneath him. Yeah, and then Mia,
Speaker 1: like Mia is also used to show what a quote
Speaker 1: unquote bad guy that vinces in this movie, where he
Speaker 1: is very bossy towards her. He uses a gay flour
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the movie. He yeah, like he's
Speaker 1: just generally not like the good guy. He says at
Speaker 1: one point, like whenever he sees Brian washing dishes, He's like,
Speaker 1: wash my car, and then I'm going to put you
Speaker 1: in a dress and put you out on the street,
Speaker 1: which is like, okay, that's like sex worker shaming or
Speaker 1: I don't even know what you're saying. Vince is I mean,
Speaker 1: Vince is all a the place and in the way
Speaker 1: he puts people down his very two thousand one. Um,
Speaker 1: what is he in the sandwiches? Yeah, the sandwich he
Speaker 1: sandwiched crazy or something. That's his whole vibe. I mean
Speaker 1: that performance, you know, it's a performance where the shirt
Speaker 1: is doing more work than the man, perhaps even being
Speaker 1: half a shirt. You know, it's true. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it wasn't. In and it all. This reminded me
Speaker 1: of Matthew Lillard's Mets shirts and hackers and and SLC punk. Honestly,
Speaker 1: Lillard rocked a mesh for a good six or seven years. There.
Speaker 1: I'm gone. Anyways, let's take a quick break and then
Speaker 1: we'll come back. Let's talk about Letty. She is my cat.
Speaker 1: It's a face cat. How many nipples does your cat
Speaker 1: Letty have? Oh my gosh, um, I think it's eight
Speaker 1: or six? Okay, Sure, it's about feminist, definitely. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's honestly doing laps around us. I don't know what
Speaker 1: the funk we're doing over here, my cat. Okay, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: now I listen. I'm sorry. I'm still feminist. Letty the character. Yes,
Speaker 1: I smell skanks alert one of her there. I think
Speaker 1: Letty like. I like Letty. I don't know, Fay. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you you understand this part better than I do.
Speaker 1: She dies in the franchise, but then it turns out
Speaker 1: she's not dead. Okay, so are you just like spoiling
Speaker 1: everything for everyone? Or yes? No, to be fair, they
Speaker 1: came out about ten years ago. Yeah, she does die
Speaker 1: and she does come back. Okay, so I don't I
Speaker 1: can't vouch for any of that. But in the first
Speaker 1: in the first movie, I I feel like she is
Speaker 1: like half stuff I like and half empty girl powered
Speaker 1: trophy stuff. It. I'm just like, man, we don't get
Speaker 1: to see her do any significant driving until the again
Speaker 1: horribly named Race Wars scene which is not until towards
Speaker 1: the end of act two. We're like, well into the
Speaker 1: movie before we see her do anything impressive. And it's
Speaker 1: really in just one scene where a guy pulls up
Speaker 1: next to her. He's like, baby, you should be watching
Speaker 1: from the side. I don't want to get any exhaust
Speaker 1: on that prudy face. And then she's like, how about
Speaker 1: you put your money where your mouth is? And he's like,
Speaker 1: how about I race you for that sweet little glass?
Speaker 1: And then I do love this scene. Then she says,
Speaker 1: if you want to ask, why don't you hit up
Speaker 1: Hollywood Boulevard, which is another actually took offense to that.
Speaker 1: I mean that was a direct day at you. I
Speaker 1: felt like it. And then and then Michelle Rodriguez puts
Speaker 1: on that sunglasses and you're like, there there's a lot
Speaker 1: of nuance to her performance. I really like Michelle Rodriguez
Speaker 1: as I love her. She's I mean, I really enjoy her.
Speaker 1: Liam Neice and comments aside, which she retracted, so it's
Speaker 1: all good. I don't know, yeah, I mean, look it up.
Speaker 1: It's not relevant to this discussion, but she's great. So
Speaker 1: she she's like, Okay, I'll bet you two thousand dollars
Speaker 1: whoever wins this race, and then she wins, and we're
Speaker 1: supposed to be like we girl power. I'm so empowered
Speaker 1: because a woman one, which, to be fair, I am. However, However,
Speaker 1: it has no narrative importance, no importance, and and you
Speaker 1: can't just have one tiny glimpse of a woman's empowerment
Speaker 1: in a movie and then have the rest of the
Speaker 1: movie showing women who were sidelined objectified like all that stuff. Sorry, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: have you seen a blockbuster before? Of course you can do.
Speaker 1: I misspoke. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I know, I do.
Speaker 1: I totally agree. Like I really liked that scene and
Speaker 1: that was like the whatever. I guess that's the line
Speaker 1: of cheesy girl power stuff that I'm like, Okay, that
Speaker 1: scene I can handle, and I I appreciate the gesture,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't if you take that scene out of it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad it's there, but if you took it out,
Speaker 1: nothing about the movie would be different, which just means
Speaker 1: that she's not, you know, given enough to do that
Speaker 1: makes her critical to that plot. And then at the
Speaker 1: end during the climactic, I guess it's not even the
Speaker 1: climax because the climax is the race between Dom and
Speaker 1: Brian at the end with the train, the sensitivity, the
Speaker 1: final the heist, the final heist at the end. Volume
Speaker 1: was at eleven during the last I'm glad that like
Speaker 1: Letty is allowed to be a part of like the
Speaker 1: Heist Gang. I guess if you're gonna have criminals, you
Speaker 1: might as well let a woman be a criminal too.
Speaker 1: And it is good that, like, I mean, I wish
Speaker 1: that we got to see her skill more and the movie,
Speaker 1: but it is repeated by a bunch of different characters
Speaker 1: how how skilled she is, and like what an important
Speaker 1: part of the group she is, even though we don't
Speaker 1: like to see it that much in this movie, but
Speaker 1: I appreciate. But then she's the one who crashes, so
Speaker 1: it's like, all right, well, I mean, I guess it
Speaker 1: could have been anybody, but you've got to make the
Speaker 1: woman crash the car during not going to be Yea
Speaker 1: right or Leon whoever? The car who is I don't
Speaker 1: know which guy is that he never comes back. He's
Speaker 1: the one who sort of looks like Vince. I couldn't
Speaker 1: tell them apart for the first hour and twenty minutes
Speaker 1: of the movie, but he's like a nicer Vince basically right,
Speaker 1: and then also Jesse, there's like that loose backstory for
Speaker 1: him where he's like a genius hacker and he's like,
Speaker 1: I could have gone an M I T, but I
Speaker 1: have a d D. Anyways, I'm a street racer now
Speaker 1: and you're just like I this journey. Oh okay, fine,
Speaker 1: I mean back to Letty. She's Dom's trophy, he says it.
Speaker 1: She hot list of things, and I'm like, man, she
Speaker 1: deserves better the whole like jealousy arc of I smell
Speaker 1: Skanks very two thousand one, and just as like your
Speaker 1: boyfriend who's flirting with these women, be mad at him,
Speaker 1: not mad at the various Monica's. He just approached the
Speaker 1: flock of Monica's that Vin Diesel takes around with him
Speaker 1: wherever he goes. Um. I think that Letty like she
Speaker 1: is objectified in some ways, but not in the same
Speaker 1: way that all the Monicas are. The Monica's, I think,
Speaker 1: are the most egregious example of just complete like they're
Speaker 1: just framing is set dressing like so much male gays,
Speaker 1: so many like lingering shots of the camera on women's
Speaker 1: butts and breasts in the costuming in the case of Letty, though,
Speaker 1: I would argue that in their scenes together, Dom and
Speaker 1: Letty are equally sexualized because there is some like, yes
Speaker 1: she's wearing a tank top, Yes, her titties are all
Speaker 1: the way up. Yes we see her but get grabbed
Speaker 1: in a shot. But we are also seeing Vin's oily muscle,
Speaker 1: We're seeing his like shiny head, Like I like in
Speaker 1: those scenes because I did say his shiny head. You
Speaker 1: just wait. You think you see shine, now just wait
Speaker 1: until the rock gets involved. Literally part of the drinking
Speaker 1: game is just full down your beer. Anytime he's the
Speaker 1: only one shiny, it's insane, how sweaty, because I don't
Speaker 1: know he is just listening. They make a joke in
Speaker 1: one of the later movies that he is always just
Speaker 1: covered in baby oil, so it becomes referenced. It's how
Speaker 1: intense it is. It's I mean, and it's it's intense
Speaker 1: in the first one too. So it was like in there,
Speaker 1: there is that one horny scene Vin and Michelle and
Speaker 1: they're fucking near a car because you can't resist. They're fast,
Speaker 1: they're furious, um, and in that scene, I was like,
Speaker 1: they're both sexualized. And so that specific scene for me
Speaker 1: was kind of like, Okay, I guess that was just
Speaker 1: like a hot blockbuster sex scene, right, because I mean
Speaker 1: the target demographic of these movies are teen boys, young men,
Speaker 1: the boys of any age really and right, So it's like, well,
Speaker 1: we need an example of like a really fucking cool,
Speaker 1: hot but like not too hot but hot enough manly
Speaker 1: man who's studiedly Paul Walker, who's too hot, too hot,
Speaker 1: too curious. So yeah, we like, you know, I guess
Speaker 1: they need to throw in an impressive man who the
Speaker 1: boys who these movies are targeted for can be like,
Speaker 1: oh man, he's still cool. I want to be just
Speaker 1: like a boy. Vin Diesel. Yeah, the whole first movie
Speaker 1: just like makes me hope more for Letty in subsequent installments. So, FAE,
Speaker 1: how do you feel Letty's character progressive? Do you like it?
Speaker 1: Do you not like it? Well? I definitely do like
Speaker 1: her character. She gets a lot more exposition, you get
Speaker 1: a lot more of like her and Vin's relationship, and
Speaker 1: I think he treats her really well. I don't think
Speaker 1: I think it's like a very their unequal playing field.
Speaker 1: They're both part of the team in the same capacity,
Speaker 1: and I think they're both well respected I didn't really
Speaker 1: think about in terms of like her being this damsel
Speaker 1: that does need to be rescued, because that's like the
Speaker 1: entire plot when she comes back to life basically, and
Speaker 1: so she gets fridged and then unfridged. She basically they
Speaker 1: fake her death to use her as a pawn against
Speaker 1: vin Um, so she gets like brainwashed. So even while
Speaker 1: she is a damsel, she's like this badass sort of
Speaker 1: supervillain like, so I guess I never really like thought
Speaker 1: of her that she is definitely like in a space
Speaker 1: to be rescued, but she's not weak. She's still the
Speaker 1: main character, and like, I don't know, so up for discussion.
Speaker 1: But um, does the movies? Does the franchise get any
Speaker 1: better in terms of like, because so many shots of
Speaker 1: this movie are just like sweeping shots of like women's
Speaker 1: bodies and like them being like framed as the trophies
Speaker 1: for the cool fast boys who win the race. Does
Speaker 1: that get any better or is it still it does not?
Speaker 1: That's just part of them, that's I think from what
Speaker 1: I know about this world, it's like somewhat a part
Speaker 1: of the culture. But like there are moments where they
Speaker 1: become kind of more self aware about it, like when
Speaker 1: gal Gadote becomes part of the cast. Because Gal Gadote
Speaker 1: becomes a part of the cast and she's like an
Speaker 1: incredible racer and she um there's a part where she
Speaker 1: uses her sexuality to like her at andage, like it
Speaker 1: becomes a little bit more like self aware. But I mean,
Speaker 1: people go see the movies for like this fun romb
Speaker 1: and for the hot girls. I mean there's a moment
Speaker 1: like about seventy minutes into the movie where people are
Speaker 1: spraying a woman's ass with a shower nozzle and then
Speaker 1: she shakes her titties around while wearing a wet white
Speaker 1: tank top. Seems consensual and to Michelle Rodriguez's credit, in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seventeen, when Fate came out the Fate
Speaker 1: of the Furious eight one, she posted on Instagram the
Speaker 1: day that it was released on DVD. Very important to
Speaker 1: call back, she said, quote, the Fate of the Furious
Speaker 1: is out digitally today. I hope they decided to show
Speaker 1: some love to the women of the franchise in the
Speaker 1: next one, or I might just have to say goodbye
Speaker 1: to a loved franchise. It's been a good ride and
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for the opportunity that fans and studios have
Speaker 1: provided over the years. One Love. Has there been a
Speaker 1: Fast and the Furious since the Fate of the Furious. No,
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was the last one, so I guess
Speaker 1: it kind of remains to be seen whether they will
Speaker 1: hear her on that. But she is in the next one,
Speaker 1: so hopefully that means that. I mean, even for for
Speaker 1: a franchise like this, even a small step, and it
Speaker 1: seems like the addition of like the gal Gadot character
Speaker 1: and like letting Letty do more that they're edging in
Speaker 1: the right direction. But I thought it was cool for
Speaker 1: like a major star to Yeah, and I will say
Speaker 1: for like the longevity of these movies are like in
Speaker 1: the canon of them, every woman does appear to be
Speaker 1: in charge of her. She makes a choice, Like no
Speaker 1: women forced into this. Yeah, she has agency. No woman
Speaker 1: is like forced to be this side show car skank
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's like, Yeah, these the women are where
Speaker 1: they want to be, doing what they want to be doing.
Speaker 1: And there's I think a lot to say to that.
Speaker 1: There's like nothing feels like cringe e to me when
Speaker 1: you're like this woman doesn't seem to have the ability
Speaker 1: to say no to her situation. Sure, right, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I hope that it's And it almost like seems
Speaker 1: like a kind of a clever screenwriting a hack that's
Speaker 1: employed there where the women are like they do question things.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they have like somewhat realistic, like Mia is really
Speaker 1: frustrated and deceived another fun man deceives the object of
Speaker 1: his interest for the majority of the movie trope that
Speaker 1: we love. But at least that, yeah, like they do
Speaker 1: have agency, and they do Ultimately they make the choice,
Speaker 1: Am I going to go with what either Paul Walker
Speaker 1: or Vin Diesel wants or not? Conveniently for the screenplay,
Speaker 1: she usually chooses to do what the male protagonist wanted
Speaker 1: her to do. Any Yes, she's also doing so much.
Speaker 1: Mia is doing so much emotional throughout the whole movie
Speaker 1: because she's constantly breaking up fights and like having to
Speaker 1: deal with this creep Vince who likes her and then
Speaker 1: like trying to divert that away, and like Dom's always
Speaker 1: like pissing people off, So she's always like stop fighting,
Speaker 1: and she's just doing a lot and it shouldn't the
Speaker 1: burden shouldn't be on her to have to do all
Speaker 1: this stuff, but she's constantly just being like, got it out,
Speaker 1: don't do that. That that continues, and in fact it
Speaker 1: gets even like the labor sheep, but then is like
Speaker 1: more and more because she becomes like a wife and
Speaker 1: a mom, and it's just like she's constantly pleading with
Speaker 1: them to not go into these dangerous situations where they
Speaker 1: are weirdly in charge of protecting the entire national security. Well,
Speaker 1: I love how this takes continue insane. They're the most
Speaker 1: fast and furious of all the people, the best to
Speaker 1: the protect us, and it becomes clear. Okay, I have
Speaker 1: a quick update on the Michelle Rodriguets think. There was
Speaker 1: some questions of whether she would appear and Fastened the
Speaker 1: Furious nine that was resolved just a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: They confirmed she is going to be in Fast nine,
Speaker 1: but she refused to sign her contract until they had
Speaker 1: signed a female screenwriter to Oh my God, is my cat?
Speaker 1: Isn't that that is the best choice I ever made?
Speaker 1: So yeah. Slash Film reported that she confirmed she will
Speaker 1: be back for Fast and the Furious nine after holding
Speaker 1: out until a female screenwriter was brought on for the sequel.
Speaker 1: That means universal has hired a female writer for this
Speaker 1: franchise for the first time ever, but as of now,
Speaker 1: the identity of this elusive female screenwriter has not been announced.
Speaker 1: It's me, Jamie, It's me. I don't have a driver's license,
Speaker 1: but I'm writing Fast and Furious nine. Let's just see
Speaker 1: if they're pay them the same amount. Oh good point,
Speaker 1: but anyways, shouts out to Michelle Rodriguez, Feministic a queer icon. Yes,
Speaker 1: we love her. Indeed, should we talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the male friendship that the toxic masculinity that is
Speaker 1: present in the homo erotic tension. The greasy boys are
Speaker 1: very close, the looks they give each other. I think
Speaker 1: this might be like one of the giggest movies that exists.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot written about like the use
Speaker 1: of homo eroticism, and I mean, and it is employed
Speaker 1: in action movies pretty frequently, and there's so many franchises
Speaker 1: that sort of play this. I mean, it is like
Speaker 1: queer bating to an extent. It's not I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's weird. Like in the Fact of the Furious it's
Speaker 1: never what they're saying. It's just like how they're looking
Speaker 1: at each other and how they're interacting with each other
Speaker 1: while they're saying it, like there is a way for
Speaker 1: Vin Diesel to make that I would say, incredible monologue
Speaker 1: at the end about how he doesn't care about anyone
Speaker 1: in his life except his car, and his car is
Speaker 1: his wife, and his wife is his wife. Yeah, his
Speaker 1: his car wife. And but like the way that him
Speaker 1: and Paul Walker looking at each other through it, you're
Speaker 1: just like, oh, they're just like there is a connection here,
Speaker 1: like the way like male friendship, the male friendships are
Speaker 1: more important than the romantic relationships. Yes, and the movie
Speaker 1: cares more about the relationship between Brian and Vince and
Speaker 1: like reconciling that because like Brian starts off on on
Speaker 1: Vince's bad side and stays there for most of the movie,
Speaker 1: but then when he saves him at the end and
Speaker 1: then it calls in the helicopter to save his life,
Speaker 1: like that's him being like, oh, finally, like maybe Vince
Speaker 1: will like me now. And the movie cares more about
Speaker 1: reconciling that relationship than it does about developing any of
Speaker 1: the female characters or like any of those relationships. So there,
Speaker 1: it's that's a tricky thing with this because there are like,
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about a lot of things in this
Speaker 1: franchise that I think are generally good for the world.
Speaker 1: It is one of the most diverse blockbuster franchises in existence.
Speaker 1: That's really cool. Michelle Rodriguez is a woman of color,
Speaker 1: and she is like the female lead. She's a queer
Speaker 1: female of color, which is I mean, which was not
Speaker 1: known in two thousand and one. But still, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's cool. I do always like and I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean you you'll know more about how like the
Speaker 1: male friendships develop. I wouldn't say that the male like
Speaker 1: that Brian and Dom's relationship is like healthy, but there is,
Speaker 1: you know, they're just mostly like look at my pipes,
Speaker 1: like there I can't like, I can't say I love you,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna make you intense second car like there
Speaker 1: is that like weird repression in there. But I do
Speaker 1: appreciate when attention is given to male male friendships. I
Speaker 1: enjoy that too. And I will say, and I think
Speaker 1: I talked about this a bit on our Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings episode, but I think there's a tendency to
Speaker 1: see a close male friendship in a movie and then
Speaker 1: automatically assigned homo eroticism to it, because I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's just because we're so used to not seeing
Speaker 1: positive male friendships and movies and it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if two men are closed, there must be some underlying
Speaker 1: homo eroticism there, right, which I know maye that may
Speaker 1: be true for some male friendships, and it isn't a
Speaker 1: lot of the time. So I feel like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like it maybe doesn't disservice sometimes to be
Speaker 1: like two men who are close, well, then there there's
Speaker 1: it's sexy. I agree with that, But in the case
Speaker 1: of this franchise, well, I think it's pretty homorotic. I
Speaker 1: think because these movies are so enveloped in Vin Diesel,
Speaker 1: and he is a producer on them, and he has
Speaker 1: such like a staunch say and what goes on in them,
Speaker 1: And then you look at his off screen relationship with
Speaker 1: Paul Walker and it's sort of like the most beautiful
Speaker 1: thing I've ever seen, Like he is just they're genuinely
Speaker 1: the best of friends. Vin Diesel. If you follow him
Speaker 1: on social media, he has an ongoing hashtag Toretto Tuesday,
Speaker 1: where he posts a photo of him and Paul Walker together.
Speaker 1: He named his kid Pablo after him. He um is
Speaker 1: constantly talking about how much he misses Paul Walker. Who
Speaker 1: I mean, I think every listener probably knows what he
Speaker 1: did pass away a couple of years ago. Like everything
Speaker 1: Vin does seems to be a tribute to him. And
Speaker 1: I just think like it kind of makes me regret
Speaker 1: mentioning this like joke of homoroticism because I genuinely think
Speaker 1: they were like brothers and I think that's explored in
Speaker 1: the movies and kind of I think a lot of
Speaker 1: my like perception of it is skewed by what I
Speaker 1: see outside of the movies. But they just genuinely like
Speaker 1: their brotherhood is I think something we never get to see.
Speaker 1: It's two dudes that are just really good friends, yeah,
Speaker 1: and like really care about each other. And I could
Speaker 1: be mistaken. I'm sure someone like in the comments will
Speaker 1: let me know, But I do think they say they
Speaker 1: love each other in the movies. I'm like almost under
Speaker 1: percent sure. I mean, hopefully at some point they've been
Speaker 1: together for ten years and they're just like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get UTENSI car any day now, because uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, in general, I think that it's
Speaker 1: it's good. I think that I don't. I mean, we
Speaker 1: can't really speak to this because we're a bunch of
Speaker 1: straight ladies. Uh so all of our queer listeners please
Speaker 1: give us insights. I think that there's elements of both
Speaker 1: employed and there are in a lot of this genre,
Speaker 1: but in general, I mean, any example, for like young
Speaker 1: Men that like normalizes male male friendship, and it seems
Speaker 1: like this franchise does pretty well with that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't show away from it for like fear of
Speaker 1: maybe like being like perceived in some sort of I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's the core concept of the movies' is
Speaker 1: like brotherhood, and I guess more like overall familiar because
Speaker 1: I do think that the women are just as important,
Speaker 1: like plot wise and like development wise. Yeah, so there's
Speaker 1: like a whole lot of butts, but then there's a
Speaker 1: whole lot of love. Vince like that character, Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: you don't he's not really the one. Know, he's in
Speaker 1: a few more, but he's like by no means a
Speaker 1: vital character. You get ludicrous in the next one, which
Speaker 1: him and then Tyrese are they come into the team. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then every every film has like this iconic like
Speaker 1: getting a team together montage, which is my favorite trope
Speaker 1: of any movie. It's those are good montage. Not all
Speaker 1: tropes are bad. I don't know a montages like my kryptonite,
Speaker 1: like Jamie, like what you were saying, the diversity in
Speaker 1: this movie, it's like Vin Diesel identifies as a person
Speaker 1: of color. Um, there are some I mean this kind
Speaker 1: of struck me where the first two groups that the
Speaker 1: FBI identifies as suspects of the hijackings are Hector's group,
Speaker 1: which are I think all Latin X men, and then
Speaker 1: Johnny trans group, which are all Asian men. So it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: these people of color are the criminals, but I would
Speaker 1: also people the hero, the good guys, who are also criminals,
Speaker 1: and because they're the shiniest one, you know, Yeah that's true,
Speaker 1: that's true. But yeah, this is uh. I mean, considering
Speaker 1: so many franchises, so many action movies and movies in
Speaker 1: general are made up of almost entirely white people, this
Speaker 1: movie does do quite a bit better in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, like racial fir City a big like tenant
Speaker 1: of van like producing these movies, and I think why
Speaker 1: they do so well, like internationally is he tries to
Speaker 1: get actors involved that are like really iconic in different countries.
Speaker 1: So like Tokyo Drift has I don't know the actor's name,
Speaker 1: but the han is the character's name. He's like a
Speaker 1: big Jap and he's actor, and then they get Gagado.
Speaker 1: Chis is really and like, I just like really commend
Speaker 1: him for his even I don't know, maybe if his
Speaker 1: intentions are more like capitalistic and like box office numbers,
Speaker 1: I want to think more of him and think like
Speaker 1: he just like really embodies these kind of values of familia.
Speaker 1: But I could be giving him way too much credit
Speaker 1: and just be like such a sucker for these movies
Speaker 1: I can't see bad. I mean that's so it sounds
Speaker 1: general to me. It seems like the cast of this
Speaker 1: movie for all like the fun drama clickbait that I've
Speaker 1: read about it. In general. I mean it seems like
Speaker 1: they try to do right by each other. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm still like super impressed by like Michelle Driguez using
Speaker 1: her platform like responsibly and to get other women work.
Speaker 1: And I mean what Vin Diesel, I mean that sounds
Speaker 1: like it makes business sense and kind of helps everyone
Speaker 1: to uh. So, like I'm not going to fault him
Speaker 1: for that. Yeah, I don't know I appreciate this franchise.
Speaker 1: It's just too loud for me. I'm gonna say, I
Speaker 1: don't appreciate this franchise nearly as much. And granted I
Speaker 1: have been exposed to almost none of it, but to me,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's too much of a focus
Speaker 1: on like the male friendship and the eight and we
Speaker 1: Gotta Stick Together. And yes, women are present, but I
Speaker 1: think at least in in the first one, and I
Speaker 1: would imagine in the later films that they could be
Speaker 1: included more meaningfully because I mean, but it also matters
Speaker 1: like they're fridged and and and stambled at a higher rate.
Speaker 1: And also and and the ratio of men to women
Speaker 1: I think remains pretty unequal where it's still mostly men.
Speaker 1: Also just that these movies seem to largely be about
Speaker 1: kind of like men proving that they're awesome and fast,
Speaker 1: which like translates to who of us is the more manly,
Speaker 1: the faster you are, the more mucho you're the best man.
Speaker 1: So and there's so many scenes where like men are like, Okay,
Speaker 1: who's the faster, who's the best man? And I'm just
Speaker 1: like I don't care. Yeah, well, if you don't care
Speaker 1: about that, these are I just think that, like for
Speaker 1: hyper masculine franchise, I mean, I will I'm sorry if
Speaker 1: I cannot make the argument that this is even remotely
Speaker 1: a feminist franchise, Like that argument is kind of off
Speaker 1: the table for me. But like in terms of like
Speaker 1: is it a net positive thing for the world, I
Speaker 1: think that there's like certain areas of it that could
Speaker 1: be argued as as a positive as far as an
Speaker 1: action franchise goes. I mean, well seriously that it's like,
Speaker 1: if you have a gigantic action franchise, would you rather
Speaker 1: it be core in male friendship and like has a
Speaker 1: hugely diverse cast, or would you rather they make more
Speaker 1: like Blade Runner movies? Like I do think like in
Speaker 1: this specific genre, I feel like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: positive I think that's maybe it why I give it
Speaker 1: so much credit, because I do love action movies, so
Speaker 1: then you you kind of have to narrow it down
Speaker 1: to action movies, and then in that genre, this is
Speaker 1: I think one of the greater ones. Do I want
Speaker 1: an equally diverse female action franchise? Hell yeah, but I do.
Speaker 1: But honestly, though if it was really loud, I still
Speaker 1: might not see it. You got to get that check
Speaker 1: out digital listen. I know, I know why it's that
Speaker 1: diet nas. I have permanent frame damage from my diet nas.
Speaker 1: But there's I don't know. I think that there's definitely
Speaker 1: pros and cons. Sure, I don't hate that it exists
Speaker 1: the way I hate that other franchises exist. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of all you can hope from someone that you
Speaker 1: don't hate it exists, right right, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: mean it's but I also I'm like, you know, if
Speaker 1: we're going into like as a as a young boy
Speaker 1: better or worse off for having seen a Fast in
Speaker 1: the Furious movie, I don't know. I don't think that
Speaker 1: they would have more respect for women. In fact, they
Speaker 1: may have less. Yeah, I mean considering. I mean, like
Speaker 1: I said, there's so many shots of this movie are
Speaker 1: just like, look at these hot women who are again
Speaker 1: framed as literal trophies, like they are the prizes to
Speaker 1: be one. They're wearing next to nothing. You know, they're
Speaker 1: just so heavily objectified that I think, you know, the
Speaker 1: people seeing this are like, oh, women are prizes except
Speaker 1: for the one cool one who's my sister, and the
Speaker 1: other cool one who's my girlfriend. And they're only cool
Speaker 1: because they know how to drive good. I didn't feel
Speaker 1: like this movie does more net negative than positive, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's also from two thousand one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I faye where you I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess we know where you fall generally. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't. I think I'm it's hard to like detract
Speaker 1: this movie from the rest of them, So I'm thinking
Speaker 1: franchise wide, like it's more of a net positive. I
Speaker 1: don't think a young boy would necessarily leave with more
Speaker 1: respect for women. But I don't think that the movie
Speaker 1: degrades women quite to the extent that Caitlin saying, or
Speaker 1: maybe that you see in the first one, which I
Speaker 1: do upon like rewatch and note taking realize it's like
Speaker 1: a little bit more gramm than I had been remembering. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this this at least speaking to
Speaker 1: this one, I don't think it does very well except
Speaker 1: for some elements of Letty and like one element of
Speaker 1: me um. I don't know. I mean, I also like
Speaker 1: fully understand that's not what people go to these movies for.
Speaker 1: Like it's not it's not. I don't know, there's certainly
Speaker 1: I guess for me, like sometimes I would prefer a
Speaker 1: movie that is so clearly not trying to like be
Speaker 1: a feminist movie than a movie that's like this is
Speaker 1: Ones for the ladies and it's just fucking hollow and
Speaker 1: sending that messages, because what's worse to me would be
Speaker 1: we're going to remake Fast and Furious but with all
Speaker 1: women or something that to me is like more degrading,
Speaker 1: being like, oh, women just want to see an identical
Speaker 1: film but just featuring women. It's like, no, we can
Speaker 1: see movies with men, and that just the women should
Speaker 1: have development and personalities and names and speak to each other,
Speaker 1: and women should get their own original franchises, like please
Speaker 1: stop doing all family reboots, please please place. I think
Speaker 1: so much of like what I'm conditioned to think is
Speaker 1: like well, like it could be so much worse, Like
Speaker 1: so I think I came into it more like a
Speaker 1: little bit aggressively, like these are feminist films because it
Speaker 1: could be so much worse, but obviously like more dissecting,
Speaker 1: and it's like we could do better. I can for
Speaker 1: sure do better. I just I I yeah, with like
Speaker 1: the all female reboots stuff. I just when that was
Speaker 1: first happening, I didn't really think about it and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, cool, like it sounds fun. But then
Speaker 1: kind of in retrospect now it's just like, okay, well
Speaker 1: that sort of sets the precedent that every every franchise
Speaker 1: needs to be beta tested with men first to see if,
Speaker 1: like you know, like it has to be so. And
Speaker 1: then every time that happens, uh, you know, the redditors
Speaker 1: come out of the woodwork to just like ruin Lives.
Speaker 1: So I think just give them in their own friend
Speaker 1: especially because, like I mean, the ones that people aren't
Speaker 1: really talking about that much as being all filmale reboots.
Speaker 1: But like that movie The Hustle that came out was
Speaker 1: essentially a reboot of Dirty Rotten Scandals. The Hustle was
Speaker 1: not a good movie. Little was a reboot of Big,
Speaker 1: also not a good movie. What Men Want was a
Speaker 1: reboot of What Women Want, also not a good movie.
Speaker 1: They're like, it's just like good original stories featuring women,
Speaker 1: and don't try to like take movies that had been
Speaker 1: commercial successes and reboot them. And it's like women, because
Speaker 1: you're not doing a good job, Hollywood, and it's sabotages
Speaker 1: women and female leads in the end too, because when
Speaker 1: those movies don't do well, it's like, oh, well, people
Speaker 1: don't want to see movies with women in them, and
Speaker 1: it's just like, no, we just don't want to see
Speaker 1: the same movie that we didn't like the first time,
Speaker 1: Like why would anyone want there? Oh side, So does
Speaker 1: this movie pass the Bechdel tests? Apparently it does. I
Speaker 1: think it might. Okay. There are two instances where women
Speaker 1: interact at all in the entire movie. One is where
Speaker 1: Letty comes in to Toretto's and says to Mia, how
Speaker 1: you living? Girl? Mia does not respond. Second one is
Speaker 1: the one we've talked about a few times already, where
Speaker 1: Letty goes up to the two women who are hanging
Speaker 1: on which the seven different Monica's, and she says, I
Speaker 1: smell skanks. Why don't you girls pack it up before
Speaker 1: I leave treadmarks on your face? The one who had
Speaker 1: been named Camille says okay and walks away. I love
Speaker 1: that she responds. She responds and just like, okay, good,
Speaker 1: good point, honestly, But I mean, if you're going to
Speaker 1: pass the Bectel test, it should be And I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a threat from one woman to another and
Speaker 1: using a sort of derogatory where that's almost attack women skanky. Wow, wow,
Speaker 1: so feminist film. I'm truly like they really, they really
Speaker 1: did it to us. They really those little sneaky, those
Speaker 1: sneaky little bastards. They made it past the actel test.
Speaker 1: That I mean, okay, I take it all back. Feminist text,
Speaker 1: the fast and the feminist feminist. Let's write the movie
Speaker 1: on our nipple scale zero to five nipples based on
Speaker 1: its portrayal of women two and a half. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's okay right in the middle. Who are you? Who
Speaker 1: are you giving your nipples to? Do you have any
Speaker 1: defense of the point before? Kaitlin and you all know
Speaker 1: where I stand. You know, it could be worse, And
Speaker 1: that's my that's my final thought Summer Summer two thousand one.
Speaker 1: It could. Yeah. I'm going to give two of my
Speaker 1: nipples to Michelle Rodriguez and her Instagram posts and the
Speaker 1: half to my cat Letty. Yes, a true, a true icon,
Speaker 1: an ally and an absolute ally. I'm going to give
Speaker 1: this movie a half nipple because even though there are
Speaker 1: two female characters who are significant characters in the story,
Speaker 1: they're really only framed as the love interests or girlfriends
Speaker 1: of the male characters, who the movie is way more
Speaker 1: concerned about developed being as individuals and as relationships the
Speaker 1: male friendship to each other. We see them not really
Speaker 1: get to participate as much as I would like. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it's not until fairly late into the movie that
Speaker 1: we get to see them really doing anything at all
Speaker 1: that has any narrative impact. Um. I mean, like one
Speaker 1: of the ways that like Brian and Vince like try
Speaker 1: to exert dominance over each other is like trying to
Speaker 1: claim ownership of Mia, Like they're like Mia is like
Speaker 1: the object of affection and everyone's just like, but she's mine. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's just all these different things. Yes, it is
Speaker 1: good that we have a more racially diverse cast than
Speaker 1: we are used to seeing in movies of this nature,
Speaker 1: But I just think that, I mean, between the underdeveloped
Speaker 1: female characters who we do get to know, and then
Speaker 1: the rest of any woman who we see on screen
Speaker 1: is clearly just there as like hyper sexualized, objectified set
Speaker 1: dressing just doesn't really do the gender any service. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with a half nipple, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to give that half nipple too. I suppose Michelle Rodriguez
Speaker 1: for advocating that women be more meaningful and more meaningful
Speaker 1: part of this story in the much much later movies
Speaker 1: of this franchise, I'm going to do you a I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do one and give it a one. I I
Speaker 1: do think that there are positive elements of this franchise
Speaker 1: in general as it pertains to gender, especially this movie specifically,
Speaker 1: not that much. There is the way that women are framed.
Speaker 1: The way the camera frames women in this movie is
Speaker 1: like super sexual and to the point where it's like funny,
Speaker 1: which should never be the case. It's really weird. Uh.
Speaker 1: The sound check sucks a job. It's too it's too loud.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that some elements of the male friendships,
Speaker 1: the very racially diverse cast, and the fact that there
Speaker 1: is at very least a queer woman of color helming
Speaker 1: the token girl in the franchise. Her character's head row
Speaker 1: as far as we can tell. But but in terms
Speaker 1: of like represent I mean I think that her like
Speaker 1: being openly queer and still being in a major franchise
Speaker 1: is progress so basically only because of Michelle Rodriguez, because
Speaker 1: it seems like there has never been a woman behind
Speaker 1: the camera of a fast and furious production based on
Speaker 1: the credits of this movie. But for the things that
Speaker 1: we're given, I'm gonna give it one nippy and give it.
Speaker 1: Give you back to Michelle Room Baby Room on that
Speaker 1: say thank you so much for being here. I think
Speaker 1: I begged you to let me do this and I
Speaker 1: kind of got torn apart. But a lot of times, yeah, sometimes,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to stop watching. That's what this
Speaker 1: podcast is all about. You're still allowed to love the
Speaker 1: things you love. I just we just encourage people to
Speaker 1: examine the things that they love critically. Oh to close,
Speaker 1: Actually a fae, would you mind sharing the drinking game
Speaker 1: with us? Okay, yeah, so I will name a couple
Speaker 1: of things I remember that are notable, and I want
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to my friends Zach Cornfeld
Speaker 1: who helped develop this game with me. Um, So you
Speaker 1: drink any time the rock is so so sweaty and
Speaker 1: no one else's anytime vin is wearing sleeves. Oh a
Speaker 1: gratuitous butt shot. Um. Especially in the movie where they
Speaker 1: go to Brazil, they have the same b roll shot
Speaker 1: of the there's like a big statue. Um. They show
Speaker 1: that about fifteen times, so you're going to want to
Speaker 1: drink every time. They kind of Jesus statue. I think
Speaker 1: it's a I think maybe merrist it's incredibly feminist. Um,
Speaker 1: what are smarther things? Anytime, like sort of a henchman dies,
Speaker 1: A lot of people die, and it's it's sort of unrecognized.
Speaker 1: I would say in the first one, Well, I don't
Speaker 1: know if those deaths count to your discretion. You may
Speaker 1: drink or you may not. UM. And anytime they just
Speaker 1: straight up to five physics. Um, as I said, the
Speaker 1: stakes get higher and higher. There are trained scenes, there
Speaker 1: are there are cliffs, there are airplanes, there are parachutes.
Speaker 1: You're going to get pretty drunk later on. UM. Let
Speaker 1: me think if there's like a final one. I can
Speaker 1: you know if anyone wants to d m me, I'll
Speaker 1: send them the PDF. But the highlights, oh, anytime you
Speaker 1: do think, um, either Vin in the Rock or Vin
Speaker 1: and Brian are going to make out, but they don't, right,
Speaker 1: they get really close, like physically and emotionally. I feel
Speaker 1: like there are some charge scenes. YEA, so happy drinking,
Speaker 1: happy drinking? And where can we where can we find
Speaker 1: you in the world Wide Web? Um? I am at
Speaker 1: fay or love on everything, and then the Junior High
Speaker 1: space is at Junior High l a also on everything
Speaker 1: on Hollywood Boulevard. Yes, and physically we exist as a
Speaker 1: space on Hollywood Boulevard where the skanks hang out and
Speaker 1: say hi. I mean we're all out there. I'm always
Speaker 1: there on Hollywood Boulevard because I am personally a skank. Yeah,
Speaker 1: skanks welcome. Actually we might make new shirts welcome, accepted
Speaker 1: and applauded. Yes, and you and you make you design things.
Speaker 1: You've got stickers and and and items that you should.
Speaker 1: I know, I didn't bring you gifts this time. I
Speaker 1: got to make more fast. I'm Jewish, so it's actually,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I have to make some more merch. I
Speaker 1: have to be careful with the merch I make because
Speaker 1: I do get called out a lot because I have
Speaker 1: a lot of problematic phaves, mostly their Kardashians. But I
Speaker 1: think even and Paul retrospective mug could be called for.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, since you just got to choose the moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all. But thank you so much for of course,
Speaker 1: thanks for being here our stuff. You can follow us
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Although do I ever go on
Speaker 1: that website hardly ever, not to break, but um yeah,
Speaker 1: check us out on writing reviews on iTunes if you
Speaker 1: so choose, especially if you want to give us, you know,
Speaker 1: five nips oh liker, Yes, on the on the planet.
Speaker 1: It took me a second, it's been a long day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you can check out our Patreon aka Matreon. Five
Speaker 1: dollars a month means that you get two extra episodes
Speaker 1: a month and access to our full back catalog, which
Speaker 1: is now approaching fifty extra episodes that you've never heard,
Speaker 1: so it's a mind up. And check out our tea
Speaker 1: Public store with all our merch t public dot com
Speaker 1: slash the Bechtel Cast, which hopefully, by the time this
Speaker 1: episode airs, I will have made the fast and the Feminist. Uh,
Speaker 1: because of course you do. Yeah, so yeah, check out
Speaker 1: check out all our merch We've got We've got it
Speaker 1: all and until next time, friends, true beam and break.
Speaker 1: Bye